Nevadan Cleanse

by wafflepudding

The conception and cessation of Madness Combat's Nevada. Cover by Jackie Cai (Spectra 6234 on DeviantArt).

12. The Retaking

A/N: Screw you, chronology, for making my chapters hard to synchronize. Slowing me down. Feel like GRRM.

A/N cont'd: Well, at least I'm writing. I want to thank all my readers for bearing with me and my poor pacing. The reviews have been exceptional, but to all of you who are confused, I invite you to try to solve the story's mysteries - maddening as they may be, everything has a reason. Feel free to post your theories. Now, this chapter has a few MA paragraphs that I'm uploading to Deviant Art. They contain some plot elements, so be sure to follow the link when you get there. (And let me know if it somehow ends up broken. You'd need to find Chapter 12 - The Retaking in wafflepudding1's account.) Thanks again for your support, and I hope you stay for the mysteries to come.

Until now, the Sheriff had thought that the best Scotch in the world could be bought with mere money. Not so. Mr. A was a generous boss. Mr. A was a powerful boss. Mr. A's connections had provided more luxury than even the opulent Sheriff was accustomed to, and the Sheriff could only wonder at the power his new boss must hold. So Sheriff Jay reclined in an Arabian leather chair, sipped the best Scotch in the world, and pondered whether he'd have to kill Mr. A to get his empire.

'Know thine enemy', spoke the proverb. When every man may be your enemy, the only proper course is to know everything. The secretary had called Mr. A enigmatic. Sheriff Jay had had to stifle a laugh: Soon, he'd know everything there was to know about the man.

The Sheriff read the note again.

Find and destroy any recording devices, visual and auditory, that may be in any of your facilities. Instruct Agency soldiers neither to report nor share suspicious activity.

Make the secretary aware of your location at all hours, working or otherwise.

Mr. A

Truly an exercise in brevity. It was the most incredible thing Sheriff Jay had ever read.

Just to begin with, the note had been alone, taped to the coffee table, just waiting for Sheriff Jay to come in. The secretary had said that Mr. A was not expecting Sheriff Jay to take this offer, yet it seemed more that the Sheriff's attendance had been orchestrated.

Then, the instructions to "find and destroy any recording devices" and to "instruct Agency soldiers neither to report nor share suspicious activity." The ordinary man would make good note that Mr. A did not want Agency activities recorded, and that those actions must be criminal or secretive, and the ordinary man would deserve a pat on the back and a gold star, for he would be right. But the Sheriff already knew that the Agency was a hotbed of criminal activity, and had been since its inception. What he was more concerned with was that Mr. A was asking him to implement these policies now, after the entrepreneur had (hypothetically) owned the Agency for years. Fiction was stranger than fact, the Sheriff knew. Maybe Mr. A truly was a long-time owner of the Agency. Maybe the fact that he didn't know the secretary's name, required Sheriff Jay to "find" the recording devices, called units 'soldiers', and couldn't name the three Agency facilities was due to inattention. But Sheriff Jay suspected that it was something less retarded than that.

Those involved in the Agency had begun disappearing, had said the secretary. From that, the Sheriff took that a new owner had taken control of the Agency. Sheriff Jay had been secretly arranged, by the owner, to replace those who had disappeared. This was a hostile takeover if the Sheriff had ever seen one, and said hostilities may have involved actual homicide. By the final sentence of the note, it was clear that the owner desired a profound level of control. Not a word of this news was troubling to the Sheriff. What it was: very revealing.

In one note, Mr. A had revealed just how dishonest he was.

In one note, Mr. A had revealed his strenuously concealed, genuine relationship with the Agency.

In one note, Mr. A had revealed about half of what the Sheriff probably would have had to search for.

Mr. A had, in one note, revealed that he was an oblivious. Naive. And Sheriff Jay would use this to learn everything about Mr. A, then overcome him.

The first order of business was to conceal all the cameras and recording devices. After all, who was the owner hiding the recordings from if not for the Sheriff? It wasn't as though the Agency made a habit of broadcasting its recordings to the public. Sheriff Jay would keep informed of anything and everything that his boss was hiding.

Sheriff Jay called the secretary (whose name was Jackie, as it had taken all of two seconds to determine) and asked the hierarchy of his new employees. That done, he ordered building maintenance to remove cameras from North and North complex between the hours of 400 and 600 every day until they were all gone. This would show his boss that he was being secretive, since the Agency officially opened at 600 hours. However, given that the maintenance crew would be leaving with carts of cameras when every other employee was arriving, all Agency units and authorities would know that the cameras were gone. The cameras would be taken to the warehouse for scrap metal.

Then the Sheriff called a private contractor. The contractor's crew would come in between the hours of 200 and 330, take the scrap cameras from the warehouse, and reinstall them much more secretly in the same exact positions.

A few days later, Mr. A visited the Sheriff's office. Sheriff Jay took him for an exceptionally neat person, and had had the top floor, where his office resided, cleared of all personnel but for his secretary. The marble and windows were polished to an absurd extent. He hoped to make an impression.

"I notice that the hours between 400 and 600 have been very productive for the Agency." Said the probably homicidal entrepreneur.

"You don't need to speak in code, the cameras are gone." And the Sheriff believed it when he said it. If you couldn't persuade yourself, how could you persuade anyone else?

His boss bared his teeth in what seemed to be an attempt at a smile. This man... he was eccentric, Jackie had been right about that. But it almost seemed like something more.

"SIN is a mess." Said Mr. A. The man did not look at Sheriff Jay when he said it, but frowned and squinted at the gleaming window. The Sheriff liked the sun, but it looked like he'd be getting curtains installed.

"In terms of litter?" Prodded the Sheriff.

"In terms of trash." His boss replied. "You still have connections with the SINPD, am I correct?" The Sheriff nodded. "I need the city cleaner. Quieter. More orderly. I need a curfew."

Litigation. Officially, far beyond the supposed powers of the Agency's owner. Unofficially, fuck that, SIN's government was entirely bought and sold. The SINPD had been enforcing any laws they wanted to for the past ever.

"I assume you want these new rules enforced rigidly."

"Yes." Said Mr. A.

"Would you like cameras to monitor civilians?" The Sheriff asked.

"Yes." Mr. A hesitated, then frowned. "No. No cameras anywhere."

Okay. Mr. A was hiding something that extended well past the boundaries of the Agency.

The Sheriff nodded. "I'll have it done right away."

His boss looked away from the window now, fixing Sheriff Jay with a direct look. It became long, but not uncomfortably so. Sheriff Jay returned the stare with all the impassive comfort of a good employee, or, so he persuaded himself. "You're a good employee, Sheriff Jay. You don't question me. You seem effective."

"You're an owner worth being effective for."

Mr. A bared his teeth again in that strange approximation of a smile, stood, and shook the Sheriff's hand. When the door closed, the Sheriff picked up his phone.

"Jackie?" He said.

"Yes, Mr. Jay?"

"Sheriff."

"Sheriff Jay." She amended.

"I'm going to need some new curtains for my office."

The regulations had been fun to impose. Not because Sheriff Jay particularly enjoyed rules, but because in imposing them, Sheriff Jay learned further the extent of the Agency's power. He could do anything with it.

Raising taxes was a no-brainer. People bought Agency (or any variety of) goods, then paid the taxes... to the Agency. The Sheriff thought his boss might appreciate a secret police, so he gathered some whiny North Complex vets and a few boxes of donuts and sent them out to patrol for rule-breaking. The curfew was twelve, all mail was checked, all speech was censored. It was stratocracy at its finest. And no one could complain about the police state, because if they did, whiny North Complex vets would kick in their door and shoot them to death and then probably eat some donuts because that's what cops do.

But now his day's work was done, and it was time for something else.

She was blushing, touching her hair, and looking everywhere but at Sheriff Jay. "How would you even know that?" She asked, skeptical, laugh bubbling around her fingers.

"Because he told me. Mysterious Mr. A is a eunuch. He was fixed when he was little." Sheriff Jay replied.

"I don't think I believe you." She said.

"Believe it or not, he keeps a glass jar with -" The elevator dinged. Floor B1. "Here we are. Now, Jackie..." He looked at her face, flushed, eyes downcast, as the doors opened. With great bravery, her eyes met his. Blue. "You know, Jackie, you're very beautiful."

She tried to say something in reply, but the murmur made her words incoherent. Verbal language wasn't the important kind, though, as she leaned in closer to the Sheriff, the space between their waists closing. She'd looked away again, so he swept the hair from her face and turned it up towards his.

"I like you." He said, and they forgot whatever errand the Sheriff had invented.

When they kissed, Sheriff Jay tasted a girl unaccustomed to kissing. She worked long hours for the Agency, he'd find later, and it didn't leave any time for relationships. First, her muscles were tense, tight. Then, Sheriff Jay made them loose, relaxed. First, her hands were awkward and unsure. Then, they grasped tightly his face, wandering down the day's stubble and touching his hard chest.

"Jay..." She breathed.

A/N: MA content omitted, alter address as needed and follow link to DeviantArt. (www).(wafflepudding1).(deviantart) (dot com) (/art/Chapter-12-The-Retaking-545555450)

Hugh Tricks. Tricky. Who was this man, problematic enough to be addressed by the Sheriff himself, yet important enough not to be terminated? My, the text had been vague, but the Sheriff Jay thought of something he may as well try.

He stood, using just an arm to carry the girl with him. He set her down. "I should shower." He said.

"Maybe... if you wanted, I could... maybe..." She began, but her speech faded away. She was too shy to ask.

"You should go upstairs. I'll need the day's schedule ready when I get there." Said the Sheriff.

Her eyes flicked down, again. "Okay."

When the door closed behind her, the Sheriff took his face in his hands. "Jay." He said through them, voice muffled. "Sheriff... Jay." He slapped his cheeks a few times, and, all better, went to the shower.

His suit was even crisper that usual. What if Mr. A walked in to a less than perfect sight? The Sheriff could not hope to kill the man without gaining his confidence.

"Jackie." He said, striding into the lobby of the top floor.

"Good morning, sir." She said. She met his eyes this time. They seemed hastily dried.

She looks unprofessional. Unfocused. Displeasing to a controlling entrepreneur. Is a discussion in order? Asked a pragmatic voice.

Her eyes. I did that to them. Said another.

"Do I have the schedule?" He asked.

"It's in your email, sir." She replied.

He paused, trying to think of anything else he needed to ask her. Or tell her. No, he had what he needed. He nodded, and entered his office with sticky note in hand.

The first order of business was the recruitment to East Complex. The weight of the request hadn't occurred to him when he first read the note, him being otherwise occupied, but now all his rational thought paused in its force. The East Complex was destroyed, contaminated, full of some malevolent demons that had wreaked an unknowable havoc inside. Sheriff knew this firsthand, as he'd heard Officer Eila's crew traversing it in real time. For Mr. A to suggest that it be repopulated... the man must have a deeper understanding of the matter than the Sheriff would have assumed. But, that could be explored later. Now, all the Sheriff needed to do was recruit. Recruitment was, in fact, the easiest of all his tasks, because his travails in the underground industry had revealed inner city SIN to be brimming with fighters and devoid of jobs. He'd need to update Agency advertisements and move them to that area.

The Sheriff asked Jackie and found that the Agency did not have any graphical designers on retainer. He looked through freelancers for the best savings.

Several concept orders submitted, he settled into his next problem: how to find Unit James of North Complex.

Unit James of North Complex! That was a name that the Sheriff knew. A fascinating man, and an integral factor in his failed plan to regain control of the SINPD. From the Sheriff's recollection, Unit James had suffered a mental break in the East Complex, and then died in a swarm of whatever forces inhabited it. The Sheriff never had fully understood the mechanisms of those forces, nor what had happened at that complex, but Unit James's escape wasn't too great a surprise in light of such chaos.

It was yet unclear what made Unit James so important to Mr. A. Quite possibly, Mr. A's understanding of the events at East Complex was as incomplete as the Sheriff's. Sheriff Jay remembered a chemical produced that, suspended in gas mask filters, protected Agency units from the smoke enveloping the complex. It had been expensive to produce, for sure. But maybe Mr. A's hostile takeover had brought enough capital to the Agency to chemically neutralize the complex.

There was no telling for sure. All the Sheriff could do was contemplate the man. Christoff was an obvious pseudonym. Ex-Unit James claimed to be of Nevadan descent, but there were no census records of anyone bearing that name, no family members to be found. Searching after the man's past would prove fruitless. The Sheriff could use only what he already knew.

"Has there been a memorial for the recently lost units?" Sheriff Jay asked through the phone.

"No, Sheriff. The Agency budget didn't allow for it." Jackie replied.

"Thank you." Said the Sheriff.

