Beneath
Chapter Forty-Two – D-Day
Loki entered the A-1 berthing wing Friday night, confident it would be one of the last times. One of the men working in the Clean Sector nodded and smiled as he passed; he nodded back. And then he was at Jane's door. He paused there, hesitating. He wanted to check on her progress – he hadn't gone to dinner and so hadn't seen her there – but he didn't think she would appreciate seeing his face in her door. Still…his need to know where things stood was almost overwhelming. He knocked, then took a step back. He could make it clear to her he had no intention of trying to enter without her permission.
Nothing.
He knocked again, a little louder.
Nothing again. He glanced at his watch; it was almost 9:00. Jane usually went to bed sometime between 9 and 10 so she could get up early, though he'd never understood why given that she was so clearly not a morning person. He supposed she could have turned in early – it had been a long and eventful day – or perhaps she could have gone to watch a movie or play in one of those volleyball games or something.
He walked away and continued the short distance to his own room, where he tugged off Big Red and hung it up on the hook on the door. His gaze lingered on it, at the "Lucas Cane" above the USAP symbol with its map of Antarctica. As much as he hated that jacket…it did keep him warm, and now as he was preparing to leave all this behind, he felt a sort of odd fondness for it. I think I'll keep it, he thought to himself. He laughed a little, remembering all the paperwork he'd filled out, all the times he'd signed "Lucas Cane" to documents promising he would return all of the gear issued to him, or have to pay for it. Good luck with your attempts to extract payment from me. Good luck with your attempts to find me.
He threw up a sound blanket, tugging at the recalcitrant corner as he was now used to doing automatically, then froze.
He'd put up a sound blanket in Jane's room, right before confronting her about the papers she'd left on his desk. She probably was in there, but hadn't heard him. He thought about going back, then decided that would not likely go well. He would have to open her door and walk in. Short of trying to choke her again he couldn't imagine anything that Jane would react worse to. But if he left her like that…what if there were a fire, or some other station emergency? What if her radio were off? She would never hear the alarm. Or if she fell from her bed as she had several times said she feared, and had broken bones and called for help, no one would hear her.
Loki thought it over for a moment longer, then took out from a drawer the list of items needed for building a new probe, the only piece of paper he had in the room other than the pages of his astronomy book and a flimsy booklet that explained how his telephone worked. After all, he still wanted to know how much she'd accomplished today.
/
/
Jane sat in bed, already in her flannel pajamas, reading about a rose in the book that had been left behind in her room by its previous occupant. Movement caught her eye and she glanced up from the book to see a piece of paper on the floor in front of her door. She eyed it curiously; station announcements went through e-mail, or the radio, or bulletin boards at strategic locations, even the station's intranet – not fliers pushed under bedroom doors.
After a brief moment she gave in to curiosity, left the book up on the far corner of the bed, and hopped down to the footstool and then the floor, where she slid her feet into slippers.
"I am waiting outside your door. You cannot hear me, or anyone else, knock. You cannot hear anything from outside your room because of a sound barrier I created when I was last inside it. If you would allow me, I should remove it, for your safety."
It wasn't signed, but it wasn't like there was a need. Jane glanced around the room, as though she could see this "sound barrier." "Loki" and "trust" were not exactly two words that went hand-in-hand. But as she thought about it, she realized she hadn't heard the usual coughs and bumps and muted hallway conversations she often did. She flipped the paper over, and saw that it was the list they'd made of materials needed to make more probes.
She pulled on her robe, then took a deep breath and opened the door. Loki was there, standing back a bit. "Is this for real?" she asked, holding up the paper.
Loki narrowed his eyes, his estimation of Jane's intelligence dropping a notch. "Lucky for you I can read lips. Yes, Dr. Foster, it's for real," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm she wouldn't hear.
Jane, who'd never been good at reading lips, scrunched her face up and shook her head. "Sound barrier. Right," she muttered, then opened the door wider and pressed herself against it, signaling Loki to come in. "Leave it up," she said as soon as he was inside. She positioned herself just inside the doorway.
Stopping in the middle of the room, he turned to look at her questioningly.
"So that's why no one came running when you were strangling me?" The words came out bold and icy, only the rapidness of her heartbeat and breathing revealing that they weren't easy to say. "When you were in here shouting? That's when you put it up, right, this sound barrier? So no one would hear what you were about to do?" She felt herself flushing and made herself stop. She'd wondered about his shouting, how no one seemed to have heard it. And the rest had just come tumbling out, occurring to her only as she said it.
