#Marvin sounds so soft in these songs it physically pains me

[yuenity]

Forever mourning the loss of Three Dates with Marvin and Whizzer and the This Had Better Come to a Stop reprise. Marvin and Whizzer fixing their relationship? Marvin working to fix his mistakes and change his behaviors? Whizzer giving him another chance but not forgetting what Marvin did to him? IM SICK

[adevotedappraisal]

Magdalene by FKA Twigs, a review.

I’ve been learning some shit from women from as long as I’ve been alive. Always some other shit that I never asked for but I got told it.  I used to treat them things they said as laws as a child, but I never saw them in a book, so then I stopped believing them.  They were always hushed laws though, laws told with squinted eyes and italicized whispers, laws told when no one else was around.

I mean, now of course men make the real laws that we know and live by.  Well come on now, we write them on parchment, and display them on lights, we code them into computers, inscribe them on coins and stone. But these women…man women tell you some other shit, like glue shit, in low, muttered tones in the quiet part of the house.  Like advice on… well not how the world works, but how to deal with the world when it works against you, and how to make it work for you. But you see, I’ve come to believe that the fairer sex tells you different laws than the vaunted laws and advice of our fathers because they all around see the world differently than men do.  They may, in fact, have been harbouring different goals than us all along.  

I mean for christssakes us men have our hero’s journey as clear as day, writ large and indelible across history books and entertainment.  You could take that Joseph Campbell mono-myth theory and see it expressed in Arthurian swash-buckle, the middle earth ring-slaying of Tolkien, or in the recently concluded tri-trilogy of Star Wars galactic clashes.  We’re in the empire business, as Breaking Bad’s Walter White infamously said.  But still, the question always lingered to me: what is the heroine’s journey? Is it really just a lady in a knight’s armour? Or some tough-as-nails spy for some interloping government’s intelligence agency, delivering kidney kicks in a designer pencil skirt?

Well, I’ve come to believe that the heroine’s journey is navigating the waves of history we imperial and trans-national men make from our railroads and pipelines, our satellites and wars, them at once preserving a culture and sparking a path and creating a bond between cultures in order for them and their (il)legitimate brood to survive.  That old chestnut about how behind every successful man is a woman always unnerved me by its easy adoption. I kept thinking ‘bout that woman.  I kept thinking, what the fuck was she thinking?

You see women’s heroes, they ain’t as clear as day to me.  They don’t kill the dragon, they don’t save the townspeople, they don’t shoot the Sherriff, or the deputy, or anyone most times. When I ask people in public at my job what super power they would like, most men go for strength, flight, and regenerative abilities (my pick).  Most women went with mind reading and flight. In late night conversations though, with the moonlight coming through the white blinds and resting soft on us like so, I sometimes manage to hear that women’s heroes heal and clean the sick of the nation, in sneakers with heels as round as a childhood eraser; they feed a family with one fish and five slices of wonder bread; they would run gambling spots in the back of their house, putting the needle back on the Commodores record and patrolling the perimeter of the smoked-out room with a black .45 nested by their love handles; they climb up flag poles and speak out loud in public for the disposed and teach children those unwritten, floating laws while cloistered in the quiet part of the house.  

Although their heroines are sometimes from the top strata of society –a Pharaoh here, an Eleanor Roosevelt there, an Oprah over there—they also name a healthy mix of radicals and weirdos with modest music success, people like Susan B. Anthony, Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, or Nikki Giovanni, I mean did Nina Simone or Janis Joplin even crack the Billboard top ten? Yet there they are, up on the walls of a thousand college dorms across the country.  So even though I couldn’t’ve foreseen it, it makes sense that of all the ultra-natural creatures, of all the great conquering kings and divining prophets of the Holy Bible, Mary Magdalene ends up the spirit animal for the album of the year for 2019.

