“He identifies as a catholic, which isn’t even a real gender!” -Sophie From Mars, Ye West & The Fascists Who Love Him-

_____

Loraine Wheeler was having an aggravating day.  Her job was to handle advising incoming or potential students on how to get the most out of their college experience; helping them access services, getting them through student loan applications, that manner of thing.  She wasn’t bad at her job, but it was just a job, not a passion.

Which was why it was a fairly regular occurrence for her to find a day pushing her toward the threshold for what she was willing to put up with.  And today, with two canceled appointments, a printer jam, and spilling half her latte across her desk, that line was coming up rapidly.

This, of course, was exactly the wrong time for James to knock on her office door.  She didn’t know the young man who settled into the seat across from her, though she did appreciate that he was here exactly two minutes early.  But it didn’t take long for her to lose any professional air she had, and snap at him.

“Get out of my office.”

“Okay,” James held up a hand in a placating gesture, “I admit, this sounds dumb.  And it doesn’t help that I said it with a smirk.  But I’m not wasting your time, and I actually-“

“I don’t believe you, I don’t care.  Get out.”  Loraine stopped paying attention at that point, instead turning back to angrily sorting papers into ‘fine’ and ‘coffee soaked garbage’.  After the second stack of pages slammed into her trash bin, she flicked her eyes up to see James still sitting in the chair on the other side of her desk.  “I’m calling security.”  She said in a hostile voice.

James opened his mouth to complain, and then stopped.  At this point in his life, he had broken enough etiquette skill orbs to understand that there was nothing he was going to get out of this encounter.  Every single part of him wanted to just explain the situation, and get results, because that was how life in the Order worked and he’d really actually gotten used to it.

He’d forgotten that the reason he’d made the Order of Endless Rooms work that way was because very often, people in modern society didn’t do that, didn’t care about explanations, didn’t want to help, and were awful to deal with.  Usually not this directly, but it was a good example.

So he closed his mouth, nodded once to calm himself, and silently stood up to leave, ignoring the woman still shouting at him to get out as he left her office and closed the door.

Then James walked to the front desk of the admissions office, stood in line for eighteen minutes while he read news articles on his phone, and then tried to make another appointment.

“Oh, was there a problem?”  The student assistant behind the counter asked, looking back toward the twin hallways that led to the offices past his desk.

“Ah… yes.”  James said.  “I think she’s having a bad day.  It’s fine, I just don’t know who to talk to about this, and she wouldn’t believe me when I tried to explain it.”

“Well maybe I can help.”  The young woman opened a new file on her computer.  “What did you need to talk about today?”

James cleared his throat.  “I’m trying to help a friend of mine audit some classes, and was looking for information and resources for her.  There’s a few issues with this, one of which being a lack of documentation…”

The assistant nodded knowingly as she capped the lip gloss she was using and smiled at him.  “We can actually work around that; ID requirements are mostly optional, if you know the forms to fill out.”

“…also she’s… uh… differently abled?”

“We can work with that too.  Professors are required to have full lesson plans now that can be studied as notes, so note taking isn’t required, and the college has an organization that provides personal aides to students that require help navigating the campus, though access is prioritized based on medical need.  Do you know what your friend’s condition is?”

“Australian Shepherd I think?”  James said sheepishly.  The woman looked up at him slowly, eyes not quite showing comprehension as she waited for him to explain.  “Dog.  She is a dog.  That’s the issue.”

“…If this is an Air Bud joke, then I understand why Ms. Wheeler kicked you out.”

“I was going to make an Air Bud joke, I’m not going to lie to you.”  James admitted with a sad look. “But I’m also serious.  For reasons that are too complicated to get into right now, I’m trying to enroll a dog in some veterinary biology classes.  She’s capable of understanding spoken and written English, Spanish, and French, has a capacity for general intelligence that’s close enough to baseline human, and wants to attend class.  I don’t… I don’t know how to explain this?  Like, I can, if you need me to, explain every single step that has brought my life to this point, but we’ll be here for several hours, and you’ll have more questions than I’ll answer, and the issue will still be that I need to enroll a dog in college.”

The assistant stared at him as he spoke, eyes narrowed like she didn’t really believe him.  But something about the exhausted and defeated tone James had felt strangely convincing.  Like this wasn’t a prank, but someone who really did have a unique problem that was just absurd enough to ruin any appointment before it started.

“What’s the dog’s name?”

“Auberdeen.”  James said.

“Last name?”  She asked him, typing the information into the form.

He was a little surprised, and didn’t have a good answer.  “Uh…” he considered just using the last names of everyone in the apartment, but that seemed clunky.  “…can’t have a quadruple-hyphenated last name…” he muttered.  “Can you leave it blank?  I’ll ask her later.”

