The Foundation has a working cure, but that still leaves Evan working himself to exhaustion to deliver it to as many people as possible. Will he be able to last, and will Jerry ever budge on his refusal to share the load?
Evan
Evan fights to keep himself awake.
He’s at another card game tournament. Pheonix, Arizona. Different game than last time. Something geared more toward kids. In fact, there are quite a few kids here.
It’s one of the most densely crowded rooms Evan has been in. The air is alight with body odor.
It’s been three weeks since he started doing this, and that’s also how long it’s been since he’s gotten a good night’s sleep.
The Foundation has started accommodating Evan’s sleep deprivation. He’s still drinking a ton of coffee, but they’ve been injecting some stronger stimulants along with it. Unfortunately, they have to stick to non-anomalous drugs, because anything with a hint of magic in it won’t work on him.
They’ve arranged for him to sit during his last several speeches. It’s easier if he doesn’t have to stay up on his feet. Right now, he’s sitting in a hard, gray plastic chair, struggling to stay awake while the judge next to him goes over the event rules.
He doesn’t pay attention to said rules. It’s not like he’s going to be playing. All he needs to do is listen for his cue. “And don’t forget,” the judge says, “that it’s okay to call a judge if you’re not sure about something. Even if you turn out to be wrong, it’s good to make sure.”
With that, he passes the microphone to Evan.
“And don’t… don’t do anything weird,” Evan says, projecting his voice as loudly as possible, because they need to hear the cure from him, not just the speakers, for it to work. “You know, we had a bunch of weirdos try to perform some kind of ritual a few years back. Think it was one of the ones from the Starlight Saga. That’s really weird, right? Super weird. I’m sure you all agree.”
Evan hands the microphone back to the judge. He takes a moment to gather his strength, then forces himself to stand and walk off the stage. He hurries into the transport, then closes his eyes. He doesn’t stay conscious much longer.
Jerry
I approach the medium-security socialization area.
I don’t know how much longer they’re going to let me come here. I know my continued refusal to help them is pissing them off. Light has already told me that they might take this “privilege” away if I keep holding out.
I can’t let that stop me. I can’t let them treat me like a slave.
Not that they aren’t already. Not that I haven’t already made far too many concessions to them, but that’s no excuse to make even more.
I reach the door to the chamber. I stop walking. One of the guards nudges me forward. “Keep going,” he orders.
“But this is the room,” I say.
“Your terrorist friends aren’t there right now,” the guard says. “We’re taking you to where they are.”
My eyes widen. I glare at the guard. “What the fuck did you people do?” I ask.
“Keep moving, SCP-7851-2.”
“What the fuck did you people do?” I ask again, with all the venom I can summon. “If you think you’re going to get me to cooperate with you by torturing my friends—”
The guard laughs. “Torture? Don’t be melodramatic. Just continue walking down the hall, SCP-7851-2.”
I grit my teeth. “If you hurt them—”
“They’re fine. Continue down the hall.”
I do, mostly because I need to know what these people did. Jailors have no morals. They view everyone and everything as a tool, especially anomalous people.
What the fuck did they do to my friends, and how many of them am I going to kill for it once I get out of here?
They don’t have to lead me much farther. My friends are, apparently, just a few rooms down. The guards stop and open the door.
This room looks like it’s supposed to be an interrogation chamber. Inside, there’s a table with four chairs surrounding it. Jack, Mike, and Sean sit in three of those chairs, and a trio of guards stand in the room’s corners.
“Go inside,” says a guard.
“Are you okay?” I ask my friends.
“We’re fine,” Jack says. “Don’t worry.”
“Go inside,” the guard repeats.
I do. I take a seat next to Sean. I take a deep breath. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I say. I look up at the camera in the corner of the room. “So, what’s this about?” I ask.
Addressing Light directly only works about half the time, and today, she doesn’t respond. Instead, it’s Sean who answers my question.
“They told us what’s going on,” Sean says.
“Why?” I ask.
“They want us to convince you to help them,” Mike says. “They offered everything they’ve offered you. Us to minimum security. A handful of prisoners to free ports.”
“Are you asking me to take the minimum security deal?” I ask. “After what you’ve done for me, and what it’s cost you, I don’t think I’d have the right to refuse that.”
“We already said our piece on that,” Sean says. “We don’t consider it your fault. We’re not going to demand you take their deal like it’s some kind of payment for us doing our job.”
“I see,” I say. “Are you going to try to convince me to help them?”
