- H -

Your Whispers and Your Shouts Sound Exactly the Same

         Even winter couldn't flash freeze the decay. While the rest of the world went into a sort of chilled stasis, around here it kept falling apart by degrees, a little each day, with nothing to halt the crumbling.
         Tristian stalked through a bright but cold day, stepping among dirty and blasted buildings, through sidewalks that seemed caked with their own layer of grime. Try to rub it all away and eventually you'll get nothing. There's no core anymore. It was chipped away year by year and now the dirt holds it all together. You want to fix it? You want to really fix it? Then you'll have to raze and rebuild like nothing here ever existed. From the top down. People to posies. Take it all away.
         But that's not what Tristian was here for. His footsteps crunched in the dry air, broken glass grinding under his feet. Buildings loomed like monuments to forgotten idols on either sides of the street, trying to dwarf him. Somewhere far away he heard two dogs barking, refusing to fall into harmony. The air smelled harsh, like something was burning. But this wasn't hell, as much as the environment tried to convince him of that. It was just a place where people lived. Worse than some, better than some. But no more than that.
         A brisk wind caused old crumpled newspaper scraps to chase each other around his feet. Eyes skyward, he noted the numbers on the buildings. The sun peaking over the summits of the apartments fell like a band across his face, making him squint slightly. He walked past a trash can that had been tipped over, its discarded contents spilled out onto the cracked sidewalks like twentieth century entrails. Someone had scribbled with spray paint over a no parking sign, changing it into something borderline obscene.
         All the apartments looked the same. Floors were stacked like a fourth grader's school project, facades were chipped and stripped, revealing the bland guts underneath. It was like walking down the skeletal remains of a vast and monstrous assembly line, long abandoned, long gone quiet, its machinations still to be completed. He could imagine fractured people playing in the shadows of these massive bulks a thousand years from now and have no idea what they were once for. Temples, perhaps? Kennels? Anything can go into legend. The question is whether it'll vanish into time intact.
         Finally Tristian came to a stop at one particular building. Hands still in his pockets he regarded the entrance. The alcove was in shadows and he couldn't tell if the corridor beyond the glass doors was similarly shadowed or merely the product of dark paint. It didn't really matter, either way. Either way, he was going in.
         Stepping into the alcove was like walking off a train and into a zoo. The light wind immediately died off, making it oddly quiet. The temperature increased only marginally. Dead and dried remains of food snapped under his feet. The faint stink of old urine and worse reached his nostrils. Brushing past the clutches of someone else's old memories, he opened the door. It squeaked and protested gratingly but allowed him to enter.
         Going inside was like going back out. The hallway was dank and chilly. His breath exited from his mouth as a faint ghost, mouth working soundlessly as it dissolved. On his right were neat square rows of mailboxes. Some of the names had fallen off, while some were merely indecipherable. He wondered how many were real names anymore, how many even still lived here. Details like that just didn't seem important around here. With one finger he traced a path through the mailboxes, finally stopping at a certain name.
         Nodding to himself he took another step toward a bank of intercoms that rested in the wall next to the mailboxes. It was little buttons with the names next to the buttons, with a small speaker to talk through. His eyes rested on a particular button. For a second he stood there, hesitant over something. His hand twitched in the air, poised between two actions.
         Then, with a stab of finality, he pushed one of the buttons. The buzzer sounded very angry in the near quiet of the hallway. Slipping his hands back into his pockets, he waited five seconds.          Ten seconds ticked by.
         Then thirty.
         Nothing. No answer at all.
         Chewing his lip thoughtfully, he cast one last glance at the rows of buttons of buzzers before beginning to climb the grey concrete stairs leading further into the apartment complex. His footsteps echoed with a sharp clicking. He had to admit, if he wasn't the one making creating the noise, he would have found it rather eerie. Still, he didn't think he had to be afraid of anything here.
         The door leading further into the complex was ajar. He had a feeling it wasn't supposed to be. Stepping through he nearly tripped on a man shaped pile of rags that happened to be a sleeping man. Tristian glanced down at the man, who didn't even stir. His face was covered by a ratty scarf and a hat that must have been stolen from a garbage can. The air around him matched the scent outside, stale and stagnant. All Tristian could see were his hands. It wasn't clear if the man was still alive or not. Tristian didn't bend over to check. Such actions had a habit of being grossly misinterpreted.
         He let the man lie there and moved onward. An old style elevator, with a chipped and cracked steel woven gate serving as the door, was a few steps deeper into the apartment. Tristian stared at it distrustfully, with one eyebrow raised. Experimentally he pressed the button to summon it. All he got for his efforts was a groaning wail of metal on metal friction. In the empty hallway, the sudden blast of noise was near cacophonous. Even the man lying slumped against the wall shifted a little bit. But that might have been from a breeze.
         Taking a step back and glancing around to see if anyone had heard, Tristian decided against the elevator and looked for the stairs. Spying a staircase to his left, at the other end of the hallway, he headed in that direction. Far above him, muffled by floors of wood and concrete, he heard a voice shouting. He couldn't make out any words. When he stopped to listen, it abruptly halted.
         The stairwell was littered with old mail and other assorted garbage. Surprisingly, he hadn't seen any rats or vermin of any sort so far, but maybe that was just his low expectations. Still, he had barely gotten started. There was still time.
         Footsteps echoing hollowly, he climbed the stairs, not touching the railing, occasionally taking the steps two at a time if he felt he was going too slow. After a few flights, he wound up on the third floor, which was where he wanted to be. A sign indicating the way to the fire escape was lying discarded on the floor. The arrow now seemed to indicate a blank wall. A faceless metal door was his entrance into the floor itself. It opened easily, though not with a bit of whining. Stepping through, he carefully closed it behind him. The patter of giggling children greeted his entry but there was none to be seen. From elsewhere, the theme to an old television show played, deadened as if singing from under a mound of cotton. After listening for a second, Tristian found he could actually make out some of the words. It reminded him of a show he had watched as a child. He hadn't thought about that show in years.
         He was now in the corner of a narrow hallway. Doors lined both sides are regular and short intervals. The doors were all featureless, giving up the possible identities of their inhabitants only through their numbers. Without that, you'd wander for hours, aimless, lost. But Tristian had the number. A number and a name. And in this place, that was all the key you needed. Farther down he could see the hallway branched, heading deeper into the apartment complex. Taking a step and glancing at the first door, he didn't think he'd have to go down quite that far. But he steeled himself anyway. He had to. This was the easy part.
         Walking casually down the hallway, he noticed the numbers counted down. Down down down. In his head he felt if he hit zero something drastic and unforeseen would happen. He'd have to jump. Or the entire place would fall apart. Or maybe he'd just keep getting younger the more steps down the hallway he took. Crawling to the finish line would take on a whole other meaning.
         Not too much further to go. The lights flickered erratically and did a poor job of lighting. With no windows, Tristian felt like he was in a coal mine about to experience a collapse. What must it be like to live here, every day? No wonder the place was empty. Nobody wanted to spend anymore time then they had to in these apartments. Footsteps that weren't his tapped softly down the other hallway. Tristian didn't even stop walking. He could tell they were moving away, fading rapidly. There was a quick burst of noise, not unlike laughter. But he couldn't tell. He kept walking.
