If he hadn't really noticed it before, the day spent at home waiting for Pegatha to call let Vincent know without a doubt that there was something wrong with Elira.
Because he hadn't been out late the evening before, he'd managed to get to bed in good time; and this had allowed him to wake up early enough in the morning to witness Elira's sprint to the bathroom where she proceeded to vomit up what little she had in her stomach. Once she'd finished and cleaned herself up, he helped her to the kitchen where he made her some tea and dry toast. The tea she drank, slowly, but she barely nibbled at the toast before going to lie down again. He spent a half hour in the apartment, after washing, dressing, and eating, just to make sure that Elira didn't need anything, and then he left to go pick some things up from the grocery store, reasoning that Pegatha hadn't called yet in the morning and probably wasn't going to start today.
Elira spent the better part of the day in bed, resting or sleeping as if to make up for rest she'd needed but had to forgo because of the shop during the week. Vincent spent his time fighting the urge to call or visit the police station until he finally forced himself into a chair with the backlog of order forms Elira had neglected in favour of doing the monthly numbers. When the phone did eventually ring, Vincent jumped to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Hiya, Vince! How're ya doin'?"
Not Pegatha. He quietly let out the breath he'd been holding. "Fine, Benita. And you?"
"Can't complain. Well, I could, but I'm sure you don' wanna hear it. Is Lir around?"
Vincent glanced toward the bedroom. "She's resting right now."
"Everythin' awright?"
"Just the flu, we think."
"Bleh. Poor girl. Well, tell 'er ta call me when she's feelin' better. Or I'll call her this week sometime. How's Peg doin'? Can I talk to her a minute?"
Vincent hesitated. "No, she's gone for the weekend."
He was relieved when Benita didn't pursue a more detailed response. "Okay. Well, take care, eh Vince? And take care o' Lir while yer at it. Hope she feels better."
"So do I. I'll tell her you called."
"Thanks, Vince. Talk to ya later."
"Good-bye."
A moment after he put the receiver down Elira padded wearily out of the bedroom, still dressed in her nightie. "Who was that?" she asked groggily, rubbing at one gritty eye.
Vincent stepped toward her and then held out his arms as she walked to him. In a moment, she was snuggling against his chest. "Benita."
"Mm," she mumbled into his shirt. "I feel miserable."
Vincent rubbed her back through her nightie and didn't reply. After a moment, she spoke again. "Did you go shopping?"
"Yes."
She tilted her head to smile tiredly up at him. "Good. Thank you." With a sigh, she slipped her arms around his waist and leaned against him. "God, I'm so tired. Maybe if I eat something."
"I thought you were feeling miserable."
"I am," she asserted. "But also sort of hungry."
"Do you want me to make you something?"
"No, that's okay. I think I'll just have some cheese. And an orange, if we have any."
Vincent raised an eyebrow. "Cheese and an orange?"
Elira made a face at him. "Hey, I'm sick. I can eat whatever I want. It'll probably just come up again anyway."
"Then maybe you should stick to something lighter."
"No, I'm all right. I don't feel sick anymore. Just like I've been hit with a train." She backed out of his embrace and wandered in the direction of the fridge. As Vincent turned to gather up the order forms so he could relocate to the kitchen table, he heard Elira call to him from the other room. "Were you planning to go anywhere else today?"
"No," he answered. "I was going to wait for Peg to call."
"Okay." She sounded pleased.
And wait he did, but by ten that evening he gave up and went to bed. Sleep didn't come easily that night, even with Elira bundled in his arms. He was restless, caught between worry for Pegatha's safety and anger at her negligence. He had spent an entire day in the apartment, waiting for a clue about where she was so that he could bring her home and give the police something to go on. Waiting, and now wondering where she was. Why had it come down to this? he asked himself. He hadn't even been working for the police an entire week when she'd run away; and she'd done it instead of talking to him as if it had been the most sensible thing to do. Where was her head?
It was a memory that checked his train of thought. Without a further word to his mother, without allowing her to explain, he'd fled from his home to a city on an entirely different continent, searching for some way to prove her wrong. Searching for a way to make what she'd said untrue, so that things would return to the way they had been...
To the way they'd been before he'd taken the second job. For months, he'd been feeling that he and Pegatha were drawing further and further apart without any way to draw closer again. Then, suddenly, he was rarely at home.
