Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Six – Trouble
On Asgard, the hour was growing late. Not the old definition of "late," which took into account its many citizens who stayed out well past dinner hours entertaining themselves in taverns, but the new definition of "late," which took into account only sunset, for the taverns were now all closed and outdoor recreational activity no longer existed. The sun had already set when Thor went to see Nadrith.
"I got nothing from him, Bragi," Thor said. "Perhaps you should try."
"You have a gift for persuasion, Thor. If you gained nothing, neither would I.
"I can persuade friends and allies. Nadrith is no longer either. I need to get back out there, Tyr said they're concentrating their attacks around two particular towers now, but…is there nothing more we can do? Is this it?" he asked softly. The two were in the throne room, though nowhere near the throne; Thor had already handed over Gungnir to Hergils for its safekeeping.
"There are always things we can do. The question is whether we're willing to do them."
Thor took a deep breath and let his gaze unfocus. Turn an entire planet's air to poison? Level cities with their buildings full of people? Direct uncontrolled Tesseract energy at one of the other realms without even knowing exactly what it will cause, besides mass destruction? Do it all quickly enough that the others can't devise a way retaliate in kind… Such options were not options. Weapons that could do such things were here, on Asgard, to be protected, not to be used. He looked at Bragi again. He didn't think Bragi was suggesting otherwise, but rather simply reminding him that they were limiting their options by choice.
Before Thor could respond, Bragi motioned toward the porticoed entrance. An Einherjar stood there, waiting; Thor granted him permission to enter and signaled him in with dread.
"Heimdall has sent me, Your Majesty. He heard another message from King Gullveig, over the battle to the northeast."
"What did he say?" Thor asked, jaw tight.
"Much the same as his earlier public addresses. Accept our terms, they are not harsh, you will still have your freedom. But he added the following. Your towers crumble, your city's protections are failing. Surrender while there is still something worth surrendering for. That was all."
"I never liked that man," Thor said. "Not even when he was our closest ally."
"No one did. But he's been a good king to his people. Vanaheim was an overly-militarized society that lay in ruins with its fertile fields abandoned by the end of the Vanir-Aesir War. It was he who led them out of that."
Thor nodded and dismissed the Einherjar with a nod and a wave of his hand, a motion that he'd seen his father make millions of time. The Vanir-Aesir War was long before his birth, but he'd studied it in his youth, and in later study his father had insisted he endure. "Apparently he grew tired of being a good king and decided what he really wanted was to turn back time and win the Vanir-Aesir War."
"With a little help from the rest of the realms," Bragi said. "Your Majesty…"
"Yes? Speak, Bragi, we have little time for hesitations."
"All right. There is something I wish you to consider. It would be risky, but-"
"Have you ever known me to fear risk?"
"I have never known you to be king. It's no longer just risking your own neck."
Thor nodded as he let that sink in. He knew it, but at times it was easy to forget. His decisions now had the power to risk the neck of every single person on the face of the realm. On the face of Midgard, too, if he wasn't careful in how he handled that relationship. "I understand. And I would hear your thoughts."
"All right. Ever since we captured Nadrith, we have focused on him. And Nadrith may be popular on his own realm and beyond, but he isn't free. His brother is ruling in his stead, and our best-positioned citizen on Alfheim has conveyed that he's careful to speak more of Nadrith than himself – there's no sign he's attempting to secure the Ljosalf throne for himself. Alfheim is a beast without a head. The other two key realms, as we've long said, are Svartalfheim and Vanaheim. We know the Dark Elves were the ones to put together this alliance, but as best we can tell, they aren't exercising a leadership role, other than possibly making some tactical decisions for the others due to their control of the portals. We also have essentially no insight into what is going on there, with the loss of Jormik and the few others we had in place. Now, we've talked about somehow going after Gullveig, ever since we realized that he was behind the explosion inside the palace. Gullveig is leading the others. And he has many enemies and a restless populace. He's vulnerable. I think we should focus on him again. I think we should do something."
"But what? The War Council discussed this. They could not come up with a plan that wouldn't make Asgard look like the tyrannical realm that they accused us of being. We can't win by becoming despots any more than we can win by destroying realms."
