“I’m gonna throw this out there; I think I’d trust an evolved AI more than a designed one. I dunno who designed that AI! But I feel a deep kinship with one that, like me, evolved from complete nonsense and uses a VPN to avoid getting caught doing stuff.” -Jordan Holmes, Knowledge Fight (Episode 722, Space Capitalism Is Still Capitalism)-
_____
“Hedgehog.” James thought to himself forcefully. He was lounging against a wall in one of the basements, sort of killing time while people gathered for a small commencement ceremony. About a dozen people were here already, with a handful of Karen’s Recovery staff bustling around making things look nice and making sure no one tripped over anything they really shouldn’t. It was a nice, busy scene, and he had literally nothing to do with it this time, which was also nice. So he hung off to the side, pressed somewhat uncomfortably against the smooth concrete, acting as living terrain for the mock duel Rufus and Ganesh were having with some of the construction scraps they’d recovered, and that James had ensured were sufficiently non-stabby enough before they started playing. “Hedgehog.” He thought again, curling his fingers.
It didn’t work. So far, nothing had worked. It was kind of frustrating, actually.
There were, in the scope of the dungeons that the Order worked with, some pretty obscure and dumb magics. And often times, dungeons seemed to go out of their way to give ‘explanations’ that purposefully did not tell you what the hell was going on.
Officium Mundi’s skill orbs, for example, were sort of straightforward. Except for how a ‘skill rank’ was sort of impossible to measure; and that they could also be used to make life, or extend your body’s operational time, and neither of those were anywhere on the packaging.
The Akashic Sewer, weirdly, had one of the more direct magics. You learned things, you got stat upgrades. It even let you check your progress, which was nice. It was a weird contrast for that horrible place to be marginally helpful, when compared to Clutter Ascent, where the relationsticks it rewarded opened connections that then needed a shared emotional moment that then enabled zero-sum passing of an abstract concept between people. All explained in maybe five words total.
Or the Climb, where there was no indication that spell slots existed until you earned one, and it was pure luck the Order had found the textbooks to fill those slots. Or Route Horizon, where actually acquiring magic required piecing together fragments of discovered maps from parts of the world that were sometimes less than a square mile in area, desperately hoping that some of them lined up, and then still needing a separate source of power on top of that to use the spells.
All very frustrating. But at least, with those, once you had them, you had them. As of a day or so ago, depending on how ‘time’ had been going when he wasn’t paying attention, James had a rank in hedgehog. Four toed hedgehog, specifically. He had looked up what that meant, and while his understanding of taxonomy was lacking, he was pretty sure he had the gist of it. But he’d also asked for a copy of a taxonomy skill orb, if anyone found one, just to be sure.
And his rank in hedgehog didn’t seem to do anything.
It didn’t appear to let him turn into a hedgehog, which was what the part of his brain that never stopped thinking about the young adult book series Animorphs had demanded. It didn’t, as far as he could tell, give him any practical hedgehog facts; and if it had, he probably would have noticed his Akashic Sewer lesson in biology spike upward, like with the Office orbs that gave knowledge. It didn’t make him hedgehog-esque, either. Though James didn’t know what that would even look like, so maybe it did, and he just couldn’t tell.
Granted, James hadn’t had a lot of time to screw around with it. He’d been busy. Everyone had, really. It occurred to him that the most time he’d spent with his partners lately had been risking their lives together in a dungeon.
He relaxed his hand with a sigh, trying not to flinch as Ganesh slapped into his calf and crawled around the back of his leg to use as cover in the ongoing running playfight with Rufus. He’d need to spend some more time trying to figure this out later, though at least people in the Order smarter than him would have a shot at it once they made a copy of the collection of library orbs they’d looted. He’d also need to make a note to himself on his phone to maybe see if Anesh and Alanna wanted to go out to dinner tonight.
“Hedgehog.” He tried muttering out loud to himself.
“What?” Someone walking by turned their head slightly with raised eyebrows.
“Nothing.” James quickly replied, clearing his throat and getting a suspicious glance as the newer member of the Order nodded slowly and went back to what they were working on.
Really, at this point, someone randomly saying activation words in the basement was probably one of the least weird things going on around here.
James lounged for a bit, letting his thoughts wander for a bit as he watched the bustle intensify, and a group of people come in and find places to stand. They hadn’t put together seating for this little event, and James was pretty sure that Bill and Reed hadn’t actually expected that many people to show up today.
