Good Dog VOL 1. CHP 4. VERSE 7.

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter Four

Verse Seven: Good Dog

"So as far as you can tell, this is a frame up job?" Bridger asked carefully, chewing on the words with visible displeasure.

"You didn't hear it from me, don't you know." Dwight Cutter said from across the table of the Murdock Automat Breakfast Diner, "But whenever somebody rich is dirty, then somebody poor gets taken to the cleaners, am I right?"

Bridger shook head and then spooned some watery tomato soup into his mouth," So what do you think happened, based on what you know?"

"Well Harley is a stand up guy, you know? He's reliable and reasonable and you could count on him. That's the truth. Harley wouldn't hurt a kid, you know? There are those people who do the right thing no matter what it cost them, am I right?"

"I know the type." Bridger answered.

"Harley was that type. So these guys looking like you all suits and badges show up, and then start planting stuff in Harley's desk at, like, one in the morning. You know that's dirty, am I right? And there I was shredding documents. Harley is a good guy, you know? I'm just okay. Because, there I am. And I'm pretty sure the documents are dirty, you know? So they could totalling use me as a scapegoat, but there they are planting stuff in Harley's desk, and everyone knows Harley is a good guy. Wouldn't it make more sense to frame somebody like me, who is actually doing the dirty work. That makes more sense doesn't it? Am I right?"

"Did you know his friend? Marion Day?"

"Only a little. He was spacey, but I always got a good feeling from him, and you have to trust your gut, am I right? He meant well, he just didn't know when to keep his mouth shut, you know? Couldn't stop speaking truth to power, and I mean, how often does that end well?"

"To confirm, you don't believe either of them is capable of what they've been accused of doing? And you believe that, based on what you have seen relating to your job that they are being framed: the closing of Pandora and the subsequent federal investigation and Salt and Sons filing for bankruptcy?"

"You're sharp, Agent Bridger, don't miss a thing, that's exactly right. Too many weird things, it doesn't add up, don't you know. Mrs. Salt murdered, the kids go missing, the business goes sour and feds move in. And people are blaming two nobodies and not Mr. Darius Salt, how does that make sense?"

Special Agent Bridger looked down at the watery tomato soup in front of him. He wasn't hungry anymore. 

* * *

Amy stared at the shattered front door leading in to Mrs. Trilby's Apartment. The door had exploded inwards, and the wood was charred. Amy could smell oil and sulphur in the air. She didn't move. Grub tapped her shoulder gently with a finger.

"So kid, is it safe?"

"I knew Mrs. Trilby." Amy said, "I liked her. Everyone liked her. Does this have to be a lesson? Can't you just tell me if she's okay?"

"Because you are entering midway through the story, and the plot is already moving." Grub answered, "If I don't train you hard, you're going to wind up dying heroically to move the story, and I have bigger plans for you. Me and Mung Bean are more than wizards, we have higher allegiances."

"What does that mean?"

"Trues stories are old. And they are part of an established mythology. Characters appear in multiple stories. Sometimes they're the hero, sometimes they're the mentor or the villain or the victim or just there to move the plot along. We aren't the heroes of this story. But there is another story, a bigger story- and we're the heroes of that. Or we were. Now we're old and tired and sooner or later, we're going to lose. And if we lose, that's a big problem. So we need an apprentice, pass the mantle on so we can be mentors and give somebody else the story."

"And that's why you want me?" Amy asked, "You want to hand your story off to me?"

"Yup, and it will hopefully save your life for you, because otherwise you wouldn't last very long in this story. Named but without any power in the plot. Not a good place. At least with us you can be a wizard." Grub said, and Mung Bean huffed heavily in agreement at his feet.

"Is that what happened to Mrs. Trilby? Named in the story, but no power?"

"Not even close. Mrs. Trilby was a witch, and a damn good one. Still is too, provided she survived."

"So what got her killed then?" Amy asked.

"Are you sure she's dead?"

"Okay, fine. Why did they attack her then?"

