The Daily Grind - Chapter 382 (Patreon)

"minimalism is a scam invented by big small to sell more less" -@chrisvector-

_____

There was no particular urgency to his debriefing, but James still approached it with a direct precision.  Sitting in Nate’s not-so-secret room in one of the basements, he was the fourth person to go through this process, mostly because he’d wanted to make damn sure no one was going to die while he was talking.

”The list of ways in which I fucked up is long and very stupid.”  James said with cold anger as he sat slumped forward on the couch, staring at his hands.

The scene suddenly reminded him a little too much of the start of some of his early therapy sessions, and he snorted at the thought.

Nate, not hearing the though, just ignored the derisive noise and got straight to the point as well.  “List ‘em.”  He ordered James.

”Assuming Watcher had actually left was stupid.  Not deploying my overwatch drones before walking outside was stupid.  Not having Cam use her senses right away was stupid.  Hell, letting Watcher go in the first place instead of getting clear answers and forcing a conversation was stupid.”  James stopped counting on his fingers.  “I’m pretty sure I forgot half my magic in that fight, there was zero reason to not just wait for reinforcements, and if I’d just fucking told Cam to drive we might have had a few extra seconds and gotten clear.”

The room went quiet save for James’ heavy breathing as he stared at the old rug Nate had put in here.  His self-inflicted panic attack interrupted suddenly by the realization that this was, in fact, the rug from The Big Lebowski, and also the snap-hiss of Nate cracking a can of something cold open and setting it on the coffee table directly in front of James.

”Got any more?”  Nate asked him.

”Probably.”  James didn’t move to take the drink.

That didn’t stop Nate from opening his own beer and downing half of it in a series of proficient gulps.  “Save it then.”  He said after a small contented breath, leaning back and balancing the can on the back of his hand as he crossed his arms.  He looked at James, and something in the man’s face softened, just for a moment.  “Fuck.”  He said with a shake of his head.  “What a mess.”

”You’re telling me.”  James answered with a laugh, as the mood shifted somehow, and suddenly… they were contemporaries.  Peers.  James hadn’t really realized that he’d still thought of Nate as ‘an adult’ while he sorted himself into some other category.  But abruptly that wasn’t true anymore, and it felt weird.  “We weren’t prepared for the Coalition, whatever they are.”  He said, giving a calmer summation of events.  “We need more practice at adapting to stacked problems.”

Nate’s grunt held an amount of dark humor.  “Every operation with you is either a cakewalk, or a clusterfuck.”  He pointed out.  “It’s either in, out, problem solved, or it’s six different gangs that all want to own the world duking it out.  No inbetween at all.”

”I wouldn’t go that far.” James tried to protest.  “We have… dungeon delves?”  The response from Nate was to just stare at him.  “Yeah okay.”  James shook his head.  “So what the hell do we do?”

”What’s your take on the Coalition?”  Nate asked.

James bit down hard on his lip.  His take felt like a building emotional storm that he didn’t actually think was useful to dump on Nate right now.  So instead, he went with what he’d picked up.  “They’re dangerous.”  He said.  “Probably more than us.  But I think they’re actually trying.”  He shook his head slowly.  “It seems like they actually do want to be protectors, but… well, this one at least was unwilling to listen.  So good intentions, but no flexibility.  And those good intentions lose me when their zombie shock troops come into play.”

”Yeah, Spire and Tyrone had some stuff to say about them, but what’ve you got there?”  Nate prompted.

”They’re mind controlled somehow.”  James waved a hand.  “The Garden swords, which apparently cut magic, can disable it.  You talked to the prisoner we have yet?”

”No, I put Ben on it.”

”Does Ben ever sleep?”

Nate’s eyes flicked upward with a sarcastic shake of his head.  “I don’t know half the bullshit he gets up to.”  He said.  Which, James noted, wasn’t actually an answer.  “How much magic?”

”What?”

”The swords.”  Nate clarified, tossing his emptied can into a plastic bin.  “How much magic do they cut?  How’d we not catch that?”

James let out a small ‘ah’, happy to have something that wasn’t personally horrifying to focus on.  “Well, we kind of just don’t use them on each other.”  He pointed out.  “I actually don’t know ‘how much’, since we don’t have a standard measurement for a point of mana or something, but my personal guess is that each advancement gives you more cutting power?  Since we know different magic is ‘stronger’ or ‘weaker’ than other effects that work on the same stuff… sorry, this isn’t as relevant.”  He straightened up and felt his spine protest until some of his bones popped, twisting his arms like he was trying to dislodge any lingering soreness.  “Mine took stabbing someone lethally to do it.  Arrush's didn't, but his came from Lincon and I think Linc has a level four slot that he hasn't quite decided to tell us about yet.  But he does keep arming Arrush, so.  In retrospect I can remember Arrush using one to go through someone’s evasion spell, I think.  So we might just want to add them to our standard kit.”

”Great.  More bullshit.”  Nate didn’t sound as annoyed as the words should have been.

James kind of wondered if he’d been sleeping.  Probably not enough, Nate was bad at managing his own health.  “It’s not that bad.  We don’t even need people to carry the swords, just have the spell ready.  Though I’d like to find a non-fucked level three coin at some point.”  He felt like that must have happened, but couldn’t find the right memory in his brain.  Did they have one of those yet, and he’d forgotten?  When Zhu woke up James would ask his friend to misadventure them to wherever it was stashed, that should work.  “So.  What now?”  He asked Nate.

”In terms of the Coalition?”  Nate grimaced, heavy finger tracing one of his tattoos in an idle motion.  “You’re gonna hate this, but you made the right call.  With no survivors, it’ll look like something just vaporized their people and we can pretend we never saw them.  But that means we also can’t go track them down.  Not openly.  So we’ll be on the lookout, add them to the list of bastards.”

”We have a list?”  James perked up, trying to inject some levity into things.

Nate smiled.  “Well.  The list is just the Bastards.” He said with a smug fucking grin on his face.  “Which might just be that one guy you met in Utah.  I still want that grout cleaning spell the lying fuck promised.”  His smile dropped.  “Now it’s a longer list.”  Nate said more seriously.  “So I’m not sending people to Minneapolis to track them down, but… some of them might end up in the area.  And they might have conversations, if it comes up.”

”I know what you’re talking about and I still find you so fucking suspicious.”  James sighed.  “You’ve been hanging out with JP too much.”

”Fuck off.”

”That’s better.”  He gave a thin smile.

Nate stared with consideration at his minifridge, before speaking into the quiet that had started to settle.  ”So what do you want to do about the Coalition?  Actually?”

”I have no idea.”  James answered quietly.  “I really don’t.  They’re armed, arcaned, militarized, and professional.  But they’re also putting my friend on a list of existential threats and they have obviously mind controlled foot soldiers.  I don’t… really know what to do about that.  Watcher wasn’t insane, or even evil.  But it still ended badly anyway.  Can we negotiate with them?  Can we be friends?  Can we fucking merge?  I have no idea.”  James sighed deeply again, the exhalation turning into a small whine.  “And this is before we even discuss it as the Order, too.  Hell, this isn’t even a priority, we might never see them again the way things are going, you know?  We killed eight people; if this happened to the Order that’d be a considerable chunk of our trained people.”

