49 - Narcissus Garden_Paradise of Pretenders

KUSAMA, 1966

 Starboy trembled, his brown hair ruffling, as Tristan watched closely. The younger student was holding his hands together. Then raising one to gesture to a distinct point on the hologram.

 “That’s where the red goes,” he said. Starboy lowered his hand.

 “I see,” Tristan said.

 He was sitting on a cube and it wasn’t very comfortable. Starboy’s knees had to feel pain, sitting in that crouched position, all this time while explaining the Blood Bus. But Tristan didn’t feel like saying anything. Tiko Toko, after all, as well as Visi Trimat, were also sitting on cubes. Only the presenter was forced to crouch.

 So that was the blood. Tristan had thought the blood was the red portion, but the road beneath the bus, a long straight line of it, was just the road. Starboy was being more creative than he had envisioned.

 The rest of it was incomprehensible. Tristan thought of how to ask his question. How is the bus represented as a rectangular prism, if you’re going to use cubes? What is going to represent the sky? How closely will the actual work resemble the hologram? What—

 “It’s all made from one cube,” Visi said. She was getting off of hers, and after a series of punches, quick movements later, her cube was now a rectangular prism—but with a long, flatter prism below it, extending out. All still yellow. “And someone will be the sky.”

 With a shock to what he saw Tristan remembered that just last week or two weeks ago or whenever it was he had demonstrated to them all William Restor’s substance, material, image and had proven that any cube could be molded into any different shape. Starboy may have been his insolent, primary usurper but he was still a techist of Restor. Tristan didn’t know who Starboy’s parents were, for naming their child such an alter bland—

 Starboy was standing, his knees making slight cracking as he turned off the hologram and smiled widely at Visi Trimat.

 “That’s right! Of course, Visi, you get it, I always insert myself into my pieces, just need some wind-strings—” He looked at Tristan—“to hang myself up, above the prism turned cube, still a prism, above the bus, above the street, below the blood.”

 The hologram had shown only the sky, directly above the bus, so the sky was the blood. Tristan thought he saw a body, spilling blood, above the bus of its creation. But of course Starboy wouldn’t be actually—

 Sky was the blood. But then the sky was the blood—

 “I am the blood,” Starboy interjected. Visi was nodding, full understanding in her eyes. Tiko Toko was staring at the prism and road on the floor. “Red for sky, yellow for the bus, and blue for what you’ll be wearing,” they said.

 “Yes!” Starboy said.

 But the road is brown? Tristan thought quickly. Starboy had kept his shoes brown for Three-Body Problem. Something had to be brown again. His hair didn’t count.

 “Tristan, what do you think?” Starboy was asking.

 Your hair is brown, he thought. No—an obvious—the whole thing is inverted, so you’ll actually be lying on the floor, and the wind-strings will hold up the bus—no, Starboy wasn’t that good—body above shape, continuing medieval theme—

 “You hate the cube,” he said. “That’s why it’s being melted.” Tristan pointed to the elongated portion on the floor by Visi’s feet. It was obvious now. Starboy, the usurper, was only contending out of recent, invigorating spite for the profession, for the act itself, he hated techistry, and so by inspiring the Blood Bus below him, without dripping blood but entirely composed of it, he was—

 “I hate the cube?” Starboy was looking confused. Very. Tristan for an instant thought back to how he’d understood Cel Rin’s piece. The body is the image. Or the image of the boy. And Starboy may be the wont contender but he wasn’t that brilliant. Or stupid. Or whatever it was.

 Tristan ran his hands over the hologram, or rather waved at it. He was still sitting not too close to it. It was horrible. It was lacking in spirit. It gave him weak designs. Was it Blood Bus, or Blood Without the Boy, or Bus Boy. Just a weak servant to whatever that he had created. Tristan didn’t want to say anything so he kept his mouth shut to the blood bus and waited for Visi or Tiko Toko to respond.

 But they didn’t. Tiko Toko, the student whose name he only knew because they had introduced themselves, was running their hands over the portion of the hologram that seemed to touch the bus platform on the floor; Visi was merely tapping her left foot by it, hard in thought. Giving the unblooded more examination than the work deserved.

 What do you think, Tristan? The boy asked. It’s not alter. It’s not anything, he thought.

 What do you think, Tristan? The father asked. It’s mine. It’s my creation, he said.

 What do you think, Tristan? The knight challenged him.

 Tristan turned away, and he left them there.<hr>

 Eleanor saw the reflections of the students across the water and thought.

