Love Letters

Hey Jay,

Nobody’s radar’s been picking your blip since you slipped out from Indris. If I struck the bullseye, and this paper’s in your hand — I gotta say, I just guessed. Put on the blindfold, got spinned round eight times, and pinned the tail on the donkey.

Hell knows where to start with this, huh.

Hope you’re doing well, first. Can’t imagine the shit you’ve been through crossing flats, dodging authorities. Have you slept in a bed this whole month? How’ve you been eating? Not gotten sick or anything from any weird desert plants or lizard critters? Thorny bitch like you can handle herself, I know, but look around and this isn’t Kansas. The air here moves, it gets dark, it gets cold. All sounds like you’re a good mark for some delicious smuggled wares, turkey dinner, tylenol, big fluffy snuggie, give the call and I’ll hook you up.

Fucked to think you’re just out there on your own. Seriously, even if shit is still sour, at least let me know you’re alive. You still have that radio? Buzz my frequency a little after sunset. I can’t track that. Promise.

Things with me have been alright. Haven’t been poisoned or woken up with a bomb ticking under the floorboards yet. Healed up well from all the nicks and bruises. Back’s still scarred like a map of Colorado but the ibuprofen’s been doing its work and my full-frontal’s still fresh as spring rivers, so invitations’re flowing as always to stand behind the rope when I walk in the MOMA. No national tragedies there ;)

Been travelling & meeting people. New house new digs. Dad left us a lot of neat shit. Crony work his side did was more than insert-praise receive-goodies. Massive demotion more than you think that he landed in Odz.

Thinking a lot about the shit you said. Some things you were totally wrong. Others I look back and think you were ri—

—ght.

It’s Aqi mostly. Puzzles the shit out of me never know what he’s doing. He’s more desperate than he looks but God below knows about what. He keeps dropping hints like he wants me to know then pulls back like he forgot condoms. 50-50 feeling all the time whether he wants to fuck me or fuck me. Not like he’s going ‘mwahaha’ in the shadows but like there’s a shoebox teetering above my head and he’s not sure just when to drop it.

If he’s faking even that then flat-out he deserves to sucker me. My ghost’ll give him a gold medal.

He’s setting me up for some bullshit can’t imagine it’s anything fun. I know this is what you warned me but I

can protect you because the same way you had to fight, I know I can keep him in love with me

Or if that’s too delusional I can love him hard enough to put him in my debt with hard interest. Put those dickbrains to use in a country where they actually work. Run the bullshit antics motor on a gushing sycophant heart until I’ve done something for him so big he’d sooner die from guilt than forget me.

Promise I’ll never be like her, but Ma hammered me with her tricks too.

Just come home.

This house is too swank to hog to myself, and too big for only one person.

As the dim light of dawn peeks in from the window, Raum leans back from the writing desk, reading the letter over.

It all sounds so sure and certain on paper. In reality, though, the only thing stopping him from begging Reyl to pick him up, fearful that choosing Aquila really was a mistake, or from fantasising about Aquila holding and cuddling him, fighting that fear with impotent denial, is the overwhelming guilt and shame he’d feel at, after staking promises and oaths and ideology, abandoning his life’s first-ever real commitment to change. And in barely a month, too.

But there is one thing he does know.

This was the letter he should have sent all along.

Maybe that’s his idealism talking. Maybe he should know better, after how his previous attempt to negotiate went. Maybe she’s a fucked-up goddamn crazy witch and can’t even read anymore.

But, this was the letter he should have sent all along.

Raum waits at dawn for the agent, but he doesn’t arrive. Seizing the chance, Raum pens a copy of the note so one may be genuinely delivered to Reyl. But even as he waits longer — and longer — the agent still doesn’t arrive.

He’s probably running late for any number of unspectacular reasons. Wouldn’t be surprising for a shitbucket like his to kick off a wheel upon hitting a pothole. Or so Raum assures himself, mentally noting to check with Aquila that the guy didn’t get in any serious trouble.

Time is pressing in for Raum to pack up and leave for Ferendaux. He can slip the letters under the door, with instructions, for the agent’s return.

Instead he goes to breakfast, nabs a second fork, and uses it to jimmy open the agent’s shoddy motel room door.

After all, there’s more than just delivery work that Raum must secure from this man.

The agent knows Aquila’s plans for Raum, and the whole situation in Sebilles. Everything Aquila hasn’t been telling him, Raum can learn from coaxing this man.

