Fix

by Ferrett Steinmetz

“Have a seat, Mrs Tsabo,” Kanakia said.

  His voice was gentle, welcoming – though he did not look up from the printed reports he perused. She doubted the misnomenclature was a mistake – Kanakia seemed too thorough – but at least he wasn’t compensating for his defeat with shows of force.

  He could have had them jailed. Yet somehow she got the impression the general had expected her in his office ever since they’d fought off his Morehead forces.

  That gave her hope this talk might be productive.

  She sat down, glad to get out from underneath that broken sky. Seeing that Thing prying its way into this world creeped her out.

  Why had everyone forgotten their true enemy?

  “Are my men treating you properly?” the general asked. He was a stout, dark-skinned man with bulging eyes and a bulging tummy. Yet he’d been tasked with keeping the broach as contained as any man could keep it pent for almost four decades – and until Paul’s arrival, nothing had stopped him in the execution of his duty.

  Imani flattened her skirt – the single nervous habit she allowed herself before entering negotiations.

  “I’ve been slow to come to conclusions, general – what with having my family kidnapped and all – but as you escorted us through the broach-affected lands, I formulated a theory. I was hoping you could confirm or deny.”

  The man’s poker face was world class. “Oh?”

  “Well, it occurs to me the US government doesn’t want Paul alive. Paul’s a terrorist – and worse, an effective political firebrand. The President would probably be thrilled if someone put a bullet through his head. Yet it’s clear the Unimancers don’t necessarily want him, either.”

  He set his paperwork aside. “…go on.”

  “So. I asked myself, who has been trying to keep Paul alive?”

  She let the question hang in the air until Kanakia had no choice but to answer it. He bobbed his head from left to right, a tiny concession.

  “Perhaps I ensured the Unimancers did not utilize their resources properly to capture Mr Tsabo,” he admitted – a little merry someone had finally caught him out. “And perhaps, once assassination was on the table after the Morehead broach, I assigned my best men to rope him in before that bullet, as you said, reached his brain.”

  “All those efforts to get one man,” she mused. “Which means either you’re desperate to get Paul specifically, or…”

  “We’re desperate for any new options.”

  Imani looked at the photos of famous European landmarks hung on Kanakia’s walls – the Eiffel Tower, Saint Basil’s Cathedral, the Arc de Triomphe. All broach-devoured.

  “How… How bad is it?”

  He grimaced. “In the seventy years since the Bastogne broach opened, we have not closed one broach permanently.”

  She shuddered. The news rarely gave details on the European struggle. American news hated reporting battles America wasn’t winning.

  “Before the Morehead broach,” Kanakia continued, “your husband had done excellent work, putting a human face on ’mancy. Given a decade, he might well have gotten proper legislation through. The Unimancers may loathe his tactics, but he’s advanced their cause.”

  “You want ’mancy to be legal?”

  “Unimancy is an excellent tool. As the only magical tool the United Nations allows me to utilize, I find it insufficient. The Unimancers have great wisdom, but their consensus makes them weak at spotting new ideas. Your husband is proof there are other ways to heal broaches.”

  “You could have kidnapped Paul years ago to get that knowledge. Why leave him operational?”

  “The Unimancers themselves believe Unimancy is the only way, but…” He shrugged. “They are ’mancers. Belief is what they do. While I’ve wondered, ‘How many Paul Tsabos have we cut down in the rush to consensus?’”

  “Still not an answer, Mr Kanakia. You’ve demonstrated you can sabotage SMASH at will. You could have let ’mancers flourish. Instead, you wanted Paul to pass laws. Why?”

  He took his glasses off, coldly furious. She’d seen that tranquil anger all too often in Paul’s eyes.

  “We left behind a hundred and fifty men in an open grave, Mrs Tsabo. Yet if I wanted to prosecute Paul Tsabo for murder, the best I could do would be property destruction.” He flattened his hands against his desk. “The governments are only comfortable with ’mancers as soulless tools. That needs to change.”

  “But Morehead ended Paul’s political career.”

  “Yes.”

  “You want him now because…?”

