Truth slept on the floor of the main room of the apartment. It was sort of like the apartment he grew up in- there was a bathroom, a bedroom, then a combination living room, diningroom and kitchen. It wasn’t large, but for a single man, it was entirely enough. It wasn’t decorated, exactly. There was an icon of St. Mechivus on the wall over the Scry ball, and a long row of empty whisky bottles along the top of the cabinets. The walls themselves were stained a yellow-brown color, matching the nicotine stains on the old man’s fingers.

Truth wondered if the old man remembered what it was like to be happy.

The old man stirred himself in the morning, to Truth’s quiet surprise. He washed, dressed, took a pull from a bottle, and walked out the door. Off to work, Truth assumed. It was about that time of day. A drunk, but a reasonably functional one, it seemed.

Truth shook off the morbidity, only to have it return again and again. The apartment seemed to generate it. Truth opted to meditate and cultivate for a bit. It didn’t make him feel good, exactly, but he did feel more at peace afterward. He laughed silently in the empty apartment. The expert on the news said he was obsessed with cultivation. The expert was right.

That did lead him to the big issue of the day. Usually, hiding out for a while and waiting for the heat to cool was the right play. But was that true here? They would be scouring Harban for him, setting up as many traps for him as they could reasonably manage. If he was willing to wait week or months, it would be a pure win. They were wasting an awful lot of money, after all. But he couldn’t wait. The longer he waited, the closer Starbrite got to escaping. So. What to do?

The old man got shoved back in the door, looking considerably worse for wear. He had clearly been beaten, and badly. A cop, backed up by a couple of golems, filled the doorway.

“Consider this your only warning. Lockdown means LOCK! DOWN! It does not mean your alkie ass can go to the liquor store, which, by the way, is also LOCKED DOWN! You get caught on the street again, there is nothing I can do to help you. Best case scenario, you take a trip to the station and spend a few weeks in jail while IS uses you for practice. Clear?”

“This is bullshit! I’m a Citizen-”

“ARE WE CLEAR?!” The cop bellowed.

“Fuck. Yes. We are clear.”

“Good. Because if you don’t want to lose your citizenship, you need to stay. The fuck. Indoors.”

“All this for one fucking guy?”

The cop just turned, slamming the door shut behind him.

Truth thought it was a fair question. Though, really, no, of course it wasn’t all “just for him.” They were probably using the opportunity to put in place anti-riot measures, sweeping up known troublemakers, and generally cracking down before the big switch over. The enrollment centers should be up and running… today? If not today than tomorrow, but he was pretty sure it was today.

No way to really know how long Starbrite would wait to begin harvesting. Presumably there would be a few months, just to let the System roll out as widely as possible. Especially if they were going to roll it out in other countries. Maybe as long as a year? No point in guessing. Just not enough information.

Truth hummed quietly. The urge to be up and doing was strong. He wanted to check in on MegaShroom and maybe start hitting some of Merkovah’s targets. At least get out on the street and start gathering more information. He briefly thought of going back to the chamber with the Snake That Ate Its Own Tale, but had a bad feeling about that. Even the shadow of such an eminence might become annoyed at… familiarity. He sat still instead. Time to be smart. Stop acting like prey. Stop acting like the Hell Prince they were trying to mold him into.

The goal was to scatter the System Astrologica’s focus, so they could slip in and kill it. Wherever “it” was. Merkovah had been cagey on that one. Truth suspected the old exorcist had no real idea, and was hoping that if they just broke enough stuff, it would have to break cover. Truth was not in love with that plan. On the other hand, he didn’t have a better one.

There was the base up in Army Ford, but it wasn’t confirmed. Merkovah had people checking that out, and didn’t give him any news in the last dead drop. Hmm.

Should he just… follow the plan? Start going through the targets Merkovah sent? He would have to stay indoors until lockdown ended, because they would be on him instantly the second he broke cover otherwise.

Truth sat in the dim, nicotine stained light and went in circles. The contradiction tore him apart inside. Eventually, self preservation won, and he resolved to stay indoors until lockdown ended. At the very least, they would have to start letting people out for food and supplies. Some jobs couldn’t just be put on hold- sanitation, for one, security for another, and medical for a third. So there would be some people moving around.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Maybe he should just sit and cultivate? Truth smiled grimly. The old man collapsed in his chair, eyeing the three fingers of whiskey at the bottom of the bottle dubiously. It was then set aside with a firm grunt and the scry turned back on. Truth wondered how long the old man could stretch it. A few hours? The rest of the day? No, not that long. It would be a few hours at most. Fear that there wouldn’t be any more to drink would already be preying on his mind. He was trying to distract himself. It wouldn’t be enough.

