The Daily Grind - Chapter 191 (Patreon)

Okay, the break didn't help much, but this chapter is here, and you can read it now.  I'm having a lot of doubts about *pacing*, but I think one of the real benefits of webfiction is that I can kind of pace this however I want.  Meandering journey or onslaught of events, it doesn't make a difference because it's a reflection of the chaotic lives we find ourselves in.  Sometimes things just be like that.  *But*, if you have feedback on that front, I would be happy to hear it.

____

“I have dreams about being a sturdy old robot, and I’m being rebuilt, but the new parts are plastic and cheap and flimsy.  And I’m obsolete before I’m even off the assembly line.  Then I wake up.” -Night Physics, Dramamine-

_____

Something about sitting around in a suit made James feel like talking about high minded things.  Like he should be mingling at an academic conference and discussing things he effectively had a college major in.  Like cryptography, or constitutional law, or artillery fire.

Maybe not that last one.

Something else about sitting around in a suit made him uncomfortable.  Because he didn’t actually like suits.  Even this one, which was even sized properly for him unlike what he’d worn to every family holiday dinner for most of his life, still tugged at his neck and felt unfamiliar against his skin.  Which put a damper on how excited he could be to get into the weeds on weird topics.  Not a *lot*, obviously; his personality was still intact.  But just a little.

Currently, James was sitting in the Lair’s dining area, though he wasn’t eating anything.  Unlike the two copies of Anesh sitting with him, who *didn’t* have a lunch meeting coming up, and one of whom also apparently hadn’t slept or eaten since they’d gone into the Office last night.

There was an unpleasant, soggy grey light coming in from the high reinforced windows of the room, and the battering sound of rain that seemed determined to emulate a siege hammering against those panes.  It was not even one PM, and it had the feeling like it was going to get dark soon.  James hoped Utah would be better climate, but knew in his heart - and because he had checked his phone for the weather - that it wouldn’t.

Despite the weather, and the suit, and the fact that his boyfriend was fending off his attempts to snag croutons out of his salad, James was still actually engaged in a conversation that was gradually drawing people in from the surrounding tables.

“I thought you said you were good at democracy.”  Jake Redding, their lawyer and newest aspirant folded his arms over the back of his chair as he turned away from the half foot tall stack of paperwork he was going over to verify whether or not the potion people had legal status, to interject into James’ conversation.  “You said you had a degree in political science.”

“No, I said I *basically* had a degree in… look, it’s a dungeon thing.”  James said, a little defensively.

“Ah.  Skorbs.”  Redding sighed.  “Obviously not good enough, since you’re proposing a system that creates perverse incentives.”  He fired over.

He wobbled his hand in a gesture of mild agreement.  “Sort of?  I mean, I want a system where getting elected *is* a good way to get power, but a bad idea for anyone who’s greedy, because I want it to come with the baked in responsibility to actually use that power.”  James said.  “Like, you shouldn’t need to already have power to get elected; either wealth or magic or whatever.  But once you are elected… I mean, everyone wants their leaders to be competent, right?  And we can just… uh… make that happen.  We’ve got skill orbs we can curate, at the *very* least.  We’ve got Sewer books.  We’ve got actual reliable magic spells from the Climb.  Like, if someone gets elected, we can make sure they have the tools to do the job.  We just have to make sure there’s failsafes on actually doing the job and not just running off.”

“You are describing a technocracy.  But with magic.  A technocracymancy.”  Alanna told him as she added herself to their table, only catching the back half of what James was saying.

Redding stood and pivoted his chair, not moving to their table but definitely adding himself to the conversation.  “He’s not even describing that,” he said, taking a pull from the beer he’d liberated from the kitchen’s supply.  “He’s actually just describing a technocracy.  A famously terrible form of government, that’s more than a little incompatible with democratic ideals.”

“Technocracies are science fiction.”  Knife-In-Fangs said, the camraconda coiling in on himself from the bean bag he was in to add his own comment.

“Technocracies are… very real.”  The lawyer replied, only pausing briefly to adjust to speaking to a camraconda.  He’d been here a few months, but he was still getting used to the existence of other species.  “It’s entirely reasonable to call the Soviet Union a technocracy during parts of its existence.”

The high school senior who had been tutoring Knife-In-Fangs in algebra also joined in.  “Wait, I thought they were communist?”

“We’re getting off track!”  James declared, using the distraction of the declaration to take another snipe at Anesh’s salad, continuing when he missed.  “The point is that a technocracy has qualification as a… uh… qualification.  I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about equipping elected officials properly.  Because we can do that.”

“No, the *point* is that we can’t even scratch the surface of demand for one single type of orb.”  Alanna jumped in.  “We’re barely keeping up with *paying* everyone, and you want to - yes Anesh I know about the platinum - and you want to add *another* orb to the pile?  Or, like, fifty?”

Redding cleared his throat.  “What’s this about platinum?  Because if you’re finally using the teleporters to rob banks, I should know so I can begin preparing a legal defense for your inevitable trial.”

“Replicator.”  Knife-In-Fangs provided simply.  “Also science fiction.”

“Right.”  The lawyer sighed.  “Yep.  About what I expected. Carry on.”

James was undeterred.  “Look, I’m sure it’ll be a giant problem, but we can find a way to make this work.  Especially if we can start from scratch in our own place.  I’m not saying we only elect experts, I’m saying we make sure everyone who gets elected is an expert.”

“Again, that is just straight up technocracy.”  Alanna told him.  “Jake *just* covered this.  Do you know what a technocracy is?  I’m actually asking, not trying to be an asshole.”

“No no!  You don’t need to already be an expert to get elected!  That’s the beauty of it!”  James retorted.  “We can *make* you an expert!”

Anesh had a thousand yard stare as he looked down into his food, eyes unfocused.  “Oooooh boy, some people are gonna try to kill us for this.”

“What, for *this*?” James scoffed.

“Among other things.”  Anesh added.

“Can I ask a question?”  The math tutor raised her hand while Anesh was busy falling into existential dread.

James grinned.  “Always.”  He said.

“Okay, so…” The girl looked kind of embarrassed.  “If I want to skip a class, could I just get elected to something that you hand me an orb for, and then… I dunno, take a test or something?  Do you even need to go to class, in this… uh… science fiction world?”

“No, arcologies are not science fiction.”  Knife-In-Fangs politely corrected her.

“Kind of a good question though.”  James admitted.  “I’m actually not sure!  Classes and school would probably still be useful though?  Just to have fewer points of failure, and also, you know, something fun to do.  Also, Anesh, did you have some theory about the yellows all being the same or something?”

His boyfriend continued to observe the imagined event horizon of his salad with a distant stare.  “Uh, yeah.  That’s hard to verify, but at least for copies, it really seems like your get literally the same information.”

