03 – Breaking the Golden Rule

“So… Who is The Art?” Erika asked as she let a small box of clothes drop onto the floor of what was to be her new room. She opened the cardboard flaps and started placing articles into the closet.

They were finally moving into the rental home. Nine days after they went out with an agent on Carter’s birthday, they finally had four walls and a roof that wasn’t a hotel. Erika wasn’t sure if that was fast or slow relative to someone normal needing a rental place in an emergency, as she had never moved before, but it felt like way too long.

It was a… place. Not new, but not too shabby looking. As a duplex, they shared a wall with some elderly couple who looked like they had stuck around a bit beyond their expiration date. It was almost suspicious how old they were. Like the guy was so thin and with such sunken eyes that he looked more like a walking skeleton than a man, and the old lady had this dried out husk look to her—her lips were a series of cracked lines and more cracks spread out from the corners of her eyes and all down her arms.

Erika was well aware that her paranoia might be getting to be a little too much.

The Fixer hadn’t commented from where they were on the floor, assembling a small bedframe.

And now, at Erika’s question, they glanced over with a confused look on Leah’s face. It was so familiar, yet there were just enough differences that she could almost spot that it was The Fixer and not Leah. At the same time, for all she knew, she was seeing things where nothing existed.

Their situation was screwing with her head.

“The Who?” The Fixer asked.

“Not some old band,” Erika snipped, focusing on her clothes rather than their face. “The Art. Looked like a doll with worms coming out of her. I think she said she was part of The Eclipse?”

“Ah. Now them, I know. The Eclipse effectively runs this city. Their leader, The Emperor, ensures that supernaturals can continue to go about their lives, regardless of how hostile those lives might be to humans, while keeping the human side of things separate and safe in their own ways. A true mediator—though apparently The Eclipse has had some other large factions pop up in recent years…” The Fixer paused, shaking her head. “Most cities have a similar organization. They’re all loosely allied—it’s a fairly insular community to begin with—but if one city needs an alibi or distraction for some oddities going on, they can call up each other. I generally try to stay out of their affairs.”

“The Emperor, huh?” Erika said with a scoff at the name. “That guy sounds like a pretentious bastard.”

“Woman, actually, currently.”

“Currently?” Erika narrowed her eyes. “She something like you, hopping bodies around?”

“I don’t hop bodies. I…” The Fixer turned away, picking up a small Allen wrench. He paused a moment—Erika had come to recognize that slight stutter in his being. It meant he was discussing something internally. Something with Leah. It only lasted a split second before she slotted the hex wrench into one of the bolts and started turning.

“You’re being deliberately antagonistic,” Leah said.

Their situation was really screwing with Erika.

She really didn’t know how to react. Or even how to refer to them. She had asked, out of pure curiosity, and The Fixer said that regardless of the form he took, he was still him and generally defaulted to masculine preferences. But Leah didn’t. So…

So maybe it was better to not think about it, reject consistency, and just call them whatever felt right at any given moment. Or just stick with them permanently. Not that pronouns were the main problem she had with their existence.

Right now, she felt like calling them fucking idiots—which was something of a permanent feeling, or it had been since the museum.

“What’s up with the naming anyway?” Erika asked, deciding to shift topics a bit to something that had been annoying her that wasn’t related to both her parents existing in one body.

“Naming?”

“The Fixer, The Art, The Emperor, The Analyst, The Stalker… Even organizations like The Eclipse and The Church. It’s all a bit much, isn’t it?”

“Honestly? No idea,” The Fixer said with a shrug as they went back to working on the bedframe. “I first came into existence a few hundred years ago. Even then, those kinds of titles were commonplace. I imagine there is some history behind it, some instigator, maybe even going back hundreds of years further or through different languages. It never seemed relevant to my search, so I never bothered investigating.”

“Huh,” Erika said, wondering if it was just tradition at this point. “And The Fixer? You pick it or someone else?”

“Me. I knew little other than that I was here to fix the situation with The Mummy. It seemed fitting. Not that I use it all that much. I don’t tend to interact with many others on that side of things.”