“Sure.”  The woman shrugged.  “Okay.  You’re set up for an appointment tomorrow with someone who won’t just yell you out of the room.”  She grabbed a printed page from the machine next to her and slid it to James under the plexiglass window.  “Bring Auberdeen with you, as well as your own ID.  And if Mr. Qwan asks, let him know that Max set up the appointment.”

James sighed in relief as he took the page from her.  “Tomorrow’s… Tuesday?  It might be someone else coming, depending on how tired I am.  But thanks, Max.”  He said gratefully.

“Oh, I’m not Max.”  The young woman reached forward and deftly flipped down the small plaque with her name on it before James could check.  “I’m not certain this isn’t a prank, and Max still owes me thirty bucks.”

“…It sure was nice of Max to set up this appointment for me.”  James said with dry wit.

“Sure was.”

_____

James found Ben in the briefing warehouse.  Or rather, he made an attempt to find Ben in the large shared room.  Wishing he’d either kept his coat on, or that someone would turn on the heat, James rubbed at his bare arms as he headed into the back of their building.  He was just starting to wonder why there was some kind of folding wall thing set up around the section that their rogue division used, when JP casually slid into his way.

“Heeeey.”  His friend said easily, with a casual grin that James had come to worry about.  “How’s it going?”

“My Air Bud plan didn’t work.”  James cryptically replied.  “Also hey.  I need to talk to Ben and get my update, before the scheduled thing later.”

“Which one?”  JP asked, with the kind of half-attentive tone that meant that he probably knew, but was offloading the work of remembering onto James.

James rolled his eyes.  “The general forum.  The one where we make plans and then figure out who executes the plans, and I’m supposed to be there this time because we’re discussing how to move forward with the New York thing as a general strategy.  And you are also supposed to be there .”  He glared at JP.  “Anyway.  Ben’s been collating updates for me, so I’m gonna get him to fill me in on anything important, and then go tell Deb to take a vacation.”

“Why?”  JP seemed confused.  “Did she annoy you or something?”

“…she has been here, something like twenty hours a day, every day, doing I don’t know what,  and she should probably have some time off.”  James grumbled.  “I mean, I know what she’s doing.  It’s shaper substance stuff.  Which is fun to say, by the way.  But she’s really hung up on it, she spends basically all her time either doing tests on the stuff, or planning out changes with people, or whatever.  And that’s on top of still being the primary physician for every chimera in the building, and-“

JP held up both hands, dipping his head in a clean motion.  “Sorry, stop.”  He said.  “Chimera?”

“I hate the term ratroach and I’m trying something new.”  James said.  “Because none of them had any suggestions, but Keeka and Ishah both agreed that a new species name would be good.  No good?”

“I just feel like you’re inviting them to get Bellerophoned with a name like that.”  JP said without hesitation.  And then, seeing James staring at him with an incredulous look, one palm pressed into his forehead, added, “What?   I’m  not allowed to make mythology references, but you are?  You’re the worst person to give that power to.  And I say that because I know you.  Anyway,” JP continued, ignoring James’ offended noise, “why not name the species based on what they are after shaping themselves?  Or is that not something that’s coming up anytime soon?”

James composed himself and decided to ignore JP’s casual roasting.  “Actually I think they’re starting pretty soon.  The main thing is managing the pain, which is why testing was slow.”

“Because using it hurts, right.   Probably not a good idea to make myself even hotter then, huh?”  JP mused.  “Though…” He ran two fingers down the side of his hairline.

“Uh…” James interrupted his friend’s thoughts.  “No.  Like, I wanna be clear on this.  It… it hurts to use, and then doesn’t stop hurting.  Like, you can give it kind of general directions, but if you don’t specify how the changes should work, it sort of defaults to chronic pain.  So a lot of the leadup to this has been focus practice, and biology study, and not actually ‘how does magic goop do’.  It’s also why I don’t have a tail yet.”  James sighed.

JP leaned sideways to look behind James.  “Was that a thing you wanted?”

“I thought you knew me, man.”  James quipped.  “Anyway, this has been a nice distraction, but I actually do have stuff to do today, so if I could get past you…”

“Oh.  Ben.  Right.”  JP snapped his fingers.  “We’re trying to figure out what he is.  Can you come back later?”

James sighed and looked around for something to sit in, coming up strangely empty.  Though he did get an apologetic look from the nearby Charlie two tables over, who’s group seemed to have stolen all the chairs.  Suppressing the confusion he felt over where all the rest of their chairs went, he settled for leaning on the side of a heavy desk.  “So, the wall there, is because you put him in there alone, to see what his original shape was?”

“No, the wall there is to see if he turns into a camraconda when everyone around him is camracondas.”  JP said.

“It’s not working!”  Ben’s entirely human voice came from the other side of the portable folding wall.

James took a deep breath.  “If he can hear us ,” he said slowly, “then wouldn’t that, maybe, maybe , impact whatever shapeshifting powers he might have?”

