2006, 13th January

Space Station, Apotheosis

Aaron habitually woke up early, as relevant as that was without a strict day-night cycle.

Washing himself up, he dressed himself in a T-shirt and Jeans and tossed some beige overcoat on, already feeling overdressed.

All corridors throughout the station eventually led to the same central hub.

Aaron had left a message to Michael’s office, asking to meet him there.

Walking through, glossy sterile corridors, he finally arrived, walking by the ivory statue of Alexander, displayed prominently in the centre.

Michael was easily spotted, the figure in the black suit, glued to the window, enamoured by the view of the stars as he always seemed to be.

“Michael.” Aaron addressed him, approaching him from behind.

The other man turned with a smile.

“Aaron. I see you’re motivated to work. I wouldn’t have thought you’d call me of your own initiative.”

“Yeah, well, this is about that… you never actually specified what we’re supposed to do with the information we gathered yesterday.”

“You’re going to find him. You’re going to find out about him. You’re going to find out how exactly he plans to spread our gift on a global scale-”

“You’re sure that’s what his plan is?”

“Do you have any other ideas?”

“I… no, maybe not.”

“No. So we move forward on this assumption until we have more compelling evidence pointing elsewhere. But our primary objective is knowing this man, better than even he knows himself. Enough to be able to predict his next move, even without future sight.”

Michael leisurely leaned back against the window pane, and pointed his head at the statue at the centre, specifically the golden letters embossed at the base.

“Power. Liberty. Two words to define this organisation’s innate philosophy. Your thoughts?”

Aaron had plenty of thoughts on the matter. Thoughts often expressed loudly, a bit too loudly for his colleagues’ approval.

“The notion of freedom being intrinsically tied into liberty? That the weak are somehow less deserving than the powerful of liberty? My thoughts on those notions?”

“Yes. Your thoughts on those notions precisely.”

Aaron ran an agitated hand through his copper hair.

“It’s everything that’s wrong about this place. We shouldn’t hold ourselves so high and mighty above the hollows, as if we’ve done anything to earn that-”

“You think it’s about the hollows, do you?”

“Well, what else could it be about? We have everything up here. Literally everything! And no concern for the people we came from. Hell, we take so much from them. We’ve even made slaves of them! These grey suits might be paid, but can they leave? Can they start families down there? Can they use what they’ve learned here to help who they’ve left behind? Can they even raise their voices to one of us? They’re slaves, nothing more.”

“And what have you done to change that?”

Aaron looked at Michael in incredulity.

“What can I do? I can’t storm into the Hallway of the Lords and give them a piece of my mind without getting evaporated for taking the trouble.”

“Would you say your lack of power… is hindering your freedom to affect change?”

Aaron stopped mid pace and fixed Michael with a frown, even as the other man concealed a forming grin behind his fingers.

But then he shook his head and spoke again.

“That power and liberty and directly proportional isn’t just some maxim that Apotheosis abides; it’s a law of reality, far more ironclad than any others, that even the magi, for all their power, haven't been able to circumvent”

“Just like we haven’t been able to force a hollow’s soul to awaken?”

“That one’s not necessarily true. Maybe the framework we have for now doesn’t allow us to cast that sort of spell, but…”

“You’re talking about an Archmage? That theoretical degree of magic even beyond mastery?”

“Stranger things have turned out to be true. But that’s all theorizing. We can start putting some flesh on our theories as soon as we know all there is to know about Hans Muller. I suggest getting started on that front. Perhaps look up forced eruptions in the Library, and have Pierre find out what he can about Hans’ movements.”

“Why don’t you ask Pierre. Is it because he’s not so much a fan of… you?”

Michael smiled indulgently at him.

“People don’t need to like me to realize that what I’m telling them to do, is in their best interests. I merely said it because I have places to be. But if you insist, I’ll tell him myself.”

“Leave it; I’ll tell him. I don’t know what you told him when you saw him, but he’s not been… himself, ever since.”

“What is meant by ‘not himself’?”

Aaron paused and frowned.

Pierre had always been of a violent temperament, but he carried himself with a certain self assurance, as if he was always the most dangerous man in any given room.

Michael noticed Aaron’s expression and shrugged.

“Maybe you don’t really know him, do you?”

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“Maybe not.”

“Anyway, save the breakthroughs for counselling-”

Michael moved off the wall in a sudden burst of motion, causing Aaron to blink in surprise.

“-we may have the fate of reality itself on our shoulders.”

And he walked off, rapidly.

Aaron shook his head.

He supposed he should go to visit the Library now.

The Library was always the most depressing place Aaron had had the displeasure of walking through.

He walked through corridors, dimly lit, brains preserved in glass cases, numbered to the hundreds.

Robert Koch, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Robert Oppenheimer.

The greatest minds of Hollow society, plucked from their graves and preserved in a think tank in the most literal sense of the word.

The first Chief Librarian, before he had gone missing, was supposedly a master of Death magic. With the powers of true creation and destruction over the domain of death, he had unmade death and decay over his chosen victims, resurrecting them, only to preserve them in this horrifying exhibition.

Just another thing Apotheosis had snatched away from the world below them, with no thought to reciprocity.

Aaron sighed and moved further inward, where the illumination grew brighter.

The current Chief Librarian was, against all odds, a hollow.

Who had inherited the position by killing his Lord and predecessor.

