[May 27, 1969.
Shadwell London, United Kingdom, Earth ???
Timekeeper Vertin, St. Pavlov Foundation.]
It took me a moment to react as the limp black thing hurtled towards me. I almost didn't believe my eyes for a second, but that was all it took to miss my window to avoid it. In the next instant – collision.
The wind rushed right out of me with a deep grunt as my hat flew off and I went down in a tangle of limbs, battered clean off my feet. The dark mass bowled me over and just kept going, crashing in a heap behind me.
I fell over backwards with a startled yelp and barely avoided cracking my head against the sidewalk, though both my elbows jolted in pain from breaking my fall. For a moment, I was utterly dazed. My mouth tasted copper as I lay there, belly-up, head pulled back by gravity to see the strange object while upside-down.
The sharp pain in my bones was forgotten as I suddenly realized … 'Is that a person?'
A concerned sort of alarm pulsed through me, and I rushed into motion, scrambling to my feet and not even bothering to collect my hat, concerned as I was about whoever or whatever that might have been.
Hurried steps brought me over to the slumped form and I paused upon getting a closer look.
My second realization of the encounter was 'that cannot possibly be human'.
The sprawled … thing on the sidewalk looked humanoid, with a two-armed and two-legged body covered in a charred brown coat, with matte black skin on the hands and neck. It almost looked like rubber, but truth be told, it wasn't any substance I had ever heard of. Its whole body was utterly caked in ash and dust, to the point it more closely resembled a statue than a living creature.
There was an overwhelming acrid stench of smoke and harsh chemicals that burned my nose and made my eyes water. It was as if this thing had just run through an industrial fire.
The head was the most inhuman – a smooth, elongated shape of ugly grey that looked like no skin or cloth or metal that I had ever seen. It hissed softly with ghastly mechanical wheezing. Something within the coat made an electronic hum.
It was then that I made my third realization and immediately felt like a fool.
"That's a person…" I whispered as I suddenly recognized the helmet – the protective suit – for what it was.
With my apprehension reduced, I got a little closer, kneeling to get a better look and make sure this person was alright. They'd taken a rather large fall, and while no limbs were unnaturally bent, the burnt state of their body raised uncomfortable questions.
Parting the coat revealed a rubberlike undersuit, with hardened armor plates of unknown matte ceramic over the vital areas. Pouches, belts, and bandoliers crisscrossed the chest, though most of what they carried was either missing outright or broken and covered in blood.
Oh.
Mixed with the dust and the dun ash, blood pooled from a chunk of sharpened stone lodged in the person's chest, surrounded by the shattered fragments of armor plate.
This was very bad. I needed–
Hold on, let's think this through.
A moment of further analysis revealed some sort of firearm attached to the person's hip: a seamless black brick of a weapon that glowed with faint blue light, the craftsmanship utterly beyond any machine tools or arcanist crafting that I could think of.
I cast a glance over the few pieces of broken equipment that had once been held in chest pouches and bandoliers; crushed devices of unknown purpose, with a disturbing amount of internal circuitry that looked far too complex even for my amateur eyes; engraved bones, cards, and other magical components that were clearly of high quality; and something that almost looked like a hand grenade – albeit one from a midnight science fiction feature.
Lastly, there was the oversized mechanical gauntlet on the figure's right hand. It was blatantly magical in nature – near microscopic runes covered the entire surface of the artifact, and I had to strain my eyes to even attempt to decipher them. Though this was no language I was familiar with, the object radiated magical energy to the point that I almost feared it might suddenly explode.
I processed the situation in seconds: whoever this was, whatever this was; it might prove the key to getting information about The Storm … and maybe about the Foundation, too.
The lack of the signature oily black mask made me disinclined to believe this person belonged to Manus Vindictae, and the lack of tell-tale Foundation identifiers likewise suggested that they weren't an agent of some kind; but even so, this person was wearing several fortunes worth of equipment. They were important, and this needed to be handled delicately if I wanted to avoid tipping my hand to Foundation Command.
My moment's pause broke in a flurry of decisive action.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbed both the body's arms, and started to drag what felt like two hundred pounds of body and armor towards the staging point where I'd left my suitcase.
The workings of a plan were coming together now: take the body back to my home away from home inside the suitcase, run back to Maria to solicit her help, convince her to ask no questions and not include this in her report, then get some answers out of my mysterious victim after they recovered and woke up.
