“The only thing of substance that history has for us when distilled is the manufacturer’s blueprint, the precise fact that it has been altered, constructed to please the writers and present satisfactory vestiges of meaning for those reading it in the future.”
– Render
Lucas stared at the miserable existence of what had once been the beautiful Ustih-Frozen, but what was now a collection of parts sprawled in disarray across the floor in front of him. He sighed. It had been brief, but it was fiery all the way.
He had to apologize to d’Voris. He’d never seen her that angry. Now of course even angry she couldn’t help having alter features, but still. Lucas wondered what it was that had caused him to see her as one of those calm, serious types, was it because of her being Scion Emulus? He hadn’t met many but maybe that was it. He wondered what real Emulae were like…
Ha. Well, he didn’t even know what Ab’maluka were. All that he knew was that he was a Scion for such. Maybe he’d ask the boss later. Not the one he had to see today but maybe Taylor. Yeah, during a game of future.
The pieces that had formed the muzzle spelling L U K E were now three. If he’d thrown the Ustih at the wall it’d probably have taken a few tries to get it to that many pieces. Over a dozen in total. But it only took d’Voris one hurl. Lucas made a reminder via his Thoughtnote for remind Cade to make something harder to break. Maybe something smaller. He could also just ask Cade to fix the Ustih but once he found out that d’Voris had broken it, he’d say she had a good reason to. d’Voris rarely got angry. Now, granted he’d also never seen her lose that easily.
He was holding up better than he had thought.
Some footsteps. Lucas looked up to see d’Voris herself entering the antechamber, stepping over the pieces of his beautiful once-flamethrower without even looking down. She sat on the other end of the bench, over two meters away, and appeared to be staring fixedly at the opposite wall.
“You’re just leaving it there,” she said.
“Well, it’s now a memorial. It fell in battle to d’Voris, and the wall.”
“You had insisted on bringing your icethrower––”
“Flamethrower,” he interjected.
“Icethrower,” d’Voris replied, still not looking at him. Geez! Yes, they had been embarrassed and yes they were going to give the boss their reasons why and he’d have to get a new weapon but it wasn’t like they had been purified.
Because the Agent chose not to, came the thought, but he decided not to say anything and waited, looking down the long hallway which curved a bit around the back. Its white emergency lights were off and empty.
Sure enough, he heard more footsteps and the boss came meandering around. Dressed as usual in dirty blue coveralls, socks that came up to his knees, and wearing a backpack with nothing in it, the Lazy Boss, his least favorite of the three, was waving his fingers in mysterious motions as he moved from side to side. Lucas always wanted to know what it meant but he also never cared enough to ask.
The boss peered at d’Voris, snapping his fingers.
“Let’s hit it. That your weapon?”
d’Voris stood, smiling a little––Lucas couldn’t believe his eyes––and shaking her head.
“It’s Lucas’s. I broke it.”
“Hmm.” The boss now looked over to Lucas, and seemed to size him up and down. “Are you new? Haven’t seen you before.”
Of course, this wasn’t the first time the Lazy Boss had forgotten, or pretended to forget, who he was.
“I’ve been here five years, boss. Lucas.”
“Luke, oh yes, Faer’s brother.” The boss nodded and moved past them, reaching into one of the pockets of his coveralls for a key. He used it to open his office, one of the few rooms here in HQ that could even be locked.
Zefayus was Faer’s brother, but there was no use in correcting him.
“You’re here for the orientation, right? Well, come on in, Luke.” Lucas looked and saw through the musty windows the Lazy Boss slouching back in the room’s one sofa. “You too, Malae.”
d’Voris went in first, and Lucas followed.
I undo the twilit seal on my apertures of light. The air is silent, as if the avians have taken a leave of absence. They have, after all, been heralding my rise every morning.
In one movement, I emerge from under my blanket and put my feet on the floor. I conduct my morning exercises, some slow breathing, poetry to whet my neurons for the imminent day’s work.
Breakfast with my subordinate follows. Hector refuses to heed fact and memory and insists that it was he who rendered the Descendant Fury unconscious, and not Third Agent, who of course is myself. As I have confirmed with Hector on several instances before, hindsight bias mixed with a self-assuming overconfidence tends to occlude what one realizes as the truth from the past. Fortunately, Agents Tay and Kay do not break their fast with us on this morning.
Fifteen minutes later and my stomach content, I walk toward the furthest point of the cafeteria, again accompanied by the Fourth Agent. As my mind does in its cavernous chambers on a quotidian basis, I attempt to locate a valid reason for his being placed at Fourth. As he does with me and likely anyone else he finds himself with, Hector travails audibly on his futile plans for becoming the First Agent.
