“Not helping, Tobias!” Ivy said, glaring at him.
“Quiet,” I said to them. “Quiet, all of you.”
They quieted. I locked eyes with Jenny, who now sat calmly twirling her pencil between two fingers. Feigned nonchalance.
I couldn’t keep unraveling every time Ignacio or Justin came up. I had to control this.
I was not crazy.
“I’m not comfortable talking about this topic,” I said, finally walking over and taking the seat she’d provided for me.
“Why not?”
“Different question, please.”
“Have you lost any aspects besides Ignacio?”
“I can sit here all day, Jenny,” I said. “Repeating the same words over and over. Is that how you want to waste your interview?”
The pencil stopped twirling. “Very well. Another question then.” She shuffled through her papers. “You’ve maintained throughout all your interviews that you are not insane—that by your definition, ‘insanity’ is the line beyond which an individual’s psychology impinges upon their ability to live a normal life. A line you’ve never crossed.”
“Exactly,” I said. “The media pretends that ‘insanity’ is this magical state that is simply on or off. Like it’s a disease you can catch. They miss the nuance. The human brain’s structure and chemistry are incredibly complex, and certain traits which—in the extreme—are deemed insane by society can be present in many so-called normal people, and contribute greatly to their success.”
“So you deny that mental illness is, indeed, an illness?”
“I didn’t say that.” I glanced at my aspects. Ivy, who sat down, primly crossing her legs. Tobias, who stood and strolled over to the window, looking up to where he thought he could see Stan the astronaut up in his satellite. J.C., who had moved to lounge by the door, hand on his gun.
“I’m just saying,” I continued, “that the definition of the word ‘insanity’ is a moving target, and depends greatly upon the person being discussed. If someone’s means of thinking is different from your own, but those thought patterns don’t disrupt their life, why try to ‘fix’ them? I don’t need to be fixed. If I did, my life would be out of control.”
“That’s a false dichotomy,” Jenny said. “You could be both in need of help and in control.”
“I’m fine.”
“And your aspects don’t disrupt your life?”
“Depends on how annoying J.C. is being at the moment.”
“Hey!” J.C. said. “I don’t deserve that.”
All three of us looked at him.
“… today,” he added. “I’ve been good.”
Ivy cocked an eyebrow. “On the way here, you said—and I quote—‘The police shouldn’t be so racist to them towel-heads, because it isn’t their fault they were born in China or wherever.’”
“See, being good.” J.C. paused. “Should I have called them ‘towel-headed Americans’ or something…?”
“Your id is speaking out?” Jenny looked from me to J.C. She was good at following my attention.
“He is not my id,” I said. “Don’t try to pretend he somehow articulates my secret desires.”
“I’m not certain he can articulate anything,” Ivy added. “As doing so would, by definition, require more than grunts.”
J.C. rolled his eyes.
I stood up and walked over to the fish tank again. I always wondered … did the fish know they were in a cage? Could they comprehend what had happened to them, that their entire world was artificial?
“So,” Jenny said. “Perhaps we could track your status, Mr. Leeds. Three years ago, during your last interview, you said you were feeling better than you ever had. Is that still the case? Have you gotten better, or worse, over the years?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” I said, watching a little black and red fish dart behind some fake yellow coral. “I don’t get ‘better’ or ‘worse’ because I’m not sick. I simply am who I am.”
“And you never before considered your … state … to be an affliction?” Jenny asked. “Because very early reports paint a different picture. They describe a frightened man who claimed he was surrounded by demons, each whispering instructions to him.”
“I…”
That had been a long time ago. Find a purpose, Sandra had taught me. Do something with the voices. Make them serve you.
“Hey,” J.C. interrupted, “I’m gonna go grab some jerky or something at that gas station. Anyone want anything?”
“Wait!” I said, spinning away from the fish tank. “I might need you.”
“What?” J.C. said, hand on the doorknob. “Need me to be the butt of more jokes? I’m sure you’ll live.”
