“Things don’t get better, things don’t get better just different.” -BCKYRD, Hot Mulligan-
_____
James was on time for a meeting.
This, in and of itself, wasn’t the kind of thing most people would think twice about. But James wasn’t most people, and despite his best efforts and two different styles of upgrade to his ability to remember things, he still felt like he was late all the time.
And yet, here he was, walking in to the prepared conference room in the real world structure that Officium Mundi had its entrance in, exactly five minutes before the meeting started. Completely unsure of how, exactly, he hadn’t ended up being ten minutes late.
”Planner, did you-“
”Yes.” The manifested informorph stated without either regret or smug satisfaction. “There was an obstacle to the smooth operation of the schedule, so I took action.”
”…Plan, please don’t mess with my head to make me on time.” James said asked in a low voice, trying not to get upset in front of the other people who were already here. “Just give me a heads up next time please.”
Around James’ arm, Zhu’s expressive orb of an eye opened and stared up at his partner’s face, feathers radiating out around it like a startled cat. ”I want to know how I didn’t notice that they did that. That’s terrifying. But also for later.”
The assignment, showing themself in the room as a series of precisely coiling tentacles that wrapped around the walls and neatly framed the third floor windows, didn’t respond. James didn’t think this was settled, but he didn’t think this was the time for it either, so he found his marked space at the table and sat down with the others.
The Order of Endless Rooms had a couple general rules about meetings. Not that they hated meetings or anything; actually being able to talk to people face to face as opposed to just using a forum or shared text chat, to make sure everything was sorted out before starting or pushing forward with a project, that was great. But they were doing their best to maintain their rapid momentum and not get bogged down in spending half of every day talking about things and not doing them.
So meetings had to serve a purpose. They weren’t supposed to involve people who weren’t relevant to the meeting. And the weren’t allowed to get into topics that they hadn’t prepared for. James’ love of tangents was slightly kneecapped by the rules, but it did keep things crisp. Oh, and all of them had publicly available records for anyone in the Order to reference. Transparency was critical, and no issue of security so far had justified keeping secrets.
This meeting in particular actually was a security briefing of sorts. Specifically, it was Nate’s attempt to apply an amount of structure to the rank of paladin, by creating a structure in which unattached paladins could be presented with known issues and be given expert advice on what to focus on next. Not that the Order didn’t have enough people to do multiple things at once, but the purpose of a paladin was to select their own objectives, and to lend a sort of force multiplier to any operation.
James had found Nate’s explanation to be a little odd. It sounded like their chef-and-or-spymaster was suggesting that paladins were the kind of people who needed objective driven mental stimulation, or else they’d get bored and depressed. And that was…
Well, correct, probably. James didn’t know about Spire-Cast-Behind, but he was pretty fucking certain that applied to all three human paladins, himself included. He just didn’t expect anyone to say it out loud.
Not that Nate was here. “Hey, is Nate late, and if so, is he somehow immune to Planner?”
The four other people in the room, all of them also ten minutes early, gave different flavors of aggravated look at Planner. “Nate is not coming.” Knife-In-Fangs said, narrowing his lens toward the infomorph. “He is looking into something, according to himself.”
Next to the lithe camraconda, a human man in a pastel polo shirt frowned. ”The last time the boss was looking into something, he got eaten by a plant for a week, and took three rogues with him.”
”Technically, he took one rogue, the other two got eaten by the plant first and were being looked into.” The third speaker was a kid who James recognized from one of the security teams, but didn’t have a name for. He spoke with the kind of mixed accent that meant he’d probably learned English from skill orbs, and within the last six months. He said ‘technically’ like a kid who had just learned a cool word and really wanted to use it. James placed him as maybe Chinese, but it was hard to tell with how skill ranks messed with accents, and there was no way in hell James was going to guess at ethnicity based on facial features.
“He… he said he was… ‘dealing with a problem early’.” One of a pair of people spoke. James did a quick double take as he realized that there was a ratroach here; not that he wasn’t used to seeing them, just that he wasn’t used to seeing them on elected council positions. Ishah took a second to find his voice, and looked like he was leaning on emotional support from the small assignment that orbited his head like a halo of eyes and scales, but he was dressed more stylishly than basically everyone else here and had his notes spread out in front of him on the table; possibly the only person to actually arrive early. “He said ‘problem’ like how humans do when they know they aren’t saying things right, and I think he meant he was going to kill someone. I… we… I didn’t want to tell him not to?”
”I kinda doubt Nate’s just going to fucking murder someone in cold blood.” James said as he took his seat. “Also, hi. James Lyle.” He offered a hand to the two new people in succession.
”Jim Caine, human bookmark.”
“Taio. Just Taio. Security. Pleased to meet you off the field.”
James repressed his curiosity for the moment. “Well, if we’re here, may as well get this started. I’m rested, healed, trained, improved, and a few other adjectives that mean I’m better than ever. So. Give me some options.”
The four others settled into their chairs or basket seat in the case of the camraconda. Notes on the table, both physical and projected by Planner, were flicked through and spread out. The room wasn’t small or anything, but it was interesting to James to be in a place that was so different from how the Order built things themselves. This was a normal corporate meeting room, and it definitely showed. Part of him wished that there had been space available for this in one of the rooms that were more personalized in the building, but it was a busy day here in their offsite office.
Knife-In-Fangs took the lead, and pulled himself mostly upright to look over the conference table. “I have information for you regarding New York, and its ongoing pillar activity.” He said. “Planner, please replicate page six and seven for him.” The camraconda didn’t pause, trusting James to read and listen at the same time. “When we killed one of the city’s Status Quo analogs, the Last Line and Chain Breaker left. Not after the fight, but after our third encounter with them. The timelines match, so we are operating with the context that the Last Line of Defense is capable of ‘protecting’ against Status Quo, and the Chain Breaker is…” The camraconda stopped talking, and turned to look at Jim.
The older human shrugged. “The lady’s fucking nuts. But I don’t think she’s after Squo like the Line is. We suspect she’s hunting him, and using targets that she can get ahold of to bait out Camilles.”