Loki regarded Jane warily. He felt like he'd walked into a trap, walked willingly into his own prison cell, with Jane standing there at the door like a jailer. Loki had never liked feeling trapped. But he knew he had to take care with his reaction. Jane held the key to his ultimate freedom.
"Well?" she prompted.
"Yes, that's why no one heard anything. Yes, I created the blanket so that I could raise my voice without concern for what would be overheard, so that no one here would know who I really am. No, I had no intention of harming you when I came into your room. My only intention now is to remove the blanket. May I do so?"
"Tell me how you do it."
"Jane…"
"Tell me how you do it," Jane repeated, growing bolder every time she pushed and Loki failed to strike back.
"I understand now that you have mixed feelings for SHIELD. I didn't at first, you know. I thought you would be ecstatic for them to send you an assistant. But you belong with them, Jane Foster. They are also fond of interrogation. Very well. I'm not so unwilling a subject at the moment."
Jane gasped, for with his last sentence, suddenly she could see the sound waves created by his speech. And the sound waves created by her own gasp. And the sound waves created by the heating system. And then the whole room was full of a cacophony of sound waves, undulating outward from their sources until they reached any of the boundaries of the room, where their form changed into something different, flatter. It all looked something like the wave patterns she'd studied in some long-forgotten physics class, but not quite – these waves were three-dimensional, translucent, and in vivid colors that appeared to change according to a pattern, though Jane couldn't quite identify it.
"Touch the wall," Loki said, and for a moment Jane was too transfixed by the waves emanating from him to realize what he'd actually said.
She reached out with her hand toward the wall beside the door and let her hand hover over it. A slight tingling sensation washed over her hand, and then she could see a series of small gray waves tumbling over the wall – over all the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the open threshold behind her – innumerable but lethargic. "Hello," she said, not even bothering to feel stupid about it, and watched as the sound waves she created spread out and were absorbed into the wall before being expunged and fading away, dull and tiny and colorless. "Echo" was her next original contribution to the room's sound waves.
Several minutes passed before she turned back toward Loki, in the center of her room as he'd been the whole time, watching her with interest where she'd expected to see impatience.
"It's a representation," he said, filling the room with new colorful waves. "Not exactly the real thing. But close enough."
Jane nodded, watching the waves work their way through the room. "Still doesn't tell me how you do it."
"I suppose not," Loki said, and the waves disappeared. "But I don't know how to do that. Certainly not in any reasonable amount of time. You'll have to settle for this little display. Or improve your interrogation tactics."
"Did they? Interrogate you?" she asked, pulling her gaze away from the walls where she assumed sound waves were still being absorbed and weakened and redirected.
Loki smirked. Naïve girl. "Of course they did. Their curiosity is at least as strong as yours. Though their questions…and their questioners…I was less inclined to answer. You at least can understand something of what I tell you."
"I think there might actually be a compliment in there, if you look hard enough," Jane said with a faint smile, what she'd just seen still distracting her from everything else.
Loki couldn't think of anything useful to say to that – he could try to assure her again of how much respect he'd gained for her, how much he'd learned from his punishment, but it seemed a bit effuse at the moment – so he went back to the reason he'd come here in the first place. "May I take down the sound barrier now?"
Jane's head began to clear and she nodded, though she couldn't help thinking it would nice to have that thing up and running when she was trying to sleep and random noises sometimes woke her up.
"Good," he said, and it was already done. "And…your progress today?"
"Almost done. If the stress tests go well…Pathfinder should be ready to use by the end of the day tomorrow." Jane watched as something played over Loki's face, something she couldn't precisely identify, but she knew he was excited by the news. There was something a little scary there, too, though. Whatever it was, it wasn't the look of someone who was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing his family again soon. At least she didn't think so. But no way was she going to confront him about it. Not now. Definitely not here. "I'll see you tomorrow morning. We should probably work from the jamesway."
Dismissed. Loki was familiar with that tone, with that clearly hinted message. And it was fine with him. He was ready to escape this cage anyway. He plastered himself to the side of the doorframe opposite Jane to keep as much distance between them as possible, and saw her shrink back against the open door as well.
"Lo- Lucas…that was pretty cool. The…you know," she said, mimicking the movement of a wave with her right hand. The instinct to thank him was strong – because cool was an understatement – but Jane could take two steps back and to the right and be in exactly the same spot she'd been when his hands had clamped down around her neck. No more confrontation was happening here. But thanking him for something – anything – wasn't happening here either.
Loki nodded. Even the air smelled sweeter out here, on the outside. He'd thought it was rather "cool," too, but mostly because seeing it through Jane's eyes reminded him of the youthful exuberance he'd once had for such things, things that had long since become routine. "Until tomorrow," he simply said, and returned to his chambers.