He stepped out, then pulled the door closed. I stood, speechless. He’d actually left. Usually when J.C. disobeyed, it was because I tried to leave him behind—or because I didn’t want him practicing with his guns. He disobeyed to protect me. He didn’t just … just walk away.
Ivy ran to the door and peeked after him. “Want me to go after him?”
“No,” I whispered.
“So,” Jenny said. “We were talking about you getting worse?”
I … I …
“That’s an Achilles tang,” Tobias said, stepping up to me and nodding toward the little red and black fish. “It looks black, but it’s actually dark brown, sometimes even a dark purple. A beautiful, but difficult fish to keep; that spot on the tail is the origin of its name—as it looks a little like a bleeding wound on the heel.”
I took a deep breath. J.C. was just being J.C. We were talking too much about aspects—and he hated being reminded he wasn’t real. That was why he’d left.
“I’ve had some rough patches lately, perhaps,” I said to Jenny. “I need something to focus my aspects and my mind.”
“A case?” Jenny said, pulling a few sheets out from behind her notepad. “I might be able to help with that.” She set the sheets on the coffee table in front of her.
“Ah…” Ivy said, walking over to me. “That’s her angle, Steve. This is all preamble. She wants to hire you.”
“She was pushing you off balance,” Tobias said with a nod. “Perhaps to get herself into a better bargaining position?”
This was familiar ground. I relaxed, then walked over and settled down in the seat across from Jenny. “All this to offer me a case? You people. You realize that you can just ask.”
“You have a tendency to return letters unopened, Leeds,” the reporter said, but she did have the decency to blush.
“What is this…” I said, skimming. “Machine that can use big data to predict a person’s exact wants, updated minute by minute, incorporating brain chemistry with historic decisions, removing the need for most choices…”
“Kind of interesting,” Ivy said, reading over my shoulder. “I guess it will depend on what she’s willing to pay, and what exactly she wants us to do.”
“What do you need from me?” I asked Jenny.
“I need you to steal a—”
My pocket buzzed. I absently glanced at the phone, expecting a text from J.C. He’d probably sent me a picture of himself trying to drink straight from the soda machine at the gas station, or some similar nonsense.
But the text wasn’t from J.C. It was from Sandra. The woman who originally taught me to use my aspects; the woman who had brought me sanity. The woman who had vanished soon after.
The text read, simply, HELP.
TWO
I tore from the room, followed by Ivy and Tobias. Out on the street, Wilson and his niece saw something was up, and he alertly opened the car door for me. I waved Ivy and Tobias in. J.C.? Where was J.C.?
No time. I climbed into the back seat of the limo.
“Wait!” Jenny shouted from the door of the building. “What about my interview! I was promised a full session!”
“I’ll start it up again another time!”
“But the case!” she said, holding up her papers. “I need to see how yo
ur aspects respond to this situation. Aren’t you intrigued by—”
I slammed the door shut. On a normal day, perhaps I would have been intrigued. Not today. I held up the phone for Ivy and Tobias.
“You’re sure it’s from her?” Ivy asked.
“It’s from the number she left on the table that morning,” I said. “I’ve kept it in my contacts list on every phone I’ve had since.” We’d tried tracing it in the past, but phone records always listed it as unassigned.
Wilson climbed into the passenger-side front door, and his grandniece pulled on her coachman’s cap and took the driver’s seat. The car rumbled to life. “Where to, sir?” she asked.
I looked from Tobias to Ivy.
“It could be someone else spoofing the number,” Ivy said. “Be careful.”
Is it really you? I typed to her.
Destiny Place, she typed back. It was her nickname for Cramrid Hotel, the place where we’d first met. Another text soon followed: a sequence of numbers and nonsense characters.
What? I typed to her.
No reply.
“Sir?” Wilson asked from the front. “We’re leaving?”
“Take us home,” I said to Wilson.
