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Whisper of a Moment
Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.
Part II
I check the mirror in the morning, and it’s official: I look like hell. Sunken eyes, dry lips, an oblong bruise down my left cheek (don’t remember getting that one, must have caught an elbow during the debacle at FLN) … my skin has a gray tinge, and my whole face looks pinched. I feel just about as bad, too much stress and too little sleep, the ribs don’t catch when I move but they still ache, and there’s a throbbing in the back of my skull where the leads were inserted. (All through my training and acclimation the techies kept telling me that had to be psychosomatic. Either way, it still hurts.) I need forced hydration, two pounds of raw meat, and a day at a spa.
I make do with a shower. That eases away some of the stiffness but doesn’t accomplish much else. While I’m toweling out my hair I glance at the laptop on the little desk next to the draped windows, and can’t help shuddering. Duty or no, a girl can handle only so much on a morning like this. Same for the blinking “MESSAGES WAITING” light on the hotel phone: later.
Breakfast is a Denver omelet and nearly a quart of tomato juice. While I’m rinsing that down with lots of ice water, I review my situation. I’ve established a base of operations, a cash store, transportation, all of the necessary equipment, and a few extras. I’ve met with one of the reference sources I was supposed to consult, and a second is scheduled for this afternoon. During my surfing safaris I’ve cruised the real estate listings, police reports, zoning requests and rulings, commercial licenses and tax records, I’m methodically building the picture that will consolidate into a latticework of facts and inferences. I’ve been here ten days, with another thirteen left in the event window, and so far it seems to be proceeding as planned.
The downside is disturbing but not really definite. I’ve gotten in bad with some local leather crew, which was good for momentary diversion but could be an increasing distraction as things continue to develop. Too much of my online activity — both jacked and manual — has been devoted to personal interests as opposed to professional: more police reports, medical records, various news agency digests, community bulletin boards and chat rooms … cralphet, I even ran a facial recognition search to see if I could find a match for the pale woman from the club. (No luck. Closest hit was on someone from a Prince video in the Eighties, and how likely is that?) My behavior last night is alarming in just too many ways, and like it or not I can’t help but recognize the reason.
The geek. Even knowing what I do, even with all the reasons not to, I’ve let him get under my skin. He’s disaster in sneakers, that boy. Looks younger than I expected, too …
The door at the waffle place dingles as it opens; I chose a booth in the back with a clear line of vision through all the windows, but the newcomer came out of the sun and my first sight of him is as he steps inside. Three guesses who.
Okay, number one on today’s schedule: get a gun.
He aims straight for where I’m sitting, his head thrust forward like a giraffe’s and Adam’s apple bobbing in time with his steps. I do a quick internal check and, no, the omelet won’t be forcing its way up any time soon … but jeez, this is what the future of humanity rides on? Book me a flight to Venus already.
“I know you don’t want to be talking to me right now,” he’s saying in a rush as he draws level with my booth. “But I couldn’t let you just —” Words and body jar to a stop as he gets his first close view of my face. “Whoa. Um, you’ve probably picked up on this, what with me babbling it repeatedly, but have I mentioned I’m sorry?”
He thinks my visible condition is from last night’s dustup, rather than from me going etherhappy after I got back to the hotel and plugged in. Fine, let him stew. “Sorry for what?” I keep my voice flat to crush the slam of adrenaline his appearance called up. “Nearly breaking my frigging neck so you could act out your White Knight fantasies, or souring my breakfast with your lame-assed pickup lines?”
“Gee, I’ll have to go with door number one on that one. I …” He stops, sighs. “As the official West Coast distributor for Screwing Up Royally, I should be used to this by now, but, hey, somehow the exhilarating jolt of guilt and humiliation just keeps on perking away.” He sits down, uninvited, eyes earnest and intense. “Are you okay? I didn’t really have time to check, after —”
“After the bouncer yelled that the cops were on the way? Which, incidentally, is all that kept me from mashing your face with a brick.” I don’t try to hide my disdain; if anything, I ramp it up. “Did I ask for your help? Why do you men think a woman can’t possibly take care of herself?”
