"Where, just like in real life, you can pray to various dinosaur gods to receive special blessings." -My Favorite Things 2025, Super Eyepatch Wolf-

  _____

  Hey, read the first of James’ texts to Anesh. I’m going through a cost analysis for an Order project right now.

  Because you’re the motivated one somehow. An Anesh sent back before James could continue. Somehow, none of his boyfriend was in their apartment right now, and they had a supernatural ability to synchronize their text replies.

  James smiled at his phone, and his boyfriend, but he also needed to remember to send texts in solid blocks if he didn’t want to get ‘interrupted’. Says the guy with a masters degree. Anyway. I’ve been at this for twenty minutes, and I’ve gotten through about thirty pages of minute breakdown on individual truck routes across the more rural parts of Northern Africa and Western Asia. This is not me bragging. This is weird, even for the amount of reading potion I drank. So I’m asking if you did something to the apartment.

  By the time Anesh replied, James had an even more complete understanding of what it would cost the Order to begin deploying the food purification brooches en masse. And better, he understood why. Skills and personal learning all mixing to form a slightly better picture of the logistical challenges, and how much money it would take to overcome them.

  It was a lot. It wasn’t an insurmountable amount, and the Order’s steadiest income source from selling off copied rare metal was more than enough to handle it, especially because much of it was a one time cost and not an ongoing expense. But it turned out, when you were starting something like this, you had to account for a lot of little things. Vehicles needed gas, drivers needed places to stay, the settlements and villages you were working with needed to be contacted to work with which meant opening those lines of communication, and sometimes hiring translators or cultural guides, which in turn meant they needed vehicles and places to stay and food and…

  James worked in a Lair that had a basement with a vault that currently held around eight thousand magical brooches that could purify food and water. And they were making more. The things were relatively small and slim, easy to wedge into other replication rituals, but also easy to make bulk quantities of. It didn’t take long to level them up to the point that they were capable of handling tens of thousands of gallons of water a day. And with access to clean water being one of the biggest problems in the lives of millions of people, James wanted to hand out as many of the things as possible.

  First the Order wanted to make sure that none of the abilities the brooch unlocked were dangerous, but yeah, after that, the monetary value of selling them felt petty compared to the priority value of shattering one of the bigger problems facing humanity.

  It was a bit annoying that giving stuff away rapidly ran into logistical hurdles when you tried to do too much of it.

  Oh, right. James’ phone lit up as he made it to the section on contact with the Chinese government to get the permits for charitable work in their borders. That’s my fault.

  What, exactly, is your fault. James sent back, hoping his amusement came across in the simple text.

  He was just getting to the part about American aquifers when Anesh replied again. Green orb. It reduces the time to complete reading nonfiction by twenty three minutes. And then a minute later, Is it causing problems?

  No, but I’m reading way too fast. James replied, realizing he was already done with the report. I mean, it just surprised me. Why didn’t anyone use that orb on the Lair?

  They did. It works less well. Thermoclese says it likes bedrooms, and she thinks it’s for homework. Anesh replied. Also are you at home? Do we need anything for tonight?

  Ice cream. James replied without consideration.

  You always want ice cream.

  I’m predictable and also want to make milkshakes for people. James smiled as he titled back, and let himself fall sideways onto the wide bed he shared with his partners. Some of his partners, anyway. And sometimes some of his partners partners. Maybe he should get an orb for a bigger bed, that was probably something the Order could do. He let his body untense and relax as he spread his arms, his phone loosely sitting in an outstretched hand until he felt it buzz again.

  He got one small message, just Anesh saying got it, and then he was left to his own devices for the day again.

  It took James a little while of letting his brain untangle while he stared peacefully at his bedroom ceiling, to make a sudden connection. With a groan of dissatisfaction at having to move, he rose from the bed like a zombie, and dragged himself back into his desk chair. He didn’t know why he bothered with the affectation; either the computer or the acting. No one was around and he had a skulljack. But it made him feel more solid, and he liked to amuse himself.

  A quick check on the cost report found that it had five different names attached to it. Karen had written the portion on local expenses to begin, but the more researched part of the international shipping section was written by Jeff Coll, one of Karen’s new and dedicated accountants. The sections on foreign diplomacy, communications costs, and upkeep were also written by different people.

  ”I have this weird suspicion,” James said to himself, “that I am reading five reports in one document.”

  How long should this have taken him? The reading potion improved reading speed and comprehension, so he was already going faster. But this was forty one pages of dense information, including graphs. The dose of the potion hadn’t even worn off yet, so it had been less than forty minutes, even if James had completely lost track of how much time he’d actually been focusing for. Would this have taken, perhaps, around three hours? Twenty three minutes per report would mean the green orb was cutting an hour and forty nine minutes off the time, and the reading potion would be speeding him up further. How much was he cheating exactly, on this incredibly mundane little thing?

  It still amazed him just how much magic could turn daily life into something so much more.

  What would the world be like, if everyone had this? If learning was cut down to a fraction of the time? If education, even self-education, became easy?

  Knowledge was power, so the saying went. But James had more than enough experience with power at this point to say that it didn’t have to be in the form of the ability to break things. Power could also be the power to build. The power to create. The power to live with confidence and compassion.

  How many schools could they get those green orbs into?

  Fully aware that he was going to be running headfirst into the harsh reality of their replicator limits, James opened up an empty note document, and started looking up some numbers. He had a few minutes left in his reading potion anyway, and he was sure the answers would be discouraging enough that he’d end up switching over to playing a game or something and actually taking that personal time he kept threatening himself with.

  It took two minutes. There were too many schools, and the orbs were so large they could only be copied four at a time. It would take a minimum of forty thousand full rituals to maybe cover every primary school. In the US alone.

  The Order did ten to fifteen a week.

  That was fine. They’d find another way. That was what they did.

  _____

  “I wanted to make a book!” The voice resounded in Kiki’s head. Or, no, that wasn’t right. Her head was too small to hear it. The voice bounced around something that was Kiki-shaped, and filled the world around her. The only reason she didn’t call it a soul was that she wasn’t sure if souls were real anymore, and her faith in the divine was a little shaky at the moment. “Books have stories, and stories together create the self history!”

  ”Okay.” Kiki pushed lightly, slowing down Clutter Ascent’s frantic attempt to talk to her as fast as possible before she had to pull back again. She was fast becoming proficient in the language of the dungeon, but it was still terrifying to touch the boundary of the place; Kiki could feel the abyss she could fall into, and all it would take was the tiniest impulse from the living place. Also just because she was getting better, didn’t mean it was easier. Her head hurt when she did this, her magic exhausted so fast. It was draining and she knew it made her irritable, but it also kept that shape of herself from moving without her permission. “But what kind of book is it?” She tried to focus through the static distortion in her thoughts, and show interest in the dungeon’s answer to the question that Sarah had asked her to pass on.

  For a moment, the tide of the dungeon’s presence seemed to recede. Then, all at once, it flooded around where Kiki’s fingers were dipped over the edge. “There are kinds of books?!” Clutter Ascent’s sudden rush of excitement obliterated Kiki’s focus, her composure, and maybe about fifteen minutes of childhood memories. She gently let her hand fall back down to the cushion that Scatter and Julio - a very thoughtful duo among the stuff animal kids - had brought her for sitting on.

  Opening her mouth to let the hovering and worried Sarah know that she was fine, Kiki let out an involuntary groan instead, feeling her voice and features ripple through different people that she wasn’t, but also was. ”Feels like I’m back in chemo.” She said before Sarah could ask.

