“At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” - John Boys, Dean of Canterbury -

_____

James hit the telepad intake platform in a crouched position that didn’t make much spatial sense now that he didn’t have his knee planted on the chest of a corpse. Instantly, he started to tumble forward, inadvertently shoving Frequency-Of-Sunlight to the side as he lost his balance. The leg that he’d linked with Alex to be in contact with her while teleporting was suddenly a huge liability, and before anyone could catch him, he slammed into the floor, clipping his funny bone with the corner of the briefcase he was still holding in a white knuckled grip.

“Ow.” James said breathlessly. “Fuck. Ow.”

“Oh god.” Alex gasped out from the smooth concrete floor. “Ahh, my leg!” Her voice rose to a much more urgent level as the pain of James twisting her knee caught up to her.

He pulled himself forward, setting the briefcase down as softly as he could as he untangled himself from Alex. “Fuck, sorry.” James yelped.

“Sir. Do you need a hand?” A voice said from overhead.

James looked up, mostly to see dark skin and a crooked nose. He blinked rapidly, trying to get his eyes to focus properly.

“He doesn’t like it when we call him sir.” Daniel’s voice came in from the side. “Just kick him a little and if he’s belligerent, it means he’s fine and he’ll get up on his own.”

“I’m mad that you know me so well.” James groaned, extending an arm and letting the familiar face that came into focus give him a hand up. “Oh, Tyrone. Right? Wait, am I getting that wrong?”

“Nope, that’s me.” The young security guard from James’ old job gave him a lopsided smile. “Been a while, dude! How-“

“Not the time.” Daniel cut him off briskly. “James, you’re not the only person who teleported in. Can you fill us in?”

It took a second for James to look around, and get a good view of the room. The room that he had, over the course of a few minutes, turned into a pretty chaotic environment.

The six people, five shaped like humans and one in the form of a fairly nonplussed golden retriever, who they’d gotten out of the house were clustered in a corner. Standing in what looked like a tense formation, almost. The reason was pretty apparent, as multiple members of Response had taken notice. Harvey, who was standing with crossed arms and looked very annoyed that this was interrupting something important. El, who looked a lot more concerned than James remembered seeing her be before. Ava, who was absolutely not supposed to be here and seemed to be hiding from everyone somehow. And at least two other whole teams who were either coming in or leaving on assignments when James had popped in and caused some chaos.

They were in a sort of low-threat standoff with the new arrivals.

“They’re fine.” James said, jerking a hand limply at the assembled group. “They’re evacuees. They’re fine.” He repeated. “Where’s JP and Dave?”

“Not here.” Daniel said simply as everyone relaxed. Well, the members of the Order relaxed, many of them stepping back, though it was predictably in line with their curiosity that a lot of them hovered by the door to watch. “They arrived first, then you.”

“Fuck.” James said. “JP said… he and Dave must have taken off somewhere else.” He tried to catch his breath, looking around. Frequency-Of-Sunlight had recovered from the abrupt teleport easily, but was still twitching at every loud noise. Alex, though, had pulled her feet under herself and was still on the floor. “Okay. Get me… get me division representatives. Harvey, Karen, Reed… uh… Sarah, probably? Nate for sure. I’ve got bad news.” He said. “We’ll meet in the briefing area. Public format. People need to know this one.”

“Sure.” Daniel said, nodding. “El, go get Reed. Ty, make calls.” When the two others gave him impressively bland *looks*, Daniel just threw his arms up. “I’m delegating! You both told me to delegate more!”

“This is what I look like from the outside.” James muttered. “Okay. I need to-“

He was cut off as a woman’s voice very loud and equally commanding, ordered a gap be made in the small crowd at the door. James, still half-dazed, a numb buzzing in his hands from the gunfight he’d been in not even ten minutes ago, felt a fresh spike of social panic as Deb stormed in, looking like she was prepared to violate the shit out of her Hippocratic oath.

“Sunny!” Deb’s relieved yell cut off anything James had half-planned to say. “You’re alive!”

“Yes?” The camraconda girl stated it a question, before checking herself, and adding “Yes.” As Deb lunged forward and wrapped the snake in a hug. “I think I broke some arms.” Frequency-Of-Sunlight said, leaning into her partner. “That was not fun.”

An instant later, Deb was on her feet, glaring at James. He had about a heartbeat’s worth of warning, his eyes widening as he tried to say “Wait, no!” But didn’t quite get past the first letter before Deb’s fist clashed with the flaring dome of golden light that the shield bracers produced. James hadn’t switched his away since the fight, because… well, no one had tried to shoot him yet. Though Deb seemed like she might be considering it. In the moment where everything was blinding, and no one could see him sigh, James took the second to compose himself. When the light dropped, he had his arms crossed and was glowering at Deb. “Stop that.” He said flatly. “That’s not okay, we can have this conversation when there aren’t people in trouble. Those six,” he pointed over at the group in the corner, “might have injuries, and certainly need a quiet place to be checked over. Please assist them.” He pulled his hand back and folded his arms again, trying to keep his voice even.

Deb glanced at the new arrivals, then back to James with the ugly glare still on her face, before her eyes softened and she looked back again at the refugee group. James also took a closer look at them, now that he had the chance, seeing that some of them had red burn marks on their skin, or were dripping small droplets of blood from where errant splinters had carved into them.

