Beneath
Chapter Twenty-Nine – Forgetting
The next day seemed designed from the start to push Loki beyond his tolerance for pretending to be Lucas. He went to the galley for breakfast at 6:15 and found Jane already there, sitting with Macy, the woman who tended to the plants in the greenhouse and who had sat across from Loki at the sunset dinner. It was becoming clear that Jane's change of heart about the rest of the South Pole's inhabitants was not a one-time aberration. He took a deep, slow breath to try to relax, to not reveal how unhappy he was with the development. At least Macy was one of the less offensive people he'd met here.
He filled his plate with pancakes and maple syrup – the pancakes were freshly prepared and more edible than most of the breakfast options, particularly considering he could barely stomach the meat here anymore – and got a cup of hot water and a teabag. He was glad Jane was already here. He would eat fast to catch up with her and they could get an early start on their work. Or at least he could, if she still insisted on spending part of her day on the work he now considered irrelevant.
Or, as it turned out, he could add yet another layer to his disguise and spend a morning as a Frost Giant castoff pretending to be an Aesir prince pretending to be a Midgardian apprentice scientist pretending to be a healer rescuing someone from a disaster at the South Pole.
Loki leaned back in his chair and massaged his brow – he had stayed up all night studying one of Jane's Pathfinder probes and then skimming and approving her incoming and outgoing e-mail, and he hadn't gone to bed the night before either. He was sleeping so sporadically that he was tiring more quickly than normal. "Are you certain we're all required to do this? I'm no healer and if I were trapped in a fire I don't think I would want to have to rely on you to rescue me."
"Hey!" Jane said indignantly. "I don't even know where to begin with that one."
"I do," Macy said. "To take it point by point: Yes. 'Healer'? And, you better hope you don't get trapped in a fire because Jane may just decide not to rescue you."
Loki took a quick bite of pancake and dripping syrup. Healer was a slip, and a stupid one at that. He knew they weren't called that here. Thor of all people had been the one to tell him so. And if he was beginning to blend in less than Thor, he was going to have to make sure he slept more frequently.
"Don't you read your e-mail, Lucas? They've sent out two about the Mass Casualty Incident drill."
"I read e-mail every day without fail, Jane," he answered with a smirk. He read hers every day without fail. But he didn't bother with the internal United States Antarctic Program messages; they were not of concern. Thor probably has no idea what e-mail is, he thought sarcastically, trying to recover a little of the dignity he thought he'd ceded with his slip, but instead setting off a battle inside him.
Because it didn't matter what Thor knew or didn't know. Thor didn't matter. Thor was the past. A past that may have had something good in it at some point, but everything good – every laugh, every bit of affection, every brotherly bond – had been based on a lie and had soured and spoiled. And Thor had always been blind to how much things had changed; the changes wrought by the exposure of that lie and all the events that followed were no different. He needed to stop thinking so reflexively about Thor, but after over a thousand years of constantly comparing himself to a favored older brother it wasn't an easy habit to break.
Meanwhile the conversation had gone on without him, and Jane was saying something about hoping she got to use an ax, which caught Loki's attention. "There are going to be axes?"
"Depends what the scenario is, I imagine. They'll tell us at the meeting this morning."
Loki had misunderstood earlier; the drill itself, he learned, would come sometime later and this morning at 8:30 there was only a meeting to plan for it.
He sat in the meeting and alternated between paying attention and shaking his head with incredulity over the whole thing, including the fact that he was actually paying attention. He was so close to being able to get off this planet he could almost smell the peculiarly strong wet-earth scent of Svartalfheim. If their tests went well, his departure could be mere days away. But instead of making progress on that, he was learning how he was supposed to enact some kind of drama in which he would help save the life of some unfortunate mortal. The irony was, if it weren't for his other priorities, he might actually enjoy this odd cross between the performances he and Thor had to stage for their tutors when they were children and the adventures they'd had as they grew older. There would be some unpredictable combination of axes and crowbars and other more technical tools, some kind of fire extinguisher, injuries of any and all sorts, and power failure, and in the meantime dozens of mortals were taking the game almost laughably seriously. They had no choice, of course; if fire broke out here, or their three main power generators failed, or someone was seriously injured, assistance wouldn't show up until late October, so if they didn't want to die waiting for help they'd best know how to solve these problems themselves.
