Authors: Zachary Rawlins
And then suddenly there was no more, no further to reach, no reserves to tap; the Black Door was firmly shut, and Mitsuru folded at the knees, and then fell gently to the floor. She cried out, so she would not have to hear the sound of the chain as it hit the ground.
“You’ve turned this place into the goddamn bloody chamber again, you troublesome bitch,” Rebecca said, not unkindly, from the door. “I’m gonna have to take your key away.”
Rebecca pushed the sliding door open and dropped her bag just inside the room, kicking her sandals off next to it. She was a few inches taller than Mitsuru, a shapely brunette, somewhere nebulously between her late twenties and early thirties. Her accent and style was stereotypically Southern Californian, complete with sun-bleached bangs and designer sunglasses, but Mitsuru knew that she’d been born in Argentina, to a Jewish family that fled Buenos Aires for the United States, after a bombing, when she was a child.
Rebecca walked across the room, picking her way disdainfully through the maze of chain and bloodstains, and stood in front of Mitsuru, folding her arms. She was dressed for the field, in muddy fatigues and a black t-shirt soaked in sweat. Mitsuru found herself unable to look her friend in the eye.
“I’m totally serious, Mitsuru. Do you know what would happen if the Committee-at-Large or the Board found out you were trying to use your Black Protocol again? They’d put you down for real this time, instead of hobbling you. Clean this shit up later, okay? We have to meet Alistair in twenty minutes.”
Mitsuru stirred.
“Alistair?”
“I knew that would get a reaction from you,” Rebecca smirked. “It’s so cute it makes me kinda sick. Now go get yourself cleaned up, and meet us up in his office, okay?”
Mitsuru nodded, and stood unsteadily.
Rebecca grabbed her abruptly and pulled her close in a rough embrace. Mitsuru felt Rebecca’s hand briefly run through her hair, and then gently pat the back of her head. A sob escaped Mitsuru’s throat, and then she wrapped her own arms around Rebecca’s waist, and they stayed that way for a little while.
“You’ve got to get it together,” Rebecca said firmly, holding her by her shoulders and looking into her red eyes. “If you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for Alistair and me, okay? We put our asses on the line for you – and I’m not doing you any favors, Mitsuru, don’t look at me that way. I know that you’ll make a great Auditor. But like this, sweetie? You’re inviting them to decide that what you couldn’t control then, you still can’t control. And it reflects poorly on us.”
Mitsuru nodded, biting back tears. She knew it all already, of course, but she hadn’t stopped herself. Even when it wasn’t her who would pay the cost for her actions. She wanted so badly to use the abilities that had been forbidden to her again.
Rebecca released her hold and turned to collect her sandals and duffle bag.
“I’ll see you upstairs, Mitsuru,” she said, waving over her shoulder. “Try not to take things so seriously, okay? The world can’t end every day.”
Mitsuru had enough time for a quick shower and change before heading upstairs, through the smoky chaos of the half-full Operations room to the equally smoky back office that Alistair had taken over. She’d replaced the bandages on her hands, as well, so that Alistair wouldn’t notice that she had reopened the wounds.
Rebecca was already there, her hair damp from the shower, wearing loose jeans and a blue UCLA sweatshirt, leaning over a chart laid out in front of Alistair, across the desk. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, and Mitsuru noticed the bruises on her neck and jaw for the first time. Someone had tried to strangle Rebecca, and recently, too. She wondered where she had been, and who had been stupid enough to try something like that.
Rebecca was Alistair’s lieutenant, and the Auditors liaison to the Committee-at-Large, as well as a Board member. Mitsuru had been her classmate, many years ago, and knew her to be resourceful, tactically brilliant, and a peerless empath, justly respected by most Operators, and perhaps less-justly feared by almost as many. She was rumored to have once Audited a rebellious cartel completely out of existence, and while Mitsuru didn’t know the whole story, she wouldn’t have been surprised were it the truth.
She also knew Rebecca to be a cheerful drunk, a flirt, a fanatic collector of eighties hardcore punk LPs, and by far the best friend she’d ever had. Maybe the only one.
Alistair looked up briefly as Mitsuru entered, and waved her to an empty chair. Alistair almost never looked tired, but today he looked positively exhausted.
“There’s no way it could be anything else,” Alistair said grimly, turning back to Rebecca, who sat on one end of his desk, tapping a cigarette in the ashtray he had reluctantly provided, “this whole thing was a set up.”
“Why do you say that?”
Mitsuru craned her neck, to see the chart between them.
It was one of the logic boards that they did in Analytics, a two-dimensional representation of a specific probability threading, with the most likely branches indicated by size and interval. Obviously, it lacked the malleability of the more complete digital models, but some of the older Operators liked to work things out on paper. It looked something like a bizarre architectural schematic, or a particularly convoluted electrical line diagram.
Mitsuru could read them, but she wasn’t great at it. She’d gotten used to the Etheric network, and its gleaming, immaculate simulations. But even in this antiquated format, she could recognize the overly precise cuts and joins of manufactured probability.
“What does this mean?”
“It’s weird to see you so emotional, Mitsuru,” Rebecca remarked. “Something about this incident bother you?”
Mitsuru shook her head, alarmed at the obviousness of her lack of composure.
“They must’ve hacked it, Mitzi. Someone sorted through the probabilities, and then eliminated undesirable outcomes, one by one, channeling reality down to one specific set of extremely probable circumstances,” Alistair explained patiently.