"Witches are a powerful variable, a wild card in any deck. In any war amongst the civil folk, there are generally two sides. They do like dichotomies after all, black and white to keep the sides and the story simple. Simple is easier to control, and the civil folk are all about control. The civil folk take all stories and their many shades of grey and they force them to be black or white, bad or good, vile darkness or pure virtue. But all their virtues are about giving up. Obedient and submissive, faithful and trusting. No wonder they like dogs and sheep, not cats and goats."

"You have a dog." Amy felt incredibly small, and although the statement seemed silly, she had wanted to say something. Hearing her own voice helped remind herself that she still existed. 

"I'm a wizard," Grub answered, "And so is Mung Bean. We play with the enemy's weapons. But you missed the key point. It all comes back to control. The Civil folk want control, and anything they can't control is an enemy, but in the old times there were many peoples and many stories and some were good and some were bad and many many more were in the middle, and people weren't afraid of the Grey. And the good often worked with the bad, because the bad had a right to exist just like the good. As long as you didn't break the great laws, nobody would seek to destroy your story. But the civil folk don't like or understand that kind of nonsense. There's only one acceptable story to the civil folk, and unless your story fits within their narrow definition,then you must be destroyed utterly. 

"Oh."

"Also, she was talking to your guy's best friend and giving him back up when he was neck deep in bad stuff and they traced the line back to her like a spy movie. Now, reach out with your empathy and tell me if Mrs. Trilby and her cats survived."

"She had a lot of cats." Amy remembered.

"Witches tend to as a rule. Did you ever stop to wonder why cats are magic, but dogs generally aren't? Did you ever stop to wonder why witches live alone in the wild places and why dogs aren't normally magic, but wolves and coyotes generally are? Magic requires three things to work: intelligence, a sense of story, and wildness. Virtually every predator is intelligent enough to be magical. And predators that hunt are generally able to predict the future through stories, its how they catch their prey. But of the domestic predators, like dogs and humans, only tend cats retain their innate wildness. Domestication makes us slaves and drains magic from the world."

"I thought science did that?"

"Science is just magic deconstructed, like reading a pile of blueprints to understand the layout of a building. Science doesn't drain magic, science is the schematic for how magic works. No, it's domestication- that need to control beings that drains the magic from the world. The loss of your personal agency turns you from a magician into somebody else's pawn. Mrs. Trilby has been in the game along time. Most witches start when they're teenagers, so any witch that hits Mrs. Trilby's age has a lot of story time on her side."

"Where does that leave people and dogs?"

"Even a dog will bite its owner's hand if beaten enough times. Domestication isn't a death sentence, just a prison. Now you're stalling. So take a look, the plot is moving faster. They're trying to remove allies from the board to leave your guy and his crew without back up. That means there's a clock ticking and even we could be on their hit list. So reach out and show me the magic."

* * *  

Special Agent Bridger leaned over the greasy counter to glare at the rotting parsnip of a boy with the blond dreadlocks and the Bob Marley t-shirt.

"I think you better try again. 'I don't remember yesterday' is not an acceptable answer. I can shut down this little grow-op of yours in a millisecond." Bridger growled.

"No way man. I am, like, the Johnny Cash of Cannabis Seed supply. It's all legal. I walk the line. You can't touch me with your badge and your bullsh-"

"Shut up!" Bridger snarled, the marijuana stench was giving him a headache and not helping his patience, "What you're doing isn't legal, you've just stayed quiet enough and polite enough that nobody is willing to take time away from bigger threats to step on your illegal little sandcastle. And even if what you were doing was legal, are all of your permits up to date? Have you leapt through all the legal hoops you're required too have leapt through? Because I can tell you that you haven't. I don't know what you've missed, but I've never met a person or business who hadn't broken some laws I could arrest them for eventually. There are just too many laws to follow all of them and some of them are contradictory. So if I want to ruin your life, it's just a matter of me deciding that it's worth my time to do it. You are guilty, because there's no room in the system for you to be innocent and still get by. So the question that keeps you safe is not 'Have I broke the law?' but, 'Have I pissed off Special Agent Bridger?'"

The greasy parsnip swallowed and Bridger sensed that he might understand that being baked would not prevent Bridger from cooking his goose.

* * * 

Grub and Amy picked their way through the shattered war zone that was the remains of Mrs. Trilby's apartment, while Mung Bean watched the door. Scorch marks decorated most surfaces, weird circular indents dotted the walls, bullet holes played connect the dots across the floor and the ceiling and all of the windows were blown out.

