Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 61 ( Chapter 61 )

61

 

“I am but mad north-north-west; when the
wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

 

The pack of cars hurtled along at a comfortable clip, our current vehicle safely tucked away near the middle of it. I allowed myself to revel in the speed and flow of the traffic, securely average, neither too near the front nor lagging too far behind. Beside me, Far reread our notes for the fiftieth time.

 

In the past three months we had surveyed all the active Esset hives within Western Europe, with the exception of Scandinavia and Rosenkreuz herself. At each stop, my tidy worldview took another hit. There were things going on within Esset that I would never have guessed at, and having only the barest hints left me feeling very vulnerable. I knew Crawford kept secrets, and I knew Esset did as well, but the depth of the shadow games was appalling.

 

As I usually did while driving with a silent passenger, I let my thoughts drift, only this time I was sincerely hoping for a flash of insight.

 

Within Esset, there were layers of authority. Basically, they made certain that not only did the left hand not know what the right was doing, but usually the right didn't know its own purpose, either. They never trusted their own people any more than they had to.

 

And now, confronted with a rogue team, did they ensure that their field units were prepared to find us? Did they tell their own agents that the Elders were slain? From everything I had seen lately, they did not. Business ground along as usual, with teams rented out to the highest bidders, and young men and women being groomed for world domination and other ambitions.

 

What were they trying to prove? That we were inconsequential? That the Elders were inconsequential?

 

Bloody hell. It made no fucking sense.

 

By all appearances, only Rosenkreuz herself had fielded teams to bring us in. Everyone else within the organization was pretending nothing had happened.

 

Brad knew what we'd find here. That had to be the reason behind this weird scavenger hunt. We'd startled a fair number of young ops-in-training, and taken stealthy photos of the facilities without being caught. They weren't in the loop, but why?

 

My paranoia kicked in and insisted that Esset was carrying on some well-oiled plan just beneath the surface, and everything else was just for show. Of course the facilities acted like nothing was wrong: they weren't part of this covert plan, whatever the fuck it was. But Rosenkreuz, that decaying old monarch, was involved up to her teeth.

 

And somehow, Brad Crawford had gotten wind of it. Whether through his gift or some subtle espionage, he knew what they were up to. And he was throwing a monkey wrench into the machine.

 

“Get off the road,” Far growled, cutting through my reverie.

 

Shit - had I been broadcasting? The cars speeding along with us, were they innocent, as I had initially thought? I felt trapped - caught in the fast lane, and too damn far from the exits. I began maneuvering to the off-ramp, my hands cold on the wheel. The things I had taken for granted could not be dismissed in the future, even something so little as driving in traffic.

 

I watched out for pursuit vehicles as I sped away toward smaller roads. None followed, but Far kept a hawklike vigil out the back window. “What did you see, Far?” I asked, voice dropping absurdly to a whisper.

 

“I can't explain it,” he murmured, frowning. “But They are here.”

 

Shit. Had I called them to us? No, I mustn't go there: I couldn't allow myself to get overly paranoid, or I'd fall right into whatever trap they might have set for us. I had to believe that my musings were, in fact, my own choice, and not the result of someone browsing through my head. A paranoid telepath was a pathetic thing, only one step away from crayons and tinfoil hats.

 

Serendipity led me to a large shopping center, with a very active flow of cars in the parking lot. I drove around until I found the inevitable loading docks, a more sheltered area out of public sight. We ditched the car and headed into the mall, to lose ourselves for a little while.

 

One assumption I had to hold onto was that Esset would not act in the open. So long as there were non-Esset witnesses in numbers great enough to be messy, they would never attack us directly. This did not mean they wouldn't try psionic means to bring us to them, but I felt confident enough in my shielding now that I wasn't too worried about that. As long as I didn't get too distracted, I would know which thoughts were mine.

 

Since we carried all our worldly belongings in backpacks, Farfarello and I could pass for university students fairly well. Most people were content to believe we were hostel-hoppers, hiking our way across the continent. Shopkeepers eyed us suspiciously, wary of shoplifters, but a soft mental nudge kept them from fretting too much.

 

His voice low, Far asked, “What next, then?”

 

I pondered a moment, then told him, “I haven't the faintest idea. We'll need transport, that much I do know. What's left on the list?”

 

“Denmark.”

 

I frowned. “Don't they make cheese there or something?”

 

“Everyplace makes cheese. Denmark has a mermaid.”

 

“Oh, right.” I had no clue what he was going on about.

 

We browsed through the mall, not entering the shops but looking in every window. As we did, I cautiously scanned around, and I knew that Far was keeping watch in his own way. There were a number of shielded minds in the area, the shields resonating with Esset training. I did nothing to indicate my identity to them, merely glanced then glanced away. “Shit,” I whispered. “This place is crawling with them.”

 

“It's quite possible,” Far murmured, his eyebrow raised over his good eye, “that I was hasty.”

 

I glared at him. “How so?”

 

“Back in Berlin,” he murmured, as if this had been only hours past and not months. “The wrong unpleasant surprise.” He shrugged and led the way toward the next exit. “No matter. It's all random anyway.” His lips kept moving after he fell silent, as though he were whispering a secret incantation.

 

I touched his mind and bounced back immediately. “Far? You okay?”

 

He looked back over his shoulder and said, “Some statues are alive. You knew that, right? Some, not all. I'm not sure about her, but some for certain.”

 

Oh, lovely. Rather than encourage this at the moment, I herded him out the door and into the parking lot. Far stared up at the sky as he continued murmuring silent messages to himself. I surveyed the lot and found a car just pulling in. “This way, come on.”