“And why not? The Stalker helped me track you down in minutes,” Erika said casually. She paused a moment as a slight buzz in her pocket brought her attention to her phone. She scrolled down the newly received message before looking back at them. “You’ve had like three hundred years and have made no progress. Maybe you should ask for help.”

“I did. From people I believed could help. The Analyst, for one.” They paused, this time more of a thinking pause than the odd internal conversation pause. When they resumed working on the bed, they didn’t say anything more.

That was telling. The Fixer hadn’t known about The Stalker or The Art. They clearly didn’t know what options were truly available out there.

Erika was just starting to put together a picture of the city. Mostly with help from The Stalker—she was a lot easier to talk to than The Fixer.

The city of Chicago had three major factions. The Puppet, The Stalker’s faction, was newer to the city, but they had a powerhouse in their group that let them take over a significant chunk of the north end of Chicago. They advocated for a great deal of freedom, not wanting to play by The Eclipse’s rules. In The Stalker’s likely biased opinion, The Eclipse was a legacy of a bygone era, a tyrannical government analogue that would rather have supernatural beings kowtowing to regular humans than ruling from the shadows as they were meant to.

The Fixer’s description of them as mediators was probably far less biased.

The final faction was The Castle. A somewhat mysterious group that The Stalker hadn’t personally interacted with. All she knew was that The Puppet had a big fight with The Castle before The Stalker had reawakened. The Castle didn’t get along well with The Eclipse either, but not to the point of open conflict.

Erika wanted to ask more about everything, but at the same time, she didn’t want to expose her ignorance. Right now, The Stalker believed she was fairly experienced, but someone from out of town who wasn’t aware of the local politics.

That let her ask some things, but not about others, like what exactly The Stalker meant by reawakened.

She could ask The Fixer. She had asked The Fixer about some things. If The Fixer had body snatched some neighbor, she probably would have asked more, but it was so uncomfortable. Like…

Ugh.

Erika typed on her phone for a brief moment before standing, glad she had an excuse to get away again. “Well, I’m going to go see if I can’t get us some more allies.”

“What?” Their head snapped up, and Erika was fairly sure that Leah was the one who sounded so shocked just now. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“The Stalker is calling in that favor I owe her, maybe,” Erika said, lightly waving her phone back and forth. “She said I’ll be meeting with The Strategist to go over exactly whether or not I can utilize my abilities for a task she has in mind.”

“Erika, that’s dangerous for a lot of different reasons. I know you aren’t afraid of meeting people on that side of the coin, but even disregarding that, if The Mummy tracks you using your abilities…”

That side of the coin. Erika was fairly certain The Stalker had used that same phrasing at one point. She filed it away as a bit of jargon to use. “I’ll warn them,” Erika said, tugging on some thick combat boots, “but I can’t exactly say no. The Stalker helped me find you. I owe her that favor.” Even if she didn’t, she would probably still help out. The Stalker was a gateway into that side of the coin that didn’t rely on The Fixer. She also had an ability that Erika didn’t exactly fancy having turned against her.

Better to be a friend than to wind up endlessly stalked across the city.

The Fixer got up, leaving the bedframe partially disassembled. “I’m coming with you.”

“And leave Carter alone?” Erika shook her head, picking a heavy coat from her closet. One of the few that survived the fire, though it was in a rough state.

She needed to go shopping. Proper shopping. Maybe she would stop by a few ATMs while she was out. If she was already going to be demonstrating her powers for The Strategist, might as well demo them and get some cash at the same time.

“It’s too late to ask the Kings to take him,” Erika continued, slotting her gun into its holster under her arm. “I’ll be fine. Stalker is cool. Even if some cultists show up, we’ve taken them on before. We can do it again.”

“Erika…”

That tone again. That was The Fixer without a doubt. She almost snapped at him. He long since lost the chance to be her father, and she didn’t need him trying now. But, to avoid being a complete walking stereotype, she kept her mouth shut and simply smiled at him.

“I’ll be fine,” she said again. “Remember, between you and me, only one of us got captured and trussed up in chains. The other kicked ass and chewed bubble gum. And I didn’t even have any gum.”

They rubbed their forehead, frowning. “That quote is not… If they can capture me, they can do the same for you. You could be walking into a trap. How do you know this is The Stalker contacting you and not someone impersonating her?”

