Priscilla felt lost.
Not literally lost, not anymore, of course; now she walked, loaded with the bundle she would not entrust to anyone else inside her backpack, by the side of the massive Security Executive member François Olympe.
They had walked together for days along those dusty roads and alley-like spaces between the bright green tents provided by successive Logistics Work Group teams that had been dropping them at the camp. There were many hundreds of people living there at that time, most of them stopping to rest for the night and tend to their sick and their wounded. And some of those were troublemakers.
Any troublemaker in the camp, sooner or later, got to meet François Olympe.
The man checked on everything and everyone to make certain nothing was out of place; not a trivial matter, and not one that any one person could take on single-handedly. In a camp that active, with so many people coming and going after stops of one or two nights, dozens of petty crimes happened at any given moment of the day. The worst part was that crimes that would embarrass any police force in the world, were to happen in cities of a 'developed' country, piled here without ever being reported.
Olympe seemed to think that his patrols made refugees feel both safer and secure, and he had reasons to think so. Her sixth day on the camp, Priss had seen him maul a recidivist rapist and child molester into the dirt and deliver him to the Laascaanood council of elders with evidence, witnesses and — after pummeling the fiend against the dust just three times — a confession; she found his methods expeditious and effective.
"I am a violent man, yes," he had told her then. "I have always been violent. But I am not hunting down other violent people. I'm hunting down harmful parasites before they can keep hurting people."
Priscilla understood and sympathized immediately. That was a revelation for her; she could actually relate to what people felt here.
She could be a part of the world.
Despite her lifelong experience and the impact of what Westinghouse had come to call "white supremacist indoctrination" — like she was some sort of cultist —, Priss was at least finding Olympe a very enjoyable company. It was not that he was a particularly amicable fellow; he was quiet most of the time. That was what made him such soothing company, probably. She could go on patrol with him, remain "safe" as an auditor while she did "her job" and learned more about the whole bunch of people that worked with them.
Or try to, anyways. Actually, she only understood Olympe and sort of knew what Westinghouse came from most of times. Torres still felt slightly creepy, with that squirrely smile he used every time he glanced at someone and that grave expression he had when he thought he was alone. The satanists had revealed themselves to be quite a congenial bunch as well, once you got through their many, weird customs; and Priss would never be able to look Mirra — or roosters in general — in the eye, of course.
She would never understand Opal, though.
But after sixteen days in the MCF Laascaanood camp, Priscilla Locke was starting to feel settled. True, the nightmares came and went, and some mornings she had to make efforts to not strangle that damned gnome of a woman as she woke everyone up by using the infernal cube intercom, but most of that was inconsequential. She probably would even grow fond of it, eventually.
She would make herself at home.
Eventually.
And, as she thought that, she saw a small kid, with that brown-black skin color, that black-black hair and those black-black-black eyes over the impossible white-white-white-white of her teeth. She was four or five years old, stark naked, and carried a short stick. She had pensively placed her fingers inside her mouth and seemed to be manually inspecting her little teeth.
Priss felt herself pitying her and saying, in a somewhat friendly tone:
"Get outta my way, little monkey."
The girl opened her eyes run away, apparently scared. Priss cussed to herself.
"Hey, you know English? I didn't wanna-"
"What did you call her, Locke?"
Priss turned to Olympe.
The man radiated something between suspicion and unbridled anger. Priss could feel it as he came to her.
"It was just a-I mean. Um."
The imposing giant looked at her, projecting her shape on her. "Yes. I hope so."
And then, as a passing storm cloud, Olympe moved on, checking on every tent. Priss felt weak in her knees; the world she thought she would be part of reminded her again of how little she could fit in it.
She beheld Olympe as he raised a hand, smiling, to salute one of the new MCF volunteers from Logistics that had arrived in the camp last night with supplies. Priss knew, thanks to trifling, inconsequential minutiae shared between them in the long hours of patrol, that he loved a certain brand of chewing gum and they had just restocked his stash.
Except the fact that she was not WPhO, Olympe knew nothing of her. Nothing truthful, just petty lies. And, due to a insignificant moment of relaxation on her part, he had just seen a flash of who she had always been behind all the lies. Priscilla Locke looked around her, wanting to find again that peace, the corner were she had felt at ease for a second, the place she could be a part of, the people she could learn to love. That part of herself that could have all those people be part of her.
The voice from her backpack reminded her how out of place they all were.

As Priscilla arrived in the MCF side camp, she was as tired as she had been every night for the past two weeks. Walking up and down the camp in the stiffling summer was exhausting, and somehow Olympe always managed to laugh at the end of the day and carry a pair of kids around, a couple of brothers that had taken a particular liking to the silent giant. She had watched them every time, feeling silently uplifted as the man placed them, one after another, in his shoulders and allowed them to climb his impressive frame without moving or even flinching.
Tonight, however, he had stayed back to help their parents, since they had had some sort of problem… or so he had told Priss.
Unwanted.
She advanced between the cubes, entering the circle they traced around a slab of Vestan concrete where they lit a bonfire every night. There was nobody at the place. At that time of the evening, every person was either working and grabbing a light dinner or already asleep, preparing for a night shift in the clinic or the growing hospital.
Priscilla looked at the shape of the tall tarpauline fences that surrounded the top of the hill. It would be open to business any day now.
She took her backpack off and eyed it, feigning ignorance of what whispers she could hear from it.
Unwanted.
"And then the three kids just run away, like as if I was some sort of monster!"
Priscilla jolted in surprise as she noticed she was not alone. The three satanists and Alba Escudero, the Work Group teacher, had just entered the ring of cubes. They laughed lightly at the recounting of Garziel's day.
"It's your jaw, Ziel," Mirra said.
"It's not!," Garziel argued. "It's just that I look much more imposing having shaved my head than other people around!"
"You've not noticed how many people around here cut their hair short just to make certain they don't get lice, right?" That was Poitriburg, the third Satanist. Alba happily giggled.
"Most of them aren't from the Charitable! Ah, shut up, you are all a bunch of hypocrites who won't even follow the prescriptions of the church… I can even see your hair growing back, Poitri!"
"That's what happens when I don't have the time nor the tools to cut it, Ziel!" And she noticed Priss, who was hurriedly hauling the backpack to her cube room. "Ah, hello, miss Locke."
All of them fell silent when they realized she was there. Priss almost felt vindicated by that reaction.
Unwanted, dear.
"Everything fine there, miss?"
"Just call me Locke, Garziel. Have to sleep, round of contacts with town elders tomorrow and in the evening we'll be starting the first Koons crop. Have to be rested. G'night."
"Wait, um," Mirra started. As she stepped towards her, Priss looked at the small, pale woman, practically a girl, who stopped a meter from her, then went on to stutter, "I-Iwantedto-"
Mirra looked back at the other three. Despite their collective timidness, they seemed to encourage her with slow, gentle gestures and soothing mono-syllables, as they often did.
The woman turned to Priss again and blurted out: "I'mverysorryabouttherooster."
Priscilla blinked a couple of times, surprised. "But that was-"
"Like a year ago, yeah?," Garziel said, coming up to them with a smile from ear to ear. "That's what we kept telling her, that you were a professional and you wouldn't even remember. See, Mirra?"
"Oh, I remember," Priss complained. "I just didn't know what a rooster eye tasted like, and it shocked me."
Garziel and Poitriburg laughed out loud, but between their larger frames, Mirra looked like she was stewing in her own guilt. Priss finally gave in and added, in a dry tone: "But I am a professional, so don't worry."
Mirra timidly nodded and smiled. For some reason, that irritated Priscilla. She would have spouted something outrageous right there and then if not for the shouts meant for them from the concrete slab.
Alba was calling for their attention. "You four, let's get the fire going!"

