CHAPTER EIGHTY - ABDUCTED UNRULY GOD

No-one met her in the street. Good. Didn't want to answer any questions. Her goal here was... well, to be as quick and quiet as humanly possible. The cartel was known to be poor with rapid responses. Give it time to prepare, it could do things, get stories straight, shelter unfortunate people from the outside world and keep them where Vyuli could observe them. For instance, Tom-Tom. If Vyuli had known Tanner was going for her, she wouldn't have been able to blink for getting shoved underground so quickly. Move fast, act fast, never give any real warning of her actions. That was what probably kept Canima so paralysed, beyond his own baggage. Any decisive moves had to be translated through others, subordinates, superiors, he was a cog in a machine and couldn't turn without other things turning, and even the subtlest action becoming broadcast over the whole damn colony. No wonder corruption had festered. No wonder the judges were necessary. And as much as she hated to admit it... if there were more judges, she'd be in the same position. She'd have to chart her investigations, work with others and write down everything, collaborate at multiple stages. For all the additional expertise, she'd be part of a clumsier group - not clumsier because it was unskilled, but clumsier due to size. Even the most refined twelve-horse carriage in the world was only ever going to handle like a pregnant cow.

Anyway. Act fast. Move fast. Don't make a sound.

The cartel wouldn't pre-empt her. And more importantly, neither would the soldiers. Because for once, she felt like she was going to make Mr. Canima a very angry man. All her cartel work, all her investigations, all of that had... been inconvenient, but ultimately useful. This, though...

She walked hurriedly, clutching a coat around herself. No cape. Too obvious. Hunched a little, but never too much, never to a comical degree. People were staying indoors, the inns were quiet as tombs. She passed by dark windows that glared out at her... before the frost crept across the panes, and seemed to riddle them with cataracts. The snow blinding the watching eyes of the single living organism that was the colony, paralysing every muscle, clotting and clogging every artery. No-one was moving. No-one was talking. People were huddling low and hoping for the best. If she was a better judge, she could've known the houses she passed, known the people by name and sight, greeted them casually and exchanged words about the weather. She honestly thought that if a more socially adept judge had come here, they'd have practically uncovered the cartel though chin-wags alone. Not her. Had to rely on bureaucracy. Like someone in the Erlize, for crying out loud. Worked, of course. But still. Silence dominated, the snow bit into any exposed piece of flesh, turned her face to a great numb sheet. The tiny warm core of the half-bottle lingered, miniscule and shivering, never making her stagger or sway. But it was there. And that was... pleasant enough.

The city slowly came into view...

But before she could make the final distance to the walls, something came up. A light, easing out of an inn. The first inn-light she'd seen. It was past curfew, and no-one wanted to go outside in this weather, even for a drink. Easier to stay at home, even if the governor's laws made buying your own booze rather more expensive than just using the inn. She paused, studying it. Barrack-Room. Tyer's watering hole of choice, when he had an intact skull. She glanced... not a bouncer in sight. That alone was unnerving. Deeply unnerving. Like seeing a dog without a collar - not only uncontrolled, but potentially uncontrollable. Something was wrong. She approached slowly, staying out of view of the windows or the door, listening closely... could see vague glimpses, just a little. Saw a smoke-stained inn, like something that had been burned a long time ago and, for whatever reason, had simply been reoccupied. The stench of tobacco was strong, and long tongues of smoke came easing out of the cracks in the door, licking at the air... before the wind made them shrivel and tear apart in tiny silvery strands. The walls had a single cast-iron carving, and a whole suite of little paintings and prints around it. But all were so stained by smoke that it was impossible to tell what they were, and it seemed almost as though the innkeeper had just set up picture upon picture of purest smog.

Everywhere, candles. Everywhere, pipes lit. A great fire-pit blazing. The hair of the people here took on a yellowish tinge from the smoke, their faces a blackened, soot-stained hue, their fingers seeming to succumb to frostbite's warmer cousin as the stains marched up to their knuckles. Small plates of intensely spiced food were scattered here and there, the meat practically unrecognisable under layers of red and black powder, one of those odd culinary inventions of the shantytown. Accents fused into one, and so did cuisines, with each one devouring something from another. It was a place where people were cured in smoke, pickled in liquor, and liberally spiced by the gleaming little cairns of meat.

