Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two – Messages
"You mean…Your Majesty, I, uh, I'm sorry, but birds don't talk. Not here, anyway. Maybe on Asgard."
Frigga turned back to him with a laugh, restrained by new tension. "They don't on Asgard, either. But these particular birds, they do communicate. They are of Asgard. They are the All-Father's. He has sent them here."
"Yeah?" Tony said, eyebrows going up. "Okay. Talking birds, no biggee. Communicating birds, sorry. So…what exactly did they communicate? Trouble on Asgard?"
She hesitated. She barely knew this man from another realm, but Thor trusted him. And while Thor had at times trusted too easily, he had matured a great deal since the debacle on Jotunheim, and his choice of friend and ally had proven sound; Tony's assistance was crucial to Asgard's survival. She decided she would trust him as well. "All is well. Hugin, Munin, fair winds." Munin, always the more vocal of the two, cawed, and they both flew off.
"When Asgard wins this war, can I go hang out for a while? Learn how to communicate with birds, maybe? Do they communicate anything interesting?"
"You will be a most welcome, honored guest," Frigga said. "However, I don't think that communicating with birds will be part of your itinerary. Hugin and Munin communicate only with the All-Father."
"You were asking them why they were here…just to be polite?"
She gave another small laugh. "I may have taught them a code a millennium or so ago. When my sons were boys. I wanted Hugin and Munin to be able to inform me as well if they observed any trouble with the boys, so I asked them to bob their heads to the left if trouble with Loki, and to the right if trouble with Thor. Just now…they bobbed their heads to the left."
"Trouble with Loki?" he asked, instantly tensing. "What kind?"
"There's no trouble with Loki. Not that we know of. We don't know where he is."
"But you just…yeah, you lost me."
"When Hugin and Munin soar the realms, it is to bring back word on some matter to the All-Father. He doesn't need them to observe this press conference; I will report on all that happens here. They stopped by to see me…to say hello. But they're here for another purpose, and that purpose, so they told me, is Loki. Which can only mean that the All-Father believes Loki is likely on Midgard. Earth, excuse me. Thus what it really means," Frigga said, careful to betray no reaction in her expression or intonation, "is that the All-Father wishes to find Loki."
"I see," Tony said. Frigga could tell he was just as carefully watching his own reaction, and this made her curious. "What about Thor? He's still king, right? Are you sure it's Odin…the All-Father, that's looking for him? Can Thor talk to the birds, too?"
Frigga gave a startled laugh, and this time it was unrestrained, albeit brief. "I suppose, technically, he can. He has the ability, because he's been given Gungnir, but he would have to learn the skill to use it, and while many abilities come naturally to my eldest, this does not. Not that it stopped him, or Loki for that matter, from trying to communicate with them when he was younger. No, it was without question Odin who sent the ravens of the throne. It is Odin who wishes to find Loki."
"That wouldn't by any chance be because he wants to…uh…to…"
"I am aware that you are a man who speaks bluntly. There are of course occasions when greater decorum is required…but this is not one of them."
"Does he want to cart Loki off to Jotunheim?" Tony asked immediately.
"He does not want to, no. I believe that he wants all options to be available."
"So Loki's a life-sized bargaining chip now?"
"Why do you care, Tony? He tried to kill you," Frigga said, a probe more than anything. Tony clearly didn't like Loki – Frigga expected nothing different – and yet…
"I don't. I don't care care, anyway. I just think that's a lousy way for a dad to treat his son. Sorry, you said 'be blunt' and I dialed the filter from chokingly high to I'm-probably-going-to-regret-this zero."
"That's all right. I prefer to know what you're really thinking, and in these trying times, better to know it quickly than to tease it apart over long-winded diplomatic conversations."
"That's a relief, because trust me, no one has ever called me a diplomat."
"I trust you, Tony," Frigga responded, a hint of teasing in her smile, though she quickly grew serious again. "Thor is still king, but Odin is the All-Father. A decision for the future of Asgard's rule has not yet been made. They do not necessarily see eye-to-eye on how to handle the other realms' demand for Loki. But before you judge Odin, please bear in mind that he is not just a father, and never has been. He is sworn to protect and defend all of Asgard, every last Asgardian citizen, from the oldest to the youngest, from the strongest to the weakest. Not just his sons. Thor has never borne this level of responsibility before. Odin has. It's a terrible burden to bear," she finished, looking away for a moment.
"I'm sure it is," Tony said, though he didn't look convinced; in fact, it looked like his "filter" had gone back up to high. "So the birds, Hugin and Munin, they're looking for Loki. Any idea how good they are at that? Do you think they'll find him, if he's here?"
