CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWO - KINGDOM OF HERMITS

For a moment, Tanner was certain that this meant the mutants were coming. They'd seen the evacuation starting and had decided to rush ahead with their plans, to strike while a few still remained outdoors. Yet... a strange happiness went through her. The die had been cast, Lantha had been right, and all of this had meant something. At least, if they succeeded. Failure didn't seem especially awful, admittedly. If she failed, she died. If she died, she really didn't see herself feeling especially worried about anything, let alone humiliated. It was being wrong about the invasion that made her feel a nameless dread crawl through her insides - a dread augmented by the praise she'd received, by the deeds she'd committed, with every last word she'd said in the name of protecting the colony. She'd been digging up earth to form a barricade against the mutants - if she was right, then each shovelful of dirt was another hint of victory. If she was wrong, then each shovelful was a slightly deeper grave. And the rising whine...

No, wait.

Check.

She moved towards the entrance, glancing at the soldiers, who were sprinting to battle stations, pulling on gas masks...

The metal door had a viewing port near the side. Thick, thick glass, bolstered with bars of metal, and with a single click she could lower a metal plate over it that would render it about as well-secured as the doors, if not more so. She slowly raised it up, unfamiliar with the actual motion of it. She knew this sort of thing in theory, she'd asked Sersa Bayai about it while preparing the defences, but her experience with the bunkers was purely academic. The muscle memory had yet to form - not like the act of murder, which had shadows of familiarity in her mind that she... tried not to think about. Didn't try and think about how she knew the routes to take - the right amount of force that should go to her muscles, the signs which suggested life had concluded, the way blood looked when it spilled down a face, the way bones felt when she split them open, that killing someone with their eyes covered was ever-so-slightly easier than someone staring at her, that the trick was committing to the motions and allowing momentum to drag her along, that social pressure was an intensely valuable tool, that the madness of a crowd could infect her and make the whole thing... possible.

Not thinking about that.

Not even been a few hours...

She looked through the viewing port with a flat face, examining...

Ah.

The General. Unmistakeable. Still. She opened a reinforced grille, and yelled out - had to yell, there was more reinforcement here, too, just to stop a mutant from slithering through the tiniest gaps. Still not perfect, but the defences would delay a mutant enough for her to notice something was wrong. Gods, this entire place reeked of the Great War, how many things had been tried, how many had failed, how many had refined themselves to a state of near-perfection. Every defence honed by all the people who'd died as a result of one failing, every weapon augmented by each lost battle and surrendered territory. Every bunker reinforced by each and every massacre that'd emptied another one out.

Well...

"Yes? What's wrong?"

A small voice piped back.

"We're all ready out here - could you possibly let me in?"

Oh.

Huh.

Hadn't she had All-Name with her from the start of... no, no, he must've drifted away to do other duties, and she'd just... forgotten him. She slowly opened the locks and ignored the rising screech from the detector, even as a little paranoia flowered in her gut. Maybe the mutants had just learned to perfectly impersonate him already, had seized control of the General and relayed orders to...

No, All-Name was there, and the General was already backing off, flinching at the hysterical mechanical wail coming from inside. She watched him clamber up to the rooftops of his old city with dull curiosity, watching how he clearly relished the experience of being back home, even in its ruined state. Maybe it was reassuring to him, somehow - a reminder that, yes, Rekida was gone, and his existence was a culmination, rather than a sad interval that'd be forgotten as the generations rolled on. He could fight without thinking of preserving his culture - he could just fight, and have a whale of a time while he was at it. The detector's wail declined with each step he took... but it never quite shut off. Unsure if that was due to the Rekidans, or due to the approaching horde. Morbidly, she prayed it was the latter. One thing to get praised in an unwarranted manner, another thing for the praisers in question to realise it was unwarranted. Then she got to experience embarrassment both first- and second-hand. Which, in her mind, was probably how spontaneous combustion happened. Oh, gods, she hadn't even thought of spontaneous combustion - hoped no-one exploded under stress in the bunker, that'd be shocking bad luck. Yes, she knew that spontaneous combustion was debated in the scientific community, but she'd read some very compelling newspaper articles on the topic, and felt like she should at least hedge her bets. Unnecessary fear was embarrassing, unwarranted confidence was fatal.

