The Santayana Effect: Scene 1- New York, 1945

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Adrienne stopped rewinding the history of the seal at a scene in a bustling street. She wasn't quite certain what had prompted her to stop here, but the fact that the reading was focused on a girl who looked exactly like Nico might have been the reason. The girl was walking quickly, being jostled by passers-by who seemed incredibly jovial, though their good moods didn't seem to have infected the girl, who looked nervous. It took a few moments for Adrienne to recognize that Nico was in New York City, because it wasn't the New York she was familiar with. She guessed from the amount of time she'd skimmed over that she was watching a scene sometime around 1944 or 45, and the drunken revellers and the red, white, and blue themed decorations and posters that littered the city streets made her realize she must be seeing a time close to V-E Day, and the end of the war.

She watched Nico- though it couldn't be Nico, which confused her, until she remembered that she'd once seen another woman who looked remarkably like the girl she knew in her reading of the staff, so maybe this was one of Nico's relatives- heading down in the direction Adrienne recognized as the shipping district. A beaten-up carpet bag was in her hands. She looked around at the street signs and building signs, nearly being run over by cheering, dancing people each time she slowed down, and it seemed to Adrienne like she was looking for some place in particular.

Finally she reached her destination- a theatre- and Adrienne watched her wander through the deserted lobby and into the main area of the building- a bar along one wall, dinner tables packed closely around a dance floor, and a stage with a piano, percussion set, and several music stands and chairs at one end. A man was sitting at one of the tables, nursing a beer, and Adrienne did a double-take when she saw Logan turn towards the approaching girl.

Logan would have done anything to forget what he'd just been through. The things he'd endured. The blood on his hands. He had an excellent first start with the tall stein of beer in front of him - one thing the Krauts did better than anyone else in the world - and it looked like the next step had just wandered in. "Hey, darlin'." he called out.


The girl gave the place one long, stern look, and just after that focused on the man. "The name is Hope; Minoru Hope, Mister..." Without finishing the sentence, she gave another look at the place; a worried look. "Is this place...secure?"

Adrienne nearly rewound the reading to hear Nico speak again. Why was she calling herself Hope? But of course this couldn't be the Nico she knew- not when this was most likely seventy years ago!

"Nice and anonymous." Logan said with a shrug. "Hide in plain sight. And it's Logan, Miss Hope." he said, taking another hefty swallow of his beer.

Eyeing the bottle of beer, Hope sat in front of Logan. "I appreciate the effort you are making to help me, Mister Logan, but when will be able to leave?" She looked nervous even now that she had found the person supposed to take her away, eyes examining everything, holding the carpet back next to her.

"Just sit tight, darlin'. Twenty-four hours, you'll be well on your way out of the country." he promised her. "Have a beer, relax. Look like you belong here or something." he urged her.

Frowning at him, Hope shifted on her seat out of frustration. "Very well then", muttered as she looked at the man's beer. Was he really expecting her to drink that?

"I sincerely hope you understand, Mister Logan", started the girl in an unexpectedly serious and mature-like tone that sounded an awful lot like Nico when trying to play adult. "That if this family friends have entrusted you with the responsibility of taking me back safely is because you have certainly earned their respect." And somehow that didn't make her much more at ease.

"I know, kid." he said irritably. "You'll get yourself and your pretty little bauble where you're going, no questions asked." he said. "Just can't fix it right now." he reiterated. He was looking forward to Hong Kong - his bosses were very keen on getting him out of Europe and to where he could do some good.

Hope was about to point out she wasn't a kid, but the man's tone persuaded to remain silent. The mention of her, as he decided to call, bauble, got her on edge tough. "There, you don't seem to understand." The girl opened the carpet bag, and after looking around and making sure they were alone, she revealed the Seal to him. "This is a very important object", said as she showed it at him for a couple of seconds, before storing it right away. "My mother...she wanted me to keep this safe, and that's what I am doing, so please, understand my anxiety; I have been charged with a very important duty."

"I get that." he said, glancing over towards her bauble. "Now put that thing away before someone sees it." he said. "No point in bringing down bad joss on our heads." he pointed out. "Think you can sit right here and not move for a bit? I need to go make a phone call." he said.
***

Certain that there was nothing significant about the seal being brought to this theatre, Adrienne attempted to push forward a little on the timeline, get back to more recent history to trace the seal back properly, but when the theatre filled up with enlisted men and office girls and a singer and band took to the stage, with people beginning to dance, she stopped advancing. A dozen dancers had come from the stage and into the crowd, obviously employed by the theatre to help encourage people to dance, though it didn't appear as if anyone needed any help for that. The odd thing about the dancers was that two of them looked like duplicates of Marie-Ange and Cammie. As if that wasn't strange enough, a closer look at the singer on stage had her doing a double take as Adrienne saw Kurt crooning to the crowd. Logan and the 'Hope' person who looked like Nico were still at their table, and a woman who could have been Wanda's twin passed them with a soldier on her arm. What the hell was going on?

