How to Save the World

by Tam MacNeil

  He disappears and it gives Rak long enough to look over the nauseatingly boring selection of emails, administrivia, day-to-day junk meetings and assessment forms and requisitions. It is not why he got into security services. He wanted to do the work he could do before Chen shot out his knees. Good work, valuable work. Work that cost him too much and now he’s got a desk job with occasionally exciting evening work. He hates emails.

  Sean comes back and doesn’t say anything, just puts a folded piece of paper on his desk. “Enough?” he asks.

  Rak unfolds the paper. Inside there’s a chunk of blond hair about as thick as his index finger, bound in a rubber band. Cut, not stolen out of a brush or off a shirt or something.

  “So he’s ok with this?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rak nods. Sean doesn’t say anything else, just leaves him sitting there, staring. Rak’s computer pings softly to tell him that another email’s come in. He takes a cursory look at the inbox and frowns. Then he types an auto reply:

  We are at war with the shinigami, and we are all working on the same side. I trust each one of you to do what is right.

  Intractable problems and emergencies go to Acting Director Foley until further notice.

  Then he sends an email to Art.

  Something important has come up. Must be out of the office for a while. Trust me.

  He shuts down his computer, takes his wallet and his keys, locks up the office, for what it’s worth, and goes out into the mad, carnival, reveling streets. The phone in his back pocket buzzes and he glances at it. It’s from Art.

  Be safe.

  He puts the phone back in his pocket and starts walking.

  Twenty One

  Mad’s phone rings. “Yeah?” she asks.

  “Something’s going on with Rak.”

  It’s Art. Art talking on the phone. Mad puts the pen down and pushes the paperwork away. This is a once-a-year occasion. “Art? You ok?”

  “Yes.” She sounds irritated. Anything that keeps her on the phone longer than necessary is going to irritate her. “I need you to follow Rak. He just went cryptic. You know what that means.”

  “Trouble,” she says.

  “Security says he just left through the front door, heading south.”

  “I’m on it.” She throws her pen into the jar it came from. “What if the shinigami hit again?”

  “We’ve got Sean and Simone.”

  So, basically, they’re fucked. Sean’s great to work with, but he doesn’t work well with a lot of people, Mad’s the one exception. Simone’s a steady hand and a good shot, but she likes to do things her own way because she’s used to being smarter than everybody else. It gets old, fast, and Sean’s not the patient type. “If there’s an attack call me.”

  “Don’t let Rak get hurt.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Art hangs up without saying goodbye. Mad hangs up too. She tries not to whoop, because that would be insensitive to the other poor saps who are going to be stuck at desks all day. And she doesn’t throw all the outstanding paperwork into the shredder bin either, because she’s a conscientious kind of employee. But she does skip down the stairs.

  Rak’s easy to follow. He’s got a GPS in his phone, all of the Annex operatives do, but he’s also wearing a bright yellow shirt, which makes the GPS unnecessary just now, even in the crowd.

  She doesn’t want to tail him; Mad’s weird but she’s not creepy. She wants to catch up with him. But the crowds are pretty thick and crazy people celebrating not having died/praising death gods who passed them over one more time/begging death gods for magic powers and they aren’t exactly worried about personal space and traffic flow. It’s easier for Rak; he’s a man and he’s tall, so people just get out of his way. But Mad is petite and cute and every asshole in the world thinks she owes them a personal fuck you and they get huffy if she tries to get by without saying it.

  So when Rak ducks into the shabby little bookshop on the corner she almost misses it, and by the time she gets to the door herself, somebody’s flipped the sign and thrown the bolt. She frowns at the door and rattles the handle and squints through the hazy glass, but all she can see are stacks of books and if Rak’s in there, she can’t see him.

  Fuck this, she thinks. She steps back, almost stepping into a green-robed reveler.

  “Sorry,” she says automatically.

  “Do not be sorry! Celebrate, sister, for we are alive!”

  She rolls her eyes, looks up at the building. It’s old, early 20th century, and not quite snug against the newer building that sits beside it.

