Maggie
Noyr sat under a light in the otherwise darkness of a dank room. One of her eyes was swollen shut. She was tied
to a chair.
A
tall, broad-shouldered man in a green uniform stood before her.
“Witnesses
describe a relatively young man with you,” said the man in the
green uniform. “They say he was your accomplice in the assault on
Diego San Obispo.”
“All
this for a market dustup?” said Maggie.
“Market
dustup?” said the green-uniformed man. “You broke the man’s
jaw, cracked his skull, fractured his collarbone, gave him a
concussion, and sprained his ankle. If Señor San Obispo wasn’t
pressing charges for assault and battery against you and Alvarez, we
would. Now, why don’t you tell me where Alvarez is?”
“You
are mistaken,” said Maggie Noyr. “There is no Luis Alvarez.”
The
man in the green uniform was tall enough that his eyes were out of
the light, and Maggie could not see his face. Still, she imagined his
eyes full of confusion as certain memories were stolen from him.
“Wait,”
said Maggie, as she realized her mistake. “Luis Alvarez does
exist.”
“Luis
who?”
“Oh
no,” said Maggie Noyr. “Oh no no no no no no. God dammit. I’m
not a day old and my life is already a nightmare. That does it.”
She took a deep breath.
“What
are you – ”
“This
city does not exist.”
In
that instant, where there had been a dank room, there was nothing,
nothing, nothing at all.
She
turned around. Into her sight came one single frame of reference, one
point of comparison admidst nothingness: a lump of marble veined with
gold.
She
took a few steps towards the marble, and with a thud that made her
jump, the dank room came back, with the man in the green uniform
precisely in the place where he had been. A slightly different
stance, though, more appropriate for someone who had seen his
prisoner disappear right out of their ropes. He gathered himself and
lunged at her.
Yet
before he could touch her, Maggie shouted again, “This city does
not exist!”
Once
again La Ciudád disappeared to be replaced by nothing.
She
took a few steps backward and the world re-asserted itself with once more, with a thud that shook her very bones. She was in a
different room, now, an office with a barf-orange wall-to-wall carpet
and a desk that looked like it was out of an office supply catalog, a
couple flickering fluorescent bulbs and a couple green-uniformed men
at a couple desks, one of whom had fallen backward in his chair, the
other of whom was currently leaping over his desk.
“This
city does not exist!”
For
an instant Maggie was in a vast nothingness. She was closer, much
closer to the marble now, and she could see what she had not seen on
the stone before: two eyes, painted with skill and care, so that they
almost looked like they were alive.
The
eyes moved to stare at her.
"Maggie
Noyr,"
came
a rumbling and scraping voice from the stone. Suddenly it was a meter
closer. "You
are not permitted the power to break the story. You dare not claim
the authority to both negate and create. Choose one now."
"Uh…"
The
stone was now a meter closer. "Choose."
Still
Maggie hesitated. She didn’t want to pick either one without the
other, or she might find herself causing a huge amount of trouble
with no way to quickly fix it. Not that having creation on hand had
actually allowed her to bring Luis back. Then again it might be wise
to make sure she couldn’t do that anymore. "I…"
The
stone was now a meter from her. "Do
I have to choose for you?"
"I’ve
been pretty dumb with this whole thing," said Maggie. "Maybe
I shouldn’t be allowed to mess around creating and deleting things.
Maybe you ought to hand this whole responsibility to someone else."
There
was a rhythmic scraping from the stone, almost like a laugh.
"Responsibility.
You frame the matter as I do. You do not believe you are worthy of
such power. Yet there are those who claim the authority to negate
anything, and in deleting as they please, they threaten to unbalance
the very world that is so carefully balanced atop me. I would have
someone oppose them. Do you not desire revenge, for what they did to
you?"
"Revenge
sounds dangerous. Also I don’t remember what they did to me. But
they did
trash
my friend’s apartment...alright, I’m in. Give me creation."
"An
unsettlingly swift decision."
"You
keep pushing me to choose! I choose creation! I don’t want to risk
deleting friends anymore!"
"So
be it. Brace yourself."
Then
the collective scream of ten thousand souls rang in Maggie’s ears,
and the world re-asserted itself once more. Maggie was still in the
room with the barf orange carpet, and the green-uniformed man was
just a bound away from her.
“The
far wall does not exist,” said Maggie. Nothing happened. "Uh,
there’s a really big hole in the wall." In an instant a
circular opening tall enough for a human being to step through
appeared in the wall, revealing a room where stood a short woman in a
white floral-print dress -- a stout lady fair of face,
whose mascara ran down her eyes, whose hair was a right mess, who had
probably been sitting under the gaze of a man in a green uniform, but
the stool was knocked over and so was the man, a perfect tableau of
equal and opposite reactions.
And
yet for all the fair lady’s dishevelment, her appearance chased all
thoughts from Maggie’s mind. Such that two green-uniformed arms
wrapped around her and bound her tightly.
