Spoiler: Stef is Dead
Ryan stood staring at his recruit for a few moments, hoping that – despite the bloody wound in her chest – that she would simply look up, smile, and demand a cookie.
There was no moment in her body, nor was their any life in her veins – as his one hundred and thirty-seventh scan revealed. No pulse. No heartbeat, well, there couldn’t be – there was no heart left to beat. No air in her lungs.
She was dead.
At the least, she seemed to be dead.
Despite the empirical evidence, he wasn’t going to stop now. He had done what he had done, and until he was given a reason to do so, he wasn’t going to give up hope. He knelt beside the body, gently wrapped his arms around it, and lifted the limp body from its hiding place in the cupboard, and carried to the bed.
He placed her down, hearing the sheets rip as the sharp hunk of mirror protruding from her back easily tore through them. He held her head as a parent would do with a newborn, and eased her back onto the pillows – dirt and dust smeared the pale pillowcases, but he ignored it, that was a problem easily fixed, and he needed more of those. More problems that were fixed with a single thought, or a snap of fingers. Problems that weren’t lying on official paperwork, or contravening more Agency rules than he could count.
He stared at his recruit – taking the time to really look for the first time since he had found her on the roof. Her uniform was dirty and bloody – tiny rips and tears were evident in the shirt sleeves, and tiny splinters were stuck in the fabric of the vest. There was a bloody ring on the shirt around the mirror, through the mirror itself was as clean and pristine as when it had spun through the sky – he wasn’t even sure if mirrors could be dirtied, or if their innate magic kept them clean.
The mirror had slid into her chest easily – neither skin nor bone had posed any problem – as evidenced by the fact that it had easily punched out her back – and would have likely gone straight through if the piece had been smaller.
It was a large piece, by no means the majority of the mirror, but certainly enough to start a small war over. It was a piece large enough to create a country, but what he’d wished for was so much smaller, so much simpler. It had been so-
There was a cold breeze behind him.
‘You have the audacity to think it was a simple wish?’
He kept his eyes fixed on his pale recruit for another moment, then rose, and turned to face Death. ‘I’m sorry, my Lady, I meant no offense.’
‘Every thought offends someone, but there is no need to apologise.’
‘I just thought-’
‘How can you think this is a simple wish?’
He stole a glance back at the body. ‘My lady...why hasn’t it worked?’
A human-seeming mouth frowned at him from beneath a black cowl. ‘You ask that as though you expect it to work.’
‘The mirror-’
‘You chanced a fate worse than death for her, perhaps it was just delayed. It is arrogance on your part to assume that this is any different to any other mortal death.’
He drove his hands into his pockets and balled his fists for a little borrowed strength. ‘It is different, the mirror is involved.’
‘As the killing the method.’
‘I made a wish,’ he said, hating himself for how weak he sounded. It was mortal to fight the inevitable, but this wasn’t inevitable – a mirror had been involved, and that changed everything. It changed everything. It was the reason he wasn’t grieving. It was the reason he wasn’t allowing himself to feel like a failure yet. It was the reason he wasn’t second guessing his decisions.
‘Ask the question you want to ask,’ Death said, her fingers curling, as if to beckon the question from his lips.
He dredged up buried thoughts. Thoughts he hadn’t allowed himself to have since cutting his palms on the mirror and wishing her back. ‘Has she passed?’
A small eternity passed as he waited for her to answer.
‘No.’
He exhaled a long breath.
‘The, is she with one of your sisters?’
‘No.’
He furrowed his brow in confusion. ‘Then...where is she?’
‘That’s not for me to say.’
He looked back at the body again. ‘I need to know.’
‘You’re acting out of guilt again. Twice out of guilt, once out of love – your rationalizations are always quite transparent.’
‘The mirror was there, I-’
Her voice took on a sharp edge. ‘Whether or not a piece of my father was there, you would have tried something, wouldn’t you?’
He looked away. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I do. You acted above your place, Ryan, you always act above your place.’
‘I did as any mortal would have done. You cannot blame me for that, my Lady.’
‘Yes I can, you’ve clearly forgotten what you are. The gods did not create you to act as mortal.’
‘Because of what I am, I can never forget that,’ he said, trying to keep the emotion from his voice.
‘Angels often forget what they are, and when they do, it leads to nothing but trouble.’
‘It’s just one life,’ he said in an attempt to rationalise the situation.
‘Every life,’ Death said, ‘is just one life. Every refugee you’ve murdered is just one life, every Solstice you’ve helped rehabilitate, every-’
‘I understand what you’re trying to say, my Lady, I do.’
‘Are you sure? You truly understand the implications?’
‘Yes.’
She stood silently for a moment, then crossed the room and stroked Alexandria’s face with pale fingers, ignoring the body beside the doll. ‘If you understand, then take hold of the mirror.’
‘I already made the wish,’ he said before catching himself as his hand began to lift toward the mirror.
‘Take hold of the mirror,’ she said again, and this time he knew it wasn’t just a suggestion.
He did, and immediately his mind went blank – he kept all stray thoughts away, any thought or wish out of place could rob her of the chance to come back. He gripped it tighter, and he felt the jagged edges dig into his palm. The power of the mirror was overwhelming – he could feel all the potential biting at his skin, begging to be used. Leaked memories of Dajulveed flashed in his mind – it remembered where it had come from, but it desired to become something new.
‘Now what?’
Her voice went cold. ‘Pull it out.’
One of his fears came to the fore – the fear that the mirror itself was stopping her from coming back – that if he removed it, it could then be used to repair the damage to her chest in the precious few seconds that she would live.
‘Pull it out,’ she repeated.
He kept his grip tight, but he didn’t dare begin to slide the mirror out. ‘Why?’
‘You said you understood.’
‘What will happen if I pull it out?’
‘Are you questioning me?’
His shoulders dropped, and he relaxed his grip on the piece of mirror. ‘I just want to know, my Lady, mortals were not the only ones blessed with curiosity.’
She stooped a little, and placed a cold hand on his face. ‘If you are very, very lucky, she will die.’
‘My Lady-’
‘Shh...’ She stood and removed her hood. It was strange to look at her without her hood – in the same moment that you saw a beautiful young woman with the oldest eyes, an ageless skeleton would grin at you with the knowledge that it was very much beyond the tiny, transitory existence that you had. Her gray eyes swept over the room, taking in his recruit’s small, humble room.
‘You had to bring the doll, didn’t you?’ she asked quietly as she lifted Alexandria. ‘The first time, when you went to my sister’s world, you just had to bring the doll.’
‘It was-’
‘-so very mortal of you, Ryan. It was a bribe, it was unfair.’
‘I needed some leverage,’ he admitted, ashamed.
‘You brought the doll, you fixed the doll, you gave it back to her. It gave her a connection to that memory, something to store her memory and dream in, something outside of herself. Something private, something safe, a memory no one else could touch. Her connection to that time on the precipice.’
The doll hadn’t been the only toy in Limbo. ‘Should I have brought a ball instead?’
For a moment, Death smiled, then her sad expression returned and she replaced her hood. ‘Please, Ryan, pull out the mirror, it’s the kindest thing you can do for her.’
‘But that will kill her?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I don’t?’
‘If – yes, “if” – she wakes up, what do you think will happen? Angel you might be, but considering the consequences has never been your strong suit. Part of you once rallied an army against a king, but the past is past, in this life you’ve allowed yourself to trust too many traitors, granted too many second chances and acted out of guilt too many times. The other girl, Ryan, you locked her away from everything, and sometimes, she knows that it was your fault. Sometimes, she can remember everything. Sometimes, she misses you, sometimes she just wishes I could take her away. I can’t, and that’s because of you.’
‘Stef isn’t Carol. It’s not the same. Nothing is the same.’ He looked at his reflection in the mirror. ‘Nothing.’
Death nodded. ‘I know this – none of the feelings you harbor are the same...but the mistake you make could be.’
‘I have considered the consequences, my Lady, I don’t know the outcome of each, but I don’t want to kill her. I can’t do that. I won’t do that, not even for you, my Lady.’
‘Even if its the kindest choice?’
The kindest choice would have been assigning her to the tech department. The right choice would have been shifting her back as soon as he had seen in her the field. The smart choice would have been not leaving her alone on a night were so many died.
There was nothing kind about killing her.
‘If by some chance...if she does wake up, I know it will be hard. I have no misconceptions about this, I do not expect that it will be easy, or even that it would last-’
‘That’s...the problem,’ she said slowly.
‘My Lady?’
‘If you do not entrust her to me this time, and you proceed as you want to, I may not get to take her at all.’
Confusion overtook him. ‘Like one of Fortitude’s souls?’
‘No, not an embargo, an ending. If she wakes, you cannot think of her but anything but mortal. Once...that existence ends, she may just end, her soul may fade into nothing, not come to the void with me. It’s not just this life you’re gambling with, it’s also whatever comes next.’
This stilled him – it was one thing for it not to work, or for it to work for a limited amount of time. To have time to make peace and say goodbye was one thing – though as he looked around the room, he knew that the “goodbye” portion would probably be replaced with “require copious amount of sugar in various forms”. To render her existence null, and deny her the chance to go into the void and whatever lay beyond it...he wasn’t sure that he could do that. He wasn’t strong enough to do that. He-
‘Ryan?’
‘I’m not sure she would forgive me if I denied her the chance of life.’
Death put a hand on his shoulder. ‘If you let her go, I will try and take her to my youngest sister’s realm so that you can say your goodbyes.’
‘My Lady, I thought you did not bargain.’
A small smile graced her lips. ‘You are a special case, Ryan.’ She gave a soft sigh. ‘I’m having the same conversation with you in a hundred different realities. The same words, the same look in your eyes, the same indecision shaking your hands.’
He looked at his hands for a moment, then slid them into the pockets of his jacket again – it would make no difference to her, but it allowed him a little more false bravado to hide behind.
‘Pull out the mirror, let her go.’
‘What...what am I deciding in those other worlds?’
Teasing him with other knowledge of other worlds was something she had done, ever since the first time he had tried to contravene the laws of life and death. She had thought it a way to help him make an informed decision, and it was – though it made it hate many of his multiverse selves. The ones who made the rash decisions, the ones who acted without thought, or the ones who acted wrongly.
‘Angels are not supposed to care what happens in other worlds.’
‘We do not take notice of that which we cannot change. In this case...it’s prevalent, I-’
‘Perhaps, Ryan, you should view your curiosity as a curse, rather than a blessing.’ She turned away from him, and as she did he saw the glint of a scythe – she rarely carried it, but it was never far from her side...just like his gun.
‘People’s weapons define them,’ she said as she picked his thought out of the miasma. She walked over to Stef and brushed some hair back from her face. ‘If you bring her back, she may decide to fight with her mind, rather than the gun you gave her.’
‘That’s up to her. Jones would be happy to have her in the tech department.’
‘Would she?’ She tapped Stef’s nose. ‘Instead of contemplating the weight of your weapon, contemplate what it is in your recruit’s chest.’ She stared at him with gray eyes and waited for the thought to hit him. ‘It’s not only a way to bring her back from this...suspension...it’s a piece of mirror. I credit you with being smart enough to realise that you will not be able to keep it a secret...however, what if you cannot keep the secret from those who would weaponise it?’
‘We can only try.’
‘Thirty-seven of your other selves have pulled the mirror from the body and let her go. Eighteen are seriously considering it. Twelve have decided against it and asked me to accept that decision. Five wish to let her go and use the mirror to retrieve Carol.’
‘And the others?’
‘Twenty-seven are indecisive, one is blaming her – telling her that she brought it on herself, that she deserves to die, that mistakes in the field aren’t to be rewarded with second chances, he’s going to-’
‘Please,’ he said, ‘stop. I don’t want to know.’ He looked down at his hands, wondering how monstrous he could be in some of those dimensions, and hoped that he never found himself on that path.
A skeletal face grinned at him. ‘As you wish. Just remember, no matter what your decision, the outcome you desire may not eventuate.’ She brushed her fingers over the mirror. ‘The mirrors are...chaotic, as is everything they do.’
He looked at his inert recruit again, and he just wished she would sit up and say something that he barely understood, or an out of context sentence, continuing a conversation she had started in her head. A problematic pet indeed.
‘I’m not going to let her go,’ he said, finally content with the decision. He stood and looked up at Death. ‘For better or worse, I have to give her this chance.’
‘Just so you know, angel, in the end, it was never your decision.’ She pressed a finger to his lips as the question formed in his mind, he deflated – knowing better than to ask for information that wasn’t his to know. ‘Now do it.’
‘But, if it didn’t work the last time...’
She smiled, leaned down and kissed him on the cheek with her cold lips. ‘Trust me.’
He stood and bent over his recruit, wrapping both of his hands around the piece of mirror, careful not to move it too much, and cause further damage to her heart. Closing his eyes, he stilled his mind and wished for her to come back.
Death’s hand touched his shoulder and he opened his eyes, he felt the mirror shudder in his hands and he released it. Backing away from the bed, he watched as it shook – making his inert recruit’s body twitch. He reached for it, but a quiet warning from Death stopped him.
Small pieces of sunlight hit the mirror and broke off, shattering into sparkles on the floor. All of the sounds in the room were sucked away until the only thing he could hear was the heart beating in his chest. It rose up a little and he panicked – not knowing what would happen if it left her chest.
‘Trust it,’ Death said, her voice strong despite the sound vacuum.
The ragged edges of the mirror rippled and became smooth, it slowly turned in her chest and he tried not to think of the further damage it was doing. A sharp point rose out of it, and then it slowly melted down into her chest.
The world seemed to breathe again, and all the sounds of the city began to filter back in – traffic noises floated back in, as did the sounds of a loud argument on the street below.
He forced himself to look at his recruit – aside from the mirror no longer being visible, there was no apparent change – her skin was just as pale, her body still without movement or breath.
‘Now what?’ he asked to fill to silence.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘you wait. Think of this as a beacon being lit, she may find her way back, she may not. Remember, it’s not a simple wish.’
‘Yes, my Lady.’
She afforded him one more smile, then faded away.
He stared at the mirror in her chest – it was visible through the hole in her chest – a hole that would hopefully repair itself once she awoke. After a moment, he scanned it – his vision blurring for a moment before it allowed him to see below the surface. The mirror had taken on a new shape – one that surprised him, one he had not expected.
It was a heart.
Not a normal human heart – an efficient, if not altogether attractive organ, but rather the romanticised version of one. The kind that adorned Valentine’s cards, the kind that children drew.
It was nestled deep in her chest – the bloody and ragged remnants of her old one were gone, either destroyed by the process, or absorbed into the mirror.
He rounded the bed, lifted Alexandria and placed it on the bed next to her. After a moment’s thought he lifted her limp arm and wrapped it around the doll. After saying a silent prayer to Chaos, he sat at her desk and required a dozen of the reports he needed to finish by the end of the day. He lifted his pen, and after one final look at his recruit he turned to the paperwork, hoping he could lose himself in routine and normality.
-an.
Jesusshitfuckchrist.
I can’t-
Me.
Me.
You.
Is this thought?
Has to be, can’t be asking a question without thought.
I’m thinking again. I think that stopped for a while. I think. I think. I think. Why does this feel so good, so strange, no…
No. You’ve got it wrong. This doesn’t feel like anything.
Nothing, there’s nothing. I’m not feeling anything. Oh god.
Gods.
Oh gods.
Say it, Spyder, it’s not real unless you say it.
Exactly why I'm not gonna say it!
Say it, Spyder.
I’m dead, aren’t I?
Awake.
Thought.
Alive.
Feeling.
Sensation.
Cold.
She shivered, she was so cold – everything was so cold. It like breathing in winter air, it was like lying in snow, it was like- She felt a blanket being pulled up over her, and finally she registered that she was lying on a bed. A bed was good, it was better than-
‘Hello?’ she said quietly, her voice cracking on the second syllable.
‘It’s all right, I’m here.’
If she hadn’t been so cold, she would have started in shock – him, it was him, but why was he- Another blanket was dumped onto the pile, and warmth finally started to sink into her stone cold skin. She tried to open her eyes, but it was hurt – it was brighter than she had expected – not that she had known what to expect. She flexed icy hands, almost expecting them to crack and break apart.
‘I saw...I thought I was-’ She took a breath – it hurt to breathe, and there was a strange...unnatural feeling to it, almost as though her body wasn’t used to it. She took another painful breath. ‘I thought I was-’
‘You almost were,’ he said. ‘You should call it a miracle.’
It was strange, by all rights, his voice shouldn’t be a comfort, it shouldn’t be doing as much to warm her as it was, but it was familiar, and anything familiar was good. Very good. Better than confusion. Better than death.
Miracle? She held herself groan at the thought. ‘I don’t like that word.’
This made him chuckle. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fine,’ she lied as she rolled over – not an easy feat given the number of blankets over her. Her body protested greatly at movement, but she pushed the feeling down, and finally managed to get a good look at him. ‘What are you even doing here?’
‘Who do you think rescued you?’
Her arm screaming in agony, she reached a hand to her face and rubbed her eyes. ‘I didn’t need rescuing.’
‘That’s bullshit and you know it.’
She smirked. ‘Yeah, fine.’
‘There was so much damage to your chest...You really almost didn’t make it. Are you sure you’re feeling fine?’
She took a moment to take stock of herself, all of her memories felt intact – not that she would know if something was missing, and she had no unexplained violent urges. ‘Yeah, I think I’m all here, I don’t think I’m a dead girl walking.’
‘Good, cause I don’t have the Ghostbusters on speed dial.’
She found herself smiling at him. ‘It’s weird,’ she said, ‘I never thought I would be glad to see your ugly mug.
‘Be nice Eeeny,’ Tian said, ‘you owe me more than you think.’
She glared at him as best as she could – she was too tired to muster a proper angry expression – a weakness she hoped he would forgive. ‘Thanks Tian,’ she muttered, ‘I’ll remember that at my execution.’
‘Then don’t go back.’
She sniffed the air. ‘Where the hell am I anyway?’ The presence of goblin and her life, and the lack of beeping machinery indicated that it wasn’t the Agency infirmary – the smell of must though...
Tian wiped her forehead with a warm, damp cloth. ‘You know where you are.’
She pushed herself up and looked around the small room. It wasn’t a cheap hotel, it wasn’t some derelict building, it was the same haphazardly-designed mix of old and new that pervaded every room of- ‘The Court? You brought me to the Court? Are you insane?’
He grinned. ‘Well, it is Madchester.’
She swung her legs over the side of the low bed and pushed herself up and took a step toward the door. ‘I am not staying, here, I am-’
‘Then where exactly will you go?’
‘Madhe,’ she whispered. The queen stood in the doorway, her thin form bulked up by the costume she wore – today’s theme was apparently red, a long red dress dragged along the floor – no servants were holding it up, so the delicate satin was ripped and torn – though the rest of the skirt was immaculate, adorned with what were undoubtedly rubies. Red vinyl gloves squeaked as she gave a small, royal wave. The sleeves of the dress had been torn away, but were tied around her upper arms. A heavy gold chain hung around her neck, carrying a vial filled with a rainbow-coloured spark that she could only assume was a piece of starbright.
‘Where will you go?’ Madhe asked again. ‘You were nearly executed as a traitor, if you go back, they will finish the job. Suicide is so ugly, but if you are so inclined, there are a dozen here who would gladly take your life. I do not image it would be as quick as a bullet to the head though.’
Running was pointless, but that didn’t stop her from looking for other exits. ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘You insult me, child. Do you really think a servant, a...a...a goblin of all creatures could hide something like you under my nose, or bring you here without my help, or give up so much of himself to save you without my help.’
She looked back at Tian, he met her gaze and nodded then went back to staring at the floor.
‘You should be skirting the top of Lady Death’s realm like a cloud skimmer, instead you’re standing, angry and thinking of ways to leave my court.’
She sat on the bed, the ancient springs squeaking at the sudden weight. ‘I’m trapped here, aren’t I?’
Madhe smirked. ‘Trapped. Safe. In this case their meaning is the same. The sanctuary of Madchester is yours for the taking. Rest, recover, I shall have someone bring you some food. Goblin, I need when you have a moment.’ With a flourish, she turned and left the room, slamming the thin wooden door after her.
Tian picked up a pitcher. ‘Do you want some water?’
‘Yeah,’ she muttered. She moved back on the bed, drawing her legs up to her chest. ‘Just what the hell did she mean?’
‘Does it matter?’ the goblin asked as he handed her the glass, ‘you’re here and that’s all that matters. You’re alive, the means doesn’t matter. Did you question your mother when you were born? I don’t think so.’ He seemed to consider this for a moment. ‘But then again, Eeny, this is you, you always look gift horses in the mouth.’
She curled her lip and threw the water in his face. ‘This is different, so don’t make light of it.’ She growled and pushed the glass against him. ‘Now get me some more water.’
He wrapped his hand around the glass. ‘As you wish.’ He rose and walked around to the pitcher again. Here you go,’ he said and she looked up in time to see him upturn the pitcher over her head.
She jumped out of the bed, hissing and shrieking. ‘You fucking bastard, you- Ooh, now I know why goblins are useless.’ She grabbed the bottom, dry end of the blanket and attempted to sop some of the water away.
He stared at her for a moment, then removed his jacket and held it out.
She glared at him, hoping that he would spontaneously burst into flames. ‘Oh, don’t even try and be cute...’
He indicated vaguely at her chest, then looked away. She looked down at herself – she’d been aware that she wasn’t in the same suit she’d been shot in, but until now, it hadn’t mattered. The nightshirt was almost see-through thanks to the water. Bare, pink breasts peeked through the thin material.
He took a step forward and proffered the jacket. ‘I didn’t-’
She straightened her back. ‘Of course you did – you’re nothing but a fucking pervert.’ She lifted her hands to her chest and tore the shirt open. ‘You wanted a show? Here, take it all in.’ She reefed the shirt over her head – glad that at least the pyjama bottoms were flannel. She took a step toward the goblin. ‘Stop staring at the floor, freak, look at me. Look at me! I don’t know what you did, but yanno, I could be grateful. But this, this is all you’re ever going to get. Just because you saved me doesn’t mean you get sex. You’re not good enough.’
He snapped his head up, his dark, beady eyes staring into hers. ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
‘That’s a question,’ she said as she wiped some water droplets from her breast. ‘Do goblins even have dicks?’
‘I’ve seen strippers with more shame,’ he said quietly, but she could hear the rage in his voice. He pushed past her and out into the hall beyond the room – or, what she had begun to think of as her cell.
‘So that’s a “no” then?’ she yelled after him.
He disappeared around a corner a few metres down the hall, so she slammed the door – if nothing else than to make herself feel better. She turned and slumped against the door – the thin wood creaking even against her slight weight.
‘Stupid fucking fairies...stupid fucking fae...stupid stupid goblin...godsdamn you Tian.’ She knocked her head against the door, then looked down at her chest. There wasn’t even a scar – breathing still hurt, but that would likely pass. Shot...she’d been shot... ‘Fucking cunt,’ she whispered, ‘I’ll fucking kill you.’
Wonder if the bullet’s still in there... She stared around the room. There was the damp bed and the small table, the chair Tian had been sitting on that looked as though it may have been older than the Court itself, and a somewhat awkwardly-shaped wardrobe in the corner.
The chill of wearing nothing but pyjama pants was getting to her, so so fought her distrust of the Court and crossed the room to the wardrobe. The solid doors were a bit of a struggle to open – almost as they were fighting to stay closed, but eventually gave into her wishes.
‘Yay for gender roles,’ she muttered as a wall of dresses stared back at her. Well, only some of them stared – those decorated in the patterns of eyes, or with eyes trapped in crystals. ‘Oh come on Madhe, you wouldn’t...’ she said as she reached for a crystal on the neckline on a gaudy orange dress. It blinked as her finger approached. ‘Gods, I hate Madchester...’
She pulled the orange dress off the hanger and threw it toward the curved back of the wardrobe, letting it crumple into a pile of silk and terry toweling.
More dresses joined it – those that stared back at her, those that offended her sense of fashion, that that would be impossible to run or fight in. After a few minutes, she was left with eight dresses and a few skirts. She pulled a simple green velvet dress over her head, then spent a few minutes tearing the modest slit open more – both to show off her leg, and so that she could kick people if necessary.
Like certain goblins.
I'm...dead?
Had to happen sometime, Spyder.
It wasn't supposed to happen so-
You were the walking dead, be glad of what time you had.
How do I get you to shut up?
You don't, I'm the one that keeps you sane.
Do I need sanity after death?
You-
Just let me think, please...Death is being trapped in your own head?
This could be that millisecond before death.
But...there's supposed to be...like...happy bits...
Nothing else in the world works like its supposed to, and you still expect that?
Still, I don't know how I feel about being trapped in my own head...
You must be the lucky side of the brain, cause I'm not feeling anything over here...So genius, what are you feeling?
I'm...I feel...I'm not...nothing, I'm feeling nothing. Well, fsck that. I'm angry. I want to be angry, so I'm angry.
There we go, manufactured emotion, just like the old days.
I wanna open my eyes...I'm scared.
You've got nothing to be scared of.
Theories. Theories. Theories. Theory one: I'm dead. If that's the case, I can deal with that later.
Yeah, we're not exactly going anywhere.
Theory two: I'm in a coma.
Coma is good. We can wake up from a coma.
Theory three: This isn't me, this is all the data left behind on the net. I left behind more than I had intended. That would be neat, I wonder if I can Google myself. Here we go, here we go...
Goooooooogle!
Did you really expect that to work? I don't think we're on the net.
I'd know more if I could hear anything except my own thoughts. And...I'm still scared.
Ryan shifted to his office and walked to his desk – despite all the work he had done throughout the day, even more paperwork had appeared in his “IN” tray. Something other than paperwork had also appeared in his office – there was a person in his chair – which was turned to face his window wall – but he ignored them, there were more pressing issues to tend to than uninvited guests.
He flipped through several of the reports, it was always easy to tell their origin – the ones from the tech department were tidy, and had all of their contents carefully paper clipped to the folders, whereas the ones that had crossed Taylor’s desk were most often dirty and bloody – these he always had to redo, lest they get returned with a request for an explainable.
It was a small blessing though, that the reports were at least legible and in some logical order since Magnolia had taken over the duty – he wasn’t sure if it was something Taylor had ordered her to do, as he had done before he’d recruited the girl, or if it was something that the halfbreed had taken it upon herself to do. He didn’t care – either way, he got the reports in a condition where he could deal with them, and he didn’t have to argue with his combat agent as much. And every argument avoided with Taylor was a small battle won.
Taylor’s reports – whether done by Magnolia or not, almost always managed to be littered with bloody imagery, transcripts of scared-
His hands froze for a moment – unable to believe that it had slipped his mind. He rifled through the reports, and found the one regarding Taylor’s questioning of Stef. It hadn’t been an interrogation, and she’d gotten away without a bruise, but still...
‘Bastard,’ he muttered, reminding himself to reeducate Taylor on Agency policy.
‘Are you talking to me?’ asked a gently accented voice.
He sorted the files into a basic order, and placed them all back into his “IN” tray – invited or not, he had the distinct feeling that his “guest” was not going to let him get any work done anytime soon. He turned on his heel and walked away from the desk, and required a couch. He sat, grateful of the comfort, rested his head back, and stared up at his ceiling. ‘Are you going to tell me,’ he said, ‘what you’re doing here, Emma?’
His chair swiveled and his London counterpart gave him a smile. ‘Well, aren’t you all sunbeams and rainbows? Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’
He lazily waved a hand and a glass of iced water appeared on the desk in front of her. He heard her snort derisively as he tried to will away his growing psychosomatic headache.
‘This is your idea of a drink?’ she asked. ‘No wonder you’re so pent up. You need to relax. Maybe if you relaxed, you wouldn’t bollocks things up all the time.’
His headache grew. ‘And which one of my mistakes are you talking about this time?’
‘Got an hour?’
‘I really don’t, Emma.’
‘It’s called backup, Ryan. You never ask for it.’
‘Solstice didn’t get the mirror.’
‘Not all of it, but we don’t know how much they did get thanks to some untrained recruit who shouldn’t have been in the field. I couldn’t believe it when I read the report, so I read the others you’d filed. What possessed you to give a gun to a mentally unstable recruit? Good gods man, you’re lucky that’s all that happened.’
He sat up a little and drummed his fingers on the arm of the blue couch. ‘Are you aware that recruit lost her life?’
‘Then you really shouldn’t have meddled with the test scores and taken her into the field. You should have left her with Jones, he’s really quite a capable young tech...he manages to avoid all the crippling viruses Chance sends his way hidden in cute emails.’
‘Your tech shouldn’t be wasting resources on frivolous endevours.’
‘Your tech designs video games on the clock, mine looks at MILF porn. Now we can have the “my tech can beat up your tech” argument, or...” He looked up as he heard a glass being pounded on his desk – she upturned the empty shot glass and glared at him, “or we can discuss your retirement.’
He stood and brushed some imaginary lint from his jacket. ‘If that’s where this is headed, then I think we’re done here.’
‘We lost the goddess here, and since then, you’ve been drowning in the weird. The fae flock here like it’s Amsterdam. You have things in your river that the Thames doesn’t! Or even the bloody Hudson! And it’s no accident that there’s a higher rate of mirrorfalls here than anywhere else on this world. And...the Agency in charge of all of this is being run by a noob a hundred years my junior.’
‘What do you want, Emma?’
‘I want your job, Ryan.’
‘Take it.’
She laughed at him and took another shot of whiskey.
‘Take it,’ he offered, spreading his arms wide. ‘Straddle the responsibilities of field agent and director, partake in the joy that is...that is...Taylor. Revel in a city that has so many grey-listed fae that we can’t keep track of, and that attracts things beyond our control.’ He smiled. ‘So, if you really want my job, you are welcome to it.’
‘You can’t just hand it over to me.’
He scowled. ‘And you can’t just take it. Get out of my office.’ He straightened his shirt cuffs. ‘I’ve had a very long two days.’
‘This isn’t over,’ she said as she rounded his desk.
‘You’d never take my job,’ he said as he sat in his chair, disliking how warm it was – she must have been sitting there a long time waiting for him. ‘You’d never leave your precious city.’
‘I’ve been on assignment before.’
‘And Ireland was so much better for it, wasn’t it? I don’t genocide is the answer here.’
‘Duty first, Ryan, that’s something I always remember, unlike some agents.’
He looked away from her, and dropped himself into communication mode – the world around him became just that little bit more grey, just a little bit out of focus – both things allowing him to concentrate just that little bit more on the conversation to come.
Clarke was listed under his primary contacts. [Clarke,] he said as the connection was made. He waited a moment for the other agent to respond, Clarke’s smug face taking up a good half of his HUD.
[I wouldn’t do you without a drink first,] Clarke said with a grin, [but what can I do for you?]
He gave a mental sigh. [Trouble with London. Emma’s here. She’s-]
[One of the “peers” I warned you about,] Clarke said, his hands drifting into the image to give air quotes, then to straighten his perfect hair. [She’s always CC’d in everything you do, Ryan. I need a minute to finish up here, now- No, no, baby, I’m not ignoring you, I thought you were asleep.]
[“Liaising” with the public, Clarke?] he asked, allowing a note of jealously to slip into his voice. [There’s actual work to be done.]
‘Ryan!’ Emma snapped.
[This is my actual work. Whatever. Just don’t bait the bitch before I get there,] Clarke said, [I don’t want to see Taylor take over.]
He blinked a few times and the world sped back up, colour and definition flooding back into everything.
‘Who were you talking to?’
‘Someone to help mediate this.’
‘My Clark already gave his blessing.’
‘And I suppose your Clark could beat up my Clarke. I’m not going to take this to the playground level.’
‘I’m not here to bust your balls, just to do what’s right. Though, if you could keep your balls out of it, your recruit mortality rate might not be as high.’
‘You dare-?’
‘Now settle down kids, I don’t want to have to call the Enforcers on you,’ Clarke said with his usual ease as he shifted in between them. ‘We’re all reasonable beings here, well Emma has the disadvantage of being a woman, but at least two of us are reasonable.’
‘I can smell sex on you Clarke, couldn’t you have showered at least?’
‘It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.’
‘And what valuable information did you-?’
‘Emma has expressed interest,’ he said – wishing to interrupt the conversation before Clarke got into a rant about the many and varied sexual positions he used “in the line of duty”. He especially had no wish to hear the explanation of the position involving the hula-hoop again. ‘In replacing me.’
Clarke laughed and casually shifted them all to the conference room, where he took up the seat at the head of the table. ‘You talk to Redfern about this, Emma? Not sure he’d want to lose you, I mean, your city isn’t exactly a shining example of stability. The Solstice there are some of the most dangerous in the world, in that they’re actually considered a threat.’
‘Ryan cannot do the job.’
‘Yet the city stands, amazing. You aren’t getting his job.’
‘That isn’t a decision you can make.’
‘Then you take it higher.’
‘The mirrorfall was-’
‘Handled poorly,’ Clarke said. ‘Yes, it was. It was overconfidence, but we survived. So long as the world is still here, and the city is at least three-quarters intact, it’s a victory.’
‘I’m not happy with his performance,’ she growled. ‘There needs to be a more senior agent in his position.’
‘There are more senior agents than you. Also ones that didn’t commit genocide. I for one, miss the fucking leprechauns!’
‘You, Clarke, weren’t active when they were eradicated.’
‘It’s the principal of the matter. Ryan may have royally screwed this planet’s chances for survival in the long term, but he’s good at his job. This is a crap job, but he’s competent and that’s all we can ask for. I’ll recycle myself before I see you in his office. I’ll let you stay and observe for a while, but that’s all. Talk to the fucking Enforcers if you want anything more, now, I have something actually important to get back to.’
Clarke flipped him a mock salute, luxuriated back in his chair, closed his eyes for a moment, then disappeared.
‘Ask to use a room on Jones’ floor,’ he said before Emma could open her mouth. ‘I don’t want to see you more than I have to.’
He stood, pushed his chair in and shifted away. Taylor’s office door stared at him as the world regained focus. He knocked on the door – fighting the urge to just barge in as Taylor so often did.
‘Who is it?’ a pained female voice asked.
‘Ryan.’
There was a click as the door unlocked. Magnolia stumbled back as he walked in.
‘He’s training,’ she said curtly, gesturing towards the door to lead to Taylor’s private gym. ‘I’m not taking a message.’ She pushed herself along the wall, then slumped into the corner, and into a drying patch of blood. He looked to her skirt and the dark stain on it. ‘I’ll consider it a personal violation if you scan me,’ she said and picked up a discarded book. ‘There’s one 9mm round in my thigh, if you must know.’
‘And the resultant blood loss caused a memory lapse so you no longer know where the infirmary is?’
‘My pain tolerance isn’t high enough,’ she snapped as she flipped to a page of “The Art of War”. ‘I can receive whatever basic care I require when I finish this chapter. It was fifty pages total. I’m better for it.’
‘Recruit, you-’
‘No respected intended, I don’t answer to you. Now leave me to train. You may let your recruits do as they please. On this floor, sir, we actually push to achieve something.’
‘You wanted something?’ Taylor asked, darkening to doorway to the gym. The bulky agent scratched at an open wound on his face and unraveled the scraps of cloth wrapped around his knuckles. Scraps of cloth that appeared to have come from his recruit’s clothes.
‘Emma’s here,’ he said. ‘Thought you should know.’
‘What’s Edward doing here?’
‘Emma. And she’s observing. Not my idea.’
‘Sir?’ Magnolia asked of Taylor.
Taylor plucked a file from thin air and threw it at her. ‘Familiarise yourself,’ he ordered. ‘We’re being invaded.’
‘More like a takeover,’ he muttered. He watched Taylor’s gaze catch onto a blank patch of wall – behind which was he knew was hidden a cache of fae weapons. ‘Could you try?’ he asked, ‘to stay out of her way?’
‘No promises,’ Taylor growled.
I don’t think I’m the net. There’s no pretty shiny colours. I don’t think I’m in a coma. I shouldn’t be this lucid if I were in a coma.
…that presumes that this is lucidity, and you’re not hallucinating that you’re lucid.
...um...
Really? Really? You had to say that?! Not like I'm freaking out enough here already, not you make me wonder if I'm even here, even thinking these thoughts, even...
Everything is just theoretical, I had to bring it up.
That's it, you're fired.
Fine. I'm sorry.
Good. *pout*
Trust you to think with asterisks.
Everything aside...that really only leaves the last theory. The...the "D" word theory.
Dead. Just say dead. Come on, just accept it, that's one of the steps remember?
Dead.
Good girl.
But what if...I don't want to be dead?
I want to take this opportunity to warn you by saying that this chapter contains sex. No, not the "oh crap, I walked in on Dorian shagging" kind of sex scene that was in Mirrorfall, but a real sex scene. It's not pr0n-y, but it is adult content, so I felt it was worth putting up this little warning.
If it's not your thing, or if you blush yourself dizzy while reading sex scenes (kind of like I did when writing it), just read the italicised parts in between, and the section at the end, because...well, it's totally worth it, and you are going to pull an O_O face. ^_^.
Madhe smiled at the young man at the foot of her bed as she slowly disrobed herself and effortlessly climbed into the bed, allowing herself to float over the sheets before settling herself against the pillows. She lifted one slight finger and beckoned to the story thief, who eagerly climbed into the old bed, ancient wood creaking as he approached her.
The bed was old, older than most of the beings in Madchester, and she so wished that it could speak – it was a bed that had held kings, queens, their mistresses and indiscretions of all kinds. It was a bed that held their stories captive, and made not one movement to share them. It was a bed whose wood resonated deeply whenever love was made upon it.
The thief quickly pulled off his loose shirt, his skin shifting in colour several times, his hair growing and retreating with each visage that slipped over his form.
‘My queen,’ he whispered, as he kissed his way up her chest, onto her neck, and finally kissed her waiting mouth. It was pleasurable, but not the kind of pleasure she was seeking from him. He held her head gently, fingers slipping through her curled hair, trying to make contact with her mind.
He kissed her again, and she let down her defenses. There was a moment, then everything around her evaporated, replaced with-
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, out of boredom, out of habit, as a way to distract himself. He couldn’t put the radio on, and there was no point in accessing any files, or doing any leftover paperwork – there would never be a need to do those things again. Paperwork was something for agents to do, and by night’s end, he wasn’t going to be an agent anymore – he didn’t even know if he’d be alive anymore.
