Florence Thorne dies.
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the murdered do not die alone
May 30th, 2024
Robin Thorne's Apartment, Three Portlands
"Wáı!" The Sidhe curse slipped from Robin Thorne's lips.
"Problem?" Nemo asked. The shapeshifter was back in his preferred default form — a note-perfect imitation of Geddy Lee as he appeared on tour for 2112 in 1976.
"This thing doesn't make sense." Thorne gestured angrily towards the sunstone necklace, which was currently hovering six inches above the kitchen counter.
As soon as they had gotten back to the apartment with Nemo — and after safely disposing of the recaptured gas golem that had been used to distract Agent Brooks — Thorne had set about converting the kitchen into a makeshift thaumatology lab for use in deciphering the interwoven layers of enchantments Florence had placed upon the necklace. Using a sigil machine, they had drawn a complicated series of interlocking spirals on the countertop, centered around the necklace; it was an unusual ritual geometry, intended to direct incoming EVE through the gemstone along specific vectors before diverting it towards a point where Crowe was waiting and watching. A tabletop Everhart Resonator was quietly humming on the edge of the counter, providing a steady source of EVE for the working. Periodically, Thorne would adjust the geometry to change the angle of the inbound vectors.
The entire setup was essentially an occult spectroscope, using controlled bursts of Aspect Radiation to precisely map the flow of energy through the gemstone. In theory, it was the most reliable way to reveal and reconstruct unknown enchantments.
Unfortunately, Thorne was discovering that knowing the structure of an enchantment did not automatically make it comprehensible.
"What's the issue?"
Thorne sighed. "Ultimately? My mom taught herself thaumatology. There are two common methods for creating a grimoire, and she didn't use either of them. Whatever enchantments she put on this thing were entirely her own invention."
"I thought a grimoire was just a wizard's spellbook," Nemo said.
"Yes and no." Thorne reached over and turned off the Everhart Resonator, allowing the working to end so they could give him their full attention. The necklace settled on the counter with a soft clink. "A grimoire is any object — sometimes a book, but not always — which has been enchanted to store information, usually with the intent that only the enchanter or another thaumaturge be able to access it."
"And there are two ways to do it," he said.
"Two common ways," they corrected. "The first, and the easiest, is to bind a Constructed Intelligence to the object and have it remember whatever information you want."
"And the other?"
"Imbue the object with a lattice of Elan-Vital Energy and use induced variance to encode the information. It requires a lot of math, and you need to know the original lattice structure to retrieve the information, but it's very easy to encrypt."
"So what did your mom do?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." They shook their head. "I don't even think she encrypted it, I think she's just the only one who knew how to use it."
"Maybe you're overthinking it." He ambled over to the fridge to look at the oneirograph pinned to the door. "She wore this all the time, yeah?"
"Yeah. I never thought much of it growing up — just assumed it was a focus for her wards or something. I didn't even think to ask about it after she died."
He nodded. "So maybe it doesn't work unless you're wearing it."
From over on the counter, Crowe started chittering excitedly in Celtic.
Thorne swiveled to glare at the familiar. "You fucker! Why didn't you say so earlier?"
The spectral bird started bouncing from one foot to the other as it explained, with obvious agitation, that it didn't know everything, and that Nemo's insight had recontextualized its earlier observations.
"Aren't you supposed to be a spirit of intellect?" Thorne asked, exasperated. "Would it still work for me?"
The familiar hesitated, then flapped its wings in imitation of a shrug.
"That sounds like a breakthrough," Nemo said.
"Maybe." Thorne reached over and scooped the necklace off the counter. They started turning it over in their hands to examine it. Putting unknown enchanted items around their neck was one of the first things they had been told to never do when they were studying at ICSUT, but they were fairly confident by this point that it wasn't booby-trapped. "My mom made a lattice grimoire without the lattice. She was only ever recording her own thoughts, so the recorded variance in the gem is from her own aura. That's the key."
Nemo frowned. "How does that help though? I know you hate hearing it, but you aren't your mom."
"No, but maybe I'm close enough." They slipped the necklace over their head. As the gemstone came to rest in the hollow of their throat, they felt the enchantments within flicker and flare in reaction to their aura. Even if nobody else did, at least Florence's own spellcraft recognized them as a worthy successor to their mother.
Thorne rubbed their thumb against the sunstone. The reservoir of energy just beneath the surface made their skin tingle.
Closing their eyes, they pushed a tiny pulse of EVE into the gem and said, "Show me what happened."
May 23rd, 2008
Docks District, Three Portlands
It was a Friday afternoon, and Special Agent Florence Thorne was once again in a firefight.
