Day 8 (The Calm Before the Storm, The Signs of Chaos)

Time passed, and he spoke again. “I've been through one, and I remember it. Sometimes I wish I didn't. I told you, before, that the first time I had to kill, it was a Sightless. It was during a Storm – last semi-major one we'd seen, since this mess. I wasn't new anymore, or rather I wasn't as new, but Richard, he was still my partner. It was me, him, and this recruit who wasn't new either, but newer than both of us.”

He paused, and for the second time on the trip, glanced away from the road. “Her name was Helen, but I don't think any of us ever called her that. She and I, we had a working relationship. We got along. Richard was about to get his promotion, and she was probably going to be the new partner. I was her mentor. Like you and I.”

His conversation – or rather his monologue, as Alyssa had contributed nothing afraid she'd scare him out of whatever confessional mood he'd found himself in – stopped once more.

It was getting darker outside, so she couldn't tell, but for a moment it almost seemed as though Jacob blushed with embarrassment. “Don't misunderstand me.” he corrected himself. “You're a good friend Alyssa, and a superb partner. But the feelings I had for her were... more.”

She was watching his face, so she could see it happen – the smile, the hint of embarrassment, the mood, they all faded from him slowly, replaced with joylessness. With his business face, the one she almost always saw him wear. With sadness.

“She died in that fight.”

Alyssa had no reply.

Jacob didn't seem to want or need one. “I forget how many there were. There were tons of harpies – that was Hel's job, dispatching them, and there must have been a hundred or more. She was the only one of us that could touch them, and she took them down with ease. There were two Sightless, calling the storm, and they were my job. Richard was there to supervise, technically, but you know us. It's not likely anybody in our outfit's going to take a back seat when stuff like that starts happening. So the Sightless, they were our job. The catch was, we only saw the first one. They have a knack for not being seen, even to us. So Hel's tearing the living crap out of a half dozen harpies at a time, and me and Richard are trying to pin the Sightless down. This is taking a very long time – you know how they move, the Voice of theirs knows when we're even thinking about firing the gun before we do, tells them where to go before we've even really decided where to aim. We get him pinned down and finish him off about the time Hel's made a mountain of harpy corpses. The monsters are all dead, but the storm's still there, getting worse by the second. Hel opens her mouth to say something about how there's got to be more of them out there, and that's when the second one jumps out and grabs her. We had the guns up, but... they're fast, they're so damn fast. He was at the center of the storm, leaping in, before we could take aim.”

A bitter smile crossed his face. “Last thing I ever saw Hel do, her very last thing, was to stab that fucker right in the chest before they fell in.”

The smile faded. “Then it was gone. Storm vanished, like it never was, and it took her memory from everyone who ever knew her. Except I won't forget. Neither will Richard.”

Alyssa finally found words. “Neither will I.”

For the third and most disquieting time of the voyage, Jacob looked directly at her. “You won't have to. That's never happening again.”

A welcome silence filled the rest of the trip.

(( CHAPTER 6: THE SIGNS OF CHAOS ))

They passed a road sign. Alyssa glanced at it, but it was gone by the time she would have had it in focus.

“We're a few miles out of town” Jacob said, slowing. “That was a speed limit sign.” his demeanor seemed to be back to its usual businesslike self, but now Alyssa could hear the undertones. Had they always been there?

If he was aware of her attention, he paid it no mind. “Normally, we wouldn't be paying attention to such things, but we'll want to keep our eyes peeled. The council sent us out here, which means they believe in us quite a bit, but they also picked out locations for themselves. That means the one they picked for us is probably the least threatening. It might not even happen at all. That's why we want to keep watch.”

He did not elaborate what, exactly, they were watching for, but nonetheless Alyssa turned her gaze from him to the scenery outside. They were still on the highway, though she was guessing from Jacob's slowing that they were taking the next exit. Time passed, and she found the reason for the slowness to be a mere traffic backup. A lane was closed for construction, though there were no vehicles there and no work appeared to be getting done. That was far from atypical, though, she thought. Useless construction was a staple of her trips with Jacob.

