{"id":495,"date":"2024-07-06T05:20:22","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T09:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/?p=495"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:43:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:43:57","slug":"identity-theft-chapter-44","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/identity-theft-chapter-44\/","title":{"rendered":"The Changeling Game, Chapter 44"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\ntt {\nfont: .857em menlo, monaco, consolas, monospace;\nmargin: auto;\n}\nh2 {\ntext-align: center;\n}\nh2.chapterhead {\nmargin-bottom: 2em;\ntext-align: center;\n}\n  .nowrap {\n    text-indent: 0;\n    display: inline-block;\n}\n<\/style>\n<p><b>Title:<\/b> The Changeling Game <small>(Formerly <i>Identity Theft<\/i>)<\/small><br \/>\n<b>Author:<\/b> Ardath Rekha<br \/>\n<b>Chapter:<\/b> 44\/?<br \/>\n<b>Fandom:<\/b> TCOR AU<br \/>\n<b>Rating:<\/b> M<br \/>\n<b>Warnings:<\/b> Adult themes, controversial subject matter, harsh language, violence<br \/>\n<b>Category:<\/b> Gen<br \/>\n<b>Pairing:<\/b> None<br \/>\n<b>Summary:<\/b> Avoiding a nauseating task, Jack goes on a solo mission. It doesn\u2019t go as planned.<br \/>\n<b>Disclaimer:<\/b> The characters and events of <i>Pitch Black,<\/i> <i>The Chronicles of Riddick,<\/i> and <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> are not mine, but belong to Universal Studios.  I just <i>wish<\/i> I were in charge of their fates.  No money is being made off of this.  I\u2019m writing strictly for love of the story.<br \/>\n<b>Feedback:<\/b> Absolutely, the more the better!  Shred me, whip me, beat me, make me feel grammatical! I post \u201crough,\u201d so I can always use the help. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<input type='hidden' bg_collapse_expand='69e23cbd7edd41000527914' value='69e23cbd7edd41000527914'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-69e23cbd7edd41000527914' value='Long post is long. Click to read the story.'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-69e23cbd7edd41000527914' value='Hide the story again.'><button id='bg-showmore-action-69e23cbd7edd41000527914' class='bg-showmore-plg-button bg-green-button  '   style=\" color:#D9ECFB;\">Long post is long. Click to read the story.<\/button><div id='bg-showmore-hidden-69e23cbd7edd41000527914' ><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"chapterhead\">44.<br \/>\n<u>Any Box Could Be Pandora\u2019s<\/u><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack\u2019s letter of employment from Sirius Shipping was waiting for her when she woke up. \u201cMarianne Tepper\u201d had officially been hired.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She had an odd memory of speaking with the <i>Apeiros<\/i> and asking them to help her not dream\u2026 or to pull her back into their \u201cspace\u201d if her dreams became troubled. Maybe it had worked, because she had no memory of any other dreams, but felt surprisingly well-rested given how wretched she\u2019d felt when she\u2019d closed her eyes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">As she had suspected they might, Sirius Shipping had bypassed the formal interview\u2014one would be held, more or less, when she arrived at the orbital shipyard and they checked her in\u2014and instead had sent her all of the forms a new hire had to fill out. She completed and returned them before Kyra began to stir.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The countdown, she thought, had truly begun for her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ewan\u2019s leave would end in two evening-days; his family had been discussing his planned send-off as they walked to the garden grove the evening-day before. Two morning-days after that, it would be Jack\u2019s turn to go. Sirius Shipping had included information about her reservation on its shuttle to the shipyards that evening-day; she just needed to make sure she was in New Casablanca in plenty of time for it. She booked her ticket immediately, using one of the new funding cards she had picked up from the drop she\u2019d finally visited the day before. Most of the other cards would go to Kyra; all of Jack\u2019s expenses would be paid for once she boarded the <i>Nephrite Undine,<\/i> and the payout for flying it to Deckard\u2019s World was an almost obscene amount that would easily fund her return home and whatever cover stories she needed to concoct once she got there.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Now she could focus on getting through the next few days.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo,\u201d Kyra murmured from the pillow next to her, \u201cyou got good news?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah. Got a route back to\u2014 home\u2026\u201d At the last second, she reminded herself that, even though she was finally at the point where she was okay with telling Kyra where <i>home<\/i> was, they\u2019d agreed that she shouldn\u2019t. Damn. \u201c\u2026leaving three morning-days from now. If all goes as planned, I\u2019ll be back long before my fifteenth birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHow much younger than that will you actually be?\u201d Kyra asked, smirking. Jack had, after all, told the first group therapy session she\u2019d attended that she was thirteen, and only three Standard months outside of cryo had passed since then.