”Not enough to put us out, but it’d hurt, yep.”  Nate agreed.

”So how bad is it for them?  Bleeding out, or paper cut?  No idea.”  James shook his head.  “Whatever.  We have real problems to solve before we even get to that.  How’s the Tyranny thing going?”

Nate gave James an unimpressed stare.  “I’ll give you an update when I have a fucking update.”  He told him.  “For now, get out of here.  Go do… whatever you do.”  The man made a flicking gesture with his hand.  “As long as whatever you’re going to do isn’t starting an international incident.”

”I was thinking of conquering Belgium.”  James said, and then cleared his throat as Nate tried to kill him with a glare.  “Or… restocking my Garden magic.”

”Leave.”  Nate commanded.

After James was out of the room, he gave his own long sigh, grabbed the can that had gone untouched on the table, and drank that too.  It was unfortunately non-alcoholic, and Nate wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to be sober for doing more of these quick debriefs today.

_____

James sat in a smoothed stone depression, mostly submerged in hot water, suppressing his nervous urge to be helping TQ as the camraconda slithered down the curved ramp and into the shallow part of the bath pool.  His friend’s face was still a ruin, he was supposed to be in the hospital right now, but TQ had insisted on being clean first, and Deb didn’t actually have a way to keep him there without physical restraints.  And, according to her, he wasn’t going to get worse as long as he kept his covering on and didn’t get it wet.

The covering was some kind of plastic film that someone with a blue power had practically fused into place.  TQ didn’t seem to like it.  He seemed to like navigating via external bluetooth camera even less.

”This is offensive.”  He declared through his equally wireless voice, the waterproof skulljack plug in the back of his head a different kind of sealed off.  “What will happen when we collect a species that does not see?  This is poor design.”

”I’ve been saying the same thing!”  Sarah said, gently guiding TQ down with one hand on his side.  She sounded cheerful, but it was the kind of cheerful Sarah did performatively, not her usual natural enthusiasm.  Though James wasn’t sure if anyone else could tell.  “We need some kind of map magic.”

”Map magic would be good, until we meet a species that is allergic to maps.”  TQ said, slowly easing into the water around his cables as he hesitated to go too deep.  James couldn’t stop looking at the damage TQ had taken.  The crater in his face that had rendered him sightless, even if only temporarially.  It felt too real.  James didn’t know how to cope with it.  And apparently, TQ could see him failing to cope.  “The good news,”  the camraconda angled himself in James’ direction using his backup camera, “is that I can now solicit advice about making a new eye.”

James tried to smile.  “I feel like if you got that advice from me, you’d end up with something a little too biological.”

“I could become biological.  It does not seem so bad.”  TQ said consideringly.  “It does not hinder any of you.”

“Sure it does!”  Alanna’s voice as she approached the pool heralded her simply stepping off the edge into the deep end, her body displacing a small wave as she dropped in and started floating in Sarah’s direction.  “It’s hindering my ability to not get fussed over by medical.  If I were a robot?  No problems.”

James gave a slightly more real smile.  “Objectively false.”  He informed her.  “Deb is also a mechanic, and kind of a xenobiologist.  You’d get even more fussing.”

TQ started to give a bobbing nod, but then hissed with an alarmingly urgent noise that made James jerk forward in case he needed to help.  “Ow.”  The camraconda declared, before stilling himself and moving on.  “How are you inconvenienced by biology?”  He asked the other humans.

Sarah tapped her chin.  “Periods?”  She suggested.

”I have mastered punctuation.  James?”

Unfortunately for James, Sarah seemed happy to let TQ get away with that joke.  “I think the main way biology betrays me is in applying chemistry to my brain in mechanical ways that I didn’t actually approve ahead of time.”  He cleared his throat.  “Though right now that specific kind of biology is annoyingly fixated on the fact that the last several times I’ve seen you, it was with camraconda armor on, so now you look naked, and it’s really throwing me off.”

”Seducitvely?”  TQ asked.

”I am unfortunately way too worried about your injury to be seduced.”

The camraconda gave a soft laughing hiss.  “Motivation to heal I suppose.”  He said.  “Alanna and Sarah are also naked, though.”

”Yeah, it’s a perk of my day.”  Alanna said, floating by and leering at her girlfriend who just flicked a single finger of water back at her with a smile.

James waved a hand through the water as he considered floating over toward TQ himself, but ultimately found he was just too tired to move.  “I also kinda love seeing Alanna naked, but the context here is different?  And Sarah… actually, no, sorry Sarah, you fall into the same category as TQ.”

”What!”  She flicked a hand at him like she was about to make a legal objection.  “That’s not fair, I haven’t even gotten to the Clutter pool that changes colors yet!”

TQ’s new fireball sunset pattern was cool, James would never deny that.  He did kind of wonder if the same hot spring that had done that would change Sarah’s hair, or just… all of her.  He also didn’t know if she’d care either way, Sarah probably had a pros and cons list for both options already.

“You won’t even get a tattoo!”  Alanna exclaimed at her.

”You also don’t have tattoos.”  James pointed out at his girlfriend.

Alanna flipped over in the water to glower at him.  “I have an excuse.  Someone made me invincible.  Tattoo artists hate this one weird trick.”

”That’s…” James’ voice caught.  “Yeah.”  He said quietly, sinking back into the warm pool.  “Not enough though.”

Alanna flipped him off.  “I’m fine.”  She said.  “Of the four people here, I am arguably the most fine!”

”What happened to Sarah?”  TQ asked, curling his body around in a loop so he could settle down in a wound up resting position, letting the water lap at his cords.

”She’s dating Alanna.”  “I’m dating Alanna.”

”Hey!”  Alanna couldn’t decide who to scowl at, flanked on both sides by Sarah and James.  “Come on, I’m a great girlfriend.”

”You really are.”  James said softly.  “Kinda why I don’t like you getting hurt.”  He sighed and shook his head.  “I know, we’re… we’re an adventuring party.  A coterie, yes, thanks.”  He preempted Alanna’s cheerfully prepared interruption.  “Our mission in life is to show up in places that are dangerous and vacuum up all the danger.  I get it.  I just… kind of figured it’d be me.”

The bath went quiet as the others looked at James with differing levels of either pity or anger.  The various building retorts were further interrupted by Spire-Cast-Behind arriving and performing the same entrance that Alanna had; a direct slither off the ledge and a drop straight into the deeper part of the bath.  Though she somehow avoided doing anything more than leaving a subtle ripple in the water, before her head bobbed to the surface.  “I have concluded my preliminary debriefing.”  Spire said.  “And am here for psychological galvanization.”

”That’s…” Sarah gave her a distressed look of raised eyebrows and a worried bite of her upper lip.  “Is that why you’re here every time…?” She asked James and Alanna.