Mary Magdalene was a follower of Jewish Rabbi Jesus during the first century, according to the four Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible, a figure who was present for his miracles, his crucifixion and was the first to witness him after his resurrection.  From Pope Gregory I in the sixth century to Pope Paul VI in 1969, the Roman Catholic Church portrayed her as a prostitute, a sinful woman who had seven demons exorcised from her.  Medieval legends of the thirteenth century describe her as a wealthy woman who went to France and performed miracles, while in the apocryphal text The Gospel of Mary, translated in the mid-twentieth century, she is Jesus’ most trusted disciple who teaches the other apostles of the savior’s private philosophies.

Due to this range of description from varying figures in society, she gets portrayed in differing ways, by all types of women, each finding a part of Magdalene to explain themselves through.  Barbra Hershey, in the first half of Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) plays her as a firm and mysterious guide, a rebellious older cousin almost, while Yvonne Elliman, in Norman Jewison’s 1973 film adaptation of Lloyd Weber’s Jesus Christ Superstar is lovelorn and tender throughout, a proud witness of the Word being written for the first time.  In “Mary Magdalene,” FKA Twigs, the Birmingham UK alt-soul singer, describes the woman as a “creature of desire”, and she talks about possessing a “sacred geometry,” and later on in the song she tells us of “a nurturing breath that could stroke you/ divine confidence, a woman’s war, unoccupied history.” Her vocals that sound glassy and spectral in the solemn echoes of the acapella first third, co-produced by Benny Blanco, turn sensual and emotive when the blocky groove kicks in.  That groove comes into its own on the Nicolas Jaar produced back third, and when this all is adorned with plucked arpeggios it sounds like an autumnal sister to the wintry prowl of Bjork’s “Hidden Place” from her still excellent Vespertine (2001). 

This blending of the affairs of the body and of Christian theology is found in the moody “Holy Terrain” as well.  While it is too hermetic and subdued to have been an effective single, it still works really well as an album track.  In this arena, Future is not the hopped up king of the club, but a vulnerable star, with shaded eyes and a heart wrapped up in love and chemicals, sending his girl to church with drug money to pay tithes.  Over a domesticated trap beat he shows a vulnerable bond that can exist, wailing his sins and his devotion like a tipsy boyfriend does in the middle of a party, or perhaps like John the Baptist did, during one of his frenzied sermons, possessed and wailing “if you pray for me I know you play for keeps, calling my name, calling my name/ taking the feeling of promethazine away.”

Magdalene, the singer’s sophomore release, takes the mysterious power and resonance of this biblical anti-heroine, and involves its songs with her, these emotional, multi-textured songs about fame, pain and the break up with movie star boyfriend Robert Pattinson.  With ��Sad Day,” Twigs sings with a delicate yet emotional yearning, imbued with a Kate Bush domesticity. The synth pads are a pulsing murmur, and the vocal samples are chopped and rendered into lonely, twisting figures.  The drums crash in only every once in a while, just enough to reset the tension and carve out an electronic groove, while the rest of the thing is an exercise in mood and restraint, the production by twigs, Jaar and Blanco, along with Cashmere Cat and Skrillex, leaves her laments cosseted in a floating sound, distant yet dense and tumultuous, the way approaching storm clouds can feel.   Meanwhile “Thousand Eyes” is a choir of Twigs, some voices cluttered and glittering, some others echoed and filled with dolour. “If you walk away it starts a thousand eyes,” she sings, the line starting off as pleading advice and by the close of the song ending up a warning in reverb, the vintage synths and updated DAWs used to create these sparse, aural haunts where the choral of shes and the digital ghosts of memory can echo around her whispered confessional.

In many of these divorce albums, the other party’s role in the conflict is laid bare in scathing terms: the wife that “didn’t have to use the son of mine, to keep me in line” from Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear from 1979; the players who “only love you when they’re playin’” as Stevie Nicks sang on Fleetwood Macs Rumours (1977); or as Beyonce’s Lemonade (2017) charges, the husband that needs “to call Becky with the good hair.”   At first though, Twigs is diplomatic, like in “Home with me,” where she lays the conflict on both sides here, expressing the rigours of fame, the miscommunication –accidental or intentional –that fracture relationships, and the violent, tenuous silence of a house where one of the members is in some another country doing god knows what, physically or mentally. “I didn’t know you were lonely, if you’d just told me I’d be home with you,” she sings in the chorus over a lonely piano, while the verse sections have the piano chords flanked by blocks of glitch, and littered with flitched-off synths. Then, the last chorus swirls the words again, along with the strings and horns and everything into a rising crescendo of regret.

