The Daily Grind - Chapter 272 (Patreon)

“Yeah, but this is New England.  We speak New English here.”  -Worm Girl, Let’s Play Cataclysm DDA-

_____

“Hold this, and stand there.”  Was not on the list of things James expected to hear as he roved through the basements the next day.  But it wasn’t really a surprise either.

He’d dropped Arrush off at his own apartment, and decided that since he lacked a major crisis, didn’t want to make more work for Karen until at least one big project was rolling without her oversight, and wasn’t signed on to any of the week’s delves, he’d fulfill one of the other roles of a paladin.  Wandering around, and just poking his nose into things, looking for anyone who needed help and doing his best to smooth out the spread of information.

So far, his permanent grin and bouncing step had taken him to a few places.

Checking in with Banana had been fun, as he’d helped her study about her own circulatory system in preparation for a change that would be happening next month and seemed to have crept up from ‘the distant future’ to ‘on an upcoming date’ really fast.

Helping out with the potion production line had been good too.  James wanted to know how to make the magic, not just use it, so he’d lent a hand to processing materials for use, measuring and stirring, and doing safety tests on the large batches that were ready to be packaged and used.  Potions for exercise, skin regeneration, healing the lungs, and generating a mild intangibility field, were all produced as quick as the Order’s growing dedicated team could make them.  But alongside those, potions for sharing dreams, linguistic development, reading, fertilizing plants, and other small wonders were created too.  James didn’t even have to give a hard no to any of the potions that were in refinement.

A simple chat with one of the first camracondas to join them turned into a longer conversation about the value of names, and how the camraconda population viewed their maybe-strange naming system.  And also how it could feel odd when other serpents broke from it.  Velocity-Of-Wind hadn’t ever really spoken to James before, and seemed like he was still working on forming full sentences, but the two of them ended up talking for a while both to each other and to a few other camracondas that stopped to listen.  Eventually they mutually decided that the value of a structured system was that, when people started subverting it, it was very funny.

Some of what he did was simple errands.  Running a few documents up to the skyrise office to hand off to Cathy or Smoke or whoever was around.  Watering Ferndidnand and Tyrannadonny, and learning that the two different potted plants did not get along.  Vacuuming the front lobby.  Double checking to make sure the chair that made you forget it hadn’t been forgotten.

James spent half an hour looking for a belt with Alex.  The other girl talking to him about negotiations with the local power company while her sanity rapidly eroded as she searched the same scorched cardboard box for the eight time.  James left before they found it, if the finding ever happened.

It was shortly after delivering a load of clean towels - real towels, not the crappy magic ones he could make - to the baths that James found himself in the Research basement again.  Mostly he was there to verify that a bit of information about the building’s electrical system had gotten passed on properly, but almost right after he’d done that, he’d made the mistake of making eye contact with Reed and Nik, who had been tracking him the whole time he was walking around the edge of their central hub in the chaos.

”I feel like the blast shielding means this is a terrible idea.”  James said as he looked at the lead backed titanium plates that had been set up at the end of the firing range.

”It’ll be fine.”  Nik said.  “It’s just in case.  You just need to stand on the other side of them.”

”And hold this.”  Reed said, pointing at a box that looked like it was more secure than most bank vaults.  “Hence ‘hold this and stand there’.”

James stared at both of them.  He should have picked up Zhu before coming down here; Zhu would have had the proper level of snark for this encounter.  “Reed.  Come on.”  He said.  “I have been having a great day, after a great night, and you’re just… fucking murdering my vibe.”

”…I could explain why?”  Reed ventured, teeth set in a rectangular wince.  James just gave him a slow and deliberate nod, so he rapidly cleared his throat and elaborated.  “It’s the phone.  The one that looks like an old Nokia from the Office.  We’re testing if its signal is absolute, or if it can be blocked, and we need to test it with someone who hasn’t taken part in the tests yet.”

”Oh.  Okay, so, it won’t explode.” James wasn’t sure why they hadn’t led with that part.

”Well, it hasn’t exploded so far.  It might explode with you holding it.”  Nik unhelpfully stated as he subconsciously twisted his authority around his fingers like a living string.  “But if it does, I’m here to make sure you don’t die?”  He offered.

James stared at them both.  “Neither of you are even close to helpful.  What does the phone do?”

”Actually, I’d kind of like to show you?”  Reed sounded uncomfortable.  “This might sound dumb, but I think it’d be better to get your first impression without-“

”Yeah, I get ya.”  James cut him off.  “I’ve done the whole ‘teach new people to make magic items’ speech too.  Okay.  Let’s do this.”

He picked up the box and strode out across the lanes.  The Order’s shooting range was probably the least used part of the Lair; they mostly just used it for testing how much the ‘friendly fire’ ability on the gun bangles could get away with - a lot, it did work on grenades - and for occasionally getting used to a new skill orb or memory file.  Most of the actual accuracy drills that the new security teams did happened elsewhere, delvers just didn’t use guns that much, and Response didn’t even carry guns at all anymore since Harvey had realized that they weren’t using them anyway.

James had to admit that he felt a little weird standing in the middle of a place that, when it was used, would have him in the ‘target’ section.  There was even still a scorch mark on the floor nearby from an incendiary grenade.  It was a little unsettling.

Just as he opened his mouth to complain, he heard Reed call out.  “Starting test now!”

And from inside the box, muffled by the lead lining and Faraday cage, he heard the shrill sound of an old cell phone ringing.  Four notes in descending sequence, then again, and again, before one long sustained note.  A classic that James hadn’t even realized he remembered the sound of until he heard it again.

”Well it worked!”  He called over.  “Also, hey, question!  What number does this thing even have?”

”Oh!  I called you!”  Nik shouted back.

James frowned so hard he heard the bones in his jaw grind together, snapping a wide-eyed stared down to look at the sealed box.  The phone was still ringing.  He pulled out his own cell phone from his pocket, but there was no indication he was being called, or that he even had service down here.

”Your phone doesn’t work if you’re holding the other one!”  Reed yelled.  “Also answer it!”

James really, really did not want to answer it.  He felt like this was how horror movies started, or ended, and he didn’t know which was worse.

But he still popped the tightly sealed hinges on the box, and carefully cracked it open.  The phone inside was grey, vaguely rectangular, and the screen was lit up with a classic green glow as it continued to scream its ringtone at him.  James set the box down gently as he hefted the phone, saw Nik’s name on the blocky letters of the caller ID.  Then he pushed the button and held the phone up to his ear.

”Yeeees?”  James said, unable to help himself from being at least a little weird.

”Hey.  So this test is going well.”  Nik’s voice sounded really clean through the old hardware.  But that probably wasn’t all that the dungeontech did; James just wasn’t sure what…

He met Nik’s eyes, where the Researcher was standing at the other end of the range behind the safety screen.  Arms crossed, no skulljack him, his phone sitting on the wood shelf in front of him.  “Nik?”

”Yeah, hi.”  Nik’s voice said, as Nik didn’t move in James’ vision.  “Right here man.”

James was capable of moving at a pretty impressive speed, and he had at least one thing boosting his reflexes too, but he was pretty sure he had never in his life moved as fast as he did when he realized that the voice wasn’t coming from the phone, and that Nik was standing just behind him.  His blood felt like ice as he whipped around, putting twenty feet between himself and the Nik that had appeared next to him as soon as he’d answered the phone.  “What.”  James said.

”Yeah, so, the phone doesn’t actually connect.”  Nik said.  “Or, like, it does.  But it does this.”  He motioned to himself, looking identical to himself on the other end of the room, though missing the solid green light of his authority.

”Are you… real?”  James asked, straightening up out of his battle stance as he realized this was an expected outcome.

”Good question!”  Nik said.  “The weird thing is that I can’t develop new feelings like this.  So I don’t know.  I only even know that because we’ve been testing it before.”

”Wait, so, you’re a… what, an echo?  Are you a ghost?” James asked and Nik shrugged.  “You’re still alive right there, so probably not a ghost.”  Nik gave a noncommittal shrug again, and James frowned.  “Are you alive?  What happens when I hang up?  You said you’d been testing this at least a little, so you must know what… what…”

Nik clicked his tongue rapidly.  ”Oh, we know!  I’ll vanish.  I mean, me, this iteration of me.  Not the real me.”

”…You cannot possibly be okay with that.”  James whispered in growing horror.

”Well, I know from experience that I’ll remember this conversation, kind of.  So the emotion I associate with the process is a little trepidation, but also a sense of convenience.  But I don’t feel that.”

James waited, then prompted when Nik went quiet.  “Because…?”

”Because these versions of us don’t change.”  Nik repeated.  “So I can’t have new feelings or thoughts.”

”What did I call you earlier?”  James asked suddenly.

”No idea.”  Nik said.  “Sorry.”

He sounded genuinely apologetic.  Because that’s how Nik would feel about the situation, presumably.  James was entirely uncertain what the fuck to make of this, but he didn’t like the idea of making copies of people who called him.  Even copies that fed back to their originals, and weren’t bothered by being copies.  It felt wrong somehow.

For a long time, James had thought of himself as a transhumanist.  He knew that he needed a new word for it since ‘human’ wasn’t the only option anymore, but he still did like a lot of the ideas of pushing the boundaries of what life could be using both tech and magic.  But one of the things he’d never liked about many post-singularity fiction was the prevalence of systems that created and destroyed minds for convenience.

It felt monstrous.  This felt monstrous.

In a way, it helped that the simulacra of Nik was acting in ways that were obviously artificial.  It had Nik’s personality, and probably most of his memories.  Had his mannerisms and shape.  But it was lacking a certain curiosity, and like it had told him, it didn’t really learn.  Nik would learn from this conversation, but the copy wouldn’t.  Hadn’t.

But that still didn’t quell the unease in James’ stomach.

”I don’t know what to do about this.”  He finally said.

”You can hang up if you want.  Or I can take the phone back to them and they can do it.”  Nik offered.

That was a weird comment.  “You can carry things?”  James asked.  “Wait, if I hand you the phone, it’s not ‘my phone’ anymore, how does…”

”The call is in progress, it keeps going.  But yeah, it has to be on your person for it to be called with your number.  Or for you to call anyone, obviously.”  Nik said simply.  And again James got that sense of lack of interest in the world.  Now that he was looking for it, it was kind of obvious.  Real Nik would have just held out a hand to take the phone, insisted on it, and taken action, even if it was a little reckless.  Or would have speculated along with James, instead of simply stating a fact and then stopping.

James took a breath, and looked back down the range to where Reed and actually-Nik were standing.  “I have an idea.”  He called.  “Can I just…” he held up the phone and motioned to it questioningly.

