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Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi pulls up to the Whirling-in-Rags and switches off the engine, feeling its purr die down into a rumble and then quiet clicking. The wind carries to him the scent of salt water, garbage and dead flesh, poorly-preserved. His lips pull down at the corners, tucked into place through years of rigorous self-discipline and lessons learned the hard way.
In his eagerness to solve this case, he has already been and gone to Martinaise twice this weekend. Granted he did not stay long, only enough to affirm that whoever the 41st sent had not yet arrived, or was unable to meet him, but in his defense, and possibly the 41st's as well, it was a weekend.
Not everyone is a workaholic like you, Kim , a voice that sounds suspiciously like an ex-boyfriend hisses.
Not everyone is as dedicated to justice as you , the jovial voice of an old partner whispers back.
But judging by the Coupris parked outside and the early morning dew settled on it, he will not have much longer to wait.
He tugs his gloves on tight. Third time's the charm. And no sooner for it because the sky, grey and overcast, threatens rain. Kim frowns up at it, tucks his plastic poncho into his black bomber jacket. He hopes the weather will hold, or at least occur after the preliminary interviews.
The hostel door swings open a little too easily. It is as deceptively welcoming as the smile the old lady in the wheelchair gives him. There is no sign of the officer from the 41st so Kim pulls out a newspaper and starts to work on the crossword. He makes short work of it. The hints seem so obvious to him, it's as if he's done it before.
When he's done, he folds the paper away and stands at parade rest, unwilling to take even a single additional step. The case is foul, unpleasant and tedious but it will be undertaken by two or not at all.
It is only when he resists checking his watch for the second time that a figure descends the stairs. A twinge travels down his spine, a feeling of wrongness creeps up his neck and settles into an ache in his chest. Then, as quickly as it arrives, it disappears, leaving only the plain clothes officer approaching him in a green quilted jacket sporting the RCM’s signature white patches.
The first thing that strikes Kim is the man's broad shoulders which casts an intimidating silhouette. He does not know anything about this man but he is already jealous of his natural-born attributes and their air of authority. Tall, bulky and broad-built. A model member of the RCM.
But as his features come into focus, Kim perceives upon his pock-marked though handsome face a guilty sheepishness. A slouching gait that suggests he feels he does not deserve the position he occupies. Well, Kim thinks, no need for that humble pie then. He slips on his own professional mien and stretches out his hand.
"Hello, I'm Kim Kitsuragi, Lieutenant, Precinct 57. You must be from the 41st..."
“Lieutenant Kitsuragi, hello,” the man says, eyes wide in recognition, perhaps? Not always a good thing, he reminds himself. The handful of times his reputation has preceded him has never ended well. He steels himself against the ribbing, the japes about his appearance or worse, heritage, and waits for the eventual “Kimball” to drop.
The man adjusts his grip. Too firm, and by the wince and slight adjustment, he knows it. He's nervous, off-kilter, but above all, deferential. "Jean Vicquemare, Satellite— ah no," he mumbles, correcting himself. "Lieutenant." Newly promoted, Kim makes a mental note.
Jean bites his lips, looking perturbed, and as he struggles with his words, their hands hang in the balance. “You seem confused, Detective,” Kim prompts, moving to free his hand.
Luckily, Jean takes the hint and releases his grip, "Khm, it's an honour to be working with you, Lieutenant."
He's young, Kim thinks. Likely in his 30s. And already a Lieutenant? How long did it take him to earn lieutenancy? He feels the weight of his glasses on his nose, the shadow of his greying hair, in the corner of his eye, the features that set him apart in a crowd, that mark him as other, and revisits the learned acceptance that Revachol may be beautiful but it is not always fair.
“It looks like we had a little scheduling error on Sunday. Saturday too, actually... Have you had time to talk to the manager here?”
“Yes,” Jean says with an apologetic nod. And then acknowledges the delay with a wince. "Last minute emergency back at the 41st, all hands on deck. It's no excuse, but I wasn't able to come down any sooner," he shakes his head, and there’s that look again. The one that says ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ He must still be growing accustomed to that promotion.
“Understood, I can provide a preliminary briefing if you need one.”
“No,” Jean says, a little too quickly, too defensively. “That won't be necessary.”
Kim blinks. “Alright. If you’re sure..."
"I know what I'm doing, Lieutenant," Jean snaps. Then adds in a much more cowed tone, "With all due respect."
“Certainly.” Chip on his shoulder, Kim notes with some detachment. Handle with care. He'll jot it into his notebook when he can pass it off as part of an interview.
“About the cafeteria manager.” Jean nods towards the man standing behind the counter polishing a glass. "I got in late last night, about 11pm, but I managed to have a quick word. Lawrence Garte is his name. He lives in Jamrock, said he only got in a few hours before I did. Didn’t have much to add.”
"Does he know who might?"
"Sylvie, the previous bartender. But she took urgent leave." Jean lifts his eyebrows as he relays this news, belying his distrust of the information.
“A possible lead,” Kim nods. “Did you find a way to contact her?” Jean pulls out a coaster with a scribbled string of numbers and flicks it twice in the direction of Garte. Kim nods again. “We should speak to him again. Did you also map out the initial interviews?”
"Yes, there’s the leader of the Union, Mr Claire,” he pauses. “And the Wild Pines rep,” he cocks his chin towards the pier. “Her boat’s docked in the harbour. I didn't want to get started without you so we've got the whole rodeo ahead of us.” He glanced over his shoulder again. “Would you like to do the honours, sir?”
“We're the same rank, Detective."
"Khm, force of habit.”
It is what Kim has already surmised, but he can’t help but be reassured by Jean’s diligence. He swallows his own conclusions and nods, there's nothing he has to add. “Perhaps this will be good experience for you. What better way to break in a new rank than with your first major case?”
“Right yeah, this is a great one to have. This pissing contest between precincts.”
He is younger than you, Kim chides. Do not allow this insubordination.
"If you agree then we can be professional about it," he says coldly.
"Of course, Lieutenant," Jean says, with the shock of someone who's just been slapped. His face flushes red. "My apologies."
Garte is a man who looks like his teens, twenties and thirties decided to gang up on him and left him with a 5 o' clock shadow and a weak chin. He does not raise his head as they approach, only when Jean clears his throat does he look up with a wary look. "Lieutenant Vicquemare, as I said, I'm happy to cooperate with the investigation but as I've said, I only just arrived myself to take over Sylvie's duties, temporarily." His voice is tight but polite.
The facts corroborate Jean's account but his tone leaves something to be desired. Kim gives Jean a pointed look as he considers what might have transpired the night before. Jean studiously does not meet his gaze. Looks like Kim will have to rethink interrogation tactics with this one.
But later. Kim starts with the preliminary questions: where were you (in Jamrock, manages two other properties), did you see anything (no, arrived at 1900 on Sunday), do you know who did it (the Union, Hardie Boys, rowdy, drunk, called it a lynching).
Kim glances at Jean, signaling he's done, but which Garte takes to mean the questioning is over. "Now will you take care of the body? It's been there for a week." He's impatient and nervous. A dead body is not the best air freshener, nor the best welcome sign.
Jean interjects, "A week, and no one thought to call the RCM?"
"Well I wasn't here," Garte grumbles.
"But the bartender, Sylvie, was, why didn't she call?"
"Well the phone line is dead, for one...”
Kim observes how Jean leverages the rapport he has built with Garte to ekk out what he wants to know. The man is thorough and curious, he has his technique refined to a tee, keeping the interviewee on the knife edge of discomfort with an almost textbook execution. But he's distracted, he keeps glancing over to the stage, to the mounted bird in the cafeteria manager's hands, to the rainbow of bottles behind the bar, frown deepening. At the end of the interview, he throws in a question that, to Kim, is entirely out of left field.
