《Masterstroke: A Dexterity Progression Fantasy》


 Prologue: How the Faceless Feel

    Only the scariest henchman assignments required people to stand there and do nothing. Accompanying a true citizen on their endeavors normally involved navigating the city-states of the crater, observing business transactions, and most importantly, protecting them from the common man¡ªto hench was to insulate between true citizens and the substrate of society, the background humanity that allowed reality to function as it should. The woman in the black visor and matching button-down suit sipped straight from her glass bottle of crinkle tree fruit soda, calming her nerves.


    The boss, Fygra, had brought them to these eroded stone flatlands, solid expanses of impact-metamorphosed rock on the west-northwest side of the crater, where civilization seldom transited. Railgun shots high through the sky, usually from down in Stepwise, hardly counted. In the mid-evening dimness of the sun low in the sky, shadows of stray pebbles grew long over the breccia stone¡ªthe miscellaneous bin of geology, every loose mineral flash-melted and compressed together so long ago. Besides the distant mountain ranges of the rim of the crater and the always-present central feature of Mount Radius, the flatlands were featureless to the untrained eye. Only stone, cracks, and cracked stone.


    She and her coworker had been plucked out of Fygra¡¯s halls so quickly that there wasn¡¯t time to get chairs, even, so there they stood, as the only points in the blank stonescape to look upon¡ªsave, of course, the boss. Fygra stood far enough away that her face became a dot and her limbs blurred together, towards the machine a hundred steps away¨Ca thirty-story-tall juggernaut of geodesic crystal, superalloy metal shielding, at least six railguns visible from here (complete with crackling blue-white electricity along horizontally-laid copper columns directed straight at the boss). A colossal central feature resembled the engines on the back of Fygra¡¯s personal jet, far larger and in ominous burning blue. The henchwoman took another sip. Her feet were getting tired.


    A sonic quake pulsed through the ground, far enough for her to feel it from here. The machine was starting. They were probably too close for safety, but this is where Fygra told them to stand and watch.


    She looked to her compatriot in arms, practically a mirror image of herself¡ªblonde, broad-shouldered, wearing an identical visor and identical suit. An important rule of henching was to not stand out, so that one couldn¡¯t be identified by the same rabble-rouser the next time they met. Anonymity prevented work from bleeding back into your personal life. Even Fygra likely did not care. She suspected that they were a skeleton crew to tell wanderers to go away instead of gawking, if anyone ever showed up, which they wouldn¡¯t.


    ¡°Sometimes I wish I was strong like the boss,¡± her coworker said, watching the standoff.


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother,¡± the woman with the bottle said, and drank some more. Tart, sweet and faintly bitter, the way she liked it. ¡°It¡¯s not worth the hassle.¡±


    Her coworker crossed her arms over her chest. ¡°Girl, what makes you say that?¡±


    Fygra punched the ground, and the earth took notice even from here. Birds in the sky honked. Drops spilled from the neck of her drink.


    ¡°I had a phase when I was 14.¡± She grunted. ¡°There¡¯s not a ladder you can climb. Power goes high, but you can¡¯t get there.¡±


    ¡°Pff, I know.¡± Her coworker kept watching, her head tilted back to view from below her visor. ¡°What¡¯s that old figure? You can work a thousand lifetimes and not make enough money for a true citizen¡¯s breakfast?¡±


    ¡°They were underselling it when they said that,¡± the woman with the soda bottle said. ¡°If they gave the real figure, no one would listen because it would sound fake.¡±


    They commiserated a laugh together.


    The machine¡¯s jet engine fired, a sudden blast of white-hot heat that the two could feel like a second noonday sun, a cored-out borehole through air and stone that the plasma could not tell the difference between, intersecting Fygra directly, the scent of scorch and lava in the air. ¡°That¡¯s only the half of it, you know,¡± the woman with the soda bottle continued, holding her professional facade of unfazedness. She mentally prepared for receiving a medical injection to deal with the inevitable plasma-sunburn from this far away. ¡°There are only four big ways to become¡ª¡±


    Fygra jumped out of the plasma blast, wreathed in a heavy cloud of green like supercritical steam, every wisp of gas erasing the stone around her and leaving it slag. In a flash, in a jump off the stone so strong that the earth yielded under her feet, she reached the machine.


    ¡°Yeah, like that,¡± she said. ¡°You can absorb an insane amount of Dye. You get stronger, faster, tune your thinker to get skills, more durable, does everything, no one thinks ¡®I want power¡¯ and doesn¡¯t think of that.¡±


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°I¡¯m not a kid; I know what Dye is.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m saying it so you don¡¯t say I forgot one. You can get lucky with science experiments and be a biology freak, or get science to cyber your body in general, that¡¯s the second one. The one everyone actually settles for is Consolidation, and, like, you know what that does.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to become one with another person, ever. Having two sets of memories would drive me insane.¡±


    ¡°I wanted to.¡± Another drink. ¡°Thought better of it when I saw it¡¯s prosecuted the same as murder.¡±


    Fygra slammed into the side of the machine, sending white rippling waves along the unbreaking forcefield.


    ¡°Wow, it¡¯s holding. I¡¯ve never seen something stand up to her before¡­see, this is what true citizens have, the fourth thing. Being rich enough to just buy anything, literally anything that makes them better, even if it¡¯s from one of the shit old ways that people don¡¯t use anymore, until they have everything and can do whatever they want.¡±


    ¡°I could still try to get ahead in one of those four ways,¡± her coworker said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t. Look, I gave it a try. The fact is that everything is just really really fucking hard and you can¡¯t do it, except Consolidation, and even then, how are you gonna get enough Dye to trigger it?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s raiding.¡±


    ¡°No, no one actually succeeds at that besides other true citizens, and it¡¯s designed that way. What, you think the boss would ever protect her stash with something that people like us could get through?¡° She shook her head. ¡°You know those physical training courses at...did you go to the same henching program? I forget.¡±


    ¡°I did, we were just in different rotations.¡±


    ¡°Oh, okay, then we both have the only kind of strength you should bother with. Work out so you can pick up heavy things and aren¡¯t crippled when you¡¯re old.¡± The forcefield oscillated in the distance under a staccato of their boss¡¯s punches, while the machine boomed with a thunderclap of a railgun. The superheated slug of copper hit their boss¡¯s chest and splashed like water in an uncaring pot; the droplets were still white-hot when they blasted a bird straight out of the sky. ¡°I guess when you strip away all the fluff, I have better things to do than chase power. It¡¯s something that doesn¡¯t want to be chased, anyway. Personally, I think we¡¯re at the end state of what power looks like¡ªit¡¯s just going to be like this, the belonging of true citizens and way too hard or resource-heavy for anyone else to do it, forever. And they have those glint things now, so someone¡¯s going to get enough and redo the laws of reality so it¡¯s permanent that way.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know that.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a lot I don¡¯t know.¡±


    The punching stopped, and terra firma rumbled.


    Her coworker tilted her visor. ¡°There could be more ways to get strong out there. People can¡¯t have found all of them.¡±


    ¡°Pretty sure we have. We¡¯re stuck with the four big ones because all of the rest got weeded out. They¡¯re too hard and not worth the payoff. Most people don¡¯t even bother to work out; no one keeps old stuff alive that¡¯s harder and kills you slowly. Did you know there¡¯s still ¡®magic¡¯ out there, but it breaks your brain? That¡¯s one of the ones that¡¯s holding on. Everything else is either dead or close enough to dead.¡±


    The earth rent in twain. Fygra¡¯s hands pulled apart the sheet of breccia covering the flatlands, opening a ravine the width of her arms, air rushing like a tornado down to fill the chasm¡ªupon which, on opposite sides, the henchwomen stood.


    ¡°What the fuck, she can do that now?¡± the woman with the bottle asked.


    Fygra pounded the machine from above, driving it deep into the ravine, splitting and shattering so much of the now-loose stone that the rocks flew around her as dense as spring pollen. The forcefield held like the head of a nail impaling wood. Vibrations inundated the henchwoman¡¯s skin, particles of earthen grit getting into teeth. Her coworker fell back onto her rear while everything roiled below.


    ¡°Guess she can do that now,¡± the woman with the bottle moved her lips to say, but could hear nothing over the cacophony.


    She took another drink. Everything had been tried and found wanting; there were no more tricks left to match the scope of true citizens, the qualitative difference between increments of twos and threes and the people whose actions spoke in ordinals. If there were anything left to find in niche side paths that ended up as more work for less power, well, it¡¯d already have been found by now. Every way of training had a master, a person at the end, and none of them ever upended the state of things.


    If any crack in the armor existed, it¡¯d have to be in the form of crossing multiple old obscure methods for a combination that nobody had tried before, before all of the old ways died completely, and then that combination would have to be in the hands of someone incredibly driven to make it work. It was never going to happen.


    The forcefield finally warped, crumpled, and phased out of existence under Fygra¡¯s barrage, and in moments, she was tearing through superalloy like wet tissue paper, digging down to the fusion reactor core of the machine.


    All in all, an average day of two elites showing off their toys at each other.


    She finished her soda. Stepwise didn¡¯t have a drinking culture like the east side of the crater (she missed home already). After this, if she didn¡¯t need an injection, she might go blow off steam and hang out for the evening; perhaps she¡¯d find a place to meet people, play games, get some written affirmations of her value as a human being, let her hair down...to feel like someone out there was in charge and cared about her. To mix with society in a neutral, accepting place.


    Like a notary office!

 1: The Notary Profession

    Ruvle, the notary public, was about to steal from the cookie jar again. ¡­Provided she could make the inventory control sheet look right.


    Dye¨Cthe name of the golden mineral so critical to the notary profession¨Ccame in jars, the size of Ruvle¡¯s head, already pulverized into powder. When dissolved into the right solvents, it became notary ink¨Cequally as brilliant-gold as Dye¡¯s natural form, but fitting into a pen. And with that ink came power. Dye beheld strength and human actualization in all its forms, but as a signature on a page, it was the seal of approval of the trusted, sacrosanct institution bringing pride to the Crater Basin: the notary office. Ruvle took her duties seriously. She also had higher goals. These goals called for a bit of systematic bastardry.


    The front lobby of the notary office was as occupied as always, with murmurs, laughs, and welcome chatter, with the occasional pale blue flash of light joining the soundshow from the bottom crack of the backoffice door. She would get back to front-facing duties soon, but here, Ruvle had to refill her pen. It was dim back here, electric blue light-strips on the walls illuminating faintly enough to stare at directly without discomfort, throwing the cubbyhole-based organizer armoire into sharp relief. The wood was painted black, with white to delineate edges, part of the sharp black-and-white-without-gray theme of the office, which brought out the color of Dye all the better. Among the still-sealed vials of it in the cubbyholes, one was in-use and mostly empty, the transparent sidings showing one tiny golden bead available at the bottom¨Cexcept for the dust clinging to the sides, which had turned the glass from transparent to translucent sparkling yellow, the color of aged paper.


    She moved with coordinated purpose. One hand grabbed a bottle of ink solvents, her pen still between her two smallest fingers. Her other hand swiped the vial, holding it by its filigreed metal top and unscrewing it, all in the same motion to take it down from the cubbyhole. She¡¯d gotten used to splitting coordination; the perks of even Coarse-level hyperdexterity were many. She unscrewed her pen¡¯s barrel with one thumb, splashed the bead of Dye into the pen¡¯s ink cartridge, and topped it off with ink solvents before screwing it all back together. Every time she performed this process, one she¡¯d mastered by hundreds of repetitions, it was an edge faster, more precise¨Ca recent development for Ruvle, now that she chose to follow her goals. Ruvle signed the inventory record on the side of the armoire with an attached less-important, non-Dye pen, noting that the vial was empty, and that it had been solvent-washed to recover the clinging dust on the sides.


    It had not, and she was not going to do that. Instead, Ruvle looked over her shoulder¨Cthe deadbolt on the backoffice door was still closed; good¨Cand slipped her finger into the vial. The tiny grains of Dye twinkled. Ruvle concentrated upon them, willing their mineral essence to become one with her, against her skin. The location of absorption on the body was irrelevant, but it was fitting to use her fine manipulators. The gold color shone, intensifying, brightening against the electric blue lights enough to clash colors into uniform white¨Cand Ruvle felt herself becoming more. A step closer to actualization, and step towards¨C


    And then it was over before she could even parse the sensation, the idea of hope. A tiny, tiny step, in dust quantity. She should do more than just take hardly-usable dust, to be more ruthless in her pursuit, but¡­


    Being ¡°more¡± didn¡¯t feel any different this time. Progress came in phase transitions. Ruvle looked directly at the electric light and squinted¨Ctrying, with all her might, to close her left eye. There might still be shreds of muscle left in the socket. She¡¯d clung onto that idea ever since beginning her hyperdexterity journey, that maybe under the splash of red wax that covered her entire destroyed eye, beneath the vertical slit that gave it the visual presence of an animal pupil to look at, some muscle tissue remained. Could she control the sides of the slit to close it?


    No, nothing. If she still had eye muscles underneath, they would need more time. Maybe once she reached a higher phase of hyperdexterity¡­but she¡¯d keep trying every time there was a chance.


    In time, in time. But in the time of the present, her missing eye, her wax scar, had no recourse but looking distinctive.


    Before she left, Ruvle used a bit of ink solvents to wash the inside of the jar, regardless¨Cto clean off any fingerprints, and to make the ink solvents inventory sheet make sense. It was time to put back on her happy face and sign for the world.


    Ruvle emerged from the inventory backroom and to her place at the front desk¨Cher desk, a bright smile of service upon her for the people of Stepwise, the south city of Crater Basin. She looked as fantastic as ever¨Cher black suit with white pinstripes matched the office¡¯s theme, her wax-covered left eye being her only splash of color, crimson red, the vertical split watching unceasingly. The molten wax had melted and resolidified over her eye socket so long ago, leaving trails of red from adventurous heavy drops¨Csome swept back towards her ear, two more dribbled down along the side of her nose and where bags would form under less-rested peoples¡¯ eyes; she¡¯d been laying down, face-up, when it had pooled there and sealed onto her. Her skin was thoroughly fused to the material by now, to the point where trying to chip any remaining wax felt like cutting a fingernail far too close. It wasn¡¯t all bad. She could still see very faint light out of her left eye sometimes; through the red base of the wax far deep in the slit, she could tell the difference between noon and midnight. And though the comments on it were repetitive and she wished for better material from the crowd, her eye started conversations.


    The rest of her was a machine with tuning still in-progress for discipline and dexterity. Her build was slight, the sort of woman who looked 5 years older when her round shoulders were covered in an outfit that made them pointier, as her pinstripe suit did. She wore a hat, like most citizens, hers being an understated black fez. Formal, shiny black shoes and Dye-repellant white gloves completed her look, and tousled black hair of different lengths gave her the playful look of someone comfortable in formality, which she wished she could convince herself was a calculated deception instead of honest demeanor. Her tailored suit fanned out around her hips, like a tailcoat, for the feminine style¨Cher hips flared better with fashion¡¯s help.


    Beyond the front desk, the crowd bustled. Notary offices were not solely for officiating documents, but a place that the people of Stepwise met new friends and spent their downtime. Burly men threw darts at a hanging dartboard, chips of natural lumber color peeking through the black paint upon the wood around it from missed throws. Electronic harmonica played from a woman sitting at a rectangular table, with a yellow hat that almost fully covered her face. Gamers in colorful beanies and expensive multicolor light-up kneesocks played on the newest version of the Silver Screen console, an investment that Ruvle could witness paying off every day in how many people visited. And above, the cone-shaped lights from the ceiling maintained a brightness gradient, darker in the back and illuminated the most at her desk¨Cwhere she could read documents with no hoodwinking.


    ¡°Thank you for your patience!¡± Ruvle chirped. There was a line. If she was doing her job right, there was a line. ¡°How can I help you today?¡±


    The embarrassed-looking young woman at the front made a decent attempt of hiding in her hat¡¯s shadow as she stepped up. ¡°I need...help explaining to the home loan people that my roommate disappeared¡­¡±


    ¡°I can sort out any of the papers you¡¯ve brought.¡±


    And, away from the plans of how to become powerful enough¡ªin time, in time¡ªRuvle got lost in her good job.


    Every person in line needed signatures. In golden ink, she notarized the young woman¡¯s loan documents with her signature, officiating that the roommate¡¯s half of the loan was suspended and to go through procedures of finding whoever they, probably, Consolidated with. Consolidation was extremely illegal, but people did it anyway, permanently fusing two humans into one and continuing their lives as their gestalt, but they often tried to hide it or faked the deaths of their two constituents. They weren¡¯t getting off the hook so easily. The man behind her wanted to adopt a child, and with his proper identification, Ruvle notarized him to a good life of fatherhood. Next was someone starting a sports team, the next a person changing their name (Wexin was a great choice!), the next a person needing advice on how to confront his boss about unsafe working conditions¡ªand Ruvle produced the forms to officiate his accusations. Of course, there were documents of less serious, less bureaucratic means. She notarized a claim of discovery of a new strategy in an old video game, signed transfer of ownership of a mildly valuable trading card, made it official that a child had made their drawing all by themselves, that one friend in a group of lovable hooligans was the ¡°Master Idiot¡± among them. Most of the time, she had to produce the appropriate forms herself, and she knew them well. When she didn¡¯t, she didn¡¯t take long to dig in the black drawers behind the front desk, pulling white knobs with speed and precision, never getting them stuck. And every stroke of her pen, signing her swooping signature¡ªonly the first name for brevity¡ªwas nearly flawless. The same every time.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    The little things added up. The first grade of hyperdexterity didn¡¯t sound impressive, but in a job that required swift hands and serving the world at whatever pace it demanded, she appreciated saving a second in hundreds of niches per day with no extra effort at time of use. The effort had been paid and front-loaded in her training, instead. Her signature looked so much like a pinched-together flower, with one giant lobe of a petal forming the loop of the capital R.


    There were even parts of the job without paperwork. Some people just wanted someone to talk to. She had her share of life advice to dispense, though it was admittedly a small share. Her lived experience wasn¡¯t of a shut-in, but being 25 years-old meant she didn¡¯t yet have as many stories to tell as the notaries she¡¯d looked up to as a child, and her platitudes for the omnipresent ¡°how to talk to a girl or boy I like¡± question were second-hand, with no point of reference for those fluttery crushes herself.


    In all, life was good.


    And then the worknight was over.


    Notary offices like hers ran late into the evening, in time for Stepwise¡¯s nightlife to begin. By 9pm, the official closing time, people finally left¨Cthe Silver Screen console lay dormant and powered-off, the darts all placed neatly back into their acrylic holsters below the dartboard, the harmonica woman long gone, only stray food wrappers and napkins dusting the floor. Ruvle¡¯s suit pulled askance, by now, her fez drooping over her left ear and her good eye half-lidded. Her white gloves were smudged gray-and-black from sliding over non-Dye print and picking up ink, ready to be washed for tomorrow. There was just one person left in line.


    ¡°I really did get swept up, pff,¡± he said, probably smiling behind his mouth mask. ¡°I don¡¯t want you staying past closing too long; want me to come back tomorrow?¡±


    ¡°Chain, I have time for you.¡± Ruvle smiled to him.


    ¡°Aces, you¡¯re the best,¡± he said. ¡°Get me Form 780, I¡¯m ready.¡±


    She didn¡¯t see Chain in-person very much; they usually only communicated over the textwork, but he had a face too memorable to disconnect from his words. He went all-in on a soft light blue color scheme, with spiked-forward short hair dyed that color, and his mouth mask being the same shade, with a jagged black line over it made to look like cartoon spike teeth behind closed lips. He was short, matching her height, but had stocky shoulders and an outfit piled up with extra belts and pockets everywhere, like he was prepared to run off into another city with 30 pounds of carried supplies at any time of day just to see what happened. But the cargo pants were almost invisible behind light-up white sneakers, the lights being matching pale blue, all of it carefully coordinated to go with his scarf. The scarf was the important part¡ªshe knew it, he knew, everyone who had eyes could see the tislets to know it. The scarf was voluminous enough to go down to his mid-thighs, wrapped around his shoulders only once, and glowing symbols covered it seam-to-seam in a neatly arranged grid¡ªeach the size of a postage stamp, the lines more complex than simple alphabetic characters, if only because of how many there needed to be differentiated between. She¡¯d heard ¡®thousands¡¯ at one point and never had a reason to argue otherwise. The scarf was why this color scheme worked. The unique pale thread allowed tislets to last, and with the color of the light they cast, one had to really work to make pale blue not the dominant color of their outfit.


    He was the only person who knew she was embezzling a little.


    ¡°I was starting to think you decided against taking an Oath at all,¡± Ruvle said, still with her service smile as she dug in her desk¡¯s many drawers. She pulled out the simple sheet of paper, mostly blank, with empty lines to be filled and a header declaring a Personal Oath. A zip of her pen across the signature line at the bottom made what he would write upon it official.


    ¡°Nah, I¡¯ve just been ¡®thinking it through¡¯,¡± he said, wiggling his fingers near his head. ¡°You know how it goes, easy way for people to look like they''re more Thoughtful than you is to grump at you for doing anything spontaneous.¡±


    Ruvle chuckled and slid over the form, along with a black-ink pen. ¡°At least in public.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve had my mind set on this since I figured out what those fuzzies in the pictures are,¡± Chain continued, taking the pen to the paper. His handwriting was all sharp lines, with the occasional improperly-tiny circle for a loop in a letter; the latter quirk was how tislets made loops. ¡°If Thuless is actually leaking out of its prison, then I don¡¯t care if it¡¯s only in these tiny blobs. Gotta get down into the box and fix it, long-term.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a big Oath you¡¯re asking of yourself.¡±


    ¡°I know. That¡¯s why it¡¯s an Oath instead of just me telling myself I¡¯ll do it and then not doing it, kinda more important than a weight loss goal,¡± he said, as he scrawled.


    ¡°And I know, too.¡± Ruvle doffed her hat, holding it in her hand, close to her heart. ¡°I wasn¡¯t trying to talk you out of it.¡±


    ¡°Gotta play out those motions, I get it. You ask me about an angle I haven¡¯t considered so you look thoughtful, and I show I¡¯ve considered it so I look thoughtful, world keeps turning without an excuse to look down on us.¡± He grinned. ¡°Been a while since I wrote by pen, this is way easier than scrivening.¡±


    ¡°The alphabet isn¡¯t as magical as tislets,¡± Ruvle joked.


    ¡°Truth told! Okay, done.¡±


    He passed the paper back.


    I, Chain Hydrapress, will find the prison of Thuless (Thoughtless) and seal all leaks that allow it to seep into the outside world. I will also find all macroscopic pieces of Thuless, ¡°or glints¡± of Thuless, being wielded by public or well-resourced figures for their nefarious ends, and either destroy them or put them back in the box.


    Ruvle held back the urge to comment on the last part; even saying she ¡®wouldn¡¯t comment¡¯ would draw attention to the imprecise language just to be a jerk. This was within normal for filling out an Oath. She tapped an empty line above her signature with the cap of her pen. ¡°And the penalty if you don¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°Just take everything I¡¯ve got, because if I fail at this, I don¡¯t have anything else left to do?¡± He laughed nervously.


    Ruvle awkwardly wrote in some comically large sum of money, large enough to go straight to bankruptcy proceedings.


    ¡°By the way, uh, Ruvle¡­¡± Chain said, shifting his weight back and forth, hands sliding left and right over the edge of the desk.


    ¡°I¡¯m listening.¡± Ruvle smiled.


    ¡°If I do get an in on taking down one of the big guys that have a glint of Thuless, can I...ask you to help? No pressure if you don¡¯t, it¡¯s my Oath and everything.¡±


    They locked eyes for a tense few seconds, and Ruvle sighed to herself. She put her fez back on. ¡°Maybe.¡±


    ¡°Good enough for me.¡±


    ¡°I just can¡¯t be sure that what the true citizens have are Thuless pieces yet,¡± Ruvle said, ¡°and if they do, it doesn¡¯t mean Thuless¡¯s prison will ever completely break down, or that this isn¡¯t a one-time problem. I...have my own problems going on.¡±


    ¡°I get ya.¡± He pointed to his left eye, mirroring hers. ¡°If you do come to peace with that scientist, then hey, I¡¯d be stoked to have you with me.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not the scientist that I¡¯m mad at, it¡¯s¡­¡± She shouldn¡¯t go onto a big rant about how exactly she despised the true citizen funding the specific M.A.D. lab that she was once abducted into, partly because it was closing time and she had to go get ready for her training this evening, and partly because a therapist had already helped her realize that she felt fucking awful when ruminating on her grudge. ¡°It¡¯s still a maybe.¡±


    ¡°Catch you later.¡± Chain wrapped his scarf tighter around himself. ¡°I¡¯m on the textwork if you need me.¡±


    ¡°Good luck, Chain.¡±


    He was out the door shortly, leaving Ruvle to herself, the office going silent.


    She vaulted the desk to lock the front door. After a full day of work, now was...the hard part. Training.

 2: Precision is Power

    Ruvle strained to score the tip of the triangular blade across the film, carving out a single letter to add to the crossword puzzle. She¡¯d been avoiding this one; the very sharp angles of a W were so hard to get right without overlapping strokes. In the wake of the knifepoint, the transparent film grew white scratches, like sand piling around a finger dragged along a beach. Ruvle gritted her teeth. She couldn¡¯t blink or lose total focus. She had to be one with her hands in a way that the uninitiated couldn¡¯t imagine¡­


    ¡°...That¡¯s an X,¡± she said mostly to herself, and sighed. Her eyestrain relieved as her vision changed focus back to the written instructions behind the film. The crossword clue was ¡®crater rim common decoration¡¯, and while she hadn¡¯t personally been to the wide pass where the crater¡¯s ring of outer mountains had a break, she¡¯d seen the pictures of windchimes everywhere that caught the ever-blowing breeze. The answer was Windchimes and she¡¯d messed up the letter¡­


    ¡°You can salvage it,¡± came a dispassionate, monotone woman¡¯s voice from behind her.


    Ruvle held back from sighing too hard, or she¡¯d break the film. ¡°I can.¡± Her stabilizing muscles were tiring; the mistakes were piling up¡­


    ¡°Remember why you do this. You have it in you.¡±


    She thought back to the lab, the sabotage those years ago, her misfortune at the turn of adulthood. She still remembered the bubbling floor-to-ceiling chambers of glowing green-and-blue liquids, the thunder sparking between toroidal coils and giant floor-mounted electrodes, the nest of supercomputer cables carpeting the entire ceiling, the shark pit she¡¯d ran past, the monorail car used to get around from floor to floor. Every M.A.D. lab that made real, tangible advancements to science looked like those; the boring ¡®practical¡¯ labs never explored the nature of reality enough and didn¡¯t have enthusiastic enough workers. Not all of them were used for good, though, and the one she¡¯d been kidnapped into for several days...it was why Nerso had to burn. True citizens always had their weird projects, vile as they might be. Having ultra-wealth to the point of controlling industry and the shape of society destroyed the mind, perhaps. She never learned exactly why the scientist, nearly as much a prisoner as she was, chose to pour the molten wax. He¡¯d been apologizing before, during, and after.


    He¡¯d been intentionally negligent to let her escape, for certain, and probably set the killer robot defense force to low-power maintenance mode himself, rather than that coming as a random stroke of luck during her escape. If he hadn¡¯t done that, she¡¯d want revenge against him, not just his patron and his sick true citizen boredom to see what would happen.


    It still didn¡¯t feel good to ruminate, but it drove her. Ruvle poured her willpower into her tired hands, forcing the jittering to stop. Two more careful cuts across the film, larger, bolder, turned the barely-crossed X into what visually scanned as a W¡ªjust one that had been corrected. The film remained unpunctured.


    ¡°Good,¡± the voice from behind told her. ¡°Take a rest.¡±


    Ruvle¡¯s brow unfurrowed, and she let her arms drop, letting go of the needle and the knife cutting it. She pulled her face away from the microscope and jumped off of the balance ball.


    Around her, fellow initiates of the old art of Exaction were hard at work or hard at play; the central ground floor of the old monastery had plenty of space for those working in parallel¡ªeven those who merely witnessed hyperdexterity, those who could not yet effortlessly climb the woven indigo netting along the walls. It was the only way to isolated platforms above on the walls, like a hundred balconies overlooking an indoor courtyard of initiates. Indigo saturated Ruvle¡¯s vision now that she didn¡¯t have her face to the microscope and the needle she¡¯d been sculpting in the eye of¡ªthe platform undersides were of dark purple wood, the floor tilings used bright blue-to-indigo stone, and the ceiling above was a floral mosaic of indigo stained glass that cast filtered sunlight down into the interior. Ruvle never knew where they¡¯d gotten this striking color of stone for the floor tiles¨Cthe monastery was built into an out-of-the-way mountainside at the crater¡¯s edge, and all of these mountains took on a neutral gray. Perhaps when Exaction was not so niche, they found it somewhere far away¨Cback when the skill was to be reckoned with, before Consolidation or wealth were the true names of power, or even niche modern tislets. Ruvle took tired breaths as she rested, upright, her arms dangling down and her fingers twitching in the purple light. ¡°Why are my hands getting tired so much faster? It wasn¡¯t like this last month...¡±


    ¡°Higher precision uses more energy,¡± her new teacher answered. The woman didn¡¯t match the hyperdexterity color, her skin being faded to washed-out gray, her eyes not quite lifeless, but apathetic, her body intensely lean. The headband she wore, at least, had ornate zigzag patterns of indigo on gold, its edges pinning back her raven hair. ¡°At the same time, you lose muscle mass to grow more nerves. Fewer muscle cells are taking on more work.¡±


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Ruvle shook her hands as if flinging away drops of water. ¡°I thought nerves were helping me use all my body resources. Is it not working on me?¡±


    ¡°Remember that you¡¯re still Coarse,¡± her teacher added, her voice monotone¡ªinterested, but barely, holding onto that wisp of emotion. ¡°Trainees closer to Fine have more endurance. You will find more to give when your body is better at looking.¡±


    ¡°Can I speed this up any?¡± Ruvle asked, pulling on the neckline of her bodysuit. The historical indigo hyperdexterity outfit was skin-tight and would not shift with movements, preventing a settling shirt sleeve from interfering with delicate precision. It covered her from neck to wrists to ankles, with hands and feet bare; others wore similar. ¡°I want to be powerful.¡±


    ¡°Unless you can buy a case of Dye, the method is to train,¡± her teacher said.


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll train.¡± The former was not a serious alternative, akin to liquidating a career¡¯s worth of savings.


    As the two walked to the other side of the ground floor, they passed by fellow trainees, mostly Coarse-level and a few tentatively-interested folk of only Gross dexterity, not even wearing the indigo bodysuits. Three other trainees¨Ca rare day, a rare level of activity, where Ruvle could often arrive to the monastery and stand under the stained moonlight all to herself. One trainee stood on a suspended wire on one foot, another intensely focused on balancing an inverted double pendulum in his hand, and still another practiced contortionism to fit through a freestanding maze of welded iron, with passages small enough that squirrels would better pass. No skill promoted Exaction on its own; a varied diet of practices mattered. They passed under one of the lowermost balconies, under which hung a banner that Ruvle had seen a hundred times, its faded print on indigo vellum outlining the grades of skill.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to throw darts at you,¡± her teacher explained, picking some out of a wooden box on the floor; she idly flicked four towards the dartboard¡ªthe same model as in Ruvle¡¯s notary office. They struck the triple-score band of the 20 sector of the board, hitting each corner exactly.


    ¡°And I have to dodge them? That doesn¡¯t even sound like hydex training.¡±


    Her trainer paused, and then sighed. ¡°You don¡¯t have to call it Exaction. I know it¡¯s a dying art. No one truly cares anymore. But can you at least call it hyperdexterity?¡±


    Ruvle pushed aside her shy thoughts. Stand firm. ¡°I do care. It¡¯s what I want to do with my body; that¡¯s why I want to go all the way to Ultrafine.¡± Among other reasons.


    ¡°That will be a major sacrifice. Even I haven¡¯t taken it.¡± A twinge of regret entered her teacher¡¯s voice.


    ¡°I¡¯m honored to keep your tradition alive, though.¡±


    Her teacher smiled. Ruvle looked up at the banner.


    The degrees of hyperdexterity on it were easy to understand: Coarse, Fine, and Ultrafine, all three beyond what humans could achieve with normal genetic gifts or practice¡ªand each level was to the previous what Coarse was to the common bystander. Coordination, balance, grace, precision of movement, tactile perception, even some physical speed were all raised to heights that excelled beyond gymnasts and accomplished sport archers. The dartboard was boring, normally. Ruvle could hit a bullseye from several buildings away. But her Fine-level teacher could hold a laser pointer trained at the tip of a spire from the street outside, be buffeted by the crowd from all directions, while reading a book in her free hand, and no one would notice the dot so much as twitch. It had taken much time and training just for Ruvle to reach Coarse, and she could now study under someone beyond it¨Cthe only someone beyond it who regularly visited, whom Ruvle had been avoidant enough about that she still didn¡¯t know her new teacher¡¯s name. There were two people at Ultrafine-level who rarely visited the monastery, neither of them present today¡ªthose who had to sacrifice so much of themselves became reclusive, several of their bodily organs replaced with M.A.D. science so that the natural workings of the human body didn¡¯t cause vibrations large enough to drown out their precision. Their incredible self-control scrubbed their minds to tabula rasa. A Point-Perfect level existed beyond even Ultrafine, strictly speaking, but it destroyed all three of its historical practitioners beyond salvation.


    Even her Fine teacher had that apathy setting in from controlling herself to perfection at all times, plus, perhaps, the lack of a pulse anymore. The heart was the first organ that had to go.


    ¡°Pick up that broomstick there,¡± her teacher told her, ¡°and deflect my darts. They should hit only the sector I tell you to.¡±


    Ruvle¡¯s face paled, but she picked up the broomstick anyway. ¡°That sounds hard.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s supposed to be.¡±


    ¡°Is it weird that that makes me feel a lot better?¡± Ruvle detached the head from the broomstick and spun the stick.


    ¡°Sector 16,¡± came the response, along with a dart.

 3: Its Supposed to be Hard

    2:30 a.m. passed. Ruvle stood with shaky legs, her arms pockmarked with blunted jabs from darts. She struggled to catch her breath, but it would not stay in her lungs, like water draining from a colander. Her hair splattered in the sweat along her neck, and the red blush of overwork and pumping blood was taking over her skin. Her muscles ached down to their tendons. She longed for her hammock at home.


    ¡°2,¡± the teacher told her, tossing another dart.


    Ruvle batted it out of the air, the broomstick knocking it up into a graceful overhead arc. The dart clattered against Sector 2 of the dartboard, just as planned¡ªbut at an angle too steep, bouncing off instead of getting stuck.


    ¡°A lower angle this time.¡± Her teacher smiled faintly. Ruvle let out a wheezing breath. ¡°15.¡±


    Ruvle knocked the next dart out of the air. It struck close to the correct sector¡ªa fingernail¡¯s width over the line into the wrong one.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised that you¡¯re not too exhausted to continue,¡± her teacher told her.


    ¡°I am,¡± Ruvle gasped. ¡°But I want to be strong. I¡¯m pushing.¡±


    Her teacher lined up another dart shot, pride in her eyes. ¡°Zero.¡±


    Ruvle grunted and slapped the speeding dart with the broomstick. The dart sailed into the board, directly into the bullseye, joining many others embedded in the dense board.


    While her teacher stepped over to retrieve the darts, as she¡¯d done so many times already during this endless training, Ruvle stuck the staff into the broom head and leaned on the reconstituted broom like it were a walking stick. Her head hung. She couldn¡¯t slow down. She needed more Dye to build endurance faster. Dye helped a person advance in essentially every physical and mental aspect, albeit inefficiently¡ªsomething that could be done in parallel with ambitious training, so if she could get¡ª


    Her pen clicked of its own accord. A message from the textwork? Ruvle tugged on the neckline of her bodysuit and reached down the collar; she pulled out her notary pen and twisted the barrel in a careful sequence. Everyone¡¯s communication device worked differently and hers was this one. She pressed on the clip, shining a golden light onto the indigo floor tiles like a flashlight¡ªand in the illuminated spot, text showed in dark spots, shadow puppetry with words instead of fingers.


    ¡®Chain Hydrapress ~ I¡¯m leaving this for you to wake up to. I got a plan, tell me when you want to talk.¡¯


    Something to think about besides how exhausted she was. Ruvle scribbled her response in the air and then slid the clip up and down to send it. ¡®Mielo ~ I can talk now¡¯. Ruvle had to use her old name on the textwork to avoid it becoming another channel of informal paperwork and requests for off-hours work.


    ¡®Aces, you¡¯re awake,¡¯ came Chain¡¯s response with the next click of her pen.


    ¡®Not easily,¡¯ she wrote back.


    Ruvle noticed that her teacher was already back at the box of darts, with the board plucked clean and a dart in her hand, waiting patiently like she¡¯d been there for minutes. They made awkward eye contact for a few seconds, and her teacher twirled her dart. No words were exchanged, but both of them looked at the pen, then the dart, and Ruvle understood that juggling these two actions would be her last dexterity challenge of the night. ¡°4,¡± her teacher said.


    Ruvle knocked the thrown dart out of the air, broomstick in one hand and pen in the other. It hit Sector 4, while Ruvle read Chain¡¯s response.


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    ¡®I went through my list of true cits that I¡¯m pretty sure have a piece of Thoughtless. All of these guys are untouchable. I can¡¯t do very much with the tislet skill I have, everyone is MASSIVELY protected in their towers and forts. The gauntlets you have to go through are skills I¡¯ll never have.¡¯


    ¡°8.¡±


    Ruvle grunted and swung for the dart, knocking it vertically upwards.


    ¡®Then is your oath impossible?¡¯ Ruvle wrote back, as the dart arced up in the air¡ªand on its descent back down, she struck it again, sending it sailing into Sector 8.


    ¡®No, because some I can get eventually. One of them has a gauntlet where you move megaton-sized stones. You can get a robot for that.¡¯


    There were two kinds of personal security systems. One was the boring, practical kind that didn¡¯t give people an obvious but incredibly difficult method to defeat them, the sort for masochistic video game players, but instead were just straightforwardly murderous well-studied security principles with no exploits to close off any actual ways to get to a true citizen.


    The others, the multilayer deathtraps that required extreme skill to get through, were the kind that actually worked. It turned out that if there was no way to beat a security system, the weakest link became the physical integrity of the entire personal fortress, and people tried blowing it up or launching railguns into it instead. Bombs that unsorted half of the structure¡¯s masonry were a bigger problem than cleaning up fried skeletons along the intended route every once in a while. Ruvle didn¡¯t have mental bandwidth to speculate on a world where the opposite would be the case at the moment.


    ¡®But there¡¯s this one guy. He¡¯s not a true citizen, he¡¯s someone who a true cit sponsored for a while and he¡¯s rolled on that ever since. I think there¡¯s a chance,¡¯ Chain continued.


    ¡°12.¡±


    An instant of hesitation from fatigue, and another from unsurety of her depth perception¡ªand the dart bounced off Ruvle¡¯s shoulder before she reacted.


    ¡°Try not to lose awareness,¡± her teacher told her. It wasn¡¯t a lack of focus. Ruvle missed having binocular vision so she could know for sure how far away something was.


    ¡®Othek Perfectcoil. The only reason I know about this guy is that he¡¯s been making a huge fuss around Stepwise lately. He¡¯s cooped up not even a railgun shot away. There¡¯s this giant tower with a hydraulic vault door at the top, there¡¯s a laser maze on the way down, flying security drones that shoot at you outside. I think I can handle the acid pit room myself. But then there¡¯s that other stuff.¡¯


    ¡®And you need me for that,¡¯ Ruvle answered.


