Cryptomancy
A couple of times I have had people ask me what, exactly, Roy G. Biv does. Other times, I have had people ask me everything from "is Dickie really Lucky's cousin?" to "why would Dickie refer to Billy as 'boy'?"
This short story answers one of these questions, and surprisingly it answers the one that I have thus far been the most dodgy about. It also hopefully creates a host of new ones, so we shall see. And so, without further ado, I give you:
Cryptomancy
(A short story, set in the world of Clockwork Lullabye)
At 0900 hours, Commander Richard Welles crouched with a toothbrush in his bathroom, scrubbing vomit out of tile grout.
It had been nearly ninety minutes, but the acrid scent still hung in the air as if to taunt him. It was disgusting, animal, and almost made him want to throw up again. This time he vowed he would not miss the toilet.
He stopped scrubbing and fell back against the plaster wall behind him. His glasses were off, one of the lenses cracked, lying beside him on the floor. His hair fell stringy across his face, which glistened under a fine layer of sweat. In fact, he looked so unlike himself right now that he thought that if Eulalie were to enter the room she would think him an intruder and call the police. And then the thought vanished, and so did the world. His eyes rolled back, and the bathroom faded to blackness.
~*~
Over one hundred years later, a man with no name other than Roy G. Biv sat in a crowded tea house.
To call the place a tea house was ridiculous. They hadn't sold tea there in years, no place in London did anymore. What they did have was a vile thing called crystal-drink, which tasted like a cross between apple cider and motor oil. Of course, Roy himself had not tasted real apple cider in years either. He thought they might serve it in the Bubble, but he wasn't really in a position to know for sure. He prided himself on his ability to stay out of the Bubble.
Across the table was a girl, odd looking to say the least. She was at least sensible enough to keep her red hair tucked up into a scarf. At least she was aware of the looks it would garner. He picked up the cup that sat in front of him, one of several mismatched antiques that the tea house employed. It was one of the gimmicks of the place. His nose twitched and he tried to swallow as much from the cup as possible without inhaling. He'd always had a problem with smells, and now was no exception.
"So," he addressed the girl as he replaced the cup to the table, "you have a problem for me?"
She frowned. "I have something, yes, and I was told that you could help me." Already, he could see walls going up behind her eyes. Whoever had recommended him had obviously not told her much about him. He didn't seem to be instilling her with confidence, which really didn't surprise him in the slightest.
Perhaps we should take a moment to meditate upon the physical appearance of Roy G. Biv, because it is a luxury we are given when he is faced with a person with whom he is unacquainted. Roy's hair is by all appearances normal brown hair, if a little abnormally greasy. He was this day dressed head to toe in violet, and his suit was of a relatively modern cut. He was, as always wearing a pair of glasses with thick plastic frames, which he pushed up his nose with his middle finger as he leaned forward and rested his elbows rudely upon the table.
"You have a secret, or something, and you want it safe?"
The redheaded girl nodded. She had told him her name earlier, but he had rather purposefully forgotten it.
"I think I can help you," he said simply. "But I only work in my office. Come on then."
~*~
"Three hours, Dickie, three hours!"
He was vaguely conscious that someone was screaming at him, even as her face swam in and out of focus. He tried to stand, but his heels slid ineffectually against the tile, occasionally catching in the grooves between. They never caught hard enough.
He leaned his head back until it slammed hard against the plaster behind him. There were two identical women in the door, but they wouldn't stay still. They also had the maddening habit of remaining partially transparent. He held up his hand, trying to cover one of their faces. It didn't seem to work. He tried to say something, but even if he'd remembered what he'd been about to say, his tongue seemed to have swollen to roughly four times the size of his mouth. It was impossible to squeeze words around.
When the two translucent heads coalesced into one form, he nearly gasped in horror until he realized that he'd up until that moment been seeing double. How curious. The women, or woman, now seemed not to be irritated, but concerned. Curiouser still. She dropped to her knees beside him, put her hand to his brow. It felt simultaneously like ice and like nothing at all. "I'm sorry," he managed to mumble, "but who are you?" The words came out barely intelligible, little more that loosely strung vowels. The woman stared at him as though he were insane.