“Do you do karaoke here?”
“We used to,” Garte says warily. “But not anymore. Not since the Great Karaoke Catastrophe of '44. Why do you ask?”
Jean glances at the small stage and Kim follows his gaze. Barely a stage, more like a stair no one had thought to complete. A single microphone and a music stand are shuffled side by side, relics of nostalgia and drunken crooning, their legs are uneven, as if they themselves might start swaying to silent tunes. Overhead, unseen, hangs a very dusty mirror ball. Its unpolished surface gives a weak wink in the dim yellow light.
“No reason,” Jean says, turning back. “Does it get very noisy here at night?”
“Depends on which guests show up,” Garte says. “But it was quiet last night.”
No new leads, one very dead body and an irate cafeteria manager later, they step out of the hostel and Jean exhales sharply, "That place smells like a lemon went through a midlife crisis.”
Kim agrees. “I imagine it’s not easy to upkeep a place like that in a town like this.”
Jean shakes his head. “Merde. I need a fucking coffee."
"There's a Frittte! down that way," Kim says, pointing towards the harbour.
Jean makes a contemplative noise, then waves a dismissive hand. "Garte owes us for that useless shitshow."
Kim pointedly does not react. He knows that particular feeling that comes from a drawn out interview that reaps nothing but rarely does he give voice to it. When it’s clear that Jean has no intention to act on his impulse, Kim chooses to treat it as a passing impulse. "Shall we inspect the body?"
They’ve received the key to the fence that leads to the yard but someone’s already beaten them to the body. A rat of a child barely pauses in lobbing stones at the corpse to shout expletives at them. His body double, a girl with a cap that looks like it’s older than her, echoes them joyously. Kim resists the urge to rub his temples, Jean is not so successful. “Fuckin’ kids,” he mutters.
“We do not have to speak to them at all, Detective. It’s unlikely they know anything.”
“I know, I know, but it’s what—” Jean cuts himself off. “Never mind, we’ll play it by ear.”
They head straight for the corpse. A cargo belt secures the bloated body of a man from the tree. It is thick enough to withstand the paltry blows raining onto its precious goods, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Kim sees Jean do a sweep of the yard, eyes landing on each corner — the greenhouse, the tree, the kids, the hostel behind them — cataloging actions to be taken and the sequence he should take them in.
An adolescent cry pierces the air, “Hey pigs, stay away from Cuno’s fuck-gimp if you know what’s good for ya! Won’t be warning you twice!”
Kim hears Jean mutter, “Can’t believe I’m going to do this.” Then he takes a very deliberate step into the path of an oncoming rock. Kim doesn’t see the rock, just a flash of grey shooting towards Jean before his hand shoots up and grabs it out of the air.
The volley of shots stops, stunned.
It’s a window of opportunity. Without pausing, Jean lofts the stone in the air with casual flicks of his wrist, “Hey kid, tell me what you know.”
The child is ugly, underfed and high, but he’s also street-smart. He’s seen Jean’s little display and that, coupled with Jean’s build, is enough to intimidate him, but he’ll never let it show. He flashes a dirty smile at Jean. “Can’t talk, pig. Shit’s coming up strong.”
“So you know nothing then? The good lieutenant here thought that might be the case but I wanted to give you a chance.”
“Fuck’s that mean? Cuno knows a shitton, a fucking metric. Cuno's not a snitch, that's all...”
“That’s right Cuno!” The raggedly girlchild screeches from behind the fence. “Don’t let those f****t cops tell you shit!”
“Right, no one tells you what’s what,” Jean says, drawing it out. On the surface he agrees with Cuno, but he’s going for patronising, Kim thinks, giving Cuno a chance to rise up and meet the challenge.
“Right,” Cuno nods, but he sounds uncertain. “So if Cuno decides to answer some questions, that’s Cuno’s choice.”
So when the girl yells, “Don’t tell them shit Cuno!”
Cuno snaps without looking back, “I said, that’s Cuno’s fucking choice !”
After that, Jean settles into the usual questioning, trying to get a clue to who the man in the tree was (hired muscle), what happened to his clothes (looted) and who did it (the local gang). In other words, nothing they didn’t already know or couldn’t guess.
“Alright, well thanks for nothing kid,” Jean says, drawing away. “We’ll let you know if we have more questions.”
The kid scrunches up his face, yells, “Cuno doesn’t fucking care!”
“Did you get what you were looking for?” Kim asks.
Jean huffs. “Nope,” he sounds resentful, but not at the kid. He expected more from that, he knew there was something there, but he couldn’t get it out of the kid. “Let’s see the body.”
It’s a piece of work. Stripped of his breath, his clothes and his dignity, the corpse has been worn down to nothing more than a bag of rotting flesh twisting in the wind. At least Jean got the kid to stop throwing rocks for the time being. They stare up at the daunting task ahead of them and Kim says, “Any ideas on how we’re going to get him down?” and Jean breathes, "Fuck. I don't know. Shoot it?"
That gets the kids going. They hoot and holler until Jean snaps at them and nearly jeopardises the authority he's established.
“Was never good with kids,” Jean admits to Kim in a low voice.
Kim decides not to brandish the ‘I told you so’. “I know what you mean,” he says in a level voice. “I did 15 years in Juvie.”
Jean shudders. "Fucking nightmare."
"You have no idea. Any other ideas, then, Detective?" He asks, and ignores the wrongness of it on his tongue. It's stronger now, the wind chilling the back of his neck, the ache in his lungs as the winter air stabs into it.
“I could climb up,” Jean says. “Or we could ask for a chair from the Whirling.”
“The body is too high up.”
“We could stack them.” He doesn’t seem to be annoyed with Kim shooting down his suggestions, just takes it in stride. He nods to the greenhouse. “The gardener might have a ladder.”
The air is heavy as a sigh. "We should hurry it up, before the rain."
Jean sees the light mist rolling in and winces. "Shit. Yeah, I'm going to put on my slicker before it opens up. This place has been bombed to hell and back, no way it has any proper shelter." He looks ruefully at the body, it'll be worse to carry out the autopsy in the rain with both the details and their memory growing slippery and wet.
"I think," Kim says, "We need to seek the Union's assistance on this one. We can get one of the interviews done that way."
Jean grunts, "Normally I'd agree, but the harbour's locked up tighter than the belt around his neck,” he jerks a thumb at the body. “And the streets are constipated with lorries and workers. It's a goddamn mess out there, we’d have to muscle our way in."
"We need to give it a try anyway."
The guard is a literal wall of a man imitating a veritable statue of racism committed to marble and meat, flanked by floozies with rictus grins and waggling heads. They call him Measurehead and while Kim would rather not interact with a man who sees cranium shapes as a mark of ‘race purity’, Jean backs down in the face of his rhetorical ‘speeches’.
“We need to speak to your boss, Mr Evrart Claire,” Kim says.
“YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY A LIBERAL, SEOLITE," the man tells him and Kim immediately tunes him out until he reaches the end of his speech wherein he says, "BUT MR EVRART HAS GRANTED YOU ENTRY."
Jean's head jerks up in shock. Kim nods towards the office door where the electronic lock opens with a buzz.
“What luck,” Jean says dryly, when they’re out of earshot.
“I think Mr Evrart has eyes and ears around Martinaise. It’s to be expected. And we are not hard to miss.”
“What, even in our Sunday Best?”
“I think it might be precisely our Sunday Best that makes us stand out. People do get a sense for cops.”
“Yeah,” Jean says, offishly. “Or it could be your Coupris Kineema they saw blasting in from a mile away.”
“Is there a problem with my vehicle, Detective?”
“No, just its engine."
"Not a fan of MCs, I take it?"
