W13 fic: Repair Work (Myka/HG)
Nov. 22nd, 2011 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Repair Work
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,579
Characters/Pairings: Myka/H.G.
Summary: If just a few things had gone right—the Bronze Section manifesto being found, a problem arising that only one person could fix—then H.G. would've been released by the Warehouse agents themselves. Myka would've been her handler. But in the end, would it change anything?
Looking back, Myka almost wouldn’t believe how it had all happened. That wasn’t saying much, her entire week consisted of things like “Thursday—possessed Joss Whedon autograph that makes the reader want to kill the first happy couple he sees.” But the threads connecting her to H.G. were so tenuous that she could almost chalk it up to fate. Or maybe that was just how Helena made her feel.
If Claudia hadn’t found the manifesto propping up one leg of a coffee table in the abandoned break room… if she hadn’t recognized the name H.G. Wells and mentioned it to Myka… if Myka hadn’t brought the fact that they had a woman in the Bronze Sector who had done nothing wrong to Artie… and most importantly, if some fiber of her being hadn’t drawn a connection even then, even when all she knew was a name, that she kept harping on it long after Artie considered the matter closed. And then, if the goo hadn’t stopped working…
“I bet H.G. could fix it,” Myka said at the panic meeting, while Artie and Claudia were still playing technobabble Mad Libs. She had read what was left of H.G.’s case files extensively, and it left her with the childlike hero worship that a good book should.
Artie was sniffing over a dismissive line when Pete said “Myka’s right.” That got the death glare redirected his way. “I mean, Myka’s always right. She’s Myka. And it’s not like we can’t put this H.G. back in if she turns out to be Jack the Ripper or something.”
“Jack the Ripper was a dude,” Claudia groused.
“So was H.G. Wells!”
Artie held up his hands, sighing. “As much as I hate to admit it, we really don’t have time to argue and… Bering actually brings up a good point.” The last part was said very quickly. “But I want you watching her every waking moment and some of the sleeping ones too. Just because her file says she isn’t dangerous doesn’t mean she’s not.”
“—Jack the Ripper, lady version,” Pete finished.
“She’s your responsibility,” Artie thundered in conclusion, gesturing for Myka to follow him as he set out for the Bronze Section. “So there are a few simple rules I’d like to go over weeeell before she wakes up.”
Myka nodded and tried her best to listen as she followed, with the undignified certainty that she looked as eager as a puppy following its owner. She’d actually get to meet the father… no, mother… of science fiction, her childhood idol, the owner of the most incredible imagination in literature. Myka just hoped she wouldn’t be too stuffy.
***
They dimmed the lights in the Bronze Section first. As Artie explained, the process would leave H.G. sensitive to light. Myka nodded tersely. For some reason, she felt nervous about meeting her idol. What if H.G. started going off about racial minorities or, worse yet, ‘sexual deviants’? Myka had gotten enough of that at the academy, just for not having a boyfriend. It seemed a shame to imagine such a visionary as being, well, Victorian.
“We’re not cuffing her ASAP?” Claudia asked. She’d bought into Artie’s paranoia. “I mean, what if she goes all Jason Bourne on us?”
“She’s been in there for over a hundred years,” Artie replied, running through the debronzing process. “Her animus is all screwed up. It’ll take her hours to recover.”
The bronzing chamber hummed ominously. Myka took a half-step forward, as if she could see into it. The statue they’d loaded inside had been slender and well-formed, but it’d told her nothing of the person underneath. The expression had been carefully blank, like a partisan facing a firing squad. It made Myka wonder how voluntary the process had really been, despite the report. Well, she’d find out.
With a sudden rush, the chamber lurched open. Inside, she caught a glimpse of pale skin and frantically searching eyes in the semi-darkness before the figure collapsed, down on all fours, Myka moving instinctively to her side—”Careful!” Artie cried—and helped to support her. H.G.’s skin was almost as cool as the metal that had covered it for so long, but it was rapidly warming. Myka resisted the urge to rub warmth back into them, instead helping H.G. make the trip to the chairs beside the console.
“Back up,” she called out to her friends. “Give her some space.”
As she helped H.G. into the chair, her hair brushed against Myka’s face. It even smelled of bronze—harsh, metallic. Myka backed away. A corner of H.G.’s face had caught some light, revealing a glimmering trail of liquid. Sweat or tears? Myka wiped it away and felt H.G. burning up.
“Easy,” Myka said, patting at her face with a tissue. “Just… stay calm, okay? Do you need anything?”
“My—eyes—” the woman worked out fitfully, shivering now.
“Still too much light,” Myka muttered, now pulling off Pete’s coat (“Hey!”) and throwing it over H.G. She shrunk into its voluminous fit. “Is that better?”
“Yes,” H.G. replied at length. “Bearable. What year…?”
“2010. You’re in Warehouse 13. In America.”
“Ah,” H.G. said gently, her voice a faint croon. “So you haven’t blown yourselves up yet. That’s heartening. You do have nuclear weapons by now, I should think?”
“Uh, yeah,” Pete confirmed, leaning over to Claudia. “That’s super-reassuring.”
“Would you like some water?” Myka asked, finding it difficult not to comfort the obviously stricken woman. She wanted to look under that coat and make damn sure she was okay, but she could also understand how wounded H.G. obviously felt. Myka wouldn’t have wanted to be seen in that state either. “I mean, your throat sounds a little…”
“A fag,” H.G. replied, “would be nice.”
“Ummmm…” Pete trailed off. “I might’ve experimented in college, if that would help? I love the ladies, though… but big on showtunes, that’s a different thing.”
“She means a cigarette,” Myka said, not quite able to keep her disbelief at Pete’s antics out of her voice, even in front of a guest. “Are you sure, H.G.? You know, we found out they cause cancer. It’s a filthy habit.”
