Orrery
Summary: Jasdero and Devit seem to have broken the Ark--leaving them no choice but to flee.
Prompt: 046. Enigma
Disclaimer: D. Gray-man and its characters don't belong to me.
It was well past midnight, and Jasdero and Devit were ready to set out from Edo. They were supposed to go ask a guy some questions and then kill him-and not, Tiki had emphasized, the other way around. They were excited to get to the part where they killed him. It not being long since they’d been part of the family, they were just as excited to have a job to do. And that aside, there was always a sense of excitement to sneaking out in the small hours of the morning.
So it was with a shaking hand that Devit smacked the button of the Ark’s door, while Jasdero shifted from foot to foot behind him. At present the door led to an alley near their victim’s house. It would be the perfect place to emerge unseen and silent and trace their way to the target under cover of night.
The portal opened and Jasdero and Devit stepped through together, grinning, twin pistols at hand.
The emerged in an alleyway in Paris, where they were immediately blinded.
“Heeee!?” shrieked Jasdero in a sound of angry confusion.
Devit shaded his eyes until they could adjust, revealing a woman in a headscarf and patterned skirts staring at them open-mouthed. A basket slipped from her arm, spilling cabbage and onions onto the stones. A small boy was peering out from behind the woman’s skirts. Devit could see the street beyond, full of people moving in the morning brightness.
Devit took Jasdero’s wrist, and they marched right back into the Ark.
Tiki was in the sitting room with a silver button in one hand and a soft cloth in the other. He hadn’t quite been able to sleep. He polished the button and held it up to catch the light of kerosene lanterns so he could admire how shiny it was without dirt and blood. He set it beside two other glinting buttons.
He was submerging another button, this one grimy, in a dish of water when Jasdero and Devit came running in with muddy boots.
“Tiki! Tiki!” Devit was yelling.
“Tikiiii!” yelled Jasdero.
“Why the fuck was it light!?” demanded Devit.
“What’s wrong with the Ark!? Wailed Jasdero.
The button slipped from Tiki’s fingers. “The Ark’s broken!?”
“Yeah!” said Devit.
“Look, calm down,” said Tiki, willing his heart to do the same. “Where were you trying to go?”
“Some place called Paris,” said Devit.
“On a mission!” said Jasdero.
“You didn’t kill your target before asking him questions, did you?” Tiki hoped they were trying to obscure some failure and the Ark was functioning fine. He’d feel a little sorry for them, but at least they were back safely and Tiki could get to bed.
“We didn’t kill anyone!: said Devit, obviously frustrated by this.
“Hee!”
“Start at the beginning, and tell me what happened,” order Tiki.
The stood in front of his armchair and began to tell him the same thing at the same time, but using different words.
“Could one of you shut up?” asked Tiki, able to make out only a tale of confusion and the sun.
“No!” shouted Jasdero.
“Don’t fucking tell us to shut up! You need to be a better listener!” shouted Devit, and they were off again. Tiki concentrated. He untangled their words and ended up with a story: Jasdero and Devit had intended to undertake a midnight mission and found themselves suddenly in the daytime.
A laugh escaped Tiki before he could help it.
The twins stopped babbling their story. “It’s not funny!” said Devit, coloring.
“It’s that-it’s because-“ Tiki tried to regain breath enough to explain, but it was too funny.
“But it’s broken,” complained Jasdero, which set Tiki to laughing again.
“Fuck off, Tiki!” said Devit. He and Jasdero stormed towards the door.
“It isn’t broken!” Tiki managed, but wasn’t sure they’d caught his words. Devit flipped him off as they left.
“Tiki’s wrong!” said Devit as he stormed down the hallway of the Edo mansion with his twin. “That wouldn’t have happened if the Ark were working right.”
“Tiki’s wrong, so wrong! Hee!”
They returned to the door that led not outside, but to the Ark. “C’mon, let’s find out how wrong Tiki is.”
“Very wrong,” said Jasdero.
An earthen floor and corridors smelling as cool as a damp cave branched out before them. The walls were wooden planks. The entrance to the Ark didn’t always lead here. Often it led to sterile, gleaming hallways. Sometimes it led to a vast, circular space as echoing as a cathedral. It didn’t matter. They could find their way. No matter which part of it they wandered, Jasdero and Devit felt at home.
Devit touched a gold-framed screen. Mounted on the wall near the door, it trailed golden wires. “Somewhere not near people,” he said, and Jasdero selected two places from the list. They made their way through the proper door.
They emerged in a jungle smelling of rotten leaves. They looked up at the sky. It was entirely obscured by verdant foliage, but it was obviously light out.
“Still not working!” Jasdero’s voice joined the noise of birds and insects.
“Fuck!” said Devit.
They returned to the Ark and tried another door. This one opened on clear night air and drifts of snow. They stepped through it regardless. They could stand the intense cold for a few minutes, and their high boots kept the snow from their feet.
This place is right,” said Devit. His breath fogged out in clouds. He had his hands in his pockets.
Jasdero stared around them at the expanse of snowdrifts and the sky. He settled on the sky. “Sky’s purple,” he said eventually.
“And green.”
Disturbed by the obviously malfunctioning sky, they went back to where it was warm-and proper, black night.
Tiki woke sprawled in his armchair. He glanced at the clock-early morning. Jasdero and Devit were in the doorway. The dark under their eyes was mostly makeup, but they looked as if they hadn’t slept from worry.
“World’s broken,” Jasdero said sadly.
“It’s not fucking right,” scowled Devit, who had his hands on his hips. “The sun’s been up for nearly an hour, but when we went through the Ark, it was out!” He sounded offended, as if God were up there flipping a giant light switch up and down just to mess with them.
Jasdero approached Tiki’s chair. “Fix it!” he demanded.
Although groggy, Tiki grinned. “Let me explain something to you about the sun,” he said.
“Maybe it’s ‘cause the world’s ending,” Devit told Jasdero.
“Maybe Jasdevi can travel through time,” Jasdero told Devit.
“It’s neither,” said Tiki. To tell the truth, he hadn’t understood everything that Rhode had told him, but he remembered the important parts well enough to reassure the twins. “You see, if the Earth is round, and the sun…”
“Hey, what’re these?” asked Devit, seizing one of the clear silver buttons from the table by Tiki. He turned one over to find an indecipherable jumble of letters on the reverse.
