Claudia: Hot metal lights in your bright blue eyes

[moonshadows]

“Claudia?”

The newly-minted Caretaker ignored him in favor of making sure the pendulum swung just right from the ancient phonograph.

“Claudia…w-what are you…?”

There, done. She straightened and fearlessly met her father-figure’s eyes. “This is not to be touched, at all, by anyone, for any reason,” she declared in the same tone with which she’d told Mrs. Frederic “no” on the day that had been erased.

“Sure, b-but why…?”

“Because I shouldn’t have been able to beat Paracelsus.”

Thick fingers fumbled for the thimble but gave up; apparently, there was no clear winner in who would speak next. Tolerant amusement warmed her iron determination.

“Look, we all know the Warehouse is alive, right? And that it forms a symbiotic relationship with its Caretaker?”

“We can agree on that point, yes,” James said with a stiff nod.

“The trident that Wells was after was the first artifact housed in Warehouse One, but who built the first Warehouse?”

Artie shook his head. “No one knows, not even the Regents. It was before their time.”

“And more importantly,” Claudia pressed on, “how was the first Warehouse built, and with what?”

A brief but fierce internal struggle; Artie won. “The Mason’s Tools,” he breathed. “The same tools used to build the First Temple. But they- that’s why-”

“That’s why, that’s what, and that’s how. Do you honestly think that with a history like that, the Warehouse wouldn’t be more than just stone and mortar?”

“S-so what- but that’s- you’re saying…”

“I’m saying I shouldn’t have been able to beat Paracelsus, and that that no one is to touch that,” she pointed imperiously to the phonograph and crystal pendulum sitting on an iron stand that formerly housed an adding machine, “under any circumstance.”

James wrested control away from his stunned partner and slipped the thimble on. “Understood, but why?”

“It’s a test,” she said evasively. “I’ve got a hypothesis, and I want to gather unbiased data and see if I’m right. On that note, I’d appreciate it if you two could let me know what kind of sounds the phonograph produces.”

“Of course,” James assured her. “Will we see you at dinner?”

Claudia checked her phone. “Unless something world-shaking happens in the next four hours, yes.”

James glanced down for just a moment to remove the thimble, but when Artie looked up, she was gone.

 

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“Anything?”

Artie clutched his chest. “Don’t do that! Anything what?”

Claudia stepped forward into the hug both of them expected. “The phonograph. Is it doing anything?”

“Sorry, kiddo.” It really wasn’t appropriate for him to be calling the Caretaker ‘kiddo’, but neither of them cared. “Nothing but static and random burbles, same as the last three weeks.”

She frowned. “I was sure…maybe I just need to…hey Artie, you or James have anything pressing you’re doing for the next hour?”

Expressions flickered while they conferred. “No, why?”

“I’m borrowing the Warehouse broadcast system for some music therapy. I can leave the office out if you want.”

“That depends on the music,” he replied dryly.

A few swipes of her phone, and she offered it to him so he could check the playlist. “The songs I blasted so Paracelsus couldn’t track me by ear.”

“Neither Arthur nor I have as much affection for these songs as you do,” demurred James, handing the device back. “And, should a ping come in…”

She nodded. “I’ll leave the office out.” It took half a minute to hook her phone into the system. “I’ll be here if you need me. Keep an ear on the phonograph for me?”

“Of course, dear child.” It was his turn to hug her, neither of them caring that ‘dear child’ was at least as inappropriate as ‘kiddo’.

 

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In the junction of major aisles, Claudia stood with her arms thrown wide and her head back, body reflecting the openness of her mind. Music pulsed around her, inside her, through her and she made it part of herself, letting it flow in only to fling it back out with pieces of herself attached.

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes

I never knew daylight could be so violent

A revelation in the light of day

You can choose what stays and what fades away

This was what she was, where she belonged, the path she’d been walking since the day Claire picked up a music box and she knew no good would come of it.

And I’d do anything to make you stay

No light, no light, no light

Tell me what you want me to say

Talk to me, she thought as the beat pulsed like her blood. Talk to me. I’m listening. I’m here for you. I’ve always been here for you. I am not here to rule, I am here to serve. Talk to me.