  “Wanted, sadly.” His contradiction confused Imani even as it heartened her; for some reason, possibly Aliyah, Paul could no longer be a Unimancer. “He’s thwarted me with scarce resources, Mrs Tsabo. And Europe, well…”

  He waved around at the pins in maps on the walls, demonstrating how thin seven thousand ’mancers were when spread out across seven continents.

  “Our predicament is nothing but scarce resources. I’d hoped his brilliance in the hivemind would uncover new stratagems to hold back the demon dimensions…”

  Time to drop the hammer.

  “You can’t add that brilliance to the collective anyway.”

  His confusion was delicious. “You’re saying he would have committed suicide rather than join?”

  “I’m saying my name is Ms Tsabo-Dawson, not ‘Mrs Tsabo’ – and I’m the one working with scarce resources. I planned the assault on Morehead airport. I figured out how to disrupt the hivemind. You need to negotiate with me with if you want shit done.”

  He only needed a blink to realize which member of the Tsabo-Dawson clan he’d underestimated. “What do you want, Ms Tsabo-Dawson?”

  “I want my daughter out. A growing girl does not need an army for a best friend.”

  “I too want her out. It won’t happen. They’re happy in there, far as I can tell. Aliyah would have to sever her connection voluntarily – and even if you got past her sense of duty, I don’t think she’d leave Ruth behind. Which is a shame, because that means I don’t get to add Paul’s bureaucratic skills to the network.”

  “Clarify. Why can’t you have them both?”

  “The one time we had a mother and a daughter joined, the daughter was irreparably damaged. Putting Paul and Aliyah together would erode their personalities.”

  Dammit. “Order them to expel her.”

  He spread his hands wide. “That, Ms Tsabo-Dawson, is what the government would tell me to do. They believe I control enslaved ’mancers – an illusion we have worked very hard to maintain. Whereas what I actually control…”

  He took a deep breath before committing to the revelation.

  “…what I actually lead is the world’s largest semi-autonomous ’mancer collective. They respect my opinions. They recognize my efficiency in combating the broach. But as Valentine can tell you, they do not necessarily obey orders.”

  Dammit. “Then I want it announced that Paul’s volunteered to fix the broach. The former face of ’mancer independence and the Unimancers, joining forces to save the world. I’ve worked in PR – that’s a great goddamned headline.”

  “That’s not up to me. That’s up to the President, and the United Nations Security Council.”

  “Start the conference calls,” Imani told him. “Get some sandwiches in. This negotiation may take days.”

  “We are negotiating for…?”

  “Paul’s help to fix the broach. My help to stem the tide. The help of Project Mayhem to create more flexible ’mancy-related options in America. That’s what you wanted all along, wasn’t it?”

  He smiled. “Are you authorized to negotiate on their behalf, Ms Tsabo-Dawson?”

  “Project Mayhem knows better than to cross me. And Valentine… well, I’ve usually gotten her on board.”

  The general smiled. “I’ll tell them you’ve got me over a barrel. The Security Council and the President have come to trust my judgment; the benefits of running a division for four decades. My conceding the nec
essity of your help will help skip past the preliminary sessions where we establish your goodwill. With luck, we might come to an agreement before the month’s end. What else do you need?”

  “Just the phone line, sandwiches, and coffee – oh, and keep the Unimancers clear. I’m pretty sure they won’t like the agreement we come to.”

  Thirty-Six

  Donutmancy

  Someone pried Paul’s eyelids open, flashed a light in his eyes. He struggled, found his arms strapped to a cot.

  “Calm down, Daddy.” Aliyah pressed her palm to his chest. “It’s OK.”

  He was blindfolded. Something bad had happened, but… his memories squirmed away. All he could concentrate on was how worried Aliyah sounded, her exhaustion.

  He took a breath, and that breath swelled to fill his thought process. His lungs expanded without incident, his ribs a passing ache. How long had he been out? But his stomach growled, and that noise snatched his attention away. On his next inhale, he felt the needle in his chest flex.

  Magiquell. They’d drugged him.

  “You’ll start remembering soon,” said a familiar voice. Her words triggered flashbacks to a burning airfield. “And when you do–”

  “Shut your pie-hole, kid,” Valentine said, curt and dangerous. “We want him calmed down. You’re not helping.”

