SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART EIGHTEEN

"I will start to listen." Alijdah cleared her throat. "That said, you mentioned negotiation. Not capitulation. Talking is hard when staring down the barrel of a gun."

"I only remove the gun if you return our people now," Trixie asserted.

Alijdah frowned, then again looked at something out of their field of view and nodded. She turned back. "I'll bring them over in a shuttle. I'd prefer to talk to you face to face."

Beam's nose twitched before she also nodded. "Acceptable."

Beam looked to Trixie. Trixie honestly felt a bit disappointed, she'd been wondering whether the chewing gum would have properly exploded out of her delivery containers.

But she understood, and with her own nod and a small sigh, she cancelled her interface between Rixi and the Epsilon station.

***

Trixie stared at the monitor in the auxiliary control room. It showed only a closed conference room door. She was toying with the idea of magically eavesdropping when Alijda walked in.

This was the "good" Alijda, the one Trixie had been speaking with about programming, not the H-one with the bunny ears currently in discussion with Fate and Beam. And presumably this Alijda wasn't thinking about eavesdropping. But then why stand silently for over two minutes?

"You going to keep staring at my ass, or what?" Trixie finally asked, looking over her shoulder.

Alijda flinched. "Sorry. I didn't want to disturb, in case you were doing something mystic. Uh, they making progress in there?"

Trixie gestured at the monitor before fully turning around. "Who knows? It's early yet. I will say I'm certain your counterpart brought over that busty bunny girl not only as a personal guard, but also as a way to distract Beam. Though I doubt it'll work."

Alijda nodded. "You think Fate will keep Beam on track?"

Trixie smirked. "More like I think my promise of one last make-out session with Beam before I leave, contingent on the right outcome, will keep Beam on track."

Alijda half smiled back. "Ah. You two really hit it off then."

"Oh, not really," Trixie said, shaking her head. "Don't get the wrong idea. I mean, physically, sure. But any romantic feelings on my part are strictly for Beam's sophisticated program, not for who she is as a person."

Alijda blinked. "Hm. And are you sure Beam feels the same way about you...?"

Trixie giggled. "What, you think I got Beam hot for my human programming?"

"I just mean maybe she's become romantically invested."

"Mmm, as much as I'd like you say how could you NOT fall in love with this package," Trixie stated, gesturing back at herself. "We really do have a relationship built only on needs and lusts. And I don't get too attached as a rule, she knows that."

Trixie eyed Alijda, trying to read between the lines.

"Why? Are YOU worried about how someone you've associated with at this Station might feel about you romantically?"

Alijda coughed, and changed the subject, which was enough of an admission as far as Trixie was concerned. "That's irrelevant," Alijda said. "I actually came in here to ask you about your name. Your real one."

Trixie deflected. "If you don't know, I'm not telling you what it is."

"It's not that," Alijda clarified. "We both know I could probably hack to figure it out. It's that... well... okay, so while I was stuck on the Clover station, I learned my double's origin story."

Trixie became curious despite herself. "Do tell, if you're willing."

Alijda pressed the heel of her hand to her head. "Yeah. Okay. Well, long story short, there was a point in my past when I met an alien. Mason, actually, I heard that you saw him during this mission."

The name clicked. "Oh, the guy who called us out for being a bunch of white girls."

"Yes. Well, ladies. Well, anyway, this Alijdah-H went with Mason in her history. Whereas I didn't. That's when the split occurred. Then the two had a falling out, and she returned to Earth."

"Huh." Trixie considered that. "So her quantum Earth is immediately adjacent to yours, or something?"

"That's what I can't figure out. See, as I didn't go with Mason, I went on antidepressants, embezzled money from my corrupt company, fled to the US under the pseudonym Alison van der Land, and got teleportation powers."

Trixie stared. "Why are you telling me all that?"

"I think largely because I want the opinion of someone with whom I share common traits and yet will likely never see again."

"I actually meant how does your past connect to the quantum name stuff."

"Right." Alijda rubbed her forehead. "From what little quantum theory I've read, events are the cause of different Earth dimensions more so than individual actions. And external observation causes many quantum realities to blend back together. But maybe... we two were so different... she couldn't blend, even as our worlds did."

Trixie was reminded of her earlier discussion with Para. About whether there could be other versions of themselves running around. It had felt like the answer was no, at least until this Alijda-H issue.

"So, what, you think because you'd changed your name and location there was somehow room for both of you?" Trixie wondered.

Alijda sighed. "Possibly. Both our experiences having been so wildly unique as to prevent us from collapsing into a single dimensional existence once Epsilon observed me. So maybe my alt-self escaped detection, even came under fire for crimes I'd committed. Assuming she was even on my Earth then, and not with Clover Enterprises already."

Trixie was fascinated by that idea. "I'd be game to investigate that for you."

Alijda shook her head. "Oh, I could probably get that started myself. I mostly wondered what you thought about the theory."

Trixie considered. "Seems like Mason might be a better person to ask."

Alijda shook her head. "I know he doesn't remember being with me. Whether by choice or by circumstance. It's not my having a possible double that I'm wondering about here though. It's more, under these circumstances - should I maybe return to calling myself Alison? It IS the name I go by whenever I'm not on this station, after all."

Trixie considered again, for close to a minute. "You have as much right to your original name as anyone else," she concluded. "Besides. Even within a single Earth, individuals are mistaken for each other on the internet a lot. I don't think anyone here will believe you're a Clover operative if you keep Alijda."

"It's not really about that."

Trixie shifted her hands to her hips. "Then you'll have to explain better, I'm not a mind reader."

Alijda grimaced. "Sorry. Here's the thing. If my history was different, I COULD have been her, been that Alijda. Right? Instead, I'm me, a changed person in all but appearance. Yet for some reason, I'm clinging to that old name. And the baggage that may go with it."

"Presumably that's because you still identify with the name somehow. Do you?"

It was Alijda's turn to think in silence for a moment. "I guess I did. Before Epsilon. Because I thought I was living a lie on Earth. But after Alice moved in... well, maybe my new life as Alison is just my life. Maybe some of my suicidal thoughts are even from me continuing to wrestle with my past instead of just releasing it."

"So maybe you have your answer." Trixie eased her stance. "Know that I'm not saying you should forget where you come from, and remember I'm not a psychologist."

Alijda nodded. "I get it. Do you find it weird though, people here calling you Trixie instead of whatever?"

Trixie shook her head. "No. It's more like how someone might equally answer to 'Beth' or 'Elizabeth'. Plus for me, 'Trixie' is a reminder of where I came from, and how I'm still in the business that I'm in."

It had, after all, been 'James' who had both given her the pseudoname, and the business, once he and 'Melissa' had departed.

Alijda nodded. "All right. Thanks for the talk." She glanced towards the monitors again. "I'm off. Let me know if my alt-self does anything problematic."

"For sure," Trixie said. Part of her was even counting on it, as she was still wondering about the effectiveness of her retooled pocket dimension armoury. "See you around, Alijda."

The brunette woman paused at the doorway, and half smiled. "Call me Alison," she suggested, before departing.

***

"The trouble with Clover Enterprises," Fate reflected, "isn't that they were evil, per se. They merely seemed to have a callous disregard for the consequences of their actions."

Para frowned. "Maybe it's because I'm not human, but is that... not the same thing...?" she wondered.

"Sometimes. The Clover group were definitely self serving," Trixie offered up. Honestly, Para had a pretty good point, but Trixie didn't want Fate to overanalyze it.

The group of them had congregated one last time in the main control room, after the Station Administrators had observed the departure of Alijah's shuttle back to the Clover station. Fate had brought along a box of assorted muffins to eat.

"I'm a bit surprised by your take, Fate," Beam admitted, who was apparently fine with continuing the conversation. "Given how you were abducted from your world and nearly brainwashed as a consequence of them giving Compton Senior dimensional knowledge."

Fate nodded. "I know. Kind of had to make peace with that to survive though. Besides, that's what ended up bringing me here. And my helping to put the Clover situation to rest is a good note for me to go out on."

"That's a good way to think of it," Trixie agreed. She had heard from Para about Fate's concerns over not being spoken to by the Epsilon Station's 'God'. It was good that Fate had apparently been able to move past that.

"And we'll be leaving the station in good hands," Alice said, whacking Beam on the back as she grinned. "At this point, I am SO over Clover."

"Yeah? I wish I could be as sure," Alijda/Alison mused. "Considering how my alt-self is apparently high enough ranked with them to be able to sign off on the agreement here. Did anyone else notice that?"

"Well, sure, but I think you can be over them too," Alice insisted. "Come on, don't stress over what wasn't in your history. Yeah?"

"I... yeah." Alijda/Alison fired off a quick smile back at her roommate.

"Now, speaking of the Clover agreement, what exactly was in there?" Trixie pressed. "I need closure."

Beam cleared her throat as she recited from memory. "Clover Enterprises are to make restitution anywhere that they have transgressed, as decided by the ethical algorithm we provided, not their own beliefs. Further, they will not initiate any further experiments without broadcasting their intentions and possible side effects to the other party. Communicating with US if needed to mediate. Pyon pyon."

"In return," Fate put in, "they get all Beam's vaccine research, and we don't get to know the size of their organization or what else they might have been doing out there in secret."

"Good enough I hope?" Beam purred, sidling up next to Trixie and giving her rear a quick pinch. Thankfully out of view of the others.

Trixie jumped despite herself, merely nodding back as she smoothed her skirt. She honestly hadn't expected much more. And thanks to Fate's choice, Clover didn't know that Trixie had broken through the scattering field technology. So Epsilon was less likely to be caught off guard by their presence in the future too.

"What about these planets though?" Para wondered. "Does Clover start their work here, or are they still going to be recruiting?"

"They'll be making sure Tech World doesn't transmit the pandemic any more," Beam noted. "Though if they were to suddenly vanish, it might raise more issues on the Fantasy World than not. Fortunately, the Alijda battle might make people more hesitant to join them, pyon pyon."

"And as to the planets themselves, I think they'll get out of their pandemics, based on the computer projections I ran," Trixie offered up. "Beam will be cured too, we've turned on the flag that purges the bunny changes over time."

"So we're good," Alijda/Alison sighed. "Missions accomplished."

"Except... wait. Clover is powering up some sort of ray," Alice said, hurrying to where a light had started flashing. She tapped at the keyboard. "It's targeting us."

"What? Open a channel," Fate said, tossing aside her half eaten muffin.

Alijdah was back on their main screen moments later. "Hi! Just thought I'd note how there's nothing in the agreement that says we can't give you a parting shot. So there." She smirked.

Fate glared back. "Alijdah! We haven't transmitted the vaccine information yet. You want to jeopardize receiving it?"

"No worries, we can wait on firing until after you send it," Alijdah said airily. "You DO have to do that, after all. It IS what we agreed to."

"It's fine," Beam declared, moving in next to Fate. "Because the agreement doesn't specify how we transmit my research to you. Right?" Her eyes sparkled. "Trixie, one last request, if you please."

Oh, hell yes.

Trixie swung her arm out to the side, enjoying the sense of deja vu. "Rixi? Reinitiate Epsilon interface and materialize delivery gun."

Again, there was the globe of light, the sphere over the hub, and then the modified gun, both in her hands and large scale, hanging in space.

Alijdah stared at them with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. "You can't mean--"

"You want the research? It's all in this capsule," Trixie declared. She pointed the barrel of the gun at the Clover station, then swung it off to the side. "Protrudo."

The capsule was propelled out of the gun barrel into space in much the same way the freeze necklace had once been fired through a hotel window. It spun off into the dimensional void as a light dusting of confetti was expelled from the smaller version of the gun in Trixie's hand. Success!

"Son of a--"

"You should be able to track that - until the capsule gets small again," Trixie said, cutting Alijdah off for a second time. "Still want to waste time with us?"

The communications channel was shut down.

"Ziggy?" Beam announced to the ceiling. "While they're distracted, let's temporally uncouple and leave orbit."

"Understood," came the voice of the main computer. "Please disengage your interface, Trixie."

Trixie did so, pleased that she'd been able to test out at least one of her interface objects.

She was also pleased that Beam had suggested that backup plan in the first place, that they'd come through the entire pandemic situation without any new infections, and that she'd made some new friends.

But mostly, she was pleased that she'd be going home soon.

She raked her fingers back through her twintails once more. Only time would tell if she might ever have cause to return.

OPTIONS:

Polls on character and possible plots for possible future entries...

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VOTING REMAINS OPEN

PATHS NOT TAKEN:
Had Alijdah accepted the conditions, Trixie would have fired off confetti, and the two groups might have worked together in the future (whether Clover would have ultimately screwed that up is unknown). Had Alijdah not backed down, Trixie would have fired off a computer virus to mess with their systems, while allowing Epsilon to track Clover in the future... since the Clover station would get away but without any medications. We ended up middle of the road for the second time, with a kind of agreement to disagree and Trixie firing off Beam's data.

EXTRA ASIDE:
First, if you missed it, there was an April Fools Part in between the prior part 17 & this part 18, so check that out. With regard to the voting last time, I didn't want the last choice and apex of our Clover plot to be decided by a single person's single vote. So I kept things open past the end of March, which was helpful for the April Fool writer anyway. Finally got a third vote April 2nd after the usual pleading, so closed things on the 3rd. Didn't get much of a chance to write in the following week, but it's done now. Thank you for sticking with me, whoever's out there. Another post coming in a few weeks about my status and what will come next on this site.

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART SEVENTEEN

She couldn’t teleport without some visual frame of reference. If someone had planned to capture her, this was definitely the best way to go about it.

She shook out her sore fingers and pressed them against her side, listening.

There was a faint hiss of air.

She got down on her hands and knees so as to not stumble over anything, and slowly moved towards the source of the sound. It turned out to be a vent, against a wall. Probably not large enough for her to crawl into, but at least now she knew this was a room with finite space.

Alijda felt along the wall to get a sense of the scope. It took a while.

The room was rectangular, and maybe the size of a standard living room. She had felt what seemed to be a doorway, but with no doorknob. Troublingly, her eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the darkness, meaning there was no light anywhere.

She considered moving across the room diagonally to gauge whether there was anything in the middle.

“There’s a computer terminal.”

Alijda nearly jumped out of her skin at the breathy female voice that came from over her shoulder. She whipped her arm back, encountered nothing, and it smacked into the wall. She cursed, and cradled it.

“Oh, right. I’m not really here, pyon pyon.”

“Beam,” Alijda muttered through clenched teeth. “If you ever sneak up on me like that again, I’m going to reprogram you to be a Roomba for a day.”

“Ouch. Sucking dirt doesn’t sound as fun as sucking–”

“Just… get me to the terminal. Please.”

“Sure thing,” Beam chirped. “It’s embedded in the wall, you’ll have to stand.”

Alijda used the wall to pull herself back up to her feet. “Thank you.”

“And for the record, I’m not actually here, incorporeal or otherwise. Trixie is broadcasting me through the scattering field surrounding the Clover Base. I’m homed in on your communicator.”

Alijda lifted her communicator up to her face, despite not being able to see it. “Sorry, what?”

“We had two options,” Beam elaborated. “Trixie blasts a cancelling wave into space, to penetrate the scattering field, revealing the Clover Base. Or, the stealth method. I get programmed with the cancelling wave, then Trixie blasts my matrix into space, which lets me spot you and Alice.”

“You’re in space?” Alijda said, feeling more confused than ever.

“My perception was, for a moment,” Beam clarified. “Tied in with the station sensors. But now I’m in the room with your communicator. Terminal is about four paces to your right.”

Alijda began to move along the wall. “And Alice?”

“Next room over. Unconscious, pyon pyon,” Beam said. “Best guess, your double was expecting her to come through, and knocked her out. You were more unexpected.”

“You see all this through staring out of our communicators?”

“No. Once I saw where your communicators were, by looking past the scattering field, Trixie cast a spell. It’s projected me next to you. A variant of the spell Kat and Firestorm used to talk to you on our first mission together, incidentally.”

Alijda decided she didn’t really need to be reminded of Kat right now. “I’m sorry I asked.”

“Oh. Sorry I answered? Anyway. We need you to hack this terminal and drop Clover’s scattering field - codenamed Mirrors - so that we can have a chat with Evil Alijdah. To turn the power on, hit the button on the top right.”

Alijda had been feeling around on the terminal to figure out how to activate it. She moved her fingers to where Beam had indicated. “How can you see in the pitch black?”

“The only reason I can’t see in the dark all the time is my human programming. The magic circumvents - you’ve got it, there.”

“Gyah!” Alijda gasped, throwing her arm up. The terminal had indeed activated, shining a blinding light right into her face.

“Sorry,” Beam apologized. “Didn’t know it would do that.”

Alijda sighed into her arm. “Okay, what now?”

She instinctively turned to look for Beam, spots dancing in front of her eyes. But the hologram was truly a disembodied voice, somehow being transmitted through magic.

“Beats me,” came Beam’s ghostly answer. “You’re the hacker. Again, not really here, pyon pyon. Let me know if there’s anything more we need to do on our end.”

“Right, fine,” Alijda sighed, rubbing her thumb and forefinger across her eyes before looking more closely at the terminal. The illumination offered a better look at its control pad on the wall, and she saw there was a virtual keyboard option on the screen. Good enough.

Accessing the base system turned out to be pretty easy, given the assumption that she was up against herself - or at minimum someone who had similar thought processes.

Unfortunately, Alijda realized pretty quickly though that trying to do anything that related to base security was too heavily safeguarded. It would take hours. She said as much.

“Hmm. Trixie wonders whether you can Borg their system,” Beam supplied. “That is, don’t go for a critical subcommand, but something low priority that will achieve the result we want.”

Alijda frowned. “I mean, maybe they’d have to drop their field for certain emergencies… or for propulsion… or communications?”

She tapped at the keyboard. What she found minutes later surprised her.

“Uh, Beam? Clover Enterprises sent Epsilon the first encrypted communication. The one that brought us all here.”

“What? No, Fate thinks it was Vortex Limited on Bunny World who broadcasted a–”

“I’m telling you, it’s right here in these logs,” Alijda insisted. “Clover are the ones who brought Epsilon in.”

“What? But why would they do that?”

Alijda shook her head. “All I’ve got is a notation in the file: ‘Epsilon can handle this’. Meaning in the best case, Clover wanted someone who could fix the whole pandemic mess they helped to initiate. And we’d be the only ones equipped for it. In terms of seeing all the dimensions.”

In fact, they HAD fixed it, if Beam’s vaccine efforts using Para’s bunny-ness as a baseline was any indication. Then again, in the worst case, maybe Alijdah had selfishly wanted Epsilon to come and provide her with a cure for her own bunny condition. ‘This’ was rather vague.

“Maybe Clover have a rogue agent who know about us,” Beam mused.

Or that, Alijda granted. She couldn’t find any other details, except to verify the message had definitely been sent after the Smoke pandemic had started, meaning after Clover had finished their dealings with Vortex.

“Could also be the Clover group is still hanging around to see if we spot them,” Alijda mused. “Testing out this ‘Mirrors’ field. Recruiting in the meantime.”

“Either way, this is good. I can use my proto-vaccine as a bargaining chip when we talk,” Beam said. “Could help to divine their true intentions.”

“Maybe.” Alijda scrolled through a few more communications logs, but found no way for the system to trip the scattering field. She was going to have to try something else.

She typed in a quick program, then went to sift through personnel files.

“Alijda? While the files on people might be useful later, I think we need to stay focussed on the one goal now.”

“Kinda sorta doing that,” Alijda said. There it was. A file on her. Two files, actually… she pulled up the one that didn’t have a small ‘Epsilon’ flag next to it.

The first paragraph was very illuminating as far as her double’s origins. She only got as far as another few sentences, before the terminal glowed red and stopped accepting inputs.

“That can’t be good,” Beam said.

Alijda smiled. “Actually…”

With a click, the small terminal speaker began broadcasting a bizarre anime mashup of Rick Astley.

Alijda folded her arms. “I set the system to broadcast that on ALL internal communications if a data breach was detected,” Alijda remarked. “Pretty sure the only way for them to shut it down is a complete reboot, which should also take the scattering field offline.”

“Huh. Nice. Trixie applauds your use of an Iconian-style virus. Meaning the rebooting; I think it’s another Star Trek reference.”

“While Alice would approve, and she is the reason I know how to access that tune, tell Trixie I like her more for her tech savvy.”

Beam giggled. “Mmmmm, meanwhile I like Trixie more for her–”

“I can guess,” Alijda interrupted. And everything went pitch black again.

“Okay, stuff’s happening our end, going to need to call you back,” Beam said. “Thank you for your help!”

“Any time,” Alijda murmured. As she stood in the dark, she considered once again what she’d read in the file.

[caption id=“attachment_1997” align=“alignright” width=“202”] CHIBI BEAM (pre-bunny)
Commission from Gen Ishihara[/caption]

Beam stepped out of the circle of sparklers, to look at the main view screen. It took up almost a quarter of the large circular room, across from the main computer banks, but there was never much cause to use it.

“That Clover station looks like us,” she remarked.

“It does,” Fate agreed, frowning.

The Clover Base had shimmered briefly, off what Alijda had done. Fate had quickly sent them a hailing communication, implying that the cat was out of the bag. And so they had dropped their scattering field technology, allowing for both a scan and a visual reference.

It was not a ship. Like them, Clover had a Hub, but instead of being central, it was more towards one side. Then four branches extended up. And instead of them being circular, they were shaped like clovers. The effect was vaguely fractal.

Beam glanced around the room to see how the others were taking it.

Para’s ears were quivering, but otherwise she kept quiet, as she had for a majority of the time during the implementing of Trixie’s plan. Fate looked all business as usual, briefly glancing down at a remote which would allow her to use the computers without turning her back on the view screen.

Trixie was bouncing on her heels, seeming quite excited at the prospect of everything finally coming to a conclusion. Or perhaps she was more excited that this might lead to her using the Epsilon system interface she’d designed.

Trixie really was delectable.

“They’ve targeted us with weapons,” Fate remarked, pulling Beam’s attention back.

“D-Do we have shields up?” Para murmured.

“Naturally,” Fate said. “But our systems are more designed for handling damage due to our surroundings, not active attacks. So I’m not sure how this will go. We don’t have anything worthwhile to arm in response, either.”

“We have me,” Trixie said, a smirk appearing. “That’s good enough.”

“Hail them again, until they answer,” Beam suggested.

Fate nodded in agreement, and tapped at her remote. Long seconds passed. Finally, there was a chirping noise, and Fate tapped another button, allowing the face of Evil Alijdah to appear, filling most of the view screen.

“I’m going to go with my double being more resourceful than I gave her credit for,” Alijdah said dryly. “Rather than you being more perceptive. That said, she’s obviously over here. Along with your Alice. If you want them back unharmed, you’ll need to accede to our demands. Immediately.”

Beam shook her head. “If YOU truly want the vaccine, YOU’LL accede to OUR demands.”

Fate took a step back, seemingly deferring to Beam’s authority. Which, Beam supposed, made sense, if the plan was still for her to take over commanding the station again. Once the current crisis was passed.

Alijdah glared. “What good is a vaccine to me? I’m already infected, obviously.”

Beam placed her hands on her hips. “What good? Well, supposedly the virus will run its course and you’ll lose the ears… but you could be reinfected by Smoke. Or any of its variations. You don’t know. Or perhaps this way you can travel back in time to inoculate yourself and then just fake having the disease now. Then there’s also the fact that my vaccine COULD cure any lasting aftereffects. We don’t know, as we haven’t been able to go through trials yet. All good reasons to back the hell off.”

Alijdah continued to glare for a moment, only to finally grumble, “Valid points. Fine, we’ll trade access to your medication for your people.”

“No. You returning our people is a gesture of goodwill towards negotiations for the medication,” Beam shot back. Adding, “pyon pyon” as her tongue started to feel twisted up once more.

Alijdah snorted. “No. Hell, maybe all I have to do is wait, and either you or the people on that planet will have a vaccine we can barter for, or otherwise steal. Who needs you?”

“You sent us the message,” Beam insisted. “You brought us here. You thought we were the only ones who could solve this. For that matter, you may have already caught only a variation. I haven’t heard a single pyon pyon from you yet. How much are you going to risk here?”

Alijdah muttered something under her breath. She couldn’t be sure, but Beam thought it was something to the effect of having only needed another hour, and they wouldn’t have had to haggle.

“This offer is going to expire in a minute,” Beam insisted. “Do you accept?”

“Or what?” Alijdah argued. “You may have found us, but I don’t think you have the resources to disable our station. And if you try to board us, or beam your people back, you’re basically asking for trouble. Why should we even listen to you?”

“Because of Trixie,” Beam said, turning to look at the twin-tailed redhead. “It’s time.”

Trixie’s eyes lit up. She plucked her small device from out of her blouse pocket and held it aloft. “Rixi? Epsilon interface. Authorization, alpha-alpha-three-zero-five.”

“All right,” her device intoned, in an imitation of Trixie’s voice. “Interfacing.” The red crystal seemed to glow brighter.

“Oh no,” Alijdah deadpanned. “You’re going to sic your techno-witch girlfriend on me. She’d better not try to board either.”

Trixie swung her arm out to the side, glaring at the view screen. “Rixi? Materialize delivery gun.”

Beam had wondered about Trixie’s need for Para’s expertise in density suits, and shrinking or enlarging things on a temporary basis. Apparently, what Trixie had needed was an interface that could be equally compatible with her personal magick hammerspace.

This had been the reason.

A globe of light appeared, hovering briefly over the screen of Trixie’s device. Almost immediately, it’s radius expanded, and it shot up into the air, under the control of Epsilon’s computer. Soon there was a huge sphere hanging over the central hub of the Epsilon Station itself.

Then the light was dispelled, leaving an enormous version of what had - once upon a time - been a nerf gun.

Trixie mimicked cocking the gun using her free hand, and on a display in the background, Beam saw the huge delivery gun respond to her action.

“Not. Girlfriends,” was all she added, with an impish smile.

Alijah’s eyes widened. She turned to look at something out of their field of view, and then looked back. Again there was muttering, but this time, all Beam could pick up on was curse words.

“So,” Beam continued. “Return our people. Enter into a dialogue about receiving our medication, which will naturally involve you not interfering in other dimensional worlds again. Otherwise? Trixie starts her deliveries.”

Alijah’s face twitched. “Well then,” she began.

OPTIONS:

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VOTING CLOSES MONDAY MARCH 22nd APRIL 2nd.

THE ORACLE PROPHESIED: Trixie’s Mirrors project comes to a head with her interfacing Rixi and bringing back the gun from Part One. (That had to come back, right?) Meanwhile it was intended from the beginning for Clover to have sent the message to Epsilon; the talk of time travel and Fate’s suggestion of Vortex being the origins were all misdirection. (After all, Clover was the main lead-in of Part Two, and is central to this “Epsilon Trilogy” of sorts.)

EXTRA ASIDE: Had a three way tied vote after a week, which was fortunately broken shortly thereafter. Closed the poll early Tuesday, been writing the last couple days. For what it’s worth. I hope you’ve enjoyed… site traffic has definitely not been great in general. Let me know if you think there’s a loose end in the story that I need to tie up, we’re almost done.

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART SIXTEEN

Alice wasn’t clear on why Evil Alijdah was willing to allow for collateral damage. She only knew their Alijda planned to fake-out her double, tricking her into leaving, meaning Alice would need to track Alijdah back to her base.

Alice hoped it was true that Alijdah couldn’t teleport like their Alijda, or all this setup would be for nothing.

“This is what happens when you stir up trouble, Avril,” grumbled a quiet voice behind Alice.

Alice jumped, and looked over her shoulder. It was Harriet, the woman who had made the link for her between Alijdah and Clover Enterprises. A few townspeople were observing the scene by now.

“I… didn’t expect an Alijda to fight herself?” was all Alice could think to say.

“One of ‘em is a fake,” Harriet scoffed. “Maybe both of ‘em. Mercury better get here soon, that’s all I can say.”

Alice blinked. “Mercury?”

“Pandemic gave her control over water,” Harriet elaborated, gesturing at the nearest fire. “She can get this under control pretty quick.”

Alice had no time to follow up on that, since her communicator chirped. The sign that Alijda was about to enact her plan. Her plan of a blind teleport.

Of course, the chirp had originated with the Epsilon station itself, Alijda being rather preoccupied.

While the improved Epsilon communicators had allowed for Alijda to speak directly with Alice, here they needed the Station to monitor too. Specifically, the place Alijda had chosen as a teleport site. To make sure it was clear of people.

Apparently, it now was.

Alice remained hesitant about this plan, yet they hadn’t really been able to discuss it, what with Alijda being on the run. Now they were committed.

Alijda appeared via a teleport into the middle of the square.

Alijdah ran out of a side passage moments later, drawing another bead with her gun.

“Look, you’re right,” Alijda called out, seemingly in response to something her counterpart had said while out of earshot. “I can’t keep doing this. Why don’t we talk? Your bunny ears, for instance, we can help–”

“SHUT. UP,” Alijdah yelled. “FOREVER.”

She fired off another pulse from her ray gun. Alijda vanished in her usual cloud of purple and black smoke.

Except she didn’t.

As the smoke rapidly dissipated, Alice saw that Alijda was still standing there, clutching at her front. “Hell,” Alijda choked out, stumbling backwards.

Her foot hit the edge of a loosely boarded up old well behind her, she fell back against the planks, they cracked, and she plunged down into the abyss below.

Alice honestly felt her chest tighten, and she instinctively reached up to clutch at her tunic. That had been way too convincing. Had Alijda truly managed to teleport away from the energy ray, and then immediately back, as planned? Or had the plan gone wrong?

Even if that had worked, had Alijda’s blind teleport out of the well been successful?

Evil Alijdah was naturally suspicious, edging towards the well. It’s like she was expecting Alijda to teleport in behind her, and push her inside the hole. In the end, she got down on one knee to move in and peer over the edge.

It must have been too deep to know. Alijdah, at least, seemed satisfied.

“You’ll have nothing to worry about regarding that lady trying to recruit again,” Alijdah announced, standing up and looking over at some of the bystanders. An audacious lie.

Even more people were around by now, along with Alice and Harriet. Some were trying to deal with the largest of the fires, but most had been too nervous to move. What with how the fight had tended to change locations.

Alijdah proceeded to stalk out of the area, with no further comment. No one tried to stop her. Alice supposed that was the sensible thing to do, under the circumstances.

Alice immediately gave chase, ignoring Harriet’s quiet mutter of “Avril, you’re crazy”.

She wasn’t that crazy though. As she followed, Alice tried to keep hidden. Peering around the corners of the houses, as she tracked the fake version of her roommate. Making a mad dash forwards whenever she was able.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before Alijdah tapped at something on her wrist, and walked into what looked like a tool shed, out behind one of the houses. After a minute of waiting for her to come out with a tool, Alice circled around to see if there was another exit.

There was not. The building was quite small. What was Alijdah doing in there?

The natural answer, to Alice at least, is that it wasn’t a tool shed. Maybe, like the telephone pole on Bunny World, it hid some sort of secret elevator. To an underground base.

Seconds ticked by. Alice finally decided she would have to risk going in.

At least this time, she wouldn’t have Trixie smooshed up against her for any length of time. Even if that had been her own suggestion on the prior mission.

“Ubi fumus, ibi ignis,” Alice muttered to herself as she reached for the doorknob.

“Alice has vanished from our sensors.”

Alijda forced herself to sit back up. “What now?”

Over the communicator, Fate sighed. “I’m sure you heard me.”

[caption id=“attachment_976” align=“alignright” width=“168”] Alijda van Vliet (chibi).
Commission from: Shirochya[/caption]

Alijda pressed her palm in hard against her forehead. She’d hoped to take a longer rest after all those teleports to avoid her alternate self, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen. “When? Where was she?”

“Moments ago. She was a short distance away in town. Kind of hoping you can check this out.”

“You can’t?” Alijda grumbled.

“We’d focussed our sensors on where you are, to make sure your teleport would be clear,” Fate reminded. “It’s taking a while to recalibrate.”

“Uh huh.” Alijda pushed herself to her feet.

She was in a grassy meadow. It might double as someone’s backyard, since there was a house nearby, but the grass was long enough to obscure her when lying down. The twisted tree next to her been a good marker to visualize, in terms of accomplishing her blind teleport.

She really hated doing those… her stomach still felt queasy.

“I’m on my way,” Alijda said, stumbling as she walked. “Direct me.”

Fate had her standing outside a tool shed in less than five minutes.

“I don’t see anything around,” Alijda said. “No sign of a struggle, no message left behind, no nothing. You think Alice is inside this little shed, shielded from sensors somehow?”

“No. At least, the interior registers for us,” Fate amended. “So it’s not shielded. But I guess it could be a false reading.”

Alijda shook her head. “Opening the door then,” she announced.

The door pulled out, and inside there was only blackness. A pitch black that seemed impossible to achieve, given how there should have been some light spilling in from the doorway itself. Strange.

“Alice? Are you there?” Alijda yelled.

There was no answer.

“I’m going to poke my head in,” Alijda decided. “And report on what I see.”

“Be careful,” Fate cautioned. “Magic has a tendency to produce strange effects at the best of times. That world right now? Could be producing anything.”

“Great.” Alijda held onto the door frame and leaned in. The blackness enveloped her.

Before she could even speak, the door was slamming shut, bruising her fingers.

“Okay,” Fate said after a moment. “We’ve officially gone from bad to worse.”

Para felt her ears twitch as she looked at the blank screen. There should have been a green dot there, denoting Alijda’s position. Technically two, as one should be pinpointing Alice as being there also.

Para had come to the main control room after Fate’s universal page, stating ‘Warning: A situation is developing’. Alice had vanished before Para had even arrived.

Neither Beam, nor Trixie, had made an effort to respond yet. Para hoped that they weren’t asleep, or more awkwardly, keeping each other busy.

“You think Alijdah is on to them?” Para wondered. “Led them into a trap?”

“Either that, or there’s more to this World than what we see on the surface,” Fate said. She glared at the screen. “Thing is, I don’t know of anything, magical or technological, that can spirit people away like that.”

“Aside from us,” Para reminded.

Fate turned to stare at her instead. “Pardon?”

“This Station does teleport retrievals,” Para reminded. “Someone walks through a door on their world, they end up here, in our Control room. Happens all the time to me. Right?”

“Right,” Fate said slowly. “Our door manipulation power.” She turned back to stare at the blank monitor. “Oh. Oh, damn. Hold on.”

Para watched as Fate entered a sequence into the computer, and ran her finger down the screen as some sort of result scrolled across it.

“You did it, Para. Signs of door manipulation. Alice, both Alijdas, all transported using the tool shed as a doorway. But how could they get so far away as to not be picked up again by our Station sensors?”

Para shrugged, having never looked into the door technology herself. It had always seemed more mystical than mathematical.

“Seriously now,” Fate continued, seemingly talking more to herself at this point. “We’re tapped into three Worlds at once. No reading. What other World could they have gone to? Even doors have limits. Deeper scan maybe?”

Fate typed at her keyboard for a minute, frowned, muttered ‘no dice’, then looked at Para.

“Okay Para, new thought,” Fate said. “Alijdah used that door first. Where would SHE have been going? Any more brilliant ideas?”

Para was tempted to shrug again, but instead offered up, “Somewhere we can’t scan. Like when Trixie and Alice vanished, back in Jake Hyde’s underground lab.”

Fate pointed at her. “Nice. Yet you were able to punch through that time, with the sensor enhancements.”

“Because we knew where to look,” Para admitted. “This time, we don’t know. And we don’t have pylons to triangulate, giving us a necessary signal boost.”

“True,” Fate agreed. “But we DO know the origins of that scattering field technology. Maybe Trixie hacks back into Vortex Limited to find–”

Fate stopped speaking, tapped at her chin, then pushed back from the side of the keyboard and crossed her arms.

“Go with me on this,” Fate requested. “Do your good listening thing, and tell me if I’m off base. Okay Para?”

Para nodded, having no idea where Fate was going with this.

“This all started thanks to an encrypted communication we received. It led to a scan we did on this dimensional sector. Turning up the airborne virus.” She paused.

“Correct,” Para said.

“Thing is, the scan message didn’t tell us to look for a virus. Just that we needed to scan here. And Smoke, pandemic-wise, turned out to be natural. Almost. Meaning the only real reason we’re here is due to that communication.”

She paused again, and this time Para simply nodded and shrugged.

“Okay. So what if the first message wasn’t about Smoke at all? What if it was meant to help us locate something else?”

Para considered that. “You mean Clover Enterprises?” She was reminded of Mason’s comment about how the best place to stay hidden would be somewhere like a pandemic world. Somewhere nobody wants to go.

“Maybe,” Fate said. “But it may also be that Clover was drawn here by the same communication. In fact, hmm… what if the message was meant for THEM? And we simply intercepted a subspace copy?”

Para raised her eyebrows. “That could explain how they got here first, indirectly setting off the pandemic.”

“Okay,” Fate said, smiling. “We’re onto something. Bunny World flags the dimensions. Clover Enterprises responds. They get an artifact, or… you know what? Maybe this is about the scattering field technology. Honestly, it’s so unique that it could be at the heart of all this.”

“It IS something that would allow Clover to hide from this Station,” Para mused. “They’d like that. I think the Vortex documents referred to that particular tech as Mirrors?”

Fate nodded. “All right. So, Vortex Bunnies broadcast that there’s something here worth investigating. Clover comes for Mirrors. We pick up the same message later, after the pandemic, and assume it’s about the virus, Smoke.”

“Because after Clover’s techno-magic soup, Smoke became the bigger dimensional issue.”

“Right,” Fate said. “Yet we know Clover didn’t leave after that. Because Evil Alijdah was on the planet moments ago, trying to recruit.”

“All of this implying that Clover Enterprises have their own station here,” Para decided. “Or at least some ship, set up to receive encrypted messages in the same way as us.”

“And for all we know, their vessel could be off our port,” Fate concluded. “If they’re using Mirrors, we have no way of knowing. Short of setting up signal boosting pylons.”

“Exactly,” Para realized.

“Almost,” came a voice from above.

Para looked up, to see Trixie at the hatch in the ceiling. The redheaded techno-witch smiled, then reached out to flick the nearby switch. She began to ride the telescoping ladder down to the floor, in much the same way Fate had done it at their first meeting.

“Do elaborate,” Fate said, hands going to her hips.

Trixie ran her free hand back through one of her twintails, then the other. “Simply that my earlier analysis of that scattering field may pay off now. If what you’re saying is true, we CAN find them.”

Even as Fate seemed about to say something else, Trixie’s smile shifted to a more serious expression.

“The question becomes, do you want them to know that we see them?” Trixie continued. “Because that’s what will happen. And while it may make this Clover group hesitate in their future use of the tech, it may also get them upset.”

“Is there another option?” Para asked.

Trixie hopped off the ladder. “I could be more stealthy about finding them. There’s less of a guarantee of success, unless we assume that Alice or Alijda are already on this ship, and can do more on their end.”

“Trixie, we don’t know their status,” Fate objected.

Para looked back and forth between the other two. “Nothing says we have to act now,” she offered up. “We could do more research first. Fate could try to mind swap with Alice again. Something like that.”

Fate shook her head. “At this point, I don’t think Alijda-h is going to hang around any longer than she has to. We may already be too late.”

Trixie nodded. “Sums up my analysis. Glad it’s not my call,” she added.

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10759324]

VOTING CLOSES MONDAY MARCH 8th.

THE ORACLE PROPHESIED: Trixie was always going to have to come through at some point - she started this whole serial saga. So when the vote sent Alijda down to the planet with Alice instead of her, Trixie’s Mirrors project was retroactively born (in part 14) as her contribution. (Incidentally, the ‘Mirrors’ codename was not pre-planned, but I’d say it meshes nicely with the title now.)

EXTRA ASIDE: I actually forgot to close the poll until yesterday. Oops. Writing was mostly done, good thing it was unanimous, hard for that to change. Enjoying the twists at all? Or perhaps they were too predictable. We’re probably looking to wrap this up in the next few instalments, wouldn’t you say? In any event, thank you for your continued interest. Hope you continue to vote.

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART FIFTEEN

The redheaded techno-witch heard her name, but took a moment to finish her installation of the transmitter underneath the control panel. Then, after she’d finished twisting the small wires together, she took a moment to inspect her handiwork. It was good enough.

“Trixie, the other women are looking for you.”

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE VIRGA
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

A sigh escaped. Trixie began to shove herself back from her position, flat on her back with most of her body stuck far underneath the console. “What do they want, Para?” she asked.

“Fate wants to be able to synthesize some clothes for Alijda,” came Para’s voice. “And Beam is feeling horny.”

Trixie nearly bashed her forehead against the edge of the apparatus as she extracted herself. She caught herself just in time, shoved herself the extra distance necessary, and THEN lifted her head, staring up at the mathematical bunny girl.

Para stood there, hands clasped behind her back, looking as innocent as you please. The blonde’s head tilted as Trixie stared. “Problem?”

Trixie sighed again. She’d needed to work with Para, on account of the mathematical woman knowing about making things shrink or grow temporarily. Apparently Para had even managed to devise density suits for another mission.

And on the face of it, there was nothing wrong about working with Para. As long as it’s work that was involved. Since Para couldn’t consistently pick up on social norms.

“Could we maybe use a euphemism for that word next time?” Trixie requested.

Para frowned. “For horny? I was just repeating what Beam said.”

“I know,” Trixie assured. “But find a thesaurus. Squirrelly. Overexcited. Concupiscent, perhaps, that sounds well educated.”

Para stared, then simply nodded. “Okay.”

“It’s less distracting,” Trixie clarified. “Particularly when I’ll need only five minutes here to get Fate what she wants, before in all probability losing at least an hour of time to…” A shiver ran up her back at the mere thought of some of the things the bunny-infected Beam was able to do. “…pleasurable stuff.”

Para half smiled at that. “Okay, I think I get it now.”

Trixie stood, raking her fingers back through her twintails before reaching down to dust off her pants. “You think. You’re not sure.”

There was a moment of hesitation. “I’m more mathematical than sexual. Part of me is still trying to figure out Beam’s appeal.”

Trixie hid a smile. “Maybe you’ll find out out the hard way. If I mistake you for her in the dark some day, on account of the long, blonde hair and bunny ears.”

“Uh… i-is that likely?” Para said, sounding genuinely concerned.

Trixie shook her head. “Nope!” She reached out to pat the math woman on her arm.

“Listen. It’s not just the look, Para. It’s the attitude, and the things that Beam can do…” Trixie shook her head. “You have to experience them to understand. The way I did. It’s more than mere holographic programming. It’s somehow magical.”

This despite how the fling with Beam had started as more of an effort in self-discovery. Was sex a viable way to release tension after being stuck on this station for a couple weeks? Was the hologram’s appeal more physical, more technological, or perhaps some pull of Trixie’s techno-magic interest asserting itself?

Worse, was there a blind spot in Trixie’s own personality that Beam could reveal, to prevent future exploitation?

Their relationship had deteriorated rather rapidly into ‘yes-there-YES-oh-Gods-how-did-you-know-oh-OH’ but Trixie still hazarded that a later examination of this affair once she was back on her home world would prove illuminating. She was pretty sure she wasn’t simply fooling herself.

Pretty sure.

Plus she’d thought their recreational activities had helped Beam regain more control over herself too, furthering the goal of getting home at all. It was presumably the hologram’s hyper speed, necessary for seeking a cure to the pandemic, which had resulted in new side effects.

Trixie rather hoped Beam’s plans for her didn’t involve hyper speed too.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Para said, pulling Trixie out of her thoughts. “And sorry for being distracting.”

Trixie coughed, realizing she was now staring into space with her hands clasped together. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. Yes, time to get the rest of the Station back online.

“It’s fine,” Trixie said, gesturing vaguely as she turned and typed in her access code on the nearby keyboard. “What’s Alijda need new clothes for anyway?”

“Apparently there’s some double of her, or maybe a future version, down on the Fantasy planet,” Para explained. “So Alijda is going to pose as this Alijdah to get information about Clover Enterprises.”

Trixie frowned. That was distracting in a different way. “Here’s something I’ve wondered,” she said as she typed. “This Station exists out in a dimensional multiverse, right?”

“Right,” Para agreed.

“Where anything we dream about might actually be happening. Personified Math, Time Lords, Magical Girls, Demon Plagues, the whole nine yards. It might all exist.”

“So it seems,” Para affirmed when Trixie paused.

Trixie took the time to look up at Para. “Then are there other versions of us running around? Like is there another me out there, Mirror Universe style, who comes from a more aggressive human society or something?”

On the one hand, Trixie rather liked the idea that if she were to die - or for that matter, ascend like her cousin - there might be some other version of her still out there. Living a full life. On the other hand, if alt-Trixie was a wallflower or a dominatrix, she wasn’t sure she wanted the association.

Para’s nose crinkled as she considered the question. Trixie resumed her typing.

“I don’t think so,” Para said, after at least a minute of thought. “From what I understand, the Station registers dimensional access points using a tethered World which is dominant. The millions of individual decisions made in the framework of said world don’t manifest in an accessible way.”

