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sunbaked_baker(From here.)
A situation can seem absolutely unbearable, until it gets worse and one realizes how good one had it.
The tension that had been singing through the people in the office before was nothing compared to how it felt the moment Deputy Executive Jain, the Goddess of Pain, stepped into the room. The effect was visceral, stifled alarm singing through Pat, Theo, and Rae. The office felt suddenly too crowded, the walls too thin and flimsy, the previously imposing desk at the center of the office and the low, sturdy cabinet against the side wall seemingly made of matchsticks, and the people within the office small and fragile. How could the Goddess of Pain be there? Rae had thought... Wasn't the Goddess supposed to have been at a different regional headquarters today? That's why Pat and Theo had scheduled this meeting for today. How had she find ou-
No, Rae knew. Her minion must have informed her, after Rae ran into them in the restroom. Rae let the thought slide without judging her own use of the term 'minion.' As to how the Goddess returned so quickly... well, the rumors of SOF's various headquarters being linked by space-folding doors weren't new.
"Director Misra," the Goddess greeted him with a smile, as though nothing were out of the ordinary. Rae, however, saw how her gaze took in the items now displayed upon the executive director's desk, the long line of evidence held against her. Her Dark Sight saw the anger throbbing through the Goddess so strongly that she could hardly see the woman's smile through the seething shadows. Rae felt bad for Theo, whose chair was practically right in front of where the Goddess stood before Misra's desk. "I remember you mentioning you would be at the office today. Had I known there was a meeting concerning me this morning, sir, I would have made it a point to attend and offer my input."
The words sounded so reasonable - slightly hurt, but honest and well-meaning. The effect would be quite believable if one could disregard the malicious pressure of the Goddess' presence, and the angry seethe of her shadows.
"You have a very important meeting halfway across the country in a couple of hours, I believe, Jain," Director Misra replied, and Rae was surprised to see an unexpected level of stiffness from the executive director.
"I am certain I can make it back in time," the Goddess of Pain replied, easily. "Is there any way I can help here, in the meantime?"
Rae wondered faintly if she would get the chance to answer the everlasting question in the globenet gossip forums about SOF's use of space-folding doors.
"Agents Logan and Velasquez have brought to me some very concerning information, I must admit, and some very serious accusations concerning your conduct in relation to Miss Seddon, " Director Misra said, folding his hands in front of him on his desk, among the collection of items and papers there. "They have presented me with evidence that seems to point very clearly to a persistent, years-long harassment of a member of the civilian public, with no recorded evidence warranting such suspicions or the use of blatantly illegal methods, despite the instances mentioned in Miss Seddon's file."
"Official records and Miss Seddon's testimony suggested her complete innocence apart from an unfortunate tendency to get herself into trouble and somehow get herself out of that trouble again, yes," the Goddess stated, a touch dry, "but I felt otherwise, sir."
Rae dared not look at the woman standing to her left, but her Dark Sight told her the Goddess was seething internally, her layered shadows roiling despite the calm demeanor and professional tone. Rae could feel her headache building, the pressure of the Goddess' presence throwing her off-balance.
"I see that Agents Logan and Velasquez made sure to schedule this... little discussion while I was out of town on actual business." The Goddess did not have to look at either Pat or Theo for Rae to know that she intended some sort of punishment for this, once she had settled this meeting to her liking. Deputy Executive Jain continued, seeking to explain. "From the beginning, I knew there was something Miss Seddon was hiding, something important and potentially dangerous. Too much of what she said did not match up to other testimony or the sequence of events, and it was obvious she remembered far more of her experiences than she wanted to admit. With each meeting, and her continued lack of compliance, the feeling only grew, and I felt it more important than ever to find out what it was that she was trying so hard to hide from me. From SOF. You have always trusted me to do what is necessary, sir, taking whatever risk we must take, for the public good. The world matters so much more than one person."
Somehow the familiar and wholesome ideal, even said with similar words, felt twisted to near its breaking point when heard from the Goddess' mouth, Rae felt. Even the right idea, with the wrong intention, felt wrong against her mind.