He doubted they would kill him though, Madchester was not one of the violent courts, and as big as the favour he was going to beg of them, he was willing to bet that there was some other use they could find for him, rather than simply taking his life as payment.
In any event, he didn’t want anything more than the tiniest of distractions, he didn’t want to miss any signs that they knew he was coming. He knew that they had to enter a court humble – that was the rule, that was the wording, but the meaning varied wildly, and was so open to interpretation to be farcical. There was one standard element of it – no weapons, it showed fealty, it showed corporation – it was a sign that you meant no harm.
Driving from Bath to Manchester was probably too much, they would have no way of knowing – rather, they probably had no way of knowing, but Madhe’s reach was further than most would guess, so he had decided to drive. At the least, it gave him time to realise the gravity of what he was doing.
His passenger gave a soft cry and turned over, and he heard the familiar sound of the blanket slipping off. A quick thought shifted it from the backseat floor, and back over her – keeping her warm, despite the heater already working heating the car to the point where he’d taken his lab coat off.
At least she was asleep – it was a small mercy, it was the only mercy he’d been granted lately. Sleep was good for her, it was better than staring at the seat, examining the fibers with a broken mind. It was better than screaming, reliving torture with no escape but sedation.
It was better than her crying and telling him how much he hated her.
He pressed a foot to the floor, urging the car on a little faster. The city was still a long way away, and that only got them to Manchester, finding an entrance to Madchester was another story entirely. There were always a few open entrances, but he guessed that their borders were quite a bit more difficult for an agent to cross than, say, an inebriated, wayward fae.
The thief broke away for a moment, his form slipping and sliding so much that she watched a dozen different pairs of eyes stare down at her before he regained control of himself enough to control. One hand still touching her head, the connection to her mind there, he turned his attention to her chest, the diamond-shaped scar on her left breast seeming to fascinate him.
‘There’s more,’ she whispered as he suckled at the flesh, ‘I know you took more from him.’
He lifted his head and looked down at her through a fringe that faded from purple to silver. ‘I can’t give it to you all at once, my queen, it’s hard to do.’
‘Give me more,’ she pleaded. Here, in the ancient bed, in a room that followed her commands with a mere thought, being pleasured by an indentured servant, she felt safe enough to beg. It was an honour for him to be invited to her bed, and he was getting far more out of the experience than she, so there was no need for him to draw out the experience.
‘As you command,’ he said, and again, the world faded to white.
‘Tate?’ a small voice said. ‘It’s dark.’
‘It’s night,’ he said as he spared a look back at her. ‘Try to sleep, love.’
There was a pause. ‘Are we in a car?’
‘We’re going to see some people that might be able to help.’
There was a pause. ‘I need to go back to sleep.’
He flipped the indicator and pulled over to the side of the road – he stepped out of the car and opened the back door. Eda had sat and had wrapped the blankets around herself. He was glad of the little light, glad to he didn’t have to look at her injuries, all of the scars, her bound eye, the pieces missing from her-
‘Where,’ she asked, her head lolling from side to side, ‘are we?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He opened a small black case and pulled out the strong sedative. ‘Nightmares?’
‘Memories,’ she corrected, her tone suddenly harsh. ‘Memories of what they did to me.’ She stared deeply into his eyes as he gave her the shot, her once beautiful red hair lank against her head. ‘I want to kiss you,’ she admitted, ‘and forgive you, but I hate you too much.’
‘I’m not asking for your forgiveness, Eda,’ he said as he closed the case, ‘I don’t deserve it.’
She went to reply, but the light faded from her eyes and she slumped. He gently caught her and laid her back down on the seat. For a moment, he laid with her, wishing that things were how they had been before she’d been taken by Solstice.
He gave her a kiss on the forehead, then climbed back into the driver’s seat and drove on through the night.
He was thrusting in her now, but the intimacy of having him inside of her was nothing in comparison to sharing the memory, of being truly inside him, experiencing the stolen memory – first-hand and second-hand at the same time. ‘I...’ she said, ‘sleep with your kind for one reason,’ she said as he moved in her.
‘Please my queen,’ he said, staring at her with tortoiseshell eyes, ‘I can pleasure you in more than one way.’ He pulled out and knelt beside her on the bed, his thin legs shivering in the chill. ‘What can I do for you?’
She pulled him to her, resting his head on her bosom. One of his hands lay limp beside her torso, the other idly stroked her stomach. ‘I need this to be over quickly,’ she said, ‘there is Court tonight.’
He nodded, a slight sadness in his yellow eyes. ‘As you wish, my queen. Anything you wish.’ His fingers brushed through her curls, and she felt the memory wash over her as his fingers explored her.
He pulled the car to a stop at the entrance to a park. Entrances to Madchester were all over, appearing and disappearing at will – Madhe’s will – they were in ordinary homes, holes in the wall, a jump through a broken brick wall, or down in a basement. One element stayed consistent though – there were always open entrances in parks.
No one knew why – it could have been that the fae liked to roam green areas at night, and it was easier to be seen by humans in open areas, easier to pull in their kindred, or lure away children.
Though he loathed to leave Eda behind, he pressed the button on the key to lock the car and walked into the park. There were a few lights, but he chose not to rely on them – he was an agent, he didn’t need to rely on them.
They did, however, cast useful shadows though, and attract a certain kind of person.
A Cera stood beneath the light, staring up at it as though it were a tiny fluorescent god.
He didn’t fear the Cera – they were peaceful by nature – peaceful to a fault. ‘Hello,’ he said as he approached the creature.
The Cera continued to stare at the light, at least, until he required it to dim. A second thought brought about a neon globe, gently rotating, an array of colours shining off into the night and pulling the creature from its quiet state.
‘That’s...man...that’sa tiny world right there...so beautiful...’
‘I need to find Madchester.’
The Cera shook a hand at the globe as the United Kingdom rotated past. ‘It’s there...where we are.’
‘I need to find an entrance.’
‘Oooh...sure...it’s over there,’ he said, shaking the same hand in the the direction of the slight rise in the park. The nominal hill was marked by nothing more than a trash can. He sniffed the air – there was a definite smell of fae in the air, not just the Cera, but a great number. He, however, chose to ignore the scent of hotdogs.
It was an entrance, he was sure of it. He left the Cera and the slowly turning globe, and walked quickly back to the car and its drugged occupant.
He lifted Eda from the car and carried her up the hill – it was easier than when he’d carried her over the the threshold of the room she’d rented for them to stay at when they’d wanted to be away from the Agency. It had been in Paris, cost a few hundred pounds a night, and was scarcely used one day a week, but it had been theirs. It had been a play at normality, and one they’d both treasured.
When they reached the top of the hill, a staircase into the ground had appeared. An entrance to Madchester. It was why he was there, but all the same, it frightened him. What he was doing wasn’t “duty first” - at least not duty to the Agency, it wasn’t obeying the rules and was forgoing his loyalty to the Agency for his loyalty to his lover.
He held onto Eda tightly and descended the staircase.
Waves of pleasure wracked her body as she arched against his fingers. She gripped the ripped silken sheet and groaned as the orgasm passed. She lay back, her breath as careful and measured as it had been the entire time – she had no need to gasp, no need to scream. Sex wasn’t about the noise, it was about the sensation.
The fingers withdrew. ‘I trust you are pleased, my lady,’ he asked, his appearance stable for a moment.
‘Your turn,’ she breathed.
He rose, filling her field of vision. ‘Yes, my Queen.’
She touched a hand to his face. ‘Be the one whose memory this is.’
He gave a nod, and his appearance shifted again. He dipped his head and kissed her again.
Torches and gas lamps lit the way, punctuated with disco balls and LED displays. He’d prepared himself for this on the drive, and in the preceding days while making his decision.
All manner of fae scrambled through the darkness, following him, guiding him and giggling at him, but not – he noted – impeding his path. It was though they had been expecting him. He’d given no notice, no hint that he’d been planning to run, no sign that he’d been perusing Madchester for anything other than professional reasons.
Two courtiers flanked silently him – and he walked into a large room. Large windows showed nothing but brick beyond, there was a chandelier of broken crystal above them, and stained white tiles beneath them.
‘I hope you have come humble,’ said a resonating voice.
The Queen walked out, wearing a green miniskirt and an expensive blouse. She wore a tiara, and it slanted over her forehead, smearing the pastel makeup. Birds had been drawn on her cheeks and feathers tied to a leather chain spiraled down both of her arms.
‘I’m Agent-’
‘I know who you are. Have you come humble?’
He bowed as best as he could while holding Eda. ‘I am not armed, and no one knows where I am.’
‘Well enough,’ she said as she took her throne. She swung her long legs over the side and stared at him with eyes much older than his own. ‘So what brings an agent here?’
‘I need your help.’
He was inside of her again, giving her everything he had – or more, snatches of unconnected memories flowed into her mind along with foreign sensations. He pushed down on her shoulders and drove himself in deeper.
‘Slow down,’ she said, ‘this isn’t a race. Not this moment.’
He sucked in a deep breath. ‘Yes, my queen.’
Madhe had emptied the Court, and he was alone with her. Eda was asleep to the side, on a daybed a few of her courtiers had brought in for her comfort.
‘You do know this will change things.’
‘I know how the thieves work, I am not an idiot, ma’am.’
‘And you can handle the responsibility?’
‘If I’m still living, I will find a way to deal with it.’
She poured him some blue wine, white sparkles swam in it as he lifted the glass. ‘How did it happen?’ she asked as she sipped at her own.
He looked down at his scrawny body. ‘I’m...a technical agent, she’s a field recruit. I took an assignment – it’s my prerogative to do so if I wish, so long as the risk factor was less than five, which it was. Which we thought it was,’ he said as he looked away. ‘They dropped a blackout bomb, I panicked. They shot me. I had a chest full of buckshot. I’d never been shot before. I ran. I had to. I couldn’t repair myself, the damage was too bad.’
‘You left her.’
‘If I could change that, I would.’
‘You can if you want, you don’t have to go to the lengths you are proposing.’
‘By the time it cleared, they’d taken her. By...the time we’d gotten her back, s-sh-she...’ He took a gulp of the blue wine. ‘They had tortured her, Queen Madhe. Everything. Anything. For information, for pleasure. They’d broken her. Destroyed her. She’s been sedated ever since. We can’t repair some of the physical damage, let alone begin to touch her mind.’
‘I see. But why not just prevent yourself from going on that mission? That would change everything. You don’t have to prevent yourself from recruiting her. Why...why would you that?’
‘I destroyed her life. I want to erase that. I don’t want to take the chance of hurting her again. You can do whatever you wish to me, I just want her to get a second chance.’
‘She may make the same decisions.’
‘A second chance, far, far away from here, and a new name.’
‘I see.’
‘Indentured till the end of time if that’s what you want. I have no loyalty to the Agency, only to her. This is the duty I must do. No other means as much to me.’
‘No second chance is a guarantee.’
He looked to Eda. ‘It is better than this.’
She nodded. ‘I will have to take your memory as well – I cannot chance you ruining this for her, not even out of love.’
He bit his lip. ‘I accept, provided you grant me the time to say goodbye.’
‘Of course, I am mad, not monster.’
‘And of me?’
‘I can always use another goblin.’
The thief collapsed onto her, his energy expended. Unceremoniously, he rolled off of her and curled up beside her, facing away. She ran a kind hand through his hair and smiled.
There was a knock at her door. ‘Come,’ she said with a grin. The heavy door was pushed open.
‘You wanted to see me, Madhe?’ Tian said, noticeably keeping his eyes off her naked form.
She shook her head. ‘It’s nothing Tian, just come to Court tonight.’
‘I always do, my Queen,’ he said, confusion apparent in his voice. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’
He pulled the door closed and she smiled. ‘See you at Court, Agent Tate.’
Come on already! Where’s my life-flashing thing? Where’s my revelation? Where’s my free hour? Where’s my phone call? Where’s my godsdamn cookie?
Come on already…
I, Stef Mimosa, damn well refuse to believe that this is all the afterlife consists of. I mean, what happens with all the boring people?
All the people who aren’t as strangely comfortable with talking to themselves, you mean?
I can accept that I’m dead, but, please...take the pause button off.
Take me to wherever I’m going next.
Don’t leave me here alone.
I’m sick of being alone.
‘Is that a recruit?’
Emma’s ears perked up as she stood waiting for the lift – sometimes the eight seconds felt like forever, but she had decided against shifting around – after all, she had to be familiar with this Agency if she was going to run it.
Already people were noticing her.
‘Gotta be, man, I mean, when was the last time you saw a femme agent?’
‘Agents come in girl models?’ asked the first voice, genuinely surprised.
‘Well, like, shit I dunno man, go talk to her.’
The lift doors slid open and she stepped inside. She gave the recruits a wink as the doors slid shut. She punched the floor for the technical division – she hadn’t been there in years, but she assumed that it hadn’t changed floors.
When the door opened and she walked into a conversation involving the words “Star Destroyer” “pwn” and “Obligatory Cid” she knew she’d found her destination. She pushed past the tech recruits, who appeared to be camped outside of the elevator with a few day’s supplies for no reason.
‘Recruits,’ Jones said as he walked around the corner, ‘I thought I told you- Oh, hello,’ he said, blushing as he saw her. ‘It can’t be the end of the world, Emma, we cheated that last night, so good afternoon.’
She stepped to the side. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt, please, continue to admonish your recruits.’
He gave a nod. ‘For the last time, a Star Destroyer could pwn the Enterprise, and this Agency has no Obligatory Cid until I design one, so unless you all want transfers to Bondi where the sun hurts even more than it does here, you will stop waiting for him to appear. Now...I believe half of you were working on a way to make Bejewelled a viable way to save the world and the other half of you should be violating the privacy of hackers on the gray list?’
The recruits scattered.
‘This wasn’t my idea,’ she said. ‘Frankly, I would have preferred a workspace that isn’t so far from the action that Ryan can slip out without me noticing.’
Jones gave her a small smile. ‘You mean like now?’
She sighed – but it was an expected disappointment. ‘He couldn’t even wait an hour?’
‘He didn’t like you, Emma.’
‘Do you know where he went?’
‘No.’
‘Funny, I thought you would have low-jacked him.’
‘I respect my commanding officer’s privacy. We can always find him if we wish, you know that, but you may want to give him some time, he...’ The technical agent trailed off, seemingly searching for a diplomatic way to finish his sentence. ‘He doesn’t like it when people try and tell him how to do his job.’
‘You fiercely bollocksed up that mirrorfall operation. Two recruit deaths, more than a handful of injuries.’
‘One was a traitor, the other...well, I’m not sure if you noticed one detail on that report, but I was the one who shifted Mimosa into the field, so I’m as much to blame. I stay within the Agency, so I’ll be easy to scrutinize.’
‘Jonesy...’ a purple-headed recruit hung her head around the corner, the bucket of popcorn in her hand spilling a few kernels onto the floor.
‘Yes, Screen?’
‘Merlin said if you didn’t unpause that he’d have to start telling his own story, and I don’t like his version of Lady of the Lake...he keeps putting Han Solo into everything.’
‘And whose fault is it for showing him Star Wars?’
‘Yuki.’
‘And what do we say about personal responsibility?’
‘Dump the blame on them and deny them baked goods?’
‘Good girl,’ Jones said, ‘I’ll be along in a moment, I have something more important to deal with right now.’
She became acutely aware of the recruit staring at her, so she returned the stare.
‘You’re a... new recruit?’ the recruit asked hesitatingly.
She looked to Jones. ‘Are all recruits here stupid, or just unable to sense the presence of an agent?’
Screen shook her head and her purple hair flopped around. ‘Sorry ma’amy ma’am, but you’re prettier than the agents downstairs.’ There was a beat and the girl spun around on the spot. ‘OMGOMG,’ she squeaked, ‘I know you know this, butbutbut you’re English. Where are you from? Can I get your autograph? Can I touch your hair? Eeeeeeeeee...’
Jones quickly walked over to his recruit and put his hands on her shoulders to try and calm her. ‘Screen...’
‘Buthshe’sfrom...’ Screen said, failing to take a breath between each word.
‘What’s the rule?’Jones asked the young woman slowly.
‘Don’t bother the British visitors just in case they live near a Whoniverse location or may have spied real-like phenomena that could be construed as our world crossing over into said Whoniverse.’ The recruit recited. ‘Can I just ask her one question?’
‘She doesn’t have to answer it.’
‘Have you ever been to Cardiff?’ Screen asked, the question tumbling from her mouth.
‘I knew a man from Cardiff,’ she admitted as Jones clamped his hand over his recruit’s mouth to prevent a “part B” to the question. ‘I shot him in the head.’
The recruit’s face fell, and she couldn’t hold back a slight smirk.
Jones spun his recruit and gave her a gentle push back toward the dark corner of the tech department that she had crawled from. ‘I’m sorry for that.’
‘That’s all right, how do you think the London tech recruits treat transfers and visitors from Cardiff?’ she asked, leaning back against the white wall.
‘Without mercy?’ Jones guessed with a straight face.
She nodded.
He shook his head. ‘Come, I’ll find you an office. I think we have a spare one, presuming it hasn’t collapsed in on itself from disuse.’
She shook her head. ‘Tend to your recruits first, I have no intention of chasing Ryan. I’ll let him be childish for a few hours, but if I don’t like what I observe, I’m going to be pushing the issue with the Clarks.’
The slight agent drooped a little. ‘I pity whoever is on the receiving end of all of the paperwork if it does go through. Are you sure your director would let you go? Or would your entire team come? Do you want Ryan recycled, or reeducated? And if this is your opinion of our commander, what must you think of his team?’ He fidgeted with his lab coat. ‘My recruits will only take a few moments, we’re finishing a conversation we began last night.’
‘What do they need to know about mirrorfalls?’
‘They are the multiverse’s worst natural disaster, they have the right to be curious.’
‘They aren’t always natural.’
‘Noted.’
He walked around the corner and into a large, mostly empty lab. The image of an explosion – a supernova, or something much more powerful, hung suspended in the air, being poked at by the recruits. Some of them had sticks.
‘Where was I?’ Jones asked.
‘You didn’t start, Jonesy,’ the youngest – the one she recognised as Merlin – said. ‘And they wouldn’t let me tell a story while you were gone.’
Jones stepped into the centre of the explosion and it restarted. Photonic debris was strewn to all corners of the room.
‘This was the beginning. Like a mythical phoenix – the mythical one, mind, not the real ones – we were born from the ashes and emptiness left over from the last universe. We know nothing of that universe, no one does, not the demons, not the gods, not the Ladies.’
She hung back, leaning against the wall in the dark, wondering why Jones was explaining this to his recruits with a light show, instead of making them read the files for themselves. She sighed – maybe it was a trait of being from another part of the Commonwealth that their recruits were held to a higher standard than the ones in Brisbane. They were excited and eager, but aside from the occasional report, there was nothing that allowed her to judge how good these recruits really were.
‘In the first week of the ‘verse, thirteen worlds flourished and died. Thirteen whole worlds, full of life and beauty appeared and died. So far as we know, they were the only worlds without gods in their centre, it’s probably the same effect that allows a plant to shoot even when it contains no chlorophyll – a short existence, but an existence all the same.’
‘Or there could have been a planet-eating monster,’ Merlin piped up.
‘I thought you perfected your anti-Galactus machine,’ Screen said with a giggle.
‘...maybe not.’ A small laptop appeared in the boy’s hands and he immediately began to scroll through pages of code.
‘Anyway,’ Jones said. ‘Twelve of the thirteen mirrors all grouped together, and fell through an empty universe, waiting for life, any sort of life to appear. Even for the subconscious existence that a mirror has, that must have been so lonely.’
‘What happened to Friday?’ another recruit asked.
‘No one knows what happened to the thirteenth mirror,’ Jones said. ‘We may never know. Now, has everyone had a good look?’ The half dozen recruits nodded to him and she suddenly became aware of a large Plexiglas container being passed around. There was something reflective inside of it, surely not-
Merlin whimpered and grasped for the container as Jones took it from a recruit. The tech agent smiled and passed it to him.
‘Lights,’ she commanded.
Slowly, the half dozen recruits turned to look at her. ‘Ma’amy ma’am,’ Screen said, ‘they don’t listen.’
She stared at Jones. ‘Chance has wired the entire London Agency to obey voice commands. Why haven’t you?’
He snapped his fingers and the lights came on. ‘We’ve never seen the need. It still does have most of the basic ones though.’
Screen grabbed the male recruit next to her. ‘He’s lost property!’ she squealed, and the boy disappeared.
She fought a groan and stepped over the recruits to Merlin.
‘I can hear it singing,’ he mumbled. ‘Singy-songy-possibly doooomy...’
She tore the container from his hands, there was a piece of mirror trapped inside of the Plexiglas. ‘What the fuck is this?’
Jones’ face fell. ‘I’m not going to insult your intelligence by telling you.’
She frowned. ‘You...brought a piece of mirror here?’
He nodded. ‘The clean-up crew brought it back.’
‘It should have been destroyed upon arrival.’
‘I didn’t see the harm.’
‘Not seeing the harm is how we lost the goddess!’ she screamed. ‘You bring it here, and let your recruits play with it, what were you thinking?’ She threw it to the floor and it smashed open.
Most of Jones’ recruits scattered, but Merlin remained on the floor, seemingly transfixed by the small shard.
‘Merlin,’ Jones said quietly, ‘go with the others.’
‘It really is singing.’
‘The Lady already sang the song, its time has passed.’
The recruit reached for the shard, but she jumped forward and grabbed him by his collar and yanked him back. ‘Do not touch that,’ she hissed at him before dropping him to the cold floor.
‘I wasn’t going to end the world...’ he whined.
‘You’re a complete unknown, I don’t have reason to trust what you say. I still agree with the consensus that you’re a plant.’
‘Silly ma’amy ma’am, I’m a people, not a plant,’ Merlin said, but the joy had left his voice.
‘Merlin,’ Jones implored. ‘Please, go work on your Galactus program.’
The young recruit slowly stood and dragged his feet as he exited the lab. She held the shard out, like a weapon, at Jones. ‘Do you know what he could have done with this?’
‘It’s naught but a small wish, he couldn’t have done much.’
‘You could have required a lookalike piece, there was no urgency to use a real piece of the mirror. They’re mortal, you never know what they’ll do around something like this.’
‘They meant no harm,’ Jones said as he awkwardly stared at the mirror. ‘It was contained, and none of them had any wish to use it.’
‘They’re mortal,’ she repeated. ‘All of them wish to use it for something.’
‘It’s still in your hand, is there something you wish to use it for?’ He looked her up and down, ‘But, I guess, you didn’t need a mirror, did you?’
She crushed the mirror in her hand and required it away. ‘There is never, ever a reason to use a mirror. They only beget trouble, that’s why they’re always destroyed.’
He smiled sadly. ‘Let’s see if that office is still there.’
New strategy.
Ok, big cosmic entity person, death, grim reaper, grin reaper, whoever is rolling the dice, cutting the cake, signing the forms or whatever…can you answer me at least?
Have I got this private headspace so I can make my peace? Make my apologies? Put aside past aggression so I can go on with a clear conscious?
Seems reasonable.
Here goes nothing.
We don’t apologise for a damn thing.
I only ever did what I thought was right. I didn’t hurt anyone. I never did anything bad. Ok, I hacked...
Those were virtually victimless crimes.
I don’t want apologise. I don't feel sorry for anything. I... There's stuff I regret, sure, but I'm not going to fscking cleanse my soul or what the fsck ever, everything I did, I did.
There it is. There I am. I am me, I am my thoughts, I am my actions.
Take me or leave me, this is all you get.
To apologise would mean you would want to change things. That’s a fickle wish. You do what you do, and that’s it.
Death, please, you were there when I died, and when my double died, just let me make my peace so I can move on. This is...this is cruel, and I don’t deserve it.
Do I?
Ryan stared at the hunk of mirror in his recruit’s chest and the slowly dying daylight that reflected off of it. The sunlight caught on the surface of the mirror and swirled across it in ways that certainly weren’t natural, beautiful and mesmerising for certain, but not natural.
It was one of the myths told about the world that that sparkles of sunlight that fell of a mirror, manifesting if only for the briefest of times was where Starbright came from. It was incorrect, and most people knew that, but it was still a nice story. Sometimes the world just needed nice stories, just to beat back the harshness of reality.
Thinking of Starbright in terms of its appearance, of its sparkle and mass of rainbow colours distracted one from thinking about its inextricable link to dead children. He sighed as the guilt returned, it had disappeared for a moment, but there was it again – as real and aching as when he’d found her on the roof, as when he’d seen her blood staining the bags of ice, or when he’d held her tiny dead body.
He shook his head, trying to distance himself from the guilt, reminding himself that everything – for the most part – had worked out for the best. If she’d been younger the first time, young enough to become one of the Starbright children, then she would not have experienced any of the pain that her life had brought her, and it would not have led to her dying alone. She would have had a year of innocence, of fun, of everything a child could hope for.
Everything a child could hope for...but it was by no means a full life. And here he was, cheating her of a full life again, even if- Even when she woke up, things weren’t going to be easy.
The last vestiges of sunlight died away, and he moved away from the body and closed the curtains, closing off the small bedroom from the dangers of the night. He required the light on, his eyes adjusting immediately to the change. He held his breath though – every time he turned on the light, or made some other seemingly insignificant change, he expected her to wake up, to sit up and say something that he barely understood, or to give him the strange look she gave him when she worked out something about the world.
Daylight was bad enough, but under the harsh scrutiny of an incandescent bulb, she looked far more like the corpse that she was. In the daylight, it was easy enough to imagine that she was just sleeping – or in a coma. The judgment of the light bulb left no room for those weak imaginings. Greyness had slipped into her skin tone, just a tinge, but it was enough to set it apart from the normal pale hacker pallor. He hadn’t expected it, and it did nothing but worry him further, if that had happened, then it couldn’t be too long before rigor set in, or until he began to rot, or until it was time to stop fooling himself and let her go.
He sat on the edge of the bed and checked her vitals again. He’d moved from doing ten-minute checks of her life signs to half an hour checks, from there to hourly checks, until where he was now, checks only every two hours. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t let the checks get any more infrequent than that, he wasn’t going to let himself forget that he was looking after a person, not guarding a corpse.
He slowly pushed one of her eyes open and flicked a penlight across it; there was no reaction, and he closed the eye again – he alternated on which eye he checked, just in case one was damaged, or one was being taken as payment for bringing her back. There was no breath, no air circulated through her lungs, and none escaped her mouth. He kept his fingers against her neck for five solid minutes, just on the off-chance that the suspension had slowed her pulse down that far.
Sitting so close to her, he couldn’t help but look at the heart – a warped reflection stared back at him, occasionally making movement that he did not. She hadn’t begun to rot – that was the only positive element that he could glean from the situation. Whatever was keeping her suspended was keeping her body from falling apart while its life force was missing. It was free of rigor mortis as well, though he had a nagging worry about muscle wastage.
There was no smell, aside from the “hacker funk” that seemed to seemed to pervade the apartment, just as it did the tech department.
He stepped away, sat at the desk’s new chair and leaned his head back. He dropped into communication mode, then opened up his mainframe access. Sparks of blue and white swam in his vision as his muted view of Stef’s apartment disappeared. He blinked to readjust his vision – now he could see all of the crystallised files floating around him. He wasn’t used to it – he rarely had to access the knowledge of the collective unconscious – normal file searches were enough, or were easily found.
‘Mirrors,’ he said aloud.
The files spun, then a few broke free of their companions and fell down to his eye level.
‘Mortals animated by mirrors,’ he specified. Two of the five folders remained, the others dissipated and reappeared in the “sky” high above him.
He opened the one on his left and stepped back. The image of a tall agent, wearing a suit that was at the height of its fashion a few hundred years ago, paced back and forth for a moment, then stared straight ahead.
‘As previously reported, we lost the mirror. There was a storm, we were outnumbered. We lost the whole thing. Some halfbreed fae captured it. They created a warrior. It was...powerful. It killed half a dozen agents. Completely destroyed them. There’s nothing to be recycled, no memories to be had.’
He scrolled through the file, and the image stopped and started accordingly. It wasn’t what he needed.
‘Require: physical copy of file, discard from current search.’
He opened the file directly in front of him. A pretty young woman appeared in front of him. ‘Aide Anne-Marie, filing report in place of Agent Lambeau. As has been reported, Agent Lambeau confiscated a piece of mirror from an evidence locker and used it to wake his sick wife from a fae-induced coma. This would not have warranted as severe punishment as was given, had it worked properly. He was not careful in his commands, and woke up more than her lost mind. It copied over memories and languages from the dead world – Micerin – and this drew leeches to her.’
The image of the Aide hesitated for a moment before continuing. ‘Micerin was an advanced world – approximately relative plus three, so we had a number of leeches. Fortunately, void mutations rendered most of them...easily dealt with. The leeches believed Mrs Lambeau to be an incarnation of their world’s god, and agreed to follow her. An operation was planned, and they were all destroyed, and Agent Lambeau recycled. Several sections of mirror were recovered from Mrs Lambeau and placed in deep storage, in case there were repercussions. Only myself and the director know this, as well as the agents who have accessed this file, total now: forty-seven. Your access date has been recorded. Further information can be found in this file’s attachments.’
‘Require: physical copy of file, discard from current search.’
He opened the third file. A glassy-eyed tech agent stared out into the mainframe. ‘The following is a compilation of information gathered from Solstice sources and raids. It deals with their experiments with the mirrors. This file is best viewed in physical format, because as lovely as my voice is, most of it is charts and dates. It’s worth noting, however, that to our knowledge, none of these experiments were successful. Peace out.’
‘Require: physical copy of file and all attachments. End search.’
He concentrated and exited the mainframe, and surfaced from communication mode. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the body as he shook his head. ‘Sorry, Stef.’ Standing, he glanced briefly at the tall stack of reports on the desk – it would at the least give him an excuse to avoid Emma – research for a future mirrorfall so that he could do a “better job”.
Looking back down at Stef, and knew what had to be done. He rounded the bed, bent down and pulled her up into a sitting position, he required more pillows so and rested her back against them. He finished unbuttoning her shirt and vest, dropping them to the side of the bed. He required a wet washcloth and wiped away the obvious dirt and dust. He cleaned the cuts on her hands, and bandaged them – presumably, they’d begin to heal when she woke up. If she woke up. When she woke up.
He required another washcloth and dabbed at the fresh scar – where she’d been stabbed. It was true that those who had died and come back often sought the peace and clarity again, and that it was rarely a good idea for them to take on “dangerous” jobs, since they would find themselves accident-prone or in situations that others would have escaped.
He ran a finger over the scar. It didn’t stand out against the others, just another in the collection. It was different from the other thought, she’d done it for him. She had willingly placed herself in a position to be injured – or killed – just to protect him. He was an agent, he was supposed to be the protector, and he’d laid prone whilst she had put her life on the line, he’d shown his cowardice, and for that, he was ashamed. He could have fought, even with a bullet in his lung, it would have been a short and pointless fight, and it mostly certainly would have led to his death, but he could have done it. He should have done it.
He’d been selfish, he had taken her, despite her test scores being that of a tech recruit. She’d remembered him, against all odds, she’d remembered him. She was living- She had been living proof that something that he had done something good. She also hadn’t been afraid of him, she hadn’t listened to the other recruits, when they’d said he was unstable.
All the recruits feared Taylor – but that was his intent, and made no protestations. He liked recruits to be scared of him, he felt that it kept them in line. Jones...well, it was hard for them to be seen as scary, and Jones loved the recruits – befriending them, and treating them as equals.
His recruits, however, saw him as far too serious, far too severe. They heard the rumours and expounded on them, no matter what was done to stem them – mercy killings were seen as cruel executions, his by-the-rules interrogations were seen as “oooh, ok, he’s the bad cop”.
And certain memories were never forgotten. “Oh, did you hear? His girlfriend went crazy and he killed her.” The facts were incomplete, the incident classified, the memory painful and the truth devastating, but that nugget remained in the mortal memory, passed from recruit from recruit. “Man, if he could kill her, how safe do you think we are?” Ugly rumours and the human habit of siding with their own kind made it hard for him to connect with his recruits.
He smiled at Stef – supposing that it was the fact that she found it hard to get along with the rest of the human race that had given them something in common.
He gently rolled Stef onto her back, brushed her hair out of the way and plucked a few splinters from the cuts. He then dressed the small cuts, and got to work on the ugly jagged cut from the mirror – it was no longer protruding from her back as it had done when it had killed her, but the cut had remained. He cleaned it as best as he could, then covered it with gauze and taped it down.
He unclasped her bra, dropped it into the pile with the rest of her clothes, and required an Agency-blue pyjama top and puled it over her, one arm at a time, feeling as though he was dressing a child. He quietly buttoned it up and placed her back against the pillows. He moved down the bed and removed her dirty shoes and socks – still unconvinced that it wasn’t somehow a fae power.
Tearing open the left leg of her pants, he dressed a small cut, then quickly replaced them with a pair that matched the pyjama top. He removed the extra pillows and covered her with the blanket. Now, now she just looked like she was asleep.He required away the dirty washcloths, then placed her dirty clothes and shoes into an evidence bag, and placed it in the wardrobe – just in case they were needed for later.
Snapping his fingers, he snatched her file from midair and read over the information he’d already viewed a dozen times over. There was no close family for them to contact – not even any currently in the country. The usually submitted obituaries would freeze her bank accounts and they would do their own searches as to where to put the funds, the rent was covered, and the utilities weren’t something to worry about.
There was no publicly submitted will, and she had no lawyer on file.
It seemed that after death, she was simply going to cease to be. No will, no bequests, no requests. No funeral arrangements.
She’d simply cease to be. Like a dead agent. Like a world after a mirrorfall. No imprint on the world after the memories faded.
He tucked the doll under the blanket with her. ‘I’ll remember you,’ he said. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
I'm starting to wonder if this is some sort of experiment to drive me mad.
I don't do non-linear time well. I don't know if I've been here a second or a millennium.
Maybe this is the wait for reincarnation?
Yeah, right...
I'll appear in post-apocalyptic 2135 as a butterfly.
You'll be one who makes all the storms.
Flap flap?
Give me a damn ticking clock anything so I can keep a track of this place.
It would also help if I could see.
Magnolia looked down at the small robot bumping into her foot – the small, comical-looking machine had a bag of popcorn attached to it, and a small sign instructing her to take some. She took a small handful, then lifted her feet so it could pass. She spared a smile at Merlin, who sat next to Jones, on the row above her. This far back in the bleachers, there was a lot of empty seats – most of the combat and field recruits were clustered in the first couple of rows, the rows that “may get covered in blood and body parts”.
Below them, on the floor of the combat gym, her commanding officer and the spy, Edward, continued to duke it out. Both were bloody and bruised, but neither showed signs of slowing – nor was there any reason for them to be slowing, they’d only been at it for twenty minutes, there were stories of agent-vs-agent battles raging for days on end.
All around her, recruits from all three divisions cheered and booed as various blows landed – her own comrades whooped like drunken monkeys, clinking their bottles of cheap beer together. The tech recruits calculated odds on large calculators, and captured the fight on camcorders. She made a quick mental note to check with Jones later – just to ensure that the footage didn’t make its way onto YouTube. Generally the techs were smarter than that, but there had been...occurrences.
The field recruits were split – unable to enjoy the pure beauty that was a fight between titans, nor were they able to view it as the tech recruits did. Some of them cheered, others just lazed back on the bleachers, content simply to watch. O’Connor was one of these, he was nursing the same bottle of bear – obviously thrown at him by one of her fellows – that he had been since the fight had started. He watched on in silence, hopefully understanding that a similar level of punishment would be gifted onto him, should he break his probation. He was always one to keep an eye on, considering his past, considering what he really used to do, which was far from the nigh-blameless ex-Solstice that his fellow field recruits believed him to be.
She popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth and chewed it slowly, her cheek still stinging from where Taylor had struck her. It was her own fault though – she’d acted above her station, acting out of emotion, rather than considering the situation. It wasn’t her job to question him, and it wasn’t her place to second-guess him. He was perfect, she wasn’t, so he always knew better, no matter what her fallible mind might think sometimes.
She smiled as Taylor knocked the bitch to her knees – though she sincerely doubted that even after he won that Edward would leave. It appeared as though the invader was here to stay. The London agent jumped to her feet and then leaped up further, grabbing the punching bag chain and using it to generate momentum for another kick.
The bleachers creaked as Merlin walked over to her, he dropped into the seat beside her and leaned his head on her shoulder, his soft breath blowing a few errant strand of her white hair away. ‘Why are they fighting?’ he asked, the edge of his goggles scratching her skin ever so lightly. ‘Jonesy’s not saying anything. She’s-’
‘Here to destroy the Agency,’ she said, holding up her handful of popcorn. The little wizard grabbed at it eagerly and managed to get the entire handful into his mouth at once.
He chewed, then swallowed, gave a tiny satisfied burp, then rolled over and laid in her lap. ‘Ma’amy ma’am went spaz when she saw a bit of mirror. I dun care if she’s from the intersection of the Whoniverse and reality, I don’t like her. It’s not like she’s from UNIT anyway.’
Something scratched at her exposed thigh and she looked away from the clash of titans and down the boy using her as a bed – he was now wearing a red beret. She reached down, gently pulled it from his head and tossed it at the field recruits. ‘Red isn’t your colour,’ she said quietly, ‘makes you look pale, Mer.’
‘That’s because I’m not getting enough sun,’ he said in a sing-song voice. ‘I don’t like the sun. Or, it doesn’t like me, or something.’
‘It’s just a ball of gas, Mer, this one at least, it doesn’t hate you.’
The slight boy gasped as the agents on the floor below caught each other in a headlock. ‘Hit cross!’ he shouted as he stood. ‘Keep hitting cross!’
She pulled him back down and he landed heavily on the seat. ‘Stop being a dork.’
‘I am not a boy-whale’s-thingy!’
‘Ryan may be-’ She cut herself off as Edward broke the lock first, and laid a solid punch into Taylor’s solar plexus. He flew across the gym, and landed roughly, not quite catching himself in time. ‘Ryan’s useless, but Edward’s a bitch.’
‘Ma’amy ma’am’s name is Emma.’
‘She changed it,’ she said distractedly. ‘She started off as “Edward”.’
‘She swapped her chassis...this one’s probably softer, with the in-built pillows...’
‘Box-boy,’ she snapped. ‘They’re. Not. Pillows.’
He lifted his hand, extended his pointer his index finger, then slowly poked the side of her breast before giving a sage nod. ‘In-built pillows, five-thousand word essay to convince me otherwise.’
