FIC: Emily Self-Substantiates into the Real
Some time back, I chronicled Emily's Nightmare of the Real; this set off a small subplot in the back of my mind, which I nearly lost in the shuffle. ...But even small things can have a huge impact when you least expect them to suddenly develop into something big. And one small, quiet girl can leave behind an awful hole in the circle of friends and family and employers she moved in.
Small warnings: some unplugging-related tension, a male character ogling a female on a security scan, and some implied Merv/Ref naughtiness.
She Made Herself Real
Maybe it was the temperature of the water in the bathtub. Maybe it had something to do with her monthly cycle. Maybe it was something she'd eaten at supper.
Late that mid-October evening, Emily lay soaking in a warm bath, propped on a bath pillow, sleepy after a long day of helping Sith and Shasti look after little Blaise while Ref was at work, out in the Real, and raking leaves with Dad, out on the grounds of the Chateau. She started to doze off, but she nudged herself awake, reminding herself it was her turn to sleep in Blaise's room, since Ref was out for the night with the Frenchman.
She had just raised her eyelids, and she was about to climb out of the tub before she let out the water, when the world suddenly broke down into green code that folded in on itself...
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Michelle wondered what was taking Emily so long in the bathroom. Usually, once she'd finished washing up and brushing her teeth, her daughter would peer into the rooms she and John shared, before going to bed. But tonight, she was taking a lot longer than was normal.
She went to the door of Emily's bathroom and knocked on it. "Emily? Are you all right in there?" she called.
No answer.
She tried the latch. Locked. Michelle went in search of an unsharpened pencil and fitted it into the emergency button, to open the lock from the outside, unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The bathtub was three-quarters full, and Emily's bath pillow was propped on one end of the tub. Her nightgown and bathrobe lay folded neatly on the floor by the sink. But Emily was nowhere to be seen.
"Emily?" Michelle called, stepping out into the main room again. She went out into the hallway, calling her daughter's name.
John came out of their rooms, on the other side of their daughter's. "Is something wrong, Mike?" he asked.
"She's gone," Michelle said, ignoring John's pet name for her.
The quiet smile vanished from John's face; his brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"She's disappeared from her bathtub," Michelle said.
"Did someone break in?" John asked, his fists gathering.
"No, the door was locked from the inside."
"The kidnapper could have come in through the window," he said, stepping quickly past Michelle and striding into Emily's room.
Michelle's heart trembled. She'd never thought of that.
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John examined his daughter's bathroom window. There was no way anyone could have unlocked it from the outside, and they certainly hadn't busted the glass, either. It certainly didn't look like there had been a struggle, and she hadn't let anyone in. It was if she had vanished into thin air.
The mirror over the sink. He'd seen the Frenchman duck through a good-sized mirror the way someone would step through a doorway.
He went out into the hallway, joining Michelle there. "Well, no one came in through the window, unless they thought to clean up the glass and replace the windowpane while they're at it, but I've never heard of any kidnappers doing *that*. But they could have gotten her through the mirror."
"The mirror? How?" Michelle asked, perplexed.
"That Frenchman can nick in and out of any place where there's a mirror. He turns them into doorways, somehow." He stepped around Michelle. "I bet he had a hand in this."
"Are you sure?" Michelle asked. "I thought he and Ref were out celebrating their anniversary or something."
"He could have nipped back here when Ref was in the powder room, and snuck Emily to some place, for a little rondy-voo later on," John said, heading off down the hallway. Someone must have seen something. A place like this had to have some sort of fancy security system.
He met one of the Frenchman's wolfish-looking young lackeys on the stairs to an upper floor of the building. "Who's in charge when your boss... master... whatever he is, isn't around?"
"That'd be ol' Whitey," the young henchman replied, grinning.
"That would be *who*?" John demanded.
"That'd be Flood," the lackey replied, his grin a little forced.
"Thanks," John said, going in search of that pansy fellow.
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Flood was shutting down the monitors on the terminals in his superior's office, when someone outside the hall doors banged on them. He approached and opened one leaf of the doors, looking out to see who was making that infernal racket.
He found the father of the One, that anachronistic middle-aged gaffer, standing out there, his eyes starting to kindle with anger and concern.
"You know anything about security in this place?" he asked.
"My position as chief of security for the Chateau should suffice as your answer," Flood replied, stepping past him into the hallway. "Why do you ask?"
"My daughter, Emily, just vanished from her own rooms. Is there some kind of security camera in there that might have picked up anyone going in or out?" the elder Anderson asked, clearly discomfited by the idea that there might be hidden cameras in his girl-child's room.