And in the centre of the inn...

Someone was doing something that the governor had built these places to discourage. The sort of thing that the breakdown in order had probably allowed to develop.

Someone was orating.

And unlike when the governor was in charge... no bouncer was stepping in to regulate it.

What surprised Tanner the most was the person speaking. It was a familiar voice, but Tanner could detect a distinct hint of barely-suppressed panic to it.

Tom-Tom was talking. And no-one was stopping her, or laughing at her, or... doing anything but listening.

"There's mutants coming-"

Oh, crumbs. Telling people, telling people. Vyuli, you incompetent waste of human skin. Did she go in? Did she... Tom-Tom was still talking.

"There's mutants coming, they're not normal, and you know what everyone else is doing? What they're standing around doing? They're just... just sitting there, fighting over who gets to save us! My dad, he's just sitting around on top of all of your food. The Erlize, they're just sitting around figuring out which of us they're going to kill when things all blow over. He's not even lending his bloody bouncers to things, he's just letting them sit in his damn cold-house."

A rumble of exceedingly cautious discontent.

"None of them care about us. None of them. The factory owners would use us as compost if they could, none of us have forgotten how they treated us back in Fidelizh. Our boys are all just sitting around, after we've kept them hidden, paid them protection money, come up here because they made us. And the Erlize have always hated our guts."

She paused, seeming to run out of breath a little.

"No-one's in our corner but us."

A voice spoke up, smoke-scarred and hoarse, emerging from a man streaked with sweat from too much spice... and maybe a hint of nervousness. No-one questioned the authorities, the governor had been exacting in his mechanisms of social control. Much of his work had been spotty, but in this regard, he'd been damn successful. Even if he hadn't always been the one in charge, the mechanisms had worked.

And now Tom-Tom was riding roughshod over them.

Worse part was... she had a point. Tanner disagreed with her. But she couldn't... fault her on the idea that there was something... bad going on. That petty politics was overcoming the basic need to survive. But she was talking. Talking too much. Who... who exactly did she go to? Canima, had to be Canima... the cartel might lock her up, beat her bloody, she'd already cocked up enough. She was seeing a woman who'd done nothing but fail, flail her way into failures of greater and greater proportions - Tom-Tom had an inner ear problem, no matter which way she went, no matter where her shovel pointed, it always dug downwards, deeper and deeper. Almost impressive.

Go inside? Stop her?

...and abort this entire mission. Slow herself down. Make noise.

...and potentially earn the enmity or suspicion of a whole damn crowd.

Had to back off. Find Canima, find Sersa Bayai, just give a quiet tip. Don't let the cartel find out. Vyuli didn't seem the type to tolerate this many failures, or any kind of insubordination, even from his own daughter. Just... back off, move fast. Move fast. The voice of Tom-Tom continued to linger in her ears as she left, and while the words died off quickly... the tone lingered, a vague ringing, not dissimilar to tinnitus. She was terrified. Tom-Tom was legitimately terrified. Why was she doing this? She knew her father, why would... was she trying to assert herself, did she want to save herself, did she... was this a teenage rebellion? She was far beyond being a teenager, why would she do this?

Completely baffled.

And deeply nervous at what was about to happen. Dissent was always going to foment. News was always going to leak.

Just wished it wasn't starting with someone she knew. Someone who'd measured her skull. Twice.

Damn it all.

She moved on. Rushed for the walls, making up for lost time. Not the walls of the city. The walls of the colony. Had one stop to make, just one. She ducked through the gates with a small nod to the guards on duty, none of them particularly awake at this point, just trying to endure with the small fires they kept burning. Standing like strange, lonely ghosts, coats flapping around their calves like shrouds, scarves trailing around their necks like nooses. They didn't stop her. They knew to stay quiet, to stay still. As if the cartel was watching everything they did, and a single movement would bring it all crashing down. How many knew? How many had known before... this? She thought back to Mr. Mole, that surprisingly friendly innkeeper, and... well, one could know, without knowing. Took quite a leap to translate the anecdotal to the evidential. Either way. She burst into the darkness of the outer wild, and immediately her heart rate increased, her lungs seemed to clench in tension, and her blood frothed warmer - she was going to a lower depth, the pressure was increasing, the environment growing more hostile. And... memories. Always, the memories.