His niece pulled us out onto the street and made a U-turn, heading back the way we’d come.
“What are those numbers?” Ivy asked, looking toward Tobias. “Do you recognize them?”
He shook his head.
“Sandra is worried that I might not be the one who has the phone,” I said. “It’s a cipher. She often did this sort of thing.”
The other two shared a look. Both of them had been around when I’d known Sandra—or at least they’d been among the many shadows and apparitions I’d seen back then. But they hadn’t been completely themselves until Sandra taught me to create aspects. Focusing my attention, meditating, compartmentalizing my mind. They’d transformed naturally from shadows and whispered voices into distinct individuals.
“We should ignore it,” Ivy said. “She’s playing with you again, Steve. If that’s really her.”
“If he ignores it, Ivy,” Tobias said softly, “it will haunt him for the rest of his life. You know he needs to pursue this.”
Ivy sat back, folding her arms. With her blonde hair in a tight bun and her no-nonsense pantsuit, you might easily think her cold. But when she looked away out the window, there were tears in the corners of her eyes.
Tobias placed his hand on her shoulder.
Oddly, I felt out of place. I should have offered her comfort, reassured her I wasn’t looking for a cure, or a way to be rid of her. I’d always promised Ivy that wasn’t the point of finding Sandra.
I did none of this. Instead, I stared at the phone screen. HELP. Twelve years ago, Sandra had saved me from the nightmare my life had become. Dared I hope that I’d be able to be with her again? Dared I hope that she’d be able to do something about the way I was sliding, my aspects getting worse, my—
The image on my screen was obscured as a new text popped up.
Dude. DUDE! Tell me I didn’t just see you drive off.
We’re heading home, I wrote to J.C. Grab an Uber or something.
I got you a doughnut and everything. With sprinkles.
And you haven’t eaten it yet?
Sure I did, he wrote back. But I knew I probably would, so I bought two. Can’t promise the second will survive the trip home. These are dangerous times, Skinny, and it’s a rough neighborhood for a tasty doughnut to be wandering about on its own.
J.C., Sandra just texted me. She needs help.
I didn’t get a response for a good minute and a half.
Stay at home until I get there, he wrote.
I’ll try.
Skinny. I’m telling you, wait.
I tucked the phone into my pocket. Three more texts came from him, but I ignored them. I wanted J.C. to hurry, and nothing would make that happen more efficiently than letting him think I was going into danger without him.
Not that there was anything he’d be able to do. He was a hallucination, not a real bodyguard. Though … there had been that one time, when he’d moved my hand—as if he were controlling it. And that time he’d pushed me out of the car …
I texted Kalyani en route, so the aspects were waiting by the windows when I got back to the mansion. I pushed open the car door as soon as we were near the house. Wilson’s niece yelped, then stopped the car.
I strode across the lawn.
“Want me to get the White Room ready?” Ivy asked, hurrying up.
“We don’t have time for that,” I said. “Get me Audrey, Ngozi, Armando, and Chin.”
“Got it.”
We reached the front doors, and I took a deep breath, bracing myself. All of my aspects would be here. That could—would—be taxing.
“Master Leeds?” Wilson asked, stepping up to my side. “Might I discuss something with you?”
“Can it wait?” I said, then pushed open the doors.
It hit me like a sudden weight—as if someone had slipped bars of lead in my pockets. Some fifty people, standing inside, all talking at once. Some were panicked. Others excited. A few haunted. The same name was on all their lips. Sandra.
Tobias joined me, and he seemed winded. From that short walk from the car? He was getting old. What … what happened when one of my aspects died of old age?
“Can you quiet the crowd?” I asked him.
“Certainly,” Tobias said. He stepped among them and began explaining. His calming voice worked for most of them, though as I walked up the stairs of the grand entry hall, one woman broke off from the others and chased after me.
