Shadows of Angels, part 26, R

[Daughterof_Evil]

-Hold on, I'm being grim here.

When I first wrote this part of Shadows of Angels, it was at least a week before the events of September 11, and I had no idea how truly my words would ring come that terrible day. Since then, I've rethought many of the ideas in this chapter and rewritten them, not to edit my work, but to make sense out of something which (in both reality and fiction) was a completely senseless act.

My first idea was not to post this at all, but to skip these two important chapters and go right on with the story. But by cutting it out, I realized that it would not be a complete story. Life is ugly. To quote Yukito Kushiro, a major inspiration for this story, " It's natural for the world to be cruel,"

The following contains frank sexual innuendo and a violent explosion. This is dedicated to anyone who was affected by the events of September 11th, no matter if you live in New York City or Bangladesh.
***
The train lurched and shimmied, the lights flickered slightly, then stayed brightly on. A poster sealed behind clear scuffed plastic foretold of the touristic pleasures of the Moulin Rouge. Feathers and sequins and ruffles and bare young flesh. A plastered white smile against red velvet.

X clasped tightly to the handle of the briefcase, which was new, fresh-smelling black calfskin. Her glazed eyes were forward, periodically sweeping through the nearly empty car. More posters of dark, red-light attractions. Her mask-like face was white and impassive towards the spector of immorality. It was all skin and flesh anyway. She was higher evolved than that. She was metal.

She brushed a shred of Parisian lint from her shoulder. They had given her new clothes, so new they still had the tags attached when she first put them on. A black cardigan sweater over a dark green, sleeveless turtleneck; a moss-green pleated skirt, black leggings, and short combat boots made of shiny green vinyl. A green beret had been tugged down over the top half of her head. Every time the train bobbed on its track, she could feel the tiny pearl teardrop earring Mlle. had given her jangle against her jawline.

Toward the end of the car, a group of three surly men in oil-slick clothing leered at her drunkenly. One still occasionally took large swallows from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. At the other end of the car, a man in a black turtleneck and black-rimmed sixties-styled glasses was stretched out lengthwise on the bench, looking bored.

Mullen had given her her orders directly. She was to walk down the street from the warehouse they resided in and take the number 2 Metro. He warned her of suspicious characters, for the number 2 track was notoriously dangerous for a woman alone, partly because it traveled through the red light district. Once she reached her destination -a lonely apartment house address written on a scrap of paper Mullen had imploringly pressed into her hand- she was to stay no more than an hour after delivering the briefcase. Though he never told her what exactly was beneath the expensive calfskin, she had seen Asmodeus and Faust Uberstahl constructing something of slender wires and circuit boards the day before and knew very well what it was.

The drunkards at the end of the car began talking in loud, lewd French, most of their comments directed at X. She blocked out the sound of their voices and instead focused on the hum of the track. She listened as the brakes engaged with a barely audible click, then as the wheels slowed. The train came to a reluctant stop, and the doors popped open. A crackling monologue was delivered by the conductor, but his short speech was cut in two once X got up and walked out into the station.

The street outside was the exact emulation of what Asmodeus had so lovingly called it: Pig Alley. The building fronts were plastered with neon signs advertising every type of sexual entertainment. Prostitutes lingered at the corners, their jackets buttoned up close to hide what exactly it was they were selling. The red-light glow of strip joints and topless bars spilled out of open doorways and onto the sidewalk. Banners of red, white and blue were strung along the building sides, affixed with paper fleur de lilles. This was the part of the City of Light that still worked hard to sell, cheaply and eagerly, the vision that Paris was the original home of sin.

Mullen had told her to watch herself; though they had taken the upmost pains to make her look like a regular Parisian teenager, there would always be the street john who would mistake her for a hooker who specialized in schoolgirl chic. The crowds were oppressive. She held tight to her briefcase and nudged through a cluster of smoking showgirls outside the entrance to a penny lap dance, inhaling a mouthful of cigarette fumes in her haste.

The radioactive glow of human weakness and debauchery continued as she pressed further into the district of Montmartre. Somewhere, within the cold shell of her mind, she wondered what drew them there. The promise of cheap physical thrill, a sort of brain-numbing agent that freed them from the burden of thought. Like a drug, like Macchina. Or battle.

The buildings flattened out, the neon slowly disappeared, replaced with the wood-and-brass signs of small cafés and lonely restaurants. The crush of people continued, trailing the thick smell of liquor and tobacco smoke. A group of prostitutes in embroidered stockings lingered in an open doorway, talking in English. They watched her as she passed, then continued with their conversation.

The address, impressed upon her carefully molded mind, drew her to a greystone apartment. Its door, at the top of a set of pneumatic stone steps, was painted green with tiny brass numbers impressed into its face. It showed a certain type of care and deliberateness that had eluded her the entire trip through Pigalle.

She rang the buzzer for apartment 2, and the door flew open immediately. A young man, younger than Asmodeus but still a good ten years ahead of X, stood there. His hair was wavy and dark blonde, eyes dark, skin a Rivieran brown. He was dressed in a dark green wool sweater and olive-colored slacks.

She bowed to him. “ Bonsoir, monsieur,”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her inside. The next thing X knew, the door was shut and locked behind her, and her back was pressed to the wall.

“ I apologize,” he said in perfect, British-accented English. “ But this is not a neighborhood a girl should be seen in so late.”

She blinked at him. “ I understand,”

He took the briefcase from her. “ Come in. You must be tired.”

They took the stairs to the second story, where apparently his apartment was. Inside, it had wooden floors spilled with the grey Paris light that streamed in the wide windows. The home seemed to have a resident style of messiness. A large maple desk was wedged into the corner, its top scattered with papers and open books of ancient text. Cardboard boxes full of files were stacked against the side of the desk, marked with cryptic messages in black marker. Two bookshelves formed a a triangle in the other corner, a blue couch between them with a matching coffee table in front of it. Oriental rugs in various degrees of being unrolled were piled everywhere. The man went about picking up sheafs of paper in his arms.

“ I didn’t think Mullen would send such a young girl through Pigalle for this,” he said. “ He’s not much of a gentleman.”

X was quiet. She found this man’s sense of chivalry strangely charming. He reminded her of the blonde doctor back at the LexCorp lab, the one whose name she could barely even remember anymore.

He laid his papers down on his desk and brushed the dust off on his slacks, offering a hand to shake. “ I’m Henry Indio. Mr. Lockhardt’s associate.”

X ignored his hand and bowed. She hated touching other people.

He brushed his hands against his sweater nervously. “ Would you like some tea, Miss X?”

“ Yes, please,”

“ You can sit down if you’d like,”

She took a seat on the floor, alongside a blue and green Oriental rug with a tag from Pakistan.

He stared at her, arms limp. “ Um, alright,”

Henry went into the kitchen, which was to the left of the den and tiled completely in sunshine-yellow. He began to fill a silver kettle with water, talking all the time.

“ I suppose you work for Mullen, if he sent you,” he said. “ Do you know Mr. Lockhardt?”

“ Yes,” X replied, folding her legs in a yoga style under her. She spread the pleats of her skirt out over her thighs.

Henry opened up the white vintage refrigerator and began rifling through it. “ He’s a good man, I think. I met him when I was last in Thailand. My job takes me all over.”

“ What do you do?” she asked politely.

“ I’m an antique’s dealer, textiles,” He walked in holding a tray of cake, which he put on the coffee table. X stood.

“ I insist you not make a fuss over me, sir,” She bowed.

He cocked his head to the side. “ You were trained, weren’t you?”

“ By what do you mean?”

“ Trained. You know, for combat.”

She blinked. “ And you were not.”

He straightened out his back, looking at her. The kettle squealed on the stove, a jet of hot steam shooting out the spout. Henry rushed into the kitchen, and X watched him go, wondering just how much outsiders knew about her and the rest of Intergang.

She went to the edge of the kitchen and leaned just barely against the doorway. Henry was bent over the counter, a tiny silver strainer of tea leaves balanced on the top of a thick white china mug. He poured the kettle water through it. His movements were deliberate, as if he had done these things a thousand times before and they were now ingrained on his psyche.

