Drifter spun and picked direction as a chilling shroud of mist glowed from the streetlights.
“The direct route is faster, and I have faith you can handle yourself. But you might experience things that are a mite uncomfortable, but they can’t hurt you ‘nless you let them.”
“Are they real?” Katrina asked. No armor. Not even a sidearm. Some vacation this is shaping out to be.
“In some senses, as real as you or I. Things that are, things that could have been. Most are harmless.”
“Alright, but before we go, what did you mean when you texted me ‘It’s handled’?” Katrina asked, remembering Drifter’s cryptic message on her phone.
“Wasn’t hard to find the fella, and help him think of other things. When you get right to it, violence is a ritual all its own. People get trapped in rituals, whether its in a church, a bottle or your fists. For example, I could have slipped through Hi Pan’s wards and had you out n a heartbeat. But you wanted to fight your way out.”
Katrina shrugged, Iron’s cut already had that itchy, rubbery feel. “Yeah, but they started it”
“Just like you knew they would. You took the long way to get yourself a scrap.”
It was like arguing with The Doctors. Katrina thought and in that moment Drifter was gone and she was flanked by the Doctors. Their forms wavering as if they were underwater. Dr Black in his flowing ebony robes, and Dr. White in her more practical pantsuit. Katrina looked for Drifter, but there was only mist.
She emerges from the dark crucible that is PRIMUS, a bearer of shadow! Dr. Black said with a theatrical wave of his arms.
Katrina shook her head as she followed their brisk pace. “Primus wasn’t that bad -- sure, there was Project Greenskin--”
It may seem like a large facility now Dr. White said. But between your natural sense of direction and comm map, you’ll be navigating like a veteran in no time. The UNITY wing is down that hallway to the end. In her opalescent hand was a comm unit -- one of the older models, at least two versions back.
It took Katrina a moment to make sense of his words. “You’re not really hearing me, are you?” Its my first day with UNTIL. Everything seemed so strange. More classes than training, feeling like I’d made a mistake. Seeing the Doctors had been such a relief.
An excellent question! Dr. Black said. And yes, you did apply to the New York office, but the threads of your destiny woven into the skein of eternity--
Skein of eternity aside, Dr. White said, cutting off Dr. Black’s monologue with a light touch on his shoulder, Major Clay asked us what to do with you and we want you here.
Why? Katrina heard another voice -- her own, but not from her. The apparition could have been her twin, but her hair was still in a PRIMUS buzzcut. Shoulders back, hands stiff at her sides, jaw set. Still getting used to UNTIL tactical wear. Her eyes held the dubious caution.
Because-- Dr Black said.
-- Everything is in a place -- Dr. White said.
-- For a reason. And you --
-- For now -- Dr White said
Belong here.
Their sentences flowed as one thought, shared. Katrina’s spectral self looked back and forth between them, confused and suspicious. Their laughter held a joy that she barely remembered. Later, she’d realize that sometimes she felt lonely, caught in the constant play between the Doctors. As they guided her shade down a steel hallway, the Doctors looked back, right at Katrina and shrugged before the trio of shades passed through the far wall.
Her breath caught. She remembered them looking back, at what back them had seemed to be nothing. She patted the wall they had passed through with the flat of her hand, surprised at its solidity. They couldn’t have possibly have seen--
Voices around the corner cut off her thought. Katrina saw another shade of herself. This Katrina had let her hair grow out some, and her accent had faded to a lilt. The man she spoke to was almost as familiar, lean, with a shock of dark curly hair that made him look even taller. Nick. Part of Katrina wanted to tear herself from watching them, but she clung to the corner, riveted.
Nick held up a chart and followed the descending line with his finger. “With the retrothrusters the Air-cavalry gave me, I can slow my descent rate by at least thirty percent in the last three meters of my leap, which will slow down the resultant kinetic transfer by at least -- did you hear what I was saying?”
