01 – Flipping the Narrative

“I’m standing here live in Millennium Park, where crowds have gathered behind police barricades around The Bean. This is one of several locations in Chicago and its surrounding area where what can only be described as enormous, metallic-feathered birds have taken up a perch.”

Erika paused, dropping a heavy weight, as she watched the camera pan off the reporter. The curved chrome of The Bean reflected dozens of people gathered around the artistic sculpture, all holding phones up to record. As the camera’s view reached the top of the multi-story sculpture, it zoomed in on a quartet of the birds. Each sat atop, talons digging into the reflective metal, as they stared out into the city.

“The smallest of these creatures is easily the size of the largest vultures you’d find in the wild, but their appearance is unlike anything wildlife experts have ever seen. These strange birds have been spotted throughout the city—on the Willis Tower, along the riverwalk, and even outside schools. They don’t seem to be doing much; they simply sit and watch, occasionally turning their heads to look elsewhere.”

Erika shook her head, swapped arms, and started her reps again. It had been months since she hit the gym. She couldn’t quite remember if she had stopped late September or early October, but with it being the first week of February, it had been too long. Just that little lapse and what had once been a breeze now made her strain.

“Authorities are urging everyone to keep their distance. There have been at least seven confirmed reports of people being attacked after attempting to approach the birds. One man, who tried to shoo a bird off his balcony, ended up in the emergency room for deep lacerations ending with an amputated arm. A local corn farmer successfully shot one off a telephone pole, but suffered fatal injuries after several others swarmed him in retaliation.”

Erika clicked her tongue. The news left out the part where the birds ate him—picked his bones clean. Even his bones bore deep gouges, and the only way authorities had identified him was thanks to a handful of fillings that survived his shattered jaw… and his hysterical wife, who witnessed the whole thing.

“It isn’t your fault.” Daniel, dabbing the sweat from his forehead, stepped off a nearby treadmill.

Erika lowered her weights again, frowning up at him. He dripped with sweat despite having just been on a light jog. The first few days, she figured he was just that out of shape, but he didn’t act like it; his athleticism needed work, no doubt about that, but he didn’t fall over dead after a twenty-minute run like some newbies she had seen. Now, she wondered if he had some weird sweat-gene.

Standing, Erika racked her weights. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I think a lot of things. I know they aren’t all true.”

Daniel sat down on a bench, fanning himself with the end of his towel. “It is impossible to help everyone, not that you shouldn’t try your best, and you can’t hold yourself responsible for what other people do. We stopped the maggots from spawning, and The Eclipse cleaned up the rest.”

“If I wasn’t around—”

“Stop,” Daniel said, insistent, but calm. “The Fixer said this is some global conspiracy that’s been going on for centuries, if not longer, right? They would have figured out another way. They were figuring out other ways. And then you wouldn’t have been around to stop the ██████ of Maggots.”

“But the birds—”

“They aren’t attacking indiscriminately like the maggots were. It is a better situation, even if it is more public.”

Erika turned to him, ready to argue more.

“If you run off again like you did after The Castle, I’m going to run through the streets of Chicago until I find you and drag you…” Daniel trailed off, his eyes shifting from Erika to over her head. A look of abject horror dawned on his face. “Oh… Oh no.”

Erika turned to find the news anchor had moved on to interviewing people at the scene, as if they had any useful insight; they weren’t wildlife experts, let alone aware of the supernatural. She scanned the skies, worried that Daniel noticed some flock of birds ready to swoop in and murder everyone, but saw nothing but the overcast day. About to turn around and ask what he saw, Erika paused.

A man wearing a forest-camo hunting jacket with a long, graying beard stood just to the side, half cut-off by the edge of the screen. A grin ripped across Erika’s face as the camera panned over and the reporter shoved her microphone in his face.

“Well, everyone knows birds aren’t real.”

Erika knew without looking that the loud clap from behind her was Daniel smacking his own face, but she didn’t turn away from Leslie’s interview.

