A/N: Occasional use of crude language
Helena stood outside the B&B, a box of pastries in one hand, a recyclable 20 ounce cup of Earl Grey in the other. She supposed she could just enter and hope there was someone, a security guard, an agent, a lurking congressional staffer, to whom she could announce herself and ask for Claudia. It felt odd to feel so uncertain about entering the B it also felt odd to be carrying pastries. But this was a morning meeting, and there had always been food at the morning meetings, even if it was no more than all of them carrying their bowls of cereals or cups of tea and coffee to the sun room. There was a bakery down the street from her hotel, and after her usual restless night, made all the more restless by the fact that she had cancelled her flight out without even really understanding why, she had been at its doors before it opened.
There hadn't been a bakery in Univille when she had lived at the B&B. Or a coffee shop. There had been a diner, which offered a fish fry on Fridays and meatloaf on Mondays. The only tea on its menu had been Lipton. There hadn't been hotels, plural. There had been a motel on the edge of town, the Badlands Inn, which offered two parallel rows of rooms whose windows either looked on to the parking lot in front or the stretch of weedy grass in back. Univille had been no different from any other town in the rural Midwest, in her admittedly limited experience. A gas station, a diner, a bar, a grocery mart, and a scattering of homes. If you had wanted something more, you drove the hour it took to get to Rapid City. But now its sleepiness had a slightly self-conscious air, as if Univille had realized that its isolation and lack of attractions were valuable to someone. Namely the government someones whom Helena had encountered in the hotel's fitness room at 5 am and in the bakery two hours later, their constant, ill-disguised scrutiny of their surroundings more so than their workout habits or their business casual attire marking them as new to town. It was one thing to be bordering a top-secret facility so remote and so esoteric in its work that the government itself probably believed it was an IRS warehouse, quite another to be bordering that facility when the government chose to remember what it was.
The government someones had wanted lodgings with treadmills and elliptical machines, and they had wanted their coffee freshly ground and brewed by baristas. They also wanted something less heart-attack-inducing than the double bacon breakfast special at the diner. Helena, a little hung over and still dehydrated, no matter that she had downed two bottles of water before taking a run on the treadmill, had benefited from the government someones' predilections by having the option of dragging herself down to the fitness room, by being able to buy a 20 oz Earl Grey, by allowing herself to be indecisive about whether she wanted a chocolate croissant or a blueberry scone and then choosing both. Like the blind boring of termites, the government somethings, in their ceaseless investigation of the Warehouse's operations and personnel might be undermining all that made the Warehouse what it was, but Helena couldn't regret the changes to Univille.
A moment before Claudia hadn't been on the B&B's verandah, but in the time it had taken for Helena to glance down at her box of pastries and then glance back up, which was no time at all,
Claudia had appeared. The jeans were black but not aesthetically torn, the belt was also black but not studded, and the top was simply a casual top in a very unClaudia-like royal blue. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in," she said in a horrible Pacino imitation. "Is that how you're feeling today?"
"Did you guess that I would show up for the meeting, or did you sense a disturbance in the Force?" Helena asked as she approached the verandah's steps.
"Look at you, H.G., playing name that movie," Claudia said, reaching for the box of pastries. She led Helena into the B&B's foyer, which still retained the old hardwood flooring, restored to a gleaming finish, but that was about all. The foyer had been enlarged to include a casual seating area, just off to the side of a large reception/security counter, fashioned from a slightly lighter wood than the flooring and similarly gleaming. No one was yet manning it, and Claudia paid it no attention, heading down a corridor that seemed to separate the business part of the B&B from a more private area. There was only one door, at the corridor's end, and Claudia casually pushed it open. "Welcome to my digs," she said. "By the way, should I still be calling you H.G.?"
It was the old B&B, down to the rag rugs on the no-longer-gleaming hardwood floor. The staircase to the second floor was next to her, the sun room was across the foyer and through the french doors. If she turned and went past the staircase, down the hall, she would be in the kitchen. She tentatively touched the bannister, not sure but what her fingers wouldn't go through it, and looked up. "I wouldn't have it any other way, darling." Which was true. Although no one had called her H.G. in years, 'Helena' wouldn't sound right coming from Claudia, or Pete, for that matter. She was still looking up, trying to remember which room she had occupied. Had she been down from Myka or across from her?
"Go up if you want. I knocked out some of the walls to make a bigger bedroom, but otherwise it looks the same."
Not that she had any fear of being overwhelmed by memories, since the second floor didn't hold many for her, her bedroom only being the place where she had slept, or, as was more often the case, unsuccessfully waited for sleep, but Helena preferred not to take Claudia up on her invitation. Instead she nodded her head toward the sun room. "Are we meeting in there?
"Pete and Jane are already here. We're just waiting on Myka and Mrs. F."
"Jane Lattimer?"
"Our eminence grise among the regents," Claudia said. Realizing that Helena's puzzled expression hadn't changed, she explained, "Kosan found he couldn't stomach all the wrangling with deputy directors, assistant deputy directors, managing associate directors, and deputy assistant managers. Okay, I might have made the last one up, but it takes a certain talent to handle all the underlings and their underlings."
"The patience of a former schoolteacher, perhaps," Helena said dryly.
"It also doesn't hurt that, somehow, she has clout in Washington," Claudia said out of the corner of her mouth as she opened the sun room's doors.
Pete sat across from his mother, and seeing their faces, together, in profile, Helena was struck by their resemblance. The same pronounced chins, straight blunt noses, and high foreheads. She had always found Jane one of the more reasonable - and shrewder - of the regents, and especially when Helena's appreciation of Pete was at a low ebb, she had found it hard to believe they were related. Myka had always urged her to look past his antics, to consider them protective coloring, and she wondered now if Myka, as usual, hadn't been right.
