Olly Briggs

Olly suspected that someone like the Mayor would no doubt wanted to keep his endorsement a secret from the general populace. So naturally, by the time the rumour took hold it spread like wildfire across the sixteenth and all of the regulars at Hijinks knew by the week’s end. Olly was serving drinks the following Monday evening when he was called over to a table of some of his favourite customers. Eli’s clientele were not well-to-do. They either worked hard labour jobs, but certainly not those represented by the Labourer’s Guild, jobs more like resource collection or public works, or worked within the same grey area of business as Eli. A not-so-small subset were fully involved in illegal operations from what Olly could tell, but that wasn't his business.

To Olly, they felt like friends. In response to the recent news, they clapped him on the back and praised him for getting out of the sixteenth borough.

Occaigh was divided into sixteen boroughs, and it was generally understood that the lower the borough the less well-to-do the residents were. Crime wasn’t high in general, but the sixteenth was a little rougher and scrappier. Anyone from a middle to lower borough would feel uncomfortable in the vicinity. Upper-middle boroughs would avoid it unless they absolutely had to be there. Residents of the first or second boroughs wouldn’t be caught dead there.

“I don’t know if I want to leave though. Not to mention, I don’t even know if I have what they’re looking for,” he explained yet again, growing tired from receiving congratulations on something he hadn’t even accomplished.

Even some of his classmates seemed to have caught wind of it and began treating him differently, and generally not for the better. No one in his school came from affluent families or prestigious backgrounds. He lived, worked, and attended school in a very working-class neighbourhood. He had some classmates he was friendly with if they had to do schoolwork together, but otherwise apart from the regulars at Hijinks he had few people he’d call a friend.

“You think you’re better than us now that you’re friends with the mayor?” one of the boys, Leroy, who was in the year above him drawled bitterly. Olly knew he was the son of a local grocer who often struggled with rent. Eli knew a lot about people in the neighbourhood, he made it his job and shared these details with Olly, where necessary.

Olly could almost understand their mockery. A great source of his confusion was his own academic status. He was an average student at best, he certainly didn’t think he was better than anyone. He didn’t even know if he wanted this opportunity, particularly if everyone was going to treat him so differently. He returned home from school that day feeling despondent.

It felt like a lose-lose situation. If he failed, some people would take joy at his loss whereas others would just feel pity. Neither of which particularly appealed to him, given that he wasn’t even sure what he wanted out of this. If he succeeded at least a few people would be happy but he’d be forever marked as someone who felt they were too good for their station in life.

He was going to ask his uncle if he could defer to a future year. Maybe after he finished regular classes since it would give him two years to think about it further. However, as he turned to head upstairs he was interrupted by his uncle's voice calling to him from the kitchen.

“Olly, this is your tutor, he’s going to help you with everything you need for the aptitude test,” Eli informed him as he walked in.

The tutor was an older man with greying hair and square reading glasses. He looked Olly up and down critically. “You say he’s a natural?” he asked Eli, speaking as if Olly wasn’t there.

His uncle flashed him a crooked grin and waved a check under his nose. “Of course, he’s been showing competency since he was a child.”

The tutor looked unconvinced but pocketed the check nonetheless. “I only take on serious cases who are willing to put the work in. Will that be you?”

“It will be, you have my word,” Eli assured him, talking over Olly.

Olly felt his frustrations mounting.

The next irritation came at breakfast the next morning. It was a weekend and that typically meant Olly and Eli had a half day off before working late into the night. Sometimes they would run errands together, but usually, after the work was done they’d actually spend time together. The city was large but even it had its spacial limits; typically you had to leave Occaigh to find areas that could support recreational activities.

Occaigh had the largest number of tunnels, and therefore the most direct connections to interesting destinations. Its tunnels connected it to other cities, big and small, but there were also tunnels connecting dense forests that permitted long walks under a tree cover that was unseen in the city, or to varying types of beaches, rocky or sandy depending on the location. Sometimes they went for hikes to escape the chaos of the cities, and Olly would marvel at the serenity of the areas.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

There were also points of interest that seemed to differentiate each destination. Sometimes there were man-made structures, such as the inverted tower of Aspir. Aspir was another major city within Flexibilis and its tower was a bit of an engineering marvel. It started as a narrow point at ground level that bellowed out with each story, until finally reaching its maximum height as a wide circular platform that tourists could walk about to see the best city views.

Other places were more natural, with interesting rock formations or mountains. There was a cost associated with visiting some destinations, particularly those further away or with special attractions, so they usually kept their travel local. Each city had its own unique tunnels that were only accessible by using that city as a waypoint, so a longer visit allowed visitors to see areas inaccessible by their own cities.