He looked over at her. “ You can turn on the television, if you like,”

X moved back into the den and found the small box television on a spindly metal stand in the corner. She switched it on, and an anchorwoman spewed out a tail of French that accompanied a picture of a man with chalk-white skin, beatle-black eyes, and green hair slicked back in a wave over his head. His mouth was twisted in a wide, sick grin, revealing an endless row of yellowish teeth.

The image struck her strangely. Like when -in a moment of weakness- she would think of the boy in red, it stirred a feeling deep within her that she could not explain. Loverevulsionpainfearhateragepsychosis.

She sat on the couch. The anchorwoman explained that this man -whom they called the Joker- had escaped from a prison transit bus while being police escorted from a courtroom in Gotham City to a nearby mental institution for the criminally ill called Arkham. The elaborate scheme, she said, involved the capture of the entire transit bus and its armada of fifteen armed guards.

Henry returned, handing her a cup of tea. “ Do you take sugar or cream?”

She blinked up at him. “ Who is this Joker-man?”

He looked to the television. “ Oh, the Joker escaped again. Figures.” He offered her the milk pitcher. “ Cream?”

She looked at her lap. A sudden flash of light, her face caught in tremor. The Joker, pulling her up off the ground by one arm. She began to involuntarily tremble. She felt the irresistable urge to pull off her own skin and flesh, expose the metal underneath. Maybe there she would find her answers.

“ Are you feeling alright?” he asked.

She nodded. “ May I please have some sugar?”

He handed her the small cup. She swallowed down the scalding tea without even thinking, letting it burn her tongue and throat.

“ So, where are you from?” he asked.

“ America,” she answered dryly.

“ I thought as much. But your family, where are they from?”

“ I don’t know. I don’t have a family.”

“ Well, everybody has a family.”

“ I don’t,” she persisted, grasping blindly at the anger inside her. “ I’m a machine. That’s what Mullen says.”

Henry, the cup just touching his lips, looked up at her. “ Oh.”

“ You seem like a very nice man,” X said blankly.

“ Thanks. But you’re probably programmed to say that,”

It came upon X then what he was talking about. He thought she was a robot.

“ My mum’s family is from Gloucester,” he said. “ My father...well, I never really knew him. He left before I was born. My mother said he was Scottish,”

He gestured at the tray on the coffee table, at the almost-plastickly perfect pieces of pound cake. “ Have some. I mean, if you can...want to,”

X abruptly realized his innane innocence. It immediately softened her, the anger falling away beyond her grasp. Her hands stopped shaking, and she reached out and took the cake. It was probably not processed, not as perfect as it looked.

She ate, and he told her about himself. He had gone to school at Oxford, jumping from major to major before finding he had a knack for antiquities. He married a woman a few years before, but the marriage failed quickly, and the divorce had just been finalized. His dark eyes darted up to her almost shyly, as if the mere presence of a female was warrant for an immediate turn in conversation. She said nothing. She was beginning to feel the very raw edge of strange and stupid fear crawling up her spine.

When they had finished their tea, X made a point to wash all the dishes while Henry stood next to her drying them with a plaid dishtowel.

“ It’s nice having a woman around again,” he said with a slightly anxious laugh. “ Even if you’re just one of Mullen’s machines.”

X nodded blankly and checked the clock. She had five minutes to leave before the one hour grace period was up. She took her time, rinsed the soap off of the last dish, and handed it to him.

“ Thank you for your hospitality,” She bowed, arms straight at her sides. “ I should go now,”

He sat the dishtowel down on the counter. “ Oh, so soon?”

“ I’ve really inconvenienced you too much,” In the backround, the television went on about the Bastille Day celebrations, accompanied with a matching rabble of Parisians screaming in wild, muddled French.

“ I should really escort you home,” he said, pulling his sweater sleeves down to his wrists. “ Like I said before, Pigalle isn’t a suitable place for a young girl alone at this time of night. And the Bastille Day festivities can get pretty rowdy.”

“ I can manage, thank you,”

Henry walked her down to the lobby on the first floor, opening the door for her. “ It was good to meet you,” he said.

She nodded. “ It was nice to meet you as well.”

“ I suppose I might see you again sometime?”

She recognized the strains of pathetic hope in his voice, and wondered why. “ Yes, maybe.”

“ Have a nice afternoon,”

She nodded again and set out down the front steps. The door swung shut behind her, and she looked back up at the building. Her body was caught in a sort of violent stillness. She forced herself to sit down on the step second from the bottom.

It had all begun to dawn on her as she sat in Henry Indio’s apartment, listening to him talk, watching him do normal things, seeing the way he lived. His demeanor was so innocent, so open and kind, even though he knew she could never be a real human like him. There was so little she knew about the world, even about herself.

The reality slowly set in, and the need for the day’s second dose of Macchina was felt deeply in her bones. To get more, she would need to go home, back to Mullen and Asmodeus and Lockhardt, where she would always be a doll they could just take apart and put back together differently. Her muscles jerked. She knew the seconds were counting down, that she could still get up and go back to Mullen. And if she escaped, they would find her...she would remain alone and helpless.

She bowed her head into her chest and waited.

The first explosion wiped away the windows first, then the building structure, and the flames reached out and kissed the bottom story and hissed out into the street. Stone and glass and wood rained down, burying the sidewalk. A brick struck X in the head, and she toppled down the steps as they disappeared in a tide of blood and smoke. The entire district of Montmartre shook for the blast, and in moments, the building that X had just exited -and several of those around it- was a smoking, fiery pile of scrap and debris. And the tiny girl, mindless, quiet, sublime, was buried in the rubble.

[witness]

please tell me that you didn't come this far into your story just to kill her?!?!?!?!?! x cannot die! she's got too rich of a history! interesting that the joker triggered another memory for her. at least that's how i looked at it. please write more!!!!

[Daughterof_Evil]

All I can say without giving away any more is thanks for caring about her. It makes me feel so...warm inside this great hollow chest of mine to see that someone can care for a being as inherently evil as she. Cheers.

[Panther]

I disagree. Cruelty is not exactly natural - but i do agree that it _is_ there, and we have to face it. You were absolutly right in including this part. Sometimes the innocents die, adn we have to acknowledge that, not deny it, if we wish to rebuild and get better.

I have to wonder about the intesne descriptions of Pig Alley. It was wonderfuly desription of the hell hole X had been sent into, but I'm still trying to figure out if there were more sublte layers and meanings behind the desriptions of reds and flesh. Perhaps a harkening back to 'Flesh and Blood'? It took me a second reading before I picked up on the name Faust. Approperiate. And I do not think I am totally wrong in picking up forwsahdouing with teh mention of the 'boy in red' adn the 'Joker-man' I liked the use of the blurred words agian. You may be showing how computerized she is - but I think she still has humanity in her.

As usaul, you have cut off at the worst moment and I'll just have to wait. Hmph. I hate waiting!

later

[The_NewCatwoman]

I already read this, but I'm just now getting a chance to reply to the post.

I'm really enjoying this so far, it's intriguing how everything in this story ties back to the other's. But that can be a problem for people who didn't get to read your excellent prequels. Bravo nonetheless!

[Daughterof_Evil]

I agree that cruelty is not natural, but it is natural for the world to be hard on us. How would we have survived millions of years of evolution if the planet hadn't been tough on us? I also have to point out something I forgot to mention, that Yukito Kushiro's (he did Battle Angel Alita) manga character Desty Nova said that it is natural for the world to be cruel, not he himself, so I'm not sure if that was his opinion or not.

I knew you'd pick up on Faust sooner or later, and just for another bit of weird little trivia, his last name, Uberstahl, is German for "of steel". So he is essentially "Fist of Steel". I love demonic references as much as you love to refer to saints.

Flesh and Blood was a part of it, in a sidetracked way, but it more centered around the core of human sin than around that. You mentioned that her garbled misunderstandings of Joker and Robin made her seem more computerized, something I didn't really notice until you said it. It's very true.

Thanks for commenting on this part...I'm very glad you enjoyed it.

[Daughterof_Evil]

Someone who's not read the other stories might be better off, I've learned. The other day I read Flesh and Blood and discovered what a damn mess it is. I think I might need to rewrite it so it makes some freaking sense, which means some serious character switcheroos that I'll have to carry over into this one. Oy!

