Beneath
Chapter Thirty-Two – Countdown
Like everyone else, Loki had cardboard up in his window now, to prevent light from leaking out into the ever-approaching darkness. He could still see it though – his mind wouldn't let him forget – the exterior lights bathing the gray buildings in an eerie red glow and making them seem unnatural, even malevolent. No realm intended its landscape to look like that.
Loki climbed into bed in the darkness of his tiny chambers, his vision still sufficient to set his wristwatch alarm for 5:30, enabling him to be up before Jane and see her first thing in the morning. He was unsettled by the way she'd looked at him during the movie. He needed to make sure she hadn't developed any sudden suspicions. He didn't think she had – he'd already learned she was a terrible liar and she hadn't seemed to be hiding anything when afterward she related her progress on the circuit boards for the transmitter they needed – but he wanted to see her again to be certain.
He slid down between the sheets and pulled the linens and blanket up to his shoulders trying not to see red lights over a dreary icy vista, then pulled the sound blanket, as he thought of it, down over the room. In the corner opposite the bed on the window side of the room, particles shimmered and danced but did not seal. Loki stared at the corner as though it were a living thing defying his will. He extended a hand, tugging with outstretched fingers, and the seal formed and held. He watched it for a moment to be sure.
Loki closed his eyes and sleep, so long denied, quickly claimed him.
He whipped his head around but could barely see a thing. Only darkness and glowing red lights. His feet slammed into the ground. Not ground. Ice. He ran as though Death itself chased him, but he saw nothing. He didn't know why he was running, or what he was running from. He didn't want to know. He heard Thor's voice somewhere, in the distance. He couldn't tell from which direction. He ran.
He heard a scream. Thor! No, Fandral. It was Fandral, revealed by receding shadows. He'd been impaled on spikes of ice. Loki ran harder. Fandral couldn't free himself. A monster approached him. Loki ran faster. The monster grew a spear of ice straight out of its palm. Loki's boots hit the ice beneath him with such force it began to crack. The monster looked straight at Loki with its gleaming red eyes and stabbed Fandral through the heart; a different shade of red poured over the ice. The monster had black hair. A distorted but familiar face. He stared straight at Loki and smiled through blood splatters.
Ice cracked and groaned. An angry shout bellowed out through the darkness. Loki fell. And fell, and fell. He couldn't see the ice above him anymore. His breath was sucked out of him as he hit water. Water thick and slushy, closer to solid than liquid. Water that clung to him, froze to him, mired him as though in mud, making his desperate attempts to free himself of it clumsy and sluggish.
His hand, thrust above the water, brushed something solid. He tried to grab at it, but his hand was stiff and useless. He forced his frozen eyelids to open. He saw a hand, not his own, stronger than his own. An angry, tightened jaw. Flashing blue eyes. Loki tried again to reach the hand, but it evaded his. It reached for his head instead. The palm opened wide. Fingertips pressed into his forehead and scalp, hard enough to bruise, perhaps hard enough to crush his skull. He tried to clutch the arm, but his club-like hands could only strike at it weakly. The slush covered his mouth. It covered his nose. It covered his eyes. He thrashed about but he couldn't get free of the fingers digging into his head, holding him down. He couldn't breathe couldn't breathe couldn't breathe…
He burst out of the water, gasping for air and blinking against the sunlight.
"This is the only way to get over your fear, Loki," Thor said from a child's body, floating in the water not far away. Thor started pushing through the water toward him.
Loki's eyes went wide. He rolled to his stomach to swim toward the shore, but found he couldn't swim. There was no strength in his short limbs. He didn't even know how. He felt a hand on his ankle. He saw Father standing at the water's edge. "Help me!" he cried out.
"It's the only way, Loki," Father intoned, watching without movement.
Thor pulled him around to face him. "You're a coward, Loki. Only a coward would burst into tears from getting wet." Thor grew from child to youth to man before his eyes. He planted his hands on Loki's shoulders and pushed him down.
Loki's eyes bulged. Thor's face was distorted through the water, his head crowned by the sun.
Loki's struggles faded and Thor hauled him up. "You're weak. You're nothing. You don't deserve Father's name. You don't deserve anyone's name. You have no name." Thor pushed him under again.