Silence.
Mike is the first one to break it. “I don’t know,” he says.
“Do you think I should do it?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Mike says.
“But they’re going to keep us in here until we talk about it,” Jack says. “We may as well get that over with.”
I take a long, deep breath. “Okay, then,” I say. “Just give me your honest opinion, then. Should I take their deal?”
“I think maybe you should,” Sean says.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because of the stakes. If this situation is for real, and it sure looks like it is, this is bigger than us. As big as the whole world.”
“Light said the same thing,” I say.
“I know,” Jack says.
“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” Sean says. “Don’t get me wrong. I hate what they’re suggesting. I understand why you would want to hold out for release, why you wouldn’t trust them attaching a machine to your neck, but… given how much the Jailors value the Veil, by the time they’re willing to concede that point, it may be too late to stop the Fifthists.”
“I see,” I say. “To be clear, you are not asking me to do it on account of the debt I owe you? You are purely giving me your opinion as my friends and comrades?”
“Jerry,” Sean says, “we’re not going to bargain with you like that. Comrades don’t owe each other debts. They help each other because they both know they have each other’s backs.”
“And you really think it’s a good idea for me to let them cart me around in a tranquilizer collar?”
“Maybe it’s a better idea than doing nothing,” Jack says.
I look at Mike. “And what about you?” I ask.
“I already said I don’t know,” he says. “The others think you should do it, but I… I don’t know.”
“Look,” Sean says. “The fate of the whole world is at stake—billions of people, maybe more if whatever the Fifthists do effects more than just our planet. It wouldn’t be the first time the Hand and the Foundation have put their differences aside—”
“They’re not willing to put our differences aside, though,” I say. “I would have agreed to that in an instant. I told them so the first time Light talked to me about this. They want me to be the only one who makes any concessions. They want to treat me like a slave, and they won’t offer anything that matters in return.”
“You don’t think that kid’s freedom matters?” Jack asks. “Because I was in here at his age, too. Do you know what I would’ve done for the opportunity they’re offering him? Do you know how I’d have felt about someone who refused to help me? Because I sure as fuck do.”
I look right at him. “How would you have felt?” I ask.
“Jerry…” Sean says.
“How would you have felt, Jack?” I ask.
Jack just looks at me for a moment.
“We can’t let this devolve into an argument,” Mike says. “That’s what they want. For us to badger Jerry into doing it. We’ve got to be better than that.”
“You’re right,” Jack says. He looks at me. He takes a deep breath. “You should do it, though. You signed up to kill and die to free people from the Jailors. We all did. I know you’d take a bullet to make the Jailors let that kid free. How the hell is a collar and some sleepless nights too much?”
I tilt my head. “Do you really not understand?” I ask.
“Of course we understand!” Sean says. “We hate the Jailors as much as you do.”
“I’m starting to think you hate them just a little bit less.”
That’s enough to get Jack to stand up and start shouting. “Now listen here, Jerry. We have all been through at least as much as you have! Frankly, Sean and I have been through a lot more! We’ve lost people! My family still thinks I’m dead! Sean’s has been hiding since the first time he escaped! You really think your anger at the shit they’ve done to you is more important than the prospect of saving that kid?”
“It’s not about ‘important.’”
“Then what the fuck is it about?”
“What did I just say about them wanting us to yell at each other?” Mike asks.
“I’ve already told you what it would take to get me to agree to it,” I say. “Because I owe you a ton, no matter what you say. Tell me that you’re collecting that debt, and I’ll do literally anything for you.”
“No,” Sean says. “We’re not going to make this into some kind of deal. I don’t understand why you want that. Can’t you just do it because it’s the right thing?”
“No,” I say.
“So, you’re just going to accept the world ending?” Jack asks.
“How do you buy their framing so easily?” I ask. “We don’t know the world is going to end. Even assuming the Jailors are telling the truth about everything, and they probably aren’t, how likely do you think it is that my help will make the difference? If the world’s so fucked that Evan can’t save it, it’s probably fucked enough I can’t save it either. The way I see it, there’s a one in a million chance that this situation is exactly the right level of desperate that would make me the determining factor in whether the world lives or dies.”
“If the world’s going to die either way, none of it matters,” Jack says. “But if it’s going to survive either way, isn’t saving that kid still worth it? It may not be the whole world, but it’ll mean the world to him. It’ll mean he gets to go out and live a life. Plus, it doesn’t have to be just him. You could negotiate for more. Please, Jerry, as your friend and comrade, do it.”
