“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” -Maya Angelou-
_____
From James’ perspective, an expanding dome of grey licking fire washed past them with a complete lack of sensation, and then, he was sitting in an idling car streetside about a block away and the sky had shifted from light pollution nighttime to cloudless midday.
”-ight.” He was saying. For some reason. It was like his mouth was finishing a word on reflex; he’d started talking and then kept going on momentum, even though he had no idea what he was saying. “What the fuck.”
”Where are we?!” Arrush’s voice was a frantic demand, confusion mixed with the tension of a moment ago triggering a deeply ingrained fear in the ratroach of having been moved while he… slept?
”Why am I in a car?” Charlie asked, his voice drawing startled shouts from all three other people present. Arrush even twisted so fast James heard a snapping sound from one of his arms as the ratroach pressed himself back in a panic. “And why is Momo stabbing the car?”
”I have no idea!” Momo’s voice was a high pitched squeal. In the front seat, James got his own breathing a little under control, reaching out a reassuring hand to Arrush while he turned around to see Momo with a craft knife in her hand and a message carved into the back seat of their rental car. “Charlie, where the fuck did you come from?!”
James felt Arrush’s claws clasp around his fingers, wincing at the pressure, as he replied. “From their atonement prison, probably.” He said, taking another breath and reading the roughly carved letters in their back seat.
Dome erases writing memory. They have defense. Us unseen. Cam/pillar here. Check buffet.
The letters were sliced deeply into the rental car’s fake leather seat, but James could see how the start of Momo’s message had started to seal itself back up. It was also a real challenge to read; Momo’s penmanship was bad to begin with, and using a craft blade on the medium of ‘car’ didn’t improve it. James considered asking her what happened to her skill ranks in calligraphy, but the thought spun away from his thoughts before he could voice it. Thinking felt like slogging through mud.
”I-I’m s-scared.” Arrush chittered out quietly, just for James to hear.
James squeezed his claw. ”Yeah, I get ya. This kind of attack is… I’m never gonna get used to it.” He bit his lip, spending a moment considering if he’d just made a joke, and opted to simply move on. “Okay. Charlie, you doing okay?”
The normally stoic man frowned, looking down at the backs of his hands with a worried examination. “Not feeling great. Lotta random pains. Also breathing is hard.” He pulled the side of his shirt up and tried to look at his flank. Not that he had to; the noise of sympathy that Momo made at the massive black and purple bruise there was enough to let him know what he was trying to learn. “I think I got in a fight. What happened, after I left for the meeting?”
”You went to a meeting, got in a fight, and got thrown in church jail.”
”I got to be an anchorite?” Charlie’s bland sense of humor seemed unaffected.
James didn’t have time for it. “We tailed them to here, where they were planning to wipe your memory and cut you loose. Figured we’d pick you up and get a location for the other prisoners. But… well, turns out the memory attack is an AOE. Also you can’t breathe because it’s a hundred and ten degrees in here. Arrush, I love you, but I need my hand back to roll the windows down.”
He did so, venting the burning air out of the car and letting in the smell of hot desert air that had a suburb inflicted on it but hadn’t had the time to build up a layer of vehicle fumes. It smelled better than the car itself, at least.
”So…” Momo started. “Get Planner down here? Maybe every other infomorph we have? Kick in the door and take their shit? Take all the prisoners?”
”Take no prisoners.” Charlie corrected as an automatic response.
Momo clenched a fist in front of her face in a dramatic move she’d stolen from an anime. “No. Take their prisoners.” She reiterated.
”Good idea. Zhu, how’s…” James faltered, his anger and readiness to fight fading as he called his friend’s name and realized that he felt lighter than he should. “…Zhu?”
Heart thudding, James got at least a little relief in short order as a muffled voice came from under his shirt’s shoulder. “Let’s not do that again.” Zhu groaned like a faltering engine.
“You okay?” James already knew the answer.
Zhu took a moment to reply. To the others, the end result of what had happened was that they had been driving one second and parked the next and all the intervening time was a blank. Disorienting, for certain. Confusing, naturally. But painful? Well, maybe for Charlie. But for Zhu…
Despite the fact that navigators were, in a lot of ways, living maps, Zhu wasn’t a memeplex. He wasn’t actually free floating information that lived in an area; he existed as a pattern of possibly arcane thoughts and memories in parallel with the mundane functions of other minds. A huge part of his existence was, yes, maps and directions and routes and other such associated elements; and that was also the kind of thought that he rode like carrier waves. Which, unfortunately, meant that an attack like this didn’t just mess with his perception of reality, though it did do that too.
It also just hurt like hell. Much like how a human would feel a bit of a pinch if someone carved off a half pound of skin and muscle from one of their legs. Really, Zhu felt like he was doing a great job holding his manifestation together when his projecting self was reeling in agony. “I’ll live.” He told James. “But… don’t let a navigator go through that unless whoever they’re in has the purple for the map brain you do.” He felt like that sentence had some holes in it, but thinking felt hard right now.
Oh, he wasn’t lined up with James. They’d become offset. If Zhu didn’t trust James implicitly, he might be worried; this would be the perfect time for an unwilling host to break him off and leave him to die. But he did, so he focused on getting both of their thoughts back in fighting shape, instead of worrying about his own defenses.
”Where are Alice and Dance?” Charlie asked, speaking up over the sound of a few hundred cars going by outside their idling vehicle, midday traffic in full effect. “Are they okay?”