"They're very good. They're fast, their vision is impeccable, and they need little rest or sustenance. And though yours is a large realm, with many people…Loki will stand out to them among the Midgardians, as would any of those of the other realms. It won't be easy, but yes, I believe they will find him."
"And then what?"
"I don't know," she said truthfully. It was high on her agenda to ask once she returned to Asgard, though. One thing she did know was that Tony knew more than he was saying. If he didn't already know where Loki was, then he had a suspicion, a guess, or at least a few clues. Which meant that in all likelihood, Odin was correct. "I believe it must be nearly time. Shall we make our way around to the dais?"
"Yeah, just…will you be okay for a minute? I need to return a phone call."
Frigga nodded and waited where she was while Tony stepped back into his car.
Whatever Tony knew, for the moment it was better he keep it to himself.
/
/
The bathroom eventually got clean – a little faster than expected because after a while Sue showed up, saw Jane cleaning, and stepped in to help. Sue went back to the party, and Jane turned down another invitation with a "maybe later." Instead, she headed to the Science Lab, as she'd decided while mopping the floor.
The Science Lab was in the B-pod, and while they'd been directed not to go there unless it was truly necessary, Jane figured this was a worthy exception. If she could put together an appropriate modeling program, maybe she could more clearly tie the earthquakes to specific time travel events, or else to the cumulative impact of multiple time travel events. Or maybe that they have nothing to do with time travel at all, she thought. "Right," she muttered aloud, for she knew that was just wishful thinking. If the pattern was clear enough, and the modeling program sophisticated enough, maybe she could even predict if they could expect more earthquakes regardless of putting a halt to using Pathfinder. That kind of modeling program, though, wasn't going to come from her. She was either going to have to find it in the large suite of analysis tools she already had access to, or she was going to have to get help. Tony was the first to come to mind. But that wasn't happening. Young-Soo was great at computer modeling…but if she brought him in on this, she'd either have to tell him a lot more than she had before, or she'd have to leave him completely in the dark about what exactly the events were that he was tying to earthquakes.
In the Science Lab – eerie now with no one else in it at all – she logged into her computer and started on the most basic step, setting up a spreadsheet, with columns for each time travel event and separately for each earthquake, and rows for all the relevant or potentially relevant measurable details about them. Staring at a mass of empty cells, she realized just how much actual specific data she was missing.
A few minutes later she was in nearby Comms, where Rodrigo was alone with a shortwave radio on low volume. "How're the satellites today?" she asked him, as she so often did.
"The least of our worries, for once. Although I guess if they both chose today to finally crash and burn into the atmosphere, that would really make a bad day that much worse. What are you doing down here? There's a party in the galley. I think just about everybody's there."
"I know. I was looking for Olivia."
"The managers are holed up in one of the offices with a sat phone. We're going to have the biggest sat phone bill in the history of sat phones. Somebody's got to help keep Iridium in business, I guess."
"Yeah. Tony Stark's doing his part, too. Thanks for fielding all those phone calls from him."
"No problem. Closest I'll ever come to somebody famous, probably."
"Maybe," Jane said with a nervous breathy laugh, thinking of Loki's 32 million hits.
"What did you need Olivia for? Anything I can help with? I'm pretty in the loop on all this."
"I was hoping to get the exact figures on the earthquakes. Dates, times, depth, strength, duration, everything."
"I've got all that. We're getting a lot of inquiries, and I'm fielding most of them, you know, so the managers don't have to spend all their time answering the same questions every ten minutes. Here, I'll shoot it over to you on the intranet, and print you out a hard copy, too."
Jane thanked him enthusiastically, and while she waited, the voice on the ham radio caught her attention. "…rife with speculation about who is making this special appearance, but sources at Stark Industries, whose CEO Pepper Potts organized the press conference, will only reiterate that billionaire Tony Stark himself is not the speaker." "Well, Ruben," another voice continued, "I guess we'll find out in just about twenty minutes from now, if it happens on schedule."
"Here you go," Rodrigo said, handing over a stack of probably twenty or thirty sheets of paper. "Executive summary followed by more of the nitty-gritty you beakers like. I thought you looked at outer space, not underground."
"Everybody needs a change of pace now and then," Jane said with a wry smile. "What's this press conference they're talking about?" she asked, glancing toward the radio on his desk.
"Beats me. That's the question of the hour. Or the last several hours. Those guys on the radio all think it must have something to do with Loki and that Gullveig guy that showed up a couple days ago."
Jane nodded as her eyebrows went up. Someone SHIELD hadn't seen before had shown up at Tony's place in New York, and Tony had turned off his phone… "Maybe Asgard sent somebody to do their own press conference, to counter Gullveig's."
