fic: The Indirect Life (6/?)
Title: The Indirect Life
Author: blade_girl
Characters: Ambrose/Glitch, appearances by or mentions of Azkadellia and others
Rating: PG-13
Summary: First, he was Ambrose; eventually, he became Glitch. In between, he was simply lost.
Warning: None
Disclaimer: If I owned this franchise, I would have a better car.
Word Count: 3,666
Chapter One - Forgotten
Chapter Two - The Prompt
Chapter Three - Rhapsody of Hope
Chapter Four - Jigsaw (1)
Chapter Five - Jigsaw (2)
ETA: Chapter Seven - Jigsaw (4)
A/N: Well, I thought the "one post" could be broken into three, but it seems that the third one was too long for LJ, so... this is the third piece of four. I have no idea whether anyone is still reading this story (other than my betas), but I’m still writing it, so let the posting continue!
Many thanks and much appreciation, as always, to my betas, crazymadi and blackletter.
Overwhelmed by too much horror and too many dire emotions at once, Ambrose leaned against his bars and slid slowly down them until his rump hit the floor. His responses to what had happened were so extreme that they were nearly canceling each other out - empathy for the horror Charles had experienced; amazement and revulsion that he had managed to resist despite his son’s profound suffering; terror for the remaining members of Charles’s family should Lonot succeed in finding them; panic over Azkadellia’s plan to mutilate Charles’s brain.
He turned to look into the other cell. Charles was sitting just as he had all along, still not moving or displaying any emotion. Wake up! Ambrose wanted to scream. Wake up and start looking back on your life! Revel in your achievements, your challenges, your regrets. Review every wonderful thing and every horrible thing that ever happened to you. Remember who you are until you can’t anymore! If anyone were qualified to give this advice, it was certainly Ambrose.
Then again, maybe Charles was better off retreating into whatever mental closet he was currently occupying. Who was Ambrose to try to force him out of a protective cocoon to confront the monstrous events of the last few hours?
His eyes happened upon the back wall of his cell. My name is Ambrose. If not for Charles, he wouldn’t know his own name. If not for him, he’d have no idea that he’d once been a royal advisor. He wouldn’t know that he’d been a brilliant scientist, wouldn’t know… Ambrose strained to remember what else he’d learned. Oh! He wouldn’t know that he’d risked himself to stay at the Queen’s side. He wouldn’t even know why he’d had half his brain removed. Granted, he couldn’t remember the reason for it right now, but he knew that Charles had explained it a while back.
Hell, if not for Charles, he wouldn’t know how to play Charms.
Chewing on a fingertip, Ambrose thought about Charles undergoing criminal extraction. In orchestrating that, Azkadellia would be erasing two lives - one for the first time, the other for the second. He hated that he was selfish enough to worry about this, but the truth was that when Charles’s memory was gone, Ambrose would, to a large degree, cease to exist. That was a terrifying realization by itself, but equally distressing was the knowledge that once Charles was relieved of his memory, their friendship was likely dead, as well. It was one thing to rekindle a friendship between a person who remembered and one who didn’t. Trying to keep that friendship alive when neither could remember was an exercise in the blind leading the blind.
Closing his eyes, Ambrose fought to stave off burgeoning panic that was, at best, inappropriate. Making out Charles’s impending tragedy to be about him was the worst kind of narcissism. The man had shown an inordinate amount of patience and kindness in trying to explain things to Ambrose, and he should be grateful. He was grateful - what he should be doing is letting Charles know that now, while the man could still remember what he had done for him.
He stood up, intent on telling Charles how he felt, but suddenly, he was not in the cell, but back in that dim room of obscure memory.
He stirred the ashes in the fireplace, ensuring that all the torn pieces of the large diagram burned completely. The other men had begun to leave, watching through the covered windows, timing their departures so that there was no mass exodus that might be noticed from outside.
A hand on his shoulder caused him to straighten and turn around. Charles was there.
“Time for me to go.”
Ambrose nodded, swallowing. Charles had the role with the greatest risk, the weightiest responsibility. He hadn’t hesitated to accept, knowing what was at stake, and he was definitely the right choice, but it still felt like sending him to cross a tightrope without benefit of a pole. “You have everything you need?”
“All the arrangements are made,” Charles said. “I’ll leave well before the suns are up.”
A flutter in Ambrose’s stomach created a shaky sigh. “Please be careful.”
Charles smiled ironically. “I should be telling you that. You’re the one staying behind.” His expression shifted. “Are you sure you about that, by the way?”
No! he wanted to say. Instead, he nodded.
“Because I can’t help thinking that you’d be more valuable in hiding, helping to strategize.”
Ambrose took a breath to quell the part of him that wanted to agree. “Possibly, but it would attract too much attention for me to leave now. And she’ll need me.”
Charles nodded without much conviction. Ambrose forced a smile and said, “Besides, strategy is one of your strong suits.”
“Then why haven’t I won more of our chess games?”