”Yeah.”  James said quietly.  “It’s also why it’s something that’s become a not-at-all-accidental tradition for shield teams, responders, delvers, and basically anyone who does work that gets emotionally heavy.” He was kind of proud of himself for this one, so he allowed for one short real grin.  “Minds, both human and otherwise, actually show a massive drop in rates of PTSD if in the wake of serious events you make yourself vulnerable and talk through how you’re feeling.”

”Seriously?”  Alanna asked.  “Is that how you’re… uh… you know…”  She motioned at him with an outstretched arm, a gesture that got both James and Sarah to watcher her with appreciation.

”Functional?”  James supplied cheerfully, while Sarah tried to drag Alanna over to her to be presumably drowned.  “Yeah.  It’s important, you know?”  He said quietly.  “We’re not a fucking cult like the marines or something.  We’re professionals.  And more than that, we’re a real community.  You know that line in the ops manual about how no one is expendable, that fucking Liz put on a t-shirt and gave to too many people around here?  That’s not just me being dramatic or fucking around.  We might use ourselves as tools or weapons sometimes, but afterward, we always need to go back to being people.”

TQ’s chiming noise startled everyone near him, the humans that weren’t James having mostly forgotten camracondas could make that sound.  “I am always happy to be your tool.”  He told James.

”You are way too horny for someone missing a part of their… skull?”

”Technically we do not have skulls.  But yes, chastise him further.”  Spire said, bubbles coming from under the water near her face as she presumably hissed into the pool.  “Though while I appreciate being here, with all of you, I find myself strangely unbothered by recent events.”

James stared at her.  “Oh yeah?”  He asked.

”Quite.  Injuries occurred, but we will persevere.  Civilians were protected at a rate well above normal for a disaster such as this.  Our response time was faster than usual.  Our solution was effective.  If it were not for outside interference, this would have been a perfect operation.”  She floated past James like a lurking crocodile.  “I am angry.  So angry.  Largely at the Coalition for their petty interference over things they do not understand.  But I refuse to let their failure taint my victory.”  She twisted her camera head to look toward Alanna and Sarah.  “Would you please help me wash the soot off?”  She asked, changing topics on a dime.  “It got under my armor.”

”TQ, you want a hand with that too?”  James asked, and got an affirmative.  The bath soon enough filling with bubbles as the people with more hands helped out their serpent friends.  “How’re you doing?”  He asked the purple and red camraconda.  “Seriously.  Don’t… without the jokes.”

”My head hurts.”  TQ told him.  “Which is surprising.  I think if any other weapon had done this, I would be dead.  Something was strange about that gun.”

”Shit, the gun.”  James’ fingers curled on TQ’s flank.  “I left that in my demiplane.  I should get that before the reset eats it.”  Along with all the blood, he didn’t add.  "Or maybe not.  Maybe any evidence is too much.  Maybe I just let it go."

TQ hissed in happiness as James kept lathering him with soap.  “Perhaps it will be unhappy as it dissolves!”  He suggested.  “But…” the camraconda trailed off, before slowly twisting to ‘face’ James with his ruined face, only a little off on the angle.  “I do not regret this.  My sister is correct.  We did what we set out to do.  This hurts, but it is a solvable problem, and once the orb completes its work I shall sortie out with you once more.”

”Sorry, orb?”  Alanna raised a hand covered in bubbles.

”Yes, we have a purple for ocular regeneration!  I was as surprised as you.”

James leaned forward, thumping a fist lightly on TQ’s back and getting a burst of a hiss from the camraconda.  “Now I am being told about this?!”  He demanded.

”Yes!”  TQ replied.  “It is dramatically funny, isn’t it?”

”I’m incensed.”  James pouted.

Alanna smirked at him.  ”Didn’t know you were into that.”  She said without missing a beat.

”I’m incensed at you too, now!”  He declared at her.  “I’m not even sure why!  I’m just…” he suddenly smiled, tipping his head to the side and closing his eyes and he huffed out a laugh.  Letting his hands drop back into the water, and leaning back in the pool, James felt himself actually relax.  “I’m just glad everyone is okay this time.”  He said eventually.

Spire opened her lens in a tiny pinpoint, squinting just in case the soap on her head dripped down.  “I am resentful that you think we will not be okay next time as well.”  She said.  “I am stronger every day.  We will face the world and it will blink first.”

Sarah giggled.  “So now we learn why James chose you!  The dramatic flourish!”

”Spire’s a different subgenre of fantasy than my usual haunts, but yeah, she does the same thing I like.”  James pointed out, and was gratified to see Spire stick her tongue out at him.  “So.  What… what now?”

”Well, I need to go check on Kiki.”  Sarah said.  “She was communing with Clutter, and said she needed some time.  But at least I have a shortcut to her now!”

”Yeah, hey, about that.”  James started a new line of inquiry.

”And after that, I’m taking Alanna bowling!”  Sarah declared.

Alanna nodded sagely.  “It’s good to stay humble.”  She said with stoic resignation.  “You wanna come?”  She asked James, before glancing back at her girlfriend.  “I mean, uh…”

Sarah opened her mouth, but stopped herself from saying anything for a moment, and then took a deep breath to speak.  “I think you two have both had a really hard day, so James, if you want to come along, I’m not gonna say no to my best friend.  But I also want to be selfish and have time alone with Alanna.  Is that okay?”

If James hadn’t heard the slight note of anxiety in her voice, he would have been snarkier in his reply.  But he could tell this was something that apparently was bothering Sarah in some way, just from how she’d made a moment out of it.  “Absolutely.”  He told her.  “I can get demolished on the lanes some other time.  But actually no wait, Alanna, you got fucking shot several times!  Are you even supposed to go outside?!  Seven six two has got to at least bruise you.”

”First off, I was wearing armor.”  Alanna told him.  “And also they were flechette rounds, so it doesn’t count.”

”Oh well in that case, I also wish to go bowling.”  TQ said without a trace of sarcasm as he tried to lower himself farther into the water.  “As I was shot with an unorthodox round as well.”

Spire hissed at him, clusters of soap bubbles propelled through the air at the sudden burst of air.  “You will do no such thing or I will stare at you until you are fixed.”  She declared.

”I will find a new hobby.”  TQ instantly acquiesced.

”Yeah, but like, Alanna?  TQ has a point.”  James told his partner.  “I don’t think the fact that they were special bullets means you suddenly don’t get hurt.”

Alanna stood up fully, water dripping from her skin in rivers as she pointed at her chest.  “Look!”  She declared, and both James and Sarah obliged her for probably not the reason she intended.  “See?  Totally fine!”

”Wait, hang on.”  James held out a hand to Sarah as she was about to say something.  “We should make her turn around so we can check her back too, she could be hiding something.”

”Ooh, an excellent suggestion.”  Sarah replied, leaning next to James so both of them could raise their eyebrows at their girlfriend together.

So it was a little surprising when Alanna paused, and then slowly reached her foot back to find a step behind herself, inching toward the edge of the pool.  “Right.  Cute.  Uh… okay, so, your lecherous stares aside, I’m gonna go get ready to go bowling.”  She said, waking out of the pool still facing them.  “Want me to toss you the brooch for the soap?”

”Yes please!”  Spire called to her.

