The Daily Grind - Chapter 406 (Patreon)

"I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if we'll have the chance to kill him." -2B, Nier: Automata-

_____

The rental car suffered from the common problem James experienced every time he needed to lurk in a vehicle for a while under inclement weather conditions.  Either they left the car running with the heat on, and he would rapidly begin to feel like he was suffocating, or they turned the car off - the smart decision if you were stalking someone anyway - and before too long, it would feel like all heat had been completely sapped away from the environment, leaving James with a frozen trigger finger for when that became something he needed.

The reason he needed his fingers unfrozen had changed over the years, but this had mostly been his experience for a lot of his life.  Though weirdly, it didn’t seem to ever be an issue when it was actively snowing.

The rain had taken a break for about five minutes, the muffling grey briefly abating to let the glow from restaurant and hotel windows push back outward.  Lights of all sorts casting long shadows through the light drizzle and where wisps of steam rose up from grates and manhole covers.  Then the rain had started again, giving everyone who didn’t know how often this happened just enough time to think they could take the short walk to their car without an umbrella.

And so the car was kind of cold. 

“I sorta wish we had the opposite of the Climb magic sometimes.”  James told Cam idly.

He’d let this particular stretch of silence last long enough.  They were going through an ebb and flow of conversation as they kept an eye on things.  James had tried bantering with the shield team that was positioned around, but they were, to his chagrin, somewhat professional.  The Order’s mixed training program had given them a lot of ability, but about half of them were from the American Midwest, and they had their own ideas of what attitude they needed to have.  James was sure he could crack them eventually, but for now he’d been banned from pestering them on radio, and was limited to pestering Cam instead.

They’d sit for a while, then he’d get restless and find a way to nudge a conversation out of her, then she’d use the activation of her refreshed fortune sense as an excuse to break off socializing.  Twice they’d repositioned the car.  It wasn’t getting easier as the night went on, either.  James had hoped that traffic in this area would abate by ten PM, but no such luck.  He added that to his list of things he didn’t know about New York, which was a list that had been growing the longer he’d been lurking here.

“Magic that has heat as a waste product, I am assuming?”  Cam asked without asking, watching with a steady gaze through the wing mirror she had angled to keep an eye on the apartment building’s side entrance.  She trusted James to watch the front, but also didn’t really need to, since she was perfectly capable of splitting her attention.

”Exactly, thank you.”  James said, stifling a massive yawn.  “Some kind of desert dungeon.”

”Volcano.”

”Wuh?”  He blinked at Cam’s word, yawning again and feeling like his Energy stat was failing him at a pivotal moment.

Cam folded her right wing down so she stopped blocking her own vision, trying to not get annoyed at the limb that had an inconvenient resting position.  “It would be a volcano.  To mirror the Climb.”

”Ah!  Or a crater, maybe?  A descent, rather than a climb?”  James glanced over at Cam’s wings.  “Or maybe a dungeon would know that falling is easier than the opposite for some of us.”  He said as she shifted her body in annoyance again.  “You know, the Pylon has levels for Climb ‘limb manipulation’.”  He told her, just in case she didn’t know.

”That would be nice to have.”  Cam sighed and stopped fighting her wings.  “That is also oddly specific for that dungeon.  But I haven’t had the time regardless.”

James chuckled, glad to have something to focus on that helped him push back how weirdly tired the driver’s seat was making him.  ”Cam, please.  It’s the Pylon.  Just jog in and out a few times.”

”I have the easy achievements, and it doesn’t count if you don’t get more.”  She reminded him.  “Though, I have considered using it to determine my birthday.  If I even have one.”  Her smile was darkly amused.  “I know what day I was… activated, let’s call it, and don’t argue with me on word choice… but what if the Pylon doesn’t count that?  What if I have a birthday, and it’s different?  That would ruin my self-understanding, now wouldn’t it?”

James listened with the kind of attention he brought to conversations where he wasn’t sure if he’d fallen asleep halfway through and was hallucinating the other person’s response.  “Cam are you doing okay?”  He asked.

”I’m not used to being nervous on these sorts of operations.”  Cam told him with blunt honesty.  “Also my wings are irritating me by not fitting in this stupid car, and I should have shed them.”

”Nah, them irritating you is how you know they’re yours.”  He replied with unearned confidence.  “Seriously though, after this, let’s head to the Pylon.  I wanna check in with anyone there anyway, and we can get you a point or two in the limb thing.  If they’re bothering you now, it’s gotta be an issue other times too, right?”

Cam sighed.  “Maybe.”  She admitted in the dull tone she used to deflect, before noticing what she was doing and feeling like she should say something else to explain herself.  “This might surprise you, but most martial arts don’t account for a fourteen foot wingspan.  Though I can’t complain too much, it puts me on something of an equal footing with the chanters I am working with.”

”How’s that been going?”  James asked with comfortable curiosity while his eyes picked through the faces of a group of people that had just arrived at the apartment’s door.  They looked like a wedding party or something, striped suits and swishy green dresses on the eight or so people that ran through the rain to make it into the building.

”It’s a work in progress.”  Cam said, watching the same group with half her attention.  “More and more chanters are interested in it as a form of exercise, but there are some that I do think are learning to fight because they want to be delvers, or even knights, and… and I don’t know what to think about that.”  She admitted.  “Do you?”

James sighed himself, shaking his head without taking his eyes off the street.  “Not a clue.  Do you know how guilty I feel that we have ratroach knights?  I feel like… I fucked up somehow.  Like I failed them.  You know?”

”A month ago, I would have said that the answer was obvious, and you were being foolish.”  Cam said with quiet agreement.  “Now, I’m not so sure.”  She pointedly didn’t look at James, eyes fixed on the wing mirror like it was some kind of defensive charm as she added, “All these people trust us, rely on us, and when they want to help it feels like we’ve let them down.”

”Yeah.”  He muttered.  “And it’s easy to say no James, that’s really dumb when there’s an outside perspective.  Like, can you imagine telling Ishah that he’s not supposed to be doing what he does?”

”I think he would be annoyed, and ignore me.”  Cam said.  “And he’d be right to do so.  But the chanters feel different.”

”They feel different because they’re yours, I think.”  James said.  “Just like all the early ratroaches are mine.  I bet you a doughnut Alex feels the same way about the crocamaws, though Liette might be an exception.”

Cam snorted.  “No bet.  I want my doughnut later.”

”I got extras of your favorite.”  James told her smoothly.  “For reasons.  Okay, try this.  If you were picking a delve team from your class, who would you go with?  Emotional attachments aside, just going off capability and attitude.”

