“After more observation, we have decided to add a cement sphere from Target, that was obtained in a classified manner.” -Quiietjay, Longlegs Care Guide-
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James arrived back at the rental home to find it looking exactly as pristinely suburban as ever. White painted siding, garden full of plants that could be attended to by sprinklers and not actual human attention, garage waiting to conceal his rental car, it was exactly as nice as it was before.
He didn’t feel like being charitable toward it in his thoughts though. The smell of old dust and oil in the garage, the feeling of an overworked air conditioner as he led Lincon through the slightly-stuck interior door to the house, the slight give of the linoleum under his shoes as he walked in. It all would have been a pleasant place to grow up. He should know; he’d grown up in a place like this. But right now, it just felt like it was a reminder of what happened to communities when you spread people out too far.
Suburbs didn’t generate community. Because community required interactions, and, honestly, most humans were creatures of habit with a splash of laziness. In a world where an increasing amount of everyone’s time was demanded by work just to survive, interactions that could develop into communities stopped happening unless they were forced. And in suburbia, those interactions weren’t forced, cause you had two fences and a hundred feet between your back deck and your neighbor’s.
Space to live, fresh air, plant life in the area, these were all good things. But even without the advantage of magic, James knew humans could design it better. Design it in a way that made it so your options for meeting other people weren’t just church or the grocery store.
And that was why he was feeling uncharitable right now. Because this place, this whole society, had created the conditions under which at least a few people thought to themselves one day “You know what would help with group cohesion? Mindfucking children and threatening them with violent monsters if they disobey us.”
“I’m back!” James called into the house. “And I brought someone along!”
“Up here!” Came Dance’s heightened volume voice from upstairs. “Did you get our messages?”
James hadn’t, so he pulled his phone out as he kicked off his shoes and took the carpeted stairs two at a time. “No.” He said as he surmounted the steps, glancing back to see Lincon waiting at the bottom. “Come on up, leave your shoes.” He told the teen as he walked down the hall to the bedroom. Peeking his head in through the open door of the pretentiously appointed room, he didn’t see the others. “Dance?” He asked, moving past the room he and Arrush shared to the hall bathroom.
That was where he found them. Dance and Alice, the camraconda fidgeting as the human worked on bandaging her forearm. “Oh hey.” Alice said in the calm voice of someone who was either way too practiced at this, or in shock. “Good. You got my text.”
Her voice sounded almost dead, which worried James a lot. “No, I didn’t. What’s up? Where’s Arrush?” James was starting to pick up the panic that Alice should have been feeling.
”I don’t know.” Alice said, before holding a piece of gauze with her teeth and cutting it down, her wrist to halfway up her right forearm now wrapped in the bandage. “Dance, take over.” Alice ordered the camraconda, staring with disinterest at her dressing as she held her arm up to the bathroom light.
”Okay. Okay, okay. Shit.” Dance slithered out the bathroom and past James, slamming her head into the closet door. “Shit. Fuck. Okay. I can do this.” James had never seen a camraconda hyperventilate before, but it looked like Dance was having a panic attack.
He dropped to his knees next to her, resting his hands on his thighs as he shot a look to Lincon coming up the stairs. “Take a deep breath. Take it slow. It’s okay, everyone’s okay. I need to know what happened, but take it at your own speed.” He said softly.
Dance nodded, a whipping motion of her neck that threatened to either take a chunk out of the wall, or out of James. But she focused on breathing, focused on composing herself enough to talk. “We went to the place. We met the person. They called someone, they tried to take Alice and I hostage. Had guns. They had guns. Arrush.” She stopped, in the way that camracondas usually did. Not trailing off, just stopping a sentence.
”Arrush. Where is he? Is he alright?” James tried not to let panic into his voice, but his heart felt like it was on fire and there was a rushing in his ears he couldn’t stop. “Dance? Is he okay?”
The camraconda girl nodded again, then twisted to the side in indecision. “He saved us. Saved us. Alice said no, they started shooting. Arrush is scary. Did you know Arrush is scary? Fuck. Shit. Can’t talk. Right. Hate this.”
”I’m learning.” James muttered. “Is he here?”
Dance shook her camera head again. ”No. Told us to run. Separated. He vanished. Said he would be okay.”
James pressed his eyes closed and let out a long breath. Arrush wasn’t dead, that was… a place to start. “Okay. What’s wrong with Alice?”
”Shot. They shot her. Shot her.” Dance’s hiss escalated into a high pitched momentary scream. “I don’t know first aid. So she used the hardening potion. To do it herself. No one answered our calls. Or texts.”
”That-“
”Got the book though.” Dance cut him off. “Two books. Stole them. It’s the rules. If you try to kidnap people, you can’t be mad when those people take your shit.”
”…Okay I agree, in general.” James said, not wanting to have a conversation when what was needed now was for him to immediately teleport to wherever his newest boyfriend was. “Lincon, get over here.” He motioned to the kid who was watching Dance with a mix of fear and concern. At James’ motioning, Lincon did get closer though. “Dance, this is Lincon.”
”Hi. You smell bad.”
”Hi. You’re a snake.”
”I hear that a lot.”
”Same.”
James rubbed at his forehead. “Okay, banter over. Can you two… keep an eye on each other, and everything else here? I have to go, now.” He also had to call Charlie, which he was trying to do via skulljack but getting no answer so far. So James defaulted to a wall of text that explained the situation. “Lincon, there’s a woman in the bathroom who’s gonna be kinda cold for a while. That’s a painkiller thing, not your fault. Dance, get him some lunch. Zhu, you awake?” James got no reply as he stood up and checked himself; Zhu was still down for the count after his last exertion. “Great. Good. Cool.” He pulled his telepad out, referencing the address through his skulljack and writing as fast as he could without messing up the letters. “Dance, was Arrush hurt? Bleeding?”
