“And I’m not your protagonist // I’m not even my own. // I don’t know anything, // I don’t even know what I don’t know.” -Penelope Scott, Sweet Hibiscus Tea-

_____

Hours later, James found himself back at the Lair, wondering how it could have only been hours. Time felt wrapped around him like a cloak, tugged on by unseen wind, thick and heavy.

He had done more today than he had in the last week. The last month, even. And yet, it was only maybe six PM, and while the Pacific Northwest took a dim view of sunlight this time of year, the dark night sky didn’t really make him feel like it was much later than early afternoon.

Maybe it was all the teleporting. Popping in to regions with different seasonal weather was doing a hell of a good impression of jet lag.

Alanna had left him and Anesh at the door, waving laconically to them as she made her way back down to Response’s floor. Anesh had said something about preventing an international incident, and gone to find one or more of the engineers that worked with the dungeontech they pulled out of the Office. And James… well, James wasn’t sure what he was doing.

He was kind of wandering the building, avoiding committing to actually doing anything, just sort of observing the Order go about its business.

A lot of people had emptied out of the building for one reason or another after the gathering was done, and being a Friday, it was right in the strange zone of time where there just wasn’t much happening at the Order. No dungeon crises, no planned events. A lot of people had outside social lives, and this was just one of those days where the Lair got quiet. *Somewhat* quiet, anyway. There were still a bunch of people here, especially the camracondas. And there was always some kind of work to tackle.

James liked it. Low key, but welcoming.

He just kind of observed for a while, doing his best to not stare at random groups of survivors or knights as they talked about magic or community or the Order’s collective decision making process or their personal lives. James was pretty sure he mostly succeeded.

Partly, he was hanging around here this evening because he didn’t actually know if anyone was going to *need him* for anything. They’d sketched out an outline of how to approach the Alchemists a few hours ago, but they were far from a plan they could execute. Some people had some jobs, but James hadn’t actually given himself any responsibility or authority when he was yelling out assignments. So he lurked around, eventually deciding that prowling through the kitchen to see if there were any leftovers he could steal was the best way to be on hand if Nate needed him to teleport into Utah and go back to getting shot at.

The kitchen was still lit, but no one was in at the moment. James made a beeline around the long stainless steel prep counter that dominated the middle of the kitchen space, and moved to yank open the door to the walk in, silently hoping that there was something both easy, and yet also palatable, waiting for him.

Instead, as he pulled on the door, someone pushed from inside, causing it to swing open a little faster than he intended. It didn’t hit him, but, not having expected anyone, James let out a yelp.

The person who’d beaten James to the process of stealing a sandwich also yelped, and after he and Morgan realized that neither of them were busted, they stood there catching their breath. After Morgan dumped the armful of bell peppers he was carrying onto the counter, anyway.

“Hoooof.” James expelled a worried breath into his mask. “Okay! My heart’s restarted! How’s it going, kiddo?”

“I’m not a kid, you know that, right?” Morgan replied with a mildly snippy voice. “Also, why are you even wearing a mask? Isn’t everyone here immune to everything?”

“Two things.” James held up his fingers. “First off, you are… seventeen? You are a kid. I know this because I’m barely in my thirties, and I still have some perspective on being your age. Don’t take it the wrong way or anything, it doesn’t invalidate you or something stupid like that. But if it bothers you, I’ll stop using the term.” James shrugged. He didn’t want to actually be an asshole, and if someone didn’t like being talked to a certain way, changing that was kind of the easiest ask. “Uh… oh, there was a two. Two! I’ve worked food service, and wish I’d thought of masks sooner. This whole *thing* has really made me hyper-aware of how much I breathe when I’m making food.”

Morgan looked down at the peppers he’d laid out on the cutting board, and then back up at James. “Uh…”

“Okay, yeah, I’ve got a three. What’s up with this?”

“Color-Of-Dawn likes peppers.” Morgan shrugged. “And I can do this easier.”

“Fair play. I’m just here to steal a sandwich. Nate’s not around, right?” James took the shake of the kid’s head as confirmation, and ducked into the walk-in, finding the rack of leftovers easily and grabbing a triangle half of something that bristled with some kind of bean sprout from between the bread. “So,” he asked around a bite as he leaned on the counter next to Morgan, who was doing a great job butchering the vegetables he was working with, “how’re you doing?”

The teenager looked up while he kept cutting, before sheepishly focusing on his task as James fixed him with an incredulous stare. “Uh… fine?”

“Really.” James’ voice was dry.

“I dunno, what am I supposed to say?” Morgan asked. “I guess I’m fine. Everything here is okay. It’s not like anything is wrong, right?”

James blinked slowly. “English is so weird.” He muttered. “But hey, things being not horrible doesn’t automatically make you okay.” He grabbed a paper towel from off the wall, folded it, and set what remained of his pilfered sandwich down. “Look…” James tried to figure out what he was trying to say, and eventually realized he didn’t actually *know* what he was going for. So he said that. “I don’t really know what I’m going for here. I’m not your dad, you know? And we’re not really close…”

“Heh.” Morgan snorted out a laugh that surprised him in how honest it was. “Yeah, you sorta just dumped me here and then ran off to… uh… save the world? I’ve been here for months and I don’t have a fucking clue what you do, dude.”

“I’m a wizard of some kind.” James nodded. “Anyway, look. If you need to talk about anything, just let me know. I’ll make time. That’s all I was trying to say. You’re one of us, whatever *that* means, and we can probably do better than ‘fine’.”