  “You tried to calm him down by playing nicey-nicey. You had that shot.” Ruth. That was Ruth. She slid his blindfold off; the drugs made her freckled cheeks dazzling as constellations.

  She held up a syringe filled with clear fluid. “This is methohexital. It knocks people out. This IV’s hooked up to your heart. Try anything, anything, and I will knock you into a permanent coma.”

  “Ruth!” Aliyah said. “Don’t make him scared, you’ll ruin the test.”

  Test?

  “…Aliyah?” His throat was gummy, clogged shut. How long had he been out?

  She handed him a glass of water; the cool plastic felt amazing in his hand. But why would his daughter put him on euclidosuppressants? He closed his eyes, summoned memories–

  “Aliyah Rebecca Tsabo-Dawson!” he’d yelled, preparing to wipe the ridge clean. “This is not negotiable!”

  He tore his gaze away from Aliyah’s face, noticing her black SMASH uniform. Her lithe body had bulked up to a bodybuilder’s physique. When she cupped his cheek, she moved with a Unimancers’ mechanical grace.

  They’d brainwashed her to die for their cause. He watched her eyes jitter as she tuned into the collective, saw her fight off a frown as their loathing flickered across her face.

  “Aliyah. That’s not you. Don’t let them–”

  “That’s the test, Daddy. Because we don’t have time to argue. Look.”

  She pointed at a handmade wooden table, sitting in the RV office they’d gathered in; the drugs compelled Paul to follow her motion.

  On the table was a box, draped in thick cheesecloth. Next to the box sat a bulky satellite phone, its lights flashing green.

  “Can he hear me?” The voice from the speaker buzzed, a tenuous connection – but that thick Yiddish accent was unmistakable.

  “…Kit?” Paul asked.

  “Uncle Kit,” Aliyah confirmed, relieved. “I called his retirement home.”

  “Bubbeleh!” he cried. “I suppose I shouldn’t be this glad to hear your voice, given where you are. My goddaughter, she doesn’t give me details, but she says it’s quite serious. Have they kidnapped her?”

  “They have, Kit.” Tears welled up; he missed his old friend, but they couldn’t drag a seventy-four year-old man around the country with them, dodging SMASH patrols. So Paul had purchased a spot in a swanky assisted living community, and Kit had been content to declare himself Paul’s consigliere. Though these days, he’d seemed happy to nap in the Florida sunlight. “The Unimancers, they’ve brainwashed her into suicide, they–”

  “Stop.”

  Paul flinched at Aliyah’s sternness – but Valentine nodded soberly. Ruth stood with her thumb on the methohexital syringe.

  “This is the test, Daddy.”

  She whipped the cheesecloth off reverently, revealing a large pink box.

  DUNKIN’ DONUTS, it said.

  “Donutmancy,” Paul whispered.

  “Do you trust Uncle Kit’s judgement?” she asked.

  “Implicitly.”

  Kit harrumphed proudly.

  Aliyah sat down next to the two dozen donuts. “Then here’s how it’s going to go, Daddy. You know Uncle Kit believes he can read a man’s temperament through his choice of donuts. You’ve trusted his judgment before.”

  “Yes.” More than once, Kit had talked Paul out of a disastrous opinion by critiquing his cruller.

  “So I’ll choose a donut. You’ll tell Uncle Kit what I’m going through. If I choose the donut Uncle Kit thinks best represents a healthy state of mind for me, then I’m me. I’m not some brainwashed zombie, I’m not some Stockholm Syndrome case, I am your daughter and you treat me as such.”

  “And if you choose a different donut?”

  “Then I’m brainwashed. You can take me away.”

  Despite the drugs, Paul was making plans. He shouldn’t be talking to Unimancers, he should be destroying them. His mind fizzed with ways to neutralize the methohexital, fantasizing about the look on Ruth’s face when he wrecked her plans…

  He shook Aliyah’s hand.

  Ruth whispered to Valentine. “I know she believes in it. But… come on, this is ridiculous. Can the old man read someone’s state of mind by donuts?”

  “That old guy’s canny as fuck,” Valentine replied. “I think he uses donuts to distract people from the way he can cold read people.”

