Chapter 5 – Renegade

And the world ended.

Well not quite.

The clock glowed in the middle of the floor, painful to look at. But Myria stared, nevertheless. Then she looked around. There was a hammer lying on the floor. She considered trying to break the clock with it, and then thought better when she looked closely at what the clock was doing to the reality around itself.

She looked up to see the other Auditors staring at each other in turns, while the real humans (yes we are including the Igor in there) stood frozen in place. Except for Mr. Jeremy who looked like he was in agony and was slowly falling over.

Her body, perhaps remembering being on the receiving end of such treatment, quickly moved over and caught him, looked at the still shocked Auditors in human form, and half dragged, half ran him out of the shop. Out in Baker Street, it was a strange combination of silence and madness. Silence, because all the normal human sounds were gone. Every previously living thing was frozen in place, still as stone. Things that were in the process of flowing or falling were likewise stopped in place.

Time had stopped, but shadows moved in the streets. She blinked, and realized that Auditors by the hundreds were yielding to curiosity, taking on human bodies just as Mr. White and the others had done.

Oh gods…this is going to be bad. I must get Mr. Jeremy off the streets.

Her mind was working furiously. She couldn't make it far, he could barely walk, but she had to get him somewhere safe nearby so she could think. Right now her brain was buzzing with strange chemicals. It's amazing the amount of adrenaline that can be produced when you hit sheer world-ending panic and stay there. She worked her way down Baker Street to Filigree, and finally to the Brass Bridge. There was no way she could make it all the way to her home; the streets were starting to fill up with more Auditors, and they were starting to take notice of her. But there, at the bridge, she spotted the Royal Art Museum on Lower Broadway. She knew the museum. Off they went, staggering their way onto the Isle of Gods.

Thirty long minutes later, she was struggling to get Jeremy up several flights of stairs, to where she remembered the attics being. They were not normally open to the public, but she had seen a workman enter and exit behind the stuffed elephant when she had visited last. Yes, that would be out of the way. It wasn't part of the public museum. There was even a sign there that said "Absolutely No Admittance." She paused, realizing that she wasn't supposed to go there… and then the corners of her mouth turned up. In her current state, she could ignore such a command, but any 'just hatched' Auditor would naturally avoid breaking the rules.

Jeremy groaned feverishly, and she hurriedly got him under the rope and half dragged him up the narrow stairs to a large bare landing. Boxes were stacked here and there. She worked her way though packing cases and found a family, frozen in time, gathered around a dinner table there. Another blow to her sanity that she didn't need. Exhausted, she turned back to Jeremy and managed drag him over to a makeshift bed. Letting him fall into the bed, she collapsed next to it. He does not look well, she decided as she sat on the floor catching her breath.

At the same time her new reality began banging its metaphorically sharp-edged and mail clad fists against her mind. She was not built for this, both mentally and physically. As an Auditor, she was used to being part of a group. The only thing that had managed to keep her sane up to today was the fact that, in a way, she was still connected to it by purpose. But now, now she had betrayed her former brethren and no longer wanted anything to do with their plans. And all the humans were frozen in place…except.

She turned back to Jeremy, puzzled. What was it about him that was different? When the clock started, he was obviously affected, but… not frozen.

She shook her head again, the chaos of it all assaulting her sanity, and slowly her thoughts split in two. One, a small rational corner, began considering how she would protect herself and Jeremy… who was in a way her anchor to her own 'humanity'. Another small part, that dark monkey part that ran on exotic self-produced chemicals, was beginning to quietly gibber. The rest of her seemed to vacillate on which one to listen to.

First things first, the rational part said, she would need…what? She was no good at this! What do you need when the world has ended and you are trying to keep you and your only anchor to sanity alive? Food, right? Water? A weapon to protect yourself? Weapon? She didn't know how to use a weapon! The mere thought made her shake and pushed her further toward gibber-monkey territory.