         Finding the apartment number he was seeking struck him as vaguely anti-climatic. Somehow he hadn't actually expected it to be there. But here it was, looking no different from any of the other doors on either side of it. Not even any police tape to set it apart from its wooden peers. Maybe they'd been here and gone. Maybe they were never here. Or maybe they just didn't know where to look.
         Tristian stood there for a second, bending his ear closer to the door. He might have heard a faint scratching but he decided that was just his imagination. There was no sound coming from the apartment at all. His stomach suddenly churning from a nausea he couldn't explain, he tested the doorknob.
         It didn't turn. Locked.
         The rational part of him whispered to just turn and walk away. Before now he could have explained it as taking a wrong turn, as an honest mistake. To go any further now risked being branded a trespasser. Did he want that? Did it matter?
         I didn't come here to steal, he thought, slowly unzippering his jacket. I just came to see if you would give up your secrets to me. To let me into your life. That's all.
         He reached for the object on his belt, unclipping it and letting his thumb rest on the switch that would gain him entry. Furtively he glanced left and right, making sure nobody was around. Somewhere far underneath his feet the floor rattled with a barely audible moan as a heating unit began to bellow.
         "Here we go," he said softly, beginning to slide the switch into position. Here begins Tristian's life of crime.
         Before he could touch it, the door silently swung open, revealing a room inked with darkness.
         "Allow me," said a cultured voice.
         Spinning around, Tristian found that he was confronting his own twin. The other Tristian stood against the far wall, legs crossed at the ankles, hands dipped casually into his pockets. The faintest gasp of a smile was written on his near liquid face. He didn't look real at all. It was very much not like looking into a mirror.
         Surprised and trying not to show it, Tristian opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it, instead whirling on his heel and stalking into the room. At the last second he remembered to close the door behind him. The other man still stared at him through the closing slit of the doorway. Then he was cut off from view. Even with the portal closed, Tristian could still feel the gaze, a bare tingle not unlike unharnessed electricity.
         Shutting the door had nearly plunged him into pitch blackness. The shade was pulled down on the one window on the far wall, sealing away the light. Tristian took a moment to let his eyes adjust and slowly, too slowly, the features of the room fell into place, his straining eyes already trying to warp them into monstrous shapes, like when he was a child and the most innocuous of objects could become among the most frightening all by turning out the lights and letting the mind run wild.
         A slumbering bear in front of him gradually resolved into a couch. It was facing away from him. An ogreish shape devolved into a television tucked oppressively into the corner, its one unblinking eye staring back at him with a question he couldn't answer. There wasn't much else to the room. There wasn't much to the apartment, really. It was far smaller than he had figured. This living room was directly in front of him and somewhat to his right as well. To his left he could see down the short narrow hallway a room opening up into what he assumed was a kitchen. Along the way, Tristian thought he saw a bed through a slightly open door. Next to it was probably the bathroom, although the door was closed.
         Second by second the room was revealing its shape and form to him. Nothing here was scary, not for him at least. What was here might still frighten young children, just not in ways they could possibly understand. On some level, it still scared him too. This room, it held nothing but ghosts. And even then, those spirits were nothing more than pale imitations of true haunts. Whatever life had been here had dissipated a long time ago. Now there was only a fragile silence and the burnt out crystal embers of memories since departed.
         Tristian stepped into the living room, his footsteps creaking on the wooden floorboards. Through the wall he could hear a swishing sound, like someone washing clothing. Grimly, it also reminded him of blood spilling through a severed vein. Trying not to get angry, he shoved the image out of his mind and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. What can you tell me? he asked the room. Forgive this intrusion and just let me listen to what you have to say. That's all I want.
         The room smelled like molding food. Discarded takeout, the remains of a sauce caked and crusted on the inside of a paper box, lay scattered among other pieces of garbage. It crinkled under his feet as he tried to step over it. Crumbs littered the cushions on the couch and there were several stains upon closer examination that he couldn't quantify. He wasn't sure if he wanted to. The television was covered in a thin layer of dust that smeared over his finger when he ran his hand over it. Glancing behind it, he could see that it wasn't even connected.
         What was he looking for? He didn't know. Tristian crossed into the kitchen, where paper plates lay stacked in the sink, rotting and falling apart from water damage. There wasn't any trash can to stuff them into. On a small table in the center of the small room, the corpse of what might have once been a small cake lay abandoned to rats and flies, with only some small hardened crumbs remaining, its skeleton already devoured. Some packets of sugar were scattered on the table, a few torn open and the granules spread out like a suspended offering.
         Except when Tristian moved a chair out of his way to examine the sink more closely, a somber quiet reigned over the entire affair. And even that small scrap of noise was muffled quickly, stuffed into a car and driven out of sight, never to be seen again. But this wasn't the silence of a frozen moment, like some urban Marie Celeste, hot coffee still cooling on the kitchen counter, a television repeating the same commercial over and over again. It was a quiet abandonment, silent only because nobody cared enough to make any noise.
         What did he expect to find here? The bedroom held no other gross secrets. The bed was sloppily unmade, the sheets thrown apart like the mattress was trying to evict them. The walls were unadorned, not even posters to hide the marks from previous nails. Stigmata for the new age. We raise these clustered and strangled towers and then crucify this rotted sprawl as the problem, blaming everything but the culprit. Perhaps it's easier that way.
         Sticking out from under the bed, almost sheepishly, was a dust covered photograph, the picture nearly obscured by dirt. Tristian recognized at least one person in it. The other was vaguely familiar. Tristian couldn't bring himself to pick up the photograph to look closer. Like the dust on his hands might never then come off. Turning his attention away, he noticed there was only one bed here. One bed for two people. That fact alone didn't surprise him, but for some reason it made him slightly sad. Both of them, then. Damn. He had hoped it had been a freak coincidence, some kind of weird cosmic accident. But no, it helped to confirm what he had always suspected. Two of them. Planned together. They had done it. Together.
         This was a useless endeavor. Being here was just depressing him, which he had somewhat expected, but not to this extent. This place was sodden with a tired sense of desperation, it was clogging up his lungs, making it impossible to breathe. This place needed light. The light of day. But if he were to tear the shades away and let the sun funnel itself in, the entire hollow might just disintegrate. It wasn't a risk he wanted to take.
         None of this told him why. Not even how. Not anything. There was nothing here. These rooms couldn't tell him anything, because there was nothing left to tell. It had fled already, thrown itself onto the twisted winds of a fate he didn't even want to confront head on, for fear of averting his gaze at exactly the wrong moment. This isn't what he had come here for. Answers. That's what he wanted. Answers to questions that he didn't even know he had asked. But they weren't here. Even the questions had gone away.
         Stepping back into the hallway, he went to leave when he heard footsteps near the door, moving rapidly down the hallway. Halting his stride, Tristian waited a second, listening to their invisible progress. Probably a neighbor, just going about their business. Nothing to be alarmed about. Still, there was no reason he had to attract any attention. Wait a few minutes, then slip out. Simple as that.
         On a dark whim, he went back into the living room. As he was doing so, he heard someone say softly, "What don't you want to see?"
         Turning slowly, he saw his twin step through the door, the entryway not even rippling from his passage. Just like the door wasn't there, that the man was the only real thing and the door was just a nuisance not to pay attention to.