 None of them were altered; they were all still there. She could discern a great number of them, and while she knew she could now access Sector’s Thought-frame and see any student, including those soon to come, such as Dhoria Tsenter, Juara Torneo, Senra Beaudicious, and Adventa Rosan, she was still too distant to truly see. They were only small shadows, flickering in the sun, and like the candles of old, cast their flames upon the cool silver surface, which cascaded them in ripples, extending out but not quite reaching where she stood. It was like Giya had said, and was common truth: Sector was the largest university (in the Sector), and yet, somehow, the most reputable.

 Just beneath, or rather behind, the reflections on the water, still as pretend glass she saw, a series of blurred slabs, like paint in a gallery, but then she just turned her eyes up, to see what she was actually looking at, and it was the Entrance to Sector University, catching the sun as it fell across the columns, but without any sort of roof to block it, it fell straight across, drawing the shadows even further across the students who walked between its arches.

 There was one central arch. With an exclamation, someone almost bumped into Eleanor from behind her, and as she moved away, she thought, it was just like the V-movie entrances, shaped like large letters, except that this one, which stood above the single, roofless columns, did not resemble any letter, and so, holding that thought, she felt her Seagull top and pink pantalons, made sure once again that her hair didn’t even brush her neck, and she thought to herself,

 —I am a Governor, and moved forward with the other wide-eyed and, some actually gawking, incoming students, some accompanied by their younger siblings, extraordinarily few parents in sight, or even adults, as they all swept forward in an incoherent group, towards the raised platform that was taking them all over the right side of the water, over and onto the titanium flooring beyond. Eleanor stopped herself from trying to recognize anyone from orientation, or anyone to match to the feeling of their Thoughts from the talk with Adventa, or the two Sector students she’d physically met, Giya and Proen, as, after all, this was a scheduled opening to the citizens of the Sector, not just any students to-be, and while she knew there were TMs from Giya, one from Dhoria, none from Adventa, she stopped herself from looking for any of them.

 She was just a student; she was still in her last year at Blazon; she—

 Accept. She didn’t even know which she’d accepted. Eleanor reached the platform, which was just wide enough for two columns, most going in, some coming out, and it didn’t even have railings—no, her hand struck something, it did, and her hand didn’t even hurt—hologram railings. Of course. Eleanor kept walking, not hitting the person in front or behind her, as she waited, and looked over the side of the invisible railing, at the edge of the water, which was beginning to show her face—

 Hi. This is Dhoria.

 Eleanor looked back face forward, noting the insignia of a school she didn’t recognize on the back of the student in front of her, a tall white flower. Hi, I’m Eleanor, she Thought back, wondering if Dhoria Tsenter was being obtuse intentionally; but now she’d reached the end, she’d barely noticed any incline, and landed on the smooth white surface of the titanium. It did not reflect, only showing vague, amorphous curtains of color that broached its perfect surface. I came off the platform over the water. I’m wearing pink and white, have orange hair, she said.

 You didn’t say that earlier. Are you in your hologram?

 Hologram?

 I’m a Governor, I’m a Governor, she thought again, and said yes. Then she said no, that she wouldn’t wear it so openly. As an aside, she thought, would a Governor’s hologram be differently touched than the rail?

 She felt beneath her feet the alter titanium, or rather she didn’t feel anything, and then felt herself moving forward with the rest of the throng, and she didn’t know—as she wasn’t explicitly looking for Adventa’s beige hair—whether she was the only Governor, who for some reason, was here, not caught up in various duties up and among the tall silver towers that defined that part of High where the Governors all resided.

 She passed beneath the arch.

 It was one of many, she saw, as back there some had been hidden, what with all the students grouped about, or the light, one of a series of arches that ran across the wake, and she had to step more carefully, as she lost sight of the tall white flower, and now she couldn’t quite see anybody, they were all bathed in golden light, and as she felt the sun practically striking her shoulders, changing the pink into ochre, the issues of amazement from those around her beating like footfalls, she saw a girl up ahead, in a vivid pink top and white pantalons, with sudden orange hair, short, but maybe shimmering into something longer, and a hand was coming out from the right, or stage left, to tap her on the shoulder—

 She felt a tap on her right shoulder. She whirled, and saw a girl with large, somewhat box-like eyes, sea-salt, slightly rectangularly curved hair—only sea salt because of those tea flavors right now—and wearing a long shirt broken down the middle into orange on one side, white on the left. Fading blue pants, cut somewhat short, and she was carrying something, fist curled, in her left hand.