She shuddered again, and pulled herself together. Food. That was it. There would be food at her home. Home. Hah. Furtively, she began working her way down through the museum. The recently corporated Auditors had not yet worked their way into the building, but she knew they would. Art was one of the things they had never fully understood, and so they would focus on it when they got their feet under them.

Once back out on Lower Broadway, she could see they were starting to get organized, and it worried her. They would recognize her, she was sure, and then what? Skirting around Pseudopolis Yard, she noticed a large group of them gathered around the horrible Mr. White. There were hundreds of them, already.

Mr. White was learning, apparently, and was doing so faster and better than she had. He was also getting angrier than she had ever seen one of her kind. She watched, transfixed, as he demanded and received a rather impressive slap across the face, and in horror as he cut off the head of the unfortunate Auditor that had complied with his demand. Then, his sharp-edged staff of office in hand, he headed for Sator Square with a mob of meek Auditors in tow.

If that was the punishment being provided, she was as good as discorporated when they caught her. Quietly, she worked her way around Pseudopolis Yard to Kings Way. Finally, almost collapsing from cumulative terror and exhaustion, she made it to her house, where she quickly gathered her meager supply of wafer bread and water. She wondered, briefly, why it was that everything was frozen in time, but she could still interact with things. Then she realized that the… others… were doing the same as she was, using things. The objects themselves had no time of their own. She was making her own time, and forcing things she encountered to interact with her.

Gathering food and water calmed her at first, it was something to do. But then she realized again she would have to fight, to defend herself. How? There was nothing here. She would need more food too, though she had no intention of eating anytime soon after watching Mr. White deal his deadly version of discipline. Her neck actually ached with the memory of what he had done with the axe.

Head spinning with panic and adrenaline, she staggered out of her house and back up Kings Way toward Phedre Road, exploring the shops as she went. Two hours later, she was not doing well at all. She had gone into several shops and instead of a sword or even a sharpened stick, she now was prepped for battle in a sequined evening gown.

And a mink stole.

And a huge dancehall hat with enough feathers to unpluck a rather embarrassed peacock.

It wasn't her fault really. Kings Way was not exactly the armory district. The people who lived along it were more interested in fine clothing and fine dining than they were with the sort of things that made holes and gashes in people. She had also obtained a rather gaudy makeup set, now nestled in an equally gaudy and mismatched purse. She had tried to use some of the makeup, and done rather badly. She was beginning to look like a cross between a rodeo clown and a raccoon. She was losing it, whatever it was.

The only thing that had really gone right was the knapsack. It wasn't stylish, but it was roomy and currently contained her paltry supply of food and water. It was the urge to secure more food that drove her to the Body Street bakery.

The bakery turned out to be a mistake.

Not from the standpoint of supplies, she knew it would be the only place where she could get food sufficiently bland to keep her both fed and conscious immediately afterward. The problem was she had not considered the impact of seeing the baker. Or at least, the statue of the baker. Standing behind the counter with his normal pleasant smile, somehow in its current state looking more like a horrific rictus. It hit her like a hammer, like the ground was pulled out from under her already unsteady feet. The effect was doubled because she not only was losing an anchor to sanity, she had not realized it was that anchor until it was gone. He had been…normality of a sort. He had been one of the few humans that interacted with her as if she was a person herself, beyond just the day-to-day casual business transactions that she had begun to take for granted.

She heard a strange, quiet keening sound…and realized it was her. And the pain in her knees was from striking the ground. The fingers digging into the floor were hers; the moisture falling onto the floor and the back of her hands was from her own eyes.

When she came to her senses again, she was already wandering down the street. That horrific, amazing thing that humans had, that mind, had done something to her to enable her to keep functioning. It had blocked the horror, insulated her. And made her quite mad. She realized with detachment that in the process she had filled her knapsack with the wafers from… somewhere she had just been. Best not to ask questions… hah. Hah hah.