    ¡®Yeah! Give it a spin, lass!¡¯


    ¡°11.¡±


    Ruvle groaned and shut her eye, shoulders shivering. She waited for the whiff of air and heaved with all she could of her strength; the dart hit the board, but several sectors away.


    ¡°Give me one more good deflection, Ruvle. You can do this.¡±


    She groaned. She took a few breaths while answering Chain. ¡¯Maybe. I¡¯m not training tomorrow.¡¯


    ¡®Aces. I¡¯ll come by then.¡¯


    ¡°Zero,¡± her teacher repeated. Ruvle stared down the point of the dart as she lined it up for a throw. ¡°Push yourself. Only one more.¡±


    She twirled her pen and the broomstick in opposite hands. Her teacher threw and Ruvle lunged into a swing, grunting much louder than she needed to¡ªand with two rapid clangs of metal on two different kinds of wood, the dart came to rest, impaling the board behind her¡ªthrough the bullseye.


    She looked over her shoulder and let out a relieved sigh, dropping the broomstick. Her teacher smirked with pride. ¡°If only I had your willpower when I started out.¡±


    Ruvle put her pen back in her suit, putting in the effort for her muscles to stop quivering, to show her own pride in herself. ¡°If you don¡¯t get to Ultrafine first, I¡¯ll catch you soon.¡± She smiled back.


    ¡°And when you take the surgeries to get there, I¡¯ll watch you pass me by.¡±

 4: Chained to Ideals

    Ruvle didn¡¯t spend much time at ¡®home¡¯¡ªthe place where she slept and prepared meals was for recovery, not living her life. The notary office was already quintessentially her space, never mind that it belonged to the legacy of the family and the grip of Stepwise¡¯s regulators. But at the end of a long day, nothing felt quite as good as going into the office¡¯s back file room, pushing up the square panel that led to the attic, and climbing up inside. With no light save for her pen, under thick sheets of jet-black fluffy insulation for a ceiling, Ruvle shuffled past¡ªpast her chest full of plushies, past the stick-on reflective stars on the insulation to look like a night sky, past the old unused armoire that she repurposed as a pantry. She did her nighttime ritual¡ªchanging into fuzzy pajamas, telling the elephant plushie and the cat plushie individually that she was going to sleep now, and pulling herself up between the structural timbers that held her hammock. All that was left was to look at her pen as she turned it off, winking out all light and any need to keep thinking about her day. She was asleep within seconds, her arms crossed over her chest, face up to the sky.


    The best measure of focused training was recovery per night. Exhausting oneself to collapse was not a magic bullet for skill; doing it constantly without enough rest would stifle the benefits, even without collecting injuries. Rest to recover from exhaustion was what promoted growth, and iterating it brought the body closer to perfection. New nerves under the skin would be waiting for her in the morning, while newer and finer tuning of her physical coordination locked in. None of it worked without having something to recover from, of course, but neither would it if sleep were cut short or fitful, either. Ruvle¡¯s best days were ones in which she¡¯d trained so hard that she could barely drag herself to her hammock, slept for 9 hours, and awoke so energetic that she jumped for joy to greet the morning.


    She couldn¡¯t get all nine this time. She had business hours at noon tomorrow. But Ruvle made do.


    That evening, she shooed out the crowd of the notary office early¡ªsomeone hosted a ¡°best friend anniversary¡± party that was clearly a coded Consolidation anniversary, so she had a reason to close up as soon as they did. By 7pm, the doors were shut, and the office lights shone on Ruvle¡¯s desk, where she let herself sneak in a nap¡ªarms crossed on the surface, face down, her fez crooked and drooping, her knees on the floor and pointing to each other.


    A loud knock on the door roused her. Her head shot up from the desk; Ruvle gathered her wits before her reflexes could shout ¡®CLOSED¡¯ for her. The frosted glass door had bright pale blue shining behind it.


    ¡°Chain,¡± she said upon opening it, her other hand smoothing the wrinkles on her notary suit.


    ¡°Ruvle, my main lass,¡± he said, clearly grinning behind that mask. His scarf was wrapped securely around his neck in three loops, instead of flowing freely. ¡°Wanna go raiding?¡±


    She smiled sadly. ¡°I did say ¡®maybe¡¯.¡±


    ¡°I get ya, that¡¯s why I¡¯m asking instead of telling. I¡¯ll swing it solo if you¡¯re not feeling.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t...here, come in,¡± she said, gesturing towards herself.


    Chain stopped standing in the middle of the doorway and took a seat on the gaming couch. He propped up his all-iron boots with grooved steel treads, a different choice from yesterday¡¯s light-up-sneakers. ¡°Got reservations?¡±


    ¡°I just need a...better reason to get involved.¡±


    ¡°Easy, smashing up Thuless glints¡¯ll make the world a better place,¡± he answered. ¡°And it¡¯s not illegal to go raiding, just illegal to succeed!¡± He laced his fingers behind his head.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Ruvle sat down beside him and smiled apologetically. ¡°...Chain, that¡¯s not a reason for me.¡± He dropped his arms and gestured with his hand for her to continue talking. ¡°I¡¯m a bad person. If there¡¯s not something in it for me, I can¡¯t help. I want to, but I can¡¯t.¡±


    He twirled the cable of the game controller around his finger. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s not bad-person stuff, Ruvle, everyone needs to get paid.¡±


    But I AM ruthless, she thought, but didn¡¯t protest aloud. No one made it ahead without willingness to make choices others weren¡¯t. ¡°I need a bribe, a big one. Sorry.¡±


    Chain puffed air into his cheeks and balled up the controller; he slung it across the game table. ¡°Tell you what, the Thuless glint is the part I care about. You can get sticky fingers for all his stuff if we get through and I won¡¯t take a thing.¡±


    Ruvle blinked. ¡°D...deal.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t think I¡¯d jump straight to 100-0 split, did ya?¡±


    ¡°No. I mean, it¡¯s too late to take it back now, let me¡ª¡± Ruvle stood up to go get a form from her desk.


    ¡°Put whatever you want on it, as long as you say that you¡¯re coming with!¡±


    People made formal documentation for illegal practices all the time¡ªthey just used the wrong forms for plausible deniability. Inheritance Dispute Resolution was the usual one for laundering suspicious acquisitions. Ruvle vaulted her desk and had a contract drawn up and signed within the minute. ¡°Ready.¡±


    ¡°Get dressed, I need that super speed.¡± Chain winked.


    Ruvle ducked into the back file room and into the attic from there; she made a quick change into her hyperdexterity bodysuit, but kept her fez. She didn¡¯t usually get to wear aspects from two sides of herself. She re-emerged within another minute, the indigo contours holding close to her curves, making her the unspoken center of attention on the black-and-white floor. ¡°It¡¯s...not super speed, you should know,¡± she said.


    ¡°You don¡¯t gotta be humble to me,¡± he answered, getting up from the couch and knotting the end of his scarf. The tislets didn¡¯t follow the bunches and twists of fabric in the same way that her bodysuit held securely to her skin¡ªthe fingernail-sized symbols tried to hover over their assigned spots, without bending, remaining squares on a grid that minimized curvature. Knots caused them to intersect over themselves. It always looked like a visual mistake to Ruvle, somehow. ¡°Can¡¯t you pluck atoms and outrun light and all that? You just smack the vault door just and it magically opens twenty locks at once; you do hydex, that¡¯s why I need you, you¡¯ll never miss if we need to throw anything or hit anything!¡± He grinned and gestured for the door. ¡°Come on, we¡¯ll kick some butt.¡±


    ¡°I...no, I can¡¯t!¡± Ruvle said, trotting up and holding her fez in place. ¡°Chain, stop!¡± she told him, with him halfway out the door.


    ¡°Yeah? Did I say something?¡± He turned around, his voice going quieter.


    ¡°Hyperdexterity isn¡¯t super speed.¡± She frowned apologetically. ¡°It¡¯s about coordination, precision, moving your body in the exact way you need it to. No one has...super speed, nothing you¡¯d recognize as time turning off when they move. Ultrafine people are fast, but it¡¯s not that, it¡¯s never going to be that. And I¡¯m not that good, I¡¯m not foremotive, I¡¯m not hypervoluntary, I can¡¯t even see the difference in deoscillation yet¡ª¡± She¡¯d have to give Chain a lot of context to explain what those meant¡ª ¡°and I¡¯m only Coarse, not even Fine.¡±


    Chain chuckled. ¡°Oh. That one¡¯s my bad. Half of that was me using figurative language for compliments, to a chick whose job is getting words exactly right.¡±


    Ruvle released her breath and her need for technicalities. ¡°I just want you to know what you¡¯re getting into.¡±


    ¡°Easy, I¡¯m getting into Othek¡¯s tower. That did actually help, though, I think I get what hydex is better now.¡±


    ¡°Hyperdexterity, or Exaction,¡± she corrected.


    ¡°Start calling it a different word that has an ¡®ex¡¯ in every time I say it, got it.¡±


    Ruvle followed him out, smiling.

 5: Dont Think, Just Ride

    ¡°Wh, wait, I thought ¡®not even a railgun shot away¡¯ meant we were walking,¡± Ruvle said, hurriedly, her hands balled up at her clavicles while Chain stepped onto the big electrode platform.


    ¡°Nah, it¡¯s not crazy far, but you still gotta have a ride.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t bring minirail shoes.¡± She blinked a few times, calming herself, focusing inward. No fear. ¡°I thought you were wearing yours for protection!¡±


    ¡°Nope, we¡¯re mini-ing!¡±


    ¡°But I can¡¯t ride.¡±


    He extended his arms down towards her, palms up, flapping his fingers. ¡°So I¡¯ll carry you!¡±


    The minirail system was what let people get around Stepwise quickly and efficiently, and Ruvle did not like it. Chain stood upon a big circular platform of chrome and iron, singed and discolored in voltaic blotches from bad electrical arcs, resembling the rainbow slicks of oil on water. Structural steel spokes around the platform held up snakes of copper-inset cables, each of them sailing off into the distance overhead, above the surrounding buildings in swooping trails above the skyline. In the center, a rod with multi-stepped insulating disks crackled with electricity, protected from the exploratory fingers of children by a ring of chain-link fence, and square bins of steel helmets lined the outside of the platform.


    Ruvle took his hands in her own and let him heave her up onto the electrode; he stumbled back under her weight and she found her footing immediately. ¡°Phew,¡± Chain said, and snatched up one of the helmets; it looked like an upside-down colander if one weren¡¯t paying attention. ¡°Not a fan of mini?¡±


    ¡°Ch...no, I, I rode once as a kid and it was a disaster,¡± Ruvle explained, watching. ¡°I had the wrong boot size because I was growing so fast, and one of my feet slipped out and I was dangling and crying the whole way.¡±


    ¡°Oh, sucks, doing feet tricks is the fun part of minirail.¡±


    She huffed. ¡°My parents got really condescending that I didn¡¯t think through what would happen with loose shoes. There are bad experiences and then there are bad experiences that you get yelled at for¡­¡±


    ¡°Good thing I¡¯m not gonna do that. Hop back in my arms.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not...ready for you to slip and let go and have me fall.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a lot tougher than you were when you were a kid, right?¡± Chain scooped her up in his arms once more, her thighs on one bicep and her shoulders across the other. ¡°You¡¯ll land on your feet if anything happens.¡±


    ¡°R...right.¡± She put her hand on her fez, for what came next.


    ¡°¡¯cause you¡¯re a hexagon now, Coarse.¡±


    Chain trotted to the edge of the electrode platform past the rest of the personal transport crowd, and with a running jump, hopped up onto one of the cables. A shower of sparks roared with voltage behind his boots, like a firecracker¡¯s fuse burning, and Chain rocketed off, propelled along the cable with the spectacle of electromagnetism. Magnetic field lines banked him around a sharp bend on the cable on his way up, around, to the skyline, and soon they were free of ground-level obstruction, sailing along the iron path, arcs crackling behind them.


    Electrical power was so cheap that M.A.D. work had made old modes of personal transport obsolete. All one needed was to wear right-sized boots to grind the rail¡ªwhich were of so many sizes that it didn¡¯t make municipal sense to provide them¡ªgrab a one-size-fits-all helmet so that the electromagnetic field lines worked out to actually keep one upon the rail, and step on. Modern alloys were very good at holding cable rigid for the entire way. Chain¡¯s arms should have felt far less secure than the high-tech electro-hardened metal beneath them, but¡­


    ...it was hard to worry with the view from up here. The patchwork mix of building heights, from district to district, from street to pedestrian street, stood out like the stepped edges of raw, uncut crystals mined from the earth. Nests of cables, be they power or minirail, connected glass-and-steel skyscrapers with ground-level brick shacks. On the horizon, the mountainous edges of the crater blocked the post-sunset sky, outlined by the deep reds and oranges of the celestial transition to night, fading down to let the stars come out to play. In a gap between two skyscrapers, she could even see Mount Radius, the peak in the quasi-lake at the center of the crater. The red fires of an aluminum foundry roared in the middle of a district of brick housing. Liquid oxygen poured from the eyeholes of a skull-shaped M.A.D. lab, leaving rippling distortions that twinkled the gibbous moon above.


    ¡°Not so bad, is it?¡± Chain asked, grinning.


    ¡°I have some nerves about it,¡± Ruvle said, taking off her fez and holding it tight in her now-dangling hand.


    ¡°I don¡¯t blame ya. I did spring this on you.¡±


    ¡°Well, you didn¡¯t know¡­¡±


    He shrugged; she shifted and settled in his arms. ¡°Gotta get to know you for real at some point, not just blather on the textwork. Meeting for real was a year late, I say.¡±


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Ruvle chuckled. She let her head dangle back.


    ¡°We got a guy coming, so we¡¯re banking. Don¡¯t mean to scare ya, I¡¯ve still got you.¡±


    On the same cable, two people rode in the opposite direction. Head-on collisions were rare on minirail; using automatic quirks of repulsion and the dance between magnetism and electricity, Chain rotated clockwise along the cable automatically the closer they came¡ªas did the others. They whizzed past each other, diametrically opposite, sliding sideways as if defying gravity. Only the field lines from their helmets to their feet stopped them from falling¡ªexcept for Ruvle, who wrapped her arms tightly around Chain¡¯s shoulders, him holding her equally securely. Her hair dangled down, her heart pumping fast¡ªand then they were upright again.


    Not so bad. She sighed in relief.


    ¡°So you were saying some stuff earlier about what you couldn¡¯t do,¡± Chain said.


    Ruvle took the chance to think about something that didn¡¯t scare her. ¡°There are things I¡¯ll eventually be able to do when I get better at Exaction. ¡®Hypervoluntary¡¯, that just means I¡¯ll have enough nerves that there¡¯s a phase transition and suddenly I¡¯m consciously aware of every single voluntary muscle in my body and exactly what it¡¯s doing. I¡¯m not there yet.¡±


    ¡°Phase transition?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± She put her fez back on, holding it in place. ¡°I have to grow more nerves, way more nerves than Gross-level people have, before I become Fine. The more I do, the more I can control smaller sections of muscles independently and more precisely, and the nerves start talking to each other differently because there¡¯s so many of them. It¡¯s like you¡¯re pressurizing a gas and the molecules bump into each other in new ways. And eventually there¡¯s the last atmosphere of pressure, and the gas molecules are constantly talking to each other so much that they condense out into a liquid.¡± She nodded. Strands of her hair were rising, floating in the wind as if it were water, buoyed by static electricity. ¡°But for nerves, it¡¯s the way they communicate that phase transitions, not the...physical arrangement of them. So one day I¡¯m going to suddenly have total awareness of every muscle fiber at all times every second of every day.¡±


    ¡°You know the fun part about that? You say it like you¡¯re dead certain it¡¯ll happen.¡±


    ¡°It will, and you¡¯ll have to deal with me being insane for about a week.¡±


    Chain cackled, throwing his head back.


    ¡°I have to be hypervoluntary before we worry about any of the other parts.¡± Ruvle smiled.


    Chain bent his knees and leaned in, gaining speed on a gentle downwards slope of the rail before he swung around a skyscraper, sparks scattering over the brick buildings below like disappearing confetti. ¡°Sheesh, tislets are way less strict, I say. I¡¯m not great at this either, but I don¡¯t have to jump through hoops to get the more powerful tools. All I know how to scriven are a couple of physia, and that¡¯s what I¡¯m bringing to this, but if I find all the tislets I need and have a formula, there¡¯s no reason I can¡¯t put up an entire zone.¡±


    He¡¯d mentioned the process of learning tislets and putting them together into powerful effects a few times over the textwork; Ruvle struggled to remember. ¡°And zones are the powerful effects?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Physia are me changing how the scarf works, sujecta are about changing how other junk on the floor works, and zones are changing whole regions of space, in that order of how cool and how complicated they are. I don¡¯t actually know how to do anything without thousands of tislets and this sucker only fits 5,888, though, so you¡¯re getting two. Bright side is, I can spam them, make my scarf have the properties or not when I want to.¡±


    Ruvle nodded. ¡°...can you pick up a sujecta to just, open a hole in the wall we¡¯re trying to get into?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d love to, but the alcazar sucks and other tislet people are so damn cagey about sharing their tricks, you know? It messes with your head to be in there.¡±


    Ruvle was never clear on what that ¡®alcazar¡¯ thing was. At one point she was convinced that it was a community mind palace, and another that it was some parallel plane library with dimensions dwarfing the entire crater, and another that it was an actual mansion somewhere that she could get to if she wanted, and at that point she¡¯d given up.


    ¡°Half of me¡¯s betting Thuless is why we don¡¯t get along,¡± Chain said, voice lowering to a grumble. ¡°Can¡¯t have a collection of people all sharing easy new tools to make the world a better place. So of course that¡¯s an emergent property Thuless would have messed with.¡± As the city passed by to the suburbs underneath them, buildings receded and spread further apart, opening into the rocky terrain of increasingly-undeveloped crater land. ¡°And now it¡¯s getting out.¡±


    Ruvle shifted in Chain¡¯s clearly-tiring arms, pulling herself around his shoulders and reorienting to ride piggyback. ¡°The glints can¡¯t be as powerful as the entire Thoughtless, can they? I honestly wasn¡¯t sure Thoughtless was real, more like a story, an ideal, the same way we say Thought made everything work together for joy even though we know it¡¯s just a story, so there¡¯s a Thoughtless that broke some of the emergent properties to make it not perfect¡­¡±


    ¡°Nope, Thoughtless is a real thing, in a real prison, with real tislets. If it has a mind that can hold a grudge, that¡¯s why it targeted tislets specifically, but I think it might just be ¡®beep boop maximize misery¡¯ brain nothingness, and no, I¡¯m not taking my chances with glints. It¡¯s not like they can rewrite the four-hundredth-order effects of basic rules like Thoughtless did with crap like...life forms eating each other means they get ahead, so nature is built on murder, or...you can have a gigantic economy and no matter how much food you make, huge amounts of it rot and people still go hungry. Yeah, all that. But the jerks on top have toys to start changing rules as they see fit for them now.¡±


    The cable descended, a gentle slope, heading to another electrode in the distance closing in¡ªsimpler, with fewer cables radiating from it. And beyond, a tower rose to the sky¡ªeasily twenty stories tall, tapering with spiked spires halfway up, swarming in clouds of drones, clouds swirling at the tip, and a circular metal face of orange-and-green just below that looked for all the world like a high-security vault door.


    ¡°So that¡¯s why I care.¡±


    At the end of the cable, electromagnetism slowed Chain to a stop. With sparks no longer flying, he stepped off the cable, and his boots clanked onto the electrode platform. Ruvle straightened her fez.


    She tried to focus on what might be in it for her.

 6: Give It a Try and See What Happens

    ¡°I dunno, I thought I could ride a thermal updraft or something!¡±


    ¡°Where would you get a thermal updraft?¡±


    ¡°An M.A.D. lab or a big chimney, a foundry, anything.¡±


    Ruvle and Chain had been trotting around the suburb in the vicinity of Othek¡¯s tower for an hour by now and Ruvle felt very stupid. She was failing to think things through on such a basic level¡ªhow to even begin on a raid. And yet Chain matched the jagged printed-on smile on his face mask with his demeanor.


    ¡°We¡¯ll get there, it¡¯s just tricksy,¡± he said. ¡°Normally they¡¯re all over the place. I¡¯m gonna blame the glint; there¡¯s a ton of thermodynamics that goes into making strong thermals¡­¡±


    That sounded like nonsense. ¡°If the plan is to glide, why don¡¯t we just climb onto another tall building and glide from there?¡± Ruvle suggested.


    ¡°See, that¡¯s what I thought,¡± Chain said, grabbing his scarf by both ends and whipping the bulk of the fabric, airing it out and shining pale blue tislet light in the nighttime, ¡°but there¡¯s no way I can get up there.¡± He pointed to the only building of comparable height nearby¡ªa steepled library, of brick and iron and a stained glass mural above the arched front door. Libraries like this one frequently had big pointy spires.


    ¡°I mean. I can,¡± Ruvle said, looking over her shoulder to it.


    ¡°That¡¯s a big climb.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not.¡±


    And two minutes later, she was swinging her way up the ivy vines that snaked up the brickwork. Training hard made everything easier, and she smiled with the ease with which this came, her only trouble being her hands scrabbling a slipped grab or two onto the brickwork from missed depth perception. Not that the adjacent squirrel wasn¡¯t completely dominating her in verticality, because it was.


    ¡°Okay, great, but it doesn¡¯t work unless you can carry me up,¡± Chain said with an affable head-shake, crossing one standing foot over the other.


    ¡°Climb up the vines,¡± Ruvle said, landing from a backflip up onto the roof. The squirrel skittered onto a roof tile and honked at her, as small animals did.


    Chain was much, much slower. It sucked to wait. His hands stripped several leaves from the vines, and his boots kicked and scraped against the bricks, knocking red-and-gray dust onto the earth below. Ruvle grunted, pulling the other end of the vine to help him ascend, her biceps straining and her feet shifting on the roof tiles. At one point, Chain¡¯s scarf got caught between loose mortar and brick, and he spent several minutes freeing it¡ªthe thread composing his scarf, so he claimed, was not worth any tear or fray. The squirrel did not help.


    Soon, Chain was on the roof as well, both parties panting, with Chain bent-over and his hands on his thighs. Eventually, he re-tied his scarf. ¡°I¡¯m not doing this again.¡±


    ¡°So I hope we¡¯ll only be here once,¡± Ruvle said.


    The further climb onto the decorative spire tested endurance more than skill. With the masonry tapering up several stories and the windows growing smaller, the steep slope provided many more handholds and windowsills to ascend with than a sheer wall. Shadows moved behind the frosted glass¡ªa patron or two in the restricted books sections. At one point, Ruvle overheard a man and woman arguing¡ªrelationship woes. The library finances just couldn¡¯t add up all of the sudden, the complexities of bill management running away from them. Ruvle tried to not care.


    Chain reached the top about twenty minutes after Ruvle did and twenty-one minutes after the squirrel. He sat opposite from her, on the other side of the multi-pronged copper lightning rod, which swayed in the breeze. Parallel, far across the street, was the orange-and-green vault face of the tower¡¯s tip. Locks upon locks spackled it, texturing its face with so many raised pads, knobs to dial and recessed keyways that the door visually scanned not as a flat surface with decorations, but a scribbled-over surface. It traded quality for overkill. Cinderblocks made up the bulk of the tapering tower, heading down, down in an ever-widening column of masonry, until they joined the true compound where Othek lay in wait¨Cone far bulkier, in black blocks and elegantly-curved panes of dark blue alloys and gigantic octagonal rivets the size of Ruvle¡¯s arm. It even had an electrified fence, for good measure, and Ruvle spotted several hollows and wall seams, surely containing robotic defenses strong enough to make the intended route the designed failure point. Entering through the top was suicidal. Entering through the bottom was not an option in the first place.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Ruvle put her hands behind her back and rocked forth and back, waiting for Chain.


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna¡­¡± he took a few breaths with his hand on his chest. ¡°I¡¯m gonna be ready, a few minutes.¡±


    She looked over her shoulder with a patient smile. ¡°I can wait. Isn¡¯t this the hard part coming up?¡±


    ¡°Almost,¡± he said, with a snicker.


    Once he¡¯d recovered his stamina, Chain unwrapped his scarf and held each end securely. He fluttered it out into the breeze, letting it extend into a loose arc of cloth that dangled off the side of the spire. ¡°...Wind direction¡¯s good.¡± A section of tislets over the scarf modulated its glow, several of them blinking from one shape of tislet into alternate forms, ripples of change flowing over nearly half of the scarf. ¡±Ruvle, when I jump, grab my ankles.¡±


    ¡°Wait, you have to warn me about these¡ª¡±


    And before she could answer, he did¡ªand caught the wind.


    ¡°So this is physia?¡± Ruvle asked, hanging from Chain¡¯s ankles, many stories of free air separating her from the earth below, losing no altitude she could discern. Her hair fluttered against the breeze.


    ¡°You got it.¡± Chain grinned, while wind and momentum carried them towards Othek¡¯s tower. With his arms held high, a V-shaped pose, his grasp on the ends of the scarf was secure, and the fabric itself stretched into a tight arc¡ªa parachute, with the stability of a hang glider. ¡°I can¡¯t fly, but gliding? Even I can figure that one out.¡±


    ¡°That door doesn¡¯t look so tough either,¡± Ruvle said, beaming and dangling her feet. She rolled her neck, spinning the tassel on her fez.


    ¡°How¡¯s your depth perception up here?¡± Chain asked. ¡°You¡¯re gonna need that to not go splat on the wall. I get that it¡¯s dark.¡±


    Ruvle tilted her head. ¡°Completely fine,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s mostly a problem when I have diffuse light and what I¡¯m looking at isn¡¯t moving. That¡¯s why I still have those old cone lights in The Checkered Office; they point down.¡±


    ¡°Clever.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m getting directional light from the streetlamps, and we¡¯re in motion. I can tell how far away everything is.¡± She smiled. ¡°You were right. This is a good choice for a raid.¡±


    ¡°...Hold that thought, there,¡± he said, craning his neck. ¡°Uh¡­¡±


    Ruvle saw it too. They were but halfway to the tower when black chunks emerged from the clouds surrounding it, with beating insectile wings of metal and clusters of camera lenses for eyes. Spikes adorned their thoraxes in lieu of arms and legs; attack drones didn¡¯t need them¡ªand the buzz of their mechanical flight grew louder as they spread out, forming an arc, sweeping as if to surround their prey. They were but seconds from a head-on collision.


    ¡°Ruvle, do something!¡±


    Ruvle swung her legs and pulled hard on Chain¡¯s ankles; she let go and flipped herself up above him, landing on her feet onto the top of the scarf-parachute¡ªit yielded down to her mid-shins, but was surprisingly sturdy. ¡°I¡¯ll try!¡± She lifted her arms into a boxer¡¯s defensive stance.


    It was a regulatory requirement from very serious and well-funded safety bureaus that a robot¡¯s eyes had to turn red before it was allowed to attack people. And she could now see constellations of crimson in the swarm.


    The fight was quick, decisive, and not in her favor.


    To battle dozens of giant black flies bodyslamming her while covered in spikes, while balancing on pillowsheets and avoiding one wrong step to plummeting doom, was too much, let alone the back lines of the swarm that were shooting head-mounted laser beams from grisly, corroded nozzles. She could weave between a few attacks, ducking under two charging flies and letting them crash into each other, but with stuck feet, she could only backbend so far to avoid the next. Its spikes jabbed her left arm in three places to draw blood. Two more swept her from behind, which she was able to jump over, but leaving her footing entirely was a mistake, giving her no options to redirect her momentum when a laser shot her directly in the back. She fended off a drone that tried to slam her square in the chest by planting her palm against its glowing-red cameras, only for her to miss her landing back onto Chain¡¯s parachute. He, himself, was being shot out of the sky¡ª


    And Ruvle didn¡¯t remember much after that beyond panic at the force of gravity.

 7: Tall Orders and Tall Ladders

    The nurse on the left finished injecting Ruvle¡¯s shoulder with a glowing syringe the size of her calf, while the nurse on her right finished bandaging up her perforated arm. ¡°That should finish it!¡± the left nurse said, tilting his head up in approval, his circular head mirror catching the light of the clinic. His medical apron only had a little of her blood on it, already being rendered sterile by shiny copper thread.


    ¡°...Thanks,¡± Ruvle said, smiling weakly. She was always impressed by how quickly a simple flesh wound or bleeding could be fixed; the injections available from M.A.D. technology had come a long way. Her broken ribs and snapped ulna from the fall onto hard concrete were a little harder, but that was why this had taken a few hours instead of a few minutes. ¡°Any chance you can do anything about my eye?¡±


    ¡°There are prosthetic options available,¡± the left nurse said, in a tone of someone prepared to manage another¡¯s emotions.


    ¡°Then, no thank you. Is Chain okay? He¡¯s the person I came with¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yo, Ruvle!¡± Chain slid across the linoleum tiles, down the row of medical beds, similarly patched-up¡ªseveral wrappings of white bandages around his head like a headband, another set around his left leg, and a disposable patient¡¯s apron wadded up in his hand. ¡°Let¡¯s go, I think we¡¯ve got ¡®em this time.¡±


    Ruvle balked, staring for a few seconds while the left nurse commented. ¡°You should think through any activities where this can happen to you.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, except, I won¡¯t and it¡¯s on purpose. Come on.¡±


    Ruvle smiled. ¡°I can try again. I need to get my fez back¡­¡±


    ¡°Nope!¡±


    Chain tossed a bundle of black cloth at her. In a blink, she bent down and bobbed back up, catching the fez on her head; the tassel swirled around to a stop with her standing back upright.


    ¡°Cool,¡± Chain said, with a snap of his fingers. He gestured for her to follow.


    It didn¡¯t go so well the second time, either. The wind blew diagonally that night and Chain shifted his weight in the air mid-paraglide, banking in an arc towards the spire, with some help from Ruvle standing on the inner edge of the scarf¡¯s turn¡ªbut even with her expecting spiked bodyslams and thinking ahead to how to dodge them, no amount of dexterity was enough to dodge literal laser beams. Getting a burn hole in her leg had a way of preventing her from sticking landings back onto the parachute, and then there was no one but Chain to be shot down, a feat she could observe from far below as she fell, his body silhouetted against the moon with the swarm of robots converging.


    The third attempt was little better. Bandaged on all four limbs and around her left side, Ruvle brought a staff¡ªa common long wooden dowel, from a craft store, as long as she was tall, and Chain brought with him a deflector: a large circular plastic lid, built for a children¡¯s sandbox, sprayed with silver paint to as to reflect the laser beams. Success was marginal. Ruvle struck the swarm, insect after insect, with the fast sweeping end of her staff, and Chain could raise his legs with his feet hooked into the underside of the deflector in order to handle one laser shot at a time. But the spraypaint was only good enough to keep the shield from being penetrated, only burned-black where the lasers struck, and by the time they made it to the vault door¡ª


    ¡°How do you plan on stopping!?¡± Ruvle shouted down to Chain, over the whirling wind and the buzzing of the swarm about them; she lunged to jab a drone with the end of her dowel.


    ¡°The wind wasn¡¯t this fast the first time! I thought we could just step on¡ª¡±


    Ruvle tossed her dowel aside and leapt onto the upper lip of the oncoming vault door, this time accounting for the springiness of the parachute. The vault door only protruded enough from the spire masonry to balance her heels on, but she lay flat against the wall as best she could. To his credit, Chain flattened spreadeagle against the vault door instead of hitting his head, and could grab the lip of the door to avoid falling...but they were both trivial targets from there. The laser fire closed in.


    They didn¡¯t try a fourth time.


    The next day, Ruvle worked at her office, her left arm in a sling. Her skin had grown puffy and red from all of the medical injections. She scribbled away on someone¡¯s electrician certification with her right hand, consoling herself with the idea that writing with her non-dominant hand sort of counted as training, even though that was sub-trivial for Coarse hyperdexterity. Around her, the office was as alive as ever, ordinary citizens about¡ªa trio of gender-ambiguous people were hanging around the gaming console today, in the subcultural style of dress Ruvle recognized as ¡®ultimates¡¯¡ªcargo dresses, copper-plated crowns of beautiful triangles-within-triangles, boots splattered with a rainbow of painted colors. People that answered the question of ¡®masculine or feminine?¡¯ with ¡®both and neither and piss off, too¡¯. It reminded Ruvle of when she dressed like that as a rebellious teenager.


    She¡¯d rather reminisce on those days than think of current failures.


    ¡°Would you like to complete this with other members of your family?¡± Ruvle asked, putting on her usual smile for the unrelated pair at her desk, dealing with, supposedly, inheritance paperwork for tax reasons. ¡°Settling what they¡¯ll receive in writing will prevent any further disputes.¡±


    The woman before her crossed her arms over Ruvle¡¯s desk, her arms unsettlingly lean and narrow, elbows sharp, her body shrouded in a black cloak, gilded with Dye trim that must have cost a year¡¯s income in vouchers and yet could plausibly look like just a well-off person¡¯s status symbol. The scent of acid and machine oil stained air; the sounds of clinks and clockwork gear-grinding emanated clearly, quietly, from her. ¡°Mmmmmm. No, no. We¡¯re very settled.¡±


    And the man next to her, a burly, hairy wall of muscle and fat, shivered while fidgeting with his full red beard. Everyone in the room gave the pair as much personal space as the walls permitted. None of them cared about the shivering man with the injection scars.


    ¡°Very well!¡± And with a few flicks of her pen to form her perfect signature, Ruvle filed away the Inheritance form. ¡°Enjoy your estate!¡± They took their inheritance from someone anonymous, of course, and Ruvle saw no family resemblance between the two. There were legitimate reasons to declare inheritance from someone undisclosed, so the form allowed that option, but in practice, no one used it for anything but a successful raid.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    The kind of thing that Ruvle was nowhere close to accomplishing. On the most vulnerable target Chain could find.


    ¡°YEAH, YEAH BIG TIME YEAH,¡± the man shouted, loud enough to turn heads and swing the tassel on Ruvle¡¯s fez. She kept her smile. The contrast reminded Ruvle of...the usual paths to power, and the ones out of favor. Major and minor. The yelling man had probably absorbed plenty of Dye, enough that he could start surviving those strange, maddening drug formulas that even the most enthusiastic chemists decided were not to be replicated and only persisted due to black/grey market synthesizers, the ¡®throw buildings¡¯ kind of strength boosters that would normally kill a person with one dose. This man would not make it another year without more and more Dye. But the woman was a clear dilettante of the big three¡ªConsolidation, which Ruvle could pick out from those exaggerated sharp angles, M.A.D. technology, likely an apparatus under her cloak, and the most potent of all...simple wealth. It was Ruvle¡¯s job as a notary to confirm a signator¡¯s identity before they signed, and she had no doubt: this was a true citizen being halfway-subtle, collecting an ego boost by officiating her spoils in-person. Fygra, according to the signature. When you had money, you could buy jets, atomically-powered machines, entire labs, armies of freelancers. And, more directly, Dye to be absorbed. Money was power.


    Being a notary public, the best of the lessers, was probably the only reason this woman permitted a conversation instead of a series of one-way commands.


    ¡°Marvelous.¡± The woman beckoned to her...likely fellow raider with one finger. ¡°Come.¡±


    ¡°If I could ask you for your advice...¡± Ruvle interjected, her face turning soft.


    ¡°Oh?¡± the woman slid her hand back across the desk, a ring on her finger scoring the wood. She should absolutely not ask for time from someone so her superior, and the frown under that hood¡¯s shadow reflected it, but she had to know.


    ¡°How did you do it?¡± she asked, quietly. ¡°I know it was a raid. I¡¯ve seen this before.¡±


    The woman drummed her fingers on the desk. ¡°Oh. Dear, you want advice on climbing the ladder of power?¡±


    Ruvle nodded.


    ¡°Leave it to those who already have it.¡± Her matronly chuckle was barely audible, yet filled Ruvle¡¯s ears more than the muscle-man¡¯s bellow. ¡°Can you imagine the chaos that society would be in if just anyone could compete?¡±


    She knew better than to call that out as nonsense.


    ¡°The first rung is ten thousand feet high for a reason, dear. Let the people society is designed for play the game. The rest of you know your place already. Make clothing, machine parts, crystals, whatever it is you do for all the¡ª¡± she waved a hand dismissively. ¡°¡ªdetails to work out. It¡¯s much better for your mind to lose the aspirations.¡±


    Ruvle clenched and unclenched her hand inside her sling.


    ¡°Good fortune to you in getting your...disability, fixed,¡± the woman said, with a gesture to Ruvle¡¯s destroyed eye, that she wouldn¡¯t be able to get revenge for unless she got enough power to challenge those fucking true cits and¡ª


    Stay calm. Willpower and self-control were the same. Her face betrayed as little of her feelings as the immobile wax covering her eye socket, because she desired it not to. ¡°Same to you in defeating your rivals!¡± Ruvle chirped.


    ¡°YEAAAAH!¡± The large man whooped.


    They left, and with the line very temporarily empty, Ruvle ducked away from the desk and into the inventory room. She pounded her fist into the wall and sniffled, a tear falling from her good eye.


    In the evening, just past closing, Ruvle lay in the middle of the office, across the couch still cooling from the body heat of those who had left it. Her fez lay on its side on the floor, rocking left and right with each brush of Ruvle¡¯s foot against it as she swung one leg. She shone the light from her pen onto the ceiling, conferring with Chain on the textwork.


    ¡®Mielo ~ Have you found any easier glints to go after?¡¯ she asked.


    ¡®Chain Hydrapress ~ Nah, Othek is the only new money and dumb money like this,¡¯ he answered.


    ¡®~ Then keep looking.¡¯


    ¡®~ I think we just gotta train,¡¯ Chain wrote back. ¡®The mirror idea almost worked. I know a way to use my scarf as a weapon, hammer-whip, but I don¡¯t know how to fit two sequences of tislets on there. What I have now are formulas for hang glider and acid immunity, but they¡¯re super long. I could do more puzzles and pick apart the formulas I¡¯m using until I can crunch them down.¡¯


    ¡®~ And if you make them shorter, you can fit more of them on your scarf.¡¯


    ¡®~ You got it. I want to fit this mirror coating formula for better laser deflection on there and hammer-whip. I have no clue how you get four different physia like that in just 5888 tislets, but it¡¯s obviously possible, since people who know what they¡¯re doing can figure it out.¡¯


    She let his message lie and just stared at the ceiling some more. Ruvle itched the seams where the trails of red wax fused with the skin on her face.


    Chain eventually wrote again, as she started to nod off. ¡®~ You only signed that paper for me going after Othek. I didn¡¯t think you¡¯d want to stick with me if I changed course.¡¯


    ¡®~ I¡¯ve changed my mind,¡¯ Ruvle answered. ¡®I want to be able to take down any true citizen I want, not just the one that ruined my eye. If I have to beat every one of them, until they¡¯re so terrified of me that no one tries to hurt me ever again, I will. I want THEM to be on the wrong side of a gulf of power they can¡¯t ever cross for once. I want not even Thoughtless to be enough to touch me.¡¯


    She wiped the dried tears from her face onto her shoulder while writing with her only good arm. ¡®~ I¡¯m going to train nonstop between work and sleep. Get back to me when you¡¯ve learned how to work the tislets.¡¯


    ¡®~ You scare me when you get worked up. But an enjoyable horror story kind of scared,¡¯ Chain wrote to her.


    ¡®~ I¡¯m willing to be mean when most people aren¡¯t,¡¯ she told him.