Loki hoped to be gone by the time the drill took place. Still, if he were free to use his magic as he wished, he could give them a more realistic Mass Casualty Incident drill that would truly test their mettle, and the chaos of it all would be exceptionally entertaining. And then there was Jane. Seeing her attired as one of those New York firefighters and swinging an ax to break through a wall and pull some pretend victim through a smoky haze – seeing her attempt it, at least, he couldn't imagine she was actually capable of it – that would be almost worth delaying his departure.
Zeke, the mechanic who was running this meeting, and apparently responsible for planning the game and serving as the "Incident Commander," started outlining the responsibilities of the four teams. The "hasty," fire, logistics, and trauma teams were apparently supposed to cooperate, not compete – logical, he supposed, but still disappointing. Today was Wednesday; he would have to meet with the other members of the trauma team on Friday morning, and in the meantime, he was supposed to review the use of CPR, spine boards, cervical spine collars, and other Midgardian healing techniques and implements he knew nothing about, unless they simply went by different names on Asgard. Loki realized he never should have listed on his paperwork that he had any medical training; he did, even beyond what every warrior learned of basic field treatment, but it looked like it would be irrelevant here.
As the lecture turned more technical and less comprehensible, Loki's interest waned. I'll be gone before their little drama unfolds, he assured himself. He wondered if he should bother feigning continued interest, wondered whether Lucas would be interested. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He had let Lucas edge closer to himself than he'd intended – he'd originally planned for a much nicer, overtly friendlier, eager-to-please Lucas – and it was becoming more difficult to remember the distinctions.
His wandering thoughts turned inevitably back to the work that he and Jane were not getting done now because of this interminable meeting, and as he grew more restless he began tapping his hand in a steady rhythm against his thigh. When he realized what he was doing he immediately stopped; a wry smile worked its way across his lips as he further realized he was behaving more like Thor than himself, losing a battle to pay attention to his lessons because he would rather be… Stop it, he ordered himself. This was his losing battle. This was another weakness. So many remained even though he tried to tell himself otherwise. Will it take another thousand years to forget? he asked himself.
An idea seized him. Magic. Could some form of magic make him forget? Anything involving the mind was dangerous. Loki had learned that lesson after he fell from the bifrost. He could transmit a suggestion but not force its acceptance; he could interfere with a memory if it were close enough to the surface, as he had done with Jane when they'd first met. He'd suffered when it was inflicted on him, but he'd always managed to learn while suffering. Alfheim, he thought. On Alfheim he might find someone who could more permanently alter or even erase memories, or at least someone who knew whether it could be done. What would I choose to forget? he wondered, the possibility so intriguing he lost all sense of what was going on around him. Events and people flashed through his mind and after a few minutes he realized he'd asked the wrong question. What would I choose to remember? It would be better even that he forgot the woman he called "Mother," because then, if he never saw Asgard again, he wouldn't miss something he didn't know existed. What would be left? Who would I be?
His hands were trembling on his lap when he heard his name spoken. His invented name. He glanced across the conference room table, where Jane was sitting, a mischievous grin on her face. Loki had no idea what he'd missed, but suspected he was being called out for his complete inattention to the proceedings. Who would I be…
"Lucas? You okay with being one of our victims?" Zeke asked, watching him expectantly.
"What? Oh, yes, of course," he said, realizing a half-second too late what he was being asked. He looked back at Jane, now smiling overly sweetly at him. He returned it with a hint of a sneer. She had volunteered him to play the role of one of the casualties in the Mass Casualty Incident. She probably wanted to prove her ability to save him from whatever calamity he was destined for, and perhaps to make him endure some form of mild suffering along the way as revenge for his blatant lack of faith in her abilities. She would fail in the former without assistance from someone stronger, he was certain, and he could ensure she failed in the latter, because no one was better at that game than him.