  She heads toward the alley between the buildings. There’s a gate that’s topped with razor wire but it’s just a thumb-lock and it’s easy enough to get open. She steps through. The usual assortment of reeking summertime garbage and recycling bins, a few bright tags painted on the brick, and a couple grated windows looking in on the bookshop.

  There’s a door, too, that she doesn’t notice till it opens and she hears someone grunt and sees a guy in a yellow shirt come tumbling out and go sprawling on the greasy concrete. Rak pushes himself up, gasping, touches his nose and checks his fingers for blood and while he’s doing that a guy comes out of the bookshop, short, with long blond hair, and he kicks Rak hard in the stomach. Then he winds up for another one.

  “Hey,” Mad shouts, while Rak gurgles and writhes. The guy looks at her. “Pick on someone your own size, asshole.”

  The guy stares for a minute, then he grins. “Nice,” he says, nodding at her. “You seem smart. Maybe you should keep your boyfriend away from my store.” He doesn’t wait for her to answer, which is good because she hasn’t got anything clever chambered. He goes back into the shop and closes the door behind him.

  She goes over to Rak, who’s picking himself up. His nose is bleeding a bit, not much, and his shirt is torn and dirty, but he doesn’t look hurt, not really. “You know, you got some good friends,” she tells him. He laughs, spitting blood onto his shirt as he does.

  “That guy’s not exactly a friend.”

  “I mean Art and me, dumbass.”

  He grins at her. “Yeah,” he agrees through bloodied teeth. “I guess you guys are pretty alright.”

  She holds open the gate and he follows her back out into the street. The party’s starting to wind down and the air smells weird. Teargas, somewhere a ways away, but drifting on the breeze. The police are clearing the revelers at last. “So,” she says, “Getting your ass kicked a new hobby? Because I could do that for you in the comfort of the Annex gym, you know.”

  He shrugs. “I needed something from him.”

  She frowns at him. “You get what you needed?”

  He puts his hand in his pocket and then pulls it out. He’s holding, literally, a hairball. He must have grabbed the guy’s pony tail and pulled. No wonder he was pissed off. “Yeah,” Rak says. “That should be enough.”

  “Gross,” she says. “Come on. Art’s worried about you.”

  “Can’t go back yet,” Rak says. “One more thing I gotta do.”

  “I’ve got my orders,” Mad tells him. “Art said to stick with you and not let you get hurt.”

  Rak wipes the blood off his mouth and his nose. “Oh good,” he says, “I could use a yojimbo.”

  She grins at him.

  They start walking and at first, Mad doesn’t really pay attention to where they’re going, she’s more concerned about avoiding the pepper bombs and scowling at the cultists. “So, uh, you wanna tell me what’s going on?” she asks once they clear the crowds and she realizes they’re up near Davie and Denman, heading toward the sandy side of English Bay.

  “Even if I wanted to I couldn’t,” Rak says. “I made a promise to a dude who could kill me.”

  “Wow,” Mad says, feeling a pinch of irritation because normally Sean would have at least brought her in on something that had Rak running around town getting beaten up by bookshop owners. She never imagined that Sean and Rak would get to be friends.
Sean’s a little rough for Rak, and Rak’s not patient enough. “Got something to do with Alex, I guess?”

  “Couldn’t say.”

  Doesn’t have to, it’s the only thing that’s changed in Sean’s life in a year, and it’s a pretty big change. “Funny that he didn’t tell me or Simone or Art about it, whatever it was. Boy’s club stuff?”

  “I don’t know anything about a boy’s club,” Rak says airily.

  So no. Well, Mad knows she’s Sean’s confidant, and she knows Simone is where Sean goes when he needs something for Alex, and Art is the one who Sean goes to for permission. Rak’s mostly a paper pusher since he got his knees wrecked getting footage of the pilots from SysCorp, but he’s also one of the lucky few who developed shinigami magic. Like Simone, he’s a genuine wizard. Unlike Simone, he’s not a doctor, which, considering Alex's past, is probably a bonus. She thinks she can see where this is going.

  “So,” she says, “magic stuff?”

  He shrugs. “I like magic,” he says, so she knows she's on the right track.

