09 – Positive Outlooks

The Adjustment kicked back, feet taking up the armrest of a small couch. “Glad to be out of that,” she said with a relieved sigh. “Thought I was going to have to treat my poor carapace for burn damage again halfway through.”

Erika stood at the window, looking out over Chicago and the lake with a small smile on her face. “I did see a few sparks.”

“Empy really managed to restrain herself.” The Adjustment barked a laugh. “I’ll have to pat her on the head later.”

Impassive porcelain face aside, The Art gave the impression that she was rolling her eyes with a slight tilt of her head. Leaning over the couch, she knocked her knuckles against The Adjustment’s forehead with a clatter. “What kind of flowers do you want at your funeral?”

The Adjustment swatted her hand away.

“So,” Leslie started, taking a seat in a leather lounge chair. “That was the ruler of the city. Less lizard-y than I expected, especially after hearing that she was a dragon. I suppose the lizard people have had years of practice—”

“Don’t even get started,” Anna grumbled, slouching into yet another chair in the small side room of The Eclipse’s offices.

The meeting was over and done with, and nobody burst into flames. After hashing out some of the finer details of their burgeoning alliance, Erika had gotten mostly what she wanted—support—and hadn’t given up anything in exchange beyond being the one to break into the hell dimension, which she already planned on from the start. It came as a genuine surprise that, for the first time in a long while, Erika felt genuinely good about something.

Beating up the maggots had been cathartic in the moment and ending their threat had been objectively good, but she still felt she was scrubbing off everything else about that nightmare of a night. Not to mention the whole another broken chain issue.

But, with the aid of The Eclipse, that would soon be solved.

Erika’s eyes narrowed as one of those organometallic birds flew past the window.

Something felt off. It might have been paranoia, it might have been her imagination, but Erika couldn’t help that little niggle in the back of her mind that something was going to go very wrong.

Erika turned from the window, gauging the room with her worry hidden behind a smile. The Adjustment and The Art were sprawled across a couch, deflating from the meeting. Leslie had his phone out, talking to Rick judging by the lizard-people commentary he kept up under his breath. Anna, with her notebook on her lap, was adjusting some of the notes she had made during the meeting. If there was something wrong with the meeting itself, her expression wouldn’t have been so at ease.

Finally, Erika met The Fixer’s gaze. Still in the guise of Mister Dice, he walked over to the window and stood alongside Erika. She still wasn’t happy about anything recently, but he was family. Technically. Sometimes more family than other times.

“What am I missing?” Erika asked, glaring as that bird swooped past with its talons extended, snatching a pigeon out of the air to feast.

“Missing?”

Erika shook her head, wondering if Carter had fallen closer to the tree than expected. “What are your thoughts on that meeting?” she asked instead.

“I don’t work well with others,” The Fixer answered, moving his hands to the small of his back. “Individuals, maybe. A large group like this? In my experience, The Mummy has hidden cultists all over the world, poised to do absolutely nothing until it would be most inconvenient. One person isn’t likely to be a cultist, but dozens of supernaturals plus all their support humans? In an organization poised in a position of power of a significant city?” He shook his head.

“You didn’t mention all that before the meeting,” Erika said with a scowl. “So what, some cultist is going to stab me in the back before I can open the door or something?”

“I think what you’ve accomplished with the ██████ of Maggots gives some credence to your way of doing things,” he said with a small smile. “I’m willing to try things differently this century.”

Erika didn’t stop glaring, filing away a new thing to worry about. It made a lot of sense that cultists, who could look like anyone else until it came time to don their masks, would seek positions inside the most powerful organizations around, if only to influence events toward their benefit.

“You don’t think The Puppet is working with The Mummy?”

“They are a much smaller group, and half of them directly assisted you in dealing with one problem.”

That wasn’t a no, Erika couldn’t help but notice. “The Castle?”

