Director's Commenatry - Time Bomb (Harry Dresden/Firefly) (Part 1/2)
DVD commentary! Because Time Bomb was a mess to write, and there's a ton of stuff going on behind the scenes that needs explanation.
Time Bomb: Director's Commentary
Posted here as well as at whattheficathon; this is the corrected & updated version. Written in 4 hours, non-stringently-beta'd, although I do owe those mentioned below for helping.
I wrote the first scene of this on its own, on Tuesday night; the rest was written in one long stretch, Thursday night. I know this because I was in AIM writing it, with faithfully_luna cheering and "mm-hmm"'ing me on for the length of most of that conversation. I've done the same thing with celli and jetpack_monkey a few times. The hardest fics to write still get written if I have someone poking at me and the story as I go. So a round of applause for Luna, everyone.
I had an outline to work from, thanks to havocthecat helping me break it down Tuesday night; she also came up with the prototype villain for this piece. More on that in a bit.
Title: Time Bomb
Written For: orockthro
Fandoms Crossed: The Dresden Files (books) and Firefly; I couldn't work Methos in here, no matter how I tried, Orock. Hope this works.
Note: (Set between Dead Beat and Proven Guilty for Harry; post-SerenityBDM for Firefly). Some spoilers for the earlier books; some deliberate omissions, since they're not relevant to the story.
I'm linking the omissions in a comment in the next post; it's very tricky, getting continuity right in the Dresden-Files-verse. If you're a regular reader and are caught up through Proven Guilty, check out the (rather long) list of omissions, here.
Word Count: 9,465 words.
Disclaimers: All mistakes in Chinese or continuity are mine. I own none of these, and selling Harry on eBay is illegal anyway.
Acknowledgements: faithfully_luna, jetpackmonkey, havocthecat and wiliqueen deserve thanks for beta-duties, outlining, titling, cheerleading and reassurance.
jetpackmonkey and wiliqueen both took a look at it before I went in and told me it was good to go, and neonhummingbird now deserves credit for catching a couple things they didn't, and doing a line-edit check. Comments on their comments throughout.
Summary: When an unbalanced girl with a penchant for dangling off high places suddenly 'poofs' into existence in a bar with no explanation, Harry has a new job. Just not one he ever wanted.
As summaries go, that's not one of my better ones. Anyone with a better suggestion? It'd be appreciated.
Time Bomb
TM jetpack_monkey, who came up with a title typical of the Dresden Files.
By Christina K
Copyright 2008
Chicago, 2004
[I re-set this from 2008 to 2004 when I realized how much I was changing as I wrote it; but it's still an election year.]
There are some days it's just better to not pick up the phone. Some people's answering machines would thwart even that decision, but I don't have one, for good reasons. So I have absolutely no one to blame but myself when I do the stupid thing and answer a phone call.
"Dresden." I yawned, and checked the clock, then scowled. Five am is not a happy time for me. "And this better not be a call for political action. I am not about action before dawn." I hate election years. Chicago goes just a little more nuts than it is at any other time during changes of power.
"It's Murphy, Harry." Murph sounded like I felt, doubled. "Could you get down to the precinct within an hour or so? Something from your side of the street needs attention."
Chicago's Special Investigations makes up enough of my paycheck that I wouldn't blow it off anyway, but Murph's tone guaranteed I'd be there pronto. We've been friends for years, I know the 'all hands on deck' tone in her voice even before coffee. I forced myself to sit up, blinking as Mister sauntered in to inform me that as long as I was awake, I could serve him breakfast. "What kind of something? Murder, robbery, other?"
"This one goes squarely in the 'other' column." Murph battled a yawn and added, "I don't think I can get you paid for this, Harry. But I seriously think you need to be the one dealing with it. When can you get down here?"
"Gimme forty-five minutes. Should I come armed?"
A pause. "I'm not sure it would do you any good if you did. But you might want to be."
Curiouser and curiouser. And me without my morning breakfast too. "Right. Be there by six, and you're buying me coffee."
[faithfully_luna thought this whole scene should be changed to having River just appear in Harry's workroom; jetpack_monkey thought it was fine, but that my characterization on Murphy, and her reaction to the weird stuff, was OTT. I toned down Karrin Murphy a bit, but due to time constraints, didn't rewrite the beginning. It might have worked better that way, though.]
I ambled into the 27th precinct, Mouse at my side as I headed up to Murphy's office. Whatever badass thing Murphy wanted me to deal with, it helps to have a Faithful Canine Carnivore there to assist in subduing the bad guy. I rapped on Murphy's door with my knuckles, staying far back from her desk and the nicely delicate computer she didn't want to replace again. Me and electronics: never going to be Best Friends Forever. "Hey. What's the latest and greatest?"
[All Harry Dresden novels are written first person, limited Harry POV (not unlike the Potter books) except that the voice is much more adult, and more Sam Spade. Getting Harry's voice right is tricky, but it is, luckily, very distinctive. My rendering of it may not be perfect, but it's close enough to be recognizable, I think.]
Murph cocked an eyebrow at me over her coffee, and took a long moment to consider before she joined me out in the bullpen. "We've got a woman down in holding. And when I say woman, I'm closer to saying 'girl'. She might be legal, might not." She tapped her fingers on her mug, looking unsettled, and there's not much that gets under Murph's skin. "She appeared in the middle of a MacAnally's.' 'Poof', one second there's a clear stretch of bar, the next second, there's a girl standing on top of it, according to the witnesses."
[Idea fleshed out when I was bibbling to havocthecat on her Lj, trying out ideas for the ficathon. Her immediate reaction was YES. WRITE IT NOW.]
"Whoops," I muttered. There were worse places for someone to accidentally 'poof.' Mac's is a space acknowledged by the magical Accords, protected neutral ground, and a lot of magic types hang out there. If any crowd could take that with aplomb, it would be Mac's late-night regulars drinking beer. "Did some normal citizen freak out, or did she start a fight, or what? It's not like translocation is even on the books as existing, much less being illegal."
"No, but climbing up the Lakeshore Bridge as it rises, trying to dangle off the end and demanding access to the cosmos gets you EMT's and various people thinking you're a suicide risk," Murph answered me. I winced. "The local beat cops back-tracked her to Mac's, and from there, we've got nothing. She doesn't have a record, she hasn't served in the armed services, and I'm waiting for a COTUS search. But I doubt anything will turn up. Unless it's a missing persons report from a mental hospital. I grabbed her for SI when I got the uniforms' reports."
[It is COTUS, right? I didn't look that up. Too much CSI. I assumed. Bad author. No cookie.]
"Okay, so the 'poof' kinda means something out of the ordinary is happening," I said cautiously, "But Murph, what do you want me to do?"
"Take charge of her. Do something," Murph said in frustration. "She keeps trying to get out of her cell and climbing the ceiling!"
Um.
"She's Spider-Man?"
[*giggling* And this is where I started to have fun with it; the image of River trying to get out of a cell, as shown in Serenity, hanging onto the sprinkler head. This was faithfully_luna's main objection to the beginning of the story; those uniforms shouldn't have been able to take River in. She was right. I decided for speed over the thin plot ice to get past it, and leave this bit in.]
"She's nuts," Murph said, putting down her mug and heading across the bullpen toward holding. "And we can't deal with her. If I let them take her to St. Mary's on a psych watch, she'll be out in 72 hours and probably jumping off another bridge, if her behavior here is anything to go by. I feel sorry for the kid, I don't want anything to happen to her. You're a Warden, Harry. You're supposed to handle this kind of thing now. So. Time to step up and earn that paycheck, just like any other public servant."
"Ouch." I followed Murph down to the hallway, Mouse padding along beside me. "You do know I took the job just for the snazzy outfit, right?"
"Yeah, I figured you wanted that robe for when you play D&D with the werewolves."
"It's wash-and-wear. Never underestimate the value of easy-wash clothes, Lieutenant."
[Which made beta-readers who know the series laugh. He really does do this.]
"I'll give you a hat with stars on it if you get this girl some help," Murph offered, signing into the passbook outside of holding. "Okay, bring her out.
Two big cops were-- not exactly manhandling, but definitely acting as human arm-cuffs to a girl who looked like a stiff breeze would send her tripping back to Oz. I could sympathize with Murph's trouble in classifying her as girl or woman; she was tall and wiry, probably about eighteen or nineteen, but too thin, with long dark hair tangled like a little kid who'd been running around the playground all day, and a pink dress in a style that would've worked better on a twelve-year-old. It was the expression that could really throw you, though; just this side of vacant, but then I caught those big hazel eyes flicking to all the exits with the calculation of a cornered snake. This was not a kid unused to taking care of herself, no matter how far off beam she was acting.
[River is often described as 'tiny', but Summer Glau is 5'8". She's just thin, and often standing next to Nathan Fillion or Adam Baldwin, for crying out loud.]
"River?" Murph's voice had the gentleness she reserved for crime victims and witnesses to bloodshed. "This is Harry, the man I told you about. He's going to try to help you figure out where you belong. Do you understand?"