"I'm more of an equestrian cop, despite the MC. But I expect this case will take a while and it wouldn't be fair on Capitaine." He sneaks a glance at Kim. "I'll take care of transporting the body. I don't have to be a torque dork to know that you value your Coupris more than life itself."
"Khm. We can discuss it when the body is actually down."
"Sure."
Jean smirks cheekily at Kim. It’s nothing, just a twitch at the corners of his lips, but Kim warms anyway. He can see Jean is working through something, he’s distracted, shoving back his slicker hood to run ragged nails through his cropped hair. There’s self-loathing in there that hasn’t gone away and something else he’s running from.
As they move through the harbour, past the towering cranes and creaking containers, Kim continues to piece together his temporary partner's profile. He'd been wary, going into this case, determined not to encourage the inter-precinct feud, but he's pleased to find Jean isn't interested in fucking around either.
From their handful of interactions, Kim can surmise that Jean is straightforward yet tactful, predictable but not boring, by-the-books but not shy of loopholes. There’s a deep sadness to him which is probably diagnosed, judging by the bottle of pills rattling around in his inner pocket, and something deeper he can’t shake.
This all becomes much clearer when they face the slimeball of a man, Mr Evrart Claire. He looks worse when he smiles, Kim thinks, like a slab of melting cheese.
"Lieutenants Jean Vicquemare and Kim Kitsuragi, I've been expecting you!”
“How nice it is to be expected for a change.”
“Not at all, not at all! We’re honoured to be granted the pleasure of having RCM’s finest in our midst.”
“Nothing but the best of the best for Martinaise,” Jean says dryly.
Evrart grins not entirely in agreement and waves a fat paw at the single hard metal chair in front of the desk. "Please have a seat."
Evrart Claire is a grotesque of a man, a caricature in more ways than one. Jean deflects his offers of a bribe, and powers through the half-truths and subterfuge. He puts up a good fight but he's very clearly being led by the nose. Eventually Kim says, "Mr Evrart, are you saying you won't tell us anything unless we open a door for you?
"You're very direct, Kitsuragi, I like that. Yes, that is precisely what I'm saying, Kitsuragi. There can be no easier way to go about this. I'd love to consider us pals who can share everything but I simply can't unless there's the give as well as the take."
He extracts a promise from them in exchange for getting the body down (and will later extract a second one for information and cooperation with the Hardie Boys), then dismisses them with a Cheshire grin. "Why don't you speak with the Wild Pines rep? I'm afraid she's got her own standing appointment with you and she gets so tiresome when she's kept waiting."
They walk out into the harbour, Jean falling into step beside Kim. "What do you think, Lieutenant?"
"We're one step closer to actually getting to carry out the autopsy and we conducted one of our interviews. I'd call that progress."
Jean snorts. "I've never seen a man more full of himself than THE SELF-EATING CANNIBAL last spring."
Jean isn't looking for a reaction, he's already reached the punchline. It feels like a fake out each time, which is better than what Kim is used to dealing with given the RCM's boys club ideal. In fact he should count himself lucky he's partnered with a man who is the perfect balance of professional and personable. But he still finds himself glad their partnership is as short-lived as it feels.
Worse still, his chest hasn’t stopped aching. And he can't shake the feeling that Jean isn't the person who should be walking beside him.
He tries to unseat the emotion. It makes no sense and is a disservice to Jean who is clearly a competent and efficient member of the RCM. But even later, much later, he finds he can't.
"Joyce L. Messier," the woman greets. She shakes their hands, nods approvingly at their badges and launches into it.
The situation is worse than they expected. The hanged man is a mercenary hired by the Wild Pines group and the rest of his team has gone AWOL to carry out a private investigation into the murder and then—
“A tribunal?” Jean looks like he’s ready to leap into the sea at the prospect. It is exactly as Kim feared, that this case is spinning out of control.
“I’m afraid so, and not without bloodshed,” Joyce says, regretful but otherwise entirely unmoved. It’s not her town, she lives on the sea, beholden to nothing and no one, not even her own family. She casts her gaze out towards the horizon. “Looks like rain,” she says mildly. “I see you officers are prepared." She nods at their rain slickers. "I understand the precaution though I've always enjoyed a little exposure. I consider it a challenge, something of an indulgence from time to time. Perhaps not right now though," she allows, addressing Kim and Jean's horrified looks.
Kim had known there were people who willingly stood in the rain, whether for religious, or addictive reasons or even just seeking oblivion. The lorry driver they saw out in the roundabout was one of them, her grey hair matted with water, barely dried, a dim smile on her face. He glances at Joyce and her perfectly coifed hair, it doesn't seem like she lets even a single drop touch her, yet she too has that vague smile.
"It's better if we keep our wits about us," Kim says carefully. "Especially with a situation this volatile." Even after 43 years, he doesn't know how to feel about the rain and its cool and, literally, cleansing nature. Even cold showers make him paranoid.
Joyce nods. "I'm not intending to get rain drunk, it's only a little drizzle." Then she says, "You know, Lieutenant, there's something nostalgic about you. Like we've met before."
"I'm quite sure this is the first time we've met," Kim says, fighting off a pre-rain migraine. "It would be jamais vu if anything."
"You mean deja vu," Jean says.
Kim blinks. "Right, of course."
The sky holds long enough for them to do the autopsy. There's something they're missing but the rain won't wait for them and though they drag the body over to the small woodshed to try to continue, distracting drops of rain leak through the patchy roof, blurring the evidence. The kids in the yard are dancing, their animalistic whooping and yelling shatters any patience or concentration Kim has left.
The sun has already set by then and they've made more than enough progress for Kim to be happy to wrap it up there and leave the rest to Processing. Jean taps the cuirass on the corpse's legs and says, "What I wouldn't give for our boys to be this kitted out. Bet it would withstand a rocket launcher."
"While I believe this armour could withstand a small explosion, I'd rather not test that theory, Detective."
After that, they bag the body and drag it over to Jean's MC. The rain is getting heavier so they retreat inside the Whirling for a debriefing.
"What do you think?" Jean asks, grimacing at the world soaking in obliterating rain.
"There's something off about it. I can't shake the feeling but I can't see why it wouldn't be an open shut case either."
"There is no murderer after all, it's a lynching, Lieutenant."
"We'll find out when we get the body processed."
"I'm going to grab a smoke before I set off."
This is it, Kim thinks. Time to crack the case of Lieutenant Jean Vicquemare.
"Would you mind if I joined you?"
The balcony is partially sheltered, a beaded curtain of rain dangling from the awning. Kim lights up and takes a few peaceful drags, steeling himself. Jean's whole body is tense, preparing for a hit he doesn't know is coming. He's prepared anyway. Kim obliges him.
"Are you alright?"
"Huh?" Jean blinks, startled. Then he forcibly relaxes. "It's not my first body, Lieutenant."
"What I mean is that you seem to be somewhat erratic today."
One minute he was good with kids, the next he lost his temper. He muscled his way up to Measurehead and then backed down almost immediately. He barely resisted the urge to do the same with Mr Evrart but he could offer no insights to the interview. And by the time they spoke to Joyce, Jean seemed to have checked out almost completely.
Kim was glad Jean was present for the autopsy but if he's being completely honest, he wasn't very helpful.
It's possible Jean was distracted by the coming rain. He's heard Jamrock, despite its higher crime rate, is more built up, less beaten down by the revolution, and thus has better coverage than even this little slip of land.
But verbal confirmation is always more useful than speculation. He needs to hear it straight. "I'd like to understand if this is a one-off or if there's something I should be aware of."
"It's not like that," Jean bursts out. He doesn't finish but his guilty silence fills in the blanks. He was hoping Kim wouldn't notice. "I wouldn't want to give you the impression that I'm not taking this case seriously. I know it's imperative we don't fuck this up." He takes a deep breath. "It's just that I lost my partner recently. He was the one who was supposed to take this case."