All-Name slipped past her into the bunker, his face pale, his red hair shockingly bright by contrast to the skin, the yellow walls, the white beyond.

Right, anyone else... she ran down a mental list. Might be a few stragglers from the investors, had to have a chat with them about that. Soldiers would all be here by now, she'd already confirmed that to be the case. Leaving... well, Bayai would be in a further bunker, closer to the Breach. The General would remain outside. Beldol... Beldol should be along shortly, wanted to keep an eye on her. Tal-Sar, to her knowledge, intended to go to another bunker. Not very interested in being in the same building as All-Name or Tanner. The former represented the perverse continuation of an old, ugly order he'd run away from, the latter was his confessor. No-one wanted to socialise with their confessor. Tanner had, to her knowledge, never really confessed to anyone like Tal-Sar had done, which explained why she was such a social butterfly.

She'd killed a man less than a few hours ago, the fact that her mind still thought of sarcastic things only she could hear probably meant she was a lunatic of some sort.

...hm, was the sky still- yes. Yes, it was.

So, she had almost...

Hm. Vyuli was going to stay with his own people, to her knowledge. Tom-Tom was... still coming, that was someone to wait for. Should be coming with some more guards, would just take longer, due to the need to restrain her (not that it was especially necessary, but protocol was protocol). So...

Canima wasn't here.

...was he injured? Had he fallen down on the way here? He was old, not infirm, but not especially healthy... and he'd exerted himself helping to fill in a hole... for all she knew, he'd been stabbed by one of the cartel members on the way into the city, using the chaos to cover themselves up. Could be. Could be.

She closed the door, locking it most of the way. Wanted to be able to let Tom-Tom and her escort in as quickly as possible. Oh, crumbs, almost forgot - Ms. Blue was bringing her protective gear. Gods, her mind was just... all over the place after she ended another human life. And she still had a shrivelled black heart in her pocket, she'd never removed it...

Well. There was something reassuring there. Murder could still make her scatterbrained. It had that moral hold over her, even if it hadn't... you know, stopped her from murdering someone in front of a crowd.

All-Name stumbled down the hallway, nodding respectfully-if-quickly to her. Escaping the outside world. The General, she could see through the viewing port, was practically dancing across the city. Swinging with his arm, moving on feet far too light and nimble for his frame, operating with absolute confidence in where he was going and how to get there. Maybe he felt the momentum too. He certainly built enough of it. Then the metal slammed down, and they were back in the yellow interior. Yellow as wax, yellow as old porcelain, yellow as jaundice. Tanner hadn't removed her cloak yet. Seemed strange, but... the idea of removing it felt not just wrong, but impossible. It'd grown into her. Removing it would be flaying herself. And the axe was practically grafted to her, no removing that thing. She stumped down the corridor, back to the meeting room, where the investors were starting to... settle in, just a little. Some glared at her, but most just moved on with their lives. Unpacking as much as they dared, stretching their exerted legs, talking in low voices.

The soldiers were another story. They were so tense they seemed to be immobile, only the very slight intake of breath and the occasional blink of an eye suggesting life. She didn't dare disturb them. Knew how she felt, and... well, when you were tense enough, the idea of someone breaking your stillness unnecessarily was downright offensive.

She was accompanied by Yan-Lam and Marana as she went for the telegram room. Small place, poky, but... well, didn't need to be fancy. The telegrams would be cut off quickly by the mutants, if they could manage it. Bayai said that during the Great War they evidently figured out that cutting cables could confuse the enemy, even if the specifics were probably beyond them. Probably understood it as... like shattering a beaver's dam, or breaking an insect's hive, or wrecking a nest of some sort. External, clearly unliving, yet nonetheless intertwined with the living. With the enemy.

She began to tap out a message, flipping a few switches, connecting to... there, Bayai's secure bunker. They were doing it the old-fashioned way, using full words rather than the usual telegram code. Didn't want to rely on strings of numbers that could be mistaken for one another while stressed - and everyone was going to be very stressed.

