Lachlan opened the door and turned on the light. “Gotta be here somewhere.”
Onari stood on her toes, peering over his shoulder at the sea of junk occupied the lower storage room, in a basement area under the cottage on old Scotland. “What are you, a hoarder?”
“I had a phase.”
“This doesn’t seem like a phase.” She pulled the cloth off of something, getting dust everywhere and making her sneeze loudly. “Holy shit! Hold old is this-” She stared at the painting. “Hold on, wasn’t this like, stolen from that museum on Palix Four like thirty years ago? That was you?”
“I was hired to take it, but the client never showed up.” Lachlan threw open a cabinet full of fur coats. “Want one?”
She made a face. “Maybe after we solve your problem with the, uh, pink stuff out there?”
“Fair.” He pushed the coats aside, and threw out more than a few walking sticks and umbrellas, before he removed a long metal tube with a pistol grip and trigger attached to it. “Aha!”
“Do I want to know what that is?”
“A harpoon gun!” He turned it over in his hands. “Some 2014 model, I think. I remember when I had to take this from a sports store so I could hunt narwhals.”
“Hunting narwhals?”
“Yeah, they didn’t pay up after writing to me.” He thrust the empty weapon into Onari’s hands. “Hold onto that for now. I’ll find you the actual spear for it…” He trudged further into the storage room, which now was starting to seem like it was bigger on the inside the further in they both went.
“You know what, I’ll just take this to the workshop. Maybe I can get the harpoon printed before you can find it.”
“Do shout down,” he said dismissively, hearing the door of the storage room close behind him. As soon as it did, and Onari’s footsteps indicated she was out of earshot, she stood straight up. “I was thinking of calling you. Is there any use if you can see it’ll happen before I do?”
From out of the shadows cast by the strange shapes of piles upon piles of collected items, mostly cabinets and desks and other kinds of storage containers, stepped a man with ashen white hair; though his face looked relatively young, being in his late 30s at most, the glint glinting off his eyes made it clear that he was much, much older. He wore a coat adorned with brightly-coloured feathers, from red to yellow to green, arranged in such a way that they blended well into each other, just like a-
“Quick as usual,” Rooster said. “Just don’t forget to call later, so this doesn’t spiral into an uncertain series of events that neither of us control.” His way of speaking was measured, paced, as if he was considering every possible word and picking the best ones for the job.
“Then you know what I want.”
“I don’t have to see the future to know that. When you used the arm I gave you to locally lockdown spacetime, I felt it. And then I had a visit from your boss.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And who would that be?”
“The Endless One.” He clasped his gloved hands behind his back. “Quite the surprise I have to say. Haven’t exactly figured out how your Fae friends work exactly.”
“That’s one hell of a blindspot.”
“One you won’t use against me, because you need my help to undo the temporal locking and save Choe.”
“I really don’t like it when you do that.”
“Do what?”
Lachlan sighed. “How do I undo the spell?”
“This.” Rooster’s hand emerged from behind him, holding a small bronze orb. “Toss it into the vortex and it will resume as usual. Though…the results may not be what you expect.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rooster just smiled. Lachlan wondered how many people had seen that exact expression over the almost 600 years he had been around to do it to them.
He took the orb. It was cold in his hand. “Throw it like a grenade?”
“I prefer snowball.”
“Right. Like a darn snowball.”
They just stood there in the dim of the storage room.
“Do I save her?” he asked, a bit quietly.
“If I say no, what is it you’re going to do next?”
“I’ll find something stronger. I can lose the cottage, but I can’t lose her. Chloe is in the eye of the storm, so she’ll be safe.”
“Oh, very good.”
“I have safehouses. We can hide out until Endless finds us a new place.”
“If he finds you a new place.”
“This world is what, one of tens of thousands with Fae in it. Seelie Court Fae too. They lose this one, they just portal to another.”
“I am aware. That’s not what I see, though. I’ll tell you this much: you can get her out, of that I’m sure. I’ve seen the possibility. But what I don’t see is both of you making it alive off this world. You are at the very epicentre of the explosion that will elevate this entire planet to the next plane. And then what?”
“So even if I get her out we both die. Great. Is there a timeline where we don’t die?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Because it will affect the outcome?”
Rooster nodded. “Desperation has a way of making some solutions more…appealing in the moment. Hard to replicate.”
“So what you’re saying is you’d rather have me suffer instead of being straightforward.”
He shrugged. “Suffering is the path to ascension. If you want to learn something from this, then suffer. It’s up to you how you see it.”
“I’m more concerned that you haven’t left yet.”