Morgan swept the pile of sliced peppers into a bowl, getting a wince from James as he dragged the blade of the knife across the cutting board. “Alright.” He said simply. “I mean, I do therapy. And I’ve got some… friends? Friends now.”

“Good.” James smiled. “I realize we kind of cratered your life. So I’m glad you’re doing okay.”

“I did actually have a question about the thing earlier, though?”

“Shoot.” James said, taking advantage of the shift to something more causal to cram more sandwich in his mouth, chewing rapidly.

Morgan gave him a weird look. “So, the alchemist guys. They’re… like, they’re evil, right?” James raised an eyebrow at him, and before Morgan could get an ethics lecture, he changed approaches. “I mean, they’re bad guys. You said they killed people. I… you… Okay, I still don’t really know what you do, but did someone actually try to kill you?”

“Yup.” James said. “Happens more often than you’d think.”

“But you’re alive?”

“Debatably.”

Morgan moved his mouth, gaping a little bit before settling on what to say. “But like… *I* could take you in a fight.”

There was a pause. Slowly, gently, James set the surviving corner of his sandwich back down on the counter. “Excuse me a moment.” He said in a neutral tone. Then, he stepped past the lanky teen, pulled open the fridge door, and stepped inside, softly shutting it behind him.

A half foot of cold metal didn’t actually stop Morgan from hearing James laughing his ass off from the other side of the barrier.

When James stepped back out of the walk-in, it was with the same calm demeanor and neutral face that he’d had to start with. Without comment, he settled himself back into the position he’d been leaning in before. Then, making eye contact with Morgan, he simply said “No.”

“That wasn’t actually my question.” Morgan’s voice stuttered slightly with embarrassment, the tips of his ears turning bright red.

James instantly softened. “Aw, hey, sorry. I’m not actually making fun of you, I just… we can talk later about it if you want. But I’m sorry for being kinda mean. Anyway. What’s your question?”

“Well… if they’re the bad guys, why *not* try to fight them?” Moran asked. “Is that not what Response does?”

“No.” James said softly, shaking his head. “Response helps people.”

“What’s the difference, if hurting the bad guys stops them from hurting people who don’t deserve it?” Morgan asked, voice getting a little angry.

With a sigh and a tilt of his head to stare at the ceiling, James rolled the answer in his mind. “Because that’s too simple.” He said. “Because people aren’t like that. No one is all evil, no one is all good. They’ve done horrible shitty things, and we need them to stop, but it’s not like anything they’ve done actually changes the nature of *our* actions. If we turn into incredibly efficient assassins, then sure, we might only kill ‘bad people’. But we’re still killing people. Nothing anyone else does ever changes the nature of your own actions.”

In a moment, James realized that Morgan shared one particular trait with him, because the kid didn’t let the quiet set in for more than a second before he said “Oh.” Like silence was a monster to be fought back, and not a chance to think. James smiled a little, reminding himself that this was *still* a kid.

“Anyway.” James said. “We should get out of here before Nate catches us. Go take your partner their food, I’ll clean up. You want a hug?” He asked, remembering right at the end to include the offer.

“No thanks. And, uh… we’re not dating, actually.” Morgan said, sliding past James and heading for one of the exit doors. “We just hang out and talk a lot and play video games.”

“I… honestly might be the wrong person to comment on this.” James said. “Because if you add in fighting dragons together, that’s pretty much exactly what my relationship experience has been.”

“You’re so fucking weird, dude.” Morgan said, ducking out of the kitchen.

_____

James apologized to Deb.

He’d waited on just talking to her, not wanting to feel like he was overstepping, and as a result, the problem had gone from theoretical to real before they ever had the conversation. So he was sorry. Both to her, and in general. He hated the fact that, even with the chemical assistance of antidepressants, he still felt enough social anxiety to make this a problem.

Deb apologized to James.

She’d already had a half-yelling half-crying argument with Frequency-Of-Sunlight, and wasn’t feeling particularly centered at the moment. She’d known that she was letting her fears guide what she said, but she hadn’t realized - hadn’t *asked* - just how much her partner wanted to get out. To go on the kind of adventures the Order’s knights did. To not feel trapped, or alien, or helpless.

They both wanted, fundamentally, what was best for the camraconda girl. And they both needed to be better about being direct in talking about awkward problems.

James promised to do that. Deb promised to actually talk to her partner. Because Frequency *was* her partner, and was… not ‘an adult’, because that distinction was kind of weird with camracondas. But she was a person, who had a right to make choices. Even dangerous ones.

They parted on better terms than they’d started the day.

_____

“How ya holding up?”

James had gotten the room number of where the potions were staying from Recovery. They’d moved really fast, getting them set up with a trio of rooms in the residential basement, and he’d been compelled to go say hi, make sure they were doing okay.

Especially since almost half of them had died, earlier in the day.

In light of that fact, it was kind of a stupid question.

The six of them were all sitting in one room, clumped in, on chairs or the bed or the floor, it didn’t matter. The room had a freshly made bed, and scattered around it were small touches that had been added by other members of the Order. A box of extra clothes at the foot of the bed, a folded note on the desk of what times big meals tended to be at upstairs, a small cup of water with a sprig of fresh holly in it on the nightstand. Little ways people were trying to show compassion.

One of the teenagers had opened the door for James, and let him in, but now that he was here, he didn’t have anywhere to sit and had even less of an idea of what he was supposed to say.

“No.” The dog said in a monotone voice. “Everything has gone so wrong. We are not okay.”

“We have been talking.” The unkempt girl said. “We are afraid.”