"Helena, it's good to see you," Jane said, rising, and shook her hand. "Claudia, you better put that box down before Pete starts drooling." She gave her son a wryly affectionate glance before turning her attention back to Helena. Her eyes were blue, not brown, and they had never been lit with her son's manic gaiety, at least not to Helena's knowledge. Jane was regarding her with a look that Helena suspected had greeted the children in her classroom year after year, knowing, amused, and carrying a hint of steel. It said there was no trick you could play on her that she wouldn't be wise to. She looked like a schoolteacher today, too; her white hair was drawn back in a bun, and she was wearing an unfashionably long skirt and flats. "As soon as the others get here, we'll tell you what all this is about."
Pete was hovering over the pastries. "Do I go for the bear claw or the apple fritter?" He sighed before taking them both from the box.
"Whatever looks deep fried in that box is for you," Helena said.
Pete clapped one hand over his heart, while the other crammed the better portion of the fritter into his mouth. "You don't have to keep that unrequited passion for me hidden any longer," he said, working the pastry to the side of his mouth as he spoke. "I'm yours for the taking, H.G."
"I'm afraid I'll have to decline the offer," she said absently, opening the folder Jane had placed in front of her. Inside were pictures of artefacts, with summaries of their properties. The material wasn't unlike the information inside the assignment folders that Artie would pass out during meetings, except the summaries for these artefacts included the dates they had been retrieved and stored in the Warehouse. These weren't new or missing artefacts; they had already been found. She frowned and shot a glance at Jane.
"I know," Jane said. "That's one of the things we'll explain."
Pete's voice cut across his mother's. "That's going to be a doozy. But first things first, were you just telling me that you're taken? Has some lucky man - or woman - tamed your wild heart?"
The french doors behind them closed, and Myka, folders in the crook of one arm and keys dangling from her hand, the other hand pushing sunglasses over her forehead, circled the table and took a chair an equal distance from her former husband and her former mother-in-law. She dumped the folders and the keys on the table. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Pete. The official interrogation has been scheduled for later." There was no surprise in the friendly smile she gave Helena, but there was also no particular warmth to it, the smile suggesting that Helena was no more than the office mate two rows of cubicles over.
Helena sent a glare in Claudia's direction. "Did you tell everyone I was coming?"
Claudia had opened a laptop once she sat down and had never lifted her eyes from it, other than to select a pineapple danish from the box. She didn't lift them now. "I would have known if you left the area, H.G. There are precious few perks to being a caretaker, but that's one of them. If you were still here, that meant you were coming to the meeting." Tilting her head ever so slightly in Jane's direction, she said, "I'm almost done with the scans. Everything looks clean, so far."
"So," Pete said, bending his fingers in a beckoning motion. "Enough with the misdirection, H.G. Inquiring minds want to know. Did you turn down my proposal because you've given your heart to another?"
"Give it up, Pete," Myka muttered, sliding the topmost folder from her stack.
Perhaps she was irritated that they had known she was coming to the meeting before she did. Or possibly she was nettled by Myka's indifference to her romantic status, although after ten years of silence there was no reason for Myka to care. More importantly, why would she care whether Myka cared? Maybe she was also just a little bit disgruntled because even in faded jeans and a summer-weight v-neck sweater, Myka was undeniably. . . fetching. Helena was reluctant to admit to the inner whispering of a stronger adjective. Responding to Pete's teasing, she said archly, "Monogamy's never been my strong suit, darling." Myka remained absorbed by the contents of her folder, not so much as an involuntary twitch disrupting her calm concentration.
"Ooooh, still playing the field, are we? Maybe you and I, we can hit the night spots in Univille." Pete grinned and pulled apart his bear claw.
"Which one? Taco Bell or Applebee's?"
Pete laughed, stuffing half of the bear claw into his mouth. "Sad but true."
Claudia closed her laptop. "Scans are done. We can talk freely as soon as Mrs. F. arrives."
There had been no opening or closing of the doors, but Mrs. Frederic was already taking a seat next to Myka. "Then let's proceed," she said, her gaze, as it settled briefly on Helena, cool and measuring.
"Scans, talking freely? Are we supposed to be hermetically sealed?" Helena asked. She had held off for as long as she could, but the print of the artefact summaries was beginning to swim in front of her. She opened the small satchel she had brought with her and fished for her reading glasses. Why she was embarrassed by having to use reading glasses in front of them, she didn't know, since her age had always been an easy target for Pete and Claudia, and sometimes for Myka as well; she was only slightly mollified to see that Pete was moving his folder up to and then away from his eyes and squinting at the print.
"Go get your glasses, dear," his mother said.
"Eh, I'm fine without them." He took in Helena's glasses. "On her, they're hot. Hey, H.G., when you're out looking for love, do you find that those work for you?"
That comment Helena ignored, and Mrs. Frederic impatiently cleared her throat. Claudia mumbled, "Dude, really, am I gonna have to have Myka send you through sensitivity training again?" After a sharp look from Mrs. Frederic, Claudia said, "Yeah, about the scans and the talking freely. There's kind of a trust issue between us and the DHS, meaning they don't trust us and we don't trust them. They've tried to bug my rooms more than once, and we've gone old school with the folders and the paper, like Artie did back in the day, because they track who accesses the Warehouse systems and what they're looking at. We'd prefer the DHS know as little as possible about this meeting."