    ¡®~ You¡¯re angry and determined, not mean,¡¯ Chain told her. ¡¯Try not to twist your fucked up arm too much!¡¯


    Ruvle snorted and clicked off her pen. But she WAS mean! Ruvle pouted at the ceiling, trying to think of what evil options she hadn¡¯t considered for more effective training, but in her drowsiness, dreams came to her before an idea did.

 8: Parsimony In Motion

    Her teacher in Exaction took one look at her that night and shook her head. ¡°Get well first. Broken bodies need rest.¡±


    Ruvle fumed, the indigo stained-glass-filtered moonlight turning her red face purple. ¡°I went through the effort of putting this on and taking the sling on and off,¡± she said, glancing down over her bodysuit and her messed-up arm, ¡°I¡¯m not letting that go to waste!¡± Exaction let her change clothes without too much pain or wayward nudges of cracked bones.


    ¡°No. You¡¯ll hurt yourself further. It will set you back. How long are you willing to delay your recovery for lessons that will be painful?¡± she asked.


    A rhetorical question, but she had an answer. ¡°A few days. Until I¡¯m out of the three-in-seven-days frequency limit on injections and then my arm will be fine. I can develop in ways that don¡¯t need my arm, and it might hurt; side effects happen, but it doesn¡¯t matter because I already have to wait for the injection. Please train me. We¡¯ll do precision or coordination or something.¡±


    Her trainer stared, thinking, dull gray eyes from underneath her headband. ¡°...what is it that you want to practice?¡±


    It was a quieter night at the monastery, this time. An early Coarse initiate, like herself, was climbing about the walls and changing the indigo netting, while someone tinkered in the corner with a box fan. Besides those two, Ruvle and her trainer had the common grounds all to themselves. ¡°Anything. Getting better at dodging,¡± she added.


    ¡°That¡¯s broad.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a broad problem.¡±


    Her trainer nodded. ¡°Expect only incremental progress, especially in your condition.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Ruvle said, reining herself in from more aggressive wording; why were people trying to dissuade her at every turn? ¡°But I got shot out of the sky, and that¡¯s why my arm is messed up now. I didn¡¯t have anything to stand on and I couldn¡¯t move, so¡ª¡±


    Oh, her teacher was gesturing for her to follow, now. She didn¡¯t actually need convincing. Ruvle stepped on after her, expecting to go to the center of the common grounds (a few seconds), but her teacher kept moving¡ªall the way to the netting. Her subsequent quick hop up reminded Ruvle of that squirrel on the rooftop: she made it look like humans were built to climb, a natively vertical species, gliding in two dimensions up that wall with no effort at all in finding handholds and footholds¡ªseveral every second, disregarding gravity like unsolicited advice. Coarse hyperdexterity afforded uncanny mastery of climbing, of never missing a grab and being fully-coordinated. Fine hyperdexterity made it look like there was nothing to master. ¡°Up here.¡±


    Ruvle followed, ascending slowly with only one arm available to grab the netting, but three stories of ascent was not a challenge. They arrived at one of the balcony-platforms, and Ruvle couldn¡¯t help but get excited¡ªand confused¡ªbecause this one led to the swimming pool area. ¡°...hey, if we¡¯re going to be working together longer-term, I should learn your name,¡± Ruvle admitted. It was tradition to rotate teachers or training partners day-by-day in Exaction, to develop the variety of skills needed for true embodiment, but that tradition died from depopulation¡ªand her new teacher had become the only Fine initiate that still visited, really...


    ¡°Elial.¡± Her Fine teacher told her, looking over her shoulder and walking down the hall¡ªan archway tunnel, of tiled, worked stone through the mountain, flat to the feet and with light diffusing from the other end. As they proceeded down, the scent of clean pool water became noticeable, just as the luminosity so brightened. ¡°You¡¯re puffy. Why are you puffy?¡±


    ¡°Fluid overload,¡± Ruvle explained. ¡°I learned from the nurses; did you know that burns are really hard on your kidneys? I thought getting shot from lasers was the scariest part of it, but then I started peeing blood and now all the injection fluid stays built up¡­¡±


    Elial put a hand on Ruvle¡¯s shoulder, her face serious. ¡°If you want me to continue pretending you¡¯re well enough to train, you need to not tell me that you¡¯re peeing blood.¡±


    ¡°Sorry. Pretend I didn¡¯t say that?¡±


    Elial tapped her chin a few times, considering.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°You¡¯re looking for training to deal with something specific. You said lasers, being in the sky, and your arm...tell me what your challenge is, and I¡¯ll recommend something that won¡¯t damage you further.¡±


    And so Ruvle explained¡ªher failed raid, trying to dodge on top of an unstable parachute, being shot from all angles. She was not deep enough into Exaction to sail through that. And there was still a vault door to lockpick her way through afterwards, supposedly a laser maze that she¡¯d almost forgotten about, and¡ª


    ¡°I¡¯m about to explain something that you can take as an opportunity or an insult,¡± Elial said.


    ¡°Do it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re missing a foundational skill that you should have mastered by now.¡±


    Ruvle frowned and stamped her feet and was almost a big baby about it but¡­but having an ego would not serve her! ¡°Is it weird that I¡¯m taking that as both?¡±


    They stepped down a lip of three stairs, towards the swimming pool. Of all the exits of the mountainside where one could glimpse worked stone instead of natural cliffs and eroded cobbles, this was the most beautiful¡ªat floor-level, the walls took the smooth undulating texture of a cavern frequently visited by water, with no ceiling to speak of, only an open view of the stars and moon above¡ªand an atomic jetplane streaking across the sky with green fire. The indigo floor tiles mingled with the dark beige stone, no longer a full replacement, but providing branching paths¡ªone to the pool itself, others to conspicuous outcroppings of stone in which discreet nozzles had been installed. The last path ended at a preserved monument high up on the wall: the imprint of branching tree leaves in solid stone, the ghost of a dense canopy of four-pointed leaves of a species no longer native to the crater. IAbove, a heavy natural awning of stone shielded it from rain, further preserved behind glass film. It was a microcosm of the story of the pool area from prehistory to today, as Ruvle recalled: for when the crater first formed, all life ended at the impact site, the corpses shoved to the walls of the impact basin and compressed with enough force to fuse stone. In time, dead biological matter decayed away, this open pocket of the mountainside among them¡ªand with it exposed to the air, rain collected frequently, leaving a standing pond that had been here for years uncounted. Only the tree, so high up and naturally-protected, had its gravestone survive erosion. Getting rid of a beautiful pond was unpopular, and had been converted into this pool instead, its sides and depth still irregular, but now crystal-clear and maintained with pumps, down to the rocky floor.


    And one distracted moment to think about history was enough for Elial to fetch equipment from behind one of the stone outcroppings¡ªa yellow squirt gun of the kind that fit in one hand. Her foot kicked a switch, and the nozzles around a different rocky pedestal¡ªlarge enough to be an elevated stage to dance on¡ªsprayed a staccato of laminar-flow water, at random, each shortly splattering on earth, several a second. ¡°There¡¯s no formal name for this skill, which is why I didn¡¯t notice you lacked it during your test for Coarseness. I was told the metaphor of a housefly recently, so I will call it flydodging for you.¡±


    ¡°Thank you.¡±


    ¡°Anyone can dodge. Fewer can dodge multiple projectiles at the same time. From what you¡¯ve told me, you back yourself into a corner with no options during multiple dodging, and then are shot. What you have to do¡­¡±


    Elial jumped into the laminar flow spray and stayed in motion; she swayed and ducked in center-stage, rolling her shoulders, sweeping her arms away from water. Casual, gentle tilts for close misses were interspersed with sharp lunges that Elial somehow didn¡¯t fully commit to, stopping as soon as she could with firm footing, even on slick stone. She gyrated in the center, but never strayed.


    ¡°...is choose to dodge in ways that retain your freedom of movement. Notice that my feet never leave the ground, no matter how direct¡ª¡± She pulled back into a backbend that was over before Ruvle could even process it, back upright. ¡°¡ªthe water¡¯s shot is on me. I can always take steps to avoid a surprise when I¡¯m mid-dodge, because I have ready contact with a support surface.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Ruvle thought back to her dramatic flips during the raid attempts and it hit her how unnecessary they were. ¡°I should stop jumping when I don¡¯t have to.¡±


    ¡°An acrobatic leap is flashy, but it¡¯s rarely correct. Do one when you can fully predict a danger, or when you have no other options. Moreover¡­¡± Elial tilted her head. ¡°Notice how most of my movements are small.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m noticing.¡± Ruvle held her slung arm with her other, attention rapt on Elial.


    ¡°Have you ever slipped past a stranger in a crowded shop to get into an aisle? It¡¯s much easier to stand and wait your turn. You have less to dodge, because you stay in a more open area. Spaces with less room for motion have fewer options, and they must be acted on faster.¡± Elial ducked down under two jets of water. ¡°Good example. I could have twisted to my side to slip between those,¡± she added, back to standing and back to dodging, ¡°but I would have been tightly horizontally constrained. There was more parsimony and flexibility in ducking down.¡±


    ¡°So...so I want to learn to apply this, how do I do it?¡±


    Elial stepped off of the stage. Ruvle¡¯s bodysuit had been lightly sprinkled with a dozen drops of water from the splashing of water against stone, by now. Elial¡¯s bodysuit was drier than hers.


    ¡°Step in and practice.¡±

 9: Give Me My Training Time, Damn It

    For the next several days, Ruvle¡¯s life looped without interruption: get sprayed by water in the evenings, get 9 hours of sleep, work in her notary office, repeat. She conserved her mental energy during the day to push herself during flydodging practice, and Elial was very much right¡ªevery jet of water splashing on her body proved this remediation necessary. Fellow initiates hardly struggled¡ªwhenever she had to take a break from the stage, she had the chance to watch someone else get inside and move just like Elial¡ªeven other Coarse initiates could do it, albeit with more concentration. Bodies bent, swayed and stepped in ways that Ruvle could too, so exactly, and yet whenever she tried, it would take less than a minute to corner herself and be sprayed unavoidably.


    All the sweating from the effort reduced her puffiness on Day 1, at least, but her slung arm only tolerated so many water jets before getting red and swollen. She bought a bottle of anti-inflammatory pills and painkillers to stop the swelling and keep training. She had to get this right.


    The hardest part of long, exhausting training sessions was not the burn in her lungs, nor the ache in her muscles from pushing her stamina into its ragged red zone, nor lying on the indigo floor in crying pain from her arm being bumped in just the wrong way for the fifth time in the night. No, it was not knowing what she was doing wrong.


    Some life skills could be picked up by having them explained. Some could be learned by exercising the principles until they were second nature. A third category had no instructions, but were built with practice alone, in marathon runners conditioning their hearts for distance. And then there were skills where one could follow the principles exactly and still have them mysteriously not work. But only for her. Everyone else could flydodge just fine. Ruvle could enter the stage with minimal movement in mind, with full intent to keep her options open, to dodge towards more-open areas and prevent her feet from leaving the ground¡ªand no, one minute in, laminar flow splashed her shoulder. How did she corner herself again? She had no idea. The last two dodges seemed right, and then they weren¡¯t.


    It didn¡¯t change for the second, third, fourth or fifth days of putting in hours upon hours into dodging training.


    On the sixth, Ruvle could only tolerate about ten minutes and three splashes before she stormed off. She sat on one of the decorative rocks, her head in her hands¡ªshe¡¯d finally waited out the clock for another injection, freeing her from that sling¡ªand groaned. It escalated to a growl, and then a low-pitched wail, her fingers gripping at her hair, wet strands sliding flat against her pruned fingers like snakes.


    This wasn¡¯t working. There had to be some trick to mastering this.


    Elial stepped on over, her hands behind her back and the swimming pool behind her, gray eyes focusing intently. ¡°You¡¯re improving.¡±


    ¡°I am not,¡± Ruvle groaned, looking down at her feet. ¡°I just can¡¯t get it right. Every time I go in, I come out drenched, and I¡¯m trying as hard as I can and it never stops! I can¡¯t even blame my eye on this, because the water reflects so I know exactly where it is; I don¡¯t have an excuse. I¡¯m just stuck!¡± She scratched at the red wax tributaries around her eye. ¡°And damn it, I have to fix my wax soon!¡±


    ¡°Ruvle, you were struck twice per minute a few days ago. Today you nearly went the first five minutes dry. Do not let frustration get the better of you. Be a thoughtful adult.¡±


    Ruvle took a deep breath and sighed, letting hot anger spill as air from her lips. Another. ¡°Sorry.¡± She put her hands on her knees. Insects chirped in the night, with the bright lights of colorbugs blinking, just above the open absence of rooftop. Red, green, yellow, blue, indigo¡ªhealth officials warned not to stand among the colorbugs, because some of them had ultraviolet light as their shade, but no one listened. She looked up at them and smiled weakly. ¡°It¡¯s not an excuse, but I¡¯ve been training for...20 hours? My self-control isn¡¯t that good yet.¡±


    ¡°Closer to 25,¡± Elial answered.


    ¡°Maybe? I¡¯m factoring in when I was taking breaks,¡± Ruvle said, slow and detached.


    ¡°So am I.¡±


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Elial stood besides Ruvle, quietly now, her head tilted upwards. They shared no words while the colorbugs danced in the air, almost invisible in the darkness until it was their turn to become a glowing dot. They traced curves among the stars, each taking but a second to wink away, their own cycle to repeat, anonymous in the cloud.


    ¡°I have to stare at these for a while,¡± Ruvle said. ¡°Or I¡¯m going to scream the next time I get sprayed.¡±


    ¡°Enjoy them,¡± Elial said. ¡°There is much that doesn¡¯t feel worthwhile anymore, when you¡¯re Fine or beyond. But these¡­¡± Elial cracked a smile. ¡°...I still love them. I haven¡¯t lost that.¡±


    Ruvle took Elial¡¯s hand and squeezed it as emotional support. Elial, too, sat down, on the floor next to the rock, to simply watch. Ruvle¡¯s notary pen clicked, and she ignored it; the textwork could wait.


    ¡°I expected you to spend months mastering this,¡± Elial said, ¡°But you surprise me. It takes fortitude to work exclusively on your weaknesses for any length of time.¡±


    ¡°I want to be stronger and that¡¯s how I have to do it,¡± Ruvle answered.


    ¡°You could cross-train.¡± Elial crossed one ankle over the other. An adventurous colorbug landed as a black speck on the glass covering the tree imprint, blinked green, and flew off. ¡°Tiose asked me to teach him gentle steps. Since you¡¯ll be in this area regardless, you could join in.¡±


    Ruvle sat up straight. ¡°That¡¯s¡ªyou think I could...I thought only Ultrafine could run on water,¡± she said.


    ¡°That¡¯s the extreme form of gentle steps,¡± Elial corrected her. ¡°Gentle steps can be any rapid contact with a surface that has trouble supporting you. Running across a plank of wood can be gentle steps. Walking across a bed without your feet sinking into it can be gentle steps. You mentioned a parachute when you laid out your plans for me¡ªwalking on a parachute can be gentle steps. A man striding through mud without letting his boots sink in too far is taking gentle steps. As long as standing in one place for too long would yield the surface, whether it be a minute or a tenth of a second, you can rapidly stand on different places and let them take turns supporting you. Ultrafines can run on water, but it will be enough for you to run on cloth.¡±


    Ruvle¡¯s eye sparkled. ¡°Thank you...so much for all your help. When can we start?¡±


    ¡°In about nine days.¡±


    Ruvle blinked.


    ¡°My time for the rest of this week is spoken for, which is why I¡¯m checking in with everyone,¡± Elial explained. ¡°My workplace scheduled me for nights.¡±


    Oh, right. Ruvle vaguely recalled her being part of a ductwork company, because she could fit through air conditioning vents in buildings easily. Airflow modeling simulations usually pointed to the ideal width of a building¡¯s ducts being enough for a person to crawl through with great difficulty; smaller ones than that didn¡¯t work for obscure turbulence-related reasons. ¡°Can you...can you be here during the days, then?¡±


    ¡°I would stay at the monastery if I could.¡± Elial frowned. ¡°It¡¯s one of the few things I still ever want to do, but I cannot this week.¡±


    Ruvle fumed to herself. So she should get use out of today as best she could¡­


    ¡°I¡¯ll depart now to talk to the others.¡± Elial uncrossed her ankles, but didn¡¯t get up. She was still, stiff, her eyes to the sky. ¡°...Thank you for giving me a reason to watch the colorbugs,¡± she finally said, and only then did she leave, back into the monastery to climb down the netting.


    The next water pulse to hit her took five minutes to do so. That five minutes of training was all Ruvle had the patience to endure; she instead left the stage again and pulled her notary pen from her collar, to point its light at the wall.


    ¡®Chain Hydrapress ~ Guess who has a textwork connection and a good reason to be taking this long,¡¯ his message read. Time to answer.


    ¡®Mielo ~ What happened?¡¯


    ¡®~ I¡¯m paying back a favor that I can do at the same time as solving clusters and research. Tracking down an old tislet for a guy. It has the right weighting for me to do something in like 90 tislets that used to take 217, so that¡¯s on the improvements pile.¡¯


    ¡®~ Great!¡¯


    ¡®~ I can already fit in hammer-whip now, and I think this might get me to fitting mirror coat, too. I¡¯m learning a lot. Should be ready to run in three more days, tops.¡¯


    So, not enough time to wait to learn gentle steps. ¡®Good luck.¡¯


    ¡®~ And if I wrap up this favor, I can get some more specs for Othek¡¯s vault. We¡¯re gonna win this time.¡¯


    Ruvle didn¡¯t answer that one. She put her pen back and thought, pacing around, her nose scrunched up. Elial was the best teacher here and she really wanted to get that training¡­there had to be a way to fix the time crunch...


    What was she willing to do to succeed that others weren¡¯t?

 10: Sail While the Wind is Blowing

    ¡°Hey, you, no entry.¡±


    Ruvle stiffened, ready to bolt at a moment¡¯s notice. It was so soon in the afternoon, directly overlapping Ruvle¡¯s mid-afternoon work break, the time when the sun above cooked passing birds via the reflections of glass skyscrapers and much of Stepwise took their mid-afternoon naps of circadian low¡ªa practice that Ruvle didn¡¯t partake in herself; her body strongly preferred one long interrupted night of sleep. The landing lot shouldn¡¯t be occupied at this time of day. Before her was a man in an austere black suit, with a high collar and a black visor in place of his hat, the sort of outfit that could look formal in public, threatening in private, and blend into the background when unnecessary¡ªhenchman was a difficult job.


    ¡°I just want to mail a letter,¡± she said, glancing towards the freestanding postal box at the edge of the lot.


    The henchman grunted. ¡°Don¡¯t get closer than you have to.¡±


    She shouldn¡¯t be so nervous. She had to mail a letter; that was all. She was disguised, even¡ªRuvle pre-planned with an unidentifiable set of thick red work pants and carpenter¡¯s gloves. The drab black coat probably overcommitted to it, as with the red knitted cap with two pom-poms on the top, swaying in today¡¯s strong wind. The most important piece of disguising herself as nobody, of course, was an oval-shaped white mask securely covering her face, tied with several different strings around the back of her head so that it wouldn¡¯t slip. The wax splotch over her missing eye uniquely identified her over all other features, after all.


    In retrospect, the disguise was probably what got the henchman¡¯s attention. But she was about to do something awful and therefore in line with her values, so doubly in retrospect, motivated reasoning alone must have told her to look unlike herself. Depersonalizing action from identity, as it were.


    She stepped off the street and past the bright red safety line that demarcated the edge of the landing lot, a pockmarked and thoroughly-indented expanse of gravel and bitumen that took up four city clocks, its damage concentrating towards the center. A groove of metal rail had been installed into the ground, leading from the postal box out to the street, and Ruvle followed it for the five steps to took to get to the box¡ªa gray cuboid with googly eyes and a rectangular open ¡®mouth¡¯ to look like a robot. In the most rudimentary sense, it was, since it would ride its rail to take its letters to their destinations automatically.


    Her anonymous letter slid into the robot¡¯s mouth. And when it was time for it to make its afternoon rounds, Elial¡¯s work office would get it, and someone would open it and read the mysterious bomb threat written by forged handwriting that was clearly a teenage boy instead of a notary public, and Elial wouldn¡¯t be able to go to work and she¡¯d get to go train tonight, and it would be fine, completely fine, she was sure; she had to live by her principles of not having principles.


    ¡°Now get out of here,¡± the henchman said.


    Ruvle took two steps back and looked out at what he guarded. Landing lots weren¡¯t meant for congregation because the payloads of railgun shots crashed down there, but someone was out all the way in the middle as if he were invincible. Additional henchmen surrounded him at safe distances, somewhere around ¡®I¡¯m paid well, but not well enough to get hit by an intercity flying anvil at half the speed of sound¡¯ far away, some braver than others. She counted a diffuse cloud of perhaps twelve of them, not counting those that had to be guarding other entrances to the landing lot. The man in the center gleamed in the sunlight¡ªostentatious robes fully the color and reflectiveness of Dye, drooping off his skinny frame and with heavy cuffs fluttering in the wind. Even his top hat had a thick golden Dye band around its center, and yet it didn¡¯t fly off, despite the many fans sitting out around him as if to add to the breeze¡ªsome freestanding tall ones, some in boxes; he even held a small steel propellor in one hand that spun on its own when he held down a button on its base.


    If her joints could still pop, her neck would have cracked from tilting her head like a squirrel presented with a wiring diagram. ¡°I have never seen someone who can afford to wear Dye act like that.¡±


    The henchman sidestepped up next to her. She got a glimpse of some barreled weapon behind his back, but not clearly enough to distinguish between an outmoded bullet gun, a laser that would be more official and work better, or something more. ¡°The place the boss does his business isn¡¯t up for discussion.¡±


    ¡°I just mean...all Dye? Those fans look new and expensive; why is he doing all of that himself instead of getting one of you to do it? What even is he doing?¡±


    ¡°Not up for discussion.¡± He pulled out his gun and held it across his chest; Ruvle stepped back. A tranquilizer gun. In all her paperwork experience, there were so many documents related to using laser guns and certifying training in old bullet guns, and even the newest ¡®ray¡¯ models using fast-moving ball lightning were going through endless legal red tape, but never tranquilizers. They passed through several legal loopholes to the point where they became more dangerous than actual firearms, because one could put a dart in someone in Stepwise center for transparently flimsy reasons and approximately get away with it. Tranquilizers simply knocked targets out for some amount of time, and M.A.D. had put in a lot of work to make the nonlethal dose extremely lenient.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°Sorry.¡±


    ¡°Othek doesn¡¯t want to be disturbed.¡±


    That Othek, the man on Chain¡¯s agenda? Ruvle caught a glimpse of the Dye-wearing man¡¯s other hand behind him, and found it hard to form any mental description of what it was. A thing. A something. Like a¡­.a puff of gas, deep purple and black, as if bending light away from it, with violet high-frequency fringes doing a better job of staying the course. Wind whipped around it, but the gas didn¡¯t dissipate, gusts of air conveniently always gathering it back into a lens in his hand in a way that felt obvious and intuitive that large wind systems would do that, until she thought about it at all, and even though thoughts were slipping out of her brain like blood draining from a wound. The glint. The piece of Thoughtless/Thuless.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to disturb,¡± Ruvle said. ¡°Can I at least spectate?¡±


    The henchman grunted.


    ¡°Sorry again,¡± Ruvle said, lowering her shoulders and tilting her head down, ¡°I¡¯m just...going through the same thing you are, I think, seeing a true citizen in person and nervous about my place, the same way you have the responsibility of protecting him, and that must be a lot, too.¡±


    It was a total shot in the dark, but the henchman lowered his tranquilizer at that, the needle poking out of the barrel shining in the sun. He looked over his shoulder to Othek, still facing Ruvle. ¡°It¡¯s a step up from getting between the frizz-heads and their shark tanks; I¡¯ll say that much.¡±


    Ruvle relaxed. The winds around Othek rippled and clashed with each other, visible in blown dust and clothing folds. It seemed so clear that the three fan-winds meeting one another should form a vortex the way they did¡ªand then nothing changed, and the winds canceled each other out, leaving the air between the three fans quiet in a way that anyone could agree that wind did. And nothing changed again, and the air became chaotic directionless turbulence between them, drowned out by the day¡¯s breeze, because why wouldn¡¯t it? ...The basic air flow, individual gusts and fans, stayed as they always did, but the interference came on the level of consequences of complexity applied a hundred times down the line. Emergent properties, those that had no trace in the underlying rules, and yet organized themselves into existence as direct extensions somehow.


    She...


    She had to go for it, right?


    ¡°You can watch until I tell you to scram,¡± the henchman said.


    Wait, no, what was in it for her? It¡¯d be getting in the way of the big payoff of whatever might be in Othek¡¯s tower, probably entire vials of Dye set aside for Consolidation, tons of money to spend on additional Dye, luxury appliances, one of those really fancy zeroberry juicers¡­


    ¡°How long have you been in the henching business?¡± Ruvle asked. Othek, distant, tossed aside the steel hand-fan and gestured with the glint, pulling the wind system together into a whirlwind that surprised Ruvle for not being there earlier.


    ¡°7 years. Might be 8. Keep forgetting which week I started this shindig with.¡±


    ¡°Mostly for scientists?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s where you start.¡±


    Ugh, no, Chain wouldn¡¯t forgive her if she let him go. She could just not tell him, but¡­


    Othek tipped his top hat. It elevated in the wind, swaying, and landed back down on his head at a jaunty angle.


    All of that Dye was right there, and she could probably break into his tower so easily by using the glint for herself, anyway¡­


    ¡°Why...wind?¡± Ruvle asked.


    ¡°Won¡¯t tell us. My guess is that he doesn¡¯t have Big Nothing¡¯s whole anti-brain with that piece there, but he¡¯s got the part that made hurricanes and tornadoes real. The more pieces, the more stuff the boss can do.¡±


    Ruvle shuffled her feet. ¡°You must have seen people be really stupid,¡± Ruvle said. She looked towards the henchman¡¯s gun. His hand securely vice-gripped the covered handle. Despite being stronger than the average woman from getting so much exercise in training, she wouldn¡¯t be able to pry that from him...


    ¡°Plenty of times.¡±


    ¡°I can listen to a good stupid-stunt story, if you have one,¡± Ruvle said, sizing up the fifteen-second sprint between her and Othek, and how she¡¯d deal with the eight of the henchmen close enough to get in her way¡­she tilted her head left and right to get a better sense of depth, and found a dirty red glass bottle laying out next to the postal box; she picked that up in preparation...


    ¡°This one¡¯s a riot,¡± the henchman said, cocking a grin under his visor. ¡°A chick got into the DNA lab, had with her a sample of fish cells, turns out she wanted to be a mermaid¡ª¡±


    And as Ruvle bolted, her free hand slapped the side of the tranquilizer just so, setting the safety switch to ON. In her sprint, the wind whipped past her, and the henchmen on the path to Othek pointed their own tranquilizers.

 11: Opportunity Knocks Back

    Time slowed, granting Ruvle grace instants to think, time unnecessary. Tranquilizer needles fired, one, two in succession, the third and fourth simultaneous, each tiny line of metal a locus of her adrenaline awareness. Ruvle ran like she were flying, her coat billowing, her carpenter¡¯s gloves tight around the soda bottle.


    She¡¯d trained too long to be perfect, to be the namesake of Exaction, to fail this dodging test.


    The first needle zipped and she ducked, letting it fly over her. The next shot low and from her side; no requirement. Henchman five was pointing, on her other side. Dartboard. Ruvle batted the needle out of the air with the glass bottle and it sailed into his left cheek. Needles three and four: oncoming, onward, she could slip between them. No, it required turning sideways, constrained movement, still two more shots unaccounted for. Ruvle swayed left, extending an arm, letting both needles jab through her coat. The back. Two ammunition acquired. Running remained.


    Tranquilizers took time, seconds. Henchman five shot. Ruvle swatted the needle. He was still opposite henchman two. Dart returned from dartboard to sender. Six and seven ahead sprinted to intercept, body-blocking. No. Wide blockade. Ruvle slid, a hand on the earth, momentum grinding her glove and sides of her sneakers across the ground, between the left leg of one and the right of the other. She tossed the bottle up mid-slide; she grabbed the two needles embedded in her coat; she stood from the slide behind the two as they were turning and jabbed one into henchman six¡¯s side, the skin between vest and pants. One hand was no longer sliding. She caught the bottle with it. Too late to jab henchman seven.


    Eight¡¯s grip on his gun shook, his eyes wide. She kept sprinting. ¡°What the fuck, what the fuck?¡± he asked himself. Right in the way. She climbed him like a ramp. Her other needle went into the skin under his jaw, now to jump off his shoulders. Dive-roll for a boost from the elevation, get up, run, sprint to the destination.


    Othek. Three more seconds of running. He was looking left to see her, dumb frown, eyes like staring into a searchlight. A goatee and a sharp pointed mustache, in black, making up for his baldness, his blocky squarish head. Hot burning air in her lungs did not stop her, full speed, every half-second counted. His coat fluttered. Her perception crawled, every ripple of fabric visible, dust motes on the wind before her, aware of each scratch on her work gloves as she extended her hand, grasping, there to accept that anti-lens of dark gas and malice¡ª


    Wind blasted her with the gale force to catch her cloak, to slip her feet free from earth and throw her like a loose pebble, right back the way she came, her adrenaline slowdown granting her the image of his bothered, offended, mildly inconvenienced face like he¡¯d knocked over a shampoo bottle when entering a bathtub. She was airborne. And she could not adjust her footing because she had none, could not dodge because there was nothing to dodge off of, no matter the magnitude of hyperdexterity, let alone for someone Coarse.


    But she landed on her feet, into a backwards tumbling roll. And there was a hand on her back between her shoulder blades.


    And she was gripped and thrust backwards onto the ground, suddenly pinned with a foot against her chest that wheezed the air out of her body for her, the tranquilizer gun pointed at her, inches from her masked face. The safety was on. Henchman zero slowly, deliberately, flipped it back to ¡®OFF¡¯, like he wanted her to see it.


    In a few more seconds, with the rush wearing off, the other nearby henchman who hadn¡¯t been tranquilized arrived¡ªone, three, four, and seven, all pointing needles straight at her, above her. She calculated how she could possibly move to get out of this.


    ¡°Oh, no no no, let this one continue,¡± came the smooth, honeyed voice of a man who knew his place on top of the world. Gold glinted at the bottom of her vision as Othek approached, visible between the arms of two men, who took their orders and stepped aside¡ªwith only henchman zero keeping his foot on her, preventing any do-over of her duping him. The hem of Othek¡¯s robes swayed with his steps. ¡°Good afternoon, hoodlum.¡± The needle was not as sharp as his smile. ¡°What does it for you? Alcohol, pills, a promise of fine women? What has made you risk everything, here and now?¡±


    Ruvle sweated under her mask. ¡°I¡ªI can¡¯t let you use that glint, I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said, and damn it, her words were failing her; she could do better writing documents. ¡°It¡¯s way too risky to everyone and everything to let those be out there, you shouldn¡¯t use it.¡±


    Othek visibly took a moment to recalibrate on hearing the voice of a woman under her heavy disguise. It hadn¡¯t failed yet; she could take solace in that one thing. ¡°She almost touched me.¡± Othek stood over her, just beside the henchman. He tapped his one with one finger and pointed down at her. ¡°She tried to injure me.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re too tough for her, boss,¡± henchman zero said to Othek¡¯s ego.


    ¡°Prison forever, regardless,¡± Othek said. He twisted the gas-lens in his fingers, and the air around all of them became a whirling vortex, a circular wind-wall nestling neatly against the edges of the landing lot like an egg in a carton. ¡°What a great way to practice what I¡¯ve learned so far, don¡¯t you think? Step off the hoodlum,¡± Othek said.


    Henchman zero did so without question and strafed backwards, still pointing his tranquilizer. Ruvle got to her feet, not bothering with speed. She caught her breath. She stood but three person-heights away from Othek, her arms raised in a defensive pose, while he behaved at-ease, relaxed¡ªexcept for a firm grip on the glint of Thuless.


    ¡°Well, go ahead,¡± Othek said, impatiently waving a hand. ¡°Do whatever it is you do.¡±


    She was so dead. This was such a bad idea.


    Ruvle acted fast. Fast enough to close that distance and get her hand on the glint in less than a second, and it felt like...like...nothing in particular, nothing that she could name or put a sensation to, not even numbness, and pulling on it¡ªpulling on it felt like trying to bend titanium. Not because of its structure, but because it was in Othek¡¯s hand, and she yanked and yanked on him as if to fail to uproot a bronze statue, while he regarded her boredly.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± the immovable object of a person asked. Ruvle could see a slight deformation of the robe around his upper arm, as if his triceps were activating, and that was all he needed to resist her entire weight and force. How much Dye was in this man!?


    She crashed the bottle into the side of his face, shattering it into a hundred sharp triangles, loudly enough to hurt her ears. He did not flinch. The sound hurt her more than the impact hurt him.


    "Why did I bother bringing henchmen, then?" Othek asked, exasperated.


    There was nothing to dodge. The entire wind system simply did what it did naturally and pressed in gale force down upon her¡ªand everywhere she could possibly run to. Split-seconds of scrabbling for footing were no match for the weight of an atmosphere beating down on her, pinning her to the ground, spreadeagle. The wind tilted, and her back scraped against the stone and bitumen below like chalk. She clawed with breaking fingernails against the earth and stabbed with her broken bottle neck for traction and twisted her legs to get her feet under her, all to no avail, all so soon taking her back into the air, up into the much faster swirling wind wall around the landing lot. Before she could consciously formulate a plan, before her bending of her body in the air could attempt a safe landing, the gust crushed her against the riveted sheet metal and brick wall of a machine shop¡ªfeet first, from Exact reflex, giving her the privilege of buckling legs and a hard wall-landing on her rear.


    She tumbled to the street below, on hands and knees, holding back swears and screams from a thought-annihilating pain in her center back. Crushed spinal disc? Couldn¡¯t tell, too much pain. Ruvle stood anyway, wincing, hunched-over. Can¡¯t go down in one hit. She¡¯d have been paralyzed if she had landed on her back or head.


    ¡°I hadn¡¯t meant to use the wind wall,¡± Othek pontificated, taking leisurely steps, several seconds of sprinting away from her. She couldn¡¯t sprint like this.


    ¡°Even your mistakes are brilliant,¡± grunted henchman zero.


    Another gout of wind threatened to grind her against the wall just as it had done against the floor, but Ruvle held fast. She gripped the brickwork with both hands, dug the tip of her shoe into it, and the diagonal push could only flatten her against brick¡ªwith her standing on one foot still on terra firma, her body posed so much like the branches of the fossil tree, an imprint. Her fingers trembled with all their strength, with the extra pain of her nails digging in too far, with desperation, a tear falling from her good eye against her mask.


    How could she survive someone who could declare with the air itself whether she had footing or not?


    Thinking of Elial, she made herself climb¡ªsideways against the windstorm, horizontal across the brickwork. She hissed and whimpered, her spine and fingers wracking her, but she had her grip, she had her mobility, enough to work with. Othek pointed with the glint, waving it left and right, frowning¡ªthe windstorm ebbed weaker and stronger, cycling over seconds, not enough to budge Ruvle from the wall. The henchmen parted from Othek, avoiding the barometric wrath.


    A sparkle of steel from the debris, sawdust and iron filings around the machine shop gave Ruvle an opening. It whizzed in the air past her and Ruvle snatched it, her progress slipping an inch from losing one hand of grip on the wall. Old rusty pliers, with smooth and worn handles. Good enough. In perspective towards Othek, the wind wall blew to her left, so should bank the shot towards her right¡­


    Othek lowered his hand, and Ruvle too lowered, awkwardly sagging on the wall from the sudden lass of wind pressure against her. ¡°Forget it. Shoot her and be done,¡± he said to his henchmen.


    They aimed their tranquilizers, in non-formation at a distance, and their needles shot wide¡ªflimsy and ill-fitting for the wind wall. Ruvle spread the pliers in her hand, focusing through the pain, refusing its demands on her focus. Just like hitting a dartboard. She was not Gross like these men, or the Dyed man she aimed for. She, Ruvle, was exact. She was Coarse. The answer for how to survive dealing with this man was obvious all along.


    The thrown pliers slung from her fingers like a four-pointed star, flying to strike true, fast as a whip crack. Yet, in her intuition, she knew she had not the strength to pierce his skin, sharp bit of metal or otherwise.


    ¡°You missed,¡± Othek announced with contempt, his short strands of black hair whipping in the breeze to reveal his male-pattern baldness, and it was just as well as if she¡¯d hit head on.


    The pliers had nothing to do with the answer. The way to survive was to not fight. To run the hell away and stop being a hero. While the henchmen reloaded, Ruvle spun and bolted, back through the streets for but a second before she was in an adjacent alleyway, feet crunching on blown metal dust from the machine shop, under a minirail line up above, between two hexagonal windows and under checkered awnings.


    Away.


    Far away.


    Crying from pain, with the shouts of henchman and a frustrated citizen in the distance.


    ¡°You humiliated her, boss,¡± henchman zero said, roughly fifteen minutes of fruitless searching later.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Othek sneered. ¡°Which one of you let her get so close to me in the first place?¡±


    None of them spoke up.


    ¡°Of course, of course,¡± he reiterated. The soles of his Dyed boots scratched across the landing lot, windswept spotless of debris and dust. ¡°None of them matter¡­but this is good practice for Fygra and her ilk.¡± The wind around them whistled, high, low, modulating speed to play a rough tune. ¡°They will accept this proof that I am as important a force as them, once and for all¡­¡±


    ¡°Shame about the hat,¡± henchman four commented.


    The battle had been a disaster and the pain worse still, but getting a glimpse of Othek from the other side of an appliance repair shop¡¯s billboard was almost worth it, that shocked face as he waved his hands over his head, that dawning realization that he no longer had his top hat.


    Humans were great at throwing random objects at targets. Throwing bad projectiles through rushing wind, with heavy mental strain, through another target at a specific rotational phase...Ruvle felt proud that she¡¯d actually landed the shot, that the pliers hadn¡¯t just pierced the top hat with those two prongs, but landed on a roof on the other side of the landing lot. If it had hit the billboard exactly, it would have been a damn Fine shot. The appliance repair shop wasn¡¯t even that terrible to climb.


    Ruvle picked up the pierced top hat from the roof¡¯s shingles and unsheathed the pliers like a sword from a stone¡ªthe last use of a dead tool destined for rust and re-casting, perhaps the best of its life, from shelf to shop to squalor on street. Ruvle couldn¡¯t control a creaking, weeping laugh of stress and relief as she pressed the top hat against her neck, willing the vital power of its band of Dye to merge with her.


    The gold twinkled, brightened, and finally winked out, becoming one with her instead of empty space¡ªher tiny victory.


    She was quick to get the hell back down, throw the top hat and pliers into a municipal trash can, and leave before any search resumed.

 12: A Gentle Step Towards Ruin

    Pulverizing a vertebra was a fantastic reason to miss work, but a terrible way to keep one¡¯s cover when Othek would be looking specifically for someone who took major sudden blunt-force trauma at one specific time of day. Her disguise hadn¡¯t been compromised, and that saved her today. She didn¡¯t have enough time to get an injection before coming back to work, only enough to swallow a fistful of painkiller tablets in the bathroom and splash water on her face. Ruvle had to grit her teeth to put her notary outfit back on and simply do her job for the rest of the afternoon and evening, a big friendly notary¡¯s smile on her face, verifying identities and co-signing documents and asking probing questions and helping people complete confusing paperwork and never letting on ever that her back was fucking killing her.