A pang of regret, unexpectedly strong, stung Ambrose. “I’ll miss those.”
Now it was Charles who forced a smile. “We’ll play again.”
“I hope so.” Awkwardly, he held out his hand; the gesture seemed inappropriately dispassionate, as though they weren’t probably saying their final goodbye. Charles shook the hand then put both of his on the younger man’s shoulders.
“You’ve given us hope,” he said. “I only pray I can hold up my end.”
Ambrose surprised himself with a laugh. “You’re the only one who doubts it.”
There was a final moment of silence between them, mostly because there was just too much to say, and then Charles nodded a farewell, crossed to the door, and left.
Thrust back into the present, Ambrose staggered slightly, as though the memory had physical weight. “Wow,” he whispered to himself. “I wasn’t even trying.”
Part of him seemed capable of understanding the memory and how it related to the current situation, but that part was hampered by the confusion and lack of clarity that characterized the thinking of a man with only half the brain matter he’d been born with. What he needed was to run this memory by someone who could not only understand it but put it into context.
“Charles!” he cried excitedly. “I’ve just remembered something! I -”
“You know, I taught him to shoot.”
Ambrose stopped short. “Huh? Who?” Charles wasn’t staring at the floor anymore. His voice was still coming from far away, but it had lost that unnerving lack of inflection.
“Logan. I taught him target shooting. When he was thirteen.”
“Oh.” He wanted to sweep aside this conversation to get to the more urgent matter at hand, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Um… I’m sure he was great at it.”
“No, he was dreadful. I wasn’t any good, either. We considered ourselves wildly successful if we actually managed to hit the target.”
Try as he might, Ambrose couldn’t think of an appropriate response. Then again, Charles didn’t seem to require one.
“He never really had much interest in sports, rather like me. I dutifully introduced him to all the activities my father had told me I was supposed to enjoy, and Logan disliked them as much as I had. It was something we laughed about, through the years.”
Thinking of Charles and his son sharing laughter was bitterly painful when Ambrose acknowledged how their last hours together had been spent. He couldn’t help wondering if this were not the healthiest way for Charles to direct his thoughts, now that his remaining time for clear thinking was extremely limited. “Charles, I remem-”
“History, that was his passion,” Charles continued. “He was fascinated by the past. Had no interest in the politics of the present, not until…” Lost in remembrance, Charles trailed off for a few seconds. Suddenly, he shook his head as though snapping back to the present. “I sent him and his family away just before Azkadellia seized Central City. I wanted… wanted them to be safe.”
The desolation in his eyes and voice twisted in Ambrose’s gut like a knife. Pain like that shouldn’t have to be borne alone, if at all. It was a hideous, perverse thought, but maybe, in this particular case, criminal extraction would be a mercy.
Charles seemed to have come to the end of his musings. Ambrose frowned, a seed of unease growing in his mind. Didn’t he have something he wanted to tell Charles? He was sure it had been very important.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, brain,” he whispered, rubbing his brow anxiously. “Cough it up. The man’s about to be -”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, heading their way. Ambrose jerked his head toward the sound before looking frantically at Charles. He’d heard the approach as well, and when he met Ambrose’s gaze, his fear was obvious. Trying to offer some kind of comfort, Ambrose moved as close to Charles as possible, until he was pressing against the barred door.
Charles stood quickly and came to his door as well, and the two of them just looked at each other. There was too much to be said for them to say anything.
Again?
Wait. They’d said goodbye once before… hadn’t they? Ambrose was distracted by an unexpected feeling of déjà vu. The voice of Lonot barely penetrated his preoccupation.
“Hello, Charles. Ready to lose your mind?”
“Better that than my honor,” Charles retorted.
Lonot smiled. “Your bravado would be more convincing if your voice weren’t shaking.”
“We have no time for this,” grumbled another bald man, pushing past Lonot.
Ambrose started at the new voice. He’d heard it before, seen this man before; he’d looked up into that cold face from a position of helplessness and known that he was little more than a laboratory animal. Seeing him now, Ambrose felt a desperate urge to move away.
“Open the door,” commanded the man. He seemed accustomed to giving orders.
The additional longcoats looked to Lonot, who gave the nod, and the door to Charles’s cell was opened. Charles recoiled by a couple of steps.
Lonot glared at the prisoner, failing to conceal his resentment. “Now, I suppose we’ll finally find out what you’re hiding.”
Hiding.
The new man didn’t take his gaze from Charles. “I will find out what he’s hiding.”
“I can’t help thinking that you’d be more valuable in hiding.”
“So you’re the alchemist.” Charles moved backward again, until he’d reached the far corner of the cell, as though the extra distance might discourage them, convince them to give up.
The alchemist gestured to the longcoats and entered the cell. Without preamble, he brandished a rod and zapped Charles in the shoulder. The charge sent Charles to his knees and the longcoats moved to take him by the arms.
But Charles wasn’t ready to go. He fought their attempts to pull him across the floor, and one of the men punched him.