He wouldn't need anyone here to save him, especially not Jane.
When the meeting finally ended, it was time for what Jane called a "scavenger hunt," and what Loki had quickly figured out was a children's game known as "Hidden Treasure" on Asgard. Adults could play it, too, here at the South Pole, when one found oneself needing to cobble together electronic devices from scraps instead of building them in well-stocked laboratories run by SHIELD. To be fair, of course, he'd also played Asgard's version of this game into adulthood. As a prince and a warrior in a millennium marked largely by peace, he'd had plenty of time on his hands.
That was not the case today. Starting with the Dark Sector Lab and working his way through the Ice Cube Lab and the jamesways, Loki took the list of components and materials Jane had put together yesterday and searched for hidden treasure. The sleep he'd forgone had paid off, in that he understood what he was looking for, and he located a number of items either as-is or salvageable from other discarded equipment, of which there was plenty waiting to be taken to McMurdo and removed from Antarctica.
He met Jane for dinner in the galley so they could update each other on their progress. In lowered voices they compared notes and found they were still missing over a dozen critical components.
"I have an idea about that," Jane said, then paused to take a bite of her meal.
"I'm listening," Loki said, tamping down a laugh that threatened to come out as soon as he'd said the words. The Iron Man could not have had better timing when he'd whisked Thor away in the midst of his self-righteous threats. The urge to laugh died when almost instantly he realized he'd done it again. How many times in one day now had Thor crossed his mind? Or his mother? At least thoughts of his father had not…and with that, of course, they had. And the old man was not even his father.
"The first thing we really have to accomplish, practically speaking, is to make sure the recall function works. We have to be able to launch a probe into Yggdrasil and know we can retrieve the data it collects, and also, if we reach a point where we can send a person through, we need to be sure we can get that person back."
"'If'?" Loki asked, before she could continue. "Such a lack of confidence."
"I figure you have more than enough to make up for it. Are you trying to get rid of me?"
"You?" Loki asked with surprise amped up to astonishment for effect. "What makes you think you're going to be the first to travel through Yggdrasil?"
Jane tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled. "Because I am the project lead, and you are the assistant."
"Hmm, I suppose you're correct. Therefore you are more valuable to the scientific world here, and I should be the one to take the risk of being the first to try it," Loki said in his most reasonable tone of voice. This was no more than a game, of course; what she thought about who was making use of Pathfinder first was irrelevant. As soon as he was reasonably certain he could reach Svartalfheim, or at least Asgard and then onward to Svartalfheim, he would disappear in the night…such as it was. He glanced outside through the large windows of the galley. The sun was gone but they remained in 24-hour twilight, and would until sometime in April, he'd heard.
Jane was shaking her head at him. "That's why we test. To minimize the risk."
"I volunteer to speed things up by making myself the test. If I come back, you'll know the recall function works."
"Right, Lucas, we'll just set you up on top of Pathfinder, shoot you up into space and aim you at Yggdrasil and see what happens."
"We're agreed, then," Loki said with a smile, sticking out his hand, which he knew she wouldn't shake.
"You just want to be able to escape before the MCI drill when I'm going to make you eat your words by saving your life."
"Dr. Foster…the things you come up with sometimes are nothing short of astonishing. It's quite the contrary, actually. I look forward to laughing heartily as you attempt to pull me from an imaginary inferno."
"Yeah, we'll just see who's laughing over that, Lucas." Jane was staring at him intently as if in challenge, but he suspected there was at least some genuine irritation there.
"You did say you thought I should try to have more fun," Loki said, putting his hands in the air for a moment in mock surrender. "But I'm willing to sacrifice fun for the sake of science. Don't take any of this personally."
"From everything you've just said, I don't see how I could take it anything but personally. But that's okay. You're nothing but talk, anyway."
That was insulting. The smile on his face froze. "You said you had an idea."
"Oh, yeah," Jane said, suddenly serious again. "I was thinking, if all we have to do for now is test the recall function, we don't actually need to use a probe. Not the whole thing anyway. Just the transmitter unit built into it that Pathfinder tracks."