"Ready to dance, Izzy?" Simon asked the woman who looked like Wanda as they stopped by a table. He was smiling a little bit but there was a twist to his words - they both knew Isabella would dance one or two token sets with her husband before finding someone a little more interesting to dance with. Still, he took her coat off for her and waved the waitress down for drinks. The look on his face was one slightly resigned to the nights events. They had had some time to grow into the pattern, after all.

"In a bit, yes," Isabella responded, pleased to note that her accent was starting to ebb as her time in the United States grew. She sat and looked around the room, making mental notes of who looked fun, who looked rich and who looked like a bore. She probably should have felt more guilty about Simon but they both knew the reasons for their marriage had never been for "love". They could, at best, consider each other friends. No, more than that, she thought with a flash of real guilt as she remembered what Simon had rescued her from. "Why don't we have a drink together first?" she offered and watched the resignation melt away slightly.

Adrienne focused next on the woman who looked like Cammie's twin. She was dressed to entertain. These establishments in the United States served soldiers and it was the soldiers that were there were a target. Though they didn't know that tonight. Monica danced, and sang, and made small talk, the goal of which was to distract and get them to focus on something other than what was really going on. Americans had a lot of brute force, but Monica had no real respect for their intelligence.

The lead singer of the band, wearing Kurt's face in this image, caught her eye from the stage and - very slightly - jerked his head towards the door. To a casual watcher, it would just have looked like a meaningless toss of his head, but to her it was a signal.

Aha! There it was. Slowly making her way through the crowded center, Monica headed towards the door, a slight smile on her face. She stopped and flirted with a couple of the Americans. But her main goal was to lock the door. And be sneaky about it.

Isabella and Simon chatted for a few minutes before he surprised her by asking her to dance. The look on her face made her look younger for a moment before the teasing smile reappeared as she accepted his hand up. They skirted a dancer chatting with the local GIs and a few others standing on the edge of the dance floor; Isabella was instantly caught up in the music as her husband had her do a quick twirl. Dancing and music made the nightmares go away.

Someone wasn't enjoying the party. The young looking Nico's replicate was most uncomfortable with all the people around, and would have preferred to be somewhere else much more quiet and not crowded. At all. Leaning closer to the man next to her, she caste a preoccupied look at him, but also a somewhat irritated glare. "Can't we move somewhere else, Mister Logan? There is too many people in here." It's too dangerous to stay here, said to herself, but if she left, she was alone, and that pretty much was like going back to square one, and she couldn't have that, not after the things her mother had done.

"Relax, darlin'. Safest course is to blend in. Lotta soldiers around here." he pointed out. "Care to dance, Miz?" he asked. Then, in a much lower tone of voice, he said "Best way to keep an eye on the room."

Monica was, generally, good at moving around without being seen. It was in part what she had done during the war. And it was in part, what she was doing here. Victory made people complacent. But not to the point where she'd forgo her own professional nature.

She locked doors and started to plant the bomb.

Easy work. Too easy. But the end results would be so sweet.

Adrienne could only watch with growing surprise as she saw the Cammie lookalike set a bomb in the theatre.

The singer smiled to himself as he watched her, knowing all was going to plan, and began to lead his band down into the crowd. The more distraction, the better.

Isabella giggled as Simon spun her around but faltered a little when he was forced to pull her back in far too soon to avoid a run-in with the now moving band. She frowned at the lead singer, unsure why they were now encroaching on the dance room floor but didn't really have much time to think about it as the crowds pressed closer.

For a moment, she flushed with memories and dread as she remembered the conditions she had escaped from as Simon had found her. Too many bodies, too many people, crowded together; at Simon's look, Isabella shook her head. She refused to let the past chase her from what she enjoyed.

Searching around for the other familiar face, Adrienne zeroed in on Marie-Ange's fiery hair. 'Monica' wasn't the only one who had noticed the nod, but Eleanor Barret wasn't going to let anyone else know that. Now was the time to just smile at the airman who was clumsily trying to lead her, and let him think she wasn't correcting his awkward steps with her own. Dancing was easy. Watching this crowd for things that didn't seem right was harder.
***

Adrienne watched curiously as the young woman who looked like Cammie locked the doors that led into the dance floor, then headed towards a side wall of the room, which she realized was actually a thick, red velvet curtain splitting the room into what she assumed was two. Obviously, this was more of a social hall than a theatre, and whoever was putting on this V-day dance wasn't paying to rent the entire space.

