“No one spoke. There was no need. The threat of the Eldrazi presented a simple choice: lay down your weapons and die for nothing, or hold them fast and die for something.” -MTG, Time Of Heroes-
_____
“What the shit was that?” El demanded, practically flinging herself down the thin stairs that led to the home’s upper floor. The front door was still hanging open, though most of the shattered glass had been swept up; a fact the still shoeless James was grateful for. “You all heard that, right?!” She asked in a panicked pitch.
“Sounded like an explosion.” Anesh said. He, along with James and Alanna, were standing on the front lawn discussing how to proceed. Anesh had his arms folded, but it didn’t seem like the distant blast had changed his mood one way or the other.
James nodded at his boyfriend. “I’d guess about six miles away.” He added.
“How can you possibly know that.” Alanna sounded more amused than really that confused.
“How do you know how to take care of a peregrine falcon?” James rebutted.
Alanna glared at him with her eyes, but her voice betrayed laughter. “I *don’t know*, dumbass. How *do* I know that?”
“Right, sorry!” James threw his hands up into the night air. “I’m doing really bad at this! I’m sorry!”
None of their antics deterred El. “What about *the explosion*!?” She repeated herself. “What does it mean? Are you gonna do anything about it?”
“We’re still deciding how to question the prisoners.” James said. “Also bringing Alanna up to speed on everything, and me up to speed on how *we are all dead if we don’t solve this problem in twenty hours*.” His voice cracked a bit at the end, real panic overriding his snarky attitude.
“We’re not all dead, we’re just…” Anesh trailed off. “Okay, I don’t have a good answer for that.”
“Explosion!” El yelled at them, loudly enough that a short moment later, Jeanne pulled open an upstairs window and hissed at her to be quiet. “Explosion!” She repeated, softer.
“El, it’s all going to shit.” James sighed. “Maybe it’s because the brute squad in there failed to capture Ava, maybe it’s because the gatekeeper showed up, or maybe this was always the timeline and we’re just caught in it. But it’s getting bad.”
“I think a lot of people tried to leave all at once.” Anesh said. “I don’t know if they knew why, but when I went to meet the Last-“
“Don’t call it that.” James shook his head. “It doesn’t get a cool name. It’s the gatekeeper.”
“-The… gatekeeper… there were a *ton* of cars lined up trying to get to the highway. And that was just an hour or two ago.” Anesh shook his head. “For some reason, everyone knows to bail.”
“I think the biggest problem is that the dungeon is snapping up territory out here, which is what attracted the ol’ gatesman.” James grit his teeth. “But it doesn’t seem like it’s spawning anything out here, just casually existing. And declaring the town our property hasn’t worked.”
“You tried that?”
“I try that with every city, even if there isn’t a dungeon.” James smiled.
Alanna cut in. “So why is the explosion? I’m not gonna freak out like her,” She jerked her head toward El, “but I would kinda like to know what’s blowing up.”
“I have no idea!” James answered. “We should go ask.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be the professionals at this?” Alanna challenged James. “I don’t actually *remember*, but it does feel like ‘I dunno’ isn’t the answer I want to hear.” She paused. Did she not remember? There was that feeling again, that warm buzz of memory just at the edge of her perception. “We’ve done this before.” She stated quietly.
“We have.” James agreed. “Do you remember where?”
“I want to say high school, but… no, we went to school together. And then… a different school…” Alanna grabbed at her forehead. “Ow.”
“Don’t push it.” James told her, holding back from reaching out to give her a comforting touch. “Okay. We need a plan *now*.” He got them back on track. “Does anyone know how to do an interrogation?”
“I’ve got an idea.” Anesh said.
“Of how to interrogate people?”
“Of how *we* can interrogate *these* people.” Anesh replied. “Alanna, you can read minds, right?”
“No.”
James blinked. “What?”
“Nope.” Alanna added.
“I also wanna double up on the ‘what’.” El said.
“If you take perception from me.” Anesh clarified. “Then your empathy ability can pick out details to the extent that it may as well be surface level mind reading. Yes?”
“Okay, fine.” Alanna conceded. “But don’t call it mind reading. I don’t really like how that feels.”
“To be clear, we could *all* read their minds, with a router and a length of cable.” James pointed out. “I’m glad you have an idea that isn’t that, but I just want us to be aware that if it’s a choice between the lives left in this city, and the mental privacy of those assholes, I know where I’m falling.”
“Noted. But this isn’t that unethical. And it’s gonna work, because we’ve got six whole prisoners to work with. El, go bring us one of them, while I explain cold reading and word association to these two.”
Reluctantly, El ducked back into the house and headed to the living room where they’d tied up the people who had come to kidnap Ava not even an hour ago.
Outside, James, Anesh, and Alanna stood in a loose circle. After Anesh explained his plan, none of them knew what to say, exactly. How did you go about taking a quiet moment before the end of the world to talk about your feelings? Even if that apocalypse was a pretty local one, it was still kind of daunting.
Alanna kept stealing glances at Anesh, though. And at a certain point, James just had to ask. “You seem like you’ve got something Anesh-related on your mind. What’s up?” Anesh, hearing his name, glanced up from the notebook he was writing a list of potential keywords in.