T - missing prisoner + Canima. Compl. otws STOP.

Just because they were sticking to conventional words didn't mean they'd avoid contractions. Well, that was all. Had to wait for the next one to come in. Actually...

She tapped out a few more, requesting confirmations from the other bunkers. Slowly, but surely, the rattling responses came through. Nothing from Bayai quite yet, but... she quickly scribbled down the messages, even as the low whine of the detector spiked irregularly, like an old man's heartbeat, recording the movements of the Rekidans as they moved over the rooftops, checking for anything. Seemed like most civilians had gotten to the bunkers by now, some were just a little delayed by troop movements which filled up the streets, or by falling rubble from overstressed structures. Acceptable, acceptable, and... the theurgists were ready to go. Mr. Mask sent her rather a few rude words, admittedly, which was a waste of a telegram, in her mind. Been working for some time on this. The tunnels...

Hell. Didn't want to take any chances. She sent a message to Vyuli's bunker.

T - prpr to close tunnels. Confirm w ready STOP

If he'd done his job, and she very much hoped he had, rather than, say, killing an old man who had no power remaining in this colony, no connections, no allies, nothing, then the tunnels should have explosives at key points. Same stuff they used in parts of the city for removing intractable blockages. The theurgists had already wired up the explosives to central points with easy evacuation, and the theurgists in general had calculated the places where collapses wouldn't cause cascading disasters. Now, this wasn't perfect. But it would delay the mutants if they came from below, the blockages would be outside the walls to stop them just digging upwards and getting it over with, it'd be noticeable if they were coming from that direction... point was, it gave them a tiny scrap of an advantage, and that was all they could ask for at this stage. She had no silver bullets that would just win any battle, she just had accumulating advantages.

Just had to weigh them against the enemy, and see if the balance was in their favour or not.

Bayai's telegram finally came back - well, maybe his telegram. It started with 'B', but that just meant it was from his bunker.

B - prisoner thru Breach, Canima unknown. Equipment near. Begin readings. 1.11 STOP.

Right, right. Her eyes flicked to the little tube on the wall, glass and slowly filling with red liquid.

T - confirmed. V ordered to prime closure. 1.06 STOP.

Not sure what the readings meant, scientifically speaking, but... she knew what the safe ranges were. One was average - no unusual risks from exposure. Anything below was just peachy. Anything above strayed closer to danger. A reading of five meant gas masks were mandatory if you were going to be outdoors for longer than a few hours. A reading of ten meant gas masks were simply mandatory. Reading of twenty meant you were likely to suffer debilitating mutations if you lacked protection. Reading of thirty meant that military-grade gas mask filters would only delay contamination for about a quarter of the normal time, after that they needed to be changed, and some exposure was inevitable. Reading of forty meant shifts of no longer than thirty minutes, and equipment was basically unusable afterwards. Soldiers just went through rounds of intensive showers, only removed equipment when they were ready to turn in and swallow their pills. Reading of fifty meant no protection was adequate, no filter would last very long, the world around you was mutated to the point of being unrecognisable.

If they got to sixty, the bunkers would only last about a week. Filters would wear out too quickly, walls would be infiltrated, nothing would be safe.

At seventy... they'd last twenty four hours, each increasing degree from sixty subtracting just under a day from their week.

Anything higher, and at least they had time to make their peace with their gods.

Notably, this was all ambient contamination. Acute contamination came from contact with mutants, with their fluids, their flesh, even their breathing. These caused brief spikes which could cause major damage. But ambient contamination was the slow, constant killer. It was in the air, the water, the soil. Hour upon hour upon hour, with you when you slept, there when you woke, inside your food, inside your eyes, pervading every strand of hair. Some people shaved themselves clean of everything just to stop it building up in their hair, their eyelashes, their nose-hair, their armpits, their legs, their arms, everything. But they couldn't stop breathing. Couldn't stop eating. This was why Sersa Bayai had recommended taking pills when the readings were still hovering at about 1.10, because even a tiny increase in the daily dose of contamination would add up over uncounted hours. Acute contamination lasted as long as you had the contamination on you, remove the infection vector and the danger was reduced enormously. Damage was already done, of course. But it was solvable, sometimes in the span of seconds. Ambient contamination, the only solution was letting the air cycle through to clear the atmosphere, going from street to street purging solid surfaces with high-pressure jets of water, or just fire. Water could recover, but if sources or groundwater were rotten, that was just gone. It was possible they'd die of thirst out here, if the air was contaminated enough to affect the snow, and the groundwater was denied to them, along with any remaining streams or aquifers.

