"And putting Cthulhu back to sleep," said Fitz.
Kyra gave him a sharp look. "What"s that all about?" she said.
The iguana leapt from the Doctor"s shoulder, landing on an overstuffed chair.
It whipped its tail back and forth, angrily.
The Doctor"s body snapped into a rigid line, his arms thrown up in front of his face as though to ward off some unbearably bright light. Sam leapt out of her seat, but Fitz snapped, "Don"t touch him!"
"Wayzgoose," said the Doctor, with absolute clarity. His hands clenched into fists, and he bent double, as though something was tugging irresistibly at the lines of his body.
At last he fell, taut limbs going loose. Sam was in time to catch him.
Kyra was putting a towel on the end of the bed when the Doctor woke up. "This city really really hates me," he said. hates me," he said.
"h.e.l.lo," said Kyra. The room was dark. It sounded like the kids were settling down, out in the living room.
"Oh, my head." The Doctor struggled to sit up.
"Careful," said Kyra. "Your aura is still faint."
121.
"That hasn"t happened before," said the Doctor. "It was the biodata strands the leys but something else, something far more intense. . . " He pressed his hands against his eyes.
"You said I had the ability to interact with the leys," said Kyra. "Obviously I"m not the only one."
The Doctor was shaking his head. "It wasn"t Griffin. Not this time."
He looked up, caught her staring. "What is it?"
"Your aura," she told him. "I"ve never seen anything like it."
She knelt down beside the bed, taking his hand. His skin was very soft, very smooth, as though it was immune to the wear and tear of life. She stared into the lines of his palm in fascination.
"You"re the missing piece of this puzzle. You"re not just a scientist. You"re not just watching the city change, watching the strangeness. You"re part of it.
You"re important."
"That was why you helped Griffin," said the Doctor. Kyra looked up at him, nodding. "Because he had a connection to what"s happening."
"I"ve been here for most of my life," said Kyra. "It"s my town. I"ve taken sandwiches to starving people in the park and I"ve chanted to raise energy against earthquakes. I remember what happened at midnight on New Year"s Eve two years ago, even if most people don"t. Whatever"s happening to San Francisco, I have to be part of it."
"I understand," said the Doctor.
"When you go to confront him," said Kyra, "I"ll go with you."
"It could be very dangerous," said the Doctor quietly. "My companions and I count for something in Griffin"s eyes. He"ll treat us with care. He won"t see you in the same way."
She got to her feet. "The city should have a voice. I"ll be there."
"Time for you to get some shuteye," Kyra told Sam.
"Nah," said Sam. "The jet lag"s working in my favour now."
"Well, there"s no point in staying up. He"s not going anywhere."
"Don"t say say that," said Sam. She glanced towards the guest bedroom, where the Doctor was sleeping they hoped it was sleep among the crammed bookshelves. They"d had to take Kyra"s bicycle off the bed, neatly laid out on the blanket, before they could tuck him in. that," said Sam. She glanced towards the guest bedroom, where the Doctor was sleeping they hoped it was sleep among the crammed bookshelves. They"d had to take Kyra"s bicycle off the bed, neatly laid out on the blanket, before they could tuck him in.
"The best way you can help him is by keeping yourself in good shape," insisted Kyra. She was rummaging through her linen closet. She pulled out a battered 122 old pillow, and a chewed quilt. "Hand-made by my friend, Monster. When she went all domestic," she said, smiling.
Fitz had already snagged the sofa, stretched out under a throw-rug patterned with funky designs in light blue and green VW symbols, apples, smileys. He looked dead to the world.
She curled up on the floor below him, not quite having the energy to reach up and turn out the light yet.
Now there was nothing but the clock ticking, and the endless faint whirr of the refrigerator, and the slowly growing sound of hooves.
Oh, not again again.
She lay like a lump as the sound drowned her out. She wasn"t moving no chance not even all the forces of time and s.p.a.ce could get her out of this time it had barely felt like a blink.
That was it. Keep your balance, stay low. She couldn"t stop it affecting her, but she didn"t have to be dragged along with it.
In the dark at the other end of the house, she could just hear the Doctor shuffling back to work at his maps. Picking up as though that last attack had never happened.
Maybe it hadn"t. If the Wild Hunt did this to her her biodata, and his was woven through the whole of everything round here, who knew what it was doing to biodata, and his was woven through the whole of everything round here, who knew what it was doing to him him when they weren"t looking? when they weren"t looking?
But how could you tell? If the present moment was the only thing that stayed fixed when the Hunt pa.s.sed through, then if he was telling the truth he had hundreds and hundreds of years" worth of life that could shift around.
She rolled over, her elbows poking the floor. Maybe it was like cracking a whip. The present held more or less where it was, but the other end the distant past lashed all over the place.
But that would mean the earliest bits of his life would change the most.
Which would mean maybe his parents could be different, and that was a load of b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, wasn"t it?
Had her parents changed when she changed? Had their parents changed when she changed? What about her great-grandparents (she couldn"t remember their names)? Maybe they were different people from the ones whose names she couldn"t remember before.
Maybe this went on all the time.
Maybe the whole universe revolved around the present moment, and everything outside that, past and future, was up for grabs.
Maybe she should get some sleep.
123.
She reached up to turn out the light, and saw that Fitz was awake, staring into s.p.a.ce and chewing on a pen. He was holding it between his first two fingers.
"Want a light?" she asked.
The pen hastily exited his mouth. "Ha," he said. "Nah. Just thinking."
"Yeah." She settled her chin on the armrest, a few inches from his face, and looked past him into the middle distance. "He"s got the cure, you know."
"For what?"