She slapped his hand away – relieved that she had stopped herself from punching him in the face out of ingrained instinct. ‘Unless you’re buying me a drink, don’t touch them.’
A bottle of water appeared in her lap and again the side of her breast was poked.
‘Merlin, would you stop bothering girls who have the capacity to kill you?’ a soft voice said from behind them.
‘Butbutbut Jonesy, she says-’
‘They really aren’t pillows,’ Jones said. ‘And you really need to stop poking them.’
‘No, but- Owww...’
She flicked her eyes back to the fighting agents, but only saw the same punches being exchanged. ‘What?’ she asked of Merlin, and he simply pointed. Edward tripped Taylor, and he crashed the floor, his head impacting with a solid crack. Edward wasn’t done though – she kicked his head once, then reared her foot back and impaled his cheek with her heal. Taylor lay still for a moment, content to spit blood over the gym floor as the wound healed.
‘Give up!’ Edward shouted. ‘Give up, you bullock-brained bastard!’
Taylor’s hand shot out and grabbed Edward by her ankle, yanking on it, he pulled her off-balance and she landed roughly on the floor beside him. He pushed himself to his feet and spat blood, then resumed the fight.
‘Emma’s going to win this,’ Jones commented. She shot him a murderous look which he simply shrugged off. ‘It’s an objective opinion, she did this to bait him. An exhibition fight?’ He laughed. ‘It’s just so she can let him lose in front of all the recruits. Emma doesn’t have recruits, Taylor thinks of you as expendable tools, but at least he will acknowledge your presence...Emma can control her temper, Taylor can’t, that’s why she’s going to win.’
She felt her own rage rising as the scholar’s calm words processed. ‘Like you know anything about anger.’
The tech agent sighed. ‘I’ve lived with that man for longer than you’ve been alive, so yes, I know something about anger.’
‘Are they going to give the Agency to...her?’
‘It wouldn’t the first time an Agency has been turned over to another agent. It’s not usually for reasons such as this though.’
She pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail, being careful not to pull out any of the feathers. ‘I’ll look up the files later.’
‘Good luck,’ he said, ‘they aren’t available to recruits.’
‘Classified?’
‘Embarrassments that were cleaned up and forgotten about,’ he clarified.
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘What happens to us if ma’amy ma’am takes over?’ Merlin asked, fear slipping into his voice.
‘Nothing will happen to you,’ she said with confidence. ‘Nothing ever happens to the geeks. The field recruits will get reexamined, their performance records scrutinized and decisions made after that. We’ll all probably be out on our ass, we couldn’t follow anyone but Taylor. Especially if the bitch gets her way and he gets recycled.’
‘Recycling is not in the equation,’ Jones said, then looked away. ‘It shouldn’t be in the equation anyway. It’s an authority shake-up, this isn’t even a observation sanctioned by the Enforcers, nor is it anyone but Emma even questioning our leadership. Hopefully, it’ll just blow over.’
‘You’d follow her, wouldn’t you?’
‘Duty first,’ he replied. ‘I do as I am told.’
‘Traitor,’ she hissed, but he didn’t respond.
‘Ma’amy ma’am’s winning...’ Merlin said.
A large portion of the recruits cheered as Edward lifted Taylor bodily into the air and slammed him into the floor. The polished wood cracked under the force of the impact and Taylor remained motionless for a moment.
‘Ah, shit!’ one of the field recruits screamed.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened her eyes and smiled. She may have displeased him earlier, but now she’d have a chance to make it up to him.
The feathers on her back ruffled as a shot rang out. The recruits went quiet as Edward fell, a neat hole in one side of her head, a mess on the other. Her body unceremoniously dropped to the floor and Taylor stood, the smoking gun in his hand.
After a moment, the body disappeared, another moment passed, then Edward faded back into the gym. ‘No need to be a sore loser,’ she said, loud enough for all of them to hear. ‘Losing to a superior is never something to be ashamed of.’
‘Get out of my Agency, Edward!’ Taylor screamed.
The bleachers had been quiet, but his scream sucked away all of the sound.
‘And this,’ Jones said, ‘is what she wanted.’
Merlin turned to Jones and began tugging incessantly on his lab coat. ‘Is he going to asplode?’
Jones nodded. Taking the initiative, he stood and spread his arms wide – ten seconds later all the recruits had disappeared. ‘I’ll tell the Parkers to be on call,’ he said to her before shifting himself away.
‘Are you proud of yourself?’ Edward asked Taylor.
‘Next time,’ Taylor growled, ‘Blackout conditions.’
‘How about a real one? I’d throw you over the border into one.’
‘It’s mutual, Edward.’
Edward turned and stared at her. ‘Your recruit seems to have no sense of privacy. The grown-ups are talking now sweetie.’
‘You’re the invader, Edward,’ Taylor said. ‘My recruit was waiting to do laps.’
My recruit. It was a simple phrase, it was a statement of fact, but it still made her heart jump when he expressed some sort of ownership over her, even a tiny statement that he was her commander. It was better than being ashame of her, and just calling her a recruit. Referring to her as his recruit meant that he thought she was good enough to serve under him.
She took the hint and jumped from the bleachers, and began to do circuits of the gym. Her feathers scratched at the inside of her shirt, so she required herself into a backless top – the cool breeze felt nice on her bare skin.
‘I’ll be interested,’ Edward said to Taylor as she ran past, ‘as to what her condition is later in the day.’
‘Combat recruits are often injured.’
Edward stared at her. ‘Stop running,’ she ordered. She turned away, not ready to listen to anyone who wasn’t her commanding officer. ‘Disobedience,’ she said dryly, ‘such a good quality in a recruit.’
‘She is an adequate recruit.’
Adequate. Again, another compliment, despite all she’d done to displease him earlier, she must have done something right – perhaps he was grateful that she’d done her job and cleared his office of new paperwork.
‘I highly doubt that. Halfbreed. Criminal. Masochist. Psychologically damaged. Daughter of a grey-listed fey. It would be easy for me to-’
‘Shut it, Edward. She knows what will happen to her if she steps out of line.’
‘Believe me, Taylor, it is noted that you threaten your recruits with execution.’
‘It’s not a threat,’ he said, meeting Edward’s gaze, ‘it’s a promise. Promises make humans work better, and this promise lets them know what happens when they don’t.’
‘I’m happy for Ryan to get reeducated. You, I wouldn’t mind seeing you recycled. It would be...almost familiar to you, wouldn’t it? They should have left you dead, not brought you back like this. Their mistake, I guess.’
He looked her up and down. ‘You...are one to talk about mistakes.’
This time, Edward just laughed. ‘I’ve proven myself once today, Taylor, I don’t need to do it again so soon.’ She shook her head and shifted away.
Taylor grabbed at his ripped sleeve and tore it off, then required the rest of it away. Bruises and bloody patches were scattered all over his muscular back. She resisted the urge to touch it, she wanted him, and seeing him half-naked, every muscle textbook perfect made it hard for her to remember her duty. Her duty was to serve him, and do what he wished, her own wishes be damned.
‘You have twenty-nine laps remaining,’ he said without turning as the bruises began to fade.
‘She’s not superior, sir,’ she said, mesmerised by his back. She wondered what it would be like to be for those muscles to be put to good use – to be used in rough sex, hurried post-battle coitus, strong-
‘One defeat means nothing,’ he said. ‘Finish your laps circuits, then come to my gym. Should Edward take control, this facility will be left wanting.’
If she takes control and you’re gone, I’m leaving!
He walked toward the gym door, still shirtless, though now all the evidence of his fight had disappeared.
You’re the only reason I stay.
He stopped, and turned to her. ‘Resume your training, Recruit, you aren’t allowed to be weak.’
‘Yes sir.’
Then, he was gone. The gym door swung closed with a bang, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
There’s a voice.
Is that you?
Does it sound like me, Spyder?
And...another voice?
Yeah.
So...I’m not alone here? Oh my-
Shut up. Don’t get excited, you’ve got no idea what’s going on, so just shut up and listen.
But I’m not alone. I’m finally not alone. I have to talk to them.
You’re not alone Spyder. Not while you’ve got me. But you know nothing about what’s going on here, so just trust me. Keep quiet and listen to them.
I want to talk to someone that isn’t you. I just need...some way of communicating with them. Like a mouth, or a body, or headspace-to-headspace IM. Actually, that’s not as dumb…
Yes, yes it is.
But…
Hello? Hello? Hi?
I told you not to.
Why aren’t they answering?
I don’t know. Maybe they aren’t really there. Maybe you aren’t really here.
I’m scared again.
Really scared this time.
Magnolia finished her circuits of the gym and quickly paced herself through a workout of twenty-five sit-ups, two dozen push-ups and a dozen crunches. It was nowhere near a full workout, but it had flexed her muscles at least a little – and any advantage she had was a little less pain she’d feel when Taylor was through with her. He’d ordered her to come to his gym, and that meant he needed a spar. Given his mood however, she wished she’d had a chance to prepare for at least a day in the infirmary. If he kept his promise, however, no amount of preparation would be enough.
She required a bottle of water and carefully drank half of it – not wanting to get water-logged, then required herself into a new outfit. Firstly, tight bindings to hold her feathers down – she’d pluck them later, the morning had been far too busy for her to tend to her own needs, the bindings were covered with a tight black corset, but one without frippery – there was no lace or extra ribbons, nothing for him to grab onto, nothing for him to get an extra advantage. A short black puffy shirt tickled her thighs as it appeared, and spiky boots – with knives hidden in the soles – appeared on the feet. Two leather cuffs completed the outfit.
She allowed herself one deep breath, then stalked from the gym, toward her commander’s office.
The office was a mess – this she could tell this without walking inside – his office chair had been half pushed through the door, wooden splinters covering the floor outside. She pushed on the chair and it fell back into the office, she pushed on the door to open it and it came free of the hinges. She jumped over it, then required a new one, the old one disappearing to wherever the unwanted things went, she wheeled the chair back across the office, required the desk back up the right way and pushed the chair behind it.
More paperwork had appeared since she had apparently cleaned out the “IN” tray. This she neatly stacked into piles, promising herself to get back to it and deal with it, if she survived the spar. A weight flew past her head as she piled more sheets of paper back onto the desk, she ducked it without thinking and squared off the folders within the “IN” tray. The object hadn’t been thrown at her, just in her general direction. If it had been thrown at her, it would have hit her.
‘Sir,’ she said loud enough for him to hear over his grunts and shouts.
He appeared in the doorway to his personal gym. ‘You’re late,’ he growled, ‘that, or your lap times are that of a scholar!’
‘Respectfully, sir, thirty laps would kill most of them.’
‘And if Edwards takes over they are all that will be left. This city will be ruined within a week.’ He glared down at her. ‘Where were you?’
‘I prepared myself for a spar, sir.’
‘I didn’t ask you here for a spar.’ He looked around the office, and its now much-cleaner state. ‘You’ve done what I needed you to do. You’re being sent on a mission later, the file is in your quarters, that is all.’ He turned and walked back into the gym.
Summoning her courage, she followed him. ‘Sir, I need to know more about her. She’s a threat and the file you gave me was of no use.’ He growled. ‘Sorry sir, but it didn’t tell me what I needed to know.’
He threw a punch that she easily dodged. ‘What did you learn?’
‘Edward, AKA “Emma”, London Field Agent under Director Redfern. Her missions are mostly concerned with Solstice – a larger threat than they are here.’
He swept her feet from under her, pinned her to the ground, his knee on her chest. ‘What else?’
Well, sir, from this position, it would be very easy for you to start fucking me...
‘Responsible for eradication of the leprechauns. Reasons for such were classified. Unless you-’
‘No, it’s classified.’ His knee pushed further into her chest, pushing some of the air from her lungs. ‘What else?’
‘Nothing else sir, nothing of note.’ She punched him in the stomach, but he didn’t even blink. ‘No explanation as to why wants to take over. No reasoning as to why she’s goading you. There are things not in the files, sir, and if she is a genuine threat, I need to know.’
He grabbed a handful of her hair and shook her head, the hair falling free from the loose ponytail. ‘ ‘Edward. Edward made himself weak. We are made this way for a reason.’ His knee slid over her chest and it thumped on the floor beside her, he crouched and straddled her, his weight and his warmth making her swoon. ‘For authority. For power. For fear.’ He pulled her head up by her hair and slammed it into the gym floor. ‘He degraded the form he was given, made it something less.’
‘I already presumed that all agents were male,’ she said, taking advantage of a small shift in his weight to fill her lungs.
‘False assumption.’ He slammed her head into the floor again. This time, she saw stars, but she pushed them away – he was giving her valuable information, this was not the time to pass out.
She swallowed, and tasted blood. ‘What was false about it, sir?’
He released her hair, her head again falling to the floor. ‘We aren’t male. Mortals are male. We aren’t slaves to our form like humans are.’
She nodded, not wanting to push the issue.
‘Gender,’ he said, ‘didn’t matter until he decided to change his. We are made this way for a reason. We have a duty. Our form helps us complete that duty. We are not mortals. We are made for a single purpose, we are not to take liberties with the lives we have. Friendships mean nothing – only loyalty matters. Physical relationships as anything more than a way for mortals to relieve stress are nothing more than compromising positions that can be taken advantage of. Those connected through intimacy are nothing but liabilities. I take my duty very seriously, Edward doesn’t.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘If anyone is taking over this Agency, it’s going to be me. I carry the weaklings here, our victories are mine. I am not going to let him take that from me because he has a vendetta against Ryan.’
‘You deserve to be in charge, sir.’ And not just of the Agency...
‘I do not need your validation, recruit,’ he spat before punching a hole in the floor.
She twitched her legs, trying to avoid pins and needles – she’d need full use of them when they started to spar. Alternatively, she wouldn’t need them at all if he removed her clothes and began to ravish her...
He drew back his fist, and she braced for the impact – it would be a broken nose at the least, major bruising to the cheek if he was off-centre, if she was lucky, the bone fragments wouldn’t be pushed up into-
He threw his fist forward, but it stopped, bare millimetres from her nose. He let it hang there for a moment, his sweaty and bloody hand filling her vision. Without a word, it withdrew and he stood.
‘Challenge him to a rematch, sir,’ she said as she stood. She smoothed her skirt and waited for him to react.
‘That would achieve nothing.’
‘With respect sir, you don’t know that. He has to have weaknesses, sir. Weaknesses, other than the physical, which have to significant to begin with. In a hand-to-hand situation, I could not take a man of your size, not unless he was overconfident. You have the size advantage. He manipulated you in that fight, you would not let that happen again.’
‘I have already stated my opinion on the matter. To pursue it further would be unwise.’
‘Yes sir, consider the matter closed, sir.’ She took a step closer. ‘Sir-’
He snapped his hand out toward her, stopping her from coming any closer, then looked away. ‘It isn’t your body I want to see in pieces on the floor, leave now, or it might be.’
She stood stunned for a moment. ‘Yes sir,’ she said as soon as coherent thought returned to her mind. She took a step back, closed her eyes and concentrated, she focused on her quarters and faded away.
*****
Taylor took a moment to steady himself, trying the breathing exercises in vain. They didn’t work. Nothing calmed him down. There was a problem, and there was beating a problem until it stopped bleating, that’s all there was to the world. If the problem couldn’t be reduced to a red smear, proxies had to be used.
He shifted across his gym and lifted the felled punching bag, watching the sand leak out of for just a moment, imagining that it was Edward leaking his life all over his gym floor. He tossed it, an easy gesture that sent it slamming into the far wall, disappointed for just a moment that he hadn’t kept Magnolia around – there was such a nice sound when she slammed into a wall.
His training program flashed in his vision, dulling everything around him, and suggested lower-body exercises, he closed it and began to beat a fresh punching bag with his already bloody fists. He didn’t want to kick anything – there was nothing quite so satisfying as hitting something with your own two fists. Kicking was efficient, yes, but there was something so much more personal about slamming a fist against an opponent.
A life sign flickered on his sensor, and he spun, gun aimed at the intruder before he’d even had a chance to identify them. Edward. The gun stayed in his hand.
The English agent stared at him, his head cocked to the side. ‘Your recruit is gone, can I finish now?’
He required strips of cloth around his bleeding knuckles, and landed a solid punch on his inanimate victim. ‘You’ve got nothing I’m going to listen to.’
Edward grinned. ‘What I want to discuss is your slag of a magpie girl. She’s a halfbreed, that’s bad enough. I suppose the criminal background is nothing new for your department, but she’s the daughter of a grey-listed fae, shouldn’t that have set off little alarm bells somewhere in your thick skull?’ He laughed. ‘And that’s to say nothing of her psychological profile or the masochistic tendencies.’
‘You telling me something I don’t know?’ He viciously attacked the bag, anything to avoid him striking a fellow Agent. Without cause in any case. In a rematch-
‘It would be so easy for me to put her on the grey list. Her mother isn’t a saint, how much better do you really think she can be? Apple, tree and all that.’
‘Do it if you’re going to, threats mean nothing to me.’
‘You’d willingly lose your prize recruit? Your Aide?’
He snapped his gaze away from the punching bag. ‘I can replace her. Recruits. They’re all the same. Tools to be used and disposed of.’ He wiped the sweat from his brow, blood smearing there in its place.
‘You went into a blackout zone for her.’
He went back to the task of rending the punching bag from the thick chain that fixed it to the roof. He’d gone into a blackout zone for her. It was truth. It was in the reports. It wasn’t something to be discussed. Or thought about. It had happened, and it was over, that was extent of it.
‘Twice I know for sure,’ Edward said, ‘I don’t know how many other times.’
Again, truth. Again, not something to be thought about.
‘This isn’t relevant,’ he growled.
‘Risking your life for a recruit isn’t relevant? They may have brought you back incomplete, but that’s no reason to throw your life away. I’ll take it from you, if that’s what you want, but don’t throw it away on some little-’
‘Put her on the grey list if you want, Edward, I don’t care.’
‘I won’t, not yet. Show me some damned respect, or I will. And understand, I can do anything I want to her using two words: “probably cause”. Imprison her without evidence. Interrogate her. Demote her. Erase her memories.’
He said nothing.
‘If her memories of the Agency are erased, she’ll go back to being a criminal. Then, she’ll be killed as she should have been. This Agency needs to stop breaking rules to make recruits. There are rules for recruiting, I don’t think anyone in this Agency has ever read them. That’s one thing I’ll change when I’m in charge. ’
‘They aren’t going to give you the Agency, E-’ His jaw froze, unable to say the rest of the word.
A cruel smirk settled on the other agent’s lips. ‘What was that?’
‘This will never be your Agency,’ the word was lodged in this throat, unable to escape. It felt like the explosive he’d once been forced to swallow. He grimaced and spat it out. ‘Emma.’
She smiled. ‘We’ll see about that.’
It’s really hard to keep quiet in your own head. Brain. Mind. Whatever. I want to listen for the other voice, I want to keep quiet in case…well, in case it wants to hurt me.
And it might just want to hurt me. I hope it doesn't, but collateral damage and all that, I might just get in the way. Why would it want to hurt me? Why would anyone want to hurt me? I never did nothing to nobody...
That's a double-negative Spyder.
Are you ever going to give me a fucking break?
Learn2English and I might.
Whatever.
Spyder...there's one possibility that you haven't considered.
Shut up. I know what you're talking about. It's not that, so shut up.
You're a brain in a jar, you're somewhere people shouldn't be, and you don't even really know if you're dead or alive, I think it's fairly fucking relevant right about now.
Shut. Up. It's not that. I don't wish that anymore.
Spyder...
We're not talking about this anymore.
What if...What if you brought this yourself?
‘It’s been a week,’ Ryan said to the corpse as he opened the window. The curtains billowed and the light flooded the room, illuminating his pale recruit. ‘I thought you’d be-’ he stopped himself and sighed – there was no use in talking to her. It wasn’t a coma that could be broken by traditional means, and if the beacon lit by the heart couldn’t pull her back from wherever she had gone, then neither could a few simple words. He sat in the new chair at her desk – the desk that had practically replaced his own – it was his new office, it was one place Emma was sure not to look.
Paperwork was stacked high on the ratty desk. Emma’s presence had been generating more reports than normal – copies of her reports, reports about her reports, suggested fixes, notes from Clarke, repeated requests from Taylor to kill/maim/deport her. The papers covered pieces of code written right onto the wood, or scratched in with cutlery.
A cold breeze flew in through the open window – it made no difference to him, it was simply a change he noted, but it made him feel sorry for the body – for Stef. The thin blanket covering her was still pulled up over her – she hadn’t moved, so neither had it.
He stood and walked over to the wardrobe. He pulled open the door and reached for a blanket. A small blue hand made a grab for the blanket.
His gun was in his hand before he’d had time to consider the action. He let go of the blanket and the hand retreated back into the shadowy depths of the wardrobe.
‘Come out,’ he demanded, pulling the door all the way open.
Stef stared back at him.
He whipped around to look at the bed – the corpse was still there. Still unmoving. Still dead.
The Stef in the wardrobe obviously wasn’t his recruit – she was glowing, she was blue, and she looked to be about five years old. She put a finger to her lips, shushed him and ducked back down into the shadows.
Silently apologising to the Stef on the bed, he required away the wardrobe door so that he could look at her young doppleganger. She wasn’t a ghost – that much was certain, she was at least somewhat aware of her surroundings, and ghosts were never the brilliant blue that she...that souls...
She wasn't a ghost, but she might just be a soul.
‘Stef...’ he said slowly. ‘You can come out now.’
No response.
He backed up a step and grabbed the corpse’s leg – she was still completely real. The little doppleganger peeked out of the wardrobe and then ran from the room. He holstered the gun and followed her.
The empty living room stared back at him – no doppleganger. He concentrated and scanned the room – no heat signatures, no fae signs, nothing. He slowly walked around the couch and looked under the table, nothing.
‘You can’t find me!’ a small voice called. He stared at the wall, and scanned the body in the next room – completely inert.
A small head surfaced from the couch, saw him, then ducked back down. He put his foot on the couch and pushed it back. The little doppleganger giggled and ran into the kitchen, running through the breakfast bar as though it wasn’t even there.
‘Stef,’ he said firmly, ‘come out.’
No response.
She had to be a soul, or at least part of one – it was the same shade of blue, the same transparency, the same- Her small head moved in and out of the cupboard – it almost as though she wasn’t hiding in the cupboard itself, but something else occupying the same space.
‘I can see you,’ he said, just in case playing hide and seek was something intrinsic to communicating with her.
‘No you can’t!’ she whined. ‘I can’t see you.’
He crossed into the kitchen and opened the cupboard – she was crouched, her face hidden in a behind a box of savoury crackers.
‘Now I can see you.’
She gasped and ducked through the wall into the next cupboard. He sighed and opened the next cupboard.
‘Come out.’
This time, she didn’t react at all – as though she hadn’t heard him. He reached for her, but his hand went straight through her.
She shook her head, stood, and walked out of the cupboard, she went back into the living room and flopped to the floor in front of the bookcase. There were some dusty classic books on the bottom shelf and she grabbed for one, a translucent blue copy of it came away from the shelf, the original staying in place.
He knelt behind her and tried to pick her up again, his hands going straight through her again – there wasn’t even the light, static resistance like there was with a real soul – it was as though she wasn’t really there. He sat back, listening to her sound out the beginning of “The Wind in the Willows”.
She lay on her stomach, the large book spread out before her, ancient pages withered at the corners, crayon marks over the rich illustrations.
‘Where are you?’ he asked her. The mirror being what it was, it really was possible that she wasn’t there at all, just an echo, just a memory. Even...some sort of vision or hallucination only visible to him, as he’d used the mirror to bring her back.
She didn’t answer him – any ability she’d had to see or sense him seemed to have faded. He stood and moved around her, leaning up against the bookcase, watching her read the book. She was so different to the corpse on the bed – even this young, her hair was longer than she had it currently, tied back with a dark ribbon, and the velvet pinafore was quite unlike anything in her wardrobe.
‘It all seemed too good to be true,’ he said, after he downloaded the text of the book. There was no harm in playing along, just in case her ability to sense his was tied to whatever train of thought it was following. ‘Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding-’
She raised her head, crinkled her nose and went back to reading. She turned the page and ran her small hand over the next page of text.
Her head jerked up and she jumped up from the book and ran for where the couch had been, ducking under it as a small child would hide beneath a table.
She peeked around the room, then scrambled back, curling her arms around her legs and shushing herself. ‘I’m going to win,’ she chanted quietly, ‘I’m going to win.’
‘Who are you playing with?’ he asked. He didn’t expect a response, but if this was the key to bringing her back, or just an aspect thrown up by the mirror, then he wasn’t going to waste it. As expected, she didn’t respond. A moment later, her head dropped and she crawled out from under the invisible table and came back to her book.
She no longer read it aloud, instead flipping to random pages and tracing over the pictures with her fingers. Every few minutes, she would look up, as though briefly sensing him, then look away.
There was a small sound, and he saw a droplet of translucent blue water on the book. ‘You can come find me now,’ she said.
‘I’m trying,’ he said, ‘I’m trying to bring you back, I don’t know how. You have to find your own way back.’
More tears stained the book. He reached for her, concentrating as hard as he had the day he’d stopped her soul from passing. This time, he felt the static, and she looked up at him, her eyes focusing as she saw him. Her mouth dropped open and she jumped back. She put up her tiny fists and frantically looked around the room.
‘Stef...it’s me...’
‘Me who?!’ she demanded, her eyes sliding past him again. ‘Ghostghostghost...’ she wailed. ‘HALP!’
‘I’m not a ghost,’ he said, giving her a reassuring smile, ‘I’m not see-through.’
‘Then what are you?’ she asked, unconvinced.
‘I’m a-’
‘My dad’ll kick your butt.’
He tried to resist a smile. ‘I highly doubt that, Stef. Is that who you were playing hide and seek with?’
‘He’s a bad seeker,’ she said with a pout. ‘Sometimes he gives up cause I’m too good.’
He held back several disparaging remarks – he’d read her file and judging from her father’s profile, and the related information, he doubted it was some sort of vision problem that kept the man from winning the game. In any case, it didn’t matter what he said, the mirrors were of Chaos, not of Time, so whatever this was, the one thing it wasn’t was a window back into the past.
‘Of course you are,’ he said. ‘Just keep your voice down and he won’t find you. He can’t hear me, no matter how loud I am.’
‘I...dun mind if he finds me. I’m...bored.’
‘You could go seek him.’
She giggled. ‘That’s not how you play.’
‘Where are you right now, Stef?’ he asked.
She gave him an incredulous look. ‘You don’t-’ Her vision lost focus again, and she looked away from him. She grabbed the blue book and took it under the invisible table, spreading it over her knees and starting to read it again.
He watched her for a moment, then she disappeared as suddenly as she’d appeared. He started to shift away, needing some space from the little ghost, but was stopped by a bony hand.
Death released his wrist as he looked at her.
‘My-’
‘You left the window open,’ she said.,
‘She can’t-’
‘You left the window open,’ she repeated urgently.
He ran past her, and into Stef’s bedroom. Her shirt was in tatters, and had chest had been ripped open, an empty cavity staring back at him – the heart was gone. Small, bloody paw prints crossed the blanket and up the wall to a howler sitting on the window ledge. A bulging leather pouch hung from its belt, its dark, glittering eyes victorious. It flipped its hand at him, then dropped from the window.
‘Go after it,’ the Lady said, ‘quickly.’
He stared at the window – there were a hundred different directions it could have gone in, a dozen buildings it could have crossed into, it could have gone into the sewer systems, attached itself to a vehicle- ‘I could...find another piece of mirror. We’re still finding shards, and there are-’
She shook her head. ‘You’re quite stupid, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t-’
‘Where do you think she is?’ Death demanded of him. ‘Where did you really think she was?’
He turned back to look at the body. ‘She’s-’
‘Everything that is, was or could be your recruit is in that piece of mirror. Everything. If you don’t get it back, you don’t get her back.’
He shifted through the wall, looking for the howler as he neatly fell three stories to the ground. He landed in a crouch, slightly cracking the concrete and saw it on the building across from him. They small fae held onto its pouch, the top of the heart just visible. It licked some blood from it before attaching it back to its belt.
He fired, but it dodged. The howlers weren’t very bright, but they were very agile – possessing a dexterity that put humans to shame. Physically, it was rather simian – elongated, thin limbs and a fine covering of black fur, behaviorally, it was typically fae – falling pray to the trickster streak that ran through all of them, they thrived in cities, stealing items of value, selling them for profit, keeping them for themselves, or just throwing them away when they got bored. They were all grey-listed, and all treated with caution.
As he shot at it again, it darted back from the edge of the building. He shifted up and chased it, he was fast, but it was faster, and every time he shifted to catch up, it would simply change direction, or dive off the side of the building, scrambling along window ledges and tiny hand-holds that its paws were able to grab hold of.
He shifted to the street level and continued to chase it, following the shadow. He fired again – hoping to scare it, or make it feel threatened enough to challenge him. It took a flying leap from the building, across to the next, he shifted up to intercept it, but pushed him off, raking sharp claws across his face. Landing on the ground, he had a car swerve to miss him, the driver swearing at him.
Civilians were going to be a problem – the streets they were in now were fairly deserted, their occupants asleep or at work, but if it headed towards the centre of the Valley, then there were going to be problems. Sightings, photos, video, questions being asked, articles in the paper – and he’d be able to do less to silence them than normal. This wasn’t sanctioned mission, or even something he could report, there was going to be no media blackout, no cover story, no clean up crew to check for evidence. He was on his own, and it made him feel weak – he was used to having backup, used to the Agency’s power working for him.
He forced the mundane consequences from his mind – if he didn’t catch the howler, he’d just have another recruit body to bury, another notch – so to speak – and another reason for his other recruits to fear him.
The howler took a sharp left turn and he followed – it was heading for traffic, for civilians, for one of the busiest parts of the city.
He stopped running and shifted ahead of it, across the main street and onto the roof a hotel across. He watched it emerge from the maze of buildings, running on all fours across one more building, then leaping down onto the pavement. It looked around for him, then ran out into the traffic.
No one swerved to miss it – to do so would have been dangerous, but it was possible that they were just oblivious. It was one of the reasons the fey flocked there – most people were unwilling to see what was right in front of their eyes, and it afforded them a kind of security. It wasn’t Amsterdam, where they were passively accepted, or one of the older cities, where people expected a little strangeness in their everyday lives.
It leaped onto a bonnet of a passing car – this one did screech to a halt, making the truck behind it hit it – glass popped out of the windows and the airbag inflated. A quick scan revealed that both drivers were fine – a quick thought anonymously sent a summons to the emergency services.
It finished crossing the nine busy lanes of traffic, and looked rather pleased with itself. It scampered along the ground, but was stopped by a display in an adult store window. It leaped up onto the window and began to thump itself against the glass, emitting the howl it was named for.
Fortunately, the civilians on the ground were more interested in the smoking vehicles to notice a mad and excited fae.
He stilled himself and shifted right behind the howler. Grabbing it, he squeezed it to his chest, feeling it struggle and squirm, it bit one hand and scratched at his other, but he ignored the pain. He wrapped one arm around its middle, releasing the other and reaching for the leather pouch – killing it was secondary, retrieving the heart was all that mattered.
It twisted in his grip, turning to face him. It brought its face up to his and howled, up close, the sound was unbearable, loud enough to make even his eardrums burst. He held on to the creature as it screamed, groping blindly for the pouch.
It giggled and he felt liquid all seep all over him. Urine. He tried to fling it off as the acidic waste burned through his vest and shirt and began to eat into his skin. He tried to push the howler away as it continued to urinate on him, his body screaming in pain. It gripped tight to him, but squirmed every time he grabbed for the pouch.
It howled again and he stopped fighting it. It leaped off him, bouncing off the shop window, then running down the street. He watched it go, blood pouring from his ears and melting flesh exposed through destroyed clothes, it bounded down Brunswick street, towards more traffic and even more civilians. He leaned his head against the shop window and let himself fade away to heal.
He found himself in the familiar, smoky in-between place that Agents went to heal. His body tore itself away from the ash in his core, spun around the space as he watched, at once separate from himself, and spinning as the particles of potential. He reformed, though the sting of the acid remained, even if it was only psychosomatic. A bell tolled and he found himself back on the street corner.
It hadn’t gotten far – it was a hundred metres or so down the street, sitting on the fence that looked down to the train tracks. It had popped the heart out of the bag again, licking away the blood and occasionally stopping to stare at its reflection when it had cleared a spot.
He required a cage around it, and it fell to the ground, screaming and trying to squeeze through the cage. He shifted down the street and grabbed it, watching the howler squirm. ‘I’ll let you live,’ he said, ‘just give me the mirror.’
‘Feck off,’ the howler growled as it practically poured itself out through the bars. It shook itself off as he tried to stand on it it, then ran off. He tossed the cage to the side, hitting a parked car, and followed the fae.
It bounced on its tail for a moment, and propelled itself up onto the roof of a store as he followed beneath, pushing through a crowd waiting at the bus stop. As he pushed past one man, he was grabbed. ‘Watch where you’re goin’ mate!’
He shook himself free of the man’s grip, his gun materialising in his hand. He aimed it at the man’s forehead and let him fear for a moment. This time when he tried to pass, he met with no resistance. He heard a few mobile phones dialing, undoubtedly for the police – but he knew as soon as his description was given, they’d drop it.
Stopping on the corner, he looked for the howler, it was on the roof above him, laughing and swaying. It dove out into the air and landed on the bonnet of a sports car. He watched it for a moment, then quickly shifted the driver from the car before requiring away the car's engine. The expensive machine skidded, its inertia carrying it for a few dozen metres before it rolled onto its side. It was a wreck. The howler, however, emerged unharmed.
It scrambled up the side of the nearest building and disappeared. He shifted to the roof, following it on foot, afraid of losing it – howlers had a tendency to slip away when they became bored with a situation. It couldn’t fade as quickly as most fae – they had very little magic, but it was quick enough that he wouldn’t be able to stop it if he lost sight of it for more than few moments.
He leaped over rooftops – it was something he’d done a hundred times before, but something he could never get used to, he always wondered what the people inside must think, and what strange theories they came up with to explain the noises.
Across one building, a flying leap to the next, over the top of a dozen or so parked cars – the howler showed no signs of slowing – they never did. They were almost made of energy – no chase after a howler had ever ended because it had tired, because it had given up, yes, because it had become bored, yes, but never because it had tired.
The howler flew off the edge of the building – staying aloft for longer than its gangly body should have allowed, and landed on the roof of a passing bus. He followed suit, leaping onto the roof of the bus following it. He could hear the screams of the commuters inside as he paced along the top of the bus, and the honk of the driver as he leaped onto the bus in front of him.
Leather pouch in hand, the howler looked back and grinned – it wasn’t tired of the chase, nor did it have any intention of giving up. It scrambled over the front of the bus, and underneath, where he could not follow.
He ran to the front of the bus and crouched, balling a fist, he punched through the roof above the driver. The driver inside screamed and the bus swerved into the other lane. His ID materialised in his hand as he reached it into the bus. ‘Please stop,’ he said, his voice calm and measured despite how he felt.
The bus jerked to a stop and he rolled off the top, landing heavily on the ground. The driver jumped from the bus, the heavy metal cash box in his hand like a weapon. ‘What the-’ The driver’s question was halted as he stared down the barrel of a standard-issue Agency pistol.
‘Evacuate your bus,’ he said, stepping back and keeping an eye out for any mover the howler made to escape. ‘Quickly.’
The driver dropped the cash box and began to shout at the passengers. The dozen or so passengers scattered as they saw his gun, all except for one. A young man with a fae glint in his eyes, dyed black hair and “fashionable” clothes glared at him. ‘Godsdamn angel, yanno some people actually have to work for a living.’
‘If you know what I am,’ he replied, his eyes glued to the shadows surrounding the bus, ‘you should have run further than the others.’
‘Why’d it have to be my bus?’ the young man whined. ‘It’s the only one I can take to work!’
He took his eyes away from the shadows for a moment. ‘Do you have any idea how insignificant your life is compared to what I’m trying to do?’
‘I have uni fees to pay!’
He snarled. ‘It’s money you’re worried about?’
‘Yeah man, what else would it be?’
‘I apologise,’ he said, copying his dead recruit’s sarcastic tone. Require: gold bar.
‘Compensation!’ the boy yelled, ‘that’s more like it.’
He flung the gold bar at the young man, knocking him to the ground. He turned back to the bus, required away his weapon and grabbed the bottom left corner of the vehicle. Putting all of his strength into it, he flipped the bus onto its side.
The howler was gone.
‘Hey Agent Arsehole, the monkey-ninja went that way,’ the young man said, wheezing as he sat up.
He followed direction the boy was looking in, and saw the howler crawl underneath a car headed for the bridge. He shifted ahead of the car, keeping an eye on the howler as the car got closer and closer to the bridge.
As the car drove onto the Story Bridge, the howler climbed from under the car and leaped onto the nearest support beam. He shifted to near the howler.
‘A trade,’ he called over the wind and the traffic. ‘Whatever you want, just give me the mirror.’
The howler made a chattering noise and grabbed its leather pouch. ‘Not a mirror,’ it squeaked. ‘It’s a heart.’
‘Immunity,’ he offered, unsure that he’d be able to carry through on the deal. ‘Blind Agency eyes to everything that you do for a year.’
The howler stroked the pouch. ‘Already have what I need.’
‘I need it more,’ he said, not caring whether or not the creature heard him. He stood, unable to keep his balance on the thin beam without a second though, the wind pulling at his jacket. ‘Changelings at least leave something when they steal a child,’ he said, ‘you’ve stolen a life, what did you leave?!’
The creature pulled on the pouch. ‘Changelings leave trouble. Howlers take it away.’
‘Give. It. Back.’
The howler put the pouch back on its belt and shook its head. ‘Angels should fly. You could catch us when you could fly.’
‘We don’t need our wings anymore. The question is, can you fly?’ This left a confused look on the howler’s face – the opening he needed.
He shifted across to the howler and – with a force that would have impressed Taylor – kicked it free of the support beam. The creature scrambled to catch hold of something, but he shifted again, caught it by the scruff of the neck and threw it free of the bridge.
He landed in front of a large truck, rolled out of its way, jumped up, then over the safety fence and up onto the edge of the bridge. The howler was still falling, trying to glide, to stay aloft, anything to prevent itself from hitting the water. He watched its position as it tumbled, jumped a little further along the bridge, then launched himself free of it.