    At 9 p.m., she practically punted the last person out of the door to her office (a sweet old lady bringing her a box of cinnamon tea as a gift, yes thank you, yes this will help relieve stress, yes it is appreciated, but please leave because it is closing time) and rushed to the clinic. The medical examination and results were encouraging¡ªthe nurses gently broke it to her that the cracked bone was saved by an injection, but the injury tampered with her spinal cord and a region around her left kidney might be numb forever from now on. Ruvle thanked them and confirmed that she was not, in fact, numb anywhere.


    All those extra nerves she was growing had their advantages¡ªredundant connections, among them. The Dye, surely, locked them in.


    It had been a rough day, and after night in and night out of hours catching up on flydodging, she felt...spent. And yet she¡¯d gone through the day¡¯s effort to make sure she could train tonight. Screw it. After changing into her indigo bodysuit, Ruvle gave herself a reprieve and went out and got a treat.


    ¡®Mielo ~ Can we meet off-text?¡¯ Ruvle scribbled into the textwork on the well-scratched brass table before her. Red-and-white diamond-patterned walls surrounded her, with dated picture frames nailed to a few and bars of green lighting along the ceiling. One very extended wall, elongating the building to the proportions of a couch, held rows and rows of sealed slots with ready-fresh food that one could open just by inserting coins; they took both vo and vouchers. People visited these automats for cheap hot meals or convenient treats all the time, with no interaction from the cookstaff, whose jobs were to stock slots rather than talk to anyone.


    ¡®Chain Hydrapress ~ Why?¡¯ he wrote back.


    ¡®~ I don¡¯t want the reason in writing.¡¯


    ¡®~ Good or bad?¡¯


    Ruvle clicked her pen a few times. ¡®~ Both. I¡¯m training hard and it¡¯s working. I have questions about Thuless glints.¡¯


    ¡®~ Aces, because I have answers.¡¯


    Oh, fine. The textwork was inherently difficult to record long-term, anyway. ¡®~ Do you have to destroy the glints? Couldn¡¯t they be used for good?¡¯


    ¡®~ Nope.¡¯


    ¡®~ I know Othek¡¯s glint has something to do with why hurricanes and tornadoes exist. If I had it and I cared about other people, I could make them stop existing.¡¯ She felt a little better now about her bomb threat decision¡ªit earned her Dye. Elial¡¯s impending inconvenience felt so much easier to ignore.


    It took Chain a few minutes to respond, during which time Ruvle ate her treat, a twinnie¡ªa puck-shaped dessert made from crystallization, sparkling white with hard angular inclusions of black and brown. They were made from hot blends of icing and chocolate seeded with tiny starter crystals, each of them a different atomic pattern that tesselated a different amount of sugar and flavor onto itself; very slow cooling produced this crowd of shiny monoclinic faces. The brown and black bits had all the chocolate grains concentrated into them and they were her favorite part; every bite shattered sugar into rewarding, relieving pebbles that melted in her mouth. Ruvle could only have a treat once per week or so¡ªsugar gave her tiny tremors unacceptable for Exaction¡ªso she sprung for the good stuff, something that both tasted great and wasn¡¯t over in three bites.


    ¡®~ Have you ever been gambling?¡¯ Chain finally asked. ¡®Maybe these tiny pieces of Thuless are fine on their own, but that¡¯s never how this kind of thing goes. I know they¡¯re not that powerful because if they could influence all of reality like Thuless itself, we¡¯d already see every ocean current changing or something, stars turning off or on in the night sky, industries collapsing because semiconductors don¡¯t work that way anymore. Stuff. The guys who have them are going to look for more, and that means putting them together. I¡¯m not talking hypotheticals. There¡¯s already public record of one getting a second glint at the same time a different true cit lost theirs. That¡¯s the gamble: put two glints together and boost both of their powers, and maybe you¡¯ll have enough to do that ¡®good¡¯ alteration you were planning. Maybe you need three. But eventually you¡¯re going to stop having tiny pieces and it¡¯ll start being fucking Thuless.¡¯


    Ruvle swallowed a mouthful of sugar. ¡®Oh.¡¯


    ¡®~ Don¡¯t gamble. You trick yourself into thinking you could win, and that¡¯s why you¡¯ll lose everything.¡¯


    In the background, a family discussed which of three identical slots they wanted to open for their kid¡¯s meal. Ruvle had as little to say to them as to Chain.


    ¡®~ Foresee well with your training, okay?¡¯ he added. ¡®I¡¯m about to go into the alcazar.¡¯


    ¡®~ I¡¯m not training yet, I¡¯m having a twinnie before I start practice for today.¡¯


    ¡®~ SO JEALOUS.¡¯


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    A little something to pep her up for exertion. She was ready.


    Back in the monastery, Ruvle didn¡¯t see Elial right away, so she set up her facade by dancing through the motions¡ªdodging the jets of the laminar flow nozzles on the swimming pool area stage, testing just how much the Dye had done for her. She had a pretty weak understanding of the conversion ratio between Dye mass and power, and similarly how much was in that top hat, but her dips and sways around the water streams felt...natural. The patterns worn into her muscle memory from exhaustive practice felt less difficult, her judgment calls of when to twist clearer, her desire to stay in the center a sharper point of focus.


    Her black locks fluttered as she bent back, letting a gout of water fly past her nose, so close that her breath rippled its surface before it concluded. Ruvle had...time to think, even without an adrenaline boost. Like the mental clarity that came with exercise, amplified upon itself.


    She spent ten minutes on stage. Where water splashed on the floor, droplets scattered, a few beading on the legs of her bodysuit. They alone were lucky enough to touch her.


    Twenty minutes in, life gave her two hints to stop: a jet of water nicked her ear, and Elial emerged from down the hall, her face as dispassionate as ever.


    ¡°...I thought you weren¡¯t going to be here today?¡± Ruvle said, and hopped off the stage, wiping off her ear on the back of her hand.


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t,¡± Elial explained, a tremor in her voice, ¡°but someone mailed a bomb threat to the building I was to work on.¡±


    Ruvle faked her best surprised and indignant look, and then a well-timed sigh of relief. ¡°I¡¯m glad you didn¡¯t go there.¡±


    ¡°Life is unpredictable,¡± Elial said. ¡°Until it¡¯s safe to go back, I¡¯ll be here.¡±


    ¡°In that case¡­can you go over the gentle steps you talked about yesterday, again?¡± Maybe pushing her luck. ¡°I think I need to practice something else. I think I¡¯m as good at flydodging as I¡¯m going to get with the water jets; I think I¡¯ve memorized all the speeds and angles...¡±


    Elial wandered over to one of the storage rocks. ¡°Tiose isn¡¯t here today. I told him that I¡¯d be gone, so he planned for the future accordingly, but I can begin with you.¡± From behind the rock, she whipped out two cardboard boxes, one with a small air pump inside¡ªthe sorts that were mostly circular with concentric black rings on the side, like a stripped-down hair dryer¡ªand another with colorful plastic inflatable pool toys, a rainbow of cheap commercialism that looked entirely non-serious. ¡°This will take a moment.¡±


    Ruvle balked at the toys, but, surely Elial knew what she was doing. So instead of saying anything, she sat down on that storage rock, crossing one ankle over the other. ¡°That¡¯s okay.¡± She let out a big sigh. ¡°I¡¯m pushing myself some. My body thinks it should be resting, but today¡¯s not over¡­I get my sleep when I¡¯m done, not before.¡±


    Elial nodded, inflating the pool toys without really paying attention to them. ¡°You¡¯ve put in much more training time than other initiates lately.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve given yourself a difficult regimen at the same time that you¡¯re losing muscle mass to nerves, and the more intensively you practice, the faster that conversion happens, putting more strain on what you have left. You¡¯re accumulating longer-term fatigue. Take a rest day after today.¡±


    ¡°I don''t¡ª¡±


    ¡°Do it.¡±


    Ruvle let her fingers dangle between her knees; she hung her head, breathing deep. ¡°It¡¯s okay if I get tired. I want to be strong. If I push myself every day and make sure I get my 9 hours of sleep, that¡¯s the growth I want. I know I can¡¯t just measure it with a number, how much better I¡¯m getting, but it¡¯s the way.¡±


    Elial didn¡¯t push the subject; she tossed a few inflated pool toys into the water. ¡°How much do you weigh?¡±


    Ruvle blinked. ¡°I don¡¯t check very often? I think 85%?¡± Such was the usual way of measuring; Ruvle¡¯s average height meant she¡¯d be 100% of an average woman¡¯s weight, if she weren¡¯t in much better shape than a typical citizen and her muscle mass weren¡¯t being replaced.


    ¡°These are reasonable, then,¡± Elial said. ¡°Follow after me.¡± After filling and tossing in a few more, she hopped onto the pool, and took her gentle steps.


    The pool toys were not sufficient for an adult. One child-sized recliner of bright green, with equally-spaced indentations in its bed surface, might support half of Ruvle¡¯s weight. A lengthy foam noodle looked to have even less buoyancy. The white ball with swirling black patterns on it might be the best option for support, with an added challenge of its top being slippery and unstable. A torus with a decorative plastic beaver¡¯s head on the front looked more steady, intended for a child to slip into the middle of the torus and hang onto it around them for flotation. On their own, none of them were enough, so Elial used all of them. Her feet lightly tapped the foam noodle as she jumped off it, low enough to be more like a stride, onto the floating ball. Her feet stayed perched on it for only half a second, Elial crouching and holding her fists near her ankles, before she bounded onto the torus, and its momentum carried her for the moment she needed to walk onto the recliner as a stepping stone back onto the foam noodle. Ruvle observed, her attention rapt on her teacher¡¯s feet specifically.


    ¡°It¡¯s...you make it look obvious and easy,¡± Ruvle breathed.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t,¡± Elial commented, settling into less dramatic strides and quick steps, like trying out an avante-garde dance, but her feet just happened to always touch a pool floatie. ¡°I¡¯m slightly foremotive; predicting them comes naturally.¡±


    ¡°I mean, it¡¯s more¡­¡± Ruvle whistled. ¡°I never really put it together before now, but now I get how to explain what makes Fine different from Coarse to people who don¡¯t know anything about us.¡± Well, maybe. She blinked twice. ¡°I¡¯ll have to explain it to Chain.¡±


    ¡°The raiding friend of yours?¡±


    Ruvle nodded. The pool floaties continued to yield every time Elial used them as platforms, but it didn¡¯t matter how rapidly they sank, because that always gave her enough time to use the next one. The control over her downwards momentum was puzzling, and come to think of it, not intuitive at all¡ªshe had to push more on bigger platforms and less on smaller ones, taking every opportunity to counteract gravity, rapidly trading their buoyant forces to counteract her weight and how was Elial not even getting splashed?


    ¡°Step on,¡± Elial recommended. Mid-stride from recliner to ball, she gestured to some of the other toys. A second recliner, this one fire-themed (kids loved irony), looked like a good starting point.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Ruvle crouched down, getting eye-to-nozzle-seal with the fire recliner across the pool, stars twinkling above and her destiny in her hands.


    ¡°Get the lowest jump you can,¡± Elial recommended, monotone. ¡°Give gravity the least reason to tame you.¡±


    Ruvle leaped forward, smiling despite her fatigue, her arms wide and her attentive eyes sparkling, every free neuron in her ready to learn.


    Of course, she immediately sank, getting her first taste of the exact problem to solve, rippling the waterline with waves and foam. Ruvle came up for air, laughing, her hair splatted against her face with water.


    ¡°Now try again!¡± Elial said, her buoyancy dance unabated. Today¡¯s training would be fun.

 13: The Magic of Tislets

    Chain met up with her a few days later, the night before their big re-attempt at Othek¡¯s spire¡ªas great as the textwork was, long conversations worked best in-person, especially having discoveries to demonstrate. The mountains of the crater¡¯s edge receded in the distance as Chain carried her, grinding the minirail away from Stepwise¡¯s southern suburbs closer to the core.


    ¡°...and that little indigo spot on the mountain,¡± Ruvle explained, pointing generically backwards but too tired to care specifically where, ¡°that¡¯s the monastery.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re telling me you run all the way there and back from your office, no minirail?¡± Chain cocked his head; he was clearly smiling behind the mask.


    ¡°Yes. It¡¯s endurance training¡­¡± she let her head loll back, going limp in Chain¡¯s arms. ¡°Have to keep my core in shape, have to not run out of energy when I need it¡­¡±


    ¡°Not just being afraid of riding the fun way?¡± Chain asked. He spun on the rail clockwise, turning upside-down to avoid someone, his arms still secure around Ruvle. She looked ¡®up¡¯ to the rooftops above her, those that her hair dangled towards as she passed them by.


    ¡°No,¡± she pouted.


    ¡°Teasing ya. You should try this, get some more focused practice instead of jogging an hour.¡±


    ¡°Most days aren¡¯t like this.¡± She closed her eye. The world inverted around her again. The tail of Chain¡¯s scarf fluttered and battered the air behind them in the breeze of motion, every flick reassuring her ears that it was still there. ¡°Today¡¯s training was so hard that when I thought about running home when I was done, I just...I couldn¡¯t do it, that¡¯s why I had to ask you. I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°Well damn, you told me she was trying to get you to rest. Why¡¯s she wearing you out so hard now?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not any worse than normal, it¡¯s¡­¡± she rubbed her face. Her fingers were still un-wrinkling from getting in and out and in and out of the pool; every splash a new wet cycle. Getting over the intuition to put extra weight on surfaces to stay upright, instead of moving faster across them and complicating her step rotation, was anathema to her human survival instincts. The water had soaked her through so many times that her finger joints became white and soggy, and skin between her toes peeled. The wax covering her left eye socket collected cracks at the top and bottom of the vertical-slit ¡®pupil¡¯, and the skin around the wax tributaries inflamed with pinkness. ¡°I didn¡¯t take the rest day. I have to keep training.¡±


    ¡°Ruvie, lay down sometime, it¡¯ll be good for you.¡±


    She groaned to herself in between breaths. ¡°I already sleep as much as my body lets me. I¡¯m getting all the rest benefits I can¡­¡±


    ¡°Nah, take a whole day to yourself.¡±


    ¡°My office is closed today. This is my day to myself.¡±


    ¡°And you spent it all wearing yourself out all day and all night instead of doing neither,¡± Chain said, with a chuckle. ¡°Look, I¡¯m not gonna tell you what to do, you¡¯re an adult, but if you want to put the raid off by a day, I can do that.¡±


    Ruvle shook her head, still with her hands over her face. ¡°No¡­¡±


    She felt him shrug his shoulders. Several minutes passed in silence, apart from rushing air and metal-on-metal grinding. Through her fingers, Ruvle saw Chain occasionally look back at her as if to say something, but words didn¡¯t form¡ªonce, twice, three times, looking for a comment about how hard she worked, one that didn¡¯t come.


    ¡°So you don¡¯t try to sneak in any extra work before tomorrow, how about I show you my stuff?¡± Chain offered. ¡°Get familiar with the strategy, get better performance when we¡¯re doing our thing, and it won¡¯t take any juice out of you.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± Ruvle breathed.


    Chain hooked her knees over his shoulder so that he could have one arm free, the other arm supporting her back. ¡°Here.¡± He pulled his scarf off his neck, the light of tislets rippling with the fabric, dense and bright¡ªno longer were the fields of stamp-sized symbols discrete and patchy, like adjacent cities, but the grid had grown together into one cohesive unit, each section bounded from each other only by optical illusions¡ªtislets with heavy diagonal strokes, flush against each other, borders visible by squinting or distance. Only a few scattered cells in the grid were knocked-out, vacant lots with no useful takers. ¡°Check this out.¡± He gave the scarf a flick, and it swapped colors to match the night sky above and the city below¡ªno, rather, it had become a brilliant mirror, reflecting reality, with a maze of thousand-times reflected tislet light behind it as if staring down the hall of a library, bookshelf after bookshelf of information in neat evenly-spaced rows ad infinitum. ¡°Perfect optical reflection in the visible spectrum. Most mirrors can¡¯t handle a good laser, but this sucker will. And this...¡± He whipped the scarf to his side, and where its end cracked like leather, Ruvle and Chain rotated on the minirail with its momentum. ¡°Hits like throwing a big rock. I can crack brick walls with a good whip.¡±


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    ¡°...At the same time?¡± Ruvle asked; the mirror hadn¡¯t deactivated during the whipping. She couldn¡¯t imagine doing gentle steps and flydodging at the same time.


    ¡°Yep! That¡¯s tislets!¡± The corner of his grin peeked from the edges of his mask. ¡°Everything¡¯s reusable.¡± He wiggled the scarf; it turned off and on from mirror to light blue over and over again, stopping on light blue. ¡°I know when you really get optimized on sequencing, you do some tricks to share tislets between sequences so you can¡¯t do them both at once, but I¡¯m not there yet; I just have a different sequence for all four physia I want to do. You can put tislets on these wooden tiles to make them one-use-only; they build those into support beams for skyscrapers to turn them extra strong one-and-done, but, come on, a guy like me is never gonna use them when I¡¯ve got my scarf.¡±


    Ruvle nodded blearily. Her left eye hurt. She didn¡¯t want to take her hand off it. ¡°Why¡¯s the scarf¡­¡± she trailed off, her voice weakening.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s a special material, the fibers are really small and it¡¯s gotta have just the right volume, that¡¯s why scarves are big enough these days to¡ª¡° he stopped and frowned at her. ¡°You¡¯re bleeding.¡±


    ¡°I am?¡± She pulled her palm away from her eye to see a fresh blood smear on the heel of her palm, rapidly drying against the nighttime air.


    ¡°You gonna be okay?¡±


    ¡°I think so,¡± she said, and at this point she felt it trickling down the side of her face, like mucus through her sinuses, but sharp. Her fingers traced over the places that felt like they¡¯d been cut, only to feel the acid heat of disturbed wounds. ¡°Oh, ow, I forgot, ow...I¡¯m stupid, I haven¡¯t¡­¡± She never gave herself time for this. ¡°I knew I had to reapply my wax days and days ago, but I¡¯ve been so focused, and now it¡¯s cracking too far down¡­¡±


    ¡°Okay, don¡¯t mess around with bandages or anything, that¡¯s an open head wound, get injected.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve had three injections in the last seven days already¡­¡± She¡¯d been riding the line of that allowable maximum. ¡°Ow, they can¡¯t regenerate body parts anyway, I need my wax.¡±


    ¡°We gotta get you home fast.¡± He scanned the horizon from his elevated minirail position, glass and brick for miles around with a single bird of prey passing over the moon above. ¡°That¡¯s your office, right?¡±


    ¡°The checkered black and white building with my signature on the sign, that¡¯s it.¡± They were almost there, but the office was far off to Ruvle¡¯s right and the minirail was about to bank left, so they¡¯d have to dismount at the station and then have a fairly long walk back, dripping a blood trail the whole way.


    ¡°Get on my back, I¡¯m taking a shortcut.¡± He drummed his supporting arm¡¯s fingers on her back, and a sequence of tislets on his scarf brightened. She took the hint and climbed behind him, thighs wrapping around his waist and her arms under his shoulders, secure as a living backpack with her bloody non-eye dripping down her cheek. As soon as the minirail took a rightwards detour to prepare for its hard bank left, Chain slung off his helmet; no longer electromagnetically stabilized, he immediately tumbled, but his scarf caught the air¡ªand instead of taking the long way around on foot, they were airborne and gliding again, his arms up and angled to hold his scarf-parachute to sail though the skyline.


    His momentum from the minirail carried him over low brick buildings, down a city street. Streetlamps were aglow above the interlocking tiled stone, with colorbugs flashing a rainbow between buildings, and pedestrians occasionally stopped to watch Chain from below.


    ¡°You¡¯re good at controlling this,¡± Ruvle said. ¡°It looks easy.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s one of those things that you see and it looks easy, but you know it¡¯s hard, and then you try it and find out it¡¯s medium.¡± He tucked his legs up. ¡°Not too tricky. Careful lass, we¡¯re coming in fast.¡±


    Parallax masked speed. One could get a sense that streets were passing below them, but only when very close to the earth did velocity become visceral; the octagon-and-diamond stone blurred in motion, and Chain landed in a stumbling sprint, staying upright only with the last of the air resistance from the parachute. He was a few steps too late to not crash into the office door¡ª


    In the moment before impact, Ruvle thrust her key into the lock, twisted it, and let the door be pushed open by his momentum, first-try¡ªand suddenly they were inside, in the dim light, one limp scarf behind them and the air no longer rushing in her ears.

 14: Wax Sculpting

    Ruvle dismounted Chain¡¯s back, hunching over. ¡°I¡¯ll go get the wax¡­¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll do it for ya,¡± Chain said, and patted the couch¡¯s black cushion. ¡°Lay back.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want blood where the signators sit,¡± Ruvle said, putting her hand back over her non-eye. But maybe the people sitting to play the Silver Screen were less picky.


    ¡°You got any other furniture?¡± Chain asked.


    ¡°Not...really.¡±


    He gave his cocky grin. ¡°Then lay down.¡±


    Ruvle shimmied past the low-set table for gaming controllers and external beverages; someone had moved it too close to the couch again. She lay back. Chain picked up a white throw pillow as if to toss it onto her, but thought better of it and dropped it. Ruvle nudged aside a coaster on the low-set table with her heel. ¡°Go behind the desk and to the filing cabinets, back left corner of the room, the third one in the row,¡± Ruvle said, ¡°and it¡¯s in the tiny drawer labeled Miscellany. Bring everything in there.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m on it,¡± he said. Ruvle looked towards the checkered ceiling, losing track of him. ¡°Getting to dig through the back of a notary office, I feel like I¡¯m on sacred ground¡­¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re people just like you,¡± Ruvle said. ¡°Try not to mess with anything else back there.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t dream of it. I mean, I would, but I wouldn¡¯t do it.¡± A metal cabinet slid open.


    ¡°You have more restraint than the auditors.¡± she laughed weakly. ¡°They just grab documents like wrapping paper, ones that are older than me. Even I don¡¯t touch the ones Dad still kept around.¡±


    Chain returned shortly to lean over the back of the couch where Ruvle could see him from below, one hand holding a finger-trigger lighter¡ªthe sort with a heavy handle base and a long metal snout to reach into cooking equipment¡ªand the other on a closed, puck shaped screw-top container of wax. He had his eyes on the wax, like he didn¡¯t know what to say about it. And then Ruvle remembered the importance of the container¡¯s chained-up blushing smiley face logo. ¡°Oh. So, I have to use a skin-safe, low-melting wax that¡¯s hard but flexible when it¡¯s solid, and the best kind for that is in an adult intimacy store.¡±


    Chain popped open the tin of wax, exposing the bright red, the same color as her current eye socket covering. The original pour into her eye socket had only turned red because of the blood, but she¡¯d chosen to keep the color ever since, reclaiming that small quality of her injury. Chain flicked the lighter on and spun the tin in his hand. ¡°I had a girlfriend once who would have loved this stuff.¡±


    Soon the wax was molten and he bent down close to her, twirling the toothpick. ¡°I assume I don¡¯t just pour?¡± he asked.


    ¡°You use the toothpick,¡± Ruvle said. ¡°Trace these wax lines here, like you¡¯re painting.¡±


    He dipped the toothpick into the wax and followed directions¨Ceach little brushstroke along her tributaries covering cold wax with hot, soon to harden. Ruvle held her breath, keeping still.


    ¡°Sort of afraid I¡¯ll miss a spot, or¨C¡±


    ¡°Ow.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that, sorry.¡± A molten droplet had dripped onto her chin.


    ¡°It¡¯ll be okay.¡±


    When she did this in a mirror on her own, she enjoyed seeing the brighter red of molten wax darken as it cooled, the difference between oxygenated and deoxygenated blood, forming its protective layer. Now, Chain could witness his same handiwork.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    ¡°Make sure to get the edges of my eye socket,¡± Ruvle added. ¡°Right up against the skin. Get the bleeding part, so it seals.¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t it hurt?¡±


    ¡°A little.¡±


    In between moments to re-dip, the toothpick¡¯s blunt point burned along the edges of the wax seal, while she frowned and bore the pain. It wasn¡¯t much, a sharp medicinal sting against the skin-seam that had fused with the original wax, deadened from many iterations of this repair treatment. With that part done, Chain swirled the toothpick in the tin, thinking. ¡°How about the cracks on the edge of your¡­do I call it a pupil?¡±


    ¡°Those, too.¡±


    These didn¡¯t hurt at all as he filled them in. The wax was much, much thicker there, all the way into the eye socket. Already, her eye felt so much better.


    ¡°Is that everything?¡± Chain asked, taking a step back to admire his work.


    ¡°Almost, but, the last part I have to do myself,¡± Ruvle said, reaching up and taking the tin. ¡°The pupil split goes really far down, and it tries to widen over time¡­¡±


    ¡°Uh oh.¡±


    She swirled the toothpick in its red molten paint, and with delicate slowness¨C


    ¡°I don¡¯t like this part at all, no thank you.¡±


    ¡°Shush.¡±


    ¨Cshe inserted it into the vertical slit pupil, halfway down. Blood and broken skin were their own challenge, but the touch-ups to maintain the seal over the remaining ocular debris so close to her brain required an Exact hand.


    The toothpick came back out, and they were done. Ruvle sighed and closed the tin again, holding it to her chest, letting her good eye fall closed. She tried commanding any ocular muscle tissue left in the wax one, and felt nothing.


    ¡°Aces, looking good. All touched up for the raid. Rest up, eh?¡± Chain asked, his arm depressing the back couch cushion she lay against.


    ¡°I know, I know¡­¡± Ruvle hugged a throw pillow. ¡°I¡¯m not a child, I know to sleep¡­¡±


    ¡°Eh, more than sleep.¡±


    She pouted. ¡°I¡¯ll be ready! You have to be ready too if you¡¯re bothering me about it¨C¡±


    Chain cackled. ¡°Aw man, I knew there was a reason I was friends with you.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. Yeah, I have my scarf, got a new sandbox lid I sprayed down just in case, new random stuff in my pockets. I wanted to buy one of those crazy computer virus disks that shut down robots, but I can¡¯t afford one; I¡¯m pretty strapped on vo.¡±


    She blue a lock of hair out of her face. ¡°Just steal it.¡±


    ¡°Ruuuuvle,¡± he said, with footsteps and liek her were adjusting his stance for some pose, ¡°I don¡¯t steal stuff.¡±


    ¡°I do!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not stealing if you buy it with your notary money.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t get paid as well as you think,¡± she said, squeezing the throw pillow tighter. ¡°I don¡¯t convert most of my vouchers into vo, anyway, so I can eventually buy Dye with the voucher discount¡­¡± Stepwise¡¯s government had a dual economy, ensuring that most businesses paid in ¡®vouchers¡¯¨Ccurrency slips assigned via serial number to the specific person they were printed for, which could only be spent by that one person on state-owned businesses that covered basic needs at steep discounts. The plan was that the poor could live entirely on vouchers if they had to, but the program had expanded dramatically since then. The bills didn¡¯t circulate¨Conce spent and back in the state¡¯s hands, they were destroyed. One of the things that vouchers could buy was ¡®vo¡¯, a more traditional circulating spender-agnostic coin money, like the kind that states outside of Stepwise used.


    ¡°You get paid well compared to me, let me tell you.¡± Chain repeatedly clicked the lighter in his hand. ¡°We¡¯re gonna do great. We¡¯re better prepared this time.¡±


    ¡°Maybe.¡± Ruvle shook her head. ¡°I¡¯ve trained a lot, but it¡¯s still a raid and I¡¯m still only Coarse. You have magic. I don¡¯t think anyone uses magic. Most people come in highly Consolidated, or with an army, or lots of secret M.A.D. tech¡­¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll be fine. I know we¡¯re not usual raiders, but I don¡¯t have the usual goal, so whatever. And there¡¯s gotta be something in us two working together; we¡¯re crossing two kinda weird and obscure skillsets here. Ever thought about that?¡±


    ¡°A little bit.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t get down on yourself for not being ¡®Fine¡¯ yet,¡± Chain said, and she could hear the airquotes without having to open her eye, ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure it won¡¯t make that big of a difference.¡±


    Ruvle wiggled her hips to nestle deeper into the couch. ¡°There¡¯s a difference¡­.there¡¯s so much of a difference¡­¡± The specter of sleep paced around her, waiting for its chance to pull her to the land of recovery.


    ¡°And what is it?¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t told you about¡­about Elial¡­¡±

 15: I Havent Told You About Elial

    It was a beautiful early morning at Mount Micron. Elial was alone.


    The monastery¡¯s exterior walls gave Elial the dimmest familial impression of home, a whisper of emotion, one that the worn-in grooves of self-control in her prefrontal cortex let slip away instead of chasing. Natural rock faces interleaved with gray flues of worked stone, most of them open to the sky and capped with stained glass skylights, of all different widths and heights¨Cnone exempt from the inconsistent protection of weathered mountain rock covering them. The indigo glass above the main entrance, an archway with hanging beads, depicted the road of advancement in abstract triangles¨CGross to Coarse to Fine to Ultrafine, with the subcategorization of witnesses between them, such as Gross-Witnesses on the cusp of initiating or Coarse-Witnesses ready to leave their hearts behind. Elial stayed firm about her choice not to reach the practical endpoint that was Ultrafine; Point-Perfect, beyond even that, lay beyond any consideration. She quite liked still having her own feelings, shadows of Exactly excised desires.


    For example¨Cplastic toys. She juggled three colorful cube puzzles in the air, the sorts that had to be twisted to unscramble colors and make every face the same hue. As each one fell in her hands, she had enough instants to spare to flick several turns into them, and only then toss them back up. Not a terribly difficult trick¨Cthese were just slow-moving arrangements of physical matter. Making decisions on three executed algorithms on three different cube states was harder.


    If Exaction as an art was so dying, to the point where the only two Ultrafines she knew wouldn¡¯t respond to her textwork questions, she could at least have some fun in its deathbed. One day, she¡¯d likely have to sacrifice again, let her artificial heart lose its passions once and for all, just so that there would still be at least one Ultrafine in the world to learn from.


    Hopefully, she wouldn¡¯t need to.


    A glimpse of sandy-brown fur caught her attention, and Elial looked down the mountain from her spot, a slanted outcropping of stone a few feet from the monastery proper, much like any other. The arrival below stirred no opinions in her¨Ca cluster of ten men in black suits ascending the beaten-white grave trail, each with sunglasses and a black visor, with holstered laser pistols and the occasional dark leather suitcase, each likely containing either an M.A.D. invention or the key point of whatever they were here for.


    They were not here to watch minor tricks or issue paperwork, judging by the four-headed squirrel the size of a bus.


    Man unsuccessful experiments of M.A.D. science like it were repurposed. Two of the men climbed the mountain properly, sans briefcases, and the others sat on the squirrel¡¯s back for transport. It bounded up the rocks effortlessly, waiting only on its fellows on two feet¨Cwho were finally turning their attention to her, two stories up, far across the currently-gentle slope that let Elial see so much of the mountainside. There was a reason she¡¯d been fond of this specific rock to stand on. ¡°Good morning, visitors,¡± she said, monotone as ever. The others didn¡¯t appreciate the effort in staying forever neutral, or the self-control-training purpose of it. ¡°What brings you to Mount Micron?¡±


    The man in the front seat of the omnibus squirrel-saddle grunted. ¡°Legal business,¡± he told her, propping open the briefcase to reveal a piece of paper that she couldn¡¯t read from so far away. ¡°This is an investigation.¡±


    Elial blinked slowly, making eye contact with two different left eyes of the squirrel-hydra. ¡°What are you investigating?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s for the highest authority of your organization to know. Bring us to them.¡±


    ¡°An Ultrafine is not present,¡± Elial said. They never would be. ¡°I¡¯m the only one here. Speak.¡±


    The lead squirrel-rider looked over his shoulder and barked something to his compatriots, inaudible from here, all responding in kind with henchman-to-henchman communication.


    ¡°Othek Perfectcoil was assaulted and stolen from, five days ago. The assailant was masked and disguised. Too fast and agile to be ordinary. We got a researcher on the case, and, isn¡¯t this a coincidence, this old camp practices that.¡±


    Who was Othek?


    ¡°You should come back another time when other initiates are present,¡± she said.


    ¡°Get us a list of names.¡±


    ¡°This may take some time.¡± People had come and gone, mostly gone, fallen off of learning Exaction altogether. She didn¡¯t know if she should share former members with them, or Gross-Witnesses¨C


    ¡°And stop juggling while I¡¯m talking to you,¡± the henchman interrupted her pondering. ¡°I want to talk to someone Thoughtful.¡±


    Well.


    Now she wasn¡¯t inclined to cooperate.


    It hit her who ¡®Othek¡¯ was; that name Ruvle once mentioned¨Cthe owner of the tower she¡¯d failed to raid, with her underdeveloped intuition for multiple dangers that led her to struggle with simple dodging. Elial changed the style of throwing her puzzle cubes, not from one hand to the other, but up and down in the same¨Ctaking simple near-vertical parabolic arcs, catching at one terminus and throwing from the other, an appearance of circular motion to those without keen eyes. ¡°You may have the wrong location.¡±


    ¡°We know exactly where we are,¡± the henchman snorted. A few in the back whispered to each other.


    ¡°Even if the assailant visits here, something you cannot confirm,¡± Elial said, ¡°I would not turn in one of my own initiates.¡± A trainee with such a drive to improve, to learn, and yet an arrogance-free ego? She wouldn¡¯t lose one. What¡¯s more, she trusted Ruvle; she spent so much time mentoring that notary lately that there was no way Ruvle had less than her best wishes in mind.


    ¡°Well, you¡¯d better. We¡¯re authorized to search any home or business. Don¡¯t play any law games with us, the gegha here¡¯s deputized to go wherever we need to,¡± he said, patting the squirrel neck before him.


    There was, indeed, a collar around the lower left neck with a blocky green tag that read ¡®DEPUTY¡¯. The squirrel chittered from two heads. One of the other henchmen poured out a bag of nuts into one of its mouths.


    ¡°And that isn¡¯t the right kind of authority,¡± Elial said, remaining firm, still juggling. ¡°This is a protected historical and geological site. Talk to both of those departments of the state for permission.¡±


    The stuffy, boring Historical Preservation Department that put everything in warehouses to rot without proper cataloging couldn¡¯t agree on the right notary to clean up all of the paperwork, entirely because of petty bureaucratic power games. The Geological Surveys of Stepwise were once asked for permission to pour 10,000 tons of liquid nitrogen into an active volcano just to see what would happen, and they approved the project immediately with triple the requested funding. The departments hated each other. It was why the monastery hadn¡¯t been closed or evicted for a true citizen¡¯s development project in over two hundred years, all because of a tree imprint.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°...Squad, get off the deputy,¡± the henchman said. ¡°I¡¯ve been waiting to throw some weight around.¡±


    Elial let them all dismount, onto hard stone, off the soft squirrel fur. Really, that tail looked gorgeous, the fur colored like rings of pale lumber surrounding the heartwood of its flesh tail. One could get lost in the flourishing dense hair, she imagined. The henchmans¡¯ matching black climbing boots crunched the white gravel below, joined only by the sound of Elial¡¯s catch and throw of plastic, over and over again, multiple times a second.


    ¡°Pin ¡®em down,¡± said the lead henchman.


    And the squirrel bounded forward like a railgun shot and, well, did something. Elial didn¡¯t really care what. Razor-sharp claws the size of machetes came down simultaneously at her shoulders, just one of the many ways it could have helped her get up. With a simple lean forward, a grab of one of its squirrel-wrists, and a raised foot to hook onto the thick fur of its chest, she attached on it like a tick. The creature scrabbled at its own arboreal coat, raking wicked curved blades of keratin across matted hair, where Elial simply ascended. She need not think about each individual handhold or foothold in a surface made entirely of them, nor how to go left and right so the paws wouldn¡¯t get in her way, the same way a person didn¡¯t have to think about where they put their feet when walking from kitchen to front door in their own home. Fractions of a second to sweep with each paw gave her plenty of time.


    ¡°How is she doing that!?¡± a henchman called.


    One of her puzzle boxes flew in the air over the squirrel, and by the time gravity reclaimed it, she was atop one of its heads and catching. The other heads chittered, pitched so low and amplified so loud as to be rumbling sirens. The heads and their teeth lunged towards her, in chaos and disunison, all of which could be sorted with single steps, from one cranium to another. Her feet shuffled in impromptu dance, every tiny step onto a different skull presenting itself right when she needed it. Elial need not predict where they would be and when¨Cshe understood where every motion would take them, her limited foremotion at work. It was good practice for deciding where to throw her cubes.


    ¡°Is this the demonstration you were looking for?¡± Elial asked.


    The lead henchman responded by taking out something from his briefcase, a gun with a long plastic cylinder snout that didn¡¯t resemble a weapon. He pulled the trigger and the net unfolded in the air, spreading its white lattice innards and outer ring of iron weights like a blooming starfish in the sky. Elial tossed one puzzle box and grabbed the other two out of the air as she skidded down the squirrel¡¯s back like a waterslide, towards the henchmen, under the lowermost weight, and the net entangled the creature¡¯s heads instead of her own. The puzzle box landed back in her hand. She¡¯d tossed it through an unfolding opening in the net¡¯s weave, barely the width of the box, necessitating the right rotational angle when passing through.


    By the time she was down on squirrel haunches, with the heads ripping through netting like sugar threads in water, the other henchmen had their guns out, the concentric rings on their nozzles glowing and the fingernail-sized bulbs at the end hot. Nobody looked like they actually wanted to fire. Henching was a profession of protection, not murder.


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t shoot a deputy,¡± Elial commented.


    ¡°You can¡¯t dodge lasers,¡± a man in the semicricle of henchmen said, who she guessed was the second in command.


    ¡°So don¡¯t shoot the deputy,¡± she reiterated. ¡°It will be hurt.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re shooting you!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m standing with tilted hips and this arm behind me,¡± she said, juggling the cubes behind her. ¡°The one with the crooked visor¡¯s aim tends left, so he will likely miss,¡± she said while looking straight at his slightly unsteady hands, ¡°so I will rock my hips in the other direction if he corrects it before pulling the trigger. The one with the green laser rings rather than red is aiming for my toys, so I¡¯m putting them in the safest location for his angle. The one with¡­¡±


    Wait.


    Elial tilted her head.


    ¡°Are you trying to threaten me?¡± she asked. She needed clarification.


    The man with the crooked visor steadied his hands and fired a red laser¨Cso she need only rock her hips as predicted, the shot zipping under her arm and burning squirrelhide into charcoalized hair. The creature¡¯s heads barked disapproval with a majority consensus.


    ¡°Oh,¡± she said. Now she felt stupid. Elial genuinely had not realized this was an assault on her person instead of an authenticity check because they never did anything dangerous. She really needed to hang out with inexact people more. ¡°Then, you should leave.¡±


    ¡°Or what?¡± the lead henchman asked, while the squirrel turned in place, its tail blowing a horizontal gust as it turned, rushing in her ears, tumbling loose gravel and necessitating a sidestep to catch her puzzles.


    ¡°I suppose I¡¯d physically prevent you from doing whatever you plan on doing here,¡± Elial commented, while being clawed at and bitten towards by the collection of traversable physical surfaces shaped like a squirrel. Before she finished her sentence, she was on its shoulders, where the four necks met. ¡±But since I am the only person here, and I will not cooperate, you have no method of getting the information you¡¯re looking for¡­¡± She decided to stop beating around the bush and slipped a toe between the collar and the fur when a head poorly craned back to reach her; all she had to do was flick it off her ankle, grab with her free hand and sling it onto the earth.


    It scattered the loose gravel. A few of them struck the henchmen harmlessly on their suits or annoyingly on their skin; one smacked the gun in one¡¯s hand and made it fall away, down the mountain, end over end.


