The Daily Grind - Chapter 130 (Patreon)

I am not a hundred percent, but I am not dead.  Let's get this started.

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“Arm yourself, because no one else here will save you.”

Chris Cornell - You Know My Name

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James hated this building, right now.

The not-so-young-anymore man sat in his car, outside a three story white house in the middle of the Beaverton suburbs.  The front yard, instead of a lawn, was a brick terrace and small garden.  A basketball hoop sat in the driveway next to a familiar battered red pickup truck.  The building was perched halfway up a fairly steep hill, annoying as a driver who needed to park smoothing, but an amazing boon when James was growing up as a kid and could sail his bike downhill at Mach 2.

His parents weren’t home.  They probably wouldn’t ever be again.

He’d been inside already, knew that most of the furniture was there but most of the personal stuff wasn’t.  Knew the home was empty. He didn’t really have a reason to be here, at all.

But it was thanksgiving.  He’d never once missed a family thanksgiving.  Even that one year he’d been having such a bad depressive episode that he’d been unable to do anything but sit on the floor of his old bedroom, leaning against the wall and just fidgeting with his own hair and generally trying to keep holding on.  He’d still *been there*.

Now there was no there to go.

His phone buzzed, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Yo.”  He answered, the surge of energy he always put forward when he interacted with people keeping his voice steady.  “What’s up?”  He asked his boyfriend.

“Where are you?”  From the other end of the line, the light London accent of Anesh came through.  “I can’t find you anywhere at the Lair.”

“Uh… errand.”  James settled on, wincing at how suspicious he knew that sounded.  “What’s up?  Again.”

He could almost hear Anesh rolling his eyes over the phone.  “We have a small issue.”

In that instant, James wanted to scream.  Tear his hair out, claw his steering wheel to shreds, launch his whole car into a lake, and *howl* at the universe that just Would.  Not.  Stop. Piling more and more and more things on them.

First, the Office itself.  Then the problems talking to people about it. Then it had taken months before it escalated, with the fight with Frank and his hostile infomorph, to the trailblazing through the dungeon to reach his victims and extract them.  Then, another dungeon.  Then, El showing up.  After that, a period of relative quiet, before there’d been more people to rescue, albeit snake shaped ones.  The formation of the Order of Endless Rooms, and all the stress that came with that.  And then the School eating people, then Status Quo, then a dungeon breaching into reality, then the assault on their own headquarters.

Alanna missing.  So many dead.  So much lost.

Problems to clean up.  The stupid ethercat was still out there somewhere, probably being a *massive* problem.  The building was still being rebuilt, and this time with more defenses than anyone should reasonably have.  Random high school students kept coming by to visit them and ask for a job, even seeing the battle damage.  The FBI sent another goon to replace their lost one.  And even over all of that, the Order moved forward with its plans to try to do good, as aggressively as they could.

About a thousand people had their special number now.  A test group, for their emergency response team.  The ERT were some of the best they had, with a mix of powers and skills that should, in theory, let them resolve most mundane situations without concern.  They’d gotten a few dozen fake calls, at first.  And then, a few real ones.  And as the groups started to cohere into a real unit, they proved themselves again and again.

Fights stopped, crimes solved, first aid provided, suicide prevention, rescue available.  They tallied their victories in lives saved.

They needed way more people, and more money, before they could fully replace the police.  But they were doing it.  Making a difference.  Even if it was only a small one for now.

It was also exhausting, though, and another thing on the pile that James felt himself being crushed by day by day.  So when Anesh said the magic words…

“I refuse.”  James replied cheerfully.  “I’ve got a lot going on right now, and I just don’t think ‘small issues’ are a thing that I should be taking on.”  He couldn’t help but smile a little as he spoke.  He also took it as a personal triumph; a large part of him considered just hanging up and driving off to Iowa or something.

“James.  Come on mate.”  Anesh sighed.  “I was just going to complain about Nate’s dinner menu.  It’s actually a ‘small issue’.  Nothing world ending.”

“It’s… I shamefully admit that I assumed this was going to be another… another…” James tried to find the words and found he couldn’t.  It was too much.  He was too tired.  Not physically tired, just a soul-deep exhaustion that crept through his heart and his hands with insidious determination.

He could hear the worry in Anesh’s reply.  “Get your butt back here and enjoy Thanksgiving with us.”  His boyfriend said, before hanging up.  James could almost hear him sticking his tongue out.

James smiled as he casually tossed his phone into his car’s cup holder.  In the ongoing tally of how upended his life had been in the last couple years, the part where he had a boyfriend now was somehow one of the smaller events of note.  And yet, it meant so much to him.  He loved Anesh, with all his heart.  And he knew his partner loved him back.  And sometimes, when they made use of the ports in the back of their skulls they *knew* it in a way that most humans never would.  Minds linked together, feeling together, sharing everything; it was so easy to lose your fear, and commit to a deepening affection, when you knew the people you loved felt the same way about you.

His smile lost a bit of luster as he pulled his car out of park and started the trip back to their home base.  Thanks to one of the many pieces of magical bullshit they had going on, the drive would be shorter than it otherwise should.  But that still left him a little time to think.

The skulljacks.  Originally an infectious method of control devised by one of the monsters that lurked outside reality to turn humans into a puppet network.  Now, co-opted by their Order to be used as tools in the ongoing betterment of humanity.

They could do so much.  They were ideal for therapy, research, programming, teaching…

...small unit combat… interrogation...mind control… compromising digital security…

And they still spread, without much effort.  The things were a ticking time bomb.  And the one person doing the most work on building safety measures was dead now.

James had interviews lined up for the next week.  That wasn’t nothing.  He hadn’t done it himself; Anesh and Deb and Reed had collectively cast a net and dragged up a slew of people who were at least hopefully suitable for this life.  But it felt very bleak, to him, to be working to replace a *person*.

