Blake Myers had problems—not that this was anything new. It was just that these problems felt so much more unsolvable than their predecessors. The entire concept was patently ludicrous. Build a machine to send them back? Sure, the ancient machine already existed to handle part of the job, but having half an impossible task pre-done didn’t make the rest any less impossible. Mentally, he ran down the list of insurmountable challenges still on his plate.
First, he had to build some sort of ethereal energy pump that would shove them back up to Earth against the push of energy which, if he was correct about how things worked, would be flowing powerfully against them. To make that work, he would first have to figure out how to move this mystical energy. To do that, he had to find a way to even detect said energy, something he had absolutely no idea how to accomplish. The ancient texts implied that at least one such sensor had been made, while Baz seemed to have some sort of measurement doodad of his own. Maybe he could use that, somehow?
Even were he able to detect and measure the energy from Earth, the same energy theorized to be inside them all, that didn’t mean there was a way to manipulate it. Everything they believed true about the physics of their two worlds and the way the worlds interacted suggested no artificial manipulation was needed to pull him and his fellow Earth people here. That meant there was nothing in the ruins for him to steal from.
Then, there was the need for power to fuel this wonder-pump. Here, at least, he thought he had a solution, but the only way to know for sure was to solve the rest of this unsolvable puzzle first.
And, hypothetically, what if he did it? What if he got it all built? In that case, how was he to know that it actually worked? He could send as many test objects out as he wanted, but it wasn’t like he’d be able to get any data on success rates. The object would just disappear, most likely, and all he’d know for sure is that the first part functioned. If he sent a fruit through, for example, would it appear whole on the other side, or would come out the other side as little more than pulp? For that matter, would the other side even be Earth? How did you aim something like this?
The fact that the machine had connected twice to Earth was a good sign, but he could not assume that it would work that way once modified. After all, if there were two worlds, why not three, four, or countless more? Should he miraculously create a way off this world, how could he guarantee that they’d end up home instead of someplace where the air was chlorine gas? How could he say for sure that they wouldn’t appear in another world with even lower energy density, whereupon they might just immediately explode? He just couldn’t.
Blake felt like he was trying to grab a hologram in his hand. Try as he might, there just wasn’t any substance there. And yet... he didn’t have anything else to grab hold of, either. He’d let himself get talked into accepting an impossible task in part because any other options seemed even more impossible.
The chamber he sat in served as his main development workshop, but it wasn’t really much of a workshop. Thanks to his super powers, which did all the work one usually needed a suite of heavy machinery for, it was really more of a large room with a bunch of raw materials and a workstation to help with the design stage. For the nth time, he brought the schematics of the Otharian bunker up onto the design workstation and studied them, hoping for some sort of breakthrough or inspiration.
As always, none came.
He needed to clear his head—a walk, or something, perhaps. Where to, he didn’t quite know, nor care. Most everybody was busy at the moment, anyway.
Mizuko and Sofie were locked away translating the ancient documents into yet another language so that the old woman could finally understand the gravity of their situation. Meanwhile, the Japanese woman’s servant was loose on the grounds, probably staring balefully at anybody who got too close. Sam had been playing with the cat the last time he checked, though he’d have to round her up for a lesson soon. Gabby was doing Gabby stuff—he wasn’t quite sure what, other than she was out of the fortress at the moment. Arlette was standing in the elevator as the door opened in front of him, her face a wrathful storm as she glared at the floor.
Blake stepped into the elevator, watching as Arlette didn’t do so much as blink. All she did was flex her fist and stand there, motionless. What was going on here?
“Somebody spit in your lunch?”
Arlette practically reared back as she realized for the first time that he was even there. The look of surprise quickly faded as her foul mood reasserted itself, but she seemed at least slightly less rageful than before. “It’s nothing.”
“Yeah?”
She took a deep breath and steadied herself, and he could practically see the repression kicking in. “Yes, my Lord.”
Blake frowned. “Shall we talk in your office? I wanted to speak with you, anyway.”
“If you insist,” she reluctantly agreed.
