Chapter 3: Sigma
"What ya' workin' on, Sig?" A blond young man with a Jersey Shore haircut pokes his head around the door frame of the tiny apartment bedroom, a beaming smile adorning his face. The young woman sitting in the lotus position in the middle of the precious floorspace doesn't open her eyes to answer.
"Personal project," she replies curtly. "Who let you in here?"
"Well lets see," he steps fully into the frame and taps his chin in mock consideration. "It couldn't have been you, Sig, and the only other person who lives here is my girlfriend, so..." He snaps his fingers. "Wait, I think I figured it out!"
"It's Sigma, if you please," the girl says. God, Onyx is a tool. She picks herself up and runs a hand back through her wavy, black hair, which reaches just to the top of her shoulders. "Now that you've broken my concentration, is there anything I can do for you?"
Onyx ignores her question. "Meditation and quiet reflection don't really seem like your style, Sig."
Sigma crosses her arms over her wiry frame. "You realize I chose this name for a reason, right? It's only two syllables long, man. I won't allow for some asinine truncation."
He cocks an eyebrow far too steeply to not be sarcastic. "And what reason is that?"
She starts to sit back down and closes her eyes again. "I'll tell you when you stop being a dumb shit. Now go pork your girlfriend. I'm busy."
Onyx bows out into the hallway. "Already have! Ka-kow!" He strikes a muscle-man pose before continuing down the hall. "See ya later, Sig!"
Dick.
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An hour later, Sigma is still sitting in the floor of her tiny room (with the door firmly shut). She is nearly perfectly motionless, with the exception of her eyes, which move rapidly behind closed eyelids. They reflect the movement of her mind's eye. It is searching both within and without, sifting through her consciousness and even the depths of her soul. Searching for a Revelation.
Sigma opens her green eyes, a new secret of the Mystery made clear to her. She smirks. Okay, lets try this out. Looking down, she turns the palm-sized, steel pentacle that hangs from her neck over in her hand. She begins a chant. The words are foreign-sounding and tumble a bit clumsily out of her mouth, but she has practiced the language diligently, and completes the spell with an important phrase. Find Helga Kirchenbaum.
Suddenly, her will pierces through the Tapestry of Creation, and her perception comes to rest upon the Pattern of a young woman still resting in bed in the middle of the day. It's her. Sigma smiles warmly. The Army got you pretty buff, huh? You should have told me you were out. Glad to see you're safe, though. You stay safe until I can figure out how to get us together. See you soon, sis. She gently touches Helga's shoulder, and then closes the scrying window, her senses returning to her little apartment.
Now for Hilda. Sigma once again casts the scrying spell, this time seeking out her youngest sister. Only something wrong happens. As her consciousness prepares to leap through Space, it tries to jump in two directions at once, nearly tearing her mind in half. "Shit!" she cries aloud, interrupting her casting and clutching her cranium.
"Is everything alright?" a muffled, female voice calls from elsewhere in the apartment.
"No," she replies, her head still resting in her hand. "Get me some ibuprofen."
Within a couple of minutes Sigma's roommate opens the door, a glass of water in one hand and bottle of pills in the other. She is an African-American woman of similar age as Sigma, with her hair pulled back in a bun and an expression of concern on her face. Like Sigma, she wears regular street clothes, though is more averagely built than the sinewy girl in the floor. "What happened? Did you Paradox yourself again?"
"I don't think so, Iris." She reaches out for the medicine, quickly popping four pills and downing them with the water. Handing the glass and bottle back to Iris, she returns to cradling her head, which still throbs with pain. "But I think I've got something a little weird to look into."
"Does this have something to do with your 'project'?"
"Yeah. I wasn't expecting anything like this to happen, though. I was just trying to make some progress with Space so I could, you know...check up on some people." Sigma very reluctantly mumbles that last phrase.
Iris smiles widely. "So you do have a personal life. We were starting to wonder. No one has seen you attend to anything but Mysterium business since we formed this cabal."
Sigma finally and slowly gets up to sit herself on the bed. "Listen, this is about family, and you'll understand if I want to keep Sleeper relations and cabal matters as separate as possible." She flops her head down onto the pillow, stretching her body across the bed.
"Don't worry, I get it. Just don't hesitate to call if things get hairy, okay?"
"I won't. I'd appreciate it if we could keep the personal nature of this venture between us, though. Just tell the cabal I got called off on a favor by an old master or something."
"Sure," Iris nods.
Sigma's words are now beginning to slur with the weight of half-sleep. "Whatever happened just now really took it out of me. I think I need to sleep. I've got some digging to do in the morning."
