Mars placed the picture of the two men upside down into one of the contraptions sticking out of the back of the camera. The device held it flat between two pieces of glass like a slide projector. She pressed a button and the device slid it inside the camera. “Alright, come here and look through the view finder.”
The Function went over and pushed his face into the camera, which looked like a metallic spider about to wrap its legs around his head.
“Ok, see the picture?” asked Mars. “How it's overlaid on top of what's actually in front of you?”
“Um, yeah.”
“I need a more affirmative answer than that. This will only work once. And if you screw it up, it might be a week or more before we can get the materials together to do this again.”
“Yes, then. A very affirmative 'yes'.”
“Good. Now aim it this way.” She very carefully swiveled the camera over towards an empty area of rubble. She moved his finger onto a button. “This is the snap button. You have to push it down very hard and hold it there when the time comes. All the liquid has to be released before you let go of the button.”
“Sounds charming.”
“Now we're going to go stand where you're aiming. Tell us when we're standing directly in the overlay of the two men in the photograph.” She motioned for Edith to follow her, and they both walked over and stood in the midst of the rubble.
“Alright,” said The Function. “Take one step backward. Ok, now Edith, take a tiny step away from Mars and lean a little to the left....”
File 7 :: [Edith Downs]
One thing that Dean Smith was right about was the rush. The pure adrenalin of holding up a gun and yelling, “Would everyone kindly put their hands in the air!” with the sound of your voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling and the marble floors. Of course it wasn't like Edith herself would ever do such a thing. In fact it wasn't at all like she was the one robbing a bank – it was more like she was hanging out in someone else's body while they robbed a bank. Or like they were sharing a body between them. Not to mention that mixed with the adrenalin was the pure male energy coursing through her body, like being half-tiger. Or like being a werewolf.
As soon as they'd left the false building front, Edith had let Dean Smith out of his box and into her mind (with a kind of tether around his ankle, so to speak, in case he didn't want to leave when the time came). As his memories mixed with Edith's perceptions, she'd begun to see two realities at once: The world of present day New Orleans and the reality of Dean Smith's memories, which, judging by what some people were wearing and the cars driving down the street, were of the 1930s. Even his opinions were mixed into Edith's.
For instance, she was extremely annoyed that she was not in Dean Smith's body. You see, the camera contraption that Mars brought gave them the appearance of the two men in the photograph: Dean Smith and someone he'd worked with, Alex Morgan, who was the portly fellow in the photo with the big mustache. It turns out that the image was flipped before actually being attributed to Edith and Mars, so the bodies were switched. So as the two of them walked into the bank, Edith was actually the portly man yelling, “Would everyone put their hands in the air!” as she raised the revolver at one of the security guards, who flickered in her perception, changing back and forth between a modern day security guard to a black-clad police officer.
The man who walked in next to Edith (who was really Mars) raised a shotgun and fired a round into the vaulted ceiling of the bank, incidentally hitting the side of one of the crystal chandeliers and sending several pieces of it crashing to the polished marble floor. People screamed and moved towards the walls of the mammoth bank lobby. Edith yelped and turned to Mars, who looked exactly like Dean Smith and was staring at the shotgun in her hand. Obviously she, like Edith, didn't think the thing would do any damage if fired, since it was from a freaking photograph.
What is she doing! - Edith felt Dean Smith's emotions coursing all over her like insects. I'd never shoot at the ceiling, let alone stare at my gun like an idiot afterwards! Of course he said a lot more than that – in fact there was hardly a moment were he was not speaking in Edith's head – but most of what he said was just about himself so she hadn't been paying much attention.
He turned Edith's head back to the security guard, who was lowering a hand towards his gun. “Now why don't you take that gun and slide it over my way?” she felt herself say in Dean's southern drawl while her thumb pulled back the hammer of the revolver. Both versions of the man (both the guard and the police man) pulled out their guns and pushed them across the marble floor to her, and she promptly stepped on both versions of the gun with her slip-on shoe (which felt like a slip-on shoe, but looked like a large black boot).