Together, they stepped out of the elevator and made their way through the security department and into her large office. He hadn’t stepped inside this place in a while, preferring to have Arlette brief him somewhere he was more comfortable, but she still had work to do, and Blake wanted to be somewhere different for a bit.
As he’d passed by, he’d noticed that the other people working there didn’t seem as terrified as many of the office workers tended to be. Was his presence losing its edge, or was it just something particular to the security personnel? He hoped it was the latter. He wanted the Otharians to accept him to some degree, yes, but he didn’t want them to stop thinking of him as a larger-than-life being to be feared. He knew deep down that the populace remained Otharian, and if he started to appear weak to them, trouble would start—trouble he didn’t have the energy to deal with right now.
“Alright, so...” he began, gearing up for a difficult topic, “I think it’s time we discussed the insurgency and the limited progress you’ve managed so far.”
Arlette tensed slightly, reminding him of a child waiting to be scolded by a teacher, which didn’t help.
“First of all, I am not questioning the amount of effort you’ve been putting into this, nor am I forgetting that it’s only a single part of a much larger job. I also understand that quelling a rebellion in a country filled with people who disapprove of its government is not an easy task by any measure. That’s largely on me, but it is what it is.
“That being said, the lack of progress has been... concerning. I heard there was another attack last night, with the terrorists once again disappearing into thin air before we could even respond. There is a point where it doesn’t matter how hard the task is, it needs to be fixed. Excuses don’t matter when your house is burning.”
Arlette hung her head and nodded solemnly.
“I understand, my Lord. It is clear that I do not have what it takes to protect this nation.” Reaching into her desk, she pulled out a piece of paper marked with words in a script he didn’t understand. “Here is my notice of resignation.”
Blake stared at the sheet in befuddled disbelief.
“What, are you joking? No, absolutely not. Resignation denied.” Grabbing the paper, he ripped it into pieces and tossed them behind him. “The hell, Arlette, you even wrote something up? How long have you been thinking about this?”
“I’m just a mercenary, my Lord. This sort of thing is too important to be placed in my hands.”
Blake rubbed his face with his hands and groaned. “Have I ever told you why I hired you for this? It’s been so long that I can’t remember.”
“Sir?”
“Let’s say that I appointed an Otharian as Minister instead. How would I know that this person would be working in my and my government’s best interest? How would I trust that person with control over an army of killing machines, given the history of the people here? What about hiring somebody from outside Otharia, then? Could you fully trust that the outside person wasn’t also working for the benefit of their home nation? Would you feel comfortable giving control of all of my armed forces to somebody who could very well be a foreign agent? I wouldn’t.
“That’s the biggest reason, really. You’re competent and not crazy. You follow orders. You have experience leading men. All good. Sure you’d never commanded a large force before, and maybe administration isn’t your primary area of expertise, but I’m fine with that because you are one of the only people in this world that fulfill the primary prerequisite for this job: you don’t have a home to sway your loyalty and you don’t have a secret agenda. At the very least, I can trust that if I give you the keys to the murderbots, you won’t turn them on me or use them for some hidden end. I can count the number of people I can say that about on one hand, and none of the others have the temperament needed for the work.
“Personally, I think you’re doing well in your other responsibilities. So you aren’t perfect in every area, big whoop; no person or organization is. That’s why consultants exist.”
“You are suggesting we find an... advisor of sorts?”
“Why not? Somebody to work on strategies to hunt these fuckers down, while you focus on other things and carry out the operations when it comes time. In all honesty, putting this burden entirely on your shoulders was unfair to you. The land I came from was the foremost military power in my world—head and shoulders above other nations. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and nearly unlimited resources at their disposal, and you know what? They can’t win a single guerrilla war. Why should I expect you to be able to do better with so much less?”
Arlette stared off into the middle distance for a bit, thinking, and Blake kept his mouth shut and waited. Finally, she sat up straighter and nodded, a renewed determination in her eyes. “Thank you for the vote of confidence, my Lord. I suppose I’ve gotten too wrapped up in my failures and lost sight of the bigger picture.”