“Despite knowing almost nothing about them, I’d say they are the least likely to be compromised simply because of how insular they are. I think they built most of their number.” The Fixer paused, lips tugging downward into a frown. “Unless they tracked you down and helped heal you because they needed you to break the chains. Earning a little goodwill while pretending to be against the problem would fit…”

Erika glanced up at Mister Dice’s face as he mulled that thought around a bit more. For, perhaps, the first time, Erika felt pity for the man. Based on the notes in The Analyst’s archives, The Fixer had existed in one form or another for at least three hundred years. Aside from his guises, half of whom were murderers and other monsters, he had lived through all that time unable to trust anyone due to that overwhelming paranoia.

Everyone could be a cultist of The Mummy. Everyone except those whose faces he donned—or had a contract with, she supposed.

Everyone except her and Carter.

“Do you have any other children?” Erika asked, wondering if she and Carter were truly the first other people he could trust, simply because he knew they couldn’t be involved with The Mummy.

The Fixer’s eyebrows twitched just enough to betray his surprise. “This question again,” he muttered with a small shake of his head.

“No, I’m serious this time. Do I have half-siblings out there?”

The Fixer’s lips firmed. “Not anymore,” he said, turning his gaze back out the window.

Something about the way he stared now, eyes distant, like he was staring back at events long passed, made Erika hesitant to ask more. Other times she had asked, she had done so mostly teasingly, joking about some weird alien getting hot and heavy with humans like it was a bad B-movie from the seventies. Now, however, Erika felt a weight in his response.

“The Mummy got them?” she asked, voice quiet.

The Fixer continued staring, jaw tight, before he finally gave a shallow dip of his head.

Suddenly, Erika felt like an absolute bitch. The Fixer was still a bastard—she honestly doubted she would fully forgive him for running off for her entire life—but his last words had been for her to take care of Carter. And she took Carter to Hell. The reasons and extenuating circumstances wouldn’t have meant a thing to someone who already lost children to The Mummy. Not to mention her mother’s emotional turmoil.

“I’m… sorry,” Erika said.

The Fixer shook his head, misunderstanding. “It was a long time ago.”

It was almost a relief when The Hanged Man barged into the room. He adjusted his tie as he looked around, frowning when his gaze passed over The Art and The Adjustment and their lackadaisical lounging, then finally stepped forward. He had a pair of clipboards under one arm, one of which he offered to Leslie.

“While drafting up documents, we realized that The Hunters had failed to formally submit their petition as an independent faction within the City of Chicago, their agreement to the terms and conditions of being an independent party within the City of Chicago, and their registration as a certified Phantasmagoric Entity Exterminator.” He flicked his eyes to the side, glaring at The Adjustment. “Given the circumstances of your point of contact, The Eclipse will not hold your tardiness against you.”

Two of The Adjustment’s spindly fingers flipped up, even without her lifting her head from the couch’s armrest.

“How quaint,” The Hanged Man said, brushing an imaginary piece of lint from his suit jacket. “And how expected. I do find myself surprised that The Art failed to inform you of these required filings.”

The Art tilted her head just a hair too far. “I was assigned to The Adjustment’s protection detail. Interpersonal and interfactional dealings are not my department.”

“Quite,” The Hanged Man said, utterly unimpressed with the answer. Leaving the clipboard with Leslie, who started flipping through the stack of papers with wide, tired eyes, The Hanged Man approached Erika and thrust out the other board. “This is a simple agreement regarding our and your mutual agreement to destroy the Carrion Eater’s threat to the City of Chicago.”

Erika stared at the twenty sheets of paper straining the clip. “You’re serious?”

“You may have had informal dealings with others in the past,” The Hanged Man said with a barely concealed sneer. “The Eclipse prefers the cold hard truth of the written word, ensuring there are no points of confusion when one party reneges on their side of a bargain.”

Erika flipped through the pages, eyes glazing over. The font was tiny, far smaller than standard, meaning the twenty pages of words were probably closer to fifty normal pages. Then she realized the papers were double-sided. “You expect me to read all this shit?”

“It would be wise.”

“How many words were said during the entire meeting?” Erika asked, doubting that every word, including odd hums and filler words, even amounted to a quarter of what she had just been handed.