She hissed a frantic laugh at him. “He threw his blood at someone. So yes. Yes. Hurt. Bleeding.”
”Good.” James took a breath and went into the bathroom, nodding at Alice who watched him appraisingly as he pulled one of the sealed vials from the first aid bag, uncorked it, and downed the oxygenation potion. He’d never really feel the effects, because he was about to start abusing it to the point that all it was going to do was keep him feeling normal.
Unholstering his pistol, making sure it wasn’t loaded with the seed rounds, and holding it in a confident grip pointed at the carpet, James lowered himself to a crouch. Then he exhaled Breath, quickly forming two simple ice arms; dumbed down replicas of his own arms and hands, minimal detail and sensation so he could keep them going on his rapidly regenerating Breath without freezing himself to death.
”Good luck?” Lincon asked him as he met James’ eyes with uncertainty.
James tried to give him a reassuring smile, but he couldn’t manage it. Arrush was in trouble, and it was his fault, again. And James knew that wasn’t exactly true, he knew that Arrush had the ability to make his own choices and that he’d come here intentionally. That he helped because he did believe in the mission statement they had for the Order. That he wasn’t, despite his age, a baby who James was responsible for the every action of.
But that didn’t matter. He could know all of that, and still feel a terror in his chest at how badly he’d fucked up sending Arrush into another dangerous situation. Guilt at not going himself. Anger at… at everything. James was feeling a lot of anger today.
His Climb magic arms pulled the telepad page, and James appeared outside a modern medical building of glass and steel. Insistent but not forceful wind tugged at his hair and shirt as he appraised the area. A curved front of segmented windows with what looked like a badly placed long wooden desk inside for sorting out patients to the specialist offices they were here to visit.
James triggered his leveler earring as soon as he landed, turning invisible for a brief period of time and leaving four more charges of the power until the bauble had a week or so to recover. It was a good thing he did, too, because the police and EMTs swarming the building were going to be a problem. He’d landed in the shadow of an ambulance, lights flashing, with a half dozen cop cars in a semicircle around the building and what must have been everyone from the nearest fire station doing triage and evacuation of the other patients and staff.
”Back’s clear!” James heard one of a pair of young cops yell out as they ran past. “Sweeping upstairs!”
”They won’t find anything.” A voice near James said, and he froze before remembering he couldn’t be seen, circling the ambulance to get to the other side and out of view of the emergency responders while he eavesdropped.
Another older male voice, talking with a thick accent like they just weren’t interested in hitting the high points of the B’s and T’s, replied to the first speaker. “You told me Duke.” They said, and James felt the ambulance rock slightly. He chanced a peek while the invisibility was going, and saw an older and fatter police officer who actually might be captain Mecham, leaning on the end of the wagon and talking to whoever was sitting and waiting to be treated. There was no sign of an EMT; maybe the cop had told them he needed a private word. “You told me there’d be no problems.”
”It wasn’t our fault.” The man replying sounded middle aged, tired, and in the kind of pain that made someone grind their teeth without noticing.
”You let one of those things loose in broad daylight.” The officer sounded incensed, even with his mumbled words. “Coulda killed people. God’s name am I supposed to do about this?”
”It wasn’t us.” The unseen man replied insistently. James saw himself come into view as the invisibility dropped, but there was no one watching and the crowd of civilians being kept back at the sidewalk and drawing attention were at an angle where the wagon blocked him from view from them too. “They had their own demons! All of ours are gone now, the thing was a monster!”
There was a deep inhale followed by a wheezing sigh. “That’s what you keep the things for, Duke.” The captain replied steadily. “You’re a lucky man their weapon didn’t kill any of the flock or we’d be having a very different conversation right now.”
”No, captain, you don’t… the big one, it wasn’t dumb like ours. It wasn’t feral. It was thinking like a man, it used weapons. It was mad at us.”
”That why Billy and Richter are dead?” The officer asked in the same thickly bored voice. James felt a sinking in his chest. Arrush had killed people. He’d never wanted to put him in that situation. The man in the ambulance must have nodded or something, because the captain continued. “Your experiment is getting out of control Duke. I’m a good man, I keep my covenant, I know we need a heavy hand for the next generation. But this…?”
The injured man leaned forward enough for James to see a flash of blond hair and a weathered face. “It’s a bump in the road, captain.” Duke said. “We’ll clean it up. They can’t get far, I winged the… woman. ” James got the impression he’d been about to say something rude, but the police captain had glared the foul language out of him.
”You better fix it. I’m not covering for you if this happens again Duke. I’m not covering for you now.” The older man admonished the surviving kidnapper. “I’ll send the doc back over. Get yourself back together.” James circled the ambulance moving like he belonged as he kept part of the vehicle between himself and the police captain as the man also circled around toward his own car. Keeping his head down and eyeline away, James flexed his enhanced hearing as the man pulled a phone to his ear and gave a moist sigh, shaking his head and staring out at the crowd while he waited. “Evening bishop.” He said when the call eventually connected. “I’m supposing you’ve heard by now.” A pause. “Two of your boys. Some of your friends too.” Another pause, longer this time, and James could hear shouting from the other end. “Yelling won’t fix it. God seen fit to let you call back the dead yet?” The pause this time was short because the captain cut in. “Bishop. My boys are all good men. Godly men. But laws are laws. We had a deal. You get the night, and the kids, and anyone asking questions. You don’t get gunfights in hospitals. Don’t let it happen again.” The captain hung up.
