“Come on.” She rushed past Paul, dashing towards the car. “We gotta get him back to the Institute.”
Valentine looked alive, her eyes wide with adrenaline excitement. She tugged Tyler, who stared at Valentine with a goofy grin that said he couldn’t believe his own luck.
Paul straggled behind them, limping clumsily, mapping his next move. He didn’t want Tyler Durden mixing with Samaritan Mutual again, not at all. Paul wondered how long it’d be before Tyler ruined everything at the Institute. Days, at most.
But once Valentine had promised to show Tyler Durden around, Paul was sure it would have taken warfare to stop them from going.
Thirty-Five
The Last of Us
Paul woke to Valentine’s screams.
He rolled off his bed – Aliyah wasn’t there. But something hammered at the walls of the Institute, a pulsing earthquake that caused files to rain down from his shelves.
Dazed, he broke for the door – and remembered, too late, that his right foot no longer existed. He had, as usual, put his artificial leg in the recharging station before he went to bed, giving his stump skin time to breathe, and in his panic he forgot he was crippled.
His face impacted against hardwood floor. Blood flew.
Something slammed into the Institute again, so hard that Paul heard the creak of beams torqueing. The chandelier in the ceiling dipped, swaying precipitously. Valentine shrieked, a full-throated howl.
A low-bass growl, feral and terrifying, matched her screams.
Where was Aliyah?
What was attacking them?
He grabbed for his artificial leg, slid it over his stump, locked it into place. His other foot, the one missing four toes, didn’t grab the floor any more – you never realized how much toes kept your balance until a spear-wielding maniac severed them – so he hunted his orthotic boot, tugged that on. All the while the thumping continued, a deep booming sound echoing from every surface, now accompanied by screams from the atrium.
Paul darted out into the lobby’s marble floor, seeing the confused ’mancers gathered around the door to Valentine’s room: Natasha the culinomancer, Juan the bookiemancer, Idena the origamimancer. They stood frozen, terrified as rabbits, unsure what to do.
But the thumping quickened in pace, rising in pitch, headed towards some dreadful crescendo.
“Kick in the door!” he shouted.
Mrs Vinere, wearing an elaborately-colored parrot mask, stared at Paul. “You don’t have a mask,” she muttered, twiddling her thumbs. “You can’t be out here without a mask.”
“Yes,” the plushiemancer said, hugging a fuzzy pony to his chest. “You have to go inside.”
“I said kick in the door!”
“The staff will see you!”
“The whole place is going to come down!” Valentine let loose a lung-emptying howl. “Get the fucking door down before someone gets hurt!”
Payne’s ’mancers shuffled their feet, panicked by new and unknown factors.
“Oh, goddammit–” Paul rushed for the door, remembering his policeman’s training – kick next to the lock, brace your back foot for maximum impact – and lashed out. But the springy coiled surface of his artificial foot bounced off harmlessly.
“Someone help!” Paul cried. The ’mancers milled about. Valentine’s howl trailed away. The pounding stopped.
The door to Valentine’s room exploded.
Paul flinched; Rainbird emerged from his room’s fiery cavern, hands smoking, storming towards Valentine’s apartment. Aliyah trailed behind him, looking shamed, even through her angry old-man tattoo-mask and chained daggers.
Paul would ask about that later. He leapt through the splintered doorway, eyes watering from the smoke. “Valentine!” he yelled, so panicked he forgot to use her code name. “Valentine!”
Valentine lay naked on her bed. Leather straps were wrapped around her hips, securing a wagging pink dildo to her crotch.
Tyler Durden, bathed in a post-sex sweat sheen, laid face-down next to her, goggle-eyed with gratitude.
“Say it?” he asked.
“I won’t,” Valentine replied, lighting up a cigarette. “It’s a stupid line.”
“Please. It’s what she says. In the movie.”
“Oh, all right.” She rolled her eye good-naturedly. “‘I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school.’”
