This chapter is a long one, I had a lot of material to cover in it. Again I had fun writing it and I hope you will have fun reading it!
/
Beneath
Chapter Five – Passport
"Did you warn her or did you tell her the history of Asgard?" Odin asked as soon as Thor's feet were again planted on Asgardian ground.
He glanced from his father's stern visage to Heimdall, impassive as ever, and back again. "I apologize, Father. I left her so suddenly before, I couldn't just…I apologize," he repeated, seeing no slackening in the set of Odin's jaw.
"Are you satisfied with her safety?"
"I'm satisfied with what you've done to protect her and all the other mortals of Midgard."
"Good. Now let's go. Dinner is waiting." He nodded to Heimdall and started toward the door.
"Heimdall," Thor began.
"I will look in on her from time to time. If I may…"
"Speak."
"See to your father, my prince. He is weary."
"Thank you," Thor said, then hurried after his father. Heimdall followed behind him seamlessly as far as the entryway, where he stopped to take up his post.
/
/
Not long after the little white car was underway again, signs of a settlement began to appear here and there on either side of the road. Loki watched carefully, sweeping his gaze continually to the left and right, while Mohsin apparently decided it was time to start asking questions instead of telling stories.
"So, Lucas, where are you put up? You have a room in town?"
"No," Loki said. "I was just passing through the area. Enjoying nature," he added.
"I hear you. There's nothing like these forests and lakes up here. Beautiful country."
Loki nodded. I don't suppose you could be so kind as to actually tell me the name of this accursed country.
"Well, you won't be able to get anybody out to your car until tomorrow, everything's closed. Hey, why don't you stay at my place? I've got a futon in a room I'm using for an office."
"Oh, no, I wouldn't want to be any bother. You've already been so kind," Loki said.
"No bother, really. No trouble at all. We've got a couple of hotels here, but they're so impersonal. I hate hotels, myself."
"Well, if it's truly no bother…"
"It's settled, then, great."
Loki kept the smile on his face, but this man and his incessant talking about useless irrelevant matters was wearing him down. Still, he hoped he could indeed learn more of what he needed to from someone's home than from an "impersonal" hotel.
"You can call your family on my mobile when we get in. I have a good plan. I just forgot the charger at home and it died."
"That's all right. I don't want to worry them. They won't be expecting to hear from me yet." Loki had learned as much as he could while on Midgard before, and got the gist of what Mohsin was saying if not every detail. Hello, Father, is that you? Had a lovely stroll in a forest in the middle of nowhere. Thank you for depositing me so deep out in the nature that my new friend Mohsin loves so dearly. How was your day?
"Okay, have it your way. Look, here we are!"
Loki's eyes jumped to a sign they were rapidly approaching. In a couple of seconds he could read the lettering easily: Melfort.
"Melfort," Loki breathed, keeping his intonation as neutral as possible. He wasn't sure if he should have heard of this place. In the distance he spotted a tower with a large round metal storage area on top. Melfort was printed across it in big black letters.
"Yeah. Oh, let me guess, you were planning to make it back to Saskatoon tonight?"
"Right," Loki said. He tried to place the name and again failed.
"Sorry about that. Hey, you're not going to miss a flight over this, are you?"
"No, thank goodness," Loki said with a genial smile.
"Oh, hey, Iisten, I've got a great idea. I was going to meet some friends for the hockey game tonight if I got back in time. It's already started, but we should go. It's the Melfort Mustangs. Kind of semi-professional, I don't know. I grew up on cricket, it's a new sport for me. They play in the Canadian Junior Hockey League. You want to go? It'll be fun." Mohsin looked over at him expectantly as they rolled to a stop at an intersection.
Loki worked hard to control his reaction. "Why not?" he asked. The Canadian Junior Hockey League? Canada? He couldn't help grinding his teeth. He didn't know where Melfort or Saskatoon was, but he knew exactly where Canada was. A very, very long way from Norway. Unless you went over the icy top of the planet. Dearest Father, thank you for at least putting me in the proper hemisphere. I suppose you could have left me in Argentina. Or a friendly little place like Puente Antiguo. Loki snickered under his breath. If anyone was left in that town at all, they probably would not have been happy to see him.
"Have you ever watched ice hockey?"
"Not until tonight!" he declared with the biggest, most Thor-like grin he could muster. He hoped the expression didn't look as asinine as it felt.