“Ah.” Alanna said, and looked away a bit awkwardly. “Out of curiosity… um… do you have a brother?”
Anesh quirked an eyebrow and frowned. “No, I… oh. Oh! No, there’s copies of me! Did James not tell you that? Or do you remember something else?”
“I told her, but she didn’t believe me.” James helpfully added. “But yeah, what did you remember, out of curiosity?”
And to his intense amusement, Alanna *blushed* and deliberately didn’t make eye contact with either of them.
In her head, the memory that had cracked the surface of her mind as she stood there with the others, was a moment of intensely intimately passion. Alanna replayed a scene of having four hands belonging to the same person holding her, warm skin pressed against her own, tangled blankets and dim light and gleefully explored lusts.
She didn’t need that distraction right now. So instead, she said, “Just a conversation.”
“*Really*” James grinned at her.
“No.” Alanna replied. “But I don’t wanna get into it right now.”
Instantly, James let the grin retreat, and nodded at her. “Okay.” He said. “Sorry, I won’t push it. When you’re ready, you can talk about it.”
“You two are so fucking weird.” Alanna muttered.
Anesh cleared his throat. “How so?” He asked. “Because I think I’m the normal one.”
“You have clones.” James pointed out. “And I’m a wizard.”
“I’m a wizard too!” Anesh protested.
Alanna cut their friendly banter off. “You’re too fucking nice.” She said, almost grumpily. “People aren’t this nice.”
“You only think that because you’ve been hanging out with the wrong people.” James told her. “Or rather… okay, that’s not fair. I think a lot of people are assholes because we don’t properly teach people how to be kind. And then you compound that with the massive stressors of daily life, and a lot of unexamined historical context, and it all builds up, and…”
“See, this is what I’m talking about.” Alanna interrupted. “You’re even trying to understand why people suck, so you aren’t *mean to people who suck*. That’s just weird.”
“Eh. If I don’t, how will I ever be able to help them stop sucking?” James replied. “Also, I hate to cut this short, but our first victim is here.” He motioned to where El was ordering a hobbled prisoner down the wooden front porch steps. She’d taken the time to fetch her shotgun, and kept the middle aged man at about a full arms length away, making it highly unlikely he could get away with anything. “Gimmie the notes.” He held out a hand to Anesh, who slapped the notebook into it.
What followed was the strangest opening salvo in an interrogation James could imagine. El had picked out the guy who looked the least important, and also had the most broken bones from Camille, so he wouldn’t have to spend too much time on this. With Alanna watching carefully, and Anesh blinding himself to effectively double her ability to do so, James read off single relevant keywords from the notebook provided.
“Road.” He said flatly. No response besides mild confusion. “Monsters. Suns.” The man flinched, making the connection.
Alanna spoke quietly. “Fear, of us, for someone else. Undercurrent of protective instinct. He won’t say anything because he is worried about hurting someone. Someone he worships.”
Nodding as if he understood perfectly while Anesh wrote that all down in a separate notebook, James continued. “Property. Acquisition. Missing persons. Murders.”
That got a reaction. “I didn’t kill anyone!” The man… no, the *kid*, protested. He was probably older than James, but James labeled him a kid in his head at hearing the whiny voice. Though, to be fair, his arm was in a makeshift splint right now, which couldn’t feel good.
“Half truth.” Alanna said. “He won’t say what he knows.”
“You aren’t the police!” The idiot said, as if that protected him. “The horizon won’t… you can’t do anything to me!”
James blinked and almost went off script. If someone said that to *him*, he’d find it reassuring, but for *most* people, the police would be the safe option. Random people with superpowers, not so much.
So he just continued. “Blackout. Communications. Cut off.” Nothing. “The Last Line Of Defense.” Nothing but confusion, Alanna said nothing, so he kept going. “Tradition. Profit. Ritual.”
“He’s panicking.” Alanna informed him. “He knows something he’s not supposed to, and he’s terrified to say it.”
“A ritual.” James said, eyebrows raised as he stood over the kneeling figure on the dried out front lawn. “No. *The* ritual. Would you tell us what you know?”
The man looked up at James with pleading eyes, tears welling in the corners of them. “I can’t.” He moaned. “He’ll kill me. The mechanic will kill me. Please. I have a fam-“
“Quiet.” James said. Then he nodded at El. “Take him to the back yard, let the others see he’s alive, but don’t put him back with them.” He paused, then added with a sigh, “Then bring the next one.”
She nodded and hauled the guy to his feet, struggling a bit as her untrained muscles protested the limply unresisting mass of their prisoner.
“Okay.” Anesh said as he pulled his senses back. “Two new keywords, and something to focus on.”
“You really think any of them will fall for this?” Alanna asked. “I’m doing my best Shawn Spencer impression, but that guy seemed more impressed by the broken bone than any of our shit.”
“I’ll bet you an orb the next one gives us something valuable.” Anesh said.
“A what?”
“You’ll like it.” James informed her. “Also, okay, seriously? I’m sorry that I’m handling this badly. I really want to fall back into old habits, but that isn’t what you need right now. So just let me know when I make you uncomfortable, okay?”
