“...it’s time...”
Brock felt shadowy shapes dance around the corners of his mind. Crumbling skeletons swung horrible barbed swords at his face, their fractal edges moving in the peculiar slowness unique to dreams. He pushed his feet against the air to escape, like he was swimming against gravity.
“...Brock... it’s time...”
Explosions of light and color burst all around him, gem-sharp facets of another universe filled with creatures that defied explanation. Inside-out crab-things gestured furiously with surgical appliance claws as a sentient dustpan hummed contentedly in its negative entropy sauna.
“...Brock...”
A parade of insanity marched from now to then, half-recognized revelers in eye-patches and lingerie flipping cartwheels in front of a looming green-skinned figure surrounded by twirling pastries.
“Time to get up.”
The last vestiges of sleep slipped away from Brock’s waking consciousness, and he rubbed his eyelids blearily. What a strange dream. It really felt like he’d been transported into another world, one filled with gun-wielding goblins and sarcastic samurai and foul-mouthed half-plant half-woman people who-
“Let’s check your vitals.”
Brock fully opened his eyes, then screamed. KB (Medical)’s hellfire pupils flickered momentarily behind the cage of its puppy and peace-sign-covered arachnid limbs, an ominous metal thicket of cheerfulness engulfing Brock’s immediate line of sight. Several devices whirred and rang, then retracted into the slender insectile legs, and the robot withdrew to the foot of the bed.
“I still do not understand why your waking pattern is so violent,” KB (Medical) said peevishly, poking at one of the missiles in its spinal rack absentmindedly. “Your serotonin levels were quite stable just seconds ago.”
“Maybe-” Brock gasped, right hand clutched against his chest, “maybe it’s not me, it’s you.” He looked around wildly, heart pounding. The room was still the same one he’d gone to sleep in, the familiar shapes of the Cataclysm Squad’s infirmary beds lining the rows to either side of the one he currently lay in. He tried to gather his bearings.
That’s right, I crashed here last night. The Overlord kidnapped me and Aphrodite, and then I fought him, and then the Director wanted me to join the squad, and then the paperwork with KB (Administrative) took longer than we thought and it was too late to head back to the apartment. Which I still haven’t seen. He tried to discretely sniff at his armpit. At least the hygiene spells are still working at full strength.
KB (Medical) snorted, a squelching dissonance of industrial noises, not unlike a cow high-diving into a printing press.
“My bedside manner is the envy of primary-care staff across the planet. I am the epitome of attentiveness.”
“Okay, yeah, uhhh, sure, let’s go with that.”
Brock swung his legs over to the floor, bare feet tensing slightly as they hit the cool tile. He was wearing only his jeans, upper body exposed, but he saw his white t-shirt and black leather duster hanging neatly from a rack next to the bed. On a chair below them were a fresh pair of socks and his combat boots, and he took the next minute to finish getting dressed.
As he was lacing up the boots, another set of footsteps entered the room.
“Stara-”
The slender woman in a black business suit and matching eye patch shook her head as if banishing an unwanted memory, her features shifting into a more guarded expression.
“Brock. Good, you’re awake. Let’s go, it’s almost eight. The meeting’s about to start.”
Brock rose from his chair, eyeing askance at the raven-haired woman. Cap.
“What about breakfast?”
“Should’ve woken up earlier.”
She turned and walked out of the room, and Brock scrambled to follow.
“Hey, wait a minute!” His stomach growled as if in agreement. “I’m hungry!”
Cap paused briefly in the reception area of the infirmary, next to KB (Medical)’s festive purple and yellow painted drone at the reception desk.
“Use your magiphone to set an alarm next time.”
“That’s right!” A small tablet flew out of Brock’s coat pocket, hovering between him and Cap. An animated anthropomorphic binder clip with googly eyes was dancing on its glowing surface in psychotic spasms. “I have an array of alarms to assist you, Brock! I have visual alarms, aural alarms, olfactory alarms, anal alarms-”
“Go away, Bindy,” Brock growled, trying to stuff the magiphone back into his coat pocket. The tablet resisted his efforts at first, pushing against his hands with its weird propulsive trail of sparkling lights, but he eventually corralled it. “You’re the worst.”