    ¡°...It¡¯s best to find something useful to do with your time.¡±


    The puzzle boxes landed in her hand, square faces stacking exactly flush with each other in a tower of three¡ªall solved.


    Fifteen minutes later, they were gone, and Elial was back on her preferred rock, gazing out towards the interior of the crater¡ªthe metropolis of Stepwise dominating her view, from this vantage, its glass skyscrapers and brick as eye-catching visual noise in the stonescape. Further afar, she knew, were other cities and other states in the crater¨CRir Kranbar Ro and Windchime among them¨Call dwarfed by central Mount Radius.


    Elial had meant to hit all of the henchmen with that final stunt, but her foremotion was not yet that refined. Even at Gross level, a person had intuitive prediction of their own body movements, honed from decades of experience living in themselves, extending to held tools that they became familiar with. Foremotion extended beyond that, physical coordination so advanced that not only could Elial pick up any random object and be one with how it moved and behaved, but predict precisely how actions she took would affect complex physical systems¡ªhow, exactly, to throw a collar to make gravel scatter to its targets in defiance of chaos theory, or how a creature¡¯s first muscle twitches foretold where its head would be in half of a second. Human foresight was cognition far beyond, say, a dog¡¯s ability to understand what ¡®sit¡¯ meant¡ªand Fine human foremotion was understanding of motion far beyond a dog¡¯s ability to catch a thrown ball.


    Elial reflected as she sat, her hands in her lap, composing her body movements to be null¡ªperfectly still.


    Perhaps she should tell Ruvle the next time they met. To not let her know that men had come looking for her would be sabotage. She would never do such a thing, in the same way she trusted her initiate not to sabotage her in turn.


    Besides, she¡¯d surely be in the monastery then next time Ruvle showed up; losing a week of work to a bomb threat made her...want to be somewhere remote when her landlord needed rent.

 16: A Fly on the Walls Mirror

    The winds stood guard on the night of the raid¡ªdead air marched in circles around Othek¡¯s spire, an inverse vortex providing centrifugal kick to those who would come in from above, foiling the first step of the plan.


    Atop the highest point on the library, Chain whipped his scarf at the black fly drones that explored this far¡ªacross the streets and off Othek¡¯s property. The main swarm of flying robots had already clustered defensively around the pierced cloud in the center of the spire, before Chain even arrived. The man had lost one hat and immediately went into full defense mode. Thankfully, these tiny scout-robots at the edge barely outsized Chain¡¯s hand, and their eyes didn¡¯t even glow red as he slung his scarf, each smack of the hammer-whip sequence crunching wings and shattering camera-lens eyes. His feet shifted with each strike, skidding along spiretop shingles, catching himself against the sudden momentum only by grabbing the lightning rod in the middle of the rooftop. He kicked off a loose shingle from the work of stopping himself, and the lightning rod bent a few degrees under his fist. The shingle tumbled down, down, to join a cluster of the four fallen insect-robot scouts he¡¯d already taken out.


    ¡°These little ones are just going to keep coming, lass,¡± he said, turning away. One of their camera-eye apertures opened and closed, taking an image. ¡°I think the worst they can do is bodyslam us with their spikes, but we gotta¡ª¡± He whipped his scarf at another insect, the fabric audibly cracking; the robot went flying in the opposite direction like a slingshot stone. ¡°We gotta get against the wind somehow.¡±


    Off the edge of the steeple''s roof, dangling by one hand, Ruvle drank from her paper cup of extremely caffeinated zeroberry juice, its silvery-gray sourness loaning her more midnight oil to burn, acrid and void of sugar. She pulled herself back onto the steeple, grunting.


    ¡°You alright?¡± Chain asked, and swatted another fly. Ruvle stepped to talk to him from the side; from behind, the big silver-spray-painted sandbox lid strapped to his back was in the way.


    ¡°Yes. All the training days are catching up with me¡­¡± She shook her head and patted her cheek to mime slapping herself. Exaction didn¡¯t really permit caffeine either because of stimulant jitters, but it was okay within reason at Coarse-level. Exhaustion was no reason to miss this. She left her fez at the office, this time.


    ¡°Any ideas on getting there?¡± Chain pointed through the wind, to the spire.


    Ruvle watched him miss a strike on another spying fly. It took another picture of him. The way he cracked the hammer-whip, how he had to resist skidding...that was momentum. ¡°Whip towards the spire and jump, then do that gliding while you¡¯re in the air. It looks easy enough.¡±


    ¡°Re-folding my scarf the right way in the damned air? Before I start falling?¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t look too hard.¡± She could do that in her sleep.


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna go splat! Or lose too much altitude. Help me out, here.¡± Chain bent the steeple¡¯s lightning rod back vertical. ¡°There we go.¡±


    Ruvle huffed to herself. ¡°Then jump how you normally do; I have another idea.¡±


    ¡°Aces.¡± He reeled in his scarf and held each end in opposite hands. Tislets flickered to and from their alternate forms, and the scarf became a perfect mirror. ¡°I¡¯m going for it.¡±


    ¡°Get a running jump and hold it tight!¡±


    He did. The circular wind wall reminded Ruvle of the one Othek employed in the landing lot. While the air blew strands of her hair sideways over her eyes, sighted and sealed, Chain¡¯s parachute caught a far heavier brunt the moment he was suspended in the sky¨Clike jumping into a rushing river and going sideways instead of swimming forward. She slid down the front of the steeple mid-observation, two callused feet against the brick and her hand skidding above her head. With that one moment of verticality, Ruvle lunged, springing off the wall through the sky like a lap-swimmer, a bullet of human momentum¡ª


    And she caught up just in time to grab his ankles, to not fall out of the sky, giving him an extra kick to push through the outspiraling wind. She hung from his feet, swinging forth and back like a pendulum beneath a parachute pivot, raising and lowering her legs to build speed, and let go at the forward peak of her swing¡ªinto a graceful backflip, to land atop the scarf, legs splayed and both hands on the scarf¡¯s rippling curved surface.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Whoa.¡± It was over before Chain knew how to react.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think we have enough air,¡± Ruvle said, pointing forward, towards the clouds of insects.


    ¡°Yeah, looks like we¡¯ll hit a story or two down? Okay, defenses up!¡± Chain scrabbled his heels against the bottom lip of the sandbox lid, pulling the strap down from his waist to his hips, as rehearsed. The wooden dowel sticking out from the lid slipped accordingly; Ruvle grabbed it at his shoulder before it could fall out entirely, and wielded her staff, take-two.


    She didn¡¯t know how to solve the altitude yet, but the danger ahead¡ªthe eyes in the swarm of attack drones turning crimson, one, ten, a hundred, radiating in waves of signal from the spire like wings of blood unfurling¡ªthose, she was ready for. Chain tucked up his legs to present the sandbox lid shield. The red storm flew to greet her with spike-covered bodies at meteoric impact, and she rose to her toes in kind.


    Camera glass shattered in her wake as she crashed her dowel-staff into every nearby target¡¯s eyes. She ducked and bent, sweeping her body around three drones reaching her simultaneously, and jabbed backwards with the staff to break the joint of one of their wings, sending it falling. Two, three, five more passed her by, and on drilled-in retrained instinct, she swayed minimally, avoiding each with rocking steps left and right, feet finding traction on the yielding parachute below as if it were solid. Tiny steps, gentle steps; her feet could move quickly where most of her body shouldn¡¯t. Several closed in on her from opposite directions, but she was no longer so bound by tangled feet on the cloth, nor disabled from complex avoidance¡ªher mind registered the coordinated sweep as beyond her to deal with, just as she simultaneously backbent and swept her footing outwards to her sides in staccato increments, letting the masses crash together atop her in a shower of loose black spikes and electrical sparks.


    She stood again, letting the collided mass fall. She was getting better.


    She lost count thereafter of how many she destroyed. Iron and glass rained in her wake, and the swarm dwindled, dwindled, clearing and fading.


    One more came directly towards Ruvle as the night sky brightened above, the swirling vapor cloud around the spire reflecting streetlamps, and she jabbed her staff so far into its head that it stuck, metal bending and clamping around wood, glass teeth from the smashed camera lens biting. Ruvle refused to slide back from the momentum, her toes curling to grip the fabric, and let herself sink into it for once¡ªbut she was through the front line now, into the middle, and the gnarled well-used front nozzles of backline drones charged up before her eyes.


    ¡°Chain, lasers coming!¡± she called out to him and dropped down, one hand catching the back of the scarf-parachute, her only lifeline from falling, safely behind the scarf¡¯s mirror surface and Chain¡¯s shield.


    ¡°Brace for it!¡± he answered.


    Lasers lacked momentum to transfer, but glimmers of green and red in the underside of the scarf-mirror told her the story, with intermittent light shows in the distance behind her¡ªlasers deflected away, decohering off the curved surface into diffuse brightness like nocturnal light pollution. She had only seconds to appreciate it before the scent of burned-black pieces of the shield reached her nose. Impacts battered the front of the lid from spiked drone bodyslams, and one impaled fully in, in grasping distance of Chain¡¯s elbow. Not good¡ªthey would lose more altitude with that ballast. Her other hand still on her staff, Ruvle grunted and heaved it high¡ªvery heavy with a drone on the end, but nothing her well-trained fitness couldn¡¯t handle¡ªand swiped around Chain¡¯s shield, bashing them to the side and knocking them out of the sky.


    The few remaining were starting to swarm around her back. Better. Every drone she hit¡ªand she could strike many¡ªsent it backwards, and her forwards. All she had to do was prioritize those with laser nozzles...Ruvle struck four of the five infiltrators, but the last kept its distance, its nozzle charging up for a headshot against her, and Ruvle did the only thing her instinct told her was an option¡ªpull down hard on the back of the parachute, like tucking a blanket over her head, intuitively making sure the mirror right in front of her face was flat.


    The laser reflected back on its source, and she shortly heard the crash of the drone impacting the street below.


    ¡°Rough landing coming in!¡± Chain shouted. ¡°Brace!¡±


    Ruvle pulled herself back up over the parachute to stand on it, and there was the wall of the spire at most a second in front of her; she acted fast. A jab of her dowel with all of her momentum, spike end first, lodged it hard into the masonry, just she rocked her heels back and raised one leg, the lip of the parachute caught on her foot. She and Chain both hit the wall, hard enough to wheeze the wind out of her in her awkward pose, but she¡¯d succeeded¡ªthe scarf was caught on the pole, the pole was stuck to the drone on the end, and the drone¡¯s spikes were lodged in the wall.


    For a moment, they were still. Chain dangled from the ends of his scarf, still gripping them for dear life, while Ruvle straddled the staff, close to the drone base so that it would bend no further like a tree branch and let Chain slip.


    ¡°Get the rest of them!¡± Chain said, flailing his feet uselessly, the wall too far away to help him get up.


    ¡°They¡¯re gone,¡± Ruvle said, with a relieved sigh. She looked up¡ªshe¡¯d been in fa low state, her body aching and her lungs burning, but she really had just taken out an entire swarm of drones¡ªmade possible with Chain¡¯s help closing the distance and defending her.


    Now they just had to climb, yet more.

 17: Tower Unclimbing

    ¡°Did I tell you yet that I hate climbing?¡±


    ¡°You did,¡± Ruvle answered, spinning a dial on the spire¡¯s vault face with one hand, dangling from the top with the other.


    ¡°I could never do what you do. Seriously, mad, mad props for taking care of this part,¡± he said, above, looking over an unfolded piece of paper from his pockets; he¡¯d somehow made it on top of the lip of the vault door to sit there, poised for action.


    There were so many types of locks on it that it resembled an activity board made for toddlers, and she¡¯d been tampering with them for an hour now, with Chain¡¯s guidance¡ªhe had the research about which kind could be cracked which way, and she had the precision to do so. Her arms were getting very, very tired, what with alternating between them to hang from, but Ruvle defied exhaustion. Last one, she could do this last one. ¡°What am I feeling for again?¡±


    ¡°Should be a seam between the tumblers or something. Every combo lock gets a little harder or easier to turn at the right number, but how much depends on how good it is. Good ones need you to use an electric safe-cracker with a voltage readout to four decimal places or something crazy. If you turn it with the right amount of force, you should feel something.¡±


    Ruvle gritted her teeth as she tried to twist the dial with as little force as possible, riding the line of dynamic friction as closely as she could. ¡°I...I think I used too much caffeine, I¡¯m jittering¡­¡± She couldn¡¯t see any tremors, but something just felt wrong in her muscles. Her hanging arm¡¯s exhausted twitches echoed all the way to her opposite fingertips. Even her heartbeat in her fingers might be too much, if this was as secure as it looked¡­


    ¡°You¡¯re fine. Show ¡®em who¡¯s in charge, Ruvle.¡±


    The dial stopped twisting, not from finding the seam, but from dipping too far under friction¡¯s resistance. Ruvle groaned and spun the dial around a few times; she picked another random number to try from. ¡°I¡¯m okay, but I can¡¯t tell the difference in inertia in dust motes¡­¡±


    ¡°Here, I can try something with the door,¡± Chain said, now stomping around on the top of the vault door, vibrations reaching her fingernails.


    ¡°If you can tislet your way through, please do it, I¡¯m dying here¡­¡±


    ¡°Well, nah, if I knew what I was doing and I had a bag of like ten thousand tiles with me to slap on it, it still wouldn¡¯t work because this orange-green plating on the door is stoko. It¡¯s a stupid metal; you can¡¯t put tislets on it,¡± he said. ¡°How about this¡­¡± Tislets flickered and his scarf hammer-whipped at something; Ruvle wasn¡¯t looking. ¡°While I was looking up how the locks worked, apparently a lot of small locks get easier if you can pull on the shackle. No shackle on this big guy, but¡ªoh, really, this works?¡± he asked.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Popping all those other locks means I can pull this open by a hair or two, apparently. Hang on.¡± She looked up; he was grunting and digging the backs of his heels into the top lip of the vault door. ¡°Hey, get up here, I think I can see the thing.¡±


    She used the dial as a stepping stone and pulled herself onto the lip with him, relishing the chance to rest her shoulder. The circular top only allowed enough ¡®flat¡¯ ground for one person, but she could stand on sloped metal to avoid the tight squeeze; it would be fine. ¡°What¡¯s ¡®the thing¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Emergency release lever. Bright red. Here,¡± he said, pulling a roll of tape measure out of his cargo pants, the sort with a metal case and a retractible length of paper-thin marked steel. The case was barred like a cage, or a wireframe wheel, with a logo of a beaver chewing on a nuclear fuel rod. ¡°Use this and poke it.¡±


    ¡°Why do you have¡­¡± she trailed off.


    ¡°I can¡¯t bring a bunch of cool stuff; I don¡¯t have money. Thought you could do something fun with it.¡±


    Truly powerful people didn''t have to improvise like this. Ruvle felt small. One day she¡¯d stop having to use bottles to parry, pool toys to train with, or tape measure to break into an elite¡¯s building.


    She put her ego aside, yet again, and did what success required¡ªshe had to clip off the hook at the end of the tape to get it to slip through the gap, barely thicker than paper, but she did it, extending the tape all the way to the lever and pressing down on it through the base¡ªbending the tape with writhing clatters a few times, in the characteristic sudden way of such thin metal. When the lever finally yielded, the vault door¡¯s hinges creaked, the lip of the vault door separating from the spire masonry, now a balance beam challenge bone-breakingly far above ground.


    ¡°Yeah-heah, that¡¯s it,¡± Chain cheered, parachuting down past the door. Ruvle dropped down behind him and shut the vault behind her with a stoko handle the size of her arm.


    Inside, the directional glow of streetlamps below and starshine above was replaced by diffuse bar lights, bathing the unsettlingly empty walls in yellow. The floor tiling became dark-scuffed octagons tessellated with squares to fill the gaps between them, blotches of red and black scattered about, suggesting blood and debris without having to be unclean. There was no hallway or room, per se¡ªan antechamber, moreso, leading immediately to a spiral stairwell, with only one direction: descent. Ruvle squinted up at the weird lighting, holding her arms out to her sides, putting herself back in the mindset of lenient balance on solid ground again.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Chain led the way downstairs, Ruvle close behind. One continuous left turn¡ªdown, down, down.


    ¡°I thought this would be full of traps everywhere¡­¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s built more like an office, to me.¡±


    ¡°Told ya, this guy¡¯s defenses are unusually weak,¡± Chain answered. He scratched the back of his head and chuckled. ¡°If you¡¯re looking for answers, though, this is where my prep ends. I¡¯m as blind as you. Never done a raid before, only heard what they¡¯re like on radio dramas.¡±


    Ruvle descended, preparing herself inwardly.


    The stairwell went on for a terribly long time. Ruvle suspected that it was disconnected from the usable space of the tower, like an elevator shaft¡ªthe walls became hard concrete siding, then further enforced with steel bands that she could see between the bricks. Ruvle had the vague feeling of being watched¡ªno specific camera stood out to her, but between the visually-confusing texture of the stairs and the occasional straightaway in the spiral of descent, there could be a place to hide a camera and ample space to track her. A distant grinding from below grew louder and louder, and electric mains hum became inescapable. The air heated with each turn downwards. She noticed a discarded paper cup or plastic food wrapper here and there¡ªwere they entering a trafficked area? A maintenance team¡¯s work?


    Soon, the stairwell did open up, far enough down that Ruvle lost her guess of elevation. The hallway pointed forth, down the brutal concrete walls and through to where the bar lights failed, the corridor darkening in foreboding distance. But a patch of unlit hallway provided a different source of light, the grinding and churning of red-hot circular blades, sweeping past one another in oscillating motions¨Cspinning at speeds that made their teeth solid blurs of heat. Some moved predictably, others along their slots in chaos, some the width of Ruvle¡¯s shoulders and others as tall as herself. Intuitively, she visually scanned for gaps, and found none¡ªthe blades tiled together, vaguely closeby in depth (she couldn¡¯t tell exactly without a second eye), forming solid walls of incandescent steel with gaps so narrow that a person could not fit through them. The forest of near-molten iron was impassable¡ªnot for lack of skill on Ruvle¡¯s part, but because the spaces to slip past did not exist any more than she could have slipped around the vault door.


    ¡°So fancy prep wouldn¡¯t have helped¡­¡± Chain mumbled to himself, fanning out his scarf, his eyes fixed on the wall of blades. The heat was unwelcome in Ruvle¡¯s lungs, excavating moisture. ¡°Well, uh...this is just a hard stop, isn¡¯t it. Uh...lemme¡­¡± he trailed off, knees bent, ready to spring into action that wasn¡¯t coming. The red glow washed out the blue fabric of his scarf, but the tislets were as bright as ever.


    Ruvle put a hand to her mouth and watched a moment longer. Oh no. There were no person-sized gaps, but the wobbling of the larger blades and the erratic bounce of the chaotic ones...they could be pushed, couldn¡¯t they? ¡°I think these are here to tear up armor and equipment¡­¡±


    She closed her eyes and took a deep breath of hot air, preparing herself. She had an...idea, of what she was supposed to do, but she didn¡¯t know if she had the strength for it.


    There is always a way to succeed.


    Most people are nobodies. They do not succeed.


    To achieve an outcome that isn¡¯t ordinary, you must do what ordinary people are unwilling to do. Evil. Sacrifice. Acts of iron will.


    Otherwise, you will not be extraordinary. You will be a nobody.


    And I am not willing to be a nobody.


    If Ruvle could push some of these blades out of the way, a path would be open. They looked potent enough to saw through anything, but she knew gentle steps. She could press on the sides, quickly, just long enough to nudge them without being spun herself. Ruvle was willing to be horribly burned in the pursuit of a better life¡ªshe told herself that, she reminded herself of that. Maybe she could ask Chain to put his shoes on her hands as a protective cover, good for perhaps or two blades, but after that...she steeled herself in preparation for voluntarily giving herself red-raw, cracking, bleeding scars of hot iron on her hands, and¡ª


    A whip-crack and cymbal crash jolted her from her hesitant dread. Chain hammered on the side of a blade traveling through a particularly wide groove, and with each crack of his scarf against it, the hot steel became more erratic and wobbling. ¡°You know, I wondered why they stopped¡ª¡± Crack, crack, cymbal crash after cymbal crash. ¡°¡ªusing these in the stories, but I think I get it now.¡± His next strike hit home, and the spinning blade jammed against the end of its groove, no longer turning and with its teeth deformed against the flooring, faster than her eye could follow. It had bent so far that it was no longer aligned, like a gear rubbing against its housing. ¡°I¡¯m not gonna attrition our way through all this, let¡¯s just do this instead.¡± His scarf crashed into more and more blades as he pressed forward, taming the smallest ones and bending them around their grooves with one strike each.


    ¡°...What¡¯s¡­¡± Ruvle didn¡¯t know what to say.


    ¡°They¡¯re just hot metal.¡± He looked over his shoulder, pulling down his mask for a goofy grin. ¡°We¡¯re gonna attack our way through these, not defend.¡± He coiled and uncoiled his scarf around one hand; it looked unharmed by the heat. ¡°Ever used oven mitts?¡±


    Ruvle followed.


    She honestly felt a little disappointed that self-sacrifice wasn¡¯t the solution. Being willing to burn her hands into charred flesh was proof that she would rise above, but now she couldn¡¯t demonstrate that proof. Ruvle sulked to herself as she proceeded through the graveyard of shattered metal and cooling red shard, sweat rolling off her brow.


    Then she realized she was being childish again and that, no, it was a reason to celebrate that a close friend saved her from burning her hands. Ruvle was a Thoughtful adult.


    She put a smile back on her face. ¡°Thanks, Chain. I was about to do something bad.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s why we¡¯re working together,¡± he said, and slipped his mask back on.

 18: Touch Laser and Lose

    Once beyond the saws, Chain and Ruvle stayed on the move, bringing with them protective debris from the cooled corpses of the blades. After two more flights of stairs¡ªindividualized in their own stairwells, this time¡ªChain stopped to investigate the conspicuously-empty hallway that connected them. Nothing. No hints of traps, according to him, not that he¡¯d know what to look for, with his narrative-filtered experience in the form of radio dramas with no physical component. He took Ruvle forward after a decision to not overthink things. Ruvle, for her part, decided that there was probably a very well-hidden cabinet for the maintenance guy somewhere. She¡¯d notarized the signatures of engineers before, on blueprints that contained a sealed chamber or a sequence of knocks on wall bricks to open up a hollow. (Rotating bookcases with a fake trigger book were the much more common method and had been so for decades, for complicated regulatory reasons.)


    Beyond the second staircase, the lights brightened up again¡ªthe walls exchanged thick concrete for sturdy laminate tiling just like the floor, leaving no clear visual distinction between the hall¡¯s ceiling, sides and the ground below. A sour, ashen tang in the air irritated her nose; Chain, similarly, sneezed. The hallway remained narrow and square, giving Ruvle no options but to go forward, into the next raider-disposal filter: a network of static laser beams at all different angles, dense and of threatening yellow, like a wilting forest of bamboo half-toppled from age and sickness. Beyond it was a ramp down, the sloped ceiling catching sickly green highlights from light beyond, funneling to her the sounds of hisses and bubbles from something unknown. They were but the broken percussion to the main melody of the lasers buzzing, that same mains hum from above, while their intensities waxed and waned.


    ¡°You can deflect those...I¡¯m sure you can,¡± Ruvle said, behind Chain, leaning on the axle from the largest sawblade¡ªa big metal pole, replacing the wooden dowel she¡¯d lost, long enough to span the width of the hallway. She didn¡¯t want to tackle this one; the energy in her muscles and nerves was draining out, diffusing like mist.


    Chain wrapped his scarf back around his neck, glowering at the laser maze. He dropped the sawblade-turned-shield he¡¯d taken with him by his side, letting it clatter and roll to a spinning stop. ¡°I¡¯d love to, but, check it.¡± He approached where the lasers began and gestured to the nozzle of the first. ¡°This is where it comes out, but this thing.¡± He pointed to its destination, a ceramic spot on the wall with concentric rings of metal inside. ¡°Receiver. These aren¡¯t to shoot holes in us; they¡¯re detectors.¡±


    Ruvle groaned. ¡°So if you reflect them with your scarf¡­¡±


    ¡°They don¡¯t touch us, but the receiver freaks out because it¡¯s not seeing anything.¡±


    Ruvle leaned on her metal pole, shutting her eye. ¡°I¡¯ll take care of it.¡±


    ¡°Aces. Look for a big shutoff switch.¡±


    She walked up, refocusing what she could of her attention on the static beams of yellow light. She could maybe twist her way around those two, or try that gap between the lowest horizontal one and the floor¡­


    ¡°You okay, Ruvle?¡± Chain asked.


    Ruvle took a few breaths and lightly patted her cheek. ¡°The caffeine''s wearing off.¡±


    ¡°I get ya.¡± He sniffed the air. ¡°If you can hold it together a little longer, I think I know what¡¯s next, and you can chill for it.¡±


    Ruvle rubbed her good eye. ¡°I can¡¯t have myself crashing¡­¡±


    ¡°We can go back up a ways and lay down, if you need it.¡±


    Napping in the middle of a raid sounded like a really bad idea. ¡°Chain, slap me in the face. Right here.¡± She pointed to the side of her face with her good eye.


    He did, and it stung. Not as hard as she wanted, but the wakefulness took. Ruvle rubbed the hand-outline of pink impacted skin, frowning.


    ¡°I¡¯m not gonna do it a second time,¡± Chain said.


    Ruvle winced into a smile. ¡°Did that...girlfriend you had, never ask you to do that¡­¡±


    ¡°She did! And I still don¡¯t like hitting women!¡±


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    She laughed. Okay. She could do this.


    With the maze before her, Ruvle reappraised the situation, tilting her head back and forth, getting a parallax sense of distance of the individual beams. The gaps were tight, but she could do this.


    She began. Ruvle inched under the first wall of near-horizontal beams, laying flat on the ground and tucking in her stomach, pushing forward one scratch and scrape at a time. Her hips barely squeezed through the narrow triangular opening. A hundred little nudges worked them through, and the next hard part began. Go too far forward and she¡¯d hit a vertical ray, so she twisted her hips to her right, guiding herself through the right-angled tunnel of safety like a living pipe cleaner. One leg lifted, and then the other, stepping over a crossed knot of lasers.


    Chain waved to her as yellow beams obscured her view of him. Had to keep pushing forward¡­she bridged her glutes over the crossed knot and backbent, biting her lower lip. With her abdominals shaking from holding her contortion, she pressed the heels of her palms into the ground and stood up again, finally, beyond the first wall, lasers surrounding her so tightly that she dared not stand at full height¡ªfive beams were directly above her head.


    ¡°Chain, pass me the pole, through the right-side triangle¡­¡±


    He held the metal rod against the right wall and carefully guided it forward through the most obvious small-but-impassable gap. Ruvle¡¯s throat tensed up as he watched the end waver and tremor, quietly reminding herself that Chain did not have her skillset, oh dear¨Cbut he tripped nothing, using the metal knobs that were the lasers¡¯ own nozzles as guiderails. Ruvle shortly grabbed it and slid it through on her end, keeping it pressed against the wall for lack of rotation room. She balanced it upon two nozzles; they looked sturdy and she was light¡­


    Ruvle hopped up onto the bar, getting flush with the wall as best she could and exhaling to flatten her chest as much as possible. The lasers crossed in an impassable web on the left side, and the right was also more or less impossible, but mostly because of vertical bars. If she stayed flat against the wall here, she could fit around the rightmost vertical laser¡­though she¡¯d have to dodge that horizontal one, and that one, and step over¡­but if she shifted her weight on it too firmly, it would just roll off of these nozzles and break the signal beams, so she¡¯d have to perform gentle steps, too¡­


    She stood on one foot, tucked her knee against her side, and cartwheeled on the rod, her arms slipping between and around the other nozzles. Her other foot tucked in just in time to avoid another, her waist bent at the final movement to hold a longer arc around one more laser, and¡­it was done. Ruvle landed on the other end of the metal rod and pulled it through again, this time with more space. She sucked in air, relief soothing her pounding heart. Did she actually just pull that off?


    But the hardest yet lay before her. Where she currently stood, random off-diagonal beams pointed about in ways that made motion strangulatory, but another web prevented any further ingress. This close to the ramp, she noticed a dip in the ceiling, like a protrusion in a rooftop to allow for a vertical window, inverted downwards and pointing away from her. Swaying her head for depth perception, she picked up on the acrylic sheen coating it¡ªmaterial protection for this protrusion; important. If she stood on her tiptoes and reached with her pole, she could easily touch it, but if it held the switch, she couldn¡¯t press it from this side. And the web looked...beyond her to manage.


    Unless she could get over a horizontal laser wall, flanked by vertical beams preventing her from using the side walls for aid. But even then, with the floor so drenched in liquid laser beyond it, she couldn¡¯t stand anywhere if she made it through; it¡¯d just be a laser-cradled hollow around that protected dip in the ceiling¡­


    ¡°I¡¯m going for it,¡± Ruvle breathed.


    ¡°Kick its ass,¡± Chain answered, as if he had any idea what the situation was from his distance.


    Ruvle turned to her side, taking a few practice crouches, judging how much momentum she¡¯d bring if she sprung up with all her might. It had to be exactly right. One...two¡­


    She backflipped over the lasers, so close to the ceiling that her hair brushed against it.


    And before she could come down for more than half a second, she yanked the pole to be as perfectly horizontal as she could make it, as strong as her biceps could pull, wedging it firmly against both sides of the hallway with a high-pitched, echoing clang of iron. It held like a shower curtain, and Ruvle, still upside-down from her backflip, reached up with one heel to the protected part of the ceiling, her abs quivering and her shoulders about to give out. Looking at it from directly below, she found a metal panel on the far side¡­


    She scratched inelegantly with her heel along what she hoped was the control panel, feeling for anything, until hardened sole hit a round plastic knob. It yielded under mercifully little pressure¡ªand then the world went dark, yellow traded for black, the mains hum dimming in her ears.


    Ruvle twisted the bar one degree to unwedge it and fell to the ground, flat on her back, pain brooking abrupt entry to her upper spine and back of her skull.


    She lay quiet, dazed from exhaustion¡ªand accomplishment. These incredibly expensive defenses were meant to keep the ¡®true¡¯ citizens of reality away from people like her, and they still couldn¡¯t stop her.


    What past was yellow and present black became future blue, tislet glow of a friend marching overhead. Chain reached down with a silent hand, and she clasped it with conviction.

 19: A Halfway Dislodged Thought

    The ramp down led to a lowered hollow¡ªetched and eroded tiling gave way to slag, which in turn became a sea-green coating like verdigris patina, giving off a faint chill. Chain hurried across it without prompting, as did Ruvle, as soon as her intrigued-and-slowing pace brought on a sharp irritation in the soles of her bare feet. Another ramp rose back out; Ruvle mentally mapped the low stretch as like a trap in a plumbing pipe or the U-tube at the bottom of a siphon, and¡­that expended the last cognitively difficult action she had left in reserve for herself. The caffeine had finally departed, and the weight of so many days of constant training compounded on the difficulty of today. She let her shoulders sink, her head hang, and in just a few more steps, fell to her knees.


    Chain crouched down next to her and patted her on the back, closeby and protecting.


    Othek held back not a whit on this obstacle, and judging by the shiny door with an arched top on the far side of the room, it was the last before entering genuine living space for the man. No more were there cramped hallways¡ªthis resembled an open field, with a spacious high ceiling


    reaching what would normally be several floors high. Instead of grass, the field contained acid¡ªa pool as opaque as a swamp, high-visibility bright chartreuse that complemented the similar verdigris walls. Despite the threatening bubbles and hissing, its chill cooled Ruvle¡¯s sweaty skin, and an intense vinegar smell in the air felt as if it could fray her hair or wear holes through her indigo bodysuit. The platform on this side and the one before the final door were built like piers, verdigris pylons extending into the water to support metal planks, pockmarked with acid burn holes. She knew what the color of this enormous acid pool meant, but...verbalizing fright felt like too much work...


    She could just sit here and not move¡­


    For all the hours, days she¡¯d need...she needed her hammock so badly, and the cat and elephant plushies, and...


    ¡°You done raiding?¡± Chain whispered to her.


    ¡°I can¡¯t stop¡­¡± she answered. ¡°It¡¯s right there...it¡¯s right there, if I just dig deeper...¡± a tear rolled down her cheek from her good eye.


    ¡°Hey. Remember what I said? You can chill for this. This one is all me.¡± He squeezed her hand and leaned in close, getting forehead-to-forehead with her. ¡°The sequence on my scarf I haven¡¯t shown you yet? It¡¯s for this, lass.¡±


    He broke away from her for a moment and unwrapped his scarf from his shoulders. The tislets buzzed between their forms, light waxed and waned along the fourth patch she hadn¡¯t seen in use yet, and he dropped his¡­


    Ruvle wanted to yell ¡®no¡¯. He just dropped his scarf into the acid pit.


    And it floated, somehow. As a rigid, stiff-straight surface, like a surfboard, without dissolving.


    Chain swept her up in his arms, carrying her as if on minirail. Taking the pole with him, its end dragging with metallic scrapes on the pier floor, he stepped onto his scarf and it remained buoyant.


    ¡°I know you¡¯re about to pass out on me,¡± Chain said, ¡°but can you do me a favor?¡±


    ¡°Dnh¡­¡± she groaned.


    ¡°Just sorta paddle with that pole until it gets eaten through.¡±


    She weakly did as instructed, pushing it backwards. Very easy, very little work for her. It propelled surprisingly well; the end sizzled and dissolved in the pool with energy like waketide, occasionally emitting puffs of yellow flame as reaction gases caught fire. Chain steered the scarf-board with his leading foot, humming to himself, and picked at threads of his collar.


    ¡°It¡¯s a cool physia, besides the surfing part,¡± he commented. ¡°The property tweak is that the fabric thinks it¡¯s a kind of final acid now, too,¡± he said, gesturing down at the pool.


    ¡°N¡­¡± Right, final acid, that was the term. There were ¡®weak¡¯ and ¡®strong¡¯ acids, but one specific chemical mechanism made ¡®final¡¯ acids, capable of eating through any substance that was not also a final acid, which prevented it from reacting with itself. M.A.D. sometimes did material science research via turning something into slag by reacting it with a final acid, then reacting that slag with final acid again, and repeating until the hundred-times-destroyed chemical ash had a notable property. The only suitable containers were of that verdigris-appearing material, itself a final acid, one that froze particularly easily when lightly chilled. To hold materials that could eat through anything, science froze them and poured the liquid into a container of its own ice.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°I betcha all sorts of evidence is gone for good because of this room. Might be where he puts the bodies of people worse at this than us.¡± He looked over to his left. ¡°Big bubbly spot there; gotta be that something¡¯s still getting eaten at the bottom.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­¡±


    Their paddle grew shorter. Chain squeezed her close. The quiet between them made him frown.


    ¡°So, uh¡­¡± He looked for something to say. ¡°Did you know this stuff¡¯s green because that¡¯s how the atoms work? Something about energy levels. If it¡¯s not green, it messes with the part of the chemistry that makes it be scary, so every¡ª¡±


    ¡°Chain.¡± Ruvle blinked slowly. ¡°I¡¯m not paying attention,¡± she lied.


    ¡°Sorry, I know you¡¯re tired.¡±


    He was quiet the rest of the way, back to humming to himself. And when the pole finally ran out of un-dissolved length, that was perfect; she dropped the rest of it in the pool at the same time that her head lolled back. Zero tasks, zero demands on her attention.


    All time to herself.


    All time to regather.


    They reached the other side without her having to track how far along they were. Chain set her down on the far pier, just in front of the door, its acid-sputtered surface oddly beautiful with well-worn black speckles and inset dividers between quadrants. Spices, laid out upon a mirror. Chain stepped off to the pier, retrieving his scarf from the acid, with only the hems of his pant leggings worse for the wear with holes from acid droplets. He took out two water bottles from his cargo pockets and poured one all over the still-rigid scarf, which hissed and fumed with vapor¡ªreacting away the acid taint.


    ¡°We¡¯ll get our prizes when you¡¯re ready.¡± He tossed the empty bottle into the pool, handed the other to Ruvle, and sat down next to her.


    She nodded, looking up at the ceiling, and he said nothing more.


    Deep exhaustion had a way of scrambling the brain. She remembered something she didn¡¯t know she forgot.


    She used to have specific memories¡ªa straight chain of a line of thinking, fading backwards into the distance of decade-time, but its closest steps clear. When she lost her eye...she only had bits and pieces of that memory, impressions, understandings of events that reduced to words rather than objects. She barely remembered the pain itself, only the fact that she had been in pain. She remembered not the actual moment that her sense of self obliterated in one eye, but the fact that the energy and constant muscle-motion in her good right eye once existed in the broken left.


    Ruvle still could not visualize that memory well, but in this mental state of far recession, she landed on a different one. Equally faint and factual, rather than vivid, but popping up out of nowhere after years. Nine years ago, age sixteen. A notary office burned down.


    Not hers. Not her family. But she¡¯d been on her way to pick up a specific document from Satar¡¯s Office on the other side of Stepwise, needed for a dispute case so difficult a law expert had gotten involved, not notaries alone. She hadn¡¯t become Nt. Ruvle then, still Mielo¡ªthis was her father¡¯s task, but she could help.


    That document never materialized. She forgot what she needed it for. Ruvle remembered the flames rubbing up on the sides of the octangular building like an orange washcloth polishing a fruit. She learned the smell of burning paper that day, distinct from wood, electricity or solid fuels. Ash filled the air as scraps of gray snow, and she knew she ran into the building, with¡­


    With no help from emergency services. Danger navigable only by herself and the people immediately near her. No safety rails guarded her from a chance of death via misstep. Normally, a burning building would be descended upon by rescue workers, in bulky fireproof suits, all crinkled silver fabric and bronze faceplates, waterjets and foaming sprays. Tanks of water and foam always came along the minirail for added support, except then. Then, the minirail had been silent, un-crackling, clamps of lead and iron sagging their steel to make it useless even if any power came back on. There had been blocks of crates and debris, old furniture, on the streets towards the office--attended by henchmen preventing people from getting in.


    And Ruvle had been very slow in getting over them, past them, and¡­


    She remembered the moment of realization inside¨Cthat she couldn¡¯t do it. Beyond falling structural beams and infernal smoke, heat that baked the water from her lungs, everything she knew of her profession became an obstacle. Waiting room chairs with fraying seat cushions, now loci of inferno to walk around. Satar¡¯s signature above the lobby, in a slightly more flammable color of paint, roared with fire¨Ctoo hot to approach. In a file room in the back, handles, knobs and paperclips became orange-hot steel brands that seared her wherever she tried to walk. Pools of polymer slag dripped through the ceiling, onto the tiled floor. She never found Satar.


    She was never fast enough, agile enough.


    Being a notary was nice and all, but it didn¡¯t prevent someone sufficiently powerful from burning your life¡¯s work to the ground if they wanted to. To those with true authority over society, a notary was still a nobody, she¡¯d learned.


    Ruvle stirred and turned over, coming back to the present. Remembering did not change the course. Power was still in her future, and the next steps may very well be behind Othek¡¯s door.


    Perhaps as soon as she had the strength to stand.

 20: Negotiation Against a False Citizen

    With a drink of water and a dash of time, the caffeine crash passed. Ruvle didn¡¯t track how long exactly. She had the strength to sit up, and Chain had the patience not to rush that.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I can fight him,¡± Ruvle said, her voice high-pitched.