“It has a lot of company,” H.G. retorted. “The hefty one, he has some. Left jacket pocket.”
“I am not hefty!” Artie was saying, even as Claudia fished a pack of Marlboros out of his jacket. “Hey!”
“Artie,” Claudia tsked.
“I’m down to one a day, alright? I’ve had that pack for a month.”
Claudia tossed the cigarettes to Myka, who popped one out and offered it to H.G. H.G. didn’t take it, instead leaning forward to clasp it between her teeth. Her lips, to Myka’s surprise, weren’t set in a scowl, but instead a sort of chronic smirk, momentarily dialed down as she got her bearings. “And a light?” H.G. offered around the cigarette.
Myka’d never had so much as a bubble pipe, but she kept a lighter at the ready, along with a pocket knife, a length of cord, and a few other useful Bat-items. All part of being a Warehouse agent, where you never knew when bubble gum and spray-paint could come in handy.
She hunched down in front of H.G., offering up the lighter and flicking the wheel when it became obvious H.G. wouldn’t take it. Maybe her hands weren’t working. Maybe they were just shaking. Myka remembered being the new girl at school. She wouldn’t let the bastards see her bleed either.
The flint took a while to catch—Myka hadn’t checked the fuel since the episode with the haunted fireworks. Finally, she got a good flame going—and caught a look at H.G.’s face. In the slow moment that followed, H.G. leaning forward to bury the tip of the cigarette in Myka’s flame, she had ample opportunity to study it. It was something to be thankful for. H.G. was the most beautiful woman Myka had ever seen. Her eyes shone with clear intelligence, while her high cheekbones put Myka’s sister to shame. And the confidence made Myka think of looking in a mirror after being trusted to protect the President, seeing the unabashed certainty, almost arrogance, that had swallowed up all feelings of doubt and anxiety. This woman, who’d been asleep for a hundred years, was that sure of herself, all the time.
And yet, as Myka kept looking, as the tip of the cigarette turned into an ember and H.G. stared right back, she detected something more. A pain that lurked in the corner of H.G.’s eye, on one side of her smile. Like the string on a mask, it hinted at something more underneath. Something Myka was suddenly breathless to uncover.
H.G. moved back, blowing out the lighter flame with the corner of her mouth. The sudden plunge into darkness left only the cherry end of her cigarette as light, reflected in her eyes like pinpricks in whatever curtain was between the face H.G. presented to the world and her inner fire.
Myka blushed and moved away herself, wondering just how much poetry was too much, because she was clearly on the wrong side of that.
Stiffly, H.G. moved her hand up to her face—the fingers were long and uncalloused, the nails short and red, as if she’d beautified herself before going under. Without a single tremor, she clinched the cigarette between two slender fingers and dragged it off her lips, then took the time to blow out an elegant stream of smoke before asking “What’s the problem? Or have you woken me up to bask in the socialist utopia along with the rest of you?”
“Nobody let her watch Rocky IV,” Pete stage-whispered.
H.G.’s eyes sidled over to Myka. She took another drag from her cigarette, savoring it before exhaling through her nostrils. “Perhaps you’re just looking for some intelligent conversation?”
“The neutralizer goo isn’t working,” Artie said.
“You mean the Psychic Impediment Liquid?” H.G. took in their blank stares. “It’s purple…? Oh dear god, please tell me ‘goo’ is an acronym of some sort.”
“We… may have called it purple goo as a sort of nickname,” Claudia said.
“Sometimes I think I judged Crowley too harshly… I did study the PIL quite extensively, even managed to condition it into a kind of bag. Before that, we had to use radioactive oilcloth. Yes, I’d be happy to restore your goo to working order, so long as you don’t intend to put me back in the bronze. If that’s the case, you’ll understand if I reply to your offer with a cheerful ‘bugger off,’ no hard feelings.” H.G. gave them a blinding smile before returning the cigarette to her mouth.
“For a nicotine addict, she has great teeth,” Pete muttered.
“Quiet!” Myka blurted, finding it hard enough to dismiss the thought of those teeth around the lobe of an ear, or a nipple… “We won’t put you back in the bronze if you don’t want to go.”
“Wait a minute, what does she care?” Pete insisted, advancing on the seated H.G. like a detective catching a suspect in a lie. “For all you know, if we put you under again, you’ll wake up in your precious socialist utopia. (Which reminds me, she can’t watch Red Dawn either.)”
“Take your partner’s suggestion. Be quiet,” H.G. said, a hint of a threat entering her voice. She worked the cigarette around with her teeth, smoke seeping off it angrily. “And don’t move. But first, go someplace where no one will ever see you or talk to you or so much as think of you. Then try that for a hundred years. Maybe you’ll wake up in a world without your hated Red Socks.” She took a deep, calming suck on the cigarette. “By the way, thin walls here. Voices tend to carry from Aisle 87J…”
“People aren’t awake in bronze,” Artie insisted.
“I’m sure that’s what the Regents told you. They told me that too. But then, it’s not as if they’d bronze someone for a hundred years to test that. An hour in bronze is nothing, a blip. But a year… a decade… a century.” She blew smoke out her nose like a bull about to charge. “It’s 2010, you say? Then I’d put the rate at five conscious hours for every year spent in bronze.”
“Oh God,” Myka said, soft enough to not even realize she’d spoken.
“But you aren’t putting me back,” H.G. said, as if she were the one comforting Myka instead of the other way around. “So there’s no need to worry. Could you help me to my feet, Agent…?”
“Bering,” Myka said quickly, giving H.G. her arm. H.G. took it not so much with strength as tenacity, pulling herself up to a teetering stand. Even when she let go of Myka’s arm, Myka stayed nearby in case she stumbled, her fingers itching to catch her.