/
/
Calm still prevailed across Asgard when Thor called to Heimdall, so he was brought home immediately in his ill-fitted Midgardian blazer and went directly to the Ambassadorial Estates to hear Tyr's proposals for an offensive against Vanaheim. He used Mjolnir to speed his return, scoffing and then laughing along the way at Tony's jibes. Tony could have his suit of iron. Thor would take Mjolnir any day. It had hardly left his side from the moment he'd first taken it in his hand at age twenty, and it was his oldest and truest friend, so he used to jest, other than Loki. With the first thought of his brother all mirth fled, and his grimmer mood was reinforced when he stepped into Midgard's chambers to find his father and Tyr sitting and waiting for him, his father's one eye regarding him sternly.
When Tyr spoke, he presented not plans for an attack on Vanaheim, but instead discussed a series of ideas along entirely different lines, which he and Odin had discussed earlier. The secret envoys, directed by Bragi, ten on Alfheim and nine on Vanaheim, were also to be used in new ways now, with others to be sent out as well, if appropriate citizens could be identified and were willing. If Gullveig feared being seen as dishonorable among his people, Odin would do his best to make sure that his fears came true.
Once Tyr left, Thor told his father where he believed Loki had gone and why, and Odin told his son that Gullveig had sent an ambassador to Asgard with familiar terms for surrender. Asgard had of course refused, and the calm of waiting had returned, while quieter plans were laid.
/
/
"Hey, Selby. Can I join you?"
"Uhh, I…I guess so."
"How'd you sleep last night?" Jane asked, setting her tray down with her French toast and double espresso.
"Well enough, and you?"
"Pretty good, I guess."
Selby nodded, clearly nervous, and went back to his own French toast.
Jane took a bit herself, but surreptitiously kept watching Selby. "So…I just really wanted to apologize for kind of freaking out on you a while back. I got a little worked up over…things, you know, and I just…I made a mistake. A big one. And I was thinking…maybe tomorrow we could just sit down and try that whole thing over again. With me sounding slightly less insane. Do you think we could do that?"
"Uh, well…I suppose so. I just…I don't really like drama, Jane. I want to do my job, gather some really cool data, have some fun along the way, and go home to my wife when it's all over."
"I hear you, Selby, and I'm really not the drama queen type. Or…I never used to be, I don't think…" Until my van hit a Norse god in the New Mexico desert. That'll bring the drama. Along with the psycho family members, apparently. Jane felt a flash of guilt for thinking of Loki as "psycho." He wasn't crazy…she didn't think. She didn't really know anymore. And it wouldn't matter much longer. Today was D-Day. Departure Day. If not literally today – if the structural integrity field didn't pass the stress test simulations, for example – then it would happen tomorrow, even if Jane had to stay up all night to be sure of it. "Anyway, no drama tomorrow, okay?"
"Yeah, okay. So what've you been up to lately? I don't see you out at the DSL as much as I used to."
It felt awful, especially after her little speech meant to begin paving the way to clearing the air between them, but Jane basically lied, telling him about the work she was now only slipping in on the side from time to time, the work she was supposed to be here to do. Jane felt eyes on her, and when she looked up she faltered a bit to see Loki standing nearby. He immediately started moving toward the food service area, but Jane could tell he'd been watching her. She shook it off and resumed her half-true tale.
/
/
"What changes did you make?" Loki asked, once Jane announced she'd finished a final check of the programming for the structural integrity field.
She started to show him, settling into teacher mode; he asked a question; she considered it and began to answer; he cut her off with a "never mind." He wanted to hear the answer, wanted to learn, but it would be wasted effort, along with wasted time. He would not be using this means of travel again.
"Why did you ask if you didn't want the answer?" Jane asked, mildly peeved.
"I'd love the answer, and if you gain fame and take some prestigious teaching post, perhaps I'll register for your class and learn all about it."
"Does that mean you're planning to drop by again at some point?" she asked, cautiously now. If somehow she ever did get this "prestigious teaching post," Loki Odinson was the last name she wanted to see on the roster. Or Lucas Cane. Although he would be by far the most interesting student…
"Hardly. I was being facetious, Jane." But you never planned to come here, either, did you? he asked himself. No matter. Everything would be different when he left here. He would make sure of it.
"Until the next time your father decides to punish you?" Earth being his favorite punishment dumping ground and all, Jane thought bitterly, though she immediately regretted it. Thor had seemed a little offended when she'd said something like that to him. But still.
Loki's eyes narrowed, but he otherwise held his reaction in check. There were so many retorts he'd like to make to that – to deny Odin, to sneer that Odin would never have the chance to punish him again, to assure her he would never even see Odin again. "Opposed to his methods of discipline, are you?" he asked when the tide of anger was past. "Then I suppose we have something in common."
