Page 92 of Tidal Creatures

“You’re just like your father,” spits Anna. Roger reels back as if he’s been struck, and maybe he has been, maybe some forms of assault have nothing to do with the physical. Then Anna’s eyes glaze over, and between one blink and the next she’s gone. Artemis is back.

Artemis stands differently than Anna does. She has a greater tension in her limbs, a certain assurance that she knows precisely where she belongs and will have no trouble getting there. At the same time, an arrogance is missing, one that Kelpie recognizes only because she’s seen it in so many alchemists, and in Catrina as well: the belief that the universe has been arranged for your benefit, even if it harms everyone else around you. Artemis has a different flavor of arrogance to her, the kind that says she knows exactly what she’s capable of, and has no question of her worth. She’s proven it, time and time again.

She has nothing left to prove.

She also, for the moment, looks totally baffled. “What just happened?” she asks.

“We’ll explain in a few minutes,” says Erin. “For right now, we move.”

Suddenly concerned, Judy reaches for Chang’e as they resume their descent toward the bottom of the stairs, and is relieved to find the goddess, reduced and somewhat pushed aside, but present at the bottom of her psyche, lurking.

What? asks Chang’e.

Just wanted to know that you were here, replies Judy, feeling a little foolish. Did you see what happened to Artemis?

I did. Chang’e sounds regretful, almost ashamed. There’s a reason we coexist rather than taking over entirely. That sort of behavior is shameful and unkind. We must never push our hosts from the chambers of their own hearts. We owe you coexistence.

Anna and Artemis haven’t been coexisting.

No. Not for a long time.

Kelpie pulls them up short as they come to the bottom of the stairs, sticking one arm out to prevent them from going any farther. She gestures to the door. “That’s the way to the main lab,” she says. “That’s where I was when … That’s where I was. In there.”

“So that’s where we’ll find the alchemists?” asks Dodger. “Great. I have a few things I’d like to say to those assholes.” She pushes Kelpie’s arm aside and makes for the door, wrenching it open without further hesitation.

On the other side is a lab, gleaming chrome, glass, and glaring white light … and an utter absence of people. Half the equipment has been covered in plain cotton sheets; the exposed half is as clean and shining as the rest, but clearly only because it’s been maintained, not because it’s new and top of the line. This is a lab in the process of being decommissioned.

Kelpie blinks, then steps forward, almost knocking into Dodger. Roger thinks, only half-rationally, that her hooves make more sense now; for a science project that can walk and talk and think for itself, living in a facility where all the floors are linoleum or tile is the equivalent of belling the cat. She’s never been able to sneak up on anyone in her life.

“Where are they?” she asks, breathless, voice tight with sudden concern. She can’t stop herself from looking at the drain in the center of the floor, as polished as the rest of the metal in the room, a channel through which mortal remains can pour and be collected. “He can’t have killed them all.”

“I think you’ll find I can,” says a voice, mild, cultured, and calm. The whole group looks around.

A door has opened on the far wall, partially obscured by a rack of jars and vessels, most of which look too old-fashioned for the lab around them, all of which are spotless. A man is in the process of stepping through. He is tall and almost skeletally thin, with the air of unreality about him that Roger has noticed most alchemists seem to possess, as if he’s looked at the laws governing the rest of the world and decided that no, he doesn’t need to abide by those after all. Those are the restrictions of something lesser than himself.

His eyes are dead. If not for the fact that he’s standing, moving toward them, speaking, Roger would be perfectly willing to call the man a corpse.

“They were a failed research team that wasted Congressional time and resources on a doomed project,” he continues, studying the fingernails of his left hand like he thinks there might be something fascinating beneath them. “Contributing their personal resources to our stores is a kinder outcome than many would have offered them, and those who understood their place were properly grateful for the opportunity.”

“I don’t believe that,” says Kelpie, voice wavering.

He looks away from his nails, finally focusing on her. “It was kind of you to return here of your own volition,” he says, lowering his hand. “You, yourself, are a Congressional resource, and you had no right to remove yourself from the premises.”

“I am not a Congressional resource, I’m a person,” she counters.

“You’re a construct, a cuckoo, and the purpose you were built for is almost upon us,” he says. “You’ll pry open the gates of the City if it kills you.” From the tone of his voice, he’d be perfectly happy with that outcome. One more loose end tied off, one more aberration removed from the world.

“No, I don’t think she will,” says Artemis, stepping between Kelpie and the man with the graveyard eyes. She glares, her own eyes flashing olive green and dangerous.

The man smirks. “Reed’s little double agent. I knew they’d signaled you when the project seemed to be nearing completion; Margaret’s notes were sloppy and quite unprofessional, but they were thorough. I did hope we’d have the opportunity to meet, Miss Austin. You’ve long been one of my favorite examples of the lack of inevitability even in predestination.”

Artemis glares at him. “I don’t work for you.”

“Don’t you?” He snaps his fingers, then hums the first six notes of an orchestral fugue.

Artemis stiffens. Dodger inhales sharply.

“That was the theme for the 1907 stage musical of Over the Woodward Wall,” says Dodger. “The sheet music was supposedly lost after the theater burned down. How…?”