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arcadianambivalence · 5 years ago

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World on Fire, Episode 3

December 1939

After the invasion of Poland, the newly declared war seemed to ground to a halt. The nervous calm of the autumn of 1939 led to the war’s nickname of the “phony war.” As Nancy describes it: “There is simply a feeling among the allied forces that the inevitable will never come to pass.”

In World on Fire, British forces stationed in Northern France fill their time with digging, minor spats, and talk of home. Because of his class, Harry has been set up as an officer, but his sergeant seems to be better suited for the job. While Harry tries to be a friend to the men, Stan speaks plainly and gains their respect. Wanting to help Poland but winding up in France, wanting to protect the Tomaszeski family and having to leave them behind, wanting to fight but digging trenches instead, Harry feels listless and useless once again.

(Read more)

Conversely, Tom is still at the bottom of the pecking order in the Navy, and he bristles at the strict order of life at sea. To supplement his income, he gets his peers to place bets on when the ship’s canary will lay an egg, but he runs into trouble with a crewmate named Henry. Crewmate Vic confiscates the money from Tom. Then the ship goes on red alert. Tom rushes into the skirmish with enthusiasm until a hit from the German battleship knocks him off his feet, kills Vic, and blows off Henry’s arm. All personal disputes are set aside as Tom helps Henry to his feet.

Heavily damaged but still afloat, the Exeter is a smokestack gliding across the water. Tom retrieves the betting money from Vic’s body and gives it to Henry. ��“This doesn’t make us mates,” he protests. He has a reputation to uphold (with whom? Himself?).

In London, Douglas is desperate for news about Tom as the idea of peace grows fainter by the day, especially with news of the sinking of the Admiral Graf Spee. Robina is starting to reassess her opinions, too. Despite calling herself not much of a mother, she can see that Jan is miserable at school. Her words of encouragement ring hollow even as she says them: “And that’s what you do in this life, you get used to it. And it makes you a better person. Eventually. Resilient, at least—a quality much undervalued.”

But the immediate ostracism does not make Jan resilient, and Robina quickly changes her tune. She marches Jan up to the other schoolchildren and stands up for him with a long speech about how everyone in Jan’s family is fighting Hitler and deserves their praise.

(I’ve only had Jan for a day and a half, but any boy who attacks this fine young man must be on Hitler’s side!)

Ludwig, a member of the Resistance, encourages Kasia to use her position as a waitress to observe the occupying German soldiers. If anyone tries to flirt with her, he says, she could lure the soldier to the bombed-out corner of the city and avenge her mother. Kasia attempts to do this with a soldier but gets scared and lets him go at the last minute.

That soldier is Klaus Rossler, and his parents are terrified that they will lose both children to the Nazi Regime. After Hilde’s seizure last episode, the Rosslers believe she will be taken away to an institution like a neighbor’s son once was. Concerned for Hilde, Nancy investigates the institution and makes a horrifying discovery about its state-sanctioned euthanasia program under Dr. Voller. She confronts the doctor, but he tries to justify the program with Social Darwinism. She refutes him with “Human progress is driven by our capacity to look out for those who are weaker than us.”

Nancy shares her findings with the Rosslers: first the parents receive a letter asking for consent to institutionalize the children, and if they don’t reply, there is a second letter and a threat that the child will be taken away. If the parents still refuse, they will be committed to forced labor and their child taken anyway. The final letter is a death certificate. “There is no treatment, only murder.”

But knowledge comes at a cost. Nancy’s act of investigating the institution may very well draw attention to her and the Rosslers. Uwe Rossler is furious and forbids Nancy from contacting them again, but he too could have stirred up suspicion at work today. He interrupted a fight between two workers and refused to deliver any kind of punishment for the women involved. One worker tries to pull rank with her status as a Party Member and is unhappy when that does nothing to sway Uwe.

No good deed goes unpunished anywhere. Konrad and Grzegorz continue to run for their lives, but now they have two factions to evade. I mentioned in my review for episode two that the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939, too. Because of the time jump between episodes, the news of a second invasion is left off-screen (one of a couple of revelations I wish we had time for), but Konrad and Grzegorz are well aware that everyone they meet could turn them in to one side or the other.

A farmer catches the two men as they sneak through his land, but instead of denouncing them, he gives them a warm meal. This act of kindness doesn’t last for long, though, when a Soviet truck pulls up with a couple of suspicious soldiers. One soldier in particular takes his time inspecting the house while Konrad and Grzegorz hide in the cellar below.

Just like in episode one, Grzegorz fights back a nervous coughing fit. Just like in episode two, the encounter ends with shocking violence as the soldiers murder the farmer and his family.

Compared to all this, the reunion of Lois and Harry seems trite (compared to anything, the back-and-forth with Lois and Harry seems trite!). Not even an episode has passed since their separation, so the arrival of the ENSA troop Lois happens to be in at the camp that Harry happens to be in doesn’t even feel like two long-lost lovers meeting. It just feels convenient.

Finally free to make her own choices without thinking of her father and brother, Lois is all smiles for the troops (who are more than happy to see her too!). Shocked by this side of her, Harry flips his shit and punches a soldier Lois is flirting with. But, class and rank being what they are, it’s the poor soldier who is apparently in trouble for the fight.

But enough has happened in the few months apart to make Harry wonder if the two can be friends again, even though he decked her date. And enough has (not) happened for Lois to realize that she’s pregnant. (I guess an episode-long subplot involving this discovery and Lois coming to terms with it wasn’t as important as Harry’s emotional baggage...)

To complicate things further, Robina realizes that Harry and Kasia are married.

That night, Harry confides his situation to Stan, who casually suggests that the war has done him a favor. At the thought that Kasia could be dead, Harry flips his shit again.

There’s no one to punch, so wasting ammunition and scaring some owls will have to do.

For all the flack I’ve given the love triangle, though, it does serve a thematic purpose. Harry’s sense of guilt and obligation for Kasia and Lois is emblematic of the conflict felt by many soldiers. At one point, Lois asks him “Why are you here?” and he immediately begins to list his grievances about his inability to fight on the front lines for Poland.

Britain declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, but no major combat occurred for several months. Meanwhile, Britain began to shift its focus to its own shores and the threat of their own German invasion.