“Stop that!” bellowed the alchemist. “You could damage the brain. I know how to deal with this.”
He reached out with the rod again and the longcoats let Charles go. Charles leaned back on his hands and tried to scoot away, but the rod caught him in the side. The alchemist gave him a longer zap this time, and Charles collapsed all the way to the floor.
The longcoats lifted him by the arms and half-carried him from the corner toward the door. Ambrose gripped his cell bars so tightly he felt the slickness of blood on one palm.
“Wait.” The longcoats stopped just inside the cell door at Lonot’s order. The alchemist glared at him and Charles sluggishly raised his eyes to meet the general’s penetrating gaze. “You can stop this, Charles.”
“He can’t stop it,” the alchemist interrupted. “The sorceress was quite clear -”
“Just tell us, right now,” Lonot said, ignoring him, “what we want to know.”
For the first time, indecision appeared in Charles’s expression. Ambrose had to admit, this was a very strategic move on Lonot’s part. After all that Charles had already been through, and in the face of the horrific violation about to occur, offering him one last chance to part with the information willingly and remain whole had to be one powerful temptation. He wondered if he had been given such a last chance, or if the alchemist had simply proceeded on Azkadellia’s command as he intended to now.
As Charles hesitated, Lonot pressed. “I promise you a quick death, Charles. No extraction, no more torture. Just tell me about Archaeon and your nightmare will end.”
Ambrose stopped breathing mid-inhale. Archaeon. The word stimulated a variety of feelings and images in his mind, starting with the picture of single-celled microorganisms. There was some kind of significance to them, something strongly emotional. He flashed on the meeting in the dim room once again, with all the people gathered around the desktop studying the diagram.
“Trying to redeem yourself, Lonot?” Charles asked, clearly trying to mask how tempted he felt. “Think you can buy back your soul with some backhanded mercy?”
Lonot’s face darkened in anger. “I’m giving you a chance to preserve some dignity, fool! Tell me about Archaeon and you can die without pain, and intact.”
Archaeon. The dim room. The gathered people.
Charles’s exhalations were harsh as he struggled to find the strength to answer. “No,” he finally said, his voice breaking. Ambrose heard it as though from a great distance, his attention claimed by the mystery of the diagram. “I can’t. I can’t.”
Ambrose half-closed his eyes, letting the memory drive itself. He was saying something about… communications… designated drop-points… codes to be used. Secrecy. No sharing of location information. All communications carried out indirectly for security.
Suddenly, he was looking at the diagram. At the top was a series of rectangles containing names with lines drawn between, connecting them into a hierarchical structure. Charles’s name was in the top rectangle. Below that, more labeled rectangles and ovals, also connected by lines. These lines had directional arrows. A flow chart.
He was looking at the operational blueprint for a system. Archaeon was a system.
It was like opening the door on a furnace. Ambrose was overwhelmed by the light and heat of suddenly recalled information that connected him not only to who he used to be, but what he had cared about so passionately. Glorious understanding enveloped him like a familiar blanket.
In biology, archaea were single-celled microorganisms, he suddenly recalled, known to be able to survive in the most extreme conditions - extraordinarily durable life forms, he remembered with growing excitement. Archaea were among the most ancient and enduring forms of life in the world.
It was the perfect symbol for their movement.
“You’re a stupid man, Farsing,” Lonot growled.
The alchemist’s patience had run out. “Let us pass, Lonot. The sorceress will soon have all the answers she needs. But I must get to work.”
Charles had recovered enough to shake off one of the longcoats and thread his arms through the bars, hugging them like a desperate lover. Vicious with exasperation, the alchemist shoved the rod into the crook of Charles’s neck and held it there until he was dangling limply, arms still entangled in the bars.
“Archaeon!” Lonot shouted, leaning close to Charles’s head. “Tell me what you know about it!”
“Out of the way,” the alchemist snarled. “Get him to the extraction lab.”
Ambrose straddled the two realities - the one in his mind and the one in the cell block - until they seemed to collide. The old knowledge freshly within his grasp blended with the current circumstances; he couldn’t assign each element to where it belonged. He wasn’t completely aware that there were two realities in play.
“Tell me about Archaeon!” Lonot was shouting.
Ambrose looked up sharply. Two longcoats were finally detaching Charles from the bars. Nearby was the man Ambrose had recognized; he had been the one to remove his brain.
That’s what he’s going to do to Charles, he thought frantically. He’s going to steal my friend’s mind.
“Archaeon!”
“I’ll leave well before the suns are up.” “Please be careful.”
“Farsing! What is Archaeon?”
“You’ve given us hope. I only pray I can hold up my end.”
“Charles! Tell me.”
“I did the right thing.”
“I wanted them to be safe.”
“There is no such thing as good anymore.”
“He’s going to take your brain, Charles! Tell me about Archaeon and you can stop him!”
“Cells,” Ambrose said to the air around him. “Archaeon is cells.”
He didn’t notice Lonot was near until he spoke to him. “What’s that?”