"Yes, as I have mentioned to the agents and Miss Seddon," replied the director, his expression unreadable. "Our first responsibility is to the public good, and we know there are times when legal means are not effective enough, as so often the law is even more resistant to change than even the Special Other Forces, in some ways. There is no question as to lengths you have gone to, in this case. The evidence provided by Agents Velasquez and Logan show clearly that in this case you have resorted to highly illegal means to root out any secrets Miss Seddon might have been keeping."
Misra's words brought a faint swell of hope to Sunshine's heart, because perhaps he could understand and would support them. She could hear his own personal frustration quietly underlying the remark about the inflexibility of SOF and the law, the occasional necessity of bending those laws. But Rae couldn't trust that hope - his words could be read just as easily to support the Goddess' actions against her, and she wasn't sure just how bad the fallout would be from her undermining the case Pat and Theo had tried to build for her by telling some of the truth. She didn't know how that fallout would affect herself, or what it might mean for Pat and Theo, or for her own alliance with them. Rae couldn't think of that right now; she had to worry about just getting through this, now. She would worry about strained loyalties some other time.
"The illegality of your actions has been proved to my satisfaction, Jain," Misra continued, holding up a hand to halt her protest as anger flashed on the Goddess' face. "That is not in dispute here any longer. The evidence is quite clear."
The director took a pen from his desk and wrote down something Rae couldn't see from where she sat, then tore off the scrap of paper, folded it up, and handed it to Theo. "Would you fetch that case file for me, Agent Logan? It should be in vault three, on the shelves near the leftmost wall as you go in. Thank you."
As Theo let himself out of the room, Rae couldn't help but feel that she had just lost an ally. Now they were only two of them, with the director only possibly a third. Rae still wasn't sure about what decision the director would make. Rae did not know how far she could trust him, and she was aware that he certainly couldn't know if he could trust her, this strange magic-handler who had somehow convinced good, upstanding SOF agents to lie for her.
The door closed quietly behind Theo, and Director Misra turned back to face Deputy Executive Jain. He took a breath, and let it out. "What you will find is under question here is whether or not what you did was necessary, or for the public good at all. I do have some concerns that you, now being so conveniently here, Jain, could answer."
"Of course, sir," the Goddess of Pain had grown very still, standing in the center of the room before the desk. Rae had resisted the urge to move her chair further from her or to turn in her chair so the Goddess wasn't lingering so close to the edge of her peripheral vision. She could feel the woman towering over her, a pillar of shadows and rage at the center of the room, the focal point, the axis upon which the conversation turned. The Goddess of Pain's contained malice felt almost like radiant heat against that side of Rae's face and body, like an oven left carelessly open.
"In your reports of the instances in Miss Seddon's file, you noted that much of the information Miss Seddon gave, you suspected were lies."
"Miss Seddon's explanations did not add up, and I wanted the truth, sir. It is every citizen's obligation to help SOF in its investigations."
"Of course, yet if we treated every citizen who didn't tell SOF everything as you have treated Miss Seddon, our organization would be shut down within a fortnight," Misra replied, frankly.
"Sir?" Even the Goddess was having difficulty keeping her voice level.
"We do not set fetches on civilians who don't tell us everything, Jain," Misra replied firmly, his tone a little dry despite the severity on his face. "Most civilians don't tell us everything. And apparently, sometimes SOF doesn't tell SOF everything. Was there any particular reason for the extremities you went to in relation to the truth you felt Miss Seddon was hiding? Was there... any particular truth you were hoping to find when you illegally administered Delete to her by way of an adulterated cup of tea, under the pretext of wishing to have a simple follow-up conversation with Miss Seddon?"
Rae couldn't help but look at the Goddess then, for her Dark Sight had seen how the woman's shadows - the multitude of deeply-layered shadows - had reacted. "I'm not sure what you mean, sir," the Goddess lied, as her shadows seethed and roiled like a rapidly boiling kettle. Rae's head throbbed with it, making it difficult for her to think clearly. "We have a responsibility to find out what we can, for the public good. Especially when the information could be used in our efforts against the Darkest Others. And Miss Seddon had been shown to be repeatedly involved with vampires, in some way still not clear despite our efforts."