"That's a good idea. We can then attach the transmitter to anything with a similar size and mass, and we won't have to construct any additional probes," Loki said. He'd thought of it himself late last night; he was pleased that Jane had thought of it, too. He took the other side of the paper they had marked their consolidated list of supplies on, and turned it so they could both see it. "That leaves us with only two missing components. The batteries and the circuit board."
"Two circuit boards, actually."
"But you said you can make those?"
"I think so. I scavenged some boards from some old electronics, so I've got something to start with. The ones in the Pathfinder probes are a little more sophisticated than the ones I've made on my own. But Gary said I could-"
"Gary?"
"The machinist. I told you. He said I could use his equipment. He might even be able to help with the electronics and the soldering. He did some pretty cool stuff for the Navy, apparently."
Loki nodded, though with a bit of unease. He hadn't realized anyone from any of Midgard's militaries worked here. He wasn't even sure who this "Gary" was, and wondered if he'd made a mistake in so deliberately ignoring everyone here. "All right. And the batteries?"
"That's a bigger problem," Jane said with a frown and a nod. "I don't think we're going to find any lithium jelly batteries just laying around. I'm not even sure they're commercially available yet. I got them from Tony Stark, together with the arc reactor. Something his company was developing at the time."
"Leave that to me, then. You focus on the circuit boards."
"Okay. Just be prepared to get creative. The new polymer batteries are long-lasting and flexible, but most importantly for us at the moment, they do just fine in extreme temperatures. Regular batteries would die within a few minutes of being in space, if they didn't burst into flame or something on their way up."
"I understand. I'll figure it out." He already had, actually. Another reason he'd stayed up all night studying the probe was in preparation for the possibility of needing to create some of these parts himself. Jane could use her machines; he had his own methods.
"Good. It's a plan. You finished?"
"What? Dinner? Yes."
"Good. We may as well get started on the dishes."
Loki narrowed his eyes at her.
"You forgot again, didn't you."
"I don't forget. I choose not to remember."
"Whatever," Jane said, standing up with her tray. "Let's go. And no moaning about it, either."
They sorted through their recycling and trash and put away their plates and trays, and in the meantime Loki checked the announcements posted on the wall. He clenched his teeth. At this rate the wretched sun would rise again before they attempted to send something through Yggdrasil.
Half an hour later, up to his elbows in filthy, greasy water, Loki let out a small groan, watching Jane out of the corner of his eye. She didn't seem to notice. "Jane, I'm not feeling well."
"Right. Sounds like convenient timing."
"I didn't say I wouldn't finish the dishes, I just said I'm not feeling well. I'm serious. My stomach is aching."
Jane gave him a sidelong glance but quickly returned her attention to the pot she was scrubbing.
/
/
Jane heard something from inside Lucas's room after she knocked a second time, but she couldn't make it out. "What was that? Is everything okay?" she asked, raising her voice just to a normal speaking voice. Kevin, the man in the room between her and Lucas worked nights, and she wasn't sure if he was in there trying to sleep.
"Come in," she was pretty sure she heard from inside. She took a deep breath and turned the doorknob. That better be what he said, Jane thought. She was sure she'd get an earful if she barged into his room uninvited after reaming him out for doing it to her. As the door opened she bit her lip and felt oddly nervous. Lucas had been in her room three times, had helped her hang up a poster, had sat at her desk. She'd never really seen his room; the few times she'd knocked at his door and he'd opened it, he was so tall and he'd opened the door so narrowly she'd never seen past him.
Jane took in the room with the barest of glances – it was spartan and there was nothing to see, really – for her eyes were riveted on Lucas, leaning up on one elbow in bed, a dark green bedspread pooling at his waist. She'd never seen him so disheveled. His black hair, always so perfectly in place, was the definition of bedhead, locks of it sticking up in the back, falling forward into his face, and curling slightly, and his normally pale complexion had turned to alabaster, maybe because of the black pajamas he wore, but Jane suspected there was more to it. He looked like he was in pain.
"I was trying to tell you to cease that racket," he said, and she could hear the pain in his voice.