Alanna barked out a laugh. A different laugh than James knew from her; a harsher, angrier laugh. “What I need? All I need is to know who I am. You’re helping, in your own dumb way.”
“I’d like to think I’m contributing.” Anesh added. “In a totally different dumb way.” He and James shared goofy grins with each other.
Alanna just sighed. “You two are way too sappy. Here comes El, ready?”
“Ready.”
This man, who’d escaped mostly unharmed due to Anesh pointing a gun at him and telling him to sit down instead of letting Camille break his legs, was older than the last. Before James could even start listing words, he tried to take control of the conversation.
“You won’t get away with this!” Was his first incorrect assumption. “Just give us the girl and you can still leave!”
None of them bothered answering. James just sighed, while Anesh pushed his perception toward Alanna, who caught it and opened razor sharp eyes to watch the proceedings.
“Horizon.” James said.
Instantly, Alanna tapped him on the shoulder. “He knows something he hasn’t told the others. Deep notes of greed, and guilt too, buried under the greed.”
“Those idiots want to protect the damn thing!” The man shouted. “Like it’s some kind of nature preserve, or endangered animal! But it’s *property*, dammit! What’s the point of owning property if it doesn’t make you money?”
James considered shooting him right there, but restrained himself. It was mostly a passing, sarcastic joke of a thought, anyway. “Missing persons. Empty city. Murders.”
“Self defense!” Came the snapped protest.
“Lie.” Alanna growled.
“The mechanic.” James said, eyes hard but voice even.
“He’ll kill you when he finds you.” The man snorted and spat at James’ feet. “You can’t stop him. So it doesn’t matter. We’ll be rich, and you’ll be dead.”
“The ritual.” The man’s face betrayed enough that Alanna didn’t even bother chiming in. “When is it happening?” James asked directly for a change.
The older man just laughed at him. A smoker’s laugh, rough and rude. “Supposed to be as soon as we had the kid.” The man shifted on his knees, trying to get comfortable and failing. “Guess he got impatient.” He said with a flinch as a distant crash of metal and glass sounded.
“Tell us where to find the mechanic.” James ordered.
“Nah.” The man settled back on his heels. “You’ll have to offer-“
“We’re done here.” James cut him off, channeling everything he remembered from Nate about how to maintain control of an interaction like this. “Apologies for the inconvenience, but my friend here is going to render you unconscious.”
At James’ wave, Alanna stepped around behind him and grabbed the man in a sleeper hold. Probably a little harder than was required, but it didn’t take too long for his sputtering struggles to drop off as he passed out.
“Okay.” James said, doing a quick review. “These guys are obviously a cult, worshiping the road, which they call the Horizon. Good name. The mechanic is, I’m guessing, their leader?”
“Even odds they’re some kind of rogue dungeon life.” Anesh said.
“Hey guys? What are we doing with this dude?” El asked, toeing the unconscious guy on the ground.
“Oh, we’ll carry him to the back deck, bring the other guy in, and make a group offer to the prisoners.” James said offhandedly.
El pursed her lips. “Offer of what?” She asked. “We aren’t killing them or anything, right?”
“Nah.” James said. “We just need to know where their leader is.”
“Okay, I feel like I’m two steps behind.” El took a deep breath. “What exactly are we supposed to be doing?”
James let out a small noise of recognition as Alanna nodded along with El’s words. “Ah, okay. So. The Last Line Of Defense is - yes Anesh I said it - is here because the dungeon took territory outside its own borders, and has been spreading outward. Since, you know, it obviously doesn’t give a shit about the people in danger. The obvious fix to this is to just reclaim the territory, which I guess it can’t do. We’ve run into this before, and tested it a bit with the Ascent; dungeons apparently have a very, *very* hard time holding on to bits of Earth without something anchoring them. Now, that *could* be the real estate agents owning all the lots and having a ‘claim’ on them, and if any of the people in there are those people, we’ll ask them to give it up. But it’s way more likely it’s all been moved to the head of their cult.”
“Why?” El asked. “Like, why join a cult anyway? This is nuts.”
“I mean, you saw the first kid. Alanna, what was his main emotion?”
“Awe.” Alanna answered instantly. “Everything was tainted with it. Dude probably loves the… I’m sorry, you said ‘dungeon’ several times, and I know you explained it, but I’m having a really hard time with that word.”
James smiled and bit back a laugh. “No worries. So. Find the leader, wrest control from him, solve the immediately impending doom, and then worry about the loose ends.”
“Yeah, cause there’s a lot of loose ends.” Anesh grumbled. “Like whatever was happening to Jeanne and Ava.”
“And right now, the loose end is this guy’s legs. Anesh, get this guy’s legs.” James said, grabbing the unconscious man’s arms. “We can sort out the rest later. But we are on a time budget right now, and I’ve only got so many explanations in me before the head injury and lack of real rest catch up to me.”
He and Anesh awkwardly walked the unconscious body through the front hall and kitchen of El’s childhood home, drawing concerned looks and angry yells from the other four prisoners tied up in the living room. Alanna silenced their yells with folded arms and a glare, but they still gave worried or infuriated stares as James and Anesh carefully set their interrogation victim on the back porch, and brought the first kid back inside.
“Alright.” James said, ignoring the fact that El’s mom was calmly making a second pot of coffee behind him in the kitchen while this was going on. “Here’s the deal.”
