"You're the best of the best. Well let's see if it's true. I'm less than impressed. I built better than you." -Opening Credits, I Expect You To Die 3-

  _____

  “An interesting question!” Professor Pickland’s voice took on the lightly contemplative tone that she often got when someone asked her something that wasn’t quite on the lesson plan for the day. “And one that’s come up in the past as well. Star Trek is, of course, one of the best examples. Its politics are all aspirational, but its technology has all largely been outpaced by the existence of cell phones. We still call it science fiction, because it has space ships, but almost everything else has steadily been made real. Who wants to guess when it stops being science fiction then?” She opened up the question to her class.

  One apprehensive young man, fresh out of high school and new to the college life and excited to show how smart he was, raised his hand eagerly. She nodded his direction. “Is it… when we have space ships and transporters?” He asked. “Once we invent everything?”

  ”Interesting thought.” The professor smiled in a way that felt calming to anyone who didn’t know that she liked to lay traps. “Here’s another question. Orwell’s 1984 was about a year that has long since passed us by. Did it, then, become historical fiction?”

  A voice that sounded like an echo off of metal walls spoke up, and professor Pickland had to once again remind herself that it was normal. “No…” one of her students said slowly. “Because it was never written to be history. It was written to be speculative. So Star Trek… will always be science fiction, because it exists in the context of a world that did not have space ships and robots.”

  ”Wait wait wait.” Another student, this one a red haired woman in her mid twenties who had enough experience with this class format to know that it was acceptable to add to a discussion without waving any limbs around, and was nonplussed enough to respond to the odd voice without a second thought. “So the only definition of genre is what it was intended to be?” She asked, incredulous.

  Pickland smiled at the mostly empty lecture hall that was her limited class for this term’s media analysis class. “I think you’ll find that there have been several attempts across history to truly nail down what genre is.” She paused for gravitas. “All of these systems that were pursued with any degree of seriousness universally drove their creators mad.”

  ”I should tell someone about that.” The echoing voice was a distant whisper, an almost unintentional murmur that Pickland was reasonably certain only she had actually heard.

  The professor shook her head, clearing away the apprehensive thoughts, and trying to strike a balance between staring at the canine attendant with the solidified green aura around her throat, and ignoring her student outright.

  It had been a practical joke, she’d assumed. When Derick had come to her and asked if she could accommodate a special needs student this term, she hadn’t flinched, because what kind of Portlander would she be if that gave her any trouble? When the young man showed up with the enormous and fluffy white dog, she’d assumed, incorrectly, that this was an emotional support animal. When the dog paid more attention than the human, she’d assumed there was an issue with focus, some form of ADHD that caused problems but was being struggled through anyway.

  The first time the dog had signaled her handler, and the handler had given his full attention before whispering to the dog, getting a nod, and then raising his hand to ask her to elaborate on a specific part of the topic at hand? Pickland had started to think someone was messing with her.

  When the dog kept coming back, often with different people, she got suspicious that Derick had, in fact, gotten her to agree to something idiotic. This happened, occasionally. The level and frequency of things that could’ve been described as ‘antics’ among the faculty had dropped precipitously with the pandemic; everything felt too rushed now, and too sad, so there was less of the cheeky boredom that drove the pranks before. But maybe… this was a return to an old form.

  And then one day, Auberdeen had shown up without a human at all. But she’d paid just as much attention. And she’d barked, twice during the class, both times Pickland had realized that she could definitely say more on a topic. So she’d done so, and watched the dog listen.

  The talking part was new. Something to do with her collar; the new one was a shade of emerald green, visible in flashes through the fluffy fur. And it seemed to be the source of Auberdeen’s speech, when she did decide to talk. She didn’t do it often, maybe couldn’t, and it very obviously was not her voice. But she talked anyway.

  Professor Pickland didn’t know what was worse. That she had a dog in her class, that she had very easily adapted to that as a state of normal, or that the dog was often more invested than most of the kids out of high school that picked her classes because they thought that anything with media studies in the name was an easy A.

  ”Okay!” She clapped her hands as she leaned down to move the projector to the next part of her lecture for the day. “Let’s talk about dystopias! Who remembers our practical tactics for close reading?” A few hands and one paw went up, the last one more of a flailing in the air, and it was with deep emotional confusion that the professor admitted that she already knew Auberdeen remembered. “We’re going to look at passages about material conditions within three different fictional dystopias, and I want everyone looking for common threads. Let’s start wiiiith…”

  The list of titles was replaced by the first passage. Projected on the screen, because once she’d started accommodating Auberdeen, Pickland found that it never really impacted her classes to make the lectures themselves understandable without needing to open the physical books.

  Though she had a looming suspicion that if she had done that, it wouldn’t be long before the dog showed up with some kind of robotic page turner.

  The irony of teaching a class about the cultural impact of science fiction was not lost on her.

  _____

  “It’s not the worst client we’ve ever had.” Jake Redding nodded along as he listened to his colleagues chat around the coffee maker. His law firm wasn’t exactly modest, but they were limited to a couple floors of an office building, and at a certain point when you wanted coffee you just got coffee in the office and assumed you’d get something nice for yourself outside later. He sipped that same coffee as one of the other attorneys continued. “I think half the suits they get hit with are because they’re just so rude. They aren’t actually doing anything dramatically illegal.” The man shook his head, adjusting his tie with a put-upon sigh as he cocked a pair of fingers off his coffee cup to point toward Jake. “How about you, Redding? How’s that new account that you’ve stolen half my paralegals for going?”

  I have a pet dragon. Redding considered saying. And I don’t know why I still work here.

  He didn’t say that out loud. His law firm was relatively progressive, his colleagues more or less good people, and his instructions from the Order of Endless Rooms had explicitly contained the words ‘you can tell people literally anything you want as long as it isn’t a lie’. So he could just say it.

  But he had this creeping suspicion that no matter what he said, they wouldn’t actually take him seriously. So instead, his answer was mundane. “It’s going.” He replied easily. “You know how new organizations can be. Lot of ambition, lot of questions.”

  That was technically true. A lot of those questions were more in the realm of ‘is there a legal way to do this that will be faster than whatever we were planning’ though.

  ”Must be racking up a hell of a fee.” His colleague said enviously. “You’re barely in the office anymore!”

  I go flying. On my dragon. Over a dead city full of alien life.

