Impostor Syndrome

by Mishell Baker

  “How important is it that we lock Fred in?” said Alvin uneasily.

  “Yeah, that’s what’s bugging me, too. If he happens to get up and try to leave, suddenly everything looks a lot more suspicious. But if Dame Belinda ever finds out that Caryl or I were there, she’s going to put together that we flew to London just to do the break-in, and she’s going to start scouring the place from top to bottom to figure out what was so important.”

  “Would that be so bad, though?” said Alvin. “Isn’t the point for all the other national heads to know we have the Vessel and that they have to work with us to get it?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Not while Dame Belinda still has her claws on everyone’s blood samples. As long as she has the ability to do God knows what to any of us, I want her to feel like she’s got the upper hand. We’ve seen what she’s willing to do as a goddamned warning shot. So I don’t want her trying to escalate things until she’s already lost the power to control us. We’re fairly sure we’ve got a couple of weeks at least, right? Before anyone would go looking for the thing and find out it’s gone?”

  “In my thirty-two years at the Project,” said Alvin, “I can count on my fingers the number of times the Medial Vessel has come out of its box. That’s not to say Dame Belinda won’t suddenly decide to use the Vessel for something besides Gate building.”

  “I was wondering about that. If the bag can hold anything . . .”

  “Well, not anything. The mouth of the bag is only big enough to maybe get your fist through. But the blocks the Gates are built of, they’re small. It’s cool, actually.” Alvin’s eyes lit up with geeky enthusiasm. “Think Duplos, not cinder blocks. They fit together in a very specific way, and each one has to be identical to its counterpart on the other side. So it’s this process of making pairs of identical blocks, putting one in the Vessel, putting one in the pile in Arcadia. Then the two builders work simultaneously.”

  “I would surmise,” interjected Caryl, “that anyone as obsessed with controlling every tiny moving piece as Barker is, will be very, very protective of an artifact that allows perfect control over Project infrastructure.”

  I shifted in my seat. “And you’re sure I won’t accidentally destroy this thing?”

  “Impossible,” said Caryl. “The Vessel’s spellwork is inaccessible; that is why it can never be read or duplicated. The charm was placed on the inside of the bag.”

  “And if I put my hand inside . . . ?”

  “Your hand would cease to exist in time and space. I do not recommend it.”

  “If I turn the bag inside out?”

  “Time and space would cease to exist altogether, which is why the enchantment makes that impossible.”

  “Jesus. Then how the fuck do people get things out of the bag?”

  “When the mouth is stretched wide,” said Alvin, “anything that was inside it just . . . barfs out.” He looked thoughtful. “We’ll have to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool with cotton balls or something when we take the vials out. They’re made of glass.”

  “Wow, that could be a gory mess.”

  “One step at a time,” said Caryl.

  “Right. So. We go upstairs, we find the bag, I disable any ward protecting it, and Caveat will copy the ward back over the empty box or whatever.”

  Caryl frowned. “Leaving her trapped in a ward until we retrieve the vials.”

  “She’ll be doing it herself; no one’s binding her!”

  “Which means she will either get tired and leave the ward of her own accord, which is bad, or we go to phase two missing one of our spirit allies, which may be worse.”

  “It’s easier to pick holes in a plan than to make one,” I said sullenly. “Have you got a better idea?”

  “I might,” chirped Elliott, suddenly appearing on Caryl’s shoulder.

  I made an inelegant sound of surprise. “Elliott,” I said. “How are you—oh, never mind,” I added when I saw Caryl’s flushed face, the tears starting to her eyes. He’d handed the poor girl her emotions back the way you’d shove a bag of groceries into someone’s arms to tie your shoe.

  “I’ll make this quick,” he said. “But if I follow what you are arguing about, you are both missing something important.”

  “Out with it,” I said, reaching over to stroke Caryl’s arm soothingly as she began to hyperventilate and reach for the buckle of her seat belt. Oh boy, we were at a 9 or a 10 here. I pointed to the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign, which was lit.