The reporter, clearly caught off guard, hesitated. “I… I’m sorry, sir, could you repeat that?”

“Birds aren’t real,” Leslie said, straight-faced and serious. “Haven’t been since the seventies. DDT was a government ploy to kill off all the birds so they could replace them with robotic drones, all of ’em. These new ones? They’re the next phase.”

“What is he doing?” Daniel groaned.

Erika didn’t have a clue, but she was here for it. Leslie knew where the birds came from, just as he knew what the gas-leaks had been.

With a nervous laugh, the reporter turned to the camera. “Alright, that was a theory—”

“You think it is a coincidence they show up right after all that gas-leak business? Nah.” Leslie took a step closer, leaning down to the mic even as the anchor tried to shy away. “This is another phase of the same problem. If the people in charge would stop ignoring the ones who know the truth—”

“Alrighty then,” the anchor said, taking a full three steps away from Leslie. This time, he didn’t follow. She turned to the camera, drawing back the corners of her mouth in a quick grimace before forcing a rueful smile. “As you can see, public opinion… varies.”

Erika clapped her hands together, laughing over Daniel’s audible cringing. “That was great.”

“Why?” he whined.

“I mean, that was him calling out The Eclipse for ignoring us, right? Think they watch local news?”

“Was it?” Daniel asked, sounding more than a little hysterical. “He actually believes birds are robot drones.”

Erika shrugged, turning away as the news went back to the station to report on other topics. It felt so strange that everything was continuing like normal. Giant monster birds prowled the city while two dozen people sat in the gym, going about their routines. Grocery stores opened at the usual time, offices were full of workers, and even most schools were open—the only one Erika had heard about closing was Brownstone, her high school, where a bird got inside and sat down in the lunchroom. Supernatural monsters were out in the open and the news was back to their usual spiel about how wonderfully the stock market was doing. It made Erika think that this kind of thing might have been a little more common than she originally thought, and that it just got glossed over by the global conspiracies.

Whatever happened to those murder hornets from a few years back anyway?

“Your dad and Rick should do a podcast where they talk about all sorts of insane shit, but sprinkle in true things every once in a while.”

“As an experiment?” Daniel asked, turning thoughtful. “See how long they last before someone shuts them down? And maybe who shuts them down? Or…” He trailed off with a frown pointed at Erika. “do you just want to hear them talk about their conspiracy theories?”

“Why not both?” Erika grinned. “Gonna hit the showers. Just a quick rinse. Then we can get out of here.”

Daniel sniffed twice, cringing to the point of nearly gagging. “Same.”

Erika didn’t see what the big deal was about a bit of sweat musk. She preferred being clean, true, but after that ziggurat, she wasn’t sure that she could ever complain about smell again without comparing it favorably to that place.

After a quick shower and a swap to some fashionable street clothes, Erika met up with Daniel in the gym’s parking lot.

A car sat out in one of the lots, a glossy, sleek muscle car. A ’67 Chevrolet Impala that, despite its pedigree, looked as if it came off the assembly line yesterday—hot and sexy, the perfect car for Erika. She wished she could drive it as she walked past to The Loaner.

Not knowing how to explain to the insurance company that her pickup was lost in some hell dimension, Erika had scrounged together the cash from several ATMs, all of which went to a piece of junk she found on local online classifieds. Her ‘new’ faded blue Honda Civic hadn’t been cool back in the late seventies, and she doubted it had seen a car wash, let alone any real maintenance, since. Paint chipped and flaked in long strips along the doors, mysterious stains tainted the passenger seat, and the dashboard rattled with every pothole.

She unlocked the door with a key that looked like a raccoon used it for a toothpick, and the handle gave a protesting squeal as she pulled it open. Leaning over, she undid the bungee cord that held the passenger door closed, letting Daniel in.

“I don’t believe you couldn’t find a better car,” he said, tone too neutral as the springs in the seat groaned under his relatively light weight.

“Don’t start again.”

