The boroughs of Third York had been named after famous heroes of history, myth and legend by one of its founders. Mine had been named after Siegfried — Sigurd in old norse and Sigfrido to the Spanish speakers that insisted on localizing every name — from Germanic legend.

A wandering warrior who wielded the blade Balmung, slew a dragon and bathed in its blood to become invulnerable, many politicians and spokespeople from my slice of Third York spoke at great lengths about how these heroic features could be seen reflected in my people.

I would’ve told you that was all horseshit, if you’d asked me. For a start, the Germanic population of Sieg was basically nonexistent. Following that, I had a hard time imagining anyone picking up a sword to fight for noble causes when most of the time everyone was either keeping hands out of their pockets or sticking their own hands into the next guy’s pocket.

And thirdly, my people were notoriously not invulnerable.

A third of Sieg, the part that was filled with South American immigrants, was renamed by the Isolationist Argentine Catholics — who went ahead and canonized José de San Martín as a Saint because the Pope was so far away and jingoism was right there — as “El Santo José” and claimed it was the first step of a bright new life for all the people coming in.

The Blackfish — who’d been running the place since before any flood of immigrants got big ideas — proceeded to show we had no saints looking after us through copious amounts of violence, drug dealing and extortion, which lead to the other social and religious groups scornfully renamed my neighborhood as “El Santo Ataúd”.

A coffin is something that holds a corpse. A holy coffin was something that held bodies that refused to die.

=]O[=

It took the better part of the night to put out the fires and get the people to safety or to the mortuary.

At one point my mom got worried and came looking for me. When she saw what happened, she tried to pull me away. When that failed and I resisted to the point of scratching her, she stayed with me and my friends until we saw that the issue was more or less solved. In the immediate sense, at least.

“... do your parents know where you are?” she asked Moss and Chris. When they shook their heads, she nodded to herself and said, “C’mon, I’ll make dinner for everyone and call your folks so they don’t worry. I’m thinking everyone in El Santo is going to know about this by the end of the hour.”

Chris nodded while Mohsen’s nerd brain immediately started short-circuiting at the imagined possibility of bothering an authority figure.

“Um, I-I really don’t want to be a b-bother,” he stuttered.

“No problem at all,” Mom assured him. “I’m used to cooking for kids I don’t live with, thanks to that one.”

John took the nod in his direction with all the grace that could be expected from an eight-year-old and stuck his tongue out at my mom. Normally I would’ve smacked him upside the head for it, but I was only peripherally aware of the conversation around me, too busy staring at the abomination’s curse that was currently being ignored by emergency services in favor of putting out fires.

That’s one.

That was one death that came out of my killing Jacob Hill and his two friends. I’d been taught that the consequences of my actions were as much my fault as my actions, so that was four notches on my death tally.

And then there was everyone the abomination had burnt while rampaging, either killing or maiming or scarring or just hurting. Those people probably had friends and family — the abomination probably had friends and family — meaning that I’d also emotionally wounded a whole host of unknown people, possibly even traumatizing them.

My actions had rippled out catastrophically. I was responsible for possibly dozens of deaths.

I surprised everyone when I started throwing up.

=]O[=

“And you’re sure you won’t throw up again?” my mom asked.

I nodded, mouth full of lemon soda. She sighed and walked away, muttering something about making calls to parents.

I swallowed, then looked at my friends who patiently waited until my mom was out of ear shot before turning to me and calling me a bitch.

“Bitch,” said Chris, immediately proving that I knew my friends well.

“Yeah, how are you gonna throw up just ‘cause of a little fire?” Moss asked, snorting.

“Does the princess need a fainting couch?” asked John, even if I could see a little concern in his eyes.

I considered telling them all to go to hell, maybe fighting them. It would serve as a good distraction.

But I’d distracted myself enough that day. I wasn’t very smart, but I could catch a clue and figure out when it was time to face the music.

“I–” my voice caught in my throat, but I swallowed saliva and said, “It’s my fault.”

“... what?” asked John. “What are you talking about? What’s your fault?”

“Everything,” I whispered. “Th-The man with the iron limbs, the fire… it’s all my fault.”

John’s eyes widened with comprehension and Mohsen was getting there, but Charlie asked, “Again, what the fuck are you talking about? How could it be your fault?”

The words stuck in my throat, but I forced them through.

“I killed Kingston Hill’s son.”

Whoever said that confession was good for the soul was full of shit. All I felt was hollowed out and anxious for the inevitable judgment of my peers. My mind flooded with terrible possibilities, and it was only after I said it that I realized that any of them would stand to gain if they just told anyone what I’d done.

John would probably be accepted into the actual, real Blackfish for solving their Hill problem. So would Moss, which’d finally make all the other kids respect him. Charlie would get her dad to look at her for longer than the space of a dinner.

Not to mention that they would guarantee their own safety.

All they had to do was run out and–

John’s hand fell on my shoulder, making my eyes snap up.

