This rundown bar tucked away in this seedier side of town reeked. Its murky shadows and stale booze was miasma in its purest form. It was all the same, probably always would be exactly as it was now for years to come. Yet, in the most fundamental way, it was as different as night from day. Significantly, the change in it could be traced to an absence…
Bleary-eyed and lost in emotions, Carlos strained to focus his vacillating vision. The more he imbibed, the worse it got. Like he really cared right now. He had his reasons for swilling caustic whisky down in excess, which never made a soul see anything better. Now did it? Sinking deeper down the dark hole with its high, slick walls, he coughed; his maudlin mood intensified.
With each beat of his sad heart, he felt marooned. "Is she really the Kiera I've spent all these months with, trying to beat Liber-Eight? Or—is this Kiera, who has emerged from the gloom, a phantom? A wraith I don't pretend I know? Can ever hope to know…" Shuddering, he swallowed down more acrid booze. Barely moving his lips, muttering bad words, he hushed, fearing the answers to his impossible questions. Eyeing his nearly empty shot glass, marveling at the liquid luminance it held, he pouted, mulling things over. Smiling lazily, he intoned, "Guess I've lost the best drinking buddy I've ever had." He downed the rest of his drink, burning his tongue yet again, which felt fuzzy and peeled back.
Carlos, begrudgingly, reminded himself to head home. Get some needed rest, he scolded. Although, he doubted he would, with so much on his mind. A mind that wasn't totally foggy from too much alcohol. Too much dissonance and unanswered questions, tailor-made for keeping him up all night, was his bane.
"Who killed my Kiera?" he petulantly rasped, sourly enough to have the bartender target him with wide, wild-looking eyes. "Not anyone you'd know, pal," Carlos tossed the suspicious, slack-jawed man's way. Cranky, Carlos shot at him, "What?"
"You're reached your limit, Mac. Bar's closed for you." The bartender, a handsome, slim man about to turn 27, pointedly inflicted Carlos with a leery look. "Out!" He waved his cloth at him as though he shooed away a fly.
Glaring, Carlos in turn waved him off, chaffing. His mood decidedly turning most foul, he badgered, "Yeah, yeah. I'm goin'. I'm goin'." Unsteadily, he pushed to his feet, shuffling. When had he gotten on a psychedelic merry-go-round? Boy, sure felt like he was on one, going at full gallop. The bar took another dive while Carlos fought to keep steady on his feet. "Whoa!" Breathing hard, his gait all over the place, he staggered all the way, out the bar's entrance.
Outside in air that was damp and chilly, but vastly much fresher than what passed for air in the bar, Carlos laughed at a passing police car. Raising his fist straight up in the air, he couldn't make out whether a perp was in its backseat, too dark to tell. The car moved too fast. Was it on silent call? Shrugging again, vividly reliving his days when he'd worn a uniform, he smiled again lopsidedly. Too many perils being a Detective, he carped, trying then at that moment to remember where he'd parked his car. Wait. Had he even driven his car?
All too predictably, a mind addled by strong drink was pitiful help when it came to recalling. All at once, for no discernible reason, he panicked. He cursed everything he could think of as though that would help him remember. His mind was playing strange, mean tricks on him. Dumb mind! Up to its old tricks, or was someone else making this up? Stopping dead in his tracks, Carlos was rocked by an idea. Stock-still, he pondered, immobilized. Suppose, just suppose he had gone mad?
Stark, raving coo-coo? Mentally ill as he could be, none of what had supposedly gone on for the past months had ever actually happened. He broke out in a cold sweat. Hands flying to his head, he raked trembling hands through his wind-tousled hair. No super invisible suit. No awesome weaponry. No Liber-8. All just figments of his fractured imagination. Inevitably, a soul-tingling reverie gripped him.
No beautiful woman he had somehow fallen in love with, which he had, no exaggeration.