“I see now where I’ve gotten my paranoia from,” Erika muttered, smoothing down her coat. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be going anywhere near those maggots again. She had been tempted to burn the coat she wore to that ‘gas leak’ until Anna said she wanted it for the samples.

If she was going to encounter more of those maggots, she would have to start investing in a coat company. Or maybe find some rain ponchos.

“I’ll call you when I get there. If I don’t see The Stalker, I’ll let you know. And I’ll call you after we’re done. Happy?”

“No.”

“Sucks,” Erika said with a shrug. “See you later then.”

Despite their unhappiness and their protests, neither Leah nor The Fixer tried to stop her as she left the little duplex rental place.

The Stalker wanted to meet up at some small park in Old Town, clear across the city and surprisingly near Varn’s Arcade. It was inconvenient, as was the short notice, but Erika was happy to be out of the house. Truth be told, Leah and The Fixer were both irritating in their smotheriness as well as annoying in their situation. She didn’t regret saving them—never—but she would be happier if they laid off a bit. And, as for just being around them, knowing everything now… it wasn’t something Erika really knew how to handle.

So best to simply not handle it at all by distracting herself. For example, with this little excursion. It was time to delve further into other things, like investigating the city and exploring the strange nightlife that had been hidden from her for so long.

It took a good half hour, give or take, to get across the city. There was a surprising amount of traffic for late in the evening. Yet, as she neared the park, it was like something had changed. The amount of people on the sidewalk thinned out, cars grew further and farther apart, and even the streetlamps seemed like they weren’t pumping out as much light as Erika would have expected.

As she pulled to a stop in a vacant street-side parking spot, she spotted The Stalker in the park, lit only by a lone lamppost that glowed an ugly yellow. Her silhouette was fairly distinctive with her stringy black hair, pale skin, and dark clothes. Even more distinctive was Simone’s bright suit, worn open despite the cold air.

Erika didn’t recognize the third member of their group. A vaguely Asian man, though his facial features were somewhat subdued. Except his hair. He didn’t look that old but had Leslie Nielsen styled-white hair, wide, upward-angled eyebrows, and a thick black mustache that tapered into sharp points on either side of his lips. Combined with his angular chin and pronounced cheekbones, the man looked especially polygonal, but not so much that it was particularly uncanny—just distinguished.

Still, with The Stalker and Simone there, Erika was fairly certain this wasn’t some trap. She texted Leah’s phone, letting them know what was up, then got out of her pickup and trudged across the park.

A small conversation between the group died off as she approached, resulting in them all looking in her direction. The Stalker’s eyes were bloodshot and tired as usual—she wasn’t using her shimmering eye ability—and Simone gave a jaunty wave of her hand. The third member of the group, whom Erika was presuming to be The Strategist, kept a carefully neutral expression as he looked her up and down.

Erika returned the wave to Simone before looking to The Stalker. “Yo. How’s it going?”

The Stalker winced and shot a quick glance at The Strategist. When he didn’t react one way or another, the tension in her lips drained away. “Fine,” she said with a slight rasp in her throat. “Sorry about calling you in without warning.”

“No problem, I wasn’t busy with anything,” Erika said, frowning a little at the way The Strategist was still staring at her.

Did she have something stuck in her teeth?

“Why not take a picture?” she snipped, keeping her tone light enough. She would rather not offend people if it wasn’t necessary, but the staring was getting a bit uncomfortable.

“You’re young,” The Strategist finally said in a buttery, deep voice made for nature documentaries. “Not just in appearance—it is often difficult to tell with certain classes of beings—but genuinely youthful.”

“Yeah,” Erika said, huffing. “And you sound like a creep. What of it?”

“My apologies,” he said with a slight bow. “Your youth merely caught me off guard. The Stalker implied you were much older.”

Erika shot The Stalker a glance and got an uncertain shrug in return.

“I am known as The Strategist,” he continued without pause. “The Stalker has a possible task for you to act as repayment, but wishes to involve my skills in analyzing whether or not you could assist in this task so as to not waste all our time with something impossible for you.”

“Smart,” Erika said, though she wondered exactly what this analysis was going to entail. She wasn’t so unsavvy that she couldn’t guess that there might be some ulterior motives at play. It would be simple enough to ask her to break something under the guise of a test and still ask for help with a second favor afterwards.