Strength surged through him and he burst up out of the water and slammed his fist into Thor's chin. The suns burned and Loki felt faint underneath them. They were not on Asgard. They were not children. Thor recovered easily and Loki couldn't move quickly enough in the water to avoid the blow that struck his jaw. He heard something crack and squeezed his eyes shut against the pain that radiated through his head. The sounds of laughter came from the old pier. When he looked up at it, he saw Volstagg and Hogun and Fandral and Sif. All of them pointing and laughing. The pier shimmered beneath them with the colors of the rainbow. His hand cupped his jaw. They laughed harder.
Thor seized him by his hair, jerking his head so far back he feared his neck would snap. Loki tried to kick under the water, but his legs met nothing solid. "You were never good enough. Not even good enough to walk in my shadow. You're an embarrassment to me. To Father. Even to Mother, she's just too kind-hearted to tell you so. You don't deserve to breathe the same air I breathe. Don't ever forget that."
Thor plunged him under again, and Loki no longer breathed his air. His lungs would not expand at all and darkness closed in, cold and unrelenting. He was alone here. Alone in the entire universe. Panic swelled in him. He tried to call out, for someone to look for him, for someone to find him, but his mouth would not even open.
And then someone did. A hand on his shoulder. A hand on his head. Hot fetid breath that was denied to his own lungs.
"Have you forgotten? We will not let you forget. They will not let you forget." Fingernails like claws sank into his scalp.
Loki woke to his own shout; the sound of it announced the return of air to his lungs and he sucked it in greedily. He sat up and drew his knees up to his chest, letting his head rest against them and pressing his hands over the top of his head. It was dry. He was dry. There was no water. No abyss. No him. Just a dream. Another dream of stolen memories. Another message.
He stayed still for several minutes until his hands stopped trembling and his breaths stopped coming in shuddering gasps. He couldn't deny what this was. He knew his own dreams. They weren't like this. They could be violent and terrible, full of fear, full of all sorts of shunned feelings, but not like this. He had been led through this distorted dreamscape. The route was different, the destination unchanged.
He ran his fingers through his hair. It was starting to grow out some. If his mother were here she would tell him he should cut it. He laughed into his legs. Mother…what was it Thor said about her? She was too kind to tell me something? That I'm weak? That I'm an embarrassment?
He forced himself to pull up what he remembered of the nightmare even as it began to slip away from him, and found it physically painful. He did it anyway. He wasn't afraid of pain.
Jotunheim. Not long ago at all. Frost Giants everywhere. Fandral, dead. Thor blamed him. Thor blamed him for everything that happened there. He had no right. Thor made his own decisions. Loki had never wanted to actually go there. Thor making a grand show of his desires should have been enough to prove to Father what a fool he was. Thor and his stupid ego…
Asgard. Over a millennium ago. Thor had nearly drowned him and his father hadn't done a thing about it. He'd been afraid of the water as a child. Thor had decided to cure him of it. Had it always been that way? Had Thor always… Loki's head began to pound. It was a terrible thought. Unthinkable except he had thought it. And not for the first time. They had all lied to him.
Alfheim. Somewhere in the middle. They'd been arguing over something or other. It had gotten worse and worse and Thor's friends had laughed as his jaw was breaking. Thor said he was an embarrassment, said it in front of everyone.
It wasn't true. It wasn't all true. He knew it wasn't. It couldn't be. He knew they took the memories, sifted them, fed them back to him but in changed form.
He tried to pick them apart, to separate out the lies. Fandral. He wasn't dead. Suddenly he remembered a knife flying from his hand, an extension of his own body. The Frost Giant who'd been closing in on Fandral had never made it there. No, every mistake made that day had been Thor's. Not his.
He turned next to the incident at the lake on Asgard, but he couldn't even picture it apart from the nightmare, no matter how hard he tried. He'd been so young. He'd been so terrified. Even now… Loki pressed his head back into his knees. It was too hard. An impossible task. His whole life was a lie, how was he supposed to pry apart the truth from the lies? The pounding in his head crescendoed, and he steadied himself to be able to concentrate and ease the pain.
He wasn't afraid. He'd felt fear the first time his dreams had been invaded, but nothing else had happened after that. Nothing would happen this time either. He wasn't afraid. He was angry.
Headache receding, Loki turned away from the nightmares and the memories and the truth and the lies. It was all irrelevant. It was all in the past, and it wasn't even really his past anymore. It was Loki Odinson's past, and Loki Odinson no longer existed.