“Good reason for classes right there.”  Redding pointed out.  “That’s stagnation.  You don’t want every leader to be the same, that’s how you get a stale society.  I assume.  I should look that up, I’m sure someone’s done a study on it.”  He turned back and flipped open his laptop, effectively banishing himself from the conversation.

“I say this, knowing my track record on the subject.”  Alanna started.  “But.  What about skulljacks?”  James glanced at her with a ‘go on’ kind of look on his face; raised eyebrows and pursed lips.  “Well, we can share memory files already.  Why not just use them to teach?  Hell, you can even teach stuff derived from orbs, because you’re still getting someone’s personal context and take on it, right?”  She shrugged.  “It kinda a gets you what you want, but without the resource cost.”

“Wait, is this just a resource thing for you?”  James asked.  “You’re not gonna accuse me of technocracy, too?”

“Aren’t you an anarchist?”

“I could be an anarchist who is very bad at designing government systems.”  James said flatly.  “I can be bad at a *lot* of things.”

“Okay, well, using dungeon goodies to solve social problems like lack of expertise *is* basically a technocrat thing to do, I’m not gonna lie to you.”  Alanna told him.  “But, like, we use technology to solve problems all the time?  So, like, fuck it, I guess?  Have a democratic process all down through every layer of life, make participation seamless to daily life but also mandatory for membership in society, and don’t just trust social pressure to weed out bad faith actors.  Easy.”

James looked at her, trying to hold the small happy laugh inside his chest.  “Okay, so, first off, I love you.”  He said with a smile.  “But also, you *did* basically just describe the problem, you know?”

“James, you want to build a city.  And everyone believes you can, because the casual assurance that you *can* eventually build up enough power to do it with the dungeons in play is *completely accurate*.”  Alanna told him.  “Every fucking week around here, we see stuff go from being impossible, to being an obstacle, to being solved.  And yeah, actually changing a current system into what you want would be basically impossible, but that’s not really what we’re talking about, is it?  You basically want to start your own… nation?  Country?  I don’t even know the word, I used up all my good words on the democracy thing.”

“…Territory?”  James offered tentatively.  He hadn’t thought of this part.

“Territory sounds a little too clinical.”  Anesh added.

“Unincorporated township?”  One of the support group members, a guy James recognized as one of the kids who lived under Clutter Ascent but he couldn’t place a name to, who was listening in from their table on the other side of Anesh chimed in.

The Response member who was sitting with him also perked up.  “Oh, like a vacation town!”  Matt added, cracking his knuckles.  “What about ‘province’?”

“If you’re going that route, just say city-state.  Oh, state!  Duh.”  Anesh snapped his fingers.

“I’m being mocked.”  James muttered, sinking down in his chair.  His suit jacket rumpling around his neck and up over his chin as he sulked with an intentional dramatic flare.  “This is mockery.”

Alanna looked around with a gleeful expression.  “Is there anyone else we can get in on this mockery?”  She asked rhetorically.  Because she’d already spied the next two people who were approaching their table.  “Jeanne!  What-“

“I’m really sorry,” the normally friendly woman had an exhausted look as she cut Alanna off, leading her daughter into the room.  “I’ve got a job interview on short notice, and I wanted to see if you could keep an eye on Ava for a couple hours?”  She motioned to her daughter, the preteen looking *decidedly* unhappy to have an eye kept on her.

“Oh, sure.”  Alanna agreed easily.  “I’ve not got much going on today.  But, uh… job interview?”  She asked, raising her eyebrows.

“We can’t keep living off you forever.”  Jeanne stated with a determined smile.  “Besides, I want to look into getting back to the east coast.  Back to family.”  Her kid looked even *less* happy about that, but still said nothing as her mom shook her head.  “So, a job.”

“You do realize we’re becoming fabulously wealthy, right?”  James asked.  “We can set you up with… something.  Or, like, a job here?  You actually have no idea how hard it can be to find people that actually engage with the weird stuff, even if they complain constantly about it.”

Jeanne rolled her eyes at him.  “Yes, I’m sure you could use a medical receptionist.”  She said sarcastically.  “Besides, I need something to *do*.”

“Don’t let Karen hear you say that or she’ll try to give you a job.”  Jake, now two academic papers deep into his research into a tangent, commented.

“She did.”  Jeanne said.  “But I really don’t need a pity job.  I need something *useful* to do.”  She checked the time.  “I have to go.  Don’t let Ava sneak into the Response floor, or drink coffee again!”  She said, turning and rapidly walking away after giving her daughter a kiss on the forehead.

“Mom!”  The kid protested as her parent left her in Alanna’s care.  “I’m not a *kid*.”  She said angrily, in that way that only kids could.

“Aw.”  Alanna leaned over to ruffle her hair as Ava took a seat at their table.  “Yeaaaah you are.”  She said, continuing as Ava glared at her.  “But that doesn’t mean you’re not a person, right?  Your mom cares about you.  She’s just… uh…”

James sighed.  “She doesn’t really trust all this, I think.”  He said.  “Karen’s job offer was absolutely real.  She just wants to be a bit separate.  Which is *fine*, not everyone has to work for us.  But… we actually are rich now?”

“Well, getting there.”  Anesh said.  “Give me a week or two.”

“She wants to move away.”  Ava said, leaning herself forward onto the table, head laid on her arms as she watched them.  “But I’m not leaving.”

James, Anesh, and Alanna all shared a look.  The kind of look that said ‘uh oh’.  And then followed that up with a brief silent conversation that went something like ‘that is gonna be a problem’ and ‘can we somehow make this *not* a problem?’ followed by ‘probably not.’

“So…” James ventured.  “How’s Hidden doing?”

Ava perked up immediately.  “She’s making friends!”  She told them.  “Cause El has a little sister like her too, and then there’s Planner, and they can talk to each other without Hidden getting hurt!”  Ava looked very smug for about two seconds before she realized something, got a worried look on her young face, and added, “Don’t tell my mom though!”

“Why would…” James paused and rubbed at his eyes as a thought occurred to him.  “Oh.  You mean that they’re making friends, in your head, because you gave them all space.”

“Yeah…” Ava looked like a mix between guilty and proud, without really knowing what either of those emotions were.

James nodded.  “Cool.”  He said.

“No, not cool!”  Anesh gave James a light swat on the shoulder.  “We still don’t have *any* idea whether hosting an infomorph is actually developmentally bad for a human child!”

“I’m sure it’s fiiiiine.”  James said, half-meaning it.

“James, people said that about tobacco for centuries.”  Anesh rubbed at his own forehead.  “Please.  This is something we need to be careful about.”

