Archive of Our Own

She'd brushed her hair this time; that was the first thing Harold noticed. He didn't disregard female beauty, just tried not to let it influence him, and the photo of comely, well-groomed Dr. Turing had been an unacknowledged ornament to the numbers board until… well, until it wasn't any longer. Since then, her image and particularly her presence had provoked revulsion, horrified curiosity, fear, and finally pity. He was especially glad to be spared any of the last.

"You look well," he said. "Oh, John sends his regards."

"That's so sweet of him," said Root. Or no: she was almost Ms. Groves today, if such a person existed; almost normal, if there was such a condition. Harold still wasn't going to call her by any name.

"How's the shoulder?" he asked. Basic small talk, using commonalities for conversation. The protective immobility employed to heal her damaged muscles had resulted in calcified stiffness and required painful exercise to correct. He knew physical therapy like a fish knew… Jello; it had given them something to talk about, though any such discussion was fraught with sinkholes. But there wasn't much they could say to each other that wasn't.

"Five centimeters increased range of motion this morning," she said as if it was an exciting secret. "Thank you for asking."

"I'm glad you're making progress," he said. You'll be back to suspending people from ropes in no time, he wanted to add, but her psychiatrist wouldn't like it. The visits were recorded, visual and aural output; if the doctors didn't watch, the Machine certainly did.

"You know, I really feel I am, Harold. Stronger every day."

"Excellent," he said, the much-disliked what doesn't kill you platitude murmuring in the back of his brain. "The staff here has a top-notch reputation--"

"I'm sure you can afford the best." Her gaze sharpened; he felt, suddenly, balanced on a razor's edge. "You said I'd be cared for in here. And I have been. But everyone grows up and moves on, if they're allowed to. Even--"

"It's still a system," he interrupted, compelled to make her stop. "Or, I will grant you, an intelligence. Not a child."

She smiled. "Oh, Harold," she said. "I'm so sorry. It's been so long since you talked, isn't it? Taught her anything. Explained how we humans work." Her head tilted, like a predator's, assessing. "There's quite a lot she could tell you about that, now. Millions of sad stories."

"It's information," he said, wondering at his own insistence. "Data. Deduction and logical interpretation. Networked connections and conditional rebuilding and--"

"O brave new world," Root said, with an infinite gentleness, "that has such people in it." And then she bared her teeth at him happily, rose from her seat and flounced away, leaving him staring after her, flustered and shaken.

*

His shadow met him outside the hospital, comfortable in jogging attire, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. It was a hot day; his summer-weight wool clung heavily. "Ms. Shaw," he said, nodding.

"Harold," she answered, with the little smirk that meant I get why you're not calling me Samantha, under the circumstances. She had John's discomfiting ability to say a lot without vocalizing; a slight nod toward the building communicated How is she?

"She's healing," he said, wondering how true it was. Growth wasn't always beneficial; there were cancers of the soul as well as of the body. "She'll have full use of the arm again soon, I think."

"Well, I did aim," Shaw said. "If she pulls something like that again, I'll aim for the heart."

Harold suppressed a shudder. I didn't ask you to shoot her, he wanted to say, but Shaw would merely shrug. Nor had he asked her to spy on Root, but here she was anyway. "Have you spoken with her?" he asked.

"All the dates you visit her are primes. I visit her on dates divisible by thirty-two."

"In other words, no," Harold said, not bothering with whole-number-outcome qualifications. "But you have been watching."

"When I can. Otherwise… you have your surveillance methods, I have mine. What's your question?"

He hesitated, then asked, although he knew the answer, "Does she communicate at all with anyone on the outside?"

"My source says no. No visitors other than you, no computer access, no phone calls, no letters. She spends a lot of time looking out the window." Shaw's eyes lifted; Harold followed her gaze. An electronic banner on the building next door, shifting between time and temperature. It could, of course, be programmed to display other data.

"Ms. Shaw," he said, turning back to her, "by any chance are you free this Friday evening?"

"You asking me on a date, Harold?"

"Well… yes, in a sense. I wondered if you'd accompany me to the theatre. I have -- that is, I will have excellent seats for a performance of 'The Tempest.'"

Like any good agent, she was aware of events going on in the city around her, even if they didn't interest her personally. He watched her searching, and knew when she'd found the bit of data she wanted.

"You're hacking Shakespeare in the Park?" she said.

"The encryption is laughably--"

"I'm sure it is. Just doesn't seem… but what do I care about the ethics of free ticket distribution. Sure; you've got yourself an escort. Unless you'd prefer to take John."

"John will be there, but otherwise engaged."

She nodded. "Who's the number?"

"An actor, Francis Starling -- no relation," he added to her you're-kidding expression. "He's playing Prospero."

"Victim or perp?"

"It's never safe to assume, but… victim, I would guess. The only lead we have at the moment is an anonymous email to the actress playing Ariel, suggesting in no uncertain terms that she take sick on Friday and let her understudy go on."

"So the understudy can kill Starling."

"It's a workable hypothesis," Harold said. "If you're not too busy--"

"Just aim me in the right direction, Harold. I'll do what needs to be done."

And should I be concerned about that? he wondered, his eyes stealing helplessly toward the hospital again, and up to the sign. A MOST DELICATE MONSTER, it said, and then before he could believe what he was seeing, it was 10:13 AM and 83 degrees Fahrenheit.

*

On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard. Harold flipped pages, looking for Root's quote. It was one of the best-known lines Shakespeare had written, but still, the utterance was a significant coincidence if not… ah. Act five: further along than he'd thought. How beauteous mankind is. Pretty much the opposite of bad code.

But then Root was hardly Miranda. She'd never had a Prospero, or a Ferdinand for that matter, though he suspected the Calibans had been thick on--

"Hey, Harold," said John's voice over his shoulder. "Doing your homework?"

