Authors: Ferrett Steinmetz
“
H
ello
, Mittens!” Mrs Liu picked up one of her cats. “Hello, Trouble. Oh, you’re a
mischievous
little devil! And my sweet little Lickums…”
Paul perched on a chair as a sea of ragged tails bobbed to and fro beneath him: clusters of cats purring on the stove, tangles of cats squabbling beneath the kitchen table, rows of cats staring down at him from the cabinets with the grace of queens.
The ’mancy here
looked
mundane, but Paul had watched for hours, fascinated, trying to figure out how it was done.
Mrs Liu looked quite kindly as she hugged each of her cats, an elderly Chinese lady with a thin chuckle and a staunch disregard for the way the cats knocked her teacups off her table – yet she’d hugged a new kitty to her breast every minute or two for several hours, and had not hugged the same one twice.
This was a large apartment, but it held infinite cats. And Paul had eventually realized Mrs Liu’s secret:
There was no litter box.
No cat never escaped out the front door.
It had taken him days to figure this out, but… Paul was pretty sure Mrs Liu’s cats didn’t actually exist.
The Institute’s records said she’d been brought here with three cats, all spayed. She’d created a litter of kittens that were completely unremarkable aside from the fact that they’d coalesced out of midair.
He felt a vague temptation to tug on a cat’s ’mancy and see what was left once Mrs Liu’s spell unraveled. But Paul had been informed that one word from Mrs Liu and the place would turn feral, wherein he would be dragged by cat-induced peristalsis down the hallways, torn to shreds and never seen again.
He preferred not to die wearing a gaudy luchador mask.
He didn’t want to upset her anyway. One of the joys at being at the Institute was watching everyone’s different magics. After he’d done the necessary paperwork for Mr Payne, Paul would relax by flitting from universe-bending joy to universe-bending joy – dropping in to see Natasha the culinomancer whip up a magical flan, or trying to figure out what Juan the bookiemancer saw as he plucked predictions from the buzzing swarms of numbers, or watch Idena the origamimancer crease a single typewriter-sized sheet of vellum into a table-sized paper forest, every leaf and branch meticulously outlined.
He just wished they would
talk
to him.
The Foundation was legally designated as her full-time school now, and Aliyah – sorry,
Hotplate
– had the run of the place. Here, she was everyone’s favorite godchild. Even now, Aliyah made a magical mask with Mrs Vinere. Aliyah taught her how to make Majora’s Masks, where each mask let you bounce around the room like a pinball.
Without Aliyah, the best Mrs Vinere could do would give you a new face. But with Aliyah, all the ’mancers seemed… amplified.
Mrs Liu, like all the other ’mancers, had been skeptical of Paul. She’d cracked open the door when he mentioned Aliyah’s name – he shouldn’t have confirmed he was Hotplate’s father, it broke Mr Payne’s SMASH-thwarting information barriers, but he needed to introduce himself with the proper authority. And even then she eyed him warily, as though at any moment he might reveal he did not like cats.
It was funny; all his life he’d been attracted to ’mancy, had lost his foot because he’d had to watch the illustromancer work, had become a bureaucromancer because he loved magic.
Here he was, with all this ’mancy, and still no one to share it with.
No Foundation ’mancer made eye contact. They had their own fiefdoms; his visits perplexed them. They paid attention for precisely as long as he spoke to them, looking away as if they longed to get back to their kitchen, or their football game, or their stuffed animal caves.
The culinomancer had baked amazing dishes of grilled purple cauliflower couscous – but left them stacked by the ovens, shrugging when Paul asked for a bite. The origamimancer had completed her forest and then chucked it into the garbage.
They created beauty, but felt no need to share it.
Their tiny magics made him itch with guilt. He loved bureaucracy, but… he had a daughter he loved, and Valentine, and an ex-wife he still had dinner with.
Still
his ’mancy was stronger than theirs.
Their lives had been consumed by their obsessions, yet they’d been rewarded with magics barely more than coincidence.
It was unfair. Valentine could destroy buildings, and she wasn’t half as devoted to her games as that lonely little plushiemancer who sat for hours, trying to teach his befuddled stuffed animals to dance. They only rocked back and forth.
But when Aliyah dropped by, his animals did musical numbers. They loved Aliyah because her videogamemancy could be anything – a cooking game, a basketball game, a little farm with plushie horses. They didn’t have to pretend to like anything else, because Aliyah loved what they did. They could plug into her ’mancy.
