- XXII -

* * * * *
         The party has hit the point for Jina where it starts to take on an aspect of numbed weariness, where the pleasures of the night intersect laterally with her stamina and she finds that she's got very little left to expend inside. It's been quite a night for her, one that she's not going to forget for a long time. Meeting Joe alone is enough for her to bronze the date in her memories, but this thing now with Lena and Tristian . . . there's almost a giddy excitement crawling through her veins. You'd think that it was because something had happened to her. But no, Jina's living vicariously through her friends and she thinks it's about damn time. Her life has been fairly satisfying thus far and to see people who she always thought deserved better finally reversing the course of their downward situations, well how can she not feel happy for them? For herself, even, because she was there to witness it and give her moral support. People always seem to cluster at the upsetting events, staring at the man as he makes his ballet plunge off the skyscraper, spreading himself on the ground and everyone gathers around for a perverse peek, self consciously wiping smeared blood off their faces and not making eye contact with anyone else. That's not how it should be. She's always felt that way. Everyone goes their separate ways, drift taking them all in widely spaced directions, only occasionally reforming old bonds, comets flaring silently past each other in the dark night, never destined to really meet. They need each other, Jina knows, everyone falls away at the exact moment they need each other the most, as if afraid that they might stray too close and not see the same emotions reflected in flickering eyes. That others might not need them and so we maintain that we don't need anybody else. But that's not true. Jina's ventured as close as someone like her could dare and she knows that everyone is thinking in the same dense patterns, it's clouded by individual colors or a different slant on perception but it's all the same in the end. Brown knows it, Lena knows, and maybe even Tristian. If you're got a core to fall back into when the strings snaring you threaten to pull you apart, then you've nothing to worry about. Simple. It's just that simple.
         The wall against her back is almost like a massage. Jina has sworn off drinking since the last half hour or so, attempting to sober herself up a little before she has to leave, also mostly so she doesn't waste all of tomorrow nursing a headache and screaming for everyone to speak quieter. The party is churning along in much the same way as it has for the last few hours, if they ever could figure out the mechanics involved here, they might finally have the solution to perpetual motion. Self sustaining, it churns onward, draining them while at the same time refreshing them. Still it takes a toll in the end and Jina is reminded that you don't get something for nothing. Not these days and not ever. She's tired and no doubt is going to oversleep way later than she intends tomorrow, no matter how liberal her estimates might be. The last time she wound up sleeping for something like fourteen hours, dreaming that she was back at the party, waking into a room devoid of light and deadened by opaque shades, blinking hazy eyes and then dropping back off again. There's a cycle to everything. Life and death are the overarching circles but within we all make our little arcs. Nothing ever stays the same but it never truly changes, either. Redirection. Misdirection. It's all the same.
         Watching the party is becoming more and more a favorite pastime as she stands here, pleasantly warm and doing her best not to start down the slick slope to slumber. This isn't something she normally indulges in, preferring to be in the thick of the action herself, so to speak, for some reason she finds she can't help herself. There's a quality about tonight that she can sense in everyone and she has a feeling that she won't ever sense it again. So she wants to stand here and let it wash over her, soak into her skin like a warm summer rain, enjoying it as a momentary diversion from a life otherwise caught in a directed course but acknowledging its ephemeral qualities all the same. These are her friends, well, most of them anyway and watching them is turning into a catalog of the human experience. Bounded by the invisible borders of your observation booth, it's like stepping outside of time itself, seeing the lines of people blurring into a single, multicolored, multiheaded worm, racing and dashing in and out, back and forth. And back again. Clouds chase each other madly in the sky, flowers spring up, grow old, let off seed and die as the air darkens, weighted snow drops in to coat the world even as seconds later it's evaporated and gone. Sped up, you see everything. Relationships flare, burn and ascend, trailing sparks, flashing for a mere moment before beginning the long descent down, embers scattering like fireflies spelling out messages for all. There's a guy making his first advances toward the girl of his dreams, hesitant, hydroxyl alkyls giving him courage, infusing his system with a certain brashness that he buries too deep to ever use properly. And there's a girl dancing with a guy, letting herself be drawn closer and closer, telling herself that he's doing it to her that she has no choice, but in the end it's only her, it's only her that prompts the final act. Across from Jina, two people fall on the couch in a parody of clumsy wrestling, grasping and groping, unaware of their motions mirrored in the glazed eyes of so many onlookers, or maybe simply not caring anymore, giving free reign to passions not held in check any longer. There's no reason, no proof that it ever did any good.
         Flipsides. The coin spins end over end, flashing in the mottled darkness. There can never be one side. Every face has an obverse, every action cringes in anticipation of the opposite reaction. In the long run the scales always balance out.
         In the corner, there's a couple arguing, their mouths moving without sound, a silent movie playing for an uncaring audience used to seamier fare. Real life isn't interesting anymore. They're arguing and hands are drawing shapes in the air, and the girl's face might be wet and she turns away and the guy with a puzzled expression on his face reaches out a hand to touch her but finds that he can't bridge the gap anymore. Forgot at some point and can't remember the way. So he lets the hand drop numbly, a leaden weight he can't correct. We drag ourselves down. Tie anvils to our ankles and plant ourselves in the quicksand and tell ourselves it's for our good the entire time.
         And a guy is watching a girl dance with some other boy, tightly and closely and there's a factor in his eyes that might be a part sadness and something beyond longing. Resoluteness. Acceptance. A girl is sitting on the couch listening to the guy next to her making a pass at the girl he's got his arm around and she's trying her best not to listen and she's staring straight ahead with fixed intensity but her face keeps twitching every so often and her hands knot and unknot in her lap. She wants to be brave. But she doesn't know if she has the strength.
         Equal actions. Equal reactions. Jina sees them all and knows that she's going to forget most of them by the time her head hits the pillow tonight. Her memory ransacks the recollections to make room, dirty clothes flung out of her closet. But she tries to take it all in anyway. Because it's the experience that makes it worthwhile. The part that blends into her and never forgets.
         ". . . hear them howling at the kitchen door, better not let 'em in, little old lady got mutilated late last week . . ."
         Jina finds her gaze keeps going back to Brown. Probably because he's so prominent in his posture, capering around the dancefloor like he's trying to egg them all on. Work them until they've got nothing left. That's just the way it goes. His eyes are bright in the folds of the dim room, and his face never seems to hang on the same expression for very long, as if he's afraid he might get stuck with just one in the end. Have to try them all first. Your mother said it would always happen.
         Watching Brown, Jina can't help wondering what might have been. Really, she can't. It's silly and stupid and Brown would tell her so, but being with him tonight, it does make her wonder. He's so carefree, but at the same time oddly driven, as if determined to make sure they all have more fun than he's having, constantly raising the standards, giving them all kicks in the ass to keep them going. Like he knows something they don't, and it's freed him from everything else. Watching him, you'd think he was going to live forever and by just dancing with him, some of that pungent immortality will rub off on you. Not for the first time, Jina suspects that there's more to his missing five years than he's telling anyone. Even her. And that shrouded gap in his life, coupled with the lost time, really only means the smallest of distances set between them, but it's enough. Enough to leave the memories of five years gone as just that, memories, and not as a prelude to something else. It's sad in a way, but in another way Jina understands. There's no reason for her to blindly accept it, but she still has to understand.
         But Jina lets her doubts and forecasts for futures that never would have occurred plague her. It's something to do.
         Suddenly, there's a beat that falls off the regular measure, and it strikes her ear as rather strange, a counter harmony where none were supposed to exist, not going in time with the song at all. In her heightened state she wants to make something of it but it passes too swiftly for her to make any sense of it.
         Not Brown, though. He's been moving in a loose limbed, almost scarecrow fashion, his voice ranging up and down their mind, goading them on, a ragged hoarseness only adding more urgency to his words. But now he stops, his entire body going stiff as if someone has just plunged a knife right between his shoulder blades. And then, slowly, as if caught on a fishing lure, he wheels toward the door and purposefully strides toward it, his body seemingly made of rubber as he tries to force his way through the crowd. Confused, Jina watches him, trying to read his eyes, see his face and maybe make something of it. But he's closed himself off to her, to everyone around. A girl pushes into him only to get gently rebuked, his course never deviating. His hand finds the door and he seems to almost dislocate his shoulder in attempting to wrench it open.
         And then his jaw drops and he just stands there, his muscles slack. Jina feels worry prickling the inside of her stomach as she starts to move toward him. All the color seems to be draining from his face. His arm seems to be trembling. Jina thinks she catches a whiff of something foul but can't be sure.
         Flexing her voice like a javelin, she tries to reach him. "What's wrong out there?" she calls out to him.
         It's not clear whether he hears her or not, her voice isn't in the best shape and he's a decent distance away. His face starts to turn toward her even as he slams the door shut with a force that she can feel through the wall at her back. There's something wrong with his eyes, she notices, almost distantly. His hands are limp and his face is all wrong.
         ". . . you shut your mouth, how can you say I go about things the wrong way . . ."
         Then those eyes half close and a shudder runs up the entire length of his body, like a snake about to shed its skin. His entire body seems to go taut and Jina barely chokes back a scream as he starts to fall.
         Someone nearby sees him begin his plunge and catches him, supporting him even as his limbs are stiffly trembling now. His face is a total mask now and she's not even sure if he's home, his body and mind seem totally separated. For the first time tonight, Jina feels foreign fear rampaging through her, barbarian hordes pillaging wherever they can. It looks like a seizure. A goddamn seizure. People are helping him to the couch even as his thrashing becomes more frantic, like his body is fighting an army all by itself. She doesn't remember him being subject to seizures but that's sure as hell what it looks like. Suddenly she wishes Lena or Tristian or even Brian were here to make some sense of this but she sees no one around. But then her world has collapsed into a tunnel and all she can see is him. Brown and his struggles with an enemy invisible and penetrating.
         She sees them basically drop him onto the couch, but even as they're doing so his body gives one more rigid spasm, like someone shoved a board into his spine. Then his eyes blink and the Brown she's been seeing all night congeals and returns. He twitches once more before leaning forward, rubbing his face vigorously with his hands. Jina's seeing all of this from a distance, through a thicket of people across a knotted room. And she hasn't moved a step. And she doesn't know what to do. It all happened so quickly, her mind can't shift from panic to relief this fast, it's not built for that, her clutch gets caught in the gears.
         Brown's waving his hands as the assembled group of partiers, waving his hands and his mouth is moving like he's making one of his typical jokes and everyone is laughing with him. One by one they all depart, spinning away back into the dancefloor. But Jina's still watching. She's watching a peculiar expression cross his face and sees him mouth a word that she can't make out, but feels she should know, before leaping unsteadily to his feet and make his way to the stairs going up, moving in such a fashion that suggests he wants to run as fast as he can but has to settle for second best in that contest.
         And then he's gone, a streak of somberly clad lightning dashing up the stairs, over everyone's radar. His presence lingers so strongly that it'll be quite a while before they even figure his absence. But not Jina. She saw. And she curiosity tugs at her.
         She's about to take a step toward the stairs to catch up with him and find out what's going on when she remembers what prompted all of this. The door. And what was behind it. What could he have seen there? Jina takes a few cautious paces toward the door, rather self consciously looking around to see if anyone is watching her. No one seems to be, at least not obviously and that gives her some small courage. She's at the door now anyway and she can always claim to be going for a cigarette or getting some fresh air if worst comes to worst.
         So she opens the door.
         And steps into something that only comes to her in sanitized segments on the local news.
         The hallway is drenched in smoke, all clustered at the bottom of the stairs, as if they're holding a convention. Some stragglers clutch at her, begging alms and she coughs them away, her eyes watering in mock sympathy.
         No door. Down there, the door doesn't exist anymore. Someone must have moved it. Ha ha, Jina, that's pretty funny. Pretty goddamn funny. The hallway is filled with smoke and the door is missing and nobody at the party knows except her and Brown and for some reason it's oddly funny. But she can't laugh. Someone suppressed the reflex. She wants to laugh at the irrational fixtures of her world but it's not happening.