No longer furtive, more going on reflex, she staggered toward the rear of the museum. And only made it a few steps when she realized she was being followed. She looked back, and saw three Auditors in human form, spread out behind her and quickly gaining. One look at their faces, and she knew they had learned at least one human emotion well. There was her death written in their faces.

Her instincts, immature though they were, took over and threw her through the next doorway, slamming the door shut and shoving a small display in front of it. A weapon! She must defend herself! Her eyes darted around, and she began giggling maniacally.

It was a gifts and sundry shop. Just full to the ceiling with knickknacks saying "Well Comme to Ankh MroProk!" and "Wishe Ye Werte Here!" If scarves with clever sayings, pink fuzzy riding gloves, humorous clothed figures that shed them when turned upside down had been the trick, she would have been well off. As it was, despair and panic gripped her anew and threatened to send her to darkness again.

And then the first blow pushed the door open a crack.

It was her stomach that saved her. That blasted, annoying, demanding son of a bitch of a wet, gross sack. In constant collusion with the nose, it had already been the bane of her existence. Ha. But just as the Auditors were shoving the door open, it growled loudly. Ha! HA HA! She cackled wildly as they almost forced their way in.

"Of course HA HA HA! This is HA! HA! The PERFECT TIME TO HAVE A SNACK! HA! HAHAAAA!" She cast her eyes about just as the hated nose got into the game as well, zeroing in on a heavenly smell.

"HAHHAHAYAAAAHHHHH!" As her hands tore into a sample display of Higgs & Meakins Luxury Assortment. Ten varieties of sheer confectionary bliss! Just think! If you are going to go down, go down with taste buds exploding and stomach full of absolutely TOXIC amounts of sugar!

Hands full of literal "death by chocolate" and headed at light speed for her watering mouth, her rolling eyes caught the sight of the three Auditors finally throwing the small display aside as they barged through the door. And her body's natural reactions took over. Instead of shoving those wondrous deadly sweets into her own mouth, her hand instinctively threw whatever it had at the approaching enemy.

Who caught them, their own eyes as wild as hers. But these three had no experience with food and little with smell. The heavenly scent of overpriced chocolate hit their noses like a sledgehammer, stopping them in their tracks. For a second they stared at their hands, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, mouths agape and drooling. Then they yielded to the inevitable.

It was over in a matter of seconds really, with nothing to show for it but the sticky remains of half-chewed chocolates on the floor and a fine powder of dust on nearby surfaces. A fraction of a second of horror/bliss as each Auditor went rigid. And then they disintegrated, tiny particles spinning away and disappearing into nothing with a faint scream that was heard via the hairs on the back of the neck.

Myria stood still, staring at the result. Then her stomach and nose grabbed her attention again. She absently brought her hand to her face, the alluring smell bedeviling her. And froze, shaking with the effort. There was… there was choc… choc… choc… There was something brown on her hand…she could smell it.

It might as well been blood and she a fledgling vampire.

Screaming, she staggered to the back offices to find a water pump.

When she exited the shop, she had one of its thick scarves wrapped around her face, but she swore she could still smell the cloying scent of hazelnut crunch. She had thick fuzzy riding gloves on, but she could still feel the molecules of dark chocolate stuck to her hands. There wasn't enough water to wash off the feeling.

And she had a knapsack containing the rest of Higgs & Meakins Luxury Assortment. She used up most of the chocolates getting back into the museum, the streets were crawling with Auditors and they knew exactly who and what she was.

She also decided that being insane can be rather satisfying in a vicious sort of way.

Jeremy was no worse when she got back to the attic, but also no better. And he had begun mumbling. She managed to get him to drink some water, and then sat, as far from the knapsack as possible, and thought. She wasn't sure whether it was the sane or insane part that was winning, but whichever it was, it was thinking in an eerily clear fashion.

She had again paused when trying to go past the "NO ADMITTANCE" sign, and that had given her an idea. She began chuckling, in a way that an Igor would have well recognized, and gathered materials to make her own.