Rooster smiled. “Have you run into Cardinal yet?”
“Wouldn’t you know?”
“I know what I will know. I don’t know what you know, but I can make a calculated guess. Have you seen him?”
“Seen yes. Talked to? Hardly. Seen his former apprentice though. She’s intent on drinking herself to death.”
“That’s good. We’re on track.” His fingers moved slightly, and there was almost a blinding golden spark, but then it just wasn’t there, or hadn’t been there. Temporal magic was a discipline for the insane and the unhinged, and Rooster, being a cognitomancer, took it well above and beyond that. Lachlan had never seen the man fight - and nobody else had either - presumably because he never needed to. And he could see why: he wasn’t about to mess with someone who literally had the power of fate at their fingertips.
“Last thing,” Rooster said suddenly, bringing Lachlan’s attention back to the room again. “Say hi to Cardinal for me, yes?”
“I’m sure I will.”
The door behind him opened and Onari poked her head into the storage closet. “Were you talking to someone?”
He looked at Onari, and then back where Rooster was. Predictably, he was gone. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t find the harpoon.”
“I printed one.” She held up a metal rod with a simple sharp head at the end, and a cable tied to the opposite side. “Really though, who was that?”
“Nobody.” He pushed past her to get out, only to have her grab his shoulder hard, and shove him against the wall. “Hey!”
She glared at him. “I know you’re not completely human, and I know you’ve been living all the way out here on your own, but for fuck’s sake, can you just listen to me for one second?”
“I…am listening?” His eyes were on the tip of the harpoon, which was hovering close to his torso. The cellular foam Vermillion had handed to him did some work, but it was still a gaping hole in his belly.
“No you’re not. I did. You were talking to someone who knows a lot more than you about what’s going to happen. So don’t lie to me.”
He exhaled sharply. “Right. Sorry. But you have to understand, knowledge of the future can be incredibly dangerous.”
She scowled, clearly having heard that before. “Please don’t talk down to me. You wanted to work with me, yes? That’s why you agreed to my deal. Not yours. I’ve just betrayed Division Five to bring you that sample as proof of my dedication, so for once, get over yourself. Get over that stupid mystery persona you keep trying to prop up. I'm sick of not knowing the bigger picture at D5, and I’m not going to stand for it here. If it’s safe enough for you, then it’s safe enough for me.”
He blinked rapidly, trying to digest her words.
“That clear?”
Lachlan nodded slowly. “Can you let me go now?”
Onari took her hand off his shoulder - she had incredible strength for a non-augmented human from what he felt, though nowhere near his own limits - and lowered the harpoon. “We’re partners. You’re not my boss.”
“And you only work weekends, yeah I got you.” He rubbed his shoulder.
“So how does the insect stuff factor into a temporal anchor?”
He scratched his head. “I was kind of hoping we could just pierce it with the harpoon right into the vortex. But first, we need to disable the timelock I put around it.” He held up the small bronze sphere. “This will do that, according to Rooster.”
Her eyes widened. “Rooster as in Cardinal’s boss? From the wedding?”
“He’s one of the very, very few time magicians around here. Dangerous. Gave me some really ominous hints about the future. Like saying I would die when I rescued Chloe.”
“He say anything about me?”
“No just…told me to go see Cardinal in a roundabout way. I’m not a fan of time travel. Generally only makes things worse.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
He started up the steps that went around the corner and brought them up to the workshop. Lachlan’s entire suite of bioengineering tools consisted of multiple large refrigerators for parts storage, an extensive cabinet of expensive and common reagents alike, and dominating most of the room, situated around an articulable surgical table, the mass of machinery that served to install or replace parts of both him and Chloe hanged, suspended by a mass of cables and pipes from the ceiling.
Onari shifted uncomfortably.
“Problem?”
“Maybe it’s because I’m new, but I don’t like the idea of being cut open like you.”
“It can perform medical surgeries too.”
“I have a feeling we have different definitions of what’s considered a ‘medical’ treatment. Just don’t-”
“I’m not going to puppetify you. Not unless you explicitly ask me. I might be out of touch like you say but it’s not like I’m devoid of manners.”
“Thank goodness for that.” She snatched up the tray filled with kitchen paper she had left the limb to dry on. “So we’re doing this now?”
“Good time as any. How’s your aim?”
She let out a chortle. “If you have to ask, then clearly better than yours.”
“With a harpoon gun?”
“...I might have to practise a few shots. But I’ll get it.”
“Good. Good enough for me.”
Onari grinned. “Let’s go get her back.”
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