The Flux

by Ferrett Steinmetz

  It was so brave, for Aliyah to enter the flames. She must have hesitated outside, working up the courage to fight for her father – but now Aliyah was in real danger.

  Yet Rainbird… stopped.

  The room thrummed with ’mancy – and Rainbird’s endlessly shifting sprite paused, stooping down to examine the tiny, scarred child who’d entered the battle. The sigils on his cheeks burned bright with admiration.

  He took an experimental step towards her. Aliyah held her ground, her cheeks puffing out, refusing to give way to the blazing figure before her.

  The flame… Rainbird said in a dialogue box. It has forged you, little one.

  Aliyah cocked her head, not giving him ground. Instead, she raised her Nintendo DS high, ready to strike him down with gamefire.

  The apartment shuddered as Valentine tried to regain control of her game, but Rainbird broke free to bow to Aliyah. He turned, ambling away despite Valentine’s best efforts, to disappear back into the fire portal. The window, now a molten pane of glass, shattered in the cool night air.

  RAINBIRD has fled!

  Valentine, as scripted, did a ballerina twirl and shook her hips lasciviously before holding up an Xbox game controller in triumph. The room faded back to real life – still on fire, the flames stoked by the fresh inrush of oxygen from the shattered window.

  Aliyah screamed, getting out her Nintendo DS and screaming “ICE! ICE! ICE!”, scribbling it on the pad as if she wanted to stab it. The flames crystallized into dripping icicles.

  Valentine flopped down onto the burnt mattress, not caring that it was still smoldering.

  “That guy…” She wiped the sweat from her forehead. “He fought like he didn’t know what flux was. What the hell are we gonna do against that, Paul?”

  Paul looked at the shattered window, the soaked plaster, the ruined bed.

  “Well, first we’re going to call in the super to clean up this mess,” he said. “Then we’ll talk to Rainbird’s boss.”

  Sixteen

  No. There Is Another.

  Valentine lied and told the superintendent that the curtains had caught fire due to a candle, and they’d thrown buckets of water at it until it had gone out. Which earned her a stinkeye, but the super got some plywood from the supply cabinet and hammered it in over the empty windowframe until they could call in a window repairman.

  “You just lost your deposit,” the supervisor told Paul.

  Paul thought of Rainbird’s inferno. “Coulda lost more than that,” Paul replied.

  The inspections took a couple of hours, as did the paperwork, which allowed Paul and Valentine to carefully bleed off their stored flux from the fight: the elevator broke down as they took it to the super’s office, the fire inspector fined them for leaving an open flame in a hazardous area, part of the wall pulled out as the plywood was nailed in.

  Once everything was fixed as well as it could be, and their flux level was nice and empty, the doorman called.

  “There’s a... a limo waiting for you,” the doorman said, confused. Paul knew he was, in the doorman’s estimation, a mild up-and-comer in New York’s political field, but certainly not a limo guy.

  “Thanks, Maurice,” Paul said, pleased to bollix expectations. “We’ll be down shortly.”

  Valentine scratched the backs of her hands, a boxer preparing for her next fight. “So that’s…”

  “Payne. I’m sure of it. Once Rainbird saw I was a ’mancer, his whole demeanor changed. I think they’ve been working to protect ’mancers the whole time.”

  “If you’re right, Payne is the King of New York! If he’s so protective of ’mancers, why’d he call the cops on us?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s going to explain once we get into that car.”

  “Yeah, and I’m sure the limo has FREE CANDY stenciled on the side. I’m questioning the wisdom of locking ourselves inside a limo with, you know, a crazy pyromancer.”

  “And a bureaucromancer – I mean, another bureaucromancer.”

  “Oooh!” Valentine bugged her eyes out. “Maybe he’ll revoke my W-2s!”

  “You can’t revoke a tax form, you can only–”

  She flicked gloved fingers at him. “Whatever. I’m a little more worried about the guy who can barbecue my bones, Paul.”

  Paul should have bristled at how Valentine shrugged his ’mancy off – but instead, he felt lessened. He hadn’t had time to fathom what Payne’s existence meant, but…. Until now, he’d been the master of his own unique magic.

