Many-grouped high clouds that signal change in precipitation
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[Enter] 봉준, mouth open.
봉준
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.[1]
I.14 Enter Claude, racking hands through hair,
CLAUDE Sum e, tuera, Voi. Voi !
Enter Alauda, blue-winged, feet to floor:
ALAUDA Neo English. For our readers.
CLAUDE Era. And all, blue-skied. Skylark, unclear!
ALAUDA Speak clear, and we can talk all blue.
That Scion’s path is yet to sky.
CLAUDE Vera. {Her eyes glow, deeper}
Have not believed, but Cerise showed.
The bird’s about to fly.
ALAUDA We’ll see. Come time. {Hesitates, before:}
She’s far from winged. {Her wings, broad en blue, move freely.}
{봉준 is silent, but nods.}
Enter Sappho.
SAPPHO Hey guys!!! XD it’s been so long :)
She throws her arms around Claude, who reacts like a statue in a fountain.
She then goes over to Alauda, and Alauda tucks her wings in.
I’m so sorry 😔, I’ve been so busy! u know work and things
{봉준 is silent, but nods and smiles.}
Verona’s so nice. Alauda alauda congrats on Savior! Gonna be a hard one.
ALAUDA For sure. They’re why we’re here today.
K Jeong has said that they’re in—
Enter Dante A., resplendent emerging.
DANTE A My friends, come now, to fair—
SAPPHO HAHA you’re late jun already opened. But ya Verona one of my favorite hangout spots
DANTE A SAPPHO! Too long! Our hues told not your grace.
SAPPHO Your hues huh
DANTE A {Laughs}
CLAUDE Hey hey, Dante.
DANTE A Hey hey! {Promptly executes their dizzyingly rapid exchange of hand-wing-emblem signs with Claude.}
ALAUDA Dante, as I had said to her, Savior’s now burned, in Màha gone.
They’re feeding chicks.
{Silence from all.}
CLAUDE Mierda.
SAPPHO *they’re being fed
ALAUDA That’s what I said.
SAPPHO no no but thats ok :D
ALAUDA Iambic begs the curve. Of all syntax.
SAPPHO You’re doing great. But for y’all’s concern, it’s no concern, Savior is over there but for now they, (or back to he now) is being fed. That’s K Jeong’s problem not mine
DANTE A Concern. {He/they glances, instantaneously briefly, at 봉준, who is looking very concerned.}
CLAUDE Work, you said. What work?
ALAUDA We’re not—
SAPPHO It’s fine. I’ve been secretly helping Nhine with his Scion Revolution. K Jeong’s been over there but just taking notes. Power system studies lol
DANTE A Ha! For all, the strength to be. A system needs its ends.
CLAUDE Cerise the wonder girl. She can’t v-Art, she can’t perform.
SAPPHO Stop worrying haha, u can finish for her
CLAUDE {She unfurls her hair. Bright, convalescent sparks run through it.}
I can’t. We’re still abide. Cerise will stay with her, in Movement Blue.
SAPPHO hmm ok, that’s fine, have y’all started yet? Its ok if u didn’t
DANTE A We’re done, it’s all to go. Worlds to be, lands to run.
ALAUDA {Lets go a tinge.} The songs are draft, the sheets a-ply. Some winds for III’s mchemraba.
SAPPHO Nice nice, ok. Sounds good. Claude, Cerise can just make of the Movement Blue her continued place. Great place for Skylark. I do think we use II a piacere but Qumulo took the host. All works out :O
ALAUDA Thank you
SAPPHO ofc ala. My little bird, you used to be caged. Isn’t it great to be free?
{They all smile and emote, in different ways.}
SAPPHO As for Meraki—
LOL its fine its fine its FINE. Idk what to do with him tbh
DANTE A It’s true, that he’s not come since I.7.
SAPPHO We’ll go to II after performance.
(II for us, Sector we’ll do it there obviously)
CLAUDE You’re clear.