A hard sell, naturally. But for the duty and trust Aquila placed upon him, he’s plainly an arrogant deadbeat. As long as he feels important, he’ll spill, brag, and make allusions to his knowledge and power essentially whenever he can. That’s if he’s present, of course. But he’s not, and time’s ticking, ergo…

The agent’s room is close to bare. But a trunk sits beside the bed, and Raum cracks it open to find the motherlode.

Beside toiletries and changes of clothes, this trunk is stuffed with papers upon papers upon papers. At first skim — maps, diagrams, reference notes, brainstorms, all gloriously annotated. Excited and nervous, Raum hurriedly pages through the stacks hunting for mentions of Aquila’s core plan, but none promptly springs out.

As he hunts, he lets information flood from his eyes to his brain unimpeded. They’ve charted Reyl’s presumed path out of Indris to Sebilles. But their intercepts failed. Okay. Then a map of Sebilles, with city blocks crossed out with pencil. They’ve swept these areas. Okay. Traps set here. Tips from Ecqoi. Rumours. Research. Sightings?

Scummy but diligent. What a combination…

The man’s been working hard, but on each new page Raum’s gut twists tighter and tighter with nausea. Why? Think later. Hunt now.

Next is a map of the palace, amended in pen to chart Phoenix’s insane blockades. Some rooms crossed are out. Swept those. Indeed, not yet touched the west wing… but there it is — with an annotatation! Something special? Wait, it’s gibberish. No — it’s cyphered.

Gasping as if breaking water, Raum separates that page without thinking. He brings it close to his face, squints, traces his thumb letter-by-letter under each phrase, switching gears to break this cypher.

The second the print in front of him shifts off the mental backburner, into his consciousness’ focal point, Raum’s mind blanks.

This is not unfamiliar handwriting.

Actually, it’s his father’s. Mason Whitewood wrote these notes.

Reeling in disbelief, Raum accosts the rest of the stack, checking—

The door bangs open and in rushes his bodyguard, who Raum posted to keep watch outside the motel. The agent’s vehicle is on the road and imminently coming in to park. Still dazed, Raum asks for another minute to decode the cypher. Agitated, and without time to even find a pen and paper, the bodyguard rips that corner off the parchment, shoves it in Raum’s breast pocket, and frantically zips up the trunk.

Outside the thin door comes horse hooves clopping, wooden wheels creaking, then nothing as both settle still…

Raum jolts up, locks the door, unlatches the back window. No the trunk was on the other side of the bed flip it—yes, there, thumbs up. Reflexively Raum waits at the window, scoops his bodyguard by the wrist, gotta make sure he gets out first—

Footsteps sound from outside.

—The bodyguard struggles, training kicking in, Raum is the priority, evacuate him before yourself. Though the confusion holds for barely an instant, it’s still an instant they lose to Raum grabbing and shoving the bodyguard out the window—

The lock clicks open.

—Raum poises himself to hop down—

—and instead of forward, pitches backward, instead of the sky, sees a ceiling, and instead of grass, lands hard on a musty motel carpet. After weeks of tamed silence, the burns on his back from Joliet whine, then screech as he is yanked back across the prickly rug. Raum gasps and kicks to free himself, but an impenetrable vice has locked hard on his shoulders.

Soon what looms above him is the red, furious face of the agent.

Who leans down and welcomes Raum by horking, upon his handsome face, a glob of rank spit.

As Raum queasily squirms to rub the saliva off, a sharp kick from a boot lands itself right in his spine. An even weight then presses upon his head, as that boot plants itself firmly, and threateningly, with its heel over Raum’s temple.

“Bloody pest. Come rummaging in my room for what, a square of chocolate?"

Surely the agent cannot return Raum to Aquila with a shattered skull. Still,

“Eh?" The agent squeezes his foot down harder, the pressure making half the bone in Raum’s face creak. “Or how’s a massage for his Highness? Can give you a novelty, thing called a lumbar pop."

As his body’s survival wisdom kicks in, Raum raises his hands in surrender.

“What’s that flattery for? Hah," the agent growls, twisting his heel in even deeper. The wiry carpet pokes into Raum eye, niggling. “Squeak, weasel."

OK right. Moxie, audaciousness, bravado, with the right mix of these ingredients Raum will find the spontaneous charisma to rope this guy down. Rather, holy hell, Raum outranks this guy. So apologies for killing the power trip, but we’ll talk once your foot’s off my face.

