Janice XXI: Pathos
Facing up to his guilt is the one thing Roth won't do. She knows it. He knows it at the back of his head. He'll prevaricate, equivocate, and dissemble to justify what he can, but he won't look the cost in the face.
She's getting sick of this.
"All we're doing here is arguing up in comfort, letting our meal go cold," Janice says. She leans over and takes his hand. "Maybe this is the heart of the problem. You've raised yourself too much above the real city. From on high, everyone else looks like ants." She glances out the window, then stares back at him. "And no one cares about a few dead ants, right?"
Roth wrenches his hand free. "I won't let you drag me into some ambush."
"You can tell when people lie," Janice says, rolling her eyes. "That's on your page and all. Go on. Read me. I'm not going to try to capture you. I'm not working with people who are trying to capture you. Same for killing."
"Why? Why follow?"
She forces a grin, though she doesn't feel smiling. "Maybe it does you good to get some fresh air. We need to clear our heads. So are you coming?" she says.
He seems torn, but he clenches his teeth. "Very well," he says reluctantly, picking up his coat.
Janice scribbles a note saying "We'll be back" and leaves it on the table, then strides over to the sleek elevator entrance. She touches the doors, and they open.
The ride down is awkwardly silent. And then they're out the doors, into the snow-covered Manhattan streets. The traffic is gridlocked in the bad weather. Stationary taxis steam in the heat. Faces stare out from fogged up windows.
"Is this… this
showmanship really necessary?" he asks acidly, wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck and jamming his hands in his pockets.
"Sometimes you have to get close to see all the little things," she says, huffing on her hands before pulling on her gloves. She desperately hopes it works - and that by going outside, she hasn't broken the technosorcery of the lords of the Technocracy. The meeting is still ongoing, she thinks as hard as she can, just in case it helps.
Ami makes an ambivalent noise, but doesn't comment.
She takes him to a cafe she knows, tucked away off a street. They only get recycled light here, when the taller buildings are done with it. The walls are bare brick, covered with layer upon layer of posters which take the place of wallpaper, and the glass is filthy from the slush kicked up by cars outside. It's cheap and it's cheerful. Despite the minimalistic decor and the cramped space, it's a warm place away from the snow. And it's always busy, even at this time of night.
Plus, she's helped the owners out, and the nice men are always good to put out the extra table for her and her guest.
"Oooh, Jan. Is it a date?" Miguel asks.
"Please tell me you're finally dating," Cal adds, squeezing Miguel's hand. "I was worried about you because you'd vanished for a month,"
"Work's been kicking my butt," Janice says, aware that Roth can hear everything. She wouldn't normally burn a location like this, but… she has to. "And this's also a work thing. I thought I'd get him out of his stuffy tower and show him some real NY."
She gets them two green teas, and sits down. "It's gunpowder tea," she says. "No, it's not real-"
"I know what gunpowder tea is," Roth retorts, snipping it. "Hmm. Not poisoned or drugged, though the cup could be cleaner."
"Well, maybe." She takes a calming swig of the smoky-tasting tea, enjoying the warmth, then puts her cup down.
"What's your plan?" asks Ami.
Janice doesn't answer directly. "Let's play a game," she says, keeping her voice low as she pulls out her tarot deck and shuffles it. From here they can see the rest of the cafe, but they're a little bit out of the flow.
"Poker? Bacclariat?" Roth's voice drips with sarcasm.
"I call it 'Let's see who'd survive'," she says. "When your vampire thing goes off, who here will live and who will die."
"I've seen the projections."
"And those are just numbers." Janice looks around, well-practiced hands moving. She fans out the cards for him, lets him see that it's a standard deck. "These people will be here in Manhattan. You could have stopped the madmen dead in their tracks and taken the praise of other 'Crats. You didn't. So. Let's see the price these people will pay from your choice."
"I don't have to sit here and watch you pull off sleight of hand or Reality Deviant bullshittery," he says, voice low and cold. And yet there are cracks in it. Even through his ego, she can hear the doubt.
"Are you a coward? Is it just easy to dismiss everything when you're just looking at numbers on a spreadsheet, but you'll run from looking them in the face?" She pitches her voice softly, almost gently. It's crueller that way. All she's left him with his his pride - the pride that means he has to stay.
"Fine, if we must," he says, glaring back. "The barista."
Janice draws. Death. The reaper's skull is fanged, and he wades in a sea of blood. Behind him, red-eyed figures loom.
"Coincidence," he scoffs.
"If you want to say so," she says simply. She doesn't put the card back in the deck. "Who next?"
"The woman over in the corner, with the nose piercing."