”Yes. That.” Knife-In-Fangs nodded. “Currently, we are looking for the Long Arm Of The Law, but have been unable to find any trace of it, despite odd behavior by the NYPD.” The camraconda’s digital voice pronounced the acronym strangely, and Knife-In-Fangs ducked his head in slight embarrassment. “There are leads being followed up, but many are dead ends, and the situation seems to have low risk to it. But help is welcome.”
James tapped his chin without thinking, and then froze when he realized that Zhu’s extended talon around his hand was mimicking the gesture. He rolled his eyes at the navigator, and set his hand back on the table. “That one sounds like something I should be on standby for, but unless there’s an active situation… actually, hey, did we ever do a follow up on the gang that the Chain Breaker coerced into action?”
”Recovery has been sorting through information to track them down or contact next of kin if required.” Knife-In-Fangs calmly twisted his body in a curving wave. “We have not made contact. But many of them survived. Perhaps most.”
”Okay. Can you get me their information? That I can do, and I think establishing contact would be a good idea.”
Next to him at the table, Jim snorted. ”You’re just gonna walk up to a gang banger and say hi?” The man asked with a placid look on his face.
”Uh… yeah.” James replied.
Zhu let out a surprised chuckle like an engine backfiring. “Hello. Welcome to problem solving with James. Get used to this.”
”Is this a James thing or a paladin thing?” Taio asked, with a brief pause to make sure he didn’t speak over anyone else.
“Both.” James and Zhu said in unison, before James continued. “But yeah. They’re a group that survived contact with the paranormal, they took losses trying to do what was ultimately the right thing, and they’re probably all going to be living in fear of the fallout that isn’t coming. People who are afraid make stupid choices. Just ask El. Cutting that off now is a good idea. Having local contacts is a good idea. And minimizing loose ends is also a really good idea, given how often those bite us in the ass.”
Across the table, Ishah started to shift, triangular chitin plated muzzle starting to look down at himself before his assignment whispered that ‘bit in the ass’ was a metaphor. Jim didn’t look convinced though. “They are criminals though, right? Like, you are talking about making friends with thugs with guns.”
”…You realize that the Order is, like, fifty percent illegal immigrants, right?” James asked. “Also you work with the rogues, your literal job is illegal. You’re criming right now, doing a conspiracy.” He folded his arms. “Illegal isn’t evil or unethical by default. There’s lots of problems with how we approach crime anyway. And yeah, they’re probably not perfect people. Who fucking cares? They did actually play a part in fighting Status Quo, and those guys are way worse.”
Jim shrugged like he was dismissing his protest, but protested defensively anyway. ”Just saying. Be prepared for this to go wrong.”
”We are always prepared for that.” Knife-In-Fangs said. “The information you requested is in your personal storage.” That had been fast, even with the skulljacks, and James was impressed. Though in reality, Knife-In-Fangs had just messaged someone in Recovery to send it on, which was still its own form of impressive. The whole Order was built on asking for help, after all. “That is my presentation. Ishah?”
The ratroach nodded his furless head, standing up to talk and reminding James that Ishah had reshaped his body into one that was barely five feet tall. Lots of ratroaches seemed to be going for that with the shaper substance treatment; intentionally making smaller forms for a variety of different reasons. “Y-yes. Hello. My name is Ishah, and I have been working with our scout groups on Utah and Missouri. And technically Japan.”
James couldn’t hide a grin. Both at how Ishah was delivering a security report the same way he’d done presentations in middle school, and at how he said ‘technically’ in exactly the same way Taio had earlier. But then his smile cracked and faltered as he couldn’t help but remember what was in Missouri, and technically Japan. “Underburbs first please.” He asked quietly, feeling Zhu’s feathers tighten up around his waist and neck.
“Yes. P-planner, can you show us the map?” One of Planner’s tentacles rose out of the surrounding manifestation to form a box, which slowly filled in with a topographical view of Missouri. “The beacons originally left in the… the…” Ishah tilted his muzzle upward, all four blunted sets of claws tapping a considering pattern on the tabletop. “Payload? The part of this world sent into the Underburbs. All those beacons.” He waved a claw as he started to build a comfortable momentum. “They were tracked to roughly within this area.” He pointed at the southern part of the state as Planner ‘zoomed in’ for them. “Two delver teams have been in the area, with assistance from rogue and recovery, on and off for… for… two months.” His muzzle twitched. “Two days ago, I found this.”
”Oh, you’re working on this?” James raised his eyebrows. “Actually, sorry, I don’t want to derail this too far…”
”You aren’t allowed to.” Jim grunted at him.
”…But I didn’t know you were working with… Recovery?”
”No, delver.” The hide around Ishah’s eyes, uncovered by the chitin plate that made up most of his face, flushed green. He started to talk again before his informorph coiled around his neck and whispered to him softly. “I am… it is personal. We can speak later.” He turned back to the map. “Planner?” The map split into two identical views of the region of the US. “Look.”
James and Zhu leaned forward, eyes looking for what had changed. “What’re we looking for here? Oh, one of these is from a decade ago?”
”Yes. And this one…” Another copy of the region. “Is older.” Ishah traced a claw across the projection, two hands framing a specific spot while another hand pointed to the notes in front of them. “The state is growing. The border… this line here…” James tried not to laugh at how funny it struck him as that Ishah explained what the border was, “…this stays the same. But inside, miles and miles are added in. You can see how it changes average elevation, here. Something is growing inside.” He looked back at the table who were paying close attention to him. “A-and… and… it is the same in the Nara district of Japan. I’m looking for more, just in case.”
”Jesus Christ.” Jim’s voice was full of muffled dread.
”That’s a problem.” Taio spoke bluntly. “Is it the dungeon then? Is it eating places? No… that wouldn’t make sense.”
Knife-In-Fangs hissed angrily as he spoke. “We know that dungeons can extend out. The Ceaseless Stacks is actually the whole library, the original outside building incorporated into dungeon territory. But it has gone no further. This is a lot. It is building more dungeon outside of the dungeon, correct?” The camraconda looked at James with clear worry after getting a nod of agreement from Ishah. “I vote to prioritize this over New York.”