Catching the howler in midair, he kept a tight grip on it as they hit the water – the impact did nothing to him, but it dazed the creature for a moment. He reached for the pouch, but it fought back, biting and scratching him again.
‘You should have taken the offer,’ he said as he grabbed it by the neck and held it under the surface of the river.
His legs worked automatically to keep him afloat as the creature struggled in his grip. He wrapped his other hand around its furry throat as it continued to struggle. The water churned in front of him as the creature tried desperately to get to the surface, to take a breath.
After five solid minutes, it stopped struggling.
He lifted it from the water, the water-soaked body a lot heavier than the lithe form betrayed. He pulled it onto its back and tore its belt off – the leather pouch was gone. He let go of the body and took a deep breath, more out of habit than any real need, and submerged himself. He shrugged off his jacket and dove deeper into the murky depths of the Brisbane River.
He moved straight down – there was very little chance that a current would have taken the bag in another direction, and began to scan for it – heat signatures were of little use, but it helped him discern the basic shapes. The decrepit shopping trolley he ignored, the fish bones he ignored, but there were too many small rocks the same approximate shape as the leather pouch for him to find it quickly.
Shapes moved in the water around him – trashmaids. They’d sensed something new in their river. Two swam up beside him, their flesh the colour of the dead bodies they’d evolved from, tendrils of algae crawled up their arms and hung from their fingers. They were strange creatures – not quite real, and not quite alive, perfectly harmless – they didn’t know of, or acknowledge the surface world, content to trawl the bottom of the river for whatever they needed. The one to his left, example – a female, judging by the slime-covered bulges on her chest – had crude goggles fashioned from broken beer bottles. The one to his right had plastic bags tied around its arms – and judging from the algae growths on the plastic, they had been there for a long time.
The female swam a little ahead, rising slightly before dropping to the river floor and lifting something from the within the rocks.
The pouch.
He gave a shout, expelling most of his air as the female trashmaid went to open it, she looked up, her beer-bottle goggles obscuring her expression, but she proffered the pouch anyway. He grabbed it, held it close and pushed off from the river bottom, propelling himself to the surface. He took a deep breath, coughed up the water from his lungs and took another.
His grip was immovable on the pouch – but he was careful not to touch the heart inside, not even through the leather, just in case he made a wish, or a thought that could be interpreted as a wish. If the howler hadn’t already.
A lifesaving ring was thrown to his right, he turned his head and saw a slow-moving dredging boat. He tossed the ring back, nodded, and shifted away.
The first thing he saw was Death, she’d pulled his chair away from the desk and brought it over beside the bed. She sat patiently, not comforting the corpse, nor whispering to it, just sitting as the guardian she was.
Stef was worse for the wear though, her skin – no longer just the pale of a hacker who wasn’t quite sure what the sun looked like – was the gray of a real corpse, her eyes had sunken a little, and her body had slumped, her limps rubbery and limp.
Carefully undoing the pouch, he removed the heart – being careful to keep his mind absolutely blank. There was no time for thoughts of what he could do with the mirror, of the other wishes he cold grant, or what he could do for-
He dropped the heart to the bed before he could think her name.
Carol.
The dirty, bloody, wet heart stared back at him as he let the pouch fall to the floor.
‘You always have the choice,’ Death said. ‘No one would think less of you.’
‘No one else knows,’ he said, crouching to look at the heart, dirty river water dripping onto the carpet. ‘So no one could think less of me.’
‘If it’s my opinion-’
‘No, my Lady, it’s not. It’s mine.’
‘Carol’s in an oubliette, she’s banished, not dead.’
‘For all intents and purposes, she’s dead,’ he said, feeling the familiar lump growing in his throat, and the oh-so-familiar weight in his chest. ‘She’ll never be able to come back home, I’ll never be able to-’ He sighed. ‘It’s the mortal wish to have everything, it’s a failing.’ He reached for the heart and cleaned it off with the corner of the blanket. ‘The howler kept touching it, I don’t know if-’
‘She’s still in there,’ the Lady assured him. ‘Your effort wasn’t in vain.’
He held up the heart, stood and took a step towards the head of the bed. He required her into a new pyjama top, ridding her of the ripped and bloody one. He unbuttoned the first few buttons and exposed the empty cavity in her chest, keeping his mind clear, he pressed the heart into the depths of her chest and stood back.
Nothing happened.
The wound didn’t change, none of the arteries made a move to attach, the heart didn’t shake and settle into position. He looked back to Death. ‘Why-?’
‘You’ve lived for more than a century, haven’t you learned patience yet?’
‘I’m sorry, my Lady.’
An alien light shone on the heart, traveling along the scratches that the howler had made and removing them as it went – the dried remains of the blood that he’d been unable to clean off were removed, and slowly, it became pristine again.
It moved a little, and embedded itself deeply in the cavity. It let out a melodic sound – like a finger running around the top of a wine glass. It beat three times, each shaking her body and she was still trembling when it stopped. He moved forward to grab her, but Death held out a hand to stop him.
‘It’s just making sure she’s all there, she was alive the first time it entered her, so it knew her extent, it had to check that nothing had changed.’
‘She’s rotting,’ he choked.
‘If she wakes,’ Death said, ‘she’ll be fine. Life in a body does it good, or so my sister says.’
Stef stopped trembling and her head slid from the pillows. ‘How much longer?’ he asked as he righted her and buttoned the shirt back up.
‘You would not make a very good human,’ she said, a smile forming on her human-seeming face. ‘They have to wait nine months for a new life.’
‘It’s not going to-’
‘Trust her to find her way way,’ she said as she shushed him, ‘you need to trust her. After all, her life is in your hands, that’s a lot of trust she’s putting in you.’ She put a hand on his back. ‘She’s fine now, as fine as she was before you left the window open. You, on the other hand...’
He looked down at himself – his uniform was still sopping wet and a mess, the water had stained it, and there was mud caught in his vest. He required himself dry and into a new uniform, then renewed his outer layer a few more times until he felt clean. Another thought cleaned and dried the floor, the smell lingered, but he closed the window anyway – he wasn’t going to chance another howler.
‘I can’t protect her when I’m not here,’ he said. ‘I can’t stop everything from getting in.’
‘Take her somewhere safer then,’ Death said.
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I can’t. No Agency safe house, and not the Agency itself-’ He looked away. ‘I’m already being scrutinized, I can’t- There would be an overwhelming consensus to destroy her.’ He shook his head. ‘I killed the howler, hopefully its brethren won’t try.’
‘You should go visit her.’
He didn’t have to ask who she meant. ‘I can’t, I don’t trust myself. She can’t get out of there unless I allow it, but...I don’t know that I won’t pull her out, bring her back into the world. In the oubliette, she’s trapped, but she’s safe...and we’re safe.’
‘So why do you carry the key with you everywhere you go?’
‘Because one day I’ll be strong enough to use it.’
She ran her hand over his recruit’s forehead. ‘Look at what you’ve done, you’re strong enough now.’
‘I-’
‘Are you planning on arguing with me?’
‘No my Lady.’
‘Then go,’ she said with a kind smile.
He bowed to her, took one last look at Stef, then shifted away. He appeared in the park that had brought him so much joy, and so much sorrow – it was the first time he’d stepped foot into it in ten years, and even then, it had been part of a mission.
It was a secluded area, a small patch of grass bordered by trees. Trees that had provided enough cover for Carol to convince him to do several things he had sworn never to do outside. They’d made love here, they’d made plans, they’d dreamed of a world free from trouble.
She’d come there when she was running from him – she’d been shifting from safe place to safe place, locations thrown up by her memory into her mad mind. He’d finally caught her there, and stopped her from running. He’d held onto her as she attacked him with the knife she’d used to kill Taylor, told her he’d loved her and banished her.
It was on the official records that she was dead, and very few people knew differently.
He pulled the oubliette key from a pocket on the inside of his vest and held it up. There was a magnetic pull on the key as he felt around for the lock. The key shook in his hand and connected with something, he twisted it and the lock appeared – it was merely a trick of the light, like the sun’s reflection on water. They key burned his fingers as it tried to ascertain whether or not he was the same person who had locked it in the first place. Satisfied, the metal cooled in his hand the door appeared. The door, unlike its ethereal lock, had the appearance of old wood, giving it an ancient feel – which was only right – no one really knew how old the oubliettes were, it was possible that they predated the current version of existence, and merely changed their external looks to fit in with the world into which they were summoned.
Pulling on the handle, the door opened and fell down towards him, creating a set of stairs. He quickly ascended them and stepped into the oubliette. Once inside, the orientation of the world changed so that the door was high above him, out of anyone’s reach.
Inside, it was less like it was its prison namesake then it was the inside of a bubble. It was an round room, the walls of which were a different colour of the rainbow each time you looked at them. The floor was white, broken every now and then with a patch of colour. There was a bed along one wall, a canopy bed which held a sleeping woman. There was a table which held various pieces of meals and drinks.
The oubliette provided that which you needed, and that which you wanted – everything but a way out. It was the trade-off, which was why some demons, and even some gods, would exile themselves in them.
Carol lay asleep, like a fairy tale princess waiting to be woken. She was as beautiful as she had been before...before everything had gone wrong and her mind had been lost to the insanity that came from being-
She moaned and rolled over – her soft blonde hair falling over her eyes. He leaned over and kissed her – afraid of waking her, but unable to stop himself all the same. She roused, opened her eyes, smiled, then fell asleep again. He stepped back, the lump in his throat nearly choking his this time, and stood still as tears ran down his face.
There was so much he wanted to say to her, so much he wanted to apologise for, but he knew she wouldn’t be able to understand most of it, even if she recognised him. That was what he feared the most, for her to look at him without knowing who he was, to not remember everything they had shared.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, then shifted away.
I take it back!
Are you listening? I take it back! With a genie you get to use a wish to reverse the other wishes. You learn your lesson, then reset the status quo.
I take it back.
Now let me the hell out of here.
Waiting. Seriously. Let me out of here.
I am totally convinced that this is due to some messed up wish and not because there were really sharp shards of magic glass flying at my body that can probably rip straight through flesh and leave nothing but mushy red stains behind.
Totally convinced.
Liar.
I can hear the voice again. It's brought a friend. How nice, I hope they have a hundred happy fat little echoes.
I have to assume they are voices, since they're just on the edge of...hearing. It doesn't sound like echoes of my thoughts.
What the hell does an echo of a thought sound like, genius?
They do sound like voices...like the sounds you hear extras in plays make. Just enough to sound like people.
That doesn't make them people.
The friend brought a friend. Lovely. And another.
Great, I'm afraid again.
If they're people, they're angry people. Sad people. Distraught people. Confused people.
Just like you.
Maybe this is the waiting room for the afterlife?
...maybe.
Suddenly, the curtain of the world is going to be pulled aside and we're going to be taken out of this sensory dep and into the fluffy white place, or the barbecue place. Gods, I hope they don't exist.
If they do, please, please, please let me go to limbo. Absolutes annoy the fsck out of me. I can take the murky confusion and foggy miasma, just so long as I can see something.
More voices. More sadness. More confusion.
I wish one of them would talk to me.
I wish...
Stop wishing for things, Spyder, it only leads to badness...
Something's opened the floodgates.
There's a million voices now.
Way to elaborate...
Ok, maybe not a million, but enough to fill a stadium. I can hear snatches of words. Sometimes it's English, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's English with another language layered in the background.
Can you hear me?
Answer me, can you hear me?
Assume that they can.
They sound mad. Are you mad at me?
Stop trying to communicate, just hide until you know something.
Great, now they're silent. I don't know what's more frightening, the fact that they stopped, or the chance that they heard me.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's not like things can exactly get worse.
Are you mad at me?
...they definitely know I'm here.
‘Sir.’
Ryan felt himself rolled onto his back and his shirt torn open. Rough hands touched the seeping wound, making him wince, and a viscous liquid was poured over it The liquid brought instant relief, though he could still feel the large chunk of flesh missing.
‘Sir, are you conscious?’
Taylor. It was Taylor.
He grunted, feeling the emergency pack begin to work its literal magic.
‘Where did she get the weapons, sir?’
‘Me,’ he choked. ‘She got them from me.’
‘But sir, you surely-’
‘She wanted into the weapons locker...she’s been researching...’ He opened his eyes and stared at the fuzzy shape of Taylor. The world was a lot darker than it should have been. The world was a lot more distant than it should have been.‘What’s the damage?’ he heard himself ask – even in this state, he was following protocol, he was trying to take charge, he was doing his duty.
The larger agent shook his head and faltered for a moment. ‘We’re completely disabled. I put us into lock down, to try and keep her contained, but Chaos help us if her interests turn outward and she shifts away.’
‘The recruits-’
‘Some got out, some-’ The combat agent looked away for a moment, and he knew what had happened to the rest. ‘Ryan, you know what has to be done.’
‘No!’ He struggled to sit up, but Taylor pushed down on his chest. ‘You can’t-’
‘Ten people are dead already,’ Taylor said, his voice devoid of emotion. ‘We have to stop her. We don’t have a choice.’
‘But I-’
‘Love her. I know, sir, we all know. But she’s not...You didn’t fall in love with a murderer, and a murderer is what we have to destroy. I’m sorry sir, but there is no choice.’
‘I can’t-’
‘You don’t have to. You couldn’t anyway. I’ll do it.’
He reached for Taylor as the larger agent stood, and walked toward the door, but his hand gripped nothing but air as he blacked out again.
He stared down at his recruit. ‘Come on Stef, wake up.’
Her lifeless form gave no reaction.
‘Don’t make me-’
‘Make you what, Ryan?’
‘Are you following me, my Lady?’
‘I’m only watching when you come here.’
‘How can I-?’
‘I’m not going to let you bring her back so that you can banish her to an oubliette.’
‘What if she goes mad, like Carol did?’
Human lips twitched into a smile. ‘She has an advantage there, she was already mad.’
‘My Lady-’
‘If you want guarantees of what will happen in this world, talk to my sister.’
‘I can’t have it happen twice. People died because of my decisions last time, and another was left incomplete. I can’t let it happen again.’
‘If you truly are this worried, then let her come to me, but don’t let her come back only to be locked in a prison, you aren’t that cruel, or at least, I hope you aren’t.’
‘I’m not,’ he said, unsure of who he was trying to convince.
‘Then don’t let yourself believe that what you’re thinking is even a choice. A few days ago, you sent a creature to me to get her heart back, what’s changed?’
‘I don’t want history to repeat itself.’
‘History doesn’t, people do.’
‘I-’
[Agent Ryan, this is Recruit O’Connor.]
He looked to Death and she gave him a slight nod before she turned to regard his recruit’s body.
[Go ahead, Recruit.]
He heard a toilet flush on his recruit’s end. [Sir, did you know that Agent Emily is-]
[Emma.]
[Sorry, Emma, is interviewing the whole team. Office politics give me the shits, but she’s apparently asking lots of questions about you.] There was another flush. [Just thought I’d give you a head’s up.]
[And you’re currently hiding in the bathroom to tell me this?]
[Sorry sir, some of the Solstice training stuck.]
[Thank you, Recruit, I’ll deal with it.]
[What...exactly do you want me to do?]
He sighed. [Ignore your Solstice training, tell the truth.]
[Yes sir.]
The connection was severed. ‘That woman gives me a headache,’ he muttered.
Death was gone – he was alone with the corpse and his piles of paperwork again. A laughter resounded through the empty apartment, and he walked from the bedroom out to the living room. Refusing to get his hopes up again, he followed the sound.
A translucent red Stef stood in the centre of the room, swaying to some unheard music.
‘I’m not going to be fooled again,’ he said to Death, who was watching the dancing girl. ‘It’s not a soul, what is it?’
‘An aspect. Haven’t you seen one before?’
‘I wouldn’t have had to ask,’ he said as he rounded the red ghost of his recruit. She was younger than the corpse in the other room – he guessed somewhere in high school. What she wore was nothing like in her wardrobe – a red dress, but everything about her was red so it was hard to be sure. Her hair was up, and make-up graced her face, making her seem uncomfortably grown-up.
‘So naïve,’ Death said, but her voice was light. ‘They’re scraps of thoughts made whole, incomplete dopplegangers.’
‘So, she’s thinking-’
‘They are memory, not true consciousness.’
Stef twitched and reached for her hair before pulling them back down and balling her fists at her side. He recognised the look on her face – she wanted to run, whatever she was doing, wherever she was, it wasn’t something she had done willingly. It had to be some kind of school dance, but he assumed that all his little hacker girl wanted to do was be locked away somewhere coding while devastating the local supply of baked goods.
‘The other one spoke to me. Sort of.’
‘They’re of the moment that they are, and this one, nothing more. They don’t know what came before, or what’s to come.’
‘Why-?’
‘Does there have to be a reason? Things don’t always happen for reasons, Ryan, sometimes they just happen.’
‘Yes, my Lady.’
The red Stef walked through him, shuddered for a moment, then continued across the room and through the wall into the kitchen. He followed her, unsure of what else to do.
‘Do you see them a lot?’
‘They’re not of me, nor are they of my sister. If anyone, they’re of my youngest sister. They’re not altogether common, but mostly mortals can work their problems out from the inside, instead of resorting to externalising their thoughts into incomplete forms.’
‘Does she realise she’s doing this?’
‘There’s no “her” to realise anything. She won’t remember anything you say to them.’
She walked through him again, but this time turned and seemed to focus on him. ‘You don’t look like the school ghost,’ she murmured before losing focus on him and walking back to the centre of the lounge room.
‘She keeps thinking that I’m the ghost,’ he said.
‘That is how you appear to her.’ Death paused for a moment. ‘Are you going to give her to me?’
‘I-’
‘Ryan!’ Death snapped. He drew back and shook his head. ‘According to their customs, you’re responsible for her. More so because she cannot make any decisions for herself right now. Accept it, or send her to me, those are your only two options.’ Her expression changed as she picked up the strand of his unfinished thought. ‘Your creators are the ones with a “policy” of non-interference. I am not acting above my station, I am fighting no harder than Fortitude does for his children.’
‘I meant no offense, my Lady.’
‘You never do.’
‘What if someone else sees the aspects, what do I-?’
‘They’re tied to her body, they won’t get out, so strike that worry from your mind.’
‘That only leaves a dozen others.’
‘You should go deal with your headache, so that you can concentrate on the important things.’
‘Emma would have my head if she knew what I was doing. I can’t imagine how Taylor will react, he-’
The hall was quiet except for the soft trickle of liquid falling through the hole in the floor. He pressed one hand to his healing wound and continued down to the hall.
It was all red.
The floor was covered in blood, the walls had strains criss-crossing them, even the roof had been splattered.
Some of it had begun to turn dark – becoming the ash it would be in an hour or so – whatever had happened was long since over and done with.
Taylor hung from the wall – pinned to it like a butterfly with fae knives. He was dead, there was no question – he was reading as gray on his scanner. There was no movement from the body, no breath, no struggling, no pulse.
He put a fist through the wall, then concentrated on the body. He’d never seen a dead agent before. Dead demons, yes, dead fae of all types, yes, even a dead goddess – so much as they could be dead, but never one of his own kind.
He swallowed – shocked that how fresh the memory was, even after all of this time. ‘He would do everything in his power to remove me from the Agency, and the world.’
‘And is that of concern at this very moment?’
‘No, my Lady.’
‘And what is?’
‘Getting that woman out of my Agency so that I’m still in charge when my recruit wakes up.’
‘Good,’ Death said, and faded from view without further ceremony.
He reached for the red Stef’s hand, the concentration it took stilling all other thoughts, and finally felt something solid in his hand. She looked up, this time unable to stop herself from focussing on him. ‘Hurry up and come back,’ he said with a smile. He lifted his hand, pulling hers up and spun her – the skirt of her dress twirling along with her, making her seem like a little red top. She giggled as she came to a stop, stumbling on the short heels she was wearing. She courtesied, took a step toward him, then disappeared in a mist of tiny red sparkles.
‘I’ve done my part,’ he said, looking through to the corpse in the next room,‘now please, wake up. I can’t help you if I get recycled.’
Stop screaming at me!
Stop it!
Stop it!
Stop it.
Stop saying yes. Stop saying no. Stop saying maybe. Stop asking why me.
I don’t know why me, I don’t even know what’s going on.
You’re all just as dead as me, right?
…this is not the time to tell me you aren’t real. Really here. Aren’t real or really here. I know you’re here, I can hear you.
Can you tell me where we are?
What the hell do you mean nowhere?
‘Recruit.’
Magnolia turned to see Edward, snorted, then turned back to the swinging punching bag.
‘Recruit, you’re next.’
‘I don’t respect your authority,’ she said as she delivered a savage punch to the bag. ‘When my commanding officer tells me to do something, I’ll do it. You aren’t him.’
The punching bag disappeared and she punched air. ‘It’s just an interview,’ Edward said as she shifted in front of her.
‘Also called an interrogation, and I only like those when I’m asking the questions. Or beating on those who don’t answer them.’
‘Have you ever been interrogated?’
‘Read my damn file if you want to know.’ She required the punching bag back into existence and punched it – imagining that it was the agent’s face.
‘I did, I just wanted to hear you say it.’
‘Inefficient,’ she said – spitting the word as though it was a curse. ‘Every Friday for the first six months I was here.’
‘Why did they stop?’
‘He decided that I was a trustworthy tool.’
‘It’s only a few questions, why are you fighting me on this?’
‘And the Solstice only murder a few dozen fey a week, why do we bother to fight them?’
‘That’s apples and oranges, love.’
‘Interrogate me if you have to, until I’m told otherwise, I’ve got no reason to listen to you.’
‘I threatened to put you on the grey list and your commanding officer did nothing to stop me.’
She shrugged and required a bottle of water. ‘You mean I’m not already on it?’ She unscrewed the cap and took a slow drink. ‘And it’s useless threatening me, I’m a recruit, we’re meant to be used, abused, then tossed aside and replaced with someone better.’
‘Professionally, Ryan is my main concern. The questions are-’
‘What could you learn from talking to me? I’m a combat recruit, the only time I even see him is when he dares tread on this floor.’
‘So, recruit, you’re basically saying that you know nothing of the man who runs your Agency?’
‘He only runs it by default, I know that.’
‘And do you know why?’
‘That’s information I don’t need to know.’
‘Do you want to know why?’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I like to concentrate on pertinent information.’
‘You really are a good little bitch, aren’t you?’
‘I like to think so.’ With that, she closed her eyes and concentrated on fading away. A slap across the face threw off her train of thought and she was grounded again.
The slap itself didn’t hurt, but nonetheless she stood shocked for a moment. She took a step back, tore one of the feathers from her hair, turned to face the agent and screamed. Concentrating on the feather in her hand and her hated heritage, she pitched it up into a shriek.
She could shriek at a pitch that would burst an agent’s eardrums – but she had something else in mind. The shriek continued, and she felt more feathers sprouting on her back, and then it happened. The shriek shattered before her eyes, stealing her voice for a moment, and reformed as tricks-of-light magpies, they circled Edward and attacked the agent, tearing at her face and suit. She closed her mouth and they disappeared.
‘And that proves what?’ Edward asked as she wiped at her face with the back of her hand. ‘That you’re more like your mother than you pretend to be?’
I’m nothing like her, you fucking bitch!
‘Well?’ Edward demanded.
I’ll claw your fucking eyes out!
She swallowed, trying to suppress the animal instincts her mother had gifted to her and turned toward the door. ‘Excuse me.’
‘I didn’t-’
‘Wasn’t asking permission,’ she clarified. ‘Was being polite.’ She slammed the gym door behind her, then faded from the world and reappeared in her room. She tore off her blouse and dropped it to the floor. Her slip and bra joined it as she stomped toward her bathroom – kicking the walls for good measure as she went.
Pulling the sharp scissors and the pliers from the vanity drawer, she silently seethed as she stared at her reflection.
Stupid bitch, you can’t goad me, I’m better than you. I’m better than you because I was trained by him.
She perched on the edge of the vanity and began to pull the feathers out – the new growth ones were the hardest, hurting the most and drawing the most blood. Grabbing the pliers, she pulled a few of the more stubborn new feathers out by their bases – unfortunately, this didn’t stop them from growing back at their regular pace. There was nothing that slowed them down – even a cocktail of avian drugs devised by the doctors had done nothing to impede her genetic legacy.
‘Fuck,’ she whispered as she pulled out one a little too close to her spine. She slammed the scissors down onto the vanity, required a couple of painkillers and swallowed them dry.
*****
‘I was led to believe,’ Taylor said he walked into the gym. ‘That you would be bothering the scholars.’ The sight of blood on the floor pleased him, as did the strains on the back of her hand.
‘They already gave me what I wanted,’ she said as she dropped into a ready position. ‘All I had to do was flaunt my accent at them. Your recruits, on the other hand, are proving to be most difficult.’
‘Difficult to you means they know their orders, and the chain of command.’
‘Especially that halfbreed of yours,’ she said pointedly.
‘Which one?’ he asked as he began to tie strips of fresh cloth around his fists.
‘You know which one. Now, get her to-’
‘Edwa-’
‘Ah, ah, ah,’ she snapped, wagging a finger at him as though he was a naughty child. ‘Remember, unless you want her gray-listed, use my bloody name.’
‘Em...’ he choked on the name again. ‘Emma.’
‘There’s a good boy, mummy might buy you a treat later.’
‘I can’t force my recruits to respect anyone. Respect is earned, and their standards are high.’
‘How about fear? I could live with fear, if helps get the interviews done.’
‘There’s nothing you need from us.’
‘And you think you can decide that? Oh wait...you’re a combat agent, you think you’re judge, jury and executioner.’
‘I’m an agent, that’s exactly what I am.’
‘This...this Taylor is why your archetype does not lead. You think your recruits are tools, weapons to be aimed and fired, well...that’s how real agents feel about your kind.’
‘You don’t want to know how I feel about your kind.’ The six-foot-three black Englishwoman regarded him quietly. ‘Women,’ he clarified.
‘You’re just afraid of us. Understandable, but do you have the same reaction to blondes? Maybe that’s the real reason you stay away from the tech division, and why your IQ stays so low. I want your halfbreed in my office in half an hour, or I’m grey-listing her.’
‘Your office is in London.’
‘Half an hour,’ she repeated before shifting away.
He concentrated, brought up Magnolia’s locater on his sensor and shifted to her position. It was a liberty he took with her that he didn’t take with any of his other recruits, when he needed her, she was his, so he never bothered to check in with her before shifting to her. Often it was...a tactical error, especially at night, when she would be using one recruit or another for her own purposes. Even then, one or three requirements had her cleaned up, dressed and at his side, ready to fight, die and do her duty.
It wasn’t night, so there should be no issue with a tactical error. He blinked slowly as he appeared in her quarters, she was alone, yes, but she was also half-naked. And bloody.
‘You’re scheduled for a mission tonight. You couldn’t wait eight hours to spill your blood?’ he said to announce his presence.
‘It won’t have any effect on tonight,’ she said carefully.
He considered this, and nodded. ‘I commend you for whatever you did to annoy Edward.’
She dropped a handful of feathers into the sink, wiped the excess blood from her hand onto the towel, and gave him a nod. ‘Thank you sir.’
He looked at her bare back – thanks to the adequate skills of the doctors, she had managed to avoid most of the scarring that he had from similar injuries, but even so, this round of plucking seemed to be taking its toll.
‘Abnormal growth,’ he observed. ‘Source?’
‘It happens sometimes, sir.’
‘Related to the blood in the gym?’ he asked.
She gave a nod as she grunted and pulled another handful of feathers loose. Without hesitation, he slapped her hand away, pushed her forward so that she was bent over the vanity, grabbed the scissors and began to snip away at all of the new growth.
‘It was Edward’s blood,’ he said, ‘what method did you use?’
‘So-something new,’ she replied as he grabbed her by the elbow and spun her to face him. ‘I didn’t want to waste your time on a technique that didn’t work, sir.’
‘Good,’ he snapped, and released her elbow.
She straightened herself, trying to look composed, despite the lack of clothing. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’
‘Edwards wants you in half an hour. He’s down with the scholars.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Answer his damn questions. Then write up a proposal for the generation of a new field agent, get a scholar to help you with it if you need, I’d rather train a new commander than follow his orders.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I want the proposal by twenty-one-hundred.’
‘Yes sir. Any specifics you’d like me to include?’
‘I can include the specifics, you won’t be able to access the files.’
‘Yes sir, of course sir.’ She required herself into a new shirt. ‘Sir?’
He growled. ‘What is it, Recruit?’
‘I’m nothing like my mother.’
‘Is that a question or a statement, Recruit?’ She shifted uncomfortably and gave no response.
He gripped her elbow, this time hard enough to bruise – pain always helped him make his point – and spun her back toward the mirror, making her stare at her own reflection.
‘I don’t see your mother, if I did, you’d be dead.’ He tightened his grip more, considering breaking the bone, just so she’d remember, but released it and shifted away.
Think about it, Spyder - nowhere actually makes a lot of sense. Nowhere explains the sensory dep. Nowhere would explain the lack of passage to the fluffy cloud place. If that’s where we’re going, I think it’s wise to hedge the bets...
No, no, no, nowhere doesn’t explain who the hell those other voices are. If it’s nowhere, why the hell is it so crowded? Shouldn’t it be more like, population: me?
Where the hell did you come from?
Use words that I can understand! I don’t…don’t use the language that…
Shut up and listen to them for a moment.
It’s not English, it’s not...I can’t understand them...
Astrin’s world, you’re from Astrin’s world, aren’t you?
Ryan looked up from the paperwork he was desperately trying to ignore. Paperwork he was doing in his real office for once – as much as he needed to avoid Emma, he needed to maintain some semblance of a normal routine. ‘Come,’ he said to whoever had knocked. The handle twisted and an agent, followed by a nervous recruit, walked into his office.
‘Williams,’ the agent said, ‘from Hyde.’
‘I know,’ Ryan said as he stood to shake the agent’s hand. ‘We met at that conference.’
Williams scratched the side of his head. ‘Gods, that was a lifetime ago, eighty-three?’
He nodded. ‘What can I do for you?’ He required two chairs, Williams sat, but his recruit simply stood and fidgeted with her briefcase.
‘Sit down, Milla, he’s not going to eat you.’ The recruit gripped her briefcase and sat, staring at him as though he might grow a second, violent, head at any moment. ‘You know what we do in Hyde.’
He nodded.
‘Milla is one of our Madchester spotters, and she saw something of interest to you.’ He turned to the recruit. ‘Go ahead.’
She popped the locks on her briefcase and began to rummage around in it. A frightful look crossed her face. ‘Billy, it’s the wrong suitcase...’
Williams smiled at her. ‘No, Milla, it’s not. We checked before we left, settle down.’
She swallowed and began to pull files out, dumping them on the floor. Half of a wrapped sandwich was deposited on his desk. ‘Sorry,’ she said, her face bright red with embarrassment, ‘yesterday’s breakfast.’ She grabbed a file and let the briefcase slide from her lap. She shuffled the chair forward and laid it on his desk. ‘Three hours ago, I was doing my normal walk around Manchester. Always the same route, I don’t deviate like the others do. You can’t get precise data if you deviate, you can’t notice patterns-’
‘Milla,’ Williams cautioned.
She pulled out a large colour photo. ‘I saw her. Him, I’ve seen before, and we all know who he is. Her...’
He took the photo. ‘Damnit,’ he swore.
‘So it is your recruit?’ she asked, her fear slipping away. ‘I knew I did good, Billy, I knew it!’
‘Enid Prest. Traitor. Who’s the-’ he stared at the fae in the photo. ‘Is that a goblin? It’s very tall for a-’ Williams nodded at him. ‘Oh. Him. Well, at least everything makes sense now.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Williams asked him. ‘Obviously you need to know what she did, besides working with a leech. If she’s out and about in Manchester, then obviously the recruit that shot her needs some more training.’
‘Unfortunately that recruit died.’
‘Sorry mate. What do you want to do about this one, then?’
‘She wasn’t very happy,’ Milla said quietly. ‘She kept arguing with him. She didn’t want to be in Madchester. And she doesn’t like Madhe. Kept calling her bad names. And agents bad names. And the city bad names. She knows a lot of bad words.’
He looked to Williams. ‘I’m not up to date on Court law, what’s the jurisdiction?’
‘If she’s openly rejecting the Court, then she’s got no right to claim sanctuary.’
‘Good.’
Williams stood. ‘So you’re coming?’
He nodded. ‘At least I’ll get to wrap up one loose end.’
Williams gave him a curious look. ‘That bad, huh?’
‘The mirror was...shattered, so we only got a partial. It also means that a lot more people potentially got their hands on pieces.’
The other agent shook his head. ‘I need to hear that story, but at least what they did get a hold of will be weaker, and a lot of little threats is better than one cataclysmic one.’
‘Depends on who you ask,’ he said. ‘By your leave.’
Milla looked up at Williams. ‘We’re going back Billy?’
Williams patted her on the head. ‘Yes love, you did good.’
‘I don’t like going back so quickly,’ she muttered, ‘I’m always afraid I’m gonna get the bends...’ Williams simply shook his head and shifted them all away.
He looked around mid-morning Manchester – it was so strange to be in a city with no fixed Agency presence – the Madchester scouts did their job, and their lead agents stepped in when necessary, but for the most part, they weren’t necessary, the city governed itself.
What few Solstice that entered were swiftly, and often violently, dealt with – unless they were seeking out the Court, then they were allowed to travel unimpeded. Demons didn’t visit Manchester – those that were insane were comfortable with it, or looked after by their brethren. The fae, no matter their station, seemed to universally respect Madhe and her ability to, if not control, then at least guide the throngs of people that came to her.
Those that saw things that weren’t there. Those that were visited by nightmares on an all-too-frequent basis. Those that were haunted by memories to the point where they were unable to function. Those that needed their little idiosyncrasies. Those that just needed to converse with a brick wall in order to organise their thoughts, or have an intelligent conversation. Those that had voices in their head.
Like Stef.
‘Where were you when you saw her, Recruit?’ he asked of the nervous girl.
Milla pointed across the street. ‘I was standing there. My reflection in the store window was odd. They were...’ she trailed and walked a few metres to the right. ‘She was here.’ She hopped back a little. ‘And he was here.’
‘He walks around in broad daylight without a glamour?’
Williams clapped him on the back. ‘You forget where you are. And he’s tall enough to be mistaken for a really ugly bloke.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand the mortal urge to rationalise everything away.’
The recruit pouted. ‘That a mortal-ist generalisation and I don’t appreciate it.’
He smirked and felt himself relax, just a little. ‘I do apologise.’
‘This may be where they were,’ Williams said, ‘but there’s no way that-’
‘Billy...’ Milla popped the locks on her briefcase and handed him a dirty sheet of paper. ‘This is former-Agent-Tate-now-goblin-Tian’s sighting schedule.’
‘And how often does he follow it?’ Williams asked as he shook the paper and required it clean. ‘It’s no use if it’s-’
‘He only follows it every second Wednesday of each month. Which isn’t today. I hate people who don’t follow their schedules.’ She pulled an apple from one of her bulging jacket pockets and stared at it briefly before biting into it.
He rubbed his eyes. ‘Where’s the nearest entrance to Madchester?’
‘Steady on, you can’t be that far behind on Court law, hell, that’s our law. You can’t take action on neutral ground, if you do, you’re no better than-’
‘Let’s do ourselves a favour and not speak of him. I have no intent of taking action, I just want to talk to her.’
‘Talking usually doesn’t-’
‘I’m just going to talk,’ he reiterated. ‘I’m a man of my word.’
‘Yeah mate, that’s our nature, but we all deviate from it sometimes.’
‘It’ll only be me who suffers if I break from my word. Where’s the entrance?’
Milla grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the corner. She pointed at the gap between the two buildings across from them to the park beyond it. ‘There’s always story thieves over there. Madhe keeps them as pets.’
Williams placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Remember the rules. Traitor or not, if she’s got sanctuary, there’s nothing we can do.’
‘I’m hoping she has asked for it, gods help her if she hasn’t.’
Milla grabbed her agent’s sleeve. ‘See? I knew he was scary!’
Williams simply nodded. ‘Good luck.’
He crossed the road, leaving the agent and his fidgeting recruit behind, made his way through the narrow space between the buildings – more of a default place to put bins than a real thoroughfare and to the park beyond it.
A halfbreed sat alone at a table, sparking fire with his fingers and staring at it until the light breeze extinguished each and every flame. A story thief across the park saw him and immediately ran, its appearance slipping every few seconds.
A tree turned to look at him, then slipped into its natural form – a nymph. ‘Visiting, collecting, causing trouble or here to stay?’ she asked, her hand hovering above the pouch hanging from her hip.
‘I request a meeting with Enid Prest, if she’s here in the Court. Four guards at the least.’
‘Oh her. I’ll give you a fiver if you forget the guards and-’
‘Four guards at the least. Mutual protection. So she’s here?’
‘Madchester isn’t big enough to hide from here. Wish she’d just give it up and go join Remmy or something.’ She sighed, caught a lock of hair in her mouth, chewed on it for a long moment, then blew three times into the set of panpipes hanging around her neck.
‘Four guards.’
‘I’ll get someone to spot another fiver and we can call it ten.’ He simply stared at her and she gave another short tweet with the pipes.
The ground caved in a moment later to reveal a set of steps. A thing young man, his arms covered in ugly track marks up and down his arms ran up the stairs. ‘Whatcha need?’
‘The loud-mouthed bitch-’
‘Which one?’
‘Tian’s pet. And an escort. Tune of four.’
An elderly hob appeared the young man and shook his head. ‘You don’t leave angels standing on the doorstep, lad.’ The hob beckoned to him. ‘Enter humble and no harm will come to you.’
‘I’m armed.’
‘Got two myself, wingless, you coming in, or are you going to let Mrs Rockeby’s excursion to the park see an angel arguing with with the denizens of Madchester?’
There was no choice – there was no use calling attention to themselves. It would also give Emma more ammunition to use against him.
He pulled his gun from his holster and required it away.
With a sigh, he followed the old hob down the stairs and into Madchester.
Dajulveed.
It’s such a strange word.
You’re an idiot Spyder, of course it’s strange, it’s alien.
It’s a forgotten word. It’s a forgotten world.
Angry voices are angry. Confused voices are confused. Now that I’ve heard the name of the world, I can hear them clearer. Not that that helps me understand what they’re saying, but it makes me feel more like I’m a part of a crowd, not apart from it.