"Dickie, it's me, don't be silly," she said with a little laugh, though it held no humor.
~*~
"If you clear your mind a little, it will make my job considerably easier," said Roy.
"I still don't understand what this is all about. I thought you would have an engine or something. Some kind of machine. Clock said you have a method, and--"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "I don't use engines," he said, somewhat distastefully. "Now please, have a seat."
The office was a wreck. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling in shelves created from polyplastic planks and cinderblocks. Every shelf was bowed under the weight of his various possessions. It was clear that these were elements of a collection, though what precisely he was collecting was a mystery, unless he simply collected everything. The girl looked reluctant, as though she thought that sitting in one of his chairs would be akin to flopping down on a public toilet seat, but she eventually acquiesced and took a seat on the guest side of his desk.
Roy stepped up behind her. He preferred to do his work behind their backs, because even the City's oddest residents didn't really "get" what he did. Hell, he wasn't even sure that he did half the time. "Now just hold still, and try not to think about too many things," he instructed her.
~*~
When he didn't respond, she seemed to grow a little more worried, but also a bit more determined. She wedged her shoulder under his armpit and struggled to her feet with Dickie in a sort of lifeguard hold, only without the aid of the water. She was a strong woman, he marveled, and thought he might have marveled such a thing before. In a series of shuddering steps, she managed to guide him out the bathroom door.
Again, the world heaved. His feet went out from under him and he fell forward. She managed to squirm away quickly enough to avoid being taken down too. Good for her. As his eyes closed he barely heard her horrified scream.
~*~
"Is it going to hurt?" asked Sophie. That was her name, Sophie. He remembered it now, as though he had never forgotten. He'd have to push it out again once she'd left. He didn't think that this girl was someone he wanted to know.
"It shouldn't," he replied. For once, his voice was soft and compassionate. Despite whether he wanted to know her, he didn't want her to be afraid. Aside from making his job more difficult, she seemed like a pretty nice girl. "Some people say it hurts, but afterward, well..." He trailed off, didn't finish the sentence. Afterward, nobody remembers. He smiled weakly, though he still stood behind her.
His hands went out in front of him. This part was unnecessary, really, it was more a nervous tic he'd developed, and now it just helped him focus. His articulate fingers flexed in the air, seemingly strumming at invisible strings.
"Wait," Sophie gasped. "Stop."
His breath fell out of him in a pained sigh, and his eyes snapped open. "Yes?" he answered, his voice shaky and tight.
"I..."
"What is it?" He circled her, came to crouch down in front of where she sat. He hadn't even scratched the surface, but already a pair of grey half moons hung under his eyes.
"I just...how do you do it?"
For half a second, Roy blanched, but recovered admirably quickly. "It's hard to explain," he tried.
"Please?" Sophie regarded him with wide eyes. A small crease had formed between her eyebrows. "I won't tell," she added.
No, he thought, you won't. He collapsed out of his crouch to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her. "Do you know what I was good at when I was a child, Sophie?" he asked, but didn't pause nearly long enough for an answer. "Untying knots. My father recognized this talent, and thought it was something useful, so he decided to 'train' me. He would take these great long pieces of string and try to tangle them up as bad as he could, then give them to me."
"How odd."
He shrugged. "Not really. Anyway, the knots at first were difficult for me, but the thing is, you have to approach the knot from the outside first. You have to weaken it, pick it apart a little. That's the secret. Once you do that, you just take one end and follow it through to its natural conclusion."
"That doesn't really make sense."
He shrugged again. It was a natural gesture for his lanky body. "Sure it does. I'm just talking about the vision involved. Big picture, little picture, all that."
"No, I mean odd I asked you a question, and you're telling me some random story about string."
"I'm answering your question," he replied. "You asked 'how do you do it.' That's how I do it. I look at the big knot, pull it apart a little, then I follow the string to its natural conclusion."
"But you haven't even asked me any questions. You don't even know what it is I want hidden."
He smiled a peculiar smile, full of something that looked exactly like sadness, but wasn't. "Sophie, I already know everything I need to," he said softly. "Your strings are pretty straight already."
