Ryan stared at the hunk of mirror in his recruit’s chest and the slowly dying daylight that reflected off of it. The sunlight caught on the surface of the mirror and swirled across it in ways that certainly weren’t natural, beautiful and mesmerising for certain, but not natural.
It was one of the myths told about the world that that sparkles of sunlight that fell of a mirror, manifesting if only for the briefest of times was where Starbright came from. It was incorrect, and most people knew that, but it was still a nice story. Sometimes the world just needed nice stories, just to beat back the harshness of reality.
Thinking of Starbright in terms of its appearance, of its sparkle and mass of rainbow colours distracted one from thinking about its inextricable link to dead children. He sighed as the guilt returned, it had disappeared for a moment, but there was it again – as real and aching as when he’d found her on the roof, as when he’d seen her blood staining the bags of ice, or when he’d held her tiny dead body.
He shook his head, trying to distance himself from the guilt, reminding himself that everything – for the most part – had worked out for the best. If she’d been younger the first time, young enough to become one of the Starbright children, then she would not have experienced any of the pain that her life had brought her, and it would not have led to her dying alone. She would have had a year of innocence, of fun, of everything a child could hope for.
Everything a child could hope for…but it was by no means a full life. And here he was, cheating her of a full life again, even if- Even when she woke up, things weren’t going to be easy.
The last vestiges of sunlight died away, and he moved away from the body and closed the curtains, closing off the small bedroom from the dangers of the night. He required the light on, his eyes adjusting immediately to the change. He held his breath though – every time he turned on the light, or made some other seemingly insignificant change, he expected her to wake up, to sit up and say something that he barely understood, or to give him the strange look she gave him when she worked out something about the world.
Daylight was bad enough, but under the harsh scrutiny of an incandescent bulb, she looked far more like the corpse that she was. In the daylight, it was easy enough to imagine that she was just sleeping – or in a coma. The judgment of the light bulb left no room for those weak imaginings. Greyness had slipped into her skin tone, just a tinge, but it was enough to set it apart from the normal pale hacker pallor. He hadn’t expected it, and it did nothing but worry him further, if that had happened, then it couldn’t be too long before rigor set in, or until she began to rot, or until it was time to stop fooling himself and let her go.
He sat on the edge of the bed and checked her vitals again. He’d moved from doing ten-minute checks of her life signs to half an hour checks, from there to hourly checks, until where he was now, checks only every two hours. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t let the checks get any more infrequent than that, he wasn’t going to let himself forget that he was looking after a person, not guarding a corpse.
He slowly pushed one of her eyes open and flicked a penlight across it; there was no reaction, and he closed the eye again – he alternated on which eye he checked, just in case one was damaged, or one was being taken as payment for bringing her back. There was no breath, no air circulated through her lungs, and none escaped her mouth. He kept his fingers against her neck for five solid minutes, just on the off-chance that the suspension had slowed her pulse down that far.
Sitting so close to her, he couldn’t help but look at the heart – a warped reflection stared back at him, occasionally making movement that he did not. She hadn’t begun to rot – that was the only positive element that he could glean from the situation. Whatever was keeping her suspended was keeping her body from falling apart while its life force was missing. It was free of rigor mortis as well, though he had a nagging worry about muscle wastage.
There was no smell, aside from the “hacker funk” that seemed to seemed to pervade the apartment, just as it did the tech department.
He stepped away, sat at the desk’s new chair and leaned his head back. He dropped into communication mode, then opened up his mainframe access. Sparks of blue and white swam in his vision as his muted view of Stef’s apartment disappeared. He blinked to readjust his vision – now he could see all of the crystallised files floating around him. He wasn’t used to it – he rarely had to access the knowledge of the collective unconscious – normal file searches were enough, or were easily found.
‘Mirrors,’ he said aloud.
The files spun, then a few broke free of their companions and fell down to his eye level.
‘Mortals animated by mirrors,’ he specified. Two of the five folders remained, the others dissipated and reappeared in the “sky” high above him.
He opened the one on his left and stepped back. The image of a tall agent, wearing a suit that was at the height of its fashion a few hundred years ago, paced back and forth for a moment, then stared straight ahead.
‘As previously reported, we lost the mirror. There was a storm, we were outnumbered. We lost the whole thing. Some halfbreed fae captured it. They created a warrior. It was…powerful. It killed half a dozen agents. Completely destroyed them. There’s nothing to be recycled, no memories to be had.’
He scrolled through the file, and the image stopped and started accordingly. It wasn’t what he needed.
‘Require: physical copy of file, discard from current search.’