Later in the album however, her anger once smoldering is set alight, in the dramatic highlight “Fallen Alien.” Twigs sings with an increasing tension, as her agile voice morphs from confused, pouting girlfriend to towering lady of the manor, launching imprecations towards a past lover and perhaps fame itself. “I was waiting for you, on the outside, don’t tell me what you want ‘cuz I know you lie,” she sings, and, after the tension ratchets up becomes “when the lights are on, I know you, see you’re grey from all the lies you tell,” and then later on we have her sneering out loud “now hold me close, so tender, when you fall asleep I’ll kick you down.”  All while pondering pianos drop like rain from an awning, tick-tocking mini-snares and skittering noises flit across the beat like summer insects, the kicks of which are like an insistent, inquisitive knocking at the door, and then there’s that sample, filtered into an incandescent flame, crackling an  I FEEL THE LIGHTNING BLAST! all over the song like the arc of a Tesla coil. The song is a shocking rebuke, and it becomes apparent upon replays that the songs are sequenced to lead up to and away from it, the gravitational weight giving a shape and pace to the whole album.  Because of this, the other songs on Magdalene have more tempered, subtle electronic hues and tones, as if the seductive future soul of 2013s “Water Me” from EP2, and the inventive, booming experimentation of “Glass & Patron” from 2015s M3LL1SSX, were pursed back and restrained until it was needed most, and this results in an album more accomplished, nuanced and focused than her impressive but inconsistent debut LP1 (reviewed here).  

This technique of electronic restraint has shown up in the most recent albums by experimental pioneers, with the sparse, mournful tension of Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool (2017), it’s cold, analog synths and digital embellishments cresting on the periphery of the song, and with Wilco’s Ode to Joy from last year, an album bereft of their lauded static and electric scrawl, mostly embossed in acoustic solitude and brittle, wintery guitar licks.  Twigs and her co-producers take the same knack for the most part throughout the album, like with closer “Cellophane,” where the dramatic voice and piano are in the forefront, while effects crunch lightly in the background like static electricity in a stretched sweater, and elsewhere, as the synths of “Daybed” slowly intensify into a sparkling soundscape, as if manufacturing an awakening sunrise through a bedroom window.  And it is this seamless melding of organic and electronic instruments, to express these wretched and fleeting emotions of heartbreak that makes this the album of the year.

It makes sense that an artist like FKA Twigs would be drawn to a figure like Mary Magdalene.  Of the many Marys in the New Testament, she stuck out as palpably different, or rather, she depicted a differing part of womanhood than the other two.  She wasn’t the chaste, life-giving mother of Jesus, or the dutiful Mary of Clopas. Instead, Magdalene was this mixture of sexuality and spirituality, one of those figures that managed to know men and women in equal measure, wrapped up with the blood as well as the flesh.  Twigs also played with this enrapturing sexuality in her work, writhing around in bed begging some papi to pacify her and fuck her while she stared at the sun, then making you identify with the lamentations of video girls, and then telling you in two weeks you won’t even recognize who you were seeing before.  There was something mysterious and layered to her millennial art-chick sexpot act though, layers that have begun to be revealed with this album.  

We realise now, that what she was depicting all along was more like the sexual heat that lays underneath devotion, as opposed to fleeting, mayfly lust, and that she now understands the weight and half-life of love.  That is, that beyond the sex and patron and fame there is a near sacred love we build between each other for a while in time, lasting as long as both hands can bear to hold it, and also that the death of a relationship still has the memory of the love created warm within it that then radiates off slow into the air.  A love that then falls into our minds for safekeeping dark and unobstructed now, the way Jesus’ blood fell from his wound into Joseph of Arimathea’s grail held aloft.  