~*~
"Mr. Welles, can you hear me? Mr. Welles?" The voice was interesting. It tasted like blueberries.
"He's been like this for at least an hour. Probably longer. I found him on the bathroom floor clinging to a dirty toothbrush."
"Has he said anything?"
"Once, he asked me who I was."
The blueberry voice seemed to be doing something, because Dickie heard nothing for awhile. He decided to try his eyes again. They fluttered open and immediately he wished that he had not even tried. Brilliant light spilled into his pupils, encasing his brain in buzzing, white pain. "God, shut that bloody light off," he muttered, and the woman from the bathroom gasped and grabbed his hand.
"He's awake!" she cried. Her cheeks were streaked with mascara, and her eyes were shot through with red.
"What in the hell is going on?" he demanded, and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He noticed that his voice sounded odd, and clawed an oxygen mask away from his face. As he removed it, he only then noticed that it smelled faintly of iodine. "Bloody hell, I'm in the hospital, aren't I?"
"Dickie, I had to bring you here, you were so...well, I was worried!" said the woman.
"Eulalie." Her name tasted odd on his tongue, but now it was as though he'd never forgotten it at all. The blueberry voiced person was a nurse, who now stood gaping on the other side of the room.
"Yes, yes, it's me," said the woman from the bathroom, and threw her arms around him enthusiastically. He sighed out half a laugh, and hugged her as closely as his fatigued muscles would allow.
The nurse crossed over to his bedside in a few quick moments, and very gently pried he and Eulalie apart. "How do you feel?" she asked absently as she busied herself taking his vitals. He was somewhat amused by this, and attempted not to laugh. He had the vague notion that it would be inappropriate.
"Like shit," he replied bluntly, and Eulalie laughed so suddenly that she snorted a little. This, of course, caused Dickie to look up and grin at her.
The nurse, however, frowned. "How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked.
"The square root of nine," he replied. The nurse's frown deepened.
"Don't be mean, Dickie," said Eulalie.
"It's an easy one. Everyone knows the square root of nine."
The nurse sighed.
"It's three," answered Eulalie for her benefit. "At least I can see you're back to yourself," she added.
~*~
At first, it felt like falling.
That was normal, and the first few times he'd tried this particular trick, the vertigo had floored him. Even now, every time he did it he could practically smell the bacteria in the tile grout, taste the vomit creeping into his sinuses. After a second it leveled out, however, and there were mercifully enough other sensations to distract him from the memory image of two translucent women sliding over one another like film negatives in his bathroom doorway.
The analogy of the string had been for the most part true. Roy G. Biv could remember being a solemn faced boy working at tangles of twine, literally for hours. And he did view this as much the same. It was about seeing the big picture, and then breaking that big picture down into little bite-sized pieces. Sophie's head was remarkably empty, though not in the sense that she was stupid. Roy didn't typically work with stupid people, as his solutions never really stuck with them. An uncomplicated mind is a difficult thing to knot.
No, Sophie's mind was guileless. Her threads were easy to follow, which gave the whole experience the superficial feeling of being easy. It was, of course, remarkably difficult once one began to scratch the surface, as it usually was with the guileless type.
It was hard work, and after about twenty minutes of it, Sophie's head dropped forward onto her chest and her breathing grew regular. Roy did not notice this, however. His eyes were shut as well, and his fingers still plucked inaudible melodies in the air. He fell deeper and deeper, until he found the thing for which he'd been searching, and this he grasped hold of so tightly that physically his fists clenched, and his fingernails dug deeply into his lined palm. They sank into what fortune-tellers called his head line. The irony of this was lost on Roy.
~*~
The nurse refused to release him. She hadn't even wanted to leave them alone, but Dickie had made a few vaguely threatening statements about his closeness with her direct superior, and she'd finally acquiesced to giving them a short visit. Soon enough, his eyes were clear and he was listening with a reasonable amount of interest as Eulalie recounted some story about something or another that had happened at the office.
"So what...happened?" she nonsequitured at the end of one of her sentences.
