The Daily Grind - Chapter 116 (Patreon)

This one is a bit weird, I think.  I know where the story goes *soon*, but these bridge sections always feel off to me, even though it's characters doing that thing I like best, and communicating and plotting.  Anyway, I leave it up to all of you to let me know if the pace gets too glacial.

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Loose ends

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“What?”

The word was half incredulous, half  honestly confused.  It came out of James’ mouth as he was talking to Lua, going over the potential risks of any agents still operating, and how easy it would or wouldn’t be to put lives back on track.  He’d been really sympathetic to the fact that Lua had now had her life upended by dungeon bullshit *twice*, which was impressive on its own.  Some people hadn’t survived once.  And wanting to help, he’d told her that if she felt like she was doing actual good work at the high school, that she could head back to work whenever she was ready.

Which was when James had learned they were closing the school.

He scratched at the back of his head.  “I mean, I guess we did fill their parking lot with bullets.  And a couple corpses.  And kids *do* keep going missing there…” He admitted, starting to rationalize the news, before Lua cut him off.

“No, no.  Not… well, not entirely because of that.  It’s the pandemic, not the dungeon.”  She informed him.

“Sorry, the what now?”  James blinked.

Lua raised her eyebrows, reeling back a bit.  “The pandemic?  COVID-19? Someone brought it off a cruise ship and went through Washington before they came home to Forest Grove.  Now it’s in the state, and people are worried.”

“No, wait.”  James shook his head.  “I’m sorry, I don’t… there’s a pandemic?”

“Yes?”  Lua’s voice was mostly concern at this point.  “Is there something wrong? Did you get your memory wiped by evil coffee again?”

“Don’t speak ill of our lord and savior coffee.”  James chastised her.  “But seriously, no, I just had no idea there was a plague happening.  How *bad* is it?  They’re closing schools?!  That’s nuts!”

Lua eyed him suspiciously.  “This has been on the news for months.”  She said.  “And the closure isn’t slated until a couple weeks from now.  They haven’t announced it yet.”

“Okay.  Okay, holy shit.”  James rolled his knuckles on his forehead as he leaned against the table.  “Alright!  Not sure what we’ll do about it, but we’re on it, I guess.”

“What?”  Now it was Lua’s turn to be perplexed.

“There’s an outbreak of an I-am-assuming-deadly disease.”  James said, using his mildly sarcastic explanation voice.  “That seems like the thing we’re here to deal with.  So we’re on it.  The Order, that is.  We’ll figure something out.”

“...How…?”  Lua’s suspicion was palpable.

“No idea.  Containment, maybe? Cure, if we can leverage some virology orbs?  We’ll see.  It’s just in a couple places, right?  We’ve got a little time.”  He shrugged.  “If nothing else, we could make an infomorph that does gene sequencing, probably.  Maybe not accidentally make a god this time.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, it’s been a busy month.  Are you seriously surprised I haven’t had time for the news? I haven’t even had time to play video games, and people keep recommending Control to me, for some reason.”  James groaned as his sore muscles and bruises protested him standing up.  Augmented human or no, he’d been through the wringer the last few days, and there wasn’t a single member of the Order that wasn’t feeling some part of the pain and bone-deep exhaustion that he was.  “Anyway.  Go talk to… I’m gonna say Deb.  She’s our resident medical expert, tell her I’d like her to start drawing up a plan for it.  I’ve gotta go buy furniture.”

James stumbled over the cafeteria bench as he left.  He wouldn’t miss these things one bit.  He’d spent a month and a half griping about the hard seats here, and threatening everyone with beanbag chairs, and today, he aimed to make good on that.  Secretly, he’d been hoping JP or maybe Alex would have already upgraded the room just to get him to shut up.  But they hadn’t, and now he had free time, and a company debit card, and it was his time to shine.

He’d even budgeted for a big truck.  And with that thought in mind, James made his way to the parking lot, thoughts of better chairs only marginally overshadowed by thoughts of how the hell he was supposed to punch a pandemic.

_____

The R&D basement felt like it was holding its collective breath.  Everyone was in a loose circle around the shellaxy play area, which now also contained a few iLipedes, including Lily.  About five minutes ago, she’d finished her analysis of the latest copied green orb that Anesh had brought them after the minor Office delve that had happened a few days ago.  And after everyone had a chance to look at the screen, or the whiteboard where Reed had copied the text up at the top, they had moved away to make their own notes on folded pieces of paper.