The feeling that Britain abandoned Poland is symbolized by Harry’s separation from both Kasia and Jan, and his concern for his own country is symbolized by his relationship with Lois.

When writing World on Fire, Peter Bowker chose his characters carefully, each one drawing attention to a different aspect of life during World War Two: refugees and civilians whose lives were upended by war, partisans who resisted, collaborators who didn’t, soldiers who went to war willingly (or unwillingly), and the cross-section between these areas.

Lois and Harry can worry about their love lives because they aren’t in danger every second. Nancy can investigate the euthanasia program because as an American journalist, she is given looser restrictions than German civilians. Robina has the freedom to (publically) change her sympathies with relative ease after meeting Jan, but the Rosslers or the Tomaszeskis are too busy trying to survive unnoticed to dare that. Douglas is able to talk of peace because he is not personally at war (yet).

So when Kasia witnesses the brutal beating and murder of Ludwig, her decision to actively involve herself in the luring and killing of a soldier, and the way this is framed as the death of Kasia’s own innocence, opens up other moral questions for viewer. What makes that soldier different from Klaus? And if the answer is “Nothing,” then did Klaus deserve to die, too? If all Germans are the same, then what does that make Hilde? Robina sympathized with the British Union of Fascists, so why are we supposed to care what Jan thinks of her now? And if Nancy has certain freedoms afforded to her as a guest in Germany, why doesn’t she do more? And finally: if I were in the same situation as any of these characters, what would I do?

With the spring of 1940, the phony war was over, and Germany invaded Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France.

Notes:

The battle Tom survives is called The Battle of River Plate, which places this episode in early December 1939. Christmas decorations are visible when Nancy goes shopping and when Robina celebrates Jan’s birthday as other clues for dating the events.

One of the women in the fight that Uwe breaks up uses “Jew” as a slur, which unfortunately would have been one more way to dehumanize and debase Jewish people.

Lois is carrying a Hitler puppet at the start of the episode. I wonder how that routine goes.

…And is it bad that I’m still holding out hope for a Connie subplot?

Further Reading

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/specialfeatures/world-on-fire-s1-ep2-history-images/

#world on fire

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qqueenofhades · 7 years ago

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the tangled web of fate we weave: xiii

yes i finished it after getting Extremely Distracted last night, and tumblr even appears to have fixed its issues with wonky symbols in text posts. it’s a christmas miracle.

part xii/AO3.

Garcia Flynn has spent the last two years – well, he hasn’t had a single permanent address, a stopover longer than a few months, any phone that wasn’t a burner, a consistent identity or nationality, a less than fifty percent chance that someone will appear with a semi-automatic weapon to finish the job, or a fully legal exit from any of a dozen countries. So really, draw your own conclusions. On the run seems almost hilarious in its understatement; he vaguely recalls that the literary device is called litotes. Completely undersell something for sharper rhetorical effect, usually by presenting it as the negative or opposite of the truth, the kind of sassy and contrary thing that appeals to him. You call Chernobyl just a little industrial fire. Or Rittenhouse really not that bad. Or Garcia Flynn a sensible, well-adjusted man who has a full idea of what he’s doing and everything under control. There, you see? Irony.

Flynn has a full half-dozen fake identities under his belt by now, an assortment of dollars, loonies, euros, pounds, and pesos in reserve depending on where he’s going, and has lived in shitty hotel rooms for so long that he has forgotten there is any other kind of human domicile. It’s better not to ask how he’s getting the money. The NSA doesn’t exactly offer severance pay, and while he has a few accounts in Croatia, they are under his real name and if Rittenhouse knows the first damn thing about their business, they are just waiting for him to try to access them. They’re probably frozen anyway. And while Flynn is perfectly willing to mug someone in an alley if need be, this does not generate any substantial or sustainable income. So he owns one computer, firewalled and encrypted and IP-randomized up the wazoo, a computer that God Himself could not hack (Flynn has made sure of this by running monthly attempts on it himself). This computer is configured to access the Deep Web, otherwise known as the Dark Web, where at least seventy-five percent of the world’s high-level organized crime takes place, a murky cyber underworld and the lifeblood of the black market. Every few weeks, Flynn logs on, performs a few tasks for someone whose real name or employment he will never know, and one to three business days later (good to know that crime syndicates are reliable about their payroll processing) a large amount of money turns up in one of the corresponding fake identities’ offshore bank account. Never the same one twice in a row, or on too consistent a schedule. Flynn likes to think that he hasn’t taken jobs for anyone truly terrible, that it’s the usual petty exchange of knockoff prescription drugs, corporate sabotage, data ransomware, and insurance scams, but he doesn’t know for sure.

And yet. Morally questionable or not, black-hat hacking has enabled him to keep a roof (even a terrible motel one) over his head, eat regularly, change his identities as needed, and track Rittenhouse across multiple countries and continents, so he’s going to keep doing it. For obvious reasons, he cannot return to either Philadelphia or West Point. D.C., where there must be the highest concentration of them, is also out. He can’t go at them directly, so he has to come at them from angles and pincer movements, feints and probes, a subtle, surreptitious game. Try to pin down just how far their influence extends, and how deeply it’s entrenched. It would be impossible for an entire task force with all the money and time in the world. For one man, it’s beyond that. And yet. Garcia Flynn is doing it anyway.

His first port of call was Bavaria, in Germany, seeing if Rittenhouse shared any connections or resources with the Illuminati, founded in 1780 for similar aims but (supposedly) quickly repressed. If you ask your bog-standard conspiracy theorist, they’ll claim the Illuminati are still alive and kicking, and Flynn wanted to figure out if they just subsumed their operations into Rittenhouse. So Dr. Alexander Kovac went to some regional archives and libraries, looking for stuff on Adam Weishaupt and his disciples, any contacts they might have had with David Rittenhouse and his. He found a few things that seemed to suggest this was possible, but Germany has, for obvious reasons, cracked down hard on these kinds of groups post-WWII. It is no longer the ideal environment for Rittenhouse to flourish, even if they probably have a few tendrils planted near Angela Merkel and the EU. Europe might be the birthplace of this kind of thinking, but America has realized it to its fullest potential.

