"I've never met a priest who could tell you anything about Heaven, but they knew every square inch of Hell. They should. They built it." -Ticker, Warframe-

_____

“Oh, pardon me.” James brushed past a ratroach with glittering purple fur as he moved through the hall of their LA branch toward his office. Then he let himself think about that for a second before he turned and stopped his momentum with a couple of backward steps. “Uh… Smoke?” He guessed at the name of the ratroach he’d just passed, trying to remember which of them had the extra arm that came from their elbow and which had the arm that came from their shoulder.

The ratroach cocked her head back at him, the chitin around her neck creaking as she did so. Slowly, she raised one arm to raise at James, the other two held against her chest in a sling.

“I have so many questions, and you still can’t talk, can you?” James ran a hand down his face. “Why are you purple? No, more important, are you alright? What happened to your arms? Also was there something you needed help with up here? And why am I asking things when you can’t answer me?” His words ran into each other. James had made the mistake of rolling out of bed on this miserable Thursday well after Sarah had left their apartment, and so instead of replacing his sleep with her sleep, he had replaced his sleep with sugar and caffeine, and it was starting to really hit him.

Smoke looked like his questions were starting to panic her; her mismatched rows of eyes flicking around the open floor of the office as her legs tensed and her good hand clenched into a claw. James noticed immediately, and started to correct himself, but it was one of the other people who were actually doing work up here this afternoon that came to her rescue. “Is this man bothering you, dear?” The most business-dressed woman James had ever seen in the Order - and he was counting Karen in that estimation - asked Smoke. James actually recognized her, she was one of the survivors of the Office, though he didn’t know what her role here was.

Before he could get distracted by the fact that someone had actually worn a power suit to work here, Smoke shook her head, the ratroach panting deep breaths and covering her mouth with her good paw. James held up his own hands. “Sorry, I got carried away.” He met Smoke’s eyes and tipped his head down. “Didn’t mean to overwhelm you.”

The ratroach caught her breath, and curled her paw into a rough approximation of a thumbs up, while the other woman turned to James. “Why are you here, actually? Do you need help finding anything?”

“I… I have an office here.” James said sheepishly. “I’m not missing that often! Come on!” He held out a hand to indicate the door to his corner office.

The woman glanced at it, then back at him. “That’s Rufus’s office.” She stated.

“I’m not… you… Rufus stole my office?” James raised his eyebrows. “I knew he had ambition, I just didn’t think I’d ever be the target of it.” He joked. “Sorry, hi. I’m James. I work here, also I am reasonably sure I saved your life once but I cannot remember your name and I’m really sorry.”

The woman took the hand he’d extended and shook it briskly. “Cathy. And yes, I remember. You do know that Rufus uses your office, yes?”

“We’re talking about the same Rufus, right?” James asked with raised eyebrows as Smoke slunk out of sight around the edge of the small hall. “Yay big? Stapler? Nice guy?”

“Yes.” Cathy pointed upward without looking to where neatly attached strings of paperclips ran across the ceiling like a secondary walkway. Her finger traced a path to where someone had installed a small secondary glass door in the wall over the main door to James’ office. “He’s very helpful.”

“I feel like I may not be here often enough.” James cleared his throat. “Anyway. I actually do have a few people who should be here for an orientation thing in twenty minutes or so. So I’m gonna re-steal my office.”

“Good. Don’t bother my coworker again please.” Cathy nodded politely at him.

“Oh, she’s working with Recovery now?” James couldn’t keep a delighted smile off his face. “That’s good! Um… though… what happened to her arms?”

Cathy’s stoic demeanor cracked as she winced, wrinkles and laugh lines showing on her face as she glanced behind her. “Nothing, really.” She sighed. “The poor girl tripped. And that was enough. She hides it, but we can tell she’s hurting all day.” Cathy glanced back at James. “I don’t suppose there’s anything in the works for that?”

“There might be. I’d check with Deb, but she should already be doing regular checkups on all our new residents. If nothing else, we can work on getting her a string of purples and see if that helps.” James thought for a second. “Organizing where orbs go is kind of a giant mess at the moment, but we might have a whole bunch of surplus that we’re never gonna get around to copying in the basement. I just sent Reed a message, I’ll let you know before I leave today if we can at least roll the dice on that.”

“…The plug in the neck is a bit uncomfortable to shower with, but it does seem to be useful, doesn’t it?” Cathy said softly, her voice shifting to sympathetic.

James smiled at her. “The circumstances aren’t great, but now that they’re ours, it’s pretty cool.” He agreed. “Also I can be online all the time, which I’m sure is bad for my brain, but whatever.” He glanced past Cathy and the handful of other people at desks, making use of their floor space to get real work done, to where the elevator had just opened. “Ah, I think that’s my first batch. You mind sending them my way?”

The two of them nodded an amicable goodbye the way coworkers on good terms did, as James stepped back to the door to his office, and watched Cathy take purposeful steps across their shared workspace to greet the four young men who had just stepped off the elevator. The first batch, as he’d mentioned; all farm-grown American muscle and haircuts to match. He had two more groups later, from similar situations from the Indian and Chinese analogues of rural Ohio. James hesitated halfway through his door, a knot of apprehension in his chest as he eyed them going through the first test for new people.

There were several camracondas working here today, as well as Smoke, who was in a category all her own up here. And James wasn’t ignorant to the fact that some people, especially in the tight knit group that was Recovery, went about their days networked to each other. The office floor plan was mundane enough, but the presence of small things like the hanging paperclips, the vending machine with more buttons than should physically fit on it, and the eclectic decorations, were the sorts of things that would draw curious looks, even if the nonhuman researchers didn’t.

The four men looked confused, but not overtly hostile. As if to drive the point home, a camraconda carrying a printout in their fangs slithered across their path and back to their lowered desk. James clinically observed which of them tensed up, or muttered something to themselves, before he ducked back into his office and took a seat at his desk to wait.

He didn’t have long to wait; the office floor wasn’t that large and it wasn’t more than a couple minutes before Cathy had knocked on his door and opened it to show the four in. James greeted them, and motioned to sit, waiting for them to get settled before he talked.

Looking over the four young men, he wasn’t quite sure what to feel. On the one hand, he knew, intellectually, that these guys were pushed into unhealthy behaviors by the structure of a culture around them that incentivized it. But they also all looked like the kinds of people who he got bullied by in high school, and suddenly he felt a spike of doubt about his own good intentions.

Which was stupid. He’d said everyone when he talked about helping everyone. If he had to get over his own bullshit brain’s ideas sometimes, that was on him.

“Afternoon.” He started with. “I hope you’ve been having a good vacation so far.”

They looked at each other, before one of them, a broad shouldered figure with short sandy blonde hair spoke up. “LA’s been cool. The hotel has a huge pool. But, uh…” He paused, his Midwest accent on hold while he briefly considered what he was going to say. “Sir, why are we…”

“Alright, first thing’s first. I’m James. Just James. Not sir. I get enough of that from everyone else. I want to be up front about the fact that I’m not comfortable with either honorifics, or reinforcements of my gender.” James said quickly, punctuating it with a professional smile. “You’re wondering why you, when you’re just a bunch of nobodies, right?”

One of them scowled at him. One of them had a smug little smirk on his face that made James want to punch him or maybe send him to JP as punishment. Punishment for the dude, or for JP, he wasn’t sure yet. But regardless of how none of them looked pleased, one of the other boys nodded. “Yeah, what do you want from us?” His voice had more of a drawl, but still the same kind of tempo as his friend.

“Okay. You want the clean answer?” James asked, and saw expectation in their faces. “We’re recruiting for something a little different than what you’d all planned for. But the simple version is this; I need people who are tough, adaptable, and smart.” He noted that smug smirk guy rolled his eyes, while one of the other’s tried and failed to stay stoic. “Yeah, I know that guy,” he pointed across his desk at smirky, “misses at least one of those. But the rest of you fit. Or you could. You might not think it, but someone saw it in you, and that’s why you’re here.” James ignored the new scowl pointed his way and leaned back in his chair, resisting the urge to spin in it. “Let me ask you all something. What were you planning to do? With your lives, that is, before you ended up here.”

“Army, sir.” One of them said, before wincing. “Ah, Mr. James.”

“Navy.” Another one said, before getting “Army” from the last two. None of them called him sir, at least.

“And wouldn’t that just be a fucking waste.” James said flatly. “We’d like to offer you a chance to go a different way with your abilities.”

“What way is that?” The blonde kid asked. “And why does this sound illegal?”

“Because it’s probably illegal, though our lawyer hasn’t been able to tell me how yet.” James said. “And as for what we want, well. Initially, we want to hire you for security roles. You’ll be given the skills and enhancements needed to fit that, and will essentially be hired in the capacity of bodyguards. But in general, our organization is somewhat chaotic with job titles and roles within our structure, and it’s likely that within three months, you’ll either know if you want to move to something else, or commit to a longer period with that role.”

“So you want us to be soldiers.”

“Ehhhhhh…” James wobbled a hand in front of him face. “We want you to be capable. But I don’t expect you to fight a war for me, or get shot. Actually, with the exception of my dumb ass, we’re pretty good at not getting shot these days.” His mouth twitched in a flickering grin as he turned to address one of the young men. “Yeah, I see that disbelief you got going on there. Don’t worry, I don’t mind.”

“You’re still being weird about this.” The first guy stated. “And… cryptic?”