”Yeah, just hang up!  I wanna know what we talked about!”  Nik yelled back.  Which was not helping James’ sense of dread.

He hit the end call button without meeting the simulacra’s eyes.  The copy just winked out of existence, along with clothing and whatever was in Nik’s pockets, which meant this wouldn’t be a good way to actually copy things.

Then he opened the phone’s contact list and started looking through numbers he had saved.  It was… not identical to his own phone; it was sorted differently and was clunkier and worse than a touchscreen.  Modern technology had gotten a lot smoother, and it really showed when he was presented with this ancient artifact.  But eventually he found a number he was looking for.

Nik had said the phone had to be on his person to call anyone.

James wasn’t sure if they’d had this idea before.  But he decided to take a risk, and hit the button before he could talk himself out of it, holding the phone up to his ear and meeting Reed’s eyes across the room with a grim stare.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

And then with a click, the call disconnected.  No voice mail, no announcement that the number was no longer in service, nothing.  It just failed to work.

Which was a kind of relief, in a very sad way.

James walked back through the shielding and handed the phone and box back to the Research duo.  “I think that I don’t wanna know more about this one.”  He said.  “It’s not… I can see some uses for it.  A lot of tactical uses.  A copy of a knight that’s not afraid to die is essentially the world’s worst nightmare when it comes to the realm of shock troopers.  But I find the ethics of this questionable, and I don’t feel very good about it.”  He stated honestly, hoping they’d understand.

”I hadn’t even thought about combat.  Oh, man, you could call Camille.”  Nik stared off into the distance with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth.

Reed and James both looked at him, then back at each other.  “I’m not gonna touch that.”  Reed wisely stated, curly hair swishing as he shook his head.  “Who’d you try to call anyway?   It’s never failed to connect.”

The amusement James had started to feel was washed away, and he sighed as he looked away, staring at the concrete walls covered in ballistic foam, uncertain if he even should answer.

But they deserved to know.  “It was just an idea.”  He said.  “I wasn’t sure what would happen.”

”Okay, but… who?”  Reed tactlessly pressed.

”I tried to call Virgil.”  James said.  “No answer.  Anyway.  I have somewhere I need to be.  Please don’t do anything evil with the phone.  And store this one in the dangerous vault, okay?”

Reed and Nik didn’t answer him as he walked away.  “Oh.”  Nik said softly after they were the last two left in the cold and open space of the basement.  “Uh…”

”I don’t really feel like testing this any more today.”  Reed said suddenly, voice coming out too quick.  “Let’s get it put away before anyone tries to call me.”

____

Camille the… well, just Camille… had been assigned a task to map out the organized crime in the immediate civic area.  It was, by her measuring, one of the kindest things that had been done for her since she had come to reside here.

The food tasted better.  The bed was more comfortable.  She had personal space.  Those were all creature comforts that she had initially worried would make her soft, but had failed to do so thus far.  They were offset by people constantly talking to her, but they meant well, and Cam might be a lot of things, but she wasn’t needlessly violent.

And all of that paled in comparison to being given a job that she could use to fill her thoughts to the farthest synapse.

She had news articles and blogs to pore over, bribes to pay out and contacts to establish, rumors to follow up on, maps to match to incident reports and stolen police documentation, and sidewalks, dive bars, and back alleys in the thousands to put her feet to.  And all the while, she didn’t have to think about anything that wasn’t the job.

Camille was a lot of things.  But when she was working, she was one thing, and that was working.  The nightmares, the intrusive thoughts about what she was supposed to be or how she was incompatible with humanity, the gnawing fear with no source, all of it was locked away for later, for after she had finished the objective.

The problem was that the objective was misguided.  She’d known it from near the start, but had taken the assignment without questioning it regardless.

Modern US cities didn’t have organized crime.  Not the way the Order was thinking about it.  Gangs existed, as did individuals who were at the center of certain operations.  But those gangs weren’t ‘we run this city’ mafias, and that centrality was in the form of having things orbit you on the org chart, not having all lines lead back to the center of a spider’s web.  Even in major cities, the organization of ‘organized crime’ was disturbingly similar to the Order’s own hierarchy.

There were people who could call for action, and be listened to.  There were people who were in control of certain facets, especially when it came to money or product.  There were inarguably some individuals with more hard power than others.

But there wasn’t a single easy to parse chart.  Camille couldn’t give the intelligence division what they were looking for, she couldn’t tell them that she knew who had signed off on the people that had taken money to attack the Lair.  Nor could she promise that she’d see it coming if they were to attack again.

For all the resources she was given beyond anything that her father had ever allowed, all she really had was an ever shifting, slowly filling map of names and places.  And maybe a slight understanding of the general pulse of things.

For now, she worked in a partitioned part of the surface level of Lair, in a warehouse.  It was lit well enough, and today being a warm summer day, the shutters on the loading dock had been opened up for more light and air.  Others bustled around the place, planning delves, unpacking objects of unknown power, introducing new members to certain things.  Camille ignored them all.

She’d heard that Ben was planning to get them a location at another site, or perhaps in one of the basements.  And the privacy would be welcome.  Though, Camille had started to get used to the… it wasn’t chaos, exactly.  Color?  The ebb and flow of people, even ones she wouldn’t have considered as people before being ordered to, all of them here to turn information into preparation and plan, and then to act on it.  She could admire that.  She could even admire the messy functionality of outfits that were half dungeontech, half personal style.

“Oh, hey Cam.”  Simon’s voice directed right at her was enough to be a distraction.  A man made athletic by constant dungeon delving, along with some strange magic Cam had heard alluded to, Simon made repeated attempts to be friendly to her, despite her best efforts to fail to socialize.  Camille had learned through her network of informants within the Lair that Momo had suggested it, for an unknown reason.  She wasn’t quite willing to take action yet, especially since Simon was easily the least frustrating distraction available.  Unlike the rapidly growing paper drakes, he left if you told him too.  “You’re back fast.”

Cam stopped being mildly irritated, and let her thoughts kick into analysis of that weird statement.  “I’ve been here for…” she checked the phone they’d given her.  “…eighteen hours.”

”…I… uh…” Simon was made distinctly uncomfortable by that for at least two reasons.  “Okay.  I know you probs don’t need as much sleep, but you at least ate something, right?”

The concern for her well being was frustrating.  Because she liked it.  It made her angry to enjoy the simple fact that someone was checking on her needs, which was irrational and stupid, which made her angrier.  Which might have come across in her look unintentionally as she gave a sharp nod in reply.  “Yes, I’m not starving, thank you.”  Camille said.  “What did you mean that I am back fast?”  She decided to directly attack the thing that had caught her attention.

”I was just over at the library - the normal real library, not the Stacks - and I saw you there.  I waved, but you didn’t see me.  Figured you were getting coffee or something.  In your armor.  That you’re not wearing.”

”When was this?”

”Five minutes ago.”  Simon looked resigned to the inevitable trajectory of this conversation.  “So… want me to get some knights?”

Cam didn’t have the authority to answer that.  “I need to talk to Nate.”  She said.  “Now.”

Nate had apparently been enjoying one of his precious days off, lounging on the roof and drinking beer with a camraconda that talked about as little as he did.  He showed up in the warehouse within three minutes of Cam’s declaration, looking unfazed in his Hawaiian shirt and showing off how much chest hair he had.

And Cam made his day worse instantly.  “One of my sisters is in the city.” She said.

”When you say city,” Nate asked, taking it in stride without missing a beat, “do you mean the greater Portland metro area, or do you mean this city.”

”Simon?”  Cam looked at where the man had wandered to a nearby desk and was staring at a small mirror on it.

”Huh? Oh. This city.  By the library, heading south.”  Simon said, pulling his gaze away from himself.

Nate nodded.  “Alright.”  He said.  “Cam, come with me.”  He started walking, and she stood and fell in with him, leaving Simon behind, wondering if he should just wait there.

Silently except for the sound of punching out a text to Ben, the big man took them down a flight of stairs, through about two hundred meters of artificial hallway, past a human and camraconda duo who looked incredibly guilty about whatever they were getting up to in this abandoned stretch of hall, down another staircase, and eventually to a room with a heavy locked door that Nate had the key to.

He held it open for her, and then followed her in, revealing a tiny room with a couch, a chair, a tv, and a mini fridge.  “Welcome to my secret office.”  Nate said.  “Don’t tell anyone.”  Camille nodded solemnly.  “That was mostly a joke.  This is about as secret as Bill’s ability to keep his mouth shut.  Just thought you might like some privacy.” He kicked his fridge open with the toe of his shoe.  “Want a drink?”  He offered her a can of… non alcoholic lemonade, which Cam found out of character.  She still took it, as Nate dropped into the armchair.  “Alright.  We’ve mostly avoided asking to give you space.  But I need a report on your sisters, and their capabilities.”

”I would have given that at any time.”  Cam said.

”You probably also would have told me you weren’t human at any time.”  Nate said bluntly, staring at the wall as he did so but keeping Camille in the corner of his eye just enough to notice her slight pause.  “But I decided to be an asshole and steal your medical records instead.”

”I’m…” Cam seemed almost hesitant to him.  “I don’t actually…” she wasn’t exactly expressing any kind of distress, more like she was starting sentences and then abandoning them for better options.  “My biology doesn’t matter.”  She eventually settled on, stating it like a challenge.  “Though if you had asked me, I would have lied by mistake.”

”…shit.  Sorry, kid.”  Nate said, bluntly honest empathy in his words.  “Fuck me, I don’t think I’d react that calmly to news like that.”

Camille laughed, a loud hyena’s bark of bitter amusement.  “If it were even three months ago, I wouldn’t.”  She said.  “But it didn’t take you long to remake me, did it?”

“Guess not.” Nate cracked the can of lemonade he’d been rolling in his meaty hand and took a drink.  “Okay, don’t wanna think about that.  What can you tell me about your sisters?”  He paused.  “Broad overview first.  Power rangers bullshit second.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but could infer, because Cam was smarter than most people gave her credit for.  “Sisters are added to our ranks whenever one falls, and there is a clear one month delay between new additions.  Though we are not supposed to notice that.”  She started.  “When we awaken, we are told that something has damaged our memory, but that we are the loyal child of the Last Line of Defense.  This is backed up by what I believe are bits of  artificially implanted memory, and the self-perpetuating lie from the other sisters.  At that point we are given our designation and our armor, and a certain useful power, before we are added to the training and assignment rotation.”  Cam spoke like she was giving any daily report.  Cold, collected, purposeful.

Nate tipped his can at her.  “Take your time if you need it.”  He said.  “You’ve got enough on your mind, probably.”