“These? These are my souvenirs. Dead Exorcists’ buttons.”
Devit dropped the one he’d been rolling between forefinger and thumb. “Exorcists? Disgusting!”
Tiki shrugged. “I like them. Pure silver, too. I like to have a memento of-”
“Can I have one?”
“You just called them disgusting.”
“Yeah, but we could melt ‘em down for the silver or something. Dumbass.”
“Kill your own Exorcists,” said Tiki, knowing full well that they were scarce, and the ones left surprisingly sneaky considering their habit of wearing their eye-catching silver buttons and black coats wherever they went.
The twins were taken aback. They looked at each other, thinking, That means going through the Ark.
“Cheapskate! Hee!” accused Jasdero.
“It’s just another of your filthy hobbies, isn’t it,” said Devit with his hands on his hips again. “Smoking, drinking, getting infested with fleas, and now this.” He made it sound worse than the other three put together, and he could make each of those three sound like leprosy.
“Didn’t you have a job to do?” asked Tiki.
“Heeee, can’t do it ‘till the Ark’s fixed!” Jasdero shifted from foot to foot, and pointed his gun at nothing.
“It’s not-”
“So, about these buttons,” said Devit, fingering the washed ones again.
“They’re covered in cholera,” said Tiki.
That got them out.
That night, Jasdero pulled his covers up to his chin and stared at the ceiling. “Jasdevi broke the Ark…” he whimpered after about half an hour.
Devit, who had been lying face down in a nest of sheets, equally unable to sleep, said in a muffled voice, “The Earl’s gonna be pissed!”
“Why’d this happen to Jasdevi!? Stupid Ark!” moaned Jasdero.
“And Tiki was going on about the sun…”
Jasdero sat bolt upright, throwing off his sheets. “Jasdevi broke the sun!?”
“We what!?” said Devit, propping himself up on one elbow.
“The sun was going all over the place! Gotta fix it!”
“Wait, we-how the hell could we have broken the sun? Wouldn’t we have noticed!?” The panic in Devit’s voice betrayed his belief that the possibility was there.
“Hee! Jasdevi are Noahs now! Maybe if the Ark breaks, the sun and things go wrong too!”
Defeated, Devit lay back in his bed. But it wasn’t all bad, he thought. “We must be really fucking strong.”
Although they weren’t sure if there was going to be a morning because of the solar anomalies, and although Jasdero, sprawled out on his bed, stared at the ceiling for another hour, the twins slept that night.
But morning did come, and they were up at the fist hint of light. Jasdero and Devit dressed with haste and only spent half an hour on makeup. They snuck into the Ark like criminals and faced down a control screen they’d used earlier as if its tangle of golden wires was about to come to life and strangle them.
Devit took a thin wire between forefinger and thumb, but jerked his hand away when the screen emitted a buzzing sound.
“We aren’t controllers like Rhode and the boss!” said Jasdero, crouching behind Devit and rocking back and forth. “Can’t fix it right!”
“Sure we can!” Devit was sure that he at least sounded confident. He turned and jabbed Jasdero’s forehead with his index finger. “We just need…uh, a wrench, and….”
“Scissors, hee!”
In moments the twins were wielding a wrench (in Devit’s case) and scissors (in Jasdero’s). They advanced, Devit bringing the wrench down on the screen and Jasdero snapping wires in two until the scissors got tangled up. The twins stepped back to admire their work. There were massive cracks in the screen, and sparks streamed from several of the cut wires.
“Is it fixed…?” asked Jasdero. He grinned uncertainly.
Devit whipped out his pistol and shot the screen. There was a small explosion.
“Now it is,” he said.
The lights went out all along the stretch of hall.
Jasdero took several additional shot at the wall-and the portal, chipping it-to see if that would help. Meanwhile, looking apprehensively at the doorway leading back to Edo, Devit repeatedly pressed the one intact button to the right of the screen. The portal opened onto the forest they’d visited the other day. There, it was obviously night.
“It’s-it’s still broken!” shrieked Jasdero, pointing.
“Shhhh!” said Devit as if there had not just been repeated gunshots. He held the button down, but the portal seemed to be stuck on a single location. He laughed nervously. “Let’s get out of here, Jasdero.”
“Hee! Okay!”
And they ran through the door, off into the forest.
“The Earl’s really gonna kill us,” moaned Devit, trudging across damp leaves. They were surrounded by the background noise of insects, and at times the strange calls of animals rang out. It was dark here and day in Edo. Devit was pretty sure they were in the past; Jasdero was convinced they were in the future.
“H-how’s he gonna kill Jasdevi?” asked Jasdero. He looked around nervously as they walked, and swung his pistol round to point at unassuming trees whenever some creature rustled the leaves. His headband attachment was the only light in the forest’s darkness, and Devit stayed close to it, as did a gathering of moths. However, there was a brighter direction, in which the moon shone beyond trees. That was the direction they were walking.
“How?” repeated the panic-eyed Jasdero, disregarding how loud his voice was.
“With Rhode,” said Devit.
The horror of this made them quicken their pace. There was little underbrush to block their path. When not targeting flora, they kept their pistols aimed at each other’s heads.
“Are Jasdevi going somewhere with food?” Jasdero asked eventually.
“Huh? Sure,” said Devit. “Quit your complaining. And when we get there, we won’t have to worry about imagining the exact right money!” He grinned and pulled a small, clinking bag out of his coat.
Jasdero recalled the incident that began with the two of them paying a British clothier with thought-up dollars and ended with them setting London on fire. “Hee! Good idea!”
Devit took a silver button from the sack and flipped it with his thumb. After he caught it, he held it close to Jasdero’s light, grimaced in disgust, and quickly dropped it. The button fell among leaves.
“That one wasn’t clean,” said Devit, wiping his hands off on his jacket. He proceeded to curse Tiki under his breath.
“People we give ‘em to are gonna get diseases!” giggled Jasdero.
“Hell yeah they will!” Devit was feeling better the farther they got from the opening in space that led to the Ark, which they could still sense behind them. Never mind the dark forest, they felt safer without any other people around.