“You know you can change your assistant from the factory default, right?” Cap asked offhandedly as she led them out of the infirmary and into the twisting wood-paneled halls of the Cataclysm Squad headquarters. “It’s in the settings menu.”
“Somehow, I haven’t found the time. What with the non-stop barrage of people trying to kill me over the past twenty-four hours. You included.”
Cap let out an involuntary giggle that transformed her face from its usual stern angles into something warm and inviting, then quickly schooled herself into seriousness, as if caught doing something naughty. She gestured with her right hand back towards Brock. Pale light glowed around the silver charms hanging from her wrist, and a loaf of something appeared in the air in front of him. He held out his hands to catch it reflexively. The loaf fell into them with a damp splort.
“...uhhh, what’s that?”
“Breakfast,” Cap responded, rounding a corner into a broad corridor Brock hadn’t seen before. “All the splort you can eat.”
“Wait, it’s actually called ‘splort?’”
Cap shrugged.
“The Sekkie who came up with the spell wasn’t great with names, and no one else cared enough to think of something else. It’ll meet your dietary needs, but don’t expect to enjoy it.”
Brock took a hesitant nibble from the still quivering loaf.
It tasted like wet cardboard with a hint of old gym socks, and squished between his teeth like a particularly phlegmy gob of snot. He choked the mouthful down with a grimace.
“That’s horrible.”
“Told you so. Set an alarm next time you spend the night so you can eat in the cafeteria. Hurry up, I don’t want to be late.”
Brock choked down the splort one gulp at a time as they moved briskly through the wood-paneled corridors of the Yggdrasil. He kept expecting the taste to get better, but it never did. Once he finished his loaf, though, he did have to admit that he felt satiated, if having a stomach filled with what felt like styrofoam qualified.
Eventually, they reached a set of double doors beneath a glass sign that read ‘Conference Room 1.’ Cap pushed them open, never breaking stride, and Brock followed her in.
The room they entered was built like an amphitheatre, row after row of semi-circle steps filled with extended desks stretching down to a half-moon stage centered by a not-quite-translucent podium, a massive screen filling the floor-to-ceiling gap behind. It looked like it could fit a hundred people easily, but only four were visible.
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Brock recognized all of them.
Fiona, the flame-haired goblin gunboxer, was seated in the topmost row near the doors, her booted feet lounging on the desk in front of her while she cleaned what looked like some sort of high-tech pulse rifle. She smiled as she saw Brock and waved a jungle-green hand. Tentatively, he waved back.
Several rows below her, a dark-skinned man with silver hair paused the video on his magiphone and turned slightly to look at them. He, too, waved, his other hand resting on the hilt of the cherry-blossom katana sheathed at his waist. Mikael, the Blade.
Near the bottom row, a fine-featured elvish woman with an emerald-green garland of living vines holding back her blonde hair gave him a cursory look, then returned her attention to the bonsai trees she was carefully pruning. Brock tried not to stare too openly at the fact that they were growing out of her wrists, but knew he’d failed when she turned around again and glared at him.
“You know, it’s really rude to gawk when I’m trimming my bushes,” she snapped.
“Uhhh, sorry, Verdant,” Brock stammered. She sniffed, then flipped her golden tresses back around and ignored him.
At the podium, a sharply dressed orc with close-cropped gray hair clapped his hands. Ivory tusks framed the slight smile beneath his bristly beard and mustache, but the expression never quite reached his eyes.
“Excellent. We’re all here. Brock, Captain Swift, please be seated.”
Cap slid into one of the comfortably padded chairs in a middle row of the amphitheatre and Brock followed suit. The debonair orc on stage, Director Shimada, turned his attention to Cap.
“Captain Swift, I am authorizing Appraisal to secure the area.”
With a sigh, Cap stood back up and flipped her eyepatch onto her forehead. Golden light shone from the milky orb beneath, emanating from the concentric series of runes slowly spiraling around each other in place of her pupil, and she turned a brief circle, surveying the room. After completing a rotation, she sat back down.