         The man stood there, hands in the pockets of a jacket far too light for this weather, his heels at attention, apparently waiting for an answer to the question.
         Tristian really wasn't in the mood. "Were you standing out there the entire time?" he said, turning away and heading further into the living room.
         Shadowing him, like an echo, the man took two more steps after him. His voice seemed to slip through cracks in the air. "Why do you insist on putting yourself through this?"
         "I'm fine-" Tristian started to protest.
         "Don't tell me that," the man told him sharply. His rebuke was a cotton so sharp you wouldn't notice the bleeding until you were drained pale. "Your distress is palpable to me."
         "Then get away from it," Tristian countered, turning at the edge of the couch, one hand resting on the arm. The man seemed wavery and distant in the dark, like he wasn't on the same plane of perspective as the rest of the room. But that was just a trick of the light he was sure. "I certainly don't want you here." Hearing the irritation in his own voice made him even more frustrated.
         "This isn't a thing one cures by distance," the man replied mildly. "Unfortunately for both of us it seems. And like I told you in the midst of that delightful incident last night, you very much want me here."
         Tristian didn't answer at first. Looking away from the man's near burning gaze, he went over to the television again. There was a shelf near it he hadn't noticed before. The top of it held a small stack of photographs. Some had marks on them that suggested they had once been framed. But there were no frames around. Just old photographs, already fading.
         The top one was of a young woman, perhaps a graduation picture. The colors were warped and twisted, pried apart by time and mold and dust. He touched it with two fingers, feeling the slickness of the paper underneath the grey grit. Without facing the other man, he said, "Why do I want you here? Is it to tell me why? Is that what you're trying to tell me? That I want you to clue me in on all the answers."
         "Answers to what?" the man asked. His voice suggested that he already knew what. But whether he actually knew the answers was an entirely different issue.
         "Why they died," Tristian told him flatly.
         "I could tell you that," the man's voice floated over to him. "But you know that already. That kind of physics you learned in high school."
         "Then do me a favor and don't remind me," Tristian responded, crossing back over to the couch, facing it again.
         "Then you're asking the wrong questions again. What you really want to know is why they wanted to die."
         "Can you tell me that?" Tristian asked, giving the man a sidelong glance. "Look at this place, it's a goddamn mess. It's like they didn't even give a damn anymore, to clean it or anything."
         "Disarray doesn't necessarily ferment suicide."
         "I know that," Tristian replied, a slight edge to his voice. This was getting him nowhere. Why did they always have to pretend to be forthright and outgoing while all the time handing him only these riddles. He had enough to solve on his own, without figures of omnipotence tossing more smoke into the already clouded scheme. God, he was so tired of this. And yet he had to know. But he didn't know where to go. Running a weary hand through his hair, he turned to sit down on the couch.
         "Perhaps you'd be more interested in what they were doing in this portrait of clutter and apathy?" the man asked. His voice sounded very close.
         crack
         And just as he put the faintest pressure on the cushion, he heard it distinctly. Twisting rapidly, he sat himself down on the adjacent cushion, at the same time digging his hand underneath the part of the couch he had nearly sat on.
         A second later his hand emerged. It was holding a glass syringe, the needle chipped and a hairline crack running down the length of the barrel.
         "No, that's not necessary," he said plainly, holding it at eye level, turning it and watching the meager light play on the slim fracture, "I think I already know." The remnants of something liquid slithered back and forth as he moved it in his hand. It felt so light.
         "That doesn't tell you anything new," the man commented, his voice expressionless. It was no doubt planned to be that way.
         "But it helps confirm," Tristian answered, still staring at the slim object. So much potency, so much death was once caged in this fragile glass enclosure, transferred from pod to liquid to vein to brain. It was so hard to believe. Hard to believe the lengths a person would go. Except he thought he believed now. Because he had seen those lengths, hidden behind the wooden facade of a dark casket. "I try not to believe everything I read."
         An ironic smile appeared on the man's face. "This coming from a man who professed a disbelief in extra-terrestrial life up until a year ago."
         Tristian shot him a look. "I've changed since then." In a lower voice, he added, "I don't think I really had a choice, did I now?"
         "If you say so," the man agreed noncommittally, barely shrugging. He appeared to have lost interest but that was probably a feint as well. Tristian was starting to get used to their moods, the subtle shifts and what they meant. Still there was no telling if those were just poises to fool him as well. He'd go crazy trying to follow all the circles. The best he could do was dodge by instinct and hope it all came out okay.
         "They must have shot up in here for . . . who knows how long?" Tristian noted to himself, standing up, the syringe still grasped loosely in his hand. Pacing around the room while staring at the floor, he mused, "But that doesn't explain why . . ." Shaking his head, he offered to no one in particular, "Maybe they ran out of money? And had no where else to go? So instead they . . ." something inside him refused to finish the sentence. Turning to the man, he asked, "Why didn't they just try and quit then? Why didn't they just try?"
         "Except we're dealing with people who were in a state to which rationality was a distant stranger," the man gently chided. His eyes seemed to inhale the light as he stared around, his head swivelling nearly bonelessly. "I look around this place, and all I see, all I sense is this great need."
         "They probably weren't the first," Tristian noted grimly, his mouth a thin hard line. He held the syringe up to his face again, the needle standing straight up, the rest of the room blurring as his eyes brought it sharply into focus. A single droplet hovered at the tip, dangling, glistening benignly in the dimness.
         "No, they were not," the man replied simply.
         "Did they try to quit?" Tristian asked again, unable to take his eyes from the needle. Like the world might blur and twist enough so he could step into their skins, and revisit their last, wasted days. But he couldn't. All he had was this fumbling conjecture. "And try and try and kept failing and after a while they got tired of failing and tired of everything? Is that what happened? Is that what I tell his sister, that her brother wasn't strong enough."
         "You could say that," the man told him, his voice seeming to blend in with the darkness filtering into the room. "But you don't know if that's true. Nobody does. Not anymore."
         "Yeah," was all Tristian said. He eyed the needle a few seconds longer, like he was trying to use it as a diving rod. Where did they go? Where did you send them?
         Then, he sighed, saying, "The search goes on, I guess," while turning and tossing the syringe underhanded to the man. It was easily caught, almost snatched out of the air by a arm that moved like a whip. "Put that somewhere safe. It might come in handy."
         The man looked at him like he was about to say something, but then just shrugged, used one hand to widen a jacket pocket before just dropping the syringe inside. It vanished instantly, after which the man patted the pocket, apparently satisfied.
         "So where to now?" the man asked.
         "I don't know, maybe-"
         Outside there was a click and with a small groan the door began to open. A sickly looking shadow fell into the entryway, barely standing out against the muted colors of the floor. Footsteps shuffled in.
         "Who's there?" a man's voice called out.
         "Don't," Tristian hissed to the Agent, who had started to turn toward the sound. He halted in mid-motion, turning back to regard Tristian with questioning eyes. Tristian only responded by shaking his head slowly. Not here. Agent One looked at him for another second before merely shrugging. Tristian breathed an inward sigh of relief. God only knew what he had been planning.
         "I said who's there," the voice nearly barked, and with a scraping of shoes on wood a tall, hefty man came into view. He didn't move with any sort of caution, instead stepping with confidence, as if he knew with certainty that he belonged there and no one else did. His face was craggy, not old but worn, the thick mustache and deep eyebrows only beginning to go grey. His clothes, from what Tristian could see, were fairly plain, thick button down shirt and jeans.