“Yeah, it’s a bad habit. Okay, here’s the deal. We’re an organization of people with access to literal magic, we want to build a better world, some people might want to stop us. We need more people to keep expanding our operations, and you guys are a good opportunity, because your life prospects suck.” He leaned forward, a dark look on his face. “I’m going to be completely straight with you here. The reason we picked you? It’s because you had literally no good options. And so it makes it really easy for us to swoop in and offer you a great option.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Well yeah. But is it more fucked up than the fact that two of you were straight A students, two of you already know how to run a farm singlehanded, and one of you wrote a screenplay?” James didn’t pause to explain how he knew that. “And you’re all going into the military?”

“Maybe I just wanna shoot stuff.” One of them said defiantly.

“Alright. Then get out.” James said flatly. “We don’t have time for your shit here. Though I suspect you’re just being an asshole to provoke me.” He snorted a non-laugh.

“Can I ask a question?” Blondie asked, partly raising his hand.

“Got for it.”

“What’s with the snake drones?”

James blinked. “Oh. They’re people.” He said. “I’m disingenuously sorry if that was confusing. I kind of figured when I said ‘literal magic’ that it would have explained that. We have… uh… between six to nine different species under our banner, depending on if you count engineers as human.”

“No you fucking don’t.” One of them said, sounding angry, like his time had been wasted.

James just nodded politely. “Alright, so… I know this isn’t a traditional job interview, but typically you don’t wanna just say that out loud until afterward? Just as a heads up. Anyway. The snakes are called camracondas.”

“They’re people?” The first kid asked.

“Yup.”

“Like… people people?”

“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.” James admitted bluntly. “But it sounds pretty bad when you say it that way.”

“Are they, you know, human or something?”

“…No? They’re camracondas.” James narrowed his eyes. “This is going worse than I expected.” He sighed. “Look, here’s the deal. You’re already vetted, this isn’t much of an interview; if you say yes, you can have a three month trial run with us, which you will be fully paid for. If you don’t like it, afterward, you can dip out. Otherwise, you just… keep going. Our pay is decent, and we essentially pay bonuses for responsibilities you take on within the organization. The only qualifier is that if there’s too many interpersonal problems with you, you’re out. There’s a whole section in the operations manual about expected behavior, for reference.”

“What if…” the smug guy started slowly, “we don’t actually think you have magic, and that sounds really fucking stupid?”

James sighed. “Zhu?” He asked. “An assist please.” He closed his eyes, letting Zhu pivot a small part of his mind to remembering the feeling of forward motion, wind streaming past from the open window next to his head. The feeling of feathers ticking along his neck and chin reached him, more real than memory, and James opened his eyes as Zhu finished manifesting, the solid orange light of his form carpeting James’ shoulder and left arm in a layered feathered limb. “I can also blow up your phones by thinking about it, but I figured this was more polite.” James said.

“And less expensive.” Zhu added in his voice like tires on gravel. “Fewer dead maps.”

“Google Maps doesn’t actually literally die when I break a phone, come on.” James rolled his eyes. “The maps are still in the cloud or something.”

“It is rude.” Zhu prodded him.

“Sure.” James looked up to the four young men, half of whom were pressed back in their chairs, one of them leaning forward, all of them with wide and curious eyes. Even the snarky asshole, who, really, James couldn’t blame; he’d been the same way at that age. “Three months. Five grand a month as a training rate. No long term obligations, enforced service, and you get to keep a lot of the magic.”

They tripped over themselves to say yes.

James covered the ground rules with them in rapid succession. Kindness was the dominant emotion that they built their foundation on, inhumanity was no excuse for hostility, and cooperation was the word of the day. Do good, recklessly, and understand that this meant that sometimes you’d be cleaning up your own fuckups to do more good.

When they’d had questions, one of them had asked about if this was dangerous, and he’d been honest about the fact that they didn’t need security personnel because it was safe. And also that they’d taken losses in the past. The kid had asked if there was some way to set it up so his dad got his paycheck, to handle medical bills, and when James got the details of the situation, he’d cryptically told the new recruit that they could maybe help with the cancer, too.

“Alright.” He said after they’d signed the papers and gotten the basics hashed out. “If you’re up for starting now, you can check in with Nate or one of his people downstairs.” He paused, holding his office door open for the group, and reached out a hand to shake with each of them. “Welcome to the Order of Endless Rooms.”

“Wait, hang on, you guys own this whole building?”

“No.” James said.

Another one of them looked like he was trying not to laugh himself. “That’s kind of a weird name, isn’t it?”

“Take the stairwell door next to the elevator.” James said with a mischievous smile. “The one on the right. Let me know how the name feels after you get downstairs.”

_____

“They’re not the worst or anything.” James was talking to Alanna, the two of them using their skulljacks and the Lair’s wifi to talk to each other in a way more intimate than any phone call could ever be, as if they were not just next to each other, but literally inside each other’s heads. It wasn’t a perfect system, as he’d noticed when he’d gotten in the elevator and gotten a kind of packet-loss-induced headache. But it was something weirdly more casual than calling his partner; it was more like being in the same room as they did their own thing, and knew they could talk whenever they felt like it, if they did. It also helped that Anesh could slip in whenever he wanted, too. Anesh and Sarah, actually; their friend had an open invitation, but was still skittish around the skulljacks.

In a spatially displaced basement, Alanna closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair in Response’s break room, waiting for when she and her partner were needed for the day. “That’s a pretty big qualifier.” She spoke into James’ thoughts.

“Bah.” He sent back as he navigated the Research basement. “I just mean… I dunno what I mean. I guess I kinda got used to us, and the whole conversation was just slightly jarring. They aren’t instantly accepting, they aren’t… I mean, they’ve just got some pretty shitty attitudes about some things.”

“They’re teenagers.” Alanna countered.

“I challenge you,” James riposted, “to tell me that, as a teenager, you wouldn’t have been all-in on living with nonhuman life.”

“I mean, I wanted to live with you and Sarah as soon as we were out of high school, so I think that’s obvious.” Alanna shot back.

James barked out a physical laugh, then sheepishly ducked his head as a passing girl hauling a heavy crate shot him a weird look. “Okay, that got me.” He told Alanna. “I’m just iffy about this. We’ve got twenty new people, every one of them took the offer, and they all make me uncomfortable. I just have this grim suspicion that I’m going to end up punching someone through a wall after I hear a slur for the ratroaches, you know?”

“Still need a better name!” She tangented off onto a new line of thought.

“I kinda want to go with chimera, but that seems weird. Like it doesn’t fit.”

The weird and new part of talking through skulljacks was that Alanna’s nod came across, as well as her thoughts. “Yeah, and they aren’t half family dog.”

“Oh my god, you’re the worst.” James’ reply practically overlapped his second sentence of “And I love you.”

“What about ‘amaglams’?” Alanna didn’t even wait for a reply, her thoughts running into each other much like James’ did. “No, that sounds dumb, and makes them seem like they’re… uh… just kinda slapped together? Which I guess they are. Also I hate the Sewer, in case I hadn’t said that today.”

“At least we’ve gotten some of its victims out.” James sighed as he signed into their server room and went through the process of turning off all the different magical programs that were running and giving him immunities to things. He’d forgotten to do it after leaving the Climb, and he needed to be better about it so that other people could make use of the resource they had. He didn’t stop talking to Alanna while he went through the quiet process. “Anyway. I dunno, I’m still worried about the new guys. Nate’s plan sounds good on paper, but I dunno if it’s actually gonna work.”

“Hey, I mean, if it means that we’re getting more Response teammates, that’s cool.” Alanna sent him a shrug as she bit her lip and carefully aimed an overhand lob of her coffee cup into the garbage can from across the room. She opted not to share the feeling of missing an easy shot with her boyfriend. “Wait, are we?”

“Not at first.” James stepped back out to the hall, reflexively catching it with his foot as it swung closed so it wouldn’t slam. “They’re getting an orientation, a bunch of relevant skill orbs, and assignment as backup to some of our rogues who are going to be doing more active security. They might swap later, but right now, we need to be more proactive about our own defense.” James shrugged to the empty hall as he walked. “Also I think Recovery needs more people anyway. They’ve been working a lot more than I thought, and Karen’s doing that thing where she’s trying to be frugal despite the fact that we can print money.”

There was a long pause, and James wondered if Alanna had gotten called away or something, despite her presence in his mind still being active. Then her words slipped into his thoughts again. “We designed a compressed space explicitly to easily duplicate mundane material! Why the fuck aren’t we just copying money.” She demanded. “Also, what does Recovery actually do these days?”

“Oh. Counterfeiting stuff I guess. Also something about intrinsic value? Eh.” James mentally swatted the question away, a slight fog clouding his thoughts as he failed to grasp the quick answer that he knew he should know. “As for Recovery, they do… a lot.” He rapidly compiled a mental list, and pushed it over to her in a format that was easy to process. “They work with victims of dungeons to put their lives back, they manage scheduling for therapy and support groups, they handle a lot of our medical functions, including being the ones that the cancer cure distribution goes through. They don’t actually include the group of people who are going really, really deep on skulljack uses, or our accounting or legal departments, but there’s a lot of overlap so it’s kind of a blurred line. And I think Karen kind of has the pulse of all of those different things.”

“For some reason, I thought Recovery and Research had overlap.” Alanna mused.

