Chapter Fifty-Two
"Well, Tomorrow's the big day!"
Calgary announced to Alberta what was blatantly oblivious to anyone who hadn't been living in isolation for the past two weeks. This pronouncement was met with an eyeroll from the province, for the obvious reason that she already knew full well what was going on.
The sun was shining overhead as the two of them surveyed the work being done to the Grandstands below them for the upcoming show. The Stampede's grandstand was a huge and imposing concrete structure, inset with bleachers overlooking a massive dirt-floored rodeo area that intersected with a horse-racing track that was only really used for the chuckwagon races. The bleacher section had a concrete overhang high above it, rooted firmly into the top of the structure, as a measure against rain or snow or whatever else. And all around them, technicians and workers and performers and co-ordinators with clipboards scurried to and fro, preparing the grandstand the rodeo floor for a show unlike any the Stampede grounds had ever held before.
Calgary looked over his clipboard and nodded, ticking off another check box as a technician finished hooking up the last of the television cameras that would be pointed at the stage set just in front of the dirt rodeo area.
"I'm really friggin' glad Shaw agreed to cover this thing, you know?" he said, crossing something off and making a note that he was going to need a less shiny belt buckle than usual.
Alberta just nodded. Shaw was a telecommunications firm headquartered in Calgary, and without their help, Cal's plan to have the show broadcast across the whole province- but crucially, not outside it- would have been stymied. The owners generously agreed to offer any support they could, and this was further helped by local news stations offering their channels to the masses. This event was going to be broadcast across the province any way it could be; but critically, restricted as much as possible. Only Albertans would be able to view it, and without a valid IP address from within the province, people outside couldn't stream it either.
Or at least, that was the plan. Alberta didn't trust the internet to leave well enough alone for more than ten minutes; they'd honestly have an easier time trying to sieve the salt out of the ocean by hand than keep the internet from leaking the show.
Cal kept on chattering, completely oblivious to the fact that his younger sister wasn't paying any attention. There was a strange glassy look in her icy blue eyes, as though she wasn't quite seeing the same things as him.
"…Yeah, that's fine….I gotta go check something, Cal. Back in a second." She interrupted abruptly, cutting him off mid-sentence. The province's mind had begun to wander, her thoughts swirling as ever to the main well of discontent that simmered in her breast. There was a man in a cage not too far from where she stood, a man who she needed to talk to. She didn't know if he should be in there, if he deserved his imprisonment or his fate…but she needed to talk to him, regardless.
And Calgary, after he'd gotten himself composed again, merely nodded.
"Sure thing. You know where to find me. Can't wait for tomorrow!" He chirped as she walked away, her city's twisted excitement fuelling a tangle of emotions she couldn't explain.
Alberta turned and started to walk up the steps, back into the grandstand proper. The inside was normally air-conditioned, or at least it was during the summer; with the encroaching autumn, though, they were heating the building just a bit, enough to keep it livable. The massive concrete structure was more than a little depressing when it wasn't swarming with Stampede-goers and vendors selling their wares, and Alberta found herself sinking lower and lower into her mire.
She flashed her keycard at a lock to one of the downstairs areas, swinging the unassuming door open and descending into the bowels of the concrete building. The stairwell was Spartan and empty, her footsteps echoing off the walls and ceiling in and seeming to reverberate for seconds at a time. Their drumbeat was eventually silenced when Alberta's brown cowboy boots came to a halt in front of the door to the sub-basement, and in front of a big man with a big gun. He simply looked her up and down and nodded, flashing his own keycard at the lock to let her in; her key wouldn't work for this door.
The light flashed green, and Alberta pushed the door open into the sub-basement.
It would normally have been pitch-dark down there, save for a few fluorescents high above to illuminate the equipment that kept the building running so the maintenance crews could ensure it still worked; but the room Alberta walked into wasn't the sub-basement as it typically would have been. There was a ring of floodlights surrounding an open space in the centre of the room, and between the floodlights, guards with massive guns, many of whom smiled or nodded at her as she worked her way around the edge of the ring.
