A Great, Unnatural Territory - pointyshades (2024)

Chapter 1: The Nervous Shadow

Chapter Text

YOU – Wake up.

You’ve already done this once today. But with your elbow on the windowsill and the faint grey light filtering through the dirty glass, you fell into a kind of standing sleep. Perhaps a doze would be more accurate. Either way, it’s time to open your eyes again.

YOU – Peer through the window.

SHIVERS [Medium: Failure] – It’s cold outside.

YOU – It is, but not as cold as it is inside. There is a numbness –

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – Do you really want to think about that so early in the morning?

YOU – No. Of course not.

VOLITION – Then don’t.

YOU – Right.

You move to your dresser and rummage through the drawers for a moment before discovering that what you’re looking for isn’t there.

LOGIC [Formidable: Success] – You laid out your blazer and slacks last night. You wanted them to be *ready*.

PERCEPTION [Medium: Success] – You scan the apartment. From where you’re standing, it looks much the same as always: dingy and uncomfortable. The floor is hidden under layers of clothing and takeout containers cover most of the flat surfaces. Your lone bedroom lamp flickers in a painful effort to hold back the dark.

YOU – It is failing, but fortunately you have the light through the window to see by.

You move to the living room and encounter a flash of yellow and green in the artificial gloom: your blazer and disco pants. The white patches on your blazer reflect the outside light when you open the curtains.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Failure] – Cop stickers.

YOU – The clothes that mark you as a police officer, a member of the RCM, yes. You remember now why you laid them out last night – today is your first day back at work.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - …And you are about to be late.

YOU – sh*t. sh*t sh*t sh*t!

You scramble into your clothes and rush to the bathroom, where you snatch a small white bottle from the cupboard and stuff it into your pocket.

YOU – Why didn’t anyone warn me?!

You pause, letting that furious thought run through your mind, and wait for the response. It is slow, like a beast rising from muddy depths.

VOLITION [Medium: Failure] – …You’re trying to kill us. Why would we help you?

YOU – You wince. It’s a fair enough point. Then you realize that the point is “fair” to you because *you’re* the one coming up with it. It’s an invention from within your own skull.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Look at that. Drugs make you think better.

Enough. You have your pills and you’re dressed. Now out the door.

-

The station is hardly bustling when you arrive, but even so you can feel the chill that falls over it at your entrance. No one is particularly enthused to see you. Their eyes are on you, either because they think you’re going to mess up or because they’re worried you’re going to mess *them* up, and they’re not sure which.

It’s not a good feeling.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] – A long moment passes before they pretend to go back to work.

YOU – Across the room, you see Satellite-Officer Jean Vicquemare, his face as long and serious as always. You make eye contact, but he breaks it immediately.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Failure] – What is he thinking?

YOU – You don’t know. But you’re already late, and you have a meeting with Captain Pryce, so you’d better get on with it.

Your eyes land on your own desk. In the month you’ve been gone, no one has bothered to tidy it. The familiar mess beckons to you: your nest, your refuse. Your home away from home.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Failure] – There’s something about bringing disaster wherever you go…no, you’ve lost it. No prophetic visions for you. How does it feel?

YOU – Your feet carry you toward your desk, inevitably. Your hand slips into your pocket, feeling for the bottle of pills.

INLAND EMPIRE – You’re a mundane cop like the rest of them now. A mundane *human being*. Your ties to the world severed. All thoughts of the supranatural soon to be wrenched from your fragile skull.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Failure] – Doesn’t it *frighten you*??

YOU – You remember a month-old conversation with the station lazareth. As he administered to your wound, you broke down and told him everything: about the voices, about the coming end of the world, about how afraid you are that you’re going to f*ck everything up again. Because you are terrified.

Maybe it was the forgetting that turned over a new page for you. Maybe it was the bullet wound. Either way, you finally acquiesced, and now your head is filling with cotton, muting the tangle of voices within.

You slide open your desk drawer and place the bottle delicately inside.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – Mildisopine. Antipsychotic, anti-hallucinatory drugs.

YOU – You’ve been taking them for almost a week now. You’re almost used to the routine: pills in the morning and pills at night. Ironing out your own thoughts until they are meek and placid.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Not ironing - *separating*. You’re elevating your thoughts with that mildisopine rocket. Blasting them way up into the stratosphere, where they can’t get in the way of your own brain!

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – Not to intrude, but perhaps you’d like to go meet with Pryce?

YOU – Meeting. Work. Yes.

-

Pryce puts you back on paperwork duty. It’s understandable since you’ve proven to be a live wire in the field – and you’re freshly healed from a dangerous injury – but it’s still boring.

About halfway through a formidable stack of traffic reports, you give up. You can’t take this anymore. Your brain is going to explode!

You bite down on the feeling, but can’t quite muffle the sound that emerges from you: “RrrrrghhhhhhARGHHH!”

From the desk next to yours, you can almost *feel* the upward motion of an eyebrow.

“Everything alright, detective?” asks Kim Kitsuragi.

Ah, yes. Your new partner. The man you persuaded to join the 41st and then abandoned at his post for a month while you recuperated. He’s been sitting at the desk next to you for several hours now, his pen scratching in tandem with yours. You get the feeling he’s been waiting for you to break the silence.

“I can’t do this, Kim,” you say. “It’s too *boring*.”

“You’ve only been back on the job for three hours,” he replies.

“The three most mind-numbingly dull hours of my life!!!”

He purses his lips. “How about lunch, then?”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – Your stomach rumbles.

YOU – “Yeah, lunch sounds good. Kebabs?”

“Sure.”

The lieutenant stands, shuffling his papers together into one neat stack. He places his pen atop them, slides the stack over to one corner of his organized desk, and pushes his chair in. As you walk toward the stairs, his head remains slightly bent; he doesn’t make eye contact with the other officers across the precinct floor.

“Hey, Kim,” you say, as the two of you enter the stairwell, “How have things been in my absence?”

He glances at you. “No major disturbances. I haven’t been out of the precinct very much, so I’m not as informed as others might be…”

(Because you haven’t been here, and the RCM rarely sends cops out without their partners, he doesn’t say.)

“…But as far as I’m aware, Jamrock City has been operating at about the same crime level as usual.”

You shake your head. “Thanks, but that’s not what I meant. I’m asking how things have been with *you*.”

REACTION SPEED [Formidable: Failure] – Some kind of look flashes across his face.

YOU – Some kind of look? Helpful.

REACTION SPEED – I don’t know.

KIM KITSURAGI – “My personal performance has been satisfactory as well, by my own evaluation. Are you concerned about it?”

YOU – You open the door and the two of you step outside into a breeze as chilly as the words Kim just hit you with. Wow, he clammed up fast. Something must be wrong.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Failure] – Your coworkers have never liked you either. Maybe your aura has rubbed off on him.

YOU – The conversation lapses while you walk down the block. The old silk mill looms behind you and the street is heavy with fog. Kim’s jacket is the only splash of color in a world made of grey.

You wait until you both have kebabs in hand before you spring your trap: “Listen, if the others aren’t treating you well…”

“The officers of the 41st are perfectly civil,” Kim says. It is hard to look reserved and professional while eating a kebab, but somehow, he manages to do it.

*Civil*, you think. That’s the key word. He isn’t being treated *well* - he’s being treated *civilly*.

SUGGESTION [Formidable: Success] – Hey, remember me? Your silver tongue? Allow me to step in for a moment.

YOU – The words slip from your mouth without thinking: “So we’re both outcasts, then.”

The lieutenant looks up from his meal. You can see it flash in his eyes: he never said that.

SUGGESTION – Not in so many words, he didn’t. Don’t back down. Allow me.

YOU – “It’s okay. I know you don’t want to say it, but they can be pretty cold to newcomers. They’re also probably judging you for supporting me. I might be back for now, but they consider me a lost cause. The f*ck-up cop.”

Kim shifts from one foot to the other. “Harry…”

“No, I’m used to it, really,” you say. “But I never wanted my mistakes to transfer to you, and I’m sorry for that.”

SUGGESTION – You’ve hooked him. Now seal the deal!

YOU – What is the goal here?

SUGGESTION – You’re gonna need friends once you’ve lost us.

YOU – “It’s lucky we’re partners. I’ve got your back, Kim. No matter what Jean might tell the others.”

The kebab sits forgotten in his hand. He frowns. “What about Satellite-Officer Vicquemare?”

You shrug, intentionally nonchalant. “Just saying he’s dealt with me in the past, and he didn’t enjoy it. I’ve taken a lot of well-deserved sh*t from him. But if he comes after you, well, I know how to give it back.”

You let the words sink in before you ask, “Do you want to head back?”

The lieutenant nods. “We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he says, and you note the flatness of his voice.

When the two of you reenter the precinct, you watch his gaze stray to where Jean stands in the corner, glaring in your direction.

-

The workday slides by. Slush creeping down a windowpane, clouds cresting and curling like snowdrifts. Your eyes flick from paper to window, pen to paper, and the stack next to you grows. No one speaks to you. The sounds of the precinct are a low and distant burble, like lifeblood running out of a wound.

Your head is very quiet. You probe the nooks and crannies, waiting for opposition, but none comes. It is the first time you can remember that you aren’t fighting with your own mind. It’s a miracle, and it is frightening and exciting all at once. Your pen moves across the paper at your own command, following the single path you present it. The future does not shatter into a thousand possibilities. And it goes on.

“Detective?”

You look up. From the look on Kim’s face, this is not the first time he has called your name.

“I can finish compiling our reports for today,” he says. “Why don’t you head home? You look…tired.”

You glance up at the clock and realize with some surprise that your shift has ended. You don’t imagine Kim would send you home, otherwise; he has sympathy for your condition, but he also values professionalism, and a professional doesn’t quit before the workday is over.

You start to form a response, to tell him you can keep going, but you’ve been drawn out of the blank space in your head now and all at once, you *are* tired. So you nod and push your chair back. As you stand, something twinges in the back of your mind - the first sign of brain-company you’ve experienced in hours.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – Time to take your meds! Get those chemicals in your body!

YOU – Why do you want this? Aren’t I killing you?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – What better way to go? It’s not so different from dying on the streets with a syringe in your arm. But this way doesn’t mess with the body. Only the mind.

YOU - Is that better? My body is already a wreck. My mind is all I have left.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Remember the alcohol burn on your tongue, the blurry-dizzy-purple of pyrholidon? You’re used to abusing drugs. Now learn how to *use* them.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Use, abuse, what’s the difference? If you just *tried harder* you wouldn’t need any of this.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant’s gaze follows your hands as you slide open your desk drawer and reach inside. When you pull out the bottle of pills, however, he looks away.

YOU – No one wants to know that you’re such a failure of a human being that you can’t control your own thoughts. You mumble something about washing your face and shuffle your way into the precinct washroom.

The room welcomes you with the cramped solitude of such spaces. The paint on the walls is a peeling, faint green. You take a couple of deep breaths, letting the feeling of eyes on you fade. Then you shake a couple of white oblong pills into your palm, where they stare up at you with such intensity that you almost expect one of them to wink. Unnerved by the feeling, you look up at the mirror instead.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - An ordinary face. No withdrawal sweats, no blown-pupil high. The burst capillaries still put color in your cheeks, but your gaze above them is steady.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] – What do you think you’re looking at?

YOU – Myself?

INLAND EMPIRE – This isn’t you. Not anymore. You decided to throw yourself out with the bathwater.

VOLITION [Heroic: Success] – You listened to the piping little drug-voice inside of you. Now who’s going to stop you from going off the deep end again? This is just the beginning.

YOU – No, I was *prescribed* these drugs. They’re *good* for me.

VOLITION – You say that every time. You’re an addict.

INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] – You’re standing in a field of opium flowers and the field never ends. The pale comes for us all. How will you know to watch out for it?

