“It’s bloody-minded arrogance to follow that thought up with ‘but there isn’t anyone else’, but here we are, and here I am. They’d do it all wrong anyway.” -Verona Green, Strange Antiquities-

  _____

  As with so many fun interactions in James’ life, this one happened while he was eating breakfast.

  Technically it was two overlapping interactions, because he was having breakfast with Alanna and Zhu at the Lair; her up early for Response, him testing his Endurance and not having slept for a while. It wasn’t bothering him yet, which was weird. Zhu was awake because Zhu slept whenever he felt like it, and so his presence or absence from any given breakfast was often a coin toss, much like James himself.

  “How often do you actually do boxing? Or practice boxing?” Alanna tapped James on the forehead with the end of her fork as she took a break from shoveling scrambled eggs into the dread engine of her stomach. “Do you do boxes?”

  ”No I stopped ordering off Amazon.” James shook his head as he and Zhu chewed in unison, looking over the battered old notebook James had scrawled thoughts in. It was a survivor of some of his oldest dungeon delves, outlasting phones, armor, hand axes, and a spreadsheet worth of dungeontech. James angled his eyes sideways to look at Zhu. “What the hell are you eating?”

  ”Food. And don’t use the voice like I’m a dog that’s chewing on some mystery thing! That’s so rude!” Zhu realized James might not have been actually asking why he was eating, but instead literally what he was eating. “Oh. It’s your bacon. Which is our bacon now.”

  ”…I can’t wait to find out if you eating things makes me less hungry.”

  ”Guys, and I can’t believe I’m fucking saying this,” Alanna tapped the table with her free hand, a sad wince on her face, “stop flirting and focus.”

  ”People keep thinking we’re flirting, is this actually a thing?” Zhu asked James, his central eye pivoting on James’ shoulder to look up at his host.

  James shrugged with his other shoulder. “I don’t fucking know what flirting is. Apparently everyone knew Anesh and I were dating before we did, so don’t ask me. Anyway, no, Alanna, I don’t box. I mean, sometimes I get in unarmed melee fights with various dungeon life or fascists, but I don’t know if that’s boxing, you know? Actually, I just did some of that, and you know what annoys me? I couldn’t even tell if my Pylon levels helped. I think they did, but it could be confirmation bias.”

  ”Part of what you just said? That’s the thing I’m asking!” Alanna said around a mouthful of cheese and eggs. “Okay, so, the Pylon says ‘boxing’, right? But it doesn’t say punching! Arrush didn’t get fencing, or stabbing, or slicing, or… fuckin’… swording. He got bladeworking. So does the Pylon just use arbitrary terms for bigger batches of skills, or is it being obtuse on purpose?”

  ”That one.” “Obviously obtuse.” James and Zhu said together, their paired hands snapping a piece of bacon in half to split.

  Alanna didn’t let them break her momentum. “Sure, fine, but you see what I mean, right? If you’re going to pick a spell for your link, you should probably figure out what it takes to make it work.”

  ”Alanna, I fucking love you to pieces, but we barely even know how the Motoric defines the difference between running and jogging, both of which it has skills for. It gave me a rank in cheering, but not talking or yelling. It might not be actively evil or anything, but it sure isn’t playing along with us.” James chuckled, leaning on one hand to watch where a camraconda was walking one of the newly arrived umbral through the process of a breakfast buffet. “I think the thing is, at a certain point, I need to stop trying to optimize.”

  ”You have never optimized in your goddamn life.” Alanna accused him directly. “You can’t quit something you didn’t start!”

  That was mostly fair, James figured. He had a habit of sort of falling into awkward expressions of magic early on when they found new dungeons. The fact that he had three Sewer Lessons was not, it turned out, a case of him doing his best to maximize his ability to help, but actually putting a soft cap on his ability to ever get most of those Lessons past their next level. And while it wasn’t specifically his fault, his orange orb job continued to be useful for convincing the kitchen to make paella, and not much else.

  But in this case, he had a weird logic to his lack of concern. “Look, here’s the thing.” He told Alanna. “Studying the Garden spells takes time, and it’s time I can’t really invest. You know, one of the kids yesterday told me that if you level up the knife enough, it cuts fucking wifi?! That’s rad, but I can’t actually spend three days on one spell. And even if I had the time, I cannot and will not do that.”

  ”Yeah I’ve met you.” Alanna paused. “Repeatedly.” She added, the shark smile she wore clearly indicating that she wanted James to mentally add the word carnally to that statement, but he found it more funny to consider that she literally had met him more than once.

  James still flushed slightly. ”Yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “My point is, I’m gonna treat the links like bonuses, not parts of my build. A few tricks is cool, an extra teleport or block or surprise sword is probably gonna save my life at some point. But if I try to maximize the magic system that specifically has time as its currency, then I’m not gonna get anything done.”

  “Sure, right, I mean, I get you buddy. I’m just asking if you’re prepared to change your wizard MMA practice for actually getting in a boxing ring if it makes you teleport faster.” Alanna paused and looked down at her plate, fork hovering in one hand. “Oh, it finally happened. I said something so nuts my brain shut down.”

  ”Eat your eggs.” James told her with a laugh. “And yeah, I mean, maybe? Probably not. I’ll probably just keep training like I do now? Karen’s efforts to get us to maximize our use of all our tools is really effective, and it makes me feel a lot more confident in basically every crisis.” He admitted. “I think being good all around is better than compromising just to advance one spell.”

  ”Oh are we calling it advancing and not plussing now?” Zhu asked.

  ”I’m really trying to make it stick.” James plaintively told them both. “The word ‘plussing’ just has such weird mouth feel to me.”

  ”…you have weird mouth feel…” Zhu muttered back.

  Alanna narrowed her eyes at the two boys, trying to figure out if they were doing this on purpose now. “Right. Well, whatever you end up picking, remember to tell everyone what happens if you do it with two open links.” She said with fondness in her voice. “And hey, no matter what you choose for your own perks, it’s cool that the kids gave us a whole new tactical doctrine when it comes to slamming the door on the dick of any dungeon that tries to invade.”

  ”…explain.” Zhu said carefully, while James held his last piece of bacon in his teeth and watched Alanna with an equally careful expression.

  She gave them both a look. “How busy are you guys that you didn’t think about this? The grey dome. Tether Together. We’ve seen that before, we’ve been in that before. You can’t leave, until the caster drops it or dies, right?”

  ”I think there might be a time limit too, but I haven’t checked yet.” James said, thoughts racing to catch up. It wasn’t hard, now that Alanna had basically flung him in the direction of an answer. “Oh. They’re one way gates, aren’t they? So we make sure every team has someone with a well charged version of Tether, and then either make a perimeter, or close off choke points.” He nodded slowly. “Problem with that; communication. If the team inside needs help, we’d never know. It’s a great way to divide and control a battlefield but it comes at the cost of putting our people at more risk and less support.”

  “Yeah. But if it’s us, or the people behind us, then this is a way to slap down walls.” Alanna said bluntly. “And we can always have just a caster fire it off, then give them a million tools to hide or evade until we can get in position and overwhelm whatever monsters they’re containing.”

  ”Christ I’m realizing we need to keep this away from any government that has a problem with protests.” James mumbled.

