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“Well,” Helena said, in a tone that could almost be described as apologetic, “what they seem to want… I mean, the situation that has been proposed… and I assure you, I made no suggestion in this vein and, indeed, was not in fact consulted prior to the idea being put forward… and in actuality it seems less a request than an order, really—”
Myka stared at her. “It isn’t… it obviously isn’t back to the… because if it were, you wouldn’t be…” And then she had to stop speaking, because she was starting to cry.
Artie waved his hands furiously in front of him, as if he could swat the both of them into making sense. “What is going on here?” he yelled.
“Well,” said Helena again. “I’m quite astonished to report that…”
“Spit it out!” Artie commanded.
Helena sighed. “I seem to be on the verge of becoming a Regent.”
Artie did a double take. So did Myka. Neither said a word. Helena smiled, a brief, nervous smile, and said, “Yes, that was, to be perfectly frank, the general tenor of my response as well. However, they seem to be in dire need of Regents at the moment, and I seem to have proved myself, in relation to the Warehouse, that is, with my recent actions, despite Artie’s so heroic reversal of same, and so… here we are.”
“Here we are?” Myka repeated, feeling like someone’s hands were clenched around her throat. “I get you back just hours ago and all of a sudden you… here we are? Where’s ‘here,’ exactly?”
“I’m not entirely certain,” Helena admitted. “I’ve never been a Regent before. Obviously. And my interactions with them have been either… um… somewhat fraught—that is, recent interactions have been—or limited. In the past. Overall. So… in fact, I have very little idea of what this entails.”
Helena and Myka both turned to Artie then, and Myka was surprised to see that he had assumed a somewhat pleased expression. “This is actually… this could work out,” he mumbled, not really to them; then he noticed their regard. “Oh. I mean, obviously, since Miss Wells has demonstrated her devotion to the Warehouse, she would make good choices. Good high-level choices, because she’ll get some distance.”
“Get some distance?” Myka said. She wondered if she would ever again say anything that wasn’t a repetition of what someone else had just uttered.
“From the day-to-day of the Warehouse. Which is probably best for all concerned, really. She’ll have the best interests of the Warehouse at heart, but she won’t be involved in the everyday activities.” Artie was nodding, almost smiling.
“Wait,” Myka said. “Hold on. Not involved in the everyday activities. You just mean that she won’t be going on missions, right? Because she won’t be an agent anymore, right?”
“No,” Artie said, and now it was his turn to appear puzzled. “Well, I mean yes, obviously she won’t be an agent anymore and she won’t be going on missions. But she’ll need to be somewhere else. Regents are… encouraged to be elsewhere. It’s for everyone’s safety, not to mention to promote the objectivity of their decisions.”
“Wait,” Myka said again.
Whatever was going to follow was preempted by the pell-mell arrival of Claudia, who shouted, “H.G.! Is this for real? Pete’s mom just came in and said the craziest thing!”
Helena said, “The craziest thing? If she said the craziest thing, then no, it is not ‘for real.’ However, if she said—”
“Oh for god’s sake, you know what I’m talking about! You’re gonna be a Regent! That is nuts! It’s the best news ever!” Claudia was practically hopping in glee—and then she did hop. Only twice, but apparently because she needed only the two hops to carry her over to Helena, around whom she threw her arms.
Helena looked at Myka a bit apologetically and gingerly hugged Claudia. “Yes, it’s quite fine news. In a way.”
“In a way? Come on, H.G., this is great news. In all the ways.” Claudia reared back from the hug. Her grin was enormous.
“The problem,” said Helena, still looking at Myka, “is that it will largely take me away from you all.”
“The problem?” Artie said, almost to himself.
“Why?” Claudia asked Helena, clearly perplexed. “Ever since we found out about Pete’s mom, it’s like she’s moved in. I can’t go anywhere without her looking at me like I just knocked over her favorite Tiffany lamp or something.”
