Claudia: Para-freaking-celsus

[moonshadows]

Claudia woke up sprawled across her bed, drooling into the covers, wearing the same coffee-and-smoke clothes she'd had on the night before. That wasn't like her, she thought muzzily. Why was she still in the same clothes?

Because I was giving that kid a lift back and I was too tired to change, she thought suddenly. A corner of her mind, the suspicious corner that had noticed how quickly Artie'd figured out the artifact with which to defuse Sykes's bomb, wondered at how sudden and definitive that thought was. The rest of her sleep-fuddled mind told it to shut up, she'd met a kid at the coffee shop and he needed a place to crash for the night before he hit the road again, so he'd gotten a room at the B&B, and that's all there was to it. The suspicion tried to protest, but was overruled with a firm thought of Everything is perfectly normal.

Irritated at herself, she stood up, stretched, ran fingers through tangled hair, and decided that she needed waffles before she could face the effort of cleaning herself up. A glance at the clock showed that it was 10:45, though. If she wanted waffles, she was going to have to make them herself. Cold cereal it was.

When she shuffled into the sun room with a bowl of half-soggy Frosted Flakes and a glass of OJ, Steve was camped at the table with mission reports spread out in front of him and to either side. "I lost the coin toss," he told her as she sat down.

She let that go for a few minutes while she ate mechanically. Then the lack of ambient noise filtered through the haze in her mind. "Hey, where is everyone?"
"Leena went shopping," Steve told her absently. "Pete and Myka are off in Buffalo with Artie. Something about the snag of the century and a pirate."

"Roaring Dan," she replied automatically.

"That's the one."

Claudia let that sink in while she ate the rest of her breakfast. "So why are you here and not in the Warehouse?"

"Better light," he said absently. "Besides, don't you have that remote alarm set up?"

"True." She stood and gathered her bowl and glass. "Guess I better make sure it didn't burn down. I'll be in the living room."

He flipped a paper over and began writing on the back. "Have fun."

Still feeling not quite awake after bringing her dishes to the kitchen, the co-Caretaker curled up in her usual spot on the couch with her laptop. A quick check showed nothing out of the ordinary, so she left it open beside her and reached for Rock Band instead.

Several songs later, footsteps entered behind her and a voice said, "Yeah, just tell him Steve called."

Steve's voice, she thought firmly.

"Hey," Steve's voice said, "what's that sound your laptop is making? Is that the remote alarm?"

Claudia paused the game and listened. Yes, she thought. We'd better go out there. "Yeah, it is. We'd better go out there. I'm driving." The suspicious corner of her mind wondered if it was wise, leaving the kid here alone. What kid? answered the rest of her mind.

When she turned around, Steve made shooing motions at her. "Go," he said when she hesitated. "Don't we have to hurry?"

Yes, we do. "Fine, but no complaining about the way I drive."

Steve followed meekly as she strode defiantly out to the cars. He gritted his teeth and hung on as she screamed out down the back road Warehouse agents had spent decades carving into the Badlands landscape, but didn't make any cracks about her driving. Vengefully pleased, she poured on the speed. With her attention on the road, the paranoid corner of her mind was able to whisper that something was wrong without being shouted down. The more she gnawed at the idea, the closer she got to figuring out what was wrong until finally the Warehouse came into view and she remembered that the remote alarm she'd set up was on her phone, not her laptop. Adrenaline surged, clearing away the fog, and she remembered that her phone was in the pocket of the jacket that she was, in fact, still wearing. Somehow, she also knew that if she looked at or listened to Steve, this clarity would vanish.

Just as they screeched to a stop by the door, Steve asked, "How could someone have bypassed all the security measures like that?"

"They'd have to have cut power to Artie's office," Claudia found herself saying.

Angry at herself for not being able to fight enough to keep control of her mind, she triggered the outside door and stormed down the umbilicus. Submitting to the retinal scan was the lesser of two security breaches, and when she opened the office door she was unsurprised to see the power was off. Without a word, she went to the power grid and heaved the cover up, eyes checking automatically for the positions of each lever and fuse, as well as the tiny LED she'd stuck off to one side. Its connection was very sensitive; the briefest drop in voltage would darken its teeny little eye. She hadn't told anyone what it was for, not even Artie, and it was almost impossible to see if you didn't know where to look.

It was still lit.

Claudia closed her eyes, focused her mind, and pretended to adjust things in the power grid. When she opened her eyes, the office was lit again. Avoiding any kind of eye contact with someone she was almost completely sure was not Steve, she went to Artie's desk, sat, and reached underneath to trip the switch she'd rewired after Leena's brush with a pearl. She hadn't told anyone what that did, either. Which, as it turned out with The Evil, was a wise decision.

"What was that?" Steve demanded, and her mind insisted that it really was Steve.

"Intruder alert," she said shortly, fingers already coaxing reports out of the computer. She wanted to see what story the motion detectors told while she could be certain the information was unbiased. And there it was - nothing out of the ordinary. Which included Lucy wandering around her crate-walled pen. "There," she lied, pointing to the blinking dot. "He's in the Bedrock sector."

Steve cracked his knuckles. "I'm on my way."

Once he'd dashed down to the Warehouse floor, Claudia began frantically searching her clothes, hoping whatever she'd been whammied with was on her person.

On the roof, having received the alarm's signal, a small hard drive powered by a solar-panel battery loaded its only program and ran it. The message broadcast to all Farnsworth frequencies was short, silent, and looped. Capital letters proclaimed THIMBLE ALERT while scrolling text warned, This is a Thimble Alert. Warehouse security has been breached, either by outside forces or by subversion of Warehouse personnel. Take whatever actions seem necessary. 

Somewhere under Niagara Falls, Pete looked at his Farnsworth. A moment later, without explanation, he tesla'd Charlotte. When Artie and Myka questioned him, the scrolling text was his only answer. In Leena's, Steve watched the message in growing horror and then dialed Claudia on his cell phone.

Almost afraid to answer, she stared at his image on her phone and then accepted the call. "Jinksy?"