"Smoking," said Sam. "He said he"s got something in his medical kit."
"Yeah, I know," said Fitz. "But would you really want the mad professor mess-ing with your biology? On second thoughts," he added slyly, "don"t answer that."
Sam stuck out her tongue at him. He lay back on the sofa, folding his arms behind his head. She didn"t really feel like turning out the light just yet, so she sat there and let her mind wander through half-formed ideas.
"It"s all rubbish," he said, suddenly. Her eyes focused on his face. "What she said. Being a real rebel, being a hero who makes a difference like it was something you should want want to do. But I"ve been through it, I"ve seen it." to do. But I"ve been through it, I"ve seen it."
"I thought so," she murmured.
She let the conversation hang there. He hunched over on the sofa a little, drawing inward, trying to disappear under the throw-rug.
He scowled. "Go on. Ask. You know you want to."
"You don"t want to talk about it."
"Oh, but surely that"s your cue to start picking at it. Probing my inner pain."
He snorted. "Prying at me. Just like always."
"Like always," she repeated.
"Well," he said. " She She would." would."
Eventually he gave a wry smile and filled in the silence. "And I was all braced for it, too. Having to tell her more stories from my sordid past."
"Bet you had the speech all worked out."
"Oh, I"d have left a lot of it out, talking to her. I wouldn"t have to remind her that the last time I was in Kyra"s years of peace "n" love, I spent eight months in China as a nicely brainwashed little Red Guard."
"Christ." She was no history student, but she knew enough to know that was bad. "You mean the little red book, and everything?" He nodded, lip curling.
"So, um. . . do I really want to know what you did?"
He hesitated, then gave an embarra.s.sed smile. "Banged a tambourine and sang songs in praise of Chairman Mao, mostly."
124.
She just stared at him, trying to picture this. "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. You were were brainwashed." brainwashed."
"They were students, mostly," he said, with a half-hearted shrug and a stare at the wall. "Students who got taken seriously. Organisers of spontaneous demonstrations. Burners of books. Providers of peer pressure to all and sundry in the name of Mao."
"Not death squads, then. . . "
"Nah, not our department." Sam wasn"t quite sure if he was joking. "You don"t want to kill the enemies of the people: you want to change them. Reshape them so they fit in with the way the world"s supposed to be. You only really win if they agree you"re right." No matter how much cynicism he heaped on the words, it was still a bit scary how easily they rolled off his tongue.
"But you"re back with the Doctor. You got out before it was too late, right?"
"Yeah, yeah. I turned away from the path of darkness, and I"m a better person for it. Sure." He unscrunched, finally meeting her eyes, facing her head-on. "But in the weeks weeks since I saw the error of my ways, I"ve already almost managed to get an entire species wiped out, all by myself. Just "cause I thought I was doing the since I saw the error of my ways, I"ve already almost managed to get an entire species wiped out, all by myself. Just "cause I thought I was doing the heroic heroic thing." thing."
He gave a small, shaky laugh. "So you can see why I think I"d better not get involved for a while."
Christ, this was real. This wasn"t imagine imagine if I was brainwashed, if I was brainwashed, imagine imagine if I nearly got a whole species killed. What was she supposed to say? if I nearly got a whole species killed. What was she supposed to say?
He was pretending to be cool about it. That was like a layer, over the bit-terness. He added another layer with a wry smile, another layer with a little shrug. "Pah. Danger to myself and others, that"s what I am."
She reached out and squeezed his hand through the throw-rug.
Somewhere behind them, the Doctor"s chair sc.r.a.ped. They heard him pace, stop, talk a bit of gibberish, probably to the iguana.
"It"s all his fault," Fitz said suddenly. "All the impossible heroic bulls.h.i.t, he does does it. So you try to do it. You try to be a hero, and it blows up right in your face, because you"re not him." He gave a tired smile. "I try to be Frodo, and the best I can manage is well, Sam." it. So you try to do it. You try to be a hero, and it blows up right in your face, because you"re not him." He gave a tired smile. "I try to be Frodo, and the best I can manage is well, Sam."
"I thought that was my job."
"Nah, I mean Samwise. Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings. Y"know?" Sam shrugged, she"d missed the movie "cause it looked too c.r.a.p even for the video gang. "The eternal sidekick." Y"know?" Sam shrugged, she"d missed the movie "cause it looked too c.r.a.p even for the video gang. "The eternal sidekick."
"Oh, you mean like Robin."
125.
"Yeah. The hero"s best friend." The corner of his mouth crinkled, and he leaned his own chin on the armrest, a few inches from her own. "The one who never gets the girl."
"Thought that was him him."
"Like I said, I wouldn"t know."
For a moment, the layers weren"t there: his eyes were sad, nothing else but sad and lonely. Eventually he was going to kiss her. Inevitable as water going down the plughole.
"So," said Sam, "what would she she do now?" He raised an eyebrow. "After she"d got you to bare your soul." do now?" He raised an eyebrow. "After she"d got you to bare your soul."
He snorted. "She"d be so b.l.o.o.d.y understanding understanding."
"Yeah," she laughed. "Yeah, sounds like her. "I feel your pain", right?"
"You got it. Why would she want to feel my pain? I I don"t want to feel my pain." don"t want to feel my pain."
He settled back against the sofa. Their fingers were still gently interlocked.
"Well I won"t make that mistake, then," she said.
"Nah, don"t worry, you"re doing fine. Course, you are doing exactly what she"d be doing. Getting me to talk my lips off."
"For someone who doesn"t want to talk about it," said Sam, "you"ve certainly turned talking about not wanting to talk about it into a great chance to talk about it."