“I’ll be honest, I was thinking that too, but I didn’t want to say anything.”  Ben’s muffled call made irritation flash across JP’s face, and threatened to send James into a fit of giggles.

“Ben, do you need help?  Should I teleport you out of here?”  James called past JP.

“You can’t solve all your problems with teleportation, James.”  JP sighed, letting his annoyance go with an effort of will.

James scoffed.  “That is flagrantly untrue.  Practically every issue I have gets less problematic when I can teleport.  It’s like money; money doesn’t technically solve every problem, but not having it sure makes every problem worse.  Teleporting makes every problem slightly less worse.”   He finished his thought as Ben pushed the wall open, folding the temporary barrier aside and apologizing to the several camracondas who didn’t seem too bothered to have been used as test subjects.  “Also why are you in a bathrobe?”  He asked Ben out of idle curiosity.

“In case I turned into a camraconda.”  Ben said with a shrug.

“You have literally no idea  how your species works, do you?”  James challenged, before turning on JP with a pointed look.  “No more experimenting on people!  And, like, actually  in this case!”  Ben started to raise his hand, looking like he was going to say something placating, but James cut him off before he got started.  “No!  Ben, no!  We aren’t even sure you maintain your sense of self  if you change!  That’s horrifying !  No more stupid tests!”  James hadn’t realized how actually angry about this he was until he noticed he had started yelling.

JP made a casual motion with his hands, which actually annoyed James further, because he recognized it.  It was the ‘you can interpret this however is convenient’ motion that JP did when he was about to bullshit someone.  “Okay, so, I get why this is worrying.  But it’s way worse to not know, and Ben did ask me about this, not the other way around.”

“It’s true.  I’m a huge mark.”  Ben said with a completely straight face.

James couldn’t decide if he should laugh or scream.  Instead, he just pressed his eyes closed, and thought about how utterly exhausted he felt.

It wasn’t just physical exhaustion, either.  Though four dungeon delves in a week did  make that happen, and every muscle he had in his body still felt a lingering phantom soreness even though he’d downed at least one exercise potion.  But also, four dungeon delves in one week fucked with his sense of time, and he’d screwed up his antidepressant doses to the point that he was basically restarting from the beginning, and ‘just being tired’ was his general feeling at the moment.

He was getting through it though.  But JP’s actually somewhat reasonable words took the heat out of his anger, and left him feeling that exhaustion surging over every other feeling he had.  Which was inconvenient, since he had stuff to do today.

“Ben, do you have an update or something for me?”  James asked.

“Yeah, what on?”  Ben asked, halfway through pulling on a pair of jeans under his robe.

James blinked away his reflexive curiosity on how pants worked for someone who might not have a physical shape.  “Uh, every extant security concern for the Order.”

“We’ve heard nothing from the FBI about Priority Earth, and we have someone on the ground near their camp to keep an eye on them so we know nothing’s happened yet.”  Ben started rattling off information at a rapid pace, trusting James to keep up.  “We’ve got two people out looking into one of those sites that were on Priority Earth target lists you recovered, but they just left and we don’t know what’s up with that yet.  Charlie’s team over there are looking into the disappearances in Utah and the dungeon there, but nothing concrete so far.  Response has had two active duty police officers try to join, but background checks caught them, and we don’t actually know what they’re up to since we just gave a polite ‘no and fuck off’.  We’re overtaxed on our ability to take in more ratroaches without risking more violent outbursts and that’s a problem that can only really be fixed by hiring more medical and recovery staff but Texture-Of-Barkdust is going to hiss at you about budget constraints, which are also technically a security concern.  There’s been two more killings in New York, even with the ecoterrorists out of the picture for now, Yin’s team is following leads, but there’s still no sign of anything pillar-like there.  Though, again, we’re stretched really thin, and we didn’t have that many people to start with.”  Ben paused, for the first time looking down at his laptop on the desk. “And there’s a meeting with Harlan in thirty minutes.”

“I know about the meeting!”  James said cheerfully.  “Also holy shit I’m glad my memory’s augmented or I would have already forgotten all of that.  You know, this was a lot less complicated when my biggest problem was paying rent.”

JP snorted.  “You could have just asked me to pay your rent.”

“Really?”  James narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion.  “You wouldn’t have made it weird?  You, from three years ago?”

“Hah!  Me from three months ago would have made it weird.”  JP let a small, but real, smile slip onto his lips before his normal mask went back up.  “So.  Do you have…” He paused and tilted his head as a sound like pen scratching on paper echoed in his head.  “Hang on.  Planner?”

“Are Ben and James with you?”  Planner asked JP in rapid words.