They did end up taking the next exit. As they waited for the light at the end of the off-ramp to change from red to green, Alyssa continued to glance around. There was little traffic – none in the intersection and only a few cars which had exited with them. Eventually, as though giving up its intention to delay them, the light turned and they proceeded into town.

“Watch the lights.” Jacob advised, as they neared another intersection. Alyssa glanced over at him but got no further information from his stoic expression. She'd been watching the light last time. It hadn't done anything but annoy her.

They came to a stop at the intersection and again waited for the light to allow them passage. This time, it didn't take long at all, but Jacob didn't move immediately. When Alyssa looked up at him questioningly, he smiled that smug smile of his.

“I said, watch the lights.” he repeated, and pointed upward toward the green light the drivers behind them were very likely to start honking about momentarily.

She looked, and then she saw what he was trying to point out. Their light was indeed green, to them and to everyone behind them.

It was also green for the cross traffic.

As they looked, they saw each light change from green to yellow, then yellow to red.

“How about we take the easy way out of this?” Jacob said more seriously, and took a right turn.

A fire truck passed them, traveling away from town without its lights on, but other than that they saw no other traffic as they drove.

“Okay, what's with the lights? How did you know about that one?” Alyssa finally asked, having determined that Jacob wasn't going to volunteer the information on his own.

“The first one was too long on red – they've got sensors on that road, it should have switched to green pretty quickly. So I got warning going in, but it was mainly a hunch. First sign of things to go wrong is the signs themselves. Signals like the traffic lights, signs that claim a lane's closing but it's closed for no reason or there's no lane there at all, that kind of thing.” he sighed. “Looks like this is the real deal.”

Jacob turned the car into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. “Hungry?” he asked as he parked the car and turned everything off. His actions seemed to indicate that he was going in no matter what she said, but she didn't especially care. He knew she was probably hungry. He'd been with her all day, after all, so he'd eaten just as much as she had. Which, she was just realizing, had been nothing. It'd be a good idea to get something before the storm hit. There was likely to be no time then, or afterward. Only if she pulled this off perfectly would the burger joint even exist tomorrow.

She unfastened her belt, opened the door, and followed Jacob, slamming it shut as she left.

Jacob, not even bothering to look back to see if she was following him, the bastard, pushed the door to the franchise open. A fraction of a second later, the alarm went off.

At first, Alyssa had the bizarre notion that somehow Jacob had managed to get in through the emergency exit and set off the alarm. The door he'd chosen was obviously the front door, however, and the place was quite obviously open. It was filled – probably not for long – with about a dozen patrons and employees. She began to get an idea of what was going on when Jacob calmly turned and started walking toward her. She was fairly sure when, through the large glass front wall of the place, she saw the staff of the place gesticulating wildly in the back area. She became certain when she saw everyone who had previously been in the restaurant come walking out in a very orderly manner. Jacob had just caught up to her when she spoke.

“Fire drill?”

Jacob nodded, as though this were a serious inquiry. “The second sign of things to go wrong are the more subtle signs. Sensors failing when they shouldn't be. That fire alarm is one such; I should probably count myself lucky the sprinklers didn't go off while I was in there.”

A police car drove by, lights off. It did not stop at the commotion.

“That better be a sign.” Alyssa said, gesturing toward it. “Because that and the fire truck were both doing nothing. You'd think I'd at least see our big red friend back here.”

Jacob nodded. “It's a breakdown in communication, and yes, it's also a sign. Think farther back – we've seen, I'd wager, more emergency vehicles today than in the past several weeks total. None of them had their lights on, none of them really seemed to be en route to anything.” He walked back toward the car. “There's probably some candy bars in the glove compartment, help yourself if you get hungry. I don't think there's much peace to be had in eateries tonight.”

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