“Variation?” I suggested.
“It’s possible, but this is a pretty damn big variation,” said Sloane.
“Excuse me,” said Jennifer. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what are the two of you talking about? I’m the one with bears in her backyard. I think I should be the one getting answers.”
“Yes, ma’am, and you will be getting the answers that you’re looking for,” I said, turning to face her. “I’m afraid, however, that it isn’t entirely safe for you to be here right now. Would you be willing to come back to the station with us? Just for some routine questions, I promise. No one’s in trouble here. There’s no law against having bears force their way into your backyard.”
“What about Puss?” she asked, suspicion hooding her eyes again. “If it’s not safe for me to be here, how can it be safe for him?”
The idea of sharing a car with her overly amorous cat, which was now rolling on its back and trying to entice me to rub its belly, made me feel faintly ill. I managed to keep my neutral expression fixed firmly in place as I shook my head and said, “We can’t have animals at the station, but I assure you, your cat will be perfectly fine. Bears don’t eat cats.”
Demi gave me a bemused look. I was probably wrong about bears and cats. It wasn’t like keeping up on bear facts was a normal part of my job. And anyway, it didn’t really matter: once Jennifer was out of the apartment, the bears would follow. There was no danger here without her.
“I’m really not sure—”
“Ma’am, what we do can be somewhat alarming, if you’re not expecting it,” said Andy soothingly. “We just want to ask you a few questions—nothing serious, just getting an idea of your daily routine, anything that might have attracted the bears to this specific location, rather than one of the other yards in this area. Once that’s done, we can set you up with some bear defenses, although hopefully you won’t need them by then—” Still talking, he slipped an arm around Jennifer’s shoulders and led her out of the room.
“That’s got to be a narrative we just don’t know about yet,” said Sloane, shaking her head as she watched Jennifer and Andy leave. “How the hell does he talk people into going along with him like that? It must be magic.”
“That, or he actually knows how to talk to people without sounding like he’s about to pull their hair out,” I said. “Demi. I need you.”
The newest member of our team actually jumped a bit, looking at me guiltily, like she’d been hoping to be forgotten. Too bad for her. There was a reason she’d been recruited. “Yes, Agent Marchen?”
“Did you bring your flute?”
Demi’s guilty expression deepened. “Yes. Was I not supposed to? I was going to leave it behind, but when I tried, I felt sort of sick to my stomach, so I brought it with me. I’ll never do it again, I promise.”
“You should be promising the exact opposite,” I said. “You’re a Pied Piper. That flute is the best weapon you have. Sloane, you’re heading back to the station with Andy and the subject. I need you to keep an eye on her. Watch for further memetic flares, and for the love of the Index, call me if any bears show up.”
“Got it,” said Sloane, and left the room.
Demi’s eyes widened as she watched Sloane go. Swinging her gaze back around to me, she said, “She didn’t fight with you. She didn’t even flip you off or call you a melanin-deficient bitch.”
“You know, they’re still slurs when you’re just repeating them,” I said mildly. Demi promptly flushed a deep red, verging on purple. “Sloane isn’t the easiest person to work with. That doesn’t actually make her unprofessional. Her job is to figure out where the narratives are going, pinpoint the memetic incursions, and help us stop them. She’s very good at what she does.”
Demi didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Her dubiousness was written broadly across her face for anyone to see.
“Anyway, this is going to be your first official field action. Don’t worry about how many regulations we’re breaking. I’ll help you do the paperwork when we finish.”
Demi’s eyes widened. “Paperwork?”
#
Even with Andy nudging her steadily along, it took almost ten minutes to get Jennifer into a coat and a pair of shoes and hustle her out the door to the car. I waited until I heard the front door slam, and then moved to the living room to watch them drive away. The van was still parked at the curb. Jeff being Jeff, he might not even have noticed that half of the group had left.
“All right,” I said, turning to Demi. “That’s your cue.”
“You really think this is going to work?”
I smiled thinly. “Never underestimate the power of a good story.”
We returned to the bedroom, where the bears had already been seen—and more importantly, where the neighbors were less likely to report strange goings-on to Jennifer when she returned. A Latina girl in a black suit playing the flute was definitely strange by the standards of almost any neighborhood.
The window was surprisingly difficult to open. That was probably a good sign; Jennifer hadn’t been unconsciously raising it for the bears while she was asleep. Demi produced her flute from inside her jacket, took a deep breath, and began to play.
It was difficult to describe her music: it was like every good thing in the world all run into a single melody, simple but deceptively complex. The taste of good coffee, so deep and complex that it was almost a crime to describe it by a single name. The sound of rain falling on the pavement, the smell of petrichor and moistened loam. The color of a single raven’s feather in the sunlight, rainbows caught in ebony—
I was so absorbed in Demi’s song that I didn’t even hear the front door open. Jeff came pelting inside, moving as fast as his legs would carry him, with a pair of noise-blocking headphones in his hands. I gave him a dizzied smile, and didn’t move away as he clamped the headphones down over my ears.