He was slightly taken aback, which he happened to know had been her intention. She had tried this trick a few times before when she'd been questioning him about other topics he hadn't wanted to talk about. In the past it had typically been military secrets, and it had never worked.
"Nothing," he replied. "A spot of vertigo."
Her eyes narrowed appraisingly. "Vertigo?"
"Yes." And then, as if it made sense, added, "I learnt something that did not agree with me."
"What?"
"I mean ate something. I ate something that did not agree with me. Food poisoning."
Eulalie raised her eyebrows, but kept her mouth diplomatically closed.
~*~
"Is that...are you finished?" Sophie asked. Her eyelashes, heavy with tears, parted.
"Yes," he replied. Again, he was crouching in front of her, and he reached out and patted her gently on the knee.
"I..." She reached out to put a hand to her temple. "I feel odd. I'm not exactly sure what's going on."
He fought the urge to laugh as he rose to his feet. He offered her his hand to help her up, which she gratefully accepted, and to her credit she only stumbled a little as she stood.
"Don't worry," he told her. "As soon as you step out that door, this will all be over, and you'll feel right as rain."
She smiled weakly, clearly still confused, but allowed him to help her across the room. He'd gotten his payment up front. That was one of the very first lessons he'd learned in this business.
When the door opened it was raining, but then, it was always raining. Roy opened an umbrella for Sophie and placed the hooked handle in her tiny white hand. "I feel like I should say thank you," she said, "though I've no idea what for."
"Well then I am obliged to say you're welcome," he replied with a wistful smile. "Give my regards to Clock."
"Oh, you know him!" she grinned. He smiled back. Already, everything was fading then. Roy never ceased to take pride in what he did.
"Yes," he replied. "But get along now, you'll catch cold."
With another bright smile, Sophie walked away down the sidewalk. At first, her steps were shaky, but they grew solid, confident, as she went. Roy watched her as she made the end of the block, and didn't look away until she'd rounded the corner that would take her to the rail station and back to her home in the Bubble. Even then, he watched the empty sidewalk for a few beats longer before he ducked back inside and closed the rickety door, shutting out the City and the rain, and even on Miss Sophie Three-three-three. As he crossed the room once more to his desk, he again suddenly and quite purposefully forgot her name.
All in a day's work.
This short story answers one of these questions, and surprisingly it answers the one that I have thus far been the most dodgy about. It also hopefully creates a host of new ones, so we shall see. And so, without further ado, I give you:
Cryptomancy
(A short story, set in the world of Clockwork Lullabye)
At 0900 hours, Commander Richard Welles crouched with a toothbrush in his bathroom, scrubbing vomit out of tile grout.
It had been nearly ninety minutes, but the acrid scent still hung in the air as if to taunt him. It was disgusting, animal, and almost made him want to throw up again. This time he vowed he would not miss the toilet.
He stopped scrubbing and fell back against the plaster wall behind him. His glasses were off, one of the lenses cracked, lying beside him on the floor. His hair fell stringy across his face, which glistened under a fine layer of sweat. In fact, he looked so unlike himself right now that he thought that if Eulalie were to enter the room she would think him an intruder and call the police. And then the thought vanished, and so did the world. His eyes rolled back, and the bathroom faded to blackness.
~*~
Over one hundred years later, a man with no name other than Roy G. Biv sat in a crowded tea house.
To call the place a tea house was ridiculous. They hadn't sold tea there in years, no place in London did anymore. What they did have was a vile thing called crystal-drink, which tasted like a cross between apple cider and motor oil. Of course, Roy himself had not tasted real apple cider in years either. He thought they might serve it in the Bubble, but he wasn't really in a position to know for sure. He prided himself on his ability to stay out of the Bubble.
Across the table was a girl, odd looking to say the least. She was at least sensible enough to keep her red hair tucked up into a scarf. At least she was aware of the looks it would garner. He picked up the cup that sat in front of him, one of several mismatched antiques that the tea house employed. It was one of the gimmicks of the place. His nose twitched and he tried to swallow as much from the cup as possible without inhaling. He'd always had a problem with smells, and now was no exception.
"So," he addressed the girl as he replaced the cup to the table, "you have a problem for me?"
