Nothing
Dr. Blair Andrews MD, PhD, On the Disruptions.
They take my NCPD dChip as I exit through the reinforced doors. Some guard whose name I never learned gives me a knowing look as I hand the card over. Honestly, it’s remarkable I was even carrying the damn thing in the thin clothes I’m still wearing.
Maybe Mary had stuffed it in my pants at the last minute. She’d certainly taken the liberty of dressing wounds and changing me out of my cloak and mask.
I stare out at the desolate streets that surround the NCPD’s bunker. No one in their right mind would try something this close to the compound and even fewer would solicit on the city block.
Damien Roberts would likely throw me on my ass if I even tried to set foot in DAEMON. And G.O.D. would send the calvary after me if I went in as a Remnant.
So why do I even care?
One dead DAEMON employee and a high-powered Remnant sucked dry. Hell, I killed a top ten Remnant this week, too. I’ll bet one of the many others I killed this week were employed by the megacorp at some point in their lives.
What makes me any different?
My phone chimes in my pocket, startling me from my thoughts.
Hey, I heard about everything… I’m so sorry. This is bad timing, but I found something you might be interested in. If you’re still working the case.
I blink a few times at the message. Then at the name.
Blair Andrews.
The NCPD bunker may be barricaded from brute force, but I suppose they never had to contend with a shadow walker. I turn on my heel and make my way towards the other end of the building.
The morgue entrance is just as reinforced, but as I round the corner, I find no one in sight. Not even a guard.
Figures they wouldn’t give two shits about the recently dead.
“Do you care?” one hisses as I cup my eyes to look through the morgue entrance. I see her in the darkness just on the other side. She doesn’t look angry and I don’t recognize her.
“I do,” I whisper before unnatural darkness swirls at my feet.
I drop through and fall directly onto the other side of the door. It used to be a disorienting experience. The first few times I either puked or cracked my head against some sort of solid surface.
Now, it’s just a perpetual reminder of what I am. At least the shadows appear to be friendly today.
Except for the lurkers, that is.
Dim light pierces the nearly pitch-black morgue antechamber, allowing my eyes to adjust. There’s a long hallway trailing down into the depths of the complex, curving off as it pitches deeper.
I make my way down the corridors, the only light provided by the steady glow of Affliction running along the floorboard. It gives the entire scene an eerie “evil secret lair” vibe that fits more and more by the day.
The soft sounds of something like instrumental music carry down the hall as I approach the double doors of the morgue. Light pours through the small windows, cutting into the shadows that follow me through the passage.
“What if they turn you in?” one hisses.
“Then I’ll fight my way out,” I growl.
The music cuts and I hear quick footsteps approach the door. I ready myself in case it isn’t Blair on the other side.
“Oh,” Dr. Andrews’ voice comes through the door, and it opens to a soft smile. “Hey.”
“What did you find—” I start, but they grab me around my biceps and pull me forward into the morgue.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Blair’s eyes scan me for obvious injuries, their grip slipping from my arms to palpate at my head, neck and back.
Right. I haven’t changed out of the bloodied clothes that undoubtedly have bits of my brain matter splattered on them. It’s by the curse of some unloving god that the rookie didn’t have his gun loaded with anti-Remnant materials.
“I imagine I look like hell warmed over,” I say with a poorly attempted grin. The muscles on my face feel weak and trembly.
“Are you hurt?” they ask, ignoring my attempt at humor.
Blair doesn’t wait for an answer and directs me to sit in their desk chair. From seemingly nowhere, they procure a first aid kit. The cleansing alcohol is potent against my senses but after a few moments, the white linen is tinged pink.
“Whose blood is this?” Blair asks as they toss the rag into the biohazard bin. They turn back to me, an expectant but worried look on their face.
I glance down at my hands. My fingernails aren’t trimmed. It’s been sometime since I’ve taken a proper shower besides washing off the sweat and grime. My clothes look ragged and, honestly, I don’t know that I care anymore. There’s no answer to this question that doesn’t ultimately lead to me lying.
