The Daily Grind - Chapter 377 (Patreon)

Double chapter today.

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“They all laughed when I said I was developing an anti-comedy ray. But who's laughing now?”  -@northirish-

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Equipping one person to go explore a dangerous phenomenon was relatively simple.  Equipping a dozen people was slightly less so.  Especially with the Order’s growing list of things to give people.

Spire’s coterie assembled surprisingly fast, though James figured she had the benefit of having fewer people to wrangle.  His own band of misfits met him in the briefing warehouse where the helpers James had trailing after him set down the assembled collection of gear before vanishing into the mists of the Lair, and they ran through the process of making sure everything was there in the two minutes it took for Spire’s people to join them.

The usual mundane stuff, tools and weapons and armor.  A series of charged Climb wands for a half dozen spells, though they were the more expendable wands that didn’t have unique properties or modifiers.  Multiple thermoses of magic coffee for reflexes and whatever ‘wisdom’ was.  Neatly packed flasks of various potions, as well as the aerosol loader kits for the custom fitted masks they had for some of them.

A few people came through to shake hands as they waited, too.  Specifically, people with shadow magic, that had daily uses of spells they were willing to offload onto the team.  James had actually been slowly equipping his coterie with bits and pieces of Tylor and Jubilance’s spellbooks over the last week as the two were on a definitely mandatory mental health break and didn’t need to resist bullets, and with himself deploying it was his turn to suck up most of their daily casts of a bunch of things too.

Four uses of Flame Protection, ten of Projectile Deflection, two of Move Through Glass for everyone, and a whole six casts of Bounce, which James had become aware was a hilariously effective spell.  Tylor offered to tag along, but James glared him back into therapy, as a few other people who had the sharable kind of magic came through to offer single shot spells that solved a variety of small problems to the people with James.  He refrained himself, for now. He’d have time later for the utility stuff; his job as a paladin on a mission like this was to be unkillable and use that to make everyone else unkillable too.  Though he was a little jealous that Zhu picked up a bunch of cantrips that were probably only good for jokes.

One person even came by that James hadn’t expected at all, but probably should have.  Lincon was looking a lot healthier than when they’d dragged him out of Utah, no longer flinching at eye contact and having been getting real food on a regular basis.  He was one of those people that James had to keep reminding himself was an adult now, technically.  Capable of making his own choices, according to the state.  And the fact that, unlike his friends and a lot of other people in his situation, Lincon didn’t want to give up being a delver, was actually hugely impressive and also a little scary.

Fortunately, he wasn’t here to ask to go along into a potentially terrible situation.  Instead, he was here to cast a spell that he’d been working on for what must have been a long time.  Summoning a longsword out of nothing that, for just a moment when it came into existence, dripped with a grey light, before solidifying into a perfectly normal if incredibly sharp and durable weapon.

Lincon passed it off to Arrush, who took it with a little uncertainty, before replacing the identical sword he had in a sheath at his side.  The old one was probably still good for a little bit, but it had been put through a lot, and the pitting in the metal couldn’t be good for it.  Lincon took the old one, saying something about converting it, and hurried off, leaving Arrush looking even more confused about what had just happened.

Spire-Cast-Behind was the last person to join the group, with her coterie getting there first and her threat that she was going to take a bath before leaving apparently being entirely honest.  Tyrone was someone James knew from work, back when he’d had a job, and he vaguely remembered Riho from a delve or two, but he’d never met Karl.  The younger human was one of those teenagers that was the size of a large human, but still clearly not into his mid twenties yet; he also looked like he was nervous as hell about this particular outing.

In James’ team, Alanna, Arrush, and TQ were already discussing something unrelated and probably insane at the desk they were sitting around.  They’d figured out yesterday what Arrush’s domain was - ice - but still had no idea what Alanna or TQ had gotten, only that it was something.  The explanation of the crisis situation was done already, Spire was on the way and presumably dry enough to go out into a North Dakota winter, the only thing James would have wanted would have been more time to devote to the domain dungeon, and maybe also stockpiling various demiplane tools to put into Order rotation, but he was pretty confident with what they had.  Things were moving forward efficiently and smoothly.

Zhu, however, wanted things to move slightly less smoothly.

”I’m just saying.”  The navigator told James as his human tried to not scratch the skin off his hands in anxiety over the operation.  “We could fly there, and then arrive packed with Velocity, and also I’d like to fly somewhere.  There’s been a hole there for, what, a week?  Two?  It won’t get worse if we get to taste an airport!”

“Hurk.”  James had been about to reply but that last bit caught him off guard.  “Oh god.  Oh no, please never make me think about licking an airport again.”

”No promises.”

He allowed a small smile.  “Well, whatever, we can’t anyway.  Air traffic is mostly shut down in the US right now, remember?”

”Still?”  Zhu protested.  “Did we ever get a reason for that?  Is it dragons?”

James shook his head.  “I’ve been trying to keep up on political news, because of the UK thing, but there’s almost no mention of the grounding anywhere.  Karen says she’s trying to contact some people that the Order has good relations with to get answers, but as far as we know, the president just declared an emergency and stopped about 90% of all planes and I have no idea why.  I assume something horrible.”

”President could be a supervillain.”  Zhu suggested.

”At this point I’d find that almost reassuring.  At least there’d be presentation.”  James muttered in reply.  Nearby, Alanna and Arrush’s sudden shared laugh at something TQ had said lightened James’ spirits a little, but as they went back to their chat, he couldn’t stop feeling the same grim anxiety he had for the last few days.

