Two Bards: The Forum!

Bruno made a face as he took a sip from his by-now long-cold coffee.

It’d been six weeks since Andi disappeared. The first week had been a haze of jump after jump out into different metaverses, searching for any sign of her and the other three who’d disappeared at the same time. They’d found nothing, and then they’d been forced to return to D.C. to answer Congress; in what Bruno privately thought of as a stroke of irony, they’d been set up in the same building Jaxun had operated out of for the last year or two of his tenure and they’d forcibly given Bruno his office. Director Bruno Hamilton, Head of the Metaversal Task Force. That’s what his door said, anyway, on the days when Patric didn’t get bored and deface it, and while Bruno disliked the idea intensely none of the other pilots had objected or stepped up - and he wasn’t about to let some bureaucrat who’d barely heard of the metaverse take the reins.

For better or for worse, he’d taken the title up properly four weeks ago in front of the Congressional committee appointed to oversee the task force. He’d answered their questions - the same questions every other Congressional committee had asked him ever since he went to DC to testify the first time - as thoroughly as he’d deemed wise, and then gone to ensure that the building was safe for use. That had taken up most of the last three weeks, between hauling out debris caused by Nick and Patric’s last visit plus scanning for possible bugs plus repairs plus, oddly, replacing all the computer equipment that had been torn out at some point.

None of which allowed much time for sleep, especially not with the jumps out into the Metaverse that he insisted on fitting into every spare moment he could carve out of his schedule, but Bruno had pushed through doggedly. He knew every trick in the book for staying functional on the absolute minimum of sleep required, and the healing powers granted to him by the metaverse let him go even further than he had in his DOD years. Five hours of sleep a night had decreased to two, supplemented by power naps during the day, and he’d managed to get the headquarters something resembling functional in record time.

Yet even with the offices up an running there were a thousand and one things that needed his attention, and sleep was near the bottom of his priorities list. Bruno took another slurp from the stone-cold coffee in his cup and grimaced; coffee didn’t give quite the same kick that it used to before all this. This was his sixth cup of the night and the previous cups seemed to have gone right through him without making a dent in the massive weight of exhaustion that had tied itself around his neck. Still, the familiar taste was enough to remind his brain that now wasn’t the time for sleep and he looked back to the heavily annotated chunk of legalese Congress was attempting to force through the committee.

Most of it seemed to be pretty straightforward through all the lawyering double-talk. Restrictions for access to metapods, grounds for confiscating 00742 technology from private owners, standards for pursuing suspected illegal metapilots, how private property laws played into the whole mess, and a number of other small, but important things that would help clarify his team’s actions and scope in the future. It was a lot more useful than the previous four documents that had been mostly demands from the military and private corporate contractors that any and all pilots and technology be remanded to their custody for testing and study, all of which Bruno had rejected out of hand once he’d had Thomas explain them.

This one, though, had a clause near the end that pinged on his bullshit meter. Rubbing his exhausted eyes, he forced them to focus and read through the paragraph more clearly. Any objects determined to be not naturally occurring in this metaverse (see metaverse definition in title 1 chapter 1 article 3.06) will be remanded to the custody of the committee of the senate designated to oversee all metaversal affairs to fully determine the best and most accurate place to hold such objects against misuse by foreign powers.

Bruno scowled and scribbled a nearly-illegible note for Thomas to take a look and revise it before sending the document back. Clearly another attempt to pry Reese and the remnants of Robopal from the Task Force, it would also deprive Bruno himself of the armbands that even now rested against his skin. Without Lothar’s powers they were useless, of course, but he remembered clearly the feeling of his skin fissuring apart like dried mud in the sun and didn’t relish the thought of trying to use elemental magic again without the bands.

Settling back into his chair, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes in a vain attempt to drive the gritty feeling away. God, he was tired. Six weeks, and no sign of Andi. Six weeks, and just more red tape piling up. Six weeks, and no end in sight.

“Well, you look like shit.” The lightly twanged voice rang from his door - opened without a knock - and Bruno dragged his hands down his face as he looked over at one of the most stalwart pilots on his team.

Rosie Harvin, recruited nearly three years ago against her will by the Program and one of the longest-running pilots on the team, was standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Bruno sighed and pushed the legal document into the stack destined for Thomas’ secondary review before picking up his mostly-empty mug and walking over to the coffee machine that was one of the few perks of the office. He grabbed the half-empty carafe and held it up.

“Coffee?” he offered, refilling his own mug as he did so, and she shook her head.

“You realize what time it is?” she asked, and Bruno glanced at the glowing numbers of the regulation digital clock on the wall. 0330 blinked back at him accusatorially and he sighed.

“I still have two more documents to review before - ”

“That is not what I asked. I asked if you knew what time it was, and I saw you look at that clock which means I know you do.” She walked over and leaned against the edge of the desk, and Bruno suppressed the reflex to order her back. None of the documents he had out were things she didn’t have access to if she wanted, and he refused to be anything less than transparent with his team.

“Bruno, how long has it been since you’ve slept? And I don’t mean five minutes between meetings, I mean a full night’s sleep, like eight hours of it.” Harvin’s voice was determined but not unkind and Bruno frowned at her.

“I can still fulfil mission objectives - ”

“Can you though?” Harvin frowned and stood to face him fully. “I can’t remember you sleeping more than a few hours at a time since…well, since y'know. You need to take a break.”

Bruno scowled back. “I can’t let anything get in the way of mission priorities, and priority number one is retrieving the MIA pilot team.” The MIA pilot team that includes my granddaughter, echoed loudly in the room and Harvin waved a hand.

“You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t spend every day missin’ Crash and them and thinkin’ ‘if only we had a little more time in the day to look, we could find them’?” She snorted. “Of course I do. Of course I believe we can find them if we only keep lookin’. But,” she pointed at him firmly, “we need you. We need you at your best if we’re going to find them. We need you clear-headed and ready to take on those sons of bitches in Congress without lettin' ‘em sneak somethin’ by you. We need you to be gettin’ more'n a couple hours of sleep a night.”

Bruno looked at his mug of lukewarm coffee and said nothing.

Harvin walked over and plucked the mug out of his hand before emptying it down the drain. Turning, she gave him a light shove on the shoulder. “Go to sleep, Director. This-all can wait until morning.”

Bruno glanced back at the last few papers on his desk - they really couldn’t wait, actually - before capitulating with a sigh. Turning in early for one night wouldn’t upset too many things, hopefully.

He followed Harvin out of the room quietly, and didn’t remember getting to bed when he woke up the next morning.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

Andi leaned back and smiled as she felt the sun on her face. It felt so good to just take a load off and relax; no responsibilities waiting for her, no world-shattering consequences if she failed or made the wrong choice. Just her, the sunshine, and her favorite people in the world.

Opening her eyes, she looked out over the assembled group. The first person her eyes landed on was her grandfather, looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him in a dove-grey sweater vest, button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his elbows, and grey slacks. He caught her glance and smiled back at her for a moment, warmth suffusing his face before he turned his attention back to assembling sandwiches from the ingredients in the picnic basket. It was a large wicker basket lined with a gingham cloth, and with the lid open she could almost make out the various sandwich fixings and treats she knew had been packed inside.

The other two members of their group were already chowing down on sandwiches, sat on the opposite side of the large picnic quilt they’d tossed over the soft green grass. Butch was sat up straight with his legs splayed out in front of him, eating roast beef on sourdough rye with a single-minded intensity, while Abbi had sat herself in his lap and leaned back against him to eat a ham and swiss on ciabatta, only pausing every now and again to remind her husband to make sure his crumbs fell off to the side and not down her back. Andi could feel the easy warmth between the two - a lasting gift from Abbi herself - and knew the complaints weren’t serious.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her grandfather - ex-Marine Bruno Hamilton, career soldier, and badass - leaning over and holding out a sandwich in a napkin. “Here you go, Andi, your favorite,” he said with a twinkle in his eye and she smiled back gratefully as she took it.

One glance was enough to let her know that he hadn’t quite gotten her sandwich right. “Grandpa, I asked for ham and swiss on white, not on rye!” She had to laugh a little as his brow furrowed - it wasn’t the end of the world, she’d still eat it, but it wasn’t her favorite sandwich by any stretch of the imagination.

“Isn’t that what I gave you?” he asked, the puzzled look on his face somehow not darkening his features like she thought it would.

“No, see-” she looked down at the sandwich she held in her hand, and found a perfectly acceptable ham and swiss on white bread. “Huh, guess you did. My eyes must be playing tricks on me.”

“It’s probably the Lunch Lady exercising her sandwich-manipulation powers,” Butch managed to say with a perfectly straight face - an effect somewhat impaired by the immediate fit of giggles that overtook his wife.

