Beauty in the Breakdown

Leave, 1978

“Where’s Zack?” Krmi asked, a migraine already forming at the corners of his eyes.

The blonde private looked sideways. “He, ah… took French leave, sir.”

“Oh, Christ, again? There aren’t any whores for fifty miles.”

“With, um, with all due respect, sir, I don’t think it’s about whores.” Krmi wished the kid would stop wincing every time he talked.

“It’s always whores with Zack. Every time he comes back and brags about it all night,” the general grumbled.

The private shook his head. “He just says that, sir. He needed help carrying somebody once.”

“Carrying somebody?” Krmi echoed.

“Yessir. Well, not just anybody can requisition a bloodstone, sir, not even just a healing one. So he takes his down to the villages and helps clean up.”

“And why didn’t he tell me this, Private– What’s your name?”

“Private Cillian O'Niall, sir. And probably because he thought you’d put a stop to it, sir.”

Krmi shook his head. “Knock off with the ‘sir’s. Where is he now?”

No one stopped the general as he left the camp, but he got enough strange looks and confused questions that he had to wonder how Zack managed to do it. Then again, Zack was casual in a way Krmi had never quite understood, a way that seemed to put people at ease that, whatever Zack was doing, it was the right thing. Sometimes he envied that.

There was only one energy signal at work in the smoking remains of the village, so it didn’t take Krmi long to find him.

“Some impressive ladies you’ve got here, lieutenant.” Krmi said from the doorway. Zack jumped and spun around, almost tripping over himself.

“Sir, yes sir,” he answered, quickly covering his surprise with a disarming grin. “You here to stop me? Court-martial me?”

“Do you think I am?” the general asked.

Zack shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re a pretty straight-laced guy.”

“I’d also like to think I’m a decent one.” Krmi fished one of his own bloodstones out of his pocket. “Mind if I help?”

“Of course not, sir!” Now Zack’s grin was genuine.

Beauty in the Breakdown, 1979

0

Krmi looked around at the remains of the village. This wasn’t what the army had brought him here to do– was it? Surely they wanted a quick war. A clean one. Not blackened earth and only hints of where homes and bodies had been.

Sitting down on the hard ground, Krmi closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to make the images go away. Every inch of this was his own fault, he couldn’t blame his superiors or his father. He was the one who had lost control. He was the one who had burned –

The images his imagination (memory) conjured were worse than the ones that actually stood before him. He opened his eyes again.

Zack stood in front of him, his uniform torn and burned skin visible. Zack was the one who had gotten through to him, and the burns were a sign of how hard it had been. Krmi looked up at him, not sure what to say.

“Orders, sir. Time to move out,” was all Zack said, his voice crisp.

Krmi looked up at him. His eyes were empty, but his body stood mechanically and followed.

1

Cillian had seen the general lose control before. He’d seen the man rage and watched as the objects of his wrath burst into flame as often as they were cut to ribbons by his sword. Usually he gritted his teeth and followed behind, the good little soldier, because that was his job. This was different, though.

This time Krmi’s rage was directly squarely at his fellow soldiers.

“Why?” he screamed at them. Some of the soldiers were firing on him, out of fear or bravado, hoping they might be able to do some damage to the almost-legendary leader. When they were told he was a demigod, most of them hadn’t believed it. Not even when they saw him on the field. Some part of them held back from the knowledge, afraid of it.

Cillian was different. His parents were of sensible Irish stock, and sensible Irish stock meant that you learned about the Fair Folk and the Kindly Ones in the same manner you learned not to go with strange dark men or take anything a hippie gave you. They also told a few stories about the fae blood that ran in their own blood and therefore in Cillian’s – the nixie on his father’s side, the elf on his mother’s. The effects were largely indistinguishable to Cillian from a young age, but the overall outcome meant that, when he’d been briefed along with the rest of his unit about the nature of the man who would be leading them, he understood instinctively what it meant.

Always speak plainly. Never get in his way. And never, ever lie to him.

The men who’d burned the village while he was away hadn’t had sense enough to come clean, to tell him the truth – that they’d panicked in a moment of weakness. They killed not out of necessity but of fear. Krmi might have understood that, had they confessed. But no, they’d lied, and Krmi had known right away.

Cillian wondered if it was some gift Krmi carried, the way it was said the Fair Folk knew a silver tongue from an iron one. In truth, Krmi had already been in contact with the village, had been negotiating help from them, had in fact been away procuring some supplies they needed when the misunderstanding happened.