”I’m with you there.” James muttered, drumming his fingers in front of his face. “So we know where it is? How are these maps even seeing it?”
”They are seismic surveys.” Ishah said with the tone of someone who had skill ranks that didn’t quite fully link up to the rest of their knowledge. “They are measuring area and material composition, and seeing more and more area each year. This gets us closer. B-but not to the entrance.”
James frowned. “Well, I’m still thinking this is a high priority. What about Utah?”
”Oh. There are strange things happening within the city. Disappearances, missing days, odd sightings. There is also a… a church group? I think is the term? They have claws in the government, and Charlie and Alice said it is normal, so we are looking for memory modifications now. But it is becoming dangerous, and we have found nothing. You might though.”
”It’s true, the last time this happened, you got me, and a bonus city as a prize.” Zhu said.
Taio frowned, but said nothing, Knife-In-Fangs didn’t bother keeping quiet. “Thousands of humans died.” He chastized the navigator. “Do not joke.”
”Yeah, Zhu.” James felt his heart getting heavy. “Not the time. Though it is true that having someone shoving their nose into everything at the same time that things are heating up is a good way to uncover secrets. So that’s good to know. Might finally find that stupid dungeon and get spells more useful than spawning towels. Anything else on this front?”
Ishah shook his head, antenna twitching back and forth, before he sat down again and made a clear effort to not itch at his fur with his soft claws. Jim stood up instantly, not waiting for an introduction, and launched into his own thing.
”Mine’s simple. There’s an ecoterrorist group in Alaska that’s a little too heavy on the terrorist and mostly missing the eco these days. Personally, I don’t think they’re important. There’s worse people doing worse stuff, if we really want to shoot someone. But, we know they’ve got Wolfpack contracted, and more importantly, we know something was done to them. The question that actually matters is, who did it, and how. That we need to know, before it’s done to us. I know Planner is supposedly the best in the world at keeping us from being found, but if there’s some kind of brain bomb out there, they might not need to find us to wipe us out, and personally, I think we should get a yes or no on that before we go hunting for another dungeon. Especially a dungeon as lethal as the Underburbs, when it’s not actively hunting us.”
”It’s growing!” Ishah protested.
”It’s growing inside its territory.” Jim countered. “It’s not on street maps, right? It’s not capturing suburbs and eating everyone in them?”
”I… I don’t know.” The ratroach stammered, unprepared for how forceful the human was being. “I can find out?” He squeaked.
Jim looked back at James. “I’m prepared to be wrong. But it would be easier to set something up to bait out whoever is using these folks. And it does seem like they’re being used, even if they’re passive right now. If we don’t do anything else, we should steal the CISWS they have.”
”The what? The cisswiss?” Knife-In-Fangs hissed in irritation. “I am going to make Research program me a voice that can say letters.” He snapped.
”It’s an anti-air gun, right?” James asked. “We put them on battleships. How the fuck…” He trailed off. “Actually, I guess that’s the point, huh? Get intelligence on them so we can figure out how the fuck, among other things. Alright. Well, good to know about if nothing else. Taio? Anything else?”
”Oh, in light of these, my option seems weakest. There is a Camille in this city. Our Camille believes her sister is hunting her, which means that Cam is limited in her own activities, and is becoming bored.” Taio frowned as he looked at his own notes. “Also any of the daughters of the Last Line finding us would be potentially catastrophic. So dissuading or eliminating her would be… an option.”
Ishah’s voice was a high pitched squeak as he interjected. “Or welcome her.” He said, before staring down at the table as the others looked his way. “I… I mean…”
”No, you’re right.” Taio reassured the ratroach rapidly. “I forgot my training for a moment. I apologize. But whatever you choose, it is important that she be dealt with.”
”Yeah, we wouldn’t want a single girl to get bored.” Jim commented with a single little laugh.
James narrowed his eyes and was about to say something when Zhu spoke up. “The first Camille we knew once threw a piece of rebar through a car. The whole car. And everyone inside. Another Camille continued fighting against an army of enhanced agents after her arm had been detonated at the shoulder. Cam, who lives here, and who will probably watch this briefing, is a trained intelligence operative who is both bulletproof and capable of punching through brick walls.” The navigator let his glowing orange feathers floof out around James’ clothing before settling down in rippling rows of manifested light. “Cam says she doesn’t get bored. But personally, I think the most dangerous person in the entire building would be better off if she wasn’t bored.”
”…Touche.” Jim conceded the point.
James cleared his throat. “I was just gonna say that Cam could pick up a hobby or something. I bet she’d be good at Dark Souls. But also more realistically, we shouldn’t ever accept situations where our members are trapped inside out of fear of being murdered.”
Jim held up his hands. ”Okay, okay, I get it, I’m wrong.” He said with a clearly defensive tone.
Deciding not to touch that right now, James just shook his head. “Sure. So. I’m pretty sure I know what I’m gonna devote my time to for the near future, but I wanna hear opinions.”
“Utah.” Knife-In-Fangs said. “People are searching Missouri, and the dungeon is stable there. Go where the chaos is. You do best there.”
“Still Alaska.” Jim said with a shrug. “Long term security matters. I’m glad you like chaos. I don’t. So cut it off before it becomes a problem.”
Ishah ran his claws down one of the sleeves of his navy blue suit jacket before looking up, still haloed by his infomorph friend. “The world is big and scary.” The ratroach said. And then he smiled slightly, his muzzle shifting in a way that looked perfectly natural and painless as it revealed rows of clean teeth. “There will always be big things that might hurt us. But there are small people that need help, now. Help Camille with her sister, or help the people in Utah.” He took a deep breath, his voice steadying as he got used to the new group. “Isn’t that what we do?” He asked.
Taio nodded at Ishah as the ratroach finished speaking. “I’m with… him? Him. Though I say Utah, because as we’ve been here, I have realized that Nate is probably hunting the enemy Camille.”
