[This story is a prequel, set several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Updates now planned to be biweekly–next update is scheduled for November 30th.]

Previous: Part 4



Journeyman cooked and talked, with frequent pauses to mutter at the food, while Flicker sat at the kitchen table tapping at her handcomp. She’d changed out of her costume into shorts and a T-shirt with a yellow hazard sign triangle containing an exclamation point, and he had swapped his cuffed shirt for what looked like a faded band shirt showing a group of four blurry humanoid blobs. It appeared to be a reference to an old joke; if You’ve Probably Never Heard of Them by Really Obscure was an actual album, it wasn’t in the Database.

“The Box released their vid,” she said. "They wanted it on the news so people would believe Hermes isn’t on Earth anymore. And since they can’t talk to me, lots of reporters want to talk to the magician instead, but he isn’t answering calls. They’re saying he’s rumored to be a heavy drinker, which sounds like a smear attempt?“

"Might be,” said Journeyman, while stirring at the frying pan. "But it’s very likely true. That’s just how the Box operates.“

"What do you mean?”

“The Box needs at least a few magicians with basic skill at wards for security. And they want ones who are competent, experienced, and can pass a background check, because skimping on any of that is just asking for trouble. But the Box is an incredibly depressing place to work if you’re at all psychically sensitive, before you even consider their workplace culture and management history. So almost anyone qualified can make a far more palatable living somewhere else.”

He waved the spatula. "Unless they’ve got other problems. And the Box will tolerate high-functioning alcoholism. Usually they have other health issues, too, because the one thing the Box does have is really good health coverage–if they didn’t, nobody would work there.“

"That’s… discouraging.”

“Very little about the Box isn’t. But you’re supposed to be off-duty.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Flicker. "Doc says the probability manipulation anomaly seems to have died down, at least. And whatever you’re fixing is starting to smell good. I guess I am hungry.“

"Thought so,” said Journeyman.

“Cooking wasn’t something that fit with my mental model of you. You can port to get food anywhere.”

“Yes, and I often do.” He grinned. "But porting is also very handy when I discover I’m missing a spice or ingredient. Want to know how I started?“

"Of course I do.” Journeyman had a talent for telling stories that helped Flicker unwind, and he liked to talk while he worked.

“Well, a number of years ago–you’ll note I’m being deliberately vague about how many–I was doing a lot of alchemy delivery work…”

Whatever Journeyman had done with the garlic and onions might not be magic, but it smelled good enough to be.

“… despaired of ever being more than mediocre at potion-making,” said Journeyman. "But the witch, and I want you to picture her like someone’s nice grandmother–except with a little glint in her eye that told you she just might have been a resistance fighter during the war or something–asked if I wanted to know the secret to practicing alchemy. I said I did, and she leaned closer and whispered ‘Learn to cook’. So I did.“

Flicker smiled. "Does it actually help?”

Journeyman started scooping food onto plates. "They’re different arts. But once you’ve learned alchemy, it does help, because they have a lot of skills and habits in common. And cooking ingredients are a lot easier to get. Safer, too. I’m still only average at alchemy, at best–it takes decades to get really skilled–but I’ve been getting better. And I like cooking better than alchemy.“

He brought the plates to the table. "Dinner is served.”

Silence for a time while they ate. Living at normal speed, in the present. Something Flicker hadn’t done much of lately.

“This is really good,” she said. "Thank you.“

"No problem.”

She finished eating first and put her plate in the sink. Then she sped up and checked her handcomp while she waited for Journeyman. She ran through her Database self-check and reminders list. A lot there that she’d been putting off, waiting for a better time, or for Journeyman to finally be done with his interdimensional mess. She slowed back down and watched as he finished.

“All right,” he said after clearing the table, “You wanted to hear the rest of my reason. Back to the living room?”

“Yeah.”

Flicker sat on the couch with her handcomp in her lap, facing him. His smile from dinner faded, and he looked tired and worried.

He clasped his hands and stared at them. "There are a couple of things I noticed that add up in an unpleasant way. At least for me. That’s why I said it was personal. This is based on my own judgement. We clear on that?“

Flicker frowned. "I didn’t expect anything different.”

“First, I saw something in your visor replay that bothered me. Still bothers me.”

“What?”

“Right at the start.” Journeyman looked up at her again. "I know you’ve had some serious arguments with Doc. But he knows you pretty well, and he’s the smartest man in the world. He knew about summoning boomerangs. He knew there might be trouble at the Box–he was on the phone to them in what, 20 seconds?“

Journeyman waved a hand. "But what did he do, in the first two seconds after the alert hit? What was the most vital priority for the smartest man in the world?”

Flicker swallowed. "He reminded me that Hermes was a person.“

"Yeah.” Journeyman took a breath. "And you said the Database AI intervened too? You didn’t slow down for that part.“

"DASI. Yes.”

“And did either Doc or this DASI give you even a hint about potential boomerang trouble or problems at the Box until you were already well on the way? They had time; you stopped to let Hermes talk twice.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Doc knew you’d be able to stop Hermes. And was worried enough he’d get away to take steps to try to prevent it. But it looks to me like the top priority was keeping you from killing him. Because Doc wasn’t sure you wouldn’t.”

