Authors: Ferrett Steinmetz
The moon fled the sky as Paul watched the death certificate file. He reached out to accelerate the process. He sent tendrils of bureaucratic magic out, finding his tax records, his social security records, his SMASH files, marking them all:
dead, dead, dead
.
Paul shrank as his body decayed – not his physical form, but the body of records Paul viewed as himself. Automated routines recategorized Paul Tsabo, shifted him from “living” to “dead”; interest rates stopped accumulating for him, billing routines shut down.
He had not thought of himself as a man in years. He was a collection of records.
Paul filed a thousand graves to bury himself.
His tether to his beloved bureaucromancy ebbed away. This was right, this was correct; if he did any ’mancy SMASH would find him, if he left any trail then Aliyah would find him.
He bore down, one last burst of ’mancy. And as he annihilated his magic, he thought maybe Payne hadn’t been kind. It would have been easier to chew his wrists open: he watched himself evaporate into nothingness, insisting to his beloved system that he was no one.
Maybe he deserved this eternal half-life for placing Aliyah in such danger.
His magic dwindled. His sense of self dwindled. He nestled deeper into the garbage, feeling things crawl across him, realizing the nameless held no power, the nameless had no existence.
C
ome morning
, he was no one.
W
hen Aliyah felt
hungry enough to get some food, she discovered they had taken her Nintendo.
She uncurled her legs; fierce cramps shot up her thighs. Her recent memories were slurred – people had asked her questions, but parsing words into thoughts seemed like too much trouble, so she’d let the sounds slide through her brain. She remembered yelling at Daddy, remembered seeing K-Dash and Quaysean sizzle like hamburgers on a grill, remembered…
Rainbird had killed K-Dash and Quaysean.
She’d saved Daddy.
She needed to hold Daddy for a while. She’d been angry at him, and it was
OK
to be angry, but now she needed to tell Daddy why she was sad.
She hopped off the bed, wincing – her stomach hurt, how long had it been since she’d eaten? – and wandered over to get a sandwich.
Rainbird knocked on her door. “Mr Payne has a mission for you.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
Rainbird drew in a luxurious puff on his cigar, bolstering himself for a fight. “Your father left.”
A vague memory floated to the top: yelling at Daddy for him to get out.
He wouldn’t
really
leave her, though.
But as she pulled at the memory, trying to recall what had happened, Daddy looked serious. More serious than she’d ever seen him. Daddy was…
…he hadn’t cried, had he?
Her stomach cramped up. Daddy didn’t cry.
“
Where’s Daddy?
”
“I told you, girl. He left. He’s not coming back. We have an important task.”
“
Where’s Daddy!?
”
Rainbird clucked his tongue. “Don’t change your mind, girl. I heard you wailing at him to get out. You wanted me to teach you how to have no regrets? Start here.”
She punched him in the groin, where he’d taught her to. Rainbird squeezed his cigar so hard the ember popped off; with a glance, he got it smoking again.
“I’m warning you, Aliyah. Mr Payne needs your services, and needs them now. Time is of the essence.”
“
I don’t care about stupid Mr Payne!
”
Aliyah’s head rebounded off the shelves of cartridges before she realized what happened. He’d hit her just hard enough to get her attention; that exactness of how much pain he had doled out scared Aliyah.
He kneeled before her. “Mr Payne has safeguarded you, and you will
not
disrespect him. Your father has abandoned you. You will never see him again. And without this–” He waggled her Nintendo DS in the air “–you are an ordinary child.”
“
Give it!
” Aliyah lunged for her Nintendo, like Rainbird had taught her.
He slapped her backwards.
“This is no game, Aliyah.” The embers in his cheeks glowed, a banked fury. “You will apologize to Mr Payne.”
“I
won’t
!”
Rainbird rolled up his sleeves, preparing for an extensive beating. Fear shot down Aliyah’s spine. “I am not your father, Aliyah. I am here to teach you how this world works. And when you are standing in his seat of power… you
will
show Mr Payne His due respect.”
Aliyah thrust her chin forwards, as if to say something. Rainbird shifted, ready to meet insolence with violence.
It burned, not saying “no.” But Aliyah had to play nice until she got her Nintendo DS. Then she would show Rainbird who deserved respect.
“…I’m sorry.”