Still, she was willing to play along for now. It wasn’t a terrible idea. Better to get some tests done in a relatively safe environment before diving into something as dangerous as that museum. And Erika would be lying if she said she wasn’t looking forward to trying to break something abnormal. If they kept trying to string her along, she would have other things to say.

For now, she looked to The Stalker. “What’ve you got for me?”

“This,” The Strategist responded, pulling a small object from his coat pocket.

It was about the length of Erika’s hand from wrist to fingertip and about as wide as three of her fingers. With how shiny it was, it had to be metal, but the coloration and the heft with which The Strategist held it made her whistle.

“Gold?” she asked despite herself.

“Indeed,” The Strategist said, placing it on the park bench with a soft thumping noise. “About two thousand grams of pure gold.”

“Is this the test, or is it what you wanted me to break?” she asked, again addressing The Stalker.

“The test, obviously,” The Strategist responded in a tone that Erika guessed he used often, especially accompanied by the word ‘obviously’. “If the actual article were so easily carried about, we wouldn’t have bothered with a little experiment beforehand.”

Erika shot a glance at The Stalker, starting to understand just why she had been frustrated when Erika brought The Strategist up at the museum. He was the sort of guy who liked to hear himself talk. Which, with a voice like that, Erika could empathize with, but of the two of them, she owed The Stalker a favor. Not him.

The Stalker offered her a wan, humorless smile. Like this was exactly what she had expected. Back at the museum, she had gotten irate and angry. Now, she was acting like a subdued little puppy.

Erika wondered if this was what she really wanted to use her favor on, or if she ended up telling the other people in her little group, and now they overwrote her to get something they wanted done.

“Right,” Erika asked. “Fair warning, those people from the museum might have some way of locating me if I do anything strange, which breaking this counts as. Probably not a problem as long as we leave soon enough after.”

“Troublesome,” The Strategist said, narrowing his eyes as he glanced around the park. “How soon?”

“They were at the museum in only a few minutes, but I presume that place was important to them and they were simply nearby already. Here?” Erika shrugged. “Could be tomorrow, could be twenty seconds if that apartment building just so happens to have a bunch of them housed inside.”

“They’re pretty tough,” Simone piped up. “Can take a few regular bullets without even flinching. Yellow bullets take them down easy enough, though.”

“Noted,” The Strategist said with a thoughtful look on his face. “There will be no need to stick around long-term following the test. All of us are carrying yellow armaments. The risk is acceptable. Go ahead.”

Erika nodded, figuring he would say that with how The Stalker performed at the museum. She reached out for the gold bar, only to pause. “Just so we’re clear, if I break this and you’re out a few bucks’ worth of gold, I’m not owing anything for that.”

“This is worth well over $250,000.”

Erika snapped her hand back like the thing was made of angry wasps. “Uh…”

“Fret not. Gold doesn’t diminish in value just because it is broken.”

“It might diminish in value if little bits of it go flying about,” Simone muttered, staring at the bar.

“Or if I break it in a way you’re not anticipating,” Erika said, staring at the bar a little harder. Despite the warning, nobody protested when she picked it up.

When she tried to pick it up. Erika had to end up using both hands. It only weighed about five pounds—a lot more than expected given its relatively small size—but it was tapered awkwardly enough that her fingers just slipped off, unable to grip it over gravity’s pull.

There was something strange about it. Erika knew on an instinctive level that something had been done to it, though she didn’t quite know what. It was like it had a little film around it. One she couldn’t feel with her fingers or see with her eyes, but a layer of something nonetheless. It didn’t seem to affect anything, so with a shrug, she continued looking over the bar.

Her first thought had been to simply throw it on the ground. Simone’s gripe about bits flying around made her hesitate. Slowly, she set it back onto the park bench and reached into her pockets as she searched through her memories.

In order to pull something from her pockets, she had to know where it was. Erika always had a good mind for that kind of stuff, remembering where things were. It didn’t take long to rifle through her memories of Rick’s toolbox at the arcade. She selected a screwdriver and a small hammer. From there, she pulled both out.

