moonshadows

“Ah, my dear, thank you for remembering our app…” MacPherson trailed off as it sank in that he was neither in the Bronze Sector nor actually unbronzed.

She’d thought she’d be okay. She was wrong; actually seeing him, hearing him, made her vibrate with the pain and rage of betrayal. “Hello, Professor,” said Claudia, her voice tight.

“Miss Donovan,” he said coldly. “You were not part of the plan. What have you done with Leena? And, for that matter, what have you done to me?”

“It’s been more than a year, Professor Reynolds.” Her voice was smooth as a dagger made of ice, and cut as cleanly. “Artie and I, we figured out that you wanted to be bronzed and guessed that your plan hinged on being debronzed. So we took steps to make sure that couldn’t happen and just…played along.”

“Clever,” he murmured.

“Leena’s fine, but you?” She laughed, sharp and tinged with disbelief. “You’re a hologram, James. I pulled your mind out of your body and stuck it on a hard drive. It’s just you and me, Professor. I haven’t even told Artie you’re here.”

He smiled, insincerity with a touch of smugness and threat. “And why am I here, dear child?”

“Because I want to know why. Why did you want to be bronzed, what were you going to do when Leena unbronzed you? Why did you pull all the bullshit with digging up Artie’s past and the sword and everything?” Claudia tried to focus on the rage, hands fisted so tightly at her sides that her nails were cutting into her palms, but it didn’t stop the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “Why were you so nice to me and Joshua if you were going to turn us into pawns for your sick little chess game?”

Anger flashed in his eyes. “You want to know why? Ask Arthur about the night he refused to use the Phoenix.”

“I know all about it,” she shot back. “You know what else I know? What that malware would have let you do in the Warehouse computer system. You were going to block all the exits and blow the umbilicus. Why?”

“Oh, come now,” James spat. “You’re too clever to not figure it out. Or has living with Arthur dulled your brain?”

Claudia took a minute to glare at him, breath hissing in and out of her nose, mouth pressed into a furious line. “You wanted Artie to use the Phoenix.”

“There, that wasn’t so difficult, now was it?”

“Why?”

“To open his eyes,” snarled the lean, older man. “Surely you are not as blinded by idealism as your guardian is!”

“And you thought killing him, making him kill someone else, possibly me, was going to endear your psychotic ideology to him?”

“Ah, but you were nowhere near him, now were you? Having been accused of unwitting duplicity, you stormed off to doubt yourself. Isn’t that what happened?”

The knowledge that he was willing to kill to prove a point, that he was willing to piss on the family and the home she’d made for herself and still think he’d been benevolent, turned her blood cold and extinguished the raw fury. “You knew I’d find out who you were. You knew Artie would find out, too. It would have been too obvious for me to be the sleeper agent; Artie would never believe it. So it had to be someone else. Someone out of the way, someone easily overlooked. We knew it was Leena, we just didn’t know how. You fucked up.”

MacPherson looked ever-so-slightly shaken.

“Oh, and another thing: Artie’s used the Phoenix. Years ago. It was the only way to retrieve a very nasty artifact from someone who had no problems using it and walk away in one piece.”

The holographic man took one step towards Claudia and looked distractedly startled to discover that it didn’t get him any closer. “What did he see? I have to know!”

“He said it was like a shadow of being in the presence of God.” The words were a weapon, she knew. They were arrows to be hurled at him and she did so willingly, wanting to break down the walls and find the man she and her almost-father both knew was in there, somewhere. “He saw nothing but light, felt nothing but hope and peace. So, you want to tell me now what your plan was? I’m the only one who can put you back,” she added almost cheerfully. “You play nice with me, maybe I’ll tell Artie what I’ve done and let him talk to you. You keep being a stingy ass…” she shrugged with faked nonchalance. “You can spend eternity as a statue, or you can spend eternity on a hard drive. Either way sucks, doesn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t be the first Warehouse agent to be so shabbily treated by the Regents,” he said icily. “There’s your hint; figure that out, you ungrateful little brat!”

The ice-dagger smile came out again. “Enjoy eternity, James. Maybe I’ll wake you up to tell you when Artie dies. Don’t count on it, though.”

He opened his mouth to say something, to protest or question, but she flipped the switch and he flickered out.

=========================

In the nondescript little diner, Claudia poked her bowl of chili while Mrs. Frederic calmly sliced into her steak. In the booth across the way, her mostly-silent driver was having a rare moment of acting human and relishing a slice of hot cherry pie.

“How was your talk with James?” the Caretaker asked genially.

The young woman braced herself. “I think he was planning to find the Lost Warehouse.”

Mrs. Frederic looked at her sharply, knife and fork momentarily still. “What makes you say that?”