Minutes later, she was giggling as she hung the first at the landing. "KEEP LEFT" it said, with an arrow pointing to the right.

Then there was the next one, just before the crates and boxes. "DO NOT FEED THE ELEPHANT."

She was positively cackling by the time she got to "IGNORE THIS SIGN" and "DUCK".

After she finished placing them, she went back to the attic, wrapped her arms tightly around her torso, and began rocking back and forth, alternating between weeping and giggling. Every so often, she would get makeup out and do a bit of touch-up.

A mirror would have been a treat.

So would some actual fine motor control.

A few hours later, she was convinced she must be mad… she was starting to hear voices. Even worse, one of them had an odd echo. Even stranger she felt like she heard the echo before the actual voice.

"…it's an entire band," a female voice wafted up from the direction of the hall of inappropriate animals.

"kittens dancing" Jeremy mumbled.

"…look at the little kittens dancing." the male voice responded.

"grandfather" she heard from the bed.

"…met your grandfather?" repeated the male voice.

Myria realized that she was actually hearing someone repeating Jeremy's feverish murmurings. But, that made no sense! More importantly, someone was coming this way. Myria quietly crept into the maze of boxes and crates, a deadly Hazelnut Surprise at the ready. It was all she could do not to rip the cloth from her own mouth and shove it in.

"….. my grandfather is rather fond of cats."

They were at the foot of the stairs now. But this was not how she expected Auditors to sound. Grandfather? No Auditor would have had a grandfather, nor the wit or desire to make up one.

"I should be up there," the male voice said.

"Let's not hang around, then, eh?" said the woman.

Then they began discussing Myria's signs. She recognized the female's voice, and it was an Auditor memory, not a LeJean memory. She was… Sally? Sarah? No... Susan. Susan Sto Helit. Death's… ah... yes, her Grandfather. And that meant that she and probably her companion were no more 'human' than Myria was. For some reason this hurt. Why had she been hopeful about that? But that dangerous line of thought was interrupted again as they continued working their way through her signs.

At least she would have company. That is, if Susan and her cohort didn't kill her before she could convince them she wasn't one of them. But of course she was, wasn't she. But she wasn't of course…but…oh gods.

The duo were making their way to the attic, she thought she heard Susan call the other one Lobsang. Lobsang? What kind of name was that for an Ankh-Morpork human? No, not human, she reminded herself, feeling another stab of sorrow.

Then Myria heard another argument farther down the stairs from Susan and Lobsang. Auditors were following them. They were leading Auditors to her! She had to do something. Should she hide? Or run? Or fight?

Self-preservation won over terror, and Myria quietly made her way through the storage area to a dark side-passage, just in time to see Susan and her companion make their way past her. It was at this moment that the only Auditor to make it past the signs came into view. Stalking past Myria with its own little world of adrenaline and madness between its ears, it confronted Susan with a sword.

The auditor had its back to Myria, and she was still terrified. It was a sword. A very sharp sword, and the Auditor was waving it at Susan as if it knew what to do with it.

This was the first time she had seen an Auditor other than Mr. White with an actual weapon, and she knew what Mr. White had done with one of those. Her body again came to her aid, apparently deciding that fleeing or hiding were not options here and ignoring the fear gripping her. Before she knew what she was doing, she had sidled up behind the Auditor and, catching it by surprise, thrust a chocolate in its gaping mouth, with the expected result.

Susan and Lobsang stared in shock as the Auditor dissolved to dust, then a few moments more at the space where it had been, and then focused on Myria. Gradually, Susan's stare turned into a glare.

"You're a... you can't be a... what are you?" Susan demanded.

Later, Myria considered the insanity that followed. First, Susan had explained that Jeremy was somehow a reflection of Lobsang. She had watched in shock as one touched the other and they cancelled out, or combined, or something. Mourning the loss, Myria had no choice but to follow Susan through the streets of Ankh-Morpork seeking more ammunition, which they found. But Myria needed not just ammunition, but understanding, and she did not get that from Susan.

