Page 81 of Static/Cling

“You have to move now,” Sal broke in. “We’re going to have to try and time this on the assumption he doesn’t run into any more roadblocks.”

“Right.” Tip-toeing to the door, Leif eased it open and peered down the hallway. It was deserted. “Doesn’t anyone work here?” he asked.

“I think they had high hopes of a lot of recruits they never got,” Sal said.

“What? They didn’t have a ton of people signing up for espionage and intrigue far from home?”

“The army doesn’t do espionage. That would require subtlety, and they are about as subtle as a sledgehammer.”

“True.”

“Not everyone with powers wants to be told what to do and when to do it every second of the day. The vast majority of people would make lousy soldiers.”

He couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t see either Sal or Roger being a good fit for the military. “So why did they let all those people go, if they’re hurting for recruits?”

“Probably because they don’t have useful powers.”

“But one guy cold shape-shift.”

“Into a sloth,” Roger pointed out. “If that’s all he can do, maybe not so useful.”

“Maybe not. ’Kay, I’m heading down the hall.”

It made him wonder, though. If they were willing to let people go because their powers were not great, what could Sal and Roger do that they’d had to be rescued?

Once out in the hallway, he shivered and glanced to his right. A cold blast wafted from the closed door at the top of the stairwell, and he shivered.

Hoarfrost still covered the window, making a beautiful display of shimmering white and blue patterns nearly impossible to see through. The window’s frame was also covered in a layer of frost, like someone had covered it in white fuzz. The door handle and hinges were silver with a thin layer of the stuff.

When he peered through the tiny slits between frost ferns, there was still nothing to see in the empty stairwell.

“Leif!” Sal’s voice was sharp again, like they had been trying to get his attention.

He blinked. His fingers were chilled to the bone, and he realized he was gripping the handle to the door to the stairs. “Shit.”

“What’s happening?” Roger asked.

“N-nothing. I’m good.” He glanced out the window again.

This close, he could feel the frigid air emanating from the space despite the closed door. No wonder people avoided the back block of offices. The feeling of dread didn’t stop because the door was closed. It was probably the most effective security system the building could have. It came with a lot of pressure and noise that got behind his eyes and left him foggy-brained.

The clamour in his head was deafening. Confusing. Worse than it had been on the way up, because then, he’d had Bjorn with him, with his big, warm, comforting presence, and the utter calm he projected. He didn’t get excited or panicked. He was always so easy-going. So simple. So very plain and easy to be around.

This was unbearable. Without Bjorn, there was only all this indecipherable noise. A constant barrage of sound that never made any sense, not even because, as he’d figured out at a very young age, he was the only one who could hear it, but because there was never any one thread he could follow to sort it all out.

Here it was worse. Maybe because there was no concrete form to hold all those chaotic thoughts. They fluttered in the air looking for a shell to inhabit and causing the space around them to spread too thin, too cold.

If he could just grip one slippery end of one thing…

He shivered.

How was this building so fucking cold?

He had to wrap his arms around his waist to try and keep some of his own body heat close. Closing his eyes, he tried hard to find a single coherent thing in the chaos.

And there it was. It wasn’t a sound among many, it was… an image?

A hazy idea of walking down a hallway, opening a door. Pushing a button.

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