“I’m really pissed at you.” Deb uttered to James. “But we can do that later.”

“Probably should have done it sooner.” James said before he could stop himself. But he huffed out a breath and shook his head, instead of following up on that. “Look, please check on them. I’ve got to go… something.”

Deb had already turned and started calling much more even-toned orders to the Response personnel around. Getting the potion people a hand moving down to the newly expanded medical wing, clearing the room of everyone who was in the way, she had a lot more of a commanding presence than James did when he couldn’t make his brain focus on anything for very long. But when he spoke, Deb paused and turned back to him, eyebrows raised.

“Are *you* hurt?” She asked.

“No, no. Just… something.” James said, suddenly breathless. “I just need to sit down.” He looked around at the room, still with almost a dozen people in it. “Somewhere quiet.”

Deb said something else, but James was having a hard time paying attention. He just nodded, hearing a rushing in his ears as he agreed to whatever she was saying. Somehow, he found himself sitting against a side wall next to Alex - he was pretty sure someone had helped him here - while the room emptied out.

Alex wasn’t doing much better than he was, really. She was rocking slightly, folding and unfolding her hands, and having about as much trouble breathing as James felt like he was.

It focused him on the present rather quickly.

“You alright?” He asked, like an idiot.

“Nnnnot really.” Alex stammered. “Wasn’t expecting anything like that.”

“Same.” James agreed in a near whisper. He glanced down at Alex’s hands, still covered in the blood of the gunman she’d knifed. “We should go get cleaned up.” He said. “I have to go to a meeting. I think.”

“You think?” The absurdity broke through Alex’s adrenaline crash anxiety, and drew a cracked giggle out of her. “How do you not know?”

“I *obviously* don’t know everything.” James said, gesturing at nothing. “Also I didn’t tell anyone when. So I think I have time.” He rolled his legs underneath himself, pitching forward to rise to a kneeling position. “Want to come with me?” He offered Alex a hand up.

She looked at the offered hand with a blank expression, looking down at her own bloodied hand and back to him before reaching out to take it, helping James push both of them to their feet. But Alex did have a question, which was, “How… are you so calm? About any of this?”

“Well, first off, my own despairing panic tends to get overridden by helping other people with theirs, so that’s a thing.” James said in a fluid rush of words that he would feel hard pressed to replicate later. “Also… I mean, the Order is prepared for this.”

“You fucking liar.” Alex’s words might have started as a joke, but they came out rough and harsh.

“Not… okay, yeah, I mean, us. We’re part of it.” James said as they made their way out to the hall, the Response crowd getting back to normal operations and James glad to let them do it. Still got some *looks* though. “But.. we have a plan. A general outline. We’ve done this… before.” His voice cracked and he stopped talking as they headed for the elevator. “Fuck, I should message Anesh and Alanna, let them know I’m okay.” He fumbled for his phone, typing a hasty message as they waited for the elevator.

“Status Quo.” Alex said, distant look in her eyes. “Yeah.”

“Yeah. And the Sewer. And the Attic, even, before we knew more about it. Just…” James pocketed his phone, looking up at Alex with a deep exhaustion in his eyes. “It’s not going to stop. There’s always going to be another problem, right? But at least now, after having survived this much, we have a *plan*.”

“Yeah?” Alex sighed, partially in relief, partially in joking disbelief. “What is it?”

“It’s *in* the ops manual, you know.” James couldn’t hide a small grin as the elevator doors opened and they stepped in.

Contrary to what *some* people might think, they actually did have a plan for situations like this. For general crises that the Order was either in a unique position to handle, or was the target of to begin with.

Hell, when you got down to it, this was why Response was formed in the first place. Harvey’s efforts to turn it into a peacekeeping and civil protection group that people actually *trusted* were going really well, and at the end of the day, the expansion was doing more good for the world than killing a single corrupted blight like Status Quo would, so James didn’t complain. Not that it was his place to complain anyway; he’d given up leadership to people better suited to lead, and that was fine.

But in its core DNA, Response *was* the uniquely suited solution to some problems.

Problems like Status Quo. Like the Mechanic. Like, apparently, the Alchemists had decided to be.

The plan wasn’t so much a plan as it was a protocol. A simple set of steps to determine exactly how hard they came down on the problem.

First, assess. Learn their strengths and weaknesses, but more than that, learn their ideology, learn their desires. Learn everything they could about the potential enemy, or potential ally. This tied into the caveat that the Rogues were actually explicitly forbidden from being invasive or violating privacy against anything where there wasn’t an actual known threat. No spying just to spy. They were allowed to ask questions; James wanted to live in a world where asking questions solved problems, and he was willing to put his money where his mouth was there.

Speaking of mouths, step two was words. Establish a line of communication, and talk to the other side. Now, this was the pattern for responding to an *active crisis*, so a lot of the time this could be dangerous. Someone like James might be willing to walk into a building and ask for a meeting, but they couldn’t count on that. So they had a few tricks for actually getting conversations started.

And when conversation, and negotiation, failed, which it inevitably would sometimes, they preemptively knew what they were going to have to do.

Rescue anyone who was in the line of fire, evacuate civilians or captives first. Minimize collateral. And then…

Remove the ability of the crisis to make war. To cause harm.

Because at the end of the day, James was forced by experience to admit that he wouldn’t be able to solve every problem by making friends.

