Part 3

Am I gonna get paid for this? No? Good. 'Cause then I can plead stuff like a debt to the truth etcetera etcetera. Doesn't work if your back pocket's stuffed full of credits. Anyway. Back to the sodding story.

You remember I told you Cole had looked familiar? Well, that's because I had filed away a relative of his, only I had to go look it up to make sure. At the time, I was just shit scared and completely out of it. Anyway, it turns out that there was this whole thing with the Shadows again - oh, yeah, the Shadows. Um, never mind them. They've buggered away, anyway. Not much point in going on and on about them. Anyhow, the Shadows did this outpost place a few years back, just about the time they got back, and, naturally, it caused a huge mess. I mean, it wasn't authorised! No paperwork was filed! It was a mess! I had nearly a thousand people to process, and one of them was a bloke called William Cole.

Yeah, that's how I looked when I dug up the file. Brother of our man, I realised halfway through. Begged the boss man to save his kid brother, saying that he was blessed, that he was needed... Nonsense, all of it, of course, but kinda sweet that he'd try when there was no hope.

So, anyhow, I didn't know all this when Cole says his "Because I've been here before" bit. I figured that he'd snuck in, or, worse, snuck out. Now, that kind of thing doesn't happen. Not that it's not allowed to happen - just that it doesn't. There's not even a law written against it, because it's so impossible.

So, of course, everyone imagines that someone has, on the slightest suspicion. It doesn't even have to be grounded in anything. I mean, take Cole, for example. A nice enough bloke, really, kinda annoying when he perks up - and yes, there were perky bits in there while I was rummaging around; oh, God, were there perky bits... Yeah, so, he's nice enough. Maybe a bit on the self-sacrificial side, you know, feeling guilt for living when others have died, yadda yadda yadda.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound bored or insensitive, it's just that - well, here it's all old hat. You want ten thousand Narn tortured to death with one little girl as a survivor? You got it. You want refugees, murderers, modern-day holocaust survivors? We got them all. Everyone goes through here, sooner or later. I've seen them all, and if I cried for them all I'd be curled up in a ball somewhere, completely insensible. No. You gotta put some boundaries up.

Which is why it freaked me out that this Cole guy got through them all so quickly. He made you scared. It wasn't that he was scary - far from it. Like I said, pleasant bloke, nice circle of friends, would make someone the ideal husband. But - you looked into that intensity, and it frightened you. Not because he wanted to die. Because he wanted to live.

I bet you were expecting the opposite, huh? That he had a death wish? That's what I thought, at first. No, you look at him a few times, and you see it. His body's dead - or nearly dead, depending on how fast they get to him. It's his eyes that are the only alive parts of him, and he's willing to trade that for this woman's life --

I'd been thinking all of this as I scrambled away from him, and then it hit me, and I stopped dead in my tracks. He was looking down at me, making eye contact again, and that clinched it for me. I knew what the ace up his sleeve was.

What?

No, I'm not going to tell you! What, d'you think I'm stupid or something! If I tell you now, you'll go do something else. No, that's the punch line. You have to wait for that one.

What do you mean, how long? As long as it takes! Now quit interrupting me so I can get the damn story out!

Ah. Anyway. I was freaked out, Cole's looking at me with that little smirk on his face that means he knows he's got one up on us, and the Almighty was smiling as well, smiling because He knows where Cole is coming from and where this will all lead. Must be handy to know the outcome before the game starts.

"WHY WOULD THIS MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?"

"You can't take us both, you know. You made that rule. William told me, before he left. I knew." This is me being completely confused.

I'm not surprised you're so out of it! Think how I felt? Does it help to know that William is Cole's brother? No? Forget it.

"MAYBE I CHANGED MY MIND."

"I bloody well hope not!"

And then God Himself started to laugh. It's a funny thing - well, funny, but not in a ha-ha but an oh dear, how curious kind of way - when a deity laughs. It's like light shaking and getting brighter. And the voice starts off like thunder, but gets softer and softer until it's a wave...

Have you ever seen Aurora borealis? That's God laughing until he cries. Beautiful, don't you think? Think of it, up close, with this little mortal man standing in front of Him, trying not to be incinerated by the sheer brightness.

"YOU SEEM VERY SURE OF YOURSELF, MARCUS. WILLIAM TAUGHT YOU WELL."

"He tried," Cole said, in a voice a little above a whisper. I'd only just clicked that William must be the brother, remember. I was desperately trying to recall the details of it all - all the little bits and pieces of the case, all the little peculiarities.

I was also trying to stand up, without much success.

"He told me a lot of things I didn't listen to until it was too late. But - a few things I learned from him in time." And then his face was shining like the light that came from Him. It may have been the reflection - he was all mirrors, remember? But I can't be sure. I've never gone all the way through a black hole. Who knows, maybe it's a well of light at the bottom. "I learned how to save her."

