Live and Let Fly

by Karina Fabian

  I snatched up a thigh, chewed and swallowed. "I'm sorry. You handle the magic; I take the tech. I thought she'd have had some kind of code—"

  "She may have. There are some references to events I didn't get. She was being very careful, Vern."

  I thought about the last few hours of sitting with McGrue, listening to monitors that marched a rhythm between life and death. "Not careful enough."

  * * * *

  After dinner, I loaded up McGrue's CD and listened to it. Good thing dragons don't blush.

  Most of it was sappy and trite. Even after two years, she still thought about us; she hated how I’d wormed my way into her heart. (She emphasized wormed, making me think she was trying to be clever. "Wyrmed your way." Eesh.)

  "Vern, I know I made jokes and snide comments, but if you'd listen past all that, you'd know what I really mean to say, that I—" A theatrical sigh.

  I was about to turn it off and wait until my dinner was more digested before going on, but track four was a song by one of my favorite bands. How much harm could that be?

  Then I heard her voice, overlaid on the song and her schmaltzy narration, but at a pitch not even dogs would hear. "Thoroughly embarrassed yet? You'd better be glad you're not human anymore. I know I am, in more ways than one. Listen, I know someone in McThing Industries kidnapped Rhoda, but you're probably onto that. I think she's found out something she shouldn't.

  She and her boyfriend like to play spy when she's not in front of the camera, did you know that?"

  I thought about the neat double back-flip they did at the McThing hideout. I knew now.

  "I'm sure there's a tie-in to the Gates murder. I just haven't found it yet; and, if you're listening to this, it means I'm dead. Do me a favor and don't say, 'I told you so.' I've loaded everything I have onto this disk. Hope you have some good steganography software; otherwise, go ask those nuns of St. Censorship or whatever it's called. At any rate, when you find these jerks, do me a favor and breathe fire in their faces for me, okay? Now, for the four-one-one..."

  While I listened to her rather self-aggrandizing story of her investigation, I pulled up StegoFae. There were no "nuns of St. Censorship," but there was a secular and religious cooperative dedicated to screening information that came into Faerie. Unlike the Mundane, Faerie has a little different attitude on free speech, especially when it comes to the stuff you Mundanes spout. The Faerie learned early on that Mundanes harbored ideas that in our universe were seditious, heretical, or both. Did I say, "harbor"? In America, you can't keep an idea in port for long, thanks to a media that's ready and willing to pounce on any fact or factoid, news or rumor, theory or theology, and set it asail. Most Faerie can't handle the information overload, which is why so few stay on this side of the Gap, and those who do generally manage without television and radio, with its audio and visual barrage of information and misinformation.

  Of course there are exceptions. My dragon brain can handle plenty of input. Coyote is a big fan of reality TV—why am I not surprised?—and Athena? She's in heaven on earth.

  The majority of Faerie, human and otherwise, believe the Mundane race is horribly and pitiably drowning in its confusion of information. Even more, we don't want that sea of confusion overflowing our world.

  Not that we're going to dictate to your dimension how to run your affairs. We just hold a philosophy along the lines of "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." And to the authorities of Faerie, our nose begins at the Gap.

  Almost from the beginning, we kept a strong control on what goes into Faerie, including information. It's not that we don't believe in exploring new ideas, but we believe there's a time and a place—like a serious informed discussion among educated peers rather than a one-sided ranting among the innocents in the street.

  And leaflets! At first, people loved them but just because colored paper was such a novelty. I know the Duchess for years kept a collection and sent letters to her relatives written on the backs of flyers for everything from real estate to Mundane political candidates. Duchess Elaine never looked particularly closely at the printed side of the papers, and her unfortunate choices of stationary alternately amused, embarrassed, or offended the recipient. The last straw however, was when she sent the Archbishop of Canterbury a newsy letter written on the back of a photocopied anti-Catholic tract calling the Eucharist a "death cookie." After that, things tightened up.