But who wouldn’t be interested? Especially all the people, many of them camracondas, who would be occupying these places.
“Hey, Marcus!” James perked up, flagging down the Response dispatcher who was milling around in the crowd. It wasn’t that he was bored waiting, exactly, just that he was interested in a small friendly interaction while he waited. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Oh hey.” The younger man stopped fidgeting with the array of pins on his coat glanced over at James, shuffling to the side to get out of the main body of the growing crowd. He still stood out somewhat, standing over the camracondas in attendance, but he was feeling a bit hemmed in. “Yeah, I had a couple days off, figured I’d check this out, and start moving in pretty soon.”
James blinked. “Wait, how soon is this going into action?” He asked.
“Like, tomorrow?” Marcus half questioned. “One of the design team was talking about it. As soon as the totem goes up, they’re gonna do a security thing to it, and then some last checks, but the place is supposed to be ready tomorrow.”
“Well damn!” James nodded with appreciation. “They work fast, and I absolutely do not believe this place will be ready that soon, but okay. So, you wanna live on site?”
“I work twelve hour days and the majority of my hobbies are here now anyway, since we’ve got internet and a basketball court.”
“I should play more basketball.” James mused. “Also work less! Fuck, I’m not building a utopia here so that people can work all day!”
Marcus gave a sheepish look. “I mean, I don’t have to work that much or anything. It’s just… I dunno, if I don’t, who will, right? Also a good chunk of that is doing news sweeps for problems we should be aware of, or, like, looking for new dungeons. Momo’s got a thing she’s been trying to get help with for that.”
“Marcus, my dude, you’re doing a great… wait, Momo’s doing wh… no, stay on topic… a great job, but you’re not doing a job that we can’t hire more support for. We’ve got a billion dollars, we can just grab a few more people. You used to work with the suicide prevention line, right? Got any friends we can hire?”
There was a heavy bubble of silence that expanded out from James, broken after a very long blink and stare later by Marcus saying, “We have what?”
“A billion dollars.” James said again. “Not in income, but we’re, you know, capable of doing some hiring.” He grinned as he shrugged, knowing damn well what he was saying. “So stop working twelve hour days? I don’t even work twelve hour days, and I’m basically always doing something around here.”
Marcus looked like he was having his whole metaphorical world-rug yanked out from under him, but whatever he was going to say was cut off, when over the light murmuration of the small crowd of Order members, a single confident voice cut through.
“Alright, everyone settle down!” Bill said, the man raising one yeti-like arm over his head to get everyone’s attention. “If you wanted to see the place before we do this, you missed your chance! Everyone back behind the lines!”
Feet and corded tails shifted, as everyone checked to make sure there weren’t any lines anywhere near them. Duct tape barricades drawn in red lines on the concrete floor of the basement space pushed back the few dozen observers.
They formed a semicircular sort of observation line, everyone rearranging so the camracondas were in front and the taller humans behind them. The floor space cleared, there was a much better view of what everyone had arrived to check out.
Against the left wall of the concrete basement warehouse room, taking up half the height available and a decent chunk of floor space, was an apartment. It sat looking bizarre exposed under the white LED lights the Order had upgraded the buzzing fluorescents to down here. Like seeing someone you were familiar with naked for the first time. Or, more accurately, like seeing someone you were familiar with’s skeleton for the first time.
There were some small gaps in the walls, and James knew there were similar ports in the ceiling and floor. Points for where pipes and wires would connect when this was done. The walls didn’t outline a perfect square, but they were a fractal, in a broad way, if you looked at it through the lens of the math James refused to do but the design team had put a lot of work into. It wasn’t huge, as far as apartments went, but it was comfortable. The design team hadn’t had to build a whole apartment complex, just one apartment, and they’d put their collective passion into polishing it to a shine.
Bill stepped to the side as Reed approached, the younger man unable to hide his nervous excitement. The two of them moved to show the thing that was mounted to the foundation of the building with meter thick steel rods; a set of etched-copper pyramids, inactive totems for the orange orbs.
“I’m gonna say this once, and then I’m not gonna make any more speeches.” Bill said bluntly, though he couldn’t hide the pride in his voice. “Everyone did a fucking great job on this. So if Reed blows it up, I want you to know what you missed out on.”
“Now hang on!” Reed started to protest, getting a stifled laugh from James, and a few other people he could hear.