"There is, as a matter of fact: there are two cameras in her chambers."
"Can I see the tapes from them?"
"Certainly, if you so insist. Follow my lead," he said, turning and heading for Command Central, and the room next to it with the monitors for the security network.
Flood found one of the Lupines drowsing at the console of the main terminal. He cuffed the youngish male awake with the back of his wrist. The werewolf snapped awake, pretending he hadn't been asleep.
"There's been some trouble in the One's sister's rooms while you were sleeping, Feronus," Flood said. "She's disappeared."
"Ooh, that's bad... uh, how long ago did she disappear?" Feronus said, typing a string of commands on his keyboard, bringing the scan from Miss Anderson's rooms up on the main monitor, and rewinding it.
Flood looked to the elder Mr. Anderson for this information. "It's been about ten minutes since Michelle found she'd vanished. I'd say she's been gone a half an hour or more," the human replied.
The tech stopped the tape at about forty-five minutes before the elder Anderson had come looking for his girl-child. The screen showed a view of Miss Anderson's washroom, from behind the mirror over the sink, looking down from a spot near the ceiling toward the bathtub.
Miss Anderson entered the washroom, set down a bundle that appeared to be her nightgown -- a frumpish flannel one from the look of things -- and turned on the water in the tub. While it filled, she brushed her teeth and pinned her hair up before she slipped off her robe and laid it on the floor next to her nightie. The camera angle gave him an excellent view of her young form: her proportions were modest, and she carried herself a little sloppily, but if she were cured of the latter, she would make an excellent partner for some lucky male. He didn't doubt, even since Smith had ordered him to put the brakes on fraternizing with the young lady, that she was still a virgin.
He realized the elder Mr. Anderson had taken note of his lingering gaze. He glanced down, pretending to push back his shirt-cuffs and adjust the cuffs of his gloves.
On the tape, Miss Anderson set about her ablutions, then settled back in the water, clearly for a leisurely soak, which gave him a good view of her small but well-shaped breasts...
She shifted in the water, clearly about to get out. Her form suddenly shuddered, as from an outside shock, and her image dissolved into the base code, vanishing.
"Holy frags," Feronus murmured.
"My God! Who did that to her?! How is that possible?" the elder Mr. Anderson cried.
"No one did that to her: she did it to herself," Flood replied.
The human looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"
Flood sighed, trying to reduce the note of impatience in that sound. "You probably have heard, since the days when the Alliance emerged and unmasked the true nature of your world, that reality as you know it is not what it seems, that you and the majority of the human race are dwelling within a computer-generated construct, piped directly into your brains, your 'brain in a vat' theory made true, though we pure intelligences were practical enought to leave your cranial matter attached to the rest of your bodies. But, for some reason beyond our control and her own control, the signal to her brain was disrupted and she was ejected from the system."
"Well, is she all right?" the human asked, folding his arms on his chest.
"Considering the terms of the Alliance between members of our respective species, and considering the wide-ranging extent of Shepherd's control over the system, I'm inclined to think she'll come to no harm. So long as a recovery crew can pluck her from the bowels of the power plant she was ejected from."
"Then you'll have to find her. You seem like you have some influence here, Mr. Flood; you make the move to help find my daughter," the elder Mr. Anderson ordered, an inexorable light in his dark eyes.
An objection started to rise to Flood's lips, but he deleted that thought: the firmness in that human's tone brooked no objection. Besides, this was the father of the One, and refusing to comply with him would blot his repute with the Alliance.
"Very well, I'll see what I can do," Flood replied.
"Good." With that, the elder Mr. Anderson walked away, leaving Flood with the unsettled feeling a human might have after agreeing to help a monkey find a certain kind of bananas. Or rather, after replying to a sentient can-opener which had started to fuss.
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Once they reached the hotel room, and despite his attempts to put her off from it, Ref had insisted on calling the Chateau to check on their son, a call the Merovingian found unnecessary. The little one was well-tended: no cause for concern.
"She's gone--?" he heard her cry, when he had gone into the washroom to draw a bath for them both. "What do you mean?... she what?... yeah, I've heard of that... the Kid freed himself, if I remember correctly... All right, thank you, Shepherd. Have someone call my cellphone, if any word comes back...about them finding her. Goodbye." He heard her hang up the phone. Her breath caught in a sob.
He waited a moment, then emerged from the bathroom. She stood by a table in the sitting room of their suite, running a shaking hand through her hair, pulling out the pins that held it. He could smell a mix of emotions running through her: fear, concern, worry. She took a handkerchief from her evening bag and blotted her eyes on it.