YOU – I don’t need to be obsessed with the end of the world anymore.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] – How are you going to focus? You’ll rot away in your own apartment.

YOU – I’ll get up. I’ll go to work. Like I’m supposed to.

VOLITION – No, you won’t. Medication won’t help you there; you need self-control – and you need *me* for that.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] – The image in the mirror flickers. Or is it you, in the field, flickering? There is a great nothingness coming. A shroud falling around you. Above you, the bomb – a matte white thing with smooth edges. Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

VOLITION [Heroic: Success] – Remember all those times *I* kept you off the drugs? Kept you out of the gutter? And now you’re throwing me over.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – (It’s time to take your pills.)

VOLITION – *Shut up*!!! You’ll ruin him!

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - It’s this or the bottle. Which would you rather relinquish: control, or his life?

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Which would you rather relinquish: the drugs, or his mind? He will lose the city, the world - do you expect him to bear that without breaking?

YOU – I’m walking out of the field. I’m going back to the precinct. The mirror is calm and there is nothing unexpected in it.

INLAND EMPIRE – But the bomb…

YOU – It’s nothing. This is what I need to do.

You look down at the medicine in your hand. It looks so tiny. A simple thing.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] – You’re running out of time to change your mind. You’re going to throw it all away, aren’t you? The hands on the clock will finally run down. Whatever is inside of you, keeping you going, it’s over. You’re *killing* it.

YOU – With one rough motion, you shove the pills back into the bottle and screw the lid on. It feels as if they are pulsing inside, a heartbeat trying to escape a sickly chest.

VOLITION – That’s more like it.

YOU – I’m still going to take them. When I get home. It’s the right thing to do.

You repeat the promise into the sudden stillness of your mind. Your hands are shaking now, your momentary peace assaulted. Is this how it’s going to be? Just a different kind of war?

Outside your refuge, life continues. You hear the faint clickity-clack of typewriter keys and the rhythmic tap of footsteps. You take a deep breath, splash some water on your face, and leave the washroom.

No one says anything as you walk out of the old silk mill. Your coworkers have learned to maintain a bubble around you, and they will keep those walls up until you can prove them wrong. The door closes behind you and in front of you is an endless procession of these days, on and on and on.

You go home. You set the pill bottle in your cupboard. You sleep without dreaming.

Chapter 2: Eaten Away

Chapter Text

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Failure] – So you don’t take your medicine.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – Good.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Failure] – But it feels like sh*t. Utter sh*t.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Heroic: Failure] – The first week is the worst. Even after the nausea fades, the headaches are intense and vertigo haunts your every step.

ENDURANCE [Impossible: Failure] – And the crying. You cry everywhere.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] – Like the pitiful dog you are. Crawling back to us and complaining that it hurts. Of *course* it hurts. You tried to kill a part of yourself.

YOU – I’m tired. I’m so tired.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Challenging: Success] – And you were only on mildisopine for a month. It would be worse if you had taken it longer.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] – It would be better if you hadn’t gone off it at all. Now you hunger for something else to fill the hole inside of you.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – If you start drinking again, I’ll kill you myself.

DRAMA [Trivial: Success] – Sire, why revisit an old haunt? Alcoholism is *out*. Perhaps you can find something trendy and new to mute our voices.

VOLITION – No, you won’t be muting *sh*t*. You almost got rid of us once. You wouldn’t dare try it again.

YOU – I’m sorry. I really am.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – The bomb has been stalled, but the world is still splintering. Wake up, Harry. Wake up, Harry. Wake up –

YOU – You jerk upright, your head thudding into the wall behind you. Your ass is squeezed into a painful metal chair. As you peer around you with bleary eyes, you see that the walls are coated in peeling paint and medical posters: you’re in a waiting room.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Are you alright, detective?”

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – Concern mixes with calculation in his voice; he’s worried that you’re not okay, and he’s already thinking of ways to prop you up. You’re not going to ruin this case for him.

YOU – “Uh…”

SUGGESTION [Medium: Failure] – You’re on your own here.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] – Not entirely. *I’m* happy to be back in your service, my liege. Now lie like a dog!

YOU – “I’m totally fine, Kim. Just tired. I’m really sorry for dozing off.” You pry yourself out of your seat. “I’m trying really hard to do a good job, and I know you have to put up with so much from me, and I apologize –”

KIM KITSURAGI – “It’s fine. Do you think you’ll be able to stay awake for the interview?”

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Failure] – Your limbs feel like lead weights. An interview is about the *only* thing you could manage right now, you worthless worm.

YOU – “Uh, yes.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant adjusts his glasses. “Good. Because here comes the witness.”

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] – Down the hospital hallway walks a woman in a dress.

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – Her hair is a sheaf of wheat. An unseen wind whips the dress around her, as white as the knuckles that grip her suitcase –

LOGIC [Heroic: Success] – It isn’t her. You should know that by now.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Ms. Pastorak?”

APRIL PASTORAK – “Yes, that’s me.”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] – Her voice is timid and quavers on the last word.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] – There is a bruise on her cheek. Her arm is in a sling. Both injuries are on the left side of her body, as if inflicted by a fall – or a right-handed individual.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant flips open his blue notebook and clicks his pen.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Trivial: Success] – He has taken charge of this interview because he is unsure of your ability to do so.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Madam, we received a call about a disturbance at your place of residence last night. There were reports of shouting and crashing. You checked yourself into this hospital shortly afterward, according to the records. Is that correct?”

APRIL PASTORAK – “I wouldn’t know about the reports, officer.” She steps to one side, putting a table between her and the two of you.

KIM KITSURAGI – “You’re right, my apologies. But was there a disturbance at your residence?”

APRIL PASTORAK – Her grey eyes dart to one side. “Not too much of a disturbance, officer.”

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – She’s covering for someone.

YOU – You take a clumsy step forward, shoving the table aside with your hip. It makes a scraping sound on the tiled floor and the woman in front of you winces, as does Kim.

YOU – “How is crashing and shouting not a disturbance?”

APRIL PASTORAK – “I was home. I don’t think there was too much shouting.”

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] – Her body language is submissive. Press your advantage. Prove you’re worth something here.

YOU – “Then what the hell happened to your arm?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Officer.” There is a warning tone in his voice.

APRIL PASTORAK – “I fell down the stairs.”

DRAMA [Medium: Success] – She is an abhorrent liar, my liege. Look at how her eyes flick to and fro.

YOU – “You’re lying to me, Ms. Pastorak.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Harry! I need to speak to you for a moment.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant’s gloved hand closes like a vice over your arm as he hauls you across the waiting room.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] – Behind you, Ms. Pastorak stands abandoned. She reaches a shaking hand up to brush hair away from her brow.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Why are you being so aggressive with her? Remember, she hasn’t committed any crime.”

HALF LIGHT [Trivial: Success] – Not that you *know of*.

YOU – “Not that we *know of*!”

KIM KITSURAGI – “You don’t need to badger her. This is a suspected abuse case. We’re supposed to be offering her *assistance*.”

HALF LIGHT – You’re a horrible person! You’re part of the cycle of abuse!

YOU – “f*ck, I’m so sorry, Kim. I guess I’m used to having to be harsh with witnesses…you know, Human Can Opener stuff. It’s really the only thing that makes me worth keeping around.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “That’s not the only reason the RCM keeps you around.”

YOU – “Isn’t it? I’m walking garbage. I can’t do anything right.”

YOU – Much to your dismay, you start crying.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant grimaces. “Ah…let me handle the rest of this.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He gives you an awkward pat on the shoulder and walks back to Ms. Pastorak.

YOU – Meanwhile, you sink into another uncomfortable waiting room chair and put your head in your hands.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Heroic: Failure] – Your intestines feel like they’re twisting themselves inside out.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION [Trivial: Failure] – You try to rub your hands down your face and poke yourself in the teary eye. You’re shaking so badly that you can’t even sob right.

YOU – I’m doing my best. Kim understands that I’m doing my best.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Trivial: Success] – He asks the woman if her husband hurt her. She says no. He asks the woman if her husband has been behaving oddly. She says no. He asks what her job is. She says to help her husband.

VOLITION [Trivial: Success] – You should be helping Kim with this. Instead, you’re sobbing in a corner.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Failure] – Withdrawal sucks.

VOLITION – This isn’t the withdrawal. This is a *you* problem. A *pathetic* problem.

YOU – You are still crying when Ms. Pastorak leaves the waiting room.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant sits next to you, not complaining about the discomfort of the chair, and reads you his notes on the interview.

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – It’s not much. The woman denied everything.

YOU – “So there’s nothing we can do to help her?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “If she doesn’t want our help, no. But we still need to write this up in case she requests assistance in the future.”

YOU – “I’m sorry, Kim.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He shrugs. “That’s the job.”

YOU – “No, I mean *I’m* sorry. For f*cking up again and getting in the way. I know you hoped it would be different by now, and I’m trying, I really am…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He sighs. “I know you’re trying, Harry. And I’m here to help.”

YOU – “I haven’t been…*more* of a f*ckup than usual, right?”

KIM KITSURAGI – Unexpectedly, the lieutenant chuckles. “What an odd metric to go off of.”

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] – You *have* been a wreck for the past week, and he knows it. He just doesn’t know why.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Let’s get back to the precinct. Maybe you’ll feel better then.”

KIM KITSURAGI – He helps you stand, and politely does not look as you scrub away tears on your way out of the hospital.

-

YOU – The afternoon becomes a haze. You sign papers. The nausea roils in your stomach again; you turn down an offer for lunch. Kim gives you another rundown of the case: you’re calling it THE RELUCTANT HOUSEWIFE, although you know it hardly merits a title, since it will be shelved and abandoned if Ms. Pastorak remains firm in her stance.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Did you get that, detective?”

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Easy: Failure] – You look down at your notes sheet. It is covered in meaningless scribbles. In one corner, you have written “GAVE UP” over and over again.

LOGIC [Medium: Failure] – It is unclear whether this text refers to you or Ms. Pastorak.

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – The lieutenant notices you staring at your paper. Perhaps he sees the tears brimming in your eyes as well, because when he speaks his voice is gentle.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Don’t worry about it. I have my own notes.”

YOU – You nod gratefully and apologize for the hundredth time today.

ENDURANCE [Trivial: Failure] – Time crawls by, but you are frail, bröther, and cannot withstand its passage. Another handful of minutes and your head is on your desk.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] – Weakling.

YOU – I just need a minute to rest. It feels like the room is spinning.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] – Maybe having your head down makes your hearing sharper, or maybe everyone just assumes you are asleep. Either way, you pick up the strains of an argument happening a few desks away.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] – Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi folds his arms across his chest and taps a gloved finger. Satellite-Officer Jean Vicquemare leans over his desk, with one hand on its surface and the other pointing at the lieutenant. Tension crackles between them.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “It’s nothing personal, Kitsuragi. It’s about choosing the *right officers* for the job. And right now, I don’t think that’s you two.”

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] – The rough bite of Jean’s voice has been known to scare many an officer into agreement. Kim, however, is made of sterner stuff than most officers.

KIM KITSURAGI – “I see no reason for that assessment, Satellite-Officer.” Ice coats his words.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “sh*t, you *know* this isn’t about you. Stop being all high-and-mighty.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “You’re casting aspersions on my ability. I suspect that your opinion is biased.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “I’m talking about the *sh*tkid*.”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Formidable: Success] – His voice lowers slightly on the moniker, but not enough to prevent you from listening.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “It’s too soon for him to be going out on cases. Host in heaven, we don’t even know if he’s going to stay! He *just* got off of medical leave, for the love of f*ck. And…”

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – He doesn’t say it, and neither does Kim. But both of them think of little white pills.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “Now isn’t the time. Look at him, he can’t even f*cking stay awake! He shouldn’t be leaving this precinct until he can get his head screwed on straight.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “He came with me to the hospital today.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “And?”

