Ten Hours Ago
Curt flicked over the reports, making a few notes about the discrepancies between the Field report and the Combat report. The Combat report, of course, was Taylor-as-translated-by-Mags, but still bore some of the agent’s simplistic attitude.
The Field report was Stef-as-interpreted-by-hope-and-caffeine.
Stef sat next to Jones, giggling at something on the tech’s computer. Smith-run meetings were better than the ones Clarke had chaired – Clarke never let them take breaks, and even five minutes rest from discussing local Court politics was a blessing.
Magnolia slid into the chair beside him. ‘Is there any chance in hell you can get Mimosa into a dress for our affirmation celebration?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘We’re…invited?’
She gave him a sharp look. ‘Yes. Don’t make anything of it. Seriously. Think you can get her into a dress?’
‘What kind of miracle worker do you think I am?’
Magnolia sighed, then leaned back on her chair, her fingers twirling in the dog tags she’d taken to wearing around her neck. ‘You ever going to do this?’
‘Marriage?’
She nodded.
He shook his head. ‘We discussed it, and said our “I don’ts”. It’s not really- I don’t need a piece of paper and I don’t need the whole world to know, I just want her, and that’s all that’s important. And the affirmation celebration, come on, you know how she hates being the centre of attention.’
Mags swung on her chair to look at Stef. ‘She’d be cute in a dress. I still can’t believe…Yo designed her a dress and she didn’t wear it!’ there was the same kind of disbelief in Magnolia’s eyes as when Stef left a comics discussion with the techs. ‘How could she not-‘
‘Everyone back in your seats,’ Smith said as he walked back into the room.
Mags shrugged, and walked down the table.
Someone fell to the floor.
Curt looked up, his brain trying to take in all the detail at once. Ryan and Jones were slumped on the table; Smith had fallen sideways, taking a chair with him, Taylor and Stef were nowhere to be seen.
Mags looked back at him, her knife already in her hand. ‘It’s not gas, we’d be down to, get us masks anyway.’
One question arrested his mind. ‘Are they dead?’
She lifted a hand and pointed back at Ryan. ‘No, look, he’s breathing.’
He was on his feet in a second, gas masks appearing in his hands. He tossed on to Magnolia as he hurried up the length of the table towards her, a new gun appearing in his spare hand.
He pulled the mask over his head, checked his gun, then looked down to where Taylor had fallen onto the ground. Beneath him were a tiny pair of dirty shoes. The witch under Dorothy’s house.
‘Help me roll him,’ Magnolia said as she gripped his shoulders, and they moved him from on top of Stef.
He lifted Stef as soon as she was free, and laid her on the table. Breathing. She was still breathing. She was ok. He checked her vitals – she seemed fine. Steady heartbeat. It was still weird that she had a heartbeat. Still a treat to watch her pressing her hands to her chest, and the look of simple joy of something that was so ordinary for everyone else.
She was relaxed, calm. She looked like she was sleeping.
He squeezed her hand, kissed her cheek, then looked down at Mags. ‘How’s he?’
‘Asleep,’ she said slowly. ‘He’s just asleep. What the fuck?’
‘Mags, I think-‘
She held up a hand. ‘I know everything you could want to say. I know. Lockdown is obvious. Lockdown will incite panic. Give me your phone.’
He pulled it from his pocket and tossed it across. ‘Who are you calling?’
‘I’m seeing it’s just us.’ She dialled a number. ‘Don. Give me Darren’s condition, right now.’ There was a pause, and her face twisted. ‘Hurry.’ Pause. ‘Go into lockdown.’ She hung up. ‘It’s not just us. Darren and Adelaide are down.’
The meeting room door burst in. Raz, his face flush with fear looked around. ‘It’s us too? All the- It’s all-‘ There was almost a record scratch as the tech looked at Curt. ‘But Agent C, you’re okay- But you’re-‘
He couldn’t take the confusion and near heartbreak on the recruit’s face. He moved quickly around the table, drew himself up as tall as he could and looked down. ‘Recruit, stand to and give me your report.’