There were holes in their Order.  Holes shaped like individuals, like lives.  And he felt like they’d never truly fill those in.  Nor should they try.

He pulled into the parking lot to the Lair suddenly, not realizing he was almost at his destination, and scraping his bumper against the steep slope that went over the sidewalk and into the lot.  It wasn’t just the bonus to travel time that got him here so early this time; not many people on the road on a major holiday like this.  Even in the middle of a pandemic, too.  Although maybe that was helping keep people home, though James cynically doubted it.

There were a couple dozen cars in the lot.  He parked around back.  The Order wasn’t exactly unaware of the wide scale of the disease currently ravaging the world, but the fact that for most of them their social circle was “exactly these people and no one else”, and that most of them by this point had a certain amount of resistance to disease in general, left them feeling fairly comfortable about gathering together.

James wished that more of them had more social options.  But about a third of the order was made up of people who were rescued from that aforementioned human puppet network, and anyone who got lost in Officium Mundi for a long period of time had their recorded identity, as well as any memories of them, gradually eroded by the place’s memeplexes.  So for many people, they were pulled out of a nightmare only to be told that their families didn’t know who they were, their friends had forgotten them months ago, and they didn’t legally exist.

Another third of the Order of Endless rooms were camracondas.  Creations of the dungeon, having found free will by accident and been liberated by the Order.  They didn’t really have friends outside the group either.  Though that was for different reasons.

It wasn’t like they weren’t allowed to go make friends.  James was *very clear* on the fact that they were not a conspiracy.  He might not be willing to randomly share the knowledge of the source of their powers, but he had no problem with sharing the weird and wonderful with anyone who happened to cross their paths.

The camracondas just didn’t go wandering into places to say hi to people.  At first because they were shy or afraid. Being a six foot long snake made of corded cabling with a basilisk camera for a head could be offputting, and they were self conscious about it. Now, though, it was more because there was nowhere to meet people.

James hated the pandemic, so much.  He’d tasked multiple people with finding a way to end it, but even all the magic they had at their disposal didn’t actually provide an easy answer.  Most of the arcana they dragged into reality acted like an effectiveness multiplier for the individual or the group.  And fifty-ish people just didn’t cut it for ending a problem on this scale.  Which James found both frustrating, and humbling.

They had a long way to go before he could start punching at that weight class.

He stopped headbutting his steering wheel and got out of his car, still uncomfortable as he passed through the new entrance to the Lair.

After the attack on their base by the remnants of Status Quo, along with as much hired muscle as they could put together, there had been significant damage to the building, in addition to a lot of cleanup to do.  The new front facade was a testament to the Order’s injury.  No more plate glass windows; just meter thick concrete with a steel core running through it.  No more having doors on both sides of the entryway.  There was one door now, fortified and with interior controlled locks.

The rest of the building was getting remodeled, too, with similar security in mind; the insurance payout from the ‘gas leak explosion’ covering far more than he’d expected.  So while the interior still basically reminded James of an especially eclectic clubhouse, the outside was starting to look like a fortress.

“You’re here!”  Sarah greeted him with a brilliant grin and one arm thrown wide.  The other arm was in a sling; she’d taken a bullet for someone during the attack, and was still recovering.  And James knew from experience that the pain of an injury like that didn’t go away just because the bleeding stopped. But a little something like back to back life threatening injuries wasn’t enough to slow Sarah down, no sir.  Partially because she was one tough cookie, but also because she had an ongoing upgrade to her health that made her heal faster, among other things.“There’s a buffet setup in the kitchen, grab some food and come relax with everyone.”  She said, offering a fist bump to James.

“Everyone?”  James quirked an eyebrow as he returned the gesture, pushing away the extra sleep that Sarah tried to push into him through the brief contact. Sarah wasn’t the only person in the front lobby, but it wasn’t like it was packed in here. Just a handful of camracondas with a few human members of the Order mixed in.  “Are we doing some kinda group meeting?”

“We are doing *thanksgiving*, you boob!”  Sarah tapped him on the forehead with her first two fingers.

“That’s dangerously close to swearing, for you.”  James smirked, dodging back from a second strike.

Sarah pirouetted away, flourishing as she stepped back and motioned for him to get his ass to the kitchen. “Bah!”  She proclaimed. “I can swear if I want to!  But I’m saving it for when we learn about the next world-shattering revelation.”

“Prudent.”  James muttered. “We’re due for one, aren’t we?”

“Anesh told me he said something dumb on the phone.”  Sarah’s voice got quiet as her tone turned worried.  “You doing okay?”

“No.”  James said, honestly, not bothering to keep up the facade of banter.  “Alanna’s missing. I’m afraid to not be behind armored walls. And it hurts to breathe.”  He subconsciously rubbed at his chest, itching at the surgery scar from where he’d been shot around roughy the same time Sarah had been earning hers. “Also I’m depressed.”  He appended.

“The whole acid thing isn’t working?”  She radiated concern at him.

“Oh, it’s doing something.”  James couldn’t help a half smile.  “But I’m not sure if it’s actually helping me remember anything.  Maybe I need to do more than the very small doses I’ve been using, or maybe there’s nothing there and all I’m getting is the vague hallucinatory impression of dragon-things.”  He shrugged.  “Either way, it’s not dangerous or anything, and it is...relaxing, I guess?  But I’m just not sure it’s doing what I want.”

“What if you recalibrate what you want to just be dropping acid?”  Sarah tried to cheer him up. “Oh!  We could go hang out in the attic and look at smoke patterns for several hours while we do drugs!  Wanna do that?”

“Now?”

“No, after the party and the announcement thing.”