James hummed at her across their connection. “They do, in a way? Like, Research’s job is to take the magic we have and figure out how it works and what it does. What the limits are. That’s broad, but functionally their directive. Oh! And then they’re supposed to take what they learn and communicate it effectively. Recovery tends to take that information, and figure out how to convert it into help.”

“Okay, but like, what ‘bout arms?” Alanna asked. “Camraconda arms, I mean. Or… I guess we could probably make some pretty fucking cool arms for people who are missing limbs, couldn’t we? With the skulljack port for… huh. Should we be doing that?”

“Maybe. Also like I said, it’s a grey area. Our whole structure is chaotic and messy, and we really only work because we’ve got people who actually have the job of going around and making connections and solving problems.” He leaned on the corner of the hall, staying out of the way as he paused and finished his conversation before getting back to what he was here for.

“And then we’ve got Response, which…” Alanna shot him an overlapped thought, “why are all our divisions R-words?” She reset to the first sentence, “Response, which I guess overlaps with both of them, huh? Recovery to help victims put their lives back, Research for the tools we use… okay, neat. Though we still need way more people if we’re ever gonna successfully replace the police, I gotta say. So get back to hiring!”

“First off, you’re not my boss!” James playfully dropped the words into her mind. “Second off, uh… the Response-Research-Recovery thing was a coincidence at first, I think? Then Momo decided she wanted to call her branch of Research ‘Ritual’ and made it worse on purpose. Oh, and JP convincing Nate to call our intelligence branch Rogues, because the title we use for active threat-management personnel is Knight, just made it worse, and… ugh.” He shook his head with an exasperated smile as he watched a trio of shellaxies in their pen in the middle of the Research hub area scramble up over the rock that someone had put there, their corded mass of legs dragging their shells forward as they raced to get to a handful of yellow orbs that had been dropped in for their lunch. “Oh, also, Response isn’t a police replacement.” He added.

“What?” Alanna asked. On her end, someone signaled her, and she kicked herself to a standing position instantly. “Also I gotta go soon, talk fast.” She said as she and Smoke-And-Ember checked their low-threat gear load out and got ready to get a telepad destination. “You ready?” She asked the camraconda in her speaking voice.

“Set to act.” Smoke-And-Ember nodded. “Finish your conversation.”

“Okay, quick answer.” James tried to infodump as fast as he could. “Also we can talk later tonight. But basically, we’re not gonna change things with just us. So Response isn’t meant to be a systemic replacement. We can do three things: One, help. Two, we can train the first generation of peacekeepers for our own place when we make it. And three, we can shove an example front and center of how other police can do better. That’s it. We can help, and be a good example, and be passive aggressive about it. Or maybe just aggressive. I dunno.”

“Huh. Okay, neat. Also I gotta go.” Alanna said. “Countdown?” She offered, and then she and James ran through a rapid three-two-one before they both broke their minds apart. They’d gotten the advice from some of the Office survivors who had said it helped with the disorientation, and it really did seem to work. “Alright.” She reached out and set a hand on Smoke-And-Ember’s head, grabbed the telepad Marcus had just finished writing on and was handing her. “What do we have?”

“Home intrusion, seems like impersonal burglary. Don’t be too mean.” Marcus said.

Alanna grinned as she tore the page and vanished with the camraconda.

In the Research basement, James blinked as his girlfriend cut away the connection and headed off to do something useful, while he resigned himself to similarly doing something useful, but exhausting.

He passed by a pair of faces he didn’t recognize, and a handful that he did, all deeply focused on whatever they were working on at their desks. A couple of them had one of the camraconda motorized arm packs half-disassembled, rigorously noting problem spots, someone was entering a batch of new potions into inventory, and another had a desk covered in circuit boards that made use of the emerald chips that grew programs over time. Almost everyone had something plugged into their skulljack, the kind of people who got really excited for what that technology represented being highly drawn to the Research basement one way or another.

Eventually, without getting too distracted by the friendly shellaxies that lived here and who were really energetic today in demanding affection, James made it past the main floor, down a narrow concrete access hallway, and to the locked and protected room where the Order kept the really dangerous stuff.

So far, “the really dangerous stuff” was basically just the collected writings of the insane cult leader mechanic who had slaughtered a whole town in an attempt at apotheosis, and also the loot drops of all the fallen Order members that they had been able to collect. The latter, they didn’t know what to do with as they didn’t have real consent from any of those people to test things, and the former, they just kind of didn’t want being used again. Mostly. Sort of.

At the semicircular desk outside the sealed room, in an alcove that shouldn’t have fit in the space, sat Davis. The older man, looking incredibly good for his age, wasn’t doing much of anything aside from sipping at a mug of something hot, and watching through the security glass window of their new vault.

“Hey.” James greeted him with a wave.

“Well well well! Look who’s finally come down to our secret hideout!” Davis said with a grin. “Here to visit Reed?” He gestured with his mug toward the window.

“First off, that’s a great way to keep people from coming back and oh I see you know that.” James nodded as he caught Davis’ amused expression. “Great. Well, I’m here to talk to you, actually. Wait, why’s Reed here?” James finished approaching and leaned on the desk, turning to see what Davis had motioned to. Inside the secure room, Reed had arranged the loose sheets of note paper around a table and was moving between them, his fingers alternating between tapping on things he focused on, and unconsciously curling and yanking on bits of his hair in frustration. “Has he finally gone mad?” James asked without any real concern.

Davis snorted. “Probably. He says he thinks he can build a ‘dungeon detector’.” Davis did not elaborate further. “What do you need me for?”

“I’m… actually I’m now intently curious what the fuck Reed is doing, but okay, I’ll talk to him later…” James tore his eyes away from the view of his beleaguered peer through the wire mesh of the security glass. Pushing himself back, he addressed Davis in a less casual way. “I’m here to check in on how the Alchemists are doing, before I make a decision.”

“Oh?”

“Oh.” James nodded. “Not a terrifying life altering decision, to be clear. It’s just that Red and Nile asked to explore some of the other dungeons, and I’m curious if I should approve that.”

Davis cleared his throat with a harsh noise, as he set his drink down with contradictory smooth grace. “Well, what do you want to know?”

“I don’t even know where to start!” James threw his hands up with a short laugh. “What do I even ask here? Obviously we’ve talked about them repeatedly in check-ins, but this feels different. So… okay, let’s start with a basic check-in, actually.”

That put the conversation back on familiar ground, and Davis nodded as he dropped into the pattern of his report. “Amelia, Red, she’s doing… fine. The woman is still a workaholic, and doesn’t want to talk with anyone else unless it’s about curing Parkinson’s, which is her latest fixation. Emotionally, well, she’s been going to therapy, but she keeps quiet. Asked for a few red orbs last week, and for once it wasn’t to try to turn them into a potion, so I okayed it. It’s not that she doesn’t feel anything, though, it’s that she just doesn’t prioritize it, and she’s got a lifetime of hiding everything.”

“That sounds familiar.” James said without thinking.

“Hey, piss off, kid.” Davis grinned. “But you’re right. It’s the same as for a lot of our members in my respectful age bracket. Worse for her, because you know that if she ever did react, she’d get jumped on for being ‘excitable’ or ‘unstable’. So she got cold instead. But she’s not evil, and she’s… well, she’s working on herself. Progress continues.”

“What about Nile and Tigres?”

“Tigres isn’t doing well. Mentally or physically.” Davis said. “He’s eighty years old, though he doesn’t look it, and his heart and liver are kaput. Deb wants to talk about getting him a backup heart, but he doesn’t give a damn. He’s given up. Doesn’t think he can ever do enough to make up for his part in things, and doesn’t care that we don’t see it that way. Nile’s… well, William’s not depressed. Your girl says he doesn’t feel right, but I could have told you that. He’s an ass, and he thinks he’s better than this, better than everyone around him, and yet, he’s still making progress.”

James suppressed a sigh with a wince. “I’d heard about Tigres. I don’t… you know what? Let’s focus on the two that I’m here for, so I don’t dive into existential dread today.”

“Sure. That a problem for you?”

“Endlessly.” James turned to lean on the desk and face away from Davis. “So. How are Nile and Red doing, overall, with our culture?”

“Oh, they hate it.” Davis said bluntly. “Not entirely, but enough. Remember, these are people who are used to employing housekeepers and eating four star meals every day. And sure, we get paid, but they’re really, really bitter about the fact that they see it as being paid back their own money.”

James tipped his head back to stare at the cracked concrete of the ceiling. “To be fair, we did essentially take everything from them. Financially.” He paused. “What do they want? Like, not what do they want in terms of liquid assets, don’t answer that. I mean, what would make them embrace our culture more?”

“I think a lot of what they think they’re missing is actually just the effects of wealth, not the wealth itself.” Davis tapped a pen on the desk as he answered. “They want to feel important. Status symbols like fancy cars and mansions were how they showed it off. But also, they miss all the little comforts, like eighty year old scotch and dinners with french names and living in the foothills isolated from prying eyes.”

“I refuse to believe you didn’t write that answer in advance.” James quipped, and then felt a spike of discomfort as Davis just ignored the joke and stared at him. “Okay. So, they want… what, to feel special? And they don’t care that they’re brewing cancer cures, or what?”

“Well, Amelia’s self-actualized enough to be satisfied with the work itself, emotionally. Nile want’s other people to think he’s special, though. He looked at money as a way to keep score, and he was winning. Now he’s not.”