“So we can assume that every aspect of the scenario – Mitsuru, the Weir, the kid, North’s arrival, the whole deal – all intentional. It must have taken a lot of effort,” Rebecca mused, leaning over the chart, “but the manipulation is pretty obvious, once you take a hard look at it. This couldn’t have been arranged too far in advance, or it wouldn’t be quite so crude.”
“Or they didn’t know how to do it very well,” Mitsuru pointed out, “maybe they did the best job they could, and it just wasn’t that great.”
“It’s possible,” Alistair allowed, eyeing Mitsuru. “You have a hunch or something Mitsuru?”
“Nothing that solid,” she replied, shrugging. “Nothing specific. But, it is the other option. You’ve to admit it doesn’t look very professional.”
Alistair looked at the probability chart again and scratched his head.
“Whatever the case,” Rebecca said, crushing out her cigarette in the ash tray, “I still think that the North Cartel is an excellent candidate for ‘they’. Have you had a chance to talk with Mister North yet?”
“No,” said Alistair, shaking his head, “I don’t think I’ll get to any time soon, either. Gaul’s taken an interest, and he takes precedence. I think he’ll make a formal Inquiry. Maybe even call for an Audit.”
“Really? Why?”
“Gaul thinks that this whole thing was a trap,” he said, his eyes on the desk in front of him, “to draw out Mitsuru, to get her to violate the Agreement somehow, and thereby embarrass the Auditors.”
Mitsuru could only look at the floor, her cheeks burning.
“Don’t get so down, Mitzi,” Alistair said encouragingly. “If they chose you as a weak link to expose us, then they chose poorly. Unless I’m missing something important, we come out of this looking pretty good.”
“He’s right, Mitsuru,” Rebecca said slowly. “So Audits looks good, and whoever put this together, assuming we’ve read this whole thing right, comes off pretty badly. For something that must have taken tremendous effort to orchestrate, it sure didn’t pay.”
“Yeah. I’ve got to admit, I’m skeptical that’s the case.” Alistair leaned back in his chair, and put his sneakers up on one corner of the desk. “I think Gaul’s got it wrong. I think we have to assume that whatever happened, it all happened because the responsible party wanted it that way. I’m not seeing this whole thing as an operation gone wrong.”
Rebecca looked at him doubtfully, but didn’t say anything.
“Until I hear otherwise, I’m assuming that the same person was responsible for the whole thing. Mitsuru being ordered there, the Weir, the probability tampering, the kid deciding to take a walk in the park.” Alistair smiled thinly. “At this point, I’d be tempted to lay the JFK assassination at their doorstep, too.”
“You don’t know that,” Rebecca objected, “this whole thing could have been the result of competing factions, pursuing different agendas…”
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Alistair said, frowning and studying the chart. “I don’t see any sign of struggle or opposition, the manipulation looks blunt to me. The structure is haphazard, but it’s congruous – I think this is the work of a single party. Even if it is clumsy work.”
“Of the major cartels, who has the resources for this kind of probability manipulation?”
“The Black Sun,” Alistair said definitively, “Meier-Stoldt. Thule. North. Lao Xhin. I can’t think of anyone else, but there might be one or two others.”
“Which one of them,” Rebecca asked, plowing onward while glaring at Alistair, “is it that you think is this clumsy? Which cartel has this kind of power, but uses it with all the grace of an untrained child?”
“None,” Alistair admitted. “I don’t get it either, Becca, but it’s the only conclusion that makes any sense to me…”
Rebecca pulled another cigarette from the pack on the desk, and lit up, apparently oblivious to Alistair’s disapproval. She drew on it with obvious satisfaction, and then blew smoke at the ceiling.
“Maybe we’re coming at this from the wrong direction.” Rebecca said, turning to face them again, suddenly animated. “Why do you think it was that they wanted Mitsuru? What’s so special about her?”
Mitsuru’s throat tightened, as if she’d done something to be ashamed of. It took an effort to make certain her response didn’t sound defensive.
“What? What do you mean?”
Alistair looked legitimately confused.
“Well, look at the whole setup,” Rebecca said, leaning over the chart to point with her cigarette. “I see two clear points of intention – make sure the kid needs a rescue, and make sure you’re the one who does the rescuing. I heard about the catalyst thing.”
Mitsuru looked at the bandages on her hand speculatively.
“It was weird,” she said softly, “I’ve never felt anything like it. I don’t even know where I got the idea do to all those things, much less how I knew I could do them.”
“Remind me to try it sometime,” Rebecca said dryly. “Anyway, we know why the kid is important, or at least we’ve got an idea why he’d be important to someone. But why was it so important that you be the one to save him, Mitsuru?”
“Maybe his power as catalyst is limited,” Alistair speculated. “Maybe it had to be someone like Mitsuru…”
“What?” Rebecca crowed. “You mean their plot hinged on the presence of a dangerously unbalanced lunatic, with designs on the Audits department?”
Alistair grimaced at the sound, as the door slammed shut behind the fleeing Mitsuru.
“You’re too hard on her, you know,” he said grumpily.
“And you’re too easy on her – at worst, I’m hurting her feelings. What do you think you’re risking, codling Mitsuru like that?” Rebecca slapped her hand against the table angrily. “Look, I love the girl, I always have, and I died a little when they put her away, you know? But, they were right to do it. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”