”Everyone else is fine.” James filled him in. “Or, at least, they were when we… okay! You know what? First order of business is getting back and getting in contact and-”
”No.” Charlie stopped everyone before they could place calls. “We don’t know if we’re being monitored now.” He pointed out at the road, as James and Momo both received skulljack communication requests. “Get us moving, we can get a hotel and make sure we aren’t bugged.”
”You think they wiretapped our car?” Momo asked, before instantly following up the message with, “No, yeah, I guess we wouldn’t know. Shit, what if they stole a skulljack? What if they’re listening to this?!”
”That would be bad. And the second part probably isn’t happening. Our encryption isn’t magically copyable, probably.” James supplied. “But irrelevant to this issue.” Out loud, he spoke to Arrush with a nod. “Take Zhu.” He said, prompting the navigator across their connection. Zhu’s weakened and lighter glowing orange feather-and-eyeball form rippled across their joined hands, taking on a ragged look as he grew across Arrush’s head and neck. He could guide their driver somewhere without having to speak or send anything at all, and he lit up a guideline in Arrush’s vision as soon as he was there.
They sat in nervous silence as they joined the flow of traffic and headed to a Comfort Inn a few miles away. No one was happy about how this had turned out, but at least Charlie was safe, and they could start making a plan for what to do about this shitty situation. For his part, James felt like he had a burning need to get a cork board and some red string while his thoughts were fresh. Momo just wanted to tell El and Speaky that she wasn’t dead yet. Charlie was more patient, but did want to let his team know he was okay.
In short order, and without anyone following them that they could find, they arrived at the hotel, checked into a room for the day on Charlie’s expense account, checked their clothes for mundane listening devices, had Zhu explain that he didn’t know how to check for magical listening devices, and decided this was probably they were going to get in terms of security.
When James turned his phone on, he had a few irate messages from his partners.
It was all a rather unpleasant way to start the day. And the worst part was, he was pretty sure he hadn’t actually slept since a tiny nap yesterday afternoon.
_____
Apparently, JP and Nate and the rogue side of the Order had already set up a doctrine for how to deal with… well, not this exact situation, but one that looked shockingly similar.
One of the rogues in training, along with Ben, popped out of a teleport somewhere nearby, and set upon the group. Rapidly sweeping for bugs, swapping out their phones, and taking the rental car away to be traded in for a less known one. The rental car part even included filling half the tank with repair gas so that Momo’s message on the back seat would fade, though after it was documented. Not that James planned to forget it anytime soon.
There was a pillar here. Not just here, in Utah; they knew that the Long Arm Of The Law could operate in the state. But here. Probably here here.
James didn’t like the thought. But he was going to have to get used to that feeling.
As soon as the rogues left, with James not even really getting a chance to meet the new guy or chat with Ben, they moved to an emergency strategy meeting involving the rest of the Order. James and three other selected representatives chosen from the roster mostly for their availability on short notice.
”This is beyond an investigation at this point.” JP opened with. And then, knowing the call was being watched by a good chunk of the Order and also probably recorded, introduced himself with his usual suave attitude. “Hi. JP. Rogues and assorted sundries.” There was a small pause, and then his end of the call caught him muttering. “No, I’m not introducing you too, and you can ask him yourself later. He just dresses like that. I know-”
”The importance of the having the full picture is critical.” Knife-In-Fangs spoke next, digital voice carrying enough background noise that James was pretty sure he was actually working in the kitchen at the moment as he cut off JP’s pointless side conversation. “Ah, hello. I am Knife-In-Fangs, knight and responder.”
The last person opted to introduce themselves first, just to shake things up. “Karen Ward, Recovery. Perhaps not the best selection for a security meeting, but quite a few of our people are out right now on delves and other things. Now, can someone fill me in on what we’re investigating exactly?”
”Yeah.” James took a deep breath. “Okay. So…” he paused, sitting cross legged on the end of the hotel bed as he tried to figure out how to explain this whole thing, the new phone propped up on the roughly upholstered chair he’d dragged to the middle of the room.
Momo intercepted his attempted explanation, shoving herself into the camera’s frame. “A group of kids found a dungeon, and told their parents, who told their church. The church started using one of the spells from the dungeon to brainwash kids as part of a special program thing, but it worked too well, and the kids kept delving on their own cause they wanted to do prove their devotion to god or something. So to control that, they capped access to spellbooks, and made up an excuse about demons attacking people with magic at night to keep everyone in check, except the demons are just their own summons - that’s right, yeah?” She glanced at James.
”Pretty sure. The guys who attacked Alice and Dance summoned some things, right?” Arrush, sitting on the floor by the room’s bathroom door and keeping himself out of shot, nodded slowly, grimacing at the memory. “Yeah. Right so far.”
”Okay.” Momo lost no momentum, launching back into her explanation. “So they’re using the magic to reinforce piety or something, the kids are setting up an underground ‘resistance’ network except instead of resisting they’re kind of accelerating, the church is putting some of the delvers who are problems in secret church jail, but also they’re recruiting whole families of people to go into different special non-jail? Because they think the world is going to end. So, like… they think they have an escape route or something?”
”Honestly?” James asked, sucking on his teeth. “My money is on ark.”