"And of course talking to myself is a clear sign of mental health," he chided, cracking a sardonic smile. He might want to rethink that. He'd read the other day that talking to oneself was like giving oneself much-needed pep talks. So maybe he was only partially-mentally impaired. He had always spoken to himself, long before the problematic, mystifying Kiera Cameron had shown up to shake up his relatively sane existence. Bedevil was a more apropos description.
He hadn't given up trying to locate his misplaced auto and while he kept trying to recollect, his phone rang. "How does this stubborn figment of what's left of my tattered imagination call me up?" Grunting, Carlos felt compelled to respond as he muttered, "Just great. My favorite distracting aberration, which very well could be my insanity calling, wants to talk." With determination, he accepted the call, amused thinking that if he refused to accept, could that be construed as his hanging up on himself. "Kiera," said he with biting finality, "what's up?"
On the other end of the line, her feminine voice, delicate in his ear, hailed back, "Carlos, where are you?" He had stormed away, after the bust, having never looked back. When he was angry, he wore it on his sleeve.
"Hey, where are you?"
"I asked you first," Kiera shot back.
Stupor, induced by way too much whisky, had him swaying badly on wayward feet. "I left Tarkin's about. Like I know when. Hey—have you seen my car?"
"Carlos," she replied sharply, hearing his drunkenness loud and clear.
"I have no idea where in all of spraw-sprawling Vancouver I parked it."
"Because you thought it was a good idea to tie one on, no holds barred."
"Oh, ya think so, eh?" Witty when he was in this stage of inebriation, or so he thought.
She imagined how big he must have been smiling, believing himself capable of matching wits with her in his state. "You sound less than your usual crackly-crisp self," Kiera bandied.
"Eh, that's your opinion," Carlos fired right back, eschewing her judgmental tone. Feeling free to say whatever he wanted, he said, "O-or mine."
"Why'd you run out on me?"
"Maybe I like being alone sometimes more than I like being…" Rational thought fused with confusion and inconsistency. "Being messed with."
Out of the blue, Kiera ordered, "Stay where you are. Don't go anywhere." Unreservedly, she promised, "I'm coming there. I'll see you get home okay."
"Aw, you're so concerned, Figment?" Carlos taunted. "Eh, Figgy?"
"Who?"
"You. That's who. You're not real. Never were. I made you up. Y' see, Kiera, I'm a lonely, lone wolf kind of guy."
"Carlos—"
"Figgy," he tossed, borderline affectionately and sort of sneered while looking up at the overcast sliver of silvery moon. The stars were impossible to see tonight. Slouching, and yawning widely, he bade, "Goodnight, whatever you are. Knowing ya had its moments. Some good, but mostly bad." A nice cheesy slice of pizza would be good right now, he hankered suddenly. It was imperative that he find his car and a pizzeria too.
"Carlos! Don't hang up!"
"H-help me find my way in the dark, Figgy? Could ya do that one last thing for me, and we call it quits."
"Stay put!" There was no hint of leniency in her voice.
"Yes, sir—I mean…ma'am." He mock saluted a nearby street light that bore a freaky resemblance to Detective Abernathy, in Vice.
"I'm on my way," Kiera promised, turning left down a street about five blocks from him. In less than five minutes, she spotted him slung around the odd street light, conversing animatedly with no one in sight. Newspapers littered where he stood. Pulling up alongside Carlos, Kiera adamantly advised him to get into the loaner from the VPD. "Join me?"
Complying obediently, though shrugging, Carlos opened the passenger door, which took a bit of doing and slid himself in beside her. "You got here quick."
"I'm a time traveler, right? I try hard not wasting it," she jibed, patting his possessive hand weighing upon her leg before she started the car off. "I've aimed to please ever since I got here. You've got to give me credit for that."
Carlos' broad grin was pure gloat. In his present condition, he was sure Kiera was giving him the eye. And there was nothing wrong with that. He'd take what he could get, regardless of its source. Figment or not, this woman was beautiful, mesmerizingly so, fearless and ever so strong. Refusing her didn't come easy, never had been since day one. "You want credit, ya got credit." Winking at her slyly, he whispered, "Whatever you want from me, ya got."
"I'm taking you home."