         "Me," Tristian said calmly, watching as the Agent took a step back, closer to the wall, his hands clasped behind his back, looking for all the world a spectator at the world's least exciting game. "I'm over here."
         The other man, who Tristian presumed hopefully to be the landlord and not someone who had come to loot the place, squinted in the darkness, like he was peering into a storm. When he did see Tristian, his eyes widened and he stepped completely into the room, his stance now more guarded, wary. "What the hell are you doing here?" the landlord asked, his voice a near growl.
         Instantly, Tristian decided the best approach would be a mixture of tact and honesty. "I'm . . . sorry," trying to choose his words carefully but not to look to be obviously hesitating. It wouldn't take much to cause this man to call the police. Then this would really be a mess. "I tried the door and it was open-"
         "So you just try doors and walk into strange apartments for the hell of it?" the man demanded, his voice none too comforting. The Agent's eyes narrowed and he took a step into the hallway again, putting himself nearly between Tristian and the landlord. For the first time Tristian realized that the landlord hadn't reacted to the Agent at all. Again, he really wasn't all that surprised. "The cops got places for weirdos like you, pal."
         "If you'd let me explain," Tristian shot back, trying not to get angry, knowing that he was in the wrong here, clearly. He had broken into the apartment, had searched and trespassed a place where he had no right to go. And yet, he needed to be here. This had needed to be done. "One of the people who lived here was . . . a friend and . . ." honesty couldn't hurt, "I came to take a look to see . . . to see if I could find some reason as to why he died."
         "Read the damn papers, he got hit by a train," the man snorted bluntly, though his tone had altered somewhat. To what, Tristian couldn't say. He wasn't meeting Tristian's eyes. "You don't look like the type he'd hang around with." The two sentences barely seemed connected.
         "We . . . lost touch after high school," Tristian half-lied, failing to mention that even in school they'd never really been in touch. "When I heard, I guess I wanted to know more."
         "Like I said, that's what the papers are for." The harder edge was back, though it seemed more of an intimidation tactic now, as opposed to the actual anger from before.
         The Agent's head was snapping back and forth lazily, watching a tennis match played in molasses. Tristian was doing his best not to stare, as disconcerting as he found the being's near phantom presence. For the first time he noticed it wasn't casting a shadow. How long had that been going on?
         "I know, I guess I just wanted to . . . to see for myself, I suppose," Tristian answered, not sure how much of this was honest. "I really can't explain it. It just felt like something I needed to do. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here."
         The man was silent for a few moments, staring off into space. Tristian hoped that wasn't the Agent's doing. But the being had a blissfully detached expression on its familiar face. No doubt it was focusing its attention on some faint galaxy, some pending catastrophe. His life was just something they dabbled in as a vacation between stopping disasters, or whatever the hell they did out there. It made him wish saving reality was more of a full time job. Unfortunately it tended to do all right on its own.
         Then, the landlord spoke, "You think he was . . . murdered, or something? Is that why you're here? You some kind of reporter?" His voice was still guarded, lowering the gates down a little bit, expecting an army but only finding a man. But even a man can be dangerous on his own, if he wants something bad enough.
         "No, not a reporter," Tristian replied firmly. "Just a friend. That's all. Someone who wants to know what exactly went wrong. Why he did that to himself."
         The landlord stared at him for a long time, as if expecting him to suddenly retract his story or change into someone different. Then, he shook his head and looked down, saying, "Okay." Sticking his head out into the hallway, he quietly closed the door, taking a second to make sure it was locked.
         Again, he said, "Okay." He appeared to be in the midst of deciding something. Tristian didn't move, unsure of what was going to happen next. The landlord walked toward him, his path intersecting with the still standing Agent, who made no attempt to get out of his way. It took an effort not to flinch when the landlord passed right through the Agent. Neither party involved seemed perturbed over the incident.
         "So you want to know stuff, huh?" the man said to Tristian, looking him up and down. Kicking the couch with one blunt foot, he said tersely, "You know what they were doing here?"
         "I have a pretty good idea," Tristian responded. Unable to resist, he added with a straight face, "I read it in the papers."
         The man only said, "Huh. Yeah." Wisking imaginary dust off the arm of the couch with his hand, he continued, "I didn't think they were doing it when I rented them the place. If I had suspected it, I would've told them to take a hike. Got no use for that kind of thing here. Never have." He sniffed and rubbed his nose, roughing up his mustache hairs. "Maybe they were already using and were just hiding it. Maybe they didn't start until after they move here. This neighborhood . . . it's temptation for that sort of thing, always has been . . . but what am I going to do? Can't move the building. Can't change the people. Just got to do what you can, right?" He looked at Tristian with stern eyes, as if waiting for Tristian to defy him and try to inform him otherwise.
         "No, I guess you can't," Tristian agreed neutrally. He was caught a little off guard by all of this. He hadn't really planned on conducting an interview. Changing the subject so abruptly he felt his teeth rattle from the shifting gears, he asked, "So they both lived here?"
         "You didn't know the girl?" the landlord asked, almost accusingly. Tristian just shook his head. "Guess she didn't go to school with you, huh?" He didn't sound completely convinced, but apparently wasn't about to dispute it. "They seemed to know each other pretty well, always holding hands when I saw them in the halls, kissing, stuff like that. Pretty girl, she was, reminded me of my daughter, with the red hair and everything. Don't see that too often around here." His voice trailed off, then grew stronger, like he was physically shaking himself from some clutching reverie. "But no, no they were a nice couple. Every so often I'd talk to them, we'd chat . . ." his eyes grew distant again. "S'funny, but it . . . it bothers me, you know, not knowing whether they started using here or were just carrying over from someplace else . . . that's the thing, the thing about those people, I've seen it so many times and I can never get over it. How well they hide it. How they can stand there and talk to you and you think everything is just fine . . . then as soon as you leave they close the door and ram a needle into their arm. Like lying's a way of life. Like all they're injecting into their damn veins are lies." His voice stayed at an insistent monotone, never shouting, never varying from its casual pace. He was merely just stating thoughts that had gone around in his head enough times to leave permanent ruts.
         "How did you find out then? Did you catch them or . . ."
         "No. Sort of. Ran into the two of them one night, outside. I was taking a walk." His voice was flat, matter of fact. "Ran into them and they were just standing there. Giggling. Or something. I'm not sure. Didn't even recognize me, just kept standing there, spaced out or something. Thought they were drunk, really. Except . . . except the guy, he kept, like, holding his arm . . . squeezing it and so I looked and . . ." he shook his head. "I didn't see it before. I don't know why. Maybe he was only wearing long sleeves for the longest time. Maybe they just appeared. But I saw them. It was dark and I saw them, on his arm. She wasn't facing me but I bet she had the same."
         "Same what?" Tristian asked. But he knew. These things weren't new to him.
         "You know. Marks. The kind those people get," the man said, nearly hissing the words, like saying it too loud might invoke some kind of curse. Induct you into the wrong kind of cult. Instant addiction from the wrong statements. You never know what's implanted. What might trigger it. Genetics? Don't make us laugh. Be serious now.