After that, Flynn went to the Caribbean, since he guessed that most of their money has to be moving through the same havens as his. The Caymans, he thinks. But he can’t get physically near it, if there was anything to get close to, without setting off alarm bells, and even his hacking attempts have to be careful. He did enjoy sleeping on the beach beneath the tropical stars, but the news that a hurricane was on the way, plus seeing the same man wander casually past him a few too many times, felt like his cue to leave. Where, he wasn’t quite sure. He wanted to go back to California, wanted like crazy, but he didn’t dare.

Thus, he went to Ottawa instead. It was an unpleasant shock to go from the sunny Caribbean to Canada in winter, but there are bigger problems at stake. Canada obviously has close ties to America, so Flynn could pick up on some things by inference, intercept bits of useful intelligence here and there, and it was close enough to the border that he could nip over a few times and prowl around upstate New York (very, very carefully). The black site in West Point still seems to be in operation, and Flynn made every possible effort to hear about it if Lucy ever returned there, if there is any whisper that Rittenhouse has gotten their hooks into her again. If he did hear anything – well, to hell with subterfuge or delicacy. He would in fact just crash in and pull her out, even if it meant blowing the whole operation, and he’s relieved for any number of reasons that he has not had to. It’s a good thing she did not come along. He could never have been this flexible and this relentless if he had to keep one eye on her and teach her how to live this way. This isn’t a job to learn on.

(A very good thing.)

(Very good.)

(Very.)

Ultimately, however, Flynn’s Canadian sojourn ended up concluding the same thing as Germany: that Canada was not the right place for Rittenhouse to think it worthwhile expanding their foothold. Too nice, probably, and they don’t have the same sense of American imperialism and exceptionalism, don’t fit into Rittenhouse’s patriotic-fascist grand design. So then it was the question of the time machine, which he has been putting off in the hope it was just some sort of trick (even if he has very good reason to know it’s not). Connor Mason has been generously bankrolled to build it, according to Emma, and while Flynn will kill the bitch if he ever sees her again, she’s not lying about that. How much more do they still need to get done to make it a viable operational threat? Where are they getting their engineers, their machinery, their tech? Is Mason himself in Rittenhouse? He has to be. No way they’d outsource that little job to just anyone. Does Mason owe his entire fortune, all his well-publicized accomplishments, to these people? How much else has he done for them?

Flynn still cannot return outright to the Bay Area without sending up too many smoke signals. He has to be strategic. Finally, he lucks into a tip that Connor Mason is taking his team to London for a week in February, bringing the whole circus. As London is obviously also where Emma said she wanted to go, where Rittenhouse was supposedly trying for a new foothold, the coincidence is perfect and self-explanatory. London calling? London calling.

Thus, Flynn picks up from where he has been living in a log cabin in Vermont for the last two months (it’s practically home, he feels an odd pang at leaving it), and takes a flight out of JFK on the Canadian passport that gives his name as Gabriel Ashe. It’s a Commonwealth country, he’ll get less scrutiny entering the UK that way, especially since the passport is only mostly legit. If he blows this, he could find himself out on his ass and in even more hot water, but his luck has held thus far. He has to trust that it will.

On the flight, Flynn supposes that he knows very well what sins he is being punished for by getting stuck in the middle seat, and thinks about Lorena Kovac. About seven months ago, on a lonely, late night, he gave into a moment of weakness and emailed her from his untrackable computer. He hasn’t really spoken to her in several years, and didn’t know what he was going to achieve by getting in touch again. He didn’t say anything about where he was or what he was doing, just that he hoped she was well. He knows it probably confused and hurt Lorena, since he gave her no explanation for dropping out of her life in the first place, and he’s sorry for it. But he wanted – he wanted something, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. Just to be sure he didn’t dream a real life, perhaps. The one where they met for coffee on sunny mornings in Dubrovnik, looked over the glittering Adriatic Sea, and did not talk about war.

Lorena’s reply, three days later, was polite and to the point. She also hoped that he was well. She was doing fine – better than fine,. She has recently had a baby girl, Iris. She and Iris’ father – a childhood friend of Flynn’s, an old schoolmate, Luka – are engaged, and they are very happy. A summer wedding is planned. She wishes Flynn the best in his life, and remains fond of him. She hopes he is at peace. She is.

Reading it felt, for Flynn, like being punched in the chest. Somehow it never occurred to him that Lorena would also move on with her life, that since her feelings for him never turned into the relationship she was hoping for, she would tidily shut the door and walk away. And Luka – he’s a doctor, he’s a great guy, he and Flynn have known each other forever, he and Lorena will have a wonderful life. A baby girl named Iris. The ghost of a smiling child floated into Flynn’s head and has never entirely left. It hurt in a way he can’t articulate. It still does. He loved Lorena, in some unformed, tentative, unrealized way, even if Lucy was already between them, somehow, from the start. He knows why Lorena has written the letter as she did, with the tone of wishing an old flame well, even if they were never officially together. She has made it clear that as far as she and her life are concerned, the wound is no longer open, the space has been filled. Perhaps this put them out of danger from Rittenhouse, but Flynn can’t risk writing back. Lorena will probably wonder why she even bothered, and go to her child and future husband, and live. He wants that, God, he wants that, he does. And yet.

That was the night he finally broke a little, under the strain, the effort, the loneliness. He feels corroded, rusted and deformed and darkened, and he was no saint to start with. He is fighting for something, not just against, but he’s not sure he can see it anymore. It was a strange and highly colored dream, and he’s losing the impossible kernel of faith, or fate, that has driven him thus far. It’s too much. It’s too much.

Someone found his hideout the next day, and Flynn killed him. It’s not clear whether he needed to. It was probably just a lost backpacker stumbling on a place that looked inhabited in the woods. Probably. But Flynn shot him anyway and buried him five miles away from the nearest cell phone signal. It’s not the first man he’s killed on this journey, and by far not the first he’s killed in his life. But it was the first one he killed while the man was defenseless, on his knees, and begging that he just wanted to see his mother again.

(It’s a good thing Lorena is with a man, not a monster.)

(A very good thing.)

(Very good.)

(Very.)