Tugging on the collar of her coat, Cam frowned in thought.  It wasn’t difficult for her to slip back into the pure analytical thought process she used to use all the time, but it was a challenge, because that kind of approach to the world felt foreign and uncomfortable to her now.  But she could do it, and through that lens, she already had some answers.  “Mist and Anima are the two most proficient.  Good reaction times, good… good instincts, even.  Potentially.  But Pia is the one I would put in charge.  She’s slower and weaker and she can’t read the flow of a spar at all.  But she wants it, wants the adventure, and everyone can feel it in her own chanting.  She wants to be like…”

Like her, Cam had a hard time saying.  Because that didn’t make sense to her.  It didn’t track.  Even now, after everything, she couldn’t emotionally connect with the idea that someone would willingly want to take up the role she had.

But of course, that thought conflicted with her observed reality, and the nature of the paladin sitting next to her.

”At some point,” James told her as he gave a sympathetic wince in honor of the woman in high heels who had just dropped her phone in a puddle outside the building they were staking out, “it comes down to an easy choice.  Either we help them be themselves, or we screw up and limit them by treating them like they aren’t people.  And I’m still grappling with that, cause it’s hard.  But… well…”

”Oh.  Oh!  You did that to me!”  Cam laughed in a sudden bark of noise inside the car.  “Though I’m a fair bit less helpless.”

”Yeah, still underfed though.”  James shot back with a smile aimed out the rainy windshield.  “Also want a doughnut?”

”I think you think your doughnuts are more tempting than they really are.”  Cam told him before shaking her head.  “What do I do with them, then?  The chanters?  Not just them, everyone; how am I supposed to know when they’re ready?”

James shrugged.  “No clue.  But maybe try doing stuff that’s a little riskier with them, and see how they handle it.  I’m not saying jump right into delves, though Rise certainly seems to be into that, but find ways to push them and test them and just… use your judgment, but also trust them too.  I fucked that up with Morgan once already!  Though I’ll admit it’s a challenge when we don’t know how fast a lot of species mature.”  He sighed again.  “Just don’t wait so long they start to resent it.”  He grumbled, thinking back to how often he’d been talked down to when he was younger by adults who were so sure he didn’t know what he was doing.

”I see.”  Cam filed away all of that advice in the part of her brain she used to sort through and rigorously archive the stuff James said.  Sometimes, people like Alanna or JP or especially Nate all liked to make jokes about the long-haired human being reckless or goofy or irreverent or something of that nature.  But for Cam, James Lyle was one of two people on this world or in any of the subdimensions they tended to end up in that she felt she could trust to directly tell her the secrets to understanding herself.  Ironically the other one was Nate, but his version of these kinds of conversation often came disguised as a lesson in how to cook something.

James looked away from a pair of people that were currently arguing about an umbrella on the other side of the street to look at Cam.  “Actually, I was kinda serious about going to the Pylon later.  I do need to see if I can check in with Three Oh Six or someone with a more easily pronounceable name maybe.  If you want, bring Pia along.  Everyone gets a breathing level first anyway, so it’s not like we’ll be messing up her future wizard career.”

”I’ll consider it, depending on how many intact limbs I have after this.”  Cam said ominously, a hard frown on her face as all her small shifting motions stilled to nothing.  “Speaking of which, have you ever seen someone who is used to wearing armor walk without it?”

”Yes, I know you.”  James said, pointedly not turning his head out the rear of the car, instead using the mirror to try to get a look through the rear window and finding his vision completely occluded by splattered rain and refracted headlights from the road.  “You see your sister?”

”I see something.”  Cam said, pulling her wings up around the seat as she prepared to move, and nearly knocking James’ box of doughnuts onto the floor along with the weapon cases they had stored down there.  “Side entrance, the face was wrong but the gait is familiar.”

”Fortune sense.”  James told her firmly.  Throughout this stakeout, he’d started to realize something about how Cam used her magical perceptions.  Or rather, didn’t use them.  She’d changed a lot, obviously, but she still rigorously held her magic in reserve until it was absolutely needed or she was told to use it.  Not just her senses either.  James was gonna have to work on that with her later at some point too.  But for now… “You’ve got a target, focus on her and see how things look.”

Cam’s eyes pressed closed in momentary focus, and this time, James was sure he saw a wisp of something drift off her.  “Floor eight, and better results if we wait ten minutes.”  She said, her tension not fading at all at the report.

”You trust that?”  James asked.

”It’s never failed me.”  Cam replied.

He nodded, and the two of them locked eyes for a moment before turning to look up at the apartment building they were lurking outside.

James really hoped that in exactly ten minutes, the rain took a tiny little break.  Just for a minute.  But until that failed to happen and he got himself doused by New York’s best precipitation, he pulled out his radio and started informing the shield team what was going on.

It felt nice to have something to do, because he was pretty sure Cam’s anxiety about her small family reunion was infectious.

_____

The last time James was here, the apartment he’d gone into had been mostly abandoned.  It looked like it was the kind of place that either needed a ton of work, or to be demolished and done over.  Water damage, crumbling walls, lots of things that just didn’t fit together properly, that sort of thing.

In contrast, just the lobby of this apartment tower felt like a world he’d sort of seen through ground floor windows, but had never felt like he belonged in.  Polished hardwood floors, a similarly well made counter that portioned off a little office with what looked like the friendly face of a security guard sitting behind it, a bank of those package cubbies where you were supposed to scan your phone to get your deliveries, elevators.  The place felt like it was slightly trapped between the trappings of traditional fortune, and a hypothetical future where wealth looked a little different and a little more chrome.

As someone who came from a world where a ‘big’ apartment complex was one that had three floors, the idea of a single structure so large that at least three or four hundred people lived in was challenging.  Though it wasn’t like he should be struggling with this; James had personally helped design some of the orange totem apartments in Townton.  Hell, he’d helped with the apartments in the Lair, and there was room for a thousand people down in that single basement.

Maybe he just got dazzled by the presence of an elevator.

The building, situated on a corner in such a way that its lobby’s frosted glass windows could wrap around half the ground floor, had two doors into that lobby.  There was also an attached garage, but the gate on that one was a little more difficult to get through than a locked door.

James and Cam could make themselves intangible, but not a vehicle.  Something James thought was really stupid.  The potion worked on pants, but drew the line at tires, apparently, which just didn’t make sense.  Though it was easy enough to simply say it was magic, but he hated doing that.

Magic had rules.  Magic did what it did, and sometimes it was weirdly specific, but it had its own logic it always followed.  Which meant the ghost potion had a logic that didn’t play well with cars, and James wanted to know why.

That was for later, though.  For now, there was simply the light tugging sensation of walking through the glass and ornately woven metal bars of the side door, and stepping out of the rain into the cool impersonal cleanliness of the lobby.