The reality of the world, laid bare by the cruel and cold false logic of Status Quo, was that some people would destroy and take and torture and kill and tell themselves that they were the heroes. Or, a far more insidious lie, tell themselves that they were *just doing what was necessary*, that it had to be done to keep the world safe, that if they didn’t execute that child, someone else would. Or, perhaps, that no one else would, and that would be *bad*.

And now, the Guild of Alchemists, or whatever they wanted to call themselves. Another shining example of the worst impulses of humanity. Custom crafting slave weapons, hoarding wealth, sitting back and watching the turmoil of the world flow by. Hurting when it suited them. Killing when it was convenient.

James hated them. So much. Beyond what he’d known was his capacity for rage. He felt it churning in his gut; a base desire to take these monsters that dressed themselves up as righteous men, and annihilate them. Tear them to pieces. Exercise the worst violence he could bring to bear on them until there was nothing left but the dark stains on the carpet, and the inferno closing in to take that evidence of their brutal passing away too.

And the worst part is, James doubted anyone would tell him not to, if he led a terminal crusade against them.

He caught himself against the concrete wall as he stepped off the elevator into a different basement level, slamming his forehead into his arm as he leaned forward, torn between trying to catch his breath, crying, or expelling whatever he’d eaten last onto the floor.

He couldn’t do the last one. Someone would get annoyed. Janitorial work was a communal effort around here.

“Hey?” Alex’s voice came to him. “You… okay?” She asked. Like an idiot.

James gave his own manic laugh. “Aahhhhh!” He thumped his head into the wall again. “Nope!” He decided. “Absolutely not!” How could he possibly be okay? People kept trying to kill him! And he kept fighting back. And… and… “I do not think I am okay, no.” He told Alex. “This has been a bad day.” He added.

“Oh yeah?” She asked. “Well, I woke up today and hit my shin on the shelf next to the bed. So I understand.”

James stared at her for a long moment, uncomprehending, until his brain caught up. And he realized that Alex probably understood exactly what it meant to put aside your own mental panic to help someone else. A real smile cracked his face, and he stood back up, taking a deep breath, before he nodded to her solemnly. “Yes.” He said. “A travesty. We’ll organize a unit to make sure the shelf is reduced to cinders.”

“My shelf!” Alex exclaimed theatrically.

“Okay. I’m okay.” He nodded. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” Alex shrugged, looking away.

They continued toward the pool room through the underhalls of the Lair in companionable quiet, mostly because James had to reply to about fifty rapid fire messages from his partners demanding to know how badly he’d gotten himself hurt this time.

James just focused on staying calm, dealing with the small task of getting the blood out of his hair, and sorting out his thoughts for when he would have to tell everyone in half an hour that he’d gotten the Order into another small war.

He had a finite amount of time to try to relax. Which made relaxing predictably challenging. But he still had some energy left in him to try.

_____

“Our boyfriend...” Anesh started, looking down at his phone as he sat across from Alanna in the dining area.

Alanna was busy filling out paperwork, reviewing skulljack recordings of Response operations and catching up on reports about them. Harvey had *very* quickly gotten them into the good habit of documenting, knowing damn well that the future was uncertain, and a culture of keeping good records was a culture that was more resistant to corruption. Or at least, where it was easier to pick out if a Response member started abusing their position or power.

Denying that they had power was laughable. Alanna was almost bulletproof, and could teleport. Pretending that she wasn’t would be stupid. But she also loved that it didn’t translate to the Order actually giving her a social position. Response was important, and respected, but that respect rose out of direct admiration for the things they did. It wasn’t baked in, and it didn’t come without responsibility. Responsibility that she actually loved having.

When they’d first told Alanna about the dungeons and their magic, her partners had been nervous that she’d chastise them for not using it to do enough. But all those years ago, Alanna hadn’t even had a good idea of what ‘enough’ was. She wanted to save the world, she wanted to help people, she wanted to fix problems. But she’d never known where to start, and so, she hadn’t really gotten righteously angry at James or Anesh. It would have been silly.

And it turned out, ‘where do you start’ was just… anywhere. Just start doing good, and lay the groundwork for everyone who came after you.

Anesh wanted to build spaceships. James wanted to build cities. Alanna didn’t care. Or, rather, she couldn’t see things on that scale. She was where she was, and she wanted to do what she could there. And now, she had the responsibility and the capacity to do so, and she loved it. Alanna even loved filling out paperwork.

Okay, that was a lie. But she *tolerated* paperwork, and would tell anyone who asked that it was important. Because it *was*. She would, if pressed, tell them it was exhausting and she was pretty sure they should have dedicated people who double checked skulljack memories and streamlined the process. And were good at it.

All of that took a backseat when Anesh started talking. Alanna glanced up from the Response laptop she was working on to where Anesh had been playing increasingly convoluted Sudoku puzzles on his phone. “Man, that sentence never gets old. We’ve got a boyfriend!” She grinned at her other boyfriend. “Thanks for sharing.” She told him.

Anesh paused. “First thing,” he started, “is it not kind of rude to say ‘sharing’? He’s a person.”

“Hm.” Alanna welcomed the distraction, tapping her finger on her cheek, long since having gotten used to having fingernails that were a little too sharp. “I mean, I don’t say it to be an ass or anything.” She mused. “But, y’know, we *do* share him, don’t we? I’m not as good at the whole ‘meaning of words’ thing as James is. I’m a little more hands on.” Alanna waggled her eyebrows at Anesh suggestively, getting a roll of the eyes and an amused huff back. “But I don’t think it’s bad to say ‘share’. Like, fuck, sharing is basically the basis of the whole ideology of the Order, right? That we have magic, and power, and knowledge, and we should share it.”