He came up behind her, putting one hand on her waist, turning her toward him. "What causes your tears, ma cherie? Zis is a night we should be happy."
"It's Emily... she disappeared from her room. Shepherd ordered a scan on the system: he thinks she self-substantiated."
So the little rabbit had found a way out of the safety of the warren and had ventured out into the harsh world beyond...
"I see. Pauvre petite, it is a cold world that lies in wait for her," he said.
"She'll be fine, once they find her. Emily's a strong little girl when she needs to be," Ref replied.
"And the rest of the time, she is as soft and timid as a little brown rabbit," he said, running his hands over Ref's shoulders.
"Hey, don't tell me you've been flirting with your son's nanny; shame on you!"
"I? Flirting with le soeur de Un? He would snap me in two if I touched so much as a hair of her head. Or her cher licorne would run his horn through my heart."
"Mm, we can't have that happening: the lion is supposed to chase the unicorn all around the town, after all," she said.
He uttered a leonine purr against her hair. She chuckled, but the sound seemed forced, even in his ears.
That undercurrent of sorrow lingered throughout their amorous exchanges that evening, in her ministrations to him and her responses to his touches and kisses. She clearly sought to be fully with him, but her cares seemed to draw some portion of her attention away. Another male might have withdrawn, either in annoyance or concern, and a hint of annoyance in his own being nearly caused him to pause in their coupling, but that taste of sorrow and concern lent a piquancy to the bouquet of her response.
Yet afterward, as they lay entwined on their pillows, basking in the warmth of the fire on the hearth and in the afterglow of their coupling, Ref sighed and turned her face away from him
"Your thoughts return to your young friend?" he asked, his voice husky with contentment.
"Yes," she replied. "I'm sorry I got a bit distracted there."
He stroked her cheek with his fingertips, lifting away a strand of her hair which had fallen across her face. "Your embrace still satisfied me."
"And that's what counts with you," she said, in a gently taunting tone.
"Non, I saw your sorrow; I could taste it in you. You clearly care for 'er, but as you said yourself, she will be in good hands."
"Once they find her: that's what had me a little rattled, I think."
"Perhaps you have allowed zis to shake your soul's tranquility needlessly," he noted.
"You're dead right. I'm sorry I let it get to me."
He kissed her gently, then said against her mouth, "It is of no consequence," he assured her. Then holding her to his chest, he added, "Rather, it is an effect of your kindness and concern for those you love."
She nestled her head against him, murmuring her thanks, as her eyelids closed.
Two hours had passed when the Archivist's cellphone trilled in the other room. Ref started to move sleepily, as if she might rise from her pillows, but he -- the more immediately alert of the two of them -- gently pressed her down as he rose to answer it.
He found the cellphone where she had left it, on the table, and answered it. "Hallo?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Merovingien, is the Archivist there? This is Avril from Central Command."
"She 'as just fallen asleep. But I shall relay your message to her when she awakens."
"Then tell her we've confirmed the location of the One's sister: Miss Anderson is safe in the Real. A recovery crew found her over an hour ago. She was alert enough to recognize her brother when he came to her bed in the medical center. She is expected to recover fully."
"Ah, in which case, I shall have good news to bring to my lovely companion once she awakens."
He hung up the phone and closing it, set it back on the table. His hand lingered on it thoughtfully before he turned and headed back to the bedroom.
So it had happened: the young girl had fully entered the Real. What remained to be seen was if the change of scenery caused her to stay there, or to return to the Mainframe, or to divide her time between the two realms.
Perhaps, through the Archivist, he could influence the One's sister to return to the Mainframe, to let herself be reinserted into the system, once he had sown the seeds which would cause her to long for its comforts. He had seen the Real, its starke emptiness devoid of all beauty, its coldness and dreariness. No being with any amount of good sense would linger there, particularly one so frail as the One's sister.
He returned to the bed, settling down beside his young paramour and pulling the bedcovers over himself. Without awakening, the Archivist shifted, settling closer to him. He laid one arm over her soft form, holding her against his chest. Looking down at her, he was minded immediately of the other demoiselle, the one whom he could never possess. He could still admire the One's sister, could he not? Mere admiration gave no one cause for concern. He merely sought what was best for the poor girl, who had come to them so late in the time of the Alliance's formation, but who had settled into his court so quickly. Her absence would leave a terrible hole, one she alone could fill. He hoped, as he let himself fall back to sleep, he would see her pretty young face fill that void, and that her return would be as swift and sudden as her departure.
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Emily was really gone. Vanished. No sign of a struggle in her rooms; no one had broken in, but there was no reason to suggest she'd let in her kidnapper. The way everything was arranged in her room, just as it looked the last time Ref was here, before she went out the night before, she half expected her young friend and helper to come in from the hallway, at any minute.
