Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Four – Calm
The return was uncomplicated and, most importantly, fast. Loki had no desire to spend another minute in Puente Antiguo. He couldn't believe he was coming back with nothing to show for his journey. He couldn't understand what was wrong with him, that he'd gone there to kill Thor and Thor had stood right in front of him, guileless and trusting, and he hadn't even tried. The circumstances were different, he knew; he'd thought all that through – he'd thought everything through. If he'd put one quarter the effort into using his knife that he'd put into thinking, Thor would be dead a thousand times over. Thor wasn't alone, the heat of battle hadn't been singing in either Thor's or Loki's veins, and Loki…whatever had driven him before to press that button on SHIELD's helicarrier without a second thought just wasn't there, no matter how hard he tried to make it be there. And at some point he'd made a choice, a choice he hadn't been conscious of making, and the resolve he'd arrived in Puente Antiguo with had wilted like a picked flower and left him withered and weak.
He sat inside the jamesway, eyes closed, face slack, telling himself that he should be devising a new plan, some new strategy, a way out of this trap he was snared in, but that was as far as he got. All he really wanted to do, he realized, was sleep. It had become even more of an infrequent thing for him since discovering that he couldn't count on his recalcitrant sound blanket to last the night, and he was tired. If he could, he thought, he'd sleep for a week. Maybe for the rest of the winter. Hibernation, he thought with a small smile. That's it. He looked around him. There were beds out here. He'd thought about sleeping out here before, and rejected it because of the cold. But it didn't have to be cold. Jane had suggested keeping the temperature below freezing to avoid attracting attention. He could adjust the heating. He no longer cared that much about attracting attention. He was already attracting attention. Gullveig had seen to that. There was no real bedding out here, though, just bare mattresses and pillows on simple bedframes. That was easily fixed with a quick trip into the station. It was still early afternoon here, but it was dark out as always, and he didn't particularly care much about time conventions at the South Pole, either. He wanted to sleep. He was going to sleep.
He stood up, and thought for a brief moment that he was even more tired than he'd realized when he staggered a bit and bumped into the table that held the laptop. He stood up straighter and paid more attention to his movements – he was not going to stumble about like some mead-slosher – but had only taken a few more steps when he started swaying uncontrollably. He was neither drunk, nor that tired or weak. This was an earthquake.
/
/
"Jane! You okay over there?" Wright called, voice warbling a little with the vibrations.
"Yeah, you?" Jane answered, hanging onto the metal shelves and keeping her knees loose so she could sway with it and hopefully keep it upright. It wasn't easy; she had to put real effort into staying on her feet.
"So far so good. I think we should get to the ladder."
"No, we have to make sure this equipment stays in one piece."
"I'll sacrifice the equipment in favor of not being buried alive, thanks," he said, suddenly appearing behind the shelving with Jane and helping her keep it steady. "We don't know how bad this is. We need to get out of here."
"No! We need the information from out here, now more than ever. I'm not leaving until we finish what we came here for and everything's secured."
"Jane, get real! If this vault collapses the equipment's going to be useless and we're going to be dead. Come on, now!"
"And if it doesn't but all this stuff falls off and breaks? I'm not going. You go, this is the only rack that's really unsteady."
Wright let out a heavy breath and shook his head; he was mad, maybe mad enough to try to force her out, so Jane gripped the shelves harder. "I'm not going to-" He cut himself short and looked up; Jane followed suit.
"It stopped." It was quiet now, no movement and no sound except for something somewhere that had started beeping, and Jane's and Wright's heavy breathing.
"This is really freaky," Wright said, eyes darting between walls and ceiling. "That was the strongest one yet, and it lasted way longer."
"Jane! Wright! Are you guys okay?"
Jane and Wright both let go of the shelf rack and stepped around it to see Ronny running in. "We're fine, and no damage. Hopefully no damage, I don't know what that beeping is, and I'm sure a lot of this stuff is really finely calibrated," Jane said. "We're going to have to do some quick checks."
"Jane…," Wright began, then stopped and sighed. "Okay, yeah. I don't want to have done this for nothing."
"How much longer?" Ronny asked.