“It wasn’t yourself that worried me, it was the three sloping foreheads lining up to do the hokey-pokey on your skull.” Even though he fired that one right back at me, both face and voice are defensive, and I file the fact for future examination: with all his history, he still isn’t really brimming with confidence. “I mean, sure, you don’t exactly have that helpless vibe going for you, but three-to-one is pretty sweatworthy unless you’re …”
Now he hesitates. “A man?” I finish grimly.
“Uh, no, I was actually thinking ‘bionic’.” His grin is lopsided and almost convincing, and I have no doubt that he was thinking something else entirely. “I have the whole Y-chromosome thing down pat, and I wouldn’t be dumb enough to face odds like that.”
It’s too easy; I don’t say a word, just raise my eyebrows and wait. The grin flattens into something rueful, and he says, “Okay, I stand corrected, I’m every bit that dumb. So, what, if I truly respected you I’d think you’re just as brain-dead as I am?”
The laugh surprises me, but he seems to have expected it. I stuff it back down, I’m not going to be won over that easy. “You don’t know anything about me, anything at all. What made that throwdown last night any of your business?”
“To which I say again, three to one.” He has his balance back, this boy clearly has considerable experience dealing with verbal hostility. Maybe I should add some knuckles. “Look, I just wanted to give you a decent apology. I mean, I came looking for you because I know I stuck my foot in it last night. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you.”
“Yeah?” I clench my hands under the table, nails biting into my palms. “How?”
That brings him up short where accusation just made him dig in. “I didn’t … I’m, uh, I’m not … All right, so I didn’t work out the total concept in advance.” His shoulders slump a little, and this time the smile is uncertain. “If you had any stables to shovel out, would that be suitably humble?”
He’s saying all the right things, so I don’t have justification to go off on him. I stand with enough suddenness to make him jerk, but I manage to keep my voice (and fists) under control. “We’ll call it even with the apology, okay? We’re square, you get on with your plans and I’ll take care of mine.”
“Okay.” He stands, too, starts to hold out his hand and then seems to think better of it. Smart boy. “I’m, I’m Xander. Xander Harris.”
I know. “I’m thrilled,” I say, and slap a ten on the table so I can get out before I explode.
I’m not ready for this, whatever is happening to me is coming in on my blind side, but I manage to hold it together. I don’t assault anyone, I don’t destroy anything, I don’t peel the skin from my face or scream my throat raw. I go back to the room, shower till the hot water runs out, then flop down bare and dripping on top of the bed covers and sleep for another three hours.
By the time I wake up and get dressed, I’m finally ready to check the messages recorded at the front desk. Three of them: two from Harris (how the hell did he find me so quick?), the last from my second consultant, confirming this afternoon’s appointment. Good enough. I have a leisurely sumptuous lunch at a seafood house, and leave feeling mostly back to human.
I did some basic scouting of Oxnard and the surrounding area when I first arrived, but that was just to provide a reference framework while I learned more. Now, after a week of gathering information, it’s time to put it into context. I crank up my motorcycle — Honda 650, not one of the monster chrome stallions favored by Piggy and his ilk — and spend a couple of hours cruising town, integrating what I learned online with what I can see of the city, letting myself get a feel for the staging area.
Twice I see other cyclists wearing the colors of Piggy’s crew, a pair at a traffic light and three more at a small truck stop half a mile further on, drinking beer in the parking lot while their machines rest next to half a dozen others, the riders doubtless inside making the staff nervous. None of the men I see are among the three I fought last night, but I maintain a discreet distance anyhow; I don’t need additional hassle just now, and I may be a bad bitch but I’m not invincible. (Damn near, but not quite.) In fact, the numbers I’m seeing make some contingency planning look like a good idea, so I do a spot of shopping at pharmacies and health food stores, returning my purchases to the hotel room. There, after I’ve sorted and arranged various ingredients, I jack in for twenty minutes and plant some useful subroutines in the city utilities grid. That done, I check my appearance, do some touch-up with the rudimentary cosmetics available here, and head out to my afternoon appointment.