Either this one particular hollow was exceptionally talented at the art of killing beings that should very obviously be his superior, or closer to the truth as Aaron suspected it, the position was not so coveted, and the Chief Librarian didn’t field many challengers.

He certainly wouldn’t want to be stuck between wall after wall of preserved brains.

He missed the stereotypical libraries with walls stacked with books from one end to the other, much preferring the scent of paper in the air to that of formalin.

“Can I help you sir?”

Mahmoud, the Chief Librarian, was in the rare position of not needing to address every novice mage that walked through these halls as Lord.

A privilege afforded to him by his position.

“I need to find a method one might use for a hollow to overcome-”

Aaron fumbled looking for an appropriate word.

“Their deficiency, sir?” Mahmoud’s voice remained perfectly even.

“Eh, sure. That.”

“Enchantments, sir. An expert of metamagic could use shaping spells to-”

“Yes, I know. But enchanted items can only hold one effect.”

“Clearly then, the solution is multiple enchantments.”

“Maybe something more reliable than a bunch of trinkets, eh?”

“Vampirism, sir?”

Aaron sighed.

Vampirism was certainly the only greater supernatural template that hollows could access; unless one counted possession, either spiritual or by fae; and they had a particular affinity for death magic and mind magic, although they couldn’t match the magi in any other fields.

But the price they paid for their abilities…

“Perhaps something a little less… life altering.”

“Biomodification?”

“That’s just enchanting with a different set of pitfalls…”

Aaron frowned and looked at Mahmoud closely.

“You’ve thought about all this before.”

The older man shrugged.

“Over here, people like me… we cannot afford to take our safety for granted. I understand what you’re asking, sir, I do. If there was a way for a man like me to stand shoulder to shoulder with a man like you…”

“Hey. Hey.”

Aaron hastily placed his arms on the old man’s shoulders, and he told himself it didn’t sting when Mahmoud flinched as he moved his hands.

“You don’t need to be ashamed of yourself. You’re fine the way you are.”

The librarian smiled bitterly.

“There’s no need to lie, sir. I know what I am. And I know how fortunate I am to have lasted this long where I am.”

Aaron ran his fingers through his hair, then crossed his arms.

“We may have gotten a bit off topic. About eruption-”

“It’s impossible, sir. If you wish, I could pull up the primer on arcane frameworks once more.”

“Hmmh, why not. I could do with a refresher.”

Mahmoud pointed to one of the rows of seats behind him.

No matter how much time he spent in the library, he would always be unnerved by the prospect of sitting between lines of preserved organs.

“Maybe there’s somewhere.. less morbid?”

Mahmoud nodded in understanding, then ushered Aaron into his own office.

“Less brains here, sir.”

“Hmm. Yeah, thanks, man.”

As the librarian left him alone in his room, Aaron sat down to study, running his fingers over a sheet of glass on the table, which came to life, spreading a tapestry of coloured icons across the screen beneath his fingertips.

Of the nine fields of magic, only Death magic was pertinent to the soul.

Novices could do nothing but perceive it.

Apprentices should theoretically be able to control souls, turning away spells that sought to harm it as well as bind displaced souls to new vessels.

Could a mages’ soul bound to a hollow give them the gift? No, it hadn’t seemed to work with similar experiments in the past, and a mage with a hollows’ soul bound to them could use their talent as ably as they ever had, in a typical display of the inherent unfairness of the universe.

Adept tier magic could modify its properties, although no one knew what inherent properties were open to modification in a soul anyway, and casting spells like this was akin to stumbling around in the dark.

Certainly no mage was willing to experiment thus with their own soul, and a hollow soul hit with modification spells remained as dormant as ever.

They could also choose to amplify and weaken the soul, strengthening the tether of a soul as well as weakening them.

Expert mages could shape souls, even warping it to cause grievous harm.

Then he came to the masters, the highest echelon of mage society, they who had put the lie to fundamental laws of reality itself.

Those who were blessed with the power of true creation and destruction.

Those who had found souls to be beyond even their near matchless powers.

Souls could not be created.

And though they could certainly be ripped from their vessel and made to pass on, they could not be destroyed in the truest sense of the word either.

Aaron would have found the notion of the so called omnipotent masters of the Hall of the Lords being humbled terribly amusing, if not for the fact that one of his peers was working to that very end, with far more recklessness than was typical for their kind, damning the consequences along the way.

Aaron’s mind drifted to the archmagi once more.

That one theoretical step beyond mastery that promised to break all limitations the mage might have.

Despite the modern framework capturing nearly every practical use for magic, a few truly grand works slipped through the cracks.

Personally Aaron was fine with no theoretical sixth degree of magic existing.

The magi already had far too much power that they had done nothing to earn.

But if it truly existed…

Apprehension notwithstanding, Aaron decided to look it up.

And found nothing.

He exhaled heavily.

Of course, fantasy would not be available in the Library.

Perhaps it rankled the masters to know there was yet a degree of magic they had not managed to accomplish.

He found sections on elder vampires, Fae lords and celestial spirits, all within the related sections.

But on the subject of the archmages, there was nothing.

He put the tablet back down, and began to head out.

Mahmoud looked up at him as he was leaving.

“Done so soon, sir?”

“Yeah, I- yeah…”

The older man nodded.

Aaron couldn’t quite think of what to say.

“Well…. I'll see you later.”

"Yes. You will."