“I never met a hero like me in a sci-fi,” FKA Twigs sings, an evocative line less so for the hegemonic patriarchy of the worldwide movie and comic book industry suggested by ‘the sci-fi’ here, and more for the ‘hero like me’ part, which suggests she had to make her hero origin story all up, without the scaffolding of centuries of relatable mythologies, presenting us with an avatar of millennial love, in all of its tortured luster.  And you hear this type of love in her voice, no longer changed up and ran through a filter for Future Soul sophistication most times, but out in the open now, to express particular emotions, whether it’s in that swooping, falling ‘I’ in the heart-break closer “Cellophane,” or her assured realisation, later on “Home With Me” where she says “But I’d save a life if I thought it belonged to you/ Mary Magdalene would never let her loved ones down.”  

It’s never about how to conquer with these women you see.  In the end of all relationships it’s how they find their way out after us temporarily embarrassed conquerors are about to leave, jacket slung over shoulder, standing by the door. You squint your eyes back at her this time, and you listen this time, while she tells you, or tells the ground in front of you, what parts of love to let go of, and what parts are worth holding on to in this age of Satan, the parts that will help you become yourself. “I wonder if you think that I could never help you fly,” the song tells you then, one of those stinging admissions that only women come up with, and you wisely stay silent, and then the piano chords part, the synths subside. And for a while there as she looks at you, as the breathy sortilege in the song keeps going, it all sounds like something worth believing in again.  And then, the words she says to you start to come across like laws.

[inkribbon796]

The Ace of Spades

Summary: With the Dark Sides contained, Spade’s attention turns to the four Core Sides.

WARNING: this chapter has a tag for non-con kissing. It doesn’t get graphic or lead to anything worse and I love Spade but he can be a lot not good. The contents of the warning include: Spade kissing Roman when he believed Spade to be Logan; and does not go any further. If that is triggering just know that the chapter ends with Spade containing all four of the Core Sides like he did with Janus, Remus, and Orange. Just thought I’d leave this warning because it is worth being warned about.

A/N: Requested by ANON

<= Back to the Deck

Date Archived: May 6, X

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Starting sequence

Logan had been seeing his therapist for a couple of months now, just talking about his nightmares and getting treated for his insomnia. The medication was doing wonders for him, he could sleep, and function, and think. He could plan some minor exposure therapy, carefully watched and supervised. It didn’t touch his skin, but Marvin and Ethan could practice knife throwing with Logan safely nearby without Logan feeling the need to run and hide in another room.

The logical Side finally felt like he was making progress.

Patton picked him up from the appointment and left him at the house at around eight, after making sure he was okay, going over to help Joan with something for a party they were going to before he picked them up again. Logan went back to the main bedroom as Virgil and Roman were watching something. Logan gave them a quick hello before heading upstairs. Once inside his eyes raked over the closet, checking that a piece of paper was still wedged in one of the hinges.

So he smiled and sat down at his desk.

Logan sighed, leaning back in his chair, “Your therapist is very nice, I’d forgotten about her. I do hope you haven’t been too impossible with her, she is doing her best.”

Silence.

“Logan’s” eyes were literally glowing in the low light of the room as he looked toward the closet. “Right, I shouldn’t keep speaking, we do have work to do.”

Turning in his swirling chair, Logan was facing his computer and the grey solid state drive hooked up to the computer. The drive was as long as his forearm and Logan was having some frustrating issues with formatting the tech and had to rework a couple of the programs on the computer. But it was a problem he had encountered before and knew exactly how to work around it. It took an hour to finally start downloading the right programs onto it and by then Roman and Virgil had gotten home from a patrol.

Right on time.

Perfectly on time.

Roman was inside their home first and saw Logan’s shoes in the front door’s shoe cubby. The indicator that Logan was in fact home, a constant and trusted sign.

“Look who’s home early,” Roman smiled, hands on his hips as Virgil pushed past him.

“Huh, thought he was going with Pat,” Virgil commented out loud. “Must have come over so he could pick us up.”

