CHAPTER 9

  "I am not easy to impress." E twirled the polished sphere on a finger, grabbed it from the air. Fit perfectly in her palm. "When you blow things up with green water there just ain’t much that leaves you wide-eyed, mystified.” Yet Ammi, the youngest, barely sixteen E guessed, researcher in R&D had done it. "Shine-inhibition? How?”

  Ammi replied in her dry clip of efficient syllables and little emotion. "We remain largely ignorant of what mechanism(s) exist to facilitate the interaction between your shine and its effect, or effects, on the physical world, on yourself. This,” she pointed to the ball, "is an environmental bio-sensor keyed to recognize certain vital-patters identified when shine is in use, specifically nerve-focal points for the shine/body interaction. Once identified it assaults them, bio-electrically. Our models are inadequate, as they are all based on data garnered from you. Of course, we cannot test it on you. It remains all, if solidly, merely theoretical.” Ammi’s yellow eyes, so rare in the set of the sun, were calm, but nevertheless gleamed with the same possibilities E saw.

  "Shine’s a pain in the ass, Ammi.” Trippy to consider how such a small item, potentially, could change the face of the entire word. The worry of and reality of rogue shiners that had so long stunted civilizational development on Nameless might be soon over.

  E might soon be able to get a full night’s sleep.

  "Research remains,” Ammi continued to tap away on her pad. The detailed holographic projection of the ball's blueprint began folding up in the air. Her bright blonde hair, always pinned down in neat rows, seemed any moment ready to burst.

  "Promising?” E laughed. "Ammi, the best scientists in the world have studied me for years. I’m telling you: no one has ever come close to something like this. It’s,” she stared at the diagram, its many elegant parts, moving and working in harmony, just like the worldl, "wonderful.” She looked around the lab where Wag and First’s finest scientific minds labored. "They tell me these guys can’t even understand your work. Wag says when he looks at it all he sees is nonsense. Foo on him. Proofs in the pudding, yeah?”

  Ammi was indifferent to the effusive praise, continued tapping away. "Thank you.”

  "I love coming down here and talking with you,” E said, with admiration she had felt for very few in her life. She had never got on well with broads, but she never blamed them. Being kept locked inside the tower until Strauss thought her battle-ready (the bulk of First knew as much about her as did Wordheal) hadn’t helped. E found women tedious, backstabby. Backstabby made her frontstabby.

  "Why?” the girl asked.

  E gestured to the holo. "We see things the same. It's a puzzle, is all. Find the pieces and just go for it. You don’t ask stupid, useless questions. You dive. And you’ve only been around for, what, barley six months?”

  The girl was E's own find, and where she found her was wandering Lector’s library one day when looking for LJ. Ammi was eager to examine E’s stack of books, that older stuff on skeelsmithing and plating. E had been struck by her grasp of the concepts. A few good words to Wag later and Ammi had been transferred from IT to the highest levels of R&D.

  Ammi thought for a long moment. "I am not shocked to find our basic presuppositions overlap in many respects. Life is brutish, in most cases short, and often inopportunely. . .futile.”

  Most people were put off by comments like thos. E found it honest, refreshing.

  Then she saw the time.

  "I’ve got to go Ammi. Security meeting. Keep me in the loop, yeah? Be back later!”

  "I keep nothing from you E,” Ammi said with what anyone who didn’t know her might think a frustrated sigh. E jogged out to the hall and into the closest lift.

  It wasn’t until she was alone and listening to the dull lift tune that anxiety began turning her ocean, first slowly, then all at once, into a tempest. "Ah, shuddup! And who am I talking to?” If the council knew she was leaving the wall. . .

  The lift jolted, stopped.

  E flopped her head back, groaned, crossed her arms and began to irritably, furiously tap her foot. The most feared creature for a five-hundred-mile radius, reduced to a pouty child.

  As if on cue, the doors slid open and Crimson Reno stepped into the lift. Silently she turned, heels clicking, stood still next to E. From and eye corner E saw the edges of her mom's slightly redder hair flowing around her like a firefall. Nearing her fifty-first year, looking half that, her long, distinguished face and dark emerald eyes screamed Olde Honourish blood. Her beauty, and Eterna’s mummy-face, was why she so often stood as the public face of the. The people loved her. Eterna hated her for it.

  Fruity perfume filled the lift as the door closed, sealing mother and daughter off from the world. Two corpses in one tomb.