It was getting bad.  Dungeon delving, helping Recovery with their new people, magic testing, even time with his lovers, all the things he lived for tasted like ash as he couldn’t get rid of the sensation of dread.

So it was no wonder Zhu had been hanging out with other people.  Being in James’ head must have sucked lately.

”It’ll be okay.”  He heard the navigator say.

”What?”  James asked, refocusing on the present and the air of the briefing space that was fighting off arctic conditions.

Zhu firmly grabbed the back of James’ hand with his talons.  “It will be okay.”  He said with equally firm insistence.  “We’ve got this.”

”I know we’ve got this.”  James said, though even that felt a little too cocky right now.  “It’s everything else I’m worried about.”

Zhu’s grip wove into James’ fingers.  “Look, I’m bad at doing the thing you do.”  He said, and James had no idea what that meant, but the navigator continued unabated.  “Absolute worse case scenario, the planet gets fucked and we move everyone we know into a dungeon, okay?  I’m thinking the Garden, and you all have to be nice to me for giving up the Horizon.”  He said it with a casual ease.  “But we’re not going to all roll over and die, got it?”

There was a long moment where James felt like the casual banter as Alanna chatted with Tyrone about old delves and TQ baffled Karl was a million miles away and underwater, the world fading out of focus again.  His voice was thin as he replied.  But he did reply.  ”…we could probably set up a logisticor network through different dungeons, using navigators as beacons.”  He said.  “Office might be hardest.  But anywhere with big terrain… eh.”

”See, that’s the shit I’m talking about!”  Zhu’s eyes widened as his voice took on a gleeful energy.  “It doesn’t matter if things get bad.  You’re not going to stop, and neither am I.  Got it?”

”Got it.”  James exhaled.  “Sorry, I’ve been kinda… not doing great lately.”

The navigator’s feathers licked at James’ neck.  “You’re not skipping your meds, right?”

”Hell no.  That would suck so much worse.”  James puffed up his cheeks at the thought.  It was bad enough the Order’s first paladin was spacing out panicking about a nebulous future problem, it would be so much worse if he was doing it while dissociating during a depressive episode.  “You ready for this?”  He asked Zhu after a pause, trying to give Alanna a reassuring smile as she and Arrush strapped on what seemed like a dozen shield bracers each, along with every other duplicated and easily worn leveler item.

It didn’t look like Alanna really got reassured, and Zhu kinda picked up on that, watching along a similar line of sight.  “I’m ready, I’m ready.”  The orange flourish of feathers and eyes said seriously.  “I wish we had more time to go back to Vex’s dungeon though!  Did I tell you what my domain is?”  He didn’t wait for James to reply. “Oil.  That feels like a microaggression somehow.”

”I never should have taught you that word.”  James muttered, trying not to chuckle.  “Also Vex has that same one, talk to her about it.  Bet she has tips.” She had tips for him, and his domain was totally different.

”Vex is weird.”  Zhu said bluntly.  “A lot of our new people are weird.  But Vex is weird because she should be our kind of weird, and she feels… off.  Like she’s just acting.  I dunno, am I being a dick?  I feel like I’m being a dick.”

”Well she was a noncombatant.”  James reminded Zhu.  “Remember the dungeon?  Nothing hostile.  I talked to her about it the other day, they didn’t really do much before the Underburbs that was risky like how we do risky.”  He shrugged, elevating Zhu’s eye up to his level for a second.  “I think their whole group is faking being tough because they think we care more than we do, but they’ll learn.”

Zhu narrowed his eyes at James.  ”In what direction?”  He asked.

”I dunno, probably the less healthy one.”  James sighed as everyone, including Spire who had shown up while he was having his quiet conversation, finished getting equipped.  “Let’s do this.”  He said, stepping forward and raising a hand over his head to grab everyone’s attention, Zhu’s glowing orange feathers flickering with a brighter light for a moment as the navigator drew the eye in.  “Okay, everyone listen up!”  He called.

”God it’s hot when you take charge of things.”  Alanna said, just loudly enough for everyone around them to hear.  Arrush standing next to her and giving a brilliant grin while nodding eagerly didn’t help James’ assessment of his partners as complete goobers.

He turned just enough so that he wasn’t looking at them, instead focusing on where Tyrone was helping Riho with a loose armor strap, both of them paying attention.  “You already know what we’re here for, but I’m gonna do this anyway!”  James said.  “We’re deploying to the southeastern part of North Dakota, and we’re looking for a hole in reality!  Not a dungeon, just a big space that should be there, but isn’t.  Local temperatures are currently negative three degrees, so make sure you’re… local temperatures are currently… I dunno, fucking thirty?  Karl you’re gonna have to learn metric at some point, put your hand down.  Anyway.  We’ll take two telepads and assume a staggered formation after we verify there’s no immediate threat.  Shouldn’t be too much snow around, and we’re also deploying to the middle of the wilderness, so get ready for patches of trees and some cool local mountains.  Any questions?”

No one said anything, though Alanna did make a point of tightening the tie on the heavy cloak TQ was wearing.  Tyrone zipped up his own winter coat with a dramatic flourish before adding a hat styled like a penguin to his head, while next to him, Karl and Riho rolled their eyes wearing a hoodie and a t-shirt respectively.   James assumed that Riho was modified with a few temperature resistance purples or something, but he knew for a fact that Karl was just doing the thing that people from Montana did, where they pretended that they were immune to the cold.