“Yet there are separate Worlds out there with related events and objects. I’ve seen resonance scans, which can be used for pinpointing them,” Trixie insisted.

Trixie wasn’t entirely sure she was supposed to have seen that data, but she’d needed a break from her work last week and the files had not been well encrypted.

“That’s possible,” Para yielded. “But there’s still the Observer Effect to contend with.”

“Ah!” Valid point. “You mean as soon as we measure something out here, like the Smoke pandemic, any other waveform versions of it collapse,” Trixie clarified. That made some sense, at least.

“It seems logical,” Para stated.

Trixie paused in her typing. “Implying that any other versions of us who once existed are simply already a part of who we are now, or are at the least not capable of manifesting along with us inter-dimensionally.”

It was an answer that was something of a non-answer, in that it implied other Trixies COULD exist, but were incapable of being perceived by anyone once Trixie herself had shown up.

“Right. Though, I mean, there’s another version of me who exists with parabolic twintails, so what do I know,” Para said, ruefully.

Trixie again glanced at the blonde. “Oh? A ‘version’ isn’t really you though, is she? Different history and all?”

“True,” Para said. She tapped her chin. “Why these sudden questions, Trixie? Do you think Alijda could be going up against a quantum version of herself?”

“What I think about that,” Trixie said, as she entered the last command sequence, “Is merely an idle curiosity. What concerns me more is what else might be out there.”

As Trixie hit Enter and stepped back from the keyboard, she took a moment to watch the data scroll across the monitor. Her new system was coming online, along with the regular Station systems she’d temporarily shut down. She’d want to run a test, but could do it later.

“Go tell Fate she has access to the systems she needs,” Trixie concluded. “I’m off to see Beam.”

“Okay. Enjoy being concupiscent,” Para said brightly.

Trixie managed to avoid stumbling as she strode out of the room.

Alijda had to hand it to her counterpart. Her Clover Enterprises version was cagey.

Despite spending a couple of hours now in her disguise, there was no new information to be had. Even talking with those individuals who had previously communicated with her/Alijdah didn’t reveal anything, because her doppelgänger hadn’t said much to them in the first place.

To maximize their efforts, as it had taken some time for Alijda to obtain a change of clothing and begin her investigation, Alice had also wandered through the village under her Avril persona. To see if she could learn more about being recruited.

Neither of them were making progress. One person had even pointed Alice/Avril at Alijda/Alijdah, which felt like backwards progress.

“At what point do we switch and go with the vaccine trial plan?” Alijda asked, speaking into her communicator.

She heard the frustration in Alice’s response. “An hour ago? Sorry Alijda, I guess this was the wrong call.”

Alijda shook her head, nearly dislodging the large hat she wore, for what felt like the sixtieth time. “No worries. As it is, I’ve been acting visibly shady. So maybe the possible recruits will be turned off, and not end up as new Clover victims.”

“But getting at the Clover organization was the ultimate goal here! We cannot allow–” Alice began, only to cut herself off. She sighed. “I should stop obsessing there, huh?”

“At some point, yes. For now, I’ll keep at this, as I haven’t run into that Jonas recruit yet, and he might know…” She stopped.

And whatever Alice might have responded, Alijda missed it, as her attention had been taken by the woman who had walked around the nearby house. That brunette was immediately staring at her, arms folded.

It was nonsensical, but Alijda briefly wondered if she’d been born a twin.

“I’ll have to get back to you,” Alijda said, lowering the communicator.

“Let me guess,” Evil Alijdah said. “You’re wondering if I might be some future version of yourself. If so, you’d be immune from harm, lest I become the cause of my own past discomfort. Yes?”

Alijda didn’t answer.

The corners of her counterpart’s mouth turned up. “Allow me to correct your thinking.”

It was largely instinct that caused Alijda to teleport away as her counterpart brought out the weapon. It looked to be some sort of ray gun.

As Alijda reappeared behind her double, she saw that Evil Alijdah had fired anyway, a laser passing through the purple cloud of her teleport smoke to strike the nearby building.

A small fire began to burn.

Evil Alijdah was then quick to pick up on Alijda’s new position. “It seems like we can’t talk about this?” Alijda managed to say, before teleporting away again.

She appeared on the roof. Her counterpart’s gun started another fire.

This wasn’t what Alijda had pictured when she’d worried about everything going sideways. And even as she wondered why Evil Alijdah was damaging the village, she realized that her counterpart could later pin the blame back on HER as having been the one with the gun.

Maybe even use this event as a reason to leave with her recruits.

“I can do this all day,” Evil Alijdah shouted, not having immediately spotted the teleport this time. She then fired into a nearby tree, perhaps owing to a rustling of the branches.

Okay, that gun had to go.

Taking in a deep breath, Alijda teleported right next to her counterpart, reaching out to grab her arm. They struggled, Alijda attempting to get the other woman to drop her weapon, with Evil Alijdah trying to draw a bead on her.

In the process of shoving back and forth, Alijda felt her hat fall to the ground… and vaguely wondered why that hadn’t happened yet for her counterpart. In fact, why the large hat at all?

Along that line of thinking, perhaps she was fighting a robot double, or a hologram. Perhaps with a power source contained inside the hat, much like how Beam’s hairband was a control point for her. Maybe it was even a weak point?

Alijda decided to risk it. Giving up on the gun, which threw her counterpart off balance, she grasped the hat and yanked it away.

Two bunny ears unfurled from beneath it, twitching as Evil Alijdah let out a string of curses.

It looked like somehow, she’d been infected with the pandemic from Bunny World.

‘This changes things,’ Alijda thought, even as she quickly teleported back to her rooftop. But Evil Alijdah saw her this time, necessitating another teleport to behind the house.

A new plan was forming. Perhaps they could try to bargain with Evil Alijdah, using their vaccine? They could cure her, in exchange for leaving this World (maybe even the multiverse) alone.

Then again, the bunny effects WOULD disappear in time (supposedly), and her counterpart didn’t seem to be in a bargaining mood. Success there depended on how annoying the virus had become.

Alternatively, they could try to capture Evil Alijdah. Her double hadn’t teleported herself in pursuit. Perhaps because she couldn’t? The circumstances which had led to Alijda’s power were bizarre enough to be impossible to duplicate.

So Alice could come in from behind, and zap the woman somehow… but perhaps Evil Alijdah had other forms of backup. How big was Clover Enterprises?

A fake-out seemed like the only other option, somehow appearing to die - maybe by have a building collapse on her? - after which Alice could pursue Evil Alijdah when she left. Hopefully returning to wherever she’d come from.

Which was all well and good, assuming Evil Alijdah wasn’t inclined to search for a body.

Whatever the decision, Alijda had to make it fast.

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10745288]

VOTING CLOSES MONDAY FEBRUARY 22nd.

EXTRA ASIDE: As usual, we had the one initial vote when the last post went up. Towards the end of January I made another social media call, and got a couple more… including a message that someone had meant to vote for Alijda and had voted for Alice. I can’t take back votes, but CAN vote myself (though I never do) so I voted for Alijda. Meaning the vote SHOULD be 2-1-1 but is instead 2-2-1, hence paying some lip service to Alice/Avril. Closed the vote Feb 5th but was still tied up in report cards, so only started writing Feb 13th. I do have more time to write for the moment, so we’re returning to posts every two weeks until mid-April. Thank you for getting this far!

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART TWELVE

Granted, in that elevator she’d been pressed up closer to Alice than she had been to her occasional boyfriend the last time they’d been together. And Alice was staying in quarantine.

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE VIRGA
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

But Alice had been wearing a mask, and according to Ziggy’s preliminary analysis, Trixie had a negative test.

Besides, they now had to deal with the situation involving the Vortex scientist… in Fate’s body, sealed off in an isolated area of the station. Trixie had volunteered to do the interrogating, off Beam’s suggestion of getting more information from him somehow.

And Trixie stepping up wasn’t merely because of the looks he’d been giving her, after they’d been caught at his lab, down on the planet. She also wanted to know more about how he’d been allowed to work alone in secret in the first place.

She considered what they knew already.

Alice’s plan of pretending to be members of Vortex Limited, ‘checking up on their scientist’, had worked. To a point. That point being the man in question asking them what his name was.

“This whole assignment has been pretty hush hush,” Alice remarked. “We only get codenames. Yours is Nye.”

He stared at her.

Alice waved her hands back and forth. “You’re the science guy! No? Maybe? Not a thing on this Earth? C’mon, work with me here.”

“Who are you really?” he demanded.

Alice lowered her hands as Trixie clasped hers behind her back. “How about this,” she proposed, leaning forwards. “We’ll tell, if you do. Along with why you let us come through your decontamination area, despite suspecting us of something nefarious.”

He seemed to consider her. “My name is Jake Hyde. As for letting you back in, it should be obvious that, now that you’re in my underground residence, it will be harder for you to leave.”

“Was already hard, what with you controlling the elevator,” Alice pointed out.

Jake nodded. “True, but now it’s also easier to judge what you know, as you’re here in front of me. For instance, based on where you two specifically aren’t looking, I divine that you also know of my hidden passage to the lab area.”

Trixie made a face. He was smarter than she’d hoped. “And here I thought you let us in because you wanted to see me all wet,” she remarked, referencing how the decontamination chamber worked.

He chuckled. “Fine. Not going to lie, that’s nice bonus. Particularly given your pants.”

Trixie smiled, shifting her hip out to the side. Smarter, but not gay or celibate, so she had something working for her after all. Maybe the leather pants hadn’t been a poor choice.

“You still haven’t reciprocated,” he pointed out then, frowning.

Trixie nodded, standing straight. “I’m Trixie,” she admitted. “This is Alice. We detected a weird reading outside the park, and then when we arrived, thought you might have useful information about the pandemic.”

He eyed them. “You’re from that Tech World then,” he decided. “There’s no other way you could have figured out access to this place, short of truly working for Vortex.”

“Maybe we’re Tech who also work for Vortex,” Alice suggested, wiggling her eyebrows. “Also, have I mentioned that I’m single?”

‘Alice, don’t help,’ Trixie thought mentally. Aloud, she simply stated, “We’re not about to confirm or deny anything. We did see some suspicious stuff in our brief time here though, so maybe you should take us back to your lab and explain how you have different strains of the virus?”

He again took a moment to think about it, before gesturing to Trixie to lead the way. She went over to trigger the knothole, and soon enough all of them were back in the larger computerized area.

Jake went over to log into the computer system. “If I do this,” he remarked, “perhaps you’ll tell me how you didn’t turn up on sensors coming in. The first time. Invisibility fields?”

“Classified, sorry,” Alice said, clasping her hands behind her back.

Classified information was an idea Trixie could get behind. The fact that Jake asked the question also implied he hadn’t noticed (couldn’t notice?) her wiping of the security footage.

“You’ll have to ask for something else,” Trixie stated. Then with a wink, she remarked, “Like our phone numbers.”

Jake snickered. “Nice try, you two. As if I have time for personal relationships when I’m this close to a breakthrough.”

He called up something on the screen and pointed to it. “Here. I manipulate and look at different strains because some of them are less resistant to attack. The data could lead to a treatment, or a vaccine.”

Alice peered at him. “Why do this in secret though?”

He shrugged. “Vortex isn’t fond of my methods. Actually, the main problem I’m running into is a lack of subjects. Mice only get me so far.” He eyed them again. His gaze seeming to linger on Trixie. “You two might want to be more forthcoming. Since right now, you’re new possibilities.”

Trixie felt her heart rate increase. He didn’t seem like he was joking. “It’s true we have advanced technology,” she admitted. “But it’s coded to us, thus of no use to you.” Which was true enough; Rixi wasn’t about to respond to anyone else.

“Who even knows you’re here?” Jake continued. “If I were to detain you for a few hours, or days, would anyone even come looking?” He smirked.

“Oh, we have people who’d be looking for us,” Alice assured him. “Also, given your attitude, I withdraw the Nye codename. Bad Jake. Learn ethics.”

“Anyway, do you really think we’d tell you if we wouldn’t be missed?” Trixie challenged.

He laughed. Then seemed to hesitate. Then his eyes went wide.

“Oh no, Alice, if you’re over there, then who am I?” Jake gasped.

Meaning prior to the mind swap, Jake had confirmed that Vortex had been turning something of a blind eye to him. No doubt if his work had proved successful, the company would have taken some credit, while if his work had failed - medically or ethically - they could have claimed to have no part in it.

But had he really had ‘carte blanche’ to do whatever he wanted?

At the least, Trixie now knew he wasn’t responsible for Smoke itself. Beam had found in the files that the pandemic’s origin had been due to the tech-magic-dimensional soup, which came about thanks to the interference of Clover Enterprises.

Resulting in computer simulations, to the point of being able to run one on Beam’s holographic matrix, hence why she’d ended up in quarantine. The worlds being affected by this virus definitely had some technological advantages.

Yet there were still unanswered questions.

Trixie unlocked the door to the storage area. “I’m coming in, I wouldn’t try anything,” she said, before entering.

Fate’s body was sitting over near the corner of the room, examining Alice’s jeans and looking decidedly unimpressed. “Oh, it’s you,” Jake said. With Fate’s voice. That was going to get weird. “I should have guessed.”

Trixie leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms. “We need some answers.”

The clothing was tossed aside as Jake/Fate stood up. “Perhaps it’s my turn to say I’ll tell if you do. What the hell’s happened to me?”

Trixie considered him. She pointed and unpointed her toe. “Let’s just say the people Alice and I work for were concerned for our safety,” she said at last. “Resulting in your abduction. One of them, incidentally, is Beam.”

Jake/Fate looked surprised, then nodded. “Again, I should have guessed. But know what? If you Tech World types are trying to intimidate me with that knowledge, it’s backfiring. I was able to infect that computerized woman without much difficulty. Meaning I might get out of here without much trouble too.”

Trixie stared. “In the body of a woman.”

Jake/Fate looked down at himself. He cupped his chest. “I won’t deny it’s a mite distracting. But I could do illegal things out there now and not have it traced back to me. Plus I feel like there’s worse places you could have put me, if you’d wanted.” He looked back up and smiled. “So why didn’t you?”

Trixie glowered. She was simultaneously glad that he wasn’t in her body, and confused as to whether she should attempt any of her distraction techniques now. I mean, did she really want Jake admiring her legs while he was effectively possessing Fate? Particularly if it wasn’t giving her the upper hand?

Trixie settled for, “I suppose this is where I point out YOU haven’t reciprocated any information yet.”

Jake/Fate snorted. “You haven’t told me what you wanted to know.”

“Fine. Then first, how was Vortex able to send out a dimensional message?”

His eyebrow went up. “Best guess? By uncoupling the heisenberg compensator.”

Trixie sighed. “Be serious.”

“Hey, if you’re going to ask me nonsense questions I can’t answer, I’m going to fish to see if your background is truly scientific in any way.”

Okay then. Beam HAD said it was possible that Jake didn’t know anything about the message. Trixie shifted gears.

“Hmph. Second then, has there been any indication in your - admittedly thorough - viral analysis to suggest that Smoke was deliberately engineered?”

He seemed about to laugh, then thought better of it. “What, like this was intentional? No, this is very much Vortex Limited not understanding how magic and technology can play nicely together. Fusion go boom.” He tilted his head. “Why, were you hoping we could sell you a patent?”

Trixie felt a little ill. “No. What’s wrong in your mind that you would think that? I wonder how many have suffered already, thanks to your experiments down in your bunker.”

The main reason for the question had been to confirm what was in the Vortex files, and judge his own scientific understanding. And ethics, apparently.

His eyes rolled. “Suffered? Really, Trixie?”

“For all I know, you’ve been killing people,” Trixie pointed out.

Jake/Fate looked genuinely offended at that. “Hey now. I may have experimented on a few homeless individuals, but not with anything lethal. Unless your warped mind sees bunny girls as being some lethal condition.”

This was unbelievable. “So you don’t even deny experiments. First, do no harm? That ring any bell?”

Jake/Fate gestured. “That’s medicine, not science. We’re in a pandemic, we need answers.”

Apparently Vortex Limited didn’t have an ethics board. Maybe that was answer enough as to why he had never been cut off.

With that, she wanted to say ‘we’re done here’, but there was one other thing they needed to figure out on that front. She bit down on her tongue. “Okay, last thing. Do you have a way to contact Clover Enterprises?”

Jake/Fate nodded slowly. “Oho. Now we’re getting to the heart of things. You want them, do you? You know, maybe I should get your phone number first. You did offer it earlier?”

“I regret that,” Trixie said. “And this isn’t critical information. So maybe I leave instead.”

It really wasn’t critical. According to Beam, if the pandemic was natural, along with the link between Tech World and the other planets, their work was effectively done. Once they’d made sure that the outbreak wouldn’t spread further, and tracked down the source of the original dimensional message, at least.

Of course, nailing Clover Enterprises might prevent this sort of thing in the future. So it would be a nice bonus.

Jake/Fate considered. “Know what?” he said at last. “If I tell you, I want asylum on your world.”

“You what?” Trixie sputtered. The audacity of this guy.

“I want asylum on your world, the one with all the technology,” he insisted. “It’s obviously better than ours, with the possible exception of our scattering field. The fact that you cut ties with us implies you’re handling your pandemic better, and there’s really nothing left for me on my planet anyway.”

“I doubt asylum’s in the cards,” Trixie assured.

“Then I doubt Clovers are in your cards,” Jake/Fate concluded. Fate’s body sat back down and smirked at her.

Trixie sighed. She supposed that the option could be floated to actual representatives from the technological world, the one whose pandemic had affected people’s ability to use teleports. Both worlds had already been in contact already.

Would that violate Epsilon’s interference directives? She didn’t know enough about them. It might be a breach of ethics though. Given this guy’s attitude. But then, maybe Tech World had a way of rehabilitating him.

Of course, if all they wanted was the Clover information, there might be another way to get it, deceptively or otherwise. He was smart, but Trixie judged she was smarter.

Either way, she’d have to consult with Beam. She left the room before he could start eyeing her any further.

OPTIONS: [crowdsignal poll=10656324]

VOTING CLOSES SUNDAY NOVEMBER 29th (probably).

EXTRA ASIDE: I had vague plans of writing on Thanksgiving Monday (Oct 12) to get the part out on Oct 18. Still only had one vote then. Decided to leave the poll open, got distracted by a week of teaching. Closed it on Friday the 16th with 2 votes… and that weekend decided to continue “Time Untied” edits instead. (There is now a character page for that serial.) The minute engagement here was getting me down. Then I got a viewer spike in late October, and I decided I didn’t want to leave things much longer than a month. So, we’re back. Next part in December, school and NaNo’s taking time. As always, thanks for reading through to this point. Hope you’re enjoying?

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART ELEVEN

Beam froze in place. The police officer had reached for the stick she had on her belt. “I’m stopped,” Beam said, adding, “I wasn’t about to jump on you and smother you with kisses, pyon pyon.”

The police officer walked closer, her hand still on the end of the baton. “That’s good,” she said, voice slightly muffled by her mask. “Why were you approaching my position in the first place?”

Beam took in a deep breath. “Here’s the thing. There’s been suspicious activity in the park. I was hoping you could help me look into it, pyon pyon.”

When a transparent lie was likely of no use, best to tell the truth. To a degree. After all, they merely needed the police officer to go elsewhere, so that Para could set up the final pylon undisturbed.

The officer stopped about four metres away, sizing Beam up. Beam could now read the label on her uniform, identifying her as Officer Mikoto.

“The park is closed,” Mikoto reminded. “What activity do you mean?”

“Drones,” Beam answered. “Possibly magic as well, pyon pyon. I was just walking through, and well, it’s something that I definitely shouldn’t handle by myself.”

Mikoto frowned. “Wait. I think I’ve seen you around here before, haven’t I? A couple weeks back, before you, uh, caught the virus?”

[caption id=“attachment_1997” align=“alignright” width=“202”] CHIBI BEAM (pre-bunny)
Commission from Gen Ishihara[/caption]

Beam bobbed her head eagerly, clasping her hands. “Yes! My name’s Beam. I was away doing self-quarantine. Now that I’m not contagious, I’m back investigating, pyon pyon. It’s partly why I think there’s something going on here. Can you help me out? Mikoto, I’m so, euh, so worried.”

Beam cleared her throat, glad she had managed to catch herself before saying she was so aroused. Mikoto really was very pretty - even given that Beam’s definition of such had loosened considerably since the virus. The officer had short, dark hair, intense brown eyes, moderate curves and looked good in her uniform.

“Officer Mikoto,” the woman corrected, even as her stance relaxed, her hand moving away from her baton. Apparently recognizing Beam from earlier had added further credibility to the story. And although Beam had protested it less than an hour ago, perhaps wearing the large overcoat while on this mission, to cover her swimsuit, had been a good plan too.

“Okay,” Mikoto granted. “Okay, Beam. Can you show me what you saw safely, without us being detected? Or for that matter, without us being closer than two metres apart? No offence.”

Beam smiled. “None taken. And I think so. Follow after me? We’ll go in the same way I did.”

She walked off, looking back over her shoulder to verify that the officer was following. Behind Mikoto, she then saw Para poking her head out from around the corner and applauding.

Feeling her cheeks going pink, Beam quickly brought her gaze forwards again.

She quickly led Officer Mikoto around and into the park, trying to keep an eye out for drones or other activity… surely there would be something here, right? As whomever it was who had Alice and Trixie, they’d probably want to be doing surveillance for others… particularly if the Epsilon Team had tried some sort of bluff, about calling police. It was why Beam and Para hadn’t planned on going into the area at all.

Beam stopped a short distance away from the bench she’d formerly used as a place to sit and think. She again looked back at Mikoto, and gestured towards it. “It was over there, pyon pyon,” she said, mildly annoyed at not having seen anything specific yet.

Mikoto peered towards the trees and bushes where Beam had gestured. Beam wondered how long it would take Para to set up the last point of their triangle, working all by herself. Likely not that long? She might be done already.

“I’m not seeing anything now,” Officer Mikoto said, starting to peer around suspiciously in all directions. Her hand was back at her baton. “Are you certain it was a drone, Beam? Not some sort of animal?”

Beam nodded her head. “Oh, yes. At least, I’m sure it wasn’t an animal.”

“Hmmm,” came the uncertain reply. “And you said something about magic too? What exactly gave you the idea that it was operating?”

As if in answer, a purple beam of light shot through the area some distance behind them in the park. It was followed by another, and another, on the exact same bearing.

Mikoto’s baton was immediately in her hand, as she crouched. “Holy…”

‘That’s our triangulation!’ Beam realized. Para must have set up the last pylon… but was there a reason they were activating the field now? Was Para in some sort of trouble? She had to get back to the mathematical blonde.

“Yes, so, I think we should leave now,” Beam said, all in a rush. “Get going before something bad happens here that puts us both in–”

Everything went white. And then Beam found herself standing in the small set of rooms that Epsilon had sealed off as quarantine. She knew them all too well after her recent time spent there.

“–danger,” she finished.

Beam barely had enough time to register that standing around her there was Para, Alice, Trixie, some guy in a lab coat, and Officer Mikoto. Then the lights went out, dropping them all into pitch blackness.

She heard a door open, but no light accompanied it.

“Ziggy,” came the voice of Alijda van Vliet. “Lights on? Please?”

“It’s as I told you when you insisted on the activation,” came the calm female voice of the station computer. “Some systems are going to blow out.”

“The LIGHTS? Really?”

“There is a reason we do not do wide area teleportations as a matter of routine,” Ziggy said, with a hint of petulance. “Particularly when a scattering field is involved. Be glad that the lighting circuit is separate from the door locks.”

“Great. Fate’s body is still contained?” Alijda pressed.

“Naturally, as is the seal on your quarantine,” Ziggy answered.

“Lovely,” said an unknown male voice, which could only be the individual Beam had seen in the lab coat. “Though I had better be locked up too, since as I recall this mental effect has a randomized time-out.”

“Okay,” Officer Mikoto put in. “Well, before you time out or whatever, someone had better explain what in the hell is going on.”

Beam’s eyes had already adjusted to the darkness by now; she suspected that the only reason there had been a delay was the elements of her programming that made her seem more human. As such, she could see that Mikoto had taken up a defensive pose, and was edging backwards.

“Careful Mikoto, you’re going to trip over an ottoman, pyon pyon,” she warned. The police officer was heading for the comfy part of the room.

“Officer Mikoto,” the policewoman corrected, though she also froze in place. “And again, barring an explanation, everyone here is under arrest. For, at minimum, abduction.”

“I feel like this would be a good time for me to apologize again,” Alice remarked. “Fate, if I’d known it was you trying to get into my head, I wouldn’t have rejected it. I thought it was him doing something.”

“Yes, well, if I’d known the attempt would jump me to the nearest person on a rejection, I never would have enacted this plan myself,” the strange man said, crossing his arms.

Para cleared her throat. “Maybe I’m partly to blame for this new situation? Alijda just told me to get in the field, that we needed to break through with a teleport before the scattering elements took hold again.”

“Ugh, all I know is that none of this is MY fault,” Trixie asserted. “Though I am in awe of how randomly you people operate. I’ve half a mind to simply transfer the rest of the files Rixi has over to your Ziggy, and then leave your group before something more terrible happens.”

“I hope the other half of your mind wants to talk to me before that,” Alijda remarked. “Very curious about that whole tech-magic blend thing, and we have yet to properly chat.”

“There is that,” Trixie yielded.

“We would also appreciate your input in putting the pieces together, Trixie,” the man in the lab coat added. “You are good at your job.”

Trixie sighed. “And I’m not immune to flattery. But unless I miss my guess, all of us are both in quarantine and under arrest anyway? Soooo…”

“Yes. Arrest. This hasn’t been much by way of an explanation,” Mikoto said, sternly.

“If I might?” Beam said. People turned to look in her direction. Beam hoped that everyone else was starting to see in the darkness, and weren’t merely homing in on her voice.

“Go ahead,” Alice chirped in encouragement.

“On account of my situation, I can leave quarantine, pyon pyon,” Beam said. “Which means I can fix things like putting on the lights. I can even interrogate whomever’s in Fate’s body. Moreover, if I’m forced to stay in here instead, I may find myself hitting on Trixie soon, in part due to her tight leather pants. Pyon pyon.”

“She makes a strong case,” Trixie said dryly. “Anyone against?”

“Possibly,” Mikoto insisted. “I still don’t–”

“Look, we’re sorry you’re here, but you don’t want lights? Really?” Alijda interrupted.

Mikoto sighed. “Fine. But no one here try anything funny.”

Beam hurried for the exit before anyone could change their mind. Ziggy unlocked the acrylic barrier at her touch.

It had been an hour. Beam had decided to stall the others in quarantine, leaving them in the dark, once she’d learned that Trixie had resumed transferring the files from her device.

After all, it had not escaped Beam that she was technically in command for however long Fate was out of commission. Not to mention how Fate had been looking into relinquishing control of the station in any event. Bunny infection or not, Beam knew she had to step up here.

Particularly in light of what was turning up in the files.

“Ziggy?” Beam said, leaning in against the console. “Is there any other explanation here aside from them making a dimensional doorway, pyon pyon?”

“None. Vortex Limited made a dimensional doorway,” Ziggy agreed. “With the common sense to restrict it using decontamination chambers. Trixie must have been correct in her assumption, this is how the pandemic spread between Earths.”

Beam drummed her fingers. “Okay. So. Vortex gets a bunch of magic from the mysterious Clover Enterprises after trading their tech. In particular giving them things like the scattering field, which even we cannot punch through, pyon pyon. They use the new magic to, among other things, set up this underground bunker. From there, they punch a hole through to Tech World.”

“All before the pandemic,” Ziggy remarked. “And technically outside our policing, as Earths in the multiverse can do their own dimensional investigating.”

“Except for how Clover Enterprises was involved,” Beam pointed out.

“That’s why I said ‘technically’.” Ziggy’s petulant tone was back.

Beam rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Smoke soon becomes a thing due to the tech-magic-dimensional soup, and very soon after, Tech World catches a novel version. The virus must have made it through more conventional quarantine procedures, which have since been upgraded, pyon pyon.”

“Logical. This also explains how you were able to be infected,” Ziggy remarked. “Both sides were working on a computer simulation of the effects in the aftermath.”

“But that stopped a few weeks ago,” Beam continued, pointing at a date. “When Tech World cut off the link, leaving Bunny World to it’s own viral analyses. We know from our scans that Tech could then use the pandemic as cover to purge information, pyon pyon. Likely details about any dealings with other worlds, including Bunny World, the one Alijda went to, and more.”

“Another logical assumption. A world with teleporters would have had the capability to extend on the dimensional technology too, after all.”

“Loverly.” Beam hooked some hair behind her ear. “Still, two things these files don’t answer.”

“Only two?” Ziggy mused.

Beam ignored the remark. “First, why one Vortex scientist was left working on all this down there in his secret lab, alone, pyon pyon. I mean, why not a whole team?”

“I would hypothesize that Vortex Limited does not want their dimensional dealings or their part in the pandemic to go public,” Ziggy remarked. “Don’t forget, over time Smoke clears and people return to normal.”

“Except there might be side effects. And don’t enough people know about this, such that it would get out in the end?” Beam wondered. “It’s better press to say you’re working on a fix, pyon pyon. And second, while it makes sense that one of these planets would seek help by sending a dimensional message, I don’t see how we managed to be the ones to receive an encrypted communication from them. If they were the origin. A fluke?”

“I have no answer for you,” Ziggy stated, not pleased by the admission. “Though we could now apply some of the techniques in these files to attempt a better trace.”

Beam pushed away from the console to pace. Given this new intel, what was her next step? Well, probably to restore the lighting to the quarantine room, and get some help from her friends. But even then, what should she be proposing to them?

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10619965]

VOTING CLOSES SUNDAY OCTOBER 11th (probably).

EXTRA ASIDE: Closed the vote on Oct 1st as promised, most writing done on Oct 3rd. At what point do I give up on more readers? At least we avoided another tie. Whoever you are, thanks for reading through to this point. Hope you’re enjoying.

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART NINE

Could Para catch the virus? If she caught it, would she grow a second set of bunny ears? If so, would they be partially tied to her mood, as her parabolic ears currently were? Or given that she wasn’t human, would there be no physical effect, only mental problems?

Ever since Beam had been out of quarantine, Para had endeavoured to engage the other woman in conversation about the non-physical aspects of the disease. Just in case.

But that only tended to result in Beam getting seductive. Of course, it now felt questionable in terms of usefulness, as for all they knew, Beam might have been infected with some holographic variation in the first place.

Para was now spending her time trying not to think about it, instead working to improve the Station’s sensors.

[caption id=“attachment_848” align=“alignright” width=“219”] PARA
Commission by Michelle Simpson[/caption]

Granted, she didn’t know that much about the technology, but she’d asked Alijda for some help. And while her first human friend was more of a hacker than a sensor specialist, it gave the both of them something to puzzle though while Alijda was quarantined, after her return from the magical world.

The initial reason for Para’s work had been better communications in advance of future teleport retrievals. A larger part of the logic now was the encrypted message the Station had received, the one pointing it towards this pandemic problem in the first place. Perhaps they could locate the source? Or find more such messages out there?

Either way, it was fortunate that she’d put her efforts there. Because this meant that it registered right away when Trixie and Alice disappeared from routine scans for their communicators.

Para double checked. She attempted a triangulation from their last known position, and it looked like they’d been headed towards some sort of park. Somewhere Beam had frequented. An attempt to scan more directly revealed a blind spot in the sensors.

“That can’t be good,” Para muttered aloud.

Para wondered about calling Fate, but the poor woman was finally getting some rest after having sent Trixie down to the planet in the first place. So she opened an internal communication to Alijda instead.

“Hey, do you think we could finish our upgrades fast?” she asked.

Alijda’s head bobbed. It looked like she was sitting up. “Maybe,” she yawned. “Why?”

“I’ve lost track of the team on the planet,” Para explained.

Alijda flinched. “Go to Auxiliary Control and illuminate a panel there. So that I can see what you’re doing.”

“I’m already here,” Para remarked. “I’ll set it up straight away.”

They were collaborating in less than five minutes, Alijda visible on the panel from the waist up as she peered at what Para was doing.

“Okay,” Alijda said. “I think as soon as the amplifier is hooked in, we’ll get a signal boost.”

Para peered at the wires, making sure not to hook a positive to a negative. “You’d think the station could access the best equipment,” she mused aloud. “Or at least be able to replicate it or something.” This amplifier had been assembled from parts in a storage bin.

“There’s probably some law preventing them from grabbing the best dimensional technology,” Alijda remarked. She grinned. “They have to make due with temporarily grabbing the best people. Or, er, beings. Meaning us.”

Para half smiled herself as she completed the hookup. “Even though we’re in the dark. It makes me wonder about the God that Alice referred to in our first mission. Like, why can’t they help out more?”

“Or as Alice would say ‘what does God need with a Dimensional Space Station’,” Alijda remarked. “All I can say is her take was that we still needed to have free will to fix things. Or screw up. Or both, considering how she was fired. They’re good questions though, I’m glad you’re asking them.”

“I’ve been questioning more than usual lately,” Para sighed.

“Okay, that should do it,” Alijda said, as Para moved back. “Flip the switch.”

Para stood back up, dusting off her skirt. “Great. Let’s see if we can learn more about the blind spot.” She reached out to activate the enhancements.

“This area didn’t show up unless you were looking right at it, yeah?” Alijda observed. “Implies there could be more down there.”

“That’s unsettling,” Para said, frowning. “Also, it’s still there… albeit smaller. Oh wait, I’m picking up…” Para twisted a knob.

“Hello? Hello?” came Trixie’s breathless voice.

“Hello, Trixie?” Para asked.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Trixie sighed. “Hurry. We’re trapped in the elevator with valuable information. Can you beam us up? Like, we don’t need Beam but… you know what I mean, yes?”

“Um, let me check,” said Para. She looked towards Alijda, hoping her friend had some way to know.

Alijda looked at the ceiling. “Hey Ziggy, you clued in?” she asked the main computer.

“More or less,” the computer responded after a moment. “Parts of me go inactive during your work, given that I don’t entirely want to know what surgery it is you’re trying to perform on me.”

“Can we do what Trixie asked?” Para wondered.

A pause. “No, there is a scattering field in place. You will want Trixie to move further away from that location.”

Para cleared her throat. “Trixie, there’s–”

“I heard. What part of us being trapped in an elevator did you not get?” Trixie complained. “And yes, there’s an emergency hatch, but it’s stuck. In much the same way that my elbow is stuck in Alice’s side.”

“At least it’s not poking me in the breast any more,” came Alice’s deadpan voice for the first time. “This is not a large space.”

“Hey, waving my wrist communicator around WORKED, didn’t it?” Trixie shot back.

Para decided not to mention the sensor enhancements. “Ladies, you’re on the edge of a strange blind spot,” she explained. “Maybe instead you can provide us with information to shut it down, or get around it?”

“Information? Well, there’s a whole secret base down here under the park,” Trixie said. “Funded by Clover Enterprises.”

“Indirectly funded,” Alice elaborated. “It’s local, run by Vortex Limited, who have been making their money through magical upgrades to the world’s technological systems. Upgrades obtained through Clover.”

“Right, right,” Trixie agreed. “Though you’re the one who thinks this is all some global Clover Enterprises experiment.”

“Taking advantage of the locals, why wouldn’t it be?” Alice argued. “Besides, we DO know that some aspects of the magic have been less than compatible with indigenous biology. Which led to the current planetwide situation.”

“Oh, damn. The pandemic,” Alijda gasped.

“Right,” Alice confirmed. “The Bunny disease is natural, except not, because it came from components that never should have interacted. Clover is at fault.”

“Kind of makes your Epsilon Project sensible,” Trixie admitted. “Keeping items out of dimensions where they shouldn’t be. You never know what might happen when they mix.”

“But then how is the disease jumping dimensions?” Para asked. “And mutating?”

“That? Not sure,” Trixie said. “This Vortex scientist has been playing with different strains here, in an attempt to find a cure. Could be his corporation also has the ability to jump dimensions? We didn’t find evidence of that - yet - but it would account for the spreading.”

“I wonder if these guys offered a biological sample to Clover Enterprises,” Alice said. “Clover themselves could be the ones spreading it. After all, the first file we saw was for a trade, not a cash payment. Might have been for items to be provided later.”

“I feel like Clover wanted some of this blended magical technology up front though,” Trixie noted. “I mean, from what little I’ve learned through working with your Epsilon group, tech and magic fusions are not that common in the greater multiverse. Even on my Earth, it’s not as simple as it might appear.”

“Maybe,” Alice said, sounding unconvinced.

“The blend was certainly messed up on the tiny world I went to with Para,” Alijda recalled.

“These Vortex people have certainly mastered their fusion to the point of infecting Beam,” Para reminded. “I’m starting to think we DON’T want them getting their hands on Trixie, and all the extra information she has.”

“I’d settle for getting my hands off Trixie right now,” Alice remarked. “No offence.”

“None taken,” Trixie mumbled.

“So far I haven’t heard anything that would get us past the scattering field,” Para pointed out.

“Can I transmit Rixi’s files to you somehow?” Trixie suggested. “You might find something there.”

“That’s an idea,” Para agreed. “Can we link her device with Ziggy, or have it send the information as an attachment?”

“I will attempt to set up a link through this channel,” came Ziggy’s voice.

“Rixi, try to coordinate. Para, there’s a bunch of files, and we haven’t had time to read each… wait, the elevator’s moving again,” Trixie realized.

“Going down,” Alice sighed.

“Oh no, he’s calling us back,” Trixie yelped. “Beam us up, beam us up!”

“We’ll start working on an extraction plan,” Alijda noted. “No worries. Stall if you can.”

Alice sighed. “It’s my fault we’ve been caught,” she admitted. “I insisted we stay long enough to get the files. So, know what? Even though I’m not the one in those pants with that perfume, I’ll try to seduce him to get us free. Okay?”

“Ha ha, good joke,” Trixie grumbled.

“I’m totally serious,” Alice insisted. “He’ll be so confused by my doing it that you might have a chance to escape out the front. With all your tech-magic intelligence. No elevator there to slow you down. Right?”

Trixie sighed audibly. “As amusing as … fine with taking point on … clarify our cover story?”

Para frowned. The communication link was breaking up.

“We could … members of the Vortex Limited team following up …” Alice stated, just before the channel went completely dead.

“That’s not good,” Alijda said, redundantly.

“I was able to obtain a few files before we lost the link,” Ziggy commented. “Shall I pull those up for you?”

Para nodded. “Yes please, and I guess we’d better wake up Fate.”

Only fifteen minutes had passed since they’d lost the communication link. It didn’t feel like that much time to Para, but she suspected that it felt longer to Trixie and Alice, down on the planet.

Fate had tentatively labelled them as hostages, though for all they knew, the two Epsilon employees were running a convincing con job.

“I see three options,” Fate said, pacing back and forth. “First option is sending Beam and Para planet-side, to evaluate the situation. Possibly set up a signal booster on site to cut through the interference, and we get everyone back that way.”

“Don’t you need Beam to help with the Station?” Para wondered.

The blonde hologram shook her head. “Stuff I’m dealing with is routine enough that Alijda could handle it from her room for now, pyon pyon. Plus I know the planet and would blend right in.”

“Also, Para, I don’t want to send you alone,” Fate noted. “I won’t lie though, it might be dangerous.”

Para felt her bunny ears quivering. “Second option?”

“We contact the Vortex group,” Fate stated. “There’s enough information in the few files Trixie transmitted for us to do that. We could even pretend to be with Clover Enterprises. There’s less risk to us this way, and if we do it right, we can get our people released as well as obtain more information about both groups.”

“But if we mess up, we could end up putting Alice and Trixie in even more danger,” Alijda chimed in from the monitor where she was observing the meeting.

“Possible,” Fate yielded.

“And the third option is my idea,” Beam remarked. Fate gestured at her to continue, and Beam smiled. “Thing is, we do have some artifacts on this station that have not yet been returned, pyon pyon. Between those and the sensor upgrades, we might find a way to punch through all the interference and get our ladies out without interfering with anything else happening down there at all.”

“Might?” Para wondered.

“Yes, well, it’s still half a plan,” Beam admitted. “But it emphasizes our non-interference policy and could mean we get a useful tool for later use.”

“We’ve already interfered,” Alijda pointed out. “And what if your plan turns into a wasted hour?”

“Look, sorry, we don’t really have time for a debate here,” Fate cut back in. “I’m going to choose. This meeting was mostly to see if there was an obvious flaw in any of the plans, and I’m not hearing anything I didn’t already consider. So unless someone had any other ideas or input…?”

Everyone exchanged uncertain glances. It didn’t look like there was anything else to say.

Para turned her attention back to hear Fate’s decision.

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10605190]

VOTING CLOSES AFTER SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 13th.

EXTRA ASIDE: Already over 50 spam messages for September. Really? Contrast just over 10 actual page views. As for voting, three way tie until late Sunday. I guess it’s nice that there’s no one clear path I should be following? (Which would make things too predictable, right?) Though I sometimes wonder if people who don’t get their choice are annoyed. (Is it even the same people week to week? Who knows?) Either way, thank you all for sticking with it.

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART EIGHT

Alice rolled her eyes. “Fine. We stay together then. You want to decontaminate at the same time, or would that be as awkward as the elevator ride?”

Trixie flinched, and immediately cursed herself for that reaction. For whatever reason, it was taking some effort to keep her hormones in check, after all that time stuck on the Epsilon station. It didn’t help that Alice was attractive, in her own way.

Fortunately, it did help that Alice was pretty practical in terms of staying on task.

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE VIRGA
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

“It’s fine,” Trixie said, clenching her jaw. “I’m having a little trouble adjusting to everything, that’s all. But I can take it.”

Alice tilted her head to one side. “Am I everything? People do sometimes have trouble adjusting to me. Can I do something to help you with that?”

Trixie sighed. “Alice. It’s not you. Not directly. Let’s just say I was dealing with Beam on the station, plus I haven’t seen my open relationship boyfriend in a while, so I’m… adjusting. Can we leave it at that?”

“You’re adjusting…” Alice blinked, then her eyes widened. “Oh. Ohhh. Would it help if I slapped you? Or if you slapped me?”

“It’s FINE,” Trixie repeated, pressing the heel of her hand to her head. A thought occurred. “Just tell me that we can decontaminate while still wearing our clothes.”

Alice walked over to read the signage more closely, as Trixie belatedly used her Rixi to take some photographs of the file folders about the virus. In case it was useful or even necessary for later.

“We’re good,” Alice called out after a moment. Trixie turned, to see the other woman giving her a thumbs up. “Shirts, socks, panties, they can all stay on. Hella suspicious, bad for any fanfic writers we have, good for you.”

Trixie came over to give the chamber a look herself. The system seemed automated, and she saw no reason that the same spell that got them down here wouldn’t work again. More to the point, unlike the elevator, which had been smaller than a phone booth, the small window in the door showed the chamber to be the size of a small bathroom at the least.

“Suspicious in what sense?” Trixie asked, deciding not to delve into the other comments.

“I’ve read up on decontamination,” Alice remarked. “Being on a pandemic planet and all. Removal of clothing is pretty standard, implying a level of technology down here that exceeds the technology up there.”

“So the government has been hiding advances from the people,” Trixie hypothesized. “Or there’s some element of magic on the planet that isn’t well known.”

“Mmmm, or something,” Alice mused. She shrugged. “Anyway, we might want to leave anything behind that we don’t want getting wet or damaged. I bring it up, as your pants might qualify. But again, that’s fanfic bait.”

Trixie looked down at her leather pants and sighed. Maybe they had been a bad choice after all. “I’ll live. And Rixi can handle water.”

Alice nodded. “Speaking of, we’ll need your magical device to get us access to the room. I’m no hacker.”

Trixie nodded. “That shouldn’t be a problem.” The techno witch pressed Rixi up to the keypad with one hand, while waving her other hand out in front of her. “Ubi fumus, ibi ignis,” she restated.

There were some clicks, and after a moment, the decontamination door swung open. A combination of magic, and Rixi doing a fast interface.

“Piece of cake,” Trixie remarked. “After you?”

“Thanks?” Alice said, peering inside. “It occurs to me that these things are gas-tight, and it’d be real easy to see us on a monitor and suffocate us. I hope our emergency beacons still work.”

“My Rixi is always available,” Trixie said, waving it in the air. “It can get us out. Besides, a smart director would want to question us before a death sentence, to know how we got past this security in the first place.” She wondered whether to ask why Alice was fixating on horror movies.

Alice nodded. “Okay then.” She walked into the room, with Trixie following. As soon as Trixie closed the door behind them, the lighting - which to this point had seemed automatic, Trixie presuming it had been triggered by their use of the elevator - tinged red.

A spray of what Trixie hoped was water came from the ceiling. She wondered about closing her eyes, to protect them, but she was equally nervous that she would miss something important that might result in them getting trapped. She squinted.

The spray went on for what Trixie judged to be about a minute, and when the water was finished - she now saw a small drain in the floor - there was a heating effect. This helped to dry them, as well as presumably frying anything that might have been airborne. There also came a humming noise, possibly a sonic effect, as Trixie couldn’t think of a reason for the noise to be sustained in that way.

