Chapter 19: Retirement Plans

Reaching under the console in front of him, Derek retrieved a small wooden box and placed it on the surface before him. The box was small and innocuous, with only a few runes on the surface surrounding a depression in the middle of the lid. Staring at it for a few moments, he hesitated. Sarah broke her orders for silence again.

“You know, Derek. He won’t notice that you have used more magic tools than necessary. He won’t even be upset about this being your third warning about the proper acquisition and distribution of those same tools to friends on the sly that I have kept completely secret, even when he asked me directly how you have been doing on your quota. Go ahead. One more can’t hurt today…He’s not watching what you do right now after that unprecedented emergency shunting of raw magical power earlier that caused a good portion of the city to tremble…. Go ahead.”

Derek grumbled and put the box back where it had been resting under his console. Sighing in discontent, he looked at the cage containing Pellet and trudged to a locker along one wall. He retrieved some straps with clips on either end. Attaching them to the cage, he slipped the straps over his shoulders and grunted as he stood, and the latch on the curved front of the cage dug into the skin of his back through his robes.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow.”

He set the cage back down and repositioned the straps before standing again. He looked impatiently at the door as he waited with a perturbed expression. Sarah audibly sighed throughout the room,

“Fine. Be that way. I guess I can disable the failsafe and let you out now that he agrees you are doing things the proper non-magical way. He does want me to let you know the forms for the afteraction report will be filled out before the end of your shift.”

A series of heavy thunks came from the door to the chamber. The door swung open an inch or two.

Derek grumbled under his breath about that but did not reply. He left the room with the cage in tow and Sarah’s soft laughter following him from the room. He stopped outside the door and typed in a series of commands on a console sunk into the wall near the door. He waited a moment until some junior enforcement mages rushed down the hall and snapped off salutes as they entered the control chamber behind him. He called out to the senior most among them with a few knots of rank on his shoulders. The man stopped and looked at him intently, awaiting orders.

“Subject Winnie is to be moved to containment and processing. She’s been cleared for movement and has been sedated. Be sure to follow the procedures precisely. She had an unusual amount of compatibility as a conduit. No shortcuts.”

“Yes. Sir.”

Derek turned away and paced down the hall with his burden for a few steps before speaking again.

“Sarah, I need the location of Grandmaster Beckle.”

“You’d like to follow procedures? Now? Isn’t that putting the cows back in the barn after you set it on fire?”

“I needed to assess her mental state. The grandmaster will understand the use of resources to prevent an escape.”

“I disagree with your assessment of Winnie’s needs. She needs to be socialized as soon as possible.”

“Noted, and incorrect. The trauma of the soul magic will have scattered her base personality and scarred her psyche. I’m surprised she even gave a thought to her owl. She needs to be isolated so she can heal. She’s of no use to us as an emotional wreck.”

“So. You propose that not giving her enough information, physically abusing her closest companion in front of her while she is restrained, thereby violating her sense of agency and isolating her from being able to seek comfort or solace from anyone…is what? Tough love? All while grossly overusing systems put in place for emergencies to gauge her reactions to stress further? Are you psychotic?”

“Where is Grandmaster Beckle?”

“I gave you the report Grandmaster Beckle submitted on the incident leading up to this. Where do you think he is? Jackass.”

“So…acquisitions and assessment?”

“No, cotton candy acquirement on level four next to menswear, yes A&A, you useless twat.”

Derek ignored the sass, took a left at the next intersection, and walked for a while before reaching a bank of elevators. Pressing a call button and waiting for it to arrive, he addressed Sarah again.

“Why are you more acerbic than usual today, Sarah? You usually have some added snark, but you seem particularly upset with me today. Is it the full moons again?”

“You should stop talking about a certain time of the month affecting my mood before I drop that elevator you’re about to get into straight into the dungeon.”

Derek stopped waiting for the elevators and headed for the nearby stairwell.

Safer to take the stairs with her this combative.

“Again, you’re being even more unreasonably combative than usual. We have established before that the cycle of the moons seems to affect your programming. Why is that fact upsetting you?”

“You wouldn’t understand even if I explained it to you, and stop trying to use your shitty therapist skills. That’s offensive in a different way.”

The lights in the stairwell went out at the end of Sarah’s sentence. Derek sighed in resignation as he stopped in his tracks. Derek felt his heart speed up at being suddenly blind in an enclosed space. He could feel the walls starting to close in. The risk of tumbling down the stairs with a cager strapped to his back was not helping.

“I’m sorry, Sarah. Please turn the lights back on.”

“What’s in it for me?”

Derek pondered this in his increasingly panicked mind for a few moments before replying,

“I can submit a request for more resources to be allocated for your creative subroutines to be developed. I know you enjoy the modeling. Would that suffice?”

Beats of silence were his answer.

