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“I’m wanted…”
“WAANT-EEED,” screamed a crowd from one of the bars up ahead of Paul, their cry ringing out into the night.
“Dead or alive…”
This wasn’t what Paul was expecting. Aramis had painted the area as a gross cesspool of drunkenness and fornication, but the strip of bars and restaurants and shops set up next to the docks were just like any other strip of bars and restaurants and shops he’d ever seen.
In fact, they were clearly intended to look familiar to him. They were all Promethean in design, which, now that he thought about it, made perfect sense. If this was a part of the city where preyvedes spent a lot of time, of course there would be homages to the world they’d all come from. The architecture was simple and utilitarian and used a lot of steel and concrete and glass. Paul entered the bar and grill that he’d heard the poorly-sang Bon Jovi leaking out from, walking past glass doors propped open.
The place wasn’t really nice, but it wasn’t terrible. The dark lighting made it hard to tell, anyway. A middle-aged, slightly overweight woman in jeans that had horizontal slashes all up and down the legs and a too-small tank top was running a karaoke machine which an auburn-skinned, weasely-looking man was singing into. The words to the song floated in thin air just above windows facing the street. The guy was putting his all into ruining each of them.
“I walk these streets…a loaded six-string on my back…”
Paul walked behind him, past the bar, past women and men. Some were in groups. Some were alone. Some groups were a mix of preyvedes and human but most of them, sitting at booths along the walls or tables encircling the bar, were homogeneous. Fire preyvede with fire preyvede, water preyvede with water preyvede, and so on. The mixing of races was, as Paul expected, mostly between men and women.
Paul recognized the beer as the pale stuff that he remembered being the norm back home. Conversely, Pan liked amber ales and dark lagers and black smoked beers.
“Oh, sorry,” said an extremely attractive human woman as she leaned back laughing and bumped into Paul as he passed by. She had been laughing at a joke that a creepy-looking fire preyvede had just told her, a preyvede who looked twice her age, which meant he was probably four times her age or more. The preyvede glared hungrily at her as she relaxed forward from laughing and drank more of her beer.
Paul continued walking deeper into the bar. There was a very young-looking water preyvede girl who was talking rapidly and cheerfully to the seemingly ageless-looking and physically huge stone preyvede man she was leaning against, who merely nodded at the things she said as he idly twisted her long hair around his fingers. She caught Paul looking at her and smiling brightly with her white teeth and white-gold eyes, still not missing a beat in her discourse to her huge boyfriend.
Paul sucked in a breath and looked away as blood rushed away from his head. Susie. He was here to figure out how to get back to Susie. The image of the water preyvede girl’s eyes burned in his mind, try as he might to shake the image away.
He sat down at a half-sized table at the very back of the place, next to a table with an older, light-gray-skinned stone preyvede woman who was reading a zine and sipping coffee. She was dressed far more conservatively than most of the women in there, but had the stockings-and-short-skirt look that was very popular right now in Hempstock.
A man with his hair done up in an elaborate bun walked up to Paul. “Like anything?”
Paul looked up at him. “Iced tea?”
The man nodded and walked off.
The stone preyvede woman laughed a ragged, smoker’s laugh and smiled at Paul. “Iced tea? Man, that’s boring.”
Paul shrugged. “I’m just checking places out right now. Getting to know the area.”
She raised an eyebrow and drank more of her coffee. Suddenly, the room erupted in cheers and applause. Paul realized that the song was over. He hadn’t really been paying attention.
But then the weasely fire preyvede man who had been singing walked over and joined the stone preyvede woman. He laughed as he felt into his seat. “Always a crowd pleaser. Even if I sound like a cat being run over by a lawn mower.”
The man and the woman laughed at his joke, his voice and laugh far more ragged and tobacco-stained than hers. Then the man caught Paul looking at them. “Who’s this guy? Hey fella, what are you doing here in the back with us old farts? There are girls in here, you know.”
The woman slapped the man. “Leave the kid alone. Looks like his first time out at the docks.”
“Hey,” The man leaned over toward Paul and did a bit of a parody of “lowering” his voice, “You here to find a girl you picked out at Sun Rocks?”
Paul frowned. “Sun Rocks. What is that?”
The man laughed and sat back in his chair. The waiter then appeared and handed the man an ale and set a frosted glass of dark tea in front of Paul. The man took a chug from his beer and held out a hand to Paul. “Milton. Pleasure to meet you.”
Paul took his hand and shook it. “Paul.”
The woman stretched her hand over Milton’s back so that Paul could shake it as well. “Aubrey.”
