Housefic: Prism (Part Two)
Please read the Author Notes for this one. :D
Title: Prism (Part Two)
Authors: blackmare and nightdog_barks
Characters: Wilson, original characters
Rating: A soft R for some rough language
Warnings: No
Spoilers: None
Summary: This should be a nice, restful break for Wilson. Shouldn't it? 3,227 words.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never will.
Author Notes: This is a continuation of Prism (Part One), which was a continuation of
menolly_au's amazing Reflection, which was a continuation of Looking Glass. Cut-text is from "By the Beautiful Sea," from the 1914 musical For Me and My Gal.
Intrepid Reader: pwcorgigirl, although the story has undergone some edits after her reading. So any errors are on us, not her. *g*
Prism (Part Two)
If the goal was to stay sane, Wilson thinks, he screwed up.
The drive is twelve relentless hours of road noise and Dylan Crandall, which was absolutely not the wisest choice. He should've brought his Learn Spanish series, or some old jazz, or something that might get his mind off whatever the hell has been happening to him.
Crandall, though he's better than Wilson had expected, isn't helping. A drink would, but he's stopped that, hasn't he? Can he, really? It's only been a couple weeks, and the program his brother hooked him up with can't take him for another two, and meanwhile he's seeing ghosts on TV.
The rate he's going, by next week he'll be sure Dylan Crandall is sending him secret coded messages on the radio. Because it's getting worse the closer he gets to the ocean, and he's turned off the music but not the other stuff, all these fragments that are like someone else's thoughts.
He shouldn't have done this; he should have checked into the Mercy Institute instead of the goddamn Pink Shell. Because he just passed a run-down little diner and for a moment he remembered eating in a place like that, and that House was there.
He'd lie to you, he'd steal from you, Crandall had said. Then somehow you'd forgive him and when you really needed him, he'd be there.
Right about that, Wilson's memory adds. He stole all your fries that day.
He looks again for a road sign. The sooner he gets off the highway, the better for everyone. He must be getting close to some kind of civilization; he's starting to see gas stations and strip malls, homes for dry cleaners, second-hand thrift shops, bakeries and barbers. A liquor store looms on his right. The urge to turn the wheel is very strong.
The receptionist at the Pink Shell office asks him if he wants to pay in cash again, which strikes Wilson as weird -- but he promptly forgets that in light of what happens when he trundles his wheeled duffel on into his cabin.
For one thing, he remembers having ice cream and where he bought it. Two cones, and only one was for himself, and the kitchen in here smells better than it did last time, and didn't the sink drip?
He only lasts five minutes inside before the, okay, not voices in his head exactly, not that, but something damn close to it, drives him out onto the beach.
"I'm fucking losing it," he says to a seagull that's perched on the rim of a garbage can, tilting its head at him. "Unless I've already lost it, I mean. Seriously. I'm talking to a seagull."
The bird gronks at him and, having determined that he isn't a food source, flaps away. He slips his shoes off, hops awkwardly on one foot to pull off his socks, and digs his toes into the sand like he could literally ground himself again. It feels nice out here, with the sun going down and the breeze coming in off the water. Not many people around, either. That little thatch-roofed bar is almost empty.
He's exhausted, and thirsty, and he needs to sit down somewhere and stop moving and not "hear" another person's voice critiquing the decor. The ghost in his head is not fond of pink. It shouldn't matter if it's a bar he's doing the sitting in, right? Right, he answers himself, and does his best to ignore the faint hint of the ghost muttering You're an idiot.
And after everything that's happened, it doesn't seem odd to him that the bartender, instead of Hello, says, Oh, man, Lowery's going to kill you.
"What?"
The bartender looks at him, opens his mouth as if he's going to say something else, then shakes his head.
"You don't want to talk about it. I can respect that." He gives the dirty rag he's got in one hand a snap likes it's a linen tablecloth. "What can I get you?"
"I ... okay. I'm not ... um. Coke? With, um, a couple lemon slices."
"Better with a shot of rum," says the guy, and because he's already fucking nuts, Wilson says Sure when he means to say No, thanks.
It's the best thing he's tasted in what seems like years, and he'll have time to regret it next week when he checks into Mercy.