“Yeah, they’re here.”  JP said with a frown.  “Why…”

He didn’t finish the sentence before Planner started unfolding limbs in the briefing warehouse, a trio of ethereal tendrils, looking like particularly horrifying octopus limbs, spreading out around JP in a neat pattern.  “There has been a development.”  The infomorph stated in a voice that sounded worried .

This was something that James found far scarier than most possibilities in his life.  Planner expressed several emotions in their day to day life; satisfaction, smugness, irritation, general annoyance.  But never worry .

A quick shared glance with the others made it clear they didn’t like hearing that tone from Planner either.  “What’s up?”  James said, tilting his head to check the inner door to the warehouse as it slammed open and he saw Alex come running in.

“The deployed knights in Indiana looking into a prior Priority Earth target have missed a check in.”  Planner said.  “Nate has taken two others available and moved to investigate.”  They flicked one of their manipulators at the ‘end’ of a rippling tentacle, and handed JP a ghostly page, which he took and scanned quickly as Planner kept speaking while Alex skidded to a stop next to them and leaned on James panting.

“Okay…” JP said calmly, reaching out without thinking to set a hand on the roiling infomorph.  “What’s got you worried?  Nate’s a bigger problem for anything out there than it’s gonna be for him.”

“There is a gap .”  Planner practically hissed at them.  “A hole in the schedule .”

James could actually feel the sort of anxiety you got from being late to an appointment while stuck in traffic leeching into his mood.  And yet, despite instantly recognizing the feeling as an outside thing , he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.  And judging by the sudden spike in the intensity of the glowing orange lights in his vision that Zhu used to show him potential paths, his navigator was experiencing the same thing.  “Wait, hang on.”  He tried to push through it.  Which actually worked out okay; James was good at ignoring his emotions, and he’d gotten really good at being late to things over the course of his life.  “Planner, are you talking about the meeting with Harlan?”

“Yes!”  Planner snapped, like James was an idiot.

“Wait, so… oh, hey guys, by the way.”  Alex interrupted herself, sweeping a hand across the sweat beading on her forehead under her short bangs.  “So you woke me up, and had me sprint up here, because someone might be late for a meeting?”

“Yeah, Plan, I… we can just solve this.  It’s not a big deal, Ben and Alex will go.”  JP shrugged, then looked over at Ben who was giving him a slow shake of his head.  “Alex and James will go.”

“How come you’re not involved in this?”  James asked.

“Actually legitimate security reasons, which chaffs a bit.”  JP looked halfway between apologetic and annoyed.  “There’s always gotta be at least two people on site with clearance for the really dangerous stuff.  And today it’s just me and Davis, since Nate’s gone.  Also I need to get into contact with him.  Ben, start our checkin please.”  JP ordered, sounding eerily different from the guy James remembered being friends with in high school.

James crossed his arms.  “What if I had plans?”

“You didn’t .”  Planner said, still trembling with anxiety.

James winced.  “Okay, sorry Planner, this is obviously bothering you a lot .  Are you okay?  Like, I’m fine doing the meeting, I just figured Nate would want to handle it.  Alex, you good for adventure?”

“The last time I said yes to that, someone blew up a house on top of me.”  Alex tried to play it off as a joke, but James could see legitimate concern in her eyes.  “Do we get backup, at least?”

“We are out of available knights.”  Planner informed them.  “I have added you to the schedule.  Thank you.”  The infomorph coiled back in on themselves, almost completely disappearing except for a small manifested patch that left a hazy pastel glow at JP’s side.

James made a very firm mental note to talk to someone about Planner’s anxiety when it came to missed appointments.  He wasn’t sure if it had come up before, but this was a sharp change in behavior from the infomorph that lived in the minds of over half the Order.  He didn’t even run Planner himself, but he still felt the emotional bleed from the living idea when they started to panic.

“Alright.  Ben and I are gonna get to work.  You two, get ready to go, you’ve got about fifteen minutes.”  JP said, turning back to where Ben was already sitting at the other end of the desks with a headset on, talking to someone in a soft tone.

James and Alex glanced at each other, then shrugged.  “So, are we gonna die this time?”  Alex asked.  In a way that, disturbingly, sounded like a real question.

“No.”  James said.  “Actually, no.  It’s a simple meeting.  We’re gonna talk to Harlan, give… theeeeem?   It?  Give them the information on their people, get some information on a couple dungeons, and then leave.”

“And nothing terrible happens.”  Alex said, scratching at the back of her hand.

“Right.”  James nodded.

They stood there for another minute in silence, watching Ben and JP start running through what seemed like a streamlined routine.  Which was, itself, kind of surreal for James.  He knew that things were changing, but this was something he never expected, even when he kept actually seeing it happen.  His brain just didn’t click  with the mental image of JP being a responsible adult.

He and Alex turned back to each other at almost the same moment.  “I’m gonna go get a bunch of shield bracers and use the stupid crown thing a few times.”  Alex said.