As much as he didn’t like it, James had to admit Anesh was right.  He sighed, and was about to say something, when Ava tapped him on the arm, and pointed toward the entrance of the room.  “What’s up?” He asked, turning but seeing no one there.

“Planner just said to get your attention.”  Ava said without much focus, just as Karen walked into the dining area, and met James’ eyes, giving him a nod and a ‘let’s go’ motion of her hand.

James glanced between Karen and Ava.  This was a trick Planner pulled a lot, but this felt less like timing and more like communication.  In his head, wheels started turning as James considered just how feasible an infomorph based messager service was.

“Alright.”  He sighed, pushing himself out of his chair and setting that idea aside for later.  “Time for me to get to work.  If everything goes okay, I’ll see ya’ll tonight.”  He sighed with forlorn longing.  “And then just dungeon things.  All week.  Delves and adventure.  All I have to do…”

“Uh… Planner says that Karen is saying bad words at you, with her brain.”  Ava told him.

“I will see everyone later.”  James concluded with a grin.  “Be good, kid.”  He told Ava as he leaned over to kiss Anesh, then Alanna, then watched as his partners just shrugged, smiled, and shared a kiss with each other since they’d leaned into range anyway.

As he was walking away, behind him, he heard Alanna’s voice pick up as she started talking to the young girl.  “Oh!  Hey, if you owned a huge chunk of land, what would you call it?”  She asked.

James shook his head as he approached Karen, giving a short laugh before he took a deep breath and let himself appreciate what they were about to do.

“Are you ready to go?”  Karen asked him, looking him up and down like she was mentally retailoring his suit.

“Nope!”  James cheerfully assented.  “But let’s get going, and I’ll pick up the beat on the way.”

She looked at him, and met his eyes, and for a brief moment, the two of them traded a connection.  James was, under his guise, serious about what their job was today.  And Karen, for all her stoic exterior, was more than a little excited.

They had two things to do today.  First, they were going to drop off the kids they’d bailed out of the Utah Mess.  Directly.  In front of their houses, via dragon.

The kids were simultaneously hyped as hell to be given a ride in a dragon shaped troop transport, but also more than a little mortified that Karen was going to be explaining the situation to their legal guardians in terms that would be a lot easier to ignore if there wasn’t a dragon being parked in their driveways.

It was, in a way, a form of strength projection.  The Order of Endless Rooms was making a statement, not just to themselves that they were *going* to operate in the open, but to these potentially allied delvers, that they *could*.

The kids had chosen to keep their dungeon secret, and unless there was some kind of unknown taxonomy of infomorph at play, it looked like it was just them not trusting the Order.  Which matched what everyone had been able to put together about their powers, too; they were absolutely holding something back.  Morgan had told James, right after he’d asked about scholarship stuff the other day, that Liam and Lincon had both readily complained about the time it took them to internalize their spells.  And while they were teenagers, and therefore genetically guaranteed to be impatient, the time it took shouldn’t have been *that* bad.  So, there was something going on there.  Something they were hiding.

They could keep the secret; the Order would have loved access to another dungeon, but they didn’t *need* it.  They weren’t even fully taking advantage of the ones they already had.

But they were drawing at least one line.  No adventuring.  You are *kids*.  At least get through high school before you decide to risk your life for powers you don’t need, and put yourselves in combat situations you can’t win.  That’s *our* job.

James was absolutely sure they’d try to break that rule.  He sure would have.  But at least their parents could help keep an eye on them.

It wasn’t a perfect solution.  But there wasn’t a perfect solution.  They weren’t keeping people who were trying to be heroes prisoner, even if they were teenagers with too many swords and not enough restraint.  Even if bringing them into the Order, and culturally influencing them to a more stable way of thinking and acting, would have solved a lot of problems.

“No kidnapping kids” was kind of a sticking point for most of them.  For some reason.

That was just the first part of the day.  Because coming up shortly after that, James and Karen were meeting with the Guild of Alchemists.

Not a representative.  Not a rogue member.  The whole Guild.  Every one of them that was left.

There were fewer of them left than James had realized.

Things had not been going well for the Alchemists.  Things had been going so badly for them, that they were panicking.  Not just panicking, they were tearing themselves apart.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they’d *torn* themselves apart.  An internal dispute over methods that had escalated to a power grab, and then a series of alchemical knife fights in the shadows.  And in the course of half a week, a group of people who’d been working together for a minimum of a decade shredded each other down to only a handful of survivors.

James and Karen were going to meet with them, this time fully briefed on every scrap of detail that Nate and the other rogues could turn up.  Unless the Alchemists were running a lot more counterintelligence than was logistically feasible for them, then they had some problems going on.

Loss of most of their members, not to mention their foot soldiers.  Destroyed stockpiles of potions.  Legal scrutiny as estates and lawyers started looking into the affairs of the deceased; or at least, those who had been discovered.  Worse legal scrutiny as the money they’d used to buy off the local police suddenly started to not look like quite enough.

James wasn’t going to pretend he understood feeling anxiety over having ‘only’ tens of millions of dollars left.  But he understood feeling afraid.  Feeling like you had to take a shitty option, over no option.  Feeling that pressure of dread closing in all around you and just struggling to find something, *anything* comfortable and familiar to stave it off while you hoped for a solution.

So, he and Karen were going - with significant backup on hand - to the Yew Branch Country Club Lodge and Golf Course, to have lunch, meet the Alchemists in a place they were comfortable, talk about the future.

And, whether the Alchemists knew it or not yet, accept their surrender.

_____

Dave landed Pendragon on a golf course, just past the second hole, absolutely interrupting someone’s game.

“Sorry!”  James called to the golfers with a wave and *absolute* insincerity as he dismounted the aluminum step that unfolded from Pendragon’s side as she landed and opened up her passenger pods so James and Karen could hop out.  “Who golfs when it’s thirty degrees and damp out?”  He muttered to himself.

He’d given up on caring about public displays.  It wasn’t just that the Order didn’t need to hide, because they absolutely did want to avoid undue attention from things like ‘governments’ and ‘militaries’.  It was that they’d started to fully understand what they were up against when it came to getting noticed.

When James had first heard members of Research talking about the Field Effect, he assumed they were just talking about a particularly annoying memeplex.  They had experience with those from Officium Mundi, and also to a lesser extent the Akashic Sewer; infomorphs that were more like structures than people.  Geographically centered, and basically dedicated to what they’d started calling the masquerade suite of effects.  Don’t notice this, if you do don’t remember this, if you do don’t talk about this.

Memeplexes sucked, because they didn’t actually care if you were someone who was interested in or even involved with the weirdness that dungeons brought up.  They hit everyone pretty much equally, and some of them had bonus nightmare fuel in the form of erasing records of their victims, cutting the memories out of people who knew you, or just driving you slowly mad.