She glared at the two cops, jerking her arms out of their hold, then rubbed her biceps, scowling at me through her hair. "She understands. She doesn't see the applicability. The circle can not be squared. I am an island unto myself. Further assistance is futile." She paused, tilting her head at Mouse, then said, "Lhasa is very far away."
O-kay. Who told the crazy person my dog was from Tibet?
[River's voice is also distinctive and difficult. If you can fake your way through bright-but-distracted, it sounds right. I figure she's just so used to getting telepathic input on top of the normal sensory input that she doesn't bother separating them out any more. Third person quite a bit of the time too, since she *has* to analyze herself as she negotiates the world quite a bit, not to mention distance herself from all her emotional and psychic traumas. You'd skip being 'I' too if so much had happened to you.
I love Mouse. 'nough said.]
Mouse, meanwhile, was snuffing at the edge of her dress, then flopped down on her feet waving his paws in the air, begging for tummy scratches. Maybe-crazy and possibly-psychic smells like French fries, who knew? River's scowl disappeared, and she giggled, looking a lot younger as she bent down to pet him and smooth his fur.
"Great. Let me know how that works out. I have five other fires to put out. Bye, Harry." Murph marched off to defend Chicago from the Forces of Evil and Bureaucracy, and I scrubbed my face with one hand as River returned to glaring at me. Just what I always wanted, legal custody of a hostile teenager.
"Let's get some breakfast."
The Waffle House on 43rd does a mean special, and River inhaled three waffles, four eggs, a side of bacon and a fruit salad like she hadn't eaten in weeks. I contented myself with a coffee and a bagel, and watched her tuck in, waiting for carbs and hot chocolate to buy me a little goodwill.
"So. We'll start with the basics. Where are you from, River?"
She gave me an eye-roll, and chewed her food, carefully enunciating, "Elsewhere. Never-where. No-where. I fell through a crack in the worlds."
Baby Goths give me a pain. Also: Neil Gaiman reference, check. Billy and his pack would get a kick out of her. "Let's get a little more specific. Is there anyone I can call to come get you?"
[I'm currently listening to Neverwhere on audio. Fun fact.
Also, you can get the James Marsters readings of the Harry Dresden books from Roc publishing, and they are fantastic. You don't hear Spike during the recordings unless you're really obsessed with Spike, or if JM is doing the voice for one of the recurring assassins. I highly recommend them, and I wish like heck that I'd listened to the latest one *before* I wrote this story. I'm sure the Harry-voice would be better if I had.]
"Not yet." She poked at the jelly on her toast, frowning. "Simon is worrying. I can feel it. Even so far away."
"Who's Simon?"
"Ghuh-Ghuh." Or at least, that's what it sounded like. At my look, she glared at me again. Clearly, this girl shared many people's opinion that I was a bear of very little brain. "Brother!" You dumbass was left implied. "I was there, then I was here, and he can't get here."
[Yeah, looked up the Mandarin, slipped it in here and below. My spelling of it sucks, but then, Harry doesn't speak Chinese, so it's all good.
Also, this is post-Serenity, so River is... relatively sane. Too much input, not a lot of impulse control, but not deeply incoherent, not deliberately. Just impatient, too smart, and used to dealing with people who are dumber than she is-- and she always talks to Simon like this when he asks dumb questions too.]
"About that. How did it happen?"
She frowned again, but this time I got the feeling it was more thinking, not so much her hostility at being pushed off on me as a problem. "She was on serenity. Night-time. Couldn't sleep." She tilted her head, and pulled her legs up onto the booth, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Too loud. Everyone under. Dreams of falling in her head. Early was a little right. She wasn't wrong." She rocked, then said, "It sang to her, dong ma? So she sang along."
I stared at her a minute longer, hoping that would make sense if I thought about it. I wish I knew what language River was speaking when she slipped out of English; I was going to have to ask Bob. Unless she'd made it up. In which case, I didn't think it would help to know. "So. You were… somewhere else. Awake. Other people were asleep." I paused, then asked, "So what was the singing? A spell to get you here, or what?"
[Enter the McGuffin. Part of the fun of this story, for me, was setting it up so Harry would never know River was from the future. The other part was delaying the full reality of magic for River as long as possible.]
In my defense, I was hoping to get a reaction from her by mentioning magic, maybe get her to relax, trust me, open up. I didn't expect her to laugh at me. "Magic doesn't exist. It's a superstitious invention used by primitives to explain the physical workings of the universe beyond their mathematical comprehension."
"So what's your explanation for suddenly showing up at Mac's, poof, zing, look ma, no hands?"
She slapped her hand down on the table, scowling at me again. "I told you! I fell through a crack! A subspace construct through the continuum which had not previously been there! The song was the frequency adjustment which allowed my passage. Or so I believe."
Even when she was speaking English? And not talking about herself in the third person? River still didn't make sense. I rubbed my temples, and sighed. "River, I can't help you if I can't figure out what's going on. Or what happened." I dropped my hands, and matched her glare for glare. "Goddamnit, I'm trying to help. I get that you don't think you need it, but people who go dangling off bridges attract all the wrong kinds of attention. If you're going to get home the same way you got here, wherever there is, you're going to have to give me something to work with."
[Show Harry Dresden a damsel in distress, and I'll show you a recipe for trouble.]
She stabbed another piece of bacon, shoved it in her mouth, and glared at me, chewing. Then she swallowed. "Lieutenant Murphy believes you are a follower of Houdini and Merlin. One was a myth, and the other was an illusion. She also believes we are on Earth-that-was." River snorted. "How can you help me?"
[*cackles* I had a lot of fun realizing that everyone else looked crazy to River right here.]
Hoooo, boy. I took another swig of coffee, then sighed. "Look, I can prove it to you. Magic, Earth, me helping you. If you're up for it."
She gave me an intrigued but skeptical look. "How?" Then her eyes widened. "I don't want you in my head!"
"River, calm down." So much for the soul-gaze idea. And let's add mind-reading to her little bag of tricks, shall we? For a girl with possibly-psychic abilities, either she was in heavy denial or the semi-craziness was letting her interpret it as alien powers or some other bizarre thing. "I won't do it without your permission. But if I did soul-gaze you, you'd know as much about me as I'd know about you." I let that sink in a moment, then carefully said, "You'd know how I can help you, and I'd know what I need to do it. It won't hurt. It's a little scary, but I swear, you'll be as safe as I will."
River chewed on her lip, twirling a strand of hair around her finger one way, then the other. "I can't hear you very well," she said suddenly. "Surfaces only. You weren't surprised." I stayed still, letting her process that. I have pretty good mental shields; you need them, in my business. Hopefully that was giving her a some reassurance that I knew what I was doing. "Maybe. Yes. Okay. But! Ending quickly. She doesn't want to get confused. She hates that."
"It's over in a second, River. It feels like it lasts longer, but it's very very quick." Attitude problem aside, I was starting to get why Murphy had been protective of her. The kid wasn't playing with a full deck, but with powers she didn't understand manifesting, and a latent mental problem of some kind, how could she handle it any better? I hoped her brother would be understanding, or someone else in her family, when I finally found them and explained what had happened to her. "You ready?"
She gulped, then lifted her eyes to mine.
[Harry's done this a few times in the books; never lightly, and only a couple times on accident. The descriptions vary based on who he's soulgazing, and it does go two ways.]
Some people experience soul gazes as music; some get a fast video of a moment that defines the person they're soul-gazing. On different occasions, I've gotten something of each.
This was more like a comic book. Frame after frame of bright colors, frozen for a second, with sound laid over the top. I moved from one shot to the next, like walking through a picture gallery of neon action-adventure with a classical soundtrack.
A much younger River, in a ballerina outfit, dancing the part of Odette, the Swan from Swan Lake. A kid a few years older than she was on the sidelines, clapping, his eyes lit up with joy. There were two adults behind him, holding a conversation and ignoring both kids.
In the next box, she was still dancing. But it was Coppelia-you may not know that one. The story's about a puppet-girl, whose puppeteer wants her to be real.
[wiliqueen reassured me here; I wasn't sure that Harry would know these particular ballets. But his dad was a stage magician, and many of their assistants are dancers, and Harry has a habit of knowing bits and pieces of everything in order to make his work as semi-private-investigator/wizard work. My description of Coppelia is slanted for the story, but basically on point.]
River had strings connected to all her joints, and two huge guys with blue gloved hands were pulling her strings. Up, down, sideways, twirl-and she was bleeding from the contact points. Jesus. She looked half-asleep, caught in a nightmare. The terrifying part was how well she danced on those strings. Faster than normal. Leaping higher. Kicks you can't make because human joints don't bend that way. Too fast. The music went all Night on Bald Mountain as she spun so hard I thought her neck would snap, and then--
The kid from the first frame cut her strings in the third shot, dragging a now-limp River offstage. The gigantic blue hands slammed the curtain down, then tippy-toed around the edges of the picture, looking for River, making frustrated sock-puppet expressions at each other when they couldn't find her.
