Chapter Ten
The light pulsated as Annie reached towards it while the world meshed into a whirling vortex in her peripheral vision, receding, throbbing, a thick whorl of colour washing in and out, real and unreal, coaxing thin strands of fixed reason around in the air. The intense heat gently insisted upon wrapping her in its arms, a soft firecracker fizzling on her bare skin where it showed. Sensations drifted in and out, some heavy and pulling her limbs down towards the dark floor, others blowing her about like she were just a leaf on the spring breeze. Muttered whispers filtered through the shimmering barrier of golden stars, sometimes loud, other times just nothing, a long, total silence that engulfed her and made it hard to breathe, lungs a void of air that hollowed out her being.
Had it been a dream?
As though she'd been drifting below the surface of the water for a long time, a wave suddenly crested and palled, leaving a slick coat of water that condensed into beads and slowly trickled down the sides of her face, bringing the world into startling clarity. Of course. This was the end. Annie's eyes flickered back into life and she silently resented the feeling of lethargy that anchored her body to the ground. Concerned, blurry faces looked down on her as the jarring movement slowed to a soft chud-chud, bringing life closer with each passing second.
She remembered the whole thing.
The cold air slapped Annie in the face as she breached the exit of the tunnel, shuffling behind the rest of them. Even though she'd only left the severe beauty of the White Room, the squat utilitarian refectory, the calming, northern pine-wood walls of her room behind a few minutes ago, the sensory explosion that they'd been to her a fortnight ago was already stirring into a mulch beneath her feet like the brownish snow, trodden into slush by the lines of Rocket-issue, uniform boots. It was only the solitary figure of Hugh that she couldn't shake from her mind, his deep-thinking brown eyes, soft like butter, his easy smile. She wasn't in love with him. Love was too strong a word, perhaps, but it still left some bleary hole inside her to know him gone.
The winter had worsened whilst Annie had been shut inside the warm facility- even on the mountains, north as north could be, the Scully Peaks seemed to have turned in on themselves like selfish volcanoes, hoarding heat within their rocks and allowing Jack Frost to paw at their outer shells with his icy fingers. The snow stood up to Annie's knees, soaking through the tracksuit trousers she'd had the sense to slip on underneath her skirt to ward of the chill hand of winter. The trees drooped with it, sagged as though they were old women; weary of their burden- they barely spared an accusatory glance at the moving-creatures that meandered past them, migrating to warmer reaches. They'd wait it out. They always did, after all.
Once they'd unearthed the heavily snowed-under manhole that led down to the train station, the Rockets began to slowly slip down under the mountain's sodden crust, man after woman after man. Truly they were migrating to the south, Annie mused, like you saw the foreign birds do on nature programmes on telly. What were they called? Taillow. That was it. Pidgey were a little hardier, adapted to the cold Kanto winters.
When her turn came, she felt everything come full circle, remembering the day she'd exploded from the very same manhole into the white wonderland. Since then she'd gotten used to the sheer volume of snow up here, but it was still a little sad to let it go. Dropping down onto the gravel, she was whisked rather roughly onto the train, which now had several carriages to accommodate the increased volume of passengers. Grabbing Kaylee's hand to avoid spending the long journey alone (or worse, next to a large, scary bald man with tufts of orange nose-hair who'd got free seats either side of him (she sarcastically wondered why)), they picked their way down the aisle, finally finding two seats next to each other and settling down. Kaylee fished the ratty blankets back from the overhead compartments and they double-covered themselves, warding off the cold and the rest of the world.
Annie fell asleep, and that's when it began.
The air has a brittle feel to it, although the night is thick and hot and heavy with city smog. The tang of haematite in the air is so characteristic of Pewter City. We slink through the suburbs, eyes flittering this way and that, glinting in the lash of moonlight that manages to reflect off them from where they pierce they shadows beneath our brims. Houses pass, left and right, perfect beacons of the life we threw away. There's one in particular- we all know why we're here, after all. They haven't been careful enough. We always find them out in the end. The memory within a memory of furtive faces hiding around corners as we dug, looking for those blasted fossils. Mister and Missis, they were, the two of them, investigating us. They got out of their depth, and told the polies. That's when we got the page from the Boss. They gotta go.
