Michael S. Atkinson's Blog, page 31

Serve and Protect

“”I tried to forgive them,” Constance said piously, “But you see, that was before I became an angel. So naturally I had to struggle with that. I mean, come on, it’s a freakin’ dinosaur dig in South Dakota. I expected the dinosaurs to be, y’know, dead. No one told me one of ‘em might come alive. I mean, yeah, I’d had a drink or two or six, but-“

“Ahem,” rumbled Bernard, Constance’s supervisor, just as several of the littler angels were getting interested. “Perhaps, Constance, you could return to the fundamentals of being a guardian?”

“Sure,” said Constance, going back to her flannelgraph. She’d been at it for some time now, so much that she was now teaching classes, but she still couldn’t help digressing into stories about her human life. With a sigh, she resumed.

“Buses. Your planets with teleporters, now, don’t have this issue, but a lot of places still do, so listen up. Sooner or later, your charge is gonna try to get run over.”  She stuck a small cutout of a yellow bus on her flannelgraph. “You, obviously, can’t let that happen. If you see a bus heading towards your person, pull ‘em back. By force if you have to, though that’s kinda last resort material. Go subtle if you can. Stall, divert, make ‘em think their long lost lover is coming the other way, whatever. I had someone hit by a bus once. It’s not fun.”

“But,” asked a timid angel, “didn’t they get resurrected later?”  She had heard Constance tell that particular story several times.

Constance rounded on her. “Yeah, but you can’t count on that! Resurrections don’t come easy, you know. Especially not with humans. They can’t regenerate, and they die easy. If you see that bus coming for your person, you have to think it’s playing for keeps. Got it?”

The angel nodded quickly. “Yes, ma’am. No resurrections from buses. But what about taxi cabs?”

Constance looked thoughtful. “Taxi cabs. Now there’s an interesting story….”

What the story would’ve been, her class never found out. Constance’s halo, which she had hung up on a spike of cloud to be out of the way, suddenly began flashing bright red. “Class dismissed!” Constance yelled, snatching for the halo and springing into the air. Red alerts, she had told her students a hundred times, were serious. It was an all-wings-on-deck situation. It meant your charge was in extreme peril.

***

Sarah May Raxenpaxerflirk lived in a dingy grey room in a dingier greyer house on the outskirts of the small moon. She longed for a nicer place, especially on nights coming home after a long shift at the Lady Amber. She felt so tired on these nights. Her every tentacle ached as she made her way upstairs. She crept into her small room and threw herself on her sleeping pod with a gurgling sigh. Sometimes she wondered whether medical school was worth it.

Then she heard a beep from her door. “Who is it?” she called, a little nervously. She only had a few friends, and most of them were back on her home planet. She hadn’t had a social call yet.

“Lunar Constable Jenkins, ma’am,” came a metallic voice. “Need to ask you a question about one of your customers.”

Sarah May looked through her peephole. Sure enough, she saw the glint of the robot policeman’s badge. Robots were the mainstay of the Lunar Constabulary. With a sigh, she typed in a code, and the door slid open. “Which one?” she said blearily

“Space otter. Talking to a cloud of gas.”

“Oh!” Sarah May exclaimed, because she actually did remember him. “Yes, he was very nice, tipped well, no trouble at all.”

“Did you hear any of their conversation?”

“Well, no, not really…” Sarah May said, furrowing her brow. “I had other tables. The otter did say something about a Norb, but I didn’t really catch it.”

“You mean,” said the robot, “An Orb.”

Sarah May’s eyes widened as she understood. “Not the Orb of the Wha-”

The robot’s arm cannon rose, crackling with plasma, and aimed in her direction. “Sorry, ma’am. Wrong place, wrong time.”

Sarah May Raxenpaxerflirk started to scream. Then there was a golden flash, and a shower of sparks. A halo seemed suddenly to be growing out of the robot’s chest. It fell over in a heap of wrecked metal.

“Robots,” Constance said, brushing off her wing. “I’ll have to add robots to the lecture.”