“Th-that’s not a real thing and you know it,” she managed between laughs, and the other three had to join in.

For several long moments, laughter rang across the pleasant meadow and drowned out the softly chirping birds and buzzing insects, but eventually the quiet returned. Andi took a considering bite of her sandwich as her grandfather made his own. It was a pretty good sandwich; the ham was smoked to perfection, the cheese still cool and an excellent counterpoint to the saltiness of the ham, and the bread was soft as a cloud. She had to smile as a memory popped into her head.

“Sure beats the hell out of canned bread, right grandpa?” she asked, and he laughed loud and long.

It was a little weird actually; before now, she’d only ever heard him chuckle with a rusty little laugh that sounded like he didn’t get to use it much - or else with a bitter, sharp laugh that didn’t happen because whatever he’d heard was goddamn funny. To hear him belly laugh was definitely weird, but…she could get used to it. The smile when he finally wound down was weird, too. Most of the smiles she’d seen on his face were small, barely there things that looked a bit like he’d forgotten how to do it. Or like his face didn’t move that way, but he was trying to make it work for her.

“What the hell is canned bread? Sounds awful,” said Butch, drawing Andi’s attention away from her grandfather as she nodded forcefully.

“It really, really is. We had to basically eat nothing but for months. Canned bread is just the worst kind of carbs.” Of course, the canned bread had only been the tip of the iceberg when it came to awful things about the time spent in ARENA, and she shivered at the memory of the hollow, empty ache of the severed bond to Abbi.

Something nudged her foot, and she looked up to see Abbi smiling at her gently. “Hey, we’re back now, remember? And we’re never going to leave you again.” Her words had the comforting weight of finality in them, but Andi didn’t feel the rush of warmth she’d expected. It was a little strange to hear Abbi talk about forever, when she came from a world where every day could be your last, where there was always a new villain, where there was always the next threat to beat. Even more than that, their bond had already been severed once, and there was no telling if it would happen again.

Andi was distracted from her growing thoughts by a tap on the arm. “Strawberry?” her grandfather asked as he held out a particularly juicy-looking specimen.

Andi shook her head. “No, strawberries were grandma’s favorite - I was never very fond of them,” she said distractedly, trying to regain her previous chain of thought. “My favorite fruit is-” She looked back over at her grandfather, and the fruit he had in his hand - a clementine.

A thread of suspicion wound its way out of her subconscious.

“Weren’t you just holding a strawberry?”

“Your favorite fruit is a clementine.”

“That’s not what I asked. What happened to the strawberry?”

“You don’t like strawberries, why would we have packed strawberries in the picnic basket?” asked Butch, sounding eminently reasonable.

Andi bit her lip. “But I thought -”

A heavy arm settled around her shoulders. Her grandfather had never been the most physically expressive of men; the only other time he’d touched her like this had been when they were at TOM. He was nearly a foot and some change taller than she was, and when he’d put his arm around her then he’d done it almost gingerly, almost like he was afraid to hurt her - but it had also felt like a bulwark against the world, supporting her, creating a place for just the two of them in a metaverse fraught with danger and strife. It had been too fleeting to really enjoy, but she’d loved every second of it.

This time it felt like a great weight, like his arm around her shoulder was an anchor holding her down, holding her back. This time his grip wasn’t safe, it was suffocating - and the easy way he’d simply grabbed her was almost careless.

“C'mon Andi, aren’t you having fun? What’s one clementine among friends?” he asked, Butch and Abbi nodding sympathetically behind him.

Ice shot through her veins. This wasn’t her grandfather, and those weren’t her friends.

She had to get out of here.

“National terrorism suspect, ex-Marine Bruno Hamilton, is a white male, 6’ 4”, and wanted in conjunction -“

Bruno reached over and twitched the tuner on the radio to another station. The technician who’d been listening to the small device while working on some wiring in the wall of the abandoned veterinary hospital he was currently stationed in gave him a wide-eyed look but didn’t object to the change. Bruno’s employer had assured him that all the contractors that had been working on the place for the last several weeks were both discreet and trustworthy, but he hadn’t reached sixty in this business by trusting people just on an employer’s say-so. Work with them? Sure. Respect that they could do the job they were hired for? Absolutely. Trust them? Only as far as he had to.

The station he’d landed on was playing some kind of pop tune that would probably be annoying if it lasted longer than three minutes, but for now was better than listening to the news broadcasts. Bruno Hamilton was a professional freelancer, and he’d done jobs like that since the late 80s without the media catching wise - though part of that may have been the fact that he was mostly operating on foreign soil. The fact that one rescue mission for his current anonymous employer was enough to get him on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and outstanding warrants for his arrest in more than half a dozen police departments was troubling - especially because they had his name. Not some alias he’d had papers made for, or a persona he’d adopted specifically for the mission, but him. If he burned his identity, he’d lose access to the funds he’d accrued so far for his granddaughter, not to mention make it exponentially more difficult to claim her if he did find her.

Not that the terrorism charges were making that particularly easy; he’d received more than one email to his encrypted account from the various private investigators he’d hired all over the states backing out of their contracts with him. The more upstanding ones returned whatever unused portion of his fees they had, while the more unscrupulous simply notified him of the cancellation of his contract. He’d made a note to use the good ones again in the future - assuming he could pull this identity out of the hole, of course - and had seriously considered asking Patric to audit the others. The only thing that put paid to that plan was the fact that he’d have to talk to Patric to do it, which automatically made it his lowest priority; the Irishman spent more of the time he wasn’t doing something for their shared employer bonding with his sentient Winnebago.

Bruno really, really didn’t want to know what the man was doing in there when he locked the garage door.

”…we’ll be right back after Sheila gives us the week’s news! Take it away, Sheila!“

"Well, the top story for today is the nationwide bulletin about the currently at-large terrorist Bruno Hamilton, wanted for the deaths of thirty people in New York City, and injuries to sixty more. Local police are co-ordinating with…”

Bruno reached over and turned the radio off with a quick jab. The tech who’d turned the radio on in the first place paled a little and bent over their work even more assiduously. Bruno suppressed a sigh and stood to wander “casually” over to the other side of the room, noting the release of tension in the technician’s posture as he did so.

The real kicker was, of course, that he wasn’t a terrorist. None of the actions Bruno had taken in New York had been done with intention of inciting mass fear or panic. His mission parameters had been clear; rescue Crash Jaxun and Aquamarine, and then use their help to rescue Mac McPhernon from the organization that had been holding him captive. The car wrecks, civilian casualties, and multiple helicopter crashes had all been a direct result of the opposition trying to prevent him from completing his mission - nothing more, nothing less. He still wasn’t quite clear on who the opposition had been, exactly, but they’d been well-armed and well-equipped and seemed to not give a single shit about collateral damage. Whoever they were, they were well-connected enough to get him on the terrorist watch list and keep themselves off it, and that was really the bottom line.

Bruno pursed his lips and pulled out his phone. If the heat didn’t die down after this job was over, he’d have to lie low in a foreign country for however long it took for the interest in his case to die down before he returned. That would make finding his granddaughter even more difficult and inconvenient, but it was better than being disappeared into custody the FBI. Typing a quick message, he sent it off to an internet dead drop and put his phone away. It would be a few days before the message might even possibly be read, and a few more after that for an answer to come; the forger who monitored it was a paranoid sort, but he was the best at doing flawless deep covers and Bruno would rather not be found before he found his granddaughter.

Turning, he walked out of the pod room and heard the radio click on behind him as he left.

“..so watch out, because this Hamilton guy - no relation - is seriously bad news! And now, #1 on the charts…”

Weber cursed roundly as Bruno dropped into cover beside him.

Twenty minutes from mission completion and exfiltration, and one of the spooks they’d been sent in to support had managed to trip some sort of alarm and everything had gone straight to hell. The fact that the people who were shooting at them were also yelling orders in Russian was a good sign - given that their mission had been to assist the CIA in expelling one of the more entrenched Soviet “advisors” from Egypt - but didn’t change the fact that they were being shot at.

Or, in Weber’s case, shot.

Weber bit out another curse and Bruno felt his attention sharpen as red bloomed under the hand Weber had clamped to his side. Blood, but not too much of it and not spurting; fortunately Weber carried pressure bandages in one of the numerous pouches he habitually stocked and carried everywhere. They festooned him like a particularly prolific type of fungus and carried a frankly astonishing number of odds and ends, even for a Marine. He kept meticulous track of his stock, though, and was already scrabbling at the button on a particularly bulky pouch with his left hand.