The Strategist didn’t look surprised or shocked at all that she was bringing out tools, nor did Simone. The Stalker, however, was using her ability, indicated by the slight shimmer in her eyes. It wasn’t on full blast, but just enough to see something. Although Erika wondered what that something was, she didn’t want to bring unnecessary attention to other things she could do.

Instead, she leaned over, placing the screwdriver right in the middle of the bar. A light tap of the hammer on the end of the screwdriver split the gold bar directly down the center. The film around it snapped at the same moment, vanishing completely from whatever sixth sense told her it existed.

The Fixer had explained the w-axis to her, but he hadn’t been able to explain her ability to break things like this, citing an inability to do so himself. It wasn’t something he had experience with, and, given their desire to not draw attention to themselves, Erika hadn’t demonstrated much for him to watch and learn.

She couldn’t explain it either. Much like the w-axis existed and her odd pocket space worked, much like Carter could steal time, Erika could simply break things. It was just how the world worked.

The Strategist looked a great deal more surprised now, almost reverently picking up one half of the broken bar. He turned it over, humming lightly, before holding it out to Simone.

She pulled out a small silver-looking spoon from her pocket and tapped the rounded end against the gold bar. With a nod, she moved over to the piece still on the bench, tapped it, then gave The Strategist another nod.

“Were you aware of any enchantment on the object?”

“Uh… no?” Erika said, frowning at the group. Unless that was what the film had been.

An enchantment? Magic?

Simone retreated to her stationary spot behind The Stalker, resuming her neutral pose. The Stalker looked almost disappointed with Erika’s response.

“Excellent,” The Strategist said, the most pleased of the three. “I will return this to The Warrior for further analysis, but I believe your abilities shall suffice for our needs.”

Erika narrowed her eyes at our needs, shooting another glance at The Stalker.

“Per your advisory, we shall depart immediately,” The Strategist said. “The Stalker will be in touch when we are nearer to being ready.”

All three stood and started walking away without any further farewells. Erika watched them depart for a moment, eyes lingering on The Stalker. She figured they would be in contact a little sooner when Erika called her to clear some things up.

For now, however, Erika shoved her tools back into her pocket—making a mental note to replace them the next time she was at the arcade—before heading back toward her truck. She made sure to text Leah and The Fixer, letting them know that the meeting ended without any incident whatsoever.

As soon as she slipped her phone back into her pocket, she heard a light clop of something hard tapping against the sidewalk—almost like the sound of a horse’s hoof.

Erika tensed, fingers curling around the hammer in her pocket. At first, she tried to keep walking, pretending as if she hadn’t noticed anything. A second clop brought her to a sudden stop.

A shadow, cast by one of the sparse street lamps, fell across the sidewalk around her feet. It was gangly and unnatural, with several squirming ends poking off at odd parts. Some part of it reminded her of those creatures back at the museum’s hidden temple. The spawn of the Mother of Maggots.

Her truck was just across the street. Ten steps away.

Turn and confront? Run and try to flee?

Shout in the hopes that The Stalker was still around?

Erika ground her teeth.

A buzzing from her phone made her jump. The shock jolted her into action. She spun, pulling out the hammer and swinging it through the air behind her.

It hit nothing but air. There was nothing around. No sign of whatever made that noise. No sign of the shadow on the ground around her. Erika slowly pivoted around, scanning everything around her, only to find darkness there and nothing more.

Another buzz in her pocket made her pull her phone out. She barely glanced at the screen as she unlocked it, still searching for whatever had made those noises and cast that shadow. Eventually, however, she flicked her eyes down to her screen to find a few text messages.

Sofia, surprisingly enough, was asking if she wanted in on an outing. Rick’s police scanner caught another of those ‘gas leaks’ just as it started, meaning now was the optimal time to get in before anyone had a chance to put up tarps or clean up.

Right now, Erika would have accepted an invitation to a bingo night at the local retirement home if it meant being around other people.

Erika hurried to her truck. She made doubly sure that nobody was hiding in the back or somehow in the slim space for passengers behind the seats before getting in—she wasn’t about to fall for archaic horror cliches where the monster jumped at her from behind. Locking the door, she started up the engine and sped off as fast as she could manage.