They’d also all tossed ten bucks into someone’s hat on a desk nearby.

Honestly, it wasn’t very much about the money.  The collective group of scholars, programmers, and lucky guessers that dwelt in the basement and were collectively called Research were all actually paid pretty well.  It had been a long time since Reed had worried about money in any serious way.  So, betting on their iLipede interpretation skills was really more about bragging rights than the actual cash.

It was Virgil this time who acknowledged the tossing of the last wager into the hat, and cracked the orb.  And it was *only* cracking with greens.  Since as far as they knew, totems required either blood or death, and absorbing or making life was *right* out, given how the green orbs seemed to universally come from creatures that were under direct dungeon operation, and also very lethal.

[+1.2 Skill Ranks : Programming - C+]

[Local Area Shift : +3 Couches]

“...I don’t…” Someone in the silent group said after Virgil announced the upgrade.  “I don’t understand.”

Reed glanced at the board where he’d copied Lily’s reading on the orb. “Power Unit Type : Authority.  Operation Time : 102 hrs/1K.  Contains traces of : Comfort, Space, Leather”. 

“Nik, go find where the new couches spawned.”  Reed called out to one of his minions.  He looked down at the array of wagers in front of him, the gambling skill in his core spinning up as he analyzed the odds.  “Alright, points to whoever said ‘an arbitrary number of furnishings’.  Good call there.”

They waited around for a bit, before Nikhail ran back into the room.  “Found em!”  He panted out, leaning on one of the desks and not paying attention as a nervous researcher carefully moved an experiment away from his hand.  “They… hoof… they’re all in little alcoves that didn’t exist before.  One’s upstairs, the other two are down here.”

“Score, free couches.”  Someone cheered, and the group joined them in amused celebration.

“Alright!  A split between whoever said ‘arbitrary furniture’ and whoever said ‘extradimensional seating’.  *No* points for whoever wrote, and I’m quoting here, new basement open parenthesis sex dungeon close parenthasis.”  Reed looked up, anamused.  “No.”  He restated, eying the cracked grins from the people who appreciated the joke more.  He leveled an accusatory finger around the room.  “Noooo.”

“No what?”  James asked from behind him.

The voice caught Reed off guard, and he spun around, dropping the hat of money back onto the desk.  He shuffled quickly to cover it up, and saluted their leader almost by reflex.  A few other people in the crowd mimicked the gesture, and Reed pretended not to notice James wincing.  “No to an idea on what an orb would do.”  He informed James.  Clearing his throat, he then asked, “What can we help you with?”

“You guys are allowed to bet on orbs, you know.”  James told him, leaning around to eye the hat of money, ignoring the sheepish blushes on some of his staff.  “I’m just here to ask if you had any progress reports on the candy thing.  Oh, and also to ask why there’s a couch intersecting with the kitchen.  I brought back a bunch of beanbags and now I feel one-upped”

Reed studiously avoided eye contact.  “Ah.”  He cleared his throat again, buying time.  “It’s a green orb that adds couches.”

“Is this more testing on identifier keywords?”  James asked.  “Where does Anesh store the backups of orbs? I don’t think we’ll be making more of that one, but I want couches for my apartment.”

“That sounds like abuse of executive power.”  Virgil sarcastically chimed in from his desk, the smoky wisps of green dust already dissipated.

James unprofessionally flipped him off.  “I fought the laser computer, I get the couches!”  He declared, in a sentence that would have given a confusion headache to any uninitiated civilian that heard it.  “Anyway.  Reed, candy?”

It was one of several projects that Research was working on.  Reed, specifically, in this case.  They were starting to diverge into specializations, and while it was cool to have someone who wanted to be a dominologist, or a dungeon linguist, it was more often starting to lead to having people laser-focused on their own specific pet projects, and Reed himself doing the grunt work of tracking data, compiling statistics, and trying to answer whatever question James came down here with this week.

“Candy.”  He repeated, trying to not show his frustration.  “It probably does something, yeah.”  He led James over to his computer, while everyone else dispersed to their own workspaces and set Lilly up with a new green orb.  Pulling up a spreadsheet on the laptop, desperately hoping the leader of the magical order he was part of didn’t judge him for his anime desktop wallpaper, Reed started pointing out numbers.  “So, here’s the list of delvers.  We’ve been trying to track candy eaten now, as well as everything else that we *try* to monitor.  The key word here is try, because the more stuff we’re watching for, the less convenient it is for people, and the less accurate information we get.”