That was why they needed so much food. So much water. Not because the siege would last a year, or longer.

Because the siege might render them dependent on what they'd brought into the bunkers until spring arrived, and relief could come. Game would dry up as animals fled the stink. Water would need to be transported over great distances, if that was an option at all. Life would be confined to gas masks, to oiled coats, to secure areas where the detectors moaned rather than screamed. It was why they had to fight the mutants off, couldn't just get everyone into bunkers and hide, because eventually the ambient contamination would increase until any human life was impossible. Had to burn, had to hurt, had to cleanse.

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She waited.

The detector's pitch rose. Just a tiny amount. A whine that chimed right at the corner of her hearing.

And this was why these things had coverings. No way of turning the sound off - that would be deliriously unsafe, and would cultivate the wrong attitude. You could never stop the warnings, only... dim them until you were capable of sleep. Anything else would be complacency and delusion - according to Sersa Bayai, anyway. She held off for a few more minutes before reporting the increased reading. Remember what he'd said: wait five minutes to confirm that this is a meaningful increase. Send a single confirmatory signal every ten minutes if no change. Every hour, check all detectors to ensure none are erratic. If one is, report it, then check it for faults. If none are found, and the erratic reading is confirmed, report immediately. Could mean a mutant was crawling over the bunker, and if it was allowed to do that, the military was failing in its task.

Could be because all of them were dead, of course. Very much an option.

She drew out a pocket watch she'd borrowed from the garrison, and checked it carefully... yes, ticking and tocking and whatnot. Reading sent. Head off, come back in ten minutes. The main room welcomed her once more... and people were giving the detector quite a few nervous looks, while Mr. Nangi made sure the heavy doors that subdivided the bunker were still working properly, mutton chops exaggerating his frown to clownish proportions.

Around All-Name, there was an aura of cleared ground where all refused to go. Nervous of the scarred red-haired young man, malnourished and short for his age, with eyes significantly older than either. He was... oh, that was wonderful. He was anointing himself. A handful of delicate bottles were arranged in front of him, clearly plundered from a long-dead noblewoman's bedroom, and he was cautiously applying strategic dabs to the wrist, the neck... then more ritualised dabs to the forehead, the nose, underneath each eye. Immediately his eyes reddened a little. Tanner approached... regretted it, and Yan-Lam clapped a hand over her mouth to stop her hissing in disgust. It was potent. Unreasonably so. Smelled like... liquorice, amplified over and over. Mixed with cinnamon, with nutmeg, with juniper... and more besides, a kind of animal musk that made her nose itch, and something that faintly resembled the residue at the bottom of the mastication tanks back in Mahar Jovan. Salty, decaying, a lifetime of water emanating from the pulped remains of fish, even a rubbery scent she associated with fish eggs. It was a mess, harmony-wise. If it was an orchestra, it'd be the national orchestra of the nation of Schizophrenia and Cacophonia.

"Do you think you could-"

He glanced up, eyes watering from the stink. No words. His mouth was full of twigs that he was chewing remorselessly, each one releasing a little puff of dust from between his teeth. Smelled... faintly of turpentine. Which was remarkable. Truly. She honestly wasn't sure why the Rekidans would regard this as being... no, no, it made sense why they'd choose this specific combination to anoint their dead. Or, in All-Name's case, the maybe-dead-who-would-die-without-people-to-bury-them-honourably. Because this combination did smell like liquid death.

"Could you possibly do that in another room? Where other people aren't present? I don't mean to be rude, but..."