“Hector, I must remind you––if you cannot surpass me, then you cannot surpass the Second or First Agent. Their skills, as unlikely as it is, exceed my own.” That is, according to the Agency’s Director, who presides over the Ranking Order; I have not yet faced those two in combat, but from what I have seen and heard, our differences in strength may not be so distinct.
Hector’s rambling dwindles and is interrupted by what sounds like “I haven’t shown you my true abilities,” before resuming its scattered pace. I sigh, but my heart lightens as the Enclave Doors draw near; I smile, for the sight alone is worth words.
I stop ten paces from the Doors, and clear my throat.
“By strength unadorned,
beauty lifts its wondrous head,
arc’d by no words upon––
On finer nights I do deplore,
I stand before the Enclave Door,
recreating beauty’s name
and fair time––”
The Doors swing outward. My poetry is sundered, but I am not made sundry, for someone appears before me to whet my own optical doors.
It is the Second Agent of our Bureau, Mik’vael Voraëson. As is customary for the Agency, the Enclave always has one of the top three Agents of our Bureau within, and today it is not I, nor the First Agent Xeric, but Second Agent Mik’vael. A stunning human being, even by my standards, in every regard; a finesse to match my own, an acumen to combat my poetry, the sculptured features and form to rival Archimedes. A Roman demigoddess on Earth, if I daresay. I have not had the pleasure to meet her on the field of battle, nor on the field of Somnus.
Her smile is radiance as she plays with a strand of her hair behind her ear. “A blest morning to you, R’aegoth. Hector! Here to see the Director?”
Both her words and her Agent’s uniform, complete with its crest and the aegis held at her side, well fit her Agent’s epithet of Athena.
I nod. Hector does too, albeit while gazing awestruck at Mik’vael. As if he hasn’t seen her before, which he has.
“I heard about your recent assignment, regarding the Furies you encountered,” Mik’vael says, walking over to the self-scanner in the center of the Enclave. “It isn’t like you, R’aegoth, to let Descendants go.” As she stands on the base of the self-scanner, the portal connected directly to the Center materializes.
I walk towards it, as does Hector. “At times, not following the architecture purifies the system. I felt that purifying those Descendants would do less good than a lesson in ideals.”
Hector is silent; but then again, he was unconscious while I handled both of the Furies, so his knowledge of what had occurred is by definition hearsay.
Hector and I step into the portal. “You know that Descendants, the Furies especially, won’t listen to ideals,” Mik’vael says from behind us. As my vision of the Enclave begins to fade, I heed her words.
It is only natural for a person with nonoriginal abilities to desire their continued possession.
Like always—or, whenever the Lazy Boss was up, so one third of the time—the boss’s office was the messiest room in HQ. Papers and folders lay side by side with V-books from random V-libraries up in Plent, physical books with their spines almost broken, some of it mission reports, some of it stained printouts of Lowers versions of the food they had in the higher levgions, and some diagrams comparing how coffee was made? Between Lowers and above legions. Those were Agate’s. Behind the boss was the familiar V-photo of all of them, taken just a few months ago because somebody always tore it down for some reason; Lucas felt it had to be the Lazy Boss.
Which wouldn’t make sense, of course. Even if he was lazier than any one of them he was still one of their three leaders.
But he still asked himself, and Cade sometimes, why this one was still co-heading the place. And as always he answered himself, the boss had to be just as strong as the other two. After all, they never appeared at HQ all at the same time, or even two of them at the same time. There’d be too much power at once.
At least Wisteria wasn’t around, she only followed the CEO as his personal assistant, or secretary, or whatever her role was. She was never around for the Lazy Boss or Taylor. Lucas was glad he didn’t have to see her sitting behind him as he slouched back in his chair, typing away at her phone. LUCAS FELL IN BATTLE TO AGENT STRONGER THAN HIM, he imagined she’d say.
Lucas groaned. The Lazy Boss seemed to glance at him, slowly slipping down the chair; d’Voris took the other, and Lucas leaned against the wall. The shelf next to him had one of those little globes with snow in them. He remembered Faer getting it from a Lowers shop last November, when the government had decided to give them a full month of snow. HQ was underground but that had been one cold month.
He took the globe into his hands and upended it. The little powdery flakes ran down into the castle like a whirlwind.
“Report, what is it,” the boss said.
d’Voris looked at Lucas; he shrugged his shoulders. She could take this one.
“We faced a real threat,” she said. “An actual one. Not like any of the others I have faced before.”
