Soul Patrol: Badge of the Forgotten

The Trail

 

"Escaped memories leave a trail," Vega said, stubbing out a cigarette that immediately relit itself. "Silver dust. Only Patrol badges can see it. Boone, take the rookie and follow the fucking thing."

"Follow it where?"

"Wherever it goes, Thorne. That's what following means." She pointed her cigarette at his chest. "And listen. If it gets ugly, you burn Scraps and nothing else. Fragments hurt like a bitch, and I'm not carrying your ass back."

"Got it. Scraps only."

"Say it like you mean it."

"Scraps only!"

"Rule one of tailing," Boone said, already halfway up the stairs. "We watch. We don't fucking touch. Understood, partner?"

"Sure. Watch. Don't touch. Easy."

Boone gave him a look that said he'd heard that exact sentence from a hundred dead rookies.

They came up through the crack in the ceiling the same way the memory had, through a maze of pipes and stone, and popped out into a street.

Elias stopped walking.

He'd expected an afterlife with clouds and harps. Instead, the city sprawled in every direction, stacked in crooked layers, like someone had built one town on top of another for a thousand years and never bothered to demolish the old ones. Cobblestones ran into asphalt. Gas lamps stood next to neon signs. A horse-drawn cart clattered past a bus that was clearly from 1962. A woman in a ballgown walked a translucent greyhound. Above it all, the gold sky glowed like a lit candle.

"Welcome to Halfway," said Boone. "Everybody who ain't quite moved on lives here. Or works here. Or hides here."

"It's beautiful."

"It's a shithole with a nice view. Look."

A thin thread of silver dust drifted down the street in front of them, fine as spider silk, curling around lamp posts. Elias's badge warmed against his chest. Now that he'd seen it, he couldn't stop seeing it.

They followed it through a market where a man sold jars of somebody's laughter. "Don't buy those," Boone muttered. "First week on the job, I bought a jar of somebody's sneeze. Worst fucking decision of my afterlife." They walked on, past a bridge made of old train tracks, and down a narrow alley behind a laundromat called Spin Cycle. The trail ended there, in a pool of glittering dust on the ground.

And in the middle of it, an old woman was screaming.

She was small and round, in a lilac cardigan and pearl earrings, clutching a handbag to her chest. Two clerks in gray suits held her arms. Her face kept flickering, like bad TV, going pale and blurry at the edges.

The taller clerk raised a rubber stamp. Its ink glowed the color of a bruise.

"Hold still, Ms. Weaver," he said pleasantly. "This will only hurt for a moment. After that, nothing will."

"I was just making tea," the woman sobbed. "I was just making tea!"

"That's a field stamp," Boone whispered. "Unlicensed. They're erasing her in a fucking alley." His hand went to his gun. "Stay put. I'll get a clean shot."

"Boone, they're gonna..."

"I know what they're gonna do. Wait."

The woman's eyes found Elias's over the clerk's shoulder. They were wet, huge, and terrified.

"Please," she mouthed.

Elias had never been a hero. He'd been an accountant. He'd never punched anyone.

But he was not going to stand there.

Boone had said watch. Vega had said Scraps. He knew both of them were right, and he knew it didn't matter.

"Sorry, Boone," he muttered. "Burn."

BURN SCRAP? Power: Shadowstep (12 seconds) Cost: One small memory Confirm?

"Yes!"

The tug in his skull was almost gentle this time. A tiny message flickered and he didn't stop to read it. BURNED: The ringtone on his first phone. His shadow stretched, and he stepped into it, and the world folded, and this time he remembered to slow down.

Mostly.

He came out between the clerk and the woman with his shoulder already swinging. It caught the clerk in the ribs, and the stamp flew out of his grip, turned over in the air, and landed on the old woman's forehead.

Not in the center. Sideways. Smeared.

"No, no, no, fuck, no," Elias said.