  After seeing the immense complexity of Payne’s spells, Paul realized he was a second-rate bureaucromancer in his own city. Worse, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe he’d somehow inherited his powers from Payne – he hadn’t become a ’mancer until he’d worked at Samaritan Mutual for years. Had he absorbed something from Samaritan’s atmosphere?

  Paul felt a mild depression coming on. He shook it off. Now was not the time for an identity crisis.

  “We have to talk to Payne,” Paul said. “Would you rather chat with New York’s oldest bureaucromancer at his office? Surrounded by his forms and typewriters?”

  “All right, yeah, yeah, we can’t exactly negotiate our safety through text messages. Especially when Payne’s got a guy who can teleport through fires. But…”

  She glanced over at Aliyah, who stood halfway behind a door, making only a token effort to pretend not to listen.

  Paul knelt down to grasp her shoulders. “You understand coming with us is dangerous, right, honey?”

  Aliyah trembled, but her face was grim. “I protect my Daddy.”

  “If I told you to stay home,” Paul asked, “Would you listen?”

  “If I told you to stay home, would you?”

  Valentine laughed. “OK, points for Gryffindor.”

  “I think we should take her. It’s not safe, but… I don’t even know what safe is any more. I suspect Payne has access to a lot more ’mancers than just Rainbird. If Payne is out to get us, then leaving Aliyah at home might make him send a couple of, I dunno, ninjamancers after her. At least this way we know where she is…”

  Valentine brushed her hair back angrily. “This is just like the Walking Dead game. Reams of shitty options packed with risk, none good.”

  “So we bring her?” Paul technically had the last word on all matters Aliyah, but he never felt right unless Valentine agreed.

  “I think if things go tits-up, it’s the call I can most live with. And…” She knelt down, got the Xbox controller she wore on the bandolier around her waist. “It’s not like my girl didn’t, you know, take down an entire squadron of cops by herself the last time someone pissed her off.”

  Aliyah raised her Nintendo DS somberly and bumped controllers with Valentine.

  They all changed clothes – Paul always felt more authoritative in a crisp blue power suit, and Valentine’s dress had been ruined in the fight. She showed up in a Bad Religion newsprint T-shirt with a ragged cut-off plunging neckline, and faded skin-tight jeans with fluffy claw marks showing patches of pale skin all up and down her thighs.

  Aliyah, however, dressed in her best school uniform – a bright burgundy shirt, a plaid skirt, sneakers, her Nintendo DS strapped into her backpack. It was, Paul realized, the closest Aliyah had to business wear.

  “All right,” Paul said. “Let’s go.”

  They walked down to the lobby, holding hands the whole way, where Maurice the doorman looked anxious. They followed his gaze to the obscenely long black limo on the street. Such cars were common out by the UN, but a rare sight in this district.

  The car’s silver trim gleamed, familiar to Paul for no reason he could name. It looked imposing and old-fashioned, a classic build; the window whirred down to reveal Payne’s sour soldier’s face looking out at them.

  Then a sunny smile broke over the old man’s face, a smile that Paul would never have guessed hid inside those old, crusty features.

  “Paul!” he yelled, opening the door to wave them in, thrilled as
a kid at Christmas. “You clever bastard! You rooked me! You completely rooked me!”

  Seventeen

  Invite to the Prom

  They clambered into the limo, which seemed as large as a nightclub – an effect further bolstered by a low bar filled with cut crystal glasses that sat between them and Payne. The minute Rainbird pulled the door shut, tinted windows blocked out the light, leaving the limo lit by dim pseudo-gaslight lamps attached to the red velvet walls.

  Payne tapped the partition. The driver, obscured by smoked obsidian glass, pulled into traffic.

  Paul wiggled back in the seat to slump against the window, sprawling more than he’d like; this limo was slung low so that you had to lean back in a kingly fashion, spreading your legs out for balance. Aliyah curled protectively at his side, shooting dark death glares at Rainbird.

  Paul squinted at the interior.

  “I know this car.”

  Payne winked. “Bet you do.”

  “This is… this is the limo I took Imani to prom in.”

  Payne clapped his hands merrily. “Not the limo, Paul – I’m not that powerful – but the same model. The same memories.”