She frowned. "I have something, yes, and I was told that you could help me." Already, he could see walls going up behind her eyes. Whoever had recommended him had obviously not told her much about him. He didn't seem to be instilling her with confidence, which really didn't surprise him in the slightest.
Perhaps we should take a moment to meditate upon the physical appearance of Roy G. Biv, because it is a luxury we are given when he is faced with a person with whom he is unacquainted. Roy's hair is by all appearances normal brown hair, if a little abnormally greasy. He was this day dressed head to toe in violet, and his suit was of a relatively modern cut. He was, as always wearing a pair of glasses with thick plastic frames, which he pushed up his nose with his middle finger as he leaned forward and rested his elbows rudely upon the table.
"You have a secret, or something, and you want it safe?"
The redheaded girl nodded. She had told him her name earlier, but he had rather purposefully forgotten it.
"I think I can help you," he said simply. "But I only work in my office. Come on then."
~*~
"Three hours, Dickie, three hours!"
He was vaguely conscious that someone was screaming at him, even as her face swam in and out of focus. He tried to stand, but his heels slid ineffectually against the tile, occasionally catching in the grooves between. They never caught hard enough.
He leaned his head back until it slammed hard against the plaster behind him. There were two identical women in the door, but they wouldn't stay still. They also had the maddening habit of remaining partially transparent. He held up his hand, trying to cover one of their faces. It didn't seem to work. He tried to say something, but even if he'd remembered what he'd been about to say, his tongue seemed to have swollen to roughly four times the size of his mouth. It was impossible to squeeze words around.
When the two translucent heads coalesced into one form, he nearly gasped in horror until he realized that he'd up until that moment been seeing double. How curious. The women, or woman, now seemed not to be irritated, but concerned. Curiouser still. She dropped to her knees beside him, put her hand to his brow. It felt simultaneously like ice and like nothing at all. "I'm sorry," he managed to mumble, "but who are you?" The words came out barely intelligible, little more that loosely strung vowels. The woman stared at him as though he were insane.
"Dickie, it's me, don't be silly," she said with a little laugh, though it held no humor.
~*~
"If you clear your mind a little, it will make my job considerably easier," said Roy.
"I still don't understand what this is all about. I thought you would have an engine or something. Some kind of machine. Clock said you have a method, and--"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "I don't use engines," he said, somewhat distastefully. "Now please, have a seat."
The office was a wreck. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling in shelves created from polyplastic planks and cinderblocks. Every shelf was bowed under the weight of his various possessions. It was clear that these were elements of a collection, though what precisely he was collecting was a mystery, unless he simply collected everything. The girl looked reluctant, as though she thought that sitting in one of his chairs would be akin to flopping down on a public toilet seat, but she eventually acquiesced and took a seat on the guest side of his desk.
Roy stepped up behind her. He preferred to do his work behind their backs, because even the City's oddest residents didn't really "get" what he did. Hell, he wasn't even sure that he did half the time. "Now just hold still, and try not to think about too many things," he instructed her.
~*~
When he didn't respond, she seemed to grow a little more worried, but also a bit more determined. She wedged her shoulder under his armpit and struggled to her feet with Dickie in a sort of lifeguard hold, only without the aid of the water. She was a strong woman, he marveled, and thought he might have marveled such a thing before. In a series of shuddering steps, she managed to guide him out the bathroom door.
Again, the world heaved. His feet went out from under him and he fell forward. She managed to squirm away quickly enough to avoid being taken down too. Good for her. As his eyes closed he barely heard her horrified scream.
~*~
"Is it going to hurt?" asked Sophie. That was her name, Sophie. He remembered it now, as though he had never forgotten. He'd have to push it out again once she'd left. He didn't think that this girl was someone he wanted to know.
"It shouldn't," he replied. For once, his voice was soft and compassionate. Despite whether he wanted to know her, he didn't want her to be afraid. Aside from making his job more difficult, she seemed like a pretty nice girl. "Some people say it hurts, but afterward, well..." He trailed off, didn't finish the sentence. Afterward, nobody remembers. He smiled weakly, though he still stood behind her.