"That's what a lot of people think, according to the radio. Hopefully they're here to say they didn't send Loki back here, and that Gullveig guy was lying through his smug little alien teeth. Not exactly a friendly gesture from these guys who I guess were supposed to be our friends, you know?"
"I'm sure they had their reasons. And if they did send him here…maybe they first made sure he couldn't hurt anybody. Nobody's attacked New York, or any other place."
"Yeah, maybe. But I still- Hold on," he said, reaching for one of the Iridium phones that had started beeping.
"I should go. I'll let you get back to work," Jane whispered as Rodrigo gave her a wave and answered the phone. Printout in hand, she went not to the Science Lab, but to the galley, hoping to find Loki. He should know about the press conference, and she also needed him to help fill in the time travel data on her spreadsheet; the data was all on her laptop out in the jamesway, but she kept forgetting to ask Loki for the password he'd put on it. When she got in, she wasn't surprised not to see him there. The music was loud and the dancing serious, and around a third of the people, maybe more, were in some kind of costume. Jane made her way over to the bar, on the left, smiling and waving at those who noticed her arrival and tried to call her over.
"Welcome to the Slackers' Ball. What can I get you?" Gary asked over the music. Apparently he'd taken over bartending duty from Zeke, whom she'd glimpsed in the crowd that was dancing.
"Nothing, thanks. Has Lucas been by here?"
"No. Not since I got here, anyway. Haven't seen him in…what's it been, an hour or two? He came outside to take a look at the columns while I was there."
"Really?" she said, feeling a little bit relieved. She'd imagined him in hiding somewhere brooding; this was an improvement over her imagination. "Did he seem okay?"
"Far as I know. I guess maybe he seemed a little down. Everybody's that way though…whether they show it or not," he said, sweeping a hand in front of him, toward the crowd.
"Okay. If you see him, will you tell him I'm looking for him?"
Gary agreed, and Jane headed out of the galley and into the berthing wing. She passed her own room and knocked on Loki's door, again cracking open the door and peeking inside to confirm he wasn't there before turning back to her own room. The phone sticking out of her jeans pocket beeped and she pulled it out just as she opened her door. "Hello?" she said, dropping the earthquake data on her desk and starting to pull out ECW gear from her armoire.
"Hey, Jane, sorry I missed your call. Everything okay?" Tony asked.
"Yeah, I just wanted to let you know we had a little bit of damage from that last earthquake."
"Damage? You said there was no damage." Jane could hear the worry in his voice.
"I didn't know about it at the time. But it's not too bad, just a couple of columns."
"As in the columns that are holding up that building you live in?"
"Yeah, those."
"If the station was swaying in the wind, would you tell me, or would you still say, 'Don't worry, we're fine'?"
"I would tell you. I promise. They're still assessing it, but we're definitely not swaying in the wind. If it does turn out that there's a serious problem, do you think you could look at the damage and see if there's anything you can do? I know that's not your kind of engineering but-"
"I'll start reading up on it as soon as I can. As soon as I'm done here. Jane, you said you've got shortwave?"
"Yeah. I heard. Ever since Gullveig dropped by I guess there's usually one turned on. There's going to be a press conference? Somebody from Asgard?"
"Yep. I'd ask you to guess, but I'm really short on time. Let's pretend I gave you three guesses and you got them all wrong. It's Thor's and Loki's mom. And there's something she told me…" – he paused to audibly groan – "I think some of this shrapnel must have worked its way up to my brain and done some damage, but you should really tell Loki that there's a couple of Asgardian birds here looking for him. He'll know the ones. His dad's personal avian Mata Haris. And before you say birds can't make it to the South Pole, let me tell you that Her Majesty asked the birds a question and they answered. Tower of London ravens these are not."
Jane thanked Tony for the information that was taking a while to sink in – Thor's and Loki's mother was here, on Earth? and bird spies, too? – and promised again to call if their situation worsened, then put her attention into getting the ECW gear on. The list of things she needed to talk to Loki about was growing. Now she had an idea of where he might be. It seemed unlikely he'd still be down there, under the station, but it was the only lead she had, and she knew the cold didn't bother him as much as it did everyone else here.
When she had her layers on – hand- and face-gear in Big Red's pockets – she grabbed her backpack from the floor, tossed her Nalgene water bottle in it, then the black notebook just in case. She picked up the stack of papers she'd dropped haphazardly on her desk, but those were about the earthquakes, not time travel. She really didn't need them to talk to Loki. She was about to set them back down when she noticed there'd been another piece of paper underneath the ones now in her hand, and on top of it, a pen. Not just any pen, but Loki's 600-year-old Asgardian pen. Annoyance flared; why couldn't he just slip a note under the door instead of letting himself into her room and writing her a note at her own desk? It passed quickly though, given that she'd let herself into his room more than once today. She set the earthquake data down to the side and flopped into the chair to read the note.