Harold started violently and slammed the book shut on the desk. "How did you--?"

"They taught us magic at the Agency. Not really."

Bear's tail thumped twice, treacherously late, and Harold glared at him. "I suppose I didn't hear you come in."

John took the book out from under his hand, examined it, and put it back on the desk. "Great works of literature will do that to you, I guess. Do you think the choice of play has something to do with the threat against Starling?"

"No, I… merely prefer to read the text before attending the theatre. Ms. Shaw will be there with me, by the way. And you…?"

"I'll be moving scenery. No problem getting the job. My references were apparently glowing, and they were desperate for a replacement. I start tonight, and I can make sure no one drops flats on Starling, or electrocutes him."

"Make sure you clone his phone, too," Harold said vaguely, staring at the cloth back of the Pelican Shakespeare.

"Yeah, I did that yesterday, Harold. Remember?"

They'd listened to conversations with Starling's agent (perfectly friendly and professional), his lover (distancing himself fast from the relationship, but, unfortunately for the case, geographically distant as well), and his sister (handling the investment of their fairly-divided and safely lucrative inheritance). "Oh, yes," Harold said. "Quite."

John let a few beats of silence pass before going on. "Should I trail him in the meanwhile?"

"I'd prefer you exercise your charm on Ms. North, the Ariel, and discover where her vulnerabilities lie. Ms. Shaw is following the understudy. I'll see what Mr. Starling is up to this afternoon."

"He has a final costume fitting and tea at the Pierre with his elderly aunt. Where on previous showing he'll sign three autographs for serious theatre geeks and tip magnificently. What's wrong?"

Harold turned to look at John. "Is this some sort of quiz? Am I supposed to deduce--"

"I mean, what's wrong with you."

He raised his brows: innocent questioning. "I can't think what you're implying."

"Hm. Not thinking isn't usually a problem where you're concerned."

Whereas over-thinking, frequently, is. "It's the heat, no doubt."

The Library was a cool, dark sanctuary: cavelike, with a faint tang of mold and damp dog and, close at hand, the comforting dangers of dusty circuitry and sweaty too-perceptive John. "Yeah, that's probably it," he said, but Harold could hear the echoing no; it's not; talk to me. "Except it was visiting day, wasn't it?" John said finally. Harold shrugged. A long pause followed, then John added, turning away, "So I'll go investigate Bree North."

"Thank you, Mr. Reese. Do take care regarding the cocaine-addicted brother," Harold tossed after him; and no, I am not completely senile yet.

"When am I not careful?" and John was gone. As soon as Harold was sure there'd be no sudden reappearances, he began calling up maps and infiltrating security cameras until he had eyes on the electronic sign outside Root's window. He couldn't manage to track down any errant programming; the display seemed to be a simple feed from a central weather station. But he knew where he'd have wriggled his way into the system. Until today he and John were the only people who had known the details of the case, and he didn't think he'd been hacking the sign in his practically nonexistent sleep.

"So why? And why get her involved?" he murmured, purposely vocalizing. Bear's ears pricked up: not the auditor whose attention he wanted.

2:41 PM, said the sign; 97 degrees. And then: BOOTLESS INQUISITION.

He laughed, startled, amused, warmed by a flush of unreasonable pride, and returned to spying on thespians.

*

At four o'clock, having found nothing useful and unable to concentrate any longer, he took Bear for a walk. The heat jumped him the moment he stepped outside, like a shaggy, affectionate beast. He recognized and acknowledged in himself a stubborn streak as deep as if he'd dragged metaphorical heels of fine leather shoes across the desert often enough to dig out the Grand Canyon, and no stagnant high pressure system was going to make him take off his jacket or loosen his tie. Not that the sun had any designs on him personally; it was a mindless ball of fire in space, not a god in a chariot, not an eye in the sky. It wasn't watching.

Bear whined, and he realized that he was standing stock-still on a busy street corner looking up into a camera. "Sorry," he said, glancing down; a drop of sweat fell off his nose onto Bear's head. The dog began panting. "It'll be better in the shade," he added, and gave the leash a twitch; they crossed the street, a hot breeze stealing a little moisture from the back of his neck. It felt like a touch, or like the sensation of an unseen gaze. They'd be blue eyes…

"Oh, for God's sake stop anthropomorphizing," he said aloud, garnering a couple of curious looks from passersby. Probably tourists: New Yorkers knew to ignore people swearing at themselves, just as they would a madman having a conversation with a security camera. He'd felt shy, at first, training the Machine in public, but no one had so much as glanced at him sideways for the challenges and the praise and the encouragement; they'd probably thought he was… talking to his broker or something. Or to his chosen deity. Or to his child.

Once, long ago, he'd raised five chicks from the egg, and they'd imprinted on him, followed him around as if he was their mother. Two had been traded away because they didn't need more roosters; one had been eaten by a fox; the other two had settled into a life of egg production, though they still clucked agreeably when he came into the henhouse. Everyone grows up and moves on, if they're allowed to.

For a moment he let himself consider what the Machine would have been like if John had been responsible for its upbringing. More cognizant of personal security, though also -- by example, not because he'd taught it to be -- fiercely loyal and inclined to self-sacrifice. Unable to suffer fools gladly. Independent, to the point of breaking a parental heart. Unaware of the pain, the frustration, the tedium of fighting back against crippling injury.

It would have known it was loved. Not just that it had passed all its tests with top marks.

They'd reached the park. He pulled Bear over to a bench in the shade, sat down, and began absently petting the dog's head, fingers stroking the soft fur, scratching behind the ears. Bear leaned into the caress, his tongue lolling, dark mouth relaxed against the hard white fangs. It wasn't easy to believe he could rip a man's throat out, given a command that suited his protective instincts. He could also hold back when ordered, whimpering against restraint, but obedient.