Bruno fired four more shots in quick succession over their current choice in cover - a (hopefully) ornamental column that had gotten knocked over by some grenade-happy idiot in the first volley. It wasn’t covered in too much ceiling, which spoke to it probably being more ornamental than structural, but Bruno’d had one too many roofs come down on his head to trust that the ceiling would stay up for long enough. Fortunately, a yell of pain greeted his last shot, and the rate of fire slacked in their immediate vicinity. Bruno stowed his gun within easy grabbing distance as Weber shoved a roll of gauze and a brown glass bottle into his hands.

Bruno himself was privately impressed that Weber had managed to keep a bottle of iodine intact through several firefights, but didn’t pause to consider it. “This is going to sting,” he told Weber seriously, and the smaller man shrugged.

“Can’t feel any worse, just do it,” he retorted, and Bruno wasted no more time. The sharp sting of iodine cut through the air as soon as he opened the bottle, managing to briefly override even the heavy sulphur stink of the four shots he’d just taken at the Russians down the hall. He moved without pause, and poured half the bottle over the surprisingly small hole in Weber’s side.

Weber arched up off the floor convulsively. “Christ!” he half-shouted, and Bruno shoved him back against the column; now wasn’t the time to be out of cover even the smallest bit. Weber settled, and Bruno grabbed the roll of gauze and folded cloth pad Weber had magically produced from another pouch. Pad first, then he wrapped several lengths of gauze all the way around Weber’s middle, the smaller man maintaining a brutal grip on his arm as he worked.

As he tied the last knot on the bandage, Bruno settled back against the column to inspect his handiwork. “You good?” he asked Weber after finding no signs of more blood coming through the cloth and no slippage in the gauze or knot.

Weber exhaled explosively through his nose. “Let’s get this shit done,” he responded, and with one well-practiced move both men scooped up their guns and renewed their assault on the Soviets.

Chad lay perfectly still on his soft, so wonderfully soft bed, wishing for his head to stop pounding.

It had started three days ago. Well, in all honesty it had started several weeks ago when Thomas had disappeared from Chad’s soul, but this specific episode had started three days ago. It had started out a day like many others, with the unwelcome addition of a headache that had slowly built itself up behind Chad’s eyes. Normally, he would have just grounded himself in the warmth of his bond with Thomas and kept going; the memory of Thomas’ well-banked fire kept him on an even keel, and reminded Chad of why he’d fought so hard to return to the camaraderie of Brad and the Sparkle Sisters. But Thomas hadn’t been there when he’d reached, and other memories just didn’t have the same effect for some reason. Even Brad could only help so much, and by the end of the day the pain had gotten bad enough that even the thought of taking a mouthful of wonderfully greasy turkey meat had turned Chad’s stomach.

He should have seen it coming. Ever since Thomas - never Tom - had gone where Chad couldn’t follow, life had gotten much, much more difficult. Random shooting pains in his legs and spine had simply become part of the daily routine, and fine tremors in his hands that he just couldn’t stop had made most of his favorite hobbies either difficult or impossible; still, he’d tried to keep up appearances for the Sparkle Sisters so they wouldn’t worry about him and had been largely successful for the last few weeks. Firmer grips when cooking food, ignoring the shooting pains, walking with a firmer step to avoid stumbles - little things, but they added up over the course of the day and by the time it was time to hit the hay Chad was exhausted. And then he’d get up in the morning to do it all over again, because people were relying on him and he couldn’t let them down. Not again.

Still, the headache hadn’t gone away overnight, and he’d woken up to the persistent feeling of pins and needles in his left leg - like he’d slept on it funny, but somehow worse. And more persistent; the feeling hadn’t gone away during the day, and over time his right hand had developed a tic as well. He’d taken painkillers and gone to bed earlier than he usually did, though not early enough to excite comment.

And then yesterday morning - early enough that it might actually still have been the night before - he’d been woken by waves of pain pulsing through his skull. Chad had only just been able to make it to his bathroom before his stomach had violently rejected everything he’d eaten the day before, each heave bringing a fresh roil of agony through his head. Brad had been concerned, but just the smell of him had been enough to send Chad retching into the toilet again and Brad had retreated to the other side of the admittedly palatial bedroom Chad had been accorded aboard the Glamatron.

After what felt like hours Chad’s stomach had untwisted to the point where he could creep back over to his bed and bury himself there. At some point Brad had thoughtfully lowered the lights, but Chad was too afraid about what might come out if he opened his mouth and ended up waving at his companion in a manner that he desperately hoped would convey his gratitude. Brad didn’t say anything in return, for which Chad could only be grateful; he didn’t really want to know what speech would do to his brain right now.

The waves of pain in his head pulsed in time to his heartbeat, and started at the Keepstone embedded in his forehead before spreading out to encompass his whole brain. Much, much more acutely than usual anyway; ever since the thing had attached itself to his brain and nervous system a second time the pain had been something of a constant. In his head, down his body, along every nerve and muscle fiber, the magic of the Keepstone pulsed night and day. It was that magic that let him join the Sparkle Sisters, of course, and kept Brad alive and fresh but - there was never really a point where it didn’t hurt. Magical Space Princes weren’t meant to have Keepstones, weren’t designed to channel them and their power correctly, and some pretty serious work had gone into making this one work through Chad.

When he’d had the memory of Thomas to lean on, to keep him upright and moving forward, it hadn’t been so bad. Without him…

A knock sounded at the door and Chad twitched involuntarily as the sound echoed between his ears. The silence brought tinnitus, but the knocking was so, so much worse he couldn’t help the little sound of agony that tore itself from his lips as he burrowed deeper into his bed. He just had to stay here, and quiet, and still, and the pain would leave eventually.

“Chad?”

Ricci wasn’t the most shrill of the Sparkle Sisters - that honor belonged to the beautiful and bubbly Elliana - but her voice still seemed to bounce off his Keepstone and reverberate through his head that just made the paint that much worse. Chad couldn’t hold back the groan of agony at the spike, and that also didn’t help any.

“Chad, nobody’s seen you in a few days, and we’re worried.”

He was fine, he could handle this, he would be fine. Nothing was wrong beyond his ability to handle, he just had to wait this out and the pain would go back to manageable levels. He could do this.

“Chad, I’m coming in,” Ricci sounded both apologetic and determined, and Chad had no chance to object before a slice of harsh fluorescent light from the hallway landed squarely on his face.

Chad couldn’t help the sound of agony he made as the light drilled holes into his skull directly through his eyes. He’d been hit full-on by laser blasts that hurt less. Direct shots from plasma weapons hurt less. The redoubled pain in his head made his stomach twist and it was all he could do to wriggle over to the side of the bed before retching. There was nothing to come up but bile and a little bit of the tepid ginger tea he’d managed to choke down at some point in the last six hours, but it still smelled and that kept his stomach from settling back down like he wished it would.

“Chad!” Ricci’s cry of dismay did exactly nothing to help matters, and Chad whimpered as it echoed.

“Ricci! Over here,” Brad called in a half-whisper half-shout that made Chad want to curl up and die a little less than Ricci’s shout had.

Ricci shot a glance his way before walking over to Brad, but Chad was currently beyond speech. Fortunately the door had closed behind her at some point, so at least the light was off his face, but his stomach still roiled unpleasantly from the smell and from his hasty movements. He could hear Brad and Ricci conversing in whispers, but with his brains slowly leaking from his ears he couldn’t tell what they were saying. He couldn’t tell how long they’d talked, either, just that it seemed like forever and no time at all. Finally, Ricci approached the bed where he’d curled himself into a protective ball under his covers again.

“Chad?” she asked in a voice just above a whisper, and he twitched at the sound. Taking that as an affirmation he was listening, Ricci continued on. “Chad, I’m going to time bubble you and clean this mess up, okay? And once you feel better, we’ll get Elliana to heal you.”

He managed to grunt an affirmative, but he wasn’t quite sure what Elliana could do. It was his Keepstone forcing so very much magic down magic channels that simply weren’t designed to handle the volume that was causing the problem, as far as Chad was aware. This was just the reason why boys weren’t allowed to be chosen by Keepstones; there was nothing wrong for Elliana to repair.

Still, he couldn’t articulate his thoughts - in fact, he was probably lucky just to be able to think thoughts at this point - and so in the space between one breath and the next Ricci and the smell of vomit vanished. It was probably closer to twenty minutes in real time, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. All he had to do was hang on, and he could get through this.

He could do that.

Ex-Sergeant Alexei Petrov was a patient man.

He’d been a patient man when he was young, he was a patient man when he had served his planetary defense force, and he was a patient man now. Forty years he had served as his planet’s first line of defense, and he would have served forty more before retiring comfortably had high command not tested the limits of that patience. To be in the military was to follow orders, to subordinate your will to that of the chain of command and use your skills to the utmost to fulfill mission objectives that would, in the end, never be explained to you; Petrov had done that without qualm for forty years.

But he drew the line at killing children, even alien ones.