Well, that was a way to put it. He had to agree. He nodded, crossing his arms.
“And the name?” the boss asked. He was truly slipping now; but one of the loops of his coveralls had hooked itself around a chair arm, so that he was held by it. He kept slipping though; Lucas had to keep himself from laughing. “If there’s a name, they’d be on the listings. Ask Agate, too. She’s recorded every Agent who’s a threat.”
“We know, leader.” Leader. Lucas couldn’t believe that d’Voris used that word. Although none of them knew the Lazy Boss or the CEO’s names. Only Taylor. “I’ve already given her the physical and combat description. Lucas asked the Agent for his name but the Agent never answered. His partner neither, but is not a threat.”
Lucas nodded. That Agent hadn’t even given his name. They’d gone to Agate immediately after returning, sweaty, with the weather tower repairing itself behind their backs; Agate back in HQ going through the records via Thoughtnote, so only she had them. Telling them that she didn’t have any of a tall Agent who used only his bare hands, of nondescript description, brown hair, eyes of a subtle ochre. The strongest threat she had in her records was of a tall Agent, but one who had red hair, and who fought by tossing library books. But that had been before Lucas or d’Voris had joined, over seven years ago. And while it wasn’t common, this one hadn’t been the only one who fought without using a weapon of some kind. There were many Agents… which he didn’t think about too much, as most weren’t serious threats.
“Okay, that’s rad. Luke, you think?” the Lazy Boss asked, fiddling with an opened napkin; Lucas had no idea what he was going to do with it.
“Yes, I think boss, and I think that this guy was pretty strong. Definitely stronger than Nodari. Not sure about Valha’ya.” Or you. But he wouldn’t give him that.
“Yep, it happens. Strong people are everywhere. You're still here, that's cool." The boss began to slouch back upwards; but Lucas put his hand on the table.
“One more thing, boss. The one who beat us––who let us go––kept asking me why I’m even fighting for us. Ridiculous, right?”
The boss’s expression didn’t change. “You’re still here, that’s all. Let Faer in, will you?”
Lucas turned––the top of Faer’s wispy blonde hair was visible from the doorway window––she was standing outside. He got up and opened it––Faer almost rushed in, her nearly golden eyes all hazy and in a bright glow. Her trait––something was up.
“Hey, what’s the––” he started to say, but she made the Furies’ hand-symbol quickly, the one meaning Agents are coming fast––“I’m sorry, they’re on us, it was the weather tower guard’s receptor, I––”
“Wait Faer, do they know––” Lucas started to ask, but the boss reverse-slouched way faster than should’ve been normal for how far down he was, and gathered up the papers on the table with similar speed. “Thanks,” he stated. “You noticed they were even coming.”
“Of course, whenever I get into a Government receptor, I leave what I call a trace, and when I say Trace on––”
“And let’s go, everybody. Rain delay.” The boss pushed past them and strode out. Faer followed, the light from her eyes causing brief motes to gleam from the dust-cylinder cast by the doorway. d’Voris followed; and Lucas too, cursing silently, watched as the boss gave orders to the two others. Faer went off in the south direction, to where the rest of Tech Support had their rooms; d’Voris to the north, to get Nodari and Valha’ya.
“Don’t forget your visorface,” came the Lazy Boss’s voice, as Lucas looked up to see the man in coveralls walk quickly away. His socks, which Lucas only then realized depicted the old Santa Claus, but they were so faded that he’d almost missed it.
Lucas sighed, and thought about the last time this had happened. Getting away from the Agents in visorfaces was easy enough; it was finding a temporary base and then doing the whole set-up of the next HQ that was the chore. He took the third hallway branching out from the office; the emergency lights began to flash, and TM’s from Agate began popping into the Furies Thought-feed.
As I open my eyes, I look upon the wood and mahogany that is the study of the Director. Vander Morht. The only one to preside over all three of the Bureaus, above even the First Agents. Hector and I step out of the portal and onto the pale brushwork lining the wood slates that are the floor. A pair of sandals sits on them just before us; the Director typically walks his domain without sole coverings.
I see him then.
The Director walks over, his hair a faded gold tied back over his shoulders. It still makes Hector’s crispy blue lose its luster in comparison; and my own brown is nothing to speak of. The light from the windows, rimmed in a paper-like, sepia material that run their course entirely around the study falls on his back, and the study is as empty as each time I see it, save for the Director’s desk, a door set towards the back, and a holoscreen depicting the weather calendar in between; lastly, a painting hung on the far wall showing a dusky landscape beneath a grey sky, through which a misshapen birdlike creature falls. As always when I am here, I dare not ask the Director its identification, for I know that its painter stands before me and that while the painting is a parody of the original, the image depicted is new.