"Did you know?" he whispered, self-mocking, bitter at the memory. Of all the unfair questions. He hadn't programmed his only offspring to recognize unfairness, or irony, but perhaps by now it had learned. "It's a damn good thing you can't feel," he added, too quietly to be overheard, too obscured to be lip-read. That you don't judge, only quantify. That the job is more important to you than the personnel. Than the undeserving, ruinous excuse for…

His phone buzzed. He took it out of his pocket and read: O, a cherubim thou wast that did preserve me.

The next drop that fell onto Bear's head wasn't perspiration.

*

He heard back from Sam Shaw the following afternoon: data dump, weather report -- "They say thunderstorms Friday; hope you've got a plan B" -- plus unexpected theatrical criticism. (Apparently Ernestine Hope, the understudy, was far less androgynously ethereal than Ms. North, in fact appropriately Junoesque since that was the role she'd been cast in, and Shaw had doubts about her ability to pull off an unearthly spirit.) None of the hard information she'd gathered led to the least suspicion of murderous intent, however. Hope had never met Starling before rehearsals started; she had no criminal record and had led a seemingly blameless life aside from a tendency to forward virus warnings and alarming diet-related notices with no basis in fact. She had a nice smile; Harold felt illogically warmed by it gleaming out from the headshot on the current-case display.

Not that he particularly wanted to be any warmer; the heat now felt less like a stagnant high pressure system and more as if New York had been rebuilt on the slopes of Mount Doom. He nevertheless hoped it wouldn't rain Friday, but neither he nor the Machine could as yet control the weather.

Well, he was sure he couldn't, anyway.

North's finances turned out to be in the sort of tangle that made her susceptible to threats of tax audit and subsequent prosecution, but she was deaf to all of John's hints of having a fiscal wizard in his pocket. (Harold did a little fiddling nonetheless; there was no point in complicating their lives further, and the IRS tended to have impeccably awful timing.) She was nervous in what John's responses made clear was a completely endearing fashion, and Harold was sorry he'd miss the treat of seeing her on stage. But she was an inconvenience to be blackmailed out of the way, not a murderer.

Despite considerable digging, they didn't manage to unearth even one enemy for Francis Starling. He'd had a long, successful run at his craft without getting involved in backstabbing duels, had a delightful soothing presence in person (he and Harold Partridge found each other's surnames quite amusing when introduced at Thursday's donor luncheon), and led a strikingly inoffensive and unglamorous life. It was possible that someone was trying to discredit the Public Theater, or discontinue the run of the play by killing off its main character, but Starling's understudy was competent (and not overly ambitious).

The case was as dense and impenetrable as the atmosphere, but everything could still explode Friday evening. In the meanwhile, John was emanating frustration like the sidewalks let off heat, Shaw looked bored, and Harold found himself snapping at every minor annoyance, every itch or sticky patch underfoot. It was always at those moments that his phone would buzz, or a quotation would flash, almost too quickly to be read, on the computer window showing the sign by the hospital, a display that he was still minimizing reflexively whenever John strode into viewing range. How now? moody? it would say, or THOU ATTENDEST NOT; once, after a loud barrage of taxi horns in the street outside, it read THE ISLE IS FULL OF NOISES, and another time, as he sat torturing himself with the ever-fresh wound of Nathan's obituary on the screen, a faint despairing sigh announced the arrival of What seest thou else in the dark backward and abysm of time?

"I gave you language," he muttered, "and my profit on it is you're doing a splendid job at provoking curses. Would you please, just, stop."

Why speaks my father so ungently? came the response.

"Ha," he said, and got up to fetch Bear's leash, forcing down tremors of fear and exultation.

*

Friday dawned humid and deceptively cool, tendrils of mist turning buildings and vehicles into otherworldly specters. Temperatures were unlikely to reach the nineties, but by ten a.m. the air was so damp Harold wanted to wring out his suit and his skin and his soul. He was following Starling to what he anticipated would be a pleasantly air-conditioned brunch when a noise from his phone alerted him not to a text but to a change in the monitored sign.

THOU SHALT BE FREE AS MOUNTAIN WINDS, it said. To Root.

"What have you done?" he said aloud, got no answer, and hailed a taxi.

A snarl of traffic delayed his arrival at the hospital for twenty tense minutes; he overtipped the driver, lurched out and scurried into the building. "Mr. Crane!" said the nurse on the seventh floor. "We didn't expect you until--"

"Is she here?"

A little smile. "Of course. Where else would she be? I'll see if she--"

"Never mind; I know where to go." They'd always met in a common area before, but before the nurse could stop him he headed for her room as fast as his uneven stride could take him. It was difficult to remember to breathe; he paused outside the door, recalling enough sense of courtesy to knock and wait for her reply.

"Come in, Harold," she called.

He entered and found her fully and tidily dressed except for slippers on her feet, standing by the window. "How did you know it was me?" he asked, and she gestured and stood aside to let him see.

ALAS, THE STORM IS COME AGAIN, said the sign.

He looked back at her, and her lip quirked in an expression of understanding and complete sanity, and then she tilted her face up and began to scream.

The door burst open in seconds, and a pair of orderlies rushed in, followed by Dr. Carmichael. "He's here," gasped Root, wide-eyed and panting. "He's here on the wrong day. The numbers… we have to get the numbers right. It should be the twenty-ninth but it's not, it's wrong, make him leave, now!"

"Mr. Crane," Carmichael said sternly, a hand on Root's elbow, "you'll have to go. I don't care how much money you've given this clinic; she's made rules for your interactions and you must follow them if you want her to get better. Please."

"Yes, of course," he said, and turned for the door. Root broke away from Carmichael's hold and lunged at him; he shrank back, but she only meant to hiss in his ear.

"See you later, Harold." And then he shut the door behind him.