“Something about retrodescent and kinetic. So no more tearing up the concrete when you leap into the middle of a fight and flail around?”
His laugh was infectious. “Is that what you think I do?”
“I’ve seen the video. I know that’s what you do. One of these days you’re going to get hurt.”
“The Adamant armor is indestructible.”
“Nothing is indestructible, Mr. Stewart.”
“Says you. Only the concrete is safe from me now, so Chief Surhoff can stop sending bills and demanding that my Affiliate Status be revoked. And I was thinking--”
“If its about retrothrusters, I have work--”
“I was thinking you could come with me when I patrol.”
“Oh?”
Nick snapped to a facade of attention. “Section 13 of the Affiliate Charter says that Affiliate heroes can be accompanied by Office of Superhuman Relation Liaisons to evaluate and improve performance.”
Katrina’s shade mocked applause. “A+ on regulation, but if you lock your knees like that you’ll pass out.”
“Just one of the many things I could learn from you, Corporal Mirinova.” Both Katrina and her shade smirked at the innuendo.
Her reply contained a nervous laugh. “About that. Mr. Stewart, I-- “
“Is everything alright?” He asked, his voice with that rich, serious tone.
Oh stop fidgeting like a school girl and spit it out. Katrina thought to herself.
“I’m thinking that perhaps another Liaison could handle your Affiliation.”
After a moment, paused. If he’d have argued -- but he didn’t. Nick nodded and occuped his gaze by folded up his chart. “Sure. I mean, of course, and Corporal, I’m sorry if--”
“No no, Wait, I don’t think you understand. Section 12 completely forbids outside fraternization between OSR Liasions and Affiliate Heroes.”
Nick stopped mid-fold. “Oh. I’m feeling pretty stupid here.”
“You have three advanced degrees.”
“Which means I’ve learned to know when I’m stupid. Does uh, fraternization include going out for noodles?”
“Fraternization covers a lot of things.” Katrina said, and pretended to ignore Nick’s blush as he fumbled the chart closed. “Noodles would be nice.”
“I know a place. Really authentic. How long before you put in request?”
“Already did. So after I introduce you to my replacement, you don’t have to call me Corporal anymore.”
“And you can call me Nick instead of Mr. Stewart. What do I call you?”
Anything you like. “Kat’s fine.”
A small sound caused Katrina to turn away from the shades. The corrugated floor had become oak strips; the hallway a small gymnasium, a ballet bar along the far wall. The sound had come from a woman. Her chestnut hair in a tight circular braid on her head, wrapped within a robin’s egg robe. The woman could have been her sister -- and older sister with laugh lines in her eyes and a form that was soft -- matronly, mother called it.
“And here I thought I was having trouble sleeping,'' the woman said her Russion smooth from a lifetime of use, “But what a strange dream you are.” Her voice was like Katrina’s but older, perhaps a little weary.
Katrina felt herself smile. “I guess I could be your dream, or are you mine?”
The woman stepped closer, peering into Katrina’s face like a mirror. “Ah, you even sound like me. How like me to dream of my younger self before Alexi’s wedding. Are you a memory, perhaps? But I never wore my hair so, Bohdan would have been heartsick to see it so short.”
“Bohdan?”
“My husband. You don’t look that much younger to have forgotten Bohdan.” Her face flickered with a suspicion Katrina knew well. “Who are you?”
“I’m just a dream,” Katrina said, wracking her mind to remember a Bohdan. “How did you meet Bohdan?”
“I’ve never met a forgetful ghost before,” she said and circled Katrina. “Papa introduced us at an officer’s reception. I hadn’t wanted to go, even though I was presenting on propulsion systems. Bohdan was a researcher in metallurgy. I was sure Papa had arranged the seating for us to be next to each other, but I talked to him anyway. Six months later he proposed; twenty years later andI get to watch my son get married. I couldn’t be prouder.”
“Congratulations,” Katrina said out of reflex. “When did you--I mean, we -- get married?”