His unit had been tasked with discouraging alien settlement on the moon; Petrov had not questioned the orders, had simply done as was required of him until one day it was him, his squad, and a room full of terrified alien younglings. He had looked around once, considered his orders and his options, and put down his gun before walking out. The rest of his squad had followed him, and when the army branded them all traitors and deserters they had accepted the consequences. Now they fought a running battle with the shadowy element that rotted their government from the inside out with a motley crew of rebels, anarchists, dissenters, and idealists of all stripes and species.

Bruno Hamilton had landed in his mind right in the middle of a firefight. Rather than distract his avatar from the battle at hand, Bruno took a step back in their shared mindspace and observed. The guns were very different than he was used to - still the same principle, point one end at your enemy and a projectile comes out, but they were strangely integrated into the user’s body and apparently tracked pupil movement to aim and used muscle contraction to fire. Very odd, to Bruno’s sensibilities, but to his avatar they were as familiar as breathing.

Getting a view of their tactical position, Bruno was pleased to see that Pierce had managed to land them just outside the Hall of Archives that would hopefully contain records that would indicate whether or not the Nightmare being attached to this metaverse at one point in its history - and if so, when. It was a slim lead, one they didn’t have a lot of time to pursue, but Bruno had had a rare break and so had brought Thomas and Stone with him on the jump. If anyone could get the information quickly and store it safely, it would be one or the other of them. He couldn’t see them, from where his avatar was, but he’d expected that and trusted Pierce enough by this point to know that they’d be relatively nearby.

It was a little strange, actually; Bruno could see from his avatar’s vantage point that none of their elements were pushing up, even though a quick glance showed the defenders firing rate had dipped perceptibly in just the few minutes Bruno had actually been in this metaverse. Tactically, it would be wiser to start moving in, keep the pressure on the defenders and force them to consolidate behind their set perimeter. Instead, the attackers just kept blazing away, staying well back from the building in fixed positions; Bruno could feel a watchful anticipation curling through his avatar, but no memory-images surfaced to explain it. What were they waiting for?

The shrilling alarms changed to a pitch Bruno could feel in Petrov’s back teeth, and a rolling door he’d taken to be some kind of loading dock slammed open to reveal…Something. It looked like some kind of horrible mishmash between a cow an some heavy machinery, but he didn’t get a good look before his avatar was up an pushing forward. Out of the corner of their shared eye Bruno could see other elements pushing forward as well, but it looked like only Petrov was aiming for the now-bellowing monster. A piece of plan crystallized in Petrov’s mind; keep the guardian-protocol occupied. Apparently, the thing was immune to the type of bullets they used in this metaverse and the only way to keep it from shredding the whole unit was to engage it at close quarters and pray you didn’t die - Bruno could see Petrov’s memories of doing so twice before, but he crept a little closer to the fore of their shared mind anyway.

Petrov collided with the thing with an almighty crash right before it hit another member of his squad - Bruno could see the wispy form of Thomas hovering over the other’s head before the man rushed inside but it was enough to reassure him of achieving mission objectives. It allowed him to narrow his focus to the thing in front of him.

This one was a little different than the other two Petrov had faced; the organic parts were reinforced with some kind of cladding that neither pilot nor avatar recognized, and the cabling was armored. Those upgrades, combined with the shine of the metal on the augmented portions, was enough to mark it out as an upgrade - possibly in direct response to the last two Petrov had comprehensively wrecked. The AI didn’t seem to be any better, though; within a few moments it had settled into the same pattern that Petrov had identified in the previous two. Swipe, swipe, back up, ram - Petrov dodged them with a wary eye as Bruno watched carefully. He didn’t want to interrupt his avatar at such a crucial moment, when far too much relied on muscle memory that Bruno simply didn’t have. Petrov had faced these things before, and it was that experience that was required now.

At least, right up until the monster switch from a ram to a swipe mid-motion. There was an audible crunch as steel-reinforced horns came up under Petrov’s guard and rammed him in the chest. Bones snapped like matchsticks, and Petrov was hurled a dozen feet away into the solid stone of the wall.

For a single, breathless moment all Bruno could remember was the pain of crushed organs, the burning of snake venom, and the desperate, yawning void of space where an avatar’s soul used to be.

In the next instant, he was in the forefront of their shared mind, shoving Petrov away and down. The man’s experience was no longer a benefit, and the less he had to feel of their shared ribcage pulling itself together the better. Bruno stood up and jumped to the side just in time to narrowly avoid being hit by a full-speed charge that shook the entire wall when it connected. In a move that he’d seen his granddaughter do a half-dozen times or more, Bruno vaulted onto the back of the metallic monstrosity. His ribs protested mightily, and he could feel blood wetting corners of his mouth as the movement jarred some of the broken pieces into piercing organs, but the important thing was that he now had a direct line to the main power cabling running along the spine of the beast.

No regular person in this metaverse could have made that jump; the thing was half again as tall a Bruno was in his own body and nearly twice the height of Petrov. No regular person could have gotten into the cabling, either; heavy plates, bolted into metallic augments and semi-organic cladding alike lined the cable as it snaked up from the saddlebag-esque battery mounts along the spine to the circuits that let the thing work.

But Bruno was a class 4 metapilot, and he was far from a regular person.

Reaching down, he hooked his fingers underneath the plate closest to the battery packs and heaved. The thing beneath him bellowed and bucked, trying as hard as it could to get him off - but it could never do the one move that could have worked, having been gyroscopically stabilized specifically to prevent; roll. Bruno gritted his teeth and held on as the shattered chunks of his ribs jarred once more, before heaving one more time. The plate popped off, and Bruno reached down to tear the cabling away from the power cell.

The thing gave one last horrible bellow before going stiff and silent, and Bruno could feel Petrov’s approval in the back of his mind.

Mission accomplished.

“Status?”

Bruno had more than a decade of service to his name, and he’d heard that word hundreds of thousands of times. Most of them, it seemed, in the last hour.

“I’m fine,” he gritted out, and Weber nodded exactly the same way he had the last four times Bruno had answered the question.

Weber normally kept a pretty even keel; wound a bit tight ever since ‘Nam, but that was usually more helpful than harmful. The last time Bruno had seen Weber engage in this kind of oddly hands-off mother-henning was back in '76 when Tunstall had gotten himself shot in the thigh and they’d had to walk him ten miles to the evac point. Bruno had been the one even remotely close enough in height to help the captain limp along, while Graves had been carrying as much extra gear as he could take and bitching about it the entire time. Weber had alternated between ranging out of sight ahead of them and following so close behind that if he’d been any closer he’d’ve been walking in Tunstall’s boots - though fortunately at that time he’d directed most of his demands for status to Tunstall, who’d born it with the patience Bruno was pretty sure had earned him his captain’s bars.

Now Bruno was the focus of that strangely watchful gaze and wishing strongly that their current commander had split up the vehicles a bit differently. Bruno, Weber, Daniels, and Lopez were crammed into the nearly-full cargo compartment of an unmarked truck that had been chosen for the job largely because it traveled the route several times a day than for any comfort or space considerations; using US equipment would have caused the covert part of the mission objective to fail in a pretty dramatic way, so it had been arranged for the team to be split across two local vehicles hired specifically for that purpose. Cleburne, Wilkerson, Fuller, and Tottle were in a laundry vehicle somewhere ahead of them; Bruno had originally been slated to go on that vehicle as well, but…

He glanced down at the already-reddened bandage and grimaced. He’d underestimated the guard he’d been sent to dispose of, and paid the price. He hadn’t quite counted on a five-nothing civilian having blades sewn into the elbows of his clothes, and he certainly hadn’t expected the man’s first response to being grabbed from behind with a hand over his mouth to be to go absolutely crazy. The man had wriggled, kicked, writhed, clawed, and tried to bite his way to freedom before Weber had slipped over to slit his throat, and had gotten Bruno several times with knives in unexpected locations.

The worst was his gut, though, and he winced as he put a hand on it, bandage tacky to the touch. The truck wasn’t designed for a smooth ride, either, and the bumping and jarring was doing absolutely nothing to help stop the bleeding. He suppressed a sigh as he adjusted his position on the seat in the vague hope of easing both the pain and the rattling, and the small movement attracted Weber’s attention again.

Weber’s eyes zeroed in on Bruno’s hand, palm red with blood, and his lips thinned. “You’re-”

Not fine, lying to me, going to need new bandages - whatever he’d been about to say Bruno would never know as the truck hit an enormous pothole and the entire cargo compartment bounced a good ten inches. Bruno ended up on the floor with Lopez - who’d been sitting next to him and looking relieved that Weber’s focus wasn’t on him - on top of him, elbow right in the sore spot. From the cursing coming from Weber and Daniels’ side, he had to guess that Weber had probably ended up in Daniels’ lap. Not that he stayed there for long, as Lopez was suddenly pulled off of Bruno with what was probably excessive force.