         "Yeah. I know," was all Tristian said. The Agent was staring at him intently and Tristian was trying not to make eye contact. A ghost in the house. Taking the place of the ones that couldn't be here. "I know what you mean."
         "So I don't want to be suspicious, you know? I'm not the suspicious type, don't get me wrong but . . . I don't want that kind of thing here. Maybe it still goes on anyway, maybe the whole damn place is like that, but I don't want it. And so I came here, when I knew they were gone, I let myself in and looked, just told myself I'll take a quick look. I didn't want to find anything . . . I really didn't." His voice took on a basic pleading note. Please believe me, it said. But it didn't matter anymore. The damage was done and the weapon was gone. Now it was just clean up. "Just a quick look, I said, didn't want to poke around into any of their stuff."
         He rubbed his face tiredly. The dimness gave his face a strangely moist look not unlike sweat. "But they were stupid. Stupid kids. It was right there, on the table. Goddamn needle and everything. I stared at it for a long time, just standing there. Staring. I didn't want to let it sink in. And then what was I going to do? Now I knew. I liked them too. I did. But I had no choice. They didn't give me any choice."
         "So what did you do?" Tristian asked. The Agent had moved into the kitchen and was now apparently poking around in there. Tristian did his best not to stare. It was really starting to make him nervous. He wished it could go away. And now that he had thought that, it probably wasn't going to.
         "I waited until they came back," the landlord mumbled, unable to believe his own words, perhaps. "Waited and they came in, all happy and laughing, like I wanted them to be, just . . . then they saw me. Saw me standing near the table, with the stuff right there. Saw the look on my face. So they knew too, then."
         He drew in a deep breath, his large belly expanding alarmingly. "I didn't scream. Didn't threaten. I'm not that kind of guy. Don't want to be. Nobody said anything for a long time. Then I walked right up to him, he looked stunned but at the same time, I think, I think he knew this was going to happen eventually. She didn't, that I could tell. Her face was numbed, shocked like, she wasn't believing any of this was happening. That's what that crap does, screws up your reality and you don't realize what it means. What it can do to you. So you think, he'll never find out. Nobody will ever know. But stuff like that, you can lie all you want and convince everyone you know but it'll fall apart eventually. Someone will know. And I did. I found out. And so I walked up to him and I said, I said in a quiet voice, even like, I said tomorrow you won't be here, right?
         "And he said, yes sir, we won't be here. He was always polite to me. I knew he was a smart ass, you can always tell that type, but hell he was never less than polite. I sort of respected that. But maybe that was part of the lie, too. I don't know.
         "So then I said to him, See to it that you aren't. Here, I meant. And then I walked out and left. Just like that. I walked past the two of them and I left and I didn't stop walking until I got back home.
         "That was the last time I saw them. Until . . . until . . ."
         He sighed, rubbing his hands together, the callouses causing a dry scratching noise, the sound of someone trying to strike a match on the air itself. "About a week passed, I guess. And then . . . then I read about what happened to them and I think maybe I didn't do the right thing, you know. Maybe I should have called the police, maybe in prison they would have gotten help. I'm sure they would have taken it, would have wanted to quit. I'm sure."
         Agent One was shaking his head at something, running his finger along the curves of the table. His motions were smooth, boneless. Tristian couldn't see what he was looking at. Maybe he was just stretching. Just passing the time.
         With an effort he refocused himself on the conversation at hand. "They could have gotten help anyway," he said to the landlord, scuffing his foot on the floor. "And they didn't. You did what you thought was best."
         "Yeah. Yeah that I did," the landlord agreed, almost too happily. He rubbed his hands together and sniffed again, as if cold, and said, "You got anymore questions? Because I have to go and I really can't leave you in here."
         Looking around, Tristian suddenly noticed that the Agent was missing. Must have just walked out through the wall, as absurd as that sounded. But he would have noticed the teleport. God only knew where it was off to now. "I guess I'm done here. Thank you for your help."
         "Sure, sure," was all the other man said as he opened the door, motioning politely for Tristian to go first. Tristian took the hint and went out into the hallway, stopping first to take one last look at the sparse quarters two people spent their last days in. Leaving made him feel slightly depressed for reasons he wasn't quite clear on. Maybe it was the morbidity of the trip, stepping into a dead man's belongings, going through the pockets of his extended corpse. But he hadn't gotten any sense of the man, these rooms had brought him no firm connections. Some old photographs, furnishings in a state of disarray, none of that meant anything to him. Once the door closed the image of the room would eventually fade away from his memory, leaving only the barest outline of an impression. Water evaporating on the coldest day. Sipping from the mirage and discovering from the blood in your mouth that it had just been sand the entire time.
         Outside the landlord muttered something about goodbye and takecare and shuffled off quickly down the other hallway. Tristian watched him go until the man turned a corner and was finally gone. Already he was forgetting what he looked like. A mustache and a voice trying desperately to achieve something other than its perforated monotone. What had he really said? Nothing that had been important. Or maybe everything was. This hallway was warmer than the room had been. Even the wallpaper had felt chilled. Ghosts? Maybe? Wasn't that one of the signs?
         Tristian started to go back downstairs, head bent in thought. What had he learned, really? What had risking being arrested for breaking and entering really gained him? Nothing. Stupid details. They had been thrown out of the apartment. For doing drugs. The last broken taboo. He had suspected that, had heard as much at the wake. So he had found evidence they were doing drugs? So what? That was known as well. Even the casual interpreter might have figured that much out, without risking a night in prison. What he had wasn't even proof, unless he was going to dust for fingerprints. Damn. He had the pieces but they were all for different puzzles. Duplicate pieces, even.
         On a wall in the stairwell he saw graffiti that reminded him of scrawls he had seen on a different planet once, all loops with harsh edges and garish colors. He stopped and stared at it for a few moments, hearing an echoing clanging from far away, someone whooping. It sounded like a prison. The markings curled and curved and told him just as much as his visit to the apartment had. Where do the bad things come from? What makes us do them? Once he hadn't believed in aliens, in life beyond what he knew. And then he found he had no choice but to believe in aliens, or else risk walling himself off from the world, from reality. But he didn't understand them. That was always the great conceit. Everything could be understood. But it can't be. He didn't understand. Aliens were never people but people in their actions were foreign to him. Why? He wanted to scream at this enigmatic spray of arrogant whirls. Why are you here? Why did he do it? He didn't understand what would drive someone to put a needle in their vein and keep doing it and keep doing it until reality didn't make sense anymore, until their own body was a blasted wasteland. What did he see? When he stared in the mirror, what had he seen? Is that what made him do it? He didn't understand that either. His hand kept straying to the object at his belt, like it might offer some comfort. No. This was terrible. He didn't know why he felt this way. But he had to know. Why. He did. For himself. For everyone else. Why? He really couldn't say. The sharp pressure of his nails digging into his palms didn't tell him anything. He had to get out of here.
         So he did. Back down the stairs. Trying to push the image from his memory. But it burned more fluidly than anything in the apartment had. Mocking him. Reminding him. Some things he'll never understand. No matter how hard he tried. No. No. It won't be that way. It won't.
         On the landing just before the entryway, the Agent met him. Or, rather, it was waiting for him. Like he was some kind of bus. Tristian ignored him, brushing past his nonexistent form and stalking down the stairs. He had no time for this.