“They say success is measured by numbers, or a simple binary,” the Director says. He stands just two feet from us, holding us both in his stark gaze. “Our purpose is to bring in numbers, and yes, they are purified.”
“But not with us,” I respond. “I let these two Furies go.”
Hector points at me.
The Director nods. “By that evaluation, R’aegoth, you typically succeed,” he continues, holding his hands behind his back. “But by that evaluation, you did not. This was not your first time, either. Knowing you, you had your reasons?”
“We hold the world in peace,” I say. “To achieve this picture, we reduce the conflict presented by those with magic living in the world with those without.”
“Precisely, R’aegoth.”
“But descendants throughout the world, or at least this Sector, display their traits to non-descendants every day,” I answer. “And have been since the dawn of time. And somehow, the world does not know about it.”
“We have systems in place for that, as you know,” he responded.
I do. Every Agent upon orientation is told how the Government monitors the memories of all non-descendants. The sheer majority of those descendants that we are tasked to locate have powers of little significance, although on occasion we are met with those worthy of our weapons. Or the lack thereof; I am well familiar that I am not the only Agent who goes unarmed.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“But when these powers cause other tremors, like the antlion causing ripples in the sand pit, and its prey falls into its awaiting jaws, those effects we cannot tenor,” the Director continues. “Not all technology is self-restoring.”
Again he is correct; the Furies’ work on the weather tower did not need our interference for its repair.
“The public knows, and is taught, of this rebel organization, composed of non-descendants like them, but rebel all the same; and pesky ants they may be, but they and others with their own pincers and jaws we must control. Over a century ago, the citizens were given liquids to inundate their colonies and hills. In the course of their days they did not see the ants; but when they did, they removed them. We don’t remove them; what do we do, Hector?” he asks, laying a hand on my subordinate’s shoulder. Surely, it cannot bear the weight.
“We purify them. Tricks are for kids, and descendants are like kids.”
“R’aegoth?”
I make a mental note to remind Hector separately that some children, such as the First Agent, are far above tricks.
“We do not remove the ants. We merely remove their pincers.”
“And some have particularly protective shells, or move together fast on their legs; others communicate to those outside of the colony of sentiments opposing our purpose. You see, R’aegoth, they may be ants, and formed a brief colony; but, as you move out with Hector, or as any two partner Agents go, we prevent them from creating hills and pits.”
The Director’s reasoning is sound; I hear it. The Furies’ purpose is little, means nothing, but still they fall within our created purpose.
“I took out one of the Furies myself,” notes my partner; I in fewer words relieve the Director of that falsehood.
“You didn’t see my Whirlwind Fury technique––”
“––And as I’ve stated before, Director, the Fourth Agent’s performance does not meet the expectation befitting his rank. The Fifth and Sixth Agents as of now are more capable.”
I was not there to witness but according to records my subordinate had done extraordinarily well during the Examinations, which had placed him immediately Fourth within the Ranking Order. And thus under my wing.
I think of a world in which the Fifth Agent, whom we call “Mic Drop,” challenges Hector, and takes the battle; or the Sixth Agent, whom we call “Hacker,” does the same, and entirely through his bot.
So far, that world does not exist. Since his meteoric rise to Fourth no one has challenged Hector.
I make a second mental note to encourage the Eighth Agent, the Philosopher, over a meal of discourse to do just that.
The Director takes his hand off of the Fourth Agent’s shoulder.
“Hector, your performance was, no doubt, admirable. But power still takes precedence over performance.” Hector’s countenance, or rather the palette of sentiment describing his visage, shifts from the clear blue of unchanged conviction to the mired brown of reluctant acquiescence.
My own canvas flickers a little. The Director is entirely correct.
Wane the discussion, wax a new turning. I turn to leave.
“R’aegoth,” I hear, “I do not deride your power of decision. But you know that only those of the Ranking Order receive notice of the Furies’ movements. As you are the Third Agent, it does not speak well to those below.
“As such, the Fifth through Eighth Agents are currently moving to their base of operations. We will determine if as a whole they deserve such discretion. The Sixth Agent located them via a weather tower guard’s receptor.”
“Good job, Joe!” Hector exclaims.
I find the temple of my mind perturbed. Perhaps it is because for us Agents, and in particular those of the upper Ranking Order, distanced from the public, the Furies represent the few tests of our ability; the extraordinarily high levels of training for which that all Agents throughout their lives partake. And by keeping ourselves distant from them, only meeting on assignments, we maintain that possibility of defeat. Of course, Agents not part of our esteemed ten on occasion do fail on the field to them; but in the Furies’ complete absence, our purpose would be all too perfect.
