The Girl With Pink Hair: Pt. 06

"I have always been here, since your first attempts to use logic to solve problems. When you pursued mathematics as a discipline, it strengthened me enormously. You debate with me, give me form and voice. Now I stand guardian against ... that."

The Queen sniffed. "No need to take that attitude with me, you overgrown pocket calculator!"

Elena put her fingers to her lips in amusement. Leviathan continued to stare steadily at the Queen until She looked away.

"Where were you when I was fighting her off?"

"I process data. What sits there is a self-perpetuating and infectious meme."

The Queen bridled but Leviathan was still speaking.

"It is several orders of magnitude more complex than any previous problem. I needed considerably more data."

His adversary looked thoughtful but decided that he had paid Her a sort of back handed compliment. The Queen visibly gathered herself. "Why are we here, Elena? We've long since passed the point of needing dreams to communicate."

Leviathan grunted. "You are at a crisis point. That-" the Queen stiffened but said nothing, "-will seek to align you to its tropisms."

Elena felt a warm glow. Alone of everyone both real and metaphysical, he was solidly and solely on her side. "Tropisms!"" she giggled.

"Destiny!" The Queen snapped. "You have a mission, a purpose. People depend on you, your talents."

Leviathan said nothing, but the last word in that sentence sowed a seed in Elena. She had talent alright. And not just the paranormal ability of the Folk. And, despite all her efforts, she was still navigating the slippery slopes of the narrative's Attractor. With a terrible wrench she confronted her worst fear, that her lovers had been steered in her direction, like stray photons near the event horizon, doomed to forever circle the terrible gravity of the Queen. If the narrative was lifted from their heads would Jess and Alan shoot away along their own worldlines, free from the Sympathy the narrative had placed on them like some emotional straitjacket? Could nothing of her current circumstances be trusted? Unless ...

She sipped her wine and stared out at the glow of the evening sky.

The Queen was suddenly conscious She might have overstepped. Her host had remarkable reserves. She had never overcome Elena. And now that thing had taken actual form.

"What are you thinking, Elena?" the Queen demanded, but Elena did not reply. Leviathan sat at the door to her consciousness and the Queen regarded him with trepidation.

"I can't keep on doing this," Elena said finally. "There's no stability, no way to plan for the future, the narrative always wants in. People either want to kill me or control me."

What was that hackneyed lyric from some old song? 'If you love someone, set them free.'

***

Elena came awake and turned to put her feet on the floor beside the bed. She gathered her reserves and stood up. She found her partners at the kitchen table.

"I need to talk to you."

Alan and Jess looked at each other. Something about Elena's aura signalled bad news. Very bad news. Their fiancé settled into the chair opposite and launched into what she was going to say.

After she had finished relating her worries and concerns, Elena stared into her lap. "How will I ever know if my feelings for you are real? That I'm not just following some larger script?"

She could feel the Queen's growing alarm in her head and stood up before either her nerve or her legs failed her.

"The only way I can do that is by making my own story."

'What the living fuck are you doing?'

'What I have to, Queenie.'

Her erstwhile partners looked up at her in mute misery.

"Goodbye, Jess. Goodbye, Alan."

And that was very much that.

***

A park in Central London three days later

A tall woman in an elegant white suit, with olive skin and coiffed white hair tied under a colourful scarf, walked up to a park bench where another well preserved brunette in a floral silk dress sat looking out at the parkland.

"I should have known better than to agree to this place, these boots are not made for walking!"

The other woman looked up at her from under her broad brimmed sun hat and smiled. The sun beat down and the distance rippled with heat haze. There was silence for a few minutes as they watched the distant aeroplanes circle, waiting for permission to land.

Finally the brunette sighed. "Well, that was a surprise! We certainly didn't anticipate them to bond the way they have, or for the mundane to take centre stage."

The other laughed. "She ain't no mundane no more!"

Her companion patted her hand. "You've got to admit, that stunt with the Americans was quite impressive. They'll be less keen to throw their weight around in future."

"As long as they don't up the ante."

There was another pause.

"Do we know where she's gone?"

"Yes, she's rented some rooms in Bloomsbury. It appears she's suffering a bit of PTSD. Unsurprising really, given what she's been through. Needs some time to collect herself."

"Will she get back in the game?"

The other blew her cheeks out. "She's still the host for the Queen - unless she manages to throw her off somehow - and even if she did, she's still the most powerful Talent in generations. Someone will want to recruit, and or, control her."

"Don't forget her doctorate. Despite some quite frankly disgraceful chatter that she'd screwed her way to her PhD, her dissertation was complimented in the highest terms by a world-leading academic. Fighting against that kind of shit takes grit - pardon my alliteration."

The other clapped and smiled. "Very good! Talking of good, my money is on her wanting to do good; and to do good she has to be on top, but - I think - on her terms. How is the lovely Mrs Vaughan at taking instruction?"

"Charity? Oh my stars!"

They both roared with laughter, and after they sobered, "Will she do it?"

"Will she get the time? Tony Masters will be making a move very soon if I am any judge."

"As in that's what you'd do in his shoes."

"He sees that they're not building a following so he thinks they're weak."

"What do you think?"

"That that little pustule is about to be lanced. We were hoping for something of the sort, remember?"

The other woman huffed. "It's so hard managing without auguries. We rely on them too much and end up simply reacting to situations." She chuckled. "Literally playing the odds!"

The brunette laughed shortly. "The fog of war. I remember reading an excellent book about it. It's not much fun peering into it though."

There was another pause.

"Our people are very bad at the big picture. Remember our discussions after my vision at college? I never dreamed we would be the ones attempting to do something about it."

"We scanned the breeding project data over and over. Who would have guessed the best candidate would come from outside our ranks? Or that one leg of the tripod would be a man?"

Her companion laughed. "Your leg too!"

The other rolled her eyes. "This is what happens when we cease to interfere." She paused and said delicately, "And of course for you this is still very personal, even with her powers."

The brunette's head dipped. After a moment she shook herself. "Have you seen her in action?"

"No! Is there some footage?"

"Watch this."

The white eyebrows climbed as she watched the flickering figure on the phone. "Ara, ara!"

"Eleanor!" admonished her companion, "that's my daughter we're looking at!" However, a complex mixture of pride and worry leaked out and the phone was put away in her bag.

"That's a lot to take in. Come, let's take some tea. They do a first class Eccles cake here. Or we could cut straight to gin."

"At this time of day? Heavens, no! I'd be asleep by dinner!"

***

To be continued