He found a picture of Unit Kara Harding of North Complex, sent it as well to his new freelance artists. She'd be the face of the memorial, and her picture would be everywhere, soon. It would be a public venue. No security, as that might scare off James. The posters would be up by the end of the day to ensure that James would see them before he went, in case he planned to leave SIN.

Well, that was all that could be done for now. Later, the Sheriff might...

Is that someone in the lobby? He heard rustling, the secretary speaking. He hurriedly threw closed the curtains in case it was Mr. A, then sat imperially at his desk.

"Unit Hugh Tricks, here to see you." Jackie said.

"Send him in."

After a moment, the man thrust open the door and stalked disdainfully into the room. Sheriff Jay was stricken by the man's clownish makeup; his hair was green, his face white. Tricky slumped into a chair, staring at the Sheriff with disinterested eyes. This was not a sharp and analytical man... exactly what made him of such value to Mr. A?

"Hello, Tricky." Said the Sheriff.

"Hey Brass." Tricky responded. What? Thought the Sheriff, shocked. With his petulant demeanor, I would never have suspected him impudent! What a complex appearance this man has made!

"How're you doing today, Tricky?" Asked the Sheriff. He attempted to believe that the man was an employee to respect. He failed, and was forced to force it. "I'm sure you have something interesting to tell me. You're my most interesting employee."

The clown-faced man stared at the curtains behind him, light glinting off his pupils. God... the Sheriff had closed the curtains in anticipation of the man who wanted the light.

"You don't want to be here. Why not?" The Sheriff asked.

Tricky laughed. "This is my punishment, Sheriff. I was thinking the wrong thoughts and nearly being disobedient. Now I haven't heard any orders or guidance in weeks, except to accept my demotion to North Complex janitor."

Hmm... janitor. Code, maybe? Code for hit-man?

The Sheriff assured him that he would have good work here.

"Yes, a janitor's work. Killing the dissident to wipe up your messes." Tricky said.

Nailed it. In any case, a hit-man dangerous enough to require this special attention would be a valuable asset. And, as Tricky seemed already to have a distrust for his work, the Sheriff might as well attempt to gain his trust and subvert Mr. A. It had been a half-formed plan when he thought of it at the apartment, but it was beginning to take shape.

The Sheriff pulled a bottle of Valium from his drawer. It rattled against other bottles. Yes, Sheriff Jay had his vices.

"Is that Valium?" Asked the clown-man when Sheriff Jay set it on the table, attitude suddenly improved.

This was clearly not a man who enjoyed taking orders. The chaos evident merely in the man's face paint was enough to label him, the dissident-killer, a dissident - even if his dissidence was not realized.

"I don't know why you want guidance, much less orders. You look like you could take on any challenge you could assign yourself, no need for a puppeteer." Said the Sheriff.

The clown requested the bottle.

"I doubt any boss of yours would be okay with you popping pills." Said the Sheriff, gulping another Scotch to wash the pill's taste from his mouth. He continued. "I imagine that would interfere in your taking orders."

"I need ITS orders!" Tricky shouted. Now, the Sheriff had not provoked such a response. The man's argument was plainly more internal than external.

What was 'IT', by the way?

"Then you don't need pills." Said the Sheriff, prodding further the man's internal tumult. "In any case, I can tell that you're tired of killing the 'dissident', as you say." Or as this IT says. And as Sheriff Jay would advocate, were not Tricky so violently opposed to it. Instead, the Sheriff had a new plan. "I have a more constructive job for you up at the East Complex." It was time to get Tricky out from under Mr. A's thumb. It was time to give him control. "There's a lot of damage there. A lot of cleanup to do. I want you to take charge of repopulating the complex and managing that branch. Let you be in charge for once." Said the Sheriff. "Of course, if you'd rather wash your hands of this demotion, it's your choice to walk out that door. You're in control."

The Sheriff watched the clown wrestle with himself. It went on for a minute or so.

"What would I be in charge of at the East Complex?" Tricky finally asked.

"Anything. Everything. What did... IT... put you in charge of?" Asked the Sheriff. He may as well find out what IT was.

"Mr. A, not IT." Oh. "He put me in charge of killing the imperfect and dissident, making telephone calls, and recruiting." Sheriff Jay hesitated for a moment. Calling the boss 'IT'... this went further than your dysfunctional workplace. The Sheriff asked Tricky who he'd recruited; he might have more than one hit-man to steal.

"I never learned any names." Tricky said. "I just followed orders."

"Mr. A's orders?" Asked the Sheriff. Just to clarify that IT was Mr. A.

"I don't know what I'm allowed to tell you." Tricky said. Hmm... the Sheriff had been surprised at how loose Tricky's tongue initially was, but it seemed to have tightened. Damage control was in order.

"I'm sure anything you aren't allowed to say would have been made clear to you. Besides, even if you said something out of line, who would know? It's just us in here." Said the Sheriff. Well, just them, and the cameras.

"He'd know." Tricky said immediately. "He always knows, whether it's where I am or what I'm doing or what I'm thinking, IT..." Tricky stopped, closed his mouth, and looked back to the window. He may as well. The Sheriff had everything he needed.

"It's no problem, Tricky." Said the Sheriff. "You don't have to say anything more than you want to. In any case, there's a car outside waiting to take you to East Complex. I've taken the liberty of appointing you a personal assistant," another North Complex veteran, it would be, "until you get your feet under you. So, what do you say? Do you want East Complex?"

Happy, free, the clown was his now. He shook the Sheriff's hand with joint-buckling strength, then headed out the door.

After the clown left, one of his phrases stayed behind. Tricky's job had been "perfecting the imperfect," and Mr. A, or IT, had assigned it to him. Maybe the entrepreneur styled himself a philosophical leader, a revolutionary, a god. And how Mr. A could always see Tricky, whether it was where he was, what he was doing, or what he was thinking? Probably a delusion. Tricky looked the delusional sort. Still, though, it aroused curiosity.

That could be investigated later. For now, his day's problems were addressed. And it wasn't yet noon! When everything had slipped away from him at the station, it had been devastating. So when he'd taken this job, he'd sworn to take it back. But this time, he'd take back even more.

He spent the remainder of the day reestablishing old drug connections. Back in the days of the police, he'd dominated the heroin sector. It had been the most profitable drug. But now? Now, he thought he'd take over the entire underground. Every cartel, every black market, every gang would belong to him. Opposition would be shot. And when he established enough manpower, he'd do to Daddy Flow what Daddy Flow had done to the Sheriff's house.

On his way back to the office, that line of thinking reminded him of Tommygun.

No, thought the Sheriff. That man no longer deserves a nickname.

Thomas had been the traitor, the one to sabotage the budget, the one to break his credibility, the one to steal his police station. And Thomas would be killed, in due time. But the Sheriff didn't understand how Thomas could have been involved in all the other events formerly orchestrated against him. What about the weapons shipment stolen from North Complex? What about Ellie's possession of a North gun? What about her black eyes, what about the strange events at East?

Sheriff Jay had never borne witness to any unearthly things, but his daddy had recalled to him some dark encounters. Surely, in Nevada, there were beings brought forth from the aether. Sheriff Jay would need to dig for them.

He got in the elevator. The flyers promoting the funeral would be sent out by now. A minute, a ding, a walk onto the lobby. Jackie was packing her things, still looking cheerless. There was always an energy, a joy coming off of her, but it had only taken a minute to make it wink out. The Sheriff thought that she would have recovered by now. Moved on.

Her brow creased when she saw him enter, and she packed more hurriedly, hoping to hasten the encounter.

This is your fault. Said that voice.

Sheriff Jay didn't care. She was a secretary. She could be replaced.

"Jackie." He said, touching her arm just as she was about to leave.

This was ridiculous. Why get further entrenched in this drama? What idiocy could compel him to talk to this woman? He had no bond, emotional or otherwise, with this employee.

She turned away so that he couldn't see the water wetting her lashes.

"Last night, when I said you were beautiful..." He began. But there was no reason he could continue. Nothing. He could say, "Never mind," send her off, and stay collected. He could walk away. He didn't need to say this, there was no reason to say this, he SHOULD NOT say this, "...I meant it."

Well, fuck, now it was too late. Moments of softness were womanly and unnecessary. That's what his daddy had taught him, and wrong as his daddy often was, the world affirmed that the lesson had been pragmatic.

"Something happened to me recently. Before the Agency took me in. I suppose it has affected the way I connect with people." Good God. If there was one, it would boom with a mocking laughter at this absurd scene.

He turned her, and so he could see the tears on her cheeks. "What happened to you?" She asked.

Ellie.

Maybe he could salvage this. He could shut her out and turn her away permanently. But there was absolutely no reason, no reason at all, to disclose his private life. "Someone I was close to died." He said. And though the Sheriff was not a crying man, he felt the same emotions that ran mascara down her face pulling, heaving in his chest.

No he didn't. Goddammit, Jay. You see one nice brunette, and your entire brain goes out the fucking window. Pull yourself together. End this game.

She reached timidly up to touch his cheek. He closed his eyes and held her hand against it. "I'm sorry." She said, and he knew that in that moment, they were connected.

Fine, then. If you want to fuck her so badly, fuck her. But then end it. This soft moment has gone on long enough.

He kissed her, and took her to his room, and fell into bed next to her. They forgot to have sex, and instead fell asleep clothed, over the covers, noses, arms, and bodies pressed together.

Little light came through the window. But it was morning regardless, and still, his disappointment in himself hadn't been relieved. He told himself that he felt nothing for this girl, then spent thirty minutes looking at her closed eyes.

"Good morning." She said, when those eyes finally opened.

"Morning." He said. "What do you want for breakfast?"

She looked over at the clock. "Oh, no." She said. "We're not going to have time for breakfast. Work starts in -"

"Twelve minutes, I know. But we have some work to take care of down here." He said.

A smile began to spread. "A lot of papers in your study. It would be faster just to do them here, not carry them all the way up."

The Sheriff stroked her hair, eyes growing playful. "Now you're thinking like a professional."

This time, she didn't need to ask if they could shower together. Sheriff Jay took them there without a word. When the floor was slick and droplets trickled down the mirror, when the water had run cold and the blood had run hot, Sheriff Jay wrapped a towel around his waist. He made them eggs, thinking all the while that it was not his job, but her job to cook.

When the table was set, Jackie walked into the kitchen. "It smells good." She said.

They sat across from each other, eggs and bacon on their plates. The coffee was freshly brewed, the beans freshly roasted. Sheriff Jay added vodka to his mug, but the secretary declined. It was chilly if you weren't fully dry, and Jackie took her own mug in two hands to still the shivering, and drank slowly, with eyes closed. Sheriff Jay looked at her while she couldn't see. Wet, long hair stuck together and clung against her face. He wanted to brush them away, tuck them behind her ear. Gently, unsurely, he reached up to do just so. But her eyes began to open, and he quickly brought his hand down to a newspaper laying on the counter.

Sheriff Jay was rough and hard. He was not a man for soft touches and whispered words.

"Hm." He said, opening to a random article, lifting up the paper. "Civil unrest in inner city SIN... underclass outraged at proposed legislation..."

"Oh my God!" Gasped Jackie, mug dropping to shatter on the floor. The Sheriff looked up. Fresh brewed coffee seeped over tile grout.

"It's just a bit of civil unrest, Jackie, not a big -"

"Not that." The girl said. The Sheriff turned the newspaper to the front page to see what she was looking at.

Fire. So vivid that the Sheriff thought the page alight, then that it was an image of a burning building. Upon reading, he found that it was merely a graffiti depiction of fire, drawn in exquisite detail on the back of a police station. A lone vandal, shrouded in cloth, goggles, and bags, admired his work for what seemed to be the moment before flight.

Two nights ago, vandalism struck in Nevada Woods. In what some are calling an act of terror, flames were spray painted onto the back of one SINPD police station. While lower class areas of SIN have been struggling with vandalism for years, this is the first reported incident of graffiti culture spreading to an upper-class neighborhood. While the culprit has yet to be identified, police are installing security cameras around all major buildings to prevent future damage.

Despite the high risk to the vandal, no police saw - only one bystander bore witness to the crime. They did not call the police, but did capture the stunning image above, just before the perpetrator left.

"There's a fire station near the police station." Said the witness to whom photo credit goes. "If the vandal were trying to shock, he probably would have sprayed it there. No, I think that whoever it was was trying to send a message."

The Sheriff could see why Jackie had been surprised. The art had been alarming, the image troubling. Sheriff Jay found that he admired it.

"Let me read." Said Jackie, somewhat anxiously. He turned the paper so she could see the front page and he could finish the article about civil unrest. It was an opinion piece, citing several inner city citizens dissatisfied with the Sheriff's proposed legislation. Of course, they didn't know it was proposed by the Sheriff. What they did know of was the tight relationship between the Agency and the police; they would immediately assume the the laws had Agency support. And that, dammit, would be bad for recruitment.