“That makes sense.  How many things are you guys actually following?”  James asked, narrowing his eyes to focus on the petite letters on the spreadsheet.

“Orbs used, absorbed.  General physical stats like height and weight, for medical reasons.  Kills.  Delves, time spent inside.  Candy, now.”  Reed shrugged.  “Lots of stuff.  A lot of it inherited from Anesh’s system, but I’m trying to keep it all in one place.”

“And?”  James prompted.

“And I can make charts.  Look.”  He clicked a few times, and brought up a graph comparing two downward trending lines.

“...I’m not gonna lie to you, I can’t really read charts that well at a glance.  What am I looking at?”

“Well, the blue line that has big chunky changes is number of delvers that have different numbers of blue orbs absorbed.  The spikier orange line is candy eaten.”  He traced the two lines.  “So, they both have similar profiles, basically showing that more candy means more orbs; but the thing is, we have kind of a low sample size.  Blue absorption *also* trends upward with kills, and with total value of owned vehicles.”

James tilted his head so far to the side his neck cracked.  “Sorry, the what?”

“It’s a correlation versus causation thing.  Do you want me to explain…” Reed cut off as he caught the tight lipped frown James was giving him.

James sighed.  “I know what correlation is.  I was more wondering why we know how expensive people’s cars are.”

“I don’t actually know, JP just had a spreadsheet for it on the server, so I added it to this.”  Reed admitted.  “Um.. anyway, I guess this is just me telling you that the candy *might* be creating some kind of metaphysical bond between the people eating it and the Office, but it also might be doing nothing.  None of the ones we’ve done tests on act any differently than normal candy, too.”

James considered that information for a moment before something occurred to him.  “I’ve never had the time to actually ask this before, but does any xenotech actually show up as different under a microscope or anything?”

“Yes, actually!”  Reed excitedly replied.  Any sense of nervous worry at talking to the leader of their operation whisked away as he started to get into the groove of one of his own passion projects.  “The materials externally mimic mundane compositions, but *actually* are artificially uniform, and have a *very* different method of radiation refraction compared to things that aren’t essentially built out of orbs!  I’m waiting for Rufus or Ganesh or one of the camraconda’s to have some free time, because I suspect that we’ll find that Life follows similar rules, with created matter adhering to…”

“I’m gonna stop you there.”  James said, raising a hand.  He had a small smile on his face, which helped put Reed at ease, but he still needed to cut the conversation short.  “I’ve got a *lot* more that I’m curious about now, especially since I think this means you could speed-identify magic pencils. But I’ve got a hell of a headache today, and I’m having trouble following.  Do you mind if we have a group briefing about this sometime tomorrow? I’m not gonna allow you PowerPoint privileges, but I know there’s other people who’d like to know this.”

Reed blinked, cleared his throat again.  “Oh.”  He said, at first dejected, before he realized that James wasn’t just ignoring his work.  “Oh!  Yeah, sure!  Um… I’ll be here all day?”

“Great.”  James told him with a nod, which was instantly followed by a lip-biting wince.  “Ugh.  Okay.  Well, keep up the good work.  Also, Lily dinged halfway through this chat, so she’s got some good speed on those greens.  Good luck on your next wager.”  He said, turning to leave.  James was halfway down the hall back to the elevator when he called back over his shoulder, “And thanks for the couch!”

The collective basement research team waited patiently until they heard the elevator doors close, before Reed pulled thirty bucks out of the hat.  “Alright, who had ‘James not annoyed at result’?”  He called out.

_____

“...And that’s all from this week’s special guest!”  Sarah spoke cheerfully into her microphone, her voice pitched by an uncanny instinct for what picked up cleanly on audio equipment.  “James, thanks for talking to us about the haunted attic.  Everyone, thanks for listening.  This has been the Order of Endless Rooms news update for Wednesday, March eleventh!  So long, and remember; if you’re thinking of petting the cat in the basement? Don’t!”

She leaned back from the desk, reaching over to hit the button on the recording software she was using.  After doing so with an exaggerated arm motion, Sarah turned the movement into pitching herself backward to flop her whole body over both chairs on this side of James’ desk.