Dear Jane,
I have not forgotten that I gave you certain assurances, that I would not do certain things. But I hope you have not forgotten that I once said that you trusted me too much. What I do, I must do. I don't do it to hurt you, though I understand that it will. I have no choice. This time I must act. I recognize that it's irrational, but all the same I hope that you can somehow forgive me. If all goes as I expect, though, you'll never know there was ever anything to forgive.
Keep the pen. Take it apart, examine it, test the ink if you like or simply write with it. I don't need it. I've stolen enough pens from this station to last…I suppose however long Midgardian pens typically last.
Loki
/
/
The cacophony that had once raged inside him had been silenced, the constant unrest in his thoughts, their fickle twists and turns, all that had faded and disappeared. In its place was perfect clarity and an odd sense of disconnection. He knew exactly what needed to be done, and any qualms he might once have had about doing it were gone as well. His plan before had been hasty and ill-conceived. Built around convenience instead of strategy. Short-sighted. But at its ultimate core, it hadn't been incorrect. It merely needed to be adjusted. It needed to be moved earlier. Much, much earlier. It wasn't one isolated series of events he needed to change. It was absolutely everything. And in this, there was no doubt. He thought back to the movie Jane had shown him, Back to the Future, and thought it was unfortunate he didn't have a family portrait with him to watch for a fading head.
Making the changes to Pathfinder's programming was easy by now, though determining the exact coordinates for his arrival this time took some effort, and more time than he would have liked. His knife – the good one – was on the small table in front of him.
When the program was complete, he sent it to Pathfinder, stood, and took the knife, which he'd already decided he would not sheathe, but keep in his bare hand. There should be no Einherjar where he was going, but there were no guarantees; it was best to be prepared. Besides, his hands still hadn't regained full sensation. Scrambling for the knife with diminished dexterity in some unforeseen emergency, or fumbling with it and dropping it, drawing unwanted attention, could prevent him from carrying out his task.
He went out back, behind the jamesway, at the back edge of Summer Camp, the end of what passed for civilization here.
He hoped it wouldn't cause an earthquake. If it did, in the end it shouldn't matter. All this would be changed. There would never have been any earthquakes. Jane would never meet Thor, she would never meet him, she would never get an arc reactor from Tony Stark, and SHIELD would never send her to the South Pole. And if somehow he were completely wrong, and this portion of the timeline still continued, including more earthquakes, then if it was bad enough and Jane's life was in imminent danger, Tony Stark would contact Thor and Thor would leave the battle long enough to swoop down and rescue Jane, and, knowing him, the rest of the Polies, too, even though he'd never met them.
He nodded his head crisply, affirming his decision to himself and to the cosmos. He pressed the button.
/
/
Jane stared at the short note, comprehension slowed by disbelief. "Pathfinder," she breathed. He's going to use Pathfinder again? That has to be it. But he promised me he wouldn't use it! In other words…he lied, she thought bitterly. It threw her world into a stomach-turning spin. Every time she turned around, it seemed, she was finding out some new lie. And not little while lies, either. Big, glaring ones. And every time, somehow, she wound up accepting his explanations and forgiving him. He knows the risk now. How could he do that? she asked herself, and as she did so, the thought became less knee-jerk and more contemplative. How could he do that? He doesn't admit it, but I know he likes hanging out with people here. I know it. He was in that meeting this morning. He knows the station is already damaged. He knows using Pathfinder could cause another earthquake and make it worse. He even went out to see it himself.
"I don't do it to hurt you…but I know that it will…" Jane tightened her jaw as she reread it. This roller-coaster had been non-stop since Alfheim. She'd thought the dips couldn't possibly get any deeper or more sudden than when he'd admitted to intending to kill Thor, and yet somehow she'd accepted even that. Not forgiven it, really, but accepted it, reasoning that intent didn't equate to guilt, not if he changed his mind, not if his intent changed.
"This time I must act. I recognize that it's irrational, but all the same I hope that you can somehow forgive me…This time I must act…" Jane's eyes fell on these words and now could not move past them. This time? Meaning…unlike last time? When he didn't act? Her breaths stuttered as her throat constricted. Last time…with Thor?
In an earlier moment of particularly dark humor, she'd thought of Loki's plan to kill Thor as him finding a unique solution to solving his problems. But he hadn't done it. However it had happened, whatever exactly had gone through his head, he hadn't been able to murder Thor in the end. But what if it wasn't just his problems he thought he'd be solving? What if it was hers, too? What if it was all 49 other people living at this station? Could he really do it? Kill Thor out of some belief that it'll save everyone here? It seemed crazy…but Loki had lately done a number of things that seemed pretty crazy. And he thinks I could forgive him for that? More likely he thinks he won't ever have to look me in the eye again.