In a way, she wanted to perish out here while doing her duty. At least then the memories would stop.

Gritted her teeth. Moved on. Her memory-room came in handy once again, and... yes, yes. Under her pillow, feel the rustling of fabric beneath her fingers... reach beneath, feel the cool surface of the mattress, and... there. Stitching. Just stitching, as if to repair a rent. Threads, red as the sun, and the contours, the way it caught on her skin... yes, had the right memory encoded in there. In the rasping of thread, there was landscape, landmarks, the movement of hills... a map.

Hidden under her pillow so it was easier to put out of her mind.

Not even a black spot at this point. She retrieved a small shovel from her belongings, and got to work. The hard soil parted easily, giving way before strength and... remembrance. The soil had been disturbed less than a day ago, and it shuffled aside like a resigned doorman who knew to stay back and let the crowds rush through. Accustomed to the hustle and bustle, accustomed to standing aside. And...

A clunk.

An urn.

A flash of guilt. A mumbled apology. And she had... had what she needed.

Back to the colony. Back to the walls, where the guards watched her with eyes red-ringed and gleaming in the dark. Stars brought down from the hidden sky, those wandering stars with rings, like the astronomers talked about. Didn't say anything. No doubt it'd be reported. But not in time. Not in time for Canima to maybe see what she was doing, nor the cartel. Doubted either would kill her for this, but... they might try and obstruct her. And she couldn't deal with obstruction. The complications this little jaunt of hers could bring, the simple complications, it... no, no, be quick, be decisive. Like with Tom-Tom, that decisive action had given her the best damn interrogation of her life.

Gotten her caught. Gotten her tortured.

...this was different. This was different.

She paused, leaning against a wall. Not exhausted. Not even tired. Just... clutching her stomach, feeling it spasm slightly. Hungry? Nervous? Her gut instinct screaming something at her? Her hand flickered to the truncheon at her belt. Come on, what was it? Bouncers? Assassins? What? As she focused, as she breathed more steadily... it subsided just a little. No, as her thoughts slowed down, it subsided. Dammit.

"Move. Come on. No... time for this."

Her gut churned uneasily. Idiotic thing. She knew what she had to do. Her role was all. If she rejected that logic, then she... what was she? Unmoored. Powerless. Nobody. The sort of person who had things done to them, not the other way around. Passive actress, and nothing more. Yes, this was terrifying, yes, she was... having thoughts. Shivered at the memory of that black shape coming out of the sun, the embodiment of all she'd be remembered as. No, no, she just had to do a second draft of it, improve it, fill in some details.

Somehow, that excuse wasn't sitting as easily as it once had. And when she encouraged the shades of expectation to settle onto her shoulders...

She almost flinched at the coldness of their touch. The weight they imposed. And her entire torso seemed to rebel for a moment, everything twisting or shivering or... like an allergic reaction, like she was rejecting rotten food.

Stop it.

"Move on. Come. On."

And she struggled onwards. Once she moved fast enough, she stopped feeling uneasy. Focused on the rhythm of limb and lung. And that was all. The city was close. Not long now. What would she do when her investigation was done? What would she do if she found everything and... well, she'd do what she was told to do. When she was a young girl, she was told what to do by her mother, her father, and her lodge. Later, a woman called Ms. Carza vo Anka, of the distant city of ALD IOM, had come to her and given her funds. Her mother, under the advice of the lodge, had instructed her to go to study as a judge. In the inner temple, she was told by her instructors how to behave, how to act, how to be. Sister Halima told her how to become a judge in body and soul, how to believe as a judge believed. Eygi told her where to be for lunch, where to hang out, who to do it with. Then a Lord of Appeal told her to come here, and here she was. Since she was born, Tanner had been a creature that was best served by doing what she was told. Good! And this was good, no matter what her guts were trying to tell her, the traitorous damn things. A puppet was most attractive and charming when it was used by a puppeteer, when it was free, it was nightmarish, a wooden corpse, or something out of a poor horror pulp novel. A wasp was most beautiful when sealed in amber or glass, and admired in its immobilised state. Free, it was a wasp, the opposite of loveliness. And an eel was most beautiful, most inspiring, when its instincts were driving it in absolute directions. Go to this random place, crawl over land to get here, keep trying even when your head was lost. Years pass - time! Change your body, change your spirit, move, move, move, cross incomprehensible distances!

