The Daily Grind - Chapter 367 (Patreon)

"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world."  -The G-Man, Half-Life 2-

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“James’s phone.”  Alanna’s voice cut through the fog of sleep that James was currently experiencing.

It was so warm where he was laying.  Uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough that he wanted to move or open his eyes.  There was something smooth pressed against his face, and a tiny motion gave him just enough of an impression of the weight and shape of it that he could guess it was chitin.  Probably one of the large shell patches on Arrush’s right arm, because if it was any other arm, James would be getting tickled by fur.  Still, he wasn’t being crushed or choked, and so, having identified which of his lovers was currently draped over him, James decided to stay immobile and let Alanna do whatever she was doing on the side of the bed.

”No, this isn’t James.”  He heard her voice say, the words causing someone else in their packed bed to stir, shifting carefully layered blankets around in a way that was guaranteed to leave at least one person with a cold spot.  “No, really, we don’t have magical gender swapping… okay that’s a lie, James hadn’t used any of the… look do you want to talk to…”

James made an unhappy sound, muffled by his current situation.  He was going to have to force himself to open his eyes and even talk in a few seconds, and he hated that.  Maybe he could telepathically communicate to Alanna that she should handle the whole thing.  She was bulletproof, that sounded like a great idea.  And then he wouldn’t have to move, or extract himself from the blankets, or the Anesh that appeared to be wrapped around his back like he was using James as a pillow.

“Yeah I’m pretty sure he’s awake, he’s just hoping he can avoid this.  Well yeah you called at a bad time, it’s… uh… some time in the morning, and this is gonna ruin my chances to get… uh… actually you don’t need to know that part.  Hang on.”  The bed shifted as Alanna’s looming shadow fell over the multiple people she had to lean past to get to James.

James gave a more coherent sigh.  Waking up these days was so much different than it had ever been before.  Partly because every time James learned enough computer facts, he could get empowered with more Energy, assuming that was the stat he chose from his Lesson.  Partly because his bed - large as it was - wasn’t nearly so empty anymore as it had once been.  And partly because his apartment was imbued with what he was pretty sure was now three overlapping green orb effects for improving sleep.

The fact that one of them was more time, slipped into the flow of reality like that was no big deal, was kind of an existential nightmare, because he had to wonder if he was aging faster now.  But also that was solved by the simple fact that he would have slept that long anyway, and this just let him be on time to things easier.  So really it was more like an orb that made Planner’s job easier, not anything that terrifying.

Whatever it was, though, he’d been able to smoothly transition from deeply asleep to awake and capable of forming complex thoughts a lot better than he used to.  Actual good rest comboing with personal stat boosting magic to let him snap his eyes open, jump out of bed, and get started with any given day.

Assuming he wanted to.  Nothing did shit for the fact that sometimes he woke up feeling like he’d been repeatedly kicked in the spine or thrown through a window or made to jog twenty miles.  So, in one last act of defiance, James shifted side to side just enough to burrow himself deeper into the blankets and ratroach layered over him.

”Hey.  You know people’s emotions change when they wake up?  Especially if they wake up mostly naked and surrounded by people they’re sleeping with.” Alanna’s voice was quiet enough to maybe not wake anyone else up, but James knew he wasn’t gonna get away with escaping her anyway.

He opened one eye, then the other, smiling sheepishly up at her.  “In my defense…”

”Ssh.  Banter later, phone now, outside.”  She instructed him, and James, after some geographic negotiation, managed to escape from the bed without doing too much to kick anyone awake.  He was getting good at that, which he was pretty proud of.

Grabbing his cell phone from Alanna’s hand, he had a moment of brief jealousy that she was clearly playing into as she slid herself back under the blankets and languidly stretched on the wedge of the mattress that she’d claimed for herself.  James almost just hung up on whoever was calling him at this unholy hour and got back in there with her, but…

Well, if that were an option, Alanna would have done it herself.

So he threw his bathrobe on, slipped out into the quiet hall, padded past the half open closet where laundry was waiting in a dryer to be folded - or more likely picked out piece by piece over the next few days - walked quietly through the living room where Auberdeen was much more deeply asleep than anyone else, and out onto the back patio.  It was freezing outside, and upgrades or no, the concrete under his feet was rough and cold, which would motivate him to keep this conversation tangent free.

”James’ phone, this is James.”  He said the familiar words as he unmuted it to hear whoever was calling from the concealed number.

”This is Malcom McHarn.”  An older human man’s voice replied to him.  “We spoke-“

”Malcom, I know who you are.”  James rolled his eyes as he breathed out vapor into the frozen air.  The ex-fed, still-investigator was someone that James found… not trustworthy, exactly.  But he was trying to do good, in his own way, and James had offered his team help.  It was only fair, considering DeKay had nobly refrained from shooting him, and also the Order had given Debt refugee status and deprived the team of their only infomorph protection.  “What’s up?  Something on fire?”

There was a pause before the reply, which gave James time to wipe the hoarfrost off one of their porch chairs, and sit down in the still slightly damp seat.  It was mostly just trading his feet being cold for his ass being cold, but he was going to go take the longest hot shower of his life after this, so he’d suffer through.  “Not yet.”  McHarn eventually said.  “We’ve run into a small problem.  Calling you wasn’t my first choice, and I apologize for the time difference.”

”It’s fine.  It’s also two degrees on my back porch so please talk faster.”  James said.  “Wait, time difference?  Where the hell are you?”

”Oslo.”

”Malcom.”  James said his name with the force of a school principal about to ask a kid what they were thinking when they started a food fight.  “The last time we talked, you made it pretty clear that you identified as an American patriot, and that you planned on trying to track down a threat to this country surrounding my enclave nation.  Why, then, are you in Oslo?”

The man who had once been director for some kind of special investigation unit tasked with uncovering the supernatural sounded like he was reaching the end of his patience.  “Tracking a sun cult.”  He said.

James felt like he was being fucked with.  “How about this?  You tell me exactly what’s going on, and what you called me for, and I’ll do my best to not scream.”  He offered.

Malcom didn’t waste any more time with incomplete answers.  “My team is on the trail of the people who we suspect are responsible for the Everglades incident.  ‘Sun cult’ is probably the wrong thing to call them, but it’s good enough until we can get a real answer.  So far, we don’t know what they’re doing in Norway, but Ports just had a brief encounter with local law enforcement that has us asking some questions.  Even DeKay vouched for calling you.”

”…What happened to the Everglades?”  James asked with a high pitched crack to his voice.

”…Well.  I suppose expecting you to know everything might have been hubris.”  McHarn said with an almost audible grimace.  “There is a five hundred foot diameter circle in the Everglades National Park where it is daytime.  It’s been active for the last twenty days, and shows no sign of going away.  Though at least it isn’t growing.”