Sheriff Jay had an interesting idea. He could hardly remove the established regulations - they were just too beneficial for the Agency - but he could pull the Agency's support. The Agency would run a puppet police force consisting of solely Agency members, the same going for litigators, while audibly opposing those regulations, even hinting at rebellion. The campaign would be a battle cry of individuality, of freedom, casting the police as the villains and the Agency as the hero. Anti-authoritarian lower class would flock to the Agency, bringing true passion with them.

Just another idea to send in to the freelancers. "You know anything about art?" Asked the Sheriff.

Jackie smiled and shook her head. "Can't say I do. This woman, on the other hand..." She said, referring to the article.

"Woman? Most vandals are male." Said the Sheriff. She shot him a glance, expression inscrutable, then went back to eating. A minute passed. She started to giggle in her way, hand over mouth. "What?" Smiled the Sheriff.

"The mug is still broken."

They laughed, and eventually finished breakfast. They cleaned up and headed to the top.

Sheriff Jay entered his office late. Some Agency paperwork was piled on his desk, so he trudged through it, imagining things more exciting.

A call came in from Unit Tricky. It said that East Complex was clear of whatever had poisoned it, and cleanup was already being done with Tricky and his group of North Complex men. All good signs. Tricky had a strange request, though.

"When you've recruited your units, and we've cleared out the temporary ones from North Complex, could you send me only the ones who are depressed or addicted?"

"Absolutely." Responded the Sheriff. "May I ask why?"

"So I'll have company."

And so it was. Concept art came through Sheriff Jay's laptop later that day, and his eyebrows raised when he saw it. To the left, the upper figure of a strong Agency unit. His eyes were haunted, his jaw was strong, and like most inner city residents, he was black. With eyes narrowed, brown irises pointed to the left of the picture, where a gaunt man with a baton stood behind him, eyes cast in shadow. First draft, the drawing was labeled.

The vivid nature of the drawing reminded him of fire, spray painted against the SINPD.

Another candidate had sent in artwork. It was far too blunt. It depicted a snarling police officer with... no, Sheriff Jay didn't care to inspect further. The work was rudimentary, poor compared to the first. He fired his other freelancers, keeping only the artist of 'First draft' aboard.

That done, the Sheriff turned his final hours of work to more interesting things. He dipped into Agency funds to buy his first dozen keys, alongside assorted hallucinogenics, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. The SINPD had done an annoyingly good job shutting down the meth industry, so instead of buying the crystal, Sheriff Jay ordered it shipped directly from evidence.

He hired ten dealers from the street, each one pushing at near wholesale prices, obliterating any competition. He ordered his secret police to tail them and ensure that the real police stayed away.

That done, it was time for the Sheriff to head home. He shed his tiresome burden, the first step from his office making him free of his work. Jackie was looking at something on her desk, her face a study in concentration.

"Jackie." Said the Sheriff, admiring the look of her face in intense focus.

She started and looked up, then relaxed when she saw his face. "Sheriff." She breathed.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Just... closing up shop." She said, organizing things on her desk, standing up with a bag over her shoulder and a light-leaded pencil in one hand.

"Is that a sketching pencil?" Asked the Sheriff.

"We're out of ordinary ones." She replied.

The Sheriff made a mental note; he'd have to get more pencils.

"Are you ready?" He asked, extending a hand. She took it, and they walked to the elevator. Sheriff Jay hit B1, and the secretary hit Floor One. The Sheriff's eyebrows furrowed. "Floor One? You're not coming with me?"

She looked at his shoes, a faint grin on her face. "I can't keep staying over." She said.

"Why not?"

"Sheriff, I don't have clothes here. This is my third day in this outfit. And I have things to do at home."

"Then I'll come to your place."

She smiled and shook her head. "I don't really have people over."

"Why? Is it a mess? I have some experience with that."

She smiled wider. "You're the first guy to ask to come to my apartment. But as much as I'd like to have you, I just can't." She kissed his lips. "I'll see you tomorrow, Sheriff."

The elevator buzzed open, and she went through the doors.

"Jay." He said. But she'd already walked away. He wondered what she kept at home that was such a secret. His mind would tend to analyze her, to determine what she knew, if he could use it. But the Sheriff found that today, his mind was quiet.

His bed felt empty that night. He took opiates, he tried to lay still. By the time 200 hours glowed red on his bedside table, the Sheriff reached for his phone. He looked first for Ellie, and then remembered that she was shot to death and burned in a fire. No, none of the estranged Daddy Flow's escorts would do. And the Sheriff didn't know other pimps.

Sheriff Jay scrolled down his contacts, looking for Jackie. He'd ask if she was awake. Maybe she would be, and she could comfort him from afar. Maybe she wouldn't, and he'd await her reply until his eyes closed of their own accord. Then he'd wake up with her words on his screen.

But in scrolling, he realized that he didn't even have the girl's number.

Alright. There were the opiates. Sheriff Jay fell asleep, pillow clutched in his arms.

He awoke on the day of the memorial. He showered by himself, didn't feel it. He made a fresh pot of fresh coffee, didn't taste it. He took the elevator to Floor One, got in his car, then drove off to a quiet courtyard. Pulling up to cast iron fence and short grass, sky dimming quickly, he frowned. The crowd was large. Many had died at East Complex, and there was no shortage of guests. Unit James would be difficult to find. Luckily, though there was no security, some of his new recruits were in plainclothes, watching for the man.

He stepped from his car and walked through the crowd. He didn't see James. It was possible that the man wouldn't show up... that would be a disappointment. This entire affair was for him.

"Excuse me." Said the Sheriff into the microphone. The crowd began to turn. "Please."

Sheriff Jay had a piece of paper folded in his jacket pocket. He took it out, hand shaking ever so slightly, making the paper rustle. He spread it in front of him, and looked at it carefully. "Today," he said, voice unsure, "we come together to honor the memory of our Agency men and women lost at East Complex." His Adam's apple rose and fell, and look, he'd gained the sympathy of the audience. He looked back to his paper, then up. "The Agency only chose the hardest workers, so we know... we know how good they were. They all did good work, and none of them deserved what they got." His eyes flicked down and up. "By now, the complex has been sterilized, so, they..."

His eyes closed, and Sheriff Jay sighed. He balled up the paper and dropped it next to the podium.

People liked cliche - but the paper had been blank. His voice firmed. His face hardened. Time to fuck their parietals. "My name is Sheriff Jay. I am Agency Director. I'm not going to pretend that I had a connection with every one of our lost men, of your lost ones. But I can tell you that every one of my loved ones are involved in the Agency in some way. And when the East Complex went down..."

He turned away, jaw clenched, then turned back. "Today, I know about half the people I knew last month."

Sheriff had heard it said that the best lies contained bits of truth. It wasn't hard to theorize why. It made them more verifiable, it gave them a general ring of accuracy, it made them easier to tell. But this audience would never verify the truth, and Sheriff Jay had been faking accuracy for years now. Sympathetic gasps resounded from the audience.

"I want to tell you all a story." And the audience wanted to hear it. "It's about a young man. No one knew where he came from, but he was a true warrior. Requested by name to deal with terrorism, militant groups, and more, he and his team were unstoppable. They went into East Complex, and they found something terrible. Something dark. It was the thing that turned our transmission to static, it was the thing that penetrated a state of the art perimeter, it was the thing that killed," Sheriff Jay pointed to the vast rows and columns of pictures, "these men. But this young man, this warrior, this valiant hero, do you know what he did? As I guided his team on radio, he fought through a sea of darkness, black as pitch.

"Wading slowly through smoke dense enough to carpet the floor, stroking furiously against the rising tide of insanity, plunging bullet-first through bloody depths, the group prevailed for two weeks." The Sheriff had adopted an intense rhythm, and the audience was enraptured. Except for a movement in the audience. The crowd was beginning to form and close around a path to the exit.

"Well... some of them did." Said the Sheriff. "The further they travelled, the more of them were crushed under the pressure. I sent in a rescue team, but they died as well." He allowed for a deep silence to accumulate, then continued. "But the young man would not let the cold take him. James was his name. Through all the darkness, while his fellow men succumbed to the murky waters, Unit James drained the damn ocean. Like I said, the East Complex is once again habitable. It's him that we have to thank for that."

Sheriff Jay pointed to James's picture. "Unit James is dead now. I don't know if there are any afterlives, or heavens, or Higher Places - my faith has been tested to an absurd extent. But many of our men and women were like James. And if these people, these warriors, see some heaven, they'll be the fiercest ones there, I'll tell you that much!" The applause had started at 'there'. Now was the time to whip them into a fervor. "And if there's not, and they spent their lives fighting evil on this planet, then they were the fiercest ones here! Who can say they did not live great lives? They may have been short, but they were full! Every day a battle, every day a challenge! And yes, they died, but yes, they came out the victors!" He shouted the last, and now the crowd was shouting too. The women cried with joy, the men reveled in their own fierce memories of fighting at the Agency. And a lone, bearded man slunk from the back. The Sheriff's eyes narrowed.

"I'm going to get you, Unit James." He whispered, stepping away from the microphone.

"Sir." Said one of the plainclothes units after the service. "We saw Unit James exiting from the courtyard. Should we tail him?"

Sheriff Jay shook his head, having seen already a rough black beard and a distinctive pendant. "No." Said the Sheriff. "I already know his next destination."

It was Saturday. The earth had gone from pale to dark during the service, and even darker clouds approached from the distant sky. Sheriff Jay checked his watch. Time to head back.

Back at the office, a beautiful secretary sat at her desk. "Good morning, Sheriff Jay."

"Good morning." He replied.

"I hear you gave a rousing speech at the memorial. We have forty applications since the service ended!"

"Where does that put us since I joined?" He asked.

"83 new recruits." She said.

"Go ahead and make sure East Complex is at least that well staffed, then. You know Tricky's request?" Said the Sheriff.

"The depressed and addicted."

Sheriff Jay nodded. She went back to her work, and he entered his office. It was only a few minutes before the Sheriff got the call.

"Mr. A is here to see you." Said the telephone.

"Send him in." He replied.

The door opened, then closed behind the entrepreneur without his touching it. The Sheriff greeted his boss, and the man walked behind his desk.

The curtains had been left open today. After all, hardly any light came through the window. Mr. A admired the land, and Sheriff Jay decided to do the same. "I like this kind of weather." He said, aware of his boss's distaste for light. "No need for sunscreen."

Mr. A asked about recruits, and Sheriff Jay gave an impressive answer. He asked about the East Complex, and Sheriff Jay said it was clean."Has Tricky been causing any problems?" Mr. A asked.

Maybe for you. Like he would Unit James, the Sheriff had gotten to Tricky first. They both possessed incredible talents, and both would make valuable allies against Mr. A. "Not in the slightest." Said the Sheriff, not hiding his smirk.

Mr. A asked whether there'd been progress in locating James, and Sheriff Jay deviated from the norm: "No."

It was a fine answer for the man, as Sheriff Jay had done everything else correctly. Mr. A asked whether the Sheriff was enjoying his new position, and the Sheriff responded politely. Sheriff Jay detected a great deal of insincerity in the man's words, as though Mr. A was just a suit that the powerful entrepreneur put on. Sheriff Jay supposed that no one was truly who they said they were.

"Is there anything that can be done to make your work more enjoyable?" Asked Mr. A.

"I have every resource I could ask for. No. You've been more than accommodating."

"Good." Said entrepreneur. He peered deeper out the window, seeming truly fascinated in the earth beneath. "However, I believe there is another resource that would benefit us both."

The Sheriff was listening.

"Weather such as this does not come every day. But it can, and it should. There is a machine to be built, one that can affect the sky, the earth, and the seas." Said Mr. A.

What, a device to alter reality? Absolute bullshit. Still, playing this man's game was the optimal way to get close. "Where could such a machine be obtained?" He asked.

"The primary component, the one to alter reality, has already been obtained. It is already functional on a small scale. But in order to operate, it needs a thorough comprehension of the object it is acting on. To make it operate at full capacity, all of Earth needs to be contained in the machine's mind."

Mind...

"Mind?" The Sheriff inquired.

"The mind of the machine."

Mind?

The CPU, maybe?

"As in, the Central Processing Unit?" Sheriff Jay asked.

"Yes." Mr. A replied.

Alright. So, the man didn't understand computers. An unusual trait for such a successful businessman, but no stranger than discussion of reality alteration. The Sheriff explained that machines could not hold all the information of the Earth in their memory.

Suddenly, the room seemed colder.