  Her mom tapped an earpiece, said, "Reginald, a few minutes privacy, please. Yes, all the recording devices. Thank you."

  Long seconds before Crimson took a deep breath and, without turning, said, "Ealasaid.”

  Hate was too soft a word for how E hated that name. From the horrible Ya to the inexplicable la to the infuriating sich sound where a simple id should be. Oldword garbage. Her dad had loved it. The only thing that made E kind of glad he was dead.

  "Ealasaid? I’m talking to you.”

  "Of course I can hear you, mom! Shake. What do you want?”

  "Language, and don’t do this. Not know.”

  Crossed arms again. "Not doing anything.”

  "Such attitude. Such sass. Is that really how you want this night to develop?”

  "I know what you’re going to say, mom.”

  Crimson turned on E, her aspect calm, focused. E hated that it because she couldn't do it and that was bullshit. "If you know, then why do you persevere? Attention? Ennui? Stupidity? Tell me, Ealasaid. Sate my curiosity.”

  "Can’t imagine what you mean.” Damn.

  "Girl. . .”

  "What? I'm not allowed to speak anymore? Another decision made sans me?”

  "Am I such clown to you?” Her mother continued. "You believe I do not know exactly what you do, every day, even if I didn’t have the vids?”

  "Vids?” It took her a full ten seconds to realize how easily she’d been tricked before she flushed. Her mom wasn’t usually this mouthy, but always this incisive. She’d hadn’t become Coregent, despite an immigrant, by being a moron. Fifteen years since First demanded Crimson take the spot of the last Coregent. Eterna had expected to hold the office solo. Had it not been for Strauss, Eterna probably would have had them both killed.

  E kicked out a foot, more of a spasm really. "I’m doing what I was trained to do. Rokk’s sake this is what you told me to do when Strauss died.”

  Crimson’s sigh was laden with exhaustion. "Things are different.”

  E coughed a laugh. "Everyone keeps saying that. No one’s ever seen the threat the rokkists pose like I have. No one.”

  "Problems evolve, Ealasaid. Foolish rokkists are at the base of our complex network of difficulties.”

  "De-escalation shit--”

  "Do not speak that way with me!”

  "Everyone are affected by the Wordhealers and their beliefs, not just them.”

  Her mom closed her eyes, shook her head. "I do not know any other way to say this, Ealasaid.” She turned, "thus I will speak deliberately. These. Are. Not. The. Problems. We. Are. Concerned. With. Right. Now.”

  "Then why don’t I know about the new problems? Isn’t that why we came set? Help the First True Human City thrive? Isn’t that what dad wanted?”

  Her mother stared into the shiny doors.

  "Your father. . .”

  "I know he wouldn’t have agreed with the idiots calling the plays around here.” She meant Eterna, but did not think of how her mother might hear it until it was too late.

  After a pause, Crimson began again. "We cannot detonate our problems away. Not any longer. They require finesse. Intelligence.”

  "Ah.” Were E's shoulder's trembling? Rokkdammit they better not be! "Got it. Bomb-girl, right? Limited applications.”

  Crimson put her hand on E’s shoulder. Too late. E needed the fight now.

  "No. No. Don’t. I got it. Let’s just go. C’mon. Don’t look at me, let’s just go! I’ll be nice and quiet. A sheathed sword. Promise.” E did not often wish the dreadful being the Wordhealers called "Bard” real, but she would believe anything, ask anything, if it meant getting away from her mom before she was totally undone.

  Crimson removed her hand, said. "It’s that time of year again.”

  "I want to go.”

  "I’m sorry. I have had so much. . .”

  "I want to go, now!”

  "You’ve never dealt with this.” The Coregent had returned.

  "When someone you love dies, Ealasaid, the mind must update. Seek out aberrant code and repair it. You’ve never done that work. Letting the past dictate the present is the height of irrationality.”

  E couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d wanted to. "How long after dad did you update?” Oh, E hated herself.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Crimson tapped her earpiece, a slight tremble in her voice when she said, "Reginald we’re ready. Thank you.”

  ---------------------------------------------------------------

  Angry or no E was still her mother's bodyguard, and so that was most of the reason she swept ahead out of the lift and into the silently, dark lobby between the Regent’s twin offices.