Artie said, “Recent circumstances have been a bit… unusual, shall we say? If you cast your mind back to when things weren’t so fraught, you’ll remember that we didn’t even know who all the Regents were, and we certainly didn’t see them. That’s part of the deal: they don’t interact with the Warehouse like we do.”
“Hold it,” Claudia said. “Wait. So instead of this being a real, like, reward, for a job well done, yay you sacrificed yourself to save the Warehouse, it’s really more like, get away from her, you bitch?”
Both Artie and Helena seemed a bit taken aback. Helena said, “The language seems a bit strong for the circumstances, although the sentiment is most likely accurate.”
Myka spoke for what felt like the first time in ages. “It’s a quote from Aliens,” she sighed.
“Aliens?” Helena asked. “Which aliens? Aliens from where?”
Claudia looked with great tenderness at Helena. “Aliens is the name of a movie, H.G.,” she said. “And Sigourney Weaver’s trying to protect Newt, and she’s wearing this big construction suit to fight off the big mother alien, and that’s what she says.” She turned to Artie and Myka. “And I bet you absolutely anything that Pete’s mom and the rest of them are all thinking of themselves as big heroic Sigourneys right now, and they’re congratulating themselves on figuring out a way to keep H.G. away, and keep her under control, because you never know what’ll happen when H.G.’s on the loose, do you?” She seemed almost about to start hopping again. “Okay, now all I want out of life is to see Pete’s mom’s face when you turn them down, H.G.”
Helena said, quietly, “I don’t think I can do that, darling.”
“Why not? Man, you just saved everybody’s bacon! All of it! If that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want, then I guess that means that nothing does.”
“I’m afraid, then, that nothing does,” Helena told her. “If I’m understanding you correctly, that is. It was made rather clear to me that this… position is the only one on offer. You’re quite right, Claudia, both you and Artie, about the fact that they want me away from the Warehouse. And away from.” She swallowed and glanced at Myka. “That is, they wish me not to become a… distraction.”
“Wait,” Myka said, for the third time. “They want you away from the Warehouse and they want you away from… me?”
“Well… in a word, yes. They seem to feel that recent events suggest that the two of us have developed a, shall we say, particular friendship. And that that might keep you from focusing on—”
Now it was Claudia’s turn: “Wait!” she almost-shouted. “They’re making you a Regent because they don’t want you and Myka to be together? Never mind the part where, as the story was told to me, the fact that you wanted to save her life so bad was what made you actually save Pete and Artie too, and that’s why we got the Warehouse back? Because they’d like to keep that from ever happening again? Really? I mean, I always suspected this place was being run by a bunch of idiots, like the government, but I didn’t realize they were as stupid as, like, the actual government.”
Helena said, “I don’t think that who I had an interest in saving was actually brought up. They seem more invested in the idea that I should be of service to the Warehouse in a way that is unlikely to compromise Myka.”
Claudia grumbled, “I think it’s gonna compromise Myka a lot more if she’s wondering where the hell you are than if she knows she gets to see you. Kind of like, oh I don’t know, all of last year.”
“Hey,” Myka interrupted wearily, “I wasn’t compromised all of last year.”
“No,” Claudia agreed, “but you were sad all the time. All the time, even when you were pretending not to be. And just speaking for myself here, I’m a lot better at my job when we’re a happy family instead of a sad one. Did they bring that up at all, H.G.?”
Helena shook her head.
Artie said, “But this is fundamentally moot. If the decision’s been made, it’s made. Miss Wells will be a Regent, and we’ll all just… get back to work. I don’t think we should waste our time thinking about the happiness of families and that kind of thing. There are bigger things at stake.”
Pete chose that moment to arrive. “Bigger things at stake?” he asked. “Bigger than what? I think we’ve just been through the biggest. I want some small things at stake. I want to go out to snag, bag, and tag artifacts that don’t do anything more serious than make you want to go to the beach. Or bake cookies. Or spend all day on the playground.”
“I hear that,” Claudia told him. “Tell your mom she’s being ridiculous, and then we can totally go for it, no problem.”