"Meaning that your superiors don't know about this problem you've discovered." Helena sighed, rubbing her forehead.
"I wouldn't call them our superiors," Pete grumbled.
"I don't understand why you're under their authority in the first place. Warehouses have existed for centuries with little to no interference. Why the change?" Helena put her hand out to forestall the easy answer. "And don't tell me it's because of the internet. The internet existed when I was an agent here, and there was no hue and cry for government oversight."
"True," Jane said. "But the internet has changed since you were an agent, and smart phones didn't exist, or at least they were in their infancy back then. Everything's a potential photo for posting or a tweet."
"Do you know how many times I've been on YouTube?" Pete demanded. "Actually," he said, expression turning thoughtful, "that's kind of cool." The he assumed a comically stern look and a lower voice, saying, "But it's bad, very bad for Warehouse business."
"It got harder and harder to explain the Teslas and the purple gloves and the bagging," Claudia said, pulling the box of pastries closer to her. "The political climate's changed, too. There was the fallout from WikiLeaks and, of course, the stuff that went down with Snowden. And saying we were with the IRS wasn't helping to make people any less suspicious. No one still knows quite what we do, but there are sure a hell of a lot more people involved in the not-knowing." She pursed her lips in consideration of the remaining pastries. "Some of these have an H.G.-look to them, you know, the scones, the croissants. I don't want to take something you want."
"Darling, take whichever one you want. It doesn't matter to me," Helena said.
At that, Myka rose from her chair and leaned over the table to look into the box. "She doesn't mean that." She paused, biting her lip. "Don't take the chocolate croissant."
Claudia frowned. "Yeah, but she said. . . ."
"Oh, God," Pete said, drawing down his cheeks with his hands. "How could I have forgotten the road trips with the two of you." Adopting a falsetto, he said, "'Helena, do you prefer a classical station or jazz? 'Myka, it really doesn't matter to me, just pick one.' 'I think I'll go with jazz.' 'Fine.' 'Are you sure you don't have a preference?' 'None at all, darling.' 'You know what? I think I'll go with pop.' 'You'll have to remove my cold, dead hands from the radio before you do that.' And then Myka's all smug as she turns it to the classical station, because she knew that's the one H.G. really wanted all along. She just wanted to see if she could provoke H.G. into giving herself away. They could spend hours trying to fake each other out. Claud, take the chocolate chip and strawberry swirl scone. I'm pretty sure H.G. believes that's a travesty of sconedom."
Both Myka and Helena looked at him admiringly. "I'm a higher primate," Pete said. "I'm capable of learning if the behavior's repeated often enough."
"Can we return to the matter at hand?" Mrs. Frederic said testily.
"Which is?" Helena asked. "I've been looking at the artefacts in the folder, and they're all here, in the Warehouse. I can't understand why that would be a problem."
Myka said slowly, "It isn't. We believe these are artefacts that have been copied."
"There have been replicas of artefacts before," Helena said. "Timothy Leary's reading glasses, for one." She didn't have Myka's eidetic memory, but hers was very good, all the same. She had just never cared much for details, believing that the endless hunt for such artefact-pollen was for the worker bees. When she had said as much, years ago, Myka had laughingly accused her of thinking she was the queen bee. Helena hadn't denied the charge, claiming with a dramatic haughtiness that it was self-evident she was the queen. She and Myka had been smiling at each other until the amusement in Myka's face had given way to something reckless and challenging, and she had leaned over the front seat of the SUV saying quietly, so that Pete, sitting behind the wheel couldn't hear, "Try to lord it over me." Funny how for a woman impatient with details, she still remembered that one. But Myka seemed not to be remembering the same moment, and Helena, forcing her mind back to replicated artefacts, said, "But their powers are generally weaker. Is that not the situation here?"
Given the sober expression on Myka's face, memories of flirtations with old partners weren't distractions. "The objects haven't been replicated, only their properties. Which, of course, makes the new artefacts that much harder to find. Take Jonas Salk's lab coat, for instance." She took a page from her folder and waved it at Helena. "It makes the wearer immune to physical injury, but it also makes her susceptible to hallucinations, fugue states -"
"Makes her looney-tunes, as our Mr. Sensitive would say," Claudia said, looking narrowly at Pete. "Salk, earlier in his career, tested vaccines on patients in state asylums. You know, back in the good old days, when mental illness, like being black or gay or a woman, made you slightly less than human, in other words, great unwitting test fodder." Claudia eyed her chocolate chip and strawberry scone suspiciously before taking a tiny bite.
"We retrieved the lab coat in San Francisco nine months ago," Myka said, "from a race car driver who had a talent for walking away from fatal crashes. Since then, we've retrieved six more artefacts from San Francisco having the same property. A stethoscope, a scapel, and a test tube," she paused. "Then a compact mirror, a visor, and a wristwatch."
Helena shrugged. "It's not uncommon to run across artefacts that have very similar properties. The vast majority of us, despite our tendency to believe otherwise, really aren't all that unique. How can you be sure that isn't the case?"
"Because the first side effect is the same and because the new artefacts tend to have occurred in clusters, in the same locations, over a relatively short period of time," Myka said.
"First side effect?" Helena hadn't missed the emphasis.
Myka hesitated, but only for a moment. "There are other, more permanent ones, like irreversible coma and death," she said ruefully. "We don't know how soon they happen, but we think the time period is short. A couple of months, maybe less than that. Six replicated artefacts, six people, six deaths."
"Are you sure the properties of the original artefacts haven't simply been transferred?" Helena asked.
"We retested the original artefacts," Pete said. "They still have their mojo."