Fourth frame was Hansel & Gretel: River and her brother, hiding in the woods. Simon led River away from a witch, River led him away from a wolf, and then… hunh. A riverboat. One of those big paddle-wheel jobs from the last century, that you can still see on the Mississippi sometimes. There were people there, going by too fast to catch all of them; a saloon girl, a captain, someone in a Scarlett O'Hara dress, a big guy out of Bonanza, an old bartender, a gambler in a bright coat, a woman with a gun….
[*waves to the Firefly crew* And the ballet metaphor wouldn't stretch any further here, so we're on a boat. Harry doesn't have enough info to realize it's a metaphor too.]
And then something I couldn't see (maybe a gigantic blue hand from offstage?) attacked the whole construct, forget the frames, forget the music, it all fell apart like exploding stained glass. Leaving River curled up in a little ball in the center of it all, bleeding from a thousand cuts and shivering like she'd never get warm.
"Gah!" I came out of the soulgaze trying to get my breath, shaking, fists clenching. "What the hell happened to you, kid?"
She stared at me wide-eyed, then muttered under her breath, "Se per muove. The center can not hold more than its interior space. Displacement of space. Three point one four one five nine two six…"
[Yes, River, you're on Earth. And apparently time travel is real. And someone yanked you out of your timestream. And the nice man who wants to help you is smarter than he looks, and a helluva lot more dangerous, and yes, he'd be willing to get hurt for you, just like Mal, 'cause he's that kind of guy. And yes, that means he gets you on a level you probably hate right now. Yeah, I'd be calculating the values of Pi too, in order to re-find my equilibrium.]
"River. River, come on, calm down." Christ, what had set her off? What did she see in my head that rattled her this bad? Or was it her reaction to being seen? I tried to keep my voice gentle, despite how monumentally pissed off I was at whatever had happened to her.
This kid didn't come off the factory assembly line with emotional problems. Someone had screwed with her head. Her brother had gotten her away from them, but she still wasn't over it. No wonder she was crazy. No wonder she didn't trust me. Last time anyone had gotten inside her skull, they'd left her fractured mess. I wanted to punch the shit out of someone for what she'd been through.
[Harry is not a hero. He'll tell you that a lot. He would without hesitation let someone torture him for his friends or for any innocent, and sometimes even the guilty, who cross his path. But that doesn't make him a hero. Right?]
"She is not wrong! She isn't!" Her movements were getting more frantic, less careful as she dropped her fork and stood up on the booth seat. "She is right! Even if you are right! She is not to be protected! She is better, Miranda left her, she is better and I can speak English and you are not to injure yourself! Merlin is not to be shut in a tree! No one needs to be damaged!"
[River really doesn't want anyone else getting hurt for her, and some of the danger Harry is in right now is immediately apparent to her. She's still no more skilled at communicating those dire warnings, though.]
Okay, so, jackpot: the inside of my head and the inside of River's head didn't mix well. "Got it, understood, ten four, can you sit down? The nice people who gave us waffles are going to kick us out if you don't chill."
And on the word chill? She was leaping from her booth to the back of the seat, then leaping to the next, over the heads of startled diners, onto a planter next to the window, off a chair, onto a table, and then a freaking diving-roll out the door. I swear to you, the Flying Wallendas would've hired her for their opening act if they were still on the circuit.
While I sat there like a dummy and gaped.
By the time I'd slapped a twenty down for the breakfast, and made it out the door, she was nowhere to be seen.
Mouse was still where I'd parked him outside. He gave a mournful bark, then panted at me, spitting something out of his mouth. A scrap of pink dress.
"Gooooood boy."
[And again, River gets away when probably Mouse (who is a Tibetan temple dog, capable of Diefenbaker-like feats of doggy prowess) should have tracked her for several blocks. Plot necessity, and I'm not setting up a crossover duel-of-skills here, so the one I need to lose loses.]
I made it back to my apartment in record time, thudding down the stairs to my workshop and yelling, "Bob! We've got a tracking job!" I started gathering the ingredients I needed, checking on my Igor-slash-Yorick. "Wakey wakey, damsels to save, demons to thwart."
"Demons? It's not even Halloween yet." Bob's eyes glowed in his skull, and how he managed to yawn when he doesn't have an esophagus, I'll leave to you to ponder. "Who's the damsel? Is she foxy? Feisty? Friendly?"
"River's too young, too crazy, and too violent for you, Bob." I paused while gathering some chalk, and asked, "Okay, what does 'dong ma' mean? And 'ghuh-ghuh'? Are they even a language, or was she babbling at me?"
"It's Chinese, Mandarin," Bob said, showing a little more animation. "'Dong ma' is 'do you understand?'" Which I should have gotten from the context. "Ghuh-ghuh is brother. She from Chinatown? Was she wearing a cheong-sam?"
"Stop perving on the client, and no, and no." I assembled a brass bowl for the tracking spell ingredients, and looked over Little Chicago. "It's not ready yet, is it?"
"Sorry boss," Bob sounded actually serious for a minute. Maybe a minute and a half, an new record. "It's just not complete enough yet. Snap-crackle-fizz if you tried to use the model. Gotta work with a map, like always."
"Meh. Right." I finished putting the strawberry syrup from the Waffle House, the crumbs of bacon, eggs, and waffles, and the scrap of her dress and one hair that Mouse had managed to sniff out for me, all into the brass bowl, and lit it, chanting under my breath, focusing my will to find her.
[Little Chicago is Harry's model of Chicago, that he uses to do work that he does not have the fine focus or delicate control for. Not yet finished at the end of Dead Beat, and this helped me actually set where Harry is, in-series, a lot, when I realized it couldn't be finished, or he'd find River too fast.]
A tiny blue light formed from the flames of the bowl, rose up, and hovered over the map of Chicago, coming to rest on the Hancock Building. Great. She was probably looking for that 'subspace construct' again. She seemed to think jumping off high places would get her home. Damnit. I pulled out a length of gold chain I'd saved for something like this, and held it out to the blue glow. "Illumine." The glow snapped to the chain, and I stuffed it in my pocket. Hopefully it would lead me to River when I got close enough for it to pick up on her presence. I folded up the map, getting ready to leave, and asked, "Bob? What do you know about subspace constructs?"
Why don't I ask these questions first, I sometimes wonder.
"What, like tesseracts? Black holes? Rifts in space?" Bob made a humming noise and said, "They're illegal as hell by Council standards, creating them takes a lot of talent and power, and they're murder to aim. You can end up in the Cretaceous period when you meant to go to the Renaissance, or London when you just wanted to pop over to Tokyo. Not for the faint of heart, boss."
Oh. Crap. I facepalmed, and said, "We're going to have to check for them when I find River again. I think she fell through one; the kid's got some talent but she's completely tweaked. I didn't understand what she was talking about when she said she fell through a continuum. No wonder she said her brother's too far away to know where she is."
"What did she hire us for, Harry?"
"Ummm." I fidgeted. "She didn't. Murphy wanted me to keep an eye on her after she poofed into Mac's last night. Then she…" I cleared my throat. "Ran away."
Bob was still laughing as I climbed up the ladder.
[Sometimes Bob is very mean. Heh.
Difference between TV-Bob and Book-Bob, btw: TV-Bob is British, a ghost-manifestation, and he's known Harry his most of his life, since he was 10. Book-Bob only fell into Harry's lap when he was older, and is solely a spirit confined to a skull, except when Harry lets him possess the cat and go walkabout. I loved the TV series as well as the books, but there's a lot more to work with in the books, and since this is a written story, I felt more comfortable writing it to mimic the book-style.]
The Blue Beetle put-putted to the Sears Tower through mid-morning traffic pretty steadily, without running into any problems. I probably should have taken that as a warning, since that never happens. It was the last part of the day that went the way I wanted it to.
Parking is a sport in Chicago; sometimes, a blood sport. I? Have allies. Also, pizza. Trust me, that's not a non-sequitur. A little more intelligence gathering was called for at this point, and I knew just who to ask. Pulling into a deserted alley near the Hancock Building, I opened up a Little Caesar's box, and laid it on the hood of my car, drawing a circle around it with chalk. Then I called my minions.
So they're more like free-lance protection specialists, only six inches high. If I pay in pizza, I can call them minions for as long as they work for me. A flurry of pink, blue, purple, and green lights hovered over the pizza, and I grinned at the leader of the fuzzballs. "Hey there, Toot-toot."
"Harry Dresden," squeaked the lead lavender pixie. "Multi-meat toppings?"
"Only the best for you guys," I told him, bringing out my map and the necklace to do a check on River again. Yup. Still on the building. "I need a parking space somewhere within a block of the big Tower. And if you've seen a girl, pink dress, maybe…" What? Crazy? Gymnastic? Upset? "I'd appreciate a head's up."