"Okay, I'll tell you the basics, later," Mohsin said with a laugh. "We're here," he announced, bringing the car to a stop and hopping out.
Loki followed suit, grateful to at least delay the basics of ice hockey. He'd already endured an excruciating exposition on cricket, a game involving bats and balls but apparently no insects, and the myriad variations in the types of matches. They were parked in front of a small single-story building with two doors. He followed his host to the door on the left and waited while Mohsin unlocked it.
Mohsin gave him a quick tour of the place – living room, kitchen with small dining area, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a utility room for doing laundry, and a hallway closet. Loki splashed cold water on his face in the bathroom and took a seat in the room he would sleep in that night. The accommodations were meager in the extreme and the thing he was supposed to sleep on looked worse than the cot in his prison cell, but Loki couldn't have been happier with it all. He was sitting in front of a computer. He found the button that would turn it on, but resisted the urge to press it. There would be time for that later.
"Ready, Lucas?" Mohsin called, emerging from his bedroom and peering into Loki's room.
"Ready," Loki answered, pulling his hood back up over his head. He was sorely tempted to beg off so he could get to work on the computer, but then Mohsin probably wouldn't go either and he wouldn't have the privacy he needed. He stood up and winced at the pain in his right foot. He was also eager to get that boot off.
"Here, put this on. You can have it, I've got three of them."
Loki wrinkled his brow at the thing he'd been handed. Opening up the material a bit more he realized it was a hat with something almost like a sunshade in front. He assumed it was the front because above it was an image of a horse wearing clothes and clutching a stick that turned into an L-shape at the top. He called forth that affable smile again, thanked his host, and pulled the ridiculous thing on over his head.
/
/
Jane took a last look around her hotel room, her home for the last week or so. Her eyes lingered on the green and beige striped sofa. On a whim in the middle of the night she'd taken a picture of it. Why hadn't it occurred to her to take a picture of Thor, instead of a piece of furniture he sat on? Feeling stupid she'd deleted the picture. A picture of Thor and her together out on the roof with the spectacular aurora behind them, why hadn't she taken that? She pulled her phone out of her pocket and took another picture of the sofa, then walked out of the room.
Ten minutes later she stepped out from the Grevinden's lobby into the frigid Tromso morning, pulling her black wool coat tighter around her. A driver from SHIELD had already collected her suitcases and laptop and loaded them in the car that waited in front of the hotel. He got out and opened the door for her as soon as she appeared.
She thanked him and got in, then blinked in surprise. Larson was sitting in the seat next to hers and Hastings sat up front in the passenger seat. "Good morning," Larson said as the car started moving.
"Good morning," Jane answered with a frown, feeling a little foggy and headachy from lack of sleep. "What are you doing here?" It came out a little harsher than she meant. First item on the agenda once she was checked in at the airport: coffee.
"We thought we'd have a chance to say goodbye to you yesterday when we came to pick up Thor, but since you never called…"
"Oh. Oh! He didn't, I mean, he left already. He kind of just…you know, swung his hammer around and took off," she said, miming spinning something around in her hand.
"We know. We were watching the hotel. The boss got a little nervous when he heard Thor showed up."
Jane nodded, then the words caught up to her. "You were watching the hotel? As in spying on me?"
"Spying is a strong word. We were watching," Larson corrected. "Just to make sure nobody else showed up."
"So…did you see us up on the roof?"
"Particularly spectacular aurora last night, wasn't it?"
Jane frowned at him with narrowed eyes. She didn't take her eyes off Larson but she could swear Hastings was smirking at her. She really liked Larson but sometimes he could drive her nuts. Hastings put her on edge and Jane avoided her whenever possible. It was so creepy to think about the two of them, or whoever else from SHIELD, looking up at her and Thor with binoculars or something during their private moments.
Then an idea popped into her mind. "Did you take any pictures?" She looked directly at Hastings. Definitely smirking.
"Oh. Wait. Were you…listening?"
"We had just eaten, so no," Hastings said.
Jane shot a smirk right back at her.
"So how's Thor doing, Jane?" Larson asked.
She swung her head slowly back to face him. "You saw him, how did he look to you? Look, Peter, you know I'm not into these games you guys play. Thor just wanted to talk about some stuff. Alone. The last time we saw each other he had to leave in a hurry, remember?"