H.G. seemed to laser in on that thought, offering Myka a wan smile as she stubbed out her cigarette. “Myka Bering,” she said, tasting the name. Then, off Myka’s surprised look. “Voices carry, remember? It’s nice to finally put a face to the name.” Killing the smile as if it had just been for Myka, H.G. faced Artie, pulling the coat tighter around herself in preparation for a trip into the light. “Well then, show me to the Impediment Production Apparatus. I’ll want to check for any impurities at the source.”
“We call it the gooery.”
H.G. suppressed her sigh just enough so that only Myka heard it.
***
"Where is the ledger?" H.G. demanded. Upon reaching the gooery, she had stumbled around, clearly expecting to find something, before leaning against a pipe in a sort of collapse. Flustered, she had lifted her face into the light enough to issue some hate mail. "How can I be expected to fix your machine without its ledger?"
"What ledger?" Artie demanded right back. "What is all this about a ledger? We don't know anything about any ledger."
"The ledger," H.G. began slowly, "in which all modifications to the Impediment Production Apparatus are chronicled, so that I can study which has led to the current malfunction. Has the Queen's English entirely devolved since my time?"
"There isn't a ledger," Claudia spoke up. "We don't modify the gooery. Trust me, I've tried."
"Your 'gooery' is the product of the belief systems of seventeen secret societies, eldritch magic, a one-of-a-kind invention by Jules Verne, and technology flung back in time from one mister Einstein. If even the slightest element is out of sorts, the Psychic Impediment Liquid could be rendered as Dwarf Suppressant Gel, Hallucination Enhancement Odor, or even Arousal Addition Foodstuffs."
"Your mouth is making those sound like bad things," Pete said.
"Suffice to say that the system is so sensitive it might take decades for flaws to show up in the manufacturing product. So you can see the imperative nature of my request."
"Well, it's hard with all the big words," Pete retorted, feeling defensive.
"Pete, could you look around please?" Myka asked. "And Claudia, there might be something in the database. Artie, if you could check your archives, maybe you put the ledger there for safekeeping."
"Good ideas all." H.G. righted herself once more, now walking with a hitch in her step, clutching the coat around her out of reflex. "I'll be in the bronze section if you need me."
Myka felt Artie look at her more than saw it. She followed after H.G., already thinking up an excuse. She could always claim she wanted to make sure H.G. was recuperating properly. It wasn't that far from the truth.
In the bronze section, H.G. had turned the lights up a little. It reminded Myka of a full moon. She stopped in the doorway and watched as H.G.'s head emerged from the folds of the coat that encircled her like a straitjacket, her hair spilling down the back. She walked through the rows of bronze statues, head craning this way and that, crawling from one step to another.
"I wanted to see it from another angle," H.G. said. "I looked at it from one place… for so long… have you ever read of Plato's Cave, Agent Bering?"
"Yes, I have."
"It came to feel like someone was holding a picture in front of my face, blinding me, and if I could just look past it… I know why you're here. You're worried I'm a little mad. I do believe I am. Around, I should say, the 1960s I began having conversations with these statues. I named them. I gave them personalities. I pretended they were friends, family members… it's interesting to see what their other sides look like. I miss them a little. I was planning to finally talk to Bertie about his opium problem in 2016."
"We're not putting you back," Myka assured her. "I get that you're afraid of that and I do not blame you one bit, but I wouldn't let anyone be that cruel. Friend or enemy."
"I have the most irrational urge to believe you. As if you're my friend."
"I would like to be." Myka felt heat rise in her cheeks. She was going too fast, being too obvious, and she would alienate H.G. like the nerdy flake she was, yet she couldn't stop. "I think you're going to have a lot of friends here. I just want to go first."
"I'll try to oblige… Myka."
Myka twitched a smile. God, what happened to being a Secret Service agent? When did she go back to being a schoolgirl with a crush? "Would you like to sit down? I'm not sure it's a good idea to exert yourself so much."
"I could be convinced to take a seat, if you would be so kind as to bring me one. Right here." H.G. stumbled over to a space between two vicious-looking statues. "Exactly opposite where I was placed. Everything I couldn't see. I want a good long look at it."
Myka picked up an office chair and carried it over to H.G., who collapsed into it a bit too quickly to play off. She leaned back tiredly, kneading her fingers on her knees. Myka felt an inexplicable urge to help her, put a hand on her thigh and squeeze life back into her leg. She wondered gregariously what H.G. could do with all her strength. Run a marathon? Kempo down a gang? What could the body that held such a brilliant mind be capable of?
"Did you ever see me as a statue?" H.G. asked suddenly.
"No. Not until we unbronzed you. I just got a… quick peek." Myka didn't know why she chose those words. It seemed a lot of her conduct with H.G. was going on autopilot, or rather instinct. It should've been frustrating for a woman as ordered as she was, but it wasn't. Again, she didn't know why.
"I was somewhat concerned with how I should look, before I went in. I wanted to look my best, naturally, but I would be shallow indeed if that were my sole concern. If the only aspect of me to be discerned from was to be my body, I wanted it to express something of my soul. I don't think it worked. I think I looked brash."
"What do you mean?" Myka asked, putting a hand on H.G.'s shoulder as if to steady her. As if she would fall right through her chair without Myka's help.
"I wanted to show… my optimism. My hope for a better future awaiting me. What I failed to convey was the truth. I've had nothing but the truth to face for the last hundred years. The lies have all dried up. And the lie I told myself was that I was doing this to get to a brighter future. The truth being that any future is bright to a past as dark as mine."