Two pink lights grabbed pizza topping and crusts, then zipped away to find the Blue Beetle a berth, while the rest dug into the pizza, Toot-toot stuffing his mouth with both hands. It was like a pastel piranha attack. Do not get in between a wild faerie and his dinner, is all I'm saying. After about forty-five seconds, he burped, then told me, "No girl. Something strange, Harry. Disturbance in the Force!"
I kept my face straight and asked, "You wouldn't yank my chain, would you, Padawan?"
He shook his head vehemently as the two pink girls came back, wiping their faces free of pizza sauce and cheese. "You come this way," they sang, voices high-pitched and pretty.
[A bit weak, but I was writing my way into this part, not sure where it was going, exactly.]
I followed the little pink fairies down into a parking garage one block away from the Tower, Toot-toot pacing me outside my window. You'd think people would notice this, but it's not like the little guys show up well in direct sunlight; dandelion puffs, blowing trash, you name it, that's what they'd look like to anyone else. I was just thinking about how to talk River off the Tower when I turned the Beetle's wheel-
And hit the brakes, gaping in front of me at the figure caught in my headlights. Then I turned to glare at Toot-toot. "You should've warned me!"
"Didn't know!" he squeaked back at me, looking nervous. The two pink fairies looked guilty.
The woman - no, being - standing in the path of the Beetle smiled smugly, and tapped the Beetle's hood with the hilt of her sword. Probably knew it would fall apart if anything sharp tapped it. "Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. We have business to discuss."
[Hello, Cruella.]
"Mab." I eased off the brake, put the Beetle in park, and got out-but did not cut the engine. So it was a fantasy and a dream that I'd be able to hit her with it, or escape in it. We all need our coping mechanisms. My delusion that I could evade the Queen of Air and Darkness was a longstanding one. "Your Majesty. I'm in the middle of a case. Can't it wait?"
[havocthecat originally suggested Leanansidhe, Harry's wicked fairy godmother for this part; but I realized while I was writing it that she was, ahem, incapacitated at this point in the series, later. Lea is more fun, and genuinely fond of Harry in her own psychotic way, but Mab works just as well to push Harry into doing things he doesn't wanna do, so I just re-wrote the scene to make it sound like Mab. The books usually give very long, detailed descriptions of her gorgeous evilness; I couldn't do her quite as much justice, so kept it simple enough that you have some idea of how dangerous she is.]
She tilted her oh-so-perfectly chiseled face toward me, and reached out to toy with the lapel of my duster. She should have looked ridiculous in the parking garage, among the graffiti and oil stains on concrete; instead, she made it look like a movie set, with all the lights aimed at her. The usual low crawl of desire started up, and I stomped on it with mental steel-toed boots. "I have need of your assistance now. Do you wish me to compel you, or will you be reasonable, for once in your life?"
Anyone seeing me with Mab would think I was a lucky sonuvabitch. They would have no idea that I was a lucky sonuvabitch because I was still standing after several encounters with the lady. I once had the stupidity to ask one of her people for help; she got a lien on my life because of it. Then she turned around and passed the lien along to Mab. Bank of America would be brought up on SEC charges if they got to operate like that. To say I'd rather not deal with her is the understatement of the century.
"Is this about the favors?" I asked, feeling the chain and the blue glow under my shirt. "Because if it is, I'm willing to hear you out, but there's a girl I have to help first. If I don't find her, she might hurt herself. I'm not willing to negotiate anything while I don't know where she is."
Mab's eyes went flat, the slitted-pupils focusing on me with unnerving intensity. "It is a simple thing. If you agree now, I will release you to pursue your damsel." She held open her hand, and the image of a music box appeared in it. Nearly transparent, made out of glass, fragile and delicate as a whisper. "An artifact of my shaping has been lost. I desire its return. It is somewhere in Chicago. Find it for me, and bring it to me, and I will consider dissolving one of the favors still owed."
"And if I don't?"
She snapped her fingers, and the Beetle's engine died. And the lights went out. And… crap. I was stuck in an underground parking garage with no light, time running out, with the Winter Queen ready to reach out and snuff out the magic I needed to find River.
"I don't get to leave 'til I agree, do I?" I asked in resignation. I already knew I would do it. Compared to some things Mab had asked of me? Finding a toy was a tiny thing. Of course it would come with strings, conditions, and probably blood. But she had me over a barrel. "Fine. Fine! But that's it. No one's dying, no one's being killed for it, and no one is going to suffer for it. Got it?"
A ripple of amused laughter wrapped around me like a cat. One with claws. "In this instance, it will not be required."
"How am I supposed to find this thing?" I asked, reaching out to take a look at it. There were characters all around it in some script I didn't recognize. It looked like a tiny piano, now that I got a better look at it. Mab flipped up the lid, and a classical theme played, one I didn't recognize. "Very pretty. Any idea where it went?"
[While writing this bit to faithfully_luna, I totally skipped giving Harry any clues on how to find it. Silly author. Went back five minutes later when Luna said, "Umm...."]
"It will leave a trail behind it. Mortal blood created it; you alone can find it." A clap of her hands like thunder, and the words: "Find it."
Always helpful, Mab. The Beetle's lights came back on, and I scrubbed my face, turning to get back in to park it. The blue glow on the chain under my shirt was still glowing; hopefully, it would get me to River even with unexpected interruptions.
By the time I got to the top of the Hancock Building - taking the stairs for the last five flights because I didn't need to get stuck between floors while on a search- I had to stop and catch my breath, wishing for a bottle of water or a maybe a bucket to duck my head into.
[neonhummingbird pointed out to me that the Sears Tower does not have an open observation platform, like the Hancock does, so I changed it in this draft. She also pointed out that, duh, Harry would be dead if I made him climb 100 flights of stairs, like the guys in Ghostbusters. Sometimes the obvious escapes me if I'm writing fast. ]
In spite of that, I paced around the observation platform until I found River, precariously balanced on one of the railings, legs doing the splits, but not showing any signs of an urge to jump. There's a platform right below the observation one to catch jumpers; maybe that's why no one was trying to stop her. Yet. I took a couple deep breaths, then carefully approached her. "Hey."
She turned her head to look at me and gave me a sad-clown smile. Usually that's creepy, but on her it was heartbreaking. "I am out of my element. Not fire, or water, or air. Only earth. Earth." She frowned over the edge of the railing, her hands braced on the bar to take most of her weight, and slowly brought herself up into handstand, dress falling down around her face. She was wearing shorts underneath it. "Modesty must be preserved."
"It's creepy when you answer what I'm thinking, you gotta know that," I told her. "Come on down. We have to talk." I paused. "Please?"
[Harry takes her mind-reading a lot more easily than most people. But his reaction still amuses me.]
She let go of the railing and jumped backward to land on her feet next to me, giving me a solemn look. "We are already conversing. Exchanging views. At cross purposes. You believe I am magic. And insane. I believe you are magic. And insane." River paused. "Though for different reasons. She has known other madmen like you."
"Oh yeah?" I asked, letting out a breath I'd been holding as she imitated Mary Lou Retton. "Am I likely to meet them?"
"Unable to say." She frowned again, hugging herself. "Mal is on the other side of the construction. And his thoughts are too linear to accept a three-dimensional reality." She scuffed her toe on the ground. "He seeks to re-make the past into his image of balance. As do you."
Translated from River: whoever I reminded her of, he had no idea about magic. And he might or might not be a bad guy. If he'd had to deal with her in one of her terrified fits, I'd buy him a beer out of sheer sympathy.
[neonhummingbird found this very funny, and is lobbying for a sequel based on this concept. Heh. We'll see. Might be worth it...]
"River, I swear, I will get you back home, but I just got mugged by… let's say a very dangerous woman, and leave it at that." I took a breath. "I have to finish a job for her, or I'm going to be in huge trouble. Can you please not run off again, and promise to quit jumping off things, hanging off things, or disappearing, until I can find what she wants me to find?"
She frowned at me, again, the puzzled-look instead of the fierce-pissed-off look. "It's a construct. She should know its resonance. Why does she require you?"
[Yup, River's figured out that the little construct she sees in his head is the same music-box she picked up that zapped her to 21st Century Earth; and assumes Mab knows what she's doing. Let's give it up for third-person keeping that concealed from Harry for a while longer, though.]
Aaaand we're back to the crazy physics talk and third-person. I really wished Bob were here to translate. "Because I said please? Please?"
River gave me another you're so dumb, how do you even talk? look, then rolled her eyes. "She will not leave. She will remain. She will… help." She gave me a bright smile. "Yes!"
"She will not help," I said firmly. "She will stay at my place, out of the way, until Harry-damnit, now you've got me doing it. Until I get back from where I'm going to check. Mab said I could find it, so it shouldn't be impossible." I took a deep breath. "Understood?"
"She understands." River sniffed. "More than you do."
[Okay, that might be the most fun conversation they had in this story. Because *that* is Harry right there, beleaguered and helpful and frustrated. And that is River, unable to believe people aren't following her tangents, or at least working out the facts on their own.]