Again.
“It’s mine,” I say after a few moments. I don’t look up from my chipped nails. The silver paint that I usually apply is long gone. My cuticles are jagged with an exceptional number of cuts along my fingers. I’ll bet my entire body sports new scars.
Ones made by Remnant powers that just never heal right.
Not that I’ll ever check.
I finally meet Blair’s eyes after they don’t respond. The green in their irises looks brighter with what might be sympathy—or pity.
“That’s not possible,” Blair says, running a hand through their brown curls. “That’s way too much blood for there to be no wound.”
“I heal fast?” I try, knowing they won’t believe me.
“Is it from the attack?” they ask, their mind clearly working faster than mine.
“What—” I begin to deny everything, but Blair puts up a finger.
“Don’t lie to me, Arya. I’m not a fucking idiot. I’m an expert in Remnant history and biology. Being a medical examiner is just a side gig to pay for ever-underfunded Remnant research.”
They stand, rant apparently not over.
“I know your powers register as a Tier 1, but there was no such thing as a Death Affliction before you. And it just so happened to match up with the emergence of The Dark One.”
I blink stupidly for a few seconds before just nodding. It was probably silly of me to ever assume that one of the most prominent voices in Remnant studies wouldn’t see through my facade. Blair’s interest in teratology isn't exactly unheard of, but their doctorate is.
“It’s not from the attack. It’s from when the NCPD shot me in the head and arrested me for…” I gesture aimlessly. “The attack itself was an entire other set of scars and wounds.”
“They did what?” Blair’s accusatory glare turns into horror.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my job,” I say gesturing to my hip where the badge usually sits. “Actually, I know I have. Bellick and McRoberts wanted to pin it all on me.”
I press the heels of my hands into my forehead, the pressure somewhat calming the pounding behind my eyes. My hair feels greasy at the roots, and I make a silent promise to shower in the next few hours.
“They shot you?” Blair’s voice is hushed, but I don’t raise my head.
“Apparently some rookie popped me after I didn’t immediately get down on my hands and knees. The only reason they let me go after some pretty piss poor interrogating was Travers.”
I finally look up again as Blair hums knowingly.
“Few people truly accept Remnants in our culture. Even fewer accept the ones with taboo powers.”
“I’m surprised Travers is one of them,” I say, but Blair scoffs.
“He’s not really. He’s just smart about who he makes an enemy of.”
My heart falls a little further at the loss of a potential ally in all of this.
“So, I assume Percy knew of this?” they ask, gesturing to me.
Her name strikes a discordant note in my mind. Like a non-existent word being used in a sentence.
I shake my head slowly, meeting Blair’s eyes.
“That was indeed a new development. And was an issue up to the very end.”
Blair’s mind connects the pieces almost at once and they nod.
“I imagine you don’t want to talk about it, then?”
“If I’m being honest, Blair, I don’t know what I want right now. You piqued my interest with the text and that’s really the only reason I’m not at a bar right now testing how much my body can take.”
Blair chuckles darkly, but nods again. “Well, I think you’ll find this bit interesting then.”
They stand from the chair across from their desk and motion me to follow them through the morgue. We pass what looks like a recently completed autopsy with the usual smatterings of gore and blood. Then Blair pushes open a pair of double doors to reveal the large cuboid frozen storage.
Blair passes the first dozen or so before stopping at a one. They reach down and pull it open, and then the bay beside it.
I recognize Mara and Malachi immediately.
“When you used your Communion on these two,” Blair begins, rotating the wrists of both bodies, “the markings lit up.”
I nod, not yet following their train of thought.
“Notice something?” Blair asks glancing up at me.
Both corpses look fairly unchanged. There’s some notable surgical scarring along their neckline but—
The marks.
“They’re gone?” I whisper out, my brain not comprehending how it could be possible.
“I don’t know when it happened, but they’d been there before and disappeared sometime after you Communed with them.”
“I could only Commune with Mara,” I mumble, looking down again at the two unmarked wrists. The skin, though pale, held no sign of tattoo, brand, or anything remotely physical.