“The Alchemists have the stolen samples. They have Kando and May. They know everything.” Columbia said, the older man using the same empty voice, face unmoving as he spoke. None of the potions were pretending to be anything at this point, all of them looking toward a shared point in the middle of the room and using the same hollow tone. “You want to help, but you can’t.”

James leaned back against the wall by the door, letting the metal slab of a door hang open so the place didn’t feel completely claustrophobic to him with seven people crammed into a small bedroom. “Yeah.” He uttered. “Though we did recover the potions May had. I swear that came up, but I guess not. So the Alchemists don’t have that. Also, May and Kando are dead, though I assume there’s some nefarious-“

“They are not.” The dog said. “Perhaps.”

“Wat.” James let the word slip out with suitable surprise, tensing up. “Are you serious?”

The potions all gave the same nod at the same time. “We can sustain a tremendous amount of damage to the victim’s body. Healing takes time, but is possible.”

James rubbed at his forehead. “We literally just had a meeting about our available actions, predicated on the assumption that there *was no emergency* happening. And now you’re telling me that they have prisoners?”

“Your people are committed to nonviolence.” The potions almost sounded surprised.

“Not if they’re keeping hostages!” James barked out, throwing one hand into the air. “God dammit! This changes our approach dramatically!” He sighed. “Okay, before I go talk to people about this, are you sure? Kando had a lot of holes in him, and May got her neck snapped.”

“Then May has perished.” One of the potions said with a warble to their otherwise dull voice. “Kando… maybe.”

“He got shot in the neck, if that changes things.” James felt like a butcher, discussing the injuries in this way. It wasn’t pleasant. Internally reviewing what he remembered from Alex’s point of view through their link, he added, “They shot him while he was down. Hit him there on purpose, I think.”

Columbia shook his head. “Then it is likely he is also gone.” The replaced person said, and the group… twitched. James was trying to get better at reading them, but it had been a long day. Still, it seemed like they were genuinely upset at the news. “We…” he looked to the other potions, and they exchanged a few short words, mostly yesses and nos in a way that sounded an awful lot like voting, before turning back to James, “...we are not an effect. We are physical things. Here.” He tapped the back of his neck, a couple inches below where most Order members had their skulljack port. “They were targeted then.”

“So the Alchemists… know?” James rubbed at his head. “They used attacks that would kill *you*, specifically. I mean, and anyone. Getting shot in the spinal cord kills most things. So far.” He felt his train of thought getting away from him and tried to pull it back. “Okay. Okay, this is more information to add to the web. Thanks for telling me.” He looked around at them. “We’re not… look, don’t worry about sharing that information, okay? We’re seriously not going to hurt you.”

“Any more than you already have?” The dog asked.

The comment stung, but it wasn’t unfair. In a way, this *was* James’ fault. He’d led the Alchemists to their victims, he’d been the one who’d pushed on the investigation.

But just because he had a hand in it didn’t make it his finger on the trigger. He was part of the chain of events, yes, but his part had been trying to answer the question of ‘is every living thing on the planet in danger’, and a little antagonism. *Not* murder.

But what he said was, “No more than that, no.” And it wasn’t technically a lie. “Okay. I should go update the board. Is there anything you all need? Snacks, bedding, wifi password, anything we can do for you?”

“No.” Two or three of them said at once. Like they’d reached a consensus earlier and were all prepared to let James know.

He nodded, pausing at the door as he turned to go to look back over his shoulder. “Just… let us know, okay?” He said one last time, before closing the door to the room, and letting out a long sigh.

They weren’t human, and weren’t pretending to be here. That was fine, really, that was what James wanted. Even just among humans, people didn’t process emotion the same way. But at least with humans, James had personal experience - and several hundred years worth of recorded psychological research - to draw on.

Here? He had no idea if the monotone expression of being ‘fine’ was real, a deflection, a lack of self understanding, or all of those at once.

He had so many questions. What was it like, being what they were? What did they want, both immediately and long term with their lives? Did they see the world differently? Did they have any unique needs? Did they have any unique *abilities*? Aside from apparently being able to survive being shot in most places, if they had time, that is.

His brain felt like it was overheating. Like he kept skipping gears on the same looping set of questions, most of which had no real immedient value. Things he wanted to ask, sure, but not enough to bother a group that were quite likely going through their own form of mourning. James rubbed at his forehead again, and winced as his fingers pushed against what was shaping up to be a pretty aggressive bruise.

He resigned himself to probably never having an undamaged head again. Every time he recovered from damage to his face, something new popped up. Exploding living chemical truck, venom that dendrified flesh, boot, all just hazards of his job apparently.

James poked at his bruised skull again. It still hurt. And he was feeling pretty awful, now that the coffee he’d gotten with his partners was wearing off. But he had actual work to do now.

It took him ten minutes to actually find either JP or Nate, fate settling on the former. James handed off the tidbit of information that the Alchemists seemed to have known more about the replacement potion effects than they might have let on. JP swore a lot, and expanded the conspiracy web he was building on a white board. While swearing. He also asked about the briefcase he’d brought back from the skirmish.

“It’s in the vault.” JP had said after setting his litany of profanity. “The extra vault. The one with the Mechanic’s stuff.”

“Jesus fuck, I forgot all about that guy.” James groaned. “I still haven’t actually read his notes.”

“I’ve retracted my own clearance for it out of self defense for my sanity.” JP gave James a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “It’s awful, and you’ll hate it. There’s a lot of… uh… *very* bigoted stuff in there. But also, it’s mostly written in a kind of rambling esoteric way. I bet it made sense to him, but it’s not a blueprint and it’s not scientific notes. Honestly, you know what it makes me think of? You remember, uh… six hundred years ago, when we last played D&D?”