Part 2 of the commentary
Time Bomb: Director's Commentary
Posted here as well as at whattheficathon; this is the corrected & updated version. Written in 4 hours, non-stringently-beta'd, although I do owe those mentioned below for helping.
I wrote the first scene of this on its own, on Tuesday night; the rest was written in one long stretch, Thursday night. I know this because I was in AIM writing it, with faithfully_luna cheering and "mm-hmm"'ing me on for the length of most of that conversation. I've done the same thing with celli and jetpack_monkey a few times. The hardest fics to write still get written if I have someone poking at me and the story as I go. So a round of applause for Luna, everyone.
I had an outline to work from, thanks to havocthecat helping me break it down Tuesday night; she also came up with the prototype villain for this piece. More on that in a bit.
Title: Time Bomb
Written For: orockthro
Fandoms Crossed: The Dresden Files (books) and Firefly; I couldn't work Methos in here, no matter how I tried, Orock. Hope this works.
Note: (Set between Dead Beat and Proven Guilty for Harry; post-SerenityBDM for Firefly). Some spoilers for the earlier books; some deliberate omissions, since they're not relevant to the story.
I'm linking the omissions in a comment in the next post; it's very tricky, getting continuity right in the Dresden-Files-verse. If you're a regular reader and are caught up through Proven Guilty, check out the (rather long) list of omissions, here.
Word Count: 9,465 words.
Disclaimers: All mistakes in Chinese or continuity are mine. I own none of these, and selling Harry on eBay is illegal anyway.
Acknowledgements: faithfully_luna, jetpackmonkey, havocthecat and wiliqueen deserve thanks for beta-duties, outlining, titling, cheerleading and reassurance.
jetpackmonkey and wiliqueen both took a look at it before I went in and told me it was good to go, and neonhummingbird now deserves credit for catching a couple things they didn't, and doing a line-edit check. Comments on their comments throughout.
Summary: When an unbalanced girl with a penchant for dangling off high places suddenly 'poofs' into existence in a bar with no explanation, Harry has a new job. Just not one he ever wanted.
As summaries go, that's not one of my better ones. Anyone with a better suggestion? It'd be appreciated.
Time Bomb
TM jetpack_monkey, who came up with a title typical of the Dresden Files.
By Christina K
Copyright 2008
Chicago, 2004
[I re-set this from 2008 to 2004 when I realized how much I was changing as I wrote it; but it's still an election year.]
There are some days it's just better to not pick up the phone. Some people's answering machines would thwart even that decision, but I don't have one, for good reasons. So I have absolutely no one to blame but myself when I do the stupid thing and answer a phone call.
"Dresden." I yawned, and checked the clock, then scowled. Five am is not a happy time for me. "And this better not be a call for political action. I am not about action before dawn." I hate election years. Chicago goes just a little more nuts than it is at any other time during changes of power.
"It's Murphy, Harry." Murph sounded like I felt, doubled. "Could you get down to the precinct within an hour or so? Something from your side of the street needs attention."
Chicago's Special Investigations makes up enough of my paycheck that I wouldn't blow it off anyway, but Murph's tone guaranteed I'd be there pronto. We've been friends for years, I know the 'all hands on deck' tone in her voice even before coffee. I forced myself to sit up, blinking as Mister sauntered in to inform me that as long as I was awake, I could serve him breakfast. "What kind of something? Murder, robbery, other?"
"This one goes squarely in the 'other' column." Murph battled a yawn and added, "I don't think I can get you paid for this, Harry. But I seriously think you need to be the one dealing with it. When can you get down here?"
"Gimme forty-five minutes. Should I come armed?"
A pause. "I'm not sure it would do you any good if you did. But you might want to be."
Curiouser and curiouser. And me without my morning breakfast too. "Right. Be there by six, and you're buying me coffee."
[faithfully_luna thought this whole scene should be changed to having River just appear in Harry's workroom; jetpack_monkey thought it was fine, but that my characterization on Murphy, and her reaction to the weird stuff, was OTT. I toned down Karrin Murphy a bit, but due to time constraints, didn't rewrite the beginning. It might have worked better that way, though.]
I ambled into the 27th precinct, Mouse at my side as I headed up to Murphy's office. Whatever badass thing Murphy wanted me to deal with, it helps to have a Faithful Canine Carnivore there to assist in subduing the bad guy. I rapped on Murphy's door with my knuckles, staying far back from her desk and the nicely delicate computer she didn't want to replace again. Me and electronics: never going to be Best Friends Forever. "Hey. What's the latest and greatest?"
[All Harry Dresden novels are written first person, limited Harry POV (not unlike the Potter books) except that the voice is much more adult, and more Sam Spade. Getting Harry's voice right is tricky, but it is, luckily, very distinctive. My rendering of it may not be perfect, but it's close enough to be recognizable, I think.]
Murph cocked an eyebrow at me over her coffee, and took a long moment to consider before she joined me out in the bullpen. "We've got a woman down in holding. And when I say woman, I'm closer to saying 'girl'. She might be legal, might not." She tapped her fingers on her mug, looking unsettled, and there's not much that gets under Murph's skin. "She appeared in the middle of a MacAnally's.' 'Poof', one second there's a clear stretch of bar, the next second, there's a girl standing on top of it, according to the witnesses."
[Idea fleshed out when I was bibbling to havocthecat on her Lj, trying out ideas for the ficathon. Her immediate reaction was YES. WRITE IT NOW.]
"Whoops," I muttered. There were worse places for someone to accidentally 'poof.' Mac's is a space acknowledged by the magical Accords, protected neutral ground, and a lot of magic types hang out there. If any crowd could take that with aplomb, it would be Mac's late-night regulars drinking beer. "Did some normal citizen freak out, or did she start a fight, or what? It's not like translocation is even on the books as existing, much less being illegal."
"No, but climbing up the Lakeshore Bridge as it rises, trying to dangle off the end and demanding access to the cosmos gets you EMT's and various people thinking you're a suicide risk," Murph answered me. I winced. "The local beat cops back-tracked her to Mac's, and from there, we've got nothing. She doesn't have a record, she hasn't served in the armed services, and I'm waiting for a COTUS search. But I doubt anything will turn up. Unless it's a missing persons report from a mental hospital. I grabbed her for SI when I got the uniforms' reports."
[It is COTUS, right? I didn't look that up. Too much CSI. I assumed. Bad author. No cookie.]
"Okay, so the 'poof' kinda means something out of the ordinary is happening," I said cautiously, "But Murph, what do you want me to do?"
"Take charge of her. Do something," Murph said in frustration. "She keeps trying to get out of her cell and climbing the ceiling!"
Um.
"She's Spider-Man?"
[*giggling* And this is where I started to have fun with it; the image of River trying to get out of a cell, as shown in Serenity, hanging onto the sprinkler head. This was faithfully_luna's main objection to the beginning of the story; those uniforms shouldn't have been able to take River in. She was right. I decided for speed over the thin plot ice to get past it, and leave this bit in.]
"She's nuts," Murph said, putting down her mug and heading across the bullpen toward holding. "And we can't deal with her. If I let them take her to St. Mary's on a psych watch, she'll be out in 72 hours and probably jumping off another bridge, if her behavior here is anything to go by. I feel sorry for the kid, I don't want anything to happen to her. You're a Warden, Harry. You're supposed to handle this kind of thing now. So. Time to step up and earn that paycheck, just like any other public servant."
"Ouch." I followed Murph down to the hallway, Mouse padding along beside me. "You do know I took the job just for the snazzy outfit, right?"
"Yeah, I figured you wanted that robe for when you play D&D with the werewolves."
"It's wash-and-wear. Never underestimate the value of easy-wash clothes, Lieutenant."
[Which made beta-readers who know the series laugh. He really does do this.]
"I'll give you a hat with stars on it if you get this girl some help," Murph offered, signing into the passbook outside of holding. "Okay, bring her out.
Two big cops were-- not exactly manhandling, but definitely acting as human arm-cuffs to a girl who looked like a stiff breeze would send her tripping back to Oz. I could sympathize with Murph's trouble in classifying her as girl or woman; she was tall and wiry, probably about eighteen or nineteen, but too thin, with long dark hair tangled like a little kid who'd been running around the playground all day, and a pink dress in a style that would've worked better on a twelve-year-old. It was the expression that could really throw you, though; just this side of vacant, but then I caught those big hazel eyes flicking to all the exits with the calculation of a cornered snake. This was not a kid unused to taking care of herself, no matter how far off beam she was acting.
[River is often described as 'tiny', but Summer Glau is 5'8". She's just thin, and often standing next to Nathan Fillion or Adam Baldwin, for crying out loud.]
"River?" Murph's voice had the gentleness she reserved for crime victims and witnesses to bloodshed. "This is Harry, the man I told you about. He's going to try to help you figure out where you belong. Do you understand?"