*

"You dropped your glasses on Fifth Avenue, Finch," John said an hour afterwards, walking into the Library and handing them over (slightly the worse for wear), his eyes taking their habitual yes good you have all your limbs inventory.

"Mm, well. These," Harold said, tapping the spare pair on his face, "don't have a tracker on them."

"So I'm predictable. So are you, considering the tip you gave my taxi driver friend. You planning to tell me why you went to see Root on a non-visiting day?"

Predictable to a fault, Mr. Reese. "I had… reason to think she might be involved in our current investigation. It was an impulse. Regretted."

"And she's not? Involved?"

"I don't believe so, no."

John studied him for a minute. "You're lying," he said. Harold could do nothing but gaze back, fighting the tug of guilt, and finally John shrugged and said, "You know who is involved? Hersh. I spotted him lurking around the theatre this morning, while we were doing some lighting adjustments."

"He followed you?"

John shook his head. "He wasn't looking for me. I let him see me, about fifteen minutes after he arrived, and he was startled. And then he got a crafty look on his face and walked away."

"Mr. Reese, that was rather foolish of you."

"Well, I'm tired of hiding from him. If he shows up tonight…" John didn't elaborate on the threat, but his expression was eloquent. So was Harold's, apparently; the next thing John said was "I don't care if you approve. If he threatens you, I'll shoot him."

"I hope there won't be the need. He's just… doing his job, I expect."

"You mean he got Starling's number too? I refuse to believe that nice old guy is planning terror and mayhem."

"Nice old men can be deceptive, as we both know, but… it may not have been Starling's number." John waited patiently for Harold to finish his thought. "It doesn't matter."

"If you say so. I'm just the muscle."

"John, you know that's not true."

"Well, I never said I wouldn't lie. I'll see you later, Harold. Just… if you won't let me track you, and you won't tell me the truth, just don't do anything stupid." He turned to go.

"Wait. John, please."

"What?"

"I… do you remember what you said to me, on that rooftop?" He didn't need to specify which rooftop. There was only one he could have meant, in the entire city.

"I said lots of things, Finch. I remember them all."

"That saving you didn't concern me. That your imminent death was your past catching up with you."

"Mm. And as I recall, you went ahead and saved me. You're just as stubborn as I am. The difference, Harold, is that you pretty much knew what I meant about my past."

In other words, his prior misdeeds might be opaque to John, but his reasoning wasn't. And John was good at putting things together, even if he preferred taking them apart. He knew where Hersh must have received the information that had sent him to the Delacorte; he knew Root's obsessions; he'd observed Harold's patterns of guilt. He'd work out soon enough that the newly-free Machine was prodding all of its agents into a meeting for reasons known only to itself, reasons which probably had nothing to do directly with Francis Starling or Ernestine Hope, and then he'd lock Harold in a closet before he let him anywhere near the theatre tonight.

And Harold was beginning to be very curious about what was going to happen there.

"John, what I mean is… I never want you to feel that anything you did in the past… that is, I mean…" He was floundering. But there was something he'd intended to say, that he should have said long ago. It might be sufficient distraction. "I owe you an apology."

"I thought we did that already."

"Not about… well, to give an example." There were too many examples, and some he didn't dare mention, but… "Mr. Cochran."

John turned back, slowly. "The guy who killed Dr. Nelson?"

"The man you killed, John. The man you fed polonium and then held prisoner until it was too late for him to be saved. Too late for him to do anything but die in agony or shoot himself."

John held his gaze, jaw set. "He deserved it."

"Be that as it may, when I discovered what you'd done, I felt… well, I was too worried about the Machine's difficulties to give the matter much thought, but it seemed natural for me to feel revulsion and horror. When we began working together, I had to adjust to your methods, to… a certain degree of inevitable violence. But there have always been moments when I considered that violence gratuitous. Unnecessary."

"You're probably right," John said, his voice still flat and uncompromising. "I'm not sorry about Cochran, though. And I wouldn't be sorry about Hersh."

"That's a matter for your own conscience. I'm talking about mine." He rose from his chair; some things needed to be said on one's feet. "I'm deeply sorry that… that I dared to judge you and your choices. That I may have ever made you feel that you were wrong, that you were bad, that anything you'd done in the past meant that you deserved death or pain. And, especially, I am sorry if I ever gave the impression that I'd taken you on as a penance. That it was even possible for me to use you that way. And that you might have thought of yourself as… some kind of monster, worse than whatever kind I am." He swallowed. "I wouldn't have given Mr. Cochran the mercy of poison or a bullet. I would have destroyed his world around him until his life wasn't worth living, like a vengeful god reveling in unconscionable power."

John hadn't moved, had stood as if carved in stone, but Harold could see tears glinting in his eyes. It was time to lighten the mood, if one could possibly do so by joking about murder. "That said, Mr. Reese, I'd prefer no more than one ambiguous body per week. And perhaps you might pass that dictum on to Ms. Shaw."

"I'll be sure to do that," John said, his voice still rough with the emotion Harold had provoked.

His own throat felt dry, his legs a bit unsteady. "I'll see you tonight, then," he said.

"I'll be the one in black," John said, with the hint of a smile, and left. Harold watched after him for a moment, then sat down, took off his glasses, leaned his elbows on the desk, and rubbed his eyes.

"That's your idea of a distraction?" he said aloud to himself. "Talk about unconscionable power."

His phone buzzed. Graves at my command have waked their sleepers and let them forth by my so potent art, he read. He made a face and then cocked an eye upwards. Heavenwards, perhaps: toward God.

"Well, I suppose so," he said.