“And with Malachi?” Blair prompts.
I look around the room and find the nearest corner holding a shadow where the light from overhead didn’t quite reach.
Malachi Blackwood stirs from the blackness, his amorphous form solidifying enough to make out his height and features.
“It hurt,” I say, watching Malachi’s malevolent grin.
Blair stares down at both bodies, seemingly missing my stare down with the spirit.
“Do you believe in an afterlife, Blair?” I ask, turning back to the doctor.
They frown up at me, eyes shifting like they’re reading information in their brain.
“Why?”
“You said I’m the first to ever have Death Affliction, right?”
Blair tilts their head side to side, obviously considering their words carefully.
“Your Reliquary data suggests that your Affliction type wasn’t in our records. This led us to consider the powers you claimed to have, but, frankly, you’d be the one we base any future Death-types on.”
“I set the precedent, you mean?” I ask, glancing down at the two bodies.
“When you Commune, what is it you see?” Blair asks, cutting through my bullshit.
“Generally, their final moments,” I nod down at Mara. “Her death was pretty gruesome. There was no sound, though, which isn’t normal.”
“And Malachi’s?”
Malachi looms as close as he can in the shadow. Can I make him leave? I summoned him, hadn’t I?
“Nothing. A few flashes of light. Mostly pain. The same thing happened again here in the morgue.”
“And that’s not happened before?”
“No,” I say, damning the consequences and reaching out to Mara’s wrist.
When nothing happens, I do the same for Malachi, but it’s as if I never had powers to begin with.
Blair studies me for a quiet moment. “The only thing I can say is that there’s no evidence of an afterlife.”
Something shifts in my periphery, and I let out a soft gasp. They’re gone before I can actually identify the manifestation. That’s new. Chills vibrate down my skin, leaving a sickly feeling in my stomach.
“Religions did an about-face when the Disruption at the turn of the century,” Blair’s voice brings me back to the current conversation. Malachi is missing from the darkened corner. Mara is nowhere to be seen.
But others are still lurking just out of view. I’d been so busy with getting out of the damned NCPD that I hadn’t noticed. What had that bullet done to me?
Or am I just getting worse?
“The idea of a superhuman capable of messing with the fabric of reality itself was outside their worldview. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism survived, but they had to contend with blatant truths that their dogma was unable to propagandize against.”
Blair moves to a filing cabinet and rifles through a drawer before pulling out a bound notebook.
“You’re the first on record to claim to be able to Commune with the dead. Yet, since you’ve never been able to see them, talk to them, or hear them, it’s more than likely the afterimages you feel are because of the Affliction in their bodies.”
For a moment consider correcting them. Consider telling them that not only are the spirits vocal, but there’s one just lurking out of Blair’s own silhouette. One that I don’t even recognize.
But I don’t. I can’t.
Blair is now one of two people on this planet who know who I am, and the other one is a known terrorist. I have to cling to whoever I can, even if it means lying to them.
“So, an afterlife?” Blair asks, shrugging. “Doubtful, but I like being proved wrong.”
“And the religions?”
“After the Second Disruption and the Affliction War, they adapted. Organized religion always will. Cults, of course, became more prevalent. But that’s a topic for another day.”
I nod, unsure if that actually answered my question. I suppose that if Blair Andrews is unaware of the thinning veil, then no one else will be either.
“So, to recap, our two victims now no longer hold the marks that connected them and there’s no afterlife.”
Blair nods, a wry smile forming at their lips.
“And now you’re a free agent, free to do with that information as you please.”
My legs feel like gelatin as I stand. The room looks brighter. Like the calm before a panic attack.
“You won’t mind if I shadow step out of here, right?” I ask, glancing back at the two corpses still pulled out from the freezer.
The academic gleam in Blair’s eyes is enough to bring an unforced smile to my face.
I move to the corner where Malachi had lurked.
“Thanks, Blair,” I say, nodding to them. “Stay safe.”
Blair only has a moment to stand and move to the edge of the shadow before I fall through it.