The woman resembling Cammie reappeared a short time later. Adrienne couldn't see what Cammie was doing on the other side of the curtain because the Nico lookalike had moved away from it and since she had the seal Adrienne's reading didn't include the area on the other side of the curtain, but she didn't think to be particularly interested by it anyway. She was much more interested in the fact that several of the people in this theatre bore uncanny resemblances to people she knew.

Her interest returned to what had been going on behind the curtain when a person who looked like her dead husband Steven slipped through it and onto the other side only a few minutes after Cammie had returned. Nico was twirled back towards the curtain by Logan, so Adrienne focused her attention on the space between the two rooms Steven had left open when he'd pulled at the curtain, limited by angles due to the constraints of her powers to only show her a certain field of vision around the seal. She could just barely make out Steven's figure walking the length of the room, though that side was unlit. With practiced skill she filtered out the music and the voices around her and focused on the sound of his footsteps, then nearly had a heart attack when the singer from the band, the one who looked just like Kurt, followed Steven through the curtain.

"Are you looking for someone?" the singer inquired smoothly, staying between "Steven" and the way back to the main room. "Or something, perhaps?"

"Perhaps you should mind your own goddamned business," Adrienne heard Steven snap.

"Oh, but you made it my business by coming this way." It wasn't remotely apologetic, as the singer slipped a hand under his jacket - from her angle, Adrienne caught a glimpse of a knife sheath.

"What the fuck, man?" Steven answered, and she caught a glimpse of a shadow coming towards the singer, guessing Steven was trying to rush the man.

But the singer knew what he was doing, and Steven simply crumpled before he really managed to get a grasp on him, the knife sticking from his ribs. The singer dropped him contemptuously, only taking the time to reclaim - and wipe clean - his knife before putting it away.

--

All Eleanor had to go on was that the tip had said 'something' might happen. For all she knew, the people passing on that information didn't have any better idea than she did, or the people in the home offices. The singer for the band being late for his set - well, that might be that 'something', or it could just be that the man had taken to drinking. She didn't know. Having so little information to go on was maddening, she said under her breath, as she watched the clock, and the band, and some of the dancers, all starting to get ever-so-slightly annoyed.

"Where on earth has the singer gotten off to?" Simon muttered, an arm draped loosely over Isabella's shoulders. The crowd was starting to grow restless - a side product of having military and former military crammed into a room where drink was being served.

She shrugged and reached out to snag another drink from a near by waitress. "God only knows. Probably found himself a pretty dancer or something and lost track of time?" It was making for an awkward pause, though, and she focused on milling crowd around them. She even smiled at one or two of the men, but it was half-hearted at best. She'd probably never come to actually love Simon but she wouldn't like it if he were making eyes at some girl when she was right next to him.

Hope looked around, managing to reach a new level of anxiousness. "Something is not right", said loud enough to Logan to be able to hear her. "The music is no longer being played for a good while now." Looking around, she also failed at spotting the singer. But what could she do? The whole trouble she was going through to travel was specifically in order to keep a low profile. "Keep your eyes open, Mr. Logan."

"My eyes are always open, darlin'." he said, sniffing at the air as he studied the room. "And I don't like this one bit. Be a little weird if we left now, but get ready." he told her quietly but urgently. "Swore I was gonna get you where you're goin', and I keep my promises." he said. He closed his eyes for a moment to settle himself, then opened them again. "Band starts playin', we take a reel 'round the floor - and make our way to the exits." he told his companion. "Then we're gone."

The singer slipped quietly out from behind the curtain at that moment and headed for the stage, smiling as if nothing in the world was wrong. He'd had to take time to check for stains, or he might have been back considerably sooner.

There were several things that could have explained the delay. An affair with one of the other dancers, or band members. Eleanor was half-sure that the singer was lavender, or inclined to be so. But there was something devilish about the man, and she'd hoped it was just the drink, but he didn't look drunk, and he didn't look mussed as though he'd come back from 'activities'. He looked like the smiled was painted on and a little too tight. Like something was on his mind.

She left her partner with the excuse that she must powder her nose and ducked to the back. If someone was to be found, it would have to be while the band was playing.

Adrienne observed the woman who looked like Marie-Ange head behind the curtain, followed by the woman who looked like Cammie. After a few moments when Adrienne could only guess Marie-Ange was discovering the body of the man Kurt had killed, there was a scuffle that disrupted the curtain, and over the noise of the band she could hear noises of exertion and struggle, as if the two were fighting.

She wasn't supposed to be there. Hope approached the curtain, the sounds behind of it both repelling and attracting her. She had told Logan she needed some air, some time alone; she wouldn't be far, but she couldn't just stay sitting there the whole time. And then she had heard the noises; a complication, she assumed. With a delicate movement she took the curtain apart, and watched in silence. Just what the hell was going on?