Blake nodded back, satisfied with how it all had gone. “Glad we could correct that, then.”
“There is one new operation in the works I suppose you should know about,” she told him. “Rather than spending all our manpower chasing their shadow, we’re working on setting up false suppliers in the hopes of luring their organization into a trap. It’s still going to take a little before it’s all ready, but we’re close.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“A sting operation? Do you think you can make it convincing enough?”
“I can only hope so. There was a lot of debate over the wheres and hows, but in the end, we decided on Nont—closest city to the border, most natural place for new smugglers and underground dealers to pop up. The only problem is that the scarcity of attacks there means there might not be a worthwhile insurgency presence there.”
“Hmmm, that reminds me, I wanted to talk about that. The vast majority of attacks have occurred in Wroetin, right?”
Arlette nodded.
“Proportional to population,” he continued, “it’s far off balance, yeah? Even with the much greater concentration of people here compared to the other cities and the countryside, we get far more than our fair share of incidents.”
“That is true, but there are plenty of reasons for that. Your presence here is paramount, I would imagine. Striking here does more damage to your resources, acts as a taunt of sorts, and makes you look impotent to boot.”
Blake hummed. “All perfectly good reasons, but another one occurred to me recently. From everything you’ve learned, would you say there’s a coercive component to all of this as well? Attack people who benefit from my rule or cooperate with me? Make people afraid of not taking their side in this little struggle?”
“Yes, I think it’s fair to say that is a component as well, though I would warn not to put too much credence in the claims of those we capture.”
“Yet, there’s plenty of people outside Wroetin who have cooperated with me, profited off of me, and assisted me, such as all the various officials who maintain the provincial and local governments. Those are easy, less well-defended targets, and yet they’re practically untouched.”
“That is true...”
Blake leaned forward, a finger repeatedly tapping on the desktop—something that had replaced bouncing his leg as his nervous tic since the injury. “What if they aren’t coercing simply because they don’t need to, because so much of the rest of the country is secretly already on their side? I’m not talking so much about the general populace—we know they don’t like me—but the local governors, administrators, influential business families, etcetera?”
“A potentially legitimate worry, I suppose, but one that is nearly impossible to disprove.”
“Yeah... still, I don’t know... keep an eye or something, would you? I know I’m sometimes Mister Paranoid, but one thing I’ve always been right about is having more enemies.”
Arlette cocked an eyebrow. “Sometimes, my Lord?”
Blake rolled his eyes. “Ha ha, such comedian, very laugh. At least you’re back to your normal self now. So, you wanna tell me what got you all in a huff earlier?”
“When did you become as nosy as Sofie?”
“Woah, hey, no need for insults, now.”
“Fine. It’s just something stupid that happened earlier, is all. I went to have lunch with Tehlmar, and he was talking to that new elf—the old woman’s servant. When he told her we were in a relationship, the look on her was just so... he might as well have said he was marrying a garoph for how she looked at me. I don’t know why, but it really made my blood boil.”
“Yeah, racism sucks. Speciesism? Whatever.”
“Sometimes I wonder if life would be better if this world was more like yours, where nobody could hate anybody else because of ear shape or whatever.”
Blake couldn’t help but snort out loud. “Oh, Arlette, you sweet summer child. You really think we need actual anatomic differences to hate each other? Skin color, religion, favorite sports team... no matter how stupid, hate finds a way.”
“I know, but...”
“Let me give you some advice. Caring about what other people think will always be a mistake. Believe in yourself and your decisions, and if other people look down on you for it, they can get fucked. That’s how I’ve always lived my life, and see where it got me!” He smirked. “Seriously, though... if there’s one thing I’ve always found true, it’s that people suck. A person may impress you, surprise you, even delight you, but people will always let you down. Don’t waste a single brain cell on them and you’ll be all the better for it.”
“I’ll... keep that in mind.”
“Great. Then, I’m off,” Blake declared, levering himself up out of his chair. “Keep me posted.”
