Project Kindness

There were already two people standing over the car. 

One was a tall, freckled, man in a long white robe with a garland of greenery in his dark hair. He had a long brown beard that could have beaten the one upstairs in a fight.

The other one was a tanned woman in a lab coat who looked about five foot six until Number Seven approached. As he got closer he realised that she was about four foot eleven with four inch heels and three inches of back-combed purple hair that was surely a wig. Between the wig and the lab coat there was a lot of makeup. It had been applied with great care and skill but it made her look like she’d just stepped off the stage of a Soho drag revue. She was wearing at least two pairs of false eyelashes and such a weight of purple glitter eye-shadow that he was amazed she could get her eyes open.

And she really was holding a small portable cutting torch and eyeing his boot lock. Fortunately she was having trouble getting it to light.

‘WOAH’! He shouted. ‘I’ve got the keys right here.‘

She stopped and looked up at him with the exact facial expression of a spaniel that’s being shouted at for chewing shoes. She pocketed the cutting torch.

‘Um. Hi,’ she said.

‘So… Why do you have a raven in your boot?’ said the man in white.

‘It was eating a friend of mine. And we’re not sure that it’s just a raven. Corvids don’t usually break into high security hospitals and peck professional assassins to death,’ said Seven.

‘Nasty,’ said the short woman but she was grinning. Seven knew that look. It was the look of a scientist with a new puzzle. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves. ‘Right, go for it big boy.’ 

‘What?’ said Seven.

‘Pop the trunk. Open the boot. Let the imaginary dog see the metaphorical rabbit.’

Seven pressed the remote unlock button and very slowly raised the boot lid. He half expected the raven to explode out at him in a cloud of feathers and rage and go for his eyes with beak and claws. Either that or it would have vanished.

Nothing happened.

There was still a tightly-bound lump in the boot. He prodded it. Nothing continued to happen. Maybe he’d killed it by thrashing the car all the way back to London? He picked up the bundle.

‘Who wants the jacket full of killer raven?’ he said.

‘Give it here,’ said the man in the robe. He crouched down by a large travel cage that Seven hadn’t noticed before. He put the bundle inside before unrolling it with all the care of a man defusing a bomb. To Seven’s relief there was still a dazed-looking raven inside the jacket.

‘Is that thing still alive?’ said Seven.

‘Yeah. Don’t worry about it. It’s just in a tonic trance,’ said the man in white. The raven began to perk up as the door of the cage clicked shut. It eyed them for a moment.

‘Ah Fuck,’ said the raven.

‘Either I’m coming down with PTSD or that bird just spoke,’ said Seven.

‘Must be a London bird,’ said the woman.

‘What the hell were you doing out in the country?’ said the man in white.

‘Whatever it was I claim diplomatic immunity,’ said the bird.

‘Do me a favour. Take a look at his face,’ said the man in white. The bird inspected Seven. 

‘That uncomfortably full feeling is part of a friend of his. You can come with us for a bit of a chat or I can hand the cage to him.‘

The bird considered it for about half a second. ‘I’ll talk.’