James dodged a wet floor sign on a slick part of the hardwood, and earned a look from Cam with her mouth set in a straight line of the most mild amusement.  He didn’t comment, and he certainly didn’t acknowledge the heat in his cheeks from the embarrassment of instantly forgetting he was intangible.

And then they were walking around a cluster of smooth white tables with shiny modern hourglass bases, and matching chairs made of hard plastic that looked comically uncomfortable, and in doing so, walking right into line of sight of the night security guard.

James and Cam were both professionals, though.  And they both knew the biggest rule about being somewhere you weren’t supposed to be: walk like you were allowed, and half your problems went away.

”Stairs?”  James asked jovially as they strolled through the open space, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind.  “Or do you feel like risking an elevator with me?”

”Is there something about you and elevators I should know?”  Cam asked, working with James to enforce their shared aura of being unconcerned about their own presence.  “I already know that we’re going to be at the elevation where someone is going out a window with you around.”

”Nothing yet, but it’s on my list.”  James answered as he looked around for where the stairs were, and found that this building had a really wide set of steps that seemed to wrap around the elevators.  Which could not possibly be up to fire code, which meant there were other stairwells elsewhere around here too, probably in the corners of the building.  He made a mental note, but kept walking for the main stairs anyway.

The guy at the desk clearly knew they were there, because no level of stealth magical or otherwise could cover up the squeak of wet shoes on hardwood, but he gave them a good ten steps into the lobby before looking up at them.

His eyes lingered on James for barely a second, before he looked at Cam, one eyebrow going up at the winged girl that was walking at James’ side.  Cam had her scaled limbs pulled tight against her sides, her body language clearly betraying that she would have liked to tuck the wings into her coat if she could get away with it, and while she’d made the choice to keep the spell active while they did this, she obviously felt strange about looking so obvious.

Then the security guard looked back down at whatever he was doing behind the desk.  “Welcome back ma’am.”  He said simply.

Cam’s next step faltered, but she returned a polite nod as she quickly caught back up to James’ unhurried stride, the two of them approaching the stairs shoulder to shoulder.  “Well, that confirms that.”  She said.

”Yeah, definitely someone we know.”  He said, pursing his lips as they started climbing.  “Doing okay?”

”I am terrified.”  Cam said with the dull voice she still fell back on when she was trying to not sound terrified.  “This is a terrible idea.  Let’s leave and go fight something larger than us in a dungeon instead.”

”I mean, if you want, we did kind of promise Aphy a delve at one point, we can head back…” James said, only partly joking.  “But you know you’ll regret it.”  He reminded her.

James was so busy looking up at the corner of the next landing where there was some kind of ornately framed landscape painting of a boat, that he didn’t notice Cam lagging a few steps behind him.  “We should have targeted one of the normal ones.”  She grumbled.  “Kidnapping one of my sisters from the Last Line Of Defense’s side would make me feel much more in control of the situation.”

Looking away from the fancy painting and wondering just how much it cost to live in this building, James gave Cam a roll of his eyes from a few stairs up as he took the corner and kept up a steady pace.  “That’s way more likely to end with someone hurt.”

”You could talk to them.”  She said with the kind of confidence that hurt James’ heart.

”Talking doesn’t always work.”  James muttered quietly.  “It didn’t work with… with the first of your sisters I met.  It didn’t work with half the people in Oklahoma.  It isn’t working with the Mormons in general.  In fact it seems like me talking mostly only works on people who already want what I’m offering and just need to hear someone tell them that it’s okay to be like that.”

”Yes, that.  Do that to them.”  Cam told him, pointing at his back as they ate up distance.  The elevator would have been faster, but it wasn’t like this was difficult, and Cam did have a concern about being in the kind of choke point an elevator represented.  “Say something like that.”

James laughed back at her.  “That isn’t how it works and you know it.”  He reminded her, getting an indignant furl of Cam’s wings in reply, even if he wasn’t looking backward.  “Come on, we’ve got enough stairs left to earn a Breath upgrade.”  He joked.  “Then you can try talking.”

”I wouldn’t even know how.”  Cam shot back.

He kept the pace steady but not rushed as they went up, every other landing leading to a kind of open alcove on the next floor.  Sometimes they went past people who were waiting for or coming off the elevator, and once they got a kid that couldn’t be older than four years old pointing at Cam and loudly declaring her to be a dragon over and over.  The kid’s dad had been apologetic, but clearly curious, and while Cam had managed to keep a straight face as she met his eyes and just said “Cosplay”, James had nearly died holding back laughter.

Just after floor seven, Cam was lagging farther behind him, and James knew it was on purpose.  Because everything Cam ever did was on purpose, even the very bad decisions.  Not easing into it, he kept ascending without looking back, and just called back to her with, “You already know I can talk you into this, come on, keep up.”

”That’s circular logic.”  Cam retaliated.  But she did keep up.  Even if she felt like she was even more nervous than she should be.  Some amount of apprehension would have made sense, but this felt almost like drowning in it, and Cam was unprepared for it.  She’d spent her whole life, short as it was, being confident that she could solve every situation she’d walked into, one way or another.  But this time, there was the potential for a fail state that had nothing to do with her ability to tank gunfire or break walls.

The eighth floor felt stuffy.  Or maybe that was just her; it looked exactly the same.  Even had the same wall art as lower floors.  Cam wondered if James’ appreciation for the paintings would dim if they were all copies.  But she also wondered where her fortune sense was dragging her.

She had about thirty percent of the pool left, which was an intentional rationing.  Now that she was here, and had a target, it was much easier to close her eyes and feed the magic out into the world.  Receiving signals back like a hundred threads of communication from sources that weren’t used to reporting anything to anyone.  It was an experience she had a hard time explaining to anyone, even her sisters, though that was mostly because she assumed they already knew and so they never talked about it.  But it was a little bit like reaching out and asking a question and getting a reply from a dozen whispers in the form of pulling threads, and knowing in advance which ones were the cleanest options.  Not the best, but the most direct, and also the things that would be the most impressive long shots if she followed up on them.

Fortune was a strange thing, and Cam didn’t think she was using it quite the way it was meant.  But it did tell her what door she needed to go to.

”This way.”  She stepped past James who was doing some kind of ineffective rotational stretch.  Leading them down the hallway, the part of her mind that couldn’t be anything but a good soldier was aware of James checking in with the shield team and making sure they were in position to respond if needed, but the rest of her felt like a coiled spring.  The doors to the various apartments were spaced comfortably apart, the three bedroom places here obviously meant for those who wouldn’t have to worry about money, about half the doors decorated with something.  A few had wreaths that were a few months past the date they’d been put up for, one had some form of display of pink hearts that was either from Valentine’s Day or from what must have been a fascinating relationship.  Others were just simple white painted wood with the apartment numbers outside.