Ambrose hardly realized he was speaking aloud. “Archaeon is cells. Independent cells, separate but working together.”
“Ambrose!” Charles cried hoarsely, his eyes stricken and horrified. He struggled weakly against the hold of the two longcoats.
The anguished exclamation registered on Ambrose like a slap, and he jerked fully into the here-and-now reality. Looking from Charles’s appalled expression to Lonot’s eager, alert one, Ambrose shrank away from the bars. “What? What is it? What did I do?”
“You were telling me about Archaeon.”
Blankly, he repeated, “Archaeon? What’s that?”
“You said it was ‘independent, separate cells working together.’” Lonot looked thoughtful.
“He knows nothing,” scoffed the alchemist. “This one has what Azkadellia wants. Let me do my job.”
Harsh laughter erupted from the general. Ambrose was amazed - he would have bet Lonot didn’t know how to laugh. “If you had been doing your job, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time trying to break this one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Idiot! Your headcase knew all about Archaeon. You have his brain. You could have just asked about it while you were poking it for information about that contraption of his.”
“Contraption?” Ambrose repeated curiously. Then he noticed Charles, looking gray and ill and utterly bereft. He was staring at Ambrose with a horror-stricken expression. Ambrose felt a flutter in his stomach. Something was very, very wrong.
The alchemist’s jaw muscles flexed madly. “You can’t know -”
“Neither can you until you consult the brain.”
“Don’t tell me my job, Lonot.”
“Fair enough. But the headcase responded to the word ‘Archaeon.’ He was part of the cabinet and it’s logical that he would have been involved in any plan for it to go underground. Before going to the trouble of carving up a whole new brain, it would make sense to first check with the one you already have at your disposal.”
Ambrose found himself nodding. Lonot’s suggestion did make a lot of sense.
The alchemist appeared to come to a decision. “Put him back in the cell,” he barked at the longcoats holding Charles. “We’ll come back for him later if necessary.”
He strode away, not looking back, as Charles was shoved into his cell. Charles staggered a few steps, came to a stop, and stretched a hand to the wall, leaning heavily and hanging his head.
Ambrose, confused about what had happened, kept glancing between Charles and Lonot, who had remained behind. He waited to see if Lonot would say something, hoping that any conversation might give him a clue to what was going on.
Lonot stared at Charles’s back for some time before saying, “Charles.”
Without turning around, Charles said flatly, “You’re still here?”
“I’ll try to keep my promise.”
“Your oath to the Queen? Bit late for that.”
Lonot’s jaw worked as he appeared to swallow a cutting response. “I’m talking about the quick death. No guarantees, but I’ll do what I can.”
“You serve the darkness, Lonot. You’ve renounced both honor and mercy.”
“I’m trying to help you, you self-righteous fool.”
“Many thanks. Now go away.”
A brief internal struggle was documented on Lonot’s face, as regret was quickly mastered by resolve - the expression of a man who’d made a questionable tactical decision and knew it was too late to second-guess it.
Shrugging, Lonot turned to go. On his way down the corridor, he smirked and tossed a little wave at Ambrose. “Thanks for your help.”
Staring at the retreating leather coat, Ambrose called, “Oh, right, like I’d ever help you!” He turned to Charles. “You believe that guy? Me help him. Hah! Help him over a cliff, maybe.” He laughed, hoping Charles would join in, but his friend simply straightened, moved away from the wall, and sat down heavily on his bench, as though bearing a tremendous weight.
“Hey,” Ambrose said, frowning, “are you okay?”
In lieu of responding, Charles rested his head in his hands.
Still concerned and very confused, Ambrose murmured, “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” Looking around the cell as though for inspiration, he happened to notice the words scratched into his back wall. That brought to mind the game that he and Charles had played recently.
He clapped his hands together briskly. “Hey, you know what we should do? We should play that game again. You remember? The one with the grid and the circles and triangles and diamonds?”
“Charms.”
“Yes! I’ll give you a rematch. What do you say?”
“No. Thank you.”
“Oh. Okay.” Ambrose gave it some more thought and then brightened. “Well, you want to talk?”
“Not particularly.”
“All right.” A thought occurred to him. “Hey, Charles. Are you… are you angry with me?”
“No, Am-” He stopped and sighed. “No, I’m not angry with you.” Charles ran a hand through his hair, a clear sign of agitation. Ambrose noticed that he kept his head down, not looking at him.
He let the silence extend for a while, hoping it would eventually become companionable, but he lost patience with the waiting. “I know! Why don’t I try to remember that last time you and I saw each -”
“No.”
The vehemence in the clipped response was surprising. “But you’re always asking -”
“No, Ambr-” Charles sighed, sounding frustrated. “No.”
Ambrose tried to remember what he had said or done to upset Charles, but he found he had no memory of anything since… well, he just wasn’t sure. “Charles -”
“I think I’ll sleep for a while,” Charles announced, curling up slowly on the bench, his back turned to Ambrose.