  Of course, the more the Faerie said, "We won't allow that," the more determined Mundanes were about sneaking it over. Then, after seven years of intense negotiations, the Interdimensional Internet was approved, and now we really have our hands full.

  Of course, one reason Faerie stalled so long in approving such an invasion—yes, some folks call it an invasion—of Faerie space was to make sure we were ready for it. And that included gathering a team of highly skilled programmers, including Yours Truly, Jerry's brother Manuel, and a quite talented Griffin who goes by the name of Brock: the developers of StegoFae, a neat little program for lifting images and messages hidden inside a picture, video or other message.

  It didn't take long to find Kitty's hidden images, which included receipts, tax papers, some B &W photos of people loading things into trucks, transcripts of conversations that I didn't want to know how she got, and other papers that would make BILE drool. She'd probably make the Washington Investigator drool, for that matter. This was Pulitzer-prize evidence.

  Too bad she totally missed the big conspiracy.

  Half an hour later, I was snorting and chuckling loud enough Grace removed her headphones and turned to give me a scathing look. "I'm glad you find her so amusing," she said.

  It took me a moment to realize she was talking about the relationship narrative, not the real information. I'd tuned that blathering out long ago.

  "No. That's just a cover. The real message was hidden on another frequency. Just like she'd hidden all this."

  Grace sat on the floor next to me where she could see my computer. Soon, she was leaning forward, one hand pressed against her mouth while the other hit the key for the next page. She shook her head. "How does she do it?"

  I shifted my wings in a shrug. "She has talent. Plus a team of researchers and a budget that doesn't make even the most desperate informant spit out his beer laughing. Of course, she thinks the whole thing is about building a secret factory in Faerie where they can use peasants as slave labor and evade U.S. tax laws."

  "As if the Duke would allow that."

  "I know. Although apparently, McThing has contacts in Scandanavia." I pulled up a transcript of a phone conversation I knew had have been bought from an illegal source.

  "'Panda Bearyoo?' What's that?" Grace asked.

  "No idea, but this guy sounds anxious to see one."

  "I wonder if he means, 'Bhandar Baru.' McThing planned to send a lot of his minions there."

  "He did? And the brownies considered that part of an evil overlord plot to take over the world?"

  "No, silly. There was a flyer about it on the bulletin board in the computer room. I remembered because it had a guy in full McThing uniform standing in the tropics giving a thumbs up while two girls in grass skirts hung on his arms. Supposed to be a motivational week."

  I sighed. Humans.

  "What do we know about Bhandar Baru?"

  A few minutes on the Internet gave us our information. A small island on the Indian Ocean, located just below the Tropic of Capricorn on the eightieth longitude line, Bhandar Baru sits far enough from the major currents that it manages to catch stray ships while never becoming an important seaport. Thus, it maintained a small and isolated population. Even at the height of piracy, pirates stayed away from the rustic volcanic island, which is surrounded by shallow, reefy waters that make for great snorkeling and terrible docking. Even the modern-day Somali pirates have ignored it for the most part; and if they're stupid enough to take on an Indian battleship with a fishing trawler and a couple of rocket-propelled grenades and think they'll win, that
's saying something about this island.

  It had some brief encounters with the Western World: the Brits during their Imperial Era; a lost ship or two during World War II. However, it wasn't until the tsunami from a decade or so back that Bhandar Baru got noticed. The floods and sheer force of the waves decimated many of the coastal towns, and aid from America, Australia, and elsewhere flowed in, along with Western ideas. The otherwise placid and untouched beaches and tropical weather made it an ideal vacation resort. After the rescue-and-rebuild crews came in and set up the basic infrastructure—

  including a passable airfield—hotel chains and other entrepreneurs followed. With five pleasure resorts, powered, interestingly enough, by an Environmentally Friendly Nuclear subcritical nuclear reactor, it had become "the playground of the wealthy without the shadow of the politics of oil" according to a review on Island Getaway. The Bhandarbaruans welcomed the tourists and the prosperity they brought. They also welcomed the Christian religion. Within a year, nearly every village had Catholic parishes and churches of several Protestant faiths. The Missionaries of Charity had had a group there, but the relative wealth of the inhabitants grew in a remarkably homogeneous way. They left the island to the Christian Brothers, who established several successful Catholic schools.