He tossed a risk control badge at her. “Say it the way He wants you to.”
Aliyah wanted to throw the badge in his face, but that would get her another beating. She clasped it to her chest, the thick silver ridges feeling like blades against her skin.
“…Thank you,” she said through gritted teeth. “…King.”
The badge grew warm, pulsating, sucking vital energy. She dropped it with revulsion – but Rainbird caught the badge before it hit the ground, shoved her back against the hard wire racks, brought his fiery cigar so close to her eye that her eyelashes sizzled.
“You will never drop this again.” He clipped it to her shirt. “You will carry it with you at all times. After you almost died sneaking out on us to visit your father, we will track you.”
He deposited a sandwich into her hands. “Now eat. You’ll need strength.”
Aliyah hated herself for following orders, but she was starving. Rainbird sat as content as a cat across from her, taking gentle puffs on his cigar.
“I’m going to need my Nintendo if you want me to find anyone,” she said through a mouthful of turkey.
Rainbird gave her a wan smile. “I need no help to
find
our target. You could find him yourself if I gave you his name.”
“His name?”
“Finish your sandwich. Some tasks call for full bellies.”
Now she wasn’t hungry. But she ate. When she finished, he took the wrapper, lit it, then set fire to the wall.
Sweat prickled across Aliyah’s face – well, some of it anyway. Her skin grafts didn’t sweat. Aliyah remembered lying helpless on the carpet, feeling the heat roast her cheeks….
She’d never had that fear as a ’mancer. ’Mancers played with fire.
But without her Nintendo DS, she wasn’t a ’mancer. She was a little girl.
Little girls got burned.
Rainbird swept his hands across the flames, spreading them further, pushing them open. “This won’t hurt you,” he said, seeming a little wounded. “You are a girl of fire. Remember, Aliyah –
you
came to
us
. Seeking to shed your remorse. You brought the ’mancers together – made them a community.”
He drew back blistered stumps, the fire devouring the wall – and then kneeled before Aliyah, almost in genuflection.
“Payne is old,” Rainbird told her. “Payne will pass. But His empire will not fall. You, Aliyah –
you
will keep the Peregrine Institute going.”
“But I don’t want–”
“This isn’t about what you want any more, Aliyah.” Fresh bones squirmed from his wrists, unfolding like snakes, raw new skin embracing them. “You’re poisoned by your father’s weakness. But soon, you will have no more regrets.”
He breathed onto the wall of fire, and it puffed inwards in an ashen skirl, blossoming into a portal. A cool black dot danced among myriad sparks, a shimmering pathway snaking through the inferno.
Aliyah held her own breath; despite all her fears, the flames beckoned her, urging her towards some great mystery on the other side.
“Step inside, and find the place where all regrets wither.”
Aliyah took a step towards the wall, feeling the high buzz she associated with painkillers. A luxurious rapture waited beyond, if she could brave the flames. The hair on her arms sizzled as she stepped in, knowing to place a foot wrong on this path meant tumbling into a never-ending inferno…
And she emerged from a conflagration, stumbling into her bedroom.
Her ceiling was aflame. But her bed was still made, her toy chest pushed against the wall, the shelves holding Mommy’s comforting books.
David was tied to Mommy’s good kitchen chair.
David’s face oozed with blisters, his scalp streaked with burnt hair. He struggled against the ropes, making pathetic whimpering noises through the handkerchief duct-taped into his mouth, begging help from whoever had come through the flames – then saw Aliyah, and froze.
“He knows,” said Rainbird, emerging from the flames.
“What is this?”
Rainbird turned David’s chair to face Aliyah, showing him off. “A stupid politician.”
David made angry noises. Rainbird poked a hole through his cheek.
“Stop that!” Aliyah screamed. Rainbird ignored her, grabbing David’s hair, sneering at him.
“
Someone
stole the files from the Task Force before he left the office, didn’t he?” Rainbird purred. “
Someone
didn’t want SMASH getting credit for the bust he’d tried so hard to make – wanted it so badly he committed a federal crime. And then he called in a favor from someone else he
very
much didn’t want to owe favors to, to fetch the records from SMASH – why not, he was washed up anyway – and found the ’mancer behind Galuschak Garage.”
“…Daddy?”