Valentine passed him the cigarette, then noticed Paul. “Hey, Paul, what’s up?” she chirped, reaching down to unbuckle her strap-on. “Sorry about the noise. Tyler thought he’d show me some moves. I got to show him some.”
Tyler closed his eyes, practically melting into the bed. His cynical sneer had melted away, his brawny limbs slack, as though Valentine’s domination had lifted some great burden from him.
Paul fishmouthed, speechless.
“What’s up?” She chucked her strap-on into the corner. Then noticed Rainbird shoving the hothouse ’mancers aside, Payne roaring to know what was going on here.
“Ooh,” she muttered. “My bad.”
* * *
“All right, so I made a mistake,” Valentine said.
Payne had shuffled Valentine and Paul off to the meeting room while he calmed the Institute’s ’mancers down, then ordered the contractors to gauge the extent of the damage. Even now, the monitors in the room were cracked, their camera views skewed.
“A mistake?!” Paul spluttered.
“I don’t know if you’ve had sex since you got ’manceritized – but if you had, you’d see how hard it is to keep that shit bottled up. ’Mancy isn’t something you do, it’s who you are. And if you’re not paying attention… it leaks out.” She poured herself a glass of water, offered one to Tyler. “That was great fucking sex, and we lost control. Kinda what sex does. But now we know we fuck earthquakes, unless we rein it in.” She stifled a grin with her fingertips. “Which is actually kinda hot…”
“You almost collapsed the whole Institute!”
“I said I was sorry.”
“And it’s not just the Institute – the Task Force is bringing in new equipment all the time! What if a drone had flown overhead? You could have exposed us all!”
Tyler chuckled. “Not much of a loss. This place is like a shopping mall where they sell dysfunctional people.”
“Tyler!” Valentine said.
“Get the fuck out,” Paul hissed. “Before I sic Rainbird on you.”
Tyler made an exaggerated “We got a badass over here” gesture, and headed for the door. Paul slammed it behind him.
By the time he turned back around, Valentine was fuming.
“Is that how it’s going to be, Paul?” she asked. “Rainbird, the guy who almost fucking murdered you? He’s your new consigliere?”
“And that’s your new boyfriend? The guy who just said people deserved to die?”
“He’s prone to hyperbole, Paul – but there’s truth curled up in here. You wouldn’t invite anyone here to a party, and you know it.”
“This isn’t a party. It is a refuge. And you endangered us all, including my daughter.”
She flicked her fingers, as though swatting a mosquito. “OK, I made a mistake–”
“A mistake?”
“Yes. One mistake. An expensive mistake, sure, but the one thing Payne has flying around in great numbers is money…”
“You don’t wear the mask,” Paul said, ticking off Valentine’s sins on her fingers. “You wreck your room out of petulance. You toss Cheetos at the guy who owns the place, for God’s sake!”
“I don’t wear the mask he wants me to.” Valentine shifted to her hooded Alex Mercer form. “But I’m not fucking stupid, Paul. I hide my real face from the staff. I get the need for secrecy.”
“You destroyed thousands of dollars of videogame equipment!”
“Terribly sorry – I thought it was my room. To decorate as I pleased. I didn’t realize I had to check what flair was permitted in my living quarters.”
Paul felt a terri
ble confusion welling up inside. “And you threw–”
“Yes, yes, I threw Cheetos at Old Creepy’s head. That’s my real crime here, isn’t it? I don’t fucking bend the knee. But you know what? I stayed here because you asked me to, and I did what I could to make it comfortable. But if it wasn’t the sex, I bet dimes to dollars Payne would still get his panties in a wad about something.”
“It’s Payne’s money,” Paul pleaded. “Like it or not, if we don’t keep him happy then he kicks us out. And if we lose this place, then Aliyah can’t–”
“Why the fuck is she wearing a God of War skin?”
“…a what?”
Valentine leaned forward. “God. Of. War. The bloodiest fucking game the PlayStation has to offer. She’s dressing like a psycho who punches Hercules’ face in! This place is toxic, Paul! You and I, we…”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“We have to get out.”