"Oh…I, uh…I thought you said 'Come in,'" Jane said with a grimace. Yep, here we go.
"That's what I said next. And now that you've heard both things you can go." He collapsed down onto the bed on his back.
"Yeah, that's not happening. What's wrong? Do you want me to get the doc?" Jane asked, taking a few more steps into the room and letting the door close behind her. She could see now that his face was dotted with perspiration, his hair was damp with it, and his pajama top was also damp and clinging to him.
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine, Lucas. You really don't. If you can't make it to Club Med I can ask the doc to make a house call."
"I don't need a doctor. I just need to rest a while longer. This will pass," he said, staring up at the ceiling.
Jane stood there awkwardly in silence for a moment, watching him. "You really should see Dr. Ellison. You know you can't take risks with your health here. If it gets bad, you'll-"
"Jane, I said I'm fine," he insisted, pushing himself up on his elbow again. He didn't look like he was in pain anymore, but she figured he was being stubborn and hiding it. "This happens sometimes. It will pass, if you'll just go away and let me get a few more hours of sleep. All right?"
She nodded slowly, uncertainly. It sounded like he meant he had some illness that flared up from time to time, but that he knew how to control it. If that was the case, she figured she shouldn't pry; she just wished she knew for certain that he didn't need medical attention. "Okay, but if you aren't better by lunchtime I'm going to bring Dr. Ellison down here whether you like it or not."
"I'm touched," he said sarcastically.
She shook her head and turned to go, freezing as his desk came into view. It was not only spartan, it was completely bare, not a single item on it, exactly as hers had looked when she'd first arrived. "Not even any pictures?" she blurted out, then winced. Think first, open mouth second, Jane.
Lucas was silent long enough that she assumed he wasn't going to answer, so she continued toward the door and had her hand on the knob before he spoke.
"You were expecting family portraits?"
Touché. "Sorry, Lucas, none of my business. Get some sleep," she said, then slipped out. It still bothered her, though. Okay, so he wouldn't have any father-son photos up, but what about his mother? No other relatives? Friends? Anyone at all that was special to him? She thought back over the snippets of personal conversation they'd shared. She'd talked about Darcy and Erik and her parents, Thor in a vague roundabout way, one of her high school friends, Young-Soo and a few other college and grad school friends. He'd only ever mentioned his parents and two siblings, and them never by name. He'd mentioned one of his professors, once, because she brought it up.
Pausing inside the bathroom, where she'd already gathered the cleaning supplies she needed, she was hit with the strong suspicion that he really did have no one. And that broke her heart just a little.
/
/
Of course, as she crouched on her knees nearly an hour later, scrubbing a toilet, it also occurred to Jane that Lucas could be one giant faker, and that thought eroded her sympathy somewhat. He'd never been sick or even had any altitude symptoms, and his illness just happened to coincide with the morning he was supposed to be in here with her performing his favorite house mouse duty. Still, he'd really looked sick, and genuinely in pain, and she supposed he would have to go to a lot of effort for such elaborate trickery, so she should probably feel guilty for doubting him. But guilt was hard to conjure when she was the only one scrubbing the toilet.
She wasn't sure how Lucas would evaluate the previous day's progress, but she suspected he was dissatisfied. He'd acted like his usual droll self with his willingness to hop on Pathfinder for a ride-to-who-knows-where right away, but she suspected there was a strong vein of truth running through his witticisms. That was dangerous, and it worried her. If he was really that desperate to make a name for himself, he could make rash decisions that would put them all in danger. Now that they had come so far in such an unexpectedly short timeframe, she was going to have to keep a close eye on him.
Jane, on the other hand, thought the day had gone better than expected. Sue had been invaluable in tracking down the various components she would need to build more tracking device transmitters, friendly Gary with years of experience machining anything and everything for the US Navy was going to be a godsend, and neither minded that she didn't provide an abundance of detail on what she needed these things for. If Lucas could solve the battery problem he would have justified his presence here in one stroke. And then there was the MCI drill, she thought with a chuckle. That was going to be fun.