 

As we passed the driver, I made him hand me the keys and continue walking. He would think he had merely misplaced the keys, and by the time he realized the car was gone we would be out of the country entirely.

 

Moving like I owned the vehicle, I strode to the driver's side and told Far, “Get in. You can talk to me more as we drive.”

 

Fortunately Far was in one of his obedient moods. He got into the car and buckled his belt, cradling his pack on his lap.

 

I pulled out of the parking lot and was just getting onto the main road when I felt the sweep. Gritting my teeth, I tried to concentrate on shielding and driving. The mental touch grew stronger, started prying into my shields. My vision blurred.

 

Sudden pain lanced through me, a sharp white-hot pain right below my left hip. I cried out, then noted the abrupt absence of the other telepath. Locking my shields up tight, I hit the gas and swerved through traffic, aiming for the highway.

 

The pain withdrew with a nasty sliding sensation. I glanced to my left to see Far wiping a two-inch-long pin on his sleeve.

 

“You fuck!” I yelled. “You stabbed me!”

 

Far regarded me impassively. “It worked, didn't it?”

 

“Son of a fucking bitch,” I growled, unable to argue with him.

 

“I made a promise,” Far whispered. “I'm to guard you with my life. Don't fuck it up.”

 

The adrenalin finally started to fade as I selected a route northward. Without letting myself get distracted, I tried to remember what the hell was in Copenhagen.

 

“They're trying to build the perfect robot,” Far murmured as if answering a question. “That's what they call statues that move, you know. Robots. Unless they're Jewish. They used to build golems, but those are magic.”

 

My adrenalin reconsidered its withdrawal, creeping back upward and making the hairs on my arms and on the back of my neck stand on end. “That's right,” I said, trying to sound calm, “you were telling me something about statues, back in the mall. What was that about?”

 

“She's not that kind of statue.”

 

“Who, Far?” I prompted, not sure if conversation or silence were more dangerous at the moment.

 

“The mermaid. She's not that kind of statue. She just sits, and watches, and waits for her sailor to return,” Farfarello explained with all the patience of the damned.

 

“Maybe you should take a nap,” I suggested, unaccountably nervous. This wasn't the weirdest conversation I'd ever had with him, but something about it made me very tense.

 

“Schuldig,” Far said, his tone patronizing, “who'll watch over you if I'm asleep?”

 

I sighed. He was right, of course. He'd just saved my ass from a telepathic attack. True, he did this by stabbing it with a stick-pin, but still. “Okay, fine. We'll talk about statues.”

 

“Robots.”

 

“Beg pardon?”

 

“When they move. If they're not magic. They're robots, aren't they?” He gave me a perplexed scowl. “They must be. Robots…statues…robots…” His voice trailed away and he stared past me, focused somewhere outside my window. Or focused somewhere within; it was hard to tell.

 

“Mind if I ask you something?” I asked, trying to gauge his mood. When he didn't speak, I began to worry he'd gone back into those seizures again. My voice came out high and tense as I asked him, “I didn't blast you in the head when we fucked, did I? Or that quickie in the men's room? I mean, you've always been pretty much immune, but we were both a little out of practice, right?”

 

“What?”

 

I sighed. Oddly enough, that answered my question. If I had hit him, he'd have no end of insults for me at this point. No, his current strangeness was pure Farfarello, and at the moment it scared the piss out of me.

 

“Schuldig, if I ask you a question, will you answer truly?” he whispered.

 

Good thing my hackles hadn't gone back down, or they'd have had to get right back up again. “What, Far?”

 

“Yes or no? Will you answer truly?”

 

With a weary nod I said, “Yes, Far. You know I can't lie to you.”

 

“Only to God,” he murmured, then paused as if deciding on his wording. “Would you know a robot if you met one?”

 

“I don't know, Far,” I replied, wondering where the hell he was going with this. “I suppose if it were all shiny and shit, that would be a real giveaway, right?”

 

“What if it looked like a person?”

 

“I'd scan it,” I told him, hoping this was the right answer. “Then I'd know, wouldn't I? I mean, a machine can't have the same kind of mind as a person.”

 

“What if it did? Or, seemed to, anyway?” Far regarded me with a chilly intensity, searching my face for some answer I didn't have.

 

“What, you think I'm a robot?” I asked, trying to sound glib.

 

“No, not you. You need. Robots don't need. Not like you do.” He turned to look out his own window. “He doesn't need. He eats without tasting. He talks to them. They talk to him. It all makes sense now.”

 

I really hated it when things “made sense” to Farfarello, especially when they had the impact of sudden enlightenment. It almost made me wish he'd stick pins in my leg again, just to get him off this topic.

 

“They make robots in Copenhagen,” Far whispered, a soft growl in his voice.

 

Again I tried to recall what was so damn special about that facility. Berlin trained the officers and medics. Prague trained the operations specialists and teachers. We all knew what Rosenkreuz did. But Copenhagen…

 

I felt myself go pale.

 

Nagi.

 

 

A/N:

 

“I am but mad north-north-west; when the
wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

 

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2. Sometimes Farfarello calls for a literary quote rather than a pop-culture commentary, and this is one of those times. Why Hamlet? Schuldig has actually read that one, and in his mind the half-mad Dane is nearly as profound as Farfarello. Besides, there's something rotten in the state of Denmark…

 

Yes, there is a statue of the Little Mermaid in the harbor at Copenhagen. It's a tribute to storyteller Hans Christian Anderson, for his tragic tale of the young seadweller who sought to become human. Some things are more wisely left to the sea…

 

golem - n. Jewish Folklore. An artificially created human being endowed with life by supernatural means. (The Tormont Webster's Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary)

 

 

 

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