“My mom’s being ridiculous?”
“She’s making H.G. a Regent to keep her and Myka apart. Tell her that that is absolutely the dumbest idea in recorded history. Actually, not just recorded history—all of history. The Big Bang forward.” She considered for a second. “Okay, there’ve been dumber ideas at certain points. But this is the dumbest one I’ve ever had anything to do with.”
“It does sound pretty dumb,” Pete said. “Isn’t the fact that H.G. and Myka are, you know, best pals, isn’t that the reason everything worked out okay?”
“Exactly,” Claudia said.
Artie said, “Pete is not going to tell his mother that she’s being dumb, all right? No one is, because she isn’t! If you all can’t see that this is something that needs to happen—and I really am finding it difficult to believe that H.G. Wells is being the most reasonable person in this discussion—then I don’t know what to do with any of the rest of you!” He stormed out, hands waving.
Helena had been listening to all of this with an air of resignation. She waited until Artie was gone, then said, “The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter. They have a choice of what to do with me. It is extremely clear that becoming a Regent is the only option that does not involve… well. You can imagine, I’m sure.”
Myka couldn’t look any anyone, anything, but Helena. Helena, who was about to be gone again. She asked, “Would they rebronze you? Even after… everything?”
Helena tilted her head, considering. “I don’t think they would go so far as to rebronze me, no. I think they truly are grateful for the recovery that my actions made possible, so I believe the situation would be something akin to that of the Janus coin, wherein I would be available in some way but kept, in a sense, quarantined.”
“I can’t accept that,” Myka said. “If that’s the choice, then obviously you have to be a Regent. But I don’t see why that has to be the choice.”
“I’m really in no position to argue. Regardless of what good I managed to accomplish with regard to the Warehouse this time, the fact of the matter is that in general, the closer I am to it, or rather the more involved with it I am, the more dangerous I seem to become. Nothing I did over the past two days erases what happened before.”
“It’s atonement. You’ve paid your debt.”
“How can I have done? I was responsible for death, for destruction—not nearly as horrible at Sykes initially caused, but certainly sufficient to be locked away.”
“That’s over now,” Myka said, stubbornly.
“How do you know?” Helena challenged.
“Because I know you.”
“You knew me before. And yet I was still capable of awful deeds. No, Myka, I’m afraid that this is what must happen.”
“I won’t accept it.”
“You will,” Helena said, “because the Warehouse needs you. You and Agent Lattimer—and Agent Jinks as well, when he recovers—need to get back to the business at hand. And Mrs. Lattimer is, I’m sure, correct; I most likely would be a terrible distraction. Regents and agents are not intended to interact, except on very rare occasions, as we recall from our excursion with Mr. Valda.”
“I never liked that guy,” Pete said.
“Well,” Helena told him, “now you may feel free to express your dislike for me. Your quite justified dislike, I might add.”
Pete huffed, “I’m offended. I thought, after everything, that we’d got ourselves back to a pretty good place. You can’t tell that that’s true?”
Helena reached over and took his hand. They both looked down at their hands at the same time, as if equally surprised by the action. “I cannot sense vibes, Agent Lattimer,” she said. “I can have a difficult time telling what is and is not true. I’d like very much for us to be in a pretty good place, but I wouldn’t blame you if you had changed your mind again.”
“Aw, H.G.,” he said. “You saved Myka, then my mom, then all of us, and ultimately, everything. That’s a pretty big bank of ‘good place’ vibes, I’m telling you. Now, if you decide that none of us were actually worth saving, I might have to get kind of upset again, but overall? We’re solid.” He gripped her hand a little tighter. “But don’t start acting like Valda, okay?”
“I think I can promise that that will not happen,” she said. She released his hand. They smiled at each other. Then she turned to Myka. “Don’t look like that,” she said softly.