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An eel without orders was just a giant damp worm.

An eel with orders was a miraculous thing. The sort of thing that philosophers ought to talk more about, if they weren't so concerned with being nonsensical ninnies.

Be the eel, Tanner. Be the wasp! Be the puppet! But mostly the eel, because eels were darling, superb, and ever-so-slimy.

She wanted to shove her hands in a bucket of eels, one more time before she died. Just one. Just one.

...not much chance of that. And lingering on that thought for more than a few moments, realising that... the time on the mutant-hunter's ship had been the last time she'd ever touch an eel, it... gods, her stomach was twisting. Moved faster, let the rush of cold air into her lungs wash away all thoughts. She was fine. Her resolve was strong. She would never see her father again. Keep moving. The snow would fill her last memories. Keep. Moving. She had experienced the last iteration of so very many things. Streets. Rooms. Houses. Faces. Seasons. Landscapes. Books. Mundane pleasures. Everything that wasn't bound up in this place had been concluded. The walls were close. And her thoughts were chained into place, wound tight, concentrated until they were red-hot and simmering. A coal ready to burst into flame once again - a coal she stuffed into a buffalo horn and smothered in ash, until it couldn't burn her, nor anything else. Until it was light and warmth and nothing more. Castrated flame.

The statues were invisible above the knees, so it seemed as though she was walking in a strange forest of stone trunks, mottled with carved symbols only the nobles of the city could read. Passed amongst the trees, heading for the Breach. Soldiers lingered here, standing like ghosts, frozen by fear of what lay in the dark. The fires burning nearby turned them into black shapes, anonymous and ominous. There was another thing - how the cold shaped all matters out here. How it made the world something to chain, to fight against, to enslave lest it rebel and crush any human who dwelled on its back. Around a fire, friends were illuminated softly, all hard edges brushed away. There was companionship for those huddled around a fire, real companionship. Tanner had felt hints of it when she rested around the steam vent with Lantha, a feeling of... no matter how little the two knew of each other, no matter what would come to pass, they were united by huddling around the warmth. They had a world in which the two of them were common allies against a common enemy. But for those outside of the warming circle... for those beyond the fire, the people were just shadows. Anonymous shadows. Unknown to the point of alarm. And these shadows weren't just people, they ruled, they had the one most essential thing in the snow-blasted wasteland - warmth. They were rulers, but they were faceless, inscrutable.

No wonder the cartel had formed. They'd emerged in a place like this, where your friends were the people who huddled around a fire, and anyone huddling around a different fire might be a friend, might be a brigand, might be a lunatic, might simply be unfriendly. Cling close to the familiar. And fear the stranger.

She walked past... and the soldiers didn't even notice her. Too busy staying warm. There weren't many, not like there was much to guard in the city, beyond the bunkers. If she was going to guess... they were focusing their efforts on guarding specific locations, not the giant hole in the wall. Easier, and with the tunnels, the cartel might be able to enter the city without the Breach anyway. No point freezing... uh... what had Bayai said? No point standing around in conditions fit to freeze the finger off a brass monkey. Much politer than the alternative. Couldn't even tell if there were stones beneath her feet, the snow as so thick. Walked through the Breach, keeping her distance from any flickering fires... dead streets sprawled around her, dead buildings, tiny dwellings where slaves had been kept, sprawling estates for the higher castes, streets perforated by innumerable tunnels for innumerable intrigues.