Entirely failing to heed his offer, Camille continued. “Camilles are difficult to injure, as you may have noticed.  Weapons forged without intent cannot harm us, and this extends to our armor as well.  Below the armor, our bodies are exceptionally resistant to everything but certain materials.  I don’t know all of them, for security reasons, but I am aware that both silver and citrus are on the list.”

Stopping with his mostly empty drink halfway tipped into his lips, Nate closed his mouth, slammed his can down on the top of the minifridge, and threw the appliance’s door open again to grab a different can out of it.  Leaning forward, he made a grabbing motion and pointed at Cam’s hand, until she realized what he wanted and relinquished the can of lemonade she’d been given, and had it replaced by some kind of Mexican soda.  “Fucking dumbass.”  Nate muttered.

”…I am not allergic to lemons.”  Cam said after the entire process had completed.  “But if you wanted to weaken me preemptively, yes, feeding me lemons would help.  So would coating bullets in lemon juice.”

”You know, I used to just follow around racist bikers to make sure they weren’t going to blow up churches.”  Nate confided in her apropos of nothing.  “My life was normal.”

”No it wasn’t.”  The pure calculated certainty of her words was like an emotional guillotine.  “To continue.  Camilles are faster and stronger than mundane humans, but our lack of history or memory makes us… unstable.  Or so we are told.”

Nate muttered to himself.  “Good method of control.  Cuts you off from anyone else, encourages you to feel as little as possible.  Makes you susceptible to orders.  You’re close to a perfect soldier, as long as you stay on task.”

A slow nod.  “There are things I do not know, obviously.”  Cam continued.  “Where we are from, why my sisters are never allowed to develop past certain ages - though I suspect I know that one.  I also do not know where our father gets our abilities from, but I know how they are used and assigned.”

”Right.  So, Azure, you.  Some kind of sensory boost?”

”They are all sensory boosts.”  Camille said, focusing on the words and not the building anger in her chest.  Anger that wasn’t for Nate, but would have her lashing out at him anyway if she didn’t contain it.  “Azures have two that work in tandem.  Breacher sense and fortune sense.  The former tells me when and where within a structure there will be threats, complications to incursion, and targets.  The latter guides me toward things that will progress my own objectives.  Both can be extended to other people, at the cost of draining faster.” She met Nate’s eyes.  “Dungeons qualify as structures.”  She added.

He hissed in a breath.  “Christ.  Okay, I don’t know what kind of syntax you’ve got on those, to badly steal a term from Research, but we’ll dig into that later.  The others?”

”Violets have assault sense, allowing them to know enemy force composition and strength while in the planning stages of an attack.  Ochres have demolition sense, which identifies weak spots in constructions over a certain size, and with training can be pushed to find alternate ways to topple structures.  Crimsons have another complementary pair, path sense letting them follow backward the paths of people or things, and victim sense allowing them to find individuals who are at immediate risk, or have suffered, violence.  And Ambers have oddity sense for things that are out of place, which is often used as part of scouting for dungeon breaches.”

”How many of your sisters are there at any time?”  Nate questioned suddenly.

”Five.”  Camille answered instantly.  And then, after only a tiny hesitation, added, “Five per family.”

Nate folded his arms.  “Cam.”  He said with blunt irritation.  “Little late for feeling bad now.”

Her mouth twitched in a frown.  He was right though.  “During our initial training, we are not told about the other… cells, for lack of a better term.  It is only after our father is certain of our loyalty that we are told that we are not the only ones.  By that point, the obvious facts that we are artificial, and expendable, seem secondary.  Those are the five Camilles that were in my grouping, and I was the third Azure they had.  I am aware there are at least two other families, but not what designations they use.  I know our father keeps the senses consistent between designations.”

”Christ.”  Nate ran a hand over his bald head.  “Okay.  You said you needed to talk to me.  You think you know why this one’s showing up.”

”If she’s an Amber, she’ll notice the Order rapidly.”  Cam said.  “It’s unlikely the Last Line is… unaware of you.  But the less he knows, the better.  If it’s a Crimson, it’s likely that she is here for me, specifically.”  Camille said.  “It is very likely that is the case, and she is here to kill me.”

Nate stood.  “Okay.”  He said.  “Not that you go out much, but you’re grounded for a week or so until we sort this shit out.”  The man’s voice sounded outwardly calm, but there was a dark anger in it that made Cam’s skin crawl.

”…I apologize.”  She said, inclining her chin, refusing to look at the floor.

”Fuck that.”  Nate said.  “You’re not the one here to kill one of your own sisters.”  He caught her mildly confused look.  “What, you think I’m not the same kind of sappy dumbass everyone else here is?  Come on.”  The words ran together as he affected a Bostonian accent.  “I’m an asshole, I know it, you know it, but even assholes don’t try to gank their own family.”  Nate headed for the door, flicking a finger against the dungeontech wall clock stuck at six o’five that prevented sound from escaping the room.  “You can relax here until you feel alright.  After that, before you get back to work, which I know you’ll try to do anyway, I’m making this an official order; get your fucking armory kit and get used to it.  Orbs, bracer, earring, potions, Climb and Route spells, don’t fucking slack off on it.  Got it?”

It hadn’t even occurred to Camille that she was allowed access to most of that, even though she’d been told it was okay a few times.  Nate, though, was staring at her and pointing like he was making a demand, not providing a casual offer.

Which meant she probably couldn’t keep being afraid of the magic forever.

”Yes sir.”  She said, professional and collected and certainly without anything else in her voice.

Nate pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything else.  He just nodded and frowned, before heading out and shutting the door loudly behind him.

Camille didn’t expect today to take this shape when it had started.  But she’d do what she always did.  React appropriately, and get through it.  Don’t let herself feel anything that might compromise the operation.

She popped the lid off the soda she’d been handed with a fingernail, and tilted her head back to awkwardly drink from the glass bottle.  It took her a couple tries to figure it out; she’d never had one of these before.  But when she did, she downed it in almost a continuous set of gulps.

It was delicious.

_____

James was ambushed as he headed back through Research, supposedly to talk to one of Momo’s people about something.  He had just turned a corner and was passing by the door to the stairwell that led either back to the real upstairs, or down to the residential basement, and was thinking about how many stairwells they had in this building, when the door popped open and a pair of people neatly slid into step on either side of him.

“Sooooo.”  Anesh said coyly, trying to lean his head on James’ arm and failing as James just kept walking, though with an amused smile on his face now.  “How was your night?”

”Your night with Arrush!”  Keeka added from the other side, two of his smaller hands clamping onto James’ arm.  “For clarity!” He’d recently heard Anesh say ‘for clarity’ in conversation and had found the words to be delightful to repeat.

James kept smiling, but here in this pleasant underground afternoon and not empowered by the comforting nature of what it was like to be alone with someone at midnight, he did blush a little.  Or maybe a lot.  “Okay, now hang on!”  He laughed, trying to cover his embarrassment.  “I dropped Arrush off at your place hours ago, surely you could have asked him this.”

”I was busy with actually finally using my degree to tutor students.”  Anesh said, adjusting the neck of his polo shirt.  “And Keeka was busy with pottery.”

”I made a vase!”

”So we missed Arrush, who I think is in one of these basements, but we found you first.”

”And now you have to tell us!”

James sighed contentedly.  “This is what I needed.”  He said to the air in front of him.  “This is the perfect antidote to existential dread.  Also you two are so fucking cute.  You know that?”

”Now hang on.”  Anesh staunchly protested.  “I am not cute, and also we’re asking the questions here.”

”It’s an interrogation!”  Keeka added joyfully.

He looked at the two as they circled ahead of him to block his path.  “Is there any way I could convince you that I’m on the way to circumvent a world ending disaster, and that we should do this later?”

”Not really.”  Anesh said. “Because I get the same alerts that you do.”

James sighed again, shaking his head but not losing the smile.  “We had a nice dinner, went on a long walk, and talked about a bunch of stuff.  Then we got a good night’s sleep, and cuddled a bunch.  Sorry, nothing lustfully salacious occured.  As far as you get to know.”  He added under his breath.

Anesh have a small breath of laughter as Keeka sulked.  He met James’ eyes, and smiled.  “I’m glad you had a good date.”

Suddenly, James was worried that he’d seen a bit of regret in Anesh’s eyes.  “You okay?”  He asked.

”Oh, yeah!  I-“

”Do you want to go get pizza and go on a long walk and talk about stuff and then go to bed together and cuddle?”  James asked, feeling that confidence coming back to him.

At Anesh’s side, Keeka looked up at him and nodded so vigorously that James worried the ratroach was going to snap his antenna off.  Anesh gave a much more earnest laugh.  “Actually, yeah, I would.  That sounds properly nice.  You know, every time I think I have regrets about anything, you just make me feel properly nice?”

”It’s my superpower.  Now, I actually am supposed to be going to meet Momo and her coven, so…”

”Yes, yes, you’ve paid your toll.”  Anesh stepped aside, magnanimously waving James through, and unable to hide a smile that showed up as his boyfriend gave him a firm kiss on the way past.  “Have fun!”  He called after James.

Just before James could turn the corner, he heard Keeka’s sudden chittering behind him as the ratroach realized something.  “We didn’t ask if they kissed!”  He told Anesh.

”Ah, you’re right, we didn’t.  Next time!” He heard Anesh say before he was out of range of even his improved hearing.

Shaking his head, but feeling much better from the small encounter, James let himself feel okay for a bit as he walked.  The thought of the existential dread the dungeon cell phone had put in his head was still there, but between the little boost from his boyfriend, and his new Sewer based Energy improvement, he was feeling ready for anything as he wound through the maze of hallways to the familiar location of the room Momo had claimed for her chunk of Research to work on weird applications of things.

”Oh good, you’re here.”  Juan said as James walked in, not turning from where he was sitting cross legged on a beanbag chair and either having a staring contest with Ink-And-Key, or deep in thought about something.

”Yes, welcome.”  Ink-And-Key did actually look up and nod at James.  The camraconda was wearing one of the mechanical arm backpacks, and he unfolded a slender limb to hold something out to James.  “We need you to stand here and hold this.” He said, offering James a red orb.

James pressed his fingertips into his forehead, not quite burying his face in his hands, but certainly shaking in laughter for a reason the two boys would have no idea about.  “Why wasn’t that on my list of things I expected to hear down here?”  He asked.

”Lack of prior experience?”  Juan offered.

“Misunderstanding of mission statement?”  Ink-And-Key submitted.

