The Daily Grind - Chapter 174 (Patreon)

This one is longer than I expected for what I thought would be filler but is actually an excuse for me to expand on the actual thoughts behind some character actions.  Hope it's enjoyable.

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“Our knowledge has made us cynical.  Our cleverness, hard and unkind.  We think too much, and feel too little!  More than machinery, we need humanity; more that cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.  Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost” -Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator-

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James and Alex led the briefing on the expedition into Winter’s Climb.  It was, to them, just a recap, but for a lot of the Order it was brand new information.  And everyone had questions.  Which meant that, by the time they were done, it had been over four hours, and James was ready to go back to bed.

He was, at this moment, intensely jealous of the people who had been torn into by a dragon. This was where his life was now.  Wishing he’d been injured so he could get out of this.

Well, *sort of*.  In a way, it was work, in a very *big* way it was exhausting and socially draining.  But also…

James had loved interviewing people for the Order.  Whether he was saying yes or no, that process of easing someone into a world of magic was, itself, magical.  And these kinds of briefings were, in a lot of ways, similar.

He stood up at the front of a crowd of roughly fifty people, composed of multiple species, all of whom were interested in learning about the hole in reality that he’d personally explored.  Yes, it was exhausting.  But also, it was an experience unlike anything else.

So he ran down the basics, and then settled in to trade with Alex to field questions about everything they’d experienced.  The Life they’d encountered, what its capabilities were, whether it was intelligent enough to communicate, to befriend.  The different territories, the weather, the different environmental threats.

There were multiple times that he felt a little defensive, trying to justify why they made the choices they did.  Why didn’t they turn around to backtrack when they realized they’d been tricked by the false party member who had stolen a portion of their equipment?  Why did they move without scouting ahead with a drone so often?  Why didn’t they bunker down when the deadly ice storm started?

James had answers, but he worried that his answers came across as excuses, not reasons.  And, in part, he worried that he hadn’t had good reasons in the field.  That he’d failed in a leadership role, even though that wasn’t…

Midway through that part of the briefing, James realized that they needed actual training for leadership positions in the field. Even if they weren’t building a normal command structure, the ability to make snap decisions, and to evaluate clearly under pressure was always going to be useful.

More questions.  Discussions from the audience, analysis of temperature charts, of captured images and video of the things they’d fought, of the map of the ground they’d covered.

And then, questions on the magic.  On the few things they’d found that had their own magic on them, and also on the dungeon’s big payoff.

James still hadn’t chosen a book, so he deferred to Alex, but she hadn’t much experience with it yet either.  It was, at this point, hard to tell if the book they’d ‘written’ themselves after Arrush had killed the dragon was any more powerful than the other damaged ones that Anesh and Nik had salvaged.  Certainly, though, just the option to pour one of their own dungeon abilities or even personal talents into a custom made spell was attractive like nothing else was.

The books were *reusable*.  This wasn’t like the orbs or the Sewer’s lessons or even the bonds that Clutter Ascent offered them.  This didn’t have to be copied, exploited using some of their tenuous and limited resource of magical coffee grounds and the single point of failure of a battered old magical overhead projector.  This was…

“A foundation.”  James said, concluding his thoughts to the audience.  “We have four more people who will be testing out different permutations of power selection, so we can get a clearer picture.  But, assuming this works the way we suspect, then this is the sort of thing we can build a future on.”  He folded his arms, and looked up at the list of enchanted book titles projected on the wall of their briefing area.  “Something we can share. Not safely, obviously, but something we can repeat.  A useful, *informed* choice about our magic.  A powerful tool for everyone.”

“Assuming it doesn’t kill us.”  Alex added.  “I’ve tested mine.  It takes my Breath away so fast, it feels like my lungs’ll collapse if I use it for more than a half second.”  She paused.  “I think James overloaded it, honestly.  Nik’s doesn’t do that.  But it’s still worth knowing.”

They took more questions.  They talked more.  Eventually, it became clear that James and Alex had nothing else to really add about their collective experience.  A lot of people, who were just here to stay up to date, filtered out of the briefing room, leaving behind those who now spent their life theorycrafting about dungeons, or planning delves professionally.

James, for his part, found a worn padded chair in the back corner - the kind of chair that had a cushion but inexplicably was never comfortable to sit in - and flopped into it, downing half a bottle of water in one long motion.

“Well that was fun.”  Alex joined him, slightly unwelcome but not too bad.  James’ head was still buzzing with a mild headache after four hours of talking.  “How’s Alanna doing by the way?”  She asked.

“She’s fine.  Still recovering, but alive.”  James set his bottle on the floor, leaning forward to massage his forehead.  The weather was getting colder, and this back space in their building was technically a warehouse, which meant it was cold.  Because warehouses weren’t really insulated that well.  The smell of it, a little dusty, a little oily, mixed well with the smell of the trees and dirt outside.  It was a unique smell, unlike anywhere else James had ever been, and he kind of liked it.  He let the scent flow around him as he just focused on breathing for a little while, before raising his head with a refocused gaze.  “Arrush is alright, too.  I mean, not ‘alright’.  But he’s gonna live.  How’re *you* doing?”

“Me?  I’m fine.”  Alex shrugged.  “I dunno!  I feel weird.  Like, I went from excited, to running on adrenaline and coffee for a few days straight, to… uh… what are we doing now?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah!  Nothing!”  Alex pivoted her head slightly to the side, looking at something out of the corner of her eye.

James noticed her eye was twitching a litte. “When’s the last time you slept?”

“Uh…” Alex now definitely wasn’t meeting his eye.  “When we camped?”

“You didn’t sleep then.”  James reminded her.  “There was that whole thing.  You never actually took a turn to… Alex, when did you last sleep?”  Worry and concern took over his voice.

She threw her hands up in annoyance.  “It doesn’t matter, I’m fine!  Also you’re not my dad!”

“Go to bed.”  James said flatly.