“Oh, it’ll work.” Bill said. “So! We’re gonna turn this thing on, and then Mark has the fun job of checking all the wiring, and we’ve got safety checks... Got a whole list of new jobs for the next month. Hah. But that’s tomorrow Bill’s problem! Today, I get to tell you that everyone worked their asses off to build you a magical apartment. Round of applause for the crew; they know who they are.”
The humans clapped, so did some of the camracondas that had arm packs on, but many of them just added clicking hisses to the mix. The noise was earnest and celebratory, and James joined in, grinning as the people who’d put the hard work in gave proud smiles.
“Okay. Everyone ready?” Reed asked when things quieted down. “No one over the li… Bill, you can’t be over the line either.”
“You’re over the line.”
“I’m accounted for, and we’re not using drones for this.” Reed countered. “Last time we did that I exploded.” James bit his tongue to keep from adding that Reed had also turned his car into modern art. Getting that taken to a junkyard had been a nightmare. “Alright! Main totem in three, two, one…”
Reed, standing in a very specific spot, let the orange Officium Mundi orb he was holding slip from his cupped hands and into the hollow point of the central pyramid. It fell, out of sight, and everyone held their breath.
For a half second of time, the air in James’ chest pulled down, except down was a point in space a hundred feet away on the left side of the room.
And then the world changed.
James had never seen an orange totem activate before. He’d survived being inside one when it was broken, seen plenty of their effects firsthand, but he’d never actually watched one of the tests as the Order’s Research division turned one on.
It was anticlimactic, in a way. One second, the world was as it was. The next, it was as it was, only things had changed.
The left wall of the warehouse was now no longer a wall, exactly. Instead, it was a row of apartments, the cozy two bedroom spaces unfolding one after the other, fitting into each other like puzzle pieces. There were… a lot of them. Just how many, James couldn’t easily count, as the literally identical styles blended together in his eyes. But they absolutely stretched far beyond the reaches of the room they were in. And yet, fit perfectly.
“Good?” Reed called, and got affirmations from the Research team that was nearby monitoring the situation. “Okay. Next step.” He repeated his countdown, this time over one of the smaller pyramids that seemed tethered to the main one.
James didn’t have time to be surprised by this one when it yanked at his chest. It was much faster, but also much heavier, and when it cleared, there were four stories of apartments, layered on each other like they were built that way and had stood for a century.
People started whooping and cheering, but apparently, the group working on this project had decided to show off, and had the budget, time, and brainpower to make it work. Another totem, and the room was suddenly wrapped in the apartments, the whole edifice surrounding the watching crowd. But far from pressing in, the space available was bowed outward, the ceiling curving up until it met itself in hyperbolic lines that hurt the eye to look at too long.
Reed stepped back, leaving multiple orange totems unlit, and looked up at the wall of structure he’d just manifested inside the basement of a single building.
“Yes!” Bill called over the cheers, the man’s voice at seeing it all work holding a kind of relief that could not be faked.
No one was allowed in, until they could secure the orange totems and make sure it wasn’t a hazard. And, as Reed explained, they still had more to do in terms of setting up accessibility. Modified Penrose ramps to get to each of the doors, mostly. And then, he’d made a lot of work for Bill and Mark double checking the wiring and plumbing. Totems could only do so much; you couldn’t make them tighten up gaskets when you had them copy whole rooms.
But it had worked.
“Holy crap, man, that’s so cool.” Marcus muttered to James. “Like, I knew. But seeing it…”
James did some quick head math. Almost sixty units. Housing for everyone in the Order who needed or wanted it, and some left over, and there was absolutely no reason they couldn’t make more. Aside from, like, PGE getting mad at them for overtaxing the local power grid, if that was a thing they could do.
And they’d done it in a month. With the tools the Order already had.
He smiled. He was already smiling, but he refreshed the expression. There was a thought of ‘is that all it took?’, but he cut that down. This was the end product of too many close calls, too many dangerous moments. But also of years of exploration, of enabling people to take the time to test and learn and experiment with things, of building an environment where everyone could put themselves into the work they really wanted to do.
This was it. The foothold he’d been missing for a while. And he couldn’t wait to see what came next.
_____
On a practical level, what came next was that he’d promised JP that he’d be helping out with scouting the local organizational landscape.