Then they had found a strange little man who called himself a History Monk, who seemed to think he knew exactly what was going on. And Susan, claiming to be accompanied by a now non-physical Mr. Lobsang/Jeremy, had destroyed the clock. The rest was such a blur that she was unsure what was real and what was her own mad ravings. Had there been a mammoth? Giant rotating columns storing time? Did Jeremy return? Or was it Lobsang? Had time begun flowing again? All she knew for a fact was that because of the clock being destroyed, history had fractured... again. And somehow the being that Mr. Lobsang/Jeremy had become had repaired it, but then he had left them, to both their regret.

As a result, days, or an eternity, or a fevered instant later, Myria found herself standing with Susan in the mountains near the Hub, discussing the end of things, and the beginning. They had discussed Jeremy and Lobsang, and the subject had seemed to make Susan angry even as it hurt Myria.

In a pause in the conversation, Myria became lost in the chaos behind her eyes, dwelling on her own sorrows. And in the darkness behind the eyes, darker cloaked shapes appeared and whispered despair.

You abandoned your kind. You are a renegade.

You betrayed your kind. You are a traitor.

You killed your kind. You are a murderer.

I am not one of you, she whispered in the darkness of her mind.

Then what are you? You are not one of them.

An image formed in her mind, Jeremy lying in the bed in the attic then vanishing into light when the other one touched him.

"That was my last friend…"

That one no longer exists. In all the vastness of time and space, the only being that remains to you is this one beside you.

Another memory image, of Susan glaring at her and speaking hurtful words: "What are you? I didn't think your kind had friends." she had said. And the most cutting "Not 'just Susan.' It's Miss Susan. I'm only 'just Susan' to my friends, and you are not one of them. I don't trust you at all."

The only person who might understand me, and she hates me. I truly am alone, and the universe is so very very large.

"What are you going to do now?" Susan said, somehow cutting through the darkness.

Myria struggled to focus. "I do not know."

"Well, if I can help in any way..."

"Thank you. You can, indeed, help. I wish to do something human."

"Uh, fine, if—"

"I wish to die."

And from the sky, five horsemen galloped to take them back to Ankh-Morpork. Chaos, to match her thoughts. Pestilence, for she was little more than an uninvited guest. War, which had left its scars upon her. Famine, as she hungered for things she could not have.

And Susan's grandfather, Death, soon to be an intimate acquaintance.

Somewhere that could only exist through the machinations of Chaos, three beings stood. One the aforementioned horseman. The second a tall skeletal figure, well known to all.

And the third, a being that once was an Auditor but could be human. Whose only crime was being neither.

And in the midst of them all, a giant vat. Thousands of gallons of sugar, fondant, and the richest dark chocolate. Summoning what dignity she could muster, Myria asked Death to remember her to his granddaughter and with a certain flair dove headfirst into the deadly concoction. For a moment, her body was suffused with ecstasy as the deadly stuff saturated her senses.

The more seductive bliss of nothingness claimed her for an eternal moment until, breaking free of the cursed body but somehow not destroyed in the process, the essence of the Auditor rose from its sugary grave.

"But... I died," said the Auditor.

YES, said Death. THIS IS THE NEXT PART.

And darkness consumed it.

[A/N BEFORE YOU REVIEW if you are unfamiliar with Thief of Time, please note that in that novel Pratchett skips over almost everything that happens here, telling the story from Susan/Lobsang's perspective, and only vaguely alludes to what must have occurred before they discover Myria in the attic. The scene with the giant vat of chocolate is his creation, my version here is again only a retelling from Myria's perspective (which required repeating the dialogue) to ensure continuity. THIS is where Thief of Time ends, and all the remaining chapters contain dialogue and plot elements that do not appear in Pratchett's work (though of course, his characters mannerisms, traits, and speech patterns are preserved.]