Coffin Corner - SCP Foundation

Coffin Corner

2003

10 September

Site-43: Lambton County, Ontario, Canada

"This is a security matter," Ibanez fumed.

Falkirk stared at the roof of his storage unit. "I am exercising my oversight privilege. If you would like to complain, you can send a message to Overwatch Command for redress. I'm sure they'll get back to you promptly." He lowered his eyes without lowering his head, and smiled cruelly. "Of course you'll have to restore Site-to-Site communications for that to work, but for someone of your abilities, why, that shouldn't take much longer than the amount of time it has taken thus far."

She sighed. "You really do go hard or go home, don't you?"

"I go hard because we can't go home. There's no returning to the way things used to be."

"We don't know that." She felt her fingers flexing of their own accord, and realized she very badly wanted to shoot Falkirk in the face.

"I do." He worked out a crick in his neck. The sound was sickening. "This is the world we're living in now, and I intend to make the most of it. You should do the same. Speaking of which, Chief Veiksaar has been exceedingly irritable as of late. Are you finished with Dr. Blank, yet?"

He wasn't even talking to her now. He was talking to Forsythe, who answered with an impatient edge. "Ibanez has him under supervision. Naylor and I did our tests, but she wants to make sure."

Ibanez took a deep breath. "Can we focus on the issue at hand, please? I can't believe you're willing to send these people away. Our people."

"I've heard Couch's offer," Falkirk snapped, "and it's more than a little steep. No, don't ask, it's above your pay grade. The point is, I don't see how it benefits us to pick up four new parasites, what with all the ones we've already got scurrying about down here as it is."

Couch was presently using the washroom facilities, one of the only elements of the server complex to have gone essentially unchanged over the preceding twelve months. Ibanez wondered how the water was still running, and made a mental note to find out. Later.

"Dr. Forsythe thinks this is a valuable opportunity." She glanced up at the portly woman, who in addition to looking blasted now looked anxious as well. Forsythe opened her mouth to respond, but Falkirk beat her to it.

"Giving up the security angle already, Chief? You've been notably less aggressive these past few days, and that troubles me. But we can address that later. I presume the good doctor would like to pitch her project again?"

Forsythe did not visibly bristle at the implied insult, but it might have been lost under the folds of exhaustion already covering her face. "Yes, sir. We've made considerable strides in securing this space from extrasensory intervention since the first time I suggested this. The Telekill sheathe in combination with the existening damping fields should be more than sufficient for blocking any unwanted intrusions. I sincerely believe we can host these subjects without exposing ourselves to unnecessary risk, and if I can examine their brain chemistry in detail, really get inside their heads…" She took a deep breath; she'd been rushing through the sentences, her tone increasingly strident, "I might be able to figure out what's making them tick. Or stop ticking, really."

"And reverse it," Ibanez added.

Forsythe inclined her head. "I'm not making any promises. But doing nothing gets us nothing."

"Doing nothing," Falkirk raised a finger, "also exposes us to no risk."

A dozen different uncomplimentary responses jostled for Ibanez's mouthspace, and a simpler, less abrasive one slid through the crowd to escape first. "And prevents us from moving forward. We live in a rut, sir."

He knitted his brows.

"If Dr. Wettle really has recovered from the corruption," Forsythe continued, "and retained his faculties—"

"What little he had to begin with," Falkirk interjected.

"—then we need to study him. The perfect lab rat just wandered up to our doorstep, we can't just shoo it away."

"I was going to suggest stomping it, actually." Falkirk slapped the desk again. Ibanez was surprised his knuckles didn't pop out of the skin. "These are spies, plain and simple. We know that's how they work. The fact that one of them is pretending to be human is proof. It's probably one of the monsters we've been fighting in disguise."

"It's a very convincing disguise." Ibanez suppressed a smile. "In the five minutes it took to square them away in a storage closet outside the perimeter, Wettle bruised himself three times."

Falkirk exhaled in irritation. "I simply consider this risk unwarranted. The Foundation at large could have nearly solved the larger issue for us, and we would have no way of knowing. Who's to say they aren't on the march here right now to liberate us from this oppressive stalemate?"

Ibanez hadn't been born to answer this concern, but she'd been raised for it. Raised herself for it. "The thing about extraneous help is that you can't rely on it. You have to be actively pursuing solutions of your own in the event that there's nobody out there working the same problem. We need to assume that there is no Foundation at large, or rather that we are the Foundation in miniature."

"Jesus Christ," Forsythe muttered.

"God himself, actually, if you're referring to me, and Chief Ibanez is correct." Falkirk smiled his eerily perfect, white-toothed smile at her. She was not comforted. "All the most reason for me to exercise my prerogative and insist we not do this. I will not sacrifice the safety of our refuge for a fool's hope with no obvious appertaining benefits. You are dismissed."

"But, but—" Forsythe sputtered.

"I realize you want your mentor back, and I am fully aware of how badly out of your depth you are. I also do not care. Do your jobs, both of you, as best you can, and leave the decisions to me. If I have to dismiss you twice, it will be more of a termination."

Nobody objected again. There was no point. Once Falkirk made up his mind, it hardened like resin.

Fossilized.

"I'm sorry we couldn't work something out." Couch did look sorry, but probably only because she'd made the trip for nothing more than a toilet break.

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry about your tat." Ibanez couldn't help but put the screws to this woman; they'd parted under less than amicable circumstances in a past life. "Guess you should have brought more tit for the old pervert."