  “I have to get up,” she said. She could still speak, at least, so not at level 10. “I have to—”

  “Sit,” I said firmly. “Close your eyes and count slowly to thirty. If Elliott isn’t finished talking by then, you can get up and fight whichever flight attendant descends on you. Talk fast, Elliott.”

  “Caveat will not be weaving a spell from scratch,” said Elliott. “She will be replacing a ward you have disabled.”

  “Five . . . six . . . seven . . . ,” counted Caryl.

  “Yes,” I said. “I explode the spellwork; she puts it back the way it was.”

  “There was a spirit trapped in that ward already,” Elliott said. “When you break the spellwork, the spirit cannot transcend dimensions at will and return to Arcadia. It remains trapped in the spot where you released it.”

  “The stranded fish thing,” I said.

  “Eighteen . . . nineteen . . . ,” droned Caryl, eyes closed.

  “If Caveat reverse engineers the spirit’s true name from reading the spellwork on the enslaving ward, she can then command the same spirit back into the same ward.”

  “She’d enslave one of her own? Why are you speaking for her anyway?”

  “She is occupied with muffling the conversation.”

  “I’ll watch what I say,” I said, “and no one can hear Caveat if she doesn’t want them to. But I need to hear this from her. Also, your time’s up.”

  Caryl, having finished her counting, was reaching for her seat belt. Elliott vanished, and she relaxed.

  “Ah,” Caryl said. “I am sorry. It seems even on the aisle seat I cannot shake the feeling of being trapped.”

  “That’s because you are trapped,” I said. “But if it makes no difference, can we switch seats? Because it would make a difference to me.”

  She dryly pointed to the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign, which was still lit. Ah yes, definitely back to normal.

  On the shoulder where Elliott hadn’t been sitting, Caveat appeared. As usual, she manifested as a pale, slender version of the scorpion-tailed iguana dragon that Elliott favored. But hers lacked life; it was missing all the little tail twitches and weight shifts Elliott used to indicate his feelings.

  “Sorry,” Caveat said in an incongruously adorable voice. “I’d rather Elliott do the talking.” Her diction always surprised me, because I was so used to Elliott’s formality.

  “Don’t be shy,” I said to Caveat. “You can talk to me. Besides, Elliott’s a little busy right now.”

  Caveat raised her beady eyes to me, slowly. She probably hadn’t quite gotten the hang of feigned body language, but the effect was strangely accurate to her wary attitude.

  “That spirit’s already lost,” Caveat said. “A spirit that’s been inside a ward for that long? It . . . dies.”

  “I thought—” I stopped myself, not wanting other plane travelers to hear me talking about immortal spirits. “I thought you guys didn’t do that. The— Vivian’s friends. They taunted us about that.”

  “We don’t die in same the way a body dies. But . . . look at it like this. A ward is a spell bound to the earth. For a spirit, that’s torture. After a while they just . . . it’s hard to describe.”

  “Take your time,” I said.

  She sat perfectly still for a few moments. “Imagine,” she said, “that you put out your own eyes so you didn’t have to see something.”

  I winced. “Okay.”

  “Imagine doing that to all your senses. To your brain. Everything that makes you aware. Jus
t . . . erasing every part of you that feels.”

  I felt like I’d stepped into cold water. “That’s what the ones in wards do?”

  “Not right away,” said Caveat. “But when you visit the old wards, you can see it. Spirits can, I mean. Fey with physical eyes . . . they can only see the spellwork, not the dead fey trapped inside it.”

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  Caveat just sat still on Caryl’s shoulder for a moment, then said, “While it’s a kind of . . . desecration to do this to a dead spirit, to use it this way . . . the spirit won’t feel it. The spirit’s already lost. If it’ll help stop other spirits from being used this way, it’s something I’m willing to do.”

  I looked at her for a moment. “This is why you joined us,” I said. “Because you know things have to change. You know we’re the ones who want to change it.”

  “That isn’t why I joined you,” she said, very softly. “But it’s why I stay.”