They were using his office, because it was actually the only place in the entire Lair that was a sort of private enclosed space, and also didn’t have concrete walls.

“So, question for ya.”  James asked, as he started to unplug his own microphone and pack away the recording equipment.

“Fire away, mon capitan!”  Sarah exclaimed from her entirely uncomfortable bed.

James rolled his eyes.  “If you salute me too, I’m putting friendship on hiatus.  But no, I was wondering if the podcast counts as a product.”

“A… oh!  For the value?”  Sarah sat up, tapping her chin with a stylishly painted fingernail.  “Dunno!  What adds value, anyway?”

“The orb…”

“No, I mean, what could increase the value of an audio file, you dingus!”  Sarah swatted at him, missing by a country mile.  “Like, would it add outro music?”

“That’d be cool.  But I dunno either.”  James clipped the microphone case shut, nearly knocking the recording laptop off the cramped surface of his desk.  “Ugh.  We need to get a dedicated studio room.”

“We could use one of the basement rooms.” Sarah shrugged.  “It’s not like the audio quality is that important for a fifteen minute rapid fire update.”

If there was one thing that was constantly, almost daily, impressive to James, it was Sarah’s ability to cram words, meaning, emotion, and a pervasive sense of upbeat optimism, into tiny spaces of conversation.  Putting her in charge of her own podcast idea and giving her free reign to do it however she wanted had been probably the best idea James had ever enacted.  It was instantly a success, and a great way for everyone from random members of the support group who were only loosely affiliated with the order, to the core group of hardened delvers, to keep up on the big and small happenings around the Order and the Lair.  *Everyone* liked Sarah, and no matter who she brought in to talk with her, she found a way to get that person to open up, share something useful, and do it at her energized pace.  Also, she managed to say ‘Order of Endless Rooms’ without it sounding unnatural.

James had settled on the name in a moment of what he felt was excellent High Fantasy Worldbuilding.  He’d shared it with Alanna, and almost instantly felt like he’d made a mistake.  Saying it had felt… rocky.  Like he was a kid playing at having a Real Adult Job, miming those business-words that he knew how to say, but not use.  He’d wanted to take it back, and just call them the Delvers Association or something that sounded practical and sold, but of course, it was far too late.  Alanna had loved the name, immediately shared it with Anesh and Sarah, and it was a snowball from there.  No take backs.

So it was nice that Sarah could make it sound smooth.  And James did realize that eventually, he’d be saying it with the same cadence; like he meant it, like he didn’t have to *try* so hard.

Today’s podcast had covered everything from the list of programs currently brewing in the basement on the chips, to the update on the greens in effect, to the current available numbers on blues and oranges for anyone wanting to absorb a new tool, to finally, the ‘special guest’.  Today it had been James, there to get everyone caught up as much as possible in five minutes on the Attic, (Sarah had almost instantly named it Clutter Ascent; James hadn’t protested - he knew he’d never beat that even if he had a week to think) and how they were going to be opening it up to volunteers for constant exploration.

In other words, it was a *lot*, and usually every few days, too.

“I feel like...” James framed his words with his hands as he replied to Sarah’s mildly self-depreciating comment, “Hm.  How to say this.  I think you’re making something cool?”

Sarah gave him a thumbs up.  “Thanks!  What does that have to do with sound quality?”

He shushed her.  “It’s cool, it’s obviously useful to us as an organization, and people like you.  So I guess my point is, you deserve good sound quality, and you’re important.”

“Aaw!  Thank you!”  Sarah basked in the praise.  Then her face turned slightly more seriously.  “So, how are we gonna do the Clutter runs?  High roll gets to go in?”  

“I’ve heard worse ideas.  Good luck getting it by Karen.”  James sighed.

“I don’t get why…” Sarah’s gregariously worded complaint about Karen’s stuffy behavior was cut off by a rapping knock on the door, followed shortly by Alanna not waiting for a response, and pushing it open and sticking half her frame through the gap.  “Hey!”  Sarah greeted her, not even bothering to finish the less-than-charitable thought she’d been about to express.

“Yo.”  Alanna waved at them.  Her face was flushed, a thin sheen of sweat on her skin.  

“How’s camraconda practice going?”  James asked, carefully maneuvering his way around the cramped interior of his personal workspace as he tried to coil cables up properly.

“Not bad!”  Alanna grinned.  “Did you know that their basilisk thing is actually really goddamn hard to explain? I didn’t!  And I still don’t care!”