Chapter Seven - Jigsaw (4)
Author: blade_girl
Characters: Ambrose/Glitch, appearances by or mentions of Azkadellia and others
Rating: PG-13
Summary: First, he was Ambrose; eventually, he became Glitch. In between, he was simply lost.
Warning: None
Disclaimer: If I owned this franchise, I would have a better car.
Word Count: 3,666
Chapter One - Forgotten
Chapter Two - The Prompt
Chapter Three - Rhapsody of Hope
Chapter Four - Jigsaw (1)
Chapter Five - Jigsaw (2)
ETA: Chapter Seven - Jigsaw (4)
A/N: Well, I thought the "one post" could be broken into three, but it seems that the third one was too long for LJ, so... this is the third piece of four. I have no idea whether anyone is still reading this story (other than my betas), but I’m still writing it, so let the posting continue!
Many thanks and much appreciation, as always, to my betas, crazymadi and blackletter.
Overwhelmed by too much horror and too many dire emotions at once, Ambrose leaned against his bars and slid slowly down them until his rump hit the floor. His responses to what had happened were so extreme that they were nearly canceling each other out - empathy for the horror Charles had experienced; amazement and revulsion that he had managed to resist despite his son’s profound suffering; terror for the remaining members of Charles’s family should Lonot succeed in finding them; panic over Azkadellia’s plan to mutilate Charles’s brain.
He turned to look into the other cell. Charles was sitting just as he had all along, still not moving or displaying any emotion. Wake up! Ambrose wanted to scream. Wake up and start looking back on your life! Revel in your achievements, your challenges, your regrets. Review every wonderful thing and every horrible thing that ever happened to you. Remember who you are until you can’t anymore! If anyone were qualified to give this advice, it was certainly Ambrose.
Then again, maybe Charles was better off retreating into whatever mental closet he was currently occupying. Who was Ambrose to try to force him out of a protective cocoon to confront the monstrous events of the last few hours?
His eyes happened upon the back wall of his cell. My name is Ambrose. If not for Charles, he wouldn’t know his own name. If not for him, he’d have no idea that he’d once been a royal advisor. He wouldn’t know that he’d been a brilliant scientist, wouldn’t know… Ambrose strained to remember what else he’d learned. Oh! He wouldn’t know that he’d risked himself to stay at the Queen’s side. He wouldn’t even know why he’d had half his brain removed. Granted, he couldn’t remember the reason for it right now, but he knew that Charles had explained it a while back.
Hell, if not for Charles, he wouldn’t know how to play Charms.
Chewing on a fingertip, Ambrose thought about Charles undergoing criminal extraction. In orchestrating that, Azkadellia would be erasing two lives - one for the first time, the other for the second. He hated that he was selfish enough to worry about this, but the truth was that when Charles’s memory was gone, Ambrose would, to a large degree, cease to exist. That was a terrifying realization by itself, but equally distressing was the knowledge that once Charles was relieved of his memory, their friendship was likely dead, as well. It was one thing to rekindle a friendship between a person who remembered and one who didn’t. Trying to keep that friendship alive when neither could remember was an exercise in the blind leading the blind.
Closing his eyes, Ambrose fought to stave off burgeoning panic that was, at best, inappropriate. Making out Charles’s impending tragedy to be about him was the worst kind of narcissism. The man had shown an inordinate amount of patience and kindness in trying to explain things to Ambrose, and he should be grateful. He was grateful - what he should be doing is letting Charles know that now, while the man could still remember what he had done for him.
He stood up, intent on telling Charles how he felt, but suddenly, he was not in the cell, but back in that dim room of obscure memory.
He stirred the ashes in the fireplace, ensuring that all the torn pieces of the large diagram burned completely. The other men had begun to leave, watching through the covered windows, timing their departures so that there was no mass exodus that might be noticed from outside.
A hand on his shoulder caused him to straighten and turn around. Charles was there.
“Time for me to go.”
Ambrose nodded, swallowing. Charles had the role with the greatest risk, the weightiest responsibility. He hadn’t hesitated to accept, knowing what was at stake, and he was definitely the right choice, but it still felt like sending him to cross a tightrope without benefit of a pole. “You have everything you need?”
“All the arrangements are made,” Charles said. “I’ll leave well before the suns are up.”
A flutter in Ambrose’s stomach created a shaky sigh. “Please be careful.”
Charles smiled ironically. “I should be telling you that. You’re the one staying behind.” His expression shifted. “Are you sure you about that, by the way?”
No! he wanted to say. Instead, he nodded.
“Because I can’t help thinking that you’d be more valuable in hiding, helping to strategize.”
Ambrose took a breath to quell the part of him that wanted to agree. “Possibly, but it would attract too much attention for me to leave now. And she’ll need me.”
Charles nodded without much conviction. Ambrose forced a smile and said, “Besides, strategy is one of your strong suits.”
“Then why haven’t I won more of our chess games?”
A pang of regret, unexpectedly strong, stung Ambrose. “I’ll miss those.”