"I don't have that answer. I was never a tactician. Unstoppable with a sword, yes, or a tankard of mead or a composition book. But there's a reason your father had me command ambassadors and clerks instead of warriors. There must be something, though. Something more than what we've been doing. Some way to hit Gullveig hard and bring him to his knees. Perhaps it will require us to be harsher than we might wish, and perhaps it will create a problem of perception and a challenge to the eventual reconciliation of our realms."
"No matter what happens, reconciliation will be a challenge. I haven't even thought about it. But you're right, the proposals I heard before put us in the role of conqueror. But that may indeed be a risk we'll have to take, if we want to avoid defeat. The path we're on now leads in only direction. The fact that my diplomatic advisor advises this holds weight."
"Your diplomatic advisor was a warrior first," Bragi said with a smile. "If you give the order, I will take our version of their terms to them and negotiate hard. But if there's any hope at all left…I would rather win."
Thor nodded, looking hard at Bragi. There wasn't even any actual plan, and yet Thor felt some small glimmer of hope. "If we fail in this…then we'll probably have no option left but to concede, and quickly."
"I share your assessment. There is no time for backup plans. You should also understand the additional risk, however. If we take action against Gullveig and we do fail, we will also lose negotiating power. We'll find it difficult or even impossible to get the more favorable terms we discussed."
Thor let his eyes drift closed for a moment. "Understood, Bragi," he said. "Speak with Tyr, and with whomever else you can find from the War Council, and tell them they are to discuss one thing and one thing only: how to knock Gullveig and Vanaheim out of this war. I'll come at the end of the meeting hour, and I'll expect to hear concrete proposals."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Mjolnir carried Thor away from the palace and to the northeast, where he would join the fighting. He didn't think about the battle along the way – battle was something he didn't really need to think about – but instead about himself, and the naiveté of his youth. About how he had risked his own neck so many times with so little concern. Whether it was Loki convincing him to try some ridiculous thing, or himself, constantly pushing his limits because he refused to recognize that he had any. A confident – arrogant – young man in the prime of his life, he'd been convinced of his own literal immortality. Now he knew better, and it made everything more difficult. But he couldn't be paralyzed by risk, either. He had to weigh it carefully, especially when it wasn't just his own life and safety he was risking, whether by action, or inaction.
Another difficult decision was coming, with tomorrow morning's War Council. But he had experience, now, in making difficult decisions. When tomorrow morning came, he would be ready.
/
/
"You'd better call him."
"Yeah. Um…can I use your room?"
Loki stared blankly, then realized why she was asking. "You know…I confess I barely know the man, but I'm fairly certain that if Selby sees you he isn't going to pounce on you and drag you away somewhere."
Jane huffed. "You might be surprised."
"What do you mean?"
"It's nothing, it was stupid. He just…kind of got a little grabby one night when-"
"What did he do?" he demanded, eyes fixed on Jane's. He would rip that man apart, starting with the hands that had gotten "grabby."
"Relax, Loki, nothing happened. He was mad because he thought I had something to do with SHIELD harassing his wife, and he grabbed me and pulled me into his room to yell at me. I told him I had nothing to do with it, and I guess he finally believed me, and he apologized for acting like a jerk."
"He didn't hurt you?"
"No. Maybe a little bruise on my arm. I'm no super-powered Asgardian, but I can whack a guy over the head with a giant physics book, or kick him where it counts."
"I'll bear it in mind," Loki said with a strained smile. "I wish you'd told me." He didn't need to ask when this had happened; he knew when it had happened. Not long after he'd made a spur-of-the-moment visit to Jessica Higgins. He'd never imagined that that particular bit of mischief could result in Jane getting hurt. Though that Selby had a short fuse and with enough pressure applied he might have an outburst that bordered on violent…that did not entirely surprise him somehow.
Jane was shaking her head. "So I could listen to you overreacting? Yeah. I'm not avoiding Selby because I think he's going to go postal or something, I'm avoiding him because I don't have time to talk to him right now, and he can be really persistent. So can I use your room?"