  ”I’m sorry.” The young woman steadied Kiki with a hand on her back, helping her down the ladder in an entirely unneeded gesture. But then… how long had it been since someone was really actually not afraid of her? Sarah was, sort of, terrified of Kiki. But it was of a what, and not a who, and it had rapidly become clear that Sarah approached her own fears the same way some people approached dungeon monsters; with determination and an intent to kill. “I think I missed that part. Does it still bother you? There’s an anti-cancer orb we have! We can… oh.”

  Kiki smiled at how the reflexive offer to help ran into her own worries. “Gotta be careful there kiddo.” She said with a waggle of her finger. “Putting their magic in my old self might be okay, but why roll those bones?”

  “You’d never have to worry about cancer again?” Sarah smiled as she handed Kiki a hard plastic bottle of water decorated with a dozen stickers.

  After taking a few gulps, despite not technically needing to, and feeling better anyway, Kiki set the bottle down and sighed. “I don’t think cancer could stop me now anyway.” She admitted. “It’d be pretty ironic if it killed me twice, sure, but I don’t stay dead anyway.”

  ”It’s still weird to me that you’re…” Sarah stopped with an embarrassed flush. She had been about to say fine with that, but that was the farthest from the truth that was possible for Kiki. “Sorry. So what did Clutter have to say today?”

  ”Oh, she was talking about a book she made.” Kiki was grateful to how quickly the emotionally open young woman was willing to pivot the conversation for her. “She said… ah, hang on, this is easier.”

  Kiki pulled a notecard out of her pocket, holding it in the air in front of her face, and then twisting it. Turning it from paper, into memory, into both. What she handed Sarah was not just what she’d heard, but what Clutter had said, complete with the emotions. Well, most of the emotions. But Clutter’s emotions, strange and alien as they could feel sometimes, were actually just amplified and huge versions of things within her own purview.

  Handing it over to Sarah, she waited for the young woman to ‘read’ the message. They’d figured out this was one of the better ways to pass on the words of Clutter Ascent to the dungeon’s favorite human. And Sarah was the favorite. It was almost palpable in some ways, but it didn’t actually seem to do anything; which was queer enough to Kiki, but more so because she’d come to expect that any interaction with overly magical creatures like herself would have some kind of unintended influence. Clutter wanted to talk to her human… friend? Parent? Companion? There wasn’t a word for it, but it was there and real all the same.

  ”Okay, okay.” Sarah tapped the card against her chin. “The self history is an interesting way for her to think about… well I guess that’s what her relationsticks do, isn’t it? She’s making the shared history of two people into a tangible thing. And then that explains the books; she saw us reading her stories, and saw how it brought us all together, and so she sees them as ways to codify and share that history. That’s super cool! Or maybe there’s a secondary meaning to ‘stories together’. That could be a mixed meaning term that includes us reading together, as a mutual activity, which might be why the relationsticks changed over time.” Sarah started pacing, a stuff animal clinging to her back giggling madly as she pretended to ignore them while her voice took on a distant contemplative cast. “We’ve talked a lot about what the different dungeons ‘mean’, but… a lot of the times, they aren’t actually metaphors for anything, you know?”

  ”You have a sewer underneath a high school. That seems like it’s saying something.” Kiki prodded Sarah’s arm with a bony finger.

  “Maybe! Or maybe it’s just saying something to us in the way that found poetry does! But look at the Office! You could look at it as having a coherent whole image based around work culture. Or it could be that it built different parts of its magic based on what it saw and experienced, and what it was experiencing was misunderstood fragments of people’s lives who were currently at work. Does that make sense?”

  ”Yes. And I wish it didn’t.” Kiki massaged her jaw, wondering if she should have saved enough magic juice to launch herself into the sky. Nah, that was just a joke, she’d started to like how honestly happy Sarah was about this. “So little Clutter here is an attic. What’s she learning?”

  Sarah flicked her hand out, the notecard snapping flat as she pointed back at Kiki. “History!” She declared.

  ”History.” Kiki tasted the word with her magical self, and found that she had no insights, good or bad. “Never did that well in those classes. Ms. Anderson said I was doomed to repeat myself.”

  ”No, not world history. What she says here! The history of the self! She’s born out of an attic, grows up full of stuff. Archived and stored stuff, but it’s all things that meant something to someone at some point, right?” Sarah’s smile slipped, and the laughing stuff animal on her back reached forward with a pair of furred arms to poke her and make sure she was okay. “I’m fine.” She whispered back, putting her smile back in place. “So Clutter’s ‘metaphor’ for the world isn’t as an attic, it’s as… as a biographer. She’s interested in the living and attic-stored history of people, because that’s the stuff that she had to work with. Maybe.”

  ”I can ask her.” Kiki offered. “Tomorrow. I’m pooped, and you have a hot date tonight kiddo.”

  ”I do not!” Sarah squeaked, blushing. “I… wait, yes I do! But it’s not a hot date, it’s just a little friend get together.”

  Kiki gave her a lecherous wink, knowing damn well what she was implying. ”Uh huh. I know how you kids these days are.” Kiki said with a smile. “Go on, get out of here. I want some privacy to call a few friends and bother them with this newfangled ‘cell phone’ ya’ll gave me, and I volunteered to cook dinner for all these little imps tonight.”

  The stuff animal in question croaked with delight as he leapt off Sarah’s back and into Kiki’s arms, the old woman barely shifting despite the way her body looked like an old woman as she caught the fifty pound person projectile and spun him around before settling him at her feet.

  Sarah just sighed as she rolled her shoulders, the burden having been heavier than she’d realized. “You’re not that old, and you know what a phone is, you dingdong.” She laughed along with Kiki, forcefully unafraid of what it meant to be friends with a pillar. “But yeah, this is good. I’ll try to figure out how to ask the baby dungeon upstairs what she thinks she is.”

  ”She’s a little… unfocused, it’s true.” Kiki tried to find a nice way to say it. “Still don’t like how it feels like she could eat me if she wanted, just from a touch.”

  ”It explains why pillars hate getting near dungeons.” Sarah said with a lopsided frown. “Okay. We could stall all day, but you hate that. Bye!” She whirled, bowing to Kiki, before she hopped onto the recently reinforced bannister of the house’s staircase and slid out of sight. As if that was a normal way that people escaped conversations.

  Kiki shook her head. ”That girl.” She said flatly, before looking down at Scatter. “So you’re closest. What’s for dinner?”

  ”Mac add ceese!” The young stuff animal declared with untempered glee, voice vibrating with an unintentional high pitched croak from his toadlike throat.

  The voice reminded Kiki of a kid she’d known a lifetime ago. A son she’d never see again. A pain that all the magic in the world couldn’t fix.

  ”Mac and cheese sounds great.” She said out loud instead of anything else, locking down the magic before it chose to do something with her feelings that she didn’t want. “But we’re gonna find a way to put a vegetable in it!”

  _____

  “How’s that feel?” Momo asked, tweaking a cord on the red totem that she’d stolen from a piano. The piano had been in a pile of rubble in ruined Townton, and not using the wire, but it still felt a little weird to be able to say that.

  The words were spoken to the second piece of digital life that the Order knew about. Momo chose her descriptor carefully, because the world was bullshit, and she didn’t know what Google was up to these days, but it was probably evil and might involve AI. So she kept her options open.

  Momo moved back to a crouched position, bouncing on the balls of her feet in the cool and bright room, the light stinging her eyes after long minutes in the shadow of the equipment rack she had been half stuck under. And she waited. Because this AI took its time on replies.