I wasn't certain what information they could actually give, but I had the strange certainty that this person had something to offer. There was also the fact that someone like this really couldn't be trusted in the hands of local hospitals, and if I did decide to turn them over to the Foundation, then I'd have to put them in my suitcase and call in Maria, anyway.
It wasn't like I wanted to lie to my superiors and go behind their backs; if anything interesting came out of this, they'd hear about it in due time, it was just that … well, the Foundation had plenty of skeletons in its closet, and I was certain they knew more than they cared to share. Given what had happened in the past, I doubt anyone could blame me for not trusting them fully.
The fact that the figure had crashed rather close to the staging point was something I quickly grew thankful for. If I had to carry them any further, I might have given up and gone to find help; even as it was, I cursed under my breath while dragging them the last step to where the midnight-blue shape of my trunk lay.
I dropped the body for a moment to pop the clasps, then quickly set to dragging it over the suitcase's lip and into the depths of my portable bunker against The Storm.
The suitcase was … something special.
A shimmering starscape of hazy purples carpeted what would have been the bottom of any normal trunk, but my legs sank through it with a cool sensation. Once the illusion was dispelled and I was properly braced on the stairs leading down, I set about awkwardly dragging the body down a flight of stairs and into my bigger-on-the-inside home.
I will not describe the process, save for the fact that doing so was even worse than dragging the body across level ground. I did not get rolled over by the body as it fell down the stairs, and I consider that an accomplishment and the best descriptor of how the situation went.
Finally, finally, I had them down in the main room, sprawled over the couch, legs dangling over the end.
I didn't stop to savour the quiet tranquility that the warmly lit, wood-paneled room normally inspired, instead turning on my heel to immediately scramble back up the stairs, intent on getting Tooth Fairy over here as fast as possible.
The person – I was beginning to think it was a man, based on the build and weight – was already bleeding on my floor and couch. Their wounds didn't seem as bad as they could have been, but battlefield medicine was not something I was familiar with. All I could hope for was that I hadn't killed them by dragging them here.
With heavy breaths and messy hair – I still needed to retrieve my hat – I emerged from the suitcase and paused only to lock it behind me before racing back down the way I'd come.
XXXXX
+̴L̷o̷c̴a̴l̷ ̷d̷a̴t̴e̴ ̶a̴n̴d̵ ̴t̵i̴m̷e̸ ̴u̶n̸k̷n̷o̴w̸n̶.̴
A̷ ̵s̸t̴a̶t̷e̷ ̴o̴f̷ ̷s̷o̸m̷e̶ ̷c̸o̵n̸f̵u̵s̸i̷o̸n̵.̶
W̵a̶r̷d̷e̴n̶ ̵N̶i̶c̶o̵ ̷Z̴i̸m̷m̷e̶r̷,̸ ̵W̶a̵r̵d̵e̸n̷s̴ ̶O̶r̵g̸a̸n̵i̶z̶a̴t̸i̴o̸n̸.̷+̶
Everything around me was a blur of color and my thoughts felt like warm molasses. It was hard to think, and I could barely make out shapes around me.
My nose twigged at the warm scent of baked bread; it smelled rougher than the processed crap we usually bought. Was Maya trying to cook again? I'd better grab the extinguisher-wand, just in case.
Then I heard voices: children bickering, while exasperated parents talked over them in clipped tones.
"–said Hans will not give me the toy sword! Mother–"
"–second month that the bridge has been out. Scheisse, what are we paying our taxes for if the Graf won't–"
"–ell Alan it was mine first! Should he not be with the–"
"–harvest is good; you need to stop worrying. Sometimes, you remind me of–"
"–need to sell my embroidery at the market, tell Nicolas to help me, he's not busy today–"
My vision blurred into focus.
The warm glow of a roaring fire in the hearth lit up a scene that was intimately familiar at this point. Crude iron pots simmered over the cook fire as my mother alternated between tending to them, arguing with father over her shoulder, and keeping my two idiot brothers from taking out each other's eyes with that damn toy sword of theirs.
Metal clanged against metal as she stirred, while soup bubbled, and plates clinked. The whole house was full of varying levels of chatter. Our dogs playfully barked outside, and the distant chirps of birds could be heard through the open window.