Alice was right, it definitely felt more high tech than anything else on this world, or on her own for that matter.

The whole process took almost five minutes, and left Trixie sweating in her outfit, but in the end, the lighting went back to normal. There was a click at the door on the far side. Trixie quickly stepped forwards, pushing it open. Once she was out, she quickly raked her fingers through her still slightly damp twintails and wiped her fingers down on her pants to try and remove any excess moisture.

They were now in a small one room apartment. There was a cot, a table and chair, and a small kitchen area with a fridge and a lot of cardboard boxes.

“Guess we came in through the back door?” Alice mused, taking off her mask. “The good stuff must be through there.” She pointed to the door directly opposite to them. “Now that we’re in, can your device scan for life signs?”

“Not like the movies,” Trixie said, belatedly pulling her own mask down. It made sense that they wouldn’t need those after having gone through that chamber. “Rixi needs a link to internal sensors.”

“Worth a shot,” the other woman sighed. She crept over to the other door, listening at it for a moment. Then she carefully cracked it open wide enough to peer through. Then she fully opened it. “Never mind.”

It looked to be a small bathroom.

Trixie crossed her arms. “No way out. So this is a bunker of some sort.”

Alice shook her head. “All that high tech setup for this small area? And an entrance that felt more like an emergency exit? I don’t buy it.” She looked around the room again.

Trixie wandered over to check in the boxes. It looked like an excessive amount of canned goods. The fridge seemed to be more of a freezer unit, which held more perishable items. Someone could definitely hide out down there for a while. Say, if someone was on the lookout for them.

Alice had started knocking all along on the wall to the right. By Trixie’s reckoning, that direction led back towards the entranceway of the park.

The redhead cleared her throat. “What, you think there’s a–” Alice pushed on a knothole, and an entire piece of panelling popped out. “–secret passage?” Trixie finished, eyebrows going up.

“There are secret passages all around you, if you know where to look,” Alice intoned. She gestured. “You first this time? Distract anyone inside, okay?”

Trixie sighed. She supposed turnabout was fair play… besides, she probably wouldn’t have even found the secret area without Alice’s help.

“I’m trying stealth before I shake my ass,” Trixie noted. As such, she quietly edged in through the opening. The room on the other side was dark, but Trixie got the impression that it was larger. In part because there seemed to be a panel blinking off to one side, some distance away.

She edged along the wall, then over towards the panel. Up close, she realized it was a monitor, and the system seemed to be in standby mode. Trixie held Rixi up.

“Can we interface with this?” she murmured.

“Clarify,” Rixi stated.

“Use the same spell to get access.”

A pause. “Unlikely. There is higher security. I do believe we could circumvent it manually.”

Trixie knew that Rixi’s use of ‘manually’ meant inserting some code into the system, rather than looking for a physical switch. But that would take time.

She looked back towards Alice, who was now silhouetted in the doorway. “Have a look around,” she suggested. “I’ll see if I can break into their computers.”

Alice nodded. “If you can’t get all the way in, see if you can tweak communications to get to the station. Alijda can hack almost anything.”

“So I’ve heard,” Trixie said dryly. Alijda had come aboard Epsilon while she’d been asleep, and had been very quickly whisked off on her own mission. So the two of them had yet to meet. She was curious about the other woman, as a preliminary file she’d been granted access to indicated that Alijda had a teleportation power, mental issues, and a not unattractive presence.

Still, that was a consideration for the future. Trixie was sure she could handle this.

Only when the lights came on, did Trixie bother to look around the area. The room WAS larger, along the lines of a lecture hall, with the computer banks over on her side, and a number of specimens or samples lining shelves on the opposite wall. In between were lab benches. There also seemed to be two visible doorways… not counting the way they got in, which seemed to be a hidden panel door both ways.

One of the new doors had the look of another decontamination chamber. Trixie didn’t know where the other one led, but Alice seemed to be on her way to check it out.

Trixie returned to her coding. Based on Rixi’s initial scans, the program she was writing into her device would grant them access, at least temporarily.

“Any luck?” Alice asked, startling the techno-witch on account of standing almost right behind her. How much time had passed?

“Probably. Give me another five minutes,” Trixie muttered.

“No problem for me, but someone else could come by in that time,” Alice pointed out.

“Uh huh,” was all Trixie bothered to say in response. No one had come yet, and talk was a distraction that delayed her coding.

Another five minutes passed, or she hoped it was only five minutes. Either way, she was done. She gestured vaguely to Alice before tapping at Rixi’s red crystal. “Execute.”

“Interfacing and executing,” Rixi responded.

Trixie wiped her arm across her brow as she waited.

The standby screen flickered. A login screen briefly appeared… and then a logo appeared in its place, spinning around on its access. It looked to be a four leaf clover.

“You’re in?” Alice breathed.

“For now,” Trixie agreed. “Rixi, record all screens as we browse.”

“Acknowledged.”

The screen now resolved into a graphical interface with two words on the background screen.

“Clover Enterprises,” Alice continued. She started to hop from one foot to the other. “Yes! I KNEW it, I knew Clover would be behind something inter-dimensional like this. Now we are so happy, we do the dance of joy… that is, assuming you can copy over their corporate manifesto??”

“I don’t know where I’d even find that,” Trixie complained. “And for all we know, this Clover refers to a company that makes computers.” She opened up what looked like a file directory. She immediately went into the first subdirectory. “Also feeling like the Security folder should be a priority.”

Alice let out a long sigh. “Yes, okay, fine.”

Trixie quickly realized that there had recently been a file backup to archives… but not recently enough. “Rixi, I’m going to erase all signs that me and Alice got in here. Let me know if I miss anything.”

“Acknowledged.”

Trixie tapped at the keys, finishing by tuning into a live video feed. It looked to be a view of the park above them. “I think this confirms that someone was monitoring Beam wandering about. Hence the hijacking of her code.”

“Yes, well, some of the jars down here are for knockout drugs,” Alice affirmed. “And there’s items to disrupt systems like hers. And there’s something that might have been able to inject her. We need to know the WHY though… manifesto?”

“Yes, okay, hold on Miss One-Track-Mind,” Trixie grumbled. “It’s not like that’s labelled.”

She was hesitant to delve into the archived files, as it would give current date stamps to their most recent access. She wanted to reprogram as little as possible. But maybe whoever this was had been looking at something more recently?

“Okay, how about this,” Trixie mused. “Opened yesterday, but the file name is dated from even before the pandemic began.”

The document appeared on the screen. She scanned it, even as Alice enthused, “This is an agreement with Clover Enterprises to trade technologies for magical items.”

“Yuh huh,” Trixie agreed. “Now I pull up recent files related to those items.” She began to type in the search command.

Rixi’s crystal pulsed. “You are about to have company.”

A video feed popped up again, this time showing a figure in a hood and cloak who was entering what looked like some sort of storm drain near the park fountain. It didn’t look like a drone camera. Trixie concluded that it was pointed at the other entrance to this place.

“We gotta go,” Trixie sighed.

“No, the files,” Alice protested. “He’ll be five minutes getting through decontamination. We need this information.”

“He’ll SEE us from that room,” Trixie said, pointing at the small window in the door and shaking her head. “I mean, I can get copies into Rixi to look at later, but only at a cost of having to hide down here, hoping we’re not found.”

“Pfft. Once we have the files, we confront this guy,” Alice objected. “Since even if we leave now, we won’t make it to the surface before he’s onto us. That elevator was hella slow.”

Trixie frowned. Alice was right, their chances of getting away weren’t great. But perhaps they could contact Epsilon from the elevator. Wasn’t that better than provoking this guy, either by hiding in his lair, or by throwing their investigation into his face?

What was the least terrible option?

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10597815]

VOTING CLOSES ON SUNDAY AUGUST 30th.

EXTRA ASIDE: Only one vote for a week, then abruptly three more when I mused on Facebook… I guess that’s where I need to be hyping? The fifth vote was when I left it open for an additional day anyway (possibly the original voter returned). The posting delay today was owing to a busy week, and me wanting to get through ‘Steins;Gate 0’ prior to the week before school. Wheee. I do appreciate that you’re still reading!

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART SEVEN

A redhead with twintails slid out of the portal, landing on her behind. She was wearing the same kind of protective face mask as Alice herself, though her glistening white blouse and dark leather pants were a departure from the pink T-shirt and blue jeans that Alice had selected that morning. As were the woman’s ankle boots.

Alice approached as the wormhole closed back in on itself. She extended her hand.

[caption id=“attachment_929” align=“alignright” width=“185”] ALICE VUNDERLANDE
Commission by Cherry Zong[/caption]

“Hello! Trixie, I presume?”

The woman eyed Alice for a moment before reaching her arm out to accept the help rising to her feet. “Correct. And you’re Alice, I recognize you from the videos.”

“Only the public ones, I trust,” Alice chirped. “I’m more interesting in person.” She gestured at her new companion. “Did you dress up special for me? I thought you preferred skirts.”

Trixie dusted off her pants. “No. This simply seemed more practical for the mission, while still being prone to distract anyone that I’d want to keep off balance.” She looked back up at Alice, her eyes worried and searching. “Please tell me you’re not aroused.”

“Oh no. I’m not Beam,” Alice said, laughing. “Just, those wouldn’t be my first go-to after ditching a skirt.” She hooked her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans. “Gotta stay comfortable.”

Trixie dragged her fingers back through her twintails. “Oh, tight leather’s comfortable, if you wear it enough. And it’s not like you’d see my ass less if I wore jeans.”

“I suppose,” Alice granted. She gestured down the alley. “So, shall we regroup back at the apartment?”

To Alice’s surprise, Trixie shook her head. “I’d rather start by taking readings from the nearby park,” she said. “The one Beam used to frequent.”

“You think that’s the place we want?” Alice asked. They had no conclusive proof yet about where Beam might have been infected, only that it had likely been a deliberate act.

“I don’t know,” Trixie said. “Hence the taking of readings.” She pulled some sort of small device out of her blouse pocket and waved it in the air.

“I did take a few preliminary scans of all locations where Beam hung out,” Alice remarked. “Including there. Though I guess if that’s some magic detector, you’ll register things I didn’t.”

“It’s Rixi,” Trixie stated. “I downloaded some of the data on this Earth into her, but for the most part, I’m starting from scratch. At worst, this gives me a baseline. At best, we find something’s up.”

Alice nodded. “This way then,” she concluded, turning the opposite way out of the alley from her original plan.

Honestly, Alice was just as happy to start their association by doing some investigating. She had been getting tired of all the dead ends, and after the recent Station news, had been tempted to start looking into infection sites on her own. However, once she’d learned of Fate’s decision to send Trixie down, she’d decided to wait the additional day.

For her part, Trixie seemed to be warily looking at everything and everyone as they walked down the street. It was a bit hard to tell how she felt given the mask over the lower part of her face, but she seemed troubled.

“You won’t see many late-stage infected,” Alice remarked. “The bunny ears are a dead giveaway, so they tend to stay at home. And while there could be people in the early stages of Smoke, as there’s been no way to identify such cases - I mean, beyond a test that takes a couple days to produce results - we just have to keep our distance.”

“It’s not only the virus that has me on edge,” Trixie admitted. “This is a whole new world. Yet it doesn’t look that different from being in some foreign city on my world. It’s weird. Will we turn a corner and see dogs walking upright? I keep expecting some other shoe to drop.”

“We can only hope that this will be the last footwear to fall,” Alice quoted.

Trixie focussed in on Alice. “What?”

Alice smiled back, despite knowing that Trixie wouldn’t be able to see her expression. “What?”

Trixie continued to stare for a moment, then looked back down at her Rixi device. “Okay then. So, is this park we’re going to still closed?”

“All of them in the city are,” Alice confirmed. “Except to walk through. Beam kind of ignored that, it gave her a quiet place to think.”

“Right. I’d ask why she didn’t think the apartment was a quiet enough place for that,” Trixie remarked. “Except I read your report about the lady across the hall.”

“And her boyfriend, and the fact that they’ve both turned bunny?” Alice considered. “Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re nice enough. But they need me to do grocery runs, and the other day, one wanted me to fluff their tail.” She lifted up her palms. “I wash my hands a lot.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Yup. If I’m gonna be a bunny, it’s gonna be on my terms,” Alice stated, clenching the hands into fists. “Or possibly because I’ve become so popular that my merchandise warrants the Playboy Bunny variation. Ehhh?” She winked.

Trixie blinked back. “Sorry, are you… famous on some world out there…?”

“Nope. Not yet,” Alice sighed, clasping her hands behind her back. “Infamous, maybe. Unless being part of Epsilon itself counts.”

“Um. Well, you are unique,” Trixie said after a moment.

Alice again gave a hidden smile. “Thanks! So I’ve been told.”

Trixie cleared her throat. “So, Beam did her thinking in a park?”

“Yes. She also investigated at city hall, the airport, and on a carrot farm outside town,” Alice reminded. “But it’s true the park is the most suspicious case, since others have done reporting in the other places without any consequence that I’m aware of.”

“Are there more bunny cases among those living closer to the park?” Trixie asked.

Alice shrugged. “I’m good at tech tinkering but I’m no hacker. So I don’t have that data. However, the property for the park changed hands a bunch of times before it became what it is - that’s in the public record - and this whole neighbourhood is a pretty large subdivision. So maybe someone’s been hiding out or running experiments? I dunno.”

“Hmmm,” was all Trixie said. She looked back down at her device.

They didn’t speak again until reaching the park, though Alice did notice how more heads turned to look at Trixie and her outfit than had ever looked her way. Meaning it would probably be up to Alice to do any covert work while the eyes were on her companion. She was okay with this.

It was as Alice started to walk through the park gate that Trixie reached out to grasp her arm. “Hold up,” Trixie murmured. “I think there’s a drone in there.”

Alice reached down to pretend to tie up her running shoe. “You sure? My earlier scans were inconclusive for electronics.”

“I don’t think that was a bird I saw,” Trixie said, dubiously. She tapped at a few buttons on her device. “Maybe it was some kid who… hold on. This world has no magic? Aside from me?”

“None that I know of,” Alice said. It occurred to her belatedly that they should have tested out some of Trixie’s magic. Different Earth dimensions could react differently to individual abilities. Hopefully it wouldn’t be an issue.

Trixie remained silent for a moment, then started to walk down the sidewalk, parallel to the park. Alice finished with her shoe and hurried after. “What’ve you got?”

“I’m reading something. Something like when I access my Hammerspace,” Trixie muttered. “That is, I don’t think someone’s accessing a pocket dimension, but the more often you cast a spell, the more I can register it’s existence, given how it becomes less effective.”

“On your Earth, at least,” Alice pointed out.

“True,” Trixie granted. She came to a stop at a thick telephone pole on their side of the park fence. “But something’s been cast here. A lot. Rixi, can we duplicate?”

“Working,” came a sound from Trixie’s device, as the redhead touched a small red crystal. To Alice, it sounded like an electronic version of Trixie’s own voice.

Alice took the opportunity to look around for signs of another drone, or anything that might indicate that they were being watched. They were in the shadow of a large tree, which helped to conceal their presence, and she didn’t see anything in the branches that might indicate spying.

Too bad she hadn’t thought to bring any of her own scanners to the meet-up with Trixie.

“Analysis complete. Greatest chance of success, fumus ignis,” Rixi intoned.

“Huh,” Trixie mused. “That’s alarmingly relevant.”

“Was fumus a reference to Smoke?” Alice asked. “Something about the virus?”

“Not directly,” Trixie answered. “There’s a few catch-all spells that can be used to, well, in a sense, hack someone else’s system. In this case, we try… ubi fumus, ibi ignis.”

As Trixie spoke, she waved her hand out in front of her body. There was a click, and the telephone pole swung open, revealing a hollow with what looked like an elevator panel inside. “Translated as, where there’s Smoke, there’s fire,” Trixie finished.

“Got it,” Alice remarked, leaning in to look at the panel. “Only one other floor. Going down?”

“If you think we’ll fit,” Trixie said, dubiously. “It’s obviously made for one.”

“I’d rather not split up,” Alice insisted, moving to press herself up against the back wall. Though it was true that the cylindrical space would not fit the both of them very comfortably.

Trixie seemed to agree with the sentiment, moving in to press her body up against that of Alice. Alice suspected that the only thing that kept the shorter woman’s breath from being hot against her neck was the mask. “Pull me as close as you need,” Trixie murmured. “But try not to grope my ass too much.”

“Only a little bit then?” Alice quipped, as she fumbled for the elevator button.

“I’d hate to think I was completely unappealing,” Trixie giggled.

The door slid closed, leaving them in almost total darkness as Alice felt the platform they were standing on descend. Trixie squirmed against her body, seemingly looking for more space that didn’t exist. Eventually, she gave up.

“Alice, do you wear perfume?” Trixie murmured after a moment.

“Not usually,” Alice answered. “Though I notice you do.”

“Um. Yeah,” Trixie admitted. A pause. “Sorry if that bugs you.”

“No, no,” Alice assured. “It’s a way to distract people if they’re not keen on leather pants. I get it.”

Trixie took in a deep breath, which Alice felt more than heard. “Right.” The elevator continued to move very slowly. “Mmmph. So what are you thinking about?”

“Right now I’m thinking about horror movies that take place in elevators. Devil, Elevator, The Lift…”

“Yikes. Okay then,” Trixie said, as Alice let her voice trail off. Then, after another pause, came a mutter that sounded like, “Why am I thinking about my last Tinder hookup.”

Alice wasn’t sure how to respond, but before she even could, the door slid back open. And after Trixie had pulled away from her with a faint sigh, Alice stepped out to see what they were dealing with.

Problematically, it seemed to be a dead end. For all intents and purposes.

“Decontamination chamber,” Alice remarked, taking a couple strides to look at the exit on the other side of the small room. It was sealed shut with a sign and a keypad.

“But also some files,” Trixie remarked.

Alice turned. Sure enough, the room they were didn’t didn’t have much aside from what looked like an emergency generator, a coat rack, and a table… but on the table were a few file folders. Alice glanced over Trixie’s shoulder as the other woman flipped through them.

“I think these are all viral analyses,” Trixie said after a moment. “Of Smoke in different settings. But it’s not clear whether it’s related to causing the pandemic, curing it, or something else.”

“The dates seem to be from after the first case,” Alice noted. “If that’s relevant.”

“It probably is,” Trixie said. She put the files back down. “So, we keep going?”

Alice sighed. “Do we? Someone will surely notice when their decontamination chamber is in use. If not now, then when someone checks the inevitable video footage.”

“They might have already noticed their elevator was active,” Trixie pointed out. “We should get as far as we can before they’re really on to us.”

“Let’s at least call for backup,” Alice decided. She pulled out her Epsilon communicator… only to find that no signal was available when she attempted to use it.

“That’s that then. We could leave the area to call, but I think by the time Beam or Para got down here, we’d have lost the element of surprise,” Trixie insisted.

Alice crossed and uncrossed her arms. “Maybe we should split up then,” she yielded. “You can go up top to check in, as well as be distracting to anyone monitoring the park. I’ll keep trying to sneak in the back way here.”

“What? Why should I be the one to go topside?” Trixie argued.

“Because you have the spell ability to get back down, if necessary,” Alice pointed out. “Along with your claims of being a better visual distraction.”

Trixie’s nose crinkled. “Ah. You’re not wrong.”

Alice nodded. “So, what do you think?”

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10590282]

VOTING CLOSES ON SUNDAY AUGUST 16th?

EXTRA ASIDE: I actually had all four votes within 6 days. Maybe I was talking about it more? Maybe you’re more eager? Either way, thanks for reading.

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART SIX

Trixie looked up from her cafeteria tray. She immediately regretted doing so. “Beam,” she groaned. “Now that you’re out of quarantine, could you, like, wear actual clothes? Unless you’re headed to a pool.”

The blonde holographic woman tilted her head to the side, while still leaning in across the table. Giving Trixie a very good view right down into the cleavage of her swimsuit. “No. I feel all tingly when I cover up more than this,” Beam answered. “Which then seems to make the effects of the virus worse later on.”

“Then at least make the effort to not charge up my hormones this way,” Trixie griped, now finding it impossible to look away from Beam’s heaving chest. “I need to focus, so that I can solve this mystery and get the heck out of here.”

Beam glanced down towards her own torso, then stood up straight again along with taking a step back. “Oh yeah. Sorry. Was just with Para, who’s less susceptible to my wiles than you or Fate. It DOES take a conscious effort for me to not be sexy in this state y’know, pyon pyon.”

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE VIRGA
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

Trixie sighed, finding it easier to stare at her bowl of melon balls now that Beam was a couple metres away. She brought her spoon to her mouth, munching in order to have a moment to consider a response.

Honestly, even if Beam wasn’t contagious - as far as they could tell - having the bunny girl hopping around the Station felt more distracting than it was helpful.

Sure, Fate needed someone to handle station work. And Alice had recently reported that, over time, Smoke could completely clear from an infected person, and revert people to normal. But the number of cases there were still in the minority, while Beam was still very much infected.

But then, Trixie reflected, maybe she was simply biased. Because she had become enraptured by the holographic girl’s coding, which was written in some programming language that she didn’t have a hope of understanding. It was mysterious, magical code, from which a lovely female personality could emerge, and blossom. Blossom, and thrive.

Blossom, and thrive, and perform skilled sexual acts on the fairer sex.

“Why do you consistently send my mind into the gutter?” Trixie finally asked.

Beam smiled and shrugged. “It’s a gift? Though when you first saw me I was giving off more lusty vibes than usual. Doubt that helped for impressions, pyon pyon.”

Trixie shook her head. “Guess I’m not blameless. After almost a week here on this Station, I’m craving more human contact. So, why are you interrupting my lunch? It better not be to hit on me.”

“It’s because Fate’s going to make contact with someone else shortly,” Beam answered. “And she thinks it might be best for all of us to be there.”

Trixie pushed the cafeteria tray away, focus restored. “Let’s hope it provides a breakthrough. Lead the way, and don’t shake your cotton tail at me.”

“No promises, but I’ll try, pyon pyon,” Beam stated, spinning on her heel as Trixie stood up.

Trixie climbing off the ladder in the main control room seemed to prompt Fate to start in on an explanation.

“Okay,” Fate said. “I ran a new character analysis. There was our initial information, which suggested to us that Trixie might have some solutions, plus the data from Alijda and Alice. All conditional on us only consulting someone with whom Epsilon’s previously interacted.”

“Isn’t that kind of a short list?” Para mused. “There haven’t been that many big missions.”

“Small missions count. Like Beam’s first archaeologist assignment,” Fate clarified. “People who have never met us, but they are aware of artifacts and the like.”

“What turned up then?” Trixie asked, coming closer.

Fate turned to the computer. “One name. Time to give this a try.”

The blonde woman reached out and tapped a few keys, then stood back as a phone began to ring.

“We’re not bringing them here, pyon pyon?” Beam murmured, leaning closer to Fate.

“According to his file, he’s got the means to get here if he wants,” Fate answered. “In a British taxicab.”

Trixie turned. “He?” she said, surprised. She’d started to take their all female cast for granted.

The sound of the phone ringing cut out, and an image appeared on the computer monitor. Trixie took in darker skin and what looked like a tan suit, before there was a flash of blinding light. Light that must have come from a swiss army like device that the man was holding. His face came into view as he looked at it, then back at the monitor.

“Oh,” he said. “This is actually a call. I thought for sure there was a malfunction.”

Fate stepped forwards and waved. “Hello! I represent a group of people who are looking for some assistance in terms of a dimensional pandemic. Possibly with a temporal angle.”

“Oh, that’s MASON,” Para said, smiling. She stepped forwards next to Fate, waving. “Hi! How have you been, friendly alien guy?”

Mason’s look of confusion was replaced with a half smile. “Oh, there’s someone I recognize. Para, yes? You still with… the Epsilon Project, was it? Guessing it hasn’t been easy to track me. I’ve been off the grid.”

“I don’t think we were trying to,” Para answered. She looked at Fate. “Were we?”

“No. Alice even put a flag on his file, but we’re in a bit of a bind here. Mason, can I send you all the data we have? For your opinion? You can decide if you want to join us in person after reading it.”

“Oh, HE gets all the data first,” Trixie muttered.

Beam took a step closer to her. “Mason has already been on this Station, and signed a non-disclosure form. Or some equivalent,” she informed her, quietly.

“I’ll take a look,” Mason was answering, as Trixie processed Beam’s words. “Kind of in the middle of something though. Include the best coordinates to phone, in case I can’t visit?”

“Will do,” Fate stated. She stepped forward to tap again at the keyboard.

“Thanks,” Mason said. “I’ll be in touch as soon as – wait, stop, good kitty. No, kitty. No, don’t jump on the–”

The connection cut out.

“Huh.” Trixie ran her fingers back through her twintails. “Well, that was informative. When can we expect him to–”

She was interrupted by a ring, and Fate reached out to tap a button on the console. The image of Mason reappeared, although this time he was wearing a fez and sunglasses.

Trixie stared, her fingers still stuck in her hair. Apparently more time had passed on his end of the phone line than on theirs.

“Hello again. Good news and bad news,” Mason remarked. He peered at his swiss army knife, then pushed the sunglasses up to the top of his head, knocking off his fez.

“Bad news first, pyon pyon,” Beam chirped.

“Hm? Ah, yes. Can’t triangulate to your location, but it’s not because of chronon particles on your end,” Mason said, ducking out of view. “As there are none. I think the trouble’s my stabilizer.” He reappeared and pulled off the sunglasses. “And the affectations aren’t helping. Oh well.”

“Did you want us to try and lock on from here?” Fate asked.

“Don’t bother,” Mason said, waving her off. He peered again at his swiss army knife, then shook it and looked back at them again. “I can deliver the good news this way. I think I know why your pandemics are happening, if not how.”

Trixie slowly lowered her hands. “Just from reading Fate’s files?”

Mason smiled. “Well, and from looking at your group. A bunch of white females. Who are, aside from the lady rabbits, human too.”

As Fate looked back around at their group, Trixie had to concede the point. Even Alice and Alijda fit the bill in terms of his description. Perhaps that’s why the algorithm had pinpointed a brown skinned male alien for them? Assuming biological sex even worked the same way with his race.

“Uh, we’re sorry for that?” Fate said, looking back at him.

Mason shook his head. “Never apologize for being yourself. Unless you’re supporting institutional racism, then do better than simply apologize. No, it just got me thinking, to a virus you’d all be the same too. Except while Beam looks the same, she is different inside. So why go to the trouble of attacking that code, and not the nearest router?”

“Um, I’m more complicated than a router,” Beam protested.

“Right,” Mason said. “You can move about. Go places you shouldn’t. Whereas a router is stuck in one place. You see it yet?”

“Hey! When I go places it’s CONSENSUAL,” Beam insisted. “I mean, I might come on a little strong with the prettiest women, but before I put my tongue–”

“Beam, stop. He means you were deliberately infected,” Trixie broke in. “That’s it, right? This wasn’t natural. Someone adapted the virus to her.” It was starting to click, and not in a good way.

Mason nodded. “The thought had occurred,” he remarked.

“Except the virus was affecting immobile technology on the adjacent world too,” Para reminded them. “Wasn’t that in the data we provided?”

“Well, looked like something was affecting those devices,” Mason granted. “Possibly a program for purging information that people didn’t want getting out. To stay hidden. Another a good way to stay hidden is to be somewhere that nobody wants to go. Like a world in the midst of a massive pandemic. Which is where I was leading.”

“Oh no,” Trixie said, a chill running down her spine. “You don’t think multiple worlds were infected merely to try and divert attention away from the one place where someone was doing experiments, do you?” Misdirection was a classic way of concealing a truth.

Mason shrugged. “Hey, I have no certainties here, only more hypotheses.”

“Okay. So we’re talking about someone trying to stay concealed,” Fate reasoned. “Someone on Bunny World, since that’s where Beam was.” She paused. “We need a better name for that place.”

“Smoke Machine?” Beam mused.

Fate rolled her eyes. “Anyway, this is progress. We can now plan to track down whomever could reprogram a holographic woman to be infected, or otherwise think she was, to keep her and other people away. Not a common thing on that world.”

“They also gave Beam the capability to spread the regular virus in the process, for plausibility,” Para added. “Since Beam gave us an initially positive test, right?”

“I feel like Alijda could do those things,” Beam mused, crossing her arms. She looked over at Trixie. “You probably could as well, pyon pyon. So you’d both be helpful for finding the real crook.”

“I could too,” Mason remarked, reminding them he was still watching. “Not that I - or any of us - would. That is, any of us in this present moment. I’m not sure how your temporal issue factors into the–” Something sparked behind him, and he looked over his shoulder. “Oh, shoot.”

“More trouble with your cat?” Fate wondered.

“You mean the Flerken?” Mason said. “No, I think this is… uh oh, I gotta go. Thanks for the chat, all the best with your problems.”

He waved his hand, seemed to fall down, and the communication line cut out again.

“I’m sure he’s fine, pyon pyon,” Beam said after a moment.

“So that happened,” Trixie said, rubbing her forehead. “Moving on, remind me whether it was confirmed that Bunny World had the first outbreak?”

“Yes, as best as we could tell,” Fate answered. “With the latency period ranging from one day to fourteen days, it’s hard to be 100% sure.”

“All right. So either it started there, and someone’s taken advantage of it to spread it further and give themselves a hiding place… or it was brought there by this individual deliberately.”

“A-Am I the only one thinking Alice could be in danger?” Para spoke up. “Like, maybe anyone who gets too close to the truth gets infected the way Beam did.”

“Alice was steering clear of where Beam had been,” Fate assured. “Precisely because we didn’t want Alice being infected, and didn’t think Beam had found anything. Though I suppose Alice IS staying in the same apartment.”

“I should go back down,” Beam decided. “Not only to help Alice, but maybe seeing me still poking around despite my infection will throw our enemy off their game, pyon pyon.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should go,” Trixie said, crossing her arms. “Aside from how I don’t think I can stand being on this Station much longer, you said it yourself. My ability to give you this virus makes me well suited for pinpointing a like-minded individual.”

“Or maybe Alijda should go,” Para offered. “She also has programming power, we know she works well with Alice, and right now she’s on a decoy world.”

“We’d need to route her through quarantine, which would delay things,” Fate said. “Also, Alijda was seen in the past of the planet she’s on… wait, you don’t think she’d go rogue in the future, and be the person we’re after, do you?”

“If so, all the more reason to have Alice watching her,” Para suggested.

“Hello? Was I not brought on board to investigate?” Trixie insisted. “And I have magic, which Alijda doesn’t have.”

“Your field work is hit and miss,” Beam noted. “And if I was on the planet, I wouldn’t be distracting your research up here.”

Fate crossed her arms, brow furrowing. “Great. Another decision to make.”

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10584203]

VOTING CLOSES ON SUNDAY AUGUST 2nd?

EXTRA ASIDE: After a week online, there was only one view and one vote. Again I sighed on Facebook, which brought me to three votes, all tied. I had vague plans for working with all three, but did retweet Tuesday Serial and put out a call on Twitter (twice) for anyone wanting to tiebreak. Happened late on Thursday, so went with the Mason plan. (I’d have thought it was the first person re-voting, possible after 7 days, except it wasn’t for their initial choice.) Thanks for reading, spread the word!

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART FOUR

Beam looked back over her shoulder, ceasing wiggling her hips. Or rather, ceasing shaking her bunny tail at the acrylic doorway separating the two women.

“Is it distracting you?” Beam asked, with a cute little smile.

The blonde holographic woman had changed since Trixie had last seen her in the video. Most visibly, she was now wearing the blue one-piece swimsuit she’d alluded to then, to match the bow around her neck and the bunny ears spouting from her hairband. She still wore dark stockings, but now they disappeared into a pair of blue heels.

“Vaguely,” Trixie admitted. There was no point in lying. “But it’s like I told that Para lady. Don’t use my own distraction techniques against me. It annoys me more than it turns me on.”

[caption id=“attachment_1997” align=“alignright” width=“202”] CHIBI BEAM (pre-bunny)
Commission from Gen Ishihara[/caption]

“Oh.” Beam stood up fully and turned back around. “Fine. But I doubt I’m contagious, pyon pyon. And my fourteen days are almost up. We could have a LOT of fun together afterwards, before I get back to normal. Hmm?”

“You don’t even know me,” Trixie pointed out. “This is our first meeting. Why allude to wanting to sleep with me?”

Beam winked. “I’ve read your Epsilon file. I know you’re here to help us, meaning you should be rewarded. And I don’t think not knowing someone has necessarily prevented YOU from a night of passion before.” She wiggled her eyebrows, which made her bunny ears twitch too.

Trixie tightened her jaw. Beam wasn’t wrong, and yet. “So you got to read some file on ME, whereas we have to talk in person before I get access to any files about YOU? Oh, that seems fair,” she concluded, allowing her tone to imply that it definitely did not seem fair at all.

At that, Beam sighed. She turned away again, but instead of shaking her tail, went retrieve a nearby chair, which she pulled closer to the doorway before sitting down in it. She crossed both her legs and her arms, regarding Trixie.

Trixie wondered whether Beam was trying to get her to look away first, or perhaps was waiting for Trixie to offer up an apology for the outburst. She did not rise to the bait, waiting for the blonde to take the first action.

“You want me to spell out why we’re meeting here?” Beam said at last. “Or would you prefer to deduce it, what with investigations being something you’re supposedly good at, pyon pyon.”

Trixie swallowed her first response - namely ‘your bunny virus wanted a woman to hit on’ - in favour of giving the question a fair chance.

Whatever file ‘Epsilon’ had, it likely contained some information about Trixie’s habits, her investigative procedures… and Rixi, her magical technological device. Indeed, Trixie suspected that part of why they had showed Beam to her at all - a curious case of a piece of technology who could get sick from a human condition - was in the hopes that it would rope her in.

A plan which had worked.

In the end, off Fate’s final offer, Trixie had found herself incapable of turning down the chance to study Beam, even over the alternatives of looking into this Station’s advanced technology, or chatting with another female programmer who might have similar interests.

Which had to be the answer.

“You want me to see you as more than a program,” Trixie decided. “More than a piece of near incomprehensible software that might be malfunctioning. Which can only be done by talking to you in person, before looking at your ones and zeroes.”

Beam made a little finger gun, which she used to take aim at Trixie. Her smile was back. “Eighty percent of the way there. And?”

“And you wanted to make sure that I don’t have an interest in stealing your software. Given that time in my past when I was interested in a constructing a virtual person for dating purposes.”

Beam pointed her finger gun at the ceiling. “Whoa! That info is not in your file, but I am hella intrigued now, pyon pyon.”

Trixie grimaced. The overshare had been a gamble, to see just what data they DID have on her. But given Beam’s reaction, perhaps she should have thought of something a bit less personal.

“Fine. Then more generally, you also wanted to see me, to judge my capabilities. Possibly my personality.”

Beam lowered her index finger again to make a shooting motion. “Bang on. Wouldn’t you want to meet the ladies who intend to sift through your unmentionables? Alijda, I know, pyon pyon. You, I did not.”

Trixie posed with a hand on her hip. “And what’s your opinion of me now?”

Beam bounced up out of the chair and clasped her own hands behind her back, leaning closer. “I know you are good at what you do. And I now believe you see me not as just a program or a person, but a balance of both, pyon pyon. Granted, the virus may be throwing off my balances… still, I think we could be friends.”

Trixie eyed Beam. “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“Mmmm. But I am reserving final judgement until I see whether you’ll keep talking to me, or run off to look at my less human pieces now. Since I am giving you the go-ahead for that.”

Trixie considered the proposal. And as tempting as it was to simply look at the data, Beam was as much a client as she was a curiosity.

“I’ll bite,” Trixie yielded. “We’ll keep talking. Do you know much about your own software then? About what it is I’m going to see?”

Beam shrugged. “Only about as much as you might know about your own body, pyon pyon? Fun fact, you’ve got more bacterial cells in you than you do human cells.”

“Okay. And would you normally be able to reprogram yourself?”

At that, Beam finally frowned. “Hmph. Would you be able to reprogram your gut bacteria?”

Trixie shook her head, twintails flipping back and forth. “False equivalence. That’s hardly the same thing.”

“I suppose not.” Beam started to pace back and forth. “But based on similar logic, no. I’m pretty sure I’d mess something up if I tried. I wasn’t given high tech programming knowledge, Trixie. If anything, I know more about humans. And women, pyon pyon. And how to please them.” Her smile returned, and again she winked.

“Uh huh.” Trixie refused to be baited, no matter how cute Beam appeared. “Don’t make yourself out to be some kind of programmable call girl, Beam. It’s undignified.”

At that, Beam paused in her pacing. “I’m hardly programmable,” she said, indignantly. “I have my own kinks. And I come from a world of free love, Trixie, so one of my fundamental understandings is that there’s nothing wrong with ladies enjoying sex. I got the impression from your file that you of all women would understand that?” She fluffed her chest.

Again, not wrong. Trixie worried she was starting to blush. She forced her gaze back to Beam’s smile. “Yes, well, time and a place, Beam. How about this virus situation, do you at least know how to triage yourself?”

Beam accepted the deflection and resumed pacing. “Sure. I mean, I know how to keep my hairband charged, pyon pyon. I have self-repair diagnostics, which are vaguely analogous to your leukocytes, or white blood cells. And if I’m really in trouble, I know to seek help, meaning I can identify such cases.”

“But aren’t you in trouble right now?”

“Am I? I’ve got weird cosmetic changes, a desire to wear odd clothes and say ‘pyon pyon’, a hankering for carrots, and a majorly charged libido, but my life isn’t in danger.”

Trixie considered that. “So you think that’s why no self-repair is cutting in.”

Beam shrugged. “Or maybe it needs the virus to wane more before being fully effective? Again, I’m not some interface for Goodle, or whatever your world’s popular search engine is. I can’t simply ‘look up’ a correct answer.”

“Right, right.” Trixie tugged on her own earlobe as she thought. “Well, what DO you know about viruses?”

Beam chuckled. “Human or technological?”

“Both.”

“More than I did a week ago,” Beam said. She stopped pacing in favour of sitting back in her chair. “It gets boring in here.”

“So what have you been learning?” Trixie pressed. She sat down herself on the floor of the hallway, cross-legged, hoping it would encourage Beam to stay seated and stop wiggling her bunny tail. “Or is it more, you’re becoming aware of subconscious things you knew on some level already?”

“Been talking to the other ladies, pyon pyon?” Beam started swinging her legs back and forth. “I mean, I’m sure my programming knows more than I consciously do, but I’m not convinced it can interpret a virus the way they think.”

“So you don’t think my examining your bits would help.”

“Oh, you can examine my bits,” Beam giggled. She leaned back and swung both legs wide open. And Trixie now regretted sitting on the floor, given what it put at eye level.

“Bits and bytes, for any viral code,” Trixie snapped, louder than she’d intended.

To her credit, Beam shut her legs shut again almost immediately. “Sorry, new libido took over. Trixie, my bits and bytes and petabytes might help. That’s why I’m letting them be examined, pyon pyon. But as I said, not convinced.”

“Why?” Trixie pressed, tugging at the collar of her blouse.

Honestly, she didn’t know whether it was the virus, Beam’s mannerisms, or something about the hologram’s very nature, but the blonde bunny really was seeming more and more attractive, the longer that they spoke.

Trixie decided to focus on a random point on the wall behind Beam.

“Because,” Beam answered. “A virus is designed to alter the way a human - or computer - operates, by attaching itself to a legitimate cell - or program - and using that other identity to spread it’s nefarious code. Via vectors or macros or whatever.”

“That I know,” Trixie said. “So you think the very act of your program attempting to analyze a virus would cause said program to become infected? Except that doesn’t make sense, because a normal computer wouldn’t be infected by a flu.”

Beam clucked her tongue. “A witch, forgetting that magic exists, pyon pyon? Not to mention how we know this thing jumps dimensions. Think again.”

Trixie’s brow furrowed. She still didn’t have a good baseline for what dimensions were. “Then, an adaptive virus? One that has some magical power to mutate depending on its environment?”

“Mutation was my first thought after being planet-side,” Beam agreed. “But in the reading I’ve done since, I think it’s more a matter of recombination.”

Trixie shook her head. “We’re beyond my expertise.”

“Recombination occurs when co-infecting viruses exchange genetic information, pyon pyon. That’s how we get a novel virus. A bit like having a viral baby, except there’s no sexual reproduction involved, alas.”

Trixie grimaced, looking sidelong at Beam. “So, what, you think this virus - does it have a name I can use?”

“The locals on the world where I went called it Smoke.”

“You think this Smoke was able to combine with some virus that already existed in your programming?”

“Not quite,” Beam clarified. “I now think Smoke was able to exchange information with something that wasn’t a virus - though magical means, possibly - allowing the creation of a new novel virus version of itself inside me, pyon pyon.”

Trixie considered that. “I don’t see how that’s more likely than a mutation.”

“Well, every virus mutates, with RNA viruses like the flu being more prone to it over DNA viruses like smallpox. But they usually mutate into a weaker version, whereas getting at me, or behaving in a non-bunny-girl way on a different world, implies a power-up.”

Trixie shook her head. “But if this virus can recombine at will, then why wouldn’t it spread itself into plants too? Or animals? Or other living things?”

“Good question. I assume it’s been given magical limits,” Beam asserted. “Thankfully.” She slumped. “Or, y’know, I’m totally wrong and looking like a bunny was truly my programming doing an over-analysis, pyon pyon. I dunno. Gawd, I need a carrot.” Her legs fell open again.

Trixie only noticed that last in her peripheral vision, and she scrambled to stand up after doing so. Could pheromones be transmitted through plexiglass? Either way, she was definitely getting too distracted. “Okay, Beam. I’m going to go have a look at your code now. Just one more question?”

“Yup?” Beam said, not bothering to correct her posture this time.

“Do we know if this virus has jumped outside humans on any other world from your briefing? On the tech world with teleporter technology, for instance?”

“No idea, pyon pyon. But Alice is still investigating in my place on Bunny World, she might have turned up something.”

“Right. Okay, thanks,” Trixie said, giving a little wave to Beam as she turned to walk down the hall.

“Byeeeeee, enjoy staring at all my naughty bits,” Beam called out.

Once Trixie had turned the nearest corner, she paused, and took a couple of deep breaths.

“Get a grip, Trix,” she muttered to herself. “It’s opposites that attract, not whatever the hell that was.”

She raked her fingers back through her twintails and considered what additional information she had.

First, while the Epsilon people were very shady, they did seem to be playing it straight as far as their situation went. Or they were incredibly good actresses.

Second, there was no way they were going to get all of their answers to the virus mystery by staying on the Station. Even if Beam’s programming turned up something, they would still need more data regarding the potential for those viral recombinations. As well as possible natural immunities.

Perhaps, Trixie mused, she should even suggest that they gather data from the other viral worlds? They didn’t have a defined point of origin yet. And sending Para might prompt an illuminating response, if they recognized her state as one possible mutation.

Finally, irritatingly, Trixie knew that was going to have to be careful not to get swept up in the novelty of everything going on around her. After all, these people knew her better than she knew them.

Even with everything being on the level, she would still need to be cautious.

HOW SHOULD EPSILON INVESTIGATE?

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10573167]

VOTING CLOSES ON SUNDAY JULY 5th?

EXTRA ASIDE: There were no views on the previous part in the 10 days after it was posted. Possibly a new record of some sort? There was one vote though, which I suppose answers the question of whether subscribers voting counts for views. Once report cards were in last week, I posted to my personal facebook looking for more votes, which is how we got to where we are now (and why this post is a few hours late). Thanks for sticking with it out there. Let me know if you have a particular viral preference.

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART THREE

Alice clasped her hands behind her back, leaning closer to the large, clear wall that had been erected in place of a doorway. She scrutinized their colleague and friend. “I did say I wanted to teleport someone here, remember? Before you went down? So I created this area. You’ll have everything you need.”

“Sure, but when you said you’d bring me back in quarantine, I didn’t expect THIS, pyon pyon,” Beam protested. Her gaze shifted to Fate, who was staring, wide-eyed. Despite her own obvious irritation, Beam smiled. “And what are you looking at?”

Fate took a half step back, a blush starting to colour her cheeks. “Nothing? Just, maybe the bunny ears suit you?”

Beam’s omnipresent hairband now had two bright blue bunny ears sprouting from it, one of them partially flopped down. And her normal outfit of a dark blouse, blue skirt and dark stockings had been accessorized with a neck choker containing a bright blue bow.

The blonde holographic girl did a quick spin then, lifting her skirt to reveal a blue bunny tail poking out through a hole she had cut in her panties. “Do you like my tail too?” She wiggled.

Fate cleared her throat and turned her attention to the clipboard in her hand, idly spinning a pencil in her fingers as she stared intensely at the paper before her. “Irrelevant. You’re in quarantine.”

Beam spun back. “But I won’t be contagious forever, even assuming I am now.” Then her eyes opened wide. “Oh NO… this is two weeks without any hugs, isn’t it. I don’t know if I can handle that.”