“As my friend and comrade?” I ask. “Not as the person who came here for my cause and got captured?”
“No.” Sean says. “We’re not going to make this about whatever weird guilt complex you have about us.”
“Actually,” Jack says, “come to think of it, maybe I am.”
Everyone looks at Jack.
“If that’s what I have to say to save that kid, I’ll fucking say it.” He looks me in the eye. “I hereby call in whatever debt you think you owe me. You have a chance to free someone from the Jailors. Do your job as a member of the Serpent’s Hand. Get that kid freed, no matter what.”
These people spent months in solitary for me. They went through that because I brought them here. Because I led them on a doomed quest to rescue a brother who had long turned against me. I owe them more than I could possibly repay. I have no right to refuse them this.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
“You’ll what?” Jack snarls.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
Jack slams his fist on the table and glares at me. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Jack…” Sean says.
“More shouting,” Mike notes.
Jack takes a deep breath. He looks at me. “So that promise a second ago was a bluff? What happened to that debt you say you owe us?”
I struggle to summon an answer. “You’re right,” I say, after a moment. “I shouldn’t have made that promise.”
“You have got to be shitting me,” Jack says.
“I really will think about it,” I say. “That wasn’t just a way of saying no.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Jack says.
I clench my fist and grit my teeth, but before I can go off on Jack, Sean calms me down with a hand on my shoulder. I take a deep breath. I turn to the guards. “How long until we’re done here?” I ask.
“A few more hours,” one of the guards says.
“Hours?”
“Dr. Light wants to make sure you talk this out real thorough,” the guard says. “When the rest of the medium-securities finish in the socialization room, just you four will get a turn. You should be happy. You’ll have the whole room to yourself.”
“…and we’ll be allowed to talk amongst ourselves about information that’s classified from the other anomalies,” Mike finishes.
The guard smirks. “If you’d like,” he says.
The fact that Light intends to keep us in medium security is surprising at first. I expected her to threaten to move us to maximum.
Then again, it’s more like her to take this softer approach. Why separate us when she can force us to rehash this conversation until it has the outcome she wants?
Either way, this is going to be a long few hours.
“Silver lining,” Mike says. “At least we’ll have the foosball table to ourselves.”
Evan
“Isn’t that, like, really really weird?” Evan asks a crowd of high-level tabletop wargame players somewhere in New Mexico, as he expends every ounce of effort that he can just to keep himself sitting up straight. “I think it’s weird.”
He doesn’t have time to gauge the reaction of the crowd before he’s escorted out of the building.
As soon as he’s backstage, Rainer walks up to him. “Want me to get you something once you’re back in the transport?” he asks. “I can do another coffee.”
It’s a difficult strategic call. On one hand, stimulants keep him awake. They make the sleeplessness easier to tolerate and helps him do his job. On the other, they make it harder to sneak in little bits of rest between venues.
“How… how long has it been since I’ve had some?” Evan barely manages to ask.
“Close to six hours,” Rainer says.
“And how far away is the next event?”
“Half an hour.”
Is there a real chance of him getting enough sleep in that time for it to matter?
Either way, he may as well wait until he’s at his next destination to have it. No point in ingesting something thirty minutes before he needs to do anything. “Be ready to do it once we’re there,” I say.
“This is the last time I’m going to be out of sight for a while. If I’m going to portal something in, it’ll need to be now.”
“Go ahead, then,” I say. “Just a coffee. Worst… worst thing… worst case is that I don’t drink it until we get there.”
In a well-practiced, fluid motion, Rainer conjures a portal, reaches inside, and pulls out a tall, clear bottle full of light-brown liquid.
“You… you hold onto it for now,” Evan says.
“Sure thing,” Rainer says.
It takes effort for Evan to move himself toward the vehicle. As he’s walking, two agents waiting by the car approach him and start to help him walk, the same way they would if he were injured. Evan shakes his head. “It’s… it’s okay, guys,” he says.
They glance at each other, then allow him to continue walking. Each step is a trial. He’s pretty sure he’s going to be out like a light the instant he makes it into that transport, at which point he will be able to experience an entire half-hour of sleep before he’s awoken at his next destination.
Just half an hour.
He takes a few more steps forward. One foot in front of the other. Just a few more steps. Just a few more steps. Left foot. Right foot. Just need to make it to the transport. Left foot. Right foot, and that’s all he manages before he falls forward, finally claimed by the exhaustion.