“And so we see,” Maggie said, demonstrating, “the rabbit goes through the hole and around both trees several times! We are, of course, looking for a ‘rabbit’ with as little give in him as possible, so torn bedsheets will do if we’re not so good at planning ahead!”
“Do me next,” Erik said. “I’m up for it! Do me!”
Maggie groaned. “Fool, drink your soda and think about baseball.”
“Don’t wanna,” he complained, nevertheless drinking the soda. He didn’t seem to mind the bandage on his hand, or the sting from the antiseptic.
“Can we throw a coat over him or something?” Hyacinth said, gesturing to the spy in the desk chair. Although, under the circumstances, she was willing to throw a coat over Erik too. Maybe he’d think it was night and go back to sleep. “Just the rock salt part?” she added. She shook her head. “I know we can’t fix him, but it’s driving me up the wall.”
Maggie obligingly shook David’s black coat over him and tied the sleeves in the back like an enormous bib. “Better?”
“You will not get away with this,” he said weakly. “You will never…”
“Ooh, wait, I know my line, I like serials too!” Maggie crouched at his level and offered a pointed grin. “We have already gotten away with it! Ahahahahaha!” She vanished with a bang, in a flash of white light that made everyone in the room cry out, but most of them with annoyance.
A black and white magpie hopped onto the coat, pecked Andrej in the nose, and stole a clump of hairs from his goatee, letting them fall to the floor. He yelped and struggled, to no avail.
“No one will ever believe you!” the magpie declared, in a tinny voice that sounded like a retro, lo-fi wax cylinder. It was a useful phrase to know! She’d learned it for when shopkeepers noticed her stealing chips.
“You could have explained that without burning unnecessary calories,” the General scolded, but she mitigated it with a shrug. “But in case you don’t get my daughter’s point, we have explained the shotgun, everyone who heard it thinks you’ve had some kind of nervous breakdown and we had to shoot you, and the longer you hang around our brand of insanity, the more likely it is you get to believe it yourself. We should be able to escape before you can rally any kind of effective response, although it is always possible someone else kills us for some other reason. We are only restraining you out of concern for our newest ally, whom you recruited for us with your unhinged behaviour — so thanks, for that.”
“You are lying,” said the spy. He glared at Miss Mila with cold rage, addressing her in Prokovian.
Hyacinth began a translation right on top of him, “He says she gave us the bag and then spent all day on the phone trying to reach her traitor contacts in Marsellia…”
Miss Mila laughed, shaking her head.
“And she says,” said Hyacinth, “some idiot told her he found a shopping bag of ours and paid her a ridiculous amount to deliver it. Then she spent all afternoon on the phone trying to send some flowers to her daughter and grandson, who live in Marsellia. She made several international calls on the company phone, expecting they’d get charged to the tourists or the owners…” Hyacinth grinned and signed her a thumbs up. “‘As usual’! Ha! Hang on and let me explain the nature of our idiot…” She began a discussion in rapid Prokovian with the day clerk.
“You are lying,” said the night clerk.
The General smiled at him. “Due to the depth of your incompetence, it seems she did not need to.”
“It’s called ‘confirmation bias,’ and we all do it,” Mordecai muttered, in passing. “Thank gods.” He was reviewing the list of operating instructions for Erik. John had advised him, in frantic black marker, to spend some time “cancelling it all out” and seemed to think that would “fix it,” but Mordecai’s experience made him more doubtful. Also, he wasn’t sure if he could cancel all of it, that might get Erik killed even faster than just leaving it as it was…
He absently nudged the day clerk as he walked by. She yelped and stared at him. He gasped and backed off with both hands raised in surrender. “Hyacinth, does this poor woman have any idea Erik and I aren’t going to kill her?”
After her initial, startled reaction, Miss Mila offered a few soft words, a hint of a polite bow, and got out of his way, but she might just be terrified, it was hard for him to tell right now.
Hyacinth spoke a few low words in Prokovian, and the day clerk nodded.
“All right, she doesn’t mind if I tell you,” said Hyacinth. “You’re giving her a serious case of the whim-whams because you remind her of her old boyfriend, and Erik is clearly injured somehow, and maybe we got him away from something they’d do to her grandson. I’m trying to explain that’s not it, but it’s complicated and my language is a shitshow. That’s the gist of it, though.”
