Marguerite

They threw flowers as she walked down the street; carnations, roses, tulips and daffodils filled the air and then fell to the pavement.  She walked over them, her heels crushing green leaves and stems, her soles pressing petals apart.  Her hair fell over her face, and her dress, old-fashioned and heavy, ornate with lacework (women in the crowd whispered to one another that prisoners in the Coteille had hand-sown every inch) seemed to wallow around her.  Fragrance rose from the torn flora and little eddies of wind pulled it this way and that, dispersing among the crowd and bringing faint smiles to faces.  Finally, when she was barely ten steps away from the armoured car, someone called her name.  She paused in mid-step and a hand, so pale and white that the nearest people in the crowd could see the blue tracery of her veins lifted to her hair as though to draw it back.

“Marguerite!”  The voice came from inside the armoured car and was snake-strike sharp and fast.  If words were weapons this was a glass-barbed whip; lifting and tearing skin then retracting as fast as it came, readying for another blow.  Marguerite’s hand sank back down to her side and her foot came down on the trumpet of a daffodil and she continued walking.  Behind her now, a young boy pushed his way to the front of the crowd and threw an armful of lillies after her.  They pattered to the floor like the briefest shower of rain.

“Get in the car,” said the voice as she reached the door, but she was already ducking her head and looking inside.  On the back seat was a long, bony woman wearing the uniform of the Unconscious Ministry: a high-collared grey jacket with red piping on the lapels and cuffs and the Blinded Eye embroidered on the breast pocket.  On a pull-down seat opposite her was a jackalope wearing a silvered collar attached to a thin metallic leash that in turn was tied to the inner door-handle.  Marguerite stepped in, and folded herself up on the back seat.  Someone outside the car closed the door with a soft, but definite, click, and the engine started instantly.

The bony woman waited until they had driven beyond the edge of the crowd before she spoke again.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t confine you to the Coteille.”

Marguerite tried to swallow but her throat was dry and it didn’t work.  She felt slightly nauseous, not least from thinking about the Coteille, the prison-ship moored a mile offshore, visible to people walking along the harbour’s edge.  Far enough away that no-one jumping over board had a chance of swimming to shore, yet close enough that you could hear the screams on a balmy summer’s evening.  If you listened for them.

“I don’t actually care what you think,” said the bony woman.  “Your silence is gratifying.  You will not, however, be going to the Coteille.  I think there are better uses that can made of you.  Your talents.  Don’t you, Marguerite?”

“Y… Yugh… Yes,” she managed.  Her throat was too dry for words, and too sore from screaming.  For a moment there was a memory of a silver belltower on a desk in front of her, a student looking puzzled and tapping a bell with a tiny silver hammer and… and… no chime.  She remembered there being no chime.  It was incredibly important.

The jackalope, seemingly a rabbit crossed with an antelope, long curving horns projecting from either side of its skull, growled and bared teeth that were all incisors, teeth that no herbivore had ever needed.

“There, there,” said the bony woman.  “It’s quite all right, Virgil.  She won’t hurt you.”

Marguerite shrank away from it, pressing herself into the corner of the car.  Only the gentle purr of the engine told her that they were still moving, the windows were opaque and there was no sensation of movement.  She reached out with her mind for a moment, forgetting herself and felt the car grow somehow thin in a direction she couldn’t point in.  Buildings appeared in her thoughts, a church with a steeple and a tiny graveyard on the left, a couple of shops, one a butcher’s on the right.  The road appeared silvery and the car appeared to be a redd–

The bony woman slapped her with a hand that felt like it was made from steel.

“Bad girl,” she said.  The jackalope bared its teeth, and its eyes glinted.

A shrill screech emanated from the bony woman’s jacket and, without taking her eyes off Marguerite, she reached into an inside pocket and produced a mobile phone about as large as the palm of her hand.  She touched the screen with her thumb and ripples like water spread out from where she touched it, stilling the screech.  She raised it to her ear.

“Carmen,” she said, her words crisp and clipped.  “I have her, yes.  She’s behaving passably.  No.  No, the vote went the other way.  I can’t talk to you about that now.”  There was a long silence, and then, “Deadwood, and I didn’t tell you that.”

She lowered her hand, her thumb pressing against the screen again, and looked at the jackalope.  “He’s rather pretty, don’t you think?  His horns are unusual, they have a corkscrew thread.  It’s supposed to make them especially vicious.”

