Sittin' in the middle of nowhere

[moonshadows]

“Hello?” Carla called as she entered the office the next morning.

“Good morning, Carla.” The words came from the phonograph. “If you’re looking for Artie, you just missed him.”

Nervous excitement and curiosity. “I wasn’t. I came here hoping to talk to you.”

That was a point in favor of ‘good artifact’. “I’m afraid the golem is otherwise occupied right now, but if you don’t mind talking to an empty room…”

“But it’s not empty,” she said calmly. “You’re here, because here is you.”

There it was; that acceptance, that surrender Leena had carried with her. Carla wasn’t trying to impose her energy on anything, like a new artifact; she was taming herself.

“Miss Donovan said you’d need to get used to me,” Carla continued softly, “but I don’t think that’s going to take very long, is it?”

“No, it’s not. She told you about Leena?”

“I heard a lot about Leena last night,” she said with dry humor. “I’ve got some pretty big shoes to fill. Steve, and Pete, and Myka – they all welcomed me, and not just because I made them dinner. The Bed and Breakfast needs a keeper, someone in tune, and subconsciously, they all knew that. I’m filling a void. I belong.”

Discontent gnawed at her despite her words. “Then what’s bothering you?”

Carla laughed ruefully and sat at the table. “I should have known you’d be able to tell. It’s Artie.”

Another good sign. “What about him?”

“I didn’t get much of a chance to look yesterday,” she said slowly. “I was distracted by, well, you. But his aura…it looks…”

“Like hell?”

She laughed. “That’s a good way to put it.”

“Leena used to say that to him. Her death…” A rippling laugh. “Before her death, I wasn’t self-aware. His grief was the catalyst for that. Ask him to tell you the story. Ask him about Leena. Reassure him you’re not trying to replace her. I’m doing what I can from my end, but if he weren’t as stubborn as he is, he never would have survived as long as he has.”

Carla thought about that for a few minutes, assimilating the concepts.

“Miss Donovan called him your husband.”

“Not completely accurate, not entirely inaccurate. He’s in a relationship with Dr. Vanessa Calder; his attachment to me is more like the devotion of a priest or monk.”

“Or like Miss Donovan’s?”

Oh, she was good. “You saw that, then.”

“I didn’t know what it was until I saw you,” she said calmly. “She’s- no. You’re a part of her. Your aura is partially merged into hers. The others – all of them have little traces of you in them.”

Another little laugh. “They’re good artifacts.”

“That’s why Miss Donovan said the longer someone’s been in the Warehouse, the more fond you are. That’s why Steve said I’d be accepted when you called me a good artifact. And all the artifacts you keep here…” She broke off, testing the thought, chewing on it and accepting it. “The phonograph is an artifact. It has an aura. But the aura is…in harmony with yours.”

“Tame artifact. That’s what I do; I absorb tangential energy and replace it with my own. I tame artifacts and, by the same measure, the people who spend time in contact with me. Some of them don’t deal with it well. Some of them do.”

“And Artie?” When there was no response, she laughed. “Right, husband. That was a silly question. So why open a branch in Rio?”

“In the past, my locations have been centers of culture and political power. Not just because of a high artifact density, but because…I get bored. I’m a creature of tangential energy; I like bustling cities the way humans like gardens.”

Sympathy and flattered pleasure fluttered open. “How long have you been stuck here, in the middle of nowhere?”

A sigh. It had taken a while to learn to replicate that sound. “Over a hundred years. Thankfully, I wasn’t aware for most of it, which is the silver lining in that sordid story. Listen, if you want to de-ruffle Artie – and I want Artie de-ruffled – come back in the afternoon with something better for lunch than the turkey sandwich he has in the fridge and ask him about me.”

“Well, Miss Donovan did say part of my duties would be to spend a minimum of ten hours a week here. She didn’t say what I’d be doing.”

Outside, above, Artie crossed into sensing range. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

Carla stood up. “I’d better leave, then, unless you think it would be better if he found me here rather than on my way out.”

“Which car did you take?”

“Miss Donovan let me borrow hers.”

That helped. “Sit; He’ll have seen it by now. There’s no way to hide that you’re here, so we’re not going to. You know, one of the things you said reminded me of a song.”

That got her attention. “Oh?”

Laughter. “Didn’t expect me to have a taste in music?”

Carla laughed, too. “I should have, shouldn’t I?”

“Let me sing it for you and see if you recognize it – I modeled my voice after the singer’s.”

“I’m all ears,” she promised.

The beat and tune weren’t easy to replicate through the phonograph, but practice made perfect, as the saying went. “I close my eyes and dream about a sunny holiday…”

Artie suspected that Claudia had lent out her car, and who to.

“…with diamonds on my fingers and not a single care…”

Walking down the umbilicus.

“Baby, take me anywhere, but not here again.”

The door beeped as it opened.

“Whyyyyyy am I sittin’ in the middle of nowhere

Standin’ here with nothing to do

Wonderin’ if I really love you

Oh, oh, I guess that I do.”

He couldn’t resist the good-natured resignation the song amplified, and his lips twitched as he stomped over to set the bag on his desk. “What, again?” he griped, not actually annoyed.

“Carla hasn’t heard it yet.”

Artie turned to her. “You’ll hear it plenty, trust me. She likes to sing. Something about the way it sounds translated back through the microphone.” I know what you did, said his energy. He didn’t mind. Mostly. He was a good artifact.

Carla was amused. “I can see why you like it, and why you opened a branch in Rio. You could have left, but you chose to stay because you like the people here.”

“I’m her favorite artifact,” Artie said loftily.

 Now that she had an opportunity, Carla was looking very hard at his aura. “I can see that,” she said in a tone of quiet awe.

Despite himself, he was flattered. “Well, you spend three or four decades here, and you get…”

“Tame? She said she tamed artifacts,” Carla hurried on, “and that it worked on people, too.”

Fleeting irritation under fond resignation; he was probably glaring at the phonograph. “We’re never going to break you of that, are we?”

“Can you think of a better word?”

Wordless grumble.

“That,” Carla said, taking her cue, “sounds like a story I’d love to hear from you, but I want to get lunch started and I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I don’t know what sort of things you do, but I’m sure they’re more important than telling stories to the new gal.”

“N-no…” Oh, he was caught now. Elsewhere, the golem smiled. “That is…I should…maybe I could tell you…over lunch?”

Genuine delight, like flower and sunlight both. “I’d like that. Say…one-thirty, here? Unless you want to come back for lunch…”

“No-no, here is fine.”

Good; he was opening the grumpy shell and being a good artifact.

“I look forward to it!”

Artie braced himself as she left, and as soon as the door closed behind her the golem was moved into the office.

“Gooood artifact.”

He took his hug like a man. “You’re lucky I love you,” he grumbled.

“Yes, I am.”

I meant it, and he knew it. The golem took its hug like a man.

“Alright, enough of this, we’ve got work to do,” he grumped. “What have you done to the neutralizer distribution system this time?”