”You’re dumb sometimes?”  Momo added coming in the door right behind James and hip checking him forward as she balanced a computer tablet, a digital table, a tray of food from upstairs, and a sealed cardboard tube under her arm.  “Also hey.  Did they show you the thing yet?”

James took the red orb Ink-And-Ket was holding out to him and stood in the middle of the two guys with a resigned roll of his eyes.  “What am I doing.”  He asked.

“Cool.”  Juan said, grabbing a laptop he had close at hand.  “Close your eyes.  Ink’s gonna give you math problems, your only job is to focus on telling me the answers.”  He pushed a button and a low droning hum started playing.

”I’m bad at-“

“Hush.”  Ink-And-Key said, and then started feeding James simple addition and subtraction problems.

James wasn’t sure what he was doing exactly, but the white noise was relaxing, closing his eyes let him pretend he was napping, and the math was simple enough that he didn’t have much trouble processing it.  It took him a minute or two, but he managed to stop being either curious or bored, and just existed, taking numbers in and putting numbers out, in a relaxing state.  Though he figured he’d need some water soon if he kept having to talk.

He didn’t have to wait long.  It was almost by accident that he felt the orb start to slip into his palm, and nearly a reflex that led him to grab it and pull it into his body all the way.  Knowing now that it was actually literally inside him was a little weird, but not nearly as weird as the ringing thought that arced across his mind as he successfully absorbed a red orb for the first time.

[+8 Interrogations : Height]

”Huh!  Synchronicity!”  James said as he opened his eyes and Juan killed the thrumming white noise.

”Oh dear.  That sounds dangerous.”  Ink-And-Key said, the massive camraconda edging backward away from James and using his own beanbag chair as light cover.

Momo came to James’ rescue, hopping off the workbench she was sitting on and swishing her mage’s bathrobe around her as she did.  “Nah, you’re fine.  He means he heard the word earlier.  Which one?”

”Interrogation.  And actually just a minute ago.”  James said.  “So, how’s this… work?  I just look at things and know how tall they are?”  Instead of waiting for an answer, he focused on Momo and tried to figure out the many ways he might ask the magic to tell him how tall she was.  It actually didn’t take long, mostly because it was a lot like using a blue orb.  If you could absorb one without help, then you could use one without help too.  “Oh!  It’s in centimeters!  One sixty point six, huh?”

”Oh!  I hate you!”  Momo exclaimed delightedly.  “You know we haven’t found a purple that makes you taller yet, and I hate it?  I mean, I don’t mind being short, but it’s kinda bullshit that Inky gets to be taller than me while two thirds of him is laying down.”

”I offered to trade.”  Ink-And-Key told her.  “I was not kidding.  You could be this large, right now.”  His mechanical arms swished out to display his glorious white cable form.

James nodded along, half listening to the duo bantering or bickering as he tried to figure out if there was any kind of feedback or use counter.  But no, just like with absorbed blues, you better be paying attention at the start, or you weren’t going to know what was up.  “Well.”  He said, cutting off Momo saying something about getting big boots that he had only half heard.  “This is really cool.  I’m assuming it’s a different question for each orb?”

”Oh, yeah.”  Juan answered him, also ignoring his compatriots.  “Sorry, this is gonna go on for a while.  You set off a trap.”

”This happens a lot?”

”One of them’s huge, one of them’s smoll, it comes up more often than you’d think.”  He shrugged.  “Anyway, cool, right?”

”Oh yeah.  How’d you figure it out?”

”Unrelated goofing around with hypnotic states.”  It was kinda interesting how Juan’s tone stayed exactly as relaxed and easy as he explained more complex topics.  “This one doesn’t exactly rewrite the common theory, but it does add to it.”

James nodded, reaching out a foot to hook the edge of the abandoned beanbag that Ink-And-Key had been using and pulling it over to have a place to sit.  “Yeah, I get that.  Absorbing requires a specific mindset.  Needing time for yellows, needing tools for blue, needing something to do for oranges… hmm, this one doesn’t quite fit that pattern does it?”

”It’s also usually people thinking of themselves as utile, for blues, and as part of a complex working for oranges.”  Juan corrected.  “This one, we’ve found works best when you’re a processor of information.  So, yeah, breathing exercises and math problems.”

“Huh.  You know, I kinda expected these to make matter?”  James offered.

”Why?”

”Because reds come from the traps in the Office, and those seem to regenerate if left unattended.”

”…Weird.”

”You’re telling me.  Sometimes I have this strong suspicion that the dungeon just straight up didn’t complete the full grid of uses, just to screw with us.”  James admitted.  “Like, we know that yellow can be absorbed, turned into lil guys, or cracked, right?  But we’ve never seen a yellow totem, and have no idea how to even start on that.  Blues, also no totem, and most of them have yellow effects folded in, for some reason.  Purples?  No idea how to absorb them or make a totem, though I suspect that we shouldn’t be doing that last one anyway.”

”We know all the uses for oranges though.”  Juan pointed out.

”Ah!  You’d think so, but no!  There’s absolutely lil guys out there with orange orbs as part of them, but-“

Juan cut him off, turning the laptop to show him an image of a roomba-shaped beetle the size of a large and particularly angry bear.  “Lil guy.”  He said dryly.

”Yeah, exactly.  Good example!  But they always have extra orange orbs, not only orange orbs.  Anyway, my point is, I don’t think the Office planned this out completely.  Or, maybe more accurately, I wonder if it left gaps intentionally that it could fill itself if it wanted more tools later.”

”If I went into dungeons I’d be worried!”  Juan said as he spun his laptop back around, closed it, and set it next to his seat.

James studied him carefully, especially the pair of small scars on his cheek not quite covered up by Juan’s growing goatee.  “You do go into dungeons.”

”Uh, yeah.  And it worries me.”  He replied.  “I’ll be fine.  Anyway.  Momo!”  The last word was yelled across the room, interrupting the escalating argument that Momo and Ink-And-Key were having.  “Didn’t you want to tell James something? He’s not gonna be here all day!”

”My seat…” Ink-And-Key said in a forlorn digital voice as he looked back and realized James had stolen his resting spot.  “Momo he stole my seat.”  The heavy camraconda abandoned any irritation in favor of making a small plea to the woman who was technically in charge here.

”James you self-righteous twit how dare yo- oh, you’re already moving, okay I take back what I said.  You’re a good boss.”  Momo shot him a thumbs up and reached over to grab one of the two tablets she’d added to a stack of random stuff on one of the workspaces in the cozy side room.  “So!  If you’ve been paying attention to your magical cybernetic, you probably noticed that the webcam feed for the Stacks tablet is off.”

James hadn’t, but he checked compulsively anyway.  A new emerald chip program had replaced one of the parts of the skulljack braid that worked with opening up video files, and he was getting used to how easy it had become.  “So, you didn’t call me here to tell me about red orbs?”  He asked, kind of impressed.

”No, I figured that out while you were on the way.”  Juan said, clearly smug about it.

”We should pay you guys more.  What’s the tablet do?”  James cut through to the point with a wary smile.  He was really hoping that he wasn’t about to get a second existential crisis about a major piece of dungeontech today.

”Tells you how to make things.”  Momo said simply, watching James carefully.

His shoulders sagged in relief, and also a little in disappointment.  “Oh.  Okay, that’s… neat?”

”Yeah.  Whatever you ask it about, probably.  Though we only have one example so far.”  Momo said, waiting for James to make the connection.  “It takes a while.  That blue glowing line on the outside is a loading bar, sorta.  And then the tablet basically scrolls like a clay touchscreen.  Mars set something up to automate scanning the whole data package that it gave us today before I brought it here.”

”Okay.  Wait, how much did it tell… wait.”

”Oh, he remembered!”  Ink-And-Key excitedly announced.

James had remembered.  Because he’d been there when they’d grabbed the thing.  “The first thing anyone asked around it was what the hell is this thing.”

”Corrrrrrrect!”  Momo declared.  “Want to make more of them?”  She asked.

”Fucking how?!”

Momo looked down at the tablet she’d picked up, her finger moving across the clay surface and shifting the imprinted lines in it that formed words and symbols.  The tablet, James noticed with some deep relief, was actually enclosed in one of those hard shell cases for protecting electronic devices from such trivial things like ‘being hit with several hammers’ or ‘nuclear war’.  So it was nice to know that Research had at least seen the value in this enough to secure it somewhat.  “Uh… good fucking question TBH.”  Momo said.  “I mean, a lot of this isn’t English.  A lot of it’s kinda pictographic?  So I’ll let you know in the future.  I don’t even know if we can make one of these ourselves, if it uses actual magic.  But it’s absolutely an instruction manual, even if I’m too dumb to get it.  Anyway, what do we ask it next?”

”…I feel like you can’t just spring this on me.”  James said.  “Also this is literally one of those things Research is supposed to determine themselves.  Though that said, you should test it on something simple and mundane to see if you’re actually right about what it’s doing, and also to see if the timer was only set at a month and a half or whatever it was because it was a powerful magic item.”

”Good call.”  Juan said, sending exactly that sentence into Research’s chat server through his skulljack.  He got a rapid reply from Ink-And-Key chastising him for taking credit for something James said, and the two of them fell quiet as they went back to talking to each other and the rest of the basement’s denizens digitally.

James looked between them, then back to Momo.  “Alright.  Good work.  This one is way less spooky.”  He said.  “Anything else for me?”

”Nah, I’ve got a date in a minute.”  Momo said.  “Soon as Dave gets here.  Oh!  Wait, no!  You’re wrong!”

”…What?”

”About the summoning phone!  You’re wrong about it.”  Momo straightened up, looking like she might actually be a little afraid of the response to her statement.  “It’s not your call if - that’s not a pun - if people think it’s okay to use it themselves.  It’s not your choice how we choose to live with stuff like this.  And you don’t get to tell us what to not test out, because you explicitly chose not to be in charge when you chose to be a paladin.  You do not get to tell us what to do.”  Momo declared, building up an almost shaking defensive anger as she talked.

For a brief moment, James had a flash of annoyance that bordered on real anger.  Because everyone kept asking him to take a leadership role, and now he was being told this.  But he caught himself when he realized he was about to lash out, at least one red orb letting him recognize what he was feeling and why just a moment before he said something he couldn’t take back.  And he used that moment to think about it.

He hated that phone suddenly, though he wasn’t sure how much of it was getting defensive in the face of Momo’s tone.  He hated the idea of making whole people just to blip them out of existence with the push of a button, even if those people didn’t ‘care’, exactly.  It might even be worse because they couldn’t care, because that implied that if you could make someone not care about themself, then it was okay to use them like a tool, and James found that to be a potential path that he would fucking burn the world down before he let humanity walk.