The folk here are hard, yes, but within their rocky shells they're plush and complacent- we know that. They don't expect us to be so brazen. We heft the cans from our backs and begin dousing the house while, as a preventative measure, a little bit of sleepy-time gas goes into the master bedroom window. The man snores. All is wonderful for a few brief seconds as they lie, bathed in moonlight, matching in their ignorance. We're done downstairs, so we congregate in the living room. The television is new, and the instruction manual is left open at page 113. We're all soaked in paraffin, too, but we're young and reckless and immortal.
Something rips, and tears in the fabric of the room. I blink, bringing the lighter up in front of me. This is where it begins. This is where I begin, where I differentiate myself to increase the pain. The cigarette catches, and I nod to my crew before we let it drop onto the sopping carpet.
The world disappears.
We laugh, we frolic in the flames, we dance like mad elf-children in fairy tales. When it gets hot, we leave. I stay. I'm the maddest. I want to die. My eyes are wide and red and running with salty smoke and the cruelty of insanity. My clothes catch. It burns. I can feel it licking at my body, reborn like a phoenix from the ashes…
A cry pierces the fun.
I turn my head, treading through the brilliant vermillion house, goddess, invincible, saviour, all sorts of wondrous things. Up the stairs as they fall into dust behind me, pausing to watch the sleeping bodies devoured by the hungry flames. The neighbours are waking up. They'll have smelled the smoke, I suppose. The cry, again, from the room we didn't acknowledge. It's cold in here. The window is open. A child lies in a cot, the first wisps of cruel fumes reaching its nose. I don't think. I take it in my arms and jump the window, because I cannot hurt myself, really. It's only three metres to the ground, and the grass is soft and heavy with a damp summer, so I only crack a couple of ribs. We reform again and stare at the baby. Why on earth have I taken it? It doesn't belong to me. I suppose that's what we do.
Later, light stains the sky red and gold with blood and fire. Congratulations. I take the picture of the two corpses in my charcoal-black fingers. He's smiling, his arm around her as they squint because the sun is in their eyes, but the sky is brilliant blue behind them. Mister and Missis. I keep it in my pocket. Their little boy need never know.
His name, says his romper suit, is Jimmy.
That had been the dream; only it mustn't have really been purely subconscious fantasy, because it was too real. Annie noticed they'd stopped moving as she recounted it. Kaylee sat beside her although everyone else had since filed out.
"Welcome back." She said, hoarsely. "Sorry you feel so rough. We had to crack out the opiates. You were thrashing about like a magikarp on speed."
"Huh?" She sat up, feeling the dullness in her limbs. "What?"
"We couldn't wake you. You had a seizure."
It didn't all connect.
"Really?"
"'Reckon so." Kaylee smiled. Annie, struck by her dream- her fit, seizure, memory, whatever it had been- looked into her eyes. They were blue. Below them, as she'd noticed back in the hospital years and years ago, and even you could say beyond them, behind them, anywhere but inside them, was something else. Someone else. Could she trust the psychosis she'd felt while occupying Kaylee's body (because it must have been Kaylee) in the dream? She was mad. Had been mad, perhaps. She'd danced herself to cinders in that house. Her mind wasn't as she painted it. Trust crumbled. It was, she realized, the same thing she'd seen last night, together in the snow. The fire may have burned, but Annie felt nothing but chilled to the core now. "We should scram. I don't fancy a second longer with them lot." She inclined her head to the burly workmen.
Agreeing, Annie pulled herself up using the seat beside her, her bones leaden. They stumbled off onto the underground platform, the wind somehow making its way down and blowing debris and leaves about, coaxing the occasional crisp packet or candy wrapper from its resting place to skitter across the dull concrete, borne on the breeze. It was a laborious task, because Annie felt very infirm and wasn't inclined to hurry her pace. If there was anything she'd learned, it was selfishness and the joys and privileges it could bring.
"WHEYY!" someone launched into her as soon as she exited the station and was within the Rocket HQ maze. "Aw, man, we missed you guys!"