If Mr. A believed he had some sort of reality-altering machine, it could be good to see it. After all, thought the Sheriff, looking out to roiling clouds, is it not possible that Mr. A caused this weather?

The Sheriff could tell that Mr. A was not one to enjoy obstacles. He mustered up some of the morning's rousing eloquence. "With the level of control your primary component offers us, we may be able to deal with this issue directly. The Agency should have no need to sidestep obstacles. Under my guidance, we'll run right through them."

Roused, the entrepreneur left. An engineer could run through this obstacle, so it need not be the Sheriff's focus. He looked at the clouds again. He never had seen weather quite like this. But, strangely, the sky reminded him of a black smoke that had risen from East Complex.

The twilit day wore on. He received the second draft of the concept art for recruitment. It was brilliant. He commissioned several more pieces from the artist, and ended up admiring the piece until his shift's end.

He stepped from his office. When she saw him, Jackie stopped him and beckoned him to the desk. "I just saw this on SIN Social." She said. She angled the desktop toward him, and he read the article.

"Nearly two-hundred dead in an apparent mass murder yesterday evening. Police identified several assailants, all dead in a suicide pact." Read the Sheriff aloud. His brow furrowed, and he read on in silence. The entire block had been closed down. There were no eyewitnesses to be found. The Sheriff would need to speak to the police chief about this, have his own forensic team go in. Troublingly, the police chief would be Deputy Thomas... Sheriff Thomas, now. Sheriff Jay's upper lip crinkled in distaste. His place had been taken, and it was upsetting, to say the least. But Sheriff Jay would need to examine the scene, for he hypothesized that the murders were a result of James's mental break.

In other news, read the article, meteorologists are having trouble placing the black overcast that has settled over the SIN sky. Leading experts state... The Sheriff looked up from the desktop.

"That's no good." He said. Face blank, Jackie nodded in agreement. The Sheriff chuckled inside; she'd been much more concerned over the graffiti. "I'll need to inspect the area... I'll need you to get me a few forensic experts."

Her eyes widened. "You're going there now?" She asked, receiving a nod. "Can I come with you?"

An odd request. Sheriff Jay would have assumed that death would make her queasy, as it did most people. But any excuse to spend time with her would do. They left for the site, two experts in tow.

A 2004 Corvette pulled to a stop beside yellow police tape. An officer signaled for them to head away, but Sheriff Jay stepped out impervious. Sheriff Jay recognized the officer from his old force, and recognition appeared in the man's eyes as well.

"Sheriff...! I mean, Mr. Jay. You can't be here." Said the officer.

"It's still Sheriff." Said the Sheriff. "I've brought a couple of forensic specialists to check it out. What do you know so far?" He asked.

"Not much, but... Sheriff... or, Mr. Jay, I'll need to ask Sheriff Thomas if this is okay. I don't think he'll approve." Said the officer.

"What Thomas approves of is irrelevant." The Sheriff ducked under the police tape, and his entourage did the same. The officer looked unsure, and he spoke into his radio as they walked past.

It was a gruesome scene, and it stretched for nearly a full block. Bodies lined the pavement, dead drivers had crashed cars into buildings, and one steel building had a wall torn off and thrown to the street.

The victims had been labeled separately from the supposed 'assailants', and the Sheriff walked among them, identifying identical slits traveling from their wrists to inner elbows.

"This blood is not normal." Said an analyst, stooped over an assailant's body. "It's extremely dark, and quite fluid for necrotic cells."

"Take a sample." Said the Sheriff distantly. He looked to the sky, then back to the bodies. Alright. There's no question anymore. He thought. This is inhuman.

"Sir." Said that analyst. "I'm sure there's some rational explanation for this, but honestly, I can't think of it. There's plenty here to analyze, and my partner and I will take care of it tonight, but I tell you genuinely that I've never seen anything like this."

The Sheriff was not surprised. He thanked the analysts for their work, and they went off with many samples. Sheriff Jay contemplated the scene.

"Jay!" Someone shouted. The Sheriff turned, and saw Thomas stomping toward him. "What in the fuck are you doing here?"

"You should be thanking me, Tommygun." The Sheriff said genially. "I'm having the place analyzed as we speak. Sorry to hear about the vandalism, by the way. Can't believe it happened with officers in the station."

Thomas gave a short laugh. "We don't need your analysis. What, you think the SINPD can't analyze with you gone? Christ! I finally get rid of you, and you can't even stay away."

"It wasn't just you. I know you had help." Said the Sheriff.

"Yeah, I did. But it sure as hell wasn't Officer Eila. You know what I was upset about when I first decided to end your term? You were a jerk. You hung up on me without saying goodbye, you were manipulative, and you were corrupt. But... oh, God... you thought one of us was dissenting, and you fucking killed her. Just to send a message." Thomas took his head in his hands, turning away. "Just... to send... a message." Thomas sniffed deeply, then turned back. "And what's with this new legislation we're enforcing? I have orders to send confiscated drug material over to the Agency. I know you did this. You've always had your hand in the government. Goddammit, I thought at least things like this would stop when you lost your post."

"When I lost my post." Said Sheriff Jay, not so much as feigning a smile anymore. "Yes, about that."

Sheriff Jay punched Sheriff Thomas to the pavement, then stood over him with a hateful glare. "My post was never lost... Sheriff... Thomas. This post? This entire department? It's still mine. As is the Agency. I expect you to understand that very well, Sheriff, because otherwise, you're going to be fired," into several times with your own sidearm, the Sheriff didn't finish.

"You can't do this." Said Thomas from the ground.

"I can." Sheriff Jay replied. "And you won't fight it, because despite the fact that you once got the nerve up to rebel, you still know just how unstoppable I am. After all, you served under me for years."

Thomas rested back his head, sighed. "Dammit, Jay, I guess you're right. I finally get pissed enough to do something, and you end up even stronger than before. So, yes. You've won. But I just want you to know, Jay, that you're not alone in the world. The people that you hurt? They're real. They have families, they have friends. They're people. And I don't know if you even care."

Thomas stood, gave him a piercing look, and walked away. "Goodbye, Sheriff." He said.

It was time to go. The Sheriff looked around for Jackie, and saw her walking along the sidewalk, mouth agape. "Jackie!" He called, and she turned to him, a starry look in her eye.

"I would love to go, but..." She turned a complete circle, memorizing the scene. "...I really, really, really need to do something. But I promise, I'll see you tomorrow."

Sheriff Jay nodded. "Don't you live around here?" He asked.

"Well, close, but up in Nevada woods." She said. Where the graffiti was sprayed. Walking distance.

"Goodbye, Sheriff." She said, and jogged off.

Sheriff Jay frowned. It was 0030 hours. Restless, he wandered the desolate block. There was nothing but the dead to keep him company.

"At least you can sleep." He said to the bodies. None of them heard.

"Goddamn deputy." He growled. "Trying to make me feel guilty for maintaining order?" Sheriff Jay remembered something Mr. A had said. The entrepreneur wanted the city cleaner, quieter, more orderly. He wanted a curfew. It seemed that every one of Mr. A's actions had been in pursuit of order, a uniformity to instill. What did this say of the Sheriff?

"Well, you've got a curfew here, boss. A permanent one."

The Sheriff needed to keep occupied. If ever he woke during the small hours of the night, he'd close his eyes and address the issues inevitably surrounding him. He was pragmatic, and productive, and could solve those issues. But right now, his mind was clouded as the sky above.

It was 0100 hours. If the night kept crawling along at this rate, it might not end.

He wondered if there'd been any truth to his speech earlier. Had the North Complex heroes truly saved the complex, or were their lives wasted on some unbreakable force of nature? In truth, the Sheriff still didn't know what had been inside of there. Maybe he could ask James.

0101 hours. Truly, the time would not flee. Sheriff Jay asked himself what he wanted to do. More than anything, he found, he wanted to be with Jackie. He wanted to know what secrets she was hiding, what wonders in her mind put the sparkle in her eye. And he wanted to forget the pit that had opened up in his stomach, the one that was increasingly sucking away his carefully crafted carelessness.

"Steel yourself, soldier." He quoted aloud. "For there are troubled times ahead, if not for your body, then for your mind." His father had told him that. And although Sheriff Jay faced prospects of dominating Nevada, inventing new technologies, and upheaving supernatural forces, these were troubled times.

He didn't check his watch again. No time would have passed anyway, and the gold links were, in honesty, stolen from the populace.

"I may as well leave, now." He said to his people. He never noticed, in the dark, how black were the eyes of those slain.

No work today. Sheriff Jay waited outside the church, feeling much more confident in the admittedly diluted morning light. His thoughts were objective, his smirk had returned. He'd gone here often as a child. The pastor's words had always been vibrant, but that was not so important now. Now, what mattered in the early morning service were the distinctive crosses given to the congregation and the remarkably black beard Sheriff Jay had seen the pastor grow so long ago. He'd done a bit of research and found that the man's son, James, had run away at around fourteen years old. This would be the church's first open Sunday since that son escaped from East Complex.

The service had started some time ago, but James wasn't yet there. The Sheriff was beginning to worry that the man wouldn't show, but lo, a thick black beard appeared from around the corner. James looked nondescript, much as at the funeral, and Sheriff Jay neared the church doors as the son went inside.

And what an entrance it must have been, for the doors flew open without James's touching them, and closed but for Sheriff Jay's hand making a crack in the door.

James gave an address impressive as the Sheriff's own, with much talk of fighting evil and many references to God's furious might. Peering in, Sheriff Jay saw the audience shocked, as James levitated several feet above the stage and seemed to cast light over the entire room.

After the service, Sheriff Jay awaited James on his path back to wherever he'd come from. When James saw him on the pavement, he stopped. "Sheriff Jay." He said.

"James." Replied the Sheriff. "You gave quite the speech in there."

"What do you want from me?" James asked.

"I heard you say that you and God's might would unify against the forces of evil. It was a touching line. I despise evil as much as you do, and I may know more than you of certain... demons."

James's eyes darkened. "You know nothing of demons, Sheriff. I spent countless days among them. And you? You're a liar if you say you oppose the forces of evil. We all saw your drugs."

The Sheriff shook his head. "The heroin. I know. The Agency was corrupt, and their chemical production far exceeded what was legal. I went far too long enduring it, but I'm proud to say that such production has been put to a halt. I run the Agency now, and everyone responsible for its lacking ethics has been removed."

"Really?" Asked James, peering at the Sheriff with an uncomfortable intensity. The Sheriff nodded. "Fine, then." Said James. "What do you know about these evil forces?"

They walked, and the Sheriff told him with honesty much of the unnatural occurrences he'd borne witness to. He was much less honest about his reactions to these events.

"Black blood." James said. "You've been plagued with the same evils as I. In the East Complex, the enemy was black smoke. To breathe it was not to die, but to lose your humanity. Your blood would become black, and your mind would come under control of the enemy. When we fought at East Complex, we were fighting scientists, soldiers, each other. Anyone who had breathed the smoke. And the sky, now?" James looked up, then down. "It does not bode well."

"You gained certain powers in the complex." Said the Sheriff.

"Those were a gift from God. Otherwise, I never would have been able to escape and fight this war." The Sheriff nodded. They spoke some more, and then the primary question arose.

"So, what is the plan?" Asked James.

The plan was to earn the trust of Units James and Tricky. That done, the plan was to learn what there was to know about the reality-altering machine. If it was fruitful, Sheriff Jay would take it, kill Mr. A, and assume control. Otherwise, he'd leave it, kill Mr. A, and assume control. "We wait." Said the Sheriff. "I'm still gathering information. I promise you that soon enough, we will be rid of this darkness."

Damn. Somehow, after a night without sleep, the last line made his stomach twist. He was becoming tired of words without meaning. But this was not good. Sheriff Jay had seldom dealt with disgust, and he found that he could not persuade himself anymore.

But he'd still managed to persuade James, and the self-proclaimed savior nodded in appreciation.

"I need to go." Said quickly the Sheriff. He needed to leave, couldn't deal with this anymore. The Sheriff remembered that Jackie would be coming over, and made a quick trip to the store.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Asked the short brown girl, eyebrows raised, barely containing her laughter.

"Yeah..." Said Sheriff Jay, scanning the women's section. "I need a wardrobe."

Jackie'd said she had nothing to wear at the Sheriff's place. That was about to change. Only having a rough idea of her measurements, it was an exhausting chore, and a couple hours passed before he had everything he thought he needed. Then back to Base, then down to B1.

Sheriff Jay, arms full of bags, found Jackie in the elevator. "Hey, Sheriff." She said.

"Hey."

"What's all that for?" She asked.

"Ah, nothing much. I just went shopping. Got some stuff for me. Actually, I got a few things for you, too." He said.

"Aw, you didn't have to do that." She smiled.

"I wanted you to have something to wear tomorrow."