When they tired of walking, they imagined a tent and sat inside playing Solitaire together, although this game was cut short when they realized they were imaging twelve Aces.
Tiki caught Rhode padding down a hallway.
“Rhode, there you are,” said Tiki. “You have to explain to the twins why time’s different when they use Ark. I think they’re going more insane.” His sardonic grin belied his concern.
“You couldn’t explain, Tiki? Wait, of course you couldn’t,” said Rhode, and patted his arm consolingly.
Tiki rolled his eyes. “They wouldn’t listen to me.” He headed towards the sitting room where he’d left the buttons and hoped Jasdevi were nearby so the matter could be cleared up before they got more annoying. Oh yes, the buttons-
“Guess who separated another Exorcist’s heart from his body the other day,” he said proudly.
“Ooh, did you keep it? Show me!” squealed Rhode.
“Of course not. I kept the buttons, though I accidentally got some blood-goddammit!” Tiki stepped into the doorway of the sitting room to find an absence where his souvenirs had been sitting on the table.
“Let’s go find those thieving brats,” he told Rhode.
Rhode had a word with an Akuma maid, and reports from Edo’s hordes of Akuma turned up no sightings of the highly visible Noah boys. She and Tiki turned to the Ark.
A single step, and they were in a space that was not Edo, nor anywhere else in the world that swarmed with humans. For some reason the lights had gone, but it was hard for Tiki to miss the cracked screen and broken wires that spewed sparks. Nearby was the empty white arch of a doorway. On the other side, bullet holes had scored wood panels.
“Did they actually think that would do anything?” asked Rhode, and put her small hand on the doorway’s patterned arch. A dark grove appeared through the white portal. They stepped through onto damp leaves, and a breeze almost blew Tiki’s cigarette away.
Rhode looked around the dark clearing with keen golden eyes. “Hide and seek!” she called. “I’ll find you, Jasdevi!” She scanned the ground and turned in the direction where the trees were the thinnest, forming what might be mistaken for a pathway. Bounding forward, she vanished among the trees. Tiki followed more sedately, feeling the chill breeze through his casual clothes.
After an indeterminate period of treading through the dimness of the forest after Rhode’s footfalls, Tiki heard them stop. He almost tripped over her. She was standing right in front of him with a mottled silver button held to her eye. It caught the moonlight a moment, and gleamed.
Tiki held out his hand, and she placed it in his palm. Now it was back where it belonged-not on the forest floor, not in Devit’s pocket, and certainly not adorning the overly-embellished coat of a filthy Exorcist. He put it in his pocket.
Rhode, her energy unabated, leaped away again. Tiki hoped the twins hadn’t gotten far. But presently they came upon a tent up ahead, discernable only because of the faint light that picked its shape out from the black shapes of trees, and the sound of voices trying but failing to be hushed. Rhode stalked towards it like a hunter. There was no stirring from the tent. A stake-like shape was suddenly in her hand, and she raised it, slicing down through the fabric of the tent.
There was an outcry, and the twins leapt to their feet and flailed at the cloth until it vanished like mist, leaving them standing in front of Rhode, who they regarded with horror. Tiki sauntered up, and noticed Rhode’s grin in the illumination of Jasdero’s little light.
“Jasdevi didn’t do it, we swear!” yelled Jasdero, who looked as if he would collapse at any moment.
“Do what, Jasdero?” Rhode asked sweetly.
“A-anything!” said Jasdero, at the same moment Devit yelled, “Nothing!”
Rhode stood there, the center of a very pointed silence.
Tiki let it drag on a bit. After all, the twins were nothing but sneak-thieves. Sneak-thieves who looked like they were about to panic and run off at any second.
Rhode laughed and seized their hands. Devit yelped and jumped back to no effect, and Jasdero let out a wail and sunk to his knees on the damp leaves. His light bobbed crazily.
“You didn’t break the Ark, Jasdevi,” said Rhode. “Let me show you what happened.”
“We’re gonna stay here, thank you,” said Devit, and was ignored as Rhode tugged on their hands. Jasdero wobbled to his feet. The twins were pulled reluctantly back the way they came, drawn more by fear of disobeying than by the slight weight of Rhode. Tiki walked nearby, escorting them. He was certain he could make out a heavy weight in one of Devit’s coat pockets.
Tiki cleared his throat. “Devit, I believe you have something of mine.”
“M-me?” Devit was already jumpy from the proximity of Rhode.
Tiki reached through his coat and pulled out the small sack of buttons, which he weighed in his palm. It felt like most of them were still there. Lucky for Devit and Jasdero.
He savored Devit’s seething silence for the rest of their walk.
Silently raging at Tiki and harboring nervousness towards Rhode, Devit felt himself calm somewhat when he and Jasdero returned to the Ark’s halls-after all, it was still there, and Rhode wasn’t hurting anybody yet. She took turn after turn, and they left austere white hallways for an unfamiliar labyrinth of wood-paneled hallways and rough stone floors that stank of mold. Stagnant water puddled over flagstones in places. Tiki was looking around like he were lost, or as lost as a Noah could be in the Ark.
“Where the hell are we going?” grumbled Devit. He managed to pull his hand free of Rhode’s, and stayed close by Jasdero, who allowed his to remain in her grasp. They kept their pistols trained on each other. (Under these circumstances, it could be a form of self-defense.)
The hallway widened, ending in tall double doors. The thick unpolished oak was carved in whorls around the edges. Jasdero and Devit waited side by side, wondering at what it contained. Rhode tugged at the heavy handles until Tiki stepped forward and pulled with her. The door dragged against uneven stones. Jasdero took a few nervous steps back.
However, the room it opened on was filled with sunlight from a window that stretched the length of the left wall. They were in a city of the Ark, empty and untouched.
The room contained a square table covered in a clean white cloth. In the center of the table was an intricate device that glinted more brightly than any buttons they’d ever stolen from Tiki.
The four of them gathered around it. The top was made of interlocking steel circles encompassed by larger rings, creating a sort of open globe. Small spheres of polished stone-lapis, black tourmaline, and jasper-rested in the center, each nestled in its own circle. The largest was a ball of cloudy yellow citrine in the exact center. The steel circles connected in graceful curves to a stem attached to a foot-high base that was intricate with clockwork.