"She was working undercover for SOF. Has been for years, now," Director Misra stated plainly, sending a chill up Rae's spine. Was he... how much of what they had divulged to him was the director just going to share with the Goddess? Had Rae done wrong to tell even a little of the truth? "Unofficially, of course. Blessedly, she too felt the responsibility to contribute to the public good."
Maybe not.
"Very noble, I'm sure," said the Goddess, her voice clipped to hide how it very nearly shook with anger. "But I gave no authorization for Miss Seddon to work with SOF, undercover, unofficially, or otherwise. Nor would I. She has clearly-"
"And your authorization was not sought." Misra held up a hand to quell her initial intake of breath to protest. Rae could barely believe she was hearing someone talk to Jain, the Goddess of Pain - someone who filled every room they occupied with headache-inducing anxiety - like this. This was no private professional reprimand, but a rebuke being deliberately delivered in front of witnesses. "The SOF agents involved did not involve you in order to avoid the interference they suspected would result, and I am inclined to believe they were right to be cautious. As other business this morning has shown, sometimes we do take steps away from prescribed protocol when there is a compelling enough reason. But there must be a compelling reason. A good reason. Something that furthers SOF's guiding mission to fight back against the encroaching dark, to strength the world's recovery efforts, and keep the population safe from Others that would seek to harm them and the future of the world."
Rae's heart lifted despite herself, at the tiny but key omission in his statement. Keep the population safe. The population, not just the human population of the official wording. Rae's blood thrummed in her ears, her head throbbing, but at the same time a small but terrible hope grew in her heart.
The Goddess spread her hands as though showing herself to be unarmed - as though asking everyone to relax, as though her very presence wasn't an assault upon the mind - and offered a stiff smile. "What would you have me say, sir? It seems your mind is made up."
"If I had already made up my mind, we would not be having this conversation," Misra replied, and a look of anger crossed the Goddess' face before she could quell it. Director Misra seemed not to have noticed, or possibly was ignoring it. "You ask what I would have you say. I would have you convince me with a compelling reason, Deputy Executive Jain. You require that of your subordinates when they come to you with a proposed course of action, of course - perhaps you've gotten used to not having to justify your own. You did not really answer my first questions or offer a good reason for your actions in regard to Miss Seddon, apart from insisting you felt there was such a reason. You certainly made no records of such a reason in Miss Seddon's file. In fact, I am rather surprised you somehow neglected to include any records of your efforts or their justification in relation to Miss Seddon in her file, where they would logically go. Agents Logan and Velasquez helpfully collected them all from the various equipment logs and authorization slips you had signed, and the interview transcriptions you failed to file. Though I say 'all,' I would not be surprised if they did not find everything. Even Miss Seddon contributed some of the records you should have been keeping. I see in this conversation's record here, you insulted a free civilian to her face and said you already knew what she was 'up to.' And yet, to look at her official file there is no sign of you knowing any such thing, or really any record from you that the conversation happened at all."
In the stinging silence, there was a knock at the door. "Yes, Agent Logan, please come in," Director Misra actually smiled: a stiff, faint, joyless smile, but a smile nonetheless as Theo came back bearing an aging folder thick with papers. Rae's head was throbbing with the radiant darkness from the Goddess of Pain's shadows; her heart was pounding in her chest. What had Misra felt necessary to send Theo to get? "Did you find the correct file? Good, thank you."
"In that same conversation," the Director went on, seemingly ignoring the way the Goddess was gripping the back of the chair she stood behind - Theo wasn't about to try and sit there again, and so was standing warily by the wall by the door. From the writhing shadows on the Goddess' face, Rae half expected the woman to lunge at Dirctor Misra. Or for the chair to catch fire under her grip. One of the two. Misra perused the file Theo had brought him, looking for something. "In that same conversation, you said... Let's see." Misra glanced back at the transcript of the interrogation, and then up at the Goddess. "'Your father may not have mentioned you but there's no doubt whose whelp you are.'"
The Goddess was silent, practically shaking with fury.
"I'd like to know what you meant by that, Deputy Executive Jain," Misra prompted, but the Goddess still said nothing. "I ask, you see," Misra continued in that stiffly cordial tone. "because of whose daughter Miss Seddon is. And because in reading this I remembered something that hadn't come to mind in many years."