Better hurry.

She navigated quickly through the streets, keeping her head down.

The route was engraved into her memory once again. No question of getting lost - she'd have to work especially hard to forget this particular path. Ruined buildings, ruined streets, all of them so heavy with snow it was impossible to tell what they really looked like, beyond vague snapshots.

And here she was.

Took less time than she thought. But all distances became smaller with familiarity, just as people did.

A solitary guard with an enormous quantity of protective gear stood just inside the building in question, one eye on the sturdy metal door leading further inside. The other glued on Tanner as she approached out of the snow, and she saw his fingers itching for the trigger on his flamethrower. As she came closer, he shuffled slightly, and the light caught in the lenses of his gas mask and turned them into featureless silver coins, pale as the moon. He stared quietly. Tanner stared back... and began to get out her tools. Her gas mask, which slipped easily over her head, and muffled all the sounds of the world beyond. No more observations to make on the city, the snow, or anything else - the world compressed down to her goal. Her gloves were next, bulky things. The urn was ready for her to open. Her coat was all-covering, she exposed zero bare flesh. Her breath wheezed as it came through the thick filter...

And the soldier spoke, his voice exhausted.

"Why're you here?"

No 'honoured judge'. Rank meant nothing in a place like this.

"Here to see them. I've the authority to do what I find necessary."

"Time to kill 'em? Need a flamethrower if you want to be doing that."

"Not quite. Again. I have the authority to act here, and I would appreciate no obstruction."

"...what exactly are you going to do in there."

"Just stay back. And don't fire."

She walked forwards... and slowly, carefully, wrenched the metal door open, the stone sending down showers of dust where the metal scraped against it, pattering down on her gas mask like dry rain. The soldier watched cautiously, standing up from his chair as she entered... entered the room with the mutants. The ones fleeing the others.

They didn't even stare at her.

And there were fewer than before.

Only two remained.

Three stains where the others had been torn apart in a moment of weakness. Neither had been fully consumed, their bodies were sprawled messily, gouged open and left to... not die. They were alive, but their brains were gone, their bodies still and placid. Not dead, lobotomised. Lobotomised their own companions, rather than tolerate their presence, the threat they represented. Not a hint of loyalty. The survivors weren't going to devour them until they were confident they could mutate in peace, uninterrupted. Uncontrolled mutations might weaken them, might make it easy to be killed by their competitors. And of the two... one was a man, the other was the red-haired creature that Tanner had seen so very often. The first mutant in the north that she'd seen up close. Saved her from the wolf-thing. And came to the colony to shelter from... something. From the mutant tide. Neither looked up.

Tanner shuddered.

They looked... actually fairly similar. Not mutating yet. Waiting until the other blinked, until the other failed.

And then the last one standing could begin to evolve into a higher state. Into something that more properly reflected their inhumanity.

Tanner removed the leash from her belt.

This was insane. Genuinely insane. But... it was a route, it was an option. Just had to... lure one out. The urn was easy to unscrew, and she dipped her gloved fingers into Lantha's ashes. Glanced around... could she take one of the meat chunks from the lobotomised bodies, or... no, no, couldn't. That stuff was full of adaptations that would need integration, and that would take time, expose weaknesses. The ashes were better. Contamined enough to be worth interring and burying far away from the colony. But the body was gone, maybe... there was greater purity in this, nothing remaining of the body to integrate. Based on the sudden, sharp glances in her direction by both creatures...

She wasn't wrong.

Her fingers came away from the urn coloured stark white, and she swore she could feel a slight... slight tingle, tiny particulates of contamination getting through the tough leather, mutating, mutating... calm down. Calm down.

Neither moved.

So Tanner did. She shuffled across the room, keeping her eyes on both mutants... heading for the girl. Maybe she remembered that awful night. Maybe she remembered nibbling mutations from the back of Tanner's hand.

The girl was... gods, nothing about her made Tanner feel familiar, feel like she was in control. Ruptured pupils. Curling, sharp teeth. Four-jointed fingers. Feet closer to hands in appearance and function, like the feet of an ape. Insectile eyes ringing the neck and collarbone. Long black hooks along her arms. A crown of antlers branching from her forehead and her collar. Larger. Stronger jaw.