It’s a nice feeling. I think it’s the first nice feeling I’ve had since I’ve been dead.
Great, now you’re part of something in a big nothing.
It’s still better than being alone.
‘You’ve never been here, have you?’ the hob asked as he casually swiped a hurricane lamp from a passing howler. ‘For an angel, you’ve got very little fae-stink on you.’
Ryan said nothing.
‘Did I hear you ask for four guards? Who you worried for?’
‘It’s for peace of mind,’ he said. It was a nice neutral answer that didn’t really answer the fae’s question, but he wasn’t there to answer questions, he was there to get answers.
A short courtier with pointy ears appeared in front of them, wielding a clipboard. ‘You guys were cuter when you had wings, now who’d you want to see? If they’re asleep, you’re out of luck, you’ll have to come back. I’d rather chance a scary angel than wake someone here.’
‘Enid Prest.’
‘She’s in the restaurant,’ she replied, tucking her pen behind her ear. ‘You can take him to the bridge room, we’re still finding guards.’ She threw a handful of glitter at him, then bounced off down the dark corridor. He coughed and expelled some of the shiny dust, then batted at his suit, not wanting to appear...shiny in front of a traitor he wanted to murder. And it was plain, simple murder that he wanted to commit.
There were some people that the world could do without. There were some people whose deaths would tie up loose ends and bring resolution. She had been a traitor, and Stef had paid the price. One life for another, it was a simple equation. Such a simple equation. But this was Court, it was neutral ground, and he could no break that. If he broke it, they would break him, and the wrath of Madchester was one to be feared.
‘Bridge room?’ he asked after following the hob silently down half a dozen twisting corridors.
This brought a smile to the hob’s face. ‘Wait and see.’
The “bridge room” was down at the end of a very long, narrow corridor. The door was old, and required the both of them to open it, however, once inside, he forgot himself for a moment.
There was grass beneath his feet, real grass, and above him was an alien sky – silvery ships twirled overhead, diving around great floating airships. They walked up the grassy rise in front of them and were given view of a marvelous alien vista – a massive bridge, half the size of his city, stretched across the ocean in front of him. Skyscrapers shot up from it, and huge cruise ships glided across the water beneath it.
‘Bridge room,’ the hob said simply and sat at a table that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He pulled a pipe from a pocket and lit it with the snap of fingers.
He shook his head and turned to the fae. ‘What is this?’
‘Bridge room,’ the hob repeated.
He sat at the table. ‘Is it imagined, or-’
‘It was the dying dream of a starchild, you can learn a lot from them if you don’t summarily execute them all.’ He let this pass without comment. ‘It was their world. It’s all scenery though, you can’t touch it, only what we’re sitting on is real. For a given value of real.’
‘Which mirrorfall was this?’
The hob sniffed the air. ‘Before your time, young one.’ The heavy door creaked and four tall guards filed in, standing around the table. ‘The restaurant is halfway across Madchester, your mark will take a few minutes. If she doesn’t run.’
He drove his hands deep into his pockets and began to clear some old cached data, just so that his mind was less cluttered – and other than conversing with a hob, there was nothing to do. He stared at the amazing bridge city as files returned to the collective unconscious. It was amazing, likely a relative-plus-three civilisation, yet it had fallen just as easily as any more primitive planet. There wasn’t any place that one could hide from a mirrorfall, there was no sanctuary when your world ended.
‘Agent Ryan.’
The voice was neutral and familiar, and he wanted nothing more then to turn and rip her throat out. It was a simple enough move, a grip and a pull, and if he timed it right, he could do it before any of the guards could pierce him with their halberds.
He balled his hands into fists, short nails digging holes into his palms. He rose from the table and turned to face his former recruit.
‘There’s no need,’ he said, ‘to act innocent.’
Some of the feigned innocence dropped from her face. ‘You know I had a history with the Court, you knew it before I did.’
He wished her dead, but she stayed standing. ‘You’re a traitor.’
She balled her hands into fists. ‘Well, come on then, let’s have it out, you bastard!’
‘He can’t do anything to you, Eeny,’ the all-too-tall goblin following her said. ‘Court rules. This is neutral ground.’
‘Fuck the Court, you know what he is.’ She turned back to him, hatred burning through her expression. ‘It’s my words against hers, and you’re going to believe your whore, aren’t you?’
He laughed, then closed the distance between them before the guards could react. ‘Do you really think the only thing we can rely on is the word of one mortal over another?’ He lifted a hand toward her face, and felt a grin cross his face as the “goblin” pulled her back.
‘Don’t you fucking dare!’ the “goblin” shouted. ‘You won’t walk out of here if you do that.’
The guards clustered around, but made no move to restrain him. He kept his hand raised, poised to attack her if his supply of self-control ran short.
‘You’re gonna slap me?’ Enid asked incredulously. ‘Oh, how macho.’
He looked to the “goblin”. ‘Tell her.’
‘You ever see Star Trek, Eeny? The mindmeld thing the Vulcans do?’
His ex-recruit gave a nod.
‘Imagine something so much more powerful. He’d know for sure that you’re a traitor. He’d know everything you planned to do, and every other time you’d betrayed them for favour with fae, or with Court. He could know your plans, your hopes, your dreams, and it would hurt.’ The goblin paused for a moment. ‘It hurts them, because its not something they’re supposed to do, can’t do, until the direst of circumstances. It’s the one power the gods gave them so that everyone can remember that in comparison to them, mortals are just pathetic. They can use it to destroy you. To make you eternally scared. To take away your ability to understand, or to be understood. They can take away your ability to say “I love you” or “that hurts”. Angels are scary motherfuckers, never forget that.’
‘You should know Tate,’ he said.
‘What did you call me?’ the goblin asked.
‘Tate,’ he snapped at the goblin. ‘I called you Tate, that’s your name. Or it was, before you forgot your duty and became an indentured pet.’ The goblin ran. He turned to Enid. ‘Sit,’ he ordered. The girl sat, and the guards relaxed a little.
‘So long as you can’t do anything to me,’ she said, ‘I may as well tell you I never liked you, like, less than Taylor, at least with him, you know where you stand. You, I mean, we half-expected you to snap at any moment and mow us all down with an AK-47.’
He ignored this. ‘To state the obvious, you’re black-listed.’
‘Pull out your Glock and end me or piss off, lists don’t mean much down here.’
‘Is your alliance with Madchester now?’
‘My preference generally lies with not getting shot.’ She gave an obscene hand gesture. ‘Pass that onto the bitch that plugged me in the chest.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘So very, very sorry,’ she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. ‘There’s plenty of whores here, use one of them instead. You were sleeping with her, right? That’s the only reason you let a geek into the squad?’
‘She’s dead, and it’s your fault.’
‘So go find another fuckbuddy.’
Neutral ground or not, the urge to reach across the table and choke the life from her was becoming overwhelming. He fought it, and fixed an unblinking gaze on her. ‘Have you asked for sanctuary here?’
‘I haven’t asked for shit.’
‘In the interests of being fair, not that you deserve it, you’d best beg the queen for it. Now.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘Then I’ll be within my rights to drag you from here, take you back to the surface, shoot you dead and leave your corpse to rot in Manchester. Something I would very much like to do.’ He let this sink in for a moment. ‘You may find that to be the easier option.’
‘You fucker.’
‘If you take sanctuary, you have to abide by it. You are only allowed in Madchester territory, if you step out, you’re fair game. You’re black-listed, so depending on who it is, it could be shoot on sight, or brought in for interrogation...’
‘I’ll save you the trouble of the second. I did it all for the rewards. Simple as. No higher calling, no belief system. Favours, power and pay checks, they make the world spin. Being a goody-goody isn’t fun, and you don’t earn favours with the people that actually count.’
‘You think that’s the only thing we’d ask you?’
‘Agents don’t scare me.’
‘I can tell, by the amount of time you’ve apparently been spending with one.’
This gave her pause, then she pulled a cigarette from her pocket. ‘There’s freaks and geeks here, but no suits, don’t know where you’re getting your info. Did I really used to work for you?’
‘It would seem not. So which is it to be?’
‘What, like I’d agree to execution?’
He leaned over the table. ‘You’ll only be safe within the bounds of Madchester. And you’re only human, you can’t see the barriers, you can’t remember every path, every safe building, which side of the street you have to walk on.’
‘And you can’t follow me every minute of every day.’
‘I don’t need to. There are local agents, there are local recruits, there are...third-parties. We’re not Solstice, we have no problem working with fey. It may even be a case of a gray-lister taking case of a problem on the black-list. You’ll have reason to remember why people fear what lurks in the shadows.’
‘Besides fapping perverts and agents, there’s nothing in the shadows that can’t be cured with a few bullets or a bribe.’
‘You’re no longer a recruit, you can’t require bullets. You can’t require a gun. You won’t have access to our doctors.’
‘I survived one bullet, I think I can deal.’
‘Bullets, perhaps, but not the reapers.’
‘Death doesn’t kill people, stop trying to scare me.’
‘I didn’t say Death. I said the reapers.’
This made her falter. ‘I don’t-’
‘Ask your “goblin” he said with a sneer.
‘So that’s it, marked for death, no rehabilitation? No second chance?’
He shrugged. ‘You aren’t worth it.’
He stood, and walked from the beautiful room, through the twisting halls of Madchester and up the stairs into the daylight.
Williams and his recruit sat on a bench opposite the stairs, the agent stood and walked over to him. ‘Come on, there’s a pub down the street.’
‘That won’t-’
‘You’re in my territory, trust the local, would ya?’
Resignedly, he followed the agent down the street toward a barely-open pub, the nervous recruit skipping beside him, swinging her briefcase like a toy. ‘Did...’ she began to ask, but ran to catch up with Williams.
The barman, chalk in hand as he scratched the specials onto the blackboard, waved them inside, abandoned the board and slipped behind the bar. ‘You I know what to get,’ he said to Williams, ‘but what about your friend?’
‘You come here a lot?’ he asked Williams as the barman poured a dark beer.
‘Only on days ending in “y” the man said as he placed the beer on the counter. Sars, love?’ he asked of Milla. She nodded nervously and munched on another apple.
‘What do you drink, Ryan?’
‘Scotch,’ he said after a long moment.
‘Make it a double,’ Williams said, ‘he’s just been you-know-where.’
The barman poured his drink, then one for himself. ‘Can’t help feeling like I should throw salt over my shoulder or something.’
‘Your establishment is two hundred metres from an entrance, if it bothers you so, why not relocate?’ he asked as he appraised the drink.
‘It’s not that,’ he said as he poured himself another drink. ‘It’s that so many come here. It’s like living across from an orphanage, or a pound, all that pain and not being able to do anything about it. Sad thing is, for most of them, it’s probably the best place in the world.’
He gulped down the scotch. ‘I was going to break neutral ground,’ he said to Williams. ‘I just wanted to...’
‘Everyone’s wanted to break neutral ground at one time or another,’ he said. ‘But we know better than to do it.’
He shook his head. ‘I need to head back. I can’t do anything else here.’
I can see.
There’s something insanely pleasurable about a first experience. The first time you eat your new favourite food – the explosion of taste. The first time you hear some big epic score pouring out surround sound. The first time you smell the ocean, the smell of the salt on the air. The first time you feel silk around your body.
The first time you see.
The trailer for the bastardised, sorry, updated version of Star Wars said something like “see it again for the first time”. I’m seeing again, and it’s the first time. Gods, it really is amazing.
It’s…a speck of dust I think, hell it could be an elephant for all I know, it’s not like I can blink or anything.
Stupid elephant, stop wigging in and out of focus.
I can see.
It’s not an elephant.
Stupid speck.
Well, not speck, it’s the edge, the speck is kind of like a bend or fold, there’s a point of light on it.
Stupid speck.
I’m dancing, I really am. Slash dance.
I think this means the end is close.
Whatever that end is.
It’d be cool if it involved elephants.
I wish the voices would come back.
Wishing isn’t going to do you any good, concentrate on the fact that you can see now, genius. Change is good, change means this place isn’t stuck and static.
Oh, great cosmic whatever, thanks for giving me the ability to see. I appreciate it. A lot. It’d just be kind of nice if there was something to look at except a kind of big prismatic reflecty nothingness.
I mean, some lint would be nice. I can do the lint watching thing for hours.
I did once, yanno, I was sick, and the power went out, and I didn’t feel up to getting Frankie out of the cupboard. Lint watched. For two hours.
Ooh! You can give me that clock now.
No clock.Fine. I’ll just go over…stay right here and pout.
The request for lint still holds.
Tian followed the agent’s scent out of Madchester and up into Manchester, across the park and to a pub. He pushed open the door – not seeing the agent that had invaded the court, just a local and a recruit holding a conversation with a dartboard whilst munching on chips.
‘I don’t serve goblins in here!’ the barman called. ‘Go drink out of a feckin’ trough!’
He ignored the barman and turned to the local agent. ‘Where’d he go?’
‘Back to the colony, back home. He got what he needed, if you want something, you talk to me, Tate.’ Hearing the name made his heart skip another beat. The agent turned to the barman. ‘We’ll be taking the back room, and for gods’ sake bring me some chips. And another pint. Make it two.’ He looked across to his recruit. ‘You alright to stay out here, Milla?’ The girl nodded, then sat quietly at one of the tables. ‘So, do you want to talk or not, Tate?’
He shivered. ‘Are you going to kill me?’
‘So far as I know, I can’t kill with my voice. C’mon.’ The agent lifted his half-empty drink and walked through the pub to a tiny room, with an unlit candle. ‘So, what do you want?’
‘Who’re you?’
‘Williams.’
‘And who’s Tate?’
‘You are.’
‘My name’s-’
‘No it’s not.’ The agent took a drink. ‘It’s the name they gave you, but it’s not your name.’
‘I’m an agent?’
‘You used to be. Then, you broke all three rules in one fell swoop and became the wretched thing you are now.’
‘Why-? How-?’
‘You’re a Madchester jester, you work it out.’
Two more pints were deposited on the table. ‘Chips are coming,’ the barman said before walking away.
‘There was a story thief-’
‘Not just a story thief, Tate. Thieves can’t take our stories in the regular fashion – the events can be undone, but we still retain the memories. The thief took her memories, but you...I’d assume your Queen had something to do with it. Everything to do with it.’
‘Her?’
‘Well, you weren’t that much of an arse to just betray us for no reason. You had your reasons. And some thought they were damn good ones.’
‘Does that include you?’
The agent shook his head. ‘No, mate, sorry. I’m one of those suckers who likes the rules. Love doesn’t make it ok for you-’
‘I can’t...I can’t remember anything. I know there’s something missing, but I can’t even get flashes.’
‘Nothing I can do to help. Nothing any of us can do. If we were anywhere else, I’ve have to bring you in, but you’re in Manchester, so you’re lucky.’
‘What would happen if you brought me in?’
‘Tired of serving the Court?’
‘Tired of being in the dark.’
Williams rested his elbows on the table and stared at his hands. ‘We’d interrogate you. You know exactly how, goblin or not, you can’t have forgotten about that.’
‘I can’t remember it, but I know about it.’
Williams curled his fingers in and rested his chin on balled fists. ‘Then we’d recycle you. If there’s enough agent left in you to recycle you, else we’d just gas you into nothingness.’
‘So if I come back, it’s a death sentence?’
‘You broke the rules, mate. All of them. There’s really nothing we can do.’
He scratched his sideburns. ‘I just wish I could remember something, to know if it was worth it, I mean-’
‘You were an agent, Tate.’
‘And that means?’
‘You never do anything without a damn good reason. Duty. It’s our curse.’ The chips were deposited on the table, along with a bottle of tomato sauce. A fifty-pound note appeared between Williams’ fingers and he handed it over, then seemingly as an afterthought, a further twenty. ‘For Milla’s tab,’ he said, ‘I assume she’s devastating your crisp supply.’ The barman nodded, pocketed the money, then left them in peace.
‘Your curse?’ he pushed, not wanting the agent to lose his train of thought.
Williams stared at his hands again. ‘Our curse, Tate. If you still know what we’re capable of, then a part of you is still an agent. That means you’re still bound to your duty.’
‘My only duty is to the Court, so much as it is. I’m at my Queen’s beck and call, nothing much is required of me.’
‘Then who does your loyalty lie with? Who would you lay your life on the line for? Who would you risk everything for?’
‘I’m a bloody goblin, there’s no-one, there’s-’
‘You’re not a damn goblin, it’s just the most degrading form she could gift to you. Now, who does your duty lie with?’
‘No-one!’
‘Ryan went in there to speak to Prest. How did you even know he was there?’
‘Think of me as her sponsor,’ he said as he snagged a chip. ‘Ungrateful bitch that she is.’
‘You took her to the Court?’ Williams asked, eyebrows raised. ‘I didn’t realise Madchester employed people with enough healing talents to cure a bullet to the chest.’
‘As a rule, we don’t. We’re not one of the violent courts, we don’t have bullets to deal with on a daily basis. We’re not the Agency, we like our people to live.’
‘Stop sprouting propaganda that you know is bullshit and tell me how Prest lived.’
‘Me. It was me.’
‘You called on the Ladies?’
‘Just the one. Life. She let me give Eeny a bit of myself. Now I feel like an even bigger part’s missing, and all I have to show for it is a loud-mouthed bitch. Probably should have left her to become a corpse.’
‘Then your duty is to her?’
He shook his head. ‘She’s just Eeny, of course it isn’t. She’s useful to the Court, and getting shot is a lousy way to die.’
‘You fractured your own life, think about that, Tate! There must have been a reason you did it.’
‘I wasn’t thinking! She was gonna die at my feet, it was the only thing I could do.’
‘Would you do it for Madhe? Don’t think, just answer!’
‘No.’
‘Would you do it for me?’
‘Why the fuck would I?’
‘Who else would you do it for?’
‘No-one!’
‘Then why’d you do it for her?!’
‘I just did!’
He shook his head and pushed himself back from the table, taking a step toward the door. Williams shifted in front of him and pressed a hand to his head.
‘This is neutral ground!’
‘Don’t tempt me, Tate,’ Williams said, his voice low and serious. ‘Just sit back down and listen to me.’
‘You wouldn’t fucking dare, Agent. You wouldn’t fucking dare.’
A photo appeared in Williams’ hand. ‘This is Eda Yates. This is who Agent Tate swore his duty to. This is who made him give up the Agency. She’s the reason you’re a goblin.’
The hair was different. The clothes were different. The expression on her face was different, none of her spite was evident. But...all the same, it was her. ‘Eeny?’
‘Eda Yates. Enid Prest. No matter how far removed you are, it seems your duty is still to her.’
He pushed Williams away and sank back down into his chair, clutching the photo. ‘I need- I... Eeny? I...’
‘Steady on. Take a minute to let it sink in.’
‘This is mad.’
‘Says the bloke employed by the Wonderland crew.’
‘But...Eeny?’
‘Believe it or not.’
‘Agents torture with truth, or so the saying goes.’
‘So Tate, what are you going to do?’
‘Get drunk, insult Man United and let justice take its course.’
‘A thief took her story, you can’t undo it, not that you’d want to.’
‘What-?’
‘You didn’t pick Madchester for laughs, mate.’
‘Gods...’
Williams lifted his beer, took a sip and stared at him over the rim. ‘Are you going to tell her?’
‘And what would I say?’ he said, poking at the cooling chips. ‘In another life we were lovers, wanna date me again? She thinks I’m annoying and worthless, and she blames me for getting her stuck in Madchester. Half the time, she sprouts that she’d rather die than be stuck there.’
‘Well, I think Ryan will have scared that out of her.’
‘Maybe.’
Williams recruit coughed to announce her presence. ‘Billy...I think we’re due back. If I’ve got my timezones right.’
‘Milla, we were only away for a few minutes, did you adjust your watch?’
‘I need to know the real time! And now I dun know if I set it back right! What if-’ A panicked look crossed her face, then it subsided. ‘No, no, silly thought, this is the wrong watch for that...’
He looked up at Williams. ‘I don’t even want to know.’
Williams shrugged and dropped another fifty on the table. ‘Go back to your queen.’
‘Court isn’t until tonight.’
Williams required a jacket and shrugged it on. ‘I wasn’t talking about Madhe, Tate. Keep the photo. It might help.’
He stared at the photo. ‘A-’ He swallowed and looked up. ‘Agent?’
‘I know what you want,’ Williams said as he smoothed out his recruit’s hair. ‘But you need to ask for it.’
‘Can I have a photo of m- I mean, can I have a photo of Tate?’
A second photo appeared on the table and an unfamiliar face stared back at him. ‘Stay in Manchester,’ Williams said. ‘I think you’re scum for breaking the rules, but I don’t want to be the one to bring you in. Just stay the hell out of Hyde. Please?’
He shrugged, mesmerised by the photo.
‘And can you say hi to my sister, please?’ the recruit asked, before hiding behind her agent. ‘She thinks she’s the queen of the bees,’ the small voice continued.
He looked down to the photos. ‘Sure, consider it repaying the favour.’
Turn!
Whee!
Turn!
Whee!
I’m a genius. Therefore, simple things amuse me.
I might not have a body. Probably don’t have a body, I mean, I could have one that I just can’t feel.
Doubtful.
Likely.
Possible.
Whatever.
Turn!
Whee!
No body doesn’t mean no new perspective. At least I can see where I’m trapped now. This nothing place is pretty small, or large, I don’t exactly have a frame of reference. I’m voting for small though.
Turn, turn, turn!
I’m also voting for no body, I think I would have puked by now.
This nothing place is…mostly curved, but it’s not a circle, not a sphere either. It’s some weird shape. Probably based on a fractal, or complete randomness.
Whatever.
Whee…
Magnolia knocked on Taylor’s office door, after a non-responsive minute, she twisted the handle and walked in.
There was blood everywhere. Holes were punched in the walls, furniture was upturned and a there was a report in the middle of his desk, impaled by a large knife. She carefully removed the knife and read over the sections of the report that weren’t folded or torn. Her own words stared back at her, and she realised that it was the reply to the proposal she’d written.
A negative reply.
The wall behind her exploded, the force blew her over the desk and onto the floor, but she was on her feet instantly, required gun in her hand. An ugly demon halfbreed struggled on the desk, but was silenced when its head was torn off.
She blinked and wiped some of the splattered blood from her cheek. ‘Sir,’ she said as she stared at him. His uniform was ripped, torn, burnt and bloody – all of his exposed skin was covered in cuts and bruises and the gym behind him was full of generated training enemies.
He glared at her. ‘Your proposal was rejected.’
‘I’m sorry sir.’
‘It was deemed,’ he said as he spat blood. ‘A preemptive action, as Edward has not submitted his report yet.’
‘How much longer is he going to be here, sir?’
‘Don’t know,’ Taylor admitted, tearing off a burnt section of his shirt. ‘Wouldn’t think it would take this long to assess an incompetent leader.’
‘Maybe that’s why it’s taking so long, sir?’ she suggested.
‘It only took the enforcers a week to completely overhaul Florence. There’s no reason Edward’s inefficiency should be hindering us this much.’ He stepped back through the broken wall, and punched one of the paused training aids.
‘Have you thought about confronting him about it, sir?’ she asked as she followed him through into his private gym – the broken bodies of several dozen training aids littered the ground, and a dozen more stood paused for him to take on.
‘It wouldn’t do any good.’
‘I’m sorry for my failure sir, if the proposal had-’ He smacked the side of the head to silence her.
‘It was rejected as being preemptive, no other reason.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Now there’s just the-’ He cut himself off and his eyes glazed over for the moment. ‘O’Connor entered a blackout zone fifteen minutes ago and hasn’t resurfaced – observe and retrieve if necessary.’
‘Of course sir, but...he’s field sir, what are the rest of them doing?’
‘This is the third time in a week, it needs an objective observation.’
‘Yes sir. Which blackout zone?’
‘The Wintergarden.’
Wanting to impress him, she snapped a salute and faded away. Ghostly pieces of ground appeared in her vision as her concentration lapsed halfway there, she allowed herself to fade back in, lest she be lost in the in-between place.
She looked at where she was in comparison to the Agency. ‘New record,’ she muttered. ‘Not bad.’ She shook herself and refreshed her clothes before walking up the mall. Requiring her headset, she pressed the button as she checked the knife in her boot. ‘Hey Mer, you on channel?’
‘Nopenope,’ came a squeaky-voiced reply – the tech recruit that carried around a turtle, if she was correct. ‘He’s asleep on the couch. Can I be of service, scary-warrior-lady?’
She sighed. ‘Just tell me O’Connor’s last known position so I know which part of the zone to start with.’
‘He just used his credit card at McDonald’s.’
‘How long ago is “just”?’
‘Three minutes...forty-six seconds. Forty-seven, forty-’
‘I get the idea.’ She required away her headset and walked into the Wintergarden.
It was such an anomaly – to have a permanent blackout zone so close to the Agency – it had been a bold move on their part, one that had cost the lives of quite a few of their people, but one that had been ultimately successful. It provided them a safe haven – one that, because it was such a public place, it would do the Agency more harm than good to venture into, even if the risks were worth it.
Staying out of the public’s general knowledge was a key element for both sides. She sighed and walked down the stairs – back when she had been in Cryo’s gang, the modus operandi had been “do it and damn the world” – he hadn’t cared if the media had caught sight of them, or how much Solstice or Agency attention they had drawn. His modus operandi had gotten him killed. His modus operandi had given her an actual purpose in life.
‘The fucking suits are here!’
Cryo simply shrugged and pulled his shotgun from his coat – he was a bad shot with it, worse than he was with a handgun, but he carried it because he thought it made him look cool. She held in a scream as he lovingly stroked it. ‘We’re ready for them.’
‘We’re not fucking ready for them!’
‘Know your place, bird-girl. If I say we’re ready for them, then we’re ready for them.’
‘She’s right, man, get us out of here.’
Cryo shook his head. ‘We’re not going to run from them. This is our last stand, it’s been-’
She punched him in the face. ‘Our last what? We’re petty fucking criminals, we don’t have last stands, we run so we can rip someone else off tomorrow.’
He swung his shotgun around and hit her in the head with its butt. ‘I could have left you to die, Mongolia, I didn’t. You owe me your life, now stand there and die.’
The Wintergarden was busy, as it always was – girls browsing the stores, people eating their lunch, or just tapping away on their phones. O’Connor was one of those.
An ex-Solstice recruit using a mobile phone in a known blackout zone. She tensed her leg, confirming that her knife was still there – she had a feeling she was going to have to use it. She pulled a feather from her hair and crushed it in her hand, taking a moment to centre herself. Taylor was fond of jumping to conclusions – it wasn’t a fault, as it had saved their lives more than once – but she enjoyed having all the facts that she could act without impediments.
He looked up from his fast-food lunch and saw her, he froze for a second, fear flooding his eyes. He looked at the phone, hurriedly typed a few more buttons, then laid it on the table, along with his hands. A gesture of fealty.
She quickly navigated the crowds and walked over to his table. ‘Hey Mags,’ he said, his voice neutral.
‘O’Connor.’
He attempted a smile. ‘Come on Mags, you can call me Curt you know.’ She gave him no response. ‘So...’ he said.
‘I’m giving you a chance to explain yourself.’
He gestured to the Happy Meal. ‘Lunch. I always feel like I’m stealing when I require brand-name stuff.’
‘And you’d know a lot about stealing.’
‘You’re confusing me with the terrible trio,’ he said as he pushed the bright plastic car around. ‘They’re the thieves.’
‘No-one gets a third chance.’
He spread his arms wide. ‘I’m. Eating. Lunch. That’s all I’m doing.’
She snatched the phone from the table. ‘Then why are you in a blackout zone? This isn’t a standard-issue phone, it wouldn’t work in here if it was.’
‘You don’t yell at the tech recruits for having-’
‘The tech recruits don’t come into blackout zones for the purposes of illicit communication.’
‘My loyalty is to the Agency,’ he growled. ‘But this has nothing to do with them.’
‘You’re on probation, everything you do is of interest.’
‘I had to leave everything behind when I was transferred. Everything. When I come here, I get to be a normal human being for five fucking minutes.’
She just stared at him.
He picked up the phone, and pressed a few numbers, then tossed it up to her. ‘Here. This is what it’s all about.’
She grabbed the phone, and a photo of a little girl stared back at her. ‘What’s with the Kodak moment?’
He glared at her. ‘That’s my daughter.’
‘Is the mother Solstice?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but may as well be for all the communication I get out of her. I had to leave everything behind, but I still have a couple of friends there, sometimes they send me photos. I can’t go to the city, her mother refuses to have anything to do with me, and none of my letters get through. This is the only way I can see her grow up.’
‘She looks like she’s four, aren’t you just-’
‘Yeah, I knocked her mother up after our formal. Go ahead, lecture me.’
She simply snorted and handed back the phone.‘Remember who you work for, though. You have to stay the fuck out of blackout zones, or we are going to start monitoring you. Closely.’
‘Go ahead,’ he said, ‘I don’t have any secrets.’
My hands can touch everything but themselves.
Seriously.
I can feel, I can move fingers, I can feel my feet doing a hangman’s tango, but…I can’t touch myself, I can only feel parts moving, I can’t reach up and feel my face, or see if there’s any shards of mirror in me.
It could be some form of phantom limb syndrome, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be this detailed.
I can do the scary wiggling fingers thing, but I can’t lift my hand far enough up to see it. I can blink, but it doesn’t cut off my vision.
Kind of disturbing.
Also, the perspective from which I’m seeing things…doesn’t seem to have any correlation to where my eyes are.
It’s dissociative.
I just hope I’m not going insane.
Um, Spyder?
Well...you know what I mean...
Ryan jumped as a yellow hand reached through his chest. He shifted out of the room, and a ran an instant system inventory before he could calm down. He looked back through the door and saw her - another aspect, yellow this time. She fumbled with her drawer, opening yellow ghost-copies of the drawers that were there, and muttering to herself as she went.
He smiled for a moment, she was a lot closer to his Stef than the younger copy had been - this memory was recent, it had to be from the past few years. He wished Death was there - so far all of the aspects had been in sequential chronological order, starting from a very young child, to a teenager, up to a memory that was just shy of the inert girl lying five feet away. Either it was coincidence, or she was getting closer to waking up, and he hoped for the latter.
The sooner she woke up was the sooner she could go back to confusing him, and the sooner things could go back to what he had hoped was going to be normal. She turned from the desk, slipped something into the pocket of her loose shorts, then slammed the ghost copy of the drawer closed, then walked through him and out toward the living room.
Her expression confused him, the child aspect had been lonely, the teenager had been bored, this one was neutral, blank, as expressionless as a newborn agent. He tried to push the worry away - he'd seen similar expressions in the tech department from time to time, especially when, despite medical advise, Jones' recruits had stayed up for multiple days at a time.
‘What were you hacking?' he asked the aspect, hoping that this one would interact with him, that he could ask her to wake up.
The aspect walked into the kitchen, filled a tall glass with water from the tap, then walked back through to the living room. She sat on the couch for a moment, then slid down to the floor, leaving her back up against it. A ghostly copy of Alexandria appeared in her hands as she reached down and picked the previously-invisible doll up off the floor.
She lifted herself a bit, then extracted the box from her pocket.
He sat beside her and reached out to the aspect, idly trying to brush some of the hair back from her face, without really trying to make contact. There was nothing to worry about - this was just an insomniac hacker trying to get some sleep - the location didn't bother him, so far he'd seen her fall asleep on a stool, on the edge of a building and in a crude pillow-fort, abnormal was normal for her.
She popped two of the pills, then took a slow drink from the glass.
After a moment, she popped another two and took another slow drink.
The same blank expression on her face, she lifted the strip of tablets and ejected two more. This time she seemed to hesitate for a moment before downing them with the prerequisite drink of water.
‘Stop it.' The serene expression was gone from her face, replaced with something a great deal less calm. ‘Stop it, Spyder.'
Her hands shook for a moment, the thin strip of tablets rattling the only sound in the apartment. The aspect's breaths didn't make any noise, and he wasn't bothering to breathe - there were more important things to do than breathe.
Like watch his recruit try and kill herself.
The serene expression returned to her face, her hands stopped shaking and she popped another pill - dry swallowing this one as some form of defiance. ‘No.'
‘You don't have the conviction to get to exams on time, so how the hell can you have the conviction to-'
Her face contorted for a moment, the serene expression returning before slipping into something manic. ‘You don't think you're helping with that?!' She drummed her fingers against the glass. ‘You don't think you're helping?! You're a fucking voice in my head, you're a fucking voice in my head!' She swooned for a moment, before catching throwing her hands at the coffee table in front of her and getting her balance back. ‘I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore.'
He watched as her hands moved forward a little, a ghostly yellow laptop appearing as she came into contact. Curious, he angled his head to try and see what was one the screen - but instead of logically displayed information, it was as she was seeing it, as she was remembering it. NO and NEGATIVE and CRAZYCRAZYCRAZY were scrawling themselves across the screen, obscuring whatever was adding to her pain.
He reached forward and tried to pull the pills from her grip, but even the level of concentration that had allowed him to make contact with her previous aspects couldn't breakthrough this time.
Another two pills were swallowed.
‘Stop it Spyder, stop it. You always listen to me, just stop it.'
‘No.'
CRAZY, WORTHLESS and INHUMAN populated the screen of the laptop, followed by an endless string of NO NO NO.
‘Spyder, you can't-'
‘No-one will notice until my corpse starts to stink.'
‘You've still got time to-'
She swooned again, and her grip became less sure.
She yawned, and he felt himself start to cry.
Hands fumbling and unsure, she managed to take another pill.
She reached forward and closed the screen of the laptop, a strangely sure, practiced motion and gave a tired smile. ‘Logging out.' She brought her knees up to her chest and sandwiched Alexandria there, staring at the doll through eyes straining to keep conscious.
‘Spyder, please-'
‘Don't beg,' she slurred, ‘it's unbecoming.'
‘We're dying, there's no need to keep up appearances.'
She gave a lopsided shrug and stroked the doll's cheek. ‘Lexandwa,' she whispered.
‘Hardball it is.'
Her hand twitched, its fingers slowly moving, unsure and unpracticed. They balled into a fist, then uncurled. In a movement far swifter than should have been possible, given her current state, her hand grabbed the doll's head, lifted it and smashed it against the coffee table.
‘No!'
In a second swift movement, she brought her hand down on the mass of sharp ceramic. Almost instantly, the coffee table was covered in splatters of the aspect's yellow blood She screamed, but even this seemed to exhaust her. She twisted her hand to look at it, and the large shards of ceramic sticking from her palm, when it turned away from her and was slammed onto the table again.
‘What are you doing?' she asked in a tired whisper, the pain obvious on her face.
‘Getting through to you.'
She blinked a few times, tears falling freely now, and reached forward for Alexandria. She pulled the doll close, holding it with her non-bleeding hand, then slipped to the floor. Once her head hit carpet, she made no effort to move, simply letting her hand bleed all over the carpet.
‘Didn't work,' she whispered. She lifted the doll and stared at its half-face and bloody dress. Her eyes drooped, staying closed for far too long this time, then shot open. With a grunt, she sat up and stared at he doll with crazy, tear-filled, rapidly blinking eyes.
‘What the? What the? No... What... Can'tbememorygottobedream... Can't be mem-'
‘Spyder, please, you're losing yourself.'
‘What am I remembering?'
‘Your angel.'
‘Some...' She swooned again. ‘Damnit, this was supposed to be easy...'
‘Killing yourself isn't supposed to be easy. Come on, stop this, you can always try again later.'
She made no attempt to move.
‘Spyder...'
‘Some angel he is...shouldn't I...I like pie...square root of pie is...why aren't pies square...'
‘Getupgetupgetup!'
‘Can't...tired...'
‘Don't fall asleep!'
She gave no response.
‘Spyder!'
The serene expression returned.
‘You can't let this happen.'
‘I want this.'
‘Liar.'
She closed her eyes and her grip loosened on the doll.
Had he had a heart, it would have skipped a beat.
After what seemed like a small portion of forever, her eyes flew open and she pushed herself up. Real fear flooded her expression as she stumbled toward the kitchen, falling over her own feet several times. With unsure hands she opened a low cupboard and pulled out an old bottle of vinegar - one whose label had peeled away with age and fumbled with the cap. After taking a long breath, she pressed the bottle to her lips and began to choke down the foul liquid.
Almost immediately she threw up, but she forced more of the liquid down her throat. She threw up again, and again, then she collapsed to the floor, crying and retching. For a moment, her eyes locked onto his, and she gave him the smallest of smiles before disappearing.
[Sir?]
[Yes, Jones?]
[Are you busy?]
He turned away from the body. [No. What can I do for you?]
[Could I see you in my lab?]
He shifted away from the apartment, and immediately sat in the spare chair near Jones' desk.
‘Sir, I hate to-'
‘There shouldn't be a problem with the security clearance,' he said to Clarke as he pushed the folders across the conference table. ‘Not since we started giving clearance to hackers, anyway,' he added with a smile.
‘Hacker? Why Jonesy, you've gained weight,' Clarke said with a grin. ‘Well, why isn't it him making this request?'
‘High marks in field aptitude.'
‘As in, didn't shoot the hob? Good, I'm sick of giving those buggers hazard pay.' He flipped open the folder. ‘Anything else to note?'
‘-there's this video that keeps popping up on YouTube-'
‘No, not really.'
‘-killed it three times already, but I can't find the original, or how it's being distributed-'
Clarke gave him a serious look. ‘Her psych results aren't that sound.'
‘-then, after failing to create his own Hogwarts in the basement, Merlin decided that we needed our own mounted division-'
‘She'll make a good recruit.'
‘-so now we have a small herd of unicorns in the garage. They all conform to uniform colours-'
Clarke shrugged. ‘Whatever, it's your funeral.' He lifted his hand and pulled an ID card from thin air, then waved his hand over the folders and "approved" was stamped on them. He pushed the card across the desk. ‘Godsspeed.'
‘-except for Magnolia's, of course, she's altered hers to look like the My Lil Goth Pony that Merlin gave her for Christmas last year-'
He raised a hand to his face and rubbed his eyes. ‘Of course, Jones, I'll look into it.'
‘You'll, ah, look into the herd of unicorns that we don't have?'
‘What?' He looked up at Jones and focused on him.
‘You didn't hear a word I said, did you sir?'
‘Not exactly, no.'
‘Sir, you look like you've seen a ghost.'
‘Ghosts don't bother me this much,' he muttered.
‘Pardon?'