"Something in common…" Thor had said something like that, in Tromso, when he'd thought she didn't believe that he still loved Loki. Loki was looking down at the programming code again; she watched him in profile. As much as she thought she knew him, knew who he was at least – for knowing what he'd done in New Mexico and in New York, what he'd done here, to her, had certainly seemed enough – she realized now that she didn't know him at all. There was something in him that Thor loved. Something she'd never seen, except perhaps in the way he spoke of his mother…or at least the way he'd done so as Lucas. He'd said Loki hadn't always been this way, that they'd once been very close. She wondered who Thor had known as a brother and a friend, who it was that he was so dedicated to, for whom he refused to give up hope.
Maybe that person was gone now, only a few flickers left behind.
"What are you going to do when you get home?" Jane asked quietly.
Loki froze for a moment, then scrolled further down the screen. "Go to my mother and apologize for what I've done…have a long talk with Thor, I suppose...try to make amends." How thoughtful of you to ask me to plan my own torture.
"That's…that's good," she said, really not sure where she was going with this. But she could picture the look on Thor's face when he'd talked about his brother, how disappointed he looked at her reaction. Maybe…maybe I could try to make some kind of effort with him, for Thor's sake. What's the worst that could happen? she asked herself. He gets mad and kills us both, she answered herself. Hopefully he's learned that lesson well enough not to need a refresher… "He talked about you, a little bit. Thor, I mean."
"I know who you mean," he said, still not looking up from the laptop. Wait this out. You can endure this. Only a little while longer…
"He was worried about you."
Loki opened his mouth and promptly shut it again. What was about to come out of it wouldn't have been helpful.
"He said-"
"Jane," he said sharply, then took a moment to compose himself. He glanced up at her just briefly. "Whatever Thor has to say to me, he can say it to me himself."
"Fair enough," she said after only slight hesitation. He was going to be seeing Thor again long before she was…and something about that seemed rather unfair.
"You, uh…" Danger, danger! something inside Jane warned, but she pushed ahead anyway. "You didn't mention your father, just now.
How very astute of you. Thank you for ensuring my torture plan overlooks nothing. "Didn't I?" he managed to get out. "If all the required adjustments have-"
"Did he really give you that scar? Odin? Thor didn't talk about him that way, the way you did when you were telling me…when Lucas was…you know," she said, giving up as she stumbled over the words. She'd never forgotten that wild look in his eyes when he looked at that scar. It wasn't so different from the look in his eyes when he'd lunged for her throat. She stepped around the table to put it between them, just as she'd done yesterday.
"Thor wouldn't, would he?" The anger was rising up again, threatening to overflow. Favored, privileged, unquestioned, trusted, arrogant, WEAK, IDIOTIC- Jane was watching him. Nervous. From the other side of the table. Loki straightened his spine and let the anger – the uncontrolled part of it, anyway – rush out and puddle at his feet. "You want to know about the scar? Yes, you should know about the scar. My father didn't want me to forget his…his enchantment, you see. So he seared it into my flesh. As I said, Jane, everything I told you as Lucas was true. He gave me this scar, and Thor stood there and watched. An old family symbol. Do you recognize it now?" He held his wrist up – he wasn't wearing his watch today – and pushed up the sleeve of his green henley and thermal undershirt.
Jane leaned forward warily, somewhat uneasy about taking her eyes off his face, and looked down at the wrist he held out to her. She'd caught the general T-shape before, but now, in the context of who he really was, she made the connection easily, even though the shape wasn't terribly similar to Thor's Mjolnir. She'd felt sick for Lucas over this story. But something seemed off about it now. Loki wasn't Lucas. Loki was…immortal. Or something more than "just" mortal, anyway. "Did it hurt at all when I slapped you?" she asked, remembering how it had felt on her end.
"Would it make you feel better if I told you it did?"
"It would make me feel better if you told me the truth."
"Then no. It annoyed me somewhat. You should take it as evidence of the positive impact of your people on me, Jane. I've killed for less. My time on Earth has made me a better person." And if she thinks a slap from a mortal woman is the same as having magic seared into your flesh by Odin All-Father, then let her.
Jane looked at him in confusion for a moment, then shook her head. He almost sounds like he's bragging about how easily he's killed…but he goes ballistic when I show him the names of his victims. She felt a headache just beginning to work its way into her temple. A better person because he didn't kill me for slapping him after he nearly killed me? Insanity…sick sense of humor…Jane didn't know what to make of it. So she ignored it, and wondered if Odin's scarring of his wrist was closer to the "it annoyed me somewhat" end of the scale than the ambulance-ride-to-the-Asgardian-emergency-room end. "If you have so much hostility toward your family, why are you in such a hurry to go home?"