Larson nodded and smiled that endearing lop-sided smile of his. "I've got to be able to put something in the report, Jane. You know how it is."
She rolled her eyes. "He likes cheesecake. And they don't have auroras on Asgard. How does that work for you?"
"Okay…one of those things might be…vaguely interesting. To some people. Maybe." He broke into laughter. "I'm sorry, Jane. You know I had to ask."
"I know," she said with a wry smile. SHIELD also drove her nuts. Though they'd supported her work once Thor left, they also insisted on watching her like a hawk when she did that work. They stole her work, then enabled it, then stifled it. She was never really sure she trusted their agenda. But she was about to get her freedom back, and driving through the dark and quiet streets of Tromso with two more SHIELD agents than was necessary to take her to the airport made her look forward to that all the more.
"Well. We got your equipment shipped out yesterday. It should be there waiting for you when you arrive," Larson said a few minutes later as they approached the airport.
"Oh, good, thanks. Really, thanks a lot. It would cost me an arm and a leg to send it myself, and SHIELD doesn't pay that much."
"More than your last gig."
"Yes, well, it's not hard to beat zero," she said with a laugh.
They reached the departures area and Larson hopped out to get her bags. Jane looked down, then up at Hastings through lowered lids. "So…can you…"
"I'll send them as soon as we get back to the office."
"Thanks," Jane said with a nod, then got out. Maybe Hastings wasn't so bad after all.
Larson stayed with her to help with the bags until she was all checked in; they hugged and Jane turned away quickly toward the security line. She'd had enough of goodbyes for a while.
The airport was not a large one and it was still only about 5:00 in the morning, so she made it quickly through security and out to the concourse and what appeared to be the only active gate, the flight to Oslo. She got a double shot of espresso and a piece of crumb cake and sank down into a seat in the waiting area. Boarding was scheduled to begin in thirty minutes.
She closed her eyes and replayed memories from the crazy night before in her head yet again. If only Thor had e-mail. She could send him a cheesecake recipe. Then an even better and slightly more realistic idea came to mind. She could learn to make cheesecake herself. And the next time Thor dropped in for a little visit, she'd make it for him. How hard could it be? After all, it wasn't that she was a bad cook, really, just that she usually had something else she'd rather do – if it took more than ten minutes to make she wasn't interested.
She wondered how long it took to make cheesecake, from start to finish. She figured she'd better keep all the ingredients on hand at all times just in case, so she wouldn't have to run to the grocery store. Hold that thought, Thor! I know it's been ages and you can't stay long but I'm out of eggs. Jane groaned and took a long sip of the strong coffee. This is crazy. I'm crazy. Besides, there weren't going to be any grocery stores in her future for a while.
She thought back to the real reason he'd come to see her. Loki. She'd seen video of him from his crazy-dictator-wannabe "kneel" routine in Stuttgart and from when he was being held in some kind of impenetrable transparent cage on SHIELD's helicarrier. She'd studied the images closely from the safety of the SHIELD facility outside Tromso. He looked nothing like Thor – slender, shoulder-length raven hair, pale narrow face, clean-shaven. In Germany he'd looked so sinister in that horned helmet, every one of himself that he somehow created or projected around those poor terrified people. And what she hadn't seen in video, she'd read about in reports out of SHIELD. How he'd done some kind of mind-control thing on people – including Erik – with a staff powered by the tesseract. How he'd fired balls of burning energy at people with that thing, and stabbed and killed Phil with it.
A female voice over the intercom announced in Norwegian followed by English that her flight was about to begin boarding. She sat up straighter and massaged her temples, really beginning to feel the lack of sleep now. The flight to Oslo was less than two hours; she wouldn't be getting much sleep on it. But longer flights lay ahead, and SHIELD had sprung for business class tickets for her. Forget the free booze, Jane was looking forward to taking advantage of stretching out for some good sleep.
She'd rehashed everything Thor said enough times that she didn't think it would keep her awake any longer. And she wasn't really worried about Loki. Even if he could think of nothing better to do with his time than look her up, he was unlikely to follow her where she was going.