"I read your file. Your past isn't…"
"If you've read my file, then there's no need to repeat it," H.G. said, so quickly it was like the words had been luring under her earnest confession, ready to pounce. "I've lost the plot. I apologize. I was trying to explain… there is something I need of you. And perhaps you'd suspect it's some plot on my part, some trick, but I would never lie when it comes to my Christina. I'm asking you to trust me."
Myka didn't know what to say. Her instincts did. "I want to… Give me a chance to trust you. We'll see where it needs."
"There is something of mine in the Escher Vault. Nothing dangerous, I promise… a locket. With a picture of Christina. I would like it back, please."
"I'll talk to Artie. He's nicer than he looks. I'm sure, in time…"
"As soon as possible," H.G. said, not snapping but close to it. "I cannot be patient. I'm trying to, and I have not the strength… They were supposed to let me out in 1950. They didn't. For whatever reason, they did not. They left me there. With what was left of my lies. I tried to drive myself crazy. I told myself that I was in purgatory, and soon my sins would go the way of my flesh and I'd be pure enough to enter the Kingdom. With my Christina. We'd do all the things I never got to do with her. I imagined it, over and over again. Running into her arms. Kissing her cheek. I tried to bend my mind to the breaking point, to make myself truly believe that we were back together. But instead, I rubbed what memories I had of her as smooth as a rock under a waterfall. I can't remember her face, Myka. I need it. You offered me water, but I need her face back so much more, more than air, more than being out of that bronze cage. If I'd had one more look at her, I could've gone another thousand years as a statue."
Myka peeled her hand away from H.G.'s shoulder. H.G. was crying, a century of tears. Without sobbing, without breathing, her sorrow dripped from her cheeks and perched on her trembling chin. The intensity of her emotion was frightening. Myka knew better than most that sometimes there was nothing you could do with grief. Friends couldn't help, pills couldn't help, psychologists couldn't help. All you could do was let it sink its teeth into you. H.G.'s sorrow had hunted her for a century, and maybe she'd found a kind of détente with it in the bronze, convinced herself that she was being punished for her sins. There were times Myka had felt that way about losing Sam.
But now H.G. was out in the open, with nothing to protect her. The shock to her system had left her unable to defend herself. All Myka could do was stand there.
So that's what she did.
"I know what it's like to lose someone," she said, and gave H.G. her hand. H.G. took it and squeezed. You could almost have believed it hadn't helped—the tears came faster, her body shook with their assault—but slowly she brought Myka's hand to her face and pressed it against her cheek. She felt the warmth, the striations of her joints and the cool calm of her enamel. Her tears wedded to Myka's skin, ran between her knuckles, down her fingers, hung pregnant off the pads of her fingers.
Gently, reverently, H.G. moved Myka's fingers to her mouth. So slowly she might as well have asked permission, she pursed her lips to Myka's fingertips and kissed away her own tears. Hot and salty and real. She'd cried many times in her dreams, but she'd forgotten how they tasted. Finally, she could remember. Finally, she was free.
"I… thank you." H.G. pushed Myka's hand away. "I promise not to subject you to that again."
"It's okay," Myka said. "Anything to help a friend."
***
H.G. just had time to recover before Artie brought in the ledger. It'd been behind a sofa in the office. H.G. threw herself into her work, demanding to know why the Warehouse had been so set on reducing the gooery's CO2 emissions. Myka held back, watching H.G. as if she might break down in tears again at any moment. But H.G. was made of sterner stuff than that. She showed no sign of her earlier emotions except when Myka caught her eye, which seemed to compel them to share a small, potent smile.
Finally, Myka felt safe excusing herself to go to the Escher Vault with Artie. Of course, he wouldn't let her remove the locket before it could be tested six ways to Sunday. Myka had expected that. But she at least talked Artie into bringing her along for the initial examination, which netted him no death-traps. She returned to find H.G. working alone, having completely taken over the small workspace she'd been given with notes and scrawled theories.
"Got a minute?" Myka asked, seeing H.G. stuck on a thorny problem, biting the nail of her thumb in a way that she could only describe as adorable (albeit not to H.G.'s face).
H.G. unfurled her crossed arms, now using them to crack her neck. "Nearly tea time anyway. I find that pausing for a spot of Earl Grey is the best way to lull a nasty little obstacle into a false sense of security."
Myka smiled along with her, letting it fall away naturally. She didn't feel right bringing H.G. this news after they'd shared a laugh. "Artie wants to make sure the locket is… safe, before he releases it to you."
H.G. shrunk down as if struck, but she nodded anyway. Absently, like the real her was deep inside at the moment, hiding. "Yes. I… I should've expected that. Not your fault, Agent Bering."
"But I was able to get a look at it and… phones these days, they can… you don't even know what a phone is… here."
Myka presented her cell phone to H.G. H.G. glanced at it curiously, then snatched it out of Myka's hands like a woman possessed. She stared, paralyzed, at the scan Myka had taken of her daughter.
H.G. bit her lip. She closed her eyes and exhaled and Myka so wanted to embrace her, to add what physical intimacy she could to what H.G. was feeling. But she didn't want to intrude.
"I have her back," H.G. said softly. "She's right where I left her… may I keep this?"
"Sure. I use my Farnsworth more anyway."
H.G. nodded, absent again, but this time Myka imagined her going to some beautiful part of her that had been locked away for far too long. Myka turned to give H.G. a moment alone, but a hand at her arm stopped her. H.G.'s grip was firm and sure, almost desperate in its strength.
"The others don't trust me," she said, staring into Myka's eyes. "They're right not to. I've been… less than well. It's foolish to treat me differently. Yet you do. You try to make things easier for me. Perhaps that's your job… good cop, bad cop… but I can't bring myself to think that. So, to be frank, I do appreciate your treatment of me. I hope one day to return the favor."
"Just get the 'Impediment Production Apparatus' working again, H.G. We'll call it even."