First sight of him is less than reassuring. Our meeting spot is a little outdoor café; I’ve parked the Honda around the corner to allow a more conventional approach, and he’s facing half-away from me as I come up the sidewalk. I know his record, and I was even able to get access to a couple of photos, but they don’t match what’s in front of me. Dark hair, wire-framed specs, lean features, conservative suit: all that checks, but then things start to go downhill. He’s … wispy, somehow. Thinner than I expected, but it’s more than that; his clothes are good quality, and neatly pressed, but they just don’t hang on him right, so that they look rumpled even though they’re not. His features sag, as if he’s exhausted at three in the afternoon, and one hand dangles off the edge of the glass-topped table in a position that can’t be comfortable but doesn’t seem to catch his notice. Depressed, despondent, lost … limp, like a dog that’s been kicked so many times it doesn’t bother to dodge anymore.
Sunk into some interior mopefest, he isn’t aware of me until I’m already seating myself at his table, and his lagging perceptions trigger a quick flurry of abortive responses — stand up, sit back, nod, speak, extend a hand — either stifled as too late or tangled in the trailing impulses as he struggles to catch up. At last he surrenders and stays where he is, primness falling over him like a too-thin armor. “Good afternoon,” he says with threadbare dignity. “I hope I may assume you are the person I was to meet at this hour. Whether or no, I am Wesley Wyndham-Pryce.”
“Dina Musci,” I acknowledge, crisp enough to match his attempt at formality but with a little smile to reassure and relax him. “I’ve been looking forward to consulting with you, Mr. —”
Uh-oh. His eyes sharpened as I introduced myself, and he tilts his head to take me in with a sudden attentive curiosity a long way from what I wanted from him. “Really?” he says, the single word easy and dry and coming from an entirely different man. “I was aware of your name, of course, from our brief correspondence, but to hear it pronounced …” He reflects for a moment, his eyes still holding mine, and says, “I shall presume, as a courtesy, that you’re not simply having me on.”
With a sigh I settle back in my own chair. “Nope, it’s the real deal. Not many people catch it, so it’s been awhile since I had to explain.”
“Indeed.” He’s looking less rumpled by the second, calculation flitting behind now-steady eyes. “Your parents are, perhaps, academics, or botanical professionals?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I’ve been doing some calculation of my own, and fast; my single slip, giving my name its proper pronunciation, has changed the tenor of this encounter. Not a disaster, maybe, or even necessarily a disadvantage, but I will have to alter my approach. “I never knew my parents,” I continue. “But when I finally got my records unsealed, my official name at birth genuinely was Dionaea Muscipula.” I give it a beat, then inject just the precise shade of bitterness. “No surname, and no mother or father listed. Just that.”
“Ah.” As I intended, the unsought confidence has made him a touch uncomfortable. “All the same, the choice of name would indicate some possibilities regarding your parents.”
Forget it, Wesley, you’re staying on the hook awhile. “Yeah, if either one of them had anything to do with it.” I lean across the table, encroaching on his space. “I’ve had time to give this matter some thought, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce. Whoever farmed me out for adoption put a lot of work into covering up everything about where — or who — I came from. Not a professional job, but more thorough than most professionals would have done it. There are two reasons to go at it like that: to protect someone, or to cut them off totally from their little ‘mistake’.” I show some teeth. “The cover-up went deeper than it had to. Overkill. That, and the name, tell me it was personal for whoever did it, but at the same time there’s a kind of detached distaste about it. Whoever did this didn’t much like me, or maybe just what I represented.”
“The, um …” He’s beginning to lose his recent returned poise, which was the idea; another minute and I’ll be able to steer him without any problems. He clears his throat and begins again. “The name is of course … provocative … but not overtly hostile —”
“Oh, give me a break!” I glare at him. “You knew what it was, even with my little personalized reduction: Latin for ‘Venus flytrap’. What kind of bent mind names a baby for a frigging plant — and a carnivorous plant, at that — in a language nobody speaks anymore?”