         Somewhere in the clamor of her mind she hears the gentle click as the door shuts itself, sealing the party from her, locking them into another, oblivious world. There is another world. Separate from her, from this. But Jina isn't paying attention to that, she doesn't care about that at all. Part of her reasons that she should go get Brown, that he'll know what to do about all of this, that he ran upstairs because he had some sort of plan.
         But the rational part of her knows that he knows nothing about it and has absolutely no idea what to do.
         She can't go back. And she doesn't want to go forward. A sick curiosity, the kind that makes people watch police shows on television and wonder what it's like to be at a dramatic, and in their minds ultimately sterile murder scene. All clean blood and nicely arranged bodies. Chalk outlines with more intrinsic personality. You never understand. Behind every bloodstain and every corpse is a lifetime of pain compressed to one pinprick of a second, sliced open to the world, given strange birth, spilling out for everyone to see. But that's not what you see. You never see what's really there. For all your wants and desires, you never do.
         For the first time in her young life, Jina wants to see. It overrides all the alarm bells screeching in her and the warning lights blazing into her eyes. The matter of choice crosses the line into the ocean of the inevitable.
         And so, like a woman entangled in a dream she can't escape from and probably wouldn't even if she could, Jina slowly begins to descend the stairs.

* * * * *
         "Um, listen . . . listen, come on, at least look at me, I just wanted to . . . I just wanted to talk to you all right? Just talk."
         "Why . . . talking means nothing, just like everything else . . . nothing."
         "All right, dammit, I'm trying to help you here. I'm trying to help you. Can't you see that?"
         "I do. But I don't care. Not anymore."
         "You're upset. I know you are. This is bad, I know it's bad. I can sense her better than you can, her head's just a static museum to me, all right? And I can see her thoughts and they're all clouded and hazy, but . . . she knows something is wrong. She knows but she's not sure what's happening. All her senses have been sliced off with scalpels. But she knows and she's afraid. Deep down inside, there's a scared girl in there. She needs help."
         "Then help her. It's what you do, isn't it?"
         "You . . . dammit, that's not the point, that's not the damned point-"
         "Then what is? Okay? Who's worse, really, in the end who's worse? Me, for not helping someone because I can't see past the uselessness of everything or you, who could help her but choose not to because you have some strange idea that you need my permission to do so?"
         "I'm trying to help you both at the same time, call it a character flaw if you would but I think I can salvage something out of this."
         "That's good. I hope you succeed."
         "Yeah, well a few billion years of living tends to turn you into an optimist. I've seen 'em come and go and it all turns out gravy in the end."
         "I'm sorry. Are you still here?"
         "Heh, you sad sad little man."
         "What?"
         "You don't think I can see what you're trying to do."
         "I don't know what you're talking about."
         "Do you think that because of your status you're somehow invisible to me. All your fears and hopes and wants and desires? They're billboards, my friend, written eighteen miles high in day-glo letters."
         "You . . . get the . . . get the hell out of my head . . . I want you-"
         "Oh stop the posturing. You know full well that I'm not a light switch that you can turn on and off at will. And I can see you. All your petty little thoughts, lined up at the usual round table in their favorite bar, smoking fat cigars and racking up the playing cards, patting each other on the back and telling themselves how blissfully smug they are. It makes me sick, frankly."
         "They're not-"
         "Shut up. You hope that if you play the obstinate fool, mouthing your pathetic sermons on how futile the world is, I'll get frustrated and give up and take her away and you can be glad that you once again got what you wanted without having to lift a finger."
         "That's not-"
         "I'm not finished! And eventually everyone else loses patience and just starts to believe it . . . well, buddy I've got more patience than you've got years to live. I had to watch an atom for a million years one time. We stuck the Norditions in their prisons, compressed seven energy beings into a single proton and created an electron cloud of counterrotating particles to keep them in. All that power in something you couldn't see if you stared at it until blood leaked from your corneas. The most dangerous atom in the whole Universe and I got the short straw and had to watch it for millennia to make sure it was stable. One million years fixated on the same point. I couldn't even blink because in that split second it could have all gone to pieces and we might not be having this conversation tonight. Ten different civilizations rose and fell around me, although only two of them based a religion around me, which was rather disappointing at the time but a lot of people get none so I guess I shouldn't complain but . . . oh I'm getting off the topic aren't I? What were we discussing again?"
         "You getting the hell out of here with her, and going to the hospital . . ."
         "No, we were talking about how bloody shallow you are sometimes. I'm sure that was it."
         "I don't need to listen to this, I don't . . ."
         "Fine then, listen to this and listen good. We're going to have a nice sane talk without getting snippy with each other or I swear upon what little you apparently find holy that I'll take this entire party right to the center of the planet."
         "Bluffing, I know you're bluffing, you-"
         "You have no idea if I am or not. Assume I'm not. So I think you'd best start dropping the pretense, my cheerfully obtuse host, or it's going to get a lot warmer very soon."
         "But . . . oh . . . oh God, God I can't deal with any of this . . . I . . ."
         "Hey! hey . . . ah geez. Well, that certainly didn't have the intended effect. Oops."

* * * * *
         She's walking down the stairs. Walking down the stairs and she can't see the steps. Can't see the ground. Smoke is all around, clinging to her, infusing her clothes, her skin, her life. Her life is smoke. We're all smoke in the end, we can't hold ourselves together and so we dissipate, breaking into mist. There they go. Watch them go. One by one. Lights break through the smoke from above, reflected harshly through the dirty filters in the air. Someone's placed a funhouse hall of mirrors right in the hallway. Jina remembers getting lost in one when she was a child, running around aimlessly, yelling for help, but only seeing alternating patterns of anorexia and obesity. Her extremes chasing her in a madhouse. Or maybe it had been a dream. She can't remember clearly. This all seems to be a dream too. Caught in drifting smoke, Jina can't understand why she can barely hear herself cough. Her ears are ringing. Like someone went and dropped the bomb. All those smiling families heading for their bomb shelters, the circle with three pieces removed. We define our lives by negatives. You too can live and play in our nuclear wasteland.
         Her hand on the railing is a magnet leading her down. It's all getting heavier. Tears stream into her eyes, washing away the soot and smoke, to little avail. She's crying. She's crying and she doesn't know why. It's sadness. Someone went and splattered sadness against the walls, and now it's leaking into her and she feels so empty. Like she's the last person on earth and now she's gone and found this. Even if you got rid of all the people they'd still figure out a way to ruin everything.
         The smoke is spreading out. Leaving her. Grabbing hold of the folds in the sky and seeking the stars. Jina's still going down and the rest of the world is going up. Her hands slides on the railing, like it's covered in something wet and slick. Even though she could see if she wanted to, she keeps her eyes firmly fixed forward. Jina doesn't want to see. She doesn't.
         Then her foot meets solid ground. No more steps. No more going down. The wind from outside is caressing her face. It's not comforting at all. Invisible talons tear into the smoke and suddenly it's gone. It's all behind her. The bad stuff is behind her.
         No. No, it's not.
         The door is gone. It wasn't a dream. Or it was a dream and she's still trapped. In recursive circles falling into each other inside her head. As you go out you turn back in. She can see it clearer now. The metal on the doorway is blackened and bent, almost melted. Like a blast of heat from the largest gun in the world. The door isn't anywhere to be found. She can't find it anywhere. For some reason that fact won't stop bothering her. Jina can't stop looking for it. Her eyes are trying to leave her head, her head feels too small and her brain too large. There's too much pressure. It's getting hard to breath. Maybe if she stopped crying. But she's not crying. Those aren't real tears. Nothing is real here. It stopped being real a long time ago.
         Air. Jina needs air. That would do the trick. It washes over her, a lover's sultry breathing, tempting her and pulling her forward. Down again. She should know better but she can't rid herself of the world pushing against her breasts. Compressing everything. The world's a tunnel and that's all she sees. She has to get out. Out of the dream. The dream is inside. We all dream inside our heads, and when the dream escapes we call it the real world. And they call us crazy. Get out, Jina, the wind rushing through the pipeline of the planet is telling her. Take a step out and it'll all be better.
         For lack of anything else to do, Jina steps out into the night.
         And nearly slips on a puddle.
         "Oh," she mutters, making a face, like this is all totally natural and a passing irritating. She lifts up her foot and steps to the side. It doesn't help. Her foot seems to be sticking to the ground, there's resistance when she takes a step, there's something covering the concrete. What is it?
         So Jina looks down.
         She's standing in blood.
         There's blood everywhere.
         A scream lodges sideways in her throat and she tries to jump away, out of the puddle, back onto solid, clean ground but there's nowhere to go. The entire ground is covered in blood. Blood everywhere. Jina has a hand pressed to her mouth in stark terror but she can't make herself feel any of it, someone went and tore the nerves out of her body. And she very much wants to feel something because then it might be real then. Because if not then this is a horrible dream she can't wake up from. God is pinching her head between two giant fingers and she still won't wake up.
         This can't be real.
         There's blood smearing her shoes. Distantly someone is calculating how much she paid for them. Distantly a horror movie soundtrack blares. None of it's happening. It's all happening to someone else. Nothing is happening.
         Her vision expands to widescreen and she can see it all. Blood is smeared in a wide arc on the steps leading into the parking lot, the finger painting of the dirtiest children alive. The swirls and whirls are the details that keep sucking her in. You stare at it long enough and you can convince yourself that it's not what you think it is. It all loses meaning. Like staring at your favorite word and not seeing it as your favorite word but instead as the component collection of letters that make it up. You start seeing only the seams and lose sight of the world. But sometimes you have to do just that. Or you'll go mad. Jina's feeling that now, she very much either wants to break down screaming or crying but all she can do is walk.
         Blood leaves a trail. It's all around. Good God, it's all around. She's watching the ground, watching her feet stepping into blood, dripping off the soles of her shoes as she lifts her feet up to take another step. The last time she was out here was one of the happiest moments of her life. How long ago was that? There is no time. Time means nothing here. She's leaving footprints behind her, foot shaped holes in the carpet of crimson. We walk through life and we leave holes in people, walk right over and through them and we never look back.
         Down the steps. Down the funny bloody steps.
         Someone has left a trail for Jina to follow. How nice. The stairs lead down into a raised sidewalk that slopes down into the parking lot itself. A burnt stench and the stench of death war for dominance in her nostrils. By themselves they could make her turn her stomach inside out and vomit until her entire world was acid and bile, staining her throat, searing her voice, scraping her raw. But together they cancel each other out. It smells like flowers. In the fields of blood they've left an entire meadow of flowers for you. Her legs are very unsteady, quivering rods and she places her hand on the railing to get a grip.
         It comes away wet. Biting her lip and doing her best not to look at her hand, she clenches it into a fist so tight that she can feel the nails clawing into her palm. Might draw some more blood, add to the collection. Oh God. Oh God. This must be someone's blood. It all had to come from someone, blood just doesn't appear out of nowhere, right? Right? But Jina's trying very hard not to think about that.
         Her shoes are making hollow squishing noises on the cold pavement. The blood trail travels in a diagonal into the parking lot, toward the left. Here it deviates from the pathway and forges it's own trail, sliding down the small hill and right into the lot. So much goddamn blood. Jina's all numb when it comes to the stuff now, she feels like she could watch someone open their wrist up right in front of her and it could splatter her face and it wouldn't bother her a bit. After this, nothing is going to bother her for a long time.
         A cool wind is brushing her face and something makes her look up. Her eyes are so blurred that it's hard to see what she's staring at but when the image resolves it's a man. A man standing in the parking lot, his hands clasped behind his back. And he's standing over something, something that looks beaten and old and crumpled. And the trail of blood leads right to it, a wide walkway right to the source.