Truth did as he planned, and cultivated. There was a limit to how much you could practically do in a day without elixirs. Sooner or later, you would start damaging your little channels and apertures. It was darkly amusing that he hadn’t hit that limit after several hours.

The body cultivation was working. He was hauling in more and more energy, and if any was leaking out, it was miniscule. He suspected “zero” was the actual amount. It just kept building up in his body. The time in the chamber with the Snake That Ate Its Own Tail had seemingly condensed him, firming and strengthening bones, flesh, and the magical structures built upon them. Refined on every level.

What did you mean in the Chamber? I forgot to ask. About… you shouldn’t exist yet, and that “System” isn’t really your name?

<>

Truth was stumped. He didn’t know quite what to make of that.

<>

Truth settled back into cultivate. When he got bored of that, he switched to the Meditations, then vigorous calisthenics, then running both Obliterate and Cup and Knife over himself to make really, really sure that there were no lingering curses or tracking spells on him. Then back to cultivation again.

The old man was struggling with the boredom too. He alternated between flipping through performances at high speeds, or falling into a torpor, watching without seeing as the minutes trickled past. Truth had guessed right- the three fingers of whiskey didn’t survive the afternoon. It wasn’t long before he was searching the house for any hidden or forgotten stashes of booze. Truth was mildly surprised to see that a half liter bottle of schnapps was dug out from under the kitchen sink.

He would see how long that lasted, he supposed. Trapped in a tiny, dim apartment? Depression and frustration pressing down? A few hours was his guess. And then he closed his eyes and fell back into meditation.

The old man had tried to compensate with cigarettes. Truth watched him burn through a pack of Red Bats at speed, having apparently not considered the fact that he only had the one pack. The scry wasn’t distracting him any more. Truth watched him bounce from frustration to frustration, trying to use one to make him forget about the last, growing frustrated again and moving on to the next obsession.

Anxiety, depression, isolation. Dim light. Uncertainty about the future. Uncertainty about the present. The aching bruises and throbbing cuts from the beating the cops put on him. Truth watched the whirl of pain get tighter and tighter around the man. Truth had no idea how to help him, or even if he should help him. What could he say? That he was going into withdrawal? He assumed the man knew that.

Alcohol and nicotine and Red Bat cigarettes were laced with opium. Withdrawal was going to hit like the fist of a vengeful god. Perhaps it was more of a demon’s claw, scratching endlessly at his heart, jabbing its long nail into the tender places of the old man’s mind. Or it was a drowning, or a fire. It was a little microcosm of the Praegerite Hell. Trapped in a little box, consumed by every painful feeling. There was no hope of release, because you had forgotten that freedom existed. Just you and your pain, alone, forever.

Truth couldn’t bring himself to hate the old man. Pity him, hold him in contempt, but not hate. The old man lived in a state of constant despair, and he didn’t know how to manage it. He threw himself into work, the Scry, booze and cigarettes. Probably considered himself better than “the druggies.” Probably thought that he was a good, upstanding citizen, and this is just what life was. This was the real world.

The old man was stalking around the apartment. Swearing, slamming his fist into things. The sun had set. There must be a way for people to get food, right? Could the old man go out then? Truth didn’t know.

The old man held it together until a little before midnight, and then he exploded.

“Fuck ‘em! Fuck ‘em! I’m going. I’m going now! I’m not a criminal, they have no right to lock me up! Bastards!”

The old man grabbed a dark sweater, despite the warmth of the night. He wrapped a scarf around his head and he darted out the door. Truth watched him go, then went back to meditating.

It was interesting, sealing up all the little nooks and crannies of his body. Not so much isolated from the world as establishing boundaries. He still pulled in energy, and released it as he cast spells. It was just more controlled. Nothing leaked. Nothing happened carelessly. He found he liked it. Truth had the sneaking suspicion that it would help with spell resistance too. He had the image of his skin sternly refusing all the spells that wanted to latch on to him.

Not that it would stop a fire bolt, or a needle enchanted with Graeme’s Arrow. Still. Every little bit helped. He wondered what would be created at the end. The combination of the sealed body of a Nephilim, combined with the aperture system of a mage. It couldn’t be unprecedented. But just what would it look like? He was excited to find out.

The old man didn’t return. Truth fell asleep on the floor once more. The old man wasn’t there in the morning either. Truth had a sinking suspicion that he now had sole possession of the apartment.