In either case, Flexibilis was a vast world with many areas connected by tunnels, and it seemed to grow each time a new tunnel was punched. It was fascinating to Olly how the world was so different but so connected through a seemingly simple means. He wondered if he had said something of the sort to his uncle on one of their travels that inspired his interest in Olly becoming a Cartographer.

Apart from the times Olly was in classes, the two spent most of their waking hours together. They were largely each other’s closest companions, therefore it was strange for Olly to be so blindsided by his uncle’s apparent goals for him. To Olly, Eli never really spoke of wants or dreams. He never divulged how he was involved in his own business; game rooms were largely unlicensed and illegal, and the gambling portion of Hijinks was strictly contained behind a doorway monitored by a security guard who seemed to know exactly who should or should not be granted access. Therefore it was confusing as to why Eli wanted him to enter a rigid, rule-following profession.

Perhaps he truly did want better for Olly, but his uncle definitely played his cards close to his heart and was difficult to read. Olly considered that having a familial connection to a respected profession could be a benefit to his uncle, but he also wondered if it would bring more scrutiny on him, being as private as he was. People would talk. People were talking. Not to mention, his uncle already had a strong connection to the mayor, enough to be able to call in such a favour anyways. Did he really need the further academic reach a Cartographer might bring? Olly couldn’t say yet.

One thing he did know of his uncle though was that he was restless. He never seemed fully at ease, always ready to burst forth to the next thing that caught his attention like a tightly coiled spring. He liked to roam, which is why their scant time off was usually dedicated to leaving the city. When they would travel Olly would sometimes watch his uncle’s face for signs of fulfillment. But whenever they got to where they were going, the end of a long hike, entering a new city for the first time, or seeing a famous attraction, Olly could see that there was only a sense of unserved purpose. Like he hadn’t found what he was looking for and needed to keep searching. He never seemed satisfied.

Olly didn’t understand, he liked being able to see new places, but he never seemed to search for more the way his uncle did. There was always something more, something unseen to everyone but Eli, like a finish line just out of reach.

That day, Olly was eating, waiting to hear from his uncle what the plan would be. Plans were usually formed at the whim of Eli, but Olly was content to follow.

“I’ve got to take a leave today, I have some urgent business on the other side of town to attend to,” Eli explained as he strode briskly into the kitchen.

Olly let his fork drop with a clatter. “Business? What kind of business?”

Eli gave him a quizzical look. Olly rarely asked, and Eli rarely told. Generally, there was an unspoken understanding that not all of Eli’s business endeavours were above board and he did keep Olly out of those. But they rarely overlapped outside of work hours. And Eli had been acting unilaterally where it concerned Olly just a bit too much lately for Olly to be amenable to it.

“Just meeting with an associate. It’s the only time that worked. I’ll be back for opening, but I’ll need you to get the place in order,” Eli said curtly as he put a silver cufflink onto his sleeve, “And your tutor will be coming by this afternoon so you can start your lessons.”

Olly felt his blood boiling. “What if I don’t want a tutor?” he asked in a low voice. He knew he was being petulant but he didn’t care.

Eli raised an eyebrow. “How would you know if you haven’t even attended a lesson?”

Olly slammed his hands down on the table. “How would you know what I want when you haven’t even asked me? All you’ve been doing lately is making decisions for me as if I don’t have a choice in them!”

Eli folded his arms across his chest. “Fine, what is it that you want? Tell me what your heart desires so that I can snap my fingers and make all your deepest desires come true,” he asked sarcastically in a way that made Olly feel his blood pressure rise.

He opened his mouth to respond but fell short of hurling an insult at his uncle. He gnashed his jaw shut and turned away. He had no response.

Eli cocked his head to the side, looking pointedly at him. “No? Nothing?”

“Fine. I’ll work with the tutor, I’ll study for the test,” Olly said in a subdued voice, turning to face him.

His uncle seemed to be searching his face, but for what, Olly didn’t know. His mask was unreadable at present.

“You are so young,” he said finally, and it almost sounded like a sigh, “I know it’s easy to feel like there’s nothing in it for you right now, but find a reason. Find it and hold onto it. You’ll need it to succeed.”

With that, Eli checked his pocket watch. “I’m off, I’ll see you later. Let me know how it goes with the tutor, if you don’t like this one we can find someone else.”

He strode out of the kitchen somewhat stiffly, leaving Olly feeling more conflicted than ever before.