“So, Research had some questions for ya, eh?”  James pursed his lips and nodded knowingly.  “You know, I feel like giving them their own basement to work in is creating a very… let’s say ‘unique’ subculture in the Order.  I kinda want to talk to JP about it, but I worry that he’s gonna play devil’s advocate for the whole thing, and I won’t learn whether or not it’s actually a good idea.”

“Don’t you literally have leadership skills?”  Sarah accused him.  “Use your HR powers!  Divine the truth!”

“I’ve never heard anyone be that excited about HR before.”  Alanna groused.  “Anyway, before this gets too off track, have you seen Anesh?  I need him for a thing, and I can’t find either of him.”

James suspected, correctly, that this was a further attempt by Alanna to try to form one of the attic bonds with Anesh.  For some reason, the skulljack hive mind trick actively stopped bonds from forming; maybe because the bonds considered the member persons to be a single individual at that point, and you can’t form a bond with yourself.  But whatever logic they were operating on, the two of them hadn’t unlocked anything during the Status Quo assault, or anytime since.  And Alanna was taking it as an excuse to really just spend more time with Anesh, which was honestly good for the two of them anyway, in James’ opinion.

He loved his partners, and he liked seeing them together too.  Also, if they unlocked a bond that let them share food or nutrition or something, he could stop trying to appease both of them at once with his cooking.  He *loved his partners*, he reiterated in his head, but they could be *absurdly* picky eaters sometimes.

Right now, though, he got to deliver awkward news.  “He’s on a date.”  James told Alanna.  “That math tutor girl he had coffee with… last week?”

“Oh!  Good for him!”  She blinked in surprise, before grinning.  “Does he know it’s a date?”  She asked James coyly.

“He hasn’t a clue.”  James replied.

Sarah looked between the two of them.  “Um… you know it doesn’t count if…”

“We know.”  James and Alanna echoed together, amused.  James continued, “It’s just more fun this way.  Also I think they might actually just be friends; we’re teasing, mostly.”

“We should make sure she’s not a spy, though.  Hey, can I borrow the glasses that how affiliation?”  Alanna cracked the door open wider, shuffling her feet around the camraconda napping on the floor in front of his office like a technorganic speed bump.

“Why do I feel like you have some ulterior motive in mind?”  James asked, and Alanna didn’t need her magic empathy boost to know he was being sarcastic. 

She still feigned innocence.  “No?”  She coughed into her hand.  “I mean, I admit, I’m kinda curious how some members show up…”

“They don’t work on reflections.”  Sarah chimed in with a cheeky grin.

“Dammit.”  Alanna snapped her fingers.

“Also I think Nate still has them.”  James informed her.

“Dammit!”  This time Alanna rolled her eyes, throwing her hands up to the ceiling.  “James, you can’t give the best counterintelligence tool we have to the *one person who we know is spying on us*!”  She informed him.  Loudly.

“It’s fine, we’re totally gonna make a copy of it next week.  It’s in the production queue, right after the rest of the hearts we owe the doc.”  James shrugged.  “Also I trust Nate.”

She growled at him lightly.  “I’m still mad about this.  I’ll go with your judgement, but I don’t like it.  Nate shouldn’t have lied to us.”

James couldn’t really disagree with that.  “I mean, yeah, okay.  I’m not happy about the whole thing.  And I admit that I am suspicious that there’s recording devices in my office now.  But on the other hand, we have an emerald working on an anti-spyware program that’ll probably cripple the entire concept of malware for a year or two.  That’s kinda cool.”

“We could have done that without being spied upon.”  Sarah pointed out, shifting herself out of her chair and standing up, her laptop having finished saving everything that needed saving.

“Also thanks for making me worry about bugs now.  Cool.”  Alanna muttered.  “Anyway, I’m gonna go relax.  Text me if Anesh comes by.”

“Kay.  Love you!”  James called after his partner as she turned to leave, half-tripping over the still immobile camraconda under her feet.

Sarah eyed him with a little worry, though her voice didn’t betray it.  “You’re taking the spy thing pretty well, honestly.”

“Eh.”  James waved it off.  “So, you wanna know my weird moon logic on this?”  He asked.

“Sure!”  Sarah laughed a little at his phrasing.  “Hit me.”