My eldest sister, Gisela, sat on a rough-cut bench at the kitchen table, idly toying with needle and thread as she picked at some part of her embroidery that hadn't come out right. Her raven hair shimmered in rays of sun from the window, and for a moment my heart ached for simpler days spent toddling after her while we walked to the market to sell her stuff.
I looked around, head dull and woozy like I was underwater.
Off in the other room, my father and eldest brother bickered over something. I think he wanted to leave the farm and seek fortune elsewhere, perhaps on one of the Enclaves when one visited next, but truth be told I didn't know my brother well. He was just too old, and by this time I would have been five or so.
It was that thought that suddenly snapped me into clear focus – I was dreaming.
"Gods fucking damn it," I hissed under my breath, the participants of my dream not noticing as I stood, suddenly far taller than any child had a right to be.
I paced through a scene of domestic bliss as a ghost; people I once loved with all my soul spoke through me like I wasn't there. Something was wrong with the situation. Not the dream – I'd seen this so many times that I no longer even felt fear, or anger, or even sadness. There was just a hollow sort of resigned emptiness in my stomach for what I knew was coming.
No, I knew this was a dream, but I felt like I was missing something important in the waking world. Like there was something I needed to do, or maybe there was some kind of problem I needed to resolve. I just couldn't think of anything, my thoughts were still like boiled oats – thinking was sluggish and I could barely do more than let things run their course.
There was a well-polished mirror in the hall, and for whatever reason, I paused upon seeing my reflection. A pale face and cold blue eyes under dirty hair stared back at me; I suddenly snarled at it.
"Wake up, you stupid, damned, asshole! Can't we get one damn night of sleep without … this shit? What's there to see that we haven't already!"
From beside the back door, I heard my littlest sister call my name in a youthful squeak that was all too familiar.
"Nicolas! Come and play in the forest with me!"
I guess it was time already for this horror show to move along.
XXXXX
+̴L̷o̷c̴a̴l̷ ̷d̷a̴t̴e̴ ̶a̴n̴d̵ ̴t̵i̴m̷e̸ ̴u̶n̸k̷n̷o̴w̸n̶.̴
A̷ ̵s̸t̴a̶t̷e̷ ̴o̴f̷ ̷s̷o̸m̷e̶ ̷c̸o̵n̸f̵u̵s̸i̷o̸n̵.̶
W̵a̶r̷d̷e̴n̶ ̵N̶i̶c̶o̵ ̷Z̴i̸m̷m̷e̶r̷,̸ ̵W̶a̵r̵d̵e̸n̷s̴ ̶O̶r̵g̸a̸n̵i̶z̶a̴t̸i̴o̸n̸.̷+̶
The mountain woods where generations of Zimmer children had grown up were burning.
Pines burst like firecrackers as the whole alpine treeline roared with tongues of crimson inferno, the sky an apocalyptic shade of black. Embers rained from the sky like glowing raindrops; I ignored them as they burnt themselves out on my duster. At least I had my normal clothes and gear, to preserve some level of dignity and familiarity in the face of this macabre performance.
"–ood you brought me when you did, Vertin. He is in critical condi–"
Why my brain saw fit to rub my nose in this every night, I'd likely never know.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Regardless, there was no other option but to follow Eva as she ran. Believe me, if there was a way to get out of this, I'd have fucking found it after a decade and change of trying. The fires were far enough away from us that the smoke was the real killer, and my heart twinged in pain every time my sister hacked and coughed.
"–an you help hi–"
The fragrant, open meadows near home were far behind us now, replaced by looming walls of firs and evergreens, their branches conspiring to cover the sky entirely. My sister ran desperately through roots and animal paths into the densest part of the woods; I, a captive observer pulled along.
Once, I might have helped Eva climb over fallen trees or large rocks, but by this point, I had just grown numb. Even when I did try to help in the dream, she couldn't really acknowledge me, and it wouldn't change what happened. Sometimes, my mind would weave together fevered imaginings of how things could have gone, but I'd long grown used to the simple fact that hypotheticals didn't matter – the past was set in stone, and not even Chronomancy could change that to any meaningful degree.
"–nough medicine left over. This will take some tim–"
Of course, seeing tears run down her soot-streaked face still wounded my soul afresh every time I saw it. I don't think anyone could watch their baby sister weep in uncomprehending terror, knowing that you were watching the last hours of her life, and remain cold.