"Are you okay?" he asked immediately. "I got a...message...and your laptop's in the living room, but you aren't."

"I've been whammied," she blurted, close to tears with relief and terror. "An intruder used something to make me think he was you and used me to gain access to the Warehouse. I can't find it on me, though."

"C'mon, Claud, don't break down on me. Silkwood shower. I'll call Artie, and aa-ah, Mrs. Frederic!"

"I will contact Artie," the Caretaker said from the background. "Miss Donovan, ensure you are no longer compromised and then stand by for instructions. Agent Jinks will track the intruder using your laptop."

"Yes, ma'am," Claudia said briskly before hanging up.

Phone and Farnsworth on Artie's desk, she dashed for the Silkwood Shower and stood beneath it, not bothering to strip. No liquid came out, only a vibration that shook contaminants free and suddenly, she could feel the bar in her back pocket.

The pants came off.

Claudia came back with purple gloves and checked the contents of her back pocket. The sullenly-shimmering bar magnet got dropped into an anti-static bag, but that was the only thing out of place and she pulled her pants back on with some relief before hurrying back to Artie's desk.

Mrs. Frederic answered Steve's Farnsworth.

"He's in the Bronze sector," Claudia said. "But that shouldn't be a problem; my password is still on the debronze function."

"Unless," Mrs. Frederic said sternly, "the intruder questioned you while you were compromised."

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Fingers demanded; computer answered. "He made a beeline for the Bronze sector. We have to assume he got the password out of me. What should I do?"

"Stay there. Agent Jinks is on his way, or will be in a moment." The Farnsworth connection terminated. A moment later, hers buzzed at her as the Caretaker used her own device. "I've spoken with Artie. They've detained the woman who had the other half of the puzzle box, and who we suspect of being the intruder's accomplice, but she hasn't given us anything yet. Be on your guard, Claudia. I received a message from Jane earlier saying she had a bad feeling about the Caretaker."

Claudia's stomach dropped. "A bad feeling about you?"

"No." Mrs. Frederic looked grimmer than Claudia had ever seen her. "About the Caretaker is how she worded it." They shared a moment of bleak silence. "Whatever happens," the older woman said softly, "I am confident in your ability to perform the duties for which you were selected the day you first crossed our paths."

The day Claire killed her parents. The day she, at the tender age of six, had both identified that an artifact was affecting someone and witnessed the telekinetic rage that had orphaned her. The day she'd clung to a younger, thinner Artie and wept, and a stern black woman had looked into her tear-filled eyes and smiled, a secret little smile just for her, one that promised endless wonder.

"I won't say it was easy," she said in a voice that kept trying to tremble, "but I can't say I regret it. Thank you." An urgent beeping broke the mood, and when she checked to see what it was, she wasn't sure if she was happy about it. "The debronze function has been activated."

"Can you tell who was debronzed?"

Click, click. "Some dude named Para...celsus?" Claudia gave the screen a hard look. "Seriously? We bronzed Paracelsus? He was-"

A cold wind stole into her soul, freezing her words and her blood. On the Farnsworth's screen, Mrs. Frederic looked as strained as when Warehouse Two had demanded more of her than she could give, and Claudia had been put into place as co-Caretaker to handle some of the server load.

"He was Caretaker of Warehouse Nine," the older woman ground out.

Claudia's cell cheerfully informed her that Steve was calling. She held one finger up to the Farnsworth and then put her sometimes-partner on speakerphone. "What's up, Jinksy?"

"There's some kind of blue energy barrier around the Warehouse," he replied, sounding shaken. "I can't get in."

"The Remati Shackle," breathed Mrs. Frederic. "It's detected a threat to the Warehouse. Until the barrier goes down, no one can get in or out. Not even," she added with a significant slant to her words, "the Caretaker."

"Okay, Jinksy, listen up." Claudia's voice was a shade too loud, too vibrant, the way it always was when she was trying to pretend she wasn't freaked out. "I need you to go back to Leena's and be my link to the outside world. See if you can get Artie back A-S-A-P, 'cuz I'm going to need his brain and James's." She swallowed, feeling like she was watching Claire murder her parents again. In slow motion. "With the barrier up, I'm the only one who can stop Paracelsus."

"Who's...?"

"Just get back to the B&B. Mrs. Frederic can explain. Oh, and if Pete has any vibes, I want to know about them no matter how bad they are."

"Right. Going. Be safe, Claud."

Once he'd hung up, Mrs. Frederic said urgently, "Claudia. The ribbon." She didn't have to say which one. "You'll find it in drawer A-37. If the worst should happen..."

Suddenly, rage boiled up inside Claudia, white-hot and pure. "I'm not disconnecting myself," she declared. "Whatever Paracelsus did to get bronzed, it was bad enough to get him bronzed and I will not surrender the Warehouse to him! This is my home, and I'd rather die than see it in his hands."

"Good." The older woman's voice was fiercely exultant. "Now listen. The ribbon itself may be too weak to disconnect him, but its power can be amplified by an electric charge. Go; I will contact Jane and Mr. Kosan."

"And Dr. Vanessa."

"Yes, and Dr. Calder. Remember that Artie has his bag with him. Once he arrives..."

Claudia nodded. He'd be able to pull out artifacts to try to keep Mrs. Frederic alive.

"I believe in you, Claudia. You are my chosen successor, no matter what the Regents might say. Remember that."

Throat tight at the thought that one of her pillars was crumbling, she nodded again.

"Now go. Save the Warehouse. We'll contact you shortly."

Before she locked the computer from accepting keyboard input without her fingerprints on the touchpad, Claudia did some checking on how long it would take for someone to get from Buffalo to the Rapid City airport. It wasn't encouraging. She reached for her Farnsworth.

"Claudia!" He was in the driver’s seat of a moving rental car; good. "What's...?"

"Pull over so you don't crash," she began, walking towards the green drawers. "Where's Pete and Myka?"

"They're, um, waiting for the Regent helicopter with Charlotte." He pulled over. "A-Are you...?"