[Sable Phoenix]

That's very odd that you say that. I don't see X as inherently evil at all. I see her as manipulated, forced, and contorted into situations where she really has no choice about her actions, or where she acts completely on instinct without really noticing what she's doing. Intergang keeps her leashed with Machinna and implants so that she really couldn't leave them if she wanted to. And she does, apparently, but she can't, other than by suicide. In an odd way, I see her not as evil, but as completely innocent. For the most part, she doesn't realize there are alternatives to what she does.

I guess that's just an interesting example of how the reader's interpretation can vary greatly from the writer's intention.

[Daughterof_Evil]

It really only comes up later, sort of an insider thing. But I agree that X is seriously manipulated, and that it usually controls her actions, even what she thinks. A lot of people asked me why she didn't run away when Scotland Yard was coming to that old manor in England; she had every opportunity and didn't do it. She is controlled by fear, and as you pointed out, her Macchina addiction.

She's innocent for now is all I can really say.

[Daughterof_Evil]

-I'm posting this second piece very closely to the first so that I can get over with it. It's like a dreaded task: you don't want to do it but you dearly want reassurance that you've done it right. This part has no violence, no swearing, no sexual innuendo. Just profound sadness. It's sort of like a requiem.

The phrase, "The streets of Paris run with blood," comes from the book The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. It too takes place around the French Revolution, and I thought it very appropriate. Also, I'd like to thank the FBI website for information on VICAP, or the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.-
***
The boy in red, dying beside her.

Gomen nasai, itoshii, she whispered, a last tear running down her face.
***
Tim leaned back against the smooth black leather upholstery and sighed. The rain sheeted on the window, shimmering like mercury. The storm had left them stranded in traffic, lodged in the middle of a sea of other vehicles. Dark images of anonymous pedestrians outside shifted in the downpour. The sound of rain pattering heavily on the steel roof.

The timer automatically turned on the small television lodged in the middle console. It was something Bruce had set so he could watch the news on the drive home, but the rain had kept Tim and Alfred in traffic for an hour already, and the butler had called from the car phone to propose that Bruce just get a taxi. Tim picked up the remote and flipped rapidly through the channels. With one hand, he pulled off the navy blazer he wore as part of his high school uniform and tossed it across the back seat.

Alfred’s eyes clicked over to him in the rearview mirror. “ Master Timothy, try not to wrinkle your jacket,”

He hunched his vested shoulders and folded the blazer neatly, but pulled off the tie and stuffed it in the front pocket. The TV stopped changing channels and paused on one.

“ The streets of Paris flow with blood tonight,” said Summer Gleason, “ as a bomb explodes in the City of Light just as tonight’s Bastille Day celebrations get under way. It went off in Pigalle, Paris’ red light district and home of the legendary Moulin Rouge.” A still photo of a decimated stretch of apartment houses, blocked off by waving police. Women trundling by, wearing the hallmarked clothing of prostitutes and holding red-stained gauze to their heads. Red, white and blue banners waved in the backround, tattered.

They switched to another camera, and Summer looked over quite solemnly. “ Though no group has yet claimed responsibility for this act in Paris, world leaders have let it known that Intergang is the top suspect.”

It popped into sudden still-shot, cutting out the image of Summer Gleason line by line. Tim felt his hands involuntarily constrict into fists. The screen came on directly to an image of Mullen, dressed in black and khaki, sitting in an old-style wing chair. The X-shaped wound, what the boy noticed first, was completely healed, but was still a deep and fairly noticeable scar across his tan face. Behind him, a backdrop of green burlap was tacked to a wall.

“ By now, you are all probably aware of the bombing carried out by my associates in Paris. That was only a small token of our power. If your world governments refuse to dismiss charges and release our captured and imprisoned comrades, we will be forced to take far more drastic measures. This display tonight was just a warning. The battle has only now begun.”

Outside, beyond Tim encapsulated in the Bentley, clusters of dark-robed pedestrians grouped together outside an electronics shop. Behind the plastic layer of the shop window, twelve televisions played the same message. Across the world, identical communications were shown to the public in twenty different languages.

“ Imagine your world as it is now,” he went on. “ Then think. Think of the ways you are unequal, the ways you have been wronged by the governments that have sworn to protect you. Intergang is not a threat. We are your saviors. We chose today, France’s Bastille Day, to inform you of the beginning of a new revolution.”

The screen blinked into spasmodic black, and the television showed a chaotic scene at Gotham News. Summer Gleason brushed a bit of chestnut hair behind her ear, coughed, and ruffled her invoices.

“ Excuse me, ladies and gentleman, it seems we’ve had technical difficulties.” Somebody whispered to her offscreen. “ Please join us for the news at eleven. Thank you.”

The shrill ring of the car phone broke the passengers from their stupor. Alfred answered it.

“ Yes, Master Bruce?” he said immediately. “ Oh, Miss Gordon,” Pause. “ Yes, we just saw it.” Pause. “ I would have to agree.”

He hung up and Tim grabbed the receiver on his line.

“ Barbara?” His voice was slightly hoarse, though why he didn’t know.

“ So you saw it.”

“ Yeah.” How much did his voice tell?

“ Intergang hacker cut into the lines. It’s happening all over the planet. The work is a little too subtle to catch any leads on...whoever’s doing it is good.”

“ How does that help any?”

“ I was about to get to that. My dad heard through the FBI people here that a rich industry heiress was killed in Rouen last week. They think an Intergangster might have done it to cover their tracks.”

“ Go on,”

“ Rouen is in France, Tim.”

“ So? I knew that.”

“ They’re traveling eastward, towards Germany.”

“ Well, I didn’t think they were in Paris for the Eiffel Tower anyway.”

“ I’ll see you when you get home. Is it still raining?”

“ Yeah,” he replied. “ Pretty badly.”

“ Then it’ll be another hour at least. I’ll talk it over with Bruce in the meantime.”

“ See you then,”
***
“ I made tea,”

Alfred looked quite dejected. “ That was unnecessary, Miss Gordon,”

Barbara waved a hand at him. “ Take a break, Alfred. I’ve got this,”

Tim tossed his backpack at the foot of the chair that had been permanently designated his. Outside the sweeping floor-to-ceiling window, the muscular thunderclouds slammed driving rain into the manor.

“ Look,” A leaflet suddenly materialized before his face. Tim took it tentatively and sat down.

“ What’s this I’m looking at?” he asked.

Barbara poured some tea into a silver cup. “ Lemon?”

“ Cream,” he said automatically. “ Please,” he added with Alfred’s persistent glare.

“ It’s VICAP,” Barbara said. “ They added Geoffrey Mullen exactly ten minutes after the hacking job on the Gotham News,”

The picture beside the extensive biography was a still-shot taken from the brief Intergang message, a perfectly pixelated scrap of tanned face and sparrow brown hair. Name, Geoffrey Sebastian Mullen. A line of aliases followed. Place of birth, Gotham City, United States of America. Distinguishing marks, X scar on face.

“ I’m glad to see the scar’s at least doing some good,” Tim said blandly.

Barbara didn’t look at him. “ It’s strange. Plastic surgeons could have taken that off months ago. It must have some weird psychological meaning for him.”

Tim laid down the printout and took the cup and saucer Barbara offered him. Alfred sipped his own tea placidly in the corner.

“ Do you really think he’s violent enough to be put on VICAP?” Barbara questioned, sitting down. She was wearing new faux alligator boots.

“ Forty-two confirmed assassinations, twelve acts of terror, seven different methods of weaponry,” He paused. “ I think that counts.”

“ You’ve been studying up,”

He shrugged. “ It’s a hobby.”

“ You’ve also been following him. This morning, it was only eleven acts of terror.”

Tim turned around, staring up at the intruder in their conversation. “ Hi, Bruce,”

Bruce Wayne gestured at the window. “ Watching the storm?”

“ Yeah.” He looked at his sneakers. “ It seems scarier when it’s here than when it’s so far off,”

“ That’s true for a lot of things,”

“ You saw VICAP?” asked Barbara uneasily.

“ Yes. Like Tim said, it’s well warranted.”

“ What do we do? I mean, we’re all the way over here...”

