A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Life intrudes sometimes.
Back home I nibbled at a little lunch, updated my schedule, and then stared at the walls. I quite literally had nothing else to do. There was no cleaning waiting for a free moment, even if I were so inclined, since Foursix was far too efficient to leave anything laying around. Should I wish to try my hand at baking like Hué I ran the risk of offending our cook, something I was loathe to do; the Slii was brilliant but temperamental and Dai would never forgive me.
I wound up pacing the living room floor, my mind churning with what I had learned in Hué's homey kitchen. There was so much to think about and come to grips with... too much. And between the 'unobtrusive' guards and Foursix hovering until I sent her away, I felt hemmed in, caged. I didn't like the feeling at all.
I had been changed. I had been hidden from myself, and there was no telling what else lay buried in the altered parts of my mind. I had discovered slicer skills, a fast mouth, what more could there be? The possibilities were endless. Could I have remembered things without even realizing it? The notion spun my thoughts into high gear and for a few moments all I could do was hold on while they raced madly in tighter and tighter circles.
Stopping myself, I reached for concrete tangibles. Of one thing I was certain, Dai had changed me for a reason. I didn't know what that reason was, but there was one, nonetheless. Embarrassment? Vanity? To hide me from the cops? To hide me from someone else? From myself?
How did I know that the Horsemen lived in an underground warehouse? It was just one more mind boggling question among many. I clearly remembered only a small part of Heaven's layout, but I knew that it was twelve paces from Death's office to the eating area in Armageddon, and another fourteen paces from there to the first of the bunks. How could I possibly know that?
I shook my head and threw myself down on the couch, noting in passing that Hué's had been softer and more comfortable. Could it be that I was blowing things out of proportion again? Maybe there was nothing more, that what I had already discovered was the whole of it and that none else remained to be found. Slicing skills of the sort I had displayed weren't ... normal and they certainly weren't socially acceptable. Dai had begun moving into higher social circles in the last year or so. Fitting in, being like everyone else, was a highly desirable trait no matter where you went. It all might have been as simple as Dai taking advantage of my illness and treatment to make me fit in a little better. It's not like either one of us really needed the services of a slicer, so my hidden skills were not a palpable loss.
But if that were the case, I could have just promised him that I wouldn't do it anymore. He could trust me. If I gave my word I would hold to it.
Sighing in frustration I raked my fingers through my hair, pulling out clips and pins and letting the whole thick, black mass tumble across the cushions. I turned my head and looked out the floor-to-ceiling window, staring at the afternoon sky. How could I know? How could I ever be sure?
I turned my mind back to Sylk and the way she had confronted or eased around my fears and triggers. Maybe that was the answer. With my hand firmly pinned to the computer's cpu box nothing had happened, nothing at all. I couldn't say that my fear had been erased by that few seconds, but it had certainly eased. Perhaps I should examine some of the others, test them in a similar manner. That might give me something more to work with, more pieces to the puzzle.
But where to start?
I was afraid of flying fast. Nope, couldn't test that one without making strange requests that might start Thackary asking questions I couldn't reasonably answer just yet. I was scared of swoopers. Again, impractical to test. Where was I going to find swoopers at this time of day? Besides that, there was no way I was going anywhere near anyone that rode a swoop without a lot of burly armed men between me and them, which would defeat the purpose of trying it in the first place. I was afraid of the dark, not just your average night darkness mind you, but thick pitch black that showed only the lights the human mind manufactured to reassure itself that the eyes were still functioning. I could test that one easily enough.
Rising from the couch, I walked to the window and looked out. The shadow of Loring Tower stretched out before me, looming over the traffic lanes and smaller buildings alike. Something about that sent a shiver down my spine and I hugged myself for a moment or two until turning away. The 'fresher would be a good enough place to test my fear of the dark, since it had no windows. I'd start there and see what else I could uncover about myself.