The fear and incredulity in her face fell away. I'll make him look me in the eye.
She dropped the note and grabbed her backpack. It was a gamble. It was a terrible gamble. She didn't know what she'd be walking into. And she was risking causing another earthquake herself. But she couldn't let Loki do this. She didn't want Loki killing Thor, or anyone, on her behalf, and she couldn't imagine the others here would want that done in their name, either.
Hand on the doorknob, she froze. Her laptop, the one connected to Pathfinder, was password-protected…and she didn't know the password. If she didn't get there before it timed out and locked up, or if Loki had locked it himself already…she swung open the door and didn't bother closing it as she ran down the hall.
Just as she reached the double metal doors that separated the berthing wing from the bathrooms and the main corridor, they burst open and Jane collided with Selby.
"Jane!" Selby exclaimed, apparently just as startled as she was. His voice then dropped to a whisper. "I have to talk to you."
"Not now, Selby, I'm sorry," she said, starting to push past him, but he stepped in front of her and blocked her way. "I have to-"
"Jane, listen to me," he whispered. "I don't care what else you think you have to do. You have to listen-"
"Not now," she said, trying again to get around him.
"Lucas isn't who he says he is. His name's not Lucas. It's Loki."
"What?" Jane said, stunned into stillness. Her mind fell blank, unwilling to believe what she'd just heard, and she had no idea what to say.
"He threatened me this morning. And it got me thinking about what happened to Jessica. I told you about it, remember? But it wasn't somebody from SHIELD, like he told her. She recognized him from the picture Gullveig showed. It was Loki. Loki threatened my wife. And I don't know how he got to Chicago from here, but I know Lucas is him, because she e-mailed me a picture she took of the TV screen, right before we lost the window. You can see his face better there than in the pictures online. It's him, Jane. It's been him the whole time. I don't know what he's trying to do here, but we have to do something to stop him."
"It's…I'm sure…it can't be-"
"It is, will you listen to me? I talked to Wright, and he didn't believe me. He's drunk and… Look, you're Loki's only connection here. He might be after you-"
Wright, too? Jane thought, slowly emerging from the shock. "If he wanted to hurt me he's had months to do it. Lucas isn't-"
"I'm telling you he is!" Selby shouted, before lowering his voice again. "I was right there in the bathroom," he said, pointing to his right, "when he was talking to Tristan and Paul and Paul was dressed up like Loki and I swear to God for a minute there I thought Loki was going to kill him and I was scared stiff. And he said his mother liked him in green, and capes are a status symbol. You know people, you know Iron Man, what about the rest of them, Captain America, the Hulk…can you get them here?"
Jane pictured her laptop and the minutes counting down on it before it locked up, and she started nodding, frantically. "Yeah. Yeah, I can. I'll call them okay? Just go to your room and stay there. I'll call the Avengers, and they'll figure out how to get here," she said, pushing past him again; this time he let her. "Just stay in your room," she said again before opening the door and leaving Selby behind.
She broke into a run again as soon as the door behind her closed; no one else was in the main corridor and she didn't hear anyone following, so she hoped Selby was doing what she told him to and not taking it into his own hands to tell more people at the station or start making satellite phone calls to the outside world. At least Wright apparently hadn't believed him, and no wonder, since she figured he would sound a little crazy to anyone who didn't know the truth. It was another problem – a huge one – but it would have to wait.
/
/
When his feet touched a solid surface, he stood on a balcony three or four times the size of his chambers. This precise view, with its particular angle out over the spires and splendor was familiar, but especially so from his childhood, when he'd spent a fair amount of time here. He turned and found the doors open and the white sheers billowing in the breeze, just as he'd hoped. His mother had always liked fresh air flowing through her chambers.
He stepped closer to the threshold, hearing nothing from beyond it, then at the sound of an unknown rustling inside stopped and pressed himself behind a column.
"What do you think, Your Majesty?" a woman's voice that Loki couldn't place asked quietly.
"It's perfect. Just make sure Ranlin and Kvigur aren't seated next to each other. They need to work out their dispute but we don't need them arguing over it at the feast. Don't put either of them next to Finnulfur, either. They might get defensive."
One of the Protocol clerks then, Loki thought, holding still and listening.
"Of course, Your Majesty. I'll bring you the seating chart for approval before releasing it."
"Good. Oh! Tulkur is still waiting to see me, isn't he? I'd forgotten. Deliberately, most likely. I was really hoping for a quick nap today. The timing is perfect and that happens so rarely now."