KIM KITSURAGI – A suppressed sigh. “Well, there were some issues. But that doesn’t mean –”

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “This is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s just one big merry-go-round with him. He’s done all this sh*t before, and we’re still on the ride because of some misguided faith.” He snorts. “It’s not going to get better.”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] – You can hear it in his voice: all the broken promises you’ve made before, vomited out between alcohol-rotted teeth. Puked into the gutter and left there, until Jean came and picked you up. Again.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] – The two cops stand at odds, with Jean’s right hand on his hip, Kim’s eyebrow creeping upwards.

RHETORIC [Formidable: Success] – Now the hammer blow.

KIM KITSURAGI – “I can manage him. Just because you couldn’t do it in the past doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Trivial: Success] – Jean’s jaw falls open. The emotion in his eyes flickers from disbelief, to scorn, to fury.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “Just because I…”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] – There is a loud slam: the sound of Jean’s fist meeting wood.

KIM KITSURAGI – “There is no need for this to become unprofessional, Satellite-Officer.”

COMPOSURE [Trivial: Success] – This is the kind of confrontation Kim Kitsuragi excels at. The brick wall versus flashing rage. Feet planted, a hint of scorn in the arc of his eyebrow, arms crossed: the picture of reservation. The man in the *right*. His very voice drips with self-possession.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – A bitter laugh tears from Jean’s chest. “Oh, it’s not unprofessional. Not yet. When you’re scraping the sh*tkid off the pavement for the thirtieth time, when he’s deep-throating his gun again, looking at you with those pity-me eyes – *then* it will be unprofessional. But by then it will be too f*cking late, Kitsuragi. Too late to untangle yourself from the sheer f*cking *trauma* of engaging with the spectacular human disaster that is Harrier Du Bois.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] – He turns on his heel in what is sure to be a perfectly-timed storming-out. But at the last moment he wavers, turning his head back over his shoulder to regard Kim again.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “I’m not wishing this sh*t on you. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I just thought…”

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – *I went through it so no one else would have to*, he doesn’t say.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “Ah, f*ck this sh*t.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Trivial: Success] – The entire precinct holds its breath while he stomps out.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] – That was a good punch in the gut. Something you can really *savor* for a few months, maybe longer.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – There is no way anyone believes you slept through that. By keeping your head down, you are succeeding only in looking pathetic.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] – Sit up and go back to work. It’s the one thing you’re good for.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] – Who needs work?! You should be *partying*. You’ve turned down mildisopine, so what?? There’s a wide world full of other drugs out there!

VOLITION – For the love of god, could you shut up?!

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - What do you have to offer? Paperwork?

VOLITION - Paperwork that *has to be done*. Going on a bender will just confirm what the rest of the precinct thinks of him.

YOU – With a groan, you raise your head from your desk. The room tilts and the text on the pages swims before you, but you lift your pen and get back to work. After all, it’s what you’re good for.

ENDURANCE [Formidable: Failure] – When you get home that night, you are asleep before your head hits the pillow.

-

YOU - The floor of the train sways as it carries you between rotten buildings. Each collapsing tenement stretches its desperate stories up toward the cloudy, grey sky. As you listen to the clatter of the tracks, you feel clearer than you have all week. Maybe this is it. Maybe you’ve reached the end of your suffering.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - So you come crawling back to us on your lily-white stomach, Harry-boy? The real world was too much for you. You wanted the safety of your dreams.

YOU - I feel better now.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - It’s all still there, hidden behind a veil of sleep. The bile climbing spider-legged up your throat, the tearing sensation in your lungs, the headache. Muffled and tucked away.

YOU - You lean out of the train window, allowing the wind to sweep your hair back from your face.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - The street beyond the train car is empty. No one walks the sidewalks or glances out of open windows. This Revachol, the one in your heart, has been dead for years. You gave it up for the taste of spirits and the whirling aphrodisiac of *disco*.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - The sledgehammer inside your chest rises and falls. Your heart hurts, oh, it *hurts*…

YOU - Why am I here?

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - This is a place you built for yourself, a place where you’re protected from the outer world. You don’t ever have to leave it again. Not if you don’t want to.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - Your life is filled with people and things that can *hurt you*. Why suffer the pricks of fate any longer? By leaving them behind, you can be safe forever.

YOU - That does sound nice.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - It does, doesn’t it? Seductive, the way you like your promises. You tried the straight and narrow and it curdled in your mouth. Now let the cool, sweet waves of party music wash over you, Harry-boy. Let yourself drown in disco…

YOU - Scattered music drifts past you before it is snatched by the wind and disappears. Craning your neck, you follow the lines of the buildings upward and see it above you: the bomb. It hangs in the grey sky as if cradled by the clouds. The train hurtles toward the spot where it will meet the ground.

YOU - What if something bad happens because I’m not there?

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - What would you do to stop it? You wasted your chances on liquor and self-abuse. It’s too late to control anything.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - For as long as you can remember, your bones have hummed to this apocalyptic song. But you can let the real world go now; all you need to protect is this haven for yourself.

YOU - Before you realize it, the train has stopped, its doors hissing open. You step through them and find yourself in the center of a circular plaza at the heart of the city. The cobblestones are coated with mud and all around you stand dead buildings, their windows open to the elements like empty sockets. Above you, huge and white and descending, is the bomb.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - In a flash, it will land and everything will be destroyed. A nightmare you’ve had for years. But in this Revachol, *you* have the power to stop it. To protect these fragile buildings from the ever-encroaching pale. Then you can sleep forever in the primordial darkness, free from the incursions of the outer world.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - That’s right. A permanent vacation in f*ckallborough.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - Why return to that other place and all the work it demands of you? It’s so *hard* to change things about yourself.

YOU - You’re right. It is.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - So why try? For the people you once considered friends? If they can’t handle you, they don’t deserve you. Leave them behind.

YOU - You stretch your hand up, fingers spread-eagled against the huge whiteness of the bomb. It feels as though it is inevitable, a massive force descending to crush you against the cobblestones - but at the last moment, just as you close your eyes in fear, nothing happens.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - You made the right choice. Keep making it.

YOU – You look down. On the ground before you is the bomb.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – The sight of it makes your mouth dry and your head throb.

YOU – You bend down and pick it up. In your palm, the single pill glints in the wet white light.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – Chemicals for smoothing out the parts of your brain that make you unique. Swallow these, and your chance at rest dissolves forever, becoming fragments of mathematical noise in the pale. You’ll spend your days and nights tethered to the “real” world, failing all its demands and suffering the consequences.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – Reject chemical realignment, and we’ll tuck you away every night, safe and sound. And someday soon, Harry-boy, you’ll stay with us full-time.

YOU – You close your hand around the pill, then wind your arm back and throw it as far as you can. It hurts your shoulder. You don’t hear where it lands.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – Did that make you feel better?

YOU – No.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – Something has to. Eventually.

YOU – And if it doesn’t?

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – Then you never feel better.

LIMBIC SYSTEM – The pale descends upon you. Wake up! It’s time for another day.

Chapter 3: The Pale, part 1

Chapter Text

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Trivial: Success] – A heavy hand lands on your shoulder, jarring you into awareness.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] – At once, the world comes rushing back: the cold of the bricks against your back, the cement firm beneath your feet. There is a faint mist in the air that brushes your cheek.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “sh*tkid. Need you inside.”

YOU – Your eyes drift downward to the unlit cigarette that dangles between your fingers. Then your gaze slips to your blazer pocket.

INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] – Don’t think about it. Don’t go there. Not yet.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “Hey!”

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] – His fingers dig into your shoulder, creating little points of pain as he shakes you.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “Pay attention. Your petty abuse case just turned into a murder.”

HALF LIGHT [Trivial: Success] – A shiver rattles down your spine as he turns and walks away from you, back into the precinct.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] – As many as 25% of unresolved abuse cases end in the death of one of the participants. Usually the abused spouse.

YOU – You take a deep gulp of the freezing air.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – Calm down. You can do this.

YOU – Even as you straighten your back and step away from the wall, the doubts creep in.

COMPOSURE [Heroic: Failure] – *Can* you do this?!

SAVOIR FAIRE [Formidable: Failure] – You look like a week-old corpse. Who’s going to give you authority on a murder case?

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Failure] – The vice grip of withdrawal still hasn’t quite released you, although it’s been three weeks since you went off your medication. You’re sweaty and dizzy all the time. You find it difficult to focus, which has begun to affect your work.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] – Who needs work? Reach into that pocket of yours and you’ll find something *better* to do.

YOU – You drop your cigarette and go to stomp it out beneath your heel, but then realize there’s no need. It isn’t lit, after all.

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – The single white cylinder peers up at you like a forlorn worm or detached digit.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “HARRY!”

YOU – You close your eyes for a moment, trying to stabilize your heartbeat. Then you open them and follow him inside.

PERCEPTION [Trivial: Success] – The precinct is a mess of officers and voices. The largest number of them - Jean included, as he pushes through the crowd to approach - cluster around the spot where your desk and Kim’s sit together. You even spot Trant Heidelstam, consultant for the RCM, leaning against a column nearby.

KIM KITUSRAGI - At the center of the maelstrom, Kim sits at his desk, calmly flipping through the pages of a case file. As you approach, he glances up.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Ah, detective. Satellite-Officer Vicquemare told me he was going to fetch you. I take it you’ve heard about THE RELUCTANT HOUSEWIFE?”

YOU – “That it’s a murder case now? Yeah, I heard.”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] – As you say it, a shudder wracks your body.

KIM KITSURAGI – “We should check out the crime scene and interview the neighbors. One of them might know where the perpetrator would have gone to hide.”

YOU – “Uh…Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Yes?”

YOU – “Who is the perpetrator?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “April Pastorak. The wife.”

YOU – “Oh.”

COMPOSURE [Heroic: Failure] – It hits you like a train: the knowledge that you could have stopped this. Your spine buckles, you put both hands down on the desk in front of you, and your eyes begin to fill with tears.

YOU – “So…when we didn’t help her, we drove her to murder.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “Oh, come the f*ck on.”

YOU – “We could have done something! Isn’t that our job? To *help* people?”

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] – Dial it back, bleeding heart. You’re laying it on a little thick.

KIM KITSURAGI – “She rejected our help, Harry. There’s nothing we can legally do to assist her if she tells us not to.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] – It feels like your right blazer pocket is blaring a siren directly into your brain. Open that flap and you can take all this pain away.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “Would it help your weeping morals if you thought of this as a separate case? Just another run-of-the-mill Jamrock murder for you to solve and stamp on your impressive record. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

YOU – You scrub the back of your hand across your face, smearing tears and snot into your facial hair.

YOU – “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get carried away. It just seems so *tragic*…but you’re right, and I’m sorry, and I’ll get my act together.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “f*ck.” He turns to Kim. “He’s falling apart, Kitsuragi. You can’t take him with you.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant looks up at you and your wobbling lower lip, then over at Jean. He sighs.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] – His fingers drum the surface of his desk as he considers his next words. He doesn’t want another fight with Jean.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] - Kim doesn’t think Jean is a bad person, just that he’s wrong about you. Or rather, about how capable Kim is of dealing with you.

KIM KITSURAGI – “He’ll be alright. I’ll take the lead on this one.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “You’re going to end up taking the lead on *every* one. Eventually you’ll be working two jobs, all while trying to keep Harry out of the bottle. Is the holier-than-thou shtick worth it?”

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Failure] – You try to speak but choke up.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Failure] – They’re talking about you as if you’re some kind of deficient! When you’re right here!

KIM KITSURAGI – “Satellite-Officer, this is not a judgment of you and your colleagues. I understand that you resent me, but I don’t resent you. I am simply presenting my assessment of the situation, which is that I can handle it.”

SUGGESTION [Heroic: Success] – Say *something*, at least!

YOU – “Kim, I can…”

KIM KITSURAGI – He cuts you off. “Yes, you can. *We* can. The case will be managed appropriately.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE – Jean sighs and looks away.