“Announcement thing?”  James rubbed his forehead. “Aren’t I supposed to be in charge here?  I should probably know about announcement things.”

Sarah stuck her tongue out as the two of them passed through the hall to the back dining room.  While they moved past the alcove with a leather couch in it that didn’t show up on the other side of the wall, she answered, “you keep telling us you don’t wanna be responsible.”

“Yeah.”  James said quietly, not sure he wanted her to hear. “Look where that got us.”

More than a few members wounded, or dead.

Sarah didn’t reply to that.  Instead, whatever she could or would have said was drowned out by the wave of voices and laughter that greeted the two of them as they strode into the dining area.

The room had undergone some improvements of its own, since the damage to the building had been cleaned up.  The old cafeteria tables, many of which were used as hard cover against bullets, had been replaced by a dozen different styles picked up from different furniture stores in the area.  A couple of the really old ones had come from the nearby Habitat For Humanity store, and had then had a few screws tightened and a new coat of varnish put on in the back of the warehouse.  The old benches had mostly been tossed too, the red plastic material no longer matching the aesthetic of actual adult furniture.  James had pushed for those ridiculous armchairs that you could sink an entire human into, but he’d been both busy and depressed, so he hadn’t pushed too hard and the people who were holding the budget had opted for functionally comfortable dining chairs instead.

There were no more raised windows around the outside.  They’d been replaced by concrete and rebar after they’d been used a couple times as a vector for sniper fire.  It made the interior lighting less vibrant, especially considering the building was enchanted to have more natural light.  But that light had to have a source, and when windows were a liability, everyone grudgingly agreed to stick to an armored structure.  James had pushed for a skylight.  Again, not very hard.  It hadn’t happened.

The little gym area had also been moved.  There was a second back room here, originally intended to be some kind of private party room for whatever business was here before them.  They’d always used it for storing exercise equipment and sparring pads.  Now, it was their security room, where camera feeds were funneled in, and where Dispatch took incoming emergency calls from civilians and assigned Response teams.  It had *also* lost its windows.  The exercise area had been moved to one of the basements.  James had given up keeping track of which one.

Instead, the space was just one big dining and gathering area.  And as bizarre as it was to transfer between the outside world where the pandemic was a persistent threat, to this isolated social group that gathered together, it still felt comfortable to James.  Even after the attack on their home, this room felt warm and safe.

There were something like sixty people packed in here right now.  Human, camraconda, infomorph, and one special case for ‘stapler’.  Not that Rufus was the only outlier in their Order, but he was the only one present.  The shellaxies didn’t seem to posess the same level of intelligence yet, and Pendragon just didn’t fit.  But it was still full of life and friends and allies.  Some members of the order had eschewed family dinners to be here tonight, which was a big ask for people considering that anyone who still had a family that remembered them was rare.  A few others had just outright brought family members along.  Which was spawning a lot of humor as young kids and cautious husbands tried to get along with delvers and camracondas.

Everyone cheered as James walked in.  Not anything planned, no ‘surprise’ or anything like that.  Just a chorus of greetings and good moods that washed over him like a wall of sound.

And suddenly, James understood.

He was just like them, now.  His old family snatched away, his new friends constantly in danger.  The world was wild and horrifying.  And for some reason, there was a whole building full of talented, kind, amazing people, who were willing to help him up and stand with him against the darkness.

James felt something come loose in his heart, and he found himself grinning.  Smiling so wide his cheeks hurt as he strode into the room, and into the crowd.

“Anesh,” He loudly proclaimed, “called me half an hour ago, to tell me there was *an issue*.”  James waited as the people who’d heard him groaned in dismay.  “Turns out, he was upset about the dinner menu!  So, where’s Nate, and what has he done to the turkey?”

“I said I was sorry!”  An iteration of Anesh yelled from somewhere across the room.  Probably hiding under the buffet.  James made his way over to investigate, letting the laughter and warmth surround him for a while.

Nate and his apprentice kitchen staff, madmen that they were, had made a perfectly normal Thanksgiving meal.  Then, because the Order contained a fair bit of cultural diversity, they’d covered their bases by adding to the turkey and potatoes with a couple curries, a big plate of tamales, a large portion of marinated tofu, and a dozen side dishes that James plucked a tiny portion from each of.  It took him two minutes, and the context of dating Anesh for the last several months, to come to the conclusion that his boyfriend had been mad that neither of the curry dishes were up to his exacting standard.  James filed this under ‘woefully inconsequential’, rolled his eyes, and went to try to find a wall to lean on as he ate.

While he appreciated that Nate had found the *good* cranberry sauce for these festivities - that is to say, the canned jelly stuff that wasn’t ‘real’ cranberry sauce but who cares shut up - James quickly fell into the pattern of people coming to him with questions and concerns.  Karen came by to keep him up to date on their search for his family, which he tried not to get emotional about.  JP swung past to tell James that he needed more money, which James had no problem at all not getting emotional about.  Nate just poked his head out of the kitchen’s swinging double doors to glance at where James was leaned against the wall eating, asked him if the deviled eggs needed more salt, and then vanished again.

James appreciated Nate a lot.  He needed to let him know.

“Okay, I’ve got a thing you need to know about, and I’m sorry in advance.”  Dave was saying to him.  James let out a small ‘huh’, and tilted his head, not really having noticed his friend’s approach.  “Because you commented about Anesh’s issue thing earlier, and I…”

“Dave.  I’m fine.  What’s up?”  James replied, only half paying attention.  There was something in the base of his thoughts, trying to remind him of something.

“The school shifted again.”  Dave said.  That got James’ attention instantly.  “It’s not that bad.  It hasn’t eaten anyone, but it’s open again now.”