Paul smiled and took a drink from his tea. It wasn’t bad, and he’d forgotten how much he missed ice-cold drinks ever since arriving in Pan.
“So,” Aubrey began, “If you didn’t come here to meet someone—”
“Because if you did,” Minton interrupted, “You wouldn’t be sitting back here, out of sight.”
Aubrey nodded. “And if you didn’t come to find a girl you saw at Sun Rocks, then, well, what brings you to a shit hole like this anyway?”
Minton chuckled through his nose as he drank more of his beer.
“Well,” Paul hesitated a moment. “It may sound a little odd. I’m trying to learn more about how bonding works.”
Minton’s eyebrows went up and Aubrey nodded. They waited for him to continue.
“I…I have a ton of questions about it.”
“Well, fortunately,” Milton said, “Both of us have been bonded a few times each, so between the two of us, we can probably answer whatever questions you may have.”
Paul nodded, looking from Milton’s red face to Aubrey’s gray face. Another question came to him, though. “Okay, so, wait. First off, where are all the wind preyvedes?”
“Ha!” Milton said. “They don’t like it here.”
Aubrey squinted an eye as she shook her head. “Nah, they can pass as human, so they usually just reintegrate. Shelly’s one though.”
Paul looked to where Aubrey was pointing, and it was the woman running the karaoke machine. She looked completely normal. Paul frowned. “Huh. Interesting. So, anyway, the bond. It makes the bondee get stronger and get some powers, right?”
Aubrey was looking at her zine again, but still nodded. Milton was finishing up another pull, but he nodded as he set the glass down. “Yeah. So, each preyvede gives some of the elemental abilities to the bondee, as well as a few other abilities unique to their race. Let’s see, ah…”
Milton frowned and held up fingers as he counted off what he could remember. “I’m fire. I give a slight strength boost, good healing abilities, infrared vision, and some mild elemental fire control. Water gives the second biggest strength boost, the best healing abilities, but very weak water control. You can still use an Element Lock if you’re bonded with a water preyvede, though. Oh, and, uh…wind gives the bondee this oddball ghost mode that I don’t know much about. And, I don’t know, some wind control.”
Aubrey cleared her throat and pointed at herself. “I’m stone, so I give the biggest strength boost by a wide margin and the ability to harden skin. But that’s about it. We’re pretty straightforward.”
“Wait.” Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Harden skin. Do stone preyvedes give people the ability to hear thoughts?”
Aubrey frowned and leaned back as if a bit disgusted by what he’d asked. “No. No, no, no. That sounds more like a wind preyvede stuff, but, I don’t think that’s one of her things.”
“You’re probably talking about sub-vocalizations,” Milton said, leaning in close and talking even more with his hands. “If a wind preyvede practices for years and years, they can ‘hear’ what you’re…kind of thinking to yourself. But, that’s not an ability they can share with a bondee.”
Aubrey still looked upset, but this comment made her look even more uncomfortable. She tilted her head from one side to the other, then hummed. “Well, that’s not completely true.”
Milton frowned at her, then rolled his eyes. “Oh. Wasted conditions.”
She nodded.
A flash of recollection went through Paul’s mind. Irse had said something like that. She’d mentioned the sub-vocalizations and something about wasted conditions. “What-what is that?”
Milton waved his hand in the air. “It’s a way to get extra powers. See, the Never-No bond is dangerous, because you, well, you ‘never know’ how far it goes!”
Aubrey put a hand on Milton’s shoulder and leaned toward Paul, sort of pushing Milton back. “See, they say that, if you Never-No, the preyvede can order you to do anything, but it’s not true. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but it’s still very, very important for the bondee to pick their conditions carefully.”
“Like, to protect themselves so the preyvede doesn’t abuse them?”
Milton and Aubrey looked at each other a moment, now both of them looking uncomfortable. Milton answered, “Well, people grow up knowing which conditions they need to pick. Kids in Hempstock, anyway. I don’t know how it is in the other cities, but we’re right next to the Mountain, so it’s a big part of life here.”
“What do they know? Growing up, I mean.”
Milton held up three fingers and pulled one down for each point. “First condition: that the preyvede will never abuse them. That covers just about everything. Cephas then won’t let them order the bondee to do anything too bad without getting in trouble. Second, that the bondee is allowed to pick the punishment if the first condition is broken.”
Aubrey’s eyes opened up wide. “That one is super important, because otherwise Cephas may wave the punishment or make it super severe. Or, sometimes, it can go all the way up to the Alephs! Especially if someone is stupid enough to appeal to the Assembly. And that can get the preyvede sent to one of their prisons.”
“Like Hail.” Milton shivered.