Demi’s song cut off abruptly, replaced by a yearning emptiness. I tried to lift my hands and take the headphones off, but Jeff was too fast for me. He grabbed my wrists, forcing me to stay where I was while his lips formed the word “No.” I blinked. He continued to hold my hands, and bit by bit the urge to take the headphones off slipped away, taking the emptiness with it. I blinked again, and stopped trying to raise my hands. That was when he finally let me go.
He turned toward Demi, who was still playing her flute, and said something I couldn’t hear. She stopped, lowering the instrument from her lips and staring at him blankly. Jeff flashed her a thumbs-up and removed the earplugs from his own ears before turning back to me.
I took that as a hint and removed the headphones. “What the hell … ?”
“I figured you’d try to use Demi to attract the bears—that was your goal, wasn’t it?” He paused long enough for me to nod before continuing, “What I didn’t figure was you being dumb enough to do it without ear protection. She’s a Pied Piper, Henry, not a birdcall.”
“She was playing to attract bears,” I protested.
“You’re a narrative in abeyance. It doesn’t matter what she’s playing to attract. And besides that, you didn’t get the sheet music for bears.” He turned back to Demi. “How are you feeling? Any dizziness, numbness, nausea … ?”
“I just played the song that wanted to be played,” she said, eyes wide and a little frightened. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I’m really sorry. It was an accident.”
“Oh, honey.” Jeff put his arm around her shoulders, shooting me an aggravated look. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Henry’s the one who fucked up, not you.”
I folded my arms and glared at him, all too aware that my coloring was betraying me once again and displaying the hot blush I could feel rushing into my cheeks. He was right: using Demi as a birdcall was a good idea, but I’d gone about it badly. I should have done more research before jumping straight to the easy solution.
“Although to be fair, your presence is probably influencing the rest of us to think ‘oh, hey, call the Piper’ at every
opportunity, so we’ll need to be on guard against that,” continued Jeff. “Did we get bears?”
I took a quick look out the window at the backyard, which now held every dog, cat, pigeon, and crow in the neighborhood. But that was all. “No bears,” I confirmed. “Is it because we didn’t use a bear-specific song?”
“If the bears were close enough to hear Demi playing, they should have come,” said Jeff. “And believe me, if they were within a mile of here, they were close enough to hear her playing.”
“. . . oh, that’s great,” I said, envisioning all the Lost Dog and Missing Cat posters that would be cropping up in the surrounding neighborhoods. “Is there a song that Demi can play to pipe all of these animals back where they came from?”
“Yes, and I brought it with me,” said Jeff, holding up a piece of sheet music.
My face relaxed into a smile. “You’re so good to me.”
“Remember that when it’s time for reviews,” he said, and moved to stand next to Demi. “Okay, let’s just go over this a few times before you play it—some of the stops can be tricky …”
I tuned him out as Demi started nodding. Music isn’t my thing, and I wasn’t going to understand most of what he said. Puss was twining around my ankles again. I scooped up the cat and deposited it on the bed, moving away from the window in the process. If the massed wildlife outside caught sight of me, there would be a stampede as they tried to claim their places at my side. I may not be a fully manifested Snow White, but there’s a point at which that ceases to matter.
Eventually, Jeff signaled for me to put my headphones back on, and Demi raised her flute to her lips, beginning to play a melody that I couldn’t hear. I didn’t hear the animals leaving the yard either. The headphones blocked out everything … including the sound of my phone ringing.
In retrospect, I should probably have put it on vibrate.
#
We were walking back to the van, having locked Jennifer’s door behind us, when Jeff’s phone started to ring. He dug it out of his pocket, answering as we walked. “Hello?”
“Did I do all right?” asked Demi, shooting me an anxious glance.
I nodded. “For your first time in the field, you did incredibly. Most of the mistakes were mine. We’ll review them when we get back to the office and finish dealing with our Goldilocks.”
“I’m surprised you still make mistakes,” she said. Her tone was hesitant, like she expected a reprimand for even saying something.
“The only people who don’t make mistakes are the dead ones,” I said, and paused, frowning. “Where’s Jeff?” We both stopped walking and turned to look behind us. He was standing in the middle of the walkway, the phone still pressed against his ear. All the blood had drained from his face, until he was almost as pale as I was. It wasn’t a good look for him.
“Jeff?” I said.
He raised a finger, signaling for me to be quiet. I stopped talking. Demi, standing beside me with a puzzled expression on her face, did the same. Seconds ticked by, until finally Jeff said, “Yes, I see. Yes, we’re on our way.” He lowered his phone and started power-walking toward the van.
“Jeff?”
He didn’t stop. As he blew past us, he called, “There’s trouble at the office! We have to move!”
“What kind of trouble?” I demanded, turning around and running after him with Demi at my heels like a large, confused puppy in sensible shoes.
“Bears!”
Well. That explained a few things, even as it created a whole new category of problems. “I’ll drive,” I said.
#
By putting on the siren and breaking every traffic law I came into contact with, I estimated that we would arrive at headquarters in approximately thirty minutes. As I drove, Jeff sat in the back of the van with the Index open on his lap and shouted his findings toward the front: “I have a few variations recorded where Goldilocks didn’t initially break into the home of the three bears—they came in her home and took it over. Then, when she tried to chase them out, the normal ‘larcenous little girl’ narrative started to unfold. We’re probably looking at one of these home-invasion scenarios.”