  ”Buddy, we need to keep ninety percent of our shit away from governments.” Alanna told him. “I’m actually really surprised at your restraint in not finding a way to electrocute the magic out of the cops in Saskatoon.”

  James shrugged. “Considered it. But I want them comfortable with it, so they don’t get hostile with the firefighters and city hall clerks and parks employees. Most of their magic isn’t horrible anyway.” He sighed. “You know, I talked to Drak the other day. He’s gonna resign soon as mayor, gonna start putting all the money and contacts he made toward helping the umbral settle. Apparently, being mayor of a city doesn’t give you very much power at all. Who knew?”

  ”…I knew?” Alanna gave him a look as she scraped the last bit of egg and potato into a convenient pile on her plate. “Mayor is an important position, but that’s actually because it’s kinda the highest level that operates like us. Mayors do a lot of ceremonial crap, but they’re also managers and people-organizers. It’s an elected job, more work than usable power.”

  ”Yeah, I got that impression from Drak.” James nodded. “Anyway I decided to not antagonize the cops any more than JP and I already did, and-“

  ”You what.”

  ”-and instead just lean on them with our leverage to force them to be part of the integration of umbral into daily city life.” James finished before leaning over the table to gently take Alanna’s hand. “Also I love you?”

  ”You got in a fight didn’t you?”

  ”Without me?” Even Zhu seemed offended.

  James lightly bit his lip, wondering how he could make this sound good. “It wasn’t really a fight? JP and I just picked up some umbral that hadn’t been released like they were supposed to be. Oh, Terror was there too! He says hi.”

  ”Really?!”

  ”No.”

  ”Yeah that’s what I thought.” Alanna shook her hand, throwing James off as she grumbled and stacked their dishes together on the table. “You know, I’m starting to think… oh, hey there.” Alanna trailed off as a nervous looking ratroach slowly took steps toward their table. It had become obvious, when he’d stopped nearby, that he was probably there to talk to one of them, but she and James were both letting whoever it was approach at their own speed.

  It was very important, with the ratroaches around the Lair especially, to not push too hard. To not rush them. It was taxing on the patience, and so patience was something that James was getting a lot of practice in, because the needs of the damaged and scared individuals that came out of the Sewer were just way more important than his own lack of ability to wait calmly.

  ”Heya. What can we do for ya?” James asked the ratroach as the tall figure shuffled nervously closer.

  They looked unmodified underneath the brightly colored Hawaiian shirt they had on, with a multi-jointed third arm extending from their right hip in a way that seemed like it would be more useful than most of the ratroach extra limbs often were. It was hard to tell while he was sitting down, but James kind of wondered if this one was taller than Arrush was. They certainly looked less like a combat form poured into a hoodie, especially since their clothing was a splash of color in the morning of the dining hall and they were probably half the total mass of Arrush, but they had to be at least seven feet tall.

  ”Da… Daniel and Path s-said you were who I should ask.” The ratroach said nervously.

  James pointed at Alanna with arched eyebrows, then back to himself when the ratroach shook his head. “Okay. Just checking.” He said with a friendly voice. “Wait, hang on. Are you Daniel and Pathfinder’s fosterling?” James asked with eyebrows raised for a different reason.

  The ratroach shrunk back, arms curling around his looming form. “S-sorry.” He said. “I k-know I’m-“

  ”Nipi, right?” James decided to cut off the anxiety. “Please, have a seat! I’d offer you bacon but Zhu ate all of it.”

  ”You did too! And there’s more bacon right over there! Just go get more!” Zhu protested boisterously.

  James looked forlornly at the distant buffet. “No, it’s out of our hands now.” He told the navigator as Alanna snorted into her fist and tried to not startle their guest. While he casually bantered, Nipi slowly closed to the table, but then sat in one of the chairs with a rapid burst of motion, curling and slouching a little bit in a way that drove home to James that he was definitely anxious about his size. “So hey! We haven’t met before, I’m James, this is Alanna and Zhu in no particular order. How’s living with Daniel going?”

  ”Da… Daniel… it’s good.” Nipi said quietly.

  Out of the corner of his eye, James saw Alanna suddenly blink her eyes closed and inhale sharply as she turned her head away. He knew she’d say something if there was anything bad going on, so the quiet reaction was weird from his partner. Thoughts clicked together easily as he figured why. “Your dad’s pretty cool, huh?” James asked, and Nipi started nodding instantly before catching himself. Chuckling softly, James splayed his fingers out on the table. “Hey, you don’t need to feel bad about anything, okay?”

  “I know!” Nipi chittered aggressively. “B-but I still… do. Sometimes.”

  Alanna nodded as she caught her breath and reentered the conversation. ”Yeah, feelings are pretty stupid sometimes, huh?” She asked, and Nipi straightened up as he nodded slowly. “You can know something, but be afraid anyway. Kinda dumb, right?”

  Nipi looked at her with relief. ”R-right.” He said, ducking the sharply angled chitin of his head. “F-feels like I’ll be p-punished for… for everything.” The ratroach’s paws curled, tensing and then releasing as he breathed steadily, and James found it amusing to recognize anxiety management techniques being used by a different species. “But not with… with them. With mom and dad.” He said it in a clicking whisper.

  James smiled and didn’t make any sudden moves. “You know, I never would have expected Daniel in that role. Path, maybe! She seems like the brains of the operation. But either way, I’m really glad you’re comfortable with them.” James told the young ratroach, then he leaned forward with what he hoped was a disarming grin. “Does Daniel still do the thing at home where he doesn’t realize he’s got an alarmingly cool life? Or is that just him messing with me?”

  Nipi chittered a burst of giggling laughter, and that was the thing that instantly made it click for James that he was a kid. It was hard to see him any other way afterward. “D… dad doesn’t realize he can be anything.” Nipi said, breaking out of his shell to gossip about his adopted father. “He and mom talked to some of the other parents, from school, once. But th-they were tired, so mom was just floating feathers and fake eyes. An’ dad didn’t even notice th-the human parents were nervous.”

  ”Ah, biblically accurate parental figures.” Zhu said, puffing up his feathers across James’ shoulder. “How come you never let me intimidate random parents?” He asked James.

  ”You’re not scary. Also you’re always cold and you hate fanning out!” James flicked at Zhu’s manifestation.

  Nipi looked at Alanna curiously. “Th-they… talk like mom and dad.” He said quietly.

  Alanna nodded and whispered back. “I know. It’s hilarious, and I’m having fun with it. Don’t tell them.” She told the kid, before speaking up and interrupting the skirmish James was having with his own arm. “So hey what did Daniel send you to ask James? Something silly I hope.” James gave a concerned look across the table as Nipi shrunk back again.

  ”Oh.” He said. “He said… because he already answered and it wouldn’t change my mind if he did again… he said I should ask you if I’m a person.”

  The light humor James had been enjoying smoothed out quickly. It wasn’t that he got angry or hostile; he understood implicitly what Daniel had meant here. Nipi had asked his dad if he was a person and got told ‘obviously yes’, which was hard to believe. So instead of just repeating himself, Daniel had sent Nipi to ask other people.

  It was a good move, but it did mean that he needed to be serious for a second.

  ”Fucking obviously yes.” Zhu said before James could speak.