She put her head against his chest. "I know you've had to make some hard decisions, Sheriff - I know a lot of what goes on here. I guess I don't know how it all affects you. You don't show much. But in case you don't think you are, I want you to know that you're very thoughtful, and for me, at least, you've done nothing but make happiness."

He held her against him, his own eyes closing. It was a nice sentiment. But the Sheriff doubted that anyone else felt that way.

The people that you hurt? They're real. They have families, they have friends. They're people. And I don't know if you even care.

That's what Thomas had said to him last night. Of course, Unit Tricky admired the Sheriff. So did James. But their relationships were based on lies, lies that the Sheriff told every day, every second. At least he hadn't lied much to Jackie.

She looked up at him, and he noticed deep bags under her eyes, like she'd been up all night. But unlike the Sheriff, she radiated a certain energy, as though her sleepless night had been caused by something happy instead of insomnia.

Ding, and they were at B1. The Sheriff unloaded about 30 of her outfits into the closet. When he finished, he looked back to Jackie to find her blushing, sitting on the couch, looking at the floor. "What is it?" He asked.

"Um." She said, biting her lip. "I was thinking, since we're here, maybe we could do some of that stuff, you know, that we did the other night."

"What stuff?" Asked the Sheriff, goading her.

"Um, you know." She buried her face in her hands.

"Go ahead. Say it."

"Um." She couldn't say it!

"Sleep? Is that what you mean? I'm not really tired." He said.

She laughed, running her hands back through her hair, then looked him in the eye. "Sex." She whispered.

"Mex? You want to order out?"

"No, Sheriff..." She cleared her throat. "Sex." She said.

The Sheriff mock gasped. "Sex!?" He exclaimed. She fell to pieces. "Why, it isn't even eleven yet! How immoral."

"You are... so... mean." She managed, gasping for air.

"Well, it's nighttime somewhere." He said, and she threw her arms around his neck.

After their nooner, they did go for lunch. The Sheriff didn't go out to eat often, as he had far too much to do. But when he ate, he ate well. Jackie wasn't used to the calibre of restaurant they visited, and admonished him over the price. "It's really not a big deal, Jackie." He said. "Consider it the Agency's treat."

They discussed light nothings as they ate. Eventually, the conversation shifted to the last night's voyage. "I've never seen anything like it." She said.

"So much destruction." He replied.

"200 dead. They're calling it the 200 Massacre, you know." Said Jackie.

"I don't believe what the police are saying about it. It seemed too unusual for an ordinary homicide." Sheriff Jay added.

"There was nothing ordinary about it. It was incredible." She said.

"I spoke to a man who plans to fight the killers with the wrath of God." Said the Sheriff.

"Really?" She asked. "I don't believe any god would let this happen."

Sheriff Jay wondered if she was right. He hadn't thought of any gods for a couple decades now, so he wouldn't really know.

"In any case, I have something to show you." He said, reaching into his jacket pocket. "You know how I've been acquiring some art to recruit for the Agency?" He asked.

"Yes."

"Well, here's one of the drafts." He pulled it from his pocket and handed it to her. "Isn't it something?"

Her lips pressed tight, eyebrows crinkled when she saw it. After a moment of examination, "It's okay." She said.

"What's wrong with it?" Asked the Sheriff.

She looked at it a moment longer, then set it before him. "The light never looks quite right. All the shadows are too black, nothing really reflects like it should. What the eye is drawn doesn't seem considered, the positioning's so erratic. And... neither people really capture the image of being alive. They look propped up." She went on. "Beside that, it's so cynical. Everyone is the enemy, nothing is safe. You see that shoe, right off the edge? Belongs to someone lying on the concrete. Whether he's alive or dead, you can decide that based on the rest of the drawing. I bet this artist has never painted anything light in her life. Never could."

Sheriff Jay gave her his best calculating look, because he couldn't seem truly to calculate what'd just happened. She'd seen quite a bit in that drawing. He studied it a bit more, then looked back up to her. Her face was serious. "I don't know. I think it looks good enough. You think you could do better?"

The solemnity left, and she gave a grin. "If only."

Lunch was probably delicious, but with her so near, it was hard to concentrate on the food. It was strange to be so close to something so beautiful. The Sheriff could picture a doe's eyes flashing up at him as she heard the grass crunch under his foot, but not running away. It was a fleeting moment, to be sure, and one could look into the deer's eyes and never know the mysteries behind them. Sheriff Jay did see something complex in this girl, something more than superficial emotions and boring ideals. He saw something more human than some deer.

"What's that?" He asked, so intrigued by her that he hadn't heard her words.

"Are you ready to go?" She asked again.

He discovered that his plate was clear, and they paid, then left. The rest of the day was relaxing. The Sheriff had been the Sheriff (and not much else) for so long that he'd forgotten what it was like to just relax. He felt so much more comfortable connecting to Jackie than lying to... well, everyone.

They made it back to B1 in the late hours of the night. Through heavy clouds there was no moonlight to be seen, but Jackie cast something nearly as serene over the Sheriff.

"Sheriff." She said to him in the elevator. Jay, he wanted to correct her. "I didn't want to say anything, because we were in public all day, but, um... I've really been thinking about this one thing."

"What?" He asked.

The smile, the bubbles of laughter.

"Sex." She loudly replied.

She kissed him like she'd been waiting all day to do it, and pressed her body tightly against him. In an hour they were exhausted, in moments asleep, and it seemed that the Sheriff's insomnia had lifted away to reveal a starry night sky.

In the morning, it was back to business. Jackie was very lovable, but Jay's was not a love story. At the top, the Sheriff received notice that a truck from SINPD was being unloaded into the warehouse, and the Sheriff decided he didn't need anymore protection for his dealers. The police wouldn't be bothering cartels any longer.

More art came in from his favorite freelancer, and he appraised it with pleasure, not showing it to Jackie for her to crap on. Recruits were skyrocketing with the vaguely subversive ad campaign, and with orders to hire anyone physically fit, the Sheriff wondered how it was all being paid for.

He spoke with an engineer about the reality-altering machine, and after a few minutes of laughing, the man had some thoughts on how to store the data. Electrons with spins of one half and negative one half... it was all very complicated, but the Sheriff did his research, and some of the physics behind it turned out to be interesting. Mr. A seemed barely to grasp it, and it soon became obvious that the entrepreneur was not interested in any conceptualization at all. He was not driven to thinking, only to action, and only by order.

Much like East Complex, North Complex had an expanse of off-limits rooms beneath its bottom floors. In one of them, construction for the machine began. It was decided that, due to its conductivity, a large cube of aluminum would be used to house data. One day, the Sheriff raised to Mr. A a question about it: How would they get it into the building? Mr. A merely attempted a smile, and the next day, the cube was in position. Sheriff Jay was slowly coming to believe that his boss did have something to alter reality. Sheriff Jay nicknamed it the Improbability Drive.

News came in from Sheriff Jay's homemade cartel. The Sheriff was the only one in business, and business was booming. He'd have to visit East Complex, get them to ramp up chemical production to meet the growing demand. Already, though, near a million dollars in profits had been generated.

One day, on his way to an inter-county sale, Sheriff Jay became deeply entrenched in fume-blowing traffic. He left his car to see what was ahead, and found a massive group gathered around a statue in the center of the road. It was a block of asphalt, and carved into its surface was a depiction of God Himself, holding a sword valiantly against the evils of darkness.

"Jesus Christ." The Sheriff muttered. He pulled out his cellphone, covered one ear against the throng, and called James.

"Hello, brother of God." Came his voice.

"James. Hey. Got a quick question for you. Did you happen to erect an enormous fucking statue in the middle of the road?"

"You saw the 200 dead. Forces of evil are upon us, Sheriff. It's up to us to spread word of the light!, and up to the masses to use it."

"Right." Said the Sheriff. "Well, I fully support that. But I have to wonder if there might have been a more convenient way to do it. James, no cars can get past."

"Take another route. There's more than one road going North in this city, Sheriff."

Sheriff Jay rolled his eyes and pocketed the phone. This was Nevada Woods, too, wasn't it? The place had had enough vandalism.

Screw the meeting. By the time Sheriff Jay arrived back at North Complex, it was late. "Good evening, Sheriff. What took so long?" Asked Jackie.

"Someone put a damn statue of God in the middle of the road. It was hours before all the cars were cleared out."

"Where?" Asked Jackie.

"Nevada Woods. Anyway, weren't we going to see that movie tonight?" Asked the Sheriff.

Jackie shook her head, looking honestly regretful. "I'm sorry, I won't be able to make it. I've got something to do."

The Sheriff waved it off. Who needed sleep, anyway?

He went downstairs, drank until he couldn't stand, then headed in to bed. While reflecting on the fact that he still didn't have Jackie's number, the Sheriff's phone buzzed. He looked at the screen, and his eyes immediately widened at the caller.

11:00 from 'D.F.' - where the hell are you? you're not done paying for the bitch you broke, not until you've cashed out your life. my sources tell me you've been spending time with a new brunette ho. you don't turn yourself in to me, we're going to find her.

11:01 from 'D.F' - and then kill her. in case you were wondering.

This looked like a situation he'd need to deal with soon. But for now, an alcohol induced stupor took him to sleep, not to wake up until what felt like a few minutes later, when his phone began to ring.

It was now 0800 hours. His phone identified the caller as James.

"Christ, I'm getting contacted by everyone I don't want to. I need to throw this damn thing away... what is it?" Sheriff Jay said into the phone.

"Something very bad has happened, Sheriff. I need you to come see the statue." Said James, clearly upset.

No, no, the Sheriff didn't have time for that. He needed Daddy Flow killed as soon as possible. "Sorry, brother, but I really need to -"

"There's no time for that." My, James's voice was quite intense when it wanted to be. "Come. Now." And James hung up.

Anything to please those he deceived. It would surely be fast, then he'd go to Tricky and order Daddy Flow hit.

Or, not fast at all. En route to the square where James told him to come, Sheriff Jay found himself on the road with an absurd statue inside it. All traffic was stopped, most cars abandoned. Well, he was close enough to the square, he might as well walk.

He was not far from the car when he saw the crowd. For a second day, the asphalt statue was mobbed. "Jay." Said James.

"Sheriff. And why did you bring me here?" He asked.

"You didn't see it?"

Jay shook his head, and James led him through the mob, up to the once arguably pristine statue. As soon as the Sheriff saw it, he was stricken with a vision of fire.

"My God." Said the Sheriff in reverence. "It's just like the station."

But instead of fire, the statue was covered in blood. It seemed to well from the top and gush from all sides, lacing the stone with dark tears. The red drained also from great red gashes carved into the stone. Or, they seemed to be carved. "It is just graffiti, right?" The Sheriff asked. James nodded.

Where God's face had been the day before, written in letters made to look like deep inscription, was written thus:

GOD?

"It's an affront to our cause, Sheriff. First the 200, now this? There is a dark force against us for sure." James.

"Yes, but we already knew that. What exactly am I supposed to do about this?" Asked the Sheriff. How did they paint this without anyone noticing?

James cast his eyes about, then took the Sheriff to a dark corner of the square. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a thick golden ring, maybe ten inches in diameter. It brightened the corner so much that they were made easy to see, so James put it back, still holding it. "We were looking for a weapon of God with which to fight this evil." James said. "This is our weapon."

"Do bullets come out of it?"

"Shut up. I could feel the power the moment I touched it. I've never in my life felt so close to God as when I first held this. But," continued James, as the Sheriff threatened to walk away, "it can do more than instill belief. This is what I used to lift that statue from the street."

"I thought you already had powers, from East Complex. You didn't use them to lift it up?" The Sheriff asked.

James chuckled. "Yeah, I had powers. I could make fire come out of my hands. I could also float. Doing either made me collapse in exhaustion. But this ring? It gives me boundless strength. Jay, I healed a sick man with this ring! I can't quite explain it, but I know this ring is the answer."

The Sheriff shrugged. "Where did you get it?"

James looked down. "That's the other thing. My father is sick too, and I can't seem to heal him." Sheriff Jay prodded for more. "I found him holding it in the church basement. I hadn't seen him in... I don't know how many years, and he didn't recognize me in the church, so I had to tell him who I was. But when I got there, he was gone. Muttering incoherently, holding the ring in one hand. I don't know what happened."

"Where is he now?" The Sheriff asked.

"SIN Acres, Home for the Severely Differently Abled. I thought they could help him better than a hospital." Said James.

Well, if something could be learned of this ring, the father would be the one to ask. "Let's go."

"Jay... Sheriff, he was comatose by the time I dropped him off. You're not going to get much out of him."

"We'll see." Said the Sheriff.

James shook his head. "You go. I don't want to see him like that, not again. Here, take this." James extended to him the ring.