Priscilla had tried. She had really tried, and now she was feeling stupidly ashamed about it, but it was pointless. The women around the bonfire waited for an answer.
They had broken her, and thus, there was no choice but to answer truthfully.
"I never rode a motorbike. Happy?"
The three Satanist sisters made different faces of outrage. "That's impossible!" Garziel managed to articulate, but Alba drowned in her typical guffaws any other response. The volunteers had been conferring about their past lives, and Priss's cover was too limited to include most of the intimacies they had been sharing. She felt she had only escaped this scene for days thanks to Westinghouse's ungodly working hours and Olympe's preference for patrols before socializing.
"Goddamit, Garziel, it's not so strange!," Alba laughed. "Not everyone has a bike, or even likes it!"
"Whatever. It should be a tenet of the Church," the Satanist Scientist said with a snicker. "Of every Church. But really, Locke, never? Ever?"
"No. My-", Priss coughed. "My family was really, really strict."
And Alba added, in a fake solemn tone: "There ain't justice."
Priscilla finally breathed as she saw them laughing. The tension partly dissipated. That had been a very useful excuse for all the more puzzling differences between herself and the locals — that was, every person in the universe, her coworkers included —; one of the few times Westinghouse had really come through with a suggestion.
Mirra and Garziel kept laughing, albeit softly, while Poitriburg nodded and answered. "My family was sort of serious like that, yes. They never understood what our philosophy means, what our beliefs actually entail. It's not all animal sacrifice and orgies," she shrugged and smiled sweetly. "Don't worry, Locke, you are among friends here. And, were we to find a motorcycle, you'll be the first to give it a try!"
Alba looked mildly alarmed and came ahead of Priscilla herself in pointing out how imprudent that acually sounded. "Uh, Poitri, if she is not used to it-"
"Nonsense, it's all practice! She would be great at it, I'm sure."
"What is?"
As Priss recognized the voice, she suddenly felt out of place again. Not him.
The women looked up and happily raised to greet the newcomer, with the exception of Priscilla herself, who suddenly felt sullen. As she dedicated a vacuous look at the screen of her phone to fake some urgent business, Priss noticed how tired and irritable she was. The four volunteers had made her forget for the past minutes.
The Rabbi came closer. He was saying something. Priss's reaction was shutting off and to try not to listen, and felt as bad as she expected to when she realized it.
The man had appeared between two of the cubes closer to the hospital, where he worked all day, and was carrying several boxes. Following him closely, a couple of local volunteers who were heading towards the closed 'mess cube', as they had come to call Afwerki's prefab kitchen, with a large crate they carried together. He seemed to be in a hurry to go back to the hospital, which was in its final stages of growth and took all his attention.
However, Escudero seemed positively ecstatic by his visit. And that was what made him take a seat along the five who were already there, as the two other volunteers busied themselves with boxes and Afwerki's kitchen.
Priscilla stood up. "Well, it's been a lovely evening-"
"Oh please, Locke, don't go!" That was Mirra. The little freak was taking a liking to her. "Just a while longer-"
"I need to sleep."
"It is okay, miss Locke. But I heard you were telling tales!," Torres said, with that jumpy smile of his, as he got comfortable a seat away from Priss, with the small shape of Mirra between them. "I'd like to get to know you, these past days… well, we haven't been able to meet at all these past days! I heard you were on patrol with Olympe?"
"And I'm tired, and Westinghouse is taking me on a ride tomorrow, can't you get it?," she snapped. There was a short silence.
The Rabbi, shocked, answered in a stuttering tone. "Oh. Oh, sure. It is kind of late-"
"That was uncalled for, Locke."
Westinghouse came out from his cube. "Skipper, you've been there the whole time?," Mirra, who apparently could not get a clue, still was trying to mount a party. "Come here and talk with us!"
"Sure! Our little expedition leaves tomorrow in the afternoon, after all," he said, Priscilla trying to murder him with a look. The man looked at her, looking amused. "What, didn't I mention that part?"
"Great," Alba said. "'Cause I have to know, what were you guys carrying down?"
"Oh! Bread!" Torres went for one of the boxes and pulled out a small bun of what, for all intents and purposes, looked like a perfectly round piece of bread. It even smelled of recently baked bread. Mirra fished for it and took a tentative bite. Torres smiled when she happily hummed her approval, and took other pieces of bread out. "We've been working on a formula that allows us to extract the Laviano Grid out of the Mason Mold cell and introduce it into other cells. I hope our benefactors don't mind, but this process allowed us to obtain a leavening agent-"
"Wait, Jacob." Mirra said. "What am I eating?"
"A single, overgrown, dead cell of Saccharomyces cerevisiae from which we extracted the Grid organelle. With two grams of wheat."
"Ah, alright. For a moment I was afraid I was eating mold or something." She kept nomming. Poitriburg and Garziel took tentative bites, enjoying them as much as their younger sister in Satan did. Alba just glanced at it.
"Rabbi, you are telling us these are made of… yeast?"
"Baker's yeast. Not even that, really, think of it as an analogy for cooked meat-" Torres stopped as Frank moved away from the bread. "What? You gluten intolerant?"
"I'd handle two grams of wheat in a three hundred grams loaf of bread, Jacob," the ex-agent stated. "It's just that I don't like the Mason Mold enough to eat it. Actually, I feel disgusted enough to puke when I-"
And then Priscilla noticed something in the Rabbi's look. The way he moved his eyes, that she always found unpleasant. Shifty, but not doubtful. Squirrel-like.
Like a rat.
Torres nervously laughed at Frank's comment, bringing her back to the conversation.
"Ah, you have a point there. But in contact with human beings, the Grid becomes completely inert. Consumption itself is no problem."
"Are you sure?"
"Pardon?" Torres looked at Priscilla, confused and clearly nervous. Shifty. She gently pushed again.
"Are you sure it is inert, Rabbi?"
The Satanist Scientists, the young teacher and even the two volunteers who had carried the boxes down were now listening closely. Priscilla had gotten used to that. She reported to an organisation with a seat in the International Board and connections all across the UN. Her word was not law, but it would be whispered to ears that certainly belonged to it.
The Rabbi, squirrely as ever, looked stranged and anguished under that scrutiny. "Oh, of course it is. The World Parahealth Organisation Focus Research Group did its work on that one, did you not? I base that one statement on their findings!"
"Findings that you might have furthered, like, let's say, turning a builder mold into a baker mold, is that not correct?"
"Completely different. Besides, the yeast is not even a saprophyte, unless you have AIDS or a missing spleen, you'd be fine!"
"What are you hiding, Jacob?"
"I don't know what you're-"
"Locke."
Priss looked at Westinghouse. He had his legs crossed in a neat, comfortable position and had taken Alba's loaf. He was staring at it intently.
And then he stared at her. Intently.
"Think for a moment. Do you really think that is necessary? I hope you're not trying to cover for some mistake the Focus Group made, back in the day…"
Priscilla noticed how the ambiance had changed. The three robed sisters looked at her as if it was the first day she arrived in the camp, still a stranger. Alba looked at her, pensive. The two volunteers, Ahmad and Haji, every part of their bodies standing in all but open hostility.
She stood up, carrying her backpack with her, and uttering a small apology she left to her cube.

"What was that about?" Ahmad asked.
Frank figured it was her turn to cover for Locke. "A bit of an old habit of hers. See, she used to be a Wolf Hunter."
Garziel made a grimace. "Oh, dear, she doesn't know about Lila, does she?"
"I don't think so. It's just that old habits die hard, you know. They are a honestly disturbing bunch, Parahealthers, but they try."
Frank looked at the Rabbi. He was trembling.
"Hey, Mirra," the ecSec said, "do you still have that cocoa powder? Now would be a good time to-"
"Right, yeah." She left to the cube she shared with the other two Satanist Scientists.
"Are you sure it was just that, Frank?," Alba casually asked.
"Mostly, yes," Frank answered. "But I'm almost certain there are other reasons why she's so tense. Might have to do with family." Well, that's not an outright lie.
"Family?," Jacob raised his head in confusion. "I heard she was Rhiannon Locke's sister."
Frank silently cursed. The others in the small circle of volunteers started to talk, fast and concerned.
"Rhia's sister? No way!"
"That Rhia? How did they turn so different?"
"They were separated at an early age, people." Frank gritted his teeth. He would have to update Rhiannon on that development. "Not an easy life for Priscilla. Not that I know the details."
"Ah, but it's tough all over." Haji said, angrily, as Mirra run past by him with a mug and a little plastic bag. "My mother died when I was seven, and Ahmad's sister stepped on a landmine when she was eight. Why does she have to suspect the good Rabbi because she had a hard life?"
"Yes, why?," Ahmad echoed his friend. "He helped us all when we needed him! He is a good man!"
"Not so good, Ahmad."
Jacob looked a bit calmer, but he still trembled. Frank could see his impending beard, of a very clear grey, emerging from his grave semblance in the light of the bonfire.
"Not so good. You don't know where I come from, I believe."
"Argentina?" Haji said. Jacob smiled at him.
"Sure, sure, Argentina. That is the place. The events, though, are the place from which we grow into who we are. I was born in Argentina, but who I am now comes from a different place."
"I think I've heard this story," Poitriburg said, raising a hand. She smiled at the Rabbi. "And you don't have to do this, Jacob, you're part of us and we don't care who you were."
Alba nodded slightly, and Garziel kept silent, looking into the fire. Ahmad and Haji, albeit nervous, placed their hands on Jacob's shoulders, supportive of his friend and mentor.
However, Frank felt like he was very far away. "Let him tell them."
"Frank-"
"No, no, everybody has a right to choose their own tales," he said, "to whoever they need to. He needs to tell his tale to make sure they know who he was. It will eat him away otherwise."
All of them looked at him. Frank shrugged. "Believe me. I would know."
Mirra arrived then, with a mug filled to the edge from which a sickly sweet smell emanated. The bright red mug, Frank saw, had a classic Satanist pentacle with the word "SCIENCE" printed underneath it. Jacob took it, seemingly resigning to talk.
"Oh, well… dear, it's not a pleasant story, are you sure you want to hear it?"
"It's your story, sir!" Haji said. In his child-like tone of voice, Frank saw admiration. "We want to know it!"
Jacob offered him a sad smile.
"Never lose that attitude, child. Well, here we go… Once there was a good man, a Rabbi, by the holy name of Jacob. He was a normal man. A family man. His daughters grew up, went to school and graduated. His wife passed away, her untimely death chalked up to God's choices. He was not a particularly lively man, but he was alive, and he was happy."
He took a sip of the burning hot cocoa. He blew over it for an instant, but quickly filled the attentive silence anew.
"And then, he heard of the miracles. Of the voice of God. Of the broken idols and living demons that plagued the land. And he chose to fight them alongside others like him. The man was a savant. A man with many secrets even before he joined the Horizon Initiative. You've heard of them, I'm sure! Well, this man was not a great warrior, but a savant, a scholar. A scientist. And he was called to serve God as an adviser on the many of God's lesser creatures. Moss. Bacteria. Protozoa. Viruses. So on, so forth."
He sipped from the mug again.
"He found his place with them. A place where he belonged. He kept his oaths of secrecy and learned to enjoy knowledge and praise God in His wisdom, for He had placed all of us, His servants together so that we may better serve Him and His children. That is, Haji, where I 'come' from."
"I sounds wonderful, Rabbi!," the young Somali said. Frank had the decency to stay quiet.
"It was, wasn't it?" Jacob sounded nostalgic for a moment. "So many faiths, so many wise and lively people, all of them strong-willed and dedicated and willing to help each other out. And so it came to be that the Wolves called at my door."
He sipped again, but the sweet drink couldn't erase the sour appearance that crept into his face. Jacob's voice turned to be as the one Frank first heard from him: cold, unyielding, cruel.
A sharp rock slammed into a sinner's face.
"I had heard so much of the Wolves, but believed so little. Let's just say that they were violent. Brutal, even. And they had a purpose. They called it 'cleansing', but as I watched their work… well, I came to know better."
He took one more sip. Garziel and Poitriburg were held each other's hands as the story went on.
"The Wolves wanted to murder a colony populated by the members of a small sect. Heretics at best, and I would have called them pagans outright, but mostly a harmless bunch who payed the bills and tried their best not to mess with others' lives. The Wolves found them to be abominable bags of sleaze and sin who were just trying to talk to their God in the same way that I tried to honor mine; by studying and growing as a scientist. True, I am a biologist, and they were not, but when I learned what they did, I could not understand the reason why the Wolves hated them so much and not hate me too. In the end, I can only guess they were afraid of them being right."
He drank for a second and caught his breath to keep going.
"They butchered them. Entire families lived in that tiny village, and they all died. And the Wolves did it, may He have mercy on my soul, with my help. I gave them a way to kill them silently, as they all slept. An airborne agent," he explained, matter-of-factly. "Simple, painless, quick — and, when I came back to my daily life, and all of those I had met and thought I respected, when they all knew what they, what we had done… they chose to ignore it."
Jacob's eyes looked at the fire. He sounded like if he was day-dreaming; Frank knew him enough to know that was his way to cope. It was all a dream, he had to be thinking; it is okay to tell it, because it was only a dream.
"They tried to do as if I had never done anything. 'Don't be silly, Jacob, you would not hurt a fly. It was the Wolves that did it.'" Jacob closed his eyes as he spoke, gently shaking his head. "Would they have succeeded, without my help? I killed three hundred people in one night. I did it because they asked me to do it, so they would not have to go guns ablaze and set everything on fire. Calling too much attention on the Malleus Project would have been a foul move for the Tribunal, I suppose."
"Hmm, Jacob." Garziel said. "I have been meaning to ask. That colony… was it the Order of the Mirror God?"
"Yes, those were them. You knew them, Garziel?"
"Only in passing remarks on modern thaumaturgic works. They were connected to the Church, too… their search for a naturally occurring Aspect Scale was admirable."
"Aspect Particles… yes, that sounds like something the Wolves might find abominable." He grimly smirked. "Dead because they believed in a God that reflected itself upon every atom. Every quark. Even the unholy 'Aspect Radiation' the witches of today talk about. A colony of physicists and mathematicians trying to find God in God's work… it doesn't sound so far away from what most religious people do, each one on their own ways, correct?"
Jacob took another sip from the mug.
"After that, I left," he kept talking in that chilling tone of his. "The Wolves did not complain. They had their clean massacre, so I could leave. No evidence would tie it to them. But I didn't know how to go on. It is, you see, that I killed them," he said, calmly, almost uncaring. "There is no good ending for the man I used to be, friends. I had to go die in shame in a corner and hope that my name was cleared or smeared after my death. Or go on and live my shame every day."
He glanced up, to his protegees' faces.
"Christians would call me a penitent. I'm just tired of thinking that my prayers feel polluted. I can't talk to God like I did before. I can't stand to think he would listen and would repudiate me."
The man shivered slightly. Frank felt it too; that night carried a dry chill. In a way, it refreshed the man as he drank one more time from the mug. His voice sounded tired instead of cold now.
"The rest is the story of a new beginning, I suppose. I heard that the Initiative had decided to fully support the Charitable, back in the days when they got their seat in the International Board. An old friend of mine, an ex-Wolf no less, sent me a short letter and an MCF brochure, pointing out that they would need people with my experience. My daughters supported my choice, thinking it would be a short tour."
The man looked at the mug, amused by the drawing. "For the past twelve years, I have been with Opal and her Group. Most of us have quit Mission Branch to join Continental, or died or left for other teams. Usually their own new Work Groups. But we are committed. I love the Charitable in the same way a flower would love the ground it grew upon, friends. I was an agonizing man once and, when the seeds that could be saved from that man were placed here, they bloomed. I was reborn, and my works are good."
Jacob downed the rest of the now lukewarm cocoa and placed the mug on the slab.
Noticing how mesmerized he had been by the story, Frank saw Ahmad was crying silently. His and Haji's hand were placed on the Rabbi's shoulders; Garzia and Poitriburg looked at the fire, perhaps trying to evade themselves from the truths of the tale and how they might resonate with her own experience. At some point of the story, Alba had embraced Mirra, who sobbed. And, for the first time in the soiree, Frank noticed Priss' door was open, her face partly showing behind it. He forced himself to look back at the Rabbi, who was ending his story.
"I must be here. I must do what I do. It is guilt that I feel, yes, guilt and a measure of desperation. I see those I killed in every person I fail to save, and every day we fail to save so many. I have to run away from them, but I keep forcing myself to go to them. And yet, what else would I be doing? How else could I live with myself?"
The Rabbi sighed.
"Evidently, I wouldn't."