”By which you mean it is only ever daytime.  Hence, sun cult.  Got it.  Continue.”

On his end in Norway, Malcom had a short thought that maybe most people shouldn’t just accept that information so quickly.  Then he remembered who he was speaking to.  “Yes.  Well.  We are here legally, but that didn’t stop the local police from being unreasonably aggressive to my agent.  His arrest was stopped by the timely arrival of someone that is increasingly hard to describe the longer we try, who indicated… affiliation… with your Order.  And that cooperating directly in this case would be valuable for all of us.”

”Mother fucker.”  James said bluntly.

”Excuse me?”

He sucked in a breath.  “The Right Person At The Right Moment.”  James said, and heard a hum of recognition from McHarn.  “They’re outsourcing to us?  That’s… not an arrangement that we made!  But whatever, I probably owe them at least one favor.  Okay.  How much of a problem is this?  Actually.  Like, how big is this supposed cult, and what’s the real damage from their actions?”

”Here’s where things become interesting.”  McHarn said, and James had the sinking feeling that was a lie.  “There’s only three of them, and as to the harm they’re doing… well, with the exception of a few plants that might be getting too much sun, I don’t think they’ve done any.”

”And you are tracking them becauuuuuuse…?”  James shifted which hand was holding his phone, wishing he’d grabbed the skulljack plug so he could just ball himself up inside his robe.

”Because they didn’t make a circle of sunlight for fun.  If they did it by accident, they need oversight.  If they did it for a reason, that reason matters.”

James took a long breath of the freezing morning air, enjoying the taste of home and the wet vegetation that walled in his apartment complex’s back parking lot.  “Hey, you know if you’re not in the FBI anymore, you don’t have to violate people’s human rights just because they can do magic, right?”

”At minimum they vandalized a national park.”  Malcom reminded him.  “And they are US citizens, which makes them subject to multiple laws that forbid weather manipulation.”

”Okay, touchè.”  James gave an unseen tip of his head to the point.  “I forgot how insane some real world things sound without the context of magic.  What do you want from us?”

The older human didn’t beat around the bush.  “Help us find them, and bring them in for questioning.”

For just a moment, James had gotten caught up in the version of reality where McHarn was ‘on his team’.  Where there was not just cooperation, but a shared ethical framework, and the only disagreements were over tactics, not goals.  He had forgotten, that for all that Malcom McHarn was an intelligent and thinking man with a habit of looking past the first layer of things, that he was still mired in a world that James wasn’t participating in.  “There is no in.”  James said.

”Excuse me?”

”There’s no in to bring them.”  James rephrased.  “I feel like I have failed at some point to express this.  We aren’t your new agency, we’re interested in stopping civilization from sliding into a complete failure state, and we’re interested in advancing a vision of a shared cosmopolitan future.  We are not interested in kidnapping random people who might not even be responsible for the thing you think they are.”

Malcom’s reply started with a kind of cold irritation.  The tone James was actually painfully used to, of authority figures talking down to him.  “The threat they-“

If James hadn’t spent a lot of therapy hours untangling that, he might have responded more placatingly.  But instead, he cut McHarn off sharply.  “The last time someone in your group started talking about people being a threat, she tried to shoot me on my own property.”  James’ mouth twitched into a snarl before he grabbed his anger and got it under control, thankful that a number of red orbs made that easier for him.  “Malcom.  Listen.  We don’t arrest people.  Not the way you’re thinking.  We look for mutual solutions, remove the ability and motivation to do harm, and practice restorative justice.  The closest we get to actually having a prison is a rehabilitation camp for fascist shock troopers.  You are not going to convince me to help you interrogate random civilians, magic or otherwise!”  James took a breath and lowered his voice before he woke Auberdeen up through the sliding glass door anyway.  “But I admit to curiosity.  And asking questions peacefully isn’t a problem.  So if you want help, that help comes in the form of making a conversation happen, and probably nothing else.”

”It’s seamless.”  Malcom replied like he hadn’t listened to James at all.

”Beg pardon?”  James asked with obvious frustration.

”The segment of the Everglades where it is, and has remained, daytime, for the last three weeks.  The effect is seamless.”  He continued, voice dry.  “I may never have been invited to Mensa, but I’m not an idiot, Mr. Lyle.  My team even less so.  This is not an improvised effect, slapped together with magic that was not meant to bend to this shape.  This is deliberate, and stable.  And now the people who are most likely to have caused it are in a capital city of a nation, and eluding any attempt at having a conversation.”

James pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering if maybe he could freeze to death out here and avoid having to have this conversation.  He’d known Malcom was stubborn, but he’d kind of hoped it wasn’t stupid stubborn.  “Are they perhaps eluding you because you are hunting them like they’re criminals?”  James asked pointedly.  “Actually, I have some sympathy for this, I made that mistake once.”

”I am starting to wonder why our mystery woman told me to contact you in the first place.”  Malcom mused with clear sarcasm.

Ah, right.  James always tripped up remembering that the Right Person At The Right Moment was probably the most actively gender fluid pillar he’d met.

He’d also forgotten that they had prompted Malcom to call James.  Which was… odd.

“Hang on.”  James said without any malice, lowering his phone and giving himself a moment to think.

The Right Person… Nick, that moniker was easier to use anyway… Nick was a lot of things, including a pillar through and through.  By their own words they were going - or gone - insane.  Losing control of themself to the power they held.  But Nick saw the future.  Or… Nick saw several possible futures and did their best to path toward the one they wanted, always showing up at the literal right moment to push things toward what they were aiming for.

As far as James knew, from a couple brief conversations, Nick’s main goal was to safeguard their ‘stars’.  People like him, people like the Order’s paladins, yes, but also hundreds of others out there in the world.  Groups and individuals that James didn’t know about, but knew existed.

Pillars colluded.

The Long Arm Of The Law could control a non-zero amount of law enforcement directly.

Malcom and his team had a hostile encounter with Norway’s local police.  Or police equivalent.  James would look the term up later.

Nick had prevented things from going too far, had helped the investigating team out, and, had told them to contact the Order.

Pillars colluded.

”Fucking… Nick just fucking call me yourself!”  James hissed out, shifting in the porch chair as he raised his phone back to his ear.  “Yeah, sorry, you’ve got a good point.”  About something, probably.  Hopefully Malcom wouldn’t question his change of heart.  “I can probably spare some… uh…” James went quiet as his phone vibrated in his hand, this time from a number he recognized.  “Sorry, I actually have another call, one sec.”  He hit the button to put Malcom on hold and accepted Ben’s call.  “Hey, what’s up?  I was maybe just about to call you for a problem.”