         The last thing in the world that Jina should do is walk toward the man. But that's what she's doing. Her legs are taking her places she never thought she'd go. Right toward the man. She can't make his face out clearly but she thinks he might be speaking. Her feet are slipping a little on the asphalt, she's half running and half walking and ready to break down right there and open herself up to nothing at all. Unreality pervades the night. Night falls into day. Nothing is real here. Nothing means anything.
         As she gets closer she realizes that she knows the face of the person standing there. The stance is all wrong and the clothing seems different but the face . . . even with her eyes all full of smeared dirt and screwed up makeup and tears, she can tell who it is.
         "Tristian?" she whispers, almost stumbling to a halt near the man. Her friend. She has no idea what's going on. It's all so strange. None of this makes any sense and yet here she is and she's not dreaming. And Jina very much wants to be dreaming now. More than ever she wants something bizarre to happen so she can pinch herself and wake up. So she can go back to sleep and dream only of painless oblivion.
         There's a tingling sensation running up and down her body, like the way she always thought X-rays should feel and at that moment Jina realizes the man is staring at her. His face is all strange. There's no expression on his face that she can discern and his eyes are all wrong. There's nothing in his eyes. Nothing human.
         And the reality hits her even as the man speaks and confirms it all for her.
         "Hello, Jina," the man that's not Tristian says to her in a voice that is obliquely accented and isn't Tristian's and he gives her an indulgent smile and all Jina can do is stand there and stare at the man that is not Tristian.
         It's not Tristian.
         It's not Tristian.
         It's not
         It's
         It
         I
         "It's good to see you again, I must say," the man continues, as if he doesn't notice the absolute horror screeching through her system. Or worse, he knows and doesn't really care.
         I
         I know
         I know what
         I know what it
         I know what it is
         "Though one of these days, it'll have to be under nicer circumstances," he mutters and absentmindedly nudges the bloody pile at his feet that Jina is only now detachedly realizing is a person.
         A person.
         A bloody person.
         A bloody person that maybe she knows.
         And it's moaning.
         Jina can't be sure and she's afraid to look too closely. But maybe fear isn't the right word because right now she's not feeling much of anything as she stares at the man who is staring back at her staring at him while he looks at her and it's all falling into itself there's no end to the infinite mirrors reflecting in her head and it's not Tristian and there's a body on the ground and blood on her shoes and blood on her hands and her face and it must be a dream it must be a dream itmustbeadream
         even as her mind lurches to a grinding halt and attempts to shut itself down.

* * * * *
         "I couldn't stop it . . . God, I was downstairs the whole time and I couldn't . . . ah, dammit, why the hell can't I keep my head on straight, why can't I think straight . . . tell me, why . . ."
         "You're upset, because you care about her and you don't want to see her like this and you don't know what to do. But you can't stay in this state, okay? You have to get up and we have to get out of here . . ."
         "Then take us. Take us both out of here and let's get it over with. You can rush in and save the day and I'll just stand on the side . . ."
         "You're not fooling me, you know. You still aren't."
         "Goddamn it, do something! You're just standing here babbling to me-
         "And you're still sitting here wallowing in self pity! When the hell are you going to understand that you're not going to be able to stop everything bad and that even after the deed has been done, there's still a chance of making something turn out right."
         "It's too late, I mean, look at her, she's . . . oh God . . . I can't even . . ."
         "I'm looking right at her, actually. Which is something you can't even bring yourself to do-"
         "I failed, okay . . . I had one chance to do something good tonight and I screwed it up . . ."
         "Listen, it could have been worse, all right, it could have been worse-"
         "Don't remind me, just don't-"
         "I will, because you don't seem to see it that way. Something bad happened, we both know it did. And there's nothing you or I can do to change that. But we can make the situation better, we couldn't help her then, but we can make up for that by helping her now. Don't you see that? Don't you see the distinction?"
         "Goddamn . . . what is it . . . what the hell do you want me to do . . . just tell me what the hell you want and I'll do it, all right . . ."
         "It's not about what I want. It's about what you have to do."
         "And what's that? Dammit, what the hell is it?"
         "You have to stand up, look at her and know that you have to get her out of here. Then you have to look at me and tell me that. And then we'll go. It has to happen that way. Or else . . ."
         "I don't see what the hell good that does . . . I can't . . . ah, my head is . . . all my thoughts, I can't keep it together, how the hell do you . . . why does it make a difference, what difference does it make, in the end, dammit . . ."
         "Because . . . if I take her, then you'll prove right every lie that you've ever tried to make yourself believe. That you don't make a difference. That there's never any point. And I can't let that happen. I won't."
         "And if I do it myself, what if I do play your little game? Then what, huh? Then what?"
         "Then you'll know that everything you truly believe deep down inside, and I don't mean that garbage that you're constantly forcefeeding yourself, in the end, you'll know that you were right."

* * * * *
         Her head
         Her head isn't right.
         It's threatening to explode. There are lightning storms flaring behind her eyes and someone went and tilted the world. They flash and they flash and it never comes to any fruition. Jina is standing in a parking lot with blood splattering her shoes and her legs and there's blood on her hand and none of it feels real. She wants it to feel real. But she doesn't.
         Jina isn't sure what she wants.
         And all the time she can't take her eyes off the man that looks like Tristian but is very much not Tristian. She knows that. She knows that now. And just being near him again is making her shake, goddamn she can't stop shaking, just hearing him talk again in that, that voice, all echoes and eternity and the things you can't get look at straighton, the other world that no one wants to acknowledge. The world they used to say was better. It's not.
         "You're not Tristian," a voice whispers from cracked lips. It's hers. It's her voice. For some reason she's tasting blood. Did she bite her tongue? Or her lip? Or there's so much pressure that all the vessels are cracking and leaking? God, she can't handle this, she doesn't want to deal with this. The parking lot is covered in blood and there's a man at her feet all battered and broken and Jina has no idea what to do.
         The man has been looking down and he gives her a sideways glance before shrugging. "No," he says simply, as if that explains everything. As if that makes it all okay. To not be Tristian. To be something infinitely more frightening. And she can't run. Someone went and nailed her feet to the floor, obviously when she wasn't looking. Life has a sick sense of humor like that. "No, I'm afraid I'm not Tristian."
         "Oh God, you're not Tristian," Jina nearly cries out, but her voice is smashed, run through a faulty speaker, all crusted over with static and interference. It's almost a squeak when she says it. That pathetic little girl voice she hates so much. But, oh God, she has no control over it. She has no control over anything at the moment. Only one time in her life did she totally lack control like this. She can't even decide whether to scream or run or cry. Or do all three at once, if that's at all possible. Jina would like to find out. She would like to do something other than just stand here, gaping.
         But there's nothing to do.
         And a man keeps spilling blood out into the parking lot, like water seeping from a burst pipe, oozing up through the streets, all sewage and dirty liquids, the stuff we try to stick underground and forget about. It won't stop. Oh God, it won't stop. Somebody help.
         The man doesn't even glance at her this time. "I believe we already established that," he replies, crouching down in an impossibly fluid motion, like he has no bones at all, balancing on the balls of his feet, like one of those rock formations you see out in the Southwest, the kind that looks like a strong stiff wind would blow it right over. But it never does. It never does. And yet Jina is standing firmly planted on two feet and the slightest shove would send her head bouncing against the pavement. It's not fair. The man gives an almost sheepish smile that she can only see in profile. Tristian's smile. It's Tristian's face with all the humanity taken out. "Sorry," he apologizes. Jina can't understand how she ever confused the two of them. They look nothing alike. It's all in the details. That's where the devil is. That's where you can find him. In the details.
         "Oh my . . ." Jina can still hear her voice speaking, like it's gotten tired of her internal turmoil and is willing to strike out on its own to actually get something done. Voices are like that, having minds of their own. You give them an inch and you have no idea what you're going to say. "Who is that?" comes the dry rustling of her whisper. How can he hear her? But he does. His eyes, without looking, search her face. She can feel them. Like worms burrowing into her skin. "What did you do?"
         "Which question would you like me to answer first . . . nevermind, I've found it's easier if I decide that," the man responds, his voice oddly even, warm but not in a good way, like when you've left the heating pad against your neck for too long and it starts to get uncomfortable and even when you take it off the aching pain is still there, worse than before. He glances sharply up at the apartments, staring at a particular window. It might belong to Will's dorm but Jina's finds she can't stop staring at the person on the ground. The face is streaked with blood and dirt and gravel and seems to be almost shattered, having a lumpy, cracked consistency to it that turns her stomach. But she can't stop looking. Because she should know this person.
         "What I did to him was surprisingly little," the man speaks, his voice strangely conversational, "the laws of physics really took care of the rest . . ." the shoulders move up in what might be a shrug but Jina can't be sure, "all I did was shove him forcefully through a steel door, obliterating the door in the process as it turns out. Pity." The hand is running along the face, almost gently caressing. The man gives a sharp moan, as if trapped in a bad dream. His hair is caked against his forehead with grime and blood. "That's probably what broke his jaw and most of his cheekbones. So I'm to blame for that. Not that I feel too sorry but still . . . I have to take credit where credit is due I suppose." His hand is still probing joints and crevices, almost seeming to dig into the man's body, nimble fingers playing cleaved bones like a madman's xylophone. "Momentum really took care of the rest. Hitting the steps no doubt caused the fracture in his shoulder, as well as the torn ligaments," he tugs at them as if to see if the arm might detach, "and he did nail the railing, which deflected his course as well as cracking all of the ribs along here," he pats the man's side and Jina swears she sees something shift underneath the torn skin, like it's just a overfull bag of water laying there on the ground, "I imagine all the sliding and rolling caused all the abrasions and lacerations you see here," he points out a series of dirty raw cuts that Jina used to only see in movies, "and here," and Jina has to remind herself that the movies are makeup and special effects, "but eventually friction did the rest of the work and he landed right where we're standing. He's in quite a bit of pain, really, even half conscious I imagine it must be horrific." Through all this description, this litany of wounds, the man's voice never wavers from his lecturing tone. It's all just a list to him. Just broad strokes. Recitation. That's all it is.
         Then the man looks up at her from his near kneeling position and smiles with a charm that almost radiates, "But I did promise not to kill him. And he is still alive, so he really can't complain. I could have just as easily turned him into ash."
         "Oh . . . oh God . . . why?" Jina feels too warm, like she's got her winter clothing on in July. Her skin seems flushed and she wipes a hand across her forehead, feeling sweat and salt smearing against the back of her hand, feeling a stab of fear through her chest as she tries to remember which hand had the blood on it. Funny how little details like that can send your mind into a tailspin.
         "Hm . . ." the man mutters, his eyes narrowing. He's staring at the window again, and there might just be something glittering in that window. But Jina can't see anything properly anymore, at some point her night took a detour into the darkly surreal and she can't find her way back into the real world. Not that she's sure she wants to. Because this is the real world too, the overlap became so large they forgot to delineate the boundaries again. "Oh yes, you had one other question. Who is this?" He asks it like he's not really sure. "For what it's worth, his name is Carl." He glances at her. "Does that ring any bells?"
         "Ohhhh . . ." Jina's head goes suddenly light and the broken jigsaw pieces of his face snap into place with a sickening snap. Her world is swaying, her feet are swaying, she's swaying on her feet because she's trapped on a dank boat caught in an endless ocean and there's no escape, no escape ever. Now she remembers. Recalls standing by the door and watching someone fly past her, barely seeing him in the corner of her eye, barely noting the panicked expression, the wild, rampant style of running, the fact that he nearly slammed into the door in his haste to get out. Then, she just filed it away with the rest of the stuff that happened at the party. Now it all comes slashing back in dizzying spirals, crippling her where she stands. She staggers a step back, trying to make herself believe that this isn't Carl, that someone she knows isn't lying beaten nearly to jelly at her feet. Jina has thought a lot of not very nice things about Carl during the course of the night, words that she might not give a passing moment to after the party is over but they've started clustering around her like a flock of birds finding a particularly juicy carcass to mill around. Calling out the words. Saying the names. Jina wants to clap her hands around her ears and drop to her knees, even if it means getting blood all over her legs and she wants to do that and she wants to pretend that nothing here is real. Nothing is happening. It's okay. It's okay. It's all okay.