/
/
Odin watched with curiosity, his face expressionless, as Alfheim's King Nadrith Ljosalf went to one knee and bowed before him, just two days remaining until the proclaimed deadline for Asgard's submission to the other realms' demands. The dark-haired man, only about eighty years older than Thor and Loki, thus putting them in the same generation, had ruled for some two hundred years now. New though he was to his throne, he had ruled wisely, and no one thought him a weak leader for his relative youth and inexperience. No one thought him physically weak, either. His people, the Light Elves or Ljosalf, whose name he had taken in place of his clan name upon his coronation per tradition, did not prize physical strength to the same extent as the Aesir, but Nadrith had spent portions of his young adulthood in weapons training on Asgard, and had come to pride himself on his strength. Muscles that rivaled Thor's rippled in his bare arms and calves, olive skin tanned to a deep bronze, as he stood again and positioned himself before Odin.
"You do me great honor, Nadrith. It is unexpected."
"I stand before a king seated on his throne. I can do no other." Nadrith's voice was as smooth as his words, like velvet.
Odin nodded his acknowledgement, then stood and descended the stairs of the dais to put himself at Nadrith's level; they were exactly the same height. "I apologize for not meeting you upon your arrival. We're very busy here."
"I understand, Your Majesty. There is no need to apologize. We're very busy on Alfheim as well."
Odin couldn't help but smile a bit at the response. The younger man comported himself very well. His father would be proud. "Since we're both busy men, let us not waste time with trivialities. Nadrith…you are young, but surely you know how costly this will be. Your advisors must recall the Great Fracture."
"I do. And they do," Nadrith said with a solemn nod. "The Great Fracture was a blight on Alfheim and Svartalfheim, but it was a necessary change, one that ensured the independence of both of our realms. Change always comes with a cost, Odin. We're ready to pay that cost. Are you? The price is small if you accept the necessity of the change. It will be much higher if you refuse to accept it." He took a step forward, rested a hand lightly on the edge of Odin's shoulder. "It's time to let go of some of your responsibilities, All-Father. You were prepared to do so not that long ago. I was here to witness the event myself."
"I was prepared to turn over my throne to my son. I was not prepared to entrust dangerous relics to other realms with uncertain motives. That has not changed," Odin said, choosing his words carefully.
Nadrith nodded slowly, thoughtfully. He let his arm fall back to his side. "We've heard murmurings about uncertain motives. We don't believe them. The Svartalf have not always dealt honorably with us, but we have rarely quarreled with the Vanir. Still, do not think us naïve. We do not simply take the tesseract and hope it is safe on Vanaheim. It will be housed there, but each of the realms that now stand in common cause will provide its most formidable magic-wielder to interweave enchantments of protection, along with a small cadre of warriors for added physical protection, so that no realm may access its power without the others' consent. If you accept this, Your Majesty, then in time, once Asgard has regained our trust, I'm confident we'll want Asgard to be a part of the tesseract's protection as well. But we will not have you as its sole protector, your word our only guarantor of it not being directed against one of us."
So our secret emissaries are having little effect. Odin felt his heart sink, even though he knew the effort, late and meager as it was, had little chance of success. "Nothing from our Weapons Vault has ever been inappropriately used, except for what my son did. He was able to do so only because he is my son. He no longer has access to the Weapons Vault. That problem has been eliminated. The bifrost is no more, but as I said before, when it is rebuilt, when he returns here, he will not have access to it. There is no risk."
"You didn't foresee Loki being a risk, though, did you? What is it that you do not foresee now? Why is the tesseract of such great importance to you, anyway? You were without this relic for a millennium. Why must you cling to it now? Is it solely your pride? And the Jotuns, do they not deserve to have their own Casket returned to them? Have not a thousand years of deprivation and now near extermination earned them the right? Does your son not deserve to be punished by those whom he has wronged instead of by the father whose heart is soft with love for him?"
Odin scoffed at this. The boy was revealing his age now, sounding almost petulant. And yet how many would be convinced by his silken words, so full of what seemed eminently logical and reasonable? "You speak from ignorance, Nadrith. Asgard has protected relics such as these for millennia of millennia. Since long before you were born. Long before even I was born. Yggdrasil brings an inherent order to the Nine. You cite an aberration and seek an unbalancing of the cosmos. Such power is concentrated in the highest branches of the Tree for a reason. Look at the instability and eventually the danger to us all the tesseract brought to Midgard. Here it is safe. Contained. As for the Ice Casket, what have the Jotuns ever used it for but destruction? They don't need it to rebuild their realm, Nadrith, they need pick-axes and chisels and strong backs. They sit in ruins of their own choosing. And I will not speak to you of my son. Shall we speak of yours instead? Almost a year old, isn't he? How would you respond to a demand to surrender him to another realm's punishment?"