Couch chuckled. "Oh, I got a lot of what I came for. He knows better than to burn our bridge. It's just a shame you don't get anything for it."

The other woman clearly didn't know how close to death she presently stood. "Great. Terrific. I'd say don't let the sliding doors catch your ass on the way out, but it's way too flat for that anyway."

Couch winked. "Let's do this again real soon." She pointed a finger at the ceiling, and spun it. "Gentlemen, round up the cattle."

She couldn't let it happen. She had to keep the dialogue open. "Where are you taking them?"

Couch pretended to be surprised. "These are enemy agents, and they've witnessed our operations, been to one of our forward operating bases. They can't be allowed to go free. I wasn't really happy letting you have them, but at least that way there'd be some work getting done. We lost people too, in the early days, and I wouldn't mind having them back. But since that's fallen through, well, it's into the furnace with them."

"Wait," said Wettle. He pulled at Couch's sleeve. "Wait."

"You can't do that." Ibanez took a step forward, and the OSAT agents raised their rifles. "Those are still Foundation personnel!"

"What furnace?" Wettle blubbered.

Couch slapped his hand away. "The fact that they're Foundation personnel makes them doubly dangerous. For all you know the enemy is using them as info storage dumps, calling on them when it needs what they know. Falkirk will understand. No loose ends."

"You could study them yourselves!" Ibanez took another step forward, and this time the Mounties pointed their guns at her. Each of them was now being tracked by a Foundation agent on the other side of the barricade.

"The only technical personnel we have are literally technical. Our medic was one of the first losses." Couch paused, either in genuine sympathy or irritation with herself for having revealed this operational fact. "I'm sorry, really I am, but there's nothing for it."

"You haven't got a medical expert?"

Ibanez turned to see Forsythe leaning over one of the barricades.

"No," Couch snapped. She was definitely annoyed now.

Forsythe wore a mask of professional interest. "How long has that been the case?"

"A few months. Look, your concern is—"

"Did they at least get that checked out first?" She pointed.

"What?" Couch turned to look at her agents, who did not turn away from the barricades. If Forsythe was attempting an ill-considered distraction—

"That lesion." The doctor walked past the agents, walked past Ibanez, and approached the OSAT lines. "Do you have any idea… oh, god, you're camping out in F-D, right? Let me look at that." She reached for the nearest Mountie's helmet.

Couch raised a pistol and pointed it at her. "Back up!"

Ibanez took yet another step forward. "Doctor—"

"The mortality rate alone," said Forsythe, following the Mountie as he backed away, the others fairly vibrating with uncertainty. "And the contagion…"

She slid to the back of the OSAT line, where the prisoners were, and the rearguard agent grabbed her by the labcoat sleeve. She sagged in relief, and as Couch approached her cautiously, she smiled. "You just got yourself a medic, Sergeant. I'm defecting to OSAT."

What? "Helena," said Ibanez. "This is a bad idea."

Couch had her back to the barricades. "I assume you have terms, doctor?"

Forsythe nodded. She sidled up next to LeClair and glanced at her fondly, perhaps speculatively. "Don't terminate the subjects. Let me study them. I'm certain I can figure out a cure, if you let me try."

"Alternatively," Couch mused, "I could pass you back over to Chief Ibanez right now, and gain favour with Falkirk for capturing an attempted traitor."

"Traitor," LeClair murmured.

The exhaustion had drained from Forsythe's face, replaced with stoic determination. "You want favour with Falkirk? Let me find the cure for emptiness, then bargain it back to him. Couldn't ask for a higher-value chip."

Ibanez could hear Couch's grin. "Now that is a good argument. You should have tried it on him first."

She couldn't get any closer without potentially triggering the already jumpy Mounties, but she also couldn't just let this happen. "Helena, listen to me. We have sick people here. Our people. They need you."

Forsythe shook her head. "They don't need anything a quick glance at the standard medical manual can't fix. I'm a glorified pharmacist here. This way I can do some real, actual good for a change. You'll thank me when I get Emilié back and you can see what a difference a real doctor makes."

Couch's shoulders tensed. "I'm sorry, a real doctor? Are you not trained?"

"Of course I'm trained," the portly woman babbled hurriedly. "I can do anything you could possibly need me to do. But Dr. LeClair is an expert practitioner with decades of experience." She glanced at the dazed, bloodied, older woman with something approaching filial affection. "Hell, just her alone would be a high-value target. Falkirk will pay through the nose to have her back, safe and sane, if you let me fix her."

"You're an awfully good negotiator, for a doctor," the Superintendent noted.

"Medical practice is all about negotiation. Trying to convince people to do the right thing for their own health, against habit and stubborn ignorance. That's what this is about. I'm doing this for everybody."

A speaker crackled overhead. The aged voice added a little extra crackle, like burning paper. "Can you hear me, Morwen?"

Couch bit off another smirk. "I thought you might be listening in."

"I'm disappointed." Falkirk sounded closer to fury. "I thought we had a solid working relationship."

"We do, Edwin." Couch returned her pistol to its holster. "Because we understand each other. Both of us are looking for the advantage. Right now, I have it. If you want it back, you're going to have to part with something more."

"Return Dr. Forsythe to me," the angry voice replied, "and you can have most anything you'd like. I'm tired of playing around today."

"Forsythe is off the table. I might be willing to negotiate shared custody, though, with a few conditions."

A dreadful pause.

"I'm listening."

"You keep Wettle." Couch pulled a pair of broken glasses out of her pants pocket, and gestured with them.