         "I'm afraid it's not," the man murmurs, and she's not sure but in this crazy period of time he might be answering the thoughts crashing around inside her head. He might just be doing that. Oh God. Opening her brain up and pulling out all the letters of her nerves, arranging them into a cat's cradle. The world takes you to pieces and you just stand there with an idiot's smile. We let it happen. All the evil in the world happens because someone stood there and said it was okay. Every single goddamn moment of purest evil. Look in the mirror and start screaming accusations. That's where it lies. That's where you have to go. Put your fist through and the mirror world lashes back with you. Glass in the knuckles, red tinging the edges. But look at it sparkle. Jagged diamonds set against the backdrop of pale skin. Pretty.
         "What . . . why . . ." Jina isn't sure what the tone of her voice actually is, someone went and injected a quality she's never heard before. It's such an effort to string words together. Nothing makes sense. Just babble. It's all just babble. Say something, you fool. "Why are you doing this? Why?"
         "Oh you don't know . . ." the man looks briefly confused and then cocks his head to the side, as if listening to the murmurs of the world. He glances at his wrist, like there's an imaginary watch there. "Mm, that's right, you're not going to know for another fifteen seconds."
         Jina's head is spinning but the scenery refuses to play along. "How . . . what are you talking about . . . how am I going to know . . ."
         The charming smile rears up again. "Because I'm going to tell you, as it turns out." Then his face turns deadly serious and he glances at the window, eyebrows pointing toward the center of his face. "I'm afraid our bloody friend here drugged Lena, took up into an upstairs bedroom and tried to have his way with her." In his voice there's a understated flare of undiluted anger. An anger that in its purest form could lay this entire planet to waste.
         "No . . ." Jina barely hears the word slither out of her lips but she knows it has to be there. Her entire body goes deathly cold.
         "Tristian happened to walk in on it and probably stopped it from getting far more unpleasant than it already had become, which also explains why I'm here as well . . ." the man is looking at the window from his kneeling position, his hands lightly clasped together and dangling between his legs. He appears able to stay like that all night.
         And then he's eye level with Jina, who can't remember winding up on the ground, her hands pressing against the side of her head, as if trying to hold back the tears, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Oh God . . . no, oh God, this isn't happening, this can't be happening . . ."
         Something that almost might be concern crosses the man's face. "It's bad, I know. I'm sorry I had to be the one to tell you. This is all very awkward."
         "Ah . . . I . . ." Jina sniffs, wiping her nose which all of a sudden is oddly wet and tries to push her hair back from his face. Her thoughts won't hold together. Someone keeps pushing her thoughts apart. Make it stop. Please. Just make the nightmare stop. "Is she . . . oh God is Lena okay, is she all right . . ."
         The man actually hesitates and when he finally speaks it's with a surprisingly heavy sigh. "Well . . . yes and no. My brother has her stabilized . . ." and the idea of there being two of the thing sitting in front of her is enough to cause clanging hammers to echo in Jina's already reeling brain. She can't handle this. It's pressing down on her and she's going to snap and then she's going to be of no use to anyone. ". . . but Tristian isn't taking too well and my brother is trying to get him up to speed as well. But he's actually rather good at this sort of thing, don't ever tell him I said that, mind you, I'll deny it, so we should be on our way in no time . . ." he beams at her pleasantly. "So really there's no reason to get so upset. Everything is going to be just fine."
         Jina's crying now. Tears are ripping down her cheek and stripping her bare. It's happening to someone else and it's happening to her and she doesn't care any more. Lena's hurt. Her best friend is hurt and all she can do to help is sit here in the parking lot and sob like a child. Stupid. Useless. That's all you ever were. When someone needs your help all you do is sit down and cry. Just some pathetic little girl in the end. That's all you are. A goddamn pathetic girl. Jina feels her chest heaving, she's trying to burst from her own body, the weight is too much and oh God she's not able to carry it any longer. She's so mad at herself that there are barely words to name it. She wants to help and she wants to curl up into a ball and hide and in the end she does neither. It's no use. Her friend is hurt and she's no use. Jina's never felt so utterly helpless in her entire life. It's a grungy, dirty feeling. And she hates it. She can't do a damn thing about the feeling except hate it with every inch of her trembling body.
         And then she hears a voice.
         "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"
         And she knows the voice.
         Stomping footsteps clatter nearby. Angry footfalls.
         Jina knows that stride.
         And it lifts up something inside of her. Just a little, but for a second she starts to feel hope.
         Brown's here. Joe's here and things might be okay now.
         They just might be okay.

* * * * *
         "You know what has to be done."
         "I . . . I don't want to, I . . . I want to and I don't want to . . . does that make any sense, am I making any sense . . ."
         "Listen, okay, just listen, don't think you're not allowed to be upset over this . . . but you've got to take . . . just take a deep breath, stand up and start thinking calmly . . . because right now you're her best chance . . . nobody else is going to be able to help her . . ."
         "But I can't . . . in my head it's all . . . it's all screwed up, I can't forget that . . . that everytime I try to help it just gets . . . it all falls apart, in the end, it just falls apart . . . I know it does . . ."
         "That's not true . . . or else you would have given up a long time ago."
         "Maybe I'm starting to believe it now. Maybe I tried to convince myself it wasn't true and now I realize that it was always just delusion to think like that. Maybe the whole time it's been me."
         "It is you, but not for the reasons you've been thinking. You went and let the world get to you, it happens. And you feel you've dug the hole so deep that you aren't able to see daylight anymore. But it's there. You just have to strain a bit, but it's there."
         "I don't know. I feel like I don't know anything anymore."
         "Well, let's try something . . . okay, you with me on this, can we just try something . . ."
         "What?"
         "Stand up. Take a deep breath and stand up. You know, get the blood circulating a bit, you've been all hunched down like that and it's not going to do a damn thing for your posture, you know."
         "What are you talking about . . . this isn't the time to be . . ."
         "Your mother isn't here and I am . . . so just stand up, all right . . . can you do that . . . I'm asking really nicely . . ."
         "I . . . okay. Okay."
         "Good. That's good."
         "Now what? I . . . oh God, she's . . ."
         "I know. She's so still, isn't she? She looks so frail. It's not how she's supposed to look, is it?"
         "God . . . no, I didn't realize . . ."
         "No, you did. You knew. That's why you were so upset."
         "But now, I . . . I-"
         "Before you say anything else, listen to me. One last time, just listen. Then I'll shut up because I'm tired of talking. Congratulations, you've tired me out."
         "It's not something I'm proud-"
         "Shush. Let me finish. Forget about everything else that's happened tonight, everything that's happened in the last few weeks. Or even months. Or even since the beginning. Because right now it's just you and her. Because there's this girl here and she needs help. Because she's hurting and helpless and when come down to it, when you take everything else away, the person you are, the man you are, is a man that can't stand to see someone else hurt. You can't stand there and let the pain go on without doing something, without trying. And sometimes it's that pain that keeps you from trying, not because you're afraid of failure, but of the pain it causes, not to you, but to others. Because the last thing you want to do is make it worse for someone.
         "And you stand there and you look at her, and you turn back and look me in the eyes and tell me that there's nothing you can do. Go ahead and lie to me and say that some part of you isn't screaming to do something. You just go right ahead and do it."
         "I . . . but, oh goddamn . . . you don't . . ."
         "I do. Now, are you going to act according to what you tell yourself or are you going to act on what you know? Because you know as well as I do that not wanting to harm others can't mean not doing anything at all. It doesn't work that way."
         "I . . . I can't believe that, I . . . I used to, but . . ."
         "That's right, you did. And you still do. Because you know it's right. Underneath that piece of crap facade you keep up for whatever reason, you know it. So, now the question remains, are you going to let those illusions be your guide or are you going to let the man behind them finally have a say? Because I think he'd very much like to. Because I don't think he can look at this girl, who could be any girl or any guy, that he can see her pain and not want to do something.
         "But that's just me. And I've been known to be wrong every so often. And yet, I don't think I am. Am I now? You tell me."

* * * * *
         "Just what the hell is going on here?"
         Brown's voice is a commanding bark, springing off the palisades of the apartments, echoing in the spaces. He's yelling and Jina's never heard his voice like that before. He's yelling and he doesn't seem to care about who hears him. His footsteps are rapid, heavy, almost military. Listening to that walk, for the first time Jina believes that Brown might actually be in the military. It's the sound of a million hammers falling, a steady sound of metal striking metal held by arms wrapped tight in clenched veins.
         "Oh, hello," the man who isn't Tristian says calmly, standing up very slowly, clasping his hands behind his back. His body is silhouetted by a streetlamp, rendering him a slit in the air, all shadows looking for substance. One eyebrows lifts archly, a gesture that doesn't fit Tristian's face at all. But it's okay, because it's not Tristian. Jina doesn't know why she has to keep reminding herself of that, it's so obvious. Isn't it?
         "This is quite the surprise," the man continues, like he's running into an old friend at the bus stop. Two or three come every minute. Just when you least expect it. "I wasn't sure if you'd be here or not."
         "Stuff it," Brown snarls suddenly, with more venom in his voice than Jina has heard from anyone in a long time. Why is he so mad? Didn't Carl deserve this? Jina isn't sure. Her head feels all blurred, someone took a hand and smeared the fibers of her mind and now she can't put it back together. She feels all wet. Wet and dirty, like being caught in the rain when you least expect it.
         His footsteps are so fast that she thinks for a second that he's going to barrel right past her and into the man, tackling him, the two of them going over the precipice locked together, Brown's snarl matching the man's apparently ageless calm. If you can call it that. But then he's leaning over her, and she's leaning into him, and her chest is suddenly a vacuum, all the air rushing out in one second, leaving her with nothing to work with. A void. She gasps, words falling like crumbs from her mouth, her breath coming in hiccuping loops, a skipping record trapped under a too sharp needle. Clawing and tearing. That's what the night is doing. Just ripping her to pieces.
         "Are you okay?" he asks softly, his voice the barest brush against her ear, hardly stirring her hair. His arm is around her and she just wants to bury her face in it and pretend the entire world doesn't exist. He's on one knee supporting her and she wraps her other arm around him, not caring that she's smearing blood all over his sleeve, not caring that her tears are staining his shirt, not caring about anything at all. For a second she lets herself believe that they're the only two people here, in the lot, in the land, in the world. It gives her small comfort.
         But the man is standing right there and even with her eyes closed she can still sense him. A headache all the painkillers in the world won't stop.
         "It's okay . . ." Brown whispers quietly, rubbing her shoulder. But he's not facing her, she can see out of the corner of her half closed eye and he's staring at the man, his arms are around her and he's giving the man a look they could craft daggers from.
         "Oh God, he . . . he said Lena, that Carl . . ." the words are there in her head but they won't reach her throat, she can't make them fit, because if you say them then somehow they magically become real. Like Lena is just fine right now and if Jina says outloud what happened then Lena won't be all right. Like in some private space in her mind Lena is laughing and dancing and she'll always stay that way. "Joe, he's lying. Tell me he's lying . . . it can't be true . . . Joe, please."
         And Jina feels Brown's arms tighten around her ever so slightly, which is all the answer she wants or needs. Something inside of her breaks and oh God she can't stop shaking, she can't stop trembling she's going to rattle herself to pieces and then she's not going to be any damn good to anyone, is she? Lena needs her and she's coming apart. Her friends need her and she can't keep it together. But nobody told her. Nobody ever told her she'd have to do this. Nobody ever said she'd have to be strong. Because someone else can't be. So it's up to her. And she's not sure if she can do it.