Mars, who had gotten a hold of herself, cocked the shotgun, the spent bullet casing spinning through the air and clinking onto the floor, then walked over to the bank tellers. They were behind bullet proof glass in the current day New Orleans, but not in the 1930s memory. It occurred to Edith that the memories of Dean Smith were actually affecting the real world, but she wasn't quite sure just how much. Mars yelled, “Now bag it all up nice and pretty for me!”
Keeping her revolver aimed at the guard, Edith glanced at all the patrons of the bank. None of them even tried to reach for their cell phones – not to call the police or to text someone. It was like they didn't have cell phones, or didn't remember that they had them.
The tellers began emptying their drawers and cabinets into small garbage bags as Mars, in the form of the tall, slender Dean Smith, walked up to the one of the bank employees who had been sitting at a desk and motioned to the door that led to the tellers and to the vault. “Open it,” she/he said. The man did so, and Mars went into the back.
Edith picked up the security guard's gun (which she really didn't want to do, since it was real, but she'd liked the idea of leaving it on the floor even less) and hurried over to the door, watching Mars' back as her partner grabbed the garbage bags from the tellers, threw them to Edith's feet, and then walked into the vault. Above the tellers' heads were several cameras, of course, but they flickered in and out of reality. Edith just hoped that if they were working that there wasn't someone on the other side watching who could call the police.
Dean kept watching all around through Edith's eyes, making sure that no one was going to try anything. “I want to get rid of the real gun,” she told him in her head. “I can't keep holding onto it.”
“Sure thing, Miss Edith,” he said, slipping the real gun into one of the garbage bags of money and picking them all up in one fist. She felt like it should have been heavier than it was, and wondered if it was the adrenalin or Dean's energy moving through her that made it easy to lift. “What's taking her so long?”
Then Mars ran out, aiming the shotgun all around and holding a filled up garbage bag. “Everyone count to five hundred before you even move! If you stick your head out that door early, we'll be waiting!”
That's absurd, said Dean in Edith's head. I'd never say that! Hell, no one would ever say that!
They both backed quickly towards the front doors, eyes skimming over all the customers and guards. Mars kicked one of the doors open and the bright daylight washed over them – the storm clouds above were completely gone. As they ran down the steps a car slid to a stop in front of them – it was one of the 1930s Fords, but it wasn't turning into a modern car and back like most of the others, which meant it was an actual antique car.
Mars pulled open the back door. “Come on!”
Dean took control of Edith's body and they jumped in, Mars getting in behind them. The car began speeding down the street before the door was even shut. Edith looked around frantically – no cops, no sounds of sirens.
Edith looked beside her at the pile of small trash bags. “We got away with it?”
“I gave you my word, didn't I?” said The Function, who was in the driver's seat.
Edith leaned forward on the back of his seat and put her hand over her heart, which w
as beating so fast and loud that she thought her chest would explode. She closed her eyes, and in her mind she was standing amidst the empty chairs and tables of her pastry shop, leaning forward on one of the tables. “Dean, I need you to lie low – just for a few minutes, alright? I'm a bit overwhelmed.”
Dean walked up to her with a thin cigar between his teeth. “Everything went perfectly, Miss Edith. Well, considering what we had to work with, anyway.” Edith stood up and he held out another cigar for her. “This is something that calls on our New Orleanian urge to celebrate.”
“All the same, I need a breather.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “A victory smoke, for your breather.”
She took the cigar from him. “Your old fashioned charm is hard to pass up. Though calling it 'old fashioned' isn't quite right, I suppose, since you're from the '30s. I guess for you it would be current fashion.”
He smiled and lit a match. “I suppose charm may have been more popular where I'm from.” He held the match up to her cigar and she puffed life into it. Edith didn't often smoke but had always liked the taste of cigars.
“You know, Dean, you're not such a bad guy – for a bank robber.” She puffed on the cigar and sat down on top of the table with her legs crossed.
