Reflection, p.4
Reflection, page 4
part #2 of The Infected - Mirror Man Series
“You’re going with us? To this other world?” The younger woman sounded frightened as well.
Cin winked. It was a bit creepy, the way she did it. Worse for coming from her attractive face.
“That’s right. Just think… All that alone time for us to get to know one another. Right now, why don’t you strip and put this amulet on? I’m sure that no one will mind if you do it here. With us all watching.”
The words, oddly enough, were being obeyed when Richard rolled his eyes.
“Cut that out, Cindy. She’s on the crew. I don’t know what you had between you before. I also don’t care. It ends now. If you can’t work together then I’ll have to rework the mission. So far she’s pulling her weight. You are, too. That means I want you both in on this.” Not that he could cancel the whole thing. Then again, he didn't know that for a fact at all. It might well be that if he took the issue to Turner she’d tell him to do what he thought was best. Right now, that was still going in.
With both of these gals doing their part, without being catty shrews about it.
Waiting, Cindy finally laughed a bit. Clearly reading something in the air, in front of her.
“Fine. Fine. I’ll pretend I’m a grownup for the time being. Still, Sinclair… If you’re on the crew, that means you have to really be on the crew, understood? Betray us and I’ll kill you.” Her voice was perfectly flat on the last words. Deadly sounding.
He didn't know how that death would come, just that if the taller woman didn’t do what she was told, it was going to be happening. That fit with what few things he’d heard about Cin Mableton. She was mainly known for being good with information. She also had a habit of murdering people. Not everyone, all the time. Enough that Sinclair nodded hurriedly and then looked at Richard.
The thing there was that she was clearly afraid of him, too. That part didn’t make any sense at all.
She just stood there, as if not knowing what to do. Her fingers on the buttons of her fatigue top.
Waving a bit toward the restroom, he tried to seem relaxed.
“I think you can change in there?”
The woman didn’t wait for him to say it twice or explain anything, like how to turn the amulet on. As soon as she was gone, Cindy sighed.
“About eight months back, before I got here, she and Phoebe threw in with some of our enemies and ran away. Sinclair was the ring leader there. They ended up with Phoebe locked in a small cell healing people on demand and Sinclair drugged out of her mind and being raped fifty or sixty times. The thing is that Sinclair is about a hairs breath from bolting again. She’s blaming everyone but herself for what happened.” There was a gusty breath then. One that spoke of frustration and annoyance. “Only, they could have just gotten plane tickets home. I mean, just marched into Marcia’s office and set up for her to pay for their airfare. Instead they turned on their friends. People were hurt because of it. Our people, even if it was only them.” She looked ready to go on.
In a rather negative way.
Richard tilted his head then and nodded.
“Can I get you to watch them, then? We can’t have anyone messing up the operation. We should replace them, given that. We can’t have people running off halfway through the job. Then again, if we can convince them that we’re on the same side, that might work. What do you think?”
There was a pause, with her eyes moving back and forth for a few moments. Then a rather annoyed facial expression.
“They should be fine, really. Sinclair is trying to just serve out her time on probation, which will only be a few more months. Phoebe is actually all in on this with us. She doesn’t really have anyplace else to go. Plus, it’s kind of working out for Lydia. She used to look really different. We got that taken care of for her. Really, she’s not a bad kid.” There was another face then, and a hard look that seemed nearly bitter. “Honestly, neither is Sinclair. Don’t tell them I said that though. It’s my job to torture them to death if they don’t make it. So far, they have been but we can dream, right?”
Mableton looked a bit flat as she spoke. Sinclair came out just about then, in time to hear the last few words. Probably not the part about her being a good enough person. It meant that Cin was trying to keep the girl in line using the threat of death. A thing that she might actually do, making it awfully credible.
Turning, Richard took in the girl, who had managed to dress in all brown. That meant she had some familiarity with Noram style technology.
Magic. There was no use hiding from what it was. The people there used magic to get things done. It worked. Possibly better than science did, in a lot of ways.
“There we go. Cindy was just saying that she thinks you’ll do fine for this. Phoebe, too. Then she covered for that when you were coming out with that death threat. To hide that she actually likes you okay. Don’t let it get to you. Just make sure you stay locked on to the job at hand and it will all be fine. Now, you speak Standard? That’s useful for this. You should make a point of meeting people over there then. In case you need to run off there at some point in the future. We can feel that part out as we go. We’ll cover the plan as soon as everyone else gets here.”
That meant waiting, which was done in Cin’s office. At least for him, it was. Sinclair was expected to stay at the front desk, answering phones, until it was time to leave. They had another girl coming in to take over for her. June. He’d heard the name but didn’t have a face for it yet.
Just before it was time to leave, Cindy stood up, stretched toward the ceiling with both hands and moved over to some nice treasure boxes that were floating along the wall.
It didn’t amaze him to see it was where they held all the magical devices. That they should be in a locked room at the very least, if not a vault, occurred to him. He didn’t mention it though. After all, they might need to steal some of the things, sooner or later. Having them there made that much more likely to pull off. Especially if he had Mableton in on the operation with him.