Loki drew in a sharp breath. Exactly the question he'd been trying to avoid. You just couldn't leave things alone, could you? He hadn't helped, though, he knew, giving in to his urge to provoke instead of simply espousing the most useful lie, no matter how unpleasant. He looked up at her fully, dropping whatever pretense remained that he was remotely interested in the programming code on the laptop screen. Humble. Contrite. Penitent, he told himself, hating the emotion that seeped through and made some lies so difficult. "Everyone wants to go home, do they not? Not everyone gets to. I should count myself lucky." And even worse, it wasn't entirely a lie. But when home itselfwas the lie, there was no going back.
"As for my eagerness," he continued, "surely you of all people understand I can't stay here."
Jane watched him, studied him really, until he looked down and picked up the RF switch he'd built yesterday, which they'd already tested. That was…interesting. Almost like an apology. Sort of. Closer to one than that "it's unfortunate that my hands accidentally wound up around your neck" bull or whatever it was he'd said in the galley on Thursday.
"Why did you do it?" Thankfully, Jane thought it, instead of voicing it. She didn't dare ask it aloud. And not "it," the choking, but "it," New York. "It," Stuttgart. "It," New Mexico. How did you go from being as close as twins with Thor to killing him in Puente Antiguo? To dropping him from the sky somewhere over the East Coast? How did you change from the person Thor told me about, to someone who could carry out such wanton destruction and killing of innocents? Why would you do something like that? If you wanted to rule Earth so bad, why did you care so little about destroying it?
"Why did you do it?"
Jane had once read that there were 101 uses for duct tape; she'd probably tested out a couple dozen uses herself. Now, as her eyes widened in shock and her lips flattened in self-recrimination and she steeled herself for Loki's reaction because she'd just gone and asked exactly what she'd told herself she wouldn't, she thought she should write to whoever maintained that list and submit the one-hundred-and-second use: keeping your mouth shut around Loki.
His reaction was not what she expected; he could tell. But his control was complete now. He wasn't going to answer any more questions, not really. He wasn't going to rise to her bait. He wasn't going to bait her himself. Not much, anyway. "Not the most original question, Jane."
"You don't like being questioned, do you?"
"Does anyone? Do you?"
"No, not always. But questioning is part of science. It's part of knowledge. Of discovery. Of…of basic communication. You answer questions with taunts, or more questions, or…you don't really answer. You don't really communicate."
"You don't question, you interrogate."
"I interr-" Jane cut herself off before her voice grew too loud. "So you don't like being interrogated."
"I ask you again, do you?"
"Probably not. Closest I came was defending my dissertation, and I was sick to my stomach the whole week leading up to it and was so loaded up on caffeine that day I couldn't fall asleep the night after even though I was exhausted. See? That's called 'answering a question.' You should try it."
"If it helps you to know it, then, Dr. Foster – congratulations on your successful defense, by the way – no, I don't like being interrogated." And will it stop here? No, of course it won't. She never stops.
"And SHIELD? What did they-"
"It isn't my responsibility to help you find moral clarity. They asked questions. I didn't give them the answers they sought. Had they had more time, they might have tried other methods. Their methods wouldn't have worked. Now can we please begin the stress test simulations, if, as you say, everything else is ready?"
"Um, yeah. Yeah. Just, ummm…" She worked her way carefully back around the table, yet again uncertain if he was telling the truth, partial truth, or flat-out lies. It sounded like truth, but…maybe it wasn't possible to know for certain. She pulled up the simulation program, the same one that Tony Stark had provided for testing the probe's structural integrity field, imported the modified field generator programming, and clicked "Begin Testing." "All done," she announced, looking up to find Loki had switched places with her and was on the side of the table she'd moved to earlier.
"How long?"
"It'll run several hundred iterations of the test, but it's fast. Maybe two hours. Three at most. I don't remember exactly how long it took last time."
"Two or three hours," he said, and Jane nodded. It was an odd thought, a strange feeling. Two or three hours and then…what? He didn't know exactly. To Asgard. Then to Svartalfheim. To Brokk. To freedom. To…something.
"Hey, what am I supposed to tell people?"
"What?" Loki asked, pulled from his reverie.
"About you. About Lucas. When you're gone."
He looked at her with confusion. "That's hardly my concern, Jane. Tell them whatever you want."