“The game Anesh ran where we all died in a volcano?” James couldn’t help a small smile, and didn’t try much to keep it off his face anyway.

“Yeah.” JP nodded cheerfully. “And we got in a *very* long argument about knowledge skills?”

James made a strangled noise as he rolled his eyes at JP. “Oh my god, yes. You wouldn’t shut up about what knowledge arcana ‘should’ do, and you ruined an hour of my life.”

“Yeah, thanks.” JP didn’t even look mildly insulted. “Anyway, this is *that*. Reading that asshole’s books is like arguing with the GM, getting *exactly* what you want, and then rolling a one. I hate it.”

“I have *no idea*, out of context, what that means. I just want to know the warning signs for large scale necromantic rituals, okay?” James couldn’t believe he’d just said that. His life was weird. “Okay. I’m gonna go… something. I dunno. Have fun planning.”

“Yeah.” JP waved him off. “Oh, do you want a place on the retrieval force?”

“The what?”

“If either of the potions are alive, we’ll need to rescue them. Do you… you know…?”

It was a testament to how much James’ thoughts were scattered that it took him a minute to process that. “Oh. Uh! Yeah. Yes? Yes, sure. Shit, we’re going to need to move faster, if…”

“You let us worry about that.” JP said bluntly. “That’s how this works. You… man, you trusted me, and maybe you shouldn’t have. So this time, trust me, and I’ll put you where you need to be, okay?”

James grinned, and held out a fist. JP muttered something probably rude and looked away, but still returned the gesture, bumping his knuckles against James’ own. “Alright. I’m gonna go see what weird shit Research is up to.”

“Godspeed.” JP sounded *utterly* sincere in his concern.

_____

Research was arming the forklift golem with grenade launchers stolen from the Townton police station.

Well, they were arguing about whether or not they should do that.

James opted not to engage, deciding to let this play out and only drop in if they actually got around to getting the autotargeting swivel mount that used two different Office pens, a chunk of that weird rubber James and Anesh had brought back from Route Horizon, and a rapidly grown emerald chip program, to actually work. It did not work at present. It was supposed to track hostility. From what he overheard, it was counting asking questions as hostile action.

If they got that working, it would probably sway some of the opinions on whether they *should* do it.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

At *that* point, James would tell them not to arm his forklift.

He still hadn’t gotten to *do* anything with his mech, beyond simple test procedures. And he didn’t want the first action it saw to be combined arms combat.

James slowly slipped away from Research’s den of madness. He could find something else to occupy his time.

_____

James was, for the first time in a long time, actually in his office where people could find him.

It wasn’t like he never used his office. He just… didn’t tend to keep to a schedule very well. It was hard to post office hours when you never knew if you’d be on vacation, on a Response team, or trapped in an extradimensional space at any given time. Also James had trouble focusing, and schedules made his skin itch.

Right now, though, his office had what he needed. Which was some isolated quiet, and a computer that he could use to listen to music and also check what the Order’s online population were discussing with each other.

The thing about the Order of Endless Rooms chat server was, it really wasn’t comprehensive. When your membership was only about two hundred people, and fifty of them lived in the same building, a lot of conversations happened in the meatspace. But, a lot of those conversations also made their way online in the form of “I was talking to so and so the other day…” posts.

James treated it as useful, but not to be trusted to be the only voices in play, and so far, that had served him fairly well.

He was skimming backlogs of a couple different channels. There were four different threads of conversation about the Alchemist situation, and James was both reading and adding his own opinions on the subject. A lot of people were… not unhappy, but feeling like they should maybe do more. Why *did* they want a peaceful solution to the problem? They didn’t need to murder everyone, no, but couldn’t they afford to apply more hostile pressure to the group that was using people as test subjects? The phrase ‘human test subjects’ wasn’t something that should exist in a group that the Order coexisted with.

And James agreed. The point of starting with diplomacy, though, was to give the Alchemists a *chance*. An initial offer, to end hostilities before they started. “Be better, and we won’t have a problem”

The Order was a lot of things, but accepting of the existence of the horrors of the world wasn’t one of them. Just because they were going to try to resolve this with no one shot, didn’t mean they were going to stop if that didn’t work.

Another one of the threads had spun off of an idle comment Momo had made. Why *didn’t* they have a similar plan of action for the megacorporations that used child labor or slave work, decimated local economies, monopolized food or water supplies, and killed people? Why weren’t they taking action on those people? Maybe a few well placed teleportation threats?

James shut that down right away. The telepads were their biggest, strongest tool. If they started weaponizing them for coercion, then they were going to rapidly turn everyone who didn’t know about them or was neutral to them into enemies, *instantly*. Threats were a good way to be the bad guys. And despite the fact that the localized effects of various memeplexes and also lingering infomorph degradation made the Order less public than they probably should be, they *were* headed for open operation in the near future, and they wanted public opinion firmly on their side.

So, he told the thirty or forty people who were discussing how to destroy Nestle, if you want to use Order resources, come up with a plan that doesn’t start or end with us shooting anyone as an example to the others.

He left them to their new conversation. James had a few ideas himself, but he needed to actually think about them before he said them out loud. He’d come back to this later in the day, after the aspirin kicked in and his head stopped hurting.

“This is like herding cats sometimes.” He said. It was supposed to be a gripe, but it came out with a quiet fondness.

The camraconda who was also in his office, somewhat countering the sense of alone time but not the peaceful quiet, looked up from their own reading. “Why don’t we have cats in the lairhome?” The elder camraconda asked.

“Some people are allergic.” James answered. “Like me. Also pets are a big responsibility.”