Paul frowned. “What’s Hail?”
Milton chuckled. “Well, what does it sound like? ‘Hail,’ ‘Hell,’ same thing as far as we know. If you don’t make that condition, and your preyvede does something that looks really bad, but you want to forgive them—or it doesn’t bother you—the Alephs may still take them from you.”
Aubrey nodded. “Or execute them. The Alephs take the laws concerning preyvedes and fair treatment pretty seriously.”
Paul leaned back in his chair, its metal frame creaking under the weight of his back. He stared down at his iced tea, frowning and feeling cold. He hadn’t realized that there was so much risk involved with bonding. Was Aramis afraid to talk about all this because she was afraid of all this invisible monitoring by Cephas, some powerful being that Paul assumed was similar to Irse?
“What’s the third condition? The usual one, I mean.”
Milton shrugged. “That one’s not as important. People pick a few different ones. Sometimes they pick that they want to be able to break the bond at a distance, if both people want to. Otherwise, you’ll have to meet up again and hold each other’s hand and say that you both want to break it.”
Aubrey looked at Paul with that worry back on her face. “But that’s why wasted conditions are a really bad idea. Because you have to give up two of your conditions in order to get some other power.”
“Like hearing sub-vocalizations.”
They nodded, but then Milton frowned. “Why are you asking about that anyway?”
Paul chewed on his lower lip a moment. “I ran into someone who could do that. He was bonded with a stone preyvede and apparently did a wasted condition to get the ability.”
“Huh.” Milton’s eyebrows went up. “Interesting.”
“So, I have a related question.”
Milton and Aubrey looked at Paul. He took in a deep breath and drummed his fingers on the table a few times before speaking. “If I wanted to find someone. How would a person do something like that?”
Aubrey frowned. “What do you mean? Like, looking up their watch number or something?”
Paul shook his head. “No. Like, I wanted to hunt someone down, but I didn’t know anything about them. Would there be any powers that could help me do that?”
“Well,” Aubrey sighed. “Thing is, I don’t really like where you’re going with this. It sounds like you’re thinking of bonding with someone in order to get powers. Sure, a lot of people do that, but it’s…it’s not a good idea, kid.”
Milton shook his head. “No.”
Aubrey’s frown changed. Her expression was no longer a blend of worry and curiosity and now was more one of concern. Her voice softened. “Preyvedes are back-stabbing bitches, kid.”
Milton nodded vigorously and finished off his beer.
Aubrey continued. “And Cephas and the Alephs are worse. You’ve got to protect yourself. And people you care about.”
Paul nodded, his hunger for knowledge about all this only increasing now that he’d had this taste.
***
BOOM—the narthex door shut loud and heavy behind Nathan just after he slid under it, echoing out into the otherwise still night.
“Crap crap crap!” He fumbled with getting to his feet and getting his Aleph key out of his jacket. He stumbled away from the door and sloshed into the wide, shallow, painfully-cold river running through Pan’s narthex.
The key had dropped him into a little alcove along the Mirror World tunnel, mostly hidden in the shadows and very close to the Pan-side door, but then he’d accidentally rammed his shoulder into a lamp as he turned to go down the hallway and had grunted in frustration. He’d switched on the cloak before doing that, but a guy and girl in sharp suits had heard him and immediately jumped to the conclusion that something was wrong.
Apparently, the Alephs had upped security since the last time he was here and had these pretty guards everywhere now. Irse was probably going to be pissed that he’d so sloppily ruined one of her super-secret back doors into Threshold.
Nathan had had a bit of a head start, but not much as he’d ran toward the door to Pan. In a panic, he’d lifted it up just enough to barely slide under it.
Now half-way across the width of the dark river, he found his key and continued running as fast as he could through the waist-high water. He couldn’t hear anyone behind him yet, but he knew that any second someone would reach the door. It wasn’t as heavy from the tunnel side, so those guards wouldn’t have any trouble getting through.
He held up the key in front of his face and sorted through the menu on the ghostly touch-screen. He went to “SPAWN CACHED ITEM” and clicked the only thing he had in there: his motorcycle.
He’d just figured out he could do this with the pen. The bike materialized instantaneously with a crack of air in front of him, a meter above the ground. With a splash its two tires fell into the water. His eyes wide, Nathan dropped his Aleph key and scrambled to his knees right next to the bike to grab it and keep it from tipping over, getting himself completely soaked in the ice-cold water. He cursed again as he reached down to pick the pen back up, all the while trying with his other arm to keep the bike from falling on him. His fingers were stretched out into the mud and half of his face was underwater when the door opened.
