Chronological markers: this scene fits in as a deleted scene from The Umbrella Academy, season 3, episode 7 (around 35:18 (shortly after Reginald urges Klaus to massively dispel ghosts in the cemetery).

Suggested soundtrack: Caravan Palace - Ghosts ; Aurora - Warrior.

April 06 2019, 04:55 pm

I was not prepared for what I was about to see on my way back to the Obsidian Hotel. Nothing, in truth, could prepare me for that.

The first thing that struck me was the tangerine color of the sky: surreal, abnormal, like what sometimes happened in Baja when the wind kicked up the sand, except this wasn't sand. It was the glow of fires everywhere and the fissures that had opened since yesterday under the increasing pulses of the Kugelblitz. The light dimmed alarmingly fast: day and night now alternated in an erratic pattern. I suspect that from now on, we will live only in darkness or in a faint orange glow, devoid of any coherence.

I lack the analytical skills of Five or Sloane, but I know there's little time left. Two days, perhaps one more or less, but one thing is certain: the gigantic anomaly we've created is consuming everything, and our time is running out.

Chris wasn't going to join the 'family meeting' called by Ben this afternoon, in order to rest as much as possible in his psykonium alcove until the moment - later - when they will attempt to trap the Kugelblitz in a Dyson Sphere. The thought makes me shiver, but I had to leave, not to further destabilize him. So, I returned to the hotel, passing flames and collapsed buildings. I walked slowly, as if my brain needed time to process the impossible. This end of the world is - by far - the slowest and most unsettling we've ever known.

Along the nearly deserted Seventh Avenue, I made my way back to the hotel, where even the parking valets were no longer standing. I passed through the revolving doors, as so many times before, into the lobby cut off from the world, where one could almost ignore the collapse outside. Yet, the silence due to the disappearance of the 'regulars' is oppressive, broken only by the Concierge's music. Chet, seated behind the horseshoe-shaped switchboard console.

He is still there: spared, for now. I approach him slowly. After all, I have nothing else to do. I am alone here, apart from everyone else. Trusting Chris, Sloane, Viktor, and Lila. I have to bide my time because it feels endless, so I lean my elbow on the console, facing him.

"I'm sorry about your dog", I say, and he looks up as if surprised.

I don't particularly like small dogs of that sort, or any creatures that require care - apart from Klaus, perhaps. But I have seen him putting up lost dog flyers after the first pulses of the Kugelblitz, and I feel sorry for him.

"We've all lost someone now", he says, without much emotion.

He can't know that I have just lost my grandmother for the second time, but he is right: we're all in the same boat now, possibly except for the Hargreeves - the Umbrella ones - who have the 'luck' of already having no one left here. At least Chet no longer claims that the disappearances are conspiracy theories or mass hysteria. Denying the obvious has become impossible now, even for someone like him who never leaves the hotel and only glance at the outside world through his radio and television.

I watch him waiting by the phones, which surely will never ring again, as if he is programmed for it. I wonder what he is. Whether he's like Hargreeves and Iggy, or just a human working here. No, I know there is more. Chet seems to know every corridor of this hotel, even its most secret ones. He seems to be literally a part of this place, like the bar, the spa, or the grand staircase. As if he's its soul. I have nothing left to lose either, so I choose to ask.

"I also lost a friend I made here. One of the people who stayed on the top floor. Are you like them, Chet? Do you come from far away, too?"

He looks at me, his sharp, time-worn face showing no emotion. For a moment, his music weighs heavily on my heart, knowing it now plays only for him and me. Finally, he answers:

"I am neither like them nor like you."

He can't say what he is. Perhaps he doesn't even know, if my suspicions are correct and if this absurd world follows Asimov's laws. I have already sensed part of the answer the day I probed the entirety of the hotel through its energy. When I understood that this place is nothing but a huge machine, housing another.