I saw nothing but worry in the eyes of my friends.

“Tell us everything.”

I did.

=]O[=

As the sun crawled under the horizon, the convoy slowed down and eventually came to a stop, the effort coordinated through constant radio chatter and coming with practiced ease.

Soon enough, all thirty of the caravans, eighteen-wheelers full of portable laboratories and greenhouses, war trucks, improvised tanks and supply trucks were stopped next to the worn-down, unmaintained black concrete road. By providence, they wound up next to one of the old road signs, the kind that said how long of a path there was left to them.

While the navigators supported the plotted trajectory in their notebooks, computers and plans, Eric walked away from the caravan and towards a surprisingly lush desert bush, with intention of urination.

Naturally, because nothing could ever be simple, he was interrupted by Aaron, who walked up to him just as he got within range of the bush and said, “Radio team picked up some details.”

“Did it?” asked Eric, stopping in his tracks and looking at Aaron. “Do tell.”

“Something came up in Third York,” he reported.

Eric looked at him with a flat expression for about six seconds, then promptly turned back to the bush and undid his zipper.

Aaron looked away, grimacing, and said, “Oh for God’s– Put your shame away!”

“Ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of,” Eric assured him, mostly focused on the task.

“Eric, this is serious,” Aaron said, nervously adjusting his hat.

For some unknowable reason, he never went anywhere without a black bowler hat. Eric had once assumed that he was covering a bald spot, but on the one occasion he’d seen Aaron bare-headed, he’d shown a head full of silky black hair, just a bit longer than Eric’s own military cut, hidden under a sensible black cowboy hat.

“It’s always serious with you,” Eric muttered, trying to get an arc over the bush while he was at it. “Alright, what is it?”

Aaron’s eyes snapped to the arc and back, grimacing, before he said, “Some madcog came up with a new invention. Something for mass production.”

“Really.”

“A-And they want us to help make deliveries to the other six.”

“Will we be paid for this?” Eric asked, shaking out Little Ericson to flick droplets away, some of them getting close to Aaron, who backed off with a grimace. “Or are they threatening to fire a missile in our general direction if we fail to comply?”

“Paid,” Aaron assured him, “Paid generously.”

“Mm,” he zipped himself up, grabbed a little soap stone from his pocket and put his hands out. “And I guess you’re going to tell me we need the money?”

“We didn’t restock on as many med supplies as we used to get to the last settlement,” Aaron pointed out, grabbing his canteen to pour water on Eric’s hands.

“We’re fine.”

“Not fine enough to refill the vat if someone loses a limb.”

“So we tell people not to lose limbs,” said Eric, putting his hands out again once he’d rubbed soap all over them. “Should be a habit anyways. Are people going around losing limbs for fun?”

“This isn’t a joke,” Aaron said, again tossing water over his chieftain’s hands. “You know there’s been–”

“There’s always ruckus in the route to fuckin’ Cal-State,” said Eric, wiping his hands on his pants with some frustration. “That’s what makes it fucking California, it attracts sociopaths and hellions. But we’re bound to run into some settlements before that, and we can prepare.”

“We can prepare more in an actual City-State.”

Eric turned to Aaron with some frustration, saying, “Y’know, I seem to recall you being as enthusiastic as the rest of us about not going back to Third York anytime soon. In fact, I think you were one of those people suggesting never going back.”

“... circumstances changed,” Aaron mulishly said.

Eric frowned, before closing his eyes and sighing, “... how far along?”

“... a couple weeks. Doc Mercy couldn’t narrow down the exact time.”

“Mercy kept this from me too?” Eric asked, making Aaron wince.

“I asked her to,” he said.

Eric sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Great. How’s it coming along?”

“... slight mutations,” Aaron confessed. “Nothing life-threatening for Amy, but the baby…”

“Fine then, scrap it and try again later, if it was on purpose,” Eric said, clapping his hands. “No fuss, no muss.”

“Eric, please,” said Aaron.

“Oh, it’s ‘Eric, please’, now?” asked Eric. “Where was all this when you were adding another fucking mouth to the tally, Aaron?”

“I’m sorry! It wasn’t planned, it was a moment of weakness,” Aaron assured him. “Just… you know we don’t wanna do that.”

“Hrm,” Eric said. He saw the nervousness in the mechanic’s eyes, then huffed, “... wasn’t a serious suggestion, anyways.”

Aaron breathed a sigh of relief. “S-So?”

Eric thought, then sighed, briefly displacing his hat to scratch as his head.

He thought about it, then pulled out a map from his back pocket. The plastic surface of it had the planned path drawn on it, slightly smudged from folding and jostling inside his pocket.

Eric inspected the path, then walked to be shoulder-to-shoulder with Aaron, gesturing at the first stop on the way. “You ride with us ‘till H-17, then you, Amy and four volunteers are going to take a war truck and a supply truck back over to Third York.