The big oaf stirred, staring at the ceiling. "What?"

"No!" Forsythe grabbed Couch's sleeve. "He's the only—"

"I am no longer listening," Falkirk snapped.

"He's the key to all of this! He came back from possession!" She prodded Couch's armour, winning a dangerous glare in return. "You can't give him up!"

Couch ignored her. "You keep Wettle. Keep him locked up somewhere safe. I don't trust his motivations, and we don't have the facilities to keep him out of mischief like you do. That's how our old arrangements used to go, back when the world still worked. I will keep Dr. Forsythe, and she will study the rest of the empties on my dime. We'll arrange for her to visit to examine Dr. Wettle once per week — with an OSAT escort, of course — and tend to any medical matters that become pressing in her absence. Everyone benefits."

Forsythe relaxed. Ibanez almost relaxed as well; it did seem like a more equitable exchange. But she kept her hand at her belt, because there was no world in which she fully trusted the motivations of either Morwen Couch or Edwin Falkirk.

"What if I decide to seize her during one of these 'visits'?" Falkirk asked.

Couch tapped her pistol grip. "I will consider that an attack on OSAT personnel, and respond appropriately."

"We might have swung around to a more efficient use of all these resources, sir," Ibanez said. She felt ridiculous addressing the ceiling. She couldn't even see the speaker. "We don't have to be happy how it happened, but we should take the win."

"Dr. Forsythe," Falkirk growled. "You will face a disciplinary tribunal when these matters are all settled."

"I should hope so, sir," the doctor nodded.

"Fine. Let her go, and let them keep the spares. Call Naylor, have her rig up a cell for Wettle, give him a look-over and don't ever let him out. Above all else, keep him the hell away from me."

"What if I have to use the washroom?" Wettle asked.

"We'll make sure they include a toilet in the cell, Willie," said Ibanez. She wasn't sure that was a cheque she could cash, but she needed him to shut up. Needed everyone to shut up. Forsythe offered her an apologetic smile, and she turned away from it.

"No," Wettle whined. "I mean what if I have to use the washroom right now?"

It was a calculated risk, taking Wettle to the barracks infirmary first, but letting him talk to anyone without a debriefing was a surefire way to get them all killed. Ibanez shuddered to imagine what he might admit to under questioning if she didn't make the effort to prepare him first. So she marched him through the makeshift corridors, ignoring his bleats of protest and discomfort, and hoped Falkirk wouldn't get suspicious that she was stocking up on confidants in the one space he couldn't see or hear into.

Yancy was asleep when they entered, but Harry was sitting on the edge of his cot. He looked at her, then up at Wettle as they entered.

"Oh," he said. "Good. I guess."

"Hi," said Wettle. "I don't know what's going on."

"Nice to see some things haven't changed," Harry agreed.

Ibanez closed the door and spun Wettle to face her. "Here's to the survivors."

He stared at her. "What?"

She said it slower. "Here's to the survivors."

He put on his broken glasses, and stared at her closer. His expression was empty.

She sighed. "Willie. I'm going to ask you some questions. Don't paint outside the lines, I don't have the energy. I might hurt you if you answer me with questions of your own. We clear?"

"Your threats are always clear."

"Good. You saw some shit out there, right? Bad shit? Yes or no."

He could hardly say no, and to his mild credit, he did not. "Yes."

"Shit that wasn't there yesterday," she continued.

"No." He shook his head, violently. Harry got up to retrieve Wettle's glasses from the floor; if they'd been broken before, there was now no glass at all in one lens. "I mean yes. It wasn't there yesterday. I think." He took the twisted bundle of wire and glass from Harry with a nod of thanks, and after a moment's consideration dropped it into his labcoat pocket.

"You think?" Ibanez pressed.

"I wasn't really looking." He was squinting at her now.

"The shit that's out there has been out there for months." Ibanez tried hard not to shift into rant mode. "The entire Site has been in lockdown. Have you been in lockdown for months?"

"Not really?" He shrugged. "I don't get to choose my schedule, if that's—"

She reached up to seize his chin. "That's not what I mean. Have you left the Site in 2003?"

"I've gone up to my house in Grand Bend a few times."

"Go any farther than that?"

"I don't think so?"

"In April?" said Harry, sitting back down.

"April was a long time—"

"WHEN YOU GOT LAID?!" she shouted at him. Yancy awoke with a start.

"Oh!" Wettle nodded, and she let her hand fall away. "Germany! Yeah, I remember that."

"It was Austria," said Harry.

She waved him off. "You met somebody there. Do you remember? You'll have to think about it r—"

"Alis." Wettle's eyes lit up. "Alis Rydderech."

"Holy shit," Harry and Ibanez said at once.

"What?" said Wettle.

"You're not supposed to have her on instant recall. That's her whole thing." Ibanez's mind was reeling. "She's passively antimemetic. How did you remember her so easily? By your standards, I mean."

He shrugged. "I don't know? I just sort of do. She was really good in bed, if that helps."

"That really shouldn't help," she said.

"It really helped me."

Harry had his head in his hands now. Yancy was looking back and forth between each of them, politely interested.

"Okay." Ibanez closed her eyes. "Fine. Point is, you remember her. That's good, even if it doesn't make sense. So, here's the thing: she's here. Now."

"Oh." He cocked his head to one side, and for an instant she was terrified he'd been repossessed. "Do I have to sleep with her again?"

"No," said Harry.

"Well," she considered, "let's not get hasty. Leave some options on the table."