“Hm.” James thought. “You know, we’re obviously not ‘fixing’ the wealth issue for them, but we can hit the creature comfort thing. Like, we could change how we do food around here; there’s a couple ideas for improved selection and quality that’ve just sorta been on the back burner. We already do a whole ‘even split of magic but you can trade for stuff’ thing for most people, we could just formalize getting an orange-enhanced apartment that’s the size of Texas. And, I dunno, we’re probably not gonna be figuring out time dilation anytime soon, so hundred year aged scotch is off the table, but maybe just tell Nile his new project is coming up with some kind of fancy liquor potion?”

“Those are all terrifying thoughts.” Davis told him. “But I’m willing to try, as long as I don’t have to test the potion.”

“You know you literally never have to test the potions.” James said. “Especially since a lot of them are not healthy.” He silently mourned for the growing number of lab rats that had given their lives in the line of duty for alchemical progress. “RIV noble rats.” He muttered, less silently. “Anyway. Back on topic. Red and Nile, for some reason, think that dungeon delving will make them better alchemists. You know anything about this?”

“Of course. I wrote the paper on it.” Davis said. “There’s a direct correlation between time spent inside dungeons, and… call it instinct, maybe. The ability of the individual to perform a few different tasks. Recognizing dungeontech is one of them, but also more specifically, absorbing blue orbs, and communicating with infomorphs. The basic principle is repeatably provable, we’re just waiting on budgeting people and time to isolate variables and test more thoroughly.”

James refrained from opening the file right away with his skulljack, and instead just tilted his head to give Davis a side eyed look. “Okay, I’m gonna tell you right now, you’re gonna need more depth on this than you think. Because I can’t feel the Winter’s Climb magic items, but Arrush can.”

“There… aren’t any dungeontech items from the Climb?” Davis let himself get sidetracked. “We’ve got some objects retrieved, but no one has been able to determine any effects from them.”

“Huh. Okay. Well, that’s weird too. My point is mostly that I wouldn’t be surprised if you need to fine tune which dungeon enhances which aware…ness… hang on, are we actually leveling up?” He turned and placed his palms on the desk, leaning forward with sudden enthusiasm.

Davis raised his pen and placed it on James’ forehead, pushing him backward. “You’re not the first person to say that, and I refuse to comment.” He said. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, Nile and Red want to go delving.”

“Do you think they should?” James asked, easing off on his excitement. “Nile seems… well, like he’s still an ass.”

“He’s not very sociable, no.” Davis said diplomatically. “But you actually want my opinion? Yeah. You should let them. Though with a heavy escort. Like I said, they’re in great shape for our age, but they’re not up for a fight. Red just wants her work to do great things, and Nile wants… well, what he wants is stupid. But what he needs is people. Kid, I’ve done three delves, and then swore if off forever, and I still keep in touch with the people who I went in with. And not just because we all work here. Best case, you give that antisocial jackass some people he can connect with. Worse case, he dies, and he’s not our problem anymore.”

“Jesus Christ.” James bit out, caught off guard by Davis’ casual hostility.

“Also, if it works the way they want?” Davis shrugged, tugging at the shoulder of his grey college alumni sweatshirt. “Well, then we get people who have a lot of experience working with the sap of knowledge, who are now even better at it, who are making potions for us. Seems like a win for everyone.”

James nodded, pressing his fingertips together as he sucked in a breath. “Okay, so, I should make my concern clear.” He said slowly. “Often times, on delves, one or more of the delvers will end up with innate, non-transferable skills or powers. Some of these have, traditionally, been absurdly dangerous. I guess what I’m asking here is; if we gave these two a rocket launcher, would they point it back at us to get what they wanted?”

“Red? No. She’s pragmatic. Nile might, but I think even he would think twice about it at this point. He’s… well. I keep saying he’s an ass, and I mean it, don’t get me wrong kid. But he’s not evil. Not… not maliciously evil. He did evil because he was stupid and shortsighted and a few other words I won’t say in polite company-“

“Don’t you call me that.”

“-but he wasn’t anything worse than someone who didn’t care who their business hurt, as long as the business was profitable. That’s it. He doesn’t have any opinions or ideology for you to fight.” Davis gave another rapid burst of taps from his pen. “Have you talked to him yet?”

“I was waiting to see if I should.” James said. “It’s on my to-do list if you think this is a good idea.”

“I think you should.” Davis said with a flat look. “But I also think he’s never going to get better if we don’t give him a little trust on this.”

James gnawed at his lip, looking back at the sealed room that Reed was still pacing around the table in. “He wants to be recognized, huh?” He said. “So, why not just do that, right? Let him know that we see that he’s working with us, in the language he knows how to speak.”

“That’s kind of a dramatic way to put it, but you do you.” Davis said in a dry voice. “You need anything else from me today?” He asked, bringing his still-steaming mug back up to his mouth.

“Any new potions I should know about since I’m actually bad at sorting through this whole floor’s chaotic mess of reports?” James asked.

Davis met his eyes with the disappointed look of someone who was being academically judgemental. But he still answered anyway. “The luck potion doesn’t actually work in a repeatable way, the fertilizer potion we’re still working on ironing the kinks out of, there’s two that we don’t know the effects of that are safe but still going through trials, and two that are fairly useless unless you want your fingernails to be opalescent or your saliva to taste like whipped cream.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Taste like, or actually be?” James narrowed his eyes.

“Taste like.”

“Then no, I do not have a use for that.”

Davis opened his mouth like he was about to ask a question, then thought better of it, and shook his head, angling his mug to point James away from his desk. “Get out of here. You’ve got better things to do than entertain me.”

“Yeah, uh… do you want a book or something?”

“Got one.” Davis tapped the back of his neck, getting a nod back from James, who waved over his shoulder as he headed back out to try to see if he remembered the layout of the hallways here or if he was going to do another two loops of the whole giant basement before he found the elevator again.

_____

James went through the process of double checking the attitudes and consent of new recruit batches another two times, adding another seven people to their temporary roster and bringing the Order up to… well, more people than before.

He had a hard time keeping track of the number. There was a document somewhere, he was sure, and he was reasonably confident they had over two hundred humans at this point. A large chunk of them were still the survivors of Officium Mundi, but more and more, they were adding new people to their operations.

Whether that was through JP’s cryptic method of finding new reconnaissance helpers, the assimilation of other vaguely magic groups, adding in survivors of other horrible events, just regular hiring, or their recruitment of new semi-official allies through their cancer cure distribution program. The Order was growing.

Response, especially, was hungry for new people. James may have told Alanna that they weren’t trying to actually replace the police anymore, but Harvey sure didn’t stop pushing just as hard. And with them doing everything from conflict resolution to search and rescue, Response was eager to get new minds trained up to join them.

Human or otherwise. No one in the Order was averse to working with nonhumans at this point; everyone who was got a long conversation about their behavior and how to fix it, and if they didn’t, they got the boot. It had only happened a couple of times so far, but James especially had basically no interest in humoring racists. He also felt it was important to be blunt about the fact that those people were racist, and that their presence wouldn’t be missed.

Camracondas and ratroaches kept being added to their ranks in ones and twos. Every new delve was a chance to kidnap them away from their forced servitude or abusive warrens and into the clean, compassionate world of the Order. And it was kidnapping; James also refused to shy away from the truth of it. The Order, and he personally, were making a value judgment here about how people should live, including people that weren’t like them. And he didn’t care. Every time a camraconda found something they had a passion for, or a ratroach got to eat a meal without being afraid, he saw that as a complete win.

They didn’t have more of whatever Ben was, though. James still needed to talk to the… Ben… about how to best accommodate the somewhat unique life that had joined up recently. And they also didn’t have more stapler crabs that were quite as smart as Rufus. Apparently, the little creatures didn’t seem to have an upper limit on mental growth; they just all tended to die before it mattered.

Which was kind of grim, and also said a lot about just how absurdly lucky James and Rufus had both gotten to have met each other. And now, Rufus was repaying that luck by giving James a new problem.

Currently, James was eating lunch, and stressing out about the upcoming semi-planned meeting with Harlan, among other things, when Rufus found him. The stapler, who apparently didn’t have a physical growth limit either and was now the size of a housecat, slowly lowering himself down from the ceiling onto James’ table.

James just watched silently, trying to keep his expression stoically unimpressed as he chewed. Eventually, Rufus dropped the last half foot with a chitinous scratching as he got his legs under him and stood up, dusting off one of his forelimbs with another jointed ballpoint pen leg before he made sure that the small satchel he had on his flank was still in place. Then he looked up at James and blinked once.

“Hey.” James said easily. Rufus waved back, having been acknowledged, and then started pulling documents out of his bag to lay out on the table in front of James. “You know,” James said as he quickly grabbed a napkin and wiped a drop of some kind of sauce off the surface before Rufus dropped his documentation into it, “I have an office, if this is a business meeting.” He waited for Rufus to stop what he was doing and look up at him with an equally unimpressed eye. “Apparently we share an office, actually.” James couldn’t finish his sentence without cracking a smile, his facade falling away in an instant.

The species Rufus was a part of didn’t have any kind of natural reaction that equated to laughter. But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel humor, and he’d found a way to express it. Rapid dragging taps of his forelegs on the table acting as a good signifier that he both got and appreciated the joke.