”Wait, are you actually bruised?!  I was kidding!”  James shouted after her.  “Sarah!  Attack!”  He flicked his hand forward, one finger outstretched in position to command his best friend like a pokemon.

”On it!”  Sarah said, standing herself and swiping her hands over herself to send sheets of water back to the pool.  “But I think we both know she’s gonna insist anyway.”  She told James, who laughed and nodded.  “You gonna be okay?”  Sarah asked him.  “It sounds like this was harder for you than anyone else.  And I’m not stealing your girlfriend for a date if you’re hurting.”

James shot her a lopsided smile.  “Our girlfriend, comrade.”  He reminded Sarah.  “Go.  Have fun.  I’m gonna go bug Anesh anyway.  At least until Arrush is done with his debriefing.”

”Oh is that where he is?”

”Yeah, he was here before you.  You missed him.  I’ve got a rotating cast coming through my bath.”  James told her.  “We’re gonna need to get someone to make these pools bigger, if we keep sending out larger teams for stuff.”

Spire pulled her head up from where she’d dunked herself in the water.  “I am, as they say, on it.” The camraconda told him.

James waited for clarification, but none ever came.  Which was… maybe less ominous than it would have been, once upon a time.  He kind of just trusted Spire to get stuff done.  He was, after all, pretty sure she was smarter than he was.

”What’re you doing then?”  He asked TQ.  “Something relaxing, I hope?”

”I am going to meet Cheha as she returns to Townton, and be fretted over.”  TQ said calmly.  “I believe there will be an explanation required.”

James winced.  His partners mostly understood that his role was dangerous, and half of them tended to be around when he was getting injured.  But Cheha was probably the most normal person with normal anxiety that James knew in the Order, and he didn’t really envy TQ’s upcoming conversation.  “Well hey.  If you two wanna come over for dinner tonight, I think I want to make something.  So you’re welcome to bribe her with food.”

”Thank you, but I believe Cheha is smarter than I am, and so I am likely doomed.”  TQ replied.

His casual comment got a happy laugh out of James, and he gave TQ a close hug in response.  Which meant he had to get a lot of soap off himself before getting out of the pool, but that was just the price of doing business.  Especially when that business was making sure the people you liked weren’t falling apart.

_____

“Alright, let’s get the punishment part of this shit over with.”  Nate said bluntly.  He’d moved on to water after the third debrief, but at least out of everyone only Riho had actually drained any his minifridge stash of weird local microbrewery drinks.

Arrush looked at him with confusion, which Nate actually found strangely comforting.  The ratroach had tried to kill him once, early on, for a misunderstanding Nate hadn’t even processed at the time.  Being able to be more direct now and have the big guy trust him to not mean anything hostile was a big step up.

Though from Arrush’s perspective, it was just weird that Nate had led with that.  “Punishment?”  He asked.

”Every one of you people who’ve come through here have beaten yourselves up for tiny fuckups.  I assume you’re number six.  Can’t wait for Kiki’s version of it.”  Nate grunted as he sat across from Arrush.  “So?”

The ratroach, fur still slightly damp from the bath he’d shared with his human love, cocked his angular head to the side.  “I… could do that…” he said slowly.  “But I didn’t make any mistakes.”

”Alright this is swinging in the wrong direction.”  Nate muttered, mostly to himself before raising his voice again.  “Go over it anyway.”  He told Arrush

“We walked in, and were attacked.”  Arrush recounted.  “They were bad at it.  Not a good ambush at all.  And we didn’t kill any of them either, even if Alanna shot someone.”  He started tapping his claws on the chitin on his thigh through the leg of his pants.  “After, with the attackers to follow, we found one of the groups of survivors.  Gave them some food.  I think James knew they had problems, so he took us away from them quickly, didn’t get us tangled.”

”Problems?  What problems?”  Nate asked.

Arrush blinked like he had expected the human to know.  “They weren’t friends or community.  A lot of them I think hated each other?  One of them was trying to get James to support his faction, but we just left instead.”  He explained.  “Then we scouted, looked around, found people who were scavenging or hiding and either said hi or left them alone if they were scared and maybe violent.  After the church, we found a place to camp to communicate, and then at night Riho and I snuck into the other group’s place to spy on them.”

”Right.  The Wal Mart.”  Nate nodded.  “So how’d that go?”

”Good!”  The ratroach gave him a glowing grin.  “I like working with Riho, too.  She’s… hmmm… she moves in familiar ways.”  Arrush clicked in his throat.  “Maybe that’s not good, I should talk to her more.  But we went in, found the important things, got information we needed, and got out unseen.”

Nate nodded along.  Arrush’s side of things had been smooth sailing, it seemed.  “So what went wrong?”

”Nothing.”  Arrush said, before splaying some of his paws out.  “Well.  No.  The Coalition went wrong.  But they shouldn’t have.  James was right to let Watcher go, and there was no way to know that the monster he was hunting was Kiki.  He didn’t hate me.”  He met Nate’s eyes.  “He didn’t care.  It’s… that only happens with people who are like us.  That only happens with humans who are trying to be good.  It wasn’t wrong to give him a chance to prove himself.  It was just his own fault for ruining everything.”

”Which led to the fight.  Go over that.”  Nate prompted.

”I had some of the humans that trusted me move the others away from the door and behind cover.  Then I waited on the ceiling, used the ghost potion, and ambushed the first one through the door and Alanna and Tyrone’s shooting.”  Arrush reported with the kind of step by step method that Nate himself had taught him.  “When I cut him, the attacker… panicked.  More than he should have.  So I took his weapons and put him somewhere safe.  Then I tackled TQ before he was killed.”

”Why?”

”Because it felt like I needed to.”  Arrush said, and blinked in surprise.  “Oh.  I didn’t notice that.  I don’t know why I thought that!”  He said, twisting his head around to stare off to the side of Nate’s secret office.

Nate sighed.  “Anything else?”  He asked.

”I don’t…” now the ratroach looked apprehensive.  “I don’t know how to say it.”  He said.  “But there is something wrong.”

”With you?”

”With how we practice fighting.”  He corrected.

Nate cocked an eyebrow.  “Oh yeah?”

”Alanna and… no, not TQ, his makes sense.  But Alanna was injured, and she stopped fighting.  That isn’t… I didn’t think of it before, but when we practice and train, no one gets hurt.  And I don’t want anyone hurt, but doesn’t that mean that our friends will freeze when it matters?”

”Yeah.”  Nate confirmed, rolling his shoulders.  “And there’s no good way around that.  Yet, anyway.  I’m sure someone has a bullshit magic plan to fix it.”

”Oh.  Good!”  Arrush relaxed.  “That’s everything.  Then we came back, and also James and Spire own Cassleton now.”

They absolutely did not, as far as Nate could tell.  And he’d set their most valuable intelligence asset on figuring that out, but so far, Jake Redding and his lawyer powers hadn’t been able to tell him anything that wasn’t just nope, it’s all normal.

But both James and Spire had reported that the whole area inside the bubble, from the city to the small chunk of mountain, to the nearby length rail line, to the edge of the local oil field, was all their territory.