She glared at the two cops, jerking her arms out of their hold, then rubbed her biceps, scowling at me through her hair. "She understands. She doesn't see the applicability. The circle can not be squared. I am an island unto myself. Further assistance is futile." She paused, tilting her head at Mouse, then said, "Lhasa is very far away."
O-kay. Who told the crazy person my dog was from Tibet?
[River's voice is also distinctive and difficult. If you can fake your way through bright-but-distracted, it sounds right. I figure she's just so used to getting telepathic input on top of the normal sensory input that she doesn't bother separating them out any more. Third person quite a bit of the time too, since she *has* to analyze herself as she negotiates the world quite a bit, not to mention distance herself from all her emotional and psychic traumas. You'd skip being 'I' too if so much had happened to you.
I love Mouse. 'nough said.]
Mouse, meanwhile, was snuffing at the edge of her dress, then flopped down on her feet waving his paws in the air, begging for tummy scratches. Maybe-crazy and possibly-psychic smells like French fries, who knew? River's scowl disappeared, and she giggled, looking a lot younger as she bent down to pet him and smooth his fur.
"Great. Let me know how that works out. I have five other fires to put out. Bye, Harry." Murph marched off to defend Chicago from the Forces of Evil and Bureaucracy, and I scrubbed my face with one hand as River returned to glaring at me. Just what I always wanted, legal custody of a hostile teenager.
"Let's get some breakfast."
The Waffle House on 43rd does a mean special, and River inhaled three waffles, four eggs, a side of bacon and a fruit salad like she hadn't eaten in weeks. I contented myself with a coffee and a bagel, and watched her tuck in, waiting for carbs and hot chocolate to buy me a little goodwill.
"So. We'll start with the basics. Where are you from, River?"
She gave me an eye-roll, and chewed her food, carefully enunciating, "Elsewhere. Never-where. No-where. I fell through a crack in the worlds."
Baby Goths give me a pain. Also: Neil Gaiman reference, check. Billy and his pack would get a kick out of her. "Let's get a little more specific. Is there anyone I can call to come get you?"
[I'm currently listening to Neverwhere on audio. Fun fact.
Also, you can get the James Marsters readings of the Harry Dresden books from Roc publishing, and they are fantastic. You don't hear Spike during the recordings unless you're really obsessed with Spike, or if JM is doing the voice for one of the recurring assassins. I highly recommend them, and I wish like heck that I'd listened to the latest one *before* I wrote this story. I'm sure the Harry-voice would be better if I had.]
"Not yet." She poked at the jelly on her toast, frowning. "Simon is worrying. I can feel it. Even so far away."
"Who's Simon?"
"Ghuh-Ghuh." Or at least, that's what it sounded like. At my look, she glared at me again. Clearly, this girl shared many people's opinion that I was a bear of very little brain. "Brother!" You dumbass was left implied. "I was there, then I was here, and he can't get here."
[Yeah, looked up the Mandarin, slipped it in here and below. My spelling of it sucks, but then, Harry doesn't speak Chinese, so it's all good.
Also, this is post-Serenity, so River is... relatively sane. Too much input, not a lot of impulse control, but not deeply incoherent, not deliberately. Just impatient, too smart, and used to dealing with people who are dumber than she is-- and she always talks to Simon like this when he asks dumb questions too.]
"About that. How did it happen?"
She frowned again, but this time I got the feeling it was more thinking, not so much her hostility at being pushed off on me as a problem. "She was on serenity. Night-time. Couldn't sleep." She tilted her head, and pulled her legs up onto the booth, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Too loud. Everyone under. Dreams of falling in her head. Early was a little right. She wasn't wrong." She rocked, then said, "It sang to her, dong ma? So she sang along."
I stared at her a minute longer, hoping that would make sense if I thought about it. I wish I knew what language River was speaking when she slipped out of English; I was going to have to ask Bob. Unless she'd made it up. In which case, I didn't think it would help to know. "So. You were… somewhere else. Awake. Other people were asleep." I paused, then asked, "So what was the singing? A spell to get you here, or what?"
[Enter the McGuffin. Part of the fun of this story, for me, was setting it up so Harry would never know River was from the future. The other part was delaying the full reality of magic for River as long as possible.]
In my defense, I was hoping to get a reaction from her by mentioning magic, maybe get her to relax, trust me, open up. I didn't expect her to laugh at me. "Magic doesn't exist. It's a superstitious invention used by primitives to explain the physical workings of the universe beyond their mathematical comprehension."
"So what's your explanation for suddenly showing up at Mac's, poof, zing, look ma, no hands?"
She slapped her hand down on the table, scowling at me again. "I told you! I fell through a crack! A subspace construct through the continuum which had not previously been there! The song was the frequency adjustment which allowed my passage. Or so I believe."
Even when she was speaking English? And not talking about herself in the third person? River still didn't make sense. I rubbed my temples, and sighed. "River, I can't help you if I can't figure out what's going on. Or what happened." I dropped my hands, and matched her glare for glare. "Goddamnit, I'm trying to help. I get that you don't think you need it, but people who go dangling off bridges attract all the wrong kinds of attention. If you're going to get home the same way you got here, wherever there is, you're going to have to give me something to work with."
[Show Harry Dresden a damsel in distress, and I'll show you a recipe for trouble.]
She stabbed another piece of bacon, shoved it in her mouth, and glared at me, chewing. Then she swallowed. "Lieutenant Murphy believes you are a follower of Houdini and Merlin. One was a myth, and the other was an illusion. She also believes we are on Earth-that-was." River snorted. "How can you help me?"
[*cackles* I had a lot of fun realizing that everyone else looked crazy to River right here.]
Hoooo, boy. I took another swig of coffee, then sighed. "Look, I can prove it to you. Magic, Earth, me helping you. If you're up for it."
She gave me an intrigued but skeptical look. "How?" Then her eyes widened. "I don't want you in my head!"
"River, calm down." So much for the soul-gaze idea. And let's add mind-reading to her little bag of tricks, shall we? For a girl with possibly-psychic abilities, either she was in heavy denial or the semi-craziness was letting her interpret it as alien powers or some other bizarre thing. "I won't do it without your permission. But if I did soul-gaze you, you'd know as much about me as I'd know about you." I let that sink in a moment, then carefully said, "You'd know how I can help you, and I'd know what I need to do it. It won't hurt. It's a little scary, but I swear, you'll be as safe as I will."
River chewed on her lip, twirling a strand of hair around her finger one way, then the other. "I can't hear you very well," she said suddenly. "Surfaces only. You weren't surprised." I stayed still, letting her process that. I have pretty good mental shields; you need them, in my business. Hopefully that was giving her a some reassurance that I knew what I was doing. "Maybe. Yes. Okay. But! Ending quickly. She doesn't want to get confused. She hates that."
"It's over in a second, River. It feels like it lasts longer, but it's very very quick." Attitude problem aside, I was starting to get why Murphy had been protective of her. The kid wasn't playing with a full deck, but with powers she didn't understand manifesting, and a latent mental problem of some kind, how could she handle it any better? I hoped her brother would be understanding, or someone else in her family, when I finally found them and explained what had happened to her. "You ready?"
She gulped, then lifted her eyes to mine.
[Harry's done this a few times in the books; never lightly, and only a couple times on accident. The descriptions vary based on who he's soulgazing, and it does go two ways.]
Some people experience soul gazes as music; some get a fast video of a moment that defines the person they're soul-gazing. On different occasions, I've gotten something of each.
This was more like a comic book. Frame after frame of bright colors, frozen for a second, with sound laid over the top. I moved from one shot to the next, like walking through a picture gallery of neon action-adventure with a classical soundtrack.
A much younger River, in a ballerina outfit, dancing the part of Odette, the Swan from Swan Lake. A kid a few years older than she was on the sidelines, clapping, his eyes lit up with joy. There were two adults behind him, holding a conversation and ignoring both kids.
In the next box, she was still dancing. But it was Coppelia-you may not know that one. The story's about a puppet-girl, whose puppeteer wants her to be real.
[wiliqueen reassured me here; I wasn't sure that Harry would know these particular ballets. But his dad was a stage magician, and many of their assistants are dancers, and Harry has a habit of knowing bits and pieces of everything in order to make his work as semi-private-investigator/wizard work. My description of Coppelia is slanted for the story, but basically on point.]
River had strings connected to all her joints, and two huge guys with blue gloved hands were pulling her strings. Up, down, sideways, twirl-and she was bleeding from the contact points. Jesus. She looked half-asleep, caught in a nightmare. The terrifying part was how well she danced on those strings. Faster than normal. Leaping higher. Kicks you can't make because human joints don't bend that way. Too fast. The music went all Night on Bald Mountain as she spun so hard I thought her neck would snap, and then--
The kid from the first frame cut her strings in the third shot, dragging a now-limp River offstage. The gigantic blue hands slammed the curtain down, then tippy-toed around the edges of the picture, looking for River, making frustrated sock-puppet expressions at each other when they couldn't find her.