{She jerks, white ticks glinting from her eyelids.} Cerise wants out. By Gene, I’ll leave. Leave, allegro. {She gives a rather forced smile to Sappho.}
SAPPHO wait wait your progress
CLAUDE Ad libitum. Semper
SAPPHO I know, jk. Now go! Haven’t seen your wings in sooo long
CLAUDE {The masked vermilion border wrinkles in time, and Claude smiles. She unfurls completely, her droplet-haze-runny longitudinal feathers unraveling. And deep, concert blue strokes highlight the shadows beneath the river depicted along its primaries. The river shines, but only to the keen viewer; in truth, it was barely light, all dim, but brewing underneath with unadulterated, fervent feathers that shook slightly, and bits of night seemed to fall from them, and in comparison her face and eyes shone[2]. She shook them out one more time, drawing a sigh from her director.}
SAPPHO Pulchritudinous. Can’t use that word v often :3
{Claude leaves before they can see her expression.}
“I want to go up higher,” she said.
She watched them for their reactions. Only two really mattered. But she was still with them for now.
Cerise, who’d been staring off into space during Agate’s turn, was now facing her way, eyes open; one pink, the other blue. But Skylark thought she saw the pink one, briefly, much darker, like a vivid purple—just as Cerise had turned her head. But maybe she was imagining it.
“That’s a good idea,” Cerise said.
Jaceus was nodding. They’d been here just two hours, but he’d already arranged his cloud-chair here, as they all sat on the empty, wide, flat, open surface of cloud, into something like a throne out of Knights v-World. “If that’s truly where their governments are, then they’d know,” he said.
“So you really want to find a way home,” Luke said.
No, Skylark thought. That wasn’t why she was going up. Behind them, Ultramarine had also stopped to listen; but she noticed Skylark’s gaze, and continued tossing her bind back and forth along the residual behind them with Calamus.
They led such pleasant lives here. All they did was grow weapons.
Skylark saw Jaceus nodding firmly. So Luke was asking him, and not her.
“Yes, that’s why you’re all here,” Jaceus answered.
Agate seemed, for a moment to start to shake her head. But she didn’t. Skylark thought, she—Skylark—she might be the only one who wanted to go up.
Because Jaceus definitely did not have a plan.
And Agate, Mr. T, Luke—they’d all just follow, without really looking up. Cerise really might be here for her own reasons…
Skylark shook her head. Maybe she could go with Cerise and discover what those were. She felt that Ultramarine wouldn’t leave her residual. She could ask Calamus, but she got this feeling that he wouldn’t leave his bind. The binds could be locked to their residual; oh, so neither would leave. Maybe they couldn’t even fly.
She had to figure out how to reach the next residual. A brief, fleeting image of Calamus grinning when she asked how, and lying again; a flash of Ultramarine, her blue rectangle hair sticking out, pointing directly to it, but talking again about the importance of not disturbing the clens. The clens, the clens. Skylark didn’t care about the clens. Another image cropped into her mind. It was blue with light, but very clear, cerulean blue, standing on the edge of a cloud. She was very high up. She looked up and there was simply sky. She looked down and the next residual was many meters off. She looked forward, into the masses of emptiness just beckoning for her, and stepped.
“Whichever way we go up, we can’t keep staying here,” came Agate’s voice. “I also have a feeling that the society above is militant.”
“Militant?” Luke. Skylark also didn’t know what that word meant.
“Sector I hasn’t been since AIV, but that may not have been the case with Sector II. They grow weapons. Assuming that these two only use one each and aren’t growing just for themselves, they must grow them for people above.”
Skylark thought of that one scene from Miss Gravity where the main character arrived in the Bowl of Hypotaxis, bringing the captured Fury to lay by the Minister of Flight’s feet, her face all blue from the excitement.
Chill, and tinted by the frost of having upended icebergs.
“As long as they have Scions,” Luke said. “By what Calamus said, they definitely have them.”
“Descended.”
“If they don’t have Agents, then maybe they don’t even purify Descended,” Luke continued. “So I’ll just follow you, Skylark. I’m sure we’ll still have some fighting to do.”