“You get anything we might need, the madcog’s package, smokes and some extra ammo, and then you get the fuck back over here. All in all, it should only be about a week if you don’t stop until you absolutely have to. And you won’t. Was I clear?”

“Crystal,” Aaron assured him, smiling gratefully. “Thank you, Chieftain.”

“Hrm,” Eric grunted. “What’s the package, anyways?”

“A new kind of drug. He calls them Hyperstimulants,” said Aaron, sounding excited. “He didn’t want to share too many details over the radio, but… well, they sounded exciting. Might want some for ourselves, actually.”

“Really,” Eric drawled.

Aaron shrugged, “It’d be a chance to get our hands on the new big cogtech, Chief.”

Eric stared Aaron down. Aaron just smiled, happy at what he got.

“Fuck off already,” Eric replied, disgusted.

Aaron ran off with that stupid smile on his face, adjusting his hat on the way, and Eric watched him go.

Once Aaron was gone, he stomped back over to his van and sat in the passenger seat, drawing Hitomi’s eyes from her spot on the driver’s seat.

“Eric?” she asked, wincing when he slammed the door. “What happened?”

“What happened is that I’m fucking tired of being fucking Santa Claus,” Eric snapped. “That’s what fucking happened.”

“... I sense that you’re mad?”

“Mad? I’m fucking livid! I’m angry as all fucking fuck, and I just fucking know that five fucking minutes from right fucking now, some other fucking asshole is going to fucking come over and ask some more fucking shit of me, and I’m going to fucking give it to them because I’m a fucking idiot!”

He ended his rant breathing heavily while Hitomi watched him.

Hitomi snorted, making his ears turn red, before turning her attention back to the map spread over the wheel. “What now?”

Eric slumped down on his seat and covered his face with a hand. “Amy’s pregnant.”

“... was it you?” she asked.

“Aaron, actually.”

“Hah!” she laughed. “Fucking classic.”

He removed his hand from his face and breathed out a sigh, tiredly opening the glove compartment as he said, “I’m glad you’re amused, kitty.”

The lioness furry rolled her eyes, “I thought you were cutting back?”

“Not anymore, there’s gonna be a refill soon,” Eric replied as he pulled out a thin cigar and bit off its tip. He continued while he pressed down on the lighter button, explaining, “We’re not taking a shortcut past H-17. We’re gonna have to stop there and work what we can while Aaron and Maria hurry back to Third York and pick up some stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Cogtech.”

“... you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got to be–”

“I know!”

“Did you forget–?”

“I didn’t!” he promised. “It’s just a group of two cars, they’re gonna hide it with other stuff, I’ll make sure most of them have experience! Just… trust me on this. They’re not getting caught. They can’t.”

“... we could just cut them loose,” Hitomi pointed out. “Not deal with this?”

Eric looked at her with tired eyes.

“... alright,” Hitomi sighed. “How many are we losing to this idea?”

“Aaron, Amy, four more.”

“And two will be smugglers?”

“... three of them. The triplets worked some good jobs before joining up, they should be good for this.”

“And the last one?”

“... let’s make it Michael.”

“Michael?”

“The Academy was about to dump some stuff after we left. They’re gonna need security.”

“We’re gonna need security.”

“We can manage.”

“... how much faith do you have in this, really?”

Eric thought about it, breathing out a ring of smoke.

“Could be big,” he eventually said, “Aaron said so.”

Hitomi looked skeptical, “Aaron said we could make millions pulling supplies out of ruins.”

“We did make some money.”

“And most of it went to new supplies to deal with the subsequent bandit fight.”

“Still had some profit.”

“... optimists shouldn’t be leaders,” Hitomi sighed, turning her attention back to the map. “What jobs are there in H-17, anyways?”

“Mining settlement, no? Bit of work digging, some security, maybe a little maintenance, a little medical work.”

“Can it be spread for all the time we wait for them?”

“Oh, for sure. The overseer’s a greedy, incompetent muppet. His stupidity breaks stuff and then he looks for broke fucks like us to fix it on the cheap.”

“Sounds convenient. So no one would look twice if we caused some work to pile up?”

“Not at all,” Eric said, smiling a bit. “Lots of accidents that can happen in a mining settlement.”

Hitomi smiled back.

“Alright,” she said, “This can be worked with.”

=]O[=

It took a few minutes to tell the whole story. The feeling of disconnection returned as I spoke, it was like I was explaining the plot of some story to them. I think my friends noticed but failed to know how to comfort me.

Reactions varied as I told the story. Moss had cried out about how cool I was for taking lives, which earned him a chastising smack upside the head from John, who had seemed genuinely disturbed by what I’d done. Chris, who was well aware of what her father did, just took it in stride

Once I finished, we sat around in silence, waiting for someone else to break the silence.

“... well,” said Chris. “You fucked up.”

“I know,” I said, at the same time as John cried, “Chris!”

“What, he did!” she defended herself. “He’s fucked, now!”

“Yeah, I agree,” I said.