Nate had no fucking clue what that meant.  But that was a Research problem.  His problem was more concrete.  “Alright.  You did good.”  He told Arrush, who brightened up at the words.  “But I bet you could do better.  Let’s go over the Coalition fight, step by step.”

The ratroach nodded, and Nate almost warned to smile at how receptive the big guy was to the process of refining his ability.

For Arrush, it was easy.  He just really liked getting better.

_____

The Research basement was as eclectic as always.

James had a hard time sometimes fully taking in the controlled chaos of the place.  Research wasn’t just here anymore; they had sites outside the Lair where they studied orange totem tolerances or had potion sap growing operations or a half dozen other things besides.  But here, in the Lair, was a kind of unique thing.

This one he couldn’t take credit for, because it wasn’t intentional.  But when that first batch of people who were really into magic as a concept but didn’t want to delve and didn’t realize what the Order was going to become had first shown up to ask if they could goof around with orbs, their claiming of this basement had been perfectly reasonable.  The Order hadn’t needed the space - they hadn’t even had camracondas to house at the time - and so it made sense to just have a little clubhouse inside a clubhouse for the people who really liked having an excuse to order weird testing equipment.

Over time, the basement had expanded, both on purpose and definitely not on purpose.  Research had expanded too, and also changed a lot.  James hadn’t exactly put Reed in charge, but it had happened anyway, and she’d gone from flustered and out of her depth, to someone who was handling a lot of proposals, smoothing out the logistics of all the weird ideas at play, and respected by most of the people here.

Which led to Research being in its current state.  Focused around a kind of hub area, a big room that had been part of the original basement, with a ring of desks facing inward.  Traversal around the outside was easy, as even the often disorganized nerds down here kept walkways clear ever since the fire marshal had shown up, while the space inside the desk ring contained another little fence and then a lot of the shellaxies the Order was trying to domesticate, as well as some of the Library stepshells that they hoped were a relaxing influence on the often aggressive computers.

Around that hub, hallways led in an uneven and patchwork network to storerooms, secured labs, and less dramatically fortified workspaces.  Rufus had his garden down here, which James was aware was far more than just an idle curiosity.  Second had its… brain?… self?… its room down here.  And a few of the old rooms that had been repurposed for living quarters still had people in them that just liked it and refused to move.  There was a lot packed into this twisted space, where sealed rooms that had sprouting emerald processor chips were right next to public lounges where people could throw ideas around, and both of those were across the hall from where computer science experts worked on installing firmware in a person’s brain via skulljack.

And it was full of people, but still quiet.  Not silent, but while James was pretty sure there was no magic at play to cause it, everyone here just kind of kept the noise down.  Except maybe when they were experiencing a breakthrough, but those were honestly kind of rare.  There were a lot of moments where someone filled out another cell on a spreadsheet, especially with the Garden spells, but not so often that someone figured out how to imbue their own magic items.

Research was a lot of people though.  All sorts of people, too, which James thought was great.  Even just on the human side, they had a wider average age range than the Order’s delver population, but that wasn’t the only way they were mixed up.  Camracondas had taken to the subculture of Research almost naturally, and while ratroaches definitely needed more time to heal before getting deeply involved, they learned so fast once they weren’t afraid all the time.  Most of the inhabitors were Researchers too, and though they might not think of it that way, they did spend all their time down here helping with or sometimes leading projects, they just didn’t ever apply the term for membership to themselves.  Some of the older ratlings had begun gravitating to the space too, asking ceaseless questions that might have been annoying to anyone that wasn’t a Researcher eager to get deep into the weeds on whatever they were working on.  And some of the younger umbral too, the ones that had spawned so recently that they had none of the learned fear of humanity, had shown up and just kind of asked for something to do.

“The part about this I like best,” James told Anesh as he sat on a padded stool in his boyfriend’s apparently-private workroom, swinging his legs and hopelessly trying to work out the shooting pain in his knee, “is that there is literally no benefit to it.”

Anesh had told James that he was going to finish up a thing, and that James was free to ramble as much as he wanted to until his boyfriend could come give him a multidirectional hug.  Or try to strangle him.  Anesh hadn’t decided yet, but he needed to focus.  “And I have somehow,” Anesh said very quietly to himselves, “forgotten what happens when you tell the Human Monologue that it’s okay to ramble while you try to work.”  He kept his eyes on the leveler item he was working with, one of him holding it in place, one of him in the process of attempting to imbue it, and this one of him applying a level three casting of Island Valiant to try to observe the process at a magicoscopic level.

”That’s a great superhero name!”  James widened his eyes, already wondering if he could get a cape costume with some kind of logo for that on it.

”Thank you.  I’ve changed my minds, hush.”  Anesh ordered his love, as the copy of himself that was doing the imbuement gave him a nod that he was ready.

Anesh cast Island Valiant.  It was… inconvenient, that the Order didn’t have a better level three coin yet.  Everyone, everyone had thought at first that they were lucky to find a modified level three coin for their very first drop of that grade.  But then it turned out the modification was worse than useless.  A spell slot that would automatically cast another spell when the spell contained in it was used?  That sounded so good, on paper.

But the real world wasn’t paper.  The real world was one where you couldn’t pick which iteration of a prepared spell you were using.  The real world was one where there was already no cost to casting a spell in the first place.  And the real world was one where throwing out random extra magic was often just a bad idea that would cause problems.

So everyone had a single level three spell slot, and Anesh had to spend an hour and a half restocking Island Valiant every time they did this.  At least he could do it four times at once, if all of his bodies were helping.

Even with all that inconvenience, it was worth it to gain a sliver of understanding.

The process of imbuing the brooch was fascinating.  Under the effect of the spell that gave him understanding of a small area, Anesh could see the structure of the magic that went into the leveler item.  Nothing that revealed the secrets of the universe, but it was more than just a menu of options; it was the shape of that magic.  How it hooked into itself in blocky shapes, how it built off of its own power.  Leveler items all just looked like that; an almost visual metaphor for their leveling up and the crisp lines they drew in regards to what they did.

When he imbued it, the process looked almost the same as imbuing any normal thing with an Office blue.  Blue imbued items didn’t give any extra information under the spell, except that they were noticeable.  But during an imbuement, you could see the magic sliding from the provided orbs into the object, along with something being taken from the person doing the imbuing.  It was just for a split second, but it was consistent, and real.  And when you did it to a leveler…

The imbuing magic slipped from the orbs, oozing as if to fill the whole brooch, before continuing to move.  Not draining, but instead congealing into a familiar pattern; forming another of the blocky shapes that made up the rest of the item’s magic.  The blue imbuement overruled by the inherent magic of the leveler itself.  And, this time, Anesh could see something else important.  There was no connection to himself; nothing taken in that thin trickle that normally came with imbuement.  The entire thing was shaped by the item itself.

It was, well… “Fascinating.”  He breathed out.  Then Anesh filed the recording of his senses promptly so it wouldn’t experience the human process of being filtered through memory over and over, shared it with himself, uploaded it to the Order’s server along with his notes, and turned all three of his faces to James.  “Now explain to me how your mind works, that you think there isn’t a benefit to a diverse team in these hallowed halls?”