 

Aftermaths

It is not an easy thing to investigate someone’s disappearance, but it’s exceptionally difficult when they never existed to begin with. Madeleine’s day had started with a call to a room where a woman, Pamela Percy, had stepped out a window and vanished into thin air. Pamela had been a famous television star. Only by the afternoon, no one remembered her show or her face. By that evening, all records of her existence had blipped out of the universe. Madeleine had gone back to the room. It was now occupied by an elderly retiree who’d sworn he hadn’t left it in five years. Madeleine checked with the building super to confirm. She had spoken with him that very morning, along with the police. Now he had no memory of her or her law enforcement associates.

Madeleine pondered the case on her drive home. She could’ve flown, but at that hour the sun would’ve been in her eyes, and she hated that. She also hated time things, and this was definitely a time thing. Someone had tinkered with the blasted continuum, and wiped poor Pamela from existence. But why? Who had she ticked off? Madeleine started to wonder how, if Pamela had never existed, she could have upset someone enough to cause her non-existence, but then she decided emphatically that she was not going down that route. That was exactly why she hated time things. So, as the empty countryside flew by past her window, she pushed the case from her mind and turned on some music.

An old wooden sign came up in the beams of her headlights. She didn’t bother reading it; she had seen that sign every night for the past three years working Edison City. It hadn’t changed. It advertised that the suburb ahead of her had was home of the state basketball champion of ’63. The suburb was many years past its glory days, and the basketball team had never made it back to the heights, but the sign hung on. Madeleine barely glanced at it as she went by. Then she slammed on her brakes and skidded to the side of the road. Pamela Percy was standing right next to that sign.

Madeleine leaped from her car and dashed up to her missing person. “Where’ve you been?” she demanded. “And what happened-”  Then she noticed that Pamela was transparent.

“Ooooooo,” Pamela wailed enthusiastically at her. “I am the spirit of Pamela Percy, come from beyond the grave to-“

“Knock it off,” Madeleine said. She didn’t have much patience with ghosts. They were far too melodramatic for her taste. “Right. How’d you die, and how come no one remembers you?”

The ghost looked wounded.  “No one? At all? But.. my ratings… my show…. I worked so hard.”

“Sorry. But you don’t exist anymore. You’ve just gone from the time stream. At least I thought you had. Guess something stuck around.”

Pamela sighed ghostily. “Great. I get erased from time, I’m dead, and for a haunt I’m stuck with a little patch of road way out in the boonies. And no one even remembers my show! It’s so not fair!”

“Life’s not fair, Pamela,” Madeleine said. “Look at me. I get superpowers, right? The usual thing. Squished a radioactive bug, genes went wrong, chemical accident, whatever. But do I get the cool powers? No. I get your basic flying brick combo. And I can burp fire.”

Pamela snickered. “You’re Gaseous Girl? Armpits of Armageddon? That was, like, hilarious.”

“Laugh it up, ghostie. At least I exist.”

The poor spirit’s laughter dissolved into tears. Madeleine felt a tad guilty. “Look,” she said, not unkindly, “I’ll figure out who erased you, and try to get you back. No promises. Best I can do. Okay?”

“Okay,” Pamela sniffled, wiping her transparent eyes with an ethereal tissue.

Just once, Madeleine wished she could take a normal client. A plain old murder. A missing cat. Anything. Just once.

This story was written for the inaugural writing challenge by Suzanne of Apopletic Apostrophes, posted at her new writing site. I figured I would join the party. Also, since I’m inordinately fond of story arcs, this one relates back to Disappearance. I did try to make it reasonably self-contained, though.

The Rendezvous

In the span of a breath, everything changed.  Oswald Stamper had intended to drop in at his usual watering hole, a crowded spaceport tavern known as the Dingy Duckling. He had an old friend there, a salty sea dog of a captain named Marian, and he had meant to ask her what she knew about the whereabouts of the Orb of the Whangdoodle. But when he rounded the corner and saw Marian being dragged into a police cruiser (all the while squawking about her rights and loudly insisting that she’d never teleported under the influence), Oswald decided that he should try more respectable sources of information.  So he turned right back again, went home, and pulled out his old Corps uniform. He hated the thing, and its memories, but one didn’t simply walk into the Lady Amber Club without proper dress.