She and James rounded one of the corners in step with each other, and her fortune sense pulled her to the door on the left side of the hall.  On the right side, hanging out by one of the doors in this cluster, there were a couple of young men in tuxedos holding empty glasses.  The remnants of the wedding party they’d watched enter.  James gave a polite nod as they approached, but one of them looked at Cam before pressing his eyes closed and squinting, clearly trying to work through a thought while being a bit drunk.

“Hey Ms. Adler.”  The man nodded at her, his buddy turning to give Cam and James his own charming smile, both of them clearly having had a good time wherever they’d been.  “New look for you, I like it!”

Cam froze, and then nodded slowly.  “Thank… you.”  She said slowly, eyeing the man cautiously.  “Though that is not my name.”  Cam regained her footing and gave James a look like she was approaching a firing squad.  “You aren’t going to leave as soon as I knock, are you?”  She asked him.

”I’m sentimental, I’m not stupid.”  James chuckled as Cam moved to the apartment door that her fortune sense had pointed her at.

With a final check of what was left of her supply of that sense, she found that the timing and location and people all lined up.  And she raised her hand to firmly and rapidly tap out an old signal on the wood.

She also noticed that the man who had complimented her was watching with confusion as she did so, which reinforced the idea that this was where her sister was living.  Cam almost laughed as James conspiratorially whispered at the man that she was here to meet a long lost sister, before realizing that was technically true.  And she could hear the footsteps of that sister from inside, too, before the pause at the door lined up with someone checking through the peephole.  Her tapped signal was an old one that she and her sisters had used, and it seemed it was enough to get attention, but not instant trust.

The delay was long enough Cam was starting to wonder if she should say something.  What was there to say, though?  A reassurance, a plea, anything like that?  She and Nate were reasonably confident this Camille wasn’t operating with the Last Line Of Defense, but that didn’t mean she’d want to talk to Cam, or trust her at all anyway.  So what was there to do, except stand at the door and let her sister make a decision.

When the door opened, it was abrupt, though it didn’t startle Cam at all.  And then there was a copy of herself, staring at her.  Only… her sister wasn’t the same.  They had different scars, and this other Camille was a half-inch taller than her too.  Longer hair, a nose that had been broken at least once, and she even breathed slightly differently.  The girl standing in the apartment’s entryway wasn’t the same as her, but she was dressed in grey sweatpants and a slightly different shade of grey for her shirt, which was painfully familiar.

The eyes she stared at Cam with were the same ones Cam saw in the mirror though.

Fortunately, Cam had seven floors of stairs, several hours watching the building in a parked car, and a month of quiet anxiety while she took showers or tried to fall asleep in which to rehearse what she needed to say in this situation.  There were a few key points she needed to hit quickly; she wasn’t affiliated with the Last Line Of Defense, she was affiliated with the Order, she wasn’t here to start a fight, she hoped that her sister could have information for her, but even if she didn’t, Cam wanted very badly to talk to her about… anything.  Everything.

She had planned out a carefully constructed idea of this conversation.  And yet, when she tried to execute that plan…

”Hello.”  Cam said with a dry half-choked voice.  “I…”

It was a known fact at this point that Camilles in general were bad at dialogue.  Bad at conversation, bad at rhetoric.  It was, Cam personally believed, an intentional flaw on the part of the Last Line Of Defense.  That they were made easy to convince and disinclined to open up, because that kept them isolated and subservient.  Even her particular caste, trained to gather intelligence, was give the bare minimum, and from what she knew, azures were always the first to run anyway because of it.

But it was one thing to know she had an area she needed to work on, the same way that she had been going through ongoing martial arts training to actually apply her strength in ways aside from just hitting things as hard as possible.  And another thing entirely to be faced head on with the fact that sometimes she just lost every planned line of conversation she had, and was left fumbling.

Her relative lack of social skills didn’t interfere with everything else about her, though.  So Cam was perfectly aware of her sister’s reaction on a tactical level.  The almost understanding softening as Cam stumbled, which lasted less than a second as reflected eyes twitched sideways and took in James.  Cam processed her sister’s body beginning to move in unison with eyes narrowing, and knew what was coming.  She braced herself, even though she wasn’t the one being looked at anymore, but instead of going for a block or riposte, she instead tried talking even knowing the introduction had already broken down.

”Wait!”  Was as far as she got out before her sister moved.

It wasn’t clear what classification this Camille was, or how long she’d been out of the Last Line’s service, if that was what was actually happening with her.  But she still attacked like a Camille did; no holding back, no hesitation.  Her hand clamped onto Cam’s shoulder like an industrial machine as she lunged forward, putting herself out in the hallway and out of the choke point of the hall that Cam knew she’d assumed she was in.  Cam didn’t resist, only preparing for the force of the impact as she was slammed into the far wall of the hallway.

She left an indent.  The wall gave up before her body did, and her sister had used an excessive amount of force.  Small chunks of the painted drywall rained down on her as she kept her wings folded so they didn’t get snapped by the hit.  The other version of her then did something unexpected and whirled, wrenching Cam outward and throwing her down the hall at high speed toward where James had taken a defensive step back.

”Shit, Cam!”  James barked out, reacting as Cam knew he was always going to and interposing himself between her own projectile form, and the two civilians that had thought they’d recognized her.  In the brief flash as she rolled through the air, Cam caught a glance of him looking like he was going to try to catch her.

Which was a terrible idea.  She might not weight as much as a healthy human, but her body didn’t obey physics, and someone would get hurt doing that.

So she arrested her flight, flaring her wings out to either side, pressing the limbs into the hallway walls and dragging herself to a stop without causing too much interior damage.  She didn’t even knock any of the light fixtures down, and Cam felt an unreasonable pride at the deft manipulation of her own limbs for just a moment.

The moment didn’t last as her sister, already in motion after throwing her, threw a hook at her head.  Enough force to annihilate a human, or to actually injure her.  Cam’s eyes met her counterpart’s, both of them focusing with laser precision on what the other was about to do, analyzing each other’s movements and focus.  Camilles did sometimes practice fighting each other, and their speed in combat both physical and mental made them exceptionally interesting opponents.

It surprised both of them, though Cam slightly less, when her body moved to the patterns of her ongoing training.  Instead of a dodge or another attempt to simply take the hit, her hands were already on her sister’s extended arm without any indication in her eyes that she had planned it.  Her own grip, powerful in its own right, clamped down.  But rather than trying to arrest the punch, Cam’s hips twisted, her wings pinwheeling with her as she rotated and threw her sister through the arc of her attack and over the axis of her own arm, slamming the Camille onto her back on the hardwood floor with so much energy that she slid thirty feet past James and the bystanders.