And she'd responded by taking her presence away as well in the hope that he would draw closer again by finding her. It was suddenly clear. Maybe she was more like him than he'd ever recognized, taking the same road he'd taken when he'd been a boy, and for the same reason, if not in the same circumstances. If only he'd seen this before. And Elira had been trying to get him to be home, to talk to her, seeing, where he hadn't, how it would help.
Now, he'd missed his chance. After today, assuming she was still all right, he doubted she would continue calling on a regular basis. Elira's reassurances that he would be home soon were no longer enough to placate the feeling that she'd been abandoned for a job. He hoped she still believed that things would go back to the way they'd been. In any case, he had to find her. He felt bad about leaving Elira alone when she was feeling so unwell, but he couldn't afford to spend another day away from the streets. Pegatha was very probably in a bad situation and it was getting less and less likely that she would return on her own as he'd assumed earlier.
Tomorrow, he decided as he made himself more comfortable behind Elira, he would go back to the station and start up again with renewed purpose. And nothing was going to stop him.
The day after the weekend, classes were finally in session at the Gold Saucer. It was like a field trip, Pegatha thought; all of the dojo students who wanted schooling were piled into one of the unmistakable 'Golden' buses that regularly took people to the tram, and then driven by another suit-and-sunglasses man the numerous blocks in between. The tram ride itself took almost half an hour, but it was interesting to watch out of the large windows as the dimensions of the city gave way to fields, which eventually gave way to miles and miles of sand while the sky never seemed to change at all. She had only been on the tram up to the amusement center once before, for one of Haelie's birthday parties years ago.
Inside the Saucer, it was just as noisy and colourful as she remembered, though it seemed smaller than before. She walked a few feet with the group, gaping with them at the sights of Station Square, before recognizing that it wasn't smaller; she just remembered it as bigger because she'd been younger. The man who'd driven the bus had accompanied them on the tram, and now, without a word, he led them to the Wonder Square. As they followed, some of them visibly restraining themselves from running off to enjoy the pleasures of the Saucer, the man took them down a hallway and through a door with a punch-button key code. The door ended up belonging to a large elevator, large enough to fit the dozen or so who had come along. After a short descent, the door reopened with a ding and they all stepped out onto one of the lower levels of the Gold Saucer.
The room they entered looked like a huge, empty storage area, almost like a kind of warehouse with curving walls. The ceiling rose high above them and their footsteps echoed as they walked across the linoleum floor after their guide. There were a few arched doorways positioned at intervals along the walls, all leading in different directions, but the man in the suit led them in a straight line to a plain gray door at the other side of the room. He opened it and glanced back at them briefly. "Keep up," he told them crisply before starting forward again.
It was only after they'd been led around a number of corners did Pegatha understand the man's warning. If they didn't keep up, she could see the ease with which they could become lost in the veritable maze of offices, empty rooms, and corridors. A couple of times she glanced around herself just to make sure that Arick, Lef, and Marc were still in the group. Eventually, their procession was brought to a halt just outside of a door at the end of a hall. The man told them to stay put and then walked into the room. There was the sound of muffled voices as if he was having a hushed conversation with someone, and then another man stepped into the hall. He was smaller than his counterpart and was dressed, not in a black suit, but in casual slacks and a sweater. He smiled at them and clapped his hands together.
"Well, I guess this is my class." He turned to the man in the suit. "You may tell him we're ready for him," he said quietly.
The man nodded and left they way they'd come. Their teacher turned back to them and silently started counting heads. He smiled. "Twelve. Good. Well, come in and find yourselves a seat."
Pegatha managed to get a desk behind Lef and beside Arick. Marc sat in front of Arick, and once he was seated he turned around to look at them. "Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that those guys wear shades even when they're inside?"
"Yeah, they look like those spies in Doom Herald," Lef commented, swiveling around in his seat.
"Maybe if we had guns we could go around picking them off for points." Arick made a gun out of his thumb and forefinger and started firing imaginary bullets at targets around him.
"And Pegatha would still beat you," Marc chuckled.
Pegatha smiled at this while Arick scowled. He hadn't believed her when she'd told him apologetically that she'd never played Doom Herald before, or any arcade game like it. It had just seemed to come to her naturally: the plastic gun in her hand, the bad guys on the screen trying to shoot her. It had hardly been a challenge to site out the heart or the head and fire a bullet exactly where she wanted it to go. 'Amazing hand-eye coordination,' Marc had commented. Arick had demanded a rematch, and then another one when she'd beaten him again. They'd even returned to the arcade the next day for another few rounds, though she'd eventually wandered off with a few borrowed quarters to try some of the other games she thought she'd prefer more.