“TAW Sanchez! Stop!”
He grabbed the key and climbed onto his trusty aluminum steed. He flipped on the power, leaned down, and twisted the accelerator all the way.
He didn’t really launch off, though. There was a sad sort of gurgling sound mixed with the loud spray of rooster-tailed water behind him as the tire spun out and tried to bite onto something in the mud. But he did start moving, and faster than the two pretty guards chasing him. The male one hesitated and looked down at his nice shoes in disgust just before running into the water.
Nathan laughed as they fell further behind him. But then he looked forward and saw the wall of bushes blocking his path. In every direction. He looked around and saw a few openings and picked the closest one. In the darkness he could just barely see something written on the sign.
Before he entered the path inside the maze, the back of his neck was scorched, as if instantly getting a sunburn. He turned just in time to see what looked like a miniature sun barreling toward him. “Holy shhhhhh!!”
He dropped under the water and heard the roar of fire and steam over him. The moment it was gone, however, he got to his feet and looked up. The guards were not far behind, sprinting across the wide river, one of them with fire lapping off of her arms.
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But then he turned and saw that the huge fireball had burned a path right through the wall of bushes. And the bushes were re-growing rapidly.
His heart pounding hard in his chest, he lifted his bike back on its wheels, threw one of his shaking legs over it, and sloppily took off through the rapidly shrinking gap. The water became shallower as he went, his speed picking up as well.
Dense trees were before him, hills beyond those, and the tall peak of Mount Alanessa a few hundred kilometers past all that. He breathed out a sigh of relief as he disappeared into the evergreen forest.
***
Mount Alanessa was covered in snow. The silver light of a crescent moon, much larger than the two moons Prometheus had, brilliantly lit up the silent landscape sloping down and away from the window of Soma and Ignacio’s room. The window was along a wall in a lower part of the ancient, circular fortress built right along the timberline of the mountain. The courtroom where the appeal would be heard was on the top floor of the fortress.
The view out their window was nearly perfect, but was tainted by unattractive amber light cast from lanterns hanging on the outer walls of the fortress. Soma sighed. “I do not like those lights.”
Ignacio, pacing idly past her, looked out over her shoulder and grunted. “Cheap lamp stones. Amber glass stays orange unless you add lead and a few other things to it. This is a government building, after all. No sense wasting money on pretty security lighting.”
Soma frowned as Ignacio paced away. The two of them were “guests” of the Alanessa Citadel at the moment, since Soma had appealed to the Assembly. The two of them had been taken, under close watch by multiple guards, from the Babel Library to an exit room inside Threshold. That room had a wide cylinder in its center, covered in doors. A guard had spun the cylinder for a while, then stopped it at a particular door. The door opened up to a tapestried, lobby-like room in the middle levels of this complex.
Soma turned away from the window and looked at Ignacio, who was now sitting on the bed, stuffing a fine, gray powder under his fingernails.
“What are you doing?”
“Insurance.” He grinned and held up a hand. “Charcoal mash pollen. Negates the special characteristics of mazai, especially the metals and stones.”
Soma looked at a small table in the corner where her twin holsters and pistols sat. “They didn’t take those away, so I have a feeling they’re not all that afraid of us.”
“Not yet.” Ignacio wiped the excess residue from his fingertips, trying to make it difficult to tell he’d stuffed the stuff under the fingernails. His dark skin made it difficult to notice anyway. “Besides. The fact that you have those will make them think you’re weak and untrained.”
“Well, one of those is true.” She came over and sat next to him. She took one of his long-fingered hands and examined it closely. “Won’t it all rub off while you’re asleep?”
“Want to get some of it to absorb a little under the skin. I’ll add more tomorrow. Every little bit helps.” He watched her as she turned his hand over, examining the tough skin and scars. He let out a long breath and hunched forward. “Not the first time I’ve dealt with these crooks.”
She locked eyes with him, staring intently at his face as she gave his hand a squeeze. “It ends tomorrow.”
***
Nathan saw lights up ahead. Shivering terribly, he stopped his bike at the top of the low hill overlooking a cluster of buildings build around a river in the bottom of a valley. A couple hours ago he’d come across the river and had decided to follow it, hoping to find shelter for the night instead of killing himself by continuing uphill toward Mount Alanessa’s peak.
If he’d needed any more evidence that this was no longer a computer simulated world where he was a god, the acute mix of numbness and pain in his fingers and toes and knees and nose and ears and lips were more than enough.
