Ruvle, the notary public, was about to steal from the cookie jar again. …Provided she could make the inventory control sheet look right.

Dye–the name of the golden mineral so critical to the notary profession–came in jars, the size of Ruvle’s head, already pulverized into powder. When dissolved into the right solvents, it became notary ink–equally as brilliant-gold as Dye’s natural form, but fitting into a pen. And with that ink came power. Dye beheld strength and human actualization in all its forms, but as a signature on a page, it was the seal of approval of the trusted, sacrosanct institution bringing pride to the Crater Basin: the notary office. Ruvle took her duties seriously. She also had higher goals. These goals called for a bit of systematic bastardry.

The front lobby of the notary office was as occupied as always, with murmurs, laughs, and welcome chatter, with the occasional pale blue flash of light joining the soundshow from the bottom crack of the backoffice door. She would get back to front-facing duties soon, but here, Ruvle had to refill her pen. It was dim back here, electric blue light-strips on the walls illuminating faintly enough to stare at directly without discomfort, throwing the cubbyhole-based organizer armoire into sharp relief. The wood was painted black, with white to delineate edges, part of the sharp black-and-white-without-gray theme of the office, which brought out the color of Dye all the better. Among the still-sealed vials of it in the cubbyholes, one was in-use and mostly empty, the transparent sidings showing one tiny golden bead available at the bottom–except for the dust clinging to the sides, which had turned the glass from transparent to translucent sparkling yellow, the color of aged paper.

She moved with coordinated purpose. One hand grabbed a bottle of ink solvents, her pen still between her two smallest fingers. Her other hand swiped the vial, holding it by its filigreed metal top and unscrewing it, all in the same motion to take it down from the cubbyhole. She’d gotten used to splitting coordination; the perks of even Coarse-level hyperdexterity were many. She unscrewed her pen’s barrel with one thumb, splashed the bead of Dye into the pen’s ink cartridge, and topped it off with ink solvents before screwing it all back together. Every time she performed this process, one she’d mastered by hundreds of repetitions, it was an edge faster, more precise–a recent development for Ruvle, now that she chose to follow her goals. Ruvle signed the inventory record on the side of the armoire with an attached less-important, non-Dye pen, noting that the vial was empty, and that it had been solvent-washed to recover the clinging dust on the sides.

It had not, and she was not going to do that. Instead, Ruvle looked over her shoulder–the deadbolt on the backoffice door was still closed; good–and slipped her finger into the vial. The tiny grains of Dye twinkled. Ruvle concentrated upon them, willing their mineral essence to become one with her, against her skin. The location of absorption on the body was irrelevant, but it was fitting to use her fine manipulators. The gold color shone, intensifying, brightening against the electric blue lights enough to clash colors into uniform white–and Ruvle felt herself becoming more. A step closer to actualization, and step towards–

And then it was over before she could even parse the sensation, the idea of hope. A tiny, tiny step, in dust quantity. She should do more than just take hardly-usable dust, to be more ruthless in her pursuit, but…

Being “more” didn’t feel any different this time. Progress came in phase transitions. Ruvle looked directly at the electric light and squinted–trying, with all her might, to close her left eye. There might still be shreds of muscle left in the socket. She’d clung onto that idea ever since beginning her hyperdexterity journey, that maybe under the splash of red wax that covered her entire destroyed eye, beneath the vertical slit that gave it the visual presence of an animal pupil to look at, some muscle tissue remained. Could she control the sides of the slit to close it?

No, nothing. If she still had eye muscles underneath, they would need more time. Maybe once she reached a higher phase of hyperdexterity…but she’d keep trying every time there was a chance.

In time, in time. But in the time of the present, her missing eye, her wax scar, had no recourse but looking distinctive.

Before she left, Ruvle used a bit of ink solvents to wash the inside of the jar, regardless–to clean off any fingerprints, and to make the ink solvents inventory sheet make sense. It was time to put back on her happy face and sign for the world.

Ruvle emerged from the inventory backroom and to her place at the front desk–her desk, a bright smile of service upon her for the people of Stepwise, the south city of Crater Basin. She looked as fantastic as ever–her black suit with white pinstripes matched the office’s theme, her wax-covered left eye being her only splash of color, crimson red, the vertical split watching unceasingly. The molten wax had melted and resolidified over her eye socket so long ago, leaving trails of red from adventurous heavy drops–some swept back towards her ear, two more dribbled down along the side of her nose and where bags would form under less-rested peoples’ eyes; she’d been laying down, face-up, when it had pooled there and sealed onto her. Her skin was thoroughly fused to the material by now, to the point where trying to chip any remaining wax felt like cutting a fingernail far too close. It wasn’t all bad. She could still see very faint light out of her left eye sometimes; through the red base of the wax far deep in the slit, she could tell the difference between noon and midnight. And though the comments on it were repetitive and she wished for better material from the crowd, her eye started conversations.