“Okay, seriously.” James pushed his lunch away and tried to let go of the dozen half-baked plans for upgrading how they did communal food without equally upscaling food waste. “What’cha got here?” He looked over what Rufus had brought him.

A lot of it was printouts of things James was aware of, and in one case had written himself, most of it revolving around the Clutter Ascent life form of ‘stuff animals’. Whatever amalgamation of different real world creature parts that Fredrick was, he wasn’t unique. Not exactly, anyway. The Attic dungeon had made more things like him, though with varying mixes of the component parts. A little less raccoon, a little more salamander, usually the same amount of spider.

The stuff animals grew up on a relatively rapid scale, up to a certain point. Apparently they did get spawned as ‘infants’, and while that meant something different than it did for a human, they still had what amounted to a rapid childhood. Up to the point that their growth slowed down, and their mental development leveled out to be something more like a human teenager. From what Fredrick shared, the process was deeply confusing, but amounted to what felt like chunk of knowledge exploding in his mind until he knew what he was ‘supposed to’ as a foundation. How to use his body, how to communicate, how to read, how to appreciate art.

The phrase “like a human teenager” was something that could be terrifying on its own, really. But in this case, because they hadn’t actually been around for that long, no one knew what their life cycle was like, or even what their natural lifespan would be. If dungeon life even had lifespans.

As it stood, they had about twenty young stuff animals, all of them about to plateau in their physical growth, along with reaching the phase when their minds stopped unfolding. And that’s where the last thing Rufus had brought him came up.

“So, you want to fold them into the youth groups?” He asked, raising his eyebrows at Rufus over the page he was holding up to read. The stapler raised a pen in agreement. “That makes sense. They’re basically kids. Fuck, we really need to get a proper school set up. If we start now, we could probably have that ready to go by this September. Karen will murder me with whatever psychic powers she has if she hears me say that, but come on, we’re us, right?” He asked it rhetorically, but Rufus gave vigorous agreement. “Anyway. Yeah. So, what’re you thinking here? Or rather, is there a reason that we shouldn’t just mix them in normally?”

Rufus thought about it, then started tapping bits of the operations manual report on their species, specifically parts about development cycles and relative age, before referring to part of his own printed request.

James nodded. “Right. I get that. But like, how do you determine when one of them goes from fitting into the 9-12 group, to fitting into the 13-15 group? Because it’s not going to be ‘three years of time’, and I think we both know that.” He leaned back as Rufus mimicked the motion on the tabletop. “Actually this is kind of a problem for forming long term social bonds, huh? Like, if a stuff animal only needs a year at the lower age group, before moving on, that… that keeps them from making friends at the rate that humans do?” He tapped his chin. “Am I being too human centric here with this? Is this just something with no good solution, that we should… let happen? What are we prioritizing here exactly?”

“Lunch.” Said a voice to James’ left, and he startled as he twitched his gaze sideways to see the familiar coils of Frequency-Of-Sunlight approaching, setting a pair of plates on the table with the mechanical arms she was wearing.

Behind the serpentine girl, Deb pulled over one of the camraconda specific chairs, before claiming her own seat next to Frequency. “You mind if we join you?” She asked James a little late, leaning sideways to plant a quick kiss on Frequency before turning back and attacking her salad with the alacrity of a med school intern.

“I mean, no, but also usually people ask that before sitting.” James said.

“This is faster and we know you’ll say yes anyway.” Frequency-Of-Sunlight said. Then she stopped, freezing up in a stiff motion as if another camraconda had just locked her in their gaze. “Wait. No. That is wrong. May we sit here? I should not assume.”

James gave her an appreciative smile. “You’re fine. I woulda said yes anyway, but also thanks.” He glanced at Deb who was eating like she had somewhere to be. “You okay?”

“Mmmmphy.” Deb said, unintelligibly before swallowing heavily. “I’ve got a lot going on, I’m having a nice lunch with the person I love so she won’t worry that I’m not eating, and then I am going to run back to monitoring ratroach vitals from the new rescues to make sure no one dies because Aaron cannot be trusted.”

“Really?” James asked.

“Yes!” Frequency said cheerfully, her skulljack connected speaker system not requiring her to stop talking just because her mouth was full. “It is me! I am the person she loves. And who is making her eat lunch so she does not wither and die which is a thing humans do?”

“That’s true, yes, but I meant you not trusting your head nurse.” James clarified, pointing at Deb, and getting a backup point from Rufus who also wanted to know what was up with that.

She made some kind of aggressive growl around a forkful of tomato. “He’s not bad or anything, but he is… uh…” She trailed off, staring into space.

“You don’t have a real complaint, do you?” James asked with a small smirk. “You’re just doing that thing I used to do where you feel like you should be involved with everything and you can’t delegate.” He accused her.

“Mmph.” Deb said diplomatically. Next to her, Frequency-Of-Sunlight shifted her coils and dexterously rubbed the end of her tail across the back of Deb’s scrubs.

“Anyway, I actually was gonna find you later, so this works.” James started, before quickly inserting, “Apologies for making your lunch about business. But how’s the stuff going on fixing the ratroach biology? And shaper substance tests in general.” Deb’s eyes practically gleamed as she perked up at the question. It made James double take, as he leaned in to peer at her. “Wait, what’s with your eyes?”

“They are fascinating, yes?” Frequency-Of-Sunlight said, laying her head on the table and staring adoringly up at Deb, who tilted her head away from both of them.

“Purple effect. Not important.” She said, looking like she was doing her best to avoid clamping her eyelids shut out of embarrassment. “So, shaper substance. Trials are looking good. We’ve managed to determine component sources for the overwhelming pain, and at least a couple can be dealt with. Though it gets a bit silly in places. For example, one of the problems is that organ failure sets in rather quickly as the now-malleable body loses coherency. This reverts after the substance is used up, but focusing on keeping your lungs working while making changes to your own biology isn’t possible for most people. So we’ve gone back to our old standby of posthypnotic suggestion. Which, can I just say, it’s weird that we have a dozen people with multiple skill ranks in that?”

“It’s not that weird.” James said defensively, before Rufus swatted him on the back of his hand with the tip of one of his pen legs. “Okay it’s a little weird. Does that actually work?”

“Shockingly well, yes.” Deb nodded. “Between that, a painkiller routine that doesn’t impede cognition, and a physical therapy routine in the days leading up to the use, as well as extensive education on personal biology and what changes will be made, I believe we’re almost ready to begin large scale trials.”

“Yeah, Keeka is excited. And maybe terrified.” James’ mouth twisted into a curved half-frown. “It kinda sucks this is the best option we have in a lot of ways.”

“There are purple orbs that can help. But…” Deb sighed.

Frequency-Of-Sunlight picked up the line of thought. “They help with single things. Not with bodily conditions. Also, also, they add, they will not change. Strange things.” Her camera eye focused in on James as she talked.

“Hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t make them.” James held his hands up.

Deb let out a sudden giggle, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, her fork poking out at an angle. “She’s right though.” She said. “Mostly! We’ve actually got a combination of purple that could make a ratroach… I don’t know what language you want me to use here. Make their bodies function close to what an uninjured, able bodied human would.” Deb’s shoulders slumped. “But of course, the purples work differently for them, so there’s no telling how some of them might change. And that still would only bring them up to almost human standard. And it would take almost fifty orbs.”

“Which we could absolutely do.” James pointed out. “Of course…”

“Of course we could also use the potions, and mundane medicine, to help them manage pain, until we can go through a single procedure that fixes all their problems.” Deb shrugged. “Assuming it goes well. Which it might not. Also ‘single procedure’ is a misnomer. We’re staring with between three and five, to affect the changes we’ve identified as necessary. But it’s still better for them, and for our limited replicator budget. Haaa… ‘replicator budget’. What happened to my life…” She glanced at her watch. “I should get back.”

“No!” Frequency-Of-Sunlight hissed along with her words. “Sit! Lunch! Enjoy time!” She whipped her body around to look at James. “Help make her stay!”

“Sure. So Deb.”

“Oh hell no, don’t conspire with her on this.” Deb crossed her arms. “I agreed to a quick lunch.”

“You haven’t finished your salad thing, anyway, I have a real question that can distract you. Actually, you might have insight in this too, Sunny.” He glanced down at Rufus, and picked up one of the documents the stapler had brought for him. “Rufus here has been talking to me about including the stuff animals in the youth group program, and I’m going to start looking into actually getting a structured education program going. You two have a lot of experience with different species for, you know, reasons.” He idly gestured at the camraconda. “Any hurdles we should know about, for a mixed species school environment?” Rufus excitedly gestured agreement with the question and interest in the topic as James concluded.

Sunny hissed in thought. “Don’t know how long my people are children.” She said. “Or how long it would be… appropriate?” She glanced at Deb.

“That’s a possible term for it.” Deb said slowly. “Actually, if we have any skill ranks on developmental psychology available, we should consider distributing those to whoever ends up working on this new project. I’m assuming it’ll be called… Reeducation?”

“What?” James blinked. “No?”

Rufus scuttled forward, shifting a paper toward Deb, who started reading it with interest. “Okay, so, I think the issue here is that we might be looking at emotional maturity wrong. We should make time to talk to some of our staff therapists, or whoever is currently studying the Ascent’s growth. Rufus, I assume you know who that is?”

The stapler crab dipped his body forward, clacking in agreement as he started rearranging his documents to put something else in front of Deb.