Could rip Tanner apart, maybe. If she was lucky.

Tanner paused, keeping her back to the wall, letting the mutants both stare at her.

And she extended her gloved hand.

The female mutant's eyes flickered down.

And slowly... slowly...

She leaned forwards and licked at the fingers with a long, black tongue, bristling with tiny hooks to trap, to scrape. Probably felt like sandpaper.

The ash was gone in a moment. The other mutant was still very quiet, and very immobile. Didn't want to move, not with the situation so... unusual. Didn't want to give the girl an advantage, but also didn't want to strike when he wasn't sure of victory. Unwilling to be irrational, to strike based on emotion - didn't have any. Tanner dipped her fingers into the ashes again, wincing at the desecration of the dead... the mutant girl licked it once again, faster this time. More accustomed.

Her ruptured eyes betrayed no remembrance. No loyalty. This wasn't training, wasn't bribery. This was... a temporary offering. If she kept offering, good. If she didn't, shame. The mutant had no attachment to her unless she had contamination to offer. And she did - in tiny quantities.

Slowly, she began to back up.

The soldier made a... noise behind his helmet, something between a laugh and a snort. Disbelief, complete and total.

The mutant followed Tanner, moving smoothly on all fours, every joint eerily smooth, as if oiled by something more refined than whatever humans had.

And not once did those ruptured eyes leave her face. Trying to read her for any sort of motion. Any hint of threat.

Tanner had the leash in her hand.

The other mutant watched quietly, hunched... and glancing at the meat-piles from time to time. Thought it might get time alone to gnaw at them. No interest in where his companion was going, no interest at all. Once she was gone, he was gone. If he was certain she was gone, he could get to mutating further. Might even block the door to stop her getting back in - had no loyalty. None. Tanner's heart was beating out of her chest. This was... working? Almost?

The mutant followed her out of the room, bribed by tiny quantities of contaminated ash. The soldier watched, his gleaming lenses making his face totally unreadable. But the nervousness in his stance was obvious. The twitch of his finger over the trigger, abandoning normal discipline as he clearly wanted to light the mutant up, burn her to dust, get this over with.

The red-haired mutant came to a stop as Tanner did, head twitching down to examine the urn, almost bird-like in the sharpness of articulation. Tanner hesitated...

And slipped the leash around her neck, avoiding the bristling antlers and horns.

The mutant didn't blink. Simply raised her eyes upwards to stare at Tanner.

Slowly, Tanner tightened it. Fitting it properly.

No movement. Another bribe of ash, licked up eagerly.

Now... now for the next one. She gave a few more bribes, fearful even to blink around such a creature, and brought out the gas mask. This was met with a stronger reaction. A swipe, and it was gone, spinning across the room. The metal components bent on impact, the glass shattered, the crash echoing in the darkness like a clap of thunder. Gods. Powerful. Very powerful. The soldier flinched, and for a second Tanner was afraid of him firing on impulse. And... right, didn't want to put it on, too close to real confinement. Clever enough to recognise what a muzzle looked like, clever enough to know it was a bad thing to have fitted. Tanner started to move again. The urn was under one arm, the leash wrapped around her other wrist. She'd lower the urn for her to dip her fingers into, and then use it to lure the creature along. If something happened, the leash would... presumably help. Honestly, she just needed the illusion of control. Knew the creature could escape if she wanted to. Knew... knew she could manage it. Kept thinking of Lantha. How she'd still been sensible, up to the end, even as her mind slipped away. How much of her old life did this creature remember? Did it remember everything, and just... didn't consider it relevant, had no willingness to translate the memory into personality?

The creature followed obediently, every few steps rasping her black tongue against Tanner's glove, stripping a little more contamination. The only thing that made Tanner worth anything. If Tanner was contaminated by this... gods, if there was enough contaminated matter in her by the time she was done with the bribe, the creature might decide that she was the next bribe. Just... just get to the mansion. The creature snorted, suddenly, and Tanner felt a tremendous force around her wrist, almost jerking her off her feet...