“The room is secure, sir.”
“Thank you, Captain Swift.” The Director adjusted his suit jacket imperceptibly, then placed both hands on the podium and leaned forward, his mouth bare inches away from a thin mic curving up from the ethereal box.
“For the record, I am hereby establishing an official taskforce to investigate the existence of the entity known only as ‘The Conductor,’ and authorizing all appropriate measures to apprehend such entity, up to and including deployment of Level Three skills and technology, the limit of my authority. Those of us currently in this room comprise the entirety of the task force, and its existence must be kept in utmost secrecy.”
Abysmal silence greeted his opening statement, the type of quiet only heard in graves and interstellar space. Brock tried not to fidget in the uncomfortable oppression, wondering what he was missing. Less than twenty-four hours before, he’d seen the people around him take on a nightmare without batting an eye.
“Why’s that?” Fiona finally asked, but her normally upbeat voice was missing its usual spark.
“Because the Conductor has infiltrated assets somewhere in our organization, and if they learn of our goal, they will no doubt attempt to strike at us directly.” The Director paused, adjusting something on the podium, then looked back up. “I am confident we will incur significant collateral damage if they do so.”
The previous silence was nothing compared to the dead air that permeated the room after the Director’s flat tone faded. Hesitantly, Brock raised his hand.
“Yes, Brock?”
“What, uhhh, what’s ‘significant collateral damage’ mean?”
“At a minimum, the loss of life of all sentient creatures in a radius of no less than thirty kilometers from our present location.”
Brock thought back to his intro classes on the metric system, then tapped his fingers several times, trying to do the math. When he finished his calculations he gasped, thinking of the endless suburbs surrounding the Yggdrasil.
“Fifteen miles from where we’re at? In all directions?”
The Director nodded.
“Close enough, but yes. It is imperative that the Conductor does not realize we’re searching for them. Based on what little I’ve been able to piece together, I believe it is an entity that has survived numerous Akuma-level encounters.” The Director’s eyes narrowed. “And not just survived. The Conductor has emerged victorious, every time.”
Cap leaned forward in her chair, single pupil piercing.
“How do you know this? Sir?”
The Director stared back at her, unflinching.
“Years of connecting puzzle pieces, Captain Swift, and then connecting all the ones that were not there.” He leaned forward, somehow fixing the entire room under his gaze. “The Conductor is real, and they will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Our goal is to find out what those goals are, and how we can neutralize the entity responsible.”
Silence stretched through the amphitheater once more. Brock looked around, then cleared his throat.
“Uhhh, but how are we going to find the Conductor? Didn’t you say no one knows who they are?”
“An excellent question,” the Director beamed in a sudden smile. “We’re going to use you as bait. Again.”
“What?!”
Brock and Cap’s identical outbursts rang in the auditorium air, and the Director held up a hand.
“Captain Swift, you have previously made your concerns known about risking Operator Vandal’s body, but there is no alternative. For whatever reason, the Conductor has acquired an interest in acquiring Brock, and we must use that to our advantage. Besides,” he fiddled with his tie, “as we’ve all seen from the encounter with the Overlord-class, Brock has proven to be quite durable.”
Cap slowly sat down, but Brock remained standing, glowering at the quiet nods and murmured assents from around him. Just because they hadn’t found something that could kill him yet didn’t mean it didn’t exist.
“So, what, are you just going to hang me from a fishing line off the side of the World Tree and see what bites?”
The Director chuckled.
“Metaphorically, yes. In terms of actual deployment, no, I will not be dangling you out the window of my office, as amusing as that is to contemplate.”
“I’m glad someone finds it funny,” Brock scowled.
“Instead,” the Director went on, “I will be activating you as an irregular member of Cataclysm Squad Six, pursuant to the necessary needs paperwork you filled out yesterday.”
“...the conscription paperwork, you mean.”