”Sure. Anyway there’s two different conspiracies, one that’s top level that’s doing the brainwashing, if they weren’t lying during their secret meeting, and one that’s a different group relocating a lot of ‘recruits’. Oh, and about half that second group are nonhuman shapeshifters pretending to be human.” Momo finished. Paused. Looked at James and forced out a breath. “My head hurts.”
James looked at his phone camera. “Does that help?” He asked. “Oh! Right, Momo wasn’t here for this part, but there’s either one guy or a group of a few guys who are planning a heist on the magically created gold hidden under one of the local meetinghouses. Or maybe temples? I’m gonna be honest, despite the lack of head injuries, I’m having a hard time keeping the terms straight. Anyway, he’s unrelated to the church conspiracy.”
”If I say that didn’t help, it’s won’t get better.” Karen answered dryly. “What are our options?”
JP cleared his throat. “Well, we could leave.” He opened with.
”Unacceptable.” Knife-In-Fangs countered. “People need help.”
”People need help in other places too.” JP replied before James could get a word in. “What are you accomplishing down there, that isn’t meddling in other people’s internal crap?”
James tightened up, feeling like JP was putting him on the defensive in a way that he was having a hard time dealing with emotionally at this particular moment. “At the very least, we know there’s a dungeon.” He said. “Minimum, I want to know about it. Possibly delve it if we can. But also, Knife-In-Fangs is right. There are people here who need help.”
“I have a concern.” Karen spoke with a heavy tone, and paused to make sure she was being given room to speak on the digital conference. “Is your issue that they are religious?”
”Mmh.” JP made a noise around sipping at his coffee. “Yeah, you do have a problem with that.”
”I had a problem with that in high school.” James snapped at his friend. “But also, I get why Karen is asking. No. My issue is entirely with the brainwashing of children.” He took a slow breath to compose himself. “And I’m not being hyperbolic about raising kids in a church. I mean, they are using magic and making victims who are happy to be victims. That’s not… even close to okay. The freedom to have a personal faith is one thing, the freedom for a hierarchical organization to dictate what you think before you’re allowed to get a driver’s license is another.”
JP didn’t look fully convinced. “I know it’s been a while since this last came up, but man, you know that you used to get pretty mad about-“
”What if it were the Sewer?” James’ snarled question cut across the call, and JP snapped his mouth shut so quickly James was pretty sure he heard his teeth clack. Karen and Knife-In-Fangs just watched him, appraising and curious respectively. To James’ side in the physical world, he saw Arrush’s tense form start twitching as the anxious ratroach heard mention of his origin dungeon. Around his shoulders, Zhu extended a gnarled wing and claw that settled with gentle pressure onto Arrush’s own hand, offering what comfort the navigator could with a touch and small whispers. “What if… what if we were talking about the Sewer here?” James repeated. “What if it was pressuring the emotionally live ratroaches and labratoads into using a magic that made them believe the Sewer was divine? They cast a spell on themselves, and it makes them fanatics, and so they’re happy to cast the spell again, and again, and again. To the point that they’re willing to kill or die for their god? What would we be doing?”
”Killing everything that thought that was a good idea.” Knife-In-Fangs supplied handily. “Already the only reason we have not attempted to kill the Akashic Sewer is its ability to move, and the presence of victims within it. So yes. We would react with aggression.”
”The problem is that it could force its creations to fight.” Karen pointed out, tapping a painted fingernail on her lips. “Ah. I see. You’re equating the social pressure. Which isn’t entirely unfair, when I was younger I knew people who couldn’t say no to their parents. I do somewhat understand.” She sighed. “But I would ask that we please not kill any of the leadership of a worldwide church?”
James reflexively tried to diffuse the situation with humor. “Only if they try to kill me first. And most of them are over eighty years old, so that seems unlikely.” He sighed, letting go of some of the tension. “Honestly, this second conspiracy? The… ark thing, or whatever? I have no problem with it. They’re being weird and creepy, but…”
”But we know the world is headed for trouble.” Knife-In-Fangs picked up what James was putting down. “They are not actually wrong. They are acting on… actually, why do they know that?”
”Coincidence?” JP asked, playing at naive optimism.
James suspected he knew. “Pillar.” He answered flatly. “Momo’s note mentioned one, but not a name. Oh, also a Camille. Could be Lloyd, but it’s probably not? Doesn’t really matter.”
”Feels like this matters.” Knife-In-Fangs replied. “Losing track though. What is your desired goal?”
James looked up at the popcorn ceiling of the small hotel room. “Remove their ability to do the brainwashing thing, which means getting ahold of the book that spell is from. Make peaceful contact with the other faction, see if we can arrange dungeon access through them. Ideally, get mandatory therapy for the victims, and whatever we’re calling what we did to the Alchemists for the perpetrators. And also learn what we can about the pillar in the area.”
”Sorry, was there something about… a gold heist? What the fuck have you been doing down there?” JP asked, clearly trying to manage his own headache. “You definitely said gold heist at some point. Is that not on your list of goals?”
”JP we produce twenty million dollars worth of platinum a month, I don’t give a single solitary fuck about if a bunch of Mormon wizards want to convert plastic waste into gold.” James answered honestly. “In fact, you know what? Good for them. Keep the oceans clean.”
Karen cleared her throat. “The scale of-“
”Oh I know.” James groaned, throwing up his hands. “Look, I’m not asking for permission to destroy all of organized religion today-“
JP took a sip of his coffee. ”Today.” He grumbled.
