Blue Angel

by Phil Williams

  Sam wanted, deeply, to go back to their records for the night when the Stray Symphony was written, to see if the spike attributed to the masterpiece was matched with another spike somewhere else in the city. That would get people’s attention, wouldn’t it? Bring their all-encompassing anecdote into question.

  It wasn’t a simple correlation, though: with each surge, the spikes hit only a limited number of marks on Rimes’ map. And never any of the marks within two miles of the praelucente.

  “And there’s no difference,” Sam asked, as the analyst’s report concluded, “between the surges? Nothing to suggest why some are marked with circles and some with crosses?”

  “Not that we’ve found,” Roper confirmed. “More or less equally spread.”

  “Plainly,” Sam said, carefully, “the praelucente is redirecting novisan, somehow, to different spots in the city. It’s doing it well outside our typical range of observation. The question being, is it a coincidence that we’ve narrowed our focus that much, or are these energy transfers designed to avoid detection?”

  “No one has forced us to keep a narrow focus,” Roper said. “Spreading a wider net would’ve been folly, given our resources – but even if we had, the likelihood of noticing this as a pattern would’ve been negligible. These minor surges are scarcely hitting the same location two or three times in the space of a year.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “But how did these civilians know about these hot spots? And why did they differentiate between two kinds?”

  No one answered, but Sam had a partial idea herself, recalling Pax’s panicked words. The Ministry had laughed off Apothel’s claims as tantamount to admitting a belief in Bigfoot or alien abductions, but what if he wasn’t mad? He had talked of things they’d never seen, spread all across the city. “Do we have a record of where Apothel claimed the blue screens were?”

  She met with uncomfortable silence, so she looked to Landon in particular. “Not to my knowledge,” he said. “Apothel was known for creating distractions.”

  “You know about the crocodile?” Devlin chipped in.

  Sam gave him a confused look, fairly sure Devlin was too young to have been around when Apothel was. The lift pinged, someone else entering the office as they all waited for more.

  “It was one of the only times we caught up to Apothel. He took an agent to West Quay, to check out a loading bay with a supposed creature above the surface, something we had no records of. Crocodile with hands or something.”

  “Hands and eyes on stalks,” Landon confirmed, as the newcomer approached their group. “And a lizard tongue. Half a day, they searched for it, and found no trace. Apothel slipped away during the search. Exactly the sort of distraction I’m talking about.”

  An irritated voice cut in: “Which he appears to have succeeded in beyond the grave.”

  It was Mathers.

  Everyone straightened up, squaring shoulders, faces serious, searching for something productive to look at. Devlin and Tori scuttled off, muttering comments about their work. Roper hunched over some papers, pretending to read. Mathers’ face was as angry as Sam had ever seen it. She said, “Sir, I think you need to hear –”

  “A building came down last night,” Mathers snapped. “Untold casualties. Seven dead yesterday. Ordshaw’s all over the papers. You have one job, all of you. Whatever else you think you’re doing here. You have one job. Keep a lid on the Sunken City. I need focus now more than ever, and I find this? The whole office exchanging rumours about a man long dead?”

  “This map –” Sam tried again.

  “In my office,” Mathers ordered. “Now. Everyone else, back to your damned jobs, while you still have them.”

  Fists balled tight and braced at his sides, he marched away. Landon gave Sam a concerned look, wanting to help. She shook her head. It was up to her.

  Every movement Mathers made was angry. A heavy thump into his chair, the forceful opening and closing of drawers, slapping a piece of paper onto his desk, deep, frustrated breaths. Even his blinks were angry, pointed breaks in his search for something. Sam watched in silence, waiting for the conclusion.

  A suspension form, an AE-12? Or the AE-54, discipline for insubordination?

  Sam squinted at the first lines of fine print. It was a WP-SoE, and it had already been filled in. He stabbed a finger at the text, searching for a particular line, then quoted, “Showing a marked lack of respect for protocol...Direct dismissal of MG-7b, using inappropriate terminology...Direct dismissal of MG-7d, assigning time to unauthorised tasks. Multiple details not accurately recorded in W4 forms.”