 “I’m Dhoria.” the girl said, and Eleanor, looking again at the image she had caught, realized it was just a reflection—or it had been, it wasn’t there. She looked beyond Dhoria, who was a bit shorter than she was, so looking just above her grey-white top, she could now grasp their surroundings, others were passing beneath their own arches, they still hadn’t reached the pillars, and, in fact, looking beyond their sheer lines, Eleanor saw that there was nothing, and that past the water and the bridge, the entrance and its various arches, all there was, was nothing.

 “I’m Dhoria Tsenter,” the girl said. Eleanor brought her gaze back down, and saw immediately how Dhoria seemed to be clutching, or trying to squeeze, what she held in her hand. She was nervous or excited, and all Eleanor could think was, if what she saw beyond those silver arches was like the orientation’s V-world or V-movie space—

 TM from Dhoria Tsenter. Accept.

 I’m Dhoria, from the Orange route,

 Dhoria Tsenter said, but she, too was turning away to look at the scene around them, holding the thing in her hand. Eleanor wondered if she’d been here before. Eleanor could have visited at any one of Sector’s previous open-visit days, and she’d known for a while that she’d go to Sector but she’d, somehow, not felt like actually seeing the campus, either physically as she was in that moment, or through any one of their Thought-spaces. And not just Sector. Most universities offered open visits, and Thought-spaces, and Thought-feeds with entry staff and current students, including Raider U, Peppa Peppa V, and any other university, and she thought of the others from Blazon, Jule to Peppa Peppa, Klost and Layra to Restor Institute, Anderi to Topping Mae, each going to a different place, with different people, different things, different ideas in each space of what their own college meant, for she knew that each and every one of them was equally unalterable.

 “I’m Eleanor,” she said, as she walked forward, along the only direction she could take, directly ahead, into the great golden letter, was it golden now, slowly forming an E, or an F, the two unimpeded bars at the top half stretching out, and maybe Dhoria said some things, in the air or in their Thought-feed but, she thought maybe they were unnecessary things, not as necessary and not as defined as the coherent silvers and golds becoming the world.

 Voices. Boundless clamor, a full space entreating her, white and sepia and bold dints of green and flamingo and oriented, violent sky, a tickling of strength meeting her hair, the airnanos finding new horizons, Dhoria’s sea-salt head reflecting the rays, hard; Eleanor’s eyes making out distinct and ready faces, belonging to arms, joined by torsos and legs and feet shoed or unshoed, by hair of colors chosen and changed over years on Alterfaces. Immediately she could see, some were noticeably less noticeable, and with a start she remembered that Sector admitted directly out of Lowers, where instead of all the nanos coursing through their bodies were various things they would put on themselves.

 A finger in her chest, and Eleanor stopped herself, Dhoria retracting her pinky, and they had stopped before a massive pedestal or wall, not transparent, as Dhoria herself had walked into it, she was rubbing her head. The wall looked to be of alter stucco, or maybe even alter stone, which was said to not be stone, but some architecture in High had begun to use it.

 This did not reflect either of them, and Eleanor found herself looking only at what appeared to be a silver, but nearly white or opalescent, surface; like a portal, except that this was just a wall before them—but as they stood there, it was just the two of them, Eleanor’s orange hair, Dhoria’s sea-salt top simmering in that unimpeachable air around them, around everything—the wall hummed, and it turned into two solid halves, one of orange the color of Eleanor’s hair, the other of sepia the color of Dhoria’s, with an unbroken line down its center.

 With the unspent rush of sound from beyond, she looked, and saw that there were other like plats of color, or divides of color, or keen swirls per who stood before them, staring at the nonvisible reflections of themselves. She saw practically every color, and some of the tablets had so many lines and rivulets of color that in the dizzying sun, they were hard to look at.

 Eleanor turned her eyes back to hers, to which Dhoria was still staring at, still turning her left wrist in and out. Then she realized that the stone was mirroring Dhoria’s shirt.

 “Did you know about this?” she asked Dhoria.

 “These stones,” the other girl said. “They’re the university’s.” A soft clinking began to issue from her left hand, as if she were trying to break a single bodieze.

 “No, they’re the Government’s,” Eleanor said. It didn’t matter, did it? It was ‘Sector’ University. Everyone knew that. It was in the name, and all else that flowed from it. Giya would say, It’s only stone, Eleanor, and it changes color, but it doesn’t matter who’s standing in front of it. It’s changing color.