”Great.  I have a new problem for you.  How fast can you get to Sacramento?”  The friend asked James in a single rapid breath.

That sounded bad.  “What’s in Sacrament- wait, I sent Follower-Of-Horizons down there last week.  There was a… some kind of rumor.  What went wrong?  Is he okay?”

”His team is in a defensive fight, and I’m sending you there now, because we’re a little short on people at the moment and I want the problem dealt with.”

Ben sounded upset.

James was already through the patio door and taking long steps down his apartment’s hallway, the warm air doing a lot of good for his toes but failing to quell the chill in his chest.  “Address and situation.”  He said, not keeping his voice down now as he blazed through his room with rapid motions, putting the phone on speaker while he got dressed and equipped in record time.  Alanna, already awake, caught his tone and stood with widening eyes, slipping him out of the way of their shared dresser so she could start collecting underwear and pants too.

Ben’s reading of the address got burned into James’ short term memory for just long enough for him to transfer it to a telepad, before the rogue continued with the same almost frantic tone.  “You’re looking at a derelict factory.  Machinery is mostly gone, place got occupied as a homeless encampment.  Hostile composition are wooden mannequins, slightly above human strength, twelve or more.  Horizon’s team has disabled two so far, but they weren’t expecting combat and are prioritizing the safety of the civilians.”

James grunted as he pulled open a lower drawer and took out his old delver hatchets.  He’d never actually thrown these things out or replaced them, just stored them as mementos of his early Officium Mundi lifestyle.  Now, they went back on the belt, along with his pistol and a folded drone.  Well, one did.  The other got handed to Alanna, who had just finished strapping a greave to her leg. And was mostly clothed, which was a disappointment to James.

The others were stirring in the bed.  Arrush was definitely awake, but his gear wasn’t here, and James eternally felt guilty putting the tall ratroach into combat situations.  “Why are there mannequins.”  He asked.  “Dungeon life?”

”Follower’s initial theory was they were like the necroads.  Now, not sure.  This isn’t the first batch, apparently.  Locals fought them before, Follower says these ones spawned almost on top of them.”

James frowned.  Dungeons couldn’t do that, that was one of the things the Order actually knew.  So this was either not a dungeon, or there were teleporting mannequins, or it was something worse.  “Okay.  Ready to deploy.”  He said, snapping his skulljack into place and tucking the braid down the back of his shirt.  A mental nudge earlier had started to wake Zhu up, and the navigator’s growing awareness was starting to push at the edges of James’ own thoughts.  The kind of humming preparation for manifestation that was taking less and less effort for each of them with every passing day.  And every Pylon skill level for Zhu, too.  “I’m gonna transfer a call to you now from the ex FBI guy.  I need you to send JP to Oslo.”

”JP’s not available.”

”Then you do it.”

Ben’s displeasure was audible.  “I really don’t want to go to Oslo…” he said.

”I wasn’t actually asking.”  James had been awake for under half an hour and he was not in the mood for this.  “Ben, talk to McHarn, get to Oslo, find his ‘sun cult’, and make friends with them.”  He realized what he’d said as soon as the words were out.  “Fuck, sorry.  I mean… actually, please, bring them back to us safe, okay?  I think the Right Moment needs us to help them.”

Ben sighed.  “I’m on it.”  He said with resignation that at least wasn’t angry or upset.  “Go now, please.”

“Yeah.”  James slapped his hand into Alanna’s after he went through the annoying phone menu to bridge the call with Malcom.  “Hey.  Anyone who’s awake, love you all.  Be right back.”  He said confidently, before he and Alanna tore the telepad and vanished from the bedroom.

Part of James felt like this was just a particularly chaotic morning.  The kind of thing that happened sometimes, especially to a paladin.  It was, perhaps, a rude coincidence to have it happen the morning after the Solstice celebration and the long night of warm intimacy he’d shared with the people closest to him.  But it could still be just that - a coincidence.

But part of him rejected that.  Part of him, maybe a part that was a bit too cynical, had something else to say.  Part of him wondered what it would look like when the world ended.  If it would be nuclear fire, or monster hordes, or a continent sinking.  Or, if maybe, instead, it would start on a morning just like this one.

A morning where there were more problems than normal.  A morning where there weren’t enough people available to react to the threats.  A morning where the cracks started to show.  Or maybe the cracks had been there the whole time, and he was just starting to see how far the web of damage stretched.

James vanished from his bedroom, secretly terrified.  Not of a spooky wooden mannequin jumping him, but of the thought that he didn’t know if this warmth and clustered companionship would be allowed to become normal.

Then he and Alanna appeared a few hundred miles south and immediately got in a fight.

_____

James planted a hatchet in the smooth wooden bulb that wasn’t really a head.  The mannequin on the ground was one of the last ones, and he’d put it on the ground by baiting it into charging off a catwalk overhead.

The inside of the old factory was like a scene from a post-apocalypse movie.  Broken windows up on the walls, and the shattered glass in piles on the floor.  Old dirt and debris swept into sloped piles in a lot of the corners where time and weather had collected them.  Oil stains and gouges in the floor from where machinery had once been but was long since removed.  Catwalks that were listing to the side, and a collection of raised rooms that were missing their doors and only had a rickety ladder set up to reach them.  Years worth of spray painted graffiti that included every possible slur and some new ones on top of that.  That kind of thing.

Except none of that was the fault of the wooden murderbots that had appeared here.  This was just what an unused industrial building in Sacramento looked like.  Apparently.

Aside from the look like this place had been derelict for a while, the interior was actually pretty cluttered.  There were a bunch of homeless people living here, and their attempts to make a temporary camp comfortable with tents and hung curtains had created a series of tight hallways.  The lack of any garbage service meant there was trash piling up blocking easy foot travel too, both on this side of the building and through the big sliding doors that led to a loading dock.

So the place was a bit of a mess, but it was just kind of a normal mess.  Before today. The rest of the destruction was a mix of faults between James, Zhu, and Alanna, and the murderboots, though.  The smell of gunpowder and burning wood, the catwalk that had given up and crashed to the factory floor, the mannequin body half smashed through one of the few remaining intact windows, and the line of hung old blankets that had been ripped down to tangle an opponent.  All of that, James would admit, was mostly his fault.

Well, fault was a strong word.  But he’d done it.  He was mostly out of Velocity, having made liberal use of Exhaust Torch, mixed with slapping the Climb spell of Survival Flare on the mannequins when he needed one of them to turn to charcoal quickly to thin their numbers.  Alanna was out of normal breath from where she’d been nonstop grappling with anything that tried to get through the loading dock doors and to where the civilians were hunkered down.  And Zhu…

Actually Zhu was having a great time, it seemed.