“Okay, well, we don’t share *all* our knowledge. Though I think we’ve got a… you know what, that’s not important.” Anesh waved his hand. “I guess I’m used to hearing it derisively.” He sighed.

Alanna nodded, nudging her laptop aside to lean forward on the table toward her partner. “Oh, I get that. Have you had to try to explain our relationship to someone outside the Order recently? It’s a pain.”

“Alanna, I don’t know how to explain our relationship to *myself*.” Anesh snorted. “I mean, I’m not incapable of researching. I’ve become aware of the concept of polyamory, and open relationships and stuff.” He shrugged. “I just… still get thrown off a little by it. We don’t talk about this very often, and I’ve only barely started to think of myself as bi, and it’s just a mess.”

“We should talk about this more.” Alanna’s voice and smile softened as she reached over the table and grabbed one of Anesh’s hands. “It’s okay to have meandering conversations while we go on three hour long walks until we figure out a tiny bit of who we are.”

“Isn’t… that’s just something we do, isn’t it?” Anesh asked. “I know you and James did that a lot before I moved here. But I swear I’ve done that with you. Or something that feels like it?”

“It usually ends with us at the coffee shop drinking espresso these days.” Alanna nodded. “Anyway! Our boyfriend, you started to say?”

“Oh!” Anesh needlessly turned his phone screen to face Alanna. “Nearly got himself killed.”

Alanna froze, her hand tensing on Anesh’s for a moment, before she forced a calm shrug and leaned back. “Okay.” She said, deciding that Anesh would have let himself get sidetracked from something actually critical. “Doing something heroic, or stupid?”

“Does that… make a difference?” Anesh asked.

“Oh, absolutely.” Alanna nodded. “If it was heroic, he’s my boyfriend. If it was stupid, he’s yours.”

“Okay, well, it was both.” Anesh said smugly.

Alanna gave a small tilt of her head in acknowledgement. “Yeah, that checks out. Guess he’s still ours. Thanks for sharing, by the way!”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“You’re welcome.” Anesh laughed, looking back at his phone. “Anyway. There’s a public meeting in the staging area in an hour, according to the thing Karen just sent me, which has a *very* passive aggressive tone to it. Want to go find James and see if we can help?”

“Sure. Just let me sec-check this laptop first.” Alanna agreed.

Paperwork and good practices could wait. Not *forever*, but that was sort of the point of an organization based around compassion. They had some leeway. Which was good, because the sentence ‘our boyfriend almost died’ showed up with a pretty concerning frequency.

_____

“Well, at least we know the glasses don’t work.” Nate sighed from the observation station in the middle of the Order’s hospital.

Most of that sentence made his head hurt. If you’d told him that someone had built a small hospital in their basement, he would have assumed… nothing. He didn’t know what he would have assumed. Not that he liked assumptions to begin with, but that was just so far out of his personal world that there wasn’t a starting point for it. *Maybe* he’d have a mental image of a serial killer with, like, a dilapidated asylum aesthetic? That sounded kind of accurate.

What he wouldn’t have expected would be that the people he was working for would have sprung for some fairly high end medical equipment, including vitals monitors, exam bed, and a dozen other small things he wasn’t familiar with, then outfitted a single room with all of it and a number of careful touches. And then duplicated that room.

Intellectually, Nate knew that the hospital space was safe. Hell, he’d helped design some of the tests they’d run on the orange totem for stability, and he’d been there when Research had - in an open field far from potential victims - run earthquake tests on an active warped space.

But it was something else entirely to stand in a basement that was about two hundred feet longer than it should have been. Basically impossible to be there, under white LEDs that were both perfectly bright and yet somehow soft, and think things were *normal*.

But he didn’t have time to worry about how they’d turned one room into twenty eight copies of that room, tunneled those rooms through a fold in space so they didn’t accidentally destroy the plumbing infrastructure of the surrounding block, and then, just to show off, left small gaps in the totem’s warped space where the construction crew had installed supply closets, a break room, and bathrooms.

Nate was worrying about it a little. He could multitask.

Of the twenty eight rooms, seven were occupied, and six of those mattered. One, in particular, that Nate was standing outside of now while one of their newer hires gently plucked charred splinters out of the arm of the man inside. One of them had a dog, and Nate wasn’t going to worry about that either.

One of them had a… wasp thing? Nate wasn’t worrying about her, but for different reasons.

The glasses that showed affiliation read the man inside as “Guild of Alchemists, Alchemist.” Which was redundant, but honestly, he didn’t know what he expected them to call themselves. Not that anything was off the table; Nate knew for a fact that the KKK had a rank of ‘grand wizard’, and the fact that a group called the fucking Guild of Alchemists showed more restraint in their ranks was shocking.

“I need to ask him some questions.” Nate told the… medic? Nurse? Whatever the woman in scrubs was. “Is he stable?” He suspected he knew the answer, but asking, and leaving a trail of information, was important around here.