“Oh, I've got my set of flaws, Miss Edith. Well, I guess I'll go and sit in the corner for a spell.”
The cigar was tasting so good – all her muscles were loosening up, relaxing. She suddenly cared less and less about where they were going in the car or about getting back to her pastry shop. Holding the cigar up and staring at the glowing ember, she realized that it reminded her of smoking pot in college. And, more importantly, she realized that a cigar had never made her feel that way. And since it was a cigar in her head, not even in the real world, it really shouldn't have been affecting her like that.
“You bastard,” she muttered. “You lying bastard. You said you'd never hurt a woman.”
“I am not going to hurt you. I just have some business to take care of while I'm here.”
Edith dropped the cigar and fell off the table, but Dean was there to catch her like an angel - like a back stabbing, bank robbing angel. “I hate angels,” she muttered.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” he said again, his face melting above her. “You're safe in my hands.”
“You are going to hurt someone. I can feel it.”
“That very well may be, Miss Edith. But it won't be you. I'll keep you safe.”
And then everything went black, in the she's been drugged by the memory of a 1930s bank robber sort of way.
File 8 :: [Mars]
Mars stalked into the bank vault brandishing her shotgun exactly like so many movies she'd seen and forgotten. But instead of a large metal room with piles of money like in the movies (or at least in her imagination), she found herself in the midst of a series of metal hallways of drawers and shelves. She moved through the vault with her gun raised, then found the short, round bald man wearing a green suit and leaning against one of the metal shelves, breathing heavily.
She lowered the gun. “You're The Wellington Bank?”
The man nodded and smiled, his face and forehead dripping with sweat. “You've no idea what it's like.” His small eyes were wide and crazed as he looked into hers. “It's been seventy-eight years since I've been robbed.” He laughed and pressed a pudgy hand against his belly. “I didn't think The Function could pull it off, Mr. Smith.”
Mars raised an eyebrow. “Um, I'm not Dean. He's in the lobby. Long story. But you have a package for us, I believe.”
He nodded, then reached into his green suit coat and pulled out a gold watch chain, but instead of a pocket watch there were several keys dangling from the end. He removed a golden key and handed it over to her. “The Function knows where the lock is.” He nodded to a full trash bag on the ground. “That's full of money for you. Give The Function my regards.”
Suddenly Mars didn't trust this entity. Maybe his eyes were a little too beady, maybe it was the tone of his voice. She really wanted to say something menacing like, “Don't make me come back for you,” but decided against it. He was, after all, making sure that she and Edith didn't come up on cameras, as well as helping the memories of the past cover up the realities of the present. Instead she nodded, grabbed the bag and left the entity of the bank to steep in his nostalgia of being robbed by a couple of 1930s bank robbers.
***
The Central Business District raced along on both sides of the car as The Function turned the wheel this way and that, zigzagging through the streets and generally heading upriver. The front windows were down and the wind blew wildly through the old car, blowing The Function's hair like mad and blowing the person-suit Mars was wearing so that it felt like she was in a flabby jump suit.
“You should have been there, F,” said Mars. “It was just like out of a movie, except that not much happened. In movies there's usually a shootout or something.” Her heart was still beating wildly in her chest.
When she and Edith had ended up in the wrong body-suits back in the “building”, The Function had gotten upset with her. Not that he cared that they were switched – he was upset that anything went wrong at all. She'd promptly reminded him that he was the one who hadn't given her enough of the fluid to experiment with, only giving her enough to do it right once. The fact that she and Edith weren't walking around colored in sepia tone was, in Mars' mind, a feat of pure genius.
“Sorry, it's hard to concentrate on what you're saying. When you call me 'F' it's all I can do to not drive into oncoming traffic.”
“You're on a one-way street. There is no oncoming traffic.”
“Oh, I could manage.”
Mars looked over at the portly man next to her, who had his forehead pressed against the back of the driver's seat and his eyes closed. Mars nudged the man's/Edith's shoulder. “Are you feeling alright, Edith? You look like you're going to be sick.”