”It moved!  Hit it again!”  The navigator commanded James like his human host was a pokemon or something.

James noticed the twitch of the wooden hand, the rough grain of the mannequin's fingers extending as it reached up toward him.  If this had been almost any other opponent, he would have hesitated.  Shown some mercy, maybe, or at least paused to make sure the fight was actually over.  But these things had attacked like puppeted berserkers from the moment they ‘saw’ any living thing.  Not just humans, either!  When they’d arrived, Alanna had watched four of them sprinting with too-smooth movements so they could dive on a darting rat and rip it to bloody pieces before the group had stood and locked onto her without a moment’s pause.

So James yanked his hatched out, leaving a dry gash in the monster’s featureless face, and then started chopping.  He kept his feet planted with one of them on the mannequin’s remaining arm, and he made sure to get a good angle, but it still took another twenty or thirty hacks to make this last one stop.

The last chop came down with a grunt, splintering the neck enough that James could wedge the now-still attacker’s head fully off.  Rendering the old factory and the surrounding streets safe, and also, causing something that hadn’t been present for the rest of the fight to burst out of the splintered and hacked apart wood.

He heard Alanna’s shout of alarm, but the emerald green energy that had an almost liquid appearance to it only lasted for a couple seconds.  Globs of it spat into the air over all of the downed mannequins, and then, shot toward the trio as Alanna slid around the corner of a tent to rejoin James.

He actually dodged one of the blobs before a second one caught on his arm, and James felt a warm burst as it sank into him.  But instead of some final attack, the energy instead made him feel… well, good was the wrong way to say it.  There were lots of words that jumped to mind, but it was hard to find one that fit right with the rush of sensation that thrummed through his body all of a sudden.  Stronger wasn’t correct, neither was better, but it was changing him.  Magic that flooded his flesh and blood and made him feel…

Alive.

It was done in an instant, and James and Zhu barely caught Alanna as she sagged forward onto them with a gasp.  “Whooooooh.”  Alanna exhaled.  “What the fuck?”

”No idea.”  James said, voice coming out breathy and energized as he fumbled his hatchet back to his belt clip and helped Alanna straighten back up.  “Zhu, you okay?”

”I feel like I just had coffee for the first time again and I wanna go on a road trip to see some kind of wildlife museum and maybe wrestle with a wolf for fun can we do that?!”  Zhu’s words spilled out in a rapid fire pattern that left no room for guessing how Zhu felt right now.

James swept a thumb over his eyebrow, wiping away thin blood from the gash there.  Except the wound was gone; the injury that had already gotten mitigated by his wood resistance having been seamlessly healed.  He tried to keep himself from replying in the same sort of outburst as Zhu, partly distracted by his missing injury.  “At least we know this is definitely some kind of magic bullshit.”  He said with a long sigh.  “Let’s go check on Horizons and see if he’s doing okay, and also, if anyone knows what the fuck that just was.”  He flexed his fingers, feeling them move just a little too smoothly.

They picked their way around the edge of the factory, past where a barrel that was in use as a campfire had been overturned by an equally burning mannequin, around someone’s hanging laundry that had gone miraculously undisturbed, and through to the loading dock where Follower-Of-Horizons and a pair of other scout team knights were arrayed behind bits of cover in a defensive line, with a cluster of the humans that had been living here behind them.  “Are you dead?”  The camraconda called to James.

”Yep.  As usual, I didn’t survive.”  James answered as he sauntered up.  “Everyone okay?  Anyone need help?”

One of the human members of the Order, holstering their weapon, turned to the group of civilians to start doing checks for injuries, while Follower just shook his colorful cabled head.  “You arrived promptly.  We dispatched two of them, and were not overwhelmed.  Thank you.”

”No problem.  It gave me an excuse to shove a different problem onto Ben.”  James took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the muggy air and regretting it as he inhaled some smoke and fumes from the nearby highway overpass where thousands of cars kept zipping by, oblivious to the fight that had just occured.  “So.  Fill me in, what the hell just happened?”

Follower-Of-Horizons slithered forward, mechanical arms folding back and slinging his heavier assault rifle down to his side to a carrying hook.  The camraconda got closer to them, hissing in annoyance as he scraped his plate against an old metal mounting point on the floor.  “This place is unpleasant.”  He commented as he got close enough to stop yelling.  “Good news.”  He said, looking up at James.

”…no one died?”  James asked.

”Yes, that is also good news.  More important, though.  My team is now on the leaderboard.”

Alanna choked out a laugh around the bottle of water she was refreshing herself from.  “The scout teams are keeping score?”  She asked when she’d sputtered out the water from her airway.

”Not officially.”  Follower-Of-Horizons admitted.  “What happened here has a simple explanation, that does not make sense.”  He switched tracks, and if James didn’t know any better, he’d say the camraconda was being evasive on the ‘keeping score’ thing.  “I have reconstructed the timeline.  Four weeks ago, a wooden form that was abstractly human shaped appeared in this building.  It attacked a local man, who damaged it with a sledgehammer, after which the mannequin was burned.  One week after that, three mannequins appeared, and several locals were injured fighting them off.  Police did not respond to reports.”

”Hold up, this started a month ago?”  James asked.

”No.  One month ago is the earliest case of a known survivor.”  The brightly colored camraconda replied with a grim shake of his boxy head.  “Last week, the local community had prepared a defense ahead of time, believing that this was a recurring event.  They were correct, and the four mannequins were dispatched without incident.”

Alanna raised a hand.  ”Question.”  She flatly interjected.

Zhu raised his own hand.  “Observation!”  He added with a vibrating energy.

James skipped their bullshit.  “There were twenty nine of these things.”  He said, having kept a running tally of every kill through his skulljacked link to Alanna.

”Yes.”  Follower-Of-Horizons agreed.  “I have one more piece of information, and a hypothesis.  The information regards why the locals did not simply leave the hostile area.”

”Well I figured a lot of them might not have somewhere to go.”  James said with a grimace, looking back at the damaged homeless camp.  “…I know we can’t fix this problem systemically right now, but I think we can at least find room in Townton for the people who need to get the fuck away from the murderbots.”

”They are not robotic.”  The camraconda corrected.  “And as you have noticed, when a group of them are dealt with, it modifies those who participated.”

”…oh.”  Alanna got it almost instantly.  “They were planning to farm them, weren’t they?  Yeah, that makes complete sense.  I’ve only ever been on the street for a couple weeks, but it gets hard.”

“…wait, what?”  James asked quietly.

Alanna grimaced.  “I’ll tell you later.”  She said, too quickly. “So.  This probably seemed like a good offer; fight a mannequin, get your body supercharged?  Do you know what the power actually does, actually?”  She asked Follower.