Helena stared at Mrs. Frederic, an ironic smile teasing her mouth. "Perhaps God does play dice with the universe." Mrs. Frederic didn't smile in return, her face impassive. Turning to Jane, Helena said with a lightness that verged on mockery. "Absolutely fascinating. But I'm not sure why you think you need me." To be honest, she was fascinated. This was replication on a level that had never been previously achieved. Dreamed of, yes. Even she had been tantalized by the possibility, when she had hungered to invent whatever was beyond someone else's grasp, if only to prove that it wasn't beyond hers, but she hadn't been that hungry in a very long time.
"Because you're you," Claudia said. "We need someone to figure out how this is happening. The way the artefacts are multiplying we're not going to be able to keep up with them."
"We're chasing our asses right now," Pete said. "Everything's on the verge of spinning out of control."
"All the more reason to bring Homeland Security up to speed. You need resources, and they would be able to give you that." At the look of distaste that crossed Claudia's face, Helena felt a twinge of guilt for bedeviling her, them, with the suggestion, but only a twinge. The problem with secrets was that they tended to make you secretive, and working for an organization that itself was supposed to be secret seemed to foster mistrust and divisiveness more than it did any kind of solidarity. During her time at both Warehouses, she had often lobbed a rational suggestion into discussions grown increasingly rabid as frustrations about artefact-hunting, large and small, led to dark mutterings about bumbling fools from other agencies, imperious caretakers, and interfering regents. Sometimes they would rail against the Warehouse itself, accusing it of making the retrieval harder than it needed to be or actively hampering their searches. Of course, because she was perverse that way or, perhaps, more often because she was bored, Helena had also frequently been the one to plant the initial suspicion of a conspiracy, watching as others nurtured and developed the idea. She had sometimes wondered whether in the mix of all of her psychological frailties there wasn't a bit of pyromania as well, this desire to light fires and then intensify them. But there was actual sincerity in her suggestion this time. She had little to offer that a department of the government couldn't.
Claudia said dismissively, "The last time we reported a 'situation' to the DHS, they put the Warehouse under lockdown. No one could go in or out, and the agents were grounded. It set us back weeks, and that was when we thought one artefact from the Warehouse, one artefact," she said, aggrieved, "was missing. I don't want to imagine how they would overreact to this."
Myka had been studying another folder, but she lifted her head just enough to send a slanted look at Claudia. "She wasn't serious, you know, about bringing in the DHS."
"But I was," Helena said. She waited until Myka cocked her head toward her. "I wasn't just stirring the pot. Maybe this is something that's bigger than all of you." Myka steadily regarded her, while Pete vehemently squirmed his disagreement from his chair. "Were you able to get any information from the race car driver about how he acquired the lab coat or how its properties might have been replicated?"
"He was already on the crazy train when we caught up with him," Pete said. He cocked a finger at Claudia, "You'll have to add that phrase to the 'Peteisms that must not be repeated list.'" Turning back to Helena, he said, "He was still under psychiatric care. We went over his place with a fine-toothed comb, took apart his computer and his phone, and all we found was an online auction site that had been abandoned."
"They're good, whoever they are. I couldn't get anything useful from the site." Claudia broke off a piece of the scone and observed it with interest. "This isn't half-bad, H.G., you should try it."
Jane had pushed her folder away and was abstractedly running a finger over her upper lip. She glanced at Helena, then looked away. "Obviously they're targeting people who have the money to pay for artefacts, and the fact that they've been able to do so discreetly suggests that they already have an existing network they can tap for clients."
"Perhaps one of them is a former Warehouse agent who now makes a living appraising expensive antiques and collectibles," Helena suggested quietly. "She probably has a client base that matches your profile." She found she was clenching her hand, and she slowly uncurled her fingers. She had forgotten - it was all fun and games fueling people's paranoia until she found it directed at her. And with good reason, she had to concede, although it didn't lessen the anger that she had been duped, it was clear, into coming to this meeting. They weren't asking for her help as much as they were trying to determine whether she was the culprit. She could sacrifice herself a hundred times over and what they would all remember first was that she was the only agent in Warehouse history, to anyone's knowledge, who had asked to be bronzed; the second thing they remembered was that she had been one trident-strike away from ending the world as they knew it. She recalled with a clarity that surprised her the last meeting she had had with the regents, their regret at her decision to sever all ties with the Warehouse not quite overriding a sense of relief. And from Mrs. Frederic, who had also been present, there had been only watchfulness, as if she would wait forever, if need be, for the other shoe to drop. Had Mrs. Frederic thought she heard something fall to the floor just now? Helena was tempted to lift one leg and then the other and show her that a sandal remained on each foot. Instead she fixed her with another stare and said, "Yesterday I didn't give a shit about the world and today I'm supposed to be plotting its destruction again?"
"We're all under a cloud, Helena," Myka said gently. "Someone with a knowledge of artefacts is orchestrating this."
That had always been Myka's role. Whenever they had felt that the tortured H.G. Wells, the unstable refugee from the nineteenth century and her own tragic history, was about to make an appearance, Myka would step in to stroke her fevered brow (only metaphorically, of course) and to coax her to rejoin the family. Screw that. "Don't insult me, darling. No one else at this table could do what's apparently being done, not even Claudia."
Seemingly from out of the depths, though she was still sitting next to Myka, came Mrs. Frederic's dry rattle of a laugh. "Then you're in agreement that you're a natural suspect, Helena?"