Now it was Charles who forced a smile. “We’ll play again.”
“I hope so.” Awkwardly, he held out his hand; the gesture seemed inappropriately dispassionate, as though they weren’t probably saying their final goodbye. Charles shook the hand then put both of his on the younger man’s shoulders.
“You’ve given us hope,” he said. “I only pray I can hold up my end.”
Ambrose surprised himself with a laugh. “You’re the only one who doubts it.”
There was a final moment of silence between them, mostly because there was just too much to say, and then Charles nodded a farewell, crossed to the door, and left.
Thrust back into the present, Ambrose staggered slightly, as though the memory had physical weight. “Wow,” he whispered to himself. “I wasn’t even trying.”
Part of him seemed capable of understanding the memory and how it related to the current situation, but that part was hampered by the confusion and lack of clarity that characterized the thinking of a man with only half the brain matter he’d been born with. What he needed was to run this memory by someone who could not only understand it but put it into context.
“Charles!” he cried excitedly. “I’ve just remembered something! I -”
“You know, I taught him to shoot.”
Ambrose stopped short. “Huh? Who?” Charles wasn’t staring at the floor anymore. His voice was still coming from far away, but it had lost that unnerving lack of inflection.
“Logan. I taught him target shooting. When he was thirteen.”
“Oh.” He wanted to sweep aside this conversation to get to the more urgent matter at hand, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Um… I’m sure he was great at it.”
“No, he was dreadful. I wasn’t any good, either. We considered ourselves wildly successful if we actually managed to hit the target.”
Try as he might, Ambrose couldn’t think of an appropriate response. Then again, Charles didn’t seem to require one.
“He never really had much interest in sports, rather like me. I dutifully introduced him to all the activities my father had told me I was supposed to enjoy, and Logan disliked them as much as I had. It was something we laughed about, through the years.”
Thinking of Charles and his son sharing laughter was bitterly painful when Ambrose acknowledged how their last hours together had been spent. He couldn’t help wondering if this were not the healthiest way for Charles to direct his thoughts, now that his remaining time for clear thinking was extremely limited. “Charles, I remem-”
“History, that was his passion,” Charles continued. “He was fascinated by the past. Had no interest in the politics of the present, not until…” Lost in remembrance, Charles trailed off for a few seconds. Suddenly, he shook his head as though snapping back to the present. “I sent him and his family away just before Azkadellia seized Central City. I wanted… wanted them to be safe.”
The desolation in his eyes and voice twisted in Ambrose’s gut like a knife. Pain like that shouldn’t have to be borne alone, if at all. It was a hideous, perverse thought, but maybe, in this particular case, criminal extraction would be a mercy.
Charles seemed to have come to the end of his musings. Ambrose frowned, a seed of unease growing in his mind. Didn’t he have something he wanted to tell Charles? He was sure it had been very important.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, brain,” he whispered, rubbing his brow anxiously. “Cough it up. The man’s about to be -”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, heading their way. Ambrose jerked his head toward the sound before looking frantically at Charles. He’d heard the approach as well, and when he met Ambrose’s gaze, his fear was obvious. Trying to offer some kind of comfort, Ambrose moved as close to Charles as possible, until he was pressing against the barred door.
Charles stood quickly and came to his door as well, and the two of them just looked at each other. There was too much to be said for them to say anything.
Again?
Wait. They’d said goodbye once before… hadn’t they? Ambrose was distracted by an unexpected feeling of déjà vu. The voice of Lonot barely penetrated his preoccupation.
“Hello, Charles. Ready to lose your mind?”
“Better that than my honor,” Charles retorted.
Lonot smiled. “Your bravado would be more convincing if your voice weren’t shaking.”
“We have no time for this,” grumbled another bald man, pushing past Lonot.
Ambrose started at the new voice. He’d heard it before, seen this man before; he’d looked up into that cold face from a position of helplessness and known that he was little more than a laboratory animal. Seeing him now, Ambrose felt a desperate urge to move away.
“Open the door,” commanded the man. He seemed accustomed to giving orders.
The additional longcoats looked to Lonot, who gave the nod, and the door to Charles’s cell was opened. Charles recoiled by a couple of steps.
Lonot glared at the prisoner, failing to conceal his resentment. “Now, I suppose we’ll finally find out what you’re hiding.”
Hiding.
The new man didn’t take his gaze from Charles. “I will find out what he’s hiding.”
“I can’t help thinking that you’d be more valuable in hiding.”
“So you’re the alchemist.” Charles moved backward again, until he’d reached the far corner of the cell, as though the extra distance might discourage them, convince them to give up.
The alchemist gestured to the longcoats and entered the cell. Without preamble, he brandished a rod and zapped Charles in the shoulder. The charge sent Charles to his knees and the longcoats moved to take him by the arms.
But Charles wasn’t ready to go. He fought their attempts to pull him across the floor, and one of the men punched him.
“Stop that!” bellowed the alchemist. “You could damage the brain. I know how to deal with this.”