 Maybe they were all changing.

 “What are you holding?” Eleanor asked Dhoria. “Small stones?”

 “No,” Dhoria said. “It’s my latest techist piece, in its early stages.” She held out her left hand, and unclasped her fingers. Inside the palm lay a circle of what looked like small alter plastic pieces attached, or strung through, a circular string. As they turned ever so slightly, on the natural surface of Dhoria’s hand, they seemed to glint different colors. Then Eleanor remembered what Dhoria had said, her techist family used something that was orange.

 “Topaz,” Dhoria said, before she could ask. “Real topaz. My family has a collection. It’s not substantial—but it looks better than the litany of materials you would find otherwise.”

 Eleanor nodded. Not that she could tell the difference, and, she felt, for someone from Might, if the stone in front of them were real, surely Dhoria would have reacted more… fervently.

 But she didn’t ask. Sector clearly had the resources to display all of these stones, pretend or not, in front of these visitors, and she was pretty sure that they weren’t even on the campus yet. This was all still… a foyer of sorts. A very grand and tumultuous one.

 And then the stone glowed, and Dhoria was walking into it, and walking into it, her body receding, her body gone, and before questioning the Upload/portal/V-movie aspects of it, Eleanor walked forward, and stepped into the orange.

 … She and Dhoria were sitting on chairs, suspended in a great chasm of light, but before she could reach out for something to hold she realized that they weren’t moving and that they were just two pinpoints in a vast group of chairs, others sitting in them, and the prior confluence of people speaking in awe and exclamation was now reduced to a single articulation, a single voice, a single knowledge.

 The knowledge was arriving to them, heard as if through a long and vibrant tunnel, and was this like orientation, but Dhoria was tapping her shoulder and running her right hand distinctly up and down, here, and there, there were, what was it called, some kind of string techists used, holding them up.

 So this was a techist course. Eleanor prepared to close her eyes.

 “… and for you visitors, whether or not you were accepted to Sector, please note that this course is not

 required unless you elect the Jade Route, for those aspiring techists not alter enough to pursue techistry professionally just yet, and the Jade Route requires…”

 Eleanor nodded, barely acknowledging that she may have chosen a route with classes and not just some other classmates… she wasn’t going to be a techist. It was too late anyway. She didn’t know any techists.

 Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

 Oh, Dhoria Tsenter. Now she did. The other girl was examining the strings, still holding her techist draft piece in her left hand. Eleanor took this opportunity to examine the other students. Of course, she knew she couldn’t tell immediately which were students, which were visiting. But she hypothesized that the ones paying attention were visitors.

 Eleanor peered into the darkness.

 And almost instantly she found one, not because the other girl was noticeable, but because the Sector University student was sleeping.

 Her long, chartreuse-pearl hair was braided on one side, visible from where she was sitting; it faintly glowed in the silhouette of stars—no, there were no stars, these were all lights, glowing shrouds around each student as they slept or studied, or their receptors pinpoints of color as they talked to one another, and echoing seamlessly through it were what words the respected professor was giving, saying various things, and this student’s was also flashing bright white, so she wasn’t

 sleeping, and her right arm, nearly dangling or hanging over this side of her chair, was swinging gently back and forth. It was like—

 Hey. Do you think that student goes here? came the question, from Dhoria, modestly skeptical; and while the answer was certainly yes, she couldn’t quite see the girl’s face but by the way she reclined back on her chair she was quite tall.

 Not that that indicated age, or nearness to altering. What Giya had said—that you couldn’t leave until you’d altered—so could you stay forever?

 Eleanor wondered if there were those here, like her on parental Netbanking scholarship, who stayed for years without altering… she remembered now. Whichever curve it was that described the way currency flowed down from High—part, not substantial, but part came from a certain number of Sector University students whose parents were Netbankers, and so received from primarily those who lived in High, but spent a part of their yearly towards their lackadaisical children staying here, which went back to the university, and back to the Netbankers.

 It had a name, this phenomenon. But she forgot. She hadn’t answered Dhoria.

 She’s here, she said. But she might not be ‘here.’ None of them were… this class was in a space of its own, illuminated by all of these receptors, the spiritless voice its demeanor, but Dhoria seemed disappointed by this revelation. In their Thought-feed with Adventa Rosan she’d said something about going to Sector to not be a techist or something, and Dhoria’s large eyes glowed, showing just how clearly disappointed she was.

