Down below -

Down below, in a room the rest of the world would never see, in a building the rest of the world ignored, lived a man the rest of the world did not know existed.

The rest of the world. Nick Reynolds sometimes wished he could share in its ignorance. He hated Down Below, hated it with a visceral passion. Its walls were institutional grey, its denizens mindless zombies, faceless automatons masked and shrouded in hospital white. Its prisoners -

Nick stared impassively at the man in the austere chamber, stared through the one-way glass at the agency's captive. His name was Ronnie, and he would never leave Down Below alive.

"Nicky," the man behind the glass crooned. "I know you're there."

Nick stood, impassively, as only a G-man could, in his regulation black suit. Ronnie made his skin crawl, made his scalp itch. The lanky man moved smoothly forward, pressing against the thick glass that separated him from the rest of the world. His empty, dark eyes looked straight at Nick. "I see you, Nicky," he called in his soft sing-song.

I see you, Nicky. It was like the whisper of the monster in the closet. I see you . . .

Nick worked for the agency for the same reason that the agency had locked up Ronnie - he had no choice. They were like two sides of the same coin. Ronnie was here because he was a powerful, honest-to-god psychic. None of this Jean-Dixon-Psychic-Hotline bullshit. He could see the future, see the past, see things far away, touch things and get readings off of them.

Nick was to Ronnie the way a melting icicle was to Niagara Falls. He could tell when people lied to him, and while he didn't have "visions", he certainly did have quite an accurate intuition that had saved his life more than once. It was enough to get him assigned here. He didn't like it here.

"I saw a dragon with feet like rabbits, 'tis true, I swear!" the madman behind glass exclaimed, now staring at Nick intently.

"You stole that line from a video game," Nick grumbled, finally speaking aloud. There was no need for him to speak into the mike. Clairaudience numbered among Ronnie's many talents.

Ronnie looked coyly at the agent he should not have been able to see. Only his upper torso was visible to Nick through the one-way glass. It was a lank, scrawny body, typical of the institutionalized, clothed in serviceable hospital pajamas. "What if," Ronnie offered slowly, "I told you that I saw a paper fan that shot fire?"

"I'd say you're full of shit," Nick replied.

"Pa-per moon," Ronnie sang. "Agent Reynolds, have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

"If you're trying to convince me that you're crazy, you're doing a rather poor job of it," Nick replied.

"But I am crazy," the psychic replied. "I am. Otherwise, why am I in here?" He turned his pitiful eyes to Nick, his palms pressed flat against the glass, creating white shapes on his hands. "I must be crazy, I've never done anything wrong. I've never . . ." he broke off, sobbed briefly. "I've never hurt anyone."

Nick did not reply. In his heart of hearts, he knew that keeping Ronnie here was wrong, but at the same time, he was profoundly relieved that it wasn't him behind the glass. It could just as easily have been him.

"Why, Nick?" Ronnie asked, a whine tingeing the edges of his voice. "Why?" He began to pound against the glass with his fists, in time to his cries. "Why? Why? Why? Why? Whywhywhywhywhywhy . . ."

Nick summoned an orderly when Ronnie began to pound his head against the glass. It was almost magical, the way the two attendants appeared, masked and gloved, pulling Ronnie away from the glass. Ronnie struggled for a moment, then sagged, like a broken doll, in their grip as they snapped the restraints onto his skeletal arms. "It's true," he whispered. "I saw it, a fan that shoots fire. The great blue dragon god reborn. I saw a monster whose heart has turned to hatred."

Nick's eyes flicked to the other man as he lay on his hospital bed, confined now by the orderlies. A cold feeling skittered across his skin as Ronnie's words registered in his mind. There was something there, something, he knew, that could - no, would be the death of him. Now it was he who pressed against the glass as Ronnie had, moments ago. "What was that, Ronnie?" he asked, his voice gone soft, as if he'd forgotten his training.

He watched helplessly as one of the orderlies injected Ronnie with a tranquilizer.

"Shit," he exclaimed softly, and turned to go.

"Such . . . a pretty girl," Ronnie slurred. Nick turned back towards the glass, saw that Ronnie was looking straight at him. "Pretty . . . girl. Go an' catch a falling sstarrr. . ."

Nick leaned towards the glass unconsciously, straining to hear the words that the mike would pick up. The orderlies left the room, and the lights dimmed so that the captive could relax under the influence of the medication.

"Reynolds?"

The sharp voice startled him, rattling him far worse than usual. He stumbled, tried to catch himself and ended up jamming him thumb as a result.

Maureen Jorgensen stood in the doorway, severely dressed in the requisite black pantsuit tailored to her lean form. Her dark hair was pulled back in an austere bun; indeed, all she need was a pair of granny glasses to complete the librarian from hell image. It was an image only, for even a librarian from hell had some semblance of humanity, and Jorgensen had none. She glanced away from Nick as he picked himself up, taking in the now-dimmed room where Ronnie lived. Even in sleep he had no privacy.

"You shouldn't tease the rats," she admonished him.

"I wasn't teasing him," Nick insisted darkly.

"If you say." She looked him directly in the eye, an easy task for a woman tall as she. "We have a Paradigm Ten that we need to check out."

"A P-ten?" Nick raised an eyebrow skeptically. "There hasn't been a documentable P-ten on this continent in the history of the nation."

"No," Jorgensen drawled slowly. "There hasn't. This - this may very well be the first."

He could tell she was excited about something. They'd been partners for three years, and though she had about as much expression as a rock, he had slowly learned to read her body language, the minor flick of an eyelash, the slight vocal nuances. She was in a tizzy. It just didn't show.

"I seriously doubt that," he said after a moment. He didn't get much opportunity to tease the Ice Princess, and he wanted to make the most of it. "We've had these false alarms before. Why start now?"

Jorgensen presented a discreetly carried manila folder and threw it on the desk. "Read it," she urged. "That's fresh."

Nick rested his fingertips on the blank expanse of manila, feeling a faint warmth that quickly dissipated into the cool air. There was something else there, something other than the fading heat of copy machines and printers.

Without opening the folder, Nick knew that Jorgensen was right. This was a Paradigm Ten: an off-the-chart energy surge that could and had, in the past, rendered unpredictable, nay, impossible events. The last one had been in Tokyo, two years ago. He hadn't been there himself, but he'd read the reports, and they were more unbelievable than most of the science fiction out on the market. Most people hadn't been affected by it other than a few odd dreams and inexplicable memory lapses. But the people like Ronnie, Jorgensen, like him -

There was a room, here in Down Below, filled with those reports, interviews, even footage, of what happened in Tokyo. And something like that was happening here, now.

Well, that was what he was getting paid the big bucks for.

"Where are we going?" he asked his partner softly.

"Texas," she replied in her clipped alto. "Put your shitkickers on, pardner."

N. S. A.: No Such Agency. A "black agency" that "doesn't exist". Favored of conspiracy theorists, gamers, and fanfic writers everywhere.

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