He’s down to a dither; he swallows several times, eyes darting in a near-panic at this unwelcome intimacy. A shame, almost, his scholarly confidence was a lot more attractive than the kicked-beagle look, I just didn’t need it lasering in on me. “So how’s your demonology?” I say with forced jocularity: obviously changing the subject, and he should be so eager to cooperate that he’ll leap ahead without further wondering about my background and, by extension, my motives.
Bull’s-eye, he’s on it with pathetic desperation. “I would say I have a solid grounding,” he rushes to assure me. “There are many with greater knowledge, naturally, and several with more practical experience, but I like to believe I am one of a rather small number who’ve had the opportunity to acquire both.”
“Good to hear.” I’m back in the pilot’s seat, this meeting is now mine to command. “Had any practical experience with Skira’ads?”
He ponders it, again clearly shuttling through facts and implications. “None direct, but there’s a substantial amount of data available on them.” He essays a nervous little smile. “It’s paradoxical, but their comparative harmlessness makes it markedly easier to learn about them than about more dangerous species.”
“I know they’re fairly sociable,” I prompt him. “And I’ve heard they’re fairly short-lived, for demons: what, a hundred and fifty years?”
“I believe one hundred, eighty-one to be the known record,” he says, nodding, “but one hundred, fifty would be a fair average.”
“Right. I know what they look like, and it’s said that your typical Skira’ad is about as strong as a really strong human, a little slower than human norm, and has ‘phenomenal’ endurance. Does that match your info?”
“Yes, basically,” he says after weighing it for a second. “The …” He cuts it off as a waitress stops at our table (I order a cappuccino, always wanted to see what those things tasted like, and Wesley just asks to have his tea topped off), then picks up the sentence again when she leaves. “The observation about endurance is ambiguous, but probably pertains to their ability to perform at full function without sleep for almost three weeks.”
“Mmn. Handy.”
“And costly,” he says with prissy precision. “As they approach that limit they become preternaturally intelligent and violently paranoiac. The combination has proven … problematic.” A thin smile. “Fortunately, they themselves seem to find the experience disagreeable. Otherwise they would hardly have such an innocuous reputation.”
“Okay, good, so far I’m in the field.” I lean forward again, this time engaging him without being intrusive. “But what are they like? What’s their basic nature? The essentials, I mean, the things that make them what they are?”
“Essentials,” he repeats. He steeples his fingers. “Well, to begin, Skira’ad are biphasic. Those that appear in this dimension are either better able to tolerate a linear chronology, or less bound to multiplanar temporality, than are their homebound kindred. There are theories —”
“Brake and loop back,” I tell him. “You lost me at ‘biphasic’.”
“Oh. My apologies.” For a second he seems ready to wilt, but apparently decides that explanation is a challenge he can meet. “Skira’ad originate in a reality not only separate from our own but differently structured. Some believe they might be an offshoot of the Rwasundi; like that species, their home dimension has time-flows far more intricate and far more prone to twists and intersections than our more prosaic experience with straight-line progression. Rwasundi, however, cannot visit this dimension without inducing localized chronal eddies, whereas the presence of Skira’ad produces no such distorting effects. In most cases, at any rate.”
“That makes a little more sense, thanks. Only, not criticizing here, what does it matter to us, as long as they leave their own habits behind?”
“That is quite the point.” He actually beams at me. “The most interesting characteristic of Skira’ad is that they can divorce themselves from their origins, so that their xenotemporal nature doesn’t manifest itself to us.” He tilts his head at a new thought. “Of course, it does mean they can’t be imprisoned.”
Really? “That sounds juicy. How do you mean?”
“Well, as best we can determine, Skira’ad remain in our segment of reality by suppressing some aspect of their biphasic nature. A deliberate act, at first, though it seems eventually to become automatic. A, um, a mundane comparison would be to human bladder control.” He shoots me a nervous sideways look, maybe afraid I’ll take offense at the indelicate reference. “At any rate, if a Skira’ad loses this control, or chooses to relax it, he is immediately drawn back to his home dimension. This makes it effectively impossible to hold one captive.”