A young man, full of bravado, had stumbled upon the soldiers making camp half a mile away. Spotting them, he’d panicked and run home. Some of the soldiers, mistaking his panic for a flight to give alarm to the enemy, gave chase and finally shot him down, on the edge of the village and in full view of the boy’s parents and the leaders.

Of course they thought they were under attack. Of course they turned to defend themselves. And of course the soldiers, feeling that they were the ones under attack, returned the fear with fear, and opened fire.

The survivors of the village, protected by small magics and luck, had spit on Krmi when he returned. The general’s honor was everything to him.

He went to talk to his men, to find out what happened, but anger burned in him even then. Cillian had seen it on him when he walked into their camp. He’d pointed it out to Zack, who didn’t believe in any gods at all, but listened to Cillian because he’d seen that the boy was usually right. The two of them waited to see what would happen.

A massacre was what happened. Blood for blood. And as he watched, Cillian couldn’t say that he thought it was unfair. He hadn’t run with the men – he’d stayed with the radio, as was his duty – but if Krmi moved to kill him as well, he wasn’t sure he’d bother to stop him. He was tired, very tired, of being here in this jungle, far from home.

It was usually Zack who stepped out and stopped things when they got out of control, but Zack wasn’t doing it today. “Can’t say the bastards don’t deserve it,” Zack muttered to Cillian. He’d told them to stop. They’d ignored his orders as they rushed after the boy.

The only one who could, who would do it, was Cillian.

He took a deep breath, and tried to summon up everything his mother had ever taught him. He held tightly onto the charm for the strongest protection shield he had on him, closed his eyes, and stepped between the general, with his fire, and the other soldiers, with their guns shouting quickly.

The men hesitated, not sure if they should hit Cillian or not, but his attention was focused squarely on Krmi. The general seemed not to see the radio operator at all, instead looking far beyond him – not even at the other men, or the forest behind them, but somewhere far, far away. The fire that burned around him was in his eyes, and Cillian thought he could get lost in there.

Fair One, indeed.

Cillian walked toward the general, speaking smoothly to him. “Please stop. We all know you’re powerful enough to destroy us all, you don’t need to prove it. You don’t need to hurt anyone else. It can end now, please, let it end now, you’ve hurt enough…”

Krmi shook his head, seeming to clear it, and the fire began to dim.

One of the soldiers behind Cillian took a shot, and it managed to hit the now-calming general. The fire immediately flared back up. Cillian winced. He could feel the heat through the shield and knew he would be burned. Sticks and debris blew past Cillian, and something tore at his face with enough force to open a cut on his cheek. If he lost his concentration he would be a cinder; he was lucky he wasn’t already. The shield charms were not designed for this sort of abuse. They were a manipulation of luck, not a wall between the user and the bullet. Behind him, he heard new shouts and shooting, but the shots were not going past him, weren’t aimed at him or Krmi. He wished he dared turned around, but he didn’t.

“Sir!” No response.

“Krmi! Please! You’re bleeding!”

This seemed to get the general’s attention, and he began to calm again. Cillian waited to see if any of them men behind him would be stupid enough to try anything again, but there was silence aside from the crackling of the small fires the general had began in the underbrush around them.

“Let me tend to that wound. Please,” Cillian said, trying not to beg. Begging tended to offend. Offering a favor, now, that was always a safe bet. “You need to be tended to. I can help.”
The general nodded, the fires went out, and when he opened them, his eyes looked human again. Cillian let the shield drop and moved forward.

Krmi wavered on his feet and started to pass out. Cillian caught him, but the taller man was too much for him to handle alone. He could feel something dripping down his face, hot and stinging in his eyes, the cut on his cheek and then his mouth. The general’s blood – the man was so tall that the wound in his shoulder was resting on Cillian’s head.

“Let me help with that,” Zack said, coming up behind them. His added strength was more than enough to maneuver Krmi to a clear spot on the ground where Cillian was able to look at the wound. He would have preferred to hand the job over to a medic, but there was no medic currently stationed with the unit – they weren’t supposed to be fighting, for one thing, and virtually everyone on the team had been given some sort of special charm or serum to keep him safe. They were a test unit, after all, and not just a test of the general’s leadership and tactical skills.

The edges of the wound were cauterized or, when Cillian looked closer at them, already healing up. “I’d better get the bullet out of there before he heals around it,” he said to himself as much as to Zack. “Do you have a knife?”