The crew that was going in with them was a bit different than he would have figured on at first. They had Brian Yi, even if they didn’t need him directly. Then they had a rather foxy looking red head that bounced and jittered nearly as much as little Bridget Chambers. In fact, those two looked a lot alike, since the smaller version was standing right there, already dressed up in all brown. The older one was in casual clothing however. A daringly short skirt and a tight top that was getting him to pay far too much attention to her.
Cindy handed the woman an amulet, though Brian already had one of his own for some reason. In the back of the group were Keith, who’d taken time to shave it seemed, Lauren, Peggy, Nan and a man dressed in all black.
Being an adult, Richard started shaking hands and speaking.
“This should be everyone then? Phoebe…” She walked in last, smiled, waved at him and spoke a single word.
“Fuck!”
He nodded.
“Good then. We have clothing for everyone. I’m Richard Drake… Everyone here knows everyone else? I don’t have a first name for you, Agent Lloyd…” The man might not want that known, of course.
Rather than be a problem about that, the man simply looked at him, then extended his right hand to shake. It probably indicated he was also a grown up.
“Price. Nice to meet you. This is the group going with us?” He didn’t even pretend to act skeptical about it.
Cindy shook her head though.
“Not on the bigger mission. Rachel, Bridget, Brian, Lauren, Keith and me are just going to visit with Sara. That’s our cover operation. We might be gone for several days our time here. There’s an eight to one lag where we are going. That gives us up to three weeks to visit, plan, get what we can done and to negotiate things, if possible. Richard, Price and Lydia are in charge. I’ll run the diplomatic side, since I’m so charming and all that. Right now, we need to change. The uniform is magical clothing for this section of things. Everyone strip down and get naked for that part. Unless you already have that on, of course. Then only strip down if that’s a fun time for you.”
Acting almost like she meant to do it in the first place, she tossed an amulet to Agent Lloyd.
“You can use the restroom. The girls get to share this place. The rest of us will wait in the lobby. Five minutes. We’re going to be a while getting everyone dressed properly. Longer than that, if we get there in the middle of the night. In that case… well, we might well be camping out for a while. On the good side, I know just the spot for it.”
The people already dressed in brown moved to the front space, with the rest of them taking a while to change. The girls took a full ten minutes for some reason. Agent Lloyd had hurried and was out inside five minutes, like he was supposed to be. Less than that, actually. Closer to one.
That meant he got to be dressed up first. His clothing ended up being a rather interesting and slightly girlish blue costume made of silk, with a ridiculous hat and a little velvet cape. It made him look a bit like a matador. The shoes lacked buckles, being more like leather slippers, and the hose he had on covered to his knees. It was ridiculous, naturally.
The women were all placed in different styles of dresses, with Cindy being in a rather lovely pink thing that looked ready for a classical ball. It even had a bustle in the back. Lydia was in a similar outfit, except in a lavender color but the other women wore different things. All long and all dresses however.
Brian was in a rather plain black outfit that had hints of leather on it and seemed almost martial somehow. The kind of thing that a person could go directly from the ball into a fight in.
Cindy left him for last. That probably meant something special. The outfit he was placed in was solid silver though. Gleaming like the metal. That or a mirror. Looking down at it, he smiled.
“So that I can vanish if I need to? Just touch my own sleeve? I wonder if that would work?” In the past, if he touched a mirror he held, the thing didn't come with him to the other world.
A place that was, supposedly, inside his own head.
Cindy winked at him. A less creepy version than she’d given Sinclair earlier. Again, it was a bit flirty, if he was any judge of things like that any longer. It would be fair to assume he was well out of practice.
“It should follow you, in a pinch. Mainly this is just Tim’s favorite color. He’s the one you need to impress, so it makes sense to catch his eye. It won’t be lost on him but the effort should be appreciated. Now, Lydia, when you’re ready?”
They had to walk to the little red house on the side of the main building there and step in one at a time. Again, he went last. It didn’t take long however. Lydia seemed to know her stuff, when it came to getting people to other realities.
At least they all made it and were alive on the other side. That was pretty much all it took to impress him.
Chapter two
On the good side, they weren’t showing up in the middle of the night in the strange, almost alien world they appeared in. In fact, it was brightly lit, sunny with no more than two fluffy white clouds in a pristine blue sky. In fact, it was incredibly warm out. A sort of South Western heat that was both dry and melting at the same time.
Everyone was dressed too warmly for the day. Even Richard, as old as he was, kind of felt that getting the kids into shorts and light t-shirts would have been fair game.
“It must be a hundred and ten out here.” That was muttered and came from Nan. Who smiled rather prettily anyway. She looked Asian now, after the work she had done about two months before. Chinese with a bit of Mongolian thrown in.
It probably made her just a little better than average looking back home, though she had enough makeup on that he wouldn’t have refused to buy her a drink, if they were at a bar.