”Oh. Oh!” Knife-In-Fangs bobbed down to thunk the top of his camera head on the surface of the old and worn meeting room table. “Of course he is. That is exactly what the fucker would do without asking for help.”
”I don’t think I’ve ever heard a camraconda swear like that.” Taio said, looking like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to laugh.
James sighed. “He works in the kitchen.” He said, as if that explained anything. Though to anyone who had ever worked in a kitchen, maybe it did. “Yeah, okay. So my objective list is going to include interrogating Nate, making contact in New York, and then heading down to Utah. Obviously we’re not leaving everything else on the table, Jim don’t have an aneurysm. Is our resource allocation to the different groups working on these issues okay? Is there anything I can do to help with that?”
”For the rogues in Alaska, we could use more units.” Knife-In-Fangs said. “There are three people there now, and not near the site usually. Oh, skills for… anything about that. Alaska skills. Whatever those are.”
”Have you been to Alaska?” Zhu asked suddenly.
”No. I want to. It sounds like a dungeon.” Knife-In-Fangs gave a forlorn and sibilant hiss.
James opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I mean…”
”No it doesn’t.” Jim cut him off. “But it does have glaciers, and there’s some great places for camping. We can talk later.”
James laughed at the sudden shift in interest from the man. ”Alright. Anything else?”
”Someone told me we used to have programs searching for strange things. Why don’t we now?” Ishah asked. “Is there a reason?”
”There was an incident.” James said, and the ratroach deflated as he assumed that was the end of that. “But you should talk to Momo or maybe Nik. Someone in Research. I think they’re working on it. I don’t actually know who runs our software side of things, but in the last general vote for different Order actions, they decided to try something with that again.” Ishah gave James a grateful nod. “Okay.” He said, standing up. “I’ll double check that everyone has everything they need today. But right now…” he checked the time through his skulljack, “I’ve got a thing to get to.”
As Planner coiled back up around them, pulling back projections and notes, the infomorph twitched slightly. Pale blue ghostly manifestation seeming to not line up quite right for just a moment. “What are you going to?” Planner asked. “It isn’t on your schedule.”
”Not everything goes on my schedule Plan.” James said quietly. “This is a personal thing, okay?”
”Mmmh.”
That wasn’t actually a comforting response, as far as James was concerned. But Planner didn’t push it, and James wasn’t actually prepared to make a big deal out of what might be nothing. So instead he addressed the four people who had been voted onto this little security council. “Well thanks to all of you for coming, and for your work here. This seems like a good trial run, so get ready to do this a lot more often after next month when the others get back from their rumspringa.”
”You made that word up.” Knife-In-Fangs accused him.
”I promise I didn’t, but it is a fun one, isn’t it?” James grinned at the camraconda.
“I… I will prepare better for next time!” Ishah declared in a shaking squeak that made James want to offer the ratroach a reassuring hug and tell him that he’d done fine.
”You did fine.” He told Ishah with a smile. “This was helpful for making a proactive choice, which I’m trying to do more often. I’m tired of being the one responding to the surprising crisis. I want to be the surprising crisis this time.” James grumbled. “Anyway. Gotta get headed back to the Lair. I’ll check with our vault about any useful skills and get back to everyone who asked about Alaska.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
He headed out, holding the door open for the others. Kind of a short meeting, but that was largely the point. It turned out there actually was a skill to these things; not just a skill, but a skill rank, that anyone could grab a point in pretty easily. Avoiding cross talk and having a slight instinct for what to prepare for was just enough to cut about thirty percent off of any gathering.
James felt like he had a clear direction now. And while the rest of his day, and maybe the next couple days too, was a little relaxed, it felt really good to experience the novel sensation of picking a target on purpose.
Now, though, he needed to see if anyone wanted to teleport with him back to the Lair to save on telepad pages. He had a thing to get to.
_____
Returning to the Lair got James hit in the shins with a metal pole.
As far as greetings went, it was somewhere on the low end. But it was also El doing it, and this time at least seemed like an accident; since her first real greeting to James had been gunfire, this was a step up.
He didn’t make a joke about it though. He liked to think he and El were cool now, and since she was making a real effort to be less of an asshole to people, he was making an effort to stop needling her with old jokes.
”Well, that’s what I get for walking on the ground.” He said instead as Zhu shivered on his shoulder and El and Momo dropped what they were doing to make sure they hadn’t actually kneecapped him. “What the hell are you two doing?”
He asked partly because they’d just run into him, but mostly because he really wanted to know what was up with the burnished steel scaffolding they seemed to be lugging through the Lair’s front room. They’d only hit him, which was acceptable damage, but there was a bunch of stuff here that James didn’t actually want damaged by their antics. Like the small wall of terrariums full of lizards and frogs, or literally any of the valuable stockpiled magic behind the front desk.
”It’s Momer’s fault.” El threw her girlfriend under the bus with a practiced reflex.
”Hey!” Momo shot up from where she was stooped over pulling scattered metal rods back into a pile. “That’s true!”
James and El stared at her, waiting for a followup, but none came. Shaking his head, James turned back to El, having used the intervening moment of giving Momo a hard time to send a message over his skulljack. “I’ve called for an intern and a hand cart.” He said. “Seriously, though, what are you two doing?”
”Testing a theory!” Momo declared, sweeping her palms over her bathrobe and smoothing it out in a flourish. “Which is less of a theory, and more of a practical form of checking instructions received from a magical doodad for validity. Which requires… uh… this.” She broke off as a pair of teenagers jogged out of the nearest stairwell door, panting heavily as one of them lugged a hand cart after him. “Uh… thanks?” She said as they started helping her load the metal rods into a box that could then be wheeled around.
James grinned. He remembered being that age and being so eager to show off how competent he was. Bonus points to these two, but working with Bill and Mark on the Order’s ongoing construction team had clearly taught them a level of competence that James never even approached as a kid.