YOU – You exhale as well, but in relief. For a moment, it seems as though the tension will pass without further argument.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] – Then a new voice pipes up, accompanied by the tapping of shoes as its owner approaches the three of you.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM – “Listen, I may be just a consultant, but even I can see that this isn’t right.”

LOGIC [Heroic: Failure] – Special Consultant Heidelstam?? The master of backpedaling??? Why is *he* getting involved?

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – If he judges it worth stepping into the argument, he must be *very* upset.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM – “There are many models for workplace behavior, but none of them involve actively snubbing one’s coworkers when they try to make sure that the work is done properly.” Trant crosses his arms across his sweater-vested chest. “Not to mention that when one prioritizes one’s own accomplishment over a genuine concern about a coworker’s mental health and ability to function…” He lets the sentence trail off before finishing, “It’s not a good look.”

EMPATHY – You can practically see the wheels spinning in Kim and Jean’s heads as they work through the complexity of Trant’s statement. Kim gets to the meat of it first, as evidenced by the flash of hurt that crosses his face.

KIM KITSURAGI – “I’m not prioritizing my *own accomplishment*.”

RHETORIC [Trivial: Success] – If you want to help him, you’d better step in now – and don’t f*ck it up this time.

SUGGESTION [Trivial: Success] - Deflection may be the best tactic. If he’s angry at *you*, he’ll stop taking it out on Kim.

YOU - “Trant, why are you so angry about this?”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM – Indignation flashes in his eyes as he turns to you. “It may have been from a distance, but I saw what your decline did to the rest of the people here – my friends and coworkers. Now Lieutenant Kitsuragi, who has only recently joined the 41st, wants to enable that behavior in you again! I don’t see why anyone is allowing this.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Trivial: Success] – When Jean hauled your drunk lump of a body out of the station night after night, Trant watched with tired eyes.

YOU – You bite your lip. He has a point.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM – “It’s not acceptable. Someone has to stand up for what’s right.”

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] - He is shocked that that person has to be him.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant glances back and forth between Trant and Jean for several seconds before he speaks again. When he does, his eyes blaze out of their sockets.

KIM KITSURAGI – “This isn’t your decision. The lieutenant double-yefreitor here outranks all of us. If he wants to work the case, he can. And if he has trouble, I will take care of it. Unless you want to bring Captain Pryce back into this? Who, I remind you, has already cleared Detective Du Bois for duty?”

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – He turns to regard you, and you can read the plea in his gaze: Say something sensible. Don’t f*ck this up.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - The unspoken request infuriates you for a moment. You shouldn’t have to keep defending yourself like this!

YOU - “I’m *fine*, Kim!” you snap. “How many times do I have to say it? I can do this!”

KIM KITSURAGI - Something shutters in the lieutenant’s eyes, but he doesn’t reply. He just gives you a nod and turns to the others as if this is proof enough.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] – Trant begins to open his mouth but closes it again when Jean shakes his head. The two of them straighten up and walk away without another word to you or Kim.

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant lets the silence stretch out for a moment. You worry that he’s going to scold you for your anger, but instead, he just sighs.

SUGGESTION [Trivial: Success] - If he isn’t going to mention it, neither should you. Address something that unites you instead: the hostile attitude from your coworkers.

YOU – “Wow,” you say. “That was…tough.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant shrugs. He seems deflated now that the confrontation is over.

KIM KITSURAGI – “You were right when you said we were outsiders.”

YOU - “Yeah, we are… but only because they *make* us outsiders. You have to remember that it’s not your fault, Kim.”

KIM KITSURAGI - He nods, lost in thought.

YOU - “Will you be okay?”

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] - You layer your voice with the implication that even if *they* don’t care, *you* do.

KIM KITSURAGI - “I’ll grow accustomed to it.”

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – Just like he always does.

-

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – So you stay on the case. Kim catches you up on THE RELUCTANT HOUSEWIFE as the two of you head to the scene of the crime, a small apartment in a building on Faurigan Street. Just like when April Pastorak turned down your help the first time, there isn’t much information to cover.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] – The husband was found this morning when a friend checked on him after he failed to show up for work. He was face down on the bed, covered in blood. He had been stabbed…

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] – Oh god! 31 times.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – The fingerprints on the kitchen knife point to his wife as the killer. As does the fact that he was found dead in his marriage bed, murdered in his sleep.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] – You peer at the building as you pull up in front of it, thinking you’ll be able to tell which cracked window looked in on the crime. But you can’t; the apartments with their peeling paint and moldy bricks are all the same.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant grumbles to himself as he gets out of the motor carriage.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – He’s still missing his Kineema.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] – The motor carriage the two of you use now is a Coupris Mark 42: not a sports vehicle by any stretch, and only loaned to you on the condition that *Kim* drives at all times.

YOU – Still staring up at the building as you step out onto the pavement, you ask, “So the dead guy is in there?”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant nods. “Floor four, apartment B.”

YOU – “Any chance looking at the crime scene tells us where the killer went?”

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – You have trouble using her name in connection with the murder. It feels like you are dealing with two different people: the injured wife, and the cold-blooded killer.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – They are the same person. One led to the other.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Probably not, but it’s our duty to conduct a survey of it anyway. Also, there might be neighbors around that we can talk to.”

YOU – “Right.”

APARTMENT BUILDING – The only stairwell winds around the outside of the tenement, serving a dual purpose as a fire escape. As you and Kim begin to ascend it, you can hear the hollow ringing of your steps reverberate along the metal.

YOU – “Hey, Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Yes?”

YOU – “Are you sure you’re okay?”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant turns to face you, one gloved hand on the rusty railing. An eyebrow twitches. “I’m fine, detective.”

YOU – “Yeah, but… It just rubs me the wrong way, seeing how everyone treats you. You don’t deserve that.”

KIM KITUSRAGI – “I don’t need to be liked. I’m here to do a job.” He turns and begins trudging up the stairs again.

YOU – You follow on his heels like a rejected puppy.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Medium: Success] – Please stop, this looks pathetic.

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – What else is he supposed to do? This is the only route to the crime scene.

SAVOIR FAIRE – Not that, it’s his… *attitude*. It looks like he’s going to start apologizing again any–

YOU – “Kim, I’m so sorry for making them hate you.”

SAVOIR FAIRE – f*ck.

YOU – “I know that you’re taking all this heat because of me. I said I’d protect you if we stuck together, and instead I’m making things worse. I want to help, but I can’t convince them after everything I’ve done…”

REACTION SPEED [Formidable: Success] – The lieutenant whirls to face you once more, and for a split second you see something flash in his eyes. Annoyance? Concern? Both? Then it is gone.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Harry. You don’t need to keep apologizing to me. I’m here, aren’t I?”

YOU – You nod. Despite everything, he *is* here, and you’re grateful for that.

KIM KITSURAGI – “I followed you to the 41st. I’m not going to give up because the…crowd is a little tough.” He pauses, adjusts his glasses, and adds, “Now can we please go investigate the crime scene?”

SUGGESTION [Trivial: Success] – Agree before you get on his nerves too much.

YOU – “Yeah. Let’s go investigate the *f*ck* out of this murder.”

-

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] – The small room is rank with the twin stenches of fear and blood.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] – It takes effort just to enter. Your feet on the thin carpet are only centimeters away from the edge of the blood stain.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Easy: Success] – The man’s body lies half-sprawled on the bed. His legs dangle, as if he was in the process of getting up when death came upon him. The knife wounds that move from his side to his front echo this statement.

VISUAL CALCULUS – You can see it in your mind: arcs of yellow-orange movement transcribe the room. The man lies sleeping when his wife slips in through the door. She leans over the bed and begins to stab. The knife enters the man’s back several times before he scrabbles his way sideways, feet leaving the bed – but she continues the lever-like motion of her arm, up and down, the knife making contact with ribs and then chest. The man never gets up.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] – A quiet rustle beside you. Kim opens his ledger and flips to a new page.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Trivial: Success] – Red, the color of field autopsies.

HALF LIGHT [Trivial: Success] – And blood.

KIM KITSURAGI – “I don’t think we need to conduct a full autopsy now since there isn’t much doubt in the case, but let’s go over the wounds to make sure we don’t miss anything.”

YOU – The next half hour takes root in your brain just like the knife entered Mr. Pastorak’s body: with a sharp and shocking pain. You realize that this is the first time in months, maybe years, that you have worked a case completely sober.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – A condition you should remedy as soon as possible!

YOU – You categorize the dead man’s wounds, speaking medical jargon to Kim as you manipulate the body. Mr. Pastorak has puffy eyes and a sagging face. His skin is malleable, like grey putty. Most of his blood has run out of him onto the floor.

YOU – “Death due to exsanguination,” you hypothesize. “It’s possible that his attacker hit a vital organ, but the quantity of blood seems to imply he lost consciousness and bled out.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant nods and notes this down.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] – Yes, the dead man seems to agree. The bitch bled me out. Like a pig.

YOU – You try to ignore him and continue working, checking his legs for any injury.

ROGER PASTORAK – It’s not fair. I loved her and provided for her. I did everything I could to make this sh*tty apartment a home for the two of us, and look what I got.

YOU – “Shut up.”

KIM KITSURAGI – “Detective?”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Failure] – You look up and he is regarding you with worry. You fail to marshal your emotions; they are all right there on your face. A twisted snarl hovers between your messy mutton chops.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] – Give him an excuse to leave. You’re about to lose control.

YOU – “I’m fine, Kim, just. The smell.” You sniff theatrically, then wince as the odor of decay does, in fact, enter your nostrils.

DRAMA [Trivial: Success] – A good show, my liege.

YOU – “I’m gonna make some final checks, but I don’t think both of us need to stay in here while I do. Want to see if any of the neighbors are available for an interview?”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant’s eyes dart between you and the corpse. He must decide it’s not too much of a risk to leave you here alone, because after a pause he nods and exits.

ROGER PASTORAK – Just you and me now, bucko.

YOU – You take a deep breath, trying to gather your thoughts, but they run through your fingers like sand. All you can focus on is the corpse before you and the bewildered look he wears. You didn’t notice it at first, but his features are not fixed in horror or fear: a faint confusion lingers on the limp clay face.

ROGER PASTORAK – I shouldn’t have said she was a bitch. I let my temper get the better of me. But you understand, don’t you? I mean, she *killed* me.

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] – As you settle back on your heels, the carpet crunches beneath you, full of the dead man’s blood.

ROGER PASTORAK – We had a life together. We *built* that life, one day at a time. Sure, she needed correcting every now and then, but who doesn’t? I never thought she could do something like *this*. I used to kiss her every night before bed, and now she’ll spend the rest of her days in a filthy prison, if she’s lucky and doesn’t end up on the wrong side of a firing squad. And I’m *dead*. How could it have gone so wrong?

YOU – Your breath hisses in and out as you stare into the corpse’s eyes. His eyelids are only half closed, and you can see the black jelly of his pupils beneath.

ROGER PASTORAK – Sometimes you love a person so much it doesn’t seem like they could be rotten. Maybe her little slip-ups were signs, I don’t know. She loved animals, but she’d forget to clean up after the cat. She’d leave sewing needles around where anyone could step on them. I figured it was absentmindedness - I tried to help her be better. I thought her flaws were just surface imperfections that could be removed.

YOU – We filed this as a domestic abuse case. You hurt her, didn’t you?

ROGER PASTORAK - No relationship is perfect. But everything I did was for her own benefit. I wanted to keep her away from people that would *truly* hurt her. She was better off with me. You know what I mean, right?

YOU - What?

ROGER PASTORAK - Us outsiders have to stick together. She and I were right for each other! A well-oiled team, me at work and her doing the finances, picking up odd nursing jobs on the side. I was a mess sometimes, but so was she, and we supported each other through thick and thin.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] - Your head throbs. The wheedling tone of the dead man’s voice, constructed by your own brainwaves, grates on your nerves.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Need something to dull the senses? I’ve got your back!