“I’m fine.  Really, I don’t need to sleep yet.  I’ll grab a bed later.”  Alex promised.  “So!  What magic are you taking?  Might I recommend; being literally immortal!”

“Is that what the… no, wait, hang on!”  James didn’t let himself get distracted.  “Go to bed!”

Alex rolled her eyes.  “I’m *fine*.  Look, I don’t need help knowing when to sleep.  I’ll get to it when I’m done with things I need to do.  So, now, magic gossip time!  What book are you thinking of?”

James sighed, and let it drop.  “Honestly, I dunno.  You said the Endurance book is… uh… bad?”

“Yeah, it takes so much breath, it chokes me almost instantly.  *Cold*, too!  But… well, it feels like I’m invincible when I use it.  I actually think I could get shot in the head and walk it off.”  Alex admitted, and then rapidly followed that up with “Not that we’ve tested that!  I’m not stupid, man.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

“So, you.”  She peered at him.  “I’m thinking you’re gonna go with the architecture one.”

“Two days ago, you were nervous to talk to me and jumped when I tried to banter.”  James grumbled.

Alex flapped a hand.  “Yeah yeah, whatever.  It gets easier to see you as a human when I know you snore.  So, am I right?”

“Arrush is taking architecture.”  James said.

“I’m right.”  Alex said with a nod.  She looked like she was going to say something else, but cut herself off with a massive yawn, wobbling slightly on her feet.

James’ sense of concern flared up again.  “Please go get some sleep.”  He said.  “I’ve got a lot of nonsense to do today, I would like to not add taking you to the hospital to that list.”

Alex looked like she wanted to protest, but the next yawn cut that off too.  Covering her mouth, and trying to shoot a sleepy glare at James, she eventually just gave up and wandered off with a tired “Later”.  Hopefully to one of the downstairs beds.

Pushing himself to his feet with a sore groan, James looked around, and waved down the nearest person, a camraconda he’d met before with some dark blue cabling and an aversion to picking a name.  “Hey, are you busy?”  He asked.  “Also hi.”

“Not presently.”  The camraconda said.  “They are discussing cold weather clothing for my species.”  They rotated their head in a nod toward a table in the briefing space.  “I do not think I will be the one to test it.”

“Heh.  Yeah, I get that.”  James gave a knowing nod.  “Anyway.  As a favor, can you keep an eye on Alex?  She hasn’t slept in a long time.”

The camraconda hissed and nodded.  “I, too, get that.  I will watch her.”  They said.  “And thank you for the lesson.”

James blinked.  “Oh, yeah, no worries.”  He said.  “Anyway.  I gotta go.  Thank you.”  He excused himself, giving a polite bow of his head that the camraconda matched, as well as a wave to the remaining half dozen members of the Order, as he turned and headed out back to the lobby.

The front common room of the Lair was, in a word, busy.  Busier than normal, but that was probably a result of a lot of people coming by at once to hear about the mountain.  A variety of survivors who didn’t feel comfortable anywhere else shared beanbags or small tables, talking quietly, reading, relaxing. There were several people here who were new additions to the Response project, and James could almost instantly pick them out; they were the ones who were trying really hard to look like they weren’t staring at the non-human members of this bizarre clubhouse.

Mostly the camracondas.  There were, miraculously, more of them now.  James had been *terrified* that they were going to end up as a dying splinter of a slave species; a few dozen freed camracondas slowly attritioning away until there was nothing left of their people but the controlled specimens in the dungeon itself.  But instead, they’d turned that around, capturing a handful of Officium Mundi’s guard monsters, and slowly, oh so slowly, breaking the residual hold on them that the dungeon held.

They were different than the original population.  They hadn’t been through years of trapped fear, starvation, guilt, and collective trauma.  They woke up, slowly, softly, to a world where they could be people, guided by the others who had come first, but free to be something new.  There were three of them so far, they were constantly confused by the world around them, and James empathized with them on a deeply personal level.  The original camracondas weren’t actually that old, but they’d been forged in a crucible that had pushed them to an emotional maturity beyond their years.  The new ones, though, were just kids.  And it was something special to watch them learn and grow.

James realized he’d been standing, staring at the busy room without moving for almost a minute.  He cleared his throat awkwardly, even though no one was actually paying attention to him, and slinked away before anyone questioned why he was grinning so broadly while he lurked in the shadows.

_____

James finally, *finally*, remembered to ask Reed about the weird rubber stuff from Route Horizon.

The answer did not impress him.  It constantly pulled itself into a ball shaped mass, melding into itself like it was liquid, even though it didn’t interact with any other matter that way.

Reed looked at him like he should understand why this was a world-shattering development.  James looked back at him like he didn’t understand mechanical engineering beyond how to repair either lawnmowers, or Jettas made between 1994 and 1998.

Reed cracked first, muttering something about self-healing qualities for high stress machines, and then just sighing and telling James it was kind of a big deal, and that they’d like more of it.  Even if they just sold it to a car company or something, it could be worth billions.

That got James’ attention.  He promised to have a talk with some people about it, and asked Planner to set up a council.

_____

“And this week on the show, we’ve got James!”  Sarah’s voice filled the little recording studio with a warmth and sense of eternal enthusiasm that was hard to match, and impossible to fabricate.  Even the best host, when they said they had a great show for you tonight, you could tell when they were just going through the motions.  Sarah didn’t have to do that.  She genuinely would have meant it; but she didn’t need to say it anyway.  You just got the feeling, listening to her, that she was prepared to give you a great show.

She had taken perfectly to being their resident news caster.  Among other things.

“Introduce yourself!”  She commanded James with a grin.

“Uh, hi.”  James stopped leaning back, abandoning the position he’d been watching Sarah do her intro from, uncrossing his arms and moving up on the mic.  “I’m James Lyle, and I’m… uh…” He paused.  “Having an existential crisis, I guess.  What am I?”