“You have before,” Alice pointed out dryly. “Running this place all alone.”

“Yeah, but I think maybe now I have a stereotypical bunny libido?” Beam said, chewing her lower lip. “I’m thinking about sex more than usual. Come to think, thank goodness the virus didn’t switch my sexual preferences, pyon pyon. Makes me wonder about the guys it infects.”

Fate rubbed her forehead. “Back on topic, please. Beam, do you know how you, a hologram, caught a virus that, as far as we know, only targets humans?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Beam admitted. “Remember my programming is meant to emulate human physiology as much as possible? I sweat when I work out, I bleed when I’m cut, and so on. It’s likely that an accidental exposure to the virus triggered these bunny changes, to help me blend in with the locals.”

“But you’re not sure,” Alice pressed. “It could be some new mutation.”

Beam shrugged. “It’s possible. But I even caught a cold once. This isn’t too different. And as I said when I contacted you, I’m willing to ride this infection out so that you get some data, rather than trying to reprogram myself, pyon pyon.”

Fate nibbled on the end of her pencil, then finally brought her gaze back up to scrutinize Beam. “So, the tail. The ears, the bow. It’s become part of your program? You woke up one morning and had them?”

“The same way it happens to someone on that Earth, yeah,” Beam affirmed. “Though for humans, the bunny ears come from the scalp. Also, this bow collar?” She tapped it. “It didn’t appear, it’s an accessory. I just had this… compulsion. To buy it.”

“You felt compelled to accessorize?” Alice said, lifting an eyebrow. “How?”

“It’s like how I’m compelled to say ‘pyon pyon’ sometimes,” Beam explained. “My tongue starts to feel funny, until I do it. Likewise, my neck felt funny until I put the bow on. Even now, part of me feels like I should wear a one piece swimsuit too.”

Alice crossed her arms, looking thoughtful. “I wonder. Could the initial virus have been created by some clothing corporation?”

Fate rolled her eyes. “Any other physical changes for you, Beam? I mean, given that the males who catch this apparently change sex?”

“Like what, a bigger bust?” Beam mused, smirking. She shook her head. “Not that I’ve noticed. Did you want me to strip down and let you take my measurements, pyon pyon? Hmm?”

Fate pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Oy, I should never have let our relationship get unprofessional.”

“For now, let’s just have you type up a more detailed report for us,” Alice interjected. “Okay Beam? It will be important if I’m going down there to replace you.”

Beam’s smile vanished. “What? Alice, no. It’s not safe for you there.”

Alice brought her hands to her hips. “Why? Were there riots in the streets or something?”

“Well, no. At least, not that I saw,” Beam admitted. “It’s just, the virus. Right? It apparently takes at least a day to incubate, so you can have it, and transmit it, and not know it. And I’ve seen what happens to people who catch it, pyon pyon. They’re socially shunned.”

“I’ll wear a mask,” Alice soothed. “Besides, it won’t be for long, just to get any additional data we need.”

Fate looked to Alice and shook her head. “What? No way. Once you’re down there, the only way you’re coming back is through quarantine. We’ve got to have a closed border policy in place.”

Alice opened her mouth as if to protest, then seemed to think better of it. “Valid. I guess I should be glad we’re not talking Andromeda Strain deadly here.”

Beam looked hopeful. “Then Alice would join me in here after? Ooh, so maybe Fate should go down instead?”

“Fate is still in charge,” Alice objected. “As to the rest, we’ll figure it out before I leave. Your job for now is that detailed report. Understood?”

Beam’s expression became a pout. “Pyon pyon,” she mumbled, her bunny ears visibly drooping.

The second video finished playing, and Para closed the file. She then turned back to Trixie, to see the redheaded witch had taken two steps back, and was now glaring at her.

Para glanced down at herself, smoothed out a wrinkle in her purple dress, and looked back up. Trixie was still glaring. “What?” Para asked.

Trixie pocketed the device she had called ‘Rixi’ and then crossed her arms over her chest. Her posture seemed to convey that the problem was obvious. Except it really wasn’t.

“Trixie, what?” Para reiterated.

Trixie sighed, shook her head, then raised her hand to point. “You’re infected.”

[caption id=“attachment_848” align=“alignright” width=“219”] PARA
Commission by Michelle Simpson[/caption]

Para blinked. Then reached up to the bunny ears on her hairband. “Oh! No, I said these were because I’m a quadratic function.” She smiled in what she hoped was a conciliatory way.

“Uh huh. The last guy I chatted up in a bar said he was allergic to latex,” Trixie shot back, while lowering her arm. “Could be true, sure, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a red flag to continuing a conversation.”

Para nibbled her lower lip. She’d never been stereotyped on account of that part of her appearance before. “Okay, well… what can I do to convince you? Should I calculate the arc of a thrown object real fast or something?”

“I don’t have anything to throw at you,” Trixie pointed out. Para still couldn’t figure out if the woman was bluffing. “Is this some sort of a test?” Trixie pressed on. “Is that Fate woman watching us now, to see how I react?” She glanced furtively around the room, possibly looking for cameras.

Para slowly shook her head. “Fate went to take a call from Alice. Whereas she brought me to the Station in part for my expertise - more on vectors than on bunny girls, by the way - and in part because I’ve worked on the station before. In case an emergency situation comes up with Beam in quarantine.”

Trixie continued to stare for a long moment before relaxing her stance. “Fine, whatever. I’m staying over here. Further if you cough. Since studies vary in terms of how far away I need to be.”

Para nodded. “Are you at least taking the case? You seem to know a bit about disease transmission.”

Trixie’s expression became hard to read once again. “I know a little about a lot of things,” she said eventually. “And I still have questions.”

“I’ll answer as best as I can?” Para offered. She wondered if she should keep smiling or not.

Trixie mumbled something under her breath. It sounded like ‘bet she won’t answer questions about this place until we talk virus’. Before Para could speak up, Trixie was speaking aloud once again.

“Three obvious problems, Para. First, everyone’s been talking about this thing as a virus. What about this realm-hopping thing being a bacteria? Was that ruled out because bacteria are larger, or what?”

“I don’t know,” Para admitted. “Though I guess something smaller might more easily slip through a dimensional crack.”

“Except a virus can’t exist without a host,” Trixie continued, taking a couple steps sideways to slap at the wall. She then pointed at Para again. “Which is probably a lot LARGER than a bacteria. Can you explain that?”

Para winced. “No? Again, not a biology expert, more in this for the math.”

“Uh huh. Second problem, that holographic lady.” Trixie gestured towards the computers. “I’m thinking she could catch a cold because her programming recognized the virus type, and as such she runs some program to act accordingly. Yet in this case, the virus would be unknown… so how would her software know what program to run? Or did it only change her appearance?”

Para shook her head. Here, at least, she and Fate had discussed the situation a bit. “It’s more than cosmetic. One possibility is that Beam’s program was able to do an analysis of the viral effects at a very high level. Meaning she’s got valuable data we can use somewhere in her subconscious.”

At that, Trixie leaned against the wall with her elbow, resting her hand back against her head. She looked thoughtful. “Really? The technology buff in me kind of wants to talk to this Beam now. Is her fourteen days of quarantine up yet?”

“Not yet, but the talking is easy enough. Oh, there’s also been talk of bringing Alijda back on board to look at Beam’s programming,” Para added. “She’s a woman who was even able to hack into alien technology on my first mission here.”

Trixie stared. “You’re making this sound more and more interesting, and part of me hates you for that. But before I commit, third problem. Did anyone run a check on how you first noticed this virus thing? Alice said something about tripping a scan, but that detail was swept aside.”

Para winced. “We’re back to me not having an answer. Um, good job picking up on that?”

“Thanks, I know,” Trixie said. She glanced around the room. “So when DO we get someone in here who can answer my questions?”

“Now,” came a voice from above.

Trixie’s head tilted up. Para followed Trixie’s gaze, to see Fate was looking down at them from the hatch in the ceiling. The central control room was a couple stories tall, so the only way she could join them would be to shut off the artificial gravity, or–

Fate flipped a switch, and a short ladder swung into view. She hopped onto it as it started to telescope down. Bringing the ponytailed blonde close to the floor, as she was standing on the bottom rung.

Para turned back to Trixie. The techno-witch’s expression had resumed being inscrutable. “How long were you listening in?” Trixie asked, as Fate jumped off the ladder.

“Long enough,” Fate said, brushing off the lapels of her suit jacket, before offering up a smile of her own. “And Para’s right, good job. I can give you access to Ziggy and even Mr Smith, to track down the origin of the initial scan. Or I can look into it, while you talk to Beam about technology and the virus.”

“Sensing a big ‘if’ coming,” Trixie remarked, as Fate paused.

Fate shrugged. “It’s contingent on you agreeing to join our cause and take the case, of course.”

“Which is now a double barrelled statement,” Trixie pointed out.

Fate’s smile faded. “Yup,” was all she said.

Trixie grimaced. She looked back at Para, then the computer banks, then up to the hatch in the ceiling, then Fate again. “Will you guarantee my safety?”

“Wish we could,” Fate answered. “Know that we’ll do our best, and aren’t trying to lie to you. For that matter, maybe you’d prefer to chat to Alijda about not simply programming, but also about how much we suck? That can be arranged too.”

Trixie stared. Finally, she nodded and made her decision.

WITH WHOM WILL TRIXIE TALK NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10566901]

VOTING CLOSES ON SUNDAY JUNE 21th

EXTRA ASIDE: Only 1 vote by the end of last Sunday, so I kept the voting open an extra couple days (busy time of year at school anyway). Thanks to those who boosted the count. I’ve also started posting to Tuesday Serial, we’ll see if that does anything for us.

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART TWO

Para smiled tentatively at the redheaded woman who had been teleported aboard the Epsilon Station. She had just dropped into a wary crouch. In her defence though, the Station really didn’t have a good way to warn their targets before retrieval.

“I - we - brought you in,” Para explained. “Because you accepted the virus case.”

“The hell I did,” came the woman’s sharp response. She now seemed torn between shouting at Para and looking around the circular control room. “I phoned your number to get more information, only to get a recording saying ‘Thanks for your interest’ or some such. Decided to go to the kitchen to make myself a snack - and now I’m here?”

Para pursed her lips. “Oh.” Apparently there had been a miscommunication. “Well, Trixie - er, should I call you Trixie? Professionally? Or would you prefer–”

“Trixie will do,” the redhead interrupted. She finally settled her gaze fully onto Para as she drew herself up and folded her arms over her chest. “And you would be?”

“Para. I’m a personified parabola.”

An eyebrow went up. “Quadratic equations are blondes with bunny ears?”

Para instinctively reached up to touch the parabolic rabbit ears of her hairband. She had normal ears too, to be sure, but the hairband was almost an extension of herself, the long ears reacting to whether her depression was at a minimum or a maximum. “Yes? Or we can be? I do have a twin-tailed variation.”

That seemed to cause Trixie to reach up and run her fingers quickly back through her own twin-tailed hairstyle. Para idly took note of how Trixie’s red hair was much shorter in comparison to her own, yet it did manage to reach her shoulders, even tied as it was.

“Hmph. Okay, so math can be seductive,” Trixie decided. “Doesn’t explain this abduction.”

Para felt caught off guard. “Seductive?”

A partial smile graced Trixie’s features. She posed with a hand on her hip. “I know math can reel a person in, Para. Practically taught it to myself because high school classes went so slowly. And I know seduction too. Because why have people like you only for your brains? So don’t you try to use my own distraction techniques against me.”

Indeed, with the light dusting of freckles on Trixie’s face, the schoolgirl-style blouse and skirt outfit, and the stance, Para could see how the redhead might be called… well, funny enough the first phrase to come to mind was ‘Sexy Cute’. The same moniker that her first human friend, Alijda, had once used to describe Para herself.

Of course, Trixie was human, whereas Para was a amalgamation of various theoretical concepts, given human form. Still, Para had always suspected that her curves were to make her more appealing to those who didn’t like math… were there humans like Trixie who saw quadratics as appealing already? Is it that she didn’t pick up vibes from them as often?

Still. “Trixie, wouldn’t I look more, um, male? If I was trying to seduce you?”

“Tch. Again, you can’t spirit me away and claim to know my actual name, and then pretend not to know about certain other aspects of my personal life. Honestly, it’s not like you’d be my first choice, Para. But if it’s for a case - or a dreary Friday evening - I’d be game to see what’s under that dress you’re wearing. The math aspect makes me curious.”

Para felt her cheeks getting red. “Oh.”

It occurred to her then that she had never considered any relationship entanglements with humans. But was it possible that others she had encountered might have seen her in a romantic way? Could that be partly why Chartreuse had saved her on their last mission together?

“See? I play the game better. So.” Trixie snapped her fingers in the air. “Abduction, Para. Why?”

Wait, had Trixie been bluffing? Para couldn’t tell. She shook her head. “Sorry. Um, you gave me something to think about there.”

Trixie’s smile became a smirk. “Fantasize about me later.”

“That’s…” Para shook her head, and decided not to bother correcting the woman. “Look, the Epsilon Project didn’t mean to abduct you. Per se. Phoning that number was enough to indicate agreement that you’d take the case. Or that’s what I was told, at any rate. Hence the summons.”

“Told? You’re not in charge?”

“Oh no,” Para said, raising both hands up. “I’m more of a… consultant? Though I suppose I go on missions too. Either way, Fate had something to take care of, so she asked me to fill you in on all the details.”

“Uh huh.” Trixie’s gaze had resumed wandering around the room. “I’d prefer to speak to Fate. Or whomever’s in charge.”

Para nibbled her lower lip. “Could I at least show you the video first? You’ll see her - everyone - on that. It might also answer the questions you had about the mission. And it will mean that I’ve done my job properly.”

“One moment.” Trixie walked over towards the one visible door in the room. She paused, then wrenched it open and looked into the storage closet. Seeing no-one there, she glanced around once more and sighed. “Fine, video. But I reserve the right to be returned home after.”

Para smiled. “Thank you.” She then gestured towards the computer banks on the wall. When Trixie approached, she cued up the file that Fate had left for them.

“For reference, the woman in the T-shirt and jeans you’ll see is Alice,” Para supplied. “The one dressed a bit like you, but with a darker blouse, is Beam. And the one in the business attire - when she arrives - is Fate.”

“Thanks.” Trixie pulled a device out of her blouse pocket. “Rixi, active recording. I assume you have no objection, Para?”

Para shrugged. “No. The others might ask you to erase it later, is all?”

“Well, they can ask,” was Trixie’s final word on the matter as the video started to play.

“I did hear you the first time,” Alice admitted, following the third time Beam cleared her throat. The brunette woman finally turned away from all of the sheets of paper she had stuck up on the wall of the auxiliary control room. “Something wrong?”

“Well, you?” the holographic woman said tentatively. “Between the recent alcohol intake and, er, this…” Beam said, gesturing at the wall Alice had been scrutinizing, “…Fate and I are worried you’re getting too emotionally invested.”

Alice’s lips tightened. She looked back at her wall of sheets, then Beam, then the wall again. “But they’re OUT there,” she declared, pointing. “We know they are.”

[caption id=“attachment_929” align=“alignright” width=“185”] ALICE VUNDERLANDE
Commission by Cherry Zong[/caption]

Off Beam’s silence, she turned back to the blonde. “The organization that provided one world with the means to abduct people like Fate. Who were getting funds from another world, to the point of that Earth thinking they had to shut down dimensional travel to get away. What else is this ‘Clover Enterprises’ involved in? We have to know.”

Beam clasped her hands behind her back. “With all due respect, we don’t. That’s not Epsilon’s job. We’re meant to clean up dimensional irregularities, artifacts that have become accidentally displaced. That’s all.”

“That’s FATE’S job,” Alice argued. “She’s the one in charge of the Station. We were both fired, remember? And later recruited by Fate to look into this very thing?”

Beam winced. “Technically, I resigned. But listen, after a month of us turning up no new leads? Fate’s been looking into returning control of the station to one of us. Remember, this was never meant to be a permanent position for her,” she added, as Alice seemed about to protest. “She has a world she might want to return to, unlike us.”

Alice frowned. “Are you saying I wouldn’t like to return to living with Alijda?” she accused, crossing her arms.

“You know I’m not,” Beam sighed. “Just, your original world became a hell dimension, while mine was all about free love, making my lesbian self an outcast. So neither are an option. You’re welcome to go back living with your friend, while I take over again here. Kinda the very thing I was trying to bring up.”

Alice again turned from Beam to the wall, and then back to Beam. “But we’re close to something! Right? I mean, look here.” She began to gesture and point at the sheets.

“This world has no clovers. While on this world, four leaf clovers are the norm instead of three leaf ones. The dimensions between them when we do a four dimensional projection contain THIS cluster of worlds where magical leprechauns are either a rumour, or fact, even if they don’t call themselves that. Now, if you draw a rainbow from that set over to these dimensions where the ‘Star Trek’ franchise didn’t have its first prequel known as ‘Enterprise’, you can see that a shadowy influence might have caused–”

“Mr Smith?” Beam interrupted.

“Hello, Beam,” came the male voice of the Station’s auxiliary control computer. Its control panels had been previously opened, the artificial intelligence offering assistance to Alice wherever possible during her analyses. Alice paused in her gesturing and turned at the remark.

“Hi,” Beam chirped back, wiggling her fingers in a wave. “Could you show Alice what she looks like lately? That picture I suggested from before?”

“Indeed,” Mr Smith said. An image came up on his main screen.

Alice made a face. “My face on Charlie Kelly, ha ha. Never watched that show, weirdly enough, so I’m not certain what you’re trying to say about me.”

“Oh.” Beam rubbed the back of her neck. “I thought you’d know it. He’s a guy who loses himself in fantasies, as you seem to be doing. Now, don’t get me wrong, your ability to free associate has its merits, just… maybe not here.”

“Then again, maybe Alice IS on to something,” came a new voice. Fate walked into the room then, looking down at a clipboard.

“Ungh. Way to spoil my vibe, girlfriend,” Beam said, hands moving to her hips.

Fate looked up then, seeming momentarily flustered. “Please don’t call me that when we’re on duty, Beam. It’s unprofessional.”

Alice’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa! I was gonna simply dismiss the remark, given how Beam’s programming still has trouble differentiating girlfriends and girl friends. But now? What DO the two of you get up to when I’m not around?”

Fate’s cheeks got pinker. “Alice, it’s not what you think. I’d had a few drinks and… um, look, let’s just say this job can get stressful, and it’s important to relax.”

Beam smiled, running her tongue over her upper lip. “And women have needs. And I have–”

“OH-kay,” Fate said pointedly, waving her clipboard. “Listen. I came here to say that the scan you recommended? It’s turned up key information. About an airborne virus. Jumping dimensions.”

Alice and Beam immediately stopped looking sidelong at each other, coming to attention.

“A virus can’t do that,” Beam stated. “Not based on everything we know.”

“Not without outside help,” Alice agreed, pounding one fist into her other palm. “Excellent, a clue. Now, what was this scan you ran, Beam?”

Beam blinked. “I didn’t run one. Isn’t Fate referring to something you ran?”

Alice frowned. “I don’t think so? I’ve been running a few things though, so maybe I tripped a scan in the process.”

“Well, someone put it in the system,” Fate stated. “As we wouldn’t normally have picked this up. In particular, the virus causes different reactions on different Earths. But now that we have the data, well, it’s highly suspicious.”

She turned the clipboard around, allowing both Beam and Alice to glance over the printout and her written notes.

“Arranged by most infected,” Alice remarked after a moment. “Could mean one of the three at the top is the virus' origin… do we have ANY vector data?”

Fate shook her head. “Not yet. Ziggy’s still running an analysis. Could take days.”

“Scope as origin is kind of a dangerous assumption,” Beam cautioned. “Still, I can go down to that world at the top of the list, to learn more. With my holographic matrix engaged, I should be protected.”

“Should be?” Alice objected. “Also, your hairband is still a tether, we know you can get hurt that way even while insubstantial. It’s like the a mobile emitter on Star Trek: Voyager.”

Beam shrugged. “I’ll be careful. Besides, this says all the virus does is turn people into bunny girls. That’s not so bad, it’s even kinda sexy.”

“On the more standard Earth it’s doing that,” Fate pointed out. “Which, I add, is preliminary data, and it has the potential to become bad. Once all the males have become female bunnies.”

“Meanwhile, on that fantasy world, it seems to be activating more latent magical abilities,” Alice mused, peering closer at Fate’s clipboard. “And on the tech world it’s causing teleporter malfunctions. This is WEIRD. Are we even sure it’s the same thing?”

“According to our data, yes,” Fate confirmed. “Only slightly mutated. Giving us insight that those worlds don’t have.”

Alice frowned. “I’d say we should just teleport someone here, but I’m not sure how far I trust the bio filters on this station.”

“Who? No one on those worlds popped up in the recruitment folders, that I know of,” Beam pointed out. “We can’t risk revealing ourselves. It’s fine. I’ll go. What’s the worst that could happen?”

WHAT HAPPENS TO BEAM?

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10559999]

VOTING CLOSES ON SUNDAY JUNE 7th

SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART ONE

Trixie Virga - it was not her real name, but rather a name the young witch had decided to adopt professionally, to the point where she now answered to it - turned and shot the man a look.

“Look, BIFF,” she began, trying to keep a level tone. “First, this is your sister pumped full of mystical energy. Not a superhero. Second, she’s committed crimes, so even if she were ‘super’, she’d be more super villain than a super hero, yeah? And third?” Trixie paused. “Well, third, that plan should have worked.”

“Right. I’m starting to regret paying you in advance.”

Trixie let out a sigh of exasperation. “Let me think.”

She crouched closer to the door of the trash room, listening for noises. She couldn’t hear Biff’s sister Eleanor on the other side, meaning their mad dash out of the woman’s hotel room had apparently bought them a bit of time.

Or Eleanor had more than a few points in Stealth and Dexterity.

Setting that thought aside, Trixie figured the first major question was why pinching the mystical artifact from Eleanor hadn’t de-powered the woman. Trixie held the necklace up to her face, squinting at it in the dim light. Was this not the source of the mystic energy after all?

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE VIRGA
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

She fished her personal device out of her blouse pocket. She kept it there partly because of her preference for skirts which had no decent pockets, but mostly because when she went for it, people tended to be distracted by her ample chest. Thus less likely to speak, or notice whatever it was that she was actually intent on doing.

“Are you phoning for backup on that?” Biff asked.

Unfortunately, Biff was either oblivious, or gay.

Trixie made a noise that she hoped conveyed her irritation at the remark, and otherwise ignored him. The glowing red crystal in the too-small-to-be-a-smartphone device came to life at her touch. “Rixi, fast scan, okay?”

“All right,” her device intoned back, a parroting of her own voice.

Trixie placed the necklace onto Rixi’s tiny screen. “Mystical?”

“Affirmative,” Rixi acknowledged.

“Granting ice powers?”

“90% chance.”

“Accessible at a distance?”

“0.2% chance.”

Trixie grimaced. “What the hell am I missing?”

“Unknown,” her device supplied.

“How much field work have you actually done solo?” Biff broke in again.

“I’ve done enough,” Trixie muttered. True, she hadn’t been the founder of the private magick agency Biff had approached, and she was better at research and development. But she had been running the place without much outside help for over two years now. She’d seen enough field work in that time.

“It’s just, I mean, wasn’t there that other guy back at the office? Maybe you should call him?”

“Oh, do NOT start with me,” Trixie snapped, turning her best glare back at Biff. Client or not, he was becoming a pain. “First, he’s not a coworker, he’s my boyfriend. Kinda. Not exclusive. Not relevant, never mind. Second, even given that he does help me on cases, he had to go out of town on business yesterday. And third?” Trixie paused. “Well, third, damn it, that plan should have worked.”

“Yet it didn’t,” Biff remarked, though off Trixie’s look, he had backed off a step to press himself against the back wall.

Trixie pocketed both Rixi and the necklace before raking her fingers back through her twin-tails, wracking her brain for the answer.

This was like the classic Star Trek episode “Squire of Gothos”. Captain Kirk had destroyed the mirror that was supposedly the source of Trelane’s power… only to discover it was some kind of amplifier, and the guy still had powers. Was that actually useful information? Was it merely random trivia?

Well, Kirk had needed to be bailed out of his death sentence by superior beings, so that didn’t bode well for her situation.

“You know, my sister could be taking hostages out there,” Biff remarked, seemingly determined to break her concentration.

“That’s more on you than me,” Trixie growled.

“Look, I hired you to handle the situation,” Biff said, raising his hands with his palms out towards her.

“So let. Me. Handle. It,” Trixie spat. She smacked her forehead twice, as if that would help to knock the proper thoughts together.

It worked. Or at least, it made her realize she’d overlooked something.

In the Star Trek episode, Gothos had been artificially constructed. Right? How had this hotel been constructed? Was there anything about this location that might be interfering?

Trixie fumbled for her device again. “Rixi, cross reference GPS of our current location with known magick events, starting with the present and working backwards.”

“Working,” came Trixie’s own voice again, followed seconds later with, “an explosion two months ago in room 1408 created a temporary fissure to another realm. No damage otherwise. Documented by–”

Promising. “Abort explanation, correlate aftereffects with previous artifact and accessibility question,” Trixie said, trying to speak as fast as she could without sounding garbled.

“Working. Revised probability of distanced access, 97%.”

There it was. She simply had to get the necklace off this property to sever the connection. Hopefully. Pity she hadn’t thought to cross-reference earlier, as getting Eleanor out of the area would likely have shut her down as soon as the artifact had been removed from her person.

Though that might have made the necklace harder to grab.

Anyway.

“Okay then,” Trixie concluded, shoving Rixi back into her breast pocket. She yanked the door to the trash room open.

Eleanor stood on the other side, staring back. She was a head taller than Trixie, her hair a snow white thanks to the effects of the necklace, her outfit an ice blue dress. Trixie couldn’t shake the image of a very ticked off Elsa, from the “Frozen” trilogy of movies.

“I was wondering if you’d try to jump down the chute,” Eleanor remarked. “Glad you’re giving up instead.” She held out her hand. “Last chance. Return my necklace.”

Trixie knew she had no chance of being imposing here. Heck, she tended to dress more for seduction… albeit she knew now to give a pass on tight skirts when out in the field. So more running wouldn’t be a problem. If only there was a way past.

“Hard no,” Trixie said, wondering idly if reason could win through the day. “You’ve broken into how many places now by freezing the locks?”

“Lost count,” Eleanor said. “You’ll be the first witch I freeze though.”

Eleanor extended her arm, and Trixie knew the touch was liable to be deadly. Of course, in theory no magick user could ever affect someone who was unwilling, but there were rather a lot of loopholes. Including Trixie’s prior use of a spell in Eleanor’s presence, opening her up to passive acceptance of retaliation.

And as that prior spell had been a low-grade teleport, to get the necklace away, Trixie couldn’t use that spell now. Casting any spell multiple times in a row would always result in diminishing returns.

She had one option in reserve though.

“Velocitas,” Trixie breathed.

The spell to speed up her own frame of reference proved to be enough for the redhead to not only dodge Eleanor’s outstretched hand, but drop to the ground and jump through her adversary’s legs before the other woman could react.

Trixie began to run as fast as she could down the hotel corridor. Only to have her feet slide out from under her, as her boots failed to find traction on the newly icy floor.

“Nice try,” Eleanor remarked, as Trixie slid into a wall, ass first.

This was bad. Now that she was in the corridor though, and right by the elevators, Trixie realized there was a new option in reserve. She righted herself without bothering to completely get up, and fumbled again in her pocket.

“Rixi, materialize delivery gun.”

“All right,” her device intoned. “Accessing.” It took a few seconds… during which Trixie worried that she’d removed the item from her personal magick hammerspace at some point in the last two months. But eventually the familiar small globe of light appeared, hovering over the screen.

Trixie grabbed within the light. With that, the light was dispelled, leaving her holding what had - once upon a time - been a nerf gun.

She dropped Rixi back into her pocket while pulling out the necklace again.

“A gun?” Eleanor said, pausing in her advance. She was only five, maybe six metres away, but seemed to be in no hurry. It was almost like she knew she had the upper hand. “You realize I can freeze the bullets in the air before they reach me.”

“Suspected,” Trixie admitted. She held up the necklace. “Gun’s for this though.”

Eleanor frowned. “What do you hope to accomplish by shooting it? You cannot destroy my necklace, you should have realized that by now.”

“Yeah,” Trixie agreed, cranking the gun power to full. “But I think my gun can pierce that window there, the one looking out on the parking lot?”

Eleanor turned to look where Trixie was gesturing. Even then she didn’t seem to quite catch on what was about to happen. It was only as Trixie dropped the necklace into the chamber where one would normally put bullets that Eleanor’s eyes widened. And as Trixie exhaled, she could see her breath in the now bitterly cold air.

“Protrudo,” Trixie gasped, as she pulled the trigger.

It hadn’t been a sure thing. Hell, Trixie doubted she’d have wanted to know the odds, even had there been time to ask Rixi about them. But with the additional propulsion of the spell, the necklace did indeed pierce the nearby window with a ‘crack’, the arc such that the artifact ended up flying out and well beyond the hotel parking lot.

The newly formed icicle, with its point less than a metre away from Trixie’s chest, remained frozen in place for a few seconds. Then it fell off Eleanor’s index finger. Then Eleanor crumpled to the ground.

Trixie decided it was safe to draw another breath.

Once Eleanor had been unconscious for ten seconds, Trixie let her head fall back against the wall and closed her eyes.

“Um, so, is my sister going to be okay?” came Biff’s voice, after a short time.

Trixie reopened her eyes. Her client seemed to be checking for Eleanor’s pulse.

“Oh, I’m FINE, thank you,” she growled, pushing herself back to her feet. The ice on the floor had melted, and her skirt was wet. But she was still alive. In fact, she suspected the anger she felt was more trying to dispel the sense of fear.

Trixie fumbled back in her pocket for Rixi, and stowed the delivery gun back into her hammerspace.

Biff watched her, looking unimpressed. “Isn’t this all in a day’s work for you, or something?”

“Because as you pointed out, I fight super villains ALL the TIME,” Trixie snarked. She walked closer. “But yes, we’re BOTH fine, and outside of the withdrawal symptoms your sister will experience, she should be herself by morning. And one more thing, if I may?”

Biff seemed to consider whether he wanted to hear it. “Yes?”

“Next time you want to give your sister a gift, don’t buy it from a demon. Capiche?”

Biff flinched. “You think that I’M the one who gave–”

“Stop,” Trixie interrupted. “Don’t even. I’ll assume it was unintentional. But I saw the little inscription on that necklace. Hence me saying hostages would be more on you than me. Suspected it initially too, hence the paying me in advance.”

Biff simply stared now, a frown tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Oooh, yes, I’m more than just a pretty face. I’m a techno-witch. So, do you have anything else to say? Or can I close this case?”

“I… would prefer not to see you again,” Biff concluded.

“Fine. Eyes on you though,” Trixie said, making the universal motion as she pointed two fingers as her own eyes before turning them to jab at Biff. “Keep your nose clean.”

With that, Trixie marched out of the hotel to go and find the necklace. She made a mental note to ask Rixi to do the occasional web search on Biff’s name for the immediate future too, just in case the guy was truly up to something.

That evening found Trixie staring at the note. She’d put off dealing with it in favour of handling the case with Biff and Eleanor, but had no such excuse any more.

Her querying messages had come back by now too, and none of the other techno-witches she had made contact with had any awareness of what it meant.

Trixie gave the words a scan again.

‘We need help with an airborne virus. It’s jumping dimensions. Not deadly yet, but is a mystery. As you can handle both magic and technology, call this number if you accept the case.’

“Surely they mean realms, not dimensions?” Trixie muttered aloud. “And I’m better with computer viruses, not airborne ones, so whaaaaat?”

She shook her head. The note had been shoved underneath her office door last weekend. Scans by Rixi told her nothing. Which in and of itself was kind of fascinating.

Trixie stood up from her desk. “Well, fine. I can at least call to get more information,” she decided.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10553607]

VOTING CLOSES ON SUNDAY MAY 24th

EXTRA ASIDE: Yes, this was supposed to go up last weekend. But full time math teaching from home, while simultaneously parenting my almost 2-year-old daughter? Means I get VERY little free time. Add to that the fact that “midterm” grades had to be sent out May 8th, and May 10th was Mother’s Day, and WOW it’s amazing when I even get sleep any more. So many emails. So we’re a week late. Thanks for your patience.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 6f: OF MELISSA AND JAMES

Hi! Trixie here. I’ve now read the whole “Balancing Act” novella that James wrote, as I assume you have too. Thanks for getting this far! This is why I feel you should know the real ending. You can thank me later.

For the record, I do maintain that James was an idiot. Yet to a certain extent, Missy was also an idiot, so in the end, they truly were made for each other. Right?

It’s sorta like that anime about “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”. Except Missy only got to be a God towards the end. Well, and James truly loved her, and Missy knew things were supernatural, and okay, bad comparison. Bah, look, I’m no writer. Anyway, here’s the deal.

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

I found this manuscript on the computer in James’ room (formerly Missy’s room), finally exploring there after the third day that he didn’t return home. Yes, his computer was password protected, and yes, I’m that good at what I do. Hence how this whole story has been added to the other three cases he published online. You’re welcome.

Now, while I’m not 100% certain, and James could be dead in a ditch somewhere, I’m pretty sure I know what happened to him. It’s why I got him to sign the Agency over, and more to the point, why I said he’d better hold on to that ring.

Because the idiot didn’t seem to clue in to the fact that it would take Missy time to recharge herself from doing an ‘Ultima Ratio’, to the point where she could actually bring him along to join her. Like, a lot of time.

I didn’t tell him, because I didn’t want to raise false hopes. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure she’d be able to get enough power within the three-month window for those space-time fractures on either side of her decision. It sure came down to the wire.

Anyway, he’s gone, and so yeah, good for her. For both of them, that is. I like to think that being able to home in on the ring helped Missy out, along with my having written James' engrams to Mixi as a test run.

Meaning I did a good thing. I really am that smart, yeah? More mature than I was at the start of all this too. Just saying.

And that’s the real end. You’re welcome.

Oh, unless you care about little me? The buxom witch Trixie, who seemed to be such a puzzle for James to figure out? It’s so tempting to give my real name, instead of this one that James created.

Seriously, had I been a MALE character picking up every Friday night in a bar, I doubt any of you would have given it a second thought. As a lady, am I not allowed to seduce people or something? Damn stereotypes. Or maybe it’s because I was a techie? And they’re not supposed to behave the way I do? Because that’s also bad stereotyping, and shame on you all.

At any rate, I’m doing reasonably well for having lost the only group of people where I felt I was finally fitting in. (Did you even think of that? Did you? Yeah, thanks for asking.) Thing is, I’ve got their Agency here, and I’ve been recreating my Rixi, and okay, I might have met someone at Missy’s ‘farewell celebration’ too, which is leading to a stable relationship.

Could be a guy, could be a girl, could be an elf, you don’t know. It’s not an AI though, is my point. Maturing, as I said. Also, it’s not a relative. Seriously, ew, who went there? Oh, and if I find anyone shipping the three of us main characters at once on any fanfic boards, you’re getting a piece of my mind.

Okay, so that’s the end.

Except now I’ve gone and ruined the poetry of it, huh? And I dunno how to rewrite all this to end it more like how James did last part.

Know what? For all his faults, the guy did craft a pretty good story.

Hmm, fine, let’s consider this. If something magically wonderful happens, you probably have Melissa to thank. If something completely contrary to the supernatural balance happens, you probably have James to thank for distracting her and Mixi at an inopportune time. Heh.

Yeah, I have no idea if ascended beings can make out, but if a mysterious baby appears on my doorstep sometime in the next few years, maybe I’ll have my answer.

Hell, they’d better not do that while I’m single, I don’t think I could handle being a single mother. Shoot, making this about me again.

So really, really, that’s the whole story. Of Melissa and James.

You can stop reading now.

For serious.

Are you still there?

Okay, yes, dammit, it’s true that I’m going to miss those idiots. You happy now? Go leave a comment on this blog now or whatever, I’m gone.

TRUE END

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 6e: OF MELISSA AND JAMES

I felt my heart beating faster in my chest. “Do I want to know what you saw?”

“I saw more than one thing,” Melissa admitted. “Which isn’t something that’s supposed to happen. Even yesterday, I’d held out some hope for the variation. That there would be a way to mentally train myself, so that Mixi would be sufficient.”

Trixie pursed her lips. “And what more did I need to do? Should I just take my wondrous creation back?”

Melissa shook her head. “Don’t misunderstand, I needed all that you’ve done, Trixie. But it has to be more. And when I finally realized what my role was in all of this, I… I wanted to put off saying my goodbyes for as long as possible.”

I felt a knot forming in my stomach. “Mel?” I said, not liking where she was going with that.

“The orb also let me see the key reason for why I was chosen,” she continued in a rush. “Setting aside my fanaticism with supernatural balance, it goes back to my lineage. There is more power in me than I realized, more power than my parents themselves are aware of. Enough for me to do more than observe the Earth. I have the power to see other realms, James. Other possibilities. Things that I’m not sure Mixi can handle yet.”

“I want to be offended by that, but you’re freaking me out,” Trixie remarked.

Melissa sighed, and held Mixi up. “This device is perfect for maintaining the supernatural balance, which is what we designed it to do. But it can’t recognize when exceptions are needed, or adjust for the rules that exist outside of our realm. A human element is required. One that knows how things have changed over the centuries.”

Trixie flinched. “You really ARE going all ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’ on us here, huh?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Melissa admitted. “I will say that the burden will be considerably lessened with this device operating. It’s only, necessary adjustments cannot be made by someone bound in this space-time, and the transition out will only happen when the fractures align. Which will be soon.”

I found my voice again. “So you’re leaving,” I said. “And you knew this yesterday.”

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

Melissa took a step forwards. I took a step back, suddenly not sure I knew her anymore. After all, if it had been me, I would have spent more time with her. I would have celebrated the rest of the time we had together, not retreated, not kept silent and worked on things by myself!

Her expression did something of a sad crash. “It’s not that I didn’t think you’d understand,” she murmured. “It’s that I didn’t want to make things different between us.”

“Except you did,” I insisted. “You retreated from me!”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I… damn, you’re not wrong. Oh James, I messed up, and now everything is aligning, so I can’t make it right. God, I wish I’d given us more time!”

When I remained silent, Trixie spoke up again. “Okay, so bye, take care of yourself then,” the redhead chirped. “Maybe tweak the stars in my favour a bit? Seeing as you’re running off with not only my prototype Mixi but the original device I had to base it on?”

Melissa looked over. “I can’t play favourites, you know that,” she said. “Otherwise I’d do something to fix this now.”

Trixie smirked. “Just testing you. You pass. You’re normal, and probably not possessed. Albeit you’re more flawed in terms of relationships than I realized, because James has a point. So how are you going to use the next sixty seconds?”

Melissa winced. “I… don’t know.” The part of the roof where she was standing started to puddle a bit, like it was turning into pudding. She returned to looking at me. “I hope you can forgive me in time,” she whispered.

It was that comment which shocked me back to my senses.

Maybe I would have spent time with her, but Melissa, she wasn’t me. That was the whole point; it was why I enjoyed her company. More to the point, Melissa was normally so blunt and straightforward, and here, she’d been evasive. Because of how much she’d cared.

Perhaps, in the end, I’d sort of sabotaged myself? Encouraging Mel to listen to her emotions over the last several years? Meaning she’d said nothing until she’d been sure, and then even beyond that, had found herself unable to open up. Unable to be blunt with me any more. But all of that, it didn’t matter. Damn it all, I still loved her.

“Just tell me one thing,” I said, thinking back to the conversation we’d had in her parents' pantry. “Do you really want this? Do you really want to be the one forced to monitor magick in and around the entire world?”

Melissa’s lips quavered. “I do now,” she admitted. “I thought I wasn’t ready, and maybe I’m not. But to see it all laid out – this is what I’ve been trying to do with the Agency, James. But now I can do it on a cosmic scale! Outside of this framework of reality, I could even affect events before they happen. And I want to make that difference.”

“Then you should do it,” I concluded. “And I’ll support you in that. Because I love you. And in the end, that means there’s nothing that needs forgiving.”

Melissa seemed to blur a bit, and it took a second for me to realize it was because I’d started crying. She smiled at me. “If it helps, James, in a sense, I won’t be gone. I’ll be everywhere.”

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “It helps.”

A tear ran down her cheek. “I should have been with you last night. But I was worried that, if I was, I’d have second thoughts. I’m sorry.”

“No regrets,” I insisted. “Though, can we at least hug before you fade out, or whatever?”

I opened my arms tentatively, and Melissa threw herself into the embrace. She buried her face into my shoulder for a moment. “There’s a letter,” she murmured. “For you. In the filing cabinet. Trixie has others for my parents. Whether you read your note or not, know that I do love you. Please know that.”

“I love you too,” I assured her. “Now go and show the whole world why.”

I stepped back. Then I noticed what seemed to be a slight inconsistency in the air behind her. Like a bit of a tear in space. This might be the last time I saw her.

And yet, I was briefly distracted by Trixie moving into my peripheral vision. Staring at me suspiciously. I tried to ignore her.

“Okay,” Melissa said, letting out a long breath. “Here it goes.”

She threw her hands out to the sides and looked up into the sky. “Let the balance be restored, and then become attuned to those on Earth… let my power synchronize with the wills and desires of everyone out there… though let me retain my sense of self as take on the mantle of - Libra Magica. ULTIMA RATIO!”

I knew then what it must have been like for Melissa to observe Melody. I dare say that must have been her basis for this spell. Sparks shot out from her, thousands of them, millions, most firing off into the distance, but some seemingly dropping down through the top of the roof.

Attuning themselves to everyone, and feeding the information back to the Chosen One, even as I saw the rip opening larger behind her. She was going to transition.

That’s when Trixie kicked me REALLY hard in the shins.

“OW!” I said, looking over at her in befuddlement.

“You COLOSSAL IDIOT,” she bellowed back at me, hands closed in a pair of fists. “If that’s a ring in your back pocket, you better damn well GIVE IT TO HER BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”

Oh yeah. I’d almost proposed again that morning, but I hadn’t gotten up the nerve before Melissa had left the kitchen. I’d figured it would keep until after this was all over.

Now it really was all over. But Melissa herself had said that she didn’t want things to be different between us, not in these last few days, hours, minutes, seconds. Right?

Unless she’d been waiting for the ring.

Trixie kicked me again, and damn it, it hurt. I rounded on her, only for her to jab her finger almost right up my nose. “I SWEAR to GOD, if you don’t move your ass RIGHT NOW James, I am going to turn you into a CHICKEN.”

I’m not sure what it was. Perhaps Trixie had managed to use that tone that gets people to obey without thinking about it. Maybe there’s something about the Virga lineage. Or perhaps it was the chicken reference, which reminded me of the clause in my initial rental agreement with Melissa. But then, maybe I simply didn’t need as much of a nudge as I thought I did.

Before I realized it, I was stepping forward and saying, “Mel!” As her gaze refocused on me, sparks still flying from her body, I pulled the box out of my pocket, opened it, and unexpected words spilled from my lips. “Take me with you!”

Melissa’s hands moved to her mouth as she gasped. “You actually did it. You bought me a…” Her voice sounded like it had a bit of an echo to it. I’m not sure if it trailed off, or if I missed a word.

“Opal. Your birthstone,” I said. Perhaps redundantly, but her body seemed to be growing brighter, and I wasn’t sure she could see. “Mel, this ring means we do these things together.”

“It’s too late,” she protested. “I can’t.”

“Then take the ring at least.”

Her gaze shifted to be one of sheer determination. “No, keep it with you. Remember I love you, and please think of me when –-”

The brightness was so intense now that I found I was forced to blink.

Leaving Trixie and me standing alone on the roof, with Melissa’s unfinished sentence hanging in the air. Gradually, the chain link fence reconstructed itself into iron.

Epilogue:

So that’s everything. You’ve now read the story of how I chose Melissa over my childhood friend, only to lose Mel again before the end of the summer.

I think I’ve now been through the traditional five stages, from denial, when Trixie had to practically drag me off the roof three hours later, to acceptance, that being in the form of writing all of this down. Tomorrow will mark exactly three months since she transitioned. There are only a few little gaps that probably need filling in. Well, plus a massive edit job on this whole tale, but let’s deal with that later.

First, the letter Melissa left for me. It said a lot of what she had stated on the roof, maybe because she hadn’t been sure how long she would have to explain things. Several times, it also said ‘I’m sure I’m not explaining this well but I hope you can understand’. It concluded by saying that she will always love me, even always be a part of me – and added in a small postscript, that I should check in with Amy about her lamp.

I did. It had apparently reverted back to being a knife, some time during the three days following Melissa’s ascension. (I’ll use ascension for lack of a better term.) I’m not sure if that was supposed to mean something, but resuming contact with Amy was something of a comfort. Maybe that had been Mel’s intention?