James’ job at the Order, despite nominally being the person who’d founded it, was kind of hard to explain. On the one hand, he was part of their increasingly structured and strategic division that explored dungeons and brought out wonders that the Order could make use of. That was simple. On the other hand, he also flitted from department to department. He wasn’t the only one who did something like that, but James really elevated the art of being a human bookmark. He’d be helping raise a paper drake one day, picking up a Response shift the next, doing interviews that same evening, and then staying late to just talk to people who needed to be heard. In a way, his role was critical, as he acted as a go between for every different project and idea and magic. And on the other other hand, he also had a much more defined duty as a problem solver and decision maker during crisis events. The executive voice that made a call and enacted a plan when a fast reaction was needed and there were people in danger.
The three different hands - James imagined his job was a ratroach in this situation - all complimented each other, too. Experience as an adventurer taught him how to fight and gave him a set of magical tools, experience being backup on every project in the building gave him more mundane knowledge, personal connections, and practice applying his weird magics, and then the responsibility of being a designated problem solver gave him the status and understanding of the rest of the Order to be in a position to be a sort of wandering drifter.
Today, his job was something he hadn’t actually taken part in before. Mostly because, of the Order’s divisions, the Rogues didn’t feel quite like something James knew about the inner workings of. Sometimes they were around, a lot of them were also delvers, and every now and then Nate or JP would show up to James and say they’d found something. But the actual distance between the searching and the finding wasn’t something he was familiar with.
So far, he wasn’t liking it.
“I’ve been sitting here for two hours.” James said in a low mutter. “I’m not saying I’m bored. But.”
“But you’re bored. Don’t talk to yourself.” Ben’s voice came through the earpiece James was wearing.
A mundane earpiece even. James knew they had one that let you listen in on other people’s playlists within a few feet or something. He could have a soundtrack for this.
Ben was a Rogue, and a pretty good one as far as James knew. It wasn’t like anyone really had a comparison for how good their field agents were compared to a national intelligence agency of a global superpower or anything, but Ben had once managed to evade capture from an armed soldier who could run through walls, and honestly, that was all the resume James needed from someone.
He’d just sort of imagined when JP asked him to help out that he’d be doing more of the life-or-death thing, and less sitting around. “Oh god.” He muttered, coming to a realization. “Am I turning into some kind of adrenaline junkie?”
“Apparently.” Ben answered the question that wasn’t directed at him.
James didn’t roll his eyes, since his backup couldn’t see him anyway, but he did lower his voice and reply. “You know, the last Ben I met was a literal dungeon ghost who ate my food.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“The last James I met got arrested for selling meth in junior year.”
“Touché.”
“I feel like you’re not taking this seriously.”
He was drinking from a water bottle that had long since gone warm, trying to project that he was waiting for someone, and scanning random faces that passed with the copy of the magical glasses that let him see someone’s name and affiliation.
He sighed and flipped his bottle, the remaining liquid making the toss wobble with obfuscated momentum. “It’s not that I’m not taking it seriously.” James said. “It’s that I could be doing anything else right now that was just waiting for random chance.”
“It’s an important part of the process.“ Ben said in his ear.
And James believed him. He really did. But sitting on a downtown bus bench during a heat wave wasn’t really his idea of a fun day.
Also James kind of hated cities. They felt cramped, industrialized, dirty, and full of unpredictable and potentially dangerous people. He was aware of the mild hypocrisy, he really was, in his desire to build a magical metropolis. But explicitly he wanted to build a better city, that could ease the problems that a great many modern Earth cities experienced. Especially American ones.
“You know, the hardest part about learning how to design a city…” James started.
“Really trying to verify the presence of a bunch of wizards in the city, dude.” Ben cut him off.
“Look, we’re one of three teams, and we’ve got an organic program trawling through traffic cams, and someone got roped into testing the potion that makes a person luckier, and also I’m cursed. So one way or another, our fate is already sealed.” He replied easily. “This would be easier if we could just stick the glasses on a drone and deploy a bunch of those.”
Ben’s sigh was the last bit of attempted stoic professionalism leaving the conversation. “The cops around here keep knocking out drones. Which, I mean, can’t really blame ‘em. Also we can’t break magic items, can we?”
“Momo can.” James said, pausing to give a friendly nod and smile to a couple young passers by who were giving him weird looks as he talked to himself. Being a local weirdo wasn’t even close to something James was worried about right now, though as they sped up to walk past, he swept them with the glasses. Somehow he didn’t think he had anything to worry about from a pair of teenagers whose strongest affiliation was to a church youth group. James glared up at the sky as he continued talking, hoping his sunscreen would hold against the local star’s assault. “Momo’s weird though. I think she might actually be a witch. She somehow chopped off enough of that cactus pot that it would fit in the copier, and she’s been really smug about it ever since.”