At seven that evening, Mr. Stamper presented himself at the doors of the Lady Amber, his green uniform in tip top shape, glistening in medals. The head waiter bowed politely, confirmed his reservation, and ushered him to a seat in a small alcove, where he and his guest would not be visible to the majority of the restaurant’s guests. A second member of the wait staff appeared, and gurgled respectably at him while producing a wine list. By coincidence, her name was Sarah May Raxenpaxerflirk, older sister to Melinda, and she had taken the job at the Lady Amber as a way to put herself through medical school.  Mr. Stamper made his selection (Centauri ’47, a very good year), and Sarah May withdrew.

Moments later, the being he had been waiting for drifted into the seat opposite him. It was a highly evolved and intelligent cloud of gas, which had developed the ability to project thought outward so it could communicate with others.  Greetings, it projected politely. Have you been waiting long? 

“Not really,” said Mr. Stamper. He could observe social rules when circumstances required, and so he made agreeable small talk about the weather, the dinner, and the cloud’s health. Meanwhile, Sarah May had arrived with the ordered bottle. She uncorked it carefully with her tentacle, and poured Mr. Stamper’s drink. Then she hesitated. How did one pour a drink for a sentient cloud of gas? Did it even drink? Should she ignore it, or would that be unforgivably rude?  Sarah May reminded herself of medical school, gathered her courage, and poured an appropriate amount into its glass. The gas cloud flickered warmly red at her; she hoped that meant it was gratified. She then retreated decorously, as the conversation continued.

As the gas cloud condensed slowly over its drink, Mr. Stamper decided the time for small talk had ended. “I need your help,” he began. “I’m looking for the Orb.”

Which one? There are, you know, quite a few. 

“The Orb of the Wha-“

You should not say that! interrupted the gas cloud, aghast. No one may speak the name of the Orb That Should Not Be Named!

“I got that,” said Mr. Stamper. “Fine. So where is it?”

The gas cloud looked a little piqued. It had expected to be asked about clues, and be given dark assurances that the Orb must not fall into the wrong hands. It liked the mystery of these things. Mr. Stamper always tried to take the fun out of things.  The Orb is buried underneath the old tree, in the shadow of Charlotte’s Moon. 

“Good enough. Thanks,” the space otter said. Then he paused. “Which moon?”

Charlotte’s. 

“Yes, you said that, but which moon is Charlotte’s Moon?”

Hers is, obviously. 

Mr. Stamper sighed. The cloud just had to be cryptic. “You wouldn’t happen to have star coordinates, maybe the location of a nearby hyperspace lane, that sort of thing?”

That, projected the gas cloud smugly, is all I know. The old tree in the shadow of Charlotte’s Moon. There you will find the Orb. 

The space otter knew he would get nothing else useful. He motioned at Sarah May and requested the bill. Mr. Stamper left a reasonably generous tip, which delighted Sarah May. As he and the gas cloud left, Sarah May gurgled her cheeriest, “Thank you for your visit, and do see us again!” Little did she know that she never would.

Partying Partying Yeah

Jenny wanted a Norse theme party. Timothy, madly infatuated, gave her one. He arranged for Valkyrie dancers. The thunder god himself flew in via spaceship and wormhole, at great expense. Jenny was thrilled. Timothy’s parents, when they learned, were outraged. “How much?”

The Assignment

The days of the week lined up like buckets, ready to catch whatever fell in. Mr. Stamper’s calendar was his pride. Every important event was marked in neat red letters, every anniversary labeled. He had his weekly routine too, meticulously worked out. Thursdays, for instance, were Supply Days. And so, every Thursday, he would pilot his small shuttlecraft to the spaceport, land it neatly in Shuttle Bay Four, and then march to a particular canteen where he knew the layout and the proprietor by heart. Mr. Stamper was much put out when he had to alter his routine, but it couldn’t be helped. One couldn’t ignore a summons from a lawyer.