YOU – Your hand crawls into your pocket despite your efforts to resist. When it emerges, the contents glitter on your palm: a tiny bottle of pale-aged vodka. The kind you would find in a minibar, back when people could afford minibars.

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – You bought it this morning, bile brewing at the back of your throat as you stood in front of the cashier. She was a middle-aged woman with black hair and a Mesque accent. She couldn’t have cared less what you were buying. But as you pushed the coins across the counter and picked up the miniature vessel, you felt your chest tighten.

YOU – I’m not going to drink it. I just need to have it. Just in case.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – Sure as *sh*t* you’re not gonna drink it. Not until something bad happens, anyway! And what else ever happens to you?

YOU – It makes me feel more…

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Comfortable! Protected! A miniature suit of armor folded away in your pocket, ready to drape its numbness over you with one swallow.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] – It’s not enough to get you drunk. But it would be enough to get you started.

ROGER PASTORAK - Good choice. I knew we had a lot in common.

PERCEPTION (SMELL) [Formidable: Success] – You can smell the vodka now. It makes you peer more closely at the bottle in your hand, worried that the liquor is staining you with its scent – but the cap is still sealed.

YOU – You stand up and glance around the room. Now that you’re not staring at the corpse, you’re able to spot the glitter of glass under a cabinet. A shattered bottle. When you open the cabinet itself, more bottles stand like soldiers in regimented lines.

ROGER PASTORAK – I was a drunk. My wife was the only person who supported me. She was beautiful, the light of my life, my everything. She had the face and voice of an angel. She picked me up again and again.

YOU – No, no no no...

ROGER PASTORAK – Sure, we had fights. I lost my temper. But only because she didn’t understand that I was protecting her. Other men would have treated her like garbage, like some common whor*. But I took care of her.

YOU – You stagger backward. Your shoulder hits the door frame with a *thunk*. The tiny bottle of vodka falls from your hand and rolls across the blood-soaked carpet, coming to a rest just under the bed.

ROGER PASTORAK - And after all that, she *betrayed* me. I don’t get it! I *love* her. Can’t you understand how I feel? How deeply it cuts? I swear it’s worse than the knife. I did everything I could for her, and in return she destroyed me. It doesn’t make any sense.

YOU – Why are you telling me this?

ROGER PASTORAK - I need someone to hear me. To *understand* that I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t do anything wrong! I’m like you, Harry, just trying to get by.

YOU - Maybe I was like you once. Not anymore. I’ve changed.

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – But you’re exactly the same as you always have been. You’re a hair away from being drunk, having a breakdown at a crime scene, alone and listening to the voices in your head.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – You have to strengthen your will. Or you’re going to walk the exact same path you did before Martinaise.

HALF LIGHT [Trivial: Success] – Who knows how it will end this time?

YOU – You retrieve your vodka from under the bed. On all fours on the bloody carpet, you gag from the smell. But you can’t leave the bottle here. Kim will know.

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – And while Kim has been overlooking your many failures since the day you met him, you get the sense he won’t be able to ignore this one. Not again. Martinaise was bad enough.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - And then what? He betrays you?

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] – Your job lost, your coworkers lost, you will rot to death in an alcohol brine.

YOU – You stand again and regard the corpse a final time.

ROGER PASTORAK – Come see me on the other side, Harry. Please. It’s so lonely without her.

YOU – Shuddering, you shove the vodka back into your pocket and hustle out of the room.

Chapter 4: The Pale, part 2

Chapter Text

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] – Grey streets, grey sky, grey buildings.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Trivial: Success] - At this point, you would give f*cking *anything* to have the world be another color. Throw some yellow in there! A bright red!

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – But the pale wins all battles, and thus erodes the world.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] – The Coupris Mark 42 makes growling sounds as it pulls up to the curb. Its wheels crunch over a spray of broken glass.

INTERFACING [Medium: Success] – Kim jerks one of the steering levers so that the wheels turn toward the curb. The vehicle responds slowly, ponderously. It is no darting dolphin, but a bloated whale.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant clambers out of the motor carriage, then glances back at where you sit.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Were you going to come inside, detective?”

YOU – The words rouse you from your leaden slump. Groaning, you clamber out of the motor carriage. At once the cold begins to leech up through your shoes.

HALF LIGHT [Formidable: Failure] – The precinct looms before you, grey like the rest of the world. All at once, you can’t face it.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant walks ahead of you, jacketed in orange like a poisonous beetle shouting its warning colors. He fears nothing inside the precinct; if anyone tries to chew him up, they will be forced to spit him out. You, however…

YOU – Your feet are locked to the ground.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – Roger Pastorak still rattles around in your skull.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – Just like the vodka rattles in your pocket, begging to be consumed.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Harry?”

YOU – “No, I…I think I’ll wait.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant’s face clouds. “You’re not coming in?”

YOU – “I need some time. Some space. To think.”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] – Kim grits his teeth.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Eventually you’re going to need to have your act together. You realize that? What happened this morning is going to keep happening unless you can prove that you’re ready to work again. *Truly* ready to work.”

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - There it is. He’s given up on you already.

COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] - You feel your face contort into a sudden scowl.

YOU – “I *am* ready to work! I’m just not ready to throw all my emotions in the garbage like *you* do! I need some time to unpack what I’ve seen.”

REACTION SPEED [Formidable: Success] – His mouth twists to one side.

RHETORIC [Challenging: Failure] – So much for “us outsiders have to stick together”.

YOU – “Kim, wait, I’m sorry–”

KIM KITSURAGI – “No, you’re perfectly right, Harry. Take all the time you need. In fact, don’t come back until tomorrow.” He turns and walks into the precinct. The doors close with a creak as the building swallows him whole.

YOU – You stare up at the empty façade and murmur, “sh*t.”

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] – You can almost hear it, faintly: Roger Pastorak’s voice. Saying “No, you’re in the right here. Let him have his little hissy fit. He’ll come to his senses eventually.”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Heroic: Success] – The sound isn’t all in your head. You can hear a real, human voice floating from an open window above you.

YOU – You move to a spot beneath the window in question. A detective again, on the case.

????? ?????????? – “…You know what I...”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Heroic: Success] – A grunt in response. Two people talking, then.

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – A conversation is *usually* two people talking, genius.

????? ?????????? – “Just drives me up the wall. Doesn’t seem…should be allowing this kind of behavior.”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Legendary: Success] – The voice slots into place in your mind. It’s Trant.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – Which means the dour grunting you’ve heard is probably Jean.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM – “I know I don’t carry much bureaucratic weight around here…the point of inviting someone who’s going to mistreat…?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “There’s nothing we can do about it.” Jean’s voice is heavier and cuts through the air. It reaches your ears readily.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM – In response, Trant’s voice rises. “I just can’t bear to watch it. For a moment, I had hoped…Well, I thought it might get better.”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Trivial: Success] – The familiar pain of betrayal shoots through your chest. Once again, you are the subject of complaint.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM – “But nothing has changed. He’s still here, snubbing all of us and choosing to hang out with *Harry*, whose vices he may as well be actively encouraging!”

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – Wait, they’re…not talking about you.

JEAN VICQUEMARE – “It’s his business.”

LOGIC – This is about Kim.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM – “He seemed highly capable in Martinaise, and I assumed managing to work with Harry was a sign of adaptability. Instead, it seems to have been an indicator of the formation of a codependent bond. Perhaps Harry’s unreliability bolsters his own sense of…” His voice trails out of earshot.

RHETORIC [Trivial: Success] – There is no easier way to make someone disliked than to make sure your own reputation rubs off on them.

YOU – The feeling rises like bile in your throat. All at once you’re sick of the entire miasma that hangs around Precinct 41. Can’t someone tell these people that there are more important things to do than argue? There are citizens of Revachol *dying* out there.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Failure] – Roger Pastorak’s rotting body flashes before your mind’s eye.

VOLITION [Trivial: Success] - They don’t understand you and Kim. You have to *make* them understand.

YOU - You clench your fists. It’s time to make an entrance.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - The rickety metal door slams against the wall as you barge through, bringing all eyes immediately onto you. You are the center of attention. Now play the part.

YOU - “Keep your eyes on your work!” you snap, and are rewarded by the quick head-bowing of several junior officers. You stomp past them, headed for the staircase.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] - Out of the corner of your eye you see Kim rise from his desk, moving to follow you before he even pushes his chair in.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Fine, let him. This is for his benefit too.

YOU - Your snakeskin shoes clomp up the steps to the second floor. The stairwell is bereft of decoration. About fifteen steps below you, Kim follows.

COMPOSURE [Formidable: Success] - You sling yourself onto the second floor with the same angry energy as you did downstairs. The door swings back at you rather than hitting the wall, but you manage not to flinch.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] - Trant and Jean occupy this pitiful excuse for a break area. Trant sits at the room’s single table while Jean leans against the counter behind him, a mug of coffee in one hand. Both of them glance up at your entry.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Be firm, not frightening. Show them you are in full control of your faculties, whatever they might believe to the contrary.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - But let them know you mean business.

YOU - You march up to the table and come to a halt, folding your arms across your chest. “Trant. Jean.”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - “Hello, Harry.” His voice is reserved and a little hesitant.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He expects you to blow up at him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “How was the investigation, sh*tkid?”

YOU - “It was productive. A productive investigation performed by two competent officers.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He grimaces and takes a sip of his coffee.

YOU - “Tragically, when I got back, I heard some less-than-savory things being said about one of those competent officers.”

REACTION SPEED [Challenging: Success] - Trant glances at the open window, through which a wintry wind blows.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] - Behind you, the door opens and closes again. Must be Kim.

VOLITION [Trivial: Success] - Good. He should hear this.

YOU - “I thought I’d come up here and let you know, with all professional courtesy, that I do not find sniping behind the backs of others appropriate and that it had better not happen again. Or, you know. I’ll have to report it.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Jean snorts. “Report it? That’s rich, coming from you.”

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - But you were firm and polite and professional! He should be kowtowing, not making fun.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Clearly you weren’t firm *enough*.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Formidable: Success] - Or you sounded too uptight. Cool and casual is the way to get people to agree with you.

YOU - “I uh...I mean it! I’m going to report you for being rude to Kim...man.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “I didn’t say sh*t about Kitsuragi. And if you’re planning on reporting Trant, you’d better not.”

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] - A dark tone enters his voice.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - As a consultant, Trant’s connection with the RCM is tenuous at best. He has a vast wealth of knowledge, but one serious complaint and he could lose his job. Precinct 41 doesn’t have the funds to waste on a non-officer who foments discontent in the station.

KIM KITSURAGI - Kim steps forward into your view. “Excuse me, officers. I couldn’t help but notice that Harry seemed like he was about to...make a scene, so I-”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “We get it, you’re his new nursemaid. Or he’s yours. Whatever.”

YOU - “Hey! This is exactly the kind of talk I mean.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “We sh*t-talk each other every day here, or hadn’t you noticed? Comes with the f*cking job.”

AUTHORITY [Formidable: Success] - He’s getting the better of you! Quick, assume control of the situation!

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - Special Consultant Backpedal is getting out of his seat now, his hands up, gabbling some kind of excuse.

AUTHORITY - Petulant and whiny as always. The perfect opportunity for you to show some real strength.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - You reach out and plant a heavy hand on Trant’s shoulder, pushing him back into his seat. One of his elbows hits the edge of the table, and he grunts in surprise and a little bit of pain.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - “What was that for??”

KIM KITSURAGI - You feel a hand grip your arm. Kim yanks you away from Trant, then interposes himself between the two of you.

KIM KITSURAGI - “He’s upset - perhaps rightfully so. Please forgive his behavior.”