I shuddered and turned the temperature on the water up another notch, wincing away from the nearly scalding spray. I flinched, but I did not close my eyes. I didn't think I would be able to close my eyes again for a long, long time. Twenty minutes later and I was still shuddering and shaking, every light in the 'fresher on to full strength.
Oh yes, I was quite naturally afraid of the dark. This wasn't anything that had been imposed on me from the outside, oh no! With this new experience to use for comparison, I could clearly see the differences between this and the wholly artificial fear used to try and keep me away from Sylk. The clawing dread that ripped my composure to tatters was all too real. I barely managed to hold back my screams of terror, had nearly bitten through my lip in fact, until I'd finally, groping and desperate, found the light switch again.
It had only been bare seconds, but I was drenched in the cold sweat of pure terror. Once I had enough presence of mind to think coherently, there'd been nothing for it but a shower, quite a long shower in fact, until I could relax and get control of myself once again. And by now I had come to a reluctant sort of conclusion.
Maybe I shouldn't experiment on my own anymore.
Thinking back over my past I could not come up with anything that would explain this primal terror, since fear was too paltry a word to describe what I had put myself through all unknowing. This, in turn, led me to another more inevitable conclusion. Maybe more than just my slicing skills had been hidden from me. Again, it could be totally innocent. Perhaps Dai had simply wanted to hide some terribly traumatic event so that it would not bother me anymore.
But what if it isn't innocent? that vicious little voice in the back of my mind pointed out. And what if he's hiding more than you thought?
But why? Why would Dai do this to me? I knew he loved me. I knew it with all my heart. A woman would know if her husband didn't love her, and I knew I was cherished above all else in my husband's life and that he would never put anything else above my well-being.
Then what does that make the man who grabbed you and hurt you last night?
I shook myself violently, flinging water against the walls of the shower stall and sending my hair lashing back and forth. No! I wasn't going to give in to this. These nasty suspicions were just left over from my illness.
And if they're not?
No!
Dai was my husband. Dai loved me. Dai would never do anything to hurt me. I just had to remember that, hang on to that, and everything would be okay. All I had to do was trust him and everything would work out as it should. I promised myself, and him, that I would tell him everything, just so that I could get the explanation from him to soothe my silly fears. I nodded my head to myself and resolved most firmly to do that as soon as he came home from work, and then I finally turned off the shower.
I reaffirmed that resolve every few minutes as I dried off and pulled my hair back into a simple braid. I told myself I would, over and over, right up until Dai came home and I went to welcome him with a kiss. Then I told myself that I was just waiting for the right time to tell him, to ask, and then it was dinner time and I didn't want to interrupt our wonderful meal. And then Dai retreated to his office and I didn't want to interrupt him while he finished up a few last minute work details.
The right time never came up, and the longer I waited the less sure I was and the harder it was to assure myself that it was the right thing to do. Dai had so much on his mind already, with his work and worrying about my recovery. Was it fair of me to burden him further? No, I would just keep this to myself and go on being the perfect wife to my loving husband. Everything would work out.
I went back to the living room and the couch. Staring out at the darkening sky and the sprinkling of stars that were doubtless satellites or other artificial objects, I just let my mind wander.
There was nothing for me to do here in the apartment. I needed to get out, to think, to make some calls that weren't monitored by Thackary or his men. By now Thackary or Foursix had already told Dai that I spent the whole morning down at Hué's place, so going down to visit her again was probably out of the question. Friendship and loneliness would only get me so far there.
I frowned out at the stars, wracking my brain for some excuse to get out.
"Darling, come to bed, it's getting late."
Dai's voice and his hand on my shoulder, half massaging and half caressing, brought me out of my thoughts. I tilted my head back to look up at him and got a kiss for my efforts. "Mmm. I'll be there soon, love. I'm just thinking."
"About what?"
I smiled up at him and answered with the only thing I could think of that he wouldn't pursue any farther. "What else? Children."
He sighed, grimaced, and nodded. "Well, don't stay up too late."
"I won't."