“You shut up,” John told me, before turning back to Chris. “He’s not out yet. We just… keep quiet about this.”

“Like the cat incident,” Moss said, nodding.

“Exactly like the cat incident,” John said.

“But people are going to investigate this,” Chris said. “Everyone knows now.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“… I don’t think anyone knows about me,” I muttered. “It’s not like I’m… famous. And we got rid of the gun.”

“Crane knows, but he’s not gonna talk,” John said, pointing at me. “Oh! He’ll probably hide it more!”

“But cops aren’t gonna stop until they stop this thing with Hill,” Chris countered.

“So they can stop Hill,” John replied. “Are cops gonna care why he’s going nuts?”

Chris blinked, then nodded, granting the point. “Okay… so–”

“And what about Will?” Moss interrupted, making us turn toward him. “He’s the one that told you to do it, right?”

I blinked. Then I blinked again.

A sudden wave of relief overcame me, and I breathed out a heavy sigh. Like the sky was removed from my shoulders, I was selfishly delighted in knowing that the blame for Jacob Hill’s death was not solely on me.

Then I felt guilty because I had killed a person and I was cheering up because I’d been told to do it, like I was some kind of automaton. Mom had told me about the soldiers that harassed my grandparents during World War Three, wilful servants of warlords who excused their crimes with orders.

Was I just like them? Is this what it meant to be a soldier for the Blackfish?

And then annoyance brewed up at being unable to move past this fucking topic, and by then all the nausea came back and sweat covered my forehead.

My friends missed this little internal roller coaster because it happened inside my head and also because they were focused on their new target.

“Right, that asshole,” Chris spat, almost literally. “My dad keeps talking about how annoying he is. Figures he’s the one that fucked this whole thing up.”

“Yeah! This is his mess, really,” John noted, a wave of cheeriness entering his tone. “So… maybe he has a plan?”

“He better,” Chris mulishly said, her arms crossing in front of her chest in a gesture borrowed from her dad.

I stood up suddenly, drawing all their attention, then rushed over to my bed and dove under it, crawling to get to my hidey hole. A few seconds later, I came out covered in dust bunnies and holding my radio.

I made to turn it on, then stopped as practiced caution made me look up and ask, “Is my mom listening?”

John stood up, gently opened my bedroom door then tip-toed over to the kitchen, where we kept the phone, before quickly coming back and closing the door behind herself. “No, she’s talking to Moss’ mom.”

“Ugh,” said Moss. “They’re gonna be at that forever.”

“I know, right?” I said. “It’s like they gotta talk about every single thing that happened since they last spoke.”

“Yeah,” Chris laughed, her smile a little tight at the corners. “My mom’s the same. Every time she calls one of her friends I have to wait forever for her to put down the phone.”

“Guys,” John interrupted, cutting through coping mechanisms. “The radio?”

“Right,” I said, turning on the blocky little device and switching to the emergency frequency.

After a particularly good string of weeks, Will had come up with the idea of each member of the gang having one portable radio to stay in contact with each other, plus one radio he’d keep on him at all times.

While we changed the frequency every day to avoid people listening in — choosing from the limited range afforded to civilian long-range portable radios — and tested them before use to make sure nobody was already occupying them, the emergency radio was only ever tuned to one frequency, to make sure we could always reach it.

The crackling of the audio connection came through as I turned up the volume just enough for everyone to listen, then I pressed down on the output button.

“Hello?” I tried.

There were a few moments of static and silence, before a click and then Will’s harried voice came through in scratchy quality, “What?!”

I flinched, surprised to get yelled at, and stuttered, “U-Um, i-it’s me? Luke? I-I called because–”

“Fuck’s sake,” Will spat, “This is the last fucking thing I need right now!”

“I-I’m sorry, I just–”

“‘You just’ what?” the voice through the radio questioned. “You just didn’t have enough of ruining my life with that stunt you pulled?”

Indignation rose in me, and I said, “Y-You told me to do it!”

“The fuck I did!” Will immediately denied. “I didn’t ask you to kill Kingston fucking Hill’s son!”

Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m gullible. But when you live constantly misunderstanding what people mean to say to you because nobody ever fucking explains subtext, or when they say something they don’t mean, or any of the millions of little hidden rules of neurotypical communication that I had to painstakingly figure out through trial and experimentation, you kinda develop the habit of assuming that you made the mistake whenever there’s a misunderstanding.

Will had told me to kill ‘Jake’, who hung out with a Samoyed furry and was wearing a certain article of clothing. It wasn’t likely, but in the moment, a brief burst of panic made me think that it was possible that I’d just happened to kill the wrong Jake and in the process unleashed

Luckily, I was not alone.

Before I could react, Chris snatched the radio out of my hand and spoke very clearly. “Hey, Will? This is Chris Jones, Dante’s daughter.”

“Dante? Dante wh–”

“Dante Jones. Fixer.”