”You know,” Cam said, standing back up to her full height and brushing drywall off her favorite coat, “I’m going to regret saying this, but I think I understand why you yell ‘judo’ every time you throw me in spars.”  She told James.

He didn’t take his eyes off the Camille that was rising to her feet down the hall.  “Do you have any idea how hard it was to resist while fighting her specifically?”  He asked.

”Uh…” one of the men now in their door’s alcove and peeking out around them said with the tone of a man who was drunk, but not drunk enough for this, called down to the other Camille.  “Y-you okay, Ms. Adler?”

”Want us to call the cops?”  The other one asked.

Cam and her sister answered at the same time, with James only a hair behind.  “Please do not.”  “Don’t do that.”

James shook his head as Cam began stalking toward her sister like some kind of large feline predator, relaxing as she clearly had this in hand.  “Your version probably has a thing about the police, since one of them shot her twice a while back.  Also the cops might be a literal hive mind, though I think a lot of them don’t know it.  Don’t tell anyone though!”

”Uh… huh…” the guy stared at him as James leaned against the wall.  “Shouldn’t you be more worried?”  He asked.

”What?  Oh, no.  Cam’s fine.  They’ll both be fine, I think this is how they say hello.  Though to be honest it would have gone better if I wasn’t here, I didn’t think that through.”  He shook his head before looking at the man’s tux and pastel pink bow tie.  “So… wedding?”

”Oh, yeah.”

”Cool.”  James smiled at him, making small talk as Cam blocked a kick with crossed arms and then faked a return jab so she could get closer and try to put her sister in a headlock.  “Hope it went well!”

The guy nodded back at him, he and his buddy still staring at the ongoing fight, though as the Camilles kept their trading of attacks in near silence going, the other guy did rapidly dip back into the apartment they were standing outside, and James could hear him calling to other people over the music playing inside.  “Yeah, yeah it was.  Their vows had a whole thing about how they were either gonna be in love forever or self destruct in a month, and they got that fancy-ass Mongolian place to cater it.”

”…That’s… yeah, actually, that’s great.  Hope it works out for them or else explodes spectacularly?”  James offered, wincing as Cam got her head slammed into the elevator doors.  “Ow.  Hm.  Cam, you good?”  He called down the hall.

She gave him a thumbs up, hooked her legs around her sister’s, and flipped her opponent onto her back with a slam that shook the floors of everyone within two levels of this one.

A woman in a silken green dress, hair up in a fuzzy column on her head, ran out of the apartment followed by a few other people, and immediately locked onto the fight.  “Why are they fighting?!”  She demanded the man who was talking to James, before slapping him on the chest.  “Why are you two just standing here?!”

”Ah, hi.”  James raised his hand.  “They’re fighting because of a misunderstanding, and we’re standing here because… well, I could survive getting mixed up in that, I doubt he could though.  And they’re fine.  I think they’re having fun?”  He raised an eyebrow as the wingless version of Camille roared out incoherently and slammed her fist through the wall just next to Cam’s head as his knight dodged the strike, taking advantage of the momentary distraction to knee her copy in the stomach hard enough that it would have shattered a human ribcage.  “Okay they might not be having fun, I should do something.”

”Who the fuck are you?!”  The woman’s demand was loud, but not unreasonable.

”I’m James.  I’m here with Cam to talk to her sister, who I think still thinks I’m someone I’m not from the last time we met.  Oh, duh.”  James slapped himself softly.  “Hey, not-my Camille!  I’m not affiliated with any pillars and I’m just here as emotional support!  Sorry I lied to you last time!  I’m glad you’re not dead!”  He yelled down the hall.

The fight came to a stop so abruptly that James wasn’t clear who had decided to stop it.  The way Cam, and also Ami in the brief time he’d known her, could do that had always sort of thrown James off.  The instant shifting of priorities when needed was just a little too jarring to feel like it was an upgrade of human ability, and it was one of the biggest things that made Cam come across like a fucking terminator during fights or training scenarios.

The two of them didn’t move though, instead standing six feet apart like they were just waiting for the other one to finish updating what they thought of the situation.  James rolled his eyes and started walking their way, wincing and making unhappy noises at the various dents and cracks in the fancy apartment structure that some poor maintenance crew was going to need to get to at some point.

”Talking didn’t work.”  Cam said as he sauntered up, breathing slightly heavier than normal.  She already knew James was faking his casual attitude, and was pretty sure her sister did too.

”The last time I spoke with him, I was nearly killed, and he lied repeatedly.”  The other Camille said.

”In his defense, you were trying to kill him.”  Cam told her.

”He was an obvious enemy element in a hostile situation.”

”He was someone you’d never met in an otherwise empty building.”

James cleared his throat.  “I kinda get it, I did try to shoot her a lot.”  Cam glared at him.  “I mean, yeah, it was after she tried to murder me, I guess!”  The other Camille glared at him.  “Okay this was a terrible idea.  Go back to causing property damage.”  James held his hands up and backed away.

Cam’s eyes twitched back to her sister’s at the same time as her mirror self refocused on her.  Then she sighed, and released her prepared combat stance with a deliberate act of will, letting her wings drop back down behind her.  “Hello.”  She told her sister.  “My name is Cam Marselli.  I’d like to talk to you, for a variety of reasons.  Are you willing to stop fighting?”

”Marselli?”  Her sister asked, and waited for Cam’s hesitant nod before she looked back at James.  “You got married?”

”James do not laugh.”  Cam pointed at him with a snap of her arm so fast it blurred the air.

He struggled to obey that command, biting down on his lips until he had it under control, before taking a deep breath and shaking his head.  “We’re not married, don’t worry, you can safely be annoyed at me.”  He said.  “I really am sorry I tried to shoot you in the head fifteen times, though.”

“Are you two still fighting?  I’m calling the cops if you don’t stop!”  The bridesmaid back down the hall shouted at them.

James really did not want to involve Long in this.  Though he was kind of curious if the pillar could hear people threatening to call the cops, in the same way Kiki could chain her eavesdropping across connections of kindness.

The two Camilles locked eyes again, though James was well aware that one of them was also keeping him in her targeting focus.  He kept his hands at his sides, clearly away from anything that might be a concealed weapon, standing with the same posture he’d use for a scared dog.  And he hated a little bit that he knew that was a good description for any Camille that hadn’t had the time and healing they needed.

Before either of the sisters could decide if they were done causing problems for the landlord, a new voice joined the conversation.

