Chapter 32: Wraith Book Club

In the end, she said yes.

It was tricky to get all three of us in the same place at the same time, in large part because Mickey and I were being followed by the PA, and we didn't want them to know that we knew each other, or put them on Tanya's trail.

There was a library I used to visit often. It was quiet, mostly empty, and it had private study rooms for people working with especially old, valuable books. I told Tanya to go there after work and named a book she needed to request to get an isolated room. Given her profession, she could do it without any problem. I needed her to be there before me, and leave after -- that way my entourage would never have a chance to notice her and place us together.

Mickey was more tricky. Timing or not, the Protectors would undoubtedly notice if their marks spent an hour together. They would literally bump into each other on the street, without even the need for someone... Amanda? Ainsley? Allie?... to crosscheck their reports. Luckily, he mostly worked from home, which meant that it was easy for him to disappear in the middle of the day without anyone noticing. Of course, he couldn't jump from the roof before dark, but it was winter, and nights were longer than ever.

I saw Tanya leave the office at 6:30 PM. She didn't look my way, didn't show any sign that today was out of the ordinary. Walking calmly, she entered the parking garage and drove off five minutes later. I finished my shift, said bye to everyone, and walked to the bus stop some half an hour after that.

The man with thin lips was following me. He walked past the bus stop and disappeared behind the corner at the same time as the bus arrived. A few minutes later I noticed an old sedan following us, two people inside. The Protectors used multiple cars and switched plates frequently, but their resources weren't endless, and in a month I had learned to recognize all their vehicles.

They were good, but I was... not better. Just not what they thought I was. And that gave me an upper hand.

Finally, I entered the library. I always loved libraries. Their silence, their rituals, their logic. In a sense, libraries were akin to temples. And to me, whom the Church deemed not worthy of a soul or God's love, they were more sacred than an actual temple.

The librarian -- an old woman with short gray hair and a genuine, broad smile -- recognized me.

'Matthew! It's good to see you, young man. I haven't seen you here in a long while.'

'Good evening, Mrs. Blezinski. Yes, I was very busy lately.'

'No time for a good book, eh?'

'Sadly. Although I finished that Dostoevsky novel you recommended last time.'

'Glad to hear! Did you like it?'

'As a story? Not really. But as a historical document of fringe theology in 19th century Europe? It was very interesting.'

She chuckled.

'Strange to see a young man of your age be so interested in the history of Christian faith. Quite refreshing! Anyway, how can I help you? Do you want to check something out?'

I smiled.

'Actually, I was planning to stay here for an hour or two. Read someplace quiet.'

'Of course, of course. You know where to find me!'

I left my jacket in the wardrobe and proceeded to the main reading hall. It was large, warm, cozily lit, and almost completely empty. Mickey was sitting behind one of the desks, reading a comic of some sort.

When I approached, he looked up.

'Hey! They have some collector-grade shit down here!'

He pointed to the comic.

'This is so dope. I fucking love pre-Purity X-Men. Most issues were burned back in the 20th, you know?'

I shook my head.

'Yeah, that was back when they passed the propaganda laws. Anyway, this place is not as lame as I thought. Although I still have no idea why would you come here. It's all been digitized ages ago, dude.'

Sure. But it wasn't the point, really.

'Keep your voice down. Have you seen her?'

Mickey nodded.

'Yeah, she's in the room upstairs.'

'Let's go.'

We ascended the stairs. Before the door, Mickey stopped me.

'Wait. How do I look?'

He looked like he always did: skinny, blond and too excited. But also uncharacteristically shy. The library was a quiet place, so Tanya had probably heard what he said. I decided not to tell him.

'You look fine. Come on.'

We entered the small reading room.

Tanya was sitting in the chair, looking through an antique ornithology album of enormous size. She looked up when we came in, and frowned.

'Who is that?'

Mickey waved.

'Hi. I'm Mickey. I'm C4.'

His face changed.

'Shit. Did I say that out loud? Fuck!'

Tanya looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

'Who is Mickey?'

I sat across from her.

'He's my friend. We're in this together.'

Mickey looked around and chose a chair next to mine.

'Yeah. Sorry. It's just it's exciting to finally meet you, after watching you for so long!'