“Pretty,” said Marguerite, her voice so hoarse it was more a whisper.

“Yes, pretty.”

The outsiders

“They form a small community within a small community,” said Mr. Bendix.  “They have done for nearly four hundred years; estimates put their numbers at perhaps 2,000 people.  It is at the lowest end of self-sustaining, and we suspect they abduct others from time to time to keep their genetic pool from collapsing in on itself.  There have been… bodies… found.”

“There’s always bodies,” said Dax.  He was sprawling in an orange plastic chair in the Excess Café looking very much out of place.  He was dressed in full biker’s leathers with the logo of a newly-popular courier firm blazoned across his chest, with the helmet on the table next to his coffee.  The helmet was Prussian blue and covered in script that swirled around itself and seemed almost like ornamentation.  His booted feet were on the table, stretched over to the other side and straddling Mr. Bendix who looked uncomfortable about it, but resigned.  “When hasn’t there been bodies?”

“There weren’t supposed to be any bodies last time,” said Mr. Bendix.  “That was supposed to be recovering two small artworks.”

“There were bodies,” said Dax.  “Smelly ones.”

“Well, you know about the bodies up front this time,” said Mr. Bendix.  He was wearing a pin-striped suit and looked like an accountant, though in the surroundings of the Excess Café he looked like one rather down on his luck.  Or possible meeting the kind of client who had an aversion to paperwork.  He had a briefcase with him that was on the floor by his feet, and his knees were crowded uncomfortably beneath the table, which was rather too small to accommodate his 6’4” frame.  The table was bolted to the floor, as were the chairs, which contributed to his discomfort.  “And we think we’ve found the bodies, anyway.  It’s unlikely that there are more: the community is too small to indulge in mass-murder–“

“Ritual sacrifice,” interrupted Dax with a half-smile.

“–and we’ve run all the local records for the community for the last twenty years and found a total of seventeen missing persons that can’t be accounted for.”

“Fine, so you’ve found all the bodies.  What do you want us to do then?  If this place is as small as you say we can’t infiltrate it.  No-one’s going to believe the ‘long-lost cousin’ shtick even if we were willing to try it.”

“No infiltration.  No ‘shtick’ as you so eloquently put it.  Nothing of the sort.  This is an in-and-out job because, as you say, there’s no point trying to build a cover when there’s so few people that everyone knows everyone.  One night, one quick raid and you’re out of there as though it never happened.  What I nee– what we need from you is plausible deniability about the whole affair.”

Dax raised a jet-black, thick eyebrow.  “Since when have we even been a topic of discussion?” he asked, and his voice conveyed genuine surprise.

“Coffee,” said Leah, the waitress, appearing at his knee.  She placed down a chipped white mug between his legs and swept away the half-finished, now cold cup.  “And tea for you,” she said to Mr. Bendix placing a china cup with a willow-pattern on it in front of him.  The tea was fragrant and milky.  “With too much sugar.”

Mr. Bendix sniffed.  “That coffee doesn’t smell like it came out of a jar,” he said.

“And your tea isn’t PG Tips,” said Leah.  She was just standing holding Dax’s empty cup but her voice had its hands on its hips and was glaring at him all the same.

“It’s nice to have you back, Leah,” he said.  “It was really was becoming quite unbearable in here without you.”

She softened slightly.  “Debs is a nice girl but she doesn’t understand tiered-service,” she said.  “I could use–“

“Take it up with HR,” said Mr. Bendix raising a hand.  “You know I can’t intervene.”

“He’s right, Leah,” said Dax before Leah could reply.  “It’s compartmentalised in there like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh right, and you’d know, biker-boy!”  She walked off carrying the dirty cup, and Dax noted Mr. Bendix’s eyes following her away.

“Since when have we been a topic for discussion then?” he repeated.

“Oh?  Oh!  You’re not, but informally… ah, let’s say not-on-topic, there are a few people who, uh, necessarily have to know that there might be the possibility of finding someone like, well, someones like you if there were to be a need for it, if you see what I mean.”

“Like us.  But go on.”

“Yes, well.  Us.  So what we need in this case is to be able to very definitely say that you weren’t available for this even if we’d wanted you to be.  Places you would have needed to have been, were we in the position to have been able to request your services, that would clearly be higher priority, if there were such a priority for things like this that don’t exist.”

