MV3: Discomfort

London Fish turned out to be a good choice for a meeting: a small, quirky seafood place with plenty of windows and a good view of its surroundings, it had been converted from an older house and still looked to have living quarters on the second floor. On a Tuesday night, it was only moderately full, and Amy's family was easy to spot: they'd taken a table towards the back, sitting together and looking over the menus. 

Andy turned towards them, noting that Chante, Sal, and Tab had been seated at a table nearby -- not that there was anything in this restaurant that wasn't nearby. Brickhouse She was watching from a van parked outside, and Andy hoped she was comfortable. 

He approached reluctantly, paused to look at the three humans, and then drew back a chair and settled into it.

Donald Black looked much as always had: dark-haired, pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and well-dressed. He was some sort of supervisor at Lockheed Martin, a former engineer, and he and Andy had never really connected -- though Andy had liked him well enough. Connie Black was black-haired, dark-skinned, and brown-eyed; Amy had taken after her. She used to smile when Andy came around; now she just sighed. Thomas was likely to be the problem here -- he was dark-haired like his father, olive-skinned and blue-eyed, and he glared at Andy like he wanted to commit murder then and there.

Then he really focused, and did a huge double-take.

"Yeah," said Andy. "This is me, now. I didn't live through them either. I just happen to be dead and walking around, instead of cleanly dead."

Thomas had been two years ahead of him in school; he'd already graduated when Andy and Amy first started dating. "You're really him?"

Andy sighed. "When I first started dating her, you warned me I'd better not hurt her. I promised you that if I did, it would only be by accident." He looked at Connie. "You always made the very best cookies, and looked like you just wanted Amy to be happy." 

Donald grunted, and Andy shifted to face him. "I never quite knew how to try to talk to you. I tried to help out with the grilling on the Fourth, but you shooed me away."

Donald grunted again, but nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe that was my fault. My baby girl, you know?"

Andy shook his head. "I felt that way about her, too." There. He didn't know how to be any more clear than that. "And then we were studying in the living room, and these things busted in the door and killed us, and now I'm one of them."

"You better have tried to protect her," Thomas half-growled. 

"How?" asked Andy, then swallowed and held up a hand. "No, I'm sorry. I tried, but they were well above my weight class. Judith only survived because they were busy with us, and she hid. If I'd known they were coming and had a ton of magic bullets, I might have been able to do something. I wish..." He swallowed. "I wish I could have gotten her out." 

"Thomas," said Connie. "He's right." She looked at me, then sighed. "I did some research. You're stronger now, aren't you?"

I nodded, reluctantly.

"A lot stronger. And the ones involved in the attack would have been stronger than that."

I nodded again. "Yeah."

Thomas sat still for a very, very long time. Finally he looked up and asked, "What do you think, Dad?"

Donald shook his head, then met my eyes. "I wish she hadn't gone over to your house," he said. "But my beautiful wife--" He reached over, and squeezed her hand. "--is right. It's like wishing she hadn't gotten hit by that drunk driver."

I sat back, and then realized that a waitress was standing beside us. "Um," she said, and cleared her throat. "Are you ready to order?" 

MV3: Reunions

Charleston by night was still beautiful, the flowers just starting to bloom and the waters, while cold, still welcoming. Andy didn't venture out to fully explore it; Chante wanted him under guard in his room, and he couldn't argue. The handsome man in the fitted suit had turned out to be a demon, Sal A. Czar, and the massive woman said she was one of the nephilim -- Brickhouse She. Tab turned out to be a nature spirit, her coat embroidered with colorful feathers, quiet and watchful. 

The Authority had confirmed that Amy's family was in town. The meeting was scheduled for the Chubby Fish, shortly after dark. 

"I don't like this," Chante said, looking out the window of the hotel. She'd sent Tab out to look the place over while it was still daylight, but she still looked nervous.

Andy stirred from where he was reading on the bed, and said: "I only agreed in order to get them off my family's back. I honestly don't like it either, but I don't want to call it off."

"We'll see it through," she assured him. "I just hope this Titus Anthropicus doesn't manage to show up."

Andy considered the gun under his pillow. "Kill him if he does," he said quietly. "I don't care if he takes me down with him, I want him dead."