“Tomato, tomahto, Brock. Regardless, to everyone else, it will indeed look like we have conscripted you into service, no doubt due to the fearsome powers you wield, but they will assume we are compelling you, instead of you volunteering.” The Director eyed him thoughtfully. “You do still wish to volunteer for this, correct?”
Brock groaned. As much as he wanted to complain about being bait, the Director was right. He had chosen to help track down the Conductor of his own free will, and he wasn’t about to back out now. Especially not after looking around the room. He'd let enough teams down in his lifetime back on Earth.
“...yeah, fine. Guess I’ll do my best earthworm impression.”
“That’s the spirit. Now then, to assignments. Operator Firefist.”
“Watcha got for me?” Fiona asked brightly.
“You’re on overwatch and long-range surveillance of Brock. We need a full workup on anyone and everyone who takes a potential interest in him.”
Fiona’s face fell.
“Ugggghhh. I want to shoot someone. Surveillance is so boring.”
“You’ll survive. Operator Thorne.”
Mikael looked at the Director expectantly.
“You’ll be responsible for close-range protection, as well as baiting the trap.” The Director brought up a bulleted list on the screen behind him. “I want you to take Brock through the normal familiarization routine for a new member of the squad, including regular field operations up to level four. We don’t know when the Conductor’s people will strike, but it’s most likely to be when you’re away from the Yggdrasil.”
“Got it,” Mikael said quietly. “I’ll show him the ropes.”
The Director replaced the bulleted list with a web of profile pictures that expanded across the entire screen. Brock thought there were a hundred or more, each linked by various colored strands that he didn’t know the meaning of.
“Operator Haze, Captain Swift. I want you two approaching this from the other side. We know the Conductor has to have someone capable of accessing our records, otherwise the Overlord-class never would have been able to attack so quickly. These are all the people who have legitimate access to the relevant information, via one avenue or another. Our spy is one or more of them. Brock and Operator Thorne will chum up the waters, and you'll be watching to see what starts circling. I want them found, then brought in. Discretely.”
“Are you authorizing Appraisal?” Cap asked. The Director shook his head.
“Unfortunately, that won’t be possible. Too many people have access to the Appraisal database, and it would give away what we’re looking for. You’re going to have to do this the hard way. Prepare for some long nights with lots of paperwork.”
“Friggin’ figures,” Verdant muttered, but she was already tapping away at her magiphone with multiple root clusters extending out of her fingertips. Brock could hear Cap pecking at her own tablet in the adjacent seat, attention focused on the swirling glyphs and sigils running across and above it, attention no longer focused on him.
“And that leaves us with you, Brock,” the Director said, clearing his throat. “Your job is perhaps the simplest, yet most difficult of all.”
Brock gulped.
“What is it?”
“You need to act natural, and not give away the fact that you’re bait. The Overlord-class did not expect you to be working so closely with us, and I suspect anyone else involved with the Conductor will believe the same, at least initially. We need to lure them into dropping their guard and revealing information the Conductor would rather remain hidden.”
“Like when the 'overlord' told me about the Limiters, and how the Conductor can alter them?”
“Precisely. He assumed you were a Sekkie just like him, and would be motivated by the same desires. We need to keep that pretense going for as long as possible.”
“I’ll, uhhh, do my best,” Brock stammered. “I’m not really an actor or anything though.”
“You don’t have to be,” the Director replied quietly. “Just try to learn the things Mikael is teaching you, and be yourself. Some periodic outbursts of anger at your situation in mixed company would not go amiss.” A small chime sounded, and he looked down and frowned, then looked back up. “Unfortunately, that’s all the time we have for now. It seems we are beginning our operation slightly sooner than I had planned.” His olive-green hand adjusted a suit cuff. “Brock, I need you to come with me. Everyone else, you may begin preliminary preparations. Use system secure subnode thirty seven alpha to coordinate information. Dismissed.”
There was a shuffle of movement around the room as the Director stepped out from behind the podium and motioned Brock to join him. Hesitantly, Brock walked down the stairs until he was next to the orc.
“Where are we going?”
The Director had a distant look on his face.
“The World Council. It seems they have some questions about your battle last night.”