"Except that I have no motive." Helena paused, knowing that she would regret what she would say next, but it felt so satisfying to indulge her anger, she couldn't resist. It had been so long since anyone or anything had gotten under her skin like this; it was pleasurable, this momentary self-restraint before she let the words fly. She almost wanted to wait another beat or two just to savor the build-up, but as had also been true when she was angry, the need to lash out was overpowering. "I haven't cared enough in ten years to have anything to do with the Warehouse or anyone associated with it, and Claudia can attest to that, not a single acknowledgement of a single e-mail. I have no reason to invite you back into my life, which is exactly what replicating an artefact's power would do. I'm sure you have some dossier on me, a folder probably just like this one." Helena picked hers up and slapped it down on the table. "Money wouldn't be a motivator, nor revenge, nor anything else. You probably know what I had for breakfast last week and whom I've last slept with. You know there's nothing in my life as I live it now that suggests I would do this."
Myka's face hadn't changed at all. Her eyes hadn't flickered or grown large or shut tight, and Myka had never looked away from her either. She had listened to Helena's rant as if she had heard it a thousand times before, and Helena realized with a growing horror that Myka had. Helena would feel attacked, Myka would try to soothe her, she would, in turn, brush off the attempted sympathy with something cutting or contemptuous, and then snarl, for good measure, that she didn't care, about their opinions of her, about what the world at large thought of her. How could she have forgotten so easily? But Myka had expected her, they had all expected her to respond like this. In fact, she could see the smile begin to creep across Myka's face.
Pete, in a gesture reminiscent of his mother, was rubbing his chin. "The shredded wheat, yeah, that was sad, a little bit. I had to skip over that part. But the woman in D.C. you're seeing, she's, like, incredible. Is she the one who's got your number now, H.G.? Cause I could completely understand."
Claudia had never stopped eating her scone during Helena's display of temper and was only now patting away a few lingering crumbs from her face. "You have to admit it was pretty odd timing, your RSVPing Artie's retirement party. Right when all of this crap's going on, and out of everything I'd sent you, that's the thing you responded to? We had to check it out, and, frankly, you're right. We would've checked you out even if you hadn't come to the party. I could count on the fingers of one hand the people who could pull off replicating an artefact's properties, and four of those fingers have your name on them."
"So, did I pass the test?" Helena demanded, angry anew at hearing the tiny tremor in her voice.
"No more than any one of us has," Jane said. "None of us has your capabilities, true, but it doesn't mean that we couldn't be helping out someone who does." The blue eyes weren't unkindly, but Helena half-expected Jane at any moment to tell her to buck up and follow the other children's example. "We would have been more worried if you had laughed off the suspicion or volunteered to submit to a polygraph. Myka said that the more you clawed the dirt and flapped your wings, the less likely you were to be involved."
"Yes, 'mad as a wet hen.' Lovely image, thank you," Helena muttered.
Myka shrugged, still smiling, but there was a wistfulness to it that kept its curve shallow. "Ten years is a long time. Maybe we don't cross your mind, maybe your choosing to come back now is a only coincidence, and you'll leave here happy if you never see any of us again. But I have to believe that whatever's changed, Helena, you wouldn't hurt the Warehouse."
Helena looked at Claudia. "Is it? Is the replication harming the Warehouse?"
"Not directly, but I think it's fair to say that the Warehouse is a little confused. An artefact whose properties can be replicated in a completely unrelated object. It's a violation of everything we know about artefacts and why Warehouses have existed." She sighed and leaned against the back of her chair, tipping it onto its back legs and catching onto the edge of the table for balance. "Yeah, it's a paradox, but not in a fun, there's-a-drinking-game-in-this-somewhere kind of way. The Warehouse doesn't like puzzles. Who knew?"
"Are you all right?"
Claudia grinned. "Great show of indifference there, H.G. Sorry to tell you, but you don't have the not-caring thing down. But to answer your question, yes, I'm fine for now, and so is Mrs. F. But if we can't put a stop to the replication, I can't say what's going to happen."
Helena wasn't sure how she felt, still a little angry, a little ashamed at her outburst, and more than a little alarmed at how quickly she was slipping into old patterns. She also knew that a part of her mind was already working through what would be needed to replicate an artefact's properties. But first things first. "Give Myka the chocolate croissant and then pass me the box," she told Claudia. She held up a warning finger to Myka. "Don't remind me about your no sugar rule, which none of us ever believed anyway, and don't tell me you've already eaten because I know you haven't." Flicking her eyes to Pete and then back to Myka, Helena said, "I remember our road trips, too. You always forgot to eat if you were in a hurry."
For the first time, Myka's smile was the way Helena remembered it, full and warm and teasing, and she hadn't forgotten how the power of it could move through her, banishing whatever dark thoughts had been besetting her - multiple and varied but nonetheless uniform in the weight of their guilt or remorse - but she blinked at how powerful it remained, realizing that her own lips were stretching to accommodate a smile she rarely wore, one that said she was utterly gobsmacked. Clearing her throat and needlessly readjusting her reading glasses, Helena took refuge in her folder. "I'm standing by my suggestion to bring in Homeland Security, but if you're dead set against it, why did you let Artie retire when he did and where, by the way, is Steve? If the situation is as serious as you say, why isn't everyone here who needs to be here?"