"Maybe…ten minutes to finish what we were working on, another…what do you think?" Jane asked. Wright was looking pale and nervously rubbing his beard. Better to focus on work than a fear of being buried alive, for both of them.
"I don't know…crash course a few hours ago notwithstanding, we don't really know this equipment, or how to test all of it. Twenty minutes for basic checks? If we move fast."
Jane nodded. A lot of it would have to be very basic – like making sure power was still getting to everything. "It would help if somebody could use the sat phone to check in with the station to see if they have any indication from the USGS if something's not sending back data."
"If you do it fast," Wright added.
Ronny nodded and jogged back out to the entryway and the yellow ladder to the surface, while Jane and Wright settled back in behind the pushed-out shelves.
"You know," Wright said, opening up a small plastic container from the case Jane had carried, "I don't plan on dying until I've reached ninety. Maybe a hundred, if I'm still feeling good enough to enjoy it. But if I have to die young, this is really not way the to do it."
Jane gave him a quick smile, but she was the one doing delicate work with computer tweezers at the moment.
"How are you staying so calm?"
Tweezers and their captive bit of plastic free, Jane looked up at Wright. "Practice. Believe it or not, this is not the craziest thing that's happened to me in the last year or two." Or in the last twenty-four hours, she thought with a wry smile. "Okay, you've got the processor socket? Let's finish this one up."
/
/
When the shaking finally stopped, Loki was already wrapped in ECW gear that hid the clothes he wore underneath and headed back to the main station. He would have preferred to simply go to his room, remove the bedding, and carry it back out to the jamesway, but he hadn't even bothered to carry his radio with him today and he knew that they would be trying to account for everyone. He didn't want to pretend at being Lucas anymore, but he didn't want the attention that would come with being considered "missing" a second time, either. And if he happened to find out how Jane was doing while checking in, that would be acceptable. He didn't actually want to see her, not after Puente Antiguo.
He went first to the galley to pick up a couple of the honey and oat granola bars, thinking he would next run down to Comms and make sure they knew he was still alive. Then to his room, then back to the jamesway. It was well after lunchtime and well before dinnertime, but when he made it up to the galley, he found Austin exactly where he'd been planning to go: in front of the snack table.
"Lucas! Geez, where've you been?" he called before Loki could turn around and leave.
"Working. My radio battery died, so I came back here to check in." His eyebrows went up as an idea struck. "Can you call it in for me?" It would save him the trip to Comms and the additional interaction. It would lessen the chance of him running into Jane.
"Uh, yeah, sure. Hold on a sec." He put down the stack of cookies he'd been gathering in an unfolded napkin – far more than Loki could imagine him eating on his own – and made the call, explaining what Loki had told him. The response, from Olivia, contained a few expletives he couldn't recall hearing her use before.
"Olivia's pissed, man. With these earthquakes going on…you need to have your radio charged and with you every time you go out. I'm sure she's going to say that to you, too. The next twenty-eight times you see her."
"Got it," Loki said, reaching for the granola bars.
"Hey, you want to wait with us? Some of us are going to watch a movie to pass the time. Casino Royale. Should be a good distraction. I guess unless you've seen it a dozen times already."
"I haven't seen it," he said, surprised that it was a movie Austin was gathering snacks for. He'd assumed it was a poker game that he hadn't been invited to. Not that he'd been around to be invited to it. Not that he cared.
Austin laughed. "Are you serious? Man, you haven't seen anything. Lose the gear and come with. You'll love it. Daniel Craig's Bond is outstanding."
Austin stuffed the bundle of cookies into an oversized pocket on his overalls and turned to leave, apparently assuming Loki would follow, and Loki did…because he had a question, once he thought through what Austin had said. Much as he wanted to close his eyes and ears to the cosmos, Gullveig had turned him into a fugitive, and he could not afford to embrace ignorance. "What exactly are you waiting for?" And why are you watching a movie in the middle of a weekday? It felt like night to Loki, because he'd experienced nightfall in Puente Antiguo, because it was dark here, and because he was tired, but it was still mid-afternoon.
Austin looked confused, and then…worried, perhaps, Loki wasn't quite sure, and Austin was taking a long time to respond. "I forgot you weren't at the meeting," he said. "I guess you haven't heard."
