When they emerged from the tunnel, the pocket of the Sur-real had already started to split apart behind them. First, the colours were shed in flakes that dulled and grew grey as they fell, covering the ground like ash. A few moments after that, the very matter of the walls and solid surfaces began to crumble away in a gentle entropy, motes falling like stardust into the infinite space around.
Finding out what could happen if you fell into that emptiness was, as far as Coraline was concerned, an experiment that could wait for another day. She got herself and the others out just as the walls had become completely monochrome. She let the girl go through first, and went through last, stopping only to toss the bronze sabre out into the empty entry room.
When she came out after the others, getting a helping hand up from Wybie as she did, she was still wet down the front with psychephage blood, and her steps left dark stains on Mr Elachi's floor. Fortunately, Elachi couldn't give the slightest damn about the blood, preoccupied as he was.
"If there is anything, anything I can give you, or do for you, anything…" he would say at length during the few intervals when he would look up from his daughter. "What I owe you can never be repaid, but I'll be damned if I can't try."
"It's nothing anybody else wouldn't have done. You don't owe us anything." This was met with a flat, sceptical look, and further entreaties to owe a favour.
It took a while before they could extricate themselves from the man and his happiness and from the shy thanks of the girl. But before they left the hotel, Coraline ventured a look back at the pair. Wybie noticed.
"Does it ever get better than this?" he asked quietly as they walked through the door, his pockets still jangling with every step.
"No," said Coraline, and as she said it, several years' worth of stress and care vanished from her face to be replaced with a deep and gentle glow of pride and satisfaction. "No, it doesn't."
The city admitted them once again, and let them pass without fanfare. Glittering metal and glass spires caught scraps of the sun, and reflected them off the van's rear-view mirrors.
Maria took the wheel. Coraline had opted for sitting in the back and taking a nap, and Wybie, who dealt with mild shell-shock as quickly and blithely as he dealt with many things, opted for the same.
From the mirror in front of her, she saw that they were both asleep, and had both slipped sideways in their belts so as to end up leaning against each other, unknowingly supported by the other even in sleep. Coraline had taken off her coat, showing the faint blood stains that had filtered down to her pullover. Save for those, and the motorcycle-engine-esque snores from Wybie, Maria considered it a sweet tableau.
A sharp, indignant blast from another vehicle's horn broke Maria out of considering the tableau and back to steering the van. She remembered that she wasn't a good multitasker, her face flush with embarrassment. The sound broke Coraline and Wybie out of sleep, both of them pulling themselves up, oblivious of their previous position. Coraline grabbed for her hat from where it had fallen to the seat.
"Where are we?" she asked, her voice thick with sleep.
"Nearly in D.C.," answered Maria tersely, keeping her eyes straight ahead. "We'll be back in about a half-hour." The sky outside was turning to evening, with rosy fingers pressing through the grey banks of clouds.
"I hope Sayid enjoyed his brief reign of terror," said Wybie, rubbing his eyes. "Let's hope Tripod kept him in line."
"Let's hope the complex's still standing," said Coraline, looking out the window. "And let's hope Skirving's tried nothing behind our backs…"
"No talking while I'm driving," said Maria, her eyes still straight ahead.
"Not even a little talking?"
"If you talk while I drive, then what happens is that I get distracted by your talking, and while my attention's split, I can't pay attention to the road, and then we end up going up in a fireball."
"You've got a very special sort of mind, have you ever been told?"
"Fireball, or I pull over and slap you both senseless. No talking."
Buildings tumbled upwards from the roadside. "What if we …" The look on Maria's face in the rear-view mirror stopped all dissent. They sped on in silence, and the District unfolded before them. They drove down concrete veins through the outer edges, past token greenery and tilting buildings and shadow-eclipsed flags.
Coraline let herself sit back in the car seat, satisfied. The mission couldn't have had a better outcome, as far as she was concerned. They'd gotten the kid out and alive, nobody had been hurt, and she'd been able to take out the two psychephages.
She planned to treat herself to a beer or three and unwind once they'd gotten back to the complex. The prospect took shape, a warm and inviting possibility on the horizon.
The Thaddeus Complex homed into view before too long, and as they neared, a familiar figure opened the door. Sayid waved at them as they parked before the doors, and Tripod's head appeared crouched between his feet.
"Sayid," said Coraline, getting out from the van, holding her shotgun case in one hand and her coat under one arm. "You know how you keep on telling us you've always disliked promotions and you'd be as soon rid of one as get …" She stopped. Sayid's face was lost of its usual ebullient zest, and looked drawn and concerned. Something must have gone horribly wrong with the universe. "Sayid? You okay?"
"Um, yeah. I'm okay. It's …" Sayid rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably. "There's … something's been going on with the other departments. I've only caught a few of their messages, but I think they're talking a lot more than often about us…"
Coraline glumly saw the image of a ice-cold beer dissolve and slip away like mist, and knew that the rest of her day would inevitably consist of paper chases and hunting down other department secretaries to find out what exactly was going on.