"G-good to see you too?" Annie eased out of the rib-cracking hug to see that the gang was all there- Raf (who'd shaved), standing taut and bursting with energy like a kid who hadn't been given his Ritalin, today sporting a pair of uniform overalls splattered with paint and muck tied at his waist, exposing his gymnast's physique underneath a white tank top. Behind him, Dean was dressed similarly, paintbrush perched behind his ear, and grinning like the blissfully ordinary boy he was. Even Jordan had turned up, his two stripes gleaming in the dull blue light. He looked tired.
"You two become smeargles suddenly?" Kaylee fell straight into the easy flow of chatter and walking. Annie admired her- she herself felt unsure of how she stood with them, until Dean, from the corner of his observant, silent eyes noticed her lagging behind and dropped back to walk alongside.
"They're not exactly great at the welcome backs, huh?" he joked.
She shrugged. "You can't have everything."
Chuckling, he agreed, and then asked "How did it go?"
"All right, I suppose. It was more of a holiday from reality than anything else. It felt so… ethereal."
He didn't know what that meant, but her wistful look gave it away. "Well, life'll be a bit more restful down here. At least until we're off on ops again. We're lying low after the convention."
"I remember that. Did you get the, uh- recap mechs working?"
"Nop." He grinned. "We had to do it old-style. I wrangled a kangashkan to the ground while this distressed couple looked on. It was crazy."
You know, Annie could imagine that. Dean was a down-to-earth, brawn-before-brain kind of guy. She wondered why he'd ended up here. Raf, in front of them, started cartwheeling along the ground.
"You're right!" Raf suddenly stopped, whirling around to face them. "I fucking agree! Let's get our shit on. I've done jack-all since the raid- oi, Jordoc, is anything planned?"
"Not that I know of." He said stiffly.
"Let's fucking do something then! Only so much painting I can take, innit? I'm no artist."
"You're doing a valuable service."
"Repainting the mechanics wing is a valuable service? The only valuable service you'll get 'round here is from the coke machines."
"If you don't like it, I can put you on domestics?" Jordan asked smartly, eyebrows rising into his fringe, enjoying the look that was perhaps a mix of hatred, horror and jealousy on Raf's face, tempered by the slightly crazy smile pulling the corners of his mouth up. Jordan didn't have to do much grunt work. Sure, he wasn't an exec yet, but he was on his way, and therefore worried about different things. Annie imagined that Raf didn't worry about much at all.
"I suggest a night on the town." Raf continued, oblivious to the slight threat in Jordan's stare. "Yeh. Tonight. I'm skint, though- Kaylee?"
"I've got a bit left from the extra over my last paycheck, but it has to last until November." She said.
"Dean?"
He shook his head. "My rent just went out, sorry."
"Grr." Raf stroked his chin where an imaginary beard would sit. "Jordoc?"
"You can fuck off?" He replied incredulously.
"What? We know you got a fucking raise. I bet you have a bonus too. C'mon, spare some alms for the penniless?" he even got down on his knees to beg comically.
"No."
"Bet you're saving for your pension already. Sad git." Raf kicked him in the shin for good measure on the way back up. "I don't suppose you've been paid yet, Annie?"
She baulked as eyes turned to her. "I- I've no idea. I think my contract said every twentieth of the month?"
"Aw, crap it's only the fourteenth." He growled, and then his face lit up as though he'd solved some quantum mechanical equation. "Well fuck me. What the hell are we doing?"
"Dunno." Dean ventured, inquisitively.
"We're fucking criminals, tossers!" he said emphatically, turning to them and gesticulating wildly. "Since when did we need to earn our money?"
"Since nightclubs charged admission?"
"C'mon." he grabbed Annie and Dean by the hands and skipped down the corridor, singing 'What shall we do with the drunken trainer?' at the top of his voice. They jerkily hopped and staggered along, pulled behind him. Dean turned to Annie, tripping over his own feet and just managing to stay standing, and made an apologetic face.
"He's had a bit of Amphy." He told her. Annie looked at him puzzled until he mouthed 'drugs' before being whisked around the corner.
