“I get the sense that you’re not listening to me,” said Odette.
“I’m listening to you, ’Dette,” said Marie. She awkwardly deposited her bottles on the table, sat down, lifted one to her lips, and began taking measured gulps, but some still spilled down her mouth onto her designer suit. After a few moments, she asked, “Why do they want you to conceal your face?”
“Because I look like I got microwaved!” exclaimed Odette, pulling off the hat. She was well aware that her face would not have launched a thousand ships — unless they were trying to get away from the sight of her. The cream the Checquy had given her did a good deal to deaden the pain and keep things sterile, but it glistened on her burns and made them look even worse. The EA gave a little gasp, but Ernst and Marie seemed curiously unmoved. He continued his writing, and Marie continued to chug down water like a large man back from a run on a summer’s day. “I hope I don’t have to explain to you that this is not what I looked like when I left this morning.”
“We were notified of what happened,” said Marie. “We were going to talk about it afterward. Has Marcel looked at you yet?”
“No, he’s still at Apex House,” said Odette.
“Well, you’re a doctor. Tell us, are you going to die?”
“No,” said Odette sullenly. She could see where this was going.
“Will you be crippled in some way?”
“No.”
“Are you going to be permanently disfigured?”
“No.”
“Then stop complaining,” said Marie. “Yes, you look like something out of Italian cuisine, but you’ll get over it.”
“I had a terrible experience!” said Odette petulantly. “I might have mental trauma.”
“No such thing,” said Ernst dismissively without even looking up from his papers. “It’s just people being soft.”
“Soft? Did you hear what happened to me?”
“Yes,” said Marie. “You went prospecting in a whale or something, and it turned out not to be dead.”
“It wasn’t a whale,” said Odette. “It was a creature unlike anything I’ve seen before. Huge.”
“That sounds fascinating,” said Marie, taking a break from her swilling.
“What was particularly interesting was the fact that in the middle of it was a space with a chair containing a dead naked person with protruding head nodules and pallid white skin.”
At this revelation, Marie choked and spat a torrent of water across the table and onto Ernst.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” said Odette, “that reaction was incredibly satisfying.”
“An... Antagonist?” Marie coughed.
“Yes.”
“Do the members of the Checquy understand the nature of their discovery?” asked Ernst intently.
“No, they have no idea,” said Odette. “They were talking about mermen.”
“Mermen?” repeated Ernst blankly. “Are there such things?”
“No one knows,” said Odette. “But the possibility means they’ll be looking at this very closely. Grootvader, you have to tell them about the attacks.”
“Out of the question,” said Ernst. He looked down at his papers and made an irritated sound. The deluge of water from Marie had smeared his notes. He began writing them out again.
“The Antagonists are more powerful and have more resources than we realized,” said Odette. “That creature must be how they entered the country, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“We have,” said Ernst grimly.
“You knew the Antagonists had something like this? Of course you did! You have to tell the Checquy!”
“This problem will be solved shortly,” said Marie.
“Are you sure?” asked Odette. “Because at the moment, things are set to become very bad very soon. And why are you drinking like you’re a fat person at a rave?”
“I have to make a secure connection to the Chimerae in Wales,” said Marie before swigging down the last of the third bottle and reaching for the final one. “It’s massively dehydrating.”
“I didn’t know you had communication implants,” said Odette, surprised. The Grafters could install devices that allowed the user to connect to the World Wide Web with his or her mind. Such devices tended to be limited to executive assistants, aides, and bodyguards because they took up so much space in people’s bodies. Older, more senior Grafters — those who were important enough to have executive assistants, aides, and bodyguards — were accustomed to conducting their long-distance conversations through the mouths of their entourages. The support staff channeled communications, acting as untraceable speakerphones. “With your combat abilities, how do you have room?”
“Marcel installed them,” said Marie. “They’re not standard, and they’re not complete. This is why I have to drink my own body weight before I do this.”
“What’s the phone number?” asked Odette curiously.
“I’m not telling you that,” said Marie. “I don’t want you drunk-dialing my brain at four in the morning because you’ve lost your purse and need a ride home.”
“I only did that once,” said Odette.
“You were in Germany, I was in Belgium,” said Marie.
“And I was very grateful. We all were.” She shut up then. It just happens, she thought. I forget for a moment about everything I’ve lost, everyone I’ve lost, and then a simple comment brings it all back.
“I expect seeing that body in the whale was hard,” said Marie quietly. She put her hand on Odette’s shoulder. “It must have brought back some very painful memories.”
“Just of the worst day of my life.” Odette shrugged. She sighed. “Anyway, I thought you should know about the creature and the... the Antagonist.”
“Thank you,” said Marie. “We’ll talk about it later.” She chuckled. “Your bodyguard must have had a fit.”
“She was not best pleased. And that reminds me,” said Odette. “I want a different bodyguard.”
“Why?” asked Marie.
“Because Felicity Clements is a bitch. She’s rude, she’s domineering, and I think she’s a psychopath. I don’t want to have to deal with her, and I don’t want her in my suite. If I must have a bodyguard, can you please ask the Checquy for a new one?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Ernst. “The Checquy could take it as an insult.”
“Good!” shouted Odette. “She threatened to break my ankles!”
“Oh, we’ve all wanted to break your ankles at some point or another,” said Marie dismissively. “Or at least your jaw.” Odette found herself making a peculiar gobbling sound of outrage.
“If she actually does break your ankles, come back here and talk to me,” said Ernst, returning to his papers. He paused and thought for a moment. “Well, give me a call, anyway.”
*
“So your brain was inside a monster,” said Alessio in fascination.
“My mind, not my brain,” said Felicity. “They didn’t saw open my skull or anything.”
“And then the monster came alive.”
“Yes. They moved my body while I was out,” said the Pawn. “Apparently, they were worried that the beast might crush the observation pavilion.”
“And did it?” asked Alessio.
“Oh, sure,” said Felicity. She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Twenty seconds after they got my body out of there, the whole structure was crushed like an egg. The attending doctor’s leg was broken. Then the troops sliced off the creature’s lower jaw with my mind in it. After the flesh died and I could get out, I tried to get back to my body, but all I could find were the shattered remnants of the pavilion.” Without opening her eyes, she took a sip of Talisker 12. “If I’d had access to my heart, I would have had a heart attack.”
The memory of that frantic mental scrabbling through the hangar hung in her head: The fear that she would find her body crushed and ruined. The knowledge that if she had found her corpse, she would have slid back into it, willingly snuffing out her spirit rather than existing as a ghost. Is that something to be ashamed of?
“Eventually I found myself, obviously, but it took a while. I opened my eyes to find my face completely shellacked with my own drool, and a huge hulking Irishman standing over me with a machete at my throat.”
“What did you do?”
“I broke his nose,” said Felicity tiredly.