Mordecai’s hand fell to his side, and he thought it was crumpling the papers, so he dropped them instead. “Her grandson is coloured?”
Hyacinth asked a few more questions, and the day clerk nodded as she replied.
“The kid is red like you, and like his grandfather was. She’s got no way to get to him and nowhere else to go and she doesn’t mind telling the whole thing if you want to hear it.” Hyacinth inclined her head. “You better say yes, because I want to hear it!”
Miss Mila muttered a question, pointing at Mordecai.
Hyacinth groaned. “No we are not… Why does everyone keep thinking we’re married? My ne zhenaty! Dammit, how do I say ‘lesbian’…?”
“Cin, it’s not like you were gonna marry someone you liked,” Erik said. “Just own it.”
Hyacinth sputtered and laughed. Even Mordecai managed a smile. Maggie fluttered onto Erik’s shoulder and nuzzled his cheek.
“You idiot!” croaked the magpie, with evident affection.
“I’m gonna pet you anyway,” Erik said, threatening with a hand. “You’re still cute. I don’t care!” He snatched her and hugged her like a stuffed animal. She shrieked and bit his fingers, but clearly not hard enough to hurt.
Miss Mila smiled at them and spoke. Hyacinth asked a question. She got a nod in response, and so proceeded with a translation, “She says she likes it when people keep loving each other out of spite. It was like that with him…” She gave a little gasp, then grinned and pointed. “Oh, wow. Milo. You wanna hear this too! This guy’s been tormenting you from beyond the grave!”
Milo had been examining the desperation layer cake of seventeen identical pieces of “undetectable” Prokovian bug tape, and was clearly disappointed with the level of espionage that was going on here. He looked up with a puzzled frown.
“He was the maintenance man,” said Hyacinth. “He fixed the elevator so it needs dancing!”
◆◇◆
“You said you fixed it,” she said, as the gears groaned and shuddered like a dying man, and made themselves just about as useful.
“I did!” he replied, grinning. “Better than new!”
“Oh, yes. It’s much more efficient like this. No moving parts! Who needs an elevator that elevates? We hate the guests. They do nothing but make messes and break things. Are you going to fix the stairs so we don’t have to bother with them at all?”
“Better than new because this is how it works now!” He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her near. Before she could protest, he clasped her hand and spun her around. The elevator door slid shut and it began to lift them, as he ushered her into a simple box step. “What do you prefer? A tango? A foxtrot? A waltz!”
She was blushing madly, but she didn’t resist.
“It doesn’t matter, you see? The only thing that doesn’t work…” He let go, folded his hands and stopped moving. The elevator did likewise, groaning and shuddering in place. “…Is standing here, stock still, like we’re boring people who don’t love each other even a little!”
She pressed a hand over his mouth. “Shhh!”
“Nobody’s looking! It’s our own private ballroom!”
“Idiot. What’s the point when you’re not here?”
“Then I still get to dance with you!”
“And with the damn guests?”
“Only the nice ones! I’ll make the annoying ones dance for me!”
She smiled at him. “You’re still an idiot.”
“Yes! Why?”
“If you were really smart, you’d make it stop between floors where no one can see… When I kiss you!”
◆◇◆
“Aw,” said Hyacinth. “It’s why she stayed. He fixed it all crazy on purpose and it’s like he’s still here.”
I would die for that terrifying elevator, Milo thought.
Ann caught his attention in the mirror and winked. Does that mean you stopped being afraid of dying IN it?
He thought about that, with a frown. No.
“He lived on the other side of the gate, and she lived on this side,” Hyacinth was explaining, due to the obvious lack of ghetto experience in the room. San Rosille had one, but it hadn’t functioned as one in living memory. “People would go back and forth all day for work and shopping, but they buttoned the place up at sundown. Then it was illegal to be on his side of the gate looking like her, and on her side of the gate looking like him. But they didn’t put up with that for long…”
◆◇◆
“Mila! What’s going on?”
She shrieked and damn near bludgeoned him with the plunger. “What are you doing here?”
“You called for help and I flew over like a superhero!” He also had a plunger. He peered at the boiling toilet. “Is this the only one?”
“I told you, it’s all of them!”
“You cleaned out the vent pipe like I said?”