"All right, fine. I suppose I'll be in yours," he said, grabbing his radio and thinking he'd better not see Selby. Let that skinny puny scientist try to grab him. He wouldn't be grabbing anyone again anytime soon…not with his arms broken. But he did wish Jane had told him. If he'd known, he never would have made that trip. It had been fun, yes, deliciously so, in fact. But it had faded so quickly, so much so that now the whole thing felt more like a dream than something that had actually happened. Of course, if he'd known, then he wouldn't have gone, and if he hadn't gone then there would have been nothing to know, and then he would have gone. He sat down at Jane's desk, having met no one along the way. They were probably all at that revelry Rodrigo had mentioned.
Jane had told him once of time travel paradoxes, using the example of killing one's grandfather. He hadn't understood then, he realized now. It had been too abstract, simply too difficult for him to get his head around, possibly due to centuries' worth of societal and "fatherly" conditioning convincing him that pondering time travel was seditious and immoral. Now it made sense. This was a paradox, he thought, or at least a potential one. He thought about it further, then thought that if he didn't stop it might push him over the edge into true madness. He gave an ironic laugh. True madness might be preferable to this – the worry and fear and dread. Something made him cling to it, to his sanity, to something that kept him putting one foot in front of the other as hope disappeared and his universe, after having opened up again, now constricted more and more until it may as well have choked him.
His eyes fell on that quote he must have read or thought a hundred times now, taped to Jane's desk: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Those words, and the poem they'd come from, once lit such a fire in him. He recalled how certain he was that he would find what he was looking for, that he would never yield. He realized, looking at those words, how hollow they left him now. He realized he'd given up. The thought should have galled him – infuriated him. He folded his arms over Jane's desk and put his head down on them. He was tired.
/
/
"I asked Jarvis for the South Pole Headline News and you'll never guess what he told me."
"Earthquakes?"
"How'd you guess? Yeah. Earthquakes. Two more since we talked yesterday. And not the itsy-bitsy nobody-felt-a-thing ones you were telling me about then."
"I know. But they still weren't that bad, and everybody here is fine. We were partway through installing some updates to the programming to the seismic monitoring station down here when the last one hit; hopefully the USGS got some extra data from what we'd completed by then."
"Mm-hm. Jane, you know if you get hurt down there Thor's going to flatten me into a pancake with that hammer of his."
"Tony, come on. You're not responsible for me. And Thor's not some neanderthal."
"Oh, I beg to differ. On the first count at least. Maybe a little on the second, when his temper gets involved. But look, I'm the guy who knows who's down there with you and said, 'Hey, no problem! Have fun with Thor's wacky little brother!' I think that makes me a tiny bit responsible."
"That's not exactly what you said. I think I spent about an hour convincing you not to come straight down here to try to take him down. And then there were pictures and e-mails and videos and phone calls and code words. You're off the hook, Tony."
"Nope. Staying on the hook here. And you think any of that will make any difference to the Norse god of thunder? But since there's not a whole lot I can do about earthquakes, other than make sure you're okay, what I really called for was to update you on Earth's growing experience with interplanetary relations. Asgard's supposed to send somebody to do a press conference, uhhh, should be early afternoon tomorrow your time, for the early evening news broadcasts on the East Coast. I'm not sure who they're sending yet, but you might want to have a radio handy."
"Okay, thanks. I'm sure Loki will want to hear that, too."
"How does he like being a wanted man?"
"About as much as you'd expect."
"Well, the UN is still getting flooded with calls. As is the FBI, state and local police, and probably every federal agency and every police service across the globe. I've got Jarvis monitoring everything he can. It's mostly nut jobs, you know, an old lady in Des Moines is convinced Loki's her yard guy, a teenager is Seattle swears Loki knocked her up, that kind of thing."
"I'll be sure to tell him," Jane said dryly.
"But there's a few weird ones. Clusters of sightings, some in places you might expect – Stuttgart and New York – but then there's this cluster in Chicago, with totally weird timing. Just a few weeks ago. A waiter and a sommelier at a restaurant, a cabbie, and then this-"
"Wait, a restaurant? In Chicago? What restaurant?" "Have you ever had a soufflé?" she heard Loki asking.