         "She's going to be okay," Brown says and his voice is iron. His eyes still haven't left the man and Jina has this absurd idea they've having some sort of oddball staring contest. "Lena's going to be all right. Carl hurt her but Tristian stopped it and she's going to be fine."
         "Oh God, then he wasn't lying, he wasn't . . ." she's not even sure what words she's saying, nothing sounds right, they've stuck her head underwater and every sound is warped, bent and broken. "Why did this happen . . . why is this happening?"
         "I don't know," Brown replies simply, honestly. Along the edges of his voice, she thinks that he's as broken up as she is, but he's keeping himself together. Because he has to. Because someone has to. In the end. Suddenly he grips both her shoulders and squeezes gently, but firmly, separating himself a little from her as he goes to stand up. His impending absence gives her a chill, like someone tore all the insulation out of her body. "Listen," he tells her almost urgently, "I'm going to chat with our new friend here, okay? I'm just going over there, all right? Just to talk to him."
         He's standing up and for a compressed moment Jina thinks that Brown doesn't know who he's about to talk to, that he thinks it's Tristian and he's going to yell at the man like he would at another human being and the thing is going to get mad and do to him what it did to Carl. Set him on fire and send him screaming in molten streaks across the parking lot and he'll drag Jina over to Brown's flaming corpse and point out all the burns and places where he'd need skin grafts. A lecturing head wreathed in flames. Teaching hands drawing patterns, alien fingers detailing the arcane science of physiology. There's just nothing like field work.
         "Joe . . ." she tries to call out, reaching for his hand, his arm, anything. But he's slipped away from her, someone turned him into mist and he's walking away. Jina wants to leap up and scream it out but there's no energy in her bones and no power to her voice, it's all been crushed. The cold and the blood and the pain smashed it all and she can only hug herself for warmth and try not to cry harder. "It's not Tristian, Joe," she mutters, looking down at her knees, drawing her arms tighter around herself, finding the need to shiver violently, her teeth rattling against each other. "He's not Tristian."
         If Brown hears her shredded voice, he gives no sign. Jina sees him shoot the man a withering look as he stalks purposefully past him and bends down over Carl. He must think it's Tristian, Jina keeps wondering maddeningly. There's no way he can be this calm, not . . . not around that. Meanwhile, it's just standing there, watching Brown with a detached interest as he runs his fingers along Carl's neck, his mouth a thin line as he tries to find an elusive pulse, a burst, anything. Anything to show life. Life likes to hide itself, in the corners and dark places. There's life teeming at the darkest dungeons of the ocean, where sunlight is a foreign animal. And if we blasted ourselves off this existence, leaving nothing but cinders of belated dreams, life would still flourish, in some form, in some way. We delude ourselves into thinking that we decide the fate of the planet when it's anything but. We maintain our reason here at its whim. And it cradles us, sheltering us and never letting us know that giants stride the stars. Because we can't handle it. Because we're not ready. Not yet. Not now.
         "He's still alive," Brown mutters, more to himself than anyone else. He lets his hand dangle into the air, running his other hand through his hair, finally standing up and facing the man who isn't Tristian. "No thanks to you, I might add," Brown tells it evenly.
         The man merely stares back at Brown, the corner of his mouth twitching. Jina gets the insane impression that he's only doing it to irritate Brown, that he doesn't need to show any expression at all. Just wipe the face clean and you've got nothing more than a fleshy mask. Take a scalpel and sketch your own face. A billion faces in the world and it has to be of someone she knows.
         Brown matches the stare for just a second when suddenly he swears under his breath and spins away violently on his heel, the toe of his boot coming inches from Carl's still form. Jina thinks she can hear him moaning but it's become ambient music for her rainy day. It should be raining. That's the only element missing from this night. Filthy mournful rain soaking her, washing her clean while at the same time turning her into nothing more than mud.
         "Just tell me one thing," Brown says, his voice tight, his hands jammed roughly into his pockets, his eyes staring at the windows of the apartments, maybe at the same window the man was staring at before. "One thing, okay?" He spins back, his eyes seeming to flash in the dulled color gradient of the near morning. "Just what the hell was that stunt supposed to be about? I mean, my God," Brown glances down at Carl and then lets out a sharp breath, arching his neck back to stare at the fading night sky, "what were you trying to prove? If there even was a point to all of this."
         The man just sniffs in reply, glancing back up at the window. "Please don't bother adopting the self righteous attitude with me, Commander, it's not going to get you anywhere. I did what I felt was right, given the circumstances-"
         "And this was the right thing to do?" Brown nearly screams at the man, the piercing sound causing Jina to inwardly wince at its inherent violence. The two of them, they've puncturing the air, their words are bleeding the air. Liquid running into nothing. The coup always has a cost. "You've got . . . my God, you've got an entire door blown open," and his finger stabs in the direction of the apartments, "someone nearly bleeding to death in the parking lot and Lord knows how many people saw that little display." He crosses his arms tightly around his chest, pivoting in a slow circle, as if surveying the landscape for the first time. Like he's surveying a battlefield just in time to start the last act. Nodding to himself, he lets his arms swing freely as he paces away from Carl. Jina and Carl are the same distance apart from each other. Central nodes. Brown and the man are also separated by the same distance, forming the same angles in their slow movements. A dance of patience. Measuring out the boundaries. Polarities defining the moments. Revolving in equal orbit, unable to stop the counterbalance, unable to pull free.
         "And yet this is the best thing you can think of," Brown comments, almost to himself, turning his head to glare at the man accusingly, like he's the source of the night's problems, like all the wishing in the world might be enough to make him go away. But it wouldn't be. Jina's subconscious has spent sleepless months trying to banish the spectre of his existence and yet he keeps coming back. He's here tonight and it hasn't gotten any better. Downhill. It all just keeps sliding downhill. And all they can do is shrug and look at each other and throw their hands in the air like they're on an amusement park ride. Don't go down fighting, that's not the theory anymore. You have to go down smiling. The hell with it and have a good time. It's the way things are done. "Do you know how-"
         "I said the right thing, Commander, not the best thing," the man snaps back in his first display of naked emotion all night. The force of his words nearly cause Jina to flinch, and she has to suppress the desire to find someplace to crawl and hide. Like under a car. Or under a bridge. Or in the middle of the road. She's just a bystander, a front row witness for a conversation that she can't begin to fathom because all she can see is the surface, not the threads binding it, pulling it, forcing it into certain directions. "There is a difference, I think you of all people should realize that." Neither of them realize, they think it's just a pale and bloodless conversation. When every sentence is shrapnel sneaking past her guarded arms, cutting her, a million slashes each a little mouth regurgitating its own red waterfall. She's sitting here bleeding to death. And no one cares. No one cares at all.
         "I do . . . I do and I . . ." Brown rubs his face, lets his hands drop to his sides. "I was upstairs. I saw her." His voice is suddenly quiet, almost hushed. Brown glances down at Carl, who seems otherwise unimpressed at being the center of attention. "And part of me really can't blame you." He gives a shaky laugh. "Hell, part of me wants a chance to do it myself." Then his eyes narrow and harden again. "But I know that's not the way it's supposed to get done. That's not how we do things."
         "It's how I do things," the man states plainly, as if that sentiment might be enough to settle the argument.
         "We have laws, dammit-" Brown's voice is a plea, trying to mount a wall of logic where his sense of balance doesn't apply, fighting for understanding where the term has become a phased out idea. You can't reason with something that doesn't think like you, that never did. Jina realizes that, even as she can only see the pacing feet of their verbal sparring. To what end is any of this? What the hell is going to be decided here? It doesn't make any sense. Why are they still arguing? When there's so much else to do, why waste time fighting? Jina wants to scream for them to stop but halting the rush isn't an option now. All you can do is sit there, staked down by little men and decide whether to face the end with eyes open or closed. And whether that would make any difference.
         Their voices slam into her with unrelenting force, Brown's full throated roar versus the man's sniping and darting sentences. Close your eyes and you can see the colors of their struggle. Flashing and blurring into each other. Stabbing and pulsing, disco beats gone horribly wrong. The cold of the ground is seeping into her legs and Jina's shivering. But she can't make herself stand up, she can't make herself do anything but sit here. Even the words, even the words fluttering over her head like lost radio transmissions, only very few are reaching her. The conversation might as well be held in another language, in a country where her passport isn't valid anymore.
         "None of which apply to me!" the man argues tautly. The last words of his sentence seem to float in the air between them, sucked up in the drafts between the canyons of buildings, tossed about with no destination, mocking Brown with his sureness.
         "Then what the hell does apply to you, God dammit!" Brown roars back, his face pinched in an absolute expression of anger. Jina can't understand why he's so mad. Why he's arguing with something that could easily destroy him. Any second now she expects something bad to happen, and then has to keep reminding herself that something bad has happened already. And thinking of Lena brings surprisingly hot tears to her eyes. But she tries to focus on the words, on their voices. For some reason she feels a need to hear this. "What gives you the right to just waltz in and . . . and just screw up people's lives like this, first the damn restaurant and now . . . now this, when the hell is enough, enough?"
         Oddly enough, the man chuckles and all of a sudden it feels like rain, cold and damp, washing over her, making her hair curl into itself, causing her dress to stick to her sodden legs, her bones expanding painfully as water infuses them. Jina shudders without knowing why, tasting salt on her lips. She wants this to end but can't figure out how to wake up. Maybe if she bit her lip. Pain might do it. But she's done that already and she's still here. The taste of blood rolling around on her tongue, metallic and vile, it's just a piece of the scenery. Just one more goddamn sick puzzle piece.
         "Ah, I was wondering when you were going to bring that little incident up," the man laughs again. A glacier forms in her hair and starts to slowly make its way down her back. "I suppose you're going to lecture me about that as well, being you're on such a roll and everything. Let me give you one piece of advice then." And then his voice changes, with his face still locked into that same jovial mask, it shifts to a frequency that takes her brain out of synch with the world. And does something that mere words could never do. It frightens the utter hell out of her. "Don't."
         Just one word. That's all it takes. And the coiled wire that's been holding Jina together through all of this gives, she can feel it go, the same way that time seems to slow down when you're in an accident, the way you can watch the person next to you almost lazily put their head through a windshield, the way blood just seems to pool and collect into a million perfect spheres in the air, all tumbling toward splashdown on the nearest surface. And then time ropes itself back in and life snaps into the moment and there's nothing but a blinding crack of a whip you can't see to make you scream. Pulling the one important card out of the paper house, watching the entire deck come spiraling down, caught in their explosive drafts, buoyed by currents but still destined to plummet in the end anyway. There's any one way this can end. That anything can finish.
         Jina doesn't even realize that she's screaming until her senses start reporting in, lining up for patient inspection. Her throat suddenly is stripped raw and every muscle in her body feels clenched to the point where she feels crammed into a ball half her size. None of this is real. Every blood vessel in her head must be bursting. And yet it's not real. Her mind is yelling that or maybe she is. These two people aren't having this argument over the dying body of someone who hurt her best friend. She's not sitting all dirty and bloody in a parking lot listening to it. There has to be a point where the rope won't hold you anymore, where you've become so goddamn heavy that the only choice to go is down. And that's no choice at all.
         And then Brown's there, holding her, shaking her and imploring her with his voice to calm down, to get a grip. "Jina! Jina!" and it's just darts flung out onto a metal wall, nothing is sticking, she can't feel a thing. "Goddamn, I didn't even realize she was still out here . . ." He sounds worried, numbed into a concerned kind of shock. There are too many people to worry about and only so much care to go around. Even Brown doesn't have enough. He's running on fumes.
         "I suppose you're going to blame this on me too," the man notes, his voice seeming bored.