The waitress returns with my cappuccino and Wesley’s refill, interjecting a natural pause into the conversation and giving me time to reflect. Not doing bad so far: from Harry Doyle I got a general sense of Skira’ad personality and behavior, and now Wesley’s given me a beginning sketch of their overall nature and how it operates on this plane. The part about them being unjailable rules out one possibility; some of the reports from this locale floated a faint suggestion that the demon in question might have been acting under coercion, but how do you strong-arm something that can blip straight back to home and Mommie the moment it stops choosing to remain? That narrows things down a bit, and soon all the uncertainties will have been checked and dismissed, and I’ll have a framework of solid facts.
Woops, 1999 to Dina: Wesley is asking a question, and I just barely catch the tail end of it. “–sity regarding your interest in this matter?” Some of the steadiness has come back into his tone, and I make a note that this guy may be a wet noodle when it comes to personal issues, but put a problem in front of him and the bloodhound starts creeping in. “My experience has been that the occult attracts four basic types of person: academic, dilettante, power-seeker, and entrepreneur.” He regards me with an expression that somehow blends a small smile and a slight frown. “Your credentials are reassuring — this assuming that they’re genuine —” (whoa, don’t show the jolt) “— but you seem a bit too practical for a dilettante, and rather young for an academic.”
He stops there, letting it hang and waiting to see how I’ll respond, and on the fly I decide to alter my legend. I’m not sure why, just seems like the thing to do, and I go with it. “The background you have on me is solid,” I tell him with the proper note of irritated confidence, “but yes, it’s a few months behind the curve when it comes to my current activities.”
“Which are …?” he prompts gently.
“Demon hunter,” I shoot back. “Freelance.” Wherever the idea came from, it’s taking hold on me, and on the whole fits me a lot better than the cover I was given. “See, your little industry summary left out a category: cleanup crew. Somebody has to go around mopping up little messes before they turn into big ones. I got tired of running support for departmental types, and decided it was more appealing to be my own boss.”
“Independent demon hunter,” he muses, trying out the sound of it. “I must say, I would hardly think a Skira’ad would be worth your attention.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I’m starting to think that, myself. I had reports of a Skira’ad, and it seemed worth checking out. From what I’m hearing, though, they don’t really swing the needle on the threat meter. That’s why I do research, so I don’t throw away my time on things that don’t matter that much.”
“Minor disturbances,” he says in apparent agreement, sinking into a contemplation that immediately shifts toward melancholia. “Unimportant ripples that can be safely ignored. Pleasant, I would think, to have the luxury of choosing your battles.”
I bite back a savage retort, surprised at having to and not sure what caused it. Even if I stifled the words in time, though, something must show in my face, because Wesley is right there. “Yes?” he says.
I shake it off. “Not my business,” I tell him. “And I’ve already used up enough of your time.”
He makes a little gesture to indicate our surroundings and his presence in them. “As it happens, my afternoon is free.”
I stood up during my last comment, ready to leave, and now I sit again. “I take it back,” I say. “It may be personal, I can’t really say, but it is my business, because I don’t know if what you’ve been telling me is worth a plated pockhorn.” I fix my eyes on his, forcing all the belligerence I can project, and demand, “What the hell is eating you?”
He stiffens like I just dipped him in shellac. “I beg your pardon?”
“Look, I arranged to meet you because I needed background info, and you have a good reputation as a researcher. But then I come here, and I can’t tell if I’m dealing with a competent authority on the supernatural, or a ruptured basset hound. You fade in and out from one moment to the next.” A third time I lean across the table toward him, and this one is direct challenge. “Whatever your problem is, I want to know about it. Give me a reason not to write you off as a waste.”
The rigid air of affront goes right out of him, and he slumps in the wrought iron chair. “A waste,” he repeats, ghost-soft. “Yes, that would be a fair assessment, I’d say.”
I’m not having it. “Talking to yourself, there, Wes. News flash: I’m the one who’s waiting for an explanation.”
Someone should advise him against taking up poker as a career: I can see him measuring the words it would take to chop me off cold, and I can see the moment he decides the effort isn’t worth it. He looks to me through gray sadness and, his voice quiet but firmly under control, says to me, “Your question is … not impertinent, I will grant you. You may find the circumstances of my present funk somewhat tedious, but I will explain them if you truly wish it.”