“You killed Mark!” One of the bound women accused him harshly.
“Wait, hang on.” James stretched his enhanced memory, but couldn’t quite remember. “Wasn’t Mark the other guy? The realtor from earlier? Are there two Marks in your…” He raised a questioning eyebrow.
One of the prisoners actually answered. “It’s really confusing, yeah.” The man said awkwardly.
“Okay. Well, no. Mark’s not dead. Either of them.” James sighed. “Here’s the deal,” he repeated, “you lot have pissed off something way too powerful, and way too callous. We have about eighteen hours before people like the woman who wrecked your shit without even trying start collapsing buildings and killing people, to figure out what’s gone wrong, and undo it.” James saw disbelief on some of their faces. “I know about what you call the Horizon.” He said, and instantly all of them perked up. “I’ve been there. Explored it. Nice place.”
The last comment was not made without purpose. As soon as he said it, Alanna stepped forward, and pointed. “Those three.” She said, pointing out the ones with the right emotional profile.
James looked at them, one by one. “You care about it.” He said. “That’s not bad. To be clear here; caring about a place like that isn’t bad at all. Though treating it like a holy site is a little uncomfortable.” He winced, thinking of the Sewer. “But I’m not here to punish you for that. What I’m *here* for is to protect the people of this city who are more or less defenseless against some of the nastier mind magic you guys have going on. So. I’m gonna ask this once. Are you willing to help me find a solution that leaves everyone alive, or are you going to get out of my way?”
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There was a long silence, broken only by the burbling hiss of the coffee pot and a small muttered ‘thanks’ as James took an offered cup from Marjorie.
“We were supposed to bring her to life.” One of the younger of the tied up men said.
“Kirk!” The woman next to him snapped harshly, her voice acidic.
“What?” The kid looked like he was still looking forward to going to a bar for the first time. “Gonna kick me out or something? We’re all going to jail anyway. Who cares?” He looked back at James, anger in his eyes. “We weren’t supposed to hurt anyone. We were just doing what we needed to bring her back to life.”
“Her?”
“Horizon.” The other woman said, with the reverently solemn tone of a true believer. “The Lady Of Travel. Years of work, so much effort, so much *waiting*, and all of it undone at the last step because of you.”
“If you call me a meddling kid, I’m adding you to the naptime pile on the porch.” James said. “Last step?”
“The vessel.” The young guy said. “The… the little girl. The Mechanic told us we just had to wait, that she’d arrive in due time. He didn’t tell us that we’d be *kidnapping her*.” He snarled.
“Yeah, well, kinda late to pretend you give a shit about that, huh?” El asked glibly, kicking her feet up on the coffee table and taking a relaxed posture on the couch that still let her keep the gun at hand.
“Language, young lady.” Her mom chastised her.
James smothered a grin. “Alright, alright. Everyone shut up, let me put this together.” He pressed his fingertips into each other, tapping his steepled hands against pursed lips. “Okay. So. The Mechanic of yours discovers the d- the road. Horizon. Then recruits all of you?” Nods, even if they were reluctant. “Okay. And this was years ago. But he has a plan, some kind of grand work. So you all get to work. Buying up property, getting jobs in the city government or police. And then you settle in to keep rolling along, enjoying the wealth and power, until it’s time to finish the work, right?” No one argued. Even the young guy, who must have been a teenager when this started. Hell, he might be one of the other cultist’s kids. “So that brings us up to recently. When Ava and her mom roll into town, and for some reason, your boss singles her out as the culmination of his plans, starts the ritual that needs her, and attracts outside attention.” He didn’t say that he was pretty sure he knew *why*. “What I don’t get is, why wait until tonight to try to kidnap her?”
“What does it matter to you?” The angry woman snarled. “You are *nothing* in the grand plan of-“ Alanna casually stepped forward and with a satisfying snrrrrk sound tore off a strip of duct tape and affixed it over the woman’s mouth.
“Yes thank you.” James did grin now. “Any other answers?”
“We did try.” The guilty kid said, now actually crying silently. “We kept trying. But the last week, every time we’ve gone to where they’re supposed to be, they’ve just been *gone*. So he told us to wait, until he could manifest a tracker to help us.”
“...Gone?” James glanced over at Anesh, who looked back at him with wide eyes.
His boyfriend had already put the pieces together. “Because Ava and Jeanne were busy walking toward the road.” Anesh said. “Because it was *calling* to them.”
Alanna made an interjecting noise. “Is that not just a coincidence?” She asked. “I know it’s not, but I wanna know why.”
“Because it can’t talk to people.” James said. “Not like we can, or even its creations can. So if it wants to get them to *move*, on short notice?” He rubbed at his forehead, head still aching from the events of the day.
“It only had one option, probably.” Anesh punched a fist into his own palm. “It did what it could to make sure they didn’t get their hands on Ava.”
“Why?!” One of the cultists that had been listening in yelled at them. “Why?! We were trying to help!” He struggled in vain against the ropes holding his hands. “We were just trying to help! The Mechanic was just showing us what we needed to do to save her!”