”…but I am asking that we do what we do. That we help people who are being hurt. I know that there’s stuff going on. I know I banished a bunch of new paladins to find us new problems. I know JP’s only half paying attention because he’d doing some potentially disastrous stuff in Alaska. I know we have delves and experiments and initiatives and all sorts of shit happening. I don’t need that much support, honestly, that’s the whole point of trusting me with paladin levels of magic. I just want a sanity check, okay?”
”You have my approval.” Knife-In-Fangs told him. “But I am biased.”
”In all honesty, I find the idea of forcing belief to be… uncomfortable.” Karen said, mouth settling into an unhappy line. “If you think you can do this without major issue, I am tentatively okay with letting you do so.”
JP rolled his eyes. “I’m sending you a couple people.” He said. “Because I can’t stop them anyway. You’ll thank me later. Especially since Charlie’s team probably doesn’t want to stick around.”
”They don’t. I checked.” James would miss the three of them, but they weren’t either combatants or diplomats. They were willing to hang around until the dungeon was located, just so they could get the experience for future scouting operations, but that was it. Alice and Charlie both individually had told James that they were unwilling to risk each other, or Dance, when that just weren’t prepared to fight other humans. Especially if they were enhanced in some way. “General approval?” He asked JP.
“Ninety percent.” JP checked the active internal vote the Order used for things like this. “Okay. Get back to work, you dumbass. And try not to embarrass us.”
”You do get that I regularly save people’s lives as a hobby, right?” James shot back at his friend, incredulous at JP’s attempt to make this look like a favor or something. “Whatever. Thank you to everyone.” He ended the call, let go of the tight control he was keeping on his mind and body, and flopped backward onto the uncomfortable hotel bed with a long groan of pain and exhaustion.
Momo popped her head up from where she was sitting on the floor opposite Arrush, her back against the bed. “Well that went well!” She said.
”You know…” James rolled onto his side, meeting Arrush and Zhu’s eyes where his partner and his less romantic partner were leaned against the wall, Arrush’s tail flicking nervously as he pulled at the chitin banded flesh with a couple of his hands. “I’m trying to be, you know… understanding. Not neutral, but empathic and tolerant and stuff. I’m holding back a lot from going in guns blazing and trying to fix this with overt hostility. But they’re brainwashing kids with magic, and saying it’s part of their beliefs, and I… I don’t know how to react to this. Should people have the right to alter their own kid’s brains? I don’t fucking think so.”
Arrush nodded. “Th-then stop there.” He said.
”What?” The momentary confusion on James’ face got a high pitched burst of laughter out of Momo as he propped himself up on an elbow to face Arrush more clearly.
The ratroach flushed neon green as he slunk down lower, the feeling of having a conversation with less known people in the room still not comfortable to him. “Stop.” He reiterated. “You think it is wrong. That’s all. You said, just then, what if it were my… the Sewer.” Arrush coughed lightly, his voice rasping as he struggled with speaking while his lungs were in the regrowth phase. “Your world is normal to you. You’re used to them. I… I understand. But s-so far, they j-just look like more monsters to me.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
James rolled back to sit on the edge of the bed, before sliding himself off to drop to the floor, scooting over until he was next to Arrush. He sighed, worries and anxieties clawing at his thoughts about a half dozen different things, as he leaned lightly on his boyfriend’s flank. “You know… I’m so fucking embarrassed about Earth sometimes.” He said.
While Arrush gave him a nervous chitter, Momo gave her own dramatic groan. “Oh man, yeah. Fucking sucks! When I’m hanging out with Cheha or Paper-And-Words and we go on walks, I get fucking secondhand humiliation from other people littering.”
“…That is… technically like what I meant, yes.” James slowly tried to find a way to say “Yes, but also no.”
Arrush got it though. “You want things to be better. And you’re going to try. And I will help.” He nodded. “I’m… I’m tired. It’s making me… uh… ah… this.” He held up two of his claws, trying to hold them flat but having a hard time as he kept trembling and clenching muscles without meaning to. “Don’t like it.”
”Okay.” James said. “Let’s get back to the safehouse. You can nap, I’ll check in with whatever poor dumbasses JP roped into this, talk to Lincon, start making a plan of attack…” he nodded to himself. Break what needed to be done into manageable parts. “Oh, gotta figure out who exactly we’re kicking down the door of, too. Obviously.”
“That kind of attention to detail is why we’re friends!” Momo declared. “And also why we have a SWAT team!”
”The shield teams aren’t…” James didn’t finish that sentence. Especially because he knew that half of their training actually literally was SWAT team field exercises.
Momo nodded like she could hear his thoughts. Which, really, he wouldn’t put past her. “Also I like the diplomacy thing. I don’t really like how all the Status Quo people we meet are ‘kill or be killed’. I’d much rather make allies with these guys.”
”Wellllll.” Zhu drawled out. “The people who aren’t summoning demons into suburbia.”
”Yeah thanks man. Not them.”
James shook his head, squeezing Arrush’s oddly placed ‘shoulder’ in a comforting move before starting to push himself upright. “Okay, I want out of this conversation before Momo tries to explain diplomacy and makes me question my decision.”
A few minutes later, they were back at the safehouse, and James got to meet the dumbasses who’d been roped into this.
Anesh found the title to be a little uncalled for. But they still got down to business right away anyway.
_____
After James had been greeted by Anesh and Arrush had been similarly assaulted by a hug from Keeka, he took care of a goodbye.