"Does she remember me?" Wettle had a strange look on his face.

"No." Don't let him distract you. Finish establishing the baseline. "Willie, what happened in Austria? Only we remember that."

He cocked his head to the other side. "I don't remember anything about Austria."

She exhaled hard. "Okay, fine. What happened in Germany. As far as we can tell, only you, Harry and I still remember that version of events. Everyone else thinks the world started to end last September, and they've been stuck down here in a civil war ever since."

"Wow. Have you told them they're wrong?"

Fucking good enough. "No, and you can't either. And didn't I tell you not to ask me any questions? We don't have a lot of time here. The long and the short of it is this: we need to figure out why the timeline changed, and why we're the only ones who remember the way things used to be. They're going to subject you to memetic screening soon, and it's going to be Alis who does it."

"And you want me to tell her—"

"We don't want you to tell her anything. Let her do her tests. Follow her instuctions. But don't let on that you've met before, and don't tell her about the timeline stuff. You don't understand it anyway, so why would you bring it up? Right?"

He wasn't precisely stupid. That was the convenient shorthand for his deal. He could follow simple instructions, and he was not without expertise of his own. He was slow on the uptake, and deliberately unobservant, but it was possible to reach him. Particularly with violence. "That's fair. Sure. What if she tries to have sex with me?"

"I honestly don't think you have to worry about that," said Harry from the cot.

Wettle turned to look at him. "Who's worrying? I said—"

"Do not have sex with her, Willie." Ibanez turned him back around again. "She's an enemy agent, remember? She tried to kill us all."

"She was nice about it, though."

"I will shoot you in the head," she patted her holster for emphasis, "and tell them you suddenly attacked me if you don't immediately convince us that you'll follow these instructions."

"I will follow your instructions," he said immediately.

"Meaning?"

"I won't tell her anything. Unless she asks me to. And even then, I won't tell her anything weird."

"Is it too much to ask him to get some intelligence from her, as well?" Yancy chimed in. He had apparently grasped the situation well enough to contribute.

"Intelligence is always too much to ask for when you're asking William Wettle," Harry muttered darkly.

Alis fussed over Wettle, and at first he tried not to meet her eyes. Then she made him sit down, and he found what he'd be staring at otherwise, and he started making eye contact. She smiled brightly at him as she said: "Take your shirt off."

"I'm not allowed." This wasn't precisely how he would have chosen to phrase it if he'd had a moment to consider, but she was breezing back and forth and he could smell whatever soap she was using on the artificial wind — he had too few words for pleasant scents to name this one — and that left him at several more disadvantages than usual.

She looked at him funny, which was par for the course. "Pardon?"

"I mean I'm not supposed to," he tried and failed again. "I don't, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. Your shoulder is glowing." She pointed at a broad teal bruise he hadn't even noticed before, likely the source of one of his persistent throbs. "Go on, take off your shirt. Here, I'll take off mine if it makes you more comfortable."

He thought he was going to have a heart attack, but apparently she'd meant her sweater. When he saw the cut of the shirt beneath, the heart attack was still on the table.

She was nattering away as he redoubled his efforts to force his gaze upward. "It's good to see the mind wipe effect eventually wears off! Even better that it should happen to one of our senior staff!"

"I'm not really senior." He let her disentangle the ruined labcoat from his shoulders; he didn't try to help, because of course he could only hinder. "My hair's not even grey yet."

"You're a department head, aren't you? Reproduction Studies?" She paused, her mouth opened, and her cheeks lit up like red Christmas lights. "Replication Studies, I mean!" She gave him a full-body laugh.

He lost the battle for a few seconds there. "Uh. Yeah. Deputy Chair."

"Well, Deputy Chair, it's an honour to finally meet you." She produced a clean blue cloth and dabbed gingerly at his shoulder, which, he now noticed, was emitting a gentle green-blue light. "How'd this happen?"

He shrugged, nearly biffing her in the chin in the process. "Dunno. Happened to somebody else."

She didn't press; not the issue, anyway. She drew the cloth away. "How did you get a black eye behind your eyeglasses?"

He shrugged. "That's just where my eyes are."

"No, I…" She trailed off as she considered what had been underneath his labcoat fully for the first time. "I am confused about the shirt situation."

"Is it the sleeves?" He didn't have any. His dress shirt terminated at the shoulders on both sides.

"It's mostly the sleeves? It's also the buttons. Walk me through the buttons."

He glanced down. "Well, dress shirts are supposed to have buttons."

"Right."

"You're supposed to wear ties with dress shirts."

"Right."

"My tie gets blown in my face constantly like that asshole in that comic strip by that guy who can't draw, so people would see that I'm not wearing a real dress shirt if the buttons weren't there."

He was wearing a tank top with buttons sewn in.

"Okay. I guess that makes sense." She didn't seem confident as she said it. "Why are there no sleeves?"

"Because every sleeve I wear is one more chance to accidentally strangle myself."

She smiled genuinely for the first time since he'd met her at Area-21, which apparently hadn't happened anymore. He guessed he'd managed to disarm her with his charm, which was another thing he didn't have on provable prior record. "Alright. And you're wearing a false collar…"

"Yeah, real collars are a pain."

"…in a different colour than the shirt…"

"I don't always remember to check."

"…with a clip-on tie."

"I think I mentioned the strangling thing already?"

"You're an original, I'll give you that." She reached out to touch his arm. "Wow, you really got dosed, huh?"

He stared at her hand. Her fingertips were painted pink, too. "Apparently. I don't remember it."