Such are my thoughts, but I refrain from singing. I nod to the Director and beckon to my subordinate.
We take two steps back, side by side, and re-enter the portal; it was almost as if we never came.
The Director kneels and adjusts the sandals; sometime in the past few minutes, he had put them on and taken them off. “May your work be pure,” he says, and as our view of the study begins to fade, my mind bends towards agreement—our Bureau’s words, and a pun for certain, but its humor dies on myself, for I am R’aegoth. For the work we do purifies the world and makes the society whole once again.
As usual, the visorface didn’t fit so well. Lucas knew he looked like, what? an old geezer or something?––he checked his adaptability indicator––yeah, an unobtrusive old man. Unarmed, just hobbling along a minor street of the Lowers, not meaning anyone any harm.
Upon closer examination, of course, anyone would immediately see that this old man was sort of lumpy, or rather had a couple of deep bulges protruding from his clothes. Like he was severely pregnant in multiple places––uh, bad comparison. Only people in Lowers got pregnant. Well, they were in Lowers right now.
It was like he was trying miserably to conceal various weapons beneath his coat. Lucas looked around —yep, there was d’Voris under the streetlight. On the outside a woman with yellow hair; on the inside the d’Voris he looked forward to seeing every day. She always got a nice visor.
Otherwise, this street he’d emerged onto was nothing special. Named after a fish—all of them were in this area—and some people walking around and enjoying the sunny day. He never got used to seeing how people dressed down here, compared to Might. Or maybe it was the other way around, he’d been in the Lowers for too long. Some of them were walking with their children. Some were walking, arm in arm, couples. Oh, his heart. Some were alone.
OK. They were supposed to meet at this ‘Neuve Haven Theater.’ As attendees of a play by the local high school’s drama club. He never did that sort of thing back then but those kids were always weird. They’d still be wearing visorfaces the whole time, Agate was always adamant about that. Even though she never wore one—well, OK she did spend a lot of time out of HQ. They wouldn’t wear their receptors, per the drill, and Zefayus was handling their receptor IDs for the Government. Going in separately.
The people seemed to walk past him in a tight blur—some must be going to the play too. Some had to be Furies although, of course, he couldn’t tell. He only knew d’Voris since he’d made sure to see her put on her visorface in HQ. Trout Street—past Marlin, and then onto Piers. Cade had to be here somewhere. Marlin, Trout, Piers, then we’re there, came Agate’s voice over their Thought-feed. Act normal and let’s enjoy the performance. It’s called The Tragedy of Hope, by somebody named Buchi. Ha ha. They’d gone to see a play the last time too.
They’re an excellent playwright, came Zefayus’s voice. I hope we actually get to watch it this time. Lucas laughed—cackled. He was old. Always the comedian, Zefayus, and good to be around with his big red beard. He was right—hopefully they wouldn’t just make a commotion and move to the temporary new base from the theater. Like last time. It won’t be good anyway, he Thought. He thought he detected laughter in the feed.
Oh, it was still the Lazy Boss up, so of course that was going to be the plan—a vividly green bird swept by him, its beak and feathers flashing in the sun. It was Cade.
A stranger in dark sunglasses walked up. They had one of those safro hair cuts common up here, and sure enough, upon making eye contact flicked a hand through his ‘fro in the Fury hand-signal: a held fist, with the index and middle fingers held partway up.
Lucas held his side, as if struggling with back pain, while doing the same. He entered his Thought-feed.
Cade?
Melt, freeze, that’s me came the reply. Cade gave him a broad smile and clicked his tongue, signaling for his bird to come perch on his shoulder. Somewhat conspicuous—but it was Cade. It was the lumps that gave Lucas away, of course. The Ustih broke. His fourteenth weapon made by Cade.
Must be the new Agent I’ve been hearing about, came the response. As a fellow Scion Ab’maluk, Cade would understand. And as part of their Tech team, assigned to Lucas, he knew all too well the pain and suffering that came with breaking in, and breaking, the previous thirteen. He remembered the Ihcuk-petal. She had been beautiful.
We don’t know if he’s new. But he was way stronger than d’Voris.
Cade nodded; he took some steps forward, so that it didn’t look like they were walking in together. I’d tell you who’s coming today, but Faer wasn’t able to get that information. Not that they usually did. But he’d heard that one time the Agents had broadcasted sending themselves over the Sector-feed, which was almost never used, back before he’d joined––though according to d’Voris they hadn’t sent anyone strong.
