Her name was Hailien Dreadlock. Her rank was 37.

In the slanted streets of Gutworth only the latter mattered. The hanger-ons of society either averted their gaze or couldn’t stop staring. By choice, she kept herself out of the cities day to day life, favoring assignments to far off locales where she could be by herself for months on end. The sight of Dreadlock in the streets was as rare as the crisis that had called her.

She curved around a mass of people, either fighting or trying to stop a fight, impossible to tell. And within Gutworth there was rarely a difference.

She glanced up at a recruitment poster. It must have been made recently, as it’s ink was still hot, and it mentioned Adam.

Yet time moved fast in a crisis, and it was already outdated. The poster showed a glossy shot of her and several others, posing as if strength came from fashionability. She did not remember taking such a shot, and assumed it must have been painted or conceived through some machine, but it was so realistic that she decided her memory must have been at fault.

Half of the people on the poster were dead. It was a poster meant to entice new blood, and so larger than life characters had been selected, fuck their reputation.

Behind her was Genoa flexing proudly, truly believing that if she got big enough the hurt and pain that showed on her face would disappear (it didn’t and, due to her death earlier that day, never would)

Chancer Blemish front and center, staring into the viewer’s eye like he could see them. He was considered a shoo-in for a role as the seventh Constant, yet just minutes ago she had gotten reports he was dead. how much fortunes changed in just a day.

Behind him was The Basset Hound, a Number who Haillien did not fully get the appeal of, then Montanna, who Haillien actively despised, and then Stumble, one of the few Numbers Haillien actually liked.

Next to Stumble’s earnest grin was Hailien herself, body turned away from the viewer, the profile of her masked jaw apparent, especially the way the implant traced down her neck, ending right before the shoulder blades, her back looked incredible. Her remark was at her side, a massive broadsword that dwarfed her own body. It was always out, except during downtime.

She never gave herself downtime.

Tossing the poster aside, underneath it was an older poster showing a similar scene, the only difference was all but one of the Numbers on this one were dead. She was the exception. A rip, and beneath that one an even older one. Seven long dead Numbers grinning like ghouls, frozen snapshot taken at the peak of their powers. She couldn’t remember any of their names.

She stared at the uncovered poster for a very long time. Then she rounded a corner and entered the building.

Floor 76. So high clouds regularly passed the windows. Eight places had been set up around a large shrink wrapped oval table, the lavish powder blue cloth was especially in right now.

Half of the seats were already occupied. Hailien picked the chair closest to the door and sat down. A conversation was in play, and so they ignored her arrival.

“It’s this protocol shit. For absolute nerds. What are we doing following procedure? I thought we were radicals...” said a gray-skinned Constant to her right. They were dressed in a boiled leather jacket and cutting into a crustacean with three layers of shell. The process made difficult by an inadequate set of silverware. “If we were actually given permission to go after this guy. Then-” He snapped his fingers, and their fork fell to the table with a clatter.

“Hear hear,” a bulky Constant said across from them. He had his chair pushed back to the far wall of the room, and was busying himself with carving a small, round object. The room cast shadows that hid specificity, leaving as a silhouette of bulk.

The gray skinned Constant looked around the room, not satisfied by the large one’s support. “Anyone besides Karol want to back me up on this?” Breathing through their teeth, she pointed to a tall Constant built like a streetlamp. “Come on, Clive, we gonna let this guy rip and tear through the ranks?”

“Yes, Jeavell, of course we are,” Clive said, his eyes closed, hands behind his frame. He hadn’t touched his food. “It’s fun to watch. The numbers dying in droves is embarrassing, but I see no reason to step in. Mister Adam wants to leave, right?” His smile grew wider. “Maybe we just stop pestering him, he’ll go away on his own”

“Absolutely not,” said a Constant on the far end in the largest chair, her outfit the most professional of any of them, giving the impression she had just left a work meeting (knowing her busy schedule, she probably had). “What you’re suggesting is close to treason.”

“Treason!” Clive laughed. “What’s treason is disobeying our dear old master. And I haven’t heard anything from Morgan to the contrary, so who are you to say he’s against it?”

“Would my word be enough to convince you, Clive?” Emerging from the top of a molding staircase was Morgan Lemure in the flesh.