Curiosity had now replaced Jasdero and Devit’s fear. Jasdero crouched on his heels to view the device from another angle. “Hee, what’s this?” he asked.
Devit was about to spin one of the wheels when Rhode seized his wrist. “Don’t touch it,” she ordered.
“Why can’t I-”
“Just watch, Devit.” She let go. “This is an orrery.”
The word mean nothing to Devit. “A what?”
“An orry?” asked Jasdero.
“An orrery, a model of the solar system, where the Earth is,” said Rhode, staring at the device with predatory interest.
“Oh yeah, Tiki said something about that,” said Devit. “So what?”
“This is the sun.” Rhode pointed at the citrine sphere in the center. It did look like a sun-and it reminded him of Jasdero’s light, which reflected from the miniature sun as he crouched by it.
“And this is the Earth, which is round.” The lapis lazuli bit. Jasdero and Devit listened, captivated by the device that they weren’t allowed to touch while waiting for Rhode to get to her point.
“Edo is here, and Paris is somewhere around here. Now. The sun gives light, correct?” asked Rhode. Devit rolled his eyes at the obviousness of it, but he and Jasdero nodded. She grabbed Jasdero’s antenna, yanking it away from his head.
“Oww!” cried Jasdero, pulling back at the headband that was caught in his hair.
Rhode deftly inserted the light through the rings without brushing one of them and held it next to the stone sun. Then she pointed at the far side of the stone Earth. Around the place she’d indicated Paris to be. Devit wasn’t sure what she was getting at, and Jasdero was occupied with trying to reclaim his headband for his head.
“The shadow,” Rhode said impatiently.
And there it was, on the far side of the Earth. Realization dawned on Jasdero and Devit. “Oh!” said Devit, as Jasdero said “Hee!” Rhode let go of Jasdero’s light, and his headband snapped back onto his head. Jasdero stood, adjusting it. “Jasdevi didn’t break the Ark!”
“Or the sun, no matter what Tiki says!” added Devit. He glared at the older man with the resentment of someone who’d had his stolen goods rightfully reclaimed.
“I told you that you didn’t break it,” said Tiki. With a last glance at the orrery, he walked out of the room, lighting a cigarette as he went.
Devit looked at Jasdero. “Let’s go kill that guy,” he said.
“Ask the questions first,” Rhode called after them, and waved with her fingers.
Dinner had only just begun. Rhode and Tiki sat across from each other, contemplating their plates. “I hope Jasdevi finish their mission soon, because I need those answers by-” Rhode was saying, when Devit swaggered into the dining room, followed closely by Jasdero. Their grins were bright and cruel.
“Yeah, we took care of it,” said Devit.
“And, and, and we wrote down what the guy said just in case!” added Jasdero, taking a crumpled piece of paper and a pencils stub out of an inner vest pocket and depositing them on the table next to a plate of greens.
“Good,” said Rhode as she chewed. “The deadline’s almost here.” She took the paper and uncrumpled it, then nodded to herself.
Jasdero pointed at the plate of sickly-looking yellow-green vegetables. “What are those?”
“Artichoke hearts,” said Tiki. He moved them around with his fork and cursed the day-yesterday-that Skinn had decided to beat the only available Akuma cook into a small pile of shrapnel.
The twins reeled back with expressions of disgust. “I thought you didn’t bring those home! Stick to the buttons, Tiki!” said Devit.
“Not those hearts,” said Rhode, but her voice was muffled because she was still chewing.
Devit put a hand down on the end of the table farthest from the artichoke hearts. “So…where are those buttons, anyway?”
Tiki wished that Devit would forget about the Exorcists’ buttons already. His collection would be done for if Devit or Jasdero got their hands on it again. Where could he put them so that they wouldn’t find them? He had, for now, hidden them beneath a couch cushion, but that would not protect them for long.
He made a noncommittal noise in response to Devit. If the twins weren’t so damn annoying, he wouldn’t even mind giving them a couple. Yes, if they’d appreciate the worth of a silver button….
Tiki thought of his other life and grinned. He did know a boy who would appreciate the worth of silver. “I gave them away,” he told Devit, and it wouldn’t be a lie for long.
“Stupid cheapskate!” yelled Jasdero as Devit pounded the table and scowled.
He responded with a shrug. Meanwhile, Rhode gave up chewing and spit something green onto her plate.
“Let’s go play with the planet thing, then,” said Jasdero.
“Oh, you can’t do that,” said Rhode from behind a napkin. She smiled lazily. “I mean…if you touch the orrery, Jasdevi, the sun stops working. And if that happened, the Earl and I would be very, very angry with you.”
The twins froze, regarding her with wide-eyed awe that contained only the barest hint of doubt.
Devit rallied. “You’re all a bunch of fucking cheapskates!” he said, and they stomped out. Tiki suspected it was three-quarters a ploy to avoid eating dinner.
Rhode tipped the contents of her plate onto Tiki’s. “Bye-bye, Tiki, I want to play,” she said, and vanished out the door by way of sneaking under the table. Left alone, Tiki sighed and reached for the crumpled-up paper.
It contained notes in large block letters that slanted across the page, interspersed with smaller lines scrawled by Devit. Tiki could make out something about Finders and traitors to the Earl.
That was half of the sheet. The other half contained Rhode’s math problems.
Jasdero and Devit sat on a snowy cliff, watching the sun rise in glories of yellow and rose over plains of snow. They would have been cold, but they’d conjured a thick blanket to sit on (and another when that soaked through), one blanket for Devit, one for Jasdero, and one more to drape over them both.
Devit knew that if anyone found out they’d been sitting on a cliffside watching the sunrise, they’d be laughed at, and then they’d probably have to shoot someone. He didn’t care-it wasn’t his and Jasdero’s fault they’d gotten tired just when they happened to pass by a snowy cliffside while the sun was rising. What did they know about time, or the sun, anyway?
Jasdero had happened to be carrying real hot cocoa in thermoses. Devit held his in his hands. It was warm, and as solid as the warmth of the sunlight hitting his and Jasdero’s faces was faint. Devit wondered why snow melted, anyway, and how come water liked to change shape. Maybe the answer was another one of the things God was hiding from them.
“Hey, Jasdero, do you think we’re gonna make it?” he asked.
“Hee! Make what?”