She huffed an irritated sigh and gestured to the increasing sewage lake. “It didn’t work!”
He nodded. “I think I need to snake out the drain. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize until you hung up.” He was already headed for the basement.
She stamped after him. “Show me how.”
“This is no job for a lady,” he said primly.
She darted a finger at him, speaking through clenched teeth, “After sunset, every job here is for a lady. Show me how to do it so your superhero routine doesn’t get you killed.”
He touched a hand to his chest and feigned offence. “But I need the work! I have a beautiful girlfriend to support… and I’m thinking of getting a cat!”
“A cat can take care of itself and so can your girlfriend!”
He smiled hopefully. “Then let me feel useful?”
“You can be useful by introducing me to the snake!”
◆◇◆
“He said he could fly,” said Hyacinth. “But she never saw him do it, so she thinks he just hid a stepladder somewhere…” She broke off with a laugh and clapped her hands, making everyone jump. “Oh-ho, YA ponimayu!”
Hyacinth pointed downwards at a diagonal.
“She put the hole in the chain-link fence!”
◆◇◆
He answered the door in his pyjamas and recoiled with a shriek.
She held up a paper bag with a folded top, and a smirk. “You don’t like soup?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Bringing you soup.” She pushed past him and began to set up in the kitchenette. “Oy! Do you only have one bowl? You need a cat!”
“You can’t bring me soup!”
“Okay. I can’t bring you soup. …Ugh, you didn’t even rinse it out. You’re living like an animal.”
“I’m sick!” he cried.
She was running the water in the sink. “Yes, that’s why I brought you soup.”
“How?”
She held up a set of bolt cutters, absently. She’d left them on the counter by the soup. “I can fly too.”
He took the carton out of the paper bag and removed the lid. “Did you make this?”
“You think I have time to make soup?”
He laughed and set the carton back on the counter. “Thank gods. It’s terrible! Make them give you your money back. Tell them it killed me!”
“I’ll help you finish it,” she allowed. She poured half into the bowl.
He seemed doubtful.
“Please tell me you have more than one spoon,” she said.
“I wasn’t expecting company!” he said. He turned away. “Hang on. I have bread. I have the good rye bread, from Radomil’s.”
“With the caraway seeds?”
“Yes!”
She smiled. “I hate caraway seeds.”
“I wasn’t expecting company! Next time, I’ll buy two breads!”
“And a spoon,” she said.
They ate terrible soup and less-than-perfect rye bread in the dim one-room apartment.
That night, she slept over.
◆◇◆
“It was stupid and dangerous, but they got used to it,” Hyacinth said, nodding. “I mean, I get it. People can get used to anything. Popping in and out of a hole in a fence is like hide-and-seek compared to some of the stuff I’ve gotten used to. It’s just, there’s no do-overs and if they catch you out of bounds they can kill you.” She repeated approximately the same thing in Prokovian, for Miss Mila’s benefit.
There was a short reply, to which Hyacinth also nodded.
“Oh, yeah. A person can forget to be careful about a lot of things…”
◆◇◆
“I’m going to be a FATHER?” he cried.
She muzzled him and dragged him past the Employees Only door, continuing the conversation in low tones at the top of the basement stairs: “I don’t know. Maybe you will, and maybe I’ll be a mother, but I don’t think we’re going to manage both at once.” She made a pained smile. “Even if we decide to do the stupidest possible thing, one of us will have to get a cat.”
“It’s cheaper than two cats, though!” he said. “That’s smart!”
“Be serious.”
“Okay! I’d rather have a baby with you than a cat!” He frowned. “Um, do you have any idea how we’re going to do that?”
“If we don’t interfere with it, I think it will take care of itself.”
“But who will take care of you? You’re supposed to sit at home knitting little things with your feet up, and I bring you ice cream…”
“You can still bring me ice cream.”
“…Not snaking out toilets in the middle of the night!”
“Listen,” she said, “women have been hiding this sort of thing ever since we decided sex is too fun not to be a sin. I’ll manage for a while. And when I can’t, I have some vacation time saved up.” She considered. “And a sick aunt. A very, very sick aunt who will definitely die, but not for a couple of months.”
“Where are you going to go to take care of this dying aunt where they won’t hurt you and try to take the baby away?”