”Oh just great.  Another one.”  The words were sharp and unhappy, coming from an aged woman well into her twilight years, leaning on the door Cam had come through across from the wedding party.  She was glaring down the hall through boxy reading glasses, a face full of wrinkles scowling at everyone there.

”Oh, hey Mrs. Adler.”  The same guy that had greeted Cam and James gave her a tight lipped smile.  James analyzed it the same way Cam analyzed her sister’s combat stance, and came to the very easy conclusion that while the people who lived or maybe just hung out a lot across the hall had met the Camille, and liked her, they held no such love for this older woman.  “Guess the noise woke you?”  The man asked.

The older lady stared at them, leaning with a bony hand on the doorframe, before her mouth twisted in an irate frown.  “Well.”  She barked out.  “Get in here.”  And then without any other words, she turned and vanished back into her apartment.

The sister that had been willing to put Cam through a wall seemed to have an apprehensive tension to her shoulders.  But James wasn’t interested in that.  Instead, all he could see was Cam, as her mind made a connection, and her shoulders slumped.  Every bit of prepared energy leaving her in a moment.

”Oh.”  She said quietly

Her mirror self didn’t notice or care.  Instead, she stepped away, and waited for James to move out of her way as she almost calmly headed back down the hall, ignoring the couple of doors that were cracked open for people to see what kind of fun commotion was going on nearby.  “Well.  Come on.”  She told them, as if that was that.

Cam began to follow, footsteps mechanical, none of the combative grace she’d been showing present.  But James stopped her with a hand tapping her arm.  “I don’t think this is what you think…” he said quietly.

”I don’t think what I think will matter much.”  She replied with her own unhappy voice, before pushing past him.

James gave an apologetic smile to the cluster of people in the door and entryway of the apartment across from where he was following Cam and her sister into.  “Sorry bout that.  Happy wedding day!”  He told them.

”Yeah… hey, are they okay?”  The guy motioned with his still empty champagne flute that he had never sat down toward the far apartment.  “That seemed… uh… bit heated?”

”I’ll make sure they’re fine.” James promised.

The woman with the impressive hair folded her arms at him like a scornful duchess.  “Didn’t you say you shot Ms. Adler?”  She inquired.

James held up his hand, index finger extended.  “In my defense, she tried to kill me, and shooting her doesn’t work.”  He said.  “And you don’t believe me, I can see it.”  James nodded at their suspicious looks.  “No joking though, both of them are mostly bulletproof.  I’ll make sure at least one of them doesn’t get hurt though.”  He reassured the wedding party.

”Close the damn door!”  A shrill yell came from the apartment James was wasting time not going into.

He winced and then gave a faux-embarrassed chuckle to the civilians, before ducking into the other doorway and closing it after himself.

These were pretty nice apartments, which was to be expected he supposed, for the price they demanded.  Hardwood floors and windows that let in the glow of the cityscape amid the rainy night.  A kitchen that, unlike his own home, looked to have been designed by someone who knew what a kitchen was and how it was used.

But it was cold.

Not just temperature wise, though James wouldn’t have minded if it were warmer; he still felt like he was the least cold-adapted professional wizard in the Order.  Hell, he had more ways to resist being set on fire than to stop himself from getting kinda chilly.  But no, the apartment felt like a place that was both transitory, and scorned by the people living in it.  The main area that he would have called a living room anywhere else had three pieces of furniture; an armchair, an end table next to the armchair, and a wall-mounted flatscreen TV.  There weren’t even curtains on the windows, there wasn’t even clutter on the kitchen counter.

James felt more uncomfortable walking in here than he did watching Cam fight her doppleganger.

”Can we go back to the hall and having a scrap?”  He muttered to himself.

No one answered.

He moved farther into the half-lit apartment, shoes thumping on the flooring, seeing Cam standing with her hands hooked under her wings and behind her back like she was at parade rest, right next to her sister that was doing the same thing, both of them facing an elderly white-haired woman that was lowering herself into a chair with a furious scowl that clearly indicated that any help would be not only unwelcome but met with active resistance.

”Oh good, a straggler, to go with the castoff.”  The woman glared in James’ direction as she sagged into the chair, clearly having overexerted herself.  “Now.  What the fuck do you two want with me?”

Cam opened her mouth, then closed it, looking like she was completely lost and off-script.  Then, she did the only thing she could think of, and looked to James for help.

”Cam’s looking for her mom.”  James said into the cold air of the barren apartment.  “We knew about you,” he pointed at the other sister, “since I met you, and our intel people had been trying to find you for a while.  When we started to realize you were probably outside the Last Line’s ranks, we-“

The old woman cut him off, biting acidic words snapping out, “Don’t call him that.”

James didn’t miss a beat. ”When we realized you weren’t with Lloyd, we moved you up to the first Camille to contact.  I’d hoped to get an explanation in before the punching started, but…”

”You are lucky you are immune to electrocution.”  The Camille told her sister without turning her head.

”I’m not, it’s an extension of a body modification.”  Cam said back in the same dry tone.

”Useful.”

”Indeed.”

James stared at them, wondering if this was how Cam greeted all her new sisters that were piling up in Townton.  Trying to put his eyebrows back at a non-sarcastic position, he turned to the old woman that was impatiently tapping a remote control on the arm of her chair.  “You I’ll admit, are a surprise.  Adler.  Is that a cover, or a real last name?”

Her glare shifted focus to James’ face.  ”Of course it’s my name.”  She snapped.

”Ma’am…” the Camille that lived here started to say, before being stopped by the glare pivoting.

Looking back at the grey-clad Camille, James let out a breath.  “And you?”  He asked.  “You said Cam changed her name, and the guys who’re either a bridal party of a big polycule thought Cam was named Adler too.  So…?” No one said anything, so he stopped being coy.  “Hey!  Before my friend starts fucking crying, can I get a straight answer?  We’re not here for a fight or for threats or anything weird, we literally just want to find Cam’s mom.  So!  Who are you?”  He asked the older woman.

”Hah!”  She barked out a laugh, but her smile had absolutely no compassion in it.  “Is that all?  I answer and you leave me alone?”

”Yes.”  Cam said, voice straining.

The woman looked back at her with a sneer.  “You don’t have a mother.”  She said sharply.  “You’re a castoff.  That’s it.  That bastard keeps making more of you whenever he needs you, and he makes you like that out of stupid fucking sentimentality.  Happy?  No?  Don’t care, get out.”

For the only time since James had known her, he thought Cam genuinely looked like she was holding back tears.  He didn’t even know Camilles were capable of crying.  She’d been through so much, and taken it all without tears, but now a handful of words from a bitter old woman was enough to crack her composure beyond anything else.