 But Eleanor didn’t want to speculate, while the girl with chartreuse braids, pearl styled differently on the other side, was so consumed by her own world, it was entirely possible that she was also listening, inscribing the knowledge onto her Thoughtnote, doing work for other courses, planning an event for a club—there were clubs—or discussing with fervor the latest Sector raider game, there’d been something recently about tryouts for the professional teams, some top team had closed theirs, going with a much smaller roster—she’d gone into the Raider

 events Thought-feed, Beacons had only taken three players this year. Melea Vora?son, Lacon Brite, Vie iHiela. iHiela. Wait. Eleanor focused on the name and the avatar arose. Scanning quickly the bio she saw, the only member of the iHiela Netbankers not pursuing the realts, her younger sibling Proen recently admitted to Sector. Wow. She was the older sister of Proen iHiela.

 Eleanor left the Thought-pool. She looked at Dhoria, upon whom a fulsome light encased, her right hand around a string.

 Her receptor wasn’t shining its own star. “Vel’atta’s Resistance isn’t actually being used here,” Dhoria said. “This is an Aur suspension.”

 Eleanor thought back to all of those techist courses she’d taken. Vel’atta rang a chord in her mind, but it was faint. Aur suspension was unknown to her in the dark. But, it seemed the silent cacophony of receptor lights was coloring down into the surrounding black, and Eleanor thought she saw the sleeping girl’s arm cease its pendulum-like motion.

 And the voice of knowledge focused in on Dhoria, highlighting everything from her chair—which Eleanor realized wasn’t a chair, but was one of those malleable cubes that all techists in school used—to the thin but hard white lines that crossed, so tightly they all but blended together, across the top of her hair, as if from first year on an Alterface she thought of separation or separate hair. Her eyes calm but hard. As if she were stone—topaz—herself.

 And Eleanor knew the others were watching. The teacher had said something, or had said nothing and Dhoria Tsenter was pointing out an inaccuracy, a flaw, in what the voice of knowledge had said. Or, as they and others were visiting a class that had pulled them in, they had intentionally misspoken, seeing if any aspiring, postponing techists would—

 “Correct, we are in an altered Exhibit space, as Exhibits cannot use Vel’atta’s, so an Aur suspension, while only released 27 days ago to visible use, would be an alternative.”

 Then the voice resumed its line of thought. The receptor lights resumed their conversation, but some remained dim, as heads turned to espy Dhoria, whose light was gone but sat there still, as she slowly removed her right hand from the Aur suspended-string. These heads and hair included the one who had been sleeping, or feigning it, who turned her head fully to face them, and she had what was in the first instant Eleanor looked to be hair, but was actually a series of small spheres or balls dangling, and what Eleanor had believed to be her shirt was a blanket, but she was looking at Dhoria, her gaze somewhat agape, but closed by eyes that were both curious and amused.

 Thought Message from Jupiter Harena.

 But Eleanor hadn’t given her name. She looked at Dhoria—Dhoria was looking back at the pearl-stringed-hair girl, a query in her square eyes. She’d also received the TM. She also didn’t know Jupiter Harena, which could only mean that—

 Accept, she Thought, and then Jupiter spoke to both of them.

 What are your names, said Jupiter, thus answering the question. Here at Sector they could TM others—or other students—simply by looking at them. So all these lights included the current students conducting their own scintillating evaluations of the aspiring Sector students, for of course even if you knew the difference between two kinds of suspensions, you could only be visiting out of pure curiosity.

 Eleanor Vyaedus Dorr, she thought.

 Eleanor, she Thought, and Dhoria,

 from Dhoria.

 Thanks for making a class more fun,

 Jupiter Harena said, and then the Thought-feed closed, the pearl-white receptor on Jupiter’s ear shut off, becoming only pearl. And then she closed her eyes, pulling up her blanket, letting both her arms dangle. As if she’d fully interrogated every visiting student here, found some who were interesting, and then went back to her world of lights.

 It was just a class. Eleanor leaned back and said to Dhoria, Stay until it ends?

 Sure, Dhoria Thought back. I should get ahead.

 So she could alter herself, right? Eleanor continued to look at the lights beyond the darkness, and watched as they shifted between colors.<hr>

 Tr’aedis found himself splashed upon the grass.

 “Flit,” came a voice from above him, the expression of disbelief, as he didn’t look up to see which of the three was speaking. But he could hear more than disbelief, a statement of the highest annoyance, or even more than that—that he had invaded something sacred, something pure, or about to be—something mayre—and steps on the grass, as the three Nam whose creations he had disturbed, came about.