”Oh, right!  That’s what I was going on about!”  James smiled down at Anesh.  “Sorry, I got distracted watching your face.”  That wasn’t really a joke, either.  James found it absurdly cute how Anesh’s nose scrunched up when he was deep in thought, focused on a problem so fully that it was like his boyfriend only saw a single thing in the world.  “Uh… right, the people.  Okay, you know how we can make a solid argument for camracondas on strike teams being a unique asset, or how umbral living in Townton gives us a consistent society-wide boost to quality of life?  Well,” he didn’t wait for Anesh to reply, “there’s pretty much nothing like that for Research.  There is zero practical reason to have different species here.  But we do anyway, just because we want to.  I dunno, it’s a nice reminder that it’s more than possible to live in a connected and shared world without needing to benefit from it in a material way.  I like it when people are good people just because being good is itself good.”

”…I do believe you are overestimating how much thought anyone here has put into this.”  Anesh told him.

”No no!  I think I know exactly how much thought has gone into it!”  James declared.  “None whatsoever!”

”I stand corrected.”  An Anesh said as two of him moved to hug James tightly while his last self put away what he was working on.

Having several selves was a strange way to live, though Anesh was getting not just used to it, but outright comfortable with the situation.  He didn’t keep himself networked all the time like Marlea did; he kind of liked the ‘quiet’ of a single self in a single body.  But he regularly connected with himself to share memories, so that each Anesh stayed the same Anesh.  A lot of the Order’s magic seemed to work well with that, which helped, but mostly it just meant that he had a lot of extra memories and could get things done faster.

”Hey.”  James said as Anesh squeezed him tightly.  “So how was your Tuesday?”

Anesh’s laugh came from multiple directions as James caught him off guard, again.  “I could ask you the same thing.”  Anesh said, trying to be casual.

The truth was, though, he had been terrified.  He knew James could handle… well, more than any normal human should be able to.  James was so much closer to being a superhero than his boyfriend actually realized.  But there was always that gnawing feeling that something was going to go wrong.  Anesh and Keeka had talked about it a lot, last night; and while it was strangely comforting to know that someone shared the sensation with him, neither of them fucking liked it.

”Don’t ask me that yet.”  James said, still smiling but not speaking as comfortably.  “I’ll… I’ll figure it out later.  Anyway, what’ve you been up to?”

”Well!”  Anesh was okay letting James talk at his own pace.  His friend had always been like this, for as long as Anesh had known him; he’d open up at a random time, when he passed some invisible threshold.  Until then, it wasn’t so much that they were pretending things were normal, just that they were handing other topics.  “Would you believe I have a gift for you?”

”Is it magic?”  James asked excitedly.

Anesh tapped his nose.  ”It is not.”  He killed James’ hopes as he went over to one of his bags, and pulled out a trio of black rectangles.  “It is this.”

James took the stack of slim hardback books from Anesh, raising his eyebrows up at his boyfriend at the gold leaf font on the front that titled the top book as An Oblique Angle.  “And what is this?”  He asked as he flipped the book over to see a blank back.

”Well.  I may have, mostly by accident, stumbled about and encountered Paper-And-Words’ 

Wordpress account.” Anesh smiled at James’ shocked raised eyebrow expression.  “No, really, I wasn’t stalking it.  I actually was just reading short fiction with Keeka, and stumbled across a very familiar looking username.  By which, of course, I mean Paper-And-Words just used its own name.”  Anesh tapped the cover of the slim book James was holding.  “I double checked, these were on the Order’s server too; a few people had talked about them even.  This is just what Paper-And-Words has been doing in its free time.  Writing detective fiction novellas.”

”Huh!”  James said, looking down at the stack of books and fanning them out.  “And making pretty nice custom prints of them?”

”Ah, no, that was me.”  Anesh flushed, dark skin tinting an oily crimson.  “I… less as a hobby I suppose, and more because I’m trying to keep up with Keeka.  He likes making things so very much, and I wanted… well…”

James set the books in his lap so two hands could run fingers through the hair of two of his boyfriends, massaging his partner’s scalps as he laughed.  “It is okay for a thing to be for two people, dumbass.”  He told Anesh.  “It doesn’t make it less cool.”

”Well.  I know that now.”  Anesh cleared his throat as he leaned into James’ touch.  “I just thought you’d enjoy something… well, you know.  Novel.”

”Boo.”  James laughed again at the pun, picking the books back up and looking at the titles.  An Oblique Angle, An Invisible Key, A Quiet Watcher.  He paused on the last one, his smile melting slowly, shoulders slumping.  “Ah.”  He said to himself, taking a long breath.

Anesh’s own smiles didn’t so much waver as they became something less funny, and more supportive.  He wasn’t stupid, he knew damn well that James was never as fine as he pretended to be after one of his valiant quests.  But he was determined to be a source of comfort and not something less than useless, because while Anesh didn’t often go out and get in firefights with monsters anymore, he did understand.  “There’s no hurry.”  He said, patting James’ hand as his trio of selves started to arrange the room to his standards of cleanliness before leaving for the day.

”We ran into someone from another group in there.”  James said abruptly, and Anesh paused in his work, all of him leaning on counters and turning to give James full focus.  “They call themselves the Coalition.”

”Another Status Quo?”  Anesh asked at once.

”I don’t think so.”  James shook his head slowly.  “The guy’s name was Watcher.”

Anesh didn’t comment on the use of ‘was’.  From the look on James’ face, he already knew what the angst was from.  “Better, or worse?”  He asked.

James huffed out a laugh.  “Better.”  He said.  “That’s the thing.  He said they were there to save life on Earth.  And then didn’t even fucking blink at Spire, or TQ, or Arrush, or Zhu even.  He said all life, and he actually, really, genuinely almost meant all life.”  James took a long breath, but when he exhaled it came out shakier than he wanted.  “He was… he thought he saw a threat, and he was legitimately willing to throw down to handle that threat.  Not in a selfish way, either.  That’s the thing.  One of the things.  Whatever.  Watcher, this one fucking moron, was willing to sacrifice the rest of his life to handle something that he thought he needed to capture.”

”That… that is a lot of qualifiers.”  Anesh pointed out with a quiet wince.

”Yeah.  Because it was Kiki.”  James said bluntly.  “They think that embodiments - they call them saints for some reason - are the only real existential threat to life on Earth.  And they might even be right?  Or they're idiots because Russia and the US are both insane and have nukes so whatever.  But Kiki’s still my friend, and she’s trying, and we’re working on solutions that aren’t hopeless, you know!  So when Watcher’s solution was to stand in a circle in a spatial prison bubble, shooting Kiki’s semi-corpse in the head, forever?”

”Bloody hell.”  Anesh gasped.

”He was a cryptic smartass.  He probably lied to us about a lot of things, but I think it was tactical and not personal.  He was actually funny, and genuinely, honestly, thought he was saving the world.”  James finally looked up at Anesh, and his boyfriend saw the tears that were about to start running down his face.  “And I fucking killed him anyway.”

