excolocrack

Previously on CSI: Excolo
NU outside WANDA'S apartment, looking in, holding a cell phone. CUT TO: WANDA at TONY's house.
WANDA, on phone: Please Nu, I don't want to hang on the line. Long story, short version. My most recent ex hired a private dick to dig up dirt on me.
SYL in a hospital bed, HERMIA by her side.
HERMIA: There was damage to your stomach and liver and lung. They repaired all that, and it's going to heal. You'll hurt like hell for a while, but you'll heal.
CUT TO: HERMIA in hallway, dialling cell phone.
HERMIA: No answer from Sayid. I'll keep trying him.
CUT TO: THE PARK.
Overhead shot of TEZ standing over SAYID'S body, snow bloody. Voiceover:
TEZ: You'll be pleased to know Zuabi won't be bothering us again.
CUT TO: AL with his hand against TEZ'S face.
AL: You killed him for me. Tell me what you did.
CUT TO: TESS going through a pile of papers. KATE comes in.
KATE: Any luck?
TESS: Not as yet. I keep hopin' it'll all fall into place once I get some sense 'v the order, but it could end up being tough the whole way through.
CUT TO: SAYID'S apartment. LEAH punches JOHNNY in the throat and tucks a file into her coat.
CUT TO: DORIAN, KATE and GLASS at the MISKATONIC CAFE.
DORIAN: Everyone is a threat to the public, Ms O'Hara. Everyone has the - capacity.
KATE: Everyone's capable of cruelty. But not many people act out that capability as comprehensively as you seem to.
GLASS: I'm not angry with you, and I don't want you to leave.
PAN ACROSS to KATE'S face as GLASS says this, cut to her sitting in her car and crying.

Episode 3.02: My Host Is You

Time lapse film over a snow street at night. An ethereal song plays as the Christmas lights twinkle and the traffic rushes. Dawn breaks, and a truck arrives, unloads a ladder, and the Christmas decorations get taken down.

Like a virus, patient hunter
I’m waiting for you, I’m starving for you
My sweet adversary

Time slows down; AL SHAIRAN comes down the steps of a townhouse and gets into a car. GRANGER loads two suitcases into the back.

January 6th and Christmas is officially over. I told Tez I would tell Lily after Christmas that I'm leaving; that got a little delayed by my arrest, but I shall do it tonight. Granger will take these things to the penthouse; I've already been there more nights than I've been at either of the homes I share with Lily. I do feel regret, I do. But everything feels so...inconsequential in comparison to how I feel when I'm with Tez. Everything's diluted, insubstantial. My real life is with him, come what may.

Sayid Zuabi has been declared missing, of course, but nothing of him has been found. Syl Thorn is still in hospital, though she will be discharged soon enough, I think. The police have found no trace of Leah - but neither have I, and I have had a lot of people looking for her. I think she has found professional help of some sort, but I have no leads. Still, if I don't, neither do the police, and that is enough for now, even if I plan to gut her for her failure. Tez should never have had to kill Sayid. It's not what I want for him, doing that sort of work. But it has bound us tighter together, which I would not have thought possible. Nothing can come between us now.

My trial for embezzlement is scheduled to begin at the end of February. If it even gets to trial; Levinson thinks we may well see the trial collapse. There are always ways. In any case, I'm not particularly troubled about it. If all goes to plan, one way or another I will be out of the country by then. Now I just have to persuade Tez to go on ahead to Mexico without me and I will join him there. I think this will be a challenge.

"Take the suitcases to the penthouse," I say through the intercom as Granger delivers me to the office. I text Tez - too early to call my azizam - and tell him I'll be over tonight, and that I want to cook. And then I go to the office. Work must go on, after all.

King's Castle, Excolo City

The largest town in Excolo, the capital sprawls luxuriantly around the port, built of warm stone, golden-hued in daylight. It is a prosperous, busy city with all the pleasures and crimes you'd expect at a major port. The castle stands on a cliff above the town and overlooks the harbour; the approach is a dizzying climb up steps carved into the cliffside. The castle has elegant interiors but is very much a working castle.

When I awoke this morning there was a fine frost on the windows. It was just past dawn, and it melted once the sun was properly up. Dawns are much later than they used to be. I remember a few years ago there was barely any dark at all for months and months. I miss that. I can only just remember the last winter, and I know I didn't like it. And I keep thinking about how the ground is hard to break in winter for graves. Which is stupid, because when my father dies they will put him in a tomb.

It won't be long, the doctor tells me, but that could mean days or weeks or months. He's been saying the same thing for weeks now. His Majesty still attends to business, but he just signs what the Council gives him instead of going to meetings, and he's taken to sitting by a window for hours, looking out to sea. He won't go to bed during the day, though. He says that's giving up. I try to talk to him about what I need to do, to become, but he says he's too tired to talk about it. He says I tire him out, and he sends me away.

With a cloak on it's warm enough to walk around the gardens and so I do. I like this garden the best, which is built so it overlooks the sea. It makes me feel like I can breathe better, having all this sky and water nearby.

A month later

Mrs Voronin is dead. That such a powerful and well-respected woman would kill herself surprised many, but her workload had increased year on year, and everyone knew she had never been the same since the unfortunate incident with her son Konrad. As the cheap papers say, it all got too much for her.

Or so she was persuaded to believe.

It was regrettable, because Mrs Voronin was my teacher, and I had some affection and a great deal of respect for her. But she was not willing to give up her place as Director of the training facility, and I need access to all of it. Eventually I will move to control Excolo Corp as a whole, but that will take time. For now, I have succeeded to her post, and have taken sabbatical leave from my position at the University - though I am keeping my chair there, for students are a useful body to know, and to control.

Yes, things are moving along. And now I reward my hard work by taking a trip to No 93 Engine for a new outfit. I make sure to wear protective outerwear and a breathing mask. The Dome remains, as always, mild, but it is the height of summer now and the temperature during the day in the Outer Districts easily reaches 110F. The API is 270. I plan to go to Volt, a brand new club in the Outer Districts. A vast basement warren, its underground location is kept at an ambient 70F. That is until the crowds come, of course.

I arrive long after sundown, the streets busy again now the danger of UV radiation is gone. In the summer, anyone outside the Dome keeps noctural hours if they can, and stays indoors if they can't. The whole city keeps club hours, and that makes me smile. I wear a pair of shorts and gold body paint, hair slicked back with white UV gel, and that will serve. At the cloakroom I leave my respirator and waterproof jumpsuit - you never know when it will rain - and pass through the humming rooms of the club, each one full of different colours and sounds. Four DJs, four bars, each one named for one of the four elements. Fire is red, of course, Water blue, Air purple and Earth green, walls glowing. The whole club throbs, and I want it to pulse harder. So I think that, a gentle sort of persuasion like an embrace all through the club. Dance faster, laugh harder, want more. So many people I cannot yet direct en masse, but I can guide, I can encourage. Oh yes, I can do that to hundreds of people at once now, thanks to Tez.

Smiling, I get a bottle of water. I don't need drugs, not now.