"Heard what?" Loki asked immediately, and just as quickly felt his stomach clench. "Is Jane…"
"Jane is…well, she's fine, I mean, from the concussion. Nora cleared her. But she's-"
"What? Where is she?" he asked with a shake of his head. Never mind that he'd intended to avoid her; if something more was wrong he would go and check on it himself this time.
"She's not here. She went-"
"Not here? Not in the station? Where else would she be?" Loki asked, tossing the questions out one right after the other. Austin had said she was fine, and if she was fine but she was not here…Pathfinder? Thor? He could not face Thor right now.
"If you'd stop interrupting for a second, she went out to SPRESSO with-"
"What is spresso?"
"South Pole…Research…I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure one of those middle S's is for 'seismological.' She went out there with Wright and Ken and Paul and Ronny about…I guess about two hours ago now. They're checking on the equipment and installing some updates and-"
"Where is this SPRESSO?" Loki asked. He knew he was missing something, because that was worry on Austin's face, and he'd never heard of SPRESSO, so he knew it wasn't in the Dark Sector and no one had ever pointed it out in the main cluster of buildings, and he'd talked to Elliot who'd never mentioned any "SPRESSO" in the Clean Sector where he managed atmospheric studies.
"It's in the Quiet Sector."
"All right," Loki said, nodding. He knew which direction the Quiet Sector lay in, almost but not quite opposite the Dark Sector, beginning not too far from the Summercamp jamesways.
"It's three miles out, in a little building buried in the ice."
"Three miles? How do they expect to get there?"
"They took a PistenBully. Ken's had all the training and some experience; he's driving."
"I thought the vehicles couldn't be used in the winter here."
"Not normally. Not much. There's a risk of the tracks freezing up. Ken's keeping it moving the whole time to try to avoid that."
"You're saying they could be stranded out there. And what about the earthquake?"
"Yeah, Jane and Wright were down there during it, but…Lucas, wait!"
"Don't touch me," he said, wrenching away hard from the hand Austin put around his arm. Austin's look of surprise gave him a moment of regret for his sharp tone, but he turned away and pushed open the door.
"Where exactly do you think you're going? It looks like you think you're going out there," Austin said, following him, running to keep up.
"I am going out there. I'm going to find them."
"Are you crazy?" Austin said, putting on a burst of speed and getting in front of him. They were already at the door to the Beer Can stairs, the ones nearest the galley and also on the side of the station nearest the Quiet Sector. "Come on, be serious. You know you can't go out there. Not on foot, and not by yourself in a vehicle, which as I recall you don't even know how to operate anyway, and no one's taking any more vehicles out there. Take a breath, come back in, sit down with us and watch Casino Royale. They're doing fine."
"I am perfectly serious. You don't think I'm capable of it? Watch me. I was born to the ice," he said with a deathly glare, then turned and opened up the door.
Austin followed, feet pounding on the steps behind Loki's. "Okay, I know Canada's cold, but give me a break. Whatever's gotten into you, get a hold of yourself. You aren't going out there. It's suicide and you know it. Paul called in on the sat phone after the earthquake. They're fine. They're all fine."
Loki stopped and whirled around so quickly that Austin bumped into him and had to take an awkward backward step up. "They still have to get back, and what if there are more earthquakes? I'm not going to let-" You're not going to let what? Jane make her own decisions? And Ken and Ronny and Paul? Wright? He knew Jane. No one had made her do this; she'd volunteered. She could fix any electronic equipment that needed fixing, and his false brother had made her decide she liked adventure. He set his jaw, realizing he'd only fed that himself, and now Jane was volunteering for things he'd been told his first night here were impossible in winter. "They have sat phones?"
"Yeah, man. Most expensive three-mile phone call known to man."
"So we'll know if there's a problem."
"Olivia, Drew, and Rodrigo are all down in Comms waiting for a call."
Loki nodded. The energy that had lit up his body just moments before was draining from it almost as quickly, and already he had no idea what he'd been thinking, and no idea what to do now.
"You really shouldn't skip all-hands meetings."
