The Annals of Fear

They were in the kitchen. All four of the Watari geniuses sitting in a semi-circle around one end of the table. Set upon it was a laptop bearing the legend, in Old English text, of \'W\'. Hal spoke from it. "Are you any closer to solving the case?"



"Yes." Mello and Deontic replied together. Century just kept his head bowed, occasionally sipping water. Matt had been enticed away from his bank of monitors, all now reconnected directly to the hub collecting the camera feeds. His attention kept wandering back to them and to the job in hand. It was Mello who continued. "We\'ve already solved it. The issue is what we are going to do about the solution."



"Does any danger remain?"



Mello snorted. Matt smiled. Deontic calmly answered the question. "Yes. We have agreed to stay here, at this house, on the basis that we can\'t guarantee that anywhere else will be safer. At least here we are at ground zero and may be able to learn more to neutralise the danger."



Hal\'s voice was brisk, as if saying it quickly would result in a positive response. "As warden of Wammy\'s House, I want Century out of there. I want him back in the hospital, where the consultant can decide whether or not he\'s well enough to be discharged."



Matt muttered, "But the rest of us can go fuck ourselves."



Mello and Deontic both looked at Century, but he only raised his head long enough to roll his eyes at the webcam and take another drink. Mello took a deep breath. "I can see both sides of this. Let me be the advocate of you both." He quickly swallowed the chocolate in his mouth. "Century, not to put too fine a point on it, you look like absolute shit. Whatever is in this house is after all of us, but you\'ve already gone under once. I\'m not saying that that is a weakness on your part. You were behind the lines longer. This house has a propensity to up the stakes bit by bit, like thumbscrews tightening, until you don\'t realise how anxious you\'ve become. Then the hallucinations start, aided and abetted by real hauntings. It also delights in startling us. We\'ve already had the running feet again in the last hour. I\'m expecting it to throw anything and everything at us, the longer we stay. It\'s extremely risky any of us being here, but for you, I think it\'s downright suicidal." He paused. Deontic and Matt were looking anywhere but at Century. The teenager himself was just staring at the floor. "If you don\'t wish to get checked over under the auspices of Watari, then get yourself to Salvo and Chrissie and let them sort you out."



"Thank you, Mello." Hal breathed.



Mello coughed. "I haven\'t finished. That\'s me supporting you, Hal, but I also see Century\'s point of view. When is your birthday, Century?"



He looked up, his gaze turned sideways in deep suspicion. "Why? Am I getting a birthday present?"



"I know it\'s September. It\'s August now."



Century sighed and slid off his stool to get a lollipop from his bag. While everyone else\'s luggage had been in the back of Deontic\'s car, Century\'s had only recently arrived. Hal had sent it via a courier. "My birthday is the 2nd. I\'ll be 18." Century sat back down.



"Ok." Mello smiled, making quick calculations. "Hal, in eighteen days, Century will officially be an adult and will suddenly gain all of the same rights as the rest of us. To say that he will change between now and then is rather optimistic. The date is therefore a bit arbitrary in determining whether or not he can take responsibility for his own actions."



"It\'s not a matter of capability." Hal interupted. "It\'s legality."



Matt chuckled. "Since when has Wammy\'s House had anything to do with legality? Even with all of our changes, it\'s still a highly illegal institution."



"Matt." Mello raised his hand for silence. "I predict that if you say that you are coming for Century now..."



"Me?" Hal clarified.



"Yes. If you say that you are coming for Century now, he will disappear into the Welsh countryside and we\'d be lucky to see him again. His role-model is Fenian, who was a bastard to try and find this time last year." Mello considered it further. They had been raised to meet freely given information with some of their own, of equal value. "Century, thank you for telling me your birth date. In response, I will tell you that tomorrow is mine and Matt\'s first wedding anniversary." As if on cue, the music started in the bedroom above. Mello grit his teeth and glanced at Century.



"Happy anniversary." Century mumbled. Deontic echoed the sentiments just as quietly.



Matt climbed off his stool to wander across to the monitors. He commented, as he did so, "We could always have a belated reception party now. We have a live band."



Mello snorted. "To a given value of \'live\'."



"Mello, it\'s my duty as Watari..." Hal began.



"He\'s not going to leave here until the case is closed." Mello stated firmly. "That\'s not an order from me, that\'s how his mind works. He came back here in this state because there is a job to be done. We were not brought up to run away." He thought about it. "Even Century."



Hal tried a different tactic. "You said that the case has been solved. Surely, therefore, the case is closed."