It was odd, James thought as he knelt down and out of sight of everyone in the shifting landscape of human emergency activity. He didn’t… hate this guy. The actual captain Mecham seemed like he was making a mistake and okay with assault and child abuse and stuff. But it also seemed like he had some rules to his behavior, and didn’t actually know the full extent of things. James was absolutely going to try to find a way to ruin his career before this was over, but he could be a lot worse, and he wasn’t, so that was worth a drop of respect.
”Alright.” James whispered. “Arrush, where did you go.” He asked out loud, but really, he was asking his magic. Call to Blood, most useful and only tracking spell so far, pulsed out from James with a burst of cold and an attempt to drain his lungs that was rebuffed by the potion he’d drank.
It wasn’t far. In fact, it was rather nearby. In the building that was currently being cordoned off by a wall of yellow tape and cops. For a moment, James felt a crushing anxiety, that the one useful option hadn’t worked to point him in the right direction. But then realization set in, that the tug of directional information wasn’t just pointing him inside, but upward.
Not up to the second floor. Up to the roof.
The odds that a rapid fight had sprawled that far were low. Which meant there was a chance, a good chance, that Arrush had made it to the roof, lost some blood there, and was waiting for recovery. A chance that James wasn’t going to pass up.
Also a chance that the two young men with guns who were sweeping the upstairs of the building for the ‘active shooter’ were going to stumble onto someone James did not want them to find.
Invisibility again, another precious charge spent, but James didn’t think he’d need more than this one today. Rising up, he sprinted for the corner of the building, feet flinging him across the parking lot as he stopped keeping his tight tether on his body’s unnatural acceleration. When he was about five feet from the building, he planted his next step in a crouch, and then shoved off the ground in the strongest jump he could manage.
Which was actually quite strong. A purple orb he’d never actually needed, never used, somehow, in all his stupid adventures. It might have been his first one, he couldn’t remember. But either way, it gave him the vertical distance he needed to grab a window ledge, pulling himself up with two hands on the rain gutter while his other frozen hand grabbed the ledge of the next window up, rapidly hauling his body up with a mix of strength, magic, and more magic. He kept his gun out, just in case, because two extra arms afforded him a surprising amount of versatility. He knew from as soon as he got good with them in training why most ratroaches, while they chose to move their extra limbs, didn’t choose to remove them.
James was over the last lip of the building’s front corner before his invisibility wore off, or he got winded, not that the latter was an option. He went over the edge on his side, rolling to a crouch with his gun up and ready as he swept his vision across the ventilation boxes of the well maintained roof. Another pulse of Call to Blood gave him a direction, and he started moving forward, rising to his normal walking height as he didn’t see anyone on the roof, but not seeing anything where the spell was taking him either except for a lightly smoking pawprint of blue that wasn’t even glowing strongly enough to be noticable under the blazing sun.
”Arrush?” James said out loud, hopeful.
And was rewarded for his faith. “Hhh-hello.” Arrush’s voice was more of a pained rasp than normal; a thing James wished he didn’t have to know, but noticed anyway. “S-sorry.”
”What for this time.” James almost wanted to laugh with relief as he dropped his invisibility, and Arrush crawled around the end of the air conditioning unit he was slumped behind. “Shit. Okay, come on, let’s get out of here.”
”I… I hurt… people.”
James holstered his pistol, figuring he wouldn’t need it for sure now on the empty roof, and crouched near Arrush, quickly marking his telepad for their rental home that was soon going to have two bleeding people in it. “Were those people pointing guns at you?”
”…yes.”
”Then-“
”I know you don’t care.” Arrush said, coughing. “I care. I could have… brought… batons or prods. Not knives. Didn’t plan. I didn’t think.” He slipped between English and Spanish as he blinked his multitude of eyes at James in an uneven pattern.
James gnawed at his lip as he finished writing, and looked up at Arrush. “We can talk about it later. It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay, and everything is fine.” He lied, shoving back panic. Both of them flinched as the interior stairwell door slammed open and the sound of people running onto the roof reached them. “You can do what I do and worry about what went wrong later, but right now, let’s get out of here.” James offered him a hand and Arrush took it without hesitation, the dregs of his blood from where he’d kept a would pressed closed stinging James’ skin before they both vanished and reappeared in the garage of the house.
The next hour became a hazy blur to James, and not just because he took a mild painkiller to deal with the throbbing pain in his recent wounds that he’d made worse by climbing a building and pulling at the stitches.
Checking Alice’s bandages and making sure she’d actually gotten the bullet out of her arm had come first. Then ordering her to sit on the couch and wait for the hardening potion to wear off. This part included getting Dance to stop panicking, and so James gave her the job of watching Alice. Which would do nothing to burn off any nervous energy, but he didn’t know what camracondas did about that in the first place.
After that, he quickly got Lincon sorted out, giving him one of the basement beds to sleep in, on the condition that he take a shower first, and making sure he knew he was allowed to eat anything from the kitchen. Lincon was roughly James’ size, so he got a spare set of James’ travel clothes while his own went through the wash. The whole process was a lot of James pointing at things and giving explicit permission to make use of them, which he sort of recognized in himself as how he helped rescued Sewer creatures transition to their new lives. But he didn’t let himself emotionally engage with any of it; he wanted to be quick, and he couldn’t take handling Lincon pretending he wasn’t crying right now.
Next was another call to Charlie to update him, which the guy didn’t pick up. At this point, with everything going on, James was pretty sure he was in trouble, so checking on where Charlie had gone was next on his list. But at least he trusted the man to more or less handle himself.