Kim's head pounds with rain hangover. The next drag he takes burns a lot more than he's expecting.
"I'm sorry."
"No, that's, that's alright, he had a heart attack in the night. His wife called to let us know," Jean sighs. "It's a damn shame. Always thought he'd go out in the field, in a blaze of glory, he didn't deserve that kind of end."
"No one does."
"Anyway it's been a month, I should be over it by now but I keep thinking what he would have done, how he'd have handled the case."
Kim exhales, pretending he's not hiding behind a literal smoke screen. "I lost my own partner a few years ago." When Jean looks at him curiously, Kim goes on. "Eyes, they called him, because he helped me see."
Jean glances at his coke-bottle glasses and barks out a laugh. "Sorry, I know that wasn't meant to be a joke."
"Oh no, it was very funny the first hundred times I heard it."
"You're a bit of a shitkid yourself, aren't you." Jean stamps down his laughter like its smoldering ash, eyes wide in sudden horror at his insubordination. He wipes a smattering of rainwater from his brow. "My apologies, Lieutenant. I don't know why I said that."
Kim doesn't even notice. His hand has started shaking. A drop of rain skims off his forehead and he scrubs at it viciously.
Kim says, "Detective, your partner, was his name, Harry?"
"Harry? No, he was Lieutenant-Yfrietor Nigel Mansfield."
Kim gets a flash of the man. He has been in papers before, he's seen his work. It's truly impressive stuff. If he did die of a heart attack, that would have been a real shame.
"I was his Satellite Officer for three years. I've never worked with a man named Harry." Jean looks at him oddly. "Why? Do you know a Harry?"
"No, actually. I've never met anyone named Harry." The name had simply popped into Kim's head. This sometimes happens. The rain carries memories of the new and washes away fragments of the old. Getting rain drunk can be addictive for that very reason. But the name doesn't go away, it thumps a steady persistent beat in his mind, in time with the drumming of rain on the pavement.
He takes another drag and holds it, until his hands are steadier.
Kim compiles his notes while Jean drives the body to the 41st for processing. He taps the wrong side of his pen against his notebook, accidentally scraping a stray blue mark across the page. They still have to interview the main suspects, the Hardie Boys. Their usual booth has been curtained off but they’re sure to turn up, or so Garte says.
So fine, they’ll bide their time. Kim scratches his head, as if to scratch around the burning questions in his mind. There’s no clarity to be found in the waking world so he retires to the worn mattress where he sinks into a restless sleep.
In the dream, he is driving his Kineema. The windows are down and the radio’s cranked up. His throat hurts from screaming the lyrics to a particularly gnarly song, but his cheeks hurt from smiling. It shocks him how easy it is for him to do this but there’s a gravelly voice in his ear singing along. And the sound of his voice makes Kim reckless.
It makes him feel capable of anything.
The song rolls into a commercial and Kim turns it down. The man beside him radiates warmth and his smile is contagious. He’s slid an arm across the back of Kim’s chair with a familiar ease.
A partner? No, Kim’s ex-partner was good, was competent, but he never sang, never let Kim drive.
This man here looks at Kim like he is the whole world. Out of the corner of his eye, Kim sees the man’s face drop. “Hey Kim,” he says, sadly.
Kim glances between him and the road. Catches blue-green eyes, a rictus grin, an alcohol-inflamed nose. The sky has turned dark, the headlights won’t turn on and Kim starts to get nervous. Not for the first time, he curses his bad eyesight. Have they gone off road? Are there any other cars around? Why does the ground feel so uneven?
The man is silent.
“Yes, Detective?” Kim prompts, eyes still flicking between the silhouette of the man and the black road ahead. The infernal machine roars its betrayal.
“I really am sorry,” the man says, and Kim has one drawn out moment to feel an onslaught of emotion — anger, annoyance, concern, fondness, fear, forgiveness and something else — before he emerges back in the gasping dark of his room at the Whirling.
He flings an arm over his eyes. He doesn’t remember the dream but he remembers something else, something else that didn’t happen.
Somewhere above him, a woman is smoking in the rain. She’s humming a hymn-like song, “Dance to the disco beat, and you’ll never dance alone.” New memories run into her head to replace old ones. She brushes them off and goes inside.
Kim resists the urge to rub his eyes as Jean circles the same conversation with Titus for the fifth time. The man is immovable and though he and his boys keep leaking information, it’s slow going, like a noisy washing machine just waiting to spin itself apart.
At Lizzy’s sharp remark, they manage to prise out information about the mercenary, that he was partying with some girl staying at the Whirling. Kim’s silent neighbour.
Kim has only caught a glimpse of silver spangled jumpsuit disappearing into the split single room. Like the blade of a knife.
But Jean looks as worn down as Kim so he suggests they get coffee at the bar. It will be his second cup for the day but Jean says nothing and actually pays for his. All bark, no bite, Kim thinks, watching his partner gulp down the hot liquid. Garte is pretending not to watch them.
Jean slants his eyes over to a booth and gets up. Kim follows him, the caffeine slowly sinking into him. Kim realises Jean’s picked a spot where they can openly observe and be observed by the Hardie Boys.
“Is this a 41st technique?”
“Hm?” Jean says.
Kim gestures to the Hardie Boys with his eyes.
“Sort of,” Jean says. “My ex-partner called it the Garden Gate. They know they've left the gate open but they don't know what will come in. Makes people nervous as shit.”
Kim quirks a skeptical eyebrow. "Really?"
"Absolutely not, I just wanted to watch the MCs. I saw some hooligans eyeing them up earlier."
"Ah," Kim casts his gaze out the window where the morning mist shrouds the two MCs but doesn't quite conceal the shadowy figures crouched by his tires.
"I already gave them a talking to, Lieutenant. But you can put the fear of Kitsuragi in them if you want."
"I don't think that will be necessary," Kim says, although he dearly wants to. He keeps his eyes on them, however, starting once when one of them reaches to touch the paint job. Beside him, Jean gives a low chuckle.
"There's no need to worry. They don't have the tools to steal anything."
"I made do with a screwdriver, when I was younger," Kim said nonchalantly. Out of the corner of his eye, Jean gives him an incredulous look, then he settles back with a smirk.
"The 57th really did send their finest."
Martinaise's sparse passers-by drift through the mist, heading to where they need to go at their separate paces. Out there are killers, out there are monsters. A silhouette appears in the harbour that can't be a boat. It's not traveling at the right speed nor is it the right shape. All Kim knows is that it's coming to meet him. He has no idea where this certainty came from nor has he any idea what shape it’s going to come in.
Something beautiful is going to happen, Kim thinks.
But when Kim blinks, all that remains are the boats bobbing in the bay.
The interview with Klaasje Amandou goes worse than the Hardie Boys. She's both irritatingly cooperative and insufferably open, and yet Kim can't shake the feeling that he's talking to a blank wall. A wall painted a sparkly silver.
Jean fares a little better. His natural skepticism teases Klaasje's account apart, like a pry bar on a locked door.
"They said you came down to the Whirling, you knew exactly what to do, where to go." Then he digs in with furious precision. "He was killed by a gunshot, right here in this bed, because of you ."
They had gone over the notes and compared the two accounts. They were engaged in consensual sexual intercourse when the man was killed. The broken window and the Hardie Boys' begrudging testimony corroborates all of that including her enlisting Ruby for help.
The Hardie Boys were done trying to cover up for Klaasje and they said as much. The mercenary was dead when they hung him, he died in this bed, but because of her? That's a frantic leap in logic and Kim can't stop his eyes from darting to Jean.
Jean is a study in blasé, impassive. His face drawn and sad.