  The walls, floor and ceiling of the hall leading to the council room between these office were entirely of glass so that from the outside, the room looked nothing so much like a long nose with a great boil at its end. Within the view was off the hook. The green valley, now grey, on one side and the winy dark sea on the other. Tonight, the lines of glass highlighted the great, silver glory of Nameless’ cracked moon, now at half, in the cloudless night. By this mystifying light the two women crossed the hallway and entered the council.

  They were not the last to arrive. The ancient jackass wasn’t there, and LJ’s seat sat similarly empty. Around the long, polished table, bathed in the glittering confusion of the expanse’s shattered orb, sat First's leaders. Suburb mayors, Port's mayor, the borough and commercial talking heads.

  It wasn't E's idea to hang 'em all out in space every six months. Stupid.

  E walked to the far end, across from where her mother would sit, and took her seat next to Wagner. Old lapzu was busy examining the white, thin strands of his horrible combover in a golden mirror. His smile had captured her heart as a child. Bastard had never gave it back. "What were you doing lass,” he asked the mirror, "reinventing the wheel?”

  His lapzu eyes were something, no matter how often she'd seen them. In the dull light of the room they almost glowed. "More sparkly things, old man? You’re more girl than I am, old man. Also, shut up. If anyone’s smart enough to improve the wheel, it’s me. Old. Man. The Nameless World is nothing but a giant wheel itself.”

  Wag’s chuckle eased the storm of her gauge. "These quixotic tendencies, my sweet, I sincerely hope it was not I who influenced you so.”

  She pfffed.

  He resumed picking at his hair. "I’ve always thought of the expanse more a flower than a machine.” Wag had been in her life longer than any other First. Her mother’s first assistant when they’d arrived at the city. Easily the most learned of the council, Wag had watched her grow, in all of the literal and figurative senses, all the time studying her, striving, and ultimately, failing, to replicate her shine. It was he who had comforted her when other children shunned her. He who had taught her to read and think and analyze arguments. He'd even found Strauss. . .

  As the head of R&D he reported only to the CoRegents. His dapper suit and polished shoes had been her joy as a kid, for she thought him a clown by them instead of the cultured, affluent fop (she really had to ask why one of these days) he projected. E looked down at the explosion of notebooks and reports before her friend.

  "A lot more to report than I do, apparently.”

  "We cannot all of us spend our singular, precious life in dour pursuit of identifying and cataloguing the most horrible ends the First True Human City might meet.”

  "You suck.”

  LJ entered, a broad grin on his face. Too broad. He waved cheerily. Too cheerily.

  "Shitdamnmaw.”

  Wag nearly spit up the tea he taken back into the ivory cup. "Young lady! In front of the council! Not even a word!"

  LJ might as well have screamed, 'It’s goin’ down! Dive!’

  Wag reached for a cloth to wipe off his jacket, and E just barely caught the glimmer of a chain.

  "That dumb, rokkish thing.”

  "Why not? I’ve never been shy of it, have I?”

  E shook her head. "Dead Light or whatever.”

  Ignoring her jibe, Wag's face became solemn. "Do an old man a good turn, E?”

  "Rokk. You too? Another lecture?”

  "Keep your head tonight. The jackanape’s in rare form. I’ve been unfortunate enough to have briefed him twice today. Most unfortunate.”

  "Briefed. . . Wha? Why does it feel like I’m the only person not getting information these days?”

  "E. . .”

  "Everyone treats me like TNT.” She loved teeing that kind of stuff up for him, and he scoffed.

  "I’ve never blown anyone up inside the city.”

  "Low bar, dear one. Low.”

  E gestured to the charm and said, "That’s Sebi shit. You know that, right? That thing’s in their Archives.”

  Wag’s teeth clenched so hard E would have sworn she heard a click. His fingers rapped the table in an odd, rapid pattern. "The farthest thing from Sebi nonsense, actually.”

  Before she could further annoy, Valance Eterna, her mother's withered CoRegent with his beefy guards and, to E’s great surprise, Ammi, in tow entered the room. The girl look was of serious contemplation, as if operatin g through a thousand eyes, was normal. Her presence, however, was not. She took a place behind Eterna’s chair while the husk himself, bent over a long metal cane that always clicked against the floor more often and more aggressively than necessary, slowly made his way before her.

