C h a p t e r 1 6

T h e F e a r

0o0o0o0

Foaly would confess himself… a bit confused. Maybe. Possibly. Don't tell Root.

They'd all made it out onto the volcano, climbed a few hundred meters over the pod shaft and wound up in a clearing. Elizabeth was there with Emmet, but other than that, they were alone.

"No!" She'd screamed when she saw them. She'd dropped Emmet's hand and started running in their direction, waving her arms frantically. "Go back, I-"

And then he didn't remember anything else, really, except suddenly being here.

Foaly looked around the bar he was standing in, utterly perplexed. It was filled with fairies, talking and laughing, drinking at the bar or eating dinner at booths. He was still wearing his military uniform.

"Foaly!" Someone said, punching him in the arm. He turned, expecting to see some burly drunk looking for a fight, but it was just Holly. Or, well, it looked like Holly, but just slightly different. Her hair was longer, and there was brightness in her face that he hadn't seen in a long time. Her cheeks were a bit flushed, from drink or from warmth or just from happiness, he couldn't tell. She was wearing civilian clothes, an actual skirt and a blouse. He could hardly believe it.

"Where have you been?"

He blinked. "Er… I'm not sure, actually."

"Why are you in your old uniform?"

"Uh… because we're in battle?"

Holly's smile wilted a little. "Oh no, not that again," she muttered.

Foaly glanced around, waiting for some explanation to jump out at him. None did.

"What again?" He said.

Holly shook her head sadly. "Foaly, we won that battle five years ago. Let me show you."

She reached up and tugged off his helmet, then took him by the arm and turned him around. Foaly let her maneuver him, numbness radiating from his core.

Then he saw himself in the mirror on the far wall. A long scar snaked through the left side of his head, an obvious relic of tremendous pain. His face was more mature. It was a shock to see soft laugh lines around his eyes, and he reached up a hand to touch them. He looked like he'd grown old, and done it happily.

"What the hell…?" He muttered.

0o0o0o0

Holly was saturated with a deep sense of peace.

She was standing on a hill on the surface, up to her knees in thick, swaying grass. A soft wind blew, making the grass around her shush and lifting up her hair. She reached up a hand to touch it.

"My hair has grown," she said serenely.

"Has it? I hadn't noticed," someone said jokingly to her left. Holly turned, and saw a young man reclined on the grass, smiling up at her, a human boy in his early teens with blond hair and blue eyes.

"Emmet," she said. She couldn't find it in herself to be concerned. The whole Milky Way was laid out above her, spectacular and brilliant.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," he said, rolling his eyes. Her lips twitched. She turned to her other side and saw only grass. A brief flash of unease went though her, but then her calm returned.

You fear being left behind.

"You've passed," someone behind her said.

Holly turned and found herself in a brightly lit room a kitchen. The kitchen she'd grown up in. The girl that had come with Blue was sitting at the scarred wooden table, wearing a bathrobe with her legs curled up on the chair in front of her. A vase of violets sat in the center of the table, and morning sunlight made the glass sparkle and sent little rainbows up onto the ceiling.

"Oh hell," Holly muttered. "What are you doing here? And where is here, anyways?"

"Relax," the girl said. "I told you, you passed."

"You're not explaining anything, and you know it," Holly said. Abruptly frustrated, she put her hands on her hips. It was still a child she was dealing with. "What is your name?"

The little girl blinked at her. "I'm Sesame. You don't remember?"

"I was a bit preoccupied the last time we met. Now, where are we?"

Sesame glanced around, then reached up and wove one of her curls around a finger. "I don't know. Somewhere in your memories."

"Okay." That was something, at least. "How did we get here?"

"You decided that. It's how my magic works. I can make people dream, but they decide what it is that they dream about." Sesame glanced up at her imploringly.

Holly sighed and pulled out a chair at the table, then slumped into it. "You're going to have to do a better job of explaining than that," she said.

Sesame curled her hair a little tighter and squirmed in her seat. "It's hard," she whined softly. "It's hard to explain."

"Try," Holly said firmly.

"I can make people go to sleep, and set up traps in their minds. They know their own strengths and weaknesses, so they do the work. I can nudge them in the right direction, but ultimately, their dreams come from their own thoughts and memories. Some people trick themselves, others don't."

Holly accepted the explanation, but found herself curious. She'd thought if she would confront her worst fear, it would be a pit crawling with people she'd failed, or maybe the cell where Artemis had been kept at AMN. But no. She feared loneliness. Strange.

"I'm not all that surprised that I passed, then. I've never been all that creative. Why am I still here?"

"Because we're waiting for the others to finish."

"Who else is in here?"

Sesame curled up a little tighter and shrugged. "That pixie with the black hair is awake, now. I didn't touch the little boy. He's cute." She smiled. "I think I had a brother like him once. I bet everyone will be really happy when I bring him back to AMN."