“Status,” Weber barked and Bruno didn’t quite manage to stifle the sigh this time.

“Fi-” he started, response nearly automatic at this point, before Weber glared pointed down. Bruno looked, and saw a stain spreading up his uniform shirt.

“I think I need a medic,” he said deadpan, and Daniels snickered rudely.

Weber flipped him off with one hand while pulling another pressure bandage out of his pocket with the other, and Bruno only just resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Weber was never going to let him hear the end of this.

“Two, this is three. Status check, over.”

Bruno carefully pulled the handheld radio off his belt with an absolute economy of movement. “Three, this is two. We are in position, over.”

The radio hissed softly for a moment before the reply came through. “Two, this is three. Stand by for signal. Over and out.”

Bruno clicked the radio once in the pre-arranged acknowledgement and returned the unit to his belt before looking around. In the dim light of pre-dawn, his team was nearly impossible to see. A flicker of motion here, a slight scuffling sound there - nothing that couldn’t also be attributed to vermin and Bruno felt a slight rush of satisfaction; the last few times he’d been contracted he’d been sent out with teams of green hotshots who’d been far too impatient for the mission they’d been assigned to, and he’d said as much in his AARs. Not so this time, with every man on the team having a good half a dozen missions under their belt - if not more.

Though it was slightly puzzling that a team like this would get sent here. Bruno had never been in the area before, but the mission brief had said this was a city booming on the back of the fruit industry. Why insurgents would be hiding in a warehouse that also contained - according to the briefing - several tons of dried fruit, neither Bruno nor any of his current squadmates could figure out. One particularly verbose Englishman - Woolverly - had said it best when he’d speculated loudly that maybe the terrorists were trying to give the West scurvy by denying them the citrus supply on the plane in.

Whatever the reason, Bruno hadn’t reached his fifth decade of life by assuming that a mission would be easy - however nonsensical the location was - and had briefed his squad extensively on local geography. He’d done his best to position his squad tactically, as well - his team was the second wave, designated to go in hard and loud once the infiltration team popped red flares, and he’d identified three key spots that would give his squad maximum cover inside after they’d breached. Once in, they were to eliminate all hostile targets and either destroy or retrieve targets designated by the infiltration squad.

All they needed now was the signal.

A flash of red in one of the upper story windows, and Bruno was up and moving.

Smith, Carson, and Chesley had the explosives; they were closest to the structure and were setting the charges before the rest of the squad had covered 3\4ths of the distance. Once the rest of the squad had grouped up into the pre-determined breaching order, Bruno gave them a countdown from three on his fingers and all three of them detonated their charges simultaneously. Bruno frowned at Smith even as they breached the warehouse to a great deal of smoke and yelling. The man had been in charge of shaping the charges, and Bruno had felt the explosion all the way down into his feet; either the man had used too much C4, or the building was on less-stable ground than they’d thought.

The floor bucked under his feet, and Bruno staggered into Johnson, sending them both tumbling to the floor. Apparently Smith hadn’t screwed up the charges after all.

“Earthquake! Everyone out!” Bruno roared, voice rising above the din with years of long practice, and shoved Johnson toward the hole in the wall they’d just made to get in - a hole that was beginning to rapidly crumble around the edges. The shouting had ceased for an instant when Bruno had yelled, but now it was louder than ever. As the floor bucked and rolled in a way that was almost nauseating, Bruno turned and began crawling as best he could further into the warehouse.

A resounding crash behind him heralded the fall of one of the tall stacks of crates that made the interior of the warehouse into a rat’s maze, and more crashing further off lead to pained yelling in both English and Persian. Bruno gritted his teeth and kept moving; one of the top mission priorities was retrieving the infiltration team, and damn if he was going to let an earthquake get in the way of that now. Smoke was thick in the air as he moved, and he almost missed the still figure lying beneath a pile of collapsed crates - almost, except that he managed to accidentally plant a hand on their head as he crawled. A quick check revealed no dog tags and a distinctly non-regulation beard, and Bruno moved on. Whoever it was wasn’t a problem anymore - the crates had broken their neck.

The tremors were slowing now, and Bruno risked standing up. When he didn’t immediately end up on his can again, he pressed forward, heading for the last place he’d heard shouting in English from. Rounding a corner, he found one of the infiltration team - the inimitable Woolverly - cursing loudly and trying to get his leg out from underneath two heavy-looking crates. When Bruno took a deliberately heavy step he whipped around, gun out and face pinched, only to sag in relief when he saw who it was.

“Well, come on then. You damn oversized Yanks have to be good for something; be a good chap and give that crate a shove?”

“Right.” Bruno refrained from pointing out that Woolverly - when he wasn’t prone on the floor - was nearly the same height he was, and instead moved over to the two crates. One was leaning on the other somewhat precariously, and that was what was causing the pressure trapping Woolverly’s leg. He glanced down at the man.

“Get ready to pull,” he warned, and Woolverly nodded grimly.“

Bruno returned the nod. "On three. One…Two…Three!”

Bruno heaved on the crate and Woolverly hauled on his leg, and the twisted limb came free just before Bruno lost his grip and the crate came crashing down. Woolverly looked up at him with a pained smile.

“Thanks old chum, I - look out!”

The warning came too late, and Bruno barely felt the impact as the crates behind him shifted and came down on top of him.

Andi discreetly wiped her eyes for the fifth time that day, glad of the mostly ornamental half-apron that was part of the required uniform.

It’d been almost a month since her grandmother, her last living family member who had raised Andi ever since she was small, had died. She’d known for a while it was coming, had watched the cancer progress as the medical bills mounted ever higher, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt. The life insurance had been just enough to cover the funeral; it had been a small affair, with only Andi and a few members of her grandmother’s knitting circle attending. After that, Andi was left alone in a too-big apartment filled with far too many memories.

At least Joe had been understanding about the whole thing; when the owner of the coffee place she worked at had heard her teary voice over the phone saying she wouldn’t be in today, he’d told her to take as much time as she needed to get herself back together and that her job would be waiting for her when she returned. That had prompted a fresh bout of tears that he’d patiently waited on the line through before telling her in the gentlest voice that she’d ever heard him use that it would get better, no matter how bleak it seemed right now. She’d thanked him profusely before hanging up; for all Joe was never to her knowledge ever actually in the coffee shop that bore his name - Joe’s Diner - he seemed to have a finger on the pulse of it at all times. She suspected the head barista, a tall guy everyone called Hollywood, was a relative of his or something and told him everything, but it didn’t really matter.

It had taken her almost two weeks before the apartment had become unbearable; she still had some time left on the lease, but she used her grandmother’s passing as an excuse to break it early without a fee and found another, smaller place downtown. It was further from the coffee shop, but it was closer to the bars and other cafes that sometimes held open mic nights and she still clung to the idea of someday making it big as a musician. Plus it looked nothing like her old apartment and was far more affordable, so that was something. Going through her grandmother’s things had been the low point of the month, and she’d ended up taking several days to get through it all.

Still, by the end of a month she couldn’t take it anymore and had called Joe’s Diner to ask for some shifts. She suspected Joe had told Hollywood about what had happened, because when she got her schedule it was two weeks of easy mid-afternoon shifts that started just after the morning rush ended and went on for eight hours with a break clearly marked during the lunch peak. Andi could only be grateful for the kid gloves treatment; this was just her first day back and she’d nearly broken down several times already at stupid, stupid things. Someone wearing the same fragrance her grandmother used to, a turn of phrase that was so out of touch with the times, a shirt in her grandmother’s favorite shade of blue -

“Hey.”

Andi finished wiping her eyes and looked up. Standing at the counter with his hands jammed in his pockets was one of Joe’s regulars, a man by the name of Crash Jaxun. He’d come in around 11 in the morning and sit for hours nursing some disgustingly sweet confection at one of the back tables away from the windows. His sister always tipped generously when she arrived at around 2 to pick him up, and the two had continued the trend for as long as Andi had worked here. She didn’t know why they scheduled it like that, but every weekday like clockwork they’d show up and leave at exactly the same times.

Crash never looked anyone in the face if he could help it - though he always wore a huge pair of aviators so it was hard to tell - but Andi pasted on a smile for him anyway and returned to her spot by the register. “Hey, sorry, what can I get for you? Did you finish your drink?”

It only happened rarely, but if he did finish his drink before his sister arrived Crash would always order the exact same one again and make sure to finish it just as his sister walked in the door. Andi’s hands were already moving to the correct keys - fourteen pumps of caramel syrup, blegh - when Crash shook his head. Then he nodded, then shook his head again before looking for and fidgeting with a coffee stirrer he’d pulled from the mug of them that was always kept by the register.

