The alarm reverberated through the coffin, as it did every morning. Locus groaned, rolled upright, and immediately pulled the plug on his camp mattress.
A generic, AI-generated female voice began to speak: "The auto-cleaning sequence will begin in 5 minutes. Your account will be charged a 36 New Krismark cleaning fee. Pack your belongings, or you will be charged a 78 New Krismark lingering fee if the unit is occupied when the cleaning sequence begins. Your account will be charged 180 New Krismark for lodging taxes to the City of Saint Ingrid. The unit will unlock for the next customer in 7.5 minutes. If the unit is still occupied when the door unlocks, you will be charged..."
The voice cut off abruptly when he slammed the door release button. The tiny chamber began to glow with a warm copper light, illuminating the matte blue interior of the coffin. The door began to slowly open automatically, revealing the vast interior of the coffin hotel. Heavy wrought iron doors, shaped like elongated dinner plates, were arrayed in a grid on the opposite wall beyond an empty void. They were painted the same matte blue, and the entire chamber was lit with the same dull copper light. The hotel was at least ten stories tall, with an air circulation well in the center. Gantries placed every few levels granted elevator access for residents.
Locus checked the fire pole, and, finding it empty, he slid down to the gantry. He took the elevator down seven stories and took a service exit to an alley behind the hotel. The litany of potential fees haunted him along the entire journey. It was raining outside the hotel, but then again it was always raining. The sky just forgot what it meant to truly rain. It was more like a light drizzle that lasted eight months in a row.
The street descended slowly toward one of the many sinkholes that allowed access to the North Saint Ingrid underground. A line had formed at the gondola station, but it was still early enough to avoid the surge of locals who lived in real apartments. The sound of the buzzing cable accompanied Locus as he shuffled into the queue, and he had not waited very long before a voice called out to him: "Hey! Coffin slug with the duffle bag!"
It was a petite young woman in a drab gray jumpsuit. She looked chromed to hell, possibly a full cyborg. Her raven hair seemed to be coated in an oily rainbow sheen.
She waved him over. "Yes, you. Over here."
Remarkably, the station staff ignored him as he cut the line. "What's this about?" Locus asked.
"Follow me."
Locus figured it would be unwise to ignore her instructions, given all that chrome. She marched straight to the station platform and began barking orders to the staff. Then she led him by the arm into the next empty gondola car. Nobody else followed. He took a seat directly opposite to the woman near the center. When the door closed, the huge tri-cable gondola car, which normally carried twenty people, contained just the two of them.
"You did well last night," the woman said. "Woodsman sent me. The others call me Sweets."
Locus relaxed a bit. "Is something wrong? Does Woodsman need something?"
"Nothing is wrong," Sweets said. "In fact the client asked Woodsman to bring you on to the team permanently."
"And who is the client?" Locus asked suspiciously.
"A reasonable question. Our client is named Lucrezia. She is the CEO of HARPR Holdings."
"I've never heard of HARPR Holdings," Locus admitted.
"Well, we've got time," Sweets said.
Locus glanced through the gondola windows at the scene outside. The gondola continued to descend along the three cables leading into the sinkhole. North Saint Ingrid was built on a relatively thin layer of bedrock, supported from below by a forest of huge stone pillars. The empty space within had been carved out by ancient geothermal vents at the base of the geoscape. The Church of the Lady Ghost had built underground monasteries in the region in some ancient age. They wanted the monasteries to be self-sufficient, so they constructed geothermal power plants, hydroponic greenhouses, and huge sunlamps. The monks had all been evicted when the City of Saint Ingrid annexed the land north of the channel.
"Our client is not human," she continued. At first he thought the woman was joking, but her face was unreadable. "I didn't believe it at first, but then I met Woodsman. He isn't human either."
"Did he undergo some sort of gene splicing?" Locus asked.
She shook her head. "You'll see for yourself when we get there. Are you familiar with the Elemental Plane of Dreams?"
"I'm not a religious person."
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"Neither am I. Either way, the client, House Anna-Rhea Physical Realm Holdings Company, is owned and operated by some royal family from that other world."
"Or somebody could be scamming you," Locus said.
She did not react to the comment, and he almost immediately regretted it. Obviously, that would have been one of the first things she investigated for herself. Suckers don't last long enough on the street to accumulate so much chrome.
"I was like you," Sweets said. "I had never heard of the company before, but apparently they own a large amount of real estate in rural areas. Forests, mountains, lakes, and undeveloped land on the outskirts of Mount Saint Glenice National Park. Apparently their revenue comes entirely from tourism. According to public records, they only have a few thousand employees, but they own about eight percent of the land in Taisia."
"It could be a pyramid scheme," Locus said.
"At one point the regulators agreed with you. However, the company has already been investigated."