  Sam frowned. She had written it herself, three years ago, regarding Cano Casaria’s behaviour. He had been flouting Ministry guidelines to conduct his own personal crusade against the myriad creatures, enjoying himself too much and failing to do the MEE’s work properly. Mathers sat back and glowered.

  “This is different, sir,” Sam said.

  “I thought you, of all people,” he said, “understood the chain of command. Imagine me hearing that Sam Ward had destroyed the home of our civilian asset – and worse –”

  “I didn’t destroy –”

  “And worse, appears to be distracting everyone with some mindless boondoggle!” Mathers waved her report in the air. “The same Sam Ward who gave me this?”

  “The map –”

  “I know what that blasted map is!” Mathers raised his voice, making Sam jump. A vein throbbed in the side of his neck, and his eyes looked ready to pop out.

  She replied in a disbelieving squeak, “You do?”

  Mathers let out a noxious breath. “In what world did you think it wise to go over my head? In what world did you think the Commission weren’t fully behind my decisions here? To say London are unhappy is an understatement.” Sam cringed at the realisation, and knew his scathing tone was justified. How stupid she had been to think Lord Asquith would care. “The only saving grace in this mess, right now, is that we somehow kept the explosion in Long Culdon out of the news. Chance alone, it would appear, prevented Dr Rimes’ other defences from being activated. You’re aware that she could’ve utterly exposed us?”

  Sam said nothing.

  “No, you weren’t, and you know why? Because your job is InterSpecies Relations, not whatever desperado quest you’ve been on!”

  Sam opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say. Someone had to ask these questions – if it wasn’t her job, whose was it?

  “Exactly.” Mathers read her face, wrongly. “You had no idea, and no authorisation. And now I find you distracting my whole office with nonsense we fought for years to keep out of the MEE. Apothel was mad. Verified so by a hospital in Reading, which he set on fire! There were times when our productivity ground to a standstill with agents chasing Apothel’s fantasies – we cannot afford to do that now.”

  “Respectfully, sir, the marks on that map correlate with the surges. There’s –”

  “I know,” Mathers said. “You honestly believe we limit our monitoring activity due to computer processing power? You think no one’s noticed patterns before? They drive people to distraction. They’re residual effects, with nothing there. They are not important.”

  “According to who?” Sam asked.

  “According to the Raleigh Commission,” Mathers answered heavily. “Who else?”

  Sam held his gaze. It wasn’t enough to say it didn’t matter. Not when Apothel’s people had come across this information on their own. Mathers had to know it. But he was taking the easy route and blaming London. “When did they decide it, sir?”

  “You’re one of our best people, Ward,” Mathers replied without answering. “You know I can’t afford to lose you, especially not over something trivial. But heed my words when I say that our work in Ordshaw is carefully regulated. With the limited staff we have available, distraction is our single greatest enemy. Coincidental novisan surges are the height of it. Do you understand?”

  “I do, sir,” Sam said, tersely. “But there’s
a detail here that I don’t see how we can possibly ignore.”

  “Trust me, there are no details that have not been considered.”

  “How did Apothel’s people know about these locations? These novisan spikes?”

  “I fail to see how that affects your work.”

  “It affects all of our work –”

  “Your job,” Mathers said, “is to be accountable for the Fae involvement in this. Where are you on explaining who is responsible for their weapon?”

  Sam froze. Her anger at him demanding a patently impossible task was shadowed by a realisation. He didn’t want the complications because London did not want them. They wanted to police the Sunken City in the same blinkered way as usual, while they concentrated on their more central interests. Interests outside Ordshaw, whose unnatural phenomenon was, for some reason, not the most fascinating thing in their arsenal. It was the same for the praelucente as it was for the Fae: the Commission had more answers than they were giving. Sam made the same request that she had made a hundred times before: “Sir, I respectfully request to speak with the Raleigh Commission on that matter. I believe they have contacts of their own that we might use.”

