8FOLD: Mancers # 9, "Head Room"

Tom Russell joltcity at gmail.com
Mon Jun 1 08:21:06 PDT 2020


Among us walk the MANCERS - humans gifted with mystical power by dread
Venus! Some serve the elder gods, and conspire to give them dominion
over mankind! Others fight in rebellion against Venus, seeking to end
magic itself! And in this midnight war - fought by spies and assassins
with secrets and mysteries - the fate of the Earth shall be decided!

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#     # NUMBER 9 - "HEAD ROOM" [8F-193][PW-38]

-------------DRAMATIS PERSONAE-------------

     MEMBERS OF THE SECRET CIRCLE
A band of mancers opposing the gods of Venus.

MAILE AKAKA, age 20. Aeromancer.
Once the top field agent of The Company, she was abducted and
memory-wiped by the circle. She knows that this is the case and is
serving as their leader, but does not know that she defected
intentionally.

LIEKE VAN RIJN, age 27. Doppelmancer.
Split into two autonomous bodies, madly in love with each other. Her
other half has gone dark, leaving this Lieke alone and desolated.

JUNE LASH, age 47. Ailuromancer.
Gourmet chef and spymaster, commanding dozens of feline agents around the globe.

TREVOR JEFFRIES, age 23? Robot.
Thought to be a mekhanomancer, recently revealed to be a Company robot
constructed by Cradle Tech.

DAVID COLLINS, age 31. Mnemonomancer.
Married to Beth Collins, brother of Claire Belden. Recently finished a
deep undercover assignment - so deep that even he didn't realize it -
working for The Company. Presumed dead, he now has possession of the
ancient blade Thirteen, and has access to the memories of his
ancestors.

AZABETH "BETH" COLLINS, age 37. Oneiromancer.
Comatose wife of David Collins, communicating with the others only
through dreams and signs.

SARAH AVERY, age 25. Evocamancer.
Reluctantly allied with the secret circle, and even more reluctant to
use her demon-summoning magic, preferring to serve as an engineer.


     EMPLOYEES OF THE COMPANY
A shadow conglomerate in the service of dread Venus.

CLAIRE BELDEN, age 31. Metamancer.
Having framed and murdered her former boss and lover Lydia Black,
Claire is now the head of Human Resources for The Company. From
within, she pursues her own agenda, aiding the circle and The Company
in equal measure to maintain a mystical stalemate between the two
sides. Sister of David Collins, responsible for both his escape and
Maile's defection.

TRINITY "TRINI" TRAN, age 35. Haematomancer.
A fugitive, reluctantly working for The Company in return for their
protection. She carries David Collins's child, and is now rooming with
(and keeping an eye on) the mind-wiped "Angel".

ANGEL, age 27. Doppelmancer.
The other Lieke van Rijn, amnesiac, depowered, and consumed by a
desperate emptiness. Held captive by The Company.