James let go of the nagging memory, focusing narrowed eyes on Dave.  His friend had lowered his voice, clearly not wanting to panic anyone here, so this wasn’t common knowledge yet.  “What’s changed?”  He asked, equally quiet.

A small shrug in response.  “It’s open.”  Dave said simply.  “It’s not a breach anymore, either.  It’s more like Officium Mundi.  Every few nights, there’s another turn on the ramp to the lower level classrooms, and it goes to a door, and the door goes to the sewer.  We can’t figure out if the time is consistent yet.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me about this right away?”  James was a little angry about that.  “I’m kinda angry about that, actually.”  He admitted, thinking about it.

“You were busy, looking for Alanna.  You still are, as far as I know.  We were keeping an eye on it.  And there’s few enough students actually going to the school that we can effectively keep everyone out.”  Dave bit his lip.  “I’m pretty sure half of them know what’s up.  Have you ever seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me that.”

“Yeah, well, like that.  No one says it, but everyone knows.”

“So, time dilation?  Number of entry points?”  James pressed for answers.  “Changes to the dungeon itself? Also why the fuck are there students at all?  There are two very good reasons there shouldn’t be any classes happening at that school.”

Dave shrugged again, this time with a bitter look.  “JP says it’s politics, and I’m not going to argue with him on it.  No time changes, no one’s been in either.  We’re setting up a team to go in, but we wanted to wait to see if we could get you on board.  We’re actually short on manpower with the response team operating, and with… well.  You’re one of four people available with sewer experience, and one of two who isn’t out of action.”

“Me, Sarah, Anesh, and… Simon.  Huh.  Shit.  Wow, don’t go into a dungeon with me, huh?”  James was feeling that bitter pull again.

“It’s worked out okay for me.”  Dave said.  “Hey.  It’s not your place to feel guilty.  We all know the risks.”

“Do you?”  James whispered.

“Anyway.  I’m gonna get out of here before the new girl works up the nerve to talk to you.”  Dave said, plucking a pair of deviled eggs off the tray and popping one in his mouth with a casual air.  “Have fun.”  He said.

“New… what?  Get back here!”  James called after him.

“Mr. Lyle?”  A firm voice came from James’s right, and he pivoted to look at the woman addressing him.  She was about his height, with short black hair and a no-nonsense look on her face that looked like it had been practiced through a million frustrating conversations.  There was also something in the air around her; or maybe not the air itself, but the concept of the space that surrounded her shoulders.  James thought it felt green, for some reason.  “Do you have a minute?”

He did, but didn’t want to admit it.  He did anyway.  “Sure.  How can I help you?”  He asked.  “Also, how did you get in here?”

“Your accountant let me in.  We worked together previously, on the easy coast.”

“JP… oh!  Oh.”  James felt all the enthusiasm leave his bones as he looked at the FBI agent in front of him.  “Well.  At the risk of sounding rude, what do you want?”

Maybe it was how direct the question was.  Maybe it was some inner struggle James wasn’t privy to.  But either way, he got an answer he wasnt expecting.  “I have no idea.”  She said with a sigh.  “As you’ve probably already guessed, I’m Agent DeKay.  Tiffany, if you need a first name, but I don’t like it much.”

“Alright.”  James nodded.  “DeKay.  Preferred pronouns?”

“Um… female?”

“I’m getting in the habit of asking.  It simplifies a lot of stuff.”  James explained.  “So.  You’re here, you don’t know why, and you brought an infomorph that hates me into my house.”  He gestured with a looping motion of his hand to the area around her head.  “What’s up?”

“You’re… how do you even ask this.  You’re wizards?”  The word sounded so stupid, she almost instantly wanted to take it back.

But then, to her shock, James gave her a real answer.  “Just Momo.  The rest of us are classified as delvers, or support staff.  If we have magic, it’s granted, not learned.”

“...Classified by whom?”

“Ourselves.  We’re the leading authority, as far as we know.”  James sounded smug about that.

“I heard what happened to my predecessor.”  Her voice was hard, almost threatening.

James nodded, a sad frown and a shake of his head punctuating his words.  “You know, I was actually starting to like Randall.  And he was… how to say it.  He was blind, but searching.  He wasn’t a bad guy.  He didn’t deserve this.”  James looked up at her.  “We delivered his remains to the bureau, but we have his remnant here.  We didn’t know what you all would want done with it, and didn’t want to risk anything.”  James met her eyes.  “At the risk of sounding condescending, do you know what that is?  Did they tell you?”

“No.”  DeKay said plainly.  “Do you mean part of his corpse? Or his effects?”

“Effects.  Heh.”  James snorted a sad laugh.  “It’s all the Powers he accumulated with us.  The skills, enhancements, everything left over. It’s not much, compared to some of the others who… some of the others.  But it’s there.  And our own code says you have a claim on it, if you want.”

“What would happen to it?”  She asked, curious.  Her mind was already building a map of how this worked, comparing notes with her briefing and other conversations, sussing out lies and mistakes and dead ends.  “Is it his soul?”

“We don’t know.”  James gave her a thin smile.  “Maybe.  We haven’t touched our own fallen.  They’re safe, in the basement.  Just… you know.”

“Just in case.”

“Exactly.”

The two professionals appraised each other for a minute.  And then DeKay nodded once at James, and he nodded back.  “I’m under orders to observe you, and ensure you’re not a threat to humanity.”  She told him, honest even if she was leaving out a word or two.  “Until you decide to be that threat, consider me an auxiliary agent under your organization.”

“You know, Nate at least *pretended* that I had a choice in hiring him.”  James muttered.  “Whatever,” he waved off her questioning look, “welcome to the Order.  Talk to… someone… else… for your loadout.  Anesh, probably.  That guy.”