         "Shut the hell up," Brown nearly snarls, and Jina nearly quails from his voice. He's starting to sound like the man who isn't Tristian. It makes her want to close her eyes and whimper like she's five years old again. His voice has the same qualities, like he's trapped in a box that's far too small for him. This parking lot isn't big enough. This world isn't big enough. The planets are just a neatly arranged cobblestone path. Next to her, he seems so much larger, encircling, encompassing. She could get lost in him and never be able to find her way out again. Her body shudders of its own volition and she realizes that it might just happen. She has to get a grip. Brown's right. She has to ground herself. Or else she's no damn good to anyone. Including herself. "You don't have the right to say a goddamn thing, okay? After what you've done to these people, you don't have the right."
         "If you think that by making childish accusations, Commander, I'm going to start apologizing, I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken."
         "Childish?" Brown's voice is almost like a punch to her gut and it's not even directed at her. "You high and mighty bastard, I've got someone nearly dead . . ."
         "Who deserved it, I believe," the man interjects smoothly, as if slipping one last exhibit in before the museum closes.
         "That doesn't matter!" Brown growls, his body twisting violently to face the man, his arms still clasped around Jina, like he's the only person who can hold her together, who's trying to let herself relax and float away. All her arms and legs and head just separating and drifting away. Into the night. Find the stars. But tension is firing up the air, burning the ends of the candles and taking all the oxygen away, leaving her feeling compressed and desiccated, caught in between pressure zones, rising and falling. Bends in the brain. Someone forgot to let the bubbles out. Someone forgot. "The point is, I've got someone badly hurt, I've got people who are probably traumatized, especially after the last little stunt you pulled with them and after all that, I've still got to worry about Lena . . ." his voice goes deathly still, and Jina is secretly glad she can't see his face. "I'm getting tired of cleaning up your messes. Damn tired."
         "Commander," and for the first time Jina seems to hear that word, "I never said I wouldn't help." It's like he's talking to a small child, very simple, very easy to follow. And yet everything the man is saying falls down a dark well, the only thing rising to the surface is that word. Like a ringing bell that won't stop vibrating. That word that Jina realizes he's been calling Brown the entire time. She just never heard. Or she choose not to hear, not to acknowledge, because the truth could have been one more blow to a psyche already wobbling like a tub of gelatin. What we choose not to hear can be just as frightening. In our capacity to ignore, we shut out the world. Because it won't conform. Because we refuse to see it.
         But now that she's heard it, she can't stop listening for it. Like flipping the channels to watch the latest bombing coverage. You can never get enough of blasted bodies and bloodied babies. Every single image the same and changing the venue slashes the context. You can't stop watching, even as you eyes pray for relief, drinking it all up until they've swelled too far. Until it hurt. Until, oh God, it hurts. We expect death, expect corruption and cheating and sex and all the other sordid plays we act out in our heads, on the grand stage of the world. The sights we never see. There is a race of light particles that flit about constantly, photon bodies spelling out words in a language so swift that the only way to glimpse it is to stop time itself. And they act as the intermediaries between transparent sentient clouds, water molecules so dense that electrons are able to form nerve connections and terminals, and the fairy folk, who dance with the angels on the heads of pins in hopes of one day regaining their former size. All the majesty wrestles with us for space and we collectively turn our heads. Because we'd have to remake our image of the world. Go by a perspective of something other than our own. Nothing we can handle. Nothing we want to handle.
         Isn't that right, Jina?
         Oh God.
         Oh God, I'm going mad.
         ". . . can easily recreate the door, if it bothers you that much," the man is saying, and the words and the face don't go together. If Jina closes her eyes that isn't the face she pictures, Tristian would never talk like that, all the phrasing is wrong. And yet it has his face. And it promises impossible things.
         "How delightfully helpful of you," Brown replies evenly. He's rubbing Jina's arms, as if trying to bring her back from hypothermia. She doesn't even have the place of mind anymore to get up, or form a complete thought. Someone opened the spout and let it all run out. Swirling clockwise into the bowels of the world. She can hardly smell the blood anymore. That's how used to it she is. There's hardly any smell at all. "Perhaps Will would like some new curtains while you're at it as well."
         "I wasn't finished, Commander," the man states calmly, easily, "and if you had let me finish, I would have said that I can transport you and others to the hospital . . ." he trails off and in a quieter voice, like he's just speaking his ridged thoughts out loud, "anytime today up there." And then, back to a more normal volume, "If that's what you desire." Like he's going to make them sign a contract.
         "Oh please, but don't strain yourself on my behalf . . ." Brown says in an overly pleasant, singsong voice, like someone went and carved happiness into his voice. Sit back and enjoy it. This won't hurt a bit and you'll feel so much better when all is said and done. Jina's sure that she's scraped her knee on the asphalt but it's numb all over. A hand turning off her brain. First goes sensation. And then memory. And then it doesn't matter after that.
         "I'll attribute that to your state of elevated excitement," the man notes. Footsteps clatter on velvet near them. The man is pacing. A herd of softshoe buffalo rummaging in her head, upending shelves, breaking down doors, until it's all she can hear, a thousand guns shattering the fine china of her nerves. The roar that never ceases. Her body tenses to run but there's nowhere to go, no point to moving, she's all strung out, Brown's more of a comforting stabilizer in the end, holding her down, keeping her from reversing gravity and falling from the planet. It's too much. The night is a smothering cloak and the ground is an unyielding bed and his pacing is the soundtrack and and and
         And then it stops.
         Jina hears a snort that might be someone trying to imitate what laughter is supposed to sound like. "You're losing touch, Commander," and oh God it's that word again please let him be talking to someone else about someone else anyone but the guy, "I wasn't even trying and I still caught that spark. Time for retraining, hm?" The pause is forever the pause is two seconds. Brown's chest muscles tighten against her cheek. Plates shift. "Cute, Commander," stop saying that stop it stop it stopit, "but I'm no fly and you're no windshield, however grandiose your metaphors might be. If that didn't work two billion years ago, it's certainly not going to succeed now. I don't get slower with age." Another pause. Gears whirring, smoothly interlocking the sentences. "Which brings me to my point, I didn't come into existence a week ago." He's staring at them. She can feel his eyes. Strong sunlight strafes them in the middle of the darkest night. This can't be happening. If she could open Brown up and crawl into him, if that wasn't the most insane thought she's had all night, she'd do it in a second. Just to get out of the sun. "So don't think to instruct me on the concept of consequences, Commander, I don't-"
         "Why does he keep calling you that?" It takes her a second to recognize her own worn down voice. It bursts from her throat in much the same way baby animals emerge from eggs, liquid and violent, flopping and crashing about. A sharp object and a will to live is your window to the world.
         "What?" and it's Brown's voice. He's not asking a question, but coming to a realization. She can almost feel his skin growing clammier against hers. Pulling away. He's sticking. Everyone is sticking. She hasn't thought about Lena in the last five minutes and that makes her even more upset. Because her best friend should be at the top of her thoughts. But the unreal unpleasantness is coagulating into something far more solid for her. The actual unpleasantness is merely distant. That scares her. It really does.
         "Commander . . ." Jina can't find her voice. It wandered down a tunnel and her flashlight went out and she can't get it back. Someone's stepping in to speak for her. Jina lifts her head from Brown's chest, leans back to stare him right in the face. She has to see. She needs to see his eyes. Windows to the soul. If truth is a real concept, that's where you'll find it. Licking lips that feel broken, she asks as clearly as she's able, "Why does he keep calling you Commander?"
         "Oh, that's funny," the man laughs suddenly. It's the sound of a ship parting water in its descent to the bottom. Jina wants to clean salt from her hair. "I should know about consequences, Commander? Perhaps I'm not the one who needs the lesson-"
         "Shut up," Brown snarls with a force that sends her back two steps, trying to get away from that anger. He glances at her with an expression she can't easily fathom, it's a mixture of a lot of emotions you just don't see anymore. Outdated feelings. The kind of stuff that expires after a while.
         Then he spins on the man, who's got this strange smirk on his face. His eyes are mirrored, almost glowing. Tristian's eyes. "You knew," Brown says distinctly.
         "Why, whatever are you talking about-"
         "Don't give me that garbage," Brown nearly screams. He runs a hand through his hair and he looks more frazzled than ever. Brown's trying to collect his thoughts, collect his composure and it all keeps slipping away. For the first time tonight, Jina sees the cracks quite clearly in his shield. "You can read goddamn minds, don't tell me that you didn't know who knew and who didn't . . . don't give me that crap-"
         "Whether I knew or not is utterly irrelevant," the man cuts in, his voice a diamond slicing through the murk. "Either way, the current situation remains the same."
         "God damn you," Brown mutters, turning away from him, turning back to Jina. He won't look at her but he's talking to her. "I'm sorry, Jina, I'm really sorry that this the way you had to find out, I'm just-"
         "Joe," and she's only partially relieved to hear only a slightly hysterical tinge to her voice. Like she's getting used to all of those. "What are you talking about? I don't understand." Her palms feel so slick. Cold sweat and perspiration are fighting guerilla wars all over her body. The night is too cold. None of this makes sense. Even the nonsense is losing rhyme and reason.
         "Ah, Jina, I . . ." he's still looking down, rubbing his face with his hand, trying to rouse himself. Then the old smile ghosts itself across his face. In the angles she can see it. "Oh hell," he murmurs and looks up at her. There's resignation and sadness in his eyes but a faint smile on his face.
         Very slowly and deliberately, he brings his left hand up until the knife edge of his palm is cutting crossways on his forehead. A salute. A military salute. What is he doing? Why won't her hands stop shaking? When did it get so quiet?
         "Jina, I'm afraid you've got the dubious pleasure of speaking to Commander Joseph Brown of the Time Patrol." He clicks his heels together smartly, inclining his head toward her. "At your service."

* * * * *
         "She's hardly breathing . . . are you . . . please tell me you're doing that . . . please . . ."
         "I've only stabilized her really, I've got her in a kind of stasis, I'm not sure if she'll get better or worse if I take her out of it . . ."
         "Oh . . . oh God . . "
         "Now don't get lost on me again-"
         "Shut up, I'm trying to think, give me a goddamn moment to think . . . ah, you said she was drugged right, that bastard went and drugged her . . . can you cleanse it from her system . . ."
         "Hm . . . not safely, not for her at least, a massive shift like that might throw her entire physiology out of whack, my control for something on that scale isn't fine enough, alas and the only folks I know who can do that would really just make our night that much worse. No, my friend, it's got to be done the hard way. I'm sorry."
         "Okay. Okay. Then we have to get her to the hospital."
         "That's what I've been saying-"
         "Enough, I don't have time for this right now. If we take her there, can you keep a better eye on her? In the hospital?"
         "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I can augment whatever the doctors do and keep her from going downhill. I'll have something to work with then, I'm kind of flying blind here. I can only do so many things at once."
         "I'll bet. You're lying, but I don't have the patience to argue with you right now. Get her to the hospital."
         "Well, excuse me, Mr Uppity, all of a sudden you decide that you want to get back into the driver's seat? Shouting orders left and right. What gives?"
         "Just. Get. Her. To. The. Hospital. Now."
         "Heh, I've been waiting all night to hear that."
         "I don't really care. Let's just get the hell out of here."
         "Ah, master, your wish is my command. Instant transport, coming right up."
         "Will you stop babbling and just get us-"

* * * * *
         Jina can almost hear the motor of the world cracking around her. Around her world. Just because someone told her some facts that she wasn't ready for. Or didn't want to hear. What's the difference in the end.
         She's gotten to her feet but the ground is wobbling, unsteady. The ship of the earth is sinking, listing to port. If you can't get your sea legs you're going to fall off completely. And then there's no hope for you at all. Brown's still standing right where she left him, frozen in time. No, everything's just moving slow. She can see his face, it's melting. The smile is melting off his face. Dripping down into worry, sliding into concern. Why is he doing that? It can't be her, she feels just fine. There's nothing wrong at all. Nothing's wrong at all.
