Moira #25: An Orderly, Crime-Free Paradise (Patreon)

As she pulls up toward the toll booth, Moira realizes the lanes aren’t divided between “FastPass” toll tags and cash. They’re divided into residents and visitors. It’s not a toll booth—it’s a city gate. The big WELCOME TO FRESNO sign over all lanes of the road has logos for BlueGuard and Third Eye Security as prominent as the city seal.

“Well, this isn’t ominous at all,” Hazel murmurs. She’s in the back seat of Moira’s new car. Yesterday, the hare announced she needed something more practical than a two-seater, and traded her Boxster in for a Panamera. Moira grunts, scowling, and pulls into the visitor lane.

The bored-looking tiger guard barely glances at them. “Welcome to Fresno. IDs, please.”

Moira changes her scowl to an artfully confused smile. “So what is all this, sir?”

“Testing new crime reduction and safety programs. You’ll get separate ID cards for use within city limits. Faster and easier, gets you everywhere you’re supposed to be.”

“Supposed to be,” Moira echoes. “I see.”

He gives her an expectant look. She glances at the others, then holds out her hands for their licenses. When she passes them to the guard, he turns to the other side of the gate house, starting to process them.

“Third Eye has got to have a dozen bulletins out on us by now,” Hazel murmurs.

The guard turns back to Moira. “How long will you be in town for?”

Moira flashes an unsettlingly manic grin at the tiger. “Depends on how much fun we’re having.”

He gives her a skeptical look, then seems to get lost in her eyes, freezing for a few seconds with a blush creeping over his ears. He clears his throat, nodding, and hands the licenses back to her, along with four new cards. “I’ve, uh, put a seven-day expiration on these, so if you’re in town longer than a week you’ll have to come back to a clearance office. Thank you, ma’am.”

“No, thank you.” She hands the cards back to the others and drives on. “See, we didn’t set off any alarms.”

“That we know of. Yet.” Rhiannon pats Moira’s shoulder. “But I’m proud of you for not just eating him.”

“I may be out of practice, but I still remember how to deal with problems diplomatically.” She looks at her Fresno ID card—or, as the label has it, her “BlueGuard® QuickPass™,” which has her photo, name, species, and gender printed on a light blue background, issuance and expiration dates, and a QR code.

“I’ve never been to Fresno before.” Hazel looks out of the window, at what can best be described as nothing in particular: a parallel frontage road, yellowing grass, what might be an almond orchard. “It looks dry, brown, and flat.”

“It’s also deathly hot,” Stetson notes.

“Awesome.”

After about thirty seconds, they cross an overpass, and see the edge of the city on the horizon. “That’s bigger than I expected it to be, considering Black Oak.”

“Over a hundred thousand people. They can’t just wipe Fresno off the map and make the world forget about it.” Stetson’s ear flags and he looks at Moira. “Can they?”

“Never say never with divinity, but the more memory of a place there is in the world, the more monumental a feat erasing it would be.”

“They could hide what happened to it,” Rhiannon says. “Like they did with Môrdinas.”

“I know that was the first location on your list, but I still can’t see the connection. Môrdinas disappeared over a millennium before the Order of Caeles was founded. All the gods were still here.”

“And it’d take a god to pull off hiding what happened so successfully, wouldn’t it? Maybe even more than one?”

Moira opens her mouth, then closes it slowly, furrowing her brow. “That’d be a hell of a secret for them to keep, though. I’d made enough noise to get on the heavenly shit list by that point, but Briley was still mostly in good graces with everybody. She always got all the gossip.” The hare turns off onto a long exit ramp and turns left onto Peach Avenue, following signs for “Fresno-Yosemite International Airport,” a name that sounds decidedly aspirational.

It’s another couple minutes before she pulls into the Hampton Inn parking lot. At check-in, the vixen desk clerk asks for their QuickPass cards, not IDs. When she scans Stetson’s, she immediately looks up, then down at her screen again. “So…you three are staying in one room, Miss Leannán, and Mr. Halbach’s in the other?”

“No, the plan was—”

The vixen holds out the cards for Moira, Rhiannon, and Hazel in one hand, and Stetson in the other. “You can’t mix,” she says apologetically. “Blue and orange.”

Moira squints. Rhiannon and Hazel’s card have the pale blue background hers does, but Stetson’s is orange.

The vixen sets the cards back down. “I’m sorry, Miss—”

“Ms.,” Moira corrects, pronouncing it with the force of a buzzsaw.

“—Leannán, but I can’t do anything about the new legalities. You’ll just have to watch for them on your visit here. It’s all handled very smoothly, but it’s an adjustment.” She clears her throat. “So, I’ve checked you three into room 139, and you, Mr. Halbach, into room 137.” Despite her words, she slides the keycards to them in two pairs, flashing a small conspiratorial smile. “Just go past the breakfast nook and down the hallway. Enjoy your stay.”