He shook his head again.  “Many of the locals describe it as ‘life force’, and having now felt a small amount of it, I agree.  It will require study.”

James mentally probed the edges of his body and his own personal magic.  He didn’t feel like he was suddenly superhuman, but there was… a kind of vigor there that hadn’t been present when he’d woken up, even with his Energy at work.  Like he was a few years younger, a few aches that he’d gotten good at ignoring suddenly just gone, a casual amount of strength added to his limbs and digits.  He didn’t know if his magic had changed, but he’d be willing to bet that his Velocity was a little more potent too.  “What’s the theory?”  He asked quietly, looking down at his flexing fingers.

”I believe this is scaling to the resistance.”  Follower-Of-Horizons said with an unhappy hiss.  “A one to one fight was handled easily.  The three afterward were not, and the original fighter claims they were stronger as well.  The skirmish last week, however, employed a semi-organized community defense, and as a result, was handled easily.  Which led to…”

”To this week, where an army spawned.”  Alanna scowled.

”Oh, wait.”  Zhu’s feathers shot up in a bristling formation.  “Oh shit!”

”Yes, we may have made things worse.”  The scout team leader admitted.  “But that is a problem for us, and not these individuals.  Who we need to begin evacuating.”

James had been about to say something similar, having noticed a pair of police cruisers slowly heading down the industrial access road in their direction.  His drone overwatch had been sitting overhead, blending into the Sacramento sky, but not super helpful except for making sure none of their assailants ran off to start hunting elsewhere.  Now, though, they were pulling their weight by noticing the cops approaching, even if they didn’t seem to know where they were approaching.

”Yeah, looks like someone reported the gunfire.”  He commented.

”My bad.”  Alanna didn’t sound that remorseful, her old personal Mossberg shotgun she’d used way back during their early Officium Mundi delves having been used to thin out the horde with very effective shots.  “Hey!”  She called out to the assembled group of tired and scared looking humans.  “For obvious reasons this place sucks and isn’t safe, and also the fuzz are gonna be here soon!  For anyone who wants it, we’re offering a place to stay, food, basic services, medical treatment, and… like… not the cops!  Any takers?”

There were no instant takers, because that kind of offer, made to people who were used to being failed or harmed by anyone with actual power, had zero trust behind it.

The scout team, though, had at least a little credibility.  And James and Alanna ended up fielding a few questions as people realized that they were serious.

Could they bring their stuff?  Yes, obviously.  Though things would need to be cleaned for hygiene reasons, though Townton had a laundry service specifically for anyone facing homelessness that ended up there.

Could they bring their dog?  Yes.  Dogs were great.  Also the dog could probably get his own medical treatment, since it looked like the scraggly mutt had been hurt at some point, either by one of the mannequins or just by a shitty human.

Could they bring their drugs?  That question was asked after a few more people had clustered around, and James didn’t see who’d voiced it.  The answer was the same anyway.  Kind of.  There wasn’t really a black market for a lot of recreational substances in Townton, but they also had an easy solution to addiction in the form of Mesa Oasis.  Which led to the question of ‘can we refuse that’, which had its own answer.

”Well you can.”  Alanna said with a forced casual shrug.  “It’ll suck though, because you’ll run out of your stash and go through withdrawal the hard way.  Easier to just get it out of the way early, and we’ll buy whatever you have on you for market rate, so you don’t feel like you lost anything.”

The rule probably came across as unnecessarily soft, but the whole point was to essentially make it clear that people were welcome no matter what, and that the Order could solve the worst of the problems.  Taking shit away by force wasn’t the Order way; it was better to just offer a solution that was accessible and easy and let nature take its course.

The last questions were from one of the holdouts who wasn’t in the process of gathering up whatever he wanted to bring.  Were they going to be used as slave labor or something?  Or killed to keep a secret?  Or used as part of a government mind control program?  Was James a government super soldier experiment?  Or turned into things like the big snake?

James’ answer to the last one, which was to express with a sigh that he wished he could be a big snake, was met with an incredulous stare.  And also Follower-Of-Horizons again reminding him that they had a body swapping club.

”But no, man.”  James said, shaking his head sadly while he kept an eye on the cop cars that had passed the dead factory once and were now rolling back by.  The cops here seemed like they weren’t particularly interested in checking empty buildings for gunshots, which, fair.  “I mean, come on.  We have actually no reason to do any of that shit, unless we were just pointlessly cruel.  And I like to think I’m better than that at least.  Also Alanna’s more of a supersoldier than me.”

Zhu stabbed his side with a talon.  ”You like to mope about not being good enough all the time!”  The navigator said, getting a stare from the unkempt man that James was trying to talk to.  “You’re really bad at it!  You’re doing it now!  Just tell him you’re building a utopia and he can have an apartment, it’s easier!”

”…is that true?”  The human narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

”Well yeah, but I didn’t want you to think I was making shit up.”  James said.

”Fuck it, whatever man.  Worst case you just feed me to the snake.”

”I think Follower-Of-Horizons isn’t into that, but I’ll check if you want.”  Zhu offered, unhelpfully.

It didn’t take long after that to get things sorted.  Out of the sizable group that had been encamped here, taking advantage of the relative shelter the old walls offered, all but four took the Order’s offer to relocate.  Those that didn’t still took Alanna’s more immediate offer of a Mesa Oasis cast, once she proved its worth on a volunteer.  Well, the ones that needed it anyway.  James also made sure the followup group from Recovery coming in to help get everyone moved brought some cash with them, so the people who were going their own way had a little bit of a leg up over where they were before.

No one should have to be homeless.  But that was a problem he couldn’t just punch away, and the Order’s didn’t have an orange totem big enough to spawn a whole perfect city yet.  It wasn’t actually a fair system to just give out homes to people in a scattershot fashion where whoever happened to chance across a paladin got to be first in line, but, James was also pretty sure that if he didn’t get these people out of here now, they’d be dead next week.

He didn’t know what the Order needed to do with this.  If it kept happening, if there was a next week, then… what?

The lingering fear that this event scaled to the force used against it made him terrified that any attempt at permanent containment was going to backfire spectacularly.  If they came in and set up defensive positions and traps and had a shield team ready to go, what happened when the next batch was scaled to that threat?  James didn’t know, and he kind of hated that he was about to find out.

“I have a worrying thought.”  James said as he and Alanna stood in the emptied out factory.  There was still a lot of trash left over, as well as mannequin ‘corpses’, and he kind of planned to get one of those green orbs that removed garbage every day in here.  “And I want you to tell me if I’m overreacting.”  He said slowly, looking down at the dungeon detector in his hand that was currently deader than when he’d walked it through Oklahoma.