The creative Side squealed in excitement, fake swooning onto Virgil, “How romantic. How apropos. I shall fetch our love at once.”

“Gag me with a spoon, Princey,” Virgil smiled and rolled his eyes. He lightly pushed Roman away. “I’ll get the chili. You get the nerd.”

Roman raced up the stairs, as Virgil went into the kitchen. Hearts in his eyes, and his mind blinded to any inconsistencies like a slight chip in the plaster where metal had scratched the wall hours ago.

Without knocking, Roman barged into the bedroom and saw Logan slaving away on his computer.

“Oh, Logannnn~ my love,” Roman greeted in a sing-song voice so that Logan heard him coming and wasn’t startled by him. He walked over and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his head. “You lose yourself so easily my dear. Why are you sitting in the dark?”

With a snap of his fingers, Roman’s magic turned on the desk light.

“Hey poindexter,” Roman smiled as the person at the desk craned his head up just enough to look up at Roman in the most human way possible. He saw a mess of equipment and objects shadowed in low light, the sun had started to set as “Logan” had been working.

“Salutations, Roman,” Logan greeted. “How was patrol?”

“Ughh, boring,” Roman rolled his eyes, Logan staring at his lips as he spoke, turning in his chair. “Jackie and Crank beat us to anything good. So glad we’re going to Joan’s, I’ve been so bored all day. You know Virgil was so—”

Logan’s lips met his, and Roman could practically taste the hunger on them.

It surprised Roman. Usually a Logan seated at his desk meant that the Side was so hyper fixated on work that nothing: not hunger, not tiredness, nor the other Sides could uproot him from his chair.

They pulled apart as Logan’s hand carded through Roman’s soft locks.

Roman chuckled, “Not that I’m not extremely appreciative, but don’t you normally wait until after a project to let me distract you?”

“I’m at a good stopping point, I’ve missed you so much,” Logan confessed, nuzzling along Roman’s neck.

“Miss you too when I’m gone,” Roman chuckled, hugging Logan to him.

Logan let out this weird glitchy chuckle, and in the low light of the room, Roman watched Logan’s eyes and glasses glitch as a cold chill rolled over the romantic Side. In that same moment a pair of metal cuffs made out of chittering nanites anchored Roman where the creative Side stood. “Oh Roman, as dense as always, how I love you.”

That’s when Roman finally saw the communicator on the imposter’s wrist that had a black spade insignia on it.

“You’re not Logan, uncuff me this instant you charlatan,” Roman demanded, trying to jerk himself free or imagine a weakness in the bonds, but they wouldn’t give. He was only able to kick out his feet.

Spade stood up and moved in for another kiss but Roman head butted him, and felt searing pain pierce through his head.

“Such a fighter,” Spade cooed. “You look every bit as beautiful as always and then more so.”

“Let go of me!” Roman shouted in anger as he tried to twist his way free. The Side felt the beginnings of fear bubbling up in his throat.

The imposter let out another odd, glitchy chuckle. “Don���t worry, I’ll stop.”

He reached over to the desk, and pulled out three locket charms from his pocket and set two of them: a storm cloud with a thunderbolt coming down from it, and a golden heart locket with glasses etched into it. The locket charm had a fine golden chain attached to it.

The charm still in the imposter’s hand was a red and golden shield, it had the same design as Roman’s crest that he wore on the arms of his superhero uniform.

“I can’t promise this will be painless,” Spade told Roman as he stood up, kicking the chair to the side so that he had more room. “But don’t worry, my sweet prince, it’ll be quick and it will feel like going to sleep. When you wake up it will be like nothing happened.”

He moved forward, but the creative Side fought against him, kicking up a foot. “Don’t touch me, you fiend, quit using his form. You’re a brute and a monster.”

Then Roman’s foot physically went through his attacker’s stomach, as if he wasn’t even there. And something in Roman froze over in fear.

“True,” Spade admitted, sticking the charm to Roman’s neck with the nanites. The metal charm touching the soft flesh of his neck directly. “I am not worthy of something so lovely, but I’d rather have you alive and hating me, than dead and loving me.”