Claudia, Myka, and Mrs. Frederic looked at one another, before Claudia answered. "Because it would raise more questions. Hiring goes through the DHS now, and they track how we use staff very, very closely. We have more agents now than the Warehouse has had in decades; it's what allowed us to take Myka out of the field and have her become our new Artie long before we needed a new Artie. It enabled Vanessa to talk Artie into retiring about three years after he should have and five years before he wanted to, and, after an incredibly painful amount of paperwork, it gave us the ability to allow Steve to a take a six-month sabbatical in Nepal. But we don't know who has our new agents' loyalties, the Warehouse or DHS, and there's no way I'm going to have new agents tattling to DHS about our replication problem. If we had postponed Artie's retirement or called Steve back from Nepal, there would have been even more questions." Letting all four legs of her chair touch the floor again, Claudia said, "If we need to, I think we can trust a couple of the newer agents, Travis and Jacqui. Pete's been on a few assignments with Travis and thinks he's solid." Pete dipped his head in agreement. "And Jacqui's our new Myka in training, which is good, because if you decide you're with us in this, H.G., Myka's going to be your partner in the field."
"What?" Helena heard Pete chiming in only a second or two behind her.
Pete had half-risen from his chair, and Jane stared at him until he sat down. Glaring first at his mother and then at Myka, Pete said tightly, "This part we didn't discuss. I thought I would be partnering H.G. Aside from the fact that our son needs one of his parents to be home," he said to Myka, "you haven't been in the field on a regular basis since Drew was born. H.G. hasn't been in the field on a regular basis since she tangoed with Yogi Bear at Yellowstone. Given that we don't even know what we're looking for anymore, it's a recipe for disaster."
"You're our senior training agent. If you're not out there training the newbies, Myka will get calls from the DHS. So, no, you're not going to be H.G.'s partner. Myka goes into the field on quality checks," Claudia said. "You remember, the ones the DHS makes us do now to ensure that people aren't posting shots of us dunking an artefact in goo or blogging about that neat trinket Mr. Jones next door was using to entice all the neighbor ladies into taking their clothes off for him?" At Pete's disgusted expression, she said, "All the DHS requires is that we do them, they don't ask which ones or how often we send her out. Amazingly enough, they don't quality check our quality checks."
"Why do I suspect that avoiding the so-called storm troopers of Homeland Security will be like escaping the Death Star via the trash compactor?" Helena mumbled to herself as she broke off a chunk of the blueberry scone.
Pete gaped at her before turning to Myka. "That was awesome and proof that our little girl's all grown up. But the stuff about you going out into the field with her is not awesome and not what we agreed to when it comes to Drew, and you know it."
"We can talk about that later, Pete, in private," Myka said. "But as for my not being an active field agent for years or Helena not being a field agent, and our not being able to handle ourselves in the field, that's bullshit, and you know it." She pulled a folder out from the middle of her stack. "Claudia and I have already decided on the next replicated artefact we need to track down." She was about to slide the folder in Helena's direction when she stopped. "Helena, we need to know, are you in or not?"
In for what and for how long. What commitment were they asking from her? A week? A month? Longer? She didn't operate like that anymore. Her commitments, such as they were, were well defined and limited. A three-day trip to Los Angeles to appraise Edwardian-era furniture that a director wanted to buy for a study he would never use and a carriage that an agent wanted to restore, the third day of the trip being her own to spend at a beach watching the waves roll in. There was no commitment she had to make other than to give her clients her opinion, and if she picked up some young thing on the beach or in a nightclub later in the evening, no commitment was required then either. On the fourth day, three days ahead of when God had rested from his labors, she would be finished and on a plane to the next appraisal or someone's vacation home in the Caribbean or her loft in New York. It really didn't matter where only that it was different from the last place she had been.
But what they were asking of her now, there really was no end to it. There would always be another artefact, replicated or not. There would be the drudgery of tracking down clues and the grinding irritation of having to cajole, or browbeat, people into revealing what they knew. Thankfully the moments of terror, when the artefacts or the people involved with them turned out to be more dangerous than anyone realized, tended to be short-lived. Helena no longer understood her younger self's enthusiasm for the hunt, especially since the end of it was so rarely happy, but then she didn't much like her younger self anyway, brash and overweening in her pride. She had learned that the Warehouse was no bastion of morality; eerily sentient, it also seemed incapable of, or perhaps uninterested in, passing judgment, allowing villains and monsters into its depths as easily as it did its caretakers and agents. Her second go-around with the Warehouse had been tolerable only because of Myka. Myka hadn't redeemed the Warehouse for her, but she had made Helena believe that, just possibly, it was a little less venal than the world outside it.
Despite the hint of impatience in her voice and the harassed expression that the folders in front of her had brought to her face, as if they were multiplying before her eyes, there was an earnestness to how Myka was looking at her that Helena devoutly wished at that moment she didn't remember. It was the look Myka always gave her before they were about to do something particularly dangerous or ill-advised or both, searching and serious and, worst of all, trusting, trusting that Helena, regardless of their games or arguments or her whole sad history that screamed she couldn't be trusted, would be beside her. She had always been powerless before that look, just as she was now.
"I'm in," she said.
Claudia whooped, Jane looked relieved, and Pete, although his expression was uncharacteristically sour, gave her a thumb's up. Myka simply pushed the folder across the table to her, apparently having expected no other response. Mrs. Frederic shifted in her chair, clasping her hands together on the table, as though only now was the real discussion to begin. "It's all well and good that Helena's agreed to assist us, but I have my own concerns about her fitness as an agent, no matter how temporary her tenure with us is."
"Irene," Jane said, "I thought we had settled this." She said it pleasantly enough, but the schoolmarm's steeliness was evident in her voice.
Mrs. Frederic was unperturbed. "In your mind, perhaps." As Claudia and Myka exchanged worried glances, Mrs. Frederic looked unblinkingly at Helena. "You do remember what you said to the regents when you wished to end all association with the Warehouse?"