“Excellent start!”  Sarah grinned.  “But really.  Most people here will know you already.  For those that don’t, James is our de facto leader, experienced dungeon explorer, and aspiring superhero.”

“Now hang on…”

The interruption did not stop Sarah in the slightest.  She snapped a sheet of paper in her hand, looking at it dramatically.  “The numbers my assistant has provided me with say that you are responsible for saving several hundred lives, and also that you are here today to talk to us about ethics!”

“Wait, no.”  James stared like a deer in the headlights.  “I was lured here under the pretense of making jokes and being asked harmless questions about my romantic life!”

Sarah nodded at him.  “And also ethics!”  She announced with a grin like a wood chipper.  James couldn’t help but give a small spatter of laughter at her expression, and she returned an earnest friendly smile to him.  “So.  I’ve got some questions people submitted since they’ve known you were gonna be here, and then a few other things to chat about. But first, is there anything *you* want to say?”

“Oh, I don’t even know.”  James stared up at the ceiling.  “You know, I kind of forgot I promised to do this? Don’t get me wrong, I love this stuff.  But I just spent several hours telling a bunch of dungeon nerds about a secret mountain in the middle of Australia, and did you know we have *dungeon nerds* now?  Sarah, you are my literal best friend.  Can I confide in you?  I have to admit this; I do not know how I feel about us having people who are fans of specific dungeons.”

Sarah looked down at the notes in front of her.  “That actually brings us to our first question.”  She said, sheepishly.  “If you look at your own sheet…”

“When did this get here?”  James jumped slightly in his chair.

“My assistant put it there.  Kelly is very good at this.”  Sarah said with a nod.  “Anyway!  Question one!  What is your favorite dungeon?”

James stared at her.  “You can’t see it, listeners.”  He enunciated into the mic.  “But this dead air is a flat stare.”

“Hey, no stage directions!”  Sarah chastised him.

“You set me up.”  James accused her.

She scoffed with faux haughtiness.  “You set yourself up.  Now, on with the interview.”

James held back laughter.  “Alright.  I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I have a ranking order.  It’s Clutter Ascent at the top.”

“Really? Not Officium Mundi?”  Sarah asked.  “It did change your life.”

“It also almost killed you, and… uh… seventy percent or so of the people in this building?”  James did some wildly inaccurate math on the fly.  “Look, a lot of the dungeons are cool.  Route Horizon has some amazing scenery, you know? But Ascent hasn’t tried to kill any of us, and so far, every piece of Life they’ve made has been both adorable, and also friendly.”  James shrugged.  “Also it’s just *nice* there.  Favorite dungeon, hands down.”

“Now, there’s an inverse question here, too...” Sarah started.

“Fuck the Sewer.”  James answered preemptively.

“Noted.”  Sarah literally made a note.  “Next question!  What, in your opinion, should be the long term goal of the Order?”

“Long term like how long?”  James asked.  “Because it’s gonna be hard to answer regardless.  Our ability, collectively, to get stuff done?  It fluctuates *wildly*.  One day, we find the cure for cancer.  The next, a single person dies and sets back the skulljack project by a year.  We are… hm.  The Order is adaptable, you know?  We’re good at that, all of us.  Anyone who wasn’t moved on, got a normal-ish life.  We’re exceptionally good at rolling with the punches.  But I’m not gonna lie, it makes long term planning hard, and I think Karen might actually try to feed me to the plant in her office if I promise anything concrete.”

“Okay, well, let’s say five years.”  Sarah prompted.  “What do you want to have done by then?  Best case.”  She prodded James into answering.

He answered with what would have been ridiculous optimism even a year ago.  “I want to have an arcology proof of concept built, and start populating it.  Ideally.  If you’d asked me a year ago, I probably would have just said ‘not being dead’, but at this point, I actually think we can do it.”  He ticked off points on his fingers.  “We’ve got a growing cash flow from dungeon resources, we’ve got more and more people who’re willing to help, and most importantly, we’ve got a lot more magic that could be turned toward it.  The orange totems, especially, are going to be *huge*.  Build one segment perfectly, then copy it, instead of needing to build it over and over.  Greens, too.  Also a handful of other magic stuff, you know?  It just seems… I mean, it’s a years off goal, but we’re a decade closer than I expected.”

“Okay, so, as your best friend, I gotta ask.”  Sarah steepled her fingers and leaned in toward him.  “Why an arcology?  Why not, I dunno, uplifting crows or something?”

“Well, mostly bec...ause… sorry, crows?”

“Don’t get us sidetracked!”

James laughed as he rubbed at his eyebrows.  “Okay, sure.  Anyway.  Two big reasons.  One is… hm, okay, actually, this is recorded, right? I’m gonna take a minute to think of how to phrase this.  Cut this part out.”

While James cast his eyes down and sorted out his thoughts, he absolutely missed Sarah making a slashing motion at her assistant, informing her to absolutely not cut this part.

“Okay.”  James continued.  “So, we want a better world.  That’s, like, the core of the Order’s code.  Do good, for everyone.  So, we’re sort of working on that, right?  Randomly curing cases of cancer, intervening in medical emergencies or helping abuse victims, we’re doing what we can.  But…” He unfolded his hands, and let his tone get somewhat unsteady. “We live in a world where cancer is, like, the ‘cost of doing business’.  Where the biggest crime is pervasive wage theft.  And these aren’t exactly things we can ‘fix’, not really.”

“Not even with some strategic greens?”  Sarah cut in.  “Or, you know, anything to do with our whole ‘teleport everywhere instead of taking a car’ plan?”

“Oh, the teleport thing.  Jesus.”  James groaned.  “You know how easy it would be to just kill anyone who’s a problem?  We could be done in an afternoon.”  He slumped back in the chair.  “We’re *not doing that*!  Everyone pay attention!  No assassinations!  Ethics still fucking matters, and we’re *better than that*, okay?”  He shook his head.  “But also, the green thing is just too much, too.  What are we supposed to do, copy a few million ‘lower pollution output’ orbs and spam them on every piece of heavy industry or farm that uses pesticides?”