And for a moment, Paul was tempted.
Then, on the monitors, he saw Tyler Durden bumping chests with Rainbird, Payne rushing in to break them up.
“To go where, Valentine?” he asked. “Your boyfriend can’t even get out the door without getting into another scuffle. What are we going to do, go punch the government until they fucking leave us alone?”
“Maybe! Paul, sometimes you have to lose everything to be who you really are! Tyler understands that. I get that. But you…” She shook her head. “You’ve been playing it so safe with Aliyah for so long, you can’t see how all this safety is hurting her.”
He slapped his palms on the conference table. “I am protecting my kid the best way I know how!”
“You are screaming way too much these days, Paul. I can’t tell if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.”
He squeezed his temples, feeling the mad pulse of things spiraling out of control. “It’s a bad sign.”
“This is a bad place.”
“It isn’t, Valentine. It just… it needs some fixing. And you…”
He closed his eyes, not wanting to say what came next.
“You’re part of the problem.”
Valentine made a tiny wheezing noise.
“If it was just you, I’d work with you. But your boyfriend – Tyler – he should have known to keep you in line. That sex was too much, you should have–”
“Pardon me?”
Valentine kicked a chair aside, rising to her feet.
“Nobody keeps me in line, Paul. I am my line. Tyler likes queuing up with me, because we are simpatico. Even our ’mancy laces together – a lot better than yours and mine. And he’s right about needing to change, Paul. You? You’ve been frozen since... well, since I met you.”
She hocked a green loogie onto the table, then thought better and flicked an imaginary button. The table split in two.
“You want to choose those freaks as her parents over me? Fine. Fine. I’ll be back in ten years to see the mess you’ve made of her!”
“You won’t last ten days!” Paul shouted. “Once the Task Force gets dissolved, SMASH will crush you!”
“See this?” She showed Paul the back of her hand. “I’ll bitch-slap them back to Washington. And when I’m done, you’ll thank me for making New York a safer place.”
Paul sagged. “Please, Valentine,” he whispered. “Don’t do this. They’ll kill you.”
Her voice trembled with rage and sorrow. “It’s better than curling up here to die.”
They glared at each other, eyes watering. Their lips twitched as they tried on words of forgiveness, words they couldn’t quite force past their pride.
Valentine brushed off the hem of her skirt.
“Have a nice life, Paul.” She closed the door quietly behind her, which was somehow worse; he’d seen Valentine’s rage before, but her cold disappointment sapped his confidence. Why was Aliyah dressing like a war god? What crimes had Valentine really committed?
He bolted into the hallway – but Payne blocked his way, scowling, the ceiling creaking ominously overhead. Valentine had almost collapsed the Institute in her lust – leaving Aliyah homeless again, all these ’mancers and their pretty, defenseless magic crushed under steel beams.
Where would he live, if not here?
How could he protect his daughter without Payne’s assistance?
You need to understand, Valentine had said. What you have now? Me and your Dad to talk to? This is the most social support you’ll ever get.
Aliyah had looked so beaten then.
She looked happier. Surrounded by ’mancer friends. Trained by other ’mancers. Protected by Payne’s risk pool. Here, she could grow up to be someone strong, not another SMASH statistic…
Was it worth losing his best friend?
He took another step towards Valentine. Payne intercepted him. “Choose,” Payne said.
Something tore open inside Paul: the faint hope he might be happy, some day. No, he didn’t like it here, playing by Payne’s rules. After all these years, he found himself back in the same situation he’d been in when Aliyah had gotten burned: working at Payne’s abeyance, sacrificing whatever he could to protect his daughter.
Payne glared, his king mask regal, unforgiving.
Paul sank to his knees.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he whispered.
Payne stood silently, letting Paul repeat himself until he could apologize without choking on the words.
Thirty-Six
Victory Poses
Aliyah didn’t miss Valentine. Did not miss her at all.