Loki followed Mohsin into a row of seats and was quickly introduced to a number of other men and a few women, none of whose names he bothered to try to remember. According to Mohsin they all worked for the same company, which provided tickets to some of the hockey games. Loki settled into his seat, glaring at the seat in front of him that dug into his knees. The Melfort Mustangs, Mohsin had gleefully told him once they entered the arena, were up 2-1 over the Weyburn Red Wings. Loki squinted at the opposing team's costumes and couldn't stop himself from laughing out loud. They wore what appeared to be a red homage to Thor's helmet.
He watched the players skate back and forth along the ice with admirable speed and agility despite the laughable bulk of the protective gear they wore. They were hitting a…what had Mohsin called it…a puck back and forth, ostensibly trying to hit it toward a teammate who would then hit it into a net to score a point, but that apparently didn't actually happen very often. Although he didn't know many of the rules, it was easy to tell who was playing well and who wasn't, judging by how often a player actually managed to direct the puck to his teammate instead of letting it be intercepted by an opponent. He noticed that when two players put their shoulders down and smashed into each other the audience seemed to appreciate that as if it were a score.
It was a fast and physical game. He quickly came to enjoy the action around the little black puck as it spun and raced across the frozen playing field. And although he did not think he would be fond of sliding around on the ice on a thin metal blade and could not fathom putting on so much padding – if one wanted to avoid being hurt one should simply not play – he thought he might enjoy trying his hand at this game…his own way.
One of the Mustang players suddenly had an opening and struck the puck with his stick hard. The reaction played out at high speed but Loki had already picked up the strategy of the game and easily tracked the opponents who tried to reach the puck and interrupt its progress and the teammates who tried to stop them. The player in front of the net went down in an unnatural position on his knees to try to stop the puck but failed. The audience, a crowd of around 400, Loki estimated, erupted in cheers. He found himself smiling as well.
A hand came down hard on his shoulder. He spun around and looked up into the face of a burly man shouting his appreciation for the score. Loki quickly transformed his face to show enthusiasm instead of offense. "How 'bout them Mustangs!" the man shouted.
"How 'bout them Mustangs," Loki echoed in word if not tone, then turned back around and sighed.
He couldn't believe what he had become. Two weeks ago he would have turned the ice into a more comfortable surface, strolled out onto the middle of it, and demanded the obedience of every single person in the building. And he would have had it, as soon as he brought down a few of the more defiant ones and perhaps took away the free will of a few of the leaders. He found himself watching – evaluating – one of the stronger players. A small laugh escaped him when he realized what he was doing.
"Fun, huh?" Mohsin asked, seated to his right.
Loki nodded and kept his eyes on the game. Yes, that would be fun. But now he was an interchangeable member of a crowd, wearing a silly hat and cheering for the stick-holding horse over the red Thor wings. For a moment he felt almost physically tormented by how beneath him this whole charade was. But then he remembered. Remembered that even though he sat among these people, he was not one of them. They did not recognize who or what he was, but he knew. Let them think he was no different from them. He knew the truth. That he could smash their heads all the way through that ice before they could blink if he chose to.
He joined Mohsin in cheering for whatever clever play someone had executed; he'd let his attention drift from the action.
The score was 3-1 in favor of the Mustangs, and little time remained. Loki quickly assessed the players on the ice and felt a smile come to his face. It was time to have a little fun. One of Thor's players had hit the puck toward his teammate; in an instant Loki judged the teammate would find an opening and the current configuration of players would give him a high probability of sending the puck straight through that opening and into the net. He stuck out his hand, focused on the patch of ice in front of the player about to take the puck, and heated the ice. Thor's player's foot shot out from under him and he came down hard in the same instant that Loki cooled the slush back into its prior form.
Loki shot up from his chair along with several others around him, but not for the same reason as those others. Before he could even form a laugh over the little slip on the ice, pain had exploded in his right elbow. Then, as he stood and the initial sharp pain receded, he realized his right foot was aching worse than before. His breathing turned nearly into growling as he put his left hand over the elbow, stared down at the player who was already back up and in the game, and realized what had just happened.
"No worries, Lucas, he's fine. That was nothing. Sometimes these guys really get beat up out there," Mohsin said. He tugged on Loki's arm and Loki sat back down.
Some of the others around him were talking, but Loki tuned them out, wondering how high a price he'd just paid for such a tiny bit of fun.
/
/
"So, are you just touring around Saskatchewan?" Mohsin asked back at his home. He and Loki sat at the small kitchen table eating some kind of dry miniature cakes Mohsin had pulled from a cabinet.