“’M sorry,” he mumbled without looking up, and Andi blinked at him.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, enunciating each word carefully though his voice didn’t get any louder. He paused for a moment, and then continued. “For your loss.”

Andi’s breath caught in her throat and she blinked furiously to keep the tears out of her eyes. The sentiment had sounded trite coming from her grandmother’s knitting friends, Joe had said he’d keep her place for her, and Hollywood hadn’t said anything at all. She was struck momentarily speechless that one of the customers she’d only ever spoken to about his drink order would say it so sincerely.

He seemed to take her silence as a prompt to continue. “I remember, remember how bad it was, when Dad died. Tessa acted strong, but I heard her sniffling too when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.” He glanced up at her face once and immediately looked away again. “It was hard, for a while. I remember, it was hard. So. You know.” He shuffled his feet. “I’m sorry.”

Before Andi could say anything - though even she didn’t know if she was going to thank him or ask about his father - Crash turned and hurried back to his usual seat like he was afraid someone was going to take it in his absence, leaving Andi alone with her thoughts. She could feel tears welling up with gratitude at the sincerity of Crash’s simple statement, but before she could signal Hollywood to take over for her so she could go cry in the cold storage room the bell above the door tinkled to signal a customer entering. She hurriedly blinked the tears away and fixed up the smile that had slipped at some point during Crash’s speech.

“Hi! Welcome to Joe’s, what can I get for you?”

The black man in a police jacket who had just walked in didn’t even bother to look at the menu before ordering. “Coffee, large, black. What do you want, Eli?” he asked the somewhat younger man who’d come in with him. The teenager spent a long moment looking at the menus written in chalk above the cash register before replying.

“Large mocha with whipped cream.” The older man rolled his eyes at the order but didn’t say anything and Andi quickly tapped the keys to input it into the system.

“Will that be all?” She asked politely, and the two nodded before Mr. Police Jacket reached for his wallet to pay.

The two of the were the start of a mini-rush - nothing crazy like the lunch crowd, but over the next twenty minutes or so a steady stream of people went in and out of the door. The buff woman who worked at the gym down the street came in towing her little brother Mac, whom she dumped at the table next to Crash’s and admonished to stay there while she finished her shift; the haggard-looking psychologist who always ordered a cold brew with a shot of cherry; a tired-looking teacher who ordered a quadruple shot and then nearly fell asleep while drinking it; a very Southern woman who twanged her way through an order for a vanilla latte; and finally a very tall older man who was quite possibly the most menacing person Andi had ever seen wearing an actual suit (and not, you know, riot gear) ordered a small black coffee before taking a table not too far from Crash and Mac - who seemed to have hit it off and were now huddled at the same table.

After another ten minutes of no-one else coming through the door, Hollywood came out of wherever he’d been lurking in the back and tapped her on the shoulder. “Break time kiddo,” he said, and Andi nodded before stepping away from the register to let him sign on. Hollywood knew everyone’s names - he could name every customer that came in the door whether they’d been to the shop before or not and frankly Andi secretly suspected him of being a psychic - but if he knew you well he almost never called you by it. Crash was “kid,” Andi was “kiddo,” the guy who made the pastries and sandwiches for the counter was “cook,” and the tall dude who always came in wearing a real 1920s-style fedora was “roads.”

Andi shucked her apron obediently and went back to the little nook in the kitchen that was the designated break area. One of the other workers - a slightly cat-obsessed woman named Aquamarine - had at one point tried to cheer the place up with some throw pillows and a table cloth for the minuscule table crammed into it, but the pillows now lived in one of the nearby drawers until someone needed a nap and the tablecloth had acquired a number of mysterious stains that turned the cat print into some kind of weird abstract. Still, it was quiet and Cook always had a plate of ugly or burned food in the middle of the table so Andi helped herself to a very crunchy toasted sandwich and an undersized croissant as she could hear the sound of the lunch rush picking up.

Crash’s words still resonated with a strangely healing kind of hurt and her thoughts wandered towards the morose, but the food helped and by the time her half-hour was up the lunch rush was in full swing. Working meant she didn’t have to do much thinking, so going out and opening up the second register was a welcome distraction and for the next hour or so she managed to keep busy enough that she didn’t have to think about anything beyond getting an order and making it. By the time a quarter to 2 rolled around, things had quieted down again to the point where Hollywood had her close her register and move to his so he could go into the back and do…whatever he did in the back. Andi wasn’t sure she wanted to know; all that mattered was that if someone got rowdy or ornery he would pop up out of nowhere and threaten to hit them with his ordering book. That was usually enough to shut even the most offended Karen up, and he’d only ever had to follow through on the threat once that Andi could remember.

She busied herself with wiping down the counter and cleaning up what she could without using the really nasty solvents or taking the machines apart - the more she got done now, the less work they’d have to do when they closed at four. Most of the customers from earlier had left - Mac had been picked up at some point by his sister, the psychologist and the teacher had both left immediately after getting their drinks, and neither the cop nor the twanger were sitting at any of the tables - but the old man in the suit was still there. He’d pulled out reading glasses at some point, and appeared to be doing the crossword puzzle in one of the local newspapers. The small coffee cup in front of him was still half full, and Andi shrugged mentally. He wouldn’t be the first retiree they had taking up a table for most of the day - though certainly the most intimidating to ever do so - and as long as he still had a drink he was still a customer.

2 on the dot saw Tessa walk in, order her usual, and walk out with Crash in tow. More people drifted in and out but the old man stayed at the table he’d claimed until it was almost time to close. Andi was just beginning to consider politely asking him to leave - he was the last customer in the place, and she couldn’t really start the heavy-duty cleaning until he left - when he suddenly reached out, drained the last quarter-cup of coffee he’d had sitting in front of him, and stood up.

“Thanks,” he said, indicating the cup in front of him. His voice was low and a little gravelly, like he’d used to smoke or something.

He paused for a long moment before deflating slightly and nodding to her. “It’s good coffee,” he said at last before picking up his newspaper and walking swiftly out the door.

Andi blinked after him as the tinkling bell signaled his departure. She had the strangest feeling that wasn’t what he’d actually wanted to say, but for the life of her she didn’t know what that might have been. Shrugging to her herself, she turned and picked up the now-empty mug off the table. To her surprise, underneath it was a neatly-folded twenty. It was the biggest tip she’d gotten that day, but something about it - and the old man - just felt weird.

Shaking it off, she went and flipped the sign on the door to closed before beginning her cleaning routine. Whatever the old man’s deal was, it wasn’t her problem for now.

———————————————————————————————————-

Over the next week, Andi saw the old man four more times. He never stayed as long as the first time, but he always ordered the same thing and never came in on anybody else’s shift - she’d asked Aquamarine and Nathan, and both of them had denied seeing him whenever they were working. It creeped her out a little bit to think about, but the old man never did anything. He’d come in, order a small black coffee, and sit at the same table for a seemingly indeterminate amount of time. One day he stayed only stayed for ten minutes, the next day he took the table for three hours.

She’d considered asking Hollywood about it, but he hadn’t seemed to be bothered by the man - not like the time when some creepy neckbeard had decided Aquamarine should be the object of his affections. Andi hadn’t seen the guy do anything, but the third time he’d showed up Hollywood had stopped him, told him clearly that stalking the employees was not allowed and wouldn’t be tolerated, and added that if he ever showed up at Joe’s Diner again there would be Consequences that he would not enjoy. Neither Andi nor Aquamarine had ever seen the dude again, and the incident was only rarely discussed.

All of which basically amounted to if Hollywood wasn’t throwing this guy out then he probably wasn’t a pervert. Still, Andi didn’t know what to think of the fact that he only showed up when she was working. She’d almost decided to let it go another week and see what happened when the old man decided the whole issue for her.

He’d come in later than usual - a quarter til four, and he was the only one in the shop. Joe’s Diner only served coffee and pastries, and there wasn’t enough people who wanted that after four to warrant them staying open later. Andi had just decided to start the closing work early - the faster she got it done, the sooner she could go home - when the bell tinkled to signal a customer. She hurried out of the closet in the back where they kept the cleaning supplies and pasted a smile on her face.

“Hi! Welcome to Joe’s, what can I get for you?”

He didn’t answer for a long moment before finally blowing out a puff of air in a heavy sigh. “I need to speak with you.” He paused for another instant. “Privately.”

Andi felt her heart jump into her throat. The guy looked to be about 75, and dressed in a very nice suit to boot, but he was also built like a truck and the lines in his face didn’t look like they came from smiling.

“I, I don’t know, I - it’s nearly closing, and-”

“And I can take care of it for one evening,” Hollywood interjected smoothly, appearing like magic from the door to the kitchen. “Go ahead and punch out a little early, kiddo, I’ll make sure everything’s ready for opening tomorrow.”

