As Evil Does

by P. S. Power

  Instead of saying he wasn’t a secretary or that he didn't work for the Coalition, both of which were true, there was a sound of him sitting up. It was rapid, showing that he was a bit more than strictly Human, in some ways.

  “I’m coming in then. It will take about an hour? I’m actually sleeping in a tent behind the complex, since I don’t have a place in town. I don’t really get paid for the work, so… Anyway, it will take me that long to get inside.”

  It never took her that long, but she cheated, as often as not.

  “We need to fix that. All of it. You should be getting paid for your work, for one thing. Also, you need to have a place to stay here. Obviously, get with Tyler on that, since he has a mansion and you’re going in to help him in his time of need. I’ll meet you in the back lawn in ten minutes? I can help you bypass security here.”

  Rather than act put out, there was just the sound of the man moving. Getting dressed, fast. As he mentioned, there were tent sounds. Which meant he was pretty motivated to do a good job. How no one had thought to pay him for it, she didn't know. That wasn’t going to be on purpose. Not if Ty Gartner or, she had to guess, Ambassador Baker, had anything to say about it. Troy Lopez either, who had put the kid up to it in the first place.

  Making a great excuse to call him, even if it was early in the day. He didn't sleep anyway. None of the truly interesting people did.

  She tapped buttons from memories that weren’t strictly her own, and started speaking as soon as the phone picked up.

  “Hey, Troy. Fram seems to be missing. Possibly Gregor, too. You’re up on the whole thing where they’re actually Angels? Plus, I need you to arrange back pay for Jim Bollings. He’s currently living in a tent behind the Sparks Embassy Complex, because no one has bothered to pay him for his work. I’m sure that’s an oversight?” She actually was pretty firm on that particular point, she realized.

  Troy might have forgotten about the man, or he might have some kind of clever reason for not providing funds, but the truth was that he had money enough to pay for the work he’d gotten others to do. He was also honorable. More so than almost anyone else Keeley knew. So it wasn’t about him being cheap or anything broken like that.

  “Fudge. I’d totally forgotten about that. I can… have some cash pulled for him by… Call it noon? You’re at Sparks right now. I recognize the feeling of it. Also, good morning, Keeley. So nice to talk to you. Now, what’s this about Fram being missing? Also, he’s an Angel now? I…” There was a pause then, and finally a grunt. “Well, that’s different, isn’t it?”

  She just had to agree, since it really was.

  “Why yes. Yes, it is different. Very much so. Any leads on how to find him?”

  That got another pause, since Troy actually seemed to be looking into it for her. She expected the answer to be no, or something strange like the need for her to buy a hat for a man in the arctic or something, but after a moment, he just grunted.

  “He’s currently in Lesser Shia. Along with Gregor, I think. They shouldn’t really be stranded there, but for some reason they can’t leave. I don’t have anything else on that. I probably won’t, without going there myself. It doesn’t seem that important to the greater plan, to be honest. Which doesn’t mean it might not be important to them, or you, or even me, to get them out safely.”

  Lesser Shia was a world. Essentially it was Earth, but far more advanced in a lot of ways. They used the nodes there, as well as had a complex travel network that could bring in goods from millions of different locations. Most people that went did so for the shopping. It was supposed to be impressive that way. Keeley had never gone, herself. It had simply never come up in her life.

  Though apparently, that was about to change.

  “I’ll cover that part. You can find Jim in Tyler’s office playing secretary. Remember, he gets paid for his time in other worlds, too and that means you owe him for two and a half years. None of that minimum wage stuff either. Two of those years he was in a different reality, so that’s time and a half at least. It was hazardous duty, too, so… Double time and a half? No, triple time…” She was making things up, but Troy didn't scream at her to stop spending his money.

  Instead he made a soft sound.

  “That sounds fair, actually. I’ll handle it. Thanks for the heads up there, Keels. Oh, Avery mentioned that she has some things for you. Plus, that you two are supposed to get together soon? She didn’t say what for.” If he was curious, the Trickster was hiding it well.

  She shrugged, even if he wouldn’t be able to see her doing it.

  “Probably show things, for Reality Wars? That or to plan a dinner party. Really, we should do that soon. You two, Ravi and me? I’ll cook. It will be fun.” It might be, at least. As long as everyone was into that kind of thing.

  Still, you either had parties occasionally, or you didn’t have friends. It wasn’t a one to one relationship, but she’d seen it happen enough to have learned that there was a cause and effect pattern there.

  Troy, clearly had seen some things like that himself.

  “That sounds fun. Tell Jim that I’m coming in at noon with that pay. I’ll do my own groveling, of course. That’s only fair.”

  She didn't agree with him there. After all, groveling wasn’t much fun and Jim, while an important person in the making, wasn’t the sort to force that kind of thing upon anyone. Then, Troy would already know that. He’d picked the boy in the first place, after all.

  “I’ll let him know. I’m about to sneak him into the building here, so he won’t have to process in for thirty minutes. Then I’ll be off to Lesser Shia. I probably need to take backup, just in case. After all, if someone is holding two fallen Angels against their will, they might be too much for me to handle on my own.” She wasn’t hinting, even if Troy had his charms that way.