The elder hummed in mild disbelief. What was the Order, if not the assumption of responsibility, after all? But they let the conversation lapse back into companionable silence.

They were here to ask James about names. But, in one element of camraconda culture that had sort of stuck, when the questions had ended, the elder had just stayed in James’ office, hanging around. Camracondas didn’t actually *have* a lot of places they could casually go, even if there were more than a few places geographically near the Lair that had gotten used to them. It wasn’t nearly as bad as when they were trapped in the Office, but it was close enough to then that the habit of just not leaving when a conversation was done had carried over.

James had possessed almost no relevant advice when it came to picking a name. He’d never had to do it, himself; he was… well, not happy with, but *fine* being called James. It was carried forward on momentum. But a handful of camracondas still didn’t have names, and the elder especially was starting to feel pressure on it.

“Just go with what you feel. Or something that sounds cool?” Had been James’ advice. It was technically okay advice, but it was lacking in anything *useful* to a camraconda who had been a leader of his people for years, and now found himself uncertain what he should even be called.

They spend some more time quietly working on their own things, just the background music James had on filling the office, before the elder looked up at him from the book he was reading in the camraconda-shaped chair. “What is an epithet?” He asked.

“I don’t know the *actual* definition,” James admitted, “but it’s basically a title for a grand deed that someone is known for.” He paused. “Also I think it’s the last thing said about your death?”

“Mmh. Does this mean my people name themselves with epithets?”

James wobbled a hand. “Not exactly? A lot of you guys have names that are about… like, sensations? Qualia? I’ve noticed a lot of the first wave of names just came from things that you were all experiencing for the first time, you know?” He ticked off names on his fingers. “Texture-Of-Barkdust, Scent-Of-Rain, Warmth-Of-Sunshine, a whole lot of names, really.”

The elder hummed again. “Yes. What do *I* enjoy feeling?” The camraconda tightened his coils, rolling his neck ninety degrees to look at James with a sideways glance that communicated a kind of deep personal confusion.

“I… am *entirely* unqualified to answer that!” James leaned around his keyboard, propping himself up on an elbow on his desk. “But, well… what makes you happy?”

“Eating cucumber.” The elder said instantly, with such a lack of hesitation as he snapped back upright that James both wholly believed that was true, and also knew that wasn’t the whole story.

He still smiled. “I mean, Crunch-Of-Cucumber would be a…”

“I am joking.”

James nodded with pursed lips, hiding a smile. “I kinda thought so, but I didn’t want to be rude. Also, you know you don’t need the three-hyphenated-words kind of name, right? You can be… I mean, you can be anyone. Everyone here will support you. The camracondas already all look up to you. You don’t need to follow their pattern.”

“It feels important.” The elder’s mechanical voice said. “As how we define ourselves. As part of our… our… shared selves?” They shrank down a bit, curling around their book as they lay their head down. “I do not know if that is good or not.”

“I get that.” James nodded. “You have a culture. Especially the survivors of the tower, but every camraconda in this building survived Officium Mundi. This has been worrying me for a bit,” he inched his chair around his desk and spun to face the elder, “are we, like, ‘we the Order’ taking away your species individuality?” James sighed. “I worry, a *lot*, that in trying to incorporate you into our society, even on the small scale that the Order is, we’re just asking you to act human. Even having names at all is a human affectation that I worry about pushing on ya’ll.”

The elder camraconda hissed bitterly. When he spoke, his digital voice betrayed none of that hurt, but the words were still dire. “We understood names all along.” He said. “It was our choice to not have them. Because we were going to die. Because it hurt to remember the names of the lost. You gave us an opportunity to have names. Didn’t pressure us at all.”

“Oooookay.” James was still concerned. “But it’s still not good for us to convert all of you to our culture.”

“Why?” The elder asked. “Isn’t that what you are trying to do to your own species?”

“I… uh…” James held up a raised finger, then slowly lowered it. “Well *yes*, but it’s different when you’re the only members of your whole species, and… actually, hang on. I want to live in a multi-species utopia with a shared culture anyway, what am I saying?”

“And so do we.” The elder said with a bobbing nod of his long body. “Maybe because you convinced us, maybe because we decided. Does it matter? All conversations are social combat. You won, and we follow you. You have made us family, and shown us a world where that is all that matters.”

James bit his lip, eyes going wide as he let out a high pitched whine. “Aaaaand we’re back to me being uncomfortable!” He said. “But seriously, I… yeah, you are family.” He gave a soft smile to the camraconda. “That’s the world I want to live in. One where we’ve got a strong, huge family.”

“Mmh.” The elder agreed. “I will read more. Find a name. Maybe that is what I want, too. Family. That is what I enjoy.” The camraconda went quiet, and turned back to his book, oh so gently turning a page with his extended pen tip fangs.

James rolled back behind his desk, taking a minute to look out over the skyline of LA as the evening light cascaded over it. He went back to what he was working on, accepting the end of the current conversation.

The way camracondas did that sometimes wasn’t exactly dismissive, but it did take some getting used to. It was marvelous for his social anxiety, though. Just a drop in conversation when there was nothing else to say; no awkward small talk or trying to keep up momentum. The elder would ask if he had more questions, or James would say something if he got annoyed at whatever he was reading, and they’d talk more. It was nice.

He spent some time messaging back and forth with Daniel about interactions with cartomorphs. The map in James’ head was still ‘sleeping’; but he could feel it more clearly now that it had chosen to live on, like a travel brochure unfolding and the smell of a glove box. They hadn’t talked yet, but James could get the sense that it was still recovering, still waking up.