Just wanted to get her hand a little closer. More convenient angle. The four-jointed fingers unwound from her wrist the moment the feeding was done, but the force... the power of those muscles, the way they squirmed, constantly adjusting... like having a manacle of living iron.

And nonetheless, Tanner was very, very quiet. Allowed it all to happen.

There was no way of pretending she was really in control.

The soldier watched the two of them as they walked away, mutant and human. Didn't say a word. Didn't need to. His stance was judgemental enough. Idiot, he seemed to say. Damn idiot, but don't let me stop you. If a damn fool wants to get herself killed, let a damn fool get herself killed, and I was just following orders the whole time. Not remotely culpable.

Truth was, Tanner didn't have the right to barge in and do this. She'd need permission from people in charge of the colony, in charge of security. There were no permits for bringing a mutant through a populated area on a leash, no-one was moronic enough for that. No, no... the law said that knowing possession of a mutant without the sort of permit issued for researchers was punishable by the immediate incineration of the offending creature, immolation of the residence to prevent the spread of contamination, and a lengthy jail sentence. If not execution. But... yes, if the damage was severe enough, then execution, if the will behind the possession was malign, that aggravated matters too. She was... doing this in a benign fashion, the mutant in question was fairly quiet, and stable enough that it wasn't leaking contamination wherever it went, the area she was moving through was empty, none of the civilians were coming outside... but she was consciously aware of committing a crime, and yet still did it, which aggravated things... but she was doing it for the greater good of the colony, no, that wasn't a properly admissible excuse...

Oh, hell. She was just breaking the law and misrepresenting it to others. She was being illegal. Sister Halima would be frowning at her, would be screaming in rage if she knew.

...though...

She racked her brains for something. Anything to make her feel a little better about this violation of the law, a violation that became more and more unpleasant with each rasp of the black, hooked tongue against her glove, each dip into the remains of a dead woman. Desecration of the dead, voluntary theft of contaminated remains from a disposal site, more crimes. No, no, what had... Sister Halima said, she'd had a small talk about it, just once. A concept. Purely theoretical.

'Well, yes, obviously, there's a certain... natural belief that judges know better than most people, and if we were in charge, we'd have few of the problems we do now. Could execute the law as the law demanded, without reference to a complex tapestry of local regulations and issues. And, theoretically, this seems to be the logical extension of the Golden Law. In an ideal world, judges would rule everything... but this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding. The Golden Law would rule in an ideal world, emanating through every single civilian. Monarchy, autocracy, democracy, even in conditions of anarchy, the law would endure, and our role would more or less be obsolete. That being said, without living in this ideal world, there are...occasions where judges might be expected to assume more power than usual.'

Tanner shuffled through the dark streets, infuriatingly slow. The small light of the mansion grew closer and closer with each step, with each rasp against her glove, with each fresh coating of poisonous ash. Come on, focus on Sister Halima, focus on the law.

'This isn't a kritarchy, of course. I'm not talking about a world where judge-kings and judge-queens rule with an iron fist. But, in circumstances of anarchy, where the law fails to be practised, where all other regulations cease... yes, there's a case for expanding our coverage. Sometimes we do that. There was a case, seventy two years ago, where a group of soldiers deserted from their original state, and spent some time living in the wilderness, travelling until they were beyond the borders of any recognised kingdom or republic. A judge sought them out, and was accepted as a kind of leader. His law was fair, just, and unbiased. He didn't send them into battle in his name, but he governed them, doled out the law while also giving advice on their course of action. Nothing happened without him agreeing to it, even if that agreement was based on personal preference, the law having nothing to say on the issue. This is... arguably, close to the Golden Law, at least in embryo. The law emanating smoothly through a person, being accepted as self-evidently true, and permitted to spread into all areas. Of course, without the Golden Law, given that it hasn't been formulated, the sole source of anything approaching it is a judge. That's the important thing, and it was how the man justified it when he came back home. He wasn't governing. He was simply... emanating the law. Ideally, he wouldn't be necessary. But practically, he was. The source of the law, adjusting the flow and the direction, tailoring it as the Golden Law would tailor itself. He ruled, more or less.'