  Eterna spoke to no one, acted as if he were the room's sole occupant, and yet everyone, even Wag and LJ, seemed to hold so as to not risk his ire. E used shine, used it damn good, and didn’t command that kind of fear. The old Philcosmo, star gazing, math-squiggling fraud spent nearly of all of his time, administrative or no, surrounded by the wall sized boards in his office. Each was covered, floor to roof, with equations. Brilliant, others thought. Devastatingly brilliant, her mom had once said.

  He was a level one grade A primary a-hole and nothing else to E.

  Philcosmography was little better than rokkism. Nothing useful like machining or skeelsmithing. Just old men throwing around shit no one understood to answer questions no one asked that benefitted nothing but their wallets.

  Eterna had terrified her, once. When her shine manifested, scary and disorienting enough on its own, he had moved quickly to remove her from the city. More an attack on her mother’s rising star. Until Tezm, E had often spent hours trying to fix whatever he hated her for. After Tezm, when she came home, herself barely alive, dragging what remained of First’s force limping behind her, everyone had been so happy. Parties and parades with walls of confetti and music for days.

  Eterna's cold, sickly-green eyes held only disappointment.

  Never fear again. Never.

  On of the guards, Game, pushed the seat in behind as Eterna before taking his place behind. Ammi stood just to his left with her hands clasped gently in front, her fingers trembling. Jeez girl, what’re you mixed up in?

  "Leaders of the First true human city, welcome,” Eterna and Crimson said in unison.

  For the first hour E was still, watched papers fly back and forth, reports given, orders relayed. She had to bend beneath the table and stifle laughter when Wag knocked his mirror onto the ground and screamed, "Pillarshaker!” when it shattered. She helped the attendants sweep away the glass as everything buzzed on. Finally, mercifully, when she had heard just about enough of the status of the rusted plumbing under the decaying foundations of the set wall. . .

  "Security?” Eterna said, and he continued scribbling on his paper.

  E didn’t respond. Wag coughed. A few seconds. Wag coughed again. The silence continued as the most powerful people in the city began to fidget. Weaklings.

  Eterna’s eyes finally lifted. "Security?”

  "I’d bet a year’s salary you didn't writing a damn thing just now.”

  Wag had a coughing fit.

  "Report, security,” Eterna, shuffling the paper he’d been writing on to the bottom of his stack.

  "Meh.”

  "Any concerns as the Wordhealers move into their seasonal insanity?” her mother asked with a raised eyebrow meant to asl for, to plead for, caution.

  E shrugged, which she hated but so did her mom. "It’s their Gift. Red everywhere. Wordhealer shit. Odd, notable increase of wailers in the valley the last few months. The mad, natural end for all who spend their time crying to the clouds.” Around the table, ripples of giggled agreement.

  E glanced at Ammi, who seemed to be staring past her, out into the darkness of the valley. Eterna cleared his throat. A cat being strangled. "Have you, at least to the degree your delicate mind can, accounted for the necessary additional security concerns this particular rokkish festal season?” Several things happened then, things that would have been lost on any normal person, but not E. Not someone trained to watch for the flit of a finger, the subtle sag of a shoulder. Wag shifted, quickly, like a striking snake. LJ held his breath altogether and was joined in this by several council members. Shockingly, her mother’s mouth tightened into an almost perfectly straight line.

  "The maw you talking about?” E finally responded. "'Added security concerns?’”

  "Valance,” her mom said, "this is not the proper--"

  Eterna ignored his Coregent, glanced up at E with fake, mocking surprise. "I do not mind relaying that I possess serious disquiet at the prospect I must inform my security advisor of critical intelligence.”

  Fossill! I’m not allowed to leave the shaking tower! E thought. She could have said that, but instead E gathered all of her will,and said, kindly, "Coregent Eterna.”

  Eterna’s eyebrows shot up. "What?”

  She repeated the letters slowly. "C-O.”

  "Are you speaking Oldword or has your pithy mind finally overflowed its meager banks?”

  "Valance!” Crimson shot.

  "I’m being helpful, mom. CorRegent Eterna is in his dotage, and that lends itself to the sort of silly mistakes he just made.” She leaned forward and, as if Eterna’s hearing were in question, screamed, "I am CO-Regent Reno’s security advisor as well! CO-Regent Eterna! Because you are a CoRegent! C-O.”

  The fossil blushed. "Are you quite finished?”

  E looked to Wag. "I keep telling you guys not to schedule these things so far passed bedtime. Someone get him a pudding or something.”

  Wag had a coughing seizure.