“Mr Paul Tsabo.” Rainbird smirked. “And then Mr Giabatta here recognized your videogame obsessions, understanding how you snuck out of a room with no windows…”
“He knows.” Aliyah flattened herself against the wall, imagining what would come next: SMASH hauling her off to the brainwashing camp in Arizona, scrubbing her memories to make her a weapon…
“Don’t worry.” Rainbird smacked David’s head. “He didn’t tell anybody.”
“
Why
?”
“This is the fun part:
he
recommended your Daddy for the Task Force.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if you think like a mundane, Aliyah! If David outed your father as a ’mancer, to admit his own stepdaughter was a ’mancer and he just... didn’t... know, then David would be the laughingstock of New York! If he’d called the mayor right away, we’d have been outed in a heartbeat – but no. He
thought
about it. Long enough for Mr Payne to be alerted someone had accessed the files he owned in SMASH’s system. Long enough for me to kidnap him.”
“Why are you
telling
me this?”
“Because, Aliyah, to kill people properly you must first understand how they come to deserve their own deaths.” Rainbird patted David, like a pet.
She remembered K-Dash, Quaysean, curling up in the flames, their bones cooking. “
No
.”
“You killed once, in self-defense.” Rainbird moved towards her, the flames above them growing hotter. “Now it’s time you murdered.”
“No!” she yelled, but her hair caught fire and she batted it out and it was all she could do not to scream like a stupid little girl.
“We need him dead. And we need it to look like Valentine killed him. Then it looks like Valentine assassinated the Task Force executives. Then SMASH kills Valentine and her movie-star lover, and everyone’s questions are answered – and we are
safe
, Aliyah.”
“
I won’t let anyone kill Valentine!
” Aliyah yelled, and the fire portal above her whooshed, billowing the smell of burning carpet and oh God she was six years old again and back at her daddy’s place and everything was on fire.
“This is the way of things, Aliyah. My soldiers made me slit my friend’s throat. You have it so much easier. All you must do is kill a man you despise.”
“
Just let him g–
” She coughed, the smoke peppery in her lungs.
“If you free him, he will turn you in – and we’ll kill
you
before that happens, Aliyah.”
“I’m going to take over!” Her tears steamed on her cheeks. “You can’t hurt me!”
“Every piece must be sacrificed to save the King,” Rainbird said sorrowfully.
“Daddy won’t kill! So I won’t–” Another fire blast, this one hot enough to scald her skin, and Aliyah remembered the pain of the nurses pulling the dead flesh off the roots of her muscles, and even though they’d knocked her out with painkillers she still woke up and screamed–
“Your father would not kill, and he was useless. The only power one has comes from killing. And you
will
kill David, Aliyah, or I will fry you.”
He thrust the Nintendo DS into her hands. “Raise one hand against me,” he whispered, “And I will incinerate you one limb at a time. I have killed hundreds of ’mancers for Mr Payne. Do not throw yourself on that pyre.”
Aliyah grasped the Nintendo. The room burned around her, so hot it sucked the moisture from her eyes.
David pleaded for his life, his words muffled.
When she’d dreamed of the best thing that could happen to Mommy, that thing was David disappearing. David yelled at Mommy. David didn’t love anyone. David wanted to brainwash them…
Maybe we do need to kill them.
Do you want to be the person who does that?
And oh God, now Daddy was gone she realized she did not want to be the person who did that, that killing Anathema had been almost more than she could bear and it wasn’t Daddy’s fault the world made people kill, he’d tried to protect her from men like Rainbird.
I don’t want to do grown-up magic any more
, she thought.
I want my childhood magic back…
“Choose, Aliyah.” And the flames ate her hair and she gripped the Nintendo and summoned her biggest magic and hurled bright blue fire straight at David.
Unseen forces hauled him into the air, chair still dangling from his legs; the air crumpled around him. David was pulled inwards, into a black hole, folded into pieces, the wood splintering…
David screamed.
And when the flames lifted, all that was left of David was a small pile of ropes.
Aliyah fell to her knees, sobbing, begging forgiveness.
“I am glad you showed your loyalty.” Rainbird knelt next to her, stroking the singed remnants of her hair. “You asked me how to have no regret, Aliyah. The answer is simple: you do terrible things over and over again, until the regret falls away.”
Aliyah never stopped crying as Rainbird plucked the Nintendo from her hands and brought her home.