And then there was Arrush.
”Take your paw back.” James said softly, holding an alcohol swab. “This is going to st… okay, this might sting. You might not notice, I don’t know.” He pressed the cloth into the gash on Arrush’s stomach and got a whimpering chitter from the ratroach before the noise was suppressed. The injury was from the deflection of a bullet off Arrush’s stomach chitin, and that part of him was crushed and cracked in a way James had no idea how to treat. He didn’t even know if that did regenerate on a ratroach, but was already looking up Order medical studies in his head.
”Doesn’t hurt.” Arrush lied easier than he breathed as he fidgeted with one of his antenna that had been damaged; the burrs on the end of it had ripped off, which they were technically ‘supposed’ to do, but it still left sensitive exposed flesh until the keratin regrew.
James pursed his lips, but didn’t countermand Arrush on that obvious falsehood. Instead, he checked to make sure this injury didn’t have a bullet in it, pressed the special gauze Deb had supplied that didn’t burn on contact with ratroach blood to the oozing wound, and fixed it in place with medical tape. “You’re lucky this stuff sticks to chitin.” Even now, he felt like he should be saying something.
”Unlucky about the fur.” Arrush sounded like he was trying to banter, but his more exhausted than usual rasp made it hard to believe he was in good spirits.
”You did exactly the right thing.” James said, rocking on his heels as he stared at Arrush’s patchwork stomach. “This was never supposed to happen. Just this once, this was supposed to be…”
”Peaceful?” Arrush asked with a small grin.
”I dunno, not this.” James sighed. “I’m sorry.”
The ratroach huffed, placing a pair of hands on James’ head. ”I’m not.” He said, surprising the human still watching his body carefully and wondering if more medical tape was needed. “Calmer now. You… you’re right. They tried to take our friends. They tried to kill them. If I… if I weren’t there, this would be…”
”Worse.” James whispered.
”Worse.” Arrush agreed, weaving his filed claws into James’ hair, anxiety that he was overstepping flaring up. “So I’m not sorry. If they wanted to live, they shouldn’t have been… monsters.” He finished.
James leaned forward, pressing his face against Arrush’s leg as he hugged his newest partner. “That’s reductive and a terrible way to look at things but also you’re not wrong and I’m glad you’re okay.”
A wet laugh sounded overhead, and James looked up at the ratroach standing over him to see Arrush covering the edges of his muzzle. “I was shot.” He argued lightly as he covered a chittering laugh. A laugh that kept going, becoming a shaking, uncontrollable sound, as all the panic and fear finally caught up to him.
Before James could come up with some kind of retort to that comment, or something to say to calm Arrush down, there was a pop of air by the house’s front door near the bathroom he was treating Arrush’s injury in, and the noise of voices. Well, one voice, mostly.
”…not the right place then I’ll just apologize!” Momo declared as she swung the front door open with a wooden thud, probably damaging the wall somehow. “And if it is…” She paused as she saw through the foyer bathroom door, James knelt on the floor in front of Arrush who was currently holding him in a hug with a pair of arms. “…you guys need some time? This seems like I’m interrupting.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
James groaned, standing up at his own pace, carefully navigating Arrush’s hug so he didn’t have to either break free or jostle either of their wounds. “What are you doing here you gremlin?” He asked Momo as she strode in, thick red bathrobe swishing around her legs, and dropped a heavy backpack on the floor with one hand while she carefully set down a solid metal case with the other. Behind her, two more people trailed into the house, having decided that apparently it was the right place if Momo wasn’t being kicked out. “Are you our replacement rogues?”
”I am the only rogue present.” Rho stated, the golden retriever form motivated by the inhabitor living within walking past Momo as he talked. “And I am not trained fully.”
Ink-And-Key followed them in cautiously, the sizable white cabled camraconda ducking his head at the door even though he didn’t come close to needing to. ”None of us are trained fully. How would you even start to fully train a knight.”
”You don’t.” James said. “You just keep getting better. Welcome to North Smiths.”
”Is there a South Smiths? This is important.” Momo instantly asked.
”Yes?”
She grinned, rubbing her hands together. ”Good.”
“Do we…” James stopped himself from asking if they got to know why she cared. It wasn’t important, and he trusted that if it really mattered, Momo would say something. He didn’t have time for this right now. He didn’t even really want to ask Momo why she was here with a motley crew, instead of more specialized rogues to replace the ones who were rotating out.
So he didn’t ask. He checked. Myles had messaged them about it while James was distracted to explain, so that solved most of the confusion quickly, and also really made James appreciate working with people that knew how to communicate. The short answer was all the rogues were busy. Even Nate, who was apparently not taking a break at all, and was leading a group doing further research into Priority Earth up in Alaska. Others were scattered across the US looking for signs and following the trails of different pillars. And between that, some of their best people being off on James’ imposed ritual paladin right of passage, and a lot of their other best people with responsibilities to maintain the Order’s momentum in regards to things like delves, there weren’t many people ‘available’ who actually had training for dangerous situations.
Which was not to say that Momo, Rho, and Ink-And-Key were the bottom of the barrel. James would trust any of them at his back at any time. They were all dangerous and skilled, even if at least two of them were more neurotic than everyone else in the house combined. They were just the ones who weren’t doing something more critical, who said yes. Also there was a followup message from Yin stating that they’d be putting more and more people on standby as they became available.
The Order’s first shield team was also on standby. In case they did need straight up combat prowess, for a situation where six trained soldiers with rifles would be worth the innate problems of deploying six trained soldiers with rifles.