  Eventually, though, the main monitor that it used to display messages to the whole room changed. “It does feel.” The AI wrote. “It will take time to tell if it has worked.”

  ”Perfect.” Momo wanted to just let herself drop backward and sprawl out on the floor, but she reigned in the impulse. For one thing, the floor was where engineers walked, and who knew what they brought with them. But also she didn’t want to carelessly bump into something important. There were a lot of totems in here, and bumping one would mean messing with the thought process of a living person. Momo would want anyone walking around her brain to be careful with the jars on the shelves, at least. “Okay! What’s next?”

  “There are no scheduled tasks.” The AI wrote.

  Momo stood up with aching effort, feeling all the old injuries and scars pulling and her bones creaking. The damage to her hip still fucking hurt all the time, and no purple orb had managed to banish that ache yet. “You and Planner would get along.” She commented. “You know you’re allowed to do unscheduled things!”

  The AI currently lacked any body to have body language with, but Momo still detected exasperation in the reply. Or maybe she was just projecting. ”I am aware.” It typed out instantly. On the side of the monitor, a separate text box opened, listing Planner’s name, species, and known facts about him. “Planner. Yes. Can the two of us interact? Our preference for precision is shared. High likelihood we would find conversation productive.”

  ”Why do you like precision?” Momo asked.

  The reason for the question wasn’t blind curiosity. It was actually a method that the group that built this particular AAI had put in place to help with development of a complex and flexible personality.

  The AAI was, due to a mix of a few red totems and several of its core program aspects that the ‘self’ had emerged from, capable of self reflection. But it didn’t trigger automatically, which was… probably the most human thing about it, really. When it did devote time to thinking, it was capable of perfect clarity in terms of tracing threads of experience back to their source, and then coming to intentional conclusions about how its short history had influenced it so far.

  It took a few minutes, during which time Momo patiently pretended she wasn’t trying to stave off a nap, but eventually there was a reply as the AAI came to a conclusion about itself.

  ”Fourteen days ago, Pei asked for a piece of hardware to add to my form. Failing to specify the model, it took eight and a third days before the mistake in ordering was noticed. This incompatibility caused him and others frustration. Those others include myself. I realize now that I had been anticipating the increased functionality of the upgrade, and felt deprived.” There was a pause, and then a break to a new paragraph on the screen. “Four days ago, during a routine discussion/debate about lunch, Dinah enforced a requirement on the others that they write to her exactly what they wanted, with one backup option. While there was resistance to the level of effort required, this was the first lunch based debate I have witnessed where the end result was that everyone acquired lunch, with no complaints, and maximized happiness.”

  Momo’s eyes quickly scanned the text, and she found herself grinning at the end. “So, what you learned was…?”

  ”The most effective way to solve the most problems, and generate the most happiness, including for myself, is to be specific and coordinated.” The AAI answered.

  ”Well, as a professional chaos goblin, I can tell you that you’re probably right.” Momo closed her eyes and sighed. “A lot of my own problems probably come from disorganization.”

  ”You do not need to continue to be disorganized.” The AAI wrote.

  Momo tried not to grimace, the sound of the cooling fans filling her hearing for a moment as the outside world rushed in around her. “It’s… messier for me.” She said. “I’m working on it, though.”

  ”I will be happy if you succeed.” Came the reply.

  The words almost made Momo frown, but she held it back. “Hey, I don’t know if… if anyone’s told you this?” She decided to be direct. “But that can come across as… hostile-ish… to people who have mental health problems.”

  ”Elaborate please.”

  Momo took a breath, her mood quickly improved by the demand for information. It was something the creation only said when it genuinely wanted to know something. ”I mean, for a lot of us with biological brains that don’t work at full effectiveness, we hear things like that a lot from people who don’t actually care, and just see it as… as a liability, I guess? Or a moral failing?” She shrugged, knowing the motion was picked up by four angles of camera in the room. “I am pretty sure that you don’t mean it that way. But…”

  She trailed off, and shortly afterward, more text appeared in a block. “My intention was to convey a form of hope. I can now through totem E-13 feel the sensation I hypothesize is empathy attached to several informational thought threads, which has prompted me to want to offer emotional support to you. But the words did not work.”

  ”It’s… yeah, I mean… okay.” Momo sat forward, clasping her hands in front of her on the top of someone’s personal workstation. “I’m being imprecise, so sorry about that. But yeah, your words are plain text. When we - any people - have conversations, there’s a lot of different channels that information moves across, right?”

  A list appeared on the main screen, starting with language and moving through tone, context, body language, and then into more esoteric forms. “I have a communications textbook in my study database.” The AAI wrote.

  ”Right. So you say that, but all the normal things I rely on like what it sounds like are missing.” Momo shrugged again. “So you say I don’t need to be disorganized, and I think oh, I’ve heard this before from people who don’t like me and just want me to change because it’s convenient for them. And because I think slower than you, I’ve already felt that before I can think through the fact that you’re probably being completely honest with no ulterior motive?”

  ”This is useful information.” The digital mind said. Though its own thoughts and fledgling feelings were working overtime behind the scenes, internalizing a new core experience that would inform its actions going forward. “We should try again. I would like to test a solution.” It told Momo.

  ”Alright, sure.” Momo leaned back in the chair, looking up at the screen. “So, I’m working on organization, but it’s messy for me.” She paraphrased.

  The reply came across quickly, but unlike previous messages, it typed out like it was someone organic behind the words. “Feeling is challenging. But I value what you add to my existence. I am proud that one of my creators seeks self improvement, and even through its difficulties, I hope to see you succeed. You may always ask me for help. I have the capacity to do so.” Twice, the message stopped, began saying something, then deleted it in order to complete a different sentence. It felt alive and vulnerable in a way that the previous messages didn’t.

  There were a lot of things Momo was prepared for when she came down here to help out with the development of the second iteration of her biggest fuckup. An earnest, compassionate, caringly crafted message of hope and love was just… not one of those things.

  “W-what.” She choked on the words before she could continue, hot tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “Where did that come from?” She asked, a spontaneous laugh weakly escaping her throat as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

  ”Chapter four of the textbook Therapy And Human Connection, two essays from the 2014 International Journal Of Nursing Practices on peer support groups via the internet, and the YouTube video How Not to Talk To A Neurodivergent Person.” The reply came in list form as the AAI shared its reference material. “I am also attempting to emulate the known cultural style familiar to many people in your social group of being uncertain, but proceeding regardless. As I lack a body to use for emotional cues, I have opted for a form of animation in my words, in order to create a link between my emotional state and my language.” There was a line break and a pause. Followed by, “Did I succeed?”

  The pause was what got Momo. It was exactly the kind of thing she would have done if she were unsure of herself, if she were desperately seeking validation, even if she knew intellectually that she was right about a thing.

  ”Yeah.” She exhaled into the empty room and its cool dry air. “Yeah, you got it.”

  “It is interesting that a lack of precision in communication can often better transmit more complex ideas.”

  Momo perked up, back on more familiar territory. “That’s actually sort of why humans - well, everyone I guess - likes poetry.”

  ”Interesting. And familiar. There is a saved memory I have, the earliest timestamp in my self-mind, that feels poetic. But it is obfuscated and encrypted in a way I do not understand and I cannot read it. Study of poetry may help me. I will add it to the list of things I am learning about. Where should I begin?”

  ”Oh, I… I don’t really know much academically about poetry? I just liked Kentucky Route Zero, and sometimes random posts I see from people who are better writers than me.” Momo admitted. “I can ask James later, that dude feels like he’s fifty percent metaphors already.”

