Deadline 2.0: Asylum

[PLEASE read the notes at the bottom first for context.]

Esperanto ran.

It didn’t remember shifting, but when it stumbled into the sunlight, the last traces of text were already fading from the corners of its human guise. It heard Dana Morrissey’s angry shout from the third floor window, thought it caught out of the corner of its eye a glint of purple, and it ducked its head and pelted away, running on blind panic.

Esperanto ran for fifty blocks. It found its way out of the cluster of office buildings and ran between the skyscrapers of the central city, catching its warped reflection in their mirrored windows and recognizing only the fear in its eyes before its speed whisked it away again. It had no destination in mind except one as far removed as possible from the Realm, from the investigation, and from English. Its fingers flexed around an invisible knife as it ran, though it knew even through its panic that it could not manifest its weapon in human form.

It stopped where the city turned to parks and museums and trees covered more patches of sky than the buildings they shaded did. Evening was coming on slowly, and the sun made the buildings look older than they were – and they were old in this part of the city. There was an aura of comfort here, and Esperanto gradually slowed from a sprint to a jog to a full halt beside a weathered telephone pole and a wooden bench. It was not breathing hard, but exhaustion showed in the circles beneath its human form’s wide, black eyes. It glanced around twice as though afraid that somehow it had been followed, and sat on the bench.

Slowly, it raised one hand and flexed the fingers before its face. They were long and slender, the hands well-formed and light-colored. Esperanto looked at them with trepidation. They were alien, so different from the gently moving text it knew lay just under the false skin. It touched its face with hesitant fingers, brushed the slightly-too-long hair from its eyes and shuddered at the feel of the teeth in its mouth. It had never taken human form before, and it wanted its body back.

It let its hands fall and stared at them where they lay in its lap, folded over the jeans that had come with the body. If Tongues had tears, it would have cried. It knew fear, and loneliness, and hiding; it had known little else since English had created it. But it had never known shame before. It thought of Sarah, of Dana Morrissey and her shattered fingers, of Joseph Marks and his weary lies to authority, and it knew itself for a coward. A human would have buried its face in its hands and wept, but Esperanto was not human and could only endure silently.

Presently, it looked up. Survival pressed at it. It needed a place to hide. It could not return to the Realm until Arabic Called it, and Arabic did not know that it had left the office. Esperanto had lost its pass through the Entryway when it had stepped outside the boundaries Arabic had set for it. Anyway, it had no desire to return to the Realm – it had failed and failed miserably, and only the Court of the Spoken Word would have anything to say to it should it return now. It could not hide between the Realm and the World, for English traversed those paths, too.

“I must remain in the World,” it said aloud, and coughed – the timbre of its voice was thin and cold and all too human. Miserably, it fell silent again. It glanced around the park, now almost totally twilit, and suddenly caught words out of the corner of its eye. Its fingers clenched around the knife it could not call and its head snapped to where the text moved at the edges of its vision.

It was a piece of paper tacked to the telephone pole, flapping in the wind. Esperanto sighed, ashamed again at its cowardice, and reached for it, pulling it off the pole and leaving a small circle of torn paper under the thumbtack.

Wanted, said the paper, Roommate, preferably male, to share 2br/1ba apt w/ linguistics major. The address was printed below.

Esperanto frowned. Was its human form male? It had forgotten how to tell. It glanced down, brushed a hand against its chest, and tried to remember if Dana or Marks had been the woman in the investigation. It knew there was a difference - the Greater Tongues spoke of their time in the World often enough - but it could not for the life of it remember what it was.

The night was growing darker and it still needed a place to hide. It called up the mental map of the city Arabic had transferred to it before it had left (and which it had forgotten in its panicked rush) and stood, glancing up at the street sign on the corner twenty feet away. It turned twice, got its bearings, and moved purposefully off into the twilight, throwing glances over its shoulder every few seconds.



Thomas Valenta opened the door at the third knock, wearing jeans and no shirt, looking bleary despite the early hour. “Hey, sorry to make you wait, I was doing my homework…” The television blared behind him and he coughed, pulling the door as far shut as he could while keeping his head on the visitor’s side of it. “So, yeah… can I help you?”

The man in the hall was slim, black-haired, with a nose a little too big for his face – the artist in Thomas noted that it wouldn’t have been so out-of-place if the rest of him hadn’t been so well-proportioned. At first glance, Thomas thought he might be a little drunk; he swayed a bit where he stood, and his eyes under his shaggy hair were duller than they should have been. He looked exhausted and vaguely terrified.

Esperanto felt naked under this human's gaze - not something it was used to feeling, considering that it had never had a use for clothes before. It met the eyes of the lanky, brown-haired human leaning around the door, reminding itself that it was speaking to a human - an inferior. It had nothing to fear except what might be behind it.