His hands went out in front of him. This part was unnecessary, really, it was more a nervous tic he'd developed, and now it just helped him focus. His articulate fingers flexed in the air, seemingly strumming at invisible strings.
"Wait," Sophie gasped. "Stop."
His breath fell out of him in a pained sigh, and his eyes snapped open. "Yes?" he answered, his voice shaky and tight.
"I..."
"What is it?" He circled her, came to crouch down in front of where she sat. He hadn't even scratched the surface, but already a pair of grey half moons hung under his eyes.
"I just...how do you do it?"
For half a second, Roy blanched, but recovered admirably quickly. "It's hard to explain," he tried.
"Please?" Sophie regarded him with wide eyes. A small crease had formed between her eyebrows. "I won't tell," she added.
No, he thought, you won't. He collapsed out of his crouch to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her. "Do you know what I was good at when I was a child, Sophie?" he asked, but didn't pause nearly long enough for an answer. "Untying knots. My father recognized this talent, and thought it was something useful, so he decided to 'train' me. He would take these great long pieces of string and try to tangle them up as bad as he could, then give them to me."
"How odd."
He shrugged. "Not really. Anyway, the knots at first were difficult for me, but the thing is, you have to approach the knot from the outside first. You have to weaken it, pick it apart a little. That's the secret. Once you do that, you just take one end and follow it through to its natural conclusion."
"That doesn't really make sense."
He shrugged again. It was a natural gesture for his lanky body. "Sure it does. I'm just talking about the vision involved. Big picture, little picture, all that."
"No, I mean odd I asked you a question, and you're telling me some random story about string."
"I'm answering your question," he replied. "You asked 'how do you do it.' That's how I do it. I look at the big knot, pull it apart a little, then I follow the string to its natural conclusion."
"But you haven't even asked me any questions. You don't even know what it is I want hidden."
He smiled a peculiar smile, full of something that looked exactly like sadness, but wasn't. "Sophie, I already know everything I need to," he said softly. "Your strings are pretty straight already."
~*~
"Mr. Welles, can you hear me? Mr. Welles?" The voice was interesting. It tasted like blueberries.
"He's been like this for at least an hour. Probably longer. I found him on the bathroom floor clinging to a dirty toothbrush."
"Has he said anything?"
"Once, he asked me who I was."
The blueberry voice seemed to be doing something, because Dickie heard nothing for awhile. He decided to try his eyes again. They fluttered open and immediately he wished that he had not even tried. Brilliant light spilled into his pupils, encasing his brain in buzzing, white pain. "God, shut that bloody light off," he muttered, and the woman from the bathroom gasped and grabbed his hand.
"He's awake!" she cried. Her cheeks were streaked with mascara, and her eyes were shot through with red.
"What in the hell is going on?" he demanded, and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He noticed that his voice sounded odd, and clawed an oxygen mask away from his face. As he removed it, he only then noticed that it smelled faintly of iodine. "Bloody hell, I'm in the hospital, aren't I?"
"Dickie, I had to bring you here, you were so...well, I was worried!" said the woman.
"Eulalie." Her name tasted odd on his tongue, but now it was as though he'd never forgotten it at all. The blueberry voiced person was a nurse, who now stood gaping on the other side of the room.
"Yes, yes, it's me," said the woman from the bathroom, and threw her arms around him enthusiastically. He sighed out half a laugh, and hugged her as closely as his fatigued muscles would allow.
The nurse crossed over to his bedside in a few quick moments, and very gently pried he and Eulalie apart. "How do you feel?" she asked absently as she busied herself taking his vitals. He was somewhat amused by this, and attempted not to laugh. He had the vague notion that it would be inappropriate.
"Like shit," he replied bluntly, and Eulalie laughed so suddenly that she snorted a little. This, of course, caused Dickie to look up and grin at her.
The nurse, however, frowned. "How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked.
"The square root of nine," he replied. The nurse's frown deepened.
"Don't be mean, Dickie," said Eulalie.
"It's an easy one. Everyone knows the square root of nine."
The nurse sighed.
"It's three," answered Eulalie for her benefit. "At least I can see you're back to yourself," she added.