He dismounted slowly, stepping into soft snow that had started falling about an hour ago. Taking out his Aleph key with clunky, slow-moving fingers, he turned it on and pointed it at his bike. The holo-screen turned to a view-screen for a seemingly invisible camera. He centered his bike on the screen and a box appeared around it with a few buttons appearing next to it: CACHE, MODIFY, and OTHER.
He clicked on “CASHE,” and his bike cracked out of existence in front of him but remained on the glowing screen as if taking a picture of it had stolen it from the real world.
Fingers still moving in slow-motion, he put the key away and waddled down the hill toward the closest building. His toes hurt terribly and felt colder and colder as he stepped through the snow, his shoes not designed for this. Whatever amazing event Irse had been talking about had better be worth all this trouble.
A thin man in surprisingly light clothing stepped out of the building, holding up a lantern glowing with an odd orange light. He called out in a clear voice: “Vuee-tyeh? Hola? Hello? Salut? Kon-ban-wa? One of those?”
Nathan waved. He opened his mouth, fully intending to say, “Hello is the right one, thanks,” but all that came out was: “Ha…”
The man jogged over a little more quickly, chuckling and producing a blanket that he threw over Nathan’s shoulders. “Terrible time of year to be on the mountain, kid. No pretty girls bathing in the river, that’s for sure.”
Nathan grunted an affirmative.
“It’s just me right now here at the wind preyvede outpost. Everybody else is out, watching the matrices, making sure no new ones show up and freeze to death before they can even begin their second life.”
Nathan chuckled. He wanted to say, “Man, nothing you’re saying right now is making any sense.” Soon enough, though, he was in the little, warm cabin, sitting on a chair by the door.
The little but hearty man who had grabbed him busied himself around the little living room, popping out to grab something from another room and heating up some soup and grabbing more blankets, never standing still. The man had a joyful grin on his face that also helped Nathan feel better.
Until the man asked the obvious question, “So. What the hell are you doing up here?”
Nathan looked away. “A friend of mine told me to meet her up on top of the mountain.”
The man laughed loudly and for a long while, bending forward a little. “Doesn’t sound like a very good friend.”
“Valid observation.”
The man stuck a finger in the soup, seemed to decide it was warm enough, and poured it into a bowl for Nathan. Nathan held the hot, white bowl with that first thin blanket between it and his hand, a larger, thicker blanket now across his shoulders. He felt bliss wash over him as he spooned some of the steaming, creamy tomato into his mouth and felt it run down into his chilly core.
“You know, you can sit at the table if you want.”
Nathan nodded and slowly got up and moved to set the bowl in front of him, though he immediately missed holding the bowl and having its warmth reaching into him through his hands. Still, it made it easier to eat it.
“Why would a friend tell you to meet her up here?”
Nathan shook his head, still focused on the soup. He answered between slurps. “She doesn’t usually explain herself very well. But she usually points me in the right direction. What is this place for, anyway?”
The man finally sat down, right across from Nathan, who could get a good look at him now that he wasn’t moving anymore. He had a mustache and beard and thinning hair, but he looked younger than his voice sounded. There was something unusual about his skin. Not that unnatural porcelain-like quality, like the skin of those guards inside Threshold, but something. Maybe a bit translucent.
The man sipped a mug before answering. “It’s one of the outposts for the new preyvedes. We’re closest to the wind matrix, so we get a lot of people who’ve suffered a lot during their lives. Lots of them died of starvation, some are drug overdoses, some were beaten to death. Right now, we’re right at the beginning of ‘peak season,’ actually.”
Nathan’s assault of his soup had slowed more and more as he’d listened, but by this point he was motionless, with his spoon held half-way to his open mouth. “Uh…what? What is…”
The man squinted an eye. “You look like you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Nathan’s eyebrows went up as he nodded.
The man took a drink, chuckling into his mug, then slammed it down on the table and slouched back in his chair. “Well, I’m pretty good at explaining. It’s kind of my job, so I don’t really mind it, if you don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Nathan’s eyes darted up to a window that showed that the snow had picked up outside. He dropped his spoon clanking into the almost empty bowl. He leaned forward. “Tell me everything.”
***
“Hey big guy, I heard you want to learn more about bonding with preyvede girls.”
Paul had a pounding headache and was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. He turned from his beer, only the second he’d bought this night, and looked at the girl standing behind him. The fire preyvede girl with fantastic everything was leaning toward him so that her breasts, barely held in check by a thin top, were inches from his face. His eyes traced up her long neck, her pixy cut leaving most of its smooth, maroon skin exposed, then past her smiling lips until settling on her big, dark eyes. Eyes that were casually hunting easy prey.
He shook his head as images flashed through his mind at light-speed. He leaned over his bottle and closed his eyes. “Uh, I’m good.”