Two drinks and one spectacular sunset later, he's muzzily, numbly shocked at how fast his tolerance has dropped during his little dry spell. There is no way, no way he ought to be this drunk.
He must have said so out loud, because bar guy is trying to ease his mind.
"Don't worry about it, Doc," says the bartender. "I'll call you a ride."
Wait, how did you know I'm a doctor? Wilson wants to ask, but that question gets lost somewhere inside his buzzing skull, so he's going to try I don't need a ride, I'm staying just over there, but his arm won't lift to point in that direction. His mouth feels floppy like his jaw's come unhinged, and the last thing he thinks before his head hits the counter is Not only am I losing my mind but I'm about to be robbed and probably murd--
The bartender looks at the man slumped before him. "Sorry, Doc," he says. "But what the hell are you doing here?"
"Wrong one," Lowery growls, and of course Murph just stands there, bar rag in hand, gaping at him like a beached guppy.
"But he's ... just look at him!" Murph says, and really, Lowery doesn't have to look at him, this poor schmuck sprawled the full length of a padded booth, to know he's not who Murph thinks he is.
Some days this job just isn't worth it.
"Let's get it straight," Lowery says through gritted teeth. "This guy came into the Crow Bar -- "
"He did."
"You thought he was James Wilson -- "
"He is!"
"So you slipped him a space monkey and called me."
"Yes! Because of how much shit he caused the last time." Murph nods in satisfaction. "He wouldn't even talk about it. It's him."
Not for the first time, Lowery wishes he was part of the neutralization division. Murph Devereaux would be at the top of his list.
"It's not him," Lowery says. "His waveform's all wrong."
"His ... "
"His energy trace. His signature. His pattern." He looks at the unconscious guy, who's sleeping soundly. "This James Wilson belongs here, and I do not mean here, at this bar, because he's an alcoholic. That may be why he's running out of time."
Wiping off the bar counter is forgotten as Murph puts both hands down so he can lean on them.
"He's running out of ... you mean, he's like me? I mean, like I was? Because when you punted me over here, you said -- "
"I remember what I said," Lowery snaps. "It doesn't matter. Did you even think to check his driver's card before you drugged him?"
"I don't check I.D.," Murph says. "Not when they're as over eighteen as this guy is."
"Why," Lowery sighs, "am I surrounded by dimwits?" He sets up his portable console on the countertop, because Murph's turned around the closed sign on the door and there's nobody around to ask questions. Place the cell sample into the port, and wait, and wait, and wait a bit more, and maybe he'll figure out what attracted this Wilson to this place, and what to do about it.
Or maybe he won't find out a fucking thing. That's just one of the many hazards of the job.
"Murph," he says, "This will take a while. Pour me a goddamn drink. And use a clean glass this time, please."
He's lucky tonight, or unlucky as hell, depending on how he looks at it. Not that he wants to look at it at all.
House and Wilson, his Strays, his Dopp and his Walking Ghost, were co-predictive all along.
"Oh, fuck me," Lowery groans.
They're a damn linked template, which he should've seen since Day One if he hadn't been so distracted by House being such a consummate asshole.
That's why Wilson's here. That's why he's a problem.
"Murph!" Lowery yells. "Another drink here!"
"Zaley, so help me, if you don't -- "
"If I don't what, Lowery?" Her voice is soft and oh so amused, and if Lowery could reach through the loop he'd ... well, he's not sure what he would do. "He's your Stray. Think you could've kept better track?"
Lowery swallows. Hard.
"Look, Zaley," he says. "I know you're busy with the ghooms -- "
"I'm sure you mean the lampwights, Lowery."
"Lampwights. Whatever. Zaley. This is a linked template. You know how rare that is. I don't solve this, we don't solve this, he either dies here or he gets drawn into some wisp station by all the static in his head, falls through the hole and we have to clean up that mess."
"Or he could become a transcription error."
"Worst-case scenario, Zaley. Let's avoid those."
"So," Zaley purrs, and by all the bytes in Heaven, she's not done yet. "So," she says again. "And has anyone asked the Stray what he wants?"
"I could remind you about your little orphan rescue operation sixty cycles ago."