“Good call.  I’m gonna get a gun and a bunch of potions.”  James nodded.  “Cool.  Skulljack things?”

“Got one.”  Alex patted her pocket.  “Get me a gun too?”

“Right.  Get me several shield bracers.”

“Right.”  Alex nodded.  “Don’t forget to call your partners!”  She said as the two of them split up.

James already had a phone to his ear.  “Already on it.  Back here in ten?”  She shot him a thumbs up just as the call clicked active.  “Hey!  Alanna!  I know you’re busy, but…”

_____

“Hey, boss!”  Mark’s voice cut across the basement as he caught up to James somewhere between the public bath and the armory.  “Got a second?”

“I have… six minute before Planner starts to has an emotional breakdown.  What’s up, don’t call me boss, and is this about the infinite electricity thing? Because you can’t lie to me and say that’ll only take six minutes.”  James shifted his grip on the hard plastic matte black cases he was carrying.

Mark jerked his head up in a slight nod, before deciding to not really engage with whatever James had said, and just ask someone in Research later.  “Sure.  Hey, why do you have a memorial spot for me already in the secret graveyard?”

“What?”  James, unfortunately, didn’t have a choice but to be thrown by Mark’s words.  “The… what?  No, please, let’s talk about budget for the construction projects or something.”

“You’ve got a room down here with a corpse and a bunch of dungeon drops with name plaques on them.”  Mark insisted.  “There’s a camraconda religion thing there.  Come on, you’re not an idiot.”

“Oh!  The secret graveyard!”  James slapped his forehead, deciding to assume Mark wasn’t trying to be an asshole on purpose.  “Right.  What about it?”

“I’ve got a spot there.  So, what the fuck?  Did I die here and you cloned me and didn’t fucking tell me?  Because my wife is gonna be pissed.  I think that legally ends our marriage.”  Mark said the last part as a joke, but James could tell he was actually upset.

James tilted his head up and tried to remember every one of the too-many names in their memorial.  “Wait, what’s your last name?”  He asked suddenly.

“Diaz.  Like it-“

“Like it says on the… yeah, wow.  Okay.  So, you’re not a clown or any- clone  or anything.  God I can’t talk today.  This is perfect for diplomacy.  You’re at the tail end of a weird coincidence, because we actually had someone with your same name who was here when… well.  You can ask Reed or Nikhial about it, if you want.”

Mark shifted to the side as a camraconda slithered by, leading a nervous looking ratroach who flinched away as the big man made an “Oop, sorry” utterance.  “So, not a clone?”  He asked James.

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Ghost?”  Mark prompted.

“Sometimes people have the same name!”

Mark folded his arms and scratched at his beard.  “Around here?  The last time someone said that, it turned out to be a clone.”

James rolled his eyes and somehow crushed his desire to get into this argument.  As much as he wanted to get into the taxonomy of whatever Ben was, he didn’t have the time.  “Man I’ve got two minutes left and I still need to load a set of mags.  Can we talk about this after the forum tonight?”

“Sure, sure.  We can talk about our dystopian architecture too.  I’ve got some ideas.”  Mark nodded.

James desperately wanted to dig into that, too, but he was low on time and on loaded bullets, so he just rapidly ducked past and hustled to the elevator, a million curiosities popping up in his way as he did so.  But he’d have time later to hear about their potion production line, ask after the weirdly expanded park in the lobby around the elevator, and join the multi-sided argument about space elevator construction.

Right now he was in a hurry.

_____

The cafe was its usual self, save for the slight change of different counter staff that James didn’t have as much of a wizard rapport with, music that was a little too loud today, and a cold  feeling that absolutely wasn’t normal.

Not just because it was cold.  Though it was, and James still hadn’t gotten around to playing dice with another batch of purples to try to get some kind of magical thermal underwear.  But cold because this place, this space that he went to with his partners and friends and dog, where he sometimes saw Deb and Frequency-Of-Sunlight, where he went to decompress and process things  when he was having a hard time, was now… something else.

It was a place where someone had kicked over the comfortable illusion of safety and reminded James that if anyone really wanted him dead, they could probably find him.  By accident even.

And yeah, he was exaggerating that a little bit.  He and Anesh and Alanna did joke about how someone would try to shoot them eventually, and that was probably true, but it wasn’t like assassins were lining up to take shots at him.  Harlan knowing where he got coffee was pretty low on the list of security risks anyway, comparatively.  Unless Harlan was lying.  But that was unlikely.  Alanna’s empathy power was pushed well into inhuman ability at this point, and her read on the enigmatic mercenary pointed to someone who was stumbling blind.  Which was still worrying , since anyone stumbling around while that heavily armed was an issue, but it did sort of put Harlan below the local police department in terms of ranking people who might try to shoot him.