 He didn’t look at them. He could still feel his soles stinging. The pool had been barely to the height of ankles, and he had jumped, but—he still felt it—in that wake, throwing himself into that scintillation, he had gulped as much as he could.

 The Nam were speaking in low tones; he could hear the Arcs arriving, Areum speaking, saying very quickly, embarrassingly, words that he caught, nohmayr (needs improvement), Bul?

 (I’m sorry), t’raenim.

 He stared at the grass. At the dry shards. None of the water—so much had splashed up—Pegasus fountain, von Hiischklen taboo—rain falling in shards—the grass was dry—he gulped, and felt the water shiver down his throat.

 “Tr’aedis t’raenim, mine-Nam, li, Magcreat torr,” said the first voice, and with a burst of recognition he heard the girl who had said “Aeros” to Emeli creating sky-light, Gloire. He knew. Without fully understanding he knew. Tr’aedis, only the student (not even an Arc), had dared to disrupt our Magcreat.

 Just as he had done as he’d come. A felot, a stranger, stepping into Pur? and Triomphe and Ila ce’s Magcreat, a newcomer from an outside world, a foreigner to their games, to their show of something so natural to them all.

 Areum was tapping him on his shoulder. Stand, Tr’aedis, came the thought. The audience is waiting.

 A pain in his chest. Like he was hungry. He raised his right knee, ready to stand—no, it was a twang. Bright and strange and painful. Like a small spire, reaching further into his chest.

 Tr’aedis clutched it, and, still holding his hand to his heart, stood.

 And he reached up with his other hand, feeling his light-shards.

 “The head is not more native to the heart,” he said. And, of course, those around him failed to understand. But he could feel them. Like the pain in his chest. It felt the students around him, the first-years, a mesh of light; it felt the sixth-years, a coruscating pilgrim of something sticky and sharp in his chest.

 Gloire was now facing him. Her eyes were hard, and she stood at his height, but he felt as if he were staring at a pillar. She was pointing to her mouth, and back to the pool; to her stomach, to the shards of his hair. She looked like she had just learned something of great shock but was concealing it behind a questioning sternness; just as a Nam treating one lower than Arc.

 “Tr?dise, noht Ligaeryen,” she said. She knew his name. He supposed everyone knew. He looked at Areum; the Arc, his morning friend, was now quiet. The rest of the Arcs were likewise. An Arc, one wearing of red, could not dare to address a Nam, and Tr’aedis had disrupted their creation.

 Wait—she had said, not Ligaeryen. They really did knew. All his pretense had fallen. He held his heart, his fingers tangled in his shirt; the shirt he had been wearing since arriving, which was slowly wearing down—its self-maintenance nanofibers declining to work, even here.

 Tr’aedis could not respond to any of them.

 “Noht tr’aenim,” Gloire said. She gave him another hard look, and sharing some common of understanding with Hye and Irie, turned and went back to the rock she had been on. The clear surface of the pool awaited, unchanged.

 Hye and Irie soon followed, laying their bare soles on the stones. And the water awaited them, unchained.

 Tr’aedis stepped forward.

 But this time, Areum and Store, both their eyes and expressions still and unpretending, stood themselves in front of him, as he heard the older Nam return to the modus of creation, the bare slap

 of sole, some sighs of concentration.

 But Tr’aedis pushed himself against them, using his hands, as he continued to feel the sting, the unknown twang

 inside him, as he saw in their faces an isolation of familiarity, a departure from what he had only experienced here since arriving, the distilled embargo of duty and something lighter.

 He barely noticed that, his hands and fingers emitting droplets still, spraying upon Areum’s shirt, causing in it splotches of grey that spread; that Store’s similar canvas-like shirt, nondescript, without really touching any part of the spectrum, that was formerly yellow, was now becoming wet.

 He thought of that feeling he had forgotten, of to face the actors of Blazon, to feel the cobalt of their rejection. A curtain closing. Glimmers the light beneath it. Frays and tassels. A feeling of the stage beneath his Eagle shoes…

 … And the actor brushed back the curtain, feeling the light.

 And Tr’aedis found himself on the water.

 He felt it, hard beneath his feet.

 He saw the expressions, untouched, as the whirling creations he had disturbed, again, arose.

 And while he pushed and thrust his hands through the air above them, creating nothing, in looking down he saw himself in the water.