She waved an unfamiliar device over the bruise, which remained silent. The device. The bruise had always been silent. "Well, it's not radioactive, but it does appear to be bioluminescent. Guess your skin soaked it up. Probably carcinogenic, but that's nothing to worry about."

"No?"

"No. None of us have a life expectancy that long anyway!" She laughed.

"Haha," he said.

She patted him on his matte shoulder. "Sorry, we've got to find fun where we can down here. It's a lonely life." She squeezed her arms together in front of her, and half-chuckled.

Fool me twice. "Are you actually going to run some tests, or are you just going to keep flirting?"

The girlish demeanour dropped like his towel in a communal shower. "I wasn't aware I was flirting, Dr. Wettle. I'm sorry if it came across that way. I'll start the tests."

She bustled away, to the extent that she could in the narrow space. He felt bad, which was more his speed. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"Everyone's on edge with the recent attacks and losses." She rifled through a pile of papers on the desk. "Everybody's sensitive. It's fine."

"Are you mad at me?"

She gave him a strange look. "Of course not. You're much more important and knowledgeable than I am. Look at the screen, please?" She pointed at a piece of white plastic on the wall, which began to glow when she flicked a switch on the side. She slid a strange slide onto it; he'd seen something similar after accidentally leaving the cow pasture door unlatched on his father's farm on the interstate.

He cocked his head this way and that. The image didn't make him think of anything more specific, but she didn't ask, so he didn't say.

"Awesome." She nodded encouragingly, though he couldn't imagine what was being encouraged. "Like I said, you're an expert. I'm just a junior researcher. It's my job to support you, not get in your way. I'm sorry if I fangirled all over the place just now."

"Wow." He found himself frowing at her. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?" Her eyes were wells of innocence.

"You're trying to fluff my ego. Why would you expect that to work?"

She was now visibly irritated. "I'm just being friendly, alright?"

"No, it isn't alright. Nobody decides to just be friendly at me for no reason. There's always an ulterior motive. What's yours?"

She yanked the sheet out and replaced it with another. "Look at the screen again."

"I asked you a question." He didn't know if it was the difficult day or two behind him or the fact that this very woman had once played him for a fool in front of all his friends, but he found himself unwilling to let this farce go on, Ibanez's instructions be damned. "You're just a junior researcher, remember? What's in it for you if I think you give a shit about me?"

"Dr. Wettle." She had her hands on her hips now. "If you don't look at the screen, I can't clear you for memetic threats. If I can't clear you for memetic threats, Chief Ibanez will likely execute you. Would you please look at the screen?"

He had the sense he shouldn't do it. He wasn't often very sensible, but this warning had legs. "Threats again. It always comes down to threats. I wish you people would just lead with actual violence for a change."

He couldn't even make out her pupils now. "Who's been threatening you?"

"Everybody, eventually. Once they figure out they can't get what they want by talking."

"Are you sure you're not just projecting hostility?"

"You're a psychiatrist too? On top of AcroAbate?"

She sucked in a breath. He wasn't proud of the reason he noticed. "AcroAbate? I'm a memeticist."

"Yeah. That's what I meant."

She gave him a sidelong glance as she pulled out the transparent sheet, which he hadn't yet bothered to look at. "Strange mistake to make. Okay, I'm going to show you a new series of images. Say the first thing that comes to mind when you look at them."

She pulled a stack of Rorschach blots off the desk. He was surprised to discover that those were real.

The first one was easy. "Nudity."

A shadow of the smile returned. "Now who's flirting?"

He huffed. "It looks like two flabby bodies making out in the buff. I don't know what to tell you. If you think you're flabby, maybe you're the one with mental problems."

The shadow took on definition. "I repeat, now who's flirting? Alright. How about this one?"

"An explosion."

She dumped the blots on the desk again and rummaged in a rolling cupboard for some kind of optician's tool, which she pointed at him. "Let me get a look at your right eye."

Does she need to get that close? Apparently the magnifying effect wasn't doing much. He had the sense that if he were to nod his head now, he'd find himself in the crook of her cleavage.

"Hmm," she breathed in his face. "Seems clear."

"What are you looking for?" He said it very quietly, afraid to move his jaw.

"Broken blood vessels and approaching brain death. I'm going to play a suite of sounds over the speaker now. Let me know if you experience any physiological symptoms."

He already didn't like how it sounded. "Like what?"

"Itching, dizziness, nausea." She walked over to a panel on the wall.

"I just came out of god knows how long walking around in a hellhole. I'm already experiencing all of those symptoms."

"Well, let me know if they get worse." She pressed a few buttons, considered, then pressed a few more. The audio system in the room began cycling through white noise at various pitches and frequencies. He couldn't hear all of them.

He remembered Harry's suggestion that he might collect some intelligence, and how Ibanez had dismissed it. He once again decided there was no good reason why they should be giving him orders, and asked: "How long have you worked here?"

"Since just after the breach." She leaned on the wall, hands clasped on her belly, and watched him closely.

"Good timing."

"I know, right?"

"No, I mean, good timing. You been trying to ingratiate yourself with everyone? Like you are with me? Why don't you just tell me what you're really up to down here?"

For the first time, he really recognized a look on her face. He'd last seen this one when she was holding a gun on him at Area-21. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't. Take off your shirt and let me flash my tits at you, Dr. Wettle. Oh, you're so smart Dr. Wettle! It's so lovely to finally meet you in person, tee hee hee! Drop the act, Alis. I can see right through you. Like you're not even there. Like you're a ghost."