She was backed in now, having found some cave-like outcropping in a depression, nestled under fallen trees and other detritus. Back in the day, we'd squeezed in and hid – after all, it wasn't the fire we were running from.
I pushed myself in through a gap in the logs; my heart pounded, and my pulse roared in my ears. The noxious taste of bile rose in the back of my throat. Gnarled branches bit and tugged at me, but I bulled through it all. It's not like any of it was real.
What the hell, at least I got to see her again. Tentatively, I knelt in the rocky dirt and pulled her into an embrace.
She couldn't see me, and she certainly didn't react, but maybe somewhere out there her soul was with the Dawnflower. Maybe she could feel this, somehow.
"–east stable now … leave him in your care, no–"
Eva was so small in my arms, so weak.
We were kids, so caught up in running from the monsters that we didn't think of the hidden killer that was smoke inhalation. At least not until it was too late to do anything about. Though, given the circumstances, I couldn't imagine any scenario where we got out alive, no matter where we ran.
Her coughs steadily grew quieter and rarer.
I hadn't held her when she died; as far as I recall, I passed out first. To this day, I don't know why I was the one who lived to see white helmets and blue coats digging through the rubble of our cave, guided to a flickering life sign by technologies that I'd have taken for divine artifacts at the time. Maya figured it was a spark of latent magic, flaring to life in extremis to keep me breathing real air for a few vital days.
I just wished that it'd have gone to her, instead.
"–on't know who you are, but I need you to wake u–"
My eyes darted around the cave. Did someone just say something? That was new.
Nothing came of it after a few seconds and meanwhile, the air in the cave worsened, fat black flakes fell faster and harder through the crack in the roof as my sister stilled in my arms. I held her in a numb grip, a variety of emotions warring within me as my pulse quickened and my teeth ground.
How the hells was I supposed to go through this and not get pissed off? How the hells was I supposed to hold her and not want to go out there and kill the squid-faced fuckers that had torched my world?
Then, suddenly, things moved faster than I could keep up with. My arms met empty air and shot forward to hit my chest – Eva's body no longer there. The walls of the cave faded quickly; shadows lengthening unnaturally while the light dimmed until an abyss of darkness like dreamless sleep swallowed me.
I could feel things now, from my actual body, and I had a single moment of sleepy clarity where I realized that I was waking up. Someone far away was talking, but I couldn't pay attention because I was suddenly struck by the overwhelming sensation of pain everywhere. Dear gods, my body fucking hurt.
With a surge of adrenaline and blinding white light in my eyes, I sat up, head spinning and breaths heavy. Blood roared in my ears, and I ran on pure instinct as blurry colors around me shifted into some vague form of defined shapes.
My single overriding thought was a jolt of alarm – my gun was missing, its comforting weight on my hip absent entirely. This, in turn, caused even higher alarm. No one with good intentions stripped a Warden of his weapons.
More situational awareness flooded in: I was sitting on something, like a bed or a couch, and some girl in a dark Victorian suit leaned over me, eyes wide in startled surprise.
What happened next was the result of over a decade's paranoia and horror stories.
Everyone in the multiverse wanted to get their grubby hands on a Warden, be it for our equipment, our magic, or our knowledge. I'd been raised on tales of unscrupulous governments and private groups ambushing, kidnapping, and torturing members of our order since the day I joined in earnest.
So, when I woke up unarmed and lying down, my first thought was 'vivisection table'.
By the time I realized I was actually sprawled on a couch in some kind of ritzy hotel or library, I had already pulled the girl close with an iron grip on her shoulder, while my other hand held a sizzling conjured knife to her throat.
The crappy mana construct was hideously inefficient and literally bled raw magic into the world around it, but it and a hostage should suffice to get me to the rest of my stuff, at which point I could blast my way out of anything.
My breaths were ragged and deep as the seconds passed and my bloodshot, aching eyes darted around the room like a cornered animal, searching for incoming guards or the rest of my kit.
To her credit, the girl didn't even flinch from the glowing shiv of actinic blue a hair's breadth away from opening her jugular like a tube of yogurt. Something about this wasn't quite right, where was the sterile white room with the surgical equipment? Where were the jackbooted thugs, the slimy businessmen opening with polite small talk over a dimly lit interrogation table with a cup of lukewarm instant coffee?