In the centre of the circle, illuminated by the floodlights, were cages. Four in total, spaced about the circle so none of them were close to the door. They were all very large, containing a few things; a bed, a small table and a chair; and of course, a person.
Four people, all in cages, and Alberta knew each and every one of them. Specially made cages, welded, not from simple steel bars, but from thick lengths of pipe, pipe created specifically to handle the intense pressures of refining petroleum, all welded onto a flat steel floor. She hadn't overseen the creation of the cages, but it was pretty impressive how quickly her people had adapted the materials they had lying around for the purposes of containing the terrifying strength of a personification.
Of course, America could have torn through those flimsy bars like they were wet paper, and for that matter, so could Canada; the only thing stopping him from ripping his cage to pieces and bludgeoning his jailors to death with the ends of his dozens of chains was the fact that if he did, all three men in the other cages would die on the spot.
But he wasn't of interest to Alberta. There was that distant, glassy look in her eyes as she skirted around the edges of the floodlights, finally seizing on her target and pushing her way into the middle of the circle.
And suddenly she was nervous.
This was no-man's-land she was walking into- if one of them made a move now, there'd be a lot of guns going off in a very short space of time, and she had her doubts that they'd be able to avoid hitting her. The point of this setup was containment of personifications, and, well, times like this, Alberta was really acutely aware of her own non-humanity.
But that….that didn't matter.
"Manny?"
The sound in the silence seemed to shatter a collective trance that had fallen over the whole proceedings, all heads in the room turning to face the blonde woman in the white cowboy hat.
Manitoba was the sole exception. He was sitting on his bed with his head in his hands, his back to Alberta. And at the sound of her voice, the vulnerability and fear in that single word…he said nothing. Didn't even grunt an acknowledgement, just sat there in solemn silence. And one second dragged into two which dragged into ten, and then-
"…Manny- Look, Manny- we need to talk… Please? Please….I need to talk to you." Alberta was talking quietly, softly, trying to coax her stubborn brother into maybe turning around-
"What."
He didn't so much as say the word; more growled it in a voice like a murderous bear. Manitoba let his hands drop but kept his head hung and his back to his sister, his shoulders raised and his posture defiant. She could see he was shaking with rage, a fury that she sincerely wanted to retreat from. This…this wasn't a good idea. He was mad. He was angry. He couldn't help her. He couldn't…
"Manny…I…Look, I'm…I'm sorry."
"…You're fucking SORRY?!"
And without warning, Manitoba got up off his bed and turned around in one lightning-swift motion, the look of pure rage on his face enough to make Alberta swallow nervously and take a step back.
"You're fucking sorry. Really. REALLY. You're a TRAITOR. You're INSANE. YOU'RE FUCKING WORSE THAN QUEBEC, YOU KNOW THAT?! YOU'RE FUCKING WORSE THAN QUEBEC AFTER HE JUMPED OFF THE FUCKING DEEP END. YOU BETRAYED YOUR FAMILY, ALBERT-HRRRRK!"
And Manitoba's rant stopped dead in its tracks with a choked gargling cry. She'd moved so fast- he'd barely had time to register the change on Alberta's face. She'd gone from "verge of tears' to "ice cold hate' in the space of time it took for him to exhale, and now her hand, her frighteningly strong hand was wrapped around his windpipe and crushing the life out of him. And just like Saskatchewan, Alberta was so much stronger than him-
"You can't betray someone you're enslaved to." She hissed, "That's the first thing. The second thing, Manny? Why the fuck would I want to stay loyal to you- you fucking parasites. I came down here for HELP, Manitoba. I came down here because I COULD FUCKING FREE YOU. I COULD GET YOU OUT OF THAT FUCKING CAGE!"