  He also had other charms, like knowing what was needed to make the universe, even the multi-verse, work.

  “For that you need…” He stopped, then made a nearly choked sound. “Um… All right, for that, as backup, you’re going to need Hally York. I’m not kidding there, either. I don’t know how that will work, but if you want to get Fram and Gregor back unharmed, she needs to be there with you when you go.”

  She nearly asked if he was being serious, but then didn’t. He might be tricking her in some way, but she’d always claimed, including to him, that the best thing to do with one of his people was to simply go along with them, when they asked you to do ridiculous or even painful things. Given that she was fairly certain he wasn’t a cruel or mean person, she simply had to do what he wanted.

  “Ouch. You’re really certain on that?”

  “Yep. I know that isn’t perfect for you.” He didn't go on or give her a way out.

  Because that wasn’t how Tricksters worked. A thing that she understood, at least on some level.

  “I understand. I’ll make that happen. Is there a time table on that? I was going to go directly, but I can’t just tell Hally that we’re headed off world and to expect pickup in fifteen minutes, can I? That isn’t how this whole ex thing works. Plus, I can’t imagine Ravi will be too happy to hear about my getaway with her.” She knew that for a fact, but she also understood that her whining about things wouldn’t change the situation. After all, Troy wasn’t making her do it. The universe just needed it done, if things were going to turn out correctly. In a small way.

  Troy Lopez managed to sound a little bit sad, in the moment.

  “Sorry about this. You kind of need to get this moving inside the next hour.”

  She just nodded.

  “All right. Let me get Jim set up first. Then… I guess I call and start begging? Nothing else will probably work. Even that won’t, really. I can use mind control though but I’ve never done that with her. I really don’t want to start now.”

  There was no answer. The phone just hung up. Which could mean anything, of course.

  Rather than worry over it, she jogged up the stairs, heading to the left
-hand side of the building, all the way at the back, on the first floor. Where the Coalition of Nations kept their offices. That let her visually check for Fram, even if she knew that she’d be going to Lesser Shia for the man.

  Then she opened a portal into the back lawn of the complex. It was a big thing, but showed Jim standing in the distance, about twenty meters away. He’d managed to dress up nicely, wearing a suit and tie that seemed perfect. A bit too much so for a man living in a tent. When she let her mind touch him, he was covered in magic.

  A device at his neck making clothing appear for him. It was a great idea, of course.

  “Jim, this way! Hurry!” She didn’t need him to run. Not really. It wasn’t that much work to hold the thing open, after all. No one was going to tackle the boy to prevent him from coming in, either. Not being hidden behind the building as they were. There were guards, but they were too far away to care about what she was doing, at the moment.

  Still, he scurried over, making good enough time that it was clear he could have a job in professional sports if he ever decided on that kind of thing, instead of learning and sharing the customs of various worlds. When the trim, fairly tall, young man made it through into the office, without hesitation even if using a portal was strange, she called out.

  “Jim is here to answer the phones and take messages. Troy Lopez is coming in at noon, so no taking an early lunch.” That was for Ty, who was in his office, with the door closed. Talking on the phone, most likely. To Jim she waved at the desk. “Get to work. Take the names, numbers and reasons for calling. Check his appointment book if you can find it and work out who needs a real meeting and who you can put off for now. Let me… I can show you how to use the phone here. Get ready to memorize this…”

  It took her ten minutes, but she left with the blond young man answering phones, taking names and sending calls to Tyler when needed, on his own, without dropping them. It was a decent level of skill being shown that way. Then, the kid had clearly had some work done. To his body and face, but also his mind. More than one person had worked on him, too. She could see the fingerprints of at least three different people. All men. That probably meant that his penis was freaking huge, unless those fellows were restrained at a decently high level.

  As soon as he had it, she left, waving at him from the door.

  “Oh, right. Troy is bringing your pay at noon. So you need to be here for that, too.”

  Then she left, not having a clue about what she was going to do next. Except, of course, she actually did. Opening a rift, just in the upper hallway, even if it was a bad place for it, she moved from where she was to just outside Hally’s parents house, in Arizona. Where her ex-girlfriend was staying for the time being. Then, using a bit of magic to calm her emotions, even if she wasn’t really doing that poorly on her own, she dialed Hally’s cell. She half expected the number to be dead, but it picked up fast enough to indicate that she hadn’t even been asleep.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Hally. It’s Keels. This is going to sound strange, but I was just told by a Trickster that I need to get you, by name, to go with me to an amazing shopping planet, in order to try and save two Fallen Angels. Gregor and Fram. You remember Fram, right? From high school? My ex-slave? It turns out he’s actually an Angel. A real one. Go figure, right?”

  Hally might not have wanted to be Keeley’s girlfriend any longer, out of fear or possibly wisdom, but she was well used to being around sudden weird things. Probably as much as a Human being could be.

  “A Trickster? That sounds… Well, I’ve met a few. They generally don’t play games, do they? When do you need me to go?”