But you smell like an explosion in a perfume factory, an explosion caused by boilers powered by animal dung. Hm. Still felt rude. In her defence, his funeral oils really did smell that awful. Smelled like a... liver stuffed down a toilet, like something the detectors would issue to warn them that they were all about to die, if she could smell the signature popping in her nose that contamination yielded, she'd legitimately think that some awful mutant was about to enter the room. Not that she said any of this. She was polite. Murdered people, yes, but... she did it politely? Gave last rites? Excuses fell dead in the black matter of her brain. All-Name flushed with faint embarrassment, and mumbled through the bundle of sticks in his mouth.

"S-ree."

And off he went, bottles clutched precariously. Yan-Lam stared at him as he went, a mixture of suspicion, curiosity, and disgust in her gaze. Tanner remained still... a firm knock at the front door dragged her away. Good. Even standing still for a few seconds was enough to make her feel uncomfortable. Viewing port, confirm identity through speaking tube... good. The prisoner was here. Tom-Tom, anonymous behind her gas mask, surrounded by troopers rendered eerie and alien by their heavy protective gear, their fuel tanks which made them seem like bloated ticks, the nozzles of their flamethrowers glued to their hands by terror of being unprepared, until it looked like they just... grew the things out of themselves like stingers. The oiled coating on their uniforms glistened wetly, like the hide of a water-dwelling animal, and the lenses of their goggles were profoundly insectile. Already the world beyond was strange - red, boiling sky (at least in her eyes), humans made alien, mutants that could only get more alien, and an atmosphere slowly, slowly building into a poisonous haze.

Tom-Tom entered quickly, pushed by rough gauntleted hands, her own bound behind her back with manacles. Tanner almost unfastened them just on instinct, confident that Tom-Tom was... zero threat to the bunker or anyone else. So long as no-one indulged a martyrdom complex she thought might be brewing in her, just as an attempt to redeem herself for... everything. In a way that also created no future obligations.

The man saluted, their black lenses shimmering.

Reminded her of Lyur's eyes.

Didn't particularly like that fact.

"Ma'am."

"Did you see Mr. Canima on the way?"

"...no, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."

"No, no, it's... fine. Good luck."

"Thank you, ma'am. Good luck to you too."

Should she offer to buy them a drink afterwards? That felt like a bold sort of thing to do. Something leaders tended to do, anyway. Go on lads, if you survive drinks are on me. Or on your way boys, saving a bottle of gutrot for you, drink it through your mouth or drink it through the soil. That sounded good... no, was it gutrot or rotgut? Gutrot or rotgut? If she said the wrong thing they'd shoot her on sight. Definitely. Out herself as someone who... didn't drink or talk about drinking, and everyone knew all leaders were drunkards in some way, the Annals of Tenk had that all the time, all commanders had to sag to their beds at the end of a battle and slug back a glass of something-or-other to relieve the pain and stress of combat. Gutrot... rotgut...

Hm.

This simple confusion just stopped her talking entirely, just that one spot of confusion, not the general discomfort of talking to men who might be about to die, and she nodded briskly when they saluted crisply. Turned on their heels and left, to her... boundless relief.

The last words she'd said to them were 'good luck to you too'. That was... good. That was functional. She didn't need to feel guilty about those being the last words she might've said to them in their entire lives.

"Hullo."

Tanner looked down.

Removed the gas mask. Out of politeness. And a blindfolded face looked up, glancing around senselessly, trying to figure out where she was.

Tanner very much did not like seeing another blindfold today. Took it off immediately, watched as Tom-Tom blinked owlishly in the yellow light of the bunker.

"Oh. Ah."

A pause.

"Hullo."

"Afternoon."

"...this... proceeded quickly, didn't it?"

"It did. Come on, you've got a cell."

"Ah."

And with that, she marched her over, unlocked the door, and gently pushed her inside. As she unfastened Tom-Tom's manacles, the woman spoke in a quiet, demure tone of voice.

"Same to you. Good luck, I mean."

Tanner blinked.

"I mean it. Good luck."

"...thank you."

"Was... the thing alright?"

"Yes."