”It’s been fun working with you.” James said, shaking Charlie’s hand before moving to Alice. She was dead on her feet, and yawned through trying to say something. “I agree, we should do this again sometime.” James smiled, the caffeine he’d replaced his blood with doing work along with his relatively new Energy stat to keep him perked up.
”We’re gonna go do nothing for a week then go look at a museum.” Dance informed him, pausing briefly before adding, “The museum might be haunted!”
”…c-cool.” James didn’t know what the hell to say to that.
Charlie shook his head slightly. “We can’t prove that, obviously. And yes, it was good to make some actual progress for once. Next time, maybe we can do it with less shooting and kidnapping.”
James winced. “I’ll… see what I can arrange?” He offered.
He felt really, really bad about how things had gone. His own presence, and the way he went about pushing buttons to try to sus out new leads, had a basically straight line of connection to Alice getting shot and Charlie getting imprisoned and mildly memory wiped. And despite being smart people, who were happy to help the Order in their role as scouts, and who had more than a few magic tricks and skill ranks, none of them were combatants. Not really. James was honestly relieved to see them off. He didn’t want anyone getting hurt, but he wanted this weird little found family to get hurt less than most.
The trio teleported away, leaving the rental home they were using as a base a little quieter. James would probably have to take over the cooking, too, which sounded exhausting right now. He already missed Charlie making breakfast for them.
The addition of new people offset the difference. Sure, Charlie’s group were gone, but Anesh and Keeka were here. And Myles and Yin leaving had been replaced by Momo, Rho, and Ink-And-Key, who James noticed seemed to relax slightly now that he was the only camraconda in the living room.
”You okay?” James asked.
”Ah. Yes, I am… yes. Well, no.” Ink-And-Key arched his heavy form into an arc, tilting his head as he considered whether to reply. “Speaking with Dance is… odd? Odd. Or uncomfortable.” He looked around at the others, mostly ignoring the conversation as they were in the middle of unpacking or looking over the notes the group had made so far. Like he was waiting to be reprimanded. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be mean. She is just very human.”
James winced again. “Ah.” He said, feeling like an idiot for not having anything more to say.
“In a way it is good. But it makes me worry about her. And me.” The titanic white cabled camraconda let out a huff of air that turned into an unintentional hiss. “This is not important.”
”It feels important.” James said with a shrug. “But, I guess I can understand it feeing like it’s maybe not the most pressing thing in the world to deal with. So. Hey!” He called out, not loudly enough to panic anyone he hoped. “Everyone huddle up! We need to plan our next move.”
In short order, the living room was filled up again. Anesh, Keeka, and Arrush claimed the couch; the smaller ratroach looking intermittently determined and focused, and just deeply happy with being surrounded by boyfriends. Zhu was still being worn by Arrush, but looked half asleep, which was a bizarre thing for someone who only selectively had an exhaustable body. Momo took the floor by the armchair, Ink-And-Key took the chair itself, and James wondered what the hell those two were thinking sometimes. Rho sitting on the floor was normal, Momo sitting on the floor just reminded James that she was dealing with a possibly permanent injury. Lincon joining them was unexpected, but the nervous teenager, once he got over freezing in fear at the presence of a second ratroach as he came up from the basement, took one of the chairs at the kitchen table to listen in.
“Okay.” James said. “First priority is diplomatic contact. We need to find and approach some of the people from our bonus conspiracy, without letting them get the drop on any of us this time. Having contact will give us a more constant source of information, and an in for applying leverage against their other, shittier conspiracy. Yes, Lincon, you have a question?” James pointed at the young man raising his hand politely, heads turning from the group to follow his finger.
”…what’s the second conspiracy? Is it… us?” He asked with badly concealed suspicion.
”Us, as in, you and the other rebels, us as in the delvers that tipped over too far into fanaticism, or us as in us in this room?” Anesh asked. “Because it’s none of those.”
James gave a lopsided smile at his boyfriend. “Not sure why you-“
“Yes, yes, I got ahead of myself. You’ve been rubbing off on me.”
”Yeah you-“
”Momo shut the fuck up.” James held a hand in her direction as he found call to say that for a second time today. “Please.” He tried to show that he wasn’t actually angry, just a bit exhausted, and he was pretty sure she got it since she was still grinning to herself. “Lincon, the second conspiracy are the people ‘kidnaping’ larger groups. They’re… well, they’re moving people to somewhere they think is safe, in preparation for the end of the world. We think.”
Lincon looked around at the group of Order knights. “That’s really stupid.” He said.
”Uh…” Momo cleared her throat. “Am I still shutting the fuck up?” She asked James.
”No, no, go ahead.”
”Yeah, sorry kid, world might be ending.” Momo shrugged.
Keeka twisted between Anesh and Arrush to look over the back of the couch, his smoothed claws pushing divots into the padded material as he held on. “It might not! James is working on it!” He sounded happily optimistic about the whole thing as Arrush trailed an uncertain claw down the back of his chitinous neck.
”Wait… if you’re… if the world is… but…” Lincon’s eyes started to water, the broad shouldered teen shooting to his feet as he snapped his gaze around at them. “What are you doing here then?!” He shouted at them.