"Hal, I want you to look into the criteria for the reward. What do the Scots and Texans want from us? If it\'s answers, then we can give them to them. The case is closed." Mello sucked on an edge of his chocolate bar. "If it\'s damage limitation, then Matt and Deontic are currently doing their best to remove the threat. They have spent the past three hours working on ways to deal with the song that\'s passing this shit around the globe. I doubt it will ever be fully eliminated. If it\'s total eradication of the threat, then I don\'t think that the case can be closed, ever."



Hal sounded shocked. "What is it?"



"It\'s a flyer." Mello replied. At the silence from the other side of the line, Mello continued. "Are you not familiar with the works of Carlos Cesar Arana Castañeda? He spoke of demonic creatures, which he called Mud Shadows or flyers, which fed off negative human energy. We were looking in the wrong place."



"Deontic told me that it was a Welsh banshee type entity."



"Century, tell her."



Century took the lollipop from his mouth and spoke up. "It\'s not Welsh. It looked Welsh and I think I was helped by knowing my Welsh mythology, but the whole story doesn\'t fit any of the main suspects. Mallt-y-Nos, Gwrach-y-Rhybyn and Cŵn Annwn have all been factors, but..." He shook his head and took a sip of water. He concluded briefly. "It\'s not Welsh."



They all watched him. Deontic articulated all of their thoughts. "You really aren\'t well. You had much more to say on the subject before."



"I know. But those are the salient points."



"Do you want to lie down?" Deontic turned to look at the closed sitting room door. She knew that she wouldn\'t like to go alone through it, especially not to sleep. "We could, perhaps, put some cushions on the floor in here. A quilt."



Against all of the evidence, Century whispered, "I\'m ok." And stayed precisely where he was.



Hal took a deep breath. "I have something that I want to say. I have afforded you all the courtesy of listening to what you have to say. I ask that you hear me out before interupting." They heard her quickly exhale, then hold her breath. They waited, but she didn\'t continue.



Mello smiled, "Go on, Hal."



"Dang." Hal muttered, then plunged on. Her nerves were barely discernible under a tone of sharp professionalism. "When I was given this job, I took it as a member of Near\'s staff. It did not fit my job description, neither does it contribute to my career in any way that I can see. Nevertheless, I took it on, despite no firm remit." She paused briefly, before hurtling on. "I asked Deontic what she sees my actual role being here. With the brutal honesty, that is a hallmark of you all, she told me that I\'m basically a figurehead. I\'m someone to complain to and stop you all imploding before you can sort your lives out. You need me here as a lynch-key, because otherwise Watari by Committee wouldn\'t work. You\'d be too busy trying to out-do each other."



Mello and Matt exchanged glances. Mello dramatically rolled his eyes, Matt smirked. Above their heads, the music and the pounding of running feet went on. The house felt like it was closing in. Deontic coughed, "I apologise if..."



"No." Hal stopped her. "It\'s a truth. However, I don\'t think that it\'s the whole truth. I\'m a cop. I\'m good at taking orders. However, I\'m a good cop, which means that I also know how to work on my own initiative. I did not get where I am today by sitting back and being someone\'s yes woman. I also don\'t think that you intended me to be. If you really needed such a role as Deontic\'s outlined, then Ann would have been a much better Watari."



There was general snorting and smiles at that. "Ann?" Mello laughed. "She\'s no-one\'s yes woman! She\'s the only person who ever attempted to punish me as a child. She sometimes scares me a bit even now, when she shouts."



"You\'re not scared of Ann." Hal sighed. "Don\'t pretend that you are."



Mello bit into his chocolate. "Ok, we heard you out. I have to question your timing somewhat, but..." He glanced towards the ceiling. "Can you actually hear that racket?"



"Nothing on the monitors." Matt commented. "Though everything is going off. EMF..." He paused. Then shrugged. "It\'s always going off. Either every piece of equipment is faulty or the activity is constant."



"It\'s constant." Mello concluded.



Hal swallowed. She told them bluntly, "I hadn\'t finished." They all looked at the webcam. "I have thought a great deal about my role here. I\'ve spoken with the older members of staff and some of your peers. I\'ve spoken at length with Roger. I\'ve read the files and I\'ve studied child law. I\'ve pondered long and hard about the morality of this situation; and I\'ve done my best to deal with some of the more immediate problems. I am good at taking orders, but first I had to ascertain where precisely those orders were coming from."



"Us!" Mello frowned, meaning himself.