Oh, damn. That moron.

She scowled.

'What the fuck do you mean after watching me for so long?'

Mickey looked at me, startled.

'Wait, I thought Matt told you already?'

'Told me what?'

'Uh...'

'Told me. What?'

It was time to interfere.

'Okay, listen. We might have been watching you for the last month or so. I covered your work hours, and Mickey did the rest.'

She was dismayed.

'You were spying on me in my home?'

'Not exactly. We were watching your house, in case the man we're looking for shows up.'

'How? I would have noticed if someone stood outside my house all night long. It's a small neighborhood.'

Mickey smiled, full of himself.

'Yeah. I hacked the neighborhood security cameras.'

She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

'That's illegal.'

'Fuck yeah it is. So what? Being us is practically illegal, too.'

'Matt. I need you to start explaining things, now. Before I reconsider being a part of this mess.'

I inhaled, then slowly exhaled.

'Okay. So, this all started a month and a half ago, when the Protector showed up at my work.'

'What Protector?'

'The Protector. She runs this whole region and monitors the high threat GAs personally. Mickey and I are her wards.'

Tanya looked at us, curious.

'So you're really Category 4?'

Mickey puffed his chest.

'Matt is six or something. But I'm four, yes.'

She looked simultaneously fascinated and disturbed.

'I've never met anyone higher than C8 before. What is it like?'

Mickey looked at me, unsure.

'It's pretty much the same, only you can... sort of... hold more than one Affect at once. It's like solving multiple equations simultaneously, you know? I can do five, six when I'm on a roll. Matt can probably hold four, judging by what I've seen him do. And the Affects, they stack. So you can do some serious damage, yeah. Not like throw a car in the air, but close.'

Tanya blinked.

'Six affect all at once?'

There was something close to reverence in her voice.

'How... how do you keep it at bay? What do you do when you're angry? When you're having a nightmare? When you're having sex? What happens when you lose control?'

Mickey opened his mouth, then closed it. His face blushed a little, and he hurriedly glanced in my direction.

'Ask Matt. He's so in control of himself that it's almost frightening.'

Tanya looked at me, a hungry gleam in her eyes.

I thought about it for a few seconds, then said:

'You don't lose control.'

She smiled.

'You say it like losing control is something you... can control.'

I raised an eyebrow.

'Of course you can.'

She shook her head.

'No, you can't. You're not a machine. Things happen, emotions happen, panic happens. What do you do then?'

She was saying such strange things. I couldn't quite understand what they meant.

'How do you mean? You set rules in your mind, and you don't break them. When you panic, you panic, but it doesn't change the rules.'

'Are you saying that you had never made a mistake?'

I remembered hot pain shooting through my arm, the Protector looking in amusement at the water boiling in the glass.

'Maybe once.'

Then there was the night I met Zero and grabbed him by the throat. But even then I used my hands, not my Ability.

She leaned back in her chair, shook her head.

'Incredible. What about when you were a child?'

'I was weaker when I was a child. Then I learned.'

After a long pause, she said, wonder still in her voice:

'Alright. The chief PA showed up at your work. What then?'

'She was looking for someone. A man. At that point, I have never met him.'

Mickey nodded.

'Yeah, she showed me the photo too. Only I did know him. He was my Protector a while back.'

Tanya moved the book away, straightened her clothes.

'Is this how he knows my parents?'

'Not quite. This man, Zero. He was a Protector and a wraith.'

A long pause.

'What?'

'The PA recruited ten wraiths as Protectors twenty or so years ago, as a part of self-governance experiment. They called themselves the "Second Generation".'

It took Tanya some time to digest that information. Much less than it took me, though. Finally, she calmly said:

'Continue.'

'Zero was Mickey's Protector, then he disappeared. We think he got sick and was sent to the Farm. We think... we think that he met my mother, and your dad, there.'

'Why do you think that?'

'Wait, I'll get to it. The next day after the Protector showed me the photo, Zero found me. I was at a club with some friends, and when we were leaving, he was waiting outside.'

'I thought you said he died at the Farm.'