"Hey, Jane, you in here?"
Jane stood up and stepped out of the stall she was in; Wright was standing just inside the door. "Yeah, over here."
"Need a hand? Me and Selby finished with the little boys' room. I noticed your partner abandoned you and I thought maybe you could use some help."
"Abandoned me? Why do you say that? Did you see him?"
Wright nodded. "Headed straight past here and toward the galley."
Jane huffed. I am choosing to think the best of people. He wasn't feeling well. He went to get something to eat, then probably back to bed. She was trying, but she wasn't entirely sure she believed what she was telling herself. "Yeah, if you're offering, I'm not turning it down. It takes a lot longer when you're by yourself. I've got one more toilet after this one," she said, pointing to the one left, "then the showers and the floors."
Wright got busy without any of the griping that usually came from Lucas and tossed out a constant stream of jokes and quips, yet he still seemed a little subdued from his usual gregarious self. Jane couldn't blame him; her conflict with Selby had damaged her relationship with Wright more than anyone else besides Selby himself.
When they moved on to the showers, it became clear that that conflict was on his mind as well.
"So, Jane, I was thinking. I don't know what the deal is between you and Selby, but do you think you might be able to fix it? Because it kind of reminds me a little too much of high school."
Jane paused in the middle of wiping down the shower curtain. "I don't really want to talk about it."
"That's cool," Wright said from the opposite shower, without pausing or even looking up. "I don't really want to hear about it. It would just be really nice if we could all be adults here."
Jane stood up straighter and forgot all about the shower. "That's-" But then whatever words might have followed faded away and she wasn't sure what to say. That's not true? That's not fair? Wright didn't understand. Selby hadn't come here to pretend to be his friend so he could spy on him. But there was nothing Jane could say about it, either, not without creating trouble with SHIELD and putting the work she hadn't told them about at risk. She realized, though, that at least she no longer suspected Wright of being in league with Selby. Not much, anyway.
Wright finally stood up and faced her, scrubbing brush in his left hand. "Look, Jane…it's been good to see you getting out again, so to speak, and even Lucas came out to play a couple of days ago. I actually bet Austin a bottle of Scotch he'd say no. So this thing where you and Selby can't hardly be in the same room together… I mean, really? What are we, twelve? Man up and fix it, Foster. No offense."
"None taken," Jane said almost automatically; Wright nodded his head once and got back to work. Jane did the same, but she was distracted. The words had stung. She didn't think she'd been childish about the whole thing. A few comments may have smacked of something less than total maturity, but surely some allowances could be made when a secretive organization was following you around and trying to control your life.
But… But at the same time, in so many ways, none of this was like her. She didn't avoid people. She didn't avoid confrontation. Lucas had told her…but she couldn't blame Lucas. She'd made her own decisions. And she'd let her world shrink down to just Lucas and work. Letting herself get monopolized by work, that was like her. Letting herself get monopolized by one person, that was not like her. She'd come down here, and strange things she wasn't used to dealing with had happened, and she'd somehow forgotten who she was.
She'd called Selby on being a spy in front of practically the entire station at the sunset concert, even if only she, Lucas, and Selby himself would have understood the message. She'd thought he might even admit the truth of his own volition after that. She'd already crossed a line – the line that, probably, meant that SHIELD now also knew that she knew what they were up to. So why not bring it out into the open? Ask him directly about it, give him a chance to be honest. Maybe, if the lie were removed, things could get a little more comfortable between them. After all, she'd learned to get along with Peter and a couple of the others in SHIELD's little Tromso set-up…because they didn't hide the fact that part of their job was to keep an eye on her.
"I can't make any promises, but I'll try, okay?" she said, running a sponge over the shower's surfaces for a quick final rinse.
"Can't ask for more than that," Wright said. "But try hard."
Jane acknowledged the comment with a smile and a nod of mock obedience that Wright didn't even see as she stepped out of the shower with her bucket and other supplies and went for the mop. Selby was almost done with his shower, and all that was left was the floor. "Did you give that little speech to Selby, too?" she asked.
"Yep."
"And what did he say?"