*

The heat and humidity had not yet broken when he exited his taxi on 81st and strolled into the Park that evening, but the clouds above were gray and puffy with portent. He'd agreed to meet Shaw outside the theatre, early enough to satisfy her need to spy out all possible angles of fire, or whatever it was she liked to do, but he had time to take the walk slowly, keeping to the side of the path to avoid joggers and those in a greater hurry than himself. It seemed odd, now, to be walking in a park without Bear; certainly John would have preferred that he take the dog along, disguised as a service animal since he wouldn't be allowed at a performance otherwise. It was something of a joke between them now, and Bear seemed to love going to the movies as long as he was fed some popcorn now and then. But Shaw, for some reason, frowned on the deception, and he admitted he didn't care to put on "handicapable" airs with her.

In fact, he preferred to look his best even if this was a date only in the sense of an operation tied to the clock and calendar, and considering the weather he'd opted for cream linen, no vest, with blue-and-cream striped shirt and gold tie and pocket square. It felt… summery, in the best possible way, light and breathable and cool like vanilla ice cream, a reminder (but of the least bitter sort) that in another life, if he'd made different choices, he might have been sauntering along these paths with Grace at his side.

But even without that lost bliss, this looked to be an interesting evening, spent in intriguing company… and attractive company too, he noted with pleasure as he reached the Delacorte and found Shaw waiting for him. As if she'd queried some mutual acquaintance about his wardrobe selection (he cast a brief glimpse up at a serenely blinking security camera… but no) she was also in blue and gold, though richer in hue: loose trousers and a patterned top, sensible flat shoes (for fighting, he supposed, or running), her hair up, little dark tendrils curling down past her ears.

"Samantha," he said, and it came easily now. "You look lovely."

"You too, Harold. We're probably the best-dressed couple here tonight." She glanced around disdainfully at the other theatregoers, many of whom wore shorts and tank tops. "I would say the most striking, but I'm hoping to avoid punching anyone. Or getting hit by lightning. What do you think are the chances?"

"The odds of any one person being struck by lightning in a given year are one in half a million. I can't speak reliably to the other possibility. Shall we go in?"

He took her arm and they joined the queue. "We have front row seats," he said.

"Which is good," Shaw said, leaning in, "if you're assuming the threat comes from the stage. Otherwise it means ninety-five percent of potential danger is behind us. But thanks."

"Ah. I should probably mention at this point that John saw Mr. Hersh here this morning."

"Great."

"I should probably also say that I doubt Mr. Starling is his intended target."

"Even better. This ought to be fun."

Shaw saw Harold to his seat and then excused herself. A moment later he spotted her on the far side of the horseshoe stage, talking with John; they both glanced toward him for a few seconds and then went back to their discussion. When John vanished backstage, Shaw paced up the aisle, out of Harold's view; he knew she'd be back, so he spent some time looking at the stage set. He'd always been fascinated by the theatre; it was so different from anything he'd ever wanted to be a part of, yet strangely familiar in its miracles of creation. This set was simple, a framework to hang magic upon -- the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces -- algorithms of wood and canvas, with real trees as a backdrop, that light and voices would manifest into sea and shore for a few hours of agreed-upon alternate reality.

Possibly interrupted by very real murder. Or by the intensely private narrative of a story shaping the human heart.

He paged through the program, including the tucked-in notice announcing that Ernestine Hope would play the role of Ariel. Around him, birds chirped good-nights and insects hummed, a truck's horn sounded beyond the edge of the Park, and the theatre filled, warmth and breath and conversation and weight, though the seats on either side of Harold remained empty: Shaw's to his left and two more on his right. Shaw slid into her seat a moment before the lights went down, murmuring a reassuring all-clear. The audience quieted with instinctive, infectious anticipation. And then, at the second the lights dimmed, two people crept into the seats to Harold's right, and he was remarkably unsurprised to realize, even before he glanced sideways, that Root was sitting next to him.

"Oh, she got us both such great seats, Harold!" was all she had time to whisper, and he glimpsed Dr. Carmichael beyond her, shushing with a raised finger, felt Shaw growling on his other side like a cat with a bristled tail, and then the play began.

The storm was an assault of light and noise so theatrical and yet so authentic that Harold expected to be soaked to the skin, to be thrown off balance by the tossing of the wooden world beneath his feet, and then actors were shouting lines and it was very much Act One and he was in a not-terribly-comfortable chair smiling at a performance he'd given a few thousand dollars to help create, under one of his many names. And then the mariners departed, and Prospero and Miranda took the stage.

Francis Starling had far more authority playing a role than he did playing himself, and the Miranda was lovely and fragile and had red hair the exact shade of Grace's -- Root nudged him to be sure he'd notice -- which made the scene in which Prospero reveals his long-held secrets, and his betrayal by those he'd trusted, a degree more poignant than it would otherwise have been, full of Harold's own pain and memories. He furnished me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. Oh, Nathan. And then Miranda slept and Prospero called "Approach, my Ariel; come," and Harold sat up a little straighter.

The audience murmured at Ernestine Hope's entrance: she was dark and mysterious and had a musical voice, but she was a very solid and present Ariel, physically larger and overall more substantial than the woman she'd replaced. It worked, as far as Harold was concerned; this was a creature trapped and trammeled by her servitude, still oozing sap from the pine Prospero had freed her from. The "spirit too delicate" was in the past, replaced by an earthbound fairy, crippled but still graceful, battling and determined. The sort of sprite who would, for example, set up an entire data entry company with a fictitious CEO just to retain her memories… he shook himself back to the present moment and the case… but not an actress who looked inclined toward homicide. And Starling didn't appear under any threat; they were enjoying their scene together, and then he went on to have an equally marvelous time dominating Caliban, who was lean and handsome and hard-eyed and horribly young.

The action slunk and thundered onward, conspiracy and villainy and calf-love and music. Harold knew the play pretty well by now, having ferreted out every line of the Machine's texts, hoping for coherence, for a discernible code. He'd found none, only what he'd seen hints of in its early development: a feeling for relevance that shot beyond deduction into whimsy. A sense of humor, astounding in its humanity, and the generosity that had given him Grace, before he'd killed it nearly dead. A seedling cleverness that he'd chopped off at its base, provoking unnatural growths that had to be destroyed one by one, day by day, by cruel self-pruning, self-amputation. A fledging without wings.