And there it was. James sighed, and shook his head. In any other circumstances, he’d hire that guy in a heartbeat, and give him some way to actually help. And maybe he still would, later. But here, right now, all he could think was how *stupid* these people were.
A random person, or possibly a friend or relative of theirs, had shown up one day, probably thrown around some magic, declared themselves a prophet of a sleeping god, and they had *gone along with it*.
And some of them obviously, painfully, believed in their cause. In the splendor and beauty of the dungeon. But no matter what they *believed*, they had one fatal flaw in everything they were doing.
None of them could ask their god if it was what it wanted.
Even the most worshipful of the cultists were still clearly terrified of the Mechanic. Of who he was, or what he’d become, or perhaps just the power he commanded. And it was through his mouth that every word of their religion was filtered. And so, at the end of the day, the people who thought they were saving a lost god, were spending their nights trying to kidnap a child, because it *seemed like the right thing to do*.
“You fucking idiots.” James whispered.
Alanna got it suddenly, too, and was a lot less subtle than he was. “You *fucking* idiots!” She yelled, looking like she wanted to start kicking faces. From the table behind her, Rufus looked like he was ready to join her; or at least cheer her on. “You didn’t *ask*!”
“Okay.” James said, calmly laying a hand on Alanna’s shoulder without thinking about the gesture. “Here’s the deal. You’re going to tell us where the Mechanic is. We’re going to go unfuck this mess - yes, sorry Ms. Chase - and we’ll go from there, okay?”
“We don’t have to tell you any-!” Another snrrrrrk of the roll of duct tape silenced another dissenter.
“Anyone else?” James asked.
It only took one more satisfying duct tape noise before one of the more cooperative prisoners told them where they were going. Union Street Auto Body. An actual mechanic, which shouldn’t have surprised James at all.
The three of them - and also El, James realized he’d been quietly ignoring her - regrouped on the front lawn. Ganesh followed them out, alighting on Anesh’s shoulder again and drawing a small flinch from Alanna as the drone passed her. Rufus got as far as the porch, but didn’t wander out to the lawn where he might get underfoot.
The neighborhood was dark, James realized. Darker than it should have been. The street lamps were on, casting their ancient orange glow onto the pavement from bulbs that would one day be updated to harsh white LEDs, but for now, kept burning their warm color. But the windows of every other house on the street were dark.
“Does anyone else live here?” He asked El suddenly.
“Nope.“ She said. “Mom said the last neighbor moved away a month ago.”
“Course.” He sighed. “Alright. What do we have to work with?”
“Your rifle got fucked up in the crash. It doesn’t *look* warped or anything, but it won’t fire, and I don’t actually know how to perform field maintenance on these things.” Anesh told James. “Aside from that, we’ve got roughly one and a half sets of body armor, two swords, five cars, a motorcycle that El’s mom has for some reason-“
“I’m starting to worry my mom might be cool.” El shook her head sadly.
“-And then whatever magic we have to bring to bear. Telepads are out, but we do have one blue from it, along with about a hundred yellow and twenty purple orbs from the trunk. The lunchbox *did* survive, by the way, I know that’s important to you.”
“It really is.” James conformed. “What about skulljacks? Do we have braids?”
“We’ve got two. But no wifi in the area, and no host device, means we probably can’t fully merge.”
“What about using my phone as a wifi hotspot?”
Anesh shook his head. “You’re really overestimating how much power your phone has.”
“Also,” Alanna added, “you’re assuming your phone is still in one piece.”
“Aw, not again.” James checked his pockets for the first time since his car had flipped over, and found them devoid of phone, but containing a few new holes where sharp shards of jagged metal and plastic had cut through. “Super. Also, five cars?”
“El’s, whatever nightmare you’re driving, and the three we now own by right of violence from our prisoners.” Anesh listed off. “Also technically, our car should be *fine* by now, if the car-specific health potion has done its job. But it’ll just be upside down.”
There was the sound of one of the upstairs windows opening, and second later, a dull thud as Camille joined them on the lawn. “Where’ve *you* been?” James asked her with raised eyebrows. “Also nice entrance.”
“Upstairs.” She answered, without providing any information. “Have your questions borne answers?”
James and Alanna filled her in. The cult, the Mechanic, everything they’d learned.
She just nodded once. “Interesting. You are proving proficient at information collection.” She said to Anesh in that distant, dry tone.
“Uh… thanks?” He glanced over at James, and they shared a shrug. “So far, it’s mostly just been keeping ourselves in the right place, and letting answers reveal themselves. So, any thoughts?”
Camille frowned at him. “I am here to observe, not assist.”
“That’s not what you were doing earlier.” Anesh pointed out to her with a bitter anger. “You can apparently observe just fine while you’re flinging people into bushes and breaking arms!”
“That was… different.”
“Lie.” Alanna said, suddenly and surprised by her own revelation. “You’re lying. Why?” She looked closer at Camille. “You could fix this whole problem by yourself, but you haven’t yet. Anesh said you *punched a hole in a truck*, but now you’re pretending you don’t have to do anything?”
“I have my task.” Camille told her, clear anger showing through. But also, to Alanna, something else too. Trepidation, anxiety. She had her orders, but for the first time, she worried they weren’t enough. Or worse, were *wrong*. “I will observe. No more. Neither will I join you in the center of this hostile domain. I owe you no explanations. You cannot force me regardless, no matter what my father thinks of your potential.”