There had been better cars, but if losing cars in a hell dimension became a regular thing, she would rather lose a total junker. With that thought in mind, Erika spent the next two minutes trying to get the engine started. It sputtered, coughed, cracked as it backfired, and finally rumbled to a sorry state of life.

The entire time, Daniel’s eyes bored into her.

“Fine,” Erika snapped. “I’ll look for a better one. Going to have to rob so many ATMs,” she grumbled as the car lurched out of the parking lot. She barely pressed on the gas and three back-to-back cracks split the air.

“There’s no way this thing passed an emissions test.” Daniel rubbed his hand on the passenger window, trying to clear away some of the grime. “You’re going to make people think someone is running around with guns or fireworks.”

“I already said I’ll look for another one.”

“Just saying…” Daniel trailed off. Reaching into his gym bag, he pulled out a small flip notebook. “Okay. Rick did find Delilah a place to stay that isn’t the arcade.”

“He mentioned that.”

For the last week and a half, Delilah had been sleeping at the arcade. Nobody wanted her around, not because she had an aspect of The Mummy possessing her, but because she was a target. It was the same reason Erika spent her nights at home while Carter stayed with the King family. Erika had offered to house Delilah, only for the others to shut that idea down. The two of them together made for a far-too-tempting target.

Erika held her doubts that The Mummy was actively looking for them, however. She spent nights restless, watching and waiting, just knowing some cultist was going to jump her… only for every night to pass by without alarm. Erika assumed they were off preparing a new chain for her to break, or concocting a plot to get her in position to break another chain. That didn’t explain why they hadn’t come after Delilah, but Erika couldn’t speculate about everything.

“Rick tell you where he found her a place?” Daniel asked, leaning over. When Erika shook her head, he started digging in his pockets for his phone. “Some old local bank, listed for sale for like twenty years with no buyers. It still has its vault intact, so they want to turn it into a sort of panic room.”

Erika opened her mouth, about to ask where he got the money for that—the arcade certainly hadn’t been drawing in the crowds, although it did get a few regulars over the last two weeks—then she remembered that he was some crypto bro.

“Is that a wise idea?” she asked after thinking about it for a moment more. “I don’t know much about banks, but I feel like vaults probably don’t have a lot of exits. Delilah would be trapped if someone shows up… and I’m not sure that naked woman would be stopped by a thick metal door.”

“Jack is a problem they’ve thought about,” Daniel said, using that name. They didn’t have a better name and ‘naked woman’ was a bit of a mouthful at times. Erika still doubted it was actually her name, but it seemed to be sticking. “Dad wants to consult with The Warrior about defenses, active and passive.”

That could help against most threats, though whether Jack would be affected was up in the air. With her tattoos tying her to the world, she could ignore most things, as far as Erika could tell.

There was another problem with that proposal, however. “We maybe should try to avoid interacting with The Puppet too much. We’re supposed to be neutral, that was like the whole agreement.”

“I thought you liked them.”

“I do, but I also like not being hunted down by two factions. We’ve got enough on our plate without The Emperor calling off our little truce. And if they find out I helped them get their hands on that catalyst, I have a feeling The Emperor will do a lot more than just call it off.”

Even after she and The Prescient had been proven correct with the maggots that night, Erika could hardly get The Eclipse to pick up the phone. The Adjustment was more-or-less happy to talk, but had no jobs for The Hunters, and with the maggot incident ‘done with’ in their eyes, there was no need for further meetings, not even about the birds. Granted, Erika hadn’t mentioned that she knew the origin of the birds, exactly, since she didn’t want to implicate herself in their appearance or in The Puppet’s activities that night, but now that Leslie was going on television, implying The Hunters knew things, maybe that would change.

“Maybe,” Daniel said, rubbing his chin. “Maybe it would be a good idea to hunt some ghosts? Dad has that book of suspected hauntings. We take a few out, let The Eclipse know we’re still playing by the rules, and then we carry on hanging out with The Puppet.”

“That could work,” Erika supposed. “Except, I assume all the easy ones, and any that pose real threat—the ones The Eclipse probably care about the most—have already been taken care of.”