"I need your help, Papa Bear."

Artie looked like he'd just seen someone die. "You've got it," he said hoarsely. "Tell me what you need."

A tiny shard of comfort pushed past the ice in Claudia's heart. Artie was there for her, the way he'd always been there for her. "I need to slow down an intruder and incapacitate him."

"How incapacitated are we talking?" James asked almost eagerly.

Claudia braced herself and held up the ribbon. "Enough to disconnect him with this."

James recoiled, leaving Artie to clutch his chest and shudder. "Oh dear God, we bronzed a Caretaker?"

"Paracelsus," she confirmed grimly. "Warehouse Nine."

"O-okay. His accomplice - where are they now?"

From the pile of papers on her side-desk, Claudia retrieved the tablet she'd slaved to the Warehouse systems and tracked the motion detectors. "They're...still in the Dark Vault. No, wait...one of them is moving. The other isn't."

"We need to know which is which."

A few taps brought up the security cameras. A teenage boy who looked sickeningly familiar lay sprawled on the floor while an older man wearing robes looked around as if orienting himself. "The kid the quant was sucking dry. He's the intruder. Looks like Paracelsus knocked him out."

"Good, good. He won't be able to guide Paracelsus out. You need to booby-trap the paths leading to the Bronze sector. Make sure you use artifacts gathered after Warehouse Nine, just to be safe. He won't know about those."

A light bulb went off in Claudia's mind. Specifically, a blacklight bulb. "Technology," she breathed. "He won't know technology. If I can slow him down, keep him occupied long enough to set other traps, I can make him chase me."

"Blast that noise you call music," Artie suggested with a chuckle. "The louder the better, which is the only time you'll ever hear me say that. Keep him off-balance, and also make him unable to track you by ear."

"That will also make it difficult to confer with you," James interrupted. "However, I make sure Arthur's phone is charged even if he doesn't, so we will email you our combined suggestions as they come to us."

"O-or dictate them to Steve, and let him email them to you," Artie said. "Given...you know...plane."

"Yes, returning to the Warehouse is of paramount importance. In the mean time," James said with a wicked grin that looked unsettling on Artie's face, "Start with this..."

Claudia listened with a growing wicked grin of her own. It wouldn't hold Paracelsus forever, but it would definitely slow him down. Ribbon in her pocket, phone and Farnsworth and tesla and tablet in a bag slung over her shoulder, she darted out to the balcony and placed two fingers in her mouth. The piercing whistle echoed down endless aisles, and moments later the skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur trotted up to where Claudia was rattling down the stairs.

"Good Lucy," she said, patting the fossilized beak as the thing crouched down for her to scramble into the saddle permanently tied to its ribs. "Just need to get my mood music, and then we can go start trouble."

It took a few seconds to open the special app she'd written and set parameters, and then the first song of her favorite playlist (on shuffle, of course) started to seep hauntingly from every loudspeaker in the Warehouse.

"Let's go," she told the skeleton, and Lucy - eager to obey as always - responded to the slight pressure of knees and hands and ran clattering down one aisle.

You are the hole in my head.

You are the space in my bed.

You are the silence in between

What I thought and what I said.

Claudia hadn't really believed in a higher power since the day a music box took her parents from her, because what God would do that to a little girl? Even all her studying for Grandpa Izzy couldn't sway her atheism, not with all the objects of supposedly divine origins sitting side-by-side with artifacts created by normal people. Now, however, she felt the need for some power to believe in and the lyrics echoed through her heart like a prayer directed at the Warehouse itself, the only entity who could possibly intervene and help her stop Paracelsus before he choked Mrs. Frederic out of the bond and killed her.

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes

I never new daylight could be so violent

A revelation in the light of day-

You can choose what stays and what fades away.

 

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

 

The writhing, screaming body of Paracelsus - now inhabited by Alice - fell limp and silent. Claudia shook her head and blinked, trying to clear the sparkles filling her mind, but they weren't caused by the tesla...

 

Paracelsus turned down the aisle, expressing turning black as he saw her, borrowed obscenities spewing from his mouth but nearly drowned beneath the music - Because when I arrive, I, I bring the fire make you come alive - and charged towards his hated foe only to trip on the taut wire. A tinny ripping sound, and a metric fuckton of earthworms spewed out of seemingly nowhere to form a pile hip-deep and twenty feet wide. Claudia flipped him off and ran...

 

The next text message from Steve read Adwin Kosan is here. Mrs. Frederic is dying. Take him out, Claud. Her blood ran cold. She hoped she'd been imagining the unearthly sensation of standing in a full tub as it drained, the closest she could come to an explanation for what it felt like to have Paracelsus choking the older black woman out of the bond that had sustained her for the last century. Grimly, she mounted Lucy and turned her skeletal steed towards the Dark Vault. If only she'd been allowed to pull out all the stops from the very beginning! But no, the Regents had to ~deliberate~ and come to the decision that hey, maybe the only one on the same side of the barrier as Paracelsus ought to do something about him. As she hacked the omega-level password on the Vault, she wondered if, in their arrogance, they thought the Shackle would answer to them. Hopefully, she'd have a chance to ask...

 

Crappity-crap-crap and a fuck-fuckity-fuck-fuck for good measure. He'd veered off, away from her trail, and headed towards the armory. Granted, most of the stuff in there didn't work exactly the way you might expect, but it was still dangerous. She had to get his attention and convince him that Al Capone's machine guns wouldn't do any good. She turned Lucy's head and directed the dinosaur to run flat-out for the Warehouse 2 section. The Wings of Daedalus would take her mostly out of range of a machine gun, but not convince him that firearms weren't the answer. She'd have to make a stop and slide into that sweet Immovable Object suit-and-gauntlets she made Myka two or three years back...