There was a moment of terrified silence that filled the room like a physical force.

I’d seen Chris use her inherited authority before, but it never ceased to amaze. That single word that represented Dante Jones’ place within the Blackfish never seemed to fail to make spines straightened and foreheads sweat as people realized who’s beloved daughter was speaking to them.

“... oh,” said Will, suddenly sounding very small.

“Yeah. ‘Oh’,” said Chris, as intimidating as a nine year old girl could manage. “Now, do you wanna tell me why you were trying to make my best friend carry all the blame for your dumbass call?”

“I thought I was your best friend,” Mohsen muttered dejectedly.

Chris covered the receiver of the radio and shushed him while Will stuttered over the radio, saying, “I-I promise! He really wasn’t supposed to–”

“You just told him to kill a certain person called Jake who was hangin’ out with a furry and wearin’ an orange hoodie,” Chris interrupted. “Are you sayin’ it was all a coincidence?”

I could tell she was copying her dad’s methods of interrogating screw-ups the same way I copied Crane. There was a way in which she squared her shoulders, tried to look intimidating through a radio.

It seemed to work. “W-W-Well, no, of course not, but–”

“So you just ordered a hit on Kingston Hill’s son and want to lay the blame on someone else?”

“I didn’t know he was his son!” Will cried. “I just heard he’d bothered Francis, from Orchard Avenue, and I wanted to do him a solid!”

Chris looked up at us, trying to get us to opine on this. I shrugged, still a bit overwhelmed by the short-lived idea that I could’ve caused everything in an accident. Meanwhile, John shook his head and Mohsen gave a thumbs down.

Chris thought it over, then said, “Tell me why I shouldn’t just tell my dad what you did.”

“B-Because…” There was a moment of silence, then with more determination, Willard said, “Because if you do, I’ll drag Luke down with me. Hill is gonna want him dead just as much as he’s gonna want me.”

Fuck.

My friends’ expressions showed that they echoed my thoughts.

“... fine, then,” said Chris, “Then you just… keep quiet, and so will we.”

“... fine,” Will spat through the radio. “And… at the meeting?”

I raised an eyebrow and made to ask what meeting, but Chris covered my mouth and immediately said, “Take Luke to it. Neither of you will say anything, but you’re gonna help fix this.”

“... sure. Anything else, your highness?”

“Just that if you talk to me like that I’ll feed you your own dick,” Chris promised, before turning off the radio.

We all stared at her. Me with her hand still over my mouth.

“... that went well!” said Chris.

“You just threatened to feed someone his own dick,” said John.

“I panicked,” she confessed. “I just thought I couldn’t let him talk to me like that. Dad always says you can’t get punked and expect respect.”

“Seriously, wasn’t I your best friend?” asked Mohsen.

“You are, I was just pressuring him,” Chris promised.

I licked her hand, which she wiped on my forehead.

“Why did you say I was going to the meeting?” I asked, cleaning my face with my shirt.

“Because this way you can know if they think you did it,” Chris pointed out. “And if you know, we can know and we can keep helping you.”

“... you don’t need to,” I said, thankful but ashamed. “I’m the one that messed up.”

“Yeah, and when I broke dad’s favorite mug you helped me glue it back together, so now we’re even,” Chris shrugged.

“Plus, I really wanna know how this goes,” Moss chimed in.

“Yeah, me too,” John agreed. “Just think about it. If you fix this, you could join the real Blackfish!”

I grimaced, “How could I fix this?”

John shrugged, but still seemed optimistic.

Sighing, I took the radio and hid it back in the wall, just in time for mom to call me to help her set things up so my friends could sleep over.

=]O[=

A question much pondered by the government of Third York is “what is dark science, anyhow?”

On the surface, this is a question on par with “did the Titanic get wet?” in that it is useless to the point of bone-deep stupidity. Before the walls and after the flare, the vestiges of the United Nations had left a list of technological advancements that were declared fully off-limits, and in Charles’ opinion, that’s where they should’ve remained.

Unfortunately, realpolitik meant that the goalposts of the definition got moved around quite a bit.

The Noble Academic Houses of Third York had very little in common, but they all shared the trait of being made up of Hypercognitive citizens. As such, they shared the flaws of their people, among which was a desperate need for performing research and experimentation.

A great mind thirsts for stimuli and expansion, and only so much could be reached within the boundary of law.

Unless one bent the letter and spirit of it.

Lord Charles Valiant, of the Noble Academic House of Valiant, Chairman of the Academic Council, was not one to bend the law.

His father, Wolfgang Valiant — who obviously picked his own name — had been one of the founders of Third York’s council system, the inspiration for the pulp hero Captain Bastion, and the one that established most of the Academy’s laws.

He had been a paragon. A real one, the kind of person that in another age would have toppled tyrants and led nations to freedom and independence.

Sitting in his shadow, Charles could do little to rein in the other members of the Academic Council as they struggled to decide whether to bomb their own city, open the door to the dangers of Dark Science or just tax people and pocket the difference.