”I’m not gonna!”  Alanna bopped the bottom of a closed fist onto his shoulder.  “This is either a great way to give our paladins an extra edge, or, it’s the end of the west coast in a couple months!”

James hoped she wouldn’t say that, and his mouth set in a line as he made an unhappy hum.  “I think we should try to contact a pillar.”

”Didn’t Nick just try to dump a… what did McHarn call them?  A sun cult?… on you?  Today?  An hour ago?”

”It’s been slightly longer than an hour, but I do bet everyone else is out of bed by now.  Unless we missed out on something fun.”  James tried to make a joke and sort of missed the mark in terms of how much he felt like laughing.  “But no, I think we should maybe try to get in touch with Lloyd.”

Alanna stiffened.  “The Last Line.”  She said with quiet incredulity.  “The one that tried to kill Anesh.  And Nate.  And Cam?”

“He’d fit at least.”

”Aren’t we making friends with the Chain Breaker?  Aren’t we already friends with Kiki?  Holy shit, we need to get Kiki down here.  This is a totally new way for magic to show up, I bet she can be cryptically helpful.”

Zhu chimed in unhelpfully.  “I actually don’t think Kiki is cryptic on purpose.”  He opined.  “It seems like she doesn’t realize she’s doing it.  Which is sad!”

”She’s… working on a lot of stuff.”  James said sadly.  “They both are.  The Line seems at least stable, in a brutal and shitty way, and I think he’d have a vested interest in at least helping us turn off the deadly mannequin faucet.”

”You know the deadly mannequin faucet gives us an unlimited supply of wood, right?”

James stared at his partner.  “Alanna.”  He said, and watched the exact moment she realized what he was about to say as an embarrassed  expression splashed across her face.  “So do trees.”

”I know!”  She buried her face in one of her hands.  “I dunno why I’m fucking arguing with you, buddy.  Maybe I just wanna fight one or two more waves before we break this one.” She froze, then slowly lowered her hand.  “Oh, shit.”

James had already felt what she was feeling, and had a similar thought.  “Yeah.  I think the vigor infusion is maybe potentially addicting.”

”Well, at least I’ll have a new Mesa Oasis use, when my Breath is back.”  Alanna sighed.  “Okay.  The Line.  Really?  Fuck.”

“I dunno how.  I think Nate’s tracking Camilles though.  I’ll talk to him.”

Zhu slowly extended his taloned hand.  “I could just… you know?”

”I forgot.”  James admitted, looking up at the scaffolding of the factory’s ceiling.  “Look, we’re lucky I remembered I can breathe fire, okay?  My memory enhancements are fighting an uphill battle.  But also, hey, your pathing to things often incurs the cost of ‘James getting hit in the head’ so I’m gonna go check with Nate first, okay?”

”I could probably work around the misadventures and injuries and stuff.”  Zhu pouted.  And then his feathers flattened against James, the growing carpet of glowing orange that had steadily been getting stronger ever since his recovery going still.  “Wait, fuck, I probably could.  I just need some time to plan.”

James had sort of wondered how Pathfinder never seemed to get Daniel killed with her own seeker trick.  Maybe this was how.  A long term development and strengthening as navigators grew up.  “We need to see if we can get you some Pylon levels in whatever it is you’re doing.  Maybe we swing by there later and hunt for some easy AP.”

Alanna snorted.  ”Only you would treat a delve as an errand.”

”Oh that’s not true, lots of people in the Order are idiots.  Nik works for us!  Alanna you’ve met Momo!”

”Yeeeeah, I have.”  She sighed, throwing an arm around James and Zhu.  “Okay.  I’m gonna go shower.  Meet you at home?”

James leaned into her, and got a splinter that was stuck on her jacket stabbed into his earlobe as punishment.  “Oy, ow.”  He flicked the offending last strike of their enemies away.  “Yeah, assuming nothing goes horribly wrong.  I dunno, I’m feeling paranoid today.”

He’d been hoping that Alanna would tell him it was all in his head.  That this was just another weird thing among all the weird things in their lives.  That just because there was a magical effect happening independent of a dungeon to cause it, was no reason to start freaking out.

Instead, she pulled him closer, her grip tightening not in affection, but in her own kind of quiet fear.  “Yeah.”  She said with a long breath.

James didn’t like that at all.

_____

“If this is your fault, tell me now so I can get the shouting out of the way.”  Nate said as he met James in the informal setting of the Lair’s restaurant.

James tried to cock an eyebrow, and almost managed it this time.  He really should have modified his facial muscles to make it easier back when he was rebuilding his eye, but in his defense, he hadn’t really been thinking about that kind of detail at the time.   He also had assumed Nate had wanted to meet him here because the man was filling his role as head chef today, but instead Nate had walked in through the main entrance, wearing a suit and tie, and almost looking like he’d waxed his head.  “Is what my fault?  Also were you on a date?”

”Funeral.”  Nate said, and James’ humor got sunk fast by the single word response.  “Old friend.  No one you know.”

”Shit, I’m sorry anyway.”  James said, glad that Zhu had jumped to Alanna before they’d split because he was certain the navigator wouldn’t have kept the questioning comment about Nate having friends as an inside thought.  “Aaaaand you don’t wanna talk about it.  Sure.  Okay, what did I do?”

Nate stared at James for long enough that James started to wonder if the burly man had just fallen asleep with his eyes open.  When he did speak, it was with a voice that was tightly angry, though not at anyone in particular.  “Government shut down the airports.  Grounded half the domestic flights, most of the international ones.  And not just the US.”

”Wh… why?”  James didn’t even know where to start on asking about this.  “What do you mean ‘the government’?  Can the president just declare that airplanes have to stop?  Did I miss a memo?”  His old habit of idly reading the news on his phone had sort of dropped off as James had grown into a life where he had more interesting active things to do that tended to be in dungeons.  Dungeons, of course, not being areas well known for their wi-fi access.  “Yeah, no, this one isn’t me.”

”Didn’t think so.”  Nate grunted.  “And no, the president isn’t supposed to be able to do that.  New guy’s a piece of shit.”

”Is now a bad time to say that we should start pushing hard for recognition of dungeon life as people, and by association, citizens?”

Nate gave James a dead eyed stare.  “It’s always gonna be a bad time.  Especially right now.  But you should probably do it anyway.”

”Why especially right now?” James wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

”Lotta voter suppression tactics going on.  Dungeonies represent a population with a big gap in their cultural knowledge, who are almost all ideologically invested in learning about freedom and justice.  They’re a threat to the political party in power.”  Nate said it in his usual gruff voice, but James narrowed his eyes at the more nuanced and complex information about the political landscape.  “Don’t give me shit about this.  I worked for the government.  This was part of the job.”