“Yes.” She nodded, round face giving him an instant and professional answer, which he appreciated. “No head injuries or anything serious. But you need permission from…” She pulled a clipboard off the wall and flipped to where Deb had left notes about who was allowed to screw around down here. “Whoever Mr. Marsili is.”

“Yeah, I know.” Nate said blankly. “I have officially given myself permission.”

“Oh.” The woman looked back at the clipboard, seemingly unfazed by the response, and checked a box. “Go on in then. Davis is flagged as your observer? I think that… means…”

“It means he’s making sure I don’t do anything unethical.” Nate nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I’m actually just here to ask questions. Thanks.” He slid the door open, and stepped into the room.

The man in a now slightly shredded suit only tilted his head slight as Nate entered. He had been staring straight ahead, like he was frozen in place. But as soon as Nate was in the room, the man seemed to melt back into human mannerisms. “Ah, hello.” He said in an exhausted voice.

“It’s fine if you drop the act.” Nate said, pulling up a chair and sitting down. “Or if it’s not an act, just don’t feel obligated. I’m Nate Marsili, I’m here to ask a few questions. You’re Colorado, yes?”

The man shifted, somehow, and suddenly Nate knew he wasn’t talking to a human. “Columbia. Or, William Jean, without the pretense. But those are the victim’s names. I do not have a name, really.”

“I’ll stick with Columbia, then.” Nate said, outwardly unflapped as he settled his pad of paper on his knee. “First thing, I’m sure someone’s told you, but you’re not a prisoner here.” The false person sitting on the hospital bed tilted its head at him, almost like a bird. “James says you need help. So you get help. You can go whenever, and you don’t need to answer anything I ask.”

“Reading me my rights?” The creation asked.

“Something like that.” Nate acknowledged. “But also, I do have questions, and you’re probably the one to answer them.”

The potion looked at him carefully through the portals of human eyes, and Nate got the feeling that he was been more than just observed, but *examined*. Like it was trying to take him apart, piece by piece, and understand every one of them carefully and individually.

Then Columbia nodded, once, and said, “I will help how I can.”

“Alright.” Nate kept his disquiet off his face; a skill he’d mastered in his years at the bureau. “I need to know about the Alchemists.”

The creation blinked, and suddenly, was a human and not just something wearing the body. “Lucky for you, I know a bit about them.” Columbia said. “You okay if I talk like this? It’s more… eh, familiar.”

“It’s fine.” Nate chose not to acknowledge the shift more than he needed to. The question of what these people *were*, philosophically, was kind of up in the air, but more importantly there weren’t any established cultural mores for him to worry about. So he chose blunt forwardness. “How many are there?”

“Eighteen. Counting myself. So, seventeen now, I suppose.”

“The number isn’t important?”

“Nah, there’s not symbolism to it. We added a couple new people five years ago, and last year Thames kicked it. It’s just a number.”

Nate glanced at his notes from what JP had relayed to him already. “Someone said sixteen is the number of nobles, is that related to the previous number of Alchemists?”

“That’s a coincidence. There’s sixteen of the things because that’s how much sap is allocated to the upkeep.” Columbia reached his hand out like he was going for a drink, but came up empty. The man frowned, and looked back to Nate. “Also it’s ‘Nobel’. Not noble.”

“The chemist?” Nate said, adding ‘sap’ to his notes with a big circle around it.

“Exactly.”

“That’s… god dammit.” Nate quietly muttered, rubbing a hand across his face. His expectations were crushed. He wasn’t going to get away from absurd naming schemes. “Okay. Before we get to that, tell me what the Alchemists *want*.”

Columbia shrugged. “The same thing everyone wants. Money. Wealth. To buy nice houses, fancy cars, silk bedsheets, to pay to have housekeeping, whatever we want. Once you’re rich enough, you can have basically anything. Even respect, if you know where to look.” He blinked, and went blank, his other self adding in a monotone, “Or that is what they believe.” Before he flickered back to the proud gentleman.

Nate didn’t argue. He wasn’t James, he wasn’t here for ideology class. “Okay. So, your own creation, then. Monetary motivation there too?”

“Oh yeah.” Columbia nodded smoothly. “Who wouldn’t want a way to turn anyone into a personal spy? And if that didn’t work, who wouldn’t want a way to cure any mental disorder? Cash cow, right there.” He shrugged easily. “It hasn’t gone swell so far.”

“You don’t consider yourself a success?” Nate prompted.

The man across from him flickers away, and the replacement was there in his place. Nothing *changed*, exactly, but there was a feeling at the exact moment the disguise dropped. “My creation killed a man.” The potion said. “Not a good man, or a kind man. But someone. Neither of us consented to the process. I do not feel like a success.”

Nate was, mostly, trying for straightforward professionalism. But he softened at the comment. “You don’t decide how you’re born.” He told the other creature. It wasn’t much, but it was what he had to offer. But he still had more to ask. “I’m not the therapist here, though. There are smarter people than me for that conversation. What I need to know is, what *are* the nobels?”

“Alchemically enhanced soldiers.” Columbia leaned back and kicked his feet up onto the bed. “We hire them on contract, from some security contractor. Never bothered to learn the name. They get a standard suite of alchemical enhancements, and do the dirty work. That’s about it.”

“List of enhancements?” Nate cocked an eyebrow.

“Short. Do you want the Latin, or the easy names?” In reply, Nate just gave him a *look*. “Easy it is.” Columbia nodded. “Wraith form, complete hardening, detonation, and networking.”