Platinum green eyes met mine and held my gaze, unblinking.
"Can you understand me?" She ventured slowly, gently; her voice level and tinged with a faint accent I couldn't quite place.
I *did* understand, though that was probably the translation enchantments in my duster doing the heavy lifting – gods only knew what random languages people across the multiverse actually spoke.
My makeshift shiv trembled as it rapidly approached the end of its life expectancy; my utterly drained magical reserves were already dangerously low, and that was before I tried to free-cast this shitty cantrip. I'd have to make this quick, while I still had any leverage at all; gods only knew what was waiting for me outside this room.
First things first, the question of the hour: "Where is my gear?"
I tried my best to growl and come off like someone too dangerous and too crazy to be crossed. Given how bad a shape I must have been in, it should have been easy. Too bad she didn't flinch, again. My knife's lifespan shortened to minutes, meanwhile.
"I'm sorry to say most of your things were broken when you fell. I collected what there was and piled it on the table, over there."
Her voice was downright gentle, but that just made me more uncomfortable. Why in Helm's name was she acting like *I* was the hostage here? She couldn't possibly know my knife was about to vanish, right?
She carefully tilted her head to gesture to the side, and after a second's hesitation to break eye contact and give her an opening to exploit, I quickly checked out of the corner of my eye.
Gods be good, she was telling the truth?
There was a pile of stuff on an old, dark wood coffee table by the wall; my helmet, casting gauntlet, and revolver prominently rested on a pile of bandoliers, pouches, and what looked like shattered electronics and broken arcane items.
Well, okay. That took things from 'kidnapped by the local government' to 'I have no idea what the fuck is going on anymore.'
"Now," she spoke up suddenly and I damn near cut her throat out of sheer surprise. "Do you threaten with knives everyone who has saved your life, or am I a special case?"
As if synchronized to complete my humiliation, the conjured weapon spell finally broke at that exact moment, the small glowing shiv swiftly dissolving into motes of fading light. The backlash from a spell that half-cocked was almost tender compared to the migraine I was already nursing so what the hell, I just kept going with the trainwreck unfolding around me.
"Where the hells am I, why have you detained me, who the hell are you, and what the fuck is going on?"
Her eyes followed the fading sparkles for a moment, before her lips curled into the faintest ghost of a smile. "You are, or were, bleeding to death on a couch in my suitcase, for starters. You are not detained and are free to leave whenever you like, though I would hope that you stay and answer some questions first."
Her hand found mine and peeled my vicelike grip off her shoulder – I'd actually forgotten about that. Then she took a couple of steps back and settled into a leather armchair across from the couch, hands folded neatly across her lap. "My name is Vertin, Timekeeper of the St. Pavlov Foundation, and I found you in the middle of the street after you fell out of a hole in the sky."
"Fell out of a–" I started, before it all suddenly fit together. "Oh."
The last moments of the mission were a blur, but I dimly remembered a Void Weapon getting used in the proximity of an expanding Void Tear. Helm's beard, how did I survive that? One more second and I would have either been wiped off the face of the planet, blasted into literally nothing, or gotten mass-scattered during interdimensional travel.
Despite myself, I shuddered. That was probably my entire lifetime's worth of luck consumed all at once. I guess I could forget about buying any more lottery tickets.
Then the 'bleeding to death' part of her statement caught up with me, and I glanced down for the first time. I was still wearing the rubberized hardsuit and what was left of my heavy-duty duster, though my chest-plate was shattered into fragments and I could see pale, scarred skin through a rent hole in the suit.
If I had to guess, that would have been stone shrapnel from Alphonse's shelter getting swept away by the shockwave. In which case, gods be good, I might be the single luckiest Warden that had ever lived. One millisecond of difference and I should have been a cloud of red mist.
I numbly looked around the room with a less paranoid eye.
Hardwood shelves stocked with strange knickknacks wrapped around the outside of the room, softly washed by warm amber light from a few ancient-looking fixtures. Behind the girl, an entire wall was floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out at some kind of lush jungle that filled the room with natural light. Somewhere, there was the faint scent of old paper and vanilla.
How the hells could I have possibly mistaken this for a government lab or cult compound; neither would have been generous enough to the hired help to get them anything more than a potted plant and a water cooler.