Nadrith remained impassive, though Odin caught a certain softening around his eyes at the mention of his infant son. "I'll be honest with you. I don't know. But I like to think that if he had committed the same crimes as your son, I would be able to put my realm first and do what justice demanded."
"Jotunheim has been wronged, and I have offered recompense. But they ask too high a price. When you go home tonight, go to your son's crib, pick him up, hold him, sing to him. Place your hand over his chest and feel his heart beat. Look into his eyes. Then ask me to cast my son out into the hands of his enemies." Even as he spoke the words, Odin remembered himself doing these things, when Loki was an infant. He loved his son. But his heart was not soft. He had no idea where Loki was, or what he was doing, although he knew he was being punished. Perhaps he should have given Loki some form of punishment that would be more obvious to the other realms, but he had hoped that finally he'd found a punishment Loki would actually learn from. And he had never anticipated what was happening now.
"Loki is not an infant. He's a criminal by your own laws. You'll have to face that eventually." Nadrith sighed. "I had hoped to find you more reasonable today, Your Majesty."
"I had hoped the same. It is you who do not see reason. You will destroy these peaceful realms with your war."
Nadrith bristled at those words, the first hint of anything disturbing his composure. He saw himself as a man of peace, Odin knew, and would not like to be thought an aggressor. He had subtly and then overtly pressed this point on his recent visit to Alfheim, but Nadrith had remained as resolute as he was now. "We are committed to our cause. It is a just cause. This is your war, if you deny change."
There was little more to be said, and after a few further fruitless exchanges Nadrith took his leave and exited the throne room. He was escorted by an old man in servant's attire who was a veteran of the Ice War and still quite capable of performing a warrior's duties if needed, despite his portly appearance.
Thor waited for Nadrith along the short route to the portal to Alfheim designated for official travel. He'd been leaning against a tree off to the side of the cleared road, trying to look casual, but he knew he wasn't particularly successful. It didn't matter. Nadrith was no fool.
"Waiting long, Thor?" the young king asked without breaking stride.
Thor fell into step beside him. "Have you not yet decided to cease this rebellion?" he asked, his tone harsh but not angry. He'd known Nadrith nearly all his life and considered him a friend.
"Rebellion," Nadrith repeated, almost a question. "Are you our overlords now, that we rebel against our masters?"
"Nadrith-"
"Save your breath, Thor. Unless your next words are that Asgard will give us what we ask, it's a wasted effort." He suddenly drew to a halt and reached out to clasp Thor's arm. The "servant" withdrew to a respectful distance. "You and I, we're part of the next generation. Things can't stay the same forever. You know that, don't you?"
"Some things do stay the same. Some things must. How many conflicts have Alfheim and Svartalfheim had? How many attempted coups has Vanaheim seen? How often does the throne change hands on Muspelheim? And let us not even speak of Helheim, or Jotunheim, or Midgard. Asgard is stable. We-"
"Asgard hasn't been stable since the day Loki was born."
Thor's eyes narrowed and he wrenched away from the hand on his arm. "You dare speak of my brother that way? He counted you as a friend."
"Calm, my friend. I shouldn't have said that. We both know at whose feet these current problems lie, but the larger point is that no realm is stable forever. Asgard is no exception. But…it does us no good to discuss this. I want you to know I deeply regret what is to come," he said casting a look back at the palace with something close to fondness on his face.
Thor was not mollified in the slightest. To him the words sounded condescending. "Not enough to admit you've made a mistake. Not enough to put an end to this madness." He blinked and in the space of that blink he remembered the bite of a knife slipping between his ribs. The knife Loki had used after Thor had similarly failed to convince him to give up his plans of conquest.
"No," Nadrith agreed. "Not that much."
"I truly cannot fathom what you're doing. Your father never raised a fist in anger against Asgard."
"As I said, it's a new generation. It's time for change. Farewell, Thor," Nadrith said, extending an arm to grasp Thor's, more an Asgardian gesture than a Ljosalf one. "I fear the next time we meet, it will be in battle."
Thor ignored the hand. "If you come to this realm as its foe, I'll see you never leave it alive."
"Well, on that cheery note," Nadrith said with an overly wide smile, "until we meet again."