Skylark nodded automatically. She tried not to think about it. She’d nearly forgotten… Luke had to mention it. She hadn’t been able to hold the Porter up there forever. That was all she could do, for now…
“Or you could join Movement Blue,” came a voice, she did not know.
Skylark looked to the speaker.
They were not that tall, with brown eyes tinged with black, and very short hair, similarly hued; they seemed to be wearing a uniform of some kind, all in varying shades—all in blue—and running downwards across it, right from the dazon’s cloud-white collar spelling out an M down to the very thin-looking, but very dark blue, nearly black, left shoe, E, to spell MOVEMENT BLUE.
The front of their uniform had what looked like a crescent moon—no, the letter C.
“When did you get here?” Luke asked, on his feet; similarly, Mr. T looked concerned again; but the others seemed fine. Not that Skylark herself had noticed this person come in…
“Don’t worry about it,” the dazon replied. “I see that Ultramarine and Calamus have waived your sky privilege, and I heard you want to go up?” they asked, but to Skylark directly.
Skylark thought, if only their eyes were blue as well, then the colors would fit.
“Hold on, do you also have a sky name?” Agate asked.
“Well my name by droplet used to be—”
“What is Movement Blue?” Skylark asked. To her they clearly came from above. And while she didn’t see one of those binds on them, it could very well be within the folds of that coat. They’d just entered, just like that… and from above. What way to fly. Her heart jumped. She knew she could go like that, if she tried. All she had to do was keep trying—she’d never tried on herself—
“You’re asking several questions. My sky name is Tammarin Le. Movement Blue is our concert. Your two luthiers here aren’t really our best, but I’m here for their regular. Movement Blue is the command structure of our Sector; your fermata here—” they nodded in Agate’s direction—“is right. Sector I must be really uninteresting. But I need more than uncultured binds, I need some new reasons to go above, for the whole sopra is becoming so difficult. You’re all descended, Calamus told me.”
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They like Calamus and Ultramarine were using unfamiliar words, but Skylark knew they were also related to music. She nodded.
“Beat, that’s good. Well, do you need anything? If not, we can go now.”
“Wait.” Luke was pointing down to his clothes. Skylark thought they looked ordinary. “Your blue coat reminds me of the Agents of our Sector. They’d plaster their Agent names across their uniforms. Also, also—I’m a Scion, but don’t have my trait anymore. But I’m still pretty good at hand-to-hand. If you guys have something like v-World up there, that’s how I really got good—”
“Ad libitum. I’m doing things a bit differently from here. I’m going to put it very clear. Your organizational structure is missing, usually the only alter people who come here are that one porter with his—you know, I don’t even know what those are—and Descended. Like you. Once in a mode, some descended come here ad libitum, détaché. By accident, on their own. Our skyports don’t go to you. But you came as a group. That’s, what do I say, drammatico. I’m only a C Major. And I’ll be very clear with you, I’ve wanted my own cloud quintet for a long time.”
Tammarin looked around at them all; they frowned.
“Oh, there’s six of you. Septet, then.”
Skylark laughed. “I didn’t understand a lot of that, but I want to go up the residuals. And you can take us there.” She tried to keep from smiling again as she saw Jaceus’ face somewhat stirred in disarray.
“You are flurried. They were right. Yes. All six of you?”
Skylark looked to the others. Agate was beginning to look concerned, but her brain never got tired. If there was anyone following all of these musical terms, it was her. On the other hand, Luke’s face was torn even stronger than Jaceus’, but he didn’t look like he knew what else to say. Jaceus was halfway out of his seat, making these twitching movements as if he kept standing up, and forcing himself to sit back down and appear confident.
Cerise was nodding, looking as calm as she’d been this entire time. She winked at Skylark when they made eye contact.
“You know, I did tell my students my theories on what happened to the other Sectors, after AIV,” Mr. T said. He was smiling very broadly. “Sm. Le, I’ve always wanted a break from it all. The Government knows everything! Some schools are taught by Agents, after all. Skylark, if you’re truly going up—then I’m with you. But I agree with Luke, your cloak is really quite radiant!”