  ”There’s some property disputes that they’re all wrapped up in.” He shook his head with a deflecting smile. “You know how it can be.”

  The other man raised an eyebrow. ”So what’re all the paralegals doing? County clerk inquiries? You can’t need that many of them.”

  Adoption paperwork, estate validation, untangling the legal knot of ownership for an unincorporated township, drafting treaties. No. That’s what I’m doing. The paralegals…

  ”Dungeon delving.” Redding said with the same casual office banter tone he’d been using the whole time. And then realized he’d said the wrong part out loud.

  The other man had just poured himself another cup of coffee, unbothered by the term. “What, like checking out basements? We have interns for that. You’re not gonna win any favors wasting people’s time like that.”

  ”Right. Of course.” Redding nodded. “It’s more sewer than basement though.” He added, before tossing his coffee cup into the trash. “Hey, I’ve gotta get going. Good chat.”

  ”Sure thing. Really keeping you on your toes, eh? What are these guys paying anyway?”

  ”You don’t want to know.” Actually the man probably did want to know. And if he asked one of the senior partners, he could probably just get told. The Order paid their standard rate, they just paid it a lot, because Jake really did spend most of his time monopolized by them. He’d had to familiarize himself with two whole fields of law for it, only to be told after the fact that one of them they’d found an orb for. The other one, his general knowledge of US family law, they offered him a staggering amount of money to make a .mem file of and make himself obsolete.

  Which he did.

  Hell, he might have done it without the money.

  Jake tapped the back of his head against the elevator’s mirrored wall as he rode it up. He didn’t know why he still worked here anymore. He was more Order than attorney at this point. Or maybe he was both, a synthesis of the old world and the new. The main thing that made him useful was that he’d passed the bar, and he was certain that wasn’t that unique anymore within the Order’s ranks. So they mostly kept him around because he was… there.

  ”Maybe we should just accept that we’re supposed to be somewhere else, huh?” He asked Hermes after he’d navigated up a back staircase to get onto the building’s roof and found the paper drake waiting for him, half concealed by a tarp. Hermes responded by shoving a black plastic snout into his chest, lines of curved silver metal running up along his face before they split off from the head in tight loops where the dragon’s eyestalks sat. “Yeah, yeah, let’s get the saddle on you and we can leave.” He grumbled with a good natured smile at the drake’s eagerness.

  Redding maneuvered the custom fitted saddle onto the drake, who didn’t make it too hard for him, and mounted up just as the door to the roof opened with a metal clack.

  ”Hey Jake! You forgot your-!” Jake’s colleague froze as he looked at his fellow attorney, leaning forward with his hands locked around the plastic struts sticking out of his dragon’s neck.

  The two men made eye contact for a long moment.

  ”I have a pet dragon.” Jake said in the only tone of voice he’d used all day, before he nudged Hermes forward, and the two of them dropped over the side of the building before the drake’s wings caught the wind and sent the duo soaring toward safe telepadding altitude. “I’ll touch base later!” He called back over his shoulder.

  The colleague, whose name he still couldn’t remember, just stared open mouthed up at their retreating forms.

  _____

  When the traffic jam started, Crystal knew she was going to be late for work. Which was burying the lede slightly, since her doggedly determined 1995 Buick Skylark getting hit hard enough in the trunk to pirouette around the intersection and clip a delivery truck was what had caused the traffic jam in the first place.

  Either way, she was going to be late. She’d probably have to talk to the police, get a tow, maybe go to the hospital. Probably the hospital. Everything was sort of dizzy, and she had been sitting in her driver’s seat staring blankly at a toppled streetlight instead of getting out and checking the damage, so that was probably bad.

  Her assumption that she was concussed solidified as she blinked and missed the arrival of a group of people in the middle of the road. Four of them, splitting into pairs as they moved to the different vehicles. They didn’t look like cops, but they moved like professionals. If they’d been auditioning, Crystal would have given them the part instantly; that kind of unspoken confidence was reassuring to see when you’d just been vehicularly assaulted.

  The door to her car made an unpleasant sound, and Crystal looked sideways with a slow and dizzying twist of her head to see one of the people frowning at the uncooperative door. He made a motioning wave, and one of his friends jogged over to join him, and Crystal had a moment where she wondered how badly she’d hit her head that she thought the new guy looked like a bug, or a rat, or something. Or both?

  Her vision focused slightly as the bug rat guy gripped the outside of the door with his friend, and they both pulled in unison, the bent metal popping out and letting more freezing air into her sanctuary than the shattered rear windshield already was. “Hi.” Crystal slurred out. “Nice costume.” She tried to compliment one of them.

  ”Ma’am, we need to clear the street for safety. How are you feeling?”

  ”Head hurts.” Crystal said.

  ”May I have your consent to check you for injuries?” The slim man with the slimmer mustache asked. She tried to nod, since he’d asked so nicely. It made her dizzy again, but it was important, somehow. “Okay. Hold still please.” He said, and Crystal let herself still. “And don’t worry, this isn’t going to sting or anything.”

  There was a flicker of green, and his hand peeled apart. No, not his hand, a glove. But it was moving like it was underwater, and falling into ribbons. All of those ribbons seeking her out, drifting over parts of her body, creeping behind her back and legs where she was still pressed into the seat. Crystal almost giggled, because she felt like it should tickle, but it didn’t really feel like anything.

  ”Is she alright?” The bug asked in a nervous voice.

  ”Concussion, bruising on the ribs, tendon damage on the knees and ankles. No bleeding, internal or external. Nothing broken. Very lucky.”

  ”Should we move her?” The bug asked. “The car might explode.”

  The human man shook his head, glancing back at where the other vehicles involved in the crash had vanished. “Ambulance will be here soon, and nothing is on fire, cars don’t explode Chiss. Ma’am, please stay seated, the paramedics are on the way. We’d like to move your vehicle out of the way, and get you out of the street just to be safe, okay.”

  ”Kay.” She muttered, wondering if that was why the other vehicles had vanished.

  Crystal blinked, and felt herself moving again, her stomach roiling. It felt smooth, like being on the bus. Outside, the world moved by as her car rolled along.

  But that couldn’t be right. She’d seen at least one of her tires in the debris of the accident. So what…

  Mustering some strength, she looked over the edge of her open driver’s side door, and saw small black clamps holding her car up. They had little angled struts that led from her vehicle down to the street, like they were made of the street. They certainly flowed along it like the road was liquid, but they were solid enough to move her whole car.