James held up three fingers.  “When Curious told me about the people that were after us, she listed three categories.  Angry, curious, and the specific threat of Status Quo.”  He started ticking down fingers.  “Status Quo is as good as dead; the individual agents left alive may be problems, but not on the scale of the whole organization.  The curious ones I’m pretty sure referred to the kids, who have already ‘found us’.  And I’m almost certain the angry one is the police detective, who is still on the fence as to whether or not I’m a serial killer.”

“So… you’re not worried because…”

“Because a nascent god didn’t list the FBI as people who were looking for me.”  James shrugged.  “Far as I can tell, Nate’s here because our behavior and spending patterns were suspicious, and they wanted to know if we were a domestic terror group.  We aren’t; they probably don’t care.”

“There is no doinking way it’s that easy.  Also didn’t you impersonate the FBI, like, exactly while standing in front of him?”  Sarah accused.

“I did!  I did do that.  Yes…” James trailed off sheepishly.  “Ahem.  Well.”

“I’m telling on you.”  Sarah concluded with a little nod, crossing her arms on her chest.

James quirked an eyebrow.  “What?”

Giving another little nod, Sarah confirmed.  “Yes.  Telling!”

“Telling… whomst?”  James asked, a little worried to hear the answer.

“Anyone who listens to the podcast!”  Sarah announced.

James wanted to argue, but honestly, outing their chef as a government agent actually seemed like the kind of casual, non-threatening revenge that he felt perfectly fit his minor frustration that he was trying to play off under the guise of being a chill dude.  He thought about it a little more, before he decided on the most elegant way to make sure Sarah followed through on her ‘threat’.

“Oh yeah? I *dare* you.”

_____

Later that evening, James sat almost by himself, and dialed number after number from his contacts list.

None of them answered.

His parent’s cell phones, their home number, his sister, his aunt… he didn’t have that many family members, but still, they didn’t pick up.

They hadn’t picked up for a while.  Since before the Order had realized what Status Quo was doing.  His family had been snatched away while he fooled around in the dungeons.

The worst part, he thought, as he tried to search for any Facebook profiles with their names, was that he honesty didn’t *care* that much.

Oh, sure, he didn’t want his parents dead.  He really did love them; his mom had been… *was*... a kind soul.  And his dad had been the reason James had turned out the way he did, even if he was a bit of an ass sometimes.  Same with his sister.  She was an annoying pain in the ass, and absolutely that did not mean she should be murdered by shadowy agents of a secret cabal.

But James wasn’t Anesh or Alanna.  Anesh, who lost his parents that he idolized.  Or Alanna, whos younger sisters were the people she worked so hard to provide a better life for.  James just… wouldn’t really miss what he’d lost, that much.

But that didn’t stop this little ritual.

“There is *something*.”  Secret said, orbiting James as he ran one last search.  “It is a hidden thing.  I can see the hiding, and the intent, but it left no trail.  I do not believe this was an infomorph like myself; nothing alive, just a weapon, perhaps?”  His orbit was methodical and precise, a swift and meaningful coiling around James’ seated form during this very focused search.  “Yes.  Something is being hidden, not just from you.  But that is all I can say for now.”

“Well.”  James sighed, slumping back and pushing the keyboard away.  “It’s a start.”  He glanced over at the folded piece of paper on his desk; the little handwritten note bearing the short list of the handful of skill orbs his sister had snapped before vanishing from his life forever.  “One step at a time, eh?”

“Eh, indeed.” Secret agreed, slowing to lazy loops before settling his snout on James’ shoulder.  “We will find the trail.  I swear.”  He said.

James reached up to pet along the ridge of one of his eyes, careful not to poke the semi-corporeal infomorph anywhere sensitive.  “I know, buddy.  I know.  I just… hurt.  And I was hoping at least this one we could clear up easily in a few days.”

“Have hurts ever worked that way?”  Secret asked, earnest in his ignorance.

James snorted. “Not a goddamn once.”  He said, bitterly.

_____

Early spring sunlight clawed its way through the mildly opaque high windows that surrounded the ex-warehouse space that made up the Order’s combination cafeteria-gym-and-lounge area.  The oncoming summer months were doing that thing they always did to James; suddenly appearing when he was busy sleeping through sunrises and staying up until 4 AM, only to be shocked when suddenly there was warm weather and the smell of new greenery.