She turned up the volume on the panel. "I'm really sorry it turned out this way."

"I'll fucking bet you are." He was surprised to learn that he could growl.

"You failed the tests, Dr. Wettle — or whoever you are. I'm going to have to take you into custody."

"You and what army?"

She pressed another switch on the panel, and the music became a dull whine with an underlying hum. "I haven't decided yet."

He opened his mouth to say something more, but the tune was suddenly so catchy that he couldn't help but hum along. As soon as he finished the first bar, he—

"Bet you don't even know the words," Alis remarked.

Ibanez tased the wall panel the instant she walked into the infirmary, and the music died in an electronic screech. She'd cleared the corridor before entering, and the faint echo of sound from within had tickled the part of her brain which was insulated against cognitohazardous interference, and she'd suspected enough of what was going on to act boldly. She wasn't surprised to see her least favourite team member slumped against the wall. She wondered whether he was dead or alive, and asked Alis at gunpoint: "What did you do to him?"

The other woman glanced at the still-sparking panel as Ibanez retracted the prongs, then stared at her down the length of the gun barrel. "He's been through a lot, so I gave him a memetic soporific. Dr. Forsythe left some mild sedatives for him, so if you want to conduct some questioning you'll have to wait for tomorrow."

"Is he going to die?"

She had the gall to look confused. "What? Oh, the poisoning?" She gestured at his glowing arm. "I don't know. You'll have to see what Forsythe says when she comes back and does a proper physical, but—"

"I meant after what you did to him. Did you try to kill him? Or did you try to brainwash him, so he'd be useless under interrogation?"

She shook her head. "God, why is everyone talking in riddles today? I don't understand it."

"Fine, different approach. Which one are you?"

"What?"

"Which one are you?" Ibanez repeated.

"…I'm Dr. Naylor. Alis Naylor?"

"Sure, but which one are you?"

Alis sighed angrily. "I don't understand what you're asking me. Which one of what?"

"Which one of the geistschreiber?"

The act dissipated in the heat of Ibanez's glare. She kept up the assault. "Are you the one who really looks like this, or are you one of the twins, just pretending? Tell me which you are, then tell me where I can find the others. Skip the part where you deny it, none of this is me guessing. You're blown."

"How?" Alis hopped up to sit on the desktop. "How did you figure any of that out?"

"I'm probably going to end up telling you." Ibanez let her discontent with this fact slip into her expression. "We're about to enter into an arrangement, and it's not going to make either of us totally happy."

"What kind of arrangement?"

"Harry and I are going to keep your secret, if you didn't kill or otherwise compromise fuckstick over there. So, did you?"

She glanced at him. "Not yet. I was definitely going to."

"Which one?"

"Dunno. I was gonna treat myself in the moment." She smiled sweetly.

"Cute. Just so there's no confusion here: if I told Falkirk you're a mole, he'd let me kill you in a heartbeat. I'm not coming to this from a position of weakness. But I'd rather get some use out of your being here, if that's possible, so start me off with a good will gesture. Which one are you?"

She tapped her sternum. "This one. I'm the one who looks like this for real."

"Where are the twins?"

Ibanez could see the unvoiced confusion in her eyes. How do you know about that? She wasn't about to answer. "One is with the Mounties. The other I don't know. We've been separated pretty much the entire time. She could be dead."

"How many others are here?" It was probably a useless question, but even lies could sometimes tell you something.

"None. There were two, but they didn't make it." She grimaced. "Really didn't make it."

"Men or women?"

"Men. The enemy killed them both."

Ibanez tried to chuckle, but the sound wouldn't come. This interaction was deadly serious. "We have the same enemy, do we?"

Alis spread her palms on her lap. "Just because I came here to spy on you doesn't mean I want everyone here to die. And I'm in as much danger from these people as you are. They stole Oscar's brain, and cut Pete in half lengthwise."

"I thought you were an apocalypse cultist. This end of the world not good enough? You want a specific one?"

The other woman nodded. "That's right. Now where the fuck did you learn all that from? You sound like you've already interviewed me."

"I have, Alis. And I know what's going through your head. How long have you been at 43?"

"Since September of last year."

"You came to investigate the breach. You've been away from the other giftschreiber for almost a whole year. You're losing touch with them. The brainwashing is wearing off." The flashes of recognition came fast and furious. "You're starting to have doubts. You're wondering why the arguments ever worked on you in the first place. You don't want to see six billion people killed to fulfill some insane prophecy. You're getting your own mind back, and you haven't figured out what to do with it yet."

"You really have talked with me. How?"

"This is the part where I open up a vulnerability to you. Are you really, honestly clear that under no circumstances can you throw us under the bus without being pancaked by it yourself?"

"I guess? Sure."

Ibanez flicked the safety on and off again for emphasis. "I want to believe that you believe it."

"I believe it. Falkirk is almost as scary as you, and you're the scariest thing around that hasn't got magic powers. I'm not gonna tell your secret if you're going to keep mine."

It was better than nothing. "Good. Here's ours: we're from baseline reality, and that's not what this is."

Even at Area-21, Ibanez hadn't ever seen shock on that face. "What?"

"This is an alternate timeline, branching from the 2002 breach. We don't know why it happened, and we don't know why we remember the details, or why we only started remembering now, but that's the deal. In baseline you blabbed your whole sob story to me in detention after you tried to blow up Area-21. Told me all about how you're a ghostwriter, how you can control how others see you and how nobody can remember you when you're out of sight. I'm on mnestics right now, by the way, so if you were hoping I'd forget this little chat when I leave, recalibrate your schemes."