 A human with golden shards—

 A silhouette of a student, standing, sifting their hands through the air—

 A wisp of a bird, straining to get out, its wings shaking above.<hr>

 I enter the Exhibit, and there are Agents with me. I come with them, and we are their retinue. Agent Artok, wielding not their holocard to simply identify to all, AGENT OF THE GOVERNMENT, but as an entity not of the Second Bureau.

 We are techists. Or rather, Artok is, and we walk at their command. Their V-locker hovers invisible beside them—containing not their Weapon, but a temporary one, one built for our requisite task, to enter as techists, with Artok a creator.

 Agent 1123, laconic and strong, puts away their Canopy.

 “Next time, we portal,” N’ziet reasons, dusting off his bare chest—otherwise suited in white flynder—as he enters immediately into some squats. “I keep seeing numbers whenever we use—”

 “Phil, not aloud,” Senra cautions, for we have entered in full, and the Exhibit before us, one in the outdoors, with alter titanium birds hanging from invisible wind-strings, the students and techists and teachers carousing. “Number’s in the listings.”

 “You’re correct,” N’ziet says, and finishes a leg raise. Seeing the hedron there, he hands it off one-armed to a passing mediary student, who struggles to take it with both arms. I take it from the student’s arms and lay it on the floor, silver surface shining. “Where are the De Mais?” I ask the student, who responds with awe in his face.

 But not at my soma. For today, all five of us walk equipped with a joint project Artok and Joe’s—a ‘hologlass,’ one that changes your external appearance and voice from the top down. We are recognizable, after all.

 “Ray, we’re over by the fourth quadrant,” Senra says, and I see their receptor flashing, for of course ‘our’ place here is in the Exhibit’s Thought-feed. “Thank you,” they tell the student, who continues on his way, leaving the hedron behind.

 We keep walking. Our matched suits of white, the retinue of four to ‘Arch’ De Mai.

 Again I review. This only works, because the De Mais operate as we do, says Senra yesterday, in the Agency library… They have known members, but new members consistently appear, and we suspect that many are techists in high school, but it keeps Exhibit attendance up. And so we are. Arch arrives at the fourth quadrant. An Exhibitist, stuttering and laughing, sweeping and bowing her way for us, leading us into a semicircle demarcated by white alter limestone paint. Arch’s four—followers, or unfamiliar family members, not yet tested, proceed to setting up encampment, or rather, the stand of Arch De Mai, for what Senra, or rather ‘Zen’ has named and registered as A Lot.

 Our lot complete, N’ziet returns to his exercises, the techist themselves retrieving A Lot

 (or rather the piece of it) out of their V-locker. A wide, silver cone, about their waist’s height, placing it at the very center of our semicircle. 1123 is positioned along the circumference, observing the passing students, some offering chance glances of curiosity; Senra is walking around the cone, giving it due examination. From where I stand, on the bottom edge of the semicircle, just beyond, an observer—the Lot appears. In coruscating images—to me a beached white whale with harpoon’s end protruding, the horn of an otherwise empty forehead, a semicircle parking space in Lowers for one of a tycoon’s many cars. Senra, standing amidst the semicircle, their matte-silver hair reflecting in the cone, or perhaps a triangle with its own semicircle, is the space wanderer, taking claim to this extraterrestrial lot, and, somehow, they are going to squeeze themselves into the cone.

 “Flat, bare, idiotic, but brilliant,” N’ziet says of it. “Arch, you’ve really out-altered

 yourself here.”

 Arch grunts. “Didn’t make the angles exact,” they say. And I wonder if Artok is truly here to contest. According to Senra and the Director, this Exhibit, occurring shortly after the Sector’s Midyear, is primarily for techist students; less those competing, like the known and named De Mais, the Chibios, or the Rins. An opportunity for those enchanced, to enhance their learning of such science and art, or perhaps, to enchant what passing crowd they can.

 Was Artok a techist before joining our ranks? I make a Thoughtnote to Ask Lind about Artok’s beginnings. I wait for others to come by. Standing now besides Senra, just beside a holoscreen reading ARCH DE MAI—A LOT, I wonder and wait.

 There will be interference. And we are not to come as Agents, but as techists. I watch and wait, but the Director has a plan, and Senra knows the field. I watch as N’ziet starts making nonconspicuous gestures towards the silver cone, beseeching the crowd to come by.