The soldier pulled out a bowie knife and handed it to Cillian. It wasn’t exactly tweezers, but it would do. He dug in as carefully as he could, trying not to hurt the general. He wasn’t even sure if the man was awake or unconscious.

After several agonizing minutes of feeling around and almost getting it, Cillian finally got the leverage to pull the bullet free. It came out with a quick rush of blood, but that stopped just as quickly as the wound originally had and withing minutes Cillian was sure the general was well on his way to healing.

He reached for the bullet, intending to hand it to Zack, who pulled back from it. “Careful. We’re not supposed to touch his blood.”

“We’re not?” Cillian asked, thinking too fast. Had he missed that?

“It wasn’t stated outright in the general orders, but I got special instructions. Nobody was expecting anything to actually cause him to bleed, I think, and you can see how fast he stops.” The younger soldier was busy bandaging the general’s wound as Zack spoke.

Cillian thought about the general’s blood burning on his face and resisted the urge to squeak.
“But–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Zack said, looking at Cillian’s hands. “There’s hardly anything on there. I’m sure you’re fine.”

“That’s not- He was bleeding when I caught him.” Cillian pointed to the blood on his face.

Zack blinked at him. “I thought that was yours.”

“Some- some of it is,” Cillian stammered.

“That’s… slightly complicated,” Zack acknowledged. “I still wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, soldier. I’m sure it’s nothing. That’s hardly any exposure at all.”

“He bled in my open wound,” the younger man pointed out.

“Do you want me to turn you over to the government men as a shiny new science project?” Zack asked pointedly.

“No.”

“Then I’m sure it’s nothing. If it turns out to be something other than nothing, we’ll worry about it then.”

Cillian nodded, numb.

“Now go wash up, and we won’t mention it to anyone.”

“What about the rest of the–” Cillian looked behind him.

“They attacked the general when he was vulnerable. That’s mutiny, and it’s a death sentence.” Zack’s voice was quiet.

Cillian shook his head. “Everyone?”

“Well, there’s you, me, and General Krmi here.”

“That’s… not saying much.”

“We’re not the ones who’ll have to explain it. That’s Krmi’s job. Thank god for the chain of command. Go clean yourself up before Krmi wakes up.”

Cillian started toward the stream they’d seen earlier, too many thoughts spinning around his head. After a minute he realized that the outside of his head was spinning too. The dizziness got worse, and then he passed out. Dimly, as he fell to the ground, he heard Zack swearing behind him.

2

Zack sighed heavily and looked around the clearing. He was the only person awake and one of the very few left alive. Krmi was catatonic, Cillian was unconscious, and the rest of the unit was dead.

This was not what Zack had had in mind for the day. Still, he had to do something about it. After checking that Krmi and Cillian were stable and not laying on any obviously painful landscape features, he turned his attention to the dead.

They may have gone a little crazy there at the end, but he didn’t think they really deserved to be left here. There wasn’t much to be done for it, though. They were far from any of the larger bases, and even if they’d been within dragging distance, it wasn’t as if the other two survivors were in any position to help.

He waited a few hours in the silence, to see if Krmi would wake up and give him orders. When that didn’t happen, he turned to Cillian’s radio. He wasn’t as well-trained on it as Cillian was, but he could manage the basics.

“Come in, Camp Cobra. This is Major Zachary Allen of Special Unit Starfall. I need to report a… situation.”

“What is your status, Major Allen?” came the response.

“I’m dealing with a bit of a snafu here, to be honest. I need a retrieval team working under specialty conditions specified for the team, and I need someone to get me General Qiulong’s liaison.”

“What happened?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not authorized to disclose that to you.”

“But I’m-”

“Just get me the liaison.”

“Yes, major.”

Another forty minutes passed. Zack could have sworn the clearing was getting quieter, if that was even possible. He could hear Krmi breathing, and Cillian, and even the forest. He started thinking he could hear the dead breathe too.

“Major Allen? This is Lieutenant Weiss.” the radio finally crackled.

“Oh, thank god,” he muttered, then took up the receiver. “Major Allen reporting, sir. We have a situation out here.”

“Where’s the general?”

“On the ground, staring into space, sir.”

“Can you bring him in?”

“I could probably drag him most of the way, but it won’t be very dignified and I’d hate to leave the other survivor behind.”