Tammarin nodded. “Again, your sky privilege is waived, and you must have had a really good reason for coming here. I understand that your Descended are treated differently?” Skylark nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Things move differently up here—just don’t go down. But sans rigueur. We will go freely, as we can.
“Skylark, was that your name?” they asked her.
She hadn’t told them; but Calamus and Ultramarine must’ve. She smiled.
“Skylark li Agle. All of us are going!” Her heart—it felt light. A place where Scions—descended—could use their traits freely. She thought quickly for a musical term—even though it was all made via tech in Sector I—and said, “We’re in a chord.”
Tammarin stared for a second; but then they, too laughed, looking away just a bit. “That’s pretty funny,” they said quietly to themselves, but of course Skylark heard. “OK, it doesn’t look like you all brought anything here anyway, besides your clothes, and your skeins. I’ll get the rest of your names on the way.” They turned briskly, and like the passing of a rare, cold note of wind, was standing outside, on the cloud, some few meters away. “Let’s go!” they shouted.
Skylark was the first out the door.
“GAME ON!”
Siara screams as we careen down the track, her red and green stripes causing a blur; my memories of my second older sister telling me that she, too didn’t know we both had an older sister that she was Governor. Fazzid Mi’er’s scarlet-ochre tights shrieking in sky as he whips past me, Mik’vael asking how’d I know, when I knew, just by looking, and I knew without knowing that her name was Majine. It’s Governor power, they might have their own that’s not Scion traits but something else entirely. The implications feel cold against my skin as Lacon already uses what they’ve named the Pinwheel, but on the second flop they drop both their racket and the APB, which is swept up and stolen off by the Raider High University player, immediately smacking it back to her teammate.
This means that even had the Furies somehow eventually taken down all ten ranked Agents, the Governors could come in, and ask us if we’re a tree. No, a copse.
I try to feel once again that simmering gold I’d felt before in my knees—but it’s gone.
“What the alter are you doing, Melea,” comes the voice of Vie, and I reactively dodge but no APB comes. She’s not gone off with the rest; I’ve stopped, and the other three are off far away, their rackets glinting.
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
“What’s your last name?” I ask.
Vie, her feet just about to pivot off, slaps her paddle across her left forearm. She does this frequently. “iHiela,” she says before leaping off. The ibef, I note, another descendant of a noted family line. That and the many apostrophes on this team.
None of it concerns me. Unless they are also related to Governors. Perhaps Bodi Ayer…
Out of chance a ball sails my way; I stop thinking and, with a few steps overtake it just before it hits the grass. Who’s nearest—
It’s Siara. She extends her racket, and I pop the APB over. She nods and flips it to Lacon, who before attempting another Pinwheel is rammed by a launchpad inverted sideways. They seem to hover in midair, before keeling over like a Lowers coffee slat filled with too much water, dangled in the air by Agate before emptying into the sink. Lacon wilts, but like everyone on this team, has the best BMP’s and doesn’t spill blood.
The APB spirals forward; I catch it.
As I run with it, I send a Thought-message to Agate again. Your sending failed. So she really is in Sector II. Running on air, whatever she’s doing. Jaceus Myodor. Your sending failed. Pass by to Lacon, barely pincing it on the tip of their racket. But teeted away just after by one on the other team. I’ll try it.
Majine La’go Voraëson.
I summon a launchpad to jump off my right foot, doing a near split to avoid one summoned by a disgruntled auditioner. Only one offensive launchpad per digit. She leaps away.
Hello, younger. A voice that sounds completely disenchanted. But it’s her. Golden filament, Lowers jeans, green-black eyes. A real Governor.
This is d’Voris. Then I realize that Governors normally can only be met via hologram appointments. But now I’m related to one—must be another “Golden Rule.”
We appreciate your disbanding the Furies. —She knows. She’s a Governor. They know everything—Have you acquainted the Paradisiac Company? Who are they? Another group of Scions? I’m not that surprised there were others organized, as we were disorganized—I suppose not. They are no threats to our existence. They lack the knowledge. Our?
Governors are known, I respond.