"I could follow a trail set out by two men, who were great at academia and grand visions, but who were a little shoddy when it came to real life children." Hal paused to let them fill out the detail. She knew their minds. They needed facts to grip onto. Things could not be stated on faith, they had to be laid out as hypotheses and then submitted for debate. "I could return to my true calling and expose this whole mess to the various authorities and, as Matt once threatened, take this to Geneva itself." They were all staring wide-eyed at the webcam now. Even Matt had abandoned his computers to wander back to his stool. "I am a policewoman and, frankly, the way you were all abducted, disappeared and abused, there is a clear crime to be answered for. However, I was also on the Kira case and I saw the results from this system, that no other institution in the world was able to come close to matching."



"Hal..." Mello began.



"Shut up, Mello." Hal replied. "I could take my orders from Near, who is my boss. He pays my wages, regardless of what you all think is happening."



"They should be coming straight from Watari."



"Mello, shut up." Hal pressed on. "However, the same problem lies with Near as with all of you. That is that you are products of this system and so far I\'ve only managed to get three of you to have psychiatric evaluations. It is my firm belief that you have all been brainwashed here. You actually believe that a case like this is worth dying for. You think that any puzzle is worth throwing away your lives, if it will lead to a solution. I\'ve been told repeatedly, by various sources, that Century rebelled against the system, yet he is sitting there, hours after having had a heart attack, willing to go through the same trauma again. You are all willing to die for this."



Mello looked pointedly at Deontic. Deontic frowned. "What?"



"You say it. She\'ll only tell me to shut up."



"Say what?"



"That we have no choice in the matter. It\'s going to try and kill us anyway, wherever we are."



Century had just taken another long gulp of water. He screwed the top back onto the bottle. "So your point is that all of your employers are mad and you want to get us all tried for crimes against humanity. And this is going to help our stress levels how?"



Hal sighed again. "What I\'m trying to say is that I finally worked out where my orders are coming from. They were hard to miss, because I couldn\'t hear them, but I think that they are the most important orders that should be adherred to." She hesitated, pondering the wisdom of this, now that she had come so far. "Mello, the criteria for solving this case is merely to come up with the answers. Your case is closed."



They all exchanged incredulous looks, then fell to contemplating the screen. Mello snapped off another strip of chocolate. "And?"

There was silence from the other end of the communication. "You didn\'t go through all of that to simply tell me that my case is closed."



"No, I didn\'t." Hal reached a decision and finished her speech. "I have never claimed to be a maternal woman by nature. I certainly am not trying to be your mother, before anyone accuses me of that. I have a duty of care to each of you; I have a heightened duty of care to Century, though I understand that I\'m going to be thwarted at every turn in trying to perform that duty. The only moral and right orders come from my musings on what certain people would be giving me, if only they could." Her brusque tone had fallen away. It was with great shock that they could hear the tears in her voice. "My orders come from Mrs Jones, Mrs Lim, Mrs Keehl and Ms Chaho. Their orders are one and the same, which is to keep their child safe. That then is now your case and your sole priority. You are to ensure your own safety and take whatever steps necessary to save your own lives. That is my order as Watari."



There was a stunned silence. It wasn\'t so much what she\'d said, but the fact that it really did sound like Hal was crying. There were sniffs and a definite blowing of the nose, before her side of the communication was abruptly cut off. She\'d only released the button, as her screen remained connected. "Great." Century spoke eventually. "My Dad couldn\'t give a stuff. It\'s only my Mam gone to visit her."



Deontic slapped his arm. "Ssh."



Hal returned, only slightly more composed. "I\'m sure that your father would have issued precisely the same order." She swallowed hard. "And I never said that I\'d had an actual visitation."



"In honesty," Mello chewed on his chocolate, "the way the past couple of days had gone, I wouldn\'t be at all surprised." He stopped and they all looked at him. "Shit."



Deontic turned fearfully to look at the closed door. "Great, Mello, now it has another idea for what to throw at us."



Matt shrugged. "I\'m ready for it. If it\'s really my Dad, then I have such a lot to discuss with him."



The colour had drained from Mello\'s face. "It can\'t touch me with Yugoslavia now. I\'ve got that out of my system. Flight Lieutenant Lees saw to that." He counted off on his fingers. "Four episodes to my life. It got me on the first. But I\'ve dealt with it. Your presense collectively means that it can\'t get me on Wammy\'s House, because we\'re reliving it anyway. It\'s secure. Then I took the Mafia to it. It knows it can\'t get me there. Finally, there\'s my life with Matt and that\'s got nothing but joy and love in it." He smirked, a little of the colour returning. He raised his voice, letting it carry through the house. "So bring it on, you fucker!"



Hal replied quietly, "Just call me when you\'re ready to be airlifted out of there."