Ref sat back in an armchair in the sitting room, Blaise suckling at her breast, oblivious to all except her milk and warmth. The pale October sunlight shone through the window opposite, warming the room; a gust of wind whistled outside, flinging a cascade of colored leaves past the pane, but its sound did nothing to dispell the palpable silence that filled the room, like the stillness of a home when a death has occurred in the family.
Come to think of it, it was rather like having a loved one die, even though she knew that Emily was still alive, in the Real. Once she and Armand had returned to the Chateau after their night out, Ref had spent much of the time talking with John and Michelle, offering what consolation she could. The news, that a recovery crew had picked up Emily, came as a relief, but at the same time, it weighed on her soul. She hoped her friend would come back to the Mainframe but that was a decision Emily had to make for herself. Aside from helping take care of Blaise, and aside from her close ties with her parents, Emily didn't have much reason to come back to the Mainframe.
Blaise let go of Ref's nipple, yawning, a small runnel of milk dripping down his chin. Ref blotted his face with a corner of the receiving blanket draped about her neck, then draped her wee one against her shoulder, patting his back to relieve him of any air he might have swallowed.
"It's probably for the best, though," she said, partly to Blaise, partly thinking out loud. "I know, I know: you'll miss Emily. I can tell you really liked her."
Blaise let out a whopping burp, then buried his small face in Ref's neck, almost as if he'd embarassed himself a little.
"Hey, was that a comment? Are you trying to say you disagree with me? Are you saying you didn't like her?" She repeated the teasing questions in French. She held Blaise slightly away from her, looking into his blue eyes. Was it only yesterday morning when Emily told her Blaise's eyes were starting to turn a darker shade of blue, getting closer to his sire's indeterminate blue-grey-green eye-color. It seemed like something that had happened in another lifetime.
Ref rose and headed for Blaise's room, in between Emily's rooms and her apartment. "Come on, little fellow, time you had a rest and time I made some tea for your godmother."
As she laid Blaise in his crib and tucked him in, the little one's hand reached up and laid itself on her hand, his fingers curling on the cuff of her sleeve, almost as if he wanted to console her. She leaned down and kissed him, then opened his tiny hand, releasing her sleeve.
"Sleep well, little fellow," she said.
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Heart-Mommy still seemed sad that day, when she came to him as the sky-hole light started to turn pale and dim. He heard her voice and Milk-Mommy's voice talking together: they both sounded sad. Not bad sad, not the way Heart-Mommy had been before she started going away sometimes during sky-light-time. Was it something he had done?
It couldn't be. Heart-Mommy held him very close that day. Something else must have made her sad. Some big-people he had no name for.
He noticed someone was not there. He could not hear Hand-Mommy's voice in the room, the way he often could. He could not smell her, and she wasn't there near his nest. Where was she?
Later still, when the sky-hole-light faded into dark, Hand-Mommy still wasn't there. Usually, just before room-dark-time, when Heart-Mommy gave him a bath and fed him her sweet milk, Hand-Mommy was there. But she wasn't. That night, Milk-Mommy and Furry-Mommy were with her, talking in low voices after Heart-Mommy had laid him down in his nest. At length, Furry-Mommy left, and he heard Milk-Mommy settling down on the other nest in his room. A little while later, he could hear Heart-Mommy talking just outside the entry to his room, talking with another voice, a daddy-voice, but not the voice of Hand-Daddy. He heard Heart-Mommy making soft, sad sounds, and the daddy-voice replying gently, speaking like warm air. Soon they moved away, their sounds changing, growing more distant. But he knew it must have something to do with Hand-Mommy going away. He didn't know why, and he couldn't know why, so he went to sleep to think of something else.
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She'd had that dream that wasn't a dream for so long, she half-expected to grow used to it. But you could never get used to waking up feeling trapped. Hemmed in by black cables and red gel like thick honey.
Waiting for the machine to come and jab her arm, and falling asleep afterward. Nothing came. Panic jerked her upright. Fighting against the cables and the thick membrane that encased the pod.
The membrane snapped, breaking over her head. She sat up and tried to scream. An oxygen tube gagged her mouth, her cry muffled. She yanked it free; her cry froze in her throat as she gazed about her, at the bleak landscape.
The Machine that tended the pods rose up from below. She expected it to take her arm and inject it with the sedative. Instead, its metal pincers seized her by the neck. Another metal claw worked at the cable in the back of her head, unlocking it. The other cables jutting from her body whipped free, as the machine let her go.