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cJust about fourteen when I get home,\u201d Jack admitted. \u201cI\u2019ve lost nine months to cryo so far. Hopefully I won\u2019t seem <i>too<\/i> much younger than my official age when I get back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou\u2019ll look different than they remember, I bet, enough to keep them from thinking you should\u2019ve changed even more. I mean, you shot up in height while we were in the hospital.\u201d  Kyra snickered at Jack\u2019s shocked look. \u201cSeriously. You didn\u2019t notice? You were two inches shorter than me when you got there. Now we\u2019re the same height. You\u2019ve been on a helluva <i>growth spurt.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c1.73 meters\u2026\u201d Jack said with awe. \u201cI saw it on my charts two evening-days ago and couldn\u2019t figure it out. I was 1.63 meters when I left\u2014 home\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re done growing yet, either, not with the appetite you\u2019ve got,\u201d Kyra told her. \u201cYour family run tall?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMy dad\u2019s side, yeah. My mom\u2019s side isn\u2019t <i>as<\/i> tall, but yeah.\u201d Her father was 1.9 meters, the same height as most of the men in the Tomlin-Meziane family. Back on Deckard\u2019s World, though, they used old Imperial measurements, just like twentieth century Americans had; by that reckoning, her father was 6\u20193\u201d, her mother was 5\u20196\u201d, and she <i>had<\/i> been 5\u20194\u201d when her Missing posters would have gone up, and had just crossed the 5\u20198\u201d mark on her way to god-knew-what. Kyra, she noticed, used feet and inches, too. But Audrey\u2019s father had insisted on teaching her the metric system concurrently with the Imperial; as ex-military <i>and<\/i> an engineer, he\u2019d considered it both more precise and more valuable to a life in the wider Federacy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBet you get another inch or two before you stop,\u201d Kyra chuckled beside her. \u201cC\u2019mon\u2026 let\u2019s go have breakfast. No more room service unless one of us gets sick or hurt, y\u2019know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cExcept for Sebby,\u201d Jack laughed, climbing out of bed. \u201cSebby gets room service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Reeeeee?<\/i> The crustacean in question peeked out from beneath the dresser, where he\u2019d apparently been playing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOnly because Lalla doesn\u2019t want crickets hopping around in her kitchen,\u201d Kyra laughed back. \u201cDon\u2019t worry, Sebby, we\u2019ll bring you your food soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Sebby chirped happily and vanished under the dresser again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI swear, he understands everything we say\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">General Toal was at the table with everyone when they entered, Jack noticed. She wondered if he was staying at the house as a guest. Everyone seemed relaxed around him, though. Maybe he was a regular guest.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Cedric waited until the meal was ending before bringing up the previous night. \u201cWe really are sorry about jumping to so many conclusions last night, Tizzy,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd for overstepping where your liberties are concerned.\u201d His gaze turned to Kyra. \u201cWe won\u2019t try to parent you, Dihya. It\u2019s hard not to <i>want<\/i> to, but\u2026 we understand how you feel about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThank you,\u201d Kyra murmured, but she set her fork down with food still on it and didn\u2019t pick it back up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019m sorry, too, about not telling you where I was going or anything,\u201d Jack said. \u201cSo I should probably tell you that I need to go out for a while, today, to do some things I can\u2019t do here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Takama gave her an inquiring look.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDuke Pritchard brought the bomb into the spaceport,\u201d she told them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw General Toal come to complete alertness, his teacup freezing millimeters from his lips. \u201cThe man in the bomber video is Javor Makarov. They\u2019ve worked together a lot. I have evidence I need to release into the wild, but if law enforcement is gonna be able to use it, it has to go out in a way that doesn\u2019t disqualify it from use. Which means I need to do some pretty illegal things to make it look like Pritchard himself accidentally released it. Things I don\u2019t want ever getting traced back here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo you\u2019re going back to the apartment again,\u201d Takama said, her voice soft.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah. Probably for a few hours.\u201d Jack swallowed. Looking through Pritchard\u2019s files again, making sure she created a trail that would lead law enforcement back to his and Makarov\u2019s Merc Network accounts, making sure none of the surveillance pictures he\u2019d taken of her and Kyra still existed, was going to be a hideous ordeal. At least, if she ended up stress-puking again, the family wouldn\u2019t hear her doing it\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSomeone should go with you\u2014\u201d Ewan said. Tafrara jostled his arm, her expression scolding. \u201c\u2026Like Tafrara\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNo,\u201d Jack said too quickly. \u201cI\u2026 don\u2019t want anybody to see what I\u2019ve found. It\u2019s really bad. I wish <i>I<\/i> hadn\u2019t seen any of it. But when law enforcement gets it, it\u2019ll be a game changer. Just\u2026 it\u2019s bad enough that <i>I<\/i> had to look at it\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Kyra, next to her, gasped in horror and covered her mouth. Fuck. Some of what she had seen must have slipped across their connection.