”…people like you need us here.” James said simply, like it was that obvious. And Lincon was so stunned by the blunt statement that didn’t happen in the real world often enough for him to have ever heard anything like it that he sat back down with a thump. “Now. The second conspiracy - I’m gonna call them Arkists, since we’re all pretty sure they’re loading people into a dungeon, right? That just seems… like the most likely leap in logic here?” He got thumbs up from Momo and Arrush, and a bobbing nod from Ink-And-Key. “Cool. The Arkists aren’t all human. As a heads up, Momo and I estimate, what, thirty percent some kind of shapeshifter?”
“But…” Lincon’s broken voice stalled James again. “The ones that shapeshift… they’re still demons. They’re evil. All of them are evil. Aren’t… aren’t they?” He looked at James with eyes on the verge of dripping tears, like he just wanted any validation for what he’d been told, or maybe what he’d been doing.
James didn’t give it to him. He’d told Lincon early on that he wasn’t going to lie to the young man, and he stuck to that. Mostly because James kind of hated lying. “Lincon, I need you to understand how entirely ahistorical that is to me. There’s, like, at least two kinds of shapeshifter in the Order, and they’re all co- okay one of them is cool. Whatever Prince and Ruby actually are as a species, they’re kinda assholes as individuals. But they’re assholes in that way where I say they’re assholes and then I’d still throw down to protect them if they needed me. One of the guys helping to run this operation, Ben, is shapeshifter adjacent, and the most nefarious thing he does is forget that he doesn’t have to lie about his backstory.”
”You will feel worse to know I may qualify as well.” Rho said. Lincon stared at Rho in silence, eyes getting somehow wider, not replying to the comment.
Arrush looked between the two of them. “Oh.” He commented roughly. “You did not meet Rho.”
”The dog talks.” Lincon’s voice was the kind of tone someone used when they’d just been way too overloaded and couldn’t experience any more surprise for the day.
”I may not legally qualify as a dog.” Rho informed him. “I may be a type of shapeshifter.” He left it at that, cold inhabitor-controlled canine eyes staring at Lincon.
”…hi.” Lincon’s reply was small and scared and tired, but James would give the kid a lot of credit; he was trying. The little hesitation there, where he stopped himself from saying something angry, that was kind of a key ability for a good knight. When this was over, James was going to offer Lincon a job. He wanted to see what the young man could do with support, training, resources, and not being hunted by an evil church.
James stretched his arms over his head, feeling the ache of his larger wound and the irritation of the dozens of little scratches and bruises he’d picked up so far. “Alright!” He said with a content exhalation. “So! Let’s hear some ideas.”
Momo got the first word out, but her suggestion was to go burn down every building that any of them had been in, excepting the current one. James felt like she maybe wasn’t taking things seriously, but he also knew that Momo kinda did a more extreme version of what he did, and used humor to screen for how deeply afraid she was of having her mind fucked with.
There was a not insignificant part of James that pushed him to give in to that impulse for solving problems with violence. But he really, really wanted that part of him to shut the fuck up. Combat was supposed to be a last resort, the thing that happened when everything else broke down and self-defense was the only thing left. It wasn’t supposed to be a casually applied tool, because when it was, you got shadowy conspiracies that were totally fine killing the people they said they were helping just to make an unconfirmed problem go away. You got people that thought that car bombs and attack helicopters were solutions.
”Ink-And-Key, you look like you have a thought, save me from this.” James said instead of replying to Momo.
The camraconda’s idea was a little less violent, but also would take more time or people than they had at the moment. Since they knew that the delver side of this conspiracy was being run by one of the church’s apostles - or at least their office - why not simply start tracking all of them until they found who it was, and talk to them directly? Of course, there were thirteen of them - James had to google that - and the fact that they only had intelligence that it was from one of their offices, which included some fairly large staff numbers in some cases, it could take a while to narrow it down.
Also it didn’t get them in contact with the side of the conspiracy that they wanted to talk to. The side that was maybe open to an alliance, and not a threat to human freedom.
Anesh at that point asked why they didn’t simply talk to the bishop that had kidnapped Charlie, since they knew he was part of that conspiracy, but James actually did have a reason not to. That guy, Anderson, was both dangerous, and entirely on board with the delver side. They needed someone who was mostly invested in the other part. They also needed to find someone who they could get a clean answer about the shapeshifters from, just in case they were about to cause a new problem.
”What about…” Arrush pointed at the youngest human in the room, and everyone again turned to Lincon, who looked like he was halfway between terrified of the ratroach and terrified of being the center of attention.
”What about me?” Lincon’s voice cracked as he sat up straight in his chair, until he actually figured it out before James could tell him. “Oh wait, shit! I know where the entrance is! A few of them!”
James bowed his head and pressed his fingertips into his forehead, cool skin feeling comforting even through the scrapes he’d gotten scaling a building… was that yesterday? Time was starting to blur together for him. “I had, I admit, entirely forgotten about that.” He told them. “Okay. Wait, a few.”
”We know dungeons can have multiple doors. The Office does it.” Anesh pointed out. “Even if we still can’t find more than two of the bloody things.”
“Yeah, there’s one in the Smith’s parking lot near where I li… where I used to live. There’s one in the movie theater parking lot by Em’s house. And there’s two in the really big parking structure at the mall.” Lincon said.
Turning and pointing dramatically at the person sitting on the floor, James raised his eyebrows. “Momo?”
”On it. Smith’s is a grocery store? You have a Smith’s in North Smith’s? This place is weird.”