In sum, a mirror of Klaasje.
Kim has never longed for anything he could not work towards. If anything had been out of his reach, he discarded it almost immediately. He is a study in control, unlike Jean whose whole being is made up of sick yearning, stumbling down a fire escape from a burning building, turning back to see the column of smoke and wishing, just wishing to be part of it.
A kin to Klaasje, apparently. He looks straight through her and sees how her sacrifice has left her longing untouched and instead saddled her with guilt.
Kim loses focus for a moment as he comes to understand all of this, which is why he almost misses Klaasje's quiet whisper.
"You don't know that."
"You were probably scared. Sure. But you're on the run from something and that something killed him and it's just waiting to kill you too."
Her knuckles whiten. "No."
"Yes," Jean says simply. "You let yourself forget, but they never will. And you will never be rid of the fear."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Love did him in," Jean says. "You . Did him in. On the run from shit that you ended up dragging him into."
It's unbearably cruel.
“Maybe so,” she finally admits, eyes shut. Cigarette long forgotten. “Maybe I was just tired of dancing alone.”
Apropos of nothing, the sky splits with lightning and rain begins to fall. Kim flips up his hood. Jean doesn’t bother, just retrieves his handcuffs and reads Klaasje her rights.
Klaasje doesn’t even bother asking for mercy. She tilts her head back and lets the rain coat her face, wash her tears away.
Kim watches Jean drive away from the door of the Whirling.
He’d caught Jean’s arm after he loaded Klaasje into the MC. “What was that , Detective?” That wasn’t what we discussed.
Jean didn’t look at him. “Lieutenant, have you ever missed someone you never met? It’s like being lost in a forest that you can’t see. There’s the smell of pine, of damp and moss; the roots that trip you up; and everywhere you turn you hit a tree. It’s fucking annoying.” He scrubbed his face and sighed. "I just know addicts and I know this is right. She would have run.”
Kim, for no reason at all, thinks about getting drunk. He goes to the Frittte! and picks up a six-pack, and on the walk back to the Whirling, loses the desire to drink altogether. The rain is still coming down, each droplet a whisper on his skin, to remember to forget.
He drops the beer off at Titus’ booth to help them nurse the sting of betrayal. Lizzy has fucked off somewhere, left these men to the beds they’ve made. Titus eyes the Pilsners but distributes it among the men. Kim thinks he should have bought them a full round but Titus waves him off. “Don’t think bribing us makes us even, Coppo.”
“Not at all,” Kim says, wearily. “It’s simply been a tiring day.” He refuses when Titus holds out a bottle to him. “I’ve been through the rain, that’s enough oblivion for me.”
“Getting rain drunk’s no path for a lawman,” Titus says. Then he looks down at his bottle and shrugs, takes another swig. “At least this way’s more fun, tastes better.” He gives Kim a once over. “You sure you won’t have any? It’s not good to keep everything bottled in like that,” he says finally, and doesn’t even do Kim the decency of receiving his glare.
Kim does another loop of the area but with the rain coming down in buckets, he eventually returns to Precinct 57.
The case is far from over. Ruby, the eighth Hardie Boy, has yet to be located. But without Jean and no other leads, there’s nothing left to do but file paperwork. It’s absorbing if uninteresting, though it does nothing to stave off the worry that the strike is going to set off a powder keg of unrest across the river.
Officer DeMettrie drops by Kim’s desk on her way out. “You should eat,” she says, pushing a cling-wrapped sandwich towards him. She has her coat and scarf on, the sky has gotten dark and Kim realises he’s completely lost track of time.
“Of course,” he says, flashing her a smile that he hopes isn’t as wan as he thinks. “Thank you, Officer DeMettrie.” She smiles back and then she’s out the door.
After another hour of circling the drain, he packs up and heads back to his apartment. The same apartment he’s lived in for 10 years. He’s always wanted to move, but there’s just never been time, and by the time he realised it, property prices had increased to the point where it wouldn’t make sense for him to move anyhow. He'd been eyeing some places near a potential porch collapse that were cheaper, but that one day you might wake up to find the whole house covered in pale. It was just as risky as living on the edge of a cliff.
But Kim’s never been particularly afraid of the pale. Not since the Innocence of the Pale appeared, or disappeared, in fact.
Before that, the pale had been like a predator moving steadily towards the populace, ready to pounce on it at any moment to satiate its growing hunger. Now it's like a white ocean, waxing and waning at its whims, but never threatening to engulf the isolas. Such was the promise of the Innocence of the Pale, “Let Elysium dance to the disco beat for ever and ever!”
Kim was raised in the Dolorian faith, in a time when religious extremism was rampant in the wake of the disappearance of the Innocence of the Pale. If one wasn’t already subscribed to Disconegentism, one stood firmly against the publicly ascribed hooliganistic religion. By the time Kim drifted away from Dolorianism, he’d sworn off religion entirely. Still, Disconegentism held a grain of hope to it that stuck fast under Kim’s skin.
He still has the flyer some eager youths in Martinaise shoved into his hands. He fishes it from his jacket pocket to thumb through before bed. It’s amateur work, filled with juvie drawings and cartoonish font, the mirror ball on the front isn’t even symmetrical, but it’s filled with suffocatingly youthful optimism, the kind Kim can’t help but be drawn to.
He reads the words on the back over and over, the final words of the Innocence of the Pale: “No one dances alone!”
It might be the humidity that's making his thoughts hazy, but Kim aches with nostalgia. He goes to sleep and dreams again.
He's dancing in a church. A twisting mirror ball showers him in speckles of light. Wonderful, he thinks dryly, a Disconegentic dream.
These dreams always leave him exhausted by the sheer amount of energy they pull from him. But they're also exhilarating.
Dancing is used in many rituals, both religious and not. Its significance has been known to be cleansing, but in Disconegentism, dancing is about shedding all fear and hopelessness and averting the end of the world.
It's never made much sense to Kim but he can't deny dancing feels good.
Entirely of his own volition — because why not, he’s dreaming — he cuts a rug, god damn it. Heel-kicking up dust across the old church floor, the pulse of the beat rushing through him.
"That's it, Lieutenant!"
His eyes snap open to the sound of a familiar gravelly voice. He can't see the source of it, but his eyes do fall on Jean struggling to dance as well. He's twisting this way and that in an entirely uncoordinated attempt of Gala dancing. With the way he's moving, it's hard to believe he's ten years Kim's junior.
"Let's move this into hyper-drive! " The gravelly voice crows. The music gets faster, and somehow, the beat more difficult to keep up with, but Kim does. Over the speakers, a woman's voice echoes like a god's but he can't hear the lyrics.
Someone grabs his hand and pulls him into a boogie. He follows the man's lead. It's hard to see his face but for the unbelievably ugly tie he's wearing. He's growing tired but his cheeks hurt from smiling so wide. He feels free and filled with love, he could almost swear his lungs were glowing.
The next morning, he pulls up to the sight of Jean leaning against his MC outside the Whirling. He’s in his Perseus Blacks, no point keeping their cover when all of Martinaise already knows they're cops. Mustache trimmed and face drooping with grief, the after image of him sweat slick and dyed by laser lights is burned into Kim’s mind. Despite his clumsy attempts at dance, he'd looked like how Kim felt. Full of joy and wonder. Free.
This Jean flicks away his cigarette as Kim hops out of his MC. He nods towards the waterlock, waiting until Kim is a few steps ahead of him before starting off into his usual lopping gait. With his long legs, he catches up easily and slips into conversation.
“Klaasje is in custody. We pulled some more details about Ruby from her, but I don’t think she’s the killer,” he glances nervously at Kim, waiting for him to object.
“No, I agree,” Kim says. “It's best not to trust a woman who knows how to lead someone on."