”I kind of assumed you were a spy.”  James lied.

Nate tugged on his tie, loosening it and then yanking the offending piece of cloth off and throwing it onto the table.  “Fuck off.”  He said bluntly.  “You want camracondas to vote, you’re looking at an uphill battle against the same guys who already don’t want black people to vote, or poor people to vote.”

”Cool.  I can deal with that.”  James said, the old smouldering embers of anger at the unjust systems of the world, the anger that never really went away, flaring to life in his chest.  “Either that or we do just declare ourselves a nation.  Offer to buy the land, bribe some government officials, that kind of thing.”

”There’s a plan to use the anti-cancer orbs for strategic political pressure.  We just never used it.”  Nate leaned back, flicking thick fingers at his now-dead tie.  “There was always another dungeon.  Another status quo.  Plenty to occupy us on our side without looking at the real world.”  He shook his head with a grimace, shaking off the melancholy mood that was making him too talkative.  “Your plan of getting a nation to back you up was better than making your own.”

”I’ll check with Spire later.”  James sighed, starting to feel overwhelmed.  Then a thought struck him.  “Or maybe… I don’t.  Maybe I trust the person I named paladin to do that job.”

Nate almost smiled.  “Now you’re getting it.”  He said with unearned smugness.  “So.  If you didn’t ruin everyone’s vacation plans, why are we talking?”

”I want to talk to the Last Line and I think you’re tracking at least one Camille.”  James said, grateful for the change in topic.

”I’m tracking three, not counting Cam and Ami.”  Nate said.

James leaned his elbows on the table, pressing his palms into his forehead before sweeping his hair back with a groan.  “Holy shit that name.”  He exhaled.  “We need a dedicated Camille therapist, I fucking swear.”

Ignoring him, Nate just started giving details.  “The Crimson that left Townton still hasn’t found the Line.  She’s in Mexico City right now, brooding and getting in one sided bar fights.  The one from the Underburbs ditched her main tracker but Planner’s following the telepad Cam gave her, and she never used it.  Went to London briefly, then back to Missouri, then fucking Belarus for some reason.”

”Belarus is a whole country Nate, there’s a million reasons she could be there.”

”Shove it.”  The spymaster and chef was not amused.  “Last one we spotted back in New York.  Same one you got in a fight with.”

”How do you know?”  James asked curiously.

Nate tapped his shoulder.  ”Armor.”  He said.  “Cut you put there, and the bullet holes from Long’s bullshit.  Still there.”

”…That…” James looked down at the table, face scrunched up as he connected pieces of information in rapid sequence.  “…that doesn’t make sense.”  He said.  “Or rather, it only makes sense if she’s not operating as a daughter.  The Last Line pathologically fixes their armor over their bodies, we saw it during the Underburbs.”

”Yeah.”  Nate agreed.  “That, and her powers none of the others have, make me think she’s fucked somehow.  If we spot her again I’ll tell you, but we’re thin on rogues and New York’s a big place.  She’s a bad place to start looking for the Line anyway.  You want the second one.  Belarus.”

”She’s still there?”  James asked with a grimace.  “Okay.  I need to learn… Russian?  Belarusy?”

”Belarusian.”

”That.  What are the odds we have a yellow for that?”  James winced.  “Whatever.  I’ll figure it out.  We’ve got about a hundred people from Ukraine living in Townton, there’s a non-zero chance one of them can make me a .mem file.”

Nate grunted and looked like he was going to say something else, when one of the people moving through the big room the Lair used as a restaurant that weren’t there to talk about threats to the world stole one of the chairs.  Momo, rocking a short mohawk that had an equal chance of being either dyed purple, or just like that for some magical reason, threw her arm over the back of the big bowl chair meant for camracondas as she arrived.  “Sorry I’m late!”  She announced.

”What, did I take too long?”  Nate grumbled.

”No, I have no idea why she’s here.”  James tipped a hand toward the bigger man.  “Momo, why are you here, and how are you late for a meeting we didn’t plan?”

“There was a pretty horrific wreck on the highway, so El and I got held up.”  Momo ‘explained’.  “And you wanted to talk to Second about their… its?… whatever, Second’s proposal for internet access and talk about their place in the world.  You know, normal James shit.”

”…I did want that, yes.”  It was hypothetically on James’ plate for the day, but that had been from before he’d nearly been kicked off a catwalk.  “That’s not really an explanation.”  Across from him, Nate got up and walked off, returning shortly with coffee.  Just for himself though.  “At the risk of sounding like I don’t like your company, why are you here now.”

Nate thunked his mug onto the table.  “How bad was the crash?”  He added his own question.  And James tried not to wince, he didn’t want this getting even further sidetracked.

”Uh… it looked like James was involved.”  Momo said with a shrug.

James spread his fingers, holding his hands out in front of him defensively.  “Oh hell no.  We are not using me as a metric for-“

”Yeah,” Nate ignored him, “been a bunch of bad shit on the roads today.  Someone tanked it on an off ramp up in Vancouver too.  Looked like they turned their car into spaghetti.”

”Nate you’re better then this.  Please.”  James begged.  “Momo why are you here?”

She shrugged at him, blinking as she focused.  It wasn’t that she specifically delighted in tormenting James or anything, that just kind of happened as a natural result of following tangents sometimes.  “Right, sorry.  Second’s napping for maintenance today, so that whole thing was going to be Evans talking to you.  But Evans is off with JP trying to get knighted, so-“

”No.  Stop.  I’m sorry, I know I was anti-tangent, but explain that part.”  James, already feeling a sense of looming ominous dread, was quickly becoming overwhelmed by what probably should have been funny.  “The knight part.  Do we have a knight ceremony that I don’t know about?”

”What?  Oh!  Right!”  Momo snapped her fingers with a grin.  “No I mean they’re in London bothering the queen.”

”Queen’s dead.”  Nate supplied.

”Bothering the… king?”

”Sure okay why though?”  James had a headache.

Momo looked at James with an innocent expression that was entirely a lie.  “I think JP actually does want to be a knight.”  She said.  “Evans is just backup.  I dunno, JP said something about how ‘everything is a fucking cult’ and left.  He… uh… doesn’t respect me that much, you know?”  Her voice lost some of its amused luster as she said that last part.

”I’ll talk to him.”  James said with flat annoyance.  “Okay.  So, you’re filling in for Evans, filling in for Second, and you’re… somehow late because of traffic.”

Momo perked back up.  “Yeah!  Because someone parked sideways on the highway!”  She saw James’ expression and grinned.  “No casualties, we had Speaky check, don’t worry about it.  There was plenty of time while I was busy being late.”