  Alanna glowered. “Don’t swear in front of the… actually wait Nipi you’re going to Greenway right? What class level are you in?”

  ”…third?” Nipi said quietly. That was the high school equivalent, for human teenagers and also where most of the camracondas ended up.

  ”Okay nevermind go ahead and swear.” She told Zhu. “Also yeah you’re a person.”

  ”..but…”

  James cleared his throat and cut his two unconvincing companions off. “Nipi.” He said softly, but with a firm authority in his voice that he’d found worked really well when he needed someone to know that he wasn’t fucking around. “Are you a person?” James asked.

  ”…yes?”

  Nodding, James tried not to fidget as he replied. “There’s two sides to that question. One is if you believe it, and it’s the one that actually matters. The other is if other people believe it, and it only matters because if you say you’re a person, then people need to treat you like it.” James had made a similar statement to a sorrowful number of ratroaches over the last few months. “You say you’re a person. So you are. That’s it.”

  ”But… but what does the w-word mean?” Nipi asked, looking at him with a confused asymmetrical splatter of eyes on his face. “What… is a person?”

  ”No.” James shook his head, cutting that line off sharply. “You’re looking at this wrong. The word ‘person’ doesn’t have magical powers. It’s just a way to describe something. There are going to be people who bring up definitions and semantics, who talk about it like it’s a category that you have to meet criteria to fit in, right?” He paused and saw Nipi nod anxiously. “Okay. Those people just didn’t want to treat you like a person, and it’s convenient for them to pretend the word is what matters. It’s not. Fuck those people. We use language because it is convenient, not because it has inherent information about our lives and universe for us.”

  ”Except for dungeon magic.” Alanna muttered.

  ”Even dungeon magic is bad at language!” James pointed at her, catching her words. “Like, remember how Dave - and it is always Dave - got a blue to Change Date? And it’s like a fucking negotiation process with the Office to determine if that means rescheduling a romantic night out, making it tomorrow now, or erasing Foonsday.”

  ”That’s not a real day.” Nipi walked into James’ trap, unaware of how the human had conversations.

  James nodded seriously. “Not anymore.”

  He got a face full of feathers in retribution. “Holy shit, just answer the kid’s question.” Zhu told him.

  ”I did!” James said, sputtering. “Nipi, if you weren’t a person, you wouldn’t care. There, that’s it. If anyone tries to tell you that you’re not a person, throw your scarily powerful parents at them.”

  Nipi ducked his head, scratching harshly at where the chitin of his jaw met the hide of his snout. “Th-that happened once.” He said in a shaking voice.

  ”Oh?” James raised his eyebrows. “What happened?”

  ”Dad flipped a car.”

  James and Alanna both froze briefly, though James recovered first before Alanna turned mechanically to face Nipi directly. “He what.” She said. “Daniel? Daniel. The same Daniel we’re thinking of?”

  ”Yeah it’s that Daniel.” James confirmed as Zhu started cackling with laughter. “That Daniel that I should probably have a conversation with at some point. Unless… wait, did the car deserve it?” He asked Nipi. The ratroach nodded, and seeing the way his eyes twitched, James regretted making this a joke. “Ah. Okay.” James calmed down. “Well hey. If your parents ever aren’t available, and you need someone, call me, okay?” He actually had a card with his number on it left over from his interactions the last few days, and he slid the slightly torn piece of cardstock over to the ratroach. “I don’t know if I’ll cause vehicular scale property damage, but I’ll be there, okay?”

  ”You went through a truck.” Alanna grumbled as she stood up. “Also I gotta get to my shift. It’s cool to meet you Neeps. Tell Daniel I said ‘what the fuck man’.” The ratroach didn’t have as much non-chitin space on his face as some others, but the neon green flush he had as Alanna ruffled his antenna shone through anyway. “I’ll see you later. For something.” She pointed at James before striding confidently out of the dining room.

  ”What does th-that mean?” Nipi asked.

  James opened his mouth, then closed it, because while he had a hundred answers that were both jokes and serious replies, he realized something before he could pick any of them. “I… actually do not know this time.” He said. “Zhu? Any idea?”

  ”I think she’s going to throw you through a window again just so you have more practice.” The navigator said.

  James hoped Zhu had chosen a joke answer.

  _____

  After breakfast, and a sensible amount of getting amusing stories about Daniel out of Nipi, James continued pushing his recently increased Endurance. He was going to feel like crap tonight, but he was oddly certain he would be fully functional throughout the day. He just hoped whichever partners were in his bed tonight didn’t mind him turning into a lump with slightly less brain activity than a slab of basalt once he hit the mattress.

  As a paladin, James had no shortage of stuff to poke his nose into. His job was to be the best tool the Order had for a lot of situations, and that meant he never got to stop learning. Not that he really wanted to; as it turned out, learning was kind of fun. Whether it was the technical aspects of civic design, or the more personal knowledge of understanding what people were working on and how he could better assist them, or more esoteric and arcane stuff like what the latest news on Library totems was. James just kind of enjoyed pulling in and purifying information.

  His upgrades probably helped. Memory and something he’d ironically forgotten about his neurons. But also, just a whole host of skill ranks and Stacks orbs that made for excellent context points and learning accelerants. The .mem files were also great, but they had more quirks and foibles than the simple ‘now you know this’ magic.

  Actually .mems were something he was doing some research on today. Taking the opportunity of some quiet time to compile a number of comments and reports, and to update the overview section in the Operations Manual.

  The thing about .mems was that, while the Order kind of used the term broadly, there were actually a few types of the things, and they needed to get better at labeling them. Usually it was obvious, but usually wasn’t always, and mostly good enough just wasn’t good enough when it was something you were expected to put in your brain via a dungeon-designed mind-machine interface port.

  When the Order talked about .mems, they mostly meant skill or knowledge packs. The kind of thing that was assembled, through the assistance of one of several emerald chip programs that all had their own issues, to teach someone a specific thing. Sometimes they were everything someone learned in Communication 201 in college, sometimes they were the important parts of twelve years working as a plumber, sometimes it was how to punch properly. Which actually started to express a problem there too. People’s memories of how to do things were often very tied to their bodies.

  So knowledge .mems were the most broadly applicable. But skilled action .mems worked best the closer in form you were to the person who’d made it, and that meant those needed to be labeled better. Metadata wasn’t just something to put coy Researcher jokes in, it was a critical part of helping people get the right files.

  On top of those two types, there were moment .mems. Sensory and sometimes emotional data for a small chunk of time, usually recent. This was where some people had files shared around of themselves listening to Sarah’s update podcast, and it was also what Response used to keep records of dispatches. James’ favorite thing in this category was people sharing memories of watching a movie for the first time, letting their friends or sometimes just anyone interested download a file and relive a fresh perspective.

  And then there were packets of just emotions. Single thoughts, almost like koans, or abstract feelings. The creation of those was more like art than science, and that was also the category that the .mem James used in his improvised paladin ritual fit into.

  No matter what kind of .mem you were using though, no one could load too many at a time. Even camracondas, with minds that were the most magical out of everyone’s in the Order, had to take some downtime for memories to unpack fully. You couldn’t just download eighteen college classes at once, it would end up a jumbled mess, give you a headache, and accomplish nothing.

