Vox Mentis

You come out of the chopper and jog to the shelter of a falling-down building that once sold wire, apparently. You forgot about stores like this. Shops, you mean. Shops that sell only one thing, which you could not conceive of wanting. You could live a lifetime in DC and never see a wire store. If you wanted wire, you would go to a warehouse-style hypermarket and it would be one shelf in aisle twelve. But here it's a whole shop. You would go in and ask for some wire, because the roos knocked down a section of your side paddock fence again, and you would have a conversation about it.

You didn’t want to come back to Broken Hill. You've been operating for a while now as a compartmentalized person, putting different pieces of yourself in different places, and you didn’t know what Broken Hill would do to that. But you're here, because you don’t get to make choices about that kind of thing anymore, and have to do the best you can. One part of you, one of the compartments, is glad. It thinks you're coming home. The rest is pretty freaked out.

“We’re deploying,” says Plath. Plath is running around with a headset that won’t stay put, talking to security guys. You are not very happy with Plath. You've crossed paths with Plath a few times and each time Plath is more neurotic. There's something wild and jumpy in her eyes that you don't trust. Also, Plath came on board shortly after the terrible failed attempt to corner Eliot and his exception at the Portland airport, during which the poet Raine had died, and although Plath hasn’t said anything, you know she views that incident as a shameful fuckup on your part. “It’s so hot.” Plath begins to extract herself from her jacket. You are not wearing a jacket, because it had been obvious in advance that the desert would be hot. “Like an oven.”

“Yes.” You watch Plath get her jacket tangled up in her headset.

“I’ll call Thoreau, tell him we landed.”

“No.”

“He asked to be kept up to-”

“Don’t call Thoreau,” you say. You are still in charge. You are still the best in the organization at hunt-and-kill.

“We need a command center,” says a man. His voice is machine modulated, coming out of a helmet. His name is Masters. He's in control of the soldiers. Currently, Masters has EQPs spreading through Broken Hill like a toxic spill, establishing perimeters, getting fixes, whatever else it is they do. It's to help you neutralize Eliot, but you don’t like it, being around people you can’t compromise.

You remember a burger place. It's a good distance from the hospital, close enough to coordinate the action but not so close that Eliot is likely to be able to sneak up and shoot you. You had eaten there, alone, sometimes, other times not. But you aren’t thinking about that. Danny is trying to surface in your brain but you are not going to let him. The point is, it's a good location. “I know somewhere.”

A small squad sweeps the burger place while you and Plath stand outside, shielding your faces from the sun. A chopper passes overhead, whipping up hot, stinging sand. “Ugh,” says Plath. “This place.”

A soldier opens the rear door and gestures. You pass through a small kitchen, where a dark skillet lies under a layer of dust. Utensils dangle from overhead racks, surprisingly bright. Then you're in the serving area, passing familiar tables. There are no bodies. Maybe the soldiers removed them. Plath hangs back for some reason but you move to the front of the store. There are dark shapes outside, hard to see through the dirty plate glass, and you approach with some trepidation. Outdoor tables. A ragged umbrella still over one of them. A few cars. If you put your face to the glass, you can see farther down the street. You don’t look for detail but can see the shape of the hospital. Somewhere inside are Eliot and his exception.

Your phone rings. You pull it out. “I hear you’re in Broken Hill,” says Thoreau.

“Yes.” You look at Plath, the snitch.

“I find myself wondering why Eliot would go there, of all places.”

“Well, my guess is to get the word,” you say. “The exception can just pick it up.” There's silence. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry. I was rendered speechless a moment, just then.”

“The bareword,” you say. “It’s in the emergency room.”

“I have the bareword.”

“You have the copy I made. The original is still there.”

“How useful it would have been to have this information before this moment.”

“Oh,” you say. “I’m sorry.” You knew that, in one of your compartments.

“You will kill Eliot,” Thoreau says, “and the exception, and, for that matter, anyone else Eliot has managed to conjure up who doesn’t work directly for me. You will then cordon off the hospital until I arrive. Is this clear?”

“Yes.” In your head, you add: you jerk. You do this sometimes. It's a kind of game.

“I really am vexed by this exception business. I have felt decidedly uncomfortable, knowing that one exists. It is a most unwelcome distraction to my work.”

“I can imagine.” You jerk.

“Call me when Eliot’s dead,” he says. “I won’t set foot in Broken Hill until then. Oh, and Elise? At some point, you will fill me in on exactly how you managed to copy an object you can’t look at.”

“I will do that,” you say. The phone clicks. Your jaw works and for a moment you think you're actually going to say it. But you only make a little grunt, yuh. You glance at Plath. But no one seems to have noticed. So that's okay.

In the beginning, you hadn’t even been able to think it. Perhaps eventually you'll be able to say the words to his face. Hey, Thoreau! You’re a jerk! It's a fun idea. Implausible; most likely, this is as far as it can go, a mental game. You'll see. For now, the important thing is that a part of you is still you.