James wasn’t willing to let that sit idle.  “So, why’re you here?”  He asked the non-personally affiliated Camille.

”She needs someone to protect her.”  She answered him.  And through the light coming in through the window, James realized he saw her own face paralleling Cam’s.  Just… like she’d heard this before.  Not that it hurt less, but that she’d gotten used to it.  “And our father won’t interfere with or kill me if I am fulfilling that role.”  The Camille kept her eyes focused forward, staring at the far wall over the armchair the woman she was apparently keeping safe was occupying.

That woman gave James a roll of her eyes.  ”Any more questions, or can I have my apartment back?”  She asked.

”Yeah, a few.”  He tried to not reply with his own anger, but that was getting challenging, especially as Cam kept silent and tried to not meet his eyes.  “Actually, just one?  Who are you?”

”Oh, you’ve got intel people but you can’t read my mail?”  She laughed at him, mean and cold.

James just shrugged.  “Not how we found you.”  He said simply.  “Good idea though!”  He was already sending skulljack messages out.  He had an address and Rogues with a rampant disregard for things like laws.  And he had an answer before he was done being snarky.  “Oh look, found your mail.  Ooh, driver’s license too!  You’re…” James froze, his words coming to a halt on his tongue.  One hand came up to settle on the kitchen counter as he gave Cam an almost terrified look, the abruptness of it making her just curious enough that it shook her out of her own fog.  “Cam…”

”Who is she.”  His friend asked with a heavy voice.  “Just tell me.  It can’t get worse.”

”Cam.  No, she’s… that’s it.  Camille Adler.  That’s you.”  James said breathlessly, staring at the withered old woman.

“In the flesh.  Or whatever’s left of it.”

Cam’s eyes, glistening with unspent tears, locked onto the ornery woman.  “You aren’t my mother.”  She said slowly, as if declaring it made it true.  “You’re my sister.”

That was perhaps the wrong thing to say, even if it were true.  The old woman, the old Camille, snarled with so much force that spittle came out of the corner of her mouth.  “Never call me that!  You’re a copy!  He can’t have me, and he knows it, so the bastard keeps making copies and none of you are anything, understand?!”  She screamed.

Both Camilles - both Camilles that mattered - flinched back from the words.  Though again, James saw, one of them took it… not better, but like she was used to the abuse.  “But I…” Cam started to say, uncertainly working her way toward asking something.

”My mother has been dead for years.  My father has turned into a monster.  You don’t get either of those things!”  The woman kept yelling.

The tired looking Camille spoke softly during a pause in the shouting.  “Yes ma’am.”  She said in a dull voice.  “I am aware.”

The words made James want to defenestrate someone, and for once, it wasn’t one of the people that had tried to kill him in the past.

He took a step forward, then another, heading for Cam and not caring about the noise his boots made on the floor.  They had to get out of here, not because it was dangerous, but because it was just… wrong.  This had blown past both of their expectations for ‘worst case scenario’.  In a lot of ways, it would have been easier if the Camille had been some kind of murderous secret agent of the Last Line Of Defense.  At least then the shield team could help instead of just being secondhand witnesses to emotional trauma.

He was stopped by Cam holding up a hand.  The girl’s wings settling into a firm position as her back straightened.  “No.”  She said.

”Excuse me?  Are you complaining?”  The elder Camille demanded with a bitter laugh.

”No.” Cam said, more sharply.  “Complaining would prove nothing.  I am rejecting what you have said, because it is not true.”  Cam’s words gained strength as she spoke, and when the older version of herself, the older template of herself, tried to interrupt, she simply spoke through it.  “I am not a castoff, I am a survivor.  You think you are angry?  I understand.  How could I not?  A father like that would ruin anyone.  And I am sorry you had to face that alone.  But you are wrong.”  Cam said, before turning to her wingless mirror, and stepping into her personal space, a hand pushing aside the fearful twitching strike that the Camille threw at her as she dragged her sister into a hug.  “We had a mother.  We are alive, and we deserve to live, and you deserve better than this.”  She softly spoke into her sister’s ear, azure wings folding around her copy’s back in a cocoon.

”Yeah yeah, touching.  Think whatever you want, just do it somewhere else, would you?”  The old version of Cam scoffed at them.

James took a deep breath, and made himself relax.  “Cam you want me to throw her out the window? I’ll fucking do it, just say the word.”

”I do not.”  Cam said, holding the stunned form of her sister who didn’t seem to know how to react to any of this.  “I want her to be cared for.  I want her to be protected.  She is a connection to my past, and she is my sister, no matter how much of a bitch she is being.”

The sentence hit James like a broadside, and he had let out a high pitched laugh before he really realized what he’d heard.  “Yup!”  He gasped.  “We can do that!”

”But.”  Cam said, stepping away from her sister and holding her shoulders tightly, fingers blending into the grey shirt that every Camille seemed to own somehow.  “It can’t be you.”  She whispered to her copy.  “You deserve better.  Come with us.  Come with me.”

”I can’t.”  The Camille told her in a terrified whisper.  “He’ll kill me.  And…” and that was it.  That was the only reason.  She didn’t want to be here either.

Cam tightened her grip.  “He won’t.  Because he can’t.  We didn’t just have a mother, we have sisters.  Real ones.  You have a family, waiting for you.  Come back with me, and let people who aren’t attached take care of our… aunt… here.”

”I can’t trust you.”  The Camille whispered again.  “You’re with him.  He’s an agent of a pillar too, he…”

”Oh that was a lie, sorry.”  James cut in.  “I thought I said that.  My bad.”

The other Camille ignored him.  “And I have work to do.  There’s… there’s things out there.  You can’t just ask me to abandon… even if it’s… if I’m…” she choked off the words.

Cam pulled her in close again.  “There are good things in the world.  And there are people worth protecting.  And we can see them and protect them together.  No one is giving up.  Not on the world and not on you.”  She gave a small laugh into her sister’s hair.  “Instead, I’m asking for something much harder.  And I know, because it seemed impossible to me when I was where you are.”  Cam felt her sister try to pull away, but with so little effort that she couldn’t have meant it.  “I am asking you to care about yourself.”

”That’s not important.”  The Camille said in a copy of Cam’s own voice.

The older version, or maybe the original Camille, gave another mean little huff.  ”For once she’s right.”  She said to people who didn’t want to listen to her.  “What, you think you matter?  You are replaceable on purpose, you’re just… clones.”  Her bony shoulders gave a dismissive shrug.  “You’re also blocking my view.”  She snapped.