A sound—but not the Thoughts made by the person on the other side, or the feelings that come through. An actual, silvery sound, like the crinkling of foil or the butcher paper surrounding Agate’s pastries.
“Melea!” a voice outside of me calls softly. The crinkling sound subsides but I somehow know what it was. It was the sound of laughter.
Portal directly upon the next Governor seat of the one who asks you if you are a tree. It is one of our board. Shareholder’s meeting of the Group of Ten[3]. Play your raiders. You have both Governor’s and Magy’cal Gene; you will see the time that comes.
The crinkling, wrapping foil reappears. I barely hear my name.
It was not I who called you. Only an Ordinal.
“d’Voris.”
Foil. Sharp. Jaceus Myodor made a skyport with his own shape. With your trait we can proceed with our quarterly projections.
Majine leaves the Thought-feed.
“MELEA—” I turn towards the voice, and catch a flash of gold before black takes over me.
Scene 22
“Nex Traedis.” My name is Tr’aedis. He wasn’t saying his name any differently; but from the week’s span he’d spent here so far, none of the Nötr had the apostrophe. It helped to think of his own the same.
“Dyen, felot,” came the first. Welcome, stranger, tightening the green knots at the back of his head. Wos, fourth year, and hence why he’d been working on the light-in-the-sky with Emeli, their teacher, of also his ready companion, whose jade-tipped hair also indicated Wos. “Nex Gaudie,” she said. “Faet ri, Eikō,” sticking her finger into Eikō’s left cheek. My name is Gaudie. My friend, Eikō. Eikō smiled uncomfortably. This was only the third time he’d seen them, especially now as the fourth-years were all busy with their creations. But Tr’aedis was still trying to figure out the exact nature of their friendship.
He looked ahead, beyond them; the line was still increasing, predominantly Wos, each with their green identifiers, all trying to avoid their creation duties. Tr’aedis, at this point, still failed to comprehend just why he was so popular with them; he’d understood at first, with Puræ guiding him, and his being their only potential link to Jaceus, their lost sibling. But he’d seen soon enough. As missed as Jaceus might be to his family—Puræ and Ila ce especially—he wasn’t, not really, to anyone else, and so that wasn’t the reason.
“Nex Traedis,” he said to the next student, and so it kept going. The most likely reason, maybe, was so far his lack of show of magic—if back in Sector I it was technology or anything Alter, feats in raider or techistry or whatnot, that defined you, here, it was entirely magic. He hadn’t been the best at Technology. But after about a week here, there was no other explanation. Unless all of them had something embedded in their bodies that interacted with, well, the air, he really was in Tempest’s world. But all of them.
Tr’aedis didn’t quite know how to treat that understanding.
But from what he could gather of their language, as they did not have Neo English, they didn’t necessarily think he couldn’t use magic.
Only that he didn’t.
“Nex Tr’aedis,” he said. I am pretending, he thought. I am the wizard without the staff. I am the wizard without his cloak and stars. His faint memories of v-World bore no resemblance now to anything he saw here, the colors and world he knew here were, just, so vibrantly different. It was real.
So far, they weren’t displaying their magic in front of him; they all seemed fairly comfortable naming themselves.
“Da, Koko!” said the next, and Tr’aedis recognized her as the one with skin of burnished scarlet, back there in the seated crowd; she was moving past him and getting to her knees on the grass, and embracing a child in grey. Koko came behind, leading a group of them; he noted Tr’aedis and gave him a look, and Tr’aedis thought but couldn’t say back, I want to be with students my age. But he stepped away from the girl, now standing with the child over her shoulder, and joined Koko and the rest of the children.
Quickly, he saw Zhenu and Namdoe, sudden tints of purple, appearing from amidst the crowd; and the other Wos, being two years below, moved to let them pass. The three Nam, three including Uerora carrying the child, were always together, and as far as Tr’aedis could tell occupied a certain space of authority, and Nam were often present at the Wos’ creations with their teachers. However, and while those teachers, like Emeli and Avien, Triomphe and a few others he’d noticed being called -turen, carried the most presence at the school, there hadn’t seemed to be a principal or any clear guidelines, and not only for that, but also for assignments, schedules, texts, and student organizations. Well, there were probably those, but every time students gathered together in what seemed to be not merely friends, they were mostly if not all of the same color-year—so those could just be classes. Further, many of the students resided here, whether they were the toddlers in grey or the seventh years, the uncolored Crea—the smallest class, as far as he could discern.