  ”Cool.” Crystal said blearily, blinking at the application of Manipulate Asphalt as her car was added to the closest grocery store parking lot next to three others that had taken damage from one reckless idiot’s bad driving.

  She took a short nap before the ambulance showed up. The paramedics were nice to her, and patiently explained that yes, she was going to be late for work. The police that arrived at roughly the same time were a lot ruder, and kept treating her like she was an idiot for talking about bug people who moved cars around.

  It wouldn’t be for another day or so that Crystal would realize they hadn’t told her she was wrong. Just that she was stupid for appreciating it.

  One day after that, she’d find the card with the number for Response in her pocket, just in case she needed help again, or if her insurance didn’t cover the cost of her repairs. And Crystal stared at that card for a long time, trying to figure out if her hallucination had left her with contact information.

  _____

  Jubilance, mostly unarmed and uncomfortably unarmored, walked toward a Tim Hortons to meet up with someone who was supposedly another wizard. This was a delicate situation. Ever since her squad had been reduced to herself and Tylor, ever since they’d become fugitives from the law, ever since they’d found the stupid second fucking magical vault, things had been delicate. Literally every situation was tenuous and terrifying.

  She and Tylor were fighting a rather literal shadow war against an enemy that had apparently taken control of a large part of western civilization. They had to measure every move they took against the risk of being seen by either mundane authorities or magical hit squads. Stealth wasn’t just a tool, it was the way that they kept themselves alive.

  Which was why it had been just a little bit terrifying when a random American had been dropped into her brand new mystic territory. And a little more eerie when it turned out Marcus wasn’t that random, and it was possibly partly Jessica’s fault that he had shown up and drank her good coffee, his dream-self being just physical enough to eat her food and then bounce.

  But she and Tylor had talked. Then taken the risk. Called back, on purpose, and arranged a meeting.

  The thing about fighting a shadow war was, it sucked. It sucked to feel like you were outnumbered and outgunned every single time you went to buy chips or get gas. It sucked to feel like your enemy had an army and you had one dude on your side.

  The Order of Endless Rooms was… an option. An opportunity? At the very least, they were a potential ally, because they seemed like a bunch of chaotic fuckups, and Jubilance could feel the kinship rolling off them over the phone. She wasn’t going to commit what was left of her squad to them, wasn’t going to just join up on the spot. But…

  If they were willing to make her war their war? She’d at least sit down and have a chat.

  The meeting was set for somewhere public, and the guy she’d talked to on the phone had promised that there was no arcane enforcement for the schedule. Though he’d also said it was due to ‘staff injury’ and not, like, basic manners, which somehow just reinforced the vibe that they were a bunch of terminally insane dumbasses. Tim Hortons wasn’t exactly clandestine, but that was sort of the point. This was a first contact. Slip in, say hi, slip out before anything came crashing down on her head. Maybe, maybe, she could weasel some material help out of them, though more likely she’d get a vague promise that might go somewhere.

  If things felt like they were okay, then they could meet somewhere more concealed in the future, and actually swap useful information. There wasn’t much she wasn’t willing to give up right now just to get out.

  ”You on me?” She spoke into the air. And also the Bluetooth microphone on her collar.

  “Not to make the same joke for the hundredth time, but I tend to aim a little over your head, just because I don’t trust your [Bullet Resistance] that much.” Tylor’s voice filled her left ear, and Jubilance moved a little easier knowing that her sniper’s aim was as professional as ever. “Haven’t seen them arrive yet. But they’re probably there, see the pauses?”

  She did. People were slowing as they walked past the windows of the coffee shop. Not that there were many people on foot out here, but two was enough to make it suspicious. “I’m going in.” Jubilance said. “If I scream, start shooting.”

  ”Shooting what.” Her partner sounded a little sarcastic.

  ”I dunno, play it by ear.” She pulled her hair forward to cover the grid tattoo splashed out behind her ear, and pushed the glass door open, moving in and looking around to see if anyone stood out as her potential contact.

  The eight foot long snake-shaped thing made out of computer cables awkwardly draped in one of the booths, one mechanical arm stirring cream into a paper cup of coffee with jerky motions, caught her off guard. It was so brazen, so ballsy, that for just a moment Jubilance considered if maybe they were just another customer and her contact was actually going to be the tattooed dude in gym gear trying not to stare at the snake.

  ”You alive?” Tylor’s voice jolted her into action.

  Jubilance, unwilling to look like she was in a hurry, and also wanting to take a second to scope the brightly lit interior out just to make sure there wasn’t someone who was waiting for her to arrive with hostile intentions, walked up to the counter and ordered a black coffee, knowing she was making a mistake. “I’m good.” She spoke softly into her clipped on mic as she waited for the moment it took to pour her something that was legally considered a beverage, eyeing everyone in here except the snake. “I found my contact.”

  ”You sure?”

  ”Pretty fucking sure.” God she wanted to take a picture. But that would be too obvious. “Thanks.” She gave a clipped word to the kid who handed her coffee across the counter, and turned to grab a seat.

  There were four other people in here that weren’t staff or snake. They were all… fine. Jubilance couldn’t see anything about them that was suspicious, which meant they were either normies, or good at their job. And at the end of the day, she was taking a chance anyway, so what was a little more open risk, right?

  As she sat down in the booth across from the snake, the thing looked up at her with a boxy security camera face, red white and yellow cables wrapped around the base of the thing in a way that really made the lens look like an eye. “Good afternoon. Ms. Joy, correct?”

  ”Sure. Or Jess, if you want to be normal. Or Jubilance if you don’t. But don’t, cause I hate that name right now.” The snake’s voice was synthesized, so maybe it was a drone. But it wasn’t some kind of dry text-to-speech thing either. “Sorry, who or what are you? I mean, I know you’re who I’m meeting, but…” she waved a hand low across the table, as if making small motions would hide anything when her conversation partner was this.

  The snake flicked out a thin tongue across what looked like fangs made of brass or copper. “My name is Spire-Cast-Behind. Spire, for convenience. I am a person, this body is not a drone or a robot. Thank you for asking.”

  ”Sure.” Jubilance tried not to stare, but only because she was trying to keep her attention split between the building’s exits.

  In her ear, Tylor’s voice almost made her miss what the snake said. “Sorry, did she say robot?”