“If you are,” said The Function, “let me know and I'll pull over. This car is, more or less, the only thing that I own. And there are some who would question whether the car belongs to me at all.”
“Oh, stop being an ass for a minute,” Mars said. “She just robbed a damned bank for you.”
The Function shrugged. “Hey, I'm paying her. She's an employee. And she's getting the better end of the deal. So don't act like she just robbed that bank out of the kindness and purity of her heart.”
“Alright, if you have to be a jerk,” said Mars, “then just do it quietly for five minutes, alright?”
She could see that Edith's bowler hat was starting to melt into the seat – the photograph costumes were beginning to wear off. That was good – Mars had tried not to make them last too long. Long enough for the robbery, but not so long that they had to lie low as a couple of men wanted for a bank robbery. That would get old really fast.
The portly man began to stir and Mars put a hand on her shoulder. “You ok, girl?”
The man looked over. His face was a bit melty, and Mars found herself hoping that they didn't have to interact in public while they both looked like melting men. “Just a bit worked up, is all,” said Edith. The portly man/Edith began rummaging through the small trash bags on the seat between them. “How did we do?”
“Well enough,” said The Function. “It went perfectly.”
Suddenly the portly man lunged forward, reaching over the driver's seat and grabbing The Function's chest, while his other hand pressed the security guard's gun to the side of The Function's face. “Did you really believe you could pull one over on me, old friend?” said the portly man. He spoke in Edith's voice, as the photograph's effect on their voices was wearing off, but she now had a very heavy southern drawl and sounded oddly charming, given the circumstances.
“Settle down, Dean,” said The Function. “You're just having flashbacks. I was hoping Edith could keep you on a leash. We're almost there.”
“Why'd you really bring me back? Who'd you sell me out
to? Who the hell is following us? I should have known you'd be lying, you damned devil!”
“No one's following us – you're being paranoid! Dean, everything's going according to plan. Just settle down...”
“The way I remember it, last time things went according to one of your 'plans' I ended up shoved in my gun for nearly a century.”
“Now don't even try to pin that one on me, Dean! I may screw up sometimes, but that was your doing and you know it!”
Mars was watching this all and wondering what to do when she glanced down at the shotgun sitting on her lap. It was a little melted, but better than nothing. She grabbed it, pushed her back up against the car door and aimed at the portly man. “Throw the gun out the window!”
The portly man looked over at Mars, but kept the gun at The Function's head. “Might I remind you, darling, that you're pointing a gun at your partner in crime, Miss Edith.”
Damn, thought Mars, then cocked the gun for effect, sending an unspent cartridge bouncing into the passenger seat. “Well, it sucks to be her. Now throw the gun out the fucking window!”
“Don't shoot her! Or him! Don't shoot them!” yelled The Function from the driver's seat.
“She knew the deal!” yelled Mars. “About the danger involved.”
“What do you care about this deceiving bastard?” said the portly man.
“For better or worse, he's my best friend. As for Edith, she's nice but I don't know her. And you, you're not even real.” She leaned forward and pressed the barrel of the gun against his large, melting cheek. “So, why don't you throw the gun out the damn window, darling.”
“Mars!” yelled The Function. “Put the gun down! I'll pull over and we'll sort it out.”
“You can't see it from up there,” said Mars to The Function, “but this gun is melting. Soon there won't be a gun to shoot, and we lose our leverage.”
The whole car lurched as The Function swerved off the street, up a driveway and into a large warehouse, the lurching sending Mars slamming into the back of the passenger seat. The gun boomed like thunder in her hands as it went off, the force jamming the gun's butt hard into her chest as her head rolled back and cracked against the window. The car lurched again as The Function slammed on the brakes, and the gun slipped from between her fingers. Then the whole car seemed to melt around her, the blacks and browns of the inside of the car merging together, wrapping around her like mud and pulling her into itself.
The Axeboy's Blues (The Agents Of Book 1) Page 6