 

THE REGENTS WANT ME TO DO -WHAT-? she typed, one eye on the tablet showing Paracelsus coming closer, a can of Sticky String held in the crook of her arm. A moment later, her phone vibrated as Steve's text came in. WAIT UNTIL THEY ARRIVE TO EVALUATE THE SITCH. STALL HIM BUT THAT'S IT. "You've got to be shitting me," she muttered under cover of the music taunting the un-bronzed madman that he better run, better run, outrun my gun. I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SAY 'I TOLD YOU SO' IF THIS TURNS OUT TO BE A DUMB IDEA, she texted back. Without waiting for a reply, she stepped out into the path of Paracelsus and Sticky Stringed him to the shelves and floor, making sure to bind his arms and legs. Then she lifted her phone, paused the music, and began recording.

"So you're the one holding me back," he snarled in frighteningly proficient English. "Not for long. I will rip the connection out of you and slay the meddling Regents who sought to impede the march of scientific advancement in defiance of the Caretaker!"

Claudia stopped recording and sent the video to Steve. While it was transmitting, she flipped Paracelsus the bird. "Sit and spin," she declared before emptying the rest of the can in his direction and walking off...

 

The sound was like nothing she'd ever heard before, higher than the screech of metal, smoother than the ripping of cloth, infused with despair and defiance. Mrs. Frederic was dead, and Paracelcus was now that much more powerful. Artifacts would only hold him for a minute at most, now, but more importantly she could feel him breathing down the back of her brain. She had maybe half an hour before he choked her out of the bond. I TOLD YOU SO, she typed on her phone. GOING DARK. There was no more time; it was down to the all-or-nothing plan. Good thing she'd planned this and had it mostly prepared...

 

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

 

Claudia awoke in an unfamiliar bed, sterile white sheets and blindingly blank white walls and fluorescent lights that reflected off of everything and stabbed into her brain. Her stomach flipped uneasily, but before things got messy there was an icepack on her forehead and she closed her eyes with a sigh of relief.

"This is taking too long," grated a voice she recognized as Benedict Valda. "The records say that the new Caretaker should be up and about his or her duties within a day. Miss Donovan has been incapacitated for three."

"Good for them," Claudia croaked. "Did they have to fight for their lives first?"

"Miss Donovan has a point," said Adwin Kosan in that smooth, cultured voice of his, and this was great, how many other people were in the room to see her trying not to hurl? "Her situation was hardly what is usual for a Caretaker's ascension."

A familiar hand found hers and gripped it gently. Jane Lattimer asked, "Claudia, how are you feeling?"

"Like my brain got turned inside out and the entire Warehouse got shoved inside. Where am I?"

“A clean room in the Regent Sanctum.” This time it was Dr. Vanessa. “The new Caretaker is kept isolated from as much sensory stimulation as possible for at least a day. Gives them time to adjust.”

Claudia groaned. “Not enough time. Also, I told you so. I could have disconnected Paracelsus in time to save Mrs. Frederic if the Regents hadn’t decided to wave their-” Remembering who was in the room aside from Valda, she bit back the word she’d intended to use and said, “-noses around trying to…what, talk the Remati Shackle into letting you in?”

“We had to assess the situation,” Valda said in a vaguely smug tone that didn’t hold a single note of remorse.

In response, she lifted one arm that felt like rubber and flipped the bird in the general direction his voice had come from.

“That’s enough stimulation,” Dr. Vanessa said in her unyielding doctor voice. “She needs quiet now.”

“And darkness,” Claudia said sulkily, eyes still closed. “These lights are sucktastic.”

There must have been some amazing glaring going on to judge by the footsteps – some hesitant, some firm – that left the room. The door shut. Then, thankfully, the lights went out. The tiny microscopic daggers stopped jabbing through her eyes and into her tender brainmeats, and Claudia relaxed muscles she hadn’t really realized were tense…which seemed to be all of them.

“Better?” asked Dr. Vanessa.

The new Caretaker sighed and opened her eyes. “Much. Hey, I think I could go for some food and actually keep it down, as long as the lights stay off.”

Vanessa smiled as she came back over and sat down next to the bed. “You get rice cakes and water. Do you need help sitting up?”

Yes, yes she did. “Uh-huh.”

The bed started moving, so it must have been a hospital bed. Once she was upright enough to not choke on her water, she spent a humiliating half hour being fed rice cakes and drinking water through a bendy straw. They were fucking delicious.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Vanessa asked gently when Claudia had finished the meager dinner she was allowed.

“Less like my thoughts are going to burst out of my skin if I think too hard. Hey…the records the Regents have on Caretaker ascensions. How far back do they go?”

“A few hundred years, why?”

Claudia sucked in a sterile lungful of air. “Back before Warehouse Nine?”

Vanessa frowned. “Not that far.”

“Mrs. F. only had…probably forty percent of the total bond. Paracelsus still had sixty. Every Caretaker after him was basically a sub-Caretaker.”

“No wonder this was so rough on you,” the doctor said with a sympathetic wince. “Well, you’re eating, so as long as you keep that down the photosensitivity should fade within a few hours. You could be going home by tomorrow morning.”

“How is…?”

“They’re worried about you. Grieving for Irene. I swear I saw Artie holding TiTi, although that kid who infiltrated the Warehouse has kept him occupied trying to figure out who he is and where he came from.”

The memory of security footage surfaced suddenly, and Claudia blurted out, “Goggles!”

“Goggles?”

“Well…not goggles. More like weird glasses? He had an artifact. Paracelsus spoke English and knew what firearms were. I think the glasses-things transferred knowledge from the kid to him.”

“Well, the boy’s in a coma. It’s doubtful he’ll wake up.”

Hands over her face, Claudia groaned. “Get me the glasses and I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. For now...lay me back down, I think my brain’s finished being reshuffled and I’m so done with being awake.”

Dr. Calder pressed a button on the bed’s controls and laughed softly. When it had returned to being flat, she leaned over and kissed Claudia’s forehead. “Sleep well,” she murmured. “I’ll make sure Artie knows you’re okay.”

The new Caretaker pulled her sheet higher and muttered, “Bow-chicka-bow-wow.”

The sound of Vanessa’s laughter lulled her to sleep.