Penny Sybil, fussing about with a pile of holo-pads on her desk, looked alarmed as the space otter loomed in her doorway. “Er, Mr. Stamper? Oswald Stamper, formerly of the-“

“Yes,” he said shortly, “What do you want?”

The attorney was a little offended. “Ahem. I have been asked by my client to make absolutely certain of your identity before I disclose any details of the matter at hand. It’s very delicate, you see. So, again, you are Mr. Oswald Stamper, formerly of the Space Otter Corps? If I might see some identification?”

Mr. Stamper hesitated. It had been a very long time since he had been associated with the Corps. The last time had not been pleasant. The bewildered words of his commander (ex) flashed through his mind.

I don’t understand this, We won, didn’t we? Stopped the meteor, saved the lives of every being on that transport, stopped the Kellthians from overrunning Alistair Prime? Why would you want to leave now? 

Sir. We broke Directive. We landed on a pre-warp world. We made unauthorized contact. We could have avoided it. 

So what? his commander had said bluntly. They’ll live. And they’ll be better for it. They’ve got power now they didn’t have before. Better lives. What  difference does it make whether we kept Directive or not? 

Keeping Directive means we do not play God, sir. We do not decide which planets should be…better.” 

Why the hell not? 

That last question decided things. He had left without reply. His ex-commander had never understood. He didn’t think Penny Sybil would either. With a sigh, he produced the faded blue card.

“Ah. Yes. You check out,” Penny said, blinking at the readout on her screen. “Well. I suppose you’ll want to know why my client wants you?”

“No,” said Mr. Stamper. “I only want to know what the pay rate is.”

Penny, flustered at the space otter’s lack of curiosity, produced a holo-pad and slid it across her desk at him. She usually did this part at the end of the client meeting, not the beginning, and the arrangement disturbed her plans. “Fine,” said Mr. Stamper, looking at the pad. “What do I have to do?”

Penny had a whole speech prepared, but she decided it would be wasted on him. She came right to the point. “It’s the Orb that Should Not Be Named. My client recently lost two ships because of it. We want you to find it.” She couldn’t resist a rhetorical flourish. “It belongs in a museum, you know!”

“Of course it does,” said Mr. Stamper flatly. “I assume you have some data on it already?”

Penny gave him a folder this time, not just an antiseptic holo-pad. There were real papers in it, some dating back to before the Corps. Mr. Stamper was unimpressed by the weight of history in his paws. “Shall I deliver it here then?”

“Oh, er, yes. Do please.” Penny was taken aback at his jump from the folder straight past finding the Orb, to the question of what he should do once he had it. She had thought the matter of finding it might require more questions.

“Very well.” Having gotten the information he needed, he rose, bowed, and promptly left, leaving Penny Sybil still unsure whether he had accepted the job or not. She hated dealing with space otters.

 

The Shovel Heard ‘Round the World

Last time, in the Catrina Chronicles,  our heroine had just been shot at by Susan in the Library of Alexandria. Fortunately, the bullet missed. Unfortunately, it started a fire…

Catrina gazed in horror at the flames licking towards the invaluable scrolls. “We’ve got to stop this!” she exclaimed.

“Why?” said Susan, her eyes wild in the light of the fire. “It’s not a real library, is it? It’s only a made-up copy of the real library!”

“It’s real enough,” snapped Catrina, and started for the nearest water, a bubbling pool in the next chamber. What she planned to do with it she hadn’t worked out yet. Chain gang, swig and spit, make a cup with her hands and splash: so many possibilities. She never got the chance to pick one, however. Susan blocked her way, waving the pistol of Gavrilo Princip.

“This thing’s still got bullets in it,” she said dramatically. “And I will shoot you where you stand if you do anything about that fire.”