Bullets and bolts of plasma zipped over her head as she crouched for cover behind an overturned table. The Mobile Occult Operations Team had deployed to strike at a Lighthouse Mafia safehouse in the Docks District, and the raid had gone smoothly until this point. Her agents had cleared all but one room in the building, with only one casualty so far — and that merely a superficial plasma burn. Now there were only two members of the Lighthouse Mafia fighting back.
Unfortunately, they were putting up a hell of a fight. They had retreated to the central room of the safehouse — which appeared to have been used to prepare and store paranarcotics — and were keeping the only entrance covered with intermittent bursts of suppressing fire while they sheltered safely behind a stack of wooden crates. She had managed, just barely, to slip into the room while the one with a plasma projector was reloading, relying on her wards to keep her safe for the five yard dash from the doorway to the table.
The tactical situation could have been better. She was pinned down behind the table, while the rest of MOOT was pinned down outside the room. She knew that part of the team would be trying to blast through the walls to encircle the shooters, but she expected the building's wards to slow them down. That wasn't acceptable — the longer the confrontation went on, the more they pushed their luck.
"Jess!" Florence shouted. "I'm going bowling! Pick-up the spare!" It was a sloppy code, but making sure that the other agent understood her was more important than tipping off the enemy to her intentions.
Without waiting for an answer, Florence launched herself sideways using an evocation, dropping to the floor in a baseball slide as she flew across the room, closely tracked by gunfire. She flailed her arm at the shooters, tossing a fireball in their general direction.
The fireball exploded against the stack of crates, sending a cloud of sparks and splinters flying everywhere. The two goons scrambled out of the way, splitting off in different directions. They both made it about three steps.
Taking advantage of their panic, Jesse Davis spun out of cover to face them head-on. Reaching up with both arms, she clenched her hands into fists and pulled them down to her shoulders, then threw them out to point at the men. Ribbons of blue-white electricity crackled down her arms and through her outstretched fingers, striking both men squarely in the chest. They dropped like rocks, and didn't get up.
The federal battlemages remained frozen in their positions, quietly counting off the seconds.
When it was obvious there would be no further resistance, Davis called out, "Clear!"
Florence pulled herself to her feet and watched as the members of her team shifted from combat mode to evidence collection.
"Good job everyone," she said. "Jess, you have the scene. I'm gonna step outside and radio 3PPD to get out here with some golems."
"Whatever you say, Boss." The other wizard snapped off a lazy salute.
That had been another tactical disadvantage, although one they had anticipated — the building was warded so heavily that none of their radios worked. But her people were good enough that it hadn't been an issue for tactical coordination.
It did mean she had to trudge all the way back through the building. By the time she was back outside in the nearby alley, there were four walls and fifty yards between her and the nearest member of the team. She shrugged her suit jacket off and slung it over her shoulder, then reached for her radio.
Cthunk.
That was the first indication to Florence that she had been shot. The noise — so much like a stapler being driven through a thick ream of papers — was one that she had learned to associate with death before she was sixteen. It was so very familiar.
Behind her, someone had just fired a silenced 9mm handgun.
Her vision swam and she stumbled, suddenly numb. A cold feeling was spreading from her chest. For a moment, it seemed to her that she was in a different alley, at a different time — back in Minneapolis, back to the moment she first saw a man die. The blood had mixed with the snow and garbage into an unrecognizable slurry of grime.
She had sworn that she would never die that way — alone, unaware, quietly bleeding out in the cold and dark.
She would burn before she ever let the cold take her.
By force of will alone, she caught herself mid-stumble and swung to face her assassin. Ignoring the bleeding wound and the aching numbness, she gritted her teeth and started gathering power for a final evocation.
The man dropped the gun and fell backwards, raising his hands in a desperate plea. "No! I'm sorry! Please! I'm sorry."
Surprise made her hesitate.
"I didn't want to," the man sobbed. "They made me. They tricked me. They told me I could see my daughter again."
Curiosity made her stop altogether.
"Wh—" She coughed, hacking up a glob of phlegm and blood. "Who? What did they do?"
The man tucked his knees against his chest and clutched his hands against his head, grimacing in pain. "Don't know. Thought they were feds. CIA or something. Said I'd get a pardon if— " He winced, emitting an anguished howl.
"If what?" It was as much question as she could ask before descending into another coughing fit.
"Can't. Say." The words were garbled and strained, as the man tried to speak despite his jaw clenching shut. "Signed. Signed. Swore."
The man's head snapped up and he looked directly at her. "I'm sorry."