He looked up at Austin, who was looking back down at him with something that was perhaps meant to be a smile, but was misshapen with confusion, and quite possibly concern that Loki had gone mad. He had no doubt that he must seem mad, from Austin's perspective. "It's been a long day…and I'm rather exhausted," he said, echoing Jane's overheard words from Puente Antiguo. "You're right. I wasn't thinking." It wasn't what he wanted to say. He wanted to ignore Austin and barrel past. But Austin was worried, and while Loki knew there was no reason to care what Austin thought, he didn't want him to think he was crazy. Even if I am, he thought then, holding back a laugh he was fairly certain would undermine the message he was hoping to convey.
"Okay, well…let's go catch some shaken-not-stirred action while we wait on them to get back. I'm going to freeze to death if I don't get back in, anyway."
Loki nodded again and waved his hand to urge Austin along. He still had most of his gear on, though his hands and face were bare and it was unpleasantly cold in this unheated stairwell; Austin, meanwhile, had on jeans and a sweatshirt and tennis shoes and had been shivering badly. "So what makes…Casino Royale such a good movie?" he asked, knowing Austin would almost certainly have more than a two-word answer and Loki could easily feign attention without being expected to add anything substantive to the "conversation."
Jane shouldn't be out there so soon after a brain injury. After visiting a couple of other realms and time periods, it seemed she couldn't say no to any adventure at all. But none of them should be out there in these conditions. Ken, with whom he skied every Sunday, and from whom he'd learn to appreciate the sport and skill in cross-country skiing, was comfortable out on the ice and had an energetic yet calm and unflappable personality. They were never more than a mile from the station when they went out on skis, though, not since the sun set. Paul had traveled the world from one end of the globe to the other and done as he liked despite his father's disapproval of his unconventional life and he was happy; Ronny was frankly strange but never had an unkind word to say about anyone, even his father who'd beaten him as a child, something all but unheard of on Asgard, and he'd never said a single word to him about whatever exactly he'd overheard that night as Loki slept in the outstretched arms of The Other, and he'd never treated him any differently after that either; and Wright…Wright nearly always had a big dumb smile on his face and nothing seemed to faze him and he annoyed Loki greatly at times…but he didn't want him to die. And they were all little more than children, really, from the perspective of the other realms. Jane was thirty-one. No thirty-one-year-old would be trusted with that level of responsibility on Asgard. And Ronny was the youngest of the group, just twenty-four. On Asgard it was a common jest to inquire of those in their twenties – those so pumped full of pride at having reached adulthood – whether they still nursed on their mother's milk. Here they married and had children and took important jobs and drove three miles out into nowhere with their breath freezing to their facemasks and hoped their transportation lasted long enough to bring them back.
But it was their choice. He would wait. He would do nothing. And why not? He excelled at that. No matter how much he did or didn't plan, in the end he accomplished nothing. If he traipsed out into the June night after Jane and the others, what good would it do? Jane was a strong and stubborn woman. As long as they weren't in trouble – and Austin said that they weren't – she might very well be furious at him for showing up and assuming she couldn't take care of herself. So he would stay here, ignorant of whatever was going on out there, and shut his mind off with "shaken-not-stirred action," whatever that meant, and it would be as though he'd never left, as though today had never even happened.
Because for all he'd been through today, and for all he'd thought about that pivotal moment of Thor's banishment for months, nothing at all had changed from yesterday. Nothing except that everything was worse. Ever since he'd grasped the concept of travel along the time-axis, ever since he'd discovered that it actually worked, he'd always had one last hope. The idea that he could change it all. That everything – or almost everything, could be fixed, if he simply identified the right time and place to make a change. He'd found the perfect time and place, and all he had to do was end Thor. And he hadn't been able to do it. For looking back on it, Loki was under no illusion that it simply hadn't worked out. He'd made a choice, yes. He could have done it as soon as Thor arrived; he was stunned, disoriented, even briefly unconscious. Darcy, Jane, and Erik would hardly have been able to stop him. He could have followed him to the hospital; he could have done it when only Erik was with him, barely able to stay upright; he could have done it before they went up to the roof; he could have done it at any point when they were on the roof. None of the mortals could have stopped him; they would simply have thought him a despicable murderer. And that really should have been fine with him, he thought with a dark laugh.