“Thank you.”  And just like that, with a curt nod, agent DeKay vanished back into the crowd.  James could still see her, obviously, but she had some kind of trick where she just stopped being relevant to him, and his brain just wanted to focus on other stuff.

It was kind of impressive, really.  Even with the orb upgrade that gave him improved short term memory, keeping track of certain things had not just instantly become easier.  He could hold onto addresses, long strings of numbers, even math equations he didn’t understand, sometimes for hours.  But tracking faces or complex tasks wasn’t much simpler than it ever was.  And whatever DeKay did, shifting her posture, putting off a different attitude, or maybe drawing on the infomorph that was earthed in her, it preyed on that gap in James’ focus.

He didn’t mind too much.  She was probably just following her training.  And he had a weird sense of deja vu welling up again.  Like there was something so familiar about this, and all he had to do was reach out and…

“Oh good, you’re here!”  A voice snapped him out of his focus.  James looked up from the circle of mashed potatoes he’d been drawing lines in on his plate, to see the face of his senior researcher.  Reed, still too tall for the kid he was, curly hair wetted down into something approaching proper for polite company, was wearing a suit jacket with an air like he’d been ordered to either a firing squad or a fancy family dinner.  “We’re just waiting on the response team to get back, and we can do the thing.”

“Oh, yeah, like three people have said ‘the thing’ to me so far, and no one has stuck around long enough to explain it?”  James looked over the crowd, trying to spot Sarah, the traitor who had just abandoned him with no explanations.  She was currently talking to Deb and Frequency-Of-Sunlight, laughing in that bubbly way of hers.  James caught her eye, and she moved to wink at him before pointedly turning back to her conversation.  “Some people unhelpfully not explaining it deliberately, I think.”

“Well, it was supposed to be a surprise.”  Reed admitted.  “But we’re kinda knee deep in this party, so it seems weird to keep hiding it.”

“*Super*.”  James dryly bit the word off.  “What *is* it?”

“Our new security system.”

“That’s both informative and useless.”  James replied, headache forming behind his eyes.  “Please.  Just tell me.  I promise to not do any cryptic bullshit for a week if you give me a straight answer.”

Reed nodded, pursing his lips in thought. “That’s a good deal!”  He commented with consideration.  “We’re going to try something with Planner, the infomorph that Research has been hosting.  We thing, and they think too, that we can shroud the whole building.  Make it safe for us to use, in case… in case Status Quo… you know.”

“They’re dead.”  James reminded the quiet young man in front of him.  “Them and their goons.  And if they weren’t, I’d kill them all before they could try again.”

“Well, on the off chance they aren’t.  Or that there’s something else out there.  Stealth field.”  Reed tried to hide the small panic attack he was having, to little success.  “Anyway.  We needed everyone here to start it.  Once Simon and Lights-Overhead are back from their deployment, we’ll make an announcement and fire it off.  And it’ll probably work without any problems.”

James cleared his throat.  “Probably…?”

“Yeah.”  Reed nodded enthusiastically, suddenly very interested in finding an escape hatch from the conversation.  “Oh look.  Nikhail is trying to math-flirt with Anesh.  I’m going to go stop my assistant from being sucked into your magical harem have a nice thanksgiving bye!”

“Hold up, harem?!”  James demanded, refocusing his concerns.  “That’s not…!”

“Polyamory is a harem with democracy!”  Reed called back as he made his escape.

James considered throwing the half eaten dolmas he was currently not enjoying that much at the back of the kid’s head.  But the collateral damage to the mess of people would probably be higher than he’d like.

He sighed, again, for the millionth time, and shook his head to himself.  His plate was mostly empty, so he filed through the door to the dish pit and added it onto the stack already present.  He’d take care of the cleanup later; his own contribution to the night’s festivities.

For not the first time, he felt that sense that this was familiar.  And this time, with a little quiet and no one around, he leaned into it.  A faded memory popped into his head, of sitting with his back to a cubicle wall, short hours away from safety, with a constant rotation of survivors and teammates wandering up to his nap spot to ask him questions.  Long term and short, about the escape, about the future, about everything.  James laughed, in reality, while his mind looked back over what had been.  He’d been trying to get away for a bit, but everyone with a question had found him almost instantly.

He closed his eyes, and pictured that blocky beige landscape, how their makeshift camp had been all those months ago when he’d pulled the people who would become the foundation of the Order out of hell.

James’ eyes snapped open.

There was something in his memory.   There was something foreign in his head.  His hand gripped the stainless steel corner of the counter, knuckles white from the pressure.  Then he took a breath, and looked again.

There.  Around his legs, and arm.  It ached to look at, like staring too long at one of those magic eye puzzles.  But it was there.  Something… scaled.  Draconic?  And it was *with him* in his memory.

“Hey.  You okay?”  Sarah’s voice caught up to him along with the noises of conversation from outside as she cracked the door open.  “You’ve been here a while.”

James looked up at her, an open mouthed smile on his lips as he gasped for breath, tears pooling in his eyes.  “Yeah.  Yeah!”  He said.  “I’m… I’m actually good.  I just found something.”  He said, tapping his head.  “Ugh.  Ow.”  James flexed his fingers, trying to loosen them up.  “What’s up?  I’m actually okay, calm down.”  He told Sarah, who was looking back over her shoulder and trying to signal Anesh.

“Oh, Simon and Lights are back.  Harvey and Karen wanted to make an announcement, and they asked that you say something too.”  Sarah said.  “If you’re okay?”

“I’m *fine*.”  James insisted, putting as much real feeling into it as he could.  “Also I already weaseled the intel out of Reed, so you don’t need to keep trying to surprise me.”

“I would never!”  Sarah lied, hand on her forehead in the most melodramatic pose possible.  “Alright, come on.”