"That's right. I just wanted to get out of the city for a while."
Mohsin munched on his cake and nodded. "You like it so far? Until your car went off the road, I mean?"
"Of course. Especially the friendly people. Thank you for your generosity, Mohsin."
"Oh, no problem, Lucas. I'm glad I was there to be able to help. It's a cold one out there tonight. And besides, it was great to have you around to keep me company, though of course I'm sorry you got thrown a googly with your car. Hey, I'm sorry if I talked too much. I miss my family, you know? With a wife and two girls there's always a lot of talking. Hey, hold on a second." He jumped up and trotted over behind Loki to grab something off a shelf. "Here," he said, handing Loki the object and sitting back down.
Loki took in the portrait he held with raised eyebrows. An attractive round-faced, brown-skinned woman in navy blue and cream was in the center, her head covered in a filmy light blue scarf, her hands on the shoulders of two young girls with long brown hair, one in yellow and one in pink. The girl in yellow looked closer to a laugh than a smile. "You have a lovely family," he said with sincerity.
Mohsin sighed and ran his fingers through his dark hair as Loki watched him with renewed interest. He took the picture and put it back in its place.
"Mohsin, I think I do need to get a flight out of Saskatoon. I need to…to meet my family."
"I hear you. You can only be alone for so long. They're back in New York?"
Loki considered his next words carefully before speaking them. "No, actually they're in Norway. I'm not married. It's my brother's family."
Mohsin broke into an unexpected grin. "No kidding! My sister's in Norway. She's at university in Trondheim, studying engineering."
"Oh, my brother's family is in Tromso."
"Tromso…that's pretty far north I think. Well, the computer's in your room, feel free to use it, you can get your tickets online. I'll drop you at the mechanic's shop in the morning and you can take care of your car and continue your adventure, Lucas."
"I'm in your debt."
"Don't mention it," Mohsin said, standing up and pushing his chair in. "I've got to get to bed. Keep these, in case you get hungry in the night. I'll take the shower now, then you can use it whenever you like, okay?"
"Of course. Good night," Loki said, following suit and taking the little package of sweets.
Back in his room with the door shut, he took off the horse hat and put it in his satchel, shaking his head but smiling a bit without realizing it. Next the coat came off, and then he sat down on the thin mattress on metal bars Mohsin had stretched out into a bed for him, and did what he'd wanted to do all day. The zipper on the side of his boot came down slowly, bringing a sweet relief as it reached the ankle. He grasped the heel and toe and began to gently tug. It hurt, badly. When at last it popped free of his heel he couldn't stifle a hissed gasp between clenched teeth. He eased it the rest of the way off and felt vaguely sick at what he saw. The skin was white in patches and red in others, pinched, misshapen, and wrinkled. It was decidedly not normal. He lifted his leg, twisted the knee, bent to get a look at the sole. Five small black spots surrounded by a single large blister marked the place where he had brought a curse on himself by stepping on an overgrown bug.
That was foolish, brother. Thor's words sprang to mind out of nowhere. He had known. He must have known all along. He could picture Thor and Odin huddling together to come up with arcane means of giving him so-called freedom while making his life utterly intolerable.
He hobbled over to the mirror hanging on a closet door. His pale face was unblemished; the lingering bruises and small cuts he'd sported before were gone, healed either naturally or by Odin for some reason, he wasn't sure. He lifted the hem of his shirt and pulled it up and over his head. His chest also was free of injury. He touched the small red globe his mother had given him, hanging against his chest. He lifted the hand to his shoulder and peered at his elbow. A bruise was visible; he touched it and found it surprisingly painful. Had he taken that minor fall on the ice himself, he would not have had a bruise at all. Did that mean he bore not the bruise that he himself would have gotten, but the same bruise that the mortal sportsman bore? That was cause for concern.
He lowered his arm and rotated his left wrist until he could see the swollen and scarred tissue there, the other mark Odin had gifted him with. He stared at his image with defiant rage so powerful he saw the mirror begin to shake as he clenched metaphysical fists on the energies around him and teetered on the edge of control. He loosened his grip and channeled the power back into and over himself and watched as his reflection shimmered and morphed. A more familiar figure stared back at him, shining green eyes peering out from under shining gold metal that soared up into majestic horns. His neck straightened, surrounded by the metal-trimmed black leather of his coat collar. This was who he was. Who he was supposed to be.