“It was the right thing to do,” said Flicker. "I was really burned out when the alert hit. And disconnected–I was depersonalizing everything, including myself, to reduce the emotional load from my shift. To try to recover. And the word 'demon’ is way too broad. This is not an abstract problem for me. Some aren’t as smart as dogs. Some are as smart as most humans. And I’ve killed demons. I’m pretty sure they were just the stupid, evil kind–but I don’t know. I have to make decisions with my high speed mind, which has another categorization problem related to them that I don’t fully understand yet. And the extra strain of trying to work around it makes everything harder. So I do have a problem with prejudice, and I’m not sure how to fix it.“

"I understand,” said Journeyman. "And you have a lot of company in that prejudice. Probably a majority of humans who have an opinion about demons at all. There are evil demons, good demons, smart ones, and stupid ones. Demons with free will, and ones with very little volition–often not by their choice. Ones that start out stupid and get smarter, and a few that go the other way. Demons that look human, demons that don’t, ones that can shapeshift and mimic, ones that can’t. I could keep going. But there’s no line that anyone can draw and with any reasonable justification say 'every demon on this side of the line is a person; every one on the other side isn’t’, and believe me, people have been trying for centuries. This doesn’t stop the line drawing. It just gets used as an excuse for more hostility.“

"I don’t try to draw a line,” said Flicker. "But the lack of one does makes my categorization problem worse.“

Journeyman nodded. "Yeah. And your problems weren’t all clear to me when I agreed to become your partner, and asked for backup in case I was attacked by 'demons’, while working on something I had no idea would turn into a mess lasting more than a year. I’m sorry about that, and I owe you. One of the things I owe you is not making things worse if I can help it. Speculating about the non-human part of your origin in a way that would make you angry even if I were right? And just might cause you to be inclined to go kill someone because you consider them a demon and think they’re your mother? Yeah, not helpful. So I won’t do it.”

Flicker stayed at normal speed; this was an emotional problem, not an intellectual one. Speeding up wouldn’t help. The anger was trying to come back. She handled it. And her background fear that she’d do something destructive by accident or overreaction was still present. It never went away completely , and she never tried to dismiss it. She didn’t dare. So if Journeyman had some of the same worries? It certainly wasn’t a reason to be angry at him.

“Okay,” she said. "I can accept that. And you did answer my other questions. Which helps.“

"I’m willing to help in other ways. You want to learn more about non-human people and all the challenges they face that don’t get into the high-quality data parts of the Database? And why they don’t? I can tell you lots about that. You want to learn about some of the mind-bending and frustrating issues that come with dueling diviners and background probability manipulation, from the perspective of a magician? Sure thing. But there are some limits.”

“I understand. You’re being… diplomatic? There are a lot of things that are mixed together that we haven’t talked about. That we need to. Tonight probably isn’t the best time, though.”

“No argument there.”

“You said you need to check on some things. Can you do that from here, or do you need to port around?”

“I was planning on doing it from here. I’m wiped enough that I’d rather not do a bunch of porting. Why?”

“Because I need to do some memory assimilation before I sleep if I don’t want to lose details–it’s been a long day–and I’m already at a warning level for social isolation, but I don’t want to be around most people. You don’t bother me. So I don’t want to leave yet. Is that okay?”

“Sure, but there might be some muttering and swearing under my breath. Will that be a problem?”

“No. It will just be you.”

Journeyman stood and looked over at his computer and the group of phones connected to chargers beside it. "Well, I guess I’ve run out of excuses not to look at the dumpster fires in my message drops.“

Flicker put on her night visor and moved a pillow so she could stretch out comfortably on the couch. "Good luck.”

“Thanks. Hopefully a lot of them will just be 'Hey, do you know what your partner did?’”

“Doc has a Database bot for handling messages complaining about me. I can help you set one up if you want.”

“Tomorrow, maybe,” said Journeyman as he sat down at his computer.

Flicker focused on her visor display, and started work on the exercises she used to help integrate her high speed memories with her normal speed ones in a way that retained as much as possible of what she considered important. Journeyman’s typing and quiet, mildly incredulous muttering were a pleasant, familiar background.

She finished her first pass, and started adding odds and ends. Little millisecond-long glimpses of Rome, tiny slices of a place that she could perhaps revisit someday…

*****

Dreams, pleasant ones for once. Exploring, with Journeyman, free for a little while of the driving urgency to stop bad things from happening.

*****

Flicker woke in darkness. She moved her arm; the bed was… not a bed. She was on a couch. Journeyman’s couch. She rubbed her eyes, then turned on her night visor, which had shut down automatically. No alerts or emergencies, one message notice.

Squishy brain was fuzzy, speed mind was not fully loaded–just emergency response and recovery defaults. She sorted out a few relevant memories of the previous day and sat up. A sticky note had been placed in a spot that drew her eye. It turned out to say the same thing as the message:

Flicker: Didn’t want to wake you. Food and drinks are in the fridge. If you need to leave and aren’t in a hurry, please wake me so I can reset the ward on the front door. I’m down the hall, just knock on the door. You can also wake me if you need anything else.

–J

She didn’t need to wake him; the light amplification from her night visor was sufficient to let her find the bathroom. After washing her hands, she washed her face and considered the tired-looking stranger in the mirror. Dissociation–but putting herself together after waking always took a little time and effort. Not worth it right now.

She went back out into the hallway and stopped, frowning. The door to the bedroom was ajar. Why would he tell her to knock if it was open? She glided into the bedroom. Her mind was still fuzzy.

Journeyman was sleeping on his side at one edge of the bed. Did he usually sleep with the door open? He’d emphasized the importance of closed doors to wards…

He knew how she felt about doors. Was it open because of her?

She remembered what he’d said when she’d asked if he was expecting an attack: 'Certainly not with you here.’

Did he feel safer… without that barrier between them?

She looked at the other side of the bed. There was plenty of room.

He would never suggest it. She understood that much.

She glided over to the far side of the bed and carefully got under the covers. But the slight movement of the mattress was still enough to wake him.

“Mmph?” he said.

“It’s just me,” she said. "It’s safe.“

"Flicker?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

A sudden whuff of air, a shift of the mattress as weight lifted, and covers fluttering down.

He’d ported out.

Not safe.

Next: Part 6