I watched over my shoulder as he went back to the bedroom. Some day I would have the children I dreamed of, and Dai would understand why I nagged him about them. But for now I was just as glad that he hadn't protested any more vehemently than that sigh.
I turned back to the stars as the lights in the apartment slowly went dim, Foursix going from room to room and turning them out if unused. The stars winked back at me through the window, giving me no answers to my question: How do I get out of this apartment?
I lay down and wriggled a little to get comfortable. I couldn't visit Hué. I couldn't visit anyone else because I didn't know anyone else. I didn't have a job, or any hobbies, really. Force, I was one boring being.
What do other rich women do during the day? I wondered. Surely I'm not the only one who finds myself at loose ends.
Then it hit me: shopping.
That was the answer. I would go shopping. Thinking back I couldn't remember that last time I had gone shopping, so I was probably past due. And if it had been long enough surely there was no way that Dai could complain too much. I needed to replace the dress that was ruined the night of the dinner party. I would need new shoes for a new outfit. I might even need new jewelry, but I found myself strangely ambivalent on that subject.
I laughed to myself quietly, kicking my feet in the air. So it really was true. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
I sipped my caf and glanced casually around the open air café. Yes, a shopping trip had definitely been the way to go. Thackary didn't so much as blink when I suggested it. However, I was certain a com call shot out to my husband's office before we piled into the speeders and were on our way.
It was a lovely day, the sun beaming down warmly, but without the humidity they'd been reporting on the news for the last couple of days. Not that I'd been outside to have any sort of basis for comparison. Subjectiveness aside, the bright sun, the slight breeze, and the clear blue sky combined to create a better than average climate in which to traipse from store to boutique spending someone else's hard earned credits. So far it had been a nice outing, away from the confines of the apartment, large though it was, but I had not yet achieved my purpose. I had several bags and boxes stacked in the back of the speeder, and I still had not managed to get to any sort of public computer terminal, a goal I had set myself only this morning as a sort of test.
Dresses, even in my size, in a wide variety of flattering colors and cuts, were easy to find. Shoes that were comfortable as well as stylish only a little less so. So far privacy and an unoccupied computer terminal were darn near impossible, especially with a dark-suited squad of hulking men surrounding me.
I tried to ignore them as I browsed through the selections, pretending not to see the startled glances of store attendants and patrons alike. I actually managed to put them from my mind completely for a few brief moments when I came across the children's section of the third fashionable boutique I entered. The tiny dresses with their tasteful bits of lace, the little suits with their darling shoes were nearly enough to make me break down crying on the spot. I could see a small son wearing a suit to match his father's. I could see a daughter with a frock the same color as my own as we entertained guests. I could practically feel them in my arms.
Holding back tears, I had smiled at the waiting attendant and quickly left the store, buying nothing there. Was a child with my husband really so much to ask?
And now here I was, drinking caf and devising ways to possibly slip away from my escort for a few moments of privacy. Thackary and his men stood at the alert a few steps away from my table, far enough to be unobtrusive, but close enough that they could be at my side in moments, thus creating a bubble of empty space around me. I felt terribly conspicuous, but there was nothing I could do about it.
This isn't going to work. They're too alert.
A flash of white and gold caught the corner of my eye and I turned to identify it. A trio of Angels strutted along the skywalk in front of the café. I relaxed immediately. I hadn't realized that I had come that far north and east in my search for diversion. There was no doubt we were in Angel territory for them to walk openly on the street this way. Most people on the skywalks were giving way before them and skirting wide around their path.
Thank the Force they're not Horsemen. That's a problem I just don't need right now. What I need is to get away from my escort somehow. I can't just stand up and walk away. I don't think they'd listen if I told them to go home without me. No point expecting a convenient distraction. Force knows I'm not that lucky.
"Excuse me."