I glanced back to the girl – Vertin – and suddenly felt a hell of a lot more grateful than I was a second ago. Shit, I'd just threatened her with a knife.
"I think I owe you a big apology," I started, scratching the back of my head in embarrassment. "It's just that in my experience, waking up unarmed in a strange place isn't a promising sign, so I just kind of … reacted."
She shrugged. "It's quite alright. Judging by the shape you were in, a sudden burst of adrenaline-fueled panic should have been expected."
"And by the way, stranger of the couch, you still haven't given me your name."
I paused for a half-second. Rescuer or not, ritzy hotel or not, there was no reason to get carried away with something that could still be a fae or another entity that could change shape and get tricksy with words.
"Well, I can tell you my name."
Her expression was inscrutable, but I could at least see that my correction of the wording hadn't gone unnoticed.
"Nico Zimmer, apprentice-rank Warden at your service."
There was no reaction, so I added, "I don't suppose that means anything to you?"
"No more than 'St. Pavlov Foundation' means to you, I presume?"
Foundation? That could be troubling.
"I don't suppose you Secure and Contain anomalies, do you?"
Once again, she noticed the oddness in my word choice but didn't meaningfully react.
"I suppose the Foundation would handle that sort of thing if it was necessary. But that has never been the primary purpose, no."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. That was one nightmare scenario that I hadn't thought of until she mentioned it, avoided. I'd sooner eat a bullet than linger on a Foundation Earth by choice.
Now then, I cast a meaningful glance back to the table where my gun and gauntlet lay. I'd feel a hell of a lot better if I was armed again, even if I was slowly coming around to the likelihood that there weren't teams of jackbooted stormtroopers standing by outside the room to rush me when my guard was down.
If Vertin was as benevolent as she claimed, then surely she wouldn't be opposed to me going over there and retrieving my weapons, right? Sure, asking might be a little rude, but better rude than dead. Besides, I wasn't going to let some pretty face charm me into being a gullible sap that … wait, pretty? Damn it, Zimmer; don't fall for her feminine wiles and get your head in the game, man.
"I hope you don't mind, but I'd really be more comfortable continuing this conversation once I have my equipment back." I stood, phrasing things like a declaration of intent, rather than a request for permission, and firmly walked across a luxuriously carpeted wooden floor to start picking through my pile of stuff.
"If that makes you comfortable, then do as you like." She cooly replied as I snatched up the heavy black brick that was my revolver and turned it over in my hands, inspecting the firing mechanism and cylinder to assure against tampering.
It was around then, firearm mag-locked to its rightful place on my hip, that I realized just how utterly filthy I was – turning back, there was a bloody stain on her nice couch, as well as ashen footprints where I'd just walked. I didn't even want to imagine how bad I probably smelled.
"I don't know if you have spare clothes, Nico, but there is a bathroom down the hall that you are welcome to use if you want to clean up after being nearly dead."
I'm not sure how she read my mind, but damn if a cold shower didn't sound like heaven right about now. Good thing I had some spare gear in the bag of holding, too. Nothing as heavy as my current duster or combat suit – those were utterly trashed – but I had enough clothes and gear that I could probably still survive anything short of a full-blown firefight with the Combine. However, I should probably also avoid vacuum operations for the time being until I could get something with some trustworthy seals.
"If that wouldn't be too much of an imposition on your hospitality, Miss Vertin, a shower would be incredible after the kind of day I've just had. Besides," I shrugged. "Wouldn't be right to pollute your nice … hotel room or whatever this place is any further than I already have."
Speaking of, I rifled through my bag of holding and fished out a small one-ounce gold bar. I put it on the cleared table with a satisfying 'thunk' and gestured to it. "I don't know the value of gold here, but I figure this should be a few hundred dollars at least, so call it payment for the hospitality. Be sure to tell me if it's too little, yeah?"
Her expression was almost flustered as she stood up, hands raised in a sort of 'take it back' gesture. "You don't need to pay me, and you don't need to call me 'miss'; just Vertin is fine."
I was already retreating down the corridor with my things at that point, though – my thoughts firmly fixed on the prospect of getting all the sweat, blood, and grime off me, and then getting into some clean clothes. Then I could take stock of my equipment situation and face the world like a proper Warden should – with restocked ammo and a maintained gun.
Did I trust her?