Dax laughed and shifted his feet, pulling one leg back so that his knee was against his chest and his foot rested now on the edge of the table.  He picked up his coffee cup and sniffed it once before sipping it, and enjoying the earthy taste leavened with notes of warm spices.

“You’ll tie yourself in knots,” he said.  “So we have a job to do but we have to make sure that there’s no way anyone could show that it was us doing the job?”

“You need to show that you were doing some other job at that time,” said Mr. Bendix.  “Which is a bit of a tall order, I grant you.”

“Some might say impossible,” said Dax.

“True, but they don’t know about the abilities your team have, do they?”

Dax sipped his coffee again, enjoying it.  Mr. Bendix had been right: while Leah was away the café had been run like a real greasy spoon and it wasn’t much fun.  His memories of the first days of the Excess Café had turned out to have been sprinkled with fairy dust, and the mugs of builders’ tea and plates of fried everything with a grease sauce turned out to be much less appetising than he thought they were.  Finally he’d realised that it only worked if he went in while he was ravenous.  Leah with her approach to tiered-service, where the people the Café were for got real food and everyone else got what they were expecting was a big comfort.

“There are a couple of possibilities, I suppose,” he said at last.  “I have a couple of ideas.”

“I have a couple of suggestions as well,” said Mr. Bendix.  “Don’t look at me like that Dax, it is part of my job.”

“I think it’s something we do better though.”

“I can provide you with suitable cover jobs.”

There was a moment of silence as the two men looked at each other over their respective cups.  Then the clanging of a knife dropped on the floor broke it, and from the little kitchen at the back came a stream of invective.

“Turkish?” asked Dax, tilting his head to hear it better.

“Probably,” said Mr. Bendix.  “I know the Polish chef had to go, and he should have been replaced by now.”

“I’d be glad to look over your ideas,” said Dax, carefully looking into his coffee as he spoke.  “They might be useful when we’re working out how we’re going to do this.”

“I’d be delighted if they were to come in useful,” said Mr. Bendix equally carefully.  There was a moment more of silence.

“Do you have them on you?”

Mr. Bendix put his cup down and picked his briefcase up.

“Isn’t that a bit old-fashioned these days?  Shouldn’t you have them on a tablet and just email them to me?”

“You’ve finally got yourself an email account?”

“No….”

The briefcase combination wheels span under Mr. Bendix’s fingers, and then stopped.  He waited for two heartbeats and then spun them again to a different setting, and only this pressed the little release buttons.  The lid clicked, and Mr. Bendix lifted it carefully.  Inside was a newspaper, which he removed and placed on the table, and underneath that were three manilla folders, all stuffed to bursting.  He opened the first without taking it from the case and flicked past several stapled documents until he came to a two-pager printed on ivory paper.  “Here you go,” he said.

“This is tomorrow’s newspaper,” said Dax, who’d picked it up and was reading the headlines.

“Yes,” said Mr. Bendix holding out the two-pager.  Dax reluctantly swapped the newspaper for it.  “We’ve been having problems with the, ah, the, yes.  And one of them is advance delivery of the news.”

“That’s a problem?  For you?”

“Actually, yes,” said Mr. Bendix looking a little embarrassed.  “But we think we’ve know why it’s happening now.  And I really shouldn’t talk about it.”

“Fine, it’s your problem,” said Dax.  “Right, I’d better get to reading this and thinking about how we’re going to make this work, I guess.”

“I’d appreciate that,” said Mr. Bendix.  “Same time tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” said Dax.

The teddybear

“Can I touch it?”

“It bites, and it’s got claws that are usually filthy.”

“But if I’m careful –“

“Then it’ll be that much easier for it to bite and scratch you.  I have no antibiotics with me, and I doubt very much that there are any down here in these caves.  You might well die from whatever it’s got living under its claws, David.”

David pulled back the hand that was starting to reach out to the mewling teddy bear and looked nervous.  Isabella didn’t think he looked anywhere near nervous enough considering how lethal she knew the teddy-bears to be, but was fairly certain that the only way he’d learn was to be attacked by one.  She looked around the room again; teddy-bears rarely travelled on their own, preferring packs.  They were only little – teddy-bear sized, suitable for children – but enough of them could bring an adult down.

“Can you tell it that we’re not going to kill it?  It keeps crying.”

“No.”

“Izzy!”

“Don’t Izzy! me, David.  I’m not telling it that because we might just have to kill it yet. There are probably more of them on their way, and we can’t just walk out of this side of things because we don’t know what’s back on our side.  We need to find out and fast.  If this one tries to leave, tell me.  If any more turn up, tell me.”