He almost didn’t want to think about how many other Agents the Government had on the level of the one whose mind was like a temple.
Lucas ignored his doubts and began explaining to Cade how it’d all gone down. He was just getting to the part where he was down on his hands, his feet held up like an old Lowers vacuum cleaner and Agate’s voice cut in again––At Piers everybody, remove your receptor!
He knew the drill. He looked up to see a sign reading PIERS AVENUE and Cade, receptor already off, rounding the corner past the fire hydrant. Lucas followed, slowly in his old man’s walk, and did the same; it wasn’t like they were wearing anything new here. Lowers still had something worn on the ear although it was only good for listening to music or things like that, and from far away they looked pretty much the same.
As it always was when he removed his receptor, an empty silence took over the comfortable availability of contact––the ever-near presence of a Thought-feed, whether it was yours or a group’s or an organization’s––that came with wearing one all the time. It was like taking off a visorface, then taking off everything you were wearing, and then taking off what you were actually wearing underneath that. Lucas almost wanted to tell Agate that everyone around here was wearing the same thing or what looked like it but he knew that wearing a receptor made it a lot easier for the Government to track you.
He rounded the corner. The theater was right there––moderately sized, a rounded dome on top of what was otherwise a normal Lowers-style building. They were all Lowers-style buildings here––but he still never got quite used to just how differently they looked from those up in Might and higher.
Alter, he missed it. HQ down here was flat.
As he continued on, he kept an eye on Cade, who was walking through the revolving doors, along with some other people. He shuffled along in their wake and handed his ticket to the people at a nice table set out, with information sheets and even some stuffed dragon toys. It got him thinking about Nodari with his flames, which he really didn’t get to see enough.
Lucas took one and kept walking. Soon he’d be seated and stop having to walk like he was old. If he could find a seat, though. It was crowded––a bunch of kids with their parents, come to watch their older siblings. He managed to find a seat towards the back next to a woman sharply dressed in a suit; she had a notebook in her hand with a pen tucked into its silver curling rings. Probably a reporter, local.
He smiled awkwardly––or gently, however old people smiled, there weren’t any above Lowers and he rarely interacted with the ones down here. The oldest Fury, Porte, wasn’t even 40, not counting the CEO, who might be older, but he couldn’t tell and didn’t want to ask. Wisteria probably knew.
So he smiled, and the reporter gave what was probably her version of a tight smile, and they gave brief hellos and names and yes she was a reporter as he gauged their surroundings. Sofas up at the front for the little ones, who were settling into them excitedly––long, curving walls around the sides, okay this theater was pretty big. Hopefully the students acting in the play were good.
He’d check in with Agate, then. He Thought––emptiness, just thinking into nothing, as if he was staring at a long, white wall in front of him and pondering what it meant to always go out on missions with a partner but still feel like he was alone––habit. But he just didn’t know what he had to do to get her attention. Sure, she was four years older, but they’d been doing this together for four years now. Like he’d gone to college and had a special extended internship with a rebel group of Scions, tagging along with one of their best fighters. Damn, she was good with the daggers, it was a shame that she hadn’t been able to use them against that Agent.
Damn, he was thinking about it again. When was the play even going to start? He stared at the information paper down in his hand. The Tragedy of Hope, organized by Pelican High School, raising funds for visitations to the boundary between Lowers and Might. Wow. Now that was bold––they wouldn’t be allowed to cross, of course. The Government made sure of that. Because they didn’t have a tech whiz like Faer on their side; he raised his dry lips in a ghastly old man’s smile. He hoped the reporter wasn’t watching. But why would she, he was old, and she was young enough to make him wish he was young again.
OK, now that was getting too much into the role.
If only he had his receptor. He could be talking to d’Voris right now, or trying to. She’d freely ignored 90% of his TMs these past five years.
“Mr. Cobb––can I ask you a question?”
The reporter. She must’ve been over thirty––past d’Voris’s age, and being in Lowers, obviously not on BMPs.
“Yes, miss,” he replied. The voice was the worst part of the act.
She was wearing these ridiculously large glasses that in some crazy world were what reporters wore. But then again––reporters didn’t exist outside of Lowers. The Government didn’t need them to keep the public attuned to things.
“Would you mind if I asked you some questions? About what brings you to the play. Just before it starts.” She was smiling in a professional way. It wasn’t fake, but it wasn’t real. It was just a smile.
“Ermm. This does take me back to my reporting days. You said you’re from the Scales?” he queried.
“Yes, that’s right. So you’re familiar with this. Do you know anybody in the play?”