“Hey,” Audrey said. Plump with dark hair, she tended to be a little unusual even for an aspect. “Sandra’s back, eh? Is she going to un-crazy you? I’d like forewarning if I’m going to vanish forever; I’ve got plans for tonight.”
“Date?” I asked.
“Binge-watching Gilmore Girls and eating like seventeen bowls of imaginary popcorn. I can’t technically gain weight, right, since I already weigh nothing?”
I smiled wanly as we reached the top steps.
“So…” she said. “You doing okay?”
“No,” I said. “Take this, see if you can figure out what this sequence of numbers means.” I tossed her the phone.
Which, of course, she fumbled and dropped. I winced. Audrey looked at me sheepishly, but it wasn’t her fault. My mind had forced her to fumble it—because she wasn’t actually real. I’d thrown my phone toward empty space. It had been a while since I’d made that kind of mistake.
I picked up the phone—its screen had cracked, but not badly—and showed Audrey what Sandra had sent. Audrey was the closest thing we had to a cryptographer. Actually, she was getting pretty good at it, now that I’d read a few more books on the subject.
“Thoughts?” I asked.
“Give me a few minutes,” she said. “Those characters in the string are probably wildcards … but for what…” She scribbled the string on her hand with a pen. “You going to deal with that mess?” she asked, gesturing toward the aspects down below.
“No,” I said.
“You going to at least count who didn’t show up?”
I hesitated, then leaned against the banister and did a quick count, already feeling a headache coming on. No Armando, but that wasn’t odd. He rarely left his room, or his “kingdom in exile” as he put it. Ngozi had come, which was good. She wore a face mask and gloves, but Kalyani had been working with her—and they’d been going out lately. Like, the actual outdoors.
Let’s see … no Arnaud, he’s probably sitting in his room, oblivious as always. No Leroy. Isn’t he on a skiing vacation? No Lua. Maybe in the yard, working on his hearth? He’d been constructing his own “stone age” house in the back yard, using only technology he could build by himself.
I hastened through the second floor’s hallways to Arnaud’s room. The light above the door was on, indicating that he didn’t want to be disturbed,
so I knocked. Finally he answered, a diminutive balding man with a soft French accent.
“Oh!” he said. “Monsieur!”
“How’s the device, Arnaud?” I asked.
“Come and see!” He opened the door, letting me into his laboratory. There were blackout curtains over the windows, since he was frequently developing film these days. Bits and pieces of machinery were neatly laid out on the workbench. A cigar in an ashtray indicated that Ivans had been helping him. He was the only aspect that still smoked.
Taped to the wall was a series of pictures. Winter scenes of the mansion.
“I’ve only been able to get it to go back about six months at most,” Arnaud said, stepping over to a device sitting on the table: a big old-school camera, like the ones you’d see news photographers use in old movies. “Just as you surmised, the flash is the most important part. But I still haven’t figured out exactly how it penetrates time.”
I took the camera, feeling its weight in my hands. A camera that could take photos of the past. The device had been involved in one of my most dangerous cases.
“I’ve now fitted it with instant film,” Arnaud said. “It should work. This dial here? That sets the time focus. It’s most accurate at short range, just a few days. The farther back you go, the blurrier the pictures become. I do not know how the original inventor solved this, but so far, I am at a loss. It is perhaps related to moments blurring together the farther back we try to make the light penetrate.”
“It’ll do, Arnaud. It’s fantastic.” I glanced to the side and noticed a few prints on the ground, each cut in half. “What are those?”
“Oh.” Arnaud shuffled, looking embarrassed. “I thought it would be good to have Armando look them over, as he is the expert in photography. I know physics, but not the taking of good shots. Armando agreed and destroyed several of my photos, as they were not ‘significant’ enough.”
I sighed, then packed the camera in a bag that Arnaud pointed out. Part of me already knew that the device would be ready. I’d been spending evenings in this room, working with my hands as Arnaud instructed me on the repairs. But those sliced photos were new.
Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds Page 20