Priss closed the door and laid her back against it, her eyes covered by one hand.
Why can't I like these people?, she wondered. Why do I hate them?
As her own questions did, night went by, but answers didn't. The morn found her out of tears.

In Laascaanood, an early riser had waken up just to find a street dog in his doorstep.
The man, a rather poor construction worker, had not had a nice month. All his contractors had left, scared away by the tensions between Somaliland and Puntaland, so he had had no chances for a well-paid job in a while. Most people around him were cruel, unfair and unpleasant to him. He had not gotten any earnings for the last few works he had done, his clients had all but disappeared for the past few days and the elders did nothing about it. He had not been feeling so well for the past few days, coughing and headaches weighing him down. And his wife was starting to get really angry at him for the general lack of income that should be feeding their two children.
The last straw was the humiliation of having to go and beg for the help of the foreigners working for the Charitable. But even he understood that his family depended on it, so he would go.
So, when he found a dog in his doorstep, at first his impulse was a cruel one. Wishing to vent his frustration, he wanted to kick it away, ready to beat the little stray if it tried to bite back. He held back, and that was the reason why he noticed it was nibbling at one of its own front legs. As hungry as I am, aren't you, mutt?, he innerly asked.
The animal whined slightly and, with a powerful bite, tore its leg from its body.
The man recoiled. Yes, he had seen dogs chewing on their legs, or carrying their young by the neck with a gentle bite; but this was certainly a whole other level of biting.
He tried to get away from the dog, but it limped behind him, following him. When he turned back to try to shoo it away he met its eyes, wide open, calm and slightly wetter than normal. It was hypnotizing, in a way.
When the animal reached him, he dropped the leg at his feet, sat in front of him and happily panted. After staring at each other for a moment, the dog barked softly and lapped at his fingers.
The man saw the bloodied stump. In the growing light of dawn, he noticed how skin and flesh slowly crept down from it, how the white bone underneath grew without a noise, and wondered…

An hour later, his wife woke up and saw him in the yard by the house, a fire burning a piece of meat. "What are you doing? Is that meat I smell?," she asked. "Did you get meat from the Charitable? I did not know they had any."
The man looked at his wife. He had a manic look in his face that scared her. "Oh, my love. We have been granted a miracle from God."
Inside its cage, the mutilated mutt was missing its two hind legs and a piece of liver, but they were growing back already. It merrily yawned at the new Sun, unaware of the trouble its mere existence would bring about.