  • • •

  We were halfway over the Atlantic when I caught Alvin looking glum, staring out the window. Caryl was reading a book, but reading had been stressful for me ever since my brain injury, and neither Caryl nor Alvin was willing to spring for a headset. So I’d been dozing and mentally rehearsing our plan over and over, and now I had nothing better to do than pester Alvin.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”

  He quickly adjusted his facial expression. “Ah, nothing, really.”

  I frowned at him. “Alvin. You look seriously bummed out.”

  He shrugged. “This isn’t a great situation, all around, Millie.”

  “We’re going to come out on top,” I said. “We can do this.”

  “On top of what, though?” he said. “No matter what happens, I’ve got to deal with the fact that my old friend Tracy was so willing to believe I’d lost my mind that he fired everyone who defended me. I’ve got to deal with the fact that I can’t even tell Becky why I’m at the office fourteen hours a day, taking week-long trips out of town, waking up from bad dreams at two a.m. . .”

  “Alvin, I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what it’s like trying to balance a normal life with all this. I—oh shit, I completely forgot to text my boyfriend back. Welp.”

  Alvin laughed out loud, which made me laugh too. He sighed then and rubbed at his eyes with one hand. “Yeah. I think she and I are okay. For now. She’s a partner in a law firm; she understands work stress. She thinks I work in some kind of government intelligence, which isn’t exactly super wrong. But also . . . you know, if I have to move out of state . . . she’s a partner in a law firm.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  I didn’t know what to say. He forced a smile. “Hey,” he said. “Let’s get you a headset, watch a movie.”

  “Really?” I smiled for real at that.

  “Yeah. But I get to pick, and you have to do smart-ass director’s commentary.”

  “Something funny,” I said. “Preferably without a heist.”

  “Or an apocalypse,” he said.

  “Yeah. We’ll get to those movies soon enough.”

  12

  My passport had previously only been used for trips to Mexico and a single jaunt to Vancouver; I had never experienced the joy of traveling more than three time zones in a day. I’d heard of jet lag of course, but I figured it was an exaggerated complaint by people who didn’t understand that they’d be sleepy when their body thought it was two a.m.

  We’d left around six p.m., and when we arrived, the clocks said it was half past noon on Saturday. By my calculations it was four thirty in the morning, but it shouldn’t have been worse than pulling an all-nighter, which I’d done several times in recent memory. We’d get to the hotel in time for me to catch a shower and a few hours’ sleep, and then I’d be on my proverbial feet in time for supper at something approaching local time. Right?

  Wrong.

  As soon as we got off the plane, my entire body rebelled in ways I’d never dreamed possible. I was so disoriented that the customs people had to ask everything three times, and I couldn’t seem to remember how to work my prosthetic legs gracefully. I staggered jerky-legged through Heathrow like a zombie.

  We’d checked a folding wheelchair with our luggage; Caryl was kind enough to unfold it immediately and push me around, though she was looking a bit undead herself.

  Alvin, the bastard, looked fine. “I’m used to this,” he said, as if it mattered. Maybe it did; I didn’t have enough travel experience to know.

  All I remember about my first ride on the Tube is the clack-clack-rush of the tunnels by the windows and the way everyone politely gave my wheelchair clearance. I remember staring blearily around me at the busy station when we changed from the Piccadilly to the Central line, musing—as Caryl helped me push my chair through a turnstile—that fey would find it all but impossible to take underground mass transit.

  We got off at Marble Arch and made our way around the corner to our hotel, which was just across from Hyde Park. The exterior was overwhelming; my vague impression was of weathered white stone and red brick towering over the three of us as uniformed attendants in top hats—top hats!—assisted those who had arrived via car.

  Alvin checked the three of us in; we’d been granted three of the luxury hotel’s more modest rooms, all adjoining. Alvin claimed the room between mine and Caryl’s, possibly to prevent her knocking on the adjoining door in the middle of the night and crawling into bed with me.