"The orphans were children, Lowery. Someone had to decide for them."
"And we have to decide now," Lowery snaps. "There's not even a concept of 'multiverse' here, so you tell me how to ask him and get any answer other than, 'you crazy bastard, get away from me.' Come on, Zal, I know about the bubble, the shunt into your zone. And I'm sorry. But you've seen these two for yourself. It's obvious."
"So it is one of your doctors."
"Zal. I'm sitting here with a broken co-predictive with an expiration date and I could use some help finding a fresh slot for the guy. That's all."
Out of the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of Murph, mouth agape as he listens in. Go away, Lowery waves. GO. AWAY.
"It's so cute," Zal says at last, "how you're pretending this is practical and has nothing to do with your soft old Lowery heart." She sounds amused, not angry, and Lowery breathes a sigh of relief. "Send me his specs and I'll see what I can do."
He's ahead of her there. He already sent them.
Lowery kills the loop and scrubs his face with both hands. Some day he'll walk away from this job.
Some day.
Wilson swims to consciousness slowly, testing the waters. For a dreamy moment, he thinks he's back in his apartment, in bed after the all-night Sondheim festival. He can even smell the popcorn he made for Colosseum, although he hadn't eaten it all and had had some left over for Follies ...
"Why are you in such a hurry?" someone asks, and Wilson recognizes that voice. It's the bartender, the guy who drugged him and murdered him and oh wait a minute.
"I told you," another voice says, a voice that Wilson doesn't know. "I told you, this isn't an easy job, and in this world he's scheduled." The voice pauses, like maybe its owner is taking a drink. "It took us all damn night just to find a similar universe that had, first of all, only produced a singlet -- a House but never a Wilson; and second, had failed to correct the error by killing off House. We had to find a hole in the weave, so this is a knit job, and if you think it's easy, I invite you to try."
"Is that what I was?" the bartender says. "An insert?"
"You know this is not about you, right?"
Carefully, slowly, Wilson pries his eyelids open. Pink. Lots of horrible pink. He's back in his cabin, with the bartender and ... he moves his gaze cautiously to the left ... a heavyset man, a dark fedora hiding his face, dressed in black.
I've been kidnapped by Johnny Cash.
The bartender sighs. "Fine," he says. "Never mind." His hand moves, and he's eating. He's eating popcorn from the courtesy cabinet in Wilson's cabin.
"As soon as Zal -- Mrs. Bissell gets back to me with the optimum coordinates, this will be over," says Johnny Cash. He sounds a little defensive. "At least for us. For him, I'm not making any promises."
"I'm sure he'd be comforted to hear that," the bartender says, and Wilson quickly shuts his eyes. He's got to think, and think fast, before these guys crate him up and send him to Ohio with the orange juice truck and oh dammit, he's dreaming again.
"The thing you gotta understand," says the Bartender, whose name Wilson has never quite caught, and so his name is Bartender, now and forever more, "is, there's more worlds than just this one, and more versions of you than just you. The way the Stationmaster explained it, you're a broken prediction, looking for your other half. Do you get it?"
Sure, Wilson gets it. There's a Stationmaster, which means that these people are part of some bizarre train cult and crazier than he is. He wonders idly if he's about to die and how long he's been out cold and whether he's drooling on the sofa. He has a good view of Bartender's knees, hands, and unfortunately, crotch, because the guy has pulled up a chair beside the sofa and is holding out a mug of coffee at him.
God knows what's in it.
"Just coffee, I promise," says Bartender, like he's read Wilson's mind. "Can you sit up?"
He can, but the room lurches like the deck of a ship in high seas, and his head hurts like he fell and knocked it hard against the mast. He takes the coffee, tries a sip, and it seems okay. He's too weak to run, too weak to fight, and if they were going to kill him, wouldn't he already be dead?
"I don't have much money left," he says. A glance around the cabin tells him that Johnny Cash is gone; he's not going to ask where. "There was some ... legal action. A malpractice suit. Whatever you think you're going to get -- "
"Stop," the guy tells him. "That's not what this is. This is ... you might call it an intervention."
Wilson grasps at the straw being offered.