After all, Amy had seen some of what was out there too, giving me someone to talk to aside from Trixie, and it was Amy’s suggestion that I write all this down. She’d apparently looked up those prior three cases online, and thought that I had a good thing going.

The second thing to mention is our parents. In the end, I think mine understood Melissa’s decision to leave, if not the specifics of the magick involved. My mother in particular I think wanted to deride Mel, but they never did so in my presence, and they haven’t tried to set me up with anyone new in the time since.

As to Melissa’s parents, I think her letters to them explained things much as mine did. They’ve even sort of accepted me into the family, despite Melissa’s ultimate rejection of the ring I’d offered to her. There wasn’t a memorial service per se, since Melissa wasn’t dead, but they invited me to a celebration of her life.

Then finally there’s the actual matter of supernatural balance, and the Agency. The latter remains in my name, but at Trixie’s insistence, she’s become a co-owner on paper, with access to the accounts and everything.

I didn’t see the harm. In theory, there will be fewer cases involving people, as things rebalance. But maybe other witches or beings will find it useful, as they adjust to the new (old?) reality out there.

I’m not sure how long I’ll stay. I haven’t quite worked out my future yet. Part of me thinks I should sell the ring I bought for Melissa and move out of the apartment. Part of me cannot bear to part with it yet, particularly not after Melissa’s last words, and Trixie has insisted I keep it as a reminder, at least for a while yet.

I do still have the option of journalism. Maybe there’s a witch faction that runs a newspaper? Or maybe I’ll turn this into a proper novel. Either way, in the end, I guess I’m just glad I got the chance to tell Melissa’s story.

And you know, maybe, just maybe, if you wish really hard for something, and it’s something that can be balanced out in the grand scheme of things… Melissa will hear you, and it will happen.

Just like magick.

END…?

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 6d: OF MELISSA AND JAMES

I hesitated, largely because I wasn’t sure about Trixie’s state of mind. “Uhm, you know my magick experience is really limited, right?”

Trixie’s smirk was back. “It’s fine. You don’t need any inherent magick for Mixi to see what’s going on in your head.”

“Ah. And you don’t want to eat first? Or shower?”

“Nope. But you can picture me in the shower, if you think that’ll help get your neurons firing, James.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and then her hips.

“Trixie…” Melissa said warningly, though it was almost resigned amusement at this point.

I somehow found my gaze back at Trixie’s chest again. I don’t know how she does it. “Trixie, look, you’re not going to be pulling fetishes out of my head, are you?”

Trixie giggled madly. “Not on a test run, but OOH you’re giving me so much ammunition to potentially tease you with. It’s almost criminal, to take advantage of your naivete this way.”

“Yeah, um, so maybe don’t do that?”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Yes, fine, look, listen. I’m doing an impossible thing that no one’s ever done before. Humour me NOW, before I crash and need to sleep for a day straight.”

I resigned myself to my fate. “Be gentle?”

Trixie laughed once more and dragged me into her room to affix medical patches to my temples. All I really have to say about the process is that it was somewhat long, though not the three hours she’d deemed for the final run. It was also completely painless, and seemed to satisfy Trixie that she’d done what she’d set out to do.

Almost immediately after, the redhead passed out, face down on the floor.

When I finally left Trixie’s room, Melissa was gone. She’d left a sheet of paper on the desk saying she needed some air, and some candles. I toyed with the ring in my pocket for a moment, then went to prepare dinner.

That night, I realized that Melissa seemed to be withdrawing from me. Whether it was a conscious decision on her part or not, I didn’t know, but we remained on opposite sides of the bed.

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

The next day, early on, she set up what she needed for her spell in our room. Namely some orbs, candles, and I think the rib of a small animal. She then requested absolute silence for when the technology spell actually took place.

Trixie was still asleep (apparently she hadn’t been kidding about sleeping for a day), while I took the opportunity to go to the main room and look out the window. To see if I could catch the flash when Earth’s entire technology grid was flipped off, then almost immediately back on again.

I’m not going to tell you when this happened. There’s a slim chance that making it public would get Annie in trouble, as I could still say here that her information was a bit off, and Melissa calculated the difference.

I mean, okay, I’ve been changing everyone’s names, so I suppose I could change the time of the event and give you that in the narrative. But it seems rather pointless.

I will tell you that the magick involved ensured that nothing would need to power cycle back up, so maybe it was that moment when your radio cut out, or when your computer seemed to freeze up, or when that light in the hall seemed to flicker as you were preparing for bed.

Two seconds, maybe less. I fancy I saw it, but only because I knew exactly when to look for it.

There were no complications.

By that I mean there was nothing reported in the news related to this. There were complications as far as Melissa was concerned. The most immediate consequence being her emerging from the room looking rather pale.

I quickly got her a glass of water and asked if there was anything I could do to help her out. She shook her head. “It was an eye opening experience, that’s all.”

I paused, then led Melissa out into the hallway, away from any surveillance. I then crouched a bit to look her in the eyes, and made sure she was looking at me before speaking again.

“Mel, this is me you’re talking to. I can tell something has upset you. What’s wrong?”

Her lips grew tight. “It’s that there are cracks,” she said after a moment. “In the fabric of space-time. Which is why other realities knew about me, they caught a hint of the spell I just performed. I also got a sense of…” She shook her head. “I can’t describe it.”

“You mean Merlin?”

Melissa shook her head. “James, please don’t press me on this.”

I nodded. “Okay then. You’re sure there’s nothing more I can do?”

Melissa stared past me for a moment, then refocussed. “I need to see Alicia. I’m suddenly scared that there’s not enough time left to do what I need to do. I swear I’ll tell you if there’s anything you can do to help me with it though, okay?”

She smiled at me then, and leaned in to kiss me. For a moment she sank into it, and into my arms, and seemed to me like things were normal enough.

But when she drew back I saw there was still something lurking behind her gaze. With a quick apology, she was immediately running down the stairs, off to Alicia Wing’s store. I think she would have done so regardless of whether the store was actually open at the moment.

To this day, I’m still not sure what Melissa had really caught sight of during her spell.

There’s a well-known quote by Friedrich Nietzsche that comes to my mind: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

I hoped Melissa would be all right. Again, I found myself fiddling with the ring inside my pocket.

Two days later, meaning one day short of the big day, I was sure that Trixie knew something too. I called her on it while Melissa was out.

“Don’t keep being an idiot, James,” she retorted. “Your girlfriend wouldn’t tell me anything that she wouldn’t also tell you.”

Something in her tone had me reading between the lines. “Might she have told you something BEFORE telling me though?”

The redhead flinched at that, even looking a bit guilty. “No?”

“Trixie, tell me what you know,” I said, becoming a bit scared. I’m not sure why that had been my first reflex. Can men have intuition too?

“Nothing!” Trixie insisted, only to amend, “I’m sure it’s nothing. Just, I have some messages to give to Melissa’s parents after tomorrow.”

“After her Decision Day.”

“Right.”

“Related to the fact that she’s refused to respond to their messages? The ones insisting that the spell worked, and that she can stop worrying about everything?”

I really hadn’t been sure what to make of those. Had Merlin been re-energized? Had he not been, but false flags had been thrown up to make the casters think the spell had worked? Did Melissa need to do something to help him out? Or were Melissa’s parents simply outright lying to her, so that she wouldn’t do anything rash?

Trixie had no answers. “I dunno,” she said, shrugging. “Melissa sealed the content into envelopes.”

I stared at Trixie. She wouldn’t meet my gaze. That was definitely new. “Then do you think the spell her parents were doing worked?”

Trixie sighed. “Damn it, James, I don’t–” She cut herself off. “Look. All I know is Melissa thinks her task is actually greater than ever. She even asked me to try and cut down on the three hour window for her virtual self. Don’t ask me to explain why. I’m tech-girl, she’s the supernatural balance expert.”

“And there’s no problem with Mixi and the neural net?”

Trixie’s expression morphed into something that said to me ‘There bloody well better not be after all the effort I put in’. Her lips merely said, “Nothing I’m aware of.”

I dropped the subject.

In retrospect, I must have been preoccupied. I didn’t pick up on the fact that not once did Trixie call her cousin ‘Missy’ on that day.

Melissa didn’t come to bed that night.

When I saw her the next morning in the kitchen, it didn’t seem like she’d actually slept. On the one hand, this wasn’t unusual, since she never did have a good sense for time of day. On the other hand, shortly after I entered, she headed out of the apartment again. So she had to be avoiding me.

I can’t be certain, but I think that was the night when Melissa wrote the message for me.

Melissa was back by noon, in order to undergo the process of putting her engrams onto Trixie’s neural net. It only occurred to me then that I wasn’t entirely sure how the decision-making process was going to occur.

Somehow I’d visualized Melissa casting a spell, with an image of Merlin appearing and asking for her final answer… and that wasn’t it. Of course, I’m not sure Melissa herself had known until three days prior, as I suspect she would have said something to me otherwise. As it was, she merely said we’d be headed to the roof of the building in a little while.

The roof door was normally kept locked. Obviously not a problem in our case.

Melissa walked out first, holding Mixi. I followed after her, and Trixie hung back behind us. My girlfriend walked all the way to the edge of the building and looked out, through the protective chain link fence that someone had erected. She then turned and let out a long breath.

“Okay James, you deserve this explanation from me in person,” she began. “The choice I’m faced with here is the chaos that would come from magick becoming common, and being wielded against those without consent, versus the strict regimen of magick casting backlash and a severing of ties with other realms.”

I nodded. “I sort of assume you’re looking at the strict regimen though,” I said. “Given how you’ve got Mixi there to implement it.”

She licked her lips. “Yes and no. Thing is, while the latter system might have worked 1500 years ago, I’ve been forced to conclude that it needs updating. All systems must change to adapt to the changing times, I know that now. And Merlin, if we still refer to the originator of the system that way, was aware of this possibility. In fact, the more recent shifting in the supernatural balance hasn’t been due to corruption, or lack of energy. It’s come from two other things.”

“Powerful things, I presume,” Trixie said from behind me. “Given how that chain link fence seems to be morphing into cheddar cheese or something before our eyes.”

Melissa glanced back over her shoulder only briefly. “That’s blowback from what’s about to happen. In retrospect, the proximity of me and other Chosen might have been a catalyst for a couple of the more curious incidents. Like Amy’s lamp. As to the two things being powerful, I suppose that depends on your point of view.”

“These are the things you saw during that fraction of a second when we didn’t have technology, isn’t it,” I divined.

Melissa nodded. “Correct. The first thing is the fact that there are now several billion more people on Earth than there once were. It makes tracking the flow of magick more difficult. The second thing, even more problematic, is how the original system doesn’t understand how to adjust for all our scientific advancements. It seemed immensely relieved for that one second when it didn’t have to.”

“So the Internet really is a problem.”

Melissa ran her fingers back through her hair. “Not a problem. An additional variable. That’s what I really didn’t understand until a couple of days ago. How much the system needs to be updated.”

I exchanged a glance with Trixie.

“Fine, I’ll ask her for you,” Trixie said, reading something in my expression. She stepped up next to me. “Melissa, if you’ve known for a couple days, why only tell us all the details now?”

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 6c: OF MELISSA AND JAMES

Gardening struck me as being a new hobby for her, and I said as much.

Annie grinned. “Yup!” she asserted. “That’s my new thing, been growing my own herbs, along with plants and flowers. Selling some of them too, as the couple years since graduating haven’t been good for finding stable work. Particularly since I prefer non-technological jobs. But I get the occasional contract here and there to make ends meet.”

“You’ve kept up with spells too,” Melissa said with a measure of surprise. “I wondered if you might have given that up, to try and keep from being discovered again.”

Annie put her hands on her hips. “Okay, spill. How did you know I was casting?”

Melissa shrugged. “No deduction, per se. Not even a scent. Just a vibe. From you, from Tabby, even from the plants.”

“Ah." Annie adopted a more neutral pose. “Well, and I did avoid it while I was still in school,” she replied, “But once I was done, and then unemployed for six months with no interest in pursing personal relationships, I needed some other ways to fill my time. Plus I was hopeful of there being a good job interview spell or something. Instead, I latched on to communications.”

“Communications?” I wondered. “Are there magick phones or something?”

Annie chuckled. “Not that I know of. But that brings me to why I wanted you to drop by. I need your opinion on something.”

After pulling down the shade on her window, she ushered us over to her kitchen table, where she had laid out what looked like some homemade variant on the ouija board.

Melissa was immediately walking around it, crouching down to see it at eye level, and standing on her tiptoes to get an overall sense of it.

“You’ve been trying to contact other realms,” she concluded at last. “Surprisingly professional setup. Did you search the web for this?”

“No, I still avoid the web for magick,” Annie admitted. “It’s my grandma who gave me some advice. We’ve connected more since my graduation, and my growing interest in spells. She told me that I had to be very careful not to create an open connection, and that I had to have a sense of where I was going to be transmitting. I’ve been pretty careful.”

Melissa tilted her head to the side, as if she was trying to divine exactly to whom Annie had been speaking. “So you’ve been talking to…?”

“An elf.”

Melissa nodded. “Right, makes sense. This flow is connected to that weak point at the North Pole.”

As to me, I was startled. “Hold on. There’s actual elves at the North Pole?”

“No, no,” Melissa said, gesturing vaguely as she continued to admire the setup. “Though that was a logical place for their realm to gain access, as a number of regular humans already have the belief of elves existing up there, even though the elves they picture are very different from the real thing.”

“So they don’t have pointed hats and help Santa,” I reasoned. “Are they more like Tolkein elves then? Because I only ever saw the movies.”

“They are long lived, and can be beautiful, but are mostly my height, with no dark vision,” Melissa said idly. She turned her attention back to Annie. “Who is it you’re talking to then? While most elves aren’t evil per se, a number can be particularly mischievous.”

Annie smirked. “Iantneth has a similar opinion of humans. I really only speak with her about fashion, relationships, daily life stuff – though she’s been instructing me a little on how to grow better herbs.”

“Aha, that explains the magic I sensed from the plants,” Melissa concluded.

“So, be straight with me. This seems safe and all?” Annie said, hesitantly. “I mean, I’ve spoken to my grandma about it, and sent pictures, but it never hurts to have a second opinion from someone in the know who’s actually here.”

Melissa looked once more under the table, then stood up and shrugged. “I don’t see any problems with this. Have you noticed anything strange?”

Annie breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I noticed a pine tree had morphed into an oak tree last week, only a block away. I figured it was unrelated, but…” She gestured vaguely.

Melissa pursed her lips, then nodded. “I have been aware of a few incidents like that of late. Don’t worry, it’s not you. We’re approaching a sort of supernatural turning point.”

I was reminded then of Melissa’s knife turning into Amy’s lamp three months ago. “Could talking to other realms be upsetting supernatural balance even more though?” I wondered. “Not exclusive to Annie, I mean.”

Melissa shook her head. “No, the balancing issues are related to the weak points that these devices exploit. It’s those areas which can allow entities though, and these visitors cause much more of a problem than what’s more akin to a radio transmission.”

I nodded. “Meaning, going after communication tools is a bit like shaming someone for not using a reusable bag, when the plastics industry is really at the core of things.”

“I guess?” Melissa mused. “Except it’s more like you’re reusing a plastic bag in the first place. Things won’t get worse than they are already.”

“A-Am I doing a bad thing then?” Annie asked. “Because I’m getting confused.”

Melissa waved Annie off. “No, no, you’re fine. This setup isn’t even electronic at all, is it?”

Annie shook her head. “Nope.”

“Okay. So do you use electronics at all?” Melissa pressed. “To the point where your grandmother might have told you when NOT to use them next week?”

Annie now looked very confused, which led to me jumping in with an explanation of the problem we were facing. I left out the Chosen One aspect, playing up the secret spell part, and wrapped it up by remarking, “Ideally we’d want you to find out the time without making it clear that that’s what you’re asking.”

Annie pressed her index finger to the side of her mouth. “Funny you say that. Iantneth said there would be some sort of disturbance in our realm coming up, so I can use that as a basis. I was planning on driving around town next week on another job hunt too… so yeah, I can probably get Grandma Lindy to spill something.”

“I’d need the exact second,” Melissa reminded.

Annie nodded. “After your help back in University, I’ll see what I can do. And if it doesn’t pan out, I’ll try to let you know sooner rather than later.”

“We appreciate that,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand. “And hey, let us know what herbs it is you’re selling, in case we need a supply of anything.”

Annie grinned. After a few more quick pleasantries, and Melissa declining the offer of home brewed tea, we headed on our way. I sensed she was turning a new thought around in her mind, and called her on it shortly thereafter.

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

“Well,” Melissa admitted. “It occurs to me that with the balance fully back in place, and the other realms cut off, potentially beneficial conversations like the one between Annie and Iantneth would be lost as well.”

“Ah. Throwing the baby out with the bath water?”

“Not quite so crude, and we do need a way of preventing the bad from getting worse. But it makes me wonder about loopholes… would Trixie’s AI be able to handle those, even with my engrams?”

“It might depend on whether it was something you’d thought of before they got mapped,” I reasoned. “Do you think many would come up?”

“I don’t know. I’m realizing more and more that there’s a lot I don’t know.”

“Maybe some of the literature from the rational faction could help,” I quipped.

Melissa made a face. “I tuned out a lot of the faction stuff. This sort of decision calls for an opinion that hasn’t been biased one way or the other, after all.” She paused. “I guess it’s harder to ignore the occasional benefit when you see it in person, that’s the only problem. Makes me wonder if there’s a lot of others like Annie out there, who need to see that there’s a good side to being a witch.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I simply let the matter drop.

We heard back from Annie within 48 hours; she was able to give Melissa the precise timing that she needed. It would be early in the morning, three days before Decision Day. That is, the day her final decision would need to be rendered… assuming the reinforcement spell failed, which Melissa was certain would happen.

Melissa started to prepare for her own spell. Me, I got a ring, and decided to propose to Melissa one day before all of that went down.

Unfortunately, while I had the ring, and some phrasing in my mind, what I didn’t have was control over the other circumstances surrounding me.

It happened about five minutes before I felt I’d have the nerve to drop down on one knee, as Melissa sat looking over some papers at the main desk. Guess I should have been braver. As it was, the delay meant Trixie’s door burst open first. She bounced out, and practically off the walls, she was bursting with such enthusiasm.

“It’s DONE,” Trixie shrieked. “I DID it. I am like a TECH GODDESS, ha ha ha!”

“The artificial Melissa?” I said, startled. “I didn’t think you’d be ready for another day or two.”

Trixie grinned at me. “I haven’t slept in a while. That helped.” She bounded back into her room, then emerged, holding up what might have once been an iPhone. “The new Rixi is ready! I shall call her Mixi. Missy, I’ll need you for a couple hours now, to deal with the memory engram side of things.”

I fidgeted with the ring still in my pocket. “Um, Trixie, you don’t want to sleep first?” I suggested.

Trixie’s hair was rumpled, to the point that she had a single twintail, versus a ponytail. One of her knee high stockings had fallen nearly to her ankle and she’d made no attempt to correct it, and as to the rest of her clothing, I could see stains from either sweat or drool, which was completely out of character for her. She had definitely been pushing herself.

“Nope!” Trixie chirped. “I am SO ready to put this to the test. To cement my brilliance in the history books. Today’s the day, James! So, Missy? Let’s get to it.”

Melissa hadn’t even looked up yet. “It will have to wait until after tomorrow’s spell.”

The redhead’s gaze took on a slightly murderous tinge off Melissa’s casual response. “Are. You. FUC–”

“It’s not that we don’t appreciate EVERYTHING you’ve done, Trixie,” I cut in swiftly. “And the fact that you have things ready in advance of your own timelines is amazing, particularly in light of some of the challenges that you’ve been telling us about along the way. It’s just, I think Melissa needs some time herself now in order to get more in tune with the spell she needs to cast herself.”

Of course, there was also the matter of my proposal, though given Melissa’s reaction to Trixie, I was fast thinking I might want to hold off on my revelation as well.

“It’s not a matter of tuning,” Melissa said idly. She looked up for the first time then, and sucked in her lower lip briefly as she diagnosed Trixie’s expression. “Of course, what you’ve done is AMAZINGLY AWESOME, and worthy of praise.” Her gaze shifted from Trixie to me. “People still say ‘awesome’, yes?”

“Ugh, forget it,” Trixie said in exasperation, flopping down onto the couch and throwing her shoulders back. “It’s enough that I’ve done it, that James appreciates it, and that you’re not lashing out at me for being smug. Adding extra flattery on top would be weird, particularly when it sounds like it might be sincere. That’s not the Missy I know and love.”

Melissa half smiled. “I may still get you a cake. Or some cheesecake. The thing is, the new memories I’ll be gaining in the next day or two may be critical for decision making on the part of your device. I don’t want there to be any chance of corruption between my mindset now, and what my mindset might be like on the day I have to decide.”

Trixie crinkled her nose cutely. “No biggie, I can wipe the engrams if necessary. It’s a feature, for testing purposes. Though I grant that would be easier to do with a completely different person.”

“Meaning you could test it on yourself for now?" Melissa checked.

The redhead crossed her arms. “Playing to my vanity? Mmm, I’ll allow it. But honestly, as a test run, it’d be better for me to have a measure of separation from the data." She turned to me, and grinned almost wickedly. “So I’ll co-opt James. Then purge and overwrite with yours later, Missy. Speaking of, what kind of waiting period are we talking about here?”

Melissa ran her fingers back through her hair. “How much time do you need, from starting to pull in my memories, to complete implementation? Bare minimum.”

Trixie looked back. “For serious? Bare minimum? Three hours. But that would cut it awful close, and it would be better to allow for the case of needing a reset.”

“I’ll try to give you more time,” Melissa concluded. “Though it seems like, the closer we get to the event, the more I’m starting to doubt myself, wondering if I’ve missed an alternative along the way. Please bear with me?”

She smiled, a bit sadly it seemed to me.

I decided that today was definitely not the day to propose.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 6a: OF MELISSA AND JAMES

“Our time’s up,” Melody said, stepping away and cracking her knuckles. “Move fast, I’m not sure Mortum will survive this, and there is a non-zero chance that his death will cause the castle to crumble.”

“Oh, good,” Melissa sighed, as she adjusted the strap of her bag.

The door was thrown open, and Mortum himself stood there, flanked by a few zombies, and looking seriously pissed off. “You bitches,” he snarled. “Any last words before I blast you both into dust?!”

“Two,” Melody stated. She threw her arms out at a forty five degree angle. “Ultima ratio.”

Sparks seemed to fly from her body then, energy sparks, as if she were being electrocuted. Her body even twitched, as the light show passed out through the walls, not unlike Melissa’s tracking sphere had done before. This time with more sparks being generated by Melody’s body to replace them.

Mortum, seemingly unimpressed, lowered a staff he was carrying, pointing it at the witch like a weapon.

The zombi next to him reached out and pushed the staff back up.

Mortum turned in surprise to look the zombi in the eyes. Then he realized he actually WAS looking said zombi in the eyes, and not staring at the blank look he was used to. According to Melissa, Mortum first seemed confused, then scared. Then very scared.

“Braiiiins,” the zombi whispered, finally able to speak on its own.

Melissa judged that was the most opportune time to duck down and push past the group. She fled without looking back, encountering more than a few dead and undead bodies moving in the opposite direction, under their own power. Whether they were homing in on Mortum, or on Melody’s light show, she wasn’t sure, nor did she particularly care.

Her destination was the circle of salt on the turret, and safety. She destroyed the circle on our end as soon as she arrived.

I leaned back in the desk chair. “So you think Melody survived? And saw that Doctor?”

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

Melissa sighed. “Probably? I hope so.” She circled her shoulder around and then put her ice pack back on it. “Remind me never to ram into doors again.”

“Never ram into doors again,” Trixie chirped. She was lying on the couch, chin resting in her hands as she kicked her legs back in the air. “I’d make another Doctor Who reference too, but neither of you would get it.”

Yes, in the end, Trixie hadn’t gone out to find herself a date for the night, electing to wait with me for Melissa’s return. Perhaps handling the factions and the explosion had given her enough of a rush, or perhaps she was turning over a new leaf after learning about Zamboni. I still can’t read her very well.

Melissa looked over at the redheaded witch. “I’ll save an exasperated remark at you for a later occasion, on a day when you didn’t recently comport yourself with aplomb.”

We had given Melissa the rundown on events here, before she told us her story. In case there was any sort of immediate fallout from the failed marriage to deal with, though it was seeming less and less likely.

“Do you think using big words means I won’t realize that’s a compliment?” Trixie asked, grinning. “Also, apology accepted for being a jerk to me earlier.”

Melissa simply half smiled back before looking back at me. “I wonder if the factions will resume devouring their own tails now. Or better yet, decide I’m untouchable."

I ran a hand back through my hair. “They’ll definitely think twice about messing with the Agency, at least. And by extension, you."

Melissa nodded. “That’s good.” She paused. “And in the end, they were right. The evening was a turning point for me. In that I figured out why my parents’ spell will fail.”

I blinked. “Right, so you said. What was that about, exactly?”

“What Melody said to me. About the will of the zombies.”

I searched my memory for when that might have occurred in the story she had told me. “You mean the bit about wanting a break after being forced to do something for a long, long time?”

“And lashing out at anyone who doesn’t give it to you, yeah. Because I’m thinking Merlin or whoever needs a break. Giving him more power to last longer won’t help in that case, particularly if someone’s already tried casting this spell at him in the past.”

“Guess we should start thinking of a plan B, huh?” I joked, looking to Trixie.

To be clear, the three of us had all been pretty careful not to link Trixie’s neural net project with Melissa’s prophecy decision, just in case word got out, and people tried to prevent Trixie’s efforts. So we were pretty confident in our backup plan.

“We might want a plan C,” Melissa murmured then, which surprised me.

“Hey! I’m going to manage this virtual Missy thing for you,” Trixie said, sitting up. “Granted, I’m a still wee bit hazy on doing it in the necessary time frame, but don’t write me off so quick, damn it.”

Melissa shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No?” Trixie looked back and forth between Melissa and me. “Oh, fine, fine, hint taken to leave the room and get back to work.”

“Melissa wouldn’t hint,” I pointed out. “You don’t need to leave.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “I’m going off your expression more than anything, James.” She pushed herself up off the couch. “You two talk. Because you both have stuff to say that the other person needs to hear. And I do want to work more before I sleep.”

With a grin reminiscent of the time she’d left me alone with Amy, Trixie went back to her room and closed the door.

Melissa cleared her throat. “Well, and Trixie’s not wrong. Because here’s the problem, other realms have now come up a couple of times. Except when my virtual self picks supernatural balance, they’re supposed to be cut off. So how could that Culicinae vampyre have known about me and my family?”

I decided to go with Melissa’s topic, even as I parsed what Trixie had meant in my case. About our relationship. “He’d been in our world for a while,” I reminded. “Could have researched.”

“Virga is hardly the first thing he’d feel like looking up,” Melissa insisted. “No, the only possibility that occurs to me is that we’re coming up on an event that’s so cataclysmic, its effects reverberate back through time across neighbouring realities. Which may simply be the decision, but could also be our methodology for it.”

“That’s unsettling. Could things go that wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Melissa shifted her ice pack. “Maybe I’m overreacting. But it’s why I’m considering a plan C.”

I looked at her for a moment. “Well, we’ve still got some time to figure it out.”

“Some.” The brunette tugged lightly on an errant strand of her hair. “I need to revise my last resort spell too, I think. That will take a bit of time.”

“What? Why, what’s wrong with the one you have?” It occurred to me then that I didn’t even know what was involved in the spell she already had – there had never been an occasion for her to use it.

“Things change. Another feeling I have.”

“All right, well, let me know if I can help.”

“I will. Don’t worry, it won’t be like it was with the zombies.”

Melissa smiled, then lapsed back into silent thought. Since it was probably verging on 2am by this point, I almost left her that way, but given how Trixie had alluded to the other issue, I couldn’t get the marriage idea out of my head. Except, how to approach it?

She seemed to sense my hesitation after a few minutes, looking back at me. “Sorry, something else?”

“No,” I said automatically. Then, “Actually, yes.” I reached back to rub the back of my neck, suddenly wondering if I should have delayed this talk until I’d gone out to buy a ring or something.

“The marriage thing,” I finally blurted out. “Part of me wonders if I should propose to you right now, but another, larger part of me doesn’t want that sort of personal element to mess up your psyche at this rather critical time. In particular if it would make you lose your Chosen status somehow. So, I won’t. Unless, I should. Um, I love you.”

I think I botched that rather completely.

Her cheeks began to tinge red. “I… I love you too. You know that. But wow, marriage? We’re not even twenty-five yet.”

“Too soon, right. Sorry.”

She quickly shook her head. “Oh, I don’t mean… that is, I never really saw myself as the marrying type until I was at LEAST that old. But then, I never pictured that I’d be in line to choose the fate of the supernatural until I was over twice that age. So I’m not sure what to – wait, James, was that actually a proposal?”

Her expression implied worry over not reading me properly. Honestly though, I wasn’t sure what I meant either. “I think it was a promise of a proposal. I mean, as crazy as Zamboni’s scheme was, it did get me thinking. About us.”

“I see. And you’re thinking that you’d want to spend the rest of your life with me?”

I looked at her again, seeing how tired and exhausted she was after her overseas encounters, and yet how she was still beautiful despite that. How she was so much better looking than any other girl I’d ever met. And I thought about how I wished I could have been there for her, doing something when she was being attacked. I might well have sacrificed myself so that she could have escaped unharmed.

Of course, all that I actually managed to say in response was, “Yeah.”

It must have come across sincerely though, since Melissa’s face was definitely red now as she looked away. “Golly. That’s the nicest thing anyone… but it’s probably something we should revisit when this Prophecy stuff is over. Right? I mean, for all I know, the worship faction put a whammy on you out there.”

“It’s not that.”

She turned back to me, looking adorably flustered. “I know. Trying to make a joke. Came out lame. My sense of humour is still a work in progress.”

I smiled back at her. “It is late. Promise we’ll revisit this within the next three weeks, at least?”

Melissa nodded. “I’d like that.”

I nodded back and started to turn away, only to have her drop her ice pack, approach me, and pull me into a rather passionate kiss.

I was more than happy to oblige. In fact, by the time she pulled back, my hands had started to wander. “I’m too overwhelmed to enjoy this now,” she rasped near my ear.

I squeezed. “I reserve the right to pick up here later.”

She smiled. “Mmm hmm.”

We were late to breakfast the next morning.

The very next day, we returned Alicia’s orb. It occurred to me that she’d known about the turning point too, but I had no idea whether she’d manipulated the situation with Melissa to take advantage of the situation. She was even more cagey than usual, so I don’t think we’ll ever get an answer there.

Another week passed, uneventfully. I went by the park at one point, but aside from some efforts to repair the gazebo, presumably by the city, I didn’t see anything there of concern. Only the more devout faction members were lingering, and they didn’t seem to have a plan.

It was the following Monday that Melissa suggested to me that we go for a quick stroll. I accepted. She got to the point right away, and it wasn’t about the marriage situation. “I think my parents have been listening in on us again. Somehow.”

I frowned. “What makes you say that?”

“I contacted them,” Melissa admitted. “Because I wanted to know when they were planning to run their ‘suspend technology on Earth’ spell. And they wouldn’t tell me.”

“Oh. Well, is there a reason we need to know that?”

Melissa grimaced. “That’s the same question they asked. And yes, there is, because the loss of tech would give me the chance to be more in tune with the supernatural, possibly even Merlin himself.”

“Oh,” I repeated. “So, what, do they believe we’re going to use that time to implement the results of Trixie’s efforts?”

“That’s what I wonder,” Melissa said. “They certainly know we’re at cross purposes. Mom went so far as to imply that I wanted to sabotage their spell, and gave me a whole lecture about knowing what’s best for me.”

“That must have been fun.”

“Oh yeah.” She looked up at me. “So, I’m going to need your help, to figure out the details of their spell, without them knowing.”

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 5e: OF ZOMBIES AND ZEALOTS

The tracking spell, which had been laying dormant in the orb room behind them, was sparked into action one last time. It immediately ballooned out, the little glowing sphere’s radius increasing exponentially fast as it passed right through the walls, through the floor, ever expanding until it made contact with Melissa herself. Then, having located it’s mistress, it enveloped her and collapsed back down, taking her along with it.

Fortunately, only physical forms could be pulled right through the wall, not the Zombi spirit presence. The distance was also only good for a radius of about ten metres, which was why Melissa hadn’t tried that from the start.

Melissa could practically hear Mortum’s roar of rage through the stone. But she wasn’t done yet.

Reaching again into her bag, she pressed another scroll against where the door seemed to be on this side, the twin of the one she had put up earlier. Ensuring that the mechanism would not function either way. Which would give her, she judged, between three and five minutes.

She then extended her hand, palm up, and made a small spark arc between her pinkie and thumb, looking towards the other occupant of the room. “Do you need a zapping?”

“No,” Melody said slowly, rubbing her palm against her temples. “No, I think I’m finally clear of it. How did you know that ripping me away with that spell as the zombi spirit tried to jump, would clear it from both of us?”

“I didn’t,” Melissa said frankly. “I wasn’t even sure you’d be caught in the field. But I was on a tight timeline and had made the tracker spell generic to witchcraft, as opposed to my unique witch scent, so there was a chance. Figured I might as well try. Seeing as even you didn’t deserve that fate.”

“Lovely. Was it also a guess that you’d be able to talk and perhaps subdue me once you got out of that room?”

Melissa shook her head. “That, no. I knew your area spells were confined to the throne room. I tested it early on by clearing my throat just the other side of the entranceway.”

“Aha. Clever.”

“I know.” Melissa lowered her hand. “Though I’m glad I don’t have to zap you. Invoking that emergency measure has severely depleted my casting ability. I’m not ashamed to admit that you nearly had me… I don’t remember the last time I felt that vulnerable.” She moved to start poking around the chests in the room to find the orb.

Melody pursed her lips. “For spells, I can back you up temporarily.”

“I’d hoped. Going to escape with me too?”

Melody sighed. “No. Thing is, I’m here voluntarily.”

Melissa blanched, turning back. “Are you INSANE?”

“Possibly,” Melody said with a half smile. “But oddly enough, I did this because of you."

At first, the explosion only expanded out as far as the scrolls on the gazebo posts, scorching the interior. But then, with nowhere else to go, the force was directed upwards, to the roof. Where I had placed no scrolls. So kind of a big mistake.

“No, no, nooooooo,” Trixie/Melissa said. And while there was a tinge of panic to her voice, I interpreted the cry as more of a command than a scared shriek. She seemed to be spinning one hand in the air.

Moments after the top of the gazebo popped up, before any flames could burst out, it spun back down. Once again containing the burning fireball. The fire continued to blaze brightly for two or three more seconds, before fizzling out, I presume due to a lack of oxygen.

Trixie/Melissa lowered her hands. The pieces of paper ceased their glowing. The roof of the structure completely collapsed, leaving everything as a smoking ruin.

There was a moment of silence.

“I DID it,” Trixie/Melissa said, fist pumping into the air. “Variable sided containment. First try. Take THAT, Missy! Ha ha ha!” She began to dance around on one foot.

“Missy?” Zamboni questioned, looking towards the witch.

Trixie/Melissa froze, then looked at me, I shrugged, and she made a few canceling gestures to restore her actual appearance. Zamboni was caught off guard, and fell silent. Or possibly it was the look of Trixie’s original clothing as she jutted out her hip that silenced him, I don’t know.

“Fac ut gaudeam?” I asked of the redhead. It hadn’t been the phrase I’d used to cue her.

“Yeah, we can tag whatever we like onto that particular spell,” Trixie explained. “And roof aside, I’ll admit, that was a good plan. Lucky that I’d sometimes listen when Missy droned on about you, and so I realized what you were talking about, hm?”

“No,” the priest said, having fallen to his knees. “No, this is not possible. I checked all the variables. For whatever reason, the Chosen One was at her most vulnerable right now! I knew we could take her power through marriage, we had merely to…" He jabbed his finger out at Trixie. “How are you not Melissa?! I verified her presence, I went so far as to determine her unique magick scent, and I sense it here with us, even now!”

Trixie looked towards the priest. “You do, huh? Well, you know how anyone who gets real close to a witch, and doesn’t have a magick odor of their own, ends up giving off a stronger version of that same scent?”

“Yes, but it takes years for someone to…” His voice trailed off. And he looked at me.

Trixie also turned. “Actually, priest here raises a good point, James. If you’ve been having sex with Missy to the point where you can apparently fool the church with her odour, maybe you SHOULD propose already.”

I became flustered. I didn’t feel like raising my sex life was very fair in front of an audience.

“H-Hey!” I objected. “It’s spell proximity that does it, not sex. At least, Melissa said it can be transmitted without sex, and I can’t even pick up on this scent thing, and Melissa merely gets all enigmatic about it when I ask. Can we not do this here? I mean, this guy isn’t even a real priest.”

“Ahem, I really am,” the priest said in annoyance. “The marriage needed to be valid.”

“Yeah, he’s a wizard priest who guaranteed me either a magick wedding or a spectacular suicide that would put me in the history books,” Zamboni put in, finally finding his voice. He began undoing his bow tie. “You said there was no way they’d identify the bomb, dude. What happened to your mystic cloaking whatever?”

“Obviously it’s working, the factions were baffled,” the priest shot back.

“Oh, I never sensed anything mystically,” I felt compelled to add. “You told me where the explosives were yourself, Zamboni. When you gestured at your priest friend earlier, telling me to reveal my game? You almost made him drop the book. Once it registered with me why he’d looked so panicked, the rest fell into place.”

“Son of a–”

“Zam,” the priest cut in warningly. “Not now.”

“Fine, fine.” Zamboni put his hands on his hips, then leaned in towards Trixie. “Hey, nice work with the gazebo. You’re sexy too, would you be game for a marriage? We’ve got the priest right here. You could really put one over on ‘Missy’ that way.”

“Gah,” Trixie said, leaning back and crossing her palms over her chest. I realized then that her learning in towards him had not been intentional. “NO. I am not as desperate as you, and may I never reach that level. Just marry the priest yourself if you want into the covens so bad.”

Zamboni sputtered at that, but it seemed he didn’t have anything coherent to say.

“So,” I said to the priest. “Before we go, want to reveal how many others here were in on the scheme?”

He shot me a look. “Pardon?”

“The factions here,” I elaborated. “Some must have the same information as you. About the turning point. So they let you two try in order to see whether worship, arguments or crazy vendettas had the stronger case for getting her.” I gestured, only to notice that our audience had thinned considerably in the time since the gazebo had more or less imploded. “The answer being none of them.”

He grimaced. “As if I would tell you if I had anyone working on the inside.”

“We don’t need you to tell us anyway,” Trixie scoffed, before bellowing, “HEY!” That immediately got the attention of everyone still around. The redhead looked out at the scattered groups of people in the park, before pointing at me.

“Check it out,” she continued. “He’s not even Melissa and he took these marriage guys down. Look at him! No plan, no backup, no weapons worth a damn, oh, and something else, now he doesn’t have anything to lose. So, if you’ve got any silly little plans about going after Melissa again… do the smart thing.” She put her hands on her hips. “Let somebody else try first.”

She began to march out of the park. I decided that was a good enough exit, and hurried to catch up. “Nice little speech,” I muttered to her as we headed out. “Didn’t recognize the material, Douglas Adams or something?”

She whipped her head in my direction so fast a twintail nearly hit her in the face. “You didn’t recognize Doctor–” Off my expression, she smacked her palm hard against her face. “Oh GOD, it’s like I’m living with a couple of luddites.”

I didn’t follow up. Frankly, I was more worried about whether Melissa had truly reached some sort of vulnerable turning point, not here, but in Mortum’s castle.

“Hear me out,” Melody added, as Melissa’s jaw clenched. Obviously she did not like the implication that she had somehow driven another witch to become a zombi.

“Listening,” Melissa said, though she turned her attention back to finding the orb.

“Almost fifty years of witchcraft,” Melody said. “Fifty years. And you were the first to ever make me pull out my last resort ‘Ultima’ spell. The first witch to force my hand to the extent I felt I should vanish, giving up everything I’d made for myself to that point, and you were barely twenty years old.”

“I’m crying for you,” Melissa deadpanned back.

“That made me angry, but more than that, it made me curious. So I looked into you, Melissa Virga. Turns out you’re on the path to be one of the Chosen Ones.”

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

“Been there, doing that,” Melissa said, spotting an orb. She reached for it, only to discover it was a decorative snow globe. Albeit one you could trap people inside. She tossed it aside, allowing it to smash on the ground. “Or have a plan for the decision, at least.”

“We’re within the window?” Melody said in surprise. “I suppose more time has passed than I realized. But no matter. Discovering that fact helped me to come to terms with the knowledge that, while my habit of bleeding essence away from the recently departed did not violate the letter of supernatural balance, it did violate the spirit, as it were. You, a Chosen One, had judged me, and found me wanting.”

Melissa paused in her searching. “Please don’t talk about me like I’m some sort of God. I never went around intentionally judging anyone.”

Melody shrugged. “Religious upbringing, it’s how I speak.”

“Get to the point,” Melissa suggested.

“Very well. I decided I should atone, and become more of a force for good. Meaning I tracked down the person on the planet who was the worst form of necromancer, namely Mortum, and signed up to be one of his underlings.”

Melissa rested back on her haunches, staring at the blonde witch. “Which brings us back to the INSANITY. How are you a force for good by willingly allowing an undead spirit to possess your body?”

Melody smiled again, this time darkly. “With my background, Mortum accepted me. And since it was a willing zombi partnership, the spirit would occasionally extend itself away, secure that it could return. Allowing me breathing room, with the chance to study it, to understand it. Not act, I grant. Not then. But I knew that the time had to come when someone would free me, giving me the chance to turn the tables. To do something about this, something that would put to practice all I had learned about the way an individual’s will is suppressed by a zombi spell.”

A shiver ran up Melissa’s spine. “Then you know how to free them,” she deduced. “You know how to free them all.”

Melody’s smile became a bit unhinged. “Mmm hmmm. I have a NEW Ultima spell.”

Melissa’s eyes again flickered around the room, the witch suddenly not sure whether to congratulate Melody, or run screaming from the room. “Do I want to know?”

“Let’s just say that if you were forced to do something for a long time – a very long, long time – you’d want a break. And if you didn’t get it, you might very well lash out at the one who’s been forcing your situation upon you. Assuming you have your will restored.”

“O-kay,” Melissa said slowly.

Melissa turned back to the latest chest, and after another moment of inspection, pressed a jewel in the front. A secret compartment opened, and Alicia’s orb popped out. The brunette witch grabbed it, and placed it into her bag, even as a thought struck her. “Alicia’s person on the inside… that’s you, isn’t it.”

Melody nodded. “As I say, I had occasional breathing room. I was never sure when or where it would happen, but sometimes, the spirit would extend itself away, and I could get out a brief message to the rightful owner of that orb.”

Melissa licked her lips, trying to figure out what she should say here. Being casually dismissive felt wrong. So she considered what I might say, in her place.

“Look, Melody, you’ve obviously sacrificed a lot here. Maybe more than you realize, more than you should have. Promise me you’ll get checked out by a doctor or something, after depleting yourself with your last resort spell?”

“Of course,” Melody said, her light tone not exactly a guarantee.

“Melody, look at me.” The older witch managed to focus back on Melissa. “Doctor.”

“Of course,” she repeated, though this time seeming surer of herself. “And thank you for shaking me out of my complacency years ago.”

Melissa frowned. “For the record, I was more in the wrong than you were, that day,” she admitted. “I let things get too personal, and allowed my emotions to run away with me. I am sorry. Especially if things came to this, because of that.”

Melody shook her head. “I was too clinical back then, too detached. We witches, we cannot allow ourselves to operate in either mode for too long. Can we?”

Melissa again thought of me. “Yeah. Learning that.”

“You will make the right decision, in the end. For all of us.”

Melissa almost answered ‘I hope so’, only to have it hit her why her parents' plans would ultimately fail. It was a turning point. She knew then that she would need to know more about her destined role, and she was running out of time to do some proper research.

And at this point, you’ve probably divined that it was Melissa who gave me this account after the fact, not someone else. But while she was about to escape, our problems were only going to get more difficult.

END ACT 5

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 5d: OF ZOMBIES AND ZEALOTS

She leapt to the side, up onto one of the thrones, using it as a launching pad to spring for some ceremonial fencing swords that were just out of her reach. (Sometimes her height is a particular drawback.) Snaring one, she brandished it in self defence, waving her palm along it to check that it was an effective weapon, and not merely decorative. To be clear, preventing a witch from speaking doesn’t prevent her from spell casting, it merely prevents the ability to focus magick for the more intensive spells.

“Magnes,” Melody stated.

Melissa felt the magnetic pull as Melody tried to relieve her of the blade. She allowed for a slight pull, then turned the trajectory into a spin, and flung the blade at the elder blonde witch. As Melody was forced to deflect, Melissa ran back for the entrance.

“Volo.” Melody flew up into the air.

