The exit leading up from the subway gradually revealed a vision of autumn in full blush over a sprawling college campus. Crisscrossing red brick paths connected gorgeous Jeffersonian and Gothic libraries with their more recently built cousins, a mixture of Brutalist concrete bunkers and tepid glass-and-steel modernism. It was every college and no college. They were all similar. Accommodating an exploding demand for education resulted in the same decisions everywhere. Something bothered her about the place, though, since it neither served the same function nor was subjected to the same pressures as similar locations in the real world, so there was no reason for it to look like that.
A hawk drifted lazily high above the canopy of shedding leaves. She reached out and captured a falling oak leaf between her fingers, and it crackled when she closed her hand around it. It was dry, yellow, orange and orange-red. Autumn in her native New Hampshire was an especially brilliant spectacle with few equals anywhere in the world. The leaves weren’t necessary so Nature shed them in a yearly rite with all the blood and fire of an ancient sacrifice. There were places that didn’t have the four seasons (minus Frankie Valli), but she’d sooner live on Mars.
“What in the,” July said, “Look on over there. Have you ever seen the like?”
Ember followed his gaze over the quad and beheld a beautiful stag with a pure white coat stumbling forward among the leaves. The animal was about fifty yards away, having just limped through a narrow corridor between two of the old brick buildings.
“A white stag! One Coin for every point. That’s an 8-pointer.” SOFI spoke up. There appeared to be many ways to earn a living. The animal eased himself down in the grass on spindly, shaking legs, at the end of his strength.
“He’s been injured.” Ember said, and started to slowly walk towards the fallen animal with July following close behind her. The white stag was sprawled out on the ground, breathing in wheezes and labored huffs. The shaft of a white arrow stuck out from his hindquarter, the white fur now completely stained red with the animal’s own blood. She hadn’t seen it initially, since that was the side that was facing away. The stag was passive from the exhaustion of his flight and accepting of his fate. Ember ran a soothing hand over his white coat and, deciding to help if she could, gripped down on the shaft of the arrow.
“I’ll hold him,” July said, and knelt down to pin the deer against the grass. Ember pulled the arrow free, and the distress the act caused the stag would have been enough to throw the both of them off him if he hadn’t been already so weakened. There was no telling how long he’d been on the run. Ember stuck the white arrow in the ground nearby and held pressure on the wound. There were Users now in a loose semicircle around them, but they didn’t seem quite sure of how to react. If this were the real world the phones would be out and the police would be summoned, but this group simply stood by with distant fascination. It might’ve been because the incident belonged to the strange contest she was in. SOFI emerged and alighted on the one of the points, until the beast shook her off with a shake of his head.
“Spring and Summer types are life-aligned.” SOFI said, “If for some odd reason you want to save this prize, an Enduser of the proper season might be able to help.”
Ember hadn’t heard those distinctions yet. It was easy to figure, by process of inversion, what her own alignment was.
“Nothing doing. I didn’t get that ability.” July said, perhaps referring to some healing Gesture which had gone unpurchased. She was never offered the opportunity to buy anything like that. At FIDO’s bark, July removed his PalmPilot to examine something.
“I think it’s just a flesh wound.” Ember said.
“Ember.” July cut her off. She looked up from her task and saw a cluster of four people coming towards them over the dry grass. The Users parted to let them through. The thin and pale one out front was perhaps a couple inches shorter than she was. Next to him and slightly behind was another man, taller and dark skinned, holding a white bow. He remained silent. On the flanks of the group were a pair of women in their early 20s, one a slender middle-eastern girl with a bow in hand and the other a porcelain blonde with a nervous aspect. Ember noted with some jealousy that the blonde had her measurements despite being much shorter. The frontman of their quartet was in his mid to late 20s, black hair, and wore a close fitting flannel shirt with a grey and black pattern, and a dark pair of jeans to go with it. There was a shadow of dark stubble over his face. Ember looked up at him, but didn’t move away from the injured stag.
“September and July? I’m February. Looks like you found our deer. Thanks for holding onto him.” he said. It was polite but distant and impersonal, the way he’d framed it, and the way he spoke.
“He’s not yours.” Ember said. February looked at her evenly with his silver eyes. The atmosphere immediately became tense.
“How do you figure?” he said at length. Though he might be no more calculating, he lacked December’s affability or January’s politic. He was simply chilly.
“It was a poor shot, so I don’t think you deserve a reward.” Ember said. She could have stood to curb her tone given that she was outnumbered.
“I told you we should have gotten closer.” a girl beside him, the Arab with the white Cellbow, whispered to the male archer on their team.