But he also wasn’t a dictator.  Momo was right.  He wasn’t their boss, not really.  He was here to help everyone, and maybe his own discretion meant that he wouldn’t help with this particular research project, but it also meant that he didn’t have a right to put a stop to it.  At most, he could call for a general vote, and present his case, but… for all the new and radical ideas that the Order was trying to put into action, they were in many ways a democracy, and James wasn’t allowed to make unilateral decisions.

So, to Momo’s surprise, James undermined all of that anxiety by nodding.  “Okay.”  He said.  “I mean, yeah, you’re right.  You are literally right!  My job isn’t to be in charge.”  James sighed and looked at the other two, still half online as they went back to their own work, then back to Momo.  “You’re right.  Sorry.  Actually.”

”…I hate when you do that.”  She said.

”You know, sometimes, you say literally the same stuff as El does, and I think you two are either perfect for each other, or going to self-destruct so spectacularly.”  James said offhandedly.  “Also why are you going on a date with Dave?  Is this the romance explosion?  Am I witness to the end times?”

Momo threw something from one of her pockets at him, and James dodged a pen only to have it whip back around and strike him in the back of the head with a light impact.  “Oh fuck you!”  Momo said, but without any heat or hostility.  “And no, no one’s dating Dave!  We just need to borrow Pendragon to get some altitude!  And before you ask, yes, Deb’s coming along to make sure we don’t kill ourselves.  God, you’re like the Order’s dad sometimes.”

”He absolutely did not ask you that, nor was he planning to.”  Ink-And-Key called over without looking away from whatever he was doing.

”Oh.”  Momo said.  “Well whatever.  I’ll be fine.  Anyway, I gotta go return this, and get the next thing started on it!  I just figured I’d hit you guys up on the way past!”

”That’s not what you told me.”  Juan said with narrowed eyes, hand frozen midway through scratching at his meticulously sculpted facial hair.  “Momo, do you even remember what plans you made?”

”Uh, yeah dude, I remember I’m going out with my incredibly hot girlfriend.”  Momo said.  “That’s literally the only thing that matters.”

”No, Momo, you can’t…” Juan stopped talking as Momo slipped out the door, one hand sticking back through the gap to wave at them.  “…she scares me sometimes.”  He said.

Ink-And-Key gave a long and tired hiss as he spoke.  “She seems so much less sad now that she is not alone, so I do not want to hurt her.  But I worry.  What if she hurts herself?  I do not want to lose more friends.”  The camraconda’s brutal emotional honesty brought a silence after it that lingered in the air.

Until James had to ask.  “Okay, seriously, what the fuck is she doing today?  Is she going skydiving out of a dragon?  Because I’m starting to think Momo’s cooler than me.”

”She did not say.”  Ink-And-Key gave another tired hiss.

James just nodded quietly.  That had been… well, a deeply Momo interaction.  “Okay.  I’m gonna head out.  Oh, one more thing!  What’s the red absorb limit like?”

”Oh, uh, seems the same as blues so far.”  Juan answered after a moment.  “Yeah.  It’s easier than orange.  Oh hey, before you go, do you have a delve slot open for the Sewer tomorrow?”

”Not actually my delve this week, you’ll have to ask…” James checked his roster, and couldn’t find a name.  “Huh.  Hang on.”  He shot a mental message off to Sarah, who he somehow figured would just know this.  And was vindicated almost right away.  “Well shit.  Ask Momo.”

”…Nah.”

”Maybe a good idea.”  James gave them one last wave, and headed out.

____

Rufus had a problem.

Actually, Rufus had a few problems, which was how he’d gotten into this situation.

The smallest problem, which had kicked it off, was that for some reason, he had ended up being one of the people who was supposed to teach a variety of individuals who were at maturity step two about plants.

Step two was ‘young human child’.  Capable of independent action, but benefiting from close supervision, and with an incomplete view of the world that meant learning was especially impactful.  Rufus liked people in that bracket.  They had an easier time understanding him, which was good, because despite his new emote keyboard, he still couldn’t properly communicate.

He should have been annoyed by that, he realized.  But thinking about it at all was a challenge, and often times it slipped away from his bite, so he just lived with it and the Order did what they always did and accommodated him.

So he needed to teach.  That was okay, he could do that.  But the selection of plants that Rufus and Fredrick were growing and working with in their empowered basement greenhouse were… not useful to learn about.  Not for children.  Which had created a new problem.  But not in the idea department, at least.

Rufus had been doing a lot of the research and data collation for the Order’s rapidly coalescing plan to begin operating a dedicated place of education, so he had a good picture in mind of how to begin with engaging children.  The idea was to spark interest in different ways, then allow for different methods to dig into the information.  To that end, beginning with a ‘field trip’, transitioning to conversational and book learning, and then back to another adventure to apply what had been learned, seemed like a coherent and simple lesson plan.

The first hurdle had come when Rufus had just wanted to scout out a spot and get a good foundation for what he needed to prepare in terms of class materials.  He’d chosen a local park that had a winding trail, and a decent amount of dedication to maintaining the nature within it.

While exploring with Fredrick’s help, the stuff animal having far better range with his binocular vision, the duo had - in between sneaking past human joggers who wouldn’t understand a stapler and a small animal amalgam - been charged by a very upset dog.

The dog had a leash, and despite being frantic and distressed, Fredrick had still managed to calm it down after it had bowled into the two of them and sent Rufus skittering across the packed trail path with a broken leg.

He’d been feeling uncharitable, but the way the dog seemed intent on dashing away from them, and how Fredrick was giving him one of those looks that said that they should see what was wrong, Rufus decided to follow as best they could.

The stuff animal helped him along, supporting his growing weight mostly needlessly, because his other flexible pen legs still worked even if one was out of commission for now.  The dog - the collar said his name was Rusty - kept having to run back to them before leading them forward again, and they rapidly ended up off the trail and down a steep slope of wet dirt and thick undergrowth, heading for the sound of flowing water down below.

At the bottom of the ravine, they found the next problem.  A woman, lying having just barely dragged herself out of the water.  One leg was bent in a twisted wreckage, and she was bleeding from her forehead.

She looked up as Rufus and Fredrick followed the dog - probably her dog - up to her.

”I told you to go get…” she started to say, voice midway between panic and exasperation.  Then she saw Fredrick, and, even with the stuff animal keeping most of his spider limbs folded behind his back, she still took one look at the salamander maw and dexterous raccoon paws holding her dog’s leash, and started screaming.

So the dog started barking, and Fredrick started making some kind of panicked noise as well, and Rufus felt like maybe there was a larger concern at play here.

Ignoring the screams, Rufus reared up onto his hind legs to catch Fredrick before he could turn and bolt.  The stuff animal was already apprehensive about being outside and away from the Order, and this wasn’t exactly helping.  So Rufus steadied him, and then got him to sit thirty feet away on a rock so that his smock wouldn’t get even more mud and pine needles in it.

Then he walked up to the dog, who was still howling, and made a ‘sit’ gesture with his foreleg.  It took two tries before Rusty acknowledge him, but the bony brown furred shape got it on the third try and slowly settled down.

Then Rufus turned to the woman, who was staring at him open mouthed, and still making upset human noises, and crossed his forelegs at her.

”W-what… are you?”  She gasped out.

Rufus rolled his eye.  This was exactly the kind of poor prioritization of needs that caused humans so much trouble in their daily lives.  He would have handed her one of his business cards, but they were in the satchel that his friend was wearing and therefore thirty feet away on a rock.  So instead, he just broadcast exasperation at her until she calmed down.  It was hard, Rufus had realized, to find someone alien and scary, when they were casually annoyed with you.

He wasn’t surprised it worked, but he was gratified by it.

”My leg.”  The woman said, getting onto the right target.  “I think I broke it.  Can you get someone to help me?”  Rufus held up his legs in an X, then pointed at her and tried to indicate motion.  “I can’t walk!”  She sounded like the only reason she wasn’t crying was because she’d already drained her reserve of tears.

Rufus rolled his eye.  Of course she couldn’t walk.  He motioned for Fredrick to come back over, and after the stuff animal did, trying nervously to hide his face, Rufus started digging around in the carrying pouch at his side.  Coming up with a telepad, he made sure it had the Order’s address on it, and gently coaxed Fredrick to come closer so he could make contact.

Then Rufus spotted his next problem.  Something was definitely wrong with the water in this tiny river that the woman had fallen into.  There was a kind of rainbow sheen to it, visible as it placidly flowed past.  Though the human didn’t seem bothered by it, so maybe that was normal?

No, that was not normal.

Rufus clacked once to himself, and then made some rapid signs to Fredrick, who nodded stiffly back.

”W-weeee go nowwwww.” The stuff animal told the woman.  “Ssssssafe place.”  He reached out tentatively to her arm.  “Ssssssnacks?”

”You can talk?!”  The woman seemed like she was back to focusing on the wrong problems.

Rufus stepped back as Fredrick got the dog to come over, which wasn’t hard, and the three of them vanished.  He had kept the backup telepad, but before he headed back to the Lair, he wanted to check out this oddity.

It looked weird.  Which could just mean that he didn’t know how Earth’s system of waterways worked, or it could mean there was something dangerous going on.

Traversing a wooded area was surprisingly easy, even with a broken leg, once Rufus realized he could move from tree to tree in the canopy.  Following the curve of the water over about a mile and a half of travel, it eventually left the park, crossed a back road, went onto someone’s private property that had no trees but also no way to spot a single dedicated strider, and kept on going through fields and undeveloped lots.

Until Rufus found a point where a dirt road and an ancient looking bridge intersected it several miles away, and also found a box truck with a pair of humans casually emptying barrels of something into the stream.

It was, honestly, a massive relief.  Rufus had worried it was going to be a dungeon of some kind, not just humans ruining the environment again.

The truck didn’t have any branding, but getting the license plate was easy enough, though he had to memorize it because the only thing he had to write on was a telepad.  And writing took him forever anyway, and he could only do it when copying something.

So Rufus made the perfectly rational decision to hop in the back of the truck, nestled behind a couple of the old metal drums, and waited.

Forty minutes later, he was somewhere new, the people doing the dumping making no effort to hide anything, and probably counting on simply not being caught in general.  It took Rufus a little bit to find an address, and the process of dodging notice as he left the garage the truck was stored in was a little harrowing, but he did manage it.

At no point during this process did it occur to him that he maybe could have asked for help in any way.

One telepad home later, and a trip to the office he’d commandeered from James to tape up his own broken leg and also try to figure out who to contact, he still hadn’t figured out how either get action taken, or catch the people who had caused the problem.