“ We’re not going to France, Barbara,” Bruce said staunchly.

“ Well, that was the opposite of how I thought that conversation was going to go,” Tim muttered.

“ What do you mean?” protested the woman.

“ I mean we need to let Interpol take care of this. Or Clark. We have enough to worry about here.”

“ Well, Tim and Dick can take care of it. They’ve proven they can,” Barbara persisted.

“ I’m not talking about the Joker or Two Face. There are Intergang members here in America that we have to find and deal with,”

“ You sound like you have an idea,” Barbara said.

“ Maybe I do,”

The grandfather clock against the wall clicked and opened up. A figure in black leather and dark denim stepped in and slipped off a motorcycle helmet made of steel and blue plastic. Dick shook out his ponytail.

“ Did you just hear?” he asked.

Barbara grabbed the television remote and turned on the floor-to-ceiling screen in the wall. She flipped channels before finding an international news program framed with the quotes of dozens of business stocks and sports scores. A young Indian woman with short hair and glasses cocked her head to the side.

“ Again, the top news of the day is the Bastille Day Intergang bombing in Paris, costing the lives of less than ten people but injuring dozens more,” she said, her accent a refined British. “ The latest reports have revealed that in the last thirty minutes freelancers have rolled a banner down the Eiffel Tower reading Vive le Révolution. The police are still discussing how to get it down.”

“ A banner?” Barbara asked, turning around in her seat to address Dick.

“ Mullen’s too intense to be behind that; likely it was one of his underdogs playing a joke,” he said.

Tim held up the FBI printout. Dick glanced at it. “ VICAP. Yeah, I thought so.”

“ Four mil,” Tim said abstractly.

“ Though extraditing Mullen might be a problem,” Barbara pointed out, “ if he’s apprehended in France. Their government’s been known to hesitate in returning criminals to countries with the death penalty,”

“ Let’s concentrate on catching him for now,” Bruce regressed.

[The_NewCatwoman]

It seems kind of weird for Bruce, Barbara, and Dickie to be in the room all together without a problem. But nonetheless, it's seems that they've decided to put business before personal problems.

Good Job!

[Panther]

My first reaction:

Holy ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My second reaction:

That was first rate writing. Wheather you planned it or not, the words hit a very poignant and very approperiate chord. The best ones being:

“ It seems scarier when it’s here than when it’s
so far off,”

My God! That's kind of line found in literature that English teachers make you turn into entire term papers!

It was interesting that you called this part a requim. That implies endings, while I saw this part as a beginning - a gearing up for upcoming events. Vive la revolution indeed. An excellent tieing in of past and present. I hope you post more soon with at least a few more hints of X's fate.

[The_NewCatwoman]

I finally got around to finishing pt11c, now there's a reason why I called it Mother May I? Tell me what ya think.

[Daughterof_Evil]

Yeah, when I was writing that, I figured it sounded a little weird that all of them were together without a big freaking riot breaking out. But you're right: sometimes they have to put business before personal stuff.

[Daughterof_Evil]

Geez, Panther! One more comment and my head would never retain its original size!

Actually, when I put that line in there, I was sort of afraid it sounded corny, but you've reassured me that it's okay. It seemed like a thing Tim would say unconsciously, not meaning to be all innocent and sweet but doing it anyway.

Well, I saw you'd posted something (hopefully more of the Midwinter saga), so now I'm fairly drooling to read it. Thanks for all the great comments!

[Daughterof_Evil]

-I believe I might have confused a few of you with that last post; the end is nowhere in sight. By referring to it as a requiem, I meant a time of peace and reflection.

I should go ahead now and admit that the characters Hiramiaku and Saru are not mine, but instead are the sole possessions of Tonbo Rosso, another writer at this site and my best friend. This part includes intense descriptions of physical pain and serious bodily injury, and shouldn't be read by younger audiences.
***
She could feel the sun, the heat of the day, smell the churning of water around her and the very distinct acidic taste of chemicals in her mouth. Every nerve in her body screamed for the pain. She moved; her skin crinkled like paper and split open, needles lanced through her. Her eyes bled profusely, swollen and scratched. She tried to make a sound, but she had no voice. She was screaming. She tried to remember her face, touched it with a hand half burned to ash and bone. She had no face. She began to weep senselessly. The water lapped at her rotting body, as if trying to comfort her clumsily.

She didn’t want to die, with no one at her side, no one knowing of her existence. Someone had to find her, to see that she was alive. She wanted to talk with someone, to talk about the blue sky above her eyes, what she stared at, what she thought of. She wanted them to hold her at night, when the water became cold, when the sky turned bruise-blue and speckled itself with the diadem of stars.

Light broke through a hole in the sky. She opened her eyes and cried out. Dust, rubble, policemen, the tendrils of smoke reaching up through a ruined landscape. The unquenchable desire to live.
***
It was the smell, first, that brought her back. Disinfectant, detergents, a slight tang of microwaved food. She forced her eyes open. A woman was at the foot of a bed done in maroon, sitting on the edge, filling out a clipboard. X sat up immediately, stirring the woman from her work.

She looked up, smiling pleasantly. Her hair was brown and curling.

“ Bonjour, mademoiselle,” she said. “ Comment allez-vous?”

X paused, then pulled the green oxygen mask off her face. “ Je ne sais pas,” she said at last.

The nurse laid the clipboard aside and leaned forward, putting one hand on X’s knee. “ Comment vous appelez-vous?”

She looked around. “ Où...l’hôpital?”

The nurse smiled. Her teeth were straight and white. “ Oui,”

X folded her arms across her chest, looking about the room. Her bed was next to the window, out of which she could see a swatch of Paris outside. A red curtain cut her off from the rest of the room, but she could hear the sound of an oxygen tank somewhere next to her. A television played in the corner, muted.

“ Qu’est-ce que c’est?” asked the nurse. X noticed, dully, that there was a leather strap across the nurse’s plump chest, under her pink coat. Like a holster.

X hugged herself tightly. “ Je suis Américain,”

The nurse sat back. “ Ohh,”

“ Parlez-vous Anglais?” the girl questioned, hopefully.

The nurse shook her head sadly. She stood up from the bed, clasping the clipboard against her stomach. “ Pardon,”

“ Où est Mullen?”

The nurse stopped. “ Quoi?”

She looked into her lap. “ Merci bien,”

She laid down flat on her back and stared up into the pasteboard ceiling as the nurse shuffled out, locking the door behind her. The refrigerator-like cold of the room sent chills up and down her arms. She could feel the tight strain of a bandage wrapped around her head, the prick of a catheter needle in her right hand. The burn of Macchina withdrawl surged in her veins. For the first time, she realized she was not with Intergang, not in a lab, and felt a swell of hope.

“ Hello, I’m Doctor Hartford,”

X’s eyes clicked to the door. He was a middle-aged man with cropped auburn hair and a matching beard, wearing a white coat and holding a clipboard, probably the very clipboard the nurse had had. X looked back to the porous squares of the ceiling.

“ Are you feeling right, then?” He was British, from the accent, but dressed in the soft fashions of a Frenchman. She didn’t answer.

He took up the clipboard and looked it over. “ You were admitted with a little bump on your head, right?”

She continued to stare, unsure of what to say. He wasn’t an Intergang member, and he terrified her immediately.

“ Nurse Agneau says you’re American. You speak English?”

She swallowed. He took his stethoscope from around his neck and pressed it to her chest, listening. She tried to act calm, to steady her breathing, but she saw the crinkle of his brow.

“ You’ve had a transplant?” he asked, hanging the stethoscope back around his neck.

“ Looks a few years old, have you been constant with your medication?”

He sighed when she didn’t answer. “ I don’t suppose you’ll be answering that,”

She opened her mouth and let out a cold sigh. Psychological training had told her that saying anything under enemy pressure was too much, and she had already carried on a complete conversation with the nurse. If she was going to escape and get as far away from Mullen as possible, she would need to eliminate the doctor.

Dr. Hartford took up a seat on a stool next to the bed. “ Listen, we’ve seen your tattoos. Intergang has abandoned you, haven’t they?

“ We can get the American embassy in on this; if they’ve kidnapped you, we have a likely case of international abduction. We only need your cooperation, child,”

She blinked, very quickly.

