Raven Chapter 5 Arrivals and Autopsies 50 #2
"Saturday night around 11 pm," Em says with a full-body shudder. The man is not built for crowds and a club on a Saturday night? If I could shudder with him, I would.
"That's a right busy time for Hell's Bend," Kieran interjects, his playfulness taking a backseat. "Seems like a great night to have a promotion at my club. Might help ensure we deal with a smaller crowd."
My finger points again, this time aimed at Kieran. "I swear, if I have to watch you butter up another female, Kieran, I won't talk to you for at least a week." I give him my most menacing glare. Obviously, it does nothing, but the practice is good for when they can see me.
Forrest looks to Emerson, who wastes no time unrolling the paper he's brought. I float up so I'm directly above the incredibly detailed floor plan he's sketched out.
Emerson, being Emerson, doesn't rely on just one set of old blueprints. If there's a building built a hundred years ago, he'll unearth the original architect's linen paper draft, locate the three subsequent sets of plans from each remodel, before cross-referencing them all down to the millimeter.
Once he has all the available data, he hunts for discrepancies: a wall that appears in one era but vanishes in the next, a vent shaft long sealed, a staircase relocated or removed.
Only then does he compose his own master blueprint.
I know it's meant for missions, but I can't help seeing them as works of art.
They're things of such stark, precise beauty.
The different architectural eras bloom across the page in a spectrum of colored inks: the original structure in deep, well—inky—black, later additions in precise shades of blue, green, and red, each with a coded, calligraphic legend explaining its importance and the structural integrity of any given spot.
"Damn, Em." My finger traces the razor-straight lines. "This isn't a blueprint—it's an autopsy report. You've even drawn in the scar tissue from all the remodels. It's so morbid. I love it."
I blow him a kiss. "Seriously, though. This might be the most romantic thing you've ever drawn. It's got a soul. And not just 'cause I'm literally floating over it." I waggle my eyebrows. "Please, do me next. In every way possible."
Shockingly, no one comments on my brilliant pun usage.
Once he's given the guys enough time to look over and memorize the map, Forrest starts doing what he does best: managing.
"Anik and Emerson." He points to two service entrances on the schematic.
"You stay on the outskirts near any exits.
No need to be in a crowd when you both don't tolerate them well.
Monitor ingress and egress. If anything—or anyone—tries to slip out unnoticed, you're our net. "
Anik gives a single, grunting nod from where he stands in a ready position, arms crossed. "Understood."
Emerson nods, and I can practically see his brain going a mile a minute. "I can loop the external security feeds from those points. Provide a twelve-second blind spot on rotation. They'll never know we were there."
Forrest's gaze fixes on the remaining two. "Leandre and Kieran. I want you two in the crowd. Work the room. Figure out what you can."
Dre nods. "I'll keep an ear to the gossip."
Kieran is practically vibrating with excitement. "Aye! Finally, I'll be the most distracting, charming, information-gathering menace ye've ever seen. The drinks are on me!"
"Drinks are absolutely not on you," Forrest corrects him instantly, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"You will be on a mission. You will have one—one—non-alcoholic beverage to maintain your cover.
" He takes a steadying breath before delivering his own role.
"I'll be at the bar with my com link in.
I'll observe everything from that vantage point and try to get a meeting with the manager, Neal.
We'll need a believable excuse for being there—something that won't make anyone look twice.
" He looks at each of them, his expression the picture of self-righteous seriousness.
"Keep it clean, keep it quiet, and for pity's sake, try to make it look like you belong there. "
Kieran's grin widens. "Och, Saint, I always belong in a club. It's my natural habitat."
Forrest rolls up the paper and hands it back to Em, signaling the end of the meeting.
I bounce my way to my usual forgotten stool as I watch family night unfold.
Anik gets to setting up his meticulously organized buffet on the coffee table as Forrest and Dre move the sectional and armchair into an imperfect semicircle.
Once settled, Kieran launches himself over the back of the couch and settles in.
There's some argument, but eventually they all agree to a movie night over a game night.
"So everyone is still traumatized by Monopoly?" I ask. "Not just me?" I shiver. "Nobody is ever allowed to get Anik that mad ever again." I pointedly look at Kieran, who has—without me noticing—shifted into an upside-down position.
" Mad Max: Fury Road !" Kieran calls out. "Chaos! Chrome! A guitar that shoots fire! What more do you want from cinema?"
Forrest shakes his head. "The selection must be mutually agreed upon and of substantive narrative quality."
"I'm with Kieran," I say, even if no one is listening. "A high body count totally counts as substantive narrative quality."
Kieran shrugs, still upside down. "I find it plenty substantive."
Ro-ro sighs, and I watch as his eye twitches ever so slightly. "An ode to gasoline and masculine fragility is not 'substantive'."
Dre interjects, "I say we find something with a plot. And heart. Casablanca exists for a reason."
Kieran fake-gags. "Hard pass, pretty boy."
Anik emerges from the kitchen and threatens, "The popcorn is in. Three minutes." It sounds like a simple fact, but there's also a threat to stick to the timeline in that tone.
Emerson finally deigns to look up from his spot, shrouded in the corner with a journal and a pile of sketching pencils.
"Consensus is a statistical improbability.
We'd learn more from mapping cephalopod neurocircuitry.
Their origin point is clearly extraterrestrial; the biological evidence is irrefutable.
" His tone is less cold fact and more frustration at their willful ignorance of a beautiful mystery.
Forrest sighs. "Emerson, we are not analyzing possible alien DNA for fun."
"Why not?" He asks. "It contains more inherent drama than any simulated human conflict."
Forrest stiffens. "I got it." He says. "Arrival."
The guys all look at their phones and I hover over Em to read the description he’s pulled up.
