Incident [TEXT]

CHAPTER TWO


You open your eyes to sunshine streaming in through your window. Even from this position you can see the cloudless, brilliantly blue sky. It's cool enough now, but around midday the heat is going to be unbearable.

Extracting yourself from your sheets is an exercise made more difficult by bleariness and pain: the latter because your bruises somehow seem to have gotten worse in the last few hours. Fortunately another shower sorts out the former, as well as the residue of the night's sweating.

Indeed, by the time you're pulling on the jacket of a powder blue suit you're feeling almost human.

You adjust your tie in the mirror, and stare at yourself.

Kierkgaard said you looked like... her. The big giveaway is the hair. She isn't called the Red Queen for nothing. Most people think the redness of it is fake, or at least artificially emphasised, but you can testify that it probably isn't. 'Red hair' tends to refer to something that's closer to orange, but this stuff seriously verges on crimson.

You run a hand through your own and contemplate dyeing it again. For a while it was black, but it looked ludicrous when the roots started to show through and you kind of gave up on that one.

You examine your eyes, your nose, even attempt to glance at your profile in search of some glimpse of the Red Queen, but it's been too long since you saw her last. It's coming up to seven years now. Seven years since...

The morgue. You dreamed about it last night.

Shaking your head, you walk over to the window and look out. As you expected, Number 6's symbol is gone.

You think about your options.

You need to be at your office to accept Number 6's package sometime this morning, as well as be around in the eventuality of someone less criminal wanting to hire you. But it's still early. You could probably do something else first and still get there in time.

One option is to seek out one of your informants. The ones that deal in general rumours can usually be expected to part with their information in exchange for breakfast, as long as the juicier snippets are greeted with cash. It might be worth it just to confront someone about this rumour that you're a sparker. You're kind of sore that no one wanted to share that one with you.

Alternatively, you could look up the newspapers of two years ago. You have a card for the archive's reading room, and if you requested the papers by telephone they could be waiting for you by the time you got there. It's idle curiosity more than anything, but looking at the murders might tell you something about Esser.

Or you could just go straight to your office. Or do something else.

Whatever you do, you're definitely going to have a look at Ms. Ashe's note and buy a morning paper. The paper you can pick up while you're out, so that leaves the message from Number 6.

It's not sealed. At all. No adhesive or anything, just the tab of the envelope has been tucked inside of it. There's a single sheet of paper inside. The note has been written using a typewriter, but Number 6 appears to have signed it with his emblem. It reads as follows:

Ms. Ashe -

On the night of the 18th of June I kidnapped your progeny, broke into the property known as the Old Bank, the deed of which is in your name, and when agents under your orders had my bodyguard and I surrounded we escaped with ease. You may have seen my flight over the city and, if not that, perhaps the mark I left.

You may interpret these actions as insults or threats.

I assure you that this is not the case.

Rather than stirring up enmity, I am proposing an alliance. The aforementioned actions served only to impress upon you that myself and those I command are both capable and worthy of your attention. You could say that this was a show of power. That I released your progeny once your agents arrived and that I left without bloodshed are both indications of goodwill. I hope you will accept them as such.

Before you disregard my proposal out of hand, I would implore that you consider both of our positions. You are in charge of an impressive number of sparkers and yourself have not inconsiderable powers. I intend to make this city of Victraedis a safe place for those who possess so-called 'Unnatural Abilities', free of the fear of death and persecution that currently characterises the lives of such people. You may have built yourself an ivory tower above that kind of fear, but I am sure you remember how it feels.

There are no doubt many under your command who sympathise with this ideal, and the greater the strength of support for this, the less blood that will have to be spilled to achieve it.

Whichever side you choose, even if you choose no side at all, Victraedis stands on the precipice of great change. Better to move with the current than against it.

Yours sincerely,

Number 6

Well, that's... that's certainly something. You return the note to the envelope and tuck the tab back in.

What do you intend to do now?