“ I see,” he said, standing. He took from a pocket in his white coat a clear vial, shaking it at her.

“ This is morphine,” he said, leaning over her bed. “ I won’t give you any until you agree to talk. So,” He replaced the vial in his pocket, “ just ring if you want to have a little chat.”

She didn’t make any obvious reactions that would indicate that she was listening or even very conscious, and Dr. Hartford went to the door, stopping.

“ There’s an armed guard outside your door, so don’t even think of escaping,”

Again, nothing. Dr. Hartford left, locking the door behind him. X rolled onto her side and stayed there for the rest of the day.
***
She had remained in a state of cat-like readiness the entire time she was there, eyes open, ears pricked, body tensed for the least provocation. A cart of food was brought in just before dusk, but there were no utensils and X felt no urge to eat, though the tense pain of withdrawl knawed at her body like a dull razorblade.

Twice a man in a dark suit named Agent Pourdieux came in, showed her a badge, then went into a long lecture in French. She ignored him completely, listening to him speaking for any news on Intergang. The bomb she had delivered to Henry Indio had exploded, killing him and twenty-three others who were in the street celebrating Bastille Day. Mullen had claimed responsibility, and her Intergang tattoos confessed her guilt.

Twice he asked her if she understood what he was saying, but neither time did she answer him, or even turn over to look at him.

The second time he was there, he asked her if she would like to join Interpol to help bring Mullen down.

“ You’re obviously a capable soldier,” he said in heavy English.

She never said anything, or looked at him, but by the intonation in his voice, she knew he was admiring her muscular physique. When he left, she sat up in bed and bent her IV stand over at the top in pure rage, then sat back down.

It was night again very quickly, the day having passed like a demented dream. The nurse brought her more food, then left. X was silent, still. She could hear outside the room, the cries of children, the squealing wheels of a laundry cart, a doctor being called over the PA system, and wished it away.

She hadn’t even known that she had gone to sleep until she heard the lock on the window pop, then the pane slide to the side. Her eyes flew open immediately. A dark figure slinked in through the hole and came to her side. She backed up to the other side of the bed.

“ Tanoshiku sugosu?” asked a gentle, male voice. A hand felt for hers, removing the catheter from the back of it very softly. He turned and switched off the EKG, then took the sensor off her thumb. He pulled the side of the bed down and scooped her up in his arms, staggering slightly.

The door opened, spilling in a square of light. Dr. Hartford rushed in.

“ Hey! Stop right there you bastard!” He had pulled his gun quickly. The boy had kicked it aside faster, smashed his forehead into his face, then spun, pinning Dr. Hartford up against the wall with one foot to his neck. The doctor coughed, sputtered, then fell to the ground, unconscious.

The boy laughed shortly, then stumbled to the window and jumped out, landing on a roof some ways down with an audible grunt.

“ Quickly,” said a Japanese woman’s voice.

The boy groaned. “ Hiramiaku-sama, she’s heeeeaaaaaavvy!”

There was a prick in her right arm, and all was black.
***
The moment she awoke, it was as if the city was running in her veins, the lights, the noise, the souls of the people circulating in and out of her mutant hearts.

Then she saw the streets, the crown of the city lights like the diadem of stars that danced in her dreams. And she gasped. For the first time in a long time, she was surprised. The wind ruffled her hair. She cried out, struggling against her bonds. She had never been so high up in her life, and the distance to the ground frightened her.

The Champ de Mars spread out below her like a green band, and stabbing up from it, the huge mass of intricate black steel wound up to her, its very top pike, a television aerial humming in the wind, her display. A huge, dove grey skirt bloomed around her legs, split up the front to reveal about twelve delicate pink petticoats and decorated with pink roses festooning a swathe of delicate white lace that encircled the metal hoop. The top was slightly low and mid-sleeved, trimmed in more lace and silk roses. A very heavy diamond necklace was clasped around her thickened neck, and her dark hair had been set in sausage curls and secured with tiny pink bows.

“ Bonsoir, Mademoiselle,”

X looked to the side. Standing atop the very top platform of the Tour Eiffel was a woman dressed in a red long coat, a gold brocade vest with a frilled jabot peeking from the high collar, gold knickers, white stockings, and low boots. Her bright crimson hair stuck up from her head like the bristles of a push broom, and her skin was a tanned brown. She looked over and smiled a little, lips a shiny black.

“ Quoi!?” the girl cried.

“ Enjoy the view?” She looked to the other side. A boy was there, about eighteen, with light skin and dark, long hair caught back with a little ribbon behind his head. He was dressed just as the woman, in a blue long coat and a brocade vest, wearing light grey knickers. The jabot at his throat floated free from his collar and fluttered under his chin.

X gasped and stared downward, sweat running down her face. She noticed for the first time that a great white banner bloomed out from the Eiffel Tower, stating something she couldn’t quite read. “ What--! What is this-!?” she cried.

“ The city’s so nice at night,” the woman said. Her voice was very familiar. “ Especially from up here. Do you think Marie Antoinette saw this view after her meeting with Dame la Guillotine?”

X cocked her head to the side, still sweating. “ You’re Hiramiaku, aren’t you? The assassin woman I met in Saudi Arabia?”

Hiramiaku smiled. She was very lovely, in a dangerous way, and quite young, maybe twenty-one at the most. She had the slanted, bright black eyes of a Japanese, but her face was carved in the way of an Indian.

The boy stepped up next to her and smiled widely, revealing sharp teeth. He was very Japanese, skin pale as ivory.

“ Name is Saru,” he said, accent heavy. He raised one hand in a friendly wave.

“ I-I don’t quite understand,” X said in Japanese.

Hiramiaku lifted her face to the sky and laughed loudly. X looked to Saru.

“ You will,” he explained.

[The_NewCatwoman]

Are you ignoring me? No, just kidding. Very good part, incredible description although it sometimes went over my head. Man, when are Robin and X going to reunite, if that's the plan that is.

[Panther]

DofE-

Yet again you tease your audince by doling out the absolute minimum, a clever style that engages the reader but always leaves half a dozen questions at the end of each post for every question that was answered.

This part I had to re-read to understand fully what was going on, and even then I was slightly confused. Was the part at the beginning as X realizes above all else she wants to live and be loved a dim awareness after the explosion in Paris, a memory/flashback of the time between the end of 'Fleash and Blood' and beginning of 'Shawdow of Angels', or a dream of the two combined?

The only other part I was but confused by was the description of the necklace :D and dress. The second time I read through was pretty sure someone dressed X in that outfit, but it almost sounded like a description of some decoration or a methaphor for the city or something like that.

But other than that - way to go! Nothing but sympathy for X at this point. She obvoiusly does not feel any loyalty towards Intergang, and yet she is so confsued she does not see the people at the hospital as a possible source of help. Indeed, she thinks they are a threat. Interesting how the English doctor comes off as all nice and jovial but then pulls the dirty trick of trying to use her withdrawall and pain against her. I liked the bit of the French agent giving her a long lecture - some nice comic relief [in a dark way] admist all the terror (and I use _that_ phrase quite delibratly).

Lovely ironic scene to have the three of them at the top the Effeil Tower, and great costumes, might I add. Very funny considering Tim's crack about not thinking Mullen had been in Paris to see the Efffeil tower. Tell Tonbo I love the characters of Hiramiaku and Saru. They don't seem as uptight as some other Intergang members. Wait - they are Ingerang members, right? :confused:

And _of course_ the Champ de Mars would be the first thing you would have her see when she woke up atop the Effil Tower, now wouldn't it? I absoloutly love all the French Revolution references!! The legacy of Madame la gullontine lives on! I almost included a very rude French revolution song in Trick or Treat but decided the story had enough songs already and the moderators would probably throw a fit over the langaguge used to describe Maire Antoinette.

Well, I should stop babaling and let you go back to writing. Please write more soon! And (this is getting old) a few memories for X?

Later,

[Daughterof_Evil]

Thanks for the great support. I really appreciate it. As for X and Robin...what else could I say without giving it all away? You'll just have to read and find out.

[Daughterof_Evil]

What can I say!? To have you, Queen of Revolutionary References and Goddess of the Modern Fairy Tale, compliment me! I am astounded and humbled.