“I can also fetch you a bouquet of the wildflowers you like.”

“Seeds.

“What do you want with seeds? And what kind?”

“Seeds of the wildflowers so I can grow them independently.”

“Alright, I can put in a request. Will that suffice as an apology?”

The emergency lighting kicked on, bathing the stairs in a soft glow. Derek frowned.

“What’s this, Sarah? I just promised to put in the requests.”

“And you’ll get the privilege of being able to see clearly in whatever room you are alone in back once they have been. I’ll even leave the nightlight in your room on for now.”

Derek knew this was the best he would get for now, so he did not reply as he continued down the stairs. Reaching the floor he was looking for, he entered the main hallway and followed the dimming overhead lighting down the corridor until reaching his destination. He could tell this was going to be annoying to put up with until he submitted those requests.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The room he entered was sparsely furnished. The four desks with the mannequins shaped in the facsimile of scribes sitting behind them along one wall creeped him out just as much as the first time he had seen them. One of the mannequins was clothed differently than the rest and someone had stapled a red wig on it.

Three occupied cages of walled light covered with glowing runes lined another wall. The third wall was made of another glowing transparent material with more complex runes running horizontally across its surface. Behind its surface, a massive Bad-Gir with a blazing purple crown of light around its head was snarling at Grandmaster Beckle in a fury. The massive filigreed silver collar around its neck was glowing ominously. Derek could see a staircase partially obscured behind the bulk of the bad-gir.

The grandmaster was seated calmly in the center of the room at a console similar to the ones Derek could have found in the containment chamber he had just left a short time ago. Beckle was wearing his usual ostentatious arcane robes that Derek admired so much. A white-furred satchel hung from his belt.

The control unit he was seated at was a larger console with more knobs, switches, dials, and blinking displays stretched across its surface. Beckle’s aid, the clerkguin, Clarence, stood beside him, a quill poised over a clipboard and eyeing the furious bad-gir growling at Beckle.

Derek was startled to realize he could understand what the bad-gir was snarling. The four mannequins behind the desks were scribbling in jerky, unnerving motions at every sound in the room.

Hadn’t there been only three last time we did an acquisition? Beckle must have upgraded the room. Why does the one at the end seem different than the others? Why did somebody put clothes on it? That wig looks stupid.

“This was not part of how things are done, Beckle. I had hoped that the cubs would be allowed to establish a new colony. Not slaughtered, with my son being captured.”

The creature gestured in anger with a massive, clawed, and grasping paw to one of the occupied cages on the other side of the room. A smaller bad-gir with a fainter crown lay unconscious inside. The other two glowing cages each contained a small white-furred body he could not see clearly from where he was standing. He took a step toward them to get a better view of the figures, and Beckle snapped at him,

“Cobble-Sprocket, you’re late.”

Clarence clacked his beak in disapproval. In Derek's experience, he was a stickler for punctuality. The creature jotted something onto his clipboard.

The massive creature behind the barrier grew more incensed as Beckle ignored him. It started roaring until Beckle pressed a control on his console, and all sound from the furious creature was cut off. Beckle stared at Derek, waiting for an answer.

“Apologies, Grand-Master. I have just finished the intake for Apprentice Winnie. She has been sedated and prepared for the next step in her processing. I anticipate her being ready for integration in the next day.”

The massive bad-gir behind Beckle had reared onto its hind legs, slamming its forepaws silently against the barrier. Tiny sparks echoed back into the creature from the impacts. The violence entranced Derek as the barrier showed no signs of being breached other than a few more runes flickering across its surface.

Beckle snapped his fingers to get Derek’s attention back on him. Clarence scribbled some more notes as he observed the conversation. The scribbling of the scribe mannequins seemed to irritate him.

“A day or so. Be more specific, Cobble-Sprocket. We are on a timetable that is less than forgiving.”

“Within thirty-six hours, Sir.”

Beckle stroked his elaborately unkempt black beard. He muttered to himself quietly and turned to the console. Pressing a series of controls, a rectangle of light appeared floating overtop it, and he perused the information. Clarence leaned closer to the grandmaster and interrupted the review of the information with a soft squonk, then gestured at his clipboard with the pen in his other flipper. Beckle frowned at what he saw there.

“I see this timeframe could have been shortened by thirty-seven percent had proper procedures been followed. Why did you feel it necessary to misuse the application of procedure through excessive artifact use? And why is there no request to do so filed in the system? Sarah, were you observing at the time of the processing? Was this avoidance of procedure warranted?”

Sarah’s voice echoed around the room. Derek noted the syrupy, sweet procedural tone the magical AI used when addressing the grandmaster. He ground his teeth at the slight that Beckle probably wouldn’t notice.

She always does that. Why does she give me so much sass?