The rest of her was a machine with tuning still in-progress for discipline and dexterity. Her build was slight, the sort of woman who looked 5 years older when her round shoulders were covered in an outfit that made them pointier, as her pinstripe suit did. She wore a hat, like most citizens, hers being an understated black fez. Formal, shiny black shoes and Dye-repellant white gloves completed her look, and tousled black hair of different lengths gave her the playful look of someone comfortable in formality, which she wished she could convince herself was a calculated deception instead of honest demeanor. Her tailored suit fanned out around her hips, like a tailcoat, for the feminine style–her hips flared better with fashion’s help.

Beyond the front desk, the crowd bustled. Notary offices were not solely for officiating documents, but a place that the people of Stepwise met new friends and spent their downtime. Burly men threw darts at a hanging dartboard, chips of natural lumber color peeking through the black paint upon the wood around it from missed throws. Electronic harmonica played from a woman sitting at a rectangular table, with a yellow hat that almost fully covered her face. Gamers in colorful beanies and expensive multicolor light-up kneesocks played on the newest version of the Silver Screen console, an investment that Ruvle could witness paying off every day in how many people visited. And above, the cone-shaped lights from the ceiling maintained a brightness gradient, darker in the back and illuminated the most at her desk–where she could read documents with no hoodwinking.

“Thank you for your patience!” Ruvle chirped. There was a line. If she was doing her job right, there was a line. “How can I help you today?”

The embarrassed-looking young woman at the front made a decent attempt of hiding in her hat’s shadow as she stepped up. “I need...help explaining to the home loan people that my roommate disappeared…”

“I can sort out any of the papers you’ve brought.”

And, away from the plans of how to become powerful enough—in time, in time—Ruvle got lost in her good job.

Every person in line needed signatures. In golden ink, she notarized the young woman’s loan documents with her signature, officiating that the roommate’s half of the loan was suspended and to go through procedures of finding whoever they, probably, Consolidated with. Consolidation was extremely illegal, but people did it anyway, permanently fusing two humans into one and continuing their lives as their gestalt, but they often tried to hide it or faked the deaths of their two constituents. They weren’t getting off the hook so easily. The man behind her wanted to adopt a child, and with his proper identification, Ruvle notarized him to a good life of fatherhood. Next was someone starting a sports team, the next a person changing their name (Wexin was a great choice!), the next a person needing advice on how to confront his boss about unsafe working conditions—and Ruvle produced the forms to officiate his accusations. Of course, there were documents of less serious, less bureaucratic means. She notarized a claim of discovery of a new strategy in an old video game, signed transfer of ownership of a mildly valuable trading card, made it official that a child had made their drawing all by themselves, that one friend in a group of lovable hooligans was the “Master Idiot” among them. Most of the time, she had to produce the appropriate forms herself, and she knew them well. When she didn’t, she didn’t take long to dig in the black drawers behind the front desk, pulling white knobs with speed and precision, never getting them stuck. And every stroke of her pen, signing her swooping signature—only the first name for brevity—was nearly flawless. The same every time.

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The little things added up. The first grade of hyperdexterity didn’t sound impressive, but in a job that required swift hands and serving the world at whatever pace it demanded, she appreciated saving a second in hundreds of niches per day with no extra effort at time of use. The effort had been paid and front-loaded in her training, instead. Her signature looked so much like a pinched-together flower, with one giant lobe of a petal forming the loop of the capital R.

There were even parts of the job without paperwork. Some people just wanted someone to talk to. She had her share of life advice to dispense, though it was admittedly a small share. Her lived experience wasn’t of a shut-in, but being 25 years-old meant she didn’t yet have as many stories to tell as the notaries she’d looked up to as a child, and her platitudes for the omnipresent “how to talk to a girl or boy I like” question were second-hand, with no point of reference for those fluttery crushes herself.

In all, life was good.

And then the worknight was over.

Notary offices like hers ran late into the evening, in time for Stepwise’s nightlife to begin. By 9pm, the official closing time, people finally left–the Silver Screen console lay dormant and powered-off, the darts all placed neatly back into their acrylic holsters below the dartboard, the harmonica woman long gone, only stray food wrappers and napkins dusting the floor. Ruvle’s suit pulled askance, by now, her fez drooping over her left ear and her good eye half-lidded. Her white gloves were smudged gray-and-black from sliding over non-Dye print and picking up ink, ready to be washed for tomorrow. There was just one person left in line.

“I really did get swept up, pff,” he said, probably smiling behind his mouth mask. “I don’t want you staying past closing too long; want me to come back tomorrow?”

“Chain, I have time for you.” Ruvle smiled to him.

“Aces, you’re the best,” he said. “Get me Form 780, I’m ready.”