“Okay, so.”  James was sitting down with Deb and Alex, eschewing the normal environment of his cramped office for the much more pleasant sensation of holding an official meeting while sprawled haphazardly on a beanbag chair.  “Bring me up to speed.  What are our options?”

The two girls exchanged a look.  The kind where they idly gnawed on their lips, raised their eyebrows, and tried to nonverbally decide who was going to tell James that he was an idiot.  Or at the very least, perhaps *misinformed* about the nature of a given issue.

“Okay.”  Deb echoed James’ words.  “So.”  She leaned her elbows onto the low coffee table the beanbags were piled around, shifting uncomfortably to try to make hers behave more like a chair.  “Here’s the thing; we don’t really have a lot of options.  Like, at all.”

Alex took up the pause in the conversation.  “Yeah, um, I looked into some of the WHO and CDC stuff on it.  A global pandemic is *way* outside our ability to seriously impact.”  James’ face fell as they explained, and Alex quickly tried to apologize.  “I’m sorry!  It’s just… we don’t have the manpower!  Or resources!”

“Ah, I’m not that surprised, honestly.”  James sighed deeply.  “I just figured that we had enough magic bullshit here to help *somehow*.”

“Thing is, a lot of our magic is very personal.”  Deb spread her hands in front of her.  “Skill orbs are a large percentage of it, and they’re basically all instantly ruled out.  And yes, that *does* include medical ones.  I know you’ve started thinking of me as the team doctor, but you should know there’s at least three other people who have high level immunology, biology, or surgery orbs walking around.  And *none of that is helpful*, because applying those toward large scale help requires you join or form a large scale organization.  We don’t have the numbers to make one, and we certainly can’t deploy people to join others because they’re going to have bizarre gaps in credentials.”

James nodded.  “Okay, I get that.  So, what about the other chunk of magic?”  A second later, he added another question, asking, “And how much of your time did I waste with this?  I’m sorry, I coulda probably checked a lot of this myself when I had time.”

“We all know you don’t have the time.”  Alex told him blankly.

“Also I have an orb for logistics, and another for city planning, which both made this a lot easier.  See, that’s another thing that sorta complicates this.  Every time you bring back a new batch of yellows from a delve, we roll the dice on people completely changing specializations.  And for now, we can handle it, because we need *everything*.  But when it comes to large scale problems like this, it does make it hard to come up with systemic answers.”  Deb matched James’ sigh.  “I’m a better programmer and living computer wrangler than a nurse these days.  And that feels weird!  But I’m also *still a nurse*, you know?  It’s a weird feeling.  And also this part isn’t relevant.”

James gave her a reassuring smile.  “I mean, it’s actually fascinating, though.  So, no options for helping the world?”

“Well, I’m not gonna say that.  We have a couple small scale ones, and one big one that I can think of.”

“Okay, hit me.”

“The iLipedes.”  Alex stated.  “We have a few so far, and they’ve all got pretty specific but really strong scouter abilities.  So if…”

“Apps.”  James corrected, sipping at his drink.

She gave him an eye roll.  “I’m not saying it.  Anyway.  If we can find or maybe breed one?  Dunno if that’s an option.  Anyway, find one that can track medical history, or even just scan people, that’d let us get an advantage on a local scale.”

“Local being statewide.”  Deb provided.  “That’s if we’re okay copying it.”

“We actually do have one that creates a social network that displays what I think are ‘most relevant’ connections to people.”  James mused.  “It’s around here somewhere.  I’m willing to bet that being infected with a potentially deadly disease counts.”

Deb nodded.  “Maybe.  Maybe not to everyone.  Officetech is weird.  But any tool like that would let us track infection vectors, limit exposure, and keep it at least ‘more under control’.  It sounds like so far the spread is limited, but it is *not* something to be taken lightly.  I’ve got five or six skills screaming that this is a threat, and it’s a bizarre feeling.”

“You have medical dangersense?”  James asked, curious.

“I don’t… know what that means exactly.  So yes?”  Deb glanced at the younger girl next to her who nodded in agreement.  “Okay.  Yes.”

“So, what’s the other option?”  James asked, trying to move forward.  “What’s the big option?”

“We find a yellow for medical knowledge, copy it *a lot*, and just pour a truck full of the things into the WHO headquarters.”  Alex sounded positively gleeful as she presented their plan.  