“...Yes?”  Sarah paused.  “Yes.  Let’s add that to the list.”

“I’m going to do your job as podcast host for you, and get us back on track.”  James told her.  “The reason I want to build an arcology is to take everything that we, both as humanity and as the Order, have learned, and apply it to a habitat design, with the goal in mind of ‘let’s make this place not suck’.”

Sarah hummed at him, snapping her fingers as she made the connection.  “You want to control for variables.”  She said.  “And translate that to helping people.”

“To creating the conditions for high quality lives for as many people as possible, yes.”  James clarified.  “Essentially, the point of an arcology is to produce a proof of concept to the rest of the world.  We can build these, we have built one, people live in it, those people are happy, we will build these for you.  I have, basically, no interest in actually *destroying* anything with our revolution.  I’m more interested in out-competing any rival systems.  Teleportation actually does matter here, because it’s an important part of how we can offer people who want it an out of whatever situation they’re in.  When travel risks and costs are zero, it’s a lot easier to take a chance on somewhere new.”

Sarah nodded energetically.  “I get what you’re talking about!”  She proclaimed.  “It’s a fresh start!  A new beginning, right? Hit the reset button on all the established messes, and get to work making our own messes.”

The fact that she did understand the point he was laboriously dragging the conversation toward made James sigh in relief.  “Yeah, exactly.”  He said.  “New, more interesting, hopefully less horrible messes.”

“And the people we bring in?”

“Well, I kind of want to do something like what we’ve done with the Order.  We’ve already been building a culture.  I want to create the conditions where that culture can thrive, spread, and invite everyone to join.”  James shrugged.  “I think everyone is worth it.  Even the worst people, I think deserve a chance at a life where they can be better.  And I think we can make it happen.  *Somehow*.  Probably with, like, a lot of arcane bullshit.  Ask Momo for details on that.”

“So, there’s a few people who asked a question for you that relates to this.”  Sarah shuffled the notes in front of her, but didn’t actually *look* at them, and James narrowed his eyes in suspicion as he realized that she was wearing a skulljack wireless braid, which was *probably* cheating.  “What happens when a government gets mad at us?”

“I mean, it’s likely they’ll respond to our presence with military force.”  James was kind of surprised he sounded as calm as he did saying that.  “Alternately, a propaganda campaign.  Or both.  Which is pretty standard for world governments these days.”

“...aaaaand?”

“And what?”

“And what are we gonna do about the actual army trying to kill us?”

“Sarah, we’re working on building a spatially compressed city that houses a population that is both aware of and coexisting with a variety of infomorphs, dungeons, and dungeon life.  I plan to make it a challenge for a military to even *find us*.”   James didn’t actually have perfect confidence in his own words, though. And he copped to that.  “Honestly, though, it’s a problem.  We can’t really fight back against a national superpower’s military.  There’s a hundred of us, and, like, sure, I feel invincible every time I survive a fight.  But nothing in the dungeons use sniper rifles, you know? So I don’t have a perfect answer.  And, the best part of being a mature adult is, I can *say* ‘I don’t have an answer’, and then work on finding one!”  James cleared his throat.  “Hopefully before the sniper rifles come into play.”

“Harrowing!”  Sarah deadpanned.  “Okay, I like the answer though, as rambley as your answers get.  I have a next question, though!”

“Hit me.”  James was prepared.

Sarah gave another predatory grin.  “Pineapple on pizza.  Yes or no?”

Without a second of hesitation, James flowed into a non-answer.  “You know, Hawaiian pizza is a bizarre creation?  It uses a fruit not native to Hawaii, to start, and Canadian bacon which is, in case anyone was curious, not originally from Canada.  It’s an American interpretation of an Italian dish, that was first sold by a Greek immigrant to the States.  It’s like… you know with Play-Doh, when you take all the little leftover scraps and mix them into a ball, but you don’t squish too hard, so you can see all the individual colors, and it’s just blind chaos but also kind of cool?”  James smiled.  “I love the story behind Hawaiian pizza.”

“That,” Sarah told him, after a brief round of earnest applause, “was an incredibly moving reply.”  Then she slapped the flat of her palm against the desk, eliciting a cracking thud the mics would absolutely pick up.  “But it wasn’t an answer!”

“Yes, I like pineapple on pizza, but I don’t like Canadian bacon, so not Hawaiian.”

“Cheater.”

“Moving on?”  James prompted.  “Wait, why am I saying that.  You’re the one in charge of this interview.”  He stopped rambling, and gave Sarah an expectant look.  “Come on, I know you have more questions.”

Sarah smiled at him with dancing eyes.  “A question was submitted from an anonymous source asking if you were single.”  She leaned in toward James.  “Hmmm?”

“Please can we go back to the questions on the ethics of murdering people.”  James muttered, face flushed red.  “I have things to do today.”

Sarah laughed, let it drop, and moved on.  The questions did not stop veering wildly between ideological, and awkwardly personal.

James enjoyed the experience immensely.

_____

James had, in the last few years of his life, found a number of tiny joys to live for.  The thrill of adventure, the companionship of his friends, the feeling of triumph at saving a life.  Little moments, big moments, it didn’t matter, they were all important to him.

But nothing, really, compared to the the smug satisfaction of being an enigmatic bastard sometimes.  Just as a reward for good behavior.

James followed Lin, one of their rogues and the least inconspicuous person he’d ever met, through the door of the Utah diner.  It was an unfairly warm and sunny day for the middle of September; back home, it was already starting to convert to the permanent gray and wet of winter, but here in the minor city of Kaysville, it just kept being pleasant.