The flight finally lands in London, Flynn just makes it through customs with the bogus Gabriel Ashe passport (the customs officer is a little dubious, but the queue is very long and he smiles as unthreateningly as possible) and heads into the City. He has guessed the approximate location of the hotel that Mason Industries is staying at – it’ll be somewhere fancy – but he can’t be completely sure. There are a lot of upmarket hotels in London, after all, and he needs to be careful about which member of the squad he snipes off. He needs someone well-placed on the project, who can answer his questions, and someone who is conveniently clueless about the fact that Mason is in it deep with Rittenhouse, who is so blessedly fortunate as to never have heard the name “Rittenhouse” in their life. Flynn has a few ideas, but he is willing to be flexible. See what comes up, as it were.

The law is almost a ridiculous concept to Flynn now, has had no bearing on his actions whatsoever for months and months. And so he does not care that he has flagrantly illegal methods of tapping into the vast network of data, of closed-circuit television and cell phone signals and open wifi hotspots and all the other stuff that you can access with just a little effort. He narrows it down to Covent Garden, wanders around until he has visual. Yes, it’s him. One of Mason’s engineers. Due to Flynn’s extensive scrutiny of the employee lists, he can identify him as Rufus Carlin. He looks to be on a date. That’s unfortunate.

Flynn takes a better grip on his gun inside his jacket pocket, and strolls forward for a chat.

“I’m sorry?” Rufus repeats, when Mysterious European Gunman makes another brusque motion. Is he a Bond villain? Is this the start of a heist film where Rufus and Jiya race through London, Paris, Madrid, Budapest, and Rome, trying to stop him before he can launch a nuke from his secret Swiss Alps base? (Rufus should wonder what it says that he has this fantasy all ready to go, but better for all concerned that it remain a fantasy – he is not an action hero). “How do you know my name? What is – do you think you can just – ”

“Let’s just agree I know more than you do, Rufus.” A flash of a shark-like white smile, which (amazingly) does nothing to make him feel more confident. “Sorry to interrupt your date.”

“It’s – ” Rufus starts into his well-worn spiel that it’s not a date, until he realizes that a) they are getting sidetracked, and b) this is not Douche von Douchebag’s business anyway. “Well then? How about you not interrupt it? And just let me go? Look, I’ve got some money. Is this a robbery? You want that? You can have it, man. Seriously”

He makes a motion as if to go for his wallet, thinking that at least he wasn’t dumb enough to bring his passport out – as long as he doesn’t need to spend his time here tied up in the consulate getting a new one, Jerkface McGee here can have the rest. Cancel his credit cards and whatever else, it’s not worth his life. But the man shakes his head. “I don’t want your money. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

Rufus hesitates. The dude does have a gun and it’s clear just to look at him that he’s not afraid to use it, and who knows what he has in the other jacket pocket – a detonator for a bomb? Damn, and one of the things he was looking forward to on this trip was a lessened risk of being shot for walking down the street while black. “Can I just – can I just tell Jiya that – ”

“Sorry,” the man says pleasantly. “Can’t have her calling anyone. Come on.”

With that, he takes Rufus by the jacket sleeve and walks him briskly out, into the plaza and up toward Leicester Square. Rufus keeps twisting vainly over his shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of Jiya – great, there goes that entire successful day, she’s gonna think he ditched her on purpose like an asshole, or he’s just the world’s most inattentive doofus who couldn’t bother to wait for her before running back for a nap. Yes, he has more problems on his hands, but that one stings. “Hey,” he says. “Can I call you back? You know, meet for coffee tomorrow, if this is really what you – ”

“Do you think I’m an idiot, Rufus?”

“No… sir?”

“Good.” Sir Shithead keeps walking. Rufus wants to ask him to let go of his sleeve, but he has a feeling that wouldn’t go anywhere good. They make their way up into the maze of side streets and closes that branch off the major thoroughfares in London, toward a tea shop – wait, really, the guy is going to abduct him in broad daylight and then buy him an Earl Grey? Is this the most British kidnapping in existence? His accent isn’t British, though. Rufus is confused enough not to struggle (besides, he also can’t see that going anywhere good) as they reach the shop, Herr Horrible orders a small black coffee, and does not offer to get Rufus anything (he just had his latte, but still). Rufus asks for a Coke just as the man is about to pay, though, which means that he is obliged to buy it. As they sit down at a corner table barely large enough to fit him, the Red Baron raises an eyebrow. “Well?”

“Well what?” Rufus snaps. “Like I’m the one who needs to explain myself here?”

“I just want answers.” The man – Rufus is enjoying coming up with new disparaging nicknames for him, since it’s the only satisfaction he is getting out of this, but he would like an actual one – sounds impatient. “Do that, you can be back on your way in ten, fifteen minutes, tell the girl that you just got lost. You want to cooperate or not?”

Rufus holds out as long as he dares. Then he says, “How do you know my name?”

“You work for Mason Industries. Yes?”

Oh brother, Rufus thinks. Not another throw-his-weight-around military white boy coming to ask probing questions. This one is almost making him miss Wyatt. “Yeah, so?”

“Does Emma Whitmore still work there?”

“She transferred? About a year and a half ago? She still works there, yeah, but I think she took a job at one of the other offices. Here, maybe?”

“Where?” the man demands. “Where?”

Rufus stalls. It’s pretty clear from the look on the Teutonic Terror’s face that it’s bad news for Emma if he catches up to her. He and Emma have never been buddy-buddy, but they’ve worked together for a while, he’s done the calculations responsible for sending her through time, and he doesn’t want that on his head. He is relieved that it is the truth as he says, “I don’t know. We haven’t exactly been keeping up with Christmas cards.”

The man stares at him narrowly. “Do you know if she’s planning to rejoin the main office?”

“I don’t know,” Rufus repeats. “Maybe you should have kidnapped the HR manager.”

For half a moment, a sardonic but genuinely amused smile flickers across the hard lines of the other man’s face. Then it’s all back to business. “Fine,” he says. “How close is the time machine to being done?”

“I – ?” Rufus stares at him. “I – what are you talking about?”

“You’re a smart man, Rufus. Don’t act like an idiot.”