Just then a knock came at the door and Spade’s hands flew over Roman’s mouth, signaling for him to stay quiet with a finger gently pressed to the imposter’s lips.

“Hey Princey, Logan, everything okay?” Virgil called out.

Roman tried fighting in earnest, trying to wrench his head free. Spade slipped and Roman immediately belted out the loudest scream his lungs could muster, “VIRGIL!”

The door was already starting to open but it flew open even faster and Roman saw the fear, and then confusion, on his face when Virgil saw who Roman’s attacker looked like.

In that moment of hesitation, Spade’s nanites surged out and cascaded towards Virgil. The anxious Side tried to dodge out of the way and used his fear abilities against the Suit but the nanites glued Virgil to the wall.

“No! No! No!” Roman panicked as Spade calmly walked over to the anxious Side. “Unhand him, let him go!”

“Don’t worry,” Spade promised in the most threatening tone either one of the Sides had heard in a while. “I’ll let both of you go very soon.”

Virgil tried to twist out of his bonds, his eyeshadow darkening with his fear and he kept trying to attack the Suit with his fear powers. “Forgive me for being so rough, my lovely nightshade but I cannot afford to take chances.”

“Let me go, let me go,” Virgil was letting out a sound that sounded like spidery chittering and feline hissing as Virgil realized his powers were hitting the Suit like feathers against a brick wall. And the scariest thing was that he was still wearing Logan’s face.

“Are you trying to scare me?” Spade chuckled, his tone glitching. “My dear belladonna, there is nothing you could do to me, nothing you could show me, that could compare to the horrors I’ve seen.”

Roman’s struggling intensified as he saw a cloud of nanites snag the thundercloud charm off the table and bring it to one of Spade’s outstretched hands.

Virgil saw the pendant and began twisting. His dark purple aura scratching at the nanite goop and tried to slash at Spade’s face but that only scared Virgil more because he got the Suit in the face only to expose metal wires and plates before the nanites almost sewed it back up as if they were regrowing flesh.

The anxious Side was so overcome with fear that he froze up and shivered. Which let Spade stick the charm to his neck with nanites like he had done with Roman.

Then Side’s eyes glowed blue and he tapped the charm on Virgil’s neck. Virgil flinched and his eyes forcibly glowed purple before he let out a bloodcurdling scream and a flash of light.

And then Virgil was gone, the storm cloud pendant letting out and angry purple glow that looked like an angry storm was festering inside of it. It began dying down before the entire storm cloud had a brilliant purple shade and the thunderbolt a bright yellow.

Roman screamed in rage as Spade plucked the charm out of the goop and walked back over to the desk. All the nanites that had been used to capture Virgil merging back into Spade’s body. “Give him back! What did you do to him?”

“He’s alive and well, merely sleeping,” Spade with an absolute gentleness clipped the locket onto the front of the solid state drive, a little hanger notched into the metal specifically designed for it. “And soon you will be too.”

“Don’t touch me! Get away from me! Give him back!” Roman tried to wrench himself free but nanites came up to cup the back of his head to keep his neck still.

“Good night my sweet prince,” Spade said, his eyes glowing blue as he tapped the locket.

Roman felt something in his soul twist, something similar to fusion but used for a different purpose, his eyes glowed red.

And then the pain started. It was blinding, white hot pain. All of Roman’s nerves felt like they were being set on fire. Then it was gone and Roman too was gone from the room, his soul folded up neatly into the shield pendant.

Logan kissed the pendant reverently as it glowed an angry red before settling into a much calmer constant red color. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Princey. When you wake up it’ll all be over.”

As Spade was clipping the shield locket with Virgil’s thundercloud there was an angry kick from the inside of the closet.

Spade took his time and as he walked towards the door, he pounded on the closet door once in response. The Suit took extreme care not to dent or break the fragile wood in case anyone checked the house when his work was done.

Logan’s phone came out of the nanites that made up Spade’s physical body. He began typing on it, turning just enough lights to make the upstairs still look lived in. Then he turned on the living room light and sat next to the window just behind the kitchen table and started reading through engineering and science journals.