Jean heaves a quiet sigh of relief at having averted a fight. “According to the official autopsy report, the merc had been shot long before he was hanged. And from what the Hardie Boys say, he couldn’t have been shot from the roof or they would have heard it. It could have come from one of the islands.”
Kim doesn’t mention his dreams or the dancing or Disconegentism. He pushes up his glasses and clears his throat. “Then we’ll start there.”
They start canvassing the island and its meagre occupants. The residents of the fishing village, a woman and her three children and an old washerwoman. The singing drunks who try to sell them overpriced alcohol. The cryptozoologists bent over their cages. The kids squatting in a tent on the ice, cooking up dreams of meth and dance.
"Have you tried the church?" A young woman who is dressed poorly for the weather, Acele, suggests.
"Why? What's in it?" Jean asks warily.
"We're not sure. The boys,” she gestures to the tent where some delinquents are jiving to some truly terrible music. “Want to turn it into a dance club. It'd be hardcore Disconegentic, they say," her lips pull up, smirking at a private joke, it's gone in a blink. "But there’s something about the atmosphere there... Look, you should just talk to them, they can explain it better.”
“Should we talk to the kids?” Kim asks Jean as they’re walking away.
“I’ve had enough of kids,” Jean says, shaking his head. “But let’s check out the church. Maybe our perp is hiding in there.”
The walls of the church are covered in lichen and half-rotted away. It is devoid of life and the door is not even padlocked. They unholster their guns. Kim gives a signal and then Jean bursts in with a shout, “RCM!” The door flies open, kicking up dust untouched by decades. Jean darts inside with Kim hot on his heels, only to find—
“Shitkid...” Jean breathes out.
“What was that, Detective?” Kim says, but Jean isn't listening.
"Oh god, shitkid, what have you done?" He moans. "Oh my god."
The Innocence of the Pale, Harrier Du Bois, looms over the church hall in glass. His iconic green disco blazer flares dramatically behind him, contrasted by the yellow trousers and a tie that is unholy by nature. A grinning pygmalion towering over the church.
It was a few years after the death of du Bois that the rain began to leech away memory. Some say the rain is his tears, a curse that washes away memory into oblivion; others say it is a blessing for those who struggle to find release from themselves. The annual Downpour Disco is one of the more popular celebrations, signaling rebirth, new beginnings and resolution.
Some say he never died. He just walked into the pale one day and disappeared. From then on, the pale expansion ceased and strange fluctuations took its place. Sometimes the pale would rise and sometimes it would fall, like the tide. No longer was it a closing iris, a trap snapping shut around the helpless swathes of land, soon to engulf then all. Now it is an ocean of memory, ebbing and flowing with the times.
Kim knows all of this because he learned it at school. The Innocence of the Pale disappeared just before his time, it was all the news jangled about. So why does staring up at Harrier du Bois' image feel so wrong ?
Jean falls to his knees. He starts to shout obscenities, wails them to the Great Stained Abomination that stretches floor to fucking ceiling. "What the fuck!" He screams, almost prostrate now. “What did you do? What is this?”
Kim feels a little like screaming too. Tears are tracking down his cheeks, though he has no idea why they seem to be mourning an Innocence who has been dead for over five decades.
Jean had never shown any religious inclination towards either the rigour of Dolorianism nor the unhinged Disconegentic zealots and Kim's never asked. Is this a religious epiphany, he wonders, will I start speaking in tongues?
But it is getting harder to think over the lung-squeezing sobs. It’s like his body understands they are but useless sacks now. Useless without the breath of love.
Love. Kim feels the echo of the disco beat grow louder, the joy of dance still fresh in his limbs. “Oh Harry,” he whispers, then claps a hand over his mouth, rips his glasses off. The weight of sadness pounds his shoulders like the first time he snuck out of the orphanage to attend a Downpour Disco at age 8 and let it carry away two whole days of his life.
Eventually the fiendish light fades from the glass figure and whatever invisible grip the church has on them weakens enough that they stumble out. They don't speak about their shared manic episode, nor about the oppressive silence towards the back of the church. Jean never acknowledges it and Kim never brings it up. It almost feels like a dream.
But they don't return to the church to confirm that suspicion.
In the basement of the Feld Building, a woman wearing a pair of earmuffs stands in front of a machine mounted on a tripod. She seems unfazed by the pain she is inflicting on the two RCM officers bent double in front of her.
As Jean questions her, Kim struggles with the 'local radio chatter' clamouring in his skull.
"63829... and that's all from us... do the boogie, the disco boogie... 098628372... our lady Dolores, our mother and our love... 77924....it's so nice.... the wolf is at the door, he will eat the sun..."
"Don't try to fight it. It'll just make it worse."
"How did you get something like this?" Jean yells. "Pale-related suppression equipment are all practically antiques!"
"It was a little before my time, I'll admit," she says, unconcerned now that she has the officers incapacitated. "But some of my jobs took me out to those abandoned repeater stations where the pale receded. No one was using it so I took some back, fixed em’ up. Good to see they came in handy."
Kim tries to concentrate on his own breathing, but the chatter seems to be getting louder.
"Living large, boys... 827462...communism killed me, but love did me in... I don't want to get better, I want to get worse... 283851..."
Kim's eyes snap open. It's the same gravelly voice in his dreams. When he hears that voice, his head gets clearer, almost as if it is controlling the pale itself. He tries to latch onto it, to focus on the timbre.
"Fluorine is the paste of tomorrow... won’t even remember being sad about it... 3847921.... I can say it as many fucking times as I want! I'm the shitkid!... 00193... how did you get so cool kkkmmzzzzz... 22222.... kmmzzzzz..."
Kim's head jerks up, "No!"
Ruby startles, her hand on the dial. Jean is turning back too, confused, shooting Kim an odd look. “What’s wrong, Lieutenant?”
“Nothing,” Kim lies, because he can't very well tell them to turn up the pale latitude compressor just because he thought he heard his own name.
“Do you want the dial turned up?” Ruby asks, shaking her head.
“No, I'm getting mixed up. My partner—” He stops, grabbing at his head. “I thought I heard...” he mutters.
“It’s just the pale,” Ruby says. “It’s just the past.”
Jean, thankfully, seems to have a better grip on the whole situation. “So what is your version of the day the merc died?”
She shakes her head again and tells them. Kim tries to hold on to as many details as possible but his mind keeps going back to the sound of his name, fading into static.
“Why do this then? Why run if you didn’t do it?”
“Well at first I didn’t, at first I was just going on a fishing trip. Then I saw the mercs skulking around the Whirling and I was already isolated. I could have rejoined them and maybe I would have but it’s too late now. And then you two came here.”
She didn’t mean to be a hero but now that she’s a scapegoat, it’d be worse for her to stick around.
She quirks a sad smile. “Here’s to dancing alone.”
It’s one of the last things she says because Jean launches himself at the device, knocking it off balance. After that the gun is in her mouth very fast. And then they have another body to report.
The trek back to the Whirling is grievously slow.
“I always hated Disconegentism,” Jean says, apropos of nothing. “It’s so stupid. How can dancing fix anything?”
“I don’t think it fixes so much as distracts us from the end.”
“But you don’t really believe that,” Jean says, suddenly intent.
Kim doesn’t want to share what he really believes, but he remembers how Jean looked in the dream. Young and handsome and alive. “No, but it can be symbolic or ritualistic or activate the pleasure senses of the brain. It doesn’t have to be dancing, but it is a good example of a communal activity that,” he takes a deep breath. “That convinces us that life is more than what it is. Some people can be so convinced that they go on to do great things.”
Jean isn’t looking at him anymore. He’s looking out onto the surf, at a rusted swing set and the seagulls flying into the distance. They can keep flying without ever worrying about where they should land. “Do you really think so, Lieutenant?” he asks.