"I understand," the other woman said with a soft laugh.
"Well, let's go. I'll speak to him out by the front door and remain standing. Subliminal suggestion, hm?" Loki could hear the smile in her voice.
"Very good, Your Majesty."
The bedchamber beyond the open doors fell silent, and Loki counted to ten before moving, grateful there would be no nap. In the end, really, he could not have asked for better timing. It was the complete opposite of his travel to Puente Antiguo. Perhaps, he thought, it was a good sign.
He'd always wanted this to be epic.
/
/
Jane ran across the ice through the night-sky afternoon. Twice she fell, but either the layers absorbed most of the impact or else the pain just didn't register. Get to the laptop. Get to the laptop. She repeated the mantra over and over in her head. Maybe Loki hadn't even left yet. He would have had to reprogram Pathfinder, to set it to wherever and whenever he next planned to approach Thor. Puente Antiguo again? Would he kill him right next to her? She couldn't imagine it. But she didn't dwell on it. Everything else would come later. For right now only one thing mattered.
Get to the laptop.
She raced past through the first row of jamesways, past the handful of dormant buildings between the deserted two rows, then threw open the door of the one they'd been using for months now. She registered with vague disappointment that Loki wasn't there, but didn't stop running until she reached the table that held her work laptop. She ran a frantic gloved pointer-finger over the touchpad even before she saw that the screen was still active.
All the adrenaline that had carried her out to Summer Camp in record time drained out in equally record time and she all but fell into the closest of the two chairs, staring blankly at the computer. Get to the laptop. She hadn't planned beyond that.
"Think," she ordered herself. "What now?" Loki had definitely been here, and not long ago, but then he had gone somewhere. The laptop was active, and he wasn't here. Could he have changed his mind? Could he have gone back to the station, gone between different jamesways, and somehow I missed him? She didn't think so, but that was easily checked, via the laptop, which logged everything done on it. She closed her eyes for a moment, to try to force herself to refocus, then stripped off her gloves, hat, and facemask and got to work. She and Loki had gone over all this before, in detail. She knew how he'd programmed Pathfinder, and interpreting the log was easy now that she knew what she was looking at.
And there it was. There was no denying it, no more wishful thinking that maybe he'd realized this was just as bad an idea as it was the first time and turned back. She found the numeric place-code lines first. Definitely not Puente Antiguo. She recognized it, or the first several digits of the numbers anyway, from their trip to Alfheim – their trip to Alfheim for which they'd used Pathfinder to travel to Asgard. So he'd gone to Asgard, though not to the exact same place, but not that far from it either, relatively speaking. Still in the city. As she looked at them further, the numbers looked even more familiar…Loki had gone somewhere very near here on one of his earlier trips.
She let that thought hang and quickly found the time code. This one was easy to interpret, tied to their local time here at the South Pole as it was, but still she bit her lip and scanned the surrounding code to make sure she wasn't looking at the wrong thing. Because the date…
Over a thousand years ago. Before Harvest Day. Before their Harvest Day, at least. Thor would be just a baby.
"Oh my God," she whispered through the fingers covering her mouth. A sleeping, mortal Thor wasn't vulnerable enough? He wanted a truly defenseless Thor? Her thoughts seized up at the incomprehensibility of it. She knew he could be violent. She knew he could kill. She knew he could at least act like he had no heart. But this was beyond the pale.
Her eyes cleared, and her gaze swept over the code on the screen, then down to the two cables that trailed out along the floor and through the back of the jamesway, out to Pathfinder itself. She had to stop Loki. And right in front of her was exactly the means to do it. Loki had come after her when she'd rushed headlong to Asgard and would have fallen to her death. She would go after him and stop him, too, from falling.
She felt a sense of urgency, but at the same time told herself to remain calm and not be overly hasty. As far as she could tell, it didn't matter how long ago Loki had left. Unlike the incident when Loki had caught her in his dusty net, the programming Pathfinder now had from the laptop specified time of arrival – she would arrive on Asgard at the exact same time Loki had, whether he'd left ten seconds ago or ten hours ago. But that, she realized, was probably a bad idea. The programming specified precise time and precise place. If she used it, just went right outside and pressed the go-button…she and Loki could collide, and at speeds of travel that would obliterate them both. She didn't know for certain that that would happen – Pathfinder was a machine relying on computer programming, but Yggdrasil was neither machine nor a "normal" wormhole and perhaps would somehow make adjustments. The risk, though, was entirely avoidable. All she had to do was make a few minor changes to the programming.