”Momo, are you even supposed to be standing up?” James asked bluntly.
”Nope!” She replied with a brittle grin. “Hip hurts like fuck, so maybe I should get a couch or something?”
James sighed and let go of Arrush. ”Everyone needs to sit down.” He said. And when he said it, he especially meant himself. “But there’s no time. Charlie is missing, and I need-“
”I will go.” Rho said simply as James led them into the living room, where Dance and Alice looked at the new arrivals with different levels of attention. “I am untrained, but have a unique advantage as a rogue.”
”What’s that?” Dance asked, suddenly curious. “Oh! Do you have special spy magic? That’d be cool!”
Any other time, James would have wanted to spend an hour just talking about Rho’s facial expression. There was already a barrier between human and dog faces; dogs didn’t have the same cultural or biological tells that humans did. They didn’t really raise their eyebrows or purse their lips, for one reason or another. Reasons like ‘not having lips’. When you added to that the fact that Rho wasn’t actually a dog, but something essentially wearing a dog body, it added another link to the tenuous chain of expression. Rho, like all inhabitors, could have emotions, but had been created with raw intellect before emotional experience. So, he had to learn, over time, how to feel. How to not lock it down and shove it away. For him, expressions were breaks in a mask that he had lived for several years feeling compelled to keep up out of safety. And now, at the end of the chain, was this combined person’s life with the Order, slowly opening up and learning to be part of a group where communication came from multiple angles.
And that person had an expression that wasn’t quite “dog”, or “inhabitor”, or even “Order”, but something uniquely alien as he stared at Dance, trying to understand if her comment had been one of those jokes that he heard about so much.
“No.” The golden retriever said eventually. “I do not.”
The camraconda sagged in disappointment. ”Oh. That would have been neat.” She said, dejected.
”Dance, he’s a dog.” Alice said from the couch, her own emotional deadening lessening to the point that she felt like she wanted to jump in. “Charlie’s missing?” She asked, and got a nod from James. “Rho, right? Be careful. And thank you.”
”I am always careful. Look. A disguise.” Rho suddenly changed. Not physically, but while only a second ago there was another person in the room, now there was a dog. Just a golden retriever, panting lightly, staring at Alice before getting bored and turning to go sit on the hardwood floor.
Arching an eyebrow, James nodded from his own cushioned seat. The inhabitor ability to mask as who they used to be was rather fascinating when it was an animal body. “That’s really good.” He said, his brain starting to fog over as he stopped pushing himself hard enough for Endurance to keep him going. “I… am just gonna close my eyes for a minute. If you find anything, let me know.”
”And… me.” Arrush said, settling against James. “Charlie is… a good person.” Not just in general, either. Arrush was used to being an outsider, even in the Order. One of the first ratroaches to come out, and right after the Order had taken in survivors of a massed attack by others that looked just like him. Most people were understanding, most people were kind, and the Order was still an infinitely better place than his and Keeka’s origin. But even still, the instant, default acceptance Charlie had for him had been… it had made him feel like a person, in a way that he hadn’t been expecting. Arrush hoped Charlie was safe. And if he needed to kill more bad humans to make that happen, he’d do it.
Dance got Momo and Rho set up with a telepad there and back. Momo didn’t get to sit on the couch; she got to lounge on a park bench relatively nearby, and wait to be Rho’s extraction when the guy with no hands needed an escape. Which meant she had to quickly ditch the bathrobe, so she didn’t attract her own brand of chaotic attention.
And then they were gone, leaving James with Arrush leaning against him and warming him up too much even through the air conditioning. Alice slowly coming back to her live emotions, though with enough time and thought to not freak out over her injury or the situation. And Dance and Ink-And-Key having a muted conversation about whether or not they should even be here.
”I feel,” James said to the room, but no one specific, “like I would rather be in Alaska with everyone else, trying to investigate the eco terrorists.”
”Are they?” Ink-And-Key asked, slowly curving his head around, towering over where Dance was still mostly stretched out on the floor reading her manga. James slowly lolled his head around to look at him, raising his eyebrows as best he could while feeling like he was about to pass out. “Ecoterrorsts. Are they? We call them that, but we haven’t seen them do any terroring. And we do similar things. We fight when we think it is needed, like them, yes? Ah. I’m sorry. I do not mean to question.”
James blinked, worried by how quickly Ink-And-Key seemed to shift through defensive to panicked in his words. “I…” he cleared his throat, wincing as even that simple motion made his side hurt. “Yes. I mean, yes we have. They killed a bunch of people. Though, to be fair, I understand being angry at the people who are complicit in a system that is killing our world. Though also to be fair, they also killed a bunch of bystanders and I don’t think that ‘personal assistant at an investment bank office’ is a title that deserves death. I guess the coal plant thing counts, sort of, but that was obviously before some kind of shift in their ideology, so…”
Ink-And-Key stared at him as he trailed off, before looking away again. “It’s not important.” He said.
”Kinda is.” Alice said with a woozy grunt as she pulled herself forward. “Hey kiddo.” She murmured softly to Dance. “You okay?”
”It’s been better.” The younger and smaller camraconda admitted before bouncing back. “Oh! But now I’m the only one who hasn’t screwed something up here! I declare myself in charge.”
Alice snorted, poking Dance with a toe. “Nice try kiddo. But yeah, Ink’s kinda not wrong.”
”Oh, now I am curious how I am failing.” Ink-And-Key did legitimately look curious, even if his words sounded self-deprecating.