'No, I said that he was sent to the Farm, many years ago. But when I met him, he was still alive. Sick, but not... out of control. And he was strong, too. I've never seen an Ability as strong as his.'

Mickey sighed.

'Everything could have been better if Matt had remained calm, but hey, when a sick wraith approaches you out of the blue, you tend to freak the fuck out. So Matt did that, and scared Zero away. But not before Zero told him his mother's PA number.

Tanya turned to me.

'You mother was taken by the PA?'

'Yes. Six or so years ago. And your dad?'

'He disappeared six years, eight months, twenty-three days ago.'

Mickey leaned forward:

'See? Zero disappeared around that time, too. It all connects. So, after Zero ambushed Matt on the street, Matt decided to find him. That's how we met. It was, like, a match made in Heaven.'

Right, he just forgot to mention that our first encounter ended up with him trying to break my nose.

'So, it was the two of us against the PA. We began investigating and found a place where Zero had been hiding at some point. And there, we found some burned Farm documents. Case files. Very little was readable, but we managed to get a couple of names, including Matt's mom and some guy called Sergei Duncan.'

'That's my dad.'

'Right! We gathered that, maybe, Zero broke out from the Farm and is now on a quest to find children of the people he was imprisoned with. Not much of a lead, but it was all we had. So I performed some computer magic and found out that Sergei Duncan had a daughter. That's you. And that you're going to this pompous party. Matt's job was to find you there and ask if you'd seen Zero. But he fucked that up too.'

'Yeah, thanks Mickey.'

Tanya looked at me with amusement.

'Really? That's what you wanted to ask?'

My face reddened a little.

'Basically.'

'So why did you open with "does your husband know you're a wraith?"'

'Uh...'

Why did I?

'He was messed up a little, because the PA gave him a beating right before.' There was a heartwarming defensiveness in Mickey's voice.

Tanya frowned.

'They did what?'

'That was right after the hospital burned down. They dragged him to that fucking warehouse of theirs and roughed him up. Fuck, he was like all covered in blood and shit. I was scared to open the door.'

'They're not supposed to do that.'

Mickey smirked.

'They're the PA. They'll do to us whatever they want.'

I shrugged.

'It wasn't that bad. They were just trying to intimidate me. The important thing is, their questions told me more than they were planning to. Like the fact that they still hadn't caught Zero. And that they didn't know about our investigation. But they did put tails on us after that. Probably on the rest of high threat wards, too.

'There's more powerful wraiths in the city?'

'Three or four, sure. But it's beside the point. The point is, you were our only lead to Zero. That's why we, uh, watched you. In case he shows up. We didn't know if he already had, and that's something we wanted to ask you. A lot. But after what happened at the party, we thought it would be better to give you space.'

'Give me space while stalking me?'

'Sure.'

She kept silent for several minutes, thinking. Mickey tried not to stare, but failed miserably. I looked at him with a silent question, and he turned away, his ears turning red. Finally, Tanya spoke:

'So let me get it straight. The two of you spent a month spying on me because of a piece of burned paper? You had no other reasons, no other proof that this Zero guy might try or had tried to contact me?'

We looked at each other.

'Pretty much, yes.'

She sighed.

'You two are not very bright, are you?'

Mickey opened his mouth, insulted, but then changed his mind and kept silent. I shrugged.

'That depends.'

'On what?'

'Did he?'

She closed her eyes, rubbed her temples.

'Describe him to me.'

I conjured Zero in my memory.

'Tall. Gaunt. Sick. Dirty clothes. Incredibly blue, feverish eyes. A small scar under his lip.'

She opened her eyes.

'Describe the scar.'

The day I met Zero, his scar was hidden by a beard, so I remembered how he looked in the photo, young, handsome and healthy.

'Crooked. It starts right under the lip, straight down, then sort of turns left a little, across the chin. Why? Have you seen him?'

She didn't answer for a while. Her eyes were distant, as if she was processing something vast and difficult. Then she said:

'Yes, I've seen him.'

Mickey grinned.

'I knew it!'

I felt something hot ignite in my mind. I leaned forward.

'When? When did you see him?'

Tanya looked at me, a strange shadow on her face.

'A long, long time ago. The man you're describing is my father. Sergei Duncan.'