Alis raised her palms as though inviting a pair of handcuffs. "I'm all out of schemes. You've got me figured, and honestly I've been at a loss this whole time anyhow. I don't understand what's going on."

"Elaborate."

"I came to 43 expecting to find answers. If they were ever here, they're not anymore. Instead there's seven crazy assholes, and the crazy bullshit they can do…" She shook her head, and Ibanez judged the flash of fear to be as legitimate as the earlier ones of outrage and confusion. "I'm just trying to stay alive now. What do you need from me to make sure that happens?"

"First off, you're going to report back to Falkirk about Dr. Blank's mental health. I don't want you saying what you were going to say."

"You didn't have to try and blackmail me over that. I was already gonna give him a clean bill."

Ibanez nodded. "Of course you were. That's what I don't want."

"He doesn't remember much of anything," Alis said. "He's suffering near-total memory loss for at least the past year."

Falkirk blinked. "You can't be serious."

"Sorry, sir."

"Amnesia?" He was tensing up in his chair. Ibanez almost thought he might stand up. "Amnesia is too damn convenient. Where did you train?"

"There's nothing wrong with my credentials, sir. Chief Ibanez has questioned them already, to her apparent satisfaction." The geistschreiber winked down at her. "It's amnesia. Dr. Blank barely remembers what happened to him out there."

The old man looked immeasuably frustrated now. "Amnesia from what, then? What source?"

Ibanez interrupted. "Dr. Bradbury says it happened after he entered his dormitory. It's possible they were ransacking the place to lure people out so they could brain-bomb them."

"Brain-bomb?" Falkirk sneered. "That's a technical term? Perhaps leave the memetics to our memeticist, if you'd be so good."

Alis smiled. She smiled a lot in Falkirk's presence, Ibanez noted. She'd also left her sweater off, and Falkirk was making repeated eye contact with what was normally underneath. "I could go into the imaginon breakdown if you—"

He waved a claw dismissively. "No, fine, forget it. You're saying this is something that happened to him out there. So what made him leave in the first place?"

"The story he told you checks out," Ibanez cut in. "Chief Veiksaar confirms it."

"Sure," Alis agreed. "And there's no sign of compulsive effect in his brain patterns. So far as I can tell, Dr. Blank is totally and fully uncompromised, just a little hazy on the details. However…"

"Yes? What?"

"Well, it's about the possession effect."

"What about it?"

Alis recited the half-lie she'd been fed. "With so much of his mental baggage shoved aside, Dr. Blank becomes a prime target for possession. We're protected in here, fully protected, but I'd like to be double-plus certain that he doesn't pose a risk to the rest of the staff. So I'd propose we sequester him with Dr. Wettle, in the tank, where they can both stay until we're sure they're clear."

"You already told me Wettle's an enemy agent."

Ibanez looked up at Alis in surprise. The geistschreiber did not look back at her. "It could have been a false positive. His brain chemistry is all scrambled up from his time out there. I wanted to give you a snap judgement, so I erred on the side of caution, as I told you. But if we're already going to be monitoring Dr. Blank, we might as well monitor them both together."

It wasn't the worst backtrack Ibanez had ever heard. Guess we're in this, for worse or much worse.

"Mm." It wasn't clear how much of this Falkirk was buying. "What course of treatment do you recommend?"

"Dr. Blank's memory should be relatively simple to reconstruct," Alis told him. "We just need to feed him enough information he should already know, and wait for it to trigger a mental reboot."

"Except the things he already knows can get us killed if a possessor takes him over and acquires that knowledge." Falkirk had one of his bloody-minded looks on his face. "Having him blanked is no terrible thing in that regard."

"True," Alis agreed, "but we don't have so many people in here that we can afford to get picky about hands on deck." Ibanez almost smiled; it was funny hearing Alis defend Harry using the same argument she'd used to defend Alis from Harry. "It's better for all concerned if we get him back to work as soon as possible."

Falkirk snorted. "'Work'. Yes."

Ibanez remembered Veiksaar's urgency, and said nothing.

"So we'll feed him non-sensitive information until such time as we can be sure he's not receptive to any attempted interference," Alis concluded. "And I'll monitor his CRV."

"And keep Wettle in a coma whenever Blank's being fed his info." The old man pointed a crooked finger at both of them. "I don't want any leaks out of either."

"Of course," Alis nodded.

"Who's going to teach our empty-headed little dolt?"

"You mean Dr. Blank?" Ibanez asked.

He harrumphed, not without humour. "Yes. Fair question, I should have been more clear given the subjects."

"Dr. Bradbury has volunteered," Alis said.

He harrumphed again. "Yes, I'll just bet she has."

Harry and Melissa sat together on his bunk. Yancy was already back in the barracks, the wound having sealed — even improvised triage was near-miraculous at a Foundation facility — leaving Ibanez and Wettle to round out their party of four. Ibanez was lying on another cot, reading what was apparently her alternate self's diary. Wettle was snoring.

"What should we talk about first?"

Harry tried not to read too much into her question, or the way it didn't quite match the look in her eyes. Her eyes were a little blurry anyway, both because she wasn't wearing her glasses and because he wasn't wearing his. She'd said, counterintuitively, that it would allow them both to focus. He hadn't had the courage to push for an explanation.

"I don't know." The range of possible topics overwhelmed him. "Maybe you could start at the start?"