"Call me Helena. It's how my friends refer to me."
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,579
Characters/Pairings: Myka/H.G.
Summary: If just a few things had gone right—the Bronze Section manifesto being found, a problem arising that only one person could fix—then H.G. would've been released by the Warehouse agents themselves. Myka would've been her handler. But in the end, would it change anything?
Looking back, Myka almost wouldn’t believe how it had all happened. That wasn’t saying much, her entire week consisted of things like “Thursday—possessed Joss Whedon autograph that makes the reader want to kill the first happy couple he sees.” But the threads connecting her to H.G. were so tenuous that she could almost chalk it up to fate. Or maybe that was just how Helena made her feel.
If Claudia hadn’t found the manifesto propping up one leg of a coffee table in the abandoned break room… if she hadn’t recognized the name H.G. Wells and mentioned it to Myka… if Myka hadn’t brought the fact that they had a woman in the Bronze Sector who had done nothing wrong to Artie… and most importantly, if some fiber of her being hadn’t drawn a connection even then, even when all she knew was a name, that she kept harping on it long after Artie considered the matter closed. And then, if the goo hadn’t stopped working…
“I bet H.G. could fix it,” Myka said at the panic meeting, while Artie and Claudia were still playing technobabble Mad Libs. She had read what was left of H.G.’s case files extensively, and it left her with the childlike hero worship that a good book should.
Artie was sniffing over a dismissive line when Pete said “Myka’s right.” That got the death glare redirected his way. “I mean, Myka’s always right. She’s Myka. And it’s not like we can’t put this H.G. back in if she turns out to be Jack the Ripper or something.”
“Jack the Ripper was a dude,” Claudia groused.
“So was H.G. Wells!”
Artie held up his hands, sighing. “As much as I hate to admit it, we really don’t have time to argue and… Bering actually brings up a good point.” The last part was said very quickly. “But I want you watching her every waking moment and some of the sleeping ones too. Just because her file says she isn’t dangerous doesn’t mean she’s not.”
“—Jack the Ripper, lady version,” Pete finished.
“She’s your responsibility,” Artie thundered in conclusion, gesturing for Myka to follow him as he set out for the Bronze Section. “So there are a few simple rules I’d like to go over weeeell before she wakes up.”
Myka nodded and tried her best to listen as she followed, with the undignified certainty that she looked as eager as a puppy following its owner. She’d actually get to meet the father… no, mother… of science fiction, her childhood idol, the owner of the most incredible imagination in literature. Myka just hoped she wouldn’t be too stuffy.
***
They dimmed the lights in the Bronze Section first. As Artie explained, the process would leave H.G. sensitive to light. Myka nodded tersely. For some reason, she felt nervous about meeting her idol. What if H.G. started going off about racial minorities or, worse yet, ‘sexual deviants’? Myka had gotten enough of that at the academy, just for not having a boyfriend. It seemed a shame to imagine such a visionary as being, well, Victorian.
“We’re not cuffing her ASAP?” Claudia asked. She’d bought into Artie’s paranoia. “I mean, what if she goes all Jason Bourne on us?”
“She’s been in there for over a hundred years,” Artie replied, running through the debronzing process. “Her animus is all screwed up. It’ll take her hours to recover.”
The bronzing chamber hummed ominously. Myka took a half-step forward, as if she could see into it. The statue they’d loaded inside had been slender and well-formed, but it’d told her nothing of the person underneath. The expression had been carefully blank, like a partisan facing a firing squad. It made Myka wonder how voluntary the process had really been, despite the report. Well, she’d find out.
With a sudden rush, the chamber lurched open. Inside, she caught a glimpse of pale skin and frantically searching eyes in the semi-darkness before the figure collapsed, down on all fours, Myka moving instinctively to her side—”Careful!” Artie cried—and helped to support her. H.G.’s skin was almost as cool as the metal that had covered it for so long, but it was rapidly warming. Myka resisted the urge to rub warmth back into them, instead helping H.G. make the trip to the chairs beside the console.
“Back up,” she called out to her friends. “Give her some space.”
As she helped H.G. into the chair, her hair brushed against Myka’s face. It even smelled of bronze—harsh, metallic. Myka backed away. A corner of H.G.’s face had caught some light, revealing a glimmering trail of liquid. Sweat or tears? Myka wiped it away and felt H.G. burning up.
“Easy,” Myka said, patting at her face with a tissue. “Just… stay calm, okay? Do you need anything?”
“My—eyes—” the woman worked out fitfully, shivering now.
“Still too much light,” Myka muttered, now pulling off Pete’s coat (“Hey!”) and throwing it over H.G. She shrunk into its voluminous fit. “Is that better?”
“Yes,” H.G. replied at length. “Bearable. What year…?”
“2010. You’re in Warehouse 13. In America.”
“Ah,” H.G. said gently, her voice a faint croon. “So you haven’t blown yourselves up yet. That’s heartening. You do have nuclear weapons by now, I should think?”
“Uh, yeah,” Pete confirmed, leaning over to Claudia. “That’s super-reassuring.”
“Would you like some water?” Myka asked, finding it difficult not to comfort the obviously stricken woman. She wanted to look under that coat and make damn sure she was okay, but she could also understand how wounded H.G. obviously felt. Myka wouldn’t have wanted to be seen in that state either. “I mean, your throat sounds a little…”
“A fag,” H.G. replied, “would be nice.”
“Ummmm…” Pete trailed off. “I might’ve experimented in college, if that would help? I love the ladies, though… but big on showtunes, that’s a different thing.”
“She means a cigarette,” Myka said, not quite able to keep her disbelief at Pete’s antics out of her voice, even in front of a guest. “Are you sure, H.G.? You know, we found out they cause cancer. It’s a filthy habit.”