“But she doesn’t live where we work!” protested Demi.
“That’s irrelevant,” I said, taking a sharp turn without slowing down. It felt like one of the van’s wheels lifted off the ground. That probably meant that I should take my foot off the gas, at least a little. I didn’t. “The narrative doesn’t give a crap about whether it makes sense. The narrative just wants to happen. The memetic incursion that’s starting around Jennifer Lockwood calls for bears. Apparently, since our office is now where Jennifer is located, that makes it her home, and that’s good enough to qualify for bears.”
“But that doesn’t even make any sense!”
In the rearview mirror, I saw Jeff lean over the seat to put a hand on her shoulder. “It does make sense, I promise you, but it’s hard to understand at first. You’ll get there. What matters right now is that Henry is going to kill us all trying to get back to the office before those bears eat Andy and Jennifer and everyone else in the building.”
“What about Sloane?” asked Demi, almost reluctantly.
I snorted. “Do you really think a bear can take her out? They should be worried about being locked in with her. They’re not used to a story that comes with an actual villain.” There was a stop sign up ahead. I tore through it without slowing down, leaving blaring horns in our wake. “Jeff, do you have your gun?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good. Find some bear-fighting music for Demi, something that calms them down without distracting the rest of us. We’ll be in the parking lot in five minutes.”
“Bear-fighting music—on it,” said Jeff, and disappeared from the mirror as he retreated to resume his perusal of the Index.
“I don’t like this,” said Demi.
“Welcome to the club,” I said, and sped up.
#
From the outside, it wasn’t obvious that the building that housed the ATI Management Bureau belonged to the government. It was unmarked, and there were an unusually high number of security cameras, but those were the only sign that most people would have that anything was unusual about the place. Everything else about it screamed generic office building, probably belonging to some start-up that hadn’t bothered to invest in exterior signage yet. That was the way we liked it.
There were no bears in the parking lot when we came roaring through the gate, and there were no people standing outside on the sidewalk. That could be a good sign—they hadn’t evacuated the building—or it could be a bad one—they hadn’t had time to evacuate the building. I parked our van at the curb closest to the entrance, ignoring the fact that it technically wasn’t a parking space, and cautiously opened the door.
“Coast looks clear,” I said, swinging my legs out of the car. When nothing came roaring out of the bushes to attack me, I got the rest of the way out, drawing my gun in the same motion. Still there were no bears. “Okay, you two, we’re moving for the building.”
“Do we have to?” asked Jeff.
“Now,” I snarled.
Demi and Jeff got out of the van.
We made our way down the sidewalk to the front door, only to find it locked from inside. The windows were shuttered. It hadn’t been obvious from the parking lot with the midday sun glinting off the glass, but up close, it was clear that we wouldn’t be getting any visual clues as to what was happening inside.
“There’s a back entrance,” murmured Jeff.
“Does it lock down when the alarm is pulled?” I asked.
“It’s supposed to, but the circuit doesn’t always connect,” he said. “I’ve been asking Maintenance to fix it for months.”
“Well then, let’s hope they didn’t finally decide to start doing their jobs,” I said. “Lead the way.”
Jeff took us in a counterclockwise circuit around the building, finally ducking behind a scrubby-looking tree and into a narrow alc
ove. There was a clicking sound, followed by the soft creak of hinges. “We’re in,” he said.
“Demi, get your flute up,” I said. “Let’s go.”
#
Jeff’s back entrance let us into a hall that didn’t seem to be used for much of anything; it was spotlessly clean, but had that dead-aired quality that only comes from isolation and abandonment. The lights were dim, and I took point as we made our way toward the main building. The hall was straight, and the bullpen and interview rooms were all in front of us. That was convenient. I’m not sure I could have handled a labyrinth under these conditions.
This little unsealed door revealed a massive flaw in our security system—I was going to have Maintenance’s ass for this. Once lockdown began, once a narrative was loose and live in the building, the agency was supposed to become impregnable. Well, we hadn’t worked all that hard, and we were inside.
Worrying about security was a matter for another time. Right now, we had bears to deal with.
We were almost to the interior door when sounds began filtering through the thick, blast-reinforced steel. Alarms: someone had triggered the internal lockdown system, and it was making sure everyone knew about it. And screams. They were softer than the amplified alarms, but they were somewhat harder to ignore.
Jeff tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, and he offered me a pair of earmuffs.
“Demi’s almost certainly going to need to play,” he said. “There’s nothing we’ll need to hear in there that we won’t be able to pick up through visual cues.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said, but took the earmuffs, making sure that they were firmly in place before I looked back to my teammates, nodding once, and hauling the door open.
We stepped through into chaos. Red light bathed everything, and screams came intermittently from behind closed doors, loud enough to be audible even through my earmuffs. No one moved in the wreckage of the bullpen. I motioned Jeff and Demi forward, and we picked our way into the open, heading for the hall that would lead us to the interview rooms. That was the most likely place for Sloane and Andy to have taken our unwitting Goldilocks, which would make it the epicenter of the bear attacks.