Why should she? She had all the videogames in the world. Shelves and shelves of them. All the bloody-killer games that Valentine told her a little girl shouldn’t play, a million billion systems with games to fit whatever mood she had, and Aliyah wasn’t any lonelier, because stupid Valentine wouldn’t play those videogames with her anyway. All Valentine wanted to play was the same stupid Mario games they’d bought with their money, talking about how the “lifestyle” – whatever that was – involved working for your rewards.
Then Valentine had bumped parts with some stupid boy and almost collapsed the house.
Stupid, stupid Valentine.
Rainbird had told her they were better off without Valentine; Aliyah had broken his jaw. That was what Rainbird was good for: hitting. You could hit him as much as you wanted and he’d never stop smiling.
But still, the Institute felt different without Valentine in it, even if she and Valentine hadn’t been talking much. Now everybody wanted to play with Aliyah. Mrs Vinere kept coming by with her masks, and that ori-something-mancer wanted Aliyah to help fold paper better, and they all thanked her so much for helping make their ’mancy stronger – and yet without Valentine curled up in her wrecked room, door cracked to peer out into the lobby to see Aliyah…
…it was like nobody was keeping score.
It was like Aliyah was just winning, all the time, and that was crazy.
She wanted to talk to Daddy, but Daddy was a bad idea these days. She could feel people getting mad whenever she got near Daddy – the man who’d been stupid enough to sneak that Fight-Club-o-’mancer into the Institute, the man who let drug dealers into the place. Aliyah still pretended to sleep with him until he drifted off, because she had to protect her daddy, but…
Rainbird had said her daddy was acting like an NPC, these days.
She should have hurt Rainbird for saying that, but she didn’t.
Aliyah hated this mood. She went to the racks, started yanking games at random. They were fresh from the factory – hadn’t that shrinkwrap scent brought her joy once? – and Aliyah grabbed them, shucked them, stuffed the disc into her Xbox without even looking at the label.
There should have been triumph. It was way past her bedtime, she was playing all the games, sneaking past clumsy old Daddy, and why was this not working?
She kept playing, sometimes ejecting the disc before the splash screen had finished loading, sometimes getting through the tutorial before screaming and switching t
o something else.
Then she grabbed a gift-wrapped box.
Aliyah was so used to getting gifts from Mr Payne these days that she nearly opened it reflexively. But this gift didn’t have Mr Payne’s crisp edges and neatly tied bows. This gift was sheathed in crumpled newspaper comics, taped crudely.
Aliyah weighed it in her hands.
She opened the note on it:
Don’t let your yesterdays make your tomorrows, kid.
– Valentine
Then she peeled off the paper, placing it carefully to one side.
Valentine’s last gift was, of course, a game.
Aliyah brightened. A bloody game. An older game called Watch Dogs, some Grand Theft Auto knockoff, but…
Valentine never let her play GTA.
Valentine thought Aliyah was ready for Mature games.
She hugged the disc to her chest.
Victory.
Thirty-Seven
Know Your Role
By the time they drove to Aliyah’s appointment a week later, Paul’s status was reflected in the limousine’s seating arrangement.
Payne got in first, as he always did – the Samaritan Industries’ CEO wouldn’t suffer anything else. But now Aliyah was ushered in second, the Institute’s favorite girl, and when she leaped into the car she found the week’s newest videogames, gift-wrapped and waiting.
Rainbird got in third, bumping Paul aside with his shoulder. And then Paul, almost an afterthought, slid into the back.
Aliyah still curled up next to him. She always did. But it seemed increasingly as though she stood watch out of duty. She’d been furious at the damage Valentine had done, yet paradoxically she’d resented Paul for making Aunt Valentine leave. When he’d tried to talk to her about it, she’d gotten angrier and angrier about Daddy leaving the Institute unattended, eventually getting so flustered that Payne had to promise that no, her daddy was not leaving Mr Payne’s protection.
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