         Brown takes a weighted step toward her. In that second she ages a century. Someone's coated the world in molasses. Everything is so drawn out and drained. He's reaching out his hand to her, but Jina isn't sure if she wants it. Not even sure whose hand it really belongs to. He might be speaking to her but the words are travelling light years, lining up in their ark one by one, coming to her years apart, she's forgotten what the sentence was about the second it finishes. Too slow. The world is driving her mad. Just this little part of it, this tiny speck of the night, is grinding her sanity down to nothing. Do you even realize you've gone mad when the actual crossover occurs. Because you wouldn't be mad then, right? If you know you're mad, how can you be crazy.
         "God, Jina, please say something, you're just standing there . . ." It's Brown's voice but not his at the same time. Like the puppeteer finally removed his hand from the hole in the back. Needs that drink of water he can't have. Brown's image swims through polluted air, wavery, a ripple might scatter him forever.
         "Joe, what are you talking about, what is all this about, I don't . . . oh," reality headbutts her and she sways, her head bursting through the clouds to places where air is a scarce substance. Facts keep throwing grappling hooks into her, trying to find the elusive summit, latching deep into her brain, the pain something she can't ignore. Unfamiliar words, ideas, concepts, there's just no room for them all. Screw the ten percent theory, her brain is all filled and used, filed and sorted, no room at all. Efficiency is key.
         Words.
         Time Patrol.
         This isn't right. It can't be.
         Pressure on her shoulders sends her gasping to the surface. Brown's face is mere inches from her. For the first time she notices how strangely ageless his face appears, too smooth, like the skin isn't being given a chance to become worn and wrinkled. Like hers. And his eyes are too deep. The stars wheeling above are shining dots in his pupils. Shining and whirling and twinkling. It's making her dizzy. Jina wishes she could just fall and be done with it, it's the waiting that always bugs her the most. The air feels charged. Something is happening. About to happen. And all she can see is his eyes.
         And she never realized.
         Broken static coheres into his voice.
         "Jina, listen . . . listen to me, I know this is hard, it's a lot to handle but . . . right now Lena needs you, hell I need you, I need you to stay calm and not panic, okay? Okay?"
         His eyes.
         "Time Patrol," she finds herself muttering. Testing the words out. Two words that she never thought would go together and yet here they are. Interlocking together better than any coupling she can imagine. Try as she might, she can't force them apart. Like they were always that way. The linkages were always there. She just never saw.
         But his eyes
         "Yeah, yeah, I know, it's weird, trust me, it was weird for me too. And believe me, I'll answer all your questions later but right now we've got more important things to worry about. Okay?"
         She should have seen. It was so clear from the start of the night. Everything fits together now. All because of one fact that she should have noticed right away. But that's just like her. The obvious has to come screeching in through the front window with all sirens blaring before she'll notice a goddamn thing.
         Now she sees.
         "Jina . . ."
         He has Tristian's eyes
         "Who are you?" comes her whisper. Through tight lips. It's not anger she's feeling or even betrayal, she's too tired for any of those taxing emotions. Something deeper is working here, something that pierces her right to the center, blood running down the needle, mingling with the blood on the pavement, linking them together forever. His hands are still on her shoulders, and the pressure feels almost painful. Uncomfortable. In another situation it might have been pleasant. But not here. Not now.
         "You know me," Brown says with sudden conviction. "I'm no different now. I'm Joseph Brown. The same guy you've known."
         "No," her voice hisses. With an effort that staggers her, leaving her muscles quivering, she tears herself out of his grasp. "No, you're not. You're crazy. I don't know what the hell you're talking about and you're crazy." A jagged laugh pulls itself gasping from her throat, eager for the exercise. "Time Patrol. What the hell is that, Joe?"
         "It's true, Jina, I'm sorry, but it is. I can't hide the truth . . . especially after a certain someone couldn't keep his mouth shut . . ." Brown mutters that last part under his breath, shooting the man a devastating look. The man isn't paying attention to either of them, his hands are in his pockets and he seems to be waiting for something, he's facing one of the windows of the apartments, either unaware of the drama unfurling behind him or utterly unabsorbed by it. Brown risks a glance at the window as well, and then looks quickly back at Jina, as if afraid she might launch herself at him in that one second. Honestly, Jina isn't sure what she's going to do. Even her past actions don't make any sense right now.
         "But, okay, listen," Brown's speech is abnormally hurried, this is the closest she's ever seen him anything close to frantic, "just listen, I know you're, ah, upset and mad and all sorts of stuff but . . . when Lena is okay, when we're sure she's all right we can go somewhere, anywhere you want and we can sit down, or stand, we can stand too and we . . . you can yell at me all you want. Yell or scream or cry or hit me or throw things. And then if you want you can never talk to me again." Saying these things is tearing him in two. He's trying to erect a curtain around his face to hide it, but the silk he's using isn't thick enough. The fractured light shines through. It does.
         This is insane. They're arguing in the parking lot about something called the Time Patrol and the lot is covered in blood and someone is dying at their feet and the thing that did it appears to be stargazing. If Jina had enough energy to scream and throw herself in front of a truck, she'd be all for it. Because she's not sure how much she can handle. Her breaking point was sundered a while back and now it's only just a matter of time, really. Before the second breaking point arrives. The one that shatters everything.
         Jina doesn't want to be angry. She really has no intentions or desires, even the vestiges burrowing into her chest are making her stomach hurt, a twisting nervous kind of ache. But so many things have happened that she can't lash out at, that she has no control over and here's something that she can do something about. And so the anger comes, and she can't welcome it or channel it and most of all she can't stop it. Glaciers slide down mountains in their eternal migration. Headfirst we ram into the ice, hoping that the cold will numb the pain. But it only makes it worse.
         "Five years," she nearly spits out. She's glad she can't see herself, a little part of her knows that years from now she's going to want to forget this moment. But when something like this is set into motion, all the pulleys in the world can't alter the course. "Is that your big secret? Is that what you were doing for five years?" Her hands are gesturing wildly, randomly. Why is that? She's not telling them to do so. "You and Tristian gallivanting around the galaxy while the rest of us-"
         "Actually," and the man's voice cuts her train of thought to paperdoll pieces, "Commander Brown was up there first. We didn't reveal ourselves to Tristian until early last year. By that time the good Commander was fairly well established. Isn't that right, Commander?" but Brown only gives him a look that you could fashion the doomsday weapon from. He glances over to Jina, eyebrows raised but she can't bring herself to look at him either. Finally the man just shrugs, as if he doesn't care either way, and isn't about to start caring any time soon. "Fine then. Just thought I'd help clarify."
         A short period of silence settles on them and Brown takes the opportunity to wrestle the burden of conversation back to his side. His voice bursting with a plea, he says to Jina, "Listen, let's just take all of this one thing at a time, okay, just one thing at a-"
         "It's done," the man suddenly breaths. Jina glances up on instinct just in time to see the windows of Will's apartment suddenly glisten with new light, golden glows, exploding from the window like weighted sparkles, drenching them, settling over them like broken clouds. If the world hadn't turned into such terror it'd be almost beautiful. Jina turns her face away in fear, covering her eyes. But before she does, she catches a glimpse of the man's face. He's staring into the light, and his expression can only be described as beatific.
         "Geez, you guys are sure getting flamboyant in your old age," it's Brown's voice speaking, suffused with truckloads of false cheer. He's trying to be his old self, for his own sake, for her ears but it's not happening. The night's worn him down too and it's going to take a long time to build themselves back up again, reconstruct the chipped foundations of their already acid stained edifices. "Does that mean . . ."
         "They're gone," the man pronounces. He turns to look at Brown. "To the hospital."
         "Both of them?"
         "Yes."
         "So that's where we're going now, right? You're going to take us there."
         A mysterious smile crosses the man's face. "You're awful demanding all of a sudden, Commander."
         "Yeah, I'm up past my bedtime, that tends to make me irritable," Brown says as he spins on the ball of his foot, whirling back toward Jina. He doesn't close the gap between them though, doesn't make the attempt. Just as well. She'd hate to have to move away from him. When every part of her is screaming otherwise. But other folds in her head are taking over, drowning out the emotional, the sentimental, the irrational and the rational together. The damaged psyche is calling for help, and the only soothing relief it can get comes from lashing out. So just take one step, Joe. Take one goddamn step toward me and we'll see what I can do to you.
         But Brown makes no motions to her. Instead he just says, "Jina, we're about to leave for the hospital. All right? Please come along." His voice seems strangely far away to her, like she's falling. His face is a distant pleading dot, unblemished by the whims of time. That's right. That's what he does. Jina realizes in a mad second that not once during this tortured conversation has he objected to being called Commander. Like he knows he's earned the right to be called that and that no matter what the circumstances he should always take pride in that. No matter what.
         He's so far away. Falling. She's falling, her heels pounding pavement. Fingers of apartment gravity are forming a net around her, a tractor beam straight from the movies. There's no escape and she has no resistance.
         But she can hear his voice. It follows along, the beast that never tires, never pauses. Begging her.
         "I want you to come along, Jina, we all need you to come along . . ."
         And his words are just words.
         "No, Jina, don't go . . . you don't . . . don't be afraid, I know it's a lot, but . . . just don't be afraid. Everything will be okay."
         Empty words.
         A night of nothingness. Revisited. A split second of time, a void dot travelling through her nerves all these years, and now it's reaching her memories again. He's so far away, all tiny toy people arms and legs and head. Just a voice. Just a Cheshire voice.
         "Jina . . . please . . ."
         And maybe she's saying something in response but in the end it doesn't really matter. She circles the world, floating in the ocean of her head, watching all the small things that nobody knows what to do with, milling like insects. Just like little ants. But they aren't ants. Some of them are her friends. Some of them used to be. And there's that one she isn't sure about. Not anymore. Because these days you just can't be sure about anything. Sometimes that's a good thing. Right now, she's not so sure.
         "Please come back." Deadened, his voice rolls off the oil coating her body. It has no effect, like the wind at the top of the atmosphere, incredible speed but nothing to shove around. So it amounts to nothing. In her head there aren't anymore buttons to push. Someone went around and smashed all the controls. Just sparks and smoking fires. That's all.
         So, kicking her feet against the resisting friction, Jina executes a backslide and slowly, but with steadily increasing speed, begins the long fall back toward the world where she belongs.

* * * * *
         Brown watches Jina retreat back into the apartment silently, his hands tightly clenched at his sides, only the barest flickers of expression twitching on his face. He's very much trying to maintain control, but it's so hard. The night is making it so hard. He's gained and lost something in the brief space of time that spanned the night. But you could say the same thing about life itself. It gives and it takes. Impartially. Impractically.
         "Goddamn," he mutters, but there's no real feeling to it, it's just a word he says in an effort to release his coiled tension. Suddenly, he just wants to get out of here. She's gone and Lena's gone and Tristian's gone and he has no reason at all to stay here anymore. No more reason to even stay on this bloody planet, his home. He came back and it turns out he'd have been better off to just keep away, float in his little time bubble and save the Universe and let them all think him dead in a gutter somewhere. Maybe sneak a false obituary into the paper a couple years from now, just to burn the last of his bridges.
         No. That's just the stress talking. It was a good idea to come back. Brown knows it was. Things just aren't working out right now but give it all time, let this situation get resolved. Then he can go about the long task of regaining trust. He doesn't want it all to end this way, he didn't travel all this distance to reforge all these friendships only to let them fall apart when a little adversity dropped down into his path. That isn't how he works. He's better than that. It's how he got to be where he was. And he's proud of the things he's done. Now it's time to start acting like it. Time to work.
         Almost physically, he shoves all other thoughts out of his head, except for the ones dealing with the most immediate issues. In combat, sometimes a thousand little bits are begging for your attention and you can attend to them all at once. So you have to learn the difference between crucial and immediate importance and it can wait until later importance.
         First things first then.
         "Put the door back," he orders suddenly, turning to the man standing across from him. The man has just been staring at him the entire time, like a person switched off and waiting for orders. Except that it was probably doing a million things that his mind can't even conceive because it's on a level he'll never attain. But he can at least try to order it around, make him feel like he's in charge. That's the ticket, it'll bring the old confidence back. Right. Sure.