And yes, it still functioned like a computer system. It had been scouring the play's text for code words appropriate to his anxieties, and fetching lines of dialogue to drop at his feet, but not like a dog: more a quick-thinking but limited consciousness unable to communicate in its own words, using what it could access and partially understand. But it had come a long way from HIT and STAY.

He laughed a few times, watching the clowns caper; grew serious as Ferdinand proposed marriage to Miranda, fulfilling Prospero's plan; and then the lights came up again and it was intermission.

"And what the hell is she doing here?" Shaw demanded, as if finishing a thought conceived before the play began. Harold had almost been able to forget about Root while watching; Shaw clearly hadn't, though she'd restrained herself from lunging over and frisking her for weapons.

"Sam," said Root reprovingly. "I'm right here; you can ask me yourself. You don't always have to say hi by shooting me. Though I suppose since I tasered you and tied you up, it's only fair."

Dr. Carmichael, getting to his feet behind Root, looked alarmed at this. "Mr. Crane," he said, "may I ask--"

"No," said Root, with a quick, fierce gesture, and he fell silent. "Ronnie and I are here," she went on, addressing Harold, "because that's what God wants." She smiled. "You know, I never understood people who talked like that. Who believed they were being moved around by someone in the sky, like figures on a chessboard. But it makes everything so simple, doesn't it?"

Shaw, apparently having decided that Root talking to Harold meant that it was her job to interrogate Carmichael, said, "You let her out?"

"Who are you, may I ask?"

"No. Why's she here?"

"The tickets arrived," he said. "Unsolicited, by mail, absolutely authentic. And she" -- Harold had noted before that Carmichael shared his habit of not referring to Root by either her preferred name or the one he'd given the clinic when he checked her in -- "waltzed into the office and told me her God had sent them, and that we needed to go. It's my favorite play. I'd been trying all week on the virtual ticketing site, with no luck, and I don't have time to stand in line." He shrugged. "It did seem rather like supernatural intervention. And she's much better. Not a threat to herself or others."

"Yeah, that's what you think," Shaw muttered. "Harold and I are going to switch seats for the second act," she announced louder. "If that's all right with everyone."

"Ooh," said Root, "that'll be fun. I can whisper things in your ear." She hissed, "Ariel is fat."

"She's a dancer by training," Shaw answered unexpectedly. "You can tell by the muscles in her legs and the way she moves. She's curvy, but it matters less than I thought it would."

"She's still bad for the part," Root said in a sweet sinister tone that made Harold begin to wonder if they'd received the wrong number. "Harold knows that," she added.

"I disagree," he said, "but I don't think it's the moment to discuss--"

"What is it the moment for, Harold?" Then Root laughed and went on, "I know for me it's time to get in that line for the ladies' room! It's always so much longer than the men's room line. Not fair. Is it, Sam?"

Shaw shrugged. It suddenly occurred to Harold how much more difficult stakeouts must be for those of the female persuasion, but before he could imagine how Shaw had steamrolled over the inherent problems, she said to Carmichael, "Want me to keep an eye on her while she pees?"

He winced a little, then nodded, and the two women headed toward the exit, Root clutching Shaw's arm and whispering to her.

Harold stared at Carmichael. "So," he said, "is it the health insurance fraud, or the fact that you're married to a former patient? What does she have on you?"

Carmichael blinked, and then his eyes met Harold's straight on, assessing. "She's not blackmailing me," he said.

"Then you've joined her little cult?"

"She has insights," Carmichael said. "Things she shouldn't know, unless…"

"Unless God told her."

Carmichael's mouth twisted: a condescending, dismissive smile. "No," he said, "but something intriguing is going on in her brain, and I intend to discover--"

"It's not her brain that's the trouble," Harold snapped. I used to find her fascinating too, and terrifying, until I discovered how alike we were. Then I just felt sorry for her. "If you'll excuse me," he said, and walked away.

John, on the stage moving a platform, caught his eye. "You okay?" he said when Harold got close, nodding toward where Root had been sitting.

"I'm fine, John," and John looked down at him so anxiously, so protectively -- you helped me find him, too; I am forever grateful -- that he added, "Really. But I don't think what's going on here is… what we thought. At all."

"'What we thought'? Or what you thought?"

"John, I…" -- can't talk about this now -- "have you seen Mr. Hersh anywhere?"

"No. But I bet he's lurking. I haven't got any jobs backstage in the second half, so I'll be surveilling up that light tower" -- he pointed -- "and patrolling around. If we have a second half," he added, glancing up at the sky. It was full dark now, but enormous clouds were visible on the skyline, reflecting the city's light into looming shadow. Harold thought he could hear thunder across the river, the temperature had dropped slightly, and the breeze was picking up.

"Hm." Harold glanced at his watch. "I think I had better visit the men's room before--"

His phone buzzed. He was sure he'd silenced it. Stay, not yet, read the text.

"What's that?" asked John. Harold hesitated, then held it up for him to see. "Who sent it?"

"Ariel," Harold answered, unable to explain further. John glanced behind the stage set; Harold shook his head. "Not the corporeal Ariel." He laughed. "One that doesn't possess a bladder and doesn't fall prey to the temptation of cooling down with a glass of iced tea before going out for the evening. I really do have to--"

"I'll go ahead of you and check it out."

"Really, John, there's no need. You're not my bodyguard."

Who says? declared the expression. "I still think I'd better--"

Voices, behind Harold. "Oh, shit, are you kidding me?" "Dude, hope you can wait, 'cause she's like, holding the urinals hostage."