‘It’s all over the chat,’ Raz said, ‘every agent, in all the Agencies, everyone’s down, sir.’ Raz slumped a little. ‘But you’re not.’
Raz was ten years older than he was, but never seemed it. ‘Recruit,’ he said, imitating Ryan’s voice as much as he could. ‘What makes you think it’s attacking all non-standard types?’
Raz pointed. ‘Spyder’s down, and she’s on the freak list.’
Mags stepped between them. ‘I’m locking us down. Anyone going to argue with my orders?’
‘No ma’am,’ Curt said in unison with Raz.
There were noises from within the building as it moved towards its lockdown state. The walls got thicker, the glass grew reinforcements, proper plumbing and water tanks appeared.
Mags turned. ‘I’m going to station my people around the Agency and prep us for an emergency, we still have rooms of supplies from all that phoenix shit. O’Connor, go to the techs, you’re replacement Jones, name a crew, and start collating information. The system still seems to be working, stay on channel. Get someone to check on the Parkers, Natalie, and Applebaum, and bring them here. I’ve got people with second-level first aid, so we’ll set up the usual precautions, but get techs down here to be scanning.’
‘What do you think this is?’
She looked at him, black eyes intense. ‘It’s something that took down every agent, seemingly simultaneously, without setting off one alarm, and didn’t kill them. I’m hoping for benign and preparing for war.’
‘What about the Field guys?’
‘You’re their Aide, you worry about them.’
He nodded, then followed Raz out into the corridor. It was easy to take a simplistic view of the recruit types: the jocks, the nerds and the rest. Life, being life, was never really so cut-and-dry. The recruits did tend to stick with their own groups, just like departments in any other workplace, and passing impressions did leave certain ideas in your head.
Combat recruits were easy to ignore – they tended not to come up to the Field floor much, except when there were guy’s nights watching football in one of the larger common rooms – something that was safer to do than on the Combat floor. Techs were easy enough to get along with – even if he wasn’t as comfortable being out about his nerdiness, and getting along with them had become a necessity because of his newbie.
Field recruits on the mythical third hand. Field recruits tended to shun him, to exclude him, and to ignore his authority and delegation, despite being the Aide of one Field agent, and the partner of the other.
She was fine. She was going to be fine. Phoenix fire hadn’t taken her away. Cold blooded murder hadn’t taken her away. Her own problems hadn’t taken her away.
She was going to be fine.
There was no mirror anymore.
‘Why are we in lockdown?’ The living wall that was Red had appeared without sound.
Curt looked at the tall recruit. ‘Between you and me, we might be fucked, but we don’t know yet. Just gather everyone up and take them into the auditorium on eight, ok? Actually, post two people down in the garage, and make sure no one tries to leave. And get me a list of people who aren’t in the building, I have to organise the techs, then I’ll be back down.’
Red nodded. ‘I can do that.’
Curt urged Raz towards the elevator. ‘We’ve got no agents, have we got any way to shift people around? If this is everywhere, it might be a good idea to bring the outposts in, this building is more defensible than the Outposts.’
‘Isn’t that all our eggs, Agent C?’
‘I think it’s the lesser of two evils,’ Curt said as they stepped into the lift. ‘If this is every agent…then by every deaf god, we are fucked. This is an opportunity like the Solstice have never had. There’s recruits, fine, some of us are even good at what we do, but come on…be honest, we need the agents.’ The doors opened. ‘How many agents have collapsed on the street? How many were fighting Solstice, or fae, or worse? How many have now been dragged into blackouts, murdered, taken to a meat market? Twitter can move faster than an earthquake, it’s not going to take long for opportunists to start taking advantage of this situation.’ He slumped, not used to impromptu speeches. ‘We can hold out longer here than anyone else. This is the Agency, we look after our own.’
Raz hugged him, his face ending up in Curt’s armpit. ‘I’m scared.’
There were a hundred quips he could use. A hundred bits of half-true wisdom. ‘I am too.’