There were still a lot of unknowns. She didn't know where exactly Loki was arriving, and if there was a particular reason he went to the exact time he did. She didn't know how long he might stay exactly where he'd arrived, and she didn't know how quickly he might make his move against Thor.
She settled on two minutes. Exactly two minutes later than Loki's arrival on Asgard. Enough time, she hoped, that he would have moved from whatever precise patch of ground Yggdrasil had set him down on, but not so long, she hoped, that he would have disappeared from the area. With the help of a simple Control-F the programming was quickly and easily changed. Jane got all her gear back in place – the ECW gear and the Pathfinder gear – and hurried around back, more careful of her steps now than she had been on the way out here, and pressed the button as soon as she got there.
Five. And then regretted it. She should have taken at least a little bit of time to think this through.
Four. Because she had no idea what she would say to Loki to try to stop him from making a terrible mistake, and she certainly wasn't going to be able to physically stop him.
Three. Though maybe she could alert someone else, a guard maybe, if she lost track of where Loki was, or if Loki wouldn't listen to her.
Two. Jane looked down at herself. She decidedly did not look Asgardian now, in Big Red and black Carhartts and white Bunny Boots.
One. What if she did all this, risking her life by blindly following Loki, risking more earthquakes here and further endangering 48 other lives…and she was simply arrested as soon as she arrived?
Too late, she thought, though it would have been easy to simply turn Pathfinder off and abort the journey until she'd considered it more carefully. Her mind told her to wait, to analyze, to plan, but her heart told her to go now, to get to Loki as quickly as she could, even though Loki would perceive her earlier or later arrival as the same two minutes.
Her eyes had closed instinctively as they usually did when using Pathfinder, but she forced them open, and while she couldn't really feel her body, she imagined she could, and she tried to prepare herself for the unknown circumstances of her arrival. She didn't have time to indulge the unsteadiness and nausea that usually happened at the end. She would need to react quickly.
Dark streaks turned to light, sensation returned, gravity returned, and there was the familiar rolling stomach, but Jane quickly steadied herself as she assessed her surroundings and double-checked that the RF switch was toggled to the off position. Her breaths came in quiet little pants, either from the stress of the travel or the stress of the arrival, she wasn't sure.
She was definitely on Asgard. The sun beat down heavily on her, and she squinted her eyes against its reflections off the towers in the distance. She stood on a large stone patio – a balcony, actually, she realized when she saw it was not at ground level; she didn't think she'd ever seen a balcony this large. It had a few furnishings, small tables and richly upholstered chairs, and a series of widely-spaced support columns heavily inlaid with what looked like gold. Behind her, she saw when she slowly turned to take everything in, was a building that extended only a little further above her. Opaque white sheers covered the entrance to the building and fluttered in a light breeze. She couldn't hear anything other than the rustling of leaves on a small potted white-flowered tree.
Loki wasn't on the balcony, and unless he'd taken up flying, there was only direction he could have gone.
Jane was already sweating; she had to at least get off the hat and facemask before she went any further. At least she'd be out of the sun. She stripped the layered gloves, too, shoving them in her pockets – she figured she might need her hands to be more functional – then quickly readjusted the Pathfinder devices strapped to her wrists. She opened up the jacket, holding back a sigh of relief at how much cooler her chest felt, and crept forward, parting the sheers.
She stopped just past the threshold, where relative to the bright day outside, it was dark, and it took a few more seconds before she make out anything more than vague shapes. She was in a bedroom – an enormous one – and not too far from her was a huge bed with more white sheers tied off at each of its four posts. Beyond the bed, at the far side of the room stood a tall figure…wearing the same red jacket she was. No one else was in the room, as far as she could see.
She started forward again, but didn't get more than three or four steps before Loki spun around. The bed was still between them, and the light was low, but the knife in his hand was unmistakable.
For a moment, neither of them moved and neither of them spoke.
"How did you get here?" Loki asked.
As though his voice broke a spell that had been holding her in place, she started around the bed.
"Jane, stop. Turn back. It isn't safe here. This isn't a place you want to be."
"I'm not going back without you. I saw your note. I can't let you do this."
"What I do or don't do isn't your choice. It's mine. It's always been mine. I'm telling you, go back now."
"And I'm telling you, not without you," she declared, stopping right in front of him.
"I don't know what will happen to you if you're still here when… Please, just go."