At that same moment, a door in the back of the pod opened, like a giant sink trap. The red fluid drained out, carrying her with it.
Maybe her childhood fear of the bathtub drain swallowing her wasn't so silly after all...
Small warnings: some unplugging-related tension, a male character ogling a female on a security scan, and some implied Merv/Ref naughtiness.
She Made Herself Real
Maybe it was the temperature of the water in the bathtub. Maybe it had something to do with her monthly cycle. Maybe it was something she'd eaten at supper.
Late that mid-October evening, Emily lay soaking in a warm bath, propped on a bath pillow, sleepy after a long day of helping Sith and Shasti look after little Blaise while Ref was at work, out in the Real, and raking leaves with Dad, out on the grounds of the Chateau. She started to doze off, but she nudged herself awake, reminding herself it was her turn to sleep in Blaise's room, since Ref was out for the night with the Frenchman.
She had just raised her eyelids, and she was about to climb out of the tub before she let out the water, when the world suddenly broke down into green code that folded in on itself...
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Michelle wondered what was taking Emily so long in the bathroom. Usually, once she'd finished washing up and brushing her teeth, her daughter would peer into the rooms she and John shared, before going to bed. But tonight, she was taking a lot longer than was normal.
She went to the door of Emily's bathroom and knocked on it. "Emily? Are you all right in there?" she called.
No answer.
She tried the latch. Locked. Michelle went in search of an unsharpened pencil and fitted it into the emergency button, to open the lock from the outside, unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The bathtub was three-quarters full, and Emily's bath pillow was propped on one end of the tub. Her nightgown and bathrobe lay folded neatly on the floor by the sink. But Emily was nowhere to be seen.
"Emily?" Michelle called, stepping out into the main room again. She went out into the hallway, calling her daughter's name.
John came out of their rooms, on the other side of their daughter's. "Is something wrong, Mike?" he asked.
"She's gone," Michelle said, ignoring John's pet name for her.
The quiet smile vanished from John's face; his brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"She's disappeared from her bathtub," Michelle said.
"Did someone break in?" John asked, his fists gathering.
"No, the door was locked from the inside."
"The kidnapper could have come in through the window," he said, stepping quickly past Michelle and striding into Emily's room.
Michelle's heart trembled. She'd never thought of that.
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John examined his daughter's bathroom window. There was no way anyone could have unlocked it from the outside, and they certainly hadn't busted the glass, either. It certainly didn't look like there had been a struggle, and she hadn't let anyone in. It was if she had vanished into thin air.
The mirror over the sink. He'd seen the Frenchman duck through a good-sized mirror the way someone would step through a doorway.
He went out into the hallway, joining Michelle there. "Well, no one came in through the window, unless they thought to clean up the glass and replace the windowpane while they're at it, but I've never heard of any kidnappers doing *that*. But they could have gotten her through the mirror."
"The mirror? How?" Michelle asked, perplexed.
"That Frenchman can nick in and out of any place where there's a mirror. He turns them into doorways, somehow." He stepped around Michelle. "I bet he had a hand in this."
"Are you sure?" Michelle asked. "I thought he and Ref were out celebrating their anniversary or something."
"He could have nipped back here when Ref was in the powder room, and snuck Emily to some place, for a little rondy-voo later on," John said, heading off down the hallway. Someone must have seen something. A place like this had to have some sort of fancy security system.
He met one of the Frenchman's wolfish-looking young lackeys on the stairs to an upper floor of the building. "Who's in charge when your boss... master... whatever he is, isn't around?"
"That'd be ol' Whitey," the young henchman replied, grinning.
"That would be *who*?" John demanded.
"That'd be Flood," the lackey replied, his grin a little forced.
"Thanks," John said, going in search of that pansy fellow.
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Flood was shutting down the monitors on the terminals in his superior's office, when someone outside the hall doors banged on them. He approached and opened one leaf of the doors, looking out to see who was making that infernal racket.
He found the father of the One, that anachronistic middle-aged gaffer, standing out there, his eyes starting to kindle with anger and concern.
"You know anything about security in this place?" he asked.
"My position as chief of security for the Chateau should suffice as your answer," Flood replied, stepping past him into the hallway. "Why do you ask?"
"My daughter, Emily, just vanished from her own rooms. Is there some kind of security camera in there that might have picked up anyone going in or out?" the elder Anderson asked, clearly discomfited by the idea that there might be hidden cameras in his girl-child's room.
"There is, as a matter of fact: there are two cameras in her chambers."
"Can I see the tapes from them?"
"Certainly, if you so insist. Follow my lead," he said, turning and heading for Command Central, and the room next to it with the monitors for the security network.