------------------------------------------


He hears voices in the blackness. He hears the voices before he
recognizes them, hears noises before they become words.
   "... can't hurt us?"
   "Not unless he bites."
   "And his, uh, his magic?"
   "Contained in the main unit, near as I can tell. That's all been dismantled."
   "How long until he wakes up?"
   "He should be up already. I don't under, oh, wait." Tip-tap,
tip-tap, fingers on a keyboard. "Forgot something."
   He doesn't open his eyes. Rather, his eyes are opened, the lids
pulling up as if by a crank, whether he wants them to or not. Now he
sees them: Maile and Sarah.
   "Hello, Trevor," says Maile.
   "I feel weird," says Trevor.
   "Well, you're a hundred sixty pounds lighter." Behind her, at the
far side of the room, there is a mirror. Maile steps to the right,
taking a seat, allowing Trevor to see his own reflection.
   Only he's not all there. It's just his head and a bit of his neck.
There are wires coming out of the bottom, then snaking up into the
ceiling and walls. His head is shaved, the scalp split open and peeled
back, and more wires are climbing out of his head, suspending him in
the air.
   "Is this a dream?"
   "Can he dream?" says Maile, turning toward Sarah.
   Trevor can't really turn his own head, but he moves his eyes. Sarah
is hunched over a laptop.
   "No," she says. "Yes." Tip-tap. "No and yes." Tip-tap. "He doesn't
actually dream, but when he boots up he can randomly get these vivid
images and feelings and ideas, but as he tries to remember them, he
forgets them. Kind of an ingenious shortcut, really."
   "How so?"
   "A machine can't really tell if it's asleep or not: dream
consciousness is still consciousness. It thinks that what it sees is
real. Even if there was a way to compartmentalize it, you might get
sleepwalking robots, or you might get dream logic leaking into 'real'
thought processes as the computer gets old and starts to show its age.
On top of that is the challenge of simulating dream logic in the first
place.
   "But if you want a robot to think it's a human, you want it to
think that it dreams. Much easier and safer to simulate waking up from
it."
   "Is he stuck?" says Maile. "He didn't interrupt any of that."
   "I just don't like being interrupted," says Sarah with a shrug. "So
I put his motor functions on pause." Tip-tap. "All yours, boss lady."
   Maile turns and looks at Trevor. She leans back in the chair,
bringing one leg up, and shrugs at him. "So."
   "I'm a robot," says Trevor finally. "I didn't know."
   "That's what we gathered," says Maile. "So tell me what you did
know. What you can remember. About me, for starters."
   "About you?"
   "You knew stuff about me," says Maile. "Things the others didn't,
things I would have had to tell you."
   "I don't remember," says Trevor. "I mean, I remember that stuff
about you, but I don't remember how I know it. I know this is weird,
but I don't remember meeting you before you joined the circle."
   "You've never been with The Company?"
   Trevor hesitates. "I don't know."
   "Have you been passing them information?"
   "I don't think so," says Trevor. "But I don't know."
   "You don't know," she repeats.
   "I really don't," says Trevor. "I don't remember being with The
Company, but I also don't remember being a robot. I'm pretty much an
unreliable narrator here."
   She leans forward, resting one arm on her knee. "Look, here's the
deal. I understand that you're going through something of an
existential crisis here. I'm not a robot, but I kinda know what you're
going through. I've had my brain mucked with and I really don't know
what kind of shenanigans I got up to before. It sucks. It's scary. And
I sympathize.
   "Difference is, of course, that I have a human brain, and so even
under the best circumstances, I'm going to be fallible. But you? Your
brain's a computer. Logical, orderly. The information is in there, and
it's intact, we just need to get at it. I need answers, Trevor. And if
you can't give them to me, then I don't really need all this," she
waves her hand at the wires, "keeping you alive and draining on our
generator. So, I'm going to need you to dig a little deeper. I need
you to be useful. And if you come up empty?" She answers her own
question with a lazy, casual shrug.
   "I get it," says Trevor.
   "Splendid."
   There's a deep, throaty meow at the door. Trevor flicks his eyes
and spots the sinuous flash of an orange tail. Goliath. Standing near
him, poking in from the doorway, is June. Trevor locks eyes with her,
and she looks away.
   "Maile," says June, "need you for a minute. About Lieke."
   Maile nods.
   "Shall I turn him off?" says Sarah.
   Maile looks at Trevor like he's a toaster or a television set.
"Leave him on for now. I'll be back."

Lieke is in the kitchen, running her hand under the tap.
   "Cheese and rice," says Maile, "that's a nasty burn. What did you do?"
   "That's just it," says June. "She didn't do anything. All of the
sudden, her palm blistered up."
   "This isn't a normal thing?" says Maile.
   Lieke cranes her neck around, staring at Maile, incredulous.
   "How would this be normal?" she says.
   "I don't know, Leek. The house changes shape, salt is deadly,
Trevor is a robot. How am I supposed to know what's normal?" She turns
to June. "Do we have a first aid kit or something? I feel like we
should have a first aid kit."
   "Already on it," says June, pointing into the hall. A slender cat
(black, with white belly, muzzle, and paws) is coming toward them with
a little white case in its mouth. It suddenly stops in the middle of
the hallway, setting down the case, and starts gnawing on the toes of
its back right leg.
   "Oh, come on," says Lieke.