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Everyone was looking at Kyra with concern now. She swallowed, wincing, and lowered her hand after a moment. \u201cNone of you should see it,\u201d she agreed. \u201cEver.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWon\u2019t it come out, whatever it is?\u201d Lalla asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNot\u2026 in so much <i>detail\u2026<\/i>\u201d Kyra said, pushing her plate a little further way from her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cUnfortunately, the only way to ensure that it is acted upon at all is a wide release,\u201d General Toal rumbled. \u201cThe Universal Mercenary Registry is a powerful organization with a history of evading law enforcement oversight and having warrants voided. You will need to get your data into the public sector, into the hands of people who can and will broadcast it widely, who have high profiles and strong credibility, to ensure it isn\u2019t covered up again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cPretty sure it\u2019s a Federacy crime to broadcast those kinds of pictures,\u201d Jack muttered without thinking, and heard Safiyya gasp.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But she was already mulling it over, thinking about major news outlets that, even if they could never show the pictures themselves, could raise enough of a stink about their mere existence to prevent anyone from being able to sweep it under a rug. Especially if it was obvious that Makarov was also the bomber every law enforcement agency in the Tangiers system was seeking\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">What if some random perv reached out to law enforcement and the press, claiming that the porn he\u2019d been collecting starred the bomber, providing just enough examples to prove that multiple class-one felonies had been perpetrated by Makarov, and giving Pritchard\u2019s Merc Network address as the original source\u2026?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Nobody would find it even a little suspicious that the hypothetical sicko was using a brand-new, anonymized account to reach out from, given that whoever it was would have <i>enjoyed<\/i> those kinds of pictures and only came forward at all because of the bombing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It could work. She\u2019d just need another new tablet, because the one she\u2019d do it all with would be forever contaminated\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The table, she realized, had gone deathly silent. She looked up. Everyone was gazing at her with similar expressions of sad comprehension and empathy. It was dangerous for her to meet their eyes right now. She focused on Ewan, on what she needed to tell him, avoiding his eyes and looking at his throat instead as she talked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYour pirate friend, the one who has Pritchard\u2019s comm\u2026 you need to get word to him to get rid of it and get as far away from it as possible. It\u2019s about to become serious hazmat. Especially given the places he\u2019s been taking it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou gave it to <i>Robie?\u201d<\/i> Usadden asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ewan answered with a curt nod.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt is not what you think,\u201d Usadden told her, \u201calthough under the circumstances, I can see why you might think it\u2026 and why it would fit a little too well. Dr. Robie is a gynecologist with the Tangiers Department of Health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The absurdity of that\u2014the mental image of a man, who looked like he belonged in an ancient Disney vid about Caribbean pirates, traveling by motorcycle from brothel to brothel to perform state-mandated <i>health checks<\/i>\u2014startled a laugh out of Jack, a much louder one than was appropriate. She covered her mouth, trying to rein it in.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019ll let him know.\u201d Ewan\u2019s voice was subdued, sober.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Nobody at the table was touching their food now. Fuck.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d Jack said, getting up. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to say any of this. I didn\u2019t want any of you to have to know. I\u2019m gonna\u2026 go get started\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have to do this alone,\u201d Takama said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cShouldn\u2019t\u2026\u201d Jack said in part agreement, wishing that even half of the <i>shoulds<\/i> everyone cherished so much could be real. \u201cHave to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She picked up the singing box of crickets, sitting on a small table by the courtyard doorway, and left before things could get even more complicated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There was a scorecard attached to the box, she noticed as she carried it upstairs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em\"><tt>How Many Crickets?