If it was meant as emotional bait of some kind, Alice just ignored it. “Priority Earth haven’t done any terrorism.” She said with a shrug, one hand wrapping around the bandaging on her arm. “James, back me up on this. They don’t actually use fear as a weapon, do they?”
”…nnnnnno.” James sat up, getting a cough and a jerk from Arrush who had already dozed off against him in a beautiful display of trust. “No, they don’t, do they? They kill people, but I think the whole point of their hypnoplant was that it was informationally self-containing. They certainly used the Wolfpack as a weapon, but the messages sent were… also pretty limited. Like, these weren’t public executions, even if it did happen in corporate offices mostly, right?”
”You could say they’re using fear as a tactic against the investment firms, but like, wasn’t there a thing about how no one remembered the attacks at all?” Alice asked.
”Yeah, shit, right. Sorry, it’s been a few crises since this came up.” James apologized. “Anyway, Ink-And-Key, you’re right.” The camraconda hissed as he tilted his head like he was about to say something, but James limply held up a hand. “We don’t have a complete picture. And… we do get in fights. We’re doing it here, again, in a perfect highlighting of why diplomacy and peace are so much better than not knowing who’s going to try to murder you. But there’s an important line we don’t cross, which is that we don’t kill people for things we think are problems.”
Dance rolled up against Alice’s legs, laying on her back to stare up at James leaning on Arrush, who was pretending he wasn’t dozing off again already with his septet of eyes narrowed. “We could do the assassinations without collateral?” She asked.
”Dance!” Alice barked angrily.
James frowned sharply too, and saw the young camraconda shrink back as he realized he was glaring at her. Trying to soften his expression and keep his voice steady, he took a breath to answer. “No.” He said. “Self defense is one thing. But the farther and farther we get from that, the more likely it is we kill people who we never should have even considered. The more likely we fuck up. We fuck up all the time. We need our behavior to be such that our fuckups are…”
”Survivable.” Arrush muttered into James’ hair. “For everyone.” James nodded along with the words, jutting his thumb at Arrush to punctuate it.
”I was sorry,” Ink-And-Key said in his steady digital tone, “because you are all tired. And I didn’t want to start a heavy conversation. And I said something silly, and it started a heavy conversation. I did not mean to cause this. I was not feeling guilt for questioning the Order.” he swayed in an s of a curve, body winding back and forth as he rose up over the living room. “Please go sleep. I worry about you all. We will keep an eye on things while you rest.” He said, indicating Dance’s curled form on the scratchy living room carpet.
”I don’t want to sleep, it’s, like, barely afternoon.” James complained as he yawned, body betraying him. He could have forced himself to move, and his Endurance would have kicked in. But even though he was griping, he knew he needed rest and time to heal, even if it was just a few hours for his different magical improvements to do their work.
So he got into the bed with the awkwardly stiff sheets, and the awkwardly unfamiliar Arrush, though being mutually injured and exhausted and also exploring their growing love for each other went a long way toward making that part more comfortable. Downstairs, Alice just refused to leave the couch, while Ink-And-Key and Dance ‘kept watch’, which James felt wasn’t really a thing. He almost forgot Lincon was in the basement, and he knew he’d need to talk to the kid in a bit.
James knew they couldn’t shift the entire might of the Order around for everything that came up. The whole point of having more capable people was to be able to deal with more issues at a time. But he kinda wished that Sarah and everyone in her relationstick network would teleport down here and let him cut through to the heart of the problem. And also compress a nap into a few seconds and not a few hours.
”Oh, that’s what we should have brought. A green orb for rest time or something.” James muttered.
”Sleep.” Arrush told him, tentatively wondering if he was allowed to cuddle up with the human. “Stop thinking.”
To that, James just laughed. “I can’t just fall asleep.” He said sadly. “Even now, when I really do feel like I’m nodding off for a dozen reasons, I’m not really ‘sleeping’. I don’t know how you do it, honestly. And I don’t think I can stop thinking. I’m worried about Charlie, worried about if Rho gets into trouble, worried about Lincon’s friends, worried about the other missing people. Hell, I’m worried about the chanters, the other human recovering Status Quo prisoners, the necroads, the new Camille, the new paladins, and the fact that we’re giving magical electricity production away just to make it happen. I’m always thinking, and it’s usually worry based. Oh, the Underburbs! I can worry about that too, I forgot that one. I could make a list. Half of it’s just dungeon names, I guess. And that librarian that freaked us out the day before we headed down here. And…”
James was propped up with his pillow folded under his head, not quite laying down so falling asleep would be harder. Next to him, facing him but with his arms not quite reaching James, Arrush lay splayed out on the bed only half under the blanket, body curved into an arc that ended with his bifurcated tail wrapping around James’ leg on reflex. It gave James an excellent angle to see his boyfriend’s face, a blend of insect and rodent features cobbled together into a triangular muzzle, finally relax as he let go of consciousness and dropped into sleep.
For Arrush, sleeping in hostile situations was a skill he’d honed for a long time. He’d needed to. And in comparison to the Akashic Sewer, here was easy. He had a bed, and a person he trusted. Sleep was simple, and he’d take whatever he could while his painkiller potion was still in effect.
And it was even easier listening to James talk. Keeka did almost exactly the same thing, thoughts getting sidetracked and swept away on tangents, softly but excitedly speaking about music he was enjoying or new people he’d met in the Order’s halls. And just like with James, now, it always soothed Arrush’s own racing thoughts and anxieties to hear his boyfriend talk so enthusiastically about life. Like being alive was something that was wonderful, and not just something they tolerated because it seemed like the least bad option.