She didn’t see Chain in-person very much; they usually only communicated over the textwork, but he had a face too memorable to disconnect from his words. He went all-in on a soft light blue color scheme, with spiked-forward short hair dyed that color, and his mouth mask being the same shade, with a jagged black line over it made to look like cartoon spike teeth behind closed lips. He was short, matching her height, but had stocky shoulders and an outfit piled up with extra belts and pockets everywhere, like he was prepared to run off into another city with 30 pounds of carried supplies at any time of day just to see what happened. But the cargo pants were almost invisible behind light-up white sneakers, the lights being matching pale blue, all of it carefully coordinated to go with his scarf. The scarf was the important part—she knew it, he knew, everyone who had eyes could see the tislets to know it. The scarf was voluminous enough to go down to his mid-thighs, wrapped around his shoulders only once, and glowing symbols covered it seam-to-seam in a neatly arranged grid—each the size of a postage stamp, the lines more complex than simple alphabetic characters, if only because of how many there needed to be differentiated between. She’d heard ‘thousands’ at one point and never had a reason to argue otherwise. The scarf was why this color scheme worked. The unique pale thread allowed tislets to last, and with the color of the light they cast, one had to really work to make pale blue not the dominant color of their outfit.

He was the only person who knew she was embezzling a little.

“I was starting to think you decided against taking an Oath at all,” Ruvle said, still with her service smile as she dug in her desk’s many drawers. She pulled out the simple sheet of paper, mostly blank, with empty lines to be filled and a header declaring a Personal Oath. A zip of her pen across the signature line at the bottom made what he would write upon it official.

“Nah, I’ve just been ‘thinking it through’,” he said, wiggling his fingers near his head. “You know how it goes, easy way for people to look like they're more Thoughtful than you is to grump at you for doing anything spontaneous.”

Ruvle chuckled and slid over the form, along with a black-ink pen. “At least in public.”

“I’ve had my mind set on this since I figured out what those fuzzies in the pictures are,” Chain continued, taking the pen to the paper. His handwriting was all sharp lines, with the occasional improperly-tiny circle for a loop in a letter; the latter quirk was how tislets made loops. “If Thuless is actually leaking out of its prison, then I don’t care if it’s only in these tiny blobs. Gotta get down into the box and fix it, long-term.”

“It’s a big Oath you’re asking of yourself.”

“I know. That’s why it’s an Oath instead of just me telling myself I’ll do it and then not doing it, kinda more important than a weight loss goal,” he said, as he scrawled.

“And I know, too.” Ruvle doffed her hat, holding it in her hand, close to her heart. “I wasn’t trying to talk you out of it.”

“Gotta play out those motions, I get it. You ask me about an angle I haven’t considered so you look thoughtful, and I show I’ve considered it so I look thoughtful, world keeps turning without an excuse to look down on us.” He grinned. “Been a while since I wrote by pen, this is way easier than scrivening.”

“The alphabet isn’t as magical as tislets,” Ruvle joked.

“Truth told! Okay, done.”

He passed the paper back.

I, Chain Hydrapress, will find the prison of Thuless (Thoughtless) and seal all leaks that allow it to seep into the outside world. I will also find all macroscopic pieces of Thuless, “or glints” of Thuless, being wielded by public or well-resourced figures for their nefarious ends, and either destroy them or put them back in the box.

Ruvle held back the urge to comment on the last part; even saying she ‘wouldn’t comment’ would draw attention to the imprecise language just to be a jerk. This was within normal for filling out an Oath. She tapped an empty line above her signature with the cap of her pen. “And the penalty if you don’t?”

“Just take everything I’ve got, because if I fail at this, I don’t have anything else left to do?” He laughed nervously.

Ruvle awkwardly wrote in some comically large sum of money, large enough to go straight to bankruptcy proceedings.

“By the way, uh, Ruvle…” Chain said, shifting his weight back and forth, hands sliding left and right over the edge of the desk.

“I’m listening.” Ruvle smiled.

“If I do get an in on taking down one of the big guys that have a glint of Thuless, can I...ask you to help? No pressure if you don’t, it’s my Oath and everything.”

They locked eyes for a tense few seconds, and Ruvle sighed to herself. She put her fez back on. “Maybe.”

“Good enough for me.”

“I just can’t be sure that what the true citizens have are Thuless pieces yet,” Ruvle said, “and if they do, it doesn’t mean Thuless’s prison will ever completely break down, or that this isn’t a one-time problem. I...have my own problems going on.”

“I get ya.” He pointed to his left eye, mirroring hers. “If you do come to peace with that scientist, then hey, I’d be stoked to have you with me.”

“It’s not the scientist that I’m mad at, it’s…” She shouldn’t go onto a big rant about how exactly she despised the true citizen funding the specific M.A.D. lab that she was once abducted into, partly because it was closing time and she had to go get ready for her training this evening, and partly because a therapist had already helped her realize that she felt fucking awful when ruminating on her grudge. “It’s still a maybe.”

“Catch you later.” Chain wrapped his scarf tighter around himself. “I’m on the textwork if you need me.”

“Good luck, Chain.”

He was out the door shortly, leaving Ruvle to herself, the office going silent.

She vaulted the desk to lock the front door. After a full day of work, now was...the hard part. Training.