Raz pulled his face away, stood on his tiptoes, and kissed Curt on the cheek. ‘It’s a thing to have a crush on an agent, mine’s on you.’ Raz turned, and dramatically kicked in the door. ‘Command centre, sir!’
They had more techs than any other kind of recruit, and all of them were jammed in the room – three or more to each desk, around the edges of the room, on the benches. All stared at computers, phones, tablets.
The large screens at the front of the room all scrolled information. Some looked like live chat feeds, others flashed brain scans and maps. One at the top right showed two numbers: Missing: 8700; Dead: 978.
Screen stood at the front of the room, pointing at the monitors, conducting them like a symphony. Raz rushed forward, and grabbed her arm.
‘You’re an insufficient cavalry,’ she commented. ‘All of ours too?’
‘Yeah. Have you got people checking on the other staff?’
‘I sent runners,’ she said. ‘Where are we going to keep them?’
‘Everyone else is in the conference room.’
‘That’ll work unless we pull the Outposts in.’
‘You were thinking that too?’
‘We bring them in, so say all of us.’
‘Do we have any capacity to shift, or are we going to send taxis?’
‘Some can come through the library,’ Screen said, ‘but the consensus is that everyone needs to be in an Agency in their own local network, we’re not using the library as a triage centre.’ She paused. ‘Not yet, anyway. If things go to even more shit then-’
A question occurred to him. ‘Where is the library? Not- Don’t tell me it’s down the hall, so is the infirmary. If the system goes down, the infirmary is upstairs; if the system goes down, where’s the library?’
Raz turned around. ‘Fairyland. Well-’ His face scrunched. ‘Well, it opens out to Fairyland. The space that it occupies is like the tech used for the stairs, so it’s sort of nowhere. It was the second generation Marches program, when the open-world stuff didn’t work out so well, but the closed-circuit one was ok.’
Curt let this process. ‘Ok, but that didn’t answer my question. Shifting – can we, or can’t we?’
‘There’s a couple of ways to do it through emergency protocols, but without the Agents, yeah, difficult.’
He nodded. ‘Get the staff and family lists for everyone in the network, and see where our people are.’
Curt slid a hand into his pocket, required a cookie, held it for a moment, then nodded at the techs. What Mags had said was probably the best attitude to have. ‘Hope for benign, prepare for war. You’ve got scenarios for this, enact them. If you want to run around in post-apocalyptic cosplay, I don’t care, we’ve got to protect our people, and we’ve got to figure out what’s going on.’
I did search but not found Darren
…in Caboolture, which is a town north of Brisbane. It’s the Agency where Mags grew up (well, like ages 9-15), and where her dad (Donald) works as an Aide himself.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I just realised what your question actually was.
Darren and Adelaide are both agents (yeah, confusingly, Adelaide is a name as well as a city).
Assuming this was real, in a post Stef/Curt, post Mags/Taylor world, where’s Merlin? Still a tree? He seems like exactly the kind of powerhouse you would want around if you found yourself sans agents. Conversely, he’s the very last person you want freaking out. And he might.
…Merlin in the next chapter.
But if it can, then I can make a couple speculations. (I’ve not read Sandman, so will completely miss any clues given in titles.)
Okay, so something struck down every Agent simultaneously. We don’t yet know what that something is.
Agents appear to be locked in dream states in which they’re experiencing whatever the worst thing imaginable for them is. That’s based on a sample of two, but it seems reasonable to be able to generalize from there.
Taylor and Stef have escaped the dream state . . . kind of. They don’t exactly seem to be back in the real world, either. Can they break other Agents out? Can they reconnect with the recruits in the real world? We don’t yet know. The dream states must have some kind of objective reality–or at least some interconnection–since Taylor was able to leave his own and enter Stef’s.
Taylor and Stef vanished, presumeably because they escaped the dream state. But they vanished simultaneously with Ryan, et al, collapsing, even though they didn’t both escape the dream state at the same time. This might indicate that Ryan and the others don’t get broken free of the dream, at least not the same way Taylor and Stef did.