”My boyfriend’s a clone.”  James said quietly.  There wasn’t any anger in his voice, but even the pissy old lady that was deliberately antagonizing them paused at the words.  “Who cares?  You’re failing to understand a lesson in basic compassion that was so simple it was literally in the Pokemon movie.  Cam’s a clone, and she’s great.  New Camille… do you have a name that you use?”

”No.”

Cam caught the thread of words as James almost fumbled it.  “If we were just copies, then we would be the same.  If we were just copies, then we would be like her.”  She didn’t hold back on returning her elder’s glare.  “And if we were all the same, you’d already have agreed with me.  But we aren’t.  And so convincing you to come with me is much, much harder.”

”…I can’t leave her alone, she’s…”

”Like I said, we’ve got that handled.”  James said.  “Hi.”  He addressed the elder Camille without any real emotion.  “Sorry to barge into your place.  Someone from our Recovery department will be visiting tomorrow to figure out if you need financial or medical support, and we’ll be doing regular check-ins if you want so that we can take care of you.  But you probably won’t have your… what does Camille count as, live in servant?”

“Ah, who cares.”  The woman flicked her wrist at James, bony fingers shooing him away.  “There’s always another one eventually.”

”Not this time.”  James said.

Camille shook herself free of Cam, who let her go.  “No, no.  I haven’t agreed to anything.  I can’t just go with you, I have…”

She stopped talking and in the cold apartment, silence took over again.  The girl with the same face as Cam desperately looked around, before eventually she landed on staring at the original of her name.  Staring at Camille Adler as if somehow the woman was going to grow a heart and tell her that everything was okay.

But the woman just shrugged and started trying to forcefully ignore them by turning on the big TV and turning up the volume on an episode of some detective show.

The message was the same one she’d had the whole time.  Probably since Camille had arrived here.

The daughter of the Last Line Of Defense wasn’t wanted.

“I don’t know how I could trust you.”  She whispered, still not ready to accept Cam’s offer regardless of how much she felt like she was adrift.

”Neither did I.”  Cam said in a more confident whisper.  “But I did.  Arguably the first choice I ever made.  And so far, the best.”

Her sister shook her head like she was trying to jolt herself out of a daze.  “I can’t… do this now.  I need to think.”  She turned on her heel and started walking for a door.  “I will… I will contact you when I am ready.”  She said.

”…Wait, hang on!”  James realized what was about to happen about three seconds before the Camille pulled open the smooth sliding glass door to the patio, walked out onto the concrete walled space, and without missing a beat, used one hand to help herself hop over the ledge and plummet to the street below.  “Not again!”  He groused.  “I didn’t even get to offer her a doughnut.”

Cam watched her sister go with a small smile on her face.  “That,” she said, “is very funny.  We’re funny people.  You could appreciate that more you know.”  James pointed at himself questioningly, before turning to point at the woman that seemed only mildly interested in her younger self’s descent.  “Either of you.”  Cam said, stepping directly into the old Camille’s line of sight and using her wings to completely block the TV.  “It has been an experience, meeting you.  And while I know you meant nothing but pain from it, thank you for telling me about my mother.”

”Not yours, idiot.”  The woman spat out.

”I don’t think that’s really your decision.”  Cam said with a sad smile.  “Goodbye, Mrs. Adler.”

She could have said more.  She had a thousand questions about who her mother was, who the Last Line had been, how everything had changed, all of it.  She had more comments about offering sympathies or condemning the vitriol that this version of her clearly held.  But…

Cam could learn everything on her own now that she had a real starting point.  And there was nothing left she wanted to say to this woman anyway.

“You gonna jump off the balcony too?”  James asked.

”No, the elevator will be fine, thank you.”  Cam told him imperiously as the two of them quietly left the cold apartment, shutting the door on a half-lit space where the only sound was a very loud television shining on a very angry old woman, and one last mean comment that neither of them paid attention to.

James nodded as he threw an arm around her shoulders, having to maneuver a lot more than normal to get around the shield of her left wing.  “Just so you know?”  He said as they made their way to the alcove space the elevator was set in, neither of them wanting to spend more time on stairs without a tactical reason.  “That’s how you do it.”

“We made a whole shield team stand in the rain for an hour.”  Cam pointed out.

”Well, it’s all part of the process.”  James nodded sagely.  “Now, are we gonna address the fact that the timeline here means that Lloyd is, like, a hundred and fifty years old?  Or is that just gonna sit in the background until it becomes cataclysmically relevant?”

”I’m already compiling a report.”  Cam sighed in the way she had copied from James directly.  “I do not think I will be accompanying you on your next delve today.  Nate may have some pointed questions that I would also like answers to.”

A ding sounded as their ride arrived, and James shook his head and squeezed Cam’s shoulders as they stepped into the elevator.  “It’s eleven PM, no one is gonna want to delve with me now.”

”Time zones.”  Cam pointed out.  “Also that’s a lie even if they didn’t exist?”

”Yeah I know I’m just not sure I can handle Aphy’s energy at the moment.”  James told her.  “But I might do it anyway.  Because…” he trailed off.

Because the cracks kept showing.  Because the world kept slipping.  Because things kept getting more dangerous and because there wasn’t a reaction to that more coherent than the Order itself.  Because a few hours felt like too long, and because a few months felt like no time at all.

Because James had made an oath.

But, he could also feel something else as he and Cam returned the rental car and dismissed the shield team to their own debrief.  And it was them.  Those people.  Someone he was close to and some people he didn’t even know yet.  The people in Recovery who’d be stopping by tomorrow, the people in the Rogues that would be prying apart the Last Line Of Defense’s history, the people in the Order who would be joining him on a delve despite his insistence that he was done for the day.  All of them, and more.  So many more.  A list that grew every day, and that fed itself with the strength the Order was cultivating.

A collective strength.  A communal one.

James had made an oath.  But he wasn’t the only one, and he wasn’t alone.

Maybe tomorrow there’d be another Camille with them too.

”I wonder what everyone else is up to?”  He mused to himself quietly as he drove.

”Something absurd, I’m sure.”  Cam answered his rhetorical question.  “It’s not as if we have a monopoly on that.”

”True enough.  Alright, let’s go home.  Oh, wait, how is your sister supposed to contact us?”  James asked suddenly.

”I left a telepad and instructions in her pocket.  A phone number as well.”  Cam said.  “Please.  I have some experience with this.”

James couldn’t help it.  He broke out into a long laugh.  Maybe Cam was right; he should appreciate her humor more.  She had excellent timing when she wanted.  Though maybe that was just what happened when you left someone alone with their camraconda friends for long enough.  And Cam was definitely right about one thing.

Out of everyone in the Order, one way or another, she had absolutely ended up with the most experience with the trials and traumas of a variety of living weapons named Camille.