When Trini steps out of the shower, she can hear Angel sobbing. She
dries her feet, then wraps one towel around her torso and another
about her hair. Her feet are still a little damp as she steps into the
carpeted hallway.
   She finds her in the kitchen, sitting on the floor, back against
the cupboards. Angel is staring at her palm. It's deep red and
blistered.
   "What happened?" Trini starts to crouch down.
   "Don't," says Angel. "Don't get on the floor. Your baby."
   "I'm not that far along," says Trini. Gently, she grabs Angel's
wrist and asks her again: "What happened?"
   "I was making dinner," says Angel, pointing to the cast iron pan
with a jerk of her head. "The pan was hot. I touched it."
   "You touched it for a long time," says Trini.
   "I know. I couldn't let go. I mean, I did, eventually. But I wanted
it to burn. To," she shrugs through new tears, "feel it, I guess?"
   "Oh, Angel," says Trini. Not for the first time, she feels uniquely
unequipped to deal with Angel's particular damage. It makes her
nostalgic, if only a little, for David's memory lapses and lost little
boy act. That much she could handle.
   "Here," she says finally, pressing her own palm against her
roommate's. Angel winces at her touch, but after a long and silent
minute, Trini's magic has done its work.
   "Good as new," says Trini.
   Angel takes her hand back and stares at her palm. The skin is rosy
pink, but unblemished. Carefully she pokes at it with her fingernail.
Satisfied, she reaches out and places her healed palm against Trini's
cheek.
   Before Trini can do anything about it, Angel leans in and kisses
her on the mouth. "No," says Trini gently, pulling back. "I'm not -
I'm sorry, Angel, but I don't feel that way about you."
   Angel nods, growing small and quiet. "I'm sorry," she whispers.
"That was dumb."
   "Yeah, it was," says Trini, trying to make a joke of it. But it's
clear from the expression on Angel's face that the joke doesn't land.
   "I just feel so alone all the time," says Angel. "But it's not just
that. Where I'm lonely or sad or whatever. I think I know what that
feels like. I can't be sure of course," she smiles at a private joke,
"but I think I do, and this isn't that. It's a, a longing. A grief."
She stares at her palm again.
   Trini doesn't know what to say, so opts for distraction. "How far
along was dinner?"
   "Not very," says Angel. "But I'm not really hungry anymore."
   "Neither am I," Trini lies. "I have to go out for a while. You
won't do anything stupid while I'm gone?"
   "No stupider than usual."