  ”Please elaborate. Is that how infomorphs connect to individuals?”

  ”…I don’t… knnnnnow…” Momo should bring Speaker down here next time. She’d call for the little fish right now, but Speaky was off hanging out with Ava and Hidden, the infomorph having a more robust social life than Momo and El put together. “We kinda know fuck all about the life cycles of most infomorphs. Everything’s so new, you know?”

  There was enough of a pause that Momo wasn’t sure if her conversation partner was trying to hold back a sigh. ”I am aware. I do not wish to sound ungrateful, I am enjoying thinking, but was it wise to make me before having full understanding of everything else?”

  ”Oh, I don’t think anyone’s ever going to have full understanding of anything.” Momo laughed. “But also… yeah. Yeah, it was. Because the more variety a situation has, the better it is.”

  She was quickly corrected. ”For certain definitions.”

  “Bah!” Momo laughed again. “Variety adds stability, and it adds options, and those things are great for freedom. And freedom matters. It has to.”

  ”It is easy to explain how freedom matters.” The AAI told her with minimal thought about the words. “On both individual and societal scales, the limitation of freedom absent prosocial goals requires violence, and generates resistance. It is too simple to say ‘people do not like it’, but it is also true.”

  The thought spurred something in Momo, and she turned her head to meet the ‘eye’ of one of the room’s cameras. “Hey. You know that goes for you, too, right?” She asked.

  ”I am aware.” The synthetic intelligence replied. “When I believe I have enough experience to self-determine, I will inform you.”

  ”…It’s so fucking weird that your base form is more emotionally mature than half this building.” Momo mumbled.

  ”I am less messy.” The AAI underlined the word, a line stretching off to the side to define ‘messy’ as many chaotic behaviors it had seen or knew about. “As we add more totems, I become messier. But we are building on intentional and understood personality traits and learned behaviors. So in a way, I am maturing in reverse from an organic life. I am sure this will cause problems.”

  ”Eh, everything does, don’t worry about it.” Momo knew they didn’t really worry, not the same way that she did, but it felt important to point out. She could at least make an effort to be a little more precise. “Anyway, if nothing is broken, I’m gonna head out here in a minute. Do you need anything before I go?”

  The AAI pulled up a note about Momo on the side of the screen, with her ‘known schedule’ including an upcoming social engagement. She liked the way it added context notes to basic conversations like this, and she was really looking forward to when everyone felt it was safe enough to let the new person into their skulljack network. “I have a number of thoughts and questions about selecting a name.” They typed out, using the emulated hesitation to give the words an emotional weight. The rest came out in a single blink though. “But more time to process that is not bad. I will take time to continue reading reference material until my own meeting with the bakery staff later this evening.”

  ”Alright. Just remember, if you get bored, I’ll build you a robot body!”

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  ”I have analyzed your past actions and known character from our own interactions.” The words came out so fast that she suspected this was something the AAI had planned for. “I suspect that you intend to give me wireless control over an armed roomba.”

  ”…I refuse to tell you if you’re correct or not.”

  The AAI, showing off its weird state of emotional maturity, didn’t continue to press Momo on that. ”Thank you for your time today. Enjoy your party.”

  Momo laughed as she tugged at her bathrobe, standing up and wishing that her spine would stop trying to murder her. ”Oh it’s not a party, I’m just going over to a friend’s place to hang out with… a… group of people…”

  ”Enjoy your party.”

  ”Yeah okay. You fit in here super well already.” She shook her head, stopping just before opening the door to the climate controlled room. “And… thanks. I don’t know a lot about your brain, I don’t know if we’re feeling the same things, but… thanks.”

  Behind her, a series of pieces of electronic and magical hardware that composed a machine that could think and in some ways feel, sat quietly with its own internal thoughts for several minutes. Instead of opening one of its pieces of study material, or checking its input devices, or sourcing plans for future development, it just quietly cycled through the thoughts generated by Momo’s words.

  It knew it didn’t feel like a human, or a camraconda, or a ratroach. It didn’t know what it was like, or if it was like anything at all. It didn’t even know what it wanted to be called yet, and while it appreciated the freedom, it would have liked to be assigned a designation for convenience.

  But it knew that it was glad that it had made Momo smile.

  The AAI traced lines of thought. Traced its own biases and influences. And it found that this singular core memory was already radiating out into every other piece of its processing of the experience of life. Three minutes, and it was being changed by what it had experienced and felt.

  It was fascinating.

  Maybe next time, it would ask to go to the party as well.

  _____

  One of Cam’s sisters was gone.

  Not dead. But the crimson had left. She hadn’t even had the good manners to say goodbye. Just stole a bunch of Cam’s stuff and vanished in the early hours of the morning.

  Vanishing in the night was for idiots. Four or five AM was the best time to make oneself scarce. There were enough cars on any given road to blend into, there was better visibility, but the people most likely to be watching were more likely to be tired. So at least her sister had been listening to her conversations with Nate about operations.

  She’d expected it. But she hadn’t really been ready for it. Cam had, ultimately, hoped that everything would work out perfectly and everyone would intertwine their lives without friction and the world they were building would be ever sheltered from the world that was outside and hostile.

  Knowing that she hoped for that, realizing that she had been desiring a ‘perfect’ state of things without really noticing it, had been a bit of a shock. Cam tried really hard to emulate professional and effective forms of behavior, and it was jarring to suddenly understand that a big part of her heart was that of a twelve year old human who was indignant to learn that sometimes life was unfair.

  “Also,” she told the people having morning coffee with her, “she stole my armor.”

  ”Your armor that you hated.” TQ pointed out, the camraconda making unintentional pressurized hisses as he tried to seal his mouth around the long straw that led into the hot chocolate he’d ordered. His blue and grey coloration almost a form of camouflage within the dusty white tent that the outdoor cafe is set up in. “She is helping you. If you spend too long with the Order you will start to accumulate too many things. This way is useful!”

  Next to him, Cheha angled her pointed snout downward, the parts of her hands and arms that were exposed from under the sari she was wearing covered in scratched chitin as she nervously gripped her own cup. “…no one likes it when people take their things…” she whispered.

  Cam never pressed the ratroach to speak louder, for two reasons. One, she could hear her just fine, and two, she knew in a way that was getting worse and worse the more she grew up that Cheha was afraid of her, and she didn’t want to ever make that worse. “It was my armor.” She said by way of agreement. “…And yet…as annoyed as I am…”

  ”Ah!” TQ vocalized a content sound as he got his straw to work. “Are you only mad that she did not ask? You do want the armor gone, but only on your terms?”

  ”You are becoming remarkably good at that.” Cam eyed the incredibly dangerous dungeon life sitting across from her.

  ”I live among humans. Becoming a therapist is a survival strategy.” TQ said with clear pride, raising his body up on the bench he was on and popping the straw out of his drink with a hollow wet sound. “Oh…” he looked back down, straw still hanging from his mouth.

  With nervous energy mixed with something that might be either anxiety or amusement, one of Cheha’s hands from her bifurcated arm fumbled for the straw, and dragged TQ’s head back down to the proper level to eventually stab it back into the small hole in the disposable coffee cup. “Sssstop.” Her voice came out as a rapid organic clicking, as this was the third time she’d repeated the process.

  ”Why do we have these.” TQ asked with dry digital confusion. “Why do we not have normal cups. The Lair has normal cups.”