Well, I wasn't sure how to answer that. At the very least I was armed now, and I was confident that I could booby-trap the door with some proximity grenades so I couldn't be ambushed with my pants literally down. Plus, I should be done in just a few minutes or so – when you shared an apartment with Maya the Queen of the Bathroom, you learned to shower fast and then get the hell out of the way.
That said, my fingers brushed the single most important piece of gear I owned.
The silver dagger badge along my armored gorget was not only still there, but seemed as intact as I could hope for without an in-depth analysis. The fact that she hadn't asked about it, or even visibly reacted to the term 'Warden', suggested that this might be some kind of uncontacted primitive Earth or Earthlike world.
On the one hand, this meant my odds of being kidnapped were probably low. On the other, it meant that I had no idea what to expect and that the kinds of multiversal treaties and codes of conduct that were generally taken for granted might not apply here.
My thoughts vanished once I opened the fancy brass doorknob and looked at the bathroom within.
Oh my god, she had the fancy little soaps and stuff!
XXXXX
[May 27, 1969.
Shadwell London, United Kingdom, Earth ???
Timekeeper Vertin, St. Pavlov Foundation.]
Well, that had certainly been an experience.
With my mysterious guest – Nico – gone to make himself presentable, I decided that I might as well do the same. Certainly, he looked and smelled like a corpse that had been burned to hide evidence; but I was soaked through with sweat, had hair out of place, and wore tattered clothes that would likely reek forever of tear gas and the other riot control agents deployed during the raid.
Fortunately, the suitcase was far larger on the inside than one glance at the main room would suggest. With my guest sent off down the one main hall to the guestrooms, I was free to walk down the other and make use of the singular 'master bedroom'.
Truth be told, I did not use it by choice – the smaller and cozier guestrooms were more than sufficient for my needs. The great big vault of mahogany and brass looming around me was simply far too big, I felt like a bug in the face of a room so cavernous.
Also, the luxury raised nasty thoughts in the back of my mind. I didn't deserve this. Even the guestrooms were too luxurious for me by far, but they were just barely something I could endure if I put my mind to it. Sometimes, when the guilt grew too strong, I would simply pitch myself a bedroll on the couch in the main room and sleep there, in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, and let the quiet noises of the simulated jungle carry me to sleep.
It was nice.
I did not have time to shower, so the best I could do was to quickly change into some fresh clothes and fix my hair.
It did not take overmuch time before I stood in a fresh version of the outfit that I had worn to work this morning – a stark white shirt and cravat; and a midnight-blue coat, dress pants, and vest. I frowned, inspecting myself in the dressing table's mirror. There were heavy bags under my eyes from weeks of restless sleep, and worse, my entire neck was still purple and bruised.
There wasn't very much that I could do to hide the bruises besides button up my shirt all the way, but I did manage to clinically apply a few dabs of foundation and concealer to make my face look somewhat healthy.
A few final adjustments to make everything sit properly, and I was presentable and ready to handle my … visitor.
Truthfully, he'd taken me by surprise back there. I admit that I had thought him disarmed and harmless; and myself observant and cautious enough, that nearly getting killed in my own home didn't even occur to me as a risk.
Though, that brought up an interesting observation – even when drowsy, panicked, and breathing like he had just completed a marathon, Nico retained enough awareness and fine motor skills to pull what was otherwise a killing blow at the last second. That screamed an intense level of training, to the point that it was muscle memory.
Given his utter lack of knowledge about the world, and his strange mannerisms; it was clear that he wasn't from here. However, that begged the question of who these so-called 'Wardens' were. The layman's guess would simply be a Foundation black ops group, or perhaps a third party to our war with the Manus that had yet to reveal itself, but … something told me that wasn't quite right.
So far, as fantastical as it seemed, his technology suggested that he might be from further in the future than 1999, perhaps part of a group that had just recently been blown to 1960 by The Storm. Of course, that didn't fit, either. We knew for a fact that The Storm first came in 1999 – he couldn't be from beyond, because there was nothing there; it simply hadn't even happened.
Right?
Still, whatever Nico was; he could be my advantage against the Foundation and its leadership. I just needed to get out there and get as much information as I could.
I took a final glance at the mirror to ensure everything was in its proper place, took a deep breath, and emerged into the main room.