”Great.”  James said with a determined nod of his head.  “Network skulljack braids, link up for teleporting, let’s make this one fast, because nothing else is gonna wait for us.” James commanded.

He tried, he really did, but he still caught sight of Alanna wiggling her eyebrows at him suggestively just before the collective team slung their packs on, double checked everything, and vanished from the Lair.

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North Dakota’s wilderness was more open than a lot of places.

Though the cold was bitter, and snow piled up on the ground in clumps and thin blankets, the rest of the scenery was pretty pleasant.  They’d teleported in at the midpoint of a slope that was covered in grass and fallen branches, and down farther where the land leveled out there were patches of a different kind of green.  Trees, looking like their own clumps to match the snow from this distance.  A long way away from what James thought of as a forest, but maybe that was just what the local wilderness was like.

The slope gained definition as it spread out into a flat basin, with two larger hills on either side.  Tiered like cakes, specked with white leftover snow, their red and dark brown rock almost glowed in the afternoon sunlight that beamed through the clear sky.  The whole place had a smell to it, of living green and dead plants decomposing and probably something like a billion bugs waiting for things to warm up so they could get back to work.

And also something else.

James sniffed the air at the same time that Arrush did, both of them drawing looks from the others.  “You two look like mice.”  Alanna told them.

”I am a mouse.”  Arrush pointed out helpfully.  “Technically.”  He loved that word so much.  He was never going to stop using it.

Before James could say anything, Spire cut in, having caught the same whiff on the wind that they had.  “Fuel.”  She said as James started tossing drones into the open air, and one of her own coterie set a pair of dungeontech glasses on his nose.  “Some form of smoke or fume.  Vehicles?  What would be out here?”

”Logging trucks maybe.”  Alanna said, sweeping her own gaze across the beautiful green and blue panorama.  “Or an oil field?”

”Less of that these days.”  Tyrone said, looking back up the slope behind them, trying to see if there was a highway up there.  “Big ol’ mess of things, and one of the big companies here stopped drilling.  Fewer dudes in trucks.”

Spire-Cast-Behind hissed as she glanced back at her knight, almost feeling like she should ask how he knew that.  “We would see trucks regardless.”

”Yeah.”  James muttered in agreement as he started checking through the quartet of drone cameras he had overhead.  From an elevated angle, the view was just as nice; the land around here was varied, no endless plains or depthless forests, but instead chunks of things.  A few hundred feet of hillside that turned into a half mile of forest that abutted a thin flowing river that wound its way through similarly small patches of grass and brush.

Even the highway up on the hill behind them seemed small and like just a part of the mix of biomes they were walking through.  No oil field though, the others were right.

”What about the train?”  TQ asked.

James blinked as he shoved the drone view away, looking down at the camraconda in tandem with Zhu, before following where TQ was looking and seeing the bridge.

Where the slope they were on ran between the two hills ahead, a couple miles of hiking away, they had completely missed the weathered wood and metal struts of the railway bridge that stretched across the gap.  Supports plunging down to cleared parts of the forest, with one sunk into a little lake, the rail line ran maybe sixty or seventy feet off the ground, connecting one big North Dakota plateau to another.  “Well shit!”  Alanna said.

”Ain’t anything messing with our heads here.”  Riho said cautiously, her voice steady as she looked to Spire for a cue.  A small fan of orange feathers just behind her ear signaling the presence of her own young navigator, helping out.

”Nothing we can see anyway!”  Zhu added unhelpfully.  “We just all failed to look at the train bridge!”

Arrush raised a paw.  “I saw the bridge.”  He said, eliciting a hissing laugh from TQ as the camraconda raised one his own mechanical limbs up to apply a soft high five to the ratroach, who stared at his hand with a blank look before turning that expression on the camraconda.  Which did nothing, TQ was already slithering after James.

And James was walking.  Not a long way, just a few steps away, feeling the ground under his boots, the crunch of old vegetation and soft dirt.  The footing here was iffy, he’d rather be a camraconda for any hiking they had to do on this slope, but he’d manage with legs.  He and Zhu visually traced the line of the train bridge as they looked for a different angle, trying to see over the edges of the hillsides.  On the left, it would be running back parallel to the highway, at least for a little bit.  So that almost made sense.  And James could confirm that with his drones overhead.

But on the right side, the track met the hill on one of those flattened tiers, curved around the rest of the hillside in the center, and continued until it just… stopped.

James blinked, realized he wasn’t blinking and was subconsciously shifting drone lens focus, stopped doing that, opened his human eyes, and blinked.  “Well that’s weird.”  He said.  “Who’s up for some climbing?”

”If I say yes are you going to count this as a continuation of our date?”  TQ asked.

”Nope!”  James said with enforced cheer.  “Also I’m really sorry we got cut off.  Again.”

TQ hissed in amusement.  “Then I will count it.  I have become increasingly good at that.”

”…counting?”  James asked.

”Correct.  It is like math, only worse.”  TQ said.

Zhu prodded at the camraconda with a long orange talon.  “You know this is supposed to be a crisis?  Right?”

”A crisis is no excuse to stop learning.”  TQ said happily, waiting for the others to catch up.