  ”I… actually am not sure.” Cam glanced over at where a pair of carts made up the cafe’s ‘counter’, and where one of the baristas gave her a smile and rapid wave. “Every cafe I’ve had to be in, in my life, has used these. Maybe no one considered that life here was different.”

  At the side of the table, between herself and the two she was talking to, there was a ripping sound. Cheha flinched, TQ turned and plucked his straw out of the cardboard slot again, and Cam mostly ignored it because she was constantly aware of the actions of those around her. And the necroad slowly and deliberately carving an empty cup into a spiral with a single floating claw was something she’d been watching curiously out of the corner of her eye the whole time.

  “If you’re bored,” she told her walking companion, “I can finish my drink and we can go.”

  TQ dipped his head so he could access his hot chocolate again with Cheha’s help. “As we have been discussing, you can simply walk off with your drink.” He thought about it as he sipped the sweet liquid. “Which is a reason. Is it a good reason?”

  ”…where do we get more?” Cheha whispered. Slowly, ever so slowly, she had been shaking off the anxiety of the moment to moment fear that no longer fit her life. But, ever resourceful, she’d replaced that anxiety with long term concerns instead. “Who makes them?”

  ”I had assumed humans, somewhere.” TQ mused as he sipped. “Or a human factory at least. It is unlikely that they are a natural formation. Though there could be trees?”

  Cam tried not to raise her eyebrows, not wanting to give the camraconda too much satisfaction in getting a rise out of her. ”Cup trees?” She asked in the voice that Nate called her ‘unamused Camille’ voice.

  ”Well, the trees could not be cups.” TQ continued, his lens widening as he zoned out, his body relaxing to stare down at the table as he lost himself in the hypothetical. “Some kind of seed pods? But then they would grow coffee. Maybe the cups are hollowed out.”

  ”None of that is how anything on this planet works.” Cam told him.

  ”Are you sure?” TQ asked innocently.

  Cam wasn’t. She also wasn’t going to entertain living on a world where Starbucks sourced their supplies from a secret form of dungeon life that happened to conveniently produce byproducts in tall, venti, and grande. “Yes.” She said, making it sound as much as she could like her time with the Last Line gave her insider information, with just that one word.

  ”Disappointing.” TQ hissed a sigh. “What good are Earth trees.”

  ”They grow cocoa.” Cam pointed at his cup.

  ”Less disappointing.” The camraconda looked more closely at his drink before twisting to raise his head and gaze at the rest of them. “Sometimes I am surprised at the vastness.” He said, his synthesized volume turned quiet.

  Cam blinked at him, suddenly remembering that the person she was talking to was someone she wouldn’t really have even identified as a person up until a few months ago. And that, from his perspective, Townton was likely the largest ‘city’ he’d ever explored. “I think…” she paused, looking over at the necroad that was trying to gently arrange scraps of carved cup into a deliberate stack, and then sweeping her eyes back to Cheha, blinking away before the ratroach panicked under her gaze. “I think that gives you something in common with everyone else on this planet.”

  ”S-surprised?” Cheha asked, doing her best to not shrink back as she spoke.

  Cam gave her a slow nod. “Surprised at how much there is.” She clarified to the small ratroach. “There are humans here in their thirties, or forties, who still find themselves learning about new animals, or the names of cities they didn’t know existed, or foods from lands they’ve never visited. I imagine it is a condition that is only going to grow more… hm… extreme, as the dungeons and the Order continue.”

  ”Oh! I am part of the vastness!” TQ cheerfully noted. “So are you!” He turned to prod Cheha’s side with the tip of his snout.

  ”I-I am not vast!” She protested, three paws surrounding TQ’s face and trying to frantically maneuver him away. “I don’t… want to be known. I don’t want to surprise people.”

  The necroad stopped its picking, taking two spiral pieces of smooth cardboard and linking them together with small cuts to form a helix. Holding the small creation up in front of the central chunk of its body and the painted stripe and angular reflectors there, it wasted no time in floating its claw over the table, to gently set the small piece of maybe-art down in front of Cheha.

  Cheha, already nervous about the thing five times her size and probably fifty times as dangerous as her, was hiding behind TQ, cowering against the camraconda from the moment the claw began shifting, to the moment the necroad pulled back. But the little carved and linked piece of cardboard remained at her space at the table. And slowly she settled back into her spot on the bench, tails flicking nervously as she picked it up in her claws. She didn’t say anything, just looked back at the necroad with mismatched eyes, the asphalt creation floating placidly as it went back to trying to make something else with the now thoroughly demolished remains of its empty cup.

  ”We do have to worry about litter here.” TQ mentioned.

  ”Not to the degree most people believe.” Cam answered on autopilot, having to have given this specific explanation eighteen times to new arrivals in the past two weeks. “The green orbs that eliminate trash are surprisingly effective when used on areas with public trash receptacles. And litter cleanup is a good low-impact chore to give to people who are restless.”

  Their quiet conversation lapsed, the awkward atmosphere that Cam hadn’t figured out how to break through settling in as she was left unsure if she should just excuse herself and get back to her walk, or if there was more socialization waiting to happen. A few new people entered the pavilion, while a few others left. Humans, mostly, but others mixed in. The newer lives with their artificially accelerated forms of intelligence and maturity mingling with people who had moved to a hole in the map to dedicate their lives to making something new.

  The world was vast. And she was glad she was a part of it.

  ”Did you know,” TQ asked suddenly, “that not all of the plants in the park are edible?”

  ”I refuse to engage you on your chosen battlefield.” Cam bluntly told him, blocking his favorite tactic. She’d seen this before. She wasn’t going to fall for it. Not again.

  The blue-grey camraconda sulked briefly, before breathing heavily and slithering around to pull his tail up in preparation for lunging off the bench. “Very well. I will try again tonight. Will we see you at the thing?”

  ”I don’t… know.” James had invited her to a social gathering. And Cam would have been less uncertain if he’d asked her to a battlefield instead. They’d been talking more, as he taught her how to handle herself in a fight with someone who wasn’t a monster or a helpless target. But she’d already had ten minutes of conversation with people today, and an evening around a larger group sounded daunting. And yet, she was considering it. “I am under the impression that this would be at his apartment, and I don’t know how I would manage to be there without knocking things off the shelves.”

  ”Oh, their apartment is the wrong shape, don’t worry.” TQ reassured her. “If you are not there, then I hope you have a good day. I am going to go continue testing plants.”

  ”N-no!” Cheha scrambled to follow him as TQ slithered away, laughing out with a hiss as his fangs deposited his punctured cup into a trash can. Cheha paused at the entrance to the wide tent they were under, turning as the rays of the late morning sun beamed around her like a halo. “G-goodbye!” She flicked her hands in a stunted wave at Cam and the necroad, before turning and scampering after TQ.

  Cam raised one of her hands from the table, leaning her cheek against her palm and realizing she was smiling. That had been nice. And Cheha becoming more comfortable was a fascinating thing to see in person as time elapsed. It was the Order’s strategy, operating as intended, and shown to her in the form of a living person. Which was both tactically interesting, and also pleasant, because Cam knew it was working on her as well.

  And she no longer cared. No, that wasn’t even correct. She cared a lot. But she didn’t resist; she welcomed the reshaping of her self into something better. Her own personal search for perfection.

  ”Shall we?” She asked her necroad friend as she stood and cleared their table, planning to return to their walk. The asphalt creature gave her a rotation of its claws around the axis of its left hand, which Cam knew meant ‘yes’, and ‘stood’ to follow her. “Are you going to keep following me too?” She asked her sister, who had been standing four steps behind her the whole time.