 

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

 

There was a bowl of Frosted Flakes, a glass of orange juice, a sliced banana, and a small carafe of milk on a tray-table waiting for her when she woke up. Her stomach tried to turn when she remembered this was (mostly) the last thing she’d eaten before Paracelsus, but then it realized she was fucking starving and dropped the objection. After she’d eaten, it occurred to her that the lights were on, she no longer felt like Pheidippides reaching Athens, and instead of the cheap paper apron she expected to be wearing she had on a clean white tunic and pants. Things were looking up.

A knock on the door startled her more than she expected it would, sending anxiety screaming through muscles that were sick and tired of being tense, but whatever, they’d tense up again. Then a muffled voice called softly, “Claudia?” And it was okay again.

“Artie!”

The door opened and he sidled through, his stupid earth tones a very welcome break from unrelenting white, looking as anxious as she’d felt. “Claudia,” he said again, relieved, and hurried over to sit on the bed next to her and give her the hug she’d flung her arms open in silent demand for. “How are you doing, kiddo?” he asked her hair.

“I’m gonna cry on you,” she told his chest.

“Good, good,” he murmured soothingly, stroking her hair and holding her close while she cried out all the unresolved emotions left by the whammying, the battle, and the transition to Caretaker. “Vanessa said you might need this,” he told her quietly when she’d wound down to sniffles. “Feel better?”

Mutely, she nodded and accepted the handkerchief he pulled out of somewhere.

“Your streak’s faded again,” he said while she dried her face and blew her nose. “What are you going to dye it?”

She thought about that for a second. “Black. For Mrs. Frederic.”

Artie nodded. “I, uh, brought you some clothes. I picked the most disreputable things in your closet.” Her laugh, tiny as it was, made him smile. “Oh, and Myka packed your shampoo and body scrub. Take advantage of the Regents’ hot water while you’re here.”

That made her laugh again. “I will, believe me. It’ll probably be the only time I enjoy being in hot water with the Regents.”

That made him laugh.

 

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

 

Regent showers, Claudia thought while rinsing shampoo out of her hair, should never be this soothing. Given the past thr- four days, though, she'd take comfort where she could get it. It was another twenty minutes before she turned off the hot water and toweled dry enough to arm herself with the social commentary that passed for her clothing. Sure enough, her streak had faded completely out but she'd suffer through a day or so of white until she could get back home and dye it black. When she felt ready to face the world, she opened the door and discovered Mrs. Frederic's silent, hulking bodyguard waiting patiently for her.

"I guess I inherited you, huh?"

He looked at her evenly, like a giant hound measuring his new master, and nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

Somehow, despite having felt her predecessor's death, those two words rammed home the reality and Claudia had to blink back tears. When he stepped forward to hug her, she took it shamelessly.

"She was proud of you," he said quietly.

She laughed and stepped back. "Well, there goes calling you Lurch. You actually speak."

His eyes crinkled as he smiled. "In the original series, Lurch spoke." Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. Then, in as deep a voice as he could manage, he intoned a drawn-out "Youuuu raaaang."

That broke the gloomy mood before it could settle on her, and she grinned in surprised delight. "You're actually a person! You're just...really, really professional. That's going to make things so much easier."

"It doesn't have to be me," he said.

"What do you mean, it doesn't have to be you?"

"You have the right to request someone else."

Claudia gave him the most offended look she could manage. "Oh, hell no. I'm keeping you. You've got the scary face down pat. Plus, I'm finally in a position to actually learn your name."

He smiled again, just a little. Then he leaned down and whispered it to her.

"I'm not calling you that," she told him brazenly. "It ruins your intimidation."

Her bodyguard deliberately assumed the scary face. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good." Claudia took a moment to compose herself. "C'mon, Lurch. Let's go see everyone."

 

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

 

Claudia stepped into what was either a comfortable waiting room or an uncomfortable lounge and was immediately assaulted by her name being called by half a dozen people who raced to be the first to hug her tightly. Between the group hugs and being passed from one to another for individual hugs, it was a few minutes before she was sitting on a couch between Steve and Jane with Artie and Dr. Vanessa on the love seat across from them while Pete, Myka, and Leena pulled chairs in to complete the circle.

"I've been keeping everyone appraised of your condition," Dr. Vanessa said, looking very comfortable with Artie's arm around her. "So that's one set of questions you'll be spared."

"I narrated the fight as best I could figure out from motion and artifact disturbance," Steve volunteered.

Jane rubbed the arm wearing the Remati Shackle. "If I could have removed this, I would have."

Leena and Artie exchanged glances. He shook his head briefly, and she nodded. "Once Mrs. Frederic died," she said gently, "there was no reason to stay in the B&B. We piled into Mr. Kosan's vehicle and went to the Warehouse to wait. The barrier came down a few minutes later. Steve went in first. We Are The Champions was playing and as we entered the office, you came in from the Warehouse side. You had a teenage boy draped over your shoulder and you dumped him in a chair, sang 'No time for losers 'cuz we are the champions', and passed out."

"Scared the hell out of us," Jane muttered.

"I didn't get there until almost an hour later," Artie said. "Vanessa was already on her way, but she said you'd need rest and quiet, so as soon as I got to Leena's I put Stalin's sleep mask on you because you were…not being restful or quiet. Steve was still monitoring the Warehouse from your laptop. You locked the main terminal, so there was no point in going there."

"I told him that you’d bronzed Paracelsus," Steve interjected. "There was no other movement, so...we figured things were safe for the time being."

The new Caretaker shook her head gently. "I don't remember any of that, but things are still...wait. Jinksy, was I wearing my bag?"

Glances all around. "Yes?"

"Was my tablet in it?"

Steve held his hands up in disavowal. "I don't look in your bag. Ever."

She made a sound of frustration. "Someone tell me they brought my bag here." Myka reached around the back of the love seat and handed Artie his bag. He pulled her messenger bag out and leaned over to pass it to Steve, who handed it to her. "I didn't bronze Paracelsus," she announced, fishing in the bag for - yes! - her tablet with the mirror shard still stuck to the back. "I bronzed his body, but-"

"Oh, tell me you did what I think you did," Artie interrupted. Claudia held up the mirror shard with a silently-raging Paracelsus just barely visible inside it. "Devil child. I love you. Your bedtime is never."