One of the toddlers grabbed his hand—it was time for class. Tr’aedis nearly gave a wave to the older students, before stopping himself—it probably meant anything. He sighed and followed the slow-moving group, led by Koko, as they rounded the tree in the center of the courtyard, Tr’aedis still holding the toddler’s hand. He tried not looking at the toddler’s feet, because he knew they weren’t touching the ground. This one was silent, but the others were emitting small sounds that he really couldn’t tell between language and sound. Even a week into living in this world…
Today they were learning the words for nature. Koko was in turns pointing to various parts of the tree, and saying different words. The children repeated after him. Tr’aedis stared at the parts of the tree; he’d thought it was fully natural, not a cyber tree by any means; so the words would correspond to the ones he knew. He listened and matched; toverhe for ‘bark’ or ‘tree’, [toe-vyer], if the trees were themselves frozen toes of giants. (A brief thought, whether this world had those.) Tot for the leaves, which were yellow, but they were so bright that Tr’aedis felt, meant in the peak of health, and not of autumn; tov for the branches. [Toh] and [Toevh]. All toes.
Tr’aedis felt his stomach rumble. He stepped back in surprise, letting go of the toddler’s hand. It was the first time he’d become hungry, as he knew his body-maintenance prescriptions had addressed that. Until now.
Koko’s laugh. “Nort Traedise,” he said; nort sounding somewhat familiar to Tr’aedis, a word he felt he’d heard many times before and only about him. “Nort Traedis!” echoed the toddlers.
They may not have BMP’s, but they have something else that doesn’t make them hungry, he realized. One significant difference between the school here and Blazon (and every other Sector I school, most likely) was that there was no designated eating period. The only times he saw anyone eat was when it was manufactured on the spot.
A glow of the brightest yellow splintered into his view—but he looked, and saw that Koko was tearing one of the leaves in two. The toddlers all had their hands over their eyes; and Koko, his eyes opened and focused, fully gold, handed him one golden half. Koko motioned for Tr’aedis to put it into his mouth. Tr’aedis did; and he chewed.
Habelsam floret. Just like what—before his parents were changed—Father and Mother would give him habelsam floret for breakfast on acting days. Sitting in the brightly lit dinner-chamber. Golden triangles dappled behind their blurred faces.
Licking off the cream.
“Oh, my, sweet triceratops,” he ejected, as that bright memory became overwhelmed by a feeling of something being broken inside, like a host of butterflies all inside his limbs and watery organs being smothered by a warm, thick gold. The warmth began in separated spouts but then spread together and connected. A baker spreading butter on open slices. The warmth colonnaded and crystallized. Lowers toaster turning white bread into black death. Tr’aedis felt the butterflies leave, and, feeling all their eyes upon him, vomited onto the grass.
A somewhat silver, but now so dulled it was grey, object that looked suspiciously like his receptor was wet and covered with the rest of what he had last eaten. His body-maintenance prescriptions. All gathered into one. Out of his body for the first time since the operation at birthport… How would he change? He waited with a growing, weightless uncertainty—a pain soon began trickling out of his temples, and as the toddlers made noises of delight, the taste of light still heavy throughout his body, he felt his hair fall out. Wisp by wisp. Slight reams of his blonde hair, his default color only sometimes enhanced with Alteryear, falling onto his palm—and it stopped. Why did it stop? Tr’aedis felt for the hair still on his head—some was still there, left centrally on his head past bare skin—and what remained felt like—it felt like—it felt the same.
A glint.
One of the hairs on his palm was gold.
I ROSE, the sun’s meandering striking my cheek, my holopillow struggling to make face about my head as I turned, opening my skin toward the beams, resisting the call to wakefulness, for the world meant return, to the unfit palace for anything truly imaginary.