James rolled his eyes and addressed the group.  “Okay, the tracks up there end abruptly a couple miles up.  So we’re not perfectly on target, but we’re probably near whatever happened, or is happening.  I figure we loop back around to the highway, cross the bridge on foot, and see what’s up.  Sound good?”

Tyrone shook his head, pulling the glasses he was wearing off and holding them out at arm’s length.  “We’ve got a weird patch around the rocks down there where it takes of our time.  Do we wanna split up?  A couple dudes could check that out real quick.”

”Don’t split up.”  James and Spire-Cast-Behind said at the same time.  The camraconda continued.  “Do the glasses tell you how much time we spend going the other way?”

”Nah, they work on a grid or something.”  Tyrone said, getting a knowingly annoyed nod from Alanna.  “There’s just a patch down there that’s different from trying to climb the hill straight up.”

James snapped his fingers suddenly.  “Oh!”  He said, feeling a pulse of mirrored understanding from Zhu as the navigator caught onto the thought about negotiating the terrain.  “It’s a maintenance staircase for the bridge!  That’ll be faster, yeah.  I’ll check it really quick and we can get going.”  He flung one of his drones in the direction, deeply satisfied with his progress in seeing through different angles and controlling the little fliers.  It took minute to get the right angle, but he nodded eventually as he spotted the places that a metal lattice of stairs and scaffold had been bolted to the hillside, leading up to where the train tracks met the flat terrain.  “We’re good.  Okay, everyone in formation, easy pace on the way down.”

They formed up, James and Spire going first with about ten feet between them as their coteries got into two groups behind them, keeping their group staggered just in case something happened or a trap sprung.

The frozen ground got a little easier to deal with as they hit the bottom of the slope, the bridge overhead getting slowly closer as they ate up distance with a steady stride.  The wildlife around, some birds and a host of small critters braving the cold to poke their heads out through the ground cover, was a constant reminder to James that this wasn’t a dungeon.  They didn’t need to worry about noise or ambush or traps nearly as much.  Instead, they just kept going, slipping through a thin patch of trees, the collective team emerging from the other side of the small bit of woodland to find themselves underneath the human construction.

The railway bridge was old enough to feel like it was from another era, but it still stood here proud and strong, the legs holding it up clearly having been redone at least once over the years.  There was a little graffiti on one of the big concrete pylons at the base, which James found kind of weird; black spray paint drawing out a lewd invitation in an almost unreadable font.  But aside from that, it felt like it was something that was almost just a part of the environment.

That it provided a little bit of cover from the light wind was also appreciated.  Cold resistance was one thing, but it didn’t make the experience of being blasted by sub-freezing wind pleasant.

When they got to the stairs, Spire and TQ made exactly the same noise at the same time; a derisive thick hiss as they stared at the ‘safety’ feature the staircase had in the form of a bunch of rough metal holes punched through every step.  “Humans are incredibly inconsiderate of things they had no reasonable way to predict.”  TQ said out loud.

”I… am not going to argue with that.”  James said.  “Want us to carry you guys?”

”I weigh two hundred and twenty five pounds before the armor.”  Spire replied.  “But also I am wearing a plate.  I suppose I was wrong to believe it would survive this without being scraped into needing a replacement.”

Alanna perked up.  “I could carry that much.”  She offered eagerly.

”I will survive.”  Spire said as she began navigating the metal stairs, the armor she was wearing on her underbelly rasping against the freezing steel.  James followed his boots making the same sound in a different pattern as he made sure to not slip on any of the patches of frost.

There was a mild close call on the way up when Karl almost did slide off the edge, halfway to the top.  But one perk of having multiple camracondas around who both had boosted reflexes was that a person probably just wouldn’t have the chance to fall to their death before they were stopped and retrieved.  Aside from that, it was definitely a faster route up, though the instant they stepped out of the shadow of the hillside and onto solid ground, the lack of shielding from the low wind made it feel like a punishment somehow.

Following alongside the train tracks for another few miles was a weird experience.  The view out over the little river below was phenomenal, with the glistening winter sun in the sky lighting everything up, right up until they were about two minutes of walking in and the rocks of the hill were blocking that line of sight.  With the ground mostly level around them, there really wasn’t much to do except follow the rails and have small conversations.

James didn’t even really do that.  He was focused on their drone cover, and while he wasn’t blind to what was going on, he didn’t have a lot of brainpower to contribute to any chatting.  It got to the point that Zhu had bounced off him to Arrush, opting to join the conversation between her and Riho about the other girl trying to get her pilot’s license.

There was something pleasant, though, in having a quiet walk with friends around him.  James didn’t actually get out into nature that often.  Oklahoma didn’t count; it was mostly farmland, and he’d run into too many loud assholes there among the local population to feel like he could be at ease.  But so far, in this state, he’d run into nobody except the people with him that were checking out the scenery with different dungeontech eyewear, or photographing the landscape and the birds that were brave enough to land right next to them sometimes, or just talking like old friends.  And the air was cold and there wasn’t a place to get pizza within thirty miles and his feet were going to hurt by the end of this.  But also, he felt like he was in a place that was truly alive in a vibrant, natural way - train tracks notwithstanding - and that there was just something resonant in experiencing this kind of distance from human civilization for a bit.

And for just a moment, he let himself live in the now.  Walking along and watching their path, letting go of his panic about Alex and Simon taking the other crisis, setting aside his dread about the Underburbs showing up again, trusting the other people in the Order to do their jobs and come up with a plan for the different big picture problems that he could handle later.