"Please, I haven't had a bedtime since I was sixteen." She grinned. "Not that you bothered to enforce, anyway. So this is my gift to the Regents: Para-freaking-celsus in a jar. My gift to you, Alice is enjoying a vacation in the Bronze Sector. Happy Father’s Day, geezer. Has the kid woken up?"

"Not yet," said Dr. Calder.

Claudia passed the mirror shard to Jane, who looked less than thrilled to be holding it,  and gestured for Artie's bag. Once it was in Steve's possession she closed her eyes, focused, and plunged her hand in as though trying to grab a live fish from a stream. When she pulled her hand out again a moment later, she was clutching the bizarre glasses triumphantly. She looked at them in partial disbelief, then shook her head as if trying to clear it. "That's going to take practice," she announced, waving the bag back to its owner. "So what happened with the woman - Charlotte?"

Pete and Myka exchanged a look. "We didn't go to the Warehouse," Myka said slowly. "The Regents had us come straight here with Charlotte."

"We still arrived three hours after you," Pete added. "She refused to talk. I don't know where they're keeping her."

Jane said, "I do. Would you like to see her, Claudia?"

A sudden wave of dizziness made Claudia abandon the train of thought. "Not...right now. Things need to settle more. Jinksy, you have that video of Paracelsus in the sticky string, right? Give that to Jane. Show it to Charlotte. See what she has to say."

"And what about the glasses?" asked Steve.

She shuddered and handed them to him. "I can't...not until after lunch. Maybe. I am not fiddling with those on four days of nothing but rice cakes and Frosted Flakes. Dr. Vanessa, do the records say anything about...lingering dizziness, phantom limbs, anemia, anything weird like that after the initial...um...ascension period?"

"There are a few things that I assumed were mistranslated," the doctor admitted. "What are you feeling?"

Claudia glared impartially at everyone as if daring them to laugh. "I feel like I've been grafted to an anemic dragon. Like I should be big and powerful and smash rocks with my tail and fly and breathe fire, but it's all powered by my little human body and doing anything more strenuous than breathing with my big dragon self makes me dizzy and weak."

No one laughed.

“Well that’s…disconcerting,” Artie said, breaking the unnerved silence.

Dr. Calder shook her head briefly, visibly drawing her professional demeanor back on. “I’ll find the original records and have Artie help me translate them.”

“Uh, yeah.” Artie glanced to his left. “And I’ll bring Myka in if there’s anything I’m not completely confident with.”

The still-shaky Caretaker nodded. “So hey, uh, have you guys been here this entire time?”

“Not the whole time,” Pete said. “We got to go out on a ping yesterday. And Leena went back to the B and B to get everyone a change of clothes. Or two.”

“Or three,” Leena added. “We weren’t sure how long it would take for you to adjust.”

Steve grinned. “But mostly, we’ve been sitting around reminding the Regents that we exist and occasionally chatting with Jane and Mr. Kosan. He was…unhappy with the Regents telling you to stall Paracelsus.”

“Well, I think this has been good for the Regents,” Jane said firmly. “Reminds them that just because they’re at the top, that doesn’t mean they’re the only part of the structure that matters. After I got my vibe about the Caretaker, I headed out for the Warehouse, so I was there for nearly all of Agent Jinks’s narration and believe me, I shared it with the Regents. Mr. Valda may be trying to paint you as an unreliable, ineffective teenager, but the Regents I spoke with are very impressed with the way you managed to outsmart and defeat a Caretaker much older and more powerful than you.” There was a pause, and then she asked the question everyone had been dying to hear the answer to for close to four days. “How did you do it?”

 Paracelsus was getting closer, sniffing her out, the magnet to her iron filing. He would sense her, he would hear her intent, the plan wouldn't work. Then, suddenly, fog. Fog filling her mind, separating her from him, hiding then from each other. She stopped the music, and in the sudden silence her recorded voice rang out: Hey Paracelsus! Over here, dickhead! Come and get me, cockmunch! He charged ahead, triggering the hat which gleefully webbed him to the crate. The transfer reel had been affixed to her tesla, the ribbon wound around it. Now she stepped out from behind the other crate, switching the tablet's display from the phone's camera to its own camera, and he turned to her with hatred and fury on his face, a promise of unspeakable horrors yet to come for her insolence. "Beware the Claudia, my son," she snarled, and fired. Green lightning arced, light flashed and flashed again as Alice made a bid for freedom, and inaudible screaming ripped through her mind as the bond was stripped from him in the space between two heartbeats. Then it was Alice writhing and going still, and a trillion glittering motes poured like a waterfall of endless wonder into her mind, blinding her but providing other eyes. Hands that weren't hands reached out: phone, tesla, tablet, and ribbon were tucked into her bag. Hands now free reached out and touched that limp body, lifted his wrists and fitted them into the bronzer's shackles. Two fingers, two touches, and the body was bronzed. The other one, the intruder, the kid, was lifted up. Music, there had to be music. Something fitting. We are the champions, we are the champions, no time for losers 'cuz we are the champions...

"Claud. Claud. Claud!"

Steve's voice jerked her back into the present. "What?" Everyone was staring at her with various shades of worry or concern. Not awkward at all.  "Sorry. I got..." Tangled hand motions.

Artie peered at her. "Claudia," he said in a too-light voice, "where is Elio Gonzales's bedroom slipper?"

The question pulled her down aisles and across shelves until her mind's eye stopped at the battered slipper with its handwritten card. She was barely aware of the address spilling out from between her lips. Then the image released her and she shook her head to clear it.

"Okay, yeah," Artie was saying. "She's still got a...sort of...sensory...memory...feedback issue. Anything that calls on the Warehouse's memories has a chance to kind of...mentally lock her up."