Yeah, Chet is not human. Nor is he one of the lizard-men of Makȟá Zuȟéča. What he is is closer to the android some call Grace, and others, Mom. The absurd thought occurs to me that Chet Rodo - his name - might be nothing more than an anagram for 'Door Tech.'

"Reginald Hargreeves is the one who placed you here, isn't he?", I ask tactfully, and he pulls a cloth from his pocket to polish the already gleaming console.

"Sir Reginald will return soon for business: you can ask him then."

It isn't an answer, but it speaks volumes. I now understand why the watch Luther gave on our arrival here triggered payment for all our expenses: buffet, laundry, cars included. Because it bore the name of Hargreeves, as a gift to his Number One. It had always been planned that Reginald Hargreeves' children would be legitimate here, what my visit to his office confimed.

This hotel belongs to him.

Even the passage to Oblivion, beyond the White Buffalo, is under his control. The corridor to the universe's machinery is 'his'. Since 1918, when he commissioned this hotel's construction in the middle of the fields, Reginald Hargreeves has always had his eyes set on resetting the universe. As soon as the 'conditions' he spoke of in his office are met: the ones involving us. As soon as—

*Brrring-brrring ! Brrring-brrring !*

I nearly jump. One of the phones I thought silent forever is ringing, and Chet answers with the ease of someone who has always done this.

"Obsidian Hotel, how may I help? Mmm. Mmm. Yes, of course, sir."
I frown.
"Yes, sir, she's here. I'll put her on."

My eyes widen. Could it be... But Chet is already handing me the receiver and returning to clean the gleaming horseshoe console as I raise it to my ear. He said 'sir'? No, it can't be—

"Hello?" says a voice with a British accent.
I recognize the characteristic crackle of the rosewood-encased radiotelephone aboard the Rolls Royce named Hermes and answer tersely:
"Yes."
"Young lady, I need your assistance with-"
"My name is Rin. And I'm not a 'young lady'."
"That's irrelevant. I have an issue here, with the self-proclaimed Klaus Hargreeves."

Oh really. I let out a derisive laugh but feel a pang of worry.

"Oh, so what happens to Klaus suddenly concerns me?"
"Well, he refuses to proceed with the final phase of his healing unless you are present."

I fall silent. In his office yesterday, just before he electrocuted him, Hargreeves mentioned experimentation as the first phase of Klaus's 'healing'. I hadn't given it much thought at the time, but now I understand that, as always, his words are carefully chosen. Healing from what? The traumas inflicted by his alternate self? Through what means? More traumas?

"What are you doing to him, after throwing him under trucks and buses? If he says no, you have to stop. Just because he came to you first doesn't mean you can-"
"Lakeshore Hills Grand Cemetery, the mausoleum at the end of the north lane. If you delay, you'll waste precious time for all of us."
"I-"

*Click*.

That bastard has already hung up. He knows very well that leaving me in the dark will only heighten my anxiety and ensure I show up. This is just like everything else: I know I am being manipulated, yet I will still do what he wants. 'Deliberately'.

"Damn it", I mutter angrily, under Chet's impassive gaze as he continues polishing the console until it gleams like a mirror.

I know Klaus isn't in physical danger: his life isn't at risk in the medium term, even if he dies several times in the short term. No, what worries me is the psychological damage Hargreeves could inflict, for he has already proven capable of causing irreparable harm in that regard.

Oh, I haven't missed the days when I was called to pull Klaus out of trouble. This time, however, it is different. It isn't the police, the hospital, rehab, or waste management calling. Klaus himself is explicitly asking for me.

"There's a smudge here, Chet", I say, pointing to the spot on the console where my arm has rested.

And in a flash : *Crack!* I vanish from the lobby, leaving him alone at the helm of this ship in the tangerine night.

06:50 pm

I had underestimated what it meant to cross a city the size of The City without public transportation or taxis, especially when you can only teleport a dozen times before running out of fuel, even with several cups of coffee.