Ben’s reply took a few seconds, probably because he was also checking something. James took the quiet moment to glance over the mostly empty street, IDing a few people getting out of their car down the street as electricians for a local company, someone watering their plants on a condo patio a half dozen blocks away as a dog sitter, and the guy walking with his head down reading something on his phone as a college student.
Just people. No wizard cabals or secret government agencies or mad demigods. Just normal people doing normal people things, while it happened to be roughly thirty two degrees out.
“Okay.” Ben’s voice returned. “What were you saying about cities or something?”
“See, you’re bored too.” James accused him. “Has this kind of scouting ever actually worked for us?” He suddenly asked. “Like, I know we’ve had luck identifying some stuff with AI, and we’ve got that weird orrery thing in the basement now, but does this work?”
There was a long enough awkward pause that James felt like he knew the answer. But his backup still explained anyway. “It’s more that we’re an early warning system.” Ben said, cleanly hiding that he probably also thought this wasn’t a great idea. “If we actually have a starting point, we can do the sort of thing you probably think we do. Investigation, survailance, cultivating contacts, whatever. But it’s not like there’s a spreadsheet for this.”
“Right, I know the theory. JP workshopped this with me.” James sighed and wiped sweat off his forehead. “I’m asking if it’s ever worked.”
“Nope.” Ben answered.
“Man, I don’t think this is helping.”
“It’s good practice.”
“For what?!” James demanded, the louder voice getting a slight jump from the guy walking past his bench in what had to be the least comfortable leather trenchcoat. James checked with the glasses, and got back a primary affiliation of Reddit user, which just made him depressed in addition to hot.
“…Fieldwork?” Ben asked.
James took a deep breath, choked on the disel fumes of a delivery truck rolling by, and stood up. Dusted off the seat of his shorts. “I’m gonna go strangle JP.” He half-joked. “Or maybe just stand in the walk-in fridge in the kitchen. But I’m done with this. I’ll get Momo to make us some affiliation lenses, and we can slap ‘em on all the webcams we’re stealing the feeds of or something. How’s that sound?”
“Like a terrible idea because then wouldn’t anyone else who has access to those see the same thing?” Ben asked.
James slunk back into the shade of a red and white striped awning over a little bookstore, and fished around in his pockets for the thick notebook of Anesh’s newly made telepad. “There, cutting off my stupid ideas is suitable training for today. You’re free too.”
“…Yeah, okay.”
_____
James sat on a beanbag in a small room in the Order’s basement that was probably originally intended as either an office, or a jail cell, or both. Currently, it was neither of those things, and was a camraconda room.
The Lair had a lot of space in it, even before the events of the early afternoon where a belligerent construction wizard carved out an entire apartment complex inside a single room of one of their basements. And they put that space to good use, generally.
This magical basement that existed sideways from normal space was largely set aside for housing. Something that actually maybe should have worried James, when he considered just how many safety tests and precautions the design team was using for modifying one room, but he’d kind of gotten used to space not lining up properly, so maybe he wasn’t the person to ask about security. A lot of the rooms down here were set up as bedrooms, relying on the facilities of the rest of the building for things like making food, but they were still cozy and many of them had permanent residents who had decided that living in the Lair was nice, actually. Or people who had nowhere else to go. Often both at once.
And then there were a bunch of rooms that were modified to be well suited to the camraconda population of the Order. A lot of them didn’t really need or want their own bedrooms, instead preferring a design that had been settled on of a kind of two-floor nest, where they could curl up and sleep in piles. Other rooms near the sleeping nests were converted to cubbies to hold personal effects, and a couple small relaxation areas that were made to be easy for camracondas to access and feel comfortable in.
Which was the room they were in now. Beanbags for seating wasn’t uncommon, but the low mounted brace points on the walls where camracondas could plug in their own vocal speakers or an arm pack if they didn’t have help was. Also the pile of yellow orbs that were here for food for the dungeon creatures, if they ever needed emergency energy.
James settled himself in, trying a dozen configurations for his legs before just giving up and accepting that his knees were gonna hurt later. “Alright.” He told the camracondas he was spending some time with. “Where do we even start on this?”
Coiled on their own seats around the room were a handful of the Order’s most common nonhuman species. Thought-Of-Quiet occupied another beanbag, blue and grey cables almost blending into the black fake fur of the seat. Scent-Of-Rain was perched upright nearby, her own triangular camera head looking like a bony ridge wrapped in her darker blue cabels. And then, sprawled out over several soft seats and jolting awake as the conversation started, Watcher-Under-Stone, the semi-leader of the camraconda’s main pseudo-religion, her own dull white and orange colors in more of a blended swirl than the others.