“It has a lot of company,” H.G. retorted. “The hefty one, he has some. Left jacket pocket.”
“I am not hefty!” Artie was saying, even as Claudia fished a pack of Marlboros out of his jacket. “Hey!”
“Artie,” Claudia tsked.
“I’m down to one a day, alright? I’ve had that pack for a month.”
Claudia tossed the cigarettes to Myka, who popped one out and offered it to H.G. H.G. didn’t take it, instead leaning forward to clasp it between her teeth. Her lips, to Myka’s surprise, weren’t set in a scowl, but instead a sort of chronic smirk, momentarily dialed down as she got her bearings. “And a light?” H.G. offered around the cigarette.
Myka’d never had so much as a bubble pipe, but she kept a lighter at the ready, along with a pocket knife, a length of cord, and a few other useful Bat-items. All part of being a Warehouse agent, where you never knew when bubble gum and spray-paint could come in handy.
She hunched down in front of H.G., offering up the lighter and flicking the wheel when it became obvious H.G. wouldn’t take it. Maybe her hands weren’t working. Maybe they were just shaking. Myka remembered being the new girl at school. She wouldn’t let the bastards see her bleed either.
The flint took a while to catch—Myka hadn’t checked the fuel since the episode with the haunted fireworks. Finally, she got a good flame going—and caught a look at H.G.’s face. In the slow moment that followed, H.G. leaning forward to bury the tip of the cigarette in Myka’s flame, she had ample opportunity to study it. It was something to be thankful for. H.G. was the most beautiful woman Myka had ever seen. Her eyes shone with clear intelligence, while her high cheekbones put Myka’s sister to shame. And the confidence made Myka think of looking in a mirror after being trusted to protect the President, seeing the unabashed certainty, almost arrogance, that had swallowed up all feelings of doubt and anxiety. This woman, who’d been asleep for a hundred years, was that sure of herself, all the time.
And yet, as Myka kept looking, as the tip of the cigarette turned into an ember and H.G. stared right back, she detected something more. A pain that lurked in the corner of H.G.’s eye, on one side of her smile. Like the string on a mask, it hinted at something more underneath. Something Myka was suddenly breathless to uncover.
H.G. moved back, blowing out the lighter flame with the corner of her mouth. The sudden plunge into darkness left only the cherry end of her cigarette as light, reflected in her eyes like pinpricks in whatever curtain was between the face H.G. presented to the world and her inner fire.
Myka blushed and moved away herself, wondering just how much poetry was too much, because she was clearly on the wrong side of that.
Stiffly, H.G. moved her hand up to her face—the fingers were long and uncalloused, the nails short and red, as if she’d beautified herself before going under. Without a single tremor, she clinched the cigarette between two slender fingers and dragged it off her lips, then took the time to blow out an elegant stream of smoke before asking “What’s the problem? Or have you woken me up to bask in the socialist utopia along with the rest of you?”
“Nobody let her watch Rocky IV,” Pete stage-whispered.
H.G.’s eyes sidled over to Myka. She took another drag from her cigarette, savoring it before exhaling through her nostrils. “Perhaps you’re just looking for some intelligent conversation?”
“The neutralizer goo isn’t working,” Artie said.
“You mean the Psychic Impediment Liquid?” H.G. took in their blank stares. “It’s purple…? Oh dear god, please tell me ‘goo’ is an acronym of some sort.”
“We… may have called it purple goo as a sort of nickname,” Claudia said.
“Sometimes I think I judged Crowley too harshly… I did study the PIL quite extensively, even managed to condition it into a kind of bag. Before that, we had to use radioactive oilcloth. Yes, I’d be happy to restore your goo to working order, so long as you don’t intend to put me back in the bronze. If that’s the case, you’ll understand if I reply to your offer with a cheerful ‘bugger off,’ no hard feelings.” H.G. gave them a blinding smile before returning the cigarette to her mouth.
“For a nicotine addict, she has great teeth,” Pete muttered.
“Quiet!” Myka blurted, finding it hard enough to dismiss the thought of those teeth around the lobe of an ear, or a nipple… “We won’t put you back in the bronze if you don’t want to go.”
“Wait a minute, what does she care?” Pete insisted, advancing on the seated H.G. like a detective catching a suspect in a lie. “For all you know, if we put you under again, you’ll wake up in your precious socialist utopia. (Which reminds me, she can’t watch Red Dawn either.)”
“Take your partner’s suggestion. Be quiet,” H.G. said, a hint of a threat entering her voice. She worked the cigarette around with her teeth, smoke seeping off it angrily. “And don’t move. But first, go someplace where no one will ever see you or talk to you or so much as think of you. Then try that for a hundred years. Maybe you’ll wake up in a world without your hated Red Socks.” She took a deep, calming suck on the cigarette. “By the way, thin walls here. Voices tend to carry from Aisle 87J…”
“People aren’t awake in bronze,” Artie insisted.
“I’m sure that’s what the Regents told you. They told me that too. But then, it’s not as if they’d bronze someone for a hundred years to test that. An hour in bronze is nothing, a blip. But a year… a decade… a century.” She blew smoke out her nose like a bull about to charge. “It’s 2010, you say? Then I’d put the rate at five conscious hours for every year spent in bronze.”
“Oh God,” Myka said, soft enough to not even realize she’d spoken.
“But you aren’t putting me back,” H.G. said, as if she were the one comforting Myka instead of the other way around. “So there’s no need to worry. Could you help me to my feet, Agent…?”
“Bering,” Myka said quickly, giving H.G. her arm. H.G. took it not so much with strength as tenacity, pulling herself up to a teetering stand. Even when she let go of Myka’s arm, Myka stayed nearby in case she stumbled, her fingers itching to catch her.