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"So, you work for the Bigger Man?"
The Momio brothers, Enrico and Martino, were a couple of tall, dark, handsome men with a knack for satire and a disagreeable nature, or at least they used to have them. Twice in recent years, they had evaded the Roman carabinieri when their works, too offensive to involved political sensibilities or too anomalous for the other Foundation, became well-known; the third time, however, they were in for a massive fine or long-term incarceration — if the skippers didn't get to them first.
"I mean, no offense, but the Bigger Man is always about answering to law and norms and all that… and shit, we were tired of it."
Fortunately or not, their talent was noted by an executive member of the Italian branch. That's when the Charitable came in their story.
"They don't respect anything, politicians. Justice? An inconvenience. Laws? Tools, no, clay. Art? 'Frivolous.' Frivolous!" Enrico spat at one of the pulsating mounds of moist, odorous soil; almost without skipping a beat, he kept speaking in his strongly accented English. "If you trivialize art, what is left to respect? Well, plenty, they say, like the person of the major whom you keep insulting!"
He kept sinking his boots deep on the mud surrounding the mounds, his combat pants completely ruined, slowly moving back into the dry dirt of the track between the rows. Then, he walked towards the next row; the plants were starting to emerge there, their leaves exuding a clear ichor-like substance that dripped down into the ground. Rico carried on narrating his tale as he bent down to check on the budding leaf green already shying through the soil. "After that we had the major's house surrounded on a thousand perambulating friggos when she was hosting a party for il capo della mafia, all of them citing every lie she had told during the elections. And you know what? Just their faces would have made the prison worth it."
"Damn right it would!" That was Martino's voice, graver and soft in comparison to his brother's. It came from across the line of already blooming mounds. "But it would have also been boring as hell, Rico! Or old Patroni would have got us shot. That would have been too little boredom and for too short a time right there."
Enrico briefly laughed at Martino's words and retorted with a quick string of words in Italian, which was answered with another quick laugh from between the thickening greenery of the next row. Then he noticed Frank's expression and… Priscilla's lack of one, apparently?
"We were just making a silly, unnecessary, uh… pun. In Italian."
"I'm not a skipper anymore, Rico. You don't have to explain yourselves," Frank said. "And Locke is here just to see how we work so she can put a good word for us with the phoo. Not exactly 'the Man', you see."
"Right, sure, they are not the capitalist, imperialist, hegemonist Man, but I would still like to see those Coalition fasci-"
"Anyhow!" Frank clapped his hands once, a weary and slightly threatening smile coming to the already wasted corners of his lips. Rico got the message and adopted a mocking 'it-was-not-my-fault' grin. "Why don't you explain to Locke what you're doing here, gentlemen?"
Rico shrugged. "Bene, this way. The mounds and the buds are already self-sustaining and the Vesta piping is already grown and working, so I can now show you the most interesting part of this camp in action, miss Locke."
"Just Locke," the woman answered, her face behind the optics of a Nikon.
Oh, yes. The Nikon, Frank sourly thought. How lucky that Alba had one to spare.
Locke had insisted on carrying a camera and a small red handbook with a pen as part of her cover. Frank was irritated about that, and he knew she would get why; the woman, a fresh recruit — no matter how much of a refugee or a benefactor she might be — was taking pictures of an ongoing programme as if it was the only logical thing to do. Frank, despite his best efforts to suppress his paranoia, suspected she was deliberately trying to get under his skin.
As if she could sense his thoughts, Locke took a picture of one of the most developed mounds, which was already covered in white and green leaves, gently waving as the soft stems underneath began to mature and its already hardening roots drilled down, avidly searching for water. Frank winced at that flagrant security breach — Will I ever stop thinking like this? —, but said nothing.
Then, she glanced at Frank with those dead, steely eyes of hers and followed Rico, who was beginning a toured visit of the orchard. He soon was hid away by the greenery around them.
"Some brainiac called them 'Myrmidon' seeds, because they make plant-like things that move and may take the form of people, see? Like the legendary army made out of teeth and all that." As he went around its bulk, Enrico's voice sounded from behind a magnificently well developed specimen. It was a six feet tall log entirely composed of long, knotting roots that turned into thick stems of green, living plant with no bark, like long tentacles that bent slowly to no wind. Together, they were thicker than Rico, who was now carelessly hugging the 'tree' and sticking his head out from behind it. "These ones here grow faster 'cause they have been tweaked to do so."
"Tweaked?" Pris asked. Frank looked at her.
"Genengineering and some anomalous fertilizer. Opal can tell you the details on that second part."
"I thought she was a medical doctor."
"She can be a doctor," Frank needlessly replied.
"Man, that she can be!," Rico said from the closest row of Myrmidon plants. "Anyways, Opal told us to make sure they grew strong no matter how much her kids pushed the greens, so—"
"Her kids?"
"Right. She has a few trained volunteers with her assisting or replacing her with esoteric stuff," Frank explained.
"Isn't that dangerous? Teaching them all this. They might spill the beans. Shouldn't it be confidential?"
Rico, at first confused or appealed at the statement, soundly laughed in their faces and turned away, leading them between two of the largest Myrmidons in the orchard. The ecSec grimly stared at Locke and said: "I've been telling them that for years. They usually think that infiltration just doesn't happen. Know what? It seems to be true. No defections as of yet."
"How can you tell?," she said while jotting something down in her book. "Where were the docs on these things? They aren't listed in the programme."
"They are, as non-abnormal assets. That is because the Momio brothers explained them to us in detail; we know how to use them, so they are not really abnormal to the Charitable. Well, and…" Frank's voice came to a halt and resumed only in a much lower tone. "You see, the Momios don't like to admit it 'cause these things can churn literal metric tonnes of fruit in a matter of weeks once they bloom. Any fruit they program them with. It's really cool and all, but the real problem with it is the cost."
"I don't see any costs here."
"The soil gets depleted real fast, Locke. The seeds got discontinued a few months back because of that. These do not bypass physics as the mold does, they can only make local soil far more, uh, agreeable to their own metabolism. Then, they die. Or worse, uproot themselves and look for another place to plant themselves."
Both looked at the rows at both sides. Their motile roots could almost be heard as they devoured the ground.
"That can't be good. Can they move now?"
"Nah, unless you use very specific irritants or the soil becomes too acidic or dry, they just stay put and happy. With proper irrigation and clean water, and you know where those are coming from, we can create food by the truckload in minutes. Now, for the soil itself, I've been told by Dodger you can help."
Locke jumped. "Dodger," she said, suddenly tense. "She's coming here?"
"Ah, you know her? From the entry meeting, maybe? She's an observer from Continental. Sort of a wild card. As most free agents are, I guess-"
"She agreed to kill my sister if I tried to defect you people."
Frank's brow burrowed. "Say what-she threatened your sister in the middle of a meeting?"
Locke shrugged. "I said they knew where my sister was if I tried anything. To make them trust me."
"… yes, on second thought that sounds like something she would say," the ex-agent reminisced on how the self-centered, big-mouthed maniac had gotten herself into the MCF, getting a new life in the process. "Stories," he whispered, and immediately said: "She is arriving today. Now, for the testing on your thing, whatever it is-"
"We're almost there," Locke lowly growled, grasping at her backpack with her free hand. "We'll have our testing chamber done in days, right? It's a matter of time."
"I hope so. Because these orchards are our food provision for the next months."
Locke looked at her escort, furious. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"I did. Over breakfast. You might have been distracted," Frank answered. His voice sounded slightly concerned. Locke slowly blinked, and for a brief moment, the hand holding the camera shuddered.
The moment was over all too soon, interrupted by a fuss raised a few rows away. She moved away, walking towards the Momios' angry shouts. "Great, fuckin' goompahs are really working for the greater good here-"
"Tone it done, will you!?"
The Momios argued over one of the mounds. While the others on its row were already showing its first leaves, that one remained as a tight coil of snake-like vines that shivered occasionally. As they came closer to it, Locke and Frank saw the vines were so tense that they were tearing themselves apart, a bright white liquid oozing from its injuries.
Enrico moved away after a particularly angry shout directed at Martino, who remained behind, looking flustered and with his arms crossed in a firm position. He cried back a single word and then realized the presence of both his superior and the WPhO officer. "I'm sorry, Skipper," he finally said. Martino was a green thumb, good with plants in general and particularly good with the Myrmidons. "Rico thinks we should burn this one."
"It looks sick," Locke contributed. Martino shook his head in a negative.
"It's only developing in an unexpected way. I say we wait and see how it goes. He says it's not gonna go anywhere, because aberrations end up killing themselves. And I answer to that, good, then there is no problem! And that way I don't have to kill it."
Frank looked into Martino's big eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder. In a way, both of them were good kids, but Martino was particularly nice, almost naive. "Listen, Tino, this one might become greater, and I get why you want to see it turning into something bigger… cooler. And maybe any other day you'd get to do that. But we're trying to feed hundreds of hungry people, not experimenting. Please, take it somewhere else and freeze it or burn it, okay?"
"I know, Frankie. It's just-" The young anartist scratched the back of his head and sat alongside the mutant plant and its mound. "It's just that we are forgetting that these things could be better than what they are. I'm thinking about applying to a Research Group next rotation."
"Does Martino know?", the ecSec said.
"Si. That's what we argued about, actually. He's mad, for sure."
Frank noticed right then how Locke was looking at Martino. Her face was a particular blend of polite confusion and brisk impatience.
Sighing, he slowly moved towards Martino and sat with him on the mound, suppressing decades of hard-earned distrust and revulsion towards anomalies that demanded him to run away, get a torch and incinerate that unnatural weed. Instead, he asked: "Martino, tell me so miss Locke knows about it… why did you join the MCF?"
Martino looked up, seemingly puzzled. "That? Well, we joined because we were offered a place to hide from the other Foundation and the police and all that."
"Sure. And why did you stay?"
"What?"
"You've been with us for three years now. With this Work Group, as specialists. You could have gone back home. Why did you stay?" Frank got out his notebook and checked a date several pages back. "Right here, I've got it: First and only Koons Donation, relayed by Momio brothers upon their entering O-1 WG, three years and a month ago. Why?"
"Well, see, old Koons had an idea about an exploit that-you see, it was a giant dog made of flowers placed in front of a big museum! Only he wanted it to walk inside the place and fill it with pee and lick everything and stuff, but he only managed to make it slobber and dribble on everything, but he only managed to make it slobber and pee and stay still out of the museum-"
"Martino, Mar-Martino, I know all that!" Frank half-laughed. Locke was making an utterly priceless face at Martino's fast rambling, and he couldn't help but to laugh out loud. He managed to calm himself enough to add: "Just-just tell me why, man. You could have gone back to Italy by now, or wherever the hell you wanted with your specialist wage and your anart. So why did you stick with us?"
The younger Momio reflected at those words for a few moments. He finally rested his head on a hand and said: "Well, art is all about context, we used to think. Put an installation here, it means a thing; put it there, it might change its meaning or remain the same, depending on the context you give it. The person's context changes the meaning, as well. But when we joined the Charitable we were submersed in context, pure context. People suffering and dying every day in agonizing yet natural, avoidable ways. And we saw anart should denounce, condemn their suffering-but it would get shut away, shunned by the audience who did not like to see a piece from such a context. Besides, it had been done. It is being done. And only a few people, most of them already working to help poor countries, get it. I mean properly, really get it. Most shut it out because they don't like what it talks about."
Martino scratched the back of his head again.
"Art denounces, but by using anart, we could save those people, on this very context, on this very now, and on every possible context it would be a statement on its own and a pragmatic approach to the problem of transmitting the perspective of the artist to the public… to a different public."
Locke raised her hands. "Wait, wait-that means you think you're doing art even now?"
"Sure," Martino answered. "We may not make the best pieces, but really, I can't figure out a better place to put these on, don't you think? These trees are the army the richest people in the world would not be able to hire. An army made with the only purpose of making healthy, fresh food for people in need. Trees that will pick up their own fruit, pass it over to the firsts of their row with perfect discipline and feed thousands. Besides, we are learning a lot about our craft and getting bits and pieces from people around us. Live and learn e tutta quella roba."
The anartist looked at the rising sun shining through the higher leaves of the next row, already beginning to develop the light receptors that would turn them into rudimentary eyes, the first bulges on their vines betraying the places where buds would slowly grow into self-fertilizing flowers and, in a few days, edible fruits.
Frank knew what was going through the mind of that man; never mind that the soil would become barren in months, never mind that the fruit would only partially cover nutritional deficits in the area; people from the camp would feast and there would be songs and the Momios would listen and sing along.
"True, not many people get it. But these people get the piece, they get it better than most artists, even if they don't know it's an installation. But oh, e'arte. Purity of concept, good execution, an attentive audience." Martino slumped at both of them. "On this, Rico and I agree wholeheartedly. What else can an artist ask for?"