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

Melissa was overtaken before she could get out. Which was when her hand came up out of her bag, throwing a handful of backup salt into Melody’s face. As Melody flinched, concentration broken enough to make her return to the ground, Melissa made up the couple extra steps.

She grabbed one of the spears from the zombies who were only now untangling themselves at the entrance.

But there were more zombies closing in from all sides. Melissa saw she had no viable escape other than back through the large throne room. She took a second to clear her throat before charging back in.

The spear being mostly wood, it kept Melody at bay temporarily. Melissa needed to find the access point to the hidden room ahead.

“Aduro,” Melody intoned, and Melissa’s spear caught fire.

The brunette smirked a little at that, having hoped for just such an attempt to disarm her. Holding her bag in her hand to act as a fire buffer between her palm and the spear, she maintained her grip and ran backwards, to a tapestry. Using the flames to set it ablaze, Melissa then waved the burning shaft of wood about, to keep any newly arriving zombies at bay.

Perhaps realizing that she had just given Melissa a MORE dangerous weapon, Melody’s next summons was “Aqua”.

Again, anticipating something of the sort as soon as Melody opened her mouth, Melissa was a hair faster. Perhaps trying to make up for her earlier hesitation. She threw the blazing spear towards the entranceway, making the zombies back up. That the water then condensed and fell upon her, instead of the spear, verified that all Melody’s spells were area based, and cast in her direction, as opposed to actually on her person.

Another clever loophole. Melody wasn’t performing magick on the unwilling, Melissa was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Reaching out, the now slightly dripping witch ripped the still burning tapestry down from the wall. Concluding that her arms and shoulders were soon going to have a hard time forgiving her, she ran back for the thrones, still using the fire as a buffer.

Now Melody hesitated. Or perhaps merely concluded that she had time to think of another plan, as Melissa seemed to be cornering herself.

‘Come on, come on,’ Melissa said in her head, and possibly would have been muttering it aloud if she’d had the capability.

She saw the scuffmarks on the floor. It had to be due to the hidden door scraping on the stonework. The only remaining question was how to open it.

Unfortunately, at that moment, her luck ran out. Before she could figure out the door, there was the sound of someone clearing his or her voice on the upper level.

“What,” the voice rumbled, “is happening here?”

It was Mortum.

With Zamboni’s words, the attention of everyone in the park shifted from him to me. I was pretty sure he hadn’t set out to make my Agency (technically Melissa’s) into this lightning rod for her status, but asking me whether I had propositioned Melissa and/or was pulling her strings? Had managed to do just that.

“Melissa’s not the marrying type,” I shot back at the waiting Zamboni.

Which I immediately knew was the wrong response. First, it didn’t deny that I might have asked her, and second… it made me wonder myself whether Melissa was, indeed, inclined to stay single. For the first time since Amy, at the start of the summer, I found myself wondering how far things were going to go between Melissa and I.

“Perhaps she’s merely not the type to marry YOU,” Zamboni said, far too smugly.

Did Zamboni have a point? Why hadn’t Melissa or I touched on this subject yet? We’d merely returned to our status quo. For weeks now, nothing had changed.

I was forced to do more self-reflection. At what point do you know you’ve found ‘The One’? More to the point, hadn’t I already answered that question? My debating three months ago with Amy had led me to choose Melissa.

But I hadn’t returned to her with a ring and a promise.

Of course, Zamboni seemed to be in this for the magick lifestyle, and Melissa had feared as much of me when I first came back. And while I wasn’t about to run off with another witch, if Melissa were to give up the Agency, would I feel any disillusionment? I supposed there was an answer for Zamboni in that.

“Melissa’s married to her job, anyone who knows her knows that,” I fired off.

Except this was a job which would go away in three weeks – as either the supernatural would be a reality, or it wouldn’t. There would be no need to have an agency to balance things out. And without the job, what were we? Still a couple? What would Melissa’s next project be after the Agency? Would she want me along? Would I still want to be a part of her life if we weren’t solving supernatural crimes?

“Sorry, what?” I said, realizing I’d missed Zamboni’s latest retort.

“I said you have no reason to be speaking for Melissa here,” Zamboni repeated, narrowing his eyes. “Her job should speak for itself. Frankly, you do not even seem capable of investigating the supernatural without her. Can you perform magick?”

I grimaced. Well, lying wouldn’t help. “I can do illusion.”

“Please,” Zamboni sniffed. “Anyone can do that. No, you couldn’t conjure up a rose even if your life depended on it. You are a mere puppet, the only question is whose. Perhaps Melissa conjured you up herself, to keep suitors like me at bay, hm? Or to keep give the factions here a red herring to investigate?”

He attempted to push past me again. “Come, Melissa, let us ignore this fool and be joined. It is time.”

I reached out a hand to stop him. “Melissa is not going anywhere with you.”

“And who’s going to stop me?” Zamboni said, managing to make his voice even colder than mine. “You?”

“Perhaps,” I answered, even as I realized I was getting way out of my depth. “Don’t underestimate me. I’m full of surprises.”

“That’s true enough,” Trixie/Melissa muttered.

It was Zamboni’s turn to pause, perhaps wondering just how far I’d be willing to take this. “Very well,” he said slowly. “Let us say I agree to back off, and even give up my explosives… it would be under condition that YOU marry Melissa. After all, if she is so fond of you, doing this will avoid further meddling by me or anyone else.”

“Y-You can’t guarantee that though,” I protested, hating the quaver in my voice.

“Can’t I?” Zamboni smirked again. “You merely do not wish to finish things. Come, I have the priest. You shall be married in my place. Unless Melissa wishes to speak up for herself, for once? Rather than letting you continue to speak?”

My expression sort of froze, as I directed my gaze back towards Trixie/Melissa. She returned the look with a very Trixie-style expression that I found I could only interpret as, ‘You idiot’.

After all, the more she spoke, the more likely the deception would be uncovered. But I couldn’t play along and marry Trixie. Even if it were somehow judged to be marriage by proxy, Melissa hadn’t given consent. Nor could I admit now that this wasn’t Melissa, as Zamboni was liable to simply blow the whole place up. But then, what was the alternative?

For a moment, I felt like I needed Melissa’s guidance more than ever, and wished that I could have been with her just then.

Quick as a wink, Melissa yanked an adhesive scroll out of her pocket and slapped it onto the wall, before turning and standing in front of it.

Melissa could see him now, coming down the stairs. Mortum was a slightly portly man, balding, maybe Melody’s height, currently dressed in a black bathrobe. He quickly sized up the situation.

“Fascinating,” he concluded, expression almost a smile. “I haven’t had an unexpected visitor get this far in over fifty years. Someone, go and hold her. And my dear, if you resist, I assure you I have no qualms about throwing the person who fails me into that fire you’ve prepared.”

Melissa could think of several choice things she wanted to say to the man at that point, but perhaps fortunately for him, she still couldn’t speak. So she merely stood there, fists clenched, as two type I zombies, a male and a female, moved in to restrain her by the arms.

“Now then,” Mortum continued, upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, “we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way involves you explaining to me why and how you came to be here. The hard way involves me zombifying you and getting the same information that way. Though I suppose that way is easier for me.”

Melissa’s eyes narrowed. Mortum flashed a smile. “Aha, yes, rather seems a bad idea to let you speak just now. I suppose that wasn’t really a decision I’d let you make anyway.”

He gestured at Melody. “We’ll let my most powerful spirit split it’s attentions between you two witches then. See what it can learn. Maybe it will even find itself a new home. Melody?”

The blonde witch took a step forwards as the other two zombies held Melissa firmly to prevent her getting away. The brunette’s eyes darted left and right, but she saw no possibility for escape there, and a slight struggle showed she wasn’t about to break free.

Melissa decided she had no choice but to fixate her gaze on Melody’s hand, as it drew closer and closer to her. Wondering when the zombi spirit would jump into her head.

Trying to stave off desperation, I looked from Trixie/Melissa, to Zamboni, to the priest. It was upon seeing the priest that something Zamboni had done a short time ago fully registered, and the solution hit me.

With that, I felt a surprising amount of inner calm.

“Perhaps you are right,” I said to Zamboni, “it would be proper to ask Melissa’s opinion here.”

I turned again to the image of my girlfriend, whose Trixie-expression immediately morphed from ‘You idiot’ to a concerned ‘What are you doing?’ I smiled reassuringly.

“But before we do that, you should know two things, Zamboni,” I continued. “The first is that she has been working with a protégé of her’s, Trixie, on an amazingly complex technological device, called Rixi. Mel, could you perhaps give us a demonstration? Have it call up some scrolls for a containment spell, say five or six?”

Trixie/Melissa eyed me before reaching into her jeans pocket and pulling out the device she I knew she’d grabbed before departing. She never goes anywhere without it. “Rixi, containment scrolls,” she said into it.

“All right,” Rixi said brightly. “Accessing.”

I glanced back at Zamboni, who was now starting to look suspicious, and the priest, who was looking confused.

“Yeah, Mel’s been working a bit too hard lately, she’s starting to sound like the tech,” I pointed out, as the glowing sphere deposited scrolls into Trixie/Melissa’s hand. I quickly took them from her. “It’s rather interesting though, the design wasn’t merely based on Siri, what were those other animated television shows that Trixie said she had been watching? I never remember.”

Trixie/Melissa eyed me as I began to walk to the gazebo. “Magical Lyrical Nanoha and Martin Mystery,” she admitted quietly after a moment.

“Those were the ones,” I said, as I slapped a scroll up onto one of the beams of the gazebo. “Never have found the time to get into what she calls anime, but I hear it’s fascinating stuff.”

Trixie/Melissa had to have known by now that I was stalling for time. Given how my memory wouldn’t let me forget those trivial little details, which we’d discussed during our first dinner, all those weeks previously. But would she see what I wanted her to do, or more importantly, when I wanted her to do it?

“Stop wasting time,” Zamboni cut in, apparently cluing in to the delay tactic too. I picked up the pace of my circuit of the gazebo as Zamboni continued, pasting up the scrolls. “We’re here to decide who is going to marry Melissa, not what her friend watches on TV. Is there even a second thing we should know?”

“You aren’t listening to me," I shot back. “Marrying Melissa is merely why you’re here. And you’re trying to pull me into it to, almost like as long as it happens, you get paid. Is that tuxedo even yours, or is it a rental?”

“It is MINE,” Zamboni sighed in annoyance, reaching up to adjust his bow tie. “Now stop stalling or I swear I will activate the explosives."

“Very well,” I said, raising my index finger. “The second thing then. It involves a case I was part of, one regarding a young lady named Danielle. Saving her included the use of a latin phrase, ‘die dulci fruere’. Do you perchance know how to spell that?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I gave Trixie/Melissa a pointed look. She DID remember what she’d said about the case less than an hour ago, right? Her eyebrows went up, and I knew she understood.

“It’s a rather meaningless latin phrase,” Zamboni was answering. “Which has nothing to do with those scrolls, but which I’m about to interpret as a threat.”

“Here’s the thing then,” I finished. “You say this moment is a turning point, which some spirits foretold. That may well be true. I’m sure it’s why the most devout are staying to watch, even now. But I don’t think YOU are meant to be part of this turning point, Zamboni. Because you aren’t even brave enough to carry the explosives yourself.”

I immediately shifted my attention from Zamboni to his priest, snatching the bible from his hands before he had a chance to prevent it. As I suspected, the book was a lot heavier than it should have been.

“Trixie!” I called out, throwing the object into the gazebo.

Trixie/Melissa raised her voice slightly as she completed the latin chanting that she had been doing under her breath. She raised both her hands, creating the necessary mystic gesture.

“Fac ut gaudeam!” she concluded.

The papers which I had placed around the gazebo lit up with a bright glow, just as the book hit the ground. There was a massive explosion.

And that’s when I realized I’d made a mistake.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 5c: OF ZOMBIES AND ZEALOTS

I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of her being there, looking like my girlfriend. Particularly given her earlier thoughts about Zamboni, and possible jealousy issues towards Melissa having been picked. “I don’t know, Trixie.”

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

“James, I have to use a low level version of the illusion spell, or it’ll register a mile away,” she explained. “That means no vocals. So unless you’ve gained the ability to talk like Melissa in falsetto, you’re out. Plus, ever since throwing your name on this agency? Your identity’s been twisted up with Melissa’s. You coming along wouldn’t be seen as weird. Me there plus ‘Melissa’ too would put people on their guard.”

She made sense. “I suppose,” I said. “But you don’t really sound like Melissa either.”

“I’ll mumble and pretend I have a cold,” the redhead countered, already starting to pour a circle of flour around Melissa’s desk chair. “Honestly, me or you, what’s the difference?”

Even setting aside my concerns over ‘Trixie/Melissa’, I realized I was still worried about Trixie being in the thick of the action all of a sudden. “Just want to make sure… you really wouldn’t rather back me up from afar?”

She looked up at me then, and frowned. “I won’t freeze up.”

I raised my hands. “I didn’t say you would.”

“Don’t get all protective and caring of me either. You’ll make me hate you more, over how we can’t have a relationship.”

I rubbed my forehead. “I just want to make sure you’re doing this because you want to, not because the situation seems to require it. Okay?”

Trixie sighed, dropping the flour sack onto the floor. The circle was ready. “Fine, well, you got a plan C?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then it’s fine.” She grabbed one of Melissa’s personal items from the desk and then jumped up into the chair, crossing her legs to prevent her short, plaid skirt from revealing too much. “I really am doing this to see what it’s like living in Missy’s shoes for once. We good?”

I wasn’t sure if that was a satisfactory answer, but even my plan B wasn’t solid in my head. “Okay, just make sure the spell makes you look like you’re wearing something Mel would wear.”

Trixie smiled impishly, and started to chant in Latin.

Melissa peered out from the alcove she’d selected as a hiding place. She saw nothing.

The coast should be clear now, she reasoned, all the way to the vicinity of the throne room. As to whether she’d be able to work her way back out… well, one thing at a time. She attuned herself again to her tracking spell, which had continued to move on ahead, at the edge of her awareness, and used it as a reference.

She then set out, moving quickly but quietly. Maybe ten minutes later, she was only a corridor away from her destination.

Two steps past the suit of armour, she registered her mistake. Melissa quickly jumped forwards and rolled on the ground, narrowly missing the axe that had been swung down at her.

“That was stupid,” she muttered to herself. Of course armour could contain a body. Still, it was armour. Obvious weakness. She came up on one knee, and readied the electrical spell at her fingertips.

Then paused. Once burned, twice shy.

Could a type III zombi animate a suit of armour? If THAT was the case, she couldn’t touch it at all, lest the spirit jump to her. But maybe this was a simple enchantment, and not even a zombi?

It was readying another swing of the axe. She couldn’t risk the touch.

She switched her focus from her fingertips to her palm, holding it out as it to say stop, while at the same time intoning, “Caecus!” A bright flash of light lit the corridor in front of her, and the swing of the axe went wide.

The armour could apparently be blinded, therefore had eyes of a sort. Hence not a simple enchantment. Melissa didn’t waste time with a follow-up, hopping back up onto her feet and racing down the corridor in her initial direction.

She should be able to get into the collector room around the back of the throne room, and then seal herself inside temporarily. Buying time to work out an escape. But that plan went awry too, when a person with vacant eyes stepped out of a side passage, seemingly investigating the noise.

Seeing Melissa, it blocked her way.

Melissa reached back into her bag, fingers connecting with the end of the rope inside. She yanked it out, calling out, “Ligatio!” as she threw it at the zombi that stood before her.

It had started to extend its arms, only for the rope to magically wind around it, pinning its arms to its sides. That allowed Melissa to edge to the side of it. Then, reasoning that they’d expect her to continue on her current path, she ducked back down the side passage from where her opponent had emerged.

With her presence known, stealth was becoming less and less of a concern. Given her location, she decided to go for broke.

Three more right turns would let her hit the throne room dead on. Unlikely that Mortum was hanging out there this late at night, and from there, she could still get into the room with the orb and barricade the entrances.

Heading for her third right turn, an obvious type II appeared from the left. Obvious, as no living being could have a chest wound that large. As such, she decided to risk a tactile spell.

By stopping short in her run, it couldn’t correct as fast, and almost plowed into her; Melissa extended her index finger. “Dormis!”

The zombi with the chest wound fell to the side; she didn’t waste any thought on whether the undead could dream or not. Fifteen steps became ten, then five – yet at the main doors, there were two more, now registering her arrival and holding up spears.

Two was the number she’d hoped for.

“Everro!” Melissa called, making a hand motion from left to right. The one zombi got yanked sideways into the other, both of them falling to the ground in a cluster of arms and legs. She pressed her advantage.

“Fit via vi!” was the spell, with both palms now out, her fingers interlaced. The hinges on the double door buckled from the force blast, and when Melissa slammed into the wood with her shoulder, the opening yielded to her weight. Even so, Melissa wagered she’d need an ice pack when this was all over.

As soon as she burst into the central room, with its stereotypical columns, raised dais and additional stairwell curving up one side, she was looking for a way to access the hidden area that she knew existed behind the thrones.

As such, she missed the woman with the long blonde hair standing in the corner until it was too late.

Or rather, Melissa noticed her within two seconds of entering, but was then frozen for the critical extra seconds that she’d have needed to cast a spell. She knew this woman.

“Melody,” Melissa breathed out.

“Qui tacet consentire videtur,” Melody intoned, raising her finger and pointing.

The elder blonde witch, the one who had once consulted with an old classmate of Melissa’s, who had once suspended me upside-down in a position of peril, and who had once caused Melissa herself to suffer a breakdown after summoning a recently departed spirit, stood in Mortum’s throne room.

She was now a type III zombi. Who had just taken away Melissa’s voice. A fact that my girlfriend became acutely aware of, when she found she was unable to cast a protective shield.

As we started down the stairs of the apartment building, I looked at Trixie again. The illusion made her appear exactly like Melissa, right down to the pair of tight jeans.

“So, how we gonna play this then?” the witch chirped, thrusting her smaller chest out at me. Reinforcing the fact that she didn’t have Melissa’s voice or mannerisms.

I looked away. “We determine how this lunatic is going to blow up the park, and defuse his explosives or the situation before he can marry you,” I stated.

“Duh. Can you be a bit more specific?”

“I’m still working out the details," I admitted. “Thing is, the faction side of this worries me. Why would they let Zamboni get this far?”

“What, you think they’re working together?” Trixie/Melissa asked.

“Alicia did say the groups wouldn’t be working at cross purposes for much longer.”

“Yuh huh. I bet Alicia said a lot of stuff to rope Missy into going on her mission.”

I sighed. “Maybe. Just… follow my lead, okay? And please don’t say things like ‘yuh huh' or ‘duh’ when you look like that. It’s all kinds of wrong.”

Trixie/Melissa smirked. “What if I call you an idiot instead? Hey, curious, would it be a turn on for someone who looks like Missy to call you that?”

“Trixie…”

“Call me Mel,” she giggled. She briefly grabbed for my arm, but my reaction must have told her that she’d crossed a line, and she quickly disengaged. “Sorry. Look, I won’t say that stuff because I’ll have made it look like Missy’s lost her ability to speak or something. That said, since your thinking’s stalled, I reserve the right to improvise.”

I nodded. “I guess that’s fair, but don’t take any undue risks.”

We headed to the park, after making sure our protective charm necklaces were still in place under our shirts. We weren’t about to get stabbed in the back without warning. It was just starting to grow dark, making for a bit of a gloomy atmosphere; the sunset seemed to be mostly red.

The park, I discovered, also had a lot more people in it than we might have expected… some I recognized as previous attempted guests at the apartment. Had they simply not been in this park when I walked this way? Or had they somehow used illusion to seem different?

Of course, given Zamboni’s ultimatum, maybe a lot of them were here now to catch a glimpse of Melissa, which would be more difficult at most other times. I hoped no one would try to take a shot at Trixie/Melissa, or all hell might break loose. That is, assuming they weren’t all working together somehow.

Crazy marriage guy turned out to be hard to miss. He was standing with a priest close to the park’s centre, next to the gazebo.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t one of those guys who looked that crazy. Sandy blonde hair, hazel eyes, reasonably good looking, dressed in what seemed like a rented tuxedo, complete with white bow tie. He simply drew the attention of everyone around him.

The priest nodded at Zamboni, for reasons that would make more sense later.

“Aha! Aha!” Zamboni shouted at us, as we stopped short a couple paces away. He shook his finger in the air. “See, I knew the true Chosen One would not let her brethren come to harm. See how well I know you? We are destined to be together.”

“Right, well, we’re here now, so why don’t you put away whatever detonating device you have as a show of goodwill,” I said. It looked like the guy had even put some flowers around the gazebo, which I supposed was a nice touch.

His gaze fully turned from Trixie/Melissa to me, becoming a glare. “Who are you?”

“James Conway. I run a supernatural agency, and I speak for Melissa in this case. Who are you?”

“I am the Great Zamboni. Surely you’ve heard of me?”

“Right, yes. Ice to meet you.” (That just slipped out.) “So, let’s defuse the situation, okay? Give me the explosives.” I stepped closer and extended my hand.

Zamboni shook his head. “I will not give up my insurance until me and Melissa are joined in wedlock.”

Trixie/Melissa must have rolled her eyes or something, because he then moved to try and step around me.

“Melissa,” he continued, “the time is near. You must pick someone. Surely you don’t want to face your decision alone?”

“Look,” I continued, keeping myself between Zamboni and Trixie/Melissa. “Even assuming that’s true, we don’t need a shotgun marriage yet. Let’s reschedule.”

The priest let out a grunt. Zamboni laughed.

“Fool,” Zamboni said. “This is the time that was foretold to me by the spirits from the other realm. It is the turning point, the moment when Melissa’s fate is realized. Of course we shall do this now!”

I exchanged a quick glance with Trixie/Melissa, wondering if I’d missed part of a conversation, before turning back. “Zamboni, check your calendar, you’re about three weeks early.”

The blonde man glared at me again, then waggled his finger. “You mock. But I don’t mean this is the decision of the Chosen One itself. I mean this is the turning point. And the presence that is here, within me, will help Melissa sift through the data to make the proper decision when it is time. I know it.”

He lifted his hand to his heart. Were his feelings the presence he meant? I belatedly wondered if this was a case of possession, kicking myself for not thinking of the possibility sooner.

“I don’t need a guy like you in my data,” Trixie/Melissa piped up in a rasp.

“A marriage here is out of the question anyway,” I broke in quickly. “Melissa’s parents aren’t even here. They would want to attend such an event.”

Zamboni’s eyes narrowed as his gaze was again brought back to me before he could address Trixie/Melissa. He peered. “You know of her parents? Ah, yes, yes, I can see that now. It took me a moment, but you see yourself as my rival, James. Yes? You wish to be the one sifting through Melissa’s data?”

Trixie/Melissa snorted. I had to agree, somehow that sounded dirty, but I’m not sure if it was from his tone or my mind.

“I am merely her business associate,” I stated.

Trixie/Melissa started coughing violently.

Zamboni now looked ticked off. “I am not a fool. You care for her. I know now. Curious though.” He stepped back and made a wide gesture with his hand, almost hitting his priest in the process. “Perhaps you could reveal your game to everyone here? After all, could it be that YOU have proposed to her already, as I have? Is this why you claim to speak for Melissa, hmm?”

He caught me off guard with that one.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 5b: OF ZOMBIES AND ZEALOTS

Trixie gaped at me. “Really? We want someone like that to realize Missy’s away?”

“We can pretend Mel’s sleeping, or will be back soon,” I answered. “Danielle Timins, she was involved in my first case here. The one I documented online. I’m curious about what she wants now.”

Trixie frowned. “First case… the invisible friend thing? Where you nearly blew up a building on campus?”

Apparently this was another of the cases that Melissa had mentioned to her cousin during my three-week absence in May. “That’s the one.”

“Okay. And you’re sure that this is the same person, not some sort of illusion? And that she hasn’t joined a faction in the last four years, like maybe the stabby-stabby one?”

“I… euh…”

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

“Once an idiot, always an idiot,” Trixie sighed, rolling her eyes. She glanced at her palm, as if debating smacking me upside the head, like old times. Instead, all she said was, “I’ll hang around long enough to keep you out of trouble.”

I opened the door for Danielle.

Trixie immediately fired off with, “What faction are you representing?”

Danielle shrank back. “Oh, um, I do have scriptures explaining why the human race isn’t ready for supernatural incursions,” the blonde said timidly. “Based on what I remember of my own experi—”

“Rationals.” Trixie slammed the door in Danielle’s face and turned to me. “Told you.”

“B-But that’s not why I’m here!” Danielle called out from the other side.

I sighed. “Trixie, let her back in?”

She shot me a look. “As if we don’t have enough on our plate already?”

I crossed my arms. “And here I thought you were eager to help the Agency out with more than just the engrams.”

“This IS helping,” Trixie said. “Isn’t it?” She searched my expression, then frowned and reopened the door. “Fine. Make your case for sticking around in ten seconds or less, Danielle.”

Danielle reached to push her glasses up higher on her nose. “There’s a guy in the park down the street who says that if Melissa doesn’t show up in the next hour to marry him, he’ll blow everything up.”

I did a double-take. “He’ll what now?”

“Huh. Blow the PARK up or blow MISSY up?” Trixie questioned. I turned to see if she was making fun of the situation, only to realize she was doing up the half of her blouse buttons that had been undone. She was taking this seriously.

“Blow the park up,” Danielle clarified. “The one where a lot of us faction people have been hanging out. Trying to figure out how we can get the upper hand on the other groups.”

“Wait, all the factions are there?” I asked, looking back at her.

“Sure,” Danielle answered.

“I figured you all had to have a home base,” Trixie mused. “Okay, sorry for slamming the door on you. Question though, how is him blowing up your base a smart move?”

“He’s not part of any faction,” Danielle insisted. “Or if he is, he’s some hybrid. He showed up about five minutes ago with that crazy ultimatum. And a priest, for the marriage. And our rudimentary magick shows he does have explosives. So we’re at a bit of a loss as to what to do.”

“Did you sneak out to come get us?” Trixie asked.

Danielle shook her head. “I was nominated, as a Rational person who had once seen Melissa, and could thus maybe gain her sympathy. Even though I don’t remember much about my case, they thought you’d at least let me in.”

“In that, they were right,” I realized. I looked to Trixie. “You know, the fact that Melissa just left can’t be a coincidence,” I pointed out.

“A-duh,” Trixie retorted. “Way to not be an idiot for once, though minus points for saying that with Danielle still here.” She turned to the blonde. “It’s fine. Run along and we’ll fix things within the hour time frame this guy gave. Unless you have other useful information?” She made shoo-ing motions.

Danielle started wringing her hands. “Are you sure? When is Melissa due back? We don’t even know where this guy’s explosives are, and a lot of people in the park are hanging around to see what happens, rather than being smart and running away.”

“It’s fine,” I said, to back Trixie up. “Though, you might want to be one of the smart people who leaves the area. Okay?”

Danielle nodded, her glasses slipping down once more. “A-All right then. I’ll pass on the message. Oh, if it helps, the guy called himself the Great Zamboni. That’s all I’ve got.”

I closed the apartment door as she headed down the stairs.

“Okay,” Trixie said, tugging up on her dark stockings. “I figure that Mortum guy used Alicia’s orb, and sent this Zamboni to keep Missy busy here, so that she wouldn’t be messing around his castle. But the message was a bit late.”

“Though it could be coincidence,” I suggested. “Maybe this marriage guy was planning to blow up the park regardless, and he wants Melissa there for it, to get her in the blast. He doesn’t exactly sound balanced, he might be full of crazy instead of worship.”

Trixie nodded. “No kidding. Anyone considering marriage to Missy can’t be balanced.”

She smirked. It took me a second to parse why, and as I did a double take, she extended her tongue impishly back. At least the earlier conversation hadn’t made things awkward between us.

“Either way,” Trixie stated. “I’ll put my intimacy cravings on hold to help you with this.” A flash of uncertainty appeared. “Unless you don’t want my help. Since I guess this will be field work and a half.”

“No, I’ll need the help,” I assured her. “Since my back-up plan is going to require magick casting, and that’s your department.”

Trixie nodded. “Cool, you have a plan. This, I want to hear.”

“We have almost an hour, so it involves doing some research, while hoping Melissa’s able to complete her mission particularly expediently.”

“Uh.” Trixie didn’t look impressed. “And your back-up plan…?”

I exhaled. “Well, Plan B involves getting some flour from the kitchen.”

I’ll now relate to you some of what happened with Melissa. You’ll find out in the end whether I know this from her directly, or through other means.

When Melissa first arrived, she was forced to blink a few times to adjust to the lower light levels. In the end, she didn’t like what saw. There had been three possible points for her arrival, as Alicia had said her informant couldn’t guarantee placement.

One was down in the dungeons. Another was an arboretum-style room. The last was at the top of one of the towers, where she now seemed to be. Where there was only one point of entrance or egress, unless you counted flying. (The dungeons, funny enough, had two.) With no alternative, Melissa crouched and hurried down the stairs before her, hoping not to encounter anyone on the way. These being the same stairs she would need to take to get back out.

One of the main reasons Melissa had known this would be difficult, was because she had to avoid casting any particularly powerful spells in order to avoid detection. Ironically, casting invisibility would only serve to pinpoint her position. Another drawback was the fact that Melissa didn’t want to attack any zombies if she could avoid it; she’d already resigned herself to the fact that she would need to obtain Alicia’s orb before attempting to free them.

After all, she could only be sure all of them were released by blocking, or otherwise incapacitating, the magick of Mortum. Which implied removing any advantage he might have. Alas, since (according to Alicia) the orb itself was kept in a sealed off storage room behind the throne room, a face-off might become inevitable.

Fortunately, Melissa was in luck – there was no one in the vicinity of the stairs. As she reached the bottom, she opened her pack to remove a small jar, which held the tracking spell she had prepared earlier. It appeared as a tiny glowing ball of light, and once Melissa had unscrewed the lid, the spell fluttered out and down towards the ground.

It remained there for a moment, hovering, before shooting off down the hall. Melissa attuned herself to it, before setting off in quiet pursuit.

It was upon peering around the third corner that she caught sight of her first zombi.

It was a male, perhaps in his thirties, looking none the worse for wear (outside of his tattered clothing), thus likely a type I or type III. He’d been slowly walking through the hall, facing away from her.

Another misconception I should dispel here is that zombies always move slowly. They tend to do that when they’re on a routine patrol (who wouldn’t get bored and go on autopilot?), but they can speed up if they have to, just like a normal human.

Melissa now searched her memory, to recall what Alicia had mentioned about security patrols. The majority of the interior squad was type II (no need to feed those ones), while the majority of the exterior squad was type I (despite the remote location of this guy’s castle, there was always the possibility of them being seen by the public, or one of his collector guests).

So the fact that she’d passed the perimeter, and yet this wasn’t a II, meant it was one of the inner guard. Melissa was closer to the throne room than she’d realized. The specs hadn’t been entirely accurate.

Moreover, given the position of that zombi, and the other information she had, she reasoned that she’d have to work her way back out and around. Then wait a full half hour before a window of opportunity opened for getting through.

Melissa’s tracking spell was already out of sight, but it remained close enough for her to draw a bead on it. She wasn’t in any hurry. Or so she thought, not knowing what we were facing back home.

“Flour from the kitchen,” Trixie said, dropping the sack onto the desk and then looking at me expectantly.

“Right,” I sighed. We were down to twenty minutes left. “So you didn’t turn up anything useful on this Zamboni guy?”

I’d spent my time combing through Melissa’s files for any reference to him, or any similar cases in the past, and had come up empty. My eidetic memory had implied as much at the start, but there’d been a couple places where I’d wanted to be sure. I’d left the internet in Trixie’s hands.

Trixie leaned forwards against the desk. I saw she’d unbuttoned part of her blouse again, whether as a conscious decision or otherwise. “I didn’t find anything I saw as useful,” she said. “But here’s the rundown, on the off chance you spot something.” She smirked. “First, Zamboni’s not the manager of an ice rink, much to my surprise.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Yeah, I’m going to have to curb a desire to pun,” I admitted.

“Maybe don’t,” Trixie said. “What little there is on the guy shows that he can get riled up when he’s made fun of, which in turn leads to him making mistakes.”

I frowned. “Do we want a guy with explosives to get riled up?”

Trixie shrugged. “I said MAYBE don’t.”

“Noted. Anything else?”

She seemed to hesitate. “He’s a regular guy with bare minimum magick who’s aware of its existence, and as such is constantly looking to hook up with a witch. Which is why I did find cursory information. But his lovers don’t seem to satisfy him, or he accuses them of ulterior motives, and so he keeps bouncing around, from one witch love affair to another. Never finding a lasting relationship.”

“Ah.” I wondered if Zamboni had been exposed to magick the same way I had been. Trixie seemed to want to say something else though, so I kept staring at her.

Her mouth tightened. “So even an idiot like you can see there’s a bit of a parallel in my own life? Fine. Look, I won’t turn out like that. Whereas he’s sleeping around trying to find his place in the magick community, I’m just trying to find my place in the world. And whereas he’s thinking he’s finished because he’s found a Chosen One, I’m just going to keep going until I make, oh God, I’m not as pathetic as this guy, am I? Please say I’m not.”

I couldn’t tell if her attempt at a smile was her joking or being sincere.

“You’re not,” I assured her, honestly. “After all, you’d never blow people up to find yourself a boyfriend.”

Trixie almost facepalmed. “James. Seriously. The explosives aren’t for Missy, they’re because he’s decided that, after all this time, if she ISN’T his doorway in, nobody else WILL be. She’s no longer a girlfriend, she’s his Chosen One. His final solution. Much like how I’ve decided that anyone who wants me must have ulterior motives, making me wonder if I shouldn’t just build an AI boyfriend.”

“Uh. Wait, what? Are you making an AI along with everything else?” I said, not sure about the timing of this conversation.

“No, idiot, I’m too busy helping you and Missy first.” Trixie glanced down, apparently realizing her button popping had been distracting, and she started to do them back up. “Look, don’t worry about having this conversation with me, James. You’re no good at it. Suffice to say, I’m realizing I shouldn’t coerce people to walk my path, even if it’s obviously the best path, because I’m so smart. People have to be themselves, and forcing otherwise means things will blow up in my face.”

“Right. You’re not like Zamboni though, seriously.”

“I’m glad you think so.” She gestured at the sack she’d brought. “Now explain to me why we are throwing flour at the guy?”

I seized the topic change. “Right,” I said. “We don’t throw it. The plan is, we put that in a circle, and then you work a transformation spell to make me look like Melissa.”

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 5a: OF ZOMBIES AND ZEALOTS

Melissa looked startled, as if she’d forgotten I was even there. She looked towards me. “Sorry, James. But yes. A zombi is the ultimate perversion. Using witchcraft to turn a body into a puppet for one’s own purposes. There are laws against that sort of thing in our trade.”

“Aha. Obviously this is different from the classical ‘eat your brains’ kind of zombie.”

“Hollywood strikes again,” Melissa said with a shrug. “Also, zombi, fast i, only the plural uses an e.”

It also says something that she had to tell me that. I was pretty good at the language of the supernatural by now, yet zombies had never come up in all of our time together.

She went to sit back down at the desk, which I think was to prevent pacing back and forth. I waited until she was ready.

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

“There are three types of zombi," Melissa began at last. “In the first case, a regular person, or occasionally animal, has their willpower totally supplanted by the spell, basically becoming a slave in their own body. Their actions are totally controlled by the caster. In the most dire of cases, the body can die because even though the brain knows they should be drinking water, the body received a command not to do so.”

My eyebrows went up. “That’s terrible.”

Melissa’s voice was clipped. “It gets worse. The second type of zombi involves reanimation of a dead subject by forcibly tying their spirit back into their body. This tends to warp and taint the spirit, be it slowly or quickly depending on the actions the zombi takes – and again there’s nothing the individual can do about it.”

Here I understood Melissa’s apparent revulsion. She strongly believes that once a death has occurred, that individual has passed into another state of being, if not another realm. Thus it’s unhealthy for us to use supernatural means to tie them to our mortal plane of reality, messing with the natural order of things. To do so is at best irresponsible, and at worst, can compromise the deceased’s spiritual existence.

She’s indicated that some ghosts and specters were not originally evil when they first chose, or were forced, to remain on Earth.

In fact, that one time I saw Melissa break down and cry? Was when she was forced to briefly call upon a recently departed spirit, in fighting an older witch named Melody. I’m not sure she’s ever fully forgiven herself for that one, though it did get me out of a potentially life threatening situation. It was one of the first cases that I chronicled.

“Do I even want to know about the third type?” I asked.

“Well, they’re perhaps the most dangerous, while simultaneously being the least horrific, as far as I’m concerned,” Melissa said. “Creating the third type involves enslaving a spirit, rather than a body itself, and requires at least passive acceptance on the part of the spirit. But said spirit is useless without a body, so it can take over whatever is available – temporarily. It can jump, and in fact must, once human immune systems kick in. But for hours, even days, it can supplant the will of whoever’s body it likes the most at any particular time. It is sometimes able to control multiple bodies at once. You don’t want one of them touching you.”

I thought about this. “Seems a bit like using magick on the unwilling,” I admitted.

“Alas, the dead don’t really have an advocate for what they want or don’t want,” Melissa said. “And a person not being satisfied with their life is often enough of a wedge for the zombi spirit.”

She finally couldn’t sit still any longer, standing and starting to pace despite her best efforts. “Incidentally, it’s that last zombi type that gives rise to the belief of zombies spreading an infection, and the lack of their own will that has people believing they seek brains. It’s more that a zombi seeks to regain control of their own brain. The whole practice is absolutely despicable, and I cannot believe that it’s still going on in what we laughingly call a civilized society.”

I looked a little more closely at Melissa. “Did you accept this mission in order to retrieve Alicia’s orb, or in order to free the zombies?”

She gave me a look, and I knew it was the latter.

“But if there are laws against this sort of thing, can’t you or Alicia notify the magick authorities?” I protested.

“I’m guessing this Mortum doesn’t publicize the scope of what he’s doing. Alicia probably only knows because of her person on the inside, and for that matter, this orb is probably giving the guy an advantage as well.”

I nodded slowly. “Well then, I’m going in there with you.”

“No.”

“Mel, we do these things togeth—”

“Not this time!” Melissa repeated loudly. Then her gaze softened and she reached out to take me by the shoulders. “It’s too dangerous, plus Alicia specifically stated that I’m the focus point. The only one who can slip under the radar.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go in unprepared.”

I tried to think of a good objection.

“Damn it, what’s all the shouting about?” came Trixie’s annoyed voice. Her twintails appeared as she opened her door and poked her head out. “I’m about to do some delicate work here, constructing a memory circuit using what feels like stone knives and bearskins. Do you mind?”

“It’s about zombies,” Melissa said, looking towards her cousin.

Trixie’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, fuuuuck. Spill.”

Melissa left us the following evening. She had already coordinated with Alicia by that point, so that she would have some idea as to the layout of Mortum’s castle and the size of the force she would be dealing with. She refused to share the information with me or Trixie.

“So what if we have to charge in and rescue you?” Trixie had asked earlier that day. “We won’t have your map.” The techno-witch had surfaced to find food, and found Melissa putting things into a backpack.

“You won’t need to charge in,” Melissa retorted.

“Uh huh. You know, being this Chosen One doesn’t make you invincible, yeah?” Trixie pressed. “There’s others who can take over, or whatever.”

“Of course I know that. The same way we both know field work isn’t something you excel at,” Melissa fired back. “So back off.”

Trixie glared. “Low blow. In return, maybe I should get in contact with your parents and tell them how often you’ve been sexing it up with James, against their advice?”

“At least I’ve had sex with a guy in the last three weeks, unlike you,” Melissa said. “Are your silly tricks not having their desired effect this month?”

“Whoa. WHOA,” I interjected from across the room. I’d been looking at Wing’s accounts. That had escalated too quickly. “Mel, decorum!”

Trixie’s face had become red, with either embarrassment or anger - or both. I’m not sure. “Wow, sorry for caring,” was all she snapped before going back into her room and slamming the door.

I approached Melissa. “You must know that was uncalled for.”

Melissa pressed two fingers to her forehead. “Right. Right, sorry. This zombi thing has me on edge. If you talk with Trix later, apologize to her for me? Please?”

Insisting to Melissa that she apologize herself felt like a conversation for later, particularly when Alicia herself came by to create the circle of salt for us shortly thereafter.

Know that it wasn’t strictly necessary for Alicia to do that, but she knew where the corresponding circle would be on the other side, as laid by her inside informant. Which would help to ensure safety on the return trip.

“Okay,” Melissa concluded, just before 8pm. Meaning after 1am European time. She had dressed in black for the occasion, within her usual motif - jeans, T-shirt and running shoes. “Give me at least two hours before you start to worry.” She shouldered her backpack.

“Kind of hard to schedule my concern,” I pointed out. “Besides, is there anything I can do when those two hours are up? That I couldn’t do now, that is.”

Melissa seemed about to wave me off, only to change her mind. “You could have Trixie contact the witch authorities,” she allowed. “Since at the least, I should have made it more difficult for this Mortum guy to disguise his zombi hordes by then.”

I nodded. “Please be careful, Mel.”

She simply grinned back, though the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Always.” Melissa leaned in for a quick kiss before moving into the salt circle. “Alea iacta est,” she muttered at last. And she vanished.

Less than a minute later, Trixie came out of her room. She was wearing a barely buttoned up red blouse and a short plaid skirt with long, dark stockings, meaning she’d changed from the more conservative outfit (for Trixie, at least) that she’d worn earlier in the day.

“Missy gone?” Trixie asked.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “And she said she’s sorry about earlier.”

Trixie crossed her arms under her breasts, seemingly to push them up a bit, while leaning back against the wall. “Sure she is. Because you told her to be.”

“She is,” I insisted. “I mean, I know you don’t see us a lot of late, so maybe you couldn’t tell, but Mel is pretty on edge about this zombi stuff. Probably the Chosen One stuff too. Let’s talk again once this is over.”

“Uh huh.” Trixie looked me up and down. “Missy’s part of the reason I’m not getting any, you know,” she blurted out.

I stared. At Trixie’s face, for the record. “O-kay?”

“You heard her call me out on not bedding a guy lately, huh? She was right, of course. I dunno what the hint was, but her perception is as acute as ever.”

“I wasn’t going to bring it up.”

“No kidding, that’s why I’m bringing it up,” Trixie continued. “My last major Friday date was three weeks ago. Turned out to be one of Missy’s Worshippers. He was trying to use me to get to her. Ask me how I knew.”

“Um.” Playing along seemed safest. “All right, how did you know?”

“Any normal guy would be fine with nailing me back at his place. Ergo, insisting that we do the deed here, in this apartment, was a huge red flag. And yes, maybe he lived with his parents, the way I used to. Or it could’ve been a kink.” Trixie took a deep breath. “So I swiped his wallet when he wasn’t looking. Had pictures of Missy in it, and a membership card for some fan club. Can you believe it? What an idiot, keeping that stuff on hand while trying to pick me up.”

“Uh, yeah. Look, Trixie, I’m… not sure why you’re telling me this,” I admitted.

Trixie lowered her arms to push herself off the wall. “Well, aside from the fact that it’s a pretty good bit of field work on my part, who the HELL else am I going to tell? Besides, Missy’s life is interfering with mine in more ways than one… and I’ve wanted to get that off my chest.”

I think Trixie’s got it down to a science, using the word ‘chest’ at the same time as she does a heel bounce, to naturally draw the eye down. I still fall for it. “Fine,” I said. “Now could you at least… not do that, for right now?” I asked, gesturing.

“Oh, sure, because I can turn off my personality on a whim,” Trixie shot back. She stamped her foot. “Never mind all the work I’m doing for Miss Chosen One. Without any reward to speak of, aside from the work itself, I might add. Just screw Trixie, except of course I’m NOT getting screwed lately, I’m lonely as hell, and nobody cares!”

I now realized her eyes were misting over. My first instinct was to give Trixie a hug, except I worried that would result in mixed signals. “I-I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t notice.”

“Of COURSE you didn’t,” Trixie said. She rubbed her arm over her eyes, as if to clear them. “Because you’re the wonderful kind of idiot. But Missy obviously deduced it all, and didn’t care. That’s why I’m upset. Damn it, why am I helping you two idiots out again?”

I was swiftly feeling all kinds of awkward in this conversation. “Because you know Mel cares, even though she doesn’t express herself very well?”

“Cares about YOU, you mean. Maybe I should have just let her fan club into this place after all, might have taught her not to ignore me.”

“I’m, um, not sure that would have solved anything.”

Trixie stared at me. “You still don’t get it, do you. The big reason why I’m telling you.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “No?”

“Agh, IDIOT,” Trixie groaned, sliding her palm down her face. “Look. I thought I was finally fitting in here, James. Sure, I’m a bit of a third wheel, but I was helping out, right? With my skills? It seemed like that. Finally, the fact that I’m so smart, or so shallow, or so witchy, or so whatever, wasn’t a barrier.”

“Is this about field work again?”