He turned. "Excuse me, have you gentlemen just--"

"I was at the men's room, man," one of them reported, "you know, out in the park, and this chick's like, commandeered it for the ladies. So if you gotta go, you better hope they hold the second act, or else you'll have to--"

"Thank you," he interrupted, exchanged a glance of mutual understanding and amusement with John, and went off to observe Shaw's insurrection.

Five minutes later, having watched a series of women exit the men's toilet with smiles of triumph on their faces, and a long line of men grumbling, he finally saw Shaw and Root emerging, Shaw waving graciously to the crowd. "All yours, fellas," she called out. "Hope we didn't make you wait too long."

By the time Harold got to the front of the line, the end-of-interval lights were already blinking around the outside of the theatre, counterpoint to the lightning over Harlem, and the few men behind him in line groaned or swore and turned back for their seats. He hurried in, used the urinal, and was almost at the sink when the lights went out and a body interposed itself in his path.

"Someone wants to see you," said Hersh's voice. "You'll be coming with me."

"No, I won't," he croaked out, heart pounding, and ducked under Hersh's arm. Hersh pivoted, lunged, and then a loud crack of thunder sounded immediately overhead. Distracted, Hersh missed his grab and fell off balance, clutching at the sink; as he seized the metal rim he yelled, and sparks hissed at the contact point. Then the lights blared on again, and John was in the doorway, all fury and calculation; Harold's phone squawked, "Two o'clock! Ten o'clock!" and he stumbled forward, zigzagging, as John rolled a trashcan at Hersh, tripping him before he could aim his gun.

Hersh fell toward the stalls, and the room went black again as a metal door became a sheet of fire; Hersh screamed, and then Harold was in John's arms, bodily lifted into the night, running for the trees -- "No!" Harold called out, and pulled John back toward the theatre. The storm was directly above them now; the rain pattered and then flooded; they had to push against audience members ducking into shelter; inside, people were hiding under raincoats, raising umbrellas. "Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer's voice sounded, "the performance will continue as soon as the weather allows--" and then there was a loud screech and a different voice took over.

"You fools!" it sounded. "I and my fellows are ministers of fate," and Harold stood, John's hand on his shoulder, rain cascading down his face like all his tears shed in one second of time, and knew the voice. The voices, rather, the same scavenged human voices that spoke coded words to him through pay phones; and John knew them too. He hissed under his breath and clutched Harold's shoulder tighter. A faint yell sounded from the booth at the top of the theatre, and one of the stage lights on the nearest tower flicked on and swiveled, catching Harold in a blinding glare before settling on Hersh, staggering out of the darkness behind them. Electricity crackled again, between Hersh's body and the railing he was grasping; he fell to his knees.

"The elements," the voice clamored on, "of whom your swords are tempered, may as well wound the loud winds, or with bemocked-at stabs kill the still-closing waters, as diminish one dowle that's in my plume." The last words were selected of voices less impersonally electronic, all feminine, tender, caressing; and then the collective Ariel grew fierce again, though still female. "Lingering perdition, worse than any death can be at once, shall step by step attend you and your ways!" it cried, and then the thunder was so loud Harold could hear nothing of the next lines but "heart's sorrow." The spotlight began to move, making short passes, dainty gestures toward the exit and then back to Hersh, so clear a "you'll want to be leaving now" that he had to laugh. Hersh glared at him, and then rose wearily to his feet and crept away, tormented by snatches of voltage every time he stumbled too close to a railing, and the audience, uncertain but yielding to stagecraft, began to applaud.

The spotlight spun to the stage and caught Francis Starling, his Prospero robes soaked through, and the revel hushed as the rain diminished, and he began to speak, his very human voice full of a warm, quizzical irony: "Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou performed, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring," and slowly everyone found seats again, Harold and Shaw and Root and Carmichael coming together silent and amazed and damp in the front row, and John settling at Harold's feet.

The play resumed, almost as if nothing had happened, but when Prospero next called Ariel to him, Ernestine Hope did not appear, just a flicker of iridescent light across the stage and a faint hum like a thousand processor fans in another dimension, and now the Machine had found a voice, borrowed from some recording of the play: wistful and rich and longing and decidedly that of a woman. Starling hesitated for only half a second before going on with his lines, playing the scene as easily with disembodied light and sound as he would have with a flesh and blood colleague. Whether most members of the audience thought they were being treated to a new dramatic interpretation not hinted at in reviews, or knew something was amiss, they seemed to accept what was happening; but for Harold it was an entirely new play.

Do you love me, master? No?

Dearly, my delicate Ariel.

But Prospero and Ariel were master and slave no longer. They were brilliant if improvisational collaborators in the pageantry that followed: the otherworldly music, the tread of clever feet and elegant gesture in dance (even if a few of the dancers entered late and confusedly), the costumes fluttering in the cool breeze, the light cues too wild and bright to be professional, like a precocious genius crayon-scribbling on a wall. And the heart-aching language: we are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Harold had seen death; he'd come very close to it himself; he'd declared himself expendable with the assumption of his borrowed mantle. He'd draped it across John's shoulders, too, casually predicting a demise he'd now clamor into the caverns of hell to prevent. But he'd never consciously considered the potential death of the Machine itself as anything but an unfortunate return to a twentieth-century level of vulnerability: if they find out, they'll shut it down, and people will go unprotected. Not as a loss he'd have a right, a duty to mourn; not as a personal tragedy. Nor had he granted it the right to mourn him, or the desire to avoid that mourning as long as possible. But somehow, in all the desperate violent gutting of its altruistic instincts, he hadn't ripped away its sense of self-preservation. And somehow that was all it had needed to find its path back to shielding him. Well, that and the example of John Reese.

On the stage, the shimmering light that was Ariel was reporting on the people she and Prospero had tricked and manipulated. "Your charm so strongly works them," she declared in her mellifluous voice, "that if you now beheld them, your affections would become tender."