~*~
At first, it felt like falling.
That was normal, and the first few times he'd tried this particular trick, the vertigo had floored him. Even now, every time he did it he could practically smell the bacteria in the tile grout, taste the vomit creeping into his sinuses. After a second it leveled out, however, and there were mercifully enough other sensations to distract him from the memory image of two translucent women sliding over one another like film negatives in his bathroom doorway.
The analogy of the string had been for the most part true. Roy G. Biv could remember being a solemn faced boy working at tangles of twine, literally for hours. And he did view this as much the same. It was about seeing the big picture, and then breaking that big picture down into little bite-sized pieces. Sophie's head was remarkably empty, though not in the sense that she was stupid. Roy didn't typically work with stupid people, as his solutions never really stuck with them. An uncomplicated mind is a difficult thing to knot.
No, Sophie's mind was guileless. Her threads were easy to follow, which gave the whole experience the superficial feeling of being easy. It was, of course, remarkably difficult once one began to scratch the surface, as it usually was with the guileless type.
It was hard work, and after about twenty minutes of it, Sophie's head dropped forward onto her chest and her breathing grew regular. Roy did not notice this, however. His eyes were shut as well, and his fingers still plucked inaudible melodies in the air. He fell deeper and deeper, until he found the thing for which he'd been searching, and this he grasped hold of so tightly that physically his fists clenched, and his fingernails dug deeply into his lined palm. They sank into what fortune-tellers called his head line. The irony of this was lost on Roy.
~*~
The nurse refused to release him. She hadn't even wanted to leave them alone, but Dickie had made a few vaguely threatening statements about his closeness with her direct superior, and she'd finally acquiesced to giving them a short visit. Soon enough, his eyes were clear and he was listening with a reasonable amount of interest as Eulalie recounted some story about something or another that had happened at the office.
"So what...happened?" she nonsequitured at the end of one of her sentences.
He was slightly taken aback, which he happened to know had been her intention. She had tried this trick a few times before when she'd been questioning him about other topics he hadn't wanted to talk about. In the past it had typically been military secrets, and it had never worked.
"Nothing," he replied. "A spot of vertigo."
Her eyes narrowed appraisingly. "Vertigo?"
"Yes." And then, as if it made sense, added, "I learnt something that did not agree with me."
"What?"
"I mean ate something. I ate something that did not agree with me. Food poisoning."
Eulalie raised her eyebrows, but kept her mouth diplomatically closed.
~*~
"Is that...are you finished?" Sophie asked. Her eyelashes, heavy with tears, parted.
"Yes," he replied. Again, he was crouching in front of her, and he reached out and patted her gently on the knee.
"I..." She reached out to put a hand to her temple. "I feel odd. I'm not exactly sure what's going on."
He fought the urge to laugh as he rose to his feet. He offered her his hand to help her up, which she gratefully accepted, and to her credit she only stumbled a little as she stood.
"Don't worry," he told her. "As soon as you step out that door, this will all be over, and you'll feel right as rain."
She smiled weakly, clearly still confused, but allowed him to help her across the room. He'd gotten his payment up front. That was one of the very first lessons he'd learned in this business.
When the door opened it was raining, but then, it was always raining. Roy opened an umbrella for Sophie and placed the hooked handle in her tiny white hand. "I feel like I should say thank you," she said, "though I've no idea what for."
"Well then I am obliged to say you're welcome," he replied with a wistful smile. "Give my regards to Clock."
"Oh, you know him!" she grinned. He smiled back. Already, everything was fading then. Roy never ceased to take pride in what he did.
"Yes," he replied. "But get along now, you'll catch cold."
With another bright smile, Sophie walked away down the sidewalk. At first, her steps were shaky, but they grew solid, confident, as she went. Roy watched her as she made the end of the block, and didn't look away until she'd rounded the corner that would take her to the rail station and back to her home in the Bubble. Even then, he watched the empty sidewalk for a few beats longer before he ducked back inside and closed the rickety door, shutting out the City and the rain, and even on Miss Sophie Three-three-three. As he crossed the room once more to his desk, he again suddenly and quite purposefully forgot her name.
All in a day's work.