“Of course, Detective,” Kim allows. “Of course.”
Gunshots shatter the still evening air and there’s no more time for talk.
The firefight that breaks out in front of the Whirling is all but over when they get there. The mercs have mowed down the Hardie Boys but not without Titus and the rest getting in a few shots of their own. The scab leader is on the ground, groaning, the woman lining up a shot that never connects because Jean is on her, and the last one, a rifleman, Kim stops with a killer shot through the slimmest gap in his visor.
When the bullets stop flying, there’s not many people left to arrest. The immediate danger is over, but they didn’t manage to save anyone, not really. Kim can’t help but feel like they lost. Badly. But instead of everything starting over, they just pile as many people as they can into their respective MCs and radio in ambulances and dispatch for the rest.
“What a shitshow,” Jean says, looking at the blood running into the street. “Still think dancing can save all this, Lieutenant?”
Kim's reply is interrupted by the sky opening up.
“Let’s just get these bodies to Processing,” he says, pulling up his hood.
“It came from the islet,” Jean says, his voice muffled by the crackle of the radio. “The shot that killed the merc. Klaasje finally squealed.”
Kim knows it must have taken a while, but he’s still annoyed it took this long to get a breakthrough in the case. And it came from a suspect who lied to them continuously and determinedly, until more blood was spilled. That must have been what Jean used against her. Kim can just imagine the scene in the interrogation room, Jean’s face a cloud of thunder, Klaasje, crying silently as he lays out the guilt.
Halfway through what will most definitely be an all-nighter to get through the paperwork before he’s even had time to wash the blood caked into his fingernails, Kim can’t find it in himself to feel sorry for her.
But their case might have some conclusion after all.
He takes a little long to respond, which is why Jean adds, “I know it doesn’t matter. Shit’s about to hit the fan and everyone knows it, but we might as well get this wrapped up.”
“10-4, my thoughts exactly. I will meet you back at the Whirling at 0800,” Kim says shortly.
“Roger that. 10-10. Over and out.”
Kim puts down the receiver and goes to make himself Eyes’ Forbidden Caffeine All-Nighter Concoction For Fools. There’s no way he will be sleeping tonight knowing all he’ll see is dead bodies in disco lights.
Out on the islet, Dros' eyes glaze over as a creature rises from the moor.
The Insulindian Phasmid. The stuff of cryptozoologists’ dreams. It towers over them on chitin limbs.
I exist, it thrills. In the thousands of years I have been alive, I am real.
But Kim and Jean cannot hear its words. They exist as high-pitched whistles outside of the human range of hearing.
“Lieutenant, is that a giant stick insect before us?” Jean murmurs.
“I believe it is, Detective,” Kim says.
“Oh good, so I’m not hallucinating from the mist,” Jean says.
“Or we both are. The pale looks like it's coming in.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Dros shouts. They ignore him.
“You’re supposed to be the sensible one,” Jean says.
“Since when,” Kim huffs.
“Since—” his voice dies off. And Kim looks to see the beautiful thing that killed it.
From out of the mist, a man wearing a disco-ass blazer approaches. His green snakeskin shoes skim the surface of the water, creating ripples that radiate towards the phasmid and the two RCM officers.
The Innocence of the Pale, Harrier du Bois, rests a hand on the phasmid’s leg. They seem to be communing but there is no sound. He slides a glance towards Kim and winks.
Kim nearly drops his Trigat Sunshine Mini in his haste to snap a photo.
When he’s done, the phasmid folds itself away, striding across the moor where it disappears. The Innocence remains. His expression is hard to read though Kim can see the flash of teeth, the curve of brown muttonchops across his cheeks exposing a stubbled chin. He raises an arm in a jaunty wave.
HI KIM! HI JEAN!
Kim's mouth falls open but Jean beats him to the punchline. "What the fuck?" They really are too similar for their own good, Kim thinks faintly.
YOU MADE IT! I KNEW YOU’D DO IT! YOU GUYS ARE GREAT COPS!
“You piece of shit!” Jean bellows. Tears spill from his eyes. He can’t help it. It’s the effect of coming face to face with the Innocence of the Pale. “GET OVER HERE SO I CAN HIT YOU!”
I CAN’T! I’M PART OF THE PALE NOW. He pauses, he’s grinning so hard it’s turned into a grimace. Kim wants to touch him. He has to touch him. Just to see if he’s really there, to see if it’s really him. IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU TWO AGAIN.
“Why did you come here?” Kim asks.
BECAUSE YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE PHASMID SO YOU DON’T KNOW HOW IT FITS INTO THIS. THIS IS ITS NEST. IT’S KIND OF POISONOUS BUT ONLY IF YOU’VE BEEN HERE A LONG TIME, he points at Dros. LIKE THAT MAN. OR, he gestures behind him. THE PALE.
Kim cannot speak. Jean has trouble forming words. Kim wants to touch the Innocence. It would be insanity. He has to touch him. There’s no way to go to him. But he must .
UM, OKAY, I HAVE TO GO NOW.
The words tumble from his mouth. “Harry, wait! Please!”
I’M SORRY, KIM. I CAN’T.
“I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry. I want you to come back!” Kim shouts.
Jean, somehow, finds his voice. “Fuck you, shitkid! You can’t do this to me again!” He bites out.
I’M SORRY, JEAN. AT LEAST I’M OUT OF YOUR HAIR. The man smiles sadly. Then grins with all his teeth. HAVE YOU SEEN THE PLEASURE WHEEL? ON THE BOARDWALK? YOU DIDN’T GET TO SEE IT BEFORE BUT IT STILL WORKS. IT’S FUN! YOU SHOULD TRY IT. He pauses, just taking them both in. IT’S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN. He says.
Then he walks off into the horizon, taking the mist with him. Kim nearly dives into the moor after him. But Jean grabs his arm. “The deserter, Lieutenant,” he says.
Kim takes a moment to collect himself. When he speaks, he is proud that he does not sound like a grieving man ready to jump. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere, Detective,” he says, looking back at Drois who is spouting gibberish. When he looks back at the horizon, all he sees is the faint white mist retreating.
They both head back inland where members of the 41st have come to assist in apprehending the perp.
Kim and Jean see them off but don’t follow them. The MCs drive off one by one.
Normally Kim would leave it there. They could return to the daily grind, ignore the rest. But they have not only escaped certain death, but closed the case, discovered a new species and the Innocence of the Pale appeared to them and knew who they were.
He turns to Jean, “I think there’s something that requires our attention, Detective.”
“One more loose end,” Jean agrees.
It’s a long walk to the boardwalk from the Whirling.
“What was he to you,” Kim asks. There’s no question of who they’re talking about.
“I don’t know,” Jean says.
“He knew you.”
“He knew you too, Lieutenant,” Jean shoots back. “He apologised to you.”
“He apologised to you too. He must have been part of a shared past.”
“Can that even be possible?”
Kim shrugs. “No one knows where the Innocence of the Pale came from or where he went. He appeared from the pale one day and disappeared back into it.”
“I thought he would say one of his weird lines. The stuff that gets quoted on radios these days like ‘Dance till you can’t no more’ or ‘Disco Inferno’. Jean shakes his head and lowers his voice, “I heard stories that he was a tyrant. That he would someday return to wage war against the Moralintern and the isolas. I was terrified of the rain for a while,” Jean admits. “But I called him shitkid,” he sounds horrified.
“I called him Harry ,” Kim says, equally disturbed. “I don’t even know where that came from.”
“We’ll find out,” Jean nods at the pleasure wheel, looming up over the boardwalk, a monument of the pre-war era that scraped through the revolution. It’s old and abandoned, silent as the grave. But a large cable leading off from it indicates that there might still be a way to get it working. Kim plugs it in and against all odds, it switches on.