Of course not. “I do. My grandson––Carter, plays the dragon maid. The one with the little white hair and who always has their face on a table, hehe.” He almost wished he’d picked Derrick, the sheet had said he was playing the knight who took down the dragons to save the maids. What a silly plot.
“Mm, good,” the reporter seemed to murmur to herself––had he heard right?
“So you live around here?” she asked. Around him, Lucas could hear the conversation beginning to die down––finally, the lights were dimming, and the closed curtain up front was looking rather forlorn.
“Yes, just up here, by Piers.” How about you? He almost asked.
“Thankfully far from where the Furies tried to burn that weather tower,” she said.
He coughed. What?
“My arthritis––it affects my lungs.” He coughed again for good measure. “I did, that was terrible. Nowhere near here. If it was here, a normal weather tower, it’d have burned for sure.” Honestly, that gave him an idea… he almost made a Thoughtnote for it but faced the emptiness again.
“Arthritis, yes, my mom also struggles with it.” The reporter was jotting things down. Would this be in the article? Elderly Audience Member Struggles with Arthritis But Still Comes to See the Play, he imagined.
She was still jotting things down.
Lucas settled himself again on the seat. These lumps really made it difficult, especially with his coughing arthritis.
Coughing arthritis… pretending to be sick when becoming sick was new for them, here in Lowers. Nobody above got sick. BMPs, aquas, and Alterfaces made sure of that.
He wondered if the reporter was feeling sympathy for him. He almost checked her emotions for Pity. Worry. Sadness. But. He didn’t. The Agent back then probably hadn’t even cared, as clean and pure his mind was. But most people who had their emotions read like that reacted in some way. Sometimes lost their train of thought or just dipped out for a bit.
“Any more questions? I’d be happy to answer them,” he whispered, as a spotlight hit the stage and, microphone all set up for them, a spindly student stepped out from behind the curtain and began speaking.
“One more thing,” she whispered back. She tucked the notebook into a side pocket of her suit jacket. She removed a––a large, black microphone. Way larger than normal microphones, than the one being used right now on the stage, and it sort of sat on her forearm. “Just to confirm, Lucas. Who do you think is more attractive––Malae d’Voris, or Valha’ya Glorae?”
“d’Voris,” he said automatically. “Fuck,” he said, in his normal voice, and the reporter was smiling not in a professional manner anymore. Wait. Was she one of the Furies, fooling around with him? He executed the hand-signal. She dropped the mike, and bent down to pick it up.
Fuck.
Scenario level B––Agent encounter––definitely not a visorface, they liked to introduce themselves––not a reporter––or she was a reporter, this was her part-time job when down in Lowers––He couldn’t TM d’Voris or Cade––the curtain was rolling back, and some dragon maids were sitting at a table––he saw his grandson––no, Valha’ya was arguably more attractive, he just didn’t see her as often––Plans A through D scrolled through his mind, like Agents’ names in the listing––they knew exactly who their visorfaces represented. He got up and––the mike struck his arm, making a thin popping sound, as he automatically blocked it.
Plan A. Lucas fell, avoiding the chair, but the Agent was already up and clambering, no, as he got up quickly he saw that she was running across the seats, right when there were people sitting on them, heading towards the stage. Damn, impressive. He should’ve gotten her name…
She stopped midway down, and was clobbering somebody over the head with the mike. People started getting up, shouting; Lucas dropped the visorface instantly and stepped up onto the next row. Mm. It was harder than it looked. Damn it! He looked––the Fury she was attacking was raising their hands over their head, trying to ward off the blows and the popping noises, but then Lucas heard a bwoosh above the yells, and he zeroed in on the stage and the skinny kid was holding a torch of fire, the mike was on fire, a tall burning ember of it, and now people were screaming, the dragon maids were trundling off in their blouses, the kid––no, it was Nodari––kicked over the table, and was walking slowly their way. Still holding the fire. The reporter Agent was going up to face him.
By now Lucas had reached the Fury. It was, visorface discarded, Kelit. Their hair was all over and messy over their head, pink and burned and black. They were moaning in pain. Lucas growled and continued moving forward. She’d get it for this, reporter or not, attractive or not, should’ve gone with Plan B from the start, and as he looked Nodari was putting on a large straw hat, somehow not on fire, and he didn’t know what in the world the Agent would use against him but she was standing just a few feet from Nodari, holding the microphone up by her lips.
Actually, he’d hang back and watch Nodari do his thing––a tap on his shoulder, and he whirled with his fists––it was Cade, visorface off, bird gone. Wearing his favorite red sweater, the one ranking all seven phases of the MCU.