He was accompanied by Quertra and Daaz on either side of him. The woman in business attire nodded, and sheepishly gave her chair to him.

He sat down with a ridiculous flourish of his cape, cloak undulating like a sponge being squeezed.

“Morgan, I’m-I’m surprised to see you up,” Clive said nervously. “Last I saw you were dead asleep in your room, having night terrors about Wyrms, ranting about immigrants… immigrants stealing our Wyrms, I suppose.”

“And yet I’m here now” he said, his tone forceful. He motioned to Daaz and Quertra and they took seats opposite him, the levity in the room thoroughly killed.

Morgan acknowledged Hailen’s presence, perhaps even giving her the slightest gesture of a smile, before asking “who is our highest number currently.”

An easy if not sobering question. “Well 40’s dead.” Clive offered.

”So is 39.” The business suited woman said, adjusting her pillbox hat. “Just happened.”

”What?”

“Yucian is right, and perhaps not even by Adam, as far as we know, as the murder took place a mile away from 40’s death, but within the same minute.” Morgan said. “And it’s no coincidence. There are bad actors taking advantage of us. We’re seen as weak and that has consequences for all of us. The moment we kill Adam is the moment we have stability back. What’s to stop other strangers with a grudge from trying their luck? If one of them succeeds at killing, oh, I don’t know, let’s pick a number at random, maybe the highest number still living, say, 37…” For the first time, the Constants seemed to notice that she was here, and they turned to her as one, their faces skeptical. “Well it makes it clear Adam’s success can be replicated, or even remember what Remainder did, and try to outdo that.”

When silence remained, Hailien realized with dread that she was expected to answer.

“That won’t happen, Syr.”

“It by all likelihood can and will… not that survival, as impossible as it seems, won’t be celebrated.” And there was that sympathetic smile again.

His cloak seemed to swallow him as he leaned forward, pulsing with the twitch of his fingers, his hands gripping the table so hard the pure marble cracked. “Adam, or the other one, or ones we suspect but do not know, will become dissatisfied with just our Numbers. I heard all your comments before I came in. Why do you think I haven’t sent you out there to face him?”

No one answered. They all had their heads turned away from him, to avoid the awkwardness of being singled out. Yucian slumped down, her heart pounding. Hailien thought they were all rather pathetic.

“Because the Constants represent something eternal, they must be protected in the way the numbers are not,” Quertra said, speaking from Morgan’s left. “If one of us dies, that leaves all of us vulnerable.”

Morgan suddenly released his grip and sat upright, his mouth gasping as if he had come up from some raging river. “Quite right,” he said breathlessly. “Put your egos aside and remember that.” Clive had a look on his face that seemed to say Well, obviously he’s not talking about me.

He launched into the plan for how they would respond. Animate and forceful, he reminded them all why he was their namesake. Hailien would be the figurehead of a campaign to restore their image in the eyes of the town. If any of the numbers actually killed Adam, Hailien would get credit. If she killed him herself, even better. If Adam was not killed shortly, they would dub him a menace, a source of chaos tearing the town apart, and shame anyone who wrongly believed this stranger to be a champion of the populace, a nasty rumor already spreading.

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“Do we continue to tell the numbers they’ll become the new 41 if they bring him in?” someone asked. Hailien shifted in her chair and looked down, knowing that she would probably have to lie.

“Of course. It’s been a good motivator so far. Why stop? But no matter who it is, our 37 will be the new 41.”

Daaz whispered something in his ear. She showed him her wrist.

His dead wyrm skin coat shook, and his expression was unmistakably surprised as he stood up. “Put them on the speaker, I want everyone to hear this.”

The speaker was a large, decrepit device that had been hanging over them throughout the meeting, multiple brass arms terminating in lifelike mouths.

A hand crank lowered it down slowly, dust was thrown with every jerk and jostle until one mouth was in front of every guest. All of the mouths began talking at once, but Hailien could only hear the one closest to her.

“Daaz, are you there? Come in, Daaz!” It was the voice of Lemsk, current rank 31.

“Yes, I’m here,” Daaz said, getting so close to the mouth in front of her that it seemed like she was about to kiss it. “31, we last have you located at a spot we believe Adam massacred several Numbers, what the fuck happened?” Morgan made a hand gesture that was a finger moving counter clockwise in a tight circle.