“The other- Major, what happened?” Zack summed it up for him, leaving out the details about Cillian’s exposure – if he needed treatment, then he needed it, but he wasn’t going to hand the kid over if he could help it.

“That’s… that’s certainly a situation,” the lieutenant admitted. “I’ll have a team out there shortly to retrieve the general and the others for study.”

“Thank you, lieutenant,” Zack said, and the radio went quiet again.

He sighed and walked back over to Krmi and Cillian, mechanically checking their vitals. He hoped the team from base would hurry – much longer and the dead would start talking.

Zack hated the military. Why did he have to be so damn good at it?

When the lieutenant arrived with the retrieval team, Zack was all too ready to clear out.

“Major Allen,” the lieutenant said as the last of the bodies were loaded on the helicopter.

“Yeah?” Zack asked.

“You’ll be coming with me and the general. You and the little guy both. This debriefing is not going to be painless, I’ll warn you now.”

Zack shrugged. “Can’t say as I care much right now.”

“How many did you take down?”

“Two. The rest, Krmi- General Qiulong took care of before I could get through to him.”

“You followed your orders. Of course, you seem like the kind of man who isn’t much comforted by that.”

“I’m not,” Zack admitted.

Lieutenant Weiss shook his head. “I’m not an expert, but I’d guess, judging from the general’s state, that you saved his life.”

Zack sighed. “Well, that’s something.”

“He’s worth it to us.”

The major scratched his head and then looked at Krmi and Cillian being loaded onto a different helicopter. “He’s worth it to me, too.”

Paint You in Silver

Celia had been trained, and trained well. She wasn't a stranger to violence. Sure, she hadn't been to war like Keiji had, but she'd fought for her country and for Eden. She knew plenty of people who felt more comfortable with a gun at hand. Hell, she was one of them even now, almost ten years after she'd retired.

And yet watching Keiji was something different. He'd come back from the war different than she remembered him from his childhood - quieter, calmer. He never lost his temper after that, not even in situations where she lost hers. Not even in situations where it was warranted, in her opinion.

Keiji brushed it off as having faith in her skills, and she let it go, but she didn't like it.

The first time she saw him practicing was after they moved in together. She'd come home later than usual, just past sunrise, and he'd apparently frozen at the sound of the key in the lock. She found him standing in a poor imitation of a casual pose, holding his father's sword and wearing just an undershirt and loose trousers. Sensing that she'd walked in on something private, she'd very pointedly turned away as she hurried to her bedroom.

Even after they started hooking up occasionally, he didn't explain it or invite her to watch. There was definitely a point where he got used to her, though - she could walk through the living room in the early morning without him freezing in place. Occasionally she even stood in the doorway and watched him, though if he noticed her there, he never acknowledged it.

It was disconcerting how natural the sword looked in his hand as he practiced, and polished it after before putting it away.

She eventually realized he had to be doing it every morning. It was almost hypnotic watching him and she found herself drawn to it. She began rising just as early, haunting the kitchen, hovering around the edges of the apartment. She wondering which of them would say something first, and resolved that it would not be her.

Keiji still said nothing, just practiced, going through forms he'd known for thirty years. The sword looked like an extension of his body as he moved, and the began to think he looked more awkward without it.

After she started dating, she was there less in the mornings. If Keiji was relieved, or disappointed, he didn't say so. She liked to think about him, though, moving like steady clockwork, polished and ready.

She hoped someday she knew what he was ready for.

A Sort of Reunion

1

Keiji arrived home from work just as his girlfriend, Celia, was dressing to go out. They greeted each other with a quick, shallow kiss and she turned immediately back to the mirror.

“Does he have a show tonight?” Keiji asked as he slouched onto the couch. He is the boy Celia is seeing on the side, they keyboard player in a mediocre new wave band. When she’d come to Keiji to break up with him, they had discovered that neither of them was really interested in moving out of their shared apartment or even in changing their casual, half-hearted relationship.

She told him yes, she was, and would he be home? It was just more inertia. Keiji was getting tired of the way everything in his life seemed to be running itself. She expected him to say that yes, he would be home reading.

“I’m going out tonight, too,” he told her, surprising himself.

“Anything exciting?” she asked as if the sheer fact he was going out was not the most excitement he’d had in months. If she thought this plan was odd, she didn’t show it.

“Just coffee with someone I met in the shop,” he said, and Celia nodded as a car honked outside.