They got out to the main room just in time for Harvey to be halfway. through the briefing he was giving everyone.  The whole room had gone quiet, respectfully listening to their begrudgingly appointed head of operational security.  James spotted against the back wall, near the door to the security office, Simon standing in black shelled body armor. He assumed the camraconda partner was nearby, but lost in the crowd.

Poor Simon.  If that was his name anymore.  He was a little more than one and a half people now; his last partner’s body having been killed, even as most of his mind was caught and saved.  It was a touchy subject, and the new Simon was still getting used to existing at all like this; not much for talking about the experience.

“...everyone here.  So unless you’re with non-Order members, you’ll always be able to find the place. But if you’re bringing a guest, a client, even an interview? It’s got to be scheduled, or else as far as they know, the building just won’t exist.”  Harvey’s voice carried pretty well in this room, when everyone shut up their own conversations long enough to let him speak.  He had a good rumbling tone to his words; like he’d smoked, but only just long enough to get the aesthetic and not the cancer.

“So, do we all have to be thinking Planner?”  Momo asked from the crowd, not bothering to raise her hand.  The girl may be sartorially stuck between punk and goth, but despite her age she’d been quick to ditch most of the trappings of high school life.

“No.”  Reed said, standing next to Harvey and interpreting the older man’s glance as an invitation to field the question.  “Just be here now to be flagged as having an open invitation.  Most of Research already runs it, so Plan is pretty stable.  Not very social though, yet, ironically.”

“I mean, they’re learning from a bunch of nerds.”  Momo sent a friendly needle toward the kid who was almost technically her boss.

“Can I ask a question?”  Someone raised his hand from one of the tables where a cluster of people from the support group were sitting.

“If it distracts these two, yes.”  Harvey flatly shook his head.  “What’s up Steve?”

“I don’t wanna look stupid, but I still don’t understand infomorphs.  What the hell… is?  It?”  Steve looked sheepish, like he was embarrassed to ask.  James hadn’t really interacted with a lot of people from the support group, mostly assuming that if they didn’t want to be part of the Order, they didn’t want him bothering them.  But Steve, an exceptionally cautious guy who’d been a floor manager before his job and life got eaten and replaced by a fantasy world, was one of probably several exceptions.  He waited for people to tell him what was okay, instead of what everyone else did, which was mostly to assume responsibility for problems and start hacking away at them.  It was… normal.  That’s was the thing.  It was normal and that stood out here.

The thing was, Harvey didn’t have a good answer.  Neither did Reed or Momo really.  All of them were waiting for the others to answer, and none of them, even the ones with an understanding, had a good explanation.

From the back of the room, James spoke up quietly, and everyone’s heads turned to look at him.

“Imagine… hm.  Let’s say, imagine three apples.  They’re in a triangle.  They’re red.  Fresh. Untouched.  Is everyone thinking that?”  There was a murmur of voices and nods.  “Okay.  I just created an idea and put it in your heads.  And for a minute, it occupies some space in your mind.  So far, I’m a marketing department, but not a wizard.”  A couple people laughed.  But that wasn’t what James was after this time.  “An infomorph is what happens when that idea, three apples, starts self-perpetuating.  It’s always there, in your head.  Either conscious or subconscious, but part of you is thinking ‘three apples’.  Now, that’s a bit scary, right?  To not be in control of your brain.  But like I said; so far, this is just marketing.  A good jingle does the same thing.  I’ve had Brian David Gilbert’s Old Bay song stuck in my head for six weeks, and that’s not magic either.”

“Oh fuck you.”  Anesh muttered as James stuck the song back in his head.

James grinned briefly.  “An infomorph is what happens when the idea itself is self-perpetuating, adapting, and capable of simultaneous existence.  So, when you’re thinking three apples, and I’m thinking three apples, and they’re the exact same idea, shared between us?  And that idea can grow and learn from us?  That’s an infomorph.”  He pointed at where Daniel was sitting in the crowd.  “Danny there has a friend who started out as a map, and then gradually took on traits of exploration and adventure.  And if the two of them wanted to, they could carve out footholds for Pathfinder, with consent from other people, by creating shared ideaspace for Path to move into.”  James looked around and caught the new FBI agent’s eye.  “They’re all a bit different.  But they all eat information, in a way.  It’s how they survive and grow.  Doesn’t have to be destructive, though.”

“Thanks.”  Steve said, simply.  “That’s… really helpful.  Can I write that down?”

“Please god yes.  I’ve already forgotten half of it.”  James said.

“How do you know all this, anyway?”  Someone else asked.  Ann, James thought her name was.  One of the people working in the kitchens, and also racking up delve time.

He blinked, and had a moment of nostalgia.  A memory of something *scales* and *teeth* and *blue*.  James blinked and twitched his head sideways so hard it cracked his neck.  “I… don’t remember.”  He said.  “We’re working on it.”

Everyone had questions about that.  But no one voiced them.  Instead, Harvey kept them moving forward, proceeding with the ‘ritual’ Planner needed to begin masking the building.

Momo called it a ritual.  Everyone else called it ‘giving verbal consent’.  Momo was the most disappointed person in the room that it didn’t involve actual magic.

As the evening wound down, James found himself helping with cleanup while everyone said goodnight.  Some people headed home, others to the rooms in one of the basements that were outfitted as bedrooms.  Most of the camracondas stayed in the Lair, though Frequency-Of-Sunlight went home with Deb; their relationship an eternal source of gossip among both species that made up the bulk of the Order.  James was pretty sure it was where the camracondas learned how to gossip in the first place.

Finishing the dishes he’d promised to do, James headed over to the elevator.  He needed to find Anesh before he went home, and he had one other thing to do first before that.  Finding Anesh wouldn’t be too hard; he knew where his boyfriend had disappeared to midway through the night.