Which was when Alex came in.  She didn’t knock, which was suspicious, but she also didn’t seem to have expected him there.  “Oh, hey Rufus.”  She said his name like he had three O’s in it.  “Is James here?”  He punched a key on his little communicator board, giving her a frowning face on the screen that came with it.  He wasn’t wearing it, because he hadn’t wanted to take it outside when it might rain, but it worked fine like this.  “Oh.  Okay.  Uh… do you know anything about why a random hiker and her dog ended up in our basement?”

Rufus did!  And he explained it coherently with a simple string of six different emotes.

Alex watched, nodded, and then said, “I don’t think I got that.”  Which was deeply disappointing.  “But I’m guessing that you had something to do with it.  Mister Armillary ran off before anyone could ask him.”

That sounded like Fredrick, yes.  Rufus knew his friend liked the name Sarah had bestowed on him, but having three different names often got confusing for him.  He was just a poor stapler with internet access, not some kind of genius.

”Anyway.  What… oh, nice map.”  Alex looked down at the survey chart that Rufus had made a pair of marks on.  “What’s up with this?”

And then, in that moment, Rufus realized he could get help with this.  One series of frantic motions, taps on the map, and pictographic images later, Alex nodded slowly from where she’d taken a seat and had her human hands in front of her face in a triangle shape.

”So… you found some people dumping shit in the river, and you need to tell the… I’m gonna guess Fish and Wildlife department?  Department?  Bureau?  Whatever.  You need to tell them where, and who did it.  And you don’t know how to find their offices?”

Rufus gave her a bobbing nod.

”Okay.  Uh… want a ride?”  She asked, and Rufus tilted himself sideways in confusion.  “I looked up the local office address halfway through when I thought it might be what you needed.  I don’t have an appointment for us, exactly, but we can drop in and say hi.  And, like, worst case scenario, they get mad at us for teleporting into someone’s office.  Best case scenario, they are so impressed by us teleporting into someone’s office that they give us high fives and an award for your detective work.”

Now, Rufus had only been living on Earth for a few years at this point.  But he was almost certain none of that would happen.  In fact, he was pretty sure he was about to learn several human ways to say “Get the fuck out of my office” and perhaps “What do you mean you can teleport” over the next hour or so.

But Alex seemed like she wasn’t doing anything important.  And Rufus was, frankly, offended that someone was ruining his potential field trip site.

So he got his communication board on, let her lift him up to her shoulder, and pointed forward in a command to get going.  Which Alex obliged.

Hopefully, by the end of the day, Rufus would have one less problem.  And so would the local wilderness.

_____

“Jaaaaames!”  Alanna’s voice grew in intensity as it approached him, and James barely had time to process that he needed to duck before he had failed his dodge check and she had him in an arm bar, sweeping him literally off his feet.  The almost gentle way that his girlfriend plucked him up and moved him was, in James’ personal opinion, kinda hot.  So was the way she spun him around and dipped him down to give him a long and passionate kiss, though he found that a little embarrassing when he was just trying to get a table for lunch.  Or maybe dinner.  He hadn’t been tracking time that well today.

”Allammmmppph!”  Was about all James got out before the kissing happened.  But after Alanna straightened him back up and returned him to his standing position, he continued making muffled noises in place of actually talking.  “Mmph.  Mmmh hmhh hm maah?”

”Oh, I’m doing pretty good!”  She answered him based off a strategic guess at whatever the fuck James was ‘actually’ saying.  “So.  Hey.  Question for you.”  His girlfriend elbowed him in the ribs before James grabbed an empty table and sat down opposite her, taking one of the basket seats that the camracondas preferred.

James was pretty sure he knew where this was going.  “No, I didn’t fool around with Arrush, I’m very sorry.”

Shaking her head, and only partly keeping an eye on where a pair of striders were crawling across the paperclip lines that ran the length of the walls, Alanna sighed.  “You should be sorry, but that’s not what I was gonna ask.”

”Oh!  Wait, really?  That seems like half of what I’ve been asked today.”

Alanna cocked an eyebrow.  “Huh.  Okay.  Well, I’m gonna ask if you wanna go down to Townton.”

”Why?  I mean, sure, but why?”  James realized suddenly that she meant now, so he stood up with a soft oof, relying on the half drained surplus of Energy to keep his back from hurting and ignoring the fact that the upgrade didn’t do that.  “Sorry!”  He tried to not be awkward as he spoke up to ward off the approaching dining room staff.  “I’m being stolen away, but also I think there’s other people who want my table, so maybe I’m not saving you time after all, and now I’m extra sorry, and thank you for putting up with me!”  The last part was almost a mournful wail as Alanna rolled her eyes and dragged James out of the dining room past the mixed group that was looking around for a place to sit.

It only occured to James as he was too far away that the group included Prince and Ruby, and their young human friends, and he really wanted to check in on them. But Alanna was insistent, so he just waved and made a note for later.  They seemed like they were doing a lot better though.

“So.  Townton.  Chanter stuff?”

”Yep.”  Alanna said.  “It was a dumb thought I had last night.”  She yawned like a lion as she and James headed into the warehouse to check the posted teleport times.  Alanna already knew they should have about ten minutes, but still it was worth making sure nothing had changed.  “Auberdeen helped.”

The warehouse was more active than James had expected, with at least two of the groups of security teams in training here.  Maybe Nate had them running drills today, though James hadn’t been told about it, which was a bit disappointing.  He’d been trying to work on that part of himself as much as possible.

It looked like one of the paper drakes was being overly playful while getting fitted for a camraconda saddle, as Ethan’s team prepared to take some new delvers up Winter’s Climb for their first spells.  Elsewhere, an unhappy looking man with a crew cut and a stiff posture briefed a few people on spotting Akashic Sewer attempts to sneak things out into the real world.  And someone nearly hit James with a drone as he walked in, who he vowed to take mild and unthreatening revenge on later.

The back shutters were open, and the summer sun mixed with the internal lighting to give the whole place a happy glow.  James loved it.

”So, when did you last sleep?”  James asked his continuously yawning girlfriend as they checked the times for the spatial swap teleports and settled in to wait, legs dangling off the edge of the loading dock where they sat.

”Eh, a while.”  Alanna admitted.  “I’m starting to get fuzzy, and forget stuff, I think.”

”…A while.”  James suddenly felt worried.  “Alanna…”

She tried to grin at him but another yawn ate it up.  ”Yeah, you know, a little bit.” She muttered.

“Okay, I feel like we’re not going to Townton today.”  James stated.  “Or at least you’re not.”  Alanna muttered something belligerent, and James responded by just scooting over closer and letting her drop her head onto the top of his head in a resting position.  “I always forget how much fucking taller than me you are.  I slouch so much, I assume it’s not that much, then this happens.”  Alanna snorted into his hair.  “So, what, you’ve been just ignoring bed?   What’s up?  You okay?”

Alanna sighed, breath shoving strands of his hair into her face.  “Got sidetracked a while back looking into civil rights stuff.  Then had a Response shift.  Then some other stuff happened.”  One of her arms curled around him as she started to relax, sitting there on the decidedly uncomfortable concrete ledge.  “Sarah said I could use the realtionstick book chain thingy to grab some sleep off of you, but I didn’t wanna if you weren’t awake to okay it.  And if it ever comes up, you can totally take stuff from me, I don’t care.  And then I had another Response job, but that one was just training.  It all just kinda… kept going.  And I was too mad about stuff to sleep at first, and then I felt like I could just push through.”

”…how long have you been awake?”  James asked softly.

”Couple days. Nothing too bad.”

”Go to bed.”

”Meh.  In a bit.”  Alanna said in a dazed voice.  “Kinda comfy now.”

James snorted.  “Yeah, cause you’re using me as a bed.  Alright, how about you just tell me what the Townton thing is?”

”Took the couch down.”  Alanna said with clipped words.

Nodding as he made the quick connection, James ran a hand through his girlfriend’s hair, giving her head scritches.  “Okay, so we could understand a the chanters.  That’s cool.  A, how did Auberdeen help with that, B, did it work?”

”Makes their emotion thingy sharper.  Or clearer maybe.  I mean, it does make them easier to understand, but not like language.”  Alanna sighed.  “But, one thing it does that is cool is it lets them understand us.  An’ that is probably gonna help a lot.”

The biggest barrier to communication with the chanters wasn’t that they couldn’t talk, or didn’t seem to get language that well.  The problem was that they were so skittish that it was hard to even figure out how to start.  They were still keeping their distance from every human at almost all times, only a couple people had tried sharing skulljack connections with them since they’d moved to Townton, and their constant sense of fear and anxiety had a serious negative mood effect on the people who lived and worked there.

It was getting better, but the communication barrier was a huge hurdle to solving one of the biggest problems that fed into the communication barrier.  And if the chanters could understand the people talking to them, beyond just decrypting hand gestures and tone of voice…

”That’s big.”  James said, repressing his urge to nod so as not to throw his girlfriend off.  “Have you gotten a necroad to try it out?”

”N’yet.”  Alanna said sleepily.  “But the horizonists are real excited for it.”

James huffed out a breath.  “You mean Kirk.”  He said.  “He’s the last holdout on that particular thing.”

”I’m pretty sure he could convince someone else to sign up.”

”I knew this was going to happen.”  James had been waiting, waiting, for someone to form another dungeon religion.  He probably could have predicted that it would be the guy who already had one.

Alanna bonked her forehead against him as she pulled back.  “Nah, he’s fine.” She said with slightly renewed energy.  “I’m mostly kidding.  I think it’s probably the little group of ratroaches living down there that’re really invested.  They see the necroads as like them.”

”Makes sense.”

”Yeah.  Doesn’t not suck though.”

”I mean, it does not suck, in a way.”  James countered.  “It’s… they’ve healed to the point that they can show empathy.  That’s the first hurdle for most of them.  That’s a good place to be.  It’s better.”

”Mmmh.”

He set an arm on Alanna’s thigh, a pleasantly warm point of compassionate contact.  “Hey, what were you looking into, anyway?”

Alanna blinked at him, swaying slightly.  ”Huh?  Oh.  I was trying to figure out if local laws actually applied to… you know, half our friends.”

”Ah.”  James had done that too.

”Yeah.  So I was trying to figure out the best way to change it.”

James shook his head.  “It’s a tangled mess of interconnected bullshit.”  He said softly, only just loud enough to be heard over the evening traffic and the sound of someone calling out from the Lair’s roof.  “I was considering getting someone to run for governor, and signing an executive order about it.  I seriously doubt we could get a presidential candidate through.  We could also just relocate to somewhere else.  I know I said that the way forward should be changing the world for the better, not breaking shit and starting over, but we probably could build our own island, right?”

