Raven Black wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stay warm. “Sure. So where are you staying?”
Legba tilted his head. “At, uh, at The Royal.”
Raven Black nodded. “Ah, okay. So that means you’re that way…” She pointed ahead of her. “And I’m this way.” She pointed in the opposite direction, behind her.
Legba smiled, sadness in his eyes. “I see…”
Raven Black returned the smile. “Yeah. It, it was great to meet you. Great talking to you.”
The sadness in Legba’s eyes was replaced with warmth. “Yes. Certainly. It was lovely to talk to you.”
Raven Black nodded, a flicker of indecision on her face. “Yeah. And regarding your offer? I, uh, I’ll give it some thought. Good night.”
She smiled, turned, and walked down the sidewalk, leaving Legba standing outside the bar. He shoved his hands into his pockets. Well, he thought to himself, that’s that, I suppose.
He walked towards his hotel, his eyes angled down to the sidewalk. Perhaps it is time to admit failure. Perhaps it is time to leave.
He came to an empty street corner. It was very late, and there were no pedestrians, and no vehicles, so it would have been perfectly safe to cross, but he didn’t. He stood rooted to the pavement, with a single overwhelming feeling: You should not be walking away from Raven Black. You need her.
He sighed and turned around, facing away from the intersection. In the distance, he could still see Raven Black, a couple of blocks away, moving in the opposite direction. He inhaled, filling his lungs with a deep, calming breath, and he then took a step towards her.
+++
Aboard the Chesed, Edge of Leviathon-Q Sector
Bentley watched Legba as he stood at the corner of a large city block, flanked by long, vacant streets. As Legba took his first step, back in the direction he had come, Bentley started to shake her head, letting the image dissolve like mist, until it was replaced by a uniform darkness.
She opened her eyes and glared at Legba. His eyes fluttered open, and he glanced at her, confused. “My. That was quite abrupt. Is something wrong?”
Bentley crossed her arms. “Yes, something is wrong! Why are you showing me all of this in such a long-winded way? I didn’t ask for tickets to your one-man show, That Time I Stood on a Cold, Dark Street Corner and Made a Long, Conflicted Decision. Just tell me what happened! And stop keeping things from me!”
Legba repositioned himself on the stool, a look of confusion coming over his face. “I am sorry that you feel this way, but I am not sure that I understand. On one hand, you say that I am revealing far too much detail, but on the other, you say that I am keeping things from you? How is it possible that I am doing both, at the very same time?”
Bentley sighed loudly. “Look. All I know for sure is that when I finally did wake up without my memories, you’d attached me to that fucking sword. You’ve shown me all sorts of things about your little life on that rock, and all the fun you had as a tourist-slash-spy on Dacca Noir, and all about our very premeditated meet-cute, but absolutely nothing about the sword.”
Legba nodded slowly. “Okay… I am not sure that I see the issue…”
Bentley massaged her temples. “It’s an issue because I want to know something – anything – about the sword, but you haven’t shown me a single thing about it! Please, just give me something! Like, where was it made? Or am I supposed to believe that it just materialized as soon as you needed it?”
Legba looked at Bentley, but he didn’t reply. He just smiled.
Bentley glared at him, her eyes narrowing. “Tell me. Now. Or our deal is off.”
Legba sat back in his seat. “Well. If you insist.”
Bentley nodded vigorously. “I do. This is me, insisting.”
Legba rubbed his hands together. “I have not yet mentioned the sword, for at this point in the story, it is hidden from prying eyes.”
Bentley ran her hands through her hair, exasperated. “That— That doesn’t tell me anything! Give me more than that! Like, say, why did you make it?”
Legba smiled at her. “As an insurance policy. My dear child, there are many things that you do not understand. If I am ever kicked out of the Unseen world for good, as were Amroth and your friends Shango, Olofi, and Loco, then the sword will be my failsafe way of getting back.”
Bentley took a deep breath, considering this. “Okay. But… but why is it a sword? Couldn’t you have just made it, like, a hat?”
Legba sat back in his seat. “We could pursue the question of whether this object would have been best if it were fashioned as a sword, or a hat, or a miniature horse that lives in a shoebox, but I believe that there are more important questions that remain unanswered. Questions such as: what was it that occurred before you shot me?”
Bentley stared at him, then leaned back in the examination seat. “Fine. Let’s go back in.”
+++
Bentley’s home planet, Dacca Noir, Dracon System, Kaunox Sector
Legba strode down the practically empty sidewalk, half a block behind Raven Black. She was walking in the general direction of her home, and although Legba knew it wasn’t the best idea to follow a woman home from a bar, especially when she had no idea that she was being followed, he wasn’t sure what else to do. He just knew that he had an insistent voice in the back of his head telling him that he needed her, that she needed to come with him, and he felt compelled to follow that voice.
He still hadn’t figured out what he might say to her, once they did finally speak again. Just in case she happened to turn around unexpectedly, leaving him in a state where he might have no idea what he could say to salvage the situation, he employed his perception filter. He switched the settings to make him functionally invisible, to Raven Black or anyone else, even though he hadn’t seen anyone else since leaving the bar. So he followed her, block after block, fifty or so yards behind her, in silence, unheard and unseen.