Considering its effect on James's father, the Sheriff was wary of touching such a device. He wrapped his hand in the fabric of his shirt before grabbing it, then took it to his car.

The room was cool, the walls were bland. Sheriff Jay was in a sensory deprivation tank, standing upright. But James's father was awake.

"Expansion must accelerate from the origin. Dark matter, repel. And if singularity returns? Yes. Raise entropic levels. Gamma ray expulsion imminent from Star 82190. Avert. Is that everything? Yes, anomalous behavior ceases. Return causality. And, for the other realm..."

"Can you hear me?" Asked the Sheriff. Immediately, the man's ramblings stopped. "Your son sent me here. He wanted to know if you remembered what happened in the church basement."

James's father remained silent, face perfectly blank. Slowly, the Sheriff donned his gloves and took the ring in his hand. When he brought it before the man's face, his back arched, his pupils shrank, and his heart rate began to spike. The Sheriff quickly removed it from his view.

"Hey, hey, calm down. It's okay. I just want to know if you remember where you got this." Said the Sheriff.

The father's body relaxed, though his breathing was still heavy. "He knows of the river. He cannot break it, can he? It's flow is infinite, all powerful. But it should never have gone under that church. It should have been hidden better. If they control it, reality may be compromised. Their own magics are flawed; they surely cannot make true change, but the river..." The man's lips pursed, face contorting in all numbers of shapes. "If all things come from the river, the river can change all things."

The Sheriff pulled out the ring again, just a bit, so that the man could see it for just a moment. "Is this the river?" Asked the Sheriff.

The man bucked again in his bed. "Take it away!" He moaned, voice sounding like the cry of one disabled. He settled down when the ring went away. "The dark one has designs on our river, or would, if IT discovered it. But the other may cause equal damage. If he thinks it a mere ring, who could tell what harm he might do? They must be dissuaded."

The Sheriff looked at the ring - the river - whatever it was, glowing faintly through his jacket pocket. There was something special about the artifact. When he looked back to the father, the father's face was blank, and he'd returned to the indecipherable words before Sheriff Jay had pulled out the ring. And much as he tried, for the next thirty minutes, the father would say nothing else of use.

"Oh well." Said the Sheriff, leaving at long last. "Have a good day, pastor."

While he wondered on the powers of the ring, he was checked out by a kindly old woman at the front desk. He had to write his name down to get in and out. SIN Acres was a tightly run facility. The Sheriff engaged her in conversation while he scribbled his signature, as but for them, the lobby was otherwise empty. "How long have you been working here?" He asked.

"Going on thirty years. My, it's been a long ride. I'm ready to retire." She said, eye corners crinkling when she smiled.

"Come on, it can't be all bad. You must have seen some things in your time here." Said the Sheriff.

"Oh, but I have!" She replied. "The most fun are the schizophrenics and delusional. Now, I don't mean to offend them - and everything's offensive these days, isn't it? - but their hallucinations are better for laughs than anything you kids have on television. My, one time we had a patient named Hugh Tricks..."

Sheriff Jay's head darted up from the paper. "Hugh Tricks?" He said.

"Yes. Do you know him?" She asked.

"I'm going to need you to send me his file right away." The Sheriff said.

"Oh, we can't release -"

"No, ma'am, right away. Do you see this?" He asked, flashing her his old badge. "I need that information for domestic security."

"Well, I'm very sorry officer, but I don't have the clearance to release that kind of information. You'll have to talk to my manager, but I think you may need a subpoena for something like that. I'll -"

"Ma'am." Said the Sheriff, taking one of her hands and looking intensely into her eyes. "This is important."

She nodded. "I'll get it right away, Sheriff."

"Thank you." He said. He'd long ago stopped being astounded at how many people would break the law or violate their own ethics and common sense if confronted with authority. He knew from personal experience that the police wouldn't get anything done if they couldn't trick people into complying. "Thanks again." He said when she handed over Tricky's personal documents. Maybe he should read these before he visited Tricky.

The Sheriff checked his watch again. Given his hurry, the drive home seemed too long. Home? He wondered. Was that really where he was headed? The basement of North Complex was comfortable, but Sheriff Jay hadn't felt at home for many years now. Each house was a residence, a shell to inhabit briefly, then cast off when a better one came available. If home is where the heart is, where was his heart?

He arrived, unlocked the door, and shed his heavy file. Waiting on Arabian leather couch, all neat and orderly, was Mr. A.

"Mr. A." Greeted the Sheriff, suspending all shock at the man's presence. How did he get in? "How may I help you?"

The entrepreneur cleared his throat. "Nothing major." He said amiably. "I was just curious. Where've you been this morning?"

First, meeting Unit James. Second, collecting data on Tricky. "Inspecting the statue erected and then defamed in Nevada Woods Square. Vandalism has been bad recently. It haunts me not to get it in check."

Mr. A nodded, appeased. "You are supposed to alert the secretary of your location at all times. I need to know where my employees are."

"Absolutely, Mr. A. I apologize immensely." Said the Sheriff.

Mr. A nodded again. The man's expression was perpetually empty, but as he raised on hand, palm to the ceiling, the Sheriff saw a note of longing. Slowly, cautiously, a few tendrils of black snuck from the palm's center, wrapping around each finger until they grew in intensity, joining, and consumed the hand like fire. If the black smoke from East Complex and the dark overcast of the sky were of another world, this was that world's essence.

He did not speak. He only stared at his hand, now wholly covered in blackness. The Sheriff couldn't decide whether it was solid, liquid, or gas. It seemed closer to plasma, and closer still to void. So it was true; this man too had magic. It would not surprise the Sheriff to find that Mr. A... no, Tricky had called him 'IT', and Tricky was right. It would not surprise him to find that IT had burned East Complex. There was no way to be sure. After all, maybe ITS was a common magic in this world. But the Sheriff had a way to become more confident.

Finally, IT spoke. "I come from a different place, Sheriff. It's thick, rich, and uniform. That is what I want here. Do you want the same?"

The Sheriff said yes, but he was tiring of ITS vision. Sheriff Jay did not want a clean, orderly world, without any mess, without any life. IT settled deeper into the leather. If only he knew the mess Jackie and I made right there.

"There's no world more appealing, Mr. A." Said the Sheriff.

"Hm." IT uttered. "I've never told you, Sheriff, how much your service is appreciated. Most of your kind cannot abide by my world. You're special." ITS hand closed over the dark essence, ITS brow furrowed.

"I can feel something in this room." IT spoke.

"What is it?" Asked the Sheriff. But even as he said it, he felt the ring glowing in his jacket pocket.

"Something powerful." IT stood, dusted ITS sleeves. "I must depart. Take care, and continue work on the Drive." IT said, and was soon out the door.

"That's right, the Drive." Murmured the Sheriff. If ITS power was profound, but on a limited scale, the Improbability Drive's use was to extend that power to the entire globe. Upon the Drive's completion, the whole world would turn black.

Sheriff Jay gritted his teeth. He had supported plenty of Agency action that the world would deem corrupt, even evil, but this was intolerable. Maybe he could take control of the Drive, though he didn't know how... the most rational course of action was not yet known. His best option was to buy time. He'd control ITS access to the Drive, and he could do so with his trip to East Complex.

After memorizing the file, he burned it, and drove to East Complex just as dusk began to fall. A 2004 Corvette parked outside the gates, left carelessly open, and Sheriff Jay stepped out.

A series of rapid-fire gunshots rang through the air, and the Sheriff dropped low, hand on his revolver. He heard another shot, and up to his right, a corresponding caw.

A crow fell from the sky, landed feet from the Sheriff's car. Aggravated, he stepped through the gates, but saw not his men doing battle. They were aiming for the sky, shooting at birds and clouds. Some shot at targets assembled haphazardly on the grounds. Sheriff Jay didn't think any of them were shooting in the actual training rooms.

"Excuse me." He said to a circle of men, grinning in on some spectacle. None noticed, so he squeezed through the group.

At the center, cloth-wrapped knuckles struck a man hard in the chin. "Ohh!" Cheered the crowd as he backed away and was shoved back in. The man's assailant pounded her fists together, ducked his punch, then struck him in the gut, ponytail whipping in the air.

"Goddammit Tony, I put money on you!" Laughed a few in the crowd.

"Okay, okay, I'm calling it." Said the referee, helping up the man, curled into fetal position. "Tony." Said the referee seriously, looking into the mans eyes. "You," and he looked up to the crowd, "just got your ass handed to you! Come on, you need to go drink. I wouldn't be afraid of some memory loss, if I were you. Now, who's next?"

As the next fight started, the Sheriff gave up hope of getting anyone's attention. It was too loud, and they were too focused. It was strange how happy these people were. Whether it was the freedom or some other factor, Sheriff Jay doubted that these were the same depressed and addicted people they were when they entered under Tricky's care.

After thirty minutes of searching, the Sheriff found his favorite unit in the warehouse, hooked in to some musical equipment.

"Tricky." Said the Sheriff on entering the warehouse, looking past two knife-jugglers. He looked so happy standing behind his turntable, for whatever reason he had one of those. Through the clown makeup, he actually looked innocent. Peaceful."You've got quite a facility here."

Tricky sent out the two units and gave the Sheriff an update on progress. "The bodies are all cleared out. We fixed the generators. Chemical output is up. And I've been training all the troops I requested."

The Sheriff nodded. "Only depressed or addicted soldiers, that's right. They look plenty happy now. You've done a good job here, Tricky." He had done a good job. The Sheriff felt he couldn't congratulate Tricky enough.

"So, what are you doing here?" Asked the clown.

Apparently, feeling an increasing amount of guilt for deceiving you. "Checking up on progress. I couldn't exactly call your secretary, could I?" The Sheriff smiled.

Tricky laughed. "I knew I was forgetting something. I'll have East HQ and Communications up by tomorrow."

"No rush." Said the Sheriff. He looked around. "I see you've made some changes to the warehouse. Is it an auditorium now?"

Sheriff Jay wasn't quite sure what happened next, but it came out of the speakers and it sounded very good.

He clapped in appreciation when the headphones came down. "You play this for the men?" He asked.

Tricky shook his head. "No. Actually, I had all the walls soundproofed so they won't hear it. If they want to hear something good, they should skip over this, listen to this old beat." Hugh said, pulling out a cassette.

The Sheriff shrugged, it had sounded fine to him. He said as much, then told Tricky that the Sheriff needed him to do something.

"Hit somebody?" Tricky asked.

"Or have your men do it. They're a bit uncoordinated, but seem deadly enough. I've said it before, I'll say it again: It's all your choice." That was important, to give Tricky choice in the matter. After reading the clown's file, he knew that better than ever.

"How well armed is the target?" Tricky inquired.

"Better than your soldiers. They recently got a shipment of weapons from North Complex." The assholes. "And their recruitment strategy has been more than a little expansionist." The Sheriff replied.

Tricky's eyebrows scrunched together. "I don't really want to send them somewhere dangerous." He said. "Why are we killing these people?"

Now, here was the important part. Tricky'd had hours to discuss his troubled past with a psychologist, and Sheriff Jay'd found the notes to reveal a huge amount of moral guilt on Tricky's shoulders. It would be important to convince Tricky that these people were evil. "Well, to be honest with you, they're hardly people. The leader's made his living by exploiting women, and recently he began sending assassins and destroying houses." Primarily directed at the Sheriff himself, but Tricky didn't need to know that. "I'd never ask you to do something that I believed was wrong, Tricky," mainly because he didn't believe much in 'wrong', but he could "assure you that shutting down this operation is nothing short of saintly."

Tricky contemplated, then asked who the leader was.

"He goes by the name of Daddy Flow." Said the Sheriff.

"Is he evil?" Tricky asked very directly.

Time to put on the acting hat. "This man is quite possibly the most evil human being I have ever encountered. Every second he's alive is another second someone is being taken advantage of. Each breath he takes is one stolen from another's lungs. There's no moral grey area right here, Tricky. This one's pretty straightforward."

Tricky gave it some more thought, then seemed to reach a decision. "Communications will be up by tomorrow. Send me the details then, and the moment I receive them, I'll be on my way. You can count on me, Sheriff Jay." Tricky said.

"That I can." Sheriff Jay replied. "A soldier of justice." And after warning Tricky to take help, he remembered what else he needed. He snapped his fingers, back turned to the clown. "One last thing, Tricky. Just who is in charge of your chemical output?"

The chemical plant turned out to be in the same place it always had, so Sheriff Jay made his way over.

"Do you know anything about the chemical used in filters for the East Complex fire?" The Sheriff asked the head chemist.

"Absolutely. Why? Do you need some?" The chemist replied.

"Yes. I heard it was difficult to produce, but if you're supplied with any materials you might need, how soon do you think I could get some?" The Sheriff asked.