  The really interesting thing about .mems was that it was kind of a challenge for people who were really good at a given thing to make a simple version. Knowledge just couldn’t be easily broken up like that; everything kind of built on itself. So a master carpenter couldn’t make a .mem that would just teach someone how to use a hammer. Or at least, not easily. They’d found that people who were trained as teachers and people who wrote up ‘lesson plans’ before they started the creation process had more luck. But it still created a situation where it was easier to go a bit overboard; though at least it wasn’t in a harmful way, it mostly just increased the ‘cooldown’ on picking up a new .mem.

  So James spent some time going through their growing database with a couple people from Research, cataloguing and updating their labeling. He wasn’t leading the project by any means, but having some hands on experience made it easier to write the entry that new members of the Order would read when they cracked open that section of the Operations Manual.

  The more readily available correct information was - even if it was just a foundational overview - the better. An educated population was a population that could build on that education, after all.

  James also took the opportunity to download a .mem on cybersecurity. He was pretty sure he knew a good portion of it already, but once you’d let the file propagate through the cable and into your mind, it became hard to tell what came from you and what was new. Technically he could track it a little by watching his computer science Lesson progress, and that was most of the reason James had grabbed this particular file. But at the end of the day, knowledge was knowledge, and just because it felt a little different than a skill orb didn’t mean it wasn’t equally cool.

  He spent about an hour and a half adding labels and descriptions to files with the others. It was almost relaxing, which let Zhu take the opportunity to hold one of the Garden spellbooks off to the side and ‘study’ it while James worked. The problem was, once he got into the pattern of it, it was a little too relaxing, and James could feel his Endurance start to wane.

  Before that could ruin his stress test for the day, he let Zhu finish his current spell equipping iteration, then excused himself and went off to find something that would keep him moving.

  _____

  Tylor had wanted to meet James in Townton, and James had said yes, because any excuse to visit Townton was good with him.

  He’d split with Zhu when they got there, the navigator going off to visit the local navigator community. There were a lot of them down here, compared to the general population in the Lair. Lots of Route Horizon delves, lots of navigator eggs, and lots of people who were generally interested in the unintended method of keeping the infomorphs around after their initial purpose was served.

  The navigators down here created an interesting point of need for Townton, too. While the average dungeon delver would sustain a bonded navigator largely by accident, it took more effort for people who weren’t always on adventures. And while Townton was getting safer, it wasn’t by any means safe; the wild necroad population still numbered in the thousands and the majority of them were aggressive, if not violent on sight. So taking unescorted hikes or even drives was a challenge.

  They were working on it. And Zhu wanted to hang out and see how his brethren lived when they weren’t attached to the kind of dumbass that did regularly go on delves, and was planning to do more of them as soon as tomorrow. He’d also told James it was kind of interesting to see navigators that were growing up with different species, and even just humans from different parts of the world. Townton had a chunk of its population coming from what could be considered refugees from various parts of the world after all, and even as they were changed by the pressures of the Order’s lifestyle, they still brought cultural assumptions that made for different environments for the few navigators that those people had.

  James, meanwhile, had meandered his way toward the bar where Tylor had asked to meet him, ahead of schedule and willing to be distracted by every single person on his way.

  It was probably the closest thing a November day was going to get to pleasant for a while. Thick wads of clouds that didn’t fully block the hazy blue sky. Cold, but not cold, and so while he wrapped his coat tighter and wished Zhu had stuck around just to give him an extra layer of warmth, the weirdos that lived here all seemed to be totally fine with regular shirts.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Depending on species, anyway. Humans and ratroaches wore shirts, or blouses, or any of the other thousand pieces of fashion they’d designed over their history. Camracondas mostly wore modified capes, thought some clearly agreed with James about the cold and wore sweaters that looked like colorful fuzzy tubes.

  The chanters had taken a little time to be convinced that clothing was okay for them to wear at all, but some of them had been brave enough to ask, which had sparked a wave of attempts to find things that worked with their shells, and also achieved the main goal of clothing of environmental protection. It was a work in progress, but many of them wore wraps or coverings on their legs, and others had colorful banners of material pinned to their shells like their own personal flags. Two divergent opinions on what clothes were for, both making Townton more colorful and comfortable in their own way.

  The umbral were still caught in the whirlwind of change that was coming through their lives. Which was why James stopped when he ran across one that he was pretty sure he recognized standing underneath the wooden skeleton of a leafless tree, staring distantly at the passing people and randomly tugging on the scarf they were wearing with the tendrils that sprouted from the top of their body.

  ”Hey there.” James said, waving as he slowed. “Ink, right?” He wasn’t sure, but there were a limited number of umbral that had this particular body shape. Most of them were… not wide, exactly, but the main bulk of their center was made up of their two rather thick arms and broad hands folded together. It made their silhouettes notably different from every other species, and that was kind of helpful when even from a short distance many of them looked like just the silhouettes.

  Ink though wasn’t like the others. Her body appeared to be a single limb, longer and with an extra ‘joint’, or at least an extra general curve in it, and with a hand that had slimmer fingers despite being no less wide than her kindred. Which was wide enough to probably engulf James' entire head and upper torso. The way it coiled around her gave Ink a taller outline, and made her look more like the trunk of a twisted tree if you weren’t paying attention. That wasn’t the only way James recognized her though; she also had a slightly lopsided arrangement of tendrils, with the left half of her ‘head’ ending in spikes. It was unclear if that was a fashion statement or just how she was, but between that and the luminous blue of her eyes, he was pretty sure he knew who she was.

  ”Yes. Hello again.” Ink greeted James, shifting out of the comfortable position she had been standing in as the human approached. “Am I not allowed to be here? Do I need to leave?” She asked him.

  ”What? No no.” James shook his head and laughed. “Sorry, only saying hi! You seemed like you were a little overwhelmed, so I just wanted to see if you were settling in okay.”

  It was a good, safe question. And it worked pretty well in general to open up new people to talking about… well, anything really. James used it as a conversational multitool.

  Ink was no different, either. “I… yes. Overwhelmed is a good word.” She sighed, a summer breeze flowing out from the solidified shadow that was her body.

  James propped one foot up on the curb in front of her tree, enjoying the general lack of cars on Townton’s roads. He gave the umbral a reassuring smile as he tried to figure out what part of her body the scarf was actually on; was it draped over what would be a neck on a human, or was it woven in with the tendrils? He’d seen umbral eat; wouldn’t the wool be covering her mouth? Or did scarves already do that, and that was the point?

  When he spoke he said none of that, because his brain’s fixation on the scarf was rather unhelpful. “Moving is always hard. It’s gotta be a bit harder for you, huh?” He prompted.

  ”Moving was easy.” Ink’s spiked tendrils swayed in a way that made it look like they had their own current pushing them around. “I own nothing. Owned nothing.” One finger of her body’s hand detached to gently run across the draped scarf. “The work was in getting the cat to agree to come.”

  ”You have a cat?” James perked up.

  ”I… there is a cat that… tolerates me.” She settled on. “We have an alliance of convenience.”

  Something about the incredibly relatable denial brought forth a laugh from James. “I can see how that might be a trick to navigate.”