Later was for problems.  Now was for a nice hike.

Though there was a mild distraction from the sense of nature-induced zen that James was experiencing.  He gave a small chuckle that got Spire’s attention as they slipped around a big rock on the side of the tracks.  Responding to her questioning look, James smiled wryly.  “The timer I have in my skulljack just ticked over.  One of my demiplane slips just activated.”

”Excellent.  That will be useful if needed.”  Spire said.  “My own have weeks remaining.”

”Yeah, don’t get your hopes up for using mine as a fallback.”  James shook his head.  “It’s the one that pops up in social hubs.  I don’t even know if it’ll work out here, might have just wasted it.  But hey, at least it’s only nine days.”  He snorted.  “I’ll assume we’ll be alive then.”

”Good.  I have no intention of perishing.”  Spire made a little chime in her throat.  “I have too many… what is that?”

James had narrowed his eyes and stopped next to her, seeing the same thing as the other paladin.  “That’s a road.”  He said, double checking through his drones.  “Okay, yeah, this isn’t antimemetic or anything, I just didn’t see it properly because of the snow.  But what the fuck?  Why is there a road here?”

”Where does it lead?”  Spire asked, looking back at the others and motioning them up.

”Nowhere.  If I’m seeing this right, it’s almost parallel to the tracks, just a few hundred feet of dirt between them.”  James said as he examined the area.  “This is where the phenomena was supposed to be, but there’s nothing.  It just looks like the road and train tracks… end?”  He looked back at Riho and her nascent navigator, as well as where Zhu was riding his boyfriend.  “Either of you have any thoughts?”

Riho closed her eyes and focused, while Zhu just gave shrug of rustling feathers.  “Nothing’s stopping us!”  Zhu said as if that were an answer.

”Nothing’s stopping you.”  Riho said.  “Gotta little bit of a speed bump for us.  Maybe this lil guy’s too new.”

”Hm.”  James looked back in the direction they were traveling.  They were almost around the hill’s center completely, the time having eaten up the miles, but there wasn’t anything here.  Oh, there were more hills in the distance, the elevation climbing even higher.  There were what looked like a few patches of trees too, also a long way off.  But here?  There was another mile of tracks, and apparently some road too, and then… nothing.  Flat dirt.  “If I didn’t know it wasn’t…” he muttered.

Alanna’s whole body tensed up as she had the same thought.  “Underburbs attack.”  She said, the grip she had on her rifle tightening.  Everyone in the group shifted, except Karl, who hadn’t been there.  Weapons were loosened from their sheaths, combat spells were pulled to mind and reviewed for use, and every sense was set on edge.  “This looks like Missouri did, after.”  Alanna explained to the new kid.  “Just fuckin’ dirt.”

”My dudes, I love you guys, but it already killed me once, so maybe…” Tyrone took a tentative step back.

”But it can’t be the Underburbs.”  James said with a frown.  “We know where it is right now, there was no time in the middle, and this is new.  This is something else.”  He scratched at his cheek, as he tried to force himself to not experience a fear response, especially because Alanna was here and he knew that was getting to be more of a problem for her.  “But it does look like there’s space missing.”

Spire-Cast-Behind was, as a paladin, a lot of things.  But one thing she actually enjoyed being was direct.  “Let us go touch it.”  She declared.

TQ gave a looping nod.  “I agree!”  Her fellow camraconda said.  “It did not leave a crater,” he continued, “and so it was not an annihilation.  There may be clues.  We could solve a mystery!”

”Maybe I’ll finally figure out what’s going on in your head.”  James said with a distracted smile.

TQ hissed out a stuttering chuckle as he spoke.  ”Unlikely.  I am a much more powerful mystery.”

James sighed as he looked back at the flat expanse ahead of them.  “Okay.  I’m not gonna make this an order, but I’m with Spire.  If anyone wants to turn back, you should telepad out now.”  He said, and waited for that to happen.  It was, perhaps, a little sappy of him, but he felt a strange sense of joy that none of them even seemed to think about it.  Even Tyrone.  Though he probably would have if there wasn’t good evidence that this wasn’t the ‘Burbs, and James wouldn’t have blamed him.  “Alright, onward.  Zhu, get back over here.”  He held out a hand and got Arrush’s warm paw tapped against his glove to let the navigator flow back onto his body.  “Let’s check this out.”

The conversation stopped for the last mile of their walk.  They actually tried to use the roadway, but found it easier to make progress in the mostly flat dirt and grass.  The road was icy, slippery and treacherous in a way that definitely meant there hadn’t been anyone driving on it for a while.  The sheet of white dust that drifted back and forth on it in the low wind showed just how much snow hadn’t melted, too.

And then they were at the end.  And it was just some sparse grass, a few thin trees, and a bunch of big rocks ahead of them until the natural world seemed to stop holding its breath on the other side of the expanse.  “This really doesn’t look the same, now.”  James said, though he didn’t relax.  “Look, plant life is one thing, but that’s a boulder.  That’s ten tons of rock.”  He pointed at the curved outcrop, like a finger extending from the dirt.  “That’d just be gone and flat if the Underburbs had been here.”

”And yet I still do not wish to take the first crossing.”  Spire said curiously, looking down at the neat line where the road just… stopped.

”I could…” Arrush began to volunteer, when James just started walking forward.  “Wait!”  The ratroach gasped out.