“Do you wonder if Planner is having an aneurysm right now?”  Alex asked, poking at the coffee cup on the table.  The two of them were sat facing each other, with a clear view of each potential entrance, though away from most of the other tables.  Despite the controlled skulljack connection letting them speak or message each other silently, Alex still chose to speak out loud.

James flicked a fingernail against his own empty cup.  “I think I am. “ He muttered back.  “You know, when someone from a shadowy magical combat team says they’ll meet with you, you kinda expect them to not be late .”

“Everything in Harlan’s dossier makes me think they’d be late.”  Alex retorted.  “Maybe it’s to lull us into a false sense of security.”

“Do you feel secure?”  James asked honestly as he gave a mental nudge to Zhu just to check in with the navigator.  Zhu was mostly ‘asleep’ at the moment; not manifested, and not actively on a journey.  It left infomorphs a bit out of sync with their hosts when they did this.  They weren’t exactly not there , but they weren’t available for casual conversation, and they didn’t see the world the same way as when they made themselves forms.  James didn’t get an immediate response from Zhu, so he just let the navigator keep resting.  “I don’t feel secure.”  He told Alex.

Alex huffed, leaning forward on the table.  “I mean, the longer we sit here, the more silly I feel for having a whole bunch of weird gear on.  The stupid boot itches.”

“It’s a greave.”  James said, and then instantly  jumped to intercept what Alex was about to say with a wide grin on her face.  “No I’m not sad!  You stole this joke from Momo, I’ve gotten hit with this thrice now!”

“Fuck!”  Alex sighed.  “Well there goes my entertainment.”

“You need… eyes up.”  James cut himself off.  “Harlan’s here.”  Simple words, but all sense of fun vanished as the tattooed figure in their apparently standard-issue black turtleneck walked in.  James shot a message to JP and Ben, but didn’t open up a call.  The expectation here was that this would be a simple exchange of information, and nothing else.  He and Alex would loop JP in if anything required it.  Until then, James was actually authorized to negotiate.

JP had even made him take yellow orbs for it.  Etiquette - Sales had actively made James feel slimy, while Law - Business - Contract had just left him with a blanket understanding of how to structure terms for deals like this that he hoped he wouldn’t need to get into the gritty details of.  James also wasn’t sure why they just had those orbs lying around, and JP had just muttered something about it being a late Christmas gift and then banished James to the meeting.

James set that aside as he watched Harlan move in, the supposed leader of the Wolfpack ignoring any pretense of being at a cafe to order off the menu, and zeroing in on their table.  They moved with a kind of deliberate walk that James was starting to learn to recognize as the motion of someone who was ready to do violence on short notice.

“Do I get a chair?”  Harlan asked, the slight amount of very real confusion in their voice shattering the illusion of someone who was in complete control.  James just pointed at an empty table next to them, and Harlan rapidly flipped a chair around by its back, deftly settling into it.  “So.  Made your decision?”

Making a tiny hand motion to stop Alex from being snarky about how Harlan was late, James just answered simply.  “Yeah.  Info for info.  We tell you where your people are, you answer a few questions.”

Harlan’s eyebrows went up ever so slightly. “Don’t want to know about an extra door or two?”

“Oh, I absolutely do.”  James said, filing away yet another alternate term for dungeons on his head. “And we can add that if you can’t or won’t answer.”  He folded his hands under his chin and leaned forward. “And you’ll answer first, obviously.”

If the insinuation that the Order was slightly more trustworthy than the Wolfpack offended Harlan, they didn’t show it. “Ask then.”  They said simply, voice lightly melodious.

“What do you know about the pillars?”

“Nothing.”

The answer actually did catch James off guard. He’d expected at least a cryptic warning. “How about what’s going on in New York?”

“The job opportunities?”  Harlan said the words in the cadence of someone making air quotes. “There’s a lot of money getting shuffled around. But it wasn’t worth it; even if they were acceptable.  Too much risk, something weird going on.”

“Weird is relative.”  Alex pointed out.

Harlan glanced at her like they hadn’t paid attention to the fact that she was someone different than last time. “Not like this.”  They said. “This was too much.  Every piece of local talent on at least two sides, everyone getting drawn in, everyone forgetting. We took two jobs, then left when the memories got bad.  The Wolfpack is very good  at recognizing when our memories go sour.”  The words were said with grim conviction.

“So you were there.”  James sighed.

Harlan shrugged. “We kill monsters.”  The operative offered. “We don’t have to do it for free. Better us than someone who won’t care about the crossfire.”

“So, to be clear here…” James tried to keep his voice even, and was pretty sure he failed.  “…you are talking about murdering finance execs and account managers, yes?”

“Well, killing.  I don’t think I’d call it murder.”  Harlan’s voice was exactly the same even tone, like they really didn’t care.  “For money.  That was only one job, though.  The other one was taking out some dumb fuck who was growing a more literal monster in a tenement so he could milk it for a wild drug.  Him and his friends.  And the monster.”  Harlan stopped talking, leaving James and Alex leaning forward slightly and thirsty for more details.  “What?”