The Goddess seemed to loom larger in Rae's peripheral vision. Or maybe that was simply a side-effect for the growing alarm in Rae's own heart. Her fight or flight instincts were telling her she needed to run. To get out of there. To find Con and flee and keep going and never come back. Something about that records folder, the age of it, scared Rae nearly as much as it enraged the Goddess of Pain.
"You had newly graduated to a field agent as I remember, Jain, in the first month or so following the outbreak of the Wars," Misra mused, perusing the many papers. All were just beginning to yellow slightly with age, some had tiny twin puncture marks at their corners where staples had been removed, and some were the translucent onion-skin copy paper that crackled like tissue paper. "We were very happy to have you and were refreshed by your dedication to the cause, in those dark days."
"In December of that year, you'll remember," Misra continued, glancing up at the Goddess of Pain's impassive face, "it was discovered that the entire Blaise family of magic-handlers had disappeared without warning and under highly suspicious circumstances. The entire magic-handling community was rocked by their loss, and it destabilized much of our efforts to recruit magic-handlers to the war effort."
This was more than Rae had ever heard about the disappearance of her father's family, and she sat shocked into stillness, listening. Her mother had never talked about it, and Rae had never dared ask.
"SOF had to investigate, of course. It was the highest-profile case of the year, and I was prepared to send five of our most qualified agents to try and discover what had happened to them, and where they were if they were anywhere to be found," the Director continued, as though musing over an old story as he turned through the pages of the file. Rae saw what were clearly small photographs stapled to some page, though she couldn't see the faces on them. Her mouth was dry - what secrets did that file hold? About her father, about her grandmother, about her heritage... The Goddess had gone very still. But the director went on. It was clear from her reaction that Jain knew exactly where this was going, so the story was being told for the benefit of the SOF agents, and for Sunshine herself, and now that it had started, Jain was letting the story be told.
"Yet, as I remember, you volunteered most ardently to join the task force, Jain, despite clearly knowing nothing about the Blaises. You insisted, wanting to 'prove yourself,' and I admit, the other directors and I were probably easily convinced to send you out on a big case again so quickly. You had just come from your success with the Garrison Street case, and we were hoping to gain momentum and greedy for any sort of victory against the difficulties of the time. One of the other agents compiled dossiers to help you catch up on the family's background and what it meant that they were gone, as you would be the only agent who knew nothing about the Blaises. You reported in the early meetings that you had never met any of them or really to have paid any attention to their accomplishments or movements, but were sure you could contribute significantly to the investigation and would catch up easily. We still have copies of the communications related to the case and the dossiers themselves, did you know? They were kept in the case file."
Rae couldn't help but want to get her hands on that file folder, while also dreading the idea of looking into it. What could it tell her? What answers could it give her that she didn't know she needed yet? How was the Goddess of Pain involved?
"In fact," Director Misra lifted a paper from the file to glance through its lines of type. "That case became our greatest failure in the early days of the Wars. There were others later, of course, but it was a devastating blow to the morale of the whole effort that we could find no clear answer as to what had happened to them. An entire magical bloodline wiped out one way or another, seemingly overnight, and nothing came of SOF's efforts to find out. The case was cold from the moment it started, and the agents were eventually reassigned to more immediate cases where we had a chance of success. Your very next assignment was the Weyland case, wasn't it? The development of that ward helped protect our military transport routes for months to come."
The Goddess smiled thinly, not otherwise moving, waiting for what she knew was coming. If one couldn't see the way her shadows writhed - like roaring flames of darkness - she looked almost normal.
"So, tell me," the director leaned forward. "Why would you remark that Onyx Blaise never divulged the existence of his daughter to you, if you had never met him?"
And that's when the Goddess erupted.