The Order tried to keep an eye out for them, as best they could, and killed them if possible.  That had happened exactly once, and then Daniel and Pathfinder had gone on vacation for two weeks to recover.  The two of them had instantly begun planning a more coordinated strike against the other memeplex they knew about, with broader backup from the other infomorphs of the Order, but that wasn’t what was going on here.

The Field Effect wasn’t a memeplex.  Or if it was, it was a memeplex in the same way that a mountain was a rock.  *Technically*, that was accurate, but it wasn’t exactly useful.

Something was going on.  Something was going on with a level of suspicious bullshit that they really should have noticed it before.  Or rather, an uncomfortable lack of anything was going on.  *Nothing* was going on.

The Order was known to at least one department head at the FBI.  They’d gotten involved in a shootout that had left bodies on the floor with at least two CIA agents present.  They knew the police in their area knew about them and didn’t like them much.  They had been present when a high school had almost been demolished by a displaced dungeon.  They *blew up a building*.  They were *openly operating a public safety force* with *teleporters*.

And nothing changed.

Well, not nothing.  People called Response, the FBI tried to bribe or threaten at least one knight a week, and a couple times now someone had uploaded one of their videos to YouTube or made a Reddit post about them.

But that was it.  It wasn’t normal, and it wasn’t just that they were getting unlucky going viral.  It was that information was being stopped from spreading.  *Somehow*.  Through a method they didn’t quite understand and had a hard time tracking.  But there were a couple amateur sociologists in the Order, and enough people with related orb skills to back them up, that they had been able to put together a quick study of people Response had interacted with.

Ninety percent of people who had seen Response actually teleport in, had never told anyone about it.  Not in any detail.  They still *remembered*, and when talking to people *from* Response they had as good a memory as could be expected of the event, but they never passed that on to anyone ‘out of the loop’.  They even stopped sharing the Response phone number; the people who heard about them almost entirely got the number from someone who hadn’t ever actually called it.  It was spreading on blind trust, and without any knowledge of what Response could really do.

That statistic was overwhelming.  And terrifying.  Because it applied everywhere, not just in a single place.  It wasn’t a memeplex; it wasn’t an infomorph of any kind they could identify.  It was just… a thing.  An effect.  The Field Effect, as Reed kept calling it.  And the name seemed to be sticking.

James was mad at it, and really wanted to shoot it somehow, but he couldn’t, so he got Dave to land his dragon on a golf course instead.

It was cathartic.  It was also a really smooth landing; the big dragon moving with more and more practice, and the help of her human pilot-slash-rider.

As much as it pained him to admit to any kind of base desire, James did need to acknowledge that he was pretty jealous of Dave having a mindlink partner that was also a dragon.  Pendragon had more or less stopped growing, which seemed intentional, but she was still *a dragon*.  There was something about dragons that spoke to the primitive part of his nerd brain, and something even more potent about being a dragon riding knight.  James could, technically, be inside his partners while he was mindlinked to them, but that didn’t allow for flight and also wasn’t something he was quite prepared to brag about in polite company.

“Are you ready?”  Karen asked him, adjusting her collar, and James let the dumb smirk on his face fade to one of casual competence rather than laughing at his own inner monologue.

“Yeah.”  He said with a nod.  “Let’s go.”

They hiked across the green, on a more or less straight line toward the country club they’d come to meet at, while Pendragon launched herself skyward with the rest of their backup.  James took a minute as they walked to enjoy the novel sensation of golf course grass under his feet; it was obviously grass, but it just felt weird.  Almost spongey by way of how short it was.

“Good afternoon.”  Karen nodded politely to the golfers as they passed by, the trio of middle aged men staring at the two of them practically open mouthed as they passed; the mid twenties kid they had as their caddy recording the whole thing on his cell phone.

They passed by, circling around a small pond, and onto a concrete path that led to some steps up to a wide patio on the back of the main building.  “You,” James cheerfully accused Karen as they moved, “enjoyed that.”  She glanced at him, raising one eyebrow.  “Don’t get me wrong, I did too.  That was hilarious.  But *you* enjoyed that!  I would never have suspected!”

“Don’t push it.”  Karen deadpanned, stepping up to the back door of the patio, her heels clicking with satisfying impacts on the treated wood.  The door was already held open for them by a balding man in a server’s jacket.  “Good afternoon,” Karen repeated her greeting with a kind of practiced precision, “we have a reservation.”

“Yes ma’am.”  The man said with only a small pause.  “Right this way.”  He held the door for them, not reacting to James thanking him, and then moved past them with smooth steps as they got out of the cold.

James didn’t really like the idea of country clubs.  Sort of.  The wealth and class and often race focused exclusion, the wasteful nature of their construction, the way they were used and maintained was just kind of outside what he thought a healthy society should have.  But walking through the long room they’d entered, with its big bay windows facing the clean green lawn of the golf course, full of bookshelves and padded chairs and a dominating fireplace, James couldn’t say he faulted them on the environment.  This place had, at least in how it *looked*, a vibe that was taxonomically similar to the Lair.

It was a place where people would gather, to sip at drinks and hold quiet conversations, to watch their peers play a game, to quietly read a book or a newspaper.  It was *exactly* like what James had cultivated in multiple floors of his own home base.  Except, it wasn’t exactly.  It was empty.  Not just quiet, but that there was no one here.  The room was immaculately clean, it wasn’t like there was dust accruing on anything, and it was well decorated too.  Glittering crystal light fixtures, noble painted portraits on the walls, it was almost a stereotype of the business it was part of.  But there was *no one here*.  There was just a feeling, a vibe in the air, like this room didn’t get used for anything.  Like its purpose was to look lavish and beautiful, and never to be touched.

They passed by a few members and staff as they walked with purpose, James noting that the few people having lunch seemed to all be men in their fifties and at least half drunk already.  They got a few looks, possibly because he was the youngest person in the building that wasn’t working in the back of the kitchen, but no one stopped them with their staff guide.  The dining room they were taken to, which was one of three different sectioned off areas that James could spot as they moved, was down a small set of carpeted steps, and was similar in terms of appearance, even if this one did actually feel like it got used.  It was being used right now, in fact.  Exactly one table was occupied, positioned to take up the whole of the floor space.

Three men and one woman sat on the other side of it, facing down James and Karen like a tribunal as they entered.  All of them dressed in a way that James knew he should recognize as stylish or professional, but that even with at least one sartorial skill rank, he couldn’t really identify.

The whole thing felt like a power play, and James only barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  All of them on one side of the table like that, drinks already half gone like they’d been casually waiting for an hour?  They were trying to project an aura of causal control.