There is a silence long enough to turn very uncomfortable. They stare at each other over the rickety table. Rufus feels as if his odds of flipping it and launching the hot coffee into the man’s face are very slim, but he has to fight down an urge to do just that. Instead of answering, he says, “I’m guessing you and Wyatt Logan know each other?”

Something brief and inscrutable appears, then disappears, in the man’s guarded gaze. “We were acquainted in the past,” he says noncommittally. “Answer the question, please.”

“This is going to get me into trouble.”

“I honestly don’t care if it does or not.”

“Yeah, well. I do.”

“You’d care about something more if you knew why I was asking. And if you have to make me do it a third time – ”

“Jeez.” Rufus raises his hands. “Scorched-earth everything with you, isn’t it? Look. We’ve progressed to running more extensive tests, but it’s still very buggy. One of the lead engineers just got out of an eight-month coma. It’s not out of any sort of beta.”

“When do you think it will be?”

“What are you, some kind of corporate spy? Government whistleblower?” Mason has, for obvious reasons, wanted to keep this project strictly under wraps, and Rufus has definitely already breached several paragraphs of his organizational NDA by talking this much. “Shoot me if you want, but you’re not going to make me turn on – ”

That mirthless smile pays a visit to the corner of In Soviet Russia’s mouth. “I don’t have to shoot you,” he points out. “The girl you were with. I got a nice look at her face. From my examination of the employee directory, I think that is… Jiya, yes? Jiya Marri?”

That rocks Rufus onto his heels and all further smart remarks out of his mouth. “You son of a bitch,” he says, low and hard. “Stay away from her.”

“Do your part, Rufus, and neither of you ever have to see me again.” The man shrugs. “A little answer. Very easy.”

Rufus chews his tongue. Whatever he says, he has a feeling that it isn’t just an academic interest, that he could be directly responsible for setting off a barrel of nitroglycerin in the middle of Connor’s life – in everyone’s. Finally he says, “Again, like I said. It’s in beta. There is no expected timescale of completion when we’re talking about something this. The Mothership runs better, but we – ”

“The Mothership?” The man leans forward with an intent, wolfish expression. “What’s that?”

Shit. Rufus wants to bite his tongue off. He says reluctantly, “The main machine is called the Mothership. There’s a backup called the Lifeboat, but it’s designed just for short-term use, in the event of something going wrong with the Mothership’s crew and a rescue squad being sent to pull them out. That one’s really in beta.”

“Two time machines.” The man taps his fingers on the table, thinking hard. “And either of these, how do they run? Can you visit moments in your own lifetime?”

That is a weirdly specific question. Rufus almost wonders if he’s a crazy UFO fan, or something like that. Or maybe he’s clung onto a time machine as a solution for the big steaming heap of cow poop that his life appears to be – go back and change all your bad choices, that kind of thing. “No,” he says. “That’s not possible. You can’t travel on your own timeline. The ones that’ve tried, you – you don’t want to know what happened to them. The universe doesn’t like it, it’s not like Harry Potter with two versions of you running around.”

For some reason, that answer disturbs his interlocutor (yeah, he’s disturbed now, finally some equality). Rufus wants to demand how the hell he knows this, where he’s got his information and what he is planning to do. There is a final pause until the man makes up his mind. “Give me your access card to Mason Industries,” he says. “Your ID, your key card, whatever I need to get in. You can say you lost them.”

“I just happened to lose my ID?”

“Or I can rob you,” the man points out. “Yes, I think it might be better if we do that. I will take your money after all. London is an expensive city, why not?”

“I can’t let you into Mason Industries. I can’t – ”

“You’re here in London for the whole week. The entire team is. That is much neater, I don’t need to kill anyone to get in. You can tell Jiya that you were robbed, she will feel very sorry for you. A happy ending. You don’t report it to anyone and you don’t say anything about losing the card until you get back.”

“To what, a giant bomb crater where Mason Industries used to be?”

“Oh, no.” The man shakes his head. “I don’t want to destroy it. I just need information. Now. You give me your ID card, the cash in your wallet, and anything else a robber might take. I will let you keep your phone. Hurry up, Rufus. Jiya must be looking for you.”

Rufus has never wanted to kill anyone with a stare more than he has wanted to kill this idiot, but he can’t think what else to do. Slowly, he fumbles out his Mason Industries ID and key card on its lanyard, jerks the cash envelope out, and shoves it over the table. It’s not even his money, but still. He feels the betrayal on a soul-deep level, the one thing he hates most. What a way to repay Connor, after everything he has done for him. Rufus feels tainted and unhappy and used. “There,” he snaps. “Take it. Are we done?”

“You tell me.” The man shrugs, pocketing the card and cash. “Actually, I have changed my mind. A robber would take your phone. Give it to me, I will mail it back in a few weeks.”

“I – ” Rufus clutches his phone like his firstborn child. Like any proper millennial, he cannot function more than a few hours without it. “Like I’m going to believe that?”

“Phone. Now.”

Rufus grits his teeth, thinks that he can hopefully report it as stolen and freeze it before the bastard has time to mine all its data, and drops it into his hand. King Kraptacular, of course, makes sure to ask him for the passcode, makes Rufus do it to demonstrate that it is in fact the right one, and then finally stands up with a mocking grin. “It’s been good to do business with you,” he says, touching two fingers to his hat. “Enjoy your trip to London, Rufus.”

And with that, leaving Rufus sitting there completely gobsmacked, he goes.

Wyatt Logan has no idea how to find a man whose entire professional value lies in his ability to completely fucking disappear at will, but by God, that is not going to stop him trying.

He can’t exactly drive up to NSA headquarters and demand to consult their personnel files, especially for ex-personnel that, as far as Wyatt knows, still have a standing arrest warrant. He did try the old phone number for Flynn, but he was not surprised at all when the cool female robot voice told him that this number was not in service. He’s tried to think if anyone in the intelligence branch of things owes him a favor, or might feel bad for him because his wife is probably dead and would be willing to kick some rocks. The possibility of the quest has galvanized Wyatt like a direct intravenous hit of caffeine; he hasn’t slept more than three hours at one time since this started. It’s been four days, and he has barely focused on the fact that for all intents and purposes, the cops are looking for a body. That’s not it, that’s not what happened. Jess is alive somehow, somewhere. She’s alive.