         But it followed. He could feel it, hear the obnoxious tapping on its shoes on the hard steps. It was doing that deliberately. Just to remind him he couldn't escape. Tristian had a feeling it was going to speak.
         It did. "Do you know where they went after they were evicted?"
         "I have no idea," Tristian replied, honestly, not facing the Agent, not stopping his stride. "Slept on the streets I guess. Maybe that's why they did it. Because they couldn't take it anymore."
         "Hm. Maybe." The Agent paused for an abnormally long time, with even his footsteps falling eerily silent. If Tristian hadn't felt the weight of his presence stalking him from behind, he would have assumed him gone. Then, abruptly, he said, "The landlord was lying, you know."
         That made Tristian stop. Turning on the stairs in mid-step to face the Agent, who had the same calm expression as before, he said quietly, "What are you talking about?"
         Agent One eyed him, one eyebrow just slightly raised. He seemed to be carefully weighing what he wanted to say next. A moment later he stated matter of factly, "There was cocaine in his blood." Then, with his hands clasped behind his back, he strode past Tristian, giving him a polite nod in passing.
         With a message delivered like that, it took more than a few seconds to sink in. "Wait . . . cocaine, I . . . what do you mean?" Tristian asked, racing forward a few steps to catch up with the Agent, who didn't vary his stride at all. "Are you saying he's some kind of addict?"
         "I'm not saying anything at all. I saw it and I just thought it was an interesting fact, given all his talk about disliking drug abusers. As for what it means . . ." he gave a shrug of dismissal, "I have no idea."
         Tristian was torn between shaking some meaning out of the Agent or running back upstairs and shaking some more answers out of the landlord. In the end he did neither. He found himself making that particular choice a lot lately. It wasn't so much as a conscious choice as standing there and watching the window simply close. He could reopen passage but the blood would be on his hands for weeks. Some days he was sorely tempted.
         "In fact," the Agent continued, almost cheerfully, "who knows? He might not have even been the actual landlord for all we know."
         "Are you saying you don't know?"
         "It's not like I did a background check," Agent One sniffed. Tristian hoped to God he was masking this conversation from anyone listening. With his luck now they were probably both visible. This wasn't a place he wanted to raise anymore questions than he had to. "It's not my investigation."
         He stopped, about to snarl off some kind of scathing comment to the Agent, fit an arrow to his ingrown frustration and send it far away, where it couldn't bother him. But he bit it off before it could truly escape, rebottling the malevolent genie. Screw it. At this point, he felt past caring. Any nastiness he might emit now wouldn't make any difference and would just make him feel worse than he already did.
         "Okay, whatever. Let's just get out of here," Tristian muttered angrily, jamming his hands into his pockets and speeding up his descent down the steps. All these pieces. All these useless pieces. How did they fit, if at all? A helpless dissonance gnawed at him, drove him away, drove him out. The Agent watched him go with a curious expression, then began to follow him again. They appeared engaged in a curious tug of war, each using the gravity of the other to be propelled forward. The loser was the one who refused to stop moving. But in their own way, they were both too stubborn to stop.
         "I'm sure he was telling you the truth," Agent One told him as they walked, trailing slightly behind. "He didn't lie about anything else, as far as I can tell. He appeared to be merely hypocritical."
         "And how do I know you're not lying?" Tristian snapped back, almost leaping the last three steps to reach the ground floor, never breaking his pace as he headed for the doors outside.
         "Be serious. If anything, I'd lie to discourage you from pursuing these courses of action." Murmuring to himself, he added, "If I thought it would do any good."
         "So why aren't you?" Tristian asked over his shoulder, his words punctuated like gunshots by his own clattering footsteps. He noticed that he could hear only one pair now. He stopped short and spun on his heel, bringing the Agent to an abrupt halt. The soles of his shoes squeaked violently, protesting the motion. "Why else would you follow me like this?"
         The Agent's expression never wavered. "Because I want to help," it said evenly. "I don't agree with this and I certainly don't see the point of it but it means something to you and that's enough reason. And maybe if you pursue it long enough, a point may come of it after all." It's voice was an inverted echo, barely seeming to escape the pull of their conversation. "That's all. Sometimes things really are what they seem."
         Tristian blinked, not sure what to say to this. Damn them. Damn them both, for not staying consistent, for not falling within some comfortable framework that he could evaluate cleanly, draw nice neat conclusions and set it aside, satisfied that everything would make sense. It never worked that way. The proof was right in front of him. Every time he thought he had them figured out, they would turn around and show him once again how little he knew.
         For some reason it made him laugh. Just a little. That was one consistent element to all of this, he thought with a grim wryness, nothing here made any sense. Shaking his head, he said, "Okay. Fine. Tag along if you want to then," before ducking into the doorway that led outside.
         After spending so much time in the dimness that was the apartment complex, reentering the outside world felt like emerging from a kind of sensory deprivation. Sounds collapsed back into a more natural state, enveloping him in a viscous shell of car horns and chatter, of off key telephones and backfiring trucks. The sunlight blazed down almost blindingly, barely making a dent in the crisp, acrid winter's air. It should be snowing out. The lack of precipitation in the air made the world feel emptier. Snow would have added weight to these plodding surroundings, at least given him the benefit of atmosphere, make him feel that he was part of something greater, something that was acutely reaching a climax of sorts. But the sky was flat, grey, the sun only poking spaces in the firmament like airholes in a child's shoebox. We're caged like pets, running around in these glass hovels, begging for any scrap that might be thrown our way, living at a steady pace, the same routine, day in day out, until one morning the maid cleaning the cages finds us dead. Then we're just removed and replaced. So the children don't find out. God forbid they know. God forbid they get an inkling of what it's like out there. Might get corrupted. As if that were a reason. As if that made a difference.
         No. Not snow, then. Not here. Not this time. The last time it had snowed, he had been happy, his memories seen through a glass globe, the fat man's workshop obscured by sparkles, containing magic all the same. Tristian didn't want to ruin that. Except he wasn't sad now. But he wasn't happy either. It wasn't his friend who had died and yet here he was, pushing himself for a man he never knew, answering a question asked by people he had barely met.
         "Where are you going now?" the Agent asked him. He felt a tired sort of surprise at hearing the voice again. He had almost forgotten it was there. Ha. That was a funny joke. Really funny.
         "Now? Home, first. From there, if anywhere, I'll have to see," he replied. Two people excused themselves past him to go into the apartment he had just left. Retracing his steps, time reknotting itself. History can't repeat itself because it never happened the first time. Not the way you think it did. Tristian smiled politely to them, a gesture they didn't return. An outsider, their motions spoke. Of course. That's all he was. Standing here like a crazy man arguing with the air, and yet he fit in here more than he'd like to comfortably admit.
         "If you wish," Agent One demurred. "I can have you home in a-"
         "Don't bother," Tristian replied, taking an involuntary step back before his world became a rain of golden sparkles. Not that the motion would have done any good but it felt proactive at least. No need to just stand there and take it. Run and wind up taking it anyway. "The last time gave me a headache that wouldn't go away for an hour. I'd rather walk."
         Agent One just shrugged, his face registering disinterest in the whole matter. He gave a slight bow and motioned for Tristian to go forth in his walk. Tristian wasn't sure how sarcastic the sentiment was supposed to be. He tried to interpret it as sincere. It was easier on the mind that way.