"Place called Everest. Nice restaurant, I've been there. The steak's not bad. Why, have you heard of it? Does it mean anything to you?"
"No, I've never heard of it." But I'm pretty sure they serve soufflé.
"Okay. This is the weirdest one. According to this pretty much hysterical lady who called up the FBI, Loki showed up at her apartment claiming to work for SHIELD, and issuing veiled threats about her or her husband leaking SHIELD secrets. The FBI was all 'yes ma'am, yes ma'am' in that voice that says 'you're a total crackpot but I drew the short straw and have to man this tip line and if I'm not polite to you they'll stick me with more tip line duty and I'll never got to do a real job like, you know, interviewing Hannibal Lecter, or hey! tracking down the UFOs those aliens came in, because-"
"Okay, so they didn't believe…"
"Yeah, Jane, keep up. So the dates don't make sense, and I'm sure to our desk-bound Fox Mulder she sounded like she'd gone so cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs that even he didn't want to believe. But the FBI didn't know about the other sightings, the exact same city, exact same day the guys at the restaurant say they served Loki an enormous meal and enough booze for a party of four. Because those two calls went to Gullveig's UN hotline. Jarvis got all three. Now, it could just be a coincidence. Chicago's not exactly a tiny hamlet. But it gets curiouser and curiouser. Because when Jarvis flagged this cluster for me, and I checked this lady out, and…Jane, you'll never guess where her husband is at this very moment."
"The South Pole?" In the silence that followed, Jane's stomach clenched up painfully, and she pulled Loki's chair over to his desk and sat. The connection had started to click as soon as she'd interrupted Tony, so impatient for him to get to the point that she hadn't been paying that much attention to what he'd actually been saying. After all, Loki had already told her he'd used time travel to go to a nice restaurant. Apparently he'd left out the little detail where he'd dropped in on Selby's wife, who they both knew lived in Chicago, to pretend to work for SHIELD and threaten her. And in turn set Selby off against her, because Jessica had called him, and he'd freaked out, and blamed her as the only other person he'd spoken about SHIELD with.
"That was just a really lucky guess, right?" Tony finally said. "As in, 'ha ha, Tony, the husband couldn't possibly be at the South Pole, so that's what I'm going to guess?'"
"Not exactly."
"Okay. I'm just going to sit back and wait for the explanation, then, because I'm pretty sure it's going to be a good one. Also pretty sure I'm really not going to like it."
You're so not going to like it, Jane thought, while simultaneously trying to figure out some way of not telling him the truth. She didn't know how she could possibly convince him not to come down here as fast as the suit would take him if he knew Loki could show up anywhere, anytime. "Tell me one more thing first. How did the guy who looked like Loki threaten her? What did he do?"
"According to her, he didn't do anything. Except some kind of parlor trick, turning his badge to dust in her hand. Sounded like it was just his manner, the way he talked to her. It scared the daylights out of her."
Jane didn't need any additional proof, but here it was. She had no doubts Loki could have left Jessica a quivering mess without lifting a finger against her, and without making mustache-twirling threats. He could do it with innuendo, attitude, the inflection in his voice, the expression on his face. But she was relieved, at least, incredibly relieved, to hear Tony confirm her instinct that Loki hadn't done worse. It didn't make what he had done acceptable. But it did make it salvageable. If Loki had actually hurt an innocent woman, whatever his supposed reasons…despite the progress she and Loki had both made, together, she wasn't sure she could justify trying to convince Tony not to rush down here to take Loki into custody.
"Still waiting for the explanation. But don't worry, you get to it whenever you can."
"Sorry, look, it's a lot to think about, okay?"
"It's really not. We've either got the coincidence to end all coincidences – a guy who works for SHIELD who happens to look pretty much exactly like Loki except for a few curls in his hair, and who happens to have a thing for really convincing magic tricks, who shows up at the apartment of a woman who just happens to be married to an astrophysicist who works at the South Pole, and on top of all that you just made the luckiest guess in history – or you weren't exactly telling me the truth when you told me Loki couldn't go poof. It's only a lot to think about if you're trying to find a way to cover it up. And Jane, to be perfectly honest, that scares me."