James and Karen sat in unison.  The staff member who’d brought them here stood back.  “If you require anything, please ask.”  He said with deference.

James decided that his approach to the serious mood here would be sledgehammer-esque.  “Yeah, can I get some pineapple juice?”  He asked with complete sincerity.  “And, you know, make it feel like I’m on a tropical vacation.  Slice of lime, little sword with a cherry on it, that kind of thing.  Karen?”

She gave him an exasperated look, before turning back to their guide and saying, “I will have the same.  With a small umbrella in it.”

It took an act of will for James to avoid saying “I fucking knew it.”  But somehow, he managed.  Instead, they all waited quietly while the balding man left them to the relative quiet of their private dining area, closing a windowed door behind himself.

And then, with a tense voice, one of the Alchemists spoke.

“Good afternoon.”  He said, setting aside the mostly empty glass of an amber liquor that he’d been sipping from.  “I’m Alchemist Tigris, you have already met Alchemist Nile,” he motioned to the frowning man next to him, “and this is Alchemist Indus, and Alchemist Red.”  He indicated the man sitting at the end of the table first, a face James could only describe as jolly covered by a pair of thick round glasses and a fluffy white beard, followed by the woman on the other end who was fidgeting with one of her earrings and pretending she wasn’t glaring at them.

All of them looked so exhausted.  Though only the woman had done a good job of hiding the dark circles under her eyes.  James wasn’t a huge fan of makeup in general, but it seemed like if they wanted to present as in control, the guys should have taken some cosmetic advice from her.

“James.”  He introduced himself.  “This is Karen.  I’ve gotta ask, why rivers?”

“When some of us were younger, it seemed like fun.”  Indus answered simply, his tired voice hitching a couple of times as he spoke.

“What he means is that it has become tradition.”  Nile said with a small amount of anger.  “And not that-“

“Nile?  Shut up.”  The woman next to him spoke with fury in her eyes.  “You aren’t in a position to posture.”  She snapped.

Karen cleared her throat.  “Regardless.”  She said smoothly.  “You offered a meeting.”  She didn’t exactly say it as a question, but left the sentence dangling open, for the other adults in the room to fill in their own ending.  James caught himself, thinking of them as ‘the adults’, as if he wasn’t an adult himself.  It was too easy to fall back on a lifetime of being told that old was the same as authoritative, and to give undue respect to the bastards sitting across the table.  He needed to check that.

There was a brief pause as the door to their private room was opened with a light knock, and a skinny kid with immaculate hair came in and provided Karen and James with their drinks before vanishing after it became clear he wasn’t needed for anything else.

And then Alchemist Tigris faced them with folded hands on the white tablecloth.  Calmly, without sighing or expressing anything, though James could pretty easily pick out that he was putting a lot of effort into appearing calm.  “So then.  Business.”  He looked between James and Karen, as if trying to determine which of them was in charge, before settling on the older of the pair.  “It is my understanding that you wish to establish a form of working relationship with our group?”

“Of a sorts.”  Karen began, settling back, her drink untouched in front of her.  “Something of mutual benefit to all of us.”

“Feh!”  Alchemist Red snorted, the woman fixing an unpleasant stare on Karen.  “You expect us to believe anything you have to say, after what you started?”

“Amelia…” Indus started with a sigh, tiling his head to into his palm and rubbing his forehead.  “This isn’t the time-“

“No?”  Red snapped back.  “Then when will be the time, *George*?”  She demanded.  “Maybe after we have lunch?  Maybe when we’re all dead? Should I *pencil you in*!?”  She hissed at him.

Suppressing his core instincts, James shut up, and watched, doing his best to mimic Karen and fading himself out of the conversation without reminding them that he was there.

The Alchemists didn’t shut up.  “Please, can we focus on-“ Nile started to say, before he was cut off.

A huff of exasperation from Tigris, and sigh from Indus, and a belligerent “Oh, yes, Nile, let’s focus on how it’s not only *their* fault, shall we?”  From Red.

“Please, Amelia,” Indus repeated himself, “at least for a minute, can you let it lie?”

“Oh, don’t think I’ve forgotten *your* toll in all this, either!”  Alchemist Red shot across the table.  “How many people, exactly-“

“Alchemist Red.”  Tigris’ voice was hard, and James found himself sitting up a little straighter as the words burrowed into his ears with more force than normal.  “Alchemist Indus.  Be silent.”  He didn’t turn away from staring across the table to look at his compatriots.  Or, more likely, his subordinates.  “What,” he asked Karen, “is your proposition?”

“Do you need a minute?”  James asked back.  “We can wait.”

Tigris fixed him with a cold stare.  “No.”

“Very well.”  Karen nodded.  “Your organization, the Guild of Alchemists, is responsible for a large amount of damage, harm, and loss of life.  You have proven irresponsible and dangerous.  Our *proposition* is for the suspension of your activities as an independent group, the payment of restitution where possible, the surrender of your assets, and rehabilitative assignment of your membership until such time as you are capable of behaving in a constructive manner without adult supervision.”  She cleared her throat lightly, reaching out and taking a tiny sip of her tropical juice drink, the muffled clink of the glass back on the table deafening in the silence that followed her statement.

“Do you seriously expect-“

Alchemist Tigris raised a hand, cutting off the objection from the expected source.  “Your demand is unreasonable.”  He said simply.

“No it’s not.”  James answered calmly.  “You don’t really have a position to argue from here.  We’re not a government or police force, we’re not gonna throw you in a hole and punish you.  But you have absolutely fucked up, and it’s time to fix it.”

“I didn’t come here today to have this kid lecture me again.”  Nile snarled.

“No, but it’s happening, isn’t it?”  Indus - George, James connected the two names mentally - hid a small smirk in his glass.

The older central Alchemist silenced them with a wave of his hand.  “It doesn’t matter.”  He said. “You don’t have the authority to enforce any of this.  And you certainly don’t have the strength.  Not against the might and wealth of the Guild of Alchemists.”

He said the words like a drowning man convinced he had just grabbed a piece of wood large enough to float on.

“We know what’s been going on with you.”  James said quietly, and sank him.

“Make no mistake,” Karen added, “there is only one reason we are having this conversation at all.  And it is because the surviving members here are the ones that were slightly reluctant to brew mind control potions for the government.”

Alchemist Indus took a deep sigh, and drained the rest of his drink.  Again.  “I suppose Amelia confirmed it, if you weren’t already sure.”

James shrugged.  “We’ve been keeping an eye on you, since I almost died to one of your potions.”  He didn’t really explain.  “We don’t have the whole story, but we do know that you’ve been killing each other.  Would you like to tell us exactly, why?”