“I don’t know. There must be someplace.” She flung a careless gesture. “In Xin, they have them in the fields and go right back to picking the rice, don’t they?” She frowned with suspicion. “Or whatever they do to rice over there…”
“I don’t want a Xinese rice baby, this is weird enough as it is!” He muzzled himself this time, and thumped back against the door. Slowly, he took down his hand. “How long do we have? Four or five months?”
“Probably six or seven,” she said, smiling. “I’m already fat!”
“You’re already beautiful. But it’s time enough for me to make some friends, no? At least one very specific friend. A doctor, or a nurse, or someone who knows what they’re doing…”
“You want to be my dying aunt?”
“Women have been hiding this sort of thing for a long time, you said so yourself. They hide, and then they go away. Hospitality is like a law where I come from. They won’t turn away my poor little cousin, no matter how she got into trouble!”
“Your cousin?” Now she clapped a hand over her own mouth. When she spoke again, it was a tight whisper, “How am I your cousin?”
He pressed two fingers to her mouth, pressed hard, then picked up her hand and wiped the resultant stain on her palm. “It doesn’t have to be red,” he said with a smile. “But I like red. Do you like red?”
She snickered. “I like red. But lipstick is so expensive.”
He wrapped both arms around her. “My cousin is very shy. She almost never goes out. She’ll stay in my apartment and hide her shame.”
“If I get to sleep over for two whole months, we are definitely not getting two cats!”
“Ah! We’ll spend the money we save on lipstick!”
◆◇◆
“Hyacinth,” said Mordecai. “Will you please stop… stop pointing at me like that? Let me in on the gag, please!”
“I’m telling her we did the same thing to you, but backwards!”
Miss Mila was laughing and shaking her head.
“What thing?” said Mordecai.
“They painted her up like a coloured girl so she could have the baby at his place. She couldn’t stay there forever, but she made up a sick cousin, who was pregnant, and died having the baby. Then it didn’t matter about being a single mom in the bad old days!”
“It looked like her?” he asked, doing some pointing of his own. He caught himself and lowered his hand, offering a bow in apology.
“‘She,’” said Hyacinth. “A girl. And yes. Her daughter. She doesn’t have any others. So the baby couldn’t stay with him, either, and he came to visit every night.” She sighed. “Which wasn’t a good idea, but I know how dads are.”
Milo’s default look of mild concern was growing somewhat tearful, but he had a hard time crying in front of strangers, no matter how startlingly sympathetic.
Hyacinth was shaking her head. “Yeah. Someone caught him out after dark and beat him to death.”
Milo and Mordecai recoiled, though Mordecai sighed soon afterwards and nodded. The magpie gave a stifled squeak, but Erik didn’t seem to notice. She nuzzled his hand, hoping to distract.
“The police found him. Or the police found him and beat him to death, she thinks that’s more likely. He had a stuffed animal and flowers.” Hyacinth broke off with a small, tight frown. “I didn’t catch it before. I should’ve said, she was trying to send a stuffed animal and flowers to the kid in Marsellia. The stuffed animal was complicating matters, that’s why she was on the phone so long.”
“Traitor,” said the spy. “Even in her lies, she is a traitor…”
Hyacinth swatted the back of his head. “Shut up, you racist stain. I am not a real doctor and I didn’t take that ‘do no harm’ oath. I just don’t like to kill things. I can do all kinds of harm.”
“This little playlet will not confuse me…”
“It’s not about you,” said Hyacinth. “You’re not even the villain of this story, just a stupid cog in a broken machine.” She stood in front of him. “So all she had left was the baby and the hotel. They barely even had any pictures — they took some in a photo booth when they were feeling silly one afternoon, and she saved his ID. She kept her job, too, and her daughter got to grow up playing with all the funny things he fixed…”
◆◇◆
“Come on. That’s enough dancing with Papa. Mama has to…”
But the toddler was standing on the toes of her shoes and refused to be removed, winding up for tears when any attempt was made.
She watched, helpless, as the elevator door slid open and closed.
“Again!” shrieked the toddler.
“All right, all right. One more. Then, if you’re good, Mama will show you the tea kettle that won’t boil until you say ‘I love you.’”
“Yay!”