  ”So.” Spire-Cast-Behind used the favorite opening word of some of her favorite humans. “You would like to know more about the Order of Endless Rooms.”

  It wasn’t really a question, but Jubilance took it that way. “Yeah, sure. I mean, yes, but what’s up with that name?”

  The snake flicked its tongue into the coffee that it - she? - was holding up with one of those metal arms. This did nothing to stop her from talking. “I could tell you that it reflects our origins, or that it is a declaration of our intent for the future. But the truth is… I think that James thought it sounded fun. And we moved fast enough that everyone got used to it.”

  ”Oh.” She thought about it as she nudged at her own untouched coffee. “Oh, that’s actually a great way to name a group, huh? Cause if you think about it too much, someone will argue. Like when one of our guys tried to name us ‘the Wolfpack’ and spent too long not convincing everyone instead of just doing it. That’s kinda cool.” She said it before the memory of a dead guy could burn her too badly.

  ”Ah. It’s for the best you did not settle on that name.” Spire said, looking away almost… could a giant snake be sheepish? That was weird.

  Jubilance let her eyes slip around the building’s doors again, trying to look like she was focused but not willing to miss anyone coming in. Not now. “So… uh…”

  ”Ah, the questions.” Spire tried to bob, but having folded herself in half to fit in the cramped bench, it didn’t work too well.

  Jubilance suddenly realized that Tim Hortons, a place already barely constructed for human use, probably was a lot worse for cable snakes. “We can go somewhere else if you want?” She asked. “I figured this would be a vibe check and any… trade secrets… we could share when we felt like we weren’t going to murder each other.”

  ”…is that a concern you have?” Spire sounded weirdly sad about that, digital voice subdued as she replied.

  Tylor decided to interrupt, making him the worst overwatch she’d ever had. ”Did you make a robot depressed?”

  She ignored him. “Yeah.” Jubilance said, trying to be as blunt in her honesty as she could so that she didn’t feel vulnerable. “A lot. People keep trying to kill me.”

  ”I have never… had that problem.” Spire-Cast-Behind admitted. “Well, no, I have. But I have not been hunted. Is this why you are nervous? We can leave.” She twisted, and hit the ground with a clack, some kind of plate on her underside absorbing the impact. “And you can tell me about your situation.”

  Jubilance hadn’t known what to expect, but she left her coffee behind as she rushed to follow the inhuman creature that somehow made her feel like she had her mom back. As soon as they stepped outside, she heard the voice of her ally spike in her earpiece. “Holy shit, what is that?”

  ”Tell your friend to stop aiming at me.” Spire said abruptly. “It is very rude. And wouldn’t work anyway.”

  ”Uh… yeah, Tylor, she’s cool.” Jubilance said. “Car’s over this way, we can find an empty lot or something. There’s a bunch of those around this city.”

  It took them only a minute to get to her car, but another five for Tylor to navigate down from his nest and join them in the front seat. “Hey. I like the look. Very nineties.”

  ”Thank you.” Spire-Cast-Behind acknowledged him. “I have no idea what that means. Tell me about your issues.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Woah, hang on.” Tylor turned as Jubilance drove them toward unpopulated streets so she could find a derelict strip mall to park them in front of. Her car was the perfect camouflage for that; people would just assume she was making a drug deal and not anything serious. “We don’t even know anything about you guys, except that one of you can invade territory in his dreams, and one of you is…” he swiped his hand up and down through the air at her. “This.”

  “Not that we don’t need help.” Jubilance said, using the voice she used when she wanted things to sound normal and slip past Tylor’s attention.

  ”Well yeah, but… hey!”

  Spire-Cast-Behind just kept looking between the two of them, while also seeming to spend a good deal of time scanning what passed for local architecture as Jubilance drove. “I could simply provide information.” She stated. “It solves most things.”

  ”I… we…” Tylor sputtered, before just slumping back in the seat. “Fine.”

  The snake nodded, camera head thumping on the car’s roof a couple times. “The Order of Endless Rooms is a group created to help victims of magical problems,” she said the word problems like she had someone she wanted to shoot, “and to leverage acquired magical power into doing good for people. We believe life is important and bigotry is stupid. And I have discovered this overview is enough to tell people if they want to associate with us.”

  ”…Because it leaves out all the unethical experimentation or something?” Jubilance asked. “Cause that sounds like a cult.”

  ”I have never been in a cult, to my knowledge.” Spire said, almost sounding amused. “Have you?”

  Tylor raised a hand. “I was raised catholic?” He offered, clearly having an opinion on whether that counted.

  ”Ignore him.” Jubilance said as she parked them behind a construction dumpster and turned in her seat, one knee propping up on the steering wheel. “What do you want?”

  Spire turned her head, as if she were curious at the question. “I don’t understand.”

  ”You show up, you show up, and you tell us your wizard cult with no personal boundaries helps people. You’re telling me this, when all you know about me is…”

  ”Is that you need help.” Spire said bluntly, though without any of the judgement that any of the humans Jubilance had shared even a fragment of her life with had used. “You are wondering if I am a trap, because people do not simply help each other, especially if it involves risk. Yes?”

  ”Yes.” She tried to say it with bravado, especially with Tylor in the car. But she didn’t think the word came out that well. “Well, no. I think you showing up is too dumb to be a trap.” That part at least was easy to be casually open about. “But I bet you want something from us.”

  Spire-Cast-Behind stopped talking for long enough that it became clear she was considering things. Tylor moved like he was planning on waving his hand in front of her face, and Jubilance, vigilant for more than just external threats, grabbed his wrist in a snap of motion before scowling him into submission.

  Eventually the snake taking up her whole back seat spoke again. “What we would want would be complicated and simple. The Order wants magic, dungeons, allies, ideas, knights. In the abstract, we want everyone to get along, and build the future. On a practical level, we want to know where your magic came from, so we can figure out how to use it for a hundred different important things. And we want to get to know you and anyone in your circle, because recruiting experienced delvers is good.”

  ”Delvers!” Tylor prodded her arm, breaking free of her grip. “That’s a good term!” He turned back to the snake. “So this is a recruitment pitch? What’s the pay like?”

  ”Absurd, I am told.” Spire said. “It may shock you to learn that I have little use for money. I live with a group of optimistic magical anarchists, and don’t pay rent.”