There was a long moment of silence.  Followed by a snort from Alchemist Red.  “Because they were going to get us killed.”  She said.

“Amelia…” Indus looked like he was legitimately close to shedding a single manly tear.  “Please, don’t make light of-“

“Or what, George?  You’ll be cross with me?  You’ll not help with my research?  Does it even matter?  Did it *ever* matter?  Everything we did, everything we were!  Gone in a week, because they were too stupid to-“

“They were our friends!”  George bellowed, half rising out of his seat, thick crystal glass in his hand like he was about to pitch it at her head.  “They trusted us!  We were supposed to be *better than this*!”

James felt like he was watching the end of a play that he’d only barely seen the program for and had missed the first two acts of.  He should have brought popcorn.  “Excuse me,” he cut in, “but we still haven’t resolved this.”

The central figure on their side of the table raised a hand again, but this time Indus didn’t sit.  The old man instead pacing over to one of the windows that looked out over the grey sky and green grass, leaning on his own arm as he caught his breath.  “We have recently had a small schism.”  Tigris said.  “And yes, you are correct.  We are… what is left.  We are all that is left.”

“It wasn’t supposed to end up this way.”  Alchemist Nile said in an almost pitiful voice.  “It was… just business.”

James’ hardened his stare.  “Don’t you ever say that in front of me again.”  He said with a cold voice.

This time, Tigris interruption came to the defense of his subordinate.  “Our… membership had a falling out, of sorts.”  He said.  “In simple terms, we disagreed on who we worked for.  Though of course, it’s more complex than that.  For some of us, we’ve been here for forty years or more.  Plenty of time to form a web of rivalries and grudges.”  He looked down at one of his hands, and James noticed that under the cuff of his suit jacket, there were bandages wrapped up the length of his arm.  “We are, yes, diminished.  But we are not out of tricks or strength.  And your demand,” he looped the conversation back, “is not acceptable.”

“Which parts do you find disagreeable?”  Karen asked in her calm professional voice that James usually only heard when he was trying to budget something irresponsible.  Almost unseen around her, a trio of misty ghostly blue limbs that looked like a mix between thin human arms and thick octopus tentacles laid a set of documents onto the table in front of her.

The Alchemists who were paying attention startled at the casual display of Planner’s particular brand of logistical magic, but Karen ignored that.

“All of it.”  Red claimed with an angry undertone.

“I must agree, yes.”  Tigris steepled his fingers in front of his mouth as he answered.  “You are asking us to give up everything we are.  There isn’t a conversation to be had there.”

“I disagree.”  James said quietly.  “Because we are having that conversation.  If we really thought this wasn’t something we could reconcile, we wouldn’t have bothered.”  He shifted in his seat, tugging on one of the cuffs of his shirt in an idle motion.  “Do you know, I wonder, how many people have asked me why we didn’t just shoot all of you?”

The room got very quiet.

Karen cleared her throat diplomatically.  “James…” she murmured to him.

“We’re still here though.”  James continued.  “In large part because several members of our organization pushed for it.  To treat you like people, and to operate like how we want the future to look like, and not to just start blasting.”  He took a breath, but kept going before anyone could interrupt him, though he did make a note of how much both Red and Nile were simmering angrily at him.  “There’s a conversation here, because we’re here, talking.  So, you say our demand is unacceptable.  What *would be*?”

“We won’t be taking marching orders from you, for a start.”  Nile started, getting a sigh from his right and a hiss of anger from his left.

James was pretty sure he’d put together the social dynamic of these survivors pretty well by this point, but there was some nuance to it.  Nile was still so sure he was invincible that he was prepared to fight for what he considered he was owed, and was a constant frustration to the others who didn’t want him here.  Red was just angry, at all of them, but especially Indus, absolutely related to their civil war.  Indus was the eldest, and the way he talked made it sound like he was maybe one of the first to call themselves an Alchemist; a founder, but no longer in charge.  And Tigris…

Tigris liked how things were.  Liked being so rich he could throw money at problems until they fucked off.  Liked having people show him respect, or deference.  Liked having power.

He wasn’t an idiot, but he was a bit behind the reality of their situation.  He was so used to being in command of any given situation, that it didn’t seem to have occurred to him where he stood relative to the people in front of him.

While Nile and Red got into another bout of bickering, he shared this with Karen via skulljack, and she more or less confirmed his assessment.  Her followup reply was simple, and tactical.  Focus on their assets, get them to play out their counteroffer.  Assume they’d lie by about fifty percent. He signaled agreement, and focused back on the discussion just as Tigris angrily cut them both off again.

The old man was getting visibly angry now.  A blotchy red splash of color on his cheeks and neck, words coming just a bit too fast for his tongue.  But still, once his subordinates were quiet again, he turned back to James and Karen with somewhat professional behavior.  “Alchemist Nile, flawed as his reasons may be, has the right of it.  We will not *submit* to you.  However, you mentioned assets…”

It was almost impressive how Karen had read the guy.  Straight to the matter of money.  Even Indus seemed disappointed with him.

“Go on.”  James said, trying to hide his own disappointment.

“Well.  We are obviously not willing to give up our methods or secrets.  However, perhaps an exchange of goods and services?  Our brotherhood, has a number of stockpiles of our elixirs.  And, currently, find ourselves in need of a certain level of security.  Perhaps you would be interested?”

“What volume are you talking about, exactly?”  Karen, ever the businesswoman, asked directly.

Alchemist Nile, for once checking to make sure he should speak before answering, jumped in.  “We have four hundred gallons of the muscle and skin regenerators.  Two hundred of the literacy elixir.  And…” He glanced at Red, sharing a look of grudging respect with her.  “Eighty of the lung purifier.  Thousands of doses.”

“Yours.”  Tigris said.  “All of it.  If you can simply help us relocate, free from those who would still do us harm.  We’ve seen you in action; far more capable than our previous security, to be sure.  Oh.  Transport, along, of course, with a few proprietary pieces of equipment.”

“We know about your stupid tree.”  James said with a sigh.  “Sorry, lung purifier?”

“It purifies lungs.”  Alchemist Red said, and James *almost* liked her for the tiny smirk in her voice.  “A recent creation of our collaboration.  Highly effective, safe.  Removed carcinogens, toxins, chronic damage though not underlying diseases, scar tissue.  Even cures cancer.”

That was, perhaps, not the best thing to say in front of James.  His eyes widened a fraction, as he realized what he’d just been told, before Karen silently set an arm on his shoulder.  “Interesting.”  She said.  “However, this does not account for the damages you have done.  Alchemists, you have *murdered*.  Intentional or not, that is not something that can be left unsaid.”

“Good luck proving that in court.”  Nile said belligerently.