“Lucas, let’s go. Part of the plan.”
“Part of––fuck, again?” he said, as he reached back to help Kelit up, who’d in all this mess had somehow found time to snip off their hair, the burned parts of it, and the people continued to scream as the fire battle started to take place up front. Alter, he wanted to watch!
“I was also found, let’s go. Nodari gave the signal.” Cade took his arm and they moved through the crowd massing towards the exit, and Lucas cursed deeply, for almost betraying d’Voris, for not getting to Kelit in time, for being found out, but as he gave one last glance back, he didn’t see the Agent anymore, but he thought he saw Nodari, a huge microphone in one hand, settling himself into one of the sofas and twirling the straw hat in the other.
Oh, no. The Agent was lying on the stage.
Lucas smiled and, helping Kelit along, followed Cade out of the theater.
¬
There was once a door. In fact, there always was. It just depended on where you were going. And this time, there were three.
It took all three of them to open it.
The door itself was bare, as they crossed floors. It was a light sepia. In this dimension, wrought of bark; but not from trees. The Ligaeryae-made lightwood, refined over millennia, held nothing to it. No, this door came from a tree, only one, grown by the seeds of Alter and directed from human desire.
At this time that door was one of many but only one led to this path. The path climbed and trailed through and about a winding road. The road was soft and heavy and pliant; it grew in tangled and interlocked leaves and a sleeping forest of its own, microcosmic for the tree that stood wordless and worldlike about itself. It was a shady tree, providing thought and future and memory. But only time could wither its sturdy branches and boughs; and the colors off-identity scintillated up and through it about its roots to the tips of its spindling leaves and within the vibrating mitochondria. But the three that walked here were as large as cells and they did not take notice.
The hallway of cellulose, spanning breadth and sight beyond the limits their holoframe bodies provided them, projected deeply into the finite, but understandably infinite, limits of the tree. The three walking it did not see its end; they only remembered its beginning, from the door. But still they kept walking, their holoframes providing the only light in the scattered darkness.
After a time, unmeasured but deliberate, they via unity of thought moved through the nearly infinite distance, and stood before three more doors. Each was as alike and different to the others as the three Governors were to each other: a sphere, a bird, and a pyramid, but they approached the rightmost door without coming to disagreement.
The door opened for them. What lay past was a figure, hovering unbound in the immanent form of darkness and light, eyes closed. Its name was Raze and it lived within the tree, along with its two companions, who were not in the room at the same time. The room was vast but just vast enough to suit Raze, designed and lifted out of the original thoughts purged into the sapling, and Raze noticed the three new members of the room.
Raze greeted the Governors. It spoke in their minds, a voice that rumbled in their structuralist consciences and Hegelian consciousness, without dialectic or didactic underpinnings or dinosaurs. But they heard the voice and remembered time. It was not the first time for these three in the chamber. But to them now it was a first time.
There were shapes and colors passing around the one named Raze. The Governors did not see them.
“Governor of Face; Governor of Flight; Governor of Fixtures. Welcome to the Thousandtree.”
The three so called, stepped forward as one. While before their movements had been same, now their shapes were different; but no one besides the four had been with them to witness the truth of that statement.
The Governor named Face appeared as a world. It pulsated silver and caused ripples across its concave surface. A varied look that bespoke perfection and constancy. It caused uneven ripples at hearing its name.
The Governor named Flight appeared as a deity. It spread wings, and bent its head downwards. A torn look that suggested truth and implication, forethought and enunciation. It squawked at hearing its name.
The Governor named Fixture appeared as a symbol. It projected something, and nothing at the same time; it stood upwards like civilization and institutionalism and future. It revealed its meaning at hearing its name.
Raze saw these three, and welcomed them. It offered them hospitality, trinkets, and refreshment; but the three refused, and Raze accepted and acknowledged their purpose in visiting. It had known of their coming, a ritual appearance in the Altering space of the tree, that various Governors undertook after certain events, what they called disruptions, took place. But for Raze, it was ritual.
Raze offered them further metaphor in the discussion, and the three responded in kind. But unlike R’aegoth with Vander Morht, the nomenclature was not of the animal kingdom, but of something else. The four discussed. The four plied. And the shapes around the being called Raze took the form of the Scion named Nodari, holding fire in his hand; the Governors reacted, Raze reached out with a hand, and snuffed the image as one might a candle after having dampened their fingers.
The Governors seemed to sigh, and Raze let the shapes return to their former glow; few incandescent forms flickered in them, showing other persons, other colors; and Raze snuffed them out.
They watched the fires disappear together.