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Loki's Net

Written by Marissa Lingen

It was easy to forget that she was just one woman, when she was on the set alone. But the minute the story was over, when the cameras stopped rolling and the audience began to cheer, Beth could see the woman in the star, her boss, Nora Larson.

And Nora was not happy.

"You were fabulous," Beth assured her. "You were stunning. I never knew the Hopi had such fascinating stories."

Nora raised an eyebrow at her.

Beth said, "They're still cheering. You're going to have to take another bow."

Nora sighed, squared her shoulders, and strode back on stage, smiling broadly and waving at the audience. Her long, pale hands were famous, and when she lifted one in greeting, the audience went wild.

When Nora could finally stop bowing and get backstage again, Beth was ready with her coat. "The characters felt so real," said Beth. "I forgot you weren't some old Hopi grandmother."

Nora grimaced. "I didn't."

"But your audience always feels --"

Nora sighed. "You're really sweet, Bethie, but my audience will take what I give them. I can't rely on them for my standards. I have to keep things up, up, up."

"I know," said Beth.

They settled into the limo before Nora asked. "Any news from the Loki Project?"

"No," said Beth. "Nothing yet."

Nora sighed. "Nothing from the P.I.?"

"No."

"Then we're on for the Loki story tomorrow night?"

Beth looked away. "Yes."

Nora slept in the next morning, and by the time she went onstage that night, she was positively glowing. It was easy to see why she had made story-telling a popular art again, why star-struck 12-year-old girls wanted to grow up to be Nora Larson. She made herself part of the story, and nobody much cared what the story was. Her blue eyes were captivating enough.

"Loki fled Asgard, the hall of the gods, because he had killed Baldr, brightest and best-loved. He ran to the mountains, to Franang's Falls, where he could look out in all four directions. He looked to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west. But the only god who saw where he had gone was his wife, loyal Sigyn, and she held her peace.

"Loki began to tire of keeping watch for the other gods. Even he could have too much of paranoia. So he used his shape-shifting talents to buy himself some hidden freedom. He turned into a stag and ran through the forests. He turned into a billy goat and climbed to the highest mountain peaks. But on the land, he had to avoid Geri and Freki, Odin's wolves."

As Nora spoke, the backdrop changed, from a vague grey through abstract versions of all of the settings, the forests, the mountain peaks, the sky above them.

"He turned into a hawk and soared on the highest thermals. But there he had to avoid Odin's ravens, Hugin and Munin.

"So Loki turned himself into a salmon and took refuge in the cool rivers, where his foster-brother's creatures could not follow." Nora's hands captivated with subtle salmon movements.

"But even in the form of a salmon, he was not a salmon, but a trickster, and as there was no one else around to trick, he turned to tricking the salmon. Gradually, he noticed what kind of snares tempted the salmon, what patches of grass felt best to their scales, what patterns of water suited them best.

"Then he turned back into his natural form and fashioned the most effective salmon net ever devised. It was ingenious, perfectly designed to delight a salmon's senses until it was too late to escape. But when he looked up from his work, he saw the other gods storming up Franang's Falls. He had been caught.

"Loki threw the net into his cooking fire and dove into the river, transforming himself into a salmon just before he hit the water. The other gods thrashed around in water up to their waists, churning the surface into a fine froth, but they could neither find nor catch the wily Trickster."

Nora paused, still for a moment after the motion of the escape.

"While the rest of the gods went for their impromptu swim, Bragi, the god of the bards, examined Loki's cottage for clues on how to catch him. He saw the net smoldering in the fire and ran to the god-churned river to get water to douse the flames. The net had fallen into ashes, but Bragi insisted that the other gods leave him quiet and still until he made a drawing of the shape of the ashes.

"He took the drawing to Brokk, the best craftsman among the dwarves. 'Can you make this for me out of ropes?' he asked.

"Brokk cleared his throat and hemmed and hawed and finally allowed as how he could. Then he started to haggle on the price. Bragi raised one harp-calloused hand. 'It will ensnare Loki,' he said.

"Brokk made the net for free.

"Thor took it to the river. He laid on the bank like a peasant fisherman, with the net dangling down into the water." Nora leaned, demonstrating with a splayed cat's cradle motion how the net would hang from Thor's broad, calloused hands. "Loki came to see it there. He still had the mind of a god, but layered on top of it, teasing at its corners, were the instincts of a salmon. And the net looked just as cool, just as tickling, just as inviting as he'd hoped.

"And so it was that the gods caught Loki. But what they did when they had him -- well, that is a story for another day."

Nora's shoulders slumped as soon as the cameras went off, worn out by her performance. Her special assistant, Beth, ran to meet her with a sweater and a cup of steaming apple cider. Nora had hired Beth for her seemingly psychic ability to find what Nora needed, and she was almost never disappointed.