  ”Yes. But overwhelming is the… choice.” Ink told him, settling back into a resting position. “Easy enough when the choice is between two things; stay or go, here or there, I can manage that. But then your Recovery has so many questions. What colors do I like, what furniture is useful to me, do I need my home modified for my shape, would I like to go to out to coffee, all of these choices are… are quite a lot.” She exhaled again, the floral breeze overriding the calm winter day around her for another moment.

  James cocked an eyebrow. “What was that one about coffee?”

  ”Oh yes, the plunge into a culture that finds me not only an acceptable presence, but an attractive one? That is jarring. Can you imagine, human that you are?” Ink asked him, turning ocular bands of color in his direction. “Though I suspect you might be able to imagine, but I also think you are part of the problem.”

  ”Now hang on!” James laughed, holding up his index finger like a professor about to make a point in a lecture. “Problem implies that interspecies romance is a bad thing!”

  Ink swayed slightly, several of her tendrils folding down around her to tug the scarf up. Her voice, humming like power lines in summer, might have been amused; James was still learning umbral social cues. “I am sure you have opinions.” She told him.

  ”Actually I do have one opinion.” James said more seriously. “If someone from Recovery who was helping you move asked you out, that’s kind of sort of a breach of ethical conduct. So if-“

  ”Oh, no. It was someone else. Your people have been… professionally kind? It is alien to me, that you have made compassion a job. But… but for all that it is an enormous change, and I am not sure what comes next, and the future seems almost out of reach… I appreciate it. All of it.”

  The words caught him off guard. James had, over the last few years, been exposed to a lot of people, human and otherwise, who had needed the Order’s help. He’d been thanked in a myriad of ways for his intervention, and cursed in a few others by people who didn’t really agree with being helped. But this might have been the first person, aside from maybe Karen, who had just politely expressed satisfaction with the Order’s personal effect on their life.

  “Anytime.” He said simply. “Actually, can I ask a maybe personal question?”

  ”Are you also going to attempt to seduce me?”

  ”No, that… no.” James laughed, and got a staccato hum back that might be a laugh as well. “I mean, not right now anyway! I have a policy of making sure people are at least a little settled before the flirting starts!”

  Ink pointed a pair of spiked tendrils his direction, which was possibly a threat, but James was more willing to assume was the umbral equivalent of something like finger guns. ”A noble policy. What is your question?”

  He had almost lost track of what he’d been curious about. “Oh! I’m curious about your body. And I swear this isn’t flirting, don’t look at me weird! I mean, you and a few others I’ve seen have a more… spindly look to you? And I’m just wondering if there’s a reason or pattern there that I should know about.”

  ”Oh. My deformation. Yes.” Ink turned away from James and he felt a pang of sympathy along with the flood of regret that he’d opened his idiot mouth. “Others have asked as well. It is not a dimorphism trait, just a random expression that we believe is failure during our creation process.”

  ”…if it’s random why is it a failure?” James asked softly.

  ”There are fewer of us.”

  ”Okay that’s a stupid reason, and you know it.” He challenged her. “You’re gonna be living in a city where there’s, like, eight varieties of camraconda. I dunno the exact number I haven’t been keeping track. Please don’t call yourself that?”

  Ink didn’t shift from where she was watching over the road off to the side, seeming more interested in tracking a group of chanters that were walking a loop of the park than replying. But eventually, when she realized that James actually was going to just fucking stand there until she said something, she gave another breezy sigh. “If I say I will try will you not bring it up again?”

  ”If you actually try, sure.” James told her pleasantly.

  The umbral tugged her scarf tighter. “You are overwhelming too, you know.”

  ”I’ve been told.” He said with the same upbeat tone. “I’ll whelm less in the future, don’t worry.” He gave Ink a small salute as he stepped back. “I’ll leave you alone though. And yell at me if you need help settling in! Tell the others they can too!”

  ”Terror is already telling everyone migrating that yelling at you is an excellent way to solve their problems.” Ink called after him.

  That simple statement warmed James’ heart more than any layer of clothing, but he wasn’t sure it was supposed to.

  He kept up his lazy walk, smiling at people he passed as he did so. Waving to the Route Horizon delve mustering in the massive box store parking lot. Stopping to kneel in the soft clover that filled the little dirt trench by the sidewalk and say hi more personally to a group of chanters and the slowly growing infants of their species that they were lulling to sleep with their own meandering walk around the town.

  He even talked to some of the humans, despite what some of his friends said about him, he didn’t hate humans. And it was easier to not hate them when he saw more and more in human people the reflections of a world that didn’t care about their trauma or needs. It did say something that the next man he passed by, sitting on one of the comfortable metal benches they’d ringed the park in, asked the same question Ink had. ‘Am I not supposed to be here’, spoken in a defeated tone as if they’d spent their life being told they weren’t supposed to be anywhere.

  James reassured the guy that it was definitely okay to use the benches that the Order had put there. Hostile architecture was for cowards and whiners; if there was a bench, it was meant to be used, and if there wasn't a bench, they could probably install one.

  Eventually he figured he should actually not be late to when he was supposed to meet up with Tylor. Leaving behind the cool afternoon light for the more ambiently lit interior of the bar, James went through the routine that amused himself and only himself of trying to show the bouncer his ID and being stared at blankly.

  No one had named the bar yet. He actually wasn’t sure if anyone was even in charge at all, or if it was just that the Horizon delver teams wanted some kind of central location to celebrate successful run, and the construction crews wanted a place that would have beer on tap, and so a small alliance had formed, and the place had been cleaned up and rebuilt over time. James didn’t go to bars, really, so the true history of the establishment was a mystery to him, but he felt like he could see this going from a collapsed counter and splintered tables to the eclectic mix of sometimes-magical solutions that it was now.

  He found Tylor at one of the booths, which James was almost certain had been stolen from a mostly demolished pizzeria somewhere else in the city. It just felt like it belonged there more than in a bar, no matter how Order-coded the bar was.

  Also the arcade and pinball machines seemed like they had the same origin, and were similarly new to this place.

  ”You seem morose.” James said as he sat across from the recent addition to the Order.

  ”The beer tastes wrong.” Tylor informed him offhandedly. There was a policy for delving, recently instituted but shockingly easy to achieve with their magic, that no delver could have an untreated addiction. Mesa Oasis as a spell was probably one of the bigger miracles the Order had access to, but it did have the side effect of changing people’s perspective on alcohol a lot.

  The taste being wrong hadn’t seemed to stop Tylor from going through a couple pints already. “You know they do smoothies here, if you want.” He offered. “But yeah, hi. You wanted to talk?”

  ”Joob’s quitting.” Tylor said bluntly.

  ”Wait, really?” James raised his eyebrows. “She didn’t…”

  ”Say anything? Yeah, she told me to do it.” Tylor told him with a grimace. “Just in case.”

  James’ frown deepened. ”In case what, we try to stop her?” He asked, and the look Tylor gave him told him what he needed to know. “Well shit. Do you know why? And… what about you, do you want out too?” He asked.

  ”I… no. I can’t.” Tylor said with dull neutrality in his voice. “What would I even do?” He asked, distantly.