◆◇◆
“He basically taught her how to fix everything,” Hyacinth said. “Not well, but good enough for the management. She couldn’t fix things like him, though. It all broke down, one piece at a time. The elevator’s the only thing that still works.” She shrugged. “Her daughter’s shitty husband took off when she popped out a coloured kid. And her daughter and the kid fled the country so they could stay together. She stayed because of the elevator — she hates how broken it is, but she’d rather watch it die than let them tear out what he did to it — and she likes making lots of free international calls. But this asshole screwed that up for her.”
Hyacinth stepped aside and made room in the narrative for the spy in the desk chair at last.
“He tried to lock up a lady with a toolbox. He didn’t even tie her up and search the room. She heard him screwing around with a drill and when she tried to open the door on him, he threatened to shoot her.” Hyacinth grinned at the spy. “Nice. Subtle!”
“I neutralized a threat,” said the spy.
“No, you created a threat,” said the General. “Do keep up. This is a valuable lesson, in case anyone ever trusts you with any kind of authority ever again.”
“They have some kinda cage thing down there with the boiler and fuse box in it,” Hyacinth said. “He took off the hasp and the padlock with an electric drill and woke her up. More piss-poor prior planning on his part. He bolted the whole mess onto her door — he didn’t even have the key for the padlock. But she had a pry-bar.” She folded her arms, with a smirk that was self-satisfied by proxy. “He made it personal. She had no idea he was trying to fuck up another mixed family like hers, but she’s glad she shot him.”
Hyacinth’s smugness faded into genuine approval as she regarded the day clerk.
“Now she kinda thinks her boyfriend sent us to tell her it’s time to move on. This is definitely his sense of humour. But she has no idea how to get out of here, and she’s kinda upset about the elevator. If she goes, they’ll fix it for real.”
Milo waved a hand, then tugged on Hyacinth’s sleeve. A few signs in, he bapped himself on the forehead, BAKA, and told Mordecai instead.
“He says,” Mordecai translated, with amusement at the role-reversal, “if you’ll help him, he can fix the elevator so it needs dancing forever, and also put back the counterweight so it won’t kill anyone.”
Miss Mila was already applauding. It was clear she understood more Anglais than she liked to let on.
“Sure,” said Hyacinth. “And I don’t have a problem with it. We still have to get some train tickets and rescue the damsel in distress, we’ll be stuck here for a while. Milo and I get bored easy, anyway.” She grinned in his direction, without quite making eye-contact. He managed a tiny smile in return.
“Wait, why are we going on the train?” Erik said, blinking.
Mordecai crouched to his level, put both hands on his shoulders and addressed him with a smile. “We need to get home before we can have cake, dear one. It won’t take long — and we can make all the arrangements, you don’t need to worry.”
Erik shook his head. Maggie squeaked and hopped down from his lap, seeking someplace a little less loud and close for a transmutation.
“But we have a cat,” Erik said. “I…” His hand drifted up and began to rub the edge of his metal patch. “You… You have a very specific cat… With a name…”
“Hey.” Mordecai held both his hands but didn’t pull them down. “Slow down. I’m going to slow down too. Okay?” He waited for a nod. “Okay. I probably seem really stupid and frustrating right now, and I’m sorry for that. I’m not up to speed on everything that’s happened; I can’t understand everything right away, and neither can you, but we’re safe and we’ve got time to figure it out.”
Erik glanced towards Miss Mila. “But we like her and we want to help her. You should… I-I can’t…” He shook his head and gazed back at his uncle, haunted. “What’s wrong with me?”
There was a — slightly muted — flash and bang in the closet. Maggie ran out and beat Milo and Hyacinth to Erik’s side. “It’s okay! You’re just sick! This is just for right now!”
“Mm.” He offered a wobbly smile before wrapping both arms around her, drawing her near.
Miss Mila regarded them with a sigh, shaking her head. “Nothing change. Everything change. Too fast for me.”
Mordecai nodded to her. He wasn’t sure what he could say that she would understand, so he took her hand and squeezed briefly.
She pointed at him. “Name?”
He bowed, “Mordecai,” and pointed, “Erik.”
She nodded. She drew a large, square locket out of her blouse and showed the pictures inside. On the left, there was a glossy colour print of a dark-haired woman hugging a beaming red boy at a beach. He looked about nine or ten. At the end of the looping motion, he looked up at her and then away, clearly asking if they were all done with the photo yet. On the right, there was a framed, black and white still of two laughing adults crammed into a photo booth, one head above the other. The white-haired man seemed to have grabbed the dark-haired woman by the back of her dress, to hold her up and keep her in the frame.
