Phoebe said nothing at first. She simply looked up and down the busy street. Then, after a moment to consider, she said, "It can't happen fast enough as far as I'm concerned."
"You mean that?"
"Just 'cause I live here doesn't mean I like it," Phoebe replied. "I'm not saying I believe you, I'm just saying if it happens you won't hear any complaints from me."
She's quite a piece of work, Raul said when they found a table at the pizza parlor, and Phoebe had gone off to relieve herself.
"I wondered where you'd got to."
I was just enjoying the girl-talk, Raul said. She's one angry lady.
"She's no lady," Tesla said, "that's what I like about her. Pity about her boyfriend."
You think he's gone for good, right?
"Don't you?"
Probably. Why are you wasting time with her? I mean she's very entertaining, but we came here to find Fletcher.
"I can't go back to Toothaker's house alone, " Tesla replied. "I just can't. Soon as I smelled that smell-"
Maybe it was just a backed-up sewer.
"And maybe it was Lix," Tesla said. "And whoever raised them's already killed Fletcher."
But we have to get in to find out.
"Right."
And you think this woman's going to lend some moral support?
"If it's not her who's it going to be? I can't wait till Lucien comes crawling back." I knew we'd get to him"I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying: I need help, and she's the only help available." Suppose she comes to some serious harm? "I don't want to think about that." You have to. "What are you, Jiminy Cricket? I'll be honest with her. I'll tell her what we're up against@' So then you're not responsible, is that it? Tesla, she's just an ordinary woman. "So was I," Tesla reminded him. Whatever you were, Tesla, I don't think you were ever ordinary.
"Thank you." My pleasure. "She's coming back. I'm going to tell her, Raul. I have to." It'll end in lears"Doesn't it always?"
It was a hell of a conversation to have over a pepperoni pizza, but Phoebe's appetite wasn't visibly curbed by anything that Tesia had to say. She listened without comment as Tesla went through her experiences in the Loop, detail by terrible detail, stopping every now and then to say: I know this sounds ridiculous or You probably think this is crazy until Phoebe told her not to bother, because yes, it was crazy, but she didn't care. Tesla took her at her word, and continued the account without further interruption, until she got to the matter of the Lix. Here she stopped.
"What's the problem?" Phoebe wanted to know.
"I'll leave this bit to later."
"Why?"
"It's disgusting, is why. And we're eating."
"If you can bear to tell it, it won't bother me. I've worked in a doctor's office for eight years, remember? I've seen everything."
"You never saw anything like a Lix," Tesla said, and went on to describe them and their conception, dropping her volume even lower than it had been. Phoebe was unfazed.
"And you think it was one of these Lix things you saw in Erwin's house?"
"I think it's possible, yes."
"This guy Fletcher made them?" "I doubt it."
"Then what?"
"Somebody who meant Fletcher harm. Somebody who, came after him, and found him there and-2' She threw up her hands. "The fact is, I don't know. And the only way I'll find out-"
"Is by going in there."
"Right."
"Seems to me," Phoebe said, "if the Lix are real-I'm not saying they are, I'm saying if they are-and if they're made of what you say they're made of, they shouldn't be that hard to kill."
"Some they grow six, seven feet long," Tesla said.
"Huh. And you've actually seen these things?"
"Oh, I've seen them." She turned her gaze out through the window, in part so as not to look at the congealing pizza on her plate, in part so that Phoebe couldn't see the fear in her eyes. "they got into my apartment in L.A.-"
"What did they do: Come up through the toilet?"
Tesla didn't reply.
You're going to have to tell her, Raul murmured in her head.
"Well?" Phoebe said.
Tell her about Kissoon.
"She'll freak," Tesia thought.
She's doing pretty well so far.
Tesla glanced back at Phoebe, who was finishing off her pizza while she waited for a reply.
"Once I've started with Kissoon, where do I stop?" she said to Raul.
You should have thought of that before you mentioned the Lix. It's all part of the same story. Silence from Tesia. Isn't it? he prodded.
"I guess so."
So tell her. Tell her about Kissoon. Tell her about the Loop. Tell her about the ShoaL Tell her about Quiddity if she hasn't got up and left.
"Did you know your lips move when you're thinking?" Phoebe said.
"they do?" "Just a little."
"Well-I was debating something."
"What?"
"Whether I could tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but@'
"And have you decided?" Tell her.
"Yes. I've decided," Tesia leaned forward, pushing her plate aside. "In answer to your question," she said, "no, the Lix didn't come up from the toilet. they came from a loop in time-"
This was the tale she'd never told. Not in its entirety. She'd given Grillo and D'Amour the bare outlines, of course, but she'd never been able to bring herself to fill in the details. they were too painful, too ugly. But she told it now, to this woman she barely knew, and once she'd begun it wasn't so difficult, not with the clatter of plates and the chatter of patrons all around them; a wall of normality to keep the past from catching hold of her heart.
"There was a man called Kissoon," she began, "and I think if we had to make a list of the worst people to have graced the planet he'd probably be somewhere near the top. He was a-what was he?-a shaman, he called himself, but that doesn't really get to it. He had power, a lot of power. He could play with time, he could get in and out of people's heads, he could make Lix-"
"So he was the one."
"It's an old trick, apparently. Sorcerers have been doing it for centuries. And when I say sorcerers I'm not talking about rabbits and hats, I'm talking about people who could change the world-who have changed the world, sometimes-in ways we'll never completely understand."
"Are they all men?" Phoebe wanted to know.
"Most of them."
"Hmm.11
"So Kissoon was one of a group of these people, they were called the Shoal, and they were dedicated to keeping the rest of us from ever knowing about@' She paused here a moment. "Go on," said Phoebe. "I'm listening."
"About a place called Quiddity."
"Quiddity?"
"That's right. It's a sea, where we go sometimes in dreams."
"And why aren't we supposed to know about it?" Phoebe asked. "If we go there in dreams, what's the big secret?" Tesla chewed on this a moment.
"You know, I don't know? I always assumed-what did I assume?-l guess I assumed that the Shoal were the wise ones, and if they lived and died keeping this secret it was because the secret needed to be kept. But now that you mention it, I don't really know why."
"But they're all dead now anyway."
"All dead. Kissoon murdered them." "Why?"
"So that he could eventually have control over the greatest power in the world. A power called the Art."
"And what's that?"
"I don't think anyone really knows."
"Not even this guy Kissoon?"
Tesla pondered this a moment. "No," she said eventually, "not even Kissoon."