As they left both Momios to another of their usual discussions, Priscilla and Frank left the orchard and headed into the camp. Most of the rows they had seen were already grown into low bushes, bustling with waving leaves. Priscilla had taken a few more pictures, furiously jotted down notes and kept very quiet.
They passed the small yard that served as a field school. It was filled with small, fascinated faces who stared at Alba Escudero's exaggerated gestures and florid words in a mix of Somali and Arabic; she was teaching them English. Later, Frank knew, she would teach them about the cycle of water.
Tomorrow, perhaps about art and beauty. He glanced at Priscilla.
"You alright there, Locke?"
"Fine."
"Look, I'll have to go for a meeting with my contacts from the local banditry. It might take me a couple of days. These guys are generally agreeable, we give them limited medical care and drop a few veiled threats to their persons and their souls and they stay away from the crazy Westerners who want to cure the Sour."
Locke raised her head with an arced brow. "Their souls?" Frank smiled.
"Good, you're still with us. It's not literal. Well, mostly not literal. You might not want to know."
"They buy that crap," she answered. It was not a question.
"Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but most chiefs and warlords agree that messing with things they can't hope to control is a bad policy. True, sometimes they try, and that's when we call the GOC. That's another incentive for them to stay the hell away from here."
"They are scared," Locke smiled. "I've said that before, haven't I?"
"Yup. You can't blame them, the Myrmidons are supposed to be food and they can uproot themselves and fight, too."
"You mean they have done it before?"
"Another reason to discontinue them. No weapons in our camps, remember? Anyways, when I leave, I'll have Olympe report to you. He is the French Guianan guy, the one with-"
"A mech arm. Yeah. Kind of hard to miss him."
"Well, you'll be with him for a day or two. You'll see how he keeps the peace around the place."
"A bouncer with no guns, a soldier with one arm," Locke sneered. Frank stared at her with an entertained grin.
"Har, har, you've said that before too, haven't you?"

Among the recently arrived MCF members, there was a very specific woman. This woman had entered the almost finished hospital with casual walks, dressed with an MCF vest over a white-and-green volunteer t-shirt and long but light, comfortable pants.
The woman's name was not important. Only a few of her coworkers knew it anyways, and most of them were really, really far away. Here, there, in that place, she was known as Spiffy Dodger.
While she had helped unloading the trucks and happily joked about how well the camp was going, what had attracted some exasperated looks from those of her partners who couldn't get a joke, Dodger had a single objective in mind today. It was a simple concept. She had to check the Vestan stuff, report to Frank Westinghouse as soon as good ol' Priss wasn't around him and keep an eye on how well it was all going.
Dodger knew the assignment was half a punishment and half a way to get her to do something of use. She preferred it that way, since being back home would only bring even more attention from her ex-employers.
They would be asking questions about all that money that had suddenly appeared in her new employers' hands. And in her own hands.
Fortunately, there was a place in the Charitable for anyone willing to help, and Spiffy Dodger was so very happy to help all those do-gooders and their magical moss. As she walked the almost-finished halls, looking the veined walls and curve corners with a critical eye, she intimately scorned to herself: "I've seen weirder."
As she muttered it, a man in a white overall saw her and came to her. "Ah. Sorry, miss, you shouldn't be here, it's not finished yet!," Dodger heard him said through his mask. He sounded like a school teacher. "And, oh dear, you should be wearing at least appropriate footwear, this ground-"
"Rabbit, right?," she cut the man's rambling. "Or was it Rabbi? I kind of like the jumpy attitude. It's cute."
Torres looked at her for a moment, his eyes squinting behind the little pair of glasses. "And you would be?"
"Dodger. Mission Watch." Dodger took the green-and-black ID out of one of the vest pockets. "I'm here to reinforce Frank Westinghouse and his new best friend, the… auditor."
She smiled a predatory smile.
"And, of course, to watch over things. You know… report back at the IB and all that. Would you be so kind as to tell me how are things going over here? All okay, I'm sure?"

« Bed, Breakfast, Plague | Hub | Over the Bonfire »


"Good morning, up and about, rise and shine, blah blah blah!"
Priscilla Locke got up at seven AM, sharp, Somalia time, thanks to the loud shouting that emanated from the walls, straight into her ears. She managed to cover them for a few measly seconds.
Then, the walls talked again. To her absolute horror, Priss realized they were talking with Sarah Desjeux's voice.
"Will you wake up!? It's MEDICINE DAY! Come ON, parahealther, wake up, Frankie has been gone for hours and I've GOTTA SHOW YOU OUR STUFF!"
Her voice went silent with a sizzling sound. By then, Priss was already squirming on the floor of the 'prefabricated' cubic room, and remembering how her room was not normal. It had been grown, it had an intercom and, apparently, it could be operated from the intercom as a god-damned home cinema system.
Then, Priss saw her phone, and the time. She wondered when had that damned woman woken up. Wasn't she wired enough last night?
Three minutes later, she was already dressed and ready to confront the day and a possibly drugged ecHealth. She was also loudly mumbling and grumbling under the unnecessary heft of her backpack and its main occupant, who- no, that was too heavy for its own good.
She opened the door, expecting to find herself face to face with Opal; however, even if the woman's low stature would have made it difficult by itself, Priss's fear went unrealized, as she noticed her going from cube to cube, shouting into each intercom and giggling like a dope. A few volunteers were already up and out of bed, converging in front of a cubic structure slightly larger than the rest.
The mess hall.
Or something like that, since it was simply a prefabricated food distribution center, covered in brightly white gypsum and gifted with a large counter-like window used to serve the food, that was reserved for early risers and volunteers alone. It had a kitchen. It served the same food that Lila and Opal would serve to their patients later. It was, for all intents and purposes, not efficient enough.
As she came into the short queue before Afwerki and her plates, Priss realized something: she had slept well.
For the first time in weeks, no, in years, she had slept for entire hours without screams waking her up, be it real or dreamed. For the first time in years, she felt tired simply because her body was actually tired. Of physical work.
Priscilla Locke was in front of Lila Afwerki when she stated to herself, with a loud enough voice as to be heard by her: "I'm sleeping…"
"Well, you do not look all that drowsy, Locke! Here, just for today we've got a little something to wake us all up, since the kids were so distracted last evening."
She looked at Afwerki. The woman, who had donned a different headscarf and tunic that morning, was offering her a cup and a bowl. The cup contained lukewarm coffee. The bowl had…
"Is that honey?"
Afwerki's expression froze.
"Oh, no, no, dear," she stuttered, apparently terrified and perhaps a bit pleading; "in God's name, no. We-we stopped using that! Nonono, this is not that honey, I promise, miss Locke-"
"Alright, alright! It was just a question!"
Lila seemed to calmed down slightly, but she still had to sit down, seemingly out of breath. "I'm sorry, miss… it's-it's just, I was with the Work Group that used that, and-well!" The woman passed a hand over her front. She sounded very distressed.
Her voice was probably the reason why two young men in MCF volunteer vests went to their older counterpart from behind on the queue. Several others came closer, trying to see how they could help. Lila smiled at them, calmly speaking to them in French and in a language Priss couldn't recognize. Again. She'd better learn to speak some other language than English if she was to adapt to the place.
"Sorry, Locke," Lila said, straight to her. In a way, her eyes were more than tired, they looked older than a moment before. Awkward, Priss tried to hold her gaze as the other volunteers started handling the queue themselves. The woman pointed at one of the pots they were taking the golden goo from. "That's just a sablepurée, something I learned to cook overseas. It's nutritious enough and almost entirely normal… and I swear on my hands, it is one hundred percent hypoallergenic," she assured, her voice breaking softly as her words died off.
"Okay," Locke said, not certain on what to answer to that, still feeling quite awkward. Some of the volunteers were whispering in that way that only can be interpreted as that 'yes, we are talking about you, ginger, you don't belong here' style; she still found it annoying and rather disarming. Priscilla chose to focus on her bowl, filled with that golden paste, in which small bits of cereal floated, suspended on the transparent paste. The fuck did I do?
Then she realized.
"Wait, honey. Hypoallergenic honey, right, I was not thinking straight." Priss looked at Lila, suddenly awake. "You were talking about the mess with that sarcophagus, right? Sorry, I didn't realize. Not that I've read a lot about that."
"Oh. You didn't know, then?" Lila openly smiled at her, rubbing her left eye with the back of her hand. "Well, now I feel silly."
Priss had seen a thousand faces like that one. Most were crying in agony at the beginning, many of those broken and empty later, all of them dead in the end. None of them smiled at her. Not sincere, beautiful smiles, not like that smile.
Instead of coming back to haunt her, all those faces were a stark contrast over which that face was, at that moment, in that place, the world to her. Priss felt like she was made of honey, and that was a perfectly good reason why her legs were shaking. That smile is gorgeous. And she is smiling at me?
"Thanks, Locke," Afwerki said as she stood up, her eyelids shut while she weakly smacked her cheeks.
Oh, now she's thanking me.
"Please, don't thank me, I was insensitive, and-"
The woman opened her eyes again. "No, no, I didn't-oh, how do you say that. I feel guilty over that, you know. We all feel guilty over the times we were wrong, I suppose, even if we did save some people then, too…", she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts for a brief moment, but soon came back to her senses and dedicated another bright smile to Priss. "One does all one can, nothing more. Now, I may be getting old and clumsy, but I can always try and make some breakfast."
"Ah. Sure."
"Don't worry, we'll meet down there, in the clinic! I think it's today you came with us? I usually work with her. With Opal," she clarified.
"Right. I'll go have breakfast, then," Pris said, turning to get one of the plastic stools the other volunteers were already spreading between the cubes.
Lila Afwerki serenely smiled at her as she sat, then went back to attend the queue. Her movements were kind of slower, perhaps even jerking. As she watched the robed woman filling bowl after bowl with the cold contents of her golden concoction and cup after cup with the brown stream from a large aluminium coffee pot, Priscilla Locke tried both things.
The coffee was bitter, but woke her up completely. The sablepurée was sweet, rough with bits of cereals and bread crumbs, and reminded her of old breakfasts taken on the days when WestCiv didn't demand anything of her.
Priscilla felt her sister — the inhuman mongrel — laughing. It's always easier having no one care about you, ain't that right, sis?
She grabbed her backpack, tightly clutching to it when she noticed Desjeux coming to her.

