Chapter 16: Incertae Sedis

"Of uncertain placement"

December 26, 1894, Wednesday

It was the chill that woke him, the fire from last night now embers cooling in the fireplace. Robert slid his eyes closed and inhaled.

There was a formula to waking, a procedure to be followed. When one slept in a universe and woke in another, or yet, had taken two different paths, it was necessary to ground himself. Every slumber was a deconstruction of self, a rearrangement into Rosalind, and every waking an assembly, a reconditioning to Robert.

His brain was unreliable, in a fugue, vision blurred by influence, but a memory buried deep could be drawn out by scent. So he breathed and remembered who he was. He recalled the fireplace and the ashes, the remnants of cold pie, congealed fat and spice, saccharine liquor on glass, the gritty dust of the velvet couch and the scent of hair.

At the scent of Rosalind, he opened his eyes. He remembered last night, that she had fallen asleep beside him and he had followed not long afterwords. The cold had brought her to turn on her side and press against him. Robert was all at once, very aware of how warm she was, how pleasant, so very different from his hard angles. There was a time not too long ago he thought he'd never be anything but elbows and knees. Surely she had outgrown that, if she'd even went through it at all.

He shifted, settling deeper into the cushion of the couch, that he might get comfortable. That gravity, their vanquished foe, might let her fall into the curve of his body.

They had never slept together like this. In the very early days, she had nursed him in her room, and she tended to him until she herself fell asleep from exhaustion at his side, an arms length away. And afterwords, when he was not an invalid, she had told him his room was prepared. To make a full recovery, he needed new memories, a new room that was his.

His room, across the hall from hers had been storage once. It still was, to a point. Extra generators sat in the corner, unused or outdated. He'd asked her once why she had three bedrooms in the house when it was just her, and she replied that it was standard with the model. In the planning, she had wanted a house because it demanded privacy instead of a laboratory. She had merely requested the largest single dwelling home that had the most open space.

He felt her stir slightly and adjust to the space, or perhaps to the coldness of the room, but she pressed herself closer to him on her side, and he could feel the length of her thigh against his—such a pleasant feeling. Yes, he did not care if they spent the better half of the day, or all of it, here on this sofa. Robert dipped his head back lazily on the armrest to return to sleep. Rosalind shifted again, tucking her face into the crook of his shoulder, her hand coming to rest on his sternum.

She exhaled harshly and fell back into a steady rhythm. He forced his breathing to remain the same, lest she move away. He relaxed again.

For a moment she stretched her fingers, then she grasped lightly at the closure of his shirt and buttons. Her hand moved along his abdomen in examination, or curiosity, or both. It traced at the muscle, the crest of the hip, making his breath hitch and heat stir in his groin.

He stopped her hand and she glanced up at him, surprised to find him awake.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," he murmured. Unless of course, that was her intent.

There was a rise of color in her ears at being caught, or perhaps at something else?

Sitting up, she cleared her throat and straightened her blouse before she stood. "Sorry."

"It's fine," he said, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to manage it. He sat up and began tucking in his shirt and he stood as well. "I was unprepared for—"

He caught that her attention flicked quickly to his lap, and his mouth was suddenly dry. "-for-"

"—New contact. As was I."

He meant to ask her her meaning to clarify, to hope—but there came several knocks on the parlor door downstairs and the angry sound of bells from the pull.

"Lutece?" a voice bellowed.

Damn that man. His timing was always impeccably inconvenient. He sighed angrily. "What could he possibly want?"

Rosalind's face had already set in that impassive expression she reserved only for Comstock. "What he always wants," she said irritably. "Freshen up if you prefer. Do take as much time as you like. Perhaps the man might learn patience." She fixed her collar. "And basic manners."

So they hastened to make themselves presentable, or rather, they did what needed be done. He was not going to give the man the honor of presentation. He brushed his teeth, freshened his face, flattened his hair, and he headed downstairs to their guest. It seemed Rosalind was of the same mind, still looking as she did earlier only the barest of presentation apparent.