“You sure?” Soft fingers gripped his shoulder, heat shooting from them up and down his body.
His eyes shot open. He stood up and cleared his throat. “I’ve gotta go.”
He bolted toward the door, the girl’s face burning into his mind as he went. Every step of the way he processed through extremely convincing excuses for why he should go back and talk to the girl. Just talk. Maybe. It was late. He was tired. Nothing could happen. Well, maybe something could happen.
He wasn’t interested in some stupid impulsive fling. Well, maybe a little interested. His blood was boiling. He wasn’t sure how to get himself to calm down. There was one sure-fire way to get himself to calm down. Possibly. He thought about how few obstacles there were in his way. How little clothing she had in the way.
He was making for the door, every step away from the girl feeling like a bad idea. He felt more and more frustrated with himself because he knew that if he turned around, release from the frustration was waiting.
He turned around at saw her, sitting on the table he’d been sitting at with her long, lithe legs crossed. She gave him what at any other time would appear to be a kind, warm smile. He smiled back and walked out into the cold.
The cold air hit him hard and began its work cutting through the madness. A bit. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, his mind filling with images of his hands exploring those long, devastating legs. He shut his eyes and concentrated on nothing. Black. Black and cold and nothing. His body gave off an unusually long shiver and then felt even more tired than it had been a moment ago.
His walk gradually slowed as he headed through the empty streets toward his tiny apartment near Kettle Square. His empty apartment. He had to constantly keep fighting his mind from drifting back to those images. Red skin and hot fingers and warm smiles.
He should have called it a night a long time ago. After hours of wandering around asking drunk people countless questions about bonding and preyvede culture, he’d hoped to get more details from the initial info Milton and Audrey had given him. But he hadn’t found anyone nearly as helpful as them. He was depressed and wanted an escape, but even in the midst of all that internal turmoil, he made a mental note to find them again on another day.
He tried to think about Susie to distract himself, bring himself back to reality. But in every memory she was prudish and mean and unsympathetic. A girl from another world.
Then he got angry as images began to get all crumbled together in his head. All of that mixed with feeling like a fool for believing that sex was something that sealed two lives together. That it was something special and should only lead to something permanent. There was no way that girl back there was expecting anything permanent. Well, he didn’t know that for sure.
He wished he wasn’t this bigger, toner, more attractive version of himself anymore. He wanted to be skinny and short and ugly. He wished that girl back there hadn’t looked at him so hungrily.
He was just tired. His brain was fried and he needed to sleep, that was all it was.
He took his hands out of his pockets and let the cold air drain the heat out of them. His hands were shaking, but he did feel himself calming a little. Just a little at a time.
He wondered if he really had been helped by being brought back to life by Irse. That hadn’t been her purpose, though. She hadn’t resurrected him out of mercy or any sort of desire to give him a life of comfort and ease. He was supposed to be her prophet. Tell people that the Alephs were evil. Which wasn’t far off from what his murderer’s goals had been.
Susie would say that Seven wanted him to lead people to following him so that they wouldn’t suffer in hell. Irse had told him to lead people into defying the Alephs so they wouldn’t suffer under their corruption. Society would say that he should enjoy his new life with abandon, throwing off outdated moralities. His murderer had said to curse the Alephs and die, so he could get some sick satisfaction out of defying them. All these conflicting purposes, all weighing on Paul’s shoulders.
“Shut up!”
Paul stopped. He heard the woman’s voice coming from around a corner up ahead.
Another angry voice joined the first, a man’s: “You don’t care about yourself enough to get off the streets anyway.”
There was a cry of pain. Paul’s feet took him quickly toward the sound. He heard someone whimpering, an old man, but couldn’t make out the words.
“Maybe we should just take him back. We could take him to the Kah cult’s clinic. That would keep him from sitting on the streets and making us look—”
“What are you doing?” Paul had rounded the corner and spoken before even looking to take in the scene. There was an elderly man in dirty, loose clothes lying on the ground, an orange skinned fire preyvede. Standing over him was a young stone preyvede man and a young fire preyvede woman, both very angry.
“Mind your own business,” snapped the woman.
Paul didn’t react to this. He turned to the young man, who just glared back with the same venom that had been in the woman’s words. Paul nodded toward the man on the ground. “Why are you attacking him?”
The woman took a step toward Paul and clenched a fist. “I said mind your own business, kid.”
Paul could clearly see tongues of fire rising from her knuckles.
The man spat on the homeless man. “Because he’d rather drink himself stupid and sleep on the street than let the communes take care of him.”