Claire Belden, Director, Human Resources. Trini stares at the little
placard next to the office door with disbelief. The last she heard,
Claire had been relieved of her position in security. Lydia had put
her on unpaid leave. Now she has Lydia's job? What the heck happened
in the last couple of weeks?
   Well, better knock on the door and find out. Reflexively, she curls
her left hand into a fist. It hurts to do it, and she stares at the
ugly scar in the back of her hand where the knife went in. Where she
stabbed herself when Claire possessed her, the last time that she saw
David. Times like this she wishes her magic would work on herself.
   Part of her wants to switch to her right, but if for no other
reason than spite, she tightens her left fist again before rapping on
the door. The knob turns and the door draws back. Sitting at the desk
is Claire. No idea who opened the door, if anyone did, and once Trini
steps inside, she hears the door swing shut behind her.
   "Trini," says Claire. She looks simultaneously like the cat who ate
the canary, and also like the cat that was about to eat another one.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?"
   "I came to see Lydia," says Trini. "Has she been, uh, transferred?"
   "In a manner of speaking," says Claire. "Sit down?"
   Trini nods and is about to step toward the chair when she realizes
that she's already in it. (Lord, does she hate magic.)
   "Lydia was working for the enemy," says Claire. "She is the one
that orchestrated the abduction of Maile Akaka, the deaths of Samson
and Pinky, the placement of the," she stops and searches for the word,
"the spy, David Collins, and the loss of the Avery asset to the
circle."
   "Oh," says Trini. There's something in Claire's voice, something
she can't quite place. That's not new of course - Claire always has an
agenda. But there's something else to it this time around, like Trini
is supposed to read between the lines.
   "You of course assisted me in discovering the truth about David,"
says Claire, "and that in turn eventually led me to the truth about
Lydia. You might recall that Lydia possessed you, and forced you to
stab yourself in the hand."
   Claire stares at her intently, waiting for confirmation. Trini
hesitates, then, "Yes. Yes, that's what happened."
   "And now you know why," says Claire. "Because she discovered that
you were giving me information that could, and eventually did,
incriminate her. My assumption is that she intended to pin it on me,
as being due to some kind of incompetence on my part. That's actually
the part I found the most insulting. If she wanted to pretend that I
was some kind of double agent working from the inside to undermine The
Company, I could almost respect that. But the idea that I flubbed it?
No, that would not do."
   "No, I guess it wouldn't."
   "And so I presented my case to upper management. Mr. C personally
saw to it that Lydia received the gift of Venus. Right here. In this
office. You might even feel a certain chill, a dampness, a twinge at
the elbow. He's still here, you see. Or part of him is. Lingering.
Watching." She pauses. "Listening."
   "Listening. To us now?"
   "Every word," says Claire. She gives a tossed off casual little
laugh, or her best approximation of it. "I must say, it does make one
a little nervous to have one's work scrutinized so closely. I was used
to a great deal more autonomy in my previous position. I think you can
appreciate the difficulty."
   Trini stares at Claire for a moment, thinking, reflecting, putting
two and two together, and being quite astonished to find out that it
equals four. Claire is a double agent. She got Akaka out, she's the
one that placed David as a spy for the circle. And she pinned it on
Lydia. Got away with it. But why is she telling Trini?
   "Yes," says Trini cautiously, "yes, I think I do."
   "Then we understand each other," says Claire.
   "What happened to David?" Trini blurts out. "I mean, is he, is he dead?"
   "Yes." Claire is lying, and Trini knows she's lying, and Claire
knows that Trini knows, and Trini hides a tiny sigh of relief lest it
be observed by some millennia-old elder god. It's strange; she hasn't
really thought of David all that much in the last couple weeks,
despite carrying his child. Probably because she didn't really know
him at all, not the real him. And also because once she started
watching him, spying on him, the love died. She'll never forgive
Claire for that. Still. It gives her some comfort to know that he made
it out okay.
   "But enough about me and my predecessor," says Claire. "What is it
that you wanted?"
   "Lydia moved me to her department and gave me a new assignment,"
says Trini. She stops, looking for a way to wedge it into the
narrative. "Probably to keep me out of the way until she could
eliminate me without arousing suspicion."
   "Makes sense," says Claire. "It's what I would do."
   I know, thinks Trini to herself. "That being the case, maybe we can
move me back to accounting, and get someone else to watch the new
girl?"
   "The new girl," repeats Claire, almost as if she's only now
encountered those words for the first time in her life and is
pronouncing them phonetically.
   "Angel," says Trini. "She was trying to defect from the circle, but
I guess they caught up with her? She was wiped completely. I had to
tell her what her name was. They even cut off her mark." She passes
her hand over her cheek in imitation of Angel's scar.
   "Angelique?"
   "Yeah. So you know her."
   "No, just a lucky guess," says Claire, lying again. "What is she,
what is she like?"
   "Lost," says Trini. "Broken. Like, she's seriously damaged and I'm
way over my head. I can't take care of her. It's exhausting. And, you
know, I'm not doing her any good. She needs more. And I ain't it."
   "I'm afraid you're going to have to be."
   Trini feels her temper rising, but she pushes it down; she knows
better than to lose her temper with Claire. Deep breath. "Every day is
like suicide watch with her. She needs help, Claire."
   "I understand. But I don't have any record of her in our files. I
don't know what Lydia was up to. I also don't know if Lydia was the
only traitor within the Company." (Trini thinks this means the reverse
- that Claire is the only one. Is Trini being recruited?) "Suppose she
has allies. Suppose this Angel is a loose end, like yourself, that
Lydia intended to snap off. I take you off that detail, and put
someone else in, maybe that someone else was working with Lydia. There
are exactly two people that I trust right now that work for The
Company, and both of them are in this room."
   "I guess I feel honored."
   "You shouldn't be," says Claire flatly. "The only reason why you're
not awaiting trial and execution for what happened at that hospital is
because you continue to be useful to me. And you know that, and I know
that, and so the only reason why I trust you is because I own you."
   (There's the Claire I know and love, Trini muses darkly.)
   "I'll see what we can do for Angel," Claire continues, "and I'll
begin making inquiries. While that's going on, for your safety and for
hers, we'll be moving the both of you to a location known only to
myself."