He opened the file directly in front of him. A pretty young woman appeared in front of him. ‘Aide Anne-Marie, filing report in place of Agent Lambeau. As has been reported, Agent Lambeau confiscated a piece of mirror from an evidence locker and used it to wake his sick wife from a fae-induced coma. This would not have warranted as severe punishment as was given, had it worked properly. He was not careful in his commands, and woke up more than her lost mind. It copied over memories and languages from the dead world – Micerin – and this drew leeches to her.’
The image of the Aide hesitated for a moment before continuing. ‘Micerin was an advanced world – approximately relative plus three, so we had a number of leeches. Fortunately, void mutations rendered most of them…easily dealt with. The leeches believed Mrs Lambeau to be an incarnation of their world’s god, and agreed to follow her. An operation was planned, and they were all destroyed, and Agent Lambeau recycled. Several sections of mirror were recovered from Mrs Lambeau and placed in deep storage, in case there were repercussions. Only myself and the director know this, as well as the agents who have accessed this file, total now: forty-seven. Your access date has been recorded. Further information can be found in this file’s attachments.’
‘Require: physical copy of file, discard from current search.’
He opened the third file. A glassy-eyed tech agent stared out into the mainframe. ‘The following is a compilation of information gathered from Solstice sources and raids. It deals with their experiments with the mirrors. This file is best viewed in physical format, because as lovely as my voice is, most of it is charts and dates. It’s worth noting, however, that to our knowledge, none of these experiments were successful. Peace out.’
‘Require: physical copy of file and all attachments. End search.’
He concentrated and exited the mainframe, and surfaced from communication mode. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the body as he shook his head. ‘Sorry, Stef.’ Standing, he glanced briefly at the tall stack of reports on the desk – it would at the least give him an excuse to avoid Emma – research for a future mirrorfall so that he could do a “better job”.
Looking back down at Stef, and knew what had to be done. He rounded the bed, bent down and pulled her up into a sitting position, he required more pillows so and rested her back against them. He finished unbuttoning her shirt and vest, dropping them to the side of the bed. He required a wet washcloth and wiped away the obvious dirt and dust. He cleaned the cuts on her hands, and bandaged them – presumably, they’d begin to heal when she woke up. If she woke up. When she woke up.
He required another washcloth and dabbed at the fresh scar – where she’d been stabbed. It was true that those who had died and come back often sought the peace and clarity again, and that it was rarely a good idea for them to take on “dangerous” jobs, since they would find themselves accident-prone or in situations that others would have escaped.
He ran a finger over the scar. It didn’t stand out against the others, just another in the collection. It was different from the other thought, she’d done it for him. She had willingly placed herself in a position to be injured – or killed – just to protect him. He was an agent, he was supposed to be the protector, and he’d laid prone whilst she had put her life on the line, he’d shown his cowardice, and for that, he was ashamed. He could have fought, even with a bullet in his lung, it would have been a short and pointless fight, and it mostly certainly would have led to his death, but he could have done it. He should have done it.
He’d been selfish, he had taken her, despite her test scores being that of a tech recruit. She’d remembered him, against all odds, she’d remembered him. She was living- She had been living proof that something that he had done something good. She also hadn’t been afraid of him, she hadn’t listened to the other recruits, when they’d said he was unstable.
All the recruits feared Taylor – but that was his intent, and made no protestations. He liked recruits to be scared of him, he felt that it kept them in line. Jones…well, it was hard for them to be seen as scary, and Jones loved the recruits – befriending them, and treating them as equals.
His recruits, however, saw him as far too serious, far too severe. They heard the rumours and expounded on them, no matter what was done to stem them – mercy killings were seen as cruel executions, his by-the-rules interrogations were seen as “oooh, ok, he’s the bad cop”.
And certain memories were never forgotten. “Oh, did you hear? His girlfriend went crazy and he killed her.” The facts were incomplete, the incident classified, the memory painful and the truth devastating, but that nugget remained in the mortal memory, passed from recruit from recruit. “Man, if he could kill her, how safe do you think we are?” Ugly rumours and the human habit of siding with their own kind made it hard for him to connect with his recruits.
He smiled at Stef – supposing that it was the fact that she found it hard to get along with the rest of the human race that had given them something in common.
He gently rolled Stef onto her back, brushed her hair out of the way and plucked a few splinters from the cuts. He then dressed the small cuts, and got to work on the ugly jagged cut from the mirror – it was no longer protruding from her back as it had done when it had killed her, but the cut had remained. He cleaned it as best as he could, then covered it with gauze and taped it down.