But nothing happened.  James was just standing on some grass, looking around with his hands on his hips.  “I expected more.”  He said, almost disappointed.  “I’m gonna have to correct that text I sent Anesh.”

”Dumbass!”  Alanna yelled after him, following over the edge where the old buildup of moss and dead vegetation stopped and was replaced by dirt that had mostly only built up a layer of frost.  “God you’re insufferable when you’re right about things.”  She grumbled.

”Dungeon instincts!”  James said happily.  “Let’s see if we can cross this expanse.  Anyone need a break?”  No one did, so they just kept going.  More hiking, more distance slowly covered.  But not too much, before something happened.

It occurred very suddenly, about a thousand feet past what they’d thought was the line.  James felt it first, but Alanna caught his eye with a grim scowl, and moved to step into position next to the kid that was in their group.  “We’re being aimed at.”  Riho said with sudden realization, the copied necktie that half of them had wrapped on their wrists alerting her.  “Where?”

”Don’t look around.”  James said calmly.  “Tighten formation, shield bracer phalanx.”  They all had designated ammo types to block for, and could cover each other.  “Keep walking, be ready.”

They slowed, but the sensation didn’t stop as they continued heading through the mild wasteland.  James was just about to say something else when suddenly, there was a shriek from Riho’s navigator, and Zhu made a much more coherent noise of panic to go with it.  His talon grabbed onto James’ arm, the orange glow flaring with his feathers.  “We’re in a slide!”  He yelled.  “This is a one way-!”

And then, very suddenly, the trap snapped shut.  The band of ground they were in, maybe a few hundred feet wide, was exactly the same, they hadn’t moved.  But behind them, where the had been train tracks and a patch of scenic North Dakota winter wilderness, there was instead just a glassy grey wall.  And ahead of them, after a little more of their dirt and regrowing grass, that road kept going for another kilometer before it began to weave between two story buildings and down into a main street of what looked like a small town.

A town that had people in it.  Though even from here, James could tell that something was wrong.

And not just because, the moment they had been catapulted into this bubble in reality, they were faced with a dozen men in camo hunting vests pointing rifles at their faces.

Though that certainly didn’t help the welcome.

_____

Walking into a trap, love you!

Anesh stared at his phone screen.  Unlike his masterfully infuriating boyfriend, he’d learned that he kind of preferred manual control over using a skulljack.  The skulljacks had a sort of special place in his collective life, too, and it always felt strange to use them… frivolously.

Because Anesh was the special case in the Order.  The first orange orb he’d absorbed - the first one anyone had, too - had given him the power to clone himself.  A power that he really felt should have gone to James, who would have had a much easier time with it, on a philosophical level.

Also James would probably have had more fun with it.

Not that Anesh didn’t enjoy being four people sometimes.  But he was four people, not a single person constantly networked in different bodies like Marlea was.  The skulljack was a way for him to keep himself updated and on the same page, it was a tool that was critical to his personal niche way of life.  And so when he saw other people in the Order, his boyfriend included, using the things for calls or the chat server, for drone piloting or casual breaches of digital security, that all felt… weird to him.  Like seeing a person use a bed as a desk.  Technically there was no rule against it.  But also Anesh wasn’t going to.

None of these thoughts changed the message he’d gotten, though.

”James…” Anesh said slowly through gritted teeth.  “You impossible bellend.”

Keeka peeked over the kitchen counter where one of Anesh’s other iterations was teaching him how to make his mum’s curry recipe.  “James?”  He asked with bright eyes, his short form barely giving him the height to spy Anesh sitting on the living room couch he and Arrush had in their apartment.  “Are they okay?”

Anesh sighed.  “He says they’re walking into a trap.”  He relayed.  “Did Arrush text anyone?”  He was met with negative motions from Keeka and also himself.  “Well, if it’s really bad, I assume Alanna will tell us.  Or we’ll hear about the explosion on the news.”

He tried not to think about the fact that, given what the Order was learning about how a lot of memeplexes worked, the odds of anything important being on the news was becoming a lower and lower chance by the day.

The big problem, as far as the Research group he was working with understood it, was that it was actually very simple to modify a purple totem to only affect a specific and narrow target.  Aiming at that target was very challenging, and relied a lot on the ‘language’ that Momo had already been developing for her red totem research through trial and error, but it was… possible.  Technically.

Doing so also worked a little bit like pressing a thumb over a faucet.  The memeplex became more forceful, longer ranged, but also, more haphazard.  Certainly more noticeable to anyone outside its range.  And yet, there was one thing in that discovery that had started to get everyone thinking.  Thinking, and testing.

It had taken less than a week to confirm it.  While James was busy trying to turn himself into a superhero, and a third of the Order -Anesh included - was having anxiety attacks about family living in the UK, the Research team Anesh was on had deduced something a little horrifying.  Memeplexes, at least from the Office, were very dumb.

If you told one, for example, to only target preschool teachers, then it would do that perfectly well.  And if you then hired a Researcher in the radius to be a preschool teacher, and filled out at least one piece of paperwork, then it didn’t matter if the job didn’t even exist; they were suddenly under the blanket of the effect.

The Anesh that were currently on Keeka’s couch, sitting mirrored from each other and sometimes making identical motions as they adjusted their position, were in the process of flipping through the pages detailing different memeplexes that had been discovered across their part of the country.  Just their local part of it.  Scout teams that had come back already from finding horrible new problems or existentially dreadful revelations had been helping out, poking and prodding at the fabric of thought in the Pacific Northwest, and had started to find that there were a lot of memeplexes.