  Paul suppressed a goofy grin, then squeezed Aliyah’s hand. “Your mother, she... well, she liked making an impression. And for prom, sure, I mean, any limo is impressive to a teenager, but Imani wanted the finest limo in New York. She dreamed about it. She never asked me, but… I knew how important it was to her. I remember scrimping, and saving, and…” Paul sighed.

  “When she emerged from that limo, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The other girls wore these puffy abominations that made them look like pastel-blue marshmallows, but your mother – she’d sewn her own gown. Pure gold. She looked like an empress. I knew I’d propose to her the minute I got on the force.”

  “A grand and glorious future, Paul,” Payne said solemnly, reaching across to deposit a bubbling glass of champagne into Paul’s hand. “And you, my friend, have just received an invite to the greatest prom in New York City. The secret dance, if you will.”

  Valentine snorted as she took the champagne.

  “Come on, Valentine,” Paul asked, reaching over to nudge her. “You didn’t go to prom?”

  She clasped the glass to her chest with a frown, conspicuously not drinking it. “Boys didn’t ask girls like me to prom.”

  “Young boys are notoriously stupid.” Payne toasted Valentine with his champagne. “They overlook uncut diamonds in pursuit of colored glass baubles. But you, my dear – you’ve got power.”

  Valentine smirked, flattered – then pulled back angrily. “Then why were you trying to kill me?”

  Payne chuckled, embarrassed, covering his mouth. “Oh, I wasn’t trying to kill you – I was trying to undermine him!” He tipped his glass towards Paul.

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Not Paul Paul,” Payne explained, making little fluttery gestures in Paul’s direction. “The other Paul. Paul Tsabo, famed ’mancer-hunter. Paul Tsabo, leader of the New York Task Force – a man who, if he was successful, would encourage the mayor to pour more money into local ’mancer suppression. A man who could potentially be more effective than SMASH.” Payne gave the amiable shrug of someone caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “That man, I admit, I wanted to ruin. That’s why I only fed clues to his squad when Lenny – the least competent person on Paul’s team – was on duty, and only when Paul was off duty. I was trying to goad the Task Force into a confrontation against Psycho Mantis – something big and splashy, knowing they would get pureed going head-to-head against the violence of a videogamemancer… providing New York with front-page-friendly proof that Paul Tsabo wasn’t up to the task…”

  Paul doubted Valentine even realized she was reaching over to protect Aliyah. “You put us in danger!” Valentine said. “What if they’d gotten us?”

  Payne produced a legal pad. With a flare of magic, he pulled up a list, then licked his thumb and began going down it. “Two helicopters damaged, worth $600,000 apiece. Seven squad cars totaled. Thirty broken bones, at least $340,000 in hospital bills, and that’s not counting the inbound therapy for PTSD.” He whistled, arching his eyebrows at Aliyah – who refused to acknowledge him, never taking her gaze off of Rainbird. “And that’s the child. Am I to believe her mentor can perpetrate less mayhem?”

  Valentine wriggled in the seat, secretly pleased. “All right. I do bring the noise.”

  “I admit, I disliked endangering a fellow ’mancer – but Psycho Mantis had already taken down a squadron of SMASH agents. I was equally confident she’d wreck Paul Tsabo’s career.”

  Payne clapped his hands, excited. “Still, how was I to know the man who ran the Task Force – a man famed for killing ’mancers – was, instead, trying to save them? How could you have known the man who ran this tight-fisted insurance company only did so because insurance was one of the first places people notified when something odd happened? We couldn’t have been more at cross-odds, Paul, because we were both playing for the long game!”

  Paul blushed. “I guess that’s what happens when you have two bureaucromancers in the same city.”

  Payne pursed his lips. “…Bureaucromancy?”

  “What do you call it?”

  Payne sipped his champagne thoughtfully. “Bureaucromancy. That’s a good name for what we do, Paul. Far better than mine. In fact, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to steal that. Rainbird!” Rainbird pulled his eyes away from Aliyah. “Mental note: from now on, it’s bureaucromancy.”