Nadrith continued on his way, the servant bowing and resuming his duties, following a few steps behind the king. Nadrith glanced back once, and Thor could swear he looked angry. He watched his back until he reached the portal and went through. He wondered what it was like to kill a king, if one felt any sort of special satisfaction. His thoughts wandered to Loki. Loki had killed a king… His mind rebelled against even trying to think that through, and he quickly went from smarting for a fight to wishing desperately to be able to turn back the clock to some time before any of this had happened, to sit down on a grassy hillside under the sun with Loki and laugh and talk, to perhaps figure out where everything had started to unravel, to do whatever it took to make sure it didn't happen again.
/
/
Saturday, March 27, was the day Loki had been waiting for. Not the day he'd been waiting for, but at last a day that was filled with nothing but progress toward the day.
He "coincidentally" left his room for the bathroom at the same time as Jane that morning by standing at his door and listening for the sound of hers, and she'd shown no unusual behavior when they spoke briefly, only the slight grumpiness she often displayed first thing in the morning. He'd vanished his baseball hat out of visible existence the night before, just in case. He still wondered why it was called a baseball hat when it was marked with the emblem of a hockey team, but he wasn't curious enough to type his question into the Google search box, and doubted there would come a time on Midgard now when he was bored enough for that to change.
In the galley Loki filled a mug with what he supposed would be called an octuple shot of espresso, although he'd never heard anyone use such a phrase or get that much of the strong coffee. He wasn't nearly as fond of it as Jane, but he hoped it would give his brain something of a kickstart without the "shaky hand syndrome" he'd gotten when he'd filled a large soda cup with the stuff. He would have to make another attempt at sleep tonight, but for now the partial night's sleep and the caffeine should be sufficient.
His work was again separate from Jane's, and he needed complete privacy for his part, so he shut himself up in his room, changed into the Asgardian attire he'd worn when he arrived on this planet – the deep violet tunic, black leather pants, even the black boots that rose to just below his knees. They were comfortable with their custom fit and patterns of wear made by him instead of who-knew-how-many other people before him.
If he had thought his Canadian passport a challenge to create, this far surpassed it. The passport was solely visual, albeit complexly visual. The lithium jelly battery did not have to look exactly like its model, but it had to function exactly like its model, withstand the elements like its model, generate plenty of power like its model, be as stable as its model. He had invested a considerable amount of time into studying the model, though, and he thought he could create its match.
Loki genuinely enjoyed the work. He ignored the reasons for what he was doing, he ignored everything he expected to come after and everything that had come before. Devoid of anger, devoid of anything other than an attempt to reshape matter and energy, to bend them to his will, his world shrank to his chair, his desk, the model battery, the raw materials to be transformed to duplicate it. Years, centuries even, fell away, and he was no different from the young man he had once been, eager to learn, to accomplish, solely for the sense of achievement. He felt something akin to happiness, but it had been so long since he'd felt an unpolluted happiness he didn't recognize it as such. He briefly wondered if this was what Jane felt when she was immersed in her scientific endeavors. He pushed the stray thought away, for it was no more than an unnecessary distraction. This was his version of science, a co-mingling of science and magic that was beautiful in its purity and simplicity.
When he'd swirled the first bit of magic around the first bit of plastic, he'd clenched his jaw in anticipation of the possibility of pain, but Odin's curse never kicked in. Loki wasn't sure why not. Motivation couldn't be broken down to a science, he supposed. Deception was involved, selfishness to be sure…but he wasn't doing this for the purpose of deceiving, or harming. He was doing it so he and Jane could test a tracking device. So they could make sure they could get data from the probe they sent through Yggdrasil. So they could figure out where the probe wound up after going through that metaphorical tree. And then so Loki could get out of here. Perhaps, then, this effort wasn't considered mischief. Whatever the reason, once it became clear he would not be punished for creating this battery, that concern was forgotten and his concentration became absolute.
By evening Loki was hungry and his eyes needed a break. He glanced at his watch, and realized that if he wanted to make it to the galley in time for the "fresh" dinner he needed to leave now. He had made good progress on the battery, and believed he would be ready to test it the next day. He was at a convenient stopping point, so he carefully stored all of his materials in one of the desk drawers, changed into Midgardian attire, threw his satchel around his neck, and headed out.