“Alright. If you can hit a falling leaf from that tree from where you stand, June will save the white stag. If you can’t, I’ll take him and we’ll all move on. Or we can skip the play entirely and split the prize: 4 for you and July, 4 for me and mine. Sound acceptable?” February said. He pointed to a tree about 20 yards away.
Hitting a falling leaf was a big ask, even at her peak. By most standards February wasn’t very welcoming, but what he hadn’t done was slaughter July and her both and take his prize. He’d showed more diplomatic sense than she had. The only place he erred was challenging her pride.
“I’ll take the shot.” she said.
She stood up and wiped the stag’s blood over her pants, and removed the Cell from its overpriced holster. The pale blonde rushed over to the wheezing animal to apply pressure to the wound in place of Ember, happy to grant the comfort. The Cellbow was something she hadn’t summoned yet, so she had to pull up the app and trace it. February and the guy behind him both glanced at each other and shared a look when they saw her examining the stroke order.
“A lot of practice on her.” the one behind him, the one with the bow, said with amusement.
Ember made the gesture and the bow began to unfold from her phone, incorporating the phone itself into the bow’s orange riser as the glowing yellow limbs extended out. A holographic sight radiated out from the glass surface of the phone just over the arrow-rest. She fiddled with the onscreen controls for a bit until she managed to deactivate it.
“You’ve switched off your targeting computer!” the second guy said. He was taller, mulatto-bronze, slightly more athletic, and had an infectious and somewhat goofy smile to him. She was too engaged in the task to respond.
Ember set the Cellblade app to materialize the arrow as soon as she put her fingers on the string. She was used to drawing it the whole way, and there was no sense in messing with the dynamic. Holding a bow in her hands again felt so natural, and she was amazed she’d ever given it up. The falling leaves in the near distance felt like a part of her world, as though they were within her arm’s reach. She brought the yellow-shafted arrow to full draw and followed a leaf which was especially bright, and loosed the arrow off into its future path. A wind picked up as soon as her fingers released the string, and she gasped. The arrow and the leaf alike blew off course, missing each other by an inch. The wind didn’t matter, because she didn’t feel like they would have met even if it hadn’t come.
“Then—” February started. Before her could say another word, Ember snapped off a quick arrow on raw instinct. It sailed off and speared one of the falling orange leaves, cleaving it. The two halves wafted to the ground separately, to generally stunned silence. After a long pause, February reluctantly gave a permissive gesture to June, who smiled over to Ember. The girls were uniformly glad to have saved the animal. The boys on both teams seemed fairly indifferent about it, or even annoyed. Ember gave the curtsy flourish she always used whenever divine favor fell upon her.
“That was two shots!” came the immediate objection from their male archer.
“Oh, did he say I could only take one?” Ember asked innocently. The tall archer threw up his hands and mumbled something she didn’t catch. She was sure she’d seen a smirk flicker across February’s icy expression, which didn’t seem like the reaction of one who’d been beaten on a technicality. It was more like he’d done the beating. If he intentionally failed to specify the number of shots to get the measure of her—and if this person was a potential enemy—she was in trouble.
“October, could you do that?” the Arab girl said. In lieu of conjecture October took his own bow and whipped a white shaft into the melange of falling leaves. Not a hit. Ember saw he was an inch off the one he’d aimed for. Not bad at all, but it wasn’t horseshoes he was playing. Not enough for a leaf but—significantly—enough for a heart. A second shot came closer, just enough to brush the stem of the leaf.
“Nope.” he admitted.
“Maybe we got off on the wrong foot.” Ember said, and smiled sheepishly. February extended his hand and she gave it a shake.
“This is April, this is October, and she’s June.,” February said, gesturing to the middle-eastern girl, the goofy guy behind him, and the hourglass blonde who was now healing the white stag. Ember shook each of their hands in the proscribed order. February brought out his black Machina Cell and held it parallel to the ground. His fairy Agent jumped out of as if catapulted from a trampoline, and another little bounce on the screen before settling. Ember leaned over to examine the girl, who might very well be SOFI’s little brunette cousin. This one had translucent gray triangles for wings, and her skin was tanned with a dusting of freckles on her face and shoulders. Eschewing SOFI’s Greek pretensions, she wore a pale sundress. The fact that she appeared to be about 13 was initially worrisome to Ember, since she doubted that a minor could consent to a battle to the death, but then she remembered that some of the other Agents were animals. So obviously the form of an Agent was somewhat malleable. That was her hope. February continued: “And HAZE.”