Ink-And-Key loomed over her as she compared maps and notes, custom skulljack programs letting her keep a lot more information active than most humans could. “I am not even human, and I know why. Do you not read history?”
”I don’t have a Lesson for it.” Momo said without looking up at the hundred pounds of camraconda hanging over her head.
”When she says ‘lesson’…?” Lincon whispered to James, who wasn’t really paying attention and was also looking at google maps in his head.
Keeka was paying attention though, and he answered. “The dungeon that Arrush and me come from makes books that give you Lessons.” He said, and Lincon did his best to meet the quintet of differently shaped eyes pointed his way. “If you study the subject, it makes you stronger!” The happy grin on Keeka’s long muzzle slipped slightly, whorls of chitin shifting as he dipped his head down to the couch. “It’s…” he tried to think of something to say, and failed.
Arrush and Anesh both shifted closer to him at the same time, the human giving the ratroach opposite their boyfriend an amused smile. Anesh spoke quietly. “It’s alright. You don’t need to be optimized.” Keeka nodded, sighing as he settled back onto the couch, folding his legs as he sat the wrong way, still idly watching Lincon.
”Can I have one?” Lincon asked.
”Probably.” James said offhandedly. “Alright. We’ve got the addresses. Now to split up.”
”Now?!” Anesh demanded.
Arrush nodded slowly. “That seems… bad…”
”Well, it’s not that bad. Momo, you’re with me, we’re going to go visit the place where we got mind wiped, and follow up on the note you left to check out the… buffet.” Saying that out loud made James feel kinda dumb. “Everyone else, including you Lincon if you’re up for it, I want you to go to the each entrance and confirm it and get more specific details. Is there a time window or anything?” Lincon shook his head. “Okay. Take quick looks if you think it’s safe. After that, we’ll meet up and start a stakeout, while Planner keeps working on finding addresses for the names we got from the meeting. Any questions?”
Anesh had one. “What happens,” he asked with obvious exasperation, “when you end up kidnapped?”
”That’s why Momo’s coming.” James said happily. “And… actually, Zhu, you okay going with them?” The navigator gave a sleepy motion of ascent, still sitting on Arrush’s shoulders. “Yeah. The intent here is that I make at least neutral contact with whatever pillar is here. Or at least get eyes on them. If it’s Blitzkrieg or the Chain Breaker… I don’t know what to do about that. But we know Lloyd can be talked to at least. And there are others, too.” James took a steadying breath. “And if things go wrong… you all won’t be there.” He said.
”Except me I guess?!” Momo gave him a wide eyed incredulous look. “You know the studs on the jacket don’t actually do anything, right? I’m not armored against demigods.”
Anesh stood up from the couch, moving over to grab James’ shoulders and pull him into a tight hug. “If you get hurt,” he muttered in his boyfriend’s ear, “Alanna is going to murder you.”
”You too, probably. So we’d better hope that doesn’t happen.” James replied in the same low voice, returning the hug before they broke apart. “Alright. We’ve got a plan. Now let’s get to it.”
____
“On an adjusted scale, how important was it to ditch everyone else?” Momo asked.
James shut the car’s door, pocketing the keys as he stood and stretched. It had been a while since he’d been the one driving. Being chauffeured around by Arrush was a novel experience, but one that reminded him how much he preferred to be the one behind the wheel. “Adjusted for what.” His voice came out harsher than he meant, the last day and night blurring together into an exhausted mess where his Endurance and Energy could only do so much to give him a real second wind.
Momo shrugged, checking the hundred and one pockets she had on her black jacket and cargo pants for the various tools she’d brought along. “Our bullshit.” She said simply.
“Six or seven.” James answered. “Arrush, Keeka, Zhu, and Ink are all out, because if we run into a Camille, I don’t want her trying to kill any of them. Lincon is… I mean, when I was his age, I’d be pissed, but he’s nineteen. He’s not ready for something like this yet. And Anesh is there to keep an eye on them. And cause I don’t want him getting hurt either.”
“Mmh. Wait, hey!” Momo trailed after James, leaning into a jog as she caught up with him walking across the street during a lull in traffic and approaching the strip mall they’d been caught out at yesterday. “Does that mean you’re fine with me getting hurt?”
James sighed, breathing the unfamiliar air and wishing there was a little less exhaust fume and a little more desert in the scents. “It means I’m counting on you if things go wrong.” James said.
”Oh.” Momo didn’t know how to take that. “Uh… don’t?” She said cautiously. “I mean, I’ve got a bunch of stuff to back you up with but I don’t think I can fight a Camille, and I know I’m not fighting a pillar. Do you really think there’s one here?”
”I think I’m not gonna be surprised.” James answered as they started to circle the edge of the strip mall’s parking lot. There were a couple furniture retailers, a sporting goods store, a place that sold fabric and other craft supplies, and a few chain restaurants too, all of them in the massive box store floor plans this place was renting out. And in the middle of the weird linked horseshoe shape of the shopping center, between a derelict pet store and a couple places that were just for lease and entirely empty, one of those restaurants was a buffet.
Or at least, it advertised itself that way. The windows were tinted and the front door had a yellowing cracked paint on it that made it look like the least appealing place to eat on the planet. In fact, while there were a few other people walking around and cars in the lot on this breezy yet warm Thursday, not a single person headed for the buffet. None of them even glanced at it.