Oh. So that's what that was. She was being alt-tabbed to the Warehouse. Claudia firmed up her determination, mentally pulled on purple gloves, and reached for those memories. "I trapped Paracelsus in...the hat that spews spiderwebs," she said carefully, avoiding precise names. "Then I shot him with my tesla that had the ribbon attached. Alice pulled him into the mirror and he was disconnected." Math that had no words suddenly built arcs of shimmering spiderwebs in her mind and she reeled from the result of that equation. Hands steadied her, Jane and Steve. "Too much," she said vaguely, covering her face to block out one source of sensory input.

"It's okay," several voices babbled, overlapping waves of reassurance and concern that did nothing to actually help her focus.

"Quiet!" barked Dr. Vanessa, bless her.

The room fell silent. One by one, Claudia separated the shimmering strands, translating the data into something she could communicate with words and gently pushing back the seething bulk of anemic-dragon thoughts until she could sit up and take her hands down. "Even with me as a sub-Caretaker," she said quietly, eyes firmly anchored on the carpet, “the addition of Paracelsus's share of the bond would have overloaded Mrs. Frederic's mind. The portion of load I shouldered was only ever equivalent to the demands Warehouse Two made of Mrs. Frederic that she couldn't handle. The amount Paracelsus held was three times as much as that. In a best-case scenario, we would have been equal co-Caretakers."

"But..." Artie said shakily, "the ribbon..."

"Two Caretakers is unnatural," she continued, still not daring to meet anyone's eyes. "It's possible that the bond would have flowed to me anyway with me holding the...there isn't enough information and the information I do have, doesn't really have words."

This time, Pete broke the silence first. "When you talk with Charlotte, I want to be there," he growled.

Clarity hovered just out of Claudia's mental reach, and she pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "No one talks to Charlotte," she declared. "Not until I've had a nap, lunch, and fifteen minutes alone with the glasses and the kid. In that order."

"Okay, Claud," Myka said reassuringly.

Chairs were shuffled back and people herded from the room, although not before each of them bent down to hug her. Artie was last, with Vanessa hovering by his elbow, and he draped her invisibility cloak around her. "I know you take your best naps curled up on a couch with this as your blanket," he said softly before allowing himself to be led out. At the door, Jane spoke to the Regent goons who glanced in, saw Lurch standing protectively over her, and hurriedly dodged back out of sight. Claudia pulled a corner of material over her head and flopped over into sweet, sweet oblivion.

 

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

 

She was pretty sure some Regents at least peeked in on her while she was sleeping. Either that or she’d just dreamed Valda snarling something about her lying down on the job. If they had, her bodyguard had chased them away because when she woke up, they were alone. There was a tray waiting for her, though. Cheeseburger, fries, and a smoothie, all of which she devoured with the desperation of a woman who hasn’t had anything more solid than a bowl of cereal in four days.

“I think I can deal with the glasses and not fall over afterwards,” she said as she finished.

Lurch No-ma’am held her bag out to her. The glasses were tucked inside, on top of her folded invisibility cloak.

“You’re good, I didn’t even see you move.”

He smiled slightly. “You were busy.”

“That I was.” Claudia stood and slung the bag over her shoulder. “Let’s go fix the kid even though he probably doesn’t deserve it.”

 

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

 

Nick lay on the bed with an IV in his arm, pale and unmoving. Adwin Kosan and Jane Lattimer flanked her, while her bodyguard and two Regent goons kept everyone else out. Not that anyone was there itching to come in. Claudia lifted the glasses out of her bag and set it on the table while she slowly, cautiously, felt out the artifact and how it worked. After a minute, she carefully pulled the mirror shard out of its anti-static bag and stared at it through the glasses.

“Okay,” she said finally, handing the shard to Jane and taking a deep breath. “Let’s see if we can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again,”

Afterwards, all she could say about using the glasses was that it was like playing one of those games where you’re racing along a track to music while trying to hit the right blocks and avoid the wrong ones. It took probably three inaudible songs before she’d hit enough of the right blocks that Nick sucked in a lungful of air, coughed, and blurted out, “What the bloody hell was that?”

“You’re welcome,” Claudia told him as she handed the glasses to Jane, who zipped them into an anti-static bag. “You want to tell me why you thought it was a good idea to debronze Paracelsus?”

He gave her a melodramatic teenager look. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Boy, have you got that back-aswards.” She muttered.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Being snotty to the Caretaker who just un-scrambled your brain? Not the course of action I would have chosen.”

Nick gave her a withering glare. “You are not the Caretaker. My uncle-”

“-is currently minus a body and living in a mirror,” Claudia informed him, poisoned sweetness dripping from every word. “But, you know what, it’s fine. Be snotty. I’ll just ask your mother.” Grabbing her bag off the table, she turned to the two Regents who had been watching silently. “We’re done here. Take me to Charlotte.” Without waiting for their response, she pulled the door open and gestured to the Regent goons. "I want this patient secured to the bed," she commanded. "He's the one who infiltrated the Warehouse."

They glanced at Lurch, then at Adwin Kosan, and nervously nodded to her. "Yes, ma'am," they chorused.

Claudia swept out of the room with all the arrogance she could muster, Adwin Kosan and Jane Lattimer following in her wake and her bodyguard following like a hulking portent of doom. Just down the hall, Pete and Myka were leaning against the wall exchanging hairy eyeballs with the Regent goons standing guard on either side of a door that she guessed held Charlotte. Adwin Kosan hurried ahead to open the door for her, confirming that.

Charlotte was waiting for her, seated and handcuffed to one side of a sturdy, impersonal table with three chairs on the other side. Claudia sat in the middle one, Jane to her left and Mr. Kosan to her right. Pete and Myka followed the Regents in, Pete standing by his mother's shoulder and Myka crossing her arms at Mr. Kosan's side. Across the table, the slightly-dumpy woman simply stared in fearless silence.