  “My old guy ears are not so deaf!” Kit cried. “And I will have no one doubt the sacred donut in this hour of trial! For this is a serious moment, my friends. We ask whether Aliyah has been brainwashed, or whether she simply seeks independence, as all children do. Aliyah, my beautiful goddaughter, knowing I cherish your liberation from all forms of tyranny, I ask you: reach into the box and choose what you think would taste best.”

  Aliyah trailed her fingers along the donuts. Paul had no idea how they’d hauled Dunkin’ Donuts out this far into Europe, but fresh oil dotted the box’s bottom. Had they cooked them here?

  He held his breath as Aliyah touched each donut: classic glazed, iced Boston Kremes, powdered jelly donuts, a maple log, a cakelike old-fashioned, a Chocolate Kreme with a curlicue of frosting poking out one end. They’d even put a tiny container of Munchkins in.

  Aliyah silently held up a cinnamon doughnut.

  “Now. Paul, my best friend, knowing I have always held your best interests at heart, I ask you: tell me what your daughter looks like.”

  Paul felt a chill. “…You two didn’t choose a donut in advance to fool me, did you?”

  Kit clucked his tongue. “Not if they held me at gunpoint, bubbeleh. Your family’s my family.”

  Paul remembered how Kit had offered Paul a job when he’d needed to quit the NYPD, how Kit had rushed over the night Imani had asked for a divorce, how Kit had tried his damndest to understand Paul’s magical problems even though he’d loathed ’mancers until his best friend had become one.

  Kit was the only person whose judgment he trusted implicitly.

  Aliyah had chosen well.

  “Aliyah, she’s… wearing a Unimancer outfit.”

  He made a soft chuh noise, like a pitcher waving off a catcher’s suggestion. “That much I know, Paul. They have told me some of the circumstances. Dig deeper.”

  Paul swallowed. “She’s tied back her hair.” The hair he could never get Aliyah to comb back. “She’s bulked up. Her skin’s tan.” They’d fought with Aliyah to get outside more, but she’d always holed up with her Nintendo DS. “She…”

  He leaned in to examine Aliyah’s face, fighting through the drugs to elucidate how his daughter looked different. As he pulled himself over the cot, she stepped back, tension spreading across her face, t
errified Daddy might ground her–

  Ruth squeezed her hand.

  Relaxation flooded across her as they interlaced fingers. She gave a nervous little laugh – I’m being silly, aren’t I? – and Ruth’s blank face stayed blank, but some reassurance flowed between them.

  “She has friends. She’s smiling.” Paul’s heart broke a little. “She hasn’t smiled like that since… since before the fire.”

  “Military training will do that,” Kit mused. “You form bonds. She’s young, though. Hitting the crush era. Any romances?”

  Ruth glowered, daring Paul to say something negative.

  “I think so.” Aliyah blushed. “Yes,” he corrected.

  “Anything else?”

  Paul wanted to catalogue the differences – the way she stood at attention, the way her gaze skittered away from him like he was an embarrassment, her lack of…

  “She’s got no videogames on her. No Nintendo, no phone.” That, really, was all Kit needed to know. “That’s all.”

  “Huh.” Kit sounded mildly surprised. “All right: military training, romance, blossoming confidence, leaving her childhood behind. She’s always loved the sweet gooiness; now she’s transitioning to something savory. Not completely there yet, but months of training would turn an éclair into a sugar-shock. An Aliyah in her right mind would choose…”

  Paul cursed at Kit’s dramatic pause. Even now, Kit couldn’t resist showing off.

  “The cinnamon donut.”

  Ruth went to high-five Aliyah. Aliyah met her clap sadly, without looking away from her father.

  She’s won the right to walk away from me, Paul thought. To get herself killed in whatever damn fool conflict she desires.

  “All right.” Paul slumped back on the cot. “You’re yourself. And you’re a Unimancer. But you’re still my daughter, Aliyah, and I have the right to–”

  “The test isn’t over, Daddy.”

  Paul sat up again. “What do you mean?”

  Valentine stepped forward, a surgeon delivering bad news. “You questioned whether Aliyah’s in her right mind. But after the way you fought us, well…” She glanced down at the donuts. “Time for you to choose.”