"Oh, not long at all. Only reason it took so long at Base was because Base just didn't have the tools to do it right. God, I love our tech at East. But it's lucky I was helping out over there on the day of the fire, they wouldn't have known how to make it in the first place. But yeah, we can make it very quickly here. We even have some prepared in case something happens again." Said the chemist.

"That's fantastic. How much do you have?" He asked. He thanked the chemist for a few ounces of the chemical, then asked for the final thing he needed at East. "There's also this other thing." Said the Sheriff.

The chemist raised a hand to stop him. "You want us to restart opiate production, right?" He asked. The Sheriff nodded. "Yeah, we're way ahead of you there, too. Got a truck-full out back. But I heard down the grapevine that the Agency is expanding into some other chemicals?"

"You heard right." Said the Sheriff.

"You just send over a list, and we'll get working. Don't worry about a thing, Sheriff: My team is fantastic at this." The Sheriff thanked him and headed back.

At Base, the he spoke to an engineer about the second part of his plan.

"So," said the engineer, "you want me to magnetically suspend this chemical around the perimeter of the computer room?"

"Yes." Said the Sheriff. As well as he remembered, the software of the Drive's computer was compiled, but the data storage was not yet built. As long as the chemical was all over the room, IT would be able to enter when only when Sheriff Jay let IT. (Or not, and the Sheriff would find out that IT was not the destroyer of East Complex.) But when the machine was more complete, when it would be dangerous to let IT near the Drive, he could keep IT out merely by changing the door's password.

"That sounds... really impractical. What if we just painted it onto the floor and walls? Could that work?"

Oh. Well, yes, that would work just as well. Sheriff Jay supposed that the idea wasn't especially scientific. Still, he'd had a fun idea. In movies, the scientist would just do it.

"Cool." Said the engineer. "By the way, Wes told me... Wes, the spatter analyst... yeah, he told me to get you this blood report. Gist of it is that the blood was highly flammable, so he found out what was burning was some chemical in the plasma. It also gave the blood its dark pigmentation. Some of the equipment was having trouble, so he couldn't identify the chemical - he said something about static interference in the machine."

Sheriff Jay thanked him and sent the engineer from his office. Then, after an hour of tedious paperwork, he got a call.

"Sheriff Jay." Said James.

"James." Said Sheriff Jay. He already regretted picking the phone up. Was he about to hear more tired rhetoric? James's voice was too fast; it sounded like the man was just catching his breath.

"Do you have the ring?" Asked James.

"Yes." Said the Sheriff, opening his desk drawer.

"I need it." Said James.

"What, you need to carve up another rock? I'll get it back to you tomorrow." The Sheriff replied.

"No, Sheriff, you don't understand. I need it now, and forever. It's who I am." Said James.

"Alright. I'll bring it to you. Where are you?" Asked the Sheriff.

Hand gloved, he pulled the ring from its drawer. It was covered in ants. He shook them loose, contending internally that it couldn't be that tasty.

Sheriff Jay reached the spot and waited for James. There was a thick tree on the sidewalk, untended and withered. He leaned against it, pulled a leaf from a drooping branch. It was brittle and dry, turning to flakes when he crushed it.

James showed up, took his halo, and thanked the Sheriff. Then, arms folded, he looked just past him. "Now that is a nice tree. God gives us so many gifts, doesn't he?" James asked.

The Sheriff looked back at the tree. It was hearty and tall, leaves green, branches firm. "He certainly does."

The Sheriff wondered about the ring on the way back. With whatever dark senses IT had, Mr. A had detected it. It had given life to the tree. He remembered what James's father had said about it. If all things come from the river, the river can change all things.

What if the ring was more than a powerful artifact? Could it be something truly important, something fundamental? Back at the office, he opened again the drawer. A few nubs had sprouted from the wood. Life.

After he packed, leaving his office, there was an unfamiliar tingle in his stomach. Would she come downstairs with him again?

Yes was the answer. Sheriff Jay would never play SINPD radio, not for Jackie. So, lying still that night, pillow-talk made sense. "You're much more outgoing at the office." He told her. Because it was true, she seemed so reserved when not a secretary.

"It comes with the job." She said.

No insomnia tonight. The Sheriff awoke early in the mornings, always restless, always ready to roll half-lidded from sleeping to conquering. But he was not restless on these mornings, where he stared at the same image for an hour without tiring of it. She was more striking than any of those sketches, burning a brighter flame than any graffiti. Her lashes seemed painted down her cheeks, but though her shut eyes were peaceful, the Sheriff waited in anticipation of the vivid blue beneath.

"Good morning." She said, when those eyes finally opened.

"Morning." He said. "I love you." He didn't say.

He thought about her all day. He wasn't bothered by James, so he had time to picture her. He didn't have meetings, so he could choreograph in the bright a dark night's dance. It was not until late that Mr. A visited his office. It would be one of their last meetings over the Drive, as the system was mostly in place.

There was a prominent puzzle that Sheriff Jay hadn't solved. How would IT transfer so much data to the computer? It must be some incredible power, but the Sheriff wanted to know the mechanics. "So, storing this vast amount of information is a work well in progress. But how is this information to be obtained?"

Mr. A tried ITS smile. The Sheriff wished IT would stop doing that. "Your employee, Tricky." The Auditor began, closing ITS eyes. "Do you know where he is right now?"

Hunting Daddy Flow.

The Sheriff watched Mr. A's eyes move under the lids. IT saw something.

"Tricky is entering a warehouse as we speak." The Auditor said. That was right. How did IT know?

He saw IT grimace, as though Mr. A had seen something not to ITS satisfaction.

"He's just killed the occupants of a warehouse and is in the process of leveling it." Said Mr. A.

Leveling the warehouse! The Sheriff had well convinced the clown of Flow's evil, hadn't he? Sheriff Jay's radio buzzed to life. It was eerie, hearing what would happen moments before it did.

"Tricky coming in, do you read me, over." Sheriff Jay read him. "Daddy Flow has been eliminated."

The sound of an explosion came over the radio. Was it that Mr. A could see anything, anywhere? If so, IT probably would have chosen something more interesting than Tricky. Maybe IT could inhabit the minds of ITS employees. But then, why ask where Sheriff Jay had gone the other day? Why could IT not find James? Sheriff Jay could only assume that entering an employees mind was a difficult process, only sometimes doable. The Sheriff would normally smile and give Tricky a heartfelt thank you. But IT was here, and it didn't know that the Sheriff and the clown were on so much as a first name basis. "Mission accomplished, good work, Unit Tricky. Over."

The connection terminated, and something occurred to the Sheriff. If Mr. A could watch from a distance, could he communicate as well? He asked if IT could communicate in radio frequencies, and IT nodded.

"That's interesting." Said the Sheriff.

So, it had been Mr. A. IT had burned East. There was no hard evidence of it yet, but who else could it be? This demon looked as malevolent as any. James believed that whatever had burned East had also committed the 200 Massacre. Watching as Mr. A went out the door, it wasn't hard to believe.

The day had sped by, and it wasn't until he saw her again that it slowed. It surprised him that he'd actually had five meetings today, all attended, all profitable.

"Are you going to invite me down, Sheriff?" She asked because he was standing so silently.

Hell, he didn't want to invite her. He wanted to give her his key and never need it back.

"Ladies first." He said, guiding her into the elevator.

Laying still, now, mind nearly asleep. The Sheriff didn't remember cuddling anyone before. He must have, somewhen, but this felt like something new.

"What do you want, Sheriff?" She asked.

"Strength." He replied, but wondered if the true answer was more intimate.

He knew she could feel him, just as he felt her. "I think you're already strong, Sheriff." She murmured. "You're the strongest man I know."

Flattery had never meant much to Sheriff Jay. It had yet to help him optimize.

The Sheriff was still a skeptic, after all. Love was a feeling, just like joy, sadness, contentedness, hate. Great men could rally millions by making them feel, and gain an army in the doing. But a single man, angry, with feelings and nothing else? One bullet was enough to kill his army. Love could be overwhelming, true. So could a strong need to shit.

Then why, suddenly, was Jay letting himself feel? What made this girl so special that she could carve through a lifetime of detachment?

It was a strange thing. The Sheriff was a powerful man. He was an enigma, a villain, a de facto king. Sheriff Jay, and anyone else, would unquestioningly assume that he was a mysterious shadow to Jackie's open innocence. But Jay realized, looking at her, that she knew more about him than any person alive. And he knew nothing about her.

"Who are you, Jackie?" He asked. He had to know.

"No one."

If she were no one, how could she affect him in this manner? How did it come about that, despite a thorough incomprehension of this girl, Sheriff Jay felt so deeply that he needed her?

He remembered shooting Ellie. He'd shared years with her, enjoyed her company more than that of any other. And then, when taken by evil eyes, he shot her. It wasn't until he'd met Jackie that he remembered the incident. After all, Ellie had been a whore, and the Sheriff had been a hard man. He was still a hard man.

He didn't have any true feelings for Jackie. He couldn't. He'd just been starved of companionship. He'd hurt her, once, then seen her as wounded. And she was pretty. That was all this was. Not love, hardly lust. Just a combination of factors to overcome his better judgement.

With all this in mind, "no one" became a satisfying answer after all.

The next morning, he was ready. Idiot thoughts of love purged from his mind, the Sheriff could be as effective as ever. He slipped from bed without waking her, showered quickly, then heated yesterday's chicken. There'd be no cooking this morning.

But he did leave a plate for her. Beside it was a hastily scribbled note, important meeting, and with that written, Sheriff Jay grabbed last night's newspaper and fled.

Back in the office. Comfortable. Lavish. Good. When he sat in his chair, it may as well have been a throne for all the power it afforded him. Unproductive thoughts on the periphery, he was awake again, and bettered by the experience.

He lay the new newspaper flat on the table, poured himself a sobering glass of Scotch, and began to read. And, when he read, he could hardly keep the Scotch in his mouth. SIN Churchgoers Recount Story of Angel of God, read the headline. That would be James, and though James was many things, Angel of God was nowhere near the list.

Jackie must have shown up at some point, because Mr. A was soon buzzed in.

He set down the newspaper and greeted IT.

"The Drive doesn't work." IT said.

"Of course not. We haven't set up the external storage yet." The Sheriff replied.

"I did, last night, and the Drive had limited power. It passed the first trial. No others. My Agents did not supply enough information about their environment in order to instantiate necessary variables. Although I successfully created an object in my environment, which supplied plenty of information, but it was unstable. It exploded." Said Mr. A.

That was interesting. He asked what had caused the explosion, and the man told me that the object was not fundamentally cooperative with the world.

That made some sense. Whatever magic IT possessed may have been able to imitate matter, but the Improbability Drive had tried to create a genuine entity. For the Drive to be cooperative with the world's foundation, it would need to use something more powerful than Mr. A. Maybe something that, incidentally, was deeply intertwined with the foundation of the world.

The ring. Everything came of the ring, had said James's raving father, and soon now could come some more.

"This is a problem I can fix." Said the Sheriff. He didn't want any more explosions, so the Drive needed to be shut down. "In the meantime, do not test the Drive. You can make your own alterations to the world, but do not use our software to do so."

Mr. A asked what the issue was, so the Sheriff explained his own interpretation, that the Drive did not have enough control over the foundations of reality. As example, he asked whether the keystone had ever summoned a quark or exerted gluon force. No, Mr. A need not attempt that, but the Drive would, and would find its power lacking in the attempt.

The Sheriff told IT that his team could adapt the keystone. When Sheriff Jay received an uncomfortable look, he realized that Mr. A thought that IT, being said keystone, might be altered. No, with the ring available, Mr. A's power input would be minimal. The ring needed only to hook in to the Drive.

"Don't worry about your keystone." Said the Sheriff. "It won't be harmed by the process."

Appeased, Mr. A asked him if he'd found Unit James. The Sheriff shook his head. At this time, James was much more valuable as a secret than a unit.

Mr. A leaned back. The Sheriff had never given IT any reason not to trust him, so IT was probably comfortable on all fronts. But then, IT motioned towards the newspaper on Sheriff Jay's desk. "What is this?" IT asked.

That wasn't good. If Mr. A read the paper, IT would find that the Sheriff had been lying about James. He did his best to act offended, even disgusted by the papers, making them out to be as disorderly as anything. "Nothing but the standard complexities of SIN." He said. "My arduous task: To sort through the madness to find something of value."

Unfortunately, IT requested the paper anyway.

"I'm afraid there's nothing useful in this catalogue. Yesterday's news. I'll get your the next one." He said. Most would consider this a desperate situation, see themselves dangling on the brink of being found out, but the Sheriff was always calm. He'd just lie, again and again.