Devit grinned. “That’s what I thought.”
Prompt: 046. Enigma
Disclaimer: D. Gray-man and its characters don't belong to me.
It was well past midnight, and Jasdero and Devit were ready to set out from Edo. They were supposed to go ask a guy some questions and then kill him-and not, Tiki had emphasized, the other way around. They were excited to get to the part where they killed him. It not being long since they’d been part of the family, they were just as excited to have a job to do. And that aside, there was always a sense of excitement to sneaking out in the small hours of the morning.
So it was with a shaking hand that Devit smacked the button of the Ark’s door, while Jasdero shifted from foot to foot behind him. At present the door led to an alley near their victim’s house. It would be the perfect place to emerge unseen and silent and trace their way to the target under cover of night.
The portal opened and Jasdero and Devit stepped through together, grinning, twin pistols at hand.
The emerged in an alleyway in Paris, where they were immediately blinded.
“Heeee!?” shrieked Jasdero in a sound of angry confusion.
Devit shaded his eyes until they could adjust, revealing a woman in a headscarf and patterned skirts staring at them open-mouthed. A basket slipped from her arm, spilling cabbage and onions onto the stones. A small boy was peering out from behind the woman’s skirts. Devit could see the street beyond, full of people moving in the morning brightness.
Devit took Jasdero’s wrist, and they marched right back into the Ark.
Tiki was in the sitting room with a silver button in one hand and a soft cloth in the other. He hadn’t quite been able to sleep. He polished the button and held it up to catch the light of kerosene lanterns so he could admire how shiny it was without dirt and blood. He set it beside two other glinting buttons.
He was submerging another button, this one grimy, in a dish of water when Jasdero and Devit came running in with muddy boots.
“Tiki! Tiki!” Devit was yelling.
“Tikiiii!” yelled Jasdero.
“Why the fuck was it light!?” demanded Devit.
“What’s wrong with the Ark!? Wailed Jasdero.
The button slipped from Tiki’s fingers. “The Ark’s broken!?”
“Yeah!” said Devit.
“Look, calm down,” said Tiki, willing his heart to do the same. “Where were you trying to go?”
“Some place called Paris,” said Devit.
“On a mission!” said Jasdero.
“You didn’t kill your target before asking him questions, did you?” Tiki hoped they were trying to obscure some failure and the Ark was functioning fine. He’d feel a little sorry for them, but at least they were back safely and Tiki could get to bed.
“We didn’t kill anyone!: said Devit, obviously frustrated by this.
“Hee!”
“Start at the beginning, and tell me what happened,” order Tiki.
The stood in front of his armchair and began to tell him the same thing at the same time, but using different words.
“Could one of you shut up?” asked Tiki, able to make out only a tale of confusion and the sun.
“No!” shouted Jasdero.
“Don’t fucking tell us to shut up! You need to be a better listener!” shouted Devit, and they were off again. Tiki concentrated. He untangled their words and ended up with a story: Jasdero and Devit had intended to undertake a midnight mission and found themselves suddenly in the daytime.
A laugh escaped Tiki before he could help it.
The twins stopped babbling their story. “It’s not funny!” said Devit, coloring.
“It’s that-it’s because-“ Tiki tried to regain breath enough to explain, but it was too funny.
“But it’s broken,” complained Jasdero, which set Tiki to laughing again.
“Fuck off, Tiki!” said Devit. He and Jasdero stormed towards the door.
“It isn’t broken!” Tiki managed, but wasn’t sure they’d caught his words. Devit flipped him off as they left.
“Tiki’s wrong!” said Devit as he stormed down the hallway of the Edo mansion with his twin. “That wouldn’t have happened if the Ark were working right.”
“Tiki’s wrong, so wrong! Hee!”
They returned to the door that led not outside, but to the Ark. “C’mon, let’s find out how wrong Tiki is.”
“Very wrong,” said Jasdero.
An earthen floor and corridors smelling as cool as a damp cave branched out before them. The walls were wooden planks. The entrance to the Ark didn’t always lead here. Often it led to sterile, gleaming hallways. Sometimes it led to a vast, circular space as echoing as a cathedral. It didn’t matter. They could find their way. No matter which part of it they wandered, Jasdero and Devit felt at home.
Devit touched a gold-framed screen. Mounted on the wall near the door, it trailed golden wires. “Somewhere not near people,” he said, and Jasdero selected two places from the list. They made their way through the proper door.
They emerged in a jungle smelling of rotten leaves. They looked up at the sky. It was entirely obscured by verdant foliage, but it was obviously light out.
“Still not working!” Jasdero’s voice joined the noise of birds and insects.
“Fuck!” said Devit.
They returned to the Ark and tried another door. This one opened on clear night air and drifts of snow. They stepped through it regardless. They could stand the intense cold for a few minutes, and their high boots kept the snow from their feet.
This place is right,” said Devit. His breath fogged out in clouds. He had his hands in his pockets.
Jasdero stared around them at the expanse of snowdrifts and the sky. He settled on the sky. “Sky’s purple,” he said eventually.
“And green.”
Disturbed by the obviously malfunctioning sky, they went back to where it was warm-and proper, black night.
Tiki woke sprawled in his armchair. He glanced at the clock-early morning. Jasdero and Devit were in the doorway. The dark under their eyes was mostly makeup, but they looked as if they hadn’t slept from worry.
“World’s broken,” Jasdero said sadly.
“It’s not fucking right,” scowled Devit, who had his hands on his hips. “The sun’s been up for nearly an hour, but when we went through the Ark, it was out!” He sounded offended, as if God were up there flipping a giant light switch up and down just to mess with them.
Jasdero approached Tiki’s chair. “Fix it!” he demanded.
Although groggy, Tiki grinned. “Let me explain something to you about the sun,” he said.
“Maybe it’s ‘cause the world’s ending,” Devit told Jasdero.
“Maybe Jasdevi can travel through time,” Jasdero told Devit.
“It’s neither,” said Tiki. To tell the truth, he hadn’t understood everything that Rhode had told him, but he remembered the important parts well enough to reassure the twins. “You see, if the Earth is round, and the sun…”
“Hey, what’re these?” asked Devit, seizing one of the clear silver buttons from the table by Tiki. He turned one over to find an indecipherable jumble of letters on the reverse.