Flood found one of the Lupines drowsing at the console of the main terminal. He cuffed the youngish male awake with the back of his wrist. The werewolf snapped awake, pretending he hadn't been asleep.
"There's been some trouble in the One's sister's rooms while you were sleeping, Feronus," Flood said. "She's disappeared."
"Ooh, that's bad... uh, how long ago did she disappear?" Feronus said, typing a string of commands on his keyboard, bringing the scan from Miss Anderson's rooms up on the main monitor, and rewinding it.
Flood looked to the elder Mr. Anderson for this information. "It's been about ten minutes since Michelle found she'd vanished. I'd say she's been gone a half an hour or more," the human replied.
The tech stopped the tape at about forty-five minutes before the elder Anderson had come looking for his girl-child. The screen showed a view of Miss Anderson's washroom, from behind the mirror over the sink, looking down from a spot near the ceiling toward the bathtub.
Miss Anderson entered the washroom, set down a bundle that appeared to be her nightgown -- a frumpish flannel one from the look of things -- and turned on the water in the tub. While it filled, she brushed her teeth and pinned her hair up before she slipped off her robe and laid it on the floor next to her nightie. The camera angle gave him an excellent view of her young form: her proportions were modest, and she carried herself a little sloppily, but if she were cured of the latter, she would make an excellent partner for some lucky male. He didn't doubt, even since Smith had ordered him to put the brakes on fraternizing with the young lady, that she was still a virgin.
He realized the elder Mr. Anderson had taken note of his lingering gaze. He glanced down, pretending to push back his shirt-cuffs and adjust the cuffs of his gloves.
On the tape, Miss Anderson set about her ablutions, then settled back in the water, clearly for a leisurely soak, which gave him a good view of her small but well-shaped breasts...
She shifted in the water, clearly about to get out. Her form suddenly shuddered, as from an outside shock, and her image dissolved into the base code, vanishing.
"Holy frags," Feronus murmured.
"My God! Who did that to her?! How is that possible?" the elder Mr. Anderson cried.
"No one did that to her: she did it to herself," Flood replied.
The human looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"
Flood sighed, trying to reduce the note of impatience in that sound. "You probably have heard, since the days when the Alliance emerged and unmasked the true nature of your world, that reality as you know it is not what it seems, that you and the majority of the human race are dwelling within a computer-generated construct, piped directly into your brains, your 'brain in a vat' theory made true, though we pure intelligences were practical enought to leave your cranial matter attached to the rest of your bodies. But, for some reason beyond our control and her own control, the signal to her brain was disrupted and she was ejected from the system."
"Well, is she all right?" the human asked, folding his arms on his chest.
"Considering the terms of the Alliance between members of our respective species, and considering the wide-ranging extent of Shepherd's control over the system, I'm inclined to think she'll come to no harm. So long as a recovery crew can pluck her from the bowels of the power plant she was ejected from."
"Then you'll have to find her. You seem like you have some influence here, Mr. Flood; you make the move to help find my daughter," the elder Mr. Anderson ordered, an inexorable light in his dark eyes.
An objection started to rise to Flood's lips, but he deleted that thought: the firmness in that human's tone brooked no objection. Besides, this was the father of the One, and refusing to comply with him would blot his repute with the Alliance.
"Very well, I'll see what I can do," Flood replied.
"Good." With that, the elder Mr. Anderson walked away, leaving Flood with the unsettled feeling a human might have after agreeing to help a monkey find a certain kind of bananas. Or rather, after replying to a sentient can-opener which had started to fuss.
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Once they reached the hotel room, and despite his attempts to put her off from it, Ref had insisted on calling the Chateau to check on their son, a call the Merovingian found unnecessary. The little one was well-tended: no cause for concern.
"She's gone--?" he heard her cry, when he had gone into the washroom to draw a bath for them both. "What do you mean?... she what?... yeah, I've heard of that... the Kid freed himself, if I remember correctly... All right, thank you, Shepherd. Have someone call my cellphone, if any word comes back...about them finding her. Goodbye." He heard her hang up the phone. Her breath caught in a sob.
He waited a moment, then emerged from the bathroom. She stood by a table in the sitting room of their suite, running a shaking hand through her hair, pulling out the pins that held it. He could smell a mix of emotions running through her: fear, concern, worry. She took a handkerchief from her evening bag and blotted her eyes on it.
He came up behind her, putting one hand on her waist, turning her toward him. "What causes your tears, ma cherie? Zis is a night we should be happy."
"It's Emily... she disappeared from her room. Shepherd ordered a scan on the system: he thinks she self-substantiated."