El, though, just watched with a small grimace on her face. “Hey, I’ll catch up.” She told Momo. “I gotta ask James a thing.” Momo shot her a double thumbs up before ordering the kids to follow her to the roof, some kind of apparatus tucked under her arm, her usual cadre of floating pencils orbiting her head. El watched her go, then let out a huff of breath when they were out of sight into the back warehouse where the roof access was. “Hey.” She told James.
”No but seriously, before you ask me, what the hell are you two doing.”
Zhu fluttered across James’ neck. “I also really want to know, because it looks very stupid, and I’m into it. Also, is Speaky with you today?”
”Kid’s downstairs in the baths.” El said, tension easing. “Easily distracted, too, if you-“ Zhu roiled up James’ arm, feathers and talons and eye losing definition as he reshaped his manifestation into a simple spear of orange light, shooting away toward the stairs and zipping between the legs of five or six various people on the way.
”Have fun!” James called after him, before looking back at El. “So, do I actually get an explanation?”
”Oh, it’s a lightning rod.” She said. “Sorry man, my head fucking hurts and I’m stressed out. Uh. You know that tablet? Well, it does tell you how to make things, apparently. Mome’s been testing it out on everything that isn’t on fire.” The corner of El’s mouth twitched upward. “As a joke, I told her to give it a real challenge and give it a piece of art. So she did. And now she’s trying to… I dunno, I don’t think it’s her rubbing it in my face, but I don’t think she thought this through.”
”I feel like there’s a whole ocean of depth here that I’m missing.” James admitted. “Sorry, what does the tablet… no, wait.” He stopped himself from asking the woman who was probably least likely to give him a concise technical definition, and just looked it up through his skulljack on the Order’s server.
They hadn’t named the tablet that came out of the Ceaseless Stacks yet, but it wasn’t hard to find the record. In theory, it worked on a very simple principle; you ‘pointed’ it at a thing, and it told you how to make that thing.
In practice, it told you with a jumble of pictographic language that looked ripped straight out of a technical manual from hell. It also took a while to analyze things, though the time it took spiked massively if you told it to look at something magic. Momo’s experiments hadn’t had a lot of time to bear fruit, but there were two important things that she’d uncovered in the last couple weeks. First off, you could specifically ask for mass production instructions, which would be even harder to understand, and at least for her efforts on copying a mundane number two pencil, had provided something that was less efficient than just buying the current mundane equipment available on Earth. Second, it was only inefficient if you weren’t the person who had asked in the first place, and you weren’t following directions exactly. If you did, somehow, parse what was being asked of you, and did it, then stuff just worked out.
There was a picture of a number two pencil Momo had made by hand, and it looked like it had just come out of a factory sealed package.
“Okay.” James said. “So, this is… so you’re helping Momo build a Rube Goldberg machine that will end with art happening. Got it.” He nodded, fully accepting that this was just what his life was now. “Anyway, you had a question and you don’t look like you’re doing okay. What’s up?”
Any small hint of a smile left El’s face. “I’m mostly just helping because she’s hiding how much pain she’s in.” Her breathing stuttered unconsciously as she tugged on the braid she was wearing her hair in today. “It’s been a couple months by now, but that hit she took on the Climb isn’t getting better. And I can’t get her to go see the doc.”
”Fuck.” James looked after where Momo had strutted off, trying to remember if she’d been limping. Probably she was walking that way to cover for it, and he hadn’t noticed. “Want me to talk to her?”
”Is there some secret way to get her to go get an MRI that you know but I don’t?”
”Uh, yeah.” James said, thinking about what would work on him when he was neck deep in his own anxiety and depression. “Don’t ask her. Schedule it, and then tell her she has an appointment day-of.” He saw the way El looked at him, deeply uncomfortable with the thought. “Yeah, I know. It’s fucking uncomfortable. But it’ll get her to go. Fuck’s sake, I didn’t realize how bad it was.”
”She keeps lying about it.” El said flatly. “Because she’s an ass- no, that’s not even it. Dammit. She just doesn’t want people to worry, and she doesn’t give a shit about herself. I lummmph.” El swallowed a word, looking off toward the frog wall, before shaking her head. “I don’t want her getting even more fucked up, that’s all.”
”Sure.” James decided to say it amicably and not sarcastically. “I get that. Look, I’m headed down to medical, I’ll get someone to give you a call, okay?”
El rubbed her hand across the side of her neck and what looked like a small tattoo there that James hadn’t seen before as the tension seeped out of her. “Thanks man.” She said gratefully. “I’m gonna go make sure my girlfriend doesn’t fucking fall off the roof.”
”Wait!” James called after her. “Didn’t you two have wings last week?!”
”We ditched ‘em for now! Momo got tired of knocking things off shelves and I got tired of being told I looked like Magic card art!” El twisted to walk backward as she slipped through the door. “I think there was an argument on if it was ethical to make them into soup or something! I dunno, ask the kitchen!”
”Nope.” James said to himself as El vanished from sight. “I will not do that.”
He didn’t know how to feel about the wing thing in general. The Climb spell that spawned the limbs - real, physical, made-of-meat-and-bone limbs - was hefty enough in cost to be dangerous to the user. But the fact that it offered you your own personal flight form, that was magically assisted in a small way? That was nothing short of wondrous. It was hard to imagine having that, and just letting the spell drop off, even if it did make it hard to get through doors. Especially since the wings didn’t dissolve or anything; they fell off, in a way that he was pretty sure would leave scars too. Part of him did wish he’d taken the spell anyway, instead of the nine other spells he’d filled his slots with, but James didn’t really know what he’d do with it.
His magic from the Climb was either him testing stuff and diving into choices he couldn’t take back and then just had to live with, like with Thermodynamic Tunnel or Rot Eyes, or it was stuff that was carefully picked to make him more dangerous in a fight and more useful in a crisis, like Mountain of the Self or Frost Vector. And yes, of course, he’d taken the spell that made a cat out of snow. He wasn’t immune to a little whimsy. And maybe he did regret not filling this goofing off slot with wings sometimes. But the cat seemed to enjoy its own adventures, and James was happy to let it play in the world every chance he got. Since it was too late to change his mind, he was gonna be happy with his choice anyway.