Locus used his phone to search for HARPR Holdings. The company website prominently featured idyllic scenery. The various resorts shared a common architecture, and the structures all appeared to have been constructed from some type of purple crystal. The website did not list nightly rates for any of the properties, and the usual search engine space devoted to advertisements was empty. He skimmed through the public records, and two dates immediately caught his attention. The company had been founded in the year 191 A.E.B, and Lucrezia of House Anna-Rhea became the CEO in the year 689 A.E.B.
"Is our client an AI?"
Sweets grinned. "It would make perfect sense if the company was being run by an AI. At first I thought maybe some ancient environmentalist founded the company and tasked an AI to slowly accumulate land. But then I met Woodsman."
Among the forest of stone pillars supporting the city overhead, very few were perfectly bare. In most cases, huge steel decks extended radially outward from the stone core. From a distance the pillars resembled huge radiators. Each disk was packed with wooden shanties, industrial buildings of sheet metal, and the occasional brutalist concrete high rise.
The gondola leveled off. The hum of the cable changed as the car switched cables onto the bullwheel in the lower station. They walked out onto the steel platform, onto a narrow street that was mostly empty in the morning. Neon signs advertised various services and food stalls. Clothes lines spanned the space overhead, forming a dense canopy of colorful garments.
Sweets led him away from his usual haunts, in a completely different direction, to an arched bridge leading to another pillar. They finally arrived in a tavern, and while Locus had never seen the place before, it did not feel unfamiliar. It was dark, lit by black lights which caused the neon paintings and furnishings to glow. The bar itself was one giant slab of neon green resin, swirling with glittering silver. Half a dozen alcoholics were busy pissing away their paychecks even in the early morning hours.
Beyond a retinal scan and up a flight of creaky wooden stairs, the second floor was illuminated with natural light. Cables and pipes crisscrossed the wooden floor, and dozens of different cyberspace decks where piled on rusty tables. Locus normally would have started drooling, if his attention had not been caught by the two men standing in silhouette against the wall of windows. One of them seemed to have glowing gold hair, which was so long that it reached the small of his back.
The man turned, and Locus froze in shock. His skin was the color and luster of obsidian. His shock of coppery red-gold hair seemed metallic, his eyes were brilliant gold, and finally his cheeks and forehead were tarnished with shining golden scales. He smiled warmly, his white teeth a sharp contrast with his obsidian skin.
"It is nice to meet you in-person, Locus," He said. His voice was deep but inviting. "They call me Woodsman. I'm the team's muscle."
Locus was speechless.
"I'm guessing you've never seen my kind before," he continued. "I am not from this world. And neither is our current client. She asked to have you added to the team, and she always gets what she wants. So, welcome to the Dream Team!"
"Thanks," Locus managed.
He looked up to the second man. While the man named Woodsman did not appear to wear any chrome at all, the second man was dripping with chrome. He wore loose robes the color of dawn. This, in addition to his graying black hair and long beard, gave Locus the impression that he was some type of priest.
"You've already met Sweets," Woodman said. "She is our diver. This gentleman here is Burner, a fake priest of the Elemental Queen of Fire."
"All boundaries between us will be erased!" Burner proclaimed, his voice confident and grave. "All things will become one! The great mistake will be undone! The divisions between us will be consumed by holy fire!"
"Our client added him to the team recently," Woodsman said. "He is going to be working to spread this fake religion to the youth gangs in downtown Saint Vaska. Apparently the young people enjoy ironically following fake religions."
"He never breaks character," Sweets added.
"It must be hard to communicate," Locus said.
"He follows orders well enough," Woodsman said. "There is one other member of the team, our boss, a woman named Selucia Grace. She is the only member of the team who can directly contact our client. She is the one who relays orders to us, here in the field."
Locus glanced around the room, but he did not see anyone else.
"She is not here right now, but she will want to meet you in-person. Sweets, can you take him?"
"Are you going to pay for the tickets?" Sweets asked.
Woodsman offered Locus a credit chip. "Grace took care of it already," he said. He handed a second chip to Sweets.
The chip was decorated with the likeness of a familiar character, Darkstar Crush, a superhero that sometimes appeared in tacky Nadiya films. Locus remembered seeing one of those dumb superhero films a few summers back. They made a lot of money, and apparently the Emil Nadia Company was one of the hottest stocks on the market.
Sweets groaned. "I can't stand that place."
"Grace wants to enjoy it one last time," Woodsman said. "Before we take out Nadiya permanently."
"You can't be serious," Locus said.
"Ah, but our client is very serious. The Emil Nadiya Company has drawn the ire of a Purple Dragon." Woodsman closed his eyes and made what appeared to be some sort of warding gesture. "Grace will be able to answer any questions about our client."
"Fine," Sweets said. "Locus, it looks like we are going on a date."