It was meant to be a polite way to get someone's attention, but coming from one of Thackary's men it only sounded threatening, as I'm sure he'd intended. I looked up, orienting on the figure in white and gold stepping boldly toward my table. I smiled hesitantly as he loomed above me and suddenly the dark muzzle of his drawn blaster yawned wide and eclipsed my vision.
"Velocity send her regards."
His finger began to tighten and two large men in dark suits drove him to the permacrete with abrupt violence. All I could do was stare. Thackary arrived less than a heartbeat later, pushing me over backwards and interposing his body between me and the danger. Blasters were drawn, the other two Angels were shoving through the suddenly fleeing crowd of afternoon shoppers, bellowing angrily.
For a single moment there was no one watching me. For an instant every one of my guards was focused on something else. I would never get a better opportunity.
Scrambling backwards as quietly as I was able, I crawled from table to table and joined the other alarmed patrons in their hasty exit from the café. Knowing it was only a matter of seconds before my bodyguards began to search for me, I turned the first corner I came to, then the next. Only then did I go for distance.
The small holonet café was a lucky find, a terribly pleasant surprise after the not-so-pleasant one at the hands of the Angels. That had proved a two-edged vibroblade, a chance and opportune distraction for my bodyguards that nearly cost me my life.
Sliding a credit card through the reader, I threw myself into the depths of the holonet. Instead of trying to direct my path, I wandered here and there, following whims and vague feelings that couldn't quite be called hunches. Nothing, nothing, and still more nothing.
As a test of my skills browsing public info sources ranked quite low. As a fact-finding mission it ranked lower still, since I found only things I already knew, things that in no way applied to me, or a combination thereof.
I needed information, desperately, and had not the least clue where to go next to get it, since I wasn't ever sure what it was I needed to know. I leaned back in my chair, frowning past my monitor as I struggled with my thoughts. The information I needed was doubtless out there somewhere. Some of it appeared to be locked up within my own skull. How to find it? How to unlock it?
I glanced back at the monitor, curious to see where my diddling fingers had taken me, only to find that I was once again logged onto the Horsemen's mainframe.
My breath caught for a moment, then resumed at a faster pace. Maybe this was the answer. I had been assuming that these two things, Dai's business with the Horsemen and my altered memories, were separate, unrelated things. Maybe they weren't. A conversation with Death might prove enlightening. A few keystrokes was all it took to bring up the comcode for the Horsemen's home, Armageddon, then I logged back out and stood up from the computer. Now I needed a combooth.
I moved straight to the back corner of the café where the public combooths waited. They all faced the wall and would put my back to the café and everyone in it, but that couldn't be helped. I sat at the one in the very corner, as far away from anyone else as I could manage and punched in the number quickly, not giving myself time to think about it any longer. Thinking would only delay things and delay could be costly. I needed to know what was going on if I was going to get myself or my husband out of it unscathed.
The face that appeared on the screen a few moments later was vaguely familiar, and I wanted to be able to put a name to it, but details were not coming easily, so I pushed that aside for later. A startled noise squeaked out between the man's thin lips, but I overrode whatever he had been about to say.
"Put Death on."
The only reply was a blurred scramble as the man–the sense of familiarity was nagging–lurched out of the chair and dashed away, hollering above the ambient noise I could hear in the background of the transmission. Much quicker than I had expected, Death's face appeared in the viewer. Using my newly reclaimed skills of observation, I drank in the details; the slight pant to his breath, the crease across his forehead, the genuine surprise in his expression.
Death opened his mouth, checked himself, took a steadying breath, and shifted around to sit in front of his own viewer. His eyes darted side to side, but he wasn't scanning his own periphery. Stunned, I realized he was trying to scan mine. He wanted to know who else might be listening in. Call me paranoid, but I wasn't about to tell him I was alone.
"Mrs. Tolwyn. What can I do for you?"
He wasn't wearing the thick, recognizable jacket the Horsemen are known for, and the tunic fit like it had been sprayed on. The man's muscles jumped and twitched like a racing hound's before the starting gun. He was waiting eagerly, desperately, for the signal to leap into motion, but held in check. Now if only I knew what that signal might be, or what action he's so anxious to perform.
