《[-02] A/B Test Dropout》 Games Giovanna doesn鈥檛 play Tamara vaguely remembers having a desire to be important, once. It hadn''t even been a weak one! It had yearned, it was desperate, it clawed out the edges of her mind all-dominating. Tamara would reach the top or she was nothing. This was, still is, the rule of her world. It''s the game you start playing from the very moment you''re born until you die or are killed or are neither, like the people or the pattern of corpses on the outskirts of the eternal city of Daugavpils. When she was eleven or so, which would be six years ago, the year 2061, she watched them. Not in ¡°Latvia", of course, but on the new phone she got that year, refurbished from the recesses of 2011 since she was a lucky girl who could afford retro and the latest styles. How could she describe their dance? It was like the brilliant dance of the shadows behind them, pa-pounded into reality by the power of Marshal Astrakov''s Burevestnik. It was a dance not meant to be imitated by humanity, but the shadows taught it to humanity anyway, a pretty pirouette that makes your stomach turns, a clean rotation around each exotic sphere, but each exotic sphere was incompatible. When you landed on one, you never got out. And Tamara hoped so dearly, so desperately, that some part of her mind would never escape the beauty as she watched the videos, that she''d perceive not only them fully, being able to gain things that she''d missed on first or thirty-second watch, but that she''d perceive all of reality fully. What she did wasn''t uncommon. It''s the pastime of every bored kid who wants psychic powers, isn''t threatened by the Department of Disinformation or their city''s equivalent for any reason, doesn''t care enough about their mental health to deal with the risks. She hoped and she hoped, but she was still so cute and cautious back then, so she never watched anything dangerous enough to break her into psychic power. Then one day, her parents (her mother a history professor, her father a policy advisor) introduced her to this girl, the daughter of a pair of diplomats. There was a strange glow in her eyes, she had a soft smile and lush, gleaming blonde hair. Their parents talked, told her to entertain the other girl, she remained silent, the other girl was fine with that, eased Tamara into her presence, her light, and then was a part where everything went white or goldenrod, and then she didn''t have any aspirations or anxiety at all... She has anxieties now. Bliss can''t last forever. It has to be defended obsessively, fervently, with devotion. Tamara is Hannah Westmoreland''s strategist now. Her parents let her take classes asynchronously. She doesn''t really function well around people, she''s something of a shut-in, but she can cook and shower and maybe not clean, given the smattering of notebooks on her desk, but that''s not nothing, is it? She''ll never be nothing as long as she has her Hannah... She''ll have her Hannah forever if she strategises well for the group. ¡°But Tamara, what are you even strategising? You''re not at war, you''re not doing anything criminal, arguably you''re not even doing anything interesting. You''re just friends.¡± Maybe that''s interesting to everyone who''s pathetic and friendless and isolated, like Tamara once was? ¡°But aren''t they the ones who need strategies to find friends, love, some glimmer of humanity?¡± Oh, but you need a strategy to retain your normalcy in a deeply anomalous world. If she''s not at all, explain the Clausewitz and the Schmitt at her desk? Perhaps you should figure out the list of names, resources, powers, lines, past receptivity to awakening, possible liabilities, the day by day diary of threats, the constant shouting from everyone that Hannah''s power is Great, nearly beyond the bounds of what is possible for humanity even though Hannah and Tamara and the other girls have seen that this isn''t really true, that you can deem it rank seven and that she''s brilliant but not so brilliant that other rank sevens aren''t as scary to her as she is to everyone else who just doesn''t understand that if you leave Hannah alone she''ll continue cutely with her life, with no consequences¡ª Annoying. It''s annoying, not doing it (anything can be done for Hannah) but the fact that she has to do it. People won''t just leave Hannah alone. History, all of its Importance, wants to kidnap her for its own sake. Sometimes she gets the feeling that she''d be a killer historian, though. She means, her mom is, her mom still thinks she''s training to become one, she''s always doing historical and preternatural research, if she had to get a job it would probably be useful. She doesn''t. She can still live pointlessly. Pointlessly doing historical and preternatural research, even on her off days. She''s on a pilgrimage back to Hannah''s New York. Hannah doesn''t live there anymore but half of her friends still do, so it''s basically still Hannah''s. The Alliance of East and Midwest American Cities may be based there, may own some of the buildings, but it can''t possess it properly! It can''t cherish the people or the houses. It can just administrate them, necessarily. She doesn''t go out that much so she''s leaning against the sides