“You’re going to need to explain the details on most of those.” Nate frowned as he scratched down the names, hearing a distant echo of the sound of a pen as Planner did the same. He wasn’t highly compatible with Planner, but the infomorph was basically always around *somewhere* in the building.

Columbia took a breath, and then paused. “Any chance I could get a drink?” He asked.

“Sure.” Nate said. “Water, beer, bad scotch, good scotch, or something else?”

“Bad scotch. No need to waste the good stuff.” Columbia paused. “Also water, or the nice nurse will be very disappointed in me.” In the space of a minute, Nate relayed an order upstairs through his phone, and settled back into his chair. Columbia started talking in the meantime. “Wraith form is what it sounds like. Incorporeal to non-living objects. Selective control comes with experience using it, but it can be trained. Complete hardening is a galvanization treatment that builds up over time. It solidifies the skin without impairing movement, reduces the need for air or water, and also deadens emotional highs. Detonation…” he looked down at his shredded suit jacket and the seared skin of his arm. “Well, it builds up heat and force in the body, before causing an explosion. Again, can be trained up to focus where it happens, and how it’s directed. Usually lethal if not paired with the wraith draught. Ah, thank you!”

He brightened up in a very human way as Knife-In-Fangs slid the door open and slithered in to deposit a tray of drinks on the bedside shelf, the camraconda nodding politely to the Alchemist and glancing at Nate to make sure he didn’t need anything else before vanishing, mechanical arms working in concert to pull the door shut again.

“What about the last one?” Nate asked as the Alchemist pulled a sour face at the taste of his bad scotch.

“Networking? It’s a strange one.” Columbia admitted. “Let’s the person who takes it instantly react to orders from whoever is in charge of them.”

Nate looked up from his notes sharply. “Mind control?”

“In a way.” Columbia gave a tiny nod. “Very bad scotch, by the way, thank you. Mmh. But not, not fully mind control. Unless you’ve already removed the subject’s ability to worry, regret, or get angry. Which we do. At that point, it allows for one person to direct a battlefield with perfect synchronicity. Not that ‘battlefields’ are something that we tend to get involved with.”

Nate made some hasty notes. That sounded too much like the advantage the skulljacks gave them, and going up against it would be a nightmare if they were unprepared. “Nothing else?”

“They’re already trained killers.” Columbia snorted. “Why would we need anything else? We aren’t… you.”

Hard to argue with that. “Okay, couple more quick things. Sap?” Nate prompted, checking the time before he needed to be upstairs.

“The Sap Of The Tree Of Knowledge. Eden Sap, colloquially. Or just sap, once you’ve been doing this for a decade and the novelty wears off.” The older man ran a hand through his mostly grey hair. “There’s a tree in the basement that grows drops of it as fruit. We take them, process them with mundane ingredients, and get the potions we sell. I don’t have numbers, I’m not one of the masters. I just do a certain amount of simple mixing, and then a few experiments.” He sighed. “Or, rather, I did.”

Nate nodded slightly. A point of weakness. Good. “Okay, last thing. Does the Guild have any other xenotech capabilities?”

“Xeno... you mean occult?” The ex-Alchemist raised his eyebrows almost mockingly. “A few, yes. We have an orrery chamber that depicts relative strength power structures. A mostly useless cloak of invisibility. And a lamp that generates sunlight. Aside from that, no. The sap is our bread and butter.”

“Okay.” Nate stood, and extended a hand to shake. “Thank you. I have to go brief our Order on this, but I appreciate your time. Someone from Recovery will be by soon to check in on you, and get you set up with whatever you need.” He paused. “And… if you want some advice? You don’t need the mask here. I’m not saying no one will treat you different, but I am saying they’ll treat you like a person. And that matters.”

The briefest flicker of facial expressions, and the gentleman set his glass down. “Thank you.” The potion said. “Why?”

“Because,” Nate answered as he rolled the door open, “we’re trying something new around here.”

_____

“May I join you?” Frequency-Of-Sunlight asked politely from the side of the heated pool that James and Alex currently occupied. “Or is this one of *those* baths?” The camraconda followed up.

“Oh my god!” Alex bust out before dunking herself below the surface and vanishing from view in a plume of soap suds.

James just raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to come back up, and counting in his head. “This is where we find out she can breathe water.” He idly commented. “Anyway, yeah, come on in. Also are you actually asking, or doing that thing where you pretend you innocently don’t know something?”

“Yes.” Frequency nodded, tilting herself forward and setting down the oversized bath towel she’d brought in her fangs.

“Sure.” James said. “Hey, are you doing alright? That got… horrible, fast. I know neither of us are feeling good after the fight. Do you need anything?”

The camraconda gave a mechanical hum. “I feel strange.” She said. “I don’t know. But I need to be clean.” Then she turned to let James unplug the speakers from her skulljack that absolutely were not waterproof. So silenced, and unable to be questioned further, the serpent perched on the lip of the pool and slipped in with a move as fluid as the water.

“I know you’re more organic than you look,” James said as she surfaced, “but it still throws me off to see a camera in a pool.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Or that you can *float*.”

Frequency-Of-Sunlight just nodded at him vigorously, spraying arcs of water droplets across James’ face and getting a sputter out of him.