“These? These are my souvenirs. Dead Exorcists’ buttons.”
Devit dropped the one he’d been rolling between forefinger and thumb. “Exorcists? Disgusting!”
Tiki shrugged. “I like them. Pure silver, too. I like to have a memento of-”
“Can I have one?”
“You just called them disgusting.”
“Yeah, but we could melt ‘em down for the silver or something. Dumbass.”
“Kill your own Exorcists,” said Tiki, knowing full well that they were scarce, and the ones left surprisingly sneaky considering their habit of wearing their eye-catching silver buttons and black coats wherever they went.
The twins were taken aback. They looked at each other, thinking, That means going through the Ark.
“Cheapskate! Hee!” accused Jasdero.
“It’s just another of your filthy hobbies, isn’t it,” said Devit with his hands on his hips again. “Smoking, drinking, getting infested with fleas, and now this.” He made it sound worse than the other three put together, and he could make each of those three sound like leprosy.
“Didn’t you have a job to do?” asked Tiki.
“Heeee, can’t do it ‘till the Ark’s fixed!” Jasdero shifted from foot to foot, and pointed his gun at nothing.
“It’s not-”
“So, about these buttons,” said Devit, fingering the washed ones again.
“They’re covered in cholera,” said Tiki.
That got them out.
That night, Jasdero pulled his covers up to his chin and stared at the ceiling. “Jasdevi broke the Ark…” he whimpered after about half an hour.
Devit, who had been lying face down in a nest of sheets, equally unable to sleep, said in a muffled voice, “The Earl’s gonna be pissed!”
“Why’d this happen to Jasdevi!? Stupid Ark!” moaned Jasdero.
“And Tiki was going on about the sun…”
Jasdero sat bolt upright, throwing off his sheets. “Jasdevi broke the sun!?”
“We what!?” said Devit, propping himself up on one elbow.
“The sun was going all over the place! Gotta fix it!”
“Wait, we-how the hell could we have broken the sun? Wouldn’t we have noticed!?” The panic in Devit’s voice betrayed his belief that the possibility was there.
“Hee! Jasdevi are Noahs now! Maybe if the Ark breaks, the sun and things go wrong too!”
Defeated, Devit lay back in his bed. But it wasn’t all bad, he thought. “We must be really fucking strong.”
Although they weren’t sure if there was going to be a morning because of the solar anomalies, and although Jasdero, sprawled out on his bed, stared at the ceiling for another hour, the twins slept that night.
But morning did come, and they were up at the fist hint of light. Jasdero and Devit dressed with haste and only spent half an hour on makeup. They snuck into the Ark like criminals and faced down a control screen they’d used earlier as if its tangle of golden wires was about to come to life and strangle them.
Devit took a thin wire between forefinger and thumb, but jerked his hand away when the screen emitted a buzzing sound.
“We aren’t controllers like Rhode and the boss!” said Jasdero, crouching behind Devit and rocking back and forth. “Can’t fix it right!”
“Sure we can!” Devit was sure that he at least sounded confident. He turned and jabbed Jasdero’s forehead with his index finger. “We just need…uh, a wrench, and….”
“Scissors, hee!”
In moments the twins were wielding a wrench (in Devit’s case) and scissors (in Jasdero’s). They advanced, Devit bringing the wrench down on the screen and Jasdero snapping wires in two until the scissors got tangled up. The twins stepped back to admire their work. There were massive cracks in the screen, and sparks streamed from several of the cut wires.
“Is it fixed…?” asked Jasdero. He grinned uncertainly.
Devit whipped out his pistol and shot the screen. There was a small explosion.
“Now it is,” he said.
The lights went out all along the stretch of hall.
Jasdero took several additional shot at the wall-and the portal, chipping it-to see if that would help. Meanwhile, looking apprehensively at the doorway leading back to Edo, Devit repeatedly pressed the one intact button to the right of the screen. The portal opened onto the forest they’d visited the other day. There, it was obviously night.
“It’s-it’s still broken!” shrieked Jasdero, pointing.
“Shhhh!” said Devit as if there had not just been repeated gunshots. He held the button down, but the portal seemed to be stuck on a single location. He laughed nervously. “Let’s get out of here, Jasdero.”
“Hee! Okay!”
And they ran through the door, off into the forest.
“The Earl’s really gonna kill us,” moaned Devit, trudging across damp leaves. They were surrounded by the background noise of insects, and at times the strange calls of animals rang out. It was dark here and day in Edo. Devit was pretty sure they were in the past; Jasdero was convinced they were in the future.
“H-how’s he gonna kill Jasdevi?” asked Jasdero. He looked around nervously as they walked, and swung his pistol round to point at unassuming trees whenever some creature rustled the leaves. His headband attachment was the only light in the forest’s darkness, and Devit stayed close to it, as did a gathering of moths. However, there was a brighter direction, in which the moon shone beyond trees. That was the direction they were walking.
“How?” repeated the panic-eyed Jasdero, disregarding how loud his voice was.
“With Rhode,” said Devit.
The horror of this made them quicken their pace. There was little underbrush to block their path. When not targeting flora, they kept their pistols aimed at each other’s heads.
“Are Jasdevi going somewhere with food?” Jasdero asked eventually.
“Huh? Sure,” said Devit. “Quit your complaining. And when we get there, we won’t have to worry about imagining the exact right money!” He grinned and pulled a small, clinking bag out of his coat.
Jasdero recalled the incident that began with the two of them paying a British clothier with thought-up dollars and ended with them setting London on fire. “Hee! Good idea!”
Devit took a silver button from the sack and flipped it with his thumb. After he caught it, he held it close to Jasdero’s light, grimaced in disgust, and quickly dropped it. The button fell among leaves.
“That one wasn’t clean,” said Devit, wiping his hands off on his jacket. He proceeded to curse Tiki under his breath.
“People we give ‘em to are gonna get diseases!” giggled Jasdero.
“Hell yeah they will!” Devit was feeling better the farther they got from the opening in space that led to the Ark, which they could still sense behind them. Never mind the dark forest, they felt safer without any other people around.
When they tired of walking, they imagined a tent and sat inside playing Solitaire together, although this game was cut short when they realized they were imaging twelve Aces.