"But-" She stopped, shook her head. "Okay, I'll figure something out." They stood there for a minute or so, Jane staring at the laptop, Loki fiddling with the RF switch. "We, uh, we should get some lunch. A watched pot never boils."
Watched pot…ah. Loki nodded. "I suppose it doesn't. I'm not hungry, but I should go pack a few things."
"Things? You have things? I saw your room."
"I have my favorite pair of boots, a few articles of clothing of far better quality than anything you have on Midgard."
Jane nodded, but it was another of those strange details that made her wonder who he really was. Was he wearing his favorite pair of boots when he ordered people to kneel in Stuttgart? Or had he left those at home that time? Were they his favorite because of the fit, or the style? And why was he concerned about whatever Asgardian clothes he had in that one suitcase he'd brought with him? Couldn't he just buy a whole new wardrobe when he got home? She'd asked enough questions, though, and these were just trivial. "Meet you back here in two hours?"
Loki nodded this time, and Jane got into her outer layers of gear and headed back to the station.
He was leaving. If all went well, he was leaving just hours from now. It was good, it was right, she was glad. But there was also something…unsatisfying, perhaps, about it. She kept going back to the fact that Thor said Loki was supposed to learn something here. Had he? Jane still didn't think so. He'd learned an astonishing amount of physics, there was no denying that, but that certainly wasn't what Thor meant. And there was so much anger in him…
She lingered over lunch, begging off invitations to join others. The lunch service ended; Loki never came. Jane thought back over their time here, and realized he had probably skipped a lot of meals. Maybe Asgardians don't need to eat as much. Jane snorted, remembering Thor eating his way through a box of Pop-Tarts followed by Izzy's Hungry Man special.
Loki was an enigma. Accepting enigmas as such, instead of trying to get to the bottom of them, really wasn't in her nature. But in this case she had no choice. And it was a good thing, really, she knew. Loki was dangerous. He was volatile. The longer he stayed here, the more risk there was of another blow-up, and she was the most likely target of his rage. Mostly because she kept ignoring the 102nd use of duct tape in favor of her unhealthy curiosity and odd little newly-emerged desire to help Thor.
Jane accepted that Loki would have to remain an enigma. She glanced up at the screen hanging from the ceiling. April 3. -63 degrees. Very little light crawled out from the horizon. D-Day. The day her life would cease being about Loki.
/
/
Loki sat in the Computer Room, logged into his "special" e-mail account for the last time. He approved Jane's incoming mail – she hadn't sent many outgoing messages since she'd realized he had some form of control of them – and then his eyes fell on the Draft folder, the little "1" there reminding him of an e-mail he'd composed, then thought better of sending. He opened it.
Dr. Selby Higgins,
I must inform you that it has come to our attention that you have become privy to classified information for which you have not been approved, and that you have been leaking this classified information to others. As soon as aircraft are able to land safely at your location, we will dispatch a private flight to bring you in for consultations. We advise that you immediately cease contact with anyone you have been discussing classified information with, and that you make no long-term plans following your time at the South Pole. We look forward to meeting with you.
SHIELD Security Operations
A smile spread over his face. He'd intended to torment this man. He'd wound up busy, though, managing nothing more than the occasional taunt or manipulation, and the pilfering of his food from the leftovers refrigerator. May as well have a little fun now, even if I won't get to enjoy the consequences. And if the stress tests were a failure and Jane had to make further adjustments, it would make his additional time here more bearable. He clicked send.
He thought about removing the "trap" on Jane's e-mail…but that could be a bit of fun as well. I wonder how long it will take before she realizes she won't be able to send or receive any messages without me here.
A few minutes later he stood in his assigned Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station chambers. Smaller than most of the cells he'd been imprisoned in, he'd never actually minded the size and simplicity. It had been his refuge, and when he shielded it from sound he may as well have relocated it to another realm with the sense of privacy it gave him. He'd made the sheets softer, transformed the bed covering he'd found in the "skua" donation area so much that it looked nothing like the lumpy thing it had started out as, and modified the desk chair to precisely fit his frame for greater comfort. The room was, in fact, not bad at all.
But it was time to go. Loki pulled his suitcase from the wardrobe, deciding to carry his clothes in it instead of his satchel. If ever he needed to make use of the tonic his mother had given him, he didn't want anything else in there impeding his ability to retrieve it immediately. He gathered the Asgardian items – all basic pieces, really, nothing identifying him as a person of means, much less a prince or king, unless one looked closely at the materials and tailoring. He briefly wondered if he even was still considered a Prince of Asgard, once his kingship had been so unceremoniously usurped. If he'd been formally disowned, no one had told him. He gave a short laugh devoid of humor. It hardly mattered. He could go where he liked now, call himself whatever he liked.