  Mathers’ anger dissipated as this shifted into familiar territory, with her asking rather than doing. He rolled a hand towards the door, repeating his usual stance: “Put a request into writing and I will relay it. And stop getting in the way.”

  Sam nodded. Exactly back to normal. She turned for the door.

  “Ward?” Mathers relaxed slightly, the tension past. “Where on earth did you see this going?”

  Sam hesitated. “Back to the praelucente, sir. We’re being exposed to how unstable, and dangerous, it is right now. My concern is that it’s no longer viable.”

  Mathers was cold in the face of that shattering observation. He said nothing, merely gestured again to the door.

  3

  After enduring brief farewells from the Bartons, Pax and Casaria climbed the escalator to the exit. Following in the air nearby, Letty said, “I still say the stuffy mum should go. She can drive a getaway scooter.”

  “It’s on me,” Pax said, holding up a hand for Letty to land on.

  Letty gave her a distrusting look that said she still wanted to know why, but the fairy didn’t ask. They’d prepared for the day without any more discussion of Pax’s fits or dreams. She wanted to explain, but didn’t know how. All she knew was that it was all connected. She had to go with Casaria because it had to be her that rescued Rufaizu; there was no guarantee how far they’d get, and she needed to see him, even if only briefly. For her own sake, if not for the whole city’s. Letty must’ve sensed the truth, somehow, because she wasn’t probing.

  The fairy said, “We’ll have a proper talk when you get back.”

  “For sure,” Pax said. She wished the fairy could come, but there was no way they were leaving the Bartons alone in Rolarn’s care. That, and Letty didn’t want to miss Lightgate, who had been absent since the conclusion of their discussion the night before. Still, Pax said, “Wish me luck. I’m noticing every time we part ways shit starts to turn dramatically worse for me.”

  “That’s sweet,” Letty replied. “Just keep yourself away from the MEE building and let him handle himself.” She gave Casaria a sneering look and he gave a scowl back. “Ditch him if you have to.”

  “And I’m the one you don’t trust,” Casaria said to Pax.

  “Still say you should wait,” Letty said. “Lightgate must be up to something, we’d do better to hear from her before you go knocking on doors.”

  “She could be hours, if she even comes back,” Pax said, picturing her somewhere between drunk in a gutter and stirring up more angry fairies towards senseless violence. “And I can’t see her making it easier to get into that office.”

  “You should at least get hold of another phone.”

  “We’re already late,” Casaria grumbled, “the office gets busier as the day goes on.”

  “Alright, we’re going,” Pax said, then offered Letty a smile. “Take care of them, and yourself.”

  Letty shook her head, arms folded, unconvinced. “You’re the one that’s in trouble. Let me give my new number, anyway.”

  As they approached the scooter, Casaria broke the silence with the purposeful tone of a man who’d long been considering offering stern words. “You got an easy ride yesterday, on account of my condition. But I’m rested now. You can’t honestly expect me to go near that thing.”

  Pax stopped at the bike. “You’re too good for it, now? Take a look in a mirror.”

  A few days earlier, granted, there would have been a marked contrast between his expensive suit and her motoring equivalent of a stack of used toasters. But he hadn’t changed in two days, and the dust and blood and grime had solidified into hard patches. His slick hair had lost its sheen and hung in greasy shards. The wound on his face had scabbed over from his jaw to his brow, crossing one eye, and a bruise was going from purple to yellow just below his ear.

  Casaria said, “A temporary setback. I’ve no intention of touching this death-trap and I’ve no intention of returning to the MEE offices without going to my place first.”

  Pax watched his eyes stray to the side, willing her not to press more. He was stalling, after all his insistence on getting a move on. “You said the Ministry took you back in. You can return, can’t you?”

  “Of course,” Casaria said, haughtily. “I’m the best they have.”