"And good ol' Skippy goes and tells me, with that twangy voice he makes when he tries to be serious, pfah! Listen, listen, he goes:" Sarah Desjeux raised a hand into the air. That hand was impregnated in the fresh blood of an amputee; "I kneed gyou tgo lisgten knarefully, Opgal. Gyou have a scorgpion on gyour ghair."
The doctor broke into laughter yet again as her hands went back to sewing the pitiful flaps of bleeding skin and muscle into a stump. She had been doing that, and worse, all morning with those afflicted of the Sour. All three Satanists on guard and herself had been examining and treating them last night. After curing the disease proper, they had to clean the wounds and put skin drafts over them, since those injuries caused by the Sour never healed naturally. That usually implied major surgery.
She moved her hands faster than Priscilla imagined would be safe or possible in a surgery. The fake auditor stood a good meter behind her alleged colleague in the medical profession to make certain that at least her green apron remained clean. Well, that, and the smell. Every person that was treated looked perfectly healthy to her, save for the horrible, gaping holes filled with surgical tissue and half-clotting blood. As soon as they left the room, they were asking for their families or their legs.
And there was that woman, making jokes.
Priss couldn't tell if the situation was sad or comical.
"I don't find it funny, Desjeux," she finally conferred through her surgical mask, to what the surgeon responded by joyfully laughing again.
"Funny you would say that, 'cause that's word by word the next thing he said!"
Priscilla shook her head, annoyed. "How is the programme going, anyhow?"
"Fine, fine," the surgeon said, smiling behind her own mask. "We'll have most of the people in the camp on prophylactics in less than two days. Logistics has already promised us a big shipment of both Aciclovir and Prometerine to counter the infestation in its latent state. As for people in the active stages of the disease, well…"
Opal made a flowery move that made her hands look like she was doing a magic trick; and lo and behold, one of the flaps of flesh looked like it had always been part of a stump.
"We'll take care of them," she sang.

Two minutes later, Lila was taking measurements of the unfortunate man's legs to get him a provisional prosthesis. Apparently, the operation had gone smoothly. As he started to come around, Toribio, the Portuguese nurse, and the Satanist Mirra moved him into one of the wheeled chairs and took him away to have him wake up somewhere else. The 'operating room' they were using was one of the Vestan cubes that had been dropped by Olympe half-way between the camp and the rest of the prefabricated rooms. It felt — and was — cramped with packed and unpacked medical equipment, but the excellent aseptic conditions made possible by the Mason Mold warranted that, among other things, patients were very likely safe from infections.
Or so Desjeux and the Rabbi thought. Priss made a face. We are trusting lives to the idiot and-
Priss felt a chill, and she hated herself in silence for it.
"Hey, Locke, you alright there, hun?"
Desjeux had placed her hand on Priss' arm. She freed herself from the gentle grip. "I'm fine. Why?"
"You looked… somewhere else."
Priss raised her sight to tell her that she could go have a laugh about it with those people that loved her so much. It was met by that pair of googly brown eyes that, were they half the size, would have been perfect for a newborn child.
"I was-", Priss looked around, looking for the right words. They never came, so she went with a classic. "I'm fine."
"You might be a fine gal, yes, but you are a lousy liar," the stout woman said in a lulling voice. There was concern in her eyes, but it was quickly traded with mania, as the many wrinkles born of the corner of her eyes betrayed that maddening smile behind the surgical mask. "Won't force you to say a thing, though. You think it's your business? Yours it is, then. Mirra!"
As Desjeux left the room to talk to the robed witch-scientist about the next patient, Priscilla looked at her gloved hands.
There were specks of blood on them.
She discarded the gloves and watched them melt into the ground as the mold worked its magic. Checking on her backpack again to make certain it hadn't been taken by some sneaky thief or melted away over the floor, she felt her hands humid again with that all too memorable, sticky fluid that would soon dry up, crackle and redden everything…
But it was just sweat.

"That one, that one there! You, sir! Please, come over here-", and Desjeux lapsed again into Arab. Priss was beginning to wonder if it was a mandatory language course in school over this universe.
The stream of refugees coming into the camp had not died down; it had become an unevenly timed trickle of large groups carried by overloaded trucks and smaller groups loaded with what was left of their properties in sacks, backpacks and clapped-out carts. It was all going 'according to plan', as long as you did not realize that Opal and her people didn't have anything resembling an actual plan, beyond "give them a look and the aciclo-prom cocktail."
One of her volunteers, a young American man, raised a hand to get her superior's attention.
"She's got it, Opal!"
"Damn… okay, tell the family-no, I think they only speak Somali. Uh-Ziza, tell them we'll be taking her to the isolation area," the stout woman ordered another volunteer, who ran to them. Opal looked around, searching for another one of her triage workers. "Mirra! Mirra, how about those two?"
"The mother has it. The son didn't have any symptoms, but-"
"Right, prophylactics. We still have enough for the day. Was she hurt?"
"A bad cut over her stomach. She was bleeding white."
Priss looked away when she heard that. Several people already had the Sour when the Work Group arrived in Laascaanood, barely two days ago. They had been treated before the disease could spread any further, but many people in the camp — perhaps Priss herself, and every MCF worker — might had been infected already. True, she was not doing any actual medical work since her role as an auditor technically banned her from doing anything involving medical tasks. Which was fortunate, since her knowledge in the field was limited at best… but Priss had heard the sickness might spread just by touch.
She tried to look as professional as possible while checking that her long, thick, white plastic gloves and her mask covered as much as possible of her skin. Meanwhile, a t-shirt wearing Desjeux placed her blatantly naked hands on her hips as she nodded at Mirra, whose black robe was splattered with sickeningly white drops. The satanist was explaining the situation of other patients already isolated in the tents.
"-and a few have tried to eat the worms already. As usual, they don't respond to anything I try to do and keep chanting about the Maggot Mother," she sighed. Priss gagged, but managed to remain firm while the thought of the symptoms of the Sour formed in her mind. It was not your regular cough. "A few have even started to draw the symbols. And I don't think I can help them without resorting to thaumatologic surgery, there are just too many for me to take on all of them at the same time."
"Alright, no worries," the Executive member told her workmate. "Go crazy, excising the stuff is your specialty, right? If you have to, try the Three Circles, the Eight if you feel up for it, but…" At that point, Opal succinctly glanced at Priss. "Hold that thought for a moment, please."
The fake auditor tried to look calm and collected as Desjeux closed in, but she couldn't stop glancing at the hands she had been using to explore, and touch, and operate. "Can I help you?"
"Uh, well, yeah, this is embarrassing," Sarah Desjeux admitted. She did look abashed. "See, we have been using, ahm, experimental techniques, nothing too aggressive, to remove the necrotic tissue from our beneficiaries. Nothing too aggressive, as I was saying, the Circles of Negation, mostly. But, uh, I'm supposed to cooperate with you and I know what the Phoo thinks of-well, I was wondering if you could look the other way as Mirra does her thing."
Locke tried to adjust to the new development. "Hmm-I thought you were only using conventional surgery?"
Desjeux crossed her arms and looked upwards while making a hissing sound, a gesture of irritation and powerlessness.
"Oh, indeed, surgery, of course, sure, that, but some of these people, see, they have internal injuries, or wounds that are already infected. There is a limit to what we can cure without cutting, let's say, half a brain out, or a third of a heart," she said, letting a little, sad laugh out. "It's a shame, but some times magic's just better."
"Don't call it magic, Opal," Mirra said, and the woman managed to sound petulant and sweet at the same time. "Modern thaumaturgs like us should call it by what it is, or else we would be back to adoring inhuman horrors. Isn't that right, miss Locke?"
"Sure," she said, hoping it was what was expected of her. Without giving them space to say anything else, she turned to Desjeux again. "But I would love to see the procedures and judge by myself."

"What is it?"
"Locke felt ill."
"Oh. Mirra, what did you show her? I hope you didn't do a psychotomy…"
"Of course not, Opal, it was an Eight Circle ritual. A normal one, no external contacts or anything! Just to pick some wood splinters inside a kid's abdomen! No Otherness involved, I swear. And the Third Circles went well, too, she said it was amazing and all that. Although… I might have forgotten to mention she was gonna get some blood on her when I started the abjuration."
"This again. How many times do I have to remind you not to assume people know what you are doing? She must be a normal doctor! Some people in the parahealthers are just medics too, you know? Not surgeons?"
"Then what is she even doing here?"
"Check if we are going overboard. Are we going overboard, Mirra?"
"Oh, come on, give me a br-I mean, what did I know? She's the first field parahealther I've met!"