Jane was leaving the galley as he entered it. It was strange seeing her now, after not seeing her since early morning; the last two days he'd spent hardly any time with her at all, after being virtually tied to her side since they'd arrived. There was a certain pleasure in the familiarity of it, even though given where things stood now with her and with their work he preferred to steer clear of her. Loki did not have the need for constant social interaction that Thor…that some others did, but he was not by nature a hermit, either.
"How'd it go today?" she asked him where they paused just inside the large room, perhaps a dozen people seated at its tables.
"Quite well. I found a battery in one of the jamesways that has similar properties, so I've been trying to make a few modifications. I think it might work," he said, going with the lie he'd settled on earlier.
"Really? That's amazing. I guess somebody has started manufacturing them commercially. Or maybe they got some prototypes of their own out here to test against extreme cold weather? Anyway, that's great news, Lucas."
"And you? Any progress?"
She nodded enthusiastically. "Gary's been incredible. Did you know he builds computers as a hobby?"
Loki shook his head, trying his best to look impressed by Gary's hobbies.
"I think he's happy for the distraction, too. They had to put his dad on a respirator, it doesn't look good. But he keeps saying he'd rather stay busy than sit around worrying, so he's really been helping a lot."
"How long do you think it will take?"
"I'm not sure. It's delicate work. Maybe a few days? I've got all day tomorrow to work on it, and I figure I'll put in a half-day on Sunday."
Loki resisted hard the urge to ask her to work all day Sunday and simply nodded. He started to continue on toward the serving line when Jane put a hand on his arm to stop him. He froze and swung back around to face her. She took her hand away and he relaxed.
"I just had an idea. Mari asked me to join her volleyball team. We're playing tomorrow night. I think I'm going to be kind of the pity player, but at your height if we get you on the net you could make up for me being on the team. You wanna join us?"
"I…don't really play," Loki said, thinking if he ever got time he really should look up Midgardian sports. He was never sure which ones he should know about and which ones were more eclectic.
"Me, either. The last time I played was in P.E. in high school. But I don't think anybody's anywhere near professional-level or anything, it's just a way to get some exercise and have some fun. And after a couple days hunched over a circuit board I think it'll be good to loosen up the muscles a bit. Come on, we'll figure it out together," she said with a shrug.
Together? Like friends? That made it easier. "No, but thanks for the offer. Now if you'll excuse me…"
"Oh, sure, sorry, yeah, dinner hours are about up, go ahead."
Loki gave her a quick token smile and hurried on to the serving line, where the pans of food were just being put away.
/
/
Loki slept that night, and while he'd had a nonsensical and vaguely unpleasant dream in which he'd gone to Svartalfheim and been met by a woman he'd once loved there – unlikely to actually happen since she was long dead – it couldn't even be considered a nightmare, much less a nightmare of memories twisted in some kind of attempt to control him. "The Other," The Lesser, The Useless, The Appendage, The Putrid One, that had been his intent before. Loki supposed these dreams were the only way they could reach him now, through a lingering connection established with the scepter and weakened without it, intended to make him cower with fear. Those creatures had never understood him.
When they found him he'd been clinging to ephemeral strands of sanity in the void he now believed was Yggdrasil's trunk, stuck there from residual bifrost energy that had been sufficient to direct him into the wormhole but insufficient to maintain its activation and actually send him anywhere. They offered to free him if he answered their questions. He'd been so far gone then that he had no idea what words had come out of his mouth but he suspected it had been humiliating, involving begging and emotion and truth. All of which they then easily used against him.
He'd been desperate.
He hadn't needed any additional motivation to seize an opportunity to rule one of the Nine, to punish Thor that the one should be Midgard, to prove to Odin what a mistake he'd made in his rejection and disregard. He hadn't needed it, but they'd provided it anyway. Loki endured it, having quickly learned that escape was unlikely – he needed them as much as they needed him. What he needed from them, though, was short-term, limited to getting off that desolate black rock and back on his feet. What they needed was longer-term and disturbing.
Saturday went much the same as Friday, except that by late afternoon Loki was holding in his hand a new battery. He was already certain it worked, but he also knew Jane would need to see for herself. He got his gear on and went out to the Dark Sector's MAPO – the blue Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory with its exterior stairs and walkways like scaffolding on a building under construction – battery tucked away in his satchel. It had been nice not having to go outdoors the last couple of days but this was worth the discomfort.