"Take away," he enjoined. He said her name, sounding more thoughtful. "Kiera?"
"Yes, Carlos?" She slowed for a red light, glancing briefly up at the wan moon.
"Give it to me straight. Deal?"
"Give you what straight?" Soberingly, she reminded, "I've always tried to. What would make me stop now?"
His words babbled forth. "Are you the same Kiera who popped out of the wall that first day? Ever since I saw you—I mean—no. The other Kiera dead, I don't know what I'm dealing with. Are you really Kiera, Kiera?" His voice caught; he'd sounded terrified. He sounded more terrified, clipping his words. "Or is that Kiera, my friend, dead and gone? The one someone stuffed in the trunk of that car with a bullet hole in her head? Are you really my friend? My Kiera?"
His reference that she was 'his Kiera' floored her momentarily. The light turned green and her voice came from deep within her throat when she answered, "Why not let me prove who I am day by day, going forward. Carlos, proving it to you will be more convincing than anything I say. You judge. Does that sound doable?"
"I'll be the judge of that too, Figgy."
"Uh, Carlos…drop the 'Figgy,' if you don't mind," Kiera advised, disliking how that sounded. In the morning, he'd never remember this weird conversation, but for the time being, this nickname which he thought was brilliant, sucked.
Reluctantly, he replied, "I'll get back to you on that." He sighed heavily, his words and ideas fighting against coming together coherently. "What if I decide I'm not talking to you anymore?" Freshly puzzled Kiera looked over at him, frowning. "I'm not ready to be carted off to the funny farm—not now—not ever. But you're one beaut of a wish I've made up for myself because it's easy to see I'm one burnt-out cop."
Pulling over to continue this upsetting conversation without motion, Kiera rallied, "Carlos, you are not burnt-out. Maybe a little fried around the edges, but not a third-degree burn victim. You're not losing it—far from it." Patiently, she beseeched, pouring her heart and soul into her plea, "You're as sane as anyone on your police force."
Carlos made an acrimonious sound, something between a laugh and a snort. "That's highly debatable since no one on the force is one hundred percent in their right mind in the first place." The twinkling in his dark eyes captured her full attention. "We're all out there. Way out. And if I haven't made you up, even you, then."
"You haven't made me up." She might have pinched him if he hadn't been looking at her so intently, and yes, quite fondly. "Let's start tonight."
"Start what?" he couldn't help asking a shade suggestively.
"Proving I'm not the Kiera you're convinced is pure hallucination."
Although it could have been judged a non sequitur, Carlos didn't see it that way. "Hungry, Fig—I mean, Kiera?"
"I am, if you are," she humored, having to admit that she could eat. She hadn't all day; it was a disturbing habit she was trying to overcome. She wasn't about to become anorexic despite her eating was at times an afterthought.
"Know what I could go for?" Besides you, he crazily thought.
"No. What?" she obliged.
"A nice, thick and oozy pizza pie. Plenty of pepperoni smothered in cheese. You?"
"I'll have the same," Kiera supported, seeing them sitting in Antonio's inhaling Italian ambrosia as she poured wine for herself. He wasn't getting any vino; he'd had enough sauce.
"Who's treatin'?" He perpetrated the perhaps overly friendly gesture again, his hand resting comfortably on her thigh. His finger tapped lightly.
Locking her hypnotic eyes with his that were equally penetrating, Kiera took the proposition upon herself. "Guess I am, eh? Like last time."
"Y' know, Ki, that's what I like about you," Carlos drawled, fiddling with the ends of her hair.
"What's that?" And she returned the favor, accentuating, "Car."
"You're consistent."
"Coming from you, that means a lot," Kiera touted, figuring that once he had enough pizza in him, he'd begin sobering up and his sojourn in fantasyland would end. She'd ferry him home, stop just short of tucking him in, then leave.
Tomorrow would come and go and perhaps one day, in the not so distant future, she might get home. She'd stopped living in the future for some time now since time and the obnoxious Freelancers, who regularly passed themselves off as controlling it, never seemed to be on her side.