----------------------------------------
Much like Arlette, Blake didn’t much care for Mizuko’s elf servant. The way she stared at him like he was lower than dirt disturbed him. She was doing just so right this moment while he tried to talk to her... employer? Superior? The particulars eluded him, but he had a feeling that the old woman wasn’t paying the elf much of anything for her loyalty, especially not right now. The Drayhadan—her name eluded him at the moment; Vara? Veri?—reminded her of Simona in a way, which was not a compliment. Really, what had past Blake been thinking? Sure the fervor and hero worship had carried some appeal for a time, but the longer things went, the more she clashed with the others. The woman could still turn the screws on foreign negotiators like nobody’s business, at least.
Blake sat down and removed his helmet. After hearing from Sofie that they’d finished the transcription, he’d given them a few hours to process everything and rest up before he swung by to visit. Now, sitting in the room he’d reserved for their use during the daytime, he grabbed a slice of fruit from a nearby bowl, took a bite, and mentally prepared himself for one of his all-time favorite activities: small talk.
“So, how are you liking your stay here so far?”
“Your hospitality is much appreciated,” the elderly woman replied. She looked rather weary—being around Sofie for an extended period would do that to anybody—and her left arm still hung in a sling, though it seemed that Arlette’s bandage sling had been replaced today with something more genuine. “Everyone has been quite kind.”
“That’s good to hear. Is the fortress to your liking? I hope you haven’t gotten lost; people find the layout confusing.”
“Your home is truly a bold statement. Sofie has been kind enough to show me around, so I have had no issues so far.”
“Good, good. I take it you’ve studied the material? What do you think?”
“I find your argument fairly compelling, in that it very well might be correct. However, I do not see what someone such as myself can do about it.”
“You still intend to travel, then?”
“When I decided to leave Drayhadal, I chose selfishness. I have lived my life in this world largely in service of others. Is it wrong to want something for myself for a time?”
Blake leaned back with a smirk. “Hey, you’re talking to somebody who has been called a ‘selfish asshole’ for his whole life and wears it proudly; I’d be a hypocrite if I said you shouldn’t look out for number one.” The smirk faded into a frown of concern and he took another bite. “Still, it does present a bit of a problem, given the situation. We don’t have the luxury to take things lightly.”
“I know. It burdens me, but if I do not consider my own desires now, I feel that I will never get another chance. I do not know what I could contribute to any of this, anyway. I am but an old woman.”
“You’re selling yourself short, and you know it. Besides, I think I have a solution that will fit us both rather nicely.”
Both Mizuko and the dour elf perked up at his statement.
“Before I arrived here, Otharia was a very insular society—perhaps even more insular than Drayhadal, from what I heard. Now that I’m here, we are less insular, but only barely. We still lack much of any presence outside our borders. We don’t even have ambassadors; all diplomatic conversations occur entirely by Many with people here in Wroetin. We need more direct and better communication, especially given our current goals.”
“You are asking me to fill this need?”
“Yes, a sort of roving ambassador position. You would speak for us as you travel around. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to steer clear of the capitals of the nations while you’re there, right? Wouldn’t want to miss out on all that history and culture and all that.”
“I am just a housewife. I could not possibly take on such a heavy responsibility,” Mizuko demurred. “Besides, I only arrived here a day ago. How could I represent a nation I know nothing about, not to mention my ignorance about the world as a whole?”
“Nonsense,” Blake replied, waving away her concerns. “You’re hands down the most dignified person here, and you have the manners, formality, and tact needed for this sort of thing. I mean, you could have just said you don’t like this place, but instead, you told me it was a ‘bold statement’. That’s absolutely the sort of diplomatic crap we need. Whatever you lack, you can pick up.”
The old woman thought it over for a moment, clearly not sold on the idea, so Blake chimed in again to sweeten the deal.