Jane didn't hear him enter; her back was to him and she was seated on a stool, hunched over a table. Gary wasn't around. He closed the door softly behind him to take a moment to observe. He'd been in MAPO a handful of times, including recently as part of his treasure hunt, but he'd never been in the machinist's shop. Like so many other spaces here there was a certain amount of clutter, and the machinery lacked the sleek look of SHIELD's equipment, which he'd initially – erroneously – assumed to be the standard in this realm. When Jane's head came up he cleared his throat; he didn't want to startle her in the middle of her work and risk her ruining it and having to start from scratch.
She turned and called him over, showing him the tiny circuit boards she was working on. "I'm almost done. I might be able to get to the power-off tests today. The analog signature analysis will tell me if I'm on track." She went on to throw out more terminology and acronyms he'd never heard of, which all seemed very interesting to her, so he nodded and tried to look interested as well. He'd heard only one thing that was actually interesting – "almost done."
"I'm sorry," she said, interrupting her own excursus. "I bet you never had to do any of your own soldering, huh? I'm probably boring you. How's your day gone, any progress with the battery?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Jane. There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to you discuss modern options in conformal coating. But since you asked," he said, shifting his satchel around further to the front and reaching in for the battery, "I think this is ready to be tested."
Jane swatted his arm then took the battery; Loki followed her over to another table where she searched around in a drawer and pulled out some kind of electronic device. She turned it on and connected it to the battery, which looked like a thick filmy piece of paper instead of the cylindrical or rectangular metal batteries he'd seen used in more everyday devices.
"Wow," Jane said as numbers appeared on the screen of her testing device. "This is even a little better than what we got through Stark Industries. Good job, Lucas."
Loki gave a modest nod but grinned on the inside. He'd bested Tony Stark at his own technology when he'd never even heard of a battery before a few months ago. "Do you think we'll be able to test the transmitter tomorrow, then?"
She looked skeptical of that and Loki knew her answer before she said it. "I think Monday's more realistic. Half-day tomorrow, remember?"
Loki nodded and managed to keep his expression neutral. It was only two more days. He could wait that long.
/
/
"There you are," Jane exclaimed on Sunday morning, almost bumping into Lucas when he opened the computer lab door to come out just as she was about to go in. "Finally figuring out you actually have to check your e-mail?"
"Well, I have to know when my appointment with disaster is, don't I?" he answered with a smirk.
"I guess you do. So did you find out?"
"Not yet."
"Have you had breakfast yet?"
"Ah…I have, yes."
"And do you know how to ski?"
He blinked at her in confusion, but Jane waited him out. She intended to give him as little room to get out of this as possible. "I…don't…ah, yes, I suppose so."
"Good!" Jane said with a bright grin. "Because we're going skiing this morning."
Lucas looked at her like she grown two heads. Or perhaps more like she had failed kindergarten. "Jane, perhaps you haven't noticed, but there are no mountains out there," he said, leaning against the wall next to the computer lab door.
"Not downhill skiing, obviously. Cross-country. I've only done it a couple of times myself, but Ken's got-"
"Ken? Do you actually do any work all day?"
"As I was saying, Ken's got a small group together and it sounded like fun, and I thought it would be good for both of us to get out of here and get some fresh air." Not to mention she was determined to pull Lucas out of his shell now. And to fix what had gone wrong on Thursday night.
Lucas started to shake his head. "Jane, I-"
"I'm not taking no for an answer."
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And she didn't take no for an answer. But Loki made only a token effort to decline, anyway. He was curious. He enjoyed skiing, had from the first time he'd tried it as a boy, and he was fairly good at it. But he liked going fast, which meant he liked going down. He never understood the attraction to horizontal skiing – too slow, too much time to think about the cold. Still, he was leaving soon, and there was no way to know when he might have the chance to do something like this again – in fact, perhaps never, since he would be quite happy to never see snow or ice again. He'd planned to spend all day Sunday studying the other parts they were missing to make a complete probe, just in case, but he could give up a morning to this. It would also temporarily satisfy Jane and her apparent desire to get him just as involved in station activities as she was becoming.
One more day. One more day and they should be able to test the transmitter. If it worked, a probe was next. And if that probe sent back data indicating it had reached Asgard…then Loki was all but gone.
About two hours after the invitation, on a cold dark Sunday morning, Loki stood in his boots and skis and every layer of Extreme Cold Weather gear he had. This kind of skiing was no better than he remembered; it was actually worse. The texture of the snow – in reality fine ice crystals that made an annoying screeching sound as the skis moved over it – meant there was little glide, so their speed never got much above walking. The best part of all was that Ken had insisted they all wear headlamps because they would be up to a mile away from the station, and the headlamps used red lights. He hoped Jane was satisfied, because he wouldn't be doing this again.