  ”God she’s fucking selling me on this?” Jubilance told her partner before looking back at the snake. “What’s the catch? Do we have to get turned into whatever you are?”

  ”Camraconda. And no. I am my own species.” Spire said, hissing in well-contained annoyance. “We have our own enemies, we regularly face crises that cost lives, and I believe the only reason no military is trying to contain us is because we are difficult to find and they may have their own problems. We are a community, we would expect ethical behavior from you, which may be different than you are used to. And you will learn things with us that may make you afraid of the world.”

  Jubilance pulled her knees up to her chest, curling up in the driver’s seat. “Big catch.” She said, and then took a deep breath and shared a look and a nod with Tylor. “There’s a place around here that’s pissed at us for messing with their weird drug smuggling operation. Which we did by accident, by the way!” She insisted on sharing that part, to Tylor’s chagrin. “No, don’t fucking silence me! I’m pro drugs! But they started fucking shooting and haven’t stopped! And either they’re working with the cops, or some of them are cops? The place… fuck it, the dungeon, keeps spawning shadow people to come kill us. And they’re not the only ones. There’s some weird provincial agency that we keep running into. And I think another dungeon is using people like us to kidnap people. People like us, too. And it’s so fucking much, and I’m so tired.” Jubilance wasn’t going to cry in front of the snake. That wasn’t cool. “I mean holy shit, do you know how relieved I was when Marcus didn’t try to kill me?”

  ”I… am sorry.” Spire said bluntly. “We did not know your circumstances.”

  ”And you don’t wanna touch them with a ten foot pole?” Tylor asked, resigned to the answer.

  ”No, you misunderstand. I am apologizing for Planner’s actions, and the effect Marcus had on your companion.” Spire said. “How large is your circle? We can have a place ready for you today, but higher numbers will require more effort from Recovery. If you have personal effects you wish to keep those can be acquired by a team prepared for ambush.” She looked away as the two humans stared at her with open bafflement. “This is not contingent on you sharing your powers or dungeon locations. We would like those, but they are not required. You require help. No one will help you. Are you bad people?”

  ”…I… I try not to be?” Jubilance said. “I probably am. Fuck, I’m sorry man,” she told Tylor, who was making a high pitched whine, “I’m not gonna lie to her. We’ve probably hurt a bunch of random people trying to stay alive. I don’t think we’re good people. But we’re not evil. And if it balances things out I’m pretty sure we’ve shot at least a few fascists?”

  ”I know several people who will applaud that.” Spire said. “What we require is… effort. To try. To put in the hard work to heal, and grow. If you are willing to say you will attempt it, then we can take you away from your enemies right now.”

  The duo shared another look, and an unspoken understanding. They would be taken in, taken care of, and protected. And in exchange, the people doing the taking would never actually demand anything from them. They’d seen this kind of tactic before. The plan would be to slowly convert them with the nebulous concepts of friendship and community until they just agreed to share because they felt like it.

  It was a good plan, Jubilance would admit. It worked for cults for a reason. And it had also worked for them in the past. It wasn’t specifically a good-aligned plan, it was just ‘a plan’, and you could use it to be a real bastard if you felt like it. But if your primary objective was just to make friends, or even just allies, then it was totally chill to actually succeed.

  ”There’s two of us.” Tylor said, trying to make it sound less grim than it really was. “We’re what’s left.” Okay, no, he’d thrown that out the window. Grim it was.

  ”Then we can leave now. Do you… want this vehicle?” Spire-Cast-Behind asked.

  Jubilance was just a little irked that her precious chariot was being sneered at by someone who probably didn’t even drive. This was the pinnacle of early 2000’s engineering… by the measure of how many costs could be cut in the actual manufacturing process. “Nah, fuck this thing.” She said out loud. “You don’t have to talk to your team or anything?”

  ”I am a paladin.” Spire said, as if that was an explanation and not just an admission that she played D&D. “I act to do what is right, and we sort out the details later.” One of her arms pulled out a notepad from a pouch attached to her side, and she flipped it open to place one page between her fangs. “Make contact with me, and we can leave. Teleportation magic, it is disorienting and you should be prepared to stand on landing. Not the arms. Those don’t count.” She waited as the two hesitantly reached out for her. “And I should tell you in advance, so you are not startled.” Both humans stopped, pulling back slightly. “You said team. My people are, in many ways, a team. But I do not want to deceive you about our scope.”

  ”What, are there only three of you?” Jubilance asked their new best friend. “Cause that’s pretty normal.”

  ”No.” Spire said, and watched as they both tried to contain their disappointment at the idea of being helped out by a single weird snake and maybe one other person if Marcus was even still alive. “There are several hundred. And we will be teleporting to a place where many of us live. Now please hold on.”

  _____

  When Jerome Silverson walked into the Lair’s lobby, he did so assuming that he was going to check some basic fire suppression hardware, maybe tell some inexperienced business owners that they weren’t allowed to store flammable stuff near their breaker box. Worst case would be something like finding out that not only were all the fire extinguishers in the building way overdue for recert, but that half of them were fake.

  What the deputy fire marshal was not expecting was… anything that actually happened.

  The front room of the building was busier than he expected, but there were no obvious problems. There were a lot of kids around, and he had a moment of wondering if the standing terrarium setup was perhaps a safety hazard, but it wasn’t a fire hazard, which was important. All the wiring was properly sealed and safe. The place had a lot of weird seating, mostly beanbag chairs, but every exit was properly kept clear. Though he’d made a note about the lockers by one of the main doors; it wasn’t a problem, but it was worth reminding the owners about potential pain points.

  Then he’d actually bothered to look at all the kids up here. And… had needed to take a moment outside.

  Jerome lived in the modern world, and he watched movies. He knew some comic book lore, just cause he had a nerd of a roommate back in college that loved to monologue. He was familiar with the concept of the hidden school for mutants. He just… kind of assumed that was a fiction thing. And that his day job wouldn’t have him walk into a place full of monsters.

  ”Excuse me.” A perfectly normal human woman addressed him as he stood leaning on a bike rack hyperventilating slightly. “Do you need help?”

  ”Ah. Sorry ma’am.” He tried to breathe normally, before making the connection that if he had stumbled in somewhere he wasn’t supposed to, and this woman was aware of it, then… “Aw, shit. I won’t tell anyone, I swear. I just-“

  ”That’s not really what I meant. Are you alright? Most people don’t have that much of a panic reaction.” She frowned, a stern look that he somehow knew wasn’t directed at him. “Did you not get the proper introduction?”