They’d invited a few others, but Frequency-Of-Sunlight and Deb were doing something this evening, Color-Of-Dawn insisted on being self-depreciating, and Texture-Of-Barkdust said something about taking a nap while allowing Karen to use her mind as secondary processing hardware, which James was going to have check up on.
“We start at the start.” Thought-Of-Quiet said simply. “You see a problem.”
“A problem we disagree upon!” Watcher-Under-Stone said, rolling slightly and using her snout to nudge the speaker she was wearing as a necklace out from under her to where her artificial voice would be less muffled. “But a problem.”
James sighed. “Okay, so, I’ve talked to a lot of different camracondas about this in bits and pieces, but I feel like we should get this out in the open.” He said. “Cultural coherency. As in, like, here, now, in the face of this multi-species world we’re frantically throwing together, how much does a given camraconda have a culture that is similar to every other given camraconda, but dissimilar from a given member of any other… species? Humans, mostly, for now. And specifically Order humans, since that’s where our cultures abut.”
Thought-Of-Quiet answered instantly. “We don’t.” He said with prideful conviction.
“Hum.” Scent-Of-Rain cut in, synthesized voice pronouncing the word in an odd cadence that she used like humans used ‘ah’ or ‘like’. “But should that be the case?” She asked, continuing before Thought-Of-Quiet could interject. “We were growing, before we were brought here. We made art. Told stories. There is a… gap, now.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.” James said with a nod. “Your people, specifically the… group of you that ‘grew up’ in Officium Mundi, you had a culture before you joined us here. And I’d like to talk about what we can do to preserve that.”
“And this is where we disagree.” Watcher-Under-Stone nodded, pulling herself into a coil as she bobbed her head at James. “You want us to be apart from you.”
Scent-Of-Rain hissed under her speech, layering the two sounds. “Yes. Bad plan. We should not lose what we were. But also, should not be separated.”
“There is a gap, there.” Thought-Of-Quiet used the same words she had a second ago. “We can’t be different and the same.”
“So, the thing is,” James cut in before the three of them started what was clearly a discussion that they’d had before, “this isn’t something that’s totally new to humanity. We’ve got a long, long history of cultures meeting and interacting. And… can I share something I’m really worried about?” The three camracondas pivoted to look at him expectantly, lens eyes focusing on his face. “It’s not just that I worry about removing your connection to what you had before; I don’t think that’s exactly the problem. I worry that we’re locking you out of contributing to what we’re doing now.”
“We participate more and more each day.” Thought-Of-Quiet said, confusedly looking between his companions. “We are a part of this place.”
“Hum…” Scent-Of-Rain looked down at the floor. “Are we?” She asked. “Entirely?”
“See, that’s what I wanted to talk about!” James said, leaning forward, trying in vain to pull his legs underneath him in a position that didn’t feel like he was constantly fidgeting. “Because I want you to be. But I want you to have a foundation that you can call your own, and not just… I dunno, whatever we give you, or tell you is ‘right’ or whatever.” He sighed. “I didn’t prepare enough for this and don’t know how exactly to express my worries. Sorry, Scent-Of-Rain, did you have more to add to that? I kinda cut you off there.”
The camraconda nodded at him. “Yes. Thank.” She hissed out a small breath. “Have been watching the new ones grow, for months.” Scent-Of-Rain started, reminding them that she was one of the leaders of the mixed species after school club and-or summer camp the Order had been running. “For them, it is entirely. You, here, us, we are their foundation. This is good, I think. They make art, and that art is new.” She sounded fiercely proud as she said it. “It is the first art that our children make together. But it is not ours. It has more in common with yours. Different, yes, but modified human still.”
Watcher-Under-Stone hissed in agreement. “This is true. They do not have a connection to our origin. Don’t understand why we believe.”
“Our of curiously,” James asked, worry spiking at what the answer might be, “is it important to you that people believe what you do?”
“No.” Watcher-Under-Stone said with a laughing hiss. “I am not blind. I have seen how humans believe similar things. Our belief is the fact of our personal history, nothing more.”
Thought-Of-Quiet spoke up again. “I have a question.” He started, focusing on James. “You say ‘culture’, but that word does not mean as much to me. What does it mean to you?”
