The Universe's Mixer

Selina knew about the library and what it held. She had been there many times in hopes of finding something that would catch her interest. She had expected a book, something tantalizing and something she wouldn't want to give up. What she found was much different.

There was a row of displays almost as if the Library was some sort of museum. Behind glass hung things from an assortment of lives. Every life held an item or items meaningful to their existence. Even she had one of her own. Selina pressed her hands against the display gingerly and peered in at what the City had claimed of her life.

She noted the rest of what was there, a typical inventory of what was there and then she left.

That was long ago, it seemed. Before she had given up the mask and the suit. Before she had been sure of the direction that her life was going.

The one thing that had held her interest more than anything in that library was the wedding dress that was hanging there on display. Someone might as well have put a sign up that proclaimed the thing was free to the public because to her it was. To her it was better used in other ways.

Selina stood in the dark before the lit display. In her hand she held the wedding invitation dated so long ago. Her lips pulled in to a smirk. She didn't know who Shelly Webster was, but she felt pity for the girl. Who would marry a man like Eric Draven? Selina didn't know. Maybe he was a good con artist, maybe he was convincing. She didn't see it.

The invitation fell from her fingertips and fluttered to the floor.

Her eyes tilted upward and then the dress was hers. She took it from the display and left nothing to note whom had come to claim it. There were better uses for a dress like that than hanging here all by itself. Selina wondered when it was last visited. That didn't matter. It was hers now and she would stake claim to it. She wanted it, and he didn't deserve it. He had no use for it. She would find a purpose for it.

Whisking the garment away, Selina laughed. Nobody would ever know. Nobody. She was great at what she did and she was not afraid anymore of retribution. Eric wouldn't dare touch her. It was almost too easy.

Almost.

It was a nice day. The days since she'd arrived had all been nice, which Clarice had only noticed in a vague sort of way. She had been busy reading old files, familiarizing herself with the problems of the City, learning the ins and outs of the new technology, and then putting together a file on Hannibal Lecter in her spare time. He--they?--had been very quiet in her time here, but she would not be caught off guard.

The fourth time the booking officer found her asleep on a couch in the break room, he had ordered her out. "Nothing's going on, Starling," he said. "The City won't fall apart if you take an afternoon off."

Clarice, unsure of that, had protested but found herself shooed outside. There she'd noticed the weather and decided to walk in the City that she'd been studying. She found herself sitting on a bench in the park, people-watching, leaning back with her arms crossed. The vast majority of those that she saw were the people she now recognized as City-born natives, the ones with a certain something missing. They were almost uniformly pleasant but somehow emotionally flattened. Like pigeons, she thought, watching them walk by. Someone of a certain mindset could easily see them as less than human, animal-like, a subhuman flock to be hunted.

The thought chilled her.