  “I… I was here for a fire code inspection…” he managed to mumble, feeling like he should be honest with the person who was trying to be nice.

  She blinked, then raised her head to stare into the air in the parking lot off to their side. “Planner.” The woman snapped. “We’re going to talk about this later.” She added, making Jerome feel deeply sorry for whoever - or whatever - Planner happened to be. With a sigh, the woman extended a hand to shake. “Karen Ward. Good afternoon…?”

  ”Jerome. Jerome Silverson. Ah, here we go.” He was back on normal ground, pulling his neatly printed badge out to show her. “This place of business was scheduled for an inspection. Unannounced, but not by report, just a standard thing. But… I don’t…” he looked back at the door nervously.

  ”Ah.” Karen let out a long breath. “Yes. Well.” She held up a hand to him as she pursed her lips and turned her head to the side. It looked like her throat was moving, almost like she was talking to someone silently. “Are you alright?” She asked him again as she turned back to make eye contact.

  He thought about it. Caught off guard, confronted by a million impossibilities in a few seconds, it had been overwhelming and scary. But… he did kind of want to know where all the monsters came from that seemed like they were getting along and mostly just hanging out? “I’ll live.” He said with a honeyed laugh. “Assuming I’m not learning any illegal secrets…”

  ”Not at all.” Karen turned and moved to open the door for him. “Come in. I’d like to stay with you for your inspection, so you don’t get lost, but it’s generally seen as a good idea to not have too many fire code violations, and I would appreciate a document that I can use to bludgeon anyone who disagrees with me.”

  Ah. So it was going to be like that, he found himself thinking as he walked in, trying to resist asking more questions about the people than the floor plan.

  It took exactly three minutes for him to realize it was not like that. Not like he’d thought like that was. Like that was like that. This was not like that, this was like nothing. This was insane.

  ”You have an elevator.” He’d felt like he was repeating obvious facts out loud. “That… this is a…” Jerome stopped talking, and let Karen show him where all the stairwell doors on the first floor of the one floor building were. There were six of them. He nodded at them; good solid fire doors, no debris or storage in the stairwells. Professional. Impossible, but professional.

  “That couch can’t be there.” He’d said, and then, after realizing that the couch could in fact be there, had clarified, “That couch physically cannot exist in that space. It’s not blocking the hallway so it doesn’t need to be moved, but, you know it can’t be there, right?” Karen had nodded patiently at him, and he’d moved on.

  ”Oh, this room definitely isn’t okay.” He said about the restaurant. “How many exits are there for this space? Just that one?” Technically, there was also the exit through the back of the kitchen, but he had frowned and sternly informed his guide that this place would need at least one clearly marked secondary door if it was going to be seating over a hundred people. Also the second bonus secret exit through the bakery upstairs from the kitchen that somehow led to street level didn’t count, and he was going to cry.

  ”Basements aren’t bad on their own.” He’d told Karen as they moved through the underground space. “But they are prone to dust buildup, and fires that start in basements are especially dangerous. So we’re vigilant about things like HVAC systems or… or… or…” he stared at the park. At the building past the park. At the apartment complex. “Yeah, that’s… um… a bit of a… hazard…” he didn’t know what to say. He settled on nothing, just observing the place. All of their fire extinguishers were where they were supposed to be and tested.

  ”Wait this is a different basement.” Jerome would hear himself say those words too many times. “Okay, I know what I said about basements not being bad on their own. This basement is bad. This space needs to be-“

  ”-rearranged to provide exit avenues-“

  ”-without the cables as tripping hazards-“

  ”-and with the animals given their own point of egress.”

  ”What was that.” He demanded, after hearing his own thoughts focused and spread across multiple other voices from what he was told was the Research section. When someone explained that it was because of a magic lamp, he’d mostly given up, but he still checked the wiring to make sure the lamp wasn’t going to be an issue.

  ”How often is this storage checked, and what’s the ventilation situation like?” Some of the rooms down here were at least things he was mentally prepared for. When he was told that one of the basement rooms was checked more often now that we can remember it, he had decided to not question that. Nor why there was an exit that led to solid rock. That was a stupid construction choice, not a fire hazard. Jerome wrote down what rooms needed to be fixed if they didn’t want a fine, and moved on.

  ”This is the breaker box?” He asked, staring at a panel of heavy switches. Too many switches. This couldn’t possibly fit in here. He looked to his left and found his vision sliding across row after row of switches before his head actually turned away from the fuse box. “This is… probably illegal. I don’t even know. I don't know if there's even regulations for this. Which means it's almost certainly incredibly illegal. I don't even know how this is working. This shouldn't be working. I think I gave up half an hour ago when the snake explained the safety precautions you take for making an industrial quantity of thermite.”

  “Sprinkler system is in order.” This was the most normal thing he’d said all day. Then he had to ruin it. “Or is it? Are those tanks holding enough water to actually suppress the whole interior? I haven’t seen any other tanks, and your building has significantly more square footage than those can cover.” And more than was on the blueprint. “That might be a citation. You’ll need to get that expanded ASAP.” The weirdest part of the whole experience, beyond all the obvious parts, was that they’d picked up two guys who were apparently in charge of ongoing remodel efforts, who were honestly taking notes and discussing fixes.

  ”Absolutely you cannot have an electric towel warmer sitting next to a pool people get in.” He’d almost raised his voice, but instead went with the old standby of dispassionate irritation as he pointed at the offending objects. “Unless those are powered by magic too. And even if they are, they’re still plugged in and those cables are a tripping hazard. Move those.” It was a shame that the most obvious stupid thing he’d found was in the coolest room of this place. He didn’t think of himself as a ‘public bath’ kind of guy, but the copper and wood glinting in the low light was just a deeply peaceful atmosphere.

  Eventually, Jerome found himself standing back in the lobby. He’d been there for a while, waiting for Karen to address something important while he arranged his final report and gave her the bad news about what needed to be changed to avoid a complete shutdown of their business. Standing here by the terrarium’s glass tanks, he’d gotten an improvised lesson on frogs from an excited pair of young girls, and then when he’d told them he was a firefighter, he’d gotten a whole crowd of kids - most of them not human - politely clustered around him and asking questions about his job. It was… bizarre. But also it made him feel like the most important guy in the world for a bit.