”Honestly I’m admiring your restraint for not just teleporting out.”  James told her.

“I’m not wasting my telepad.”  Momo snorted.  “So hey, do you wanna talk about the thing?”

There was something so unerringly eager in Momo’s voice that James almost laughed.  Instead, he just sighed and looked over her head at where a duo from Recovery were showing a group of Pylon ratlings around, getting brunch while they asked questions about the accommodations.  ”The thing for the person who is currently offline for brain surgery?  No.  I’ll just… talk to Second tomorrow?”  James sighed.  “Sorry Momo, I’m not trying to be snippy, but… uh…”

”Shit’s fucked.”  Nate supplied, gulping down coffee.  “You wanna lend a hand?”  He asked.

”Sure, what with?”  Momo asked.  “I still can’t run, so don’t make me run.”  She added, tapping her hip.

Nate gave a rolling shrug.  “We’re short as hell on rogues.”

”Yeah why is that?”  James asked.  “I’ve been busy, but don’t think I didn’t notice that Ben said there wasn’t anyone available this morning.  I know where my paladins are, I know a lot of the statistics on our personnel use, but I don’t know why we’re low on rogues.”

The way Nate looked at James made him feel stupid, for some reason.  “Because we’ve got three guys trying to train thirty reckless idiots in a brand new type of espionage.”  He said unhappily.  “Because being a friend isn’t a replacement for knowing how to spot tells, or cover for slip ups.  Because we’re using people as field agents who should be doing their eight years shadowing real pros, and they’re already doing too good.  Because you find problems faster than you solve them.  Big fucking shock there.”  He mumbled the last words into his mug, before a frown twitched on his lips at the empty caffeine vessel.

”Sure, cool, but where are they?”

“You want a list?”  Nate asked, raising his eyebrows like he thought James was kidding.

”Yes.”  James sighed.  “Look, just… fucking get Ben to send it to me when… uh… when he gets back from where I may have sent him.”

Nate’s flat stare overwhelmed the classy look of his suit, the atmosphere at the table shifting as he considered strangling James and simplifying his life.  Momo looked between the two, biting down on her lips until she couldn’t keep quiet.  “Soooooo… I’m just gonna…”

”Come on.”  Nate said, standing up and grabbing his tie off the table, shoving it into a pocket like it had personally offended him.  Which wasn’t out of the question around the Lair.  “You can ‘help’ me kick Cam out of her vacation, and we’ll find you a job.”

Momo nodded, before slowly turning her head to James with an expression like she was regretting volunteering for this.  “Oh don’t look at me, I’ve still got more shit to do today.”  James told her, trying not to take too much pleasure in her error.

”Yeah, yeah.”  Momo struggled to roll over the edge of the basket of a chair she was in, slowly swaying to her feet and brushing off her tattered jeans.  “Hey, be careful though.  Got a bad feeling about today.”  She told him over her shoulder.

James frowned deeply, sitting by himself at the table.  There were dozens of people going about their day, eating and chatting and casually but recklessly exploring magic at the tables around him.  And it should have felt like it was comfortable.  Like this was something he’d helped build and shape, a place where humans weren’t alone anymore, and where everyone got to live their lives together in a community that supported them.  Like this was a home, and a citadel for the Order’s growing power to change the world.

It should have felt good.

It still didn’t.

”Wait.”  James spoke to himself, freezing up.  “Momo feels it?”  He shot to his feet.

Him being paranoid was normal.  Alanna thinking things were grim was kind of normal considering they’d gotten in a casual life or death fight together instead of having breakfast.  But Momo hadn’t been there.  Momo had been fucking around with her girlfriend and the worst thing she’d experienced today was a traffic jam.

”I need to talk to people.”  James muttered, before looking around the dining room and raising his voice to grab attention.  “Hey!  Excuse me everybody!”  He got some curious looks, and a few nervous ones from a couple ratroaches and crocamaws.  “Hi, sorry to interrupt.  Has anyone felt nervous today?  More than normal, Ravini!”  He tried to make his question at least a little bit a joke as the crocamaw instantly started raising her claw.

Because James did hope it was a joke.  He hoped he was wrong.  But as the cafeteria went silent except for the hissing of cooking food and clattering of metal tongs through the swinging doors to the kitchen, he realized that no one was laughing.

And Ravini kept her claw in the air.  And one by one, everyone else’s limbs joined hers.

”Well fuck!”  James said cheerfully.

_____

The Order had grown slightly, and even in just the small time since their last general forum, they had exceeded the capacity that the Lair’s briefing warehouse could hold.  Even spatially modified, there were still limits to how far voices would carry and how much noise you could expect a crowd to make.  Limits that got worse with modified spaces, half the time.

So when they moved up their next big public planning meeting by a couple days, due to the circumstances, they had to improvise a little.

It was a test of all the plans and structures the Order had been putting into place since James had first told them that they would one day have the power to not just rival governments, but be a government.  Before, it was easy.  Now, it was a hurdle to clear, even if it was a small one.

But they had been preparing.  And so it took very little time to convene an emergency session.  Select members of departments here to lend their expertise, elected representatives picked by the general population and those picked by species to be voices for their specific unique challenges, and, because it was super relevant here, people who were in the know about rogue and delver and paladin operations.

There was a tendency among the Order to make decisions based on a process that they called an ‘ad hocracy’.  Choices made by committee, where the committee was semi-randomly composed of volunteers on a roster of people with the relevant knowledge.  Both about how to do the thing, and about what the impact of the thing would be.  This system worked pretty well, because it took advantage of their heavy use of technology and their high-trust environment.

But for something like this, it wasn’t enough to make a quick choice about approving a Townton business proposal, or deciding if it was time to deprioritize a Research project.  This felt worse.  Bigger.  Like it didn’t have a group that was ‘best for the job’, but instead, needed everyone’s voice and everyone’s eyes on it.

Which was part of where their leaning on technology came in; a lot of people was kind of an issue, but the whole meeting could be streamed to everyone who wanted to participate.  And telling people it was going on was equally simple.  Plus, a small army of people who were essentially moderators were on hand to compile questions, comments, and ideas from the audience, and to pass that information up the chain so that nothing got missed.

The process had worked before, and while it took extra time, they had extra time.  They weren’t making a battlefield decision about a tactical maneuver, they were figuring out what the Order’s next broad target was.

The problem was… there wasn’t a clear target.

There was just a feeling that something had changed.  A feeling that too many people shared all at once for it to be a coincidence or something that could be brushed off.  Not by them.  And the feeling that the Order, and everyone in it, needed to be ready for that change.

Because like it or not, they were a part of the world.  And so if the world ended, some of them were going to want to say something about that.