By the time they'd arrived back at the dojo, Deke had returned to fill them in on the school classes that were beginning the next day. Pegatha felt another small twinge of guilt, her third or fourth since yesterday evening, as she thought about the promise she'd broken to her mother about calling home. Though it hadn't been for a lack of trying. Deke had locked the door to his room again after his arrival, and the only payphone around (a couple of blocks away in front of a convenience store) hadn't worked. She hoped her mother wasn't too mad or worried because of it.
Though maybe it would be a good thing if she didn't call home for a little while, she thought. The school would undoubtedly be calling her house looking for her, and then her mother would know she wasn't going anymore. And that would make her angry. Maybe if she waited for a few days until that had a chance to blow over, and then could try to explain that she was sort of going to school...
Pegatha came back into the conversation of her three friends as Lef said, "I'm thinking about not coming after today. I don't really want to go to school if I don't have to."
"I don't know if this really constitutes 'school'," Pegatha pointed out.
Lef shrugged. "Still a classroom with a teacher. And we'll probably have to learn stuff and take tests and all that."
"It's school if we're learning things," Arick said in reply to Pegatha's comment. "And if we have a teacher, I'm assuming he's going to teach us things."
Pegatha made a face at him.
"I hope we get lunch," Lef interjected suddenly.
"I hope they leave out History and English," Marc added. "If I don't have to go, I only want classes I want to go to."
The noise of someone clapping their hands at the front of the room made everyone glance over. The teacher put his hands down and gestured at the doorway. Pegatha sat up straighter when she realized Mr. Brescher was standing there. Arick, she noticed, also came to attention.
Mr. Brescher entered the room with a smile at all of them. "Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you all here. As most of you already know, I am Mr. Brescher, and the man standing to my left is Mr. Harmund. He'll be the teacher provided for your convenient schooling for the rest of this year." The man, Mr. Harmund, bowed a little at the introduction. "Now, these classes are being provided for the education of your minds, but I'm here to talk about other classes that go on here at the Gold Saucer -- classes that are a continuation of the basic training you've received at the dojo." It might have been her imagination, but Pegatha thought Mr. Brescher's gaze paused on her for a moment as he glanced over the room. "A few of you have already been told a little about these classes, but I want to extend the invitation to everyone here. If you decide to join up, two-person rooms will be available for you to stay in here at the Gold Saucer, and, for those of you who are undoubtedly wondering, the Saucer itself will be open to you free of charge."
Pegatha chuckled as Arick, Lef, and Marc proceeded to whoop quietly and slap each others hands. Arick lifted his palm to her for a high-five and Pegatha obliged him, though she wasn't nearly as excited about the news as they were. The Gold Saucer was flashy and dazzling, that was certain, but she could remember from years ago that the games hadn't held much thrill for her; the only thing she'd enjoyed at all had been the Gondola tour, and she was sure the novelty of that would wear off soon enough.
"All right, everyone," Mr. Brescher said over the noise of the class, "that's all I have to say. Have a good class, and I hope you'll all consider joining up for the advanced training." With that, he waved a hand and left.
All of the classes took place in the same room and were taught by Mr. Harmund, and each one ended with a fifteen minute recess to prevent the students from becoming too restless. They were also given an hour-long lunch break just before noon, and food was provided for them in the Gold Saucer's cafeteria. In the end, as 'school' was let out for the day at three o'clock, Pegatha found herself more impressed with the substitute classes than she'd imagined she would be. Mr. Harmund was a remarkably versatile teacher: he'd given them informed lessons in mathematics, English, history, and geography, with promises of more classes to come. The only niggling qualm she had about it had to do with what her parents would think if they knew she'd given up regular, funded schooling for something that seemed more like 'back door' education.
That evening, back at the dojo, she, Arick, Lef, and Marc were able to snag the lounge for themselves. There was an initial scuffle over who would wield the remote, but eventually Lef, by far the tallest out of all of them, prevailed. Smiling smugly at Arick and Marc who had been his opposition, he settled his lanky form down on the rug and began to flip through the channels. There didn't seem to be anything on, but just as they were getting sick of advertisements, the hour changed. As Lef went charging through the new selection of shows, Arick sat up from where he'd been lounging on a couch with Pegatha and said, "Whoa, turn it back!"