EMPATHY [Heroic: Success] - Even from behind, you can see the set of his jaw. He is gritting out the words not because he believes them, but because he believes you need them.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - It is a snowy day in Central Jamrock. A young man kneels on icy pavement, clutching his nose. On the knee of your slacks there is a single splotch of blood.

ESPRIT DE CORPS - Another officer steps between you and the young man. “Excuse his roughness,” he says, his voice raspy. “He’s seen a lot of sh*t today. Including you.” The snowflakes melt on his pocked face.

YOU - Jean? Is this how I -

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - “I don’t think I’m obligated to forgive this kind of behavior.”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Yes, you are. He is your superior.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “f*ck that. He’s barely keeping it together.”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Formidable: Failure] - Jean’s voice strikes a chord within you, that portion of your mind that is still standing on a snowy street corner with blood on his slacks. You snap.

YOU - “I’m keeping it together just fine! *You’re* the one who can’t keep it together!”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Failure] - The outburst sounds tinny and weak even to your own ears.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Jean’s lip curls into a sneer of disdain. Beneath his gaze you feel like the tiniest of bugs, about to be crushed by a well-deserved boot.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Heroic: Failure] - This is all going wrong. It’s just like before.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - The room seems to close in upon you as if crumpled by a massive hand.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] - Trant, Jean, and Kim are all speaking now, their voices rising in a cacophony that threatens to drown you.

YOU - Clapping your hands over your ears, you stagger for the door.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Failure] - Running away again like the pathetic dog you are.

YOU – The stairs twist around you as you descend. Even as you leave your coworkers’ voices behind, your own mind is still a noisy tangle.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Go back in there and take control!

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - No, you’re sweating bullets. They won’t take you seriously now.

YOU - I need to get out of here. I need somewhere to hide.

DRAMA [Trivial: Success] – Perhaps the lake, my liege? There is no better place to have a poetic breakdown than by a body of clear water.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] – Lake Aigre is hardly clear. The runoff of Jamrock City’s streets pours into it, fouling its waters with coal and bathwater. The high drug levels of that runoff set Aigre at a toxic 4 on the pH scale and feed legions of co*ked-up geese that have been known to descend upon oblivious bystanders. But it is a body of water. Technically.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - If you keep thinking about the lake, it may distract you from the officers’ eyes on you as you stumble through the main room and out the door.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] - It doesn’t. But you make it outside anyway.

DRAMA [Easy: Success] - The tragic hero fading from the scene of his defeat. Moving indeed!

YOU – You cross the street, allowing the old silk mill to fade from sight behind you. This time, instead of following the familiar route to the kebab stall, you turn down a side lane.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] – The twisting streets of Jamrock City spiderweb across your frontal lobe. The veins and aortas of Revachol’s heart. Some have collapsed, some have rotted, but they will always welcome you.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - They are the only ones that will welcome you.

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] - Especially after your performance at the precinct.

YOU - You shake your head, but the voices refuse to subside - they grow louder and angrier with each step. Berating you for your choices and your mistakes. You will never be free of your past, even if you don’t remember it.

LAKE AIGRE – And then it appears before you: a grey-green expanse of water, surrounded by scrub and twisted trees. There is no beach to speak of, only a brief descent from the rough pavement’s end to the liquid that laps irregularly at the shore. A meter of gravel is the lake’s only concession to riparian concerns.

YOU – You stumble onto the shore and sit down. Immediately, dampness seeps through your trousers. You pick up a chunk of gravel with one hand and stare out at the lake.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] – *Now* it is time for your poetic breakdown.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Failure] – Roger Pastorak the vodka in your pocket the pills in your other pocket Kim hates you Jean hates Kim the end of the world a great sundering –

YOU – Stop!

INLAND EMPIRE – The pale descends to eat the world and then eats itself. A great ouroboros and you are already at the snake’s tail. What’s the point in living when it only hastens your descent?

YOU – You close your fingers around the rock you hold. The sensation grounds you for a moment.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] – The problem is not the end of the world. The problem is the end of *your* world. It’s all happening again, just like it did before, only this time you’ve dragged Kim into it.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] – The lieutenant stalks out of the precinct, letting the door slam behind him. His hands shake with anger as he lights a cigarette.

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] – Once again, you stirred the sh*t and left him to deal with the fallout.

YOU – I tried to help! I brought him here, into all this, so it’s my fault and my responsibility–

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – The pity party is getting old. Stop worrying about what you’ve done and start deciding what you’re *going* to do about it.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] – Take the right fork and the world burns merrily. Take the left fork and descend into the water again – hope your breathing equipment doesn’t clog.

YOU – You scuff your feet in the gravel.

EMPATHY [Medium: Failure] – Jean hates you. Kim will hate you soon. Judit and Trant and all the others, they’re sick of this act.

YOU – So what can I do?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – Continue as you are. Return to your old friend, the bottle. Or –

VOLITION [Medium: Success] – Don’t.

YOU – It’s not that easy.

VOLITION – It should be. It is for other people.

YOU – You drop the rock you are holding. It clatters onto the ground with its siblings. Then you slide your hand into your pocket and pull out the bottle of vodka. It sparkles at you, winking like a friend in the grey light. It would be so easy.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – Your stomach groans for it. That bitter acid, the tension at the back of your throat. A will-they-won’t-they dance between your stomach bile and the pavement. Come on! Let’s party again!

YOU – You look around. You don’t see anyone else.

LAKE AIGRE – The water is quiet. It would not judge you.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – Once upon a time, you had your first drink. There had to have been a first, right? You didn’t come out of the womb soaked in whiskey.

ENDURANCE [Easy: Success] – This is like that. Crossing the line away from sober – it only takes one step.

YOU – You lift the bottle.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION [Medium: Success] – And you throw it.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Challenging: Failure] – You are unable to track the bottle for long as it flies. You think it skips a couple of times. Then it must sink, and you can no longer guess where it is.

LAKE AIGRE – I will keep it for you. Another treasure consigned to my depths.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] – So you’ve chosen the hard route. Good. Just don’t lose your way this time.

YOU – Your hand dips into your left pocket and comes up with a second bottle.

DRAMA [Easy: Success] – Ah, the other edge of the sword!

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] – No great bomb or oblivion awaits you here. Just a couple of pills that rattle out onto your palm as you tap the bottle.

VOLITION [Formidable: Failure] – No. We’ve been over this.

YOU – We have. We’ve been over the whole of it, from the beginning to the vomit-stained end. I can’t go through that again. I can’t put my friends through that again.

VOLITION – That was the fault of the alcohol. This is the fault of your own weak will.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Failure] – Who do you think you will be without us?

YOU – Myself. Still myself.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] – It has been a pleasure to serve you, sire.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] – The mildisopine rocket – its doors open for me!

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] – No more bearing Atlas’s load upon my shoulders. Your shakes and sweats are your own to manage now.

YOU – You raise your hand to your mouth.

VOLITION [Impossible: Failure] – Don’t take those pills!!!!!

YOU – And you swallow.

Chapter 5: The Mind

Chapter Text

YOU - The door closes in your face. Blinking, you look at the peeling paint, grey with a hint of rust orange. It seems a certainty that the door will open again – you wait for it, in fact – but the seconds tick by and it does not.

KIM KITSURAGI – “Another unhelpful interview.”

YOU – You nod. “Most of them have been.”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Most?” The lieutenant raises an eyebrow. “What’s *one* useful thing we’ve learned?”

YOU - You cross your arms and tap one snakeskin shoe on the gritty hallway carpet. “Well, we know that people liked Roger Pastorak. That’s useful, right?”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Does it help us find his killer?” He shrugs, leaving the rhetorical question to make its point.

YOU - You linger in front of the closed door for a moment. It bothers you, as closed doors always do. Even with your mood chemically stabilized, as it has been for two weeks, you can feel the hum at the edge of your thoughts. The desire to go Human Can Opener. The woman on the other side of the door is middle-aged, tired, and fearful. You need to know *more* about her, to look into the reflective pools of her eyes and see yourself there.

You’ve been having this urge lately. Since the inside of your skull was hollowed out by mildisopine you’ve had trouble recognizing your reflection. You understand now that the voices were manifestations of mental illness and not, probably, supranatural abilities – but who are you without them? Just a quiet-headed police officer performing his daily tasks? Instead of a splintered kaleidoscope, the world is a dull grey blur.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Harry?”

YOU – You shake your head and step back from the door.

YOU - …

YOU – But no other voice chimes in. It’s just you, distracted by your own thoughts. Hearing your own mental voice feels odd.

“Sorry,” you say, smiling at Kim. “I was just reflecting on the case.”

As you walk back to the Coupris Mark 42 together, you feel as though all of your interviewees are streaming out behind you, a banner of interrogated ghosts. The middle-aged woman is only the most recent; before her came a harried single mother, an electrical repairman, and the landlord of the building. While each one spoke on Roger Pastorak’s character, you stared deep into their eyes, hoping to recognize some flicker within. And at the end of each interview, Kim flipped his notebook shut and thanked the interviewee with a faint smile, while you withdrew farther into yourself, unable to recognize anything that belonged to you in the other person.

The cold air bites at you as you step outside. Maybe you aren’t any of the neighbors, you think. Maybe you’re Roger Pastorak, dead and bloated on a bedroom floor, and you just don’t know it yet. Or you’re April, on the run with blood on her hands, and you don’t know that yet either.

YOU - (But you do – you are very aware of the blood on your hands. How could you forget, with those holes punched in your ledger?)

This thought comes dangerously close to the old sharp intrusions, so you push it away and focus on Kim, who is leaning into the motor carriage to pick up the radio transceiver.

JUDIT MINOT - After a faint crackle, a voice comes across the line: “Hello, Lieutenant Kitsuragi. Is everything okay?”

KIM KITSURAGI - “We’ve just concluded an interview. Again, no leads as to Ms. Pastorak’s location.”

JUDIT MINOT - A radio-distorted hum. “That’s not surprising, but it is disappointing.”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Indeed,” agrees the lieutenant.

YOU - A brief, awkward silence follows. You decide to take the opportunity to waggle your fingers at Kim, getting his attention. You then embark on a complicated rigamarole of pointing, eyebrow raising, and exaggerated mouthing of words. At the end of it, Kim appears much more confused than when the routine started, and Judit is still quiet on the other end of the radio.

You sigh. “Kim, can I talk to Judit?”

KIM KITSURAGI - “*That’s* what you were trying to express?” the lieutenant asks, incredulous.

YOU - “Well, yeah.”

KIM KITSURAGI - He smiles and hands over the transceiver. “Just ask next time, okay?”

YOU - “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

JUDIT MINOT - The radio crackles into life again as the transceiver changes hands: “Oh, I have another message for you two,” says Judit.

YOU - “Shoot.”

JUDIT MINOT - “Jean says that one of the neighbors submitted a written statement that was a little different from your interview transcription. Something about a friend of Ms. Pastorak’s who doesn’t live in the same building. It would probably be a good idea to check out.”

YOU - At the mention of Jean’s name, the air seems to grow chillier. The confrontation from a couple weeks ago comes unbidden to your mind – the last time you or Kim exchanged more than a couple of words with Jean. Since then, he and Trant have been passing messages through Judit, who seems conflicted about being the middleman.

“Uh, thank you for the message,” you manage at last, pressing the button to transmit. “Tell Jean-”

A snowy street corner. Disdain on Jean’s face. Your arms draped around his neck, drunken slobber on his shirt, the strain of muscles as Jean hauls you through the apartment door-

You let go of the transmit button. There is silence again.

Maybe you *are* April Pastorak, and your relationship with Jean is the corpse you have left behind. Not stabbed with a knife, but with a broken bottle of Commodore Red.

JUDIT MINOT - “Harry?”

YOU - “Yeah?”

JUDIT MINOT - “What did you want me to tell Jean?”

KIM KITSURAGI – You glance sideways and see Kim turning away, dropping his eyes to the ground.