”It’s a nice dream.”  Alanna admitted.  “Just get away from it all.  Do what we always knew was the right thing.”

”It certainly works at a small scale.”  James agreed.  “Hey, so, I’ve been thinking.”

”Shit.”

”Oh come on!”

”Sorry, sorry!  It’s a reflex with you!”

”Alanna that’s so much worse.”

”Tell me your thought before I pass out.”

James laughed, shouldering his partner, before adopting a more sober look.  Staring out over the parking lot and to the row of trees that separated property lines, listening to a paper drake’s wings taking off overhead.  “I want to bring Townton back to life.”  He said.

”We’ve been doing that.”  Alanna reminded him.  “I was just down there.  They’re doing good.  Oh!  Fuck I’m so tired, I almost forgot, the Horizon seeds we nabbed are some kind of hyperadaptive beans.  We’re growing a few.”

“Cool beans.  But also no.  I mean, I want to… I want to make use of the informational black hole that Lloyd and the Mechanic left on our hands, and turn Townton into a city of thousands of people, in the middle of the US, and just… you know, do the thing.  Let people live there.  Be normal.  Or, like, turn our lives into normality for a ton of people who wouldn’t otherwise think of it or even know magic was real, much less camracondas.  We could pay taxes, and get our secret FBI contact to back us, and probably get some weird cointelpro thing run on us.  But we can… I dunno, not shoot them.  I don’t wanna keep having that be my answer to everything.  I’m so tired of killing people, not that I was ever really into it at all.  Maybe we just find whatever secret agents get sent to ruin our lives and turn them by hooking them up with a cute ratroach boyfriend, because I guess we have a surplus of those now, and…” James trailed off as Alanna’s weight against his shoulder intensived, and he smiled entirely to himself as he realized she’d fallen asleep.

Which was good for her, and also cute as hell, but James had no idea how to get her into bed.  He could teleport them home, but Alanna weighed something like two point five Jameses, after all the purple orbs were said and done.

He ran a hand through her hair, and then, had a brilliant thought brought on by the world’s truest magic of ‘paying attention to the woman you loved’.

Holding his hand to the back of her neck, James drew on their recently opened relationstick bond, and started borrowing Alanna’s strength.

He didn’t know how this was measured, if it would naturally refresh over time, or what he was even taking, but it was as easy and intuitive as when they’d practiced.  And with what felt like half of Alanna’s upper body strength infused into him, lifting her off the concrete and holding her close was almost effortless.

James had a few more things to check up on later, but for now, he figured a break was in order to get his girlfriend home safe.

_____

Spire-Cast-Behind was not, in reality, very good at a great many things.  She was learning rapidly, and had been doing so for as much of her life as it was an option.  She knew how to run a small medical facility’s computer system, knew how to live through a fight, knew how to bake sourdough bread.   Knew how to speak through the streamlined speaker system that was normally part of her stylish coat but was currently attached to her custom fit lab safety gear.  She knew how to assist with a construction project, knew the etiquette for the public baths, knew how to deploy with a Response team into an active threat situation, and even knew how to flirt with someone.

That last one had been a challenge, and according to some people, Spire-Cast-Behind absolutely did not know how to do that.  She would say it wasn’t something you could just say she didn’t know how to do.  She knew how, she was just bad at it.

One thing she wasn’t very good at was working with the Order’s alchemy department.  Which was why she was here, today, working in the alchemy department.

Spire-Cast-Behind was a lot of things, and if she kept at it, someday maybe she could be all things.

For now, there was a learning curve to get over, and she was being very careful along with the other potion maker in training that was working with her.  There had been a class on the subject before she’d even entered the part of the Lair that held the equipment they used, and Spire had done a lot of supplemental reading through their test results and reports.  But she still wanted to be careful to not break anything of great importance on her first day.

To start with, the older human woman with graying hair pulled up in a tight bun had been showing Spire and Bea how to harvest the sap.  Why it was called sap was unclear, because even when it came from the Tree of Knowledge - a name Spire-Cast-Behind found fun - it was a fruit and not sap.  When it came from the row upon row of enthusiastically growing succulents that sprouted from dungeontech ceramic pots, it was even less sap.

The pots were always in demand, and they had apparently gotten a new batch of them from the major dungeon run that Spire had skipped for safety reasons.  It took about a week or two for a single fruit from the fancy magical tree to grow into a cactus that produced about one bulb of sap every few days, and appeared to have a lifespan measured in years.  Which meant that each potential batch of potions invested turned into hundreds of attempts.

They got to hear about the math of it, as well as the proper procedure for carefully removing the fruits from the small succulents.  The right way to tell if one was ready, how they were stored for use, how to check on things like the new growths and whether the heat lamps were set properly, how to not water them unless specifically instructed.

That was said with enough force that Spire-Cast-Behind was pretty sure someone had ignored Amelia in the past and ruined something.  It had that kind of history to it.

After that, there was a rundown of the current long term experiments.  Alchemy with the sap - and it was closer to alchemy than chemistry - was notoriously finicky.  Isolating specific effects seemed like it was impossible, because the process actively resisted being learned about that way.  Ingredients did wildly different things depending on what they were mixed with, which implied some kind of ‘second layer’ of information that they didn’t know how to map out yet.

But what they could do was refine what worked in terms of processing method, and ratios.  Before, when it was the Guild of Alchemists doing this, they had a tendency to find something that worked, and then manufacture that for sale.  But they had one fruit a day to work with.

The Order of Endless Rooms had a hundred.  And that number was only going to grow.

The only time Amelia showed her new students any kind of excitement was when talking about how incremental testing had let them improve the exercise potion by about thirty percent in terms of volume, and also create a different ‘style’ of it that preferenced its ability to suppress nerve pain during the healing process.

Spire-Cast-Behind and Bea did get hands on experience, though.  The Order had, with their ability to run more experiments than they had time for, eventually figured out that it didn’t seem to matter what species worked on something.  Similarly, material composition of the tools they used influenced the outcome, but only in a marginal way.  Which had let them streamline a lot of their production of the potions that were in common use.

Which was how Spire-Cast-Behind got to be the one who ran the blender for, and eventually poured out into doses, the potion that would repair lung tissue.  It felt… she didn’t know how it felt.  Like being thrown into the deep part of one of the baths unexpectedly.  Like the process of measuring out cures for something that killed people should have more gravitas than a thing that a trainee was thrown into.  This batch was going to be sent out to humans that would never know her, might not ever know that camracondas were real, and she was just casually put on the task of holding their lives in her stare.

When she commented on it, Amelia had taken it seriously, listened to her, and then told her that wasn’t how it worked.  There were two sides to the potion business; making them was a matter of perfecting repetition.  Coming up with new ones was where the logical deductions, careful study, and creative leaps happened.

The cure for cancer was the simple part.

After they’d been walked through their first batch each, and had been deemed passable at obeying the simple steps, Spire-Cast-Behind moved on to the nearby room where their safety tests were run.  The Order had a sizable population of laboratory rats, spread across a number of enclosures on the different tables, many with charts and computers nearby, cameras watching their behavior carefully.  It was strange, to think that many of these creatures would probably die when it came to studying the effects of new potions.  In fact, if her own brew of the lung purifier had any major errors, she might kill one of them in the safety test for it right now.

Spire peeked her head over one of the tables, camera eye focusing on the largest habitat that was a long term case study for a potion that had been brewed and tested months ago.  It had clearly changed the rats, but no one quite knew how.

She wondered if they understood that they were being asked to sacrifice for something abstract.  She wondered if they were unhappy.  Then she checked the chart and found that, by many metrics, they were the happiest rats to ever live, which was nice.

Bea stepped next to her with the precise movement style that often differentiated inhabitors from humans.  “Would you eat the rats?”  She asked, the grey blandness of her voice actually shaded with what sounded to Spire-Cast-Behind like legitimate curiosity.

“...what?”  The camraconda felt like mastering her voice had come with the serious drawback of sometimes saying things she wasn’t planning on.

“The rats.  Do you want to eat them.”  Bea stated again, as if that clarified anything.  “Because you are a snake.”

Spire-Cast-Behind took a deep breath, feeling the external cables of her belly stretch and flex as she steadied herself and twisted to face the person.  “No, I do not want to eat our valuable test subjects.  Also they look happy.  And are statistically presenting as happy by known and measured lab rat standards.”

“Do you not eat happy things?”

Amelia chose that moment to intervene.  “Good lord above that’s the rudest thing I’ve heard working here, and that’s counting you damn kids always talking about your sex lives.”  The elder human said in her voice that sounded like she was always on the cusp of telling someone they were an idiot.  Even when she was actively doing that.

Bea shifted her stance exactly enough to include Amelia in the conversation.  “I do not.  You could speak of your experiences, no one would mind.”  She was back to a fully blank voice, the curiosity about Spire’s diet gone.

“Ah, but then i wouldn’t be let into heaven.”  Amelia said with something like a tiny twist of a grin.

Spire-Cast-Behind decided to see how amenable their teacher for the day really was to the kind of banter she’d gotten used to with the other humans and even many of the camracondas.  “Because lying is a sin.”  She said coyly.

“Now see here young lady!”  Amelia’s voice sounded like she was having more fun with this, even if it was a distraction from the potion work.

Spire-Cast-Behind added a soft hiss, making it clear she was teasing, and not hostile.  “You could, of course, reciprocate Davis’s flirtatious behavior.”  Spire was bad at flirting, but she was certain she had recognized it with the other man when he had been helping them out.

“It would expedite many social functions.”  Bea added, though Spire-Cast-Behind wasn’t sure if the inhabitor was getting in on the joke, or serious about prioritizing efficacy over anything else.

Amelia’s face fell in an instant, her tone going cold.   “Are you forgetting something?  I’m a prisoner here.  One way or another, anything twixt one of your people and me is something I severely doubt any of your little ethical codes would approve of.  Also you’re only picking Davis because you’re pairing humans off by relative age.  If I were so inclined, I would take… mmmh… for sake of argument, let’s say JP.  He seems youthful and vigorous.”  Spire wasn’t quite sure if that second half of her words were still angry or not.  Amelia was a challenge among humans that the camraconda had met in that way.

Davis chose that moment to enter the testing lab, back from his own small break.  “Awful, just awful.”  He said with the tone of someone mature interrupting a bunch of rambunctious kids.  “Both for my ego and everyone’s sensibilities.  Who ever decided this was acceptable work talk?”

“They did!”  The alchemist snapped at him.