He reached out with the rod again and the longcoats let Charles go. Charles leaned back on his hands and tried to scoot away, but the rod caught him in the side. The alchemist gave him a longer zap this time, and Charles collapsed all the way to the floor.
The longcoats lifted him by the arms and half-carried him from the corner toward the door. Ambrose gripped his cell bars so tightly he felt the slickness of blood on one palm.
“Wait.” The longcoats stopped just inside the cell door at Lonot’s order. The alchemist glared at him and Charles sluggishly raised his eyes to meet the general’s penetrating gaze. “You can stop this, Charles.”
“He can’t stop it,” the alchemist interrupted. “The sorceress was quite clear -”
“Just tell us, right now,” Lonot said, ignoring him, “what we want to know.”
For the first time, indecision appeared in Charles’s expression. Ambrose had to admit, this was a very strategic move on Lonot’s part. After all that Charles had already been through, and in the face of the horrific violation about to occur, offering him one last chance to part with the information willingly and remain whole had to be one powerful temptation. He wondered if he had been given such a last chance, or if the alchemist had simply proceeded on Azkadellia’s command as he intended to now.
As Charles hesitated, Lonot pressed. “I promise you a quick death, Charles. No extraction, no more torture. Just tell me about Archaeon and your nightmare will end.”
Ambrose stopped breathing mid-inhale. Archaeon. The word stimulated a variety of feelings and images in his mind, starting with the picture of single-celled microorganisms. There was some kind of significance to them, something strongly emotional. He flashed on the meeting in the dim room once again, with all the people gathered around the desktop studying the diagram.
“Trying to redeem yourself, Lonot?” Charles asked, clearly trying to mask how tempted he felt. “Think you can buy back your soul with some backhanded mercy?”
Lonot’s face darkened in anger. “I’m giving you a chance to preserve some dignity, fool! Tell me about Archaeon and you can die without pain, and intact.”
Archaeon. The dim room. The gathered people.
Charles’s exhalations were harsh as he struggled to find the strength to answer. “No,” he finally said, his voice breaking. Ambrose heard it as though from a great distance, his attention claimed by the mystery of the diagram. “I can’t. I can’t.”
Ambrose half-closed his eyes, letting the memory drive itself. He was saying something about… communications… designated drop-points… codes to be used. Secrecy. No sharing of location information. All communications carried out indirectly for security.
Suddenly, he was looking at the diagram. At the top was a series of rectangles containing names with lines drawn between, connecting them into a hierarchical structure. Charles’s name was in the top rectangle. Below that, more labeled rectangles and ovals, also connected by lines. These lines had directional arrows. A flow chart.
He was looking at the operational blueprint for a system. Archaeon was a system.
It was like opening the door on a furnace. Ambrose was overwhelmed by the light and heat of suddenly recalled information that connected him not only to who he used to be, but what he had cared about so passionately. Glorious understanding enveloped him like a familiar blanket.
In biology, archaea were single-celled microorganisms, he suddenly recalled, known to be able to survive in the most extreme conditions - extraordinarily durable life forms, he remembered with growing excitement. Archaea were among the most ancient and enduring forms of life in the world.
It was the perfect symbol for their movement.
“You’re a stupid man, Farsing,” Lonot growled.
The alchemist’s patience had run out. “Let us pass, Lonot. The sorceress will soon have all the answers she needs. But I must get to work.”
Charles had recovered enough to shake off one of the longcoats and thread his arms through the bars, hugging them like a desperate lover. Vicious with exasperation, the alchemist shoved the rod into the crook of Charles’s neck and held it there until he was dangling limply, arms still entangled in the bars.
“Archaeon!” Lonot shouted, leaning close to Charles’s head. “Tell me what you know about it!”
“Out of the way,” the alchemist snarled. “Get him to the extraction lab.”
Ambrose straddled the two realities - the one in his mind and the one in the cell block - until they seemed to collide. The old knowledge freshly within his grasp blended with the current circumstances; he couldn’t assign each element to where it belonged. He wasn’t completely aware that there were two realities in play.
“Tell me about Archaeon!” Lonot was shouting.
Ambrose looked up sharply. Two longcoats were finally detaching Charles from the bars. Nearby was the man Ambrose had recognized; he had been the one to remove his brain.
That’s what he’s going to do to Charles, he thought frantically. He’s going to steal my friend’s mind.
“Archaeon!”
“I’ll leave well before the suns are up.” “Please be careful.”
“Farsing! What is Archaeon?”
“You’ve given us hope. I only pray I can hold up my end.”
“Charles! Tell me.”
“I did the right thing.”
“I wanted them to be safe.”
“There is no such thing as good anymore.”
“He’s going to take your brain, Charles! Tell me about Archaeon and you can stop him!”
“Cells,” Ambrose said to the air around him. “Archaeon is cells.”
He didn’t notice Lonot was near until he spoke to him. “What’s that?”