"It was a good plan," the young Caretaker said suddenly into the silence. "Send your son in to infiltrate the Warehouse and free Paracelsus while the experienced agents are off helping you find Roaring Dan's treasure. By the time anyone got back to stop him, he'd have retaken the entire bond to the Warehouse and be in a position to grant you whatever you wanted so badly." She paused, but Charlotte only pressed her lips more firmly together. "It almost worked. Too bad I'd grown up in the Warehouse and secretly been co-Caretaker for a few years. The only reason Paracelsus even had a chance of winning is because some Regents who are not in this room decided it would be a good idea to make me stall him rather than just disconnecting him before he regained the full bond."

More silence. She really wasn't going to talk without having her arm twisted. Fine; time to twist.

Claudia leaned back in her chair. "He left your son in that coma, you know. I just came from putting his mind back together because boy, either his uncle was still groggy enough from being bronzed to not realize he was shredding Nick's mind, or he just didn't give a damn." A pause while Charlotte seemed on the verge of speaking, but throttled it back. Time for the big gun. "Knowledge isn't the only thing he ripped out of Nick," she added evenly.

Charlotte started. "What are you saying?" she asked hoarsely.

"The glasses can transfer more than just memories. If used recklessly, or heartlessly, they can suck the very life out of the victim. Luckily for Nick, he had extra lives."

The two women stared at each other, both ignoring the startled, alarmed, or otherwise sudden reactions of the other people in the room.

"Had," Charlotte repeated.

Claudia nodded. "Had."

"He'll age?"

"And die. He would have spent the rest of his life as a vegetable if I hadn't pieced his mind back together. Are you sure Paracelsus would have done the same? You can ask him, you know. He's currently trapped in a piece of mirror."

The older - oldest? - woman sneered. "I have no words for that monster. He's the one who did this to us in the first place."

"You're Sutton's wife," Myka said suddenly. "No wonder you were ready to shoot him."

"I am, and if you ever catch him again, feel free to shoot him for me. Marie's poison-tipped darts won't have stopped him for long, no matter what he told you."

Myka fumed, "He used us. Not that we didn't know he was, just..."

"We weren't aware of how low he could sink," Pete finished.

That seemed to soften Charlotte's hard expression somewhat. "Don't feel bad, he still surprises me." She turned back to Claudia. "If you can remove my unwanted immortality, I will cooperate fully with you and your Regents in any way I can. All I ask is that my son and I be allowed to live our lives out, to grow old and die."

"We will need to discuss this with the Caretaker," Adwin Kosan said smoothly. "If you will excuse us."

Charlotte gave them all a wry smile and rattled her handcuffs. "Of course. I'm not going anywhere."

The head of the Regents led the way to another room, with a round table and a handful of chairs. A pair of pointed looks later, Pete and Myka backed out of the room and closed the door behind them.

"Can you do it?" Mr. Kosan asked without preamble.

Claudia winced. "I think so. It's not the primary function of the device. Transferring life without also transferring memory is going to be tricky and probably best done in small doses."

"That leads to the next question," Jane said grimly. "Who do we give that life to?"

Kosan nodded. "Immortality is not a gift to bestow lightly."

"Immortality, yes, but what about an extra few lives?"

The two Regents exchanged a look. "Could you elaborate on that?" Jane asked.

"It's not...an absolute. I mean, Steve isn't immortal, he just has infinite reconstruction and resurrection as long as the metronome keeps ticking. I learned all about the process Paracelsus used while retrieving Nick's memories, and it's the same: it's not immortality, it's resurrection. The difference is...it's finite. Linked directly to the number of people he killed during the process. He literally stole their lives and anything that would kill Charlotte..."

"Uses one of those stolen lives instead," finished Adwin Kosan. "I see. You could impart a handful of those lives in one session to, say, Agent Bering. And then the next day, a handful to Agent Lattimer. This is not a grave responsibility, then, but a valuable resource. Would it also impart the lack of aging?"

"Nope. Side effect of using the specific equipment to transfer life originally. Without the petrified wood..." Claudia shook her head.

Both Regents nodded. "Good," Adwin Kosan said. "I am in favor of taking our guest up on her offer. This could cut mortality rates among new agents significantly."

Jane gave her that concerned-mother look. "Could you hold onto the extra lives?"

That made her laugh humorlessly. "Considering how tricky it was to un-scramble Nick? I'm pretty sure that's the only way I could take them without getting her whole life story."

 

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

 

"So here's the deal," Claudia said, hands wrapped around a mug of hot cocoa, bodyguard looming behind her. "I get tonight to rest and tomorrow to put the Warehouse to rights since I'm the only one who knows where I put things, and then I've got to take a few weeks to establish myself as Mrs. Frederic's successor. That's right," she said brightly, "my promotion isn't all fun and games."

Pete let it sit for three beats. "Wait, you've been having fun? Is that, like, in comparison to having your molecules re-arranged and falling out of a moving truck? 'Cuz that kind of sucked majorly but I thought what you were going through was worse." His tone made it clear he disapproved of this plan.

Myka smacked him.

"I never thought I'd say this," Artie began, "but...got your chin held high?" Bitter laughter from the new Caretaker answered him, and he smiled faintly. "Good."

"Please, you know me better than that. But I do need time to adjust, so for the time being, I'm keeping step in the line. Tell them later," she added before anyone could ask. "Oh, um, how have you been holding up?"

She didn't mention James. She knew that none of them would have hinted at his existence within Artie's mind, not with Regents around. She also knew that it had been a struggle for him to be comfortable even taking front as rarely as he did, and to have to hide for half a week couldn't he doing good things to his ego.

"This week hasn't been my cup of tea," Artie answered carefully, "but it beats the week after my last trip to Germany."

He knew she was asking about James, and he was letting her know that his other half was holding up okay. "Well, I'll clean up my room and let you get back to being a hermit crab," she told them, eliciting a choked-back laugh.

Leena smiled at that, but her heart wasn't in it. "Will you be coming back at all while you establish yourself?"

"I don't know," Claudia answered. "I'm just taking this one day at a time right now. And today," she announced firmly, "I have done quite enough work. So. Who wants to tell me about the hunt for Roaring Dan's treasure and what you found?"