Thanks for some of the incredible things you said, it was just too nice. I'm sorry I confused you. When I did the sequence in the beginning, it was a fusion of what happened before Shadows of Angels and a little of her ordeal in Paris. And when they're standing atop the Eiffel Tower, X has been dressed up to resemble (only slightly, sans the white wig) a young Marie Antoinette.

I almost replaced the Champ de Mars with her looking out over the Seine and dreaming of drowning, but I didn't. I'm glad, now, because of the military reference. And I'll tell Tonbo how much you like Hiramiaku and Saru. They're really great characters, and a nice foil against the other more severe criminals X encounters.

Don't worry about babbling. Those guys back then sure had some tough stuff to say about ol' Marie, didn't they? But then again, she was terribly out of touch. You've probably heard this, but at Versailles she had a miniature village made for her, where she and her handmaids went to play shepardesses by day with perfumed and dyed sheep! I was going to mention that when they were operating on X at Versailles, but I never got around to it.

Thanks again for the wonderful things you said about my story. I'm still reeling from the very last Midwinter story, trying to convince myself it's over. That was a REAAALLY good one.

[Daughterof_Evil]

-What can I say? That I pushed the grim, dark immorality behind me for a moment (almost but not entirely)? That I have found, after much self-searching, a humorous side to the worst circumstances? Do I have any right to say that? I'll let you judge for yourself. This part contains barely any traces of evil, though there is that tiny fractured bit left over...in fact, I'm told it's quite humorous. But again, judge for yourself. Enjoy.-
***
It was only after a bout of "shopping" and over a bowl of misoshiru at a deserted all-night sushi bar that X finally explained everything. She had started the day she was reborn, then ended at that very night.

Hiramiaku raised her cup of green tea to her face. “ I see.”

“ I can’t go back to Mullen,” she said, tapping her soup spoon inside the empty bowl. The bottom of the bowl was glazed with a picture of an orange koi fish.

Hiramiaku said nothing, only sipped her tea placidly. Saru was still eating, shoveling down teriyaki at an alarming pace. They had all stolen new clothes from a closed shopping center. X felt somewhat strange in the red vest, black tights, and scrunch boots they had gotten her, as if she were inhabiting a new body.

“ X001, that’s your full name,” Hiramiaku said slowly, eyes falling on the tattoo on the inside of X’s elbow. The girl tugged a wide strap of black spandex over it, a strange fashion in Paris.

Saru, mouth full, said, “ Don’t like that name.”

“ It’s a code,” explained X.

“ Uguisu-chan,” Saru suggested. He was wearing a black felt cowboy hat that hid the top half of his face. His hair was jaw-length and very deep black, swishing around as he ate.

X blinked. “ Nani?”

“ The nightingale sings best at night,” the woman said enigmatically as the sushi master returned, collecting his utensils. They were all silent, following him with their eyes as he left.

“ Your new name!” Saru announced. He seemed to be too energetic for that time in the morning.

Hiramiaku said nothing, but laid down some francs and went for the door. X and Saru followed, pulling on their coats as Hiramiaku ventured out into the street. The Bastille Day celebrations had been toned down by order of the President, and policemen lingered at almost every corner. Still, inside some of the nearby clubs, the parties continued. Saru tugged the brim of his cowboy hat down over his face.

“ We have to be careful,” she told X in Japanese. “ Tonight they’re just looking for a reason to beat some weirdo up.”

“ Where are we going?” the girl questioned.

“ Home.”
***
“ Monsieur?”

The man looked up from his pocket computer. “ Oui?”

The flight attendant smiled down at him. “ Un verre, monsieur?”

“ Non, merci,” He was very good looking, with dark hair that fell to the collar of his crisp blazer, and blue eyes hidden behind black glasses. He had a wide nose that seemed to have been broken and reset. His skin was a rich brown color, either a very good tan or genetics. He had this way of smiling that made the stewardess flush bright red.

She left, shaking. He went back to his computer, writing in an e-mail with the pen-sized wand. Yuri would want to know everything that happened. He had left Paris immediately after seeing the girl in the hospital, after she had escaped and nearly killed Dr. Hartford. He didn’t want anybody blaming him for it. He had come, done his job, and left.

His badge said Agent Rene Pourdieux.

He shut the cover of the hand computer and sat back. A stewardess, a different one, brought him a glass of Merlot and winked at him, nodding toward the first attendant, who was at the end of the aisle. Realizing he’d forgotten to tell Yuri that the girl had not exactly denied his invitation, he smiled at the stewardess. The Merlot was airline grade, but he figured maybe he’d end up screwing the stewardess in the long run.
***
“ Home” turned out to be a loft in Montmatre, a place X had never wanted to visit again in her life. A few streets were cordoned off due to the explosion, but they bypassed the clusters of police and took an alley to a large red building that looked as though it had once housed those of a bohemian lifestyle from its quaint disrepair.

Hiramiaku left the two younger ones there and disappeared back out into the day. X looked about. Its interior was very Japanese, with black fusuma screens for walls and tatami mats made of chain mail on the floors. They left their shoes in the foyer and went into the living room, which was nothing more than a red lacquer chabudai surrounded by black zabuton below a round white paper lantern hanging from the ceiling.

“ Where did Hiramiaku-sempai go?” X asked.

“ Out,” Saru replied. He wandered into the kitchen, a study in minimalist black steel, and fished through the refrigerator. He came out with a white carton of Chinese take-out and an avocado between his teeth. He offered her the carton. She took it and watched as he pulled a very long, silver knife from a steel drawer. He tossed the avocado into the air and swiped at it in a series of lightning swift movements that reminded X of a samurai.

The pieces of avocado tumbled to the black countertop, scattering.

“ You like to see Paris in afternoon?” he asked casually, popping a shred of avocado into his mouth.
***
The trees were in full bloom in Champ de Mars, and the clusters of people strolling down the green stripe of grass hummed with activity. The black steel pyre of the Eiffel Tower seemed more substantial than it ever had in pictures. The police had finally removed the banner flowing down its length that morning, consigning its considerable weight to the evidence room. It was a warm day, almost unseasonably so, and the sweat dripped down X’s temple and down her neck. She tugged at her crisp white collar.

“ Hiramiaku-sama is a mystery,” he told her in Japanese. X was quickly learning he was much more eloquent in his native tongue than in English. “ That’s why she’s my older sister.”

“ You two are siblings?”

“ No. She adopted me.” He stopped before a reflecting pool and looked down into its prismic depths. He was dressed in a complete nun’s uniform, fit with black habit, half-moon glasses, and a giant silver crucifix that hung around his neck. He had such soft lines in his face that no one would think twice. X came up beside him, studying her own reflection. She wore the plaid uniform of a Catholic girls’ school; skirt, vest, blouse, beret.

“ I used to live in a circus; that’s where I was raised,” he explained. “ I had no family, and I don’t remember my parents at all. I was just trained to be an acrobat.” He got a sudden wistful look on his face. “ Then something happened, and I had to leave.”

She didn’t bother to ask. She knew that if it was “something” she was better off not knowing. They didn’t talk for awhile.

“ You and I have some things in common,” he said, as they shuffled through the expansive halls of the Louvre later on. They paused before a painting by Nicolas Poussin, a landscape of three men crouching before a stone carved with an enigmatic message. ET IN ARCADIA EGO.

“ ‘Even in Arcadia, I,’” Saru filled in.

“ Intrusions of mortality into dreams of paradise,” X said quietly. She studied the robed woman to the side of the men, a gentle countenance, her hand softly on the back of one.

“ I grew up in the circus,” he said, reminding her. They continued in Japanese, and if it seemed suspicious that this nun and her charge spoke the language of the Land of the Rising Sun in Paris, nobody glanced back twice.

“ You get used to it, them staring at you. You’re the freak. Meat, they used to say, like you were just merchandise. They were like that with you too, right?”

X, remembering slightly the bid for her body and life in England, nodded. She looked away, puzzled at her sudden nostalgia and hate.