"An intervention? Oh my God. Did ... did Jon put you up to this? I'll kill him."
Bartender looks baffled, and ...
"It's not Jon, is it? It's not my brother."
"I don't know any Jons," Bartender confesses. "I'm just trying to tell you what the hell is going on here."
Moving the Station closer is the easy part, quicker by far than trying to drag an unwilling or unconscious Wilson across the island. Lowery could do this with his eyes closed, and has had to in a few hair-on-fire emergencies he doesn't want to relive right now. Set the loop-stake in the ground behind the cabin for the new fixed point, drive Murph's truck the few blocks to the shed, and synch the frequency from inside that.
All these years and the ride still makes him a little green. He's never gotten used to the lurching sensation, the illusory feeling of falling as reality self-adjusts to this new set of data.
Sometimes, it does go sideways. That's why you never move an empty Station -- so if there's a misdirection, there's someone to bring it back. Blessedly, that's the one thing that hasn't gone wrong tonight, and he steps out exactly where he ought to be, in the pre-dawn twilight behind Cabin Number Five.
He clomps through the back door just in time for the closing credits of Murph's This Is What's Happening to You speech.
Wilson doesn't look impressed or enlightened. He looks sick, pale, weak, and nervous, and that's good, because the worse shape he's in upon arrival, the better chance he'll have. He's rallying, swaying and stumbling his way off the sofa.
"I thought I was crazy. You guys, you guys are -- get away from me or I'm calling the cops."
It's no less than Lowery expected, and he's prepared. Here you go, Zaley. The device he holds up in Wilson's face is small, but the screen image is clear -- two men, shoulder to shoulder, one older, one younger, one smiling, one laughing.
One of whom looks just like Wilson himself, and the other ...
Wilson blinks, focuses. A goofy grin blooms, and he reaches clumsily for the device.
"That's ... that's ... " Wilson says, and since he doesn't seem to be able to get past that's, Lowery makes an Executive Decision.
"Yes," he snaps. "It is." And he slaps a nerve patch on Wilson's outstretched arm.
"Where you'll never know what hit you," observes Murph, and together they ease James Wilson back onto the sofa, inert.
"We have to go now," says Lowery. "Zaley set up a wisp station for us but it won't last. You get his shoulders, I'll get his feet."
Murph does it, grinning like the son of a bitch he is. If Lowery didn't know better, he'd think all three of them were trapped in some Bergman screwball comedy, circa 1957.
"Oh, what the hell."
It's hardly the first time she's seen this happen: a couple of shadowy figures springing out of a beat-up cab, dragging their erstwhile friend/boy toy/party hardy companion out of the back seat, dropping said body just far enough outside the sliding doors to make them slide open, and running away hooting and laughing like the assholes they are. She's just in time to catch a last fading whoop, a triumphant shout that sounds very much like "HOLY SHIT WE DID IT!"
"Idiots," Allison mutters.
The victims usually don't look like this, though. They're usually younger, there's usually blood and/or vomit, and they usually don't arrive with CALL DOCTOR HOUSE scrawled in felt-tip pen across the front of their shirt.
Allison's already knelt down to check him over: pulse okay, respiration a little shallow; unconscious but no immediate signs of head trauma. Clean fingernails, soft hands, and some weird adhesive patch on his right wrist. A Tripjack patch for motion sickness? Scopolamine? Has this guy been on a cruise? She tugs at it and the John Dun groans in his sleep, so she leaves it for now.
"Call Doctor House, huh?" says Kutner, who has ambled up beside her. "At two in the morning. Who's the sleeping beauty?"
"A mystery for now. Bastards dumped him with no i.d., no med history." She sits back on her heels, sighs and stands all the way up. "Doctor House, right. You want to wake that dragon? Because you know how much this is going to -- "
"Piss him off," Kutner supplies, and his whole face has lit up. He's right, of course, and there won't be a damn thing House can do about it. He's not in charge of Urgency; he's actually not in charge of anything right now, thanks to that stunt with the chickens in the main lobby. Allison smiles back and reaches for her com.
"No!" Kutner says. "Wait."
"There's a problem?"
"No. But I'll pay you twenty talers to let me do it."