”James…”

”You know I think a lot about how things end up fucked in our world?”  James said, staring up at the smooth ceiling.  “About how easy it is for people to do evil shit when they’re just working inside systems that are evil.  That’s half of what I want the Order to do, you know?  Make better systems.  Make being good the default, easy behavior.”

”James.”

He sniffed wetly.  “And here I am, and the first time there’s someone who might actually be heroic, and I disagree with them slightly, I fucking… turn them into paste, and leave their corpse outside of normal space.”  James couldn’t look at Anesh.  He didn’t dare.  Though he did quickly move the homemade books aside before his stupid tears started falling on them.  “It is so easy to solve problems by cutting them in half and shooting them in the head.”  He said, almost contemplative.  “And I can justify it so easily, too!  It was self defense, it was protecting a bunch of civilians, it was protecting Kiki.  It was… it was reasonable. It was completely fucking reasonable that he… that I… that…”

Anesh stopped just repeating his boyfriend’s name, in favor of dragging him forward off the padded stool he was now nervously twisting back and forth on, and pulling him into a massed hug.  This was another big perk of being multiple people; Anesh could very easily coordinate with himself on where arms went, and how to maximally surround the person in his life that, for all that he was an actual genuine hero himself, still needed support.

”You are such a kindhearted idiot.”  Anesh muttered into James’ neck.

”…What?”

”You think I don’t already know what happened?”  Anesh asked him with a noise that he realized as he made that he was copying from Keeka, and rapidly kept talking to cover up his embarrassment.  “They shot Kiki.  Without asking questions!  They decided to kill a woman that had her hands up and was talking to them!  They were going to lock a thousand people in a cage so they could never stop killing someone who was trying to be nice.  You can talk about how it’s justifiable all you want, I think you’re an idiot.  I think if it were me, I’d be so angry I’d need special glasses to see straight at this point!”

James blinked away tears, pushing back from his boyfriend and staring at Anesh’s closest face.  “But…”

”But you don’t like killing people.”  Anesh said.  “Good.  You don’t like how things went.  Also good.  But my word do you put too much of the blame on yourself.  No one asked Watcher to murder anyone!  No one asked the Coalition to show up and try to ‘fix’ things, which also involved getting random locals killed before you showed up!”

”I… okay, yeah, no, you’re right about that part.”  James said, breathing easier.  “I just… you’re also right that I hate how it turned out.”

Anesh flicked his boyfriend’s nose.  “You hate that you couldn’t talk your way through him.  Which, you’ll find, is a common problem.  As it turns out, a massive chunk of humanity refuses to listen.  Not just to reason, or facts, but to anything.  Right now, as we speak, the president of this bloody nation we are standing in is planning to exile anyone foreign for ‘security reasons’.  Do you think you can talk him out of it?  Or do you think you’ll be shooting him, too?”

”I actually wasn’t planning on shooting the president, but I guess I don’t really plan my combat actions, they just sort of happen to me.”  James admitted.  “Also I’ll probably still try talking first anyway.”

Tightening the multi-way hug before letting James go on wobbling feet, Anesh gave him a firm set of nods.  “There’s why I love you.”  He said.  “Among other reasons.  But you need to trust yourself more.  You don’t need to beat yourself down over someone else’s failure to think, or talk.”

James sighed, and then straightened up, trying to smile.  “Okay.”  He said softy.  “I’ll try.”

”I know you will.”  Anesh patted him on his arms.  “Now, are you hungry?”

”I was gonna get a snack before going on a quick delve as support.”  James said.

Anesh reevaluated the logic of strangling his boyfriend.  Closing his eyes, and curling his hands into fists as he took one big slow breath.  “I… will come with you then.”  He said through bared teeth.  “But only this time!”

”I was kinda kidding but now I’m not!”  James happily took the offer.  “I just wanna swing by Second’s room and say thank you before we go.  Oh!  And if you’re coming with me, we can talk about how you fucking chitter now!  That’s so adorable and I think you’re beautiful.”

”I will throw you into the bloody sea.”  Anesh muttered as he tried to cover as much of his faces as possible while he followed James anyway.

_____

Nate came back to his secret office after taking the fourth longest piss of his life, only slightly wondering why he bothered having a secret office if everyone in the fucking building knew where it was.

”You are supposed to be taking downtime.”  Nate grumpily told Cam as he walked in to grab his wallet.  He didn’t actually keep documents in his secret office, because it wasn’t an office at all.  It was a den that he had beer in, that people kept showing up at.  But since he was going out to pick up an order from a contact, he wanted his driver’s license.

There was a certain antagonism here toward the cops that Nate was more or less on board with.  For a chunk of his life, he saw the cops as antagonists themselves, but kind of knew it was his own fucking fault.  After more than a few years working for the FBI before his abrupt career change, and being bluntly slapped with repeat reminders of both individual incidents and statistical trends, Nate figured that even if he had been the problem as a kid, the police sure as shit hadn’t made it any better.  But for all that animosity that was in the air, traffic regulations were a real useful thing to have.  And also the bribe money he had in his wallet.  Not for cops though, just for whoever needed to be greased.

That line of thought led Nate’s brain to drift toward the umbral magic.  Someone, while he’d been prowling the halls down here, had mentioned getting Grease as their first advancement spell, and holy shit did he want that.  It probably didn’t work how he wanted, but in his fantasy, it was instant and perfect application to a flat top.  Or a pan.  Or a baking sheet.  Or anything.  Nate had a lot of magic he didn’t talk about a lot, but sometimes it clicked for him that James’ vision of the future was one where he didn’t just have a dozen knives on layaway, but also had things that made his day to day easier.  Maybe even more fun.

Nate wasn’t a ‘fun’ kind of guy.  But he’d admit that he could get a kick out of some of the spells around here.

The umbral specifically had a weird spread.  It wasn’t random, and it wasn’t really ‘umbral’ magic either.  But since no one was going into their dungeon and they were being cagey about it, he was gonna call it that until they sorted their shit out.  Every branch magic had its own theme, and Nate wasn’t so blind that he didn’t know that.  Climb spells focused on temperature, vitality, and sometimes ‘camp cantrips’.  The Garden books were all over the place but they liked making and changing shit, and… something else no one had put together yet, but Nate got the vibe.  The umbral spells were all about protection, physical boosts, making shit but temporary, and unfucking situations.  It was a lot, but it all kind of locked together, and Nate appreciated the bluntness of it.

He also didn’t really know how to get any.  Oh, he knew the method, but he wasn’t a board game guy.  Maybe he could go get in a fight with Terror or something.

Nate snorted to himself as he grabbed his keys and turned to leave, and then realized Cam was still sitting on his couch, not having said anything to him.  She wasn’t just sitting, either.  Cam had her legs tucked up to her chest, her arms and wings wrapped around herself in a cocoon, and had barely reacted at all to Nate’s comment.

”What’s going on?”  Nate didn’t bother asking if she was okay.  He was antisocial, he wasn’t a fucking moron.

Cam turned her head to look at him, the motion so slow and uncoordinated Nate briefly wondered if he should check to see if she’d gone through his whole stock of secret beer.  Her eyes weren’t drunk, though.  They were just… distant.  Like she was in shock.  “I’m here for the preliminary debriefing.”  Cam said thickly.