In the course of this, Wyatt has also been managing to convince himself that Flynn is not as bad as he remembers. Sure, he was an abrasive jackass with zero interpersonal skills and an amazing ability to make everything ten times more difficult than it needs to be, but to be fair, when they actually met face-to-face, Flynn had just been shot twice and was freshly out of emergency surgery. That might put a damper on anyone’s sunny disposition, and Wyatt is painfully aware that his own behavior has been no basket of roses. Maybe it’s just because he’s so lonely, he’s so desperately lonely and so terrified that this in fact the one mistake he cannot take back or get around, but he’s already half-made Flynn into a friend in his head. Grumpy, but essentially good-hearted. Definitely willing to lend an old pal (even in a very loose sense of the word) a hand. It’ll work out. It has to.

No one ever said that this was the most realistic appraisal of the situation, but at least it’s kept Wyatt from eating bark off trees, and after his feverish hours of work, he’s decided that the best angle he has into the whole thing is Mason Industries. However, that is going to piss off Rittenhouse something wild; the whole scene in the car was very clear at instructing him that he had better never come near that place again. If Wyatt is trying to be clandestine, this is not the way to do it. The only other person he can still contact (hopefully) is not guaranteed special access either, and it could once more put her in danger. But she’s also the only human being on the planet who might know where Flynn is, or at least want to see him again too. And really. Wyatt has nothing left to lose.

He takes out his phone, and dials.

It rings once, then twice, then again. Just as he thinks it’s not going to be answered, it is. “Hello?” She sounds confused and tenuous. “Is this – Wyatt?”

“Hi.” Wyatt blows out an unsteady breath. He was the one who told her to call him if she was ever scared, if she needed anything, and now here he is, practically ready to beg. “Lucy. I – I know it’s been a while since we talked. I’m sorry to just call you out of the blue.”

“No, of course,” Lucy says. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Are you okay?”

Wyatt was fondly supposing that he didn’t sound like that much of a wreck, but he appears to have been disabused of that along with everything else. “Actually,” he says, swallowing hard as his voice catches. “Actually. . . since you ask, I’m. . . I’ve been better. A lot better. I’m sorry again, I know this may not be something you want to talk about, but have you – have you seen Flynn recently? Garcia Flynn?” As if there can be another.

There’s a marked silence. Then Lucy says, “No. I haven’t seen him for almost two years.”

Wyatt can feel his fragile, giddy optimism heading for a crash as fast as it went up, but he still refuses to let this be the end of the road. “So you – you don’t know where he is these days, or what he’s doing, or – ?”

“No,” Lucy says. “I have no idea. Wyatt, what’s – what’s going on?”

Wyatt stares at the ceiling, trying to formulate the words. The idea of speaking it aloud is still unbearable, and it’s bad enough for Lucy that he called her like this, he doesn’t need to start unloading his flaming trainwreck of emotional baggage onto her. He tries to keep his voice as calm as it would be at a briefing for his superiors. Tells her, as succinctly as he can, what’s happened, and why he’s looking for Flynn.

Lucy makes shocked and sympathetic noises, which Wyatt appreciates, but he knows he still does not deserve her pity. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Is there anything else I can do? Do you have – have family in town, or anything?”

“Family?” Wyatt laughs, bone-dry. “My family? Nah. Grandpa Sherwin died a few years ago. Jess’s family has – they’re in town, they’ve been with the cops. I get the feeling that they think I should be at the station more, that I wasn’t there for her when she was alive and now I’m not there for her when she’s – ”

He stops. He can’t bear the fact that he almost said it, that it seemed so terribly possible. It feels like there’s a boulder wedged in his throat, and he rubs his hand over his eyes, trying to collect himself. “Anyway,” he manages. “I told them that I was – that I was working on something, and – this is my fault, I know it is. But if it’s not just some local scumbag, if it’s more – if it’s them – ”

Lucy doesn’t answer immediately. He can hear what she must be thinking – that he’s got a lot of nerve strolling into her life again, dumping a sob story about his wife on her, and assuming she will return to something that must hurt her as well, that she will unearth what must be some not-very-well-buried bodies and contend once more with the ghosts. She would be justified in any or all of it, and he tries to steady himself for her telling him to take a hike. There might still be some other way to track down Flynn, though it gets much narrower and more impossible if so. But when there’s nothing else but this –

“Okay,” Lucy says, quiet and level and cool as stone. “What do you need?”

This is not the wisest idea Lucy has ever had, not by a long shot. She should be unnerved, perhaps (but again, that is the whole point) at how greatly not-wise it is. And yet. She’s not.

It feels like something has changed in her, turned as sharply as a key, and she’s not even sure what. Just in that moment of finally accepting that Flynn was gone (the way that Wyatt is desperate not to do with Jessica, but it is not for Lucy to decide that before its time) it was like she woke up, somehow. There was never any chance that she was going to sit around and languish on a couch and weep. She got right on with her life, professionally and personally, and she’s done fine with it. And yet, after her visit to her mother’s the other day, when she’s gotten even fewer answers than she has questions, when she realized that she’s lived like she’s sleepwalking, determined that things are normal, not to rock the boat, to make everyone else’s lives easier and safer, pushing herself further and further away –

She doesn’t know what, but she’s sick of it, she’s angry, she’s tired, and she’s not willing to do it anymore. So suddenly, when Wyatt Logan calls out of the clear blue sky, says his wife is missing, and hints that he thinks Rittenhouse has something to do with it, Lucy’s game.

She drives to her mom’s house when she knows that Carol will be out for a doctor’s appointment, goes upstairs, and gets the gun out of the box. Takes the ammunition as well, hurries down to her car feeling properly scandalous – she has never done something like this, it doesn’t even feel like her. She’s licensed the gun in the state of California, she’s allowed to carry it, but she still puts it in the glovebox and locks it. Her hands are shaking, but she clenches them, and they stop. Then she drives back to Stanford, finishes her day, and waits.

It’s around five o’clock when there’s a knock on her office door, and she stands up to open it. Has guessed who it is, but it’s still a small shock to see him in person. He doesn’t look that great, with a missing wife and a long drive under his belt, but he manages a wan smile and offers his hand. “Hey, Lucy.”