Before James could protest, Alex surged up, gasping for air. He mentally marked ‘cannot breathe water’ under the column he had for her in his headspace. Then he looked away rapidly as she stood up in one of the shallow parts of the pool, the parts of the stone carved as seats, pointedly *not* making any mental notes about how she looked.

The baths that had been built in the Lair’s basement were wondrous. And, in part, the feeling of otherworldliness that you could feel in them, with all the small colored glimmers of light, fountains of water constantly refreshing the pools, varnished wood and copper piping, it all aided in people easily taking for granted the other weird thing which was bathing together. Usually naked.

Nudity wasn’t *really* a problem for a lot of them. Hell, a lot of members of the Order had gotten stabbed or shot for each other at some point. It certainly wasn’t an issue for the camracondas. But there was a gap between being intellectually okay with something, and then being dropped into the experience for the first handful of times.

There was a vulnerability to it that was kind of scary. There had to be some sort of trust between anyone you were with, or it all just fell apart.

But it was too nice, having a hot bath on demand, in a place that looked like it was plucked out of a fantasy world, to actually give up without trying.

So James did what he did best, and filled the awkward gap with conversation.

“Kind of surprised you’re here, actually, Frequency.” He said, still looking off to the side of the pool and the folding wood palisade between this pool and the next. “I figured Deb would have tied you up and made sure you didn’t run off.”

The camraconda couldn’t speak at the moment, but she let out a low hiss, shaking her head as she stuck her mouth above the water far enough to make the disappointed noise.

Which, apparently, was enough for Alex to interpret. “Yeah, she was *real* mad at you.” She said to James. “What the hell?”

“Deb is…” He looked over to where Frequency-Of-Sunlight was thrashing her way through the water toward a shallow disc of rock made for a camraconda to curl up on. “She’s protective.”

“Yeah, but like…” Alex shrugged. “I thought I knew her. We’re friends, right? We hang out a lot. This is *weird*, for her.”

“Frequency, are you okay if we talk about this?” James asked considerately before he kept going. Getting a slow, almost reluctant nod from Deb’s partner, he sighed. “I think she’s still remembering the Status Quo attack.” James said. “Both of them almost died, right?” Another nod in reply, this one with an angry hiss. “I’m not gonna say she’s overreacting, or that she needs to get over it, because that’s fucking stupid. But she’s letting it dominate her world. She gets *mad* whenever Frequency is involved in anything. Which is a problem, because… you know.”

“Because she’s a teenager?” Alex asked.

The camraconda girl on the other side of the pool dipped her head into the water, then came back up and nailed Alex in the face with a surprisingly accurate stream, briefly turning herself into a water feature.

Holding back a laugh, James kicked a small splash up at Frequency-Of-Sunlight. “I was going to say ‘because she’s one of our knights’. But yeah, sorry Frequency, Alex has a point. You *are* kind of a teenager. Sort of. It’s actually really hard to tell where camracondas are, developmentally. Or how to treat you sometimes. Are you adults? Are you kids? Are you something else we don’t have context for?”

Frequency-Of-Sunlight narrowed the lens of her camera eye to a squinting point, leaning forward as if to glare at James.

“I think she thinks she’s not a kid.” Alex filled in.

“I feel like I’m watching Star Wars again for the first time, wondering why Han can understand Chewy.” James muttered. “Okay, yes. You don’t *feel* like a kid. But you know who says that? Every other teenager in the building.” James folded his arms over his chest, leaning back to let the warm water bob his body around. “Does that make you capable of making big life choices, with actual consent? I think Deb’s whole thing is that she’s terrified that you’re going to die on her, without actually realizing what you’re signing up for. But that’s kind of uncomfortable too, because then she’s treating you like her kid and not her partner. Unless part of that is calling her mo-?”

Anything wildly inappropriate James was about to say as his mind wandered from subject to subject without supervision was cut off by a second jet of water from the camraconda.

He filed a mental note, as he toppled off his seat and into the deeper part of the pool accompanied by a splash and Alex’s thrilled giggles, that apparently camracondas were part water pokemon, and all knew hydro cannon.

“You know that’s water with, like, soap and blood and stuff in it, right Sunny?” Alanna’s voice came from over James’ head.

He looked up, and saw both his partners’ faces looking down at him. Anesh looking worried, Alanna looking… amused, but with a tension behind it.

“Hey!” James tried to sound excited. “You missed all the fun! Also we purified the water after we got the blood off, so it’s mostly just soap. And not much soap.”

Alanna waggled a finger at the camraconda girl. “Sunny, don’t agree with him. Don’t eat soap… actually maybe you can eat soap? Probably just don’t eat soap. And yeah, hey James. How was Utah?”

“Dry.” James commented. “Kinda nice, actually. A little sun, sorta quiet. Met some new friends.”

“Uh *huh*” Anesh successfully rolled to disbelieve James’ bullshit.

“And the blood and stuff?” Alanna asked, with a raised eyebrow. “Also the message you sent us that said ‘almost died, not dead, decompressing’?”

James let out a breath, expelling the air from his lungs and letting himself start to drop down into the water, maintaining eye contact with Alanna while he sunk out of view.

“Oh no you don’t!” Alanna dropped to a knee in a smooth motion, dipping one hand under James’ arm and keeping him afloat. “You’re in an amount of trouble, you goddamn mobile disaster!”

“Wait, really? How much trouble?” James asked.

“An… amount.” Alanna looked over at Anesh. “You do the number stuff, you tell him.”