“What are you going to be doing?”  David turned round to look at her, and Isabella, who’d been waiting for this, glared at him.  “Look at the damn bear, David!”

“I just wish you’d tell me what you’re doing instead of being so secretive all the time!”  He turned back to the bear though, which retracted its claws and started mewling again.

“I’m looking for a doorway to look through,” said Isabella.  “And when I find the right one, we’re going back through it.”  She took the Brinchev Kris in her hand, and slowly waved it through the air, feeling how it seemed to catch here and there as the sensitive blade identified the thin points where the two sides were closest together.  There was a small group of them in the direction of the mantlepiece, and she stepped that way, passing the knife in front of her constantly, feeling the pressure changes and adjusting her step accordingly.  As she reached the fireplace the sensations thickened and she turned the knife slightly, letting the blade grip.  As she sliced down a fire sprang to life in the fireplace, and she knelt and peered into the flames.

For a moment there was just the yellowish-orange of the flames and then there was a second image superimposed on top, of the side of a cave.  There was a path visible leading into the mouth of a tunnel, and as she watched an electric car like a golf-buggy motored out of the mouth of the tunnel.  There were three people in the car, all wearing grey uniforms with little red-and-yellow insignia at the collars.  She cursed softly and stepped back; the fire went out as she moved out of range.

“What was that?” asked David, this time not letting his gaze move from the teddy-bear.  It peered at him between its fingers, but didn’t stop mewling.

“Trouble,” said Isabella.  “I think we did the right think coming over to this side when we did, but I think we did the wrong thing coming here at all.”  She passed the knife around her slowly, feeling for the next opening.  The knife didn’t respond.  “Oh damn, this is locally solid.”

“What?”

“We need another room,” said Isabella.  “This is locally solid; it’s probably not going to move relative to our side for a few hours.  And we probably haven’t got them, given that this thing is here.”

“What does that mean though?” David sounded plaintive.

“We go on to the next room,” said Isabella.  “How did this one get here? Portrait?”

“Yes, but it’s gone now,” said David.  “Which doesn’t happen of course, so I think it was probably just a revolving section of wall with the portrait on the other side.”

“Right,” said Isabella, her voice heavy with sarcasm.  OK, let’s check over here then….”

The knife sliced into the plaster of the wall like it was wet and fresh rather than its real old-and-dusty state, and the wall seemed to flicker for a moment.  Then a door appeared, white-painted with drips still visible, and Isabella cracked it open a little and peered round the edge.

“Ok,” she said.  “You go through.  I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“What are you going to do?” asked David, turning away from the teddy-bear to look at her.

Dead men's answers

There was a rustle nearby as some small mammal scurried through the bushes, and then the noise of traffic passing on the road beyond the wall.  Janet checked her watch; it was fourteen minutes past midnight, and to her mind there was something immoral about there still being traffic on the roads.  She adjusted her little camping stool – the kind that folds up into a set of connected plastic rods with a bit of tarpaulin wrapped around them and took her thermos out of her bag.  Uncapping it she poured herself a cup of tea; milky like cataracts and sweetened with six spoons of sugar.  She sipped it and checked the time again.  It was now sixteen minutes past midnight.

“To-whit! To-woo!” said a hoarse voice behind her.  She jumped, her arm stiffening, and the contents of her cup flew backwards and splashed on something.  There was a cry of surprise, and possibly pain, and a crash like someone falling over something in the bushes.  On the road, more traffic went past, seemingly all in the same direction.

Janet stood up and turned round, holding her thermos like a billy-club.  She could see a pair of Wellingtons sprawled in the bushes behind her, and hear a faint groaning.

“Who’s there?” she hissed, trying to sound authoritative.

“Me, you stupid cow,” said a hoarse voice.  “I said I’d make an owl-call to let you know I’d arrived!”

“That was an owl?  It must have laryngitis then.”

“Well what sound do you think an owl makes?”  There was a rustling and the sounds of breaking branches as the boots disappeared from sight and the bushes shook violently.  Janet hooted obligingly, and a moment later got an answering hoot from somewhere up in the trees.

“Smarty-pants,” said the hoarse voice.  “How did you learn that then?”

“My sister kept owls for a few years,” said Janet.  “She’s… odd like that.  But she makes the best colcannon this side of Dublin.”

“Colcannon?  That’s that big sword isn’t it?”

