Nightside 01 - Something From the Nightside

dare think that you know me. I am ... who I have to be. To survive. I live alone, because I won't risk endangering someone I might care for. And if it's sometimes very cold and very dark where I am; at least when I do go down, I won't drag anyone else with me."
    "That's no way to live," said Joanna.
    "And you, of course, are the expert on how to run
    your life successfully. A mother whose child runs away at every opportunity. Let's talk about some of the questions you have to consider, before we go any further. What if, we finally go to Blaiston Street, find the right house, kick in the door and find that Cathy's actually very happy where she is, thank you? That she's happy and safe and doesn't need rescuing? What if she's found someone or something worth running to, and doesn't want to leave? Stranger things have happened, in the Nightside. Could you turn and walk away, leave her there, after all we've been through to track her down? Or would you insist she come back with you, back to a life you could understand and approve of, where you could keep a watchful eye on her, to ensure she won't grow up to make your mistakes?"
    Joanna took her hand away from mine. "If she was genuinely happy ... I could live with that. You don't last long in the business world if you can't distinguish between the world as it is and the world as you want it to be. What matters is that she's safe. I need to know that. I could always come back and visit."
    "All right," I said. 'Try this one. What if she is in a bad place, and we haul her out of there, and you take her back home with you? What are you going to do to ensure she won't just run away again, first chance she gets?"
    "I don't know," said Joanna, and I had to give her points for honesty. "Hopefully, the fact that I've
    come this far for her, gone through so much for her... will make an impression. Make her see that I do care about her, even if I'm not always very good at showing it. And if nothing else, this whole experience should give us something in common to talk about, for once. We've always found it difficult to talk."
    "Or listen. Make time for your daughter, Joanna. I really don't want to have to do this again."
    "I had managed to work that out for myself," said Joanna, just a little coldly. "I always thought Cathy had everything she needed. Clearly, I was wrong. My business can survive without me for a while. And if it can't, the hell with it. There are more important things."
    I nodded and smiled, and after a moment she smiled back. It wasn't going to be as simple or as easy as that, and both of us knew it, but recognising a problem is at least half-way to solving it. I was pleased at how far she had come. I just hoped she could go the distance. We sipped our Cokes for a while. The Fifth Dimension finished "Aquarius" and went straight into "Let the Sun Shine."
    "That future we ended up in," Joanna said, after a while. "It may not be the future, or even the most likely, but it was still a bloody frightening one. How could you possibly be responsible for destroying the whole damned world? Are you really that powerful?"
    "No," I said. "At least, not at present. It's got to be
    tied in to what I inherited, or perhaps stand to inherit, from my missing mother. I never knew her. I have no idea who or what she really was. No-one does. My father found out, and the knowledge made him drink himself to death. And this was a man well used and inured to all the worst excesses of the Nightside."
    "What did he do here?" said Joanna.
    "He worked for the Authorities. The ones who watch over us, whether we like it or not. After my father died, I went through his papers. Hoping to find some kind of legacy, or message, or just an explanation, something to help me understand. I was ten years old, and I still believed in neat answers like that then. But it was all just junk. No diary, no letters, no photos of him and my mother together. Not even a wedding photo. He must have destroyed them all. And the few people who'd known both my parents had vanished long ago. Driven away by... many things. None of them turned up for his funeral.
    "Over the years, all kinds of people have come up with all kinds of theories as to who and what my mother might have been. Why she appeared out of nowhere, married my father, produced me, and then disappeared again. And why she didn't take me with her. But no-one's ever been able to prove anything out of the ordinary about me, apart from my gift. And gifts are as