Tiki caught Rhode padding down a hallway.
“Rhode, there you are,” said Tiki. “You have to explain to the twins why time’s different when they use Ark. I think they’re going more insane.” His sardonic grin belied his concern.
“You couldn’t explain, Tiki? Wait, of course you couldn’t,” said Rhode, and patted his arm consolingly.
Tiki rolled his eyes. “They wouldn’t listen to me.” He headed towards the sitting room where he’d left the buttons and hoped Jasdevi were nearby so the matter could be cleared up before they got more annoying. Oh yes, the buttons-
“Guess who separated another Exorcist’s heart from his body the other day,” he said proudly.
“Ooh, did you keep it? Show me!” squealed Rhode.
“Of course not. I kept the buttons, though I accidentally got some blood-goddammit!” Tiki stepped into the doorway of the sitting room to find an absence where his souvenirs had been sitting on the table.
“Let’s go find those thieving brats,” he told Rhode.
Rhode had a word with an Akuma maid, and reports from Edo’s hordes of Akuma turned up no sightings of the highly visible Noah boys. She and Tiki turned to the Ark.
A single step, and they were in a space that was not Edo, nor anywhere else in the world that swarmed with humans. For some reason the lights had gone, but it was hard for Tiki to miss the cracked screen and broken wires that spewed sparks. Nearby was the empty white arch of a doorway. On the other side, bullet holes had scored wood panels.
“Did they actually think that would do anything?” asked Rhode, and put her small hand on the doorway’s patterned arch. A dark grove appeared through the white portal. They stepped through onto damp leaves, and a breeze almost blew Tiki’s cigarette away.
Rhode looked around the dark clearing with keen golden eyes. “Hide and seek!” she called. “I’ll find you, Jasdevi!” She scanned the ground and turned in the direction where the trees were the thinnest, forming what might be mistaken for a pathway. Bounding forward, she vanished among the trees. Tiki followed more sedately, feeling the chill breeze through his casual clothes.
After an indeterminate period of treading through the dimness of the forest after Rhode’s footfalls, Tiki heard them stop. He almost tripped over her. She was standing right in front of him with a mottled silver button held to her eye. It caught the moonlight a moment, and gleamed.
Tiki held out his hand, and she placed it in his palm. Now it was back where it belonged-not on the forest floor, not in Devit’s pocket, and certainly not adorning the overly-embellished coat of a filthy Exorcist. He put it in his pocket.
Rhode, her energy unabated, leaped away again. Tiki hoped the twins hadn’t gotten far. But presently they came upon a tent up ahead, discernable only because of the faint light that picked its shape out from the black shapes of trees, and the sound of voices trying but failing to be hushed. Rhode stalked towards it like a hunter. There was no stirring from the tent. A stake-like shape was suddenly in her hand, and she raised it, slicing down through the fabric of the tent.
There was an outcry, and the twins leapt to their feet and flailed at the cloth until it vanished like mist, leaving them standing in front of Rhode, who they regarded with horror. Tiki sauntered up, and noticed Rhode’s grin in the illumination of Jasdero’s little light.
“Jasdevi didn’t do it, we swear!” yelled Jasdero, who looked as if he would collapse at any moment.
“Do what, Jasdero?” Rhode asked sweetly.
“A-anything!” said Jasdero, at the same moment Devit yelled, “Nothing!”
Rhode stood there, the center of a very pointed silence.
Tiki let it drag on a bit. After all, the twins were nothing but sneak-thieves. Sneak-thieves who looked like they were about to panic and run off at any second.
Rhode laughed and seized their hands. Devit yelped and jumped back to no effect, and Jasdero let out a wail and sunk to his knees on the damp leaves. His light bobbed crazily.
“You didn’t break the Ark, Jasdevi,” said Rhode. “Let me show you what happened.”
“We’re gonna stay here, thank you,” said Devit, and was ignored as Rhode tugged on their hands. Jasdero wobbled to his feet. The twins were pulled reluctantly back the way they came, drawn more by fear of disobeying than by the slight weight of Rhode. Tiki walked nearby, escorting them. He was certain he could make out a heavy weight in one of Devit’s coat pockets.
Tiki cleared his throat. “Devit, I believe you have something of mine.”
“M-me?” Devit was already jumpy from the proximity of Rhode.
Tiki reached through his coat and pulled out the small sack of buttons, which he weighed in his palm. It felt like most of them were still there. Lucky for Devit and Jasdero.
He savored Devit’s seething silence for the rest of their walk.
Silently raging at Tiki and harboring nervousness towards Rhode, Devit felt himself calm somewhat when he and Jasdero returned to the Ark’s halls-after all, it was still there, and Rhode wasn’t hurting anybody yet. She took turn after turn, and they left austere white hallways for an unfamiliar labyrinth of wood-paneled hallways and rough stone floors that stank of mold. Stagnant water puddled over flagstones in places. Tiki was looking around like he were lost, or as lost as a Noah could be in the Ark.
“Where the hell are we going?” grumbled Devit. He managed to pull his hand free of Rhode’s, and stayed close by Jasdero, who allowed his to remain in her grasp. They kept their pistols trained on each other. (Under these circumstances, it could be a form of self-defense.)
The hallway widened, ending in tall double doors. The thick unpolished oak was carved in whorls around the edges. Jasdero and Devit waited side by side, wondering at what it contained. Rhode tugged at the heavy handles until Tiki stepped forward and pulled with her. The door dragged against uneven stones. Jasdero took a few nervous steps back.
However, the room it opened on was filled with sunlight from a window that stretched the length of the left wall. They were in a city of the Ark, empty and untouched.
The room contained a square table covered in a clean white cloth. In the center of the table was an intricate device that glinted more brightly than any buttons they’d ever stolen from Tiki.
The four of them gathered around it. The top was made of interlocking steel circles encompassed by larger rings, creating a sort of open globe. Small spheres of polished stone-lapis, black tourmaline, and jasper-rested in the center, each nestled in its own circle. The largest was a ball of cloudy yellow citrine in the exact center. The steel circles connected in graceful curves to a stem attached to a foot-high base that was intricate with clockwork.
Curiosity had now replaced Jasdero and Devit’s fear. Jasdero crouched on his heels to view the device from another angle. “Hee, what’s this?” he asked.