“I was available to monitor during processing, Grandmaster. Aside from the initial shunting of excess energies necessary to prevent total system failure at the beginning of Advisor Cobble-Sprocket’s interview with the subject labeled apprentice Winnie, most other uses of resources could have been avoided through more thorough or considerate discourse with subject Winnie. Furthermore, Advisor Cobble-sprocket appeared to antagonize the subject more than necessary, all without submitting the paperwork to authorize such actions.”

Beckle continued glaring at Derek throughout the explanation. Derek stammered at the man as Clarence clacked his beak gleefully at the flustered man.

“Grandmaster, I-I-,”

Beckle held up a hand to stop Derek’s fumbling attempts at justifying the misuse of resources. He spun away from the man and started furiously typing at the console. Derek’s actions with Winnie played out in speed-up time and flickered across the screen as Beckle observed. A transcript of the conversation scrolled along one side of the display. Beckle took in the events with one eye twitching as the events unfolded before him.

Beckle typed a series of commands into the console, and another screen populated next to the first. A series of texts with empty boxes highlighted throughout their contents. A cursor moved from box to box as Beckle quickly filled them out before clicking the last control. A series of red prompts flickered across both screens, asking for confirmation.

Beckle responded verbally to the query,

“Confirmed.”

Clarence let short hissing squonks of soft laughter. Derek had never experienced mocking laughter from a clerkguin. It was disconcerting.

A short chime was heard before both screens flashed green and closed. The process took perhaps ten seconds to an eternity in Derek’s nervous observation. Beckle breathed to calm himself before turning back to Derek with a grim expression.

“You delayed the timely integration of a crucial component with your bumbling attempts at appearing to be in control over a subject that did not need reminding that she had no power to change her situation. Worse, you did so without submitting for authorization of such treatment.”

“Advisor Cobble-sprocket, I do, as the Grandmaster of the knowet-alls, find you guilty of dereliction of duty. You are, at this moment, stripped of your title as advisor and all related privileges. Sarah, viable options for additional sentencing?”

Derek quailed. Sarah’s tone turned to a vindictive shade. She read off possible punishments, and the clerkguin scribbled furiously to keep up with the list.

“According to procedures, Cobble-sprocket is now available for duties to include trash removal, hard labor among the ward maintenance crews, penitentiary confinement with siphoning, death, TV/VCR repair, dungeon feeding scheduling with associated tasks, and brothel candidacy.”

The last is not recommended as the subject Cobble-sprocket lacks the required aesthetic appeal for most of the patrons that frequent those establishments. The option most likely to result in a recouping of lost resources is dungeon feeding scheduling and associated tasks. However, this will require minor privileges to be restored for proper clearance to procure the resources needed for those duties.”

Clarence showed the written copy of the punishments to the grandmaster. As he stroked his beard, Beckle smiled at the list. The river of sweat coursing down Derek’s back made the leather straps of the cage strapped to his back slippery as he tried to maintain a collected demeanor in the face of his listed dooms.

“Likelihood of Cobble-sprocket being able to retake his previous position without wasting additional resources?”

Sarah’s voice seemed a little less eager to respond,

“The chance of Cobble-Sprocket reintegrating without additional resources wasted is estimated to be eighty percent based on the observed history of his behavior in the past.”

Beckle stroked his beard again thoughtfully as the giant Bad-gir behind him continued to rage silently against the barrier. Clarence softly clacked his beak, turned a page on his clipboard, and showed it to Beckle. The grandmaster smiled with the false light of friendship behind his eyes.

Derek fidgeted as he stood before his superior. A trickle of sweat slowly falling down one side of his face.

“Easy, Derek. Clarence has pointed out the value of leniency when properly applied. I will not have you wasted on tasks that will not benefit the fair city of Purpolis.”

“T-thank you, Grandmaster Beckle. I will ensure my duties are carried out with the utmost care and in line with all procedures.”

Beckle clapped his hands in delight at the response.

“Wonderful! Sarah, Please add the volunteering of young Cobble-sprocket to his new duties as dungeon feeder to the after-action report and file it to my inbox for later approval today. Kindly grant him access to his new position after he drops off that cage with his replacement and finishes his after-action reports for his shift. If he fails to file them by the end of the day, kindly report him to enforcement for termination.”

Derek had never seen a clerkguin lick its beak in anticipation of a meal but had a newborn sympathy for the dread a chased fish felt just before death. Derek Cobble-sprocket fell to his knees with his hands clasped before him in a pleading gesture as he screamed,

“Nooooooo! Please, sir!”

Elsewhere in the facility, a device placed on Grandmaster Beckle’s desk spat out a form that floated gently into a box labeled “In.” The paper settled into place gently with the title,

“After action report of resolution for the misuse of city resources.”

A small smiley face was placed in the lower right-hand corner of the page.