"Been to high school once, Foster. Not doing it again."
"All right, all right. I'll go find him as soon as I'm done here," Jane said, dunking the mop in the bucket.
"I'll do the floor and put away all the supplies. You go fix things. You need to talk to your other half, too. This is his job."
"He was sick."
"He didn't look sick when I saw him."
"Okay, Wright, lay off." Jane grimaced and sighed; Wright raised his eyebrows and shuffled his feet. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. It's just…Lucas isn't always easy to deal with. But I'm trying to take it easy on him. He's had kind of a rough life."
"Seemed just the opposite to me."
"I know…but…things aren't always what they seem on the surface, you know? Thanks for asking him to play darts with you, by the way. Did he seem like he enjoyed it?"
"Yeah." He took the mop out of Jane's hands and let the head hit the floor with a plop. "He was all like 'Might you possibly remind me of the rules of this game I've hardly ever heard of before?'" he said, mimicking Lucas's accent badly. "And then he got better and better and by the third round he was doing better than Austin, and Austin's good. Hardly said a word the whole time, though. He's pretty intense."
Jane nodded. "Yeah, I think he must get that a lot. Well, thanks for asking him. He doesn't make friends easily."
"He's sure not going to make any by blowing off his house mouse work."
"He really did look sick early this morning. But I hear you. Do you know where Selby's working?"
"Science Lab."
Jane thanked Wright for his help and went off to find Selby, all the way second-guessing her decision to confront him.
/
/
Loki hurried down the hallway, hoping no one would see him. But of course, Wright emerged from the men's room just before Loki passed by, giving him no more than a glance as he continued on out into the main corridor. A tiny incident, but one that nevertheless made him seethe on the inside. Because he shouldn't have to worry about things like that. He was perfectly capable of making himself invisible, so capable of it he could do it in his sleep. He'd learned that skill, and a number of equally useful ones, during a period of his life long ago when he'd had an excessive amount of enforced time on his hands. The useful had become useless, though, unless he was willing to pay the price.
He'd already paid once today, making himself look next to death so he wouldn't waste yet another large chunk of a day performing meaningless tasks – especially not that task. The pain meted out for this particular use of magic, apparently deemed unacceptable by Odin's curse (as he'd expected, he grudgingly admitted to himself), had been no more or less than any other, but the net result was adding up. His own body, and his ability or lack thereof to change its form, continued to indicate that his control of magic lessened with each broken rule. And while he was still able to effect the changes he'd made for Jane's benefit earlier this morning, he found that it had required more effort than expected.
So, no, there could be no use of invisibility here. It irritated him, but he was in fact getting better at predicting what would activate the curse and what would not. If he made himself invisible he would invoke it, because he would be trying to deceive someone for your own selfish gain with disregard for the others around you – this thought came to him in Odin's self-righteous voice and brought a sneer to his face. On the other hand, if he blanketed his chambers against all sound, as he did every night he slept, he was merely ensuring a good night's rest for himself and potentially for his neighbors. No curse.
He settled down into a familiar spot in the computer room, empty at the moment as it often was. As he waited to get logged on, he reconsidered how he'd cast his decision to allow no sound in or out of his chambers. It was a lie. A lie to himself, a lie to convince Odin, or his curse, or his enchantment, or the five ugly marks on the sole of his right foot, however this particular bit of magic worked. He didn't do it to keep noise out. By the time he allowed himself sleep he was so tired a bilgesnipe could come crashing through the station and he would sleep right through it. He certainly didn't do it to avoid disturbing his neighbors. If he disturbed their sleep they should be grateful that was all he did to them.
He did it because of the nightmares. They were not uncommon, and he sometimes woke from them with a shout. And they were no one's affair but his own. He'd left guilt behind when he first arrived in Midgard, and he'd done his best to abandon weakness and fear along with it. But he had no control over his dreams, and what stemmed from that lack of control he would not – could not – allow anyone else to glimpse. He could barely acknowledge it himself. At least no more threats had been whispered in his ear during his dreams; he was no longer even certain he hadn't simply manufactured that grating voice himself. Just another nightmare. Not a message. His regular dreams he could manage, as long as they remained his. He was protecting himself, with no hidden motive of harming or deceiving or tricking another.