"I don't…" Okay, this is bad. This is really bad. And she made a decision. She couldn't lie to Tony. It wasn't fair to him, not when she knew he genuinely felt a degree of responsibility for her safety, and for everyone else's because he too had actively helped cover up Loki's presence here. "I didn't lie, Tony. I promise you I didn't. But…I haven't necessarily told you everything that's happened, either. And-"
"No kidding, really?"
"Lay off it, Tony, I'm doing the best I can, okay?"
"Did you know he could go poof?"
"Stop calling it that. There's no 'going poof.' And no, at the time I didn't know he had any way to leave." Tony swore; Jane ignored him and kept going. "Not like that. And…it's not just him, it's me, it's something we discovered, something we worked on together. But we aren't-"
"Hold on. I think I already know where this is going. Because after this whole Chicago thing came up, and the coincidence was just a little too much to accept…you remember all those reports you send in that I told you I don't read? I started reading them. Skimming them, really, you know, helps that I was already familiar with your work. And it wasn't too long before I realized something really interesting. But it wasn't something I was seeing in your reports. It was something I wasn't seeing. I remembered that one little marvel of modern electronics I helped you with, you see – hard to forget, since I so generously gave you an arc reactor to use for the power source. And in the beginning, you sent in reports every week from the data that particular device collected. Your best data came from it, the data you put the most time and effort into analyzing. And then suddenly…nothing. It was almost like…I don't know, maybe you weren't using it to probe the nature of dark matter anymore. Like maybe you already figured out the secrets of Einstein-Rosen bridges. Like maybe you were using it to make your very own wormholes. Or something. I don't know, just a wild guess."
Jane let out a slow sigh, her lungs virtually emptying, and for a long moment didn't fill them again. It was at times her good luck, and at times her bad luck, that Tony Stark was brilliant. The only thing he hadn't known when he called was that she knew about Chicago, and even there he'd been only half-wrong. And time travel. She was pretty sure he didn't know that Loki had made that visit to Chicago earlier today or maybe last night, instead of two or three weeks ago. That, she hoped to still hold back, because if Tony knew Loki wasn't bound by time, then he'd also revisit having given up the idea that it was Loki who'd snuck into his New York building and screwed around there. And then he'd probably start thinking about all the things Loki could do to change history…make sure Tony died in Afghanistan before Iron Man ever came into being, Steve Rogers never became Captain America, however exactly that happened…the idea of it made Jane shudder, and then it made her wonder why Loki hadn't tried anything like that. He'd once said he wanted to kill Tony… But Loki wasn't a murderer. He'd said that too, and she believed him, at least in the sense that he meant it. So, no, he wouldn't assassinate Tony in Afghanistan. But wouldn't he be tempted to try something else? To improve the circumstances he was so miserable in now? "You don't know what you're asking," he'd said when she told him there could be no more Pathfinder. Maybe he meant more than stopping him from finding a way to get his magic back to full strength. But he'd had plenty of chances before now to try to make the present more to his liking. Maybe he had, without her knowledge. Maybe he'd failed somehow. Maybe he had made changes, and she had no way of knowing her own life had changed. Somehow, though, she didn't think so. And maybe-
"Jane? Still here, you know. I can hear you thinking. No more thinking. Time for talking. Tell me what's going on. And tell me if, you know, you need to talk to Pepper, too."
"Pepper? Why would I- No, no pepper. Salt. I don't need to talk to Pepper."
"Little bit of a mixed message there, weird one too, but okay. He's not in the room with you, is he?"
"No. Well, I'm in his room actually, but he's not-"
"What are you doing in his room?"
"Nothing, we were just talking, and then…" Jane gripped the phone with her right hand and ran her left down her face. "It would be so much easier if we could do this person instead of over the phone."
"I can arrange that. Happy to, as a matter of fact."
"No! No, Tony. I know all this looks bad, but it's not what it looks like. Or I mean, I guess it is what it looks like, but… You're right. It's a long story and I'll tell you the whole thing later, but…you said you read some Norse mythology. Do you remember Yggdrasil?"