The lights flicker to life and amidst an unholy creaking, the twelve red cabins begin to rotate around a fixed radius. The wind carries a quiet groaning to the two RCM officers, ‘Don't leave, don't leave.’
Jean shudders. “It looks like a death trap."
"Because it probably is."
"Trant says it shouldn't even be standing. This place was bombed to hell and back but it's like something preserved it."
Trant Heidelstam, Kim thinks. The blond consultant in the suit from the 41st who fawned over the photo of the elusive Insulindian Phasmid and the Innocence of the Pale. When he said 'This is the find of the century! Two miracles in one photo!' Kim wanted to strike him and he had no idea why.
"I think I have an idea of who did."
Jean doesn't comment on it. Merely says, "Are you really going to get on it? Because a hallucination told us to?”
Kim should say no. Because Jean is right, no matter how pretty this pleasure wheel is, it looks like it's one turn away from collapsing and taking the whole boardwalk with it. But he needs to know. He advances towards the nearest cabin as it pauses on the platform. “We’re here, might as well follow through. It could be disco,” he adds, because it feels like the thing to say.
Jean scoffs, "That's what I'm afraid of," but follows him.
As the pleasure wheel takes them up, childhood nostalgia wells up inside Kim. He’d always been too short for the pleasure wheel in his neighbourhood, and once he was tall enough, they took it down. Pleasure wheels in general dwindled in popularity so that by the time Kim had come across another, well into his 30s, he’d lost all desire to ride one.
Still, he settles into the cramped red cabin, knees nearly knocking with Jean’s who sits opposite him looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. Their weights don’t quite manage to counterbalance the other, seeing as Jean is more bulky than he is, not by a lot but it still causes the cabin to swing in his direction.
Kim looks out the window, seeing Martinaise rise up before him. The Whirling, the sniper’s nest, the fishing village, the church. And, faintly, in the distance, the outline of the GRIH and the grimy rooftops of Jamrock.
“The view is good, at least,” Kim says.
“It’s not bad,” Jean says, begrudgingly. “How long do you think this ride is?”
Kim starts to reply, and then memories of a life he did not lead slam into him.
"It's possible," says a barrel-chested man in a stained vest. Rainwater puddles onto Kim’s kitchen floor. A cigarette clamped between thick fingers draws smoke trails in the air. “To turn back the wheels of time.”
"Detective," Kim says patiently. “Take a shower, dry off, sit down, something . You’re shaking.” His hand is cold and wet. Kim makes coffee while the man takes a shower.
It is 10pm at night and storming outside. Kim has come to expect intrusions like this, it’s part of the appeal of their partnership, the spontaneousness that throws Kim off his routine, forces him to renegotiate his boundaries but ultimately, challenges him.
He's not been able to see him much since Martinaise. They each went back to their respective precincts and life continued as always for Kim, consigning that week in Martinaise to a very pleasant dream. Despite the calls and house calls, it’s not enough, Kim feels. It’ll never be enough, but he’ll make do. He’ll let it continue for as long as it can.
The man comes out with a towel over his head. Usually by now a shower would have cleared his head and he’d be back to cracking jokes that are at worst mildly distasteful. But the look in his eyes hasn’t cleared. He drops the towel over the back of the chair and slumps into it, his hands grabbing for the coffee.
“Where have you been?”
“The porch collapse near the Pox,” the man says, staring out the window. “It’s getting closer, Kim. Soon it'll cover everything and it'll all be gone."
Kim has never liked the apocalyptic talk. That isn't why he lets this man into his house. But if he's being completely honest with himself, it is exactly why he lets him in.
“If you’re looking to man another repeater station in the pale, I’m afraid you’re already too compromised for a job like that,” Kim says. He’s trying to keep it light, discourage the man from his Pale-obsession. But he’s already gone off on a tangent.
“No, it’s entropolism, Kim. Counter-entropolism,” he corrects. “Anti-entropolism, maybe?” He waves a hand about his head, a gesture Kim has come to recognise precedes a hunch he has had. It’s usually exhilarating, but all it is now is worrying. “What's the opposite of entropy? Negative entropy?”
"Negentropy," Kim says without thinking.
"Disco." The man grins and Kim feels wretched with fondness.
He talks about the paledriver’s theory, the point where past, present and future coalesce into one and how it’s not all formless, it’s malleable. Theories of entroponetics pour from his mouth, each one more outlandish than the last. How the pale is like a lost child, a vehicle without a driver, a marooned shipwreck waiting patiently for its captain to return. “Lomonossov’s Land,” he says. “I saw it in a dream. It’s not so far away. At the church beyond the Pox, then straight on past the coast at the disappearing shoreline. The answer lies there.” He looks off into the distance, at the chipped mug on the drying rack. The one Kim had bought for him but pretended he had always owned.
“What are you talking about?” Kim asks.
“It’s a day’s walk from the porch collapse. If we count by regular time, which won’t matter once you’re inside the pale,” the man shakes his head. “But for now, it’s possible to reach it on foot.”
Seized by a surge of desperation, Kim grabs his arm, “Detective!” but even that does not erase the glazed look on his face. He is sunk into the idea of entropolism, or the counteracting of it. He has seen the threads of time and he knows only he can pull them. “What are you planning to do?”
The man comes back to himself, turns eyes dark and wet onto Kim. “The world doesn't have to end. La Retour doesn't need to happen. Revachol, the world, they can all be saved. The Pale can be guided, it just needs someone at the helm."
Kim feels the pale pressing in like a large white hand, ready to grab his partner, no, his friend, and steal him away.
"Even if it can be, what does that have to do with you?"
“Don’t you see, Kim? I can do it, I can stop all this from happening.”
“No,” Kim shakes his head. “No, no.”
"I can turn back time, Kim.”
And now the creeping chill has infected Kim as well. It’s forced its way into his lungs, it’s catapulted out of his mouth, like smoke, the fear is choking him.
“This little thought project has gotten out of hand, Officer. You need to stop this now.”
Then, the man smiles. And Kim knows he’s lost him. Kim digs his fingers into the man’s arm, voice urgent and low, “Harry."
The man hears the fear in his voice. Even drunk on his own insane ramblings, he knows every tick of Kim’s mind as it whirls through an infinity of worries. Kim can see the expressions flitting over the man’s face as well.
"Kim..." Hearing him call his name like that, sweet and longing, makes Kim ache with longing. He would give anything, anything, to hear it again.
But then the man’s eyes dull, reality seeping in. "Don't worry, you won’t be alone.”
“And you?”
He throws his hands out. “I won't be alone either. Hundreds, no, thousands of years of memories will be with me. I don’t really know how it’ll work, but I’ll be alright. Trust me.”
“Harry. Don't do this.” Don't leave me.
“Oh Kim, once this is over, you won't even remember being sad about it.”
Ice shoots through his veins. The world cracks into two.
He’s back on the Pleasure Wheel. The sun has set over the ocean, there’s no sign of neither the pale nor the phasmid. Kim leans back and the rickety cabin sways unsteadily as it descends. He presses the base of his hands against his eyes and tries to breathe.
You won’t even remember.
Then why do I? Kim thought angrily. Why do I have a ghost in my head? Why is my apartment empty, my bed cold and my lungs black? Why do I have dreams speckled with blinding light, brilliant, hypnotic and ungraspable? Why do I turn to an empty space beside me? Why is it my cheeks ache with a smile that will never form? I never wanted to be your curse, Harry, but you've become mine.
Beside Kim, Jean still has his face buried in his hands. Kim gives him a collegial pat on the shoulder and looks out, searching for a smudge of green and yellow and seeing only the dark waters of the waiting sea.