The inside of the diner was so greasy, you could feel it in the air.  That kind of instant recognition that you got after you’d sampled too many of this style of restaurant; the knowledge that the tables would be sticky, the food would be adequate but overpriced, and that you’d feel terrible after your meal but that you wouldn’t remember by the time you were hungry for breakfast cooked by someone else again.

There was also, to James’ horror, a jukebox.  One of those ones with the tubes of bubbling water, lit up in pink and green, and that all seemed to have the same three songs on them playing on repeat.

Benny and the Jets played just a little too loud over the low noise of a handful of people having conversations.  Two pairs of two older couples, spaced out in the old red leather booths, and the clattering of pans from the kitchen.

James already knew why they were here, but he let Lin lead him anyway.  She waved at the waitress in a way that somehow made the gray haired oak of a woman just nod and leave them to it while she wiped down a coffee pot.  And then stalked through the diner, shoes sticking slightly to the tile floor, to stand next to a booth with a solitary gentleman sitting in it.

“Alchemist Nile.”  Lin said.  Her voice was crisply professional, and had the pitch you’d expect coming from her five foot two frame, but she had a grin while she spoke anyway, watching with her own satisfaction as the man in the booth snapped his head up to them with wide eyes.  “Real name Walter Crongle, eighty four years old, left his gun in his car today.  It’s the Mercedes outside.”  Lin rattled off the words like a script.  “Estimated net wealth, about a hundred and forty million.  Technically, third in command of-“

“Yes thank you, shut up!”  The old man’s voice snipped through Lin’s words, though the rogue didn’t lose her smile.  “Should have brought the fucking gun.”  His grumbling voice had a ghost of a drawl to it.  “Well?  Here to kill me, or just waste time until my breakfast gets cold?”

James liked him immediately, which he probably shouldn’t have.  With a smile of his own, he slid into the booth opposite Walter, just as the waitress finally decided to come bother them.  “Jack? These kids bothering you?”

Walter - absolutely not a Jack, but oh well - looked over at James, who just gave him a friendly shrug, before glancing back up.  “No, no.  Just an old family friend I wasn’t expecting to see today.”  The man said.  “He’s fine.”

“And I’m going.”  Lin said, giving James a tilt of her head.  She’d be ‘going’ about as far as she needed to to join the perimeter of Knights who were watching the place.

“Can I get a coffee?”  James asked the server.  “Lots of cream and sugar.”

“Don’t poison it either.”  Lin commanded her, meeting the woman’s startled gaze, and holding it with serious eyes until the older woman broke and looked away, glancing at Walter, then James, and then giving a resigned sag of her shoulders.

“So.”  Walter asked.  “Not here to kill me.  What do you want then?”

James sighed as he stretched his arms over his head, cracking joints and trying to get some of the lingering soreness out.  He still had lingering splotches of light red on his face that hadn’t fully healed, as well as that dumb sliver of wood growing through his flesh.  And his arm did, technically, still have a hole in it.  So all things considered, just feeling a little sore was pretty good.

“Well.”  He started with.  “First, I have a question for you.”  James reached into his too-warm coat, and slowly pulled out a small crystal vial.  He set it on the table, the roil of blue-black dragon scales and fangs inside twitching slightly.  “Do you know, *really know*, what this is?”

Walter just cocked an eyebrow.  “It’s one of ours, yes.”  He said.  “Permanent cure for depression, since you seem to insist on having this conversation in the open.  Though it also works on general anxiety disorder, social agoraphobia, and post traumatic stress disorder.”  The man’s drawl took on the tone of someone giving a sales pitch.

It got an angry twitch of the eye from James.  “And what, exactly, do you think it does?”  His voice was low, but steady.

“...Rewires the brain to human neurotypical?”  Walter was starting to show some confusion. “It’s perfectly safe.  The price tag is simply because of the limited stock.  I’m sorry, if you purchased from us, and it didn’t work, then I regret to tell you that you did not have one of the…”

He kept talking, but James wasn’t listening to him anymore.  Instead, he was listening to the red totem carefully calibrated in his pocket that was telling him that the man’s heartbeat hadn’t increased.  He was listening to Alanna through the skulljack radio link telling him that Walter was mostly feeling confusion and concern.  And he was listening to his own instincts telling him this man wasn’t lying.

Taking all those things with a grain of salt, but still listening.

James groaned, and shook his head, cutting off his conversation partner’s pitch.  “Okay.  How do you make these?”  He asked.  “I’m not asking here, to be clear.  This isn’t a threat or anything, but I need to know what goes into *this specific potion*.”

“I… don’t know.”  Walter admitted.  “Only Colorado knows.  It’s the highest secret, even though it’s not even close to our best seller.”

“You haven’t taken one.”  The words were more statement than question.

“Of course not.”  Walter scoffed.  “I’m perfectly normal.”

“Okay, first off, ouch.”  James couldn’t keep the banter out of the conversation. “So you don’t know that this thing hollows people out and lives in their bodies, huh?”

Walter went stone still.  One second, an aging man eating eggs and overdone toast, the next instant, a statue of a soldier on high alert.  “What’s that?”  The question came out like he hadn’t reacted, like he was just a curious old observer.

“You didn’t know.”  James sighed.  “Okay, stand down.”  He muttered into his link with the others.

“Excuse me?”

James ignored the question.  “So, eighty four, huh? Looking pretty good for that.  Do you guys make anti-aging potions?”

“Hardly.  If we did we’d… no, I won’t let you do this.  You are mistaken about this.”  Walter tapped the crystal container still sitting on the table.  “It’s harmless.  You are attempting to manipulate me.”

“Walter, buddy, I am attempting to determine if we should be making polite conversation about working together, or if we should be burning everything your guild has ever touched to the ground as an emergency measure against an existential threat to life on Earth.”  James crossed his arms, shifting to get the sleeves of his coat to stop pulling.  “Months of surveillance, of making sure you didn’t sell any more of those, of trying to track down the people you *have* sold to in the past, and we are no closer to an answer.  So, this meeting.”