He unclasped her bra, dropped it into the pile with the rest of her clothes, and required an Agency-blue pyjama top and puled it over her, one arm at a time, feeling as though he was dressing a child. He quietly buttoned it up and placed her back against the pillows. He moved down the bed and removed her dirty shoes and socks – still unconvinced that it wasn’t somehow a fae power.
Tearing open the left leg of her pants, he dressed a small cut, then quickly replaced them with a pair that matched the pyjama top. He removed the extra pillows and covered her with the blanket. Now, now she just looked like she was asleep.He required away the dirty washcloths, then placed her dirty clothes and shoes into an evidence bag, and placed it in the wardrobe – just in case they were needed for later.
Snapping his fingers, he snatched her file from midair and read over the information he’d already viewed a dozen times over. There was no close family for them to contact – not even any currently in the country. The usually submitted obituaries would freeze her bank accounts and they would do their own searches as to where to put the funds, the rent was covered, and the utilities weren’t something to worry about.
There was no publicly submitted will, and she had no lawyer on file.
It seemed that after death, she was simply going to cease to be. No will, no bequests, no requests. No funeral arrangements.
She’d simply cease to be. Like a dead agent. Like a world after a mirrorfall. No imprint on the world after the memories faded.
He tucked the doll under the blanket with her. ‘I’ll remember you,’ he said. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
The sunlight caught on the surface of the mirror and swirled across it in ways that certainly weren’t natural, beautiful and mesmerising for certain, but not natural.
the first ‘,’ needs to be something else, because i read “natural, beautiful and mesmerising” as one piece, only to get a conflict with for certain. then i have to reread the sentence.
It was one of the myths told about the world that that sparkles of sunlight that fell of a mirror, manifesting if only for the briefest of times was where Starbright came from.
He hadn’t expected it, and it did nothing but worry him further, if that had happened, then it couldn’t be too long before rigor set in, or until he began to rot, or until it was time to stop fooling himself and let her go.
sentence seems too long, there is a problem at “if that had happened”, maybe it’s better when the sentence stops before if. the second part won’t have a problem then either.
also, shouldn’t it be “she” ?
normal file searches were enough, or were easily found.
the second part seems to point to something else than file searches. I don’t think you mean that “file searches were easily found”; maybe “normal file searches were enough to find most files”, or “mostly, normal file searches were enough”.
Nice insight into the mind of Ryan.
it seems that his recruits feared him; he has that in common with Taylor, even if the intent if different.
Even though it seems that both Stef and Ryan handle “human relations” equally. But Stef also fears Ryan (at least sometimes), but i guess Ryan forgets that — or doesn’t want to remember that.
So much for duty first policy.
Strange that he doesn’t think about being recycled… like the other agent in those files. He didn’t even seem to fear that the memories of *i forgot the name of that world* could be imprinted onto her.
not even any currently in the country.
So there is family… what about her family?
*looks at text*
Ok, I’m officially an idiot. This is the original text, not the beta’d copy. I’ll replace it in a sec.
normal file searches were enough, or were easily found.
Ahem. “or the information easily found” – this is fixed in the beta.
Nice insight into the mind of Ryan.
I sometimes forget what an angst bunny the guy is. >_>
it seems that his recruits feared him
Basically all of them except for Curt, and Curt only fears him in the “if I take one step off the straight-and-narrow path I’m a dead man” way.
But Stef also fears Ryan (at least sometimes), but i guess Ryan forgets that — or doesn’t want to remember that.
I’d think it’s more a case of “None of those times count.” >_>
So much for duty first policy.
Policy? What policy? It’s not like any of these guys ever read a rulebook (something that *will* be brought up later).
Strange that he doesn’t think about being recycled…
He’ll be thinking a lot about getting recycled in the near-ish future…
He didn’t even seem to fear that the memories of *i forgot the name of that world* could be imprinted onto her.
(Dajulveed). He hasn’t thought of a lot of the consequences yet, he’s letting them bubble, but not surface yet. He’s trying to de-corpse-ify a girl with a piece of magic mirror, so many more things can go wrong than right.
So there is family… what about her family?
Our dear Steffie is three-quarters English and a quarter Spanish, so consequently, most of her family is on the other side of the world. >_>
This is the original text, not the beta’d copy. I’ll replace it in a sec.
Did you forget, or just not get around to it yet? Or is it supposed to be fixed already? I’m asking because I still see some of the issues mentioned in the text above, that you said has already been fixed in the beta…
(In fact, I seem to recall seeing something similar several times now – reading a chapter, then the comments, and in the comments you’ve answered with something like *fixyfixy* but I still saw the mentioned issue in the text… As if your CMS has cached the wrong version or something.)
