Saturday, November 23 1963, 12:12 am
Riding in a car full of Hargreeves is something that hadn't happened to me in a long time. Since 2019, actually, the day we had set off - somewhat incautiously - in search of Allison and Viktor, heading for the lakes. An expedition that didn't end well, during which I was in a state quite similar to the one I feel now, in this spectral form. Tenfold.
Not having control over my own body, my own power, is something I've already experienced in my life, the few times I've taken anxiolytics or a hit of one of Klaus's joints, only to immediately regret it. An unpleasant feeling of having my will dissociated from my abilities. I tried to turn myself tangible again, but I failed. For the moment, the matter that slumbers within my energy seems to stubbornly ignore me.
We drove out of Dallas, north into the countryside, towards Plano. Viktor's poor car has nearly joined me on this side of death ten times, and it reassures me that I can still summon energy to propel it. Just as I did so often on board of Priscilla during the 'Children's' journeys. Landscapes changed, urbanism faded. Soon, fields replaced sidewalks, and the first farms began to appear amidst fields of corn and wheat.
Klaus openly taunted me several times, saying I was ready to play Christine - Stephen King's haunted car - and absolutely none of his siblings wondered who he was talking to, given that he's always done that. Again, I'm amazed at how they deal with the occurrence of death, in their entourage. But as always, as a matter of fact, events leave them no time to dwell.
For nothing, really nothing, prepared us for what we were about to find at the Cooper farm. Where Viktor has - for months - been staying as a 'nanny'.
Was it because of the first snowflakes that I stopped supporting the engine of the car that managed to get us to the end of the driveway anyway? Or was it for the swirls of bluish etheral pulses crackling through the barn planks? Like all of us, I gazed at the scattered snow surrounding this isolated place, right in the middle of the warm Texan autumn. I swear, Klaus didn't keep his minimalistic waistcoat open for long. And pretty soon, we all realized what was happening.
On the road, Viktor explained that he'd saved the kid he was taking care of here from drowning, naming him Harlan, even though Klaus keeps calling him Marlon. That he'd reanimated him in a way he didn't quite understand. Yet something peculiar seems to have happened: even without sensing the energy at your core, I can tell it's hard to miss the incredible storm this kid is now stirring up, almost carrying Viktor's signature.
Something must clearly have passed between them. A phenomenon that Five and I could easily recognize.
When the two of us opened the vortex that allowed us to escape the 2019 Apocalypse, he and I had exchanged some of the golden particles that make us different from the rest of the people. Five immediately made the connection with this involuntary transfer. And he was able to tell Viktor before the barn doors opened.
Inside, a crackling spiral swirls around the kid, generating electric arcs all the way up to the ceiling beams: it's literally a storm of azure energy that he's raising around him to protect himself, even from his mother. By the way, I recognized her, the one Viktor calls Sissy, who started off by threatening us with a gunshot between the eyes. I remember seeing her down the Southland Life Building, the night of the 'light supper'. She seems terribly lost, confronted with the impossible power that consumes her son. Devastated but dignified, as people here sometimes are.
From Viktor's words in the car, I knew that Harlan already struggles to cope with the aggression of the outside world in ordinary circumstances, with overwhelming stimuli and thoughts. As soon as I entered the barn, I could gauge the intensity of his neural connections, so developed that he could barely manage the signals. So right now, unsettled by this fraction of inordinate power within him, he's just out of control, and possibly dangerous to himself and others.
Perhaps it's because of his extremely sensitive perception: he spotted me right away. Me, or rather the golden particles still interwoven with my being and my power. He only got even more agitated, I realized, when I tried to approach him. I can't risk doing more harm than good. So I simply stepped away, out of sight, even for Klaus. And now I wait just outside the snow-covered barn.
"Howdie. Are you a rookie?" a hoarse voice, eroded by a lifetime of tobacco, suddenly says.
There, leaning against the wood of the barn wall, two weathered cowboys stand in long, dirty leather coats.