Trixie pursed her lips. “Only partly. It’s about how despite being a part of this, I still craved intimacy. Which I thought I could fulfil through… you know. But now this job is screwing that up. I mean, don’t misunderstand. I won’t leave you now, not when I’m so close, but damn it, I need to be held. And to not wonder if it’s happening because I know Missy.”

“Um.” Again, I wondered if I should give her a hug. “Held, or groped? Because as a friend, I could manage the first…”

“James, connect the dots, it’s kinda the same thing for me,” she interrupted. “Which is why I’m going out now, dressed like this, despite Missy’s life possibly being in danger. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s an attempt at self-care. You get it?”

I nodded. “Okay. You have needs too, I get it,” I agreed.

“Good.” She didn’t immediately make any move for the doorway. “James… I AM helping you both out, right? With more than just the engram work? You still like having me around?”

I didn’t get a chance to answer, because that’s when the protective wards downstairs tipped us off to the presence of a new arrival. When I went to look, I saw a blonde woman with short hair, wearing glasses. She looked vaguely familiar.

“I need to talk to Melissa,” she said into the monitor, seeming a little out of breath.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Danielle. Danielle Timins.”

I knew that name. She’d been involved in my first ever Virga Mysteries case.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 4d: OF PARENTS AND PROGRAMMING

We remained standing that way for at least ten seconds, at which point I decided I might as well grab a piece of toast, and offer one to Melissa as well. It wasn’t until almost five minutes later that Trixie moved her head and gave a full-on blink, processing that we’d changed positions.

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

“Oh, there you are. Okay, look,” she began. “Making such an AI from scratch would be ridiculous, as I’m sure you both realize, particularly given the time constraint. But what I COULD do is take what I’ve already got coded for Rixi, and find a way of laying down the mental engrams of a real person on top.”

“Sort of like creating a virtual Melissa?” I asked.

Trixie made a face, her nose scrunching cutely. “If you insist on using HER engrams, something like that, yes.”

“Hold on,” Melissa protested. “I know enough about science to know that engrams are, first of all, hypothetical, and second of all, only valid for reliving prior traumatic events. Moreover, I don’t want Trixie screwing with my head any more than she already does on a daily basis.”

“I’m obviously using a magick component here,” Trixie explained. “To preserve engrams to a level above your typical scientific definition. And while I’m not going to say there’s no chance of complications on the technical side, on the biological side, the real person involved wouldn’t feel in a thing. In fact, I’d been thinking of using MY engrams.”

“Ahh. You’re not the Chosen One though,” Melissa fired back. Her tone was matter-of-fact, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that she was trying to claim some sort of superiority over her cousin there.

“It can be done then,” I said, in an attempt to summarize.

Trixie pulled her attention back to me, crossing and uncrossing her arms. “Yeah,” she said. “That is, I’m pretty sure.”

She finally simply clasped her hands behind her back, while simultaneously pushing out her chest, in my direction. “James, truly, you may have just given me the first actual honest to goodness challenge I’ve ever had to face in my entire life to date. I kind of love you for that.”

I then that realized her breathing rate was quicker, and her face was getting flushed. I hoped it was only excitement over the project itself.

“Ahem, must I remind you he’s taken?” Melissa cut in.

Trixie’s gaze snapped towards Melissa. “Did I SAY–”

“Um, look, Trixie, I’m glad,” I said quickly, trying to head off another argument. “Though here’s the second thing. We also need to you retroactively scrub out any information on the internet related to Melissa’s Supernatural Detective Agency, putting it in my name instead.”

Trixie turned her stare back at me, pulling herself back to her full height. “The hell? Because you thought me trying to devise a highly sophisticated neural net wasn’t challenge enough?”

“You’re the one with the IQ of 151,” Melissa murmured.

“Yeah, 151, not 515, dumbass,” she snapped.

“Sorry, Trixie,” I apologized. “I figured it would be as simple as a search and replace virus. If it can’t be done–”

“Don’t YOU start with that,” Trixie said, obviously vexed as she pointed at me. “I can do it easy, but it would take a day and there would be loopholes and my brain is kind of totally preoccupied with your first project right now. Why didn’t you lead with the simpler task?”

“I… guess we should have?” I mused.

“Right. So.” Trixie pulled the end of her ponytail into her hands, curling it about her fingers, as she again leaned towards me, now batting her eyelashes. “Can you pleeease give me at least a week with the big stuff before I look into the silly name thing?”

“We need the name thing done first,” Melissa said bluntly.

“I wasn’t asking you, Missy,” Trixie growled, this time without looking.

“She’s right though,” I said. “We’re over the three month mark, if we don’t submerge Melissa’s name fast, we’ll be faced with interruptions from all those other factions we mentioned earlier.”

“Nnngh. Three days then?” Trixie pleaded. “I have some ideas that I want to start looking at right away.” She brought a hand up to unbutton the second button on her blouse. I think the first had been unbuttoned the whole time, I’m not sure. Either way, at this point my eyes wandered, I couldn’t help it.

“No,” I asserted to Trixie’s cleavage. “Sorry.”

“Multitask,” Melissa suggested, now elbowing her way in between the two of us.

The redhead stamped her foot on the ground. “Missy, you’re never ANY fun. I’d quit this agency, if I had anything better lined up.” She pointed at me. “And James, you… you… oh God, I don’t know if I want to slap you real hard or kiss you even harder.”

“I’d STRONGLY suggest doing neither,” Melissa said.

“Fine. I’m going to my room,” Trixie concluded, storming out of the kitchen. Moments later, her door slammed. Then opened, then was slammed again for emphasis.

I looked at Melissa. “Something tells me her parents had to deal with tantrums far more than yours ever did.” My girlfriend smothered a laugh.

At least Trixie understood, in the end. We’d decided to let her stew for a day, but by the next morning, a routine online search on Melissa Virga’s real name turned up nothing. Or at least nothing related to our Melissa. But the Agency still existed, and I was in charge.

It occurred to me after the fact that if anyone else happened to have the same name as Melissa, they might be in trouble (sort of like in those Terminator movies). Mel reassured me by saying that in person, she’d be giving off certain magick vibes that were unique to spellcasters - a bit like how there’s apparently a scent on people who hang around witches long enough - along with pointing out how unusual her last name was in the first place.

I resolved to thank Trixie the next time I saw her, for her prioritizing. But then I didn’t see her until Thursday. She spent most of the intervening time in her room, working. I glanced in at one point when the door was ajar, seeing that during my absence, she’d moved in a small computer mainframe, next to the bed. Where she was asleep.

Even after I saw and thanked Trixie over breakfast, she only mumbled back a thanks, obviously preoccupied.

It wasn’t until the following Monday that Trixie surfaced from her engramatic studies, having remembered that we were owed a dinner together. Melissa agreed, even though it was technically too late per the original deal. It’s not like we were busy with cases anyway, in fact I wondered if our Agency having ceased all advertising was responsible for the lull.

I let Trixie pick the restaurant. As such, I learned that the techno-witch may have a thing for Japanese.

Trixie also wore pants for the occasion, whereas I’d thought she only owned skirts of various lengths and fabrics. And she let her hair all the way down too. I commented on that fact, as we headed out.

“Yeah, see? I can be mature. VERY mature,” Trixie said, smiling. And with that, she thrust her shoulders back, pushing her chest out into her blouse, so much so that a gap appeared between the buttons.

“Remember, nothing’s coming of this, aside from a good meal,” I pointed out.

“Uh huh. Remember that you felt you had to remind me of that,” Trixie said, wiggling her shoulders to set up vibrations.

“I say that for your sake, not mine.”

“Uh huh,” Trixie repeated, still wiggling.

With that, I ceased looking at her. At some point on our way to the restaurant, she stopped thrusting her chest out. And her possible attempts at seduction diminished even further through dinner itself, to the point that, by the time we left, she was slumped as she walked.

Of course, I also knew more about her by then, as Trixie was more of a talker than Melissa. And as I’d suspected, Trixie hadn’t had many friends in school, in part because she’d told me that she’d never been sure if they wanted to be friends for her personality or her mind. Or as she put it, “It’s no fun if people are cozying up to you for test answers.”

I wondered if maybe that’s why she’d taken to emphasizing her body the way she did, after puberty hit. Namely to remove personality and mind from the equation, so that she would always know why people were approaching her.

Trixie also admitted over dinner that she’d always had something of an interest in technology, much like her mom. In fact it was Marissa’s marriage to Wayne, a technophobe, that caused Trixie’s mother to communicate less with her sister. They weren’t estranged, to be clear, but they talked so little that Trixie hadn’t even known about Melissa’s agency until she’d been approached.

Related, her Rixi device apparently took some inspiration from Japanese anime, and a television show called ‘Martin Mystery’.

And then there was the matter of Trixie’s sex life, which I didn’t get lots of detail on (thank goodness) but apparently she’d had a couple of boyfriends. Which she brought up as more evidence of her maturity. Even though it transpired that she’d basically initiated and then broken off the relationships herself.

Not because they’d been bad in bed, more “too high maintenance”. She may have been implying she’s more into one night stands.

As we reached our street, out of the blue, Trixie straightened her posture again. “So, have you figured out why I wanted to do dinner with you yet?” she asked.

I shrugged. “To annoy Melissa,” I figured.

“Fringe benefit, but no.”

“Then to learn about me first-hand, without Melissa’s possible embellishments.”

“Kinda, but also no.”

I realized I had to think about this now. “Was it because of Melissa’s cooking?”

“No, that was an excuse, not a reason. Keep trying.”

“Uh, because you hadn’t been out on a date in a while?”

“Oh, you truly are an idiot,” Trixie sighed. “I mean, I thought the whole point of this exercise is that this wasn’t a date? Besides, I only need to dress in leather and go to a club to get a guy to buy me dinner. Which, I gotta say, would end in a way more fun way than this night is gonna.”

“Why don’t you tell me then,” I decided.

She stopped walking and fell silent, looking away from me. Then, “James, I thought I was going to be kicked out of the apartment. Before that happened, I wanted to peek into the window of a successful relationship. To see if I could learn to spot whatever Missy saw in you.” She turned back to me, her gaze questioning.

“Oh.” I felt like I should say more, but I wasn’t sure what to say. “It’ll happen for you some day,” I finished, as she kept staring.

Trixie sighed, and resumed her walk. “I wasn’t asking for platitudes, idiot. Look, did I at least seem like a normal girl towards the end of dinner? I’ve kind of forgotten how to not mess with people.”

I fell into step beside her. “You’re asking the guy dating Melissa about what’s normal?”

“Point,” Trixie admitted. “Oh well. It’s funny though, I felt like I could ask you that question, versus anyone else I’d be out with. Oh, and kind of related? On a casual basis, I’m going to keep shoving my breasts at you and doing seductive things. Just so you know to be ready.”

I held back a sigh of my own. “Trixie, there are less annoying ways to bug Melissa.”

“It’s not about Missy,” Trixie snapped. “It’s about me wanting to treat you the same as I do all other guys, James. Because if I start treating you special, I think I’ll start to care about you, and then everything will get complicated. Because of how you’re taken. Okay? Can you maybe stop saying stupid things now?”

We reached the front door of the apartment building in silence. “I wonder,” I said as we headed into the stairwell, “do you call all guys idiots, or is that more reserved for me?”

“Oh, you’re a special kind of idiot,” Trixie muttered. “In that you actually listen to me when I say that. Now, stop talking altogether, or I might want to kiss you on the cheek.”

I stopped talking.

The next day, around the apartment, Trixie wore what I think was a sheer negligee overtop of a bikini, almost like she was making up for dressing so conservatively the previous night. Or maybe she wanted to reset her life equation back to something she understood? Or show up Melissa. Trixie’s mindset was still hard for me to understand.

Regardless, at this point, I’m going to jump from the end of May to the start of August. Because that’s when everything started to come to a head, including a case that came to us courtesy of a visit by Alicia Wing.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 4c: OF PARENTS AND PROGRAMMING

Melissa’s expression morphed into a frown. “None on Trixie’s level. Even witches thirty years her senior aren’t at her level. Plus I don’t want to tell a stranger about all this Prophecy stuff.”

“Okay. So…?”

Melissa groaned, pressing her palm to her forehead. “Uggghh, it really has to be Trixie, doesn’t it. Of all the… James, is it okay if you’re there when I’m talking about it with her? The two of us are always bickering, and I don’t want to do that with something so important.”

“Sure, Mel, anything I can do.”

“Thanks so much.” And Melissa spontaneously reached out to hug me. “Not only for being there, but for seeing another path forwards here.”

I tried to hug back, despite my arms being trapped by the hug. “It’s fine. You’d have done the same for me.”

“For sure.” She pulled back. “Now, if only we can find a way for me to keep living my life too, despite all this insanity going on. Because I love my parents, but I don’t want to stay with them for months. Particularly not while you and Trixie are off… programming together.”

There was a bit of a hesitation there, which implies to me that Melissa wasn’t only thinking about programming. Seemingly still a bit unsure about my love for her, over any possible lust for Trixie. And to be fair, the last time I’d seen Trixie, she’d been blowing me a kiss back at the motel room, so maybe she wasn’t someone to be casually dismissed.

“Maybe we can move your business to Outer Mongolia,” I quipped.

“Hah. I get the impression these three factions would find me regardless,” Melissa sighed. “No, I think our Agency is done for, given how my name’s tied to it and everything.”

My dad’s remark from earlier in the day came back to me at that point. “Okay, so what if we replace your name with my name.”

Melissa did a double take. “Pardon?”

“What if we put your supernatural agency in my name,” I insisted. “Retroactively even, if there’s a spell for that, so that anyone looking into past cases wouldn’t turn you up at all. This way, we’d still be able to function locally, and any clients we already have would recognize me. Unless you had a ton in the year before I came on board.”

Melissa’s thoughtful expression was back. “We’d need to take that website down that you put up last year, and ideally scrub any trace of me from browser searches – damn it, I think we’ll need Trixie’s help with that one too – but it could work. I can even still be there with you, if I disguise my appearance. My parents shouldn’t object to that, they’ve done it often enough.”

“I’ll take down those old case files too,” I added. “The ones I put online.”

Melissa waved me off. “Don’t bother, you called me Melissa or something in those, right? Might even get people to chase false leads.” She frowned. “Of course, if we do this, I’ll want your assurance that you don’t leave the office without some form of magick protection. Even if it’s only a ward from our usual distributor. After all, the last thing I want to do is put your life in danger simply because I can be kinda stubborn.”

I half smiled. “You, Mel? Stubborn?”

“Ha ha. Promise me, James, you’ll use protection.”

I resisted the urge to interpret that in another way. “I promise, of course,” I said, raising a hand to my heart for emphasis. Then I beamed. “See? Problems practically solved. I knew you had it in you.”

She smiled, and blushed faintly too. “Couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks for that.”

Before I knew it, we were kissing. It was nice. It progressed to french kissing. Then I was somewhat climbing on top of her, and she was pulling my shirt up out of my pants, running her hands around on my back. It was after her leg had hooked around me while I was cupping a breast that Melissa’s hand shot up, pushing my head to the side.

“James… James, no, wait,” she panted.

I swallowed, regaining a measure of awareness. “Right. Not in your parents' house.”

Melissa’s chest heaved. “I was thinking more we’re real close to disrupting the salt circle here, which would sever the connection back to our kitchen. But yes, good call about my parents' place too, yes.”

We carefully disentangled ourselves. “Maybe later?” I said, half heartedly.

Melissa gave me a look. “James, remember earlier, when I said I only missed the casual sex a little bit?”

I nodded. I have a photographic memory, after all.

“I’m now realizing it was more than a bit,” she admitted. “Three weeks is a long time, even if I was on my period for part of it.”

I wasn’t sure if Melissa bringing that up was her being blunt, or an attempt to douse my flames of passion. Either way, I started tucking in my shirt. “Let’s say definitely later then,” I rephrased.

She smiled, then turned to the pantry door. “For now, I guess I go back and apologize. Let’s wait on hitting my parents with the Agency name plan until after mom’s pie though? And let’s not tell them about the technology idea at all… it’ll only upset my mother.”

“Okay then,” I said, managing to avoid saying how much Melissa seemed to be acting like her mother now. “You think it will take a lot of convincing?”

Melissa set her jaw. “I don’t care if it does. After all, I’m the one the Prophecy is impacting the most, and it’s my life.”

In the end, as soon as Marissa and Wayne saw how determined (stubborn?) Melissa was about her idea, her parents went along with us. Also, the dazzleberry pie was quite good. I only learned later that it was somehow a mix of both fruits and vegetables.

There was, incidentally, a compromise. Melissa also agreed to have a magick listening device in our apartment, to pick up on any kind of trouble, so her parents wouldn’t worry.

I suspected this was also Wayne’s way of keeping tabs on me. Given his suggestion that we still consider living apart, “just to try it out for a while longer”. But no, I’d had enough time away from Melissa, and by now I was more than happy to be be back in my girlfriend’s apartment. In fact, owing to Trixie’s presence, I was also permanently sharing Mel’s bed.

Now, mind out of the gutter, we weren’t having sex all the time. Not with her parents spying, and the wall between Melissa and Trixie’s room not being all that thick. Seriously, you can’t get any alone time in that kind of environment, not without a good soundproofing spell, one which doesn’t require constant concentration after casting.

Melissa does know one. That’s enough about that.

We spoke to Trixie on Sunday morning over breakfast. She had sounded like she was home when we returned late the previous night, but we decided not to disturb her.

After we came into the kitchen, I started by making Trixie promise not to make any commentary until we’d laid out the entire situation for her.

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

“I’ll save you time. If you’re getting married, and want me to be the maid of honour, no thanks,” Trixie said, munching on a waffle. She was eating it straight out of the toaster.

“This is not about the relationship between me and Mel,” I assured her. “Not directly.”

“You’re just kicking me out of here under some other pretext, is that it?”

“No.”

Melissa sighed. “Can you not make commentary about a promise to not make commentary? I mean really.”

Trixie sniffed. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot I was talking to the person who never commented about me at all for four years.”

I sidestepped, so that I was between them, but looking at the redhead. “Trixie, please?” I requested.

She looked at me, and took another bite of her waffle. For reference, at this point in the morning Trixie was not sporting twintails yet, but instead had yanked all her hair back into one ponytail that fell between her shoulder blades. It helped her look more mature.

“Tell you what, James,” Trixie decided, after chewing and swallowing. “I’ll do it under condition that I’m allowed to take you out for dinner this week.”

“Trix, you’re not dating my boyfriend,” Melissa objected.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I say date? I said dinner. I think James would appreciate one night of not having to deal with a blue cheese casserole with lemon juice, or whatever the heck it was I saw in the fridge last night.”

“Lime juice. It clears the sinuses,” Melissa grumbled. She was quieter though, I suppose annoyed that she’d been caught acting insecure.

I also had to admit that Trixie had a point. I’d tried to do as much of the cooking as I could when I lived here.

“We can go to dinner,” I agreed slowly. “As long as you’re aware that it won’t lead to anything.”

“Ooh, anything? Both of your minds are just in the gutter then, huh?” Trixie said. As if to capitalize on that, she made a point of adjusting the tall stockings she was wearing (even so, they still failed to reach the hem of her red skirt) and adjusting her white satin blouse (practically fluffing her cleavage).

It’s possible I stared at that a bit more than I should have.

“Agh, I wish we didn’t need her,” Melissa sighed behind me.

That helped snap me out of it, and when I turned to glance at Melissa, she was pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. I looked back at Trixie. “Okay, so let us explain,” I said. “No commentary.”

Trixie smiled, but nodded. And so Melissa and I laid out the whole Prophecy and Chosen One situation, along with the factions and the idea that someone - maybe Merlin - had been dealing with supernatural balance for centuries. Trixie’s smile faded, and I think she literally bit down on her tongue a couple times, but she kept up her end of the bargain.

“So with that said,” I eventually concluded, “we need your help with a couple things.” Trixie’s hand shot up, implying she wanted to talk first.

“Go ahead,” I yielded.

Trixie took in a deep breath, then let it out. “Okay, hold on.” She walked all the way around Melissa, who incidentally had merely pulled on another pair of jeans and an oversized green T-shirt after getting up.

“Okay,” Trixie began again. “So you’re telling me that Missy, my plain looking, fashion impaired, socially backwards witch cousin… is going to be single-handedly responsible for deciding whether Earth goes all Shadowrun??”

“Don’t overdramatize,” Melissa said in annoyance. “And what do running shadows have to do with it?”

“Shadowrun. It’s a roleplay game where cybernetics meets urban fantasy. Supernatural creatures and technology, living together. More culture you’ve missed out on.”

“You roleplay?” I said to Trixie in surprise. I didn’t know Shadowrun, but I knew what she was getting at. She hadn’t really struck me as the type of person able to work well in a group.

“Well, no,” the redhead admitted. She shifted her gaze away from me then. “I read fanfic. There’s not much point roleplaying, because I’d never be able to generate a character more interesting than I already am.”

“I’m sure,” Melissa said dryly. “You also seem to think you can get whatever you like by giggling and looking cute, which I imagine is more difficult to manage online.”

“Oh pssh,” Trixie said dismissively, waving her arm. “I get whatever I like by using my high IQ of 151. The giggling and looking cute merely makes other people – especially men – feel better about surrendering themselves to my intellect.”

“You mean surrendering themselves to your–”

“We’re straying from the point,” I insisted, before Melissa could finish her thought. “Namely that, Trixie, do you think your mind would be capable of coding up some sort of artificial intelligence, which would be capable of handling the world’s supernatural balance issues in Melissa’s place?”

The ponytailed witch snapped her gaze over towards me, shocked. She opened her mouth as if to respond, then closed it, then opened it again, then her brow furrowed. “Euh.”

“See, James, I told you this would be beyond our capabilities to resolve in three months,” Melissa said.

“Shut up, Melissa, I’m thinking,” Trixie snapped.

Not Missy, Melissa. This was one of the first times for me to see Trixie going into full-on serious mode. Even as I processed this, she began mumbling to herself.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 3c: OF LYCANS AND PROPHECIES

“You never told me that,” I protested.

A pause. “I was sure I did.”

I ran back through that night in my head, and managed to hit on something. “You said you’d wanted to talk to me about something relating to parents when you went to get my dad his water. You never specified what.”

“Oh.” Melissa rubbed her nose. “Well, I’m specifying now. You good with that?”

“I… sure.”

There was no point arguing about the circumstances. This was Melissa’s way. In fact, it felt strangely reassuring to think that things were going back to “normal” so fast. Honestly, my only hesitation was over the fact that I’d never met her parents before.

But after everything Melissa had needed to handle with my parents, doubting her supernatural connection, it seemed only fair that I give hers the chance to give me the once-over as well.

She half smiled at my acceptance, and with that, I realized just how much I had missed her. I reached out to brush some of her hair off of her face.

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

“A-HEM,” Trixie said, clearing her throat incredibly noisily. I realized that face had moved in to within an inch of my former (current?) girlfriend’s, and so I quickly pulled back. Melissa did likewise.

“I’d say get a motel room, but I’m worried you’d kick me out to use the one we’ve got,” Trixie said, hands moving to her hips. “Also, Missy, dinner what now? You never mentioned that to me.”

“Oh, good, so you won’t be offended now that you’re not coming,” Melissa said, raking her fingers back through her rumpled hair.

“No, but I’m wondering if you told your parents we’re dating,” Trixie remarked. “We’re related you know, so that’s a bit twisted.”

Melissa’s face seemed to get redder. “I only told them I might not be able to bring James. This wasn’t a matter of coming with a date either, they wanted to know who I was associating with at work. But you know, even if we weren’t related, your attitude is such that I would NEVER –”

“I think we’d best check on Amy now,” I said, hoping to prevent an argument. I attempted to clear my throat afterwards and just sounded raspy, so I turned and stepped towards the motel room door, reaching my hand out for the doorknob.

Trixie blinked. “Oh, wait, James, I put up –”

As I touched the door, I felt an electrical jolt, which not only knocked me off my feet and onto the pavement a good foot and a half away, but which left my fingers twitching spasmodically for several seconds.

“—some protective scrolls.”

“Now who’s an idiot?” I grumbled back in her direction.

“Well, it stood to reason, didn’t it?” Trixie countered. “You told me to keep her safe, and what did you think those little papers were for? Idiot.”

I glowered. This caused her to switch tactics, clasping her hands behind her back as she pushed her chest out. Despite her maturity, she looked remarkably cute, to the point where it almost felt cruel to remain upset with the freckled witch. “I sowwy,” Trixie cooed.

“Oh, I… uh…”

“Cut that out, Trixie,” Melissa grumbled, moving to stand between us, blocking my view. “He’s working with our Agency again, so he’s off limits to your nonsense. Also, let us into Amy’s room, I need to sit down.”

I saw Trixie stick out her tongue at Melissa as she walked closer, right before winking at me. That said, she then deactivated her scrolls without causing any other arguments.

At this point, per Amy’s request, we explained to her exactly what had been going on while she’d been asleep. Of course, some of it she already knew, through me. But Melissa’s account of the lycan was new to both of us, and I also had to fill in some information about Amy’s dream world for the witches. Without going into quite the detail I did above with respect to Amy the Genie, to be sure.

After all, while actual “Jinn” are supposedly neither angelic or demonic, there is an association in folk tales with more evil intentions. Sleep paralysis is also associated with Jinn attacks. I didn’t want to send the witches off on a tangent.

Oh, for the record, I did make contact with Amy again before setting this account down. She’s okay with you knowing more, given the time lag and what this managed to lead up to. It was also during this motel room discussion that Trixie hit me multiple times for failing to understand women. Couldn’t argue either, particularly being the only guy in the room.

“At the risk of sounding self-centred,” Amy said when it was all over, “What exactly is going to happen with Charlie Halko? Is he still going to be stalking me, even without that vampire’s presence?” (She really couldn’t get the hang of elongating the ‘i’.)

“Halko was never stalking you,” Trixie reminded. “That was a dream scenario. And from all the electronic data I went over, I don’t think he was necessarily interested in you, per se. His initial fascination was with lamps, he’d started buying them even before your show existed."

“I agree you shouldn’t worry,” Melissa added. “I suspect it was the vampyre’s compulsiveness that drove Charlie to monitor you to the degree that he did. You were a wedge he could use. Charlie’s now liable to be a bit hazy about the last few months of his life, plus he’ll probably associate your videos with fear and horror. So let’s classify him as mostly harmless.”

“Ooh, Missy, are you quoting Douglas Adams?” Trixie asked her cousin, expression brightening.

“What?” Melissa asked tiredly as she turned back to the redhead.

Trixie’s expression became a pout. “Sorry, for a moment there I thought you had culture.”

“Though, one more thing, speaking of lamps?” Amy broke back in. From where she sat on the bed, she gestured at the old style lamp on the night table.

The one that had formerly been a knife.

“Yeah, now, that should not have happened,” Melissa admitted.

She stood up to go and examine the object once more. Trixie immediately took Melissa’s place, sitting in the only chair in the room. I continued to lean against the wall.

We had gone to the effort of rubbing the lamp, by the way. No genie.

Melissa turned the lamp around in her hands a couple of times, then shook her head. “Still no signs it’s going to revert. The current supernatural balance is obviously even more out of whack than I previously believed,” the brunette witch concluded.

“Maybe the knife’s transformation has some connection to this Prophecy?” I suggested. “Between that and the three month window that the vampyre alluded to, perhaps we’ll start seeing more of this kind of thing.”

“The lycan mentioned a prophecy too, but I have no idea what it’s about,” Melissa said, starting to sound frustrated. “Trixie? You turn up anything yet?”

“Nopers,” Trixie said with a shrug. She’d done some online searching for it during my earlier dream explanations, and had come up empty. “But remember, I’m a techno-witch. If it’s not published on the web, I can’t find it. You’ll need to research dusty old books in the library with James. If you can keep your minds on research, that is.”

“This isn’t funny, Trix," Melissa snapped. “Can’t you try the so-called dark web or something?”

Trixie’s grin vanished. “Geez, Missy, I didn’t say I was giving up. But you can’t just call me in and expect me to fix all your problems overnight.”

“Tell me about it. It took you two weeks just to pinpoint Halko,” Melissa grumbled.

“Which is not that long given what little I had to go on. You should have called me in a week earlier, before you started following false leads.” Now Trixie was sounding defensive.

I exchanged a quick glance with Amy, who smiled tiredly and shrugged. It wasn’t just me then - the working relationship between the two witches wasn’t as amicable as the one that had existed between Melissa and I.

I coughed. “You know, we could always talk to other witches, see if they have more information,” I suggested. “Maybe they’ve heard supernatural beings talking about it too.”

“Mmm,” Melissa said, nodding her head in agreement as she put the lamp back down. “Maybe see if any other witches are also seeing a rise in supernatural incidents, or magick forced on the unwilling, that sort of thing. Good thinking, James.”

Trixie rolled her eyes, but said nothing, which at least didn’t create more problems. As far as the Agency goes, I like to think I compliment Melissa’s analysis and Trixie’s tech with a little human interaction.

“Um, about that,” Amy put in. “If I’ve understood James correctly the last couple weeks, weren’t you breaking your own rules tonight? By attacking the vampire, using your magic to contain the wolf when he didn’t want to be trapped, and that sort of thing.”

Melissa turned to look at Amy. “No, because we were up against beings who knew we were witches, and thus expected spells. Moreover, when someone attacks you, they’re implicitly opening themselves up to be attacked back. Passive acceptance.”

“Besides, our spells were basically for self-defence, and we’re allowed to protect ourselves without a backlash,” Trixie added.

“Ah,” Amy said dubiously. “I guess real magic’s a lot more complicated than I thought it would be.”

“There’s special evening courses you can take,” Melissa offered. “Though you’d need a sponsor, you have to show some natural ability, and all the participants tend to be of high school age or less. Well, occasionally first year university.”

Melissa glanced my way. I vaguely recalled her talking about it with me once, but I had been more interested in my journalism goals at the time.

“Ugh, tell me about it,” Trixie moaned. “If I hadn’t had to take all those extra magick courses, I’m sure I could have graduated regular high school two years early.” She grinned at Amy. “Say, have I mentioned my IQ?”

Amy raised her hands, palms out, and waved them back and forth with a wan smile on her face. “Never mind, it’s fine, I think I’ll leave the magic to the professionals.”

“That’s probably best,” Melissa said dismissively. I suspect that I alone had sensed the disappointment in Amy’s tone. Maybe it was time to clear the room, to give Amy some peace and quiet.

I pushed away from the wall, stretching my arms above my head. “Well, at the risk of being rude, it’s something like 3am, and I think we could all do with at least a bit of uninterrupted sleep.”

“3am?” said Melissa in surprise. “I thought it was midnight.”

She gestured at the motel’s clock radio, which had been reset at some point and was flashing twelve.

“Yes, Missy, it’s been midnight for the last three hours,” Trixie said. She rose from the chair and headed over to her cousin, grabbing her by the arm. “Don’t you worry, James, I get it. We’ll get out of your hair, leave you to say to Amy whatever it is you need to.”

Melissa humphed. “Don’t get coy, Trixie. James knows not to hint with me, if he needs time without us, he’ll say so.”

“What he needs is for you to pretend to understand relationships,” Trixie said, pulling Melissa towards the door. “Honestly, you two idiots are made for each other.”

Melissa gave Trixie a look of annoyance, and me a sort of a confused shrug, but didn’t otherwise resist being led out of the room. As Trixie pulled the door behind them, I fired off a grateful smile her way.

Trixie’s response was to meet my gaze, and give me a wink while making a kissing motion with her mouth. I couldn’t tell if the redhead was making an allusion to “kissing Amy goodbye”, if she was trying to give me her own kiss goodnight, if she was simply trying to annoy Melissa, or something completely different.

Trixie was definitely harder for me to read than her cousin.

Only once the witches had left and closed the door did I go to sit on the side of the bed near Amy. It was time to end this particular chapter of my life.

Little did I realize that this would be less like ending a chapter, and more like concluding an entire book - before launching into a new volume, one that had me in a relationship with the Chosen One of a Prophecy.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 3b: OF LYCANS AND PROPHECIES

“Clever,” the wolfman yielded. “But remaining like that requires concentration, which will falter eventually.”

“Yes, well, gives us time to talk about why you’re so against restoring supernatural balance. Along with why you’re targeting me when there’s plenty more witches doing this on a grander scale,” Melissa said. “Am I an appetizer before them?”

“Surely you’re aware of the Prophecy. You’re the Chosen One, Melissssa Viiiirga,” it countered with a hiss.

Melissa stared. “Prophecy. How special. Okay, I’m listening.”

“I’m done talking.”

The lycan moved to grab a rather hefty concrete vase, no doubt used to provide some décor to the area, which he then threw at the brunette.

Melissa was forced to do a quick dodge, as she not only attempted to avoid the object but the splinters of the vase after it shattered against the far side of the pool. The wolf used this opportunity to jump at her.

Melissa saw no alternative.

She hopped off the broom, hefting it by the handle as she fell towards the pool bottom. She then angled up the hard wooden end holding the bristles, mentally calculating her drop in relation to the way the lycan was twisting in the air to try and land on her, then with as much force as she could muster, she jabbed it up between the lycan’s legs, hitting at the crotch of his jeans. (Sometimes, Melissa conceded, you can’t avoid the cheap shots.)

Her opponent let out a bit of a whine and his trajectory shifted, as Melissa released her grip on the push broom, calling out “Salio!” once again.

She landed on the pool bottom with both feet together, grimacing as her weight followed, bending her knees to try reduce the shock, as the spell helped her spring back up.

Know that repeated use of the same spell does tend to reduce its effectiveness, at least in the short term. (Magick tends to reward the more creative individual, rather than penalize across the board regardless of what gets cast.)

As such, Melissa didn’t spring up as high as before, this time only just managing to catch the middle rung of the ladder for the deep end of the pool, once at the height of her arc.

She looked down, noting that the wolf was apparently trying to block out whatever pain he was feeling, and was already standing up. He again jumped for her. After doing another quick mental calculation, she pulled back her leg and delivered a kick to his face before he could grab hold of either her, or the pool ladder.

He did manage to leave a bit of a scratch on her leg for his efforts, owing to his outstretched arms.

“Having fun?”

Melissa declined to answer Trixie’s remark, but did accept the redhead’s extended arm, helping her to get up out of the pool that much faster.

“Time for Plan B, containment,” Melissa said tersely. “Go to the opposite side.”

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

“What was Plan A?” Trixie mused, even as she quickly moved to comply, hopping nimbly over the low diving board at the head of the pool on the way.

The wolf, for his part, had apparently decided that it would be easier to get out by heading down to the shallow end, as he was now doing so. However, the couple of falls and hits meant he wasn’t moving at top speed.

Melissa began a quick chant here, and I won’t transcribe all of the latin, but the gist of it was a containment grid that the lycan would not be able to pass while in wolf form. Not without having to endure a lot of pain.

As Melissa finished, she looked up to link eyes with Trixie, who was by now crouching directly opposite her. “Initimus!” the two witches chorused, slapping their hands down onto the pool tiles in tandem.

The tiles lit up sequentially around the poolside, like a glowing rectangle. In less than a second, the whole perimeter had been covered, and then beams shot out laterally to cover the area as well. They passed right through the torso of the wolf as he was emerging.

The lycan howled, even as his transformation suddenly reversed, leaving what looked to be a forty-something bearded male yelling out in its wake. Said male then fell back beneath the surface of the glow, leaving him sitting in the shallow end, glaring up at the witches.

The glow itself faded after a moment, but the barrier remained.

Melissa tucked some hair back behind her ear. “Okay, we’ll question him later,” she concluded, expelling a long breath. “For now, back to James and the vampyre.”

“Worried about your James, hmmm?” Trixie inquired, standing back up and tugging on her short skirt, one hopes to make sure she was staying decent.

“No. Maybe. He’s not my James. Shut up.”

The younger witch smirked as she followed Melissa back out of the pool area. “Guessing you’re going into Amy’s dream," Trixie reasoned. “Can I come too? I haven’t seen James' bizarre form of incompetence against an adversary yet. And after your complaints about how I’m doing things different, I’m curious.”

“I wasn’t complaining. And I said shut up.”

“Uh huh. You know, it’s possible he likes redheads more. Not worried about a little witch competition, are you?”

Melissa whirled. “Trix, for the last time, I said… ohhhhh, hell-o!” Where the ‘o’ was very much tacked on, so that she could pretend she hadn’t come close to swearing.

“No, you said…” But then Trixie’s voice trailed off too, noting the expression on Melissa’s face.

She spun as well, looking back towards the motel’s pool. Where the man who had been a wolf was climbing out amid a silent crackling of energy, which lit up his face and revealed the way his teeth were clenched and his eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets as he braved whatever their barrier was doing to him.

“Sooo, you know how to fight a lycan, huh?” Trixie said. Humour was something of a defence mechanism for her.

“That should have worked,” was all Melissa could say.

Trixie hesitated. “It really should have,” she yielded, as the lycan (in human form) finally completely surfaced, collapsing back onto the deck by the side of the pool.

“He’s insane,” Melissa diagnosed. “You don’t have any new tricks hidden in your so-called hammerspace for insane lycans, do you?”

“Not so much, no.”

Melissa’s jaw tightened as the shock value wore off, and her instincts started to take over. “Fine then. Another plan forms. It involves using the mirror I brought back with me. Which means I’ll need you to tell me the moment James awakens from his spell-induced slumber, because I can’t invoke the mirror safely until I know he’s handled the vampyre spirit.”

Trixie blinked. “James and the vampyre? You think he can manage that on his own?”

“He handled a poltergeist three months ago with only minimal assistance from me.”

The redhead rolled her eyes. “Oh, right, right, the poltergeist story again. Fine, I’ll let you know when he’s conscious,” she finished, hurrying back towards the car.

Once there, Trixie later said she took the opportunity to peek in through the curtains at the slumbering Amy as well, to verify that the dream world was still both active and stable.

Melissa looked around for something new that she might be able to use as a weapon. She didn’t see anything, but then resigned herself to the fact that if the lycan could withstand all the punishment she’d thrown at him so far, brandishing a club wasn’t liable to dissuade him either.

With a few quick murmurs and gestures, she began to work on what she determined to be her best possible defence, a moveable shield. These actually work better than simply enclosing yourself in a six-sided box, as their smaller size requires much less energy to activate and maintain. Though their use does require the caster to have a sense of where the next attack is coming from.

Once completed, Melissa extended her non-dominant hand, the magick circle appearing at her palm to her eyes alone. She then looked back up at the lycan. He had managed to at least partially transform back into wolf form, and was now about ten paces away, moving slowly but steadily, still sizing her up.

“You know,” she began. “Maybe we can still talk about –”

It lunged, slamming against her invisible shield with such force that she had to take a step back.

“Or not,” Melissa sighed in defeat.

What followed was a series of clawings, poundings, and attempted bitings. No finesse at all, Melissa later noted, and no imagination either. The lycan apparently didn’t even consider capturing the nearby Trixie to use as bait, not that such a ruse would have panned out any better.

Melissa did have to expand the diameter of her shield a couple of times though, and she suspected that, had the lycan been at full strength, it wouldn’t have held out. Soon she began to grow concerned that maybe I’d decided to wait in Amy’s dream for her to get there.

“Trixie,” she called out after maybe two minutes of the lycan’s mauling attack. “Maybe we’ll get you to go into that dream after all.”

Trixie brightened. “Seriously?”

“Well, something needs to break up this stalemate, before we end up with a much bigger problem,” she shouted.

“He’s awake,” Trixie called out at that moment.

“Arcesso!” Melissa stated, Charlie’s mirror in her mind’s eye.

She extended her non-shield hand in the direction of the car as his mirror flew out through the broken rear window. The wolf’s momentary distraction at the sight of the object flying in towards Melissa even gave her the reprieve she needed to catch it.

“Honestly,” she continued. “If there’s one thing more annoying than unexpected vampyres, it’s when they’re accompanied by lycans.”

Apparently deciding that the mirror wasn’t a new threat, the wolf jumped at Melissa again.

Big mistake.

The witch dispelled her shield and brandished the mirror in both hands, calling out something rapid fire. Whatever she said meant the lycan’s jump took him right inside the mirror, and out of our plane of existence.

Melissa immediately smashed said mirror onto the ground, breaking the glass, and then she moved to stand on it, jerking the frame out of alignment. There was a long sighing sound, not unlike the air being let out of a tire, and for a moment a white haired image appeared, hovering over the debris.

This, I believe, was the Somnalibus. His image then vanished (I may have imagined a smile), and all was silence. Except for the sound of Melissa’s heavy breathing.

I waited a beat before exiting the car, looking first to Trixie. “I’ve missed something.”

“No kidding,” Trixie chirped back. “Man, you just can’t stop yourself from saying idiotic things, can you. It’s actually fascinating.”

Melissa trudged back to the car, looking tired, rumpled and sweaty, which I found simultaneously worrisome, given how she’s usually more proper, as well as bizarrely erotic, for precisely the same reason.

“Tell me you and Amy handled the vampyre spirit,” she said, more a statement of what she wanted to be true than an actual question.

“Yeah. Well, the Somnalibus did,” I amended.

“Good,” Melissa said with a sigh.

I then glanced towards the shattered mirror on the pavement of the parking lot. “Your, um, lycan dealt with?”

She shrugged. “If that went right, he’s trapped in the Culicinae realm with the vampyres. If not, well, at least he’s not here any more.”

“Ah. Well, good.”

The two of us linked eyes. Melissa’s cheeks were already flushed, and I suspect mine got darker too, at the intensity of her gaze. I cleared my throat, searching for the right words. “This is probably going to sound weird. But I’ve missed this.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “Only the cases then?”

I slowly shook my head. It’s possible my gaze wandered over her form.

“So you’re coming back.” Again, almost a question, but more a statement of hopeful truth.

I paused for a moment to make sure I meant it. “Yeah. If you’ll have me.”

“Oh, heck yeah,” Melissa repeated, sighing again. “I’d much rather bring you to dinner with my parents tomorrow, instead of Trixie.”

“Right. I can underst– wait, what?”

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 3a: OF LYCANS AND PROPHECIES

“Hi Missy,” the redhead said in delight as soon as she picked up. “James get to you in time with the garlic?”

“So it was you who sent him.”

“No, he psychically knew you were in trouble. You two have that special bond.”

Melissa sighed. “Trixie…”

“Well, what did you expect me to say? Anyway, how is it that in all our conversations you failed to mention that James is somehow a competent idiot? That’s a real interesting mix. For the record, I’ve told him he can do better than you."

“Trixie, he’s not your type.”

“Oh, sure, immediately leap to thinking that I hit on him."

“I bet you at least did your stupid ‘look at my chest’ pose.”

“Stupid, hmm? What if I said James looked, meaning he’s a typical guy? B-t-w, green’s not a good colour on you, Missy.”

Melissa leaned in against the steering wheel. “Let’s table this. I need you to bring some items over to his and Amy’s room, ASAP.”

“I’m already here. How about you simply bring this stuff to me?”

The brunette witch blinked. “What are you doing in James’ room?”

“He wanted me to protect Amy while he was gone. Little thing called chivalry. Remind me to fill you in on the concept.”

I’d once suggested to Melissa that if someone was being deliberately annoying around her, she should simply count down from five in her head to avoid saying a rather blunt remark, thus causing the situation to escalate further. I suspect that’s why she remained silent for a moment at this point.

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

Come to think, Melissa pauses like that a lot when Trixie is around.

“Fine, well, I’m parked in front of that room with James asleep in the passenger seat,” Melissa said at last. “So we might as well be talking in person.”

“YOU called ME,” Trixie reminded.

Melissa simply hung up. She then dropped the phone onto the floor of the car and reached for the door handle – which is when the rear window shattered from the large rock that had been thrown at it.

The witch quickly spun, and she admitted to me that her heart briefly leapt into her throat, over concern that the mirror had been destroyed prior to our agreed upon time. It had fallen over, but still seemed intact.

Unfortunately, with her attention being on the mirror, she was unable to defend against the long, hairy arm that reached in through the shattered glass and grabbed for her throat from behind. “Melissssssssa,” a voice hissed.

“Urk!” was all Melissa could manage to vocalize.

Her mind immediately went to work sizing up the situation. She didn’t have enough force to break the grip. Her better spells required a focusing phrase, which was currently impossible. I was obviously not in a position to help, her phone was on the floor, and she wasn’t in the best position to strike back at her aggressor. Moreover, while slamming her hand down on the horn might attract the attention of someone - like Trixie - who could help, it might also wake up Amy, which was also not in Melissa’s best interests.

At this point, I will mention that there is a spell, unique to every witch, known as ‘ultima ratio’ (or ‘last resort’). They can invoke it in times of dire emergency.

I say it’s unique, because it might involve vanishing, or explosions, or growing a third arm, or whatever said witch has previously decided should happen if the situation is really as bad as all that. It also effectively renders the witch incapable of casting spells for quite some time afterwards, hence why it’s a last resort spell.

Of course, Melissa’s situation here was, in fact, not as bad as all that – I mostly bring it up at this point so that it’s not a surprise later, and to give you a sense of how bad things may yet become.

