Chapter #5The Janus Gambit by: Seuzz   Previously: "The Patsy Redux" 
"The best for last?" your brother Robert asks quizzically as he examines the box. It's about four inches long and one inch wide, and is wrapped in plain brown paper and kitchen twine. It would have got lost in the rest of the discarded Christmas paper if you hadn't kept a close watch on it. "You tell me to save the best for last, and this is it? Really?"
"What's wrong with it?" Verity asks him.
"It's so small."
"There's a clue for you, bro," you chortle. "It's for your dick."
He glares, but it's your mom who reaches around to slap you in the leg. "Will!" she gasps, but her eyes twinkle.
Your dad comes in from the kitchen with two coffee cups and the tray of cinnamon rolls. "Are we done?"
"Almost," says Robert as he loosens the string.
"What's that?" your dad says. "A harmonica?"
You sigh. "Yeah, Dad guessed it. It's a harmonica, bro." You lean forward and hiss, "For your dick!" You leap back as he swings at you.
He takes so long unpeeling the paper that you have time to take a cup from your Dad and glance out the window. The air is bright and crisp, but there's no snow. Not like there was in Olympia a few days ago, you think with a twinge.
You're jerked back to the present as Robert opens the box and extracts the single sheet of glossy paper. For a moment he frowns at it. Then his eyes pop even as the frown sticks. He looks up at you. "Is this it?"
"Yeah," you grin at him.
"You gave me a picture of a -- "
"No, you musclehead! Jeez! I'm giving you that thing! UPS says it'll be delivered tomorrow."
Robert's jaw drops. "Really? You're not -- ?" He throws back his head and howls, then leaps to his feet and dances about the room in a way he hasn't since he was ten. But he's eighteen now, with a broad, deep chest and thighs like tree trunks, so the room shakes a little. But he's practically dressed like a little kid, in shorts and a football jersey.
"Hey, watch it!" your dad yells as Robert almost tips over the tray of rolls. "What is it?"
"This!" Robert thrusts the ad at his dad. "A BodyCraft Home Gym! Will!" The whites show around his eyes. "How much -- ? No, I'm not gonna -- You did get a deal on it, didn't you? You didn't -- ?"
"I'm not gonna tell you how much I spent. Let's just say I looked really hard to find the best deal possible, and I found a price I thought I could swing."
Tears actually spring to Robert's eyes. "You shouldn't have! It's too much!"
"Dude! I got that bonus from Proteus. Where else was I gonna spend it?"
His face twists in agony. "But you didn't spend the whole thing on that, did you?"
"Pfft, no. I told, you I got a deal. And I didn't tell you how big my bonus was. I don't think I spent more than twenty percent of it on you. I spent twice that on Mom and Dad's -- "
"Ah-hmm," your dad says. "We're not going to talk about that." He looks a trifle embarrassed.
"Whatever. I'm trying to -- " The rest of your words are buried in the hug your mom gives you.
And that ends the late Christmas, the one you had to hold on New Year's Day because of work demands.
Just not the work demands you told your parents about.
* * * * *
One week ago. The snow is coming down in great, thick flurries, despite the relative warmth. The ground is mushy, but the snow, despite having fallen for hours, is only now starting to stick. You've only a windbreaker for warmth as you stand in the back yard, watching it come down.
The door opens, and a slim black woman in an elegant sweater and scarf comes out. Her wide smile and high cheekbones remind you of a cheerleader you knew in high school, but Kali Valentine, one of the Stellae Errantes, is no snobby, shallow Kendra Saunders. "Ah, we're finally getting the Currier and Ives," she says in the Scottish trill that you still can't quite reconcile with her thoroughly African ancestry. She glances up. "It will snow until we get at least a couple of inches."
"Is that what the weatherman says?"
"It's what Charles wants. He always wanted snow on Christmas, and he always got it. He has his ways, you know. His prodigies wax on holidays, and Christmas was the holiday he loves the most."
"So this is on purpose?"
"Near enough," she says tactfully.
