Chapter 17

“Ice is forming on the tips of my wings.
Unheeded warnings, I thought I’d thought of everything.
No navigator to find my way home.
Unladen, empty, and turned to stone.
A soul in tension that’s learning to fly.
Condition grounded, but determined to try.
Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.”
-Pink Floyd, “Learning to Fly“

Susan’s Log: Stardate ... eh, fuck it. They just made them up on the show, anyway.

I’ve been traveling through the Nebula of my Subconscious, viewing memories of my early interactions with Helen.

On the main screen of the bridge of the original Enterprise in my head, the image changed again from the pinkness and lightning of the nebula to what I recognized as the living room downstairs. At least the old layout, before the garage expansion and stuff went in. Sounds of construction outside were drowned out by the noise coming from Julie’s open laptop on the coffee table. The sound of a call coming in via Skype. The me whose perspective we were viewing all of this from went over to the laptop, saw the words “Call from lafuckingcontessa@castlefinzione.snfnz.”

The Me having the memory debated running outside to get Troy or Julie. She’d been studying their secret for a couple of months, and didn’t know it well enough to start planning bank robberies around it yet, but knew about the agreement that they’d made with Helen years ago, and kept even after what happened between Julie and Helen in Madrid. That because being able to control everyone around you creates problems that are hard to relate to unless you’re one of the three people in the world who can do it; whatever else was going on between them, if any of them “needed to talk,” the others would always answer. I didn’t fully grasp all of them yet, but the fact was that I was here, and if Helen needed help, and I ignored it or she hung up while I was getting Troy or Julie, then ... dammit...

In the memory, I sat down at the laptop and clicked “Answer.” She was seated at a big desk or meeting table in an office with the lights off.

“I know what happened here.” I said to Sue, Suzy-Ho, and Suzy-Q, who were watching with me on the bridge in their uniforms. (Or half-uniform for Suzy-Ho, anyway.) “She said she needed to talk to someone who despised her, I told her I didn’t, just that she wasn’t going to buy my forgiveness, then she told me what was going on.”

“You’re missing a little bit there, Susan.” Suzy-Q pointed out. “The theme so far seems to be ‘Something you missed the first time.’ She tried to avoid talking about it, at first, and you started giving her shit, until this next part.”

“Danger isn’t a word I hear you OR them use often.” The Me in the memory said. “So, what’s really going on right now, Helen? Don’t give me any of that ‘classified by the government of San Finzione’ shit, you ARE the government of San Finzione!”

“She’d never given YOU that shit before, Susan.” Suzy-Q reminded me. “You’d seen enough of her on TV and the internet by then to figure out that was what she was going to say next. But watch this.” As it had the past two times, the memory slowed, as if my Subconscious had been showing us a video, probably the episode “The Trouble With Tribbles,” in keeping with the Star Trek theme; and was hitting a slow-advance on the remote to show us one of the few shots in the entire series where they give a clear view of Scotty’s right hand and you can see James Doohan’s missing middle finger that got shot off at Normandy.

The image didn’t show that, though. It showed a curious look on Helen’s face, right before she reached for a pack of cigarettes, found it empty, and pulled out a string of what I now know are Greek Worry Beads instead.

“You knew that Contessa Helena de San Finzione was a real person on TV before you met her. But in the same way as the President or the Pope; someone powerful and famous that you knew existed, but Susan Bailey’s chances of ever meeting her were zero. Chad was never going to take you to San Finzione, was he? You’d only started paying attention, reading articles, and watching interviews, after the meeting that you don’t remember. She left right after the ceremony, didn’t stay for the reception; so, you had no way to confront her about it there. Based on who she was then, it probably would have ended badly for you.”

“So, I started looking into who this rich, powerful friend of the two people I love most was.” I told them. “It’s part of why my job during the revenge prank was staying home and coordinating everyone on the computer. While I was cruising the.snfnz dating sites and setting up meetups with lonely singles for them, I was also watching old interviews, read one of the biographies of her. I’d seen her drop a ‘that’s classified’ or two on reporters before and saw it coming.”

“But that curiosity about her never stopped, did it, Susan?” Suzy-Q asked me. “Now she was someone you cared about, too. You were the first to get the news about Helen because you still get phone alerts about her. And Maria, but you and Maria got along immediately, she’s just that warm of a person. You were ‘keeping an eye’ on Helen before, this is where you started caring BACK about her.”

“So, why didn’t you go to her then? She needed help then, too.”

“She probably wasn’t rendered unconscious during any of that. But I was somebody different back then too, you know. Still chained to the role that Chad put us in. Before you freed me of it.”

“And now, you’re able to visit Helen’s Subconscious, and we still haven’t figured out how or why.”

“I think the Why that your Subconscious has been trying to tell us is that you and Helen both care for each other far deeper down than either of you wants to admit. Maybe, originally, BECAUSE Troy & Julie meant so much to the two of you that of course, you’d both automatically care about THEIR loved ones, too. But it’s definitely more than that now.”