    ¡°That¡¯s not my plan, either,¡± Chain answered, over his shoulder. ¡°All I gotta do is get the glint off him. We¡¯ve been dancing with death since we got in here; I don¡¯t wanna lose the next coin flip, you know?¡±


    She rubbed her face and stood again. Acid burn holes speckled her bodysuit...she had some sewing to do at home. ¡°Then I won¡¯t fight him. I¡¯ll¡­¡± What were her options, anyway? ¡°...figure something out.¡±


    ¡°Aces. Let¡¯s get in there.¡±


    Chain pushed open the door¡ªit parted in the middle with an elegant glide, opening into a place that pissed Ruvle off. An oval ceiling with a big stupid chandelier of beryllium and emeralds, casting filtered green spotlights through the gems that illuminated the place. Precious metals lined the walls, reflecting each other as a maze of mirrors that strained Ruvle¡¯s perception. Some mirror panels were engraved into a black-and-white depiction of Othek, posed as a giant and rejuvenated with youth, standing atop all of Crater Basin with Mount Radius no taller than his feet. Too many lines of sight in the mirrors ended at his visage, a blessed few terminating on the chandelier. Before a central screen on the far wall, flanked by symmetric engravings, was the man in the flesh¡ªhis hands clasped behind himself, facing away from the two and towards the screen, in the formal robes Ruvle remembered, his top hat replaced in greater ostentation¡ªbearing not a yellow band of Dye, but a coating for every stitch of its fabric. He had a thing in his hands. A something. Black. Purple. Ruvle made herself stop looking at it directly, the glint, the bundle of gas distorting light away and pulling the floorboards of cognition out from her thoughts.


    ¡°¡ªand recall, you agreed to trace their mail,¡± Othek spoke to the screen.


    ¡°Yes, no need to belabor it,¡± answered the voice on the screen, a close-up of the face of a woman in a swivel recliner with a backdrop of several oval, squarish windows that Ruvle didn¡¯t recognize. She had a remarkably pointed chin and a nose so understated that it was barely there, eyes narrow-set and striking hair: black with patches that faded inward to blonde, white, and translucent, as if her body selectively declined pigmentation only where most beautifully framing. ¡°The postal service sees reason now that I¡¯ve replaced enough people; they will tell me soon. I¡¯ll request that favor from you when I need it.¡±


    Chain crouched and pointed to the glint; Ruvle put a hand against his chest, holding him back from doing something not very thoughtful right now.


    ¡°Ah, isn¡¯t it so much easier to have professional relationships with your equals?¡± he said, his smug-but-pleasing smile visible in his many reflections.


    The woman only politely chuckled in return.


    ¡°If you¡¯ll excuse me a moment,¡± Othek said, tucking the glint into his robes and exchanging it for a small square of metal in his palm.


    ¡°I see them too,¡± the woman answered.


    He pressed the button on the square, the light of the screen compressing to a dot and turning the screen black, its electronic hum fading. Othek turned in place, in no rush, looking upon Ruvle and Chain like a food stain on a least-favorite child¡¯s shirt. ¡°The very moment I stop waiting and do something else with my valuable time, you choose to come in.¡± He closed his eyes and faux-clapped, too gently for any noise, walking towards the two at an elderly pace. ¡°Well done, well done.¡±


    The voice of who he¡¯d spoken to was familiar, but Ruvle couldn¡¯t place where, and...she¡¯d had such a long day that she declined to think about who that mail investigation might be about. Chain strode on in, his scarf and his light-up sneakers immediately rotating the dominant hue of the mirrors from emerald green to pale blue. ¡°Hey! So this is normally where we fight and take your stuff, right?¡±


    ¡°I suppose if you want to die on purpose,¡± he answered, without opening his eyes.


    ¡°See, that¡¯s what I¡¯m getting at,¡± Chain continued. ¡°Don¡¯t really want to. I was hoping we could make this easier on all of us.¡±


    ¡°No, I think I¡¯d rather put your bodies in the disposal pool and be done with it,¡± he said. Wind started to whirl in the room behind them.


    ¡°Wait,¡± Ruvle said, leaning in and waving both hands, ¡°If you did that, it would be a long and annoying fight, it would take so much time! I¡¯m slippery and I can climb!¡± she blurted. ¡°We can negotiate raid spoils instead!¡±


    He quirked an eyebrow.


    ¡°I can notarize it on the spot, right here, we walk out the door and you can get back to what you were doing immediately, no loose ends to occupy your thoughts,¡± she said, with a tug on her collar and a removal of her pen.


    He peered at her with narrowed eyes.¡°You¡¯re the hoodlum.¡±


    ¡°The one,¡± she answered with an apologetic smile. Her voice gave it away.


    ¡°You took my hat.¡±


    ¡°And you wear the new one so much better,¡± she said. It was obnoxious and gaudy.


    ¡°Tell me who you are. Name, former names, addresses.¡±


    She couldn¡¯t get out of that. ¡°Ruvle, formerly Mielo before I became a notary, The Checkered Office in Stepwise south.¡±


    He harrumphed. ¡°That¡¯s enough. State what you want, hoodlum. I believe it was alcohol, pills, fine...men, I suppose.¡±


    She twirled her pen; Chain gave her a reassuring shoulder pat. ¡°We need an Inheritance Dispute Resolution form and some blank pages.¡±


    ¡°Get one,¡± he answered.


    The henchman in the room, whom Ruvle hadn¡¯t noticed until now (making him very competent at his job), departed through a mirror that turned out to be a side door. She made a mental note of it. He came back shortly with several of his fellows, opening a folding table and carrying sturdy wooden chairs with flared, polished feet¡ªpurpleheart lumber with plush red cushioning, durable and exquisite, more expensive than anything Ruvle could have considered for furniture. The henchmen slid them behind Ruvle and Chain so casually, with much more care in the process for their patron, who then rested his hands on the arms engraved to look like computer chips. She maintained her smile. People from all walks of life needed documents notarized. Atop the table between them, the wood laminated with an image of ocean waves, was the form.


    ¡°I¡¯m interested in personal power,¡± Ruvle began, sweeping the form flat and bringing her pen near its surface. ¡°I will take a direct bribe of wealth, but I¡¯ll be out of your business much faster if you can grant me my interest.¡±


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    He drummed his fingers on the table. ¡°You¡¯ll be content with however many bars of beryllium I deem appropriate.¡±


    ¡°And I¡¯ll be overjoyed with them,¡± she said, ¡°but there¡¯s a more direct conversion between value and making me go away.¡± Beryllium had long been the king of precious metals in the crater¡ªlight, shiny, stiff and insidiously toxic, it was the shadow of Dye, doing nothing for those that held it but be proof that they could endure its presence.


    ¡°That was not a request,¡± he said, frowning, putting both hands on the table¡ªgrasping the glint. ¡°State a number for how many. Don¡¯t disappoint me with a poor guess.¡±


    Ruvle looked over to Chain, who shrugged, clearly trying not to look directly at his anti-prize. She shouldn¡¯t either, to remain coherent. ¡°Are there tools and equipment you¡¯ve outgrown, perhaps?¡± Ruvle suggested. ¡°Things that you¡¯re too powerful to make use of now, but which would benefit your lessers.¡±


    He quirked an eyebrow. ¡°That isn¡¯t a number.¡±


    ¡°...three thousand,¡± Ruvle picked, at semi-random, angling for something too outrageously high for him to agree to.


    ¡°You cannot remove that from my treasury,¡± he scoffed.


    Ruvle nodded. ¡°Yes, a person like you has their wealth in investments and symbols, not laying in a vault where it can¡¯t benefit you. And that¡¯s why I¡¯m saying¡ª¡±


    ¡°I spoke literally. You couldn¡¯t carry that many. My men use heavy machinery to organize my wealth.¡±


    She could not, in fact, carry three thousand ingots. Ruvle pressed her lips together. ¡°I would also accept Dye, if¡ª¡±


    He held up one hand, palm forward. She followed the wordless order to stop talking.


    ¡°I have a different offer.¡± Othek glanced at one of the henchmen. ¡°Bring the gift from Nerso.¡±


    He hurried away, and Ruvle steadied herself. The same Nerso responsible for her eye. Betraying her anger would give Othek leverage. She thought instead about how she was missing her fez and formal suit; doing notary work felt strange in her bodysuit. While they waited, Othek rested his hand back on the table, but not on the glint, still clutched firmly in his other.


    Chain coughed from the residual acid fumes. Othek glared the silence back into him.


    The henchman returned and placed a steel briefcase on the table with two round electrodes at the top around the handle. He opened a latch to unfold it into a computer console¡ªa mechanical keyboard, a small black screen in a corner, and a series of vials and tubes packed in an orderly fashion in every spare space¡ªtheir contents primarily pink, grainy mixtures, the gaps between them being filled by incrementally smaller tubes and vessels, a labyrinth of both sizes and directions. A flick of a power switch displayed a green rotating double helix on the screen. The henchman stepped away.


    ¡°Nerso refers to this as an Adult Genetics Self-Determination Kit,¡± Othek spoke. ¡°Any idiot with a petri dish can grow a creature from a new gene line, but this can change the genes of something that already exists.¡±


    ¡°...I thought these were science fiction¡­¡± Ruvle said, leaning in, reaching out with one hand.


    ¡°Nerso seems to...disagree,¡± he answered. ¡°You don¡¯t understand what can be created from wealth exceeding entire industries, hoodlum. It has enough supply left for one major enhancement, plus perhaps simple cosmetics.¡± The largest tube, the one whose girth relegated the screen to the corner, was nearly empty. ¡°A passive-aggressive gift from him that Fygra has been clamoring to take from me.¡±


    Ruvle blinked. ¡°I don¡¯t see why it¡¯s passive aggressive. It¡¯s such a wonderful boon.¡± Swarms of ideas about what she could do with this buzzed in her mind. ¡°You haven¡¯t used this on yourself?¡±


    ¡°And that, hoodlum, is the snub,¡± he said, his upper lip curling. ¡°To insinuate that I am not already perfect. What do I need with genes for strength, if I have all of them? What do I need with genes for immunity, if I can never be sick? I could institch myself with the speed of a hummingbird¡ªonly to be slower than when I started?¡±


    Ruvle searched for words. None of his behavior indicated speed, only ego. Nerso was a bastard who needed to die slowly and painfully for what he did (don¡¯t ruminate on that, don¡¯t ruminate), but his vileness was more direct than giving bad gifts.


    ¡°None of my troubles are my own. It is from not being taken seriously by the older true citizens,¡± he said, his hand clenching and unclenching around the glint, its gas slithering around his fingers like centipedes. ¡°Fygra sees everything I have as unearned. I cannot even use this as a bargaining chip for respect¡ªshe desires it, but greater so is her disdain that I have it at all. Anything in myself left that I lack, I can get through Consolidation.¡± Ruvle winced. ¡°I have made my position as true citizen very clear, for years, and somehow my newness leaves them all so shy of me. I can crush buildings with a flick of a hand. I can purchase anything, at any time, on whim. I can transit the globe with none of your restrictions. The world bows to me. And yet it is not enough for them. That is the only thing I lack, hoodlum¡ªfor my peers to see that there is nothing I lack, that I am one of them.¡±


    Ruvle blinked.


    ¡°The more I discuss this, the more set I am in it.¡± He pushed the kit towards her. ¡°You¡¯ll dispose of this reason that Fygra disdains me, leave, and never bother me again.¡±


    She wrote quickly on the inheritance form. Since this was a negotiation instead of just grabbing items and running, she denoted Othek as the bequeather. One Adult Genetics Self-Determination Kit in as-is condition, herself as the sole receiver and signator. The Dye-infused ink and her notarization sealed the document as official. ¡°I¡¯ll make a record for you to show to Nerso and Fygra,¡± she added, ¡°Proof that you no longer own it. Sign here.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t give orders and I don¡¯t take them.¡±


    ¡°Signing here would be the Thoughtful course of action,¡± she corrected herself, offering her pen.


    He signed. It was a singular O and a dot.


    Ruvle jotted down a record of a lost asset on one of the blank pages, with notarization. She started on a duplicate, only for Othek to wave his other hand dismissively, freeing both from the glint. ¡°My patience is worn,¡± he said. ¡°Leave.¡±


    ¡°I will.¡± She passed over the record to him and folded up the inheritance form, to go into her collar with her pen.


    Othek looked towards Chain. ¡°You. You didn¡¯t sign the form. I won¡¯t broker a separate deal.¡±


    Chain grinned, shrugging his shoulders and crossing one ankle over the other as he stood up straight. ¡°Yeah. See, it¡¯s actually fine that I didn¡¯t get to sign, right?¡±


    Ruvle tucked the genetics kit under one arm and leaned forward, as if to get up off her chair, but stopped because she could hear the mischief in his tone of voice.


    ¡°See, me and her made a deal beforehand; I don¡¯t get any of the loot¡­¡±


    Othek¡¯s hands weren¡¯t pressing down on the other side of the table right now. She...she had the genetics kit and the form that said she should have it. This was a chance. Betraying as little motion above chest-level as she could, Ruvle slipped a foot around one leg of the folding table and put her free hand on its underside.


    ¡°Then explain why you bothered,¡± Othek said, with a frown.


    ¡°I just wanted to do this.¡±


    In an adrenaline jolt, the next half-second happened in slow motion¡ªChain ducked and grabbed for the glint like a scorpion latching onto its prey, a distance too far to be faster than a man on-alert¡ªOthek¡¯s hands swooped down to hold onto it, but he was not Exact. His reflexes had not been honed by months and months of refinement at the monastery with students of a path beyond gymnastics, and he lacked that level of embodiment in the physical self that exceeded human birthright. Ruvle reacted first. All she needed was a nudge of the back of one leg of the table and a knock of the underside, trivial tasks, to bump the glint forward¡ªinto Chain¡¯s hands, not Othek¡¯s.


    And the rest was a blur of a cackling friend running, back the way they came, Othek shouting and flinging aside the table like it weighed less than the blank pages, of Ruvle landing on her feet from a toppled chair. Othek reached but an arm¡¯s length behind Chain by the time it was too late¡ªhe was on his scarf to float across again and slam-dunked the glint of nothing, into the pool of final acid, alighting the entire pit into a sizzling, foaming mass, emergent bubble currents writhing at random until that which determined them a thousand layers of inference deep was annihilated¡ª


    Ruvle flung open the side door and bolted through, to his living space, to her hopes for the exit. Where exactly, she didn¡¯t care: anywhere but the spire.

 21: Bread So Good It Tastes Legal

    The day was done.


    Ruvle dragged herself into her office, through the back room, up into her attic¡ªa place not someone else¡¯s, not even somewhere public, all hers, all Ruvle, somewhere no one even thought of as a space to consider, where she could sleep with no disturbances. In secret.


    Her indigo bodysuit had acid holes in it. Tomorrow-self could sew them. Sweat had soaked it nearly through, and her stomach cried for food. But her safety, her darkness, her place where she had nothing to dodge and no lasers trying to kill her, her place with every object and location known and comfortable, those problems were made small enough to bear.


    Once she had some egg and rhubarb stir-fry and plenty of that cinnamon tea, her body repaid the debt of today¡¯s energy.


    Once she changed into her fuzzy pajamas, sweat no longer choked her out.


    And once she told the elephant plushie that she was going to sleep now, and told the cat plushie that she was going to sleep now, pain fell away from her like paper wrapping around a pristine toy, and she climbed into the hammock as her last experience of the day¡ªand for the next 9 hours.


    Ruvle spent the next day doing what her body had been begging for ever since she¡¯d stepped up her training regimen¡ªresting. After the simple matter of closing the office for the day, she chose peace, indoors¡ªthe most strenuous physical work was in light stretches and in cooking, bringing up an old favorite heron-and-rhubarb recipe for two meals and a crinkle tree bark bread recipe for the late night. It came out crunchy on the outside and spongy in the middle, well worth it. Much of her time went to playing mindless navigation games on the Silver Screen, talking on the textwork or listening to the radio. A final long bath in the private washroom, further away from public space than even the inventory room, ended her day restfully¨CRuvle felt repaired, fresh again. Tomorrow she could confront what to do with the genetics kit, among her other problems looming on the horizon.


    Three days of notary work later, and many other kinds of work, Chain showed up at closing time.


    He shut the door behind him and his hands went to the back of the couch for support before she could finish locking up. His scarf hung loosely, dirtied like the rest of his outfit, his light-up shoes turned off and tracking in dirt. His mask was off and his hair in a mess.


    ¡°Mind if I, uhhhh. Can I collapse here?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Lay down. What happened?¡± She fluffed up one of the throw pillows. It felt socially correct.


    He flopped down onto the couch and groaned. ¡°Everything happened. The law wants me locked up. They¡¯ve been hunting day and night, so I¡¯ve been, uh, avoiding them. Can I get some water or something?¡±


    She fetched him a glass, along with a slice of some leftover crinkle bark bread.


    ¡°Thanks,¡± he said, and crammed a bite of bread into his mouth. ¡°Damn, this is good.¡±


    ¡°I know, I made it myself.¡± She smiled.


    ¡°Mmnf.¡± He guzzled the glass of water. ¡°You know, Ruvie? I didn¡¯t have a plan. Didn¡¯t know what I¡®d do if I actually pulled this off.¡±


    She crouched down adjacent to the couch, getting eye-to-eye with the laying man. ¡°I didn¡¯t think you did. Eat and then talk; I¡¯m listening.¡±


    He devoured the rest of the bread in a matter of seconds. ¡°I kinda thought, when I signed the Oath, that going out to destroy glints would be the last thing I¡¯d do with my life, you know? That¡¯s why I didn¡¯t care about safety that much going in. I mean, I know I¡¯ve been pretty vague on the textwork about what my before-times were like, but after that, tislets were something random I fell into; friend of a friend¡¯s parting gift. Something cool to do until...I actually don¡¯t know where the ¡®until¡¯ was going, but that¡¯s what I was thinking. Then glints started escaping and I thought, yep, that¡¯s it, that¡¯s the thing!¡± He laughed. ¡°But then I got your help and we did this crazy stupidly dangerous stunt and I¡¯m still alive? And kicking? I have a shot at another one? How did that happen?¡±


    Ruvle smiled awkwardly. ¡°We trained hard and did our best.¡±


    He cackled and kicked his feet. ¡°Now I have to plan for real, don¡¯t I? Aw, man.¡±


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to, Chain. I liked not being ¡®Thoughtful¡¯ for a while.¡± She took his hand. ¡°Practicing until I had new skills, then using those skills when I had the chance...that was nice. Something that keeps me going back to the monastery night after night is being able to do things that looked impossible before I learned how. I cartwheeled on a narrow pole that shouldn¡¯t have been able to support me. We paddled through boiling acid.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Yeah.¡± He coughed into his other fist. ¡°I¡¯m still kinda finding the new me. Old me was the hugest stats nerd. I was the most Thoughtful guy. I did a million calculations before every bet I took.¡± He snorted. ¡°It didn¡¯t work.¡±


    She let him lay there and reminisce, his face increasingly frowning at the ceiling.


    ¡°We gotta lay low for a while,¡± he finally said.


    ¡°I know.¡± Ruvle crossed an arm over the armrest and pressed her cheek against it, close to the throw pillow. ¡°I¡¯d love to, but my job is public facing. I talk to people. All day.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t stop the rumors when investigators come right into my office. I¡¯ve been working the crowd and they¡¯re coming around to it being awesome that I got away with a raid, but it was work! I had to talk so much to get there.¡± She sighed. ¡°And suddenly I¡¯m getting a lot of license nitpicks and building code questions? Not people asking me to notarize theirs, questions about mine.¡±


    Chain grunted and sat up. ¡°Can I help you out with any of that?¡±


    ¡°No. It¡¯s all really detail-oriented paper filling. It¡¯s notary work, Chain, you can¡¯t step into it. And¡ªand who¡¯s we laying low? I can¡¯t hide a person in a public place! You stand out.¡± Her hands were on her hips.


    He chuckled sheepishly. ¡°That¡¯s the thing. I¡¯ve been in the alcazar a lot. Can you hide just a scarf?¡±


    Ruvle dusted some fingerprints off the table before the game console. ¡°You said those two sentences like I know how they relate to each other, but I don¡¯t. What even is the alcazar; what does that matter?¡±


    ¡°Oh, right, I need to actually explain that. It¡¯s¡­¡± He fidgeted with the end of his scarf, rolling and unrolling it, staring at the ceiling, his lips worming left and right. ¡°Agh, I wish I could just show you. It¡¯s like this...the other tislet guys say it¡¯s a physical representation of the abstract space of all possible names, and that comes out as this gigantic building that¡¯s like. Bigger than Crater Basin. It has its own weather systems; it rains in there. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s names; I think it¡¯s a mathematical space, because there¡¯s a funny way to get under the foundation, and...I know I could explain what that looks like if I weren¡¯t tired, but I can¡¯t. Think a big blue library with bookshelves the size of suburbs. Same color as tislets, but a little darker, because light works differently there. Light sorta stops after a while, so things fade into view at a distance, and the only light there is what comes off of tislets. You can make journeys across the floor and it can supposedly take days, weeks, because you walk away from the little seating huts we¡¯ve got in there and eventually you can¡¯t see anything around you at all, because it¡¯s all too far away, except the floor.¡± He nestled his hands under the throw pillow, behind his head. ¡°We go there because it¡¯s one of the first things a scrivener learns how to do, after we get our scarf, so we can all talk to each other. Some of the books have people¡¯s old records in them, so we can look tislet stuff up, but the place you pop into the alcazar is¡­¡± He puffed air from his flapping lips. ¡°That changes with who¡¯s scrivening, and probably the year because there¡¯s historical patterns or something, but I¡¯m not sure. So, the guys I know are not all of the scriveners, just the ones near where I pop in. But when you¡¯re in there, you can scriven for free; it doesn¡¯t take tears and headache to draw a tislet. Being there in pure tislet-ness messes with most people¡¯s heads and you eventually get locked into this trance where you¡¯re scared and tired but don¡¯t want to stop doing what you¡¯re doing, but it turned out I¡¯m pretty resistant to it, so I sit in there for hours testing tislet stuff.¡±


    Ruvle nodded. ¡°And you ¡®pop¡¯ in?¡±


    He held up one end of his scarf and the tislets brightened. ¡°This pile at the bottom of the scarf, that¡¯s the ¡®tag¡¯. There¡¯s some stuff I have to do to use it, and then I¡¯m not here anymore, I¡¯m there. My scarf stays behind, but I have a...it¡¯s not a ¡®fake¡¯ version that I have there, this one out here is actually supposed to be less real than the inner one, but close enough; I get a fake version that¡¯s synced to this outer one. Got anymore of that bread?¡±


    Ruvle shook her head. ¡°I can bake more.¡±


    ¡±Darn.¡± He shrugged.


    Ruvle looked to her front desk, beyond to the filing cabinets, inkwells and papers. ¡°I can hide a scarf. A normal scarf. It¡¯s a lot harder if it glows.¡±


    ¡°Then¡­¡± He closed his eyes, thinking. ¡°I can go into the alcazar...then erase everything on the scarf, including the tag...re-scriven the tag when it¡¯s time to come back out...I can make this work.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll put you away when you¡¯re ready.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, Ruvie.¡± He yawned, then adjusted his scarf. ¡°Is it gonna be quiet out here for about an hour?¡±


    ¡°In the lobby? Yes, I¡¯m closed, I locked the door,¡± she said.


    ¡°Great, then come back around then and I¡¯ll be a scarf on the floor. And we¡¯ll chat other plans when I¡¯m not wiped out.¡±


    An hour was more than enough time to get dressed and have a meal before going to the monastery. She should spend as little time in public as possible, of course, so no side trips on the run there and back.


    Oh dear. She¡¯d have to take the minirail, wouldn¡¯t she.

 22: The Bureaucracy Is Needling You

    As hard as Ruvle trained in the monastery, it was a vacation compared to the notary workdays that followed. Every branch of government had new axes to grind on her. Citizen Identification Bureau dropped an audit in her lap about not being able to confirm that she used to be Mielo and thus her name change upon becoming a notary might be invalid, which could break some more important documents. Flood Protection Management wanted to take a look at her building¡¯s foundation and then complain at her about cracks in the concrete, which she silenced by digging up paperwork dating back to her father that showed that they were present on the last inspection and deemed fine then. A Child Safety Official didn¡¯t like the dartboard in the lobby; the sharp points might stab a kid. None of the fun departments bothered her¡ªjust the annoying ones, ones looking for an excuse to shut down her office.


    And because she was a notary worth her ink, they bounced off her. Entire back rooms full of records saved her skin many a time before, and would many a time in the future.


    Investigators kept conveniently showing up just before closing, too, to discuss her participation in the raid. There was little to discuss, open-and-shut¡ªbut she could present the form proving that Othek bequeathed the genetics kit to her. (She¡¯d spent her spare moments researching what genetic changes to make, taking the Thoughtful approach and exploring; she had to get this one-use boon exactly right.) No one wanted to lock away a person whose public space they could rely on to meet new people and have the important moments of their life recognized as such¡ªbut the negotiations were still difficult, even with common lawmen. She scraped her way out of life-ruining legal trouble, but the verdict for how to punish her hung unnamed.


    As for Chain¡¯s scarf? One of the foam insulation panels lining her attic was loose and bulky enough to fit it.


    After a few more days of work, one of her regularly-scheduled closed days came around. Ruvle sat underneath the dartboard, in her black-and-white notary suit, cross-legged and manipulating a pair of tweezers between two fingers. She peered through a magnifying glass, focused intently upon it.


    Chain, across the room, thumbed through piles of documents she¡¯d set out for him in boxes¡ªhe¡¯d moved them to the table, so he could eat his meal and look through paper consecutively. Having to go through old filing cabinets over and over had turned up some records of true citizens that she thought he might like to study. ¡°Yeah, situation hasn¡¯t changed. None of these guys are remotely vulnerable. It¡¯s true citizen vs. true citizen out there,¡± he said, with a sigh. He¡¯d straightened his hair, washed his clothes and turned his shoes back on since the start of hiding. ¡°This one guy has a steel mecha-colossus piloted by a bunch of brain-in-a-jars in his place. And another has a door that won¡¯t open unless you¡¯ve Consolidated with at least eighty-two other people, but this is an old paper so it might be more by now.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t have to be a raid¡­¡± Ruvle mumbled, trying not to expel too many air currents from her breath.


    ¡°Yeah, but. Then we¡¯re talking actually fighting a true citizen.¡±


    And fighting someone above Othek¡¯s level, with competence, felt intractable. She continued twisting her tweezers.


    ¡°We just gotta train more, I think,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t know how much. The bar is so high that I don¡¯t know how high it is, or how long it takes to get there.¡± He idly grabbed a piece of the roast on the table, with brass one-handed tongs, and took a bite. ¡°Learn new skills until one of them makes something look not impossible anymore.¡±


    Ruvle pinched the tweezers closed. ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m doing. ...if you¡¯re eating now, are you done with the documents?¡±


    ¡°No. Why?¡±


    ¡°Because I don¡¯t want grease on them.¡±


    He shrugged and took another bite. ¡°Then I¡¯m done with them. Dang, this is good.¡±


    Ruvle smiled. ¡°Thanks. It¡¯s really easy; you unroll a Mt. Radius water snake, add the spices Dad always uses and bake it. It¡¯s great every time.¡±


    ¡°Are you not gonna have some of this?¡± he asked, pointing at her with the tongs.


    She sighed and looked back through the magnifying glass, to the tweezers. ¡°No, I need to be losing weight by this point,¡± she explained. ¡°I can¡¯t have extra body fat for higher hyperdexterity; there¡¯s no muscle in it.¡±


    ¡°Wow, that sucks. Don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re gonna starve when you¡¯re at the top.¡±


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°I won¡¯t. Elial is a twig, but she¡¯s...have you seen her? She¡¯s healthy, and she¡¯s at Fine.¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t met her.¡± He clicked his tongs together a few times. ¡°I dunno, it just sucks that you¡¯re training so hard and don¡¯t get to at least eat like it.¡±


    Ruvle examined the scratches and wear grooves in the tweezers again, looking for another angle of approach. ¡°It takes sacrifices.¡± Hyperdexterity had declined for a reason, in this age dominated by Dye, wealth, and Consolidation. ¡°I can¡¯t reach Fine without losing a part of my body. Elial is more precise than you can possibly be if you still have a pulse. It¡¯s just so big, the pressure oscillation, your skin expanding and contracting¡­¡± she could see shades of that in the magnifying glass; as still as she held her hand, the pump of her blood jostled her muscles on sub-millimeter scale, the beat of flowing life vibrating the drum that played it, never truly still, lest the music coda and never play again. ¡°I need an artificial heart, the old kind that flows constantly instead of beating. And until then, I¡¯m not ready. My nerves can¡¯t phase transition.¡±


    Chain chewed on the snake roast, thinking. ¡°I don¡¯t wanna say I don¡¯t like it, because you¡¯re in charge of your own life and everything. But that¡¯s a big bet. I just hope it pays off for you, you know?¡±


    ¡°It will.¡± She smiled.


    ¡°You gotta be pretty close to Fine then, right?¡± He grinned.


    ¡°...No, not. Not at all, we¡¯ve been over this. Chain, come here.¡±


    He did, his light-up shoes blasting the floor with blue shine with each step. ¡°Something wrong?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong, I just have something to show you. Here.¡± She held up the tweezers, keeping them a hair¡¯s width apart. ¡°See what I¡¯m working on?¡±


    He squinted at the tweezers. He leaned in. He tilted his head left and right and left again. He got closer, then stepped back, then crouched and gave it one more look. ¡°...Nah?¡±


    She handed him the magnifying glass. ¡°Now try it.¡±


    Chain went face-to-face with the tweezers, one eye filling the glass like a fish from her view. ¡°I still don¡¯t...oh dang, there it is. Is that a puzzle cube?¡±


    ¡°Three by three by three,¡± Ruvle said. ¡°I¡¯m not Fine. Fine could solve this with fingers. I¡¯m not even close!¡±


    Chain whistled.


    ¡°I¡¯m having to twist it with tweezers.¡±


    ¡°How? It¡¯s a lot smaller than the tip.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a scratch under the lip of the left tip, and I can get one end sort of stuck against it, and if I rub in a certain direction with the other tip to turn a face¡ª¡±


    ¡°Aw no.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s called needlework; it¡¯s what I was working on before we started all this,¡± Ruvle explained. ¡°Getting more precise, moving small distances, controlling myself tightly enough to solve this, it¡¯s what that ¡®plucking atoms¡¯ is really called, needlework.¡±


    ¡°Whoa. And that¡¯s how you got those locks open at the spire?¡± He lowered the magnifying glass. ¡°...oh, cool, now that I know what I¡¯m looking for, I can see it.¡±


    ¡°It was a little needlework,¡± She thought back to it. ¡°Gross dexterity can still pick really good locks. Needlework was how I could open them the first time with just the directions you were giving me. I¡¯m still practicing, and I¡¯ll get a lot better when I¡¯m Fine.¡± She could probably ask Elial for a second skill recommendation to work on, too. Flydodging and gentle steps had been valuable additions to basic Coarse hyperdexterity, and now with only improved needlework as her next target, the imaginary space for a second training goal had nothing in it. (Losing weight didn¡¯t count.) Running her office and training at the same time had kept Ruvle in multitasking mode ever since initiation.


    ¡°Aces, so am I waiting for you to be Fine before we try something? How do we know when you¡¯re there? It sounds kinda subjective, like a title.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not. I¡¯ll know.¡± ...Oh, wait, she knew what he was getting at. She set her tweezers aside, the scratch on the left tong facing up, so the puzzle box wouldn¡¯t bounce away. ¡°It¡¯s not a political label; it¡¯s not like job titles or something you take a test for. Elial says every level of Exaction is a big jump. It¡¯s more obvious the higher up you go, she tells me? There¡¯s a test for Coarse but you sort of already feel it; it was like I broke through a ceiling when I got there and I knew I was ready for the test. No one ¡®barely¡¯ passes or fails by a few seconds. Fine is going to be...I¡¯ll get hypervoluntarism. I won¡¯t miss that. And I think when you get Ultrafine, everyone around you can tell right away, too, but I don¡¯t know what¡¯s involved in that...are you okay, Chain?¡± she added.


    His pensive, faraway expression tipped her off. He slid his mask back over his face, deliberate and slow. ¡°...you¡¯re a way harder worker than I am. I¡¯m good. I just gotta take how you do things to heart.¡± She smiled as he spoke. ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯m doing anything else lately. I gotta be spending way more time wrangling tislets.¡±


    ¡°Yes. Do it when you¡¯re part of your scarf all day.¡±


    ¡°I kinda do, but not enough. Heck, I resist the alcazar, I should be exploiting the heck out of that for more testing time. Yeah, that¡¯s how we¡¯re gonna train more.¡± He snapped his fingers after the insight. ¡°Okay, I¡¯m gonna finish eating and tomorrow morning, we¡¯ll roll.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll roll. I have a notary office to run!¡± She threw up her hands in protest, and Chain cackled.

 23: Exoproprio, 0%

    Several more days later, Ruvle put on a blindfold for her second training goal.


    ¡°Five full rotations,¡± Elial told her, a hint of fatigue in her monotone.


    Ruvle spun in place, five times as instructed, just enough for vertigo to pick up where she left off, turning the world around her while she kept her feet anchored. She resisted the urge to follow it. In her hand was provided a dart, one not there half a moment ago, the warmth of mentor fingers lingering on it.


    ¡°Hit the bullseye.¡±


    Ruvle¡¯s scrambled mental map of the room barely helped. She did her best, and it struck exactly where she intended¡ªrelative to herself. It clacked against stone instead of dartboard foam, the impact clap earning a sigh from herself.


    ¡°Your elevation was correct,¡± Elial said, her voice ephemeral and exploring the room in all directions. ¡°You¡¯re misaligned by a few degrees. Touch a pillar and reorient.¡± Ruvle reached for the¡ª ¡°without taking your blindfold off.¡±


    Thus, instead, she swept her arms out and took random steps, shortly finding a smooth stone column, built into the floor, one that she could wrap both hands around and touch fingertips. She reached to her left and found the other, arms¡¯ lengths apart, and that told her her location again in this less-used training room. The highest balcony led to this oval-shaped hollow of worked stone, most of its evenly-spaced pillars still standing, others crumbled to stumps from wear and accidents. The budget to fix a less-used room like this didn¡¯t exist, doubly with its original purpose a mystery¡ªother initiates told her that it was once for practicing walking on narrow ropes, but a dedicated space for an easy task like that made little sense to Ruvle. No, today its repurposement felt more challenging and worthy of practice. Now that she knew where she was, she deduced the dartboard again, hanging up on a wall graciously free of pillars that could intercept a throw. Her mental map updated.


    ¡°Four rotations, then hit the nearest broken base.¡±


    Ruvle did as told. She reoriented her map again, once back in place, and threw another dart that had just been placed in her hand. The dart clattered on the ground, not against a stump.


    ¡°Nearly, but still off,¡± Elial repeated. ¡°Try again.¡±


    She found the two arms-length pillars again, spun, and threw. Another clatter.


    ¡°Are you keeping track of your direction at all times?¡± Elial asked.


    Ruvle pulled up the blindfold, her eye shortly adjusting to the bright indigo tiles all around her, with visual vertical divisions in stone-gray. The pillars terminated halfway to the ceiling above, which too had been decorated in indigo, with occasional steel hooks in the grout between. One hook had a long-forgotten dangling knot of red twine from it, around which a spider made its home. ¡°I¡¯m tracking it when I have to throw,¡± Ruvle said, to the room in general.


    ¡°Look carefully at the dartboard and commit it to memory,¡± Elial told her. Ruvle finally located her, crouching atop a pillar behind her, both hands and feet on its lip and her back arched. The room¡¯s acoustics did not play well with directional hearing. ¡°Gauge the distance, count your steps forward and back, if needed.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not the problem,¡± Ruvle said, ¡°I¡¯m not having a depth perception moment, I know I¡¯m 9 meters away from it.¡±


    Elial tilted her head down, shifting her headband to shade her eyes. ¡°For this exercise, try not to think of yourself as distant from it. Think of it as distant from you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the same thing.¡± She frowned. ¡°Don¡¯t do cryptic wisdom sayings, please just explain what you mean so I can get better at it.¡±


    Elial nodded and leapt from one pillar to another, getting back into her crouched position in a flash. ¡°Perhaps I didn¡¯t explain what I¡¯m teaching you well enough.¡± Elial closed her eyes and performed another leap, landing on another pillar without issue¡ªand then another, and another, turning rapidly, navigating as if she¡¯d never known or needed sight. ¡°Exoproprio does involve understanding your place in your environment and tracking that accurately, but that is not the goal. If you consciously understand your orientation in your surroundings at all times, you will become better at navigating them when disrupted, and if you can track yourself with no sensory cues, you¡¯ll be even closer. But that is also not the end goal. Exoproprio¡­¡± She performed a backflip and grabbed one of the tiny ceiling hooks, to hang there by one arm. ¡°Is such automatic tracking that it subsumes into your self-perception. That is the flashpoint. In the way that you know where your arms are when blindfolded, you will know where everything stationary around you is. They become part of the same neural pathways. You¡¯ll never be lost again. You¡¯ll retrace your steps as well as time rewound might. You¡¯ll walk with confidence through smoke as if it weren¡¯t there.¡±


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Ruvle mimicked Elial¡¯s crouch pose from a moment ago, thinking. ¡°...will that ruin my sense of self? That sounds like...other objects get to feel like parts of my body¡­?¡±


    ¡°Not quite.¡± Elial opened her other hand and dropped a dart; Ruvle caught it out of the air. ¡°Developing exoproprio does not change where you draw the boundary between you and not you. Needlework may even be worse than it, when you interrogate too deeply the parts of yourself that you don¡¯t control. That is what happened to Acoff, one of the earliest Ultrafines.¡±


    Ruvle remembered that story that a different initiate had told her. ¡°I thought the reason he peeled off his skin was to try to go beyond Ultrafine. ...Am I misremembering that we didn¡¯t know about Point-Perfect back then?¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t known then. But the reason he died from flaying himself is that his sense of self narrowed entirely to his muscle tissue, when he had untreated mental illness and self-harm tendencies that no one stepped in for. We are much better at affirming embodiment today.¡±


    With so much on her mind, Ruvle made a mental note simply to not stare into that abyss. ¡°I...I still want to do needlework; I did solve that puzzle you gave me.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± Elial smiled to herself and dropped down. ¡°It¡¯s my second favorite.¡±


    ¡°I put it in a bottle cap next to the contortion maze.¡±


    Elial dropped down, landing to crouch against one of the pillars. Her eyes remained closed, her head lowering, alluding an exhaustion. Ruvle...wanted to not care; she¡¯d already been concerned enough about Chain, and a person had to be rough and callous to get ahead, but¡­


    ¡°Are you too tired to teach me today?¡± There, that was phrasing things self-centeredly enough.


    ¡°I am not. Spin, five times.¡± Ruvle blindfolded herself, tightly enough to be snug over her wax, and did as told. ¡°My personal problems need not be your concern.¡±


    ¡°Well, they can be,¡± Ruvle said, and stopped spinning. ¡°Hey, can you pick a different pillar? I can tell which direction you¡¯re in on that one and how far, and that feels like cheating myself.¡±


    Feet softly tapped elsewhere¡ªelsewhere enough that she couldn¡¯t discern it, perfect. ¡°They¡¯re not useful to talk about,¡± Elial added. ¡°Nothing but financial trouble.¡±


    ¡°I feel that sometimes,¡± Ruvle said, resuming rotation, her understanding of external reality blurring down to her current angle and speed. ¡°The investigators about my raid finally settled on a huge fine. I won¡¯t have ¡®notary money¡¯ for a while.¡± She owned The Checkered Office and the business represented almost all of her expenses, so it meant she wouldn¡¯t get to buy anything fun rather than threatening her survival.