"That's what everybody thought. I mean, the guy's blond, you can't have a blond James Bond," Austin was saying, apparently taking Loki's laugh as a response to whatever he'd been saying before. Loki gave him his best interested smile and shrugged out of Big Red, now back inside the station. "But now a lot of critics think…"
He hadn't made that choice at "some" point, or at any single point, and somehow failed to notice. At every turn, he'd made a choice. The same choice. A choice that, irrational as it seemed, proved again and again that something had changed: he could not kill Thor. In the heat of that glorious pitch battle he'd once longed for, possibly. But not like that. He simply couldn't do it. What do I have left, then? he asked himself, for he knew he'd lost something even if he couldn't define what it was. What has become of me? What will become of me? He remembered those first few seconds when he'd arrived on Midgard inside SHIELD's facility. Every nerve in his body sang with the possibilities of what was to come. The mortals stared at him and he never wondered what they might be thinking – they were barely capable of thought, compared to him, and whatever they were capable of thinking, whether they were afraid or angry or curious, was inconsequential. He would rule them. He would rule them all. Once they had capitulated, then he would figure out how to deal with Thanos, this time from a position of power. I stood before them, and their projectile weapons, without fear, without doubt. I told them that I had a glorious purpose. I felt it. I could touch it. It was alive and fiery and burned beneath my skin and eclipsed the strain of the journey and the ache in my back.
It is gone. And there is nothing in its place. There is nothing…
"Hey, Lucas?"
"Yes, sorry, what were you saying?" They were outside the B-3 lounge now, and Loki could hear the voices behind the door.
"Nothing important. Listen, I don't mean to pry, but…is everything okay? You'd have to be blind not to notice that something's going on."
Thor never noticed. I plotted his downfall right under his nose and he never noticed. Austin wasn't Thor, and Austin stood in front of him, not Thor. And Loki couldn't think of a thing in the world to say.
"You, uh, you want to go do something else? We could go throw some darts. Or maybe shoot some hoops? You play basketball?"
"Not if I can help it," Loki said.
Austin broke into a smile, then a laugh, and Loki relaxed into a smile as well. "You don't play unless you're sure you can win, huh?"
The smile fell away and Loki's brow furrowed as he wondered if that were true. He certainly preferred winning…but didn't everyone? In fact, as he thought about it, these people occasionally didn't seem to care that much. And Loki hadn't done that much winning lately – he'd even lost the vaunted Three D's game the last time they'd played – so maybe it was time to stop caring. At least for tonight. Maybe he would care again tomorrow. "That's not it," he told Austin. "I actually have no idea what any of the rules of basketball are. I gather you're meant to throw the ball into the horizontal ring with the net on it, and the other team is meant to stop you." He looked steadily at Austin while Austin looked back with a smile that turned awkward. Then he let his own smile return naturally, for that had felt good, even if Austin probably thought he spoke in jest.
"Ohhh, I know what you're doing. Did you think I'd forget? Mr. Ringer? Mr. Can You Refresh My Memory On How To Play Darts? Okay, yeah, we're definitely playing basketball sometime."
"No Mr. Ringer," Loki said with a laugh. "I swear to you I don't know how to play at all. I'd never even seen a basketball before I came here. The concept of the game does seem to be fairly simple, though."
"Never seen a basketball, huh? If I believed you I'd think you grew up with Santa Claus at the other Pole. Okay, I'll get a group together and we'll show you how to play. Why do I suspect you had a summer internship with the Harlem Globetrotters or something? So what do you want to do? Movie? Darts? Impromptu basketball lesson? Volleyball?"
"Ah, that one I know the rules of. Though I've never played. But I think a movie will suffice for tonight. Rodrigo and the others…they'll tell us, if anything goes wrong?"
"Yeah, they'll tell us."
Loki nodded and opened the door, entering with Austin right behind him. "Hey, where'd you disappear to?" Elliot said, the first to see them enter. "We've been holding the movie for you."
"I grabbed a straggler," Austin said.
"Well get in here, straggler. Grab a drink and sit your butt down so we can start this thing," Zeke said.
Loki grabbed a 7-Up and some sour cream and onion Pringles to add to the granola bars he'd taken, and sat down on the floor. According to the helpful information on the screen, the movie was set in the Czech Republic, which Loki recalled neighbored Germany.