Moira swipes her pair of cards, glowering. Rhiannon takes the other two. “Thanks,” she mutters.

After they check the cards work on the appropriate doors, they meet in Moira and Stetson’s room. “So, ID cards for easy segregation by species. Maybe more. Who knows what’s in the QR code.” Hazel shakes her head. “I’d read Fresno was piloting new ‘anti-crime technology’ bullshit, but this is a new level.”

“Celestial’s piloting it, you mean. A high-tech way to enforce their natural order. It’s incredible how much oppression people will swallow if you convince them it’s for their own good.” Rhiannon crosses her arms. “This pretty much settles whether I’ve decoded the locations on that list right, though. This is ground zero.”

“But they wouldn’t go through all this effort if they were expecting to cause another cataclysm,” Stetson points out.

“No. Rhiannon’s right, though. Assuming this is the next Black Oak, this is all connected. Maybe something went wrong the last time and all this…” She waves a hand around expansively. “…order…fixes it.” She purses her lips, then stands up. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Rhiannon’s decoding of the location code gives them far more precision than they had in Black Oak. What they find, just fifteen minutes’ walk from the hotel down a well-worn road lined with nondescript warehouses, is: a nondescript warehouse. There’s no signage they can see anywhere on it apart from a building number. The parking lot is empty.

“Huh.” Moira puts her hands on her hips for a few seconds, studying it critically. “It looks empty.”

Rhiannon hmms, and walks along the property’s edge, closing her eyes. Then she opens them again and shakes her head. “I can’t sense any power lines, any data lines, any…anything.”

Moira arches a brow. “So this isn’t the right location?”

“It is! I mean…” Rhiannon runs a hand through her hair. “It’s got to be. The geocodes match perfectly. And like you said, Fresno’s weird apartheid experiment can’t be coincidental.”

“If your assets got burned, they might have scuttled this location,” Stetson says.

Hazel grins at him. “Someone’s been watching spy movies.”

Stetson gives her a wry return smile. “Someone’s been living a spy movie. With magic.”

“I see your point, Mr. Bond.” Rhiannon gestures at the warehouse. “But where could they move on short notice?”

“Some of them are gods. Anywhere.” Hazel points down. “Back underground?”

“Maybe.” She looks around. “Or a different building.” She sighs. “And I don’t know how close it needs to be to this exact spot for whatever it is they’re doing to work. It could be a radius of miles.”

“So should we bother taking a look at this one?” Moira looks at Stetson. “You’re the spy movie buff.”

Stetson blinks, then rubs the back of his head. “Well. Um. So.” He chews on his lip, thinking. “Assume they think you have a copy of their list, and they changed locations just to be safe. They don’t have any way of knowing if you cracked the code, though. So, they’d want a way to check if you’d cracked it, to know if they do have to expect divine resistance.”

She frowns. “That makes sense. Even if it’s not a trap, it’s going to be an alarm.”

“With no power?” Rhiannon says.

“There are magical alarms, just like magical traps. If we haven’t set off something already, we will if we keep poking around.”

“So what do we do? Getting giant and looking around like you did in Black Oak isn’t the right answer if we’re trying to be stealthy.”

Hazel sighs. “I hate having to be stealthy.”

Moira shakes her head. “Honestly, I don’t know. We may have to just wait until they start firing up their machinery and see if we can locate the source then.”

Stetson’s tail curls. “Won’t that be extremely dangerous? Maybe not to you three, but…”

“We’ll keep you safe,” Hazel says, looking uncharacteristically earnest.

The coyote nods hesitantly. “But there’s also…well, everyone else.”

Moira’s tone is matter-of-fact. “They’re why we’re here.”

Rhiannon folds her arms. “What do we do for the rest of the day?”

Stetson ventures a small grin. “I guess we enjoy beautiful Fresno.”

• • •

The new Fresno is beautiful, but in a way that feels creepy the more you notice. There’s almost no litter anywhere, not even cigarette butts. Everything is as clean as a theme park. There’s no sign of a homeless population—no tents, no panhandlers. Every corner sports security cameras, along with stern signs promising fees and potential jail time for even the slightest offense. Checkpoints on streets and sidewalks pop up seemingly at random.

After several tries, they give up trying to find a place that’ll seat all of them together inside, instead grabbing fast food and eating together in a park. Finding a bar that lets all of them in together takes more than one try, too. They finally succeed just past sunset, at a divey-looking place called the Bosun’s Brig.

After they’ve been standing at the bar for nearly ten minutes, the bartender finally acknowledges them. Sort of. The bear looks right past both Rhiannon and Hazel, but his eyes linger on Moira. He nods, but goes to check on two wolves on their third or fourth beers.

Rhiannon glances at Moira. “Why aren’t we letting a little divine aspect show again?”