He let out a sigh that went mostly unnoticed as the other four people sitting around the table continued to “amicably debate”. This emergency meeting had been stretching well past midnight, and his mind wandered towards his kids waiting at home.

Serving as a backdrop to the nearby arguing of the other Council Houses, the whispered discussions of the Houses as they tried to agree on which idea to support or propose. Charles' eyes drifted over them, watching hands frantically move around with gestures and faces flush from rapid speaking while they animatedly debated.

His eyes drifted back towards his council members, each one carefully speaking into a microphone so that the chamber had every opportunity to listen to their opinions. Head resting on his fist, his eyes drew to the one that had temporarily gained the floor.

“... and I truly don’t understand how there can even be a debate about this,” Lady Thea Guerra said, arms crossed and expression neutral despite the heat sneaking into her voice. “Kingston Hill must be put down like the rabid hound that he is. A precision strike and a subsequent bombing of his laboratory is the least we can do.”

House Guerra, founded by the Thirld World War veteran Marcus Guerra after helping Charles’ own ancestor against Vladimir Sanguine. The family had close ties to the upper ranks of the rangers and had carefully kept an eye on the trade of weapons produced in the city and brought in by nomads.

The lady herself was dark-skinned and harsh-faced, with a strong jawline and sharp eyes that were often forming a frown. Her hair was cut down to the last millimeter, leaving only a thin covering of black over her scalp. She was dressed in a sensible red and black pantsuit.

“And turn our back on what could be learned from them?” said Ser Rain Asclepius, androgynous voice bouncing around inside their modernized plague doctor’s mask. “Have you forgotten? To waste is to sin. A surgical strike is the right call, the man has been a thorn in our side for far too long, but to torch his laboratory would be to set back our progress by decades.”

If Rain wore that head-concealing mask for a particular reason or just because they were kind of a freak was a subject of much debate, but the rest of the ensemble matched. A three-piece suit and thin black gloves left no skin exposed, and the tophat crowning it fulfilled its role of making the owner look ridiculous.

House Asclepius had not been formed by a military or political ally of Wolfgang Valiant. Angela Asclepius had been a much-beloved cog medic who developed most of her time and intellect towards helping mass amounts of people. It had been her discoveries and creations which had allowed Third York to bounce back from the Flare as quickly as they did, removing cancers and devising flora and fauna which absorbed and processed radiation.

A seat in the council had been her punishment, as Wolfgang often put it. In the modern day, the family devotedly kept pushing forward in the field of medicine and helped sponsor the Academy of Heightened Learning. They were very popular with the populace, and Rain’s mannerisms and gender ambiguity were seen as charming quirks.

“If we’re after the man’s ideas, we might as well just imprison him and use him for ideas for as long as possible,” Suggested Lady Anathema Sanguine as she carefully inspected her red-painted nails. “No need to stain our hands with analyzing his technology when he can just study and we can take what’s useful. Simple symbiosis.”

House Sanguine had not been formed by any form of ally to House Valiant. Quite the opposite. But it had been the result of a compromise between Vladimir Sanguine and Wolfgang Valiant after two years of continuous struggle and guerrilla combat through the nascent Third York.

These days, House Sanguine mostly contented itself to support law enforcement, either by providing resources and technology to help enforce it or by giving more opportunities to enforce it by covertly breaking the law. The Lady of the House, Vladimir’s only daughter, was a slender and tall lady with silky long hair, eyes that had been engineered to be red and tan skin.

She wore a three-piece suit that had more in common with Rain’s outfit than Lady Guerra’s pantsuit.

“I have to agree with Lady Sanguine,” Lord Cain Aurum said, smiling as he drummed his fingers on the table. “We need to think in a longer term, get the most we can out of the situation.”

House Aurum had been formed by Wolfgang’s truest political ally. The fact that said ally had been an opportunistic businessman said a lot, probably, but the fact remained that Marcus Aurum had funded Wolfgang’s creations and supported him against the public whenever he made a mistake or lost a fight.

His nephew, Cain Aurum, was overweight and balding, with a pushbroom mustache and a combover. He wore a simple grey suit that looked uncharacteristically humble unless you could identify fine silks and expensive cufflinks. As political figures, the entire family had been locked out of the enterprises and stock options that they’d previously enjoyed. The idea was that someone that regulated the markets could not be allowed to gain from them, on account of that being obviously a bad idea that almost screamed to let corruption in.

Naturally, there wasn’t a law forbidding someone from being related to or friends with people that were allowed to gain from the markets, so the corruption flowed uninterrupted.

House Aurum was plugged to most major corporations in some form of symbiotism or another; the house used political power to facilitate trade through nomads and the occasional corp-owned convoy, and the corporations sponsored whatever projects the house wanted them to sponsor. Such as expanding Third York.