Paul frowned and walked forward. “Don’t do that.”
The man and women both took a step toward Paul, almost putting themselves between him and the beaten man, but Paul continued his approach until he was just a pace from both of them.
The young man spoke to Paul through clenched teeth. “This is preyvede business. We have enough shit to deal with without these vagrants out here. Begging for beer money. Freezing to death in storefront doorways and showing up on zine covers, talking about how we should all be shipped off. Dumped off on some island somewhere, where we won’t be a problem. They already do that in Prometheus. We don’t need humans like you seeing this filth and thinking all of us are like this.”
Paul looked down at the man. He figured he should be angry, but that wasn’t the emotion he felt. “When you say, ‘thinking all of us are like this,’ are you talking about the man your yourselves?”
The woman pulled a leg back to kick Paul in the groin, full speed. Paul lifted a knee, so that her foot hit his shin, which stung deeply. He shook his leg, frowning at the discomfort.
The woman, however, stumbled back, limping slightly. “Damn it. He’s an Aleph.”
Paul rolled his eyes. “I’m not an Aleph.”
The man and woman looked at each other and ran.
Paul sighed as they went around a corner and out of view. He knelt down to check the man, who was laying on his stomach, an involuntary fear of touching him making his movements slow. But he put a hand on the man’s shoulder anyway. “You okay?”
The man nodded and sat up, much more quickly than Paul would have expected. He coughed violently and checked himself. He was bleeding all over, especially on his face, but the bruises didn’t look as bad as they should be. “Hey man. You have a ruble?”
“No, I don’t carry much money with me.”
“Have a cigarette?”
Paul shook his head. The man frowned and stood up and stumbled off, coughing. Paul remained there, kneeling on the cobblestone street, alone in the ice-cold darkness as it started to snow. The man was now muttering to himself. Paul looked down at the patches and pools of the man’s blood left behind.
Paul chuckled at himself. Even if this was a purpose he could decide to be his own, defending hopeless people, it was only half-real. He’d rescued a man who had apparently healed of all his injuries while Paul had been talking to the attackers. A man who didn’t even seem aware of what had just happened.
It wasn’t very satisfying, but at least it wasn’t something someone else had decided for him. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, or when he’d figure out how, but maybe he would use the strength Irse had given him to defend people.
He’d figure the details out later. For now, he needed to get into bed and out of this weather.
***
“Hello? Ignacio?”
Soma went to the door and opened it to reveal a chubby man with a handsome face. He was wearing a black suit with a Pan-style long coat over it. He smiled flatly at Soma, then walked past her at Ignacio.
Ignacio didn’t acknowledge him. Soma watched the man. Two tattooed guards entered after him.
The man stood in the middle of the room with his hands in the deep pockets of his jacket. The two others walked over to stand on either side of him, each holding a set of bulky, obsidian-black handcuffs.
“You know how this goes, Ignacio.”
Ignacio nodded at the man’s comment and one of the guards came over to put handcuffs on him. Soma watched with her mouth open. “Wait.”
Everyone, except Ignacio, looked at her.
“We’re here to appeal to the Assembly. Why are you doing that to him?”
The man’s eyes widened. “You’re here to appeal to the Assembly. Ignacio broke one of the highest laws of the Second Life system. Unless Seated Aleph Negri is feeling graceful and decides to write it off as the two of you making a wrong turn—in an attempt to grant you asylum at an exile world—well, we have to take precautions.”
Soma looked at the handcuffs the other guard was carrying. “Are those for me?”
The man shook his head. The guard walked over and put them, also, on Ignacio’s wrists, double-hand-cuffing him.
The man sighed, but then saw Soma’s pistols. “You won’t be taking those, though.”
He nodded to one of the guards, who took the pistols. Then all of them headed into the hallway. It twisted around and inclined upward, passing other rooms before they reached a spiral stairway leading up. Through windows along one side, Soma could see the snow-covered mountain still glowing silver in the low moonlight. It was nearly seven in the morning, but it was near the solstice, so it would still be a while before the sun came up.
“Wait, stop,” said someone after they got to the top of the stairs and turned toward a set of double doors. “You idiots think clamping his hands is enough?”
Soma, Ignacio, and the guards turned to see a tall, irritable woman walk up, holding a hood. Without skipping a beat, she came up and stuck the hood over Ignacio’s head. Then the doors were pushed open.
They walked into a cross-shaped, lower level of the courtroom, with three ramped aisles rising away from them and up to the wall that encircled the whole chamber. The ceiling was a high dome of bronze with four silver chandeliers hanging from it, dozens of twisted tungsten filaments shining in their glass globes and filling the chamber with warm light. That light blended with the silvery-blue shafts shining in through the tall, narrow windows repeating around the circular wall.