H.G. seemed to laser in on that thought, offering Myka a wan smile as she stubbed out her cigarette. “Myka Bering,” she said, tasting the name. Then, off Myka’s surprised look. “Voices carry, remember? It’s nice to finally put a face to the name.” Killing the smile as if it had just been for Myka, H.G. faced Artie, pulling the coat tighter around herself in preparation for a trip into the light. “Well then, show me to the Impediment Production Apparatus. I’ll want to check for any impurities at the source.”
“We call it the gooery.”
H.G. suppressed her sigh just enough so that only Myka heard it.
***
"Where is the ledger?" H.G. demanded. Upon reaching the gooery, she had stumbled around, clearly expecting to find something, before leaning against a pipe in a sort of collapse. Flustered, she had lifted her face into the light enough to issue some hate mail. "How can I be expected to fix your machine without its ledger?"
"What ledger?" Artie demanded right back. "What is all this about a ledger? We don't know anything about any ledger."
"The ledger," H.G. began slowly, "in which all modifications to the Impediment Production Apparatus are chronicled, so that I can study which has led to the current malfunction. Has the Queen's English entirely devolved since my time?"
"There isn't a ledger," Claudia spoke up. "We don't modify the gooery. Trust me, I've tried."
"Your 'gooery' is the product of the belief systems of seventeen secret societies, eldritch magic, a one-of-a-kind invention by Jules Verne, and technology flung back in time from one mister Einstein. If even the slightest element is out of sorts, the Psychic Impediment Liquid could be rendered as Dwarf Suppressant Gel, Hallucination Enhancement Odor, or even Arousal Addition Foodstuffs."
"Your mouth is making those sound like bad things," Pete said.
"Suffice to say that the system is so sensitive it might take decades for flaws to show up in the manufacturing product. So you can see the imperative nature of my request."
"Well, it's hard with all the big words," Pete retorted, feeling defensive.
"Pete, could you look around please?" Myka asked. "And Claudia, there might be something in the database. Artie, if you could check your archives, maybe you put the ledger there for safekeeping."
"Good ideas all." H.G. righted herself once more, now walking with a hitch in her step, clutching the coat around her out of reflex. "I'll be in the bronze section if you need me."
Myka felt Artie look at her more than saw it. She followed after H.G., already thinking up an excuse. She could always claim she wanted to make sure H.G. was recuperating properly. It wasn't that far from the truth.
In the bronze section, H.G. had turned the lights up a little. It reminded Myka of a full moon. She stopped in the doorway and watched as H.G.'s head emerged from the folds of the coat that encircled her like a straitjacket, her hair spilling down the back. She walked through the rows of bronze statues, head craning this way and that, crawling from one step to another.
"I wanted to see it from another angle," H.G. said. "I looked at it from one place… for so long… have you ever read of Plato's Cave, Agent Bering?"
"Yes, I have."
"It came to feel like someone was holding a picture in front of my face, blinding me, and if I could just look past it… I know why you're here. You're worried I'm a little mad. I do believe I am. Around, I should say, the 1960s I began having conversations with these statues. I named them. I gave them personalities. I pretended they were friends, family members… it's interesting to see what their other sides look like. I miss them a little. I was planning to finally talk to Bertie about his opium problem in 2016."
"We're not putting you back," Myka assured her. "I get that you're afraid of that and I do not blame you one bit, but I wouldn't let anyone be that cruel. Friend or enemy."
"I have the most irrational urge to believe you. As if you're my friend."
"I would like to be." Myka felt heat rise in her cheeks. She was going too fast, being too obvious, and she would alienate H.G. like the nerdy flake she was, yet she couldn't stop. "I think you're going to have a lot of friends here. I just want to go first."
"I'll try to oblige… Myka."
Myka twitched a smile. God, what happened to being a Secret Service agent? When did she go back to being a schoolgirl with a crush? "Would you like to sit down? I'm not sure it's a good idea to exert yourself so much."
"I could be convinced to take a seat, if you would be so kind as to bring me one. Right here." H.G. stumbled over to a space between two vicious-looking statues. "Exactly opposite where I was placed. Everything I couldn't see. I want a good long look at it."
Myka picked up an office chair and carried it over to H.G., who collapsed into it a bit too quickly to play off. She leaned back tiredly, kneading her fingers on her knees. Myka felt an inexplicable urge to help her, put a hand on her thigh and squeeze life back into her leg. She wondered gregariously what H.G. could do with all her strength. Run a marathon? Kempo down a gang? What could the body that held such a brilliant mind be capable of?
"Did you ever see me as a statue?" H.G. asked suddenly.
"No. Not until we unbronzed you. I just got a… quick peek." Myka didn't know why she chose those words. It seemed a lot of her conduct with H.G. was going on autopilot, or rather instinct. It should've been frustrating for a woman as ordered as she was, but it wasn't. Again, she didn't know why.
"I was somewhat concerned with how I should look, before I went in. I wanted to look my best, naturally, but I would be shallow indeed if that were my sole concern. If the only aspect of me to be discerned from was to be my body, I wanted it to express something of my soul. I don't think it worked. I think I looked brash."
"What do you mean?" Myka asked, putting a hand on H.G.'s shoulder as if to steady her. As if she would fall right through her chair without Myka's help.
"I wanted to show… my optimism. My hope for a better future awaiting me. What I failed to convey was the truth. I've had nothing but the truth to face for the last hundred years. The lies have all dried up. And the lie I told myself was that I was doing this to get to a brighter future. The truth being that any future is bright to a past as dark as mine."
"I read your file. Your past isn't…"
"If you've read my file, then there's no need to repeat it," H.G. said, so quickly it was like the words had been luring under her earnest confession, ready to pounce. "I've lost the plot. I apologize. I was trying to explain… there is something I need of you. And perhaps you'd suspect it's some plot on my part, some trick, but I would never lie when it comes to my Christina. I'm asking you to trust me."