Even when what James was saying was a list of worries, big and small, the fact that he was here made Arrush feel safe. Even with the paired smell of two species’ blood in his nose, the scent of James’ shampoo was still the only thing he could really focus on. And he was out like a light before the raven-haired human had even finished listing off all the different refugees he cared for.
James didn’t join Arrush in sleep. But he did lay down for a while, catching up on alchemy reports through his skulljack while he waited to hear about the next step of their investigation, and the next problem waiting in the wings.
_____
Rho began his infiltration directly, after breaking off from Momo.
When you looked like a friendly golden retriever, you could get away with functionally anything. If Rho had wanted to shoplift, he would have become internet famous before anyone would have ever considered stopping him. Killing someone would probably get negative attention, but even then he wasn’t sure.
When you were a well behaved dog, especially a breed that humans coded as friendly, Rho found you could really just go sit in a public building and act like you were waiting for someone, and everyone would leave you alone except to invade your personal space.
Equipped with a collar that had Momo’s phone number on the tag, and a skulljack braid that was imbued with a high orb cost to blend into his fur, Rho had simply walked across the baking hot parking lot for the meetinghouse that Charlie had vanished from, and planted himself near the door.
There were people coming and going, and more than a few gave him looks that said they were excited to see a dog. But, being mature adults, they refrained from trying to pet him, which was both a grim state of affairs for humans to have conditioned themselves to, but also convenient for Rho.
He waited, sometimes pacing the building, marking out where the windows were, and noting that there were four alternate entrances. Two opposed side doors that seemed to lead to the same central brown carpet and fluorescent light hallway, one back door up an external wooden staircase that was likely a staff entrance. And one set of concrete steps that went down into the building’s foundation, to a heavy steel door underneath the ground floor.
Sitting in the dead zone between the building and the next door elementary school, Rho considered his options. There were a few potential methods, but one stood out as he saw a sedan pulling into the parking lot with a human in it that he recognized from the dossier. The decision then was a quick one; while he did technically understand that he was feeling trepidation, perhaps even nervous anxiety, that feeling was incredibly dull and muted, and he had a job to do. So he acted without any reservation that a human rogue might have if they’d borrowed his body for the day.
Retaking his spot by the door, it wasn’t long until the next human came by. And when he did, Rho deployed his most potent weapon. Wagging.
Happily staring up at the ruggedly grey haired man as he reached for the door, Rho fidgeted slightly on the hot sidewalk. The damage from the heat wasn’t enough to get past what he could rapidly repair as an inhabitor, so he had to act on purpose instead of just giving in to the feeling. It still worked though. “Did someone leave you out here boy? Hmm?” The old man gave Rho a lopsided grin. “Got a collar and everything. Hm.” He looked around the parking lot, before turning his grandfatherly smile back on the golden retriever and speaking with a stern tone. “Come on boy. Inside. We’ll see who thought leaving you here was a good idea.”
Rho obeyed happily, wagging his tail as he walked through the door into the vestibule, and then following the old man further into the religious building.
”Well aren’t you well behaved.” The bishop spoke partly to Rho but mostly to himself as the inhabitor fell in at a heel. Passing through an open room with a big chandelier overhead and a staircase up the side wall, past the hall that led to what looked like private meeting rooms, through the main room with neatly laid out benches and a stage and pedestal at the end, until eventually reaching a side door at the back that the man rapped on a few times with a gnarled but sturdy hand. “Russel? You around?”
A voice sounded from inside, and the man opened the pale wood office door. Rho let himself in first, getting a low chuckle from the bishop who’d let him in.
Inside, a younger human man sat behind a desk, blonde hair and a clean pressed white shirt. Younger, but not by much. The desk was set parallel to the door, which was a way Rho didn’t often see offices laid out, but the room seemed to be formatted so humans could have conversations sitting across from each other in the uncomfortable looking chairs. “Carl, why’s there a dog in the meetinghouse? Finally go blind and decide you needed some help?”
”Some idiot left the poor mutt outside.” Carl shut the door. “Felt like doing something good today.”
”You’re already doing something good today.”
”Doesn’t feel like it, Russel.” The older human said as Rho laid down and set his head on crossed paws. He legitimately did like the cool air more than the outside, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to feign a polite disinterest in what the humans were talking about. “He knew too much. And I just got word that his friends didn’t go quietly.”
Russel stood up behind his desk, casually kicking his chair back to impact a bookshelf. “Well, there were always going to be setbacks.” He said as if he were discussing the unusual heat and wind, and not human lives. Rho decided he agreed with the Order’s general ethos that people should not speak this way. “They’re taken care of though, and they can join their friend in a cell until we can bring them around to the light.” He moved to clap the old man on the shoulder with smile. “It’s all working out Carl. You’ve gotta have some faith.”
But Carl didn’t let the friendly gesture land, slapping aside the younger human’s hand. “It’s not taken care of.” He snapped. “And you know, I had an interesting talk with Mecham today. Whoever I handed our snoop off to, he didn’t end up in a cell. In fact, Mecham doesn’t know where he is.”
”Hm. An escape? That does make things awkward.” The younger bishop said, brushing his fingers against his hair to move it back into flawless position.
Carl was having none of it. “Did you have them killed? I told you-“
The younger man flicked a hand. “Nothing like that. They’re fine, they’re just not in a prison that anyone will ever find. You worry too much! God provides, but only if we make use of the gifts, Carl.”
That was good for Rho to know. That meant Charlie was alive. Carl didn’t take the news as well though. “Where did you put him, Russ?”
“I wonder how they’re remembering at all.” Russel frowned as he looked back at Carl with cold eyes, ignoring the question. “The others, there was a human and something else, wasn’t there? If they’re still alive, we’ll need to pin them down before they get too far. Our friend used up theirs on the investigator who got away, so I’ll need your help with these.”