Going through Argyle Park was a bad idea. It seems this apocalyptic situation suits some people, particularly the Mothers of Agony gang, who use the park's lawns as open-air bonfires and storage for treasures looted during raids. I wonder what they hope for: their numbers are dwindling like a shrinking hide. Soon, there will be nothing left of them either. I move through them, invisible, intangible, glancing around in the flickering light of their fires and makeshift lamps. They're all drunk as bricks on the booze they've looted from local stores. I don't linger: I teleport one more time: just outside the park's opposite edge, where I 'borrow' an abandoned bicycle.

These are neighborhoods I'm not familiar with, except for the Lakeshore Hills rehab center, where I've been too many times. It's an area of low buildings, like those around Warden's fabric market, where I grew up. I pass a square I recognize, the one next to the hospital that houses the rehab center. I keep going. I know the cemetery is at the end of the avenue.

A few minutes ago, the hum that had been persistent in my ears for days suddenly stopped. The hum I had associated with the energy buzz of the ever-growing Kugelblitz. Undoubtedly, it has gone silent, and I wonder. I wonder if it's because Chris and the others managed to trap it. I don't want to get my hopes up, I don't want to think about it. I close my eyes for a few seconds and press harder on the pedals to climb the hill in the dark.

The streetlights still work in this area. In the cemetery, however, thick shadows stretch over the lawns and beneath the ancient trees. I leave the bike against the open gates and now search through the black paths for the direction I need, guided by the faint glow of Klaus's Marigolds I can sense. And then I see it: the mausoleum where, in many ways, the ordeal of his life truly began.

I only learned very late what Klaus's father had done to him. I heard about it from Viktor, a few days before he caused his first apocalypse. Still, I had suspected the nature of Klaus's childhood, though I never forced him to recount it, as he had chosen to drown it in narcotics, just like the spectral voices. During our travels in the sixties, he occasionally slipped a few rare words about it, and I gradually pieced together a puzzle I would have preferred never to contemplate.

A long time ago, Klaus told me that his powers first manifested as what he thought were nightmares. That he was 'just a kid who had very bad nights', seeing monsters in the closet and under the bed. Except - in his case - they were really there. He also told me that Grace, his 'mother', had been programmed not to come when he called. And what Hargreeves did afterward was only a continuation of this.

As I reach the place, dimly lit by the orange glow of the night sky, my chest tightens. Hargreeves did not help Klaus understand himself or tame his fear to interact calmly with the ghosts. If he had, Klaus might have been able to get what he wanted from them for the missions, before releasing them in gratitude. No. All their interactions were steeped in terror and chaos. By exposing him violently and repeatedly to the power that terrified him, Hargreeves rendered him incapable of managing what was inherently his. He literally made him unable to bear his own skin.

Here, he dragged a defenseless, terrified kid into the night to toss him into one of those damp graves, full of specters. He refused to listen when the kid begged, too. And worse still, he deliberately left him to die, just to find out how long it would take for him to come back.

I circle the mausoleum, sensing that both of them are on the other side. In the long Rolls parked there, I glimpse a faint light shining in the cabin where Klaus has retreated. Hargreeves is outside, arms crossed, checking his watch, as if Klaus would suddenly come to his senses.

"Finally!" he exclaims, both pleased to see me and full of reproach, as if I could ever arrive quickly enough for his liking.

I'm indifferent to what he thinks of me. I look at him coldly because, after excluding me from everything related to Klaus, he now deems me indispensable when a wrench gets thrown into his plans.

"He must complete what he sta-"
"I don't give a shit what you have to say, Reginald. He's the one who's going to tell me."

I walk past him, stepping onto the grass that bends under my feet, toward the car. I open the rear door, where Klaus watches me silently, having seen me since I rounded the corner of the mausoleum. He's in the dark, in a cemetery: it's probably the worst place for him. Hargreeves furiously flips through his notes and steps aside, casting a dim beam of light from his small flashlight onto his papers as he pours over his calculations.