The old man’s expression didn’t change even as Andi shot Hollywood a betrayed look. The taller barista simply smiled benignly and waved her off, and Andi begrudgingly went and got her things from the employee closet in the back. When she walked out, Hollywood was sweeping the floor while the old man stood stiff and tall next to the door. Andi didn’t exactly want to leave the protection of Hollywood, but she trusted the other man enough to the point where if he was letting her leave with the old dude, it was probably safe to do so.

The old man opened the door and stepped out first, scanning the area around them before stepping aside and letting Andi past. She raised an eyebrow - did he think Hollywood would let muggers lurk around Joe’s Diner? - but let it pass without comment as the big man fell in step beside her, matching his pace to hers. Which Andi was obscurely grateful for; she’d had tall friends in the past who weren’t as considerate and she’d had to jog to keep up with them at times.

The silence stretched between them, until Andi huffed, impatient. “Well, you said you wanted to talk to me where Hollywood couldn’t hear. So, talk.”

Maybe it was a little rude, but this guy was freaking her out a little. He just had this aura around him of danger that made her hair stand on end. If anyone but Hollywood had assured her the guy was safe, she’d’ve called them nuts. As it stood, she was less inclined to believe even Hollywood by the minute; if this guy didn’t start talking…

The man seemed to deflate with a sigh, suddenly looking older than the 75 she’d pegged him for before. He reached into his pocket and she immediately backed off a step, heart hammering, but all he pulled out was a slightly worn envelope. Wordlessly, he held it out to her. She looked at him suspiciously but took it, and nearly dropped it when she saw the familiar - if somewhat shaky - handwriting on the front. Her hands were shaking as she pulled the letter out of the envelope, but he didn’t reach for her until she’d gotten to the very end and big fat tears started rolling down her face.

He reached out then, one awkward hand on her shoulder, and that was all the invitation Andi needed. Throwing herself forward she flung her arms around the old man - the old man her grandmother had chosen to write to while she was dying. Andi still missed her grandmother like a phantom limb, and the letter so warmly recounting her exploits to someone Andi’d never met had been too much. Her grandmother had told her she loved her many times, but it was almost overwhelming to have tangible proof. The older man didn’t seem to know how to react, though he hadn’t even stumbled when she’d barreled into him. He was warm, and tall, and broad, and while there were some weird lumps under his clothing Andi clutched at him like a lifeline.

One broad hand gently settled itself between her shoulder blades while the other rescued the letter from being crumpled in her fist. He didn’t do more than pat her awkwardly on the back a few times, but his hand was nearly big enough for a full and proper hug to be unnecessary. They stayed that way for a long while, Andi sobbing into his suit coat and the much taller man holding her while she did so, but finally the tears tapered off to hiccupping breaths and he let her draw back from him shakily, still wiping her eyes.

She gave a small, watery smile. “I think you already know, but…Hi. I’m Andi Jaymes,” she took a shuddering breath, “and I’m your granddaughter.”

He gave her a small smile back. It looked odd on his face, like his face had been carved over the years in such a way as to make smiling nearly impossible, and there was a strange mixture of happiness and sorrow in his eyes.

“Hello, Andi Jaymes,” he replied. “I’m Bruno Hamilton. And I’m your grandfather.”

And they all lived happily ever after.

That’s how a story’s supposed to end, right? And they all lived happily ever after. That’s the way they always ended when I was a kid, anyway, when the great evil was defeated and the rightful king was restored to his throne and peace and prosperity echoed throughout the land. When the heroes found their families and lovers came together in ways you just knew would withstand the test of time. When the grand journey was over and everyone had found their way back to the place they loved best.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Covers a lot of ground, that phrase. And maybe it’s true and maybe it’s not, but it’s not how this story ended. I say ended, but that’s not wholly true either; they’ll keep adding records to this shelf - the same shelf that was practically groaning under the weight of all the records that were here before all this started - but we won’t be there for them. Not like we were here for these.

Monday wrote once that nobody read her stories - the reports she was asked to write on the events that happened. It so happens that she was wrong, but that’s alright because she was well-informed but not omniscient. You see, we read the stories. We probably weren’t supposed to, but Management never kicked us out so we continued to sneak in for a peek.

There’s a way into the archives, a little back way that doesn’t disturb the other chroniclers at their work. Someone showed it to me a while back, and I’ve used it pretty regularly ever since. And I wasn’t alone; there’s a dozen people I know in passing - most of them pretty cool folks - who used it too, and marks of what must be a hundred other people whom I’ve never met. All of us, together, reading the reports filed neatly and properly.

The reports are well-thumbed, edges soft with use, and people just haven’t been able to resist editorializing. Little notes written in the margins - are you sure about that, let’s make Nick rap again, THAT WAS SO EPIC, for #clarity’s sake… and so on and so forth. I’m actually kind of surprised nobody’s done any surreptitious editing - or maybe they have, but maybe it becomes the report after they’ve done. I don’t know. I do know there are pictures; someone drew basically the best megalodon I’ve ever seen on one of the pages, which managed to somehow swim ominously through the water stain where someone spilled their drink.

Lot of water stains in the early volumes, if I’m honest. Lot of doodles too - weird storm troopers, Donkey Kong, a strange academic-type wearing huge glasses, you name it it’s probably doodled in those earlier volumes. That’s where the reports start, as well; Monday’s little stories, integrated seamlessly into each volume like they were always meant to be there.

Other people have also added stories, loose leaf papers tucked into the softened pages of the proper volumes. Little scraps of notebook paper sticking out haphazardly of later volumes, covered in more stories.

I’m pretty sure Management knew we came here. There were always pens, you see, little pens that let you write the notes in the margins, but…those pens are gone today. I got here hoping to finish my doodle of the glasses-wearing nerd from the first book - the book where all the notes and stuff start - and the pens weren’t here. I tried using one of my own, but it doesn’t write on the pages. The ink just won’t come out.

Eight shelves worth of volumes, of little notes and excited whispers. ______ was here. I’m so glad that you did that. Who’s your favorite pilot? Man, you need to shape up and do better. Eight shelves worth of reports from Monday. Eight shelves of titanic triumphs and crushing defeats. Eight shelves of people doing their best because they are good people.

There are other shelves with pens, but none of those pens write in these books. I don’t think they ever will again, if I’m honest. I’ve made a lot of friends sitting at this shelf, reading these volumes. I’ve left them notes, I’ve made notes for them. I may even have spilled my own drink once or twice on the pages, I really can’t speak to that.

But now the pens are gone, and the whole shelf feels a little dimmer, somehow. The shine’s gone out of it, and the last of the other folks have packed up and left. I don’t want to go - the ending was so quiet and unsatisfying, there are so many loose threads to pull and unravel into new stories, they didn’t live happily ever after - but I know better than to linger. Management may have ignored us before, but the message is clear now: stop messing with this.

Maybe I’ll find another shelf to lose myself in for a while. Maybe I’ll come back to this one and tuck more notebook paper into already-filled volumes. Maybe I’ll meet new people here, thumbing through the volumes and delighting in the notes other people have left behind. That’s using your attributes! Go get your snark on, girl. So Dick can go down and up on a woman at the same time? Rocket boots away!

I don’t think I’ll ever regret the time I spent at this shelf. But the final volume is closed, and the only pens that write on these pages are gone. It’s time to step out into the world for a minute, even if only to remind myself why the archives are much preferable. It’s time to move on to other shelves in other sections, to find more places with their little stores of pens and pencils that let you write in the volumes there.

And, hopefully, I’ll find my friends at the new shelves along with me, and we can start writing in the new volumes together.

And we all lived happily ever after.

A gust of wind and a searing pain in his chest. The taste of iron on his lips. The desperate choking as the need for air eclipsed pain. Dizzying darkness at the edge of his vision. A last, convulsive movement as time slowed to a crawl. A look of mild surprise on his killer’s face.

Richard Ramsbottom’s eyes flew open, but the memories chased him into the waking world. He wheezed, choking on blood that wasn’t in his mouth. He gasped for breaths that came easily, and the darkness that played at the edge of his vision wasn’t sleep returning. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t taste anything beyond the blood in his mouth, he was dying-

“Dick?”

The sleep-muddled voice of Jane Blonde was distant in the roaring of his ears, but he focused on it even as he felt her hand trace the curve of his back.

“Dick, it’s all right. You’re fine, it’s March 1964, you’re here. With me. Not back there. You’re fine, you’re fine, it’s fine, shhhhhh, it’s fine, you can breathe…”

Her voice was soft and just a bit hoarse, and combined with her hand on his back it helped ground Dick in the present. They weren’t on Baron Bad’s island base, he wasn’t choking to death as his chest caved in. He was in their shared bed in the small house they’d acquired overlooking the warm, Mediterranean sea. The salt breeze blew in through the open window to give some relief to the otherwise oppressive Italian night, and he could breathe.