  Her adversary sputtered, angrily flailing paper about until Telos stepped forward and held out the one he was apparently looking for. Snatching it, Eterna said, "Wordheal has a double tribute for their blood-rokk revelry this year. Fifteen years since Tezm’s attack on First. I am astounded, scandalized that you have become so useless, so redundant.”

  Crawling dark started from E’s fingertips, worked its way up her arms. Her mother spoke aggressively, which for her was a torrent of rage. The usually unassailable, unflappable Wagner stood and screamed.

  Strauss’ face. All those kids, soldiers. Crushed like beetles beneath the wall. Torn to shreds by gunfire.

  Eterna grinned. "Wordhealers never miss an opportunity for a good blood-celebration. This was obtained by some of our operatives within the cursed rokkish hovel.” He slid a paper across the table.

  Before E knew why she held it, stared down at it. Bold, bright red letters the tract’s cover read: "Celebrate Rokk's Gift and His Devastating”. It covered a blurry picture of Tezm’s last sunrise. Just barely, in what anyone else who hadn’t been there might mistake for a blotch or a cluster of poorly rendered pixels, she could discern the gibbet. Too late to stop any of it. The sight of him. Beaten, bloated, without life. The smell. Unending rage. Burning flesh.

  They took pictures! E had no thoughts, experienced all with no distinctions. A single plane wherein everything folded out from and collapsed into everything else. She too was folded. They took pictures of it!

  "What is this, Valance?” Crimson’s voice sliced.

  "What have I done but speak truth to your idiot progeny?”

  "We discussed this. Are you actually trying to start a war?”

  Eterna looked to Crimson, "You’re not so foolish, Reno. You know that information like this cannot be controlled for long. I have presented what I’ve discovered.” He turned back to E, "If your insinuation is that your girl lacks the discipline to react to this information like the high-ranking member of this council that she is, and accept that she is, in fact nothing more than defunct ordinance, then I would agree. And I would move to strip her of all powers, and replace her. Now.”

  "Discipline." E was testing her voice. Wag puts his arm on her shoulders. He was so kind. "Y-you’re operatives? You’re running ops in Wordheal and I don’t know about it?”

  "Indeed,” said Eterna, "it would seem your utility wilts yet further, if possible.”

  None of the people in the council room, not even her mother, could ever be made to understand how close death.

  Counting was useless. Strauss had tried that. Most of her was made to go through, not around. So E sat back, tapped the tract, asked, "I know where you were when this picture was taken?”

  "What?”

  E laugh was thin, frozen. "Coward. You were in in your shaking office. You were in there hiding under your desk and behind your gorillas. No offense.” Game and Telos shrugged. "I was there, killing stuff. You stare though telescopes. I kill stuff.” She flicked the paper back to him. "Lots of stuff.”

  With every word the broken old man’s mouth and eyes twitched faster and over his shoulder E saw a small, wry smile break across Ammi’s face. Girl had attitude after all.

  "You. . .” Eterna huffed, "you. . .”

  "Whence come your sense of superiority, Valance? I’ve never seen anything so special about you, even when you weren't a petrifaction. What?”

  Eterna’s rage dissipated, his face covered over instead with amazement.

  "Are you serious?” he asked.

  E pushed herself up. Eterna prattled on. "You think I don’t know what you’re doing, girl? Sneaking out, endangering this city? Just like you did the day you pulled your stunt with Tezm! And for what? That idiot teacher of yours?”

  E froze at the threshold, without turning said, "Careful, old man.”

  "Ealasaid!” her mom shouted.

  "E!” Wag stood.

  Game stepped forward, Eterna fell back. "Threat me, girl? You. . . glorified guard dog! Death machine! You think you are intelligent because you tinker with little skeel machines? I unravel reality! I walk amongst the stars and the interpret the whispers of eternity! I allow you to live in my city by my good grace!”

  E could almost feel the confounding light of the shattered moon dancing across her as she turned, "And now for a reality-check.” She whipped her wrist out and the watery green light of her shine sprang to bubbling, churning life around it. "Machines sometimes malfunction.” She didn’t look at her mother, but felt the weight of her stare. "A broken machine is quite dangerous, yeah?” Another whip and the green left. She turned, "Who allows whom to do what?”

  When she reached the lift, she rested her forehead against the cool wall as someone back in the room, she could not say whom, cried, "Ridiculous! The whole point of Strauss was to make her controllable!”