Something was in progress at one of the administration towers.

This I discovered by switching to the section of the Garrison’s construct displaying all of the people. Flinpen, whom I could still clearly sense recovering from sun exposure outside, wasn't on it, invisible to the local system. Everyone else, with occasional random exceptions, was busy clustering around the town's central landmark.

Further investigation revealed why: One of the attention-seeking notifications I’d pushed to the periphery proved to be a related mass update. Like the map, it delivered information in a kind of conceptual precision, not unlike a Chapel summons or tracer from the Machine.

The Garrison was apparently under attack.

This was backed up by several subsequent and increasingly frantic notifications calling for assistance with wraiths.

Straining my ears, I heard nothing outside but distant birdsong, brisk footsteps, and the squeaking sound I was beginning to associate with rotating lenses. The Brightman had warned me not to leave the room under any circumstances, but I cracked the door open to peer briefly outside. The immediate walkway remained peaceful and quiet.

I dropped the last of the broken glass into the room's metal pan and twisted the construct towards zooming in on the crowds. Er Jid had joined the central commotion and didn’t seem like she’d be back anytime soon.

By contrast, the Brightman had gone in the opposite direction and was currently departing one of the supply centres. The construct identified him as Chi Ohon. Fascinated, I watched his return stroll up the covered street until he opened the door of the healing centre.

He took in the destruction with a diplomatic expression. “I see you’ve discovered the map.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, a little taken aback.

“You weren’t surprised. It’s also the most obvious feature.”

A plain fabric bag hung over his shoulder, and he dropped it on the remnants of the bed with a solid clunk. “Something to wear. Your jumpsuit might suffice, but most foreign outfits won't last in the suns. When you need to clean it, look on the map for a wash house.”

I pulled it out. A multi-layered garment in cream and soft tan, the fabric was thin but rich and surprisingly heavy. What looked like an equally heavy blue shawl and boots accompanied it. “Just one?”

“It’s all you need. You’re welcome to collect another from a supply house, but space might become an issue.”

“I did notice that,” I commented. “Why is everything here so small?”

He pointed one finger upwards towards the ceiling, which didn’t answer my question. “You’re feeling much better,” the doctor noted. “What changed?”

I shrugged. There was no good answer, so I didn’t try to provide one. “I don’t know.”

He raised one disapproving eyebrow at the shattered lenses in the pan. “Luckily, we can replace those. The rest of the room will be harder. We don’t have many beds. Do try not to damage your first impression further. There’s also one more item in the bag.”

I looked again and retrieved a small circular earring from the bottom, easy to miss. Naturally, it contained another lens. Its colour was darker and seemed to be composed of several filtered layers placed on top of each other. Within them I noticed a dim refracted glow, as if light had been permanently trapped inside.

“I cut this for you,” said Chi, taking out his light tube and rotating its base. “Give me your ear.” He pinched the lobe between his fingers and clicked the side of the tube. I felt a brief prick of pain, and he snapped the earring into place. He widened the breadth of the light and shone it through for a few seconds. “Don’t remove this. It’ll mask your contamination. If anyone asks, you have a solar sensitivity condition.”

“Why do you say ‘contamination’?” I asked with a frown.

“Because that’s what it is. Fortunately, we caught it early. Whatever you did to acquire it must never happen again. Do you understand?"

It was a bit late for that, I thought.

"If that earring ever comes off or breaks," the Brightman continued, "you must see me immediately. It’ll need refreshing at least every twelve hours. Leadership will expect you to leave this world, but you must insist on this timeframe for coming back.” With a rough grip, he put a hand on each of my shoulders and looked me dead in the eyes. “Do not share this information with anyone, regardless of how kind they seem. Your life depends on it.”

“I understand,” I said gravely.

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“Good. Now get changed and come with me.”

Dressed in the Garrison’s heavy fabric, I followed Chi Ohon down its enclosed streets, aware of Flinpen following from a discreet distance. Second-tier made the weight trivial to carry, though I was still unused to the new mechanisms inside me. I chose my steps carefully, worried that something might break. Every time the light fluctuated, my whole body would readjust, making it a struggle not to continually twitch.

“What else does Function do, other than maps?” I asked to provide some distraction.

“It’s our database. The database,” he qualified. “Everything on it is public – to us – so don’t go adding private information.” His tone switched to one of pride. “It’s one of a kind; the chart to all of existence. Or will be one day. We’re incredibly privileged to have access to it and contribute to its completion.”

“You don’t believe it’s sacred, do you?”