…Is the attitude Raum wishes he could take, but every nerve in his body still wobbles like a resounding brass bell, shaken by a child’s urgent question of: Dad? Dad? Dad? Dad?

“You’re alive," Raum half-laughs, half-sobs, breathless. Taken off-guard, enough weight eases out of the oppressive boot that Raum can sweep it aside, prop himself up on the bed, and marvel joyfully at a development so unlikely he’d feel stupid entertaining it even as a delusion. His father is alive!

“—Thought something mighta happened when you didn’t show up this morning," Raum hastily adds, sweeping his face clean, under the agent’s cold stare. “Wondered if you had a line to Aquila in here, to powwow for a smidgen supposing you really stayed AWOL."

Something about this claim puts the agent on guard. Without any nonsense, he tells Raum to stand, then put out his arms, as the agent proceeds to check Raum’s pockets, rub the hems of his clothes, flip his waistcoat inside out.

Naturally he finds the scrap from the map. He it waves in Raum’s face, which reddens from guilt.

The agent unfolds the scrap, reads it over. His slight grin from catching Raum sobers again into that silent, wary, suspicious cold.

He mutters to himself, “that midget bastard."

Aquila? “Got your sizes mixed up ma—" the agent shoves Raum partway through his sentence, grabs him by the neck, slams his head upon the motel’s small desk. To the chorus of pens and pencils clattering, Raum’s vision blots to black. Though it clears again in an instant, the pressure on his throat only squeezes harder, strangling his voice into choked gogs.

The agent simultaneously threatens and explains he knows Raum’s weapon of choice is his mouth. Those charming, entertaining, needy, pleading tones that come to him naturally, the agent knows are absolute disarming poison. Now, either Raum behaves and answers with as minimal theatrics as possible, and maybe the agent will do something nice for him in return, or he continues pushing his luck and gets sent back to Ferendaux unconscious.

One: How deeply involved are you?

In WHAT!! I dunno, uninvolved. Nada. Clueless. Raum reflexively wants to answer, but forces himself calm. The pressure on his neck eases just enough for him to reply. —Pretty deep, probably. He thought he was moving independently in Deram, but maybe Aquila only allowed that because he anticipated Raum’s actions would benefit him of their own accord.

The agent accepts this, finding it truthful.

Two: Did anyone contact you last night?

No. No instructions, no proxies… as stated, he thought this was all independent.

Again, the agent accepts this and releases Raum’s neck. That’s all, kid. Good boy. The agent seats himself on the bed, spreads his hands. Now what can he do for Raum?

Well, the most pressing thing now is: what the hell happened last night?

“Eh? What’s that? You have a party to get to, your highness?"

Please, what happened last night, Raum repeats.

“And sounds like you’ll be late, supposing I don’t help chauffeur."

Dad! Please, Raum pleads, kneeling down by some unconscious instinct, only realising how smoothly his hands reach for this man’s sartorius when he disgustedly smacks them away. Raum flinches back in horror at his own ingrained, desperate, indiscriminate negotiation reflex. It’s because he doesn’t look like my dad, Raum frantically assures himself, but it’s still no great consolation.

The bed creaks as the agent shifts like a wolf about to lunge for Raum’s throat. Whether or not he cares that Raum has pegged him as his father is unclear, since the only thing showing on his face is repugnance.

—The letters. Raum backs off, reassesses. Could he maybe deliver one of these letters?

Raum scoops up the letters from where they’d been discarded on the nightstand, passes them over. The agent nods, opens one, skims, nods again, folds it up, squeezes the edges smooth, makes a great show of considering just what to do, just how charitable he’s going to be…

Then laughs as he flicks out his lighter and sets the papers aflame. As black, curled cinders shed to the floor, Raum squeals as if being stabbed. The man rises from the bed. He shouts at Raum, calls him a braindead whore, a spoiled menace, a cocky charmer that never learned how to stay inside the lines. Slimy cockroach that should’ve been dead fifty times over, but knows how to hide and pander just hard enough that, whenever his idiocy should catch up with him, it rushes by to hit someone else!

So get out! The agent grabs Raum, throws him whirling out the door. As that door slams behind him, Raum registers where he is, and sees his bodyguard upon his carriage before him, urging him to board.

Out of breath, but getting the message, Raum scampers onto that carriage, leaving Deram to the dust.