He surveyed the Midgardian items. He'd largely become accustomed to them, but he had no desire to take these mass-produced things with him. He eyed the seersucker suit. Except perhaps for that. It was comfortable, it traveled well, and while it didn't please him as much as the ensemble he'd put together for Stuttgart, or even New Mexico, those had been mere illusions, transformations. He pulled the suit jacket from its hanger, folded it, and put it in the suitcase. He stared hard at it there. It looked ridiculous next to his Asgardian attire. It looked less. It didn't belong there. He yanked it out and tossed it into the wardrobe, not bothering to hang it.
Then he yanked off all the Midgardian items he wore. He wouldn't take anything from Midgard with him, except this suitcase, as a convenience. And Big Red, as a trophy. And a very warm jacket.
Black leather boots, black leather pants, forest green tunic, the large thick red jacket open over it, Loki looked at himself in the mirror and grimaced. It was grotesque, in a way. But it didn't matter. He only had to actually wear it out to the jamesway. Even that relatively short walk would be misery without it, especially given his lack of other layers of ECW gear. He took the suitcase between his hands and tucked it away.
He walked out of his chambers, down the corridor, and to the DZ stairs, with each step swearing he would never step on this ground again. He passed only one person, and ignored him. He stepped outside, and was instantly reminded why people wore Extreme Cold Weather gear here; he hadn't tried going without it since the early days, when it had been cold but not this cold. The frigid air sank claws into him from his toes to his thighs, deeper and deeper until he reached the jamesway. He pushed the door in and closed it harder than necessary, making it shake on its hinges. Jane was already there, and he walked toward her, realizing then that his boots had stiffened up in the cold. He decided that if his favorite boots were damaged by this place he would make a brief return trip to destroy it. Perhaps he would melt it; he could even call it benevolence, then, for the mortals here and apparently worldwide were concerned about the availability of fresh water.
"The results?" he asked, crossing the short distance between the door and where she was standing by the laptop.
"84% success rate, with a 2% margin of error."
84%...100% would have been nice, but Loki was hardly risk-averse. "Acceptable," he said.
Jane nodded. She'd known he would find it acceptable. If it were her doing this, she probably would've considered it acceptable, too. They were good odds. Nothing was 100% without risk – not driving to work, not getting on an airplane, not crossing the street. There was no reason why being flung across space-time an unknown distance through some kind of wormhole should be more reliable than getting behind the wheel of a car.
Loki set his leather bag down on the table next to her backpack, pulled off his balaclava and gloves, and started unzipping Big Red; Jane noticed for the first time that he was dressed like Thor had been in Tromso, with the leather and the thin shirt. She was grateful it wasn't the full get-up, the armor, the cape, the helmet with the horns; she wasn't sure if she could have continued to function. She reached for her bag, then for his.
"What are you doing?" Loki demanded when he looked up from shrugging out of his jacket. His hand darted out to grasp her wrist and pull it out of his satchel. He felt a twinge in his own wrist and promptly loosened his grip.
"Nothing, just…you didn't have lunch," Jane said, less afraid than startled at his swift, angry response.
He watched as her fingers fell open. On her palm were two of those packages of supposed food, similar to what she'd left outside his door on his first day here, only these were wider and flatter. He let go of her wrist. "You do realize this journey is measured in seconds, not days?"
Jane felt her cheeks flush from embarrassment. It had seemed like a good idea… "They're for you to share with Thor, all right? He likes them."
Loki stared at her, incredulous. Does she think I'm twelve? That I'll offer one of these delicacies to Thor and all will be well? And then he understood. She was using him. She couldn't see Thor herself, so he was a convenient message-bearer, like some palace servant, a means for a woman to contact her man. He nodded and smiled his appreciation, then took the crinkly-wrapped non-food from her hand and placed it in his satchel. He would dump the stuff at the first opportunity.
"Listen, I was thinking…84% is good…but this is still really risky. I want to know that you made it there safely."
"I'll make it there safely," Loki said automatically, quickly stashing Big Red out of visible existence.
"I won't have any way of knowing that," Jane said, the words coming out a bit slowly, distracted as she was by what he was doing with the jacket. "I want you to come back."
Loki froze in the middle of slinging the satchel over his neck again.
"Not…permanently, don't get me wrong. But you'll have the transmitter for the recall, so use it. Just…just come back, just for a minute, so I know you made it, that this is actually safe. I just need to know, okay? It's science." It wasn't just science. Even though he scared her, even though nothing had changed and she wanted him gone, she didn't want him to get killed, especially for Thor's sake. Thor wanted his brother back. Jane didn't want to have to lay awake at night wondering if the computer had gotten it wrong, if this whole thing was a general failure, and there was no more brother for Thor to get back.