I turned my head. Somewhat, for as the holopillow continued its soft piece de resistance, beckoning my presence back to that clearer world, a realization surged through my limbs, filling my feet, turning my toes as I leapt, left the bed, fully awake —For there was something that so filled the world I once knew, a golden scent, better than binelan, for there was something kept a pace with my walking, wondering thoughts. Before I was changed to the Agency day-form topsuit, engraved with the R, I was already looking upon the world with a measure of its inhabitants. For they could all appear, they could all appear within the limitless space of the V-book, and it was a world, it was a realm, it was a universe. And in it I now saw the reflection of the one I knew.
I had to write!
Laughing, I took it upon myself to leap back into the bed. I had to redo it. Reenact it. I closed my eyes, and feigned sleep; for soon, forsooth, the sun would rise, and my companion would enter—!
I looked, and the door remained hung, ajar; —silence, and as I opened my eyes, tossing aside the holopillow, changing once more into the uniform, I looked out the hallway, and only the usual Agents walking their way, no hectoring companion in view.
But I was awake. I was awake, and the sun was afar!
Summoning my V-port, the V-pages of my V-book softly tousling the air, I stepped out, and proceeded to continue. Where was I? Seeing them in my mind, I felt.
The boy was high in the sky. He was wearing a silk shirt, with yellow fringes and tassels. It matched the golden lining of the bird beneath him, a great bird, with wings of the strongest blue. The sun was bright beneath them.
What was next—that was the question. It always remained now, at the forefront of my mind, for these past twelve hours. The other V-books from the Third Bureau lay hidden beyond their crepuscle lit by the V-port, only the slightest circle of light let in as my V-book’s cylinder appeared into view. I only had to put forth Thought, and the pages would fill. An innovation so beseeched by society.
I had to tell N’ziet.
Closing the V-port, the circle became a line, I Thought for N’ziet rik Drie.
I waited outside my door; leaning against the incline that the right side made against the hallway. After a few moments a Thought reentered that space we called the Thought-feed, and it was the Philosopher. Joined, quickly now by his inseparable subordinate, whom I’d have liked to continue referring to as ‘Rexy,’ but exceeding me in vote, the rest of the First Bureau had elected to name them Anagram.
Good morning, Third Agent, came Rexy’s voice—well, not an actual voice of course, but one so smooth I heard as such.
I wish you a good morning, I replied.
We never wish other emotions or qualities, said N’ziet. But you’re having breakfast. And food is always good.
Soon enough, I came to witness him, standing at the head of the hallway, just before the branch’s departure down to the cafeteria. His familiar phoenix tattoo rippled across his shoulders and back.
I crossed that distance. I went so quickly—nearly striking Agent Istria, who’d just emerged from her own headquarters; but she avoided my step easily, as she headed off to wish her own gud mornynge to a fellow Agent. But I didn’t look—N’ziet slapped my raised hand, in the greeting that we’d begun. “Where’s C. P.?” I asked, but N’ziet merely pointed with an arm, and Rexy was there.
This time, they wore their weapon in pieces, enough of them to fit a rather large neck-bracelet, all in green with the pieces barely separated. They were wearing their true uniform for the first time (in my viewing): the same flynder, and simply the letters A N A G R A M emblazoned across the center of the topsuit. Like their eyes, only these letters were black; the rest from the top down was slate.
“I think you have something to say, Raegoth,” they said.
I nodded, and we began the walk down.
“The V-book is a remarkable form,” I said, to both of them. N’ziet nodded; Rexy, as I turned my head to look, was frowning. Why? I’d only said a technological platitude.
“Senra was telling me you walked past the visionices aisle,” C. P. said. “When you visited their Bureau.”
“I got so many books,” I said. Some Agents passed us; we smiled and waved and exchanged further platitudes.
“In essence, it is the same,” C. P. continued. “The V-book is still words, albeit formed and presented differently, on a page.”
“But—”
“But as an image of what we understand as the book, it is the same,” they said. “And that’s all that really counts, right &Z?”