The Hanged Man just smiled as he held out a Willis Tower-branded ballpoint pen.

With an annoyed click of her tongue, Erika snatched the pen, flipped to the last page, and scribbled her name—The Agent—on the line, earning a slight hiss from The Fixer at her side.

“You might have just signed away more than your assistance,” The Hanged Man said, unsurprised.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Erika snapped, slamming the clipboard into his chest. “Try to collect on my soul or whatever and I’ll break the contract then shove it up your ass.”

“You shouldn’t make light of breaking contracts.”

Erika grinned, leaning in. “Try me,” she said, giving the clipboard one final press against his chest, shoving him back a single step.

With a small shake of his head, The Hanged Man adjusted his suit, turned, and approached Leslie once again.

“I think I’ll take the time to read through this,” Leslie said, though he handed one set of the documents off to Anna.

“A most wise decision,” The Hanged Man said with a nod. “Find me in the lobby when you finish.” With one last glance around the room, he departed, closing the door behind him.

“Erika…” The Fixer started.

Erika didn’t let him finish. “If I can’t break his contract, he deserves my soul.”

“You remember the prison, when…” He trailed off, then started again. “Do you remember how quickly that duffel bag appeared? If that contract had been magically binding in any way, you might not have had the time to figure out how to break it.”

At first, Erika was tempted to shrug off The Fixer’s concerns, but an incident came to mind. “I definitely can break that kind of contract—the type you showed off at the prison.” Erika stopped herself from explaining further, growing confused as she thought back. “Actually… wait.”

“What is it?”

Erika held up a finger as she thought back to Carter’s deal with The Stalker. She broke it the moment that portal-thing appeared, managing to get everyone back to the real world even while traversing some twisted splinter of alternate realities.

But just yesterday, when The Stalker showed up for the first time since that night, she had looked good. Her skin hadn’t been dried and cracked, her hair looked lusher than usual, and even her eyes hadn’t been as bloodshot as Erika was used to.

And Carter had shown her that orb of reality that he claimed was whatever The Stalker offered in exchange.

Erika hadn’t stopped that deal at all.

“Maybe I can’t?” Erika said, suddenly unsure as she rubbed a finger back and forth under her lip. “Or was I just not trying to break the contract, so it didn’t break?”

She started pacing back and forth in front of the window, clawing at her memories to figure out exactly what she had been thinking at the time. She could remember what she had done, but so much had been going on at once that it left the specifics of her thoughts a muddled mess.

“Make a deal really quick,” Erika said, snapping her fingers. “Something small is fine.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to see if I can stop it.”

“I’ve told you, it isn’t a toy to mess with,” The Fixer said, turning back to the window. He lowered his voice, speaking quietly enough to not let the others in the room hear. “Something small doesn’t exist. I trade in fundamental aspects of people. Memories, history, being. Things that ground people and make them real. It might be relatively harmless to remove someone’s trauma over a recent event or take the relationship they had with an abusive parent, but even those things make people themselves, and suddenly losing those things can have unpredictable effects on them.”

“But… The Stalker…” Erika trailed off, growing worried. She didn’t actually know what The Stalker traded for her beauty. Carter knew, but Erika hadn’t asked—The Stalker didn’t want people knowing about whatever it was.

Erika massaged her temple. She hadn’t spent that much time with The Stalker—would she recognize any differences? It wasn’t like they could undo it even if she did notice; the little orb of reality Carter had taken had evaporated to nothingness.

Clicking her tongue in annoyed frustration, Erika figured the first step was to simply talk to The Stalker again. As soon as this meeting wrapped up, Erika resolved to give her a call and maybe see if they could meet up.

Erika looked around the room again, focusing on the papers Leslie was slowly flipping through. She had never seen him wearing reading glasses before, but he had a small pair resting on the tip of his nose now. Judging by the amount of words in her contract, he wasn’t going to be done anytime soon.

“Excuse me.” The door creaked open despite opening silently before, admitting the tired face of The Banker. “Might I borrow The Agent for a brief spell?”

