03 - The Paradox
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Matthias flipped through the five pages in the thin folder Noel handed him. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“That’s everything,” Sin replied.
One document of entry into the city, another for a hotel reservation. Matthias knew the place; it was a run-down four-stars that hadn’t been renovated since the 90s, surviving off scamming tourists and hosting underground events. The subject wasn’t a local, and either had no connection or no time to find a proper place to stay.
“She came on the 104 bus. That’s through Basilisk territory. They got anything?”
Viggo chuckled. “Do you think we’d have her if the Snakes caught her scent?”
That made Matthias scowl. He looked back to the excessive containment facility, around to the numerous faces hidden behind protection masks and the uneasy shifting of their postures. “All of this—” he gestured to the entire cavern, “—and they didn’t? How did you find her?”
“Glowing like a small sun.” Viggo sneered. “Just strolling down Main Street. It was a clear declaration of war, if there ever was one. But she didn’t resist when I went for her.”
The other papers in the file were a picture and a general health evaluation report. She looked thin in the picture, nearly malnourished with her ribs straining against her skin and gaunt cheeks. But her sky-blue eyes weren’t sunken, instead bright and intelligent. She looked thoughtful in the photo, as if wondering why they had stripped her naked and strapped her to a steel table.
“Are we getting invaded?” Matthias asked.
“That’s what you’re here to find out,” said Sin. Her expression didn’t change, but the slight twitch of her right little finger had always been a tell.
There hadn’t been an attempt by a foreign Church to enter New Gothernburg since the 50s, ever since the Big Twelve saturated the market and divided the populace among themselves. There were no more rooms for a Thirteen, a fact the Twelve made abundantly clear with upwards of fifty-five Missionaries, Apostles, Bishops, Inquisitors or otherwise, sent home per year, until the rest of the country got the message.
Not that New Gothernburg had ever been a prize. There had been plenty of speculations about why the Churches clamped onto the city so tightly all these years. But it didn’t matter, at least for his job.
Were they going to send this girl’s head back in a box as well?
“What happened to Martin?” Matthias asked. The man had never been particularly pleasant to be around, or the most devout follower of fairplay when it came to competition, but to be leave the table in a bag was the worst nightmare of anyone in their profession. Asshole or not, he did die so Matthias wouldn’t have to.
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“No idea,” said Noel.
Matthias’ eyebrows shot up. “What?”
A tiny lift of the shoulder was all the man had for an answer.
Sin sighed. “We were here. He went in alone, masked and in protective gear.”
“I gave him a guarding Sigil,” Viggo continued when she fell silent. “Not a second life, but should have been enough to hold so I could react. Everything went quiet.”
“Thirty minutes later, we sent someone in to check.” Sin had that deathly pale look on her face. “There were pieces. Stacked neatly in a pile.”
Noel handed him a printed paper. The shot was taken from a bodycam, grained and streaked through like under exposure to radiation. And there was Martin the totem pole. No blood, it looked like, just pale flesh.
Matthias squinted at the image. “Is that a deer?”
“Could also be an ugly fucked-up goat.” Sin’s smile had no humor in it. Matthias looked to Viggo, but the Apostle gave no possible explanation, only staring forward.
Fantastic. Maybe by the end, he’d share an anniversary with Lily. Who’d wear fancy clothes, put flowers on his grave and celebrate with ice cream? Sin wouldn’t. She hated ice cream.
Despite their urgent tone dragging him here, none of the three around him was pushing now. He had faded to the background even if he was standing right there. The subject demanded absolute attention.
The upside to the day was its hour. If he finished early, there would still be time for dinner, perhaps.
“Whose brilliant idea was it to skip the civility straight to a procedure?” This was the reason Matthias had oversight written into his contract. A donkey could make people bleed. Pain was never the point; it was barely a means to an end.
“I gave her a choice,” Viggo grumbled.
Of course. It took devotion to be an Apostle, not brain.
Matthias’ arm was getting tired. He would place the case down, but who knew how soaked these cavern floors had been with diseases, regardless of decontamination? Holistic Altars were plague sites.
“How’s the radiation level? I only have level 2 protective gear.”
“Zero,” Noel said. “She’s not emitting anything. If she was, we might get something out analysis, and you wouldn’t be here.”
Matthias’ lips curled. “And I thought you missed me.”
None of the others thought that was particularly funny, nor did he after a few breaths of quiet.
“How long will the procedure take?” Viggo asked.
“I’m not doing a procedure,” Matthias said.
Sin frowned at him like she would a child, and Noel’s cold blue eyes regarded him with irritation.
Viggo’s gaze lifted from the distant camp a distant away and settled on him. “That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
Matthias shook his head. “See how well that worked out for poor Martin. We don’t know anything about her, or even what she is. There’s no point working under human assumptions.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The Judge.”
Whatever expression Noel had was hidden behind the Condor. Sin, however, had that grimace like she was reliving a bad memory. And she was.
It wasn’t easy to fall in love with someone, only to find him underneath that mask. Matthias hadn’t meant to do it. He simply hadn’t learned to turn off the conman back then.
Viggo still stared, betraying no emotion. Matthias shook his head and turned toward the tent.
“Trust me. I’m a Specialist.”