"They won't know you're talking about Reese," said her producer. "They'll think it was just another of your crazy stories." Ted had always been thin and nervous, but the last few months had made him thinner, and he made rooms hum with energy.

Nora sipped at her cider. "The ones who need to know, will know. Reese will know. And the rest like my crazy stories."

"God only knows why," Ted muttered. "When are you going to do another indram, Nora? Or at least straight drama -- I read this script the other day, and I really think you could --"

"Reese is my project now," said Nora serenely. "And I'd like a status report, please."

Beth massaged Nora's shoulders. "Nothing has changed since you went on. Except, perhaps, that the investigator is getting annoyed."

Nora sniffed. "I don't pay him to get annoyed. I pay him to find Reese."

"He doesn't seem to have added the annoyance to his itemized bill."

"Good. See that he doesn't. I'm going to want to talk to Dr. Lee in about half an hour, all right, dear?"

"I don't see why this Reese is so important," said Ted. "You can already take as many memory pills as you want to get into character."

Nora rolled her eyes. "My dear Ted, you are nearly infallible as a producer, but your science knowledge is sadly limited. Reese was developing a nanodrug that would let me really have someone else's memories as they experienced them."

"Whereas the pills --"

"The pills help me to remember the same events, but as me. As a woman, in her late thirties, an actress, from a quiet family, all of that. I can't get rid of any of it. I can't say what it's like to be you, Ted. I can't say it in the most basic physical sense, what it's like when you get an erection, when your balls itch, any of it."

He stared at her. "You want to know what it's like when my balls itch?"

"You're so literal. No. I want to know what it's like to be male. I want to know what it's like not to be Nora. All the stories I tell are mine. I want to tell other people's."

"What if they don't want their stories told?" asked Beth, too quietly.

Ted steamrolled right over her. "And you think this detective is going to help you get there?"

"I think he'll help me find Reese again. The rest of it may be under Dr. Lee's control already."

"Do you know that this detective is reliable?" asked Ted.

Nora smiled as sweetly as she could. "Ted. Darling. He's a private investigator. Of course he's unreliable. But he's well-paid, and that, for the moment, is the important thing."

###

Beth made polite small talk with Andrew Frydeck, the private investigator, but she kept glancing at the door. Nora was late. Finally, she excused herself and wandered out to the lobby. She looked around.

"Miss Larson will be here momentarily, miss," said the maitre d'. "She called from the car and said that they were only a few blocks away. She thought you'd be getting impatient with Mr. Frydeck and requested your indulgence."

"Of course," said Beth automatically.

She turned her attention away from the maitre d' and watched the door to the hotel. Sure enough, Nora strode through the revolving glass door a few minutes later. Her well-fitted, short red dress made her look like a jewel in the ornate setting of the lobby.

"Bethie," she said. "I thought you might be a little nervous. It's all right, sweetie, he likes you."

Beth blinked. Sometimes she understood why Nora felt she needed the Loki Project: she didn't seem to be able to see things right under her nose. "No, he doesn't. And I don't much care about him, either. Nora, I know you do things your own way, but I think we need to move on to another --"

Nora waved her hand. "Never mind that, dear. I have news. Let's sit."

Andrew greeted them with grudging cordiality. Nora ordered for all of them, approving Beth's wine choice with a quick nod.

"I have to be frank with you, Ms. Larson," said Andrew, buttering his bread with quick motions.

"That's what I pay you for."

"I've run into dead ends everywhere. I have no idea where your man is. Nobody in this town knows, or else they're not willing to say. And I can't find anywhere else that he lived. I don't like to give up on a case, but --"

"Oh, I don't think we're at the stage where we need to give up yet," said Nora. She thanked the waiter absently for her salad. "I have new information soon to become available."

Beth tensed up.

"Reese wrecked his lab pretty thoroughly, as you both know," said Nora. "But Dr. Lee and his students have gone over it with a fine-toothed comb, and they found all sorts of interesting residues. It's very hard to destroy nanodrugs thoroughly. The hard part was getting the substrate right for dosing the human subject -- namely me."

"Well, congratulations," said Andrew. "I'm not going to ask how much the FDA knows about this; I'll just wish you luck. And since you've achieved your goal, I'll just be --"

"Oh, no," said Nora quickly. "Dr. Lee and his students are years away from being able to make different nanobugs. They can reproduce this one, that's all. We need to find Reese in order to know how to make more."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you. Dead ends are dead ends."

Nora frowned impatiently. "I don't think you understand. Reese was his own subject of the transfer into the nanobugs. He didn't want to test the transfer process on anyone else, and we had a group of volunteers lined up for the testing. Anyway. They'll be his memories. If he remembers

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Marissa Lingen is a freelance writer living in the Minneapolis area with two large men and one small dog. She is currently at work on a trilogy about early computing, Finnish mythology, and Cold War spies.

(To read the rest of this bio, and see other stories in Jim Baen's Universe visit Marissa Lingen's author page.)

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