  She nods. Sean never struck her as the kind of guy who’d be interested in magic, so she figures he’s asking because of Alex. She doesn’t know Alex, but everything about him points back to SysCorp, or toward the shinigami. She looks at Rak and takes a guess. “So, are you mentoring a little wizard baby these days?”

  “No, I don’t have time for that.”

  Damn.

  Rak throws her a bone. “If you’re looking for a mentor you want someone who’s well-rounded and has all kinds of skills. All I can do is read the past.” He looks at her.

  “Ok,” she says, pretending to get it because she's tired of the guessing game. “Tell me about that guy, the book shop guy.”

  “Oh,” Rak smiles, “that’s Daryl Gower. Don’t be fooled, that shop’s a junk heap. He just keeps it for tax write offs. He’s a hell of a magus. Might be the best in BC.”

  “Why didn’t he just turn you into a toad or something?”

  “Come on, Mad. Why nuke a mosquito? Just because I’m Thai doesn’t mean I’m, like, Tony Jaa or something.”

  She laughs. “That you are not.”

  “Ouch. Thanks.”

  “So do you actually speak Thai?”

  “Kras̄ĕnkras̄āy,” he says, and he sounds a little hurt. “Not as much as I’d like. My folks only spoke English at home.”

  “I’ve never heard you speak it before. Does Simone like it? Does she whisper things in Finnish to you?” Rak’s face turns red. Then he stops walking and stares at her. “Oh come on,” she says. “You two are dying for each other.”

  “She doesn’t know, does she?”

  “Rak, everybody knows. The people at the sushi place know. The security guards know. The whole second floor has been calling you guys Mr. and Mrs. Boonkembe for months.”

  He puts his hand up to his face. “Oh Jesus, Jesus, no, no I don’t need this today.”

  “What? You guys are adorable. Every time you get together it’s like a science convention made of purest, weapons-grade love. Think of how smart and adorable all your little magic-babies are going to be.” For some reason this doesn’t seem to be helping, for some reason, Rak’s starting to look a little panicked. “What?”

  “I’m bad at this stuff, Mad. I’m so bad at it. I ruined a friendship this way once. I…” he stops talking, flaps his empty hands at her. “I don’t wanna lose her. What if she’s not interested in me and I’m freaking her out? I might not notice. I’m stupid about this stuff. What happens if I fuck it up and I lose her?”

  “Ok,” Mad says. “Take a deep breath. One thing at a time. Hairball magic first, anxiety-boner later. Much later.”

  She starts walking and he follows her after a moment.

  They’re nearly out of road, English Bay laps against soft, summer-warm sand, and even though the shinigami contaminate places where they’ve appeared, it’s not so bad after a while, and it’s been years since they attacked English Bay. People are lying around on towels and beach blankets and walking and jogging and rollerblading on the pavement, and there’s a lot skin on display. There’s even a couple people in the water, though nobody swims out deep to where the attack actually happened, unless they’re ghoulish.

  “Where are we going anyway?” Mad asks.

  “This’ll probably do, actually.”

  Rak drops down onto a big piece of white-weathered driftwood, made soft by sand and tide. He takes the ball of hair out of his pocket and then produces more hair, this one less a clump yanked off someone’s head and more a little bundle cut at both ends. He cups them in his hand like he’s holding a baby bird that fell from its nest.

  Mad sits down beside him. The breeze is cool and the sun is warm and it’s a perfect day to not be inside doing paperwork. She sighs and realizes she can smell the hair burning. She opens her eyes and looks at Rak who’s hands are still closed over the hairball, and stinking smoke is coming out from between his fingers.

  “Ugh, really, is that really necessary?”

  Rak frowns. He opens his hands and a little sprinkle of ash is all that’s left.

  “Huh,” he says. It’s obviously not what he expected.

  “Not going well?”

  “I’m trying to go back ten years,” he says. “I’d kinda hoped I could steal a bit of Daryl’s power, just to sort of bump start it. It might be too far for me.” Then he gasps. His back snaps straight, his head comes up.

  “Rak?” she asks. “Rak?”