"What does he want?" I asked abruptly.
"He who?"
I opened my mouth to say 'Tolwyn', and stopped myself. It was distant, impersonal, not at all what a dutiful and loving wife would call the man she was blissfully married to, and this gangbanger wouldn't hesitate to report that at their next meeting if he thought it might help his cause. Then why do you expect him to tell you anything, girl?
After an unavoidable pause, I replied, "My husband."
All sorts of things happened behind that face then. Those two little words, or maybe the pause before I said them, were giving him fits and Death wanted to know how to interpret them before continuing, but I wasn't going to give him that chance, I wanted to keep the ball in my court.
"What does he want from you?"
Death tilted his head forward and stared through the viewer at me, and again I felt that intensity of focus he was capable of. The calm facade cracked a little, showing me the anger that lurked beneath, suspicion, a spurt of hope that rose and was quickly stamped back down, and hiding behind those dark eyes a sorrow so profound as to border on despair. It rocked me, surprised me, left me momentarily breathless.
"He's got some old data on him still floating around in various databanks. He's respectable now, so it could be terribly incriminating. He wants our slicer to dig it out for him and dispose of it without leaving tracks."
There was too little I knew for me to be surprised, when you have nothing to work with you take every little piece you can get. Blackmail? Information broker? Or something else altogether? I had no way of knowing, and it made no sense no matter which way I turned it. With the skills he had hidden, I could have done this for him, no need to involve lowlife gangbangers.
"I know he's kidnapped a woman from you, who is it?"
"My right hand's wife. He's holding her against our cooperation." There was something about the way he said it, the manner in which he tilted his head and leaned forward that made me think I should already know this, but not that he blamed me in any way for it. It was one more confusing thing in the shredded tangle of my life.
"Do you know if the woman's still alive?"
That despair lurking in the back of his eyes threatened to burst out, but Death, true to his reputation, curbed the tremble to his lips, kept his voice steady as Coruscant's orbit.
"He's let us see her."
"Do you know where he's keeping her?"
"If we could get to her, do you think we'd leave her there?"
I nodded. "Point taken. Can your slicer do the job?"
"Tolwyn thinks so. Maybe. I don't know." Again, there were physical and audible clues to undercurrents I didn't have the knowledge to read properly. With nothing else I could do, I pushed ahead.
"Do you have a deadline?"
"Yeah, but it can be negotiated. As long as we can show we're making progress he's willing to cut us a little slack. Why?"
"What's the exact deal you've got worked out?"
"We make the evidence disappear and he returns my lieutenant's wife. I ask again, why?"
"They don't intend to give her back."
He leaned forward, even more intent than before. "Are you sure?"
"I heard it myself. They're planning on getting Planetary Security to wipe you out once the work's done."
"That makes this easier, because I don't think our slicer can do the job as invisibly as Tolwyn would like it to be. There's going to be marks of the change, electronic fingerprints left behind."
"So you wouldn't have gotten her back anyway."
Expression grim, Death's next words came out low and grating. "Make no mistake. We will get her back. Tolwyn will not keep my lieutenant's wife one second longer than we can possibly help."
I took a deep breath. This wasn't the point of no return, but it was certainly a significant step in that direction. "Okay, I'll try and find her for you, but I want a favor in return."
"What favor?"
"Not now, I have to think about some things." I don't know what made me ask, why I thought he could tell me, but the words were away before I realized it. "Why would the Angels be trying to kill me?"
His eyes widened in alarm, no doubt seeing the danger to his only hope to get the woman back. "What happened? Are you okay?"
"Fine. Why?"
"Velocity's hated you for years, ever since that whole fiasco with the peace conference."
I didn't remember anything about a peace conference, much less one between swoopers, but I was coming to realize that there were a lot of things I didn't remember. And just because I didn't remember them didn't mean they didn't remember me. Force, what a nightmare. Who else might be trying to kill me that I don't even know about?