June pokes her head into the room. "Sarah, can I talk to Trevor for a minute?"
   Sarah shrugs. "If it's okay with the boss, it's okay with me."
   June hasn't actually asked Maile for permission, but Sarah doesn't
need to know that. "I'd like to talk to him alone."
   "No can do, cat lady," says Sarah. "I have to monitor his processes."
   "Just for a minute," says June.
   Sarah doesn't budge.
   "You leave me no choice," says June, with faux melodrama. "Goliath,
you know what to do."
   June's orange tom leaps up onto the table, steps over Sarah's
wrist, and stands in front of the computer monitor.
   "This is ridiculous," says Sarah.
   Goliath turns his back to her, tail straight up in the air,
thrusting his twitching anus in her face.
   "Okay, I guess this is yours now," says Sarah. She turns to June.
"A minute. I'll be right outside." She throws a glance at the robot
head, then turns back to June. "Be careful. Call me if anything weird
happens. Well. Weirder."
   Once she's left the room, Goliath sits down and starts washing his
face. June gives him a scratch behind the ears before rolling the
chair close to Trevor.
   She stares at him, at his suspended head, at the wires dripping out
of his neck like candle wax. She sighs and rests her cheek against her
palm. "This gives a whole new meaning to battery-operated boyfriend."
   Trevor cracks up, and then June does the same.
   "So, you can laugh," she says.
   "Apparently."
   "That much is real. Can you, can you feel things? Pain?"
   "I'm not in any pain right now," says Trevor. "But I have been in
the past. Or I remember feeling it, anyway."
   "And you can taste food."
   "Digest it, too," says the head. "When I have a body, anyway.
There's some whole complicated thing that Avery was going on about.
All these little machines."
   June wants to point to herself and say, that's all this is.
Intestines, stomach, they're all machines held in place by muscles and
bones. Nothing mysterious or divine about it; it's all messy bags of
tissue. We're not so different, you and me, not really.
   But she doesn't say that, because it's too much and it's too soon.
It'd be just like her to jump the gun, to be too kind, to want
something badly enough that she would grab at straws and look for
signs that weren't there. She pulls back, and it's hard to do that.
   "And you really liked me."
   "I think so," says Trevor. He frowns, blinks. "Yes. Yes, June. I liked you."
   "I liked you, too," says June. "I guess it's for the best that we
didn't, you know, get any farther than that."
   Trevor doesn't have shoulders to shrug with, so his eyebrows do it
for him. "I don't know. I'm sorry, anyway. I mean, I didn't know what
I was, but I didn't want to hurt you."
   "No one ever means to hurt anyone," says June. "That's what makes
it so sad. Sarah, you can stop lurking at the door now."
   "Great," she says, shooing Goliath away from the terminal. Then,
under her breath: "And this is why I'm ace."