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Spending the past couple of years studying as an occultist for her order has taught Sigma a few things about finding information. The core of the Mysterium's mission is to collect the world's arcane knowledge, and as an occultist, these kinds of anomalous investigations are right up Sigma's alley. There was no trace of Awakened magic on the sympathetic link between Sigma and her sister. She would have seen it. And yet, scrying on Hilda seems all but impossible. Her work is filled with phenomena that defy her usual understanding, and she has learned to adapt.
Finding Hilda, then, turns out to be not so difficult compared to some of her other marks. Sigma still has the name of the temp agency Hilda worked at when she dropped contact, and from there it was just a few quick phone calls and directory look-ups to find out where she works. Now Sigma sits on a bus stop bench across from the typical glass tower office building, fiddling with her phone to look busy. She's just in time for the workers to arrive from their morning commute. She watches the glass entrance for a couple of minutes, noting the sharp office dress of most of the employees who enter, and also the pass-card lock on the door. She would still look a little casual standing next to any of them even in her old Sunday best that she now wears. Better make this quick.
When the next man approaches the door, Sigma pockets her phone and stares intently while he produces his employee I.D. With her mage's eyes, she spots the magnetic strip, reading the field emanating from it. Yoink. She waits another minute after he enters before getting up and strolling across the street to the front of the building. Okay, calm down. It's not some government facility; it's an office. No one will notice once you're in. With a few furtive glances around, Sigma traces a finger down the slit of the card reader, and is promptly rewarded with a little green light and the click of the opening lock. With a little push and a satisfied "Hmph," she's inside.
It's a straight shot through the polished lobby to the elevators, and Sigma wastes no time making a beeline for them, trying her best to look like any other rushed employee. Most of the other workers have already arrived, so she enjoys a solo ride to Hilda's floor. She hurriedly steps out on her stop only to immediately halt. There, sitting behind the reception desk, was Hilda. Outside the elevator, hallways stretch both left and right, each turning a corner beyond which Sigma suspected the maze of cubicles and offices to lie. The mini-lobby that she finds herself in contains only the reception desk and the elevators, which suits her just fine.
"Hey."
Hilda looks up from a piece of mail she was reading, her expression changing from indifference to displeasure at the sight of her sister. "What are you doing here?"
Sigma approaches the desk, speaking softly to avoid attention from the nearby office space. "I need to talk to you about something."
"Well, whatever it is, I don't want to hear it. Run back to your creepy cult friends." Her voice drips with contempt.
"Listen," Sigma leans in closely. "Something weird is going on, and until I figure out what, you might be in danger."
"Piss off. I blacklisted you because I was tired of hearing shit like this. Go now or I buzz security." Hilda's voice remains low, but is positively seething. Seeing little choice, Sigma turns back to the elevator, thankful that it opens immediately after touching the call button.
Once the doors close and she's headed back down towards the lobby, she finally chokes up. How could she be so cruel? The only family we have is each other. Hurt gives way to frustration as she realizes she's no closer to understanding what is blocking her scrying. Even upon personal inspection, Sigma could detect no trace of magic on her sister or any abnormalities in her aura. She storms angrily back through the main lobby, scrambling her brains for a lead. In her frustration and near-despair over family relations, she bursts out of the front door, slamming into another woman dressed for the office and knocking her to the ground.
"Oh, shit! Sorry ma'am, let me help you up..." She leans down to help the woman only to freeze in her tracks when she catches sight of the woman's face. It's Hilda, only slightly paler and thinner than just previously.
"...Helen?"
Sigma is dumbfounded, staring blankly at this other Hilda while she picks herself up off the sidewalk. "Huh?" Suspecting some kind of trickery, she peers into the girl's Pattern for signs of a spell, but finds none. She is just beginning to notice something off in the girl's aura when she is nearly knocked over herself in a rather forceful embrace.
"Helen! I can't believe it's you! I had no idea how I was gonna find you."
"Ack! Get off!" After a few seconds of squirming the other Hilda releases her, and Sigma pushes her off. "Who are you?"
"What? I don't look that different, do I?" Hilda self-consciously touches her face as if checking that it's still there. "It's your sister, Hilda!"
"Nope. My sister is in there." She indicates the office building with a thumb over the shoulder.
Hilda's eyes go wide and she leans closer to whisper. "You've seen it? Does it really look like me?"
"Cut the crap. I know you're not human."
Now it's Hilda's turn to be dumbfounded. "How?"
"I can tell these things." Sigma is whispering too now, though so aggressively that it doesn't do much to lower her volume. "Now you better be straight with me and tell me what you think you're doing wearing Hilda's face, or we're going to have a problem."
A tremor makes itself apparent in Hilda's voice, and she goes even paler. "Can we talk about this somewhere slightly more private? Let me get you a coffee or something."
Sigma doesn't believe in weird coincidences when it comes to the supernatural. Certain that this woman has something to do with her investigation, she agrees.