Fourth frame was Hansel & Gretel: River and her brother, hiding in the woods. Simon led River away from a witch, River led him away from a wolf, and then… hunh. A riverboat. One of those big paddle-wheel jobs from the last century, that you can still see on the Mississippi sometimes. There were people there, going by too fast to catch all of them; a saloon girl, a captain, someone in a Scarlett O'Hara dress, a big guy out of Bonanza, an old bartender, a gambler in a bright coat, a woman with a gun….
[*waves to the Firefly crew* And the ballet metaphor wouldn't stretch any further here, so we're on a boat. Harry doesn't have enough info to realize it's a metaphor too.]
And then something I couldn't see (maybe a gigantic blue hand from offstage?) attacked the whole construct, forget the frames, forget the music, it all fell apart like exploding stained glass. Leaving River curled up in a little ball in the center of it all, bleeding from a thousand cuts and shivering like she'd never get warm.
"Gah!" I came out of the soulgaze trying to get my breath, shaking, fists clenching. "What the hell happened to you, kid?"
She stared at me wide-eyed, then muttered under her breath, "Se per muove. The center can not hold more than its interior space. Displacement of space. Three point one four one five nine two six…"
[Yes, River, you're on Earth. And apparently time travel is real. And someone yanked you out of your timestream. And the nice man who wants to help you is smarter than he looks, and a helluva lot more dangerous, and yes, he'd be willing to get hurt for you, just like Mal, 'cause he's that kind of guy. And yes, that means he gets you on a level you probably hate right now. Yeah, I'd be calculating the values of Pi too, in order to re-find my equilibrium.]
"River. River, come on, calm down." Christ, what had set her off? What did she see in my head that rattled her this bad? Or was it her reaction to being seen? I tried to keep my voice gentle, despite how monumentally pissed off I was at whatever had happened to her.
This kid didn't come off the factory assembly line with emotional problems. Someone had screwed with her head. Her brother had gotten her away from them, but she still wasn't over it. No wonder she was crazy. No wonder she didn't trust me. Last time anyone had gotten inside her skull, they'd left her fractured mess. I wanted to punch the shit out of someone for what she'd been through.
[Harry is not a hero. He'll tell you that a lot. He would without hesitation let someone torture him for his friends or for any innocent, and sometimes even the guilty, who cross his path. But that doesn't make him a hero. Right?]
"She is not wrong! She isn't!" Her movements were getting more frantic, less careful as she dropped her fork and stood up on the booth seat. "She is right! Even if you are right! She is not to be protected! She is better, Miranda left her, she is better and I can speak English and you are not to injure yourself! Merlin is not to be shut in a tree! No one needs to be damaged!"
[River really doesn't want anyone else getting hurt for her, and some of the danger Harry is in right now is immediately apparent to her. She's still no more skilled at communicating those dire warnings, though.]
Okay, so, jackpot: the inside of my head and the inside of River's head didn't mix well. "Got it, understood, ten four, can you sit down? The nice people who gave us waffles are going to kick us out if you don't chill."
And on the word chill? She was leaping from her booth to the back of the seat, then leaping to the next, over the heads of startled diners, onto a planter next to the window, off a chair, onto a table, and then a freaking diving-roll out the door. I swear to you, the Flying Wallendas would've hired her for their opening act if they were still on the circuit.
While I sat there like a dummy and gaped.
By the time I'd slapped a twenty down for the breakfast, and made it out the door, she was nowhere to be seen.
Mouse was still where I'd parked him outside. He gave a mournful bark, then panted at me, spitting something out of his mouth. A scrap of pink dress.
"Gooooood boy."
[And again, River gets away when probably Mouse (who is a Tibetan temple dog, capable of Diefenbaker-like feats of doggy prowess) should have tracked her for several blocks. Plot necessity, and I'm not setting up a crossover duel-of-skills here, so the one I need to lose loses.]
I made it back to my apartment in record time, thudding down the stairs to my workshop and yelling, "Bob! We've got a tracking job!" I started gathering the ingredients I needed, checking on my Igor-slash-Yorick. "Wakey wakey, damsels to save, demons to thwart."
"Demons? It's not even Halloween yet." Bob's eyes glowed in his skull, and how he managed to yawn when he doesn't have an esophagus, I'll leave to you to ponder. "Who's the damsel? Is she foxy? Feisty? Friendly?"
"River's too young, too crazy, and too violent for you, Bob." I paused while gathering some chalk, and asked, "Okay, what does 'dong ma' mean? And 'ghuh-ghuh'? Are they even a language, or was she babbling at me?"
"It's Chinese, Mandarin," Bob said, showing a little more animation. "'Dong ma' is 'do you understand?'" Which I should have gotten from the context. "Ghuh-ghuh is brother. She from Chinatown? Was she wearing a cheong-sam?"
"Stop perving on the client, and no, and no." I assembled a brass bowl for the tracking spell ingredients, and looked over Little Chicago. "It's not ready yet, is it?"
"Sorry boss," Bob sounded actually serious for a minute. Maybe a minute and a half, an new record. "It's just not complete enough yet. Snap-crackle-fizz if you tried to use the model. Gotta work with a map, like always."
"Meh. Right." I finished putting the strawberry syrup from the Waffle House, the crumbs of bacon, eggs, and waffles, and the scrap of her dress and one hair that Mouse had managed to sniff out for me, all into the brass bowl, and lit it, chanting under my breath, focusing my will to find her.
[Little Chicago is Harry's model of Chicago, that he uses to do work that he does not have the fine focus or delicate control for. Not yet finished at the end of Dead Beat, and this helped me actually set where Harry is, in-series, a lot, when I realized it couldn't be finished, or he'd find River too fast.]
A tiny blue light formed from the flames of the bowl, rose up, and hovered over the map of Chicago, coming to rest on the Hancock Building. Great. She was probably looking for that 'subspace construct' again. She seemed to think jumping off high places would get her home. Damnit. I pulled out a length of gold chain I'd saved for something like this, and held it out to the blue glow. "Illumine." The glow snapped to the chain, and I stuffed it in my pocket. Hopefully it would lead me to River when I got close enough for it to pick up on her presence. I folded up the map, getting ready to leave, and asked, "Bob? What do you know about subspace constructs?"
Why don't I ask these questions first, I sometimes wonder.
"What, like tesseracts? Black holes? Rifts in space?" Bob made a humming noise and said, "They're illegal as hell by Council standards, creating them takes a lot of talent and power, and they're murder to aim. You can end up in the Cretaceous period when you meant to go to the Renaissance, or London when you just wanted to pop over to Tokyo. Not for the faint of heart, boss."
Oh. Crap. I facepalmed, and said, "We're going to have to check for them when I find River again. I think she fell through one; the kid's got some talent but she's completely tweaked. I didn't understand what she was talking about when she said she fell through a continuum. No wonder she said her brother's too far away to know where she is."
"What did she hire us for, Harry?"
"Ummm." I fidgeted. "She didn't. Murphy wanted me to keep an eye on her after she poofed into Mac's last night. Then she…" I cleared my throat. "Ran away."
Bob was still laughing as I climbed up the ladder.
[Sometimes Bob is very mean. Heh.
Difference between TV-Bob and Book-Bob, btw: TV-Bob is British, a ghost-manifestation, and he's known Harry his most of his life, since he was 10. Book-Bob only fell into Harry's lap when he was older, and is solely a spirit confined to a skull, except when Harry lets him possess the cat and go walkabout. I loved the TV series as well as the books, but there's a lot more to work with in the books, and since this is a written story, I felt more comfortable writing it to mimic the book-style.]
The Blue Beetle put-putted to the Sears Tower through mid-morning traffic pretty steadily, without running into any problems. I probably should have taken that as a warning, since that never happens. It was the last part of the day that went the way I wanted it to.
Parking is a sport in Chicago; sometimes, a blood sport. I? Have allies. Also, pizza. Trust me, that's not a non-sequitur. A little more intelligence gathering was called for at this point, and I knew just who to ask. Pulling into a deserted alley near the Hancock Building, I opened up a Little Caesar's box, and laid it on the hood of my car, drawing a circle around it with chalk. Then I called my minions.
So they're more like free-lance protection specialists, only six inches high. If I pay in pizza, I can call them minions for as long as they work for me. A flurry of pink, blue, purple, and green lights hovered over the pizza, and I grinned at the leader of the fuzzballs. "Hey there, Toot-toot."
"Harry Dresden," squeaked the lead lavender pixie. "Multi-meat toppings?"
"Only the best for you guys," I told him, bringing out my map and the necklace to do a check on River again. Yup. Still on the building. "I need a parking space somewhere within a block of the big Tower. And if you've seen a girl, pink dress, maybe…" What? Crazy? Gymnastic? Upset? "I'd appreciate a head's up."