Those icy blue eyes glazed over again, and Alberta shoved a second hand through the bars, grabbing the other side of his neck to steady her grip against his panicked thrashing. He was starting to turn red- and a sense of sick, twisted joy welled up inside her at the sight. And yet. And yet it wasn't- it wasn't right. She blinked- and for an instant- she saw-
Manitoba gasped in a breath when her fingers loosened their hold for an instant, not even wasting any time to try and reply or even speak. He had been pulled into the bars, slammed against them chest-first; but air, air was his highest priority at that moment. The look on his sister's face was so conflicted, so distraught-
And then her fingers were tightening around his neck again like a noose, and she was screaming at him, screaming in German, apropos of nothing; a thousand little details were presented to him all at once, even as her fingers robbed him of the air he found himself thrashing for. Alberta was babbling in German, babbling about….clockwork dolls? A nightmare? And she had- she had started crying, even if it was just a little bit, even if it was just a single stray tear off the side of her face, followed by a few others as she demanded answers of him-
And then the fingers released again and he could breathe, could fill his lungs with air, fucking air, oh god oh god-
"Please- Please, Manny, why?! Why- it- they're all happy, but they're NOT happy, they're- they're confused and I'm confused and it hurts Manny, it really hurts my head and my heart- I keep having nightmares and- and- Corvus did something to- to Cal, and- and Eddy, and he- he broke them. He broke them. I don't- Manny, I don't know what to do-"
Her hands never left his neck, but they just- loosened. They loosened, but he knew, he knew full well that if he tried to brush them away, tried to sweep them off his shoulders, the noose would only tighten again.
And Alberta looked him dead in the eyes as the first of her tears started to fall, her hands sliding away from his neck and onto his shoulders. Her nails, long and sharp, dug themselves into the flesh of Manitoba's shoulders as Alberta sought some sort of stability in the middle of her emotional hurricane.
She looked him in the eyes, and in that swirling sea of blue, he saw a little girl he'd known a hundred years before. Just a glimpse of her, that same confusion and fear that comes from the uncertainty of youth, of not knowing why the nightmare won't stop and why you can't wake up from it.
The ice that had frozen itself onto his heart shattered.
She was his little sister, and she was begging him for help.
"I'll- I'll set you free. I promise. I promise, I promise. Nothing will happen to you. Nothing. We- we'll get you out. We'll get you home. Just- just tell me why, Manny. Tell me why it hurts so much. Why does my heart hurt so much, big brother? Why?" Everything is…everything should be perfect. We're…they're…my people are unhappy but happy but angry but sad but joyful and it hurts so much-"
She was whispering all this to him in German because of the dozens of people in the room, but Manitoba got the message, and appreciated the need for discretion. Tears were streaming down Alberta's face, but she was being remarkably quiet about it- clenching her jaw and biting back any sobs that threatened to escape her.
Manitoba reached through the bars and placed his hands on her shoulders.
"Alberta. Listen to me."
His voice was soft and comforting. The voice he'd used to read the twins storybooks before bedtime when they were small. She recognized it, and he could see the spark of relief in her eyes. Stability. Nostalgia. Better days long since passed.
"I don't know what's going on in your head or your heart. I can't hear your people and I can't hear the land's song. This isn't my land, these aren't my people. First and foremost, that's your burden to bear, and I can't help you carry it. But I can tell you why your heart hurts, though you're really not going to like it."
Painfully aware of how close her hands were to his neck, Manitoba took a deep breath.
"Corvus…is evil. He is a monster. I watched him torture Calgary. I watched Cal scream and beg and plead for him to stop…I watched Corvus break that man's sanity right in front of me. He…He had something, it looked like a cattle prod hooked up to a generator, and he…he was using it on Cal, and I don't even want to know how long he'd been down there. And there was that…fucking frequency on the speakers. That fucking frequency, and Corvus…look, he did break your brothers. He cracked their sanity and stole their free will, and they are going to be fucked up for a long, long time because of what that man did to them, do you understand me?"
The tears in Alberta's eyes had dried, and now she was just staring at Manitoba with ice cold horror in her veins. Those blue eyes were wide with shock, and she was leaning her full weight on him, as if he'd just dropped the weight of the world on her shoulders.