  It also made him feel bad for needing to tell whatever Karen was that this building needed to be closed down, and possibly condemned before it spontaneously combusted. “So, listen.” He told her after she returned and apologized for the delay, the kids having long since absconded. “I don’t want to tell you this, but this is not a safe structure right now.”

  ”I agree.” Karen surprised him with a nod. “We have a group of…” she paused and considered what she was about to tell him.

  ”Not a conspiracy.” The long haired man that had followed her back said with the kind of cadence that meant he used those words a lot.

  Karen sighed. “We’re in the process as we speak of expanding the water tanks for our sprinkler system. That should be done by the end of the day-“

  ”Unless Reed blows something up again!” The new guy said. “I’ve still got personal property, I’m sure he’d love to throw that in a spatial blender too.”

  ”James please.” Karen narrowed her eyes just enough that the other guy stopped talking instantly, which Jerome found secretly amusing. Having a boss that could silence you with two words was the kind of thing that said a lot about the person in charge. “Cable management in public areas is also being addressed, especially the baths. The largest issue, however, is emergency exits, correct?”

  Silverson nodded at her. “And that’s the real problem. You’ve got people living here. M… magic or not,” that sounded so stupid to say out loud, “there’s not enough throughput for the people in the basement to leave in an evacuation. And there’s no easy way out for anyone with a disability. Or a… tail?”

  ”Oh, the camracondas can climb stairs. It’s kinda impressive.” James added.

  “Can a camraconda in a wheelchair climb stairs?” Jerome pointedly and sharply demanded.

  ”…okay, no.”

  Karen retook the reins. “Which is why we are working to address the concern. Now, our remodeling team has drawn up preliminary plans for the ground floor areas, but we wanted to get your input on the optimal points to place exits downstairs, especially in the residential area.” She turned and started walking like she expected him to follow her.

  “Uh…” he didn’t move, meeting James’ eyes as the other man just shrugged. “No, stop. I’m… this isn’t something that can take time to fix. This building isn’t safe for human - for any - habitation! You can’t just ignore it for the weeks it would take to install some new doors. And underground is… is…”

  Is impossible, he was planning to say. Which was, of course, wrong and stupid.

  ”We will, of course, need at least a few days to move everyone out and back in. But we were planning a remodel of the living space to improve hallway flow anyway, and while we are… somewhat cavalier… about the law here, fire code is something that we have no interest in breaking. Would a timeline of a week be sufficient?”

  ”I… am I having a stroke?” He felt the need to ask. “Am I dead?”

  ”No, ghosts aren’t real.” James told him. As if that was something he knew.

  Jerome Silverson did not ask any questions about that, gave them a two week extension on their citations, and scheduled a followup inspection with their wounded and tired ghost octopus. On the form he would be handing his boss, he wrote ‘mild electrical mismanagement’, and nothing else. He decided to pretend that he’d gotten stuck in the Burger King drive thru, which was why he was late to his next site.

  _____

  John Kingly, bishop, got home with minimal fuss and maximum desire to kick his feet up and watch some football before falling asleep for a week. He'd just spent nearly two straight days with his eyes forced open, locking in a tracking spell that he was technically supposed to call a miracle. But in the privacy of his own head... he just didn't put the effort in.

  His home was empty and dark, no kids or spouse to speak of, which was a source of mild embarrassment in the church's social circles. But hey, his position was pretty trusted among people in the know, and there was a secretary at the stake house that he'd spoken to a few times. Might ask her out for dinner when he had some more free time and wasn't wrangling the stupid demons.

  The kitchen was cool as he walked across the cold floor in his socks, not bothering to turn the light on as he went to grab some water while one hand snagged the TV remote off the counter and fumbled for the right button. He got as far as pulling the filter pitcher out of the fridge before he noticed the shadow in the doorway to the dining room, and froze, wondering if his brain was playing tricks on him with perspective or something.

  "Mr. Kingly." A man's tightly angry voice spoke. "I am going to ask nicely, once. You are a Bell By Midnight caster. Let your captives go, right now." Oh. The shadow was a person. And pointing a gun at him.

  He slowly closed the fridge, straightened his back, and flung the water pitcher toward the door, launching himself onto the kitchen floor just in case the attacker started shooting while one hand dipped into his pocket to grab his phone.

  The shadow just sidestepped the projectile, stepped over the bishop's prone form, and stomped his wrist into the hardwood floor hard enough that he both felt and heard his bones splinter. A scream ripped from his throat as the pain caught up, and he struggled to kick at the man standing over him; a lanky frame and a vaguely asian face illuminated by the blue glow of the TV from the other room. Then he saw the gun, this time with no room for error.

  "O-okay! Fine, okay!" He would have said anything to get out of the situation, but right now, what was being demanded seemed like the easiest way out. If he'd been thinking clearly, he could have remembered that he had at least one way to kill a guy by just wanting it hard enough, but having your wrist shattered kind of made that level of focus hard. "Here!"

  Suddenly, there were three figures in the room with them. Crouched around where Kingly was pinned to his own kitchen floor, their naked scaled forms hidden in the shadows of the cupboards, they almost immediately started twitching in the feral way these demons moved.

  "Thank you." The intruder standing over him said. "Now-"

  "Kill hi-!" Kingly started to yell at his puppets.

  Started, because he died almost instantly when the bullet went through his skull, a single bark of sound and the wet impact of a projectile into a human.

  The crocamaws flinched back from the gunshot, and flinched again much more viscerally in a wave of shared motion as the mind control was broken. Simon took a step back, holding his hands up and speaking quietly. "Hey. Hey, it's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you. No one's gonna hurt... any... of..."

  He trailed off as he the sound of sobbing cut over the mostly muted sounds of an ESPN sportscaster monologuing about the current season of something. Very, very human sobbing. Simon moved back slowly to flick the light light on, and froze at the sight of the figures currently occupying the floor around the sink and stove. Three crocamaws, most of them with their elongated maws cracked open and their teeth showing. And one equally naked human girl, who was laying in a ball, crying as the bishop's blood spread around her feet in a pool.

  She couldn't have been older than fourteen years old, and she definitely hadn't been there before he'd shot the monster.

  It took him three seconds to get an answer from his priority call to Response. "Central." Came the alert voice of whoever was on duty right now for calls from knights and paladins that were causing problems.