Two pink lights grabbed pizza topping and crusts, then zipped away to find the Blue Beetle a berth, while the rest dug into the pizza, Toot-toot stuffing his mouth with both hands. It was like a pastel piranha attack. Do not get in between a wild faerie and his dinner, is all I'm saying. After about forty-five seconds, he burped, then told me, "No girl. Something strange, Harry. Disturbance in the Force!"
I kept my face straight and asked, "You wouldn't yank my chain, would you, Padawan?"
He shook his head vehemently as the two pink girls came back, wiping their faces free of pizza sauce and cheese. "You come this way," they sang, voices high-pitched and pretty.
[A bit weak, but I was writing my way into this part, not sure where it was going, exactly.]
I followed the little pink fairies down into a parking garage one block away from the Tower, Toot-toot pacing me outside my window. You'd think people would notice this, but it's not like the little guys show up well in direct sunlight; dandelion puffs, blowing trash, you name it, that's what they'd look like to anyone else. I was just thinking about how to talk River off the Tower when I turned the Beetle's wheel-
And hit the brakes, gaping in front of me at the figure caught in my headlights. Then I turned to glare at Toot-toot. "You should've warned me!"
"Didn't know!" he squeaked back at me, looking nervous. The two pink fairies looked guilty.
The woman - no, being - standing in the path of the Beetle smiled smugly, and tapped the Beetle's hood with the hilt of her sword. Probably knew it would fall apart if anything sharp tapped it. "Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. We have business to discuss."
[Hello, Cruella.]
"Mab." I eased off the brake, put the Beetle in park, and got out-but did not cut the engine. So it was a fantasy and a dream that I'd be able to hit her with it, or escape in it. We all need our coping mechanisms. My delusion that I could evade the Queen of Air and Darkness was a longstanding one. "Your Majesty. I'm in the middle of a case. Can't it wait?"
[havocthecat originally suggested Leanansidhe, Harry's wicked fairy godmother for this part; but I realized while I was writing it that she was, ahem, incapacitated at this point in the series, later. Lea is more fun, and genuinely fond of Harry in her own psychotic way, but Mab works just as well to push Harry into doing things he doesn't wanna do, so I just re-wrote the scene to make it sound like Mab. The books usually give very long, detailed descriptions of her gorgeous evilness; I couldn't do her quite as much justice, so kept it simple enough that you have some idea of how dangerous she is.]
She tilted her oh-so-perfectly chiseled face toward me, and reached out to toy with the lapel of my duster. She should have looked ridiculous in the parking garage, among the graffiti and oil stains on concrete; instead, she made it look like a movie set, with all the lights aimed at her. The usual low crawl of desire started up, and I stomped on it with mental steel-toed boots. "I have need of your assistance now. Do you wish me to compel you, or will you be reasonable, for once in your life?"
Anyone seeing me with Mab would think I was a lucky sonuvabitch. They would have no idea that I was a lucky sonuvabitch because I was still standing after several encounters with the lady. I once had the stupidity to ask one of her people for help; she got a lien on my life because of it. Then she turned around and passed the lien along to Mab. Bank of America would be brought up on SEC charges if they got to operate like that. To say I'd rather not deal with her is the understatement of the century.
"Is this about the favors?" I asked, feeling the chain and the blue glow under my shirt. "Because if it is, I'm willing to hear you out, but there's a girl I have to help first. If I don't find her, she might hurt herself. I'm not willing to negotiate anything while I don't know where she is."
Mab's eyes went flat, the slitted-pupils focusing on me with unnerving intensity. "It is a simple thing. If you agree now, I will release you to pursue your damsel." She held open her hand, and the image of a music box appeared in it. Nearly transparent, made out of glass, fragile and delicate as a whisper. "An artifact of my shaping has been lost. I desire its return. It is somewhere in Chicago. Find it for me, and bring it to me, and I will consider dissolving one of the favors still owed."
"And if I don't?"
She snapped her fingers, and the Beetle's engine died. And the lights went out. And… crap. I was stuck in an underground parking garage with no light, time running out, with the Winter Queen ready to reach out and snuff out the magic I needed to find River.
"I don't get to leave 'til I agree, do I?" I asked in resignation. I already knew I would do it. Compared to some things Mab had asked of me? Finding a toy was a tiny thing. Of course it would come with strings, conditions, and probably blood. But she had me over a barrel. "Fine. Fine! But that's it. No one's dying, no one's being killed for it, and no one is going to suffer for it. Got it?"
A ripple of amused laughter wrapped around me like a cat. One with claws. "In this instance, it will not be required."
"How am I supposed to find this thing?" I asked, reaching out to take a look at it. There were characters all around it in some script I didn't recognize. It looked like a tiny piano, now that I got a better look at it. Mab flipped up the lid, and a classical theme played, one I didn't recognize. "Very pretty. Any idea where it went?"
[While writing this bit to faithfully_luna, I totally skipped giving Harry any clues on how to find it. Silly author. Went back five minutes later when Luna said, "Umm...."]
"It will leave a trail behind it. Mortal blood created it; you alone can find it." A clap of her hands like thunder, and the words: "Find it."
Always helpful, Mab. The Beetle's lights came back on, and I scrubbed my face, turning to get back in to park it. The blue glow on the chain under my shirt was still glowing; hopefully, it would get me to River even with unexpected interruptions.
By the time I got to the top of the Hancock Building - taking the stairs for the last five flights because I didn't need to get stuck between floors while on a search- I had to stop and catch my breath, wishing for a bottle of water or a maybe a bucket to duck my head into.
[neonhummingbird pointed out to me that the Sears Tower does not have an open observation platform, like the Hancock does, so I changed it in this draft. She also pointed out that, duh, Harry would be dead if I made him climb 100 flights of stairs, like the guys in Ghostbusters. Sometimes the obvious escapes me if I'm writing fast. ]
In spite of that, I paced around the observation platform until I found River, precariously balanced on one of the railings, legs doing the splits, but not showing any signs of an urge to jump. There's a platform right below the observation one to catch jumpers; maybe that's why no one was trying to stop her. Yet. I took a couple deep breaths, then carefully approached her. "Hey."
She turned her head to look at me and gave me a sad-clown smile. Usually that's creepy, but on her it was heartbreaking. "I am out of my element. Not fire, or water, or air. Only earth. Earth." She frowned over the edge of the railing, her hands braced on the bar to take most of her weight, and slowly brought herself up into handstand, dress falling down around her face. She was wearing shorts underneath it. "Modesty must be preserved."
"It's creepy when you answer what I'm thinking, you gotta know that," I told her. "Come on down. We have to talk." I paused. "Please?"
[Harry takes her mind-reading a lot more easily than most people. But his reaction still amuses me.]
She let go of the railing and jumped backward to land on her feet next to me, giving me a solemn look. "We are already conversing. Exchanging views. At cross purposes. You believe I am magic. And insane. I believe you are magic. And insane." River paused. "Though for different reasons. She has known other madmen like you."
"Oh yeah?" I asked, letting out a breath I'd been holding as she imitated Mary Lou Retton. "Am I likely to meet them?"
"Unable to say." She frowned again, hugging herself. "Mal is on the other side of the construction. And his thoughts are too linear to accept a three-dimensional reality." She scuffed her toe on the ground. "He seeks to re-make the past into his image of balance. As do you."
Translated from River: whoever I reminded her of, he had no idea about magic. And he might or might not be a bad guy. If he'd had to deal with her in one of her terrified fits, I'd buy him a beer out of sheer sympathy.
[neonhummingbird found this very funny, and is lobbying for a sequel based on this concept. Heh. We'll see. Might be worth it...]
"River, I swear, I will get you back home, but I just got mugged by… let's say a very dangerous woman, and leave it at that." I took a breath. "I have to finish a job for her, or I'm going to be in huge trouble. Can you please not run off again, and promise to quit jumping off things, hanging off things, or disappearing, until I can find what she wants me to find?"
She frowned at me, again, the puzzled-look instead of the fierce-pissed-off look. "It's a construct. She should know its resonance. Why does she require you?"
[Yup, River's figured out that the little construct she sees in his head is the same music-box she picked up that zapped her to 21st Century Earth; and assumes Mab knows what she's doing. Let's give it up for third-person keeping that concealed from Harry for a while longer, though.]
Aaaand we're back to the crazy physics talk and third-person. I really wished Bob were here to translate. "Because I said please? Please?"
River gave me another you're so dumb, how do you even talk? look, then rolled her eyes. "She will not leave. She will remain. She will… help." She gave me a bright smile. "Yes!"
"She will not help," I said firmly. "She will stay at my place, out of the way, until Harry-damnit, now you've got me doing it. Until I get back from where I'm going to check. Mab said I could find it, so it shouldn't be impossible." I took a deep breath. "Understood?"
"She understands." River sniffed. "More than you do."
[Okay, that might be the most fun conversation they had in this story. Because *that* is Harry right there, beleaguered and helpful and frustrated. And that is River, unable to believe people aren't following her tangents, or at least working out the facts on their own.]
Part 2 of the commentary