"I guess if you're here, it means you've managed to shorten your resurrection time to something acceptable to him", I say.
Klaus blinks, which is confirmation enough.
"I'm now bouncing back faster than a mosquito when you turn off the light. Dad's absolutely thrilled."
"And you still think he's kinder than his former self?"
"Oh yes, he's an absolute joyride by comparison. It's just that then..."

I sigh, relieved that Klaus isn't as bad off as I feared. He's proud of what he's accomplished, I can feel it. But he continues.

"... then he wanted to come here."
I squint toward Hargreeves, who is leaning against the mausoleum, scribbling notes with contrived patience.

"After proving I wouldn't die with my face vacuumed off by ghosts... he thought it'd be a great idea to show me I could blast them to bits. Sweet of him, really, but I'll pass."

Through the energy, I can feel it everywhere here: this spectral energy lying dormant. Beneath the graves of each person buried here, burdened with unfinished business. Some graves are more peaceful: those devoid of resentment or greed, belonging to people who passed quietly into the beyond. The others await a release that never comes, condemned to watch their own frustration and helplessness.

"Blast them..."
The word stings, and Klaus looks at me with something shining in his surprisingly dark eyes, shadowed by the dim light in the car.
"Annihilate them. Smash them like a bag of chips crushed in a backpack, plasma-ball style."

I know what the ghosts want from Klaus now. I know what they cry out for when they reach for him. They want him to grant them peace, a quiet way to the beyond. I no longer think they wish to return to life, though Klaus might be capable of that too. I think they simply want to leave, to find their personal space in 'heavens'. Peacefully, like Wayne Wilson in Dallas, the day his seeds were finally planted.

"He called me... a miracle. And a warrior."

In Klaus's mouth, that word carries a particular weight, as it's the same one his superior officer in Vietnam used to scream at him whenever he expressed reluctance to kill: usually right before taking kicks from boots or the butt of a rifle to his ribs. I know his nonviolence - you don't need to have been a hippie alongside him to see it - it's deeply ingrained in him.

"I appreciate his dedication to killing me for my own good today, but this... I can't, Rinny. You were there. You saw them too, those spirits peacefully crossing the Ganges in Varanasi. Even if Dad's a sweetheart, I just can't. There has to be another way."

I close my eyes for a moment. Yes, I remember. It's etched in me until the universe ends. I've seen that peace is possible for the dead, and I understand why Klaus can't bring himself to simply obliterate those already trapped halfway to the afterlife. I remain silent for a few seconds before speaking again.

"Even if I still think you underestimate his intentions, he's right about one thing."
Klaus stares at me.
"What's a miracle is that through everything you've been through, everything you've endured, even here, you've held on to that kindness, against all odds. So yes, maybe you are a warrior. Just not the one he thinks."

This word doesn't make him flinch when I'm the one saying it, and I can tell something clicks inside him. He's beginning to understand what the ghosts want from him too. To realize he's not in danger: that what he truly feared wasn't them, but what his father was doing to him.

"These spectral bastards are infinite," he mutters. "Helping them would be a full-time job, day and night. And me? I've already proven I can't even handle a part-time rehab shift at the pizza joint."
I chuckle softly. By suppressing his power, Klaus had built himself a cage to hide in, but now, he's starting to open it on his own. I understand how exhilarating and terrifying that must be.
"They sensed your vulnerability. I'm sure they won't act the same way now."

I can already see proof of it in the energy. Just as Hargreeves's flashlight is enough to keep the ghosts at bay, the confidence Klaus is beginning to radiate around him is already enough to hold them in check. And while fiddling with his dog tags, he glances at Hargreeves, who is fidgeting impatiently.

"When he called you, it was because I refused the final step of what he calls my 'healing'."
"What was it?"
He blinks slowly.
"Conjuring someone. Pulling them back from the eternal backstage and materializing them for a moment. He wants me to be able to do that for our families as quickly as possible, just in case someone kicks the bucket during a fight."