As he walked, he checked various readings on his corteX. While at the bar, he had managed to obtain some minute samples of Raven Black’s tissue. Each time that she went to the washroom, it was quite easy to collect some of the hairs and dead skin cells she had left behind in the booth.
Over the course of the walk, he ran every test he could imagine, seeing if he could identify any physical or chemical characteristics that would clearly show why this woman was so important, so special. However, he could find nothing that indicated anything like pre-destiny, or quantum selection. He was stumped.
The results of the most recent test flashed across his corteX: negative. He let out a sigh of frustration. Up ahead of him, Raven Black paused. Legba stopped, too, his muscles tense, his eyes on her. She looked behind her, peeking over her shoulder. At one point, she was technically looking right at him, but as Legba peered at her eyes, he could see that she was actually looking right through him.
He knew from his visits to her home that, from this particular point, the most direct path to her apartment was straight ahead, just a couple of blocks north. However, when she started moving again, she made a hard right, east, down another street.
Legba quickened his pace, speed walking towards the intersection where Raven Black had turned. As he rounded the corner, he saw that she was halfway up an outdoor staircase, which led to a swarming line of floating pods. The pods had windows, and each one looked like a tiny, empty train compartment. It looked like Raven Black was definitely not going home, but where she was going, Legba had no idea.
In a panic, he thrust his hands into his pockets, searching for a spare bug. Finding one, he turned it on with his corteX, and piloted it up to the top of the staircase that Raven Black had ascended. It arrived at the top just as she did.
There was a long platform at the top of the staircase, which ran parallel to the street below. Raven Black walked to the edge of the empty platform, and one of the pods stopped beside her, its door opening automatically. She stepped into it, unaware that the bug was floating right above her left
shoulder. The door closed itself, and the pod joined the floating swarm, moving south.
Now in less of a rush, Legba ascended the staircase himself, very relieved that he would not need to run. He stepped up to the edge of the platform, but none of the pods stopped. They just floated by, one after another, as if he weren’t even there. Legba smiled, then shook his head. Of course they’re acting as if no one’s here, he thought to himself. He adjusted the settings of his perception filter, and the very moment that that he deactivated the invisibility cloak, a pod stopped right in front of him. It opened its door, beckoning him to enter.
He stepped into the pod and sat down on its tiny cushioned bench. He didn’t look out the windows, at the passing canyons of tall, dark buildings. Instead, he kept his attention on the information that was coming from Raven Black’s pod via the bug, following her progress through Dacca Noir. Within a few minutes, she had arrived at a station that had become familiar to Legba over the past few days: Halton View, the station office where Raven Black worked.
He watched her leave her pod and walk across the deserted platform, towards the elevator bay that led up to her office. He set the bug on autopilot to follow her and sighed, massaging his neck. Okay, he thought to himself. As far as I can remember, my itinerary for the evening did not include breaking into a LaPlacian station office while drunk, but these things do have a way of coming up…
As his pod made its way towards Halton View, he considered his options. As far as I see it, he thought to himself, I have two general problems. One: getting through secured entryways. Two: not leaving a trail.
The entryways should be relatively trivial. I should only be going through areas that Raven Black herself has moved through, so a signal that forces a security device to run the last set of information it acquired – that is, Raven Black’s information – would give me the exact same level of access as her. I should also throw in a command to delete the second input of Raven Black’s information, so that the logs don’t reflect two entries, but that’s easy enough.
As to the second problem, given that this is a security station, I have no doubt that it hosts a plethora of security cameras. Luckily for me, though, I can’t imagine that there are too many people here beyond Raven Black and the janitorial staff, so I could probably just deploy a general program, that forces cameras to loop their shots of empty rooms and hallways whenever the devices pick up a particular signal. And I can just pulse that general signal the entire time I’m in there. Anything more advanced, I can figure out when I get there. Probably.
By the time Legba’s pod had dropped him off on the Halton View platform, he’d written all of the necessary code, and infected the station’s security system with the requisite protocols. He walked confidently towards the elevator bay, which was meant solely to be used by LaPlacian employees of a sufficiently high security level. He waved his hand over the identification pad, pressed the up button, and within seconds, the elevator arrived, opening its doors wide to receive him.
He stepped inside and checked the bug’s feed from a few minutes ago. Legba was fairly sure that Raven Black would have pressed 32, the floor where her own office was, but he wanted to be sure. However, when he watched the feed, he watched Raven Black’s finger move a few inches higher, to 34. He shrugged, pressed 34, and felt the floor rise beneath his feet.
The movement of the elevator brought him out of his mind, and back into his body. Ever since Raven Black had made that sharp right a few blocks from her home, Legba had been riding a surge of adrenaline, not wanting to lose her. However, now that he was finally in the same building as her, he allowed himself to calm down slightly.
I suppose, he thought to himself, there is still the matter of what I will actually say to her, but surely I can figure that out in the next 31 floors. He glanced up at the display which showed the elevator’s progress. 23 floors, now. But still.