He’d ascend farther up Winter’s Climb sooner or later anyway, and get a tenth slot. And more, after. The only problem would be when they inevitably got more books to go with it and he’d have even more choices.
For now it was a moot point, and he was gonna be late if he spent any more time standing in the lobby shaking his head. So he took advantage of a lucky elevator arrival, and got a quick ride down to the basement that had the Order’s medical department in it.
Getting there was easier than it had been previously. Instead of having to navigate the halls to find the heart of Research and then map from there to the side door that led to the expansive magically replicated medical wing, James took the side entrance. Added to the medical wing by a green orb from one of the new recruits, the effect had mixed with the expanded circular courtyard around the elevator and added a convenient set of double doors. Now, when anyone stepped out of the lift, they’d clearly see two points of a five way hub with one direction leading into the basement and one directly to medical.
It solved one of the bigger problems James had with shoving their important emergency care site into the back of a basement; accessibility. That had been on the list for a while, but this just kind of… took care of it. They’d still had to rearrange medical to put the front desk by the ‘side’ entrance, but that was easy in comparison.
He gave a pet to Tyrannodonny as he walked past the row of mostly inanimate potted plants that concealed the harsh concrete of the walls. The artificial flowering life form twitching slightly as it let him past without issue.
The Order of Endless Rooms’ medical wing was filled with magic. But you might not know it to look at it. If anyone ended up here, they’d likely be fooled into thinking it was a perfectly ordinary hospital, with clean linoleum floors, soft white walls, and halls lined with diagnostic equipment on wheeled dollies for easy transport between rooms and locked cabinets of supplies. But it didn’t take too much looking to see where the weird stuff started.
For one thing, the front desk had a ratroach in training today, working with the two human nurses and single human administrative aide. They were someone James didn’t recognize, but that was becoming increasingly common, as there were about fifty ratroaches with the Order now, and he barely remembered the names of his own friends sometimes.
Past that, there was the fact that the hospital was actually a series of perfectly identical rooms, with hallways and connecting spaces extended well past what should have been possible. Technically, this entire place existed inside of a broom closet. The fact that the side door connected to it at all was impossible; if that door had opened to anything that wasn’t solid rock it should have led to a boiler room.
And if you stayed long enough, you’d probably meet Mercy, the pinkish-white mile long serpent with a hundred eyes and soft whiskers that prowled the hallways and helped out with keeping patients informed and comfortable. You might also be prescribed a purple orb that would remove your cancer or unbreak your bone, or a potion that would heal your lungs or skin. And if you were in really, really bad shape, in a kind of chronic way…
You might end up on the list for reshaping.
Which was why James was meeting up with Alanna down here, and visiting a friend of theirs today.
“Hey orb butt.” Alanna greeted him, grabbing at the mentioned part of his anatomy as she slipped behind him while he waited in ‘line’ at the admin desk.
James held back a grin as he stared up at the ceiling, trying to affect an offended tone and mostly failing. “Oh come on, I’ve been exercising, and eating salads and stuff! My butt isn’t that bad!”
”I’m gonna level with you,” Alanna told him, not relinquishing her grip on his ass, “I don’t actually know what an orb-shaped rear would look like, and I also don’t actually know how people measure if these stupid things are attractive. I’m just digging for nicknames for you.”
”Fair enough.” James nodded. “Hey, you go ahead, I need to do a thing that is technically private information. I’ll catch up in a second.” He told her, and Alanna saluted before ruffling his hair and setting off down one of the medical area’s clean hallways.
He shook his head with a smile as he watched her move. Alanna had always been a strong person, and James felt like he might have loved her for about as long as he’d know her. But for a lot of their younger years, that strength was an awkward thing; something she’d tried to cover up or push away. He saw it reflected a bit whenever she hung out with her younger sisters, too. And even when they’d first started delving, her body had been something that had just been useful to her, nothing more. Now, though, she walked with a kind of confidence and satisfaction in her own movement that spoke of someone who was willing to take on the world. Which was good, cause sometimes, that’s what the job called for.
After talking to Aaron, one of the medical staff on duty, James quickly got a note put in to give El and or Momo a call. He did ask that they not be too harsh on her for not getting checked up, and Aaron had just given him a flat look and informed him that they were trying this novel thing called being good doctors down here.
James didn’t feel too offended. He was halfway to being a good doctor himself, in a way. A lot of people were. Heck, half the people who worked here weren’t people who’d gone to school for this; they were people who had benefited from the Order’s commitment to a library of useful yellow orbs.
Biology, anatomy, surgery, diagnosis, medication, chemistry, operation of medical equipment, they could turn a random person into a competent doctor fit to work in an ER anywhere in the world in about five minutes if they had the copies ready to go. Skulljack .mem files for sharing personal experiences with hospital work or med school. There were even some purple orbs from the Ceaseless Stacks that improved how quickly someone could learn to use an IV needle and an EKG. A very specific model of EKG, but still. Other Stacks yellows that were known gave ranks in different kinds of rodent and serpent, which just added to the ability of the Order over time to provide medical care to the ratroach and camraconda populations. And on top of that, most people who worked here were bonded to an authority; the small and odd form of infomorph growing with them as they fulfilled their job responsibilities, adapting to different forms of action that could have serious effects on the physical world when needed.
The Order of Endless Rooms had some very good doctors. And many of them were people who were filling in for the really good doctors. Just a casual thing on their free day, to help out.
James wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that. Maybe when they found a way to efficiently spread that knowledge around.
In the meantime, he headed deeper into one of the long halls lined with comfortable and well stocked rooms. James knew where he was going, he’d been to visit this particular patient a lot.
Alanna had beaten him there, of course, and was already sitting with her legs crossed on a padded chair next to Banana’s bed. The part crow, part wasp, all artificially designed suicide weapon from the Akashic Sewer that Alanna had brought back and who had been living under medical observation for almost a year, was currently in the process of trying to talk excitedly.