Ink spread across her face like spilled oil. The pearls at her ears dulled to gray. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her lilac cardigan began to fade to the color of ash.

"You stupid son of a bitch!" Boone roared, and his revolver cracked twice. Both clerks folded and vanished in a puff of paper scraps. "I said don't fucking touch! You interrupted the stamp! It's out of control!"

"Then fucking fix it!"

"I can't! It's her soul unraveling! Only a badge can hold a name in place!"

Elias stared at the woman. Her skin was going smooth. One of her hands, the one holding the handbag, was already gray and blank, with no fingerprints and no wrinkles.

A few seconds. That was all she had.

He grabbed his badge. "Fragment," he said. "Whatever it costs. Do it."

BURN FRAGMENT? Power: Binding Chains Cost: One memory of a full day Confirm?

He didn't hesitate. "Yes."

This time the tug wasn't gentle. It felt like somebody yanking a tooth out of his brain.

BURNED: Saturday, age nine. Pancakes with Mom.

The badge blazed. Chains of gold light exploded from it and wrapped around the old woman, gently, like a hug. They wove around her face, and letters lit up along the links, one at a time, in a slow scrawl.

DOLORES WEAVER.

The gray stopped. The ink drained away. Slowly, painfully, color crept back into her cardigan, her earrings, her cheeks.

She gasped like she'd been underwater.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, my goodness." She touched her own cheek like she was checking it was still hers. "I put the kettle on. I remember the kettle. Isn't that funny?"

Elias sat down hard on the cobblestones, shaking. Boone was standing over him with a face that couldn't decide between fury and admiration.

"That was the dumbest goddamn thing I've ever seen," Boone said. "And it fucking worked."

Elias tried to remember what he'd just burned. He knew it had been a Saturday. He knew there had been pancakes. He knew the word Mom, but his mind slid right off it like water off wax.

He could still flip a pancake. He could still make the batter from memory.

He just couldn't remember who'd taught him.

He checked his mother's face, fast, like patting a pocket for his keys. Still there. Small mercy.

"You're bleeding from the nose," Boone said gently.

"Yeah." Elias wiped it with his sleeve. "That's, that's fine."

It wasn't fine. He wasn't sure it would ever be fine. But the old woman was alive.

Dolores Weaver crouched beside him, still clutching her handbag, still trembling. She patted his cheek with a wrinkled hand. "You saved me, dear."

"I almost killed you, ma'am."

"Well. Almost doesn't count." She opened her handbag, fished inside, and pulled something out. "I was told to give you this, if you came. A man gave it to me this morning. He said to wait in this alley for a young man in a lab coat, following the silver."

She opened her palm.

A marble of light sat in it, glowing softly. Inside it, tiny and perfect, rain streaked across a windshield.

Elias's heart stopped.

"That's mine," he whispered.

"He said you'd know." Dolores frowned, searching for the words. "He was very nervous. His hands shook. And he had a badge pinned to his coat. Just like yours."

Boone went very still.

"A Patrol badge," he said. "Son of a bitch."

"I suppose so, dear."

Dolores clutched her handbag tighter. Boone stepped in front of both of them with his revolver drawn, and for the first time since they'd met, Elias saw the old cowboy look scared.

Somewhere behind them, in the mouth of the alley, someone started to clap.

Slow. Deliberate. Each clap echoing off the brick.

Elias turned.

Auditor Pell stood at the entrance, white gloves together, that impossible smile spread across his face. Behind him, the alley was filling up with gray suits. Ten. Twenty. More, until they blocked every exit, faces smudged, eyes unblinking.

"Splendid work, Mr. Thorne," Pell said. "Truly. You followed the trail exactly as intended."

Elias's blood went cold.

"It was fucking bait," Boone breathed.

"Of course it was. The memory, the old woman, the trail. All of it laid out like breadcrumbs. I confess I worried you might be too clever to follow them." Pell tilted his head. "Do count them, Deputy. I did promise thirty."