"...thanks for killing him. I know... it's difficult. I've never really... killed someone before. Well. With my own hands. But he was someone who deserved it. If father had any sense, he'd have done it a long time ago."

"...did you know anything about him? Anything about his past?"

"Nothing. He never talked about it. I mean, when you're... like me, when your father is my father, someone just... talking to you, taking you seriously, complimenting your ideas, it's..."

She paused.

"It's enough. You don't really ask questions when you're happy people are asking you questions for once. And thinking about the answers."

Tanner shivered.

She knew loneliness.

Didn't like the idea of a world where, say, Eygi had been more manipulative. More malicious. Honestly, if Eygi had asked her to hurt someone, she might've. Very well might've. The eyes of a crowd had moved her arms and allowed her to execute Lyur. The demands of a colony had swung the axe, though it'd been her hands that did the deed, her brain that took those demands seriously. If Eygi...

Stop it.

Move on.

Move on from ending a life.

"I'll get some food soon enough. Was the journey over alright? Did they hurt you in any way?"

Had to still be a judge. Had to. Even if the rest of the role was gone... clutch to whatever she could. Dignity to prisoners, dignity to the punished, never be cruel, never be anything but reasonable. The notion would die at the slightest test, but for now... could almost pretend Tom-Tom was just a criminal from the old days. Back when she managed property disputes.

"Fine. Go on, get back to work. Happy to stay here."

"...are you certain?"

A pause.

"If you... need anything, just let me know."

Tom-Tom stared at her.

"...thank you."

Something genuine in her voice.

What? Did she think Tanner would hate her? Loathe her? Want her dead, like Lyur?

Tom-Tom was an idiot, and a criminal, and had a clearly deficient sense of responsibility. Dysfunctional to the point of being dangerous to others, in the right circumstance.

But, gods above, she wasn't Lyur. She wasn't anyone but a fairly simple person in a deeply complex situation. A criminal person, yes, but a simple one. As opposed to Lyur. Who was... a complete unknown. Maybe not even fully human. Nor was she someone like the General, or Vyuli, or Canima, or the governor, or any of the morally dubious people she'd met and allied herself with.

Tom-Tom stared at her as she closed the door with a clunk. And behind it... no sound but her breathing. Like she was just staring at the door, sightlessly, for a solid minute. Only then did she start to move, and as if relieved of duty, Tanner started to move as well.

Nuts, missed her call-in... she telegrammed quickly. Readings... 1.09.

Increased. And confirmed, after a few minutes. Bayai didn't respond for a while.

Imagined his were getting higher too.

She wasn't wrong. The mutants were coming. The ambient increases... the Rekidans couldn't be responsible for that, not alone, not unless they were literally breathing down the detectors and doing precisely nothing else. Tanner bustled around meaninglessly, helping to haul out crates of bedding and so on, duties which... saved everyone else a grand total of a few minutes. The door remained... no, equipment was on its way. The next impact on the door would, in all likelihood, be a human. Then another human, once Canima arrived. Then... nothing until the all-clear, really. Nothing predictable. What would she do if a human started banging on the door, demanding entry, begging for help as their wounds festered with mutation... the investors would tell her to leave them outside, even Marana and Yan-Lam might, anyone would. Open the door, and the contamination got in. They weren't theurgists, they didn't get the fancy decontamination chambers their base had. Speaking of which... she telegrammed again.

More confirmations. All was ready. The tunnels were primed. As were all other targets. Just had to...

Anyway.

Ms. Blue came later. Knocking uncertainly on the door, and staring up with her eyes... goodness, she had the only gas mask Tanner had ever seen with perfectly clear lenses. Or, well, almost clear - clear enough to see her bright blue eyes swimming oddly, magnified to the point of looking like something out of a slightly cruel caricature. In her arms with a crate - her shaking arms, no less, which made Tanner take the crate with all due haste, barely even noticing the weight. The world beyond... no mutants as far as she could see, but the monitors weren't lying, there was an increase across the board in terms of ambient contamination. Honestly, the low, low moaning of the detectors was... probably a feature designed for compliance. Awakening animal instincts. Cats meowed at the same tenor of a crying baby, eliciting sympathy. Mutants spoke like humans, awakening complacence at the worst possible moment. And the detectors moaned like a combination between a suffering leper, a shambling drunk, and a madman on the street shuffling closer with his hands invisible. A beggar, maybe. A murderer, possibly. A lunatic of no clear designs... equally likely. Made one want to stay inside, like the oozing hoards of the mutants were already pawing at the alabaster walls. The woman shook slightly under her gaze, and was barely able to murmur:

"Oh. Ah. How did... I mean... the traitors..."