He nodded to Nate on the way out, the chef wordlessly heading out back to smoke away his stress.  He also passed by JP, who was making increasingly hostile small talk with their new fed.

“Are you staying in town?”  He asked.

“Yes.”  DeKay was saying, not really paying attention and instead looking at her phone.

“Well, I’d offer you a room here. But I don’t want to.”  JP replied.

James let out a strangled cough as a reaction as he walked past.  He considered telling JP to play nice, but the agent didn’t seem concerned.  “You know, I liked you better when you were on my turf.”  She said.  “Barely competent, and quiet.”

The elevator dinged, and James exfiltrated from that situation before they killed each other, or started making out.  Or worse, noticed him.

The basement wasn’t as empty as basements usually were.  People were hanging around, the hallways held a couple of little lounge areas and also one vein of gold that they didn’t talk about.  There were a lot of camracondas down here, too, many of them preferring to make their sleeping nests underground, comfortable with the enclosed spaces.

Farther in was the space that had been everything from the Research section to their storage pile for several months.  Right now, there wasn’t much here except a few computers monitoring the progress of a few growing programs.  And also a little penned-in area that held a number of shellaxies.

James stopped to give some pets to a couple of the more active computer shaped life forms.  “Hey there Ice Cream Cake.”  He muttered, running fingernails across the somehow sensitive metal casing of the creature.  “Have you been a good bug tester? Yes you have!”

They’d used this space for a lot.  And it hurt that it hadn’t been fully put back together after the Status Quo attack.  Scorch marks and the smell of smoke, as well as bullet holes in the wall, along with one much larger hemispherical divot taken out of the ceiling by what James assumed was a blue power.  This was where Research had figured out what a hundred different magic items did.  This was where people had built the wireless braids for the skulljacks.

And now it was mostly empty, and Research worked elsewhere.  They’d put it back together eventually, but it was strange for it to feel so empty.

Behind it was the vault.  And that space had, thankfully, been undamaged.

Putting in the code and opening the locks from the human-positioned keypad, James let the door swing open and stepped in.  “Priestess.”  He greeted the camraconda inside.

She was one of the few who didn’t engage much with the Order.  And that was fine.  She had a cultural position that was very, very important to the camraconda population of Earth; she watched over the body of the woman who’d first freed them.

The priestess spent most of her time here, though taking shifts for her to sleep or explore was a part of the camraconda’s assumed sacred duty, so she wasn’t trapped forever.  Their stilling vision keeping the corpse in perfect preserved condition, no matter how much time passed.

In the back of the vault was a containment room that used to contain an invisible cat beast.  It was empty now, and James would appreciate it if no one asked questions about that.

But here, along the wall, on a set of divided shelves, were a series of orbs.

Some large, some small.  Some green, some yellow.  One thing that wasn’t an orb at all, but that looked like a battered spiral notebook.  Some of the shelves had other things on them, hand written notes, mementos, objects of importance.  Here was a government badge, here was the remote control to a drone, here was a small plastic figure of a penguin.

Under every shelf was written a name.

Neil Thile.  Graham Drake.  Randall Schmidt.  Feeling-Of-Rain.  Mark Diaz.  Eye-For-Detail.  Truth-And-Balance.  Lane Christenson.  Lights-And-Sounds.  And then, older names, Virgil Thomassi and Cold-Wind-Friction.  And then, to the side, empty shelves with names nonetheless.  Alanna Byrne.  James Buchanan.  People who may not actually be dead.

James came here a lot.  Every time he found himself in the Lair for the last few months, he ended up down here at some point.  To apologize, to pay respects, or just to sit and wish things had been different.

He didn’t think it was a form of religion.  But he felt like he had to.  He had a responsibility to these people, to the fallen.  They had died because he had asked them to fight.  For themselves, for him, for a better world.  They’d stood and fought and died and it wasn’t fair that they were gone.  So James came here, and stood before the closest thing they had to a manifested soul, and he apologized.

He told them he wished it had gone differently, that he wished he’d done more.  That he never wanted them to get hurt.

And then, this time, he said something new.

He told them that he wouldn’t stop now.  That the things he believed in then, he believed in now.  That the Order of Endless Rooms, kept alive through their actions, was going to keep going, and that they were going to save the world.

And he meant it.

He didn’t know how long he took down there, in their graveyard shrine.  But it was long enough that Anesh found him instead of the other way around.  “Hey.”  His boyfriend greeted him, startling James a little bit out of his thoughts.  Anesh’s own darker skin tone blending into the color of James’ hair as he rubbed at the back of his partner’s neck.  “I’m really sorry about earlier.  I was…”

James waved it off.  “I know.  You were trying to make it funny.  And I’ve been just fucking awful lately.  I should be the one apologizing.”

“Not how it works.”  Anesh shook his head at him as James turned around.  “Can you imagine if I told you that?”

“Yeah, I know.  But that’s just how I be, I guess.”

“Anyway.  Sarah already left, and she was my ride here.  I’m the last iteration of myself in the building; you mind if I get a ride back with you?”

James gave an incredulous chuckle.  “We live together, share a bed, and regularly smooch.  Is it really required that you ask if I let you *ride in my car to our shared apartment*?”

“I wanted to be polite!”  Anesh crossed his arms and pointedly stared up at the ceiling.  “Besides, if I…mmmph!”  James cut him off with a kiss, pulling his head back down to stare into Anesh’s eyes afterward.

“I love you so much.”  He said.  ”And I’m sorry that I’ve been fucking everything up.”