Lucy pauses, then reaches out and hugs him. She doesn’t know why, other than that he looks like he could use it, and Wyatt goes briefly stiff, then awkwardly hugs her back. They step apart after a moment, and he clears his throat. “I – so. . . how. . . how are you?”

“Fine.” The word almost lives on her lips these days. “It’s not going to cause you any problems with the cops or Jessica’s family if you came up here, is it?”

“Them?” Wyatt laughs bitterly. “They’ve never exactly been my biggest fans, and honestly, I’m not sure I blame them anymore. Her stepdad almost didn’t attend the wedding – he’s a son of a bitch anyway, but. . . yeah. I told them I was working on something to get her back, and that’s not a lie. Told them to call if the cops – ” He stops. “Well, if anything came up.”

Lucy supposes this is his business, and what they are proposing is going to take enough attention and concentration that they don’t need any more distractions. Wyatt waits as she finishes up a few things, turns off the lights, and grabs her purse. They have a few hours to kill, so they get a quick dinner and try to catch up. The conversation isn’t exactly bountiful, and it’s hard to be sure what the dynamic here should be. Old friends? Not exactly friends, but they did trust each other in a tight spot, and they’re not strangers. Heist partners preparing for the night’s action? Some of that is true, but still. Should she be comforting him, offering to talk him through his problems? She is not a trained psychiatrist, and she gets the sense that Wyatt’s problems are a lot more than she’s reasonably prepared to take any kind of crack at, but there’s also value to be had in just talking to someone who cares. She doesn’t get the feeling there’s a whole lot of that in his life, really. Especially not now.

In any case, it’s getting later, and it’s time to put their plan (such as it is) into action. There is a solid chance that this night ends with both of them arrested, but (who is she and what has she done with Lucy Preston) the idea almost exhilarates her. They drop off her car at home, and Wyatt glances at the house. “All that space just for you?”

“I – no. We – live together. My boy – boyfriend and I.” Lucy feels like a high schooler about to blush at saying the word, given how awkward it feels on her tongue. “Noah.”

“That was – ” Wyatt gives her a funny look. “Wait, was that the doctor at the hospital when Flynn was shot?”

“Yeah. We dated a couple years before that, and I… we got back together about a year ago.” Lucy goes around the side of Wyatt’s truck and climbs in, hoping that none of the neighbors are peering out their windows and will feel like telling Noah about it later. Suburbanites are in fact horrible gossips, apparently. But this way, they streamline their operations, Noah will hopefully just think she’s out for a walk or whatever when he gets home, and it’s just easier to do this in one car. “He works in Oakland now.”

Wyatt glances at her, but doesn’t say anything, as if well aware that he has no stones to throw at anyone else’s relationship choices. He starts the truck and they pull out, heading down the street and back toward the freeway. Here goes nothing.

They are, of course, not going to do this like total savages and/or jailbirds if at all avoidable, and pull into the Mason Industries parking lot when, as planned, it has almost cleared out for the day. There are in fact almost no cars there, which might either make things easier or much more complicated, and Wyatt considers it with a furrowed brow. “Technically, we’re still going to have to break in,” he says. “Let me take the lead, all right? I’ve got a lot less to lose if I’m popped for B&E, but I’m guessing Stanford would be less impressed.”

“I don’t care,” Lucy says, startling herself. She leans forward and checks that the zipped gun case is still in her purse; she took it out of the glovebox before leaving her car. “We’re going to save your wife, all right? We’re going to save your wife and I don’t care if we have to step on Rittenhouse’s toes to do it. I’m tired of waiting and worrying if they’re coming after me again one day. Maybe it’s time we found out.”

And with that, as Wyatt is still blinking, Lucy pushes open the truck door and steps down into the blurry blue evening. She unzips the case and checks that the gun is loaded, but that the safety is on and there’s no risk of it discharging automatically. Her hands are almost practiced at this, though she has obviously never been in a real situation of possibly having to use it and doesn’t know that she ever wants there to be a first. Obviously, they are not going to blaze in and hold a lab full of terrified scientists (or even the lab’s night crew) hostage, but Wyatt wants to talk to Connor Mason, and Lucy intends to see that he does. If that involves a little hardball, even though ‘hardball’ is far from a five-foot-five history professor’s skill set, fine.

They cross the parking lot and head for the visitor’s entrance, which is still open. They push the glass doors open and stroll down to the reception area, where the poor receptionist is just switching off her computer and preparing to go home. At the sight of them, she looks up with a start. “I’m sorry, we’re just about to – there aren’t any more appointments scheduled, I’m sorry, I was just about to lock the building, sir, ma’am, so – ”

“Hi,” Lucy says, smiling sweetly. “We’d like to talk to Connor Mason.”

The receptionist goggles at her. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, this is past business hours. Besides, Mr. Mason is out of the country until next week. Obviously, he’s a very important and busy man, you can’t just expect to walk in off the street and expect to see him – ”

“Fine.” Wyatt steps up next to Lucy. “Who else is here?”

The receptionist’s eyes whiz back and forth between them. She is obviously getting the sense that they are neither a pair of IT professionals late for an appointment, or a couple of starstruck fans wandering off the street and trying to cadge a meeting with their idol for a viral video. She makes a move as if to reach for a security button under the desk, but Wyatt says, “I wouldn’t, ma’am.”

The receptionist glances at Lucy, clearly hoping for some female solidarity here. Normally, that is 100% Lucy’s bag otherwise, but tonight, alas, principles have to be sacrificed in more ways than one. “Tammy,” she says, glancing at the ID badge around the receptionist’s neck. “How about we just borrow that for a few minutes? You sit here and we’ll be right back.”

“I’m going to call security,” Tammy the receptionist warns them. “You need to – ”

“I wouldn’t,” Wyatt repeats. “What you’re going to do is switch off the security cameras, or at least scramble them for a few minutes. We don’t want to hurt you, ma’am, we don’t want to hurt you at all. But we need some answers, and we won’t leave until we have them.”

“I told you. Mr. Mason isn’t here.” Tammy’s face is white. “I couldn’t bring you to talk to him even if I wanted to. I don’t know what you want. Please, I have two children, I – ”

“Calm down,” Lucy says gently. “We’re not here to hurt you, like he said. But even if Mason isn’t here, there has to be someone else we can speak with.”