Lydia, being their transport person and the lady with the plan, took the lead, walking away from the tiny red hut off to the right. A nice large house came into view. The kind of thing that would have been referred to as a mansion in the mid-west, back home. Big and well cared for, without attempting to be a palace. There was a nice stone wall around it and copious use of wood in the construction. That part was rare for the area. Even the rich seeming places that could be seen on either side of the place, in the distance, were made of stone and adobe.
There weren’t a lot of trees in the Capital area, which showed a certain level of wealth in the building of the place in front of their group there. Standing out front, wearing deep black and blue clothing, were two men. Guards by their bearing. They stood straight and the younger of the two went a bit wide eyed when he saw the well-dressed collection of people descending on his position.
In fact, even if it wasn’t needed, his right hand slowly crept toward the pocket of his too warm jacket. Where, no doubt, his weapons were kept. The older man glanced at him and shook his head slightly, even if that didn’t seem to change the course of the hand on the nervous man.
Richard forced a grin then, since avoiding trouble was always the better course of action, when available. He’d pull their mission there and regroup rather than get into even an argument with these men. It was so much easier to explain away being polite than it was covering up a murder.
“Smile everyone! Especially you, Brian. With the eyes, like we’ve practiced. Smile with the eyes!” Yi was doing a lot better now, faking being sane and not seeming like he was so shell shocked that he could fly off the handle at any moment.
It wasn’t real, of course. That meant, when he let his guard down he seemed ready to fight to the death. Constantly. Without even getting pissy about the words the man did his part just then, however. Smiling so radiantly that it took real effort to match it. Almost everyone else gave it a solid try then with Cin and Lydia bowing. That got him to go as well, since his man on the ground there had instructed him in the practice first thing. Before his first trip to Noram in fact. That had been Tor. The wizard.
The rule was that if one person bowed, you did it too. Even if you didn’t understand what the heck was going on at the moment. At the very worst you’d seem like a simpleton that didn't know the rules. A very polite one. The truth was that they didn’t have a mechanism in the culture there to think of bowing as anything else, not as far as Richard knew. That meant it was the go to move to use when things started to happen, if you didn’t get what was going on. Bowing to an insult would force the other person to do it back, he thought. That might well short circuit a conflict, if done at the right time.
Everyone else had gotten the same message at some point, though they needed to have gone over it before heading out. Planning was key for things like that. So was reminding people what to do in strange situations.
As he bent over, with the whole group doing the same thing along with him, even the twitchy guard relaxed. Both men bent in half then, right arms folding in front of their bodies, as was considered correct. Cindy and Lydia both curtsied but the other ladies with them just bowed. That seemed to be interchangeable for the women, from what little he’d seen.
Cindy stood up first and started to speak in Standard. It was similar to German in tone, as well as being mainly incomprehensible to Richard. There were a few words that he’d picked up in passing. Hala, instead of hello, for instance. Mit, instead of with. A few words were even clearly English in origin or would have been in his own world.
After a few lines of speech, the older of the guards, who only looked to be in his forties, so not some kind of ancient pensioner, turned, walked to a small covered booth next to the wall and rang a bell. Several times. Then they all stood there, waiting.
Cin turned and explained at least.
“We need to wait for someone to come and let us in. Probably Tyler, the butler here. It can take a few minutes to get things around. It isn’t considered rude or anything.”
Why she added that part, he didn't know. Not until about fifteen minutes later when a rather tall man in a heavy suit that was navy blue with ridiculous red piping on the sleeves came out. He was blond and so tall that it was slightly annoying. Easily over seven feet. The wait in the hot sun seemed a bit long, even to get past security.
Not that they had any right to be there at all. Lydia was trying to play inside their rules though, so he had to trust her take on things. Even if they were turned away, it was worth a shot.
The man bowed, first thing, and spoke to them all, in English. That meant they all bent in half as well, doing it nearly in unison. It got his eyes to open a little wider. There was a pleasant look on his face to go with it, instead of a stern look that spoke of them clearly coming to be a hardship for him.
“Welcome! Ambassador Mableton, so nice to see you. You as well, Line Walker Lydia. Line Walker Yi.” He moved forward and hugged the ladies. There was no love for Yi that way, which was good to see.
Interestingly, the giant of a man redirected his gaze toward Richard then.
“Attaché Drake, isn’t it? The man that arranged for all those brave souls to come and help our mages learn life changing skills? There’s been much talk of that… Perhaps it’s a bit indelicate to speak of at the moment… We could have word on that topic, later? You should all come in first though. Out of the heat. This way.” He turned, gesturing toward the building behind him.
Cindy and Lydia went first, with everyone else training behind. It was a lot of people to just walk up to someone’s door with, unannounced.
Words flashed up in front of his eyes, in a deep blue color. They obscured his vision a little. Not enough to get him to misstep. That was part of Cin’s powers, so he’d seen the trick before. The information was helpful as to what the giant was thinking at the moment.
Also, who he was and the fact that Richard needed to either agree to speak on the topic suggested or get ready to go to war with the man. Possibly fight a duel. The real kind that would end in death or at least him being soundly thrashed by the giant.