  ”Anything you want.” James said. “You helped the Order, you’re on good terms with us, so if you need anything we’ll cover you until you’re ready to be independent.” The words were so familiar to him at this point, but he’d lost none of the important emotion saying them over and over again. “It’s not like you have to give up your magic or anything. And pretty much any job or university program is gonna be easier for you at this point.”

  ”Not what I meant.” Tylor said with a hint of bitterness. Someone at a nearby table laughed, not at them or anything, just at a private conversation; but Tylor still twisted in that direction suddenly and in doing so elbowed his latest half-full beer off the table. The glass survived, but the beer itself splashed out onto the smoothed floor. “Fuck.” He stared at it.

  ”Shoot. I’ll be right-“ James started to stand, but Tylor waved him back down.

  ”I got it.” He said, twisting his hand in an odd gesture. The spill seemed to almost reverse itself in time at his urging, the glass returning to an upright position in front of him, the beer being tugged off the ground and out of the one pant leg it had started to soak into. “See? Fine.” Tylor sipped at the beer again.

  James bit his lip, trying not to make a deeply unpleasant sound. “Thaaaat cannot be healthy.” He said.

  ”The spell undoes a spill.” Tylor said. “That means the whole spill.” He shrugged. “Anyway my point is I don’t have anything worth doing. And I’m… it doesn’t matter. Whatever. I’m not leaving.”

  James could feel a whole lot of resentment and regret in that simple sentence. “Hey. You wanna talk about it?” He asked gently.

  Tylor flipped him off. “No.” He said. “I just needed to tell you Joob’s going home. She said she promises not to blow anything up. Not like she can. We tell you our spellbooks? She has fuckin’ magical extra sauce. She couldn’t blow up a… a fried chicken…” Tylor stopped talking without really reaching a point, just staring blankly at his mostly empty glass.

  “…Okay…” James said. “Um…” he didn’t really know how to handle this situation, but he didn’t feel right just leaving Tylor here. “It… it really seems like you need to talk about it.”

  ”What’s there to talk about?” Tylor asked angrily. “We showed you dungeons, you… you saved our hometown… that’s it. We’re good, right?”

  ”Did we?” James asked, getting comfortable on the shiny red cushion of his bench seat. “Because the place seems like it’s gonna be a little different. Also, it wasn’t the city that needed saving.”

  ”Sure it did.” Tylor folded his arms on the table and dropped his head down, forehead resting on his forearms so that his face was buried. His muffled voice, slightly slower than normal as he was in the process of getting drunk, emerged from his new hiding place. “It just needed saving from us.”

  And there it was. James had known that the two Saskatoon delvers had been messed up by the revelation of their own role in the umbral situation. But he’d just… made the mistake of assuming they’d approach him to talk if they needed to. And forgotten that a huge part of the problem with many modern social patterns was that people didn’t do that.

  ”It wasn’t your fault.” James said bluntly. Tylor didn’t move, except to again extend a single finger from one of his hands, the digit coming out in a sideways motion that still had a very clear meaning to James. “I’m serious. Being lied to sucks. Believing those lies and being manipulated because of it doesn’t make you a villain, it makes you a victim.”

  ”I keep… thinking about it.” Tylor’s muffled voice accompanied his middle finger drooping back to rest on his arm. “About what happened, and when. I can’t even put the days in order. All I can think is that it’s so obvious now. So was it obvious then, and I just didn’t look? Was it convenient-?!“

  ”You can’t change that now.” James told him, catching the bartender’s eye and giving a small but clear shake of his head. She nodded back, giving Tylor’s slumped form a sympathetic grimace. “What happened sucks, and I’d get it if you never wanted anything to do with this again. Jubilance’s choice makes sense, even if I don’t think I could do that. But you aren’t some kind of irredeemable monster, man.”

  Tylor raised his head slightly, adjusting his position among the glass pylons of his empty drinks. “I… I killed people.” He stammered out. “I shot… they’re people, and I…” his eyes started watering, and he dropped his head back down, muffling his voice again. “I shouldn’t be in a fucking bar, I should be in prison.”

  ”What, you want me to put you with the rest of the Status Quo splinter cell?” James asked.

  ”Why not? I worked for them.” Tylor demanded, anger somewhat undercut by his unwillingness to raise his head off the table.

  “Are you still working for them?” James questioned, knowing the answer. “Look. You fucked up. I get it. I get how it feels. Not exactly, I’m not gonna pretend I’m you or that my mistakes are the same variety as yours, but you need someone to talk to and you need to not be in active combat for a long time.” James said pointedly. “If you want to stick around, and go back to delving, then you can’t be doing it just to try to self destruct.”

  Tylor glared up at him. “I wasn’t going… it’s not like that. I just need something to do that matters. I don’t want to die, I just… I just don’t want…”

  James spoke softly, turning away and keeping his voice just loud enough to hear over the background instrumental funk the bar was playing. ”You don’t want it all to end, but you wouldn’t mind if you got hurt a lot in the meantime?” He asked.

  ”…okay maybe you do understand.” Tylor admitted.

  ”Yeah, and it’s fucking stupid.” James said, louder. “Therapy. And don’t use either getting drunk or delving as a coping mechanism. Those are the conditions.”

  ”Therapy is stupid. It doesn’t work on me.” Tylor’s protest felt almost automatic. “And conditions? What if I just leave?”

  ”Then we loop back to that thing I said before.” James told him. “Where we cover your bills for a while. But you don’t want to leave. I mean holy shit, you’re sitting here tearing yourself up because you hurt people, and didn’t realize it. And now some of those people live here in Townton, and you have the actual opportunity to be better. You’re a dumbass, Tylor, but you’re not a coward. You’re not leaving.” James stood up, already having submitted a request to Townton’s local Recovery through his skulljack. Carefully, he moved over to Tylor’s side of the booth, leaning forward to wrap an arm around the other man’s back, in what might be the most awkward hug James had ever given in his life. “It’ll get better.” He said before pulling away. “Promise.” He added as he turned to walk toward the door.

  Tylor called after him. “What happens when I fuck it up again?” His voice rose over other conversations, and the other conversations in the bar went quiet as people turned with the ancient instinct that drew sophont life to gossip. “What if you’re wrong?”

  ”The same thing that always happens when we screw up.” James replied in a confident voice that carried to the corners of the interior. “We both try again.”

  Speaking of trying again, he needed to go find Jubilance. And repeat this exact conversation before she left.

  _____

  The umbral magic was proving to be mildly frustrating to James.

  He’d had a short brainstorming session, which had included several umbral for obvious reasons, and the general takeaway was that it was kind of hard to optimize for its development. But the actual specifics of why were all interesting problems to solve.

  So far, they knew four different ways to acquire advancements in that dungeon’s magic. Defeat its denizens in some way, be gifted it by the denizens, spend time in the dungeon with deeper areas working better, and create things out of dungeon-sourced material. Their current working model had each source providing unseen points toward a goal in some quantity, with the goal scaling up more and more with each advancement.

  The first one was surprisingly flexible, with the magic apparently counting ‘keeping prisoner’ as defeat. Research was working on confirming if games or sports worked as well, but they were optimistic, even though no one had gotten an advancement from it yet. It had been, after all, just a couple days, and the umbral hadn’t really gotten settled.