Chante turned to look at him. "Yeah, well, our remit is to keep you alive, so I do care. Don't put yourself in the line of fire."

Andy nodded. "All right," he said, and went back to his book. 

MV2: Private Plane

"Andy?" asked the ghost, as he stepped out of the car. She was unfamiliar, and accompanied by a handsome man in a fitted suit, the holster under his arm visible but not glaringly obvious.

Andy nodded, and Mr. Siegel opened the driver's door and stepped out. "This is him."

"Good," the ghost nodded. "Tab's checking over the crew, so once she's done we can be on our way."

A massive figure strolled over from the hangar doors, wearing what must have been a custom suit. She was easily eight feet tall, and heavily enough built to seem even larger. She'd disdained a suit jacket in favor of a trench coat, but still wore a button-down shirt with her slacks. 

"Chante," said the ghost, holding out a hand. 

Andy shook it, ignoring the sudden chill, and nodded. "Andrew McFall -- Andy." He raised his voice slightly, so the other two could hear. "Mr Siegel... thank you." 

The wolf nodded. "I'll let Mr. Carillo know you made it this far safely."

Andy turned back to the ghost. "You're my... security detail?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I don't know who you are, kid, but the Authority sure seems to have taken an interest."

"Genuinely no idea why," Andy told her. "I'm a newly-turned wight, nobody important when I was still alive, and nobody important among us others either."

Chante studied him for a long moment, then shrugged. "No idea," she admitted. "But we have our orders, so off we go."

The massive woman huffed a laugh. "Just like always."

The handsome man in the custom suit smiled. "Once more unto the breach, whatever that turns out to be this time."

Andy nodded. "Glad to have you along." He followed them onto the plane as Mr. Siegel turned the sedan around and headed back for the academy. 

Valthor: A Pirate With A Vision

Valthor hadn't honestly expected to like the admiral, but then he'd been surprised before and at least this one was pleasant. Borith Cove was practically designed to be a pirate city, with a narrow, defensible channel leading into a sheltered cove and plenty of ships and crews to defend it. It had plenty of docks, plus its own shipyards -- and, it turned out, a whole set of farm plots run by widows whose husbands had been lost at sea. It wasn't quite enough to make island self-sufficient, but it looked to be well on its way. 

They'd found the admiral in the inn on one of the pair of islands at the center of the cove, and almost accidentally had confirmed that Captain Razin of the Gloamshine -- the boat they were currently traveling on -- counted himself among the pirates. As far as Valthor was concerned, that was fine; as freebooters went, they didn't seem to be especially evil or destructive. They'd certainly worked hard enough in trying to get the elves and orcs to their negotiations.

So now the four of them -- he, Rrhorask, and Tizrin of the Adventurer's Guild, along with a priest named Sy -- were exploring the town at the admiral's instruction. In person, she had turned out to be a drow elf -- which might have been awkward at sea, but worked well enough since her particular admiralty was over the town of Borith itself. Or, possibly, the whole island, but Valthor didn't think so.

So far, they'd met the captain of the Widows' Farms -- a rather friendly halfling -- and the captain of NewTown, which ironically was no longer especially new. She was a Tortle, already older than anything Valthor expected to live to see, and apparently the center of a network of information-gathering. Now they were on their way to where the admiral was having the old fort atop the hill rebuilt. He was looking forward to seeing it.

 

MV2: Meet With The Mortals

"They're insistent," Mr. Carillo told him, and Andy chuckled, then managed not to sigh. "They want to meet with you in person. Make sure you're not some kind of AI hoax."

"Where?"

"My supervisor is suggesting that we go long and try Charleston. Keep them, and you, well away from here. Plus, if your maker is still looking for you, he's unlikely to look east."

Andy considered that. "Not the worst idea I've ever heard. Any chance we can get the original team to oversee the meet -- Steve, Veronica, and Rodney?"

Mr. Carillo shook his head. "They're busy with something else. There's another crew available, though. Well-rated, reliable."

"Fine." Oh, this is such a bad idea and I so very much do not want to do this. "Let's get it over with."

Mr. Carillo studied him for a long moment. "All right. I'll call it in and get it set up. Anybody you want to take with you?"

This time, Andy sighed loudly. "No. Nobody here I'd want to put at risk."

