Page 108 of Middlegame

The nameless alchemist has returned from his attempts to run down the misleading BART tickets (and she knows he found their holders, and let them live; under the circumstances, she has better things to concern herself with). Leigh walks to his car, opens the passenger-side door, and climbs in.

“Can you see that?” she asks, pointing to the column of golden light in the sky.

He follows her finger. His eyes widen. “Where the fuck did that come from?”

“The Sutro Baths, and that’s where we’re going. You’d better floor it,” she says, voice serene. “We’ve got some cuckoos to kill.”

Commuter traffic is just starting to get underway, but they’re a “high-occupancy vehicle”; they qualify for the carpool lane. Between that, some impressively defensive driving, and a glorious willingness to violate traffic laws, it’s a little over an hour before they’re pulling up to what the GPS claims will be the ruins of the Sutro Baths.

There are no ruins here. There is only a dome of glass and steel glittering in the sunrise, lit from within by electric bulbs and lit from without by the entire sky. The structure glows with mercury light. It will be visible to alchemists for a hundred miles, a bright and welcoming beacon telling them that all is forgiven, that Baker’s dream has endured.

Leigh hates it as she’s hated little else in her life. She climbs out of the car, producing two pistols from inside her jacket and holding them low against her thighs, where they’re less likely to be seen by passersby. She doesn’t expect that to be a problem. Something like this—the reappearance of a historical landmark, the discoloration of the entire horizon—should have attracted dozens of onlookers by now. Since that hasn’t happened, she assumes the working in progress shares some aspects of its function with the Hand of Glory. No one is here because no one can see what’s happening. No one who isn’t already a part of this fight.

“Kill anything inside that moves and isn’t me,” says Leigh, looking to the nameless alchemist. “There may be a little strawberry blonde with a trustworthy face. I’d prefer to kill her myself. I understand that may not be possible. If it’s not, make sure it hurts when you take her down. Make sure she suffers. All right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” says the alchemist.

“Good boy. Maybe I won’t kill you after all.”

There’s no need for them to walk down the cliff: the Baths are back, fully material, glittering in the sunlight. Leigh Barrow walks straight through the front door.

CONCRETE

Timeline: 7:35 PDT, June 17, 2016 (and on).

There isn’t time to explore the Baths, much as each of them would like to, for their own reasons. Roger is enchanted by the history of the place, by the idea that they’ve somehow turned word into deed into material reality. Dodger can’t take her eyes off the angles, the mathematical perfection of the construction, the concrete glory of math become clear and present all around them. Erin simply wants to know the best places to hide when Leigh arrives—because Leigh is going to arrive. This is why they don’t have any time (there was never enough time).

Dodger leads them through the Baths, eyes half-closed and one hand held in front of her like a dowser looking for water. The others follow, saying nothing. Distracting her would cost time (there is never enough time).

They walk through vast chambers filled with empty pools, into a long, L-shaped room. The furniture flickers in and out of being, not quite stable; it appeared to have been a sitting room, once upon a time. Vast windows look out on the Pacific, watching the water beat against the rocks. Dodger stops. Roger and Erin stop in turn, watching her.

“Here,” she says, and heads for the wall, ripping at the wallpaper. It comes away easily, in sheets, weakened by the sea air and by its own unreality. This is a thing that burned years ago. Of course it’s malleable now.

Roger takes a step toward her, to join her, and stops a second time when Erin catches his elbow. He looks back to find her watching him gravely.

“If this gets bad, you need to tell her to take you back,” she says. “She won’t be able to refuse. Tell her it’s an order. Tell her it’s a command. Tell her it’s an adjuration. She’ll do it, and if you word it just like that, you may take something back with you that helps us next time.”

“How do you—”

“Because you told me.” Her smile is more of a pained grimace. “Order, remember? I see the frayed and broken spaces. I see the scars. Both of you get to be ignorant of how long we’ve been doing this, but I don’t. I don’t have to remember everything, thank God. I think I’d kill you both, and stop this, if I did. I still get more than you do. And sometimes you tell me, explicitly, to remember things for the next time.”

“Like what?”

Her smile fades. “Don’t ask me that, Roger. You’ve signed off on things you don’t want to know about. Dodger’s the chess player, but you’re the one who’s said ‘this is a sacrifice for the greater good.’ If I tell you what you’ve told me not to change, you’re going to remember, and you’re going to hate yourself. So don’t ask me. For your sake. For her sake. Let it go.”

Roger looks at her in silence for a moment before he glances toward Dodger. “How bad?” he asks.

“Bad enough.”

“Okay. I don’t like it, but . . . okay.”

“Good. Go help your sister take over the universe. I’m going to go keep you alive long enough to do it.”

“How?”

Erin smiles sharply, a blade in a woman’s skin, and pulls the gun from inside her shirt. “I’m going to fight back.” Then she’s gone, turning on her heel and walking out of the room, leaving him alone.

No: not alone. Dodger is there, writing figures on the wall with a Sharpie produced from her overstuffed backpack, lost in her own little world. Watching her write on a wall is its own form of time travel: he blinks and they’re in her off-campus apartment with the whiteboard walls, both of them laughing, content, together. He blinks again and it’s a chalkboard seen through borrowed eyes, a stick of chalk in her hand and the stinging smell of chalk dust in her nostrils. He knows the words—nostalgia, longing, regret. He also knows that the only way forward is through.