But those 8700 missing Agents . . how many of them might have broken free? Granted, most of them are probably “missing” in a more mudane fashion.
On the other hand . . . “every Agent simultaneously collapses; Stef vanishes in thin air” might be “the worst thing imaginable” for Curt.
I have no idea how this might tie in with Curt showing up as soon as Stef falls asleep.
There’s no additional clues from Sandman – I’m not so imaginative, I just wanted to steal the titles to give a little clue as to the dreamland thing.
Okay, so something struck down every Agent simultaneously. We don’t yet know what that something is.
All I can say is: what struck them down, and how it’s struck them down are inextricably linked.
That’s based on a sample of two, but it seems reasonable to be able to generalize from there.
Completely reasonable, and true. Every agent is experiencing their worst nightmare.
Taylor and Stef have escaped the dream state . . . kind of.
It’s not precisely an escape, it’s that they’ve sobered up from the nightmare element, they’re still stuck in dreamland, but they know it’s not real (you’ll notice how Stef’s thoughts become more coherent and back to normal over the course of her chapters).
Can they break other Agents out?
Yes, they can sober them up. Quickest way, as Taylor has proved, is to kill them, it provides a shock to the system, but there are other ways.
Can they reconnect with the recruits in the real world?
Stay tuned.
The dream states must have some kind of objective reality–or at least some interconnection–since Taylor was able to leave his own and enter Stef’s.
Yup, and they’re…locationally relative, I think I can put it like that – the dream spaces are patchworked together depending on where the agent was in the real world – Stef and Taylor were right next to each other, because he fell onto her when everyone went unconscious – it also means that our other agents are the ones they’re likely to encounter next.
Taylor and Stef vanished, presumeably because they escaped the dream state.
I might have worded it badly. Ryan and Jonesy collapsed onto the table because they were sitting at the table. Stef, Taylor and Smith fell to the floor (and Taylor fell on Stef – which we see when Mags rolls Taylor over).
Granted, most of them are probably “missing” in a more mudane fashion.
This is basically the number of agents who weren’t in an Agency at the time – this number will go down as they’re moved to either “found” or “dead”.
I have no idea how this might tie in with Curt showing up as soon as Stef falls asleep.
Stay tuned.
Okay, I missed a couple important sentences. Nevermind on the vanishing, therefore can’t wake up those still present thing.
to clarify the counter, if an agent is missing, then dies while missing, do they know the agent is dead? even if they were killed in a blackout?
Well, if this is Real-Reality it seems that Mags is actually worming up a bit towards Stef. I’m somewhat surprised, though it seems to have something to do with the kind of “survivor camaraderie” Mags’s got with Curt.
Interesting.
And Raz has a crush on Agent C? So cute 😀
worming = warming
*blush*
i was going to say, have you read the april fools slashfic Stormy did? she was worming up to her as well, hubba hubba.
Nope. Where can I find it?
http://requirecookie.com/glitchworlds/1-player/
I do need to write the sequel to that at some point…I was actually discussing that last night…
yes please.
//And Raz has a crush on Agent C? So cute :D//
Raz is just generally adorable – I love his recruitment story a lot, and I should probably write it at some point.
And… my running theory is that this has something to do with Reynolds being asleep. I’m right, right? 🙂
Ok. Read chapter 6.
*Takes off his Captain Obvious hat*
Leave the hat on, it was cunning!
Leaky, regarding 2 Player. I’m writing that, that’s already been decided.
…do I then go nuts and do Player 3?
Hmm, now I wonder who player 3 is?
Stormy says “Taylor”
thats what I was afraid of.
Oh come now, can’t you imagine it. Mags and Stef fucking on the gym floor, Taylor walks in, growls, and Mags offers to let him join in…
Yes, Stef is all quivery upset, mags requires a strap on, and she and taylor Eiffel tower her. Stef makes some comment about hating the Eiffel tower when she last visited, and mags and taylor high five, time stop on the slap .