“No, they’re – it’s a team trip, all the project leads and main engineers went to London, it’s only a few part-timers here, and they’re gone for the night. I don’t want to lose my job, I – ”

“Yeah?” Wyatt says roughly. “Well, I really didn’t want to lose my wife. So I guess it’s going to be hard knocks for everybody, isn’t it? How about his office? Can you take us to his office? Probably won’t be able to get into his computer, but there have to be some paper files. Your boss know anything about Rittenhouse? Probably does, doesn’t he? Since he’s in it?”

Tammy flinches as if she’s been slapped. “Sir – ” She looks appealingly back at Lucy. “Please, it’s – you don’t know, you – ”

“I think you should take us to Connor Mason’s office,” Lucy says, gently but relentlessly. “I really think you should.”

Tammy hesitates.

Lucy reaches into her purse, and draws out what’s in her hand just enough to be seen.

Tammy blanches, and Wyatt blinks again, as if he had no idea she was carrying until now and is impressed (and slightly turned on) despite himself. Lucy shakes her head minutely at him when he opens his mouth as if to ask, and they wait until Tammy, fingers trembling, takes her key card, swipes it, and enters a few things clearly intended to put a five-minute freeze on the relevant cameras. Then she clicks around the desk, beckons them with a very tight nod, and starts to walk, as Lucy realizes she can’t let her get too far ahead of them, and jogs to catch up. She takes firm hold of Tammy’s wrist, and the other woman jerks as if it’s a handcuff. Lucy has never had anyone look at her with that much fear and revulsion before, and she isn’t sure she likes it. And yet, there is an unmistakable frisson of power that is, in a sick way, kind of appealing. Oh God, she isn’t a psycho, is she? She’s not. She’s not.

They walk down a glass corridor that overlooks a vast, dim steel warehouse, banked with computers and consoles on every side. It looks kind of like NASA launch headquarters, an impression reinforced by the sight of the large white plasteel eyeball sitting on struts in the middle of the expanse. It’s banded with blue blinking lights, increasing its resemblance to a UFO even more, and Lucy suddenly thinks that she might know exactly what that is. There has, obviously, still been a kernel of doubt in her mind – Emma was convinced that Mason Industries was building a time machine and she was test-piloting it, yes, but Emma was crazy. This, though. It could somehow be a film prop that Mason Industries is building for some bizarre reason rather than a set dresser in Hollywood, but Lucy doesn’t think so.

Wyatt, who has no clue (probably for the best) that time travel enters into this anywhere, is totally befuddled, but Lucy once more shakes her head at him. They complete the traverse to the doors of important-looking offices – Connor Mason, Anthony Bruhl, a couple others – and Tammy swipes her key card to open Connor’s. One of them is going to have to watch her while the other ransacks for useful intel. Otherwise she will run away and raise the alarm, and then they’re definitely getting arrested. Or worse.

With Tammy still firmly in hand, Lucy ventures over the threshold. She has no idea how they’re supposed to shake down Mason’s office in five minutes or less for some convenient Rittenhouse papers that he might just happen to have in some carelessly unsecured file cabinet. Wyatt, however, clearly doesn’t care if they’re secured or not. He takes a small crowbar out of his jacket and advances in after the women, looking around as if to decide where he needs to start smashing. Lucy appears to be on Tammy-minding duty, but she hopes Wyatt doesn’t leave too much of a mess. There’s no guarantee how long the cameras stay off. Or did they actually even go off in the first place? Maybe they should have worn balaclavas like proper robbers. Wyatt’s right, Stanford will not be enthused, and –

Just then, all the remaining blinking lights in the room, and along the hall, go dark. Wyatt, who was about to start bashing the bejesus out of Connor Mason’s file cabinets, stops with a startled curse, and Lucy thinks that this must be it, Tammy tricked them and the emergency protocol is kicking in. But if so, you’d expect klaxons and flashing lights, not just silent darkness. What the hell? Power just shut down at eight o’clock every night? But from what little Lucy can make out of Tammy’s face in the red emergency backups that are just flickering on, she is as startled as they are. Wasn’t expecting that.

Lucy looks down into the launch area, which she can see from Mason’s magisterial God’s eye view of his kingdom, and her heart skips a beat. She can just see a dark figure wending through the shadows, making its way purposefully toward the time machine (as it has to be). There’s someone else here, someone else broke in, shut down the lights and surveillance with a lot more skill than their clumsy receptionist kidnapping, and is making for its – for his? – target like a homing pigeon. No way to tell if it’s bad news or worse.

“Wyatt?” Lucy hisses. “Wyatt!”

Wyatt, who has clearly been about to decide if he should just smash some shit anyway for the stress relief, looks over with a start and follows her pointing finger down to the interloper on the operations floor. He stashes the crowbar hastily back in his jacket and pulls out his gun instead, then strides out of the office and toward the metal stairs that open into the warehouse. Lucy hurries after him, Tammy bumping in her wake like a kite on the end of a string, then pushes her down to hide behind a computer bank, which the receptionist does only too gladly. If she can somehow call 911 from there, well, that’s another problem. Lucy wants to have her hands free in case Wyatt needs any help.

She reaches in, pulls out the gun, and switches the safety off. Can in fact feel the difference, the way it comes alive, and advances at Wyatt’s side in recon stance. They’re just on the other side of the time machine from the intruder, and Lucy and Wyatt flatten themselves stealthily against it, guns in hand. They exchange a look, trying to decide if they need to actually fire. Not in a warehouse full of priceless technology, not when they’ve already illegally entered, not when they don’t know who the other person or what they want, but –

They can hear footsteps. They need to make a decision.

They throw themselves out from behind the time machine and come around, raising their guns at the intruder, who – even faster than them – has already done the same. Lucy has an indistinct impression of unusual height, and a merciless stare in the low, hellish light, and then, all the blood draining out of her head, her heart, her world. It can’t be, it can’t, and yet. All along, there was really no one else it could be.

She can’t get enough air into her lungs, and isn’t sure she will again. Her strangled whisper sounds as loud as a shout.

“Flynn?”

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #timeless ff #the tangled web of fate we weave

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