“You’re spying on us.”  Walter narrowed his eyes.  “You… yes, you’re with the people who triggered the wards on my house last month.”

James didn’t respond to that, though he filed the word ‘wards’ away for later.  “So.  How many of your fellow Alchemists have taken this potion?”  He asked.

It took Walter a few minutes of watching James carefully before he moved again.  This time, not to say anything, but to slowly start to take bites of his breakfast.  James let the man eat, not leaving, but not interrupting.  He knew how bad cold eggs were.

Eventually, though, Walter made a choice.  “Two.”  He said.  “We don’t… you need to understand, we don’t sample our own wares.  The cost of production is high, and our wealth is based off of our product lines.  Only those who are truly in need take them, for the price alone.”

“You have their names?”  James prompted.

“Yes, yes of course.”  Walter flipped his receipt over, scrubbing the names of two other alchemists on it before sending it fluttering toward James with a jerky motion.  While James reached for it, Walter pulled a small silver flask out of his coat pocket, and poured a fairly substantial dose of an amber liquid into his coffee. “Damnable start to a day.”  He muttered to himself.  “Who are you people?”  He asked as he raised his coffee cup with shaky hands.

“Security.”  James replied, picking up the paper.

‘Amature attempt.  Better luck next time.’  It read.

Walter downed his coffee in one go with a motion that gave James the feeling that this was a man who had *considerable practice* gulping down potions.  Then, he winked at James, before flickering and casually rolling through the wall of the diner they were sitting next to.  The older man - displaying an athleticism that should just be flat out impossible on anyone over the age of sixty - threw himself through the front windshield of his car without touching the physical matter, then twisted to land in the driver’s seat, and blazed out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires.

With a small nod and pursed lips, James set the bill back down.  “Alright then.”  He said to himself.  “That was something.”

“Amateur attempt my dick.”  Nate’s voice from one of the three vehicles surrounding the diner came through the tactical link in a way that could best be described as ‘belligerent’.  “Both GPS trackers are on.  Radio transponder, too.  Audio’s coming in.  He didn’t even check his car.  I’ll fucking show you amateur you old cunt.”

“Spelled ‘amateur’ wrong, too.”  James added.  “So, what now?  That’s the third one today, do we just keep ruffling feathers?”  He stole a piece of overdone toast off the alchemist’s abandoned plate and started nibbling on it.

“Myles and Lin are on tail duty now, and I’m gonna follow up on this chucklefuck in a minute.”  Nate’s voice, James realized, got the exact same tone when he was running an intelligence op as when he was giving commands to people in the kitchen.  “Three is enough.  Let ‘em panic, see if it reveals anything.”

“Wish the damn glasses worked.”  Alanna griped.

“For all we know, they do.”  James chimed in.  “But how would we know? If everyone reads as ‘alchemist’, that doesn’t mean that the replacement-thing isn’t an alchemist.  Or maybe none of them are replaced.  Or, you know, maybe it doesn’t work and this just sucks.”  He sighed.  “We need to see if we can steal their client list, minimum.”

“Okay, he’s stopped.”  Nate commented.  “Few miles away.  Probably gonna search the car now.  I’m gonna get moving, just in case he’s smarter than we think.  See you back at base.”

James titled his head to no one in particular, though Nate would still see the visual change through the link before he disconnected.  “Good hunting.  Keep me up to date.”

“Shouldn’t need anyone else for a week or two.  Depends.  I’ll keep you posted.”  Nate said.  “Byrne.”  He added as a goodbye to Alanna.

“Marselli.”  She shot back before Nate clicked off the link.  Then, to James a second later, “Okay, now that he’s gone, that whole spy thing you’ve got going on is kinda hot.”

James tried to keep his face from getting red in the middle of a diner where he was now sitting by himself.  “Alanna, please.”

“I’m just saying!  We should get you a James Bond suit.”

“I feel like you’d look better in that than I would.”  James replied.  “Also, you ready to telepad back?  I’ve got yet more stuff to do today, and I’m sure you have stuff to do aside from being our portable lie detector.”

“Yeah, and then-“

“Hold that thought.”  James cut Alanna off as the waitress walked over with his coffee.  “Sorry, looks like I won’t be needing that after all.”  He said.  “I’ll still pay for it.”

“Oh, sure.”  The woman gave him a bitter look.  “And Jack’s bill too?  Since you’re such good friends.”

James looked down at the meal receipt for the food the alchemist absolutely had not paid for before ghosting himself through a wall.  He looked back up.  “If I tell you that we hate each other, can I get out of this?”  He asked.

The woman gave him a stern glare.  “No.”

“That prick.”  James grumbled as he pulled a pair of twenties out of his wallet, before stomping out to join his girlfriend.

__

“Hey.”  James quietly let the door to the roof of the Lair shut behind him as he stepped out onto the flat surface.  Being on the roof of a building was still a novel experience for him, and he still didn’t know why some of them were covered in gravel, which seemed like a fact he should have picked up by now.  This one wasn’t, but he still thought of it every time he came up here.

The camraconda he greeted was perched coiled under one of the covered watch posts they had up here.  Technically, this violated their lease, and it was ironic that *this* was what was most likely to get them in trouble, and not the six-ish basements.  “Yes.  Evening.”  Watcher-Of-Motion replied.  “They are over that direction.”  The camraconda indicated.

“Now hang on.”  James protested.  “What if I came up here to chat with you?”

The camraconda narrowed the aperture of its camera eye.  “Appreciate the intent.  But prefer the quiet, and the rain.”  She told him.  “Also, you did not.”

“Well *yeah*, but I don’t want to be rude.”  James said.  “I worry sometimes about you guys.  I can at least check in.”

“Many check in.  Bring food.  Comfort.  Concern.  I am not alone here.  And I like the rain.”  The camraconda twisted her body to stare upward, eye focusing on the smattering of light raindrops, impervious to the feeling of the water splashing on her open eye.  “And the *quiet*.”  The serpent emphasized the word.