Staring him in the face, she draws again. The Tower, reversed.
"Hah."
Janice shuffles again. "I never said everyone was going to die." She could explain that no, it's not so simple, that there's a deeper meaning - but that would break the flow of her argument. "Next person."
"Her date. The one in the flannel shirt."
Death. Fanged, bloody, and somehow twisted this time. The scythe is part of his arm, an abomination of moulded flesh.
Warren Roth blinks. He looks at the two Deaths on the table - but of course, he isn't fool enough to try to accuse her of rigging the deck. After all, she showed it to him.
"The old man in the corner."
Death. The reaper stares out from the third card. He has four arms, and each one ends in a scythed blade. There are bodies at his feet.
The cards come faster. Death. Death. Another Tower reversed, and he frowns at that. Fool. Five of Coins. Death. Death. A third Tower reversed. The pile of Deaths on the table spreads and spreads, a red stain spreading and spreading.
"That couple over there, with the baby," he says, his voice a croak.
Death, Death, the Fool.
"The child survives through blind luck and innocent fortune," Janice says. "His parents don't." Her words are a knife. "How many orphans is your rightness worth?"
He must have known it was coming, but it still produces an intake of breath. "That's not…"
"Oh, you're a Syndic." She jabs her fingers into his chest. "Turning everything into numbers is what your Convention does. A human life is a few million dollars, after all - or less than ten drams of tass. So let's hear the numbers from you. How many orphans is your rightness worth to you?"
He doesn't react at first. It almost raises her opinion of him. Almost. But not quite. "In the long run," he begins.
"In the long run," she mocks. "And will you visit every person who loses a loved one in the name of your 'long run'? Will you look at every 'cost' or will you dismiss it as just another number?"
Thunder cracks outside, lighting the street in stark white. The door opens as someone comes in, snow flurrying through the open door all around them, settling on their black clothing. It stains his silk shirt and makes her hair frizz.
Roth leans forwards, teeth clenched. "You think I'm not aware? I know how many people visit New York on a business day. I know how many people there are now. Projected infected are forty percent. But the long term…"
"Long term. Long term." She shoves him hard, and he barely steps back. "Segador killed
three people. How is that for numbers? In the 'long term', that's just one of your Syndicate rounding errors compared to the scale of what you're doing? Or is it just that your family was more important than anyone else's?"
He glares at her with hateful eyes.
"Maybe you'll make sure to get the rich people out. After all, your Syndicate values mean your family's life had to be worth
so many times more than everyone else here. But everyone else can just die if it serves your so-called long term." His self-pity has gnawed through the end of her patience. "How can you live with yourself?"
He flinches. "You're ranting," he says. His words are leaden.
"Oh, no, do go on. Tell me how my opinion doesn't matter because you're going to let a million people die so you have your atrocity," she snarls. Gesturing at the cafe around them, she takes in the slice of Manhattan life. "Tell me, when it's over, will you come back here and
gloat. Or maybe you'll suck in a breath and tell yourself it was a hard choice, but you did the right thing? Remember this day, Warren Roth, remember me and remember what I'm telling you. You didn't make the hard choice. You're not sacrificing
anything you care about. It's not your family. You won't be left, aching, because your son isn't there anymore. You won't be the one watching them gun down your vampire wife. You won't be poor. You won't be homeless. You'll lose
nothing. The people here?
Everything."
"You don't think I…" He's turning red, and clamps his chiseled jaw shut. There's a dawning look of… something on his face. "How did you get that Control code?" he asks, grating the words out. As if it hurts to say them.
"He's fighting it," Ami warns in her head. "That could be good."
"Good?"
"It's psychologically stressful. That he subconsciously thinks that this is the best way to escape your words…"
Janice turns her attention outwards again, back to the glaring man in the neat suit. "What Control co-"
"Don't play fucking stupid!" Roth is suddenly on his feet, without moving through the intervening space. The table goes flying. Deaths in red and black flutter down around them, like the snow outside. "You're not with Control!"
Ami squirms past her guard. "You wouldn't believe how long I worked for Control, you arrogant little puppy," she says - and she sounds old. "I'm not a stranger to what the Eye asks of you. It'll chew you up and spit you out."
Roth flinches. "That… that's the truth," he says - and that's horror in his voice. But he pushes on, one final surge, and he swallows. "But if you know something like that… you're a defector."
She's just human, one who's tired and who's been trapped in the Demise for too long. He's a man with the very best of training and all kinds of hidden advancements. She doesn't even try to fend him off as he lunges across the table, wrapping his hands around her throat.