I also noticed something not mentioned above, that I don’t know if has been fixed in the beta’d copy or not: “Two of the five folders remained” followed a bit later by “He opened the third file” … so, it should be three remained, right? or two disappeared… 🙂
And just in case you wonder what I’m doing back here, I’ve been rereading the story. 🙂 It’s something I tend to do with stories I like.
Wanna read.
Butbutbut, you’ve already read that one!
Wanna reread.
Butbut, you could just read one of these other stories you haven’t read yet…
Wanna reread this one!
But… oh nevermind, you’re not going to listen to me anyway, are you…
*reading*
There are several things…
a) I get distracted
b) I get lazy
c) I forget
>_> This means a bunch of edits haven’t been made as they were supposed to. -_-
Poor Ryan… I wonder what he’d give to make things better.
And I agree with AL13N, nice insight into his mind.
Another thing that’s been bothering me – why do so many mirrors fall on this specific planet?
But LOL – dirty shoes and socks – still unconvinced that it wasn’t somehow a fae power
Poor Ryan… I wonder what he’d give to make things better.
Everything, if he could fix Stef, and the other thing he feels the most guilt about, he’d pretty much give everything. However, since I can’t actually count how many Agency rules he’s breaking right now, he’s pretty much set himself on a course to give up everything for the chance of waking up a little hacker girl that doesn’t shower that much. >_>
And I agree with AL13N, nice insight into his mind.
Yeah, pass him a potato peeler… >_>
Another thing that’s been bothering me – why do so many mirrors fall on this specific planet?
It’s because the mirror, for whatever given value of sentience that they possess sense a kinship with the mirror in our world. They’re both mirrors without the presence of a god/demon…
And ^_^ I just decided one day that she’d have dirty shoes, then she had dirty shoes again, and it’s turned into this running joke, and honestly, I don’t know how she manages it. (Especially because the Agency at least has a self-cleaning function…).
Everything, if he could fix Stef, and the other thing he feels the most guilt about, he’d pretty much give everything. However, since I can’t actually count how many Agency rules he’s breaking right now, he’s pretty much set himself on a course to give up everything for the chance of waking up a little hacker girl that doesn’t shower that much. >_>
What a nice guy, really. Isn’t he a bit too human for an angel?
*passes AL13N a potato peeler* *AL13N and Bufi start chasing Stormy with potato peelers* *Stormy runs away screaming*
It’s because the mirror, for whatever given value of sentience that they possess sense a kinship with the mirror in our world.
That’s the Dajulveed mirror. But Emma said that there was a higher incidence of mirrorfalls in Brisbane, ergo there have been more mirrorfalls there before the Dajulveed one. So only mirrors of worlds whose gods/demons die fall on this planet? And why Brisbane?
What a nice guy, really. Isn’t he a bit too human for an angel?
“Human” is subjective, he’s people so he acts like people, those that the agents refer to as “the best of us” would look down at him for acting this way, and well really look down on a large portion of the agent population. But then again, it’s better to be a person, someone that acts human than it is to be acting like one of them.
Jones says this in a later chapter, but it’s not really a spoiler so much as it is ancient history – basically, in the old days, in the first incarnations of angels in their various forms, they would punish each other severely for just befriending a mortal (preferred method of execution: decapitation). Hell, the Parkers exist solely because an angel fell in love with a mortal girl, and that was considered a crime worth execution at the time.
*passes AL13N a potato peeler* *AL13N and Bufi start chasing Stormy with potato peelers* *Stormy runs away screaming*
NOOOOOOOOO! *runs off inconvenient cliff*
So only mirrors of worlds whose gods/demons die fall
That’s basically how it works, they’re pretty much happy to sit around but if a sleeping/mostly dead god wakes up and goes insane, it tears the planet apart and the mirror falls.
And why Brisbane?
Because that’s where Earth lost its goddess. Technically, Earth should have mirrorfall’d about…(Stormy cannot math this morning) thirty years ago, it was blind, dumb luck, bribery and old-timey magic that meant we didn’t.
Ryan was involved in this incident (reference the conversation and Clarke saying “he may have royally screwed the planet’s chance for a future” et al).
This is also kind of why Brisbane is a home for more weird stuff than it really should be.
those that the agents refer to as “the best of us”
Like Emma, or does it get worse?
Technically, Earth should have mirrorfall’d about…(Stormy cannot math this morning) thirty years ago, it was blind, dumb luck, bribery and old-timey magic that meant we didn’t.
So this means that Earth can’t mirrorfall any more?