His gaze dropped lower, satisfied with the familiarity and comfort of everything he saw. Until he got to his right foot. There his leather boot and gaiter faded out around his ankle, beyond which his hideous swollen foot stuck out like a prank he might have played on someone who looked at him the wrong way. He reached a hand downward, tried to direct the energy particles surrounding his foot, and found he could not influence them in the slightest. He took a deep steadying breath. Was this because the magic Odin had worked on his foot overruled his own? Or because he'd actually lost some of the control that allowed him to work magic because he'd melted a tiny bit of ice? Another cause for concern.
Hello again, Father. How are you? Feeling tired? I broke two rules at once today. You know I was never one to do things half-way.
He turned his back on his image and passed his right hand down his body, reverting everything to the way it was before. He limped over to the computer and sat down at the desk. He had work to do, and not much time to do it in considering the inefficient means at his disposal.
/
/
"Sir, we've been through the transcript with a fine-toothed comb. There's nothing there." Rollins, who'd just started his job a week ago, shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Larson nodded, frowning. He had listened to the conversation as it was being recorded with their best long-range parabolic microphone and had come to the same conclusion. "What about when they were in the restaurant?"
Reikvam, their best microphone handler, said with a light Norwegian accent, "Too much ambient noise, sir. There was no good angle. I got a little from the lobby, just a laugh, a couple of words."
"Here's the transcript for that," Hastings said, entering just as Reikvam was finishing. "Not much to it. Ballard already ran it through all the audio enhancement programs we have."
Larson took the single piece of paper, looked at the single line of text: how […] [see?] […] car […] [soon?] […] car […] [laughter].
"They're all his words. His voice is deeper, easier for the microphone to pick up," Reikvam added.
Larson looked back up with pursed lips and tightened jaw. Everyone else kept their silence. "So…," Larson began slowly, "They're either planning a joyride sometime soon, or a trip to a NASCAR race, maybe Formula 1 since they're in Europe, or maybe Thor's just in the market for a sweet Midgardian ride. That's wonderful. Very helpful. Thanks so much, Reikvam. Tell Ballard I said so, too. Fury's gonna love this."
"Look at it as a good thing, Peter. There's no evidence there's anything to worry about," Hastings said.
"Since when are you an optimist?"
Hastings shrugged her shoulders and sat down behind a computer terminal.
"Fine. There's nothing to worry about. Rollins, get the sound files compressed and send everything to Fury."
"Relax," Hastings said, rolling her eyes. She took her long-focus lens camera out of her backpack and hooked it up to the computer.
/
/
Loki found himself walking again, but this time was different. He knew where he was. He knew where he was going.
He had stayed up all night navigating the massive information dump available through a wire in the wall to Mohsin's computer. Despite the lack of organization, Loki was impressed at just how much one could learn from this device. Even the seemingly inconsequential travel plans of a seemingly inconsequential astrophysicist were easily available from some obscure website devoted to astrophysics research.
From there, extensive planning was required. He went to a website he'd learned about before, one that no search tool would discover, and was surprised and relieved to find he could still access it. They hadn't expected him back, and the fools hadn't changed their codes. He realized he should have come directly here first. No magic required.
As morning approached, he had turned to handiwork, and found it at times an engaging challenge and at times a frustrating annoyance. Like a petty criminal he pored over the passport Mohsin had conveniently left in his desk drawer along with other personal documents, looking over, into, and under each page and comparing this to what he learned about its secrets through the computer. With a certain pride he identified and copied onto sheets of blank paper watermarks, holographic images, and images visible only under certain light wavelengths. He went page by page, shaping, transforming, making microscopic adjustments to the paper and its print until he held in his hand the navy blue Canadian passport of one Lucas Cane, age 31, born in Toronto, Canada.
He knew this was his most serious test in ensuring he was able to take advantage of transportation systems without unneeded scrutiny. With it out of the way, he turned to a driver's license. While he didn't have that particular document of Mohsin's he found plenty of images of them online and created one with a suitable address in Toronto and another photo of himself. It was child's play compared to the passport, and Loki took a moment to snicker at Thor's naivete for thinking all he would need to get by on this planet was this silly driver's license.