Anesh had almost called it ‘a concerning number’ in his head, but frankly, a concerning number of memeplexes was ‘more than zero’.  So it got there by default.  The good news was, most of them didn’t seem to be affecting the Order at all.  Either because they were the wrong target, or because they were protected by assignment-level defenses.  The bad news was they were all there, waiting.  Lurking.  A few had been purple totems that the scout teams had located and disabled, hidden in basements and utility closets and in one case buried in the woods.  But others had no discoverable source.  Better hidden totems?  Or other dungeons doing their own thing?  Anesh didn’t know.

What he did know was that there was a theory going around.  The leading theory, really.  That all these memeplexes, tuned to specific things, going unseen for so long, all of them had in some way latched onto the largest collective agency in town that just so happened to fall under a whole swath of umbrellas at once.  The government.

By virtue of being the largest target for memetic warfare, they were the ones getting hit most frequently.  Which had led, as far as the Order could tell, to the complete breakdown of the police to even understand that Response existed.  The erosion of the ability of hundreds or maybe thousand of people to see, report on, or respond to dungeon activity, among other activity, had left the civic structure of the area with more holes than Swiss cheese.

”And of course, James has decided that strolling into peril is more important than helping.”  Anesh grumbled.  But he wasn’t really upset at James, and he knew it.  Every one of his selves was just on edge, and trying to keep busy to distract from it.  Whether it was reports or recipes, there had to be something to do to pull his mind away from… what was happening.

His home was fucked.  Well, no.  This was his home.  He fully believed that James was prepared to start killing anyone who came to take him away, but he didn’t want that.  He wanted to not worry about what was happening to his parents while the Recovery and Rogue divisions planned out rescue operations or even just investigated what was going on.  He wanted to not think about having to hide his accent if he wanted to go outside.  He wanted to feel like he could go outside without being afraid.

So far, there was nothing bad happening.  But this country’s new leadership had announced that they’d be ‘supporting their international ally’ in the repatriation of anyone from England that was currently living or working in the States.  What that meant could mean anything, though frankly, Anesh had no doubt that it was going to mean something cruel and evil and that there was no way this was going to end well.

Even studying the memeplex effect, trying to wrap his head around the overlap of all the tiny effects they’d been finding, made him think about what had happened in London again.  Because the US government appeared aware that a change had occurred in the people who held power, but seemed utterly oblivious to the televised magical ritual that had forced obedience from an entire population.  ‘The king passes away’ was the headline, not ‘monarch murdered on national telly’, which was sort of hard to process, even if he knew why.

And now one of his boyfriends was texting him about walking into a trap.  Why James had thought sending this was a smart idea was beyond any iteration of Anesh, but it was certainly a James thing to do.  And after a long stretch of pondering it, Anesh realized it actually was a good distraction.  So was taking the time to text back.

Let me know when it doesn’t work.  He sent, being obtuse about what, exactly, wouldn’t be working.  Though he did hope it was the trap and not whatever passed for James ‘plan’.

The Anesh in the kitchen with Keeka was having an easier time by far than his selves on the couch.  Though as the apartment filled with the smell of home, it became paradoxically easier and easier to let himself relax.  “Now.”  That him told his chitinous and far less reckless boyfriend.  “Normally this is where we’d start adding a little more heat.  But…” He let the word hang with a smile.

Keeka’s affronted look validated his caution.  “More?!”  The lithe little ratroach demanded.  “We’ll be dead before they get to the trap!”

”I don’t think that’s really how spice levels work.”  Anesh laughed, the warmth of the basement apartment mixing with the joy of watching Keeka’s expression.  He wasn’t forgetting anything.  But he was thinking that one day, he’d like to get his mum to make her curry for Keeka in person.  Not just to test the black furred ratroach’s survival instincts, but also because, unlike James and Alanna, he kind of still loved his parents.  He’d been planning to read them in on his new weird life for a while now, but it had always been put off until…

Until it might be too late.

“It could be.”  Keeka said, breaking Anesh from his worries again as he leaned his angular face over the pot and sniffed.  “Maybe I’m secretly a crocamaw today.”

”I do feel bad that my favorite family food is a chemical weapon to them.”  Anesh admitted, giving a soft oof as Keeka stepped back into him, the ratroach’s lower arms making small pops as he twisted their joints and curled them around Anesh in a reverse hug.  Anesh really wasn’t as physical as James and Alanna were, but these days, every little bit of physical contact from his partners made him feel like he was being offered water in a desert, so he didn’t complain.  “I hear rumors that Deb has ‘a plan’.  Which is only a little less concerning than anything James texts me.”

Keeka chittered a laugh as he twined his tails around Anesh’s ankles.  “You could change yourself to be less spicy.”  He considered.  “Spice… resistant?   That!  Then you could make food that would only a little bit kill someone!”

”That’s…” Anesh tipped his head back.  His partners, and half the Order too it seemed, often had an assumption that transhumanism was the default for people.  He didn’t hate the purple orbs or anything, but changing his body around for fun or utility wasn’t something Anesh ever really considered too hard.  It wasn’t for him.  Or at least, it wasn’t his go to.  But in this case, Keeka’s suggestion was just too pure hearted to ignore.  “That idea could go somewhere.”  He admitted.  “Though if I ever do get to take you to see my parents, we’ll both have a problem.”