“Ten seconds ago, Tigris reminded me that he’s seen me shrug off explosions and stab people with the ground.”  James said.  “You do get that when he said we were more effective than your previous security, what he meant was that I killed several members of your previous security right?”  James watched Nile freeze up, the gentleman’s face losing some of its smug superiority for a moment, twisting into something angrier and uglier than before.

“What we did, we did with good reason.”  Indus said softly, like he was speaking to a small child. Still standing over by the window, he turned to look at James with a sad waver in his eyes.  “Some of us, I suppose.  There was a cost to be paid, to learn, and to discover.  And what discoveries we have made.  We could change the world, with what we’ve found.  Imagine.  Cures for all diseases.  Perfect bodies, perfect minds.  The next step for humanity.  Do you ever understand, how much has been *lost* this last week?  Do you even *care* that immortality was within our grasp?”

“You really should reevaluate who you are speaking to.”  Karen said with dry amusement.

James was less amused.  “I do not care about your reasons.”  He said.  “I would love to live in that future, but not if we build it on a graveyard.  You, *all of you*, need to answer for what you have done.”

“I won’t be a prisoner.”  Red stated with glittering anger in her eyes, hands rapidly tapping on the tablecloth.

“On this one thing, we agree.”  Nile snarled.

Karen passed a series of ethereal sheets of paper across the table, which none of them touched and all of them looked at with suspicion.  “Good.”  She said.  “We have a different view of justice than you may be used to.  This is the outline of what we have planned.  In short, you would be integrated into our Order.  Kept watch on, yes.  But your freedoms would only be limited insofar as that you would not be allowed to repeat your crimes.  As your social and mental health is determined to be stable, fewer restrictions would be needed.  Until, ultimately, you would be full members of the future *we* wish to build.”

“And what is that future?”  Nile laughed.  “One where you’re in charge?  You don’t even believe in *prisons*, why should we trust you with anything?  You’re just liberal anarchists, for fucks sake!”  James had to bite his tongue to keep from correcting at least one of those word choices; though he resigned himself to a sigh as Karen patted his shoulder knowingly.

“Nile.”  Tigris whispered, and James realized he’d been staring at the table for the last minute or two.  He looked up, running his hand across his head.  “I didn’t realize.”  He said to James.  “That it was you, personally.  I had thought, maybe, they’d send someone else.”  He laughed.  “If we refuse your offer, I wonder, how many of us could make it out of here alive?”  Tigris glanced at Karen, and the spectral limbs of Planner still around her, making notes on the Alchemist’s potion stockpile.  “How many ways do you have to kill us?”

“A lot.”  James acknowledged.  “Though I’m less armed than normal.  And if you say no… well.  We have no authority, as you said.  You’d all walk out of here.  And then we’ll tip off the CIA about you.  They *are*, in fact, quite angry at how things have been going.  Well, the handful of them in the state looking for you, anyway.”  James frowned.  “Or we’ll send the mountain of evidence in your involvement in a variety of crimes, including kidnapping and murder, to the police, who you can no longer afford to bribe.  We will begin systematically removing your assets, your ability to make war, and your motivation to cause harm.  And… this may sound kinda silly… and I’ll feel *really bad* about it.  Because it all could have been avoided.”  James met Tigris’ eyes, and gave a small shake of his head.  “But I’ll fucking do it all anyway.  And if it looks like it’s a choice between you and a random civilian, I will bury you myself.  But, but, *but*… this isn’t a *threat*.  This is us, coming here, to ask you to be *better*.  To give you a chance, to change, instead of just…” He trailed off.

“This isn’t a negotiation at all, is it?”  Alchemist Red asked.  “This is just a shakedown.”

“It is a negotiation.”  Karen firmly stated.  “The negotiation is for you to convince us that you are worth saving.  James has decided that you are, but many of us remain unconvinced.  And then, the negotiation is for the terms of restorative justice.”

Nile, for the first time, looked like he didn’t have anything to say.  “Well fuck.”  He said, not letting a lack of useful words stop him.

With a glance out the arched window at the end of the room, Tigris took a breath, and spoke in a tone like someone leading a proceeding they had done a hundred times before.  “All members in favor of accepting terms.”  He raised his hand.  The other Alchemists at the table did the same, almost silently, though with one last grunt of annoyance from Red.  “We…” he swallowed hard, pouring himself a glass of water from one of the decanters on the table with a shaking hand.  “We remand ourselves to your mercy.”  He finished.

James stood up, settling himself into a relaxed stance.  “The Order of Endless Rooms formally accepts your surrender.”  He told them, taking a cue from Karen and leaning into the gravitas of the moment.  “We will-“

“No.”  The word cut through the room, filling the space with a defiant tone.  James raised an eyebrow, turning with everyone else to where Alchemist Indus was looking at them from the window he still hadn’t stepped away from.  “No.”

“Indus, it’s too late for this now.”  Tigris said with exhausted finality.  “What are we supposed to do?  Our allies are in the wind, our resources dwindle, *we are finished*.  We were always finished anyway.  At least this way, it’s metaphorical and not a bullet in the back.”

“My work is not finished.”  Indus declared.  “The horizon beckons, Tigris.  That was always the goal.  You have lost sight!  Lost your vision!”

“Calm down old man.”  Nile pushed his chair back.  “No one likes this, but it’s not the *end*.”

“No.”  Indus spoke again.  “I will see *my* future, not yours.  Tigris, you failure, you *coward*, giving in to the threats of children.  Decades, we worked together, and this is how you decide it ends?  No, no!  I refuse!  You won’t take what I’ve built!”  The last line was screamed at James and Karen, the bearded man, so friendly and sly looking earlier now bellowing at them with a finger pointed accusingly.

Nile and Red both shifted like they were prepared for a yelling match, a motion that they were seemingly quite familiar with.  But then, Indus *moved*.  The old man whipped forward like a predator, and before Nile could snap back at him, planted a dress shoe on the man’s chest, and kicked so hard that the padded dining chair tumbled over him as he was sent flying backward, the snapping of bone audible in the room.

“Oh God!”  Red yelled, fumbling in her sleeve for what was obviously a hidden weapon.  Tigris just stared, stunned and hollow, at the pile of furniture and human that had been sent tumbling to the corner.

“You will give them *nothing*!” Indus bellowed, turning his increasingly unstable glare onto Red, who tried to stand and scramble backward.

James slid across the table, a great clattering sounding as he tugged the tablecloth and sent a dozen different glasses and pieces of cutlery smashing into each other.  He got between them just in time, toggling the bracer stretching the sleeve of his dress shirt to “kick” and dropping it down to four switch charges left just in time to deflect another strike, the pane of light springing up around himself and Red in a blinding flare.

“You don’t have to-!” He got out, before Indus punched him.