"I think I know what he's talking about," said Maria from one side. "I tried to mention it to you, but you wanted to deal with it later."
"Looks like it's now later," muttered Coraline, kneading her forehead with her free hand. "Urrgh. Look, Wybie, you go and get this written up, do paperwork, keep business rolling. Sayid, you get our stuff packed away. Maria, take your computer and dig up what you can on what's going on."
"What are you going to do?" asked Wybie, poking his head from around the van's side. Coraline passed her shotgun case and coat to Sayid, and then answered.
"I'm going to kill someone before the day's out. Most likely damned Skirving. Wish me luck," she said, turning on her heel and advancing determinedly into the city. Sayid and Maria nodded uncertainly, while Wybie raised one hand and called out, as tactfully as he could.
"Uh, you've still got a bit of blood on your…"
"Ahem."
Skirving, who was leaning against a wall in an unoccupied corridor in the White House, looked up.
"Ms Jones," he said, his expression as warm and welcoming as a sheer cliff of Arctic ice. "And here I was hoping for a petty distraction from these housing reports. Obviously, saying your prayers pays off."
"Mr Skirving," said Coraline, with an expression as sharp as an obsidian knife, "I've been experiencing some recent problems in my post. I was hoping your experience could shed some light on my predicament."
"How could I refuse such a charming request?"
"Very well. Apparently, someone in this building has proposed that the federal department that I'm associated with be closed down. Do any obvious candidates for such a heinous act spring to mind?"
"The process of elimination is your friend here, I think," said Skirving, turning back to the folder in his hand. "Who, in this building, has previously espoused taking federal waste out behind the back with a shotgun? And who among these people is trying to attend to their actual work, hoping that the person that they're reluctantly engaging in conversation takes the hint?"
"What the hell do you think you'll do?" said Coraline, her tone low and deadly. "You've tried this before. You've tried this crap three times before, and you've been shot down by the other departments before. I've bumped into and spoken to Montjoy and Solokov, and their positions haven't changed. What the hell are you going to do apart from waste my time and yours?"
Skirving snapped the folder shut. His cold gaze turned to fix Coraline with a flat regard.
"You're a waste of space. A waste of money. Money that could be going towards Medicaid, defence, education, anything. And you've hung on by a thread, only because a few others haven't dared to set a necessary precedent. The situation's changed. I have the majority I need. And you are going to become an irrelevance. Give it a day or two." Skirving looked at her with an expression that blended indifference and contempt, and kept it frozen. "You've got black down your front, did you know?"
Coraline ignored the last comment. "Trying to scare me won't work, Mr Skirving. And I don't know who you're trying to con. Me, or yourself."
"Why would you wonder that? You of all people should know about conning others. Was there anything else?"
"Nothing else here," said Coraline, turning to leave. "You're not the only one who feels their time's getting wasted."
"Oh," Skirving called after her back, almost as an afterthought. "In case you were wondering, I spoke with the most relevant person concerning lost electronic spies. And his department hasn't recorded a single lost piece of hardware of that description. Whatever other investigations have been carried out have turned up nothing. I reported as such to the President. Whatever you were trying to accomplish in the cabinet room failed."
She left the White House, past the Secret Service agents and Marines on duty, and down the steps at the building's front, moving like a brooding stormcloud. Her expression remained neutral, but she burned within, too furious to focus on anything else, on what Skirving had told her at the last.
To hell with Skirving had been her default mode of thinking for a good few years now, and she saw no reason to change it now. To hell with his arrogance, to hell with his obstruction, and to hell with his general person for good measure.
She headed back, knowing that she'd have to dig out anything legal held in the Thaddeus Complex and spend hour after brain-congealing hour going through them, researching their options if being dissolved was on the line, the same rigmarole she'd gone through three times before and loved no better for it.
And it had been such a good day, as well.
"He's got his majority."
Both Coraline and Maria said it the instant Coraline opened the front door. There was a slight pause, and then Maria gestured for Coraline to go first.
"Skirving was his usual warm, loving, compassionate self," Coraline said, taking off her hat. "And in between his expressions of fondest friendship and his solicitations after my good health and that of my loved ones, he said that he was trying to get us shut down again, and that he finally had the majority in the cabinet he needed to get it done. Which you found out as well, I take it."
"Not in so many words, but it made sense," said Maria. "I got that they were trying to shut us down again, and Skirving wouldn't try that unless he had some new reason."
"Who's he gotten on his side?" demanded Coraline. "Who's he got working against …" She stopped and breathed out, running a hand through her hair. "I'm going to see Wybie about this. Then I'm going to look out anything we'll need if it comes down to a legal fight. Then I'm going to track down Skirving and whoever he's pulled over to his side and goddamn punch them until candy comes out."