Catrina slowly raised her hands. “Very well,” she began, “I see your point. You do have your pistol.”  She paused, hoping her desperate plan would work, her eyes darting to the still open rift of the Swirling Vortex of Imaginary Time. A few seconds ticked by.

“Are you going to finish your thought, then, or…”

“Just a minute!”

More seconds.

“Any time now. I could just go ahead and shoot you. It would be easier.”

Finally, Catrina saw a glint of metal. She smiled her trademark half-smile that spread slowly over her face. “As I was saying, you have your World War One pistol. But I have Mlrning. The Shovel of Thor.”

The mighty Shovel flipped through the rift in time and smacked into Catrina’s palm. She raised the Shovel high. There was a bolt of white light, and suddenly a blast of snow and icy wind tore through the Library of Alexandria like a veritable snownado. In a trice the flames had been quenched. Only one scroll had been singed after all, and it was the minor fanfiction of a passing Roman centurion who had attempted to write himself into the Battle of Cannae, riding heroically upon an elephant he had seized from the Carthaginians. The rest of the Library had been saved for posterity after all. “Huzzah,” said Catrina. “That’s two horrible historical events averted, all before lunch.”

She had forgotten Susan. The stricken daughter of Lord Blackacre shrieked, and charged at Catrina, waving her pistol round her head in an apparent desire to bash Catrina’s brains in rather than fire at her. Catrina stepped back rapidly, not in fear, but more in an attempt to give herself room to swing the Shovel of Thor. Alas, she forgot to mind her surroundings. She took one step back too far: right into the rift of the Swirling Vortex of Imaginary Time. Susan, howling like a banshee, dove in after her.

Catrina’s face hit dirt. She was eyeball to eyeball with an ant. She had, apparently, landed smack in an open grassy field. The light was dim around her, but slowly growing brighter, and she guessed that the sun was only just beginning to rise. She heard noises around her, shouts and scurrying sounds, and she pushed herself up and had a look round. “Oh, dear,” said Catrina.

She was not alone in the field. On her right gathered a small company of ragged farmers, nervously holding rifles and staring past her. Catrina turned, and saw a larger company of men in red coats, their bayonets glistening in the dawn. Both sides looked ready to attack each other. One of the redcoat officers, on horseback, yelled loudly at the farmers, “Disperse, ye rebels, ye villains, disperse! Lay down your arms!”

One of the farmers, who had the look of an officer type, called back, just loud enough for Catrina to catch his words on the morning breeze. “Don’t fire unless fired upon…but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

“Actually,” ventured Catrina, “I’d really rather not have a war begin here, if it’s all the same to you. I’ve only just landed, you see, and-“

Susan picked a most inopportune moment to tumble through the time rift. She landed hard on the field, sprang up, and saw Catrina. In her fury, her finger tightened on the trigger of Gavrilo Princip’s pistol. It was more sensitive than she realized. The gun barked in her hand, and a single shot rang out across the Lexington green.

“Oh, lovely,” Catrina said, rolling her eyes. “Right, Susan, what did you start this time?”

Susan didn’t have a chance to answer. The redcoats on Catrina’s left had just opened fire. White smoke blasted from their guns, and bullets ripped into the militia on Catrina’s right. Then she saw the redcoats start forward, bayonets raised. “Hey!” Catrina yelled. “Stop that!”  She raised the Shovel of Thor and whirled it about her head, deciding that now would be a very good time to pull rank. “Drop your weapons right now! I am Catrina, Princess of Shmirmingard, and I command-“

In the smoke and confusion, the redcoats didn’t quite realize who she was. A number of them mistook her for a crazed provincial soldier waving his musket. They opened fire at her. Fortunately, they mostly missed. One musket-ball, however, zinged past Catrina’s cheek and left her a slicing cut. “Ow!” exclaimed Catrina, and her green eyes blazed. “Right, that’s it. You may have your musket things, but I have Mlrning! The Shovel of Thor!”

White bolts of ice and snow cracked across the Lexington green.