“Well, I’m off. Have fun,” she kissed him again and disappeared out the door.

He wasn’t meeting Tiffany for another two hours, so he puttered around the apartment, nervously cleaning it. Keiji hadn’t owned much since he was taken into the army, ten years ago and change now, long before he was technically old enough to enlist. They hadn’t cared and his father hadn’t stopped them and he hadn’t known better. Now that he was standing still, he was begining to accumulate things. He wondered if they were there to prove to himself that he did exist after all.

Cleaning was not a matter so much of putting things away as it was making the chaos of the apartment look more managed. Fallen piles of books — and these were the things Keiji brought home most, that he surrounded himself with — we re-stacked arranged by size. There were books on most of the flat surfaces of the apartment, including the floor, and even some of the tilted ones. The rest of the space was filled with the small boxes and wooden figures he bought when he went to retreats on the Indian reservations, and Celia’s collection of records and cassettes, which was almost as overwhelming as his books.

When he stopped at the sound of a knock on the door, he couldn’t really tell the difference, but the dishes were in the sink instead of on the table. He hoped it looked good enough.

Tiffany was smiling when he opened the door. “Would you like to come in for a minute?” he asked, but she was already inside and looking around.

“You read a lot.”

It wasn’t a question, but Keiji answered yes anyway, hoping it would make him sound less awkward than he felt. She ran her hand along the spines as she browsed and Keiji shivered, feeling that the gesture was strangely intimate.

“There isn’t much I do for fun,” he said after a minute, trying to fill the silence.

She reached out suddenly and grabbed his wrist with a grip like a snake. He tried halfheartedly to pull away, but she held firm, turning his hand so she could study his palm.

“You haven’t been working in that bookstore all your life.”

“Not many people do.”

“Your hands are calloused.”

“Should I call the Avon lady?”

She dropped his hand in frustration. “You’re infuriating all of a sudden. You were so nice in the store.”

“I was wearing my customer face. This is LA after all, every job in this town is acting. Acting in a movie, acting in a commercial, acting like you belong, acting like you want to be there.” He sat on the couch, frowning, not quite sure why he felt the need to be so rude toward this young woman. “This, however, is my apartment, and not LA, and I will not act here for anyone’s benefit.”

“Even your own?” He honestly felt threatened by her. How strange.

“I don’t need to get laid that badly.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” she cried. Krmi watched her take a few deep breaths and collect her thoughts. “Look, I’ll be honest. I’m not quite sure why I’m here. I felt… I’m not sure how to describe it. A tug. To this city. To the bookstore. To you.”

“This sounds like a bunch of new-age claptrap,” Keijier said, then stopped and shook himself. He was parroting his father. That was the last thing he needed right now.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, banishing the spectre of his father. “I shouldn’t have– but tell me more about why you’re here.” He patted the couch, but she hesitated.

“We should go out,” she said, moving back toward the door. He stood and followed her. They said nothing on the elevator.

“Which way?” Tiffany asked hesitantly as they exited the building. Keiji took her arm and led her to his favorite local restaurant.

“You don’t look like a ‘Tiffany,’” he said as he held the door for her.

“It’s not my birth name,” she said with a smile. “My parents are a bit old to have been hippies, but the have the general aesthetic.”

“What is it?” Keiji asked, wondering why such a simple question made him so nervous. He took her hands across the table.

She looked almost apologetic. “It’s all mystical and Hebrew, nothing as funny as Moon Unit or Dweezil.”

“Tiphareth?” he asked quietly, even as he was trying to tell himself that this made no sense. What were the odds? It was statistically impossible.

Or at least improbably. “Yeah! How did you guess?”

“Why are you here? Honestly.” His grip tightened.

“Because I felt pulled, I told you. How did you know my name?” She was silent for a long minute. “You’re hurting me.”

“My little sister was named Tiphareth,” Keiji said after a minute, forcing his hands to relax so that her small fingers could escape them. “I last saw her when I was seven years old and she was five. A couple of my mother’s friends, adults I adored and looked up to, took her to keep her safe. They left me to be taken back.”

“Taken back where?” she asked, very quietly. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“Back to my father. To the lab.”

“What? Lab?”

“My father… our father is a scientist. He works for the government.”

“And he… experimented on you?” Tiffany shook her head. It sounded like cheesy movies to her. Keiji nodded.

“Can I meet him?” she asked tentatively.

“You want to?”