He found his mind wandering. He understood now that the others were watching this movie in the middle of a workday for the sense of camaraderie and support as they worried helplessly about their friends outside. They were all in the same situation. All except Loki. He could do more. Perhaps. It would be easier to do more if he hadn't lost so much of his ability to use magic. So he simply sat there, taking long gulps of sugary bubbly soda and munching on chips. Waiting.
He was a shell of who he'd been. A shadow. Not even a shadow of Thor but a shadow of himself now. No strength of magic. No strength of will. He'd spent far too much time at the Pole, left himself open to far too much of Jane's peculiar form of acid. And the rush of anger that should have been there at that thought simply wasn't. He wished these people no ill. More than that, even were Jane not out there in danger, but only the others, any of the others, he thought, whether he'd spent much time with them or not… He knew something about each of them, he'd at least wound up sitting near each of them in the galley at least once, or watched a movie with them in a group, or struck piñatas with them…something. The thought came to him more fully now, and it was stunning. He would save any of them, if needed, even Wright. Thinking of Wright made him think of Selby… Maybe not him. He considered it further. The man filled him with revulsion he couldn't explain. The South Pole would be a better place without him. If Selby needed saving…he honestly wasn't sure. Maybe. He supposed he wouldn't want to stand there having to listen to him screaming.
An explosion from the television then startled him. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he didn't think James Bond was in the Czech Republic anymore. He took a slightly shaky breath and let it out slowly, then tried to focus his attention on the screen.
/
/
"Nadrith."
"Thor."
"Enjoying your stay?"
"Not particularly, but as far as imprisonment goes I suppose I can't complain. The quality of the food isn't much to speak of. Not what I recall of Asgardian fare. Supply problems?"
"I trust you haven't gone hungry. We aren't." Thor said, trying hard to betray no reaction to the jab. The First Palace Cook himself was in charge of preparing Nadrith's meals. He was aware of the supply from Midgard and knew to ensure that nothing from that realm made it onto the Ljosalf king's plate.
"Hm. Perhaps not. But you do look a little leaner," he responded, standing from the divan he'd been reclining on his guest chambers turned nicely-appointed prison cell. His nose flared. "You once told me I stank. You smell like death."
For a few seconds Thor did not respond; he'd become used to it and no longer smelled himself, but now he remembered what he must stink of. "I do smell like death. Like the deaths of both Light and Dark Elves, to be precise. Seared flesh has a particularly unpleasant odor."
Nadrith had the basic decency to look away; he went over to a pitcher of water placed on a small round table and poured a glass, then offered one to Thor, who declined it. "I do not wish for my people to die," he said after he'd taken a drink. "But that they died in common cause with our Dark Elf brothers…that is a silver lining."
"The brothers you secretly wish to subjugate."
"Not subjugate. Never subjugate. You put words in my mouth to try to paint me a brute."
"I try to paint you…? And what do you call the things you have said of me?"
"Encouragement. To convince you to make the decision you know you must. And…I admit, at times I have simply enjoyed antagonizing you and knowing that our circumstances render you powerless to respond the way I know you want to."
Thor shook his head at this. The fire that had been in Nadrith had gone down over time, and now it seemed it had burned out entirely. Thor doubted that was actually true, but he had been here for some time now, in this gilded prison, isolated from his own people, removed from leadership and decision-making, ignorant of the course of the war. He knew he didn't understand Nadrith as well as he'd once thought he did, but he thought, seeing him now, that perhaps he hadn't in fact intended to be captured. "Sometimes you remind me of Loki," he said after they'd stood there in silence for a while.
Nadrith's eyebrows went up and he took another drink of water. "I'm not sure whether to feel honored or insulted. These last couple of years…I supposed 'insulted' really must win out."
Something in Nadrith's voice almost made Thor smile, despite all the insults and barbs that had flown between them. Perhaps, when it came to dealing with Nadrith, some of Thor's fire had burned out, too. Perhaps Nadrith would listen now… "If you knew that something you were doing was ripping our realms apart at their core…would you continue to do it, no matter the cost?"
"I would continue to do it until you put an end to it by surrendering."
"Do you even know of what I speak?"
"I assume you speak of the lives lost."
"I do not, though that is…most grievous. I speak of the portals. They're…disturbing Yggdrasil in some way. Did you feel the earthquake a little earlier today?"
