NOTE: Thanks for all the feedback so far. Sorry for the wait. The next part is nearly complete, so there should be a faster succession of chapters from now on.
iv. Images of Broken Light Which Dance Before Me Like A Million Eyes
Eames has never really liked the taste of grape juice--all bitter and timeless, the way it lingers on your tongue with its last sour spite tendrils--but she thinks Liz Caster, her current alter ego, would, so she swallows it with a convincing smile and wonders if the maroon liquid will leave a stain around her lips. And then she thinks of milk moustaches, and childhood whispers between games of hide and seek, and one hand falls away from her cup as--
"Liz, is it?" interrupts her.
She wants to give a smart-ass retort, because she's wearing an obvious form of identification: one of those silly 'Hello, My Name Is' badges, but...Liz Caster probably wouldn't react that way. So, again, she is at the mercy of her dutiful lies.
"Liz, yes. Hello," she tries deciphering the handwriting, "Ellen."
They shake hands and Eames tosses her near empty cup of grape juice in the trashcan.
"Were you--are you--did you have an experience, or was it--"
Ellen's clear hesitation makes Eames step in as soon as a pause allows.
"It's my demon. My husband's just here, being supportive," she says, waving a hand to Bobby, who smiles as he adjusts his burnt sienna jacket.
"Demon. That's a nice way to describe it. It is rather evil and...unwanted...like that. I mean--were you abducted?"
The only story she can immediately think to recite is the story her brother has annoying told, in his unwavering endearance, for years and years, since the camping trip.
"No, no, nothing like that. It was years ago, on a camping trip. I saw something, you know, it was--sometimes I dream about it so much, I can't remember if I'm actually seeing the it in my dream, or a corruption of it. Maybe a little of both. I know I didn't speak to anyone for a week after it happened, it terrified me. I remember...lots of lights, and a ramp, and...I still have nightmares. I haven't had them for a while, now, but they've started up again."
Ellen nods and pats Eames' hand with her own, only the tips of her fingers visible from beneath the overgrown blue sweater.
"I'm so glad this organization was here, Lord knows what my husband would've had to deal with all the way up to Maine, without it," she smiles as she finishes, hoping it was convincing enough. As Ellen wraps an arm around her shoulder and starts to walk her to a separate room, she's more convinced of her ability to lie well, but suddenly wary about their destination.
"Where are we going?" she implores, suspiciously.
"We've got a therapist here I think you could benefit from a visit with."
Eames puts her hand on Ellen's elbow gently, halting movement. They are standing in the lobby, and Eames catches sight of a man with shoulder-length curly, blond hair staring at the same poster which had previously transfixed her.
"Who's that?" she asks of Ellen, quietly, suddenly distracted from the previous interruption.
Ellen turns to look at the man, a small, sympathetic smile overtaking her face.
"Patrick McGann. He comes here a lot, he's a sweet man, but he's...deeply paranoid. Government conspiracies and all that. He doesn't trust people in authority, really, although he's warmed up to Don."
"Ellen, I think I'll speak to that therapist later, if you don't mind?" Eames pats Ellen's hand quickly and smiles, walking towards Patrick. Ellen shrugs and returns to the reception.
Her footsteps slow as she nears him, suddenly uncertain without Bobby, who's always been the one facilitating these intimate encounters with suspects. Tucking her hands into her pockets, she keeps her head lowered, tilted slightly to the side, and comes to stand in front of the poster, staring at it as she speaks.
"I saw these lights, once."
He scratches his head, but doesn't look at her.
"I saw them the night...the night I started believing in the stories people laugh at you for."
She thinks that confession will do it, but he remains silent, so she tries another approach.
"The night I started believing in monsters."
He looks at her now, staring at her forehead, and then back at the poster, tracing a finger on the narrowest portion of light.
"They aren't monsters. Monsters don't come from other planets. They live here," his whispering voice descends with the hand now motioning towards the barren ground of earth depicted in the poster.
"I guess you're right," she says, looking down at her feet again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Do people laugh at you?" he asks in a sad way, staring at her again.
"Sometimes."
"They laugh at me, too. They all do--well, except for Angie," he tucks his hands into his pockets now, looking at nothing but the grey tangled fibers of the carpet below them.
A flash sounds at the back of her brain when Detective Fischer is mentioned. He stands before her, curls teasing an irritant tear from the corner of his eye, his left shoe taps non-rhythms into the crack between the wall and floor, and she wonders about monsters who exist within the dirtied coats of blue-eyed wanderers.
"Angie?" she probes cautiously. And another thought gives her pause; if he's referring to Detective Fischer by her first name, he must've known about her true identity, which means he must've been aware of the undercover operation.
He crosses his arms now.
"She was my friend. She was--"
He looks at her again, really looking at her now, not just outlines of her.
"Like you," he finishes.
Eames pretends to be surprised, though the recollection of seeing the detective in the morgue, who startingly resembled her, still gives her pause.
Patrick looks at his watch now, biting his lip in irritation.
"He's supposed to see me. He's lying to me. Just like she did. Angie. Angie lied."