“Well fair enough.  Although you’re wrong, and you aren’t.”  Davis said diplomatically as he went to check on how the rats that were the long term testers for the sprint potion were doing.  The woman who he was supposed to be the sponsor for during her time here made a questioning noise, and Spire had to admit she was curious what he meant as well. “A prisoner.”  Davis clarified.  “You’re not.”

If there was a wrong thing to say in that moment, that was it.  Amelia’s mask cracked, her face going from placidly irate, straight through the false ‘real’ anger that she showed when she snapped at people and lashed out, and went deep into the kind of fury that neither Spire nor Bea ever saw in the Order.

When she started talking, it was with a tone that refused to be ignored, or placated.  “You broke the soul of our guild.  Confiscated everything of value we had.  Turned our legal counsel to the task of funneling the estates of our dead membership into your coffers, remanded the survivors into your custody for some form of ‘reeducation’, and you have the utter gall, the sheer arrogant audacity to tell me I’m not a prisoner?  This, Davis, is why I won’t accept any offer from you.  At least do me the bare courtesy of not lying to me out of some awkward distaste for the truth.”  Her voice had been rising as she went from speaking to shouting, venom dripping from her words.

Suddenly, Spire-Cast-Behind understood why sometimes humans talked about ducking out of conversations.  She considered asking Bea to make a distraction for them to escape under, but the door was on the other side of the two adults.  Davis glaring back over a rat habitat as he retorted, his own voice annoyed. “You haven’t been a ‘prisoner’ for over a month.”  He stated flatly.

“Excuse me?”

“Red… Amelia, we’ve talked about this at least twice.  You’ve spoken to Recovery about where you want to live, if you want to continue your work here…”

“Of course I want to continue the bloody work!  This is what matters, you balding pigheaded bastard!”  The woman leveled a pointed finger at him, the white of the clean suit making the gesture look a little out of place even to a camraconda that wasn’t up to date on human fashion trends.

Davis gave up on being polite and just yelled back at her. “Yes!  Which is why you’re still working here, even after everyone said you could leave!”

Amelia closed her mouth, a bitter suspicion in the wrinkles around her eyes as she eyed her handler. “...when was that?”

“A month ago!”

“...I don’t recall.  Well.  your organization’s poor communication skills aside-”

“No.  Amelia, listen to me.  This isn’t a joke.  If you don’t want to be here, you walk out that door right now.”  Davis pointed to the exit as Spire tried her best to focus on the rats that seemed unaffected by the shouting.  Next to her, Bea was doing the same, casually examining a chart with disinterest, though it was likely the inhabitor actually wasn’t influenced by social awkwardness at all.  A true superpower.

Amelia looked at the door, then back. “We’re in the middle of batch testing for 114.”  She said indignantly.

“Processing you’d call prison labor”

“Processing I’d call important work you cretin!”

“Amelia.”

“Davis!”

Davis’ mouth twitched into something almost like a snarl, the man doing his best to break away from a lifetime of habitual anger.  “Do you want to be here or not.”

“...Well if I have the option, then yes!”  Amelia eventually conceded.

“You’ve had the option for a month”

“I was busy!”

Davis sighed.  “Spire, Bea, let’s get started on those tests for your brews, and then I can take Amelia here to redo her Order orientation, as I am learning right now that she wasn’t paying attention to it the first time.”

That was much easier to deal with, as far as social situations went.  Spire-Cast-Behind was happy to throw her thoughts into the process of how to administer a potion to a rat, and keep up monitoring and record keeping for adverse effects.

By the end of their time in the basement, she felt like this wasn’t the job for her.  But she had made something that would save a hundred and nineteen lives, she had failed to kill a test subject, and she knew a lot more about the strangely energetic and artistic lab rat colony that was still adapting to a potion test administered months ago.

It was a good day to be a knight.  She made the daily choice to keep doing it tomorrow.

_____

”I’m freezing and I look stupid!”  Momo’s yell was loud enough to bounce through Pendragon’s interior to all the other passenger seats, even though El was right next to her.

Deb had medically cleared her and El for this, though they were explicitly only allowed to do it over an open field, with a whole cadre of camracondas below them, just in case.  Everyone else was in position, it was just down to the two of them, the dumbest ones who had volunteered to try first, to do it.

The lingering taste of an oxygenation potion kept them from suffering any adverse effects from constantly using up Breath.  Heat packs in tight gloves kept their hands from going numb.  Refit charges had been burned to make sure their clothing still fit. And a couple other small magics made the process a lot more comfortable and safe.

But Momo still felt like she was crammed into the smallest pod Pendragon had grown for riders; an experience she wasn’t used to.

El’s laugh sounded through the inside of the dragon, and her heart hammered faster for a reason unrelated to the idiotic bullshit they were about to do.  “Hey, at least you didn’t get my design!  I clash so goddamn hard with your goth look I’m surprised you didn’t break up with me on the spot!”

”Shut up!”  Momo didn’t have anything even close to a retort.

”Also you’re hot!”

”Yeah well you look like Magic card art!”

”I don’t know what the fuck that means you weeb!”

”You will!  Think I could get Research to make you a flaming sword?”

”You shouldn’t fucking ask because I shouldn’t fucking have one!”

The blended voice of Dave and Pendragon rumbled around them as the merged duo spoke.  “Ladies, please don’t bicker.  We’re one minute from the point, but can ferry you in circles until you’re steady and ready.”

”I’m good!”  Momo’s shrill spike as her voice cracked made that sound like a wretched lie.

”Yeeeeeah.”  El added, and Momo had a moment of fear as she could practically feel her girlfriend shaking.  Which didn’t make her feel any better.

”Hey!”  Momo yelled.  “This’ll be fun!  Besides, if we fall, the camracondas will catch us!”

El laughed, abruptly and boisterously.  “Hell, if you fall, I’ll catch you!”  She said.

”…How the hell do you plan to-“

Dave and Pendragon cut them off.  “Twenty seconds!  You two ready for this?”

Momo was absolutely not.  But she was.  This was so stupid, and so amazing, and she was fifty percent adrenaline by volume at the moment.  “R-ready!”  She said.

”Sure, let’s go!”  El added.

Momo wanted to yell out that she had stupidly fallen in love with El.  That she didn’t know when it happened, and it might be stupid, but that she really felt it and meant it.  But her voice caught in her throat, and all that came out was a squeak as Pendragon started to list to the side and Momo pressed her hands against the inside of the dragon’s skin.  One compartment over, she barely heard Speaky instructing El to “Say the thing!  Just say what you’re thinking, before-!”

Pendragon and Dave ended any potential romantic moment. ”Five seconds, drop confirmed.  Thank you for flying Dragon Air, where our motto is, it’s not pronounced like the pokemon”

And then Pendragon turned to bank in a wide arc, tilting so both her human passengers were sliding out of their seats as gravity told them they were facing toward the ground.

Which was when the heavy paper scales that made up the doors to their seating pods flared open, pulling back in the wind cause by Pendragon’s speed.  And Momo and El found themselves hurtling toward the ground.

Exactly what they’d expected, though it was a little startling to be thrown out of an aircraft like this, even if they did have a countdown and a plan.

Momo still felt like her breath was stuck.  Like she was frozen in fear, and this was a stupid idea.

When her lungs did start flexing again, it was to start screaming as the flagrant idiocy of what she’d decided to do with her evening finally sunk in.  But when she twisted her head as freefall started to take hold, she saw El falling next to her, a look of pure concentration on her face as the teal form of Speaker trailed behind like a glowing comet.  And flared out behind her, grown from spread out points along her back, a set of six wings.  Thick feathers in angelic white, curved bone structures and a profile that was wide enough that it could theoretically at least let a human glide.

El’s look was an unconsciously scowling mask of intent as, focusing through the wind and the fall, she brought her wings under control and spread them out, bones bending and feathers flapping like leaves in a storm as she began to arrest her downward momentum.  A few individual loose feathers breaking away and leaving a trail behind her as she struggled, and succeeded, in gaining control of her new limbs.

Momo couldn’t let herself be shown up by El.  It wasn’t in her nature.  Also she didn’t want to see what happened if she had to go through the lengthy process of getting her momentum sapped by the camraconda ground crew.

Her own wings responded with what felt like a lot less effort than El’s.  Momo’s wings were great curved spikes that were more like whole extra arms.  They would have been right at home on a gryphon; running the length of her body and extending past her feet, each wing tethered to her frame by a thick bony shoulder.  They were a rich tan shade, with an inner ring of black feathers highlighting them.

And when Momo opened them, the wind caught her like a hammer.  Twenty two feet of wingspan acting like an organic parachute that she had just deployed without thinking if it was a good idea or not.  The only reason she didn’t fold right there was that Momo didn’t burn through her purple orb charges for preventing broken bones, and this absolutely counted.

After the opening shock, getting herself under control was still weird.  The wings still had a kind of skin like webbing connecting them to her legs, and even though it was flexible and seemed like it wouldn’t tear, it meant she had to fly like she was pretending to be Superman.

Then her brain caught up to that thought.  She had to fly.

Momo wasn’t falling.  She might be gliding, but she wasn’t falling.  She was moving in a straight line, the air rushing around her wings.  She took a risk, looking to her side as she tucked in one of her wingtips and lifted a limb ever so slightly, feeling herself start to drift that direction.  She snapped it back into place before she could spin off course, then tried it with the other side.  Left, right, left, right.

Then something more complicated.  Rolling, pushing with one wing, not quite a beat but something close.  A first step, a tentative experiment.  She changed her heading.  Curving around, to see El a few hundred feet away, trying to do the same thing.

Their eyes met as they ended up heading toward each other, and Momo saw a wild and free grin on her girlfriend’s lips, brilliant lipstick undaunted in the face of being dropped out of the sky.

She was smiling too.

Momo took a deep and unneeded breath, feeling her heart pumping and her face going numb from the force of the wind.

So they didn’t have to fall.  That was good.  She focused on her breathing, focused on the calming influence of having something to focus on.  And then focused on lifting her wings up as far as she could move them.

She could have had a million thoughts about how the wings felt, could have tried to take notes on if the effect they were having was purely a result of their biology or if there was a magical component to the flight, could have been distracted by the lingering pain from activating the spell, the pain from the magical blood transfusion, the pain from the cold, the pain from anything.  Could have tried to start pre-writing the instruction manual for whatever dumbass tried this after her.

Momo did none of those things.  She had one thing on her mind, and looking at what El was doing ahead of her as she brought herself around in a swooping arc, she was pretty sure that her girlfriend had the same idea.

Time to see if they could soar.

_____

And so life in the Order of Endless Rooms continued.