<\/tt><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The title had been written in both English and Tamazight. Different names had different tallies. Izil had two numbers beside his name: 3 and 5. Tafrara had 7 and 4. Ewan had 8 and 5. Kyra had a 4 by her \u201cDihya\u201d name. Lalla had a 9. No numbers were by Jack\u2019s name\u2014well, \u201cTizzy\u201d\u2014yet, but they\u2019d given her a line.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It wasn\u2019t how many crickets were in the box, she realized, but how many would jump onto her when she opened the box. That was what she would need to write in.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Except I know how to make it a zero\u2026<\/i> It\u2019d give her a chance to practice her new trick.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Sebby leapt onto the bed, bouncing and chittering with excitement, when he heard the cricket song. Jack grinned at him and walked over to his tub, kneeling down and setting the box inside it, and then resting her hands on the box. She focused, for a moment, on the texture and dimensions of the cardboard under her fingers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>The floor of U1, beneath my legs, supports me whether I am in U1 or Elsewhere,<\/i> she thought carefully. <i>And I am now in Elsewhere, too, and so is this cardboard box\u2026 but only the cardboard part, not any of the things inside it, no matter how hard they cling\u2026 and I am all the way in Elsewhere with the box <b>now<\/b>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The floor held her up. The box vanished from U1, staying firmly in her hands on the other side of the threshold. Within the tub in U1, hundreds of crickets spilled out, their chirps stilling for an instant. Sebby shrieked with delight and leapt into the tub, chomping the first crickets in easy reach of his mandibles.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Exhaling, Jack lifted the cardboard box away, stood up, and isomorphed back into U1 before opening its lid carefully.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">No crickets had remained inside.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She found a pen in the bedroom\u2019s desk drawer and put a <tt>0<\/tt> by her name on the scorecard, setting the box next to the door.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She wished she\u2019d known this particular parlor trick back when Pritchard had invaded the apartment. She could have dispatched him without Kyra even needing to wake up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Yeah, but then Toombs and Logan would\u2019ve been banging down our door because his comm\u2019s last-known address would\u2019ve been our building\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">And, as much as what she\u2019d seen in Pritchard\u2019s account made her gorge rise, she\u2019d never have gained access to it and wouldn\u2019t be able to let the worlds know who had bombed the spaceport.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was sickening to think that the violence of that night, including Kyra getting stabbed, might have been the best possible outcome.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>I need out of this life\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Not life itself, she amended. Just <i>this<\/i> one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But Ewan was in this life, and Kyra, and Sebby, and this amazing family\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>And I can\u2019t keep any of them. I\u2019m gonna lose them all. Whether I stay or go, and if I try to stay it\u2019ll probably end up being a much worse loss.<\/i> The thought left her feeling strangled.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">As much as she needed to go home, a huge part of her never wanted to leave this place and the family she\u2019d found. The thought that she might, possibly, never see any of them again was hard to face.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She gathered her things, everything she would need for the day\u2014including, she decided, her telescope\u2014and isomorphed over to Elsewhere before leaving the room. She wasn\u2019t in any condition to talk to anyone. She might start bawling her eyes out if she did.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The tide had only just receded, and was still close enough that she could hear it washing in and out nearby, as she reached the wet sand on the ground level. She hadn\u2019t needed to concentrate quite as hard, this time, to keep the surfaces of U1 supporting her. Soon, she suspected, she\u2019d be able to do it subconsciously, and then unconsciously as she continued practicing the new skill.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Okay, first things first,<\/i> she told herself, aware that she was suddenly procrastinating. <i>Look around New Marrakesh for anything still floating in Elsewhere that shouldn\u2019t be\u2026 hopefully there won\u2019t be anything to find, but if there is, hopefully I can get to it before anyone from Quintessa does\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Once that was done, she\u2019d pick up another tablet to use just for her incursions into the Merc Network, and other parts of what her father had always called the Dark Zone and admonished her to stay far away from. She\u2019d set up an account for her fictitious pervert, populate it with \u201cgifts\u201d from Pritchard, and then have the \u201cperv\u201d reach out to a variety of law enforcement and news agencies with just enough evidence to set everyone onto Pritchard\u2019s and Makarov\u2019s trail.