Page 69 of Middlegame

Everything is doomed.

CONSEQUENCES

Timeline: 21:33 PST, December 8, 2008 (that night).

The rain has come. Berkeley is being washed clean of its sins, buried in a deluge of water so heavy it looks like a moving silver curtain, like fish should swim past the window at any moment, blissfully suspended in the storm. The storm has turned the ordinary world into something out of a children’s book, a silvery slice of the Up-and-Under.

Smita gives the weather little attention; it’s bigger than she is and doesn’t care what she does, and besides, she’s indoors. She’s alone in the lab. She likes it that way; likes the silence, the hollow echo of her own footsteps, the comfort of knowing no one is watching her. She can leave her research spread out across the counters without concern that someone will see it—not another student, maybe, but an eager professor or greedy researcher—and claim it as their own. It’s never happened to her. That doesn’t change the stories that circulate through the department, tales of stolen effort and unreceived credit. Smita plans to change the world someday. She can’t do that if the foundations she’s been building wind up given to someone else.

There’s a sound behind her, soft, like a candle being lit. It’s an odd image, not like her at all, but the thought is foremost in her mind as she turns. Then she freezes, thought fading.

The woman behind her holds a novelty candle, one of those tasteless Halloween souvenirs. It’s shaped like a severed hand, and whoever designed the wax injections did a fabulous job; Smita would swear it’s the real thing, if not for the ridiculousness of the idea. Who would use a human hand like that? The wicks protrude from the tips of the slightly curled fingers, each burning with a greenish flame. That, more than anything, convinces her this is some sort of prank, probably orchestrated by the chemistry department. Fire doesn’t burn like that unless you’ve done something to make it.

The woman looks vaguely familiar, someone Smita has seen in passing, in the time between classes maybe, or elsewhere in the building. She’s neither friend nor foe, and that makes her a problem to be dealt with quickly and efficiently. Smita folds her arms, shifting her weight onto one hip, and glares.

“What are you doing here?” she demands. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

The woman says nothing.

“I’m going to call security. They’ll be happy to explain why trespassing is not allowed.”

The woman says nothing.

Something about her flat, affectless stare is beginning to make the hair on the back of Smita’s neck stand on end. For the first time, she finds herself wishing she were more social; that other students were here to back her up.

“You need to leave,” Smita says. “Take your creepy prop and get out.”

The woman speaks for the first time. “This isn’t a creepy prop,” she says. “This is a real Hand of Glory. They’re not easy to make, and they’re not pleasant to use, but you shouldn’t call it a ‘prop.’ Someone died to assure this item of its provenance.”

“Erin?” breathes Smita. Familiarity and recognition rush in with the other woman’s voice, making her presence even more of a betrayal. Why hadn’t she recognized her? The urge to take a step back, away from Erin and her “Hand of Glory,” whatever that is, is almost unbearable. “What are you talking about? Why are you here? I very much want you to go.”

“To make a Hand of Glory, you need the hand of someone who’s been murdered,” says the woman—says Erin. “Lots of people seem like they’ve been murdered, but the alchemy is specific. It doesn’t work nearly as well with a victim of manslaughter, for example. The intent is embedded in the flesh. Murder-suicide is also a complicating factor. Someone who wanted to die creates an inferior light. You need a genuine victim of intentional and intended murder, the more brutal, the better. Violence also seems to embed itself in the flesh. It’s funny, the homeopathic ingredients required to violate the laws of nature.”

Smita’s lips draw back from her teeth in an involuntary expression of disgust. “That’s horrible. Why would you even say such a thing?”

“I didn’t just say it. I killed this man. He was a guitar player. You might remember him. Used to sit down by Amoeba Records, playing bad acoustic covers of pop songs. I said I’d cook him dinner, and then I took him apart. I’m not much of an alchemist, but I’m an excellent killer.” Erin sets her burning hand primly on the edge of the nearest table. The flame doesn’t so much as flicker. “It doesn’t matter that I’m not that good at alchemy, because this is one of the simpler recipes. If you’re willing to commit a murder, that is. And if you’re willing to work with the rest of the ingredients required. Some people get a little squirrelly when you ask them to play with rendered baby fat. I know there’s been research dedicated to updating the recipe, but they haven’t found anything yet. Sadly, some things are just inescapable.”

Smita finally gives in to instinct and takes a step backward. Erin stops, cocks her head, and smiles. There’s sorrow in her expression, like she doesn’t want to be here, saying these things, doing whatever it is she’s come to do. Smita finds she doesn’t care. Dimly, with horror, she realizes her surprise and anger have transmuted into fear.

Smita is terrified. Erin is supposed to be her friend, they ate Thanksgiving dinner together, and she’s terrified.

“Why are you here?” she asks. Her voice is a thread, thin and tight and easily snapped.

The look of sorrow on Erin’s face deepens. “Because you opened a book that wasn’t meant for you, and you read what was written inside,” she says. “Please believe me, I’d avoid this if I could—and I think I have, at least once. There are scars in the air around this moment. But they need to know what they are to one another if I’m ever going to be able to bring them back together, and that means your part is already written. It’s funny. They think they understand finally, and they don’t understand anything at all.”

No one has ever accused Smita Mehta of being slow. She’s been at the top of every class she’s ever deigned to join, all the way back to her elementary school years, when the other students made fun of her for everything they could find. The way her parents talked; the way her lunches smelled; even the way she braided her hair. They mocked her from kindergarten all the way to her senior year of high school, and she’s never wavered, not once, from the prize of academic excellence. She was going to show them. She was going to show them all.

But now she’s alone in her lab, and Erin is looking at her with such deep and abiding pity in her eyes, and Smita is afraid.

“Please leave,” she whispers. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

“I know.” Erin takes a step toward her. “I kind of wish you had. Like, if you’d pushed me in the hall or insulted my shoes, I might feel better about this. I wish there were another way. There’s not. That book you opened, it belongs to people who really don’t like sharing their secrets. Baker already gave too much away. So right now, I need you to tell me: where are the DNA test results for Dodger Cheswich and Roger Middleton? How many copies have you made? Who has seen your research?”

Smita stares at her. Erin calmly returns her gaze: she’s holding nothing back. She’s making no effort to conceal her intent, or hide her face. And Smita knows she’s going to die.

It’s a simple realization, quiet and resigned and oddly anticlimactic. She’s always expected the awareness of her onrushing death to be a violent thing, ripping and tearing, leaving panic in its wake. Instead, it walks to the center of her mind and stops, expanding to fill all the available space. She, Smita Mehta, is going to die; when the morning comes, she will no longer exist. Depending on the actual endurance of the human soul, she may leave nothing behind but her work. She hasn’t been alive long enough. She hasn’t created a wide enough record.

“Why should I tell you?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t shake. She’s proud of that.