“No, that’s a claymore.  My brother, the blacksmith, makes them occasionally.  If you pay him.”

A man emerged from the bushes, his jacket disarrayed, his face scratched where it was covered by a thick brown beard, his trousers torn at the knees, and his boots covered in mud.  “What’s a colcannon then?  A type of gun?”

“It’s food,” said Janet sounding annoyed.  “Everyone knows that.  You can sit in any restaurant in town and order it and eat it for yourself.  I’m not here to talk about food.  I want answers.”

“Right, right.” said the man.  He looked at her.  “You’re a big overdressed, aren’t you?”

“What?!”

“Well, we’re supposed to be here on a date if anyone finds us.  You don’t look like you’re on a date.  You look like you’re looking for people who are on a date so you can arrest them.”  Janet was wearing a Barbour jacket that had belonged to her great-aunt and had seen the raising of nearly sixty litters of puppies and eight generations of horses, a sheer skirt of heavy wool, heavy leather shoes, thick woollen socks and a woolly hat.

“It’s my first date,” said Janet, and the man decided to leave the conversation well alone after that.

“Ok,” he said.  “Let’s go then.  We’re going this way,” he pointed, “to the grave of William Sewell.”  He set off towards the nearby path through the graveyard, and Janet fell into step behind him after picking up her stool.  They walked briskly for five minutes, feet crunching on the loose gravel of the path with the hoarse man picking the path out when it diverged, or at one point became a large circle for cars to turn in.  Finally he turned down a tree-lined path where the light from the stars and moon all but disappeared, and halted in a shadow so deep that Janet couldn’t see him any more.

“This is William,” said the man.  “His mother still tends his grave, you know.  She’s here every Saturday and Sunday tidying it and laying new flowers.”

“She should grow them on the grave itself,” said Janet.  “Plenty of good soil, and he’ll be contributing to it.”  The growing silence meant nothing to her, so the man gave up disapproving.

“What’s the question?” he said.  “Let’s get this done before the caretakers come round.”

“Ah!  No, I’ll ask the question to William.  I know what you séantists are like, if I tell you now you’ll think of an answer and I’ll never actually get through to William.  I want the answer directly from him.”

The man sighed.  He’d tried telling Janet several times now that someone conducting a séance wasn’t a séantist but she’d apparently decided that this was the word she was going to use.

“Fine,” he said.  “As you will.”

There was a short pause, and then the sound of a match striking.  A tiny flame appeared in the darkness, sputtered for a moment, then grew, revealing a slender white candle in a tiny brass holder.  The man set the candle down on the grave, now scarily sinister in its pale yellow light, and then held his hand over the flame.  A needle appeared in his other hand and stabbed inwards, then a drop of red blood bubbled out of his thumb and fell through the flame and landed on the grave.  Janet squeaked, unable to hide her momentary fear.

“William Sewell?” said the hoarse man, his voice suddenly deep and resonant.  “William Sewell, are you there?  William Sewell, I command you.”  The candle flame suddenly burned a brilliant red and Janet squeaked again.

Dead sheep

I looked around Blue’s flat when my vision stopped swimming and the blur had cleared up.  The floor was still covered with drying and dried blood, and small clouds of flies hovered here and there, dipping down from time to time to feed.  The smell wasn’t too bad yet, but I suspected that Monkeybutt’s men had used some deodorant while they were in here; cheaper than masks, probably sourced from a Monkeybutt company, and bad for the environment.  I shifted slightly, and realised from the tacky, pulling sensation that I’d landed in a puddle of semi-dry blood.  It didn’t seem worth moving for the moment though.

The pulp paperbacks were gone, so Monkeybutt or her men had taken them.  It seemed a bit odd as they could hardly be evidence, but maybe they’d taken them out to the van to read while they were on stakeout.  The dead sheep were still there, at the foot of the bed.  I could see from this angle that they’d both had their throats cut, presumably to get decent spray on the blood and cover as much of the room as possible.  The sheep-killers looked to have been sending a message, though why to Blue was still a mystery.  He was a grotty little lowlife, it was unlikely he had any money or possessions worth threatening him over.  So what did that leave?  Information?