Klaus has always been able to summon the dead, albeit with varying reliability. Materializing them, however, is a relatively recent ability in his life. It emerged when he got sober cold turkey, driven by an intense longing to hold Dave in his arms again. That was before the whirlwind of time swept us into a timeline where Dave couldn't be found in the afterlife, likely because he's finally still alive.

When he materialized Ben at the Icarus Theater, and later when he conjured me, Klaus did it brilliantly, completely. He brought us back as 'tangible ghosts', with our powers, with our Marigolds: allowing Ben's Eldritch tentacles to lash out at our attackers, and me to convert my spectral energy back into living energy. Naturally, this ability fascinates Hargreeves more than anything. What worries me is that he has once again hinted at an imminent battle.

"I've often thought about this during our Dungeons & Dragons games, you know? About why your father had such an obsession with you. Why he had so many expectations and hopes for you."

Expectations he only ever expressed by constantly calling Klaus a disappointment - classic Reginald - convinced that criticism was somehow motivating. Klaus, with his curls still messy from too many tires running over him, stares at me in confusion, and I tilt my head.

"In our D&D groups, we always made sure there were complementary classes and powers, remember? Fighters, wizards, rogues. Everyone had a role. I mean... when we actually managed to play seriously."

Those memories of games in dimly lit squats, surrounded by candles and people we never saw again, seem like a distant past, yet one we both treasure.

"If you're a warrior, it's not in the D&D sense. You know what kind of character we always tried to gear up first..."
He blinks, murmuring:
"The healer. Because they could bring everyone else back."

I nod. Even if he's not a role-player, Hargreeves isn't clueless in any timeline. He knows exactly what he's doing. He wanted Klaus to keep the group going longer. To bring others back if they fall, again and again. I lean in closer to him.

"So why did you refuse, and ask to see me, when you know you can do it if you stop drinking?"

He looks at me, lets out a quiet chuckle, and turns his 'Hello' hand palm-up, before glancing back toward the mausoleum. I also look up through Hermes's windshield. Over there, a tall ghost, his eyelids painted with asymmetrical swirls of eyeshadow to match the uneven gleam of his pupils, leans gracefully over Reginald's notes, his star-studded tights catching the faint light as if the cosmos itself had dressed him.

I freeze in the leather seat, simultaneously awestruck, intimidated, and amazed, as the very tangible ghost casually rests an elbow on the shoulder of the man with the monocle and vintage cap. Hargreeves jumps, though I'd bet he has no idea what an honor this encounter truly is.

With David Bowie.

For thirteen years, we've joked about this, and he was never able to do it, held back by the barriers he placed on himself. But today, thanks to himself above all, he can, and he's pushing even further. In this moment, I don't care if this plays into Reginald's plans. I'm proud of him. But he doesn't need anyone's approval, and I hope he'll understand that by the end of the journey.

"You know, I appreciate this low-sodium version of Dad, but..."

He takes a deep breath, pure and simple liberation from the last chains holding him back. Then he finishes with a tired but somewhat affectionate mischief:

"... I wanted this return to ghost-summoning gig to be for you."

Notes:

The question of what Chet really is remains unaddressed in the show, though it's clear he's close to Reginald and works for him. The fact that he remains until the very end, despite the Kugelblitz consuming everything, suggests he's something more. I propose here that he's a robot, like Grace, and essentially the customer interface of the Obsidian Hotel, literally a part of it.

I've always felt the act of destroying ghosts, as Reginald forces Klaus to do, contradicts Klaus's nature. The expression he wears afterward isn't awe but a kind of shocked numbness. Here, I bring closure to the Varanasi arc, where he was so touched by the peaceful spirits leaving to the afterlife.

also hinted that what is shown on screen isn't the end of Klaus's training planned by Reginald that day… and that the Wayfarer, of course, had more self-serving ultimate motives, tied to Oblivion.

Any comment will make my day!