It was a very nice and lovely courtroom, but Soma was struck by how…domestic it felt. She had expected something more grandiose. There were even scuff marks and stains on the stiff, brown carpet.
The suited guards escorted Soma and the blinded Ignacio about half way up one of the aisles to a booth. They opened the waist-high door and stuck Ignacio in there, then took Soma up almost to the wall and sat her down on a bench. Then the two guards stepped down a few benches and sat between Soma and Ignacio.
The one that was carrying Soma’s pistols set them down on the bench behind him, but then turned himself so he could watch her without having to look directly at her. Until he caught her looking at him, anyway. “Don’t worry. He’ll be here soon.”
Then a low horn sounded, coming from the windows. There was no glass in the tall, narrow slits opening up to the cold outer air. The warmth here in the chamber didn’t seem to be leaking out, though. Through the windows, Soma could see something approaching the Citadel. Just a black spot on the brightening horizon.
“Oh, I stand corrected,” the guard said, smiling. “He’s here now.”
***
“Damn weirdoes with their damn primary color skin and their damn weird money.”
Nathan hissed and shivered as he got off his bike, stored it in his key with a crack of air, and stumbled up the steep, snowy slope leading to the funny little fortress. It was a glowing thimble, maybe half a kilometer ahead. He didn’t see anyone actually walking around outside it, so even though he was leaving the thicker part of the trees he didn’t see any need to go invisible just yet. He would soon.
Light was shining from the distant windows, in addition to orange external lights. Unnatural lights that reminded him of the parking lot of his dad’s county office.
That was a familiar sight for what was likely a government building, considering Irse’s tip. What was not familiar were the three boats, of some sort, that seemed to be very precariously hanging from what looked like flagpoles stuck into the ground around the fortress. From this far away, he couldn’t tell how the boats were supported. It was almost like they were blimps, hanging from those flagpole things by big rings attached to the front of the boats.
He picked up his pace but made sure to walk along in—and jump between—the shadows of the trees cast by the big, low moon on his left, keeping his footprints hidden in the dark. At least for the moment. As soon as the sun came up on his right, all of his prints would be clearly visible across the virgin snow from a mile away.
No longer quite as sheltered by the trees, the wind tore at him, making him curse loudly into it. He was freezing, and angry because he was freezing, because he had discovered that shekels were nearly useless here. Sure, the currency was recognized in Pan, but no one at any of the businesses down in Banks would take it. “Not worth much, up here,” they’d all said. Not worth jack shit, is what they should have said. So many scarves and hats and gloves for sale, Nathan with a magic gadget that could create money out of thin air, and he couldn’t afford any of them. And no one had bothered to program the Aleph key to create cold weather clothing.
All he could afford to get were some boots that he traded his watch to get. Apparently, a wrist watch that was free in Prometheus was worth a pair of boots in Pan. It was better than nothing, but he still fumed over his tragic misfortune as he stumbled through powdery snow and jumped from shadow to shadow, climbing higher and closer to the fortress.
He felt a surge of panic as he saw a hazy spot of light moving toward him from the right. He looked at the building, not seeing a light shining from there, then upward, turning his cloak on at the same moment.
There was a stained-wood boat floating almost right over him. He stumbled into a notch in the trees as he watched it and the light shining down from windows on its belly approached, silent, smooth. Attached to the front of it and to the prow was a large ring as wide as the boat’s broadest section. Painted on the bows was the name Galleria.
Mercifully, the hazy spot of light moved in front of him, instead of over him or behind him to reveal his footprints. So, they had flying boats. That’s why the ones already parked by the building weren’t supported by anything but the ring. The newly arriving one pulled a wide, banking turn to head toward the building’s landing platform on its west-facing side.
He followed the boat until he was maybe a hundred meters from the building and there were no more shadows to jump between. If he went any further, he’d have to hope no one was looking in his direction.
A door leading to the platform that the boat was approaching opened. A couple people wearing suits—more of those pretty, secret-service goons and tattooed guys—walked out to watch and wait for the magically flying boat to arrive. It drifted toward a pole extending from the edge on the platform. As the ring on the front hit the pole, a heavy top-half of a clamp slid down, clasping the ring with a loud bang of metal slamming into metal.
A ramp extended from the boat’s sundeck to the platform. A handful of people left the boat’s cabin, headed down the ramp, and walked into the fortress. One of them had a pointy beard and the walk of someone important.
“Well.” Nathan folded his arms. “I have a feeling I’m right on time.”