James chuckled.  “Got it.  They’re over there, eh? Thanks.  Enjoy the rain.  There’s a lot more coming up.”  He popped his coat collar up, and took a breath like he was about to plunge into a lake, before stepping out from under the cover and speed walking across the roof and around a couple of the big HVAC units.

There were too many HVAC units up here.  That would probably also be an obvious sign that they’d been fucking with the building.

Behind the cluster of two meter tall mechanical cubes, James found who he was looking for.  Perched on the wall that overlooked the back parking lot and the struggling and unkempt patch of trees and grass beyond it, Arrush and Keeka lay together in the rain.

The ratroaches were, James realized, balanced on a foot wide sloped concrete wall, twenty feet off the ground, and neither of them looked like they were bothered by that.  They still looked wrong to him, too; a feeling that he tried his best to smash out of his head.  It was nothing in particular, which was what made it a problem.  The extra misplaced limbs, the antenna, the unbalanced sprawls of eyes across their faces over twisted muzzles and too sharp teeth.  None of that bothered James.  Fur and chitin were normal things for creatures to have, and they happened to have both, and that wasn’t bad either.

It might have been unsettling to see Arrush, who had nearly been torn in half a week ago, lounging with his boyfriend.  But James had walked off being shot almost in the heart once, so who was he to talk?

No, it was something about how they were put together.  Something that screamed that they were wrong and broken and alien.  That they were a threat, and that he shouldn’t get close, and that he needed to fight, and…

A nova of anger flared up in James’ chest as he realized what was happening.  What had been happening.  What he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t been looking for.

“Planner.”  He whispered, catching the attention of the infomorph that tended to always be listening around the building.  “Do me a favor, and make an appointment to check these two for infomorph parasites from the Sewer, please.”

Planner wasn’t actually running on James’ mental hardware, but they were firmly rooted around this place, and the word ‘appointment’ attracted their attention rapidly.  “As you say.”  Came the scribbled response in James’ ears.

He felt like an idiot for not noticing sooner.  It wasn’t that strong, but it was persistent.  He wondered if they felt it, about each other.  About what it would take to live like that your whole life, and still overcome this feeling.

James sighed, and stepped forward.  Arrush had noticed him when he’d first arrived, but said nothing, simply waiting.  “Hey there.”  James greeted the pair.  “You two doing okay?”

Keeka, curled up in Arrush’s lap and currently having several of his boyfriend’s hands running through his fur, tensed instantly at the sound of James’ voice.  He was facing out toward the treeline, and didn’t turn, instead just freezing suddenly.  James took a glance at the ratroach, and realized he was shirtless; the rain matting fur and sliding across chitin, and also starting to soak the ankle length skirt the ratroach had on.  More, though, James noticed that there were thin stalks of greenery growing out of the fur on the ratroach’s back.  Strands of grass or stems of flowers, they poked out from around the wiry black fur, like they were rooted in him.

“Healing.”  Arrush rasped at James, his voice as harsh and painful to use as ever.  “Why…” He made a motion with one of the hands that wasn’t keeping them braced on the ledge, asking why James was here.  A little blunt, but James wasn’t gonna take offense.

“Two things.”  James told him.  “Then I’ll leave you two alone.  Well, three things.  The first one is, do you want an umbrella or something…?”

Arrush looked down at the coiled ball of a ratroach in his lap, rain drizzling across shoots of green among black fur.  Then back up at James.  “No.”  He said.

“Kay.  So, two things.  I owe you an apology.”  He said it plainly, with no reservations or shame.  He’d screwed up, and he needed Arrush to know it.  “I asked you to come along to make sure you weren’t left out of the balance of power.  To hopefully get you a tool or two to build a real life, after what you’ve been through. I thought I was helping. But I nearly got you killed, because I forgot that you *aren’t like us*.  No, that’s… that sounds wrong.  Not that you’re different, but that you’re thinking differently about the world.”  He blinked what was surely rain out of his eyes.  “Arrush, you fought like you were expendable.”  James’ voice ached.  “You can’t… that’s not what I wanted.  You weren’t supposed to be a shock trooper.  I wanted you to be like us.  But I didn’t think, and I fucked it up, and you nearly died.  So.  I’m sorry.”

Arrush just gave a bobbing nod, like everything James said had been obvious.  He didn’t look like it really connected with him.  But, on the ledge with him, Keeka uncurled and pivoted to face James out of the left set of his rodent eyes.  “So many words.”  He whispered, voice almost swallowed up by the growing pattering of rain around them.  “Why?”

“I used words to try to connect with people.”  James said, eager for a question he could actually answer.  “And I never know if I’ve gotten the right feeling across.  So I talk too much.”

“Want.  Talk.”  Keeka said.  “Lots.”  The ratroach added, still curled up, but facing James with defiant eyes, as if daring him to say no.

“We’re working on getting more shaper substance.”  James said instead.  “Healing you was always part of the plan.”  He told them.

Arrush hissed suddenly, and it made James jump before he realized the ratroach was just trying to blow the water off his snout. “Wasn’t… not… a mistake.”  He said.

“What?”

The ratroach took the deepest breath he could, clutching his chest as the ache of some of the still broken ribs poked at him, and his badly designed set of lungs pulled in air poorly.  Then, he spoke, as steady as he could between pants and drips of blue acid from his maw.  “There were… no… mistakes.  I chose… to… fight.  Because you were… kind.  To us.”  He hissed out the last of his breath, sagging as he settled back on the concrete ledge.

James gave a sad frown.  “I still don’t think we did this right.”  He said.  “But… well, we’ll have time to talk about it, yeah?”  He asked, and Arrush nodded softly in reply.  “Anyway.  I have a second thing, that’s less… I dunno, less us trying to compete for whose life is worth less.”