But then again, this was a way she knew it might end. "Go ahead," she gasps. "Do it." She's tied their fates together, and this kind of callous murder will doom her. She wins. "You're… just… Segador..."
"Shut up!" he roars at her. His grip is like a vice. Other people are shouting in the cafe, but none of that matters to the two mages.
Black dots spin in front of her eyes. "Just one thing. What would… they say?"
His hands loosen, and she gratefully gasps for breath. He's not staring at her. He's staring a long way away from her. Through time, and through space. Maybe even literally. Like a hunted animal, his wide eyes dance over the horrified faces of the cafe, at the people who have their phones out, at the desperately shaking girl with the pierced nose who's got a mace spray out and is trying to advance on him.
She knows he's thinking about the scattered tarot cards, lying on the ground. Of the countless Death cards.
"You wouldn't be trying to choke me if you weren't already disobeying orders," she manages quickly. "So look around. Are your orders worth
all these deaths?" She wheezes. "Do you feel like a hero?"
Warren Roth lets out a noise like a wounded beast, and bolts for it. He bowls the people in his way over, overturning tables and drinks. Janice leans against the wall, gasping.
"What was that about?" someone asks her, but she can't even focus on that. They don't matter. She has to finish this. She has to close the circle. Her throat hurts and she's aching and exhausted and none of that matters because if this story finishes without everything being in place then someone else could grab the loose threads and she
knows in her gut that this would be a disaster.
So she shrugs off the people trying to help her, muttering nonsense-words that placate them, and heads out into the cold.
Out here, the snow is a dull grey. Overturned trash cans form icy hillocks. Black ice makes areas of the sidewalk lethal.
She finds him in an alley.
Thunder cracks overhead. The yellow sodium light in the street turns red into black. Roth is on his knees. He doesn't care that he's in a slushy puddle. Icy water soaks his fine suit. The walls are covered in twining ivy and graffitti. He lets out a hoarse bellow, something more like an injured animal than a man.
Janice stands by him. She thinks of the phone. Of the gun within. That would be an end to the story, for him to die in this alley. If she gave him the gun, he might even end it himself. Her fingers twitch.
But that's not her way. It's never been her way. No, that's a lie. It was Ami's way. Not hers. There's a difference.
"There's one thing you should know," she says softly, and this time gentleness isn't a cruelty. "We're not going to let this happen. We, the Traditions. We take care of our radicals, one way or another. Maybe you should look to do the same."
"You…" he begins.
"I told you all along, that the Traditions aren't behind this. Not as a whole. It's a few radicals and the madmen in the Disciples. And so we're going to stop them. Because this is monstrous. All those cards I drew. It was their destiny if this horror is allowed to happen.
"Because you can still change this. Even now, you can turn back. The blood on your hands can be washed off. But you have to want it. You have to stop it yourself. Because if you stand back and let it happen, it'll be on your head." She reaches into her pocket, and tosses a card to him. It's Death - but the normal card, not the empowered one she drew. "Death can also be the ending of a major phase in your life to bring about something far more valuable and important."
"I see," he says, looking up with reddened eyes. And he does see. Perhaps now, he truly sees.
"Don't waste it," she says, and turns to leave.
Janice pauses, looking back. Warren Roth kneels in the snow, sobbing freely. He cries like a child. His tears are not just for his parents and siblings, long dead. His tears are for the parents and siblings he has killed in pursuit of his vengeance.
She can read him like this. His unbreakable will has been broken, but it has been broken like a bone. It will heal - maybe not as strong as it once was, but he has not been shattered. Behind her is a man who will find another cause, older and wiser. Or at least she hopes. The future is veiled and she's never been a very good prophet.
But she thinks he's a lot like her. Having 'won', she can think this. He needs a cause. And she thinks he'll likely find one in redemption. He'll suffer, of course. But that's good.
There is strength in tribulation. But of course she'd say that. She is a Verbena, after all.
"Remember our deal," Ami hisses in her mind.
Well, that's it. She's won, or close enough. She's beat Batman by talking, leaving him crying in an alley which may be prone to crime. But where does Janice go now?
A New Doorway Opens
[ ] A deal is a deal. Get away from this place and start work on Ami's thing - and she'll need a place of power for certain things. (x0.9)
[ ] It's going to be hell in this snowstorm, but she needs time away from the world to settle her mind. Head up to Selene's place to meet up with Chris.
[ ] This is an awful idea. He'll have backup coming. But fuck it, in for a cent, in for a dollar. Roth is fragile now. Maybe he can be… flipped. (x0.3)
[ ] She's just exhausted. Head home. Sleep. Things can be dealt with in the morning. (x1.3)
[ ] Write-in