"Failing to see the connection here, but okay, sure. Wells and stags and squirrels and…and it connects the Nine Realms. Scratch what I just said about not seeing the connection. Are you telling me Yggdrasil is real?"
"Yeah, not so much that other stuff, not that I know of, but yeah. Yggdrasil is a wormhole. Not quite the kind predicted in physics, but a wormhole all the same. And we figured out how to use Pathfinder to-"
"Pathfinder?"
"The device you helped with. We named it. Or…Loki named it, actually. I wanted to call it the Arc Launcher."
"Gotta go with Loki on this one. Which is really weird. Okay. So Loki started using Pathfinder…as his own personal Scotty-beam-me-up transporter? Via a mythological Norse tree that's actually a wormhole that ignores the laws of physics?"
Jane cringed. She'd gotten so used to her life here that she'd forgotten how insane it had to sound from the outside. "Basically, yes."
"Next question. You don't think opening up a wormhole over the South Pole might have a little something to do with your highly improbable multiple earthquakes?"
"I was getting there. Yeah. I do. So we're not using Pathfinder anymore."
"We?"
"Loki agreed, too."
"That's a relief. If I believed it. But that's not what I meant. You've used Pathfinder, too?"
Jane rolled her eyes. "Of course I have. Are you telling me you wouldn't have?"
"No, I would never- Yeah. Yeah, I totally would. And don't think I don't have a million questions for you about it. But I wouldn't use it to harass some poor teacher. And I really don't know you all that well, Jane, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't either. Actually, even for Loki it's kind of…pathetic. A few hundred rungs down on the ladder from world domination."
"I didn't know about it, the Chicago trip. Not until today. Did he do anything at all there that's illegal?"
Tony didn't immediately respond. "I don't know," he finally said. "Jarvis?"
"Based on Mrs. Higgins's description in her phone call, he did not, sir," Jane heard in the background.
"Not even harassment?"
"His actions did not rise to the level of criminal harassment. The closest he came to illegal activity was in impersonating a SHIELD agent, but as SHIELD is an organization that shrouds itself in secrecy, I don't believe it's a prosecutable offense."
Thank God, Jane thought. Loki had been a jerk, unkind and probably a bit cruel, but Jane already knew that was one aspect of who Loki was, who he could be. But if he not only hadn't hurt Jessica in any way but also hadn't broken a single law…she was feeling much better now. Even Tony knowing about Pathfinder was a massive relief, despite how hard she'd tried to keep it from him before. Assuming he stayed put… "No laws broken, nobody's in danger, and nobody's using Pathfinder again, at least not until I've had a chance to study how it works a lot more. And it would be great if I could get your help with that, Tony. You have the resources I don't, along with the technical expertise, and I don't want SHIELD involved in this at all. This is just between us, okay?"
"Flattery will get you everywhere. I can't wait to get it into my lab. And don't worry, you can't imagine the earthquakes if SHIELD found out about this. They're already poking around, and they've started watching everybody that comes and goes from the tower. They know something's up, they just have no idea what. But let's get back to this whole 'and Loki agreed not to use it anymore too' thing. He gave you his word on that, did he?"
"Yeah, Tony, he did."
"Uh-huh. Did Loki pinky swear?"
"It took some convincing," Jane said, shaking her head, "but he did agree not to use it. I know it's hard for you to believe, but…it's been months. Loki has friends here. People like him."
"Whoah. I'm thinking there's either a lot higher than normal proportion there of people who have blue eyes, or else this is some really weird acid trip flashback. And I never dropped acid."
"Tony, I get it, okay? I get it. You don't trust him, I know that. He's never given you any cause to. And I…I'm disappointed about the Chicago thing. He's not into world domination anymore, but he's not perfect. None of us is. And if you're going to blame him for the earthquakes, then you have to blame me just as much. As soon as I made it clear to him that our use of Pathfinder was endangering lives here, as soon as he got that, he told me he wouldn't use it anymore. His attitude toward us, toward…humans, it's changed so much. He's not the same person he was then. Look, I could sit here arguing this with you all day, but there's a lot going on here, and I need to talk to Loki about Chicago. If you-"
"Are you sure that's such a good idea? Confronting him about something he obviously didn't want you to know about? And what's he got against that lady anyway?"