  The defeat had to be legitimate though, the umbral confirmed that much. But this actually created a fascinating role for umbral as professional gamers, just… not like how that term was usually used.

  The second method was out. It drained the umbral, and also any other life from their dungeon. The fact that the Order hadn’t been in their home dungeon yet, nor met any other life from it, didn’t change the fact that it was a bad policy to siphon your neighbors and friends.

  The third method would be a good way to at least safely get small groups up to an advancement or two. The umbral held territory in their dungeon, but they admitted it wasn’t that deep, and the local ecosystem wasn’t exactly friendly. They didn’t have special privileges, they were just some of the smarter creations. And despite not benefiting from their own magic system at all, they were still often prey for the larger life forms that ate whatever they were made of.

  Method four was also under consideration. What did it mean to make something, in the dungeon’s eyes? Could dungeon-quarried gravel be added as an ingredient to cement, for example? If something was part of an assembly line, who benefitted from that? Industrialization created a lot of questions for nascent magic systems that everyone was interested in the answers for.

  The main thing was, the umbral that had moved to Townton were deeply suspicious of any questions about their magic. And that was understandable, too; they’d been exploited for too long. James had tried to explain that the Order was going to be honest about wanting access to that magic, but that if anything crossed the line, the umbral should tell them immediately. Their own freedom was more important than another source of tricks.

  One of the best ways to study the magic would probably just be to delve the umbral’s home dungeon. Other more hostile life would be able to fill in answers to the question of what counted as defeat, and there was apparently quite a lot of space that could be opened up to let the umbral spread out if the Order could help make it safer. Not to mention actually figuring out what ‘dungeon material’ even meant, or if that was just another early mistake the local delvers had made.

  The biggest problem they were facing with that plan was that they’d been told there was a grand debate happening among the umbral that were still in the dungeon. Not about whether to allow the Order access, but rather, about whether they even wanted to stay. Already a number of umbral had migrated to Townton, with some to the Lair as well, but their collected population - perhaps a few thousand spread across four ‘villages’ they’d managed to claim and hold - wasn’t exactly happy in their homeland.

  For a lot of human societies, there was a gradual development over time of pride in the harsh conditions of an inhospitable home. Yes, people would think, this sucks. But it sucks in a way that’s special to us. The umbral hadn’t had time to develop that; only half a decade for some of the deepest and oldest members of their species. To them, the harsh conditions were all they knew, until they were let out through a door that didn’t open for them normally, and found a normal Canadian city.

  After that, the dungeon didn’t look so great. And Townton looked even better. So they were in the process of deciding if they wanted to abandon the dungeon entirely. And that meant the Order needed to prepare for a massive population boom, as well as very quickly hammer out how they were going to deal with the specifics of the umbral magic system both socially and in their legal code.

  It was in hashing out the outline of things that James learned that you could share the spells too.

  It was almost by accident; he’d been trying to explain the sensation of knowing how to do magic for a moment, and had been focused on his daily cast of Patch Garment when Zhu had returned to him at high speed and he’d suddenly found himself gifting the spell. It was also almost like he was suddenly aware of exactly how to do something, but only for a moment before the knowledge was ripped away. And then, Zhu had his daily casting.

  If the magic had allowed for more uses of spells per day, it would have been a lot easier to test this. Even the umbral seemed shocked that it worked like that, and apparently no one had ever spoken about this, not even around the ones that had spent a lot of time as exp-generating captives.

  The specifics would take work. But, this was one of those situations that James found disappointingly revelatory about the cruelty of the world. Because after just a few days in a place where they were treated as people by everyone around them, and with running water and hot food and a few local tailors very interested in their sartorial options, many of the umbral in Townton were prepared to offer a lot more than was reasonable.

  It was with grim necessity that James found where Redding was hiding in his office and assigned him as a representative for the species, to make sure the city’s developing legal code didn’t accidentally exploit the umbral and their gift.

  The whole magic system just felt like trouble waiting to happen. And it made James realize that he preferred the Compiled Wastes version of magic, where he wouldn’t even get to check what he’d earned for another couple weeks at least.

  At least that magic didn’t require him to grapple with the potential to accidentally redline a species based on how materially useful they were.

  _____

  The meeting James met Karen for that evening was strangely casual, compared to what he’d been expecting.

  There were two other people in the big conference room of the LA office that the Order had - reluctantly - renewed the lease on at their own expense. Perhaps it got things done, to move quickly, but it also led to situations where eventually they had to ask ‘what happens when someone else rents this place?’, and find that the answer was tied deeply to the fact that they’d linked the elevator to their home base.

  Texture-Of-Barkdust didn’t really surprise James with her presence. The camraconda trying to eat pasta with a pair of floating chopsticks and getting it right about seventy percent of the time was different though. Inoue’s presence also surprised him, especially seeing the salaryman at the tail end of middle age currently with his tie off and a powerfully emotional expression in the lines around his eyes as he stared out the floor-to-ceiling window at the city.

  ”This feels a little morose.” James said as he entered the room, having finished his short conversation with Cathy and Smoke on the way past. “Did someone die?” He asked them.

  ”We are going to kill civilization as we know it.” Inoue said in glum accented English. The man at this point had acquired eight different languages through skill orbs, and had taken extensive time to learn how to speak with a Japanese accent in all of them. He called it an expression of will. James didn’t know what to call it, but it was weirdly specific as a hobby.

  ”That would explain many things.” Texture-Of-Barkdust said. “Civilization was not doing well. Perhaps we are the promised end.” She said as she lashed out with her tongue to fumble a piece of ravioli into her mouth without spraying sauce everywhere.

  ”Well that’s grim.”

  ”Is it?” Texture-Of-Barkdust asked as she looked up from her tupperware container. “I was being optimistic.”

  Karen gave the camraconda a small laugh, the sound coming out almost unfamiliar to her. It was the sort of laugh that people made when they were uncertain about everything, though Karen composed herself quickly. “Inoue is, more or less, correct. Though I believe my colleague is being overdramatic. Texture-Of-Barkdust is just wrong. We aren’t going to end anything except certain labor and industry practices.”

  ”Yes. As promised. A prophecy-”

  ”Oh hush.” Karen gently patted the camraconda on the side of her boxy head, before she looked at James across the table, who was still deciding if he wanted to sit down or keep bouncing on his feet. “As you may have guessed, we are close to ready to begin logisticor operations.”

  ”What, already?” James’ eyebrows shot up. “That’s… how? I didn’t even realize we’d gotten property for it yet.”

  Inoue spoke up, still facing the window. “The property is the least important factor. Location? Waterway access? Hah! Meaningless now, all of it. When we begin, we will need a paved lot and an outhouse.”

  ”That is… not strictly true. Or practically true either.” Karen said, mirroring James’ own worried look toward the director of the project. “But it is close. The equipment that we will need for our first four locations is already stockpiled, agreements for proof of concept runs have been made with multiple companies, hiring and training has been moving at the required speed to meet our quota, and best of all, we have a dramatically better security option now.”

  ”Ah, is that why I’m here?” James asked.

  ”You are here because we need you to know the enormity of what is to come.” Inoue said, still without turning. His voice reverberated off the glass as he stared outward at the unsuspecting city. “And because Ms. Ward has helpfully informed me of your own capabilities in resolving conflicts.”