Finally, he had turned to money. Was money a "document"? A "triviality"? He didn't know. And there was only one way to find out. He'd had the chance to study the bills while at the hockey game, and he studied them further on the computer, along with the features meant to prevent counterfeiting. He took another sheet of blank paper and passed a hand across it, watched the ink appear and paper change texture. He waited; nothing happened. He flicked a finger against the paper and it broke into six crisp $100 bills. He waited again; still nothing happened. Going for a touch of the dramatic before his audience of one, he breathed over the bills that had fallen onto the desk and their crispness was replaced with a more worn look and feel. Loki wasn't sure if his new bills should be considered counterfeit or not; he preferred not to think of them as such and instead of himself as his own treasury of Canadian legal tender. However, he had taken the time to learn how the dominant monetary systems worked in this realm, and he knew that flooding the financial market with additional printed money could cause chaos. So why was his curse not rearing its head? He hoped it was not the case that he was being harmed but for some reason not feeling the effects – his treasury had a lot of money to print.
Mohsin had dropped him off at the mechanic's shop that morning and bade him farewell with a strong hug that froze Loki in place for a moment before he recovered and weakly returned the embrace. Strange man, he thought, but found himself hoping Mohsin's wife and daughters would be able to join him soon. As Mohsin drove away, Loki also wished he could see Mohsin's reaction to him in his royal regalia, the moment when Mohsin knew just whom he'd brought into his home, and given a metal rack with a thin cloth on top of it to sleep on.
He'd gone into the little office where Mohsin left him, but instead of asking for his fictional car to be pulled out of the snow, he asked the easiest way to get to Saskatoon. And now, fatigued from all his efforts the night before, he was approaching a diner frequented by truckers, many of whom plied the route between Saskatoon and Melfort. He asked kindly and offered to pay for fuel and before long he had secured himself a ride to Saskatchewan's largest city.
/
/
Jane sighed and rolled from her side to her back, waking up in a reclining chair in a business-class lounge at Oslo's airport. The timing of her flights wasn't ideal – the tickets had been purchased pretty last-minute and the later Tromso-Oslo flight had been sold out. But if you had to be stuck in an airport for five hours, you may as well spend it in a business-class lounge. They had fed her on the plane, there was plenty to eat and drink in the lounge, and they would feed her several times during her eleven hour flight to Bangkok. All she had to do was relax and catch up on some sleep. Someone had even brought her a blanket to wrap around herself while she snoozed here in the lounge.
She lifted her arms up high in a stretch, then heard her phone buzzing for an incoming text and realized that must have been what woke her up. She grabbed it from the side of her laptop carrier and activated it. She opened the first text and found an image instead. Slowly she thumbed through all eight of them, biting her lower lip and grinning widely.
/
/
"Well, you've just missed the direct flight to Vancouver, but you'd only be sitting there anyway waiting for your next flight. In a couple of hours you can get on the flight to Toronto and then back over to Vancouver. It seems a little illogical but it'll get you there, eh?"
"That will be fine," Loki told the ticket seller at the airport, bestowing his warmest smile upon her.
"Okay. Only coach is available on the first flight, but for the rest I can book you all the way through in business."
"Perfect."
She told him the price and he reached into his satchel and started counting out bills. He set out the first stack of bills on the counter between them and saw she was staring wide-eyed at the bills.
"I've never trusted banks," he told her, flashing that smile again.
"Oh," she said, nodding and seemingly recovering from her shock. "Sure, I understand."
Tickets in hand, he approached security. He forced what fear remained in him into a tiny ball at the base of his spine; he could feel it but was in control of it. With confidence in who he was in comparison to all these mortals he approached the short uniformed woman who was stretching and flexing one foot then the other, her feet apparently hurting even worse than his. He smiled a vaguely condescending smile and handed her his passport and ticket. She looked them over briefly with what nevertheless seemed a trained eye, ran his passport through a machine, wrote something on his ticket, and handed both back to him.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Cane. Have a good flight."
/
There were some quirky serendipitous things that came together as I was writing this, always fun when that comes together. Case in point - I randomly chose the Weyburn Red Wings from the Melfort Mustangs' schedule (both teams are real), then looked up their logo...ha! I got as much of a kick out of it as Loki did, and I hope you did too. As always, reviews are appreciated and I'll do my best to respond and answer any questions you may have also.
In the next chapter, Jane and Loki find themselves getting closer (geographically at least!), and they both pick up some new threads.