The mansion was close.

'Of course, we don't encourage that sort of thinking. Frightens the people who let us practice the law in their states, all that talk of subversion and judge-rule. But... there is a framework, a theoretical framework. But it was unusual, a single case, and hasn't been repeated since. Lends itself to abuse of power, to manipulation of the law. Hasn't been a popular line of thought for some time. I said 'adjusting', and that effectively meant creating exceptions to the law, justifying his own actions with clever legal defences, covering up his own crimes. And exception to the law is tyranny, thus all criminals are tyrants. Judges ought not to be rulers. The law should. And most judges aren't dispassionate machines executing the law, they're humans, despite our best efforts. So, no matter how frustrating it is - know your place, and keep working at what you can. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.'

But still.

But still.

Judge-rule. Kritarchy. Emanating the law, adjusting it, becoming a point of authority because a judge was a centre of refined law. The man who'd taken control of that group of soldiers had never returned fully to the order, she remembered. Exiled to a barren place, and allowed to live out his days in ignominy, never to set foot in Fidelizh again. The unit... no idea what happened afterwards, reports were spotty. But... yes, she'd committed crimes, was committing them now by ignoring protocol, moving a mutant around, desecrating the dead, overstepping her boundaries... but... well...

Weren't they in conditions of anarchy now? Could Mr. Canima say, confidently, that he was in charge? And if he was, then the colony was being run by an Erlize officer, she genuinely wasn't sure how the law worked with regards to them. Could the cartel? Their rule would be profoundly illegal, profoundly tyrannical. A chaotic stew of meaningless principles that were adjusted frequently to benefit the cartel the most. No judge would regard that as a state, no judge would work in such a state under any circumstances. Offensive to every sense. If neither could, then... well, then what?

She forced herself to stop thinking. She was just committing a crime, and might die in service of the colony. That felt like appropriate punishment. Or reward. Whatever. Never set herself above the law. Never set herself up in a position of responsibility for the colony, just... she was just pursuing an investigation.

Somehow, those justifications felt hollow. Her appeals to the law felt hollow.

This entire act of self-recrimination felt almost... desperate. The judgements didn't quite land the way they should. Kept making her think of Lyur, how he was someone the law would never govern, could only punish. Someone that could never emanate the Golden Law. And the mutant... this thing, it obeyed no law written in any book. It obeyed its own hunger, and desire for survival. Those were the only rules. And when Tanner thought about... about the crimes she was committing, the punishment she rightfully ought to face, she'd feel that black tongue rasping, smell the acrid stench of the ashes. What did law matter? Her judgements were hollow things, fragile and harmless. The mutant obeyed no law. And an army of them were coming for the colony. So, the cartel violated the law casually, and ran part of the colony. The Erlize basically existed as the exception to a raft of laws, ignoring them whenever it was necessary. The mutants obeyed no law at all. Nor did Lyur. So... what the hell did it all matter? All her years of studying, and... she was in a totally lawless place. A place that mocked her law.

So... what was she meant to do? Keep investigating. Do her job. Had plenty of reasons, plenty of justifications... but none of them were 'it's what the law demands'. All of them were practical - increasing harmony, resolving a key question, keeping herself focused and small-scale rather than drowning in the vastness of the catastrophe. She was... gods, she was justifying executing the law for reasons other than executing the law as a self-evident good. Bad. Bad. Here she was, if she was truly concerned with obeying the law, she wouldn't have found this mutant. Purity above all. If she was sane and not desperate, she'd have left the mutant well alone. And yet, violating the purity of the law, of her profession... it didn't hurt as much as it should.

And that frightened her. Frightened her deeply. For all her talk of restraint, she'd... loosened one. Bad start.

Almost hoped she'd die in the next few weeks, just to stop the rest unbinding. To stop her from ruining her own life, from tainting her memory in the minds of others, for dirtying her name.

The mutant licked more ash.

The mansion was above her.

Time to bite the bullet.