Most of the Noble Houses, academic or not, were like this. These days they were made up of the descendants, friends and descendants of friends of those that helped Wolfgang Valiant claim the metaphorical throne before he graciously used it to establish the semi-democratic Council.

(And because hypercognitives were themselves, most of the Academic Noble were established by people with ludicrously cool names that they chose for themselves)

As Wolfgang’s only son, there was a certain expectation that Charles would speak wisely, maturely. Lead the room towards making the right choice, always using only as many syllables as were indispensable to deliver his enlightened perspective.

So Charles, bulky and pale with a short brown goatee and a military haircut, dressed in a simple and humble navy blue suit, straightened up on his chair.

The other council members’ conversation slowed as they saw him lean forward towards his microphone, then he plainly said, “We’re getting nowhere, and I am so fucking tired of hearing you all run around the subject like children.”

There was a moment of silence. Then the room was filled with mutinous muttering from the sixteen lesser Houses and all the other council members glared at him, except for Anathema who looked very amused.

Yeah, whatever.

“I am presenting my support for Lady Guerra’s proposal,” Charles declared. “Seeing how that makes two votes for her plan, two votes for Lady Sanguine’s plan, and one vote for Ser Asclepius’ plan, I say we can move on to debating between those two.”

He paused, not undramatically, then asked, “Unless someone else has a fourth plan to bring to the table?”

The non-council Houses talked amongst each other, passed notes, and eventually came to the decision that no one could benefit from a new idea. So, silence stretched uncomfortably.

“Well then,” said Charles. “Will anyone besides Ser Asclepius be changing their vote?”

The other members of the council traded looks, then turned back to him expectantly. Charles felt vaguely disgusted.

This authority, this power that Charles wielded that let him briefly cut through the bullshit of politics, was borrowed. He had done nothing to earn admiration or respect besides being the fruit of the right pair of loins, and there was only so much that could come from that.

These days, House Valiant was wholly devoted to Third York’s government. Unlike the other Houses, they had no political power with which to influence legislation outside their history.

He was forty-one now. He had been in charge of House Valiant for six years, and he had made no notable accomplishments. No dark scientists vanquished, no revolutionary technologies developed — his biggest claim to fame in that regard were some new engines and motors that had proven superior in regards to fuel efficiency — and certainly no cities conquered and brought under law.

He had no intention to gain any notoriety, or to empower his house.

“Very well, then,” he sighed. “Shall we make our cases?”

His fellow council members traded looks. As the party to be swayed, Rain remained notably inscrutable, even through their mask and concealing clothing.

“... as an avid supporter of progress at all cost…” Anathema started, “… surely council member Asclepius understands that we stand to gain much more from containing and utilizing Kingston Hill? The man is… well, frankly insane, but he is brilliant, even among hypercognitives.”

Wrong move. Many members of the peanut gallery bristled at the implication of someone being smarter than them. But… she probably did it on purpose.

“If he’s so brilliant, containment would be a challenge,” Thea pointed out. “We’d have to give him materials to work and experiment with. It’d be a matter of weeks at most and hours at least before he attempted to escape.”

“I said he was intelligent, not that he was more so than us,” Anathema said, and like magic, egos were visibly unbruised as people nodded along. “The man’s merit, such as it is, is that he’s willing to commit atrocities that we would balk at but can still take advantage of. It would not be impossible for us to limit him somehow, keep him under close surveillance.”

“Sooner or later, an opportunity would arise,” Lady Guerra countered. “It could not be flawless.”

“But we could get close to it,” Rain suggested. “Perhaps… with some life support systems and a bit of intrusive surgery it would be possible to paralyze him from the neck down? A talking head couldn’t get very far.”

“And I suppose the fact that this would be completely inhumane isn’t a factor?” Charles asked drily. Despite the mask, Rain clearly conveyed a gormless look. “Of course. In any case, Hill has dedicated multiple years to combining man and machine. How could we be certain that he did not prepare his body for mutilation? He’s been shot and maimed before.”

Back in his native borough of Herakles, Hill was known as “Ironhand” for a reason.

“But for having everything below the neck effectively removed?” Aurum scoffed.

“I wouldn’t mock the idea,” Asclepius said, making a horizontal cutting gesture with their hand. “I’ve studied the historical records — purely academically, Sir Valiant, there’s no need to glare — and I must say that even if ninety percent of it was exaggerated, something like that would surely be within the capabilities of Dark Science.”

“Dark Science at its peak,” Sanguine dismissed, waving her hand. “Hill has some brains to his credit, but he can hardly be expected to replicate the terrors of World War Three.”

“Not in every field,” Guerra said. “But in his specialty?”

“... if he is capable of such a thing, it would be interesting to study the technology,” Asclepius noted. “Much could be gained from implementing advanced prosthetics.

“Factory accidents could be much less severe,” Aurum said. Because of course that taking safety measures was harder than giving people robot limbs.

Granted, the costs probably would be lesser, since factories would need to be stopped en masse while the remodeling happened.