It only took about fifteen minutes to get myself together, so when I walked in on Nico leaning over my couch, messing with some kind of device that radiated raw magic energy that even I could detect, I startled just a little.
His head darted up immediately, like a startled animal; cold blue eyes met mine with an electric sort of intensity, before softening once he recognized me as the intruder.
"Sorry for messing with your stuff without permission," he chuckled, sliding the wand-like object into a colourful bag on his waist. "I just had a wand for removing blood and figured I'd better get to it quick for best results."
He rose to his full height and backed off from the couch, gesturing theatrically. "Ta-da!"
I came closer and inspected his work.
True to his word, the beige upholstery was entirely spotless. Not impossible for arcanist-derived tools to accomplish, but it would have been expensive enough that I had just mentally written off the couch from the moment I dumped him on it.
"Thank you for cleaning up; you really didn't need to do that, though."
He scratched his close-cropped black hair and gave me a crooked smile, "It was the least I could do, and I know how much of a pain in the ass it is to get blood out of things once it's really gotten in there. Why do you think I finally bit the bullet and bought the wand?"
"I … see. Do you have to remove blood from things often?"
He chuckled. "Often enough, I guess."
We lapsed into a moment of silence, and I took the opportunity to properly evaluate him. My earlier estimates of his age had been off – he seemed closer to my age; a little taller than me, even with my heeled boots; pale-skinned, with sunken bags under his eyes; and slightly messy dark hair that was cut in an almost military fashion.
He kind of reminded me of a raccoon that I'd seen in a picture once.
Then I realized that I was staring and quickly looked away, turning to face the stairs.
"Anyway." I spoke up, "I had some questions that you might be able to assist me with, and given that it is rapidly approaching midday on the surface, what do you say I buy you lunch in exchange for answers?"
He raised an eyebrow at the 'surface' part, but otherwise seemed calm.
"I would never turn down a free meal, though I'm willing to answer without one. You did save my bacon back there, and that's a big favour. Still … lead on, then, hat girl!"
"Hat girl?"
He gestured at my top hat as if that was all the explanation necessary.
I didn't smile.
I didn't.
"Well then, follow me up the stairs and we can get started – there should be a few good places to eat nearby, and we can talk while we walk."
I diplomatically pretended not to notice as his hand drifted closer to his gun as we moved out – wary of an ambush at the top of the stairs, perhaps? Add 'paranoid' to my mental profile of Nico Zimmer, I suppose.
"So," I started as we made our way up. "What are the Wardens, and how do they fit into The Storm and the rest of the world?"
The starry mists of the trunk's illusionary bottom quickly descended to meet me and I pushed through them with a chilling sensation, easily stepping out over the suitcase's lip. I moved over to make some room for my guest.
Though, once Nico's head and shoulders emerged from the suitcase, a half-finished sentence on his lips, the situation took an alarming turn. He doubled over in pain, cringing with eyes squeezed shut as he toppled, clawing at the trunk's lip for support.
I rushed to his side as he hissed, clutching his head while his magic gauntlet flared with cold light.
"Ver– … w– what the fuck is that?"
I wasn't sure what to say or what to do; he waved off my attempt to help brace him as he staggered over the suitcase's wall on shaky legs and fell over onto his back. It almost looked like he was having a seizure, and all the while magic rolled off him in waves.
Something about it almost reminded me of The Storm – his magic felt … heavy, in a way that just about nothing else that I had ever experienced did. That begged the question of what his arcanum talents or form of expression even were.
He continued to clutch at his head, curse, and convulse for minutes more, before it finally ended with a crackling pulse from the gauntlet. He sagged back, head against the asphalt, and sighed in relief.
"Vertin." He muttered breathlessly. "What in Helm's bushy beard was that supposed to be?"
I carefully knelt; my interest piqued.
"I'm not sure. What happened; are you alright?"
He heaved, chest pumping like a bellows.
"Maybe? Gods, it was like my brain was about to burst."
I let him rest for a few moments of quiet before he tried to get back up and accepted a helping hand, unsteadily. Then, his face turned almost interrogative, and he looked past me, into thin air. He waved his gauntlet around a couple of times, the runes on it pulsing in strings of electric blue.
"What?" He muttered. "The actual fu– Vertin." Nico sharply turned to me, his face the strangest mix of baffled fear. "What is wrong with your planet?"