"Patrick--"
She moves closer, minutely, aware that his trust in people seems a thing of near non-existence. His reaction to Detective Fischer spurs her into a greater desire for getting closer to the breakdown of his mind, to understand his anger, to know if he's vindictive. To know if he's capable of murder.
He looks at her in a briefly lucid way, but quickly steps back, looking suddenly upset at what he's just said.
"He needs to see me tomorrow. He has to, he has to," he runs a shaky hand through his hair and turns his back to her. She can see his shoulders trembling.
"What did Angie lie to you about?" she asks in an attempt to extract an explanation from him, seeking a brief bit of rationality in his otherwise disjointed phrasings.
Patrick's shoulders steady slightly and he drops his arms to the side.
"She was worried about me. We talked a lot and I--my experiences are pretty frightening. She didn't think I was getting the help I needed. I thought she loved me, for a little while..."
Eames crosses her arms, moving closer to him, though his face is still hidden from hers. He hasn't yet mentioned Angie's identity as a cop, so a confusion continues to fester within.
"I thought she did."
He turns around now, his once-again-crossed arms mirroring her stance.
"I don't want to go in there. I shouldn't have come back today," he looks towards the other room where members circulate with bitter juice folded between their hands, and make their traumas more sensational as they go along, looking...always looking, for a face that won't turn away from the nightmares they live.
Eames catches Bobby's eye and inclines her head sharply to the left, indicating he should join her.
"Patrick, do you want to get lunch somewhere?"
Patrick drops his hands to the side again, stuffing them into his pockets shyly just as Bobby comes to stand beside Eames, an arm going instinctively around her shoulder.
"My husband's buying," she winks.
"No, no, people who aren't wanted by society--they escape to Desolation Row," Bobby interjects over hot pastrami.
"They were banished," Patrick contests.
Eames takes a bite of her tuna sandwich and smiles as she says, "Maybe they just took a wrong turn."
Bobby would never do so, but he plays his alter go to the hilt, and elbows her gently. The left corner of Patrick's mouth lifts in a smirk.
"When are you leaving the city?"
"Soon," Bobby wipes his mouth. "As soon as Liz is ready, that is. We drive through the night and it's--it tends to be a trigger for flashbacks. I want her to feel comfortable."
She studies Patrick's face as he listens to Bobby. His eyes flicker in and out, at one point interested, at the next, indifferent to what's being said.
"I have a book that might help. Self-hypnosis. We could go back to my place when we're done."
When she was dating Josh, they would play a game where they'd label each other's scars. Being the man he touted himself as, it took a bit longer to finish with him. Sometimes, they knew exactly where each other's scars had come from, and properly named them; other times, they made up stories about their origins, even if they knew the truth. She remembers finding the chickenpox scar on the upper slope of his cheek and calling it 'sun tattoo, for the time you forgot to come inside' and he laughed at her and said it was too deep, so she had to think of something else. Her hand went to the inch-long scar on his elbow and this was 'who you were before' and he accepted it. That day, she took the cigarette from his mouth, haughty in her presumption, and burned a new scar onto her wrist saying, simply, "Here be monsters," and he didn't know how to respond and they never played again.
Her thoughts wander to Josh because of the albums Patrick McGann keeps in sloppy order on his archaic bookshelf. He doesn't just listen to folk music, but old jazz and hard rock and everything that contradicts. When she thinks about Josh, she sometimes remembers that they contradicted, too. But it didn't matter then, because they were young.
Her eyes catch on a Bob Dylan album and she thinks of Angie, and Patrick, and her suspicion grows. He keeps the shades drawn, so the only light within the apartment is the end rays of the setting sun. Next to The Communist Manifesto, another token further indicts Patrick: the casing for a stilleto knife. As she takes in the revelation, she can't help but think there's more to it. Yet for now, the evidence suggests otherwise.
"She was a cop, you know. Damn good. Kept me safe, anyway," Patrick's voice suddenly filters from his tiny bedroom, where he stands on the edge of his floor-bound mattress with his shoes on.
Bobby--from his place at the bookshelf on the opposite wall--looks towards Eames, raising an eyebrow.
"A cop? I thought people like that--they don't believe in supernatural things," Bobby murmurs, turning over a book to read the description on the back.
Patrick comes into the living room now, pulling at the torn corner of the plaid shirt he's changed into.
"They usually don't. But she was--well, I guess it doesn't matter now, because she's--"
"What?"
"Dead. She--she was murdered. Oh, Christ," his face collapses into itself, his eyes pinching shut and his mouth moving sideways in an attempt to swallow grief.
"I'm sorry. She--she had been undercover. I was helping her, because I go there all the time. They were investigating...it doesn't matter. Anyway, she's dead."
He wipes at his eyes quickly, angrily.
"She was my friend," no more than a whisper.
Suddenly, Eames' cell phone rings. She moves into a corner, eyes widening slightly at the news being received. She flips the phone shut, sliding it back into her pocket, slowly, slowly.
"Patrick, we need to bring you in for questioning."
His eyes widen and he scrutinizes the two of them, a sigh overtaking his slumping shoulders. Too many cops, he thinks; not enough friends.
TBC...