The bed looked odd.  I blinked and looked at it again, trying to work out what was wrong.  It was a double bed with filthy sheets and a blood-stained duvet.  The sheets were wrinkled and pulled away from one corner of the mattress, which also looked filthy.  There were crumbs – well, I hoped they were crumbs – scattered on them where the duvet didn’t cover them up, and there were three pillows, all missing pillowcases.  I suspected Monkeybutt again, taking things that she hoped she could make a case from.  She was probably having them analysed for DNA to find out who Blue was sleeping with.  I could have told her if she’d asked: Blue didn’t bring people back to his flat because he was ashamed of it.  All of his conquests (and the last one I knew of was three years ago and the poor kid was both blind and blind drunk) usually ended up in a dark alleyway somewhere listening to him whisper that outdoor sex was more erotic.  I tilted my head to the side, and the bed straightened up, and suddenly it was obvious.  The bed was lopsided, one corner raised up more than the other three.  I straightened my head again and studied the corners.

It was the bottom right leg, closest to the wall, that was too long.  I guessed that the safest leg – top right, pushed into the corner made by the walls – was a little too awkward for him because he’d have to drag the bed out to get to it.  Bottom right was conveniently close to where I was sprawled, so I took a closer look, pushing the duvet out of the way.  The leg looked normal until I ran my thumbnail down its length and it caught about a inch away from the bottom on a nearly-invisible seam.  I sighed, and stood up, shook myself a little, and then sat back down, cross-legged.  I had to bite back a moan from the effort of bending my knees like that, but once they’d locked in place I felt a little better.  Then I lifted the bed.  The long leg dropped neatly out, revealing that it had been poking through the bed-frame and up into a hole made in the mattress, and was actually as long as my forearm.

I wanted to open it there and then and find out what Blue had that needed hiding like this, but I was acutely aware that Dan Drough and his officers would be send back by Monkeybutt in short order, possibly with riot shields if she was feeling generous, and that I’d barely looked around the flat.  I slipped the bed-leg down my trouser leg, gripped the edge of the bed to haul myself upright, and stared around the room some more.

There was nothing in the way of decoration or ornament, and there was no musical instrument either.  Or scores for that matter.  I frowned then, thinking back; had I seen any when I’d been here the first time?  The more I thought, the more I was sure that I hadn’t.  I could imagine Blue having his horn with him if he’d been out, but where was the rest of the stuff?  There wasn’t enough here, like maybe he’d already skipped out before the sheep-killers arrived?  Did he know he was running out of time?  And did that mean that the bed-leg down my leg was already empty?

I walked, a little stiff-legged thanks to the bed-leg, over to the only other door in the room, and opened it into a bathroom.  There was a toilet, a sink, a bath and a closed-over shower-curtain.  I pulled the curtain back, the rings whisking against the bar, and found a mirror on the wall and a sheep’s head in the bath.  I met its gaze for a moment, and then pulled the curtain back.  Nothing here then.  I turned to go, and then I turned back again.  I scanned the room again, and frowned.  No towels, and there were no cupboards in this place to put them either.  So where were they?  Had Monkeybutt taken them as evidence?

I left the bathroom and considered the front-door.  I knew Monkeybutt had it wired up, but what did it connect to?  I didn’t really want to risk my life again on the bricks outside the window.  Then I spotted the wire on the inside, and traced it over to the duvet, which when pulled back revealed a radio transmitter.  It was a matter of moment to remove the battery, and then I opened the front-door.  Looking around Blue’s impoverished room I finally found a heavy glass ash-tray on the floor and used it to smash the lock on the outside to look like someone had forced entry, then left the door open and walked off.  If Blue was coming back, I was sure he’d thank me.

I remembered about how slippery the floor was only after I’d taken two steps in the direction of the stairwell.

Falling Leaves

Cort’s release was far less interesting that he’d hoped for.  Two orderlies came in and unstrapped him, and then one of them asked him if he could get back to his room by himself.  Looking around fruitlessly for a wheelchair, Cort nodded and the orderlies disappeared so fast he expected a wind from air rushing in to fill the spaces they’d vacated.  Cort sighed a little, sure that this wasn’t really the kind of service he should be expecting given how expensive the Home was, and walked slowly back to his room.  On the way he had to walk past Fizz Mission’s room, and he paused outside her door.  Should he look inside?  Check that she was alone?

“That’s not your room, Mr. Stretch,” said a nurse coming up behind him.  A warm hand fell onto his shoulder.  “A couple more door, Sir, and you’ll be right there.  Who have you been visiting then?”