"There wasn't anything you could have done. Humans are evil, evil creatures, and we're….just their playthings, really. At the end of the day, that's all we are. We're slaves to them, shackled by the 'gift' of everlasting life…and there wasn't anything you could have done. But that might be part of why…and your people, they…they don't want this. You don't want this. I know you, Alberta. I know who you are and I know what you want. And you want money, not war. You want peace. You want me and Sasky and BC to stand by your side. You want Ontario and Ottawa and all of them to leave you alone and let you do as you please. And…Look, I don't get a lot of the shit you pull, Alberta. I don't get it. But I want you to do one thing for me. Just one. And if you do, I'll stand by you no matter what happens."
It was a promise. A promise to his baby sister, a promise he would go to war again to defend. If Alberta still wanted rebellion, then fine. Better that she be schooled by an expert. But some part of him hoped and prayed that she wouldn't; that somehow, some way, good would prevail over evil. Somehow. Some way.
"What…what's that?"
She was shaking now, looking like she was going to start crying again. Really, forcing the quaver out of her voice was fairly impressive, because she did not look as composed as she sounded.
Manitoba closed his eyes and thought deeply.
"I want you, tomorrow, to do one thing. Just one. You don't have to surrender. You don't have to do anything like that. Just remember this, Alberta: you are not Corvus's slave. He may think you are, but that is because he is an elected official. You are the servant of your people first and foremost, and you are capable of moving mountains in their service. He cannot stop you and he cannot hold you. So…whatever happens tomorrow, your actions are up to you."
Manitoba nodded, looking down at his shoes and then back up at her. His thoughts were a bit of a mess, and he needed to collect them- the pause didn't seem to have any effect, though, since Alberta was hanging off his every word.
" I guess what I'm trying to say is…Corvus has scared you all into believing that he's the only one who can protect you from the vampires lurking in the darkness. And I think it's high time you turned on the light. You are strong. You are free. And you don't need Corvus to be that way. So all I want you to do for me, Alberta, is think. I want you to think and remember."
Alberta nodded once, solemnly.
"I will."
They stayed like that for a little while, Alberta shuddered through the last of her tears. By the end of it, they were awkwardly hugging through the bars, her arms wrapped tightly around him- sort of crushing the breath out of him again, but this time, it was with love and gratitude as opposed to Corvus's hatred.
And when she looked up…there she was. Alberta. His Alberta. Hard work and drugstore cowboys, Rocky Mountain Sunsets and steak; blue eyes that shone like the sky with joy at handing out presents to family and friends at Christmastime. Fragments of Alberta; and he'd seen hundreds of them. The bitchy, miserable, shattered soul that Corvus had poisoned with his hatred…that wasn't the Alberta he knew. Alberta just wanted to be.
The Alberta that Manitoba knew had always wanted one thing and one thing only. To be…free enough. That was all. She just wanted the East to leave her alone. That was all she'd ever wanted. She wanted her rights as a province and then she wanted the east to govern with a hands-off approach-towards all of them. Did she love them? Of course. There was no doubt in Manitoba's mind that she loved them all.
Maybe even Quebec.
Manitoba was surprised when she straightened up, pulling away but keeping a hand on his shoulder. The tears had long since dried, and her breathing had smoothed out.
"I'm gonna get you out of here, Manny." She whispered, smiling at him softly. There was gratitude in her eyes, shining the warm blue of the summer sky over the wheat fields. The twins really were the prairies embodied in humans, Manitoba mused, much moreso than himself. He was a child of the Metis Rebellion; they were children of the endless, rolling prairie. Their hair was gold like the wheat and the grass that rippled and swayed in the wind like waves on the ocean. Alberta's blue eyes, the colour of the sky; Saskatchewan's green, spring's life and renewal.
He nodded once, solemnly.
"I hope so."
A/N:
I have had writer's block on this fucking chapter for like. Three months. Holy shit. Holy friggin' shit. But it's done, it's finally done, and finally, finally we can get to Cal's show!
Hopefully you enjoyed that little breather. One final push into hell, guys. Shit gon get fucked, but then we're gonna climb our way out of hell and everything'll be dandy again.