”Eg-h-h-h-ha!” Her buzzing physical voice caught and repeated on a difficult consonant sound as she waved her extended wing arms up and down. The feathered elytra that was kept tight around her back and torso when at rest currently out, and flailing. “Eggs!” Her digital voice repeated with a lot less raw enthusiasm, her constant practice with the new skulljack translation program making her better than ever at communicating, but still a learner. “Sh-aarrrrrrk eg-h-h…” Her beak snapped at the air in aggravation. “Shark eggs! They lay eggs! And they are weird!”
“You’re weird.” James said as he entered and settled his arms on the top of Alanna’s head, only having to raise himself up slightly to reach what with her being seated. “Hey Banana!”
”Aaames!” The crow-wasp buzzed, scooting herself forward in her seated position as her damaged legs twisted up in the blanket. She swapped back to digital to decry him. “Alanna! James is being mean!”
Alanna nodded, making James bob up and down from his resting spot. “He sure is.” She said. “You’ll have to get your revenge after you’re feeling better. I’ll show you all his weak spots.” She tried to put a smile in her voice, but there was a clear strain there for James to hear, even if Banana probably wouldn’t catch it.
The crow-wasp girl just nodded back, her head moving in sharp motions like she was slicing invisible targets in half with her beak. Her head tilted so her one surviving eye could focus fully on the duo. “I will… will…” her voice was like it was being forced out of her chest, the squawking notes still understandable if a little distorted. “Whennnn I am better.” She titled her head, the custom skulljack braid plugged into the back of her neck bobbing before her digital voice added, “One hour, eight minutes, fifteen seconds.”
”Yeah, she found a countdown timer.” Alanna told James with a snort. “Personally, I think that’s the least healthy way to prepare for surgery, but what do I know?”
“Don’t you have a skill rank in surgery of some kind?”
”Setting bones doesn’t count.”
”Szzzharks don’t have bones.” Banana told them confidently.
James grinned widely at her. “I’ve gotta say, I love getting animal facts every time I come say hi.” He tried to keep his smile from turning worried as he cleared his throat. “You feeling ready for getting fixed up, kiddo?”
Banana flicked her head in another slicing nod. She wasn’t afraid. She had not just one, but two stuffed sharks now, which she stacked atop each other and held in front of her to show the humans. How could anyone be afraid when they had two stuffed sharks?
”You want us to stick around until Deb shows up to really get you started?” Alanna asked.
Banana nodded again, maybe a little too fast for someone who wasn’t afraid. But, really, why should she be afraid? Alanna counted as maybe four or five sharks on her own. As long as Alanna was here with her, Banana would be fine, and maybe she wouldn’t have to do anything scary after all!
That potentially comforting illusion lasted for about fifteen minutes, as James quizzed Banana on trivia about hyenas and actually advanced his biology lesson by about fifteen points doing it. At that point, though, one of the nurses came in to talk to Banana, and to get an IV set in her extended wing. And suddenly, it wasn’t something she could put off thinking about anymore.
”I get it.” Alanna said, moving to sit on the edge of the deluxe hospital bed next to the Sewer creation who was currently trying to pretend she wasn’t crying. It had been a long, long time since she would have had a second thought about the fact that Banana wasn’t human, and now, she followed the same kind of instincts she used on her sisters whenever they were having a bad day. One hand coming up to rub at the back of Banana’s neck, her other hand taking one of the layered keratin talons and holding it carefully. “Do you want me to tell you that you don’t have to be scared?”
”Yes…” Banana’s voice was a tiny buzzing answer.
”Sorry kid.” Alanna shook her head. “It is scary. And I don’t like lying to people.” She sighed and looked over at James as he settled on the other side of the bed, balancing out her weight a little. “Do you know how often I’m scared?” She asked Banana.
The girl looked down at her talons, especially the one that Alanna was keeping her from using to pick at the spot where a needle was going into her skin. “Never?” She asked, carefully constructing the word to say out loud, trying to rely as little as possible on the skulljack.
There was a moment where James almost laughed at how casually she’d walked into Alanna’s trap, but a quick look from his girlfriend that casually requested his silence had him just shaking his head instead.
“A lot.” Alanna said. “All the time. Do you remember when I found you?” Banana curled backward slightly, not actually wanting to remember at all. It had been a long time, she was so much older now, she’d gotten so much better, her therapist told her she was doing good. But it still hurt to remember. But she did, and gave Alanna another jerking nod. “I was so afraid of you.” Alanna murmured softly.
Banana jerked against her, trying to pull back. “Nnnnno!” The girl practically demanded, switching and overlapping voices. “No you weren’t!”
”Oh, I was! But you know what? Doing the right thing anyway was worth it.” Alanna pulled Banana closer, utterly unconcerned with the fact that she was hugging a creature that was made to be a weapon, and only caring about how Banana needed a hug. “It’s okay to be afraid. But it’s also okay to want to overcome it. You’re gonna do great. You’re smart, and you’ve got a plan, right? You’re gonna be able to walk and talk and see, and not have a heart that’s so eager to fucking detonate that you have to live here.”
James cut in. “Oh! When you have your own actual room, you’ll have even more room for posters!” He motioned around to where the hospital room wall, already mostly covered by cabinets, hookups, medical waste bins, and charts, had been filled in most of its available space by different lineups of big cats or sea life.
”…like posters…” Banana’s s’s buzzed softly as she conceded the point. “…sztill szcared…” she trembled against Alanna as the bigger woman held her in a hug.
“What iiiifff….” James stroked his chin, “what if I was scared instead? Then you can be fine, and I’ll just go hide under some blankets somewhere.”
”Nnnno!” Banana’s squawked giggle got real smiles out of James and Alanna. “That’s not how things work!” She reprimanded them with her digital voice.
”It’s too bad Arrush isn’t here. He’s really good at being scared instead of other people.” James mused.
Banana pulled her head off Alanna’s shoulder to turn and look at James. “Why is he not here?” She asked in the digital tone, the lack of emotion making it hard to tell why she was asking.
”Oh.” James pursed his lips. “He… thinks he makes you nervous. He didn’t want you to be worried.”