Her tiny cube-room, where someone had stacked some cardboard boxes and a few sacks with seeds, was dark now. Priss appreciated the change, since light had been a bane on her for almost all afternoon. Other things that were a bane on her were blood, tiny talking beaks and the surgical applications of still warm, sentient blood.
"I had wondered what were those roosters doing in their pickup," Priss confessed as she regained a minimum of dignity to speak, or as much dignity as one could have when leaning back on a bunk bed. The woman weakly gesticulated, trying to transmit some sort of explanation over her sorry state. "It's something about how it moved when the, you know, the witch cut its head-"
"Thaumaturgs. Don't call them 'witches.'"
"What, they'll hex me?," she said, ironic. Then she remembered the feeling of having a cockerel's comb jumping into her mouth and gagged.
"Nah, but they can be real bores with their I'm-not-a-wizard speech," Frank laughed. "I mean, I did tell you they were able to exorcise entities by talking them into un-believing themselves, right? Not an exaggeration. Odd stuff, but it's supposed to save them a lot of time and effort. For other procedures, they usually sacrifice roosters, or rats, you know, to gather energy for their rituals, or something. Better than goats, or people, I guess… I heard they can even use orgies, when they have to. Although you could have asked about all this, Locke."
Priss spat on the ground. The spit disappeared on the clean, tiled floor almost instantly. "And blow my cover."
"The World Parahealth Organisation is not exclusively made of all-knowing polymaths, Locke," Frank said, carefully holding the bucket in which she had been vomiting. "They don't have to know everything. More often than not, ritualistic procedures are what the individual practitioner makes of them. There are no standards here, so showing ignorance might be better than the alternative. And these people love to teach their stuff, by the way! Don't be afraid to ask them about anything. And you could have still asked me."
"I didn't wanna know."
He looked like he was going to add something else, so Priss grabbed the bucket to make sure she had somewhere to gape at as nausea seized her again, even if she could only puke bile at that point.
When it stopped, she looked at Frank and asked him the question that had been circling her mind all morning. "How does she do it?"
Frank smirked. "Are you asking about the magic bullcrap the Satanist sisters pull on a daily basis or about Opal?"
"About Desjeux, yes. She just doesn't stop!"
"Well, that's a good question." He sat by her side, looking deep in thought. "I haven't seen her sleep more than two hours a day since I joined her Work Group, and it's been a while. I haven't heard her insulting or looking down on anyone. Nor angry. She never complains about being tired or hungry, and I can count the number of times I've seen her eat anything."
"Eat?"
"Eat. If you ask me, she had some of the First Vestan Donation and has kept it to herself all this years. Never worked the courage to ask."
"The-the First?"
"An old Donation, gone badly. Well, not exactly badly. Nevermind, we don't use it anymore… a shame, too, it could have ended world famine almost completely, but it broke too many rules. The International Board members were furious. Besides, we accidentally lost most of the stuff, I hear." Frank said, calmly. "The Vesta Conglomerate makes really neat stuff, always intelligent molds, as it turns out, but it's simply too unstable for the most part. The Third is the only one we have been able to use without-"
"Westinghouse. You talk too much," Priss cut him, passing a hand over her hair. She noticed it was filthy with dirt and vomit. "And my head hurts. Focus on Opal."
"Okay. Well, whatever her deal is, I can tell you she's cool. Please, let me finish," he said, hurriedly. Priss did not interrupt him; she was not in any shape for a debate. "She may sound like a complete loony half the time and be a pain in the ass the other half, but she knows her way around. And I mean it. She knows us, she knows everyone around, and in turn we all get to know her, and then gets us all to dance whatever crazy waltz we have to when we get assigned somewhere new. She is one of the greatest reasons that our Work Group works so well."
Priss looked at Frank. He was serious.
"Where is she from?"
"What? Canadian, I think-"
"Canadian, that's a great answer," she said. "Look, Westinghouse, dunno why but this woman seems to have you all dancing to her rhythm and you seem to know it. That worries me."
"But-"
"No, now you let me finish."
She felt angry. It had been some time since she had last felt angry, although she had certainly felt better than that; her mouth still tasted foul, her throat felt and sounded sore and the room spun if she tried to move around.
Strangely enough, she also felt cleaner.
"That woman is not normal," Priscilla stated, looking into Frank's doubtful eyes. "I don't care much about her, nor her little coven, I just don't care, but don't you dare tell me she is normal, or respectful. There is something off about her."
Priss thought of the smothering way Desjeux had been treating her after she left the portable toilet by the 'clinic' where Mirra had performed her 'surgery'. The way she had pushed her to the prefabricated room by the edge of the camp and closed the door behind her, saying all that 'you'll get better in no time' crap.
She had seen fear in her eyes. She was hiding something, Priss was sure.
"She is suspicious."
Frank's brows arced at the word. "Mind I remind you that the world is quite too complicated to want to see an enemy where there is only a friend?"
Priscilla could not believe what he was saying. "She is a friggin' anomaly! They all are!"
"Sure, and today they've saved dozens of lives. You saw them doing it."
She closed her eyes. "I know, so what. I've seen things-I mean, sometimes it seems too good to be true, and then it is too good!" Frank's docile expression infuriated her as she opened her eyes again. "She looks the fucking part!"
"Well, this takes me back to our first meeting. But fine, fine, she is a too-good-to-be-true happiness-inducing alien from outer space, or from Canada, who secretly wishes for humans to go extinct. Right, and nobody has seen her coming for, what, thirty years?"
Priscilla gaped for a moment. Then, she felt tired. Really tired. "I… I don't know. This is all backwards."
"Cultural shock, they call it."
"Hey, Desjeux," Frank said.
Priss felt the need to get up and stand alert, but that traitorous dizziness pinned her to her bed. "You've-"
"I just heard the last minutes. Or so. Wanted to check on you, but now that I'm here…" Desjeux squatted by the bed, with her usual grin. However, she sounded dead serious for once. "Look, I'm not a trickster nor a liar. I'm just not gonna tell you the truth, ever. Not all of it. Where do I come from, who I was before joining, that stuff… I simply changed when I came into the Charitable. Everyone does. Everyone has a past, too. And you have to learn to deal with it, in the same way that I accept I will never get to know you, at all. It's abundantly clear you are not a doctor, and you are probably not from the phoo," the woman tilted her head towards Frank, "no matter what mister Security Executive over here tells me about it."
Priss felt like if she was suddenly under interrogation. She couldn't say anything about herself, nor Anabasis. Lies and half-truths began forming in her mind; and, suddenly, with a giggle, Desjeux looked into her eyes and said:
"And I don't care about it."
Feeling her own confusion painted across her face, Priscilla Locke tried to form a sentence.
"What."
"See, we have to trust each other. I have to trust that François and Frank have not been secretly reporting to the Coalition and the other Foundation all these years. I have to trust my girls to keep working for these poor people, even if their creed tells them they should be killing God again in some lost corner of Jerusalem, or wherever the bearded moron is these days. I have to trust Lila to not slip poison in our food — and yes, I do eat, Frankie — while we're still sleeping so she can feast on our hearts in the late hours of the night, for that matter. We must trust each other, no matter how hard it is to trust in what we see of each other, even before we get to know what we can't see."
Opal stood again. Not an impressive change in stature, but, with Priss still on her bed, it was enough to make the stout woman imposing; an impression she reinforced by letting her hair, which had been collapsed into a bun, free.
Coils upon coils half-hid the round face, her eyes somehow visible between them in the dying light of the evening sun that came through the windows. Her hands went to her broad hips, her legs separated in a defying stance and she proudly stated, in an attempt to sound martial:
"Trust is our lifeblood, Locke. If we don't trust, there is no Charitable. So welcome aboard, try not to be too paranoid and, as long as you trust Frank, don't trust me! But, please, let me do my job. Geddit?"
Opal turned away and left, gently spinning as she closed the door.
Frank looked at Priss' face and said: "See, that's what it was like for me, too. At first, I had that face pretty much all the time. Now I mostly just facepalm."
"Facepalm?"
Frank demonstrated the gesture.
"Oh, that. Right."
In the awkward moment that followed, Opal's voice thundered again through the speaker-walls.
"AH, FRANK, DEAR BY THE WAY, I'LL BE REAL BUSY TOMORROW SO YOU TAKE HER FOR A WALK, OKAY?, OKAY THANKS BYEEE."

« Cubes On A Slope | Hub | Greenery »


