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Aventurine was bored.
He had absolutely no interest in the banquet; the only thing drawing his attention tonight was Elizabeth Bailey—a thirty-two-year-old widow, still wearing mourning clothes for her late husband, who was already attending as the companion of one of the invited guests. Aventurine was interested in this high-ranking lady precisely because of the sudden demise of Mr. Bailey. His death, much like the passing of any statesman, was shrouded in numerous secrets, and the IPC had tasked him with retrieving something specific.
«Mrs. Bailey, what a pleasant encounter,» Aventurine materialized behind the tall, slender lady, injecting every ounce of sweetness he could muster into his voice.
«Oh,» the woman exhaled softly, without even turning around. She knew perfectly well to whom that voice belonged. «Mr. Aventurine.»
«Indeed, my dear,» Aventurine placed a palm against her fragile waist and guided the woman into the shadows. «Won't you spare me a minute?»
«Oh, Mr. Aventurine, what are you doing?» the beauty backwardly complied, taking tiny steps on her high stilettos. Pushing open the door to a pre-arranged room, Aventurine thrust Elizabeth inside a bit more roughly than necessary and immediately turned the key in the lock, slipping it into the inner pocket of his jacket.
«You are just as impatient as ever,» the woman whispered right against his lips the moment he turned to face her.
«Really? You know me well, Elizabeth. I am flattered,» a whisper right against her lips. The woman arched her back, pressing her soft chest against Aventurine. Feigning a groan, Aventurine wrapped his hands around her hips, clutching the fabric of her black dress. Elizabeth traced his sharp cheekbones with her slender fingers, cupping Aventurine's face in her hands.
«I missed you. Where have you been hiding?»
«Had to settle a few matters,» Aventurine responded, abruptly yanking the hem of her dress upward. Elizabeth let out a muffled laugh, attempting to pull the dress back down.
«What a cheap trick,» she whispered, sliding her neatly manicured fingers down Aventurine's chest toward his belt.
«Not as cheap as your mourning,» he stroked her buttocks and slid his hand down to her thigh, feeling the outline of a small metallic flash drive beneath the edge of her stockings.
«Give it back,» Mrs. Bailey froze instantly, her breath still mingling with Aventurine's. Her fingers remained stationary on his zipper.
«I'm afraid the show is over,» Aventurine whispered, quickly adjusting her black dress and unlocking the door with the key. On the threshold already stood Madam Bailey's companion.
«Darling, what is the meaning of this?» Aventurine walked past them with no small amount of self-satisfaction. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the twisted, furious expression on Elizabeth's face. She hissed, glaring at his retreating figure. Ignorant of the exclamations directed at his back, and leaving Madam Bailey to handle the situation herself, he swiftly vanished into the crowd, reaching out to Ratio.
He strolled leisurely along the tables, exchanging light compliments, brushing his fingers against others' shoulders, smiling a fraction wider than necessary. All of it—a facade. He had obtained what he wanted; now he could slip away unnoticed. He knew no complications would arise; he knew Madam Bailey wouldn't expose him. And he knew Ratio was nearby—that he would cover for him, even if the Doctor looked as though he wished to sink straight through the marble floor. The sensation of another’s lips and the warmth of her body beneath his hands still lingered.
He was in an excellent mood; perhaps he would have a couple of glasses after all, and only then make his departure. He exchanged a few words with Ratio over the bond, the two of them occupying opposite corners of the hall, and it seemed Ratio had found himself an engaging conversationalist. Aventurine chose not to distract him, allowing him to enjoy the evening at least a little, while he himself considered stepping out into the garden. He headed toward the exit of the banquet hall, leaving Ratio behind, his eyes already searching for waiters carrying trays of drinks, when the world shattered.
An explosion tore through the air.
The building shuddered like a massive beast in convulsions, and frightened shrieks and panicked wails erupted all around. To Aventurine, they sounded oddly sluggish in his head, spinning like an ancient gramophone record, but with a new tremor and a fresh blast that struck his ears far more acutely, everything transformed in a heartbeat—and the hall, which just a minute ago had been glittering with neon lights, turned into a blazing inferno. Aventurine attempted to take a step aside, to push deeper into the hall against the current of panicking, fleeing people, but he immediately became lost in the general chaos. Aventurine cast a glance out the window—there, in the background, strange flashes flickered, as if from surges of energy. Aventurine looked around, trying to extract anything coherent from the collective turmoil, but saw only running crowds, panic, and his own sticky fear.
Ratio, Ratio was still in there, he was far away, he wouldn’t be able to help…
«What the hell, Aventurine? Is this part of your plan too?»
«No, this wasn't factored in. Where are you?» Another explosion rocked the building, and Aventurine grabbed onto a wall. A man collapsed right in front of him, and Aventurine stepped over him with irritation, fighting his way toward the center.
«What is happening?» Aventurine heard him use that tone for the very first time, and a cold shiver ran down his spine at the realization that Ratio, who by definition was not supposed to feel fear, was afraid.
«I don't know, someone clearly set off an explosion, we need to get out of here immediately, where are you?» he asked once more, feeling anxiety surge in his chest as his eyes darted through the crowd, trying to spot a familiar head of hair.