“Is he szcared?” Banana asked suddenly perking up, any complex social byplay buried under what Alanna recognized instantly as the familiar pattern of a younger sibling suddenly realizing they had a new way to tease their elder.
James just laughed, and he and Alanna continued to distract the young girl until a knock on the sliding glass door signaled the arrival of a bunch of medical staff, Deb, Shimmer-Over-Horizon, and a couple of assistants coming in to do a final check, administer the first dose of the painkiller they’d be using for the procedure, and to make sure Banana was ready before wheeling her bed away.
”You’ve got this. Right?” Alanna insisted of Banana as the girl was laid down on the bed and halfway out the door. She offered a hand for a high five, getting one that would have sliced the skin open on anyone who wasn’t as durable as her. “Right. You’ve got this.” Alanna repeated, as if saying it would force it to be true.
Deb stayed behind for a minute as the crow-wasp was moved to the surgery site. “Thanks for keeping her company.” She told them.
”Obviously.” Alanna gave a snort. “What, was I gonna not be here?”
Deb’s mouth tilted into a small frown. “About half the ratroaches don’t have anyone there for them.” She said. “Not that they don’t have support in the Order, but we’re moving faster now on turnaround, so there’s less of a personal element.”
James didn’t like the sound of that. “Hm. We could probably set up a thing for that, if…”
”You could. I think you’ll have to race Mercy to it, since she seems invested.” Deb sighed. “It’s okay, though. We’re getting better every day at this. Banana will do fine, the kid is smarter than she seems. Hyperfocused on what she finds fun, but she’s not an idiot.” The doctor stepped without looking to let one of the nurses get past her and grab Banana’s chart off the wall. “Not that I’m not worried. We almost had a casualty with the last reshaping, so I’ll be ready to cut the process off if anything goes wrong.”
”What she’s not telling you is that the ‘almost’ was because she jumped in and proved the skulljack guiding theory on the spot.” The nurse spoke up, before getting a glare from Deb and slinking out of the room.
James raised his eyebrows. “Wait, that does work?”
”That does work.” Deb confirmed. “Badly. I didn’t do a good job. They’ll live, and they’ll get another chance, but I had to… prioritize.” She suddenly looked so very tired, but only for a moment before the pink and white form of her companion infomorph slithered into the room at ankle level and wrapped herself around Deb’s lower body, radiating comfort to all of them. “Banana will be easier, if I have to do that. Most of the changes she wanted are minimal, a lot of it is just bone density, repairs, arms…”
”Arms?!” James looked affronted, swooning with a hand over his chest at the declaration. “What is my precious Order coming to?”
Alanna tried and failed to swat him as he dodged agily around one of the visitor chairs. “You just think humans are boring, don’t be prejudice.”
”I do think humans are boring. Come on, don’t you want to be half crow?” He asked his girlfriend.
”I don’t have to answer that.”
Deb shook her head. “Alright, enough of your antics in my hospital. Get out. You’re both listed as contacts, so you’ll know the instant she’s done, though she’ll be kept under observation and isolation for a couple days after.”
”Isolation?” James narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
”Precaution. In case someone messes up their immune system, we need time to run the tests to verify they’re safe to be around people.”
“Shit, we’ve been lucky so far, huh?” He sighed.
Deb gave him a small half-grin. “Not exactly. A lot of the ratroaches were just already immunocompromised. That’s why we see so many infections in the new ones, and also why they get sick so often. And yes, if you didn’t notice that, it’s because they tend to hide it.” She let out an irate growl. “I’m working on it.” The doctor declared.
”You can work on it less aggressively.” Mercy murmured to her, the informorph’s voice like a drop of honey in the air, coming from the kilometer long creature that somehow fit in the space.
”I could. Or I could get results.” Deb folded her arms at James and Alanna. “Regardless. I have a dozen things to do, and you’re not on the list. Get out of here so I can go make sure our red totems are set properly and get this girl her legs back.”
James and Alanna made themselves scarce, heading out of the hospital and past the front desk where a swarm of people were trying to, as calmly as possible, get the engineer with a piece of metal shrapnel speared through his arm to lay down and let them do their jobs.
”That looks bad!” Alanna said cheerfully when they were out of the hospital.
”You know, I’m super worried about Banana, because of course I am.” James said, trying to project a causal air. “But, uh… what the fuck are they doing down in Research? I didn’t hear anything explode, but the soundproofing in this building is intense. Did you hear anything explode?”
”You’re the one with the elf ears, buddy.” Alanna tugged at the sleeve of her teeshirt as they walked side by side through the basement. “So! What now?”
James thought about it for a minute. “Well, in a couple days, I’m headed to Utah.” He said, and Alanna nodded, already having grabbed a shared .mem of the public briefing James had been in. “I don’t know who’s coming with me, but before then, I’d like to do something fun and simple with everyone.” He grinned at her. “I mean, it’s the right day for it. Want to see if we can get Anesh and Sarah and Arrush in on a Library delve tonight?”
Alanna stared blankly at him, stopping next to a poster on the wall that was either a weird student art project or stolen from a dungeon or both, and just standing there as James got a few steps farther down the concrete hall before she answered. ”…you have the dumbest fucking priorities. And I love you. And yes.”
”Great!” James rubbed his hands together. “Okay. You go round up the others. I’m gonna go yell at at least one engineer.”
Anxiety aside, it felt good to be proactive. And now he had two things he could do today that would push both himself and the Order forward, bit by bit, into a better future. Strengthening himself and learning more on a dungeon delve, and getting some goddamn answers about why the fuck one of the Order’s people was sitting in medical with a metal arrow through their body.
And since James was trying his best to go into dungeon delves without any kind of violent intent, keeping his combat against any creations there to purely self defense, he could use some good practice not murdering people as he interrogated whoever had been involved in this latest Research incident.
James and Alanna split off from each other with a shared kiss. Her to go round up gear and companions for that night, and him to hunt down unsuspecting Researchers. Both of them the closest either of them ever got to prayer, hoping for Banana’s easy success.