Rae could hardly see for the sudden light and heat, hardly think through the pressure on her mind and the miasma of wrongness that choked the air from her lungs. It was the feeling the Goddess always inspired when she was in the room, only dialed up well past endurance. Flames erupted from the furniture nearest the Goddess, and the smoke only made it harder to breathe. Rae stumbled backwards out of her chair, shielding her eyes with her arm, trying to get away from the presence that seemed to fill the entire room. She could sense where people were by their shadows, even if she couldn't quite see them against the glare. Pat had immediately put himself in between the Goddess and the director, but he had fallen back with a pained cry, and Rae couldn't see him any more. She could just make out the shape of Director Misra, thrown back against the office's back wall. The desk was on fire, the evidence, the file, but there was no way she could get to it in time. Rae could hear the fetch shrieking as it melted in its sealed container on the desk. Theo had his weapon drawn and was trying to get to Pat. The room blazed with strange light and choking heat and smoke, the radiant wrongness and incandescent malice of the Goddess which enveloped them like wings.
Rae saw the edge of the papers of the Blaise case file curl and blacken on the desk, and felt the burn of tears in her eyes, not just from the smoke.
She felt the pressure and pain more than saw anything hand-shaped suddenly grip her neck and shove her back and up against the office wall. Rae choked, trying to breathe, to struggle free. The backs of her legs impacted hard and awkwardly against the front edge of the low cabinet against that wall. Her feet couldn't reach the ground and her frantic kicking had no perceptible effect on the Goddess. Her fingers couldn't get hold of the hand squeezing her throat. She might as well have tried to bend the fingers of a statue. Panic broke through as the grip increased until she was sure something would break, as her heart thudded fast and terror-stricken in her chest.
There was commotion from the other side of the office door, but Rae couldn't make it out. She struggled and shut her eyes tight as the Goddess leaned close - she could see her bright outline through the redness of her closed eyelids - to whisper something in her ear. Rae smelled singed hair on that side of her head more than she felt it. The commotion from the rest of the office grew louder, the door suddenly slamming open and armed SOF guards in full gear bursting through. They had binds at the ready, and were yelling for the Goddess of Pain to stand down and step away, to let her go, to not try anything. But they were hesitant to act; this... creature, this being, this Other, had been one of their superiors, and they had not heard what the people in the office had heard.
Rae desperately fought for air, for clarity, as she felt her limbs weakening, felt the burning in her chest and hands and throat. In her panic, Rae's hands, failing to pull away the gripping hand from her throat, happened to brush against the little amber sun-ring on its thin silk cord about her neck, and found it barely hanging on to her shirt collar as the cord had been burned through. Rae nearly dropped it as the idea fluttered through her fragmented awareness, but managed to slip the ring on her finger. Its light was indistinguishable against the Goddess' brightness, but the knowledge of it did wonders for Rae's ability to focus.
Beyond these beige walls, the pressure on her finger reminded her, the sun was rising. With every bit of strength she had left, Rae tapped into that sunlight, the coming of the new day, the ending of darkness, forced the fingers from her throat and threw the Goddess away from her. She could just about see the SOF guards react through the brightness, throwing their binds over the Goddess to try and restrain her, yelling for her to stay down. Rae dropped from where she had been held against the wall, her legs failing to catch her, and came down hard on the office floor, coughing hard and greedily gulping air. Her throat and hands throbbed with pain, and her watering eyes burned. The spiderweb-like darkness at edges of her vision and mind grew as she looked over at where the Goddess was struggling against the binds now pinning her to the floor, the guards still with their weapons trained on her in case the multitude of binds were not enough. Some were working to quickly put out the flames.
"Rae..." She saw Theo, weary and with burns marking his bloodied face, hurrying over to her. But she couldn't seem to manage to get her hands to cooperate, they had no strength to help her get up, the pain in them from holding herself up was too much as it was. She could just manage to prop herself up and keep herself from falling over by leaning against the wooden cabinet behind her. Her head swam, and the effort to remain present was too much. It was all she could do to remain upright as Theo reached her and put his hands on her shoulders. "It'll be okay. We've got you."
SOF had her, all right, but she didn't know if it'd be okay. There were too many unanswered questions, too much pain; there had been too much intent in the words the Goddess had spoken into her ear, for it to be okay.
The desk was a blackened shape at the limits of Rae's awareness, bearing only ashes and fragments of burned paper, melted plastic and broken glass on its ruined surface.
(Continued here.)