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But before she did that, she reminded herself, she had to make sure anything Pritchard had learned about her, or about the Tomlin-Meziane family, was long gone from his account and unrecoverable.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Bonus if I can find something in there that connects him to the Quintessa Corporation and rains fire down on their heads if it comes out\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She pulled out her telescope and got down to business.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">An hour later, she\u2019d found several items that she and Kyra had unthinkingly thrown out during their first days in New Marrakesh, including the wigs they had worn that had been ruined by their first high tide. It took another hour to finish reaching all of them and bring them fully into Elsewhere. Her ruined video screen from the <i>Matador<\/i>, which someone had apparently salvaged from the trash for parts, forced her to carefully climb the phantom steps of a twelve-story building in order to retrieve it and all of its little pieces, something that gave her mild fear of heights an extreme workout and made her wish she\u2019d asked Kyra to accompany her. She got it done, though, and even managed to resist the temptation to kiss the ground once she\u2019d painstakingly made her way back down. As the waters continued to recede in Elsewhere, she followed them down into town, searching for anything small and fencible that one of the orderlies might have helped themselves to.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Nothing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Maybe they only made the move when they realized they wouldn\u2019t get another chance,<\/i> she thought. <i>They were supposed to inventory the bodies and personal effects to get them ready for transfer to the Quintessa Corporation\u2026 maybe that\u2019s when someone decided to grab those earrings and the cash\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It more or less made sense. Especially if the thief had control over the inventory sheets and could make sure it looked like the missing items had never been there to begin with.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She hoped that was the case. Her life would be a whole lot easier if that were the case.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She did one final look around, sweeping the telescope across the area. Othman Tower and Mansour Plaza were still clear; none of the survivors had left anything behind when they\u2019d been evacuated from either of those buildings. Same for the hospital tower. She swept wider\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>\u2026the fuck?\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Something<\/i> was downtown, in one of the areas that housed fancy government offices and high-powered corporate headquarters. She zoomed in on it as much as the telescope would permit.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Three stories up, within an elegant glass building, hovered at least a dozen small\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Cubes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cFuck me,\u201d Jack muttered, putting away the telescope and heading downtown.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There were more apeirochorons in New Marrakesh.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Elsewhere\u2019s tide hadn\u2019t fully receded when she reached the glass building, and she had to slosh through its hip-deep waters as she crossed the final city blocks. It didn\u2019t come as a surprise to her that the corporate logo on the entrance was for the Quintessa Corporation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Inside, the place looked almost like a movie set for one of the dystopian sci-fi vids her cousins had loved. Everything was shiny and brand-new looking, displaying none of the signs of weathering and use that even her mother\u2019s luxe legal offices had shown. A well-coiffed and impossibly beautiful woman\u2014too beautiful and far too poised to be anything but synthetic\u2014waited to greet people entering the building; well-armed security guards were stationed near every entrance and every doorway further in. An ordinary burglar would never have been able to get past the front doors, she suspected.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But did any of their security extend past U1? The boxes, after all, did.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She kept her movements slow and careful as she crossed the floor, studying everything. So far, nothing on the ground level seemed to exist outside of U1. At least, nothing existed within that space in Elsewhere except salty air and sloshing tidewaters over sand, rocks, and shells. Did they have any kind of map up somewhere, she wondered, as she tried to decide which doorway might lead to a staircase or some other way of reaching the third story without slipping back into U1.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There weren\u2019t any maps or floor plans where she could find them. Not even the ones usually required by Federacy fire codes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It took her half an hour of quartering the ground level, as cautiously as she could, before she found stairs leading up, tucked into the back of the building. She climbed them with painstaking slowness, studying her surroundings for any sign of <i>anything<\/i> that could see or reach into Elsewhere, knots slowly twisting their way into her nerves.