"Guys, not now," I tell them. "I don't have the fucking time to get hazed by you Texan ghosts."
I hear them snicker at my accent.
"A Northern looker, hooda thunk it?"
"You're not the reason we came. But I guess - you too - you're here for ~him~."
I stare at them sharply, and frown, because I know what they are up to. Klaus. They're here to stalk Klaus.
"Oh no. No. No. You're going to leave him alone, because he's got a shitload of better things to do than put up with your whining, and hear you screaming in his eardrums that you want to come back to life".
The taller of the two hisses, the one with the softer hat.
"Uh-oh. You've already tried it and been turned down. Or maybe you didn't even dare. Big hat, no cattle..."
They snigger again. I'm so focused on these two assholes that I don't hear the odd sound of intruders arriving further down the meadow. It's only when I see Five and Diego walk past me towards two unknown women, that I realize something's wrong. But the two ghosts don't care, and one of them is already heading towards Klaus, who is currently coming out of the barn along with Luther and Allison, trying to see what's going on in the distance. And I interpose myself between him and the two cowboys. Derisorily, because I don't think spirits can interact 'physically'.
"You want to know the truth?" I say, trying to sound self-assured. "The truth is, he can't bring you back, right now. But until he can, I'd advise you not to piss him off too much, because his blacklist of spectral hasslers is already long. When the day comes, he won't forget your vermin-faces and leave you to rot in the corn fields instead of resurrecting you".
Where the hell did I learn to bluff like that? First, I have no guarantee that Klaus could ever do such a thing. Second, even if he were to see them right now, he'd forget their mugs in less than ten minutes. But the two cowboys whistle in unison.
"Wow wow wow, Luke, she's serious."
"You said it, Duke, more proof that there's two theories to arguin' with a woman and neither one works."
Behind us, lightning bolts flash across the barn, which shakes all over under the energy Harlan is stirring up.
"Shut up with your Gold Rush era sexist proverbs. And try something new: be nice and helpful to him, rather than bullies."
Luke and Duke? No shit? I can't believe I'm having this conversation with the archetypal ghosts who have historically ruined Klaus's nights, and therefore mine. I'm about to throw another wisecrack at them, finally getting a kick out of it, but my gaze is drawn back to where Diego and Five are standing, beyond the small group of Allison, Luther and Klaus who are watching them. I notice the briefcase held by one of the two women in red shoes. But what catches my attention above all is...
My eyes widen.
The one on the left, the brown-skinned girl with a messy bob. She carries within her the same golden particles that are causing so much harm by having 'contaminated' Harlan today.
"Oh my fucking shit," I gasp as I feel my stomach churn, more from realization than any fear.
"Jeez, that Northern girl swears a lot. Come on, Luke, let's..."
Suddenly, the old cowboy's sentence is interrupted by a multitude of sounds. Those of the successive arrival of dozens, hundreds of agents in dark-blue suits and ties. Some wearing stupid masks depicting absurd animals, arriving by means of briefcases. All killers from the Temps Commission, no doubt about it. Five's former colleagues. Certainly not here to celebrate his retirement.
"Fuck, fuck, oh fuck".
In the blink of an eye, both Duke and Luke are gone, perhaps sensing from the shiver of my own spectral energy that the situation is serious. This time, we're not just dealing with a dead Swede on a sofa even before Ikea is founded. This time, it's a human tide that's about to break over the insignificant beings that we are.
But what the hell do they want? Is it because we've prevented a new Apocalypse, which didn't even happen in the original timeline? Is it to ensure that ~yet another one~ has to happen? Or is it just retaliation, with the simple aim of eliminating Five... which would be somewhat overkill.
I don't have time to ponder this for long. Already, the dolled-up woman in the pretty hat drops a handkerchief, just like in my grandmother's historical dramas, and this wacky but lethal army starts moving at once. Suddenly, their shouts rise up, along with the stomping of their feet on what used to be meadows of plenty. They stir up dust, brandishing precision weapons, skirting around their handler who remains still and satisfied, next to the girl with the power I'm still unsure of.