She'd barely opened her mouth to respond when he surged forward and grabbed her; she started to pedal backward but his left hand had a firm grip on her left arm before she could put any space between them. Her eyes bulged in stunned fear as the hand with the knife came down toward her arm; she started to struggle hard against his hold, twisting and turning and pulling and bending, and heard his voice but didn't register his words. As they grappled against each other she realized what he was doing – he wasn't trying to stab her, he was trying to get to the RF switch on her left wrist, and avoid stabbing her while he did it. "Hold still," she realized he'd been hissing. She stopped struggling then, except to wrench her left arm away from him as hard as she could, giving a pained grunt because that was a really dumb idea – it was like trying to pull free from steel shackles. In the same instant, though, Loki let go of her with a wince and she stumbled back a couple of unsteady steps, winding up backed more toward one corner of the room, the bed now behind and to her right, while over Loki's shoulder, the left one that he was rotating, she could see the closed bedroom door.
Jane rubbed her own stinging left shoulder and stared at Loki, who stared right back at her again.
"I don't have much time," Loki said, letting his shoulder fall back into place. "If you don't get out right now, I'll do what I must to make you."
She shook her head, still recovering from that unexpected physical encounter. "I don't…" Jane forgot entirely whatever it was she'd been about to say when her gaze drifted to her left, to the space Loki had been facing when she'd found him. There stood a piece of ornately-carved dark furniture, its edges draped with lighter fabric. Her eyes went slowly back to Loki, and down to the knife he still brandished in his right hand. They stood near what was unmistakably a cradle.
/
Hold on to your hats, folks! ;-) Can I tell you, I had a thrill reading this chapter for the final edit? Like, I'd completely forgotten about the Selby part and I got all excited. Hahaha. I have been called a dork before (lovingly). ;-) Well, I hope you enjoyed it. It's been a long (LONG!) time coming.
Thanks so much to all reviewers! And warning, massive long section below responding to guest reviewers. I don't always do it, but I try to when I can.
Guest (Aug. 30), all I can say is you are the most patient reader known to man! "bditm," thank you! Guest (Aug. 31), love that, he has to touch the fire. Glad it felt like "cat and mouse," that's basically what I was going for, continued into this chapter until they meet up again. Glad you're enjoying Tony. I almost put Steve in the last chapter, but I couldn't really make it work so I dropped it. Ha, wait, Tony? That would be the Guardians raccoon guy saying "I need that man's eyepatch!" That would actually be hilarious. Tony and Odin...yeah, Tony's got his own daddy issues, so maybe not. As for your last question, um, hold that thought? Guest (ch. 1), well, for now anyway. But I admit it's pretty awesome while it lasts. And Loki does steal the show! "superfan," wait, I like your ideas better than mine! The bean cakes thing is awesome, what a great time loop that would be! The use of the necklace too. I'm glad you haven't forgotten the Baldur thing, and the "reddish-brown hair"... I have more fanfic ideas than I'll ever have time to write. As for ending soon, in my head it is, but recall I think it was around Ch. 50 I started saying this thing was nearing its end. Thank you so so much re Jane. I think writers (fanfic, regular fic, movies, everything) have a tendency to either do damsel-in-distress female leads, or else "overcompensate" and give their Rambo female lead no real weaknesses. With Jane I think I almost like her imperfections more than her strong suits. Also, can I just say I like your dream so much I'd like to write it? (You know, someday when spare time appears, ha.) Loki only showed up in my dreams once, and that became "Surreptitious Entry," which is why that story is kind of weird. But I am honored, thanks for sharing. ;-) Guest (Aug. 31) #LokiIsTotallyWorthIt And there will be no doubt about Frigga's love. "Armand," Frigga and Tony - check! And press conference still to come. "jacquelinelittle," I do think many if not most people would be a bit skeptical about Gullveig, this guy they never heard of before. And Loki's idea, yes, you could call it crazy. ;-) "Lyn," should Loki's identity become known to all there, I think that should help his case, they really know other sides of him at this point. Thank you so much re the OC's! That means a lot, b/c I do intend to try to publish original fiction...composed entirely of OCs, ha. "Alphabetizingsin," I really enjoyed bringing the ravens in. As for Darcy, there's not a good place for her in the story, but I do try to work her in when I can. And time travel is likely doing *something* that doesn't sit well with Yggdrasil. "AvengersLoki" (ch. 51), when you catch up, wow, you wrote Review #3,000. ;-) "ladymouse2," thanks, glad you're enjoying it! One thing to note is Odin doesn't know that Frigga had the gem on the necklace modified. Loki being prevented from saving Baldur, and what happened when he went back to kill Thor, and the paradox issue, will indeed be further addressed. I am desperate to update Memory Casket and Trials, too! ;-)
OKAY! Previews from next chapter: We'll split our time between New York and Asgard...
Excerpt:
He was panting like a bull about to charge, but Jane stood her ground. There was never a more important moment to stand her ground than this one. "I know you…you keep coming back to this. I know how angry you are at him. Do you remember when you told me believed you had a destiny to kill each other?"