and back of the K-train, never quite comfortable, always at bad posture. It''s easier to do that when you have someone else''s shoulder. She can''t go on her beloved six or fifty-six year old phone because it''s inadvisable to do so in the Kisaragi System, finally conquered by humanity after Starfall so it''s not unsafe and won''t awaken you, but might give you a few software issues after. She bought one book with her but it''s for business and she can''t read it for leisure. She bought five notebooks with her but she''s not comfortable enough to try to draw and it''s all so bothersome, but in warped space (and no she doesn''t look out the windows) it''s not bothersome for long. She stumbles out of the train, keeping the receipt, the pastime of every bored kid who wants to feel what psychic powers are like and looks at the strange patterns on the card, realising nothing since they have no sight. Then it''s back into the subway, conventional WTC Cortland, twenty minutes suffocating, she doesn''t do well around people she doesn''t know she remembers, hasn''t dealt with this many people in months, for months. Her heart pounds, her ears ring, she shuts down a little, but she doesn''t forget her stop and she stumbles out at about Central Park. She walks, checking her phone, not checking her surroundings. Hannah will later chide her for that, but it''s fine, Tamara''s paranoia doesn''t work like that. She goes to her destination, breathing out, and knocks at the gates. Giovanna of the Tower of Avarice knows it''s her not psychically, descends. She''s a more feral blonde than Hannah, hair cut unevenly, nails and their skin bitten away at, but she''s the most notable and noble of them all, family garbed in yellow silks and otherthreads and so many luxurious items that Hannah saw in a catalogue or a secret shopping centre for the highest of the high or her sweet prophetic dreams, not from this world, that''s obvious because the Tower of Avarice fell upon Trump Tower, but which other? The issue is, Giovanna doesn''t remember! Giovanna says she''s always been here. And yet she always complains about not living up to her family''s standards, standards that don''t match with any culture on Earth or the so-called culture of any of its nomoi, the patterns of elsewhere reflected in the stigmata on her body but not the cheap polyester dress, or something like that, that''s what Hannah told her. ¡°I said hi, Tammy! Are you going to keep staring at me?¡± Oh. Uh. Yeah. ¡°I don''t respond to Tammy.¡± ¡°No, I said ¡®hi¡¯, Tammy.¡± ¡°Hello, Giovanna.¡± ¡°You¡¯re so mean.¡± She pouts ridiculously. ¡°Well, anyway, would you like to come in? We have a lot to talk about.¡± ¡°I would.¡± And then Tamara is Giovanna''s guest, with not enough time to do anything more than glance at the little floor guide next to the elevator, listing so many wings and sections and she doesn''t even have the time to begin to grasp them all. How many floors does this place even have? The elevator doesn''t have a button per floor, it has a little digital keypad, 1 to 9, minus and enter. Giovanna hits 1-0-8-enter, and together they rise to the top. ¡°Family quarters,¡± and it''s so gaudy, Tamara is kind of hopeless, between the gold and the huang and the glitzy glimmering yellow, the red velvet carpets and the portal to the lobby, engraved, marble: who the fuck are you, Giovanna? Why don''t you know?
QUO VADIS ¡°A sheaf of bright light falling from above through a large opening broke into a thousand sparks on a fountain in a quadrangular little basin, called the impluvium, which was in the middle to receive rain falling through the opening during bad weather; this was surrounded by anemones and lilies. In that house a special love for lilies was evident, for there were whole clumps of them, both white and red; and, finally, sapphire irises, whose delicate leaves were as if silvered from the spray of the fountain.¡±
The lobby or sky atrium is all limestone tiles and awe, tall and surrounded by colonades and glass windows, a mash of modernity and eternity you must imagine works, even if Tamara doubts she could piece together how with a dozen notebooks, a world-class education in architecture, for it does. It is open to the sky although the Tower of Avarice is closed from the top, a tinted, tilted black skyscraper cursing or calling to the heavens as she once saw the Flame Towers do in Baku. In the centre is a little pool, impluvium, on the roof the compluvium drip-drips water from the sky. ¡°You''re welcome here, Tamara. Everyone in our group is. Make yourself at home.¡± ¡°I''ll try,¡± but not fully, as Giovanna doesn''t warp under Hannah''s gravity, because her glimmer of light is in that barely visible beige hairclip and not all within her, inspiring her, pushing her forward. It takes Hannah''s grace to trust this young lady. ¡°You''ll succeed! Now, anything new about your research? Do you know where I''m from?¡± Giovanna says. Giovanna remembers always having lived in the Tower of Avarice, in New York, which is weird, because everyone else remembers it popping up out of nowhere five years ago, so either Giovanna and the residents of the Tower have had their memory altered, or everyone else has had their memory altered. Granted, in this world, both are equally possible phenomena: isn''t that how psychic power crept in? That being said, Tamara thinks it''s the former. The mass distortion of consciousness, of memories, usually leaves more signs than that. ¡°Have you ever read the Lottery of Babylon by Jorge Luis Borges?