Lef went back through the channels until Arick told him to stop on a news program. The reporter there was the same one they'd seen a couple of days ago: Hara Bates with the frizzy brown hair. At first, Pegatha was tempted to tell Arick that Ms. Bates probably wasn't reporting on the 'Phantom Vigilante' again, but then as she listened to the program she realized she was wrong.
"This morning around six o'clock gunfire was heard by residents of the Eastern District, specifically along Burlemaine Avenue where, witnesses say, the man known only as the Phantom Vigilante arrived to stop another robbery from being committed by the Phantom Gang. Members of the gang fled the scene empty-handed after firing several bullets at the approaching Vigilante, none of which hit their intended target. Police arrived on the scene soon afterward to question the witnesses, but police officials still have no statement to make concerning the identity of the Vigilante."
The television suddenly showed what Pegatha recognized as the outside steps of the police station. A man identified as Chief Inspector Lennard Neilson was ascending them, but he turned after a moment to speak into the microphones at his back. "I have nothing to say at this time. As soon as we get some information we can pass on to the public about this man, we will, but until that time I have no statement. Excuse me."
The screen switched back to Hara Bates, but her words were drowned out as Arick began to speak. "Well, he seems to be doing all right for himself," he directed at Marc. "Getting himself a reputation, too."
Marc didn't reply immediately. "I said in the next couple of weeks, and you can bet the Phantom Gang isn't going to let him beat them down like this for too much longer without doing something."
Arick only shrugged. "We'll see. Okay, Lef, you can change the channel now."
As Lef began to surf through the channels again, Pegatha found herself drifting into her own mind. What was it like to be rescued by the 'Phantom Vigilante'? She wished he'd been around when her father's store had been robbed so that she could've seen him, and maybe even have met him. If it was someone hired by Mr. Brescher, maybe she'd already seen him...or met him. What if it was Mr. Brescher himself? Her eyes widened at this prospect. He was rarely around, as Arick had said before, and he seemed very eager to get them to move on in their training -- if he was having them trained to fight the gang, he would want as many of them to join as possible, and quickly before any more damage could be done.
Pegatha wanted to mention this to Arick, but not with Marc around. Marc was still so pessimistic about this entire thing. She resolved to wait until it was just Arick and herself, like it had been before they'd joined the dojo, and then she could tell him and find out what he was going to do about joining. Because, on that point, she was still very undecided.
"I want you to start wearing a bullet-proof vest."
"Those bullets were nowhere near me, Inspector..."
"I know, I know." Neilson waved a hand dismissively. "But, still, I'd feel better knowing you had one on. If you're going to start 'bumping into' the gang like this on a regular basis, I want you to take a few precautions. The last thing I want to have to do is explain your sudden disappearance to your family."
Vincent hesitated for a moment before nodding once.
Neilson sighed a little. "Good. I'll dig one up for you. Now, onto some other business." He ruffled through some paperwork on his desk until he came up with what he was looking for. "You remember me saying something about the rising number of runaway kids, right? Well, we've questioned many of the parents of these kids and quite a few of them mentioned a dojo their child was going to." He handed the police reports over to Vincent. "This is the information on the kids and the responses we got from their parents." He paused for a second. "You said a couple of days ago that you might not need this information..." He trailed off.
Vincent glanced up from the reports in his lap. "I may need it now," he replied quietly.
"What made you think you didn't need it before? Did you have a lead?"
"I thought I did, but it has gone beyond my reach." Neilson continued to look at him expectantly. Vincent sighed. "My daughter...has run away, and I have reason to believe she was going to this dojo."
Neilson sat up in his chair. "Oh God. That's awful."
Vincent held up his hand. "Before you ask me, I don't want any time off. Now, more than ever, I would like to work on this case."
Neilson looked like he would protest, but then he nodded. "Okay. But I'm trusting you, Vincent. I have a feeling you know your own limitations, but if you think at any point that your personal feelings are getting in the way of the job, I want you to take yourself off of the case, for your own safety as much as for anything else."
Vincent agreed. He was just turning his attention back to the reports when Neilson chuckled suddenly. Vincent glanced up at him.