So the little rabbit had found a way out of the safety of the warren and had ventured out into the harsh world beyond...
"I see. Pauvre petite, it is a cold world that lies in wait for her," he said.
"She'll be fine, once they find her. Emily's a strong little girl when she needs to be," Ref replied.
"And the rest of the time, she is as soft and timid as a little brown rabbit," he said, running his hands over Ref's shoulders.
"Hey, don't tell me you've been flirting with your son's nanny; shame on you!"
"I? Flirting with le soeur de Un? He would snap me in two if I touched so much as a hair of her head. Or her cher licorne would run his horn through my heart."
"Mm, we can't have that happening: the lion is supposed to chase the unicorn all around the town, after all," she said.
He uttered a leonine purr against her hair. She chuckled, but the sound seemed forced, even in his ears.
That undercurrent of sorrow lingered throughout their amorous exchanges that evening, in her ministrations to him and her responses to his touches and kisses. She clearly sought to be fully with him, but her cares seemed to draw some portion of her attention away. Another male might have withdrawn, either in annoyance or concern, and a hint of annoyance in his own being nearly caused him to pause in their coupling, but that taste of sorrow and concern lent a piquancy to the bouquet of her response.
Yet afterward, as they lay entwined on their pillows, basking in the warmth of the fire on the hearth and in the afterglow of their coupling, Ref sighed and turned her face away from him
"Your thoughts return to your young friend?" he asked, his voice husky with contentment.
"Yes," she replied. "I'm sorry I got a bit distracted there."
He stroked her cheek with his fingertips, lifting away a strand of her hair which had fallen across her face. "Your embrace still satisfied me."
"And that's what counts with you," she said, in a gently taunting tone.
"Non, I saw your sorrow; I could taste it in you. You clearly care for 'er, but as you said yourself, she will be in good hands."
"Once they find her: that's what had me a little rattled, I think."
"Perhaps you have allowed zis to shake your soul's tranquility needlessly," he noted.
"You're dead right. I'm sorry I let it get to me."
He kissed her gently, then said against her mouth, "It is of no consequence," he assured her. Then holding her to his chest, he added, "Rather, it is an effect of your kindness and concern for those you love."
She nestled her head against him, murmuring her thanks, as her eyelids closed.
Two hours had passed when the Archivist's cellphone trilled in the other room. Ref started to move sleepily, as if she might rise from her pillows, but he -- the more immediately alert of the two of them -- gently pressed her down as he rose to answer it.
He found the cellphone where she had left it, on the table, and answered it. "Hallo?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Merovingien, is the Archivist there? This is Avril from Central Command."
"She 'as just fallen asleep. But I shall relay your message to her when she awakens."
"Then tell her we've confirmed the location of the One's sister: Miss Anderson is safe in the Real. A recovery crew found her over an hour ago. She was alert enough to recognize her brother when he came to her bed in the medical center. She is expected to recover fully."
"Ah, in which case, I shall have good news to bring to my lovely companion once she awakens."
He hung up the phone and closing it, set it back on the table. His hand lingered on it thoughtfully before he turned and headed back to the bedroom.
So it had happened: the young girl had fully entered the Real. What remained to be seen was if the change of scenery caused her to stay there, or to return to the Mainframe, or to divide her time between the two realms.
Perhaps, through the Archivist, he could influence the One's sister to return to the Mainframe, to let herself be reinserted into the system, once he had sown the seeds which would cause her to long for its comforts. He had seen the Real, its starke emptiness devoid of all beauty, its coldness and dreariness. No being with any amount of good sense would linger there, particularly one so frail as the One's sister.
He returned to the bed, settling down beside his young paramour and pulling the bedcovers over himself. Without awakening, the Archivist shifted, settling closer to him. He laid one arm over her soft form, holding her against his chest. Looking down at her, he was minded immediately of the other demoiselle, the one whom he could never possess. He could still admire the One's sister, could he not? Mere admiration gave no one cause for concern. He merely sought what was best for the poor girl, who had come to them so late in the time of the Alliance's formation, but who had settled into his court so quickly. Her absence would leave a terrible hole, one she alone could fill. He hoped, as he let himself fall back to sleep, he would see her pretty young face fill that void, and that her return would be as swift and sudden as her departure.
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Emily was really gone. Vanished. No sign of a struggle in her rooms; no one had broken in, but there was no reason to suggest she'd let in her kidnapper. The way everything was arranged in her room, just as it looked the last time Ref was here, before she went out the night before, she half expected her young friend and helper to come in from the hallway, at any minute.