In her dream, Lieke was looking for herself. Not her other self, but
her own self, a spirit without a body, restless, formless, incomplete,
drifting, spreading thin, evaporating, boiling, becoming air, becoming
nothing and never-was.
   She wakes up on the couch in the common room, an hour after
midnight, curled half-way into a ball, her cheek resting uncomfortably
on the arm, the leather sweaty against her mark. She touches it with
her fingers, and it feels cold. It's been cold for weeks. Dormant, or
dead.
   Her spine complains as she stretches out her legs. Even as far as
couches go, this one isn't comfortable. But she still can't sleep in
her room. In their room. It's too empty, too big, too small.
   She's crying again, because of course she is - she's done nothing
but cry. She doesn't understand where it comes from. She's too tired
to cry, too exhausted and empty to mourn, and yet there's always more.
No matter how numb she gets, it's never numb enough to stop her from
feeling the absence of her reflection.
   "This is old," she mutters to herself as she wipes her eyes dry
with the flat of her palms. "Everyone is tired of this." She can see
it in their eyes, the way the empathy gives way to irritation, the way
they've started avoiding her when they don't want to deal with it, and
also how they go out of their way to include her, like she's some damn
feral child they're trying to socialize. She's almost thankful they've
got the robot's head online, because it gives everyone an excuse to
ignore her.
   She doesn't need them, anyway. Even before, the Liekes kept to
themselves, lived in a universe made entirely of the two of them,
forever circling in each other's orbit. When they were young, and
prone to swoony slow dancing, they would make little rotations and
whisper back and forth to one another: you are the planet, and I am
your moon. Their version, she supposes now, of no, I love you more.
Now she was a moon without a planet, with nothing to orbit, nothing to
anchor her in place.
   "I miss you," she whispers. There is no reply.
   She rubs her face again with her palms, and then rubs her palms dry
against her pants, before turning them up and staring at them. Well,
staring at the one palm. The palm that burned and blistered, red and
ugly and inscrutable. Maybe ten minutes later, just as they were
getting the bandages out, the pain stopped. The skin became pink and
smooth, like it had never happened at all.
   This freaked out Maile perhaps more than the burning had, and good
old fearless leader decided to throw herself into figuring that out.
Lieke didn't really care one way or the other, so long as it stopped.
She should care. Maybe the next time she catches on invisible fire,
it's going to be more than her palm. Maybe she won't survive. Survive,
for what? Live for what? She's a moon without a planet.
   "I miss you," she says again to the empty room. Again there is no answer.
   She wanders across the floor, through the hall, and into the
kitchen. On the counter there is a little paring knife, sharp at the
point. (No, she says to herself.) It smells of onions - of shallots.
June forgot to wash it, so Lieke does it for her.
   (No.) She wipes it dry, and then brings it up to her face. She
expects to see her own reflection, a sliver of her own face, in its
steel. But she doesn't. All she sees is the knife. (Yes.)
   It's a sharp knife. It doesn't take much for it to break the skin
at the back of her hand. (Not the wrist; not yet; she's a coward after
all.) A little red bubble emerges at the point, then rolls down onto
the counter. She drags the point of the knife down, making a straight
line that runs parallel to her knuckles.
   Next to the straight line she makes another, then a diagonal, like
a bottomless triangle. She reverses it - makes it a reflection of
itself - and is perversely pleased that it at least vaguely resembles
an M. After a few minutes of grunting and bleeding, she admires the
six jagged letters: I MISS U.
   "Well?" she says. No answer.
   She slumps down onto the tile floor, her back against the cupboard.
She twists her arm, glancing in turn at her white wrist and the red
knife. A minute. She'll wait a minute. She counts to sixty, silently
mouthing the words.
   When she gets to forty, she feels a flush of heat upon her cheek,
and then jagged metal against her arm. She stifles a scream and then
looks at the back of her arm. Her flesh is tearing itself, splitting
apart like busted seams. After a moment, it stops, and she can see
three more letters: TOO.
   I MISS U TOO.
   And for the first time in a long time, Lieke is happy.



COPYRIGHT (C) 2020 TOM RUSSELL.


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