Holly realized with a slight thrill that she was sitting across from a girl who might have killed little boys like Emmet, who was part of the organization that had killed his mother. As cooperative as she was being, it didn't sit well with Holly when she talked about Emmet. "Keep talking," she prodded.

"I don't know how long it's been outside of here. I never know. I'm not as clear out there as I am in here. Your bodies are out there, though. If I had to say, I'd say it's probably only been a few seconds."

"What about my comrades? When will they be done in here?"

She looked up, and her eyes were wide and innocent. "They may not come out. That's the point. You have a strong mind, for an elf. You have strong convictions."

"No, I don't," Holly said numbly. "I have no idea what I want."

Sesame shook her head. "Yes you do. Or you would be dead."

"Aren't you disappointed about that?" Holly asked, suspicion working into her mind. All of this could be part of the trap.

Sesame yawned. "I did my best."

Holly licked her lips. "Okay, so we have some time to kill. How about you tell me about AMN?"

"I don't know if I should."

Holly figured it might work best if she didn't make her host uncomfortable. Let sleeping dogs lie. Right. No pushing. "Are you one of the guards?"

"No," Sesame smiled, looking pleased with herself. "I'm on the council."

"Like Blue."

She scrunched up her face. "Nah. Blue isn't really on the council. To be on the council you have to have been born with magic. Blue had to get surgery to use it. He's only technically on the council because he's good at keeping track of everyone's personalities."

"Do you have another personality?"

Sesame laughed. "Nuh-uh! Only the guards do, silly."

"So… Blue?"

"Nope. I guess he got out of it. He's one of only two people that the Doctor ever worked on without scrambling their brains first. He had to be really careful."

"Torturing them into insanity, you mean," Holly said coldly.

"What?" Sesame glanced up again, the shrugged. "Uh, I guess. Anyways, him, and the Guard of Rot."

"Blue because he volunteered… why the other one?"

Sesame blinked at her. "She volunteered, too. She had someone she really wanted to save. Normally the Doctor doesn't strike deals, but she was really well fitted for something he had planned, the Commander just told him to go for it."

She paused with a curious expression on her face, and peered up at Holly a bit more intensely. "I thought you knew her. It was part of her debriefing before we sent the Guard of Persuasion down under. I guess you knew her by a first name, though. Uh… let me think…" she scrunched up her face in thought, then alit as the answer came to her.

"Minerva! You called her Minerva."

0o0o0o0

Henry Dippet stared down at his parent's dead bodies. Hot blood dripped down the knife he was holding onto his hand, silently trickling along his knuckles and the creases of his palm.

"I can't believe I did it," he whispered. He wanted to say something else, staring at his father's twisted face and wide, surprised eyes- ha, thought I was a pussy med student, did you? Look at me now! Who's got the knife now, dad? But then his father's stomach was slit and there were guts slipping out of him onto the floor. And a few feet away lay his mother's body, equally mangled. Why was she dead, too? That wasn't right. Was it because she had loved his dad? Because she would have turned Henry in?

No, not Henry. He was Doctor Dippet. He had changed his last name a few weeks after leaving for college, Dippet after his great grandmother, a nurse in the city hospital.

A shudder traveled through him and didn't leave.

He didn't remember killing them, but the knife was still in his hand, incontrovertible proof that he had. He wondered briefly if it was possible he was undergoing some sort of shock. Yes, yes, that made sense.

It was something he'd always wanted, he reminded himself shakily. The desire had burned in his stomach since childhood, since he was seven years old. His left foot curled in his shoe, and he felt the absence of his big toe. No one deserved to live after they cut a child's toe off with a kitchen knife as a punishment for running away. The thirteen years of abuse following had been shelved in his consciousness for too long. The skin of his back had been cut and healed so many times, he was surprised her had enough juice left to keep from aging like a human. His dad got what he had coming to him.

Dippet lowered the knife slowly, then let it drop to the floor. Everything was already soaked in blood, anyways. He didn't feel anything except the slight buzzing of nervous energy just under his skin, like ants biting at rotten meat.

He had to bury the bodies. That took priority. The house was pretty far from the city- there were a few acres of land out back. He could bury them there, with the knife and his soiled jacket. He could dig the hole first, but… no. He didn't want the bodies in the house. Someone could come by. Someone might see.

His heart skipped a beat and he cast a glance around the empty kitchen. The windows outside were dark. It was nighttime.