"What's wrong with this picture?" Grub asked looking at Amy.

Amy's head was spinning. Conjuring butterflies was one thing and kind of awesome to do, 'CSI: Once Upon a Time' was another thing entirely. She tried to take it all in, but now that she was sensing the place magically, this was a problem. She could see bits of the violence in frozen empathic snapshots: Mrs. Trilby summoning hoards of little monsters from ridiculous cross-stitched summoning circles hung all over the room. Psychic photos of little black demonic cats clawing their way out of picture frames to swarm men dressed like a bad episode of X-Files. Flashing imagines of her cats mounting their own defences, running along walls and ceilings and playing with gravity to launch themselves like cannonballs at the enemies- leaving the weird circular dents in the walls as they did. Amy's head swam with the images, and she nearly fell over from the vertigo the experience caused her. She stumbled to a damaged and leaking kitchen sink and unceremoniously threw up. 

She wiped her mouth and fished out a mostly intact mug. She didn't dare play with the faucet and so collected the leaking water until she had enough to rinse out her mouth. 

"Everything is wrong with this picture. This is not sexy, this is not okay!" She managed.

Grub shook his head, "What's wrong is what's missing."

Amy looked at him in confusing, "Mrs. Trilby and her cats are missing, but the guys in suits could have just taken them."

Grub shook his head again, "Even if they took Mrs. Trilby, if she'd lost a battle like this, they shouldn't have been able to take all of her."

Amy's eye's widened, "There's no blood! For either side!"

"The Men of Black and White don't generally bleed, unless the plot requires it. They aren't people. They are embodiments of force and coercion and fear of the unknown. Mrs. Trilby and her cats on the other hand, should bleed if injured."

"So does that mean, they're okay?"

"It means that they are unaccounted for, and that is worrying. The plot is progressing. And if they don't win this time, I fear Mother of Discord will just devour us entirely."

"Mother of Discord?"

"Mother of Discord is one of those Old Ones I talked about earlier, the powerful forces in the background. She is the game clock in this case. Because if the Locust King wins too many times, eventually she will just clear the board. Only in this case, the board is life on Earth."

"She's like the devil or something?"

"No. She is the paradox. She is the rise of complexity and life, but the inevitability of heat death and entropy. She is the closest thing the universe has to a grim reaper, but it was she that made life possible in the first place. Although she did not create us, she made us possible. Life is not special to her. She likes black holes and Dark Matter as much as she likes life and habitable solar systems. People make this mistake all of the time. They imagine that devils and demons and gods and angels must be good or evil, malignant or benign. They are not. They are indifferent, they are beyond and outside our understanding and we are beneath them. We are as significant to them as the common cold is to us; noticeable on occasion due to effects, but invisible individually."

"And they will kill us with a wipe of a cosmic facial tissue."

A chuckle.

"Precisely."

* * * 

"Marion was a good guy. He was cool." Burt said as he munched on a coffee shop scone, "He didn't deserve the way Wheately sold him up the river, but hey, Wheately is a piece of work so what would you expect? That guy- Darius Salt-  was not nice to his wife and he was not nice to his kids. I see people like that all the time when I volunteer at with the cub scouts. Dads like that have kids and wives with strange bruises nobody likes to talk about, that's what these guys do."

"You don't think Darius Salt was a good person? You only met him for a moment."

"I'm a security guy, it's not cool if I can't suss a guy out pretty quick. And I know the bad dad. I have to set bad dads straight when I'm in cub scout leader mode way too often, but there at least I got power. I can tell those guys that it don't matter what they do at home, if I catch treating people wrong under my watch, they will regret it. I didn't have power with this Darius Salt guy, couldn't do a thing and he walked all over his wife and his kids and poor Marion. It wasn't fair, and now Darius Salt is missing, probably in Barbados or somewhere with a nice tax shelter and Marion's on the run and that ain't fair either."

"You're confident your former coworker is innocent?"

"I'd think that Wheately framed him if I thought Wheately had the pull. But maybe somebody with more pull didn't like his toes getting stepped on."

"Darius Salt?"

"You said it, not me."