“October 17 1992. Such a strange question. How could you forget that? I’m beginning to think you only look like me, shade.”
I was still in the incubation and wouldn’t be out until what, ‘95, ‘96? “Do you remember anything about a … chamber? One of Papa’s projects?”
The woman shook her head. “No, though Papa rarely talked about his projects. I swear he knows more about what he can’t say than what he can these days.”
“What about -- There was a party in 1985 -- I took Papa’s car because Uri said he could drive, and had his brother’s license.
“Oh yes, I remember that night. I was such a fool then -- Papa and I had such a fight, and he was determined I would not go out with Uri. He grounded me to my room and I was determined to leave and never return. Papa always left his keys in the foyer and it would have been so easy--
Katrina remembered the keys cutting into her hand as she slipped out the door. “But--”
“--but he knocked on my door and we talked in gentler voices. I still didn’t like it, but I stayed and Uri -- poor Uri -- that’s the night he died. I saw the car later -- it was such a wreck.
I took the keys, Katrina thought, and Uri took the curve too fast and went into the ravine. She winced at the vision of the road disappearing beneath the headlights until there were trees. After the scritch of breaking glass there was -- nothing.
She opened her eyes to the ruin of the car, its front end crumpled against a granite boulder all the way to the windshield. The twisted metal clicked as it cooled while the smell of petrol burned her nose. Uri -- almost a full grown man, had flown through the windshield. The girl next to him had not. Captured in a web of shattered glass and crimson, the slash in her neck sputtered obscenely.
This is how I died. So much for makeup, so much for stockings. You’re just bloody meat, girl. I don’t even know if I’m you, or if I just sit in your skin.
There were men in containment suits, their visors reflecting the stars. Uri they left for the rats and the crows. The girl they bagged, carefully scraping the windshield with a perverse attention to detail. The ravine glowed red as the Hoplight chopper dipped into the ravine, the bag was hooked to the Hoplight’s line, and in the air. The men left. The ravine darkness shrouded Uri and the car.
When I get back to Grozny, Katrina thought to herself, I’ll look for the car. She stopped breathing and felt the beat of the Hoplight, miles away. Well Papa, hardly the best candidate for a super-soldier, Command must have been furious. I have plied every favor I can with the UNTIL Moscow Office to find out what happened. Major Clay must have written a dozen memos. Moscow would have torn UNTIL apart to keep their secret. Stubborn. Papa said I came by it honestly.
When she opened her eyes, there was Drifter. “Sorry, Kat. I should have warned you about wandering off. Easy now, deep breaths ”
Katrina braced herself against her knees and took breaths until the shuddering went away. She’d seemed so content. “I didn’t wander off.”
“So you say. What did you see?”
“I think--I think I became someone else’s ghost.”
“Keep talkin’ like that I expect you’ll be on a first-name basis with the Trismegestus Council before long.”
“No thanks, I prefer things I can shoot at,” Katrina said. She tried to sound nonchalant, but her laugh was unsteady.
“Well, you’ve probably reckoned this yourself, but Ravenspeaker ain’t in Canada, so this isn’t quite the jaunt I was expecting, and you’re not exactly the quietest thing to be lugging along, with all that you carry with you.”
Katrina didn’t hide her bewilderment. “What? What the actual fuck does that even mean?”
“It means,” Drifter said, “It means, lookin’ at you, I see The Battles of Heraclea and Asculum. I hear cannon fire in the village of Malplaquet. I see the Bunker Hill covered in the corpses of young men, and a dead tree that touches the sky. You’re windward of the apocalypse.”
He pointed to the scar just under her eye. “And I see a wound of something you cut off and threw away.”
Katrina frowned into the mist. “And where is it that we’re going to, exactly?”
The glow of Drifter’s eye turned the mist crimson. “Ravenspeaker’s a wily one.”
“Which means?”
Drifter slowly surveyed the mist, until he stopped at a facing. “Which means I don’t rightly know.”
