“Dispatch.” He finally looked up from the book, gray eyes concerned behind the wire frames of his glasses. “Birdie left a note on my desk asking me to come and see her as soon as I came in. Since I was running early—”
“When are you not running early?” muttered Sloane. “Kiss-ass.”
Jeff ignored her as he cleared his throat and tried again: “Since I was running early, I thought I would go down and find out if she had any pressing news before the rest of you got here. That way, we could hit the ground running, if necessary.”
I nodded. “Good thinking.” As our primary dispatcher, I didn’t know what hours Birdie Hubbard actually kept, since it seemed like she was in the office any time that we needed her to be; for all that I knew, she slept on a cot somewhere in the Dispatch Unit. She took her job very seriously. All the dispatchers did, and that was a damn good thing, because at the end of the day, they were the first line of defense between the everyday world and the looming memetic incursions of the Aarne-Thompson Index spectrum. My team and I? We were the last line of defense, no matter how unprepared we might sometimes seem. As the world had not yet been sucked into an unending once upon a time, I figured we were doing pretty well.
“Do you remember Jennifer Lockwood?” Jeff asked.
I hesitated, trying to recall exactly why I knew that name. Andy did the same. Demi, who had been with us for less than a week, just looked blank. It was becoming her default expression.
Sloane didn’t share our mutual confusion. “Tall, skinny, blonde hair—out of a bottle, but it was natural when she was a kid, so she still fits the primary narrative cues—and she’s an averted Goldilocks,” she said, rattling off the information like it was written on a piece of paper in front of her. “She’s a weird one, isn’t she?”
Jeff nodded. “She’s been averted three times. Once at age six, again at age twelve, and a third time at age fifteen. She’s twenty-seven now, working two jobs as she tries to put herself through college.”
A light went off in my head. “That’s why I recognize her name,” I said. “She’s one of the case studies I had to review when I took over the field team. Our lords and ladies in waiting.”
“What?” asked Demi.
“That’s what we call the ones who were almost stories, and somehow managed to pull back at the last minute, either because we intervened or because they changed their personal narratives enough to keep from going over the edge,” said Andy. “Henry’s a lady in waiting.”
“Yes, thank you for the reminder,” I said sourly. “Okay, so we all know who Jennifer Lockwood is. Why is this relevant?”
“Because Dispatch intercepted a call she made this morning, shortly after four o’clock, in which she said, quote, ‘it was a bear, it was right outside my window, it was a real bear.’ She assured Birdie—whom she thought worked for the police—that she wasn’t crazy. I have the transcript: she repeated that part eight times. ‘I’m not crazy, it was a bear, I’m not crazy.’ Birdie promised her that she’d send some officers out to look for signs of the bear.”
“Officers meaning us, right?” asked Demi.
Sloane rolled her eyes. “And this is the prodigy that the field team couldn’t live without. Wow. The world is super safe now.”
“Sloane, be quiet,” I snapped. “Everyone else, grab your gear. We have a bear to find.”
#
Jennifer Lockwood lived in a run-down neighborhood that looked like it had been teetering on the edge of “slum” for years, only to be kept from toppling over by the combined efforts of the residents, none of whom were willing to let it fall. Younger children played in the narrow strips of weed-choked grass that served as front lawns, while the older children had set up a game of soccer in the middle of the street. “Car!” shouted the lookout as we came around the corner, and all the players pulled back to the sidewalk, watching solemnly as we drove past.
“Nice place,” said Sloane, with her customary sneer.
Demi, who was riding in the backseat, raised her head so that the reflection of her large brown eyes was staring directly at us in the rearview mirror. “Yes, it is,” she said. “I wish I’d grown up somewhere this nice.”
For once, Sloane didn’t have a smart comeback. I pulled over and parked in front of Jennifer Lockwood’s house, leaving room for Jeff to fit the van in behind me. He and Andy would stay in the vehicle, out of sight, unless something came up that required either an archivist or public relations. Considering that I was about to walk up to an averted Goldilocks’s door with a trainee and Sloane—who was practically an invasion of privacy on two legs—I was pretty sure we were going to need Andy.