As she led him along the corridor he told her about his release, and she tutted and sounded shocked, made sure he was seated comfortably in his chair that looked out of the window, and then walked off again without ever telling him that she’d do anything about it.  He looked out of the window.  It looked into the courtyard, on the inside of the building.  He could see the other walls; the building was heptagonal for some reason, and he could see all of the other six sides.  Below was a grassy courtyard with a fountain, a tiny lake, and an equally tiny wooden bridge across the lake.  There was a small summer-house, and some white plastic chairs scattered around outside.  He’d sat down there in the summer, and it wasn’t quite as depressing at ground-level as it seemed from up here.  He sat up a little and squinted.  The lake was completely frozen.

“Icebro fell into it,” said a voice behind him.  He turned his head, hearing the bones click, and saw Dr. Madison in the doorway.  “He was with a nurse, so he wasn’t hurt and was pulled out quickly, but he still reacted to the shock by freezing the lake.  To be perfectly honest, I’m relieved.  I was worrying that he had lost his powers before that.”

“Why would that be a worry?”  Cort didn’t know Dr. Madison very well; only that he specialised in superheroes that had lost or were losing their powers, and also did most of the cardiac surgery when it was needed.

“Because lost powers don’t just disappear.  They go somewhere.  Sometimes they pass on to someone close by, and sometimes they become dormant somehow.  That’s dangerous because if they’re woken up by something, say by a sharp shock, or a nightmare, all the built-up energy gets released in one burst, and depending on the power that can be very bad.”

“You mean…?”

“I mean that if Icebro goes dormant and then gets a bad shock he could encase this whole building in ice.  We’d suffocate while we were trying to dig our way out.”

“He’s that strong?”

“He’s gotten stronger as he gets older.  I have theories, but that’s all they are for now.  And they’re not why I’m here, Mr. Stretch.  Do you mind if I call you Cort?”

Cort braced his feet against the floor and turned the chair.  It made a farting noise as it rubbed across the carpet, and Dr. Madison’s face twitched with the effort of hiding a smile.  As the chair turned, Cort suddenly realised that he could see Fizz’s window from his own.

“Call me Cort,” he said.  “Everyone else seems determined to call me Mr. Stretch.”

“Very well Cort, I’m here because of your recent restraint.  You know that you produced a mucus after a chest infection that turned out to be mobile and possibly hostile.  Well, the results are back from the lab, and as the lead physician on this, I’ve conducted a couple of experiments of my own.  Just so you’re aware, we have a sample of your mucus in a sealed glass jar in my laboratory and I expect to keep it there for a while.”

Cort nodded; this sounded like a scientist, though in his experience Dr. Madison should have at least one manic laugh by now.  The Doctor would have done.

“So,” continued Dr. Madison, “we’re confident that this was an isolated incident.  Although your mucus is capable of a bacteria-like reproduction it’s non-sentient on seven out of eight measures and appears, at least in part, to have been produced as a side-effect of medication.  We’ve updated your medical records with specific notes to ensure that we don’t repeat the medication and this incident.  The mucus has some unusual flame-retardant properties that we want to investigate further, and an old colleague of yours, Chip Inside, has offered to help out in his spare time.”

“That’s good of him,” said Cort.  “So I’m in the clear?”

“For the mucus, yes,” said Dr. Madison.  “However, I now need to run some tests to find out if you’ve transferred any of your powers into the mucus.  I think I mentioned earlier that powers can be transferred, and this is one of the ways.  If you’re starting to give up your powers then we need to review our protocols for you.  We may have to restrict your visitors.”

“You mean no-one will be able to see me, don’t you.”  It was a question, it was a flat statement.

“No.”  Dr. Madison held Cort’s gaze without blushing or squirming.  “I mean that we’ll provide you with visitors who we think would benefit from your powers, and only they will be able to visit you until you complete the transfer.”

“Soldiers?”

“Most likely, but the Board makes the decision and there are some board-members who have other interests and priorities.”

“Wait.  Wait a minute.  What happens to me if my powers are all transferred?”

Now Dr. Madison broke eye contact.  He looked down at the ground.

“This is a home for retired superheroes, Cort.  Do I need to spell it out any further?”

Buddy: My heart burns like fire

Hi!  You look… well-fed.  Perhaps a little too well-fed, really.  Overstuffed, like a couch.  And that colour you’re turning, well, you know that healthy people can’t manage that colour?  That’s congested blood, pooling in the tissues of your face because your blood-pressure’s up and your heart is struggling to maintain it, despite the fact that you’re neither fit for fight nor flight.  It’s – well, I suppose the closest thing I know is bruising.  Your face is bruising with the strength of my words.