YOU - “Ah, nothing. Don’t tell him anything.”

JUDIT MINOT - “Harry…are you alright? I know that…I mean, a couple of weeks ago…”

YOU - The image flashes into your mind: one of the many times you pretended to take your pills, Judit caught you brushing them into the trash can. You lied and told her you’d dropped them on the floor and needed to grab a new dose, but she knew. You remember comments Judit has made about her “half of a husband” and you think maybe she knows what you’re going through better than she is letting on.

YOU - “I’m okay now. Thanks for the message.”

JUDIT MINOT - “Alright. I’ll read you the address to the other building now.”

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant gets out his notebook again as the static-dulled words float across the air.

YOU - “Thank you, Judit,” you say when she has finished. You try to put genuine gratitude into your voice; she deserves it, considering what she’s had to deal with.

JUDIT MINOT - “You’re welcome,” she replies, and signs off.

YOU - Maybe you are Judit, unassuming and hardworking – but no, you shake that thought off before it can continue. Judit is her own woman, and you can only hope to be as strong as her someday.

The motor carriage’s driver-side door creaks as Kim climbs in. The street is long and mostly empty, with voices drifting out of a few open tenement windows.

You straighten your shoulders and get into the vehicle.

-

YOU - The address Judit gave you turns out to be a tiny, ramshackle house in one of Jamrock’s poorer districts. As the Coupris pulls onto the street, you press yourself against the window, hardly able to believe what you’re seeing. The structure of the house itself has been swallowed by wooden outcroppings and carvings, sculptures balanced on ledges, and even massive sheets of fabric. It looks like an art gallery vomited onto an aging cottage.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Wow.”

YOU – You nod. “It looks like…” You struggle for words.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Art?” The lieutenant says, but his voice goes up at the end of the word, as if he can scarcely believe it himself.

YOU - You look at the colorful explosion of a house for a moment longer, then exchange a glance with Kim.

“Art,” you say.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Definitely art,” he agrees.

YOU - “Maybe we should do something like this at the precinct.” You imagine the desks cloaked in colorful fabric, streamers hanging from the ceiling. The image conjures a memory of something…a birthday party, maybe?

KIM KITSURAGI - “I don’t think that would go over well.” He looks down at himself, then back up at the scene before him. “I also don’t think I’m dressed for whatever occasion this is, but let’s go see if anyone is home.”

YOU - Up close, the house is even more eccentric. Sculptures line the front walk, some of them so dynamic you feel as though they might jump at you. The walls of the house are painted as brightly as the fabrics that hang over them, and even the eaves contain tiny carvings. Kim steps somewhat awkwardly through the various art pieces, but you feel as though the chaotic atmosphere is welcoming you.

Somehow, you reach the front door without knocking anything over, and you find yourself facing down a carved knocker that looks like a bird on fire. It makes a satisfying sound when you thump it against the door.

As soon as your knock rings out, you can hear footsteps clattering from somewhere within the house. They are followed by a muffled crashing sound, some rummaging, and finally the door opening.

“Hello, we-” you start, but you are cut off immediately.

??????? ??????? - “f*ck. Pigs,” says the woman who opened the door, and she closes it.

YOU – You look at Kim, who looks back at you. Just as you open your mouth to speak, the door creaks inward again.

??????? ??????? - “Ugh, fine,” says the woman. She has short black hair and dark skin with a smudge of blue paint below one eye. “I know you’re not gonna leave if I don’t listen to whatever garbage you have to say. So…what?”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Madame, we are here investigating the murder of a man named Roger Pastorak.”

??????? ??????? - On the word “Pastorak”, the woman snorts. She claps a hand over her mouth, but it fails to muffle the sharp barks of laughter that follow.

YOU - “Is that funny?” It’s happening again: the hum. The Human Can Opener begging to be let free.

??????? ??????? - The woman straightens up, but a smile still wrestles with one corner of her mouth. “A bit,” she concedes. “I guess it makes sense that he would be murdered. I never thought of it, but it does make sense.” Her gaze flickers between you and Kim before settling on you. Her eyes are dark and cloudy.

“Am I a suspect?” she asks.

YOU - “No,” you say, not breaking eye contact.

KIM KITSURAGI - “You’re not a suspect, Miss…?” The lieutenant lets the question dangle.

??????? ??????? - “Saffron Archyle,” says the woman, still not looking away from you.

YOU - (You are drawn again into the reflection of yourself in her eyes. Is there something there? Some common spark?)

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “Why am I not a suspect?” she asks, looking over at Kim.

KIM KITSURAGI - “We already know who committed the murder, madame.”

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “And who would that be?” Her voice is sharp, interrogative.

YOU - The best defense is a good offense.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant taps one finger on his notebook before saying, “April Pastorak, his wife. We’re attempting to locate her. Any information you have would be helpful.”

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - Saffron smiles. “I don’t know anything, sorry.” Her eyes shift to you again, but now they are blank and polite and reveal nothing.

YOU - The hum intensifies.

KIM KITSURAGI - “We were told by another resident of Ms. Pastorak’s building that you were a close friend of hers. Is that not correct?”

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “We used to be friends. We haven’t spoken in a while.”

YOU - The blandness of her face sends a frisson of electricity through your brain. It’s so *obvious* that she’s hiding something, but you can’t find the words to challenge her. It’s frustrating, how it feels like the lines are there, just below the skin – below the numbing layer of mildisopine.

KIM KITSURAGI - “When was the last time you spoke to April Pastorak?”

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “Maybe three months ago?”

YOU - There is a bulky shape in the entryway behind Saffron. A piece of bright purple cloth is draped over it, but you identify its structure anyway: a suitcase. April is here, or has been here, and Saffron is lying to you.

“Are you certain about that date?” Kim is asking, and other ineffectual formalities. You know them all, how the conversation will unspool: April’s actions, whether she seemed on edge or behaved unusually, what she said, when she left. The entire arc of the narrative hovers inside Kim’s mouth and emerges with his rote, trained words.

She’s lying.

“You’re lying,” you say.

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “I’m not lying,” she retorts. But you see life return to her eyes. Maybe you are like Saffron – maybe she is a Human Can Opener too. Or the opposite: a closed and locked book.

YOU - Kim tries to interject, but you continue, pointing into the entryway: “There. That’s a suitcase. She’s been here.”

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “That’s an unfinished art piece,” Saffron snaps. “I haven’t seen April in months.”

YOU - “That’s a lie.” You step forward, and when Saffron tries to close the door you stop it with one hand. You are halfway inside the house and the feeling inside you is swelling, too strong to be numbed now. There are no voices to egg you on, but you realize something nonetheless – you don’t need to search for an identity. You can be *this* person no matter what.

“You know where she is,” you hiss, your voice coming out hard and raspy. “She killed her husband and she has to pay the price. Now stop f*cking lying to me.”

You hear a quick intake of breath from Kim.

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “I’m not lying.” Her lip quivers.

YOU - She is smaller than you, and you can tell that she is very aware of that fact as you loom over her, your mutton chops sticking out, grinning like a crazy man.

“I’m giving you one more chance,” you say between yellow teeth.

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “I’m not-” she begins, and your hands shoot out. You grab her and push her against the wall. She cries out in surprise as her back hits the wood, and a painting swings wildly as her head knocks it.

YOU - “Tell me!”

SAFFRON ARCHYLE - “The river!” she shouts, then begins to cry. Even when you shake her shoulders she does not respond, just crumples into herself.

YOU - Immediately your triumph sours.

YOU - Is this who I am? A bully?

You look to Kim for help and watch him take a deep breath.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Thank you for cooperating,” he says in a stiff voice. “Our apologies for the harshness of-”

YOU - It’s wrong. It’s all wrong.

YOU - “Shut up,” you snap. Nausea wells up inside you.

YOU - Is this the level I’ve dragged Kim down to? Apologizing for my brutality?

You let go of Saffron’s shoulder and she slumps to her knees on the floor.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Shut up?” The lieutenant repeats in an icy voice.

YOU - “It’s- it’s wrong! This is all f*cked up.” You feel like throwing up. “You can’t stand up for me like that. You shouldn’t!”

KIM KITSURAGI - “What do you want me to do, then?”

YOU - You look at Kim. He stands ramrod-straight, his hands behind his back, frowning. He is waiting for you to tell him what to do. The thought stokes the fury in your chest – fury against Kim, against yourself, against the whole world.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Harry. What do you want from me?”

YOU - “I want you not to let me f*cking yell at you!”

KIM KITSURAGI - At last his composure falters, and he snaps, “What?!”

YOU - Trying to dam the flow of your words, you step out onto the porch and slam the door behind you, leaving Saffron inside on the floor of her home. With your palms pressed against the wood, you heave ragged breaths.

KIM KITSURAGI - “I need to make something clear.”

YOU - You turn around.

KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant isn’t making direct eye contact, but his shoulders are set. “Something has to change here,” he says. “I have made allowances and excuses for you for the last two months, and I am not going to do it any longer.”

YOU - “Right,” you say. It comes out with more venom than intended.

KIM KITSURAGI - He winces but continues: “I can’t be your emotional crutch any longer. I don’t think you’re doing this on purpose, but it has to stop. I can’t manage your feelings, defend you to everyone at the precinct, and be your closest friend all at once. Maybe I can’t do any of those things.”

YOU - “Maybe not,” you mumble. Almost of their own accord, your feet start moving, carrying you through the maze of sculptures and towards the street.

KIM KITSURAGI - “You need to figure something out,” the lieutenant says, following you.

YOU - “Like what?” The nausea has returned and tears are starting to well up in your eyes.

KIM KITSURAGI - “The job. Your life. I don’t know. Something’s not working here, and I can’t take up the slack.”

YOU - “But Kim-”

KIM KITSURAGI - “No.” The corners of his mouth are tugged down; he’s clearly not enjoying this, but he continues anyway: “I’m going back to the precinct. I think you should take some time to yourself.”

YOU - “But the river!” You fling a hand in the direction of the woods. “It has to be here. Or nearby. Or maybe it leads from Lake Aigre-”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Harry, she’ll be found. It doesn’t have to be right this second.”

YOU - “It’s our only lead!”

KIM KITSURAGI - “It’s *your* only lead.” He pauses. “I’ve submitted an application to change partners.”

YOU - “What?!” The words stab into your chest.

*Change partners*.

You are still standing on the snowy corner, only this time Jean is walking away, out of your life forever. Kim, framed against the reflection of light on the Coupris’s windshield, is doing the same.

KIM KITSURAGI - “If you need a ride somewhere, I’ll take you. But this…” He gestures between the two of you with one gloved hand. “This hasn’t been good for me. I don’t think it’s good for you either. I am rooting for you, Harry, but I can’t be involved like this any longer.”

YOU - You don’t respond. You can’t. A length of time passes.

When you look up, the Coupris has left, and Kim with it. You stand on the muddy walk and look down at your hands. They are red, rough, and knobby. You see yourself grasping Saffron’s shoulders, shoving her into the wall.

Something shatters on the ground behind you. “f*ck you!” shouts Saffron from a window.

YOU - Should I apologize to Kim? Should I walk downtown? Should I…

YOU - …

YOU – (This is where the familiar whining voices should come in: Find a bar and drink yourself to death, it’s party time! No, don’t do that, you need to get work done. The only way out of this is to convince Kim you didn’t mean it. No, try exhibiting your authority, you have to show him you’re in charge.)

But none of those things happen. It’s still just you inside your head.

The river, maybe. If you can find April Pastorak, you can tell her what you’ve found out. That you can still be yourself, even medicated. That *yourself* is sh*tty, is a mess, but you’re still working things out. You can get better.

No, what are you thinking? You won’t be telling April Pastorak anything. You need to arrest her for murder.

You scrub a hand through your greasy hair and begin to walk.

