01 - Mirrorfall

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  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    36 – Breakfast, Blue & Biscuits

    The cafe was busy, but not too busy – full of morning people, but also a few people who looked at least marginally unhappy to be awake so early. Fortunately, they’d been able to find a booth towards the back with no one in the next space – meaning any Agency conversation should be relatively safe. Unless someone decides to try and kill us again. That’s statistically unlikely. Stef stared at some of the unhappy people, and wondered if she belonged in that category or not. Being awake this early was- She sipped from the orange juice that she’d ordered. There was the requisite coffee cup there as well, but…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    35 – Simple Stories

    Stef stared at her reflection in the wardrobe mirror. At the weird, dual reflection caused by the sliding doors overlapping each other by a few inches. It was probably a metaphor for something, but she’d always just enjoyed trying to be quick enough to outpace her own reflection. A stupid game she’d used to play when doing ballet practice, chasing and dancing with her mirrored doppelganger, all while keeping her technique tight enough as not incur her instructor’s wrath. She’d closed the door this time – not that Ryan was the kind to wander in like Dorian had done, but having four walls to herself for a couple of minutes…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    34 – The Starlight Before Dawn

    There were glow-in-the-dark stars all over the inside wall of her wardrobe. Most of them were at the level under the bottoms of the t-shirts she could bother to hang up. All of them were quiet now, not having absorbed enough sun to activate them like tiny Kryptonian babies. Stupid, useless, and broken, just like her. She pulled a large cushion over her head. It was big and heavy, one for sitting on, but the crushing weight was comforting, helped bring her back down to earth, helped keep her in her own body. It had been stupid to try. It was always stupid to try. Do anything different, and the…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    33 – Nothingness

    Someone was holding her hand. Stef stirred and tried to squeeze the hand back, but her fingers closed on empty air. Dream. She must have been dreaming about the accident again. She shifted and tried to roll over, but her bed felt strange. And something was holding her arm back and- Tangled in the sheets. She was- She shifted back to the comfortable position, but something still tugged at her arm, something- ‘What’s-’ She braced herself, and brought her hand up to smack herself in the face – it hurt, but it got her brain engaged. She opened her eyes – panic rose, but petered out like an impotent storm,…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    32 – Subscript

    There was a knock. Ryan opened his eyes, saw nothing but blue, and closed them again. There was peace. Weightlessness. Calm. Safety. Another knock. Thoughts started to become more clear. He breathed in and felt liquid blue rush across his tongue. He was in a tank – that meant he’d been injured. That meant- The feeling of serenity dropped away as recent memories crashed into his consciousness. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling for where one of the exit wounds had been, and felt nothing but smooth skin. He was safe. He was- He wasn’t the only one who’d been injured. He focussed on his HUD, brought up…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    31 – Recovery.exe

    Ryan’s body hit the blue like a corpse. Despite himself, despite the numerous windows – both in his HUD and on the screens around him – telling him that the Director was still alive, Jones held his breath. The recovery tank was large – seven feet on each side and seven feet tall. Large enough for every standard agent to lay horizontal and spread their arms, taking in the peace and fulfilment that always came when fully submerged in blue. Blood spiralled away from Ryan’s body, riding the eddies towards the surface, before disappearing as the cleaning systems filtered it out. Unique amongst the agents in Queen Street, he was…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    30 – Hierarchy

    The combat knife was the only thing in the world. Magnolia stared, her body relaxed – something that came from long years of training. If she was tense, her reactions would be off. There was danger, even in training sessions, but it to be a factor that she accepted so that she could perform at her best. Taylor wasn’t the kind of soldier who did fancy things with his knives. No unnecessary spinning. Changes to the grip were done swiftly but in a perfunctory manner. The blade rested in his hand, and if she didn’t move at the right way at the right moment, in three seconds, it would sink…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    29 – The First Note, The Last Thought

    ‘And she was the turtle all along!’ Ryan stared at his director. ‘Sir?’ There was a look on Director Reynolds’ face. It matched specific facial profiles that he saw on Reynolds’ face throughout the day. A microsecond later, he deduced that Reynolds was expectant. He expected something of Ryan, though he was unsure what. He kept his eyes on Reynolds and looped the audio from the last section of their conversation. It seemed unrelated to the as-yet-unstated reasons for them standing on the Agency roof. Something was wrong. It was inconsistent behaviour. A rooftop was sometimes a location to meet with fae or to get a view of the area…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    28 – The Pain Scale

    Stef was a cynic, and she knew that. Despite that, she knew she found far more moments of beauty in the world than a lot of people. It wasn’t hard if your heart wasn’t hardened in every way. Despite the firewalls around the figurative version of her blood pump, several areas been granted exceptions. It was easy to see greatness in a perfect line of code or well-done cable management. A perfect moment could exist when a video game glitched in a perfect, absurd way. And the transit of the marshmallow down the river of hot fudge was a sight to behold. It had begun as two marshmallows – one…

  • 01 - Mirrorfall

    27 – What Came From The Moon

    The alarm went off at seven. The alarm went off at seven-fifteen. The alarm went off at seven-thirty. ‘Fuckoff,’ Stef mumbled as the alarm began again. ‘Fuck offffffff.’ Get up. With an effort, she dragged herself to the bathroom, phone in hand, her fingers operating on automatic to connect to the speaker and start a playlist. She placed the phone on the sink, stripped her clothes off and stepped into the shower. The water was warm and perfect immediately, soothing, despite her anxiety. With a sigh, she plonked her head against the tile and let the water run over her back like she was some sort of gangly, oversized duck.…