  “This might have been a bad idea,” he whispers right before he faints.

  He’s standing on the beach and the moonlight is painting everything silver at the edges. Silver sand, silver waves, silver driftwood and ridges of the trash cans. The yellow moon is huge in the sky and the trees that line the walkway rattle leaves and the air smells like green things growing in the ocean and sap weeping from the trees.

  He sees the great darkness towering over the bodies in the water, the small figure walking dazedly back toward the shore. He stares, can’t reconcile the round-faced kid standing on the beach, stunned and staring and dripping wet, with the scarred up, emaciated thing that’s living in the Annex now.

  He knows he has to go back, unspool time, and that’s what he needs Darryl’s power for. He taps into it, and time moves so it’s like watching a film in reverse. The scene winds itself back and the water is empty and the beach is crowded and then the August day is burning and people are sunning themselves and talking. Then it is morning and then it is night and then…

  Then there’s a woman on the beach, not alone. A woman and a man and a thing. He stops running time backward. He watches.

  The woman and the man are edged by moonlight, but the thing is darkness and nothing shines on it. The woman is kissing the man, her eyes are closed. Together, she whispers and he hears it clearly, as if she whispers it in his ear.

  Together, the man promises. The third figure says nothing. He thinks, perhaps, they don’t know that it’s there.

  I wrote a note, the woman says. About everything. For the police. For Madeline.

  I thought we said no note.

  I want him to know. I want the police to know. I want to ruin him. My last act.

  Oh god you’re so beautiful.

  You love me?

  God I love you.

  I want to go first.

  Oh god, you’re going to do it.

  I’m going to do it.

  You’re so beautiful. Do it. Do it.

  I’m going to do it.

  I’ll follow you.

  Hurry.

  The gunshot is like thunder, she falls into the sand and the gun goes skipping out of her hand. The man goes down to her side. When he stands again, he has a piece of paper in his hand. He turns to the darkness standing there and Rak is sure he’s seen it, the unlit thing. It is waiting.

  The man puts the paper in his pocket and takes out his phone. It glows, illuminates his face in a harsh white light. Rak knows him. He’s worked for
him, worked for him years after this. Marshall dials, puts the phone to his ear.

  Ambulance. Yes, please come quick. I just saw this woman shoot herself. I think she’s dead.

  The darkness rising behind him, growing as it feeds. A siren rising over the city, getting near.

  Twenty Two

  Rak comes back by degrees. First he notices his skin is hot, then that he’s lying on sand, then that he’s lying on his side, with one arm under his head in the recovery position, like maybe he got really drunk and passed out at the beach like he’s a college student again. But that’s not it, because he’s closer to forty than twenty now and his feet are covered in blisters because he’s been walking all day in dress shoes. That’s because he’s actually working right now. Not that anyone would believe it. Except Mad. He groans and looks for her. She’s sitting on the driftwood log, looking down at him.

  “Hey hey, who's twenty percent conscious? You are!”

  He groans. “How long was I out?”

  “Ten minutes. Not long enough for the bike cops to come over and threaten to breathalyze you.”

  He sits up, brushing sand from his face and off his shirt, which is the second shirt he’s ruined today. Sometimes working with Annex is really damn expensive. “Everything ok out here?” he asks.

  Mad gives him a bemused smile. “Out here? Yeah, you know. Sun, sand and surf. You gonna tell me what you did?”

  “Kinda went back in time.”

  “So that bump start worked.”

  “Yeah.” He cradles his head a bit and hears the slow whir of tires as the bike cops go by.

  “Your friend alright miss?” one of them asks.

  “He gets like this some times,” she answers. Rak raises his head and the cop looks at him.

  “You know there was a shinigami attack here a few years ago. Some people still get upset by it. You sure he’s alright?”

  “It’s fine, officer,” Rak lies, since Mad won’t, and talking about magic can land you in yellow pajamas in a psych ward if you do it to the wrong person at the wrong time. “It’s just migraine. I get them sometimes.” The cop gives him a flat look, but he nods. He doesn’t, however, carry on, so Rak says, “Maybe we should go back to the office, Mad, what do you think?”