I’m Buddy, I’ve been assigned to you.  What?  Yes, by “Corporate” if that means something to you.  What?  Well why should it mean anything to me?  I’ve just been assigned to you to help you through the troubles and tribulations of corporate life.  I’m like a life coach, only better.  No, I’m not going to shake your hand thank-you, I’ve no clue where it’s been.  Actually, from the look of your face, and the look on your face, I suspect it’s been in the chocolate box a little too often.  I worry that I might contract diabetes by touch.  I’m not interested in your opinion, thank-you very much, please keep it to yourself.  Unless you think you might eat it, in which case putting it in a safe place might be advisable.  How about – oh.

So, desk drawers are not really the right place to keep cream cakes.  You knew that, right?  Oh good.  Well, let’s get started then, since the reasons for me being here are now so apparent.  Let me tell you a little story about the non-dweller.

Once upon a time in a better place than this, where better people than us lived and were happy, was a man who was so close to enlightenment that he seemed almost transparent to everyone who saw him.  When he walked into shops, public baths and inspectorates people would often start, then stare as he walked past them, wondering if what they saw was a man or a ghost.

One day the man walked into a tiny bar where food was served, an izakaya known to everyone who lived in that place, and sat down at a small table where his friend already sat.  In front of his friend was a plate of baked mushrooms sizzling softly in a wide pool of soy sauce, some skewers of tiny whole fish that had been grilled and daubed in chili oil, a bowl of deep-fried shrimp tempura and a selection of spring vegetables heated just sufficiently to make them as vibrant and tasty as had they just been picked.  The non-dweller sat down, and the owner of the izakaya immediately approached him, bowing his head low and offering him the owner’s own sake cup to drink from.  A bottle of sake was placed on the table, and the non-dweller’s friend immediately moved it slightly to one side, away from his food.  The non-dweller looked at him and smiled.

“I believe that my friend is hungry,” he said to the owner of the izakaya.  “Please, bring him all the same dishes again so that he may sate his hunger.”  The owner did as he was bidden, and the non-dweller sipped the sake, drinking perhaps less than a quarter of the cup before the table was overflowing with dishes, and the smell of hot food rose tantalisingly all around them.  People at other tables discreetly leaned in to appreciate the exquisite cooking.

“Will you eat with me,” asked the friend at last, gesturing at the dishes that surrounded him with his chopsticks.  The non-dweller picked up a single skewer of fish and delicately ate a single fish from the tip, then placed the skewer back down.

“Is that it?” asked the friend, but his countenance betrayed his happiness that all the remaining food might be for him.

“One should eat to moderation, and never to the point of satisfaction,” said the non-dweller, and stood up and left the izakaya.

Yes, there is a reason why he’s called the non-dweller, but I don’t think it’s anything you should worry about for now.  The message of the story is not that the protagonist had a name that you find strange.  Perhaps you could think about the story as a whole, instead?

No, it’s not a message that you should start a diet, though if you were to ask me that question I suspect that I would say you should.  Or rather, you should change your current diet, as it is causing you to put cakes in your drawers instead of papers.  Keeping the papers on your desk where you must constantly look at them and remember that you’ve not done anything with them will stress you, and when you are stressed you will crave food like the cake in your drawers.  You are forcing yourself to eat by your actions.

No.  I don’t believe that putting fish in your drawers will solve the problem.  I’ve seen this tried before, all that happens is that you replace your glue-stick with a whipped cream dispenser and start eating creamed fish.  It’s a change to your diet, definitely, but not for the better.  Although no-one will want to sit next to you on the tube, which can be quite useful.

I suppose we could go and talk about the story over lunch.  Where were you thinking of eating?

Oh.  No, I can’t eat there.  My heartburn’s like fire and that would only stoke the flames.  How about… what?  No, none of the restaurants on this list are good for me.  They’re all the ones you have an expense account with?  Really?  McDonalds and an expense account?  That many cheeseburgers?  That would explain a lot.

OK, I’ll be back after you’ve eaten then.  You might want to think about the story of the non-dweller while you’re eating though, as I’ll be asking questions again later.  There are several morals to the tale actually, and I’ll give you one for free: Thin men fit through doorways more easily.  Yes, after you.

Oh.  You actually get stuck in the doorway.  I wasn’t expecting that.