He sat back and closed his eyes as Mr. Carillo solidified and picked up the phone on his desk. In half an hour it was settled: a meeting, two weeks from now, in London Fish in Charleston, South Carolina. Andy would be taking a private plane, so he wouldn't have to go through airport security or present any sort of identification; the security team would meet him when he boarded. And meanwhile Amy's family would get a free trip to another city, which... he hoped they weren't too far gone to appreciate it. He'd never been to Charleston himself, but it sounded lovely.

MV2: Progress

The early-evening Spades game expanded to include the wolves Jürgen and Sam W, the ghost in the trench coat and fedora who called himself Ace -- "from A.C., as in Air Conditioning" -- and a vampire who was calling herself 2 Claudia as if she were a book in the bible. When Y.T. joined as well, Andy found that he could rotate himself out, or let one of the others do it instead if they didn't feel like playing.

Online classes remained one of the more pleasurable parts of his nights; he hadn't been lying about enjoying school.  He'd raced through the early bits, and caught up to his current studies, then kept going. Mr. Carillo was pleased with his progress; so was Andy. He'd even added a couple of extra courses on the side. 

Self-Defense For Monsters was interesting. The shared curriculum was pretty standard: unarmed combat, a mix of striking and grappling; melee with a variety of weapons, starting with knives, bats, and staves; and finally guns. Trainer Jim would then split them off into more specific things: fangs, for those who might make bite attacks; claws, for those who had them; and making use of incorporeality for Dana Z, the ghost in the class. Maria OG and Tom started showing up as well, and it turned out that Maria could call out very effective claws, while the black-eyed child Tom... 

Tom could reshape flesh, take control of minds, and do other things as well. Physically, he was as frail as the child he resembled, but Andy noted that Trainer Jim was careful not to put him in direct combat. "He says I should keep my distance," Tom explained, as they were heading back to the dormitory near dawn. "I can shoot people, or use powers, but I shouldn't try to hit people or wrestle or anything like that."

"Makes sense," Andy had admitted. "That's some powerful stuff."

Tom had looked proud, and Maria OG had looked grateful.

It turned out the Academy kept a herd of cattle behind the main complex, mostly cows but some sheep as well. It was part of how they funded the place, but it also allowed a lot of the monsters to feed without the need to rotate regular humans in and out the way the Authority had done for him at the hospital. For Andy, that was a profound relief; he could age a cow just a bit, not worry about overdoing it with a human or another monster, and still be reasonably well-fed. 

The wolves, the two nature spirits, and the black-eyed child could all eat regular food and be satisfied with that. The vampires could drain blood from the cattle, and Agrat B could drain their life force without killing them -- much the same as he and Y.T. could.  Maria OG was the odd one out there: as a ghoul, she needed dead flesh, preferably human, to sustain her. The small cemetery at the edge of the property wouldn't have supported her for more than a week -- it was mainly used for wights and similar to speak to the dead, or raise them temporarily. 

Andy had no idea what sort of arrangement the Authority had come up with, but while Maria OG was willing to tell him about her needs, she always ate in private and she always looked... sad, afterwards. Andy wished he had any idea how to comfort her about that, but he didn't. The best he could do was not judge her.

MV2: Amy's Family

"We have an... interesting issue," Mr. Carillo said quietly. They were sitting in his office, a small room in the central building of the compound.

Andy waited. 

"It's your girlfriend's family: they're asking to see you. They want to hear the story from you."

"No."

Mr. Carillo sighed. "We told them it wasn't safe, but they say they don't care. They're not dropping anything until you meet with them."

"I could call them, but meeting in person? They know I'm being hunted, right?"

"Our people did try to explain."

Andy sighed. "Would the Authority even be willing to set that up? I mean, we'd need a safe location, security, I don't even know what else. Some ethical way to keep me fed, I guess. That's money and resources."

"And still a risk," Mr. Carillo added softly. "It might be the only way to get them off your family's back, though."

"Could we set up a video call?"

Mr. Carillo cocked his head at that. "...I'll ask."

Andy nodded. He didn't want to see Amy's family -- didn't want to talk to them at all. Her death was a dull, persistent ache in his chest, and the thought of hashing it out with them just made the pain more acute. But if that was what it took, he'd do it.