Daniel had some general advice about how to communicate, especially early on. Cartomorphs tended to see the world as instructions, not as static scenes, so it helped to frame conversations around going somewhere, or doing something. Going places was also healthy; Pathfinder apparently could keep feeding off of places that they’d already been, she didn’t require a constant influx of exploration to survive. She just liked it, and it helped.

James was in the middle of typing a question about talking in dreams when there was a knock at his door. He glanced up, about to let whoever it was know they were welcome in, when El just sauntered into the room anyway.

Well, maybe not sauntered. She looked a little too pained to really call it a saunter. James amended it to that she ducked into his office.

Around her left shoulder, somewhat curled around the joint and extending into the air next to her head, something that glowed indigo and looked like a terrifying fish with too many painted on mouths floated.

“Yo.” He greeted her, nodding in time with the camraconda. “Nice fish. What’s up?”

“That’s Speaker.” El said by way of blunt force introduction, waving a hand up at the infomorph. “And she’s what’s up. I’ve got an issue.”

“Is it that you don’t like the fractal layering of fins and mouths Speaker has going on? Also hi Speaker! I’m James, nice to meet you out here in the world.” His eyes sparkled as he gave the infomorph a friendly smile.

The fish darted behind El’s hair in a flicker of ghostly indigo light, one small eye-studded fin peeking out. “Hello.” A tiny voice whispered.

El rolled her eyes. “You don’t need to be shy, kid.” She said reassuringly before turning on James. “Anyway. Yeah, so, first off, Speaker is cute as hell, don’t make fun of my precious fish friend. She’s only got one mouth, and she’s got exactly as many fins as she needs.”

“Several thousand?” James asked, a warm feeling in his chest seeing El go to bat for her hosted infomorph, even if it was mild ire turned on him personally.

“*Exactly as many*.” She restated with a glower. “But that’s also kinda… okay, so, Daniel’s got Path, right?”

“Yes, they’re adorable.” James nodded.

“And she’s a different kind of ghost, right?” El prompted.

James turned his computer away so he could face her fully. “Infomorph, yeah. They aren’t *dead* and they weren’t bestowed by the Traveller so they aren’t ghosts.” He stretched out his arms. “Look, what’s up? You don’t need to Socratic Method me.”

“Whatever, dude.” El huffed. “Why does Speaky look like Hidden?”

James paused. “What?” He asked, raising his eyebrows.

“The map ghosts look like… shut the fuck up James… the *cartomorphs* look kinda human. The authorities look like… I dunno, shirts? Unless they’re active, then they’re kinda fluid. The shitty word eaters from the Sewer are just cockroaches but invisible, which, gross.”

“Absolutely agree that is gross, yes.” James said with an empathic nod.

El lost a tiny bit of her edge. “Right?! I hate those!” She continued to her point. “But *Planner* looks like some kind of octopus thing, when they even manifest at all-“

“Is Planner an octopus thing? I’ve only ever seen a lot of hands from them, which is *also* an Office infomorph thing.”

“-And Speaker looks like a fish.”

“And Hidden also looks like a sea creature…” James finished quietly, dropping his snarky attitude.

“Yeah. So, why the hell?”

He thought for a second. Brushed up against the memory of a conversation he’d had in a dream, with the Right Person. Slammed his eyes shut in a wince as his head throbbed, before recovering and looking up at El. “There’s a few options.” He said. “We know the Office and the Route ‘know each other’, so it’s possible there’s some cross pollination going on. Or, it’s possible that there’s just different taxonomies of infomorph. Technically, we don’t know where Hidden came from at all.” He met her eyes, and sighed. “But that’s probably not true.” He said. “I think… I *know*... Hidden is what’s left of… something else. I think I could figure out how it ended up in your hometown. But I also am absolutely sure that doing so would kill Hidden.”

El’s eyes widened a fraction, her hand tightened on the back of the chair she was leaning over, before she forced herself to relax. “Oh.” She said. “Does it… matter?”

“Which part?” James asked. “Like, do. I think it’s a sinister plot?”

“Yeah. Or, *should* I know? Speaky’s been helping me with memory stuff the last week or so. I absolutely remember making art that looked like Officium infomorphs before.”

James nodded. “I think we should all know. But we can’t. It’s not sinister, it’s just a tragedy. We can know we lost someone, but we can’t push any harder.”

El stared for a bit, then pulled the chair out and dropped into it. “Well that fucking sucks!” She said.

It absolutely did, James agreed with her with a nod. It sucked like how El had probably lost some of her own friends and didn’t remember them.

The thought struck him like a truck. El had probably lost friends. And James had never told her. What the hell? Why had he never made time to just let her know? To help her put herself back together? He *knew*, from how he’d been having lost Sarah, just how much that could destroy a person. Why hadn’t he said something?

He opened his mouth to speak.

Only he didn’t. There was a disconnect in his attempt to say something and his actions. He was looking at his computer screen again, almost being dismissive of El. James pushed the screen aside, and looked up again. Opened his mouth.

Blinked, and said nothing.

Tried.

Failed.

“You’re acting fuckin’ weird today.” El said. She was sitting across the desk doing something on her phone, apparently having taken his distracted mindset as an end to the conversation. He checked the clock on his screen, and internally scowled at the part of him that didn’t actually know what time it was supposed to be.

“Probably.” James said. “I can’t say why, though.”

It was a little sad that he’d gotten good at the technicality-laced skill of slipping stuff past memory or language blockers.

El narrowed her eyes, tipping her phone down to stare at him. Then she rolled her shoulder, jostling the ghostly fish projection still trying to hide in her hair. “Speaky.” She whispered. “Am I an idiot, or…?”