 A pair of high school students arrive. They ask questions, to which Arch answers. The students smile and nod; this piece has surprised them, but surely, it has an innermost complexity. Senra knows this; Agent Avalon says something to ‘creating the alter above the lack of alter,’ gesturing to where the students are standing; N’ziet picking it up, and performing a swift walk-to around the students, his path the other semicircle’s boundary—forming a complete circle. “Here, this cone, is alter—and you two, not marked, are not,” Avalon says. One student understands, biting their lip; the other does not, and so, nods and smiles.

 “Brilliant, Zen,” N’ziet says after they leave. “Next time, we’ll go to Midyear.”

 Zen stares after the departing high schoolers; they seem dissatisfied. Perhaps they had wanted more questions. Even though this is all fa?ade. I look around us; of course, merely looking will not grant me the sight of Scions, as outwardly they still appear the same. Only interference.

 A kind, of Avalon, followed by their other Agents, leaving behind one hapless Art, as we give chase after the mongrels.

 “Oh, Ray. I see them.” N’ziet stretches and points, up there—up there I see a box, what appears as a cyber wooden raised platform, where seated some Exhibitists or teachers, giving us all their regard.

 I squint. They seem to judge, but I see no Scions.

 “I’m joking. Ray, you are Third Agent, but in all seriousness, to be pliant and pliable, is, sometimes, to be playable,” N’ziet says. “Vander’s said there’ll be interference. If they react, then we move.” He returns to doing his exercises, this time some knee bends.

 “Some wisdom, N,” I tell him. I look at our techist—they are stock as still, a still, silver silhouette in front of the spire.

 Crash. The sound is vibrant. We all hear it.

 “Something is happening,” Senra says. That’s the interference, they say over our shared Thought-feed. Art, remain here. We go. They pull back their sleeves, revealing arms defined by a central silver line each. Like the paint. They go in the direction of the sound. N’ziet, 1123, and I follow.

 I glance back at our poor techist. Arch De Mai is alone.

 After about twelve seconds—our four flynder suits standing out—the crowd of students, onlookers, teachers, and Agents guised as techists—we see them. We see the two high schoolers from before, one with hair of a gleaming green, the dazon who had understood; one with hair of a bark-like brown, the boy who had not. They are dressed in white shirts and faintly brown pants. They are standing, surveying their handiwork.

 A broken machine. Cogs and bits scattered about.

 It lies in the center, below an array of alter steel fixtures, suspended beneath a wider canopy (but not like 1123’s), lying still on the grass. Bits and pieces of light strike the refracting shards, the original work no longer identifiable.

 The dazon and the boy are standing off to the side. The dazon is putting away a jade-and-white flash: a bow. The boy has his hand on the dazon’s shoulder, whispering some strong words, into their ear. They are the interference. They are the Scions.

 N’ziet is tearing off his hologlass—but Senra stops him with a hand. We’re doing this as the De Mai family, they say, and their earlier statement rings about—many are high school students. I understand Avalon.

 “We are the De Mais,” ‘Phil’ De Mai proclaims, pushing himself through the students, and they separate, letting us part, 1123 or ‘Numbers’ De Mai walking steadfastly, ‘Zen’ De Mai, their silver-matte glinting in the fallen shards’ reflections cast about, calling for the Scions’ names. “Don De Mai,” they call, and the green-haired vagrant looks their way, as poor Art stands alone and unseen, and I as ‘Ray’ De Mai bring up the rear.

 We soon surround them. Exhibitists soon appear—rather dilatorily—but Zen De Mai waves them off, giving explanation to how to these youngest members of the family, that were just jealous of the piece, they would by default be disqualified from this Exhibit, the De Mais formally apologize for these children to the wounded techist, and I see for myself that the creator, a high school student in a uniform with a silver V-book lapel, is besides themselves, unhurt and untouched by the fallen pieces, but their art is broken, their chest heaving as they look upon.

 It was a far superior piece to A Lot. I give the two Scions a hardier examination.

 The dazon has a look upon their previously triumphant face betwixt confusion and elation, caught between whether they were finally being welcomed into the esteemed De Mai house, or were, indeed, now being apprehended by the pieces of the Government. The boy has a face, he is looking at Avalon, and he understands.

 “I have to go home,” the boy says. He looks at us all, even though he does not know us. Even though he is soon to be welcomed into the garden. “Don and I have a lot of altering to do.”

 He seems confident, laying down his fears to rest. But it is there. I see it.

 Pride sits beneath his eyes, reflecting the light. He watches us closely.

 As, the techists around us fading away, the Agents lead him out of that place.

AliNovel

49 - Narcissus Garden