¡± ¡°Um. No? I''m kind of illiterate, ehe.¡± Her body language says ¡°what the fuck does that have to do with anything, this isn''t a book club?¡± So Tamara explains. ¡°Have you ever heard of Jorge Luis Borges?¡± ¡°No...¡± ¡°Do you play video games in your spare time.¡± ¡°Yeah? Doesn''t everyone¡ªoh, yeah.¡± They''ve both giggled as Hannah gets more and more confused in an arcade, or watching Camilla''s livestreams. Fictional time just doesn''t seem to work well with her. ¡°Have you bought a lottery ticket?¡± ¡°I''m seventeen. Also, I''m not very good at answering questions. I''m not that smart, you know?¡± ¡°I know¡ª¡± ¡°Hey wait it''s different when I say it abo¡ª¡± ¡°¡ªI''m doing Socratic reasoning here.¡± ¡°I don''t think you''re very good at it.¡± Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Shut up.¡± ¡°If I shut up I can''t answer the questions.¡± ¡°Keep talking, then.¡± They pause. Then, Tamara speaks, drawing out her copy of the Garden of Forking Paths from her bag and an empty notebook, flicking through to the correct page. ¡°The Lottery of Babylon is about a lottery that takes place in Babylon.¡± ¡°Really.¡± ¡°Yes. Specifically, a random draw in order to obtain a reward in what we must assume is Sasanian Babylon, given the dates of the Greek authors referenced and the use of Aramaic lettering as opposed to cuneiform.¡± ¡°What''s the difference?¡± ¡°Between what?¡± ¡°Sasanian Babylon and... other Babylons? I thought Babylon was Babylon. Like, it''s in the Bible somewhere right? It comes up in rap music because it''s disliked in... Jamaican culture?¡± How can Giovanna say ¡°make yourself at home¡± when she''s so clearly not at ease? Whenever she''s alone with Tamara she fidgets, looks away from her. Sure, Tamara isn''t so good with eye contact herself but Giovanna actively looks away from her? Is she allergic to historical inquiry? Hannah is but that''s because historical inquiry and historical iniquity can destroy her world, isn''t Giovanna immune to that power? It bothers her. School''s running for the New York group, so none of them could help break the ice before they went to the tower... Shouldn''t she have just scheduled this later? But then it gets more awkward waiting for this girl, and... ¡°Babylon is a city on the Euphrates that was historically the capital of the Babylonian Empire, situated near modern Baghdad.¡± ¡°Mhm.¡± Please don''t do that, why did you ask the question then... ¡°The history of ancient Mesopotamia is perhaps more familiar to the audience of the 2050s and 60s than it has been for hundreds of years, due to the division of humanity into confederations of city states, with the chora between becoming fodder and the hunting-grounds for anomalies and altered reality. It should be noted, however, that the system of ancient city-states does not meaningfully reflect and provides few lessons for humanity subject to psychic power, as the reasons for the existence of state power and its limitation to the confines of individual cites are completely different.¡± ¡°I see,¡± she doesn''t get it at all, ¡°but what does this have to do with me?¡± See. ¡°It''s the story. I was just situating it.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°The narrator begins by explaining that Babylon is in a state of perpetual revolution: all men¡ªshould we take gender as notable here?¡ªhave been in every position under the sun, subject to absolute glory, absolute defeat and everything in between, have gone through lifetimes in a single one, thanks to a singular institution¡ª¡± ¡°Psychic power!¡± ¡°That''s an interesting connection to make.¡± ¡°Really.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I thought you were going to chide me for not paying attention.¡± ¡°It comes in handy later. But for now, this institution is the Lottery.¡± ¡°Mhm.¡± ¡°The Lottery begins as a normal lottery, played and paid for by poor men. These lotteries are of little interest, like our own, only having prizes. A single genius entrepreneur¡ª¡± ¡°Like Ezra Buckley.¡± ¡°I thought you said you didn''t read Borges.¡± ¡°Wasn''t that the name of the fifty-second president?¡± ¡°No, he doesn''t have a name.¡± ¡°Oh. Doesn''t everyone have a name?¡± ¡°Let me continue, comes up with the idea of negative prizes. For whatever reason, some divine compulsion, this idea catches fire and spreads amongst Babylon, those who don''t play are considered wretches, cowards, conchies.¡± ¡°What''s a¡ª¡± ¡°Conscientious objector.¡± ¡°Cool...¡± ¡°The addition of fines encourages an increased reward for the winners, soon the payment of fines must become legally enforced to keep the lottery going, having enraptured the hearts of every other Babylonian citizen. The losers of the game must choose between paying the fine and jail time: out of spite, having become loathed by the winners for preventing them from acquiring their prize, they all choose jail time. This is the source of the Company''s power.¡± ¡°The Company?