What Melissa did do at this point was reach up and rake her fingernails over the hairy hand that had her by the throat.

When the hand flinched, she was able to subvocalize a particular thought.

When the car then caught fire, the hand flinched even more, to the point where she could rasp out, “Fulgur.”

Melissa tapping her fingers against the hand now sent a sharp electric shock through it. By the time her opponent had processed the fact that the fire had no heat, he was jerking back and twitching from her electrical attack anyway. (Illusion, Melissa has said, can be a very powerful tool. At the very least, it can provide one with the second or two that’s needed to think up something better.)

Melissa wasted no time in kicking her car door open and getting out, in order to put herself in a more defensible position.

Her opponent – a lycan, as mentioned earlier, so essentially a wolfman in jeans – was able to backhand her before she was fully prepared.

Melissa’s body flew back onto the hood of the car, but she rolled with it, landing in front of the vehicle on one knee. Trixie poked her head around the motel room curtains at about this point, having heard something. Her eyes went wide, and keeping the drapes pulled back at least slightly, in order to still be able to see Amy, she hurried outside.

“Do you two mind?” Trixie quipped at Melissa as she opened the door, and then tried to close it as quietly as possible. “People at this motel are trying to sleep.”

“Not now, Trixie,” was Melissa’s only response, slowly getting to her feet, eyes fixated on her attacker.

The lycan, for his part, had also paused to size up the situation, seeing as he’d now lost the advantage of surprise.

“Lycan,” Trixie said, a mite reduntantly, to fill the ensuing silence. “Different from a werewolf, silver doesn’t apply. You’ll have to –”

“I know how to fight a lycan, Trix,” Melissa said, her tone clipped.

Trixie hushed. Whenever Melissa started getting terse, you knew she was serious. (Conversely, Trixie tends to use full names when she gets serious, as she likes using nicknames as a matter of course. Go figure.)

For your sake though, assuming you are unaware, I’ll mention that the main difference between a werewolf and a lycan is that the former requires a full moon to transform, while the latter has more control. There are other differences, but, well, the internet is actually not as wholly inaccurate on this particular distinction as it is on others, so you can check into them yourself if you like.

Melissa and the lycan continued their staring contest for a few moments more.

“So,” Melissa ventured. “I’m willing to go our separate ways here. Though I’d recommend some silver sulfadiazine, should help you balance out your control issues, you’re liable to get in trouble looking like that.”

“I won’t be in trouble once I keep you from restoring the balance, Melisssssa Viiiirga,” the lycan retorted at last. “Very arrogant of you to put your real name on the motel ledger.”

“I’ve been told I can be arrogant,” Melissa admitted.

“Yeah, I’ve told her that,” Trixie chimed in.

“Is this not directly connected to the whole vampyre thing with Amy then?” Melissa continued.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Trixie lamented, when the lycan simply stared. “The movies have lied to us again, not everything interconnects.” She shook her head sadly, her twintails knocking against her shoulders.

The lycan’s eyes narrowed. “You two must think you’re pretty smart.”

“IQ of 151,” the redhead said proudly.

“Must you always bring that up?” Melissa said in annoyance.

“Oh, right, cuz as you’ve told me, James never flaunted his intelligence. His apparent complete absence of such, you seem to have become love numbed towards.”

“Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.”

“Shut up,” the lycan said in disbelief.

“Make me,” Trixie shot back.

The wolf form lunged at them. Or more specifically, at Melissa, though he took a side swipe at Trixie too.

The redhead was able to simply step back; Melissa’s dodge had to be a bit more artistic, but seeing as she’d anticipated the lycan’s move, she was even able to reach out and grab one of the motel’s exterior deck chairs to use as a shield afterwards.

“MAKE me?” she said to Trixie in disbelief.

“Sorry, hadn’t parsed it was him saying that,” the younger witch mumbled.

“I’ll lead him on a chase, meet you at the pool,” Melissa concluded, as the lycan managed to rip the chair from her hands. The pool was one of the outdoor types that these motels sometimes have.

“But…” Trixie began, gesturing at the motel room, before blinking and nodding in realization. She pulled out her computing device again, punching something in quickly with her thumbs. “Rixi, protective scrolls,” she said.

“All right,” her own voice replied agreeably. “Accessing.”

One light show later, and Trixie was quickly thumbing some self-adhesive papers to the motel room’s door jamb and window.

At the same time, Melissa had made a run for her own motel room. It wasn’t, in fact, her destination, but she had hoped the lycan would believe that to be the case. She had already concluded that she wouldn’t be able to outpace him on foot – wolves are damn fast – and that running any sort of confusing zigzag pattern would only serve to slow herself down.

As expected, he did jump in front of her, so as her own foot touched the ground, she intoned, “Salio!”

As her foot came up, she shot at least ten feet into the air. With her momentum still carrying her forwards, she easily overshot her opponent, and was able to continue running.

With a snarl, the lycan turned to catch up again, this time passing her and blocking passage to the room she had booked. Which was pretty much what she’d hoped.

She turned to the side before reaching the lycan, grabbing the long push broom that someone had left next to a small pile of debris, outside an unoccupied room. After giving it a quick enchantment, she grabbed the handle, hopped up onto it, and rode it off in the other direction, like a segway. (I believe I mentioned this is how she uses brooms to travel.)

With an exclamation of annoyance, the wolf followed, but now at least they were moving at roughly the same speed.

“Hurry it up, Trix,” Melissa remarked as she came within earshot of my hotel room again.

“I’m keeping James’ current girlfriend safe,” Trixie retorted as she stepped back to activate her scrolls. “You’d be blamed if Amy came to harm.”

“That girl’s not his girlfriend yet,” Melissa was heard to mumble as she continued to ride her push broom through the parking lot.

I hesitate to point out here that no effort was made to actually protect my slumbering form in the front seat of the car. I’m not sure what that says about my witch associates, or about me, but I choose to believe they felt I was in no danger, or could handle myself. Somehow.

The lycan continued his pursuit of Melissa, obviously his primary target. She continued to glide on her broom in the dim light being cast from both the moon and the neon sign for the motel, until she reached the access to the pool.

The gate was locked, but public property has never stopped a witch before. Once inside, she was confronted with the fact that it had not yet been opened for the season, and remained totally drained.

This did not bode well for her initial idea of getting the wolf wet, and possibly altering the chlorine content to be something rather more aggravating to her adversary.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 2e: OF VAMPYRES AND GENIES

Amy let out a little sigh of relief. The vamp quickly recovered, landing back on his feet.

“Can’t attack a genie that way,” Amy admonished, apparently starting to assert herself a bit more, seeing as we were out of the detective scenario and into something a little more familiar to her.

“You gave yourself powers,” the vampyre realized. He shot a look at the Somnalibus. “Little help here?” he demanded.

The white haired Somnalibus demon sized up the situation. The vampyre was, for the moment, keeping his distance away from Amy by the wall, as well as from me, in the light coming in from a front window.

“You can handle it,” the demon concluded, crossing his arms and leaning back against the open doorway. In other words, the outcome here was uncertain, and the Somnalibus didn’t want to be on the losing side.

“You useless piece of–” The vampyre didn’t even bother to finish the sentence, instead reaching for the vase on a nearby table, heaving it at Amy instead.

Again, she raised her fingers, the object bouncing off an invisible wall. Regrettably, the vampyre had probably counted on that, as he used Amy’s momentary distraction to jump at ME.

I was at least able to reason out his angle of attack, namely parallel to the window, since he was having to pull the curtain as he moved. To block out the sun.

This let me evade his initial strike, and vault over the couch, though without thinking I put some weight on my wrist as I did so. I cried out in pain before falling onto the floor.

“James?” Amy called out in concern.

“Capture the vampyre in a cage or something,” I suggested, my arm throbbing.

“I cannot grant you that wish unless you have my lamp,” Amy protested.

“Think of a better idea yourself then?” I ventured.

“I cannot use magic on the world around me, unless it’s in self-defense.”

Okay, her dream world, her rules. You’d think she could have bent them, but then, certain beliefs can be pretty fundamental to an individual’s personality. Also, in a way it means supernatural balance was playing a role even here.

I became very busy fending off the vampyre’s next attack, wishing that I’d had the presence of mind to throw on a turtleneck sweater at some earlier point in the evening.

With the curtain closed, grabbing one of the couch cushions became my plan for blocking an attack to my face or neck. It was successful, but the vampyre then went for my injured wrist.

Well, that wasn’t good.

I kicked at him, but he avoided it. His grip locked around my arm, and just as I felt like there was no way to prevent him from biting down on my skin somehow, there was a smashing sound, and he collapsed on top of me.

I quickly hefted him off and crawled to safety, seeing that Amy the Genie was now standing above the both of us with her hands on her hips.

“I can still attack without using magic,” she asserted. Pieces of the other vase in the room were now scattered about the floor, following its impact on the vampyre’s skull. Unfortunately, he remained conscious, and seemed to be shaking it off.

There seemed to be only one way out of this.

“Amy, give me your lamp?” I requested.

She immediately tossed it in my direction. I caught it with my good hand, then rubbed it with my opposing elbow. “We good for magick on my behalf now?” I asked.

“Mmm hmm! Three wishes, Master,” she affirmed, seemingly smothering a giggle as she tacked on that last term. Under different circumstances, it would have been very cute.

“I wish that the vampyre here be trapped in a cage that he cannot escape from, which has us on the outside, yet is such that we can still see and converse with him,” I blurted out.

The thing with genies, even friendly ones, is trying to account for some of those little loopholes that wishing always seems to generate.

“Granted,” Amy said, clapping her palms together.

With a clanging sound, a cage of iron bars dropped from the ceiling, narrowly missing my foot as it enclosed the vampire. Along with the couch and a quarter of the room.

Well, it didn’t really matter to me that it was roomy inside. I got to my feet again, moving to stand next to Amy as the vampyre also rose. He immediately lunged, reaching through the bars, but fortunately his reach wasn’t enough to touch us.

Sensing that he was temporarily out of options, he stepped back, crossed his arms and glared. “What now then, associates of Melissa?” he demanded. “Are you going to kill me?”

It was a rather good question, actually. I looked to Amy. “I don’t suppose I can wish for him to be banished back to his realm.”

“Uh, since his realm isn’t within this dream, I’d have no idea how to do that,” Amy apologized.

I rubbed my chin. “How about wishing for him to spill everything he knows about the prophecy he mentioned? Could be a clue there.”

Amy shook her head. “James - that is, Master - this vampire is not actually a character in my dream, so I can’t interfere with his free will.” She frowned. “Come on, can’t you think of some way that my magic would be of use?”

I refrained from bringing up her pronunciation issues.

“Fine, we can certainly make things uncomfortable here, such that he’d want to cooperate of his own accord,” I concluded. “Amy — uh, Genie - I wish for garlic to be in every house and environment in this world. Along with a basket of garlic bread for the both of us.”

My Asian/Arabian friend grinned once again. “Granted,” she declared, again clapping her hands.

The vampyre’s eyes went wide. “No,” he said rather hoarsely, as cloves and sprigs of garlic suddenly popped into the room. A gift basket of bread also appeared on a nearby table.

The vamp threw his arm over his face, to try and screen his breathing. Or perhaps to remind himself that he didn’t need to breathe, I don’t know.

“Fine, torture me if you like,” he shot back. “It’s still nothing compared to what my fate would otherwise be, either within your realm, or my own.”

I handed some garlic bread over to Amy as I pondered that. “What, are you a wanted felon or something back in Culicinae?” I asked, now hoping I was pronouncing it right.

He didn’t respond, simply glaring with his red eyes. I sighed, taking a bite of bread myself, before shrugging and looking back at my companion.

“Maybe we’ll have to wait until Melissa shows,” I concluded.

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

Amy’s eyes went wide. “What? She’s coming into this dream as well?”

“That had been the plan, I think. She was returning to the motel first.”

“But I can’t let her see me like this,” Amy protested, tossing her garlic bread aside. “It’s bad enough that YOU are seeing one of my most secret desires. Dammit James…!”

Amy pressed two fingers to her forehead, and it felt like the room blurred a bit around the edges.

“I-I’m sorry,” I apologized, suddenly worried that she was going to wake up. “Could we simply get you a disguise?”

Amy shook her head. “Give me the knife back, I guess I need its help to reverse this whole setting.”

I frowned. “The knife?”

“Yes, I turned Melissa’s nasty knife into that lamp when I switched us over into this fantasy.”

My fingers tightened on the object.

How long had I been holding the knife/lamp now? At least a minute. And when Melissa said two minutes, she meant it. And once I exited, the mirror would be smashed, and Amy would wake up.

“Okay, big problem. Hypothetically, what would happen to the vampyre if this dream abruptly ended?” I asked, not really expecting Amy to be able to answer.

“He’d probably make me jump to another one,” answered the Somnalibus in her place.

I’d almost forgotten about him.

I turned to the white haired demon, still watching us from the entranceway to the room. “What if you were released though?” I asked, trying to speak quickly without slurring my words. “If the item in my world that the vampyre had used to trap you here with him were to be simultaneously destroyed along with the end of this dream.”

An eyebrow went up. “He’d merely be a free floating spirit then. Albeit one liable to trap another of my kind and then find more victims.”

“Could you act to prevent that, within the next thirty seconds? With my personal guarantee that you will be freed from his influence thereafter?”

The demon half smiled, straightening his posture and cracking his knuckles. “Indeed I could. Because I’ve always wanted to see precisely why my associate decreed the absence of all garlic within the dreams of your companion.”

“Now hold on,” the vampyre said, finally sounding a bit worried. “I was going to release you too. Right? Once I’d become corporeal? You’ve known this James guy for all of half an hour. How can you trust him over me?!”

“From what I have seen of her dreams, this Amy is honourable,” the Somnalibus responded. “I extrapolate the same to her friend. Moreover…” The demon smiled a rather unpleasant looking smile. “In the more lengthy time I’ve known you, I’ve decided I quite DISLIKE you, Culicinae. You think you know better than me? You may have another think coming.”

I held up the lamp. “Third wish. That the Somnalibus here have access to the vampyre’s cage, along with whatever else he might need to defeat the vampyre before I depart.”

“Granted,” Amy said, clapping her hands.

“I don’t need anything else,” the Somnalibus rumbled, grabbing Amy’s discarded garlic bread before marching through the iron bars as if they weren’t there.

The vampyre backpedaled frantically. “Buddy. Friend! Let’s talk about this,” the vampyre began, only to shriek as he put his palm down onto one of the garlic cloves that Amy had summoned up earlier.

“We may not want to watch this,” I realized.

“Yeeeah,” Amy said, briefly tugging on my sleeve before heading out into the hallway.

I followed, though was still in time to hear the vampyre scream again like it had when Melissa had blown the garlic vapours at him.

“In fact,” Amy continued, moving to sit on the stairs. “Leaving the vampyre at his mercy, even this doesn’t feel right, somehow.”

“No element of poetic justice?” I suggested.

“Maybe,” Amy granted.

The screams cut out. She shuddered.

“My wonderful genie fantasy’s been tainted," Amy murmured. “I wonder how much of this I’ll actually remember when I wake up.”

“At least your dreams will be yours own from now on,” I offered.

“Oh! There’s that.” She looked up at me. “Thanks, James. You’ve helped me to realize that magic is–”

“–a much bigger problem,” Melissa shouted.

I sat up, realizing that I was back to being in the passenger seat of the car. We seemed to be parked at the motel.

“He’s awake,” Trixie called out, staring at me through the front windshield.

“Arcesso!” Melissa stated.

I turned in time to see Charlie’s bathroom mirror fly out of the back seat, through the previously shattered rear window, towards Melissa’s outstretched hand.

“Honestly,” Melissa continued, and in the dim lighting of the parking lot, all I could see was that she was talking to some sort of beast, looming over her. “If there’s one thing more annoying than unexpected vampyres, it’s when they’re accompanied by lycans.”

I’d better back up.

END ACT 2

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 2a: OF VAMPYRES AND GENIES

Feeling momentarily disoriented, I took a half step back before evaluating my surroundings. Large wooden desk, coat rack, filing cabinet, no obvious windows. That is, the door had a window, but the glass was frosted. Had I just been magically teleported somewhere? If so, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

Lacking anything better to do, I moved to open the door and peer outside.

On the other side of it was Amy, although she seemed to have purple hair. Like in one of her reviews, except it didn’t look like a wig, the colour looked completely natural. She looked equally startled to see me.

“James?” she said in confusion. She looked down at the rather familiar knife in her hand, then back up. “Did I summon you here? Because the private investigator I was hiring a minute ago just seemed to vanish on me when I turned–”

And then just like that, I was back in the hotel.

“–like an idiot,” Trixie concluded.

“Whoa, what?” I placed a hand to the side of my head to steady myself.

“I said you could actually suggest pertinent details from Amy’s recurring dreams, or continue to stand there like an idiot,” the redheaded witch reiterated without missing a beat, still scrolling through the internet using her electronic device.

“I think I just saw it,” I admitted. “She was with a private investigator.”

“Vampyr PIs, okay, that narrows it down to Moonlight, Angel, Forever Knight, maybe True Blood – no, wait, Blood Ties…” Trixie stopped and looked back up. “JUST saw? Wait. Were you also holding onto the talisman when Amy fell asleep?”

“Yeah.”

Trixie stared. “Huh. That’s either brilliant, or idiotic. I know which direction I’m leaning, but then again, maybe you do have some usefulness after all. Go fig.”

She finally lowered her keyboard to continue. “Look, there’s a good chance Amy’s dreams were being used as a kind of self insertion fanfiction. Can you recall anything more about a dream motif on her end that might lead us towards the kind of vampyr we’re dealing with?”

“Uh…” I tried to recall some of the information I’d previously passed on to Melissa. “The theme was often film noir, so not a lot of sunlight.”

“Yeah, but no vampyre types like sun, it doesn’t even kill all of them, and right now it’s 11 PM, so Missy can’t use that. Next?”

“Okay, euh… oh, countdowns. There was almost always a countdown to some event or other celebration in a lot of the dreams Amy could remember.”

“So now we’re leaning towards the more OCD vampyres, like the ones from X-Files or the Count from Sesame Street. Better. More?”

“I…”

With a slight ping in my ears, I was back in Amy’s dreamworld again. This time I was standing in a lobby. It seemed likely that I was in the same building that the PI’s office had been in during my last trip, as I saw Amy walking across the open area, towards the front doors.

“Amy!” I called out to her, hurrying to catch up. “Where are you going?”

She turned. “James? You’re back! I… I was thinking I should be somewhere surrounded by people. Or should I just wake up? I mean, if the investigator was Charlie, and he’s not here any more?”

“No,” I said hastily, which I then attempted to clarify. “There’s been complications. What I need to know is –”

How could I put it incredibly succinctly? There was no telling how much time I had left here! But just like that, I had it. “Is there anything that you particularly enjoy in real life, that you never, ever, remember having or seeing while you’re inside of these dreams?”

Amy blinked, and her brow creased a bit as she looped a bit of purple hair back off her ear. “Wow, no pressure, huh? Um… oh! Would garlic bread count? That and bruschetta, it’s never on the menus in the restaurants which–”

“–are being increasingly unhelpful,” Trixie concluded in annoyance, as I adjusted to my return to reality.

“Garlic,” I said firmly. “Garlic’s been absent from Amy’s dreams. It must be a particular weakness.”

“Says who?” Trixie said dismissively. “Vampyres have heightened senses, which are irritated by items like allium sativum.” Then her head canted to the side, one of her two red twintails swishing over her shoulder. “Unless?”

She resumed tapping at her keyboard.

“Unless?” I prompted after a second or two.

“Culicinae realm,” the redhead muttered. “It fits, but realistically there’s no way Charlie would know about it. Still…” She punched a final button, then spoke into her phone. “Rixi, garlic cloves.”

“All right,” the device intoned back. It didn’t sound like Siri, the voice was an electronic variation on Trixie’s own voice. “Accessing.”

Having backpedalled a step or two at the sound, I stepped forwards again. Only to take another step back as a small globe of light appeared, hovering over the screen. Inside the glowing sphere, what looked like a few cloves of garlic appeared; Trixie grabbed them, which dispelled the light.

Sensing (or expecting?) my amazement, the young witch shot me a knowing grin. “My own personal Siri, connected to my magical hammerspace. Did I mention I have an IQ of 151?”

“Um, no,” I said. I supposed I could believe it, she seemed to know exactly what she was doing. “And why do you have a hammerspace full of garlic?”

“I’ve had to eat Missy’s cooking,” Trixie said with a shrug. “Remind me to impress you more later, for now, we’d better get this to my cousin.” She strode over towards the door – which I now realized had been partly ajar throughout the whole conversation – then looked back at me expectantly.

“Trixie, I can’t leave Amy,” I pointed out, gesturing at the bed.

At that moment, my Asian friend stirred a little, and I found myself standing outside on a street, no doubt in her dream again. However, this time, before I could even get a handle on exactly where Amy was, I was back in the motel room, so all that really happened was I missed the gist of what Trixie was saying. Something about driving.

“Sorry, mentally absent again,” I apologized.

Trixie pressed a palm to her forehead, and then spoke with deliberate enunciation. “Me no license. Cannot teleport somewhere new. Car faster than broom. You drive?”

“I can, but someone has to stay with Amy,” I reiterated. “If she gets in trouble in the dream, someone may need to wake her up.”

“Seriously?” Trixie made a bit of a pouty face as she stared at me. Just as I was wondering if her interpersonal skills were really any better than Melissa’s, she reached out to grab my hand.

“Fine,” the redhead said, handing over the garlic, along with another object that she pulled from her pocket. “Skeleton key,” she explained as I looked down at it. “It’s how I got in here.”

She then rattled off an address and apartment number. “But hurry up,” Trixie finished. “While I’m sure my cousin can hold her own, it’s better for all of us if she doesn’t get bitten by any lurking vampyres in the process, hm?”

Given how it had already been close to five minutes since I’d sent the text, and from what I recalled of the town’s road map, it was liable to take me another five to get over to Melissa’s location… I hurried up.

For her part, Melissa hadn’t wasted any time in shutting her phone completely off after receiving my message. She even admitted later that she hadn’t fully read what I’d sent, so perhaps I could have texted anything. For the sake of the narrative, I’ll give you the gist of what happened here, as I was talking with Trixie.

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

Focused on the task at hand, Melissa began by using a picture of a key (and a little magick) to trip the lock on the apartment complex. When that worked, she decided that the complex itself wasn’t housing a lot of witches, or at least that there was not liable to be any magical protection outside of Carlie Halko’s apartment.

Melissa then proceeded up the stairs and to the apartment door in question, taking just a moment to listen against it, figuring it was possible that Charlie wasn’t alone inside. As it turned out, she was correct in that, though not in the typical sense.

Hearing nothing, she gently tried the door – locked, eliminating the excuse of meaning to have gone next door – and proceeded to knock.

Some might find this tipping of her hand to be a curious decision, but understand that Melissa had held some hope that Charlie would be reasonable when confronted with the truth of the situation. Plus there was always the chance that she and Trixie had been wrong about his involvement, and on top of this, Melissa says deadbolts are a pain to deal with, even using magick.

There was no answer, but my former roommate later indicated to me that, at this point, she thought she heard someone moving around inside. Melissa then tried to open the door using the old trick of sliding a piece of plastic between the lock and the doorframe. (Well, it wasn’t plastic per se, but you get the gist.)

This being a more conventional way to break and enter, it could have tipped her off as to the extent of actual magical protection on the door, as well as informed her as to how much force she might need to use on a more unconventional attempt.

However, with a click, it felt like the door completely unlocked at this one attempt.

That immediately ramped up Melissa’s level of concern. Either Charlie was way too overconfident, or he was forgetful, or… he was otherwise prepared for this sort of eventuality.

She turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open.

At that point, all Melissa could register was that it was dark. Even the curtains leading to the small balcony were blacked out, meaning the only light spilling in was from the hall.

Committed now, Melissa took a step or two, attuning her senses to the talisman that Amy had, looking for a trace of it to pinpoint the Somnalibus as soon as possible.

The door swung shut.

Melissa ducked instinctively, having caught sight of movement out of the corner of her eye. The frying pan whizzed over her head, and the person swinging it was put off balance. (Of note, her small stature can be an advantage at times like this.)

During Melissa’s initial scan, in the available light from the hallway, she had remembered seeing a light switch, and dove for it now. Hoping to gain the advantage, given that Charlie’s eyes were obviously attuned to the darkness, while she had the opposite problem.

But despite flipping the switch, no light came on.

Melissa hadn’t brought a flashlight; she doesn’t like to weigh herself down with useless items. So her backup plan became a lamp on a nearby table.

Ducking again and heading over, she didn’t even fumble for the lamp’s switch, instead reaching out to touch the bulb, then calling, “Luminarium!” The lamp switched on, revealing… a lot more lamps.

As far as layout went, Charlie’s apartment door opened into a main living area and kitchen. Apart from the closet (where Melissa deduced that her assailant had crouched when she knocked), there were two other doors. But what really drew her attention now was how a lot of available space was taken up with lights and lamps.

Ones that Amy had reviewed in her online web series.

Of course, Charlie was also visible now, brandishing the same frying pan which he’d swung earlier. He was of medium build, with short dark hair, wearing a button up shirt and pants.

“Witch!” he called out, recognizing the use of a spell (and not, presumably, fumbling a ‘b’). He flung his frying pan right at Melissa’s head, despite blinking to adjust to the illumination.

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 1f: OF WITCHES AND DEMONS

“You once told me she’d be broke by now if it weren’t for you helping her plan out some investments,” Amy pointed out.

“Well, there’s that. No one’s perfect.”

“Also, she’s rude and insensitive.”

“Not out of spite. You just have to get to know her.”

Amy continued to look at me quietly for a moment. “You talk a lot about Melissa,” she said at last.

I blinked. Did I really? “Oh. Um, sorry?”

Amy shook her head. “Don’t apologize, it’s just… I don’t know. Never mind.”

Amy pulled away and rose off the bed again. “I should probably get ready to sleep,” she concluded, moving towards her overnight bag. Setting the knife on the side table, she stretched her arms over her head before reaching down to pick her bag up. “Now, no peeking,” she added, teasingly waggling a finger.

“Of course,” I retorted, pressing a hand to my chest and looking indignant as she vanished into the bathroom.

Though, truth be told, I was still a little hung up on Amy’s prior remark. With her out of the room, I used my eidetic memory to flash back to a few of my conversations over the last three weeks. Melissa had, in fact, come up in a lot of them, in one form or another.

Was I really living a life without Melissa? And was that really what I wanted?

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

For a minute, I worried that I had turned into one of those guys who’s always obliviously droning on about his ex-girlfriend. If that was the case, why hadn’t Amy said something sooner? After all, Melissa sure would have said something if… damn it, there she was again.

Amy was right, I couldn’t get her out of my head.

I forced myself to calm down and assess things a bit more rationally. It wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed. Yes, Melissa had come up in conversations, but usually only in passing, in connection to a topic already being discussed. I wasn’t purposefully mentioning her name, or drawing comparisons between the two girls, like an idiot. Melissa had simply been THERE the entire time I was in university.

Consider that game ‘Taboo’, where you have to make a person guess a word without using any of five words associated with it. Not as easy as it sounds. In the same vein, Melissa couldn’t help but be associated with a lot of words in my life. So to speak.

However.

It finally dawned on me that I’d been treating the last few weeks almost like a vacation, like “down time”. But a vacation from what? Was it in the back of my head that I’d be going back to Melissa’s agency?

Also, while I’d been enjoying my time with Amy, I hadn’t felt like she needed me the way Melissa did. Oh sure, I was helping Amy out, but I’m she could just as easily have found someone else to be a bodyguard. Could the same thing be said of the help I gave to Melissa? Because honestly, I didn’t mind helping her with organization or finance. It helped give me purpose, and she was appreciative.

Also, what of the way Melissa had been helping me to see the world?

One other point of comparison flashed into my head then, as Melissa had predicted three weeks ago. For the record, I’m not exactly proud of what I did next. When Amy came out of the bathroom, dressed in her pyjamas, I moved in close… and kissed her.

This wasn’t completely out of left field. We had almost kissed on one prior occasion, a goodnight kiss when dropping her off, and I’d been the one to turn away at the last moment. Which might be why Amy went along with it now, not shoving me or saying “what the hell?” or anything.

No, she simply kissed me back for a second or two before marginally tilting her head away.

“Why James, what prompted that?” she said coyly, slightly raising an eyebrow.

“I…” Words failed me. ‘I wanted to see if I’d enjoy a kiss with you as much as I had with Melissa’ was definitely the wrong thing to say. I wondered if Melissa would have said it anyway. “I wanted to make sure you had pleasant dreams tonight,” I managed.

I think Amy sensed there was more to it than that, but either she didn’t want to confront the issue, or she didn’t want to admit it to herself. Instead, she smiled. “Works for me!” Giving me a quick hug, she then went back over to the desk to pick up the knife, meaning she was facing away from me.

I brushed my fingers against my lips. Had Amy’s kiss been better? Worse? Well, it had been different. And maybe, in the end, that’s what was at the heart of the matter. Did I want new and different, like Amy? Or back to more of the same with Melissa? Not that any of Melissa’s cases could ever truly be called “the same” as another.

“Would you mind holding this until I actually fall asleep, then slipping it into my hand?” Amy requested, turning back and holding the knife out. “I want to minimize the chance that I’ll roll over and accidentally impale myself.”

I latched onto the change of subject. “I wouldn’t mind. But it might be that you have to be holding it when you nod off. I don’t want to be responsible for screwing up the enchantment.”

“Huh. Well, at least hold my hand too, until I’m sleeping then?”

“I… sure,” I agreed after a momentary hesitation. After all, after having kissed, that seemed like a perfectly reasonable request.

Amy got under the covers, with the exception of the arm holding the knife, and I stretched out next to her on top of the sheets, reaching over to clasp the knife along with her, as requested. She then activated it using the trigger word. The knife seemed to glow momentarily.

“Hopefully after tonight, we can put all this supernatural craziness behind us,” the dark haired girl finished with a sigh.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. Because to hear her say that finally helped me realize that I didn’t WANT to put it behind me.

I didn’t want to go through life doing a mundane job with normal people. I wanted life to be a little adventurous, a little crazy, a little… Melissa. And as far as the romance angle went, sure, Melissa only had two settings. Hot and cold. While Amy, she had layers. But with Melissa, you always knew where you stood.

I then wondered whether a mild form of Stockholm Syndrome could have been involved.

I took more time to turn things around in my head again, as Amy slowly nodded off. But ultimately, I arrived at the point where you entered this story. Looking down at my childhood friend, then at the knife, then towards the window, I realized that Melissa Virga was the one for me. Or at least, that she was the one for me at this point in my life.

At last, I had a pathway forwards.

Noting Amy’s regular breathing, I carefully pulled my hand away from the knife, pulled my phone from my pocket, and texted Melissa that Amy was asleep.

About two seconds later, the motel room door flew open, revealing a freckled redhead, sporting two twintails. She was dressed in a sleeveless collared shirt, which was grey with blue highlights, along with a short skirt and matching stockings. The outfit screamed “schoolgirl”, but while she looked sixteen, I found out later that she wasn’t much younger than I was.

The first words she hissed at me were, “Don’t send Melissa a message.”

The redheaded teenager’s voice clicked right away. I realized we’d spoken on the phone once before. “Trixie?” I said uncertainly, and quietly, so as to not wake Amy.

“Duh,” Trixie retorted, her voice similarly muted. “Oh, wait, let me guess, my cousin didn’t mention that the two of us had taken a room at the motel too?”

“No,” I admitted, rising gingerly from the bed to approach. I glanced at our motel room door. “Also, I was sure I’d locked that.”

Trixie made a show of waving her palm in a large arc in front of her. “Hiiiii. Witch. Locked motel door, not a problem, they open for anyone with a ‘key’.”

She paused, then canted her head to the side in a way that I can only describe as being remarkably cute. “So, you’re James. Wow, you’re a LOT more drab in person. Missy is actually terrible at disseminating information. Why did you leave her, exactly?"

“Hey!” I protested. “I didn’t… leave her. Not really. I just needed some time away.”

“Psssh. You don’t hire your cousin to handle your technology if you think your ex-boyfriend is coming back. Not that I care about your relationship, you realize. I simply wish Missy could’ve shut up about you for longer than five minutes.”

That remark caught me off guard. “Mel used to mention me?”

“Duh, she sure did. It’s partly why I was interested in meeting…” Trixie’s voice trailed off and her eyes narrowed. “Are you having second thoughts about her? Oh lordy, you are. C’mon, you’re not THAT plain. You could do SO much better than Missy. Even within the magick community. You know that, right?"

“What?”

“There are witches who do tech, y’know. For example, there’s me! A witch who’s nearly twenty, and who can actually carry on an intelligible conversation on Skype.” She smiled and clasped her hands behind her back, leaning forwards alluringly. “I dress better than Missy too, hmmmm? You like?”

“Uh, yes. I mean, no. I mean, you dress different, but why are you even dressed that way?”

I was a little troubled in the way my eyes responded to her lean by slipping away from her face. I registered only that Trixie probably had the ability to do bikini modelling the way Melissa could model jeans, before forcing my gaze back up. In my defence, I was tired.

“I like keeping people off balance,” Trixie answered, flashing a smile. “Also, if someone’s talking to my chest, they’re not noticing the evil look in my eye.”

I felt like this conversation was going off the rails. “Look, Trixie, why exactly should I not have sent that text to Melissa?” I questioned.

Her eyes widened. “Sent? Past tense sent, as in she’s about to attack the vampyre, sent?”

“Yeah, uh… vampire?”

Trixie strode forwards and smacked the back of my head. “Idiot, when I tell you not to send a message, don’t let me flirt, tell me right AWAY that it’s too late,” she muttered.

She then pulled a small device out of a pocket in her top. It looked sort of like a cellphone with built-in keyboard, as in an old style Blackberry, but it seemed to have a glowing red crystal embedded in it. Trixie began to poke at the buttons with her thumbs.

“Sh-Should I wake Amy up?”

“No, idiot, that just means Missy wouldn’t know what object to destroy. Assuming she even can, given how she’s not expecting to have to fight a vampyre to get to it… you know, maybe I CAN see why you ended up stuck with Melissa for four years. What’s going on in your head, James?”

“Trixie, please back up, when exactly did vampires enter the picture?”

“Vampyres, elongate the i. And they came in about five minutes ago, when I finally clued in as to the nature of the phrase Charlie Halko uses in his .signature file.”

“Okay, so, Charlie’s a vampyre…?”

The redhead continued to tap away. “No, but he’s gained the ability to emulate one. Which is surprisingly unhelpful given the twelve dozen or so vampyre variations there are out there. I’m trying to narrow it down.” She turned her screen briefly to allow me to see it. “See? TV Tropes, Our Vampires Are Different.”

The screen of her device was faintly glowing red, as opposed to blue. My best guess was that the red crystal was giving Trixie internet access via a nearby wifi. Whether she had a password or not.

“I’d better text Melissa again,” I realized.

“Oh sure, because Missy’ll drop everything to read a TEXT,” Trixie said, rolling her eyes in a good imitation of her cousin. She was immediately back to her web surfing. “For that matter, why not just PHONE Missy, alert EVERYONE to how she’s breaking and entering? Man, just when I thought you couldn’t be even more of an idiot.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” I demanded, starting to feel panicky but still wanting to keep my voice down. Behind us, Amy let out a little moan and twisted a little in the sheets.

That’s when things got really crazy.

END ACT 1

A Virga Mystery: BALANCING ACT

ACT 1e: OF WITCHES AND DEMONS

As Melissa had suggested, I spent all that time with Amy, after moving back to my hometown and staying with my parents.

The justification was that I was keeping Amy safe, being a sort of bodyguard, as well as gathering information. Which was partially true – I did get some hints about pieces of dreams, and information about fans who had sent her messages in the past, all of which I relayed on to Melissa.

Yet at the same time, I couldn’t deny that I was also taking the opportunity to see what life would be like without the presence of supernatural investigating. What life would be like without Melissa.

It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. On some level, that worried me.

I thought I’d be yearning for Melissa’s arms. Instead, I was realizing that half the time my interactions with her had involved me trying to make sure she had an income, and was functioning in modern society. The other half of the time had been spent trying to figure Mel out – her deductive skills, her thought processes, her romantic preferences, et cetera. For the first time in a long time, I no longer felt like had to concern myself with those things.

I DO grant that part of the trouble there could have been my balancing all of that with university classes as well. We all need some downtime, and I hadn’t had any of that in a long time either. Now I had both downtime, and time away from Melissa.

However, in a related note, I wasn’t seeing supernatural events everywhere, which others were writing off as natural phenomena. And that had been one of my other big concerns. Had Melissa known that I needed to experience this?

Finally, there’s the fact that Amy was kind of fun to be around.

I watched her do one of her online episodes, and helped to lay some of the groundwork for her newsletter. We went on what some might classify as dates, though neither of us admitted to each other that that’s what a dinner out was. (My parents, you might imagine, had no problems with the label.)

I also watched Amy sleep, in what we assured ourselves was a purely professional capacity, to see if there were any clues to be garnered there. There didn’t seem to be. (Note I didn’t actually share her bed, and I tried to behave in as much of a non-creepy way as possible.)

Then, I got the phone call.

“Amy’s stalker creep is Charlie Halko,” the female said on the other end of the line. “Missy wants you to bring Amy to a motel just outside the town where he lives. Within the next two or three days, if possible. I’ll email you the info, it’s not overseas or anything. Alright?”

I stared at my phone. “W-Who is this?”

“Trixie. This is James, yeah?”

“Yes… um, you’re working with Melissa?”

A pause. “O. M. G,” the female said at last. “Four years, FOUR FREAKING YEARS with my cousin, and she NEVER mentioned me?”

I did a quick scan back in my semi-photographic memory. “No…?”

Come to think, Melissa had never mentioned any relatives at all, not that I’d ever asked. But I suppose it stood to reason that someone within her family would have made a good replacement for me.

“Missy is SO going to hear from me about that!” came Trixie’s sharp voice. And she hung up.

I never got the email, instead getting the particulars from Melissa herself, when she called me an hour later. Apparently Trixie had told her to “send James the info your own damn self, he doesn’t know me”. More on Melissa’s cousin later.

Amy and I met up with Melissa Virga two days following, at the motel she had recommended.

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

“So here’s the thing,” Melissa said, pacing back and forth in front of the motel room window. (I’d drawn the curtains, of course, so no one could see us. For all I knew, this Halko guy had magical means of knowing Amy was in town, and was looking for her.) “Charlie must be using some kind of item to control the Somnibulus. Problem: I’m going to have no way of identifying what that object might be, and defusing it, unless it’s active.”

“So you need me to fall asleep,” Amy deduced. She was sitting in the only chair in the room, at the desk near the television. I was sitting on a corner of the bed.

Melissa made a little gesture, indicating agreement. “You released a new episode two days ago, and James told me that you’ve had the most difficulty getting a restful sleep in the days after a publication. Plus it’s now Friday night, a good time for Charlie to stay up, so you’re liable to be targeted. Which brings me to our next problem: To have the Somnibulus demon release you of his own free will, we need to make your dreams less hospitable to him.”

I blinked and exchanged a glance with Amy. “How do we do that?”

“Lucid dreaming,” Melissa clarified. “That is, becoming aware of the fact that you’re in a dream, and taking control of it. It’s the best way. Somnibuli hate that, they basically become at your mercy rather than the other way around.”

“I’ve heard of the concept,” Amy agreed. “But I have no idea how to do it.”

“Oh, I figured as much,” Melissa said offhandedly. She finished her most recent bout of pacing over by a small bag she’d brought with her, reaching in and pulling out an ornamental knife. “That’s why I’ve enchanted this object to act as a focus. Upon seeing it in your dream, you should realize the truth of your situation and be able to act as you like.”

Amy’s eyes went a little wider. “Okay… one, what guarantee do I have that your focus will show up in my dream at all, and second, why a KNIFE of all things?”

I found myself answering. “It makes sense that if you go to bed holding it, the enchantment will take effect, bringing it into the dream with you. As to the object itself, either the knife was particularly easy to enchant, or Melissa was considering the need for self defence. Or a combination of the two.”

“That’s pretty accurate, well done,” Melissa said, lightly tapping the fingers of one hand against her other palm in light applause. “You haven’t lost your edge.”

“No, wait, hold on,” Amy protested. “Are you saying I’m actually going to have to FIGHT this demon thing??”

“Doubtful, but you may need to bare your teeth a little, yes.” Melissa extended the hand holding the knife.

Amy continued to look at it a bit nervously. “Okay, no, wait, I need a moment here," Amy said at last, sliding out of her chair and away from Melissa’s arm. “Why didn’t you warn me it was going to come down to this three weeks ago when you first diagnosed the problem? Isn’t there some other way to handle these demons?”

“No. And I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to risk your dream reactions tipping the demon off, otherwise Charlie might have shifted his target to someone else. Making it impossible for me to locate this fan and solve this problem,” Melissa said, her tone casually dismissive. “Besides, it’s not like you could have prepared.”

Amy made a face. “You don’t know that. Also, I’m not good with knives. What if the demon takes it, or otherwise manages to get control of the dream away from me?”

Melissa sighed. “I don’t know, but according to James, the demon hasn’t been giving you images of anguish and torture to this point. Why would he start now?”

“Because now I’d be actually trying to annoy him!” Amy pointed out. She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself, and it was again obvious to me that she hadn’t been kidding about getting flustered by the unexpected. “I’m not sure I’ll even be able to fall asleep at this rate.”

Melissa now let out a sound of exasperation, while rolling her eyes. “Well, I’m sorry this doesn’t fit in with your world view. But look, James will be staying here with you! Right? The way he has been for the last several weeks, to keep you out of danger, and to wake you up if necessary. All better?”

Both girls turned to look at me at that point. Amy’s expression was almost pitying, as if it was dawning on her that Melissa really was a heck of a roommate to have had for four years. Melissa’s expression… was, as always, harder to read, but it seemed almost… wistful? Could it be that she’d hoped to bring me along with her to Halko’s?

I decided I was merely seeing what I wanted to see.

“No, not all better, but with James here, I suppose there’s a better chance of me enjoying myself tonight,” Amy said after a moment. Her tone now struck me as petty, but again, might have been imagining it.

I also nodded agreement, though I’d kind of expected that I’d end up staying behind anyway. So I wasn’t upset with Melissa having volunteered this duty on me. Heck, it would hardly have been the first time she did something like that, usually my own safety being part of the equation.

“Just one more thing though,” Amy said, finally taking the knife and holding it gingerly. “Is it true that if you die in a dream, you die in real life?”

Melissa merely rolled her eyes again before looking at me. Which, I must point out, wasn’t a denial.

“James, to activate the talisman, just have Amy say ‘Incipio’,” Melissa said. “Oh, and send me one of those text things once your friend’s fully asleep. That way I’ll know it’s time to break into Charlie’s apartment. Got it? Good.”

She headed out before waiting for a response, though I suppose my not protesting or calling her back was response enough.

With that, I turned my attention back to my former schoolmate. “Let’s focus on positive thinking at this point,” I suggested, knowing Melissa had utterly failed to address Amy’s concerns. “From what I’ve read about the Somnibuli, this guy will take one look at the knife and run. No problem.”

I managed a smile, and she smiled back.

“Thanks, James.” Amy then glanced idly about the room, as I stood and went to lock the door for an added show of security. “You know, in under a month we’ve progressed from dinner to checking into a motel together,” she said. “At this rate, people will talk.”

The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. “Uh, yeah. Guess it’s a good thing you’re not famous enough yet to have paparazzi?” I fired back. Then, seeing her smile vanish, I back-pedalled. “Sorry, that sounded better in my head.”

Amy shook her head. “Oh, it’s not that, it’s just… well, I suppose in a way it is that.” She stood herself, moving to the bed and curling her legs up. I rejoined her, again sitting on the edge.

“It seems to be a human thing,” she continued. “To want to be popular, to want to have our fifteen minutes of fame, huh? Yet now here I am, a borderline celebrity, and look where it’s got me. Attacked by a crazed fan with a pet demon.” She shook her head. “And if I get any more popular, I may not have a life of my own to look forward to… or not a private one, anyway. Do you think people would be trying to dredge up gossip on me?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” I tried to think of something cheery to say. “At least you’re not an author, like me. We’re pretty much disregarded, barring the off chance of a story being turned into a movie or a television serial.”

“James…”

Making light of the situation obviously wasn’t helping. “Sorry,” I said again, this time reaching out to put my arm around Amy’s shoulders. She leaned into me. “You don’t have to keep doing your lamp reviews, you know,” I pointed out.

“Oh, I know,” Amy sighed. “But I enjoy it And I don’t want to disappoint the few fans I have. Of course, being a part time waitress to help pay for it, that I can do without. Maybe I should have aimed for better than a three year degree.” She shook her head. “I guess my life just isn’t going quite how I pictured it would.”

“Life never does,” I granted. “Unless you’re Melissa.”

Amy turned to look at me, her expression hinting at a frown. “What?”