"Fine," Loki said, settling his satchel into place. "I appreciate your concern," he added. "But don't expect me back right away. There'll be greetings and ceremonies…give me a day."
Jane frowned. "I was thinking more like an hour. They'll understand, your family."
Yes, they're such kind, understanding people, aren't they? "All right. I'll return within an hour, just long enough to tell you it worked."
"Good. Loki…Thor said there was tension between Asgard and Jotunheim. That Jotunheim wanted to attack."
Loki looked at her in confusion again. Did she think she could fix that, too? "There has always been tension between Asgard and Jotunheim. And we- they- we are now in a state of war." And if Jotunheim does somehow manage to attack, whatever few of them are left, perhaps on Asgard they'll wish they'd let me finish what I started. But it was really no concern of his anymore.
"Just be careful, all right?" If there's something salvageable in you, it can't be salvaged if you're dead. "This is all so unreal," she continued, glancing down at the display on the laptop. "I mean…this field is supposed to protect the probe from the stresses of launch and atmosphere exit and re-entry, but I don't know how it stands up to the gravity at Yggdrasil's mouth. It wasn't designed for that."
"Yggdrasil was made for travel. For you it's science; for me it's magic. Your science does its part, and Yggdrasil protects her travelers."
She nodded, slowly. She knew the time had come.
Loki strapped the transmitter to one wrist and the structural integrity field generator to the other. Each was about the size of Jane's cell phone, so a little awkward, but Jane had insisted they be secured to his body for safety, which she'd become quite concerned about over the last day or two for some reason. He slipped the RF switch with which he could turn off the transmitter into his satchel. Without another word he walked to the door; Jane had already set up Pathfinder behind the jamesway in its usual spot.
Outside the cold was vicious now, with no gear at all on, and clawed at him from inside as well as out. He forced himself to keep his steps measured. Jane soon hurried out behind him, still tugging her balaclava down, he saw when he turned briefly. She didn't need to be there, strictly speaking. He wasn't a probe; he could press the button that would send him into space perfectly well himself. But of course she would want to be there. This would be the highlight of her scientific career.
"Pathfinder will try to recall you at five minutes. If you've turned off the transmitter, it'll keep trying every five minutes," she reminded him.
Loki nodded, getting into position. "Position" was simply standing next to Pathfinder and resting a hand atop the stand built for the probe, ensuring that the field generator was physically touching the stand. Pathfinder was keyed to the transmitter, and the transmitter to the field generator, and the field generator would encompass him wherever precisely he stood.
Jane looked like she wanted to say something else, but she hesitated, and Loki wanted more than anything not to hear her say whatever it was that was on her mind. And it was cold.
He glanced down at the button, then up at an anxious and nervously smiling Jane, and felt something he swore he'd never feel again after he fell from the bifrost. He hadn't felt it when he'd killed all those mortals, the ones Jane blamed him for or the ones he himself had actually killed. He hadn't felt it at any moment as he'd taken control of more and more of Jane's life. He hadn't even felt it after he'd nearly strangled her, not really.
He pressed the button.
Five.
"Goodbye, Jane."
But he felt it now, because even after everything he'd done, everything he'd done to her, there she was. Smiling and anxious. Concerned. Hoping this would work, hoping he could be reconciled to his family, hoping he could redeem himself.
Four.
"Goodbye. I hope…it all goes okay," Jane said, uncertain what else to say as she backed away from Pathfinder.
Three.
Guilt.
Two.
Because he was manipulating her and lying to her even now. He had no intention of letting Pathfinder pull him back here, not in five minutes, not within an hour, not ever. He was leaving and he was never coming back.
One.
Of course, that was what he'd thought the last time, too.
/
If you line up to kill me, I'm going to call Thor and hide behind him, okay? ;-)
So I've left you with an honest-to-goodness cliffhanger...and if you're looking for the usual previews & excerpt...keep looking! You won't find it. Sorrrrry! Not. ;-) You'll see why in the next chapter. I'm still two chapters ahead by the way - Ch. 43 "Knives" is written, and I wrote Ch. 44 (maybe "Falling") in quite possibly record time. So that means you're still likely to get Ch. 43 more quickly than usual, as you did this one.
Interesting that what you expect re travel was pretty well split...
Guest 4/13, you know who you are, Thor should really have a chat with you, he might learn something! ;-) Thank you so much for all the reviews, all the comments, it was lovely to hear from so many of you. I appreciate every one of them, truly. Thank you to all my readers, so much. *You* are a big part of what has kept me going on this.