Paul was proud of Aliyah. They both needed to socialize these poor recluses.
Which was why Paul had brought Mrs Liu a bottle of cream, and tried to make conversation.
“So… why
is
Trouble such trouble?” he inquired. “What’s the little scamp get up to?”
“Piddles,” she murmured, nuzzling a new kitty nose-to-nose. “Aww, Piddles.”
Maybe he should have brought cat treats.
A brisk knock on the door: Mrs Liu straightened. She stood up, brushing clumps of cat hair off her dress, then slicked back her hair. She flung the door open wide, then crouched almost as if to bow.
Mr Payne pushed a dolly heaped high with canned cat food through the door, sunny as a sour man like Payne could be. “Here you go, Mrs Liu. The cleaners will be in to take out your garbage later today.”
She bobbed her head, trembling, as if wanting to get the words right. “Thangew.”
Payne cocked his head. “What was that, Mrs Liu?”
“Thank you, King.” Her words had the stiff ring of a practiced speech. When she curtsied, her cats stretched out, miaowing respectfully in Payne’s direction. Payne nodded curtly, a general acknowledging his troops’ marginal effort.
“All I need.” He turned to Paul. “Mr Mongoose! Good to see you. Come with me.”
By the time Paul remembered his code name was Mongoose, Payne had left. Mrs Liu stayed frozen until Mr Payne was gone, then unloaded her cat food with shivering gratitude.
Paul picked his way through the swarming cats and left; no one seemed to notice.
Payne had already strode to the next room. Two luchador-masked orderlies pushed pallets of supplies behind him.
Paul caught up just as Payne was unloading bundles of paper into the origamimancer’s room. The origamimancer – a woman as pale and angular as the paper she worked with – bowed and presented a sculpture of Payne to him.
“Wonderful.” Payne turned, pleased, to deposit it in Paul’s hands. “What do you think?”
The origami was a sternly angled version of Payne, with a blank face and a stiff twisted-vellum crown. Even cupped in Paul’s palm, it seemed to loom over him.
“It’s quite nice,” Paul lied.
“We’ll put it in my antechamber.” Payne whisked it off Paul’s palm and handed it to an orderly. He shut the door on the origamimancer. “So, Mr Mongoose. What do you think of your fellow ’mancers?”
“They seem a little…” Paul didn’t want to sound cruel. Payne had found a way to keep seventeen ’mancers working together in secrecy. Hell, Paul had juggled three ’mancers, and
that
had come close to disintegrating at times.
“They’re not the friendliest people,” Paul finished.
“They’re not,” Payne admitted. “Though you mustn’t let that get you down. Truth is, I don’t encourage them to mix much.”
“…you don’t?”
“I don’t
prevent
socializing – but frankly, each ’mancer represents their own worldview. It’s quite stupid, honestly, but I’ve seen the evidence with these old rheumy eyes: get two different ’mancers talking, and they forget the world is out to get them! They forget they’re a precious few blessed enough to bend physics with mere willpower, and start squabbling over which hobby is superior. Next thing you know, you’ve got a magical war on your hands.”
“You really
do
think ’mancy is a blessing, don’t you?”
“Oh God yes. You’ve felt that fervent glory, haven’t you? That sense the universe has lined up behind you?”
Paul had, once. He’d saved New York City with it. The rest had been doubt and concern.
Payne slugged him on the shoulder. “It’s a wonder any of us can do – well, any of this. But we forget what we have in common. I’ll tell you, sir, there were some real catfights back in the 1970s before my psychologists perfected ’mancer integration. That’s why there’s so many regulations here.”
“I’m happy to be here,” Paul demurred. “And Aliyah is so content. But…”
“They’re hothouse flowers.”
“What?”
Payne swept his hand to encompass the pillars, the lobby, twenty doors with a ’mancer secluded inside each one. “The ’mancers. They’re hothouse flowers, sir. I know you want them to be as witty as Ms Mercer and lovable as little Hotplate, but… not everybody gets to be charming.”
“I didn’t expect…”
“No. You came here expecting company. You were hoping to find others to... what term do you children use these days? ‘Geek out’ over your love of ’mancy?”
Paul slumped. “Maybe I did.”