He sighed. “The religious side of the Garrison is hard to reconcile, but I don’t come from a spiritual background. The community has many old traditions; some based in fact and some in fiction. The Empire was real; that’s fact. Was it ruled by a god? Harder to say. It’s possible, however, that the Empire was responsible for creating Function regardless. Our predecessors couldn’t have built the network we have today, but we know that they accessed the Vein. Any civilisation capable of that is by default advanced.”

“But there’s more to it, right? Er Jid used it to actively create a path. She also reprogrammed the death games in the GIA without knowing anything about them.”

The Brightman nodded. “Function can achieve that in the Vein, where matter is malleable. Such manipulations won’t work outside it. As for the reprogramming, that would have been the work of a specialisation. They’re segments of highly condensed and focused Function. Extremely rare and powerful.”

I perked up and keenly listened in. That sounded a lot like an augment.

Chi Ohon didn’t miss my reaction. “Yes, not unlike you. But minus the contamination.”

He turned up a staircase and beckoned me along a thin balcony, stopping at another unmarked door. Learning, I looked at it through the database map and found it clearly labelled ‘Ti Du’ in a block of residential housing. As with the healing centre, there was no lock on the door.

“This will be your room,” Chi said. “Feel free to explore the city. Someone will find you before long to provide instruction. Remember what I told you and reveal nothing about your condition. This is not a safe place for you.”

Placing his fists together in front of him, he gave a nod and departed.

I stepped through. My single ‘room’ comprised barely a box; tinier even than the healing centre. A simpler set of lenses crossed the ceiling with the obligatory shuttered skylight. Simple mosaicked shelves layered one wall and a metal chair sat in the shadows next to the other. There was no bed, no bathroom and nowhere to prepare food. Placing the bag with my jumpsuit on one of the shelves, I sat on the chair, confused.

Checking the map told me all the abodes were similarly tiny. Privacy left a lot to be desired. I could see the names of my neighbours and whether they were at home. For the moment, it seemed to be just me.

I zoomed out to the city level again and further still, surprised at how far it could keep going. Outside the city borders, occasional waypoints and caches had been marked in the system. I found a single cluster of people walking between two of them. The rest were deserted. The further I zoomed, the fewer markings I found and the older their entries were dated. After a certain point they stopped occurring, and the map became empty. It stayed that way no matter how far I zoomed.

I ran an arm through the spotlight in the room, feeling its workings adjust impulsively. Trying to tell me something. After some consideration, I swung the skylight cover aside leaving the daylight unfiltered, and allowed my skin to open. Lenses fanned out of the spaces beneath and tilted to the sky.

It felt more intuitive; this universe’s version of refuelling. Everything people needed could be taken from the suns. The Garrison did count as an advanced world, I supposed, for all its more obvious shortcomings. Despite Er Jid’s warning, I felt at no risk of an overdose; my body seemed able to adjust for that on autopilot.

The corners of my lips turned up. Even without the usual accompanying augment, being at second-tier was a notable improvement. Another goal obtained.

Since making my list on Myrd, I’d achieved several of my chosen objectives: repairs and advancement among them, even if it wasn’t the way I’d imagined. I’d wanted long-term friends and ended up dragging Flinpen with me, and though I hadn’t yet figured out the purpose behind the sigils, was well along the way. Near Miss had been working fast. The most difficult goal to achieve had been figuring out Near Miss itself, and even there, I’d made some small progress.

None of it felt like my own doing, but like I’d been puppeteered into it by forces outside my control.

“Because I don’t control you,” I acknowledged aloud. “We’re cooperating. You’re holding up your end of the bargain –” even if it did alternately cause me distress, “– and I’ll keep performing mine.”

However bad I had it, however unfair – I was at least the one in control of our body. The alternative had to be worse. A shiver swept through me at the thought of being trapped and immobile, unable to be heard with my only means of communication being to pull the strings of Fate.

Was that what Arches were?

Was that what they all were?

In response to my change in mood, my lenses shifted in the light to form new combinations over my skin. I pulled them back in before they got very far, and followed suit with the rest. I didn’t want to feel better about this. Shaken, I pushed back the chair and stepped back into the shadows.

How often had I had this conversation and others like it without really considering what it meant? Always in terms of what I wanted and how to get it. Odd how you could go over the same idea a hundred times, comprehend it at a surface level and have it never truly sink in. Maybe it was the influence of second-tier changing me.

“Whatever you are, I promise I’m on your side,” I vowed, and meant it. Fate help me. “I’m going to help you. You’re a damn Arch; if we can’t do it, no one else has a hope.”

I needed a test. Something safe and small that wasn’t going to send my life spiralling off in a new direction and didn’t matter if it ended either way. Pulling my jumpsuit out of its bag, I scrunched it into a ball and held the rolled-up cloth above my head. “Miss me if you understand.”

I let go.

And for the love of Fate, Near Miss triggered.