“I can hear it.” The infomorph’s voice was a tiny, distant sound. Like it was calling from a hundred miles away. But James’ heart leapt all the same. “Help me?”

“Yeah.” El threw her phone on the desk and half-stood, leaning over James’ computer to try to grab him. “Hey. You’ve got a thing in your head. Hold still, we’re gonna…”

He knew what they were gonna, of course. James was pretty familiar with infomorphic surgery, which was another sentence that he liked a lot and filed away to use in the future.

There was a problem, though. He didn’t know where he’d picked up the passenger, though Route Horizon was probably a good guess, since it was directly stopping him from telling El about her lost friends. But it had a certain naked brutal hostility to it that panicked him, and the feeling only started rising as his brain made the connection that El was gonna kick it out of his head. Because infomorphs like this were both very dangerous, and very stupid.

James realized this one must have come from the Sewer at about the same time it realized that there was only one way to keep censoring the information it was latched onto, and it stopped James’ heart.

Or started to, anyway. Even with comprehensive neurological control, which it didn’t have, it still would have taken a minute to actually shut his body down. And the camraconda in the room that was a trained EMT reacted way faster to him choking and falling out of his chair than that.

James froze halfway to the floor, and El lunged for him before the parasite in his head could do anything worse. There was a flutter of fins like seraphim wings, and a rippling sensation across James’ thoughts. He blinked, and lost a chunk of time.

And then he hit the floor with an ‘oomph’, organs still working and psyche clear of intruders.

“Fucking hell, it’s never just a normal day around here is it?” El rolled off him and flopped herself on the floor of his office like she was going to make a carpet angel, grunting as the elder camraconda slithered across her to check on James.

“I’m fine.” He said, waving off the attempts to help. “I just… holy shit, how long has that been there?”

“No idea! A while, though. It was buried, until you tried to say something.” El relayed information from her young infomorph companion. “Some kinda name eater, I guess?”

James closed his eyes, relief rapidly being replaced by dread again. “Not names.” He muttered. “Just… a concept. We were talking about lost friends.” He gave his core a workout, swinging his arms and pulling himself up to a sitting position next to El. James looked down at her lightly scarred face, framed by blonde and neon red hair with a fish fading away into it. “You had friends, once.” He said. “You must have. And I wish I’d told you sooner. The math didn’t line up, on the Velocity, waaaaaay back when you were showing Anesh and I your hometown dungeon. You… El, you must have lost people. And… and…” He trailed off, looking away out the bottom of his window as the sunset gave way to dusk and glittering skyscraper lights. And. And he didn’t know what to say. Just that he had to say something.

“Yeah, I know.” El’s quiet voice broke his racing train of thought.

“What?” James said. “You… oh. You said Speaker was helping you with your memories, is this…?” He felt a small bit of hope.

But El just shook her head. “Nah. It’s just… I dunno, there’s a lot of shit in my life that doesn't add up. And yeah, that’s *counting* all this!” She windmilled her arms over her head, still laying on his floor. “I’m too good in a team. I’ve got these weird in jokes that no one else knows. And the math thing you said, I guess, let’s pretend I knew that one.”

“I’m sorry.” James said again.

“Eh.” El sighed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you just almost fucking died trying to tell me. That’s cool. You’re way too good to me, in general. But… they’re gone, you know? And I already knew that. But I’m still here, and I like being here, and I like me. If I were friends with someone, and *I* died and vanished from all human memory, *I’d* want them to be happy, you know?”

“That’s really specific.”

“Specificity is the core of self understanding.” The camraconda chimed in, having decided that James wasn’t about to spontaneously die.

El burst out laughing. A laugh that went on a little too long, and ended with a few sobs mixed in. “I… I just… I am, you know? I’m happy enough. I freaked out and left the first time, but ended up here again like it’s fucking fate, and I’m happy now. This fucking place is a family. And also my mom is here, so that’s literally true. And it’s great! And it’s great and I’m here because my friends are dead, and I don’t even know…”

She’d curled up, moving up to a seated position, knees pulled up to her chest. Which was convenient, because it made it easy for James to shuffle himself up next to her, and wrap an arm around El’s shoulders. As he did so, the camraconda elder slithered around behind her, dragging his tail around her back as he pressed against El’s side. Even the small faded projected form of Speaker slid out of El’s hair, long form and a hundred fins hugging the side of her neck.

They sat like that for a while, as El loosened her cynical grip on the emotion she’d been trying to hold back.

Which is how they were still sitting when there was yet another knock on James’ door.

“Huh, they were right, you’re actually in your office.” Nate said, leaning in. “Do you… uh… am I interrupting something?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Yes.” James said, while at the same time, El answered with “Nah.” She sniffed and wiped at her nose with her sleeve, adding, “I’m good, it’s okay.” In a small voice.

“Cool.” Nate said, choosing to believe El and holding up his arm to show one of the copper and bone Status Quo bracers. “James, what the fuck is wrong with these things?”

“Gonna have to be more specific there boss.” James said, extracting himself from the hug and rising to wobbly feet before stabilizing himself on his desk. “Wrong how?”

Nate tapped the bracer, scowling at it with an actually angry look. “This one won’t switch to blocking bullets, and I can’t figure out how to make it.”

“Is it a new one?” James asked. “Like, a copy?”

“Yeah, does that matter?”

He nodded. “Sorta. The bracers actually have to have an attack pass through their potential shield zone, or whatever you wanna call it, before you can switch to that. So just go shoot past it with a few types of gun and you’ll be good. Oh, make sure someone’s wearing it, though.”