  For the next decade, Bhandar Baru pretty much fell off the world's radar again, except as a famous resort catering mostly to the singles crowd. Then the volcano started getting active, and vacationers started thinking, "Maybe Maui this year." So did a lot of investors and a good chunk of the inhabitants. What was left was a small core of natives planning to milk the tourist trade for all they could before quitting the island, the elderly who refused to leave their homes or the ones too stupid or arrogant to believe a volcano would ever erupt on them.

  The Island has again changed personalities, drawing a wilder but richer crowd hungry for danger and excitement and thinking they'll fill that need by dancing beneath the light of an active and angry volcano, we read in a Christian Brothers' newsletter. Even worse, most of the Christ-loving among the population have moved to calmer homes, and a significant number of the remaining inhabitants have returned to a fierce and extravagant worship of Apikewa, the god of fire and death. We brothers have been politely but firmly expelled from the city and not allowed to return on ceremony nights. (We've tried to sneak in to gain more information but have been invariably identified with disturbing speed.) However, second-hand reports tell of hedonistic displays, fertility rituals, and most recently, the performance of "miracles."

  "Miracles? Or magic? Halfway around the Mundane world." Grace crossed herself, and leaned her face onto prayer-folded hands.

  I let her be a minute; then bumped her shoulder with my cheek. "Come on. You go call your Order then Mordash. I'll fire up Power Point."

  * * * *

  Mordash sat forward in his chair in the briefing room. "Where did you get this information?" he demanded.

  We were all together again. The Duke had paid for some expensive magical healing for Charlie, and even though he occasionally rubbed his shoulder, he didn't have any bandages and seemed perfectly comfortable back in his shockingly orange and green uniform.

  This time I was Power Point King. My slides, however, had only the important pieces of the information in legible format. I didn't skimp on the bells and whistles and fancy graphic tricks, though. I've got a competitive streak.

  I started to ask how much it was worth to him, but a warning glare from Grace stopped me. "This is one source we need to keep confidential," I said.

  "For her safety?" Rak asked.

  "Or his," Grace replied neutrally.

  "Or its," I added. "Faerie also has hermaphrodite and genderless species, you know.

  What's more important is that we have independent confirmation by separate sources—including open sources." See how good I was at talking Intel? Use the source, Vern. The source is with you.

  Rak shifted in his seat. "It does coincide with our information, both the McThing files your brownie friends collected for us and the chartered flight out of Ocra-Butte County airport."

  He pulled up a stock image of a Gulfstream G550 with the McThing logo. "Based in Idaho Falls, it flew in about half an hour after your escape. Ground crew did their thing and was asked to vacate the premises. A helicopter landed shortly thereafter, and passengers transferred to the plane unassisted by outsiders, but one of the employees says he thought he saw someone carried in. Logged flight plans for LAX and took off as soon as it got clearance. We traced it to Sumatra and lost it there."

  "How do you lose a plane?" I asked.

  "It's not as hard as it looks," Rak replied. He grinned, but I failed to see the joke. "At any rate, give you twenty to one I know where it's gone."

  "Sounds like your jurisdiction," Calloway said. He seemed pretty relieved. "Think he's going there for a miracle healing?"

  "That or he has contacts. Guess who owns four of the seven resorts there? Frank Li Enterprises, one of the major customers of McT-A."

  "Animatronics?" I groaned. Animatronics were ranking right up there with zombies as things I despise most.

  "It's through several puppet companies and front corporations, of course, but follow the money, and you find the connection."

  "Why are you so happy about this?" I demanded. He reminded me of Coyote, drool and all.

  "Not happy. Just excited. I like going on assignment abroad. Charlie's going, too, of course. What about you, Sister?"