“ Uguisu-chan,” He pulled her into another gallery. They walked on for what felt like ages, across floors polished to mirror-bright intensity, though frantic clumps of tourists and shockingly calm natives. The surrealism was just setting in. Here she was, dressed like she could have been any good Catholic girl in Paris, escorted by a young man cross-dressed as a nun, through galleries and wings of unabashedly nude figures and paintings. It was almost as bad as Pigalle.

“ Why do you call me Uguisu?” she asked.

“ Like Hiramiaku-sama said, nightingales always sing best at night.”

They came upon a statue, white marble, or maybe alabaster, of a female angel missing its arms and head. The wings remained, spotless, spread.

X was shocked. “ Did someone…torture her?” she whispered in frightened Japanese. The tag read THE WINGED GLORY.

Saru stared at her. “ No. It’s just like that.”

“ But…why? Why decapitate and dismember her? I don’t understand.” She had more questions: Was the model that way? Or had the sculptor done that purposefully, to spite the angel?

“ It’s just that way.” He was becoming slightly impatient. “ In an accident, they lost the arms and head. That’s all.”

It still seemed obscene. “ Why didn’t they fix it? It’s just…it looks wrong that way.”

“ It wouldn’t be right to fix it.” He took her arm and pulled her along, out of the orbit that encircled the statue. Three German transvestites filled their empty place behind them. X suddenly found herself outside, sitting on the ground, a nun bringing her a paper cup of water.

Saru looked into her face. His eyes were black, very deep and small and cut directly from the ivory of his face. She hadn’t realized she was hyperventilating until he took her beret off and began fanning her face with it.

“ G-G-Gomen,” she stammered. A security guard nearby noticed them and came strolling over.

Before he could open his mouth, Saru cried out in a tinny voice, “ Elle va mieux!” and pulled X up off the ground. They staggered past the guard and out into the bright, hot sunlight. He looked after them, then noticed the beret on the ground. Grabbing it, he yelled, “ Arrêtez!”

They had already disappeared into the crowds, and ignored his cries. X noted with a small novelty that Saru was the fastest nun she’d ever seen.

He smacked his forehead with an open palm. “ That was close one,” he said in grainy English.

She laid a hand to her chest, then felt his hand grapple her arm. It was then that she saw the dark-suited police officers advancing on them from the crowd. He stepped backwards and shoved her behind him.

“ Pardon,” one officer called.

“ Can wee see some AiDee?” another said in English worse than Saru’s. Nearby tourists stared at them.

Saru looked visibly stunned. Suddenly, he reached down and grabbed up his skirt, pulling a Derringer from the inside of his pants leg. He held it up to eye level, shaking.

“ Don’t move!” he shouted in a very abrupt male voice. He bore his teeth in concentration.

The police staggered back, then drew their own weapons. X felt herself shouting out an impromptu speech on how mentally ill Sister Marlene was, but couldn’t get it past the urge to burst out in weeping laughter.

The officers were yelling orders now, telling him to lower the gun. Meanwhile, their own firearms were trained on his face. He let his arms fall. The shot went off. The air filled with purple smoke.

Saru and X blew through the cloud of gas and ran, full-speed, through the crowds like escapees from the world’s most criminally insane convent.
***
Hiramiaku was home when they returned to collapse in the foyer. She watched them with a certain degree of amusement as they attempted to sort themselves out. Saru pulled off his habit, the giant crucifix clattering to the tile.

X brushed the lint off of her knees. They had come in an old air-duct in the side of the brothel next door that led up and over the picket fence that separated the street from the alley. It had been quite narrow and dark, and more than once she had found Saru had gotten tangled in his getup and was trying to fight his own clothing.

“ Did you have an eventful day?” Hiramiaku asked patiently.

Saru nodded as X shook her head no.

[Panther]

Cool to come back from Thanksgiving break and see all these great posts!

D. of E., awesome job, as usual. I think I've seen that statute. There's a picture of a statue of a headless armless angel in a museum in Paris in my old french textbook - and there can't be too many of those, now can there? It's labeled 'la Victorie de la Samotrace' or something like that in the book. It was amazing how you had X connect with the angel. Anyway, I loved the bit with Saru the nun and X's impromptu speech on how mentally ill 'Sister Marlene' was.

Insanely funny.

Naturaly and normally I would beg for memories for X and the news from Gothom, and more meetings of old 'friends' _BUT_ I'm not. You're writing has settled into a good pace. This is clearly a marathon, while Trick or Traet was a frantic sprint. Good luck with this, wherever it may go - I have a feeling the finish line is a long way away, and impossible to see.

[Sable Phoenix]

I can't wait for the next installment, DoE. Although I must confess I didn't really get the part atop the Eifel Tower. I guess it'll fit into the grand scheme in due time, though.

[The_NewCatwoman]

Hey DoE, bloody brilliant!

Hey, this is just the kinda story I need to remind me how much my writing has to go before it's on your level. Your knowledge of the world in mind-boggling. Something public's school just don't offer, or ever have for that manner.

Have fun!:o

[Daughterof_Evil]

-I believe there was a misprinting in the last part. I wrote the statue was called THE WINGED GLORY, when in actuality it is called THE WINGED VICTORY. Kudos to Panther for pointing that out.

Thanks go out to Panth, Sable Phoenix and New Catwoman for their inspiring compliments on the story. This part really isn't very offensive, though there is some drug use. Enjoy.-
***
Ow.

She hadn’t said it, but for the first time, she thought about the pain. Saru, tongue stuck out over his top lip, removed the largest needle she’d ever seen in her life from her upper right arm. The sensation was immediately warm, slightly stinging where just now a tiny bauble of red was forming at the injection site.

“ What was that?” she asked.

“ Beef steroids,” Hiramiaku filled in. “ It will help with the Macchina withdrawal.”

The feeling wasn’t the same. The ache in her veins subsided, and there was a slight buzzing at the base of her skull, but there was no liquid tightening of the muscles. No lengthening of the tendons, the very stretching of her ligaments felt in the core of her bones. She rubbed her arm, as if it would help a little.

Hiramiaku took up a penlight from the medical kit and flashed it in X’s eyes. “ Your neurons are used to something purer,” she said. “ We’ll try to scam you some methadone, mix it in, see if that helps with the stimulant effect.”

X looked down at the floor, embarrassed, and began to play listlessly with the jade bead that hung around her neck. They had no reason to help her, other than the fact that damaging her might not be the best strategy to suit their scheme. Saru was currently checking the functions of the vidcam set into the stolen laptop they were going to use then conveniently return to an unsuspecting Czech businessman.

“ Don’t worry about it,” Hiramiaku said, placing the penlight back in the padded nylon medical kit. She was reading X’s body language, an assassin instinct. “ You’re not worth anything to us dead.”
***
“ …left. In Puntarenas, Costa Rica, a pro-Intergang rally broke out in a street market last night, fueled by local youths calling for ‘the beginning of Revolution’,” A shot of a darkened market flaring with the orange flames of lit trashcans, young boys displaying large banners made of bleach white canvas. Girls with paper roses in their hair chanted, shaking their fists to the sky.

“ Costa Rican riot police broke up the gathering, but the chants continued far into the night as the fractured groups of students branched out into residential neighborhoods and were met with the force of local militias. Surprisingly, only two youths were injured,”

The British woman paused briefly, gathering her composure as the scenes of flashing black and orange split into a cheerfully blue newsdesk. “ All Intergang forces in Paris have seemed to go dormant for the time being, which leads to speculation that some kind of dissention has occurred within the ranks. The cleanup from the Bastille Day bombing is thought to be finished by next week.”

A group of travelers had clustered before the floor-to-ceiling screen, and now they began to dissipate as the anchorwoman moved on to worldwide entertainment affairs. Agent Pourdieux moved through the crowds with the unassuming stealth of one who controlled his own body language at all times. Shoulders hunched slightly, arms swinging at his sides, the dark folds of his trenchcoat blooming out around his legs with every step. He could feel a tendon in his thigh twinge as he went, diving faster into a group of German tourists. He had been shot in that very leg half a year earlier, and every time he felt them coming upon him, it blazed bright with pain.

He attempted to nudge in beside the aging Berliner patriarch, but a firm hand came down on his shoulder. There wasn’t even a flash of black sunglasses before he turned and made a move like he was kindly brushing a piece of lint from his attacker’s necktie. He stabbed the hypodermic needle directly into the jugular vein, and the man fell to the floor immediately.