Reaching under his coat, getting slightly annoyed that the mild creeping cold here somehow bothered him more than the below freezing temperatures of the Climb, James pulled out the thick textbook he’d been holding against his side.

‘Fundamentals of Architecture, 8th Edition’ read the cover, over an image of an unassuming skyline.  It was the kind of thing James was terrified they might actually *lose*, it looked so much like a normal book.  Even with the scorch marks and cover damage where it had been buried under a pile of ice.

“It isn’t… a good idea.”  Arrush huffed out.  “Breath… comes too… slow.  Not good for me.”  He sounded defeated.

But James had the perfect answer to that one, at least.  Several answers, really.  “Well, we’re gonna get your breathing up to optimal eventually anyway, once Deb does her science magic and we have more shaper substance.  Also, I’m taking this one too, and we need to test what happens if two people use the same book.  And *also*, it’s not single use, so you’re not ‘taking’ anything from anyone else.”  He smiled, and then added quietly.  “Also, you said you wanted to build things.  And I know how that feels.  So.”  He held out the book to Arrush.

“Have you…?”

“Not yet.  Want me to go first?”  James asked.

Arrush looked, a ripple of blinks going down his eyes, before he shook his head, sending a couple drops of acidic saliva across the roof, and reached out to grab the book.

He would, James knew, instantly get the same mental prompt that James had been getting the whole time.  As Arrush closed his eyes, James did the same, and mentally gave an affirmative.

His breath flowed out of him.  Both the stored mana in his chest, and the actual air in his lungs.  A long exhalation, until there was nothing left but the emptiness waiting to be filled.  His body temperature dropped, fingertips starting to ache from the cold, a shiver running through him.  His head swam, suddenly out of oxygen, and out of heat.

And then, nothing in its way, the spell clicked into place.

[Thermodynamic Tunnel | Five Breaths | Permanent]

He and Arrush snapped their eyes open together, just as Keeka made a concerned chittering squeak.

James sucked in air greedily, lungs pumping to refill his body and his soul with that vital force.  He shivered with more cold than the chilly rain could have possibly brought on, and saw Arrush doing the same thing.  Though the ratroach was gasping a lot harder than he was.

Two minutes later, James realized exactly how fast his Breath refilled itself.  And, armed with the knowledge of what this spell did, he breathed out, and imprinted his will and his life force upon the world.

He selected a point over the street, and pulled, carving a tunnel through physics, settling the end over where Arrush and Keeka still balanced on the wall, though with the smaller sleeker ratroach now doing most of the stabilizing.  Then, feeling more cold creep into his veins, James finished the exhalation, and let the spell crystalize into place.

The air warmed.  Not much, but a little.  As the ten foot wide orb of space James had designated over the street began to pour heat through the abstract tunnel, in defiance of the basic laws of physics.  The warmth from that chunk of air and the rain passing through it sapped away, and deposited on this end, over the two ratroaches on the edge of the roof.

James almost collapsed as he struggled to suck in a breath again after that.  “Ooooohkay.”  He wheezed.  “Wow, that takes it out of you.”  He gasped.  Then, he felt the soft flickering of warmth brush against him, and knew, more than just with the magic’s implanted knowledge, that it had worked.  “Oh.”  He blinked as he continued to catch his breath.  “That… might have been a bad idea.”  He admitted, looking out to where a portion of the rain was turning almost to freezing as it fell.

He stayed with them until Arrush recovered.  Offered to help them back inside, but the two ratroaches wanted to be alone up here a while longer.  James did make sure to threaten both of the still healing creatures with telling Deb if they didn’t get back to bed before they caught a cold, assuming that was possible.

Before he left, he confirmed it.  Arrush had gotten the same spell he had, down to the fine details.

And that thermal linking wouldn’t go away until he told it to.

__

James checked in with everyone.  Well, everyone he had time for, or could find.  Alanna and Anesh were fine, both of them immersed in their own things.  Actually most of the Order was.  Even if ‘their own thing’ was just something simple, like decorating the living area, or continuing to remodel the bathroom, or continuing experimenting with orange totems.

When there was no existential threat, everything felt so relaxed.  Even James’ most recent near-death felt… muted.

Sure, the FBI didn’t like them.  But, much like the local police, it wasn’t like they could actually find the Order anyway.  And while everyone was still keeping an eye out, it didn’t seem like their potential governmental adversary had made any moves.  Why, James didn’t know, but the downtime was nice.

And yes, Response was getting more attention.  Not a huge amount, they hadn’t actually gone viral or appeared on the nightly news, but… people were paying attention now.  Soon, they’d need to answer to that.  But right now, they were just a small group dealing out small fortunes.

And the Alchemists, obviously.  But James filed that under Nate and JP ‘doing their own thing’.  Even if he was on hand to help, if needed.

The point was, no one was actively shooting at them, and the dungeons they knew about were quiet.  Even the Sewer.  It was just… quiet.  Quieter than it had been in a long time.

So James checked in with some people, made sure that everyone knew that they didn’t need him to make executive decisions, and then took a break.

Well, not a break exactly.  But some personal time.

He borrowed Sarah’s car, a *very* used and apparently immortal VW Beetle that she’d picked up since her return, stole a bag of chips and a bottle of lemonade out of the kitchen, made sure he had a telepad and a spare shield bracer on him, and then set his GPS to take him… south.

Somewhere south.

The cartomorph in his soul stirred as he hit the on ramp to the highway.  He’d put this off for too long.

Somewhere out there, a pretty good burger joint waited for him.  For James, now, some time to think alone and some good food sounded excellent.  And, also, it wasn’t fair to the map based life that had been sticking around this long.  He needed to finish his trip, and give it the choice to either grow, or leave, as it wanted.

The wipers left streaks of water across the windshield as James tried to adjust the driver’s seat to his satisfaction while urging the car up to highway speeds.

It had been a good day, he decided, as he put the pedal down.