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"Okay, start talking," Sigma commands. The two girls sit across from one another in a coffee shop not too far down the street from the office. Their table sits tucked into a back corner, away from the scant few customers who come in between breakfast and lunch. Only Hilda actually has a drink in front of her.
"You're gonna say this is bullshit, but you need to just let me say it. Okay, Helen?"
"Don't call me that." Though she agreed to talk, Sigma is in no mood to be sweet talked by this mysterious thing that won't even show it's real face.
"Why not? It's your name."
"Not to you, it's not."
"Then what is?" Hilda asks, sipping her coffee.
"Sigma."
"That's a dumb codename."
Sigma growls. "I don't think you understand your situation. I will hurt you if you don't start explaining yourself."
"Fine, jeez. You always were too serious."
"And I thought it was obvious that I know you're not my sister, so stop acting like you know me. I told you I know you're not human."
"And neither is the thing working my job down the street." Hilda is starting to sound a little frustrated herself. "You want to know what's up? Fine, here it is. I am Hilda, your sister. I've been gone since mom's funeral, and any other Hilda you've known since then is a fake. It only seems human to you because it was designed that way."
To Hilda's surprise, Sigma seems hardly phased. "If that's the case, then why would you be the one who seems inhuman to me?"
Hilda's eyes sink to the tabletop. "Because I'm not human anymore. I've been changed, Helen. You know I've been trying to contact Helga, too? I've been giving her nightmares instead. It's hard to explain, but it's like I get something out of it when it happens. Isn't that fucked up?"
Sigma is suddenly much more receptive. "What do you mean 'you gave her nightmares'?"
"Exactly what I said. I went into her dreams, and ended up scaring the shit out of her. It keeps happening every time. I swear I'm only trying to get in contact, but something comes over me."
"You went into her dreams?"
"Yeah. I've been trying with you, too, actually. Doesn't seem to work for some reason."
Because I'm Awakened, no doubt. Sigma very nearly said that aloud. "Thankfully, it would seem."
"Oh! I can't believe I didn't think to show you. I've been using this." Hilda produces the worn photo of the three sisters from her pocket, showing Sigma but retracting her arm when she reaches for it. "I've had this polaroid since it was taken. Pretty sure that proves I'm the real Hilda."
"So where have you supposedly been all this time?"
"Kidnapped, in a word. I had some unusual kidnappers, obviously. Spent a durance in their world and ended up a bit like them." She re-pockets the photo. "But what about you? You knew I'd been changed somehow, and you're not acting like any of this is particularly hard to believe."
Sigma is unsure about what to tell her. For some reason she finds herself genuinely wanting to believe this girl. This Hilda sure acts like she cares more about her relatives than the other has for the past three years. Any mere Sleeper would have never believed such a fantastic story of course, but to Sigma's more educated mind nearly anything is at least plausible, and the thought that the story might be genuine terrifies her. "For now I'll just say that I'm in a position to look into some of this. If I don't like what I find then you are gonna be in big trouble, miss."
"That's about the best I could have expected," Hilda says, reaching into her other pocket and sliding a business card from it across to Sigma. "This is where I work now. I know the owners so just ask about me if I'm not there."
"Okay."
"I don't think I'm gonna finish that coffee; I've already got the jitters. You can have it if you want." Hilda stands up. "In the interest of total honesty, I'd like to show you my real face."
"Huh? If you're my sister then that's supposed to be your face."
She shakes her head. "I said I got changed. It was a bit more drastic than just some powers. I need you to trust me, and the only way to do that is by putting everything out on the table. I need you on my side if I'm going to get my life back." She turns and takes a few steps from the table towards the entrance of the ladies' room. "Come on."
A few seconds later the two stand in the small, deserted restroom which contains only a couple of stalls. "What are we doing here?" Sigma asks.
"Check this out." Hilda reaches in and pulls one of the stall doors closed. "Please, try not to freak out or anything. Just remember I'm still the same old me."
"Supposedly," Sigma reminds her as she knocks twice on the empty stall door.
"Let me in, please," she whispers close to the door. She pushes it open again, and the stall's not there. Instead a dirt path begins just at the threshold, leading off into what looks like a forest of brambles and thorny bushes. Hilda steps through, and as she does her human Mask is torn away, the pale skin seemingly ripped right off and swallowed into the blackness of her revealed, true flesh. After stepping through, she turns around, allowing Sigma to gaze over her monstrous visage.
A light gasp escapes from her sister's lips, and she takes a half-step back. "Jesus..." she mutters.
"I know. You get used to it, though. By the way, never follow me in here. See you later, Helen." She flashes her sharp grin before closing the stall door, sealing the portal.
Just to be sure, Sigma nudges the door back open, revealing only the public commode. Well, at least I've got some research to do now.