"September 8?"

"Yeah. I've heard some of it… don't ask me how right now, it'll just complicate things." He remembered the brief interviews with the seven reconstituted victims, back when reality had first fractured before the final shattering. "But I'd like the whole context first."

"Give me something to compare it to." She shifted on the cot to face him more fully. "What's it like where you come from?"

He considered. Begin with the obvious. "Calmer. Mostly. It took some time, but we got over what happened. Most of what happened."

"There wasn't much damage? Just a few deaths?"

"AAF-D was totally trashed, but yeah. Just the deaths, and a few other problems. Nothing on this scale."

"So it was better than what we've got now."

Something inside him resisted the correct response, and instead he muttered "You know, you'd think that? But."

She let it pass.

"Why is Falkirk the Director?" he asked when the silence, minus snores, became uncomfortable.

"Because McInnis is missing, and there's no Deputy Director."

"No…? What happened to the ASC?" The All-Sections Chief, a Mohawk warrior whose real name was classified, had served as Mcinnis' right hand man for nearly a decade.

"Falkirk dismissed him with cause, and he went back to the Nexus."

That was bad. McInnis and the ASC were the Site's two most competent administrators.

"What about Skellicorne?"

"Taken."

"Jesus, that's bad luck. Why was Falkirk even here?"

"Investigating the breach," she sighed.

"Still?" He realized this would have no meaning for her. "He came to witch hunt Allan even though nobody died?"

She blinked, slowly. "Harry, you were the target of the investigation."

"What?" He became aware that Ibanez was looking at them both.

"You forced entrance to the Director's office without permission — that much was understandable, given the circumstances — and answered the redline. Then you told Markey to dump the whole of AAF-D into the subway, which… nobody is quite sure why you did that, honestly."

Oh my god, of course. "The new overflow mechanism diverted it through the subway, sure, but—"

"There is no new mechanism. F-D hasn't been refitted in years. You did stop the breach, but you trashed the I-triple-S in the process, and that was all the pretext Falkirk needed to get his foot in the door. He spent a month auditing everything from structural strength to pencil shavings, so he was here when the shit went down. He did try to get extracted to Site-01, but it was already too late. Don't spread that around, he doesn't want anyone to know."

In baseline reality, Harry's actions had made complete sense. In a world where there had been no refit, he would have seemed like a total incompetent or lunatic. Something about that still didn't sit quite right with him, but he wasn't equipped to consider all the logic sequentially. As an historian he was used to considering biases and alternate accounts, but this was entirely too much.

He decided to focus on Falkirk. Falkirk he mostly understood, no matter the context. The man's resistance to change was one of his many terrible qualities, but in this case it was useful. "Is he a problem? Is he doing his job?"

"You're already on the rhetorical questions?" She gave him an eyebrow-lashing. "He's a paranoid asshole, as you're well aware. Right now that's not the worst set of qualities a Director could have. He's not ideal by any means, but no. He's not a problem. He's also not getting us any closer to finding solutions to the things that are; he's conservative, cautious, and just short of cowardly. Won't even let our people leave I&T without a Mountie escort, and lets them do all the exterior patrolling. Got some sort of a deal worked out."

"How did the Mounties end up down here?"

"They came in with the general populace when we evacuated Grand Bend. Couch was already monitoring us closely after Gwilherm went on the warpath, and as soon as she saw we were going into fallout shelter mode she muscled in. I don't think Falkirk minded."

"Yeah, they've got an understanding." He remembered the anomaly exchange from January which had apparently un-happened along with everything else. "I'm surprised he allowed Grand Bend to be evacuated, though."

"XK protocol," she shrugged. "He didn't want to do it, but it wasn't that hard to convince him. At his heart, he likes to do things by the book."

"Until he doesn't." He remembered the old man suffocating Philip Deering just to see what would happen. "Where are the civilians now?"

"We don't know where all of them are. There were riots in the subway, so he had us shunt most of the trains deeper into the system towards F-A. Things got even more out of hand, so he ordered the bulkhead sealed. Electrics broke down shortly after, then there was a cave-in on our side, so the whole place is cut off. Presumably they marched down the tracks to F-A and camped out there, or joined the natives at Kettle Point… assuming there still is a Kettle Point. Udo Okorie is one of the people we lost in there." She watched for his reaction to this final piece of information.

He wasn't going to consider that again, not until he could actually do something about it. In here, he was safe from Eileen's attentions. They were still regrouping. "She's smart. She's a genius. She'll figure a way out. What… Uh… You said only most of the trains?"

He must have said something off, because she was looking at him even more strangely now. "Yeah, one got offloaded at H&P. They were in there when it exploded."

"Why did it explode?"

"Because of them. They rioted because we didn't have time to explain the evacuation, and we lost control of them because the maniacs were already doing their thing by then. Ambrogi was attracted to the commotion… he started tearing through them, they ran into the wards… a fire started, shorting the electrics… oxygen tanks started going, and then suddenly the whole place went up all at once. No idea what caused it. H&P fell into a deep, dark pit, and Ambrogi chased the survivors inside."

He nodded. "So, they're dead."

"Gotta be. But he keeps going back to the pit, Ambrogi. Like he wants to climb down and take a look, but—"

Ibanez finally spoke, interrupting. "I think I know why."

They looked at her.

"He wants to go hunting."

They stared at her.

"Because there's still people down there."

Hidden Depths

The Breach Goes On: Wrong Tomorrow

Off Track