Nadrith fixed hard eyes on him. "I felt an odd vibration," he said a moment later. "I assumed it was an attack breaching your shield. Something close to the palace."
"The palace is secure. But Asgard has never experienced earthquakes before. It's not a natural occurrence here. Alfheim, too, we've heard has experienced at least one earthquake recently. Heimdall heard the groaning in Yggdrasil long before we felt an earthquake here, and our natural environment clerks have more than once detected…things I do not understand but which are related to earthquakes. Nadrith, the extensive use of these portals is the only abnormal thing going on, the only thing we know of that could be harming Yggdrasil. And Yggdrasil in turn is harming us. You're endangering us all."
"I grant you high marks for your creativity. Perhaps Yggdrasil just has a little indigestion. But even if everything you say is true…'ripping our realms apart at the core' is a bit of an exaggeration for a barely noticeable tremor, don't you think? Surrender, and we won't need to use so many portals."
"It has grown worse with time, Nadrith. We see no reason to believe it won't continue to do so. Would you truly put your own ambition before the safety of these realms? The realms themselves, the very ground and all that rests upon it? If so…," Thor began, a new idea taking shape, "how are you any different from Loki, from what he did to Jotunheim? Yet you say that Loki's actions are the main reason you make war against us."
"Now that is insulting. I don't know exactly why Loki decided to try to reduce the Nine Realms to eight. But I'm fairly confident it wasn't unintentional. If you think that I will order my people to turn their backs on something they've given their lives for, all because a few glass dishes broke somewhere…you're delusional."
"So you'll wait until buildings and people break?"
"I'll certainly wait until the risk seems genuine, instead of like scaremongering meant to benefit Asgard."
"And if it's too late then?"
"Do you really think that if you simply keep asking, I'll change my mind? Your surrender is inevitable, and we both know it. Let's turn the tables, shall we? If you and your advisors are so concerned about these portals, then it is entirely in your power to reduce their usage back to the normal frequency. End the war. The longer you wait, the more lives you will have wasted on a lost cause."
Thor stared at Nadrith a moment longer, but he was out of arguments. Nadrith wasn't going to budge. Not that he'd actually expected him to. But he'd hoped. "I'll leave you to your…whatever it is that you do all day, then."
"You're different tonight," Nadrith said before Thor could take two steps away.
He turned back. "So are you."
Nadrith set his glass down and laughed bitterly. "I'm terribly bored of this," he said, sweeping a hand around him. "You know me. I prefer to be outdoors. Open spaces. A proper prison cell would send me into madness. But you…you're close to relenting, aren't you? I can see it in you. You'll meet with Gullveig, and you'll discuss terms. Let me accompany you. He, and the others, they'll be full of spite now that you've dragged this on for so long. I've been here…away from the battles and the deaths. My head is cooler. I can advocate for you, Thor. For Asgard. I can help make sure they accept the more palatable terms we discussed."
Thor nodded after a moment. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? That's exactly what you want." And the sad thing was, Nadrith was probably right. He probably could influence the other realms, with his already increased stature. But the idea of ceding victory in this war to the other realms, and a victory in his personal power play to Nadrith on top of it, was sickening. "You really have overplayed your hand, you know. Now that I'm sure of what you want, I'm going to make sure you never get it."
/
/
The announcement came over the radio as an all-call just as James was enduring sadistic and perverse torture that Loki couldn't help contorting his face at in discomfort. James was holding up remarkably well considering, but Loki was glad for the distraction, especially if it brought good news. Someone quickly found the pause button. "They're back. Pulling into the VMF now," Olivia said. "Nora's going to check everybody out just as a precaution, and then Drew and I need to talk to them, and then we'll have a little get-together in the galley, probably in about forty-five minutes. See you there."
The mood in the lounge changed instantly, with laughter, soda can and water bottle toasts, and expressions of relief. A few minutes later it was decided to start up the movie again – it was nearing the end – but Loki's interest in it had fallen away again and he watched the rest with a kind of detachment. Hearing the station's healer mentioned had worried him, but he quickly grasped that it didn't mean anyone was injured. With the humans so very fragile and susceptible to dying from no more than stress, it was reasonable to have a healer examine them even when they reported no injury.