“That’s July,” Ember said, pointing to July, “and this is my Agent SOFI.” She held her bow parallel to the ground to allow SOFI to make her own entrance, if she wished. SOFI peeked out and looked warily upon HAZE, who was idly playing, by means of her bare foot, a game of Bejeweled on February’s Cell. Eventually SOFI gathered up her resolve and climbed out. Ember wondered if there weren’t some rivalry between fairies that caused SOFI to look askance on her counterpart. The appearance of a second human Agent put a stop to her theory that SOFI was the monkey in a Chinese Zodiac of Agency.
“What do you think, HAZE?” February said. HAZE paused her game and looked up at each of them in turn. Ember felt a shiver run down her spine when those small smoke-gray eyes trained on her. HAZE looked up at February and nodded to him. Ember was confused and suspicious, and it must have shown.
“HAZE can sense emotional states.” February said. Ember looked down to SOFI and saw her nod upwards—the truth, apparently.
“Oh.” Ember said, somewhat relieved that she hadn’t been ensorceled by the nymph. She was just a pint-sized empath who, on the basis of her knowledge of her father’s favorite television show, was destined to be totally harmless.
“What about her?” February said, casting an eye down to SOFI. A reasonable suspicion, given that HAZE and SOFI were the same kind of creature.
“I don’t know, SOFI, can you sense emotions?” Ember said. SOFI buffed her nails on her chiton dress and smiled to herself as she examined them, palm away.
“You know full well my capabilities.” the confident little blonde said. Ember looked up at February.
“She claims to be ‘the wisest.’” she said. February raised his eyebrows and put his chin between his finger and forefinger. She decided they weren’t bad people at all, which gave her hope that things could be solved amicably. Such hope had been in short supply given her experience that morning with May. It really was such a small question—who was prepared to die over the the Internet? It may have been a topic for cross words, but not crossed swords. It would be heartening if May was an exception, instead of a rule.
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Ember turned the bow upright absentmindedly, forgetting that SOFI was still standing on the screen. SOFI slid off and stood on the arrow rest, then reached for the surface of the glass and out pivoted the wooden frame of a holographic screen door. She flashed Ember a wink before disappearing into whatever world existed for her inside the Cell, leaving the door to clap behind her in the violent way such doors always did when they reached the end of their bare metal spring. Ember shook her head and made the gesture to collapse the bow.
“I know you’ve had problems with your teammates. Since HAZE approves of you, you’re welcome to join us.” February said.
“It’s a little early for alliances. I’ll think about it.” Ember said. February nodded and made a gesture for the others to follow him. February stalked back to the brick path, then disappeared around the corner. The Red girls cast a glance to Ember and July and gave a polite wave, then all of them were gone.
#
Her eyes widened and she gasped when something cold and damp snaked under the palm of her hand. Then she felt the antlers bump up against her sweater. She turned around to see the white stag on all four hooves, nuzzling and looking up at her with vibrant blue eyes. She reached out and ran a tentative hand over his soft head, which bowed slightly, then a twitch of his ears.
“This is the best day.” she said breathlessly. Animals had never been gentle towards her as a rule. She’d been especially scared of deer and their ilk after a somewhat negative experience in Nara with the ‘tame’ ones there. It was a mystery why the one before her wasn’t already on the run. It had to be more than just a wild beast.
“Ya know, today you were trapped, thrown into a deadly game, forced to jump off a building, tricked into subscribing to ice. Top it all off you were stabbed… twice.” July said, and held up two fingers.
“The best.” Ember said blithely, as if she hadn’t heard him, and continued to run a hand over the soft and pliant stag. She even tested the tip of one of his antlers with her finger, finding it expectedly pointy. Eventually the creature tired of the attentions which she otherwise might have lavished into infinity, took a step back, and gestured in a direction with his head.
“That way?” July wondered, and patted the stag on his back. The stag looked at Ember and began to trot away at a pace that he probably meant for them to match.
“He’s mine, and I’m going to name him Cracker.” Ember said, and hurried forward to walk alongside her newfound animal friend.
“He’s a game animal. No use in getting too attached.” July said. Ember put a protective hand between Cracker’s gently rolling shoulder blades and glared back at July. He shook his head, smiled to himself, and decided not to press the point.
‘Cracker’ led an entranced redhead over the brick walkways, up narrow steps and down then, under beautiful canopies of towering oaks, and finally through an arched hallway. They exited into a well-trampled field surrounded by a handful of Classical style buildings. It was conspicuously different from where they’d just been: warmer weather, truly ancient decor, and unfamiliar flora. The stag led them to a black clay pot and stared at it intently. On the pot were two naked male figures in black silhouette locked in an embrace. Wrestling… probably.