“&Z” was considering, his brow furrowed. By now we’d already reached the lay of the tables; I looked for my subordinate.
“But as you say, the presentation is important,” N’ziet only said.
I found her; Sara was seated at an otherwise empty table, or rather seated on the table, waiting in her uniform, all black with the exception of a large silver-white microphone drawn across it diagonally. That very microphone, twice as large as its predecessor, was strapped to her back.[1]
The sight reminded me of a certain… people, and while I couldn’t exactly recall at this moment, I knew without further inquiry not from this Sector.
“Let’s eat,” I told them all, and as N’ziet nodded, putting a leg over one of the chairs, Sara keeled him off of it with one of her own.
“‘Too early for philosophy,’” N’ziet simply said, grinning.
“I’m challenging you, Raegoth, for Third Agent,” Sara said to me, unstrapping her large microphone with the sound that middle-school Velcro made when society above Lowers still used backpacks.
I at first believed her to be jesting; at second, she had indeed called me for breakfast, for esteemably this very purpose; but at third, she still hadn’t left the Glass for a mission with her superior, and until now, and so at home, it seemed, she’d decided to do so only as my superior, and not the opposite.
Rexy sat down, ducking Sara’s other leg. A white flash.
“You are jesting,” I told Sara, noting the growing number of bodies in the vicinity. Even a mere kick… even that had raised a swell of times past, times long before I stepped into the Agency… I took a step forward, and made a quick feint (for her weapon).
She avoided it, and, for the sake of our audience, I proceeded to do a barrage of feints, grabbing for her mike, the strap, a bang of her hair, Rexy’s weapon—they too evaded—and soon, N’ziet watching from his seat at the table, we were a panoply of swinging arms and legs, myself making Sara play defense, swinging at all the balls and strikes, and the crowd steadily grew. A flash of white.
“I sleep nine hours a day,” Mizuhara-san translated, as Sho-kun dipped his head sheepishly, giving his angelic smile. “Ore mo,” I said. Some of the Japanese I could command. “But I will never be as good as you,” and Mizuhara-san murmured the proper words to Sho-kun, who—
Alter steel out of nowhere barraged me, and I stumbled, briefly touching my forehead: it wasn’t wet. It hadn’t hurt me; but the crowd’s roar abated, for I had been touched, one who never knew defeat, which was not true, for there was that one Emulus, who with his shape had—
Wait, what are these words coming into my head? I looked at Agent Sara; she was four feet away, her oversized mike #2 held by her right hand; C. P. was back at the table, calling N’ziet’s bet—some cards arrayed in front of them, they were betting on me, me, Raegoth, who was grave, gentle, and glorious—
Sara’s mike came forward—a feint, noted—I moved around in the Porter’s imitation mode of the Nötr enhancement, swung, and knocked the unwieldy thing up.
Splinter. A gap in the ceiling; just wide enough to carry Sara’s thing, stuck.
I turned back to Sara.
“You are a fool,” I said, quoting my memory. A day of snow and books… the white tables, Sara’s microphone, that part of her uniform, N’ziet’s perfect teeth as he grinned… it was coming back, the Fury leader before me in the library, wielding something that spoke, and it spoke to me. It spoke to me in fire. A sacrosanct sword of name, one that in history came out of me, like Pendragon’s inheritance, or the v-World Guilty Crown. A named blade—
“Reify,” I whispered, only to myself; and I felt a tug of flame, but nothing further. As the crowd applauded around me, the white tables mesmerizing, I thought. I remembered. A boy in the sky, riding a great bird with golden blue. I remembered a dance; a dance my spirit claimed, one of an ancient god. A name undeserved then.
It came to me now…
HORUS.
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[1] Theme of Sara Planner: Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud,” the Mike & Me edit, released in 2022
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[1] Romeo and Juliet, Prologue 1-2.
[2] Theme of Claude M. Tone – Marrzaan Remix of Hikaru Utada’s “Sanctuary”, released in 2018 on YouTube.
[3] The first they are mentioned; choose a piano, preferably out of tune. Play middle C.
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