Chapter 6: Reality

Chapter Text

YOU - You walk down the riverbank. The stones are loose under your feet, sliding and rattling against each other. Your arrival is broadcast ahead of you by the sound, but it doesn’t matter. April doesn’t run.

You see her sitting with her bare feet in the water. She is wearing a light pink jumper and her hair hangs down her back in a long, unraveling braid. Seeing the wheat-gold of it, your heart no longer skips a beat. You just feel sad and sick.

She knows you’re here. She hears the scattering of rocks, even glances back over her shoulder at you once. But she doesn’t stand or try to run.

“April Pastorak,” you say, stepping up behind her.

APRIL PASTORAK – “Detective Du Bois. If I remember correctly.”

YOU – “Yes, that’s me.”

APRIL PASTORAK – “I guess I should say congratulations.”

YOU – “For?”

APRIL PASTORAK – “You’ve finally caught my husband’s killer.” She almost laughs, but the sound dies after a single bark. Her shoulders heave once, like she is holding back a sob.

YOU – “Is that a confession, Ms. Pastorak?”

APRIL PASTORAK – “Does it matter?”

YOU – You notice that she is shaking. Your fingers rest on the cold metal of handcuffs at your belt, but – you can’t do it.

She still hasn’t looked at you once. Confused, your body moving without thinking, you sit down on the bank next to her. You fold your knees up so that your snakeskin boots don’t touch the water.

This is enough to catch her off guard. Finally, she looks at you, and you see tears in her reddened eyes.

APRIL PASTORAK – “What are you doing?”

YOU – “I…I’m not sure. I think I have to tell you something.”

She is silent, staring at you with those watery eyes. There is a scar on her chin that you didn’t notice before. You find yourself wondering how much of her body is evidence of her husband.

“I know he hurt you,” you say. “I hurt myself too. And people around me. Not as directly, but…maybe almost as badly.”

She does not speak.

“I’ve been taking steps to make things better,” you continue. “I don’t want to be like your husband. I don’t want to keep hurting people. I’m…taking my medication and I think I’m learning.”

She keeps looking at you. Her eyes are grey and flat. You remember all at once that this is the woman who drove a knife into her husband’s body 31 times, even as he bled out on their marriage bed, even as he doubtless stammered little pleas for mercy.

“I’m trying to…break the cycle. I think,” you say.

The river burbles at your feet.

APRIL PASTORAK – “I’m not your therapist.”

YOU – “I know that.”

She doesn’t speak again. You keep your hand on your cuffs, but you still can’t do it. It seems like punishing the honeybee for stinging the bird that tries to eat it. Though, you think, the honeybee dies either way…

April stares into the polluted water as if it will surge upward and sweep her away. You sit by her side until the others come.

-

The top of the page says, “Harrier Du Bois: Notice of Termination”. He has to read it several times before it sinks in. Even after it does, however, it doesn’t hurt as badly as he thought it would. He’s already spent enough time worrying during his forced time at home. The stress-born energy helped him clean his entire apartment from top to bottom – which was much needed – but it didn’t give him his job back.

It was his treatment of Saffron Archyle, of course. And the fact that he didn’t arrest April Pastorak, but instead sat on the riverbank with a murderer for hours until his coworkers showed up looking for him. And the many, many indiscretions of a career as an alcoholic. Combined, they finally put him out of a job.

It’s the nightmare Harry has foreseen for years. And yet it isn’t the end of his world.

The mildisopine helped him remain somewhat calm over the past weeks while he waited for the hammer to come down. As did the therapy – Nix Gottlieb’s last words to him before his “suspension without pay, termination probable” began were to “Get yourself some genuine help, asshole. Someone better paid and more skilled than me. I can’t rattle around that brain of yours any longer, and you owe it to yourself to get a handle on things.”

So, Harry found someone, and he went. And to his surprise, it helped. Not all at once, or in miraculous ways, but it helped.

He looks up from the letter. On the apartment walls is the other surprising element to come out of his suspension: his art. It started as a recommendation from his therapist, a way to spit some of his unpronounceable feelings onto canvas, but now he feels like he’s actually getting good at it. The piece across from him is all oranges and blues, bright colors that outline a cityscape. He looks at it for a moment longer and smiles.

The letter, of course, means he will have to go back to the precinct one more time. For a moment, he can feel it all creeping back into his bones: Martinaise, Jamrock, the terror he wrought on the people in both cities. The train to f*ckallborough burrowing through his mind again.

But he knows how to fight this. He takes several deep breaths, centers himself, and thinks about other things: the groceries he has to buy later. The paint drying on the palette by his window.

Once he has control again, Harry stands up. He shuffles into his boots, fails to find a jacket, and wraps a scarf around his neck to make up for it. He shoots a glance at the mirror leaning against the wall (no furies lurking here; only a worn face) and decides, Not too shabby. When he closes the door on his way out, it clicks without significance.

There are many papers to sign, and a desk to clear out. To Harry’s own surprise, he doesn’t even cry.

-

It’s five o’clock when he heads for the door, all the pieces of his life as an officer of the law packed up into a single cardboard box. All the pieces worth keeping, anyway. It’s weird how normal it feels walking across the floor of the old silk mill, the day outside wending into twilight. Just another evening leaving the job that devoured so many years of his life – except this time he will never come back.

When he passes through the door, the wind tries to bite through his scarf to his neck. He shivers a little deeper into his clothes, adjusts his grip on the cardboard, and takes a deep breath.

“Hey, sh*tkid.”

Harry startles and nearly drops the box. He juggles it for a few moments, papers slopping out of the top, before he manages to rebalance his stack of belongings. When he looks up, Jean is standing there with crossed arms. A few documents fly away in the wind; Harry lets them go.

“Jean?” he asks.

“Who the f*ck else do you know with this ugly mug?”

Behind Jean, three other figures emerge from the precinct: Trant, Judit, and – last in line, his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets – Kim.

“What are you all doing here?” Harry asks, bewildered. He’d assumed they’d never want to see him again after all he’d done. There had been no contact with his coworkers – former coworkers, he corrects himself – during his suspension. The rejection stung, but it was fair.

“No one gets out of this sh*thole without some kind of sendoff. It’s the counterpoint to your induction. Not that you’d remember that,” Jean tosses out.

Harry winces as the barb lands. It’s a painful reminder, one that might have sent him toppling over the edge into tears in the past - but now he is able to hold that feeling back, even nod a little.

“Fair enough,” Harry says. A little of the tension seems to fade out of the air around him.

“We were going to get you a cake, but it felt a little too celebratory,” says Judit.

Harry chuckles. “I think a celebration of me leaving might be fair.”

“Sure,” says Jean, “But we don’t want to get in trouble for lowering morale.”

“So, we got you this,” says Trant, stepping forward. He tries to hand an envelope to Harry, realizes that Harry has no hands free, and ends up setting it on top of the rest of the junk in the cardboard box.

“It’s a voucher for a free kebab,” Judit chimes in. She brushes a strand of hair out of her face. “It’s not much, but it-”

“I love it,” Harry interrupts. And he means it: it’s the perfect gift. Decades of police work, years of camaraderie coming to an end and it’s all summed up in a tiny scrap of paper that can be exchanged for one free kebab. It could be sad, but instead it feels right.

At Harry’s words, the rest of the tense atmosphere seems to disperse. He watches as Jean uncrosses his arms and shoves them into his pockets.

Ah, Harry thinks. They were testing me. The thought stings, but he can’t blame them.

“Listen,” says Trant, tapping his fingers together in a nervous gesture, “I wanted to apologize. I know that I was acerbic toward you-”

“No, no,” Harry says. His arms are getting tired, so he sets the cardboard box down on the grey pavement. Straightening up, his back twinges, but he suppresses the grimace.

“This isn’t your fault,” he continues. “I know you’ve heard a thousand apologies from me already, and those weren’t sincere. Sometimes they were even manipulative.” He has had this discussion with his therapist. Learning how he used to wield the Sorry Cop attitude as a weapon made him sick.

Jean steps into the pause: “Add up all your sh*t apologies and they wouldn’t even be worth a free kebab.”

The tension returns for a moment, but he clearly means it as a joke, so Harry laughs. Seeing him take it lightly, the others laugh as well. It feels good. Harry hasn’t felt this connected to them in a long time.

“It’s true,” he concedes. “But I’m trying to be better for real this time. I’m getting help. And for what it’s worth…I am sorry. Someday I hope I can prove that this apology actually means something.”

Trant purses his lips, momentarily bewildered. His eyes scan back and forth across Harry’s face. But he must see something there that reads as genuine, because after a moment he nods.

“Alright, Harry,” Trant says. “I’m willing to give you that chance.”

Harry blinks. “Wait, what?”

“To show me that your apology is worth something. It had better, or I’m taking back that kebab coupon.” Trant raises his eyebrows as he points down at the envelope.

It doesn’t make sense. Why would they want to spend time with him after all he’s done? Harry struggles with the idea for a moment, then reminds himself that communication is key. They deserve honesty.

“Does that mean…I mean, are we still going to see each other?”

There is a pause and then Trant gives another crisp nod. “I think so, Harry. If things really are getting better.”

“It’s worth a shot, sh*tkid,” says Jean. “I didn’t give myself grey f*cking hair over you because it was fashionable. If this is the upswing at last, I’d better be there for it.”

Judit nods as well. “We won’t see you at the precinct, of course, but we’re happy that you’re getting help. Maybe we could meet for coffee sometime.”

Trant says, “I heard you talking to the captain about art therapy? Perhaps we could take a look at your creations. If you’re up for it, that is.”

Harry nods and smiles and tears up a little, but he can’t help it: his eyes swivel to Kim. The lieutenant stands straight-backed and unreadable in his orange bomber jacket. In a strange way, Harry thinks he has known Kim longer than anyone here; Kim is the only one who has been with him from the moment he lost his memory.

The lieutenant shifts from one foot to the other. The glow from the precinct window behind him makes him a near-silhouette. Harry waits, the silence drawing about him like a shroud, as Kim looks at him with dark eyes and shakes his head once. The motion is tiny, but it is final.

The dam bursts. It’s beautiful and awful all at once, the emotions making a clean cut through Harry’s mind without the tangled filter of voices to tie him in knots. He knows what he is feeling: happy that his friends have forgiven him. Sad that Kim hasn’t.

It’s because you don’t deserve forgiveness, some anxious part of him insists. They’re just saying this to appease you. Kim is the only one who has the guts to speak the truth.

No, he tells himself in response. Down, Sorry Cop. No more useless apologies. No more cop, for that matter.

Harry takes a deep breath and looks at his former coworkers. “Thank you,” he says, and leaves it there.

He receives a series of shoulder pats before Jean and Trant walk off in the lead, with Judit just behind them. Kim, however, remains.

A pause unspools.

“Kim,” Harry starts, and the lieutenant shakes his head.

“Let’s not talk about it,” he says. “I think it would be best for both of us if we didn’t interact much after this.”

“I get it,” says Harry.

Kim nods. “Thank you.”

The two of them stand in silence for a moment longer.

“Kim,” Harry says again.

“Yes?”

“Do you remember…Martinaise? With the phasmid? It felt like the whole world was coming apart around us, everything we knew to be true. But in a glorious way. Not like a new start, but like…we’d discovered that there was a deeper layer to what we already had. To the world.”

“Maybe not in so many words,” says Kim, adjusting his glasses, “But yes, Harry. I think I know what you mean.”

A breeze whips down the street. Jean, Judit and Trant are out of earshot, their voices lost to the faint whistling of wind. All around, Revachol is breathing. Her buildings creak, foundations grinding themselves slowly into gravel with the inexorable weight of time. A cloud begins to form, high up in the sky, sure to fall apart later into rain. Harry allows the air to fill his lungs, cold and clear. If he thinks hard enough, he can almost detect the scent of kebabs.

The old world isn’t dead. There’s just more of it than he ever thought.