Ratio was nowhere to be found.
He forced his way through the masses of panicking people, and somewhere close by, the first flash erupted, followed instantly by a foreign scream saturated with agony. Aventurine spun around in a panic, praying he wouldn't see Ratio. He felt such a wave of relief when he failed to recognize the man falling to the ground that it nearly knocked him off his feet.
«Get out of there faster. Near me, there is a pathway to the cocktail bar; there's an emergency exit to the street there.»
«Did you seriously memorize the layout of the entire building?» A nervous laugh broke through Aventurine. Nearby, another explosion detonated, and Aventurine ducked behind a column.
«Of course not, only the locations of the emergency exits. I must assist the people here with the evacuation, but you run to the exit.» Damn Ratio and his good heart.
Aventurine didn't give a damn about any of these people, but Ratio did, and by the rigidity in his voice, Aventurine knew the Doctor had enough willpower to win any argument.
«I'll find you afterward.»
Aventurine moved toward the restaurant exit, pausing for a mere fraction of a second at a landing overlooking the lower floor, and saw—them.
He saw faces concealed by grotesque, tattered masks and weapons gripped in their hands; he saw worn, blood-stained rags instead of clothes; he heard deranged laughter and gunshots, and a multitude of flashes—fiery, electric, icy—danced across his retinas. Right before his eyes, one of the guests froze into a solid iceberg, only to shatter into pieces from someone's gunshot. Aventurine could only hope that Ratio would make it out. He shoved people aside, ignoring their curses and detaching foreign hands that clawed at him, trying to drag him back.
Someone nearby caught fire; the entire world blazed before Aventurine's eyes as he breathed heavily, inhaling smoke and others' screams. He caught the scent of burning flesh filling his nose and tasted it at the back of his tongue—a taste so familiar it no longer induced nausea. He cleared a path across the hall toward the exit when yet another explosion boomed—and the station, visible through a massive panoramic window, detonated. Aventurine froze in the very center of the chaos, half-paralyzed, half-deafened. Debris from the steel superstructure plunged down with a terrifying roar, followed by the restaurant sign slowly tilting sideways, the glass beginning to crack.
A horrific cacophony of laughter, sobbing, and screaming induced a desire to drop to the floor, cover his ears with his hands, and simply allow the crowd to trample him. A collective death wail that he had already heard in the wastelands of his homeland. Aventurine looked around but couldn't see Ratio. He knew the Doctor was in a different part of the building, and in place of fear, anger toward him swelled, forcing him to keep moving. And when a silhouette materialized in front of Aventurine—not Ratio, his mind mechanically noted—he found himself strangely indifferent. He bolted down the stairs, his heart hammering violently against his ribs, as sirens wailed somewhere—this time, it seemed, completely real and not just inside his head. Aventurine tried to mentally reconstruct the potential blueprints of the restaurant to pinpoint where the emergency exits might be, but what use was an exit if Ratio was nowhere to be seen? He ran along someone else's footprints, over charred and bullet-riddled corpses, over icy shards gleaming with crimson droplets of blood, and Aventurine felt sick, wretched, and irrevocably terrified. He had survived this before, this had already happened, and the paralytic terror that he might find Ratio somewhere beneath the rubble robbed him of breath.
He didn't even hope to survive; he simply wanted Ratio to live. This was all a mistake; it wasn't supposed to go like this. He stumbled out into the street, where rain was drizzling, trying to escape the roar of the fire and the screams. At the end of the street, movements and sounds echoed, so Aventurine stepped back slightly, heading into an alleyway. There were more adversaries on the other side, but there was also slightly more room to hide and slip through undetected. He heard one of them shouting in an unfamiliar tongue, seemingly barking orders. He caught the sound of heavy footsteps behind him and spun around sharply, locking eyes with one of the attackers.
At that exact moment, Ratio came alive in his earpiece: «Aventurine? Is everything under control?» Aventurine was distracted, failing to orient himself in time, and heard a gunshot. A split second of pain and momentum forced him down onto his back. Pain pierced his occiput, and he felt his clothes growing damp from the rain and the blood pooling from the wound in his chest. He quickly realized he wouldn't be able to stand, yet he lay there for a while, attempting to gather his thoughts as though it could change anything. Aventurine thought that perhaps he heard another gunshot, but truth be told, he was so out of it that he couldn't discern where the shot had originated or where it had been aimed. All he knew was that his body was finally giving up, and his eyes were closing. Aventurine hoped that Ratio would manage on his own.
Aventurine woke up on a cold, rain-slicked cobblestone road. His body ached, and his vision blurred before snapping back into focus. For a moment, it felt as though he had simply lost consciousness again; he could have sworn he was dying, but perhaps he had been overly dramatic. He propped himself up; pain resonated in his chest, but aside from that, the rest of his body seemed intact. Now this was definitively bizarre because, whether he had died or not, his brain had certainly not processed a gunshot wound. He looked around to assess the situation, heard heavy footsteps, and quickly ducked behind a nearby car, coinciding with the voice in his communicator:
«Aventurine? Is everything under control?»
Déjà vu.