Anesh scratched at the back of his neck like he was thinking. “Two.” He said calmly.

“Yes, two, James. Two trouble units.” Alanna couldn’t keep the sarcastic smile off her face anymore.

“I *did* tell you I didn’t die.” He reminded her, slipping out of her loosened grip and paddling away into the middle of the pool, near to where the overhead spout poured a constant small waterfall. “Anyway. What’s up?”

“You mean aside from you sending a tiny burst of information about your lack of death, and then us finding you down here, hanging out naked with two beautiful women, instead of actually checking in with us?” Alanna said.

It was interesting, James thought, that someone could turn that shade of red that Alex did. He couldn’t rule out chameleon powers, honestly.

Moving with an alacrity that was born of a critical dose of embarrassment, Alex bolted out of the pool, rapidly wrapped herself in a towel, muttered something about having to go, and ducked past them out the door of the baths.

Frequency-Of-Sunlight also moved as to leave, though without the color change, or apparently any embarrassment at all. Instead just slithering up to the side of the pool, and prompting Anesh to help towel her off, getting her voice box reinstalled once she was dry enough to state, matter-of-factly, “I *am* beautiful.”

“Dang, she’s been working out. She could kick you in half with those calves. Also I think Alex is into you.” Alanna told James, flopping onto her belly by the poolside while he finished scrubbing any lingering soap off his skin.

“What? No.” James shook his head incredulously. “Also please don’t tease her like that. It’s not nice, and it discourages participation in attempts at making our own culture.”

Alanna looked like she was going to say something kind of snarky, but then gave a small acknowledging shrug. “Okay, yeah, that’s true. But she *obviously* has a crush on you.”

“I promise you she does not.” James said.

“Really?” Anesh asked. “Actually asking. How would you know?” He looked more curious than anything else.

“Okay, I love you and shit, but you are, hands down, the biggest dumbass when it comes to noticing if people are into you.” Alanna told him.

“Hey, that’s not true! I noticed… uh…” James trailed off. And then, in an effort to hide his true nature, slowly slipped down below the surface of the pool until only his eyes remained out of the water. “Shut up.” He bubbled.

Alanna nodded. “Yeah. See, I don’t get it. You’ve always been good with people. Not like JP is ‘good with people’ for getting people to give him their money and thank him for it. But, like… James people *like* you. You give a shit, and everyone notices. Even *Karen* likes you.” Alanna held up a hand with an outstretched index finger from out of the pool she was swirling it in, water streaming off her skin. “Platonically.” She amended.

“Karen complains endlessly that I am constantly putting us over budget.”

“Yeah, and why do you think Karen, a woman with *two degrees* and *twenty years of experience*, even knows what our budget is, much less has a personal investment in it?”

James grimaced. “Okay, fine.” He said. “But Alex isn’t into me.” He said.

“Still curious!” Anesh raised a hand.

“So am I!” Frequency-Of-Sunlight chimed in. “How do you tell?” She made an organic gasp, before adding with her digital voice, “What if people are into me and I do not know?!”

Anesh cleared his throat, folding the towel and handing it to the camraconda. “That’s… uh… pretty normal.” He said, running a hand through his dark hair. “Anyway, James, insights?”

“Uh… I don’t know if I should…” He trailed off as the other three people in the room all eyed him with determined looks. “Alanna, she’s not interested in *me*, she’s interested in *you*.”

“Wat.”

From a pile of folded clothes James had brought with him that weren’t covered in blood and smoke, a series of buzzing sounds emanated. “Oop. There’s my timer.” He swam over to the rack where he’d left his own towel. “I’ve got to get dressed and get to the briefing. Will you two be there?”

“Obviously.” Anesh said. “You need anything? You didn’t sound like you were doing okay. Want a hug?”

“Yes, once I’m not soggy.” James answered.

Alanna had other conversation plans. “Wait, hang on, what?”

“The briefing. About the situation.” James said flatly. “So I don’t have to explain it several times.”

“No, James…”

Frequency-Of-Sunlight slithered by, a small silver and sapphire brooch in her mouth, dipping her snout into the water and sending a ripple of clarity through the pool as she purified their bathing space. “I like this.” She said. “I didn’t understand before, but now this is fun. Is this why memes are fun? Because you know a joke others do not?”

“Pretty much.” James nodded, trying to ignore the uniquely unpleasant experience of putting on pants while still slightly damp. And then, as soon as he was even mildly separated from his towel, the kind of fun experience of trying to put pants on while your boyfriend wrapped you in a hug. “Alright. Let’s not keep people waiting. I’m feeling coherent, and that should last a good ten minutes before I have another panic attack, and I really don’t want to waste the time of anyone who is either saving lives, or studying magic.”

“What about everyone else’s time?” Frequency-Of-Sunlight asked as she gently set the purification brooch back on the wall hook for it. “Oh, three uses until this levels up.”

“Sunny, we’re all studying magic all the time.” Alanna said. “Alright, let’s go. *Later*, though.” She gave James a threatening gesture.

James just waggled his eyebrows at her. “Oh yes. Later.”

“No, love, that’s the other hand motion.” Anesh whispered to him as they trailed behind the other two out of the bath chamber.

“Oh. Oh!” James cleared his throat. “Dang. Okay, well, that’s a problem for future James. Let’s go let the Order decide if we’re going to war.”