James was starting to dislike Camille, whatever she happened to be. But as he opened his mouth to be mean to her, Alanna held an arm in front of him, and spoke first. “You don’t seem like you’re used to being scared,” She said in a quiet tone, like she was willing calm into the world, “so you may not understand what that feeling in the bottom of your gut is. But none of us are going to interpret it as weakness if you tell us what has you worried.”
A long quiet, then, where the main noise was mostly just Camille slightly growling at them as she gave Alanna a cold glare.
Then James spoke up. “It’s the Mechanic’s plan, isn’t it?” He asked. “You were fine helping Anesh in small ways before. But you heard that, and now you’re back to the whole ‘observe and report’ thing. So what about it bothers you?” He puzzled it out aloud, mostly for his own benefit. “It can’t be the dungeon territory expanding; you’re literally here to deal with that. So it must be something about the ritual itself. Or is it just the end result? The idea of a dungeon, in a human body? Is that-“
“That’s it.” Alanna confirmed, reading the smallest hints of emotional tones off Camille’s face and body language. “She’s worried about a dungeon person.”
“I worry about nothing. You waste time. Kill your prisoners, and be about your business of heroism.” Camille snapped at them, grinding her teeth in frustration.
Anesh held up a single finger to James’ lips as soon as James tried to open his mouth. “That’s an obvious attempt at a distraction.” He said.
James rolled his eyes. “I *know* that.” He said. Honestly, he wasn’t *that* transparently single minded. And Camille, for all that she could punch trees in half, wasn’t exactly a skilled manipulator. “Look,” he addressed the armored woman, “I get it. It’s not exactly subtle. You’re worried that if this works, there’ll be a life form on the planet that’s a massive threat to your father, what with his seeming weakness to dungeons for some reason. You don’t need to explain yourself to us. But being standoffish because you don’t know how to manage your fears isn’t helpful. You want this thing stopped before it’s a problem? Help us stop it. Everyone wins.”
He didn’t smile, he didn’t try to add on extra information or arguments. James applied everything he’d picked up, from the professional socialites in their Order and from different parts of a dozen different orbs, and turned it on Camille. A rock solid wall of believable, possibly naive sounding heroism, that she could make use of to accomplish what she truly wanted. It would, of course, be so easy for her. Because James was ‘the good guy’. Even Anesh saw him that way, to a fault.
And when she nodded, he wasn’t even surprised. Because Camille, James has already noticed, was very bad at manipulating people. And as a corollary, she had even worse defenses against being manipulated herself.
James *was* the good guy. Or at least, he strived to be a force that did good. But he wasn’t stupid. And at the end of this, there weren’t a lot of ways out of a messy situation. Because one way or another, as soon as the Last Line Of Defense knew that they knew about the *potential* for something like this, it would probably deem their entire Order a threat.
Which meant it couldn’t know. Which meant, one way or another, Camille couldn’t tell it. And while James could see in her the spark of the desire to make the world better, to help people and uplift the weak and lost, he could also see a fierce loyalty to the thing she called a father.
He’d written as much in small notes, when trying to stealthily communicate a plan with Anesh and Alanna.
By the end of tomorrow, Camille had to be either with them, taking a leap of faith to abandon her life and join up with the Order of Endless Rooms, or, she had to be dead. The option of her reporting back wasn’t on the table.
Because there was no future for them otherwise.
“Very well.” Camille said, her emotions solidifying into a plan of action that she was much more comfortable with. With a single nod, she banished the doubt she was feeling. Of *course* there was an obvious way to help her father. He would understand. “We will kill the aberration and its minions. My father will understand.”
“Glad we got that settled.” El said. “So, what are we *doing* then?”
“Oh, are you with us?” James asked her, legitimately curious. “I kinda thought…”
“Dude. Dude, come on.” El rolled her eyes at him. “It’s figuratively do or die. What am I supposed to do, sit out?”
James corrected her without thinking. “Literally.”
“Nah,” El said, “people always use literally wrong.”
Anesh looked like he was having the world’s biggest headache, which James knew wasn’t true, since the holder of that title was currently himself. “Can we please focus? Do we *have* a plan beyond ‘go there and start shooting’?”
“The site is defended.” Camille spoke up. “I can feel it.”
“And you didn’t say anything because..?”
She shot a cold look toward Alanna. “My assault sense requires me to be part of said assault.”
“First off, that’s a rad power.” James commented. “We’re gonna talk about that power later. Second, defended how? Is it something we can get through?”
Camille looked like she was focusing into the distance. “Sturdy walls, reinforced. Two trapped doors. A small army. And one very large guardian.”
The group was quiet for a bit, thinking individually.
Anesh spoke up first. “We have thermite for the doors. I don’t think any of us could just go through the walls. Well, maybe Camille could?”
“Hit from two sides, if we want to do that.” Alanna pointed out. “The ‘small army’ thing worries me. Do you have enough bullets?”
“The rifle won’t run out. It’s mostly a question of if it can hurt them at all.” Anesh sighed. “We have the earring,” he tapped his own ear, “one of us could sneak in.”