"I've confronted him about way worse. I'll be fine. And that lady…I don't really know…" She thought for a second she did know, that he'd done it because of how Selby had grabbed her that time, but she dismissed the idea instantly, for Loki had only found out about that after he'd gone to Chicago. "I think it must be something between him and Selby, Jessica's husband. Listen, maybe you can to talk to Jessica yourself. And…you know, reassure her. That she's safe, that nobody's going to be bothering her again."
"Except if the real SHIELD gets wind of this, they'll definitely be knocking on her door and bothering her. And they've got to be monitoring all those tip line calls, too. Of course they don't have Jarvis. But sure, I'll talk to her, and I'll do what I can to keep SHIELD from picking up this particular scent. But you're right. I told you before, it's you I trust. Not him."
"I understand."
"So you do your part, keeping Loki's feet firmly planted at the South Pole, and I'll do mine, keeping everybody else away from the South Pole. Metaphorically speaking. Physically speaking, the temperature will keep taking care of that for us. But you should know, there've been other calls that stand out. An old lady in Canada called the Mounties and said she'd sat next to a man who looked just like that man on TV, on an airplane from Saskatoon to Toronto. She said he was tall and she switched seats with him to give him more legroom. She said he was, and I quote, 'such a nice young man that he couldn't possibly have been that man who attacked New York.' She thought the whole Gullveig thing must have been a hoax. Then there was the woman in Christchurch, New Zealand, who said he looked like, annnd I quote, 'some pervert who came on to me in Riccarton Bush.' She told him off and threw her coffee on him, and says she'll be perfectly happy to testify against him. Then-"
"I think that's enough," Jane said, wincing at that last one. She could perfectly imagine Loki, in one of his more gentlemanly moods, being called a "nice young man," but it really didn't seem like him to do something that would get him called a "pervert." She wondered if it could have just been some kind of massive miscommunication.
"No, you need to hear this. A guy who was down at McMurdo and left there before they closed for winter says he thinks he saw Loki there. Luckily for Loki's sake, it's just the one reported sighting from there, at least that Jarvis picked up. A bunch of McMurdo sightings that happen to get picked up by the same agency…"
"Trouble," Jane said. Loki's concern, she thought, maybe wasn't as misplaced as she'd thought."
"With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool."*
"Okay, got it. Please keep me posted."
"Count on it. But there's one more you really need to hear about, an older sighting. From a man who said he was living in Puente Antiguo when their town got busted up by that strange experimental US Air Force craft that went haywire. He's convinced he ran into Loki the night before. He's so convinced in part because the guy actually said 'Hi, my name is Loki.' And get this, Jane. Loki asked him for directions. He was looking for you."
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*"With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool." - This is a quote and line from the chorus of the song "Ya Got Trouble" (better known as "Trouble in River City) from the classic 1962 musical movie The Music Man. On the off chance you have a raving desire to hear the song, Google "Trouble in River City." It can be used to suggest someone is really stretching his or her argument. Or it can be used randomly when someone uses the word "trouble."
Many many thanks dear readers, reviewers, favers, followers. It took over two weeks to get you this chapter - not because of any crazy power or internet problems, but because the next chapter was exceedingly difficult to write (okay and I did have a busy weekend this past weekend, but still). I had the biggest grin on my face when I typed the last sentence and realized I was done. I'm a bit behind responding to reviews, but if you haven't heard back from me yet you will soon.
Previews for Ch. 127: Now's probably a good time to stop giving you previews because probably they'll get too spoilery. To keep it super vague, yes, Jane does confront Loki, and, maybe gets a little more than she bargained for.
Excerpt:
"We had an agreement that in return for me not lying and…what was it? Giving you looks? That you would keep my presence here a secret. I believe our agreement was already null and void by then."
"Was it? You know I never told anybody. And for a null and void agreement you stayed pretty insistent that I'm doing bathrooms and dishpit."
Loki gave a small, humorless laugh. "Were you under the impression that I was honorable? Trustworthy?"