         If only it didn't look so goddamn human. Or even worse, like his best friend with a mental illness. All off kilter contortions and foreign inflection, not so much missing the beat as remaking the theory of music.
         It blinks in a gesture that might be surprise or just calculated emotion. That's how they work sometimes, they gauge what emotion you think would be appropriate and replicate it so you feel less uneasy. More comfortable. Among friends. A relative term, if there ever was one. Or it could all be a ruse as well. Layers and layers and layers and no clue as to when it ends.
         "Changed your mind, I see," the man almost purrs.
         "I took some time to think about it, which was a little difficult before," Brown replies, trying to let his voice slip into the authoritative tone he's used to deploying, the one that he's all but abandoned tonight. It's still there, some things you can't forget even if you scraped your brain raw, but there's a ragged edge to it. Taking a toll, it is. And he was so hoping not to pull an all nighter. So much for that. "And while I doubt your pyrotechnics involving said door weren't noticed, if they somehow missed your attempt at ventilation, I'm certain your brother's little window show will be enough to send police crawling all over this place." He runs a hand through his hair and faces the man, squinting a little at him. "Let's give them one less thing to worry about, okay?"
         The man just gives him a shrug that might be indifference or the punchline to a joke told by a race without arms. Brown can never be sure about such things. Narrowing his eyes, he mutters, "It was my idea to begin with," and holds his hand out, which is now glowing.
         The jagged space that used hold the door is glowing as well, but more hazy, like all the heat in the world is gathered there. And then Brown sees the amazing. A door starts forming, almost liquid in shape, flowing into the space, falling out of the air, all the molecules sacrificing their states to join the grand project. The rain is a door, the decomposition running backwards. It's raining a door.
         And just like that, it's over. No grand swelling of light of choirs of heavenly voices. The entire process took seconds. One second no door, and then now, like it was always there. Brown's seen them do it before, but for some reason the action has this aura of unreality, that he's not actually experiencing any of this. Somewhere he's curled up in bed, his body stiffly thrashing and jerking, his mind flying endlessly elsewhere. In this dream empire. This crumbling empire of doors.
         But no, he's here and solid. And so, unfortunately, is the being standing next to him.
         "Would you like to go examine it to be sure?" the man asks him, a bit snidely. "Because I assure you that I will keep trying until I meet your no doubt exacting standards."
         "Oh, stuff it," Brown snaps, feeling another surge of irritation ripple through him. He's letting the man annoy him and he's not sure why. It's just more fodder for the being to play with, Brown's sure that he's nothing more than dirty and cheap glass to someone like the man. Emotions and thoughts spiralling out of his mouth like demented ticker tape. The sooner they part ways, hopefully for another few months, won't be soon enough for him.
         Brown examines the door from a distance. It certainly looks real, hopefully the man wasn't pulling some sort of joke on him. Immortal humor can be hard to stomach sometimes. No use worrying about it, he guesses with an inward sigh. There are more important matters to consider. Like getting to the hospital and making sure Tristian doesn't get himself arrested. Hopefully he had the sense to get himself teleported somewhere out of the way and then take her in and not pop up in an unoccupied room. Tristian tends to forget subtle details like that sometimes. Fortunately Brown's here to track the big picture for everyone involved. Three cheers.
         He turns to face the man and give him the final go ahead when his eyes return to Carl. Magnets embedded in his head. The battered man hasn't even moaned in the last few minutes, though with everyone shouting it's not like he would have been heard. Brown can't help looking at the man without a flare of anger raging somewhere deep inside him, but right now he just looks pathetic and beaten. He's just a man, Brown has to remind him. Not some dictator or immortal being bent on destruction. Just some guy who screwed up and did some things he shouldn't have done and this was the way he paid for his acts. But Brown's fairly sure that he'd take this night back if given any sort of choice. Too bad you don't have any choice, time only moves in one direction. And it might be forward or backward or left or right or maybe even up but it's always the same.
         Slowly, he crosses the distance to Carl, bending over him. A ragged whistling being emitted from his bloody nostrils and broken mouth is all the confirmation Brown needs that he's still alive. He notices the chalk white slash of bone protruding from one twisted leg. Ouch. One eye is open and it might be staring at Brown and there might be comprehension there, but it's glassy and fogged. Whatever images are reaching his brain must be the stuff of garish nightmares. Or maybe the same images just keep repeating in his brain, the reels on the projector spinning uselessly, the small bit of dangling film slapping the air over and over and over.
         "Was it worth it?" Brown asks quietly and somberly. He's aware that the man has come over and is standing over both of them. Carl doesn't even respond, not that Brown expects him to. Whatever world he's trapped in now, it only barely touches the real one. And there's no telling when he'll cross back over, if ever. Brown can't help but pity him a little bit, even as his rage seethes within him, the helpless realization that there must have been something he could have done to act faster. To avoid all of this. All this madness. But that's now been relegated to the status of alternate timelines and what if. Maybe in some other dimension Brown or Tristian succeeded in stopping this and everyone lived happily after. But not here. Here it ended like this and there have to deal with it. Carl deserved punishment, there's no doubt in his mind about that, but there had to be a better way to go about it. This wasn't it. It was the most brutal and the most exacting and perhaps the surest method, but it wasn't the best. And as much as he'd like to heal the man himself so that he could proceed to beat the living piss out of him with his own two hands, that's not the way it has to be. There has to be order. There has to be consistency. Or else everything is just random and meaningless chaos. And that's no damn way to run a Universe.
         Brown glances up at the man, who now looks a little impatient. Sure, now that he's done and got what he came for, he's all ready to leave. Typical immortals. They have all the time in the world except when you need a few minutes. Figures. Ah well, Brown's going to keep him waiting a few moments longer.
         "He's going to the hospital, right?" He has to ask. It's only fair. Now that the punishment has been meted out, there's no real reason to make him suffer more other than for the sake of abject cruelty. And Brown might be a lot of things, but he's not a cruel man. His injuries are going to give him problems for years and he'll never be the same in a lot of ways. For now, that's punishment enough.
         The man stares down at him, opens his mouth as if to bark something and then just closes it. Or maybe he just spoke on a frequency that Brown can't hear. You never know. A second later, he says, "I suppose." He cocks his head a little to the side. "Yes," he adds, after a moment. "He is."
         Brown just nods, feeling slightly satisfied for perhaps the first time tonight. Everything is starting to fall into place. The fewer loose ends the better. "Good," he comments. Slapping his hands on his thighs as he stands, he states, "Then it's time we got out of here. Away from all this nuttiness." He turns and regards the horizon ahead of him, stretching out over the lower parking lot. No cars have passed by in a while. He wonders if that's through design or not. Dawn is starting to claw it way up into the sky, he sees. Part of him hopes he can get out to see it. For some reason he very much wants to see it this morning. "I've had my fill of nutty tonight."
         "It won't be any better at the hospital," the man notes. "You saw her. You saw Tristian. This isn't over yet."
         "I know, I know," Brown replies, running a hand wearily over his face. They always know what to say to make any situation better, it seems. "Let's take one thing at a time. For now, let's just concentrate on getting the hell-"
         His body abruptly dissolves into golden sparkles.
         The man watches the motes flutter and flicker before fading away in the air. He's still standing over Carl and slowly his eyes go down to regard the man. If there's emotion there, it's nothing that you can quantify, written in a foreign language with no historical antecedent. His hands are clasped behind his back again. Chances are he's going to start talking.
         He does.
         "He won't thank me for that later but I knew how he was going to finish the sentence and didn't see any reason for the good Commander to stick around. There's a time to stand around talking and a time for action. That was the action, this is the talking." He shrugs dispassionately, blinking down at Carl. "I know you can hear me," he begins, glancing at the prone man, who seems to stiffen just a little bit. The effort, if made consciously, must cost him dearly. "I don't know how much you can comprehend, but I know that you're still conscious and have heard everything that's gone on here."
         Looking up, he starts to pace in a small circle around Carl. His speech remains uncluttered by air or motion. It falls freely into the spaces, executing a perfect twist before dropping out of sight. "I don't know what you think about what I've done to you, moreover, I don't care. All the things I said to you before are still true." A thin smile threatens to rupture his face. "And compared to what I can do to you, I've done very little indeed. I won't go into the details, but I'm sure in whatever private hell you find yourself, you can imagine."
         He stops his circular motion, bending down over Carl, his face mere inches from the other man's. "Right now a phone call has been placed to emergency services and an ambulance is on its way here. Where they'll find you, much like you are now, broken and battered and useless." He laces his hands together and rocks back on his heels, looking utterly relaxed. "I could have intercepted the signal for the call and rerouted it to mainland China, where it would have done you no good at all. I could teleport the ambulance directly here and save precious minutes which you desperately need." The smile bursts into a brief, unsettling grin. "You're dying, I hope you know. They'll get here before you die and save you from that fate, but until that time you'll lie here, slowly bleeding, slowly growing colder." The face shifts into something vastly more serious, but no less disturbing. It's like desert sand caught in the wind. Endlessly reinventing the patterns. "And there are those who would say that I should get you to the hospital. Or even heal you. I can do both." A laugh like melting glass emerges from his throat. "I'm sure the good Commander assumed that's what I meant when I said you were going to the hospital. But no, alas, you're going there by the conventional means. And there'll be here soon, but for you, it's going to seem like a very, very long time, I'm afraid." The man gives a sort of shrug, shifting into a stance that allows him to balance on the balls of his feet. Palms on his knees, he regards Carl through the gap his parted legs create. "I should err on the side of mercy, they would say. That scare tactics are enough, and to do more would be cruel. Inhuman, even," and his lips curl over the word in barely disguised amusement. "That the very least I could do is teleport you to the hospital. Or stabilize you. And between you and me, honestly, there is a part of me that would do either. Really."
         Then his face changes into something that can't possibly be described in concrete terms, it's anger and satisfaction and glee all squashed into one utterly alien expression. No human face could hope to replicate it and for the first time the man looks completely like something other than the face he wears. He begins to rise to a standing position, saying as he does so, "But, you see, there's the matter of this girl you hurt. Because, you see, I've seen into her head, I've seen the pain and hurt and helplessness crying out in there, written in textures you can never hope to understand." His voice isn't so much an accusation as a statement. "You took a night of joy and happiness for her, and for someone dearly important to me, and scrawled your grotesque signature all over it, scarring her forevermore." He pauses and closes his eyes briefly, as if trying to collect his thoughts. When he speaks again, his voice seems pinched. "Being what I am sometimes isn't a benefit. Sometimes I see too much. And what I've seen this time I can't forgive."
         The man takes a step backwards, his eyes on Carl. There's a sadness in his eyes as he stares at the still form, but it's not clear who or what the sadness is actually for, if anyone at all. He pauses again and lets out a surprisingly deep breath before speaking, "So, with all that said, what I choose to do . . . is nothing at all." Again he cocks his head to the side. "They'll be here soon," he says to Carl, as if that might soothe the man just a little bit. Then, deliberately, slowly, he inclines his head formally, saying, "I've spoken my piece. Good night and farewell. I doubt we'll ever speak again."
         As soon as his words strike the air he's already turned and started walking away, his footsteps soft but strangely piercing in the quiet night. They seem to be rising in pitch even as the rate never varies, getting more and more insistent, a man climbing up a hill, while still trying to maintain his upright stance. It's a maddening and relentless progression, there has to be some kind of end to it but it just keeps escalating. Louder and heavier and louder.
         And then, at their screaming height, the footsteps are cut off completely. The night blisters with sudden gold.
         It's dark again. Quiet. The still silence inflates the already bloated air. Somewhere a breaking point creaks as it's approached.
         While in the distance, the silence gives birth to the ghostly, pinprick wail of a siren, its drugged out howl the only cry it makes as it enters into the world.