Allison's smile becomes a grin. "You're on."
~ fin
Title: Prism (Part Two)
Authors: blackmare and nightdog_barks
Characters: Wilson, original characters
Rating: A soft R for some rough language
Warnings: No
Spoilers: None
Summary: This should be a nice, restful break for Wilson. Shouldn't it? 3,227 words.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never will.
Author Notes: This is a continuation of Prism (Part One), which was a continuation of
menolly_au's amazing Reflection, which was a continuation of Looking Glass. Cut-text is from "By the Beautiful Sea," from the 1914 musical For Me and My Gal.
Intrepid Reader: pwcorgigirl, although the story has undergone some edits after her reading. So any errors are on us, not her. *g*
Prism (Part Two)
If the goal was to stay sane, Wilson thinks, he screwed up.
The drive is twelve relentless hours of road noise and Dylan Crandall, which was absolutely not the wisest choice. He should've brought his Learn Spanish series, or some old jazz, or something that might get his mind off whatever the hell has been happening to him.
Crandall, though he's better than Wilson had expected, isn't helping. A drink would, but he's stopped that, hasn't he? Can he, really? It's only been a couple weeks, and the program his brother hooked him up with can't take him for another two, and meanwhile he's seeing ghosts on TV.
The rate he's going, by next week he'll be sure Dylan Crandall is sending him secret coded messages on the radio. Because it's getting worse the closer he gets to the ocean, and he's turned off the music but not the other stuff, all these fragments that are like someone else's thoughts.
He shouldn't have done this; he should have checked into the Mercy Institute instead of the goddamn Pink Shell. Because he just passed a run-down little diner and for a moment he remembered eating in a place like that, and that House was there.
He'd lie to you, he'd steal from you, Crandall had said. Then somehow you'd forgive him and when you really needed him, he'd be there.
Right about that, Wilson's memory adds. He stole all your fries that day.
He looks again for a road sign. The sooner he gets off the highway, the better for everyone. He must be getting close to some kind of civilization; he's starting to see gas stations and strip malls, homes for dry cleaners, second-hand thrift shops, bakeries and barbers. A liquor store looms on his right. The urge to turn the wheel is very strong.
The receptionist at the Pink Shell office asks him if he wants to pay in cash again, which strikes Wilson as weird -- but he promptly forgets that in light of what happens when he trundles his wheeled duffel on into his cabin.
For one thing, he remembers having ice cream and where he bought it. Two cones, and only one was for himself, and the kitchen in here smells better than it did last time, and didn't the sink drip?
He only lasts five minutes inside before the, okay, not voices in his head exactly, not that, but something damn close to it, drives him out onto the beach.
"I'm fucking losing it," he says to a seagull that's perched on the rim of a garbage can, tilting its head at him. "Unless I've already lost it, I mean. Seriously. I'm talking to a seagull."
The bird gronks at him and, having determined that he isn't a food source, flaps away. He slips his shoes off, hops awkwardly on one foot to pull off his socks, and digs his toes into the sand like he could literally ground himself again. It feels nice out here, with the sun going down and the breeze coming in off the water. Not many people around, either. That little thatch-roofed bar is almost empty.
He's exhausted, and thirsty, and he needs to sit down somewhere and stop moving and not "hear" another person's voice critiquing the decor. The ghost in his head is not fond of pink. It shouldn't matter if it's a bar he's doing the sitting in, right? Right, he answers himself, and does his best to ignore the faint hint of the ghost muttering You're an idiot.
And after everything that's happened, it doesn't seem odd to him that the bartender, instead of Hello, says, Oh, man, Lowery's going to kill you.
"What?"
The bartender looks at him, opens his mouth as if he's going to say something else, then shakes his head.
"You don't want to talk about it. I can respect that." He gives the dirty rag he's got in one hand a snap likes it's a linen tablecloth. "What can I get you?"
"I ... okay. I'm not ... um. Coke? With, um, a couple lemon slices."
"Better with a shot of rum," says the guy, and because he's already fucking nuts, Wilson says Sure when he means to say No, thanks.
It's the best thing he's tasted in what seems like years, and he'll have time to regret it next week when he checks into Mercy.