“Just to get a beer?”

“You’ve been doing that for the last thousand years.”

“I’m trying to stop setting bad examples.”

“Next up is…Donna!” a voice crackles over the PA. A middle-aged cat woman steps onto the stage and starts up the lowest energy take on “Born This Way” imaginable, remaining stock still but for her tail, staring fixedly at the lyrics screen.

Moira rubs her face. “Why did you insist on a karaoke bar, Hazel?”

“They’re fun.”

Before she can respond, the bear ambles over, but speaks to Stetson instead of Moira. “What’ll you have?”

“I’ll have a Blarney Red, and my friends will have…” He turns to the others.

Moira gives him a death glare. “Double rye on the rocks.”

“A daiquiri,” Rhiannon says.

“Can’t do frozen drinks.”

“Oh, just straight up.”

He looks confused.

“Order a drink whose name is the recipe,” Stetson whispers.

The squirrel cautiously says, “Rum and Coke?”

The bear nods and looks down at Hazel.

“Citrus vodka and cranberry.”

He gives her a thumbs-up and heads off to make drinks.

Donna finishes anesthetizing Gaga, and an androgynous, tipsy-giggly rat introduced as Bobby takes his place. He squeaks through the first few lines of “Perfect,” but gains enough confidence to start belting them out, mostly on key, even daring to look at the audience for long seconds at a stretch before glancing back at the lyrics. He still gets them wrong occasionally.

When the bartender returns with their drinks, Rhiannon leads them back toward the table they’d been at, against a wall near the stage. It’s probably accessible more by accident than conscious design, but it works.

“So.” Stetson sips his beer, and gives Hazel an amused look. “You love karaoke bars. Are you going to sing for us, Lady Hazel?”

“Me? Nah, probably not. What I like to do is get someone else in the group up there who says they hate karaoke bars. I try and find whoever seems the most grumbly about being here.” She looks straight at Moira.

“I am not going up on stage.” Moira takes a swig of her drink.

“Aw, come on.” Hazel grins manically. “The actual goddess of love and war singing in a shitty dive bar? That would be amazing.”

“Love, not music. For all you know I sing like a frog.”

“Love and music go together like peanut butter and banana.” Hazel squints at Moira critically. “I’m just trying to decide if you’d choose hard rock, angry punk, or surprise us all by going hiphop.”

Stetson rubs his ear. “Ah, isn’t there a risk of that turning the entire place into a violent orgy?”

Hazel’s ears perk. “Ooh, you’re right.” She sounds excited.

“I don’t care what Briley says, I can control that,” Moira snaps. “But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be…effects.” She looks away, crossing her arms. “It’s a bad idea.”

Hazel nods. “Totally. I’ve already put your name in.”

“What?” Moira straightens up. “Go fucking take it out!”

“If you do it, I’ll do it,” Rhiannon says.

Moira groans. “I’m not trying to be a stick in the mud here, it’s just—because of what I am, I will do a love song, and I can’t help but zero in on—”

“And our next performer is…Moira!” the PA crackles.

Moira glares at Hazel. The pika returns a wide grin.

The karaoke DJ, a middle-aged lynx dressed like he’s ready for a night at the disco, glances around the room. “Don’t be shy!” The rest of the audience looks around, too, a few of them chanting—and often mispronouncing—her name.

Sighing, Moira knocks back the rest of her double old fashioned in one gulp and stands up, walking toward the stage.

“Come on up. Wow, you’re tall.”

“I am.” She crosses her arms, looking annoyed.

“So, Moira. You didn’t write down what you were going to sing.”

“Yeah, I didn’t write my name down, either.” She shakes her head. “All right, let’s do this. Cue up ‘To Make You Feel My Love.’”

The lynx motions for the audience to clap. Some do. Some hoot instead. He heads back to the DJ console. “Which version?”

“This one.” She snaps a finger and the stage lights dim except for a spotlight on her, and a spare arrangement of the song, just a piano and guitar, begins. He jumps back from his DJ console, eyes wide.

“I did not have ‘folk’ on my bingo card,” Hazel murmurs.

Moira takes the microphone off the stand, walking a few steps away as the intro bars play, facing the audience.

She starts to sing.

When the rain is blowing in your faceAnd the whole world is on your caseI could offer you a warm embraceTo make you feel my love

Her voice is a pure mezzo-soprano, achingly beautiful, wrenchingly sincere. She doesn’t look at the lyrics screen at all. She looks at the audience directly, imploring, unguarded, raw.

Most of the bar-goers except for ones close to the stage have been ignoring the karaoke, the usual parade of timid lyric reciters and drunken belters and amateur impressionists. This is something else entirely. By the time she’s through the second stanza, everyone in the place, including the bartender, has come to a stop, watching, feeling her eyes locked on them as if she’s singing to them and them alone.