Kieran groans at whatever he’s found. "A sad alien movie? Noooo."
Leandre scans for less than a second before nodding. "Villeneuve." He sets the phone back down. "Doesn't matter what it's about. He's earned the benefit of the doubt."
Anik slides the popcorn onto the coffee table while giving his phone screen a quick scan. "Acceptable."
Emerson, finally looking intrigued, says, "A fictionalized, but conceptually sound, exploration of linguistic relativity. Acceptable."
Kieran huffs out a breath, then finally sits right-side up. "I've been outvoted by nerds! Fine. But when everyone's weepin' in twenty minutes, I reserve the right to be insufferable about it."
As they watch the movie, I watch them.
Anik never takes his eyes from the screen as he analyzes and comments on the military strategy throughout.
"One ship. Not a threat. Not a crisis." He murmurs more than once.
Later, though, he grunts his approval for—what I'm assuming is—the protagonist's methodical, repeatable approach to communication.
Forrest—the gargoyle daddy—keeps getting pulled out of the narrative to focus on Kieran's inability to be serious.
"Kieran, if you make one more joke about the heptapods looking like 'sentient walnuts,' I will have you reassigned to data entry.
" As Kieran gets sucked in, so does he. Captivated, he nods along with the linguistic theories.
Emerson, for once during a movie, is having the time of his life.
This is, apparently, his version of an action movie.
"A language that sculpts time itself…" he murmurs, his sketches forgotten in his lap.
"To perceive your entire life at once… the agony and the ecstasy of that knowledge.
It's not a language; it's a state of being. "
Kieran spends the first part of the movie fidgeting and sighing loudly. But slowly, even he gets sucked in. His jokes grow fewer, replaced by genuine, quiet questions. "Haud on—she can see the future? Like, all of it? Even the bad parts? That's… heavy, that is."
Dre is just as enraptured, tissues at the ready should anyone need them. By the end of it, though, even the tissues are forgotten. "The theme of chosen love," he says softly, "even in the face of certain heartbreak, is poignant."
And as the final, heartbreakingly beautiful notes of Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight"—or so the subtitles say—fades, something quiet settles over the room. While everyone lingers in it, I smile.
Em made a good point. It's not about avoiding the ending. It's about knowing the ending, down to the last heartbreaking detail, and choosing every beautiful minute that leads to it anyway.
Relatable . I mean, hello. That's literally my entire existence. Forty years of watching, knowing I can't touch any of it, and I still choose to stay.
As everyone stands and begins to clean, I make my usual nightly rounds. I drift just off the ground—high enough to press a soft, unseen kiss to each of their cheeks. They're all at least a head and a half taller than me, so levitation is a necessity if I want to offer even this ghost of affection.
I follow as Forrest settles into his home office.
The three screens hidden in his desk rise as he sets his coffee down.
He never really sleeps, just takes his little stone-state nap once a week.
He hates them; I love them. It's the only time he loses some of his rigidity—which is saying a lot, considering he turns into literal stone for ten hours.
Anik, Kieran, and Dre prepare for bed. It reminds me why I love Wednesdays.
Not only are they all home and getting proper sleep (which Dre rarely gets), but they all do it shirtless.
Is it weird that I'm glad they don't sleep naked?
If they did, I'd have to excuse myself because, when you have aspirations like mine, some boundaries are necessary.
Plus, I like having the option to hover an inch over their faces and inspect every pore and freckle that has the audacity to grace their gorgeous faces while I'm stuck here in limbo.
Not that I do that, of course. I just like that I could.
Once the penthouse is quiet and the only sounds are two keyboards clacking at opposite ends of the hall, I make my way to Em's room.
He needs the least sleep of all of them.
When he does sleep, he usually locks himself in MORDRED's room and takes no more than an hour-long nap—though I'm never convinced he's actually sleeping. It's more like he goes into a trance.
And of course, he does it on the floor next to MORDRED, like some kind of weird, cyborg-style sleepover.
Because he sleeps so little, most nights I'm perched on his bed—since it’s not like he’s ever going to use it—watching the latest documentary with him as he works.
He may be content as a hermit, surrounded by schematics and silence, only venturing out when a mission demands it.
I, on the other hand, am determined he won't be alone.
He needs someone, whether he believes it or not.
Another brutal documentary glows on the screen, casting shadows across his glamoured appearance. Gone are the opalescent hair and purple-hued skin I love so much. In their place: porcelain skin, round ears, and unkempt waves raked back from his face.
He says nothing, preferring the company of facts to feelings.
But tonight—like so many nights—he sits surrounded by atrocities the world chooses to ignore.
If I ever become corporeal, the first thing I'll do is wrap him in the biggest, tightest, warmest hug I can muster.
Just so he knows someone sees what he carries—and appreciates the weight of it.
When I need a break from nature documentaries and digital nightmares, I drift into Anik's room.
He's the most restless sleeper. Obviously, his past wasn't a picnic—you don't get that kind of guarded, efficient intensity from a life of rainbows and cupcakes.
Something forged him. I don't know what, but it left him with nightmares and a killer right hook.
He and Em are alike in ways I don't think they'd ever admit. They're cut from the same broody, silent cloth. Em's silence is a compound of intellectual superiority and thinly veiled menace. Anik's is a stew of protective glares and forcefully delivered, well-balanced meals.
When he starts to toss and turn, fighting skeletons in his sleep, I slip onto his bed and lay a spectral hand on his back.
I pour every good intention I have into that touch, willing calm into his tense form.
Maybe, if I focus hard enough, I can slip a good dream into the cracks of his nightmares.
I don't know if it works—but eventually his breathing steadies, and his face goes soft with peace.
One day, they'll all understand—they're not alone. I'm here. And they're never getting rid of me.