‘Nothing.' He sat up and drove his hands into his pockets. ‘You've got my attention now.'
‘Sir, was there any reason to Richard Kimble off the Story Bridge and not inform me that someone had filmed it?'
‘I didn't know.'
‘There's always the possibility, I-'
‘I'm sorry, it slipped my mind.'
‘What were you doing chasing a howler anyway?'
He faltered for an answer.
‘Working off some Emma-related steam?' Jones asked. He simply nodded and Jones turned to his computer. ‘It's bad quality, so I didn't see the need to call in Clarke, but it's been driving the conspiracy nuts mad, especially when copies of get removed. If they get too riled up, I may just have to leave it there. You'll be a permanent addition to- You don't seem like yourself sir, are you all right?'
‘Not especially,' he said honestly. ‘But it's nothing anyone can do anything about.'
‘Emma won't be here much longer, I'm not sure there's much more she can report on.'
Turn.
Ok, that still works. Time for something a little more adventurous. More than...the grand adventure I was already one. Captain Hook is one of my favourite people of all time, but death wasn't the adventure he had imagined it was.
Move. Cool, that works too.
Move left. Ok, so apparently in the nothing world, left is right.
Move right. ...and left is right.
Move left. Now left is forward.
Stupid curved space.
The request for lint still stands.
I mean...who would want to die if this is all that awaits? No one would commit suicide anymore.
Of course they would. People are messed up.
Require: lint.
Yeah...knew that wouldn't work.
Dear Santa of the afterlife, all I want for Nothingmas is some lint. Love and cookies, Stef.
Still bored here...
Hey Ryan, is this your fault?
I mean...if you brought me back to life as a baby, does that mean I can't pass on now? That I'll be stuck like this forever?
Forever? Really don't want that.
Brain telegram to Ryan:...um.
Scratch that.
Second draft of a non-existent brain telegram to Ryan: Thanks for trapping me in hell. As a baby I didn't know any better, why not just let me die?
Scratch that.
Third draft of imaginary thingy: Thank you. I'm not wordy and sappy. You know what you did, thank you.
PS: Can you bury me with Alexandria please?
I'm a genius, and as such, I'm incredibly stupid sometimes. I only just now thought of opening my phantom mouth and talking. I tried to speak, and I could feel my mouth working, I could feel the air moving in and out of my lungs...which kind of brought up another interesting question: Why the hell is there air here?!
Could be fake air, like your fake phantom limbs and the fake thoughts we're having.
Scream, scream, scream...I can feel the pain building up in my throat.
You can feel pain. Interesting. Very interesting. Why would a dead person feel pain?
Pain in the afterlife, that kind of sucks.
I hope the years are flying by, I want to reincarnate into my chaos butterfly-self sometime soon.
I'm bored. And I think I'm hungry.
I should be having big important, profound thoughts. I should be looking out onto the edge of the nothing and imagining what lies beyond it...preparing myself for what inevitably - gods, please let it be inevitably - is to come.
Shouldn't all of that caffeine earned you a few extra lives?
I can hear.
Like really hear, not the voices I was hearing before. They were in my head, or I was in theirs, whatever. I wasn't using my ears to hear those.
I can hear my own voice. Because it's me, the first thing I heard was binary.
If I was a superhero, my name would be Binary Girl. I'd lasso peoples with zeroes and whack them over the head with ones. Hey maybe I'll do that when I...
When, genius?
Right. Can't do anything anymore. Won't ever do anything again. Won't get a chance to hit people with digits. Won't get a chance to...
I remember how to hear on the same day I remember how to cry.
Great. Just great, Spyder, you're so messed up.
It's getting dark. I don't get that. Why would the afterlife get dark?
Oh...maybe it's that time.
There's shadows behind the walls...I'm just kinda expecting everything to break down and fall away, me included. I'll fall free of this disassociation, get reconnected with my phantom body in time to fall into the darkness and the whatever comes next.
Ok, I'm ready to go.
Fire when ready.
It's been fun.
You came, you saw, you hacked?
Come on shadows, come and get me. I'm ready to go.
I think.
‘Fine, you won’t talk to me at the Agency, I’ll talk to you-’ Emma looked around the strange surroundings – the living room of an apartment. ‘Where exactly are we?’
Ryan turned – looking back at her from the doorway to one of the rooms, the guilt obvious on his face. ‘We’ll go back to the Agency,’ he said, trying to shift the guilt from his face.
She shook her head. ‘No. I’ve waited a month for you to speak to me on your own terms, now we’ll be speaking on mine.’ She walked toward him. ‘For one, where is this? It’s not really your style, so un-’ She looked into bedroom beyond him and saw the unmoving body in the bed. ‘What the bloody-?’ She tried to push past him, but he restrained her for a moment.
‘Emma-’
‘Just move.’
He lowered his hands and stepped aside so that she could pass.
She stared at the body in the bed – there was no question that it was dead. ‘That’s your recruit,’ she said as she scanned the face. ‘The one that-’ She raised a hand to her mouth. ‘Arcane mother of Chaos Ryan, if you’re into dead flesh, you’ve got trashmaids in your river, you didn’t have to-’
‘It’s not what you think,’ he said quietly, floundering for an answer.
‘You reported her dead. You reported her body stolen by Solstice. You- And all this time you’ve been-?’ She walked closer. ‘Dead girls in pyjamas is your kink? I guess the suits really do hide all.’
‘Are you going to let me explain?’ he said, shifting in front of her.
A glint caught her eye and she shoved him aside and pushed open the pyjama top. She stared at the wound for a moment, then tore the pyjama top open to get a get a better look. The mirror shone back at her. She reached for it, but he slapped her hand away.
‘Don’t touch it,’ he growled.
She straightened herself to look at him. ‘Mirror,’ she said at last. ‘You’re harbouring a piece of mirror?’ He said nothing. ‘I’d almost prefer that it had been the corpse-shagging, at least that’s easy to put on a report. “Sexual deviant, please punish”. But this... This is why you’ve been ignoring me? This is your dirty little secret? This is what you’ve... By the gods, Ryan, what were you thinking?’
‘It seemed to be the only thing to do.’
‘Mirrors must be destroyed.’
‘I know.’
‘Then destroy it!’ she said, pointing an angry finger at the wound. ‘Destroy it and maybe you can salvage something of your life-’
‘No.’
‘Mirrors must be destroyed,’ she repeated. ‘There’s a damn rulebook, have you ever read it? Don’t you ever feel it, scratching at the back of your mind when you disobey the rules? We are meant to be the order in this world, when you corrupt it, well then you’re no better than a fae. Or a demon.’
‘She died as the result of an accident. This is to try and remedy this.’
‘Are you a newborn?’ she asked through gritted teeth. ‘People do not come back from the Lady’s realm.’
‘She didn’t go to Death.’
‘That doesn’t change anything.’
‘It changes everything.’
‘No Ryan, it doesn’t change anything. Your feelings don’t change anything.’
‘If it had been a gunshot, and she’d used mirror to heal herself-’
‘Then it could have been left off the official record. According to all documentation...documentation you filed – she’s dead. Dead, Ryan, that’s why it doesn’t change anything.’
He shook his head, trying to retain his composure – he’d known that explanations were inevitable, but hadn’t known it would happen like this. He’d wanted it on his terms, not on Emma’s. Not on Taylor’s. Not on the Enforcers’. ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘There’s nothing you can say. Reach in there, pull the mirror out and destroy it.’
‘They wouldn’t go easy on me, even if I did that.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I guess they wouldn’t.’ She stood still for a moment. ‘You aren’t trying to run, I’ll credit you that. I guess a part of you is still an agent.’ She stared at him. ‘Destroy the mirror.’
‘I can’t.’
She shook her head, and lifted her hand, her gun appearing in it as she did so.
‘Don’t!’
She lowered her gun, just a little.
‘You’d thank me.’ He swung around and punched her. She caught it on the chin and did nothing but glare. ‘You would thank me, because you’d still be around, you wouldn’t be recycled and floating around in the collective unconscious.’
‘I’m not going to let you hurt her.’
‘There’s no her to hurt. That is a fucking corpse!’
‘If she didn’t go to Death, she’s not dead.’
‘No pulse. No breath. And even for a hacker, that skin tone isn’t healthy. She's dead, deceased! This girl wouldn't move if you put fifty-thousand volts through her!’ She paused for a moment. ‘If there’s no mirror, there’s no crime.’
He narrowed his eyes and straightened his back. ‘And if there’s no crime, I’ll be recycled over nothing.’
‘Reach in there and destroy the mirror, and allow me to bug you for a year, and there’ll be no need to speak of this again.’ She gave him a sad smile. ‘I can see what you wanted to do. I can understand attachment to recruits, but you know what the mirrors can do.’
He punched her again and turned to look at the heart, all of his thoughts on hold – there was nothing he could do, he wasn’t in control.
‘Even if she had woken up,’ Emma continued, ‘and even that wasn’t a certainty, you don’t know what would have woken up. There’s not one recorded case of a person being successfully reanimated.’
‘Not records are Agency.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means we aren’t our creators, and we aren’t the Ladies. We can’t know everything. We don’t know what will-’
Emma stared at the broken mirror. ‘What would have happened. You’re working your way through the stories, aren’t you? Your first was Pygmalion, this one’s Frankenstein.’
‘Don’t bring Carol into this.’
She stared at him for a moment. ‘Fine then, I’ll make the choice for you.’ She lifted her gun and fired.
The heart shattered, spraying small shards everywhere. She reached forward. lifted one of the larger ones and sliced him across the face. The gun disappeared from her hand and she dropped the shard on the beside table. ‘There. Problem solved. See how easy that was?’
He lifted a hand to his bleeding cheek and felt the deep cut.
She pointed to the shard. ‘No mirror. No crime. I’ll give you an hour. I’m trusting you to make the right choice. Let her go, and you’ll still have your Agency to look after.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Grow a pair, and show me that you can do this and I’ll piss off. I can always pick up the pieces once you monumentally bollocks this city this up.’
‘So you’ll be back in an hour?’
‘No, I’m sick of running after you. You come to me in an hour, and destroy that shard in front of me.’
He made a noncommittal noise, and wiped the blood from his cheek with the back of his hand.
‘Mirrors are wishes,’ she reminded him. ‘And the world would destroy itself in a day if everyone got their wishes.’
‘I’ll see you in hour,’ he said.
‘Fifty-nine minutes,’ she said before shifting away.
He pressed a handkerchief against the cut in his cheek and turned to look at the body. ‘That-’
The corpse spasmed.
‘Stef?’
The corpse spasmed again.
‘Arcane mother of Chaos...’
Stef opened her mouth and began to scream.
Shit.
Shitshitfsckingshit.
Shitshitshitkittenshit.
Why the hell am I staring at a bullet? I don't think I signed up to be in the remake of the Freak on a Leash clip.
Tur- no. Move! Move!
Everything is coming apart.
Move!
I don't want it to end like this. Gods, I hate inevitability.
Why are you still coming, you don't look like a heat-seeker...
Stupid curved space.
Shattering. Everything is shattering. The nothing is breaking down, the walls are...melting, breaking, twisting, bending. They're liquid, they're solid, they're gone, they're here.
I don't want to end this way. I don't want to die like this. I don't want to die.
I can see it twisting, it's so fscking ridiculous that one tiny bit of metal can strip away life. I mean, a tree can fall on you and you can walk away with scratches but...melted metal and black powder and...Don't hit me, please.
I thought I was ready, I'm not. I'm not, I thought I was, I'm not. I didn't bring this on myself, I didn't make a dumb wish, I didn't have a lesson to learn. I didn't get a chance. I didn't get my chance. This isn't fair. Life isn't fair, but this really isn't fair.
Move. Move. Run. Escape.
The nothing place is screaming as it's falling apart.
No, Spyder, that's you.
Fine. Take me, come on, hit me!
Who the hell are you being brave for, Spyder?
I'm right here, hit me already, stop drawing it out, make it quick.
Please make it quick.
Where's my damn last minute rescue?
I'm not ready.
I'm not sorry.
Ryan, save me.
Make it quick.
Save me.
Not like this-
Not like this-
Stef screamed as her dungeon finished falling apart - when the last piece disappeared from beneath her feet, she fell into the darkness with it.
Not like this-
It felt like falling, but there was no wind ripping against her face. No change in pressure making her ears pop. Nothing except the sensation of falling, and the utter blackness crushing against her.
I don't wanna die, please, please, I don't want to-
Spyder, you're still thinking.
She opened her eyes, and wondered if she had - there was nothing to see, except for her flailing limbs.
Suited limbs.
But if they're...
She pulled in a flailing hand and pressed it to her chest - there was ripped fabric there, and beyond- She shivered at the skin beyond it - it was as cold as ice, and felt almost rubbery.
You're dead, what did you expect?
‘Please...please, I don't want to die...'
Bit too late for that, I think.
After a moment, the sensation of falling ceased, and she found herself sitting on...nothing.
‘I don't want to die, but come on...stop fscking with me.'
A sliver of light appeared to her left. ‘Oh, fuck no.' She pushed herself to her feet and fell a little more. There's nowhere to run to Spyder. ‘Would you just shut up!' she screamed as she backed away from the light. ‘I don't believe in the tunnel. Angels wear suits and there's no fluffy-cloud land! Leave me alone!'
Don't ask for that. Alone is what we've been for...however long that was.
The sliver opened into a rectangular door and she felt tears slip down her cheeks. ‘Don't I at least get a game of chess?' she asked in a whisper as the dull light invaded the darkness surrounding her.
* * * * *
Ryan clamped his hand over the corpse's mouth - there was nothing else he could do - screaming girls tended to attract attention, and Emma or not, he wasn't ready to make the body public knowledge.
‘Are you going to let her come to me?' Death asked.
‘I didn't do this,' he said as he desperately scanned the girl - despite the scream, there was no breath in her lungs, nor pulse in her veins. ‘I-'
‘Well, she's come to me.'
He stared at the shattered heart. ‘I failed.'
‘That, little angel, depends on your definition of failure.' She turned to the corpse and raised a finger to her lips. ‘Shh...' The corpse stopped screaming and he released his hand from its mouth. ‘Failure is only success when looked at from the wrong way.'
‘Pardon, my Lady?'
‘She's come to me, Ryan - what are you going to do about it? Are you going to let her go?'
He sat on the end of the bed. ‘If she comes to you, if I don't- She'll be able to pass through the void, won't she?'
‘Onto whatever comes after this existence, yes. If she wakes up, then no.'
He closed his eyes and he felt her cold hand wipe a tear away. ‘I have to let her go. I can't take that responsibility. I can't rob her of the chance to go the void.' He shook his head. ‘I can't turn another girl into a ghost.' He shrugged off his jacket. ‘When I heard her scream, I thought that's what she was. I give her to you, my Lady.'
* * * * *
‘I'm not coming!' she screamed at the doorway. ‘If you want me, come claim me!' She slapped her hands against her chest. ‘I'm lost property! I'm lost fucking property!' She choked back a sob. ‘I'm just lost property, just let me go home.'
A red ball rolled past her.
She looked at the doorway, a small figured darkened it. Confused, she reached for the ball-
‘Redred!' she squealed as she grabbed for the ball. Another was thrown at her, and she ran for the doorway-
She dropped the ball, and it bounced expectantly in front of her.
‘Game!' the small figure yelled. ‘It's game time!'
She picked up the ball again, and clutched it to her chest.
She stumbled toward the doorway. ‘Butbut...Lexandwa's broke!' she cried at the girl in gray. The girl grabbed her hand.
‘It dun matter. Now, throw!'
She slowly stood, and walked towards the doorway. The sense of malice was gone - and had likely only existed in her mind in the first place. She handed the ball to the small girl in the gray robe. ‘This is yours?'
The girl took it. ‘Ours!' she squealed, and threw it into the room- No, it wasn't a room. Heavy rain clouds swirled over head and a light breeze blew through the dead forest in front of them. The ball bounced against a felled log, then came rolling back towards them.
She stepped into the land, and the door into the darkness disappeared.
Solid feet on solid ground.
She crouched and ran a hand over the dusty gray ground. ‘I can feel it...'
The gray girl jumped onto her back. ‘Of course, silly!'
‘Who are you?'
‘The little one!' she girl said as she grabbed her hair and shook it. ‘Pony ride!'
‘No...' she mumbled and knelt. The little girl slid off and walked around in front of her, dropped to the ground and began to poke her knees with a small twig. ‘Where am I?'
The girl pointed around. ‘Here.'
‘No, where. Where am I?'
‘Limbo.'
‘Guess that's a step up from dead.'
The girl poked her again. ‘You are dead. Just waiting for sissy.'
* * * * *
Ryan looked up at Death after a moment. ‘I'm not trying to make the easy decision.'
She put a hand on his head. ‘I'd never accuse you of that.'
He straightened his back. ‘I'll destroy the mirror. I'll bury the body. Just another mess swept under the carpet. She'll be as forgotten as Dajulveed.'
‘Do you want to at least say goodbye?'
‘If you'll permit me.'
‘Of course.'
* * * * *
‘I'm not dead,' Stef argued. ‘I'm thinking, I'm feeling, I'm making my shoes dirty. I'm not dead.'
The gray girl shook her head. ‘Until you go the void.'
‘Look, I only had my behind-the-scenes pass for a week. I don't know all this stuff. Where's the exit? Where's the chess tournament?'
‘It dun work that way,' the little girl said, tracing circles in the dust.
‘Then how does it work?'
‘You wait.'
‘I'm sick of waiting.'
* * * * *
Ryan closed his eyes and let himself fade away from the world - it was so strange to disappear from the world with no specific place in mind - some people had lost themselves doing this, it only worked when the knew you were coming, and were welcoming you into their realm.
The gray world of Limbo was the same as ever - nothing ever changed. Its guardian sat with his recruit, bouncing a small red ball.
He had barely taken two steps forward when his recruit turned to look at him. Her mouth worked for a minute, before she swallowed and smiled. ‘Hi,' she said, tears glistening in her eyes.
‘Hello.'
There was a cold breeze behind him - signaling Death's arrival. His recruit's smile turned to fear, and she pushed herself to her feet, holding the red ball in front of her like a shield. ‘Don't let her take me!' she cried.
He looked around. ‘Where would she take you?'
She took a nervous step toward him - looking as though she was going to run at any moment. ‘You're here to get me, right?' she squeezed the ball. ‘I remember this place, this is where I was last time. Limbo means you can go either way, right?'
Limbo's guardian stood and poked her in the leg with a stick. ‘I already said: you're dead!'
‘Stop saying that!' she screamed.
He smiled. ‘Recruit, do you know you're yelling at one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse?'
She looked confused for a minute, then shook her head. ‘I don't care! I'm not dead. I'm thinking, I'm feeling, fuck it, I'm even crying. I'm not dead! Dead people don't feel anything! Dead people aren't scared out of their minds! Dead people don't just want to go home.' She wiped the back of her hand across her face. ‘Take me home, please take me home, I just wanna go home.'
‘Stef-'
‘You came to say goodbye didn't you?' she asked, her tone accusatory. She sniffled for a moment. ‘Thanks for making this all the much harder on me.'
He turned to look at Death for a moment. ‘You would have hated yourself if you hadn't come,' she said in a voice he knew only he could hear. He looked at her, all of his thoughts hers to hear, if she chose and shook his head.
‘You had to come.'
‘You came to watch me die?' Stef asked, looking around the small, gray world.
‘You're already dead, Stef,' he said, hating himself for the words. ‘That's why you're here.'
‘You brought me back before!' she said, dropping the ball. ‘Just do it again.'
‘It's not that simple.'
‘Yes, it is,' she seethed. ‘Just point me to the door.'
‘So I can watch you become a ghost?! I don't want that. I don't want you to-'
She ran.
* * * * *
Running doesn't change anything, Spyder.
Stef ran - away from the little gray girl, away from the imposing form of the reaper, and away from the one man she'd thought she'd trusted.
The forest was the only place to go - there was nowhere else to hide in the flat world. She pushed her way past the identical dead trees, further and deeper into the leafless forest.
Go back there and face up to it. You'd accepted that you were dead. There isn't anything anyone can do. But I- What you want doesn't matter, haven't you figured that out by now?
She stopped and leaned against one of the trees, too tired to go on. Slumping to the ground, she drew her knees up to her chest and buried her head.
* * * * *
‘I-' Ryan began.
‘How did you think she would react?' Death asked as she walked over to her youngest sister. ‘Her thoughts were screaming. She's been waiting for you to rescue her.'
He faltered for a moment. ‘It doesn't change anything. I'm not-'
‘I'm not the one you have to explain this to.' She pointed to the forest. ‘Talk to her so that you can both rest in peace.'
‘Yes, my Lady.'
He walked into the forest and following her footsteps made her easy to find. He found her leaning against a tree, staring at her fingers.
‘It won't matter if I run, will it?' She asked spitefully. ‘You'll just catch me. And the outcome will be the same.'
‘You can run, if it will make you feel better.'
‘You'll just shoot me in the back.'
‘No weapons are allowed in Limbo.'
She wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘I'm sorry I didn't let you shift me back. I'll keep my room clean. I'll keep my damn shoes clean. I'll stop being a hacker. I've learned my lesson. I've learned my lesson. That's what something like this is supposed to do, right? I'll get domesticated and get a puppy. Anything. Everything. Just please-'
‘You can't rely on stories.'
She reached up and grabbed a handful of her shirt. ‘I'm here,' she implored. ‘I'm right here. I'm thinking. I'm talking to you. Please-'
He crouched in front of her and pressed hand to her face. ‘Stef, it doesn't work like that.'
She leaned into his hand for a moment, then pushed it away. ‘Then how does it work? Tell me that, angel!' she said, spitting the last word.
‘Your body is there, in the world. It's been suspended for nearly a month-'
She looked up at him. ‘That's how long it's been?'
He nodded. ‘But...where your heart should be, there's a piece of mirror. The piece that killed you.'
‘I'd, er, kind of figured that part out.' She bit her lip. ‘Heart transplant?'
‘It's already acting as one.'
‘Then what's the problem?!'
‘Everything you are is bound to that shard of mirror. If you wake up, you won't be able to die.'
She gave him an incredulous look. ‘Dorian seems to manage that alright.'
‘You won't be able to die...ceasing to exist is another matter.'
She groaned. ‘Simple words please.'
He sat in front of her. ‘When a human dies, they come to Death. She takes them to the void, and they pass on to whatever's next.'
‘And what's that?'
‘No one knows.'
She crinkled her face. ‘Yeah, right.'
‘Death herself is simply a gatekeeper, even she does not know what lies beyond the void.'
She shook her head. ‘So?'
‘If you...come back, you'll be mortal.'
‘Yeah, and?'
‘You-'
‘I sold my soul on eBay!' she screamed. ‘If fluffy-cloud land and pointy-fiery place were real, I'd be screwed. I don't care what happens after life, I just want a life.' She buried her head again. ‘Can we get past this and to the part where you pat me on the head, give me a cookie and take me home?'
He shook his head.
‘Why not? Why the hell not? I don't care if I wake up looking like Astrin, I can turtle it down in the sewers, I always wanted to be Donatello anyway.'
‘The journey through Death's realm isn't easy. Even if you decide you want to...you may not make it. If that happens, you'll be a ghost. An insane, trapped, half-life, tormented until the ending of everything.'
‘I don't care.'
‘Stef, there's-'
‘I don't care.'
‘You need-'
‘I. Don't. Care.' she said for a third time. She pushed herself forward and knelt in front of him. ‘About any of it. I've never counted on there being an afterlife, so if I'm cheated of it, no biggy.' She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him. ‘Don't leave me here. Please, Ryan, don't leave me here.'
‘You seem to be wavering, Agent,' Death said to him, and he knew that Stef couldn't hear her. ‘But, you know, you can't stop her from making the attempt. All you can do is dissuade her by telling her there's nothing back there for her.'
He looked down at the crying girl in his arms, and returned the embrace. ‘Don't leave me,' she whispered over and over.
‘There's the logical thing to do,' he said to Death. ‘And there's the right thing.'
‘And what about your headache?'
‘Sanctuary is always an option,' he said.
He patted Stef on the back, and after a moment she stopped crying and looked up. ‘This is goodbye, isn't it?' she asked, clutching his vest.
‘No, it's not,' said as he helped her to stand. ‘Time to go home, Stef.'
Death stepped forward. ‘You know where to wait,' she said to him. ‘I need her for a moment.'
‘Of course, my Lady.'
* * * * *
‘Ryan?' Stef said as he retreated towards the clearing.
‘You've got no reason to be afraid of me,' Death said as she took a step forward.
She instinctively retreated. ‘Show me an ankh or a curry and I'll calm down a bit.'
Death smiled. ‘If you go now, you leave my jurisdiction.'
‘I know. Well, I don't, but I sort of get it.'
‘You carry a piece of my father within you. Look after it.'
‘Um, sure?'
‘Are you ready?'
‘But Ryan's-'
‘You aren't a child anymore,' Death chided. ‘You have to do this on your own.'
‘Then sure,' she said, puffing out her chest, projecting a bravado she didn't feel.
Death put a bony hand to her forehead and a door into the blackness appeared to her left.
‘Through that?' she asked sarcastically.
‘Just keep heading up.'
She took a deep breath and ran into the blackness.
Almost immediately it began to suck her down, but she fought against it, reaching up towards the faint light above her. She kicked her legs and felt steps beneath them. She stopped fighting for a moment and let her feet stabilise on them, then began to walk up.
‘Up,' she repeated to herself. ‘Up...'
She looked down, and saw nothing, but flashes kept coming to her. The scent of warm, fresh cookies wafted up, and she almost turned, but shook her head and took another step up.
I'm tired again...
She let one of her feet slide from the stairs and let it swing through the darkness. She looked up and saw a shadow of herself just in front of her. She yawned and her other foot slipped from the stairs.
Get back on the stairs!
She lazily reached up, and kicked, but got no closer to the light.
This is the poppy field, if you sleep now, you're doomed!
You're such a killjoy.
I'm the one that keeps us alive. Now, keep walking. One minute won't make a difference. One minute could mean everything, we've been dead for a month.
She took another begrudging step, but didn't feel the staircase. She kicked her legs, and went a little closer to the light.
That's it, there's good stuff in that light. Stuff worth staying awake for.
The light faded a little.
Stay awake!
I can't!
Then you are fucking useless, aren't you? You weren't worth the effort. No wonder everyone's abandoned you.
Shut up!
Make me! Take another step!
The light got a little closer.
Your godsdamned angel is up there waiting for you. Come on, you can do better than this.
I'm just a hacker!
And I'm just a voice in your head, now shut up!
Little by little, the light got a closer.
Come on Spyder, just a little more.
A moment later, she reached out and touched it.
There was a flash, and she opened her eyes.
Her real eyes.
Ryan blinked, and found himself back in the world again, unless retrieving a small child, the trip back from Death’s realm was always a lot quicker than the trip there. He focused on the body, which was still silent, still unmoving. She wasn’t back yet...if she made it back.
If she made it back.
He’d faltered, he’d given into emotion, again. It was no wonder that the agents that considered themselves the best looked down at those that let themselves be ruled by emotion, those that made the right choice, not the logical choice.
It wasn’t the logical choice to let her come back – not that it was really his decision, but he could have done more to dissuade her, more to-
Something caught the light – the mirror – and he watched as the shattered pieces flowed back into the pristine, simple heart shape. As he watched it, he hoped that the shard hidden in his pocket didn’t contain anything important.
She blinked.
‘This is going to hurt,’ he said as he watched Stef’s eyelids flutter – the eyes were always the first thing to move when life came back into a body. It wasn’t some extraneous twitch of finger, it wasn’t lips parting to take a first new breath, it was always the eyes. He sat beside her on the bed and grabbed her hands. ‘It’s going to hurt a lot.’
She screamed again – a scream of pain, not the inhuman scream of a body without a soul in it. She spasmed, every part of her body acting out on its own, nearly twitching her off the bed. A strong tug had her in a sitting position, holding her as the spasms continued. Holding her life this made it easier for him to remind himself that she’d made it back, that she wasn’t a ghost, that she wasn’t some half-life trapped in a human body.
The screaming stopped as suddenly as it had started, and she fell away from him, hands tightly gripping handfuls of the sheet. One hand ripped itself away and pressed itself to her bleeding chest. An even greater level of horror seemed to wash across her face as she managed to look up at him.
‘My heart isn’t beating,’ she whispered. She pounded weakly on her chest, her fist covering itself in her blood. ‘Make it beat! Make it beat! I don’t want to die!’
Forcing his emotions to take a backseat for a moment, he scanned her. Her heart was indeed still, just the unmoving hunk of mirror that it had been for the duration of her suspension...however, blood was flowing where it needed to go, oxygen was reaching her lungs, and colour was returning to her face...what little colour she had anyway.
‘It doesn’t have to,’ he managed to say as he pulled her fist away from her bloody chest. ‘You’re fine.’
She focused on him for a moment, then looked to her hand. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not.’
‘Fine,’ he conceded, ‘but you will be. Just relax.’ She took a deep breath, gave him a small nod, but her hands remained balled into fists. With a couple of small requirements, he was wiping the blood away from the flesh wound – in time to watch the hole in her chest slowly close, leaving only a faint scar.
He nodded toward her chest, and she slowly ran her bloody hand over the new scar, then looked up at him, the fear still frozen on her face. ‘Something’s wrong,’ she managed as she swooned. ‘I don’t-’
She threw up on him.
He recoiled from the stench and thanked the rational part of his mind, the one part of him with the presence to shut off his olfactory senses. She coughed, then heaved again. He stared down at the rotting ooze on his lap, then up at his coughing recruit.
‘Water,’ she begged as she wiped her mouth with her hand. ‘Water.’
He handed her a glass, and supported her with a hand as she gargled the water and spat it off the side of the bed. She dropped the glass, spilling the rest of the water and fell against him. ‘I feel terrible,’ she moaned. She coughed wetly again, then grabbed a handful of his shirt. ‘Please don’t sell Frankie.’
He required a towel and wiped her face. ‘I- What?’
‘Please don’t sell Frankie,’ she whispered again. ‘Or Alexandria. Or-’
He stood and pushed her back against the pillows, requiring new sheets and new clothes. ‘Why would I?’ he asked as he handed her another glass of water. She took a sip and spat it onto the towel. He then required a wet washcloth and began to wipe the blood from her hands.
She ran a newly-clean hand through her hair and let it fall over her face. ‘I threw up on my dad once, so he sold my pony.’
‘Well, I’m not your father.’ He said looked down at himself and required a new uniform, and after a moment, new carpet. The smell of rotting food mostly disappeared, and another thought opened the windows – there was no longer any reason to fear the howlers – they rarely attacked living targets.
She took a small sip of water, then placed the glass on the bedside table with a shaky hand before looking up at him. ‘Hi.’
‘Welcome back.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, ‘thank you, thank you, thank you.’
‘You did the hard work yourself,’ he said. ‘Trust me, there’s no need to thank me.’
‘But you-’
‘You walked through death yourself. You made the decision on your own. There’s no need to thank me.’
‘But you wanted me to-’ She balled her hands into fists and rested them on her legs. ‘It’s all right that I came back, right?’
‘You don’t know what you’ve given up by doing so.’
‘Yeah, I do. Nothing.’
‘Stef, you-’
‘You didn’t want me to come back, did you?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘You could have said that, I would have accepted that.’
‘No, it wasn’t that.’
‘Then what is it?’
He retreated to his chair, and looked across at her. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve done this.’ The memories were hard to think about, and speaking about it was even harder. ‘The woman I loved was killed, but when she tried to come back, it didn’t work, and I lost her again. I convinced her to make the journey, it was my fault. With you...it had to be your decision, I didn’t want to be responsible for another ghost.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘I never told you.’
She seemed to consider this for a moment, then looked back up at him. ‘I don’t really know what happened, it was kind of like...boom, then brain-in-a-jarness.’
‘You shot the mirror.’
‘That was the boom part.’
He allowed himself a small smile. ‘It returned the favour, it-’
She winced, so he stopped. She and looked around for a moment. He lifted Alexandria from the floor and silently handed it to her. She wrapped her arms around the doll, then stared at him through the doll’s red curls.
‘I found you on the roof. I told the mirror what to do, then brought you back here.’
‘And I’ve just been...lying here since then?’ She let go of Alexandria, and brushed her fingers over her heart. ‘What are these?’ she asked as she brushed her hand over the scars from the howler’s attack.
‘A fae tried to steal your heart.’
She gave vague nod. ‘Did I talk in my sleep?’ He shook his head – this wasn’t the time to talk about the aspects, that he’d been privy to her memories. ‘Wow, easiest babysitting job ever.’
‘We managed to recover and destroy a large portion of the mirror. The leech’s body was recovered. Enid though-’
Stef weakly waved a hand. ‘Shot her in the chest.’
‘Next time,’ he chided, ‘aim for the head.’
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them and stared at him. ‘Huh?’
‘When you left her, she wasn’t dead. There was enough of a spark left to let a goblin save her.’
‘Oh, fscking wonderful. Don’t worry, I’ll get her next time. I’m gonna need like a week off. Full pay, of course.’
‘There won’t be a next time,’ he said without thinking.
‘Huh?’
He looked at her for a moment, the unrevealed facts about the current situation on the tip of his tongue. ‘She has sanctuary with Madchester,’ he said to cover himself. ‘Agency rules dictate that no one is allowed to touch her while she is within their territories.’
He called up the time – only a few minutes of real time had passed since Emma had left, but he wanted to deal with her as soon as he could, just so build a buffer of time before he had to act. Enough time to explain everything. Enough time to find her sanctuary. Enough time to say a real goodbye.
Enough time to hide the evidence that she had come back.
‘Wonderful,’ Stef muttered. She yawned. ‘I shouldn’t be tired. I shouldn’t be tired, I’ve been sleeping all this time.’
‘Your body has been in suspension. You’d rightfully be as tired as the night you-’
‘I know it’s childish,’ she interrupted, ‘but could we avoid the d-word when possible?’
‘The use of it doesn’t change what has happened.’
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘I know that, I’m not a child.’
‘Says the girl holding the doll.’
She made a face. ‘You’re um,’ she said pointing a shaking finger. ‘You’re bleeding.’
He reached a hand to his face and felt the open cut. ‘It’s nothing. Just a little fallout from everything that’s happened.’
‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to run with scissors?’
‘Didn’t yours teach you not to shoot a mirror?’
She managed a smile. ‘I wish.’ She looked away for a moment. ‘What now?’
Now was the time to get rid of her. Now was the time for her to beg sanctuary with a court. Now was the time to disappear, start a new life – one that hopefully wouldn’t end prematurely as her first had. She yawned, and logic returned to its backseat.
‘You should get some sleep.’
She shook her head.
‘Stef, you’ve just been through something...traumatic, and you’re exhausted. The sleep will do you good.’ She shook her head and seemed to shrink in on herself even more. ‘You need to rest,’ he said. ‘Please, trust the opinion of someone far older than yourself.’
Her shoulders drooped. ‘Well, I’m sorry I’m not a thousand years old, like you.’
‘Only a few parts of me are that old,’ he said.
‘Which parts?’
‘That’s a conversation for another time.’
‘I’m not going to sleep,’ she said with a shaking voice.
He watched her run her fingers through the doll’s hair. ‘You’re afraid of not waking up, aren’t you?’
She was completely still for a few moments, then gave a small nod.
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re here, and so far as I can tell, you’re fine-’
‘I’m not fine.’
She said it, and he knew it was true. It was impossible to to adjust to life again this quickly – especially after having been gone for so long – there were very few he knew of that had suffered through such a long suspension, most of the time it was quick – there wasn’t so much time for reflections or...Or aspects.
He rose from the chair and left the room.
She called after him, but only once. He quickly retrieved the book her youngest aspect had been reading, and walked back into the bedroom. In the few seconds he’d been gone, she’d risen and was halfway to her wardrobe. He placed the book on the bed and gave her the sternest look he could muster. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I was gonna go buy some coffee, fresh air and caffeine can keep me awake for amazing long periods of time.’
‘You’ve got five seconds to get back into bed or I will drug you where you stand.’
She raised tiny fists, the too-large sleeves of the pajama top making them seem even smaller. ‘Won’t let you.’
‘It’s for your own good.’
She made no move toward the bed. ‘Heard that before. Not from you, but heard that before.’
‘I thought you trusted me.’
Wordlessly, she begrudgingly crawled back into her bed, her doll cradled in the crook of her arm. She watched him warily as he sat beside her, the book in his hands.‘This is the alternate to drugging me?’
‘It works remarkably well on small children.’
‘I’m not-’
He opened the book. ‘Are you really going to argue that point?’
She pouted, and pulled the blanket up, trying to bury herself in the soft fabric. ‘I’ve been...gone for a month, I’m here for five minutes and you want me gone again. Asleep again, whatever. It’s too close, I’m too close, I can’t go back there.’
‘You can, because I’m here.’
‘Why do you want me to sleep?’
‘It’s the easiest way to deal with what you’ve been through, case after case has shown this, there have been too many times where people have...made themselves a denizen of Madchester by thinking about it too much. Everything will be easier if you just get some rest. There’s no reason to lose yourself so soon after coming back.’
She relented a little, some of the harsher emotions slipping from her face, leaving her looking more and more like what she was – a fragile little girl. He opened the book and began to read. By the end of the first paragraph, her eyes were drooping, by the end of the second, she was asleep.
The much-needed rest kicked in, and the tension fled her body, leaving her slumped awkwardly on the pillow. He made a move to adjust her, so that she didn’t wake up in pain, but only managed to make her slide on the pillows more, until she was resting up against him. Even asleep, she sensed the warm body and cuddled up against him – evidently he made a better pillow than the ones on her bed. Another moment passed, and then she began to drool on him.
He smiled, smoothed the hair back from her face and said a silent prayer of thanks. For once, something had gone right, and there was no better feeling than that.
‘Here, Emma,’ Ryan said as he quietly placed the shard on the desk beside her mouse. ‘This is the last shard that’s left.’
‘Really didn’t think you’d have the balls,’ she commented as she ran a long finger over it. ‘What’d you do with the body?’
‘I used another piece of the mirror to deal with it,’ he said – it was the truth after all. Or a truth at least. ‘That way, there’s no paper trail.’
‘Fine, now make this one disappear.’