James was a pretty durable person.  But the impact of the old man’s fist on his shoulder was one of the weirdest sensations he’d felt in a while.  It was strong, but it was so *ameture* that it was almost laughable.  If he’d been hit in the throat, or even just directly on his chest or face, that might have killed him outright.  But Indus, for all that he’d obviously enhanced himself somehow, wasn’t actually a fighter.  And his punch rippled off James with a feeling like his arm was already bruised, but that he’d be completely fine.

He slid into a guard stance, arms up, and deflected the next strike.  Delivered a trio of sharp jabs to Indus’ ribcage as the other man’s punch went wide and he stumbled forward.  *Weave*, a painted voice that sounded like wings echoed in his head, the words matching an orange line of light he knew to be a route to safety; and so James tilted his head slightly to get out of the way of an overextended haymaker and punched again, trying to circle his leg around for a trip before he had to back off from another hit.  Deflect with his forearm, listen to the cartomorph nudging him into the route to avoid the worse hits, kick to the knee to stumble.  *Back off*, because he wasn’t in this to deliver a killing blow.

This was, he realized, *easy*.  Indus could kill him if he got a hit off, but so what?  James had been fighting things like that for years now.  Every paper pusher was more dangerous than this.  Because Indus, unlike every for James faced in the Office, *desperately wanted to live through this*.

It took one more round of back and forth before the man, blood now staining his white beard from a leaking split on his cheek, spat to the side and backed off, gasping for breath.

“Please.”  James said, not even winded.  “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”  Indus replied, taking deep breaths that seemed to reinvigorate him more and more with every gasp.  “But look.  *Look* at me!  Sixty eight years old, and you can barely hold your own!”  James disagreed, but Indus was on a roll, so he didn’t interrupt.  “You can’t stop me, I *will* see my research finished, and no upstart child will get in my way!”  While he’d been yelling, James had noticed the Alchemist going for something in his coat pocket, and he didn’t bother to stop Indus as the man uncapped a flask and took a swig from it.  And then, puffing up his cheeks like he’d crammed to many grapes in there, titled his head back like he was going to spew something at James, a bright cherry red glow coming from his skin.

James knew too much about fantasy tropes to get caught by this one.  The movement was almost reflexive at this point; tick down the bracer to three charges, set the block to ‘fire’, and make sure everyone was behind him.

The inferno that Indus spewed out was a little more like an actual dragon’s breath than James had anticipated, but it splashed against the shield of light all the same, even as the temperature in the room spiked up and the curtains and tablecloth started to smolder.

Before it ended, Indus was already taking a drink from a separate vial, while James coughed and blinked away the sudden smoke from the attack.  Whatever negative thoughts he had about the old bitter Alchemist, lack of adaptability wasn’t one of them.  And it only took him a half second of seeing that he hadn’t killed them all to down another potion, before throwing himself sideways through the wall of the building, and sprinting away across the green of the golf course, making a beeline for the parking lot.  He covered fifteen feet a step, he was moving so fast.

James sighed, and dusted himself off, realizing that basically all of his juice was now staining his pants.  “Dammit.”  He muttered.  “Karen?”  He glanced over at where she was checking on the downed Alchemist.

“He’s breathing.  Unconscious.”  Karen replied.

“What just happened?!”  Red demanded, flinching away from the burning table.  “What did you do? Why did George *do that*?!”  She screamed.  “Tigris… Albert… what’s going on?”  Her voice started to crack, almost becoming a sob.

“He’ll be going for the mansion.”  Tigris said in an empty voice.  He’d barely moved through the fight, except to stumble out of his chair when the fire hit.  Like he was resigned to his fate, like something had broken in him.  “To recover the tree.”

“Huh?”  James looked up.  “Oh.  Right.  Don’t worry about it.  We need to get Nile to a hospital.  Would either of you like to come along?”  He asked.

The two conscious Alchemists left looked at him with expressions that were either panicked, or dead.  Red looked like she was considering also running, or shooting someone in the room with the pistol she’d produced from her shirt sleeve, while Tigris just looked… tired.  Like something in the conversation had finally pushed him over the edge, and he had fully abdicated everything about responsibility to interact with the outside world.

“James.”  Karen spoke his name, drawing his attention down to where she had her hands holding a cloth dinner napkin pressed against a cut on the side of Nile’s arm.  “They’re scared.  Forget that they’re older than you, and do what you do.”

The words caught on something in his mind, jolting him into action without question. He trusted Karen, and so he listened and let himself be guided.  James took a breath to speak.  “Hey.”  He said quietly.  “I understand this is horrible.  But you surrendered.  You’re under our custody now, and that means we will *keep you safe*.  Okay?”  The two of them just looked at him.  “We need to get your friend… eh… your… coworker?  Nile.  We need to get Nile to a hospital.  We can teleport, and we can take you with us.  Would you like to come with us?”

“Yes.”  Red said instantly, a trembling hand tucking her little snubnosed gun back into its concealed holster.  “If he dies, I want to gloat.”  She made the comment like it was a shield against actually having to show she cared.

The words got a reflexive shake of the head from Tigris.  “I…will come too.  To keep these two from… well.”

“Yeah.”  James finally rolled his eyes.  “I get it.  Okay.  Response will meet us there, and we can work on securing your stuff and relocating you.”  He knelt next to Karen, the two of them quickly deciding via skulljack on what hospital to use, and letting Planner calligraphy the address onto the telepad.  He looked up at them, and held out a hand.  “Come on.”  He said.  “Let’s get you out of here.”

“Just like that.”  Tigris commented.  “All it took was a few words, and that’s it.”

“You misunderstand.”  Karen told him.  “The words are where you start.  The rest of it is… well, for you, quite a lot of work.”

He stared at her for a second, but then wordlessly stood, and stepped toward James, reaching out to take the offered hand.  His palm was rough, and sweaty, but his grip was firm; a lifetime of handshakes keeping him in good habits.  Tigris looked at James, and then back at his fellow Alchemist.  “Skin contact?”  He asked.

“Yeah.”  James said, and watched as Tigris reached out and let Red take his hand too.

“Indus won’t stop, you know.”  She said.  “Teleporting or not, if you don’t hurry, he’ll clear out our stockpiles, and run.  He’s… I knew he was dedicated, but this…”

“Don’t worry about it.”  James said, voice tight and pained.  “He didn’t get very far.”

He’d given the order to the backup team through their link before Indus had even pulled his wall phasing trick.

Red didn’t look like she believed him, but James wasn’t in a mood to explain.  Without wasting any more time, he ripped the page, and took them out of the country club.  Leaving behind only a mess for the staff to clean up, some dying embers, a few broken chairs, and a lot of questions.