"I said many things."
"Not that many," Mrs. Frederic countered. "When one of the regents asked what it was about the incident in Boone that made it the deciding factor, do you remember what you told her?"
Helena crumbled what was left of the scone between her fingers. The meeting with the regents had been in a room in Boone's community center, the one next to the room, ironically enough, where she had taken the same cooking class as Nate. It had been toward the end of winter, March, but in Wisconsin that could still mean below-freezing temperatures and snow storms, and she recalled how stuffy and warm the room had been as they sat, grouped around a small table, snow melt puddling at their feet and coats and scarves draped over empty chairs. All except Mrs. Frederic, who had worn nothing over her mustard-colored suit and whose pumps showed no trace of having crossed icy sidewalks or stepped through slush. Helena had thrown up earlier that morning and was still feeling queasy. She wasn't sure whether it was nerves or if the regrettable night in Nate's bed a few weeks ago - before then they hadn't slept together for months, although Helena had yet to move out - was coming back in the worst possible way to haunt them.
"I told her that I had been having nightmares ever since Myka and Pete had retrieved the jawbone artefact, that I dreamed Adelaide had died," Helena said tonelessly, but her eyes were bright with resentment as she glared at Mrs. Frederic. "I said that the experience had ruined my relationship with Adelaide's father and confirmed my worst fear, that I might lose another child, especially if I retained any connection to the Warehouse. Although I had helped out the Warehouse on a few occasions since that initial visit, hoping that I might be able to reconcile the two halves of my life, I realized that I had to choose between them." She finished grimly, "You know what I chose."
It had all been true, what she had said to the regents. Myka and Pete's coming to Boone had marked the end of her relationship with Nate, but for reasons other than, or at least in addition to, the reason she had given the regents. She had had nightmares of Adelaide dying, but they had little to do with Adelaide herself and even less to do with her having been held hostage in the camping goods store. But the only outright lie she had told the regents was that she had wrestled with cutting all ties to the Warehouse for months; she had known before Pete pulled the SUV out of Nate's driveway their last evening in town that nothing of what she had built, or thought she had built, in Boone would last and that she when left Boone, as she inevitably would, she would need to leave the Warehouse behind her as well.
"Helena," Myka said, her voice soft and apologetic, "I'm so sorry for whatever role we had in how things ended for you in Boone. When we talked afterward, you never said -." She cut herself off. "For what it's worth now, I'm really sorry," she repeated, raising her eyes to Helena's. The look was full of an old misery, and Helena wondered how long Myka had brooded about what happened in Boone, what had been said and not said.
"It was a long time ago," she said more curtly than she had intended. Trying to soften her brusqueness, she said, "Nate married a couple of years after we broke up. By all accounts, Adelaide's mainly, his wife is a wonderful woman and she's been a great mother."
"You still keep in touch with Adelaide then?" Myka asked, a strange smile playing on her lips.
Pete darted a glance at Myka, and the sour expression that had never quite left his face was replaced by something tender and protective, and Helena bridled upon seeing it. She restlessly swept the scone crumbs into a tiny pile with her napkin. "Occasionally. She'll be a sophomore in college this year."
"I'm not finished with that meeting in Boone," Mrs. Frederic said, reclaiming Helena's attention. "There was something more you told the regents. When they asked you if you were sure that there could be no further relationship with the Warehouse."
Helena closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of her chair. Of course, this was what Mrs. Frederic had been honing in on, tolerating all the mawkishness about Helena's failed relationships with Nate and Adelaide because there was something more telling from that meeting yet to be disclosed. Telling in Mrs. Frederic's mind, yet simply another calculated half-truth in Helena's. She had said what she needed to say to convince the regents that she was serious. Opening her eyes and looking at everyone around the table in turn, she said, "I told them that I wasn't sure, if emotionally, I could cope with the strain and the stress of being involved with the Warehouse anymore, that, at some point, it would demand something from me that I no longer had to give, and I couldn't be responsible for putting an agent at risk because of it."
"Why should I believe that's changed now?" Mrs. Frederic said, her voice, like a needle, pricking at Helena. "How can I be sure, how can anyone of us here be sure that you won't suffer some collapse when you're needed most?"
Helena chewed the inside of her cheek and then forced herself to smile. She was certain it was more grimace than smile. "Admittedly I don't have a very good track record with agents. I've done horrible things to some of them, some in this very room. And when I haven't betrayed them, I've lied to them and manipulated them. But the one thing I've never done to an agent is to abandon him, or her, out of fear. It's a small point of distinction, very small, but -"
"Enough." The word sliced through Helena's confession, startling her. Myka was looking at Mrs. Frederic. "Enough," she repeated quietly. "You're not making the decision about whether Helena's fit enough be in the field with me. None of you are. I'm making it. She's going, and I'll take responsibility for it."
"Very well," Mrs. Frederic said mildly. "You will take responsibility for it, Myka." Rising from her chair, she regarded Helena with what might have been the barest glimmer of an amused smile. "You're carrying a larger burden than most, Agent Wells, you need to shoulder it well." After a twitch at her skirt to straighten it, she was gone, the french doors not having a chance to close in the softest of whispers behind her.
Claudia sucked in a breath and then let it out in a slow exhale. "Well, that last was awkward, but it's over." She kept the serious expression on her face for a second or two before bouncing out of her chair to rush over to Helena and hug her. Helena felt her shoulders being painfully folded together as Claudia squeezed her, shouting over the top of Helena's head, "Welcome back, temporarily unofficially reinstated Agent Wells." She broke the hug, grinning widely. "It's off-book, of course, and we'll have to publicly deny all knowledge of you if anything bad or embarrassing happens, but otherwise you're an agent. Tesla-less and Farnsworth-less but still an agent."