    Elial didn¡¯t answer.


    Ruvle stopped, re-estimated her position and angle, threw her dart, and hit the wall again.


    ¡°Why are you pausing?¡± Elial asked, something simmering under her voice.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°When you stop spinning, you take a moment. Are you keeping track of your surroundings or not?¡±


    ¡°I am, I just have to think about how I¡¯ve changed in them and do intuition in my head.¡±


    ¡°Stop. Stop that,¡± Elial said. ¡°Track your surroundings at all times. Know how the pillars fly past you with each step, every rotation, as if they¡¯re the ones rotating rather than you¡ªor expand your mind and know yourself exactly upon it, like watching yourself dance across a movie screen. Don¡¯t let your spatial reasoning lay fallow when you¡¯re moving; that¡¯s exactly when you need it the most and when exoproprio will matter. Anyone can remember where they are if they aren¡¯t moving. Do the work, Ruvle.¡±


    The next dart landed in her fingers with force. Ruvle curled her fingers around it, frowning.


    ¡°...Sorry.¡±


    Elial sighed. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have been harsh.¡± They both remained silent, only the distant chirp of insects outdoors in the night and the footsteps of other learners on the ground floor far below. ¡°When I mentioned financial troubles, I meant that I couldn¡¯t pay my rent this month. Not enough work. My landlord¡¯s underlings are upset and giving me contempt.¡±


    Ruvle connected the dots this time that her bomb threat made Elial miss work, which made her miss rent, and¡­her mind flinched away from facing the consequences. There were several things she could do, but that would require both admitting fault and going back on willingness for ruthlessness. No, she couldn¡¯t.


    ¡°I¡¯ll do the work this time.¡±


    Ruvle found the arms-length pillars once more. She rose onto one foot, bending the other to the back of her thigh like an egret standing in water, and concentrated. She put her thoughts into the space around her, choosing Elial¡¯s second recommendation¡ªimagining the world as a stage, fixed, which she stood upon, her mind¡¯s eye following herself as she moved. Ruvle twisted left and right experimentally, gauging herself, and then went for the five rotations.


    One. Two. Three. Every degree was an opportunity for error, but her mind should be as exact as her body. Four.


    Five, and she threw.


    The metal tip did not clatter against stone¡ªonly a solid strike of parted felt and backboard. Ruvle let her shoulders droop in relief.


    ¡°You hit the outer rim, and barely,¡± Elial said, neutrality returning to her. ¡°That¡¯s better. Now repeat thousands of times for weeks until it is deeper than instinct.¡±


    ¡°Right away!¡± She pumped her fist. Exoproprio and needlework: her new skills planned for the coming time, to join flydodging and gentle steps, to meet her internal transformations of nerves. The infrastructure for Fine could rise from the earth of the self with day after day of refinement.

 24: Sovereign Flag of Blowing Off Steam

    Before leaving the monastery that night, Ruvle had an idea. Her big dumb conscience kept slapping her over what she¡¯d done to Elial, and Elial herself still walked about with frustration buried in her eyes. Elial kicked around a puzzle box like a hackeysack, hitting it hard enough to clatter the inner mechanisms as she solved it with accepted precision and rejected delicateness. The colored stickers peeled with each strike. A many-legged maroon bug skittered through the front archway, across the floor, and Elial struck the puzzle cube with her heel, landing it in front of the insect with a loud clack. The bug scurried in the opposite direction without breaking stride.


    ¡°How about we do a flag duel?¡± Ruvle offered.


    Elial kicked the puzzle cube back up and caught it in her hand; she solved it one-handed in a flash. ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I think we both still have issues to work off,¡± Ruvle said. And every extra bit of training helped.


    Elial turned away to the door, adjusting her headband. ¡°You¡¯ll lose.¡±


    ¡°I still want to do one.¡±


    Elial tossed her cube up and down, considering it, and then tossed it up. ¡°Then we will.¡± It landed atop one of the balconies. ¡°But only because it will be quick.¡±


    Ruvle smiled. It wasn¡¯t about getting beaten up, but about helping Elial calm down.


    Elial climbed up to one of the training rooms again and returned with the flags, jumping down and landing in a tumble, already covered in green flags for herself¨Ctwenty of them. Fabric composed of a tiny fibrous hooks fastened their bases to her bodysuit¨Cfour on her legs, another four on her arms, and the other twelve affixed to her torso and abdomen. She tossed the other color of flags under her arm¨Cred¨Ctowards Ruvle, who caught the bundle.


    Initiates of hyperdexterity did not duel. Not with weapons, at least. Exaction lent itself to skill with a pocket knife or a laser gun, certainly, but it had so many more applications beyond that. No, Ruvle had seen what they called a ¡®flag duel¡¯ a few times. Tiose, her former Coarse teacher, had made them look incredible¨Che could duck, jump, snatch and swipe, plucking from the inexact with immaculate ease, and yet be evenly matched with other Coarse initiates in their attempts to remove one another¡¯s flags. It was against the rules to reattach them, and the winner was determined by who detached all of the other¡¯s flags first, to be recorded¨Cin the simple indigo notebook that Elial carried with her now, weathered from use, but resilient with its hard cover. She set the notebook down at the edge of the ground floor, atop the contortion maze, and held aloft a small plastic stopwatch, in black.


    ¡°Get ready,¡± Elial said.


    ¡°Already done,¡± Ruvle announced, fastening the last flag behind her back.


    ¡°Are you familiar with the rules?¡±


    ¡°Steal all your flags without tools, duel ends when all twenty are stolen, no blood or bruises¡­¡± Ruvle pondered. ¡°And results are recorded as how many the losing side stole.¡± If Tiose won a duel and his opponent snatched 13 flags, his win would be recorded as ¡®20/13¡¯, and in the opposite case, ¡®13/20¡¯. ¡°And the stopwatch is for very close or one-sided results.¡± She¡¯d asked during her first viewing of a flag duel what happened if they both stole one another¡¯s final flag at the same time, and in that case, the winner went to the one who first stole the opponent¡¯s nineteenth, with that tie broken by eighteenth, etcetera. Those were often marked with ¡®20/19¡¯ and then a time for when that nineteenth mattered, and blowout ¡®20/0¡¯ results also had a time for when the duel was won. ¡°So if I mess this up, you can tell me exactly how badly I messed it up.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what the timing is for.¡± Elial carefully tucked a lock of hair into her headband, preparing for action. ¡°It is intended to show shades of skill, so that flag duels between those of different degrees of Exaction are still meaningful.¡±


    ¡°Like between Coarse and Fine,¡± Ruvle said.


    Elial nodded. Ruvle still thought she could put up a good fight.


    ¡°Time begins when I press the stopwatch,¡± Elial said, moving to stand four meters away from Ruvle.


    Ruvle didn¡¯t need to plan this out Thoughtfully, but she figured the flags on her back and on her legs would be the most difficult to steal, so she should prioritize protecting those and go for the flags on Elial¡¯s abdomen and shoulders when on the offensive. And Elial would likely slow down further into the flag duel¨Cat first, she¡¯d have twenty locations available for stealing from, but would be forced to pick from only the difficult remaining few later into the match. And when she overextended herself that way, it would be the perfect time for Ruvle to swipe something. Strategy seemed straightforward enough.


    Elial pressed the button and launched the stopwatch into the air with a mighty throw, simultaneously. Ruvle half-crouched with her hands forward, ready for acti¨C


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    She got a glimpse of Elial sprinting at her with both hands, something like a lunge, but with one foot always on the ground, and Ruvle tried to duck to her side to parry a forearm. And then the flag duel became a blur, everything happening too fast to process.


    Wherever Ruvle moved, arm or leg or entire position, Elial had already accounted for that. Any movement away was trivially corrected for, a minimal flick or adjustment of angle of approach, ripping away multiple flags every second. Ruvle reached, and found air instead of solid person to grab onto, where Elial had been instants ago¨Ca woman not supernaturally fast, but always on the move, always countering Ruvle¡¯s intent tenths of a second in advance. It was no use dodging when Elila was always right there where she dodged to, faster and able to reorient herself in better reaction time¨C


    ¡°Time.¡± Elial extended her hand to catch the falling stopwatch, button-first.


    Ruvle panted for breath a few times; it had happened so fast that her heart didn¡¯t even get the idea that it needed to pump at anaerobic speed yet to keep up. Her bodysuit had been stripped bare.


    ¡°Five seconds or so,¡± Elial said, frowning.


    ¡°Can I¡­try that again?¡± Ruvle asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m still recording it.¡± Well, yes, why wouldn¡¯t she? Elial handed her back her bundle of twenty flags with her other hand. As Ruvle reattached them, Elial wound up her arm for another throw. ¡°Try again.¡± She tossed.


    Ruvle did her best. She tried grabbing Elial¡¯s flags instead of defending her own, this time, but her teacher moved in ephemeral jerks, just out of reach, like the solid-seeming locks of flame in a bonfire that could in truth never be tactile. Ruvle raised a foot to step on a loose flag on Elial¡¯s shin, but a quick sideways shove to her thigh and a matching push on her shoulder sent her spinning on her heels, unwanted¨Cand Elial spun her until she peeled off all of the flags like bark from a crinkle tree.


    ¡°Time.¡±


    She had an extra second before she caught the stopwatch. ¡°Six.¡±


    Ruvle frowned.


    ¡°Better,¡± Elial said, narrowing her eyes, still neutral of face. ¡°When a Coarse initiate reaches for me, they lose time, mostly.¡±


    ¡°...they lose time?¡±


    ¡°Bringing themselves closer to me lowers the distance I travel to take their flags,¡± Elial explained. ¡°Their attempts to grab mine require no special defense. But it took me more time to strip your flags rather than less.¡± She gripped the stopwatch tightly. ¡°Again.¡±


    Ruvle gulped. She put her flags back on. Eliali tossed and threw.


    ¡°Time.¡±


    She couldn¡¯t even really process it that time. Ruvle just knew she¡¯d been trying to swat and block and grab, operating on reflex and lower brain reactive decisions, and it felt a lot like trying to grab the green dot of a laser pointer on the ground. Ruvle found herself on the floor, face-up, panting once more.


    ¡°Six again,¡± Elial said. ¡°I think that¡¯s enough.¡±


    Bubble wrap. Ruvle thought of bubble wrap. She¡¯d assumed Elial taking her flags would be like randomly rolling dice, dice with twenty sides, until all of the numbers came up¨CElial could tear through the first flags quickly, but would need many rolls to get the last few, when only a few numbers left would do. The flags on the back would be the hardest, the flags on her shoulders the easiest, but, no. Elial was Fine. All difficulties were equally negligible, as if she were popping twenty bubbles on bubble wrap, and Ruvle had been trusting the bottom bubbles to be ¡®harder¡¯ to pop somehow.


    Elial retrieved the notebook again, and quietly wrote a third line in it.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re my teacher instead of my enemy,¡± Ruvle said.


    Elial closed the book. ¡°Keep practicing, and do not take this as discouragement.¡±


    The power difference didn¡¯t bother Ruvle. It gave her a reason to keep pursuing hyperdexterity. That could be her¨Cone day, and one day soon.


    When she returned to The Checkered Office before dawn, Ruvle had one more thing to do¨Ca comment from Elial to follow up on, from the quick downtime between starting on exoproprio and the flag duel. In passing, Elial mentioned something about henchmen, a squad that had come by the monastery with a gegha. A four-headed squirrel. They¡¯d been looking for her.


    That didn¡¯t give her any new information about Othek to act on, but the file room answered half of a mystery¨Cit turned out that the form to approve that gegha had crossed her desk before, unless that was an unrelated experiment that also accidentally created a giant four-headed squirrel (which was not out of the question for M.A.D.). But based on when that deputized investigation had happened, and the decreasing frequency of the bureaucratic pecking of her office¡­


    It sort of looked like Othek was losing interest. No, not losing, but redirecting it.


    Idle speculation, but Ruvle had to wonder if he¡¯d stopped trying to get revenge and started looking for a new glint. It would be¡­practical. And also stupid. What if she were in his position? The person who took something irreplaceable from her, her eye, wasn¡¯t going to get off easy just from the passage of¨C


    She shook her head and took calming breaths as she ascended into her attic. She told the elephant plushie and the cat plushie that she was going to sleep now¨CRuvle had more than one problem to solve, and that could best be done well-rested.

 25: The Light at the End

    ¡°What, no fuckin¡¯ investigators today?¡± Chain asked, kneeling before one of the lobby¡¯s chairs and pushing wooden tiles around on the seat.


    ¡°No investigators,¡± Ruvle said, slumping down in a chair adjacent. For once in two entire weeks, no one had come through the door at closing time to ask a ¡®few¡¯ questions about her involvement with ¡®a certain Perfectcoil¡¯ like being coy and roundabout would work the hundredth time they tried it.


    ¡°Aces, finally.¡± He nudged a tile towards the backrest. ¡°I was wondering why ya pulled me out early.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Ruvle crossed one leg over the other; even in her notary suit, she carried herself with posture and poise, unmoving where motion was unwarranted, her body an alertly coiled spring of muscle and nerve. She mentally re-fixed herself in the stage of her surroundings¡ªthe props of black and white tile, the decorative signature above her desk, papers loose and about behind her workstation, the bell for customers to ring, the scarf that dangled over the back of Chain¡¯s neck, the tiles he pushed. ¡°I didn¡¯t know textwork writing could get into the alcazar. I thought you would see that message after you got out on your own time. How do you have access in a space that¡¯s not...¡±


    ¡°Not ¡®real¡¯? We got a reception tower in there. Made of broken bookshelf wood, same stuff we make the looms for our scarfs out of.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t textwork towers have to be metal...?¡± she wondered aloud. And they needed electricity. And for the message waves to exist in the general vicinity.


    ¡°It acts like metal if we want it to. Remember, tislets.¡± He winked. ¡°It¡¯s covered in them. I can parachute ride over to it on a wind system if it¡¯s a good day. You can see shades of it like a mural if you focus your eyes on just the ones with corner circles; the dude who got it working is an artistic genius. I wish I could talk to him about how it works, but he doesn¡¯t appear anywhere near where I do.¡± Chain shrugged.


    Ruvle shook her head. Concentrate. ¡°No investigators. They implied they were done last night, and I didn¡¯t believe them, but now¡­¡± she fanned her face with her hand in relief. ¡°I think we¡¯re getting away with it.¡±


    ¡°Heh. Nah, they¡¯ll still arrest me if they see me, but if they¡¯re not gonna check here anymore, that¡¯s good.¡±


    ¡°They won¡¯t. I paid my fine.¡± She laced her fingers together in her lap.


    ¡°Laying low is really working¡­¡± he grinned to himself. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s a good thought¡­¡± He traced a finger along one of the tiles. ¡°Laying low is working. Laying low is working.¡± In the wake of his fingertip, blue light emerged, drawing a squiggle¡ªlike a stylized snake with a circle for a head, biting the middle of a shovel.


    ¡°Is that a new tislet?¡± Ruvle asked.


    ¡°It is.¡±


    She tilted her head, pointing her good eye at it. ¡°What does it do?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡­¡± Chain blinked. ¡°Yeah, I can¡¯t answer that.¡±


    ¡°I can keep secrets!¡± she pouted.


    ¡°No, like, that¡¯s like if I wrote out the word ¡®inclination¡¯ and you asked me what the dot in the second ¡®i¡¯ means. You gotta put these together to do anything. But the more you know how to scriven, the more you can do, and do it with fewer tislets. I think. The sequences that work are different for everyone; it¡¯s a lot about how you feel, you know?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Shouldn¡¯t...shouldn¡¯t any sequence work for anyone? Like computer code?¡±


    Chain cackled. ¡±Nah, Ruvie, get this. I¡¯m not better than the guys who think it¡¯s code, but none of them are good. Their brains get all clogged up when they try to make it impersonal. Computer code, that stuff works on the assumption that it¡¯s all that matters; it¡¯s supposed to run the same way every time and not depend on the computer it¡¯s on. Who writes it doesn¡¯t matter for code, if two people wrote the same thing. That¡¯s not what tislets are like. When you scriven,¡± he said, holding up the tile, ¡°You¡¯re powering it with emotion, and the ¡®you¡¯ part of you. You can sorta understand tislets by looking at them, but there¡¯s always a hidden half that¡¯s ¡®who wrote this¡¯.¡±


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Ruvle blinked. ¡°...that¡¯s not the impression I got at all. You said people were hiding their sequences from you. Being ¡®cagey¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Oh, they still are, it¡¯s just...I¡¯m learning this stuff too, you know? Grand scheme of things, I haven¡¯t been doing this for very long. Someone said my scarf sequences are still in a ¡®kid poured all his toys out on the floor¡¯ kinda stage.¡± He snapped his fingers. ¡°I¡¯m trying the whole ¡®tiles¡¯ thing too. Still not sure what they¡¯re gonna be good for, though.¡±


    Ruvle rubbed her eye. ¡°Thanks for explaining. I don¡¯t think I have the mind for what you do.¡±


    ¡°And I don¡¯t have the body for yours, but we¡¯re working together. Cross these rivers and see what dams they break together.¡±


    She smiled.


    ¡°Oh, speaking of body, you ever figured out what you¡¯re doing with that DNA lab-in-a-box?¡± he asked, turning away from the tiles, wrapping his scarf around his shoulders. ¡°If people aren¡¯t gonna search us anymore, I think you can get to that now, right?¡±


    ¡°I can.¡± She took her fez off and dusted it off in her lap. ¡°I¡¯ve just had a lot to handle. I would have used it earlier.¡±


    ¡°Then come on, spill it. Ya gonna get wings, fire breath, immortality?¡±


    Ruvle shook her head. ¡°You can¡¯t...do that. They¡¯ve only figured out how to do that kind of thing in animals. Mostly squirrels.¡±


    ¡°Aw.¡±


    ¡°But, I can make myself stronger or faster, quicker to think, make it a lot easier to lose weight...I get to skip one big step in my training, basically,¡± she said, nodding. ¡°I looked into a lot of those, and then I decided...I don¡¯t want one of those.¡±


    ¡°Ohhh, I get it. Congratulations!¡±


    ¡°...On?¡±


    ¡°Being about to get your eye back. That¡¯s what you¡¯ve been about, right?¡±


    Ruvle tilted her head, thinking of how to phrase this. It was a little complicated.


    ¡°I asked about that. And that¡¯s something I can do. We know enough ocular genes these days that my body could regrow enough of an eye. Not all of it, but enough to do surgery to finish the job and I¡¯d have binocular vision back. And that would undo what Nerso fucking did to me. But¡­¡±


    Chain sayed quiet, with full attention on her. She swept her hand across her wax eye, fingers tracing along the scar tributaries and up to the vertical pupil. ¡°What makes me mad is not¡­the actual eye; it¡¯s why I lost it. Losing a body part sucks, it really sucks, but what makes me mad is that a true citizen can just make it happen. Whenever they want. And I don¡¯t have an option to get back at them because they¡¯re true citizens. If one of them decided to kidnap and torture me, that would just happen and there would be nothing I could do about it, because they wanted it, and I know because that¡¯s what they did!¡± Ruvle¡¯s sigh came hot like steam. ¡°Getting my eye back doesn¡¯t do anything. It doesn¡¯t fix me. What fixes me is being so strong that they¡¯re afraid to even think about me in case I¡¯m right behind them when they look in a mirror.¡±


    Chain tapped his heel on the tile floor a few times, thinking.


    ¡°What I meant by ¡®I don¡¯t want one of those¡¯ is that I want more than one,¡± Ruvle said. ¡°I thought about how much I was training and how I crashed so hard during the raid, and I thought, I don¡¯t want that to happen. I want to be able to train a lot harder, for a lot longer, so I can go through the steps faster. It¡¯ll pay off better than skipping something. And it turns out, there¡¯s someone from M.A.D. on the textwork who has a good idea about how to do that.¡± She put a strained, wistful smile back on her face. ¡°So I¡¯ll be turning up my endurance and my ability to recover, to above how much humans normally have. It should do a little of everything. I should stay standing for longer if I get beaten up, be able to put more hours in training, my 9 hours to sleep should put me back in top shape every time...if this goes on for decades, I won¡¯t have to worry about aging messing me up for a while. I might not even care if I get cuts and scrapes. Instead of skipping one step, I¡¯ll go fast enough that it¡¯s like I¡¯m skipping more than one.¡±


    That, finally, put Chain at ease. ¡°That¡¯s the one.¡±


    ¡°But the most important part of it is training faster and harder. That¡¯s what I really want,¡± she reminded him.


    ¡°Aces. Go improve yourself,¡± he said, and tislets cascaded their lights over his scarf. They weren¡¯t so fully-loaded like during the raid¡ªonly random patches all over the fabric, plus a gridlock near one hem as his way out of the alcazar.


    ¡°I will,¡± she said, ¡°There are a few genes to work out the details on because of the alteration budget, but I think the exact gene instructions will be ready by tomorrow night. I want you to watch me use it before I go off to train.¡±


    Maybe, despite her mistakes, everything would turn out alright after all.

 26: Gimme.

    Someone knocked on the doorframe. Loud, insistent, unceasing.


    ¡°Sorry, we¡¯re not open yet!¡± Ruvle called out, in the middle of the lobby, still sweeping up the floor.


    ¡°Yes you are,¡± a gruff feminine voice answered on the other side of the frosted glass. ¡°A true citizen wants to speak with you.¡±


    Was this Othek again? She didn¡¯t know henching groups were mixed-gender; every institution she knew had either henchmen or henchwomen exclusively to preserve the anonymity. Ruvle slipped her dress shoes back on and righted her fez atop her head on the way to the door, preparing to talk him down. It could also be a prank; sometimes a person said that to try to get privileges.


    She opened the frosted glass door to the midmorning sun. The henchwoman stepped back¡ªblonde, broad-shouldered, in visor and suit¡ªto surround the person of interest in a circle of eight. A tall, deeply muscular woman approached, shrouded in that same Dye-embossed black cloak that Ruvle so recognized, with clockwork faintly clicking underneath it and the scent of vinegar crinkling Ruvle¡¯s nose. She couldn¡¯t see the face clearly under the hood, save for some fringes of gradient-toned hair, just like those she¡¯d spotted on Othek¡¯s view screen, but this time with a patch of definite red.


    ¡°Good morning, Fygra!¡± Ruvle said, putting on her best service smile. Fygra approached, slippers scratching on the stonework. ¡°How can I help you today?¡± Ruvle stepped aside to give her space. Fygra hummed to herself. A different henchwoman followed in and closed the door behind her, leaving the three alone in the lobby. ¡°I¡¯m here to serve your all-important needs!¡±


    ¡°This is why people like Othek are dangerous,¡± Fygra said, her voice low and disappointed.


    Ruvle smiled and nodded, trying to parse Fygra¡¯s implication. ¡°He was a challenge, but within my capabilities,¡± she said, splitting the difference.


    ¡°Present the document.¡±


    The henchwoman unfolded, from her suit pocket, a sheet of paper with glittering notary ink upon it¡ªthe original copy of Othek¡¯s record of lost asset; Ruvle recognized her own signature. Ruvle nodded again, hands behind her back. ¡°That¡¯s the proof,¡± she commented.


    ¡°Mmm. Undo this.¡±


    Ruvle blinked. ¡°Ma¡¯am, I¡¯m sorry, but I¡¯ve already used the Adult Genetics Self-Determination Kit; there is nothing to undo.¡±


    ¡°Mmm...undo this. If I tell you a third time, this office will be shut down.¡±


    Her self-control alone kept her smiley and approachable. ¡°Would you like the form itself revoked? I¡¯m sorry, perfect Fygra, I don¡¯t quite understand. Were you perhaps the one that asked regulatory agencies to verify my office¡¯s validity, then?¡± she asked. Was it not Othek the whole time?


    ¡°No. Oh, dearm if I wanted you shut down, you would not have been probed for an excuse to do it; it would have simply happened.¡± She could see Fygra more clearly now in the matched lighting inside; despite the change in her body type and added shades of hair, her face looked exactly the same, with eyes fixed directly on Ruvle and without a trace of mirth. Ruvle started to sweat.


    ¡°Shutting my office down wouldn¡¯t accomplish your transcendent goals,¡± she answered. ¡°Not to imply that you don¡¯t know this, but as a reminder. Most of a notary¡¯s value is in their community trust. A new office could be opened very soon. Is there a different way I can help you today?¡±


    Clockwork ticked, echoing in the almost-empty lobby. The henchwoman folded the paper back up, looking away awkwardly.


    ¡°Interesting. Very interesting,¡± Fygra said. ¡°I was warned you¡¯d be strong-willed.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for your complim¡ª¡±


    ¡°Second document.¡±


    The henchwoman presented a piece of paper, crumpled and yellowed. A bomb threat, written in a teenage boy¡¯s handwriting.


    ¡°You recognize this page.¡± Fygra said it not in reaction to Ruvle¡¯s paling face or her eyes transfixed on the lettering, but as if presenting background information known beforehand.


    ¡°I do, Fygra.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not as nearly good at covering your tracks as you think you are,¡± Fygra said.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry once again, but what is the importance of this document?¡± Keep her talking; maybe there¡¯s a way out of this.


    ¡°Your public trust.¡±


    Sweat from Ruvle¡¯s brow met the floor.


    ¡°I¡¯ll prevent questions from being asked,¡± Fygra said, gesturing vaguely towards the door and the common people on the street beyond it. ¡°I suppose you could say no a third time, in which case everyone you know will understand that you send messages like this.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure that they¡¯d believe¡ª¡°


    ¡°Including Elial.¡±


    Ruvle wanted to be anywhere else in the world right now.


    ¡°Yes, I know about her and your relationship to her,¡± Fygra said.


    Ruvle slowly bowed her head, tears clouding her eye. To imagine Elial finding out what she did, along with everyone who had ever set foot in her office...and her Dad finding out that she¡¯d killed the family business, entirely by her own fault¡­ ¡°You¡¯ve...done your research excellently¡­¡±


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Fygra leaned in close. The scent of acid grew overpowering; Ruvle held herself back from coughing. The foundation makeup on her face felt like it was melting.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to need that back,¡± Fygra said, her voice in a low whisper.


    ¡°...Right away, it will be done,¡± Ruvle said.


    She departed, to the back room, up into the attic, her sleeping space all for her. Sniffling and seething, Ruvle grabbed the kit from atop the pantry-armoire and returned; she presented it in open hands and on her knees, her head bowed. Tears fell into the seam between black tile and white tile as Fygra lifted it by its handle. It was passed to the henchwoman, who tucked it into her suit.


    ¡°Please don¡¯t shut down my office,¡± Ruvle said.


    ¡°Mmm, no, the questions I¡¯d get from that are less convenient than if you carried on. No one ever hears about this, you understand.¡±


    Ruvle nodded.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care what you do with Othek, but don¡¯t lie to a true citizen again, and especially not me.¡±


    ¡°...I have not used the kit yet,¡± Ruvle admitted.


    ¡°That¡¯s better.¡±


    Ruvle didn¡¯t dare stand up. All she knew was the taste of acid in the air fading, the scratch of slippers across tile growing distant, the swing of the door and the way it shut. Once more, the lobby lay empty, still in need of sweeping, still to be prepared for the day to begin¡ªno longer with anything to look forward to at the end.


    ¡®M.A.D. Sabic Nightlight ~ I HAVE THE GENE SEQUENCE,¡¯ came the scientist¡¯s message on the textwork midday.


    And she had to never tell anyone she lost the kit.


    ¡®Mielo ~ Thanks so much! I¡¯ll put it to good use!¡¯


    The rest of the day was a blur of signatures and identity verifications. Nothing stuck in her mind, besides a man who wanted an envelope containing his new secret mint sauce formula signed over the seal, and the sweet old lady asking her at the end of the day if she liked the cinnamon tea. She did. Yes, she would accept more, another night. Apparently the old lady¡¯s former lover made these boxes by hand, and she, Pazim, had taken up the tradition.


    Once she could close the building and lock up, she went rummaging through her file cabinets while letting Chain know of her plans. ¡®Mielo ~ I¡¯m going after Fygra.¡¯


    ¡®Chain Hydrapress ~ Why?¡¯ That alcazar tower really did work.


    ¡®~ I can¡¯t say.¡¯


    ¡®~ Uh. Okay, but Fygra is maybe the worst possible true cit to go for.¡¯


    ¡®~ I don¡¯t care. I¡¯m throwing everything I have in me against her.¡¯


    ¡®~ Please don¡¯t. You¡¯ll die.¡¯


    She pulled out more documents instead of answering.


    By the time she had a map of Crater Basin and its surroundings on the wall, records of true citizen transactions atop the cabinets, and an old scientific manifesto about a final acid with high vapor pressure in her hands (every competent scientist had at least one deranged screed of barely-legibile genius for society to benefit from), Chain walked in, one shoe off and his scarf bundled loosely in his arms.


    ¡°That was fast,¡± Ruvle commented, studying the map.


    ¡°I figured out a shorter tag so I can erase and scriven it faster. Why Fygra?¡±


    ¡°I told you. I can¡¯t say.¡± She flipped through one of the transaction records, referencing an address in Gabardine, the northeast side of the crater; maybe this one was where Fygra lived.


    Chain held his arms out to his sides. ¡°Hey, hey. Ruvle, what¡¯s on your mind?¡±


    ¡°Breaking everything Fygra owns, that¡¯s what.¡±


    ¡°Ruvle¨C¡±


    ¡°Stop saying my name.¡±


    ¡°Talk to me. What happened?¡±


    She sighed and hung her head, resting in on her arm crossed over the top of a file cabinet. Chain, mercifully, gave her a few moments to think.


    ¡°Can you keep a secret?¡± Ruvle finally asked, her voice muffled in the crook of her elbow.


    ¡°You bet I can.¡±


    And so she told him what Fygra did. A part of her wanted to hold back on what Fygra blackmailed her about, but if Ruvle wanted to commit to being ruthless, she had to get comfortable saying what she did out loud. Chain, for his part, sat down in the middle of the file room and listened, eyes intent upon her.


    ¡°...that¡¯s a problem,¡± he finally said, his hands in a cargo pocket each.


    ¡°She stole everything I earned from the raid just because she wanted it,¡± Ruvle reiterated, setting the business transaction aside and picking up another. ¡°So I¡¯m going to break her arm and tie it in a knot.¡±


    ¡°I get that you wanna, but she¡¯ll definitely kill you. Even other true citizens usually listen to her. She¡¯s on the ¡®save for last¡¯ list.¡±


    Ruvle folded her arms over her chest, facing the map. ¡°If¡­everything I earn can be taken from me, to make the most powerful people in the world even further ahead of me, then there¡¯s no point. If I hurt her, I get closure.¡± She waved the business record. ¡°I¡¯m finding her tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Too bad.¡±


    ¡°R¡­lass, I think it wasn¡¯t fair of her either, but there¡¯s got to be a better way to get back at her than throwing your life away. Please?¡±


    Ruvle clenched her fist and took several deep breaths. Deep self-control was required for hyperdexterity, and this was an exercise in it. She would not be calm, but she could listen. ¡°...What¡¯s the other option?¡±


    ¡°Give me, like, a day to figure it out.¡±


    ¡°You have until I go tomorrow night.¡±


    ¡°Deal.¡± He stood and grabbed a loose piece of paper up on a shelf atop one of the cabinets. ¡°Sign.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± She frowned.


    ¡°You said you won¡¯t throw your life away until tomorrow. Sign something that says you won¡¯t.¡±


    Ruvle held her scowl for a few moments, trying to stay mad. But if it meant that much to him¡­ ¡°Fine. But that¡¯s the wrong kind of paper.¡±


    He turned it upside down and then backwards in his hands. ¡°It¡¯s¡­it¡¯s paper.¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s acid-free archival paper. The documentation paper is up at the front desk.¡±


    ¡°How can you tell the difference?¡± He flapped the paper back down awkwardly.


    ¡°I work here!¡±


    And then she put her Thoughtful adult brain back on and got some documentation paper to promise to Chain, in formal writing and with Dye-infused notary ink, that she would not go fight a hopeless battle against someone that had bought their way to demigodhood. Not until tomorrow night, anyway.


    Chain sighed in relief. ¡°...Are we going to talk about you sabotaging your own mentor, or nah?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t feel bad about it,¡± she lied. ¡°There¡¯s nothing to talk about.¡±

 27: What It Takes to Distract You

    Ruvle¡¯s next day involved half paperwork and half needlework, the latter graduating to more than a twisting puzzle cube. Elial¡¯s new task for her required reassembling a miniature box of metal gears, once part of an M.A.D. demonstration of the bacterial flagellum¨Can excited teacher could place a human hair in one end of the box for the gears to spin like the world¡¯s tiniest paddle, with the rest oft he device so like that the reaction force propelled it through oil. The gears on this one had long become rusty, so Ruvle additionally had to file the rust away without damaging the teeth; no cheating by using cleaning solvents.


    Material machining had come a long way. With this being made of one uniform metal, Ruvle was pretty sure that the M.A.D. lab had used the expensive technique of sending an upscaled version into a chamber that destructively consumed a one-material device to create a far smaller one, usually called the ¡°shrink ray¡±.


    Frankly, Ruvle couldn¡¯t figure this puzzle out. Very minute movements required tiny amounts of energy, but scraping rust demanded force; it was much harder than cutting a film inside a needle that fell apart at a touch. Several times, she scrambled across her maze of loose paper and behind her desk to catch a gear that went flying. If her reflexes weren¡¯t Coarse, she may have lost one to a thousand bounces and floorboard seams, and there would be no finding something that fit in the dots of her j¡¯s.


    Come closing time and after changing into her bodysuit, Ruvle stood before the front door, her arms crossed, waiting for Chain. Nightfall already. She wanted to leave, but she should really give Chain the time. Ruvle paced, looking down, mulling over her next attack target, what preciousness of Fygra¡¯s could break between her ¡®lesser¡¯ hands. Chain arrived running, feet thumping on tile and blue shoe lights aglow¨Chis scarf had nothing save for the shortened tag, less writing than the rolled-up paper in his hand. Given his hair styled back into his usual spikes, his mask on tightly enough that she couldn¡¯t see his mouth, and a spring in his step, she could hear him out. ¡°Ruvie! I figured it out.¡±


    ¡°What, a new tislet trick?¡± she asked.


    ¡°No. I mean, yes, turns out Teeth of the Last Cat and OQ-46 are two names for the same tislet, but that¡¯s not what¡­take a look,¡± he said, slapping the paper up against the wall and unrolling it. Upon an annotated, desaturated picture of a small region of the crater (routinely acquired by governmental hot air balloons on cloudless days), Chain had drawn a trail in red ink. It looked to Ruvle like the southern wetlands near Mount Radius, and the less-populated outlying territory of Stepwise even further south, far north of city limits or the minirail system. Mount Radius dominated the very center of Crater Basin where the geological impact struck deepest, and thus water systems preferred to settle around it in a wide ring, half lake, half river. ¡°You want to go after something of Fygra¡¯s, right?¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± She leaned in for a closer look.


    ¡°So let¡¯s take this path here.¡± His finger loosely traced the line emerging from the south end of the map towards the wetlands, taking a leftward swoop to stop at a marked six-sided facility, with red and purple hexagonal roof tiles so bright that the sun demanded a feat of chemical engineering to not bleach them pale. The path continued to avoid a more mundane-looking spread of homes around a generic black cube of a building, so boring that it wrapped back around to bold. Eventually, skipping through the wetlands and onto the foothills of Mount Radius itself, the trail terminated in point marked with an X. ¡°There¡¯s this old spot here, it¡¯s usually pretty hard to get to because of the cliffs, but it¡¯s got this hollow at the top of the hill where Fool¡¯s Dye trees grow. Thing is, Fool¡¯s Dye wood is really good for tislet tiles. It¡¯s not hard to scriven on at all, it¡¯s not like metal or floor or paper. It¡¯s got this grippy texture so tiles that you put next to each other stay like that. Big step up from crinkle wood. And there¡¯s a way that its petals fall around this time of year¨CI think you could get a lot of good training for your hydroflex out of them; I have ideas. We like training, right? You want to do training?¡± He asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m listening.¡± Hyperdex. Falling petals sounded familiar somehow. He didn¡¯t have to belabor the point to her like a child, but she did sort of threaten to go after a person she had no hope against on an impulse without even trying to be Thoughtful about it. ¡°Where does Fygra come into this?¡±


    ¡°Oho, see, this is the beautiful part. Here.¡± He pointed to the hexagonal-roofed facility. ¡°This is an M.A.D. lab. It¡¯s completely under Fygra¡¯s control.¡±


    Stolen novel; please report.


    Ruvle perked up. ¡°What does it do?¡±


    ¡°Wildlife conservation. I dunno how much of that is Fygra, but scientists are the kind of people to have their hearts in the right place, you know?¡± He nodded, circling the hexagon with his finger. ¡°Speaking of hearts, here¡¯s the thing. One of the things they do for conservation is find endangered species; they bring them inside and surgery them up. There¡¯s this one kind of rare wetlands frog and every time they find one, they give it cyborg legs and put a laser on its head so herons always lose when they try to eat it; it¡¯s hilarious, they¡¯re not going extinct ever. Stuff like that. The thing is, the cyborg parts they give have to be, to an extent, one-size-fits-all, right¡­¡±


    ¡°Right?¡±


    ¡°So I bet. Don¡¯t bet, but I bet. After you go in there and send a message, kick over all the shady parts of their operation, you can swipe an artificial heart, human-sized.¡±


    That¡­that would dissolve the barrier to becoming Fine, if she could get it implanted¡­Ruvle put a finger on her chin while Chain rolled up the map.


    ¡°What do you say?¡± he asked.


    ¡°How did you find out about all of this?¡± she asked.


    ¡°I spend all day in a magical library and I¡¯m crashing in a notary office by night,¡± he said, deadpan.


    Ruvle chuckled under her breath, despite herself, putting one hand on the side of her head, fingers tracing the tributaries of her wax eye.


    ¡°I still want a yes or a no. A yes would be nice.¡±


    Ruvle nodded. ¡°I think¡­how long do you want to train, if we make it there?¡±


    Chain shrugged. ¡°Until we feel like we can do stuff.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a long time to be away from¡­¡± She perked up again with an idea. ¡°I¡¯ll let Dad have the office back until I get home.¡± His textwork messages in response to her updates about her skills had been ones of such pride. ¡°Yes, Chain, let¡¯s do your plan.¡±


    ¡°Aces!¡± He let out a big, relieved sigh.


    After returning to the monastery that night (Elial insisted she keep the gearbox puzzle with her despite mentioning that she¡¯d be gone for a while), and a long textwork correspondence with Dad the next day,Ruvle made her final preparations. Her formal notary suit stayed at home, and in a backpack, she packed her hammock, her cat and elephant plushies, the tin of wax for her eye, and her fez. And she drank a lot of cinnamon tea. It shouldn¡¯t go stale and be wasted over the time spent away, and Dad confirmed he didn¡¯t want a taste. He preferred his tongue not stomped on by pure liquid spice. Ruvle thought he was missing out.


    Whatever else she needed, she could buy. For the trip out that night, she waited by the front door in her freshly re-sewn indigo bodysuit, looking forward to getting her revenge¨Cand right on time, Chain arrived, strolling freshly out of the door, with his scarf bundled for less recognizability and unburdened save by clothing.