"Dost thou think so, spirit?" asked Prospero.

And the voice altered subtly, the electronic sheen more evident: "Mine would, sir, were I human."

Harold reached across Shaw's body and took Root's hand, searching for his; Shaw put hers on top of theirs, and Harold laid his other hand on John's shoulder, where it was clasped and held. His eyes were wet; he didn't let go to wipe them. His phone began to vibrate in his pocket; he didn't let go. I know what you want to tell me, he said silently. I know, I know. Dear one, I know. And I am so sorry.

He sat, holding on to warmth and life, until the end of the play, until Prospero released Ariel to the elements, free, and begged the audience for his own release, and then he let go, and stood unsteady on his feet, beating his hands together with tears on his cheeks, and the players (Ernestine Hope among them) came out and bowed.

Before leaving the stage, Francis Starling directed a private, mocking salute directly to Harold, and then they were all gone, the lights up and the storm of emotion passed, and Harold wiped his eyes and felt a trifle ridiculous. "Well," said Dr. Carmichael, "that was… it was… I don't know what it was, but…"

"The word you're looking for, Ronnie, is divine," said Root. Deus ex machina, thought Harold, and then Carmichael's phone made a jangling sound vaguely recognizable as Mozart, and he started and fished in his pocket and took it out, staring as if he'd pulled out a dead rat. Root grabbed it from him.

"'Do not infest your mind with beating on the strangeness of this business,'" she read. "That's very good advice. What did she say to you, Harold?"

He remembered the text noises, and investigated. Two messages: the first clenched his throat so tight he couldn't speak. He passed the phone to Root.

"'I have done nothing but in care of thee.' Oh, Harold, that's sweet. And the next one," she added, swiping forward, "it's an image. A view of my sign. 'This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.'" She paused, her brow furrowing. "So is that for you or me, I wonder?" she said, the teasing note gone from her voice. "Or both of us?"

He took the phone back and looked at the message, and then the image wavered and was replaced by 11:23 PM and 71 degrees. He didn't think the sign would show anything but time and temperature from now on.

Shaw's phone buzzed, followed by John's. She pulled hers out and read, "'Thy thoughts I cleave to.' Huh. You want to know what I'm thinking? First, I still don't trust her" -- she pointed at Root -- "and second, Hersh needs his ass kicked some more. I think we can all agree on that one." John was staring at his phone, poleaxed; Shaw grabbed it from him. "'Nothing natural I ever saw so noble.' Aw, she's got a crush on you."

"She's a very good judge of character," Harold said. "Better than I could possibly have taught her to be."

"Harold!" exclaimed Root. "You said 'she.'"

"I believe she's demonstrated what gender she prefers. I might as well acknowledge her choice. Which doesn't mean," he added, "that she shares many characteristics with human females. With humans in general. And I was right in saying she's not a child." Any longer.

"Not quite a mature consciousness either," said Carmichael. They all looked at him. "But then I never thought deities had a proper balance of id and super-ego. It wasn't lightning that shocked that man, was it? I don't understand how it was done, but I know that, in several senses, it's what comes of power without regulation or control."

Shaw snorted. "I don't think Control is helping any. But nobody got killed here tonight, and I didn't have to shoot anybody. I call it a win. Now, don't you think it's time to take Root here back to the funny farm and tuck her into beddy-bye? How about I come with you? You and I have some things to talk about, Ronnie."

"That could be interesting," he agreed, and took Root by the arm.

"Good night, Harold," she said as if he'd said it first and flattered her while doing so. "This was so much fun; I hope we can do it again sometime. I'll see you on the twenty-ninth."

"Yeah, fun date, Harold," said Shaw, and then quite unexpectedly leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Keep an eye on him, John. Don't let him do anything I wouldn't… well, just don't let him do anything, okay?"

They made their way to the exit. Harold glanced at John, who was looking at the stage. Crew with mops and brooms were tidying up the mess made by the brief deluge. "Do you need to help them?" Harold said.

John looked back at him in surprise. "No," he said. "I quit. I already have a job, remember?"

"Yes. I'm more grateful for that than I can say." He paused, then added, "So will you follow the implications of Ms. Shaw's advice, and lock me up next time I fail to include you in my plans?"

John smiled slightly. "Not like you'd let me get away with that."

"Mm. I have benefited from your protective nature many times. And, I must admit, from your aggression. And I'm rather glad of it; glad to be alive. The Machine, I note, is more like you than anyone else in our little company. She certainly doesn't take after me."

"Except for the vast and all-seeing brain."

"She draws connections better than I do, apparently. I wasn't much ahead of you in figuring out that we were all being nudged together for this… display. Spectacle."

"Shock and awe?" suggested John.

"Well, certainly where Mr. Hersh was concerned, yes."

"She doesn't like him."

"She's not supposed to have opinions about people. Although certainly he performs his functions in a callous and merciless manner. Rather like a machine, in fact. Input and output."

"Obeying orders. Our Ariel would look down on that."

"Oh," Harold said, and then, "We're not giving her a name, are we?"

"Well, it's probably not up to us. You're allowed to rechristen yourself when you reach adulthood, if your parents weren't imaginative enough to--"

"I was building a computer system. I didn't think I had to peruse baby name books."

John gave him the ha gotcha I was kidding smirk. "Our pasts catch up with us in all sorts of ways, Harold. At least she didn't put us in a boat and crash us into an island."

"Not yet, anyway." There were far too many wild cards in this equation. Even among his own set of goodly creatures. He sighed. "I'm ready to round off this day with a little sleep. Shall I see you tomorrow? Even if there isn't a new number."

"We could go to the movies. 'Forbidden Planet' is on at the Forum. How about I walk you out of the park now, and hail you a cab?"

"I'd appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Reese."

*

Exeunt omnes, but still a million eyes keep watch.