         Walking back down the street he had come in on felt like a totally different experience, when all he was doing was simply reversing his direction. The view was entirely distinct from before, even the buildings seemed more oblique in their angles, thrust up from the street like emerging teeth, all crooked and cracked, their facades peeling and revealing all the cavities tucked within. We rot from the core and we rot from the outside, it's just a matter of which pierces the barrier first. He had to remind himself again that people lived here, that these places weren't populated by inhuman savages devoid of civilized intent. Someone he had known once lived here. Maybe not for long, and maybe not happily but he had dwelled in these dirt strewn concrete canyons. Before he died. And maybe that's why he died. Because it was the only way out, in the end. He followed the contours of the lives here and found that way only cantilevered you into a cage where all doors lead back in. So he dug himself a hole and the hole led down and it lead to someplace dark and he saw it was the only place to go and so he went. Went down into the dark until he didn't know where the light was anymore and all the directions were frighteningly relative and every step took him further in until finally there was only one thing left to do.
         And he did it.
         But what did he really do?
         What were you trying to escape? Life? Or something else?
         Questions grappled bonelessly in his brain, matching the rigid pace of his stride. The Agent followed soundlessly behind, though somehow his silent steps echoed like boots on metal in Tristian's brain. He was sure it was just his imagination. Of course it was. It had to be. Just like death. That was all in your head too. Never really happened to anybody. Just a big hoax and you've bought into it, the whole deal. Mortality. A joke. Just keep marching and nothing will happen, don't get a goddamn bullet in your head or a axe to the neck or cancer and by God you'll be just fine until the end of time, right?
         But what about a train to the face. What about that? Huh?
         Feel free to start laughing anytime.
         Tristian tried to stop thinking. But these days, it was so hard.
         "About time you got here."
         And he kept hearing things, to boot.
         Someone cleared their throat nosily. It took him a second to release it wasn't the Agent. Either of them.
         He stopped in his tracks, finding himself in front of an alley. In the daylight they didn't look so frightening, more pathetic than anything else. Space that wasn't deemed worthy enough to be stuffed with human refuse and others things that aren't as valuable as cramming as many people on top of each other as possible. Like the buildings wanted to join but their parents kept them apart, for all time. Link them up and have one giant complex bursting with humanity circling the globe. He had seen it before, in other places. He wasn't sure why it unsettled him, but it did.
         However, not as much as people speaking to him out of nowhere did. For something that was happening to him more and more every day, it bothered him a great deal. That wasn't an aspect of his life that he particularly wanted to get used to.
         A darkly dressed shape rustled against the wall in the alley. Tristian tensed, his eyes resolving and focusing. His hand was already going for the sword. No. No. Never the first action. Never. Not while he lived.
         "Well hello there," Agent One said from somewhere next to him. He sounded strangely amused. Seeing the punchline before you even start to tell the joke.
         Then Tristian saw who it was.
         "I was beginning to think you were camping out in there," Brown said. He was leaning against the wall, his hands behind his back and bracing him. His expression was the typical Brown cockiness, but it was only a front. Tristian could tell. His voice was calculated, humor thrown up as cannon fodder to buffer the underlying somberness.
         Tristian smiled and glanced down at the ground, not so much shy as trying to hide the surprised expression on his face. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that he had only really travelled a block or so, maybe more. Not that far. His thoughts were weighing him down. And he was packing more in by the second. It had to stop. Before they all cracked in two, it had to stop.
         Brown was wearing all black, a leather like material that seemed to absorb the light depending on which way he turned. Tristian didn't think he had brought it here with him. So he must have gone back. But then why return? What was going on? Even in the darkness he looked pale, like he had spent all his time off exploring caves. Maybe he had.
         "No, I . . . I ran into his . . . landlord in there and we were talking . . ." Tristian explained, not sure what his own fragmented words added up to. We talked and talked and talked and in the end I discovered nothing. What did you expect?
         "Oh," was all Brown said. Strangers trying to connect, exploring those small areas they had in common. "Did you . . . learn anything?"
         Tristian was tempted to mention the syringe but he had a feeling that Brown knew about that already, either by anecdote or personal experience. Certainly the expectation was written on his face. So he said nothing about it. "I, no. No I didn't. It was a waste of time, really." Did he believe that? Who could say? Who wanted to?
         Brown only gave a near silent laugh, more implied through communicated emotion than anything else. His eyes were squinting somewhere past Tristian. "Well it was a worth a shot, I guess." He blinked, as if struck in the face by a bright light and then stared piercingly at the same spot again. "And it looks like you had company, if the blur near you that keeps trying to give me a headache every time I look at it is any indication." His smile was sardonic. "Aren't you lucky?"
         "Aren't I?" Tristian answered neutrally, caught between two allies who were supposed to be on the same side. If there even were sides anymore. "What are you doing around here?"
         "Oh you know, poking around," Brown said casually, scuffing his boot and making cat scratch shaped patches of dirt in the ground. "Following some instincts, see where they take me." His breezy expression suddenly shifted into something utterly serious, breaking clay peeling from his skin to reveal the hardened pot underneath. "I found him, you know."
         I found him. Just the way he said, even in broad daylight, even though Brown was his friend, it still managed to give Tristian chills. "Who?" he asked slowly, unsure of how much he wanted this answer. "Who were you looking for?"
         Instead of responding immediately, Brown shifted his weight, grimacing as if he had pulled a muscle and brought his hand out from behind his back to hand Tristian a crumpled up piece of paper.
         Tristian took it somewhat gingerly. The paper felt worn and limp in his hands. Gently, he unfolded it and saw that there was writing on it. It was an address. Numbers and a street.
         A second later he looked up at Brown. "Who lives here? I don't understand."
         Brown took a deep breath and arched his back a little, for the first time looking somewhat nervous. "His dealer. Don's dealer. The bastard who was selling that garbage to him. That's where he lives right there." Saying it seemed to wind him a great deal.
         "I don't even want to know how you got this," Tristian said, suddenly wanting to drop the paper to the ground, as if it were tainted, barbs laced within the fibers. But it was too late. Its touch had already poisoned him too. Dropping it would only make it worse for the next poor person who happened to come along.
         "That's good," Brown replied mildly, "because I really don't think I want to tell you." His voice was sharp, cold. Whatever he did, Tristian wasn't sure how proud of himself Brown was in that moment. "No offense or anything."
         Tristian ignored that, instead asking, "Joe, what exactly do you want me to do with this."
         He sighed again, a flicker of old pain flashing through his eyes. "I don't know," he answered after a moment, his expression startlingly clear suddenly. "I only know what I want to do with it and . . . and that's why right now you have it." The confession seemed to cost him something but he only shuddered slightly, biting his lip and glancing down at the ground briefly. When he looked up again there was a different question in his eyes. Tristian refused to answer, not because he didn't know what to say but what he might say to it. And even then, it might have been written plainly on his face anyway.
         "Are you asking me to . . ." he couldn't finish.
         "Look into it . . ." Brown said, his voice falling back into the sharp ordering tone he was more accustomed to using these days. Then, as if realizing this, he amended his tone and added, "If you want to, that is. It's up to you. It's just . . . it's just something to consider."