"Why do so many of the people you interact with end up being threatened with bodily harm?"
"Because so many of them deserve it. I'll catch you later if you can help me with some of the paperwork."
She walked through the complex's winding corridors, making brief stops in out-of-the-way offices to collect a small binder or single piece of paper (why they couldn't just remain in one place for easy access defied investigation. In her more paranoid moments, she suspected the complex was screwing with them) and added it to a growing pile in her arms. Tripod peeled off from a set of shadows in his usual manner and fell into lopsided step alongside her, regarding her with feline disdain as she opened doors with increasing difficulty.
By the time Coraline got to Wybie's lab, the stack of paper she held could easily concuss if dropped from a height, and she only opened the door with the creative application of her foot and shoulder in tandem, sending a few sheets fluttering to the floor in the process.
Wybie looked up from his kneeling position in the centre of the floor. He was overlooking what could only be No. Nineteen, its cords lying splayed like the legs of a spider. Several spare coils of thick cord lay behind him, spread-out notes to his right, and the half-dozen or so jars of fresh specimens all around him.
"Hey," he said, little enthusiasm in his voice.
"I went out and had a civil discussion with Skirving," said Coraline, retrieving the papers. "It's definitely another attempt to close us down. I've just been getting paperwork for when he tries something." She set the paper down atop a workstation and moved closer to Wybie. "Are the new samples helping?"
"I don't know," said Wybie. "I haven't tried them yet. And you know what? I doubt they will." He shot a look of uncharacteristic bitterness at the Eroder on the floor. "Why should they? I don't know what I can change. I've applied every combination of Sur-real tissue I can with any configuration of the machine. Why should it work now? What am I missing?"
Coraline knelt down beside him, and patted his shoulder while he rubbed a set of knuckles into his forehead.
"It's just the same old, same old," he said. "I'm making something not work, you're getting distracted from what's important by Skirving, and we're on the brink of getting shut down. Where the hell did we fall into this rut? Something needs to happen. I need inspiration. I need this to work. I need something to work."
"We've been doing good work already," said Coraline gently. "You may recall that little girl and her father from a few hours ago. We've got a few things working for us."
"We need more things to work for us," said Wybie. "I don't … I don't want things to happen that make what happened to you yesterday…" He broke off suddenly and laughed, his tone low and sardonic. "Now hang on, when did I say our positions could reverse?"
"You don't get a say in it," said Coraline with a smile. "We just support each other as and when needed. That's how it's always worked."
"Yeah." His hand drifted up and found hers at his shoulder. They held each other's hands for a quiet minute, before letting them drop.
"You ever … thought about us?" he said shyly, almost as if he was twelve again. "The times we tried in high school and college, I remember things always got in the way."
"Things and arguments and stupid things and awkwardness and stupider things," replied Coraline. "And heavens know there're things to get in the way now."
"At least the things back then didn't try to eat your soul," said Wybie.
"Well, apart from the first Beldam and the Czarina," said Coraline. "And the other beldam that tried to get us during the senior prom."
"Yeah, that was not the most successful prom night ever," said Wybie with rueful remembrance. "It was a pity. You were wearing a really pretty dress as well. And as far as I thought at the time, wielding that fire axe made you look even hotter."
"I never did manage to get the beldam blood out of that dress. Or explain things properly to Mr Sanchez. And you didn't do too badly yourself with that fire extinguisher."
"Please, me and Maria just held it down. You were the one who went in with the vorpal blade." His face broke into a smile like a sunbeam, full of life and humour. "Man, the looks on everyone's faces at the beginning, before I got them out with the fire alarms."
"That's the strange thing," said Coraline on a thoughtful tangent. "It's strange that all the most distinctive things we've ever done have involved the Sur-real. It even got into, well, something you'd have expected to be just normal. It got a hold on us from the start. Wybie?" She had suddenly noticed that, halfway through her talking, a strange look had come onto his face, and he was starting to stare fixedly at the Eroder, his lips moving slightly.
"Wybie?"
"Don't … It's …" He frowned. "I … could you give me a … Something's just occurred." He snatched up paper and a pen from the floor and held them at the ready. "I've got something I think I can do here. Something's just occurred to me." His pen jabbed and flew across the paper into a fastly-illegible scribble. "Something may well have just occurred to me, and I-may-have-just-cracked-it."
"Should I back away from the science?" said Coraline.
"Science, science," muttered Wybie, his pen flying. "Hypothesis, test hypothesis, replicate test, promote to theory, frickin' obvious now…"
Coraline backed out, a smile touching her lips, giving him space to work while she got on with her own. It was good to see him so excited and upbeat after a dip in his mood. And it had been good to have the talk with him.
She doubted he had actually stumbled onto something really new, but at least he was likely to have more fun than she was about to.