  "It's Simon. I have three crocamaws and one human, hopefully arriving soon. Get Recovery ready, because none of them are okay." He said through his skulljack. Out loud, he spoke softly as a finger flicked the safety on and he holstered his pistol, knowing that they had a while before anyone would even report the shot. "Hey. Hey guys." he said, kneeling down across from the crocamaws. "You can understand me, right?"

  One of them nodded, but all of them were staring at him with their ridged eyes. On the floor, the girl's cries had turned into frantic, almost manic gasping sobs, and the crocamaws were starting to hyperventilate as well.

  "Hey." Simon picked the one closest to him, who had nodded. "Can you go steal the blankets off the couch for everyone?" He asked calmly. The crocamaw, relieved to have a task that she could accomplish, scrambled upward to obey. "Okay. It's okay." Simon tried to tell them all. "No one is ever going to put you back in there. None of you. It's okay. He's gone now. It's going to be okay, I'm gonna get you all out of here, okay?"

  The call to central was still open, and the dispatcher's voice came through. "Got the landing pad ready. You okay?"

  "I'm not hurt, but I am very, very angry." Simon sent back. "Confirm that if you kill someone, their Bell By Midnight captives drop out." He paused to breathe slowly through his nose, smelling the blood and shit of the dead man on the floor as he did so. "And confirm that it works on humans."

  "...Fuck." The bark of the reply echoed his gunshot.

  It took Simon a few minutes to get the crocamaws and the human girl covered up with the pilfered blankets, and to coax the still crying girl out of the spreading pool of blood. More than the tensely contained violent attitudes of the crocamaws, she was the one that lashed out, flailing and screaming when he approached. Since she didn't react as badly with the crocamaws, Simon softly spoke to them about how they were getting out of there, and eventually got the girl to hold hands with one of them so they could teleport out.

  It was the start of a very unpleasant night for him. Mostly because he got hands on experience with wiping down a murder scene that he'd caused. But also, because he was going to be hearing the way the girl frantically begged to go home to the Recovery knights for the rest of his life.

  At least, if he ever needed to double his punching power for a while, he had a memory to draw on that would make him incandescently furious now.

  _____

  Kunashe watched their passenger from the starboard side railing of the deck where he and Ken were fishing. Well, they were sitting with fishing rods. In twenty two trips across the Atlantic, he had caught one fish while the ship was on the move, and everyone had seemed a little surprised it had happened. The fishing was an affectation, because it let them say they were working for the cooks, while they got to sit and do fuck all.

  Ships like this didn’t run themselves. But with twenty two men and one idiot American girl on board, there were more hands than work, and in the middle of the ocean when things were calm, there was a lot of nothing to take care of.

  And when they, for some reason, had a random passenger on board? A lot of the downtime was taken up with gossip.

  ”I think she’s a spy.” The deckhand sitting at his side told him as they more or less openly stared at the short girl who was holding onto the railing and trying to hold down her lunch.

  ”What kind of spy gets on a ship when she gets seasick?” Kunashe slapped his friend’s arm. “Moron. Look at her hair. It’s shimmering. I think she’s a princess.”

  ”Who’s the moron now?” Ken elbowed him in the ribs, both of their wiry frames making the blow hurt. “Idiot. Why would a princess be on our boat?”

  ”…Maybe she’s a runaway princess.”

  Ken flicked his fishing rod, his voice mocking. ”Maybe she’s a runaway, you listening to yourself? How’d you live this long?”

  Kunashe thought about hitting him with his own fishing pole. ”Well what do you think she is?”

  ”Stupid.” Ken stated. “Look at her. Can barely walk on this tub, and she’s up here on deck instead of in her cabin? She’s stupid.”

  ”Maybe she’s looking for something.” Kunashe looked out over the sea, the glittering sunlight on the waves not bothering him through the knockoff six hundred dollar sunglasses he’d grabbed from that shipping container that had broken open two months back. They made him look like a spy, in his own opinion. “She keeps coming up here, you know boss told her she didn’t have to. It’s like she’s waiting.”

  Ken snorted at him. “You’re using your storyteller voice again! You’re gonna tell me you think she’s a mermaid or searching for a shipwreck or something!”

  ”Mermaid would be… be…”

  ”You don’t know?” His friend laughed, the sound joining the waves and the endless drone of the ship’s mechanical parts.

  But Kunashe had gone quiet for a different reason. He stood, dropping the fishing rod next to his deck chair and letting the stupidly long length of line go slack. Pulling his sunglasses off his head, he pointed out over the chipped paint of the metal rail. “What…” he looked down at Ken, who was similarly staring with wide eyes out at the open water. “Is that a… whale?”

  ”M-moron!” Ken slapped him on the shoulder. “What kind of whale looks like… like…?!”

  Like it was made of sparkling and frosted glass. Like it was the size of their own ship, rising up out of the swells with waterfalls pouring over its sides. Like it was a massive beast, even from this far out. Like it was coming right for them.

  ”Get the captain!” Ken shoved him, and he felt his feet start moving, slapping against the pitted wet metal of the deck as he raced to the bridge.

  And then Kunashe froze as a voice he hadn’t really heard much over the last few days called out. “Fucking finally!” The girl said, shoving herself back from the railing and standing in the little gap between the secured shipping containers and her perch. She looked different, and she was holding a sword. “Hey! Uh… Ashe, right?” She yelled his way.

  He didn’t bother correcting her, she’d gotten close enough. “Lady!” He used his favorite English word, the one that always made people think he was polite and respectable. “Get… get below!”

  ”No chance of that, man.” She shook her head. “Do me a favor. Can you get one of the little lifeboats or whatever they’re called ready to pick me up? If this doesn’t work, I’m gonna need to get back here to get you guys out of here..”

  ”Ma’am!” He shouted, trying to keep an eye on the approaching glass thing as the girl planted a foot on the railing and started to climb her way up to the top of the safety measure. “You can’t-!”

  Whatever the object that was charging at them was, he guessed it was about five hundred meters away when their seasick passenger vanished with a crackle of lightning, and appeared as a dot on the surface of the distant thing.

  Okay. So. She wasn’t a spy, or a princess. Great. He could tell Ken they were both idiots later, if they survived.

  Kunashe turned and ran faster. He needed to tell the captain… something.

  Anything.

  As soon as he found the words in any language to say “Hey, the world is ending and a sea monster is trying to eat our fucking boat.”

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