He dropped his gaze back down to his parents. No, to the corpses. He put the knife on the counter and knelt down between the bodies. The smell of blood was a sour reek in the air. He hesitated for only a moment before touching the body of his mother. She was on her side. He rolled her onto her back then got one arm under hers, so he could carry her half draped across his shoulder. His dad was a little harder, due to the fact that there was… so much of him missing. With his shaking, free hand, he pushed his father's organs back into his chest cavity. They were cold and slimy when he touched them, and left his hand covered in chunky gristle and strange brown blood. How long had it been since his parents had- since he'd killed his parents? He couldn't remember.

He buttoned his father's jacket up over the wound with shaking fingers, then pulled his father onto his opposite shoulder and heaved.

Their combined weight made him stagger. It took him a second to realize how different it was from lifting living people. The bodies didn't grab back, and almost instantly began to slip out of his grasp. Dippet pulled his mother a little farther up, adjusting his hold, and grabbed a handful of his father's coat to hold him in place.

His first staggering step towards the door jostled the two bodies against his. His mother's head lolled and bumped into his chest, utterly limp on her neck. A thick strand of drool slipped from her slack lips, hit his collar bone (cold, cold, cold) and slid down under the collar of his shirt, as slow as mud.

He closed his eyes. Weak, his father would say. Little Henry, born into a little girl's body. Blind Henry always stumbling into things, putting out his own knee on the stairs or tripping and knocking his head on a rock. Not blind, Dippet thought savagely. He'd only needed glasses and a bit of corrective eye surgery to get rid of his childhood cataracts.

He made it to the front door, and he was already panting. The door was unlocked. He kicked it open, and the cold wind outside almost knocked it back into his face. It hit his father's body with a thud as Dippet stepped into the night, staggering up the weedy path towards the woods where thick pine trees were shivering as the wind combed them back and forth, a false storm brewing over head. Dippet had to thank the government for a moment, for deciding this night should be a stormy. People weren't likely to visit his parent's house in a storm. It wasn't worth the long drive.

He began the long trudge out into the woods, through the sludge. His own footsteps landed between the smears his parent's bodies made in the mud.

0o0o0o0

You fear your split loyalties.

Root glanced around, taking in his surroundings. For a moment, he didn't recognize them, then he realized her was in an office building where he'd worked right out of school. Nowhere important, but a suitable improvement over the illusion he'd been fighting: a great, many limbed creature with a peculiar set of beaks on its tentacles, some mad mash up of squid, octopus, and sea star, but massive. Facing a difficult choice, he'd thrown his armored body into its mouth to save two dozen strangers with scared faces, and in the moment those great jaws had closed down on his body with a gritty crunch-

He'd woken up here, and remembered the battle.

So that was good.

"You're the second to escape," a voice said.

Root turned and saw the little girl, Sesame, from the demon town.

"Holly was the first?" He guessed.

"It was the girl with red hair."

"That's her," he said.

Sesame shrugged. "I don't care about your names," she said.

He wondered about that for a moment, then decided not to ask. He was dressed in civilian clothes. He didn't have a gun. "Well, I'm Root. Are we going to fight, or can I leave? Where are we, exactly?"

"Your head," she said. "Or mine. I don't really know."

When no more explanation seemed forthcoming, he raised an eyebrow. "Am I staying indefinitely as your prisoner, or…?"

"I guess you can go in a minute. I was going to wait for everyone to wake up, though."

Root considered. That meant Elizabeth and Emmet were alone. "If I say I still want to go, will you let me?"

She shrugged. "I guess. I don't really care what you chose."

"Will you tell my vice captain so we can leave together?"

She squinted up at him, considering, then shrugged again. "Yeah, okay. If that's what you want."

"One more question: why are you making this so easy for me?"

Sesame twirled a curl around her finger absentmindedly, eyes far away. "You decide how easy it is. I told you that already." She yawned. "Besides, I'm bored here. You two aren't that interesting. The others two, though… them I'll get to watch after you go."

Root tried not to let that frighten him, and failed.

0o0o0o0

"Come on, Foaly, stop being such a buzz kill," Julius Root told him, swaggering over from the bar, and wasn't that a sight. The drink he was holding tipped precariously, and he looked down at himself in shock as it splashed over, wetting his front. "Oops, uh, Holly, would you mind?"

Holly rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'll grab you some napkins." She patted Foaly on the arm, giving him a last, mildly concerned frown, and trotted off.

"Holly's still taking care of you?" Foaly said, grinning.

"What?" Root asked absently. "Oh, God, no. She still goes out of her way to make things harder for me. I don't know why she's being nice to me right now, actually. Maybe she's drunk, eh?"

He nudged Foaly's side.

Foaly looked around at the people surrounding him. At the end of the bar, he could see Bloom casually drinking Dippet under the table while arm wrestling the bar tender.

"This… this isn't real, is it?" Foaly said. Because. Come one. He was brilliant.

Still, he'd expected more than the guffaw Root gave in reply. "Don't be narrow-minded, Foaly," he said. "If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?"