Devit was about to spin one of the wheels when Rhode seized his wrist. “Don’t touch it,” she ordered.
“Why can’t I-”
“Just watch, Devit.” She let go. “This is an orrery.”
The word mean nothing to Devit. “A what?”
“An orry?” asked Jasdero.
“An orrery, a model of the solar system, where the Earth is,” said Rhode, staring at the device with predatory interest.
“Oh yeah, Tiki said something about that,” said Devit. “So what?”
“This is the sun.” Rhode pointed at the citrine sphere in the center. It did look like a sun-and it reminded him of Jasdero’s light, which reflected from the miniature sun as he crouched by it.
“And this is the Earth, which is round.” The lapis lazuli bit. Jasdero and Devit listened, captivated by the device that they weren’t allowed to touch while waiting for Rhode to get to her point.
“Edo is here, and Paris is somewhere around here. Now. The sun gives light, correct?” asked Rhode. Devit rolled his eyes at the obviousness of it, but he and Jasdero nodded. She grabbed Jasdero’s antenna, yanking it away from his head.
“Oww!” cried Jasdero, pulling back at the headband that was caught in his hair.
Rhode deftly inserted the light through the rings without brushing one of them and held it next to the stone sun. Then she pointed at the far side of the stone Earth. Around the place she’d indicated Paris to be. Devit wasn’t sure what she was getting at, and Jasdero was occupied with trying to reclaim his headband for his head.
“The shadow,” Rhode said impatiently.
And there it was, on the far side of the Earth. Realization dawned on Jasdero and Devit. “Oh!” said Devit, as Jasdero said “Hee!” Rhode let go of Jasdero’s light, and his headband snapped back onto his head. Jasdero stood, adjusting it. “Jasdevi didn’t break the Ark!”
“Or the sun, no matter what Tiki says!” added Devit. He glared at the older man with the resentment of someone who’d had his stolen goods rightfully reclaimed.
“I told you that you didn’t break it,” said Tiki. With a last glance at the orrery, he walked out of the room, lighting a cigarette as he went.
Devit looked at Jasdero. “Let’s go kill that guy,” he said.
“Ask the questions first,” Rhode called after them, and waved with her fingers.
Dinner had only just begun. Rhode and Tiki sat across from each other, contemplating their plates. “I hope Jasdevi finish their mission soon, because I need those answers by-” Rhode was saying, when Devit swaggered into the dining room, followed closely by Jasdero. Their grins were bright and cruel.
“Yeah, we took care of it,” said Devit.
“And, and, and we wrote down what the guy said just in case!” added Jasdero, taking a crumpled piece of paper and a pencils stub out of an inner vest pocket and depositing them on the table next to a plate of greens.
“Good,” said Rhode as she chewed. “The deadline’s almost here.” She took the paper and uncrumpled it, then nodded to herself.
Jasdero pointed at the plate of sickly-looking yellow-green vegetables. “What are those?”
“Artichoke hearts,” said Tiki. He moved them around with his fork and cursed the day-yesterday-that Skinn had decided to beat the only available Akuma cook into a small pile of shrapnel.
The twins reeled back with expressions of disgust. “I thought you didn’t bring those home! Stick to the buttons, Tiki!” said Devit.
“Not those hearts,” said Rhode, but her voice was muffled because she was still chewing.
Devit put a hand down on the end of the table farthest from the artichoke hearts. “So…where are those buttons, anyway?”
Tiki wished that Devit would forget about the Exorcists’ buttons already. His collection would be done for if Devit or Jasdero got their hands on it again. Where could he put them so that they wouldn’t find them? He had, for now, hidden them beneath a couch cushion, but that would not protect them for long.
He made a noncommittal noise in response to Devit. If the twins weren’t so damn annoying, he wouldn’t even mind giving them a couple. Yes, if they’d appreciate the worth of a silver button….
Tiki thought of his other life and grinned. He did know a boy who would appreciate the worth of silver. “I gave them away,” he told Devit, and it wouldn’t be a lie for long.
“Stupid cheapskate!” yelled Jasdero as Devit pounded the table and scowled.
He responded with a shrug. Meanwhile, Rhode gave up chewing and spit something green onto her plate.
“Let’s go play with the planet thing, then,” said Jasdero.
“Oh, you can’t do that,” said Rhode from behind a napkin. She smiled lazily. “I mean…if you touch the orrery, Jasdevi, the sun stops working. And if that happened, the Earl and I would be very, very angry with you.”
The twins froze, regarding her with wide-eyed awe that contained only the barest hint of doubt.
Devit rallied. “You’re all a bunch of fucking cheapskates!” he said, and they stomped out. Tiki suspected it was three-quarters a ploy to avoid eating dinner.
Rhode tipped the contents of her plate onto Tiki’s. “Bye-bye, Tiki, I want to play,” she said, and vanished out the door by way of sneaking under the table. Left alone, Tiki sighed and reached for the crumpled-up paper.
It contained notes in large block letters that slanted across the page, interspersed with smaller lines scrawled by Devit. Tiki could make out something about Finders and traitors to the Earl.
That was half of the sheet. The other half contained Rhode’s math problems.
Jasdero and Devit sat on a snowy cliff, watching the sun rise in glories of yellow and rose over plains of snow. They would have been cold, but they’d conjured a thick blanket to sit on (and another when that soaked through), one blanket for Devit, one for Jasdero, and one more to drape over them both.
Devit knew that if anyone found out they’d been sitting on a cliffside watching the sunrise, they’d be laughed at, and then they’d probably have to shoot someone. He didn’t care-it wasn’t his and Jasdero’s fault they’d gotten tired just when they happened to pass by a snowy cliffside while the sun was rising. What did they know about time, or the sun, anyway?
Jasdero had happened to be carrying real hot cocoa in thermoses. Devit held his in his hands. It was warm, and as solid as the warmth of the sunlight hitting his and Jasdero’s faces was faint. Devit wondered why snow melted, anyway, and how come water liked to change shape. Maybe the answer was another one of the things God was hiding from them.
“Hey, Jasdero, do you think we’re gonna make it?” he asked.
“Hee! Make what?”
Devit grinned. “That’s what I thought.”