“Of course. I mean… I guess he’s my dad? I don’t remember anybody before Mom and Pop.”

“William and Iris.”

She nodded slowly. “You could be making it all up, I know that. But you wouldn’t know enough about me to make this up. I need to follow this through. If that means meeting some guy who’s really my father, then I’ll do that.”

“Civilians have no survival instinct,” Keiji said, shaking his head. “But if that’s what you want, I’ll call off work and drive you up.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling warmly. “It must be weird, to do all this for someone you just met.”

“Just met?” he smiled back. “I’ve known you since you were born.”

3

“So I’m just… a failed experiment?” Tiffany asked.

“Oh, lord, no,” I insisted. “You’re my daughter first and foremost, and I never stopped looking for you for that reason. I see you’ve grown up just fine without the rest of the treatments.”

“Treatments?” she echoed.

“Well, your brother, and the others since… they’ve all gotten shots since birth or shortly after and continued into puberty. You never full developed, I suppose, but that doesn’t make you a failure.”

“I’m a caterpillar,” she announced, now sounding less upset and more depressed.

“That’s one way to put it, yes,” I frowned. It was a terrible shame that she hadn’t– and then it occurred to me just how dissapointed she sounded. “Even if we tried, there’s no guarantee you’d develop now.”

Krmi, clever boy that he is, saw what I was doing. “Stop that, Father.” But it was too late. The idea was planted in Tiffany… no, Tiphareth’s mind now.

“Could you try? Really?” There was so much hope in her voice. I’d read her perfectly. She had much in common with Salome, including that starry-eyed fascination with power.

“I could try, but it might be dangerous and I don’t want you to be hurt,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t dissuade her now.

“Hurt me?” She laughed. “I’ve nearly died from asthma attacks while my brother shrugs off being shot! I’m not going to pass up something that might cure me.”

“Then let us begin,” I smiled. Krmi looked upset, but said nothing. Tiphareth stood, smiling, and followed me to the lab.

Watch the World Burn, 1995

It felt good to conjure fire.

Celia had been fighting off the men in black with whatever she could lay her hands on, since neither of her guns was in the apartment. One of the men already had a bloody hole in his cheek about the size of one of Celia’s spike heels, and another was going to have two black eyes in the morning. But the guy with the bloody cheek had his gun out now, as did the two by the door.

They weren’t really pointing them at anything, though, because they were busy staring at Keiji.

“He’s on fire. Now what?” one of the agents asked.

Between bad medicine and worse news, Keiji was ready to appreciate anything that made him feel a little better. The pressure in his head was lifting now, as if the energy of the magic had been pooling in his skull.

“Now I’m going to ask you again to please leave,” Keiji said quietly. The agent closest to the door looked like he wanted to cut and run, but the others held their guns and their ground.

“That’s illegal use of the stones,” the leader said, stepping further into the apartment. “Now we’ve got grounds to make you come with us.”

Keiji smiled. “Would be if I was using a stone.”

Now the guy by the door did disappear into the hallway, and the one with the bloody cheek looked ready to follow him. The one with the black eyes just pulled the trigger.

Keiji barely felt the bullet. He lashed out, flames jumping across the room at both of the remaining agents. He couldn’t feel anything at all as the flames flushed across his own skin, but he understood the screaming of the first two agents as they ran. The leader was forced back, though he tried to keep his face impassive. The one who had shot him went down screaming. His clothes were on fire, but so was the couch and one of Keiji’s bookshelves.

“Keiji!” Celia was right in front of him, screaming. “Stop it! Snap out of it!” While she shouted, the leader tried to get to his fallen agent. Finding it impossible as the flames jumped up, he left as well.

Unable to get through to him, Celia grabbed the tiny fire extinguisher next to the stove and opened up on Keiji, the couch, and the now-unconscious agent on the floor. She managed to make good progress on all three of them but the extinguisher ran out of foam long before the fire was all gone.

Keiji’s arms dropped and the flames went out, though the ones spreading through the apartment did not. He looked around in confusion, the adrenaline rush and the sudden strength gone, as the fire spread across the curtains.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Celia wanted to know. She was trying to drag him to the door, but Keiji was having a hard time putting one foot in front of the other. His brain had fogged up again, and he felt like he was forgetting something.

He settled for grabbing the unconscious agent off the floor and throwing him over his shoulder.

“You are going to replace every damn one of my records,” Celia grumbled as she followed him out of the burning building.