“The direct route is faster, and I have faith you can handle yourself. But you might experience things that are a mite uncomfortable, but they can’t hurt you ‘nless you let them.”
“Are they real?” Katrina asked. No armor. Not even a sidearm. Some vacation this is shaping out to be.
“In some senses, as real as you or I. Things that are, things that could have been. Most are harmless.”
“Alright, but before we go, what did you mean when you texted me ‘It’s handled’?” Katrina asked, remembering Drifter’s cryptic message on her phone.
“Wasn’t hard to find the fella, and help him think of other things. When you get right to it, violence is a ritual all its own. People get trapped in rituals, whether its in a church, a bottle or your fists. For example, I could have slipped through Hi Pan’s wards and had you out n a heartbeat. But you wanted to fight your way out.”
Katrina shrugged, Iron’s cut already had that itchy, rubbery feel. “Yeah, but they started it”
“Just like you knew they would. You took the long way to get yourself a scrap.”
It was like arguing with The Doctors. Katrina thought and in that moment Drifter was gone and she was flanked by the Doctors. Their forms wavering as if they were underwater. Dr Black in his flowing ebony robes, and Dr. White in her more practical pantsuit. Katrina looked for Drifter, but there was only mist.
She emerges from the dark crucible that is PRIMUS, a bearer of shadow! Dr. Black said with a theatrical wave of his arms.
Katrina shook her head as she followed their brisk pace. “Primus wasn’t that bad -- sure, there was Project Greenskin--”
It may seem like a large facility now Dr. White said. But between your natural sense of direction and comm map, you’ll be navigating like a veteran in no time. The UNITY wing is down that hallway to the end. In her opalescent hand was a comm unit -- one of the older models, at least two versions back.
It took Katrina a moment to make sense of his words. “You’re not really hearing me, are you?” Its my first day with UNTIL. Everything seemed so strange. More classes than training, feeling like I’d made a mistake. Seeing the Doctors had been such a relief.
An excellent question! Dr. Black said. And yes, you did apply to the New York office, but the threads of your destiny woven into the skein of eternity--
Skein of eternity aside, Dr. White said, cutting off Dr. Black’s monologue with a light touch on his shoulder, Major Clay asked us what to do with you and we want you here.
Why? Katrina heard another voice -- her own, but not from her. The apparition could have been her twin, but her hair was still in a PRIMUS buzzcut. Shoulders back, hands stiff at her sides, jaw set. Still getting used to UNTIL tactical wear. Her eyes held the dubious caution.
Because-- Dr Black said.
-- Everything is in a place -- Dr. White said.
-- For a reason. And you --
-- For now -- Dr White said
Belong here.
Their sentences flowed as one thought, shared. Katrina’s spectral self looked back and forth between them, confused and suspicious. Their laughter held a joy that she barely remembered. Later, she’d realize that sometimes she felt lonely, caught in the constant play between the Doctors. As they guided her shade down a steel hallway, the Doctors looked back, right at Katrina and shrugged before the trio of shades passed through the far wall.
Her breath caught. She remembered them looking back, at what back them had seemed to be nothing. She patted the wall they had passed through with the flat of her hand, surprised at its solidity. They couldn’t have possibly have seen--
Voices around the corner cut off her thought. Katrina saw another shade of herself. This Katrina had let her hair grow out some, and her accent had faded to a lilt. The man she spoke to was almost as familiar, lean, with a shock of dark curly hair that made him look even taller. Nick. Part of Katrina wanted to tear herself from watching them, but she clung to the corner, riveted.
Nick held up a chart and followed the descending line with his finger. “With the retrothrusters the Air-cavalry gave me, I can slow my descent rate by at least thirty percent in the last three meters of my leap, which will slow down the resultant kinetic transfer by at least -- did you hear what I was saying?”
“Something about retrodescent and kinetic. So no more tearing up the concrete when you leap into the middle of a fight and flail around?”