Ryan was involved in this incident
Will we read about this in one of the next books? 😀
Like Emma, or does it get worse?
It gets said in a later book, something along the lines of:
“The best of us don’t use their mouths to speak. The best of us don’t have recruits. The best of us shift everywhere, never walking. The best of us are also the worst of us, that which I never want to be.”
So this means that Earth can’t mirrorfall any more?
It can’t. But at the moment we’re a complete unknown, so it’s possible we’ll just blink out of existence, or explode or something, no-one knows.
Will we read about this in one of the next books? 😀
Certainly, there will likely be flashbacks and people talking about it before I do an actual book dedicated to it, especially if I do a short story about Tegs and her brother.
The best of us are also the worst of us, that which I never want to be.
Sounds like something Ryan/Jonesy would say. Maybe Taylor too, judging by his reaction when he heard about Emma lurking around.
blink out of existence
I think I like this one best.
do an actual book dedicated to it
*drooooool* 😀
Sounds like something Ryan/Jonesy would say
It is. I just haven’t picked which one of them says it.
I think I like this one best.
Because it’s the nice, easy death? 😛
do an actual book dedicated to it
*drooooool* 😀
Do I? ….should I? Hmm… *is pondering something completely different, not whether or not there will be a book about it, that’s pretty much been decided, since of-*
Cripes. I have to leave for work now, I’ll finish replying to this later.
It has always been my plan to go back and write that story, even though it has changed a little (read: a lot) since it’s first draft. If you will gather around the campfire for a second, you’ll hear the story (yes, nost of this is in part of the wiki, but I like telling this story anyway). Basically, a long time ago, I was writing Matrix fanfic and it kind of took over my life for a given value, and I realised I wanted to do something original with it, I mean, I was using far more original characters than I was canon ones, and had come up with some nifty ideas and plots (and yes, when I go back and read that stuff now, my eyes practically bleed). I wrote an original-verse version of it, then another, then another…ad infinitum. I am really not joking when I say that the version of MF that just finished is about the 15th vesrion of the text.
It wasn’t getting anywhere, the style sucked, the story sucked, and everything felt either way too loose or way too mechanical. I kind of got depressed and emo (no potato peelers were involved though), and after some stuff happened, I completely quit writing for about eight months, right up untiil NaNo. I figured I needed to cast off the old and start something completely new, leave everything behind and start writing in a completely different genre.
High on Final Fantasy AMVs, I started writing this contemporary fantasy story about a couple of demons, a goddess, a waitress and a robot come to life. It was just this regular save-the-world type plot, nothing really special, but it began to stir some ideas – I was wanting to salvage at least a couple of my original characters from the fic series, so I threw Hummer in there, basically just for the lols (he was the friend of another god that was assisting the waitress and the robot). I had to stop at that point and do some world building (trying to figure out how something worked so I didnt have to go back and retcon) and I started to see what other characters would work. I squeezed in another character, then another…then eventually got the Agency in there, and decided to just go for it and convert my Matrix fic into an urban fantasy verse.
Which was an idea that I was totally committed to. Totally. It’s not like right up until I posted the first chaper of MF Mrk I that I was flip-flopping between SF and UF, and I totally didnt have a little Randi fairy on my shoulder saying “do SF, everyone writes fantasy…”. >_< But to get back to the main point: the story will change, as worldbuilding for the MV has taken it further than I did in original 12k that I wrote, but it has to get told, and not least of all that its the most significant event to happen to Earth in...well, forever. It happened, and it's something that hangs over the heads of a lot of characters. It also makes some people very paranoid, because of the whole "we can blink out of existence" thing. Funnily enough, it's *not* one of Ryan's main sources of guilt. Man that guy is weird.
NOOOOOOOOO! *runs off inconvenient cliff*
Don’t you mean “convenient cliff”? I mean, i’d think you’d prefer cliff-falling rather than being potatoe-peeled…
( i have a feeling this potatoe-peeler will have a long life in wibbly, i had to promptly laugh again when you mentioned it… 😀 )
PS: please fix the broken < em > tag, it isn’t pretty.
Don’t you mean “convenient cliff”? I mean, i’d think you’d prefer cliff-falling rather than being potatoe-peeled…
Either is still very inconvenient for me!
( i have a feeling this potatoe-peeler will have a long life in wibbly, i had to promptly laugh again when you mentioned it… 😀 )
Oh yes, I think it’s going to be one of those Wibble-memes that last a long time.
PS: please fix the broken < em > tag, it isn’t pretty.
Fix’d.
She had been living proof that something that he had done something good
extra that something?