“I wish it.” I let some of the hard edge go out of my own face and voice, and add, “You don’t have to do a raw data dump, just lay out the broad outlines and I’ll let you know if I need more detail.”
“Very well.” He puts his hands on the table top, studying them with vague curiosity while he sorts his thoughts, then begins. “I am, in fact, well acquainted with what you termed the ‘cleanup’ role; as it happens, I was carefully trained to serve in a support capacity for just such persons, and for the past several months it was my responsibility to do so.” He raises his eyes to mine, and I’m surprised to see steel there as well as the expected raw wounds. “I made a poor beginning, and steadily worsened matters as I proceeded. I alienated those who were my primary charges, disregarded or underestimated others whose abilities or experience could have proven invaluable, and systematically made the wrong decision at every possible occasion.”
“Bummer.” I turn in my chair so I can lean back and stretch out my legs in front of me. “Kill anybody?”
He doesn’t react to the cheerful brutality of the question, which tells me something in itself. “People died,” he replies evenly. “I don’t believe myself to have been … directly responsible, for any of it, but there is no knowing what could have been prevented, had I proven sufficient to the task.” He pauses, mouth twisting in some flash of pain or regret, then continues with stubborn resolution. “You must understand, I spent my entire life preparing for this responsibility. It was more than a duty: it was a privilege, not only far exceeding my own deserving, but beyond any opportunity that had ever before existed. I was to have two Slayers in my charge, and on an active Hellmouth —” He looks to me. “You, erm, you know the essential facts regarding Slayers …?”
“Yeah, I know about Slayers.” Do I ever. “And your curriculum vitae made it pretty obvious you were with the Watchers.” I let my gaze dissect him with open appraisal. “Can’t say I knew you’d been the Watcher of the moment, or that you’d let the whole show go tits-up. How’d that happen?”
The last was a test, and again he doesn’t react; my man is so immersed in his own sense of shame, outside condemnation doesn’t really register. “I was sent in originally because the Council felt the situation had unacceptably deteriorated. I was to rectify that. It was made clear to me that I must exert a firm hand from the outset, stressing proper protocols and unswervingly adhering to official guidelines.” He looks into a distance that my own eyes can’t reach. “You must understand that the Council are superb in those areas where they function best. They regulate every aspect of training, of education, of introductory experience, of preparation for duties ahead. Nothing is left to chance, no smallest detail unanticipated or unguided. They have been doing this for … millennia, perhaps, and they have refined it to a scalpel edge of effectiveness. Not unexpected, then, that they might fail to emphasize that practise in the external world is … sloppier, less exact, more intuitive, all too dissimilar to the controlled circumstances that characterised every aspect of my preparation.”
Bogging down here, and I show just enough of a yawn to make the point. “I’m still with you.”
His jaw firms. “Very well. To summarise, I failed. Badly, repeatedly, and with demoralising thoroughness.” A tiny wrinkle appears between his eyes, the smallest possible visible evidence of a frown. “My very first experience in the … field of battle, if you will … set the tone for all that would follow. A colleague and I were captured; I tried to bargain, to play for time, to secure our survival until we could be rescued or find the means to effect our own escape.” Again he brings his eyes to mine; no apologies there, no excuses, just bitter self-acceptance. “I told myself that it was a ploy, no more: to exaggerate my terror, the extent to which developments had overwhelmed me, my desperation to hang onto life. It gained us a few moments, but I fear my colleague was far more convinced than were our captors.” He looks once more to his hands on the table top, withdrawing into some deep and shadowed place. “Any respect he might have been willing to grant me, vanished in those minutes of babbling pleas; nor can I be certain he was mistaken. I will never truly know how much I would have told, had the knowledge been mine to reveal. I know only that I never recovered; ever after, I questioned my fitness for the position, and at every juncture following I found that whatever attribute was needed at a given time — be it courage, judgment, leadership, or even the competence to carry out simple tasks — was one I lacked.”