The song ended. She’d chosen to start with it, the same as she had when she first realized there would be no one to help her fight Paracelsus; it was the two of them inside the Warehouse with only their wits and their surroundings as a weapon. But she’d chosen to end with it as well, a repetition of the message she was sending in response to the one she was sure she’d received that day: I choose you to stay.

She’d had a revelation of her own, that day, when Paracelsus opened his eyes and suddenly she felt another Caretaker in the link, stronger than her and Mrs. Frederic combined. In the five centuries since he’d been bronzed, there had only been demi-Caretakers who couldn’t hear the magnificent entity they were bonded to because they were the slaves and Paracelsus the master, the conduit. The Warehouse had been separated from her servants, left without a voice, left to think for herself. Claudia was a slave of a slave, she shouldn’t have been able to beat Paracelsus. Mrs. Frederic had been helpless, her connection sucked away until it was gone completely, leaving her to wither as she’d done in The Day That Wasn’t while Claudia suddenly found herself facing a vastly more powerful opponent and the same fate. She could almost track him without the tablet at that point; he had to have been able to not only track her, but to hear her intentions or at the very least, prevent the artifacts from affecting him.

But he hadn’t.

In the last minutes of their struggle, the Warehouse had blinded both of them, left them to fight with only their own abilities. She’d won through deception and trickery, throwing her voice through her phone, luring him within range of the hat. Technology had been her sword and her shield, the tablet giving her sight without exposing her eyes and the tesla amplifying the effect of the ribbon. Alice’s mirror shard, stuck with gum to the back of the tablet, had reacted the way she knew it would and Paracelsus had been severed from the Warehouse and trapped in the same instant, leaving Alice inside his body to rage against the webs that held her until the tesla’s bolt knocked her out.

It shouldn’t have worked. She knew in the instant that it did, when the nearly-overwhelming strength of the true, full Caretaker bond swept through her and opened senses she still had no words for, that it couldn’t have worked. Not unless the Warehouse had decided differently. So now she had a responsibility to her other half and she didn’t know any other way to act upon it.

I’m here. I’m listening. Talk to me.

In a heartbeat, she was in the office’s kitchenette filling the kettle and setting out two mugs. By the desk, Artie looked up and turned to confirm that she was there before coming over to offer himself for another hug and whoops, that was James.

“Arthur swears it played a bar of music,” he said as he embraced her. “But it wasn’t any song he recognized. He recorded it on the keyboard so you could hear it.”

Claudia turned the burner on and nodded.

“Just a second,” Artie said, hurrying over to the device.

When she heard the notes pour briefly out of the keyboard, she was so relieved she could have cried.

You’re invincible. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Invincible.

“Y-you look…is that happy or sad? I can’t tell.”

“Relieved,” she said, sinking down into one of the chairs at the table and pressing her face into her hands. “I was right, I just need more data.”

“You look exhausted.” The kettle whistled, and Artie hurried over to pour hot water into both mugs, dosing one with milk and sugar before bringing it to her. “Are the Regents pushing you?”

She laughed, more out of reaction to the situation than out of humor. “Of course they are. I’m barely legal, why should I be treated with the respect and authority they gave Mrs. Frederic?”

Artie growled in wordless disapproval.

“Don’t worry.” There was an edge in her voice, one that was more ominous than angry. “They’re about to learn that they are sadly mistaken about the balance of power.”

“The hand that feeds is about to get bitten?”

She grinned at him, hands wrapped around her mug. “They pushed Mrs. F. around. They pushed you around. Now they’re going to see what it feels like to get pushed around by an authority they can’t argue with.”

The older man sat just a hair too suddenly to be entirely deliberate. “Claudia…what exactly do you mean by that?”

“Nope.” She shook her head and took a sip of tea, hissing at the still-scalding liquid. “I’m playing this close to the vest and not showing my cards until I have to.”

“James approves.”

“Thank you, Uncle.” Claudia tried another sip and managed to not burn her tongue. “I think I’ll go talk to Aunt Jane this evening, after dinner. And then see about…some other things.”

Artie’s posture shifted and James snickered. “I almost feel sorry for them, but I don’t.”

Claudia laughed and saluted him with her mug, and he nodded and saluted her back. “I promise to use my powers for good,” she said solemnly. Then she grinned. “Mostly.”