“He’d already used Leena to steal a bunch of artifacts,” she began slowly, feeling her way through the idea. “The malware his site stuck on our honeypot would have given him access to the defense system, or parts of it: the activation of the blast walls and the key for detonating the umbilicus. He meant to trap Pete and Myka in the Warehouse and blow up Artie in the umbilicus, where the Phoenix would bring him back. I don’t know what good he expected that would do, but it’s clear he would have gotten everything he’d wanted out of the Warehouse.” She took a bite of her chili, not tasting it at all.

“And then what?” prodded the stern older lady. “What makes you think he wouldn’t have just made himself rich selling artifacts?”

“First, half the stuff he took has no practical application as a weapon, no appeal to hostile foreign powers. Plus, he intended for Artie to find and stop the auction and haul him back to be bronzed. Twelve years with no contact and suddenly he’s back in Carol’s life, giving her flowers and jewelry? Jewelry that just happens to be the key to the box with all the information on the auction? Not a coincidence.”

“I agree.”

Feeling bolder, Claudia took another bite and continued. “He said he wasn’t the first Warehouse agent to be bronzed. I did a lot of record-searching, and there was another agent bronzed: H. G. Wells, from Warehouse Twelve. MacPherson has some kind of huge grudge against the Regents; he mentioned wanting to open Artie’s eyes and asked if I was blinded by idealism. He seems to think that using the Phoenix would have made Artie turn on the Regents, and if we hadn’t figured out ahead of time that I wasn’t the sleeper agent, I would have been ready to burn that bridge. Ten years of the Warehouse being my home and I get tossed out? Yeah, I would have been pissed. And then when good old Professor Reynolds-slash-Artie’s ex-partner shows up, I would have sided with him. So me, Artie, and ex-Agent Wells…what does he need us for? Just tearing down the old isn’t his style. He wanted to prove that his way was better. And how do you prove that your way of running the Warehouse is better? You get yourself a handful of agents and you find a bunch of artifacts.”

They ate in silence for a handful of minutes.

“I’ll have to look into this,” the Caretaker said quietly. “Continue to say nothing to anyone about your little project. I take it that James did not act like the man you knew him to be when you were younger?”

Claudia shook her head and swallowed. “It hurt,” she whispered. “I remember him being so kind to me, and either it was all an act or he’s gone so far over to the Dark Side that he doesn’t care anymore.”

Mrs. Frederic chewed her steak for a moment. “He still cares about Artie,” she said quietly. “Artie was right about that much: MacPherson wanted him to see that he was behind everything, to know who he was facing. In the end, it was all about Artie and the rest of us were merely pawns. I think he can still be reached, but only through his old partner. Something to keep in mind, should you speak to him again.”

She doubted that she would, but she nodded anyway. Then she glanced to the side and noticed their waitress, a horse-faced woman named Theodora, was sitting in the booth across from the tall, solidly-built and silent man who typically hovered around Mrs. Frederic. Not only was she paying attention to them, but she seemed to be making notes on her order pad. Just as she was opening her mouth to ask what was going on, the glint of gold caught her eye.

“Eye of Horus,” she whispered, identifying the shape of the pin on the waitress’s collar. “Regent?”

“Very good,” purred the Caretaker. “Theodora, did you have any questions for Miss Donovan?”

The waitress consulted her notes. “What future do you envision for him in the event that he expresses remorse and understanding for his actions, and a desire to atone for them?”

“Not debronzing,” she answered immediately and with more than a little force. “He wants to start earning trust and goodwill, I can think of a dozen ways for him to do that while still being a hologram and not having access to any outside systems.”

“You don’t trust him?”

The question twisted like a knife in her heart. “No. He’s too unstable, too much in the grip of his emotions.”

“Do you want to see him rehabilitated?”

Claudia was quiet for a long minute, gaze buried in the remains of her chili. “He was the one who talked the librarians into letting me check books out even though I wasn’t a student. He supported me when I thought I had no one but my brother. If that man still exists, if it wasn’t just an act, then I want to find him inside that angry shell and bring him out.” She looked up and met the Regent-waitress’s eyes squarely. “But I won’t risk anyone else for his sake.”

Theodora nodded solemnly. “How was the chili?”

“Delicious. I’m glad I didn’t go with the grilled cheese.”

“Dessert?”

Claudia looked questioningly at Mrs. Frederic, who gave her a small smile and asked, “What’s the pie of the day?”

“That would be the cherry. We also have blueberry, dutch apple, banana cream, and Mississippi mud.”

“Two slices of the banana cream for me,” the older woman said with self-satisfied amusement. “Claudia?”

“Oh, I’m not going to turn down a slice of Mississippi mud pie.”

“Another cherry for you?” she asked the Asian man. “Hot, a la mode?”

“Yes, please,” he said with a respectful nod.

The Regent-waitress stood up and smoothed her apron. “Alrighty. Let me take your plates, and I’ll be right back with the pie.”

“I like her,” Claudia said as Theodora bustled away. “She reminds me of Aunt Jane.”