He was there for twenty minutes before Patton entered the house, humming to himself, thinking about how quiet it was. He walked into the kitchen to grab the bowl of chili they were supposed to bring to the party, and flicked on the light. Which is exactly when he saw who he thought was Logan was sitting at the table.

The emotional Side jumped, grabbing at his chest, “Jeezy creezy, Logan, you scared me.”

“Pardon, I was just thinking,” Logan excused, just staring at Patton. “I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”

“Well there’s no point in sitting in the dark anymore,” Patton smiled.

Spade smiled, “I suppose not.”

“Well why don’t you enlighten me on where Ro and Virge are, that party won’t attend itself,” Patton laughed at his own joke, and to his surprise “Logan” huffed out a little laugh. It was quick but Patton still heard it.

“I got you,” Patton gasped in excitement. He turned to yell outside the kitchen towards the stairs. “Hey guys!”

When Patton turned his back and set his hand on the wall Spade shot a wad of nanites over and stuck Patton’s arm to the wall.

Silence echoed painfully through the apartment as Patton looked back at Spade who set Logan’s phone on the table.

“You’re not Logan,” Patton realized, trying to pull his hand free. “Who are you?”

“You’re always so quick to spot me,” Spade smiled. “I don’t know whether to be amused by your awareness or angry at my own failings.”

“Where are the others?” Patton asked as the nanites wrapped around him to pin him in place. He was watching Spade pull a golden locket out of his arm and his nanites gently slid it around Patton’s neck. The emotional Side flinching before Spade pulled back.

When he tentatively opened his eyes he watched Spade take his phone and his nanite body took it inside of the imposter.

“Sleep and all will be right again when you wake, I promise you,” Spade told him with such determination in his eyes that it was terrifying to Patton.

Spade repeated what he had done to Virgil and Roman on Patton and the kitchen was silent once more.

Looking down at the locket in his hand, Spade let out a relieved sigh. He had them, he was almost ready.

Going through the house, Spade began carefully putting things away and making sure all of the plugs had been pulled out of the wall and the lights were turned off. Making sure to grab Logan’s phone checking that Virgil and Roman’s phones weren’t laying around somewhere. He was halfway up the stairs when Patton’s phone dinged.

The Suit stopped, one foot up the next stair as he pulled the phone out of his arm and looked at it.

“You guys need anything before you get over here?” Joan had texted Patton.

Spade paused to think, and sent Joan a quick text, “Logan isn’t feeling well, we’re going to stay at the house.”

Almost immediately three dots appeared, Joan was texting back. But after a second they disappeared for about a minute. Then: “K be safe.”

“Will do.” Spade texted back, and then pocketed the phone.

It didn’t ring or vibrate, but Logan’s did.

The message was from Joan: “Is Patton with you?”

“Yes,” Spade answered.

There was another pause.

“Good, he told me he was running late,” Joan told him. “Have a nice night.”

Spade sent an additional perfunctory farewell and continued up the stairs where he continued to turn off everything in the house, ending with the main bedroom, where the computer equipment still was on the desk and the solid state drive with the two charms hooked onto it. The Suit admired his handiwork for a second or two, making sure there was no leaking aura or glowing that signified the Sides were awake.

When he was sure all was as he wanted, Spade carefully hooked Patton’s locket with the charms and picked up the solid state drive, black handles springing up on either side of the drive for Spade to grab.

He cleaned up the desk so none of Spade’s personal tech was left for anyone like Bing or Joan to find and use against him. The tech and nanites reabsorbed except for the drive and charms attached.

With a smug, vindictive smile, Spade walked over to the closet and opened it to look down at the real Logan who was tied up and gagged on the closet floor. The logical Side looked up at his doppelgänger and screamed angrily at him.

Spade looked down sternly at him and held up the solid state drive and the three charms attached to it. “Alright, let’s try this again.”

End of Sequence

Conclusion: Time to regroup with Hearts and prepare for the mission proper.