On some random street corner, Michael
Lavere, the Marquis of Brockton Bay swore.
Ihina Quinn jogged and stumbled
through empty streets.
He pulled out a phone, dialed a number.
She bent over, hands on legs, gasping to catch her breath.
This was the fifth time she had burned
down every bridge she'd ever known.
There's a buzz and a click, someone picks up.
Symbols and questions swirl around her.
Somewhere in the city there was a woman who could answer them.
"Coil? Its about time we had a conversation."
Ihina Quinn pulls herself up. Starts jogging again.
She doesn't know where she is going,
so she picks at random, follows instinct.
"I'm going to flip five coins, and you are going
to guess all of them correctly, or else I hang up."
It's a matter of probability.
Two drunkards moving through a 2d lattice
will almost surely meet. Eventually.
It isn't until three dimensions where you can get truly lost.
"Good.
Heads heads tails tails heads.
Perfect. Correct. Thank you."
Of course, eventually is the catch.
those results only apply for infinite time.
For non-repelling particles.
Are our particles non-repelling?
"I just wanted to call up
to tell you ...
I lied."
She reaches an entire block of the city collapsed in on itself
A lake, freshly formed in the resulting hollow.
Sterile water. Water from another world.
She picks a new direction.
Right, straight, straight again. Left Right.
Crumpled traffic lights lay across the road.
"I lied about helping you.
About you being
useful to me."
Passers by look at her, drew closer.
Predators drawn in.
Running makes her look like prey.
"I have no intention of helping you.
My daughter will not heal you.
Instead, you are going to die."
By random chance, she rounds a corner,
runs into six men on quad bikes. Military issue.
They call to her by name. Not "Ihina Quinn",
but instead the name on her passport.
The one with her Husband's surname.
"You'll have about 12 hours of fighting,
still taking actions... and then...
you'll be too sick to move"
She backtracks. Thoughts sharp and clipped.
Looking for a way to escape. Salad Bowl. Crowsnest. Crimson.
Instead of running back up the the street,
she steps through a broken shop window.
A donut shop. Round shapes and cheery colours.
"You are going to die of organ failure, Coil.
A build up of toxic chemicals burning
at your veins. Bleeding you out from the inside.
Shitting yourself as you die."
She exits through the back,through the loading area,
the kitchens. Out into an alleyway.
By the time she arrives, there are already men at one end of the alley.
"At some point a nurse will come by to
anesthetize you, to help you with your pain."
The men are pointing, Yelling. Following orders.
They have bikes, she is already tired.
She wasn't going to outrun them.
"I just wanted you to know...
when that kind caring nurse comes to you
you won't be waking up.
That's the end of the road."
In the wall opposite Ihina there is a hole.
No damage to the brickwork, just a perfect rectangle
with a long grey corridor inside. Over saturated in neon light.
The air around her was sucked through into the hole.
Atmospheric pressure gradient. Wrong altitude. Distant location.
"You lose Coil.
I hope you burn in hell.
Goodbye."
Ihina Quinn steps through into the corridor.
Behind her the rectangle folds away as if it had never existed.