"Still. I'd like the paper." Mr. A said.

Flatter IT, insult the papers. "Don't concern yourself with it. These are infuriating human matters. You're far above them." A moment passed, and Mr. A's eyes narrowed. Hm. He was treading dangerous waters.

"Still." IT spoke, and now IT sounded like IT, and not like Mr. A at all. The room grew cold, but the Sheriff thought only of heat.

And the paper burned. Mr. A was displeased, and IT looked at the Sheriff in a way that it never had before. He began to feel a rustle of movement at the sides of his consciousness.

So that's how it works! He thought. Now he knew for sure that Mr. A had never entered his mind before, or it would have felt like this. Carefully, the Sheriff cleared every true thought from his mind, replacing it with a general sense of straightforwardness and honesty. Mr. A searched, found nothing meaningful, and finally stood. The temperature returned to room. "When I ask something, I expect it, Sheriff. There is no discussion."

The Sheriff nodded and gave a remorseful smile. Thoughts returned, boss gone, he opened up his laptop. At this point, he had all the confirmation he needed, but if there were definitive evidence, he may as well view it.

The quality wasn't very good. But in a time lapse of the computer room door, he eventually saw a shadowed figure approach. The figure tried to walk through the door, but was cast violently back.

Stupid practical paint. Mused the Sheriff.

The figure was forced to enter the passcode, and switching cameras, Sheriff Jay saw it from the front for the first time, entering the room. IT was frightening, to say the least. IT sat at the computer and began to type. It was difficult to make out, but an image of another dimly lit room opened on the screen. The Sheriff watched IT type fruitlessly for several minutes, but eventually closed the image and shifted ITS attention to ITS own room.

A few minutes of typing, and a gatling gun appeared in the room's center. When it exploded, the feed cut off.

Sheriff Jay followed the cameras as IT limped, drained, down the hallway, eventually bumping into an Agency unit. The unit mouthed something, then looked up and saw the terrifying force before him. IT reached into his chest, and his eyes became as sackcloth, and his skin became as pitch, and then IT consumed him completely. IT stood straighter after that, and spread back down to the basement, to the terminal room, and stood silently until morning.

The Sheriff watched IT turn to Mr. A, then walk into the Sheriff's office.

That, thought the Sheriff, eyebrows raised, was quite a confirmation.

Before he could watch it again, Tricky burst into his office. Sheriff Jay wondered if the clown had been out consuming humans.

Jackie poked in her head. "Sir, I'm very sorry. He just burst right in. Should I call security?"

He told her there was no need, and waited for her to leave. Then he was alone with Tricky, and he saw nothing but pain in the clown's eyes. The sky was still clouded, and with his own troubles close to the surface, he felt nothing but sympathy for Tricky. "So, Tricky, what can I help you with on this dismal morning?"

He could tell that Tricky agreed about the weather. "I don't think I have a sense of morality, Sheriff Jay." He said.

Why would Tricky think that? Hadn't the Sheriff convinced him that killing the pimp was just? "Do you think you did that wrong thing to that sex trafficker?" He asked.

"Exactly." Tricky replied.

Oh, that was bad news.

"I drove him the shipment of weapons he's been hurting people with." Tricky continued.

Okay, this news was far more interesting. The Sheriff put away his laptop and told Jackie to hold all calls and keep everyone out.

The clown felt badly. Sheriff Jay didn't want that. Years of speeches coalesced, and the Sheriff told him that his killing of the pimp only meant that Tricky was learning from his mistakes and becoming even more moral.

Tricky turned down his head, looking especially unmotivated by the Sheriff's words. "Maybe so. But there's something else." The Sheriff asked what, and Tricky said that the weapons he supplied were used to do something awful. They were used to kill his friend, and Tricky blamed himself. Two things were clear. The most important was that Mr. A had ordered weapons stolen from the Agency. The other, the one he could use now, was that Sheriff Jay knew who'd made Tricky feel this way.

"I lost someone in a similar way." Murmured the Sheriff, Ellie bleeding on the outskirts of his vision. "Not too long ago, in fact. She'd just told me that she loved me." He knew that Mr. A gave black eyes to its victims, and he knew that Tricky knew the same. "But black eyes took her away." He said. If the clown wasn't turned against IT now, he never would be.

"I imagine you're feeling some sorrow. I know that I am." Said Sheriff Jay, uncorking his best Scotch, pouring liberally. "Sorrow is hard." One to Tricky, one to him.

Yes, sorrow was hard, and it was just now slipping through the cracks. Maybe a lifetime hardening had made him too brittle, and the faults were just now starting to show. So, yes, sorrow was hard.

"Luckily, there's a cure." Said the Sheriff. And he drank, but knew his drink was no more than a distraction.

Tricky left, probably drunker, hopefully happier. Sheriff Jay was neither. It was too sobering to know the truth after being close to it for so long. He'd promised before he met Mr. A to find everything there was to know about him. Now he knew that IT wasn't a him at all, and he nearly regretted the search.

Funding had been cut at the police station. Thomas admitted to not working alone, and there was only one thing the Sheriff knew insidious enough to plot the destruction of someone's reputation. You? Asked a pesky, penetrating voice.

A weapons shipment had left North and never arrived at Base. Tricky as ITS hand, Mr. A had done that. And all of those weapons had gone to the pimp who'd been suddenly, inexplicably, turned against him.

And East Complex had swallowed innumerable soldiers and spat them out dead. Mr. A had committed that, and worse: the 200 Massacre. IT had been plotting against the Sheriff since before IT had met him, forcing him further from his power at every turn, and finally placing him, malleable, into the lap of the Agency. Because, as Ellie had said, IT needed intelligent men.

Oh, that was right. IT had killed Ellie. That was the worst of it, the Sheriff thought.

A small voice reminded him that in fact, it had been the Sheriff who'd put the bullet in Ellie's head.

But it didn't matter. Not anymore.

Trust no one, went the old adage. He'd spent his time being manipulated, but he was done with it now. Weary, wary, harder than before. Daddy Flow was dead, the Agency was his, and the Sheriff knew ITS weakness. The game was over. The Sheriff had won.

He convinced James to return to the Agency, operating solely on the Sheriff's orders. Most likely, Mr. A's mental connection with the ring would make the Improbability Drive cooperative, and its power would be limited only to what was in sight of the minds IT owned.

It was late, now. Much later than he needed to be at the office. Out into the lobby, the Sheriff found himself alone, his world a faint outline in the dark. Jackie wasn't at her desk - she would have left a couple hours ago - so there'd be no one to go home to.

It was hard to give her up. If he saw her every day, it would undoubtedly be harder. He still didn't have her number, so he quickly found her address, then got in his car.

No one would ever understand Jay's vile insides. Even if he were to share them, they'd only be considered evil, only ever be harmful. Jackie had nothing nearly as dark inside of her, and he could never accept that, and she could never accept him. No need to hurt her anymore. Might as well set her free, let her be perfect somewhere that she could keep her innocence.

One last goodbye, he thought, pulling up to her place. The engine hummed to a stop, and the only sound left was the strangely dark rain drumming on his windshield. He got out, got wet, and walked into the building. Whatever civilian operated the front desk seemed familiar with the Sheriff, and let him pass with a brief salute.

He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. Yes, this was the room. He knocked on the door, waited for her to answer. The last time, their last encounter. She'd be at Base Complex soon, or maybe North. The next secretary could figure it out.

He knocked again, and the door swung open. "You leave your door unlocked?" The Sheriff muttered, and closed it behind him.

It was dark inside. No one home. The Sheriff couldn't find a working light, but his phone could lead him to a chair. Before he could turn it on, he accidentally kicked something metal that rolled loudly across the floor before clinking to a stop. He shone the light to inspect it. It was a paint can.

And the floor it rolled across had been covered in paint, mostly excess splatter, but here and there were designs. Using his light, he followed one design as it spiraled across the floor, rolled up the wall, and culminated in a rose. No, the rose wasn't the end of it, as the vines turned to cracks that turned to spiderwebs that came down the opposite wall and then frayed to show a creature's home long abandoned.

There was more. Paint on every wall, all the way across, all just ideas, all abstract, all detailed to the point of reality. There was no paint on the windows, only canvases that continued the designs around them. Canvases everywhere, really. Stacked against a wall, hanging from an edge, nearly stepped on underfoot. And just as numerous as the canvases were the supplies. Brushes, pens, pencils, paints, some in cans, some loose on the floor. There were several tools on the coffee table, and gleaming with white-screen light, he saw a messy stack of drawings.

The top one was a simple sketch. Man at the Helm, it was titled, dated two years ago. From behind a desk, it depicted Sheriff Jay, standing dominant in the room's center, surrounded by officers, all fading as they moved from the center. He remembered that day well. He'd taken the whole department to the Agency to perform a mock arrest on an unnamed perpetrator for the newspapers, effectively silencing their recent cries of Agency corruption. He'd been applauded as a hero after that, but he'd never noticed the blue-eyed girl watching him from her desk. He flipped through the papers. There was fruit, there was a dog, there was a striking image of running blood. He'd seen that blood before. There was a park, there was a tree, there were tens and tens more images.

Nearly two years of drawings passed, and there was the Sheriff again. It was the first time he'd met Jackie, and he seemed much bigger than anything around him. The paper couldn't fit his entire body. He went further, and there were bodies from the Agency morgue, bloody battlegrounds, detailed drawings of the entire Agency armory, and then Sheriff Jay, and the Sheriff again, and again and again and again and again.

There were other picture, too. An intense dark soldier, eyes narrowed, angled towards the gaunt police officer to his right. There were several versions of that one. There were other Agency advertisements, too, most of which the Sheriff had never shown her. Then there were more pictures of him, and then a picture of the SINPD police station burning to the ground. It was dated a month before the station actually burned.

He stood, and walked to the back of the room. There was a walk-in closet there, and the Sheriff stepped inside and set his light down on the floor, lighting the whole closet aglow. On all sides were canvases, tall as a man, angled towards the center. On every canvas were bodies, so many of them that the Sheriff couldn't count, but he didn't need to, because the canvases were all a part of one view, the one that you'd have if you spun in place at the 200 Massacre. He looked up, and saw clouds painted even grimmer than the truly clouded sky, for they had these words in black:

Every soul sent to hell left a cold corpse behind it. If any ascend, then there is more blood on Earth than there will ever be in hell.

Man kills man.

So where is this GOD?

The same 'GOD?' currently defacing the statue in nearby Nevada Woods Square. He put his phone in his pocket and backed slowly away. The art was unnerving, formidable, overwhelming. In honesty, it was powerfully intimidating.

Sheriff Jay heard the twist of a doorknob behind him. The mechanism unlatched, and the door swung open, and then the door closed. There was a moment of fumbling for a switch, but then a weak lamp sprung to life in front of the Sheriff. He was silhouetted from behind. Now there was a moment of silence, then a gasp.

"Sheriff." She breathed, shock palpable in her voice. He didn't turn. They were silent for almost a minute. "What are you...?" But she didn't finish, probably thinking the Sheriff's questions to be much bigger than her own.

Really, the entire apartment was an image. Not of the designs, but of the girl who made them.

A girl obsessed with death. At least fascinated. Night Jackie was alien, and Day Jackie kept her wallowing in the dark. She painted blood, she hated God. She peered into the ocean of war. The tide was high, and she let it run around her calves.

"I know that, after seeing this, you're done with me. And..." Her voice was shaky. She breathed deep through her nose to steady it. "And I'll do whatever you want me too, whether you want me to leave your floor, or leave East, or leave Nevada, I'll do it, and you can forget about this, and you can forget about me. But before that... before we go... I just need you to know that..." Her voice was trembling again, and the words came in between gasps and shallow breaths. "You're important to me. I'll never stop thinking about you. And I never wanted you to find out about this, Sheriff, I just couldn't control it. I wanted... I needed to stay with you. But the most important thing? You have to know how sorry I am. I know what I did, making you think I was a normal girl. And I know I don't deserve forgiveness for that. But I wanted to be normal. For you."

When he didn't respond, he heard her slide down the wall to the paint streaked floor, legs held in her arms. "I'm sorry." She reiterated. The room seemed different now that he knew how much paint it held, how much story, how much time. The Sheriff knew nothing about that. His houses had never been homes. He'd never poured passion into the walls. "Say something." She whispered.

Jackie wore a mask, maybe many, manufactured guises all to pretend at normalcy. She wore a mask assuming no one could accept that behind it. She would only ever be harmful, only ever considered evil. She thought she'd be alone.

She wasn't the only one.

Jackie was an enigma, a criminal, a force of nature. The Sheriff finally turned, saw her face, wreathed in shadow. Not weak. Never innocent.

Say something, she had said.

"I love you." Said Jay.