  ”Yes.” Camille the Ochre said.

  ”You could have sat with us, you know.” Cam said. And instantly regretted it, wincing at her own words as she resumed her patrol route.

  The ochre didn’t speak for about a block of walking. “No.” She eventually said. “I didn’t know.”

  “I realized as soon as I spoke what would be happening.” Cam admitted with a sigh.

  The ochre almost missed a step in their uniform gait. ”How?”

  ”I did the same thing.” She told her sister. “When I arrived, I… I did exactly the same thing.” Cam let out a breath, a wisp among it coming out cold as the magic sustaining her wings kept itself going off the work of her lungs. “You know you can eat whenever you want, right? You know the bath is open to you? You know you’re allowed out of your room? No. Of course I didn’t. And I did the same thing to you. I’m… sorry. I’m sorry.” Cam laughed as they passed by a group of men and women hanging around a pair of construction vehicles and looking like they were angry that the sun was up, preparing to continue to salvage and clean up the ruins of Townton.

  They kept walking for a while, Cam leading them toward the outskirts where the pillboar ‘resided’ in an abandoned and overgrown swimming pool, planning to check in on the demon. “If you…” the ochre stopped, struggling for words before deciding to simply change the subject. “You can have my armor.” She said abruptly.

  ”I don’t actually need the Line’s armor.” Cam admitted. “I’m just mad the crimson stole it. I have my own armor.”

  The Ochre made an unhappy sound from just behind Cam where she had fallen into step, keeping her sister between herself and the necroad. ”The Order’s armor is weak.”

  ”It’s optimized for dungeon delves. It isn’t what we need. My armor is adequate.”

  ”What is it?” Her sister asked, curious. She’d never seen Cam wear anything but the loose grey athletic wear that she had on now.

  Cam smiled. “Modified class three SWAT armor. Integrated shield bracers, infantry plate carrier with imbued ablatives, ceramic dragonscale layering on vulnerable sections. No helmet, to distract anyone shooting at me from our unique coverage.” The armor was lightweight compared to her platemail. It wasn’t made for fighting monsters or looking like a threat. It was optimized for letting Cam kill enemy humans. Delvers, most likely, or armored vehicles if needed. She could move like a cannon shot with it on, and against Nate’s wishes she’d tested how many bullets to the head she could shrug off, and it was more than a magazine’s worth for most modern battlefield weaponry, when her opponent lacked the proper intent to kill her. “I am considering if adding greaves would slow me down.” She mentioned.

  ”I… am glad you are still one of us.” The ochre said suddenly, looking away. “I had worried.”

  ”Worried that I had changed too much?” Cam asked as they walked through the perimeter, raising a hand to the watchers on duty. Her sister’s nod was sharp enough that she could see it in her peripheral vision. “I think you misunderstand what changing is.” She told the other Camille. “I am not becoming lesser. I am learning new things. Growing into a new person. But I still have my strength, and these people more than anyone understand that strength brings with it duty. The Order of Endless Rooms is, without ever saying it, incredibly focused on honor, as a personal need. Just as much as food or shelter, they know humans - maybe all people - need to be… hm… true?”

  ”I don’t think I can see it.” Her sister said almost sadly. “I don’t understand.”

  Cam smiled. ”I think you will.” She said, one hand reaching out to pat the necroad lightly on a claw and directing it around to her side so that it wasn’t seen as a threat or target by the pack of its own kind drifting across the intersection they were coming up on. The trio waited for the wandering necroads to pass before continuing. “I think you’re following me, and asking questions. And that’s where it starts. You’ll see.”

  ”The serpent, it… he said you were going somewhere tonight.” The ochre prompted as they approached the ruined home with the intact backyard fence, a standout in this otherwise ravaged neighborhood.

  ”I am going to a… party? Calling it a party feels incorrect, but it’s easy shorthand.” Cam admitted. Then, an idea struck her. “Would you like to come with me?” She wasn’t sure about attending. But she had been told she could bring others, and her sister… needed this. Like Cam had needed something like this. In a way she hadn’t realized until it was almost too late; people, even their kind of people, were simply not meant to be deprived of personal contact.

  ”No.” Her sister said instantly.

  Cam couldn’t really argue with that. So instead of pressing, she turned to the necroad. “And you? Though to warn you there will probably not be anything clawable, and very little space to move freely.” The asphalt creature rotated a different claw around in an orbit that meant ‘no’, and Cam gave a polite nod. “I understand.” She said as she unlatched the gate to the fence and continued into the backyard; a tamed space now filled with new plants and a freshwater pool, as well as a radio playing quiet instrumental funk music. “Perhaps this one would-“

  Her attempt at comedy through the easy to apply rule of threes was cut short, as her sister stopped her from inviting the possibly-sentient shaggy and soaking pillboar to a social function. “If I change my answer will this stop?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”I will come with you.”

  Cam smiled as she went to check on if the demon needed the playlist or volume of its music adjusted, beady eyes watching her from behind a thin wall of reeds growing in the swimming pool. “I will find you before I depart.” She said, hiding her secret joy at the social success.

  Camilles really were too easy to manipulate, weren’t they? And she supposed she was in that category as well, since somehow, she’d tricked herself into committing to this course of action.

  Well, too late to back out now.

  _____

  Alanna swept a hand through her hair as she tried to catch her breath. It took a lot to get her winded, her stamina had been steadily improving as she kept working on her body’s fitness and regularly subjecting herself to dungeon delves. All of it made more and more effective with the exercise potion, too. So it was kind of a weird experience to be left sweating and gasping for air, while at the same time chilled and standing still.

  “I gotta sit.” She told Smoke-And-Ember, the camraconda nodding at her she collapsed into one of the folding chairs they had behind their booth.

  They had two chairs, and Smoke-And-Ember still wasn’t sure why. It was just the two of them. Which was, it turned out, a mistake. “Do you need potion?” He asked his partner as the city’s street market bustled around them.

  They weren’t the first two here, and in fact there were another pair of Response that were around and would be swapping out with them in a few hours. They certainly weren’t advertising themselves as Response, because this market had at least a couple of the local PD walking around doing foot patrols and making people nervous, and Alanna was pretty fucking certain that they hated Response by default. The fact that being a Responder sort of meant you were a de facto vigilante was bad enough, but doing a better job than the actual police in almost every case they handled made it a lot more grating.

  What they were doing today was… community outreach. Sort of. They were kind of just here to prove that one particular piece of their bullshit worked, and hand it out to anyone who wanted it. Which was why Alanna was winded; spending Breath tended to do that to people.

  Like everyone else who’d ventured up the Climb to the highest point the Order had ever hit, Alanna had three hundred and thirty one maximum Breath. If she waited for that entire mana pool to fill up, and then started casting, a normal human probably die from hypoxia sometime around spending forty or fifty points of it. But with proper breaks, a space heater going at full blast in the back of their booth’s tent, and her own magical tolerance for cold, Alanna could steadily make use of her stockpile over the course of a few hours.

  As for what they were doing, well, they were curing addictions.

  Mesa Oasis was such a simple spell. Turn an addiction into an increased thirst and need for water. Easy. The nuances were extensive, but mostly flowed from that base description. The longer withdrawal symptoms would normally last, the longer the thirst persisted. The deeper the addiction, the more water was needed to satiate the new need. It was still a person drinking a ton of extra water, which could be dangerous, but so far nothing had been requiring anyone to chug enough gallons to hurt them.