“Too risky.” James decided.
“And a *very large guardian* isn’t?” El asked with a snort. “How do you plan to deal with that?”
“Oh, that’s easy.” James said. “A very large weapon.”
“Got one of those handy?” Alanna asked, saying out loud what the childly curious look on Camille’s face spoke anyway.
James shrugged. “It’s our modus operandi.” He said. “I’ll think of something.”
“That’s a lie at best.” Anesh muttered.
“*Anyway*.” James continued without letting anyone else interrupt. “We’ve still got manipulate asphalt charges left. That’s kind of a big gun, let’s use that.”
Anesh winced. “Bad news.” His boyfriend said. “I tried it earlier, and whether its the Route Predation or the Mechanic, it doesn’t much matter; any asphalt on claimed territory snaps out of our control almost right away.”
Well, James thought to himself but did not say out loud, that kind of ruined a lot of their biggest weapons.
He racked his brain, trying to think of a way they could make a head on attack against something that knew they were coming work. At one point, he glanced at El, who was either also thinking, or just staring at the stars for what she might have thought was the last time.
And then James started to open his mouth. Because he remembered that El could do something he couldn’t. And even knowing the limitation of her most concerning spell, he still wanted to ask if she could trace them a route to victory. But he didn’t say anything, because his first thought was wrong, wasn’t it? She wasn’t the only one with a piece of magic from the Route.
James closed his eyes and focused on that new esoteric organ in his chest. The one that held Velocity. He was capped out, a full tank of the stuff ready to go. And more than that, he knew in his bones the formula for refilling it.
And he had an idea.
He had one spell, but it was a pretty good one. Maker’s Hand Upon The Wheel. He hadn’t used it, but he did instinctively understand what it did for him; a massive boost in focus, detail work, and even creativity, as long as he kept it going. It ate one Velocity a minute. And he felt, *knew*, that it would let him pull the shit he was thinking of.
He did some quick math.
“Okay.” James said. “I’ve got an idea for a big gun.” He looked at the other four with a solemn gaze. “Anesh, get the orbs. No use hanging onto them if we’re all about to die. El, go collect car keys and clear this street for us. Camille… keep doing your thing. Alanna, go check on everyone, make sure the prisoners are tied up and the non-prisoners are doing okay.” He turned and looked off into the distance, where another echoing crash had just sounded and the flicker of an uncontrolled fire was growing. “We’ve got two deadlines, and I don’t know which is worse. So let’s not waste time.”
“What’s your plan?” Anesh asked.
James was busy looking at the road. The road in front of the only house on the street with the lights on; the only piece of territory near here that they were sure hadn’t been bought or claimed, added to the dungeon’s control somehow. He hadn’t had any trouble manipulating the asphalt here.
“My plan,” he said carefully, “is to ask Alanna to fucking floor it to our target.”
_____
They split the purple orbs five each, with Camille abstaining. Or just not being invited. James didn't figure she needed more powers.
[Shell Upgraded : Optics - Safe Lumen Threshold - +18,300]
[Shell Upgraded : Considered Reaction Time -1.8 Seconds]
[Shell Upgraded : Ligament Tensile Strength +88 PSI]
[Shell Upgraded : Radiosynthesis - Dermal Absorption - X-Ray - 3% Capture Rate]
[Shell Upgraded : -3 Broken Bones / Year]
“I’m glad we had one of the broken bone ones here.” James said as he finished. “Honestly, we should have maybe waited a week to duplicate a full superpower suite for ourselves.”
“First off, none of these are duplicates, that’s just a coincidence.” Anesh told him. “Also if we’d waited a week, this whole town would be gone, and we’d be too late.”
“Fair point.” James conceded, while Anesh got to work on his own purples.
Anesh had a different style than James for these. He liked to savor each one. Well, not ‘savor’ exactly, but consider at least with a passing thought, not just let the magic pile up and deal with it later.
[Shell Upgraded : Liver Processing - +3 oz/day]. Interesting, but not useful here, and Anesh didn’t really drink. Probably not bad for his health though, assuming he survived the night.
[Shell Upgraded : Lift Capacity - Arms - +120 lbs]. While it was worded strangely, fundamentally this just gave him the muscle mass and capability to do what it said. Anesh used to get worried about the specifics of orbs like this, but none of them seemed to slow him down, so he filed it under ‘passively useful’ and moved on.
[Shell Upgraded : Refractory Period - -3 minutes]. He’d tell James about this later.
[Shell Upgraded : Tooth regrowth - +1/month]. That better not hit wisdom teeth.
And finally, [Shell Upgraded : Optics - Vision Range - +5 Degrees]. Anesh felt his worldview literally expand, and considered complaining that this wasn’t the correct use of the word ‘range’. But it would come in handy, and the magic of the orb already had him comfortable with his new way of seeing the world.
“Oh man, I love these things!” El said. “I only ever got two when I visited. Are you sure I can just have em?”
“You gave me a map spell, so it seems fair.” James shrugged. “Also, every edge counts in times like this.”
El just grinned, and followed his example, slamming her hands together and breaking all five at once.