Comstock stood waiting at the foot of the stairs, tapping impatiently at the railing wood. He must have heard their footsteps. Robert did his best to hide his smirk.

"Have you read the papers?" he said and looked their state over. "Never mind." Unfolding the newspaper he held tightly, he showed them the front cover.

Amos Sutherland: Popular Populist.

"Sutherland! Not even a day after Christmas and he's yapping to the press like the dog he is."

Rosalind glanced at it, eyebrow upturned in unveiled annoyance. Robert chose to watch Comstock carefully. She might gauge his temperament well, but he would trounce the man if he moved the wrong way near her, and he was very close.

"I need the machine."

"Are you intending to look for something or find the outcome of it?" Rosalind countered.

As of late, Comstock was using the Contraption to search for events. Drastic or insignificant, he grasped for them, a man desperate to hold onto his power. It was pitiful, really, though he supposed they were the ones enabling him, like aristocrats betting on working class men in a ring.

"I've got something in mind that I need to see through," Comstock said cryptically.

Rosalind exchanged a glance with Robert. So they were in for another round of guesswork and perhaps cleanup. There was a time, in the spring when Comstock had been too bold, too idiotic to understand the ramifications of his reliance on alternate dimensions. He predicted a great storm that damaged Monument Tower, preached it to his masses, and the weather remained perfect for weeks. To save face, he proclaimed prayers had saved the city, while behind closed doors he fussed and fumed and ordered them to find another event.

Robert had not forgotten her scolding, the only time he had heard her raise her voice and even Comstock had stopped his babble and considered how much power Rosalind actually held. He had seen the shrewd realization in his eyes and the very sudden change in poise, like the shedding of a snakeskin.

"And what will we be looking for?"

Comstock clenched his jaw, contemplating his answer. "I need to see how this rivalry continues."

"You are aware that what happens in a universe may not happen in another."

"But if it happens in enough—-"

"—Then it happens," she said plainly. "Or it doesn't." She turned on her heel, through with Comstock's foolishness and started powering up the generators.

Robert took her lead and started up the two upstairs. When he returned, Rosalind was already checking power levels at the control panel and he made to bring out the chalkboard that held timelines and divergences. He was mindful not to smudge the writings, but only because it was her hand. Comstock clung to it like some golden calf or found apocrypha, written in stone and unchangeable. Was he aware how his preachings, his empire were dust? Writings on a wall?

He regressed, struck by juxtaposition of the parable. Were they Daniel interpreting God's hand, and meanwhile, Comstock, Belshazzar, had made them third in the Kingdom? By some ancient philosophy, some eternal recurrence, were they in an infinite cycle throughout time repeating events, setting them into motion? Would there be, as in the Book of Daniel, a Darius? An usurper, a conquerer that divided and destroyed this City?

He glanced at the newspaper that lay on the desk of journals now. Amos Sutherland. Comstock believed him a threat?

As Congress' representative, he was the only one to openly and actively challenge Comstock. The only one who could. He had his handful of supporters as Comstock did, as rich and as important as his.

'….we see it most at Christmastime. The true meaning is lost. We are meant to give, meant to reflect on that which we have been blessed, not seclude ourselves away in prim affairs. Yes, we are all blessed to live in this marvel of a city, but it takes famers and laborers to make it run, make it sustainable. It's the same here as it is on the Mainland: let farmers name their prices. Set up a system of checks and balances. Let the people be active in their governing, not at the whim of a leader. We cannot run this city as we run the Mainland, it is impossible. What happens when the Dairy famers won't sell milk to the Hamilton District? When the cost of honey is the same as pearls? Columbia needs to uplift its labor force as it has uplifted itself into the heavens…'

Comstock shook his head, noticing his interest in the paper.

"Who are these assholes who say how to run this city? I say how to run this city. These revolutionaries, they're waiting for my head on a silver platter—"

Rosalind flipped the switch to the Contraption, ending the painful soliloquy. She had once said she created the stage for Comstock's performance, conditioned him to act as he did, like some dog she had taught tricks. A spark of delight ignited in him always when she always tugged on the leash, so to speak.