Payne nodded in sympathy. “I did once, too. But… in truth, I’ve come to realize doing ’mancy is the real beauty. I didn’t bring them here to socialize them. I think it might even be an insult to see them as broken. What we do here is to foster a little demesne for them to follow their bliss. That’s our job, Mr Mongoose – to create a place where ’mancers can thrive. Together.”
It was funny. There had been a time where Payne’s voice would have set him to trembling. Now, somehow, Payne reassured him.
“In fact,” Payne said, pacing the lobby’s rim, “There’s only one person who does not fit in.”
And he stopped before Valentine’s door.
“No,” Paul whispered.
Paul cracked open the door to check in on Valentine. She was curled up in the wreckage of all the ripped-down
Mario
mosaics and smashed display racks. She’d kicked the videogames – still in their packaging – into a gigantic heap in the corner. The shattered fluorescents sputtered overhead.
She hunched over, sullenly playing her old videogames on her old Nintendo DS, looking like Valentine.
Paul shuddered. She wasn’t wearing her Alex Mercer skin any more. A bad sign, considering she had only three days left on her promise to stay here.
Payne closed the door. His orderlies, sensing the incoming storm, had scattered.
“She hasn’t left us yet,” Payne said, exasperated. “Which is good. I don’t know what I’d do if she left, considering all the intel she has on our operation. If the Task Force picks her up and hands her to SMASH, we’re good as dead.”
“Mr Payne – “
“King. It’s
King
here. You of all people should understand the need for obscurity.”
“Look, Mr King. What are you suggesting?”
Payne flung up his hands. “Who knows, Paul? You’re her supervisor. I brought her in here because I supposed you ran a tidy operation. Do you?”
Payne stepped closer, almost bumping chest-to-chest with Paul; all his old fears came rushing back. That terror that Mr Payne might check in on you today, and take away your job.
Paul tried to envision Valentine, checking in at 9:00 every morning, and saw the impending disaster in Payne’s Institute. Payne could
not
think of Valentine as just another employee.
“She’s no hothouse flower,” Paul explained. “She’s my enforcer. Just like you have Rainbird. And
he
doesn’t stay cooped up in here.”
Payne harrumphed. “Rainbird’s won special privileges.”
“And Valentine’s won mine. She needs real-world challenges in addition to illusory ones. So what do you have?”
“Paul, I can’t give her an assignment without knowing she’s with us…”
“She’s with me. That should be good enough.”
Payne shifted his weight. Paul remembered Payne was a six-foot-tall ex-Marine, and he was a scrawny man tottering on a fake ankle.
“You wanted a second-in-command.” Paul forced an unnatural jolliness into his voice. “But you’re not hiring us, Mr Payne. This is a merger. That involves adjustments on
both
ends.”
“A merger,” Payne snapped, “assumes the other company was successful in its operations.”
“It
was
successful. Until you and I accidentally went to war.”
The only person who Paul had ever seen go toe-to-toe with Payne was his old boss Kit. Kit had defused Payne’s managerial explosions with cool logic. Paul stole from Kit’s playbook, driving Payne right up to the edge by dismantling his assumptions.
Once again
, Paul thought,
my daughter’s wellbeing depends on Mr Payne not firing me.
And just as he did whenever he faced down Kit, Payne broke. He gave Paul a sickly smile.
“I suppose you’re right, Paul. ’Mancers, we– we mustn’t fight. There’s too much at stake. If we can’t bring everyone onto the same page, well... well, then we’re back to Germany, and the broaches, with physics raped in its still-warm grave….”
Payne’s eyes dimmed, his hands shivering, and Paul almost asked what horrors Payne remembered. They had to be grim. Decades had passed, and he’d still been driven to honor his dead sisters by naming the PTSD school after them…
It seemed kindest to let the memories pass, without digging them up further. Sure enough, Payne squeezed back the tears.
“I can offer you a training run. Which I am not thrilled about, mind you. Your successor David has installed a fortune’s worth of opals around his relevant servers and filing cabinets, making it
much
harder to see what he’s doing at the Task Force. You’ve told us he’s ordering in more equipment from foreign militaries; his new budget is concomitant with that. Under normal circumstances, I’d
never
let a novice out with the NYPD hunting for us.”
“…but?”
“But there are still ’mancers being created in New York. If I don’t miss my guess, we’ve found one we need to get to before David Giabatta’s cursed Task Force gets their hands on him. I was going to assign this one to Rainbird, but… I suppose my best investigator can do the job just as well.”