It would be impossible not to reflexively step back. To flee. Even in my spectral state, when basically nothing could happen to me. Because gunfire is coming. Volleys of bullets. Coming from everywhere. Passing through me. If I've ever been able to sneak up on the mechanics of shooting weapons to divert the trajectory of the projectiles fired, I wouldn't be able to do it right now, because there are just too many of them. Hundreds, thousands, coming from all directions, splitting the air above this snow that should never have existed.
I saw Five teleport Diego to take cover behind a tractor, Luther, Allison and Klaus dive pitifully behind wet hay feeders. A 'Hargreeves' strategy, in other words no strategy at all, but what could they do? It's literally raining bullets, and even if they're not nukes, I think it's unlikely that we'll be able to escape the tsunami of agents hurtling towards us. 'Ut Malum Pluvia': 'When evil rains'. One more time.
What snaps me back to myself is seeing Klaus plugging his ears, curled up against Luther, who is also miserably protecting Allison, behind the frail feeders. Klaus always puts his hands over his ears like this, when the noise or simply the situation frightens him, which always pinch my heart, something I haven't seen in a long time. On his side, Luther once confessed to me over breakfast at Hargreeves Mansion, that he, too, would be killed by a hail of bullets. Allison's rumors can't help against that tide, either. And - dammit - I just can't keep standing there doing nothing.
*Shhht!*
Once again, without the slightest crack, I teleport my ghostly self beside them. Helplessly, my hand passes through Klaus's arm again, while the bullets keep hailing at us, occasionally breaking through the hay on the feeders. The rush of the Commission agents is approaching, approaching, relentlessly, in the thumping of their clothed shoes and clamors.
But at that very moment, another sound arises, surpassing those of voices and machine- guns. A resonance that defies the audible spectrum, that causes energy and matter in all things to vibrate. Above the barn - his skin white, his eyes bright and frozen - Viktor is ascending into the air, in a way he probably didn't even know he could control. I remain transfixed, we all do.
What's about to happen, we can all guess.
His fists clenched, he's preparing the release of a colossal sound wave, which will result in a huge deflagration, this time in a perfectly controlled way. As Luther encircles Allison and Klaus a little more, I join them in fear. For them. But I also feel - for Viktor - the utmost respect.
It only takes a few seconds for his shockwave to unfold, shaking our eardrums, expanding circularly from the epicenter that he is. Sweeping everything across the meadow's snow-covered grass, the wave is already wiping out the bodies of the front-line agents, their briefcases, their weapons. I falter, faced with the very phenomenon that killed me for being 'point-blank'. But my reflex is not to protect myself.
Not even consciously, I instantly erect a sphere of bluish energy around Allison, Luther and Klaus. Frail, rippling like water, but efficient. I protected Jill this way, I tried to contain Viktor. I even saved a cow in Rishikesh. Viktor's blast approaches as I close my eyes, my eyelids tight. Even closer, unstoppable, already making my spectral entity quiver.
*SHHHHHHRRRAAAAA*
As it passes through me, I can feel this colossal energy like a wash of icy water: as if this sense were the very last I had left. But there's more. I feel like I could have held on to it. That I could have used this shock to come back. In that very moment, I understand why I haven't been able to materialize yet.
I don't have a body to return to: I have to reshape it from scratch after converting my spectral energy into ordinary one. Too many steps, especially for a whole being to make tangible again. I get exhausted halfway through, like when teleporting too frequently. But such a burst of energy... could give me the boost I need to save my strength. Just as the electric shock of a defibrillator could revive a stopped heart.
Unfortunately, by the time I realize this, the wave has already passed. My sphere didn't hold, around Allison, Luther and Klaus, but thankfully they seem unharmed, and Klaus looks up at Luther whose huge arm is still gripping him. Wordlessly at first, the three of them look at each other, realizing that the machine-guns assault has ceased.