"No, I mean, you're a figment on my imagination. I'm in a coma, or unconscious, or dead."

"Three strikes and you're out," Root said. "The correct answer was D, none of the above."

Foaly closed his eyes, thinking. "So… have I been drugged?"

Finally, Root's jovial smile curled off a bit, but more like he was disappointed than angry.

"Come one, Foaly. You're awfully close. You're just not getting this."

Foaly closed his eyes, and did what he did best: he thought. Hard. Feeling into the deepest part of his subconscious mind, then deeper, into the sleeping unconscious. Somewhere, he could feel a slow drag in the center of his body. He struggled, trying to tell what it was, and felt a shock of realization- it was his breath moving in, a million times slower than real time.

"The little girl…" He mumbled. Her image rose blearily to his mind's eyes. He couldn't focus on her features, but he knew somehow just how she must have looked.

"Come on. Have a drink," Root said, coaxing. "You can figure this out."

He held out a bottle of amber beer, and Foaly took it and stared down at it for a long moment.

"No," he said, opening it with a deft flick of the wrist and taking a deep drink. "I understand alright."

He turned and smashed the neck on the wall, then swung back and drove the jagged remains into Root's throat.

Root grinned harshly, teeth pressed so tightly together it looked painful. "Really, Foaly," he gasped, then coughed harshly. "I always kind of thought you secretly liked me." He laughed weekly, which was really more a choking gag. Blood damped the corner of his mouth. "Good luck," he managed, and collapsed into a pile on the ground.

Foaly stared at him numbly. Screams started behind him. He stumbled a step backwards. "What the hell, Foaly!" Screamed Dippet, running over from the bar. He met Foaly's eyes wildly for only a moment before dropping to his knees beside Root.

"Call an ambulance!" He shouted. His hands were beginning to glow blue, but Root was already almost dead, seizing helplessly on the ground in great, shaking convulsions, eyes rolled back in his head. The magic wouldn't help.

"Dippet," Foaly said calmly.

Dippet turned slightly to look up at him, and Foaly reared up and kicked him hard in the jaw. While Dippet lay on the ground, shocked and trying to recover from the blow and working his probably broken jaw, Foaly's hoof came down with a crunch on his face. Dippet only had time to gurgle and lift his hands weekly before he was hit a finally time. His head snapped around on the ground, and he lay still.

"Stay back," Foaly told the horrified crowd of partiers. All of their faces were familiar. "I've got a self explosive. If any of you try to stop me, we all die." The words were leaden in his mouth.

"Holly," he muttered. "Holly is next." He picked a steak knife off a nearby table. It was slick with barbeque sauce.

He cast his eyes around, and found her right where he expected, trying to force as many people silently behind the bar through the back exit as possible.

She caught sight of him and her face was ash white. "Go," he heard her hiss, half turning back to the others. "Quickly." Then she stood up and grabbed a stool. She smashed it against the bar, knocking off the legs, and picked one up in each hand. The one in her left hand spun twice like a sword as she adjusted her grip.

In real life, Holly could take him out in about five seconds. Here, he was sure he would win. He blocked her first strike with his free hand, grabbed the end of the leg, and pulling it free from her hand, used the momentum from her strike to swing her back and push her harshly into the bar. Glasses tinkled off the back side of the counter and shattered. She stared at him with shocked, betrayed eyes, and then darted her glance around the room in a brief aborted gesture. Looking for me, Foaly realized. Unable to believe I'm right in front of her.

She pulled herself upright and charged, and her sidestepped her strike, grabbed her arm, and pulled her down onto his knife.

You fear you are becoming what you hate.

"Fuck," she hissed. He twisted the blade and forced the tip up. She jerked against his body, scrambling. The bludgeon fell to the ground and she tumbled into his chest. The knife cut through another half inch of skin as she sunk down, and she wheezed, her red hair getting into his mouth, her fingers on his shoulders.

Then he blinked his eyes open, and he was standing back in the clearing. He gasped and stared down at his front. He could feel warm blood on his chest. He could taste the ghost of it in his mouth. His shirt was dry. He touched it gingerly.

"Foaly, you're awake," Root said.

Foaly's head snapped up, and he stared around, taking in Elizabeth with a set face, holding Emmet by the hand, Root adjusting his coat, and Holly, with her gun leveled on Sesame's face.

Sesame stuck out her bottom lip at him. She had very bright eyes, but they were only half open. "You passed," she said. "Congratulations."

Elizabeth was the first to ask, "What about Dippet?"

Sesame smiled and pointed to where a body was lying half obscured in the grass. "Dippet failed."

0o0o0fin!0o0o0

Next Chapter:

"Bitch, please," said Nike. Or, well, the sophisticated equivalent of.