"I'm overwhelmed," Helena said sardonically. "And why will I not have a Tesla or Farnsworth?"
"No one has them anymore. The DHS deemed them to be unsafe technology. We're not absolutely forbidden to use them, but they're all logged and stored away, and I practically have to sign Pete's firstborn over to get one out." Claudia's grin had shrunk, and she ran her fingers through her hair in what Helena suspected was a frequent gesture of frustration when dealing with Homeland Security and, remembering the importunate young assistant who had collared Claudia at the party yesterday, congressional staffers. "Apparently shooting people is preferable to Tesla-ing them, and talking on an encrypted phone I could hack in my sleep is superior to using a Farnsworth. But, hey, who's complaining. You're back, even if it's only for a little while." She wrinkled her forehead in thought. "How long do we have you?"
"It may be overpraised, but one of the pleasures of being self-employed is being your own boss," Helena said, opening the folder that Myka had given her. "I cleared my schedule before I came here. There's nothing I have to return to." She felt the truth of her words echo mockingly within her, as if she were no more than an empty room with a collection of memories like a box of old LPs and some dust mice on the floor.
She heard Pete and Myka talking in low, not entirely friendly, voices near the doors that opened onto the garden. Myka's face had settled into a familiar stubbornness, the arch of her brows flattening into an uncompromising line just above her eyes and her chin lifting, as if it were a finger she could jab in emphasis. "Myka, will you be joining us tonight?" Jane interjected in a voice she must have used countless times to head off fights on the playground, carrying and authoritative, and Pete and Myka both instinctively turned around.
"I already have plans, Jane, but thanks for asking," Myka said, and though Helena assumed that Jane had asked Myka to join them in an attempt to defuse the situation, she noticed the disapproval that flared at Myka's response.
"Boyfriend," Claudia hissed in explanation.
"I'm sorry?" Helena said, not sure she had heard Claudia correctly.
"Myka," Claudia hissed again. "She has a boyfriend. Pete's okay with it, but Jane still struggles."
"Oh," Helena said, feeling that she had gusted the word, as though the heel of someone's palm had been driven into her gut, pushing her breath up and out. She shouldn't have been surprised to hear that Myka was seeing someone but she was. A little shocked, actually. She didn't know what else she had expected, certainly not that Myka, in taking over Artie's job, had also assumed his nearly monastic devotion to the Warehouse. She was a single woman. No, she was a gorgeous single woman who would have her pick of Univille's eligible bachelors, few in number and unprepossessing though they might be. "I'm amazed that she found someone in Univille, but -"
"She doesn't live in Univille," Claudia said. "She and Drew live in Rapid City; she works from home most of the time. To give the DHS their due, they were pretty accommodating, you know, the whole work-life balance thing. She can be soccer mom and Artie all rolled into one. Of course, her house is wired to the rafters, and I think you're automatically electrocuted if you ring the doorbell, but if you want to visit, I'm sure she'll give you the secret password."
Myka had returned to the table and was gathering her folders. The irritation that had been visible as she had argued with Pete was gone, and she seemed completely absorbed as she flipped through each folder before adding it to the stack, frowning in concentration, mouth slightly parted as if she was just seconds away from taking a Twizzler from her secret stash and chewing on it. Helena could imagine the same look on Myka's face as she watched her son play soccer. Yes, the work-life balance, the equal meting out of responsibilties, and Myka being Myka, she would attend to each with the same care. She wouldn't have been one of those children who try to dislodge a playmate from a teeter-totter by ramming her end into the ground; she would have always sought that perfect balance of up and down, never too high and never too low. Adelaide had been like that, too. Why hadn't she seen it earlier. . . . Helena sensed where her thoughts were drifting and was more grateful than startled when Myka suddenly said, "My house," and looked at her. "Tomorrow night. Working dinner at 7. I want to go over the artefact we'll be retrieving. Claudia can give you directions." She slung the folders into the crook of her arm and tucked her keys into her jeans' pocket. "Claud, I'm off to meet with Jacqui. I'll be at the Warehouse if you need me."
Claudia pursed her lips and issued a soft whistle. "Working dinner, and here I thought all the surreptitious meetings we're gonna have to have would take place over tuna fish sandwiches in a parked car in the grocery mart lot. You must still rate."
Helena was recalling one of Myka's previous attempts at cooking, when they had all lived in the B&B. She asked, deadpan. "Will this be what finally kills me?"
"Drew's still alive, so she must not screw up kid's fare too bad. You're probably safe if she sticks with chicken tenders." Claudia gave her a comforting pat. "I've got to go torture somebody at DHS, but you're free to hang around for as long as you want."
The sun room was empty when Claudia left - through the french doors - and Helena slumped against her chair, exhausted. She wanted another shower or a change of clothes; the rush of emotion and memories had left her feeling like she had just rolled out of bed after a weekend bacchanal. Or, far worse, a long snag and bag. She told herself she hadn't come back to help the Warehouse; she hadn't known the Warehouse was in trouble, couldn't have possibly known, because she had made damn sure she stayed far enough away not to sense anything like trouble from it. She had come back because. . . she was running out of other places to go. Her soul, should she have one, wasn't in jeopardy, but she would admit to having lost her bearings. She smiled at the unintended pun. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, yes, and so does entering a labyrinth. She still didn't know which she was traveling, only that Myka was at its heart.