Robert watched the tear open, his breath catching. It enraptured him always, his doorway, his looking glass. With Rosalind, he had witnessed the first one bloom, seen the beauty of creation, of her face, flourish atom by atom, as the particles that bonded to form him deconstructed to build her. He felt as if the breath was stolen from him, piece by piece, a modern Adam, and Rosalind, a modern Eve who demanded more than a rib for her existence. The Fruit she offered was enough for a million million lifetimes of original sin. He would cross each one to be with her.

It was peering within a tear aperture, witnessing a world dissolve into another, that his mind raced. His thoughts accelerated into singularity. In that moment, he experienced every version of himself, every constant, every variable. The magnitude of it pulled him, like light to a collapsing star, and he was held in suspension from all of space and time.

When the tear stabilized, he finally breathed, and the knowledge was gone. He ached, a million million lifetimes leaving him and he had to look to Rosalind to draw his strength.

She continued as if the opening had not affected her, and he wondered if she had ever experienced the stillness, the singularity.

From across the room, she glanced at him, as she always did when she opened a tear. To reassure, perhaps, that he intended to stay and though she did not smile, he saw that she turned her chin up and her fingers moved fluidly over the controls, a sure sign of her pleased mood.

Comstock stepped closer to discern the tear; Columbia, a balcony covered in roses, a bright day in the spring. They waited a moment to see if anything of note distinguished itself, but the idyllic scene remained the same and Rosalind closed the tear. Robert did not take notes. They could not even determine a time frame for it.

She opened another.

Using the Contraption, as much as they didn't like to admit, was more guesswork than precision. Rosalind disliked that they were guessing in the dark, no tether to connect to like the first tear, but that was why they continued with tests. Until then, they relied on theories, repeated experiments. They looked for the patterns, looked for the symmetries.

Perhaps it was the same day, the same universe, but the tear opened to a city square, and Robert recognized it as Sons of Liberty Plaza. It seemed early in the day, Sunday, possibly, because there was little activity. Comstock grunted in contemplation at the scene.

The tear flickered a moment and Rosalind glanced at the meters curiously. Robert kept his eyes on it. It flickered again, and the bright spring morning shifted to night, bringing with it a cold draft of snow. By habit, he raised his arm to shield himself, his attire not prepared for the elements. He brushed the snow off his sleeve, but reconsidered when the ice smeared dark on the white fabric— a remainder of soot from the fireplace last night. He grimaced at the inconvenience and the scent of smoke filtered through the opening and he saw ash collecting on the floor.

"Get them out!"

He looked up, angry that Comstock had yelled but he and Rosalind were riveted to the tear, now a blazing brightness in the dark room as the buildings in the plaza burned. The yelling grew more indistinct as others joined and they saw about a dozen men scramble to reach doors and break them down.

"They're still inside! Tell Amos! It's a fucking set—"

An explosion rattled his teeth, and a wave of heat washed over him. Immediately, his cheeks grew hot and his throat tightened. He drew back as another loud burst started—

"—Rosalind!" he coughed, covering his nose and mouth. Thick dark smoke funneled into the room.

She flipped the switch as the flames arced toward them.

Rubbing at his eyes, he went to the nearest window and opened it to let the air in. "The bloody hell was that?" he murmured between coughs.

While they were accustomed to uneventful tears, occasionally, those with rather disturbing contents emerged. He was not so surprised at the existence of the tears but more of discerning just what he witnessed. How he wished they kept Father's rifle within easy reach than in an armoire upstairs.

Comstock rubbed at his beard and through the smoke, Robert could smell burnt hair.

Returning to the chalkboard, he began to record the events.

"Open another one," Comstock said.

Robert paused his writing and glanced at Rosalind. She gestured for him to remain still.

"What are you looking for?" she asked again, firmer.

The Prophet remained silent for a moment.

"Whatever you intend on doing may not have the same outcome you desire."