His laugh was infectious. “Is that what you think I do?”
“I’ve seen the video. I know that’s what you do. One of these days you’re going to get hurt.”
“The Adamant armor is indestructible.”
“Nothing is indestructible, Mr. Stewart.”
“Says you. Only the concrete is safe from me now, so Chief Surhoff can stop sending bills and demanding that my Affiliate Status be revoked. And I was thinking--”
“If its about retrothrusters, I have work--”
“I was thinking you could come with me when I patrol.”
“Oh?”
Nick snapped to a facade of attention. “Section 13 of the Affiliate Charter says that Affiliate heroes can be accompanied by Office of Superhuman Relation Liaisons to evaluate and improve performance.”
Katrina’s shade mocked applause. “A+ on regulation, but if you lock your knees like that you’ll pass out.”
“Just one of the many things I could learn from you, Corporal Mirinova.” Both Katrina and her shade smirked at the innuendo.
Her reply contained a nervous laugh. “About that. Mr. Stewart, I-- “
“Is everything alright?” He asked, his voice with that rich, serious tone.
Oh stop fidgeting like a school girl and spit it out. Katrina thought to herself.
“I’m thinking that perhaps another Liaison could handle your Affiliation.”
After a moment, paused. If he’d have argued -- but he didn’t. Nick nodded and occuped his gaze by folded up his chart. “Sure. I mean, of course, and Corporal, I’m sorry if--”
“No no, Wait, I don’t think you understand. Section 12 completely forbids outside fraternization between OSR Liasions and Affiliate Heroes.”
Nick stopped mid-fold. “Oh. I’m feeling pretty stupid here.”
“You have three advanced degrees.”
“Which means I’ve learned to know when I’m stupid. Does uh, fraternization include going out for noodles?”
“Fraternization covers a lot of things.” Katrina said, and pretended to ignore Nick’s blush as he fumbled the chart closed. “Noodles would be nice.”
“I know a place. Really authentic. How long before you put in request?”
“Already did. So after I introduce you to my replacement, you don’t have to call me Corporal anymore.”
“And you can call me Nick instead of Mr. Stewart. What do I call you?”
Anything you like. “Kat’s fine.”
A small sound caused Katrina to turn away from the shades. The corrugated floor had become oak strips; the hallway a small gymnasium, a ballet bar along the far wall. The sound had come from a woman. Her chestnut hair in a tight circular braid on her head, wrapped within a robin’s egg robe. The woman could have been her sister -- and older sister with laugh lines in her eyes and a form that was soft -- matronly, mother called it.
“And here I thought I was having trouble sleeping,'' the woman said her Russion smooth from a lifetime of use, “But what a strange dream you are.” Her voice was like Katrina’s but older, perhaps a little weary.
Katrina felt herself smile. “I guess I could be your dream, or are you mine?”
The woman stepped closer, peering into Katrina’s face like a mirror. “Ah, you even sound like me. How like me to dream of my younger self before Alexi’s wedding. Are you a memory, perhaps? But I never wore my hair so, Bohdan would have been heartsick to see it so short.”
“Bohdan?”
“My husband. You don’t look that much younger to have forgotten Bohdan.” Her face flickered with a suspicion Katrina knew well. “Who are you?”
“I’m just a dream,” Katrina said, wracking her mind to remember a Bohdan. “How did you meet Bohdan?”
“I’ve never met a forgetful ghost before,” she said and circled Katrina. “Papa introduced us at an officer’s reception. I hadn’t wanted to go, even though I was presenting on propulsion systems. Bohdan was a researcher in metallurgy. I was sure Papa had arranged the seating for us to be next to each other, but I talked to him anyway. Six months later he proposed; twenty years later andI get to watch my son get married. I couldn’t be prouder.”
“Congratulations,” Katrina said out of reflex. “When did you--I mean, we -- get married?”