“A reward…!” Ember said, and reached into the pot. Her expression grew more and more disappointed and she, at last, pulled from the pot a small fragment from another, similar clay pot. It was about the size of a quarter of her palm, slightly curved, and black on one side.
“Wealth beyond imagining.” SOFI said, and came out to perch on Ember’s shoulder.
“Least there wasn’t a snake in there.” July said, hands upon his head. Ember felt a chill go down her back at the thought that she did reach into it without looking.
“SOFI, what is this?” Ember said. SOFI alighted on the fragment of pottery.
“I don’t even need the power of Agency for this. This is called an ostracon. Fragments of pottery like this are essentially ancient scrap paper.”
“You can’t really write much on it.” Ember said.
“Enough for a simple message.” SOFI said.
Ember put her hands on her knees and leaned over, looking like someone who was trying to recover from a sock punch to the diaphragm. Cracker went off to brush his nose through the thin and trampled grass, and then bounded away without so much as looking back. Indebted as he was, the majestic albino was no one’s pet.
“What’s wrong?” SOFI said, furrowing her brow.
“I’m broke.” Ember mumbled.
“Of course you’re broke. You have principles. Do you have any idea how expensive those are?” SOFI said.
“So where are we?” July said, and tilted his head around to examine at the surroundings. The arch they’d passed through was still visible in the distance, but it led back into another world. They stood at the intersection of one dirt path with another. There was no one else in sight. Typically wherever they’d traveled in Noumea, there were at least a few Users around.
“This appears to be the Athenian Agora as it existed shortly after the birth of democracy.” SOFI said. The fairy vaulted off Ember’s shoulder and flew over to the rim of the clay pot to stand upon it.
“This is the Agora? It’s, I mean…” Ember said in disbelief. She thought it might have been the commons of some minor ancient city, but not fabled Athens. She didn’t want to say it out loud, for fear of looking ignorant, but it appeared in scale as any number of small cities did. She looked around the Agora for evidence of greatness. It wasn’t obvious to her, but she was admittedly pretty ignorant about classical history. SOFI didn’t seem interested in answering her immediately, and took in the scenery before speaking.
“Athens didn’t become stupidly wealthy until they perverted their leadership of the anti-Persian Delian League into a protection racket. They probably got the idea from Gorgias—the unscrupulous Sicilian!” SOFI said.
“Is this thing magical?” Ember said, holding the ostracon.
“Any single message you write on it will be posted to Natter.” SOFI said, “We should get back through the arch. It will close soon.” Ember held her Cell out horizontally for SOFI to disappear into, then nodded to July and jogged back through the archway. It immediately bricked up behind them. She liked to think that it was waiting for them, as a stranger who would hold a door open—but not too long.
“All that for a bit of clay.” July said.
Ember had been somewhat disappointed at the contents of the pot, and she couldn’t say she understood the point of an item which did something she could already do. It was impossible to put the thing into her inventory, and with its sharp edges it wasn’t very comfortable in her pocket either. The empty feeling of hunger was already creeping up on her, and given her current funds she was afraid lunch might have to be foregone. At least she had plenty for ‘breakfast.’
“So I assume if you can’t afford a charging station at some point, it’s all over for you.” July wondered. It was a point that had been nagging Ember. She could miss lunch, miss dinner, but if she missed charging her Cell… that was a bad end. A reliable way to acquire funds had not yet materialized. Though, as SOFI had pointed out, Ember had passed up a golden opportunity. As she stood now she still thought they were her principles and she wouldn’t have changed her decision, but her future self, defenseless and sleeping on a park bench, might have a correction or two to issue. Present-day Ember would simply have to pick up the slack elsewhere, or else answer to a person she didn’t want to become.
“How are you on charge?” she said, knowing July’s financial situation wasn’t quite as serious as her own.
July tapped his PalmPilot and his Nokia.
“These things? Still got plenty left. That’s one advantage of the old stuff.”
Ember elected to stick her tongue out at him, which earned another begrudging smile from July. She felt that sometimes it would be easier to pull his teeth out than get him to show them.
“Be nice if we had a bicycle or something.” he said offhand.
“Observe, muggle.” Ember said, then took her Cell out and quickly drew what she imagined would be the outline of bike. July folded his arms. Two circles for wheels, a few of lines for the frame things. It pretty much looked like a bike. On completing the gesture she immediately threw out her hand and yelled:
“Presto!”
To the great surprise of both of them a hybrid-type bicycle came into existence about a foot in front of Ember’s hand and then, as if propelled by the power of her shout, catapulted forward with such a force that anyone in the ballistic arc would have been clobbered. Fortunately there was no one in the way and it was only the implacable grassy earth which first met the tumbling bicycle, bouncing it end over end in a blur of spinning wheels and shaking chains. They were agog.