Two drinks and one spectacular sunset later, he's muzzily, numbly shocked at how fast his tolerance has dropped during his little dry spell. There is no way, no way he ought to be this drunk.
He must have said so out loud, because bar guy is trying to ease his mind.
"Don't worry about it, Doc," says the bartender. "I'll call you a ride."
Wait, how did you know I'm a doctor? Wilson wants to ask, but that question gets lost somewhere inside his buzzing skull, so he's going to try I don't need a ride, I'm staying just over there, but his arm won't lift to point in that direction. His mouth feels floppy like his jaw's come unhinged, and the last thing he thinks before his head hits the counter is Not only am I losing my mind but I'm about to be robbed and probably murd--
The bartender looks at the man slumped before him. "Sorry, Doc," he says. "But what the hell are you doing here?"
"Wrong one," Lowery growls, and of course Murph just stands there, bar rag in hand, gaping at him like a beached guppy.
"But he's ... just look at him!" Murph says, and really, Lowery doesn't have to look at him, this poor schmuck sprawled the full length of a padded booth, to know he's not who Murph thinks he is.
Some days this job just isn't worth it.
"Let's get it straight," Lowery says through gritted teeth. "This guy came into the Crow Bar -- "
"He did."
"You thought he was James Wilson -- "
"He is!"
"So you slipped him a space monkey and called me."
"Yes! Because of how much shit he caused the last time." Murph nods in satisfaction. "He wouldn't even talk about it. It's him."
Not for the first time, Lowery wishes he was part of the neutralization division. Murph Devereaux would be at the top of his list.
"It's not him," Lowery says. "His waveform's all wrong."
"His ... "
"His energy trace. His signature. His pattern." He looks at the unconscious guy, who's sleeping soundly. "This James Wilson belongs here, and I do not mean here, at this bar, because he's an alcoholic. That may be why he's running out of time."
Wiping off the bar counter is forgotten as Murph puts both hands down so he can lean on them.
"He's running out of ... you mean, he's like me? I mean, like I was? Because when you punted me over here, you said -- "
"I remember what I said," Lowery snaps. "It doesn't matter. Did you even think to check his driver's card before you drugged him?"
"I don't check I.D.," Murph says. "Not when they're as over eighteen as this guy is."
"Why," Lowery sighs, "am I surrounded by dimwits?" He sets up his portable console on the countertop, because Murph's turned around the closed sign on the door and there's nobody around to ask questions. Place the cell sample into the port, and wait, and wait, and wait a bit more, and maybe he'll figure out what attracted this Wilson to this place, and what to do about it.
Or maybe he won't find out a fucking thing. That's just one of the many hazards of the job.
"Murph," he says, "This will take a while. Pour me a goddamn drink. And use a clean glass this time, please."
He's lucky tonight, or unlucky as hell, depending on how he looks at it. Not that he wants to look at it at all.
House and Wilson, his Strays, his Dopp and his Walking Ghost, were co-predictive all along.
"Oh, fuck me," Lowery groans.
They're a damn linked template, which he should've seen since Day One if he hadn't been so distracted by House being such a consummate asshole.
That's why Wilson's here. That's why he's a problem.
"Murph!" Lowery yells. "Another drink here!"
"Zaley, so help me, if you don't -- "
"If I don't what, Lowery?" Her voice is soft and oh so amused, and if Lowery could reach through the loop he'd ... well, he's not sure what he would do. "He's your Stray. Think you could've kept better track?"
Lowery swallows. Hard.
"Look, Zaley," he says. "I know you're busy with the ghooms -- "
"I'm sure you mean the lampwights, Lowery."
"Lampwights. Whatever. Zaley. This is a linked template. You know how rare that is. I don't solve this, we don't solve this, he either dies here or he gets drawn into some wisp station by all the static in his head, falls through the hole and we have to clean up that mess."
"Or he could become a transcription error."
"Worst-case scenario, Zaley. Let's avoid those."
"So," Zaley purrs, and by all the bytes in Heaven, she's not done yet. "So," she says again. "And has anyone asked the Stray what he wants?"
"I could remind you about your little orphan rescue operation sixty cycles ago."