Right. He’s adequately explained the gloom and listlessness, and all I want now is to leave. All the same I search for some rudimentary transition, if only as practice for a time when smooth interpersonal function might be important. “You had a bad run, I won’t argue.” I stand preliminary to departure. “I don’t see any reason to trashcan your info on the Skira’ad, though. You may need some time to pull your act together, but you’ve still got the right tools for the job.”
He actually sniffs at that. “I could debate the point, but it’s irrelevant. The Council sacked me after my disastrous showing, so the matter is no longer in my hands.”
It makes me mad, which is nothing new, everything is setting me off these days. Sometimes I swallow it, sometimes it’s too much to hold in, and sometimes — like now — I don’t bother to try. “Look, Wes, you screwed up. Big time, sounds like. And you know what? I don’t care. Wallow in it, get over it, but either way do it on your own time, because I’m busy here.”
He goes away behind those eyes. “Of course. I apologise for troubling you with my difficulties. It’s none of your concern.”
“Screw this.” I toss some bills onto the table to cover my drink. “You don’t like your life? Change it. Do something, and if that doesn’t work, do something else. At least it’ll get you moving, ’cause you sure as hell won’t accomplish anything by sitting here weeping into your crappy tea. As for me, I’m outta here.” I proceed to turn the exit line into reality.
And, forty seconds later, I’m back at the table. He refuses to show any surprise or puzzlement, and I’m equally damned if I’ll look apologetic. “What did you mean, ‘most of the time’?” I demand.
That brings an expression, a kind of lofty tolerance that doesn’t sit at all well with me. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to be somewhat more specific,” he responds.
“A little while back, you were saying something about Skira’ads being able to ramble around in our neck of the woods without their foreign origins messing up the environment. And then, like there was an i you hadn’t dotted yet, you said …” I pause to call back the exact phrase. “You said, ‘In most cases, at any rate.’ ”
“Ah. Yes, indeed.” He reflects on the words. “As I observed earlier, we have quite an amount of information and observation available regarding Skira’ad, so that a relatively rare occurrence nonetheless has substantial supporting documentation. Upon occasion, certain Skira’ad individuals have shown a tendency for their nature to exert a temporary destabilizing effect upon their immediate surroundings. Rare, as I said, but there has been speculation that the folklore regarding gremlins might have sprung from this fact.”
Gremlins. And I almost missed it. “Go on. What kind of effects, how long do they last, how bad can it get, and how would somebody make it stop?”
Now is when he could get starchy with me, after the way I talked to him before. If the thought occurs to him, it doesn’t show. “Those that do manifest this disruption faculty, seem to serve as catalysts. It isn’t a deliberate act, their very presence alters the probability ratios in their vicinity. They cannot themselves ‘turn it off’, nor to my knowledge can anyone else. Severity of results varies with individuals and circumstances, and only their departure from this plane will bring about the cessation of the phenomenon.”
“Got it. Send ’em packing to wipe out the negative vibes.” I consider what he’s told me. “Probability ratios, you said, and you mentioned gremlins. So, basically, the ones with the inline whammy cause bad luck wherever they go?”
“Not precisely.” His expression is showing something now, and I think I can read it: he’s evaluating me, weighing the fact that I can ream him out one minute and be back pumping him for more data the next. (Good luck figuring me out, Wes, the success rate on that is zero so far.) “They make the normal ‘laws of chance’ far more fluid, so that the unlikely becomes less so. It can just as easily result in good luck as bad, however; and of course, fortune for one might mean something far different for another. The effects are unpredictable, chaotic.”
I nod at the words; a big puzzle chunk just fell into place, and now I have a lot better idea what to be looking for. Wesley, I see, is watching me without expectation. Not on edge, not hyped or bummed or anything, just waiting to see what comes next.
Me, I’ve got no answers. “That should be about it,” I say. “Much obliged.” I turn, stop, sigh, turn back. “You’ve got a pretty good brain there, Wes. Ought to figure out some way to use it. None of my business, I’m just saying.”
“Thank you,” he replies, even and grave. “I shall take it under advisement.”
Fine, maybe I should have just told him to get a hobby. I give him a curt nod, and again I walk away. This time nothing calls me back.
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