"It's over...", Allison dares to hope.
And then I take in the sight of the terrible desolation all around us. The immensity of the blown-up area, leaving only devastation on the meadow: dead bodies strewn as far as the eye can see, those of the Commission's assailants. Lifeless figures in blue suits, scattered briefcases. But again, I'm seized by the sight of the two women who had launched the assault. Over there - at the other end of the meadow - they are also unharmed, still standing in their red shoes. Luther, Klaus, Allison, almost choke.
They stand straight and threatening. Safe and sound. Inside... a sphere of energy, identical in every way to the one I've just erected.
"How are they doing that?"
Luther's words sum up what we're all wondering, but I can sense them again, those golden particles dancing within the energy of the girl on the left.
The one who looks about our age.
The one who is - unquestionably - one of us.
Suddenly, I remember one of the visions I had through Five's eyes. Red shoes, a fight in a warehouse, teleportations. Damn. Is her power the same as m...
Like an answer to the question I didn't ask, something changes again in the air. The same sound wave that Viktor has just condensed. The same gleam in her chest, the same whiteness in her eyes. And now the girl too rises into the vibrating air above the meadow... ready to release the same deflagration that Viktor has just unleashed.
"Oh for fuck's sake," I whisper in a way that only Klaus can hear.
He steps back, just like his siblings, but it's too late, of course. Far too late to avoid it.
I don't know what presence of mind comes over me. I don't know by what reflex I manage not to just stand there in stunned petrifaction. In my ghostly mind, there's only one thought: I've got a second chance now, and if another shockwave of energy passes through me, this time I've got to use it. This time, I don't raise a sphere, I focus my remaining strength on something else. I deliberately stand at the front of the bullet-riddled feeders, contemplating the incoming tidal wave head-on.
*SHHHHHHRRRAAAAA*
Again, the surge sweeps over us, propelling Allison, Klaus and even Luther like twigs through the air. The gigantic energy born of sound waves collides with my being once again. And this time... I literally turn it around and use it for my own ends. That bitch stole my energy sphere? No problem. I'm going to make the most of the power she's using against us.
My earlier comparison with a defibrillator could not have been better chosen. It's no longer a tingling sensation that I feel in my hands, in my body: it's a sudden return to the totality of my senses, right down to the perception of all the electrical currents that were still running through my nerves yesterday. I feel my own energy change, returning to the one I had always known. It's effortless, but the intensity of the sensation overwhelms me, and I collapse to my knees.
I'm still invisible. I'm still immaterial. And yet everything in my very essence is changing.
I gasp, I tremble. But right beside me, after what seems like an eternity, I see a pair of red Dr Martens step into my field of vision, on the frozen ground. I look up at a pair of nicely cut dark pants, and a black leather jacket that I could have worn too. She's got a hard look in her eyes, and an sassy attitude I've also had in the past. A casual, confident demeanor, and a form of judgment, as she watches me with squinted eyes.
"Shit. I can't even tell if you're a fucking ghost or not."
With this simple giggly statement, spoken in a perfect British accent, I understand what she's seeing. Just like Klaus would do, she's watching the spectral energy slowly transmute inside me. Becoming plain again. But I can't do anything, overwhelmed by what is shifting inside me. I look at her, trembling, curled up here. And with a cheeky laugh that pierces my mind now very much alive again, she steps over me and away towards Sissy's house. I rest my head on the ground as I clench my intangible ribs on the snow-sprinkled grass. For a long time. Too long.
"What the hell is this explosive weasel..."
As he approaches, Klaus nearly trips over a machine gun. He's followed at a distance by Luke and Duke - in their ghostly cowboy hats - looking proud enough to have had the opportunity to put my recommendations into practice. I thought I caught a glimpse of them catching Klaus in mid-air to prevent him from crashing to the ground, and I guess he instinctively materialized them as he once did with Ben. I'm proud of him, very proud. But right now, my newly wired brain is in no condition to think.