  Grace glanced at her lap. I didn't need to see her hands to know they were shaking. "Have I any choice? It's not like we have some kind of magic sensor you can take with you to check. At least not yet. We're working on it. However, for now, someone needs to go and check things out in person. So Vern and I will—"

  Rak exploded with laughter. "Vern? On an undercover mission? No offense, but you don’t exactly blend in with the native population. Anywhere."

  "I can fix that," Grace said. This time, she was studying her fingernails with nervous intensity.

  "You can?" five voices, mine included, asked in unison.

  "It's a spell I've been working on for some time now, but— " She broke off and looked at me. "We need to discuss it."

  "You're not going without me. There's nothing to discuss."

  Chapter Fourteen: Naked Came I!

  "Maybe we should discuss this some more," I said.

  I was crammed into our tiny bathroom, trying hard not to step on my tail or knock down a wall in my nervousness. Hanging off the shower curtain rod were two sets of clothes, including underwear. One guy's set, one girl's set. Socks and shoes waited by the tub.

  I looked in the mirror at my beautiful, scaled face. My wings flared, rattling the clothes hangers on one end and upsetting Grace's toothbrush and cup with the other.

  From the other side of the closed door, Grace said, "We don't have to do this."

  "No. No, it's okay. It's the only way I can go with you. Just—" A small moan of helplessness escaped my throat. "We can reverse this, right?"

  "I taught you the tap codes. You have them down perfect. You control this, Vern. I promise. I don't want you to stay human any more than you do. Ready?"

  I nodded at the mirror and forced my voice to portray a reassurance I didn't feel. "Ready."

  Eighth...two sixteenths, eighth, quarter, eighth, eighth, eighth. Eighth...two sixteenths, eighth, quarter, eighth, eighth, eighth. Eighth...two sixteenths, eighth, quarter, eighth, eighth, eighth...

  "I don't think it's working." I didn't know if I was disappointed or relieved.

  "Keep going. Don't break rhythm. This is an unusual spell. You have to let it get into you."

  Eighth...two sixteenths, eighth, quarter, eighth, eighth, eighth. I started tapping with claws on all four limbs.

  "You know, I don't really like that idea."

  "You don't have to go."

  "No. I'm fine. But I don't think it's—ergh!"

  Suddenly, my whole body heated up and got
all...gooey. Then I felt like I was being forced into a trash compactor, or maybe a mold that was too small.

  "Vern?"

  I got heavy, boulder heavy, and fell to the ground. I didn't understand how I could make crashing sounds when I was so much flubber. After what seemed an eternity, I started feeling a little more solid, but lighter, which panicked me, or would have if I weren't so distracted by being gelatinous.

  I wanted to call out. I really did, but my vocal cords were wobbly and way too short. I could only make an odd gurgle.

  "Vern!"

  Then it ended, and I was on human hands and knees, panting and fighting the urge to throw up on the bathroom floor.

  "Vern!" Grace banged on the door.

  "I'm fine!" I panted and when the banging continued, tried again; but that one ended in a squeak, so I cleared my throat and called out for a third time. "I'm fine!"

  Nice voice. Tenor with an Irish lilt.

  And familiar.

  "Oh, no." I rose slowly, dreading what I thought I'd see.

  My scarlet and black scaling had transformed into thick, wavy hair the color of black cherries and perfect skin. My amber eyes mellowed to a golden brown. My teeth? Perfect, just as I'd suspected.

  I screamed.

  "What? What?"

  "My face! It's the same face!" I looked down and gulped. "And the same body! Grace!

  I'm the same human I was when I got cursed!" I looked into the mirror, saw my human face twisted in horror. That expression was familiar, too.

  "No, you're not. Now, calm down." Grace spoke sternly from behind the door, the same tone Rosa used on her kids when they wailed over a skinned knee. Just like the kids, I wanted to wail harder.

  "The evidence is staring me in the face! This is a sick joke, Grace. What could you have possibly been thinking..." My voice trailed off as a new thought struck me. I spun away from the mirror and fought to catch my breath.