And there was pride at that too, and why not? Pride in such an accomplishment... hell, I'd have tacked up a notice to the local church door! I figured out who the girl was ages ago, by the way. The Susan Ivanova person? Well, I'd made it to my desk by this point and was rifling through the 'pending' file. Yep, there she was. Broken neck. She'd been in here a while ago, actually, and I'd thought it had been a cut and dry case like the others, see, but then Dmitri had run in and dragged her off to a waiting room because there was some sort of commotion outside... a challenger had appeared.

Naturally, I'd assumed the Morning Star and rushed outside, armed to the nines, and there was nothing there but the bloody queue. So, get back inside, read the paper and get clued up in time to meet and greet our Mr Cole here.

You know, I never wanted to be a public servant. Too much stress. Didn't look like Cole had any stress to worry about, though. Either that, or he'd dropped off the mortal coil during the proceedings. That was more likely than not, to be frank. Hell, he looked like a ghost already.

So, anyway, back to the Almighty looking amused and talking more and more dogma. "YOU THINK YOU CAN SAVE HER BY EXCHANGING YOUR LIFE FOR HERS?" I fought the urge to shout 'duh!'. God isn't normally this dense. He had to have an angle...

Of course He had. He looked at Cole again - or, I assume He looked because it was all a great big light thing to me - and He thought about this. Cole said nothing. "I DON'T THINK YOU LOVE HER ENOUGH. NOT AS MUCH AS YOU PURPORT."

Well, if anyone can get away with calling true love a lie, it has to be Him. Cole looked like he was trying to keep his temper. Wise move. You do not lose your temper in the Divine Presence. "I love her," he said again, a little desperately. His eyes weren't quite as bright as they were before. He's fading, I realised suddenly, and it scared me a bit. I'd kind of thought that maybe he wouldn't...

But, of course, he had been mortal. Now he was an ex-mortal and looking mighty pasty to prove it. His eyes weren't exactly bloodshot, and his skin wasn't exactly clammy, but... you know how you always imagine ghosts to be? Sort of real-ish, but push hard enough and your hand will go straight through them? Yeah, exactly like that. It's freaky, I tell you, and I've been working here as long as I can remember.

"I do love her," he said again. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself. I'd still left a little bit of myself in him, even in all my fear, and while surreptitiously rifling through the files of one William Cole, dead five-odd years, I was also trying to have a look-see at exactly what he was thinking.

He did love her, this much I can tell you. But it wasn't a proper kind of love, see... Ah, who am I to judge on what's proper and what's not. But, when you love someone, you want them to love you back, right? Not so for Mr Cole, here. The last thing he wanted was for this Susan to love him. It would have made him run away so fast...

What do you mean that doesn't make any sense? What, you expect the heart to make sense to you? Dear oh dear, you really are new at this, aren't you? I got William's file out, and was having a look at God's little side-notes on the judgements and whatnot. Basically, it seems our dear William made a pre-emptive strike against the Grim Reaper - he was dying, but wasn't quite dead. He would have been, but that's not the point. I guess we were having a slow day when this attack thing happened, and we just went into automatic, filing them out, one after the other. William was amongst the first, and he wasn't even dead yet. We stuck him in a waiting room to see if he'd leave or stay, but he wasn't having any of it. He wanted to see God, he wanted to see God, went on and on about it.

Fine. Just to shut him up, we told him that he couldn't if he wanted to have a chance at survival. Basically, once he went in for judgement, he wasn't coming out alive. He agreed, and rushed through the damn doors before we even had a chance to tell him he needed to die first!

I mean, honestly. There's protocol to be followed, here! Hardly anyone gets to walk in alive, and, well, it's a bit uncouth to do so. I mean, everyone around you is dead, see, so it's a bit like rubbing it in their face. Plus, it's like you're choosing death, which I really don't want to discuss since it's all a bit morbid in my opinion.

Yeah, anyway. So, William gets a chance to see the Almighty, and then follows the usual plea-bargaining. William wants his baby brother to live, and God is all for it, seeing as Marcus isn't all that hurt, he's not even on a waiting list. Well, that doesn't satisfy William. He's convinced the Shadows will destroy the base completely - which they do, by the way. He doesn't want God to spare Marcus' life - he wants him to hold William's life as insurance. Sort of like the cat with nine lives, only Marcus will have two.

Have you ever heard a more ridiculous thing in your life? Well, that was it. God's laughing helplessly, and William's desperately trying to think of a way to protect his baby bro from the big bad Shadows.

And so - you're never going to believe this - they reached a compromise.

A bloody compromise. What kind of deity reaches a compromise! If you ask me, he's gone soft since the whole Shadow thing. Went all gaga on the younger races, wanted to coddle them. Never coddled them before - one wrong move, and whomph! A great big flood to cleanse the earth. No, now he's negotiating!

Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you, Jesus H Christ! Of course this has relevance on the Cole case! You think just anyone can pull this sorta thing off? Nope. It's not even up to the relevance of the person, really. It's not about specialness, or blessedness.

It's about luck.

And administrative screw-ups.

Shit! That's my supervisor. I gotta run. I'll tell you the rest tomorrow, okay?