Myka didn't know what to say. Her instincts did. "I want to… Give me a chance to trust you. We'll see where it needs."
"There is something of mine in the Escher Vault. Nothing dangerous, I promise… a locket. With a picture of Christina. I would like it back, please."
"I'll talk to Artie. He's nicer than he looks. I'm sure, in time…"
"As soon as possible," H.G. said, not snapping but close to it. "I cannot be patient. I'm trying to, and I have not the strength… They were supposed to let me out in 1950. They didn't. For whatever reason, they did not. They left me there. With what was left of my lies. I tried to drive myself crazy. I told myself that I was in purgatory, and soon my sins would go the way of my flesh and I'd be pure enough to enter the Kingdom. With my Christina. We'd do all the things I never got to do with her. I imagined it, over and over again. Running into her arms. Kissing her cheek. I tried to bend my mind to the breaking point, to make myself truly believe that we were back together. But instead, I rubbed what memories I had of her as smooth as a rock under a waterfall. I can't remember her face, Myka. I need it. You offered me water, but I need her face back so much more, more than air, more than being out of that bronze cage. If I'd had one more look at her, I could've gone another thousand years as a statue."
Myka peeled her hand away from H.G.'s shoulder. H.G. was crying, a century of tears. Without sobbing, without breathing, her sorrow dripped from her cheeks and perched on her trembling chin. The intensity of her emotion was frightening. Myka knew better than most that sometimes there was nothing you could do with grief. Friends couldn't help, pills couldn't help, psychologists couldn't help. All you could do was let it sink its teeth into you. H.G.'s sorrow had hunted her for a century, and maybe she'd found a kind of détente with it in the bronze, convinced herself that she was being punished for her sins. There were times Myka had felt that way about losing Sam.
But now H.G. was out in the open, with nothing to protect her. The shock to her system had left her unable to defend herself. All Myka could do was stand there.
So that's what she did.
"I know what it's like to lose someone," she said, and gave H.G. her hand. H.G. took it and squeezed. You could almost have believed it hadn't helped—the tears came faster, her body shook with their assault—but slowly she brought Myka's hand to her face and pressed it against her cheek. She felt the warmth, the striations of her joints and the cool calm of her enamel. Her tears wedded to Myka's skin, ran between her knuckles, down her fingers, hung pregnant off the pads of her fingers.
Gently, reverently, H.G. moved Myka's fingers to her mouth. So slowly she might as well have asked permission, she pursed her lips to Myka's fingertips and kissed away her own tears. Hot and salty and real. She'd cried many times in her dreams, but she'd forgotten how they tasted. Finally, she could remember. Finally, she was free.
"I… thank you." H.G. pushed Myka's hand away. "I promise not to subject you to that again."
"It's okay," Myka said. "Anything to help a friend."
***
H.G. just had time to recover before Artie brought in the ledger. It'd been behind a sofa in the office. H.G. threw herself into her work, demanding to know why the Warehouse had been so set on reducing the gooery's CO2 emissions. Myka held back, watching H.G. as if she might break down in tears again at any moment. But H.G. was made of sterner stuff than that. She showed no sign of her earlier emotions except when Myka caught her eye, which seemed to compel them to share a small, potent smile.
Finally, Myka felt safe excusing herself to go to the Escher Vault with Artie. Of course, he wouldn't let her remove the locket before it could be tested six ways to Sunday. Myka had expected that. But she at least talked Artie into bringing her along for the initial examination, which netted him no death-traps. She returned to find H.G. working alone, having completely taken over the small workspace she'd been given with notes and scrawled theories.
"Got a minute?" Myka asked, seeing H.G. stuck on a thorny problem, biting the nail of her thumb in a way that she could only describe as adorable (albeit not to H.G.'s face).
H.G. unfurled her crossed arms, now using them to crack her neck. "Nearly tea time anyway. I find that pausing for a spot of Earl Grey is the best way to lull a nasty little obstacle into a false sense of security."
Myka smiled along with her, letting it fall away naturally. She didn't feel right bringing H.G. this news after they'd shared a laugh. "Artie wants to make sure the locket is… safe, before he releases it to you."
H.G. shrunk down as if struck, but she nodded anyway. Absently, like the real her was deep inside at the moment, hiding. "Yes. I… I should've expected that. Not your fault, Agent Bering."
"But I was able to get a look at it and… phones these days, they can… you don't even know what a phone is… here."
Myka presented her cell phone to H.G. H.G. glanced at it curiously, then snatched it out of Myka's hands like a woman possessed. She stared, paralyzed, at the scan Myka had taken of her daughter.
H.G. bit her lip. She closed her eyes and exhaled and Myka so wanted to embrace her, to add what physical intimacy she could to what H.G. was feeling. But she didn't want to intrude.
"I have her back," H.G. said softly. "She's right where I left her… may I keep this?"
"Sure. I use my Farnsworth more anyway."
H.G. nodded, absent again, but this time Myka imagined her going to some beautiful part of her that had been locked away for far too long. Myka turned to give H.G. a moment alone, but a hand at her arm stopped her. H.G.'s grip was firm and sure, almost desperate in its strength.
"The others don't trust me," she said, staring into Myka's eyes. "They're right not to. I've been… less than well. It's foolish to treat me differently. Yet you do. You try to make things easier for me. Perhaps that's your job… good cop, bad cop… but I can't bring myself to think that. So, to be frank, I do appreciate your treatment of me. I hope one day to return the favor."
"Just get the 'Impediment Production Apparatus' working again, H.G. We'll call it even."
"Call me Helena. It's how my friends refer to me."