Nate frowned and looked back at the door, then at the kid.  “We did that.  Two hours ago.”  He told her.

”Oh.” She didn’t really move except to turn back to stare at his coffee table.

”Cam.  What the fuck is going on.”  Nate tossed his keys back on the counter, and was shocked himself to see Cam flinch at the metallic rattle.  “Talk to me.”  He really tried to sound a little less gruff.

She didn’t react or reply.  Though Cam did open her mouth like she was about to speak, no words came out, and it was a while before Nate realized that she was doing an impression of a statue.  Unmoving and barely even breathing.  He was trying to figure out if he should prod her or something, when she finally did start talking. 

It was just that he didn’t like what she said.

”What am I?”  Cam asked, still not looking at him.

Nate looked around his little basement room, as if hoping that someone more qualified to answer that question might appear from behind his flatscreen.  But unfortunately, it fell to him.  “Who gives a shit?”  He asked back.  “You’re-“

”I know what the Order is.”  Cam cut him off, her voice hollow.  “Humanity is a useless word here.  Even for the humans.”

”Hang on, I’m-“

”For several definitions of human, you don’t qualify anymore.”  Cam said, in that same tone, like she was a robot reporting on the weather.  “Purple orbs can change genetics.  You may be a whole new subspecies.”  She went quiet while Nate narrowed his eyes at her, still not looking at him.  And then, as if abandoning that point entirely, continued talking.  “I don’t know what I am.”  She said.

Nate crossed his arms, his glare intensifying.  “Yeah.  And so fucking what?  You’re in the place where it doesn’t matter and you just said it.”

”I… it’s not… I’m…” Cam’s breath caught, a small hiccup of a sob escaping her as she fumbled for words.  “I’m not doing this right.”  She said.

Nate’s frown turned to one of instant concern, and dropped onto the couch next to her, slinging an arm around the back of her wing blanket.  Tugging Cam against his side, he ditched the idea of being early to his pickup.  “Take your time with it.”  He said.  “I’m not fucking going anywhere.”

She huffed at him.  “You are busy.”  She said.  But there was no bite in it.  “I… told you Kiki was injured.”

”Got that from everyone, yeah.”  Nate nodded.  Kiki included, though her own debrief had been… awkward.  Mostly because Nate had been doing it in someone’s house underneath the Clutter Ascent opening, and while that wasn’t bad on its own, the stuff animal kids that thought he was a jungle gym made it weird.  Also Kiki had tried to downplay the fact that she knew what it felt like to have her skull perforated.  “What about it?”

”Did James tell you what he saw?”  She asked weakly, still tense against him.

Nate shrugged.  “He said it was bad.”  He didn’t go into detail.  “Makes sense, I guess.  I’m not an artist, but I’m smart enough to know that if you shoot an embodiment of kindness, it’s gonna feel like shit.”

Cam nodded.  And then, dispensed with the dancing around things.  “I saw my mom.”  She said.

It took Nate a second to realize why that was wrong.  Why that was likely impossible.  Cam and her sisters were their own Camile subspecies.  Or possibly species.  They weren’t really human, and the running theory was that they were dungeon life that the Last Line kept harvesting copies of and using as shock troops.

Cam didn’t have a mom.  Cam only technically had a dad.

“What was she like?”  He asked.  “Blond?”

The question startled Cam so much that she barked out a laugh.  Her feelings weren’t forgotten, but she sidelined them for a moment to elbow Nate in the gut.  “Don’t.”  She told him with a thin smile that faded quickly.

”What? I’m just asking!”  Nate put a grin in his own voice before moving on.  “So, what?  You think you’re more than we realized?  Wow.  Real surprise there.”  He pulled the hug tighter as Cam tried to say something.  “No, listen.  I know I’m a fucking asshole, but I’m not ignoring you.”  Nate told her.  “You saw your mom?  Okay.  That means you’re not what we thought.  So let’s go find her.”

”…What?”  Cam’s voice was smaller than it ever should be.

”You said it earlier.  This is the Order.  You think these sappy dumbasses are going to let you walk around being a depressed lump when they could be hunting down your actual parents?  Cam you’ve got sisters, clones, copies, or something close enough to those.  You think they might want to know?  Come the fuck on.  No one was ever going to leave you out in the cold.”

”It could have been a hallucination.”

Nate shrugged.  “Then I guess we won’t find anything.”

Cam started shaking, her wings slumping as she lost her balance and fell against Nate.  “…I’m sorry…” she gasped out between silent sobs.

”Must be inconvenient.”  Nate said, looking away.  He felt like he’d probably never know how to deal with someone crying.  When Cam made a questioning sound, he added, “You’re more human than you thought.  You’ll fit in less here.”

”I… I…” Cam burst out in a coughing laugh.  “I also use purple orbs, you asshole.”  She told Nate, as she got her breathing under control.

”Good thing, too.”  Nate said, pushing her back and standing up, clapping both hands on her shoulders.  “Because the only lead I have is your sister that our paladin nearly got the shit kicked out of him by in New York.  So you’ll need everything we can get for you.”

Cam shook her head.  “We have more important things to do.”  She said stiffly.  “I just… I just needed to say something.  I needed… I don’t know.”

Nate grunted as he wiped a wet patch of tears off his sleeve.  ”What more important things?  Investigating the Coalition?  I’ve got a few people on it, they’re already got a few potential sites to prod.  And our rogues need something to do anyway.”

”That’s not true.  I’m being an inconvenience.”  Cam’s voice was nearly silent as she watched Nate retrieve his keys.

He heard her anyway, which was annoying.  She added that to her list of potential modifications he had.  “Hey, remember the deal?  You need something, you come to me.  Who gives a shit if it’s inconvenient?  Bet we’ll end up with at least three more of your sisters before this is over, and I can put together a strike team that can punch through buildings.  And if not…”

”The deal was my fault.”  Cam said, shaking her head.  “I didn’t exactly give you much warning.”  

”Life never does.”  Nate winced.  That sounded too much like some of James’ bullshit.  Also he was pretty sure that Cam did, rationally, understand that you couldn’t exactly ambush someone with an informal adoption.  “Come on.  You’re not gonna feel better sitting on your ass staring at my minifridge.  You can help me buy a recoilless rifle.”

Cam stared at him.  And then stood off the couch.  “Thank you.”

”You gonna live?”  Nate asked, and Cam nodded, letting her wings droop to the floor behind her.  “That’s my girl.  Now let’s haul ass before our suspiciously astute arms dealer starts thinking I’m late.”

”Why do you know these people?”  Cam asked as she followed him upstairs.

”Work.”  Nate grunted.  “And… poor life choices.  Don’t be like me, you’ll end up here.”

”I’m already here.”  Cam said, catching Nate as the elevator doors closed and separated them from the outside for a moment, and giving the man a more earnest hug that had him awkwardly staring away as he patted her on the back.  “And I don’t think I mind that much.”

She was almost back to her normal self by the time they hit the parking lot.