You think of the old man propped up in his bed, with the well-wishers coming in and out, hugging him and kissing him and talking to him as though he understood them. Maybe he does still, in a way. His eyes show hardly any intelligence any more -- he spoke kindly to you half a year ago, when you first met him, but he was a little vacant even then. By September he only nodded at you when you were again presented to him, and didn't seem to see you. Now, if you had to guess, he only has the intellect of a kitten, though a happy kitten, alert with curiosity. He smiles at everyone. But it's probably only their kind tones and obvious love that he's reacting to.
It's hard not to love him even in this reduced state. The room glows with his presence, and when he laid his hand on the back of your head on Christmas Eve, you still felt a grace and strength and tenderness in it. Oh, to have known him in the prime which his colleagues would remember.
"It seems unfair, doesn't it," you can't help saying. "He wasn't just Glundandra. He was Arbol. He wasn't just the king, he was the scholar king. For your mind to go -- "
"It hasn't gone long, child, and it's a grace of a kind. They used to call it 'second childhood', and for him I think it truly is." But Kali dabs at the corner of her eye as she says it. "He delights in things as a child would, and do you not recall how delightful the snow and all else was when you were a child?"
"I suppose. Yeah, you're right."
But suddenly a rent opens in the clouds, and the snow slackens. You both look up as a brilliant sun strikes out. It is very beautiful, mixing its golden beams with the silver of the clouds. But Kali's eyes show fear.
"That'll be Joe," she murmurs. "If his emotions have overwhelmed Charles's -- " She dashes inside.
Dread clutches at you, and you follow more slowly. In the living room are sitting half a dozen of your colleagues, talking in low but merry voices around the tree. But they look up at the sight of you, and of Kali disappearing up the stairs. "Where's Joe," you ask.
"With his dad. Been with him all morning," says Miko Toyotomi. "What's wrong?"
"The sun came out," you numbly reply. "The sun came out, and then the snow just stopped."
Miko rises too, and there's horror on her face.
You were supposed to return to Saratoga Falls the next day, but you delayed until December 29 on account of the funeral, and stayed even later, even though Joe told you that you could leave early. When you insisted on staying, he put his face on your shoulder and bawled like a baby.
* * * * *
You're watching football with your dad and brother when your cell dings with a text. "That's work," you tell them with a sigh. "I have to go in."
"What kind of software problem crops up on New Year's Day?" Robert snorts.
"Security exploits," you tell him, and hold his eye. "Holes that have to be closed before someone gets in."
"I have to use the bathroom," Robert tells your dad as he also gets up. "Pause it?" But he passes the hallway bathroom and follows you outside to your car. "Everyone, or just you?"
"It didn't say."
"If Verity calls here looking for a ride -- "
"She won't. Joe will give her a lift if she needs to go in too."
"Well -- " He kicks at the ground. "Can you tell her she did an amazing job this morning?"
"Why didn't you tell her yourself? It would mean more coming first hand. Unless you don't mean it."
His mouth tightens. "I do mean it. It's just hard to talk to her."
You turn full on him, staring until he raises his face to yours. He doesn't have to lift it far, since he's got several inches on you, in addition to the dozens of pounds of hard, lean muscle. "Are you actually starting to feel things for her again?" you ask.
"Tell Joe he doesn't have to worry about that," he snaps.
You feel your own mouth settle into a grim line. "You're the one who broke up with her."
"And it was a shitty thing to do."
You glance at the message on your phone. Patterson always marks his messages "Urgent," so you've no way of knowing if this time it actually is. But this is more important. You grab Robert by the elbow. "And look what you're doing for all of us by pretending you're still together. Verity did an amazing job this morning, but you do an amazing job every day."
Robert hangs his head.
"Bro, if it would be easier if you and Verity were back together, and if you actuallywant to be back together -- " You break off as he visibly tenses. "Then let's talk about it when I get back. I'm not going through all this shit just so my own brother can be miserable." You pull him into a manly hug.
"I wish I could do more," he says.
"You shouldn't. Because Stars know I'm doing more than I want."
* * * * *
"Frank or Joe coming?" you ask Patterson after settling into his office. "Good. I hate those guys," you say when he shakes his head. "What's up?"
"I'm giving you an upgrade, to shapeshifter first class." You have the following choice:  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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