"The orphans were children, Lowery. Someone had to decide for them."
"And we have to decide now," Lowery snaps. "There's not even a concept of 'multiverse' here, so you tell me how to ask him and get any answer other than, 'you crazy bastard, get away from me.' Come on, Zal, I know about the bubble, the shunt into your zone. And I'm sorry. But you've seen these two for yourself. It's obvious."
"So it is one of your doctors."
"Zal. I'm sitting here with a broken co-predictive with an expiration date and I could use some help finding a fresh slot for the guy. That's all."
Out of the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of Murph, mouth agape as he listens in. Go away, Lowery waves. GO. AWAY.
"It's so cute," Zal says at last, "how you're pretending this is practical and has nothing to do with your soft old Lowery heart." She sounds amused, not angry, and Lowery breathes a sigh of relief. "Send me his specs and I'll see what I can do."
He's ahead of her there. He already sent them.
Lowery kills the loop and scrubs his face with both hands. Some day he'll walk away from this job.
Some day.
Wilson swims to consciousness slowly, testing the waters. For a dreamy moment, he thinks he's back in his apartment, in bed after the all-night Sondheim festival. He can even smell the popcorn he made for Colosseum, although he hadn't eaten it all and had had some left over for Follies ...
"Why are you in such a hurry?" someone asks, and Wilson recognizes that voice. It's the bartender, the guy who drugged him and murdered him and oh wait a minute.
"I told you," another voice says, a voice that Wilson doesn't know. "I told you, this isn't an easy job, and in this world he's scheduled." The voice pauses, like maybe its owner is taking a drink. "It took us all damn night just to find a similar universe that had, first of all, only produced a singlet -- a House but never a Wilson; and second, had failed to correct the error by killing off House. We had to find a hole in the weave, so this is a knit job, and if you think it's easy, I invite you to try."
"Is that what I was?" the bartender says. "An insert?"
"You know this is not about you, right?"
Carefully, slowly, Wilson pries his eyelids open. Pink. Lots of horrible pink. He's back in his cabin, with the bartender and ... he moves his gaze cautiously to the left ... a heavyset man, a dark fedora hiding his face, dressed in black.
I've been kidnapped by Johnny Cash.
The bartender sighs. "Fine," he says. "Never mind." His hand moves, and he's eating. He's eating popcorn from the courtesy cabinet in Wilson's cabin.
"As soon as Zal -- Mrs. Bissell gets back to me with the optimum coordinates, this will be over," says Johnny Cash. He sounds a little defensive. "At least for us. For him, I'm not making any promises."
"I'm sure he'd be comforted to hear that," the bartender says, and Wilson quickly shuts his eyes. He's got to think, and think fast, before these guys crate him up and send him to Ohio with the orange juice truck and oh dammit, he's dreaming again.
"The thing you gotta understand," says the Bartender, whose name Wilson has never quite caught, and so his name is Bartender, now and forever more, "is, there's more worlds than just this one, and more versions of you than just you. The way the Stationmaster explained it, you're a broken prediction, looking for your other half. Do you get it?"
Sure, Wilson gets it. There's a Stationmaster, which means that these people are part of some bizarre train cult and crazier than he is. He wonders idly if he's about to die and how long he's been out cold and whether he's drooling on the sofa. He has a good view of Bartender's knees, hands, and unfortunately, crotch, because the guy has pulled up a chair beside the sofa and is holding out a mug of coffee at him.
God knows what's in it.
"Just coffee, I promise," says Bartender, like he's read Wilson's mind. "Can you sit up?"
He can, but the room lurches like the deck of a ship in high seas, and his head hurts like he fell and knocked it hard against the mast. He takes the coffee, tries a sip, and it seems okay. He's too weak to run, too weak to fight, and if they were going to kill him, wouldn't he already be dead?
"I don't have much money left," he says. A glance around the cabin tells him that Johnny Cash is gone; he's not going to ask where. "There was some ... legal action. A malpractice suit. Whatever you think you're going to get -- "
"Stop," the guy tells him. "That's not what this is. This is ... you might call it an intervention."
Wilson grasps at the straw being offered.
"An intervention? Oh my God. Did ... did Jon put you up to this? I'll kill him."