Odin was teaching him, he realized. He couldn't remember the last time he'd examined his own motives in something that thoroughly. Before, he'd conceded that he would have to play by Odin's game, to consider whether each use of magic would harm him, but he'd seen it as little more than that: a game. If Jane could see him now, he would need no magic to convince her he felt sick. He swallowed hard and willed himself not to vomit at the thought of what Odin had done to him, at the extent to which Odin was managing to control him, all through two tiny little "tricks," as Thor would call them. No. Thor's beloved father was responsible, so in this case Thor would surely deign to follow Odin's example and call them "enchantments." Dear Father, he began, forcing the thoughts into crystal clear words thicker with scorn than ever, congratulations, you have succeeded in teaching me something at long last. I commend you on the creativity of your pedagogical methods. I am compelled to inform you, however, that I must reject the content of the lesson, and very soon I will prove to you that I am as capable of forgetting a lesson as I am of learning one.
Loki quickly went through Jane's e-mails, struggling to maintain his concentration through waves of anger and bitterness and the sting of being bested by Odin, echoed by surging resolve to get off this backwater planet as soon as possible and show Odin who would be bested in the end.
He paused only over an incoming e-mail from her Australian friend that said he had won a teaching position based on Jane's connection to Albuquerque. It sounded like an attempt at humor, but still he looked up Albuquerque and found it was a city west of Puente Antiguo, in the same state of New Mexico. The detail didn't seem significant, regardless.
After logging out of the computer, Lucas left the computer room and headed down the corridor to the galley for a cup of tea to take back to his room where he planned to study the special battery the probe's transmitter used; he'd retrieved a battery from one of the probes last night and hidden it in his room, then stayed up all night examining it.
He was still on edge, still angry when he rounded the corner past the recycling bins and tray drop-off and saw Jane and Selby sitting together, alone. He only barely stopped himself from instinctively making himself invisible, and instead withdrew slowly, silently. They hadn't seen him. He strained his hearing, but there were too many noises coming from kitchen equipment and workers preparing lunch, and he couldn't make out anything more than the occasional syllable or two. Whatever they were talking about, it wasn't casual. It was serious. It was a problem. Again. As though Jane had forgotten everything he'd said to her about Selby.
This would not do at all. Selby had some kind of connection to SHIELD, perhaps only indirect; he hadn't been able to find out for certain. But whatever it was, if Jane's newfound desire to ignore her suspicions and befriend every last person here extended to Selby, that was a risk he couldn't tolerate.
His face hardened. Curse Number One prevented a permanent solution to this re-emerging problem. Another idea occurred to him, and he returned to the computer room.
/
Thank you for all of your reviews and comments, please know that I really value them, and love and appreciate you all, regular reviewers, new reviewers, guest reviewers. You really do make my day. Thank you also to all of you that I don't hear from but are still reading this - this story is quite the long haul so thanks for sticking with it! Please know that, in case you ever doubted it, there *is* an ending that this is all moving toward; I'm not making it up as I go along with no end in sight. I think - I hope! - that your patience will be rewarded.
Teasers for Ch. 30: Friends: Relationships are reassessed; Loki is unsettled by the station's nighttime appearance; Loki and Jane have probably their worst argument yet; a decision is put in Loki's hands that he may not be ready or willing to make.
And excerpt (ah, it's not that great of one...but hard to pull one from this chapter):
They spent the afternoon and into the evening working quickly and efficiently despite the tension, simply because they'd been working so closely together for so long that the habits for accomplishing the work remained in place even when the communication dropped to almost non-existent. Loki appreciated the efficiency except that it counted for nothing toward his objective, but the current atmosphere in the Dark Sector Lab grated on him in a thousand different ways. His jaw began to ache from how tightly he was holding it the whole time.
Jane's stomach growled, and even that annoyed him. When it happened a second time, he couldn't keep his silence. "Why don't you do something about that?" he asked testily.