The pair walked tentatively towards the thing lying still in the grass. It was a ‘city’ bike, an American construct whose rough mountain-climbing lineage reflected a different concept of urbanity from its sedate European cousin. Her own was framed in a deep red, almost maroon. Ember picked it up off the ground tenderly, as if a careless jostling of hers now would be the thing to break it. She found that in spite of the dramatic entrance, it was in perfect working order.
“You are the first Enduser to discover a Gesture. Quite the honor.” SOFI said.
“I am the smartest, so, naturally,” Ember said, which elicited a snort from July. She tested the brakes on the simple machine by halting in front of him, and thought of how July had outran her at the station. She turned to him with a smug smile. “I guess you’re walking. Don’t worry, I’ll try to ride slow—”
July cleared his throat and tested the gesture out himself on his PalmPilot. A splendid, if venerable, mountain bike in black and green coloration appeared in front of him. Since he hadn’t thrust his hand out in a bid for dramatic timing, his own summoning appeared peacefully in front of him on the grass. There was no kickstand, but it popped into existence perfectly balanced and he took it in hand well before it would tip over.
“Hold on, SOFI. Anyone can do it?” Ember said. It didn’t seem fair. There would certainly be others, cleverer and more focused, who would turn Gesture discovery into an immense weapon she probably couldn’t even comprehend. That was how it usually went with her and games.
“So what? You’ve got a bike, don’t you. You didn’t before. What do you want?” SOFI said.
“I want a permanent advantage over others.”
“If that’s what you want, you’ll have to put stock in something other than an accident.” SOFI said. From her perspective, if she wasn’t to get ahead by accident, it was hard to imagine how it would happen at all.
“An advantage over me too?” July said, testing the front shocks on his bike by pushing it into the ground. The springs gave way only a little, intended for more strenuous absorptions than being halfheartedly pressed on.
“Especially you.” Ember said to July, “You’re the closest one, aren’t you?”
“I’m right here.” July said. He then rang the bell attached to the handlebar of his mountain bike, which completely deflated any implied challenge. On the surface of her Cell Ember tried to make a tank, a gun, a helicopter, and an additional variety of dangerous yet unfamiliar crap she was increasingly less able to envision much less reduce to ideograph. Nothing worked.
“Just hold on a second. I’ll show you. Maybe this.” Ember said. Before she could meet with any success she jumped at the ringing of her Cell, Arcade Fire’s frenetic “Month of May.”
“Hi May.” Ember said, trying to keep her voice from cracking.
“Afternoon, Mary, Queen of Scots,” May said with a singsong and mocking tone, evidently having workshopped her earlier sobriquet to be more culturally appropriate.
“May, I would like to apologize for trying to go behind your back.” Ember said. There was no immediate reply from the other end.
“Who cares.” was the atonal response, eventually.
“Well, uh… I do? It was wrong.”
“I don’t. I’m just a prop to test how exquisite your sense of guilt is. I noticed how well your little infraction contrasts with my serious ones, which I’m sure is totally unintentional and not intended to shame me or reinforce your sense of superiority or anything like that. That’s how it goes with you Catholics, right? The one with the most guilt wins and goes to heaven and gets fucked by the hottest angel.”
Ember had never thought of it that way. She didn’t feel like May was right, but she wasn’t entirely wrong either. There was, however, a pertinent correction to issue.
“May, the hottest angel is Lucifer.”
There was a sniff from the other end.
“Then why bother?”
Ember clenched her fist enough to dig her nails into her palms. Who was this girl?
“Why are you such an insufferable shrew? Born that way? Daddy hit you? Daddy didn’t hit you? I don’t see why you get to be the angry one when you’re the one who tried to screw us and you’re the one who is responsible for the situation we’re in. Yes on some level I wanted to shame you into reconciliation. It was my way of reminding you that there is such a thing as an apology. Passive aggressive? Maybe. But you know what’s kind of, sort of, more serious than that? Murder.”
“Wow!” May said, sounding unexpectedly pleased, “The real September bares her fangs. You’re on speaker, by the way.”
“Bracing.” came December’s nearby voice.
Ember covered her eyes, feeling like she was about to cry. May had broken her capacity for artifice. Maybe there was an art as well in making the other party so angry that they began speaking their mind voluntarily. She once again had reason to doubt her diplomatic bonafides.
“Come on. July and I need you two, and you need us. We’re here. Where are you?” she said.
“Go to a place in Wikitown called Tow Hall. We’ll be along.” December said, and the call ended.