Hailien couldn’t fathom what this meant, but Querta reacted as if he had recited a poem from memory.

She could hear background noise, the sound of something heavy being moved, and side chatter. The mouths dutifully remained open until a more substantial message was received.

“Ah, we’re fine, we’re fine. You know, just-“ Yelling at someone farther away from the speaker, laughter, the atmosphere lighter than Hailien expected. “-Sorry, we were… we’re in a hotel room now, how funny is that? Me and 29 and- just some kid we picked up, and that’s not all, we- ugh, it’s so crazy Daaz, like you’d never even guess what happened!”

“Where is Adam?”

Murmuring from the mouths, a conversation happening intentionally out of the speakers range. Yucian whispered something to Clive, who looked like he couldn’t cared less. Jeavell tented her fingers and leaned forward, uncharacteristically interested.

“He’s right here, see? Oh, I mean… here, hear him.” The sound of a door opening, someone having a quite tense conversation with a severely wounded man, by the way his words were drawn out and pained. The same voice saying, “Devon, say hi!” but Haillien did not hear a response.

“That’s good, 31,” Daaz said, after some coaxing from Morgan. She cleared her throat. “Can you tell us where you now are?” She looked at her wrist. “We have you at the Chensington Outskirts. Confirm location?”

“Location confirmed, we’re at the Salmacious.” A hotel considered luxurious by those with no knowledge of the word. “By the way, we have a Reserve member here that we want to make a Number. Since we’re the new 41, and all. That’s okay, right?”

In theory, this was correct. But Lemsk was not the new 41, and she was talking to a group who had every intention of stopping her. “Of course, my dear Inheritor,” Lemure said. “Slot her in at number 1. She’ll work her way up like all the others.”

“Great!” 31 wasn’t at all fazed by Lemure’s voice. Hailien wondered if she even recognized it. “Okay, we’ll come give him to you guys, then, byeeee!”

The conversation ended there, signaled by the mouths all closing at once, and the structure floating up to the ceiling. Seven heads turned to Lemure, his face frozen in consideration.

“Morgan, are we really-“

“The girl must not think for a minute that her role in our organization is threatened.” He turned to Hailien. Jeavell shifted angrily, not used to being interrupted. “You know that she cannot leave that hotel alive, but you were close to her, correct?”

She shrugged and shifted, mirroring Jeavell’s body language. “I’m close with all the Numbers.”

“Which is what makes you the perfect candidate for 41.” A pause, as if waiting for objections that never came. “You won’t dirty your hands. I’ll have 35 handle it. He's close by. He has proven to be good at matters such as these.”

“And if Adam kills them as well?” Karol was back to carving, and seemed to forget the question as soon as he asked it.

“Then we’ll need more recruits, and perhaps our new 41 will make this charade easier by killing him herself.” His voice had a pointedness that had been absent before, it was clear he wanted this to be over. It humanized him in Haillen’s eyes, even as it lost him respect on the same turn.

A bellboy dressed in a sloppy apron bugged people for their plates. Hailien kept an iron grip on her own. She hadn’t eaten yet.

“Anyway, I’ll say what we’re all thinking.” Clive said, “I don’t think someone of her rank could have beaten him to the point of unconsciousness. What, do you guys not know what a trap looks like?” While Clive continued, giddy as ever to prove others wrong, the waiter refused to take no for an answer, and was waiting, arms crossed, for Hailien to relinquish her plate. A final fried crawlcow leg was taken as an impromptu snack before the plate was finally given.

“I think Adam is a man, and a man can be injured..” Morgan’s head flopped from one side to the next, the cloak by all accounts seeming like the only thing keeping his body upright. Hailien had heard from Quertra that their master was sick in some way, and needed drugs that kept “a darkness” in him from slipping free, but it seemed as if he had outright difficulties in controlling his own body, even now, when he was supposedly at his best. Quertra slipped something into an outstretched hand and he quickly injected it. His face now free of tremors, he continued.

“41, you have your orders. Please meet 35 and 36 at the hotel. After, you will go to the city square of Gutworth. Begin preparing the citizens for an announcement. Yucian will give you anything you need to fulfill this. You will present Adam’s body before the town, you will take credit for his murder.”