Carl folded his arms as he took one of the uncomfortable padded chairs, settling one leg over the other as he stared up at his junior bishop. “That takes three days to be useful and a week to be good. You know I don’t have time for that.”
”Someone has to clean this up Carl.” Russel shook his head sadly as he paced past the end of his desk, a hand seeming to subconsciously come to rest on a pile of wide books that Rho suspected were all spellbooks.
”Apologies for the language in the house of God, but fuck you Anderson.” Carl said stiffly. “This is too messy. Too out of control. We got a head start on everything, but we need to go public with this now, and keep our hands on the story of it. We can’t just start fights with people and expect this to go our way. It didn’t work out for Smith, chosen by God or not, and it won’t work out for us now that the tyrants in the White House have drones and tanks.”
Russel sighed, the smile on his face not reaching his eyes as he shook his head. “Let me worry about that friend. Well, not just me.” Rho watched them through half closed canine eyes, and his read on the body language was that Russel was looking for something specific in Carl. Trying to make a decision. Whatever that choice was, he came to a conclusion as quickly as Rho had earlier. “Bishop Young, you’re a pious man. I think it’s time we trusted you with something more important than the surface level.”
”The divine touch of God’s hand through literal miracles that come out of books and the enemy of actual demons was the surface level?” Carl cocked a single eyebrow, and Rho realized that he might need to make sure that this man and James never met. They might get along too well. “We’re engaged in a huge criminal conspiracy Russ. And don’t tell me that it’s not criminal if the laws aren’t written. Righteous or not, we can’t just-“
”There’s more you don’t know.” Russel said sternly. “But you’re a good man Carl. The kind of man we want.” He stepped behind his desk, plucking a pen with long fingers out of a cup, and writing something down on a piece of paper that he tore from its notepad and handed over. “Our meeting time has been moved up a bit in light of our recent problems. Tonight, ten PM. Don’t bring the dog, please? Maybe if I reassure you that we have it under control, you’ll feel better about helping me with the miracle to pin our interlopers.”
Carl took the paper, looking at it before folding it in half and standing. “I don’t like it.” He said bluntly, voice too loud in the small room.
There was a timid knock on the door, and Rho turned his head to look, the motion getting attention from the two religious leaders in the room who seemed to have forgotten he was there. “You don’t have to like it.” Russel said as he looked back at his older friend. “But if you decide not to show up, then consider your involvement ended. Now. I have a counseling session, and I need my office. Please take the dog away. I don’t like them.”
Standing up, paper crumpled in his hand, Carl just shook his head. “More mistakes won’t fix the old mistakes.” He warned, before whistling sharply. “Come on boy.” He told Rho, who begrudgingly stood and followed him as he opened the door to reveal a lanky young man standing there turning a blue bound book in his hands. “Go on in, he’s in fine form today.” Carl said, voice abruptly smiling and warm as he gave the young human a reassuring nod.
Behind them, Rho could hear Anderson’s falsely inviting voice. “Come in, come in. Now, have you been doing your special reading for-“ The words cut off as Carl shut the door, and started walking - or perhaps stalking - out.
Rho followed out of the mostly empty place, passing only a couple other young humans who were working on cleaning the interior. It was so easy, to simply walk in and walk out again. Though now he had one last piece of intelligence to gather before he would feel satisfied in making an escape.
It wasn’t hard. At the corner to the hallway, a soft bump against the elderly human’s hand knocked the paper out to flutter down to the floor. Rho, behaving like a perfectly normal curious dog would, sniffed at the object before looking back up at Carl.
The human just looked down at the dropped object with his secret meeting location on it with a sad exhaustion on his face. “Most signs from God don’t come with fur.” He said quietly, not moving to pick up the directions.
Rho, already having memorized the address, made a decision.
A golden retriever could get away with a lot of things. Like randomly eating paper. And no one would question it. Certainly not an old man who didn’t want to go in the first place.
”No, you stupid…!” Carl started to lean down, aching old bones protesting as he reached for the already devoured paper. But Rho had taken decisive action, and there was nothing left for him to recover. “…Well then. Aren’t you just a little devil.” He said with no heat to the words, setting a hand on Rho’s head as he pushed himself back to his feet. “Maybe…”
He trailed off, keeping his thoughts to himself as he walked at a slower pace to the front door, Rho keeping up with him like a good dog.
As soon as the front door was open, Rho just wandered off, ignoring the shouts from the old man, though he felt a small pang of a new emotion as he heard Carl start laughing with what seemed to be earnest joy. The inhabitor traced a path in a straight line past the school, around to its back playground, and out into one of those territory lines that ran through the suburban area where nothing had been built but most of the life had been stifled. Dry grass and hot dirt crunching underpaw as he took off at full speed, bounding in a sprint that was as natural as the body’s previous owner knew how to make it.
Rho took a half dozen turns, made sure he was being neither followed nor observed, and then pinged Momo using an easily compromised wifi signal from a nearby house.
When she showed up, he cut off her attempt to make a show of how naughty a runaway dog he was. Because he knew their next move now, and while he wasn’t aware of where Charlie had been taken, he knew where several people who would know would be meeting tonight.
So, James was going to need to wake up. Because Rho wasn’t going to spy on a meeting alone, and he didn’t trust Momo to not cause a problem.
Quite the opposite really. It was almost her speciality. James didn’t cause problems, he just happened to be around when they occurred.
Rho rethought his plan. This might require a defter touch than the inhabitor was used to.