“We’re going to figure something out, right?” Myka asked. “Because I can’t believe that after all we’ve gone through, that we’re really supposed to just… I mean, all of this didn’t happen just so I could wave goodbye to you as you ride off into some Regent sunset. Unless—” Her mouth snapped shut.
“Unless what?”
Myka didn’t respond. She looked down at the floor, and Helena grabbed her chin and forced her eyes up. Helena repeated, “Unless what?”
“Unless that’s what you really want,” Myka whispered. She pulled her chin free of Helena’s hand, tilting her head to the side and exhaling heavily.
Helena raised her hands, brought them close to Myka’s shoulders, then clenched them into fists and dropped her arms back down. “What I really want,” she said. She laughed.
“What’s funny?” Claudia asked.
“What I really want,” Helena said, “is to sit down. To sit down, and to do something normal. To eat a meal, perhaps. With Myka, with all of you. As if I had not died, as if nothing had been destroyed, as if there were nothing more important to speak of than how well the wine complements the entree. And then…” Her voice trailed off. She glanced up at Myka, from under her lashes.
“And then?” Claudia prompted.
Myka said, very quietly, “And then, I think… I think it’s private.”
“Oh,” Claudia said. “Okay. I’ll stop asking questions.”
“But for now,” Helena said, her tone cheerful, forced, “I will go back and affirm to Mrs. Lattimer that I will do as she commands.” She raised her hands again, and this time, she did clasp Myka’s shoulders. “But do you trust me?” she asked, no longer cheerful, now deadly serious.
Claudia and Pete looked like they were holding their breath, waiting for Myka’s response.
Myka’s eyes began to glisten. “I’ve always trusted you. Even when I shouldn’t have, I did. There’s never been a time when I didn’t… trust you.”
“Then you must trust that I will come back to you. All right?”
Myka sniffled, which made Pete chuckle. She turned to glare at him, and he said, “Oh, come on. You’re having your big farewell scene and you got a runny nose! That just does not happen in the movies!”
Myka said, “Because they aren’t actually crying, Pete, or they have people standing right offscreen with kleenexes, or, I don’t know, they aren’t really being told that they can’t have the thing they most want in the world.”
“Is that true?” Helena asked. She sounded uncharacteristically shy, as if somehow her words were less her own than usual.
“Of course it’s true,” Myka told her. She, for her part, sounded completely certain, and in response, Helena stood a bit straighter. Myka’s arms, which had been drooping at her sides, rose, as if involuntarily, to Helena’s waist.
Helena kept her grip on Myka’s shoulders, but she turned her head to Pete and Claudia and said, “Would the two of you excuse us for just one moment, please? I imagine that Artie will be returning soon, or that Mrs. Lattimer will decide that I have spent enough time informing you all of the situation.”
Myka turned to them as well, raising her eyebrows and bobbing her head toward the door. “Out,” she said. “Let us have a minute of peace.”
“You can have more than a minute, if I have anything to do with it,” Claudia announced. She propelled Pete out the door, which snicked shut behind them.
“Dude,” she said to Pete, “what is wrong with your mom? First her sorry-ass plan for dealing with Sykes, and now some sorry-ass plan for dealing with H.G.? One that makes Myka cry?”
“Yeah, here’s the thing, though. With my mom, there’s just no telling.”
“No telling what? What is she, some psychopath?”
“No, I mean there’s no telling her. As in, what to do. If you try, she gets all ‘this is the way it’s going to be,’ and then nothing moves her, and I mean nothing.”
“You mean that’s what happens when you try to tell her what to do. You’re her kid; of course she tells you how it’s going to be. But I’m not her kid, Myka’s not her kid, and H.G. is sure not her kid. You can’t tell me she won’t listen to reason.”
“She won’t think it’s reasonable reason. She’ll think it’s just that we like H.G.”
“We do like H.G.! But come on, man, if you didn’t see, with those two looking at each other like that, that that’s all the reason in the world? If you didn’t see that, then I’m going to have to start drawing some pretty unflattering conclusions about Lattimers across the board.”