         "I can't promise you anything," Tristian said, his voice oddly stern. He wasn't sure why that was. God, he was scared. He didn't even know why. He just was. "I can't even promise to consider it, okay? I can't do that, Joe."
         "Yeah . . . yeah I understand . . ." he replied. He suddenly seemed very tired. Tristian watched with a strange detailed interest as Brown's Adam's bulged almost painfully as he swallowed.
         "Commander," a voice rang from nowhere, "are you all right?"
         Brown blinked sharply and even Tristian started at the voice. But after a second he relaxed and merely smiled. "Isn't that touching. Sometimes they pretend to care." His eyes became steely again. "I'm fine," he said to no one in particular. Waving his hand, he indicated for Tristian to leave. "You boys keep going on your way and don't worry. There's certainly nothing wrong with me."
         "You have more to do here, or are you done?" Tristian asked him. All of a sudden he very much wanted to get Brown out of there. This place, it was draining him, faster than his regeneration could ever recover from. It was sapping them all. You have to get out of here, he wanted to scream. But he said nothing. It wasn't his place to say.
         "Just a little more," Brown said, shrugging. "Then I have to be back." A grin reminiscent of the old Brown flickered briefly like a mirage, "I'm doing this all on my lunch break, you know. How many people do you know are that efficient."
         "Not many," Tristian admitted, before quickly adding, "Stop by my home though, when you're finished here. So I can talk to you. About this. Okay? Will you do that?" Even injecting a spurt of urgency into his voice would make no difference. He wasn't going to come, but Tristian had to ask. He had to feel he was helping somehow. That he at least tried.
         "I can do that, sure," Brown agreed, nodding slowly. "You run on your merry way though, I'll join you later. All right?"
         "Yeah, take care," Tristian said softly, not sure if he was crazier for leaving or for even considering staying. He didn't want to leave. He had to leave. And yet he knew that as soon as he walked away, he knew Brown would be gone to do God only knew what. And yet he was walking away anyway, almost on auto-pilot, with this bent and battered slice of paper in his hand. He crumpled it slowly as he walked, trying to smear the ink or cause the paper to fall apart. But it was too flexible, the world having beat it into a sort of pulpy resilience. Sometimes all you can do is lie down and take it and that turns out to be more of a defense than you would figure. Rolling with the punches taken one step too far.
         "Oh, and Tristian . . ."
         He stopped, turning to see Brown twisted around the corner, his face barely poking around. Around here, even the buildings have voices. "Yes?" he asked, hoping that Brown would come with him, help him take this piece of paper and throw it in a fireplace and never think about it again. This was getting too serious now. These things they were doing, they were starting to have consequences. That's not what this was about. Consequences was what got it all started.
         His grin was distinctly lopsided. "Don't do anything I would do, okay?"
         It took a second for the variation on the phrase to sink in and by the time Tristian could formulate any sort of answer, Brown's head had disappeared around the corner already. No doubt already gone. Tristian was tempted to give chase but ultimately he decided against it. No need. No point. Brown was a big boy now, if there was anything he didn't need, it was a nursemaid. That was for certain.
         He didn't believe himself at all.
         But he knew he had to let Brown go.
         So with a barely hissed sigh, he began walking again. Behind him and to his right metal clacked on metal, his silent shadow announcing its presence. Maybe it was some kind of private joke. Now he was hoping it wasn't his imagination.
         "The commander has been under a lot of strain lately," the Agent said, for all the world sounding like he was commenting on a new haircut.
         "Don was his friend. He's upset, probably more than the rest of us. I'm sure this is bringing back memories of his parents."
         "Hm, no doubt. He's been stabbed in the back, you know."
         Tristian chewed his lip thoughtfully, mulling over that as he stopped at a traffic light, leaning with one hand on the pole, waiting to cross. "I'm sure that's what it feels like, you know, having a friend die on you like that. It's like we all made this pact when we were kids to make sure we all get to old age. So yeah, I'd feel a little betrayed too, I guess." The light changed and he began to cross the street.
         "That's not what I meant. He's actually been stabbed in the back."
         "What?" Tristian found himself saying that a lot lately. It didn't make explanations any more forthcoming, alas. And to think he had sworn off being surprised for his New Year's resolution. He had broken it for the next five years with today alone. "He was hurt? That's what you meant?"
         "Yes, someone with a knife must have jumped him not too long ago, probably in the midst of getting whatever is written on that paper you're holding. Oh, by the way, watch out."
         A car blared its horn at him and he jumped back to let it zip by, dodging just in time, his coat trembling from the involuntary breeze that suddenly whipped up, a protest beginning to arise in his back muscles summarily squelched. Tristian suddenly realized he was arguing with an invisible being in the middle of an intersection. This was crazy. His world was crazy. With a barely suppressed wince he watched a pick-up truck pass right through the Agent, who didn't even seem to notice. All of it. Goddamn crazy.
         He finished crossing the street by nearly throwing himself onto the nearest sidewalk, momentum almost sending him stumbling into a nearby building. The Agent coalesced out of the air next to him, causing his ears to ring slightly. He really wished they wouldn't do that. Especially not that close. The Agent had a slightly bemused expression. Inwardly, Tristian only sighed. No use getting angry over it now. If he went to go find Brown he wouldn't have been successful anyway. The man was long gone. Without even asking the font of omnipotence next to him, Tristian knew that.
         "He's almost healed, I take it?" he asked. He could be that concerned at least, this way he might get a couple of hours of sleep tonight.
         "Essentially," came the simple answer. "I think the wound was deeper than he thought."
         "Well, that's what he gets," Tristian murmured unconvincingly, stuffing his hands into his pockets and rocking on his heels a bit. "He should more careful."
         "Mm, quite," the Agent concurred, also not very convincingly. A convention for the insincere. Gather on corners and tell each other how well the diets are working. Of course you don't mean it. If you did, everyone would just laugh. That's how you get rewarded in this world. Because laughter makes the world go round. "I think he'll behave himself now."
         "I hope so," Tristian said, meaning it this time for sure, wishing he could track down Brown and scream it in his face. He held up the piece of paper, bending it between two fingers, watching the wind rattle the very edges. "Because this isn't worth any amount of pain."
         "It appears that opinions differ. Still, the question remains, then . . ." and the Agent pointed to the piece of paper, "are you going to do anything about that?"
         Tristian didn't answer immediately, instead holding the paper up at eye level. The meager light creeping down from the sky illuminated the thin paper, turning it almost into a membrane. The words hid ghost-like inside it, barely poking through, readable only as arranged marks. A sense of rhyme but lacking reason. Nothing coherent. The wind rustled the top of it, sapping the heat from his fingers. All he had to do was open it. And do what? What the hell was he doing to do with it?
         But he knew. He very much knew what he could do.
         And with a chill that penetrated right to his heart, he realized just how much he really wanted to do it.
         "I don't know," he said, not taking his eyes off the paper. Why not? a voice asked pleasantly. He had the means, and the will. And this piece of paper. This damnable map to a place he didn't want to go. He had everything he needed. But Tristian didn't move. He didn't dare.
         Tearing his eyes away from the paper, lowering his arm and nearly crumpling the paper into a ball, he turned to the Agent and said, "I just don't know."
         The Agent only looked back at him, his expression guarded.
         And anything further was drowned out as the light changed again and the world erupted into a Doppler led symphony.