James thought for a minute before answering. “I would probably say… a culture is what a population shares. At a base level. If I wanna get more complicated, then it’s a recognition of certain shared tropes that tie media and art together, it’s the common framework of knowledge that you can expect most people to have, and it’s also shared or common customs or habits, intentional or otherwise, that exist in a society.” He cracked his knuckles while he takes, tilting his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t wanna say it’s also what subcultures are included, but it’s certainly how and why the primary culture interacts with other cultures and subcultures.” He looked over at the first camraconda he’d ever talked to. “Does that help at all, or am I just going mad rambling?”
“It helps. I have another question.” The camraconda said, pushing himself upright on his beanbag to properly look at James.
“This is a trap, isn’t it?” James joked.
Thought-Of-Quiet nodded, head bobbing enthusiastically. “Humans. From before you began changing things. You have many cultures.”
“Yup.” James nodded.
“Do you like them?” Though-Of-Quiet asked.
James paused, suppressing a wince. “That’s…complicated? There’s a lot of human history that has used cultural clashes as excuses for cruelty and violence, so I’m kind of not comfortable saying ‘no’? Also, a lot of modern cultures have a huge amount they could learn from each other in terms of art and style and healthy lifestyle habits and food, god especially food…” James trailed off.
“But do you like them.” The question was repeated flatly.
“No.” James’ face was a sad frown as he said it. “Not really. They all have problems. And I could talk about a lot of those problems for a loooong time. I don’t really want to be part of any of them, even ‘mine’. Kinda the point of trying to make a break with our own city-thing. Though even then, I’m not stupid enough to think history won’t creep its way in.”
Scent-Of-Rain jerked back slightly, giving James a look that seemed quite sad. “Oh…” her voice not changed much but the word carrying a lot of weight.
“Yes.” Though-Of-Quiet pressed. “You do not like your culture. You want a better one. You invite us to be part of it, but feel guilty. But you didn’t think to ask; do I like my culture?” The camraconda slithered off his seat and pulled himself up in front of James, corded body matching the seated human’s height. “Our habits are fear, and hiding. Our art is a reminder of our pain. Our… our culture exists because of an unbreachable violence done to us before we were even made, and done to others by ourselves. Did you want to ask, if we wanted our culture? I will answer. I do not.”
“We cannot forget-“ Watcher-Under-Stone started to say.
But she was cut off by Scent-Of-Rain. “Sad. Everyone is sad. None of us have what we want, but we don’t know what we want.” She looked around at them. “You want to remember,” she told the priestess, “you want to move on,” she told Thought-Of-Quiet, “and you want to be kind.” She said to James. “I want us to be our own people. I thought. But you seem so sad…” She looked at James. “This is how humans are sad, yes?”
“Yeah.” He admitted. “Well, me, anyway. I had this whole thing I was going to talk about, about how other humans from other facets of our various cultures, might be different, or treat you different, or whatever. But… like… yeah, I’m not sure what my point was.”
“I have the point.” Scent-Of-Rain said. “You think you can do better than other humans. But there are so many, it is abstract to you. You take ideas, separate from people, and use them to build… here.”
Thought-Of-Quiet spoke softly, not really interrupting. “Here is good.”
“Yes, it is.” Scent-Of-Rain agreed. “James wants it to be good. Steals good ideas from books, and stories. Because books and stories are not people. But you do not want to do that to us, because we are here.”
Watcher-Under-Stone irised her lens, focusing and unfocusing on the room. “Ah.” She spoke. “I have begun research.” James blinked at her before she tilted her head to show the wi-fi braid connected to her skulljack. “I begin to see the shape of what you fear.”
“I mean, I’ll just fuckin’ tell you.” James said. “I’m afraid we’re going to pave over anything that makes you who you are. I’m afraid we’ll tell you we’ve got the best way of doing things, and refuse to learn from you, and refuse to adapt.”
“But you are not doing that.” Thought-Of-Quiet hissed angrily. “You writhe in self-depreciation, and you ignore that even where we disagree, we want to be here. You invite to live side by side. Scent-Of-Rain sees our new ones making art tainted by your outside world, but I see them making art shaped by our Order. We eat together, we love together. You take the time to talk to us now, to make sure you are respecting us, and push aside the thought that this means you already know the answer.” He glared at James, camera eye narrowing to a pinpoint spot. “You will not make us forget our past. You will not make us unequal in value in your new culture. All that matters, to me, this. Told you before, once. You won our conflict of ideas. False thoughts, anything but that.”