“Now, Demi, remember: your job is to stand quietly and observe,” I said, as we closed our car doors. “I’m going to do all the talking, and Sloane is going to do all the Sloane-ing, while you learn how to do this without me.”
“Remember, kids, you’re only one poisoned apple away from advancement in your chosen career,” said Sloane. There was something automatic about the barb, like she was saying it because she knew that it was expected of her. She seemed distracted, her eyes darting from side to side in small, erratic bursts. I stopped, putting my arm out so that it blocked her passage. Sloane hates to be touched. She stopped immediately.
“What are you getting?” I asked. “Are we walking into something that’s going to get us all killed?”
“Yes,” said Sloane. “No. I don’t know.” She shook her head, the distracted expression spreading until she looked utterly baffled. “There’s a one-seven-one nearby. And there’s … there’s also not a one-seven-one nearby. I don’t know what the f—”
She was cut off by the front door swinging open and Jennifer Lockwood appearing in the doorway. “Are you from the police, or are you here to offer me a copy of the Watchtower?” she asked. “Because I’m either going to need to see some badges or I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“We’re from the Bureau of Urban Wildlife, ma’am,” I said, dropping my arm and dipping my hand into my jacket, where I withdrew the badge that Jeff had prepared for me. Fake departments and bureaus were one of his simple joys in life. It was better than having him spend all his time making shoes that no one wanted to wear. “The police don’t have jurisdiction over bears, I’m afraid.”
“And you do?” asked Jennifer. She took my badge, studying it carefully as she tried to reassure herself that it was real. It wasn’t, of course, but she’d never be able to figure that out on her own.
“Inasmuch as anyone can have jurisdiction over bears, yes,” I said, taking my badge from her hand. “I’m Agent Marchen. These are my associates, Agent Winters and Agent Santos.”
Jennifer turned a wary eye on Demi and Sloane. Demi looked cautiously back. Sloane kept looking around like she expected us to be attacked at any moment. It was starting to make me nervous about remaining out in the open.
Still, this was an opportunity to see what we might be up against if Jennifer was in the process of going fully active. Using her study of my team and I as cover, I studied her right back. She looked basically like Sloane’s description, but with an added dimension of quiet exhaustion that I wouldn’t have guessed. She looked like the sort of woman who had long since given up wishing for a fairy tale ending, and was just hoping to make it through the week without collapsing. Too bad for her that the fairy tale hadn’t given up so easily. She wasn’t armed, and she didn’t look particularly dangerous.
I’ve been bitten by that assumption before.
“You look legit,” she said finally.
“It’s the shoes, ma’am,” I said.
I was only halfway kidding. As a civilian-interface field operation, this required a bit more subtlety than our usual Island of Misfit Toys approach. I habitually wore black suits and sunglasses to work anyway, trying to overwrite my natural Snow White tendencies with the more modern fairy tale of the Men in Black. Sloane and Demi were more iconoclastic, and had required a stop by the Wardrobe Department
, located across from Dispatch, before they were ready to go. The results, however, spoke for themselves. My teammates looked like they shared my tailor—probably because they did, everything in Wardrobe having been stitched by either Jeff or one of his fellow five-oh-threes.
Both Demi and Sloane had chosen to forego the sunglasses, Demi because they left her essentially blind and Sloane because she wanted to be able to see the scene more clearly. Whatever she was seeing, she didn’t like it; her agitation was becoming difficult to ignore. I cleared my throat.
“Agent Winters? Is there a problem?”
“We shouldn’t be standing out here in the open,” she said. There was a note of real fear in her voice. That worried me. Sloane rarely shows fear. “This is a bad place to be when the bears come.”
The word “bears” brought about an immediate change in Jennifer. She visibly flinched, looking from side to side as she demanded, “Where?”