  Keeley sighed, since that had gone better than she would have figured, given everything.

  “Inside the hour. I’m standing on your parents’ front stoop, right now. There seems to be a time crunch on this one.” It wasn’t that bad, but that didn't mean Hally, looking as cute and chipper as always, didn’t come running out of the brown house five minutes later. She had a purse with her, and a nice dress on. It was an off-red, which somehow worked with her hair color.

  Keeley slapped the feelings of love down and made herself start working on a rift to Lesser Shia. A place that she’d never been to, but tens of thousands of people in her mental library had.

  Then she took Hally by the arm, not even saying hello.

  “Next stop, Lesser Shia. Hang on.”

  Then in one move, she stepped through the hole in space, literally carrying Hally with her.

  Chapter fifteen

  The problem of Lesser Shia was the one that Keeley had figured on, before traveling there. It was, different name aside, the Earth. The planet itself was covered by one large city. The density reminded her of Tokyo, with large buildings being placed right next to each other in a lot of locations. The streets weren’t as congested, but that was mainly due to the efficiency of the slide walks. Paths that used an interesting form of low energy refutal to cause travel in response to pressure, at a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree directional phase to input. In short, they caused you to move along very quickly, even as you simply walked on them.

  Hally looked at the ground, which seemed to be a light gray, very smooth cement.

  “We just walk and it… Speeds us up somehow?” She pointed, watching as people seemed to be moving normally as far as foot movements went, but as they drifted to new lanes on the right, they sped up. At the far side, everyone was walking along at about seventy miles per hour.

  Trying not to be distracted by the unusual set up, plus the lack of cars or shuttles of any sort, Keeley nodded.

  “That seems to be the case. Of course, right now, we need to find Fram and Gregor. On a planet that’s as large as our own, with a population that’s probably seven to ten times as large. That should be interesting. Any ideas?” The red head was there for a reason, after all.

  One that could be anything. Including the idea that Keeley might act differently if she was there, watching her. Presuming she understood why things were being set into motion by a Trickster might well be the incorrect path to take. So, instead of pushing ahead, doing her own thing, she waited and asked.

  Her ex-girlfriend looked around, then nodded. A finger came out to point at a veiled woman, standing about fifty feet away, to the right. She was dressed in a robe, with her face covered. That was in a stark gray, but material seeming a bit heavy and almost like plastic or vinyl. There were others dressed like her in the distance, but that one was physically the closest to them at the moment.

  “Those people seem kind of official. We could ask?”

  That sounded like a poor idea, if they were being watched or hunted, but she honestly didn’t have anything better at the moment. There were too many different types of people there for her to feel if the ones she wanted were anywhere nearby.

  Instead of waiting, she simply walked over, ready to find a being in her memories that could speak the language of the person standing there.

  “Hello. My friend and I are looking for two people. They go by Fram and Gregor. Do you know how to find someone here?” Her hopes weren’t high, since it was probably impossible to find two tiny needles in a haystack the size of a planet.

  The lady, hidden from view as well as she was, spoke then. In English. It was unaccented and perfectly formed. More to the point, she was speaking English in the same way that Keeley just had. Which was impressive. That spoke of it being a power, instead of just something learned by the woman.

  “Hello, travelers! Let me see, you seek Fram and Gregor… Do you know what type of being they are?” She was poised, and calmly pulled a flat, rather small silver piece of metal.

  Clearly it wasn’t that, since even if it lacked a screen in any way that Keeley recognized, images started to play across the surface of the one by two-inch object. Faces.

  Keeley shrugged.

  “They’re fallen Angels? I don’t have a better species name for them.”

  The woman nodded then, the metal slip a
ltering quickly. She pointed it toward Hally, then Keeley.

  After a moment she came back to each of them, finally stopping on Keels. There was a soft hissing noise.

  “They are similar to yourself? You are… Formerly of the Demon kind, are you not? That biological change is recent. Now you are rather similar to two sources that are together, in the western seven section. I can arrange transportation for you, directly to your friends. The cost will be one gold for a round trip, including my services as a guide and translator. We can also find equivalent in trade or alternate currency.” The words were pleasant enough.

  Hally tightened a bit, but Keels smiled.

  “Hmm. One ounce gold coins will work?” That made sense. They had people from millions of realities there. Everyone probably had something as basic as gold.

  There was a nod then, from the shiny veil.

  “Or the equivalent.”

  Using just a bit of magic, Keeley turned halfway around and reached into the pocket universe, slightly behind her, trying to pick up the small bag of gold she kept there. It was about a hundred ounces, so wasn’t that tiny. Plucking it out didn’t get a response from either of the people with her, for some reason. Hally was just used to her doing things like that. The translator was probably just that jaded. Which was a shame, because it really was a cool trick.

  When she brought it around, Keels smiled.

  “Now, a full gold for this? That’s a bit high. How about half a gold?” The truth was that giving the woman fourteen hundred dollars’ worth of gold to find her friends was actually a steal. Really, if the being had started out demanding millions of dollars for the service, Keeley would have probably ended up paying a lot more.