Nate’s eyes screwed up in concentration as he flipped through the projected menu of the magic item. “Okay, so, I can make this one switch to vehicle impact, four door sedan impact, or *Honda* impact. What’s up with that?”

“I love this place.” El gave a wet snort of laughter from the floor.

“It lets you get pretty specific.” James acknowledged. “But don’t. There’s no difference between the shield effect, so go as wide as possible. Like, broadsword or rapier are both options, but just ‘swords’ covers both of them.”

“Doesn’t it start with ‘bladed weapon strike’?” Nate asked. “Why not just use that?”

“You can, yeah. Oh! Though that brings something up. ‘Weapon’ doesn’t count tools, so kitchen knives slip through.” James snapped his fingers as he remembered. “Guns also suck, actually? I don’t actually think it lets you go for ‘bullet’? But sometimes it’s really irritatingly specific on what it wants you to think at it.”

Nate nodded, staring at the bracer. “Huh. Weird. This one has .45 and .38 already in it. But not 9mm? What are we even training these things on? And why won’t it let me just pick ‘handgun’?”

“If you pick ‘handgun’, it blocks physical strikes from the gun, not the bullets.” Jame clarified. “Also Nate please, those charges take two days to regenerate.”

“Right.” The chef and ex-spy didn’t even have the grace to look even a little embarrassed. “Okay, thanks. I’ll leave you to your... thing. We’re still drafting a contact plan, but it probably won’t be something we put into action for a few days. So, you know, go home and get some sleep or something.”

James wasn’t really tired. He was going to tell them that, but ended up yawning instead, and Nate was gone with a brief chuckle before James was done.

“Go sleep or something.” El said with an uncoordinated wave of a hand, still on his floor. “I’ll be fine, and I promise not to vandalize your office much.”

“I will also promise that, but mean it.” The elder camraconda said.

James left, feeling entirely uncertain about how his office would look, if and when he ever returned to it.

_____

He opened his eyes, some time later, in a dream.

Well, he didn’t open his eyes really, because you didn’t have eyes in dreams. And he didn’t know it was a dream right away, though James could already feel the soft tug of waking reality pulling at him from outside his cocoon of sleep.

Some time later, after he’d left the Lair, gone home, enjoyed the intimacy of his partners, taken a shower, watched too many random videos about crows on Youtube, and eventually fallen asleep in a jumble of blankets, James *became aware* that he was dreaming.

The road wasn’t like the twisting highway of Route Horizon. Instead, it was simple black asphalt, maybe one and a half pickup trucks wide. It baked under a dark sun, as dry grass stabbed through numerous cracks in it seeking the face of the sky. A roughly splintered, and occasionally broken, wooden fence ran the length of the right side, separating the road from the eternal field of swishing grass in that direction.

James was walking.

One foot down, then the other.

He was hot, exhausted, but couldn’t stop walking. He had nowhere to be, but he had to keep going.

He had been walking for a very long time.

But it was as he became aware of the dreamstate he was in, that he clued in to the fact that he was not walking alone. Something was next to him, something shaped like an open sky and a watchful guide. They had a lot of feathers.

James had gotten really, really good, at keeping himself half dreaming in these places, and not just because of the dungeon skill orb he’d picked up a lifetime and a half ago. And unfortunately, one of the tricks was to engage in sincerity, and not let sarcasm or cynicism creep in. So he refrained from actually thinking too hard on the thought of “Man come on, it has been a *long* day.”

He just kept waking. One step after the other.

They were in no hurry.

The sun shone solid strings of gold. The grass waved in liquid patterns in the still wind. His feet ached, as much as a dream would allow.

James stopped walking when he realized his companion had. Turned back to see what was going on, and saw the sky-thing staring out into one of the fields. He followed the nonlinear gaze to what it was looking at, and spotted a scarecrow. Just a simple assembly of sticks and straw, but wearing a black leather coat, identical to the one James had tied around his waist, and that he’d used to cherish in waking life.

“What’s that?” He asked.

“I don’t know.” The cartomorph said, voice a series of flutes and chimes, filled with wonder.

“It’s your road.” James reminded it.

The guide shook itself, shook the head that it had poorly masked itself behind. “I awoke here. This was already yours.”

“Huh.” James leaned on the fence next to his mind’s new inhabitant, and looked out at the scarecrow. “Well, good morning.”

They stayed there for a century. Just two walking companions, resting before the next leg of the journey, watching an immobile scarecrow.

“What am I?” The creature asked.

James smiled. “Whatever you want to be.” He replied. “There’s no bargain or deal. No stipulations. You’re family. This can be your home, as long as you want it to be.”

“Oh.”

They waited for another eternal summer.

Eventually, James turned and looked at the rough mask the cartomorph was wearing around him. His alert mind couldn’t quite explain why, but he felt like it was… shoddy. Incomplete.

“Want me to grab you a coat?” James asked, motioning to the scarecrow.

“No.” The guide recoiled. “It’s not mine.” They said, with a ripple of fear across their cloudy sky.

James gave a dream shrug. “It’s fine. You don’t need one. Take your time.”

They took some time. The navigator didn’t get any better at masking its alien nature. But that was fine; James didn’t need it to. Humanity wasn’t anything special, and his friends could be whatever they wanted.

“I want to see the end of the road.” The navigator said, one dream forever later.

He grinned. “I dunno if there’s anything at the end.” James said.

“Exactly.” The living map shifted the sky in a matching smile.

They walked for a long time. But, impressive for someone who had nearly been blown up just earlier in the afternoon, James didn’t wake up tired.