  “Very good, sir.” Rainbird lowered his gaze to watch Paul’s daughter again. There was something about the way he took Aliyah’s discomfort as a spectator sport, taking long luxurious draws on that omnipresent cigar, that rubbed Paul the wrong way.

  “…would you mind not staring at my child?” Paul asked.

  Rainbird winced, sullenly taking his cue from Payne. He lifted his cigar into the air, drawing smoky spirals in the air with the tip; Aliyah’s gaze moved to match it. “My apologies, Mr Tsabo. But I’m afraid it’s your daughter who is staring intently at me.”

  “Aliyah. Don’t glare at him.” Aliyah ignored Paul. He moved to shake her.

  Rainbird leaned across the bar to grab Paul’s wrist. Rainbird’s fingers felt like hot plates fresh from the oven, not quite hot enough to sear flesh but enough to hurt.

  “She’s terrified of the flame,” Rainbird said. “Watch her face, Mr Tsabo; where other children would hide behind their mothers’ skirts, your daughter refuses to give ground. Show her what she fears, and she digs in.”

  Paul had that bewildered feeling he often got with Valentine, that there was some interaction here he wasn’t quite equipped to get. “Regardless. She’s my daughter, and you will stop.”

  Rainbird drew closer. Paul flinched. He couldn’t help himself. Rainbird had the dull gaze of a man who’d have no problems extinguishing his cigar in Paul’s eyeball….

  Paper burns, Paul thought, frightened. Valentine’s hand dropped to her controller. Aliyah swung her backpack around to yank her Nintendo DS from the webbing…

  Payne snapped his fingers. “Rainbird! Put it out.”

  “But–”

  Payne’s cold blue eyes glared. There were now two monsters in this vehicle, and the old man was scarier. “Extinguish it.”

  Rainbird hissed, scowling, and stubbed the cigar out in his palm. He curled his fingers around the wound, which glowed, and glared ferally at Payne.

  Payne clucked his tongue. “I didn’t tell you to hide your flame, Mr Rainbird. I told you to extinguish it.”

  Payne unscrewed the cap on a water bottle and held it out to Rainbird.

  Rainbird breathed through his teeth – teeth that were now blackened ash – and pried open his wounded hand, revealed a smoldering pile of sizzling flesh. He took the bottle, eyes closed in terror, fingers quivering like a junkie.

  As Rainbird poured a splash of water in, it caused a hiss of steam
like a bucket over a campfire. Aliyah made a strangled noise and hugged her Nintendo.

  “It’s all right, child,” Payne assured her. “There’s no shortage of fire where we’re going. If he has to ride home without his precious burning, well, perhaps he should learn to be polite to his superiors.”

  Aliyah pulled away from Paul, pressing her fingertips into her cheek scars. She traced the patterns on the ridges of her old burns, brow furrowed, as if trying to solve a vexing puzzle.

  Paul reached over to squeeze her foot. She kicked his hand away.

  “I don’t think you understand the magnitude of what you’ve uncovered today, Mr Rainbird.” Payne sounded reasonable, once appeased – but Rainbird was nearly insensate, rubbing his hand against his neck to sop up the last of its residual warmth. Rainbird looked smaller, boyish. “Paul, if you wouldn’t mind showing Mr Rainbird who he’s dealing with?”

  Payne leaned over to proffer Paul a legal pad. It buzzed with ’mancy, faint lines jiggling on formal yellow paper. Paul took it, turning it over in his hands.

  “…I’m afraid don’t know what you want me to do here, Mr Payne.”

  “Call me Lawrence. And we are on a journey. Our driver has a destination. I’m not intending to surprise you with the location. Nor do I intend to tell you where we are going.”

  Valentine shifted in her seat, as if plotting the easiest methods of blowing out a door. Paul held up a hand.

  “It’s all right, Valentine. I know what he wants.”

  She arched plucked eyebrows. “You do? Because I kinda feel like I’m drowning in a sea of hidden intentions.”

  “Hidden to you, maybe.” Paul studied the pad, taking the mechanical pencil that Payne offered him. He tilted the pad towards Aliyah so that she could watch, if she wanted; she turned away, disinterested as always in Daddy’s ’mancy. “Know how I complain whenever you put me in some game and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do?”