“October 17 1992. Such a strange question. How could you forget that? I’m beginning to think you only look like me, shade.”
I was still in the incubation and wouldn’t be out until what, ‘95, ‘96? “Do you remember anything about a … chamber? One of Papa’s projects?”
The woman shook her head. “No, though Papa rarely talked about his projects. I swear he knows more about what he can’t say than what he can these days.”
“What about -- There was a party in 1985 -- I took Papa’s car because Uri said he could drive, and had his brother’s license.
“Oh yes, I remember that night. I was such a fool then -- Papa and I had such a fight, and he was determined I would not go out with Uri. He grounded me to my room and I was determined to leave and never return. Papa always left his keys in the foyer and it would have been so easy--
Katrina remembered the keys cutting into her hand as she slipped out the door. “But--”
“--but he knocked on my door and we talked in gentler voices. I still didn’t like it, but I stayed and Uri -- poor Uri -- that’s the night he died. I saw the car later -- it was such a wreck.
I took the keys, Katrina thought, and Uri took the curve too fast and went into the ravine. She winced at the vision of the road disappearing beneath the headlights until there were trees. After the scritch of breaking glass there was -- nothing.
She opened her eyes to the ruin of the car, its front end crumpled against a granite boulder all the way to the windshield. The twisted metal clicked as it cooled while the smell of petrol burned her nose. Uri -- almost a full grown man, had flown through the windshield. The girl next to him had not. Captured in a web of shattered glass and crimson, the slash in her neck sputtered obscenely.
This is how I died. So much for makeup, so much for stockings. You’re just bloody meat, girl. I don’t even know if I’m you, or if I just sit in your skin.
There were men in containment suits, their visors reflecting the stars. Uri they left for the rats and the crows. The girl they bagged, carefully scraping the windshield with a perverse attention to detail. The ravine glowed red as the Hoplight chopper dipped into the ravine, the bag was hooked to the Hoplight’s line, and in the air. The men left. The ravine darkness shrouded Uri and the car.
When I get back to Grozny, Katrina thought to herself, I’ll look for the car. She stopped breathing and felt the beat of the Hoplight, miles away. Well Papa, hardly the best candidate for a super-soldier, Command must have been furious. I have plied every favor I can with the UNTIL Moscow Office to find out what happened. Major Clay must have written a dozen memos. Moscow would have torn UNTIL apart to keep their secret. Stubborn. Papa said I came by it honestly.
When she opened her eyes, there was Drifter. “Sorry, Kat. I should have warned you about wandering off. Easy now, deep breaths ”
Katrina braced herself against her knees and took breaths until the shuddering went away. She’d seemed so content. “I didn’t wander off.”
“So you say. What did you see?”
“I think--I think I became someone else’s ghost.”
“Keep talkin’ like that I expect you’ll be on a first-name basis with the Trismegestus Council before long.”
“No thanks, I prefer things I can shoot at,” Katrina said. She tried to sound nonchalant, but her laugh was unsteady.
“Well, you’ve probably reckoned this yourself, but Ravenspeaker ain’t in Canada, so this isn’t quite the jaunt I was expecting, and you’re not exactly the quietest thing to be lugging along, with all that you carry with you.”
Katrina didn’t hide her bewilderment. “What? What the actual fuck does that even mean?”
“It means,” Drifter said, “It means, lookin’ at you, I see The Battles of Heraclea and Asculum. I hear cannon fire in the village of Malplaquet. I see the Bunker Hill covered in the corpses of young men, and a dead tree that touches the sky. You’re windward of the apocalypse.”
He pointed to the scar just under her eye. “And I see a wound of something you cut off and threw away.”
Katrina frowned into the mist. “And where is it that we’re going to, exactly?”
The glow of Drifter’s eye turned the mist crimson. “Ravenspeaker’s a wily one.”
“Which means?”
Drifter slowly surveyed the mist, until he stopped at a facing. “Which means I don’t rightly know.”
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