DIES, DIED, WILL DIE.

Favorite Video Game Ladies of 2013 ✗ Rosalind Lutece (BioShock Infinite)

He's caught in the headlights. She's driving the car—breaks applied, yes, and as calm as can be. Completely composed.

"I want you to, though. I want you to try. I, like—"

That composure begins to slip. There's a tremor to her jaw.

Should one find one's self in the uncommon position of standing before a tear in space (and/or occasionally, time), it is advisable to first assess if the tear is not, in fact, a mirror. Statistically, the latter is far more probable (until it isn't). And aesthetically identical. Because, upon opening a tear in the fabric of reality for the first time, the most likely outcome is you: an alternate you—from a different world, from a different yet cosmically homogeneous location—opening a tear in the fabric of reality for the first time. You might wave to yourself. And because you are you, you wave in perfect synchrony. A mirror would be cheaper.

At this point, Spirit—standing between the Luteces haloed and framed within the humming, blue-ringed tear—(who does not recognize, nor remember being, the other Spirit) waves. Having regularly visited, and influenced, Spirit's reality, they've grown desensitized to its composition and complexion. Her world feels more akin to a room temperature glass of water. Refreshing and tolerable. Not at all rousing.

They have moved on to worlds containing alternate Spirits. This time, for the first time, Spirit Prime, at her request, is brought along. Accommodations are made. The Luteces do not need tears to travel. Spirit does.

Robert's jumpscare would perhaps cause a baby to shriek in delight. It is that whimsical and un-frightening. Spirit, meanwhile, looks genuinely alarmed. She shrinks back into the unforgiving plastic of the bus seat.

Rosalind pats at her yawning mouth with a beautician's grace. «This one is a bit jumpy.» The polar air of this reality has not adequately awakened Rosalind; it has elicited a puny spritz of adrenaline. One reality shift usually suffices. She will need to reapply. Step into another reality that might squeeze her adrenal glands—those funny, little bags above the kidneys—like the bulb of a perfume bottle. «Perhaps we should go.» They have no ties here. Robert easily acquiesces. «Our fare share.» He flips a large Columbia coin off his thumb and it spins (so quick it looks like a translucent orb) high into the air—meters above his head (note: the metric system is not a universal measuring system, it is a cross dimensional one; this, and teabags, are a constant). «That currency is worthless here.» «The currency, not the coin.» Pure silver. The two disappear the moment it lands in Spirit's palm.

his pulse thrums at the base of his throat. stubborn as the rest of him. as uncompromising as a weed growing up through whichever crack in the sidewalk, returning year after goddamn year. or a mouse, learning how best to outsmart the cat. or two.

"you can try." he warns, in the end. there's a feral tension in the slink of his shoulders when he adjusts his weight, shuffling noiselessly against pavement made damp by—something. "though i wonder what you think the outcome oughta be."

ON ONE OF THE BUSES THAT TAKES SPIRIT BACK TO HARLEM FROM THE HARRIS HOME PROPER IN POUGHKEEPSIE, SPIRIT SITS IN THE BACK ROW WITH A RECENTLY-SPLIT LIP AND GENEROUS CARTONS OF LEFTOVERS.

This is when the Luteces appear to her. Maybe they really did just appear. Maybe they have been on the Hudson 802 for several stops before Spirit's arrival and she simply elected not to care because doing so would be too complicated.

Robert and Rosalind flicker in and out of Spirit's peripheral perception. With their presence, ghastly staticky shrieks and whispers accompany. Spirit can hear all of the places in time and space that the Luteces have visited or will visit; their forms, as she knows them, are not tethered to this rickety bus. With them comes what most similarly sounds like the raucous chatter and buzz of a busy cityscape in the middle of the day. It is excruciating.

She glares.

She does not speak. She knows how doing so will make her appear to the bus driver and other lone passenger because she is one hundred percent confident that they cannot see the Luteces. The well-dressed pair plagues her, specifically—she knows it. Her curse is familiar to her. Thanks a lot, Erik Eriksson!

Richard Ayoade moments ✨

a single-tone hum, "mhm," is all he deigns to give in terms of a response. they hear it, or they do not, rosalind already having attempted speech, robert interrupting. he looks underneath the cloth. as if cued, his stomach clenches, achy with hunger. he stacks a small tower of duchess potatoes between his thumb and index finger, his free hand tucking the napkin back around the edges.

An... unnatural pause.

his eyes flicker-narrow. the skin hardly jumps, but it is there. do they expect a moppet, or at least the putting on of a similar act? mutt begins to grow very tired with these two. likely he reached that threshold the second they starting boring holes into him instead of walking away. his fuse is very short when it comes to beating around the bush—and other likewise alliterative phrases that translate into bullshit, according to muttspeak.

without preamble, he moves, over-sudden yet deliberate all the same, to unwrap a napkin from where it binds dinnertable cutlery. woe to the poor soul who will get chewed out over that. they will swear every place looked proper before the party of nine entered following that night's performance of the follies.

"look. if you have something to tell me, or show me, or whatever the hell," he wraps the rest of the cookie in it, tucking it into his right hip pocket, "you can meet me down the street when my shift is over."

This gift of time travel has subtly thinned their patience. Or, rather, remained with them beyond its function: patience is a vestigial feature they've outgrown the need for, like wisdom teeth or the tiny fold of skin in the corner of one's eyes. They needn't wait for the boy's shift to end; then, they will not.

Cordial despite Mutt's coldness, in unison: «Ta-ta.» «Ta-ta.» Robert and Rosalind bow at the hips, then leave.

****

The two exist—suddenly—in the dark alley outside the gala the minute Mutt's shift ends.

Ten minutes pass.

Perfectly poised, hands clasped in front of them, as though having only waited a moment (indeed, to them, it has been nearly that) and not five point one six repeating hours.

We used the universe as a telegraph. Switching the field on or off became dots and dashes. Dreadfully slow. But now, you and I could whisper through the wall.