The small tremble from Keeka told Anesh a lot about the flavor of anxiety his boyfriend was feeling.  “Maybe.”  He said, stirring the curry on the stove with one of the arms he wasn’t using.

”We never have to, you know.”  Anesh told him.  “Might be a bad idea, anyway, what with…” he trailed off, meeting the eyes of his doubles on the couch.  “Well, at least if they end up here, we’ll be able to overwhelm them with the weird.”  One of him suggested.

Keeka laughed at that, but also let go of Anesh and spun on his paws to face all of them.  “It’s important to you!”  He said.  “I can do it.  And it seems special?  No one else has parents.”

”Well that’s just not true.  A lot of the chanters are parents.  Vex has her gramps.  There’s the thing James has going on with Morgan, but I believe him when he says that doesn’t count.  Oh, the fosterlings of course.  And…” Anesh frowned, both of his reading bodies meeting each other’s eyes and tossing their notes onto the cluttered coffee table that was already once again piled with loose clothing, headphones, a few books, and a few more empty cans.  “Now that’s an unhealthy realization.”  He admitted.  “Does no one here have a… oh!  Liz!  Karen and Liz, there, I thought of a healthy example.”

“And everyone else?”  Keeka inquired with a glowing grin.

”Doomed.”  Anesh said with a mock tragic shake of his heads.  “We’ll have to do something nice for them to make it up.”

Keeka’s smile turned less joking and more empathic.  “I like that.”  He said quietly, before rallying some of his silly energy.  “Oh!  Do we eat now?”  He asked.

”Just about.”  Anesh said with a happy sigh as he leaned over and smelled the familiar old dish.  “And then we have the whole evening free.”  After he cleaned off that coffee table, he promised himself silently.

”We should do something fun!”  Keeka said, pulling a stack of bowls out of a cupboard and setting them on the counter.  The one downside to having so many bodies that could think and act in self-amplifying ways was that they all needed food.  The perk to it was that they all got to eat, and so Anesh had a lot more collective memories of good meals than he might have otherwise.

Having been dating Keeka for a little while now, Anesh had become attuned to the different tones the ratroach used when he said the word ‘fun’.  It helped that he was pretty sure Keeka and Arrush had both picked up a lot of their speech patterns from James; it certainly made it easy to tell when Keeka was being suggestive at least.  This time, though, it seemed like the little guy was just restless.  And Anesh couldn’t really blame him, either.  Slowly going mad from stress and worry about the people you cared about was no way to live.

”At least one of me is going across to the parallel basement to work on Heard orb imbuement, and another for getting a storm orb to work with a leveler, if you want to-“

”No!”  Keeka’s clicking laugh bounced through the apartment as he lunged for the Anesh on the couch, a tangle of limbs eventually resolving into him covering that iteration’s mouth.  “Actual fun!  Spreadsheets don’t count!”

The other two Anesh left himself to his cozy fate, and didn’t mention that there was a personal satisfaction to seeing data laid out, with different formulas all working together to apply some of the things he’d spent half his life learning toward an actual practical use.  “Well despite losing a part of me, maybe we could go… out?”  He suggested.

”Out… where?”  Keeka asked cautiously, looking back at the Anesh tasting their dinner and deciding it was done enough to start portioning into bowls.  “I thought that…” he didn’t want to say what he thought.  He didn’t want to think about someone who was supposed to be at home in this world feeling like he’d felt.  Afraid to walk out the door.  Afraid of every look and motion from anyone within fifty feet.  That someone had made Anesh feel that way made Keeka want to slip back into what he knew he still was, underneath the smoother chitin and soft fur.  If there was someone he could kill to fix this, he would have already stolen a telepad and soaked his claws.

Anesh could feel his boyfriend tensing up, and spoke a little quicker.  “Just down to Townton.”  He offered easily.  Townton, at least, was safe.  “We could walk around a bit, since it’s warmer there.  Say hi to some people?  Maybe get a dessert and I can teach you some card games.”  He noticed Keeka’s suspicious look.  “Not the kind of card games Rufus and James play.  I’m not entangled in their world.”  He paused.  “Yet.”

”They’ll get you if you’re not careful!”  Keeka reminded him.  He’d seen it happen.

Anesh nodded solemnly.  “I know too well.”  He replied, before they both broke into goofy smiles.  “We could have a nice little time, though.  And maybe by the time we’re done, one of our larger loves will have sent word that they aren’t dead.”

”Oh!  That would be nice.”  Keeka’s clicking laughter was softer, and capped by a sigh, but he was still feeling happy as Anesh passed him a bowl and one of the longer spoons that worked best with ratroach mouths.  “At… at least, if he texted…” he started to say as he blew on a spoonful of curry.

Pursing all of his lips, Anesh shook his head.  “Careful.”  He warned.

”Well if he’s texting it means he isn’t getting shot at least.”  Keeka said.  “…right?”

”I did warn you, love.”  Anesh said softly, his heart melting as he watched Keeka’s face light up neon green from multiple different angles.  He’d make sure to highlight those memories across his different minds when he reconnected later.

And hopefully, Keeka’s tempting fate wouldn’t be that bad.

_____

“Gentlemen!”  James said happily, arms wide.

And then someone, possibly several someones, shot him.

Which was their mistake, really.