[Shell Upgraded : Memory - Long Term - Fact Retention - +1.2 Months / Memorization Minute]
[Shell Upgraded : Safe Dose - Chlorine - +11 Oz]
[Shell Upgraded : Skin Durability - Tensile Strength - +114 PSI]
[Shell Upgraded : -1 Deja Vu/Year]
[Shell Upgraded : +1 Heart]
“Ahhhhhh!” El shouted, clutching her chest where a second panicked hammering had suddenly, abruptly, begun. “What! No!”
“What’s wrong?” James asked, rushing over to her side, even as the question was echoed by El’s mom standing in the door of her home.
“My heart! Hearts!” El stammered, breathing heavily. “Humans can’t have two hearts! That’ll kill me!” She looked up at James with a wild fear in her eyes. “I’m not supposed to die!” The words came out as a squeak, and while James knew most people would just find her to be overly dramatic, he totally got the feeling she had.
“Relax.” He instructed her, as calm as possible. “Take a deep breath. The orbs aren’t *allowed* to hurt you, even if they sometimes seem inconvenient. Breathe.” He lay a hand on her back, keeping her steady. “There ya go. Keep breathing. Feel your heartbeat. It’s steady, yeah? And you’re doing okay. You’ll be fine.”
El took a dozen more breaths, getting used to the sensation, before she pulled away from James and let go of her chest, steadying herself and looking down at her hands . She flexed her fingers, then her arms. “What the hell…” she muttered. “Why does this feel so *good*?”
“Because blood flow is super important for a lot of things, actually.” Anesh pointed out. “And it sounds like your backup isn’t a backup at all. More like your body just got rewired for double the pressure.”
“This is nuts.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” Alanna said, looking down at the orbs in her hand. “You know, I have a few memories of these things now? But I *still* find that to be a big creepy factor.” She pointed at El, now prodding her skin over her ribcage. “What if *I* get an extra heart?”
“You are already almost bulletproof, heat resistant, and I think also can control friction, among a dozen other things.” James reminded her.
Alanna gave him a sheepish grin. “Oh yeah.” She said, and cracked her own orbs.
[Shell Upgraded : Maximum Grip Strength - +66 PSI]
[Shell Upgraded : Taste Receptors - Fruit - +19,800]
[Shell Upgraded : Lung Capacity - +2 Liters]
[Shell Upgraded : Wound Healing Time - Flesh / Muscle - -15%]
[Shell Upgraded : Energy Conversion - Kinetic to Caloric - Maximum 22,000 Joules / Day]
“I’m not sure, but I think that at least one of those makes me both more bulletproof, and more likely to gain weight.” Alanna stared at the air in front of her as she processed the mental pings.
James and Anesh both looked at her, then at each other. “Well…” Anesh said cautiously, before James picked up the sentence, “You look like you haven’t been eating right, so *good*. We need to get you some real food when we get back.”
“I’d like that.” Alanna muttered.
And then, there wasn’t any more time. The fires in the distance were spreading, the sounds of conflict getting louder and closer. They needed to move, now.
The guns were loaded, the armor they had strapped on. Camille found a piece of old rebar in the garage to use as a temporary substitute for the supermaterial mace she’d been swinging at Anesh earlier. El had cleared the road, and the five of them split into two cars to maximize their chances of getting through.
“I’m coming with you.” Jeanne said, standing on the porch and watching James triple check his precious handgun.
He just stared back at her, then up at the window of the house that Ava was sleeping in. Slowly, he shook his head, and thankfully, Jeanne didn’t argue.
Camille rode shotgun with El, the young woman’s modified cherry red convertible looking woefully unprepared for battle. James hopped into the front seat of the stupid bright yellow Hummer, annoying probably the tankiest vehicle they had on offer.
Anesh sat in the back seat, settling in, closing his eyes, and pushing every ounce of speed he had through the connection to James.
Alanna joined them in the driver’s seat. “This is way nicer than my last two cars.” She commented. “Leather seats. Air conditioning! Oh thank fuck.”
Unable to stifle a grin, James looked over at his partner, and shared a smile with her. There was just one last thing to say, before their newest foray into idiotic heroics.
“You asked who you were. Earlier.” James spoke. “I think you already know. I think every important part of you is still there. And I say that as someone that has literally *been* you. You’re brave without thinking, kind without question, and never afraid to be goofy or let your guard down.” Alanna looked at him, then snapped her gaze back out the window, blinking away something from her eyes. James had one last thing to say, though. “You’re exactly who you’ve always been.” He told her. “You’re one of us. Us, the people who answered, when someone asked for help. Right?”
He held out a hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Alanna clapped her own palm against his. “Right.” She said.
“Great.” James closed his eyes, and pulled on the refreshed stockpile of asphalt manipulation charges. Around them, the road bubbled, rose into the air on tenuous tendrils, and roughly stabilized into an oblong shape hovering next to their vehicle. With a wordless command, Maker’s Hand Upon The Wheel activated, and suddenly, James could feel every granule of stone in the mass he had taken command of, every edge and contour. The blob of asphalt steadied, locked itself in place just outside his window, and peeled back scintillating layers as it formed itself into a single vicious black needle. His velocity began to tick down. But he had, with everything at his command, complete control over this one chunk of matter.
“Okay.” James gave the word. “Punch it.”