Deb had the good grace to look sheepish.  “My assistant is exaggerating.”  She claimed, mostly accurately, as she tried to silence Alex by shoving her back into the beanbag.  “But yes, accelerating human medical knowledge by providing the tools to upgrade researchers to the people whos job is to safeguard the health of the population of Earth seems like a good idea.”

“I like this plan.  What other resources can we offer them?”  James inquired, already racking his brain for the answer.  “Money?  What does the WHO operate on?”

“Four billion dollars.”

“Not money then!”  James cheerily backed off on that option.  “Um… test… subject… no.  Space?  No, probably… well, maybe an extradimensional virology lab?  Containment if something goes wrong?”

Deb held a finger up to her lips before answering.  “I do see what you’re going for.  But no, that’s not going to help.”

“Orbs it is then, I guess.”  James hummed.  “Is there, and I ask this mostly to any economics or logistics orbs in the room, any chance at all that this helps my long term goal of harming the pharmaceutical industry’s stranglehold on useful innovation?”

They shared that *look* again.  That look that both passively and actively asked the question of why this particular question was happening; why they hadn’t sent someone else to field this while they got actual work done.  But only briefly, before Deb gave an acknowledging tilt of her shoulder.  It actually kind of was a fair question, and taking power away from major medical companies without removing the skill and innovation they controlled would be, in general, just kind of great for humanity.

“No.”  Deb told him.  “But not because of the reasons you’re probably thinking.  The thing is, people who do good independent work tend to get hired to do that same work for lots of money.  You’d need to do a lot more to break the ‘stranglehold’ you’re talking about.  Which, to be clear, is real.  As far as I can tell.  I’ll look into it?”

“Nah, you’ve got enough going on.”  James told her.  “Like, seriously, this is a big help.  And thanks for your time.  Keeping up on a billion things is making it hard for me to actually *do* stuff like this, so I get it, and I appreciate it.”  The other two stood up, only one of the two slipping backward into the beanbag before finding her footing.  Deb scowled at the additional seating while James pretended he wasn’t chuckling.  “Hey, on the way out, can you stick your head in the kitchen and ask if I can borrow Nate’s new assistants?  I need to talk to the kids about… fuck, everything, I guess.”  He massaged his forehead.  “All I do these days is give people bad news.”  James muttered.

Deb tapped Alex on the shoulder, ushering her out ahead.  “I’ll let them know.  You want me to get them to bring you food or anything?”

“Yeah, sure, deliver some bad news to Nate too.  Share it around.”  James joked.  “But yes, thank you.  I haven’t eaten in a while.”

“Hey.”  Deb said quietly, starting to back away from the table, but not yet turning around.  James looked up as her tone caught his attention.  “We’re still with you, you know?  You’re not on your own.  Just keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll be here to help.”

“‘Here to help’ is what I want on my tombstone.”  James told her.  “Maybe if the Order survives my untimely demise, it can get big enough to actually do good.”

At that, Deb finally gave into the sarcastic voice in her head.  “If you don’t think you’ve done good so far, I don’t think dying is gonna change your mood.”  She shot his way, turning on her heel, and striding to catch up to Alex; off to take care of one of the dozen tasks that needed doing today.

“Touche.”  James muttered morosely as she left.  The conversation was productive, and left him with at least part of a plan that he’d text to Anesh later, but overall…

They weren’t big enough.  They weren’t strong enough.  Twenty, thirty, forty people, it didn’t matter.  They were a tiny fish in a massive ocean of humanity.  Even counting the camracondas as doubling their numbers, it doubled their problems right along with it.  Added new sweeping issues they’d have to tackle eventually about discrimination and species accessabiltiy and stuff.

They needed more.  More reach, more options, more manpower.  More personal abilities, more bizarre dungeon loot that recontextualized society by just being a weird pen or something.

James shook his head.  He was half-daydreaming, half mentally rambling, and half letting his depression wreck havoc with his mood today.

It’d work out, he thought, as Nate brought him two kids that wouldn’t stop hanging around the Lair, and two slices of pizza to go with them.  They’d do this the same way they always did.  The same way he’d dealt with the office, the attic, the school, the police, the company, the infomorphs, the prisoners...

One step at a time.

A thought jostled in James’ brain.  He pulled out his phone, and went to make a note of ‘talk to Theo about the company’.  Found it was already there.  Made the note again as he started on a mouthful of pizza, and a pair of high schoolers tried to pretend they were too cool to enjoy beanbag chairs.

One step at a time.