“Here’s what I can do for you. If you agree to take on this role, I’ll create for you a huge custom transport vehicle that will carry you wherever you want to go in complete comfort. I’m talking something so big that it will literally be a walking house, complete with a bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, you name it. Whatever you want, we can put it in there. We’ll deck it out in luxury, make it as cozy as can be—perhaps even put in an open top deck so you can get a nice, high view of the land as you go. We can even add in a bunch of defenses, just to be sure.
“Think about it. Every night, you can move your house away from people and sleep soundly, not having to worry about impacting others with your dreams. All while enjoying the best possible travel experience you could get on this world.”
That seemed to get her attention.
“And all you would require of me is to serve as your representative when I meet others in my travels?”
“Mostly. There are one or two other small things we’ll need you to do as you go.”
She frowned. “Name them.”
“First, we would ask you to keep an eye and ear out for any other possible people from Earth. Nobody knows just how many of us are here, and that’s a problem if we’re trying to get everybody out before we all go boom. If you do find anybody or even hints of somebody, help them out or pass the word along to me and we’ll take care of it.”
Mizuko nodded. “A fair request.”
“Second, we need you to go do some very specific sightseeing first, before you start meandering wherever your heart takes you. Now that you’re free, we’re gearing up next to rescue another one of us, this time in Stragma. We need to know the state of things there.”
The Drayhadan’s eyes went wide, and Blake could see that she was just barely holding herself back from objecting to the idea.
“You are asking me to be a spy?” the elderly woman questioned.
“No, no, a diplomat and tourist is all. What we need to know is how close they are to packing up and migrating from their spring city, where they are now, to their northern summer home. This dude’s situation isn’t like yours. You were out in the middle of nowhere, in open space, while he’s locked up and surrounded by guards in the middle of a city of millions. This is a legitimate rescue mission; everything we know about his situation says it’s not good. We think our best bet is to steal him away in the middle of the migration, which should be coming soon, but we’re not sure just when.
“All we need is for you to tell us what you find just by visiting the city. There should be signs all over; moving millions of people and property is not the sort of thing you can just keep under wraps. Besides, you’re going to want to tour Stragma anyway; it’s quite remarkable. Ruresni at night is almost surely the most beautiful sight in this world. I’m just asking you to move up to the first item on your bucket list, and to tell me what you see when you get there.”
“Would the Stragmans even welcome me to their land? I imagine they are still quite angry about me.”
“I’ve built up a lot of good will there, with helping the Chos’s crippled husband and all that, so as my representative, that should count for a lot,” Blake considered aloud. “More crucially, though, would they even know who you are? The way the others talk about the battle, nobody actually saw your face.”
The woman paused, surprised realization on her face. “I was inside the palanquin the whole time. I suppose there would be no reason for them to connect the two.”
“Heck, just make up a fake identity and introduce yourself to them as a totally different person. How would they even know?”
“You have a point,” she relented, “and it would feel nice to know that I am not leaving everything about this possible calamity to others. I will agree to your requests.”
“Excellent. How soon are you planning on leaving?”
“It will still be a few weeks,” she told him. “I would like to experience this land first, and I need time for my shoulder to heal before I go too far.”
“Plenty of time to get acquainted with Otharian then, and to learn what you need to know.”
“I suppose you are correct.”
Blake couldn’t help but grin. One more accomplishment on what was unexpectedly turning out to be a very productive day. “Well then, I’m glad we have a deal, Madam Ambassador.”
----------------------------------------
“Alright, kiddo. Today we finally get to start on something fun.”
Sam had done well with her studies. She’d been attentive, asked questions, and hadn’t been belligerent in a good while. Blake felt like it was time for a reward, something to catch her imagination. After all, from the start, he’d started teaching her with eventual practical applications in mind. He’d sworn, back then, that he’d show her the folly of her actions, and to do that, she needed more than abstract understanding. She needed to see the knowledge in action.
Blake grabbed a piece of chalk and began to draw on the chalkboard. First, he drew a rectangle. Then, he erased bits on several sides, replacing them with some other things: a zig-zagging diagonal line, two parallel lines perpendicular to the rectangle’s side, and a short line that veered away from the rectangle before terminating.
“This... is what is known as a ‘circuit’.”