Loki waited off to the side while Jane, Ken, and the other two who had joined them risked losing fingers to take pictures of the red-lit station and Dark Sector buildings, and the sliver of moon barely visible in the twilight sky. He kept an eye on Jane, but she didn't attempt to turn the camera on him.
"What?" she asked at one point when she turned and saw him watching her.
He averted his eyes and said nothing.
She wrapped her camera back up in the insulated pouch she'd made for it, got her layers of gloves back on, awkwardly turned her skis – if they skied in the Olympics Jane wouldn't be winning any medals – then stepped toward him until she reached his side.
"Penny for your thoughts," she said through her balaclava, then shook her head. "Does anybody say that anymore? It makes me think of my grandmother."
"I don't know. But my thoughts are far more expensive than that. I doubt you can afford them."
"Okay then…one thought. Can I get a discount if it's just one thought?"
Loki gave a frustrated sigh and looked out toward the station. It was easier to tell her something than to not. "I was wondering why anyone ever chooses to live here."
Jane cleared her throat, one of those deliberate throat-clearings, done to make a point. "You chose to live here."
Loki turned back toward her and flashed her the most wolfish grin he knew how to make, all well-hidden behind his balaclava. "I have reasons."
"Everybody has reasons, Lucas. And it's really kind of late to be asking such things. I asked you back in Sydney if you really wanted to subject yourself to this," she said. Loki could hear the smile in her voice if not quite see it on her face.
"You were trying to get rid of me."
"Yeah, I was," she said with a light laugh. "People come here for different reasons. For the grantees like us, we come here for the chance to work on some of the coolest projects, oh, no pun intended, the coolest scientific projects in the world. Carlo told me he's wanted to come out here and work with Ice Cube ever since he first heard about it being built. The contract workers, a lot of them have really interesting stories about what brought them here. Mari got tired of not being able to fit all her stuff into her tiny New York apartment so she quit her job at an insurance office and sold most of her stuff and came here with a couple of suitcases. She just wanted to do something different for a while."
"Washing dishes nine hours per day is something different, I suppose," Loki said with distaste. He wasn't sure exactly what one did in an insurance office but it had to be better than that.
"Don't be a snob. Not everybody minds getting their hands dirty as much as you. Anyway, whatever reasons people have for coming here, I think everybody comes looking for a little bit of an adventure. Macy's lived on every continent in the world, except this one, until now. Tristan's an amateur photographer and he's hoping to get enough good photos out of this to put together a book and go professional. Gary's dad served here when he was in the Navy, and he wanted to follow in his footsteps."
He wondered how long she would have gone on if she hadn't mentioned the one whose father lay ill, still clinging to life as far as Loki knew. The father who was the son's whole reason for coming to this awful place.
"You ready?" Ken called.
Loki adjusted his poles and prepared to set off, hoping they were heading back to the station now.
"Wait a second. Lucas…I've been wanting to say something…about the other night…I am your friend. I mean, I hope you-"
"Don't. There's no need. You just surprised me that day, with what you said about…about my mother. But you were right, I don't let people be friends with me. I'm glad to work with you, Jane, but I don't need you to be my friend, and I don't want to be yours." With that he pushed off after the rest of the group.
One day. One day, he reminded himself. If the test went well…
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Previews for Ch. 33 "Mass Casualty Incident": Jane is bothered by Loki's response to, well, what happens right above here...among other things; Loki has a disappointment and a bit of a temper flare-up; there's at least one Mass Casualty Incident, and at least one of them's a drill; and if you've been waiting for the countdown to hit zero, it does, but nothing happens...nothing that Our Heroes expected, anyway.
And excerpt (oh, I debated so long on what to provide here!):
"Do the Frost Giants still live, Father?" He still remembered asking this, as a boy, thinking with pride that perhaps his father had wiped them all out with his bare hands. Do the Frost Giants still live, Father? he asked again now in a mockery of his childish innocence. He had no idea how much damage he'd managed to do before Thor, kind, merciful Thor, had decided to destroy Asgard's only means of reaching all of the other realms. He loves the Frost Giants more than he loves you, Jane. Wouldn't you like to know that? Has he failed to mention it? You should see what they are. What he loves more than you.