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Nobody knows I\u2019m here,<\/i> she thought. It was both reassuring\u2014the Corporation had no idea it was being infiltrated\u2014and distressing. <i>The whole family thinks I\u2019m at the apartment building\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Hopefully this wouldn\u2019t be as stupid a move as she suddenly worried it was.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She took a deep breath as she reached the third story. The floor held her up, but she was starting to feel the full effects of her intense level of concentration. She\u2019d need to find some food to eat, and a place to sit quietly for a while, when she was done here. This shit was <i>taxing.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The cubes floated ahead of her in the space of Elsewhere, hidden behind walls in U1. She passed through those walls easily, avoiding one area that she already knew contained elevator shafts. The walls, to her, were just phantom layers between her and her quarry. She just couldn\u2019t see what else existed in the space with the cubes until she was finally through all of those walls and inside the room that held them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">A laboratory. A laboratory inside a thick steel vault.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">One of the cubes was sitting on a counter; the others were stored inside a large cabinet. The walls of the cabinet in U1 blocked her from seeing what else might be inside in that \u2019verse. In Elsewhere, the cubes simply hung in space, seeming to defy the laws of physics.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They were made of the same strange material as the one she\u2019d encountered in the <i>Scarlet Matador.<\/i> Up close, they were even stranger. Metal? Stone? She couldn\u2019t tell for sure. Maybe both. Aware that there was a camera in the room, she bypassed the cube on the counter for the moment, reached through the phantom cabinet door, and tried to lift one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Light. Weird\u2026 given the fight the other one gave me, I was expecting it to be <b>super<\/b> heavy\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But its density was not in any <i>one<\/i> universe, she realized.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>An apeirochoron simultaneously exists in every universe, occupying the same isomorphic point in spacetime in each\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">How did she know that?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">With a chill, she realized that <i>they<\/i> had told her that at some point, in one of the dreams that she could mostly, but not completely, remember. They had shown her an apeirochoron when they\u2019d asked her what kinds of locks she knew how to break. And, at some point, they had whispered the rules of its existence to her, most of which she still couldn\u2019t consciously recall.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But unlike the last one she\u2019d encountered, <i>these<\/i> boxes, she saw, had <i>lids.<\/i> Unlike the sealed box of her dreams, and the one she\u2019d played an almost-deadly tug-of-war with inside the <i>Matador<\/i>, they could be opened.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was only after she lifted the first lid that she wondered if she\u2019d just opened Pandora\u2019s box.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Now, that\u2019s just dumb,<\/i> she told herself after nothing happened.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She put the base of the box back down, careful to set it exactly where she had picked it up from, held the lid up and away, and reached inside.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Her fingers touched something that felt like a large brooch or badge. It existed on both sides of the threshold, both in Elsewhere and U1.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Motherfuckers already had some souvenirs,<\/i> she thought, shifting the object all the way into Elsewhere and pulling it out of the box and cabinet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was, she realized, a crew badge, complete with Captain\u2019s bars, that had belonged to Octavia Rehnquist, the late captain of the <i>Scarlet Matador<\/i>. She, along with the rest of the crew, had been among the eighteen dead, too deeply\u2014and deliberately\u2014sedated to save themselves when Elsewhere\u2019s high tide had overtaken their hospital floor. This wasn\u2019t a souvenir; it was a <i>murder trophy.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>You absolute fuckers\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She shoved it into her pocket. She\u2019d take it away from the building before tossing it into Elsewhere\u2019s retreating sea, where hopefully nobody from Quintessa could ever find it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Slowly, carefully, she opened box after box and removed the items inside: a baby\u2019s pacifier, a soldier\u2019s dog-tags, someone\u2019s <i>asthma inhaler,<\/i> a cigarette lighter, a signet ring, and much more besides. She stuffed most of the items into her pack after realizing there was no way she could carry all of it in her pockets. Just as she was resettling the lid on the last of the boxes within the cabinet, she heard a soft chime and saw the security panel by the massive steel door into the lab change from red to green. The door opened a moment later as she shrugged her pack back on and slipped the second-to-last of the murder trophies, someone\u2019s chrono, into her pocket to join the captain\u2019s badge.