“Hold up, what’s with…” James started to ask, but the two of them were ignoring him now. He turned to Frequency-Of-Sunlight. “This wasn’t what I wanted.” He apologized.

“No, but it is working.” She said with an amused lilt to her digital voice. “Also because you are curious, we think it takes three to six years of mental freedom for camracondas to reach emotional maturity.”

It was still a little strange to James when Sunny switched to speaking in an almost professional tone. She, and most of the camracondas, really, were a lot smarter than their sometimes limited and often strange speech let on. “Okay, that’s good to know. This is gonna end up a complete societal mess, though, I just know it.”

“Chaos is not bad.” Frequency-Of-Sunlight adjusted the mechanical arms on her back, settling them into a position that didn’t drag on her. “It brought us here, after all. To learn so much about ourselves.” She glanced at Deb, still engaged in a conversation with Rufus that was very one sided in who was talking. “It is nice.”

“How’re you two doing, by the way?” James asked with a soft smile. “Since your girlfriend is distracted.”

Frequency-Of-Sunlight flicked her tongue over her tightly wound cable snout. “Good! Good?” She half asked. “I do not know.” The camraconda slumped slightly, instantly going back on what she said. “I do not know what I am doing. Or if I am doing things correctly. Or what relationships are. It makes me happy, but I hope I am doing well.”

James nodded sagely. “I understand completely.”

“Really?”

“Actually yeah, no sarcasm intended.” James grinned. “You could try asking Deb directly, which I find tends to help. Or you could wait to learn that she’s apparently good at following multiple conversations at once in a few seconds here.” James raised his eyebrows as Frequency-Of-Sunlight titled her head at him, shortly before Deb wrapped her arms around the camraconda in a tight hug. “Like that.” He said.

“You idiot.” Deb mumbled into Frequency’s head, barely loud enough for James to make it out over the growing noise of a dining room that was filling up with people.

He excused himself, giving Rufus a ride out on his shoulder as they left the two partners to their moment. “I’ve got some time. Where to?” James asked, and let Rufus pilot him down to the basement and the small paranormal garden that the stapler maintained. “I’ve gotta ask, how do you have time to do all this?” James said. “Do you sleep or anything?”

Rufus made an X with his forelegs, vigorously blinking at James.

“Huh. I’ll trade you for that power?” James ventured to ask.

He got another X in reply.

“Yeah, I’d say that too.” He said, before waving goodbye to his small friend and leaving the stapler to his plants.

_____

“Oh, hey!” James smiled as he ran into Arrush near the stairs up from one of the basements. “Fancy seeing you here!”

“Is… it?” Whatever Arrush had been about to say was derailed by the simple statement, a look of warped confusion crossing his angular muzzle. “Why? I live downstairs.”

“Down… right. Fuck, I’ve been taking the elevator and teleport the whole time, so I only just learned about this, and then instantly forgot about it. Why do we have another downstairs?” James’ own explanation was temporarily derailed, before he shook it off and gave a real answer. “Anyway, it’s just an idiom. Like, it means I’m a little surprised to see you because I had no expectations, but I’m happy with the encounter anyway.”

Arrush nodded slowly, straightening back up to his full height and out of the cautious slouch he’d fallen into at James’ opening words. “Oh. I am… also happy then.” His breath came in a series of rapid inhilations, steady, and far less painful than before, but still enough to make his chest heave like a panting dog’s as his heart hammered. “Hello.”

“Heh. Hi. Hey, actually, I’m going on a walk here. Do you wanna come with me? Just hang out for a bit?” James offered casually, trying not to betray his own mild tempest of emotions.

Arrush’s offset eyes blinked in a rippling pattern that James had come to associate with a kind of suspicious disbelief. “Outside?” He asked, curling some of his arms inward.

“Well, in Townton, but yes, outside.” James clarified. “A couple people wanted me to take a closer look at the necroad thing, and I’m gonna do it recklessly.”

“Oh. Then. Yes.” Arrush relaxed again, much more comfortable in a place where there weren’t dangerous life forms wandering around everywhere. “I will come with you. As… protection.”

“As a conversation partner.” James replied with a hint of a smile. “I can take care of myself.”

Arrush just hummed at him as he followed James up the stairs and into the space between the maintenance closet that James used to call an office, and the door to the back briefing warehouse. James had actually thought they were going to emerge somewhere in the kitchen; the stairwells seemed to be getting harder to keep track of the longer he used them, instead of easier.

The lobby was bustling with activity, but not overwhelmingly so. People coming and going from around the Lair, on their way to or from lunch, meeting up for conversations or exchanges of information, or just taking advantage of the comfortable space to relax. All it needed was someone idly noodling on a guitar, and an espresso machine, and it’d remind James of a pleasant cafe environment.

Right now, the humans outnumbered the few camracondas and manifested infomorphs, and none of those humans were kids. It was, after all, a school day, and that thought struck James as funny all of a sudden. He was running around, trying to fix problems and facilitate communication and explore dungeons and a million other things, but to a number of the interns they had here, the most important thing was that this was the second semester of their senior year. And if they played their cards right, they might survive it. And graduate, too!

Next to James, Arrush sniffed the air, tensing up again, and as he led them around the desk James noticed why. In a beanbag pressed up against the corner of the room, a pair of the newer ratroaches lurked like they were trying to watch everyone at once and failing. A young man sat next to them, and it took James a second to recognize that it was Marcus, usually on the phones in Response, his back leaned against the desk, flipping through a book like he wasn’t worried about anything in the world. He’d added more pride pins to his coat lapel since James had seen him last.

The ratroaches stared at Arrush, their antenna flattened back on their half-furred heads as they watched him. Arrush, similarly, seemed to shrink down and walked as close to James as he could. James just waved and gave Marcus a cheerful “sup” that got him a tip of the book and a grin.

James didn’t comment on Arrush sidling up to him. The closeness actually felt rather warm, even if he knew that it was mostly because the ratroach was still nervous around this many people.

“Why are we… here?” Arrush asked in a wet whisper over James’ head.

“Oh, sorry, we’re saving telepad uses by carpooling. Uh… which is a term for-“

“Know what carpooling is.” Arrush sounded a little offended. “Lived with… car people.”

James didn’t exactly pause, because he didn’t want Arrush to run over him, but he did make a confused noise in the back of his throat. “Car people, like, people who are… cars? No, wait, I got it, sorry. Took my brain a second.”

“Mmh.”

“Anyway, we’re meeting Dave and Watcher-Of-Motion, who are headed down to Townton for reasons.” James pointed across the room to where the other two were milling around near the door as he led Arrush across the Lair’s lobby. Another camraconda was helping Watcher-Of-Motion affix one of their species specific jackets around his body as James walked up with a wave. “I don’t know why they’re over here.” He said out loud to Arrush. “But hey.”

“Because it’s the front door?” Dave looked at him like he was dumb. “That’s how you leave a building James.”

“I missed this.” James said, turning his head toward Arrush. “I missed this utterly earnest dumbass.”

“Hey! I’m not that earnest!” Dave said, chuckling as he did so.

James snorted. “What’ve you been up to, anyway?” He said as he double checked his phone for the Townton address they were teleporting to, and pressed his telepad up to the wall of the building to start writing on it. “Something comical and illegal, I’m assuming.”

“Why would you assume that?” Dave cocked his head at James. “I never do that.”

James pocketed his pen and raised his eyebrows as he held out a hand. “Really? No flying around the country with Pendragon, breaking FAA regulations left and right?”

“Karen files flight paths for me.” Dave said, setting a hand on Watcher’s head and taking James’ hand.

James offered his arm to Arrush, who paused before he wrapped a warm chitinous hand around it. And then, gathered up, James ripped the telepad page and sent them to another state.

Tennessee’s air felt different, and James couldn’t quite figure out how, only that the pressure on his skin was off. That, and the smell of the Lair, which was a lot more chaotic even if it was fairly pleasant, was a sharp jump away from the smell of the police station that was sterilized via green orb effect every day.

“Thank you for flying Air Telepad.” James intoned. “Your exits are to the left, thank your cabin staff.”

“Thank you.” Watcher-Of-Motion said politely with a bob of his neck, before promptly slithering off.

James watched the camraconda go. “I hope he didn’t think I was being serious.” He winced to himself. “Anyway. Dave! Have fun with your suspicious thing you didn’t tell me about.” James raised his eyebrows at his friend, but Dave just laughed, and gave an “Alright” as he turned to walk to the thin stairwell next to the dead elevator, leaving James standing there with Arrush. “I… actually wanted an answer, though…” James said.

“Why did you not say that?” Arrush asked, speaking up now that the two of them were mostly alone again.

“Because I’m an idiot.” James said with a sigh. “And I tend to forget that Dave has a very literal take on conversations a lot of the time.”

“Is that bad?” Arrush asked, shifting slightly, but not stepping away from his spot next to James.

James pivoted, stepping back slightly to look up Arrush properly. “Eh!” He settled on. “It’s Dave. Like, this isn’t a Dave problem, this is a me problem. I know Dave sees things differently, and I still phrased my question like I was making a joke, so… you know. That’s on me. I coulda handled that better.”

“But you don’t know… what he is doing.”

“I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Not… illegal?” Arrush ventured.