Alex cracked first.  “What… where did the monster come from?”

“Tampa.”

“No, the literal monster, not the dude!”

“Oh.  Dunno.  Doesn’t really matter.  There’s a lot of things wandering around, though people forget most of them.”  Harlan gave an unconvincing shrug.  “Any other questions?”

“Yes.”  James said, looking away briefly to flick his eyes to someone walking by outside before continuing.  “Though if you wanna chat later I’d love to circle back to everything you just said.  But, the important one.  From an outside perspective, what do you know about us? ”

Harlan cocked their head, then gave an appreciative nod, a vicious smile spreading on their lips.  Around the corner, an espresso machine hissed.  The sound of growing conversation pressed in around their somewhat isolated table.  “Security testing.”  They said.  “That’s a good sign.”

“According to your flowchart?”  James snarked lightly, keeping an eye on the flow of foot traffic out the window near them, and through the rear door of the cafe.

“No.”  Harlan denied with a dismissive confidence.  They said the word the same way they did last time, right before Alanna had told James that Harlan didn’t trust a single thing they said.  “James Lyle, Paladin of the Order of Endless Rooms.  You keep popping up in weird places, personally and as a group.  Recently, you pissed off a watcher cadre in Utah somehow.  And you spooked the feds enough that they’re making a whole new division for you.  Which means that Russian and British intelligence are too.  And your fake police force has a lot of people worried that you’re going to break through the mundane barrier and get a lot of attention. No one knows where the fuck you operate from, though.  Or how many people you’ve got.  Or what you can do , aside teleport small groups.”  Harlan shrugged.  “You scare powerful people.  Keep it up.  They’re all assholes.”

“Even you?”  James asked, curious.

“Especially us.”  Harlan said, no trace of humor in their voice.  “We’re monsters, same as everyone else.  We’ll be the last ones you need to kill, but don’t leave me off the list.”

“Dramatic much?”  Alex punctuated her quiet words with a grunt as she watched someone go past outside.  Then she frowned, and sent James a mental message.  “Hey, is that the same guy?”  She asked.

“I noticed it too.”  James said.  “Keep an eye on him.  It might be nothing, but don’t let us get caught off guard.”  It took him under a second to compose and fire off the words, though rapidly formatting messages across the skulljacks like that tended to leave typos and missing articles.  But it let him keep his attention on Harlan.  “No one can find us, huh?”  He raised his eyebrows.

Harlan nodded once.  “Not casually.  And no one I’ve got record of.  We don’t have that many contacts though.”

“Yeah, I’m noticing there don’t actually seem to be that many people like us.”

“Or we can’t find them.  Maybe they’re just like you, and the people who don’t get it are the people who won’t last long.”  Harlan’s eyes flicked to where Alex was looking.  “Your rookie stares too much.”  They said.

James cut off Alex’s sputtered protest.  “Alright, last questions, probably.  Watchers?”

“Oh, they show up everywhere eventually.  Like fucking tumors.  Anyone who acts like government, and treats contexts like holes to plug up.  They tend to kill a lot of civilians.”

“I think we’ve encountered people like that.”  James’ fingers, idly holding his empty coffee cup, crunched the thick cardboard as he found himself clenching his hand.  “Figures there’s more of them.”

“Well, if you decide to go after them, consider hiring us.  Assuming you’ve got the money.”  Harlan offered.  “Protocol’s clear on that part.”  They added.  “So.  My people?”

“Here.”  James slid a slip of paper with GPS coordinates on it over to them.  “Alaskan wilderness.  They’re working with a group of… well, okay, I can’t honestly call them ecoterrorists, because I think the original group died or got subverted or something.  Either way, we ran into them because they were active in New York too, though clearly you lost them a bit before that.”  James took Harlan’s small and subconscious nod as confirmation.  “That spooky FBI department you were talking about is looking into them, and might know where they are.”  This was a convenient partial truth.  They did  know where they were, because James had told them.  “They’ve got your attack chopper, and your teleporter.”

“I knew we had another-“ Harlan cut their own words off, then offered James a grin that tired to mask sheepish embarrassment for revealing too much with something pretending to be cold anger.  “Heh.  Well.  I promised you a context too.  What’s your poison?  Lethal, dangerous, or useless?”

“I have a looooot of questions.”  Alex eyed Harlan.

“Tough.  This isn’t worth more answers.”  Harlan pocketed the paper slip.

Alex ignored the hostility.  “No, I meant about the du- context.  Whatever.  What’s the difference between lethal and dangerous?”

“Oh.  Lethal to you, or dangerous to the surrounding real world.”  Harlan flicked their eyes up, like they were trying to remember something.  “Not sure why we went with that.  Kinda awkward, isn’t it?”