The movie would end, and there would be a party of sorts. Loki didn't want to go to a party. And if Jane was all right, then he still didn't want to see her. He would watch the rest of the movie with the others, and then, as they made their way to the galley, he would slip away back to his room. There he would pack a few items for bedding into his satchel and move out to the jamesway to sleep.
/
/
A sudden noise in the movie and the man on the screen falling in pain snapped Loki's attention back more fully to the movie again. He tried to piece together what was going on, and when he got a better look at the man's face, the man who was dragging himself along the ground and then trying to pull himself up some stairs, he recognized him. He was involved with the terrorists, in the early part of the movie, and when he searched his memories of that latter part of the movie when he hadn't really been paying attention, he remembered that this man, Mr. White, had appeared in the phone book of the now-dead woman James had loved. He couldn't quite piece it all together, but Bond himself appeared, the one who'd obviously shot White – the mortals did love their guns – and it was clear that this was a revenge killing, that James tied this man to his woman's death. "The name's Bond. James Bond," he said on the screen. Loki looked around at the others, startled by the cheers that went up after these words. He'd thought the mortals viewed this sort of thing as wrong. Evil. White had just been standing there, not threatening anyone, and James had shot him from what must have been a hidden position. A roomful of Asgardians would have hurled their tankards at the screen. The movie ended there, with music that a few of the Polies felt compelled to accompany, so perhaps White was only injured and not killed. Still, the cheering was surprising. Why is it acceptable – even laudable – for James Bond to kill or maim? Is it the motive, revenge, that changes things? And what is this "license to kill," and how many people have it, just seven? Can they kill anyone they like then? Perhaps the license is what makes their killings praiseworthy. Is it even real, or simply invented for this movie? If Jane were here, he would ask; if Jane had watched it with him, she would have interrupted the movie a dozen times to whisper these things to him. But Jane wasn't here, and that reminded him that he needed to separate himself from this group now.
"What'd I tell you?" Austin said when Loki stood and turned and found himself facing him. "Daniel Craig makes a great Bond, doesn't he?"
"Yes, he does. Very convincing. Especially when he shoots the other man at the end."
"Yeah," Austin said with a laugh, then bent his elbow and stuck his arm in the air – miming a gun, Loki realized. "The name's Bond. James Bond," he said, then aimed his "gun" at Loki's head and pulled the imaginary trigger.
Loki swallowed, bristling a little. He'd killed the last people who'd fired actual guns at him.
"Come on, man, let's go," Austin said, letting go of his gun and throwing an arm around Loki's shoulder.
That was quite possibly more awkward than imaginary guns firing at him, but he didn't pull away. "I'll join you shortly. I just need to stop by the bathroom."
"Yeah, okay. They shouldn't be back yet anyway. Hey, man," he said then to Nathan, letting go of Loki and bumping fists with Nathan.
Loki took that opportunity to make his escape, hurrying up the colorfully-tiled stairwell and crossing to the other end of the building, toward the A1 berthing corridor. He did stop in at the restroom, then continued on to his room and was in the middle of a sigh of relief when he stopped, door still open beside him. Jane was sitting in his chair.
/
Thankyouthankyou, for all your kind comments. Thanks so much to all of you, especially reviewers, you mean so much to me! So, regarding the last chapter, did you catch that Thor's end of that conversation with Loki was referenced before? Yup. It was the one time travel reference that no one ever mentioned, once time travel was revealed.
Previews for Ch. 125: Oh, you know, just what the set-up says...Loki and Jane have been apart for one chock-full day (yes, they got back from Alfheim *last night*, and Loki has been to Chicago and twice to Puente Antiguo in that time, while Jane's been laid up with a mild concussion then preparing for and heading out to SPRESSO). Loki's done some things he really shouldn't have...and Jane knows some things he doesn't.
Excerpt:
"But…but we don't know that. I told you, Tony… We'll come back to that, okay? This is really important, Loki. Did you use Pathfinder today?" Loki would have found a way to ask without asking, but Jane figured no matter how hard she tried to do so herself, most of the time she would default back to the direct route.
Loki tossed it back and forth a few times in his head. The best lies were based in truth. "As a matter of fact I did."