Miss Mila indicated the gentleman in the still, and the boy. “Sebastian.”
“Handsome?” he offered, with a smile. “Cute.”
She smiled too.
Meanwhile, Erik had put his mouth near Maggie’s ear. He whispered, “I can’t be here like this. I’ll make him sad…”
“Oh, boy.” Maggie was glad for the hug. She’d been going crazy trying to find him and get him back within hugging distance, for over a year. She’d been sitting here for the-gods-only-knew how long, knowing that if she grabbed him and hugged the hell out of him, he’d embarrass himself and feel awful later. It was worth having the hug. She would rather have had the hug without the knowledge that Erik had somehow decided he wasn’t allowed home because he’d upset his goddamn criminally fragile uncle — but she would take the hug!
She also wasn’t too sure about ending the hug and having to deal with this mess. If Mordecai found out Erik felt like that, they’d both disintegrate.
“Hey.” She took him by the shoulders and pushed him back. “We didn’t lose you on purpose. We screwed up. We wanted you to come home the whole time. No matter what, you are staying with us and we are taking you home.”
He didn’t seem reassured. He was still shaking his head. If anything, he looked more upset. He spoke behind his hand in a pinched voice, still trying to exclude his uncle, “Can’t remember.” His hand was rubbing the edge of the patch again. The other was gripping the seat of the chair, as if to prevent him from bolting. He sobbed and clamped down on it, turning his head away.
Maggie thought — no, she knew. She knew he was trying to keep a lid on it because, on some level, he knew if he countermanded those operating instructions he was going to lose his words and maybe everything that happened since he woke up. He was trying to stay quiet and calm about all this ridiculous spy shit and people pointing guns at his family, and being sick and scared, and whatever else he had going on in there. He was hanging on for dear life.
She regarded Mordecai’s evident, growing dismay.
Milo was hovering nearby like an anxious cloud. She grabbed him and threw him at Erik — “Here, Milo likes hugs too! I just need a sec…” — then she dragged Mordecai aside, and hissed, “You need to get in there and take out what John put in. Now. Nevermind being safe enough to get out of here — although he also needs that — he is suffering. You can pull your shit together and deal with this, for fuck’s sake, you lived through a siege. Use your trauma!”
“Maggie, I can’t just…”
She shook him. “Yes you can!” She stilled herself, with effort, took a deep breath, and let it out with a smile. “This is actually very simple. Ah!” She put up her hand. “Yes it is, and you can’t code for shit, so I’m going to explain it to you. John was primarily concerned with how Erik acted out here, in the real world. We have a near-immaculate backup version of Erik, the version that exists in the safe room in his head. We’ve seen him operate that way; he was processing everything and he was smart, he just melted down when he saw David. If you give him permission to act that way, he can and he will. We can end this with one hack! Mom and Milo and I will help you with the language if you need.”
He snatched her and pushed her against the wall, the maximum distance they could get from Erik while still in the room. “A human mind is not a machine, and even if it were, that wouldn’t work.” His fingers were digging into her arms, hard enough to hurt, and she didn’t think he meant to. “If we let him figure out what is going on, he will not let us take him home. And we know that, because he was helping John control his mind so he could stay here. You can have a smart Erik or a cooperative Erik, and we need a cooperative one. This is like brain surgery with no instructions and if I mess it up, I may kill all of us. I’m not ready!”
“You already have all the instructions you’re going to get.” She picked the papers out of his hand and held them up. “You’re as ready as you’re ever going to be.” She took his hands and steadied him. “If you don’t mess with the backup, we can still use that to help him once we’re safe at home. Now you have to do something to stop this from hurting him.” She shook her head, pained. “You said this is his own personal hell. Just… make it not be that. Please leverage my boyfriend out of hell so he can rest and be happy. I know you can.”
He sighed, slumped, and nodded. She could feel him shaking. She drew him into a hug. “It’s not your fault,” she said softly. “No matter what, it’s not your fault.”
He frowned at her. “You could say that a million times and that wouldn’t make it so.” He stuffed his hand in his pocket and drew out a silver coin.