Bartender looks baffled, and ...
"It's not Jon, is it? It's not my brother."
"I don't know any Jons," Bartender confesses. "I'm just trying to tell you what the hell is going on here."
Moving the Station closer is the easy part, quicker by far than trying to drag an unwilling or unconscious Wilson across the island. Lowery could do this with his eyes closed, and has had to in a few hair-on-fire emergencies he doesn't want to relive right now. Set the loop-stake in the ground behind the cabin for the new fixed point, drive Murph's truck the few blocks to the shed, and synch the frequency from inside that.
All these years and the ride still makes him a little green. He's never gotten used to the lurching sensation, the illusory feeling of falling as reality self-adjusts to this new set of data.
Sometimes, it does go sideways. That's why you never move an empty Station -- so if there's a misdirection, there's someone to bring it back. Blessedly, that's the one thing that hasn't gone wrong tonight, and he steps out exactly where he ought to be, in the pre-dawn twilight behind Cabin Number Five.
He clomps through the back door just in time for the closing credits of Murph's This Is What's Happening to You speech.
Wilson doesn't look impressed or enlightened. He looks sick, pale, weak, and nervous, and that's good, because the worse shape he's in upon arrival, the better chance he'll have. He's rallying, swaying and stumbling his way off the sofa.
"I thought I was crazy. You guys, you guys are -- get away from me or I'm calling the cops."
It's no less than Lowery expected, and he's prepared. Here you go, Zaley. The device he holds up in Wilson's face is small, but the screen image is clear -- two men, shoulder to shoulder, one older, one younger, one smiling, one laughing.
One of whom looks just like Wilson himself, and the other ...
Wilson blinks, focuses. A goofy grin blooms, and he reaches clumsily for the device.
"That's ... that's ... " Wilson says, and since he doesn't seem to be able to get past that's, Lowery makes an Executive Decision.
"Yes," he snaps. "It is." And he slaps a nerve patch on Wilson's outstretched arm.
"Where you'll never know what hit you," observes Murph, and together they ease James Wilson back onto the sofa, inert.
"We have to go now," says Lowery. "Zaley set up a wisp station for us but it won't last. You get his shoulders, I'll get his feet."
Murph does it, grinning like the son of a bitch he is. If Lowery didn't know better, he'd think all three of them were trapped in some Bergman screwball comedy, circa 1957.
"Oh, what the hell."
It's hardly the first time she's seen this happen: a couple of shadowy figures springing out of a beat-up cab, dragging their erstwhile friend/boy toy/party hardy companion out of the back seat, dropping said body just far enough outside the sliding doors to make them slide open, and running away hooting and laughing like the assholes they are. She's just in time to catch a last fading whoop, a triumphant shout that sounds very much like "HOLY SHIT WE DID IT!"
"Idiots," Allison mutters.
The victims usually don't look like this, though. They're usually younger, there's usually blood and/or vomit, and they usually don't arrive with CALL DOCTOR HOUSE scrawled in felt-tip pen across the front of their shirt.
Allison's already knelt down to check him over: pulse okay, respiration a little shallow; unconscious but no immediate signs of head trauma. Clean fingernails, soft hands, and some weird adhesive patch on his right wrist. A Tripjack patch for motion sickness? Scopolamine? Has this guy been on a cruise? She tugs at it and the John Dun groans in his sleep, so she leaves it for now.
"Call Doctor House, huh?" says Kutner, who has ambled up beside her. "At two in the morning. Who's the sleeping beauty?"
"A mystery for now. Bastards dumped him with no i.d., no med history." She sits back on her heels, sighs and stands all the way up. "Doctor House, right. You want to wake that dragon? Because you know how much this is going to -- "
"Piss him off," Kutner supplies, and his whole face has lit up. He's right, of course, and there won't be a damn thing House can do about it. He's not in charge of Urgency; he's actually not in charge of anything right now, thanks to that stunt with the chickens in the main lobby. Allison smiles back and reaches for her com.
"No!" Kutner says. "Wait."
"There's a problem?"
"No. But I'll pay you twenty talers to let me do it."
Allison's smile becomes a grin. "You're on."
~ fin