Isabella frowned as she moved forward as well towards the curtain, a reluctant Simon right on her heels. He was telling her to leave it alone, to go back to the table, but she couldn't. She had left far too much alone over the last few years and, besides, it was probably nothing. There was a younger woman peering as well and Isabella reached over to spread the curtain further...

And then she gasped, reeling back not only from the sight of the body - images flashed in her mind, of her mother and father laid out like trash in the streets as she was dragged away - but also from someone through there having hit her. On purpose or not, she stumbled backwards and fell with a cry, wanting nothing more than to be far, far away from the fighting and yelling and, god, the blood.

She was talking to Simon but not in English as he moved forward determinedly, anger etched into his face.

"What the..." Feeling as if she had gotten into something she shouldn't -it wouldn't be the first time-, Hope got herself to the closest wall, and tried to remain calm. "What the hell is going on here!?!"

Now that the Nico lookalike had gone around the curtain, Adrienne could see Marie-Ange and Cammie scuffling. A moment or two later, Kurt reappeared, but since she could still hear the music Adrienne guessed he had given instructions to the lead player to continue on without him. She watched Kurt intercept Wanda as she tried to run back into the crowd, grabbing her by the shoulder and spinning her to face him.

Again, Isabella screamed and tried to wrench away from the lead singer as he tried to stop her from leaving. "Leave me alone!" she cried, jerking away from him. "I don't want to go back there, you can't make me, you can't!" Sobbing in abject fear, unable to tell what was real and what was horrible memory, she didn't see Simon grab the man by the back of the shirt and yank him backwards.

"Get off of her," he snarled, a strong right hook catching the singer in the jaw. Freed, Isabella moved to hide behind Simon and he said, even as he advanced on his dazed opponent, "You're okay, Izzy, you're okay - you're not going back to where I found you." He aimed a kick to knees that didn't uphold under the assault. "And he's not touching you again."

If she hadn't had four older brothers and an older sister who had gotten herself 'in trouble' she'd never have learned how to do this. But then, if Eleanor hadn't hadn't gotten into all those scrapes, she wouldn't have had this job anyway, because she wouldn't have met that nice Government man while she was trying to keep her idiot youngest cousin out of that bar fight and wouldn't have gotten hit over the head with a pool stick. That bar hadn't been any place for a nice girl anyway.

Not that she was a nice girl, she thought, as she pulled on the German spy's hair and yanked her down to the floor. "I hope you get a social disease while you are in jail." She said, avoiding the woman's attempts to claw at her face. "Your Nazi bosses should have taught you to fight instead of just making blonde babies and saurkraut."

Simon had the murderer on the ground, arms yanked up uncomfortably behind his back as the soldier knelt on top of him. He looked up at his wife, generally in name only, and said as gently as he could as he tried to catch his breath, "It's over, sweetie, I promise."

It was rough going for a few moments, and Eleanor was a little more than annoyed that most of the soldiers were more interested in cat-calls and wolf whistles than helping her. But she got one of them to give up their belt so she could tie the woman's hands behind her back, and she might have casually kicked the spy in the head as she got up and dusted herself off.

And by then, the MP's had arrived and one of them had handcuffs, and thank goodness because she wasn't sure another belt would've worked for the other spy. "The government will have a few words for them. And probably a firing squad." Eleanor said to the man who had fought down the singer. "I'm going to need to get your name, yours and your wife." And she was going to need a phone, to call her boss, and a pad of paper and damn this cover identity. She couldn't very well keep a steno pad down her dress.

Adrienne advanced the timeline, curious to see if the MPs would find the bomb, morbid curiosity getting the better of her as she wondered if the building was going to blow up. But the seal had been through real history, and she didn't remember reading about an explosion in a theatre on V-E day. Then again, it wasn't as if she paid particular attention to history...

It wasn't the MPs finding the bomb. It was one tired and slightly bruised government agent in a now-torn dress she'd paid for out of her salary who found the thing in the bottom of the wastebin in the women's bathroom. And only because she'd put her gun under the bag in the bin and had gone to retrieve it.

Her grandfather had always talked about Good German Engineering, and the papers worried about the Nazi rockets and plants and Eleanor wondered if the whole thing was a joke because this was not well-engineered. It ticked, for Pete's sake! Bombs only ticked in radio plays!

The MP's were the ones to defuse the thing. She didn't understand what they did with it, they went into the ladies' lounge nervous as anything and came out to the parking lot fifteen minutes later with it in pieces to everyone's cheers.

Adrienne moved backwards through the timeline quickly, confused by what was going on. Why were some of these people looking like people she knew? Like a dvd player on rewind, she saw the scenes blur before her eyes, thought she saw a glimpse of another woman who looked like Nico at a campsite in Egypt, pulling the seal from the sand, and then just sand, miles upon miles of it. The seal must have been buried, she realized.