Elisa sighed contentedly as she sat in the moonlight, her head cradled in Tom's lap. He was just a lowly worker for the circus and she was a member of Fuller's collection of freaks, but while there had certainly been a few raised eyebrows, the rest of the circus folk did not seem to have any particular opinion on their relationship.
"It's so beautiful out here at night," her beau said. He caressed her cheek.
"Tom, why are you with me?" she asked.
"Because I love you, Elisa." He sounded sincerely baffled by her question.
"But why? Look at me, there is very little for you to love."
"There's more than enough to love," he said and picked up the disembodied head in his lap. He slowly turned it towards him, and looked her in the eye for a moment before kissing her.
Elisa closed her eyes and savored the warmth of his lips on hers. After breaking the kiss, Tom leant back and cleared his throat.
"Elisa, can I talk to you about something?"
"Sure. What's on your mind, handsome?"
"Don't you ever grow tired of life in the circus?"
"Tired? How would I get tired? I'm just a head." Elisa said giggling.
"I'm being serious," Tom said.
"Fine, you're being serious. No, I don't get tired of the circus life. Why?"
"Because we can never settle down. Every time I think to myself 'hey, I like this town', off we go to the next place and the next show."
"And?"
"And I don't like that at all, Elisa. I'd like to settle down with you somewhere," Tom said, aware that his love didn't seem as enthusiastic as he'd hoped.
Elisa sighed.
"I really don't know what to say. I didn't take you for a hopeless romantic. Or an idiot, for that matter."
"ELISA!" Tom exclaimed, "Why would you say that?" He put her down in the grass.
"Seriously Tom. You might not have noticed this, but I am just a head. How exactly did you figure us settling down?"
Tom looked angry.
"Well, I'm sorry for believing that if people just got to know you, they'd accept you and we could live together in-"
She finished his sentence for him: "-some nice little cottage somewhere in the country. Picket fence? Couple of kids? I'M A HEAD, TOM."
"I had noticed that, yes," Tom muttered.
Elise relented a bit. "Look, honey, I get it. You like me, I very much like you, but there's a reason I'm with the circus," she said. "Pick me up, please."
Tom huffed, but he did so anyway. They looked into each other's eyes.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, "What do you want from this relationship."
Elisa sighed. "I want to be with you, Tom. But I want to be with you here, with the circus."
"And what if I don't want to live this life anymore, Elisa? What if I'm tired of not having a real home."
"But you do have a real home. It's just not fixed to the ground like some whitewashed coffin with four walls," Elisa exclaimed in frustration, "Don't you get that? There's nothing out there for you that you don't already have here."
"Well, I don't agree. And you know what? I think you'll agree with me once we're safely away."
"What do you mean, 'once we're safely away'?" Elisa said and raised an eyebrow.
"I mean that I'm done talking about this. We're leaving tonight. I've got my bags packed, and I'm sure I can get some of your stuff too before Manny notices."
Elisa closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.
"Tom, did you ever ask me how I feel about my life at the circus?"
"No, but…" Tom began, before she interrupted him.
"No, you didn't. The Circus is my home. You may believe my life to be horrible, but I think I'm the only one who gets to judge that. Besides, Manny would never let me leave."
"I can take him."
"No you can't, Tom. And besides, you're not listening. I don't want to go. Not with you, not with anyone. The circus is my family."
Tom huffed. "Some family; they put you on a shelf in some dusty wooden wagon every night."
She'd really hoped he was different, that he'd be the one to get it.
"There is more of me, Tom."
"I know you're more than the girl without a body," he replied.
"No Tom, I said more of me, not more to me. I do have a body," she said.
"Wait, what? You do? Where is it? It's not in your wagon."
"Yes, I do, Tom. I just don't feel the need to tell everybody and their dog about it. It invites…shenanigans. And no, it isn't in my wagon. Manny holds it for me. It's better that way."
Tom put her down in the soft grass underneath the tree.
"HOW? How is that better? He's holding it hostage, Elisa! He's holding you hostage!" he exclaimed and started pacing.
"No, he's not, Tom. My body's not important; I'm the attraction, not it. By keeping it for me, Manny makes sure nothing happens to it."
"Well, I'm going to find Manny and get your body back. And then we're going to…"
"You'll do nothing of the sort, Tom Brenneman, if only because I was very serious when I said you couldn't take Manny, and I love you enough to want to you to stay in one piece."
The sound of breaking branches cut the conversation short.
"You know, Tom, I did notice," the Man With The Upside-Down Face said as he stepped into the moonlight. Behind him stood the Circus' clowns. The juxtaposition of their unsmiling faces and their cheery facepaint was unsettling.
"Two things. One, Tom, you should really choose a better hiding place when you take Elisa here out on a date. And two, you really shouldn't confide in your fellow freaks about your plans to abscond with one of my star attractions," Manny said before turning to the head in Tom's hands. "Hello Elisa."
She hesitated, unsure how this would play out.
"Hi Manny. Tom's just being silly. You weren't really planning to take me and run, right Tom?" she said, a note of desperation in her voice.
Tom'd frozen when Manny showed up, but he snapped out of it now.
"We weren't running, no," he said, somewhat unsure of how to react.
The Man with the Upside-Down Face smiled. "Ah, but you were, Tom. I appreciate your attempt at backpedaling though - it's definitely an A for effort, but I'm afraid the evidence's stacked against you."
With an almost imperceptible nod from Manny, the clowns swarmed forward, pinning Tom to the ground. He dropped Elisa as he went down and she cried out in pain when she hit the earth. Manny stepped forward to pick her up. "Don't worry, Elisa. He wasn't going to get far anyway."
Elisa shuddered. She'd meant it when she'd said the circus was family, but that didn't mean she always liked the way it operated.
"We don't take kindly to abduction, Tom," Manny said.
"Abduction!?" Tom said as he struggled, "Admit it, you can't stand the idea that she wants to be with me. You want her for yourself."
Manny cocked his head.
"I really didn't take you for an idiot, Tom. It's not about Elisa, it's about the Circus. What happens when you remove a brick from a building, Tom? Do you know?" he asked, but didn't wait for an answer, "It gets weaker, Tom. The Circus is that building, MY building, and Elisa is that brick-no offense, Elisa."
Elisa didn't answer.
"LET ME GO, YOU DAMN CHUCKLEHEADS!" Tom yelled at the top of his lungs, but the clowns didn't react. Instead they smiled, exposing a set of perfect, shiny white teeth. Somehow that was far more disturbing than the scraggly collection of pointy dentures he'd expected. One of them seemed to be salivating.
The Man with the Upside-Down Face approached Tom's prone form and knelt beside him.
"Tom, you're a good lad; you love Elisa, I can see that. But you chose to turn your back to the Circus when you made plans to run off with her. I can't let that slide. If I did, where would that leave our little family?"
Tom didn't answer, he just struggled furiously against the vice-like grips of the clowns. The strange odor of talcum powder, cotton candy and rotting moss they carried with them almost made him gag.
"Come on, guys. Let me go, the fun's over."
The clowns stared at him with their lifeless eyes. He could see the moon reflected in them.
"Manny! Hey, look, I get the point, okay? Nobody leaves the circus. I get it! MANNY!"
As the Man with the Upside-Down face turned his back to Tom, he raised his hand in salute and said: "Oh, they do, Tom. They just don't go anywhere. Adios!"

"What'll happen to him, Manny?" Elisa asked as they made their way back to the clearing where the circus had pitched its tent.
"The clowns are just going to have a little talk with him-look, I realize all this may seem a bit drastic, Elisa, but we're family," Manny said, smiling that strange upside-down smile of his, "And family stays together."
Behind them a tortured scream rang out and Elisa's eyes filled with tears.


September 18th, 1957
Robert Parsley put a Concentrated Look on his face as the elevator door opened. This was Concentrated Look #3 that he was using today; he saw it fulfill his purpose adequately as he walked past Bethany, the receptionist. Concentrated Look #3 was appropriate today; Concentrated Look #1 had too much concern for him to use feasibly when receiving a commendation from the director of the FBI, and he had already used Concentrated Look #2 the day before. No matter what happened, no matter what went wrong, Robert Parsley always knew what emotion he needed to seem to feel at any given moment.
"Good morning, Agent Parsley," Bethany said as he walked by. "The Director is still in his ten o'clock, but I think they'll be finished in a moment. Can I get you some coffee?"
Concentrated Look #3 shifted to its corollary, Distracted Grin #3, as he looked at Bethany. "Yeah, sweetie, that'd be great." He returned to a Concentrated Look once she left. He had to use Concentrated Look #3 today for those moments when he wanted to look very consumed in his work and not interested in conversation. It was relatively effective for most people, but J. Edgar Hoover's secretary was chosen and trained carefully to behave like the most hospitable human being in America. Whatever Bethany thought, felt, or wanted was completely disconnected from what she said and did. Robert sympathized.
Returning with the coffee, Bethany picked up the ringing phone. She handed the Styrofoam cup to him absently while listening. "He's ready for you now, Agent Parsley," she said.
Robert slurped down as much of the scalding coffee as he could (Mr. Hoover didn't allow improprieties like carrying drinks into a meeting) before putting the cup back on Bethany's desk. "Thanks, sugar. I'll be back for that in a minute." He considered winking in a flirty sort of way, pursue the possibility of the Plan moving in that direction, but he was just too distracted to think about his masquerade in that much detail.
J. Edgar Hoover's office was not as special as one might expect from an FBI director. He was sitting behind a mahogany desk, with two lamps and and inkwell within arms reach. His nameplate, reading 'HOOVER', was flanked by two brass statues of athletes mid-victory. Hoover himself was flanked by two American flags. There were no photographs on the desk. Robert sat in a small, overstuffed purple office chair as Hoover watched him.
"Afternoon, make yourself comfortable. I heard you were the boy who did the Masterson case, yes? That was a tricky one."
"Thank you, sir," Robert said, feeling many things but projecting Prideful Grin #2.
"The Unusual Incidents Unit, I've learned, is an important apparatus to national security. I'm glad they had a man who knew to trust his gut and see it through to the end. A man of good character." Hoover shifted in his seat. "Do you mind if I ask what church you go to?"
Robert reinforced Prideful Grin #2, nearly bumping it up to #1 out of sheer discomfort. "I have a membership at Sand Hill Baptist Church back home, sir, but I've been attending different ones here and there lately. Trying to get a feel for the neighborhood. I won't be moving my membership from the family church any time soon, though, sir."
Everything Robert had said was technically accurate while ignoring several pertinent details.
Hoover smiled. "Maybe you'll see me at your service one day, eh? After you do some work on this." He pulled out a small manilla envelope, and handed it over. "Case down south, in Atlanta. They're having a hell of a time getting the case off the ground. I'm sure they'll tell you as much when you get there."
Robert stood, and Hoover followed him to the door.
Hoover slapped the back of the tall, pale man walking with him out of the office. "Now, you and your boys have been doing a fine job down south, but I need you to check in with me more. I'm starting to think you don't like coming to see me!"
Robert smiled a phony smile. "Well… I've got to be going."
"Here, talk to my secretary. She'll put you up in a hotel, nice place. It's old, but it looks new on the inside."
"Thank you, sir. I'll see my way out."
Robert made the necessary arrangements (possibly flirtatiously? Robert was too distracted to notice) and left the office, making a series of well-formed and empty gestures of politeness as needed. He was on full autopilot now, expressions changing as needed, some probably unnecessary. He made sure to keep his pace steady to avoid attention from people at a distance. Even in this town, people were nosy. Always looking. Robert always thought they suspected. He was so good at keeping his secret, and if anybody could keep his secret at the place where he worked, the center of red-blooded Americanism, working for the patron saint of Christian manhood, surely he could keep it from everyone else around him.
But he had to stay in control. Just need to get home, Robert thought. Just need to get to That Room. The Room that nobody needed to know was there. The Room where he could be himself, where nobody else could see him. One day, one day soon, he would be somewhere where he could always be himself. But until then, he had to play his part. Only one man in this town knew about his true self, and he was going to need to see him as soon as possible.
Robert made it home in record time. Close the door. Lock the door. Close the windows. Close the shutters. Lock the shutters. The ritual was well known by now. Go to the bathroom and wash himself, feel the judgment and the watching eyes running off of his body. Go to the bookshelf in the hallway, latches and hinges concealed by careful, painstaking carpentry. Unlatch the shelf from the wall. Swing the shelf fifteen, twenty degrees out; all the spare room available in the hallway. Just enough room to open the hidden door and squeeze through. The ritual was well known by now.
In that dark, windowless room was a light bulb with a string beside it; he lit the room. Closing the door behind him, he looked down at the two objects on the floor. The only evidence in this place, possibly the only evidence in his life, that anything he did, said, or believed was anything other than what he said it was. He closed the door behind him, lamenting how much it looked like he was ashamed of what he was about to take part in. One day, he thought to himself, I'll be able to be like this in public. He looked at the book on the ground and considered how much it would horrify the man whose office he just left. Then he thought about the man who knew his true feelings, the man he would speak to tomorrow.
He stood on the sajjāda, turned towards Mecca, and began to pray.