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I feel worse with every minute that passes. More of me is on fire with every second that goes by. My heartbeat tolls like I’m inside a doomsday clock and there are no more minutes to midnight.
Cold water doesn’t help.
The second time I throw up in the shower, it occurs to me that this isn’t because of the meeting. It can’t be because of the meeting. It’s because Artemis is across the city in a spa or luxury dressing room and not here. It’s because this isn’t a bizarre manifestation of a panic attack. It’s an episode.
Which is impossible.
These episodes happen on a schedule. Yes, the schedule has changed over the years, but never like this. I’ve never had two in one day. And never this early.
If I feel like this, Artemis might be in dire straits at the spa.
No—at the party. It’s time to be at the party.
It’s that thought that propels me out of the shower and into my closet. Putting on my tuxedo is a miserable, disorienting experience. I can’t get my eyes to focus properly to make sure I look normal, and it’s only when I’m in the building’s lobby asking the doorman if I’ve dressed myself that I realize I can’t drive myself to the gala.
The doorman wants to call an ambulance, but I charm him into calling my driver instead. He wants to drive me to the nearest hospital. I make an eloquent and convincing argument for why that will actually kill me.
That’s what I assume happens, because the next thing I know, he’s opening my door and helping me out of the SUV.
We are not at a hospital.
A few scattered flashes hurt my eyes. Of course there are press. I knew they would be here. At some point, I’m sure I knew they would be there.
I expect more flashes, actually, because I rarely appear in public when I’m five seconds from death. They must be photographers who have a sense of decency, then.
For a few seconds, I manage to focus on the hulking shape near the sidewalk.
Why is there an aircraft carrier?
“I can’t join the Navy,” I tell my driver, the Hudson bulging in my fever-skewed vision. “I didn’t join the Navy. You understand that, right?”
He says something that has the cadence of English, but no understandable words.
Finally, he points, his lips moving out of sync with his voice. The sentences get shorter and shorter.
“Party,” he finally shouts.
Oh. Oh. This is where Calliope and Orion’s party is. On an aircraft carrier. That has to be my Uncle Poseidon’s fault. There’s no other explanation for the party being on an aircraft carrier.
“I’m late,” I mention.
“Hospital,” he shouts.
I wave him off and proceed toward the aircraft carrier.
The way to get to the deck of the aircraft carrier is via a long, metal ramp. I start climbing with the full knowledge that I will die before I reach the top. My lifeless corpse will tumble over the railings into the Hudson River, which will make for a closed-casket funeral.
During the climb, I focus on the details of the meeting.
It was only so strange and threatening because of the episode I had just before. That’s the only reason for the Senator’s shadow-face and my brain’s insistence on making a connection between parts of the past I’d rather not remember and the innocent, innocuous words that came out of his mouth.
The ask wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, either. Not when I’m a frequent participant and/or host for backchannel negotiations.
Backwater country, political unrest, etcetera. The good Senator assured me that a regime change to the opposition party would be for the good of the country. That country, Mociar? No, our country, he said, appealing to my patriotism. I gave him a little glow, as a treat. It bought me time—I pause on the ramp to breathe, because it’s getting harder to remember how—time I needed to think without his silver-tongued sell.
I’m familiar with Mociar. For all that most of the world probably couldn’t find it on a map to save their lives, it’s what we in the business call a linchpin state. Poised between one superpower and one super-union, both geographically and politically. It is good for our country not to let their balance tilt one way or the other. It’s in a strategic position.
It’s also right next door to a place I’d rather forget existed. The Republic of Rathbek was a linchpin, too. Right up until I pulled it, and I’ve been waiting for the grenade to go off ever since.