"Handled."

"Oh my."

Tanner blinked.

"They're alive. Just inside, actually."

"Oh my."

Stop it. Please. She couldn't deal with more of this business today.

"How's... the mutant? I mean, if..."

"She's locked up."

"How did you force her in there, ma'am?"

"...I pointed."

"Oh my."

Tanner was going to pop like an overfilled pimple. Argh.

"Alright, you... ought to be on your way."

"Yes, ma'am! Won't let you down, swear on my honour, ma'am! And... if you need anything else, please, let me know!"

"Alright."

"And... if I don't come back-"

Oh no.

"If I don't come back, if this is the last time we speak - it's been an honour, ma'am. To serve under you. Greatest privilege of my career, ma'am. Greatest privilege."

Her spine was turning to liquid. Needed to lean on her axe to stay upright.

"Ah. Well."

A pause.

"You too, Kal."

The woman stared.

Her magnified blue eyes seemed to blaze like the fires of an exotic chemical reaction, like the dancing alcohol-infused fires that people lit on certain puddings, her eyes resembled nothing more than a brandy inferno. With all the intoxication that implied. Oh dear.

"I won't keep you any longer, Kal."

"Yes, ma'am."

She'd discovered how to turn sound into syrup, transforming into the substance of the latter while preserving the accidents of the former. Tanner genuinely wondered if her ear bones were about to fuse together with innumerable lattices of sugar.

"I'll... be on my way, ma'am. An honour. Always."

Tanner didn't even know her name. Didn't even... oh, she was going. Marching away at a brisk, military pace, her arms moving like pieces of clockwork. Tanner wasn't... sure what Ms. Blue thought. Or what she felt. Or how Tanner felt towards her. Disturbed, slightly. Not... sure what she'd found to fixate upon. Then again, she had no idea what Marana had found to fixate upon - she'd talked with the woman about surrealism and eels, she probably had deeper conversations during random dinner parties, probably had deeper conversations with her mirror in the morning. Maybe that was the idea - if you did nothing, people invented features for you, constructed a whole character out of scattered clues, then... shuffled off, this odd, mostly invented creature of pure fantasy riding around on their shoulders like a parrot. And then she had to do less work.

Maybe everyone was doing that to her, too.

Maybe everyone was doing that to each other.

...it made life easier. If you didn't care what others thought about you, anyway.

Which she did.

She had?

No, no, she'd done that pointlessly. Now she had an incredibly good reason - because if her guard slipped and her real self came out, with all its terror and sweat and embarrassment, everyone would shoot her repeatedly.

Come on. Power through.

Hang on.

Marana was near.

Smiling faintly. Tanner tried to smile back.

"Thanks. For... that."

The praise which had almost made her implode on the spot.

"Quite alright. Honestly, it's when people stop feeling shame that you need to be worried. Bit of embarrassment snaps most people out of a fit of panic or rage. Even fear can make them erratic, but... embarrassment isn't glorious, doesn't awaken any evolutionary instincts. Appeals to the intelligent animal."

Rambling. But Tanner didn't mind. Nice to hear her voice not thrumming with guilt.

"You're... alright, then? Here?"

Marana laughed lightly.

"Oh. That's a question. By definition, it is a question, my scrumptious pelican. It's odd... I honestly prefer the idea out here. Like getting killed by a natural disaster. You know, the two ways I've always feared dying... dying to torture, which is miserable and awful and shameful and something I've seen befall too many. And dying in the bath. The idea of being sprawled, naked, found after pickling for a while... I mean, I have some belly fat, varicose veins, my toes are all unpleasant, I look like a piece of cheese - pale, spongy, and threaded with strands of blue. That's my nightmare. This... is fairly decent. If I feel the need to die, it'll be with everyone else, so that's... pleasant enough, I suppose. It's not the bath."