Erika narrowed her eyes, annoyed by both his face and his phrasing. She had been one second away from suggesting that they take the homework home, and maybe five minutes from escaping without having to talk to The Banker at all.

But he had come to hunt her down.

She took a step toward him, figuring she might as well get whatever he wanted over with, but paused as a thought occurred to her. “I’ll be out in just a moment,” she said, getting a nod from The Banker in response.

“No rush,” he said, stepping back out and closing the door.

Erika immediately spun around, whispering to The Fixer. “You said everyone is potentially infiltrated by The Mummy, right? What about The Church? You were pestering them for information before I got involved, right? So I assume you trust them?”

The Fixer nodded his head. “The Church has no cultists to infiltrate, and I’ve known The Analyst for a fair amount of my existence. The Banker is, admittedly, an unknown—all my interactions with them go straight to The Analyst—but of all the people in this world, I trust in The Analyst’s ability to vet her confidants.”

“Good—”

The Fixer stopped her before she could turn away, gently grasping her wrist. “I don’t necessarily trust their good intentions toward you. If The Analyst believes she can gather more information about the situation by throwing you in danger than by talking with you, she will without hesitation. I don’t know how she has managed, but The Analyst has never changed guises in all the time I’ve known her. Her guise is constructed, not borrowed. She has never been human and has never learned to be human.” The Fixer paused, letting Erika’s wrist go. “Guilt is an alien emotion to her, as is empathy.”

Erika nodded slowly, taking in his warning. “Say someone told The Analyst about the maggot apocalypse. Would you say that she is more or less likely to encourage that apocalypse to come about, in order to use it to gather information?”

The Fixer hesitated, frowning in thought for a short moment. “The Analyst is not interested in every molecule or stray beam of light. Her directive involves the collection of information about human activity within the region in which Chicago exists. If an apocalypse destroys the world, she won’t have a purpose to exist anymore.”

“The maggots didn’t destroy the world.”

“They did not.”

“Got ya,” Erika said, sighing. No trust for The Church, in that case. Not that Erika liked them to begin with. “Better go see what The Banker wants,” she said.

The Fixer didn’t try to stop her again as she left the small room. The Banker hadn’t gone far, simply leaning up against the hallway wall five steps from the door. Eyes closed and faintly breathing, he didn’t react even when Erika walked right up to him.

She jabbed a finger in his chest.

He jolted, eyes snapping open. For the very first time, Erika saw The Banker alert. His eyes snapped around as part of a word formed on his tongue. “Ki—” The Banker’s eyes locked onto Erika. His jaw clacked shut as he slumped back against the wall.

“Ki? Kill?” Erika asked, poking him in the chest again. “Were you about to curse me to death?”

“Kinesis, actually.”

Erika folded her arms, not sure she believed him. “I honestly thought your tired attitude was just an act.”

“It might be,” he said, pausing to yawn. “Never know when you need to catch someone off-guard.”

“Uh huh…” Erika shifted, feeling uncomfortable now. She didn’t like The Church, but she did have an outstanding deal with them. “I’m sorry I didn’t go tell you guys about all the stuff that’s gone on recently. It kind of just slipped my mind with how much happened. Rick made me write up a big report on everything for his little wiki though, so I can forward that to you guys—”

The Banker interrupted her, waving her off. “The Analyst already accessed and archived your report.”

“What? But it’s some little locally hosted thing, how—”

“She’s The Analyst.” The Banker shrugged as if that was an actual answer. “As long as your reports remain comprehensive, we’re okay with you continuing to use Rick’s wiki.”

Erika snorted. “Right. You know he’ll beef up security after I tell him about this.”

“He can try.”

“Alright. I’m sure he’ll take the challenge.” Erika shifted, waiting a moment. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“If you didn’t want my report, what did you want?”

“Oh.” He paused, yawning. “The Castle is on a complete lockdown, but an interested party got word to The Analyst despite that,” he said, his casual tone doing nothing to diminish the weight that settled into Erika’s stomach. “They wish for you to be aware of one thing.

“The Monk is no longer contained.”