He lifted it and hesitated for a moment – she’d seemed fine, but there was no way of knowing that the piece of mirror in his hand wasn’t all of her memories from before she was ten, her sense of taste, her ability to hack, or something as simple as being able to pronounce words with a double-t in them.
Mirrors were chaotic. Mirrors were of Chaos. He picked up the piece of mirror and crushed it in his hand. There was no way of knowing if it was a part of her, or which part of her it was.
‘Do it,’ Emma ordered, and he clutched the shard, the sharp edges digging into his palm, the magic pulsing against his skin, begging to be used. Hesitant and afraid, he still ordered it to destroy itself.
He buried his now-bleeding hand in his pocket and stared at her. ‘Where from here?’
She made a vague gesture near her cheek, and he remembered his own bleeding one. ‘Go see your tech,’ she said as she turned back to her monitor. ‘And we’ll put this whole bloody mess behind us.’
He shifted into Jones’ office, rather than walking the few metres down the hall – he didn’t like recruits seeing him bleed – it helped to maintain the illusion that they were indeed immortal and all-powerful. They were...except for the list of weaknesses longer than his arm.
‘Sorry for the intrusion,’ he said as he approached Jones’ desk.
‘We’re unfortunately used to that by now.’
He halted in his tracks, unused to Jones speaking to him like that.
‘Hearth out, you noob, and grab your tanking gear. Wiping here is what happens in PUGs. This is not a PUG. I thought you were just having a bad day, I didn’t notice that you were in your DPS gear.’
‘Jones?’
The tech agent jumped and pulled off his headphones. ‘Brb, boss aggro,’ he whispered before dropping them to his desk. ‘Sorry sir, what can I do for you?’
He waited for Jones to notice the open wound.
‘Fae weapon?’ Jones asked as he stood from his chair, walked to the wall and pulled a box of equipment from a tall shelf.
‘Mirror,’ he replied as he required away his jacket.
Jones placed the box on the empty bench, tapped his fingers on it for a moment, then opened it and began to retrieve small vials of brightly coloured liquids. ‘Where...did the mirror come from?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Was it adhered to a weapon? Do we have to issue a-’
‘The piece was destroyed, Jones, there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘As you say sir.’ Jones pulled a second box from the shelf and retrieved a helmet from it, then blew what dust he could from it before wiping it with his lab coat sleeve.
Jones handed him the see-through helmet and he cracked it open. He required a short stool and sat on it before wrapping the helmet around the back of his head pulled it closed across his face.
A grid of blue lights appeared in his vision and slowly cycled over his face, taking account of any and all damage.
‘Jonesy, are you still AFK?’ Merlin asked as he walked past.
He cycled through the last few seconds of memory – he hadn’t heard the door open, and so far as he knew, Merlin – unlike Magnolia – hadn’t learned to shift, fade or teleport. He dismissed the thought though – knowing he was distracted.
‘As I seriously doubt you’re going to continue without your main healer-’
‘Arty said he’d heal.’
‘Arty is a-’ Jones cut himself short as the scan appeared on the large screen above his desk. ‘Sir, there’s no damage but what we can see, so this’ll be a quick fix.’
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your game.’
Merlin walked over to him, placed his hands on his knees and leaned down to stare through the helmet at him. ‘Our guild needs a prot pally.’
‘-protection paladin-’ Jones translated from his desk.
‘Cause I dun really see you as a mage.’
‘I’ll pass, thank you,’ he said stiffly as the boy continued to stare at him. It was strange to be stared at through goggles – and he half-expected the boy to start jumping around like an excited puppy at any moment, or go curl up in the cardboard box beneath Jones’ desk.
‘...pony?’ the boy questioned.
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘Pony?’
He almost asked the recruit what he was talking about – but a fear that the boy was actually reading his thoughts stopped him.
Thankfully, Jones spoke up. ‘Merlin, the unicorn idea was already vetoed, and you can’t be upset because it wasn’t your idea.’
The boy looked confused for a moment, then his shoulders slumped. ‘But I was gonna...Never mind.’
Jones stood from his desk and walked over to the brightly-coloured vials, selecting two, and loading one into a hypodermic needle. He gently pushed Merlin out of the way and removed the helmet. The small boy grabbed the tech agent’s arm. ‘Doesn’t he get a lollipop or something?’
‘Merlin-’
‘You can’t perform medical procedures on someone without promising them something first!’ the boy screamed, almost hysterical.
[Please humour him, sir,] Jones begged over communication mode. [You know what his parents did to him.]
‘I’ve, er, been promised a- Um, big lollipop?’
‘Good, I’ll go get it!’ Merlin said, the fear gone his voice, as he scrambled towards the door.
‘Sorry for that,’ Jones said as he pushed his head to the side and poured the contents of the first vial over the wound. He then injected the contents of the hypodermic needle deep into his cheek.
He felt the liquid burning as it repaired the damage, and the familiar sensation of a wound closing over. After a moment, Jones retreated. ‘That’s one, sir.’
‘Thank you,’ he said as he required a handkerchief and wiped the remainder of the blue liquid from his face.
The hand was much easier, just a single injection and a gel patch. ‘Was that all of the injuries sir?’
‘Yes, Jones, I’ll let you get back to your game.’
‘Emma’s making them nervous,’ Jones said. ‘They’ve gotten over their infatuation with her accent, and they’ve realised what a dark cloud over us she is. Your recruits are quite a bit more resillient than mine. Mine want to fight monsters from a safe distance, and save the world, they don’t want to deal with officious bureaucracy. The only reason they can stand us as authority figures is because we’re “secret agents” and to them, that’s still a wonderful thing. It hasn’t became old hat.’
‘The idea of being a paladin never appealed to me,’ he said after a long moment.
‘Then you’re in the wrong profession, sir,’ Jones said. ‘We’re advocates of order, are we not?’
‘But to maintain that order to a point where a few black marks can tarnish a record? We really haven’t come that far, have we?’
‘At least we aren’t beheading each other over friendships with mortals anymore. I’ve become Merlin’s mentor and parental proxy, how long would I have lasted back then?’
‘This is...’
‘Did Emma bring up Carol? Is this what it’s about?’
‘No, it’s really not about Carol.’
Jones didn’t look away. ‘Then what is it, sir? You’ve been distracted, ever since the mirrorfall. I was wrong, it’s not Emma. She can’t have had this much of an effect on you. You’ve argued with Enforcers, so one agent from London can’t have done this to you.’
‘It’s not Emma,’ he admitted.
‘Then what is it?’
‘The professional relationships we had to maintain back then...They’re still all I have. My recruits distance themselves from me. All of them. They’ll hear the filtered story about Carol, or something else will happen, then all I ever get is “yes sir” or “no sir”. I can rarely fault them for their performance, but...’
‘You wish more of them were like Stef?’
‘In so many words.’
‘I read her file, sir. Shouldn’t be too hard to repeat. Go rescue a few dozen children under five, then wait twenty years, then recruit them.’
‘If only it were that easy. Remember when that warlock attacked that orphanage? I rescued more than a dozen children then. Not even one badly-drawn or badly-spelt thank you note. We’re meant to be anonymous, to fade into the crowd. We serve the public, but we aren’t part of that world, and if you don’t have friends within the Agency, then all there is, is work.’
‘You are always welcome to join us when we have a movie night. Or day. Or afternoon. I stopped asking you ten years ago because you never said yes.’
‘I’ll consider it. I have some research to do.’
‘Can I be of assistance?’
‘No, it’s basic research on the Courts, and Court law. The situation with Prest raised a few questions.’
‘Yes sir. We’re screening Close Encounters tomorrow.’
‘I’ll consider it.’
‘That response is why I stopped asking.’
He smiled. ‘This time, I’m really considering it.’
Stef grunted as she tried to get comfortable - there was something wrong with her pillow. It was warm, yes, and comfortable, it just wasn't familiar. She curled her hand into a fist and tried to mash the unfamiliar lumps into place, only for this to be met with a grunt of pain.
Pillows in her house generally being of non-speaking variety, she threw herself back from the grunting pillow, losing her balance and nearly falling off the edge of the bed before being caught with strong hands.
‘You should probably open your eyes,' Ryan said.
She did as she was told and blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the light - she was on her bed - well, mostly, two strong agent hands were the only thing stopping her to crashing to the laundry-free floor. He steadied her and she crawled back to the safety of the middle of the bed, one hand landing in a pile of paperwork. Ryan resumed his former position on the bed beside her, lifted the paperwork - and her copy of Wind and the Willows - onto his knees and smiled.
‘See, I told you that you would be all right.'
She lifted a hand to her head, and nodded. ‘Yeah, I do feel a lot better.' She gave him a confused look. ‘Was I using you as a pillow?' He nodded. ‘Sorry.'
‘It wasn't the first time I've been used in that capacity, and I doubt it will be the last, so don't worry about it.'
‘How long was I out?'
‘Only three hours.'
She folded her legs beneath her. ‘Ok, first thing's first, can you help me cash in my life insurance policy?'
He flipped open the top folder of his pile of paperwork. ‘According to this, your family already did.'
Her shoulder slumped. ‘You're shitting me.'
‘They also took the contents of your bank account.'
‘Wonderful. They'll waste it on one party. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Oh wait...' She held out her hands. ‘Money, money, money, require: money.'
He silently swore as she looked up at him with a confused look on her face. ‘Did I forget the magic word?'
‘The ability to require is severed at death. It's a security protocol.'
‘Ah,' she said and looked up at him. ‘In that case, require: coffee.' She stared at him until a white mug appeared in his hand.
‘Thanks.' Her stomach growled and she barked at it after she downed the mouthful of coffee. ‘Since I seem to have puked out the contents of my stomach, can I fill it back up? Cause if this is one of those "you can't eat" deaths, I'm going to off myself with a spork.' A sudden, and very uncomfortable look crossed his face. ‘Yeesh, sorry, didn't mean it, and it's not like I'd really use a spork, there are much more efficient ways.'
The uncomfortable look disappeared, but in its place was an expression far more neutral than she was used to. ‘You're hungry, of course, it's natural, I'll require whatever you want.'
She shook her head. ‘No, I want to go out. I've been immobile for a month, and if I'm saying that I want to get out for a while, then the situation is pretty freaking dire. I just want to go down to Chinatown and grab something. I think my legs can carry me that far. I think.'
‘If they can't, I'll be there.'
‘K...' she mumbled as she pushed herself off the bed and stumbled toward her wardrobe. ‘I can live with the funky new chair, but what did my wardrobe door ever do to you?'
‘I had to remove it.'
‘Can I have it back? It defeats the purpose of hiding in a wardrobe if you don't have a door to close behind you.'
He snapped his fingers and it was replaced.
‘Now, um...' She looked down at herself. ‘I don't know if you awesomed these clothes on me or if you saw my shame.'
‘I'm an agent, we're gentlemen by default. You-'
‘I meant my scars,' she said quietly. She shook her hands. ‘Not the point. Get out of my room so I can get changed.'
‘As you wish.' He rose and walked from the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
I-
You're alive.
I can't-
You're awake.
She walked over to the wardrobe, undressing herself on autopilot.
This can't-
You're fine.
She held a hand to her bare chest, feeling the lack of heartbeat.
I'm going to-
You're alive, you're awake, you're fine.
‘Pants,' she said aloud, ‘pants are definitely needed.' She groped at the high shelf and pulled down a pair of faded black cargo pants.
I don't have a heartbeat.
Maybe it's beating so fast it just seems like its standing still.
Don't you dare try and fool me with science.
Was worth a try.
She turned her head to look at her collection of shirts - a strangely ordered collection of shirts. ‘Oh, bugger...'
She walked over to the door, and stared at where she thought the agent would be on the other side. ‘Did you organise my wardrobe?'
‘Yes,' came his answer from the other side of the door.
‘Why the hell would you do that?'
‘I was...bored.'
She wished her stare could penetrate the door. ‘How am I supposed to find anything now? I mean, it's not like I plan what I'm going to wear, but if it's organised, then how am I-?'
‘You have four seconds before I require a shirt for you.'
‘You wouldn't.'
‘Four...'
She silently counted down as she stared over at her organised wardrobe. ‘See, knew you wouldn't-' Something brushed against her skin. Something awful.
She dropped to the floor and tried to pull the horrid thing off, but the complicated top stayed obstinately on. Ribbons criss-crossed with other ribbons, preventing her from escaping it. Ruffles scratched at her neck, fashionable frills mocking her as she still failed to escape the horrible thing.
Worst of all, it was pink.
‘You're evil!' she screamed at the closed door. ‘Four seconds is like...' Something unfamiliar escaped her throat. A laugh, a real laugh - not one mocking herself, not one mocking someone else, but a real laugh.
You're laughing?
I'm alive, I feel-
‘-good. I feel good.'
She stopped tugging at the ribbons then leaned back against the door. ‘Can I please have a real shirt now?'
The pink abomination was replaced with a plain gray t-shirt. She nodded, stood and pulled the door open. ‘Where did you find that...shirt?'
‘It's the magenta-'
‘Call it what it was, it was pink.'
‘Magenta.'
‘Narc.'
‘-version of something Magnolia wore last week.'
‘Ok, ready.'
‘Are you sure you're feeling up to this?'
‘Peking duck is calling. Plus, I've been dead a month, the sky might have turned red or something in my absence.'
‘Speaking of which...' he said as he reached into his pocket. He handed her his sunglasses. ‘You should wear these.'
She slipped them on. ‘Any reason?'
‘You haven't opened your eyes in a month, it's possible that sunlight could temporarily blind you.' He snapped his fingers and they disappeared from the apartment.
The hustle and bustle of dinner-time Chinatown met her eyes as she blinked. ‘Now where?' he asked.
‘This way,' she said as she started toward her favourite restaurant. After a moment, she froze, unable to move.
He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you all right?'
‘Have you ever stayed up for four days straight doing a hack, so strung out on coffee that you can feel it bouncing around in your veins, that you lose yourself? That...you catch a glimpse of yourself in the monitor and wonder if that's the real you, and you're just the shadow? And that as soon as this little glimmer of light goes away that you'll disappear forever?'
‘No, but I was once caught in a blackout zone and injured to the point where my memories began to fragment...and I wasn't sure what was the memory, and what was really happening to me.'
As uncomfortable as it made her, she leaned back against his hand. ‘I want to be numb. I want to feel something that's as strange as what's happening to me. I want coffee.'
A hand appeared over her other shoulder, a plain white paper cup of coffee in it. She gratefully took a sip, then grimaced. ‘How many sugars is this?'
‘More than enough.'
‘It only tastes like eight.'
‘Which is more than enough.'
She shrugged. ‘Not if you're me.' Falling silent, she quickly downed the rest of the coffee. ‘Ok. Better. Not completely better, but better enough.'
She began to walk again, then nervously grabbed his sleeve as he fell into step beside her. Everything was so...new. She could feel the concrete under her feet, the gentle breeze was the strongest thing she'd ever felt, all the sounds were as strange as if she'd never heard them before.
It was like being a tourist in her own body.
All she wanted to do was run back to her unit, lock the door and stay there forever. Surely it was safer than feeling like the only black and white thing in a technicoloured world. She felt out of place. Out of time. Out of her mind.
‘The only other time,' she said as she stopped to fiddle with her shoe. ‘That I've ever felt like this is the morning after that hack. Or afternoon. Whenever I woke up from the mini-coma. I came down here.' She pointed the McDonald's. ‘And went there. I wanted food. I was out of food, and I didn't trust myself to even boil water.'
‘It's fast food,' he reasoned. ‘How hard could it be to-?'
‘I tried to order food. I ended up sprouting Beowulf instead.'
He stopped walking. ‘Since this is you, I have to ask-'
‘Old English,' she said, anticipating the question. ‘They thought I was a tourist.'
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Did your "breakfast" eventu-?'
A bullet silenced him.
She watched as he fell to the ground, almost in slow-motion, his face slamming into the cobbled brick before he unceremoniously broke apart and disappeared, leaving only a few blue sparks for a split second.
This, Spyder, is the part where you run.
She looked over to where the shot must have come from.
Aren't I running?
You're being a target, that's what you're doing. Run.
She shook her head, snapping herself awake, ran a few steps and threw herself behind one of the large stone planter boxes.
Yeah...this isn't much better. Run...more? I know it isn't an activity you enjoy, but this is one of those times where you have to listen to me.
The ground shook as an explosion rocked the upper part of the mall. Ryan reappeared, and ran towards it.
Get up.
She got to her knees and looked over the planter box - two Solstice were dragging a screaming young man down the mall. He was doing all he could to impede them, but the kidnappers were much stronger - practically carrying him between the two of them.
No. Don't.
She turned and looked at the store behind her, lying near the door was a short length of thin pipe - the kind used to help open and close the roller doors - she scrambled across and grabbed it, took a few quick, sharp breaths and ran after the Solstice.
You're going to-
Don't want to hear it.
Since when the fuck is Stef Mimosa a hero?
...wanting to beat people with pipes is being a hero now? Order my cape!
She swung the thin pipe and hit the first cultist - he shouted in pain and released his grip on the young man - the second cultist tightened his grip on the boy and kept running. She lifted the pipe and hit him again, and this time, the pipe bent.
‘What's your fucking deal?' he yelled as he tore the pipe from her hand. He raised a hand to his head, but his expression changed when he looked up at her.
Remember that thing about running?
‘Recruit.' He said. ‘Shoulda fucking known it.'
Thinkthinkthink! ‘Kidnapping people is bad, lol?'
He grabbed her by the shirt, punched her, pulled the sunglasses from her face and let her fall. ‘These are recruit glasses.'
‘No, they're knockoffs!' she said, grabbing her bleeding nose. ‘Bought them at the market for ten bucks.'
‘Then I guess it doesn't matter that we just set off a blackout bomb.' She couldn't keep the horror off her face, and his expression changed from anger to victory. ‘Don't lie to Solstice, recruit. Only makes us enjoy the kill even more.'
Require: gun.
Damn.
Require: gun.
She tried to push herself up, but earned a boot to the face for her trouble.
Require: gun.
The cultist pulled out a gun.
Not exactly what I had in mind.
‘Ry-Ry-Ry...'
The cultist lifted the gun.
Gods, no!
‘Pl-ple-please...' she lifted shaking hands. ‘Ple-ple-please-pl-please please don't.' Her legs felt like ice - she was sure that even if she'd been able to stand, that she wouldn't have been able to run. ‘Please don't.'
‘You're a recruit.'
‘I'm not, I'm not, not-not-not, pl-please don't.'
Require: gun. Require: gun. Requirerequirerequirerequire...
The cultist shook his head. ‘Not gonna let you live, just so you can kill me.'
You're so pathetic. You should have run.
She took a deep breath and lowered her hands. ‘Can I at least stand up?'
‘No,' he said, and fired.
She saw the muzzle flash, and felt the impact. Unable to control herself, her head dropped back.
Gotta get up...why aren't you telling me to get up?
Spyder, you can't feel your legs.
A dark spot appeared in her vision, and everything began to go gray.
Oh.
That's it? No screaming, no crying, no-
Shut it.
-no bargaining? Come on, Spyder, react!
...why?
There was one bright spot left in her vision, and she clung to it.
Because you're going into the darkness, and that's going to be it.
I know that.
Be scared already!
No, you can be the scared one this time.
There's nothing irrational about-
The bright spot began to grow dark.
I brought this on myself.
Ryan heard the shot, and another quickly followed it. He spun and lashed out at the Solstice behind him, snapping the man's neck without further ceremony - kidnapping was one thing, especially when they hadn't had time to disappear their victim, when they opened fire in a crowded mall of civilians, they weren't interested in talking.
He shifted down the mall, catching sight of a grey t-shirt in the McDonald's she'd pointed to - knowing she was safe, he shifted again, following the Solstice that had run off with the young fae.
They were struggling to load him into a van - blood was running over his forehead, whether they'd hit him with a cudgel, or slammed his head into the van, he didn't know. It didn't matter. He lifted his gun, a single shot downed one of the men, two finished off the other.
The young man slumped against the van, rubbing his ears. ‘Coulda used a silencer.'
‘Not my style.'
‘Angels don't have style,' he said. He touched the blood on his forehead and grimaced. ‘I'm a fucking waiter, what'd they want with me?'
He scanned the young man - noticing that he wasn't entirely fae. ‘You're a halfbreed, they wanted to hurt you.'
‘I'm not on the grey list, couldn't your response time have been a little better?'
‘The word you're searching for is "thanks" or "thank you". If I hadn't been in the area, they would have taken you. You're lucky.'
‘Lucky isn't what I'd call it. My life's ruined.'
‘Do you wish to go to a safe house?'
‘Well, I think that's the least you can do.'
He waved a hand and shifted the ungrateful young man to a safe house - one near Sydney, so he wouldn't have to deal with the follow-up paperwork.
He turned back towards the mall and shifted to the McDonald's - looking in, he found he'd misjudged his recruit's location, that was, unless she'd somehow turned into a young man. He remembered the shots, and quickly scanned the mall, and was relieved to see a lack of corpses.
He looked across the mall, scanning for the grey t-shirt that he'd required, and was frozen for a moment when he saw it. The shirt - and the body it covered - were lying the ground. Another quick shift had him at her side.
Her head lay in a puddle of blood and unblinking eyes stared up at him. He took in the scene, preserve ring every inch of it for examination later, then dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around her and shifted her away from the prying eyes of the public - and the security cameras.
As soon as they appeared in her apartment, she rolled from his arms, landing heavily on the floor, the wet blood smearing the carpet. She clawed at the carpet, and after a moment, began to scream. A single thought filled the walls with soundproofing - no-one would hear the screaming girl this time. She took a breath, long enough to nearly choke on her tears, then collapsed fully to the floor, lying as still as the corpse he'd baby-sat for a month.
Then, the crying started.
He reached for her, but she shook off his advances, reaching her arm back and blindly slapping at his hand. She pushed herself up a little, turned her head at the coffee table and began to slam her head into the leg. Each slam was accompanied by a short scream, but he shifted the table away so that she couldn't hurt herself more.
He quickly shrugged off his jacket and got down in the ground in front of her, brushing the hair back from her face - just to make sure she hadn't hurt herself too badly. Tear-filled eyes stared uncomprehendingly at him, before she just screamed again and weakly pushed him away.
She collapsed again, both hands grabbing bunches of her hair, a look of terror plastered on her face.
‘He- No- I- Ahhhhh!'
‘Stop it Spyder, just stop it!'
‘Function gone, all gone, nobody here, all gone all gone all gone all gone.'
She lifted her head and slammed it against the carpet, smearing more of the blood onto the carpet. He reached for again, and this time, she snapped out, trying to bite his hand as he reached for her.
‘Nobody here no more, can't, he, can't, he, can't be here after that!'
‘You're here! You're here! Just shut up and listen to me!'
She rocked back and forth, the hands gripping her head shaking and flexing beyond and reasonable control.
‘All gone, all gone, bullet in the brain pan, squish! Squish! All over the ground! It was all over the ground! Can't- Can't be here now.'
‘Spyder-'
She one hand wrenched it free of its iron grip on her hair, and reached for the back of her head. It came away bloody and covered in...covered in small chunks of brain matter. She held the hand in front of her face for a moment, then began to scream again.
This time, when he reached for her, he ignored all of her feeble attempts to bat him away, with very little effort, he lifted her tiny body up onto his lap, and wrapped his arms around her trembling form. She slapped at him, but he ignored it, easily able to ignore the minimal sensation that it caused. Slightly harder to ignore was her slamming her head against his, but he held on, knowing that if he didn't, she was going to slip away, to somewhere that wasn't as easy to return from as Death's realm. She beat him a few more times, then tried to bite his shoulder. After a moment of attempting to chew through the fabric of his vest, she simply collapsed against him and wept.
He scanned her - internally, she was the same as when they'd left the apartment, externally, with the small, drying blood spatter on her forehead, her blood-soaked hair and the small pieces of...debris clinging to the back of her head, it honestly seemed as though someone had shot her in the head, and that she'd lain there, allowing the blood to stain her skin and soak into the neck of her shirt. It was a look he'd seen too many times, but the data conflicted itself, so there was nothing conclusive there.
He did a deeper scan of her brain, afraid that she really had a basis for screams...but her mind was intact, there was no missing pieces, not even the tiny one in her hand.
‘Squish! Squish! Oh god...squish...' She was still shuddering, still crying. He slowly rubbed a hand in circles on her back, trying to calm her, and turned his head to look at her. She was staring down at her blood-stained hand, and was rolling one of the small pieces of brain matter between her fingers.
‘Oh Jesus Christ...you can't be...I can't have thoughts without you...' Awkwardly, she lifted her bloody hand and pressed it against the side of her head. ‘You can go back in now...go on...go back in...incomplete without you...all gone...go back in! GO BACK IN!'
‘Stef...'
‘GO BACK IN!'
She knuckled her hand, trying even harder to push the small piece of debris back in, before simply slumping and weeping against his chest. Bloody hair stared back at him as he looked down at her, but he put aside his own feelings of disgust - he could deal with himself later, she was that was important at the moment.
‘I'm here,' he said, ‘you're safe.'
‘She isn't safe from her own thoughts.'
‘Shh...Tell me what happened.'
‘I can't!' she screamed, ‘I'm not all here!' With this, she dissolved into manic giggles.
He held her a little tighter. ‘Yes you are, you're all here, you're all right here.'
She stopped giggling, she stopped shaking, and she buried her head in his chest. ‘Heshotme,' came her quiet answer. She grabbed a handful of his vest and held it tightly, as if trying to draw strength from the cloth. ‘He shot me. In the head.' She ground her head against his chest, trying to hide it in the little space between his vest and his shirt. ‘Wasn't supposed to get a third chance, was I?'
‘Not so far as I knew,' he said.
‘Then...' she said shakily, ‘the hell happened?'
‘Did you see Death?'
‘No.'
‘Either of her sisters?'
He felt her shake her head against his chest. She exhaled a long breath against him. ‘I'm...I'm pretty sure I died. I mean-' she began to shake again. ‘You can't...that...and not...' Her grip tightened and her body went stiff.
‘I know what you mean, don't think about it.'
She pulled back a little so she could look at him. ‘How can I be thinking with a brain that has bits missing?'
‘It isn't missing,' he said slowly, ‘it's intact.'
Her eyes went wide, and she lifted both hands to the side of her head. ‘You can see my brain?' she asked in a hoarse whisper. He nodded, and she slid one hand over her forehead. ‘What about now?' He nodded again, and she just stared at him. ‘Ok, so you really are Superman. I never liked Superman.'
He lifted a hand to the side of her face. ‘Stef, are you-'
‘So far from ok,' she said as she leaned against this hand. ‘So, so, so, so far from ok. But...Yeah, no, just so far from ok.' Her head rocked back and forth for a moment. ‘And I'm so cold.'
That, at least, he could fix. He stood, easily lifting her as he did. Unprepared for the change in altitude, she simply whimpered and clung tighter to him.
A tub of warm water appeared with a thought, and he tried to lower her into it, but she whimpered again and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. Not wanting to hurt her, he again tried to gently pry her from himself.
‘Don't let me go,' she said in a tiny voice, ‘please.'
‘All right,' he said. He looked at the tub, and with a thought, changed it into one a lot larger. Without even taking off his shoes, he stepped over the the rim, and gently lowered himself and his recently-obtained growth into the warm water. She tensed up, then seemed to deflate as she was surrounded by the warm water. Her grip relaxed and her head slumped.
The clear water of the tub was immediately coloured by the blood on her hands, the tiny pieces of debris floating to the surface. Her grip relaxed, he managed to push her away a little, enough to lift her hands so that he could scrub away the bloodstains.
‘You're washing away me,' she said, her eyes fixed on the water. ‘That's...little bits of me, going bye-bye. Bye-bye! Bye-bye!' She slammed a fist into the water, a surprisingly definite movement, then buried her face in his chest again. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!'
He required replacement water - so that she didn't have to sit in water dyed by her own blood and looked down at her. ‘You've got nothing to apologise for.'
‘You hate me,' she said weakly.
He put a hand under her chin and made her look up at him. ‘How could I hate you?'
Her face went hard. ‘Easily.'
He required both of his hands dry and wiped away her tears. ‘Well, I don't.'
This only made her cry more.
‘Turn around,' he said, and she gave a small nod and turned away from him, her arms wrapped around her middle. After a moment, he required a comb and began to comb the debris from her hair. He again fought back his feelings of disgust as tiny pieces of brain matter brushed against his fingers.
He required a cup full of clean water and poured some of the warm water over her head, washing some of the blood away, and helping to loosen some of the blood that had become dried. An unexpected giggle came from her as the water ran over the back of her neck, but stopped abruptly, and she went back to holding her middle and moving as little as possible.
Acting like this, caring for something so small and so fragile, acting as...acting as a father, was something that had become unfamiliar to him. He smiled, knowing that he was going to get a lot of chances to hone that old skill set.
Half a dozen more cups of water, some more combing and a couple of small requirements later, her head no longer resembled that of a gunshot victim. A small requirement made her shirt disappear, to which she shuddered and hunched over even further. He simply brushed her clean-again hair from her neck, and scrubbed at the bloodstain, when he was satisfied, he required her into a clean set of clothes, and again replaced the water in the tub.
She slid away from him and turned around to face him, one hand covering her mouth as she looked at him. Slowly, he looked down at himself, and saw that his clothes were covered in her blood. One quick requirement, however, fixed that, and she seemed to calm a bit. After a moment, her gaze slid away from him, and she focused on the water.
‘I should have told you,' she said quietly, ‘that I was crazy.'
‘It isn't exactly something that comes up in casual conversation.'
‘If you'd known what a useless little shit I was, none of this would have happened.'
‘You aren't useless, you saved my life, remember?' He said, and she just stared at him, then went back to looking at the water. ‘I know now,' he said after a moment, ‘and it's all right.'
‘Except that it's really not, I can't expect you to treat me like people now that you know, now that I'm not even people anymore.' She slid a fisted hand up into her shirt, then began to beat it against her heart. ‘Ba-bomp, ba-bomp, ba-bomp, that's people, me? There's nothing there, no ba-bomp, so I'm not people, worse than that, I'm crazy not-people.' She slid back further and leaned back against the far end of the tub. ‘I knew you'd grok onto it eventually, I just figured I'd get to see some magic before I got outed.'
He found herself staring at her chest, and the mirror inside it. ‘Far more than you expected.'
She brought her knees up to her chest, dug her fingers into the fabric of her pants, then looked up at him. ‘How many rules are you breaking right now?'
Ryan stared at the tiny, soaking wet girl and wondered how he should phrase his answer. The look on her face didn’t leave a lot of room for a lie, or an obfuscation. A conniving part of him knew he could easily drug her back to sleep, and give him a few more hours to decide how to make her world come crashing down, or he could-
She licked her lips and curled her hands into fists. ‘There’s a reason we’re not at the Agency, isn’t there? A reason I’m not in the infirmary getting a hundred scans done on me.’
He simply nodded.
‘I could understand it when I just woke up...but with... This isn’t, rather, I’m not exactly approved am I?’
‘I’ve lost count of the rules I’ve broken, but it doesn’t matter.’
‘Highlights being?’
‘Using mirror magic, lying about you, reporting you dead, and,’ he looked down at her, ‘not destroying you when ordered.’
‘Someone found out?’
‘An agent named Emma. This was before you woke up though...I think it’s why you woke up.’
Stef screwed up her face for a moment, then nodded. ‘She shot me, didn’t she?’
‘How do you know that?’
‘The place I was...before it was the place I wasn’t, last thing I saw in there was a bullet smashing it all apart.’ She looked away. ‘I thought it might have been you.’
‘Why would I-’
‘No, not you, you...but maybe like...’She rolled her shoulders, then kept them up at an odd angle. ‘Like maybe I’d imagined everything and that you really did cap me at the mansion, that I’d just hallucinated everything while the bullet was smashing my brain.’ She dropped her shoulders and sighed. ‘What’s she got against me?’ She lifted a hand and stared at it. ‘I’m mean, I’m-’ she giggled. ‘Pruney! Really really pruney!’ She turned her hand to him, and he smiled at the puckered skin on her hand, and fought the urge to offer her finger paints. She took a breath and seemed to sober a little. ‘What does she have against me?’
‘Other than the fact that you’re-’ he paused for a moment, ‘that you were my recruit, she likely has nothing against you as a person, her problem is with what’s in your chest.’
She looked at her chest again, then back up him. ‘I don’t think I can have this conversation while soaking wet.’ He nodded, stood, and helped her to her feet. After a moment, the tub disappeared, and a second thought had them both dried. She retreated to the couch, sitting on one arm, her legs on the cushion. ‘You said it’s wishes, right? Wishes are...I mean, not that powerful, right?’
‘No, you’re wrong, they are very powerful, likely an order of magnitude beyond what you’re imagining. That piece in your chest, it would be enough to raise a small continent or create a weapon that could destroy the world.’
‘So...I am a risk, then?’
‘In so many words, but there wasn’t another choice.’
She slid down onto the couch, bringing her knees up to her chest. ‘Sure there was, you coulda just yanked it out and buried my stupid corpse.’
‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘Wouldn’t is more like it. It would have been a lot easier. Ok, so...what exactly is the situation?’
‘Legally, and according to the Agency, you’re dead. I didn’t know if you were going to wake up, I couldn’t know. There isn’t, to the best of my knowledge, a precedent for this – it would be arrogant to think you’re the only one, but there are no files I can reference on the subject. The only other person who knows is Emma, but I think I’ve thrown her off for the moment, I’d like to keep it that way.’
‘If I’m...’ she said after a moment. ‘Legally dead...why hasn’t stuff been given to Lifeline?’
‘The lease is in my name now. The spirit that owns this building was quite understanding once I explained that Solstice was involved.’
‘The what? Oh, well...guess that explains why he charges about half what this place is actually worth.’ She looked around the apartment. ‘So what the hell am I supposed to do? Go back to being a hacker?’
‘In fairness, you were a good hacker.’
‘I can’t live a little life anymore. Don’t make me go back to it, I mean, I’m almost used to talking out loud and expecting a response.’
‘You can’t come back to the Agency, not like this.’
She shrugged. ‘Tell them I was skiing?’
‘I don’t think it would take long for someone to realise that you don’t have a heartbeat. I hadn’t expected it to be so literal. I had…it wasn’t what I expected.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I expected one of two things: for it to be used up in the process of bringing you back to life, to restore you, then fade away.’
‘And number two?’
‘Strangely enough, my second guess was that you would turn out something rather like an agent.’
She looked down at herself. ‘Sorry, can’t require myself into a suit for comic timing.’ She sighed. ‘And what’s so special about you?’
‘It’s what we are, how we function. We’re…potential surrounding ash is probably easiest way to explain it. We’re skin deep, our internal functions are barely more than masquerades – at least normally – we can regenerate it all so long as our potential is intact. It doesn’t make sense unless...unless the simple act of bringing you back wasn’t enough to use it all up.’
‘So it’s just going to whither away every time I get shot, or just hurt myself?’
He nodded slowly. ‘That is a possibility.’
‘That would technically make me mortal.’ She chewed on a knuckle. ‘How technical is the definition of mortal?’
‘It varies, by stretching it, agents can be called mortals, gods could be called mortals. I assumed that you would have fallen under the traditional definition.’
‘Well, the bullet that went through my skull says otherwise, and I need to know.’
This caught him off-guard. ‘I’d rather not know, the only way we could test is-’
She bit her lip for a moment. ‘Shoot me.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘How could that thought even occur to you?’ He stood, and began to pace the room. ‘Do you comprehend what you just asked me to do? Miss Mimosa, you were correct when you declared you had a distinct lack of mental health.’
‘Oh, interesting. I say something you’re uncomfortable with, and I lose my first name. It’s not like it’s a right you can take away, or something.’
‘Stef, you don’t realise what you’re asking me to do.’
She looked away. ‘I was so afraid of him, I thought I was going to piss my pants. I…begged him. I don’t want to have to feel that again.’
‘And if it doesn’t work?’
‘You said something about permission to haunt you, right? If your pen rolls across your desk, it’s me.’
‘We don’t shoot humans to see if they’re mortal. We simply accept that they are and try not to get them killed.’ He walked back across the room and sat on the couch beside her.
‘Unless they’re Solstice.’
‘Yes, that.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s different though, most humans don’t have a giant blob of mirr-’ Her voice became muffled, due to the fact that his hand was covering her mouth.
‘Never say that out loud,’ he said quietly. ‘Never.’ He removed his hand. ‘Above all, that has to be a secret. You don’t know how many people will kill to get their hands on it.’
‘I trust you, and I need to know.’
He stood, pulled his gun from his holster and aimed it at her. ‘Do you really think I could pull the trigger?’
‘You were going to at the mansion.’
‘No. Not after I found out who you were. Every day for the past month I have been blaming myself for not shifting you back. Keeping an untrained recruit in the field was the height of irresponsibility. What happened to you was my fault. Both times. All three times. I’m not going to make it a fourth.’
‘So why is your gun’s safety off?’
‘Because I want you to realise what you’re asking me to do. I want to give you the time to contemplate on what will happen when I pull the trigger, and I want you to be frightened.’
‘I’m not frightened of you.’
‘You should be.’
‘I trust you.’
He pulled the trigger.
She shrieked as the bullet impacted the back of the couch.
‘I’m not going to hurt you Stef, we’ll figure this out another way.’
She stared at him for a moment before her face crumpled. ‘There was nothing!’ she cried. ‘I just stopped, and there was nothing. And I knew there was nothing. It was worse than Death’s place. There was just nothing. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t scream, but part of me was feeling it. She bit her lip, but he stayed frozen, not wanting to interrupt her. He let his gun disappear – it had served its purpose.
Slowly, she reached out for him. He extended his hand, and she pulled him toward the couch. ‘Is that where I’m gonna go when I really die?’ she asked him as he sat beside her. She held his left hand with both of her small, trembling ones – seemingly content with this much contact.
‘It’s why I didn’t want you to come back. If you’d gone with Death, you would have been able to pass, not...not whatever that is.’
She released his hand. ‘Fuck, what are the five stages of dealing with your own death?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I could give you a dozen platitudes, but I have the feeling that none of them would mean a thing.’
‘Well, come on, you’ve got to know something that will help.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said as he reached for her. She tensed for a moment, then relaxed into the hug. A thought had a cookie in his hand, which she grabbed eagerly, then began to chew on, dropping crumbs all over his sleeve.
‘Cookies don’t fix everything,’ she mumbled through a mouthful.
‘I know, but they can’t hurt.’
[Sir?]