This has been another exciting episode of the Catrina Chronicles. For previous episodes, go here. For more of my writings, you can go to Amazon, or see descriptions of my stuff at Goodreads. And as always, thanks for reading.

 

Lost Ship

I’ve come to love the Silence.   

The words echoed scratchily on the bridge of the Rackham. No, really, I do, continued the dim ghost of the officer on the viewscreen. Yes, it’s an old rust-bucket that Earth Fleet should’ve scrapped eons ago. Yes, it barely makes warp factor two, it’s got one working bathroom, and our weapons systems are shot all to hell, but hey. It’s got character. Why, years from now, I’m going to look back and…. Ah, forget it. I hate this ship. It’s a lousy assignment, and I’m counting the days till I get enough service points to- 

The man vanished in static. “That,” pronounced the executive officer, “was the last entry in the personal log of Captain Roland Caine, E.F.S. Silence. It’s the only log recovered. The Silence had a crew of 109, with an additional passenger complement of 37. There were no survivors.”  His voice wavered just a bit. He had been on several recovery missions before. Someone had always made it.

The captain looked shaken. “Who was on that ship? Colonists?”

“Some,” the exec reported. “One in particular, though, that Earth Fleet wanted to know about. Lieutenant Woodman, formerly science officer on the Dove.  Apparently he’d made some big discovery and wanted to report it in, but he didn’t want to risk long-range transmission.”

“So he picked a safe little transport that no one would care enough to blow up,” finished the captain. “Except someone did.”

“Looks that way, sir.”

“Why?”

The exec hesitated. The bridge by now was crowded with senior and junior grade officers, and a scattering of ensigns, staring as the shattered bits of the Silence drifted by on the viewscreen. The captain got his point. “Mr. Merrick,” he snapped to his gawping tactical officer, “do a full scan, make absolutely sure there’s no life signs. Then start tractor beams and see what else you can recover. The rest of you, go on about your duties. Mr. Painter, my ready room.”

When the captain and his exec were alone, Mr. Painter took a breath. “Apologies, sir, but Earth Fleet said this was strictly classified stuff. Didn’t want the ensigns to hear. What Woodman said he found…”

“Don’t tell me. The Holy Grail.”

“No, sir,” Mr. Painter said. “Not quite that big. What he found was the Orb of the Whangdoodle. Or at least a clue as to its location.”

“You’re kidding,” said the captain. “The Orb of the what?”

“Whangdoodle, sir.”

“Who would name something…. Oh, never mind. I assume this is something very valuable that should under no circumstances fall into the wrong hands?”

“No, sir.”

The captain sighed. “Fine. We’d better report-”

The ship jolted violently beneath him. The lights dimmed, and alarms blared everywhere. The captain charged back onto the bridge. Mr. Merrick yelled something panicky at him, gesticulating wildly at the viewscreen. The captain didn’t have a chance to see what the trouble was. The Rackham disintegrated in a single bloom of light.

A Bit About Poetry

Every so often I try to alternate posts of fiction with nonfictional topics, as a way of providing some variety in the usual routine. I have ideas for more stories, a whole boatload of ideas: for one thing, with the help of a friend, my mutant space otter character in The Diamond Job finally has a name. He’ll have a story soon, too.

Sadly, however, the prompt I usually rely on in this week is written in the first person, and my space otter, Oswald Stamper, formerly of the Space Otter Corps, doesn’t strike me as a first-person character. This is probably because I am not much of a first-person writer. Third person omniscient works well with my preferred style of writing: it allows one to be so much more snarky. In any event, there it is. I could attempt to challenge myself and try a first-person story; if an idea strikes me between now and Thursday, I will bang it out and send it off to the newly moderated speakeasy grid.