“No idea. I’ll set Beth and your brother on searching through Dad’s book. Beth’ll like that.”

Erika would prefer jobs from The Adjustment, since they would be important to The Eclipse by implication rather than mere hope. If Leslie’s little black book was the best they had for now, she wouldn’t complain.

Turning down the alley shaded by the elevated tracks, Erika pulled into Varn’s back lot and came to a stop beside Anna’s motorcycle. No one else’s car was around at the moment, surprising Erika. She was a little early, and Leslie had just been all the way out at Millennium Park, but Rick’s new van should have been around. The arcade opened when school got out, which was right about now.

Worried, Erika unlocked the backdoor and hurried past the dim lights of the inactive arcade to the rear office.

The moment she opened the door, Erika felt the tension. Delilah stood, back against the rear wall, half-huddled behind Anna. Her eyes lit up with Erika’s entrance, like a fresh breath of hope swept into the room. In front of her, Anna ground her teeth, glaring over the table.

Erika turned, eyes wide. “Mom?” she started, only to catch that glint in Leah’s eyes. “The Fixer,” she corrected.

She instantly realized what was going on; it was the same thing as back at the motel. The Fixer sensed whatever aspect of The Mummy had possessed Delilah and was making an ass of themselves over it.

The moment The Fixer turned to Erika, it felt like an egg timer ticking down to that short, sharp bell.

The Mummy was The Fixer’s mortal enemy, and The Daughter was an aspect of that enemy, so fair enough. But they vanished for weeks, disappearing without a word, and when they reappear, do they let anyone know? No, they just went right back to fucking around with The Mummy without even knowing the whole situation. The exact thing that landed them in trouble the first time around.

Something in Erika snapped.

“Hey!” Erika shoved, breaking The Fixer’s balance with a touch and throwing them into the plastic folding chair. She planted a foot on the seat next to their thigh, penning them in as she got up in their face. “The fuck is your problem? You’re back and you don’t even call?”

“Erika…” The Fixer didn’t fight back, though they shifted in their chair, keeping Delilah in view. “We tried, but your phone didn’t connect.”

Erika clamped her jaw shut, glaring. “Right. I got a new phone. Old one fell into a Sarlacc pit. That doesn’t excuse you just—”

“We tried to check on Carter, but nobody was home. We called the Kings, and Leslie said he could bring Carter here, and that you would be here soon. So we came here…” He trailed off, glaring over Erika’s shoulder. “And found her.”

Erika snapped her fingers in front of their face, breaking their line of sight. “You focus on me. I’m the pissed one here.”

“You don’t know what she—”

“This isn’t about her. This is about you and me.” Erika jammed a finger in their chest. It felt weird, being so aggressive with her mother, but The Fixer’s eyes were still The Fixer’s eyes. “Is my mother still in there?”

“Yes.”

“Is she really? Because if you’re lying to me, I will break every single—”

“Florence Erika Walker!”

That tone gave Erika pause. Slight chills ran up her spine upon hearing her own name in that shrill, disapproving tone, completely lacking in the calm, suave voice that The Fixer maintained even while in control of Leah’s body. Leah’s eyes shone through, almost pleading.

Her gaze forced Erika back a step, moving out of their space, but it wasn’t enough to cool Erika off completely. “What happened?” she demanded. “At the motel, with that Reality Terminator?”

“A long story,” Leah said, her tone softening. “That isn’t the most important thing at the moment.”

“Fuck…” Erika cut herself off, grinding her teeth. “You, both of you, have kept me in the dark my entire life. Even after everything these past few months, that hasn’t changed. That ends now. I decide what is important. Where have you been for the last month, and what is the Reality Terminator?” As The Fixer’s eyes drifted away from Erika’s face, she snapped her fingers again. “Don’t even look at Delilah. I will worry about Delilah. You worry about me. Understand?”

The Fixer stared for a long moment, but eventually closed their eyes. “Very well,” they said with a heavy breath. “I suppose you’ll want me to start with when we last saw one another?”