James and Alex shared a worried glance.  It was one thing to get confirmation that the Wolfpack were essentially vaguely idealistic mercenaries.  It was another to see these small bits of degradation that had happened to Harlan’s own mind in person.  The look, though, caused both of them to notice something at the same time.

“Okay, that guy’s suspicious.”  James mumbled out loud as the same person circled the building for the third time.  Well, the third time he’d noticed.  “Harlan, do you…” he trailed off as the man, dark skin and a patchy goatee with a puffy black coat on, finished his latest lap of the building and pushed his way through the front door.  James allowed himself a tiny bit of relaxation at the thought that the man was just here to get coffee and maybe had some weird habits.

“He seems familiar.”  Harlan’s calm words, in light of what James knew about the mercenary, were abruptly terrifying .

“We should get out of here.”  Alex said.

“Agreed.”  James slid her his telepad on the edge of the table, keeping his own eyes on the short, somewhat unkempt man who really did look like he was having a horrible day.  “Harlan, want a ride?  We’ll drop you off somewhere.”

“I… feel like I should recognize him.”  Harlan said, voice cracking slightly before they put the mask back in place.  “Yes.  I’ll take an exit.  Want to kneecap this one and take him along?”  She didn’t break her gaze on the man, who had stopped in the middle of the cafe.  The barista was also giving him an exhausted look, though hers was less suspicious and more just ‘dude come on, order already’.

James rolled his eyes silently next to Harlan.  “No, I-“

“I’m very sorry everyone.”  The man’s voice cut across the music and conversation with a mild Mexican accent.  Most of the patrons ignored him, though a few people did look up from laptops or pause their chats.  This place wasn’t exactly packed today, but there were a good twenty or so people in here at this point.  “Almost everyone.”  The last words were said as the man turned to glare directly at James and Harlan, and reached into his coat to pull out a small metal cube.

“Oh fuck.”  James uttered, kicking himself up from his chair.  The man raised his arm and moved to slam the cube into the ground, as Harlan fluidly beat James to a standing position and started unloading their sidearm into the man.  “No!”  James shouted, yanking Harlan’s arm down a second too late to stop the collection of plastic cutlery and napkins available for customers from getting splashed with blood.  He wasn’t the only one screaming, as many of the patrons scrambled for the doors or dove to the floor.

The man slammed into the wood paneling of the island in the center of the room as Harlan gunned him down, the cube dropping from his hand, and pinging off the floor.

The instant it did, something rippled.  Out, and then back, rebounding inside the room, around the building, across the cafe.  The cube began to glow, and then pulsed again, stronger this time.

It glowed brighter, and brighter, the metal turning practically molten.  James felt his eyes drawn to it unable to look away.  In his chest, Zhu stirred abruptly to life, alarm shooting through the navigator.  James had only seconds to react, and had only barely processed that they needed to get out , or take cover, or something , when Alex threw herself between him and Harlan, and the cube.

The object pulsed one last time.  A solid wall of an incorrect shockwave pushing out from it.  Painless heat and light in a sphere that rapidly reached the edges of the structure.

James felt the air around them go cold as Alex triggered her Winter’s Climb spell, her arms crossed in front of herself like she could block the whole thing.  And, being fair, maybe she could.   She timed it perfectly, her Sewer lesson’s synergy letting her use her half second of invincibility to make herself into a shield.  A reflex she’d had drilled into her through hundreds of training runs at the Order.

Then he was gone.  So was Harlan.

So was everything.

Alex’s breath ran out, and she collapsed to her knees, dropping several inches to a chunk of exposed rebar that she tore her jeans on as she did so.  Cold rushed into the air around her.  Nearby, pipes that no longer had caps on them began spraying water up into the air.  Severed wires sparked against whatever they hit as they dropped to the ground, unsupported.  The smell of a lot  of blood reached her.

Alex sat alone, in the foundation of what used to be James’ favorite cafe.  The entire building gone .

“JP.”  She croaked out around a gasp for breath that brought too much kicked up dust into her mouth.  “Ben.  Someone!”  Alex fumbled mentally for the control to call someone with her skulljack, not trusting her frozen fingers to manage her phone properly.  “ Fuck! ”  She screamed the word into the sky.

Alex fumbled in her pocket as she heard panicked voices approaching.  Her head was still spinning, but the disappearance of a whole building absolutely was going to get notice from the people in either of the restaurants literally next door.  Already she could hear someone shouting to ask if she was alright, people frantically calling 911.

She couldn’t be here right now.  She had to get back.

Alex tore the telepad that she still had on her, and fell on her ass again in the briefing warehouse, trading unhelpful shouts for shouts from people who would be able to do something about this problem.

Fuck, she hoped they’d be able to do something about this problem