“This is my point precisely,” Sanguine said, smiling. “Much more can be gained by pumping Hill for knowledge and research than what little we’d get by killing him and burning down his laboratory.”

“But the risk is still there,” Asclepius said, shaking his head lightly. “Can I not talk you into considering just taking his research and not dealing with the filthy man?”

“But why limit ourselves?” Sanguine stressed. “This is the perfect balance of gaining progress while reducing moral contamination.”

“Can we really call it a balance?” Guerra questioned, frowning even deeper than usual. “It’s uncompromisingly lenient.”

“I’m surprised you’re not keen on the idea, Lady Guerra,” Aurum commented. “The rangers would certainly benefit from cybernetic augmentation.”

“Our rangers don’t need to rely on Dark Science to get ahead, Aurum.”

“No, but they could still benefit. Decreased deaths don’t sound appealing to you?”

Guerra glared at him for a moment, but refused to comment.

“It’s not as if this is without precedent,” Sanguine said, moving on to looking at Charles. “The creation of bio-mechanical systems and cloning was looked at as Dark Science when the walls came up, but necessity won out in the end and now they are as common as anything else. Your own father–”

Charles gave her a look and, to her credit, Sanguine quickly dropped the subject.

“This and that are completely different issues,” he said. “The implementation of cloning and bio-mechanical technologies were a decision arrived at after much deliberation, and implementing it did not rely on literal slavery.”

“I’d say it’d be more like indentured servitude,” Aurum said. “He’d be paying off his debt to our fair city.”

“Through slavery.”

“Indentured servitude.”

“He’d have to get paid and not be paralyzed from the neck down for that.”

“Oh, is that a rule of indentured servitude?”

If he said ‘indentured servitude’ one more goddamn time, Charles was going to hit him. His expression seemed to get the message through, because Aurum raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

For a while, nobody at the table spoke, while the stands were aflutter with hushed conversations. Eyeing the mass, Charles noted with resentment that his usual allies were being pretty quiet.

Sanguine must’ve noted as well, because she turned slightly in her seat and said, “Perhaps someone from outside the Council would like to chime in?”

The murmuring stopped, a moment of tense silence, then a microphone turned on. Each noble had a microphone in front of them, held in the center of a silvery ring, usually turned off unless they were asked to participate, in which case they merely had to push down on a red button at its base.

The noble that chose to speak was a rail-thin man with thick glasses and a receding hairline. Charles’ flawless memory marked him as Lord Adam of House Vedder, an Academic House with ties to heavy industry and foresting outside the walls.

That, and to House Sanguine.

Vedder was a poor actor. From the way his eyes flickered to her, he and Anathema must’ve coordinated before the meeting, and she just gave him the signal to go ahead.

Charles rested his cheek on his fist as Vedder spoke. He mostly tuned it out, exhausted by being outmaneuvered again, but he caught the gist of it.

Vedder wove a sorry tale about all the workers who suffered terrible, maiming wounds whilst gathering supplies from outside the wall. He talked about how expensive cloning limbs was, enough that he definitely couldn’t afford to just pay for it every time it happened — a bald-faced lie, Charles was intimately familiar with how much of the taxes went to each House — and how prosthetics could be the difference between life and death, even if they flew in the face of rules against melding intelligent life with machinery.

He laid it a bit thick, but he clearly positioned himself as the one on the side of righteousness. And since the meeting was being recorded and would later be broadcast on the radio, everyone present was keenly aware of which way the court of public opinion would land.

In the end…

“... I will change my vote to Lady Sanguine and Lord Aurum’s plan,” Asclepius decided, and the meeting came to an end soon after.

Bitterness welled up in Charles’ throat, especially when Anathema gave him a soft, bright smile.

The next day, he would take the decision to the meeting room with the Chairman from the council of non-academic Houses and, if they were in agreement they would determine how to deal with things; what resources and manpower to move in preparation for chaos.

But for now, the meeting was done and Charles could finally go home to his kids. Perhaps he’d even manage to put the implications of these pushed boundaries out of his mind long enough to smile at them.

=]O[=

Throughout Third York and the surrounding area, opposing forces ran rampant.

The echoes of one small, impulsive decision and the thoughtless follow-through were rippling out, and storm winds were gathering up in response to the proverbial butterfly’s flap of its wings.

And as schemes piled up, armories were readied and strategies were drawn up, I ate a pretty meager meal of “whatever’s handy in the fridge” with my friends.

Once dinner was through, we talked long into the night, wondering what the future would bring with equal parts nervousness and childish fascination at what we might see.

When we could barely keep our collective eyes open, we removed my mattress from the bed frame, piled the extra blankets my mom gave us around it and then we all piled together as close as we could stand in the heat of the summer night, wordlessly taking comfort from each others’ presence.

It was in this state, half asleep and with a hundred thoughts running through my mind, that I came to one realization.

No one, not even the adults, had any fucking idea of what they were doing.