Ref sat back in an armchair in the sitting room, Blaise suckling at her breast, oblivious to all except her milk and warmth. The pale October sunlight shone through the window opposite, warming the room; a gust of wind whistled outside, flinging a cascade of colored leaves past the pane, but its sound did nothing to dispell the palpable silence that filled the room, like the stillness of a home when a death has occurred in the family.
Come to think of it, it was rather like having a loved one die, even though she knew that Emily was still alive, in the Real. Once she and Armand had returned to the Chateau after their night out, Ref had spent much of the time talking with John and Michelle, offering what consolation she could. The news, that a recovery crew had picked up Emily, came as a relief, but at the same time, it weighed on her soul. She hoped her friend would come back to the Mainframe but that was a decision Emily had to make for herself. Aside from helping take care of Blaise, and aside from her close ties with her parents, Emily didn't have much reason to come back to the Mainframe.
Blaise let go of Ref's nipple, yawning, a small runnel of milk dripping down his chin. Ref blotted his face with a corner of the receiving blanket draped about her neck, then draped her wee one against her shoulder, patting his back to relieve him of any air he might have swallowed.
"It's probably for the best, though," she said, partly to Blaise, partly thinking out loud. "I know, I know: you'll miss Emily. I can tell you really liked her."
Blaise let out a whopping burp, then buried his small face in Ref's neck, almost as if he'd embarassed himself a little.
"Hey, was that a comment? Are you trying to say you disagree with me? Are you saying you didn't like her?" She repeated the teasing questions in French. She held Blaise slightly away from her, looking into his blue eyes. Was it only yesterday morning when Emily told her Blaise's eyes were starting to turn a darker shade of blue, getting closer to his sire's indeterminate blue-grey-green eye-color. It seemed like something that had happened in another lifetime.
Ref rose and headed for Blaise's room, in between Emily's rooms and her apartment. "Come on, little fellow, time you had a rest and time I made some tea for your godmother."
As she laid Blaise in his crib and tucked him in, the little one's hand reached up and laid itself on her hand, his fingers curling on the cuff of her sleeve, almost as if he wanted to console her. She leaned down and kissed him, then opened his tiny hand, releasing her sleeve.
"Sleep well, little fellow," she said.
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Heart-Mommy still seemed sad that day, when she came to him as the sky-hole light started to turn pale and dim. He heard her voice and Milk-Mommy's voice talking together: they both sounded sad. Not bad sad, not the way Heart-Mommy had been before she started going away sometimes during sky-light-time. Was it something he had done?
It couldn't be. Heart-Mommy held him very close that day. Something else must have made her sad. Some big-people he had no name for.
He noticed someone was not there. He could not hear Hand-Mommy's voice in the room, the way he often could. He could not smell her, and she wasn't there near his nest. Where was she?
Later still, when the sky-hole-light faded into dark, Hand-Mommy still wasn't there. Usually, just before room-dark-time, when Heart-Mommy gave him a bath and fed him her sweet milk, Hand-Mommy was there. But she wasn't. That night, Milk-Mommy and Furry-Mommy were with her, talking in low voices after Heart-Mommy had laid him down in his nest. At length, Furry-Mommy left, and he heard Milk-Mommy settling down on the other nest in his room. A little while later, he could hear Heart-Mommy talking just outside the entry to his room, talking with another voice, a daddy-voice, but not the voice of Hand-Daddy. He heard Heart-Mommy making soft, sad sounds, and the daddy-voice replying gently, speaking like warm air. Soon they moved away, their sounds changing, growing more distant. But he knew it must have something to do with Hand-Mommy going away. He didn't know why, and he couldn't know why, so he went to sleep to think of something else.
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She'd had that dream that wasn't a dream for so long, she half-expected to grow used to it. But you could never get used to waking up feeling trapped. Hemmed in by black cables and red gel like thick honey.
Waiting for the machine to come and jab her arm, and falling asleep afterward. Nothing came. Panic jerked her upright. Fighting against the cables and the thick membrane that encased the pod.
The membrane snapped, breaking over her head. She sat up and tried to scream. An oxygen tube gagged her mouth, her cry muffled. She yanked it free; her cry froze in her throat as she gazed about her, at the bleak landscape.
The Machine that tended the pods rose up from below. She expected it to take her arm and inject it with the sedative. Instead, its metal pincers seized her by the neck. Another metal claw worked at the cable in the back of her head, unlocking it. The other cables jutting from her body whipped free, as the machine let her go.
At that same moment, a door in the back of the pod opened, like a giant sink trap. The red fluid drained out, carrying her with it.
Maybe her childhood fear of the bathtub drain swallowing her wasn't so silly after all...