Moira’s voice rises powerfully on the bridge.

I know you haven’t made your mind up yetBut I would never do you wrongI’ve known it from the moment that we metNo doubt in my mind where you belong

Rhiannon’s smile fades and she blinks a few times, gripping the table and going pale under her fur.

Stetson tilts his head, looking at her, then around the bar as Moira continues to sing. As good as the performance is—and it’s astoundingly good—Rhiannon isn’t the only one who looks unaccountably poleaxed. The coyote rubs the back of an ear. He’s watching literal magic happen. Again. He can see the air sparkling.

Moira finishes the song with a repeat of the first stanza, almost whispering the last two lines, eyes closed, bittersweet smile brighter than the spotlight.

As the notes fade, there’s scattered clapping rising into more thunderous applause—mixed with the thumps of dozens of people dropping to their knees. Just as many are embracing one another in kisses.

Moira walks back to the microphone stand, but pauses, fishing her QuickPass card out of her pocket and holding it up. “Don’t let anyone tell you what you have to be, where you’re allowed to go, just because of what you are. Don’t let them reduce you to just a code on a card. All of the city belongs to all of you. I love you all. Love one another.” She throws her card up in the air and it bursts into flame, quickly burning to ash.

A nervous, then raucous, cheer goes up from the crowd. She drops the microphone and hops down.

“I think we’ll take a break,” the lynx mutters hoarsely, and hurries off behind the stage, pulling out his phone.

As Moira threads her way around new worshippers—this time with a smile, not a frown, letting her hands brush the hands held out to her—Hazel bounces in her seat, clapping. “Holy shit, if you ever get tired of the goddess thing, I think you have a second career ahead of you.”

Rhiannon takes a deep, shuddering breath and lets out a sob. “I don’t even like that song,” the squirrel gets out, and then bursts into tears. She gets up and dashes toward the restroom just as Moira reaches the table. The hare watches her with an empathetic, sadder smile.

Hazel blinks, looking at Moira. “What the hell?”

“I did warn you. I don’t know whether to be angry with you or thank you for tricking me into lighting a spark, but for now, I’ll go with the thanks.” She raps the table. “Back in a minute.”

Hazel watches her go, then turns to Stetson with the same what the hell question in her eyes.

“The goddess of love just sang about love unrequited, and I’m seeing a lot of people around here starting to requite,” Stetson says. “Also, I think we just started a rebellion.”

Hazel looks around. The bar’s emptying out, but the floor’s littered with abandoned QuickPass cards. It sounds like a party’s breaking out on the street outside. “Okay, I guess we’ve given up on the stealth part of the mission.”

Moira catches up with Rhiannon outside the restroom, where the squirrel’s leaning against an unpainted wall spot that probably used to have a pay phone, still sniffling. When she sees the hare, she wipes her eyes with the back of a paw. “I’m sorry. Something just…” She laughs weakly, looking at the floor. “I don’t know why I didn’t expect you to be that good.”

“Because you think of me as the cranky bitch who eats people who annoy her, and forget that I had a few thousand years before that when nobody would call me ‘Lady Murderbunny.’” She draws Rhiannon into a gentle hug. “And as much of a cranky bitch as I still plan to be, I needed the reminder.”

Rhiannon closes her eyes, nestling into the hug, and sniffles once again. “For such a chaos muppet, Hazel is really good at stumbling onto what people need. It’s part of why…” She bites her lip.

“I know. Me too.” Moira lets her go and holds out a hand. “Feeling better?”

“I think so.” The squirrel takes her hand as they start to walk back to the table.

“When are you going to tell her?”

Rhiannon swallows. “I don’t—” She stops. “Whoa.” The bar’s cleared out now, with loud music playing outside. Hazel and Stetson stand in the doorway, motioning urgently.

For a moment, Moira’s expecting the bad kind of chaos outside, but it isn’t. She doesn’t think. It is a street party, and, well, maybe some orgy here and there. The subtle sparkling is expanding in a slow-motion wave over the city. Sirens are going off in the distance, but it doesn’t feel like a riot. It’s too much to expect whatever she’s started to break Celestial’s aspiring dystopia, but it’s a start.

Then she sees that’s not why Hazel and Stetson were waving. A black sheep woman stands by them, looking incongruously out of place in a smart business suit. Even though she’s about six feet tall now, rather than the five and a quarter feet she’d been, she’s unmistakable.

“Hello, Moira,” Diana says, raising her voice over the music. “Rhiannon.”

Moira doesn’t say anything, she just stares.

“Let’s go somewhere quieter and talk. There’s not much time.”

• • •

“(To) Make You Feel My Love” is a 1997 Bob Dylan song that’s always been more popular in covers. Moira’s arrangement—and to a high approximation, her singing voice—is that of Irish folk singer Mary Black. You can find her version on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.