Ambrose hardly realized he was speaking aloud. “Archaeon is cells. Independent cells, separate but working together.”
“Ambrose!” Charles cried hoarsely, his eyes stricken and horrified. He struggled weakly against the hold of the two longcoats.
The anguished exclamation registered on Ambrose like a slap, and he jerked fully into the here-and-now reality. Looking from Charles’s appalled expression to Lonot’s eager, alert one, Ambrose shrank away from the bars. “What? What is it? What did I do?”
“You were telling me about Archaeon.”
Blankly, he repeated, “Archaeon? What’s that?”
“You said it was ‘independent, separate cells working together.’” Lonot looked thoughtful.
“He knows nothing,” scoffed the alchemist. “This one has what Azkadellia wants. Let me do my job.”
Harsh laughter erupted from the general. Ambrose was amazed - he would have bet Lonot didn’t know how to laugh. “If you had been doing your job, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time trying to break this one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Idiot! Your headcase knew all about Archaeon. You have his brain. You could have just asked about it while you were poking it for information about that contraption of his.”
“Contraption?” Ambrose repeated curiously. Then he noticed Charles, looking gray and ill and utterly bereft. He was staring at Ambrose with a horror-stricken expression. Ambrose felt a flutter in his stomach. Something was very, very wrong.
The alchemist’s jaw muscles flexed madly. “You can’t know -”
“Neither can you until you consult the brain.”
“Don’t tell me my job, Lonot.”
“Fair enough. But the headcase responded to the word ‘Archaeon.’ He was part of the cabinet and it’s logical that he would have been involved in any plan for it to go underground. Before going to the trouble of carving up a whole new brain, it would make sense to first check with the one you already have at your disposal.”
Ambrose found himself nodding. Lonot’s suggestion did make a lot of sense.
The alchemist appeared to come to a decision. “Put him back in the cell,” he barked at the longcoats holding Charles. “We’ll come back for him later if necessary.”
He strode away, not looking back, as Charles was shoved into his cell. Charles staggered a few steps, came to a stop, and stretched a hand to the wall, leaning heavily and hanging his head.
Ambrose, confused about what had happened, kept glancing between Charles and Lonot, who had remained behind. He waited to see if Lonot would say something, hoping that any conversation might give him a clue to what was going on.
Lonot stared at Charles’s back for some time before saying, “Charles.”
Without turning around, Charles said flatly, “You’re still here?”
“I’ll try to keep my promise.”
“Your oath to the Queen? Bit late for that.”
Lonot’s jaw worked as he appeared to swallow a cutting response. “I’m talking about the quick death. No guarantees, but I’ll do what I can.”
“You serve the darkness, Lonot. You’ve renounced both honor and mercy.”
“I’m trying to help you, you self-righteous fool.”
“Many thanks. Now go away.”
A brief internal struggle was documented on Lonot’s face, as regret was quickly mastered by resolve - the expression of a man who’d made a questionable tactical decision and knew it was too late to second-guess it.
Shrugging, Lonot turned to go. On his way down the corridor, he smirked and tossed a little wave at Ambrose. “Thanks for your help.”
Staring at the retreating leather coat, Ambrose called, “Oh, right, like I’d ever help you!” He turned to Charles. “You believe that guy? Me help him. Hah! Help him over a cliff, maybe.” He laughed, hoping Charles would join in, but his friend simply straightened, moved away from the wall, and sat down heavily on his bench, as though bearing a tremendous weight.
“Hey,” Ambrose said, frowning, “are you okay?”
In lieu of responding, Charles rested his head in his hands.
Still concerned and very confused, Ambrose murmured, “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” Looking around the cell as though for inspiration, he happened to notice the words scratched into his back wall. That brought to mind the game that he and Charles had played recently.
He clapped his hands together briskly. “Hey, you know what we should do? We should play that game again. You remember? The one with the grid and the circles and triangles and diamonds?”
“Charms.”
“Yes! I’ll give you a rematch. What do you say?”
“No. Thank you.”
“Oh. Okay.” Ambrose gave it some more thought and then brightened. “Well, you want to talk?”
“Not particularly.”
“All right.” A thought occurred to him. “Hey, Charles. Are you… are you angry with me?”
“No, Am-” He stopped and sighed. “No, I’m not angry with you.” Charles ran a hand through his hair, a clear sign of agitation. Ambrose noticed that he kept his head down, not looking at him.
He let the silence extend for a while, hoping it would eventually become companionable, but he lost patience with the waiting. “I know! Why don’t I try to remember that last time you and I saw each -”
“No.”
The vehemence in the clipped response was surprising. “But you’re always asking -”
“No, Ambr-” Charles sighed, sounding frustrated. “No.”
Ambrose tried to remember what he had said or done to upset Charles, but he found he had no memory of anything since… well, he just wasn’t sure. “Charles -”
“I think I’ll sleep for a while,” Charles announced, curling up slowly on the bench, his back turned to Ambrose.
Chapter Seven - Jigsaw (4)