Thomas waited. The man seemed almost afraid to speak. “H-hello,” he said. The guy had an accent that Thomas could not place. “I… I saw your ad, and I have come to apply as your roommate. I am—I’m a linguistics major as well.” He smiled, but it did not dispel the weariness in his face.

Thomas glanced behind him at the Mickey Mouse clock hanging on the wall (a gift from an aunt in the Czech Republic convinced he was still four years old). “Um… can you come back tomorrow? Sorry, but it’s pretty late and I haven’t cleaned the place up.” He smiled apologetically. “Yeah, not very hospitable, I know, but… you know how it is.”

The man in the hall’s black eyes widened. “Please,” he said, and his voice broke, pleading. “I—I haven’t a place to stay tonight. If—if I could stay for one night? Or, is there somewhere I might stay nearby?” Thomas noticed that his hands, deep in his pockets, were clenched into fists visible through the fabric of his jeans. He frowned, considered, then sighed and opened the door wider.

“You get kicked out of your dorm or something?” he asked, looking over his shoulder to beckon the man after him. "I have a second bedroom you can use for now, but you'll have to leave if I ever find a roommate."

Esperanto followed him in, aware that it had just been offered temporary living quarters but at a complete loss as to how to thank him. It had never spoken to an inferior before. After a long pause it decided on, "Thank you from the bottom of my soul, Linguistics Major. I... was indeed banished from my living quarters."

Thomas emerged from a door to the right, pulling on a shirt. "No problem," he said. "My name's Thomas, though. Thomas Valenta." He held out a hand. "What's your name?"

Esperanto's eyes widened. A name? It needed a name. It opened and closed its mouth, its eyes darting around the room - until desperately they lighted on the Mickey Mouse clock hanging on the far wall. Mouse. "My name is Muso," it said. "Just... just Muso." It looked at his outstretched hand, a little confused.

After a moment, Thomas dropped his hand. "Muso?" he said, sounding interested. "Vi parolas Esperanton?"

Esperanto's heart stopped. A Speaker, it thought blankly. This man is one of my Speakers.

It had never met one of its own Speakers before. It wanted to touch this man, to taste his words as they fell off his tongue, to know what one of its Speakers felt like and smelled like and where he went and what he did and why he had chosen to Speak this weak, artificial Tongue when it already knew one so powerful as English. But it had to keep the secret. It could say nothing. With a heavy heart, it replied, "I don't understand. My name is Polish."

Thomas shrugged. "It means something in Esperanto, too, but whatever. Here, here's the bedroom." He stepped back and pushed open the door across from the one from which he had retrieved his shirt, beckoning Esperanto in. "There's a shirt and some old pants in the dresser drawer... they're clean, don't worry."

There was an awkward silence.

"So, uh..." Thomas ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not gonna have some crazy ex in my apartment at three in the morning, right?"

Esperanto paused. "No." If English did come, the human would be dead before he had time to be angry, so there was no great benefit in telling the truth. "I am tired. Thank you again for letting me share your apartment. I'm going... to sleep now."

Thomas nodded and stepped out, pulling the door closed behind him. "Night."

Esperanto waited until it heard the television's volume increase again and let its human guise slide off with a great sigh of relief. It was close to exhaustion. Its knife slid into its hand and it curled up on the bed - even if it did not sleep, it would make it appear that the bed had been used - and it sank into itself, gently rebuilding its stores of strength, pressing back its fear and praying to see the morning.



Thomas called Frank.

"Hey, you up? Sorry to call you so late." He spoke quietly, with a glance at the door behind which his tenant slept.

"Yeah' 'm up," she said groggily, and he heard the click of a lamp being turned on close to the phone. "'Sup?"

"Liar. I woke you up. But hey, there's a guy staying overnight, and if something crashes in the middle of the night call the police, okay?"

"...What?" She was waking up now. "What, did y'pick up a guy off the street or something?"

"Not off the street. Out of the hallway."

"Mm. I'm surprised I didn't hear anything, it's real quiet over here and I only went to bed half an hour ago..."

"Char's not there?"

"Nah, she went home for the weekend -- but Thomas, who'd you pick up?"

"Just a guy named Muso. He's really quiet. I think he got kicked out of his dorm or something. But I don't know why, so keep an ear out, okay?"

Frank sighed. "Next time send him to the shelter. I gotta sleep."

"Thanks, Frank."

"No problem. Go to sleep. With a knife next to you."

"Yeah, sure. Night."

"Night." She hung up.

Thomas dropped the phone and turned his attention back to the television. He wasn't really afraid. Just cautious. He kind of liked Muso, funny accent and mysterious business and all. Honestly, he thought as he flipped the channel, who could a guy that wimpy have following him, anyway?