  “But you don’t want them to see that you got beat up, is that it?”

  “As if,” he snorted. “It’d do them well to see what real field work looks like. It’d just be easier if I was able to blend in. Especially going in during the day.”

  Looking at the blood on his shirt, and the flecks around his jaw and neck which he hadn’t bothered to wash off, Pax suspected he probably quite liked the look himself. Meaning he was thinking of someone else’s opinion, for once. Between his reaction to Sam Ward’s name last night, and what Ward had said herself, it was an easy guess. “Can I give you a hint as a woman? Whatever you think your co-workers think of you, your immaculate appearance is not the issue.”

  His eyes narrowed. “It’s a matter of going unnoticed.”

  “They know you were abducted,” Pax said. “Better if you look like you’ve just fought your way free of captivity than walked away, isn’t it?”

  “No one’s been looking for me,” Casaria said. “I’m telling you –”

  “Jesus Christ,” Pax said. “I didn’t realise it was pity o’clock. For your information, it was her that was trying to track you down. Sam Ward. And she seemed pretty concerned.” He looked surprised, for a brief moment, before scowling.

  “You’ve already proven yourself a liar, Pax,” Casaria said. “She’s an ice queen.”

  “Uh-huh. When you were working together, did you pull her hair?”

  “What?”

  “Call her smelly, laugh at her for having fruit in her packed lunch?”

  “What are you –”

  “It’s okay if you like her, and it’s shitty if she hurt you, but I’m pretty sure she took it with a little less scorn than you. Give her a break.”

  Casaria had the same sort of half-angry, half-confused expression he’d worn when he realised Pax was working with Letty. The same expression as when she’d stolen his car keys. Like the thought had never crossed his mind. “You don’t know her.”

  “No,” Pax said. “But I’d bet a golden squid I know her better than you.”

  “She’s played their game since she first met me,” Casaria said. “Not interested in the Sunken City itself, only how she could fatten her pay cheque.”

  “Except she suggested the idea of talking to the Fae, right? Sounds good to me.”

  Casaria scoffed. “An empty gesture. High in principles, ineffective at actually getting anything done.”

  “Listen: you see her in there, be civil, and if anything see if she can help. Now get on the bloody bike.
”

  She jumped on and started the engine without looking at him again. It would be interesting to see how awkwardly he’d handle sitting behind her now that he was fully conscious. She considered warning him not to get an erection, but didn’t, in case the warning made it more likely.

  Casaria walked into the MEE building with more anxiety than he felt the place had a right to elicit. He didn’t intend to run into anyone, but they had cameras, and people were moving in the halls, more so than he was used to. The daylight zombies came to work in force while the sun was up, getting in the way.

  Still, he’d get in unseen and do what he needed to on the fifth floor, where the med bay and inventory were secluded from the worker drones on the sixth floor. He’d slip in and out, as easy as when he took the fairy weapon before.

  The idiot guard on the front desk watched him go in with a stunned look. Yes, this is what real work looks like. Some fool from another office was too afraid to ride the elevator up with him. Rightly so.

  Casaria marched proudly to the infirmary door, unhindered by a single MEE contact. A quick, simple job – show Pax how a professional worked, even if she hadn’t given him the chance to dress like one. He keyed in the door code. Maybe he’d requisition some car keys from Inventory while he was here, get a better vehicle. It was demeaning, perching on the back of Pax’s rusted hobby-horse. So close to her. She probably enjoyed it, practically rubbing against him.

  His face turned at the thought, imagining her mocking, smirking face, if she felt his body react. You couldn’t control that. He hadn’t let it show, of course, but give it time and it might. Then he’d be the one in the embarrassing situation, when she was enjoying it. Disgusting.

  There was a beep. He put in the code again and frowned at the red light.

  The damn lock wasn’t working.

  That’d be right, wouldn’t it? They’d chosen to change the codes now, after years without so much as considering the weakness of their security. Oh well.