  By the time I got into my room after several failed attempts to properly time the insertion and withdrawal of the key card, I was so tired I couldn’t remember my name. I had never felt fatigue like this in my life; the closest sensation I could remember was the drugged, brain-damaged fog I’d lived in when first waking up in the hospital a year and a half ago. I stood in my room doing absolutely nothing for two or three minutes simply because I was overwhelmed by indecision about whether I should shower.

  Finally, I decided to give it a try, since my residual limbs needed time to dry before I put my prosthetics back on, and I had nothing to do for several hours. It seemed like a good time to scrape off the film of miscellaneous travel filth, then catch a few hours’ sleep that would hopefully reboot my brain.

  The bathroom completely stymied me, though. Assuming that I was capable of bipedal movement, Alvin hadn’t made any special accessibility arrangements, which meant the chair wouldn’t fit into the bathroom. My usual habit after an evening shower was to put on my robe and get into the chair in the privacy of the Residence Four upper bathroom, then wheel myself back to my room and sleep before putting my legs back on.

  It took far too long to occur to me that I had privacy in the entire hotel room and therefore could just do my three-legged crawl across the carpet to the bed if need be. It would feel weird, but at least no one would see me.

  The bathtub was nice, noticeably absent the horrific stains that discouraged me from reclining in the one at home. I soaked until I caught myself falling asleep and realized that drowning in a luxury hotel, while high on my list of ways to go, was not part of the current plan. I gave my face one last scrub and then pulled the plug, looking forward to collapsing on the huge wide bed around the corner.

  It’s amazing the small cultural things we take for granted—for example, that all American bathtubs are built so that their bottoms are at exactly the same height as the floor next to them. While trying to do my usual trick of using my good knee to vault the rest of me over the side of the tub, I misjudged the distance, causing my body to do an unexpected and violent pivot. After doing unspeakable wrenching things to my crotch on the side of the tub, I landed hard on the tile, half on my elbow, half on the side of my head.

  It hurt so badly that all I could do was lie there and groan for a while on the clean white bathmat. Grateful for my solitude, I vowed never to speak of the incident to anyone and crawled my way, painfully now, to the bed.

  Ah, it was worth it. I almost wept with relief at
the chance to be horizontal under a fluffy comforter, to let my spinning (and now bruised) head sink into a down pillow.

  • • •

  Later, Alvin swore up and down that he knocked repeatedly on my door, then went down to the front desk in alarm to get them to break into the room and make sure I was all right, whereupon they found me sound asleep and snoring under the covers. I can’t verify any of this; I only know that when I eventually attained something resembling consciousness, the clock on my bedside table said 11:49 p.m., and there was a note saying KNOCK ON MY DOOR WHEN YOU SEE THIS—A.

  I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for the fog to clear, in vain. I felt like a spectral rhinoceros was sitting on me. But my legs were dry, so I put on my prosthetics, a rote exercise by now, lotion on one, powder on the other. I got all the way to the door between our adjoining rooms and had just raised my hand to knock when I realized I was still naked.

  Jesus Christ on a unicycle.

  I put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt I’d brought to sleep in, then knocked. Then realized I was knocking on my own door, unlocked my side, and knocked on his. Apparently jet lag was everything that sucked about being drunk, without the fun part.

  When Alvin came to the door, it was obvious he’d gone to bed already; he was in a pair of elegant striped pajamas, and his hair was all rumpled. Still, he was disgustingly bright-eyed.

  “Did I wake you?” I said. “I, uh, saw your note. So. I am knocking. Because . . . note.”

  “It’s fine,” he said, strangely garbled. “Just one second, though, let me take out my retainer. I wanted to make sure we’re on the same page about tomorrow.”

  I started giggling as he turned and disappeared into his bathroom.

  “I’ll just take a seat I guess,” I said, and moved to the comfy-looking chair over by the window. His room was a near mirror image of mine, except that there was a second door beside his bed leading to the third adjoining room. I wondered if Caryl was sleeping soundly over there. I wondered what she was wearing. I forced my brain to think about Alvin’s retainer instead.