“I said fine, not safe.” James clarified. “I’m sure he’s doing something that’ll dramatically upstage me later, because that’s a thing Dave did repeatedly for a while there. That was before we met, though. So maybe he’s changed. We actually don’t talk much anymore; he just got really into taking care of Pendragon and helping everyone else raise the new paper drakes, and that’s cool, but… eh. Eh, that’s all. We drifted apart.” James sighed. “Sorry, that was kinda heavy and you didn’t actually ask to know how I’m failing to keep my friendships up. Wanna head out?”

Arrush glanced toward the police station door, which had had the shattered glass cleaned up, but was still a broken wreck that no one had bothered to fully replace in their time occupying the building. “Should you… check in?” He asked, worried.

“Kirk and Myles know I’m here, so does Dave, I’ve got a telepad set to take us home if anything goes wrong, and really, this is just kind of a simple test of behavior.” James shrugged. “And it’s actually nice outside. Though…” He glanced at Arrush, and at the somewhat tattered black hoodie he was wearing. “Do you need a coat or something? Are you gonna be okay? It’s warmer here than back in Oregon, but it’s still kinda cold if you-“

“Fine.” Arrush huffed. “I’m fine.” He repeated, more evenly.

“Alright, then let’s get going.” James led them to the door, then realized he had no idea how to actually open the half-barricade. Arrush, who had lived here for a while before the cleanup team moved to a hotel with actual rooms, casually reached over and unpinned a latch, pushing the boarded up door open. “Right. Thanks.” James grinned. “Shoulda teleported us outside.”

The city of Townton was overcast, approaching an early night, and still an absolute mess. With the power out, there weren’t going to be an streetlights, so James had wanted to get here before actual sunset and the complete absence of light, but it was still jarring to him to be in a city with no people.

The people were long gone, either dead or evacuated. The buildings were, in many cases, half destroyed, and in some cases burned down. He knew there were swaths of the suburbs where early fires had ravaged places the Order couldn’t really do much to save. But these days, with nothing left to spark fires except errant lightning strikes, it was mostly just… well…

Empty.

They’d driven through parts of the city, going from their claimed outposts to the dungeon, or just scouring the buildings for personal effects or valuable resources. But on foot it really was something else. The police station’s public front parking lot lined up with a few restaurants on the other side, and past that there was a main intersection that split traffic between a road to the freeway, a strip mall, and a long path through town lined with businesses and dead traffic lights.

James picked a direction at random and started walking, letting Arrush fall in at his side.

They walked in silence for a couple blocks, as James watched the terrain around them. In a lot of ways, Townton reminded him of a dungeon. There was possibly something that might be hostile here, just out of sight. There was a strange stillness, an absence of… not humanity, exactly, but a lack of living. No one lived here. There were wrecked cars on the road with spikes of asphalt through them, and they’d been here since the cataclysm. And unless the Order did something, they’d be here for a while longer too. There were buildings with freshly warped geometry, not arcane in nature, just not how buildings were supposed to look, and they stood unremarked upon. Because there was no one to do the remarking.

James paused briefly as they passed a car dealership where it looked like something had cut the two story office building in half, part of it slumped sideways, the insides of the structure exposed, carpet and furniture rotting in the elements.

The sidewalks were mostly clear, at least.

“I don’t see any of the necroads around here.” James said as they crossed an intersection, his instincts still forcing him to look side to side for oncoming traffic that couldn’t possibly be there.

“They avoid… this place. Think they learned it was dangerous.” Arrush’s clipped words sounded almost sad. “Didn’t know, then.” He added.

James glanced at him. “I never asked,” he said softly, “did you fight them ever? Shit, I’m sorry. You were supposed to be here so you could have a quite place with Keeka, not to get dropped into another… well.”

Arrush shook his head rapidly, an alarmed look in his many widening eyes. “No!” He hissed. “It was good, here. It is. Everyone is… kind.” A pair of his extra arms ran sharpened claws across his chitin. “Once, they tried to attack. Nate kept us back. Keeka wanted to help. But we never fought.”

“Well good.” James sighed, tilting his head up to look at the darkening clouds overhead. “We’re supposed to be keeping you safe, not the other way around.”

“Can’t it be both?” Arrush asked, genuinely curious. “Is that… not what you want?”

James stepped around a toppled newspaper dispenser, the last few issues still inside preserving the mundanity of a past day. “Sure, but you know what I mean.” He said as he looked back up from the sidewalk and swept his eyes across the road, looking for movement. They were walking past a fence on their left now, and he could see through the gaps a fleet of mail trucks waiting in a large lot. “You two were so new then, to us.”

“Am I not new now?” Arrush asked, cracking his maw in a grin.

“Psh!” James smiled. “You’re… I dunno, what are you?” He looked over at the ratroach, who was doing that nervous slouch again, making himself look more James’ height than the towering figure he was when he stood comfortably. “I talked to your boyfriend the other day, you know.”

“I… heard.” Arrush looked away. “I’m sor-“

“Noooooooope.” James cut him off.

“But…”

“Nope.” James reiterated. “Stop apologizing for things! Unless… wait, what were you going to apologize for?”

“For… everything?” Arrush asked, his voice sounding very small in the empty city.

James stopped at the corner of another intersection, the shattered brick wall of a bank ahead of them. He leaned against a decorative tree that was still growing healthily out of the sidewalk, setting his boot on one of the roots that was cracking the pavement around it. “Then no.” James said. “What are you actually thinking? Take a minute, put your thoughts together. There’s no rush, let’s go get on the roof of that bank.” James pointed as they walked, the two of them cutting across the street.

He knew there were no cars here. But it still felt alien to not treat the asphalt line like it was an impassable river, while he walked.

James had never been upstairs in a bank before. Much less on the roof of one. He’d kind of thought it would feel special somehow, but as he leaned out over the edge to try to see if he could spot movement anywhere on the streets around them, all he felt was normal.

There were no people who might confront him about this. No bustle of cars and pedestrians to watch. It was a nearly empty city, with almost no risk to clambering up any building he happened to feel like. The sensation of being somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, the thrill of maybe getting caught, they never manifested. The only life that might catch him up here were raccoons.

At least the city smelled interesting. The encroaching greenery that was slowly starting in on the unmaintained buildings mixing with the omnipresent lingering scent of rust and ash.

“Okay.” Arrush said the word slowly, the individual syllables made into their own words as he stood off to James’ side. He didn’t lean against the ledge of the roof, or relax at all. “I am… sorry that we made you… uncomfortable.” He said, words switching between English and Spanish at random. “Haven’t known how to talk to you. Or if we should. Or what to do.” Arrush looked away, trying to avoid eye contact. “Feel like I love you. But what am I supposed to do about that? Tell you? What if you say no? Or your partners do? Or Keeka does? What if I… make a mistake? What if you hate me?” Arrush sucked in a heavy breath, and James watched the ratroach’s back with worried eyes as his offset shoulders twitched. “And I am thinking that I am different. That I am broken, and wrong, and ugly, and that you won’t want me. And that I don’t know what I am sorry for, or how to apologize. I don’t know so much things. And… and…” Arrush’s words fell off abruptly, his voice even scratchier than it normally was as he overtaxed his throat. Still not looking at James, he slumped heavily against the concrete wall along the edge of the roof, and started to slide down into a slump.

James joined him down on the rooftop. A little more gracefully than Arrush, he slid his legs into a folded position, and leaned his back against the little wall between them and open air. He didn’t say anything, at first. Instead, not quite knowing what he was doing himself, but remembering, painfully remembering, what it felt like to be where Arrush was, he reached over and ran a hand along his friend’s shoulder.

Arrush flinched at the contact, claws that were curled on the grimy rooftop scraping along the surface as he started to react. But then James let his hand keep going, his arm wrapping around Arrush’s back, pulling him sideways to fold across James’ chest. James was careful not to pull too hard; Arrush was possibly the most heavily modified ratroach at the Order, but he was still fragile in a lot of ways.

Sitting there, pulling an Arrush who was obviously trying very hard not to openly sob into his shirt, James had a sudden realization that he didn’t actually feel awkward. He knew he would have, when he was younger. But he couldn’t tell exactly where the line was. Didn’t know where he’d changed, or what had done it. And yet he felt like he was perfectly fine being here.

His voice still caught at first when he started to talk though. But after clearing his throat, he spoke softly to the person who was now leaning heavily into him. “Hell, I know exactly how that feels.” James started, before realizing how dumb that sounded, and that maybe he wasn’t as past being awkward as he thought. “That whole thing, feeling like you have to say everything at once, I know exactly what that’s like.” He looked down at the top of Arrush’s head, where antenna poked out of chitin that was partially covered by patchy tan fur. “I don’t hate you. You or Keeka. How could I ever?” James wanted to laugh, but it didn’t feel right in the moment. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you because I do care about you. Both of you guys, really. But I’m worried about actually acting on that.”

Arrush pressed his face into James, who at that moment gave up on his shirt coming away with corrosive tear marks on it. His words were clipped and raspy. “Because, we are…”

James ran a hand down Arrush’s back, pressing just enough for it to be felt through the sweatshirt. “Because you, specifically, aren’t in a mentally healthy place.” He said. “I feel like I should be explicit about something; you not being human isn’t really a problem for me, you know?”

“Whhhy?” Arrush asked with abrupt confusion. “Why not?”