"Right."

A pause.

"...now you're talking about it..."

"Makes one never want to take baths, hm?"

"No. Definitely."

"Strange. Blood vessels, we get so very paranoid about them when they look their healthiest. I have a vein that throbs in my forehead when I exert myself too much, grow my hair to cover it. But it's just a vein. Just a big wriggling skin-worm. Ought not to be ashamed of it. Yet here we are."

A pause.

"...of course, I've never seen you in that position. You never react to a thing. Barely even see your face colour."

Tanner hesitated.

...it was Marana.

And this felt... better than just thinking. Better than talking about super-reality. With a hint of embarrassment, and a small glance around, she pulled down the front of her dress just slightly.

"I only blush around my collarbone. Nowhere else."

"...oh."

"Only sweat down the back of my neck, too. And my hair is long, so..."

Marana paused. Reached up. Patted her cheek delicately.

"You know, with a flat expression like that, you're going to look like you're thirty when you're seventy."

Tanner blinked.

"Uh."

Her surprise made Marana let out a short, sharp titter. Just a small one. Highly aristocratic, highly refined, sort of laugh that wouldn't result in one spitting out a mouthful of champagne.

"And there's the girl I know. There she is. Wondered where she'd gone."

...was Tanner the person who was just embarrassed at things?

Was... that who she was?

Did she like being that?

Not... sure. Didn't think so.

Liked it better than whatever she was becoming.

"Now. You hop on with things. I'll help however I can. And... Tanner."

"Hm?"

"My father is terrifically rich."

"...oh?"

"He's also rather old."

"Ah."

"I'm not especially young myself."

"Uh."

"My point is, our money gets split a few ways. I won't have my share for terribly long, I'll do awful things with it anyway, waste it in a month of debauchery. Just... a comment, dear. You have options. Not all roads end in matters like this."

...taking the inheritance of someone else to sustain herself in luxury, devoid of all responsibilities or cares, maybe not... total luxury, but definitely comfort. Workless comfort. Maybe pay her mother, to stop her from falling into poverty. Fulfil all familial obligations. Freedom? No... no, stop it. That was stupid thinking. She wasn't Tom-Tom, someone who could probably be rendered content with a good fishing spot and no expectations, she needed responsibility and expectations and purpose, she'd never lived without them. She'd tried! She was trying, and she'd... taken over a colony, intimidated a large number of people, worked with slavers and criminals, and had executed a man in front of a crowd, by no metric was she flourishing. No responsibilities, all things paid for... she'd go mad in two weeks, be fat and frog-like in two months, be dead in two years. Die in the bath, naked, sprawled, her collarbone flushing red, the back of her neck dripping with sweat, the place where her skirt should be kneaded to the point of being flayed. And everyone would think 'oh, she was a bit of an organic catastrophe, wasn't she? Passed it off terribly well, though. Until now. Shame.'

Removed all thoughts of that sort.

They weren't any use.

"Thank you. But I... have to decline."

She stiffened her shoulders.

"Have a job to do. Don't like planning for events afterwards. Like... counting my heirs before they're full-grown."

Marana blinked at the phrasing. Tanner... hadn't been able to unhear Vyuli's advice. That 'counting your chickens before they hatched' was a stupid phrase, the Nalseri version was much more rational. Unfortunately.

"...yes. I suppose."

The older woman's smile turned vaguely sad.

"There's me doing my thing again. When in doubt, offer things. Maybe cocaine, maybe alcohol, maybe debauchery, maybe money... feel like an engineer using every tool at her disposal when the real solution is just developing more blasted talent."

A tiny sigh.

"Don't let me keep you. Please. Go on."

And that was all betwixt the two of them.

And the detector moaned just a little higher.

Coming closer to the shriek which announced their arrival.

She shivered.

And got back to work.