”Quick check.” James said offhandedly. “Does this place…”
”Oh, yeah, no, it doesn’t have a name!” Momo sounded amused. “Also the totem I have to finding… actually that’s not important. What matters is it’s not a restaurant.” She rubbed her hands together in front of her face with an excited grin. “I’ve never raided a front business before! This is so cool! How much Velocity do you have stored up? We can coordinate Paving people when we walk in!”
James was starting to regret not bringing everyone along to just storm the building. “This is just checking things out.” He said.
”Suuuuure.” Momo sounded sure of exactly one thing, and it was the opposite.
”I’m serious. I’m here to see if there’s a pillar, and if it does come up, maybe teleport a few kids out of the secret prison. That’s all.” He tilted his head up, looking at the speckled clouds overhead, like white waves against an endless sea. “And I just happened to want the people I care about a little bit out of the line of fire. How many shield bracers do you have on?” He asked.
”Eight!” Momo said happily. “See, I knew-“
”I have six Velocity right now.” James answered her earlier question.
Momo squinted at him, and not because of the sunlight irritating eyes that were used to her underground cave of a home. “Six?” She asked as they approached the door. “Didn’t you have a whole thing about being the person trusted with a fuckload of magic? Mister paladin? And your cap is six?”
”My cap is eight, I just only have six. I’ve been focusing on… uh…” James didn’t have a great excuse. “Look, the copier ritual is good for other things.”
”Yeah? Well I’ve got thirty six, and it’s all compressed right now, and most of it is just from hanging out with my… with El, in the Route. You can do that too!”
”I can hang out with your girlfriend?” James smirked as he set a hand on one of the door’s curved metal handles.
”She’s… I mean… look, we’re… it’s complicated!” Momo flipped him off as she ran out of words. “Besides the point is I can magic missile more things than you!”
James stared at her. ”I’ve got a gun.” He said, trying not to laugh. “Let’s do this.”
The two of them pulling the doors open weren’t exactly in sync, but Momo caught up soon enough and yanked her side open, the two of them walking in across the filthy linoleum of the entryway and into the hollowed out shell of what used to be a chinese food buffet.
Both of them felt the pressure telling them to look away. To ignore this place. That it wasn’t worth it. But it was a kind of casual memetic effect; the sort of thing that the Order actively trained people to notice and resist. Not only that, but it was clearly at a level designed to keep people from ever wanting to each Chinese food from the place that looked like its last health inspection had happened before the invention of the internet. It wasn’t going to keep them out.
The interior actually made James think they just bought a failing buffet and made use of it. All the serving lines and booths were still in place, with only a few places where fixtures had been removed. Small squares in the old carpet where it had been stripped away and left behind exposed plywood floor.
It smelled like old shrimp. A qualia that made James deeply uncomfortable.
The other thing that made James uncomfortable was that he could see through a couple of arched gaps in the wall to the right, that the seating area there had been more thoroughly redesigned. Everything pulled out, and what looked like shoddily constructed brick walls put up with heavy metal doors denoting rooms. Or maybe cells. He wasn’t at a great angle to see just walking in, but it looked like the back of house area had undergone a similar treatment.
Some of the doors James could see were cracked open. Many were not. And if it weren’t for one important thing, he and Momo would already be trying to break those doors open.
The important thing was that one of the tables in the middle of the room was occupied. Two men in polo shirts and slacks stood to either side of it, standing at attention with blank looks on their faces. While at the table, sitting with proper posture despite the cracked red padding of the bench that surrounded it, was a man in a black suit.
His features shifted as James tried to look at him. Not excessively; his face maintained an Asian ancestry, however artificial. And his hair, despite changing lightly in color and length, never became anything that wouldn’t be out of place in a board room. “Pillar.” He muttered to Momo.
”But of course I am.” Said the man, not looking up. “Come. Sit. Just you.”
James elbowed his companion. “Start cracking doors and or skulls.” He said. “You good?”
”You have no idea how good I am.” Momo replied with a vicious smile, hand dipping into a back pocket of her coat and dumping a pile of pencils out. They trailed down toward the floor for a second in a waterfall of sharpened wood, before arresting their fall and moving up to orbit her head in a structured dance. “Have fun. Yell if I need to get out of here.”
James nodded, and the two of them shared a fist bump before he walked over to the table, took a look at the two unspeaking attendants, and sat down. “Which one are you?” He asked, voice neutral but still with an implied impoliteness just because of what he chose to open with.
”You may call me Aku. Please, no nicknames.” The pillar said, pouring himself tea from the blue stone pot at the table’s center.
The name was one James recognized, because he recognized all the pillar names they knew. “Ah. A Necessary Evil.” He took a long breath. “Okay. We’re sitting here, talking. So. What do you want?”
The pillar smiled, the expression appearing on his face in a blink, a small and sharp line of amusement. “I should think that would be obvious.” He said. “After all, you came when you were called. You are one of mine, and I am here, in short, to chat.”
Every instinct of James’ told him that this was a bad idea. That he should be running for the door. That something was wrong, or that he was sitting down over some kind of supervillain pit trap, or that he was making a mistake.
But despite that. Despite the obvious danger from this unassuming person shaped thing, despite his reservations about being here, despite his panic about the fact that he was apparently called here…
James straightened his back, leaned one wrist onto the table, and met the pillar’s eyes.
”Okay.” He said calmly, skulljack already set to both record and send out the whole interaction. “Let’s chat.”