Neilson put a hand to his mouth and apologized. "I know this probably isn't the best time to be thinking of this..." He shook his head. "I don't suppose you've noticed the publicity you've been getting."
"Publicity?"
"You're all over the news, the only thing anyone can talk about. They've taken to calling you the 'Phantom Vigilante'."
Vincent raised an eyebrow.
Neilson smiled. "The media have been knocking on our doors and windows day and night trying to get some statement out of us. We're claiming ignorance, of course, but I wonder what they'd think if they knew I had you in my office right now."
Vincent looked again to the reports. "Probably the same thing they'd think if you had a member of Avalanche in your office," he replied nonchalantly.
Neilson laughed. "No, then they'd been breaking our doors and windows. That's still the biggest mystery on the continent. Who were they? Where are they now? It's hard to believe people are still so obsessed with finding them, twenty years later. I mean, they didn't reveal themselves for a reason. I'm surprised more people don't respect that."
Vincent didn't reply. After a moment, Neilson stirred and got to his feet. "Well, I'm going to find you a vest. It shouldn't take me more than a few minutes."
Neilson hadn't taken more than fifteen steps from his office door when Gunther stepped up suddenly beside him and began walking with him, stride for stride. The younger man didn't say anything until they'd gone into one of the storage rooms, and then he waited until the door had closed behind them.
"It's him, isn't it?" he asked quietly. "He's the 'Phantom Vigilante' everyone's praising to the skies." He raised his hands over his head as he spoke, wiggling his fingers theatrically.
Neilson broke off his search of a shelf and turned to his junior. "You really don't like him, do you?"
Gunther scoffed a little. "It's not like I know him, but...well, no, I don't like him." He placed his hands on his hips. "Let's say what we don't know about him makes me uncomfortable. He could've come from anywhere, Len, you do realize that. Has he ever told you anything about himself?"
Len shrugged and started rummaging through a pile of surplus uniforms. "He's...reserved. Maybe he just doesn't like talking about himself."
"Or maybe he's got a criminal past. It still shocks and, pardon my frankness, frightens me to see how much trust you put in this stranger."
Neilson sighed wearily. Raising a hand to rub at his forehead, he turned back to Gunther. "Look, I know how you feel about this, Yves, but I'm not going to get rid of him. Did the others talk to you? Do they all feel the same?"
Gunther paused a moment before shaking his head. Neilson ran his hand through his hair. "Okay, I know I've always trusted your judgement before, but here I think you're wrong. I will admit it is a possibility Mr. Valentine was involved in something, I'm not going to say what, in his past, but unless it affects his performance or makes me suspect him of something underhanded I'm not going to point the finger. He's a good man with a family, and he's been risking his life to help us. He's got just as much on the line as anyone else here, or in the rest of North Corel -- maybe even more." These last three words he mumbled to himself as he turned back to the shelves. If Gunther heard him, he didn't think anything of the comment.
There were a few seconds of silence before the younger man spoke again. "Len, I want to trust your judgement, but...I don't know. I want to do a background check on him."
"Then do a background check. Yves, where the hell are those bullet-proof vests?"
"You'll let me?"
"Yes. Go ahead. But it's not going to change my mind. Ah, dammit, finally!" Neilson stood from where he'd been bent down and hunting through an overcrowded bottom shelf, a heavy gray vest in one hand. "Remind me to get someone to sort this mess out. And, Yves..."
"Mm?"
"I don't want you telling anyone that Mr. Valentine is our Phantom Vigilante, all right? All it takes is one wrong word to the wrong person and we'll all be in a lot of trouble, not only from the organization but from the mayor. She's already got my firmest assurances that I don't know anything about this man."
"You lied to the mayor?"
Neilson grinned. "We've all still got our jobs, haven't we?"
"Okay, I won't say a word. But I'm still doing a background check, and I'm going to tell you what I find."
"Fine. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got the man himself in my office."
"Oh, well we don't want to keep 'the man' waiting, do we?"
Neilson chuckled and headed for his office. Gunther watched him go and then left to find Tesner, his partner. It was time to go back to the streets. Patrol had once been his favourite part of the job, but now it had become disheartening. How was it possible for them to miss everything while a lone man on a motorcycle ran into the organization again and again? How did he always manage to get there first? And where had he learned to fight like them? So many unanswered, frustrating questions; but not for long. Yves almost smiled to himself as he beckoned to Tesner in the break room. No, not for much longer.