“Miss Lockwood, may we continue this inside?” The situation was in danger of getting away from me, and I needed to prevent that from happening. Jeff and Andy could watch the street and notify us if any bears decided to appear.
“You did call us, ma’am,” said Demi softly.
Jennifer flinched again before nodding and stepping backward, into the relative safety of her own home. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, making you stand outside like this …”
Sloane cast me an anxious look as we followed Jennifer inside. Territorial urges went with the story.
One way or another, the bears were going to get in.
#
Jennifer was unhappy about leaving me in the living room while she took Sloane and Demi on a tour, but I insisted, and she was beat down enough not to argue beyond a few weak protests. I waited until the sound of their voices was muffled by the kitchen wall before pulling out my phone and calling Andy.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“No signs of breaking and entering, but Sloane is tense. Just standing in the yard got her pretty agitated, and she said that the bears were coming. Do you see any bears?”
“No bears,” said Andy. “Could she be talking about metaphorical bears?”
“Okay, well, do you see any large gay men—apart from yourself—or motorcycle gangs?”
Andy snorted laughter before replying, “No, but I’ll keep an eye out. Jeff is going over possible variations now. He’ll let you know as soon as he finds something.”
A horrible thought was occurring to me, swimming slowly out of my knowledge of the narrative and what the ATI spectrum was capable of doing to people who didn’t get out of its way quickly enough. “Please do. There are three of us here.”
There was a pause while Andy processed my meaning. Then he swore. “Shit, Henry, do you really think—”
“I really do,” I said. “Demi’s new—she’s a baby agent; Sloane was nearly pulled into a classical female story by the ATI spectrum; and I have a male name. It’s not perfect casting, but since when has an ongoing memetic incursion cared about being perfect? We’re ripe to become her Three Bears, if we’re not careful.”
“I’ll be right in,” said Andy. The phone went dead.
That hadn’t been my intention, but it would serve as well as anything, since having four members of my team in the house would keep us from falling neatly into the holes that were open in Jennifer’s narrative.
By the time Jennifer returned with Demi and Sloane, Andy was standing in the living room next to me. She stopped, paling, her eyes widening in a way I was all too familiar with. She thought that she’d been lied to, that our badges were fake, and that we were here to rob her, or worse.
There was a moment when things could have turned ugly, but that sort of moment is why we have Andy. He smiled, stepping forward, and offered her his hand. “Agent Robinson,” he said. “I apologize for my tardiness, but I was asking some of the neighbor kids if they’d seen anything unusual, and I lost track of the rest of my team. I’d lose my own head if it wasn’t screwed on tight.” He knocked the knuckles of his other hand lightly against the smooth brown dome of his skull, as if to illustrate his point.
Jennifer didn’t take the offered hand. Instead, voice shaking slightly, she said, “I’d like to see your badge, please.”
“Of course, ma’am.” Andy reached into his jacket and produced his badge, which looked, naturally, exactly like mine, save for the name and photograph. He handed it to Jennifer. “Would you also like the number for our supervisor?”
“Yes,” said Jennifer immediately.
“No problem, ma’am.” Andy produced a business card.
Jennifer snatched it out of his hand, pulling her phone out of her pocket and taking a large step backward as she dialed. Andy moved to stand beside me, and Sloane and Demi moved to flank us, the four of us presenting as unthreatening a line as we could while we waited for the inevitable scene to play out.
“Yes—wait, really? That’s really the name of the agency?” A pause, before Jennifer said, sounding alarmed, “No, ma’am, I didn’t mean to imply that you were lying to me, I was just surprised. I’ve never heard of you before, and—” There was another pause. “Yes, ma’am, they’re here. No, they haven’t done anything wrong. I just wanted to verify their credentials before I let them inside.”
Sloane rolled her eyes. I gave a minute shake of my head. If Jennifer wanted to pretend to be more cautious than she was, that was her business.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” Jennifer lowered her phone, looking stunned. “You’re really from the Bureau of Urban Wildlife,” she said, holding Andy’s badge out for him to take.