"About this favor." Death pulled the conversation back on track for me. "Why don't you give me some idea of what I might be doing so I can make plans?"
Frustrated, confused, angry, I snapped back at him, "I don't want you making plans, velocity-blinker, I feel safer with you reacting instead of thinking. So don't you-"
Suddenly someone in the background was shouting and there were sounds of a scuffle.
"Let me see her! Kriff you all, get out of my way. Let go of me!"
Death twisted around and rapped out a savage command. "Keep him back." He spun back toward the holocam. "Chen, tell me-"
That was as far as I let him get. Panic flared through me. Are they trying to trace me?! I killed the connection with fingers made clumsy by fear and jerked back from the comunit as though afraid it might bite me.
Thoroughly flustered, I raked clawed fingers through my hair and took a few ragged breaths to try and calm my thundering heart. He knew my name. Death called me by name, shortened it even. Not even Dai shortened my name. It was an invasion, an intimacy, and I was uncomfortable with it coming from someone who was barely more than a complete stranger. This was so crazy. I hated all gangbangers in general and swoopers in specific, what was I doing getting involved with them? I had some not insignificant slicing skills. Why was my husband hiding them away and then turning around and hiring the Horsemen? Nothing made any sense.
I was totally confused and there was no way I was going to be able to sort it all out on my own. Still shaking with reaction, I forced another slow breath and straightened in the chair, glancing around to see if anyone had witnessed the end of the revealing comcall. No one was so much as glancing in my direction, so I took another deep breath.
Hué would be able to help me. She was so practical and grounded. She would want to know, indeed deserved to know what I had learned. Hué was the only person alive that I could trust fully. I dialed in her number quickly and she answered almost immediately. Quickly and concisely I summed up what had been said and then waited for her reaction.
Hué leaned back from the view screen and frowned thoughtfully. "So now what?"
"I do what I can to find Mrs. War."
"You don't know what she looks like, or even what her name is."
I waved this away. "True, but I do know a few things. I know she'll be heavily guarded, somewhere not too far away, but somewhere the swoopers wouldn't think to look, or don't think they can successfully break into."
Hué nodded. "But does that narrow it down much?"
"More than you might think."
We were silent, each with our own thoughts for a few moments. Yes, I could start my search right in Dai's own computer at home and test my slicing skills at the same time. It was doubtful I'd find anything labeled 'my plans to kidnap a swooper's wife', but you never knew. I might just get lucky.
"Do you think the Horsemen will keep any bargain you make with them?" Hué asked.
I shrugged, but my lips tightened into a thin line. "I don't intend to give them any choice. I'll find their hostage for them, but before I get her out or tell them where she is, they're going to owe me big."
"What are you going to ask for in return?"
"I honestly don't know yet."
"Think about that hard before you get into this too deep, Chenowyth."
And I was thinking, but not about what I was going to ask for. I was thinking back over the call. Death had been ever so slightly out of breath when he got to the comm. The time between the first man leaving and Death arriving had been remarkably short. And then there was the surprise in his eyes, just this side of wild. Surprise, out of breath, short time... The man who answered had moved so quickly that he nearly tripped over his own feet getting out of the chair, the scrape and rattle as the chair almost went over with him had been plain enough. Death had run from whatever he was doing to take my call and his messenger had been in a near frenzy to tell him. Death, uncontested leader of the Horsemen, had raced to the comunit when he heard I was calling.
"What is it?" Hué asked, staring at my face.
"Death. Death ran to take my call. He didn't just hurry, he ran and was a bit out of breath." I shook my head, confused, though I was becoming distressingly familiar with that sensation by now. "I don't know what it means yet, but it surely means something."
"I'm worried about you, Chenowyth," Hué murmured. "If you don't call me again soon to check in I'm going to come looking for you."
I forced a smile for her benefit. "As long as you bring another spice cake when you do."