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>I got done not even a <b>second<\/b> too soon.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Two technicians walked into the room, followed by the Quintessa envoy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Bitch has a real thing for wearing white,<\/i> Jack thought, studying her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The woman was at least sixty years old, probably older. She was short, around fifteen centimeters, or six inches, shorter than Jack. The shape of her face was not all that dissimilar from Kyra\u2019s, although her nose wasn\u2019t as narrow and her chin had no hint of a cleft like Jack\u2019s sister\u2019s, and her cheekbones were a bit more pronounced. She had blue eyes and snow-white hair that was unusually thick and straight for someone with so much age on her face. She wore it long, barely contained by a loose, translucent off-white scarf worn almost like a <i>shayla<\/i> but crafted more like a <i>dupatta<\/i>. Jack wondered if she was wearing that as a perfunctory gesture to the local culture, or if it had any special meaning to her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Surely, if she had any empathy for the local culture, she wouldn\u2019t have let her mercs dress in anything <i>but<\/i> white for Tomlin\u2019s memorial, though. It was enlightening to see that white was what she seemed to wear all the time; she hadn\u2019t been making any kind of special effort for the sake of Tomlin\u2019s family and friends. She still looked like she was dressed to upstage some wedding\u2019s hapless bride.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Only part of the envoy was in U1. As before, portions of the space she should have occupied were occluded by a malevolent darkness that no one but Jack seemed to be able to perceive. She hadn\u2019t been able to see it, herself, when she\u2019d been fully present in U1 at the memorial. That had been a mercy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019d like to begin right away with testing,\u201d the envoy was saying to one of the technicians in her Mary Poppins accent. \u201cI need to understand what\u2019s so different about this incident. You\u2019re sure that containment has been holding for the last week?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cEverything\u2019s been fine, Ma\u2019am,\u201d the technician replied. \u201cNo anomalies recorded. The kirshbaumium is stable, as always\u2014<i>almost<\/i> always, sorry. We waited for you before opening any of the boxes again, though.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack, feeling her heart begin to race, walked over to the box on the counter and stood next to it. Whatever was inside was the final item she needed to rescue. And it had nearly been too late to do so. She was glad she\u2019d gotten to the other boxes first, though. If she did this right, they might never be sure that the contents hadn\u2019t simply vanished at the same time as the bodies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cLet\u2019s begin,\u201d the envoy said, nodding toward the last\u2014or, to them, first\u2014box.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The technician pulled on a pair of protective gloves and picked up a large, heavy pair of forceps before walking over to where Jack waited. He lifted the lid on the box and slid the forceps inside, starting to draw out a pearl necklace.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">As soon as there was room for her fingers, Jack leaned forward, snagged the necklace, and pulled it into Elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat the <i>hell?<\/i>\u201d the technician gasped. \u201cIt was <i>here!<\/i> I <i>felt<\/i> it! And now it\u2019s\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cLock down the building,\u201d the Envoy snapped, going deathly pale. \u201cI want no one in or out. I want a three-block cordon. Now!\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Clutching the string of pearls in her hand, Jack passed through the vault\u2019s thick walls and raced for the stairs, feeling suddenly like she was running for her life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She took the phantom stairs much too fast, especially given that only the steps themselves were tangible to her. Fortunately, she was only half a story above ground level when she inevitably careened through the stairwell\u2019s phantom back wall, and the wet sand of Elsewhere cushioned her fall.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">As she limped away from the scene of her latest crime, she hoped the pain in her ankle would be something she could walk off and wouldn\u2019t have to explain to anybody.<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: The Changeling Game (Formerly Identity Theft) Author: Ardath Rekha Chapter: 44\/? Fandom: TCOR AU Rating: M Warnings: Adult themes, controversial subject matter, harsh language, violence Cate","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"\u201cThe Changeling Game\u201d 44: \u201cAny Box Could Be Pandora\u2019s\u201d","bgseo_description":"Avoiding a nauseating task, Jack goes on a solo mission. It doesn\u2019t go as planned.","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fan-fiction","category-the-changeling-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}