He also took back the business card. At that particular moment, she was too confused to notice. By the time she realized that she didn’t have it anymore, we would hopefully be long gone.
“I assure you, we are here only to guarantee your safety and the safety of the people around you,” I said. “The Bureau takes reports of urban bears very seriously.” Especially when they came from women who were flagged as borderline fairy tale nexus points.
“All right,” said Jennifer, seeming to deflate and tense at the same time. She no longer had to devote energy to being scared of us, and could go back to worrying about the real danger: the bears. “Come with me. I’ll show you where I saw them.”
#
Jennifer’s bedroom matched the rest of the house in all the ways that counted: small, shabby, but clearly making an effort to stay as clean and well maintained as possible. There was a gray-striped tabby cat on the bed, curled in the classic half-comma position preferred by felines everywhere. It woke up when we entered the room, lifting its head and turning interested green eyes in my direction. I winced. Experience told me what was going to happen next—and sure enough, the cat stood, jumped off the bed, and raced to start twining around my ankles.
“Wow,” said Jennifer, sounding impressed. “Puss doesn’t like anybody but me. I guess if my cat approves of you, you must be okay.”
Sloane rolled her eyes so hard that I was afraid she was going to sprain something, but she kept her mouth shut, thankfully. Animals are not the barometer of humanity that some people make them out to be—not unless those animals have started talking, and then they present a whole new set of problems.
“Anyway, this is where I saw the bears,” said Jennifer, walking to the room’s single window and gesturing toward the glass. “The first night, I thought it was just a dream, you know? I’ve had weirder dreams, and how often do you get bears in the city?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Andy, somehow managing to sound reassuring and warning at the same time—we were the people who dealt with bears, and so we would see them a lot, according to his tone, but people like Jennifer shouldn’t have to worry about unscheduled ursine incursions. “How many times have the bears been back?”
“And when did it become ‘bears,’ plural?” asked Sloane. “You only mentioned one bear before. I thought this was a sing
le bear situation.”
“It was the first night, when I thought it was a dream,” said Jennifer. “The second night was when the second bear came. I would have thought I was still dreaming, but …” Helplessly, she gestured to the window.
Careful not to trip over Puss in the process, I walked to the window and looked through. Jennifer’s backyard was as shabby-looking as everything else in the neighborhood: more mud than grass, with an unpainted fence made of splintering boards separating her from the next yard over.
“I pay extra for the view,” said Jennifer defensively, as if she could anticipate our thoughts.
“It’s nice,” I said. I meant it, in my way. This was what she had, and she was making the best of it. Far be it from me to judge someone for taking the hand that life dealt to them. And it was a nice strip of yard, in all its sparse weediness; it was something growing in the middle of a city, and that was beautiful.
It was probably a little more reassuring before something clawed great gouges into the windowsill and ripped up the dirt underneath the window itself, but that was virtually beside the point.
Sloane pushed her way in next to me, nose quivering as she looked down at the gouges in the wood. “Something’s wrong,” she said, voice pitched low in an effort to keep Jennifer from hearing her. It was surprisingly thoughtful, for Sloane. Then again, maybe she was worried about the fact that we were clearly standing in bear country. “The bears shouldn’t be trying to break into her house. She should be the one who’s trying to break into theirs.”
“Variation?” I suggested.
“It’s possible, but this is a pretty damn big variation,” said Sloane.
“Excuse me,” said Jennifer. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what are the two of you talking about? I’m the one with bears in her backyard. I think I should be the one getting answers.”
“Yes, ma’am, and you will be getting the answers that you’re looking for,” I said, turning to face her. “I’m afraid, however, that it isn’t entirely safe for you to be here right now. Would you be willing to come back to the station with us? Just for some routine questions, I promise. No one’s in trouble here. There’s no law against having bears force their way into your backyard.”
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