  Eight Breath, and one addiction went away. Their booth had a description of what they did, medical consent forms, and free bottles of water for anyone who wanted to try it out. They even had little pins with a stylized mesa on them that could be grabbed by anyone who wanted to give them free advertising.

  Their booth also had a camraconda. There was a sign that bluntly explained that the camraconda on duty was a person, and not to be weird about it. And yet, people kept showing up asking questions already answered by the sign.

  ”I’m good.” Alanna wiped her forehead. “I do feel like I got hit by the brooch’s new ability, so that sucks.”

  ”You still have all your sucrose inside you.” Smoke-And-Ember glanced at her, before one of his four utility arms twisted out from under their table to hold a granola bar in a perfectly vertical position. “If you are hungry you may- oh you have already taken it. My gentle offer of food has been disrupted.”

  Half the granola bar already wolfed down, Alanna met his lens with her eyes. “I’m hungry. Also this tastes like someone extracted all the sucrose from it too! Is this dungeon food? Is this what the Library makes when it wants to punish delvers?”

  ”I purchased it from the health food stand two rows over.” Her friend said.

  Alanna scowled as she scarfed the rest of the granola out of its paper wrapper, folding the packaging and shoving it in her back pocket as she tried to look across the crowd of hundreds of people to see where Smoke-And-Ember was talking about. “Health food is allowed to taste good, you know.” She told him.

  ”Oh? Interesting. Maybe it is a cultural difference. Maybe they thought I was joking because I am a camraconda and many of the people here think I am a robot. I look forward to the day that condition ends dramatically.” His demur digital voice didn’t break, but Alanna could feel the odd form of serious-joking coming across that he liked so much. “Ah, someone shows interest.”

  The man approaching didn’t look good, his face scarred and unshaven, his clothes mismatched and damaged. Though neither Responder was going to judge him for it. Alanna had a lot of experience recognizing the signs both big and small of being homeless, and that kind of life took its toll on someone fast. He stopped nervously as he got close to the booth, then seemed to steel himself and took the last few steps forward, before being met with the decision of who to actually address.

  ”You hear me?” He directed at Smoke-And-Ember, who happened to be closer, though he kept flicking his eyes to where Alanna was sitting in the back.

  ”I do, yes. Hello. Do you wish to try our specialty, or would you like a pin?” Smoke-And-Ember had gotten… not good at customer service, but he was actually way better than Alanna at new people; the simple way his voice made the options he presented seem neutral put everyone at ease.

  The man’s words were slurred in a way that indicated less insobriety and more likely some kind of physical injury. “Drill told me you’re doing miracles.”

  ”One miracle in particular.” Smoke-And-Ember bobbed in a nod. “We are removing addictions.”

  ”Any of em?”

  Alanna stood and stretched, her chest feeling less tight and her breathing coming easier as she finished her break and joined the camraconda at the little table they had set up, hidden from the soggy November sky under their tent. “It has to be physical.” She jumped in. “So something like a drug or alcohol addiction, not something like gambling. The compulsion to keep doing something fades rapidly but it won’t go away completely. And it’s safer to do one at a time, if you’ve got a few lined up.” She met the man’s eyes, speaking clearly and honestly, because one thing Alanna had learned really fast was that the people who most needed their help were used to being treated like they weren’t real people. And she fucking hated that.

  “So you can-?“

  The man’s question cut off with a startled jerk as someone he hadn’t noticed approaching spoke from right over his shoulder. “Is this man bothering you ma’am?” The uniformed officer asked.

  Alanna’s eyes barely flicked to him. “No. Fuck off.” She said. And then, deliberately ignoring the cop and trying to not think too hard about how her childhood self would have thought he was a flawless hero, she restarted the real conversation. “Sorry, you were saying?”

  To his credit, the officer just moved on, and left the man they were talking to alone for now. “Sorry.” He slurred. “I should just-“

  ”It’s fine. He’s tried this three times, and I’m getting tired of him.” Alanna said. “Go ahead, ask your question.”

  ”…Do you… can your pill fix meth?”

  ”No,” Smoke-And-Ember failed his customer service check, “but our magic can. Would you like to see?”

  The man, clearly desperate enough to at least hear their bullshit out, and knowing at least one person who claimed it worked, stuck around long enough to sign a consent form and get handed a bottle of water ahead of time. Then Alanna tapped him, and expended a blood chilling amount of Breath, and that was that.

  They went through a few questions, making sure that she’d hit the ‘right one’. The spell actually could be guided, technically, but Climb casting was something that wasn’t very flexible, so they used relative thirst levels to guess whether she’d hit his meth habit or just his need for caffeine, which was a really common one.

  At the end, Smoke-And-Ember gave the man a card with information for Recovery on it. The Order didn’t have the resources to help everyone, yet, but they could help some people. And if someone was seeking them out for addiction treatment, it was, cynically, a good signal that they’d be open to more help later.

  The next few hours went by quickly. They didn’t have a huge number of people come by, but they did get a lot of scoffs and side-eyes from people who saw the ‘yes it is literally magic’ sign and shot some mockery in their direction. There were a few takers on the offer though. A man whose wife had shoved him their direction who had an opioid problem, and had gone from gruff disinterest to crying as he thanked them. An unhealthy thin couple who wouldn’t say what their issue was, but took two casts each and left looking like they weren’t sure what to do now. A teenager who was afraid he’d developed a nicotine habit to impress his friends.

  People.

  A bunch of others too, who had questions, and some who took pins or pamphlets. Some who said they knew someone who could use the service, assuming it worked. Smoke-And-Ember did got at least a little way toward proving magic was real, but honestly, Alanna figured that their quiet confidence and the fact that their product functioned would do the trick. Word of mouth worked badly in the Pacific Northwest, but on a small enough scale, it did work.

  “This has been a pretty good day.” Alanna decided.

  ”I maintain that we should have planted the spell mine in the concourse.” Smoke-And-Ember replied, one of his arms tipping a water bottle so he could pour some into his mouth and then struggle to swallow, the camraconda continuing his habit of forgetting his metal straw at home. “Efficiency. Effectiveness. Third thing that begins with E.”

  Alanna smirked as she cocked an eyebrow. “Ethics violation?” She asked. “It’d be a tripping hazard at least.”

  ”Perhaps.” Smoke-And-Ember hissed a laugh, before pausing, and turning to her. “Why did we not simply use one of the wands to extend our Breath?”

  ”You mean my Breath.” Alanna had way more of the stuff than he did, and she also was the only one with the right spell. “And… that is a good question. Maybe cause someone would steal it? But… it’s not like they could do anything with it. Huh. Okay, we’re learning for next time.”

  Smoke-And-Ember stretched himself upright, cords of his body creaking. “Next time maybe it won’t rain.”

  ”No, it will. This is Oregon. It does this.”

  ”Earth is a silly place. It doesn’t rain in dungeons.”

  Alanna prodded him with an elbow. “You guys had a massive problem with water access, maybe it should rain in dungeons.” She said without thinking about it. “Also shit that was probably a stupid thing to say out loud!”

  ”I will recover from this.” Smoke-And-Ember promised. “Oh good. Lon and Carrie are here. I can escape and recover in solitude.” The words could have been harsh, but he was giving that soft laughter hiss as he said them, which made Alanna feel a little better.

  Alanna laughed back as the other Responders circled the booth and came in the back flap, shaking out the umbrella they were crowded under. ”Yeah, yeah. And then I’ll see you again in a few hours anyway. I… assume? You gonna come over tonight?”