“It’s… it’s not just you.”  Anesh admitted sadly.  “I feel like I’m *failing*, because we aren’t making any progress.  I haven’t found Alanna, I haven’t found whatever bizarre digital dungeon Virgil encountered and absolutely failed to document before he died, I haven’t figured out how to help Simon-and-or-James… I don’t know what I’m doing.  And everyone’s looking at me for advice, but James, I wasn’t doing this for more than a bloody year before all this started.  They think I’m some expert, and I’m blanking on everything.  I’m a physicist, not some world-saving monster hunter!”

If anything in this whole night had made James want to explode with laughter, this was it.  “Oh, *really*?” Was what he said instead.  And into that word, he poured the last year of experiences, of being out of his depth, of being looked to for leadership, of being inexplicably in charge of things, and of being responsible for a whole organization of people.  For their growth, their lives, and their deaths, in equal measure.  Weeks and months of being looked up to, of being asked questions he didn’t have good answers for.

“Yeah, I heard it as soon as I said it.”  Anesh admitted with a mock scowl.

“Also you literally work for NASA now.  That’s gotta count for something.”

“I wouldn’t know.  I haven’t actually met up with myself in a while.  Travel restrictions and also just general security, you know?”  Anesh shrugged.  “I’m sure I’m doing fine!”  He didn’t sound convinced.  In fact, he sounded jealous.

James wrapped him in a hug.  “Aw, I’m sorry you’re not the copy that gets to work on spaceships.”  He said in a babying voice. “Once we establish our own extradimensional utopian nation, you can be in charge of the space program, okay?”

“Myhre ohbes.”  Anesh’s muffled voice came through where he was squished against James.

“What?”

Anesh sucked in a breath of air as James released him. “Ahem.  I said, they’re probes.  Not ships.”

“Bah.  We’ll get you up to ships.  Now come on.  Let’s get home, I’m tired, and I wanna go to bed.”  James said.  “Priestess, you gonna be okay down here?”  He asked the camraconda as they made their way to the door.

“I am content.”  The snake replied.  “Others will be here soon, for vigil.  Giving you space.”  The small digital speakers wired into the camraconda’s skulljack port projecting a voice she otherwise wouldn't have.  Most of the serpent people were getting quite good at creating their own vocal sounds.

James gave her a sad smile.  “Alright.  Well, let us know if you need anything.  We should… we should try to get some more space down here.  Let you all have your own place for things.  It feels weird that you’re just in here with the graves and priceless artifacts.”

“It is a safe place.  We do not mind.”  The priestess replied.

“Still.”  James said, trying to express discomfort and gratitude all at once.  “Well, goodnight.  Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Yes.  Thanks.”  The camraconda called back.

The two boys made their way through the halls of the basement, past Research, past the improvised gold mine, back up the elevator.  Out the front security door, of a building that, if everything worked the way it should, most people wouldn’t be able to find anymore.  The night air was frigid; winter having kicked into high gear at some point, and the wind burrowed its way through every crack in the coat James wore as armor against the cold.

They drove home in near quiet, interrupted only by low radio music, and then James getting super excited when the local station did their yearly playing of Alice’s Restaurant.

“You can get, any*thing* you waaaant…”  He hummed along with the chorus.

“You are really into this.”  Anesh said, watching him from the passenger seat with a happy grin on his face.  “What even is this… song?  Performance?”

“I don’t really know.  I mean, it’s some kind of anti-war message, obviously.  I think a comedian wrote this in, like, the late seventies.  My parents used to have a tradition of listening to it every year.  And yeah, it hurts to remember them.  But this whole thing is just kinda… comfortable.  Even with everyone… missing.”  James blinked back tears that snuck up on him.

“I miss Alanna too.”  Anesh said quietly.  “She’s not dead.”

“She can’t be.”  James snorted.  “It took an alarming amount of violence to *render her unconscious*.  I have a hard time believing she’s dead.  But… where is she?”

“I dunno.  Lost, somewhere?  I wish the iteration of me that warped her out told you what he wrote down before he died.”

“Maybe she’s started a new life rescuing elephants from poachers.”  James suggested.

Anesh blinked.  “That’s out of left field.  Also pretty optimistic.”

“Look, our other options are either ‘some kind of magic bullshit’...” James shot Anesh a look, and his boyfriend nodded in agreement.  “...Or she’s gotten fed up with society and is systematically planning to assassinate a bunch of political and financial roadblocks.”

“Let’s assume something magic.”  Anesh suggested.  “If she was gonna murder blokes, she’d tell us first.  Maybe she’s caught in a dungeon.”

“Maybe it’s both.  Maybe it’s a magical pyramid scheme or something.”

“Like…”  Anesh’s brain fumbled the line of conversation.  “Like a curse that makes you build a pyramid?  I’m sorry, I’m getting tired.”

James laughed.  “Let’s go with that.  That’s more fun than what I was thinking of.  Also, we’re home.  Need help up the stairs?”

“Nah, I wasn’t drinking.”  Anesh told him.  “Jus’ sleepy.”

“Alright.”

They made their way to the door, the night a little less hostile but still just as cold as they rushed into their apartment.  Aberdeen, the massive floofy white mess of fur that was their dog, greeted them both with a huff from the couch.  James noted that Sarah’s shoes were already by the door, and he and Anesh shared an eye-roll at the ground shakingly loud snoring coming from her room.

Half an hour later, showered, undressed, and curled up in bed together, James was just feeling the pull of sleep when Anesh spoke one last time.

“I just want to do something that matters.”  The quiet voice from the boy spooned against his back made James force himself awake for just a minute.

“You already do.”  He whispered back.  “But if you really, really want to feel like you’re fighting the good fight…”  James trailed off.

There was a rustle of blankets as Anesh propped himself up on an elbow, the indent in the mattress rolling James out of his comfortable position.  “What?”  He asked, a little too eager.

“Come help me kill rats in the basement tomorrow.”  James muttered.  “We’ll work up to all the world’s other problems from there.  Now go to sleep.”