“So,” I replied. “Ok, I care about Helen more than I let on, and she does the same. I think we all got that. And then there’s you. You changed. To what, we’re not sure.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too.” Suzy-Q said. “And, well, we’re on the Enterprise, Bones ... or at least Sue is here. Maybe we should scan me.”

“Well, it DOES give us an excuse to look around the ship. OK, Suzy-Ho, you have the bridge. Sue, Suzy-Q; let’s get you to Sickbay.”

As we entered the turbolift and Suzy-Ho went over to the Captain’s chair, I stopped and turned before the doors closed.

“And wipe it down before we get back.”

Contessa Helena de San Finzione slipped into the Equals house’s sliding glass door from the back patio to the kitchen. She walked over to the alarm panel and started entering a code. The code came back incorrect.

“Hey, Girl. It’s Julie’s parents’ code.” Troy Equals said from the top of the landing to his and Julie’s home offices. “Not Propappou’s. Meant to tell you.”

“Hey, Boy. I wasn’t sure if anyone was still up.” She told him, punching in the right alarm code. “Mander passed out when we got back, and I think I left my ... excuse to come over ... somewhere around here.”

“Your key’s in the same phony rock outside, too.” Troy said, coming down the stairs. “Well, Denise uses it mostly, these days. But, ya know, it’s still yours.”

“Saw it.” She replied with a smile. “Figured nobody’d remembered to lock the patio door. Where are the others?”

“Susan went to bed right after you left. Julie’s finally getting some work done on the painting she’s been trying to start all day. We got worried that you were walking into an ambush.”

“Oh, I was. But I considered the possibility; so, my counter-ambush followed me and was in place by the time Whyte’s ambush got there. We had some hassles at first, but Mander helped me out; then we found a little place that does great Uongoian after midnight in North Seattle, if you guys want to try it this week.” She looked down at the ripped-up dress she was wearing. “There’s gonna be a couple wacky pictures of me with the owners on the wall.”

“We know. We followed along with Ortega at the command center they’ve set up in the garage across the street.” He approached Helen and walked her over to the couch. “Julie couldn’t sleep, and we’re staying in tomorrow, so I gave her a little boost, like Susan did with Mander. I think not getting any work done today was a big part of her frustration. I was thinking of heading to bed. It’s almost noon in San Finzione, so the hackers are between shifts; Carlito suggested I get some sleep too.”

“I fuck your lives up in SO many ways.” Helen said, taking out a cigarette and sitting down.

“Your world is a lot more complicated than ours, Helen.” Troy responded, lighting it for her. “But we’ll take it if it means we get you in the process.”

Helen took a drag, put the cigarette into the ashtray, and leaned into Troy’s shoulder.

“When you woke up yesterday morning, Troilus.” She said with a sigh as he put his arm around her. “Triads were bad guys in movies and video games. Today, I’ve got to tell you to start looking into their stuff for Whyte’s dirty shit, rather than away from them, because I thought he’d steer clear of them, but he’s deeper in bed than I guessed. He says we’ll ‘pick things up’ about ten-ish. I think he means that one. At his age, even coke can’t keep him going all the time; and meth would probably make his shriveled old heart explode.” Helen chuckled. “Worst of all, if I didn’t know what a piece of shit Leonard was, he’d sorta be my type.”

Troy patted her head with his other hand.

“I always knew my hair was never white enough for you.” He smiled.

“Swarthy makes up for a lot.” Helen said back in Greek, cupping his cheek. “I can just give you time to get gray to be perfect.”

“It’s never surprised me that you ended up ruling a country, Helen.” Troy kissed her on the forehead, responding in the same language. “Only that it didn’t turn out to be Greece.”

“I figured you’d take Greece, Julie would take America, and we’d just play Risk from there. Not, like, real war with people’s lives or anything, though. In this fantasy, we get giant playing pieces made and placed in the countries where we expand. You get to create a whole economy around it! It’s not until we get to a legal Risk move that we actually start rolling for them.”

“Will we roll regular dice, or drop giant d6es from helicopters? Also, WHERE would we roll the dice?”

“The giant ones.” Helen responded, snuggling in closer. “And we roll them by strapping them to rockets and firing them at that big yellow thing that’s usually in the sky this time of night, except for in Seattle.”

“Yeah,” Troy said. “We’re going to pay for today’s weather tomorrow. That’s why I suggested Ortega and everyone put up canopies over the tents of the Ultimados who’re camping on the lawn. Something that boggles me as an Alaskan in Seattle is how they always seem surprised that it’s going to rain again tomorrow. And the one snowfall a year that we get ... that an Alaskan would reasonably CALL a snowfall, always catches them by surprise and shuts everything down. Like, we could have been up past our knees, and they wouldn’t close schools in Anchorage. They get an inch here, and the whole city closes.”