    Minirail worked for short distances in-city, but for a longer trip, civilization provided many advantages. No one needed to spend days trekking from one town to another, not with the most efficient method of long-distance travel as an option. After a long walk from Ruvle and a minirail ride from Chain, they arrived to the terminal¨Ca city block dedicated to an amalgamation of bright yellow metal plating, thrumming mega-capacitors the size of small houses brightly-lit in cyan and fully charged, an enormous concentric dais upon which the machine could rotate, and layers of iron fencing that that did nothing to keep anyone out of the public service¨Ctheir role was to control and re-harvest electrical pulses. The machine was about the shape of a crane, with a bulkier neck, designed for people to ascend its inner rubber elevator and to ground the machine to terra firma. Twin copper rods¨Ccables that dwarfed the minirail¨Cpointed diagonally into the sky, ready to be directed at a moment¡¯s notice.


    Railguns took a lot of work and power to maintain, but the advantages of the engine being stationary rather than moving, all of the stresses being engineered-for, and getting to use however much mass one wanted to design it¨Cthere was a reason that these beat aviation and turned the jet engine into an impractical toy for true citizens.


    ¡°After you,¡± Chain said, gesturing past the fences. Ruvle smiled and swatted him on the shoulder.

 28: Ceramic and Scide

    The yellow pill-shaped capsule crashed down upon asphalt beyond the north suburbs, shattering its ablative plating and sending ceramic fragments flying to the edges of the landing lot. The capsule tumbled end-over end, shedding yellow flakes and chips with every smash and revolution. It scraped to a stop, skittering and scratching over the aggregates below, and rocked not-so-gently in place, coming to rest. A trail of exploded ceramic lay in its wake.


    About a minute later, the siding hatched open, revealing concentric loops of copper and iron stacked on top of each other in the interior. Inside the core of silvery-gray ballistic gel, Ruvle squirmed. She found the seam in the gel and parted it with her hands.


    Chain tumbled out like a fish onto dry land. Ruvle landed on both feet and one hand, fingers splayed and gracing the landing lot below, between two chips of ceramic.


    ¡°Woo, okay¡­¡± Chain stood up and pulled the map out of one of his cargo pockets. Ruvle blew a lock of hair out of her face. ¡°So we gotta go north from here, avoid the henching college over that way¡­¡± He pointed to the horizon; to the left of the distant Mount Radius, Ruvle could make out the patch of distant square-block homes surrounding a black monolithic cube of a building, only visible in the night from its well-lit windows and surrounding streetlamps. This far to the edge of suburbia, the dominance of civilization met the appeal of exploring the crater¡¯s flat plains¨Cenough of the building lots were developed to justify modern infrastructure in stone streets, yet few enough to leave wide-open sight lines through distant stretches of empty soil for a great view of Mount Radius. The mountain itself appeared so much clearer at this distance¨Cmiles away, still, but without the horizon¡¯s haze occluding it. Jagged and weathered, the exposed stone transitioned from gray to white as it rose, opening into fractals of cliffsides, plateaus and micro-mesas. Far, far above, the white stone became snow and ice, soon disappearing into the clouds above. Ruvle could see no higher with them in the way, and they were still nowhere close to the summit. The higher strata of Mount Radius belonged to the experts of human endurance. ¡°...and we should get to the lab eventually. Can¡¯t miss it.¡±


    Ruvle stood up straight and kicked a chip of ceramic away. The bright yellow compound absorbed far more energy when it shattered than similar materials, and tended to break into characteristically-sized chunks that could be swept up from a landing lot easily and then reforged; between it and the ballistic gel, landing was surprisingly safe for those of sound constitution. Its distinct yellow had become shorthand for anything railgun-related. ¡°We should also pick up disguises¡­¡± She didn¡¯t bring her previous one because the dots would be connected instantly.


    ¡°I kinda figured I didn¡¯t want one,¡± Chain said. ¡°If the law catches wind that I¡¯m over here, great, because we¡¯ll be out of the lab before they get here, so they stop looking so hard in Stepwise.¡± He looked up at the stars above. Colorbugs danced between twinkles. ¡°So I can go outside in the day again.¡±


    ¡°Well, I need a disguise.¡±


    Chain turned his attention to the black cube building, grunting to himself. One more chip of ceramic fell off the landing pod behind Ruvle with an anticlimactic clink. ¡°Yeah, you know what, that was me rationalizing not being able to afford a disguise anyway.¡± He scratched his scalp. ¡°So that¡¯s¡­the North Stepwise Henching College, if I remember right. We can probably go get spare henching outfits¡­¡±


    Ruvle shook her head. ¡°I don¡¯t think we can pretend to be Fygra¡¯s henchwomen¡­they¡¯re all women.¡±


    ¡°I mean, you can.¡±


    Ruvle pouted and pointed to her wax-covered eye.


    Chain blinked. ¡°Oh, right.¡± He shifted uncomfortably in that way she¡¯d seen so many visitors to the notary office do right after a social blunder. ¡°So we getcha a mask, and me an outfit¡­and we don¡¯t pretend to be part of Fygra¡¯s crew, we just use those to not be recognized. Sound good?¡±


    ¡°It does.¡± She smiled to defuse the tension, and so did he.


    They strolled down the empty wild fields, idle land dedicated to wild shrubs and grasses, buzzing with beetles and blinking with colorbugs. A rabbit darted across Ruvle¡¯s line of sight, spanning four different empty lots, finally stopping on a lone weed-choked concrete path to nowhere that probably had been put in place as minirail foundation and abandoned. The soil felt soft and yielding beneath Ruvle¡¯s feet, and the narrow twigs of old shrubs snapped between her toes. She should pick up some boots at the college, too. She¡¯d left quite unprepared, really.


    And yet, getting to not be Thoughtful had a thrill to it.


    ¡°Hey, Chain. While we have the time¡­¡± Ruvle spoke up, curling her fingers around the straps of her hammock being used like a backpack. ¡°I was thinking about your tislets. I had some questions.¡±


    ¡°Go ahead. Is it cool that I¡¯m walking behind you?¡± he added.


    That was the classy way to ask ¡®is it okay if I¡¯m looking at your butt¡¯. ¡°It¡¯s okay. You¡¯re polite. You¡¯re not the first person to notice I look good.¡± The gentle breeze blew her hair, and the zipper on her bodysuit jingled softly in the night, catching the blinking light of Chain¡¯s sneakers. ¡°When you said it was easy to scriven on foolswood, what does that mean? Does it help you get the shapes right? I knoe penstrokes follow the threads of fabric if you¡¯re not careful, but you trace with your finger, so that doesn¡¯t matter¡­¡± she said.


    ¡°You put less emotion into the scrivening for foolswood. Wood¡¯s better than most materials in general. It¡¯s hard to hold a high emotional state for long, plus, if you think about the same happy memory to power your tislets too much, you might lose the happy part of it, you know?¡± Fabric rustled and unfurled behind him, and the fluttering, silken slide to its sound could only have come from his scarf.


    ¡°So that¡¯s why you make tiles out of wood?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s not just a tradition. Plastic kinda sucks. Stone is okay. Cloth is generally pretty good, except felt; felt is terrible because it¡¯s not woven. If you¡¯re wondering why that matters, so am I.¡± A blue colorbug landed on Ruvle¡¯s nose and flashed for her; she smiled as Chain spoke. ¡°And metal is basically totally random. Goes all the way from¡­I can¡¯t remember, this one alloy. It¡¯s easier than wood, but no one mass-produces it for anything. And the worst is stoko, which you can¡¯t scriven on.¡± He paused. ¡°I take that back. The most impossible metal to scriven on is a tie between stoko and mercury, because tislets have to be on a solid surface.¡±


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    She nodded. ¡°Only solids? Can you put it on skin?¡± Ruvle imagined tislet tattoos to make a person stronger and faster¡­


    ¡°Nope, too many oils and stuff. Seems like the kind of thing that can go wrong really easily, anyway.¡± The stars twinkled above, and the cool air cooled Ruvle through her bodysuit, an extra comfort for the walk. Beetles buzzed in the distance, and she heard what might be a beaver¡¯s tail thumping. The twigs, grass, and suspended colorbugs were too many to populate her mental map with¨Cher mind did not have that much space. The world of easy obstacles blurred into low resolution in her mind¡¯s eye, but she chose to keep that limited awareness, to allow the compromises in her attempts towards exoproprio. ¡°You¡¯d have to get the scrivening right the first time, because when you activate the tislets, boom, they¡¯re done and they¡¯re gone; you¡¯re stuck with whatever physia they did. I think sujectas don¡¯t really work either. The human body is way too compound of an object, so there¡¯s no way for the tislets to get everything that¡¯s you and nothing that¡¯s not you.¡± Chain chuckled. ¡°Oh, shit, that¡¯s probably why no one does tislets. I bet if you could power your body up directly with them, everyone would get scrivened on at the same time you get your vaccines.¡±


    Ruvle didn¡¯t think so. ¡°I don¡¯t think I get it, still. If what you write on wood is permanent¨C¡±


    ¡°Scriven. You can draw out a tislet without scrivening it.¡±


    ¡°If scrivening is permanent, why isn¡¯t it permanent on the scarf?¡±


    ¡°I know they stick around on this specific mass of this specific fabric, but I haven¡¯t figured out why it happens yet.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, but I mean¡­¡± she twirled her hand in a circle as she walked, collecting her thoughts. ¡°I know they don¡¯t disappear when they¡¯re on the scarf. But why does that make the effects temporary?¡±


    ¡°Hmm.¡± She heard scratching sounds behind her. ¡°Ya know what? Thanks for asking me that. I gotta go look that up next time I¡¯m in the alcazar.¡±


    Ruvle looked over her shoulder to him, and he brought his gaze to meet hers. ¡°Really? I thought you¡¯d be annoyed that I was asking.¡± Clientele at the notary office rarely enjoyed long strings of queries to confirm their identity.


    ¡°There is an attractive woman asking me intellectually stimulating questions about my magic powers.¡± He paused. ¡°Life is good sometimes, you know?¡±


    In this disputed territory between civilization and nature, the henching college campus was the embassy of the former¨Cinstead of empty paths to nowhere and grid delinations that sectioned grass and stone into order, true streets and true streetlamps emerged, illumination overriding the glow of Chain¡¯s tislets. Brick-walled homes and metal-sided educational buildings abounded, in between spacious parks and loose empty lots, while the giant black cube of the college center loomed over this tiny college proto-town. Owls hooted and honked in the night, a choice depending on their mood, perched on the corner gutters of small shops, including a brightly-lit liquor store¨Cthe only sanctioned places to find alcohol in Stepwise, with a duty to distribute their drinkable drug responsibly. There was even an automat, out from which Ruvle could spot three henchmen-in-training, walking half-adorned in their suits, wearing berets instead of visors and in fuzzy pink-and-green house shoes for their midnight munch run. They laughed with each other over some in-joke she couldn¡¯t get every word of at this distance.


    But Ruvle needed to reserve her vo to buy disguises, and she followed Chain¡¯s lead to a different, free, snack opportunity, growing in one of the vacant lots.


    ¡°I never pass these up,¡± Chain said, rubbing his hands together in excitement as he strolled through the desire path between two shrubs, towards a tall and slender tree in the center. Amid its many-pointed leaves, its branches split into dozens of thick twigs all at once rather than incrementally, opening out into white helical flowers with mesmerizing swirls of red leading down into their centers. From the higher half of them hung heavy hook-shaped orange fruits, their soft, textured peels following the same counterclockwise helix. The aroma had it all¨Ca kick of floral aromaticity, a delicate sweetness, mixing with gentle tart and a savory allure uncommon among fruit.


    It had been a good choice to eat light today, Ruvle decided, as she pulled herself up two sturdy branches¨Cavoiding decomposing peels on the ground surrounding the tree¨Cand plucked a fruit for each of them. ¡°Here.¡±


    He grabbed his falling fruit out of the air and unspiraled the peel; he had two bites taken out of it before Ruvle even got back to terra firma. ¡°Mmph, I love scides.¡±


    ¡°I think everyone does,¡± Ruvle said, smiling, and took a bite of hers. Sweet enough to tamp down a craving without imbalancing the body with a sugar bomb, firm flesh that made it satisfying to chew, the yielding crunch of the seeds within, the nutritional wholesomeness that matched the human body¡¯s needs so well¡­poems had been written about the scide fruit¡¯s virtues. Deeply depressed people found the will to eat when given a scide. Inheritance disputes grew ugly over a patch of scide trees on the property. She considered it one of Thought¡¯s little gifts for humanity, when entertaining the idea of Thought as an entity instead of a story. ¡°I¡¯m only going to have one.¡±


    ¡°One is enough. Fills me up, too.¡± He munched away where he stood, losing no chunks of the pale orange flesh. ¡°I¡¯d have been sad if there weren¡¯t any left.¡±


    Ruvle crouched down to rest while eating. ¡°There¡¯s always some left on these.¡±


    ¡°Heh, yeah. Kinda wild how fast they grow, right? You¡¯d think someone would have cracked the code by now, but, you know.¡±


    ¡°I think they¡¯re still trying.¡± Ruvle let a length of the peel fall into the grass below her.


    ¡°Yeah. Fuckin¡¯ Thoughtless, ruining a good thing.¡±


    The perfect fruit also happened to be completely uneconomical to farm and distribute. The only sources were wild trees.


    No individual reason could be pointed to, of course. Scide grew quickly, needed less water and fertilizer than comparable fruits, tolerated the close packing of an orchard well, and transported without bruising. They thrived in every climate of Crater Basin and grew year-round. The reasons why scide orchards never took off were esoteric and abstract, arguments forged in the manifestos of economists. Sometimes the trees had clockwise peels instead of counterclockwise, which mattered for some reason. The many-pointed leaves did something during automatic harvesting processes. Something acted strange in the demand curve that prevented the sacred pricing mechanism from behaving. Numerous tiny details had to be assembled into second-order, third-order, and higher effects, in 400-page tomes gradually building up the arguments from first principles. Everyone loved these trees, they that produced so much that tiny towns like this one failed to strip them bare, and yet for deeply emergent properties too ephemeral for non-scientists to even name, the economy could not farm more of them. Simply couldn¡¯t be done, not at a profit.


    ¡°These aren¡¯t the reason I¡¯m stomping out Thuless¡¯s glints,¡± Chain mumbled. ¡°But they sure help with the motivation.¡±


    Wherever Thoughtless¡¯s tendrils entered, the world lost its light. And true citizens out there¨Csurely including Fygra¨Chad its pieces.


    ¡°Are you still with me on taking out the glints,¡± Chain asked, ¡°or is getting stronger still your main thing? ¡­That isn¡¯t a test, I¡¯m just wondering.¡±


    Ruvle would rather not wake up one day and find anything else no longer possible to buy. Perhaps rhubarb, perhaps water snakes to roast. Or twinnies. Small joys, potentially gone, by malfunction of emergent properties. ¡°It can be both,¡± she finally said.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take it.¡±


    She and Chain had much to train for.

 29: This Is What Peak Intellectualism Sounds Like

    Acquiring disguises was straightforward once Ruvle got over herself.


    ¡°Ruvie, no,¡± Chain said, grabbing the air where her free wrist was a quarter-second ago.


    ¡°It¡¯s how we¡¯ll get these,¡± Ruvle said, crouching in front of the double doors to the campus¡¯s uniform shop and picking the lock with a small twig. He tried pulling her back by the shoulders, and a tiny shrug slipped them free. Dodging was incredibly easy to do one move at a time. ¡°It¡¯s closed. We need clothes. So we go in and steal something.¡± Most people wouldn¡¯t be willing to do it, it benefitted her by saving the money she was short on, and those facts made it correct; she had to do something in line with her lack of principles already.


    ¡°Listen. I promise you there are ways to buy clothes at night. Let¡¯s walk for ten minutes, and if we still don¡¯t find one, you can do this.¡±


    Ruvle sighed. ¡°Okay.¡±


    And they didn¡¯t find one in ten minutes. Still, she had her sense about her by that time¨Cperformative malice did not survive the ambiance of owls calming her many nerves in a town swarming with henchmen and henchwomen. Another ten, and they found the consignment shop, a squat angular building on an awkward lot: one big room crammed ceiling-to-floor and wall-to-wall with racks of castoff toys, kitchen appliances, textwork connectors currently out-of-fashion, and above all, clothing. Henching outfits with defects had to go somewhere, and this insomniac old man took care of the sales.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t any of you kids wear a hat anymore?¡± he asked, under his beret, from his chair next to the display window. Ruvle patted her head. Right, she¡¯d packed her fez and forgotten to wear it. When wearing her hyperdexterity bodysuit to the monastery, she doffed any headwear so that it wouldn¡¯t fall off during an acrobatic flip, and she didn¡¯t get to wear those headbands reserved for the Fine like Elial did.


    Also, everyone wore some kind of hat; what even was this guy talking about?


    They soon walked out of the store in their new threads¨Ccommon black suits, the consignment flaw in Ruvle¡¯s being the stitch knots in the pants, and Chain¡¯s outfit simply came in the wrong shade of dark gray rather than black. In her hand, she carried her new ¡®hat¡¯, a novelty rubber mask of the extremely tacky sort printed to look like a celebrity¡¯s face¨CSunim Selenium, a circus ringleader turned singer, with strikingly wild strawberry blonde hair that the mask emulated with terrible floppy spikes. It even had the bars of fine orange fuzz on Sunim¡¯s cheekbones; she was a notoriously hairy woman. All of these wobbly splotchy colors, the greasy-looking lopsided rubber smile¨Call perfect for concealing her real face.


    Chain rattled the contents of a steel bottle in his hand; the label depicted a scide fruit with electrons orbiting it. ¡°Thanks for footing the bill.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have notary money right now, but still more than nothing,¡± she said, with a shrug. ¡°I don¡¯t want to spend time¡­hunting?...when we go to the grove. All of my energy needs to go into training. I can stomach some food pills for a while.¡±


    ¡°Heh, yeah, they¡¯re terrible.¡± He tossed them over to her, and she bowed her left shoulder in just the right way that it landed in her backpack. ¡°I dunno, I think it¡¯s a shame that they never caught on. I have no idea how to hunt or gather; city life forever, lass.¡±


    ¡°Neither do I, but there are trees, so there are squirrels. I can catch them. I¡¯m Coarse.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t argue with that,¡± he said, even though he could, because she was completely making stuff up and did not have survival skills. She¡¯d figure out how camping or getting water worked later, when she got there.


    They skipped town¨Cquickly. Soon enough, before them was but the open grass, wet and gradually sloping, taking its path downwards towards the annular low of Crater Basin. And this time, Ruvle had shoes, shiny black thick-treaded boots like any other henchwoman.


    A hot air balloon picture did no justice to the scope of the M.A.D. lab. Framing the grand central entrance, two bronze statues of massively upscaled leaves bent to frame the archway, a deep verdigris patina supplying a natural green nearly-obscured by the night. The sculpted veins of the leaves, alone, were free of corrosion, crackling with electric blue bolts¨Cin the deep of night and visual illusion, the entryway suspended that lightning in the air before it. The complex stretched six stories high, blotting out the stars, filled with the distant hisses of snakes and honks of small animals being handled. Remote silhouettes of lightning rods peppered the hexagon-tiled ceiling. Ruvle could swear she smelled honey and heard buzzing. Miniature waterfalls flowed along the walls, detouring around knobbled stones embedded in the walls, with fish jumping along them and an otter flowing in the pooling circulation around them. Upon one elevated boulder far away from the water, the kind too large to be hauled away except in the form of smithereens, a tortoise slept¨Cits head and neck lolled out, little limbs laying, and the twin six-barreled laser guns mounted to its shell pointing directly at Chain and Ruvle.


    ¡°So how do we do this?¡± Chain asked, his visor lowering. He swung the secondhand briefcase in his other hand, his scarf secure inside.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to break everything, and everyone, I can get my hands on,¡± Ruvle said through muffling rubber, while tightening the mask around her face.


    ¡°If you¡¯re gonna break stuff, don¡¯t let it be people,¡± Chain said. ¡°We¡¯re just here to send an anonymous message, you know? I bet¨Cdon¡¯t bet¨Cthere¡¯s only the cleaning crew here; it¡¯s like three hours past midnight.¡±


    Ruvle shook her head and stepped forward. The right laser-revolver on the tortoise rotated by sixty degrees, and she stepped back. Hm. ¡°No, what? It¡¯s a science lab. They love working this late!¡±


    ¡°Oh, ouch, you¡¯re right,¡± he said, and titled his visor back up. ¡°Man, we should have showed up after sunrise when no one¡¯s around. Everyone¡¯s gonna be here¡­¡±


    ¡°But that¡­that might be good?¡± Ruvle said, forming an idea. She smiled behind her mask. ¡°No one can see me without thinking I¡¯m up to something, but I think you can distract them? What tislets do you have ready?¡±


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    He opened his briefcase and held it up to Ruvle as if presenting bars of beryllium, his scarf neatly folded and hung on the straps inside, the blue grid finally filled completely¨Cevery square joined the chorus of pale blue light with a symbol of its own, many of them repetitions, but all important. ¡°Check it out. I kept mirror, hammer-whip, and parachute, and then I tried dipping a little into sujecta. Turns out, that¡¯s still way too hard, but I tried a tip about how sometimes you can tweak a sujecta down to a physia. It worked, and I switched out the final acid surfing with a trick I¡¯m calling gauze. Wrap it around an injury for a while and it¡¯s like getting a bandage so good that you don¡¯t even need an injection.¡±


    ¡°Wow¡­¡± Good for when they¡¯d be away from civilization in the Fool¡¯s Dye trees, or for being patched up if something went wrong here.


    ¡°But. But! I got it to fit so neatly that I had space for this little decoration here.¡± He pointed to a patch of tislets which, presumably, the borders of were clear as day to him, but which Ruvle could not pick apart from the others (especially not with it folded like this). ¡°So if I rub the scarf on something, it scuffs it up, like sandpaper.¡±


    Ruvle nodded. ¡°That sounds maybe situational?¡±


    ¡°Short little gimmick sequence I found in a book and tweaked it until I got it working Chain-style. Nothing groundbreaking, here.¡±


    ¡°I think keep your scarf in there until it¡¯s time¡­¡± she looked back at the building. ¡°Okay, I know how this will work. Here¡¯s the plan¡­¡±


    The front doors finally opened, and Chain held his arms out to his sides, social laughter on his lips. ¡±Hey hey, so you are open! I was about to run off.¡±


    The M.A.D. biologist at the door looked like science. Age imparted him a slight hunch and a receded crescent of a hairline, white hairs sticking straight up and burned-to-smoking on their tips. The too-big lab coat draped around his shoulders stayed in place mostly by a huge tan-and-black water snake coiled around his waist and arms, titanium fangs gleaming with every flick of its tongue. The giant safety glasses stuck to his face were a mount for exotic slugs, and he held a butterfly net in one hand. ¡°That would not have done, not have done at all!¡± He spoke, voice hurried. ¡°We¡¯re in the middle of something, student, what brings you?¡±


    ¡°Always wanted to see this place do its thing in person, you know? Figured I¡¯d come at the most polite time. Do you have, say, guided tours?¡±


    ¡°Well of course, dear student! But not while the eggs are hatching, no no, could you wait right here in the antechamber¡­¡±


    ¡°Ace¨C¡± He caught himself. ¡°Great, I got time, thanks a million.¡±


    The tortoise-mounted laser barrels rotated towards Chain, machinery whirring ominously.


    ¡°Oh, cut that out, Henic, we have a guest!¡± The scientist spat.


    ¡°Yeah, stop it, Henic,¡± Chain said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell Henic what to do, dear boy, he¡¯s doing his best.¡±


    Far in the darkness, Ruvle sweated. She had to creep closer, the aim being to slide along the outer wall and through the waterfalls, to get inside and through the doors unseen, but every move turned the cannons towards her. They didn¡¯t have anything to do with Chain. Maybe they really didn¡¯t like her mask?


    ¡°Sorry,¡± Chain added, with a chuckle and a scratch of the back of his head. ¡°I do like your guard turtle.¡±


    ¡°Ah, the guard tortoise is Japer. Henic is the algae colony growing on his shell.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m learning a lot already. Hey, you mind calling Henic off for a second? I don¡¯t want guns pointed at me until I get a henching job for real.¡±


    ¡°Then consider losing the hair dye, my boy; no one henches in blue!¡± The scientist pulled a remote control out of his pocket, pressed the big red shiny button on it, and the energized glow of the nozzles powered down.


    Ruvle released her breath in silent relief. Thank you, Chain.


    The scientist hurried back into the lab containing hatching eggs. As Chain walked in, he swept one arm towards the antechamber, looking out into Ruvle¡¯s sector of darkness with a nod. She had her chance. Ruvle hustled in as Chain¡¯s shadow, making as little sound as possible right up until she learned just how redundant that was inside.


    The antechamber itself seemed nothing much¨Ca square waiting room, large enough for two well-cushioned benches along the sides, each flanked by a unique potted plant¨Cone needle-leaved sapling whose branches grew in helices, another a bush that grew no leaves at all, only algae colonies of its own on bare twigs. Ruvle recognized an ¡®asphalt tree¡¯ with pitch-black leaves, but only because it had once been the source for mundane black ink before over-harvesting threatened the species. One could pick up bits and pieces of the history of ink-making when becoming a notary; everyone had the question of why modern practice used Dye-infused golden ink (it was a costly enough signal of authenticity that it prevented forgeries). But beyond the antechamber and its tinted glass walls, past the greenhouse lighting that sustained the potted trees, the lab¡¯s central ground floor made an enormous din, one big arena of cage-enclosures all throughout the first floor with bars going from floor to ceiling. Squawking herons and egrets, hissing snakes, buzzing beetles, whining and grunting beavers, croaking frogs, whimpering rabbits, and so many winged insects that they became swarms of black dots made of pure noise¡­even the characteristic sounds of humans were about, happy scientists in-their-element shouting to communicate, walking briskly with clipboards in-hands to different animals they need monitor, transporting prosthetic animal parts by metal carts, and collecting valuable data for humanity to learn from. With a quick visual scan of the environment, she didn¡¯t spot anything resembling an artificial heart on the transport carts, and trying to form a mental map of the place with every single object and animal in sight¨C


    Her spatial reasoning shut down, like a file cabinet crumpling under ten million papers. Input too large. Couldn¡¯t even attempt it, not without exoproprio.


    Ruvle shook her head. Had to get in and hide before a scientist saw her. One glance at the ceiling revealed the answer how. She climbed from the bench to perch on the asphalt tree and backed herself into the corner where glass walls met, scrabbling with splayed fingers and spread limbs for maximum contact friction, pressing against the sides as hard as she could without slipping and ejecting herself from the corner. Bit by bit, second by second, she climbed, backwards, biceps starting to quiver from the friction-maximizing effort.


    ¡°You know, there¡¯s a million birds here and I don¡¯t see any impact craters from them smacking into the glass. These walls must be really sturdy,¡± Chain said up towards her, without moving his head, like it were an idle comment in case any scientist ran by at the wrong moment. No cracks from hard impact¨Cthat was all the hint she needed.


    Ruvle walljumped.


    And the technique to ascend reliably, in this chamber less than five meters wide, bouncing from corner to corner clockwise, tested her physical strength more than it challenged her coordination.


    She stopped only at the ceiling, where her fingers dug into a spot where glass wall became ductwork, covered by a slotted steel grate. She hung off it, panting, head hanging downward. A scientist finally came to speak with Chain, this one carrying a live fish in-bowl. And as Chain started his tour of the first floor, Ruvle popped open the grate to climb into the duct, for a tour of the first-and-a-half.

 30: "Where", the Hardest Interrogative

    ¡®Mielo ~ I¡¯m in place,¡¯ she wrote to Chain, holding her notary pen in her mouth and shining its light on the walls, snaking her way through the vents. She understood now why Elial had her job.


    ¡®Chain Hydrapress ~ Aces, I just talked them into showing me a map.¡¯


    Ruvle crawled. A four-way split in the ductwork opened before her, and she smiled in remembering the contortionism maze in the monastery. She¡¯d never conquered it, but it proved that hyperdexterity did not forget flexibility, and Ruvle took a direction other than straight. It took some exploring to find what she sought¨Canother grate, built into the side of the ductwork, which she pressed her face against. Chain and his tour guide walked far below, between a miniature scale replica of Stepwise built as a rat enclosure and something that looked like a mechanized giant rubber stamp full of spare lab coats.


    Ruvle delicately popped open the grate to maybe get a look at the paper map they were leaning over. Next to her, on a steel perch attached to the outside of the duct, was an owl watching the rats. It turned its head an entire half-circle to look directly at her, perplexed, and then Ruvle ducked her head back in and replaced the grate. Bad idea.


    ¡®~ Third floor is where they do the surgeries,¡¯ he reported. ¡®Look there.¡¯


    ¡®~ Which way do I get there from in the vents?¡¯


    ¡®~ Can¡¯t tell. Improvise.¡¯


    She climbed further through the ductwork, heading wherever this branch would take her¨C unfortunately, a dead end. It terminated with a downwards swoop into a deadly whirling metal fan, above an empty crossroads between enclosures. Ruvle sighed. She didn¡¯t have the space to turn around¡­actually, did she? A question for later; backing up was an alternative. Passing by the grate again, this time in reverse, she caught a glimpse of the mechanized stamp punching the ground, leaving a pristine, sparkly-clean lab coat and set of safety glasses under it, neatly-folded with the glasses on top. Chain strapped the glasses on and slipped his arms through the sleeves just as Ruvle passed by.


    As she explored the ductwork, Ruvle twisted and turned with ease. This maze would not defeat her. Mental mapping was key. The animal sounds below her gave her hints about relative location to the front door, while simultaneously masking the knocks of her hands and feet. Three-way intersections branched into more spits, a metal tree without loops, fanning throughout the first floor. Sometimes a duct pointed downwards into a terminating fan, others down into a long chute, for direct ventilation of specific enclosures against the walls. Exploring needed more than a few minutes. Her hands and knees did not tire¨Cthis did not compare to prior tasks.


    ¡®~ Found a way up,¡¯ Ruvle finally reported. A vertical shaft twisted upwards, not down.


    ¡®~ Good job.¡¯


    The tiny screws and rivets holding segments of ductwork together made for great handholds and footholds, speeding her ascent, but she could have climbed with nothing¨Cnarrow spaces allowed for hands on opposite walls. As she ascended, the pen in her mouth lit the way in blue, the external light from the first floor no longer filtering through nearby grates as an aide. Her hands and feet bumped and knocked, the work of supporting herself in the climb making all the noise it needed to¨Cand that rattle became less resonant and hollow, but firm, like masonry surrounded it instead of open air.


    Fewer animals made noise above. She should be more quiet. Ruvle focused on pure coordination and precision. Noise, specious impacts, her hips hitting metal to firmly wedge herself in place for a complex ascent¨Cnone of these were necessary. She could stop her limbs before they struck steel any more firmly than a falling sheet of paper.


    By fiat of self, she became silent.


    And at the top of the shaft, her silent self spilled out to the ductwork of the second floor, to ignore any further grates. The third floor was her target.


    And that target eluded her.


    ¡®~ I can¡¯t find a path,¡¯ Ruvle wrote, curled up into a tight ball in the middle of another four-way intersection, this one with corners cut, an adapter to conventional rigid rectangle ductwork paneling with a loose, circular, hanging kind with ruffled edges¨Cit would bend under her weight and reveal her immediately down those paths.


    ¡®~ I was starting to think that would happen,¡¯ he wrote back. ¡®Where are you right now?¡¯


    She twisted her shoulders and leaned down the rigid duct, craning her neck and folding her knees up against her lower ribcage to be able to peek through the nearest grate. ¡®I don¡¯t know. Hallway with tubes lining it.¡¯ It had a thatched floor of steel and numerous small computer terminals, each sweeping a green line over their displays in unison, all belonging to a set of the thick glass tubes that rose from floor to ceiling. Bubbles occasionally rose in the fluid inside of them, with inert animal bodies suspended within.


    ¡®~ Green fluid or yellow fluid?¡¯


    ¡®~ Green.¡¯


    ¡®~ Cadaver wing,¡¯ Chain explained. ¡®Every good lab ends up with a corpse locker, and this is a good lab.¡¯


    ¡®~ It¡¯s not helping me.¡¯


    ¡®~ Getting to that.¡¯ Ruvle spotted a hunched-over goggles-clad scientist wearing a medical apron, carrying a plastic tub, humming to himself and occasionally letting out the diabolical chuckle of a smart person having a good time. ¡®I got a minute to look at the map again. The areas around the surgery wards are something called positive pressure rooms.¡¯


    ¡®~ Air only flows out of them, not in.¡¯ She vaguely remembered Elial mentioning positive pressure when talking about her job at one point.


    ¡®~ Yeah. And there¡¯s a big clean-room up there for working in air with very few contaminants. I get the sense that the third floor has its own separate vent system.¡¯


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Ruvle silently sighed. ¡®~ So I can¡¯t get there in the ducts, since they don¡¯t connect to the third floor.¡¯


    ¡®~ Keep trying.¡¯


    The scientist pressed buttons on one of the monitors, which beeped with each contact, leading to a hissing decompression noise as one of the tube¡¯s fluids drained downwards into some other vessel. The scientist strapped on medical gloves with two quick snaps as the glass lowered from the body of a heron, its feathers still dripping with the preservative fluid, and the scientist plopped it into the tray. His satisfied giggling followed him back down the hall.


    Ruvle kept trying. All she would need to do is find the normal path to the third floor and sneak into it without anyone noticing¡­


    But frankly, this was a big lab, and she was getting confused. The ductwork defied every new guess of its structure¨Cshe didn¡¯t even know what a sensible layout would be. It tunneled along hallways that all looked similar, shades of different colors preserving different sorts of animal parts in varying states.


    She climbed and twisted her way through, visiting and revisiting them. Had she been to the yellow-fluid wing before? Twice or three times? She forgot what this one specific T-intersection went to. There were break rooms that blended together, chemical lecture halls with fume hoods where she could not bear to stay long (she held back sneezing from the chalk dust¨Cit would give her away), and an entire snake enclosure filled with logs and stagnant wetlands water for some reason.


    ¡®~ Why is there a snake enclosure here?¡¯ she wrote to Chain.


    ¡®~ I¡¯ll ask.¡¯ And she waited for him to get an answer from some scientist or another. It took a lecturous number of minutes. ¡®~ Neurotoxic venom farm. Important for preserving parts. Grafting. A bunch of things they do on floor 2.¡¯


    Ruvle continued looking and climbing, looking and climbing, but retreading her way to unexplored ducts was getting long and difficult¨Cand with each one that didn¡¯t lead her to an important-looking staircase up nor elevator, she had fewer and rarer places to look. Her shoulders finally burned from holding awkward positions, her spine aching from twisting herself in knots to turn around with the fluidity of an octopus. She wished she had Chain¡¯s map. No, she wished she had her map. A fully static environment would be trivialized by exoproprio, a mental map strong enough to keep track of everything effortlessly. But Ruvle lacked one. She didn¡¯t know how much longer Chain¡¯s tour could last.


    ¡°Excuse me,¡± spoke a female scientist, distantly, somewhere below, beyond the ductwork. ¡°Are you busy?¡±


    ¡°Always,¡± another answered, male. ¡°Do you need something?¡±


    ¡°I heard rattling and I think I saw something through one of the AC vents,¡± she replied. Ruvle froze. ¡°I think a snake got into the vents again.¡±


    ¡°Ah. Ahah. AHAHAHA! Go get Dusaw. He¡¯ll corral it back in.¡±


    Ruvle crawled, taking extra care to be completely silent, hands and knees moving quickly but decelerating to near-zero at the moments of impact¨Cthe micro-scale force control that needlework demanded. Where was she now? She sort of recognized this area. Peeking through a vent with no scientists below, she saw red tubes, and specifically that preserved exotic llama head that worked as a visual landmark¡­which meant if she took three lefts over there, in that twisting-and-untwisting duct spiral that had to be a construction error¡­she could get near the recessed, hidden area behind dark glass. She could probably hide in there.


    The problem was that it happened to be that snake enclosure. Ruvle went for it.


    Moments later, the screws on the face of the humming duct atop the snake enclosure counter-rotated, spinning out from within, and they fell simultaneously. In an instant, Ruvle¡¯s hands shot out, sweeping the duct¡¯s freed face under their paths of descent and catching them simultaneously, none falling into the water below. She dangled down, moving much like a snake herself, until she could hang from the ceiling with one hand and set the duct¡¯s face aside, onto the limbs of a decorative plastic tree, slimy with water and residue from its reptilian brethren, free of leaves.


    The water snake coiled between the branches raised its head to look at her, breaking its camouflage. Ruvle hadn¡¯t noticed it.


    Below her, the enclosure caught only the stray, diffuse light that peeked out from the top of a black glass pane, a light source like a crack atop a door installed upside-down. Enough to see by, but a sight where the brain made educated guesses about color. The enclosure resembled the moat outside the lab, sticks and rocks poking up out of stagnant water, where slippery swirled contortions swam just below the surface. Logs floated peacefully, the decaying wood a breeding ground for insects to feed the snakes, and a rim of textured, faux-grassy flooring lined the outside. Ruvle spotted a seam in the glass, rusted metal rivets forming a square, presumably a small door for scientists to open up and inspect the snakes through. She needed nothing of it.


    Ruvle crouched in a corner, opposite the fake tree and not immediately visible if the door opened up, balancing the duct face in her hand. A good place to hide, if no one checked it.


    Now for no one to check.


    She held in her sighs and the stress in her heart. Infiltration was no harder than a very rowdy day at her office¡­just don¡¯t catch suspicion¡­


    Snakes passed by under the water before her.


    And still, she felt she had to keep moving. Ruvle shifted side to side, looking over her shoulder to the black glass wall, and seeing no faint silhouettes moving through it at the moment. Perhaps a few, very distant? So dar. She could barely make out the hallway intersection. Think¨Cwere there any unexplored places nearby the enclosure? She couldn¡¯t remember. Perhaps one. Ruvle stepped¨C


    A camouflaged snake¡¯s fang scratched her ankle, missing an outright bite as her Coarse reflexes flinching for her. It slithered from the rim back into the water, its cover of a clump of wood blown. Her ankle started to tingle¨Cfiercely.


    Now she definitely couldn¡¯t stay here, but she found her idea.


    Ruvle sidestepped back to the fake plastic tree and grabbed the snake that had been looking at her a moment ago, snatching it just behind the head so that it couldn¡¯t bite her, and jumped for the duct again. If the scientists were looking for a snake in the vents, she could just provide them one.


    ¡°BEES!¡± Chain¡¯s science tour guide called out, swooping his arms forward against the majesty of the many crinklewood cubes-on-stilts, inside of which colonies buzzed in enormous hives. A screen of woven fibers separated him from honey and doom.


    ¡°BEES!¡± Chain joined, right behind him and pumping his fists towards the apiary exhibit (a massive data science project!), one larger than most people¡¯s entire homes. His briefcase dangled.


    ¡°BEEEEEEEEEEEEES!¡± The scientist cried, followed by heroic laughter, and that, too, Chain joined him in.


    It lasted for many minutes.


    ¡°We¡¯re learning so much about how colony life cycles change with hive geometry, dear student,¡± the scientist finally said, rubbing a finger against his safety goggles as if to wipe away tears, but only smearing slug trails.


    ¡°It¡¯s fantastic,¡± Chain told him. ¡°Do they ever get out? Wouldn¡¯t want bees upstairs, I imagine.¡±


    ¡°Never,¡± he said.


    ¡°Speaking of upstairs, I¡¯m having a blast. Can you show me the second floor?¡±


    ¡°Hm. hm hm.¡± The tour guide chuckled. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t, but you¡¯re being such a good sport of all this.¡±


    ¡°Thanks!¡±


    And while the scientist guided him to the elevators, Chain hoped Ruvle¡¯s sneakery was going more smoothly. He hadn¡¯t expected to get this far.