His eyes rolled back in his head and he began to convulse. He thrashed and twitched in total silence, even as he tried to scream. As she watched, a drop of blood trickled from his mouth.
She was still holding the power that she had drawn up. Power that she had pooled to annihilate the man. Now she used it to help him. Saving his life — much less her own — was far beyond her skill in evocation. But she could at least make sure his death was painless. A quick pinch of force to his carotid was enough to leave him unconscious, although he continued to seize.
"I forgive you," she whispered. She watched quietly as the man died, killed by the same geas that had compelled him to kill her.
Now it was her turn. The cold was spreading through her limbs. There was only a little time left.
She lurched her way towards the near side of the alley and slumped against the wall. She rolled to put her back against it. Using her left hand, she clutched at her chest as she fumbled for her necklace. Her shirt was soaked and slimy with blood, and the necklace was slick and slippery.
She wiped it off as best she could against her shoulder, then held the gem up so she could see her face reflected in the surface of the sunstone.
"Robin. I wish you didn't have to see this, but I hope they get this to you. This stone contains my whole life — everything I've ever wanted to tell you is in here, and everything I never wanted you to know about me too. I hope you won't judge me too harshly for it, and I pray that it gives you some solace.
Always remember that you are the greatest thing I've ever done. No matter the circumstances of your birth, I have never once regretted having you. I wish we'd had more time. I know you're going to be okay though. You're a brilliant, beautiful person, and I couldn't be more proud of you.
The only advice I have to give you now is this: Be careful who you give your heart to, but don't be afraid to fall in love. Love is the greatest gift of all."
She was interrupted by a coughing fit. Blood was starting to pool up in her lungs now, and it was getting hard to breathe. She struggled to get enough air to speak. There was one last thing she had to say.
"I love you."
And then she stopped feeling cold.
May 30th, 2024
Robin Thorne's Apartment, Three Portlands
"Robin!"
Thorne opened their eyes to the sight of Nemo's blurry face mere inches away. As they went to rub tears from their eyes, they realized that they had fallen to their knees, and that Nemo's hands on their shoulders were the only thing keeping them from falling further.
Using Nemo for support, they pulled themself to their feet and allowed him to guide them to the couch. They didn't really sit down, so much as they simply fell into a sitting position. Nemo kept an arm around them, and they leaned against him easily, grateful for the added warmth.
Thorne cried. It was a long time before they stopped.
"I saw her," they whispered. "I felt her die."
Nemo hugged them tightly. "I'm sorry."
"She knew it was happening. She lived long enough to leave me a message."
"Did it help?"
They nodded. "It helped."
The two of them continued to sit like that. Thorne snuggled against Nemo, focusing on the sound of his calm, steady breathing as they continued to replay the memory in their head. Their thoughts echoed with the conversation between their mother and her murderer.
The man had been under a geas. That much had been obvious even to Florence. The way he had died — a textbook example of sudden severe Cuchulainn syndrome — was proof of that.
Putting someone under a geas wasn't hard — in fact, the proliferation of geas-backed contracts throughout Three Portlands was so widespread that it was about to become a public health crisis. By necessity, the UIU had become quite adept at identifying and breaking geases. But without a live specimen, it was impossible to perform any kind of forensics on the underlying memetic structure, which was clearly by design.
Even just that single fact spoke volumes. A homicide geas was already too complicated for almost anyone outside of the Pentagram, the Council of 108, or a peer paranormal power. A homicide geas that cleaned-up after itself by deliberately inducing Cuchulainn syndrome was another level entirely. In fact, Thorne was pretty sure that it had been considered impossible at the time. They distinctly remembered when one of their former ICSUT classmates had published a theoretical proof demonstrating that it was even possible for Cuchulainn syndrome to arise from a single memeplex. He had won a prize for it, and then died in a very public accident a month later. Thorne still had lunch with someone who looked exactly like him whenever they had business in Hanford.
Who? The question had died with Florence. By all available evidence, Florence had been killed by a member of the Lighthouse Mafia so unremarkable that even his compatriots struggled to remember him. Someone had put an incredible amount of effort into making sure that there would be no evidence to the contrary.
Who? Who had grabbed the man from his prison cell and placed him under an impossible geas? Who had wielded him as a weapon against Florence?
Who?
Thorne could think of an answer. Considering it for even a moment made their blood run cold. But there really wasn't any other.
"Nemo?"
He shifted to make eye contact with them. "What is it?"
"I think the Foundation killed my mom."
the first murderer built the first city
treachery his weapon, envy his motive
vengeance his curse
this is the foundation of civilization
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