  James frowned slightly. “That’s… ominous.”

  Texture-Of-Barkdust elegantly bobbed her head at him. “Yes, and it is your fault.” She said. “Here is the timeline. In three months, the first of our arranged shipping contracts migrate to us. Three months after that, we expect to have eight central locations active. We will be employing sixteen hundred individuals in various capacities, majority human. Estimated first year profit exceeds the Order’s current operational budget.”

  ”Uh…”

  ”We already have the format for the worker’s union going.” Karen continued. “As you helpfully pointed out, this is functionally a mix of an employee owned and state owned business. Profit sharing is a given for anyone working for us, and current estimates are that this will reduce corporate or even government espionage attempts by approximately eighty percent.”

  ”For the rest, we have you to thank for a unique security measure.” Inoue added, finally turning and walking over to place fingertips on the edge of the conference table. “If you are not appraised yet, your strange and very real magic of Cathedral Sanctum’s copied room is still where it is. And a logisticor moved into it will still work.”

  Texture-Of-Barkdust hissed with satisfied amusement. “All of our attempts at building better protocols and defenses, useless. What we needed was a room only one person can enter!” She declared, twisting her body upright. “But yes. We have brought you here to tell you that someone will likely attempt to steal from us, especially early on.”

  ”I wanted to get your opinion on options.” Karen asked him directly.

  James nodded. “Okay, well, I think it’s probably funniest if we just pretend no one tries. If they fail, obviously. It’s not like there’s a way to manufacture logisticors, so we know exactly how many there are.”

  ”For now.” Karen told him. “It is possible that someone with enough time, effort, and technological backing could reverse engineer one. Possible, not likely, I know the seeming impossibility of magic on our world, James.” She shook her head sharply. “Is there an actual benefit to that decision, or is it just for your own sense of humor?”

  ”Honestly? Yes.” James put on a more businesslike voice as he answered. “The thing is, if someone tries, and fails, and gets a reaction? That reaction gives them information on how close they got, and possibly ways they can adapt for a second attempt. The less information we give them, the better. That said, not reacting does give one piece of information; that we’re so difficult to pierce that we didn’t even notice them trying. It might be a total lie, but it’s difficult to tell, because the cost of just letting someone that tried to steal an impossibly powerful device from you walk away is high.”

  ”Ah. Obfuscation.” Texture-Of-Barkdust said, understanding his point. “Retaliation would tell anyone that we can retaliate, as well. We do not wish to be viewed as a military power.”

  ”Kinda, yeah.” James agreed. “The other option is making an example out of whoever tries, but let’s be real here, no one is going to send someone wearing an accurate name badge.” He shrugged. “The thing is, from what I’ve learned working with JP and Nate, the majority of intelligence breaches in human history have come from internal disloyalty. The people we think of as spies were often just there to bribe or seduce normal employees, and then collect information or building keys from them. Karen’s already said it. Just paying people well and treating them like they matter creates a culture that’s harder to breach.”

  Texture-Of-Barkdust gave him an appraising look. “What about military acquisition?” She asked. “We are weak to open force. You cannot fight a tank.”

  ”Cam might be able to.” James tapped his chin as he mused, and saw Inoue freeze for a moment at the words, the man’s eyes widening. “Actually I think we have good odds against a tank. But probably no more than one. We don’t have anti-armor, or anti-air capabilities, yeah. Military force could make us give up a logisticor. What’s the workaround there? It’s difficult if we’re making ourselves big targets.”

  Karen answered him. “Become useful enough that no one wants to strike at us.” She said. “Telepads let us get the critical devices clear if needed, and no one can realistically hold our employees when we are willing to retrieve them. Any company working with us would sue, immediately, for loss of business.”

  ”In some places that will not matter. But in many it will.” Inoue added. “Our goal is to show our value openly on an accelerated timetable, and leverage that into contracts with what you would call mega corporations, or conglomerates. They will be given unfavorable rates compared to smaller and more honest businesses, which will give us tremendous leverage over their future actions. But even treating them with hostility, we will still be too useful to not defend. Unless they think they will be the ones to profit from our fall.”

  The words sparked a terrible idea in James thoughts. He tapped a foot, leaning forward on the back of one of the office chairs. “We need to blow up a logisticor.” He said quietly.

  ”Why?” Texture-Of-Barkdust asked with concern.

  Karen answered the camraconda. “So everyone knows we will blow up a logisticor.” She said. “We don’t even need to do it, we can include it as marketing. ‘Your shipment will never be hijacked, because our proprietary technology disables itself and prevents theft’. Piracy is statistically minuscule, but everyone worries about it to an outsized degree.”

  ”I will begin drafting plans for a display.” Inoue said. “But I wonder. What happens if, or perhaps when, someone does acquire one of the devices?”

  James frowned as he thought it through. This was surely a question that was better for people who were more level headed and smarter than he was. But it was important, he supposed, to know his own reaction ahead of time.

  The thing about trying to take over the global shipping industry was, it was legitimately broadly good for everyone. Less pollution, less cost, safer jobs. They even had a plan in place to use the profits to subsidize anyone who lost their own job over the Order’s insertion of teleporters into a global economy. But that meant it was bad for specific people. The people who gained power and wealth from the current situation, and wanted to keep it going. There was a hurdle to clear in becoming ingrained in the public view of logistics fast enough that there would be popular pushback against getting rid of them.

  They needed to become convenient, if they wanted to get away with this.

  And, corollary, they needed to make it inconvenient to remove them.

  “Actually?” James said as he thought about it. “I think… I think we do exactly the same thing we do if they fail.”

  ”Pretend they didn’t?” Karen asked, almost sarcastically.

  James grinned. “Well. Yes. But also, I think we have too many forms of invisibility to not take advantage of the fact that we could steal it back. And then pretend it was never gone in the first place.”

  “You need to not base public policy on what makes you laugh.” Texture-Of-Barkdust admonished him. “Eventually this won’t work.”

  ”Eventually, yeah.” James agreed with a rapid nod. “But hey, it doesn’t have to work forever. It just has to work long enough to have governments and corporations coming to us with favorable terms. It just has to work until people realize that the best way to get value out of us is to ask nicely.”

  ”Naive. Foolish.” Inoue commented as he stared at James in a strange mix of sharp eyed understanding and abject confusion. “And I would say impossible.” His mouth twitched, the frown he had on deepening for a moment before his expression softened. “I would have said impossible.” He added.

  Texture-Of-Barkdust made a proud arch of her cloaked body. “It is good you have learned better.” She said. “Now. We need to plan practical security procedures that incorporate our available magic. James, would you care to sit?”

  James pursed his lips and looked at the inviting curve of the chair. ”Nnnnnno…” he said. “No. If I sit down, my Endurance is going to decide it’s done for the day, and I’ll pass out instantly.” He told them.

  Sometimes, it was interesting how much his changes had changed him. And other times, like now, it fascinated James that he almost felt more like himself than he ever had before.

  Especially since now he had an excuse to stand and pace for a whole security meeting.

  _____

  Life continued. Day by day and moment by moment. But maybe a little faster than normal.

  There is a discord! Come hang out with us.

  There is a wiki! It's starting to become helpful.