James shrugged with a huff of breath, and decided on an answer that wasn’t quite complete, but was still true. “I mean, it’s not a priority for me. The people in my romantic life are human because they’re the people I’ve been with the whole time, not because of any preference, you know? I don’t care what your body is, I care who you are. And I do like you.” He grinned ever so slightly as he felt Arrush shift against him at the words. “I’m worried, though, because I know you’re dealing with trauma and pain and fear, and you won’t talk to people. You barely even talk to me, and that’s when you need a trained therapist and not my stupid ass.”

“…not stupid…” Arrush hissed softly.

“Bah.” James said with a real smile. “But this is a problem. You’re so new, and not only that, you’re new and hurt. And I’m terrified of hurting you in ways I don’t even consider.” He kept rubbing along Arrush’s back, feeling out the points where chitinous ridges sat under the hoodie, feeling Arrush’s reaction when he traced a line around the joint of one of his secondary arms. “Like this, though. I didn’t realize you were so afraid to open up. I’ll never hate you, even if you make mistakes. Even when I make mistakes, because fuck knows that’s going to happen.”

Arrush slumped farther down, sliding into a position where he was half laying in James’ lap. James just settled himself, welcoming the warm contact as he kept trying to reassure his friend, who now was trying to contain the shaking in his shoulders and the rapid hissing breaths. “S-sorry…”

“Why?” James asked quietly.

“Not… supposed to… cry…” Arrush said in a voice that broke James’ heart.

He set his hands flat on Arrush’s back. “We’re not in the Sewer anymore.” James said in that same calm, quiet voice. “We’re out here, where things can be better. It’s okay to cry, it’s okay to let yourself feel things. No one who matters will think less of you.”

The words were like a switch flipped. Suddenly, Arrush couldn’t stop himself. He drew in breaths with sharp whistling wheezes, hot tears forming in the corners of his eyes. The blueish liquid didn’t glow quite like his saliva did, but it was still corrosive, and as they traced channels through his fur and dropped from his triangular face, those tears began burning holes through James’ cargo pants.

James didn’t say anything, but Arrush noticed after he opened his eyes some minutes later. “Sorry!” He gasped out, pulling back.

“Why this time- oh.” James reached a hand down and poked a finger through one of the new holes in his pants. “Well, at least now they look appropriate for a punk show.” He said.

Next to him, Arrush sat himself up, sitting with his legs sticking straight out and his smaller arms propping him up against the wall. “Hate that.” He muttered.

“Punk rock?”

“No. Melting things. Keeka likes punk rock.” Arrush sniffed, sacrificing the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe away the tears sizzling against his fur. Ratroaches seemed at least internally resistant to their own corrosive fluids, but their fur still suffered, even if it held up better than most things. “Now… what?”

James caught what Arrush probably meant, but asked for clarification anyway. “You mean, now what, between us?” He asked, and Arrush nodded in a jerky motion at him. “I don’t know exactly.” James said. “But I mean it when I say that you should be in a mentally healthy place before I’d be comfortable trying a relationship. It’d be really easy to ignore that and think that I could help you through things, but… that’s not how it works. That’s never how it works.” James glanced up at the darkening sky. “I’m not trying to make this a transaction either, but Arrush, you need therapy. Keeka’s worried about you too, and I think you already know it.”

“…yes…” the ratroach hissed out.

“Yeah. So that’s a requirement for anything. But… I dunno. We’ll see? I’d say we should spend more time together, but I spend half my life in dungeons these days.”

“I… actually like… dungeons.” Arrush said, like he was feeling guilty about it.

James blinked. “Really? That’s not just a thing you were doing because you felt like you owed us?”

“At first.” Arrush admitted. “But now… some of them are… beautiful.” He motioned the smaller arm on his left side at the rooftop they were on. “Like this.” He added.

“I feel like I’m too used to being on rooftops to know why this is special.” James admitted with a shrug. “But okay. I’ll trust you. Oh, also, I didn’t address this earlier but Alanna at least is fine with whatever ‘us’ is. She’s also been incredibly suggestive, which is… well, Alanna. Anesh is fine with it too, but he’s normal person fine, not Alanna fine.”

Arrush nodded, then stopped, as he tried to figure out what James had just said. Working through the sentence in his head as he mouthed the words, before working it out and then completing the nod. “It is…” He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, before tilting his head away and hiding the flush of green around his eyes from James. “Nevermind.”

“Oh, come on, now I’m curious!” James said.

Arrush shuffled in embarrassment. “Was going to say… Alanna… would be disappointed. Ratroaches… ah… melt things like… condoms.”

James let out a low “Ooh” at the mental image. "Okay, that's... wait, that implies you... is this a problem for you and Keeka too? That's kinda awful, I'm sorry! That’s gotta be incredibly frustrating. But… at the risk of diving off the deep end of ‘too much information’ territory, aren’t you sort of immune to your own… uh… fluids?" James felt like smacking himself for how awkwardly that came out.

"No. I was... trying. For no reason." Arrush pushed himself off the wall abruptly, standing up with bits of dirt and flecks of concrete dusting off his pants and the back of his hoodie. “We should…”

James made the connection almost instantly, and reached up to catch one of Arrush’s claws in his hand. "Part of me is embarrassed here.” He said. “But enough of me thinks that's adorably thoughtful and cute that I can't feel bad at all. Also, I feel like I should skip ahead a bit to the fact that sex isn't required for a relationship."

"...Really?" Arrush sounded suspicious.

"...Yes? Yes. Really. Absolutely not. Romance and sex are different." James said with increasing assurance.

"Oh. Good."

"But also I am absolutely certain we can find a way to let you orgasm without putting holes in things." James said, biting down on a massive grin as he tried not to explode with laughter, standing and brushing off the dirt from his ass that Arrush had been fine ignoring. “Now! Let’s get back to-“

He froze, his voice stopping as he his vision panned over the street below. Mixed in among the damaged and empty cars, and the weeds beginning to crack through the pavement, were four standing figures.

At first glance, they looked like the outlines of humans. But they moved without a clear connection to physics. A center mass like a rough cone sat floating over the road in a slow bobbing motion, while around it, four dark limbs, each with two joints and ending in long and wicked claws, were held in position by nothing in particular. Two of those claws acted like legs, walking the figures along the road, while the other two were positioned like arms, even if they weren’t connected to any joints and seemed capable of pivoting freely to move between cars.

The four figures were made out of asphalt, though James knew that inside that dark substance, they contained ritually imbued chunks of human bone that were what made them… well, alive, for lack of a better term.

They didn’t have heads or eyes, but as Arrush joined James at the edge of the bank’s roof, he realized that all of them had one of their claws extended with an open ‘palm’ facing up toward them.

“Wonder if that’s how they see.” He muttered, and when Arrush shot a glance his way, James mimed open his own hand and holding it upright as the ratroach nodded at him and resumed watching the approaching necroads. James pulled his vision up, scanned around them, and didn’t see any others on nearby buildings or approaching from down the street, so he made a decision. “I’m gonna go say hi.” He said, turning to head back into the bank.

“Is… safe?” Arrush’s language was back to being clipped as his anxiety rose. But he followed James closely anyway; a different kind of tension this time, the feeling that a fight might be coming running through his blood like lightning as his body told him it was time to hurt something.

He shoved the feeling away with disgust as James spoke. “Probably not. But I’ve got the telepad set. Here.” He passed the small notepad back to Arrush, who took it in a careful claw. “Keep a hand on my arm and tear that if it gets bad, okay?”

Arrush nodded as they moved through the ruined bank lobby and stepped out into the rapidly darkening evening. Soon, there wouldn’t be any light, and the necroads would be practically invisible against the dark street. But James hurried around the corner anyway, staying on the sidewalk as he approached the four creatures, all of which shifted into a geometric formation as they caught sight of him.

James stopped at the edge of the road. No one quite knew the limits of the necroads. But stepping onto the road would absolutely put him within range of them, so he held back briefly.

“Hello.” James said to them, in the voice that he’d use on a skittish dog. “Can you understand me?”

The four figures shifted, their central bodies turning toward each other, claws widening and narrowing as the asphalt of their bodies flowed in droplets, rearranging ever so slightly. None of them spoke.

James held his arms out, showing empty hands. “We’re not here to fight.” He said. “We’re done fighting. But we don’t know how to talk. I’m not even sure you know what I’m saying. But we have to start somewhere, so I’m rambling for a bit here.” He cut himself off as one of the necroads slid forward.

The creature moved without exactly stepping; its claws moved in a mimicry of walking, but really, it was drawing furrows in the asphalt that sealed behind it like it was hot sand and not a solid street. It approached James slowly, and he felt Arrush’s claw tighten on his arm sharply as the ratroach watched it with wary eyes.

It stopped a few feet from the edge of the sideway. James raised an arm and waved at it. “Hey.” He said again.

And then, after what felt like a painfully long time, the necroad shifted itself. One of its orbiting arm claws twisted at the first joint, swinging around in a slow arc. James ignored Arrush’s hissing breath in his ear as he watched carefully, while the asphalt creature raised its own arm, and waved back.

Then a noise sounded from somewhere far away; a loud crash of metal and glass that echoed down the street. The necroad jerked backward, sliding across the road to rejoin its companions; all four of them rapidly weaving between wrecked cars and fallen debris to disappear around a corner and into the night.

“Well.” James said with a please smile. “That went well! Tonight has been going great.”

Arrush hissed something that might have been a laugh, as the last rays of light finally dipped below the horizon and the city plunged into dark night. He tore the telepad, and took them away.