He looked away from Stef, and fixed his gaze on the roof. [Yes Jones?]
[Emma’s moved the audit up, she wants us to do it now.]
[She can’t wait an hour?]
Jones rolled his eyes. [This is Emma, she says jump, she expects us to-]
He pinched the bridge of his nose. [That woman is infuriating.]
[At least it’s only three-hundred pages this round. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, and we can always pray for Solstice attacks.]
This brought a slight smile to his face and he nodded. [I’ll meet you in the conference room in a minute.] He dropped from communication mode and tapped the hacker on the shoulder. ‘I’m needed at the Agency.’ She turned her head up to look at him and nodded, then swallowed the large mouthful of cookie. ‘I’ve put some food in the fridge in case you’re still hungry, and I’ll be back in a couple of hours. The hardest part is over, you made it back, everything else will work itself out.’
‘Okies’ she whispered.
He required her another cookie, ruffled her hair, then shifted away.
Stef waited until she was sure that she was alone before she turned to the back of the couch, pressed her face into it and screamed until her lungs burned. Balling her hands into fists and digging her short nails into her palms, she stood and walked toward her bathroom.
The bathroom was unchanged, unlike her organised wardrobe and now-alphabetised DVD collection. She rested both hands on the vanity and leaned heavily on them, staring at herself in the small, rectangular mirror.
There was no scar from the bullet wound. There was nothing, nothing that proved that she’d been shot in the head.
Her reflection was the the same – same pale skin, same lank, messy hair – she looked as though she’d woken up after a long hack, not after having been dead for a month. She ran her hand across the mirror, the cold smooth surface making her shudder.
Until then, she’d never known what it was like to not be aware of something until it was gone – she’d always been able to replace her technology and sundry household items, and what few precious possessions she’d had were locked away tight.
A heartbeat was irreplaceable.
The cold chunk of dormant mirror weighed heavily in her chest, feeling more like something to be coughed out than the thing keeping her alive and upright. She pressed a hand to her chest and prayed for it to beat.
Nothing happened.
Unable to act against the one in her chest, she lashed out and attacked its proxy – her bathroom mirror. It was old, and shattered easily under the force of her punch. The sound permeated the tiny, empty apartment, and for once, she wished she wasn’t alone. Maybe she shouldn’t have-
A footstep made her realise that she wasn’t alone.
She turned away from the broken mirror to look at the beautiful woman behind her. The woman was tall, lithe and wearing a suit that screamed “agent”. There was only one person this could be. ‘You’re Emma, aren’t you?’
‘I am,’ the woman said, ‘and you aren’t supposed to be here.’
She wanted to deny who she was, to claim to be her twin sister, to claim to be just an identical stranger. Thoughts of running crossed her mind, but there was nowhere she could go to that an Agent couldn’t chase, catch up so quickly and-
Emma raised a hand, a gun – something a lot more substantial-looking than Ryan’s “girly-gun” appearing there, and without even blinking, wrapped a finger around the trigger.
She had time to slam her eyes shut before there was a loud-
There was a rush of thoughts, a scream in her throat that she didn’t remember starting, and the taste of blood in her mouth. She opened her eyes, desperate to see the world again, and found herself looking up at Emma, and the disappointed look on the woman’s face.
‘This is,’ Emma said, ‘going to be a lot more complicated than I wanted.’
Go away, go away, go away!
To her surprise, the Agent stooped, then sat on the ground beside her. The gun, however, was only tucked into her jacket. ‘What did the mirror do to you?’
‘Still,’ she choked, ‘trying to work that out.’
‘You won’t have the time,’ the Agent said, ‘you know you can’t stay like this. He may have indulged his guilt and brought you back, but that isn’t the sort of thing that reads well on a report.’
‘It was an accident, it’s not something anyone can blame him for.’
‘He should have torn it from your chest. Now that you’re...up and about, it’s going to be nothing but trouble for him.’
She pushed herself away from the agent and looked up at her. ‘What’s going to happen to him?’
‘That really depends on what happens with you. Your obituary was in the paper, so you’re accepted as dead. But it’s more than needing new ID and a new flat. If your face was caught on a security camera there’s a chance that one of the Agencies could see you, and then they’d go searching for you – and that would open up a whole new can of worms for him – he’d be questioned, if not interrogated, as to why you were alive. They could decide that he’s a liability since he’s lying on reports and all, and then decide to recycle him.’
‘...re-recycle him?’
‘In the bottom of every Agency is a chamber, it’s where we go when our current form no longer serves us. We enter that chamber, are restrained, gassed to death and torn apart into our constituent parts – our memories, our knowledge, our abilities, our prime functions and duties. Those parts are then left in the collective unconscious until a new agent is needed.’
‘So it’s like death, isn’t?’
‘If you’re defining death as no longer being the person you were, then yes.’
‘He could die because of me?’
‘Yes,’ the agent said. ‘Do you know how powerful that heart of yours is?’
‘I’ve got some idea...’
‘Obviously not enough – do you have any idea what the Solstice would do with it?’ She let that hang in the air for a moment. ‘And who do you think would get the blame for it? Or...if having that inside of you drives you mad and you use it to blow up a city block, the same thing would happen.’
‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘You don’t know what you’d do. We don’t know what you’ll do. We have no information on this, we have no frame of reference, we have no...clue if this will even last. What you did on the roof was brave, yes, but stupid. You stopped the Solstice and the opportunists from getting their hands on a large portion of the mirror, but at the cost of your life.’
‘But...I’m alive now,’ she choked. ‘I got a second chance.’
‘Your second chance may cost another’s life. It’s not worth it. What’s more is this isn’t even something you did for yourself. You didn’t crawl out of Death’s realm by yourself and, you didn’t have Life beg you to pass into the void rather than chance becoming a ghost. This is just something artificial, a stolen chance. It’s not something that should have happened.’
‘What do you want me to do? What do you expect me to do?’
‘What were you doing in here before I came?’
‘Washing my hands,’ she hissed.
‘Do you always break your mirror when you wash your hands?’
‘I’ve currently stocked up about three-and-a-half thousand years of bad luck. Thereabouts.’
‘The world lost a genius when you died,’ Emma mused. ‘But it did lose you. Whoever was going to mourn you has done so and the world has moved on without you. You’re no longer a part of it, that’s why it’ll be so easy for you to slip away.’
‘What do you mean?
‘What were you doing in here?’
‘Washing my hands.’
‘Life is so precious...can I assume that if you take your own, you don’t get another chance?’
‘How would I know?’
‘It’s a reasonable assumption. So do it.’
‘I just came back to fucking life, I’m allowed to have an emo moment. I wouldn’t seriously-’
‘Yes you would.’
‘What?’
‘I read your profile. You have all the markers needed for suicide.’
‘Shut up.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘If you want me out of the picture so badly, then you do it.’
‘I just tried. I apparently can’t. You’ll just keep coming back, like a bad penny.’ A faraway look came into her eyes. ‘I think we got all of those. I sincerely hope we got all of those.’
‘I’m not going to kill myself,’ she said, hating the shake in her voice.
‘Why did you come back? What...did you come back for?’ the agent looked around the small bathroom. ‘There are no flowers here, no grieving family, you have no lover, no pet, nothing. What did you come back for?’
‘Shut up.’
‘I would love to let you have this chance, to let you run free and live your life, but the world isn’t this kind.’
‘Then let me,’ she choked. ‘Just let me.’
‘Even if you can control your heart, even if it does keep on sustaining you, you’re still a danger to him. He brought you back, so he’s directly responsible for everything you do. Not that he’d ever tell you himself, of course...’
She sucked at a bleeding knuckle, then spat the blood on the floor. ‘I won’t kill myself.’
‘You’ve been there. You know what happens after. The welcoming dark. The nothingness wrapping around you like a blanket swaddling a babe.’
‘I can’t,’ she said – unsure of who she was trying to convince.
‘It can’t be pills,’ Emma said. ‘They’re too slow, and there’s a chance you’d be discovered. Cutting...messy, painful, and terrible to clean up.’
‘You want me to jump off the Story Bridge?’
Emma snorted. ‘If too many people do that, people will begin to notice.’
‘Huh?’
‘Never mind.’
She closed her eyes and thought of the dark – the sense of home in Death’s realm that she’d never felt anywhere else. She felt a cold metal object being pushed into her hand and didn’t need to open her eyes to see what it was. She knew what it was – it was her way out of the mess her life had become.
‘There’s no fighting fate, Stef,’ Emma said. ‘Look at your life, you’ve been cheating death for far too long. Ryan really should have shot you when he discovered you in that hacker’s den. It’s...kismet, you’ve just managed to avoid it so far.’
The gun was so heavy – a lot heavier than she remembered, or maybe that was the exhaustion. She hefted it and rested it against the side of her head, her tired arm threatening to drop away at any time. She just wanted to sleep. Her head dropped forward and the gun clattered on the ground beside her. ‘I’m so tired. I just...want to sleep...’
The gun was pushed back into her hand. ‘Just pull the trigger and you can sleep forever. You can be away from all of this pain and confusion. Away from the bullshit. Away from that cold lump in your chest making you wonder if you’re even human anymore.’
‘Am I?’
She felt Emma touch her hand and curl her fingers around the gun. It was all the answer she needed. She lifted the gun again – this time, it wasn’t so heavy.
Emma smoothed the hair back from her face and let her fingers linger on her temple as she tucked it behind her ear. ‘Right here would be quickest, one flash and it’s all over.’
She managed a nod, it was all she could do, all of her words were caught in a sharp jumble in her throat. The agent stood in one fluid motion and smiled down at her. ‘Slip away.’
She nodded again, choking down her unsaid words. She watched the agent fade away and lifted the gun to her head.
Ryan blinked, then scrawled his signature again, for the fifty-seventh time. After the first few dozen, all of the forms began to look the same, and he was barely registering what they were saying anymore. Reports, requisitions, information control, it was all everyday and it had all been done before. There was no logical cause to request an audit, it was simply Emma abusing her power.
At least he wasn’t alone, Taylor sat across from him, nearly stabbing each page, Jones beside him, nodding along to some internally-played music, and Clarke at the head of the table, one hand initialing all of his paperwork, the other hand madly sending text messages.
[He’s doing it again.] Jones said.
[Pardon?]
Jones kept his gaze focused on his paperwork. [Taylor, watch his audit pile.]
He glanced up at Taylor, and saw that for every piece of paper he slashed his signature onto, ten sheets disappeared from the tall stack beside him.
Jones kept his face neutral, but sent across the image of a smiley. [I’m jealous,] the tech confessed, [I’d send some to my kids to do, but I have the feeling Merlin would start a paper airplane competition.]
[At least she’s getting it done,] he replied. [Remember what it was like before Magnolia started picking up after him?]
[I worry about her, and I swear I will never understand them.]
He fought a shrug – there was no need to start another argument if Taylor caught them talking about him again. [Their relationship is quite simple, Taylor thought “require: punching bag” and Magnolia appeared.]
Jones turned to look at him, but could do little more than smirk before turning back to his paperwork, however he sent across a laughing emoticon and the word ROFLIMH.
[IMH?]
[In my head.]
He smiled, signed his name again, then felt himself being pulled from his chair. A strong hand grabbed a handful of his shirt and slammed his up against the wall. He reeled for half a second from the impact, then focused on his attacker: Emma.
‘Jesus Christ, Emma,’ Clarke said from his chair, his paperwork – but not his phone – abandoned. ‘Being a woman I can understand, tits look good on you, but do you have to be such a bitch?’
She ignored the liaison agent, instead, all of her anger was focused on him. ‘You lied to me Ryan.’
He steeled his expression. [Not here, Emma.] ‘No I didn’t.’
‘You don’t get secrets anymore.’
[Not here.]
‘Wherever I want.’
‘Care to clue the rest of us in?’ Clarke said as he stood, finally abandoning his phone. ‘We’re all mature beings here.’
‘It’s personal,’ he snapped.
‘The hell it is,’ Emma said.
With that, he grabbed her and shifted them both to the roof.
He didn’t bother denying it. There was a reason the emotional choice wasn’t the logical one – the logical one never had the fallout that the emotional one did. ‘I’m an agent, Emma, we don’t kill the innocent, and that’s exactly what you’d asked me to do.’
‘Not like you haven’t done it before.’
He threw his hands up in frustration. ‘Fine, so what happens now? Do you want me to lock her up with the freaks in the basement? Are you going to force me to banish her? Or...are you going to kill her?’
Emma just stared at him.
‘You didn’t!’ he seethed.
‘I’m an agent,’ she said, ‘we protect the innocent, and that’s exactly what I did.’ She paused for a moment. ‘But it didn’t work. You made an immortal, Ryan.’
‘It was unintentional.’
‘Nonetheless, and that made her all the more dangerous.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ she snapped. ‘What’s the one way-’ she asked as she made a finger gun, ‘-to make sure-’ she lifted the hand ‘-to make sure an immortal doesn’t come back?’ she finished as she pointed the finger-gun at her head.
He shifted away before second thoughts had a chance to form.
‘Stef?’ he called as he ran through the apartment. ‘Stef?’ He spun in a slow circle, scanning the apartment. No life sign. No body. ‘She’s not here,’ he growled at Emma as he felt her presence behind him. ‘What did you do to-?’
‘I keep telling you, I didn’t do anything, I left it up to her.’
He crossed the lounge room and walked to the bathroom door – but the sight of red stopped him from walking in. He raised a hand to his mouth. ‘By Chaos...’
There was blood all over the sink, and a large splatter on the wall – a bullet was embedded into the tile in the centre, there was as smear where the body had slid down the wall, and a small pool of blood stained the floor.
‘Bled a lot for someone so pale,’ Emma commented. ‘You almost wouldn’t think she had it in her.’
He grabbed her hair and slammed her face into the tiled wall. He pulled her back, and a few fell to the floor, then he slammed her into the wall again before releasing her.
He ran his hand against the wall – it was unlikely to be anyone else’s blood, but he needed to be sure. No matter the answer, he had to be sure. Rubbing the blood between his fingers, he ran over his possibilities – a DNA match would take too long, and require too many questions to be asked. There was at least one true psychic in the city, and numerous empaths – they’d be able to tell him for sure, but he didn’t want to know the details, it would be like losing her again.
Only one other possibility presented itself, but it was normally useless – a chemical composition scan.
He took a deep breath and initiated the scan. All of the normal components came up within tolerance – that at least meant that the blood came from a human. Hesitating for a moment, he allowed the other components to scroll up through his vision – and the one that he’d hoped to be low was well above what it should have been.
The blood’s caffeine level could have only belonged to his recruit.
‘Damnit Stef.’ He turned from the bloody stain to look at the woman who was systematically ruining his life.
Emma shrugged. ‘She was about three steps from it when I found her, all I needed to was give her a little push. It really was selfish of you, Ryan, bringing her back like that. You weren’t doing anyone any favours, least of all her.’
‘You’re a monster,’ he whispered.
‘No, Ryan, you are. You knew it couldn’t last. What exactly were you planning on doing with her? Agency rules wouldn’t have let her continue, but that would have been the least of your worries.’
‘Live, Emma, the word is live. And it depends on which Agency rule,’ he muttered.
‘Sanctuary?’ she asked as the wounds slowly disappeared from her face. ‘With who?
‘It doesn’t matter now.’ He looked down, and felt disgusted when he realised he was standing in the pool of blood. A pool of blood, just a pool of blood. ‘Why isn’t there a body? Why isn’t there a body?’
‘There is a body,’ she said as she pulled herself from the wall and spat blood, pressing her tie to her split lip. She pointed to the floor. ‘It’s right there. Ashes to ashes and all that.’
He knelt and stared at the small, shiny fragments. He touched one and felt the mirror’s power running through it – they weren’t shards from the broken bathroom mirror, they were shards from her heart.
It didn’t make sense – there should have been a body, there should have been- He turned and walked from the bathroom, leaving bloody footprints on the carpet as he crossed the apartment. The kitchen was untouched, the lounge room was the same – there were the crumpled blankets, and the empty coffee cup, but everything else was the same as he’d left.
The real test was the bedroom.
She hadn’t begged when he’d threatened her. She hadn’t cried when she’d been stabbed. She hadn’t run she’d seen the phoenix.
She’d cried when her doll had been broken.
If there was any reason that there wasn’t a body – any reason that meant that she was still alive, or running, then she would have taken the one accessible thing she seemed to have a real emotional connection with: Alexandria.
He prayed – even though he knew the gods weren’t listening – as he stepped into the bedroom.
The doll was missing.
He kept the smile from his face as he walked into the bedroom, Emma following him. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she asked.
He took another step forward, and his hidden smile faded when he saw the doll’s red curls down beside the bed – it hadn’t been taken, it had simply fallen. ‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘Just fooling myself.’
‘So how’s this going to work?’ she asked him. ‘Are you going to come quietly?’
‘Haven’t you done enough?’
‘I’m not proud,’ she said. ‘But it’s duty first. It’s always duty first. We can’t survive unless we do our duty. The world spins out of control if we do not do our duty.’
‘What happens though, when we exceed our duty?’
‘I don’t want to know,’ she said after a long moment. ‘I don’t want to see an agent who thinks that they’re a god.’
‘Call the Enforcers, Emma, if that’s what you’re going to do. I’m not going to run.’
‘You used to be one of the good ones, better than me even,’ she said as he rounded the bed to pick up the doll. ‘Now this. What happened to you?’
‘Some of us can stay strong,’ he said as he stared at the porcelain face. ‘Bolstered by our colleagues, our personal beliefs, and our achievements. Some of us...fall to mortal frailties.’
‘If the death of your last girlfriend still affects you, why did you even try this Frankenstein move?’
He stared at the doll. ‘Because I needed her.’
‘Whatever need you had could have been fulfilled without circumventing Agency rules.’
‘Maybe when I’m as old as you I’ll be able to dismiss individuals as easily as you do.’
She slapped him. ‘Don’t pretend you know a bloody thing about me.’
‘Then stop making assumptions about me.’
‘Are you going to resign?’
‘Never.’ She lifted a hand and pulled a heavy metal ring from the air, she pulled the ring open and clamped it through his arm. He winced as ring chewed through the bone before disappearing. ‘A tag,’ he commented. ‘How quaint.’
‘You’ve got forty-eight hours to resign. Go quietly, and pray you get another chance soon.’ She took the doll from his hands and threw it onto the bed. ‘I’m going home so I can breathe for a bit, you’re lucky you’re getting this long.’
‘It’s longer than Stef got,’ he said after she disappeared.
He shifted to the tech department, and lingered outside Jones’ door for a moment before knocking. The lock clicked and the door slowly opened. Merlin, standing unsteadily on a chair, pumped a tiny, triumphant fist as he stepped inside. ‘I did it!’
‘Congratulations?’
The boy stared at him for a moment, then jumped off the chair and ran over to Jones. He hugged the tech agent’s arm tight. ‘Jonesy, I dun want to be around the sad, send me to the games room.’
The boy disappeared, and Jones turned to look at him. ‘More Emma problems, sir?’
‘I lied about Stef.’
He heard the door lock click. Jones lifted a slight hand and turned his monitor off before turning to look at him. ‘How so, sir?’
He sat on the chair Merlin had been standing on. ‘She didn’t die on the roof.’ He shook his head. ‘I mean, she did, but- There was a piece of mirror in her, and I made a wish. This whole time, I’ve been hiding the body.’
‘Is she-?’
‘She is now.’ He raised hand to his head. ‘She woke up this morning. Only this morning. I couldn’t even protect her for a day.’
‘What happened?’
‘Emma.’
‘But if she was animated by the mirror, then-’
‘Suicides don’t get a second chance.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘There’s no body. There’s no evidence she left her apartment, but there’s no body. There are shards from her heart, but...’ he trailed off and slumped in the chair. ‘She wants me to resign.’
‘Would you prefer that, sir, or the Enforcers?’
‘I’m not sure what I did is defensible.’
‘There’s always an argument to be made. Is that what you need me to do?’
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t need you to do anything. I just needed for someone other than Emma to know.’
‘Would you like me to keep a trace on her email accounts, just in case?’
‘If she found a way to-’ He remembered all of the blood and took a moment to blank his mind. ‘I doubt she’d be careless enough to access her email.’
‘All the same?’
‘If you wish.’
‘Yes sir.’
He shifted to his office, placed a pen on his desk, and waited for the ghost of his recruit to start rolling it around.
Do it.
You aren't supposed to be the one saying that.
Do it.
The gun was so heavy, and she just wanted to scream, to throw herself into a wardrobe and to hide until everything passed her by. This wasn't a choice she was supposed to have to make, this wasn't the life she was supposed to be leading.
She wasn't supposed to be aiming a gun at herself.
It'll be the easiest thing you've done lately, and you don't have a choice.
You're supposed to be the one that stops me from making stupid decisions.
Pull the trigger, Spyder, if you want to protect him, you have to pull the trigger.
I can't, I'm scared...I want to, but I'm so scared.
It'll take you less than a second, now would you shut up and trust me already?
I can't...
Sure you can, lift your finger, there, like that, good girl...wrap it around the trigger, just like your old light gun...just don't expect to get any points for this.
I want points!
You are such a child. Fine, pull the trigger and you get a million points.
And a gold star?
Two stars if you will just shut up and do it.
She took a breath, and pulled the trigger.
JESUSSHITFUCKCHRIST! OWIE OWIE OWIE OWIE!
She bit down hard on the washcloth, screaming into it as loud as she dared - which wasn't very loud.
Gold stars. Now, slide, slide, slide, fall.
She let her knees buckle, and she landed in an untidy pile on the floor, her shoulder hurting even more as she landed on it. The gun clattered on the ground beside her, and she was glad that it was finally out of her hand. That she was finally free of the temptation to actually put it to her head and pull the trigger.
Hard part now, Spyder, come on, you're running out of time.
Her shoulder still pumping blood onto the floor, she carefully reached around, making sure that there was an exit wound - there was, and that was good, it meant that the bullet was in the tile, so it would answer one more question, and not leave even more plot holes in her desperate story than it already contained.
With a grunt, she reached for one of the broken pieces of her bathroom mirror. Tears streaming down her face from the pain, she centered herself and lifted her shirt, placing the sharp edge to where her breastbone should have been. There was nothing there now, no major barriers between the skin and her heart. Nothing that she couldn't slice through.
You can have another gold star.
I don't want to hurt myself.
This isn't emo-you and a bottle of pills, this is pain for life. This is your only shot at getting out of here, and besides...
Yeah, I want to touch it.
Then do it, it's ok, I'm right here.
She dug the tip of the mirror into her chest and began to saw open a small hole.
I can't, it hurts too much!
It'll hurt more if that bitch comes back and tears out your heart, like that guy in Indiana Jones. Agent, remember? She can probably punch out your ribcage. Do you want that, or this?
Warm blood flowed over her fingers, a strange contrast to the relative cool her shoulder was feeling. Biting harder down on the washcloth, she ripped a bit more of the skin, enough to let her wedge her pinkie finger into her chest.
Slimy, ew, slimy...
She pushed it in further, then felt something against the edge of her finger that definitely wasn't slimy. By instinct, she retracted her finger a little, lest she wish herself out of existence.
You gonna let me do the talking?
Yeah, I'm kinda terrified that I'm going to turn myself into a giant cookie.
Ok, then just repeat after me-
She pressed her finger forward to the heart again. ‘I want several broken shards, please.' The sharp pressure against her palm told her that the shards had appeared there. She pulled her finger out and dropped the shards in the pool of blood around her shoulder, then stuck her finger back into her chest. ‘Please,' she said, ‘I want to go to the mansion.'
With that, she disappeared.
The sensation of traveling by mirror magic wasn't like a normal shift - it was prettier. Her apartment walls seems to curve in on themselves, then break apart as she found herself being whisked across the city. Broken pieces of the mansion's garden appeared in her vision and quickly pieced themselves back together as she appeared beneath a tree in the side garden - or at least what she thought of as the side garden, as it had been outside her room, which was on the side of the house. She rested her head up against the tree, only to find her head in an ant trail, so she hung it forward again. Slowly, she retracted her finger from her chest, and let it drop for a moment, the sensation of freshly-cut grass a pleasant difference to her slimy innards.
Her shoulder burned, but it was healing - that, or shoulders with bullet wounds in them naturally moved of their own accord, hurting significantly less than they should - a terrifying possibility presented itself: that it wasn't healing, that the blood loss was giving her a false sense of security. She lifted her tired hand and yanked her collar to the side so that she could see the shoulder beneath, sure enough, it was healing.
Awesome, I'm Deadpool.
Really thought you were going to say Wolverine.
Come on you, let's get this done, what fun we shall have!
...I'm not your little yellow boxes, I'm a sign of a serious psychological condition.
Yeah, but if I was fictional, people would love you. Like I do.
Dying better not have made you a wuss, my job is hard enough already.
She stood and brushed herself off as best as she could, though she suspected that she still looked like a crazy axe-murderer.
You saved my life. Again. I'm just being grateful.
No, you can't reach in there and make yourself a cookie.
Goddamnit!
She pounded a bloody fist on the mansion's door, slumped against it and tried not to scream at the pain in her shoulder. The door was pulled open and she fell, managing to catch herself on the door frame. ‘I was here a few weeks ago,' she muttered. ‘One of the hackers. One of Dorian's. I want to see Jon. Please.'
‘I shall ask him,' the valet said before slamming the door.
‘Thank you?' she said to the closed door.
The door was opened. ‘You may go through to the kitchen,' the valet said. ‘Use the service entrance.'
She stared at the man in disbelief. ‘I've just been shot in the fucking shoulder.'
He crinkled his nose. ‘And the rugs are Persian. Use the service entrance.'
She limped around the side of the house, through the creaky gate and to the back entrance to the kitchen. A few bandages and a small bowl of hot water awaited her. ‘Try not to make a mess,' the valet said. ‘The master of the house will be joining you soon.'
She sat on the only stool, slowly and painfully dipping her bloody hand into the hot water. After it was red and burning, she pulled it out and let it rest on her knee, small red droplets of water dripping to the kitchen's stone floor.
‘Perhaps Dorian should have let you come with us,' Jon said as he walked into the room, leaning more heavily on his cane than she'd remembered. ‘Less, ah, shooting.'
‘How'd you know it was a gunshot?' she asked.
‘My dear, I was helping to dress plasma burns when I was the equivalent of five.'
‘Knew it, knew it, knew it!' she cried triumphantly. ‘There was too much weird shit for you not be the the other starchild that Astrin mentioned! You were the only other person he knew.'
He looked up at her, removed his glasses, and for the first time she saw the purple glint in his eyes. ‘Starchild I am.'
‘It was your tech that Astrin was using, wasn't it? That's why your name was in the code. Why the hell did you need us to hack it if it was your system?'
‘It was my father's system,' he said. ‘I never knew how it worked, only how to turn it on. That's how Astrin could record his data, I just couldn't use it to help him. If I'd been able to, then maybe-'
‘Maybes are for people who can change the past.'
‘So why are you here on my doorstep with a bullet in your shoulder?'
‘Actually, the bullet went into the wall, I made sure of that - I wanted them to be able to match the caliber. And...I have absolutely nowhere else in the world to go. I don't have any money. I don't have-'
‘You cracked the code, didn't you? That means I should be cutting you a cheque.'
‘It was all for nought. Astin's dead, so is his world.'
Jon blew his nose on a handkerchief. ‘When he didn't return, I suspected as much. You did the work, so you get rewarded. It all goes my fath- To Dorian when I die, I'm sure he won't mind sharing.'
She stared at the ancient wooden table. ‘Just let me stay here a couple of days, and we'll be even. I just need to sleep, and to figure out where to go next.'
‘Dorian's room is made up, I'm not expecting him, you can sleep there. Do you know how to get there?'
‘Is there a way other than the hidden stairs?'
The old man managed a wink. ‘That way is the most fun.' He passed her a key. ‘You've missed dinner, I'm afraid that I eat rather early. However, I presume you'll still be here for breakfast, so I'll see you then.'
‘Thank you,' she whispered as she stood up. ‘You've really got no idea how much this means.'
‘Hm? Yes? It's fine.'
She grabbed a tea towel from the sink as she walked past and wrapped it around her slowly healing shoulder so that she didn't drip on the precious Persian rugs - something she was sure the valet cared more about than the starchild did.
Walking down the hall, past the room where she'd been time trying to hack an alien system, past the empty hacker bedrooms and around the corner toward the secret stair. She spared a look out the window, just in case there were any more ghosts to be seen, but only saw her reflection. How fucking apt.
She unlocked the door, flicked on the light and walked up to the stairs - this time having no fear about breaking her ankle or about what was going to be on the other side of the door.
Through the office and down the hall to Dorian's room, it was pristine, just as it had been the last time she'd been there. She locked the door behind her and pulled the curtains shut before walking into the ensuite.
She pulled off her grey t-shirt and tossed it into the hamper - the bullet hole had almost closed, but had left a scar, another scar for her collection. She exhaled a deep breath and placed a hand between her small breasts, feeling the scar that the mirror had given her, and the second, smaller one that she'd given herself. She pressed her fingers against the flesh, feeling the lack of breastbone, and the vague coldness that the mirror exuded.
She shook her head, dampened the tea towel and washed the dried blood from her shoulder and hand before leaving the ensuite and went toward the wardrobe. She opened it, hoping that there wouldn't be the sharp smell of snow, the brush of trees and the faint light of an out of place lamppost. For once, she knew she wouldn't be able to handle Narnia if she found her way into it.
She grabbed the first shirt that presented itself, wriggled into it without undoing any of the buttons, then curled up in the large bed and was asleep before she had a chance to think anymore about her situation.
Dreams came fast, furious and without any sense of reason, causing her to wake several times during the night, each time, a brief look at the clock told her that it was still too early to wake. However, when the dawn light was creeping in through the curtains, so she abandoned all hope of getting back to sleep and got out of the bed. She pulled the sheet and blanket up, just in case the maids didn't bother to service a guest bedroom.
She stared at the wardrobe - now she was ready to investigate it. She crossed the room and pulled open the door, hoping for something exciting, like another hidden staircase, but only clothes filled her vision. As she always did with new wardrobes, she stepped up into it, just to make sure it ended at the back wall, and didn't have a forest beyond it.
She stepped down from the wardrobe and pulled out another silk shirt and a pair of pants. The material felt expensive - but then again, everything in the wardrobe looked expensive. She slowly buttoned up the shirt, glad that the pain in her shoulder was gone.
Pulling the belt tight, she walked from the room and down the hall toward the office and the secret stair. Books lined the wall - and it dawned on her that it wasn't so much an office as it was a retrofit library.
She ran her hand along the leather bound books, the decaying paperbacks, the thick manuals and the brittle song sheets. Staring at the upper shelves, one word caught her attention, a single name in faded gold leaf - a name that had given her so much comfort as a child: Lewis.
Turning quickly, she pulled the chair from under the desk and pulled it over to the shelves. Standing on it, she extended her short arms and reached for the book. Grasping at the very edge of it with her fingernails, she managed to extract it from the shelf. She pumped a fist into the air, taking what small victory she could. ‘I did it,' she said to the world at large, hopped from the chair, pushed it back under the table, and took refuge in the secret staircase to read her favourite book.
Stef lifted her head from the book, pulling her mind away Narnia when a bell was rung. She recognised it – it was the breakfast bell, but it hadn’t meant much when she’d been at the mansion the first time, as breakfast had been brought to them, rather than having to be searched out.
She left the book on the steps, having every intention of returning to it later – even on the brink of battle, Narnia felt so much safer than the real world did.
She found her way down to the dining room – the hackers hadn’t been welcomed into it, instead being served in the main room, or in their small bedrooms. It was large, an ornate dining table occupying only a small portion of the space.
Shelves lined the walls, knick-knacks from all over stood collecting dust despite the number of servants in the mansion. A small, faded packet of photos caught her eye, so she opened the shelf’s glass door and pulled it out. Faded, fragile black and white photos showed a birthday party of a young man, his friends and stacks of birthday presents.
‘Party games next, right?’ she asked her mother.
Her classmates milled around the backyard, playing with the stereo, insulting the magicians and rattling her presents.
‘Hm, what Stephanie?’
She frowned, but didn’t correct her mother – no matter how many times she’d insisted that she preferred the short form of her name, neither of her parents cared to notice. ‘Hide-and-seek,’ she said. ‘It’s time for hide-and-seek, isn’t it?’
‘Presents, wonderful idea. You can see what your friends-’
‘Most of the presents on the table are from you, James and grandfather.’
‘Yes, such wonderful parents. You’ll like what I got for you. Let’s open them.’
‘Hide-and-seek first.’
‘No. Later. Perhaps – I don’t want your guests getting their party clothes dirty. I mean, we’re barely managing to keep you clean, and-’ Her mother cut herself off and walked over to the table, gathering up the party guests – the little girls in their frilly dresses and the few uncomfortable little boys in smart shirts and shiny shoes.
She grimaced at her own pinchy shoes, digging them deeper into the ground, hoping to dirty them enough so that she could take them off.
‘Apparently that was my twenty-first. I barely remember it.’ Jon lifted one of the photos from the pile in her hand. ‘Except for me, everyone in this one is dead now. Oh, and the photographer, you know him.’
‘Dorian?’
‘I pity him, dear, I truly pity him. It’s the worst thing in the world to outlive everyone you care about. I survived my parents, my daughter, my wife, all of my friends. Die young if you can, never grow old.’
‘I- I’m not even sure I’ve...’ She swallowed and carefully placed the photos back in their packet. ‘I’ll take that under advisement.’
‘It’s such a terrible thing to outlive your family, to be the only one left. To be burdened with all of their memories. Memory...’ he waved a hand, as if trying to catch his train of thought, ‘it isn’t supposed to be a private thing, it’s supposed to be something shared so it becomes part of the race memory.’ He barked a short laugh. ‘Oh me, I’m talking like I’m human, the rest of my race is long dead, so there’s no-one left to carry on my memories.’
‘I’m sure that Dorian-’
‘I’ve been such a burden to him,’ the old man said as he sat at the large table. Plates of egg and toast were brought in, along with a large teapot and two small cups.
She stared at the bone china. ‘I haven’t had tea since...’ She rubbed her temples, trying to extract the memory. ‘Since the last time I was in England. God, that was a lifetime ago.’
He dropped a couple of sugar cubes into his tea. ‘I should have gone back there, just for one last visit.’
‘You could-’
‘Don’t humour me, girl, I’m not long for this world. The stress of the trip would probably finish me off.’
She lifted a sugar cube with two fingers and popped it into her mouth. There wasn’t anything she could say, all of her grandparents were still living – at least to the best of her knowledge, they were – and the other deaths in her family had been sudden, she’d never been told how to react to someone who had a certainty about their own death. ‘So...’ she said lamely.
‘Buttons on ice cream and see if they stick,’ the old man said before sipping his tea. ‘Oh, oh, I remembered something. Come on.’ He lifted his cane and stood up from the seat. He crossed the room, and pulled a painting from the wall.
‘A safe?’
‘I keep the thing that are less than valuable in there,’ he said. He knocked on the back of the painting and three small disks appeared. ‘That little bit of magic was very expensive,’ he said. He plucked the disks from the painting and handed them to her. ‘Put them on the table.’
She did as instructed, and he hobbled over after replacing the painting. He touched a tiny silver button on the closest disk and a tiny holographic image of Astrin appeared.
‘Help me Jonowoi Kenobi?’
‘This is the system you were paid to crack. They were the only technology we could salvage from the crash.’
She looked from the holographic image of Astrin, to Jon, then back again. ‘Why is he a monster and you aren’t?’
‘The price for going into the void is always different. For some, it’s changing their bodies, others, it’s changing their minds. Stealing an arm, or a leg. Stealing a memory, a love, the ability to be kind.’
‘What did it take from you?’
‘My father. Then your world took my mother. The bombs that fell on London, not a week after we got here. We escaped one war, just to find ourselves in the middle of another.’
‘War is something people excel at. My grandfather used to say that, like it was something to be proud of.’
‘He was a warrior, then. My father wasn’t, he was a scientist. His science led to his death.’
‘But saved you.’
Jon went to reply, but shook his head. He lifted the disks and pushed them at her. ‘I’m tired, it’s not easy being old. Take a look at these, and he’ll have someone to carry his memories, else his whole world will be forgotten.’ He tapped his cane twice, then left the room.
She stared at the disks in her hands, put them down, wrapped up the toast in an expensive cloth napkin, and fled back up to Dorian’s room, picking up the book on the way.
She finished off the book while mechanically chewing her way through the pilfered toast, and by the time she was finished, a few dozen buttery fingerprints stained the silk shirt. She pulled the blanket up and stared at the disks, unsure of what to do with them. The holographic image had disappeared from the one the Professor had activated.
The device stared at her, so she picked it up. She ran a finger over the button and it activated.
‘My name is Astrin...’
The monstrous form that she had come to know froze, and an overlay of alien language covered it, then disappeared – leaving behind something that was far more “man” than “monster” - complete with a bulging belly.
‘What was your world called?’
‘Dajulveed. And you, what of you? Your eyes have seen the void, you aren’t from this planet.’
‘Saiharan. Our war woke our god. We brought about our own destruction.’
‘War is something we grew out of,’ Astrin said.
The image froze, turned sideways and went black. ‘Jonowoi?’ a disembodied voice called. ‘Hold onto your mother, Jonowoi.’
She bit a knuckle as the image of Astrin returned.
‘Tell me,’ Astrin demanded. ‘Tell me if the mirror is going to fall here.’
‘Yes,’ Jon’s voice said. ‘The parade of ghosts has already started, it’ll be coming here.’
‘I need to possess it, at any cost. Indenture me if you must, but allow me to find my love first – my son must have a mother. A child can live without a father, but without a mother, how will they learn to be strong?’
‘I’ll do what I can to help you, but I need information. I need to know everything about your trip. I need to know-’
The image froze again.
‘Jonowoi? It’s ok to be scared. We’re almost there. Maybe it’ll be a planet with sunshine. Remember the photos? Remember what sunshine looks like?’
She pressed the button on the recorder and set it aside. Other people’s tortured memories was the las thing she needed. There was nothing she could do for them – she couldn’t even help herself.
The pillows behind her were soft, soft enough to make her feel safe – at least she’d stopped jumping at shadows. She put a hand up her shirt and placed a hand over her non-beating heart. ‘Beat, please,’ she begged it quietly. ‘I keep-’ -wanting to scream. I feel-
‘You’re in my room.’