He could still feel the alcohol in his system, and although the sustained burst of adrenaline had sobered him up a fair bit, he could still feel a pleasant looseness in his muscles. He smiled to himself, absorbed with a general feeling that once he and Raven Black were talking again, everything would turn out just fine.
As the elevator arrived at the thirty-fourth floor, and its doors parted, Legba’s feeling of comfort began to slip. The elevator bay was dark. Light spilled out of the elevator that Legba stood in, but the only other sources of light in the elevator bay were the glowing buttons of the opposite elevators. Legba took a tentative step into the elevator bay. As the elevator doors behind him slipped shut, he was plunged into darkness.
He looked around. The elevator bay curved around in a semicircle, so there was only one way to go: away from the elevators. He turned in this direction and peered into the darkness.
He saw a large, dark room with high ceilings. The room was filled with banks of computers on desks, in long rows, and it looked like an open-plan office. The walls seemed as though they were lined with private offices, and above these offices there were sets of high, thin windows. The city’s muted light pollution shone through the windows, but apart from that, the room was completely dark.
Legba took a deep breath and consulted the live feed from the bug on his corteX. He saw nothing, just a pure field of black. The only sound he heard was the rhythmic sound of breathing, inhaling and exhaling. He listened to the breath, seeing if he could detect any helpful information about the breather’s physical or emotional state. The breath was regular, controlled, and resolute.
Oh, boy, Legba thought to himself. I suppose this will be a bit trickier than I had hoped. In most circumstances, it would be so much easier to simply kidnap the person and get it over with. But with her, that just seems so… so wrong. Not her. I cannot betray her trust. She must be convinced to come of her own free will. Even if that is, in practice, an incredible pain.
He stepped deeper into the office, moving slowly, assessing his surroundings. There are only so many places that she can be on this floor, he thought to himself, and if she does choose to move, I’ll know where she went immediately, thanks to the bug. This will mostly be an exercise in patience. Now, if Raven Black were in this room, the bug would show more than just an undifferentiated field of black. The light here is very weak, but this is not a place of complete and utter darkness. Perhaps the most reasonable option is to check each office, one after the other. Hopefully she’s chosen one with a pair of comfortable chairs…
He moved towards the first office on his left, the one closest to the elevator bay. As he moved towards it, he began to realize that he was not walking through a standard white-collar office. There was certainly no shortage of computers and paper work in various states of completion, but as Legba approached the door to the private office, he noticed that on either side of the door stood two huge metal cabinets. These cabinets were plastered with various kinds of warnings. He stepped over towards one of the cabinets and read the largest set of lettering: “DANGER! Firearms within!”
Legba heard a sharp whine of metal, then a voice. “Hey! Not so fast, old man! Put your hands up!”
Suddenly, the room was flooded with light from the ceiling. Legba instinctively turned towards the sounds and saw Raven Black, standing in an empty metal cabinet across the room, a pistol pointed right at his face.
He raised his arms in surrender, but he could not help but smile. “Raven Black. It is so good to see you.”
Raven Black stepped out of the cabinet, keeping the gun trained on Legba. “Oh, yeah. I’ll bet. Hadn’t you seen enough of me tonight, at the bar? And then also on my way home? Or were you hoping to see more? Once I got into my apartment, and I got into my bedroom, and I got undressed?”
A look of sadness came across Legba’s face. “Oh, heavens, no. Nothing like that. I just… I just wanted to talk to you…”
Raven Black scowled. “Uh huh. I’ll give you five seconds to convince me not to rearrange your face.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Aboard the Chesed,
Edge of Leviathon-Q Sector
Svend paced through the tight confines of the storage room, between the tall, orderly shelving units and the wide storage lockers with their matte metal doors. He had a look of intense concentration on his face. His eyes were not focused on anything in the room, but rather on a program which he was running on his corteX. Lying on an almost empty shelf was the sword, cradled by its crimson cloth sheath. A small orb floated above the sword, rotating slowly and glowing weakly.
Jelly Bean sat on a stool in the corner, watching Svend. Svend looked over at her and smiled tightly. “It should be done any minute now. I think. Maybe.”
Jelly Bean nodded, then sighed, staring at the floor. “I realize that the human proverb ‘A watched pot never boils’ is meant to apply to situations that do not strictly involve the heating of vessels containing liquids to hazardous, albeit useful, temperatures. That this proverb is meant to be relevant to situations beyond even those that could be imagined by the person who tokened the saying, including the execution of data analysis programs. But even granting all of that, I must admit that it is extremely hard to do anything else when—”
Suddenly Svend stiffened, his eyes moving rapidly. Jelly Bean’s digital face lit up with a look of optimism. “What is it? Good news?”
Svend’s lips slowly turned downwards, as disappointment overwhelmed his features. “Nope. There is absolutely no statistically significant correlation. Yet another dead end.”
Jelly Bean nodded, a look of resignation on her face. “Well, at least a dead end provides us with some information: that this would be a fruitless road of inquiry.”
Svend crossed his arms. “Ah. So a dead end gives us the precious information that the dead end is a dead end?”
Jelly Bean nodded. “You must admit, that is more than nothing. We now know that we should not pursue this thread, and that we should not waste any more of our time on it.”
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