His lips thinned and disappeared under his mustache. "I just need to see."

She observed Comstock in that cool, calculating stare she reserved for men that bored her and returned to the controls, making minor increments on the dials. She pulled the lever once more and Robert watched with mild curiosity the tear opening.

Together, they peered into a universe that looked no different than this. There was a procession, mourners, a casket. Comstock spoke at a podium from the steps of the Columbian Court House in Washington Square.

"…Though we did not always see eye to eye, he was a man I respected, a man who upheld the purest American ideals. He sought a Columbia that was strong, unified. Where every man woman and child sought to be a definition unto themselves, just as this great City has pushed every boundary and expectation. And it is with a heavy heart that I say he was taken from us far too soon, far too selfishly by those who did not want to work, that sought to divide us. I will not rest until we have done him justice, until we have created a Columbia that Amos Sutherland would be proud of…"

The tear closed suddenly, and Robert glanced at Rosalind again to see that she had done so purposely.

He looked at Comstock now, his unhappiness now replaced with a pleased expression.

"Thank-you. That was all I needed," he said quietly, nodding at Rosalind, turning on his heel, and leaving.

Robert made certain he heard the parlor and front doors close before looking at her. Her brow was furrowed, her lips pursed in deep thought, but she still glanced sidelong at him, sensing his attention. Then she powered off the generator closest to her and he followed suit again, taking care of the ones upstairs.

She was writing on the chalkboard when he returned, drawing a slow circle around the two events she had just recorded.

A haze lingered still, but the chill was returning, and he closed the window. "I do hope he does not try anything foolish."

"He will," she answered distantly, still studying the timelines. "It's in his nature."

How a man so reckless as he got this far without their help was beyond him. Booker DeWitt was never far in his thoughts when he thought of Comstock, how easily, how deep a man could fall into his own grave. Robert crossed his arms and took in all the events on the board, eyes darting from the insignificant to the drastic.

"I suppose if I'd built my life on lies, I'd be the pearl of paranoia."

"What is your theory on the ripple?" she said, turning to face him, her face much softer. She was excited, curious, at the new phenomenon. He had almost forgotten!

"The location remained the same, but the time did not…"

"Yes," she said, almost breathless. "Time changed. It fluctuated, flipped like a switch. A coin," she added.

"It shifted dimensions? To an event we were looking for?"

"I theorize we're influencing tears. Comstock at least, unfortunately, for this morning's viewing."

"Subconsciously, perhaps?"

"For now, that is the theory. We shall have to perform tests."

He nodded. Yes, this was quite an interesting turn of events. If they could harness the power of the subconscious, or better yet, harness the power of the human mind, the potential of such universal knowledge was within their grasp. If they could pinpoint a universe that they wanted with merely a thought—

"—We must also put forward that we are predestined to open such tears," Robert added.

"That no matter what, we will always open up to the same contents?"

"Yes—" Another thought struck him. "—You say influencing, as if we are opening up tears that already exist and are actively seeking, but what if by influencing, we are creating worlds. A constant flux of expanding and collapsing dimensions. We are willingthem into existence."

Her head canted slightly as she absorbed his theories, and she looked at him as if he was the most interesting thing in the room. He grew bold under her gaze, stretching, even though he was not tired, twisting his torso to see if her eyes followed.

She smiled, taking a step toward him. "Such good fortune that you always have the best ideas." She reached up and smoothed a lock of his hair that had fallen out of place. "You always hold our best traits. It is curious—"

"—Why curious?" he dared to ask, to interrupt her. He considered the fondness of her action and those of earlier when they had slept. He was unsure of her proximity and the feeling that had risen in his stomach because of it.

"That of all universes, all variables, I am so lucky to find the best version of us. Perhaps we are predestined to open the tears that we have."

Robert opened his mouth to speak but his stomach grumbled and he sheepishly grinned.

Rosalind still had that soft expression about her face as she strode past him.

"Come, we've still got a bit of pie left."

A/N:

One question this chapter:

(1) What does Comstock have planned?