"Can you believe she's Diego's ex?" he tells me, readjusting his long coat and dusting off some dried dung. "Life's crazy. We'd have turned our backs two more years and they'd already have had six kids."
I try to lift my head, struggling to lock my gaze in his. So she's the girl who was with Diego the night Five offered to let me stay at Eliott's. But I don't really care about gossip right now, frankly.
"You... you still see me...," I stammer, and he sighs as he contemplates the mess I am.
"What a patchwork of energies, Rin. You look like a Desigual coat."
I almost convulse, once, as if coughing. Within me, spectral energy carries on transmuting into regular one. I just didn't remember it being this disturbing.
"I never took the piss out of you when you were miserable, Klaus..."
He laughs softly, clearly not realizing how crucial what's happening to me is. But he suddenly turns his head as he hears a panicked call. Diego. A little further on, he's trapped under the weight of a tractor, also hurled there by the second blast.
Within seconds, Klaus rushes over to him - as do Allison, Viktor and Luther - and literally pretends to help the latter lift the tractor, just so he can claim he's helped. Much more slowly and painfully, I drag my invisible, intangible self over to them, and collapse again at Klaus's feet, while the last remaining bits of spectral energy keep coming back to life.
"Team Zero! Unstoppable !" Diego exclaims, high-fiving Luther, but his enthusiasm falls flat once again. Allison just looks around us.
"Okay, has anyone seen Five?"
Luther turns briefly in the direction of the collapsed brick wall of the house while I cough again.
"I don't know, he's around there somewhere. By the way, Diego, your ex-girlfriend can blink like Five."
"Yeah, that bitch just rumored me so I couldn't breathe."
Between hiccups, I blink three times and utter, unsure if anyone can hear me:
"She's raised a sphere of protective energy, just like me..."
And Klaus adds:
"And destroyed, like, half the farm with a shock wave. So unoriginal."
Is she able to do all that? She manipulates sound, energy, she sees ghosts, she can exert mind control like Allison? This 'explosive weasel' - as Klaus called her - and to paraphrase the words Five once had for us - is some freaking kind of 'another us', which Viktor sums up:
"If she can do everything we can, she might as well just be one of us."
"Ahah, yeah..." Luther chuckles softly before the words finally slowly come crashing into his brain.
"No... there's no way. It can't be."
I sigh into my invisibility as my returned senses finally seem to calm down. My introduction into the Hargreeves landscape - more or less long ago, depending on which one you're considering - has clearly prepared some of them to quickly accept this eventuality. And yet, it's staggering - even for me - to admit it.
"It's a reasonable conclusion", Allison utters.
A confused silence falls over our stunned assembly, the kind Klaus usually breaks with a cheeky joke. He looks down at me, a sign that he can still see the last snatches of spectral energy leaving me. His eyebrow lifts slightly, as he stares at me with devilish, impassible sarcasm:
"Hey, but there where only seven of us..."
I almost laugh, letting a slight tingling seize my hand. Slowly but surely, materiality returns to my fist.
And I promptly crush his foot.
Notes:
I really enjoyed writing this chapter and this first part of the 'battle'. It's an opportunity for me to fill in two gaps in the story: how Viktor understands that the marigolds have passed to Harlan, and why the two cowboys - our friends Duke and Luke - catch Klaus up when he falls back.
Harlan is already able to sense the 'marigolds', as are Rin and - actually - Viktor. A fact that will be crucial for season 3, and which I've chosen to suggest here already. Now you also know that the energy sphere erected by Lila to protect herself and The Handler from Viktor's shockwave... was actually borrowed from Rin.
For a long time, I wondered how to deal with Klaus's sentence about the fact that 'there were only seven of them'. The solution slowly dawned on me as I wrote, and I finally ended up using it as a title for the chapter.
Any comment will make my day