He could breathe.

He could feel his heart slowing as Jane kept up the mantra they’d developed over the months since the incident. That whirlwind day on Bad’s island seemed so fantastic and unlikely that it had felt like a dream even while he was being debriefed about it by Jane’s superiors, yet even the littlest thing could send Dick back there like he’d never left. A hiss of steam that sounded like the hiss of a snake, the wrong turn of phrase that put him in mind of Number Two’s villainous cadence - even a particularly strong breeze had been enough a few times, the breath of air moving past his face so much like the movement of the man who’d- who’d-

Dick shook his head violently to rid himself of the thought before standing up. Jane watched him go, the worry in her eyes tempered just a bit by the warmth of her regard. In the fine Italian climate neither one of them tended to bother wearing pajamas to bed, and while the too-real nightmare still left him cold at his core he could feel the heat of her gaze warming him up slightly as he began his preferred stretching routine. He had found that, while the memories tended to linger and catch at him at the worst moments, the exercises and stretches he’d learned at a young age and practiced for years could ground him back into his body in a way not even Jane could manage.

Plus it helped ease Jane’s worries when he put on a bit of a show.

Dick took a deep breath in and let it out slowly as he began rolling his neck. While some people liked to loosen their joints from floor to ceiling, he had always preferred a top-down approach. Neck and jaw first, working out the stiff tension brought on by the onslaught of bad memories. Shoulders next, a slow rolling motion that brought an interested hum from the bed behind him; Jane loved it when he used his not inconsiderable physique to give her back rubs - she claimed they were the best part about loving him.

Dick felt a faint smile touch his lips but didn’t stop, moving on to elbows next, then wrists and the more delicate joints in the hand. While not strictly speaking part of most contortion routines his teachers had been adamant that every joint got loosened before starting anything, and Dick had never seen a reason to stop doing it.

Besides, Jane certainly enjoyed the benefits of his hyper-flexible fingers.

Huffing out a breath that might have been a laugh if the memories weren’t still lurking at the edge of his vision, Dick twisted left and right as he felt the muscles anchored to his spine ease. For all Jane was watching him with silent interest, there was a pall over the room that put paid to any thoughts of something more interesting happening than just watching. They’d tried putting the bad memories behind them by seeking refuge in each other exactly once, back shortly after Dick had cut a deal with Jane’s superiors to stay out of jail as long as he gave them all the intelligence he had on several persons of interest and to stay under Jane’s supervision; just a little pressure on his chest had brought the memories back with such a vengeance that Dick had been left seizing while Jane held on to him and cried.

They hadn’t tried that again.

Some nights were easier than others, of course, and Dick knew now a thousand and one ways to make Jane scream - just as much as she knew every spot that would drive him crazy when she kissed it just so. There was a reason they’d chosen a somewhat remote little bungalow on the Italian coast as their habitation, and it wasn’t just the fact that there was a British Intelligence contingent operating out of the Italian naval yard not ten miles up the road.

Still, tonight was not an easy one and Dick sighed as he swung one leg up into a two-handed grip that let him stretch the full range of his hip. He didn’t know exactly what caused the memories to resurface the way they did; he’d never felt anything like it. They never faded or went away, and every time they came back he was always right there, standing in Baron Bad’s laboratory while a man moving faster than humanly possible punched him hard enough to cave in his rib cage. It was always raw, bloody, airless, and visceral in a way that none of his other memories were. He’d had unpleasant things happen to him before, of course - you didn’t spend years in the employ of men like Baron Bad and come out without at least a few things you wished you could forget - but none of them came back like feeling his heart stutter and stop in his chest.

Dick quashed that train of thought as he finished loosening the joints in his other leg. Fully warmed up, he took a deep breath and released it slowly as he bent over backwards into the first pose of his preferred contortion routine. Both hands and feet firmly on the floor, he pushed his hips up and felt the first twang of a good stretch deep in his abdomen. With his upside-down view of the bed, he could see Jane, silvered by the moonlight dappling in through the lazily wafting curtains. Her normally golden blonde hair shimmered almost white in the distant light, the perfect curves and dips of her face highlighted where the moonlight fell on them, and the darker pink of her perfect cupid’s-bow lips was an almost grey-blue in the strange way things became different at night. Her hair was mussed from sleeping, the normally precise and pinned hairdo let loose to fall around her face in a way he loved more than her daytime efforts; her carefully-done makeup and hair were an armor and a weapon all in one, another tool for her job, but this? This was something she shared with him alone and he loved her even more for it.

With a sigh he released the tension in his hips and stood back up straight slowly, controlling the motion with his abdomen like his teachers had shown him how to do. Contortion wasn’t easy, and taking momentum-based shortcuts was a great way to pull or even tear muscles not braced for a sudden change in position. Both feet firmly on the ground, he paused for a moment to take a deep breath before reaching for the next pose. Bringing one leg slowly up behind him, he leaned forward even as he reached back to grasp his foot with both hands, drawing an appreciate hum from Jane - the pose was one of her favorites that didn’t involve contact with her. The first time she’d seen him do it, she’d spent the next two weeks trying to convince him to model it for a painter she knew.

Nude.

He wasn’t opposed to the idea, especially since Jane seemed quite keen on it, but the memory episodes were too frequent and uncertain; the last thing he wanted to do was have one in the middle of holding a pose, especially a pose that required so much balance. Jane had reluctantly acquiesced to his concerns, but had finished the conversation by extracting a promise that when things got better - not if, when; Jane was very firm about that - he would do it and of course he’d agreed.

The rest of his routine went without incident, each form progressing naturally to the next and driving the aching, breathless memories further and further back away from the waking world. Jane remained quiet throughout, humming occasionally when he did something she particularly enjoyed. By the time he’d finished, a thin sheen of sweat covered his skin and when he went to go wipe it off, Jane stood to join him.

The tiny bathroom hardly had room for two to move around, but Jane solved the space issue by the simple expedient of grabbing the washcloth from him and beginning to wipe him down herself. Dick was content to let her; his muscles ached pleasantly and if her hands lingered in spots then he wasn’t going to deny her that. Additionally, this way he didn’t have to worry about accidentally elbowing her in the face - he wasn’t that much taller than her, but the bathroom really didn’t have much space in it.

She worked quietly for several long moments before speaking, keeping her attention on her hands and his body.

“They’re not getting better, are they.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Dick felt compelled to answer anyway.

“No.”

She was quiet again for a moment, hands never stopping.

“You know, your people - the Americans - they’ve started talking about something similar. The soldiers in Vietnam, possibly, with more than just shell shock.”

Dick blinked down at her, the peaceful night air taking the sting out of her looking into what was going on in his head. Besides, Jane had almost as much of a stake in this fight as he did; he couldn’t blame her for looking for solutions, especially given her contacts. Still, the idea that what had happened on that island being comparable to the terrors of the Vietnam War seemed almost absurd - he didn’t even have any lingering aches or pains. Whatever the Baron had done had been enough to erase all the physical evidence of what had happened.

Sometimes, on bad nights when Jane was out on a mission, he wished it had left a scar. He wished for some physical proof of what had happened, something tangible to ground the hideous choking of the memories in so he could work around them easier. He’d scared the hell out of Jane when she’d arrived home late from a mission one night to find him holding a knife in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. She’d taken the knife away and blacked his eye for him; the next morning she’d made him promise that he’d never act on those impulses. Not two days after that she’d hired a distinctly handsome young man to tend to the garden whenever she went on a mission, one who had a tendency to take his shirt off to work in the hot Italian sun.

The invitation was clear, but Dick hadn’t taken her up on it yet. They’d had a frank discussion of her work and their boundaries when he’d been released by British Intelligence, but he simply wasn’t in the mood while she was gone. The young man in question had already agreed to help him surprise Jane for her birthday, though, and Dick was certainly looking forward to that.

“I don’t think that really applies,” he said mildly. “I never went to war, after all.”

Now Jane did look him in the eye.

“You got hurt, Dick. Really, really badly. I don’t think it matters much where it happened.”

Dick reached down and gently pulled Jane up into a hug, pressing her chest into his like a promise.

“I’m fine,” he said, and she gave him a Look.

“I will be fine,” he amended, shifting his grip so they could speak more easily. “I’m fit as a fiddle, and once I kick the stupid nightmare habit we’ll be partners for real.”

She huffed and pinched him.

“It is not a stupid nightmare habit - it’s not like you want to have them. But,” she looked up at him with a mix of forced cheer and determined optimism shining in her eyes brighter than any moonlight, “we will work through it. Together.”

He smiled. He liked the sound of that.

“Together,” he agreed.