In the meantime, I thought I would share an interesting coincidence. This past summer, I sat for the bar exam of my state. It’s a two-day affair which redefines the word stressful, even when there isn’t a rock concert practicing next door to the facility where you are taking the exam, and even when your essay-question software hasn’t glitched for three or four hours. On the second day, after it was all over, I went back to my hotel room and watched the series finale of Frasier. In that very well done episode, the titular character quoted a certain poem by Tennyson. I found it to be singularly appropriate.  Then, a week or two ago, while I was waiting for results (spoiler: I passed, I’m a lawyer, woot woot), I finally got around to watching the phenomenal James Bond movie Skyfall. In that movie, Judi Dench, playing the role of M, quoted the very same poem.

I don’t really believe in coincidences. In any event, here is the relevant excerpt from the poem. I hope you are as moved by it as I was.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

A Small Announcement

Truly we live in an age of wonders. For instance, Amazon now allows you to make e-books available for pre-order, before you actually release them. So. Since I’ve recently finished Hadley’s Story, I decided to do with that what I did with Volcano Rain and The Angel and the Kaiju, and release it as an e-book, slightly edited to account for misspellings and the occasional continuity error. (Side note: I don’t care what they say, kaboomed is too a word).  Even better, however, you will now be able to pre-order it before the live release. The Color of Danger will officially go live on Saturday, September 14th, but you can pre-order it at any time before then. As I understand it, if you pre-order you then get it straight to your Kindle or other device on Saturday without further trouble. Hooray for technology!

 

Disappearance

She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen the stars. Madeleine didn’t even know who they were anymore. She hadn’t seen a movie in ages, and she’d let her Netflix subscription lapse badly. Thus it fell to the police detective to explain to her who the apparent victim was. The detective was a little shocked. He had assumed everyone knew about Pamela Percy, who’d taken television by storm last season. “Don’t you remember?” he asked curiously. “That show. The one where-“

“Didn’t see it,” Madeleine said absently. “So. Fell from the cathedral, huh?”

“Fell, jumped, pushed…” the detective listed. “We’re not sure yet. Thing is, she didn’t land. Just stepped out the window and vanished in mid-air. Flash of green light, she’s gone. Figured this was your department.”

“Figured right.”  She paused, looking up at the cathedral. “Where was she when…”

The detective pointed to a window. Madeline could’ve flown straight up, but she didn’t want the attention just yet. So she took the stairs inside.  Madeleine pushed her way past the yellow crime scene tape and examined the room. There weren’t much signs of distress. No note, no marks of struggle on the floor or walls, no scorches from errant laser beams. Pamela Percy had, it seemed, gone straight to the window, stepped out into air, and teleported clean away. For all Madeleine knew, the television actress was in another dimension by now. This assumed that she had in fact materialized elsewhere.  She might have been reduced to a random squiggle of matter drifting through space.

Madeleine couldn’t teleport herself. Her powers were more of the flying brick variety, with a bit of flame thrown in. Fortunately, she knew people who knew people. She was on the phone to one of them within five minutes. “Audrey,” she said. “You know teleporting. I think I’ve got someone who just vanished right out of a cathedral here. I need help figuring where they’ve gone.”

Audrey wasn’t just a teleporter; she was also a ‘pather. She didn’t even use spoken word unless absolutely necessary. Her reply was, therefore, brief. “Where are you?” she rasped.

Madeline gave her address. Without warning, not even so much as a bamf sound effect, Audrey was standing next to her. Madeleine jumped involuntarily. “Would you mind not doing that?”

Sorry. Audrey’s voice echoed in Madeleine’s head. The teleporter looked over the room, then outside. Curious. No inter-dimensional residue. No transport energy signatures. Your Pamela Percy, whoever she was, did not teleport, not in the standard way. She just ceased to exist. 

“Not good enough,” Madeline said. “People don’t just blip out.”  Then she paused. “What do you mean, whoever she was? I didn’t know her, but the detective said she was on that show. The one where-“

Never heard of her. Are you certain the detective identified her correctly? 

Madeline froze. She grabbed for her smartphone and did a bit of swift Internet searching. There was no record that anyone named Pamela Percy had so much as auditioned for a car insurance commercial, let alone starred in a major show. “Oh, crap,” Madeline said. “This is a time thing. I hate time things.”