He turned on heel and joined back up with the Germans. His leg felt slightly better as he swerved into a bathroom. There would be more, he thought grimly as he locked himself in a stall, hopped atop a toilet, and punched out a ceiling tile. They always came in pairs.
***
“ Sir!”

Mullen, head bowed, face in one hand, ignored her.

“ Mullen-sensei, sir!” cried Darby Whitacre. He looked up. She was standing in the doorway, straight and tall, arms at her side. There was a rumor she had once been in the American military, but had defected. This only strengthened the effect.

“ What is it, Whitacre?” he asked.

“ We’ve received a transmission from those who have Agent X001,” she said, her voice brimming with excitement.

He sat up and leaned forward. “ Interpol?”

“ Not Interpol,” A lanky, pale Bavarian boy handed her a laptop. “ Here, sir. See for yourself.”

He took the laptop and set it on his desk. The screen was dominated by a large blue square with a play button. He clicked on it. The square burst to life.

“ KON NICHI’WA, MINNA-SAN!”

“ Oh, God, no,” he said grimly.

The square filled with the face of Hiramiaku, all delicate, flawless Indian skin and onyx-black eyes, fringed with the fine line of her flame-red hair. She looked strangely hypnotic, deadly and cool, when she was excited.

“ I understand you have lost a bit of equipment, Mullen-san,” she said, standing back from the camera and crossing her arms over her chest. Behind her, that pale, strange boy Saru stuck his tongue out at him.

She was shaking her finger now, but Saru going through a series of bizarre monkey faces behind her distracted the eye.

“ Very careless of you to forget where you put things,” she scolded earnestly, “ though I commend you for putting your name on your property…”

The camera moved, drastically, to the side, and showed a placid-looking X sitting on a wooden crate. She was dressed in a red Chinese vest and black tights with black boots, tinkering with a piece of jade she wore around her neck on a leather thong.

“ Say hello, Uguisu-chan,” Hiramiaku guided off-screen. X looked directly into the camera and waved.

“ Kon nichi’wa,” she said calmly.

“ The demand is this:” The camera swooped back around. Hiramiaku remained stationary, while Saru walked on his hands behind her, his legs bowed over his back and his baggy pants falling to show his thin, pale ankles. “ Leave Paris immediately and allow us to pick it clean, or we undo three months of psychological conditioning and turn X001 into our pawn.”

She smiled widely, mouth closed. Saru fell over beside her.

“ Don’t think we cannot do it,” the boy said, pushing himself up off the floor. Typical for him, he was wearing a crazy grin plastered across his face.

“ So that’s the plan, Mullen. You’ll know better than to send any of your fancy rigs after us. Remember last time, in Budapest? I turned that one chick into sashimi and sent her home in a shoe box.” She became very serious. “ Don’t make me do it again.”

The square dissolved into static. Darby, at the door, straightened herself out.

“ What do we do now, sir?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything. Mullen sank back into his former position, elbow on the armrest of his chair, hand fanned out over the top half of his face. His brow crinkled behind his fingers.

“ Pack up,” he ordered. “ We’re leaving.”
***
Dust still clung to his trenchcoat from when he had shimmied through the ventilation system of the airport, but now that he was out in the street it was beginning to fall off into the gutter in grey clumps. He checked the lambskin bag at his side, then began working himself into the old mould of his alter ego.

He turned into one of Gotham’s more quaint side streets; roving, narrow brick-laid alleys made to seem like the tiny passageways of Vernazza or Naples. One side was the camouflaged line of gated loft entrances, the other a series of out-door bistros nearly abandoned in the unseasonably warm weather. Agent Pourdieux who, in effect, had metamorphosed into another man, took a seat in one of these and advised a waiter to bring him a scotch.

At a table next to his, a mustached man in a blue sweater vest read a newspaper whose headline spelled out, dramatically, THE BEGINNING OF REVOLUTION.

He leaned back in his chair. The mustached man made no obvious attempt to signal back.

“ Heinrich?” he whispered. “ Leicht entflammbar,”

The mustached man blinked from behind dark sunglasses. “ Yes?”

“ I have come with what you asked.”

“ Leave it next to the chair.” He was brusque and German, no doubt the same man Yuri had sent him here to contact. He dropped the lambskin case inconspicuously next to the iron-wrought chair.

“ The girl is in Paris. With a few people I know.”

Heinrich nodded.

“ The case is airtight. You can go through the sewer if you want.”

“ You are dismissed,” Heinrich whispered, rustling his paper to hide the sound of his voice.

The waiter dropped the scotch in front of the Parisian. He looked up.

“ I didn’t want ice,” he scolded. The waiter bowed his head, took the glass, and disappeared.

He got up from his seat and left the bistro, and the man who had been there dissolved away and Agent Pourdieux took control again. Heinrich didn’t watch him leave the alley and assimilate back into the crowds. He checked his watch, folded his newspaper, and got up to leave, case in hand.

About two blocks away and in another alley, Heinrich got into a chocolate brown vintage sports car and took off in a direction out of the city. He pulled onto a side road, one that wound along the perilous edge of a cliff that dove straight down into the bay. It was late afternoon, and the bloody sky of Gotham was slashed through with yellow gore as the sun dipped too low on the horizon.

A moulded console in the faux wood dashboard of the tiny European car beeped. Heinrich stabbed a flashing red button on its face.

“ Good hunting?” asked a solemn British accent.

“ Surprisingly so,” Heinrich answered in a bored American drawl. “ He didn’t even take time to notice I wasn’t who I said I was. I think he was being pursued.”

“ By whom?”

“ I’m not sure. He could be a rogue agent, and the real agency could be trying to eliminate him. Or it’s just Intergang.”

“ I looked up this man’s name with the International Crime and Police Organization. Agent Rene Pourdieux doesn’t work with Interpol.”

“ A fake.”

“ Exactly. Now, if I might ask, what would you like for dinner, Master Bruce?”

[Panther]

No name and evil twins, hmm? Thanks for the inforamtion - and the laugh. :D Both helped. A lot.

Now for this...this...this truly dizziying post. Excellent twist at the end. I never saw it coming. And I had almost forgotten to never get comfortable when your in charge of the plot! And I was wondering about the macchina withdrawel. Why does beef steriods sound worse to me? I gues I'm just squimish. There's always at least one scaene in ER that I have to look away. This was a very satisfying post. Jam packed and setting us up for clashes. I loved the international feel. You are obviosuly very well read.

later,

[Sable Phoenix]

LOVE the appearance of Bruce and Alfred at the end!

Question: How do you insert so many languages into your story? If you actually read and write French, German, and Japanese, well, hats off to you, and you're smarter than I am. But if not, where do you get the phrases and words you need, and how do you make sure to get the grammar and syntax right?

[Daughterof_Evil]

Thank you so much for the great enthusiasm! I always get a fuzzy, warm feeling when I see your name next to a post. To get such high marks from a pro like you is absolutely amazing.

And calling me well read! I have learned so much from you, to look outside the borders of Gotham for inspiration, to create the intricate character associations and plot twists of your fabled stories, to build people in my stories that you can love and hate. I owe you a great deal. Give yourself a big ol' pat on the back, Panth.

I love putting characters under cover. That's just one of my passions, along with assassins. I've been reading a lot of spy books lately, and watching a lot of spy movies/TV shows. Have you ever seen the show Alias? Pretty good, with some great tech advice. And the always classic ER. Don't feel bad! I find myself looking away sometimes, too.

Thanks again, and good luck with your future stories!

[Daughterof_Evil]

Thanks for the compliments. I do not fluently speak French, German, or Japanese, but I have a great deal of dictionaries and on-line help when I feel it necessary to insert a language other than English. Watching a ton of anime helps with the Japanese, as well!

[The_NewCatwoman]

Can't say I expected Bruce to pop up at first, but once he got to the cliff, Wayne Manor exploded into full veiw, and I knew Brucie was playing dress-up again. Excellent, the only part I thought was kinda odd, was when Hiramiaku was boasting about slicing and dicing a woman in Budapest. I guess my stomach is just too used to the worst. I guess that's why I love watching those doctor shows.