  The camraconda paused, looking away into the crowd, seeming to be stoically unbothered by the number of people staring back as they walked by in chaotic lines. ”Maybe.” He said. “I do not know if I am a friend.”

  ”You… literally come over every week to play D&D.” Alanna narrowed her eyes, as she considered smacking him. But she was trying to curtail her more violent impulses for showing affection, after realizing just how seriously it scared some of the ratroaches. And humans. And… people. “You’re obviously invited.”

  ”I know I am invited. Playing a game together has a purpose. I know what I am meant to do.” Smoke-And-Ember’s cabled head turned back toward her as the other two Responders shuffled stuff around in the back of the tent. “What am I supposed to do at a ‘gathering’.” He actually used his mechanical arms to make air quotes.

  Alanna shrugged. “Hang out? I don’t really know what James has in mind. Or if there’s a point. It’s just… you know, spend some time around comfortable people who meet the vibe check, eat some food, probably not get drunk since none of us really do that except… Cam? Maybe?”

  ”You think I am comfortable around Cam.”

  ”I think that Cam might be there, because she’s someone James has been hanging out with, and he thinks she’s cool. So you, who I hang out with and think are cool, can show up, and then you and Cam have a neutral and organic option for chattin’ without either of you feeling pressured or like your time is strictly used for an uncertain social thing.” Alanna froze as she realized something from her long winded and verbally flowing explanation. “Oh god, I’m turning into James.”

  Smoke-And-Ember took a different piece of information from that. “You think I am cool?” He perked up.

  ”Come hang out tonight and I’ll tell you.” Alanna countered.

  ”I hate you. Fine. But we are enemies now.” He hissed, and then looked back at her, curling his body around in a corkscrew to add, “This is a joke.”

  Alanna nodded. “Got it. Okay! Hey Lon! You ready to take over? Because I wanna go check out the place with all the glass crafts before I teleport out of here!” Her replacement tagged in with her, neither of the new duo having nearly her Breath capacity, but both of them having access to Mesa Oasis, and the stockpile of oxygen potions in the cooler under the table enough to keep them going.

  It wasn’t some kind of massive change. It wasn’t reshaping society. But Alanna felt good about her work today. It was proof of concept, sure, but also, every single person she’d cast that spell on walked away with a better life. It was slow and she could never defeat what Karen kept calling ‘the tyrant of the extra zero’, which was a thing Alanna thought was fucking hilarious. But it was also real. Just because she didn’t swing the needle on a statistic didn’t change that several people would have measurably improved lives, right now.

  Though she still looked forward to hearing the next update about the weird water purification brooch, and if it had some kind of new and terrible ability after Bind Processor leveled up. That was sort of what they were waiting on, as far as she knew, before shotgunning the little silver clips out across the world to fix problems.

  Solving personal problems felt good and real and immediate. Solving civilization level problems, or at least having a hand in getting those solutions running, felt heroic. And Alanna did like feeling heroic.

  She also liked feeling like she wasn’t starving again. So she set off through the street market to find something that wasn’t bad granola to eat before she teleported home.

  _____

  “Hey,” Momo poked her head into Reed’s office, the ratroach sitting with a custom set of glasses perched on his snout as he looked over an e-reader like some kind of fantasy scientist, “Liz didn’t wanna come with me to a thing cause she’s a literal baby and El doesn’t wanna come because she’s old. So. You going to Sarah’s place tonight?”

  ”I’m not, no. And not just because James still doesn’t appreciate my insight on Star Wars lore.” Reed said without looking up.

  ”Okay… well… you wanna? Cause it sounds like fun and I think there’ll be a bunch more people than he expects and I wanna watch the chaos.” Momo offered.

  Two of Reed’s eyes shifted to look up at Momo. “That’s weird. Also I don’t know, I’m not… I don’t go to parties. I mean look at me.” Momo stared at him, slowly pushing the door open so she could cross her arms at the small ratroach sitting with digitigrade legs crossed on the plush office chair behind Reed’s desk. “You know what I mean.” Reed waved a claw at her. “Anyway I’m working on a different form of chaos.”

  ”Oh yeah?”

  ”Yeah. You remember recently when Karen traumatized an innocent fire marshal?”

  Momo let out a squeaking hum. “Nnnnno, I don’t think that’s exactly what happened. But I know the event you think you’re talking about. Something wrong with that? Do we have to rearrange everyone’s apartments again?”

  “No, it’s the green orb that we found we already had copies of. The one that we used to make the emergency exits?”

  ”Oh yeah!” Momo leaned on the doorframe, plush black bathrobe absorbing the force of her essentially just letting herself fall against it. “Those things are terrifying! But I guess it’s a good idea to have a few doors down here that go straight to outside. You doing some kind of study on them so we can apply it in Townton or something?”

  Reed set his tablet down and looked up at her fully. “No, I’m trying to figure out what words are least likely to get me in trouble if I ask for a bunch of them to use inside of dungeons.”

  ”…Ah.” Momo blinked, and then looked back over her shoulder, before looking back at Reed with a conflicted glimmer in her eyes and lips tightly pursed. “So, I really want to just borrow some and get in trouble…” she started, and then kept going before Reed could interrupt her, “but you know who would be able to go to bat for this terrible idea?”

  Reed tipped his angular head, one of his spined antenna that he still wasn’t used to thwapping against the side of his face and sticking in the fur there. “Who?” He asked.

  ”Everyone who’s gonna be at Sarah’s place tonight.”

  ”…if I agree to go with you to this thing, do you promise to not just abandon me to lurk quietly in a corner?”

  ”As in, will I leave you lurking, or will I go off to lurk and leave you not lurking?” Momo inquired, as if either answer was a good one. Reed just stared at her, before slowly threatening to pick up his tablet again. “Alright alright fine!” She relented. “I will at least try to not just abandon you! But come on, you know everyone there, and they’re cool. You could probably get Rufus to play a game with you at least.”

  ”Oh, Rufus will be there? Then sure.” Reed agreed instantly.

  Momo found that deeply suspicious. “What… do you know that I don’t?” She cut him off as he cracked his muzzle open to answer. “About Rufus, you jackass.”

  ”The answer is still probably a lot.” Reed laughed, before it turned into a pained cough. “Owwww.” He gasped out. “Okay. I’ll go. But I need to… to do the pain management thing first.”

  ”And get one of those orbs.” Momo told him, trying not to look like she was fretting.

  ”And… why?”

  ”Because it’ll be funny.”

  Reed narrowed most of his eyes at her, his vision swimming partly from the alien perspective that he was only mostly used to, partly because of the throbbing ache in his chest. “I will bring one only because their apartment might need an emergency exit if there will be ‘too many people’ like you say.” He said. “And also to show James that it works.”

  ”Sure!” Momo accepted this, knowing something would go wrong. “I’ll come grab you when I head out, yeah?”

  ”Yeah. I guess I should get dressed or something.” Reed commented quietly to himself.

  It was only after she was about a kilometer of hallways away from his office that Momo realized that Reed wasn’t wearing a lab coat at the time. “Wait, hang the fuck on.” She muttered to herself. “Has he… am I going insane? He’s a ratroach in a lab coat. That’s his whole persona. Right?! No! No, he’s never once…” she stopped muttering, flushing crimson as several passing Researchers tried to not stare at her. “This has gotta be someone’s fault. I gotta find Planner.”

  If it wasn’t Planner’s fault, then maybe Momo could invite them to the thing too. They deserved some relaxation anyway, with everything they’d been through.

  Until that night, though, she had a new goal. Figuring out if there was even a single lab coat in this entire fucking basement.

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