“Your
arms are slippery,” said Maggie, and suddenly her captor's arms were
slick with sweat, and Maggie slid out from them. She dashed forward
through the hole and shouted, "Hole’s closed!"
She
heard a faint dull thud behind her, and turned to see the wall as
whole as it had ever been. She turned back to the fair lady, finding
her thoughts scattering once more at the sight of her. "Hi, uh…"
The
fair lady crossed her arms. "You do know my name, Maggie."
Goodness,
this was attraction. Why was she so much more attracted to this woman
now?
"Yeah, I know your name."
"And
it is?"
"Well,
you know your name too."
The
fair lady’s stern expression broke into a laugh. "That’s
fair."
"Fair
as yourself, my lady."
The
fair lady’s eyes widened. "Oh, am I your
lady
now?"
Maggie
realized what she had just implied. "Uh…" There was a
rattle at the door. "Shit, hang on. There’s a big concrete
wall blocking the door." With a heavy thud,
a wall of concrete appeared where the door had been.
Maggie
finally let out a long breath. She squared her shoulders, and turned
to face the fair lady. "Alejandra."
"Yes?"
"Alejandra
de Surdeville."
"That
is correct. Were you going to ask me a question?"
Maggie
regarded Alejandra’s dishevelment once more. "I seem to have
caught you at an embarrassing moment. I guess your request for
information about Los Ojos didn’t
go over well?”
“To
be honest,” said Alejandra, “when I heard you had been arrested I
quite forgot about them. I came here asking after you. But I didn’t
get very far.” She gestured to the room, whose arrangement of desks
and chairs resembled that of any reception area. “The receptionist
got creepy with me, and then when I told him to shove it he said I
was under arrest for obstructing an officer…this is what I get for
asking after someone? I thought the police were better than this."
"You think they're here to protect you?"
Alejandra
looked at Maggie like she was an ignorant child. “That is why we
have police, Maggie.”
“And
yet, you laid one out on the ground.”
“They
can’t all be like this, right?”
Maggie
raised an eyebrow.
“You’ve
got to be joking,” said Alejandra.
“You
wanted to drag me in here,” said Maggie. “Clearly you’re not
familiar with the police. Or perhaps I am not familiar with the
assumptions of Les
Gens Biens?
Whatever, we need to get out of here. Erm…were you feeling a little
non-existent a few minutes ago?”
“I’m
sure I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Something
to explore later then, perhaps. In the meantime, I am glad to inform
you that erasing things from existence is now beyond my capacity.
Breaking them, though, that’s a different story. For example! I’ve
got a pair of gloves that will let me dig through walls."
A
pair of gloves appeared on Maggie’s hands, whose fingers ended in
sharp claws.
In
the same moment she heard the sound of a jackhammer on the far side
of the wall she had created. So much for breathing time. “Let’s
test these out,” she said, and took a swipe at the wall opposite
the former door. The concrete came away like she was digging through
soil. The jackhammer grew louder. Maggie dug furiously at the wall,
inching her way forward. The jackhammer grew louder still. She
turned, and said, “There’s a tall slab of granite in front of the
door.”
From
the other side of the former door she heard a distant thud, and the
jackhammer sounded no more.
For
the next thirty seconds, it was just Maggie digging a tunnel forward,
forward, forward, with Alejandra gingerly stepping over the chunks of
concrete that Maggie had left behind. The concrete itself was
amazingly thick, as if to stop the depredations of the nastiest
acid-spitting worms and metal-clawed moles, not that Maggie knew if
either of those things existed. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea
to say it out loud.
Maggie
hit solid stone, against which her claws bounced off. “Oh for
crying out loud – ”
There was a mighty boom. Maggie whipped her head around. Far down the
tunnel she could see a cloud of dust where the room had been.
“There’s
a granite block in front of the tunnel entrance,” said Maggie, and
the light in the tunnel vanished with a thud.
In the suddent Darkness, Maggie felt a hand pawing at her face and neck, until it found her shoulder and rested there. "Thanks a bunch," said Alejandra. "Are we stuck here now? But they've got a jackhammer, so we don't have indefinite time. At least give me a little light!"
"Not to worry," said Maggie, "not to worry. I've got a proper lamp." Something fell gently onto her head. She reached up and felt what appeared to be a miner's helmet. She flicked the headlamp, casting a sudden white light forward -- into the eyes of Alejandra. The woman cursed and covered her face with her hands. "Sorry!" said Maggie. She removed the helmet from her head and placed it on Alejandra's head. "Did you want to dig? You're quite a bit stronger than me."
"Is that a consolation prize or just you being lazy?" Alejandra removed the gloves from Maggie's hands and put them on. "Wait. Did you just make me stronger?"
"Um -- I thought it was already self-evident?"
"Tough enough to claw through bedrock," said Alejandra. "Alright, I can dig this. Thanks. Why don't you...be the manager, for a bit."
"Heck yeah," said Maggie. "I'll relax with this Piña
Colada.” She felt a cool wet glass appear in her hand, and heard the sound of crumbling stone.