They stopped abruptly when Raf skidded to a halt in front of a lift. Behind them, Jordan and Kaylee came jogging along, rolling their eyes while Raf pressed the button with his nose and stroked Dean's short fuzz of hair. They bundled in the enclosed space, Annie instinctively holding her skirt down even though she was wearing trousers underneath and smiling to herself. It hadn't been long at all since then, at all, but it seemed a lifetime away, as though she'd been a caterpie when she'd first arrived, had spent two weeks as a metapod in the mountain facility and was now blossoming into a butterfree. Elation bubbled into her chest, the sense of excitement that had been quelled by her horrific dream resurfacing stronger than ever.
Emerging onto yet another featureless corridor, the group split up. Raf was deemed not in any state to meet an exec and Kaylee volunteered to take care of him. Jordan went off, citing the need to 'do important things', to which Raf made a rude gesture involving a penis and his right hand before making owl noises and wandering off. Dean was left with Annie, and took her to see the exec on duty. She was pleased that he revealed that Proton was currently in charge of their Saffron city HQ, and that the other three executive managers (the really really executive executives) were elsewhere. Even if it was worth shit, she liked having known him before all this. A link to her past was a blessing and a curse- she couldn't look at him without secretly yearning for her old home, for Lavender and the soft, unimportant passing of time, despite how the tedium had sickened her; however she knew deep down inside of her, where the heat welled up behind her ribcage when strong emotions struck her- anger, love, anything crippling- that behind his cruel apathy, Proton would forever be, if only a little bit, the Jared she'd known.
Would Annie herself ever be free of the past?
It was a depressing thought. She let it slide down the side of her brain to nestle inside of her skull, just above her right ear. The present demanded her attention, as much as she'd have liked to fester in the past.
"Come in!" Proton's door has been repainted with a silver sheen, probably by all the rockets who seemed to be repainting at the moment, but someone had taken a can of spray-paint and drawn a large and anatomically incorrect penis on the door already. I'm mature, Annie told herself, suppressing the same chuckle that Dean struggled with beside her as well. The door slid cleanly open, letting out a billow of smoke. Today, Proton was wearing his important white uniform, though he'd taken the top half off and was lounging shirtless on his swivel chair, looking relaxed. "Ah. Good to see you two again. Take a seat, seat a take, whatever."
They shared a look before easing themselves down into their chairs whilst Proton stubbed out his cigarette and rummaged in a filing cabinet before pulling out Annie's file. "Okay, right- I assume you got your shit in your envelope?"
Annie pulled it from where it was secured in the back of her skirt. Being too big to put in her bra, she'd not wanted to put it with her luggage or carry it in hand, so she'd settled for that. She hadn't actually opened it yet. Proton, noticing this, snatched it out of her hand over the desk and pulled out a flickknife-cum-letter-opener (though she suspected it was used more for the former than the latter) and cleanly sliced through the thick brown paper. Several objects and numerous papers tumbled out, scattering around his desk.
"A single gold stripe for the lovely grunt," he picked up the iron-on strip of material and handed it over. "Then two card keys. One for here, with grunt-level access privileges- and one for the celadon base should you be needed there."
They were identical, and Annie must have looked lost because Dean snatched one and showed her that there was a tiny gold strip on one (Saffron) and a green strip on the other (Celadon). Thanking him, she slipped them into the quite cool slots on the back side of her gloves so that she could swipe them and be on her way.
"Ah. Here we are. Keys. Do not fucking lose these, understood?" There were three keys. One had a neatly printed address on its tag. The other two were freshly-cut and unmarked, though both different shapes. "The first is to your apartment. We didn't manage to get you one in the same block as your crew, but there was a free flat in the adjoining condo. It's nicer. Think yourself lucky."
Wow. Annie took the key and looked at it. Her apartment. That she owned and paid for. That she'd live in. Her heart leapt a little at the thought before Proton snapped her back into the real world. "Now, this big fat ugly grey one is for the service entrance to HQ. Get one of the others to show you where it is. The lifts from the streets are closed until further notice." She took the awkward key thoughtfully as he moved onto his last item.
"Now- this is the important key." He said with deadly seriousness, the dirty yellow light casting hard shadows over his face. "This is the key that we will not hesitate to take away from you if you cock up. This is the key that we part with most painfully."
Raising his gaze to lock with her eyes, his next words were a whisper. "This is the key to the Kingdom of Heaven."