Scent-Of-Rain spoke into the quiet that followed in the small room. “But James is not all wrong.” She said, ignoring James’ small ‘hey!’ at the implication. “The new ones are not like us. In many ways.”
“Should they be?” Watcher-Under-Stone asked curiously, as if having the thought for the first time. “Want them to know our history, but… not because it is ours, only that it is important. That they can learn from it. Is that not what we want? All to learn, and be better?”
“I mean, that’s what I think is important.” James shrugged, feeling like he was more of an observer in the actual debate happening here.
“Yes.” Thought-Of-Quiet hissed with amusement. “You do. And so, we do. You see? What point is having a culture, if you do not believe it is good?”
“I feel like I walked into this expecting that we’d talk about, like, making a record of your people’s history, maybe ensuring that your art styles had support, and seeing what we could do to encourage you to develop your own social norms.” James started to say. “And then, instead, I’m having an existential crisis on the nature of what a society is even for.”
Thought-Of-Quiet titled his head at James. “Is that not something you feel constantly? Is that not what the Order is?”
“Oh, I mean, it is. It’s just usually a background vibe, not something… uh…this direct.” James rolled himself to a standing position, and started pacing. “I just want you all to feel like you can be… you. If that makes sense. Without worrying about your cultural identities being overwritten. A lot of people worry about that. I know Texture-Of-Barkdust had a lot of concerns, though I dunno if she’s replaced those with being concerned about budgets instead.”
“I would rather,” Thought-Of-Quiet said softly, staring at the floor, “be a part of the Order of Endless Rooms, than I would be a camraconda.” The other two serpents looked at him with concern, before looking at each other with similar looks in their mechanical eyes. “Watcher-Under-Stone asked, should the new ones be like us. I would ask farther. Should I be like us? We should all ask that.”
“I ask that all the time, actually.” James said.
Thought-Of-Quiet cracked their mechanical maw in a fanged grin. “Yes.” He said. “That is part of why you have started building something I like.” The camraconda turned, and began to slither for the door. “I have nothing to add. I have made many mistakes. But this is not one of them.”
And with that, he pressed his body against the lever that popped the door open, and slithered out into the hallway, letting it swing closed behind him.
“That went well.” Scent-Of-Rain remarked.
“He does not like his name.” Watcher-Under-Stone told James abruptly.
James blinked at her. “Wait, really?” He said, tapping his foot as he considered the words. “I mean… I guess that sorta checks out. He was having a really hard time coming up with one. He thought… he thought it was important to the rest of you, honestly.”
“Hum.” Scent-Of-Rain hiss sighed. “It was.” She said bluntly. “Now, I am not sure it should be. Why are no humans named like us?”
“Uh…” James scratched at the back of his neck. “Well, it’s not our… cultural convention, I guess.” But then he held up a hand and added, “Though, that said, there’s people - humans, dammit - in the Order now who are using different names than anyone is used to. I legitimately did not think that the girl who wanted to be called Thermoclese would stick with that. And I figure it’s only a matter of time before someone decides they want a name like yours. Are… are you okay with that? We could probably make sure that doesn’t happen, if you want.”
Scent-Of-Rain slithered forward and butted the top of her head into James’ side in a friendly motion. “You are so worried.” She said. “I think I was wrong. I think it is okay, that we move on, from who we were. But I would like to share more. I think I will teach the new humans how to make our art.” She nodded to herself.
“The new humans do not have fangs.” Watcher-Under-Stone pointed out.
“Oh.” Scent-Of-Rain stopped, as if she had forgotten that detail, head tilting down to the floor dejectedly. “Well. We can adapt.” Then she looked up at James again. “Does Research have shaper substance available for safe use yet?”
“Oh my god please do not give the kids fangs.” James swiped a hand over his face. “I don’t… know how to explain this. Uh… please do not do that!”
The camraconda just replied with a sly smile. “Hum.” She said simply, before turning to head for the door herself. “Well. We will speak more later. I cannot be late.”
“I will excuse myself as well.” Watcher-Under-Stone said, and James moved to hold the door for them both.
Then he had a thought. “Oh!” He said, getting a pause from the two serpents. “What… do you know, what did Thought-Of-Quiet want to be called? Did he ever say, to either of you?”
Watcher-Under-Stone bobbed her upper body in a long nod. “He did, yes.” She told them. “He wanted to be named James.” She said. And then, before James could protest, she slipped out the door and down the hallway.