“And if we do not have his body? If by some bad luck or misjudgment he is still alive in 24 hours?” This time it was Jeavell, eying a sulking Clive, beaten to the punch on playing devil’s advocate.

Morgan Lemure smiled. “Well, you’ll all get your chance to have a little fun. How long has it been since any of you have had a good fight?”

Hailien observed the blank faces around the room, with Daaz being the only exception. Many of them had little reason to do more than enjoy their status and fuck who they wished. Gutport had never had much in terms of danger, outside of the semi common Aberrations or Contenders who came in from the outside of the Drum, but that was easily dealt with by hole punchers and lower Numbers. It was the unfortunate reality of why the Legacy had settled here. They wouldn’t last a second in many of the other Murder Games that had taken hold of the larger cities. Even Luminescia, a quick swim across the water, was way out of their league.

The cloak stood up, and the body of Morgan rose with it. “You should leave now Hailien. Let us know what the man on the street thinks of Adam. It’s not something I need to know… but it interests me, and I’m sure it’s the same for you.”

All the faces turned again to her. There was a respect there that wasn’t before. An awkward nod from Jeavell, polite smile from Yucian, an almost normal wave from Clive. Karol even moved his massive frame into the light, and offered a wide smile. The object he had been carving was a skull, and on it was the image of a man being torn apart by a galaxy.

“Do you have anything to say then, Hailien?”

She did have one thing. “Do you still see me as that kid, Morgan? The one wielding a Remark that didn’t belong to me? Crying out in pain as my searing flesh went in, again and again, across his own. I know the one I killed, Theven, was important to you, one of the original members of your regiment from your useless placement war. What did that war net you but a permanent occupation at our little port town, endlessly overshadowed by the town across the bay, and eons behind them in terms of technology? Do you worry, Morgan, that the one who held the blade is more than capable of holding it again? What do you think I could do to your throat?”

She said none of this. “I appreciate the opportunity, and will not disappoint you.”

Morgan nodded. “It was never in doubt.”

Hailien nodded in response, and left.

.

.

.

As soon as she was gone, Morgan wished she had stayed. The serum that kept the Other at bay was tied to his own mental state. With her gone, the only one outside of Quetra that he felt his equal, he found the fears about his nest seemed more reasonable. The Others bigotries and hangups coming back again with a vengeance, chewing away and distorting the simple truth that he knew and was raised on, that this was his home and he deserved to live in it. He would have to end this meeting soon, be tied up again to avoid the Other from ruining what was already a precarious situation.

Haillien deserved the Needle, more than any of them. But he knew that if she received it, she would kill him with it outright. Already she was stronger than him, and only a bit more institutional strength would make that as clear to her as it was to him. In a lot of ways he deserved such an end, but he liked the view from his tower, the small little slice of the world that was unequivocally his. The few moments of lucidity his servants gave him were something to cling to.

“I don’t think she said a single word that entire time.” Jeavell put their feet up and fished out a cigarette. “Damn rude is what that was.”

“She said a word. Fifteen, to be exact.” Karol dropped his carved skull to the ground, and started to work on an apple he had been saving. Not to carve, but to eat.

“She watched us and listened. That was all that was asked of her.” Morgan detected the tension emanating from Quertra, and wanted to defuse it. “None of you should feel threatened by her,” he sighed, his breath catching in his throat. “Sometimes I wonder-“

“Wonder what?” But he didn’t answer Clive. They had another guest to attend to. He waved his hand, and the large elevator doors that had just closed behind Hailien opened again. There was a small woman there, short of stature but bright and confident in a way that transcended height. She marched into the room like she belonged.

“State your name,” Morgan said.

“Morgan Lemure 15, my given name is Tremble, and I define it as an impulse to survive,” she said confidently. “And I’m the only one who has seen Adam Kadmon and lived.”

That statement was false, but Morgan allowed her to have that sense of uniqueness. Hopefully she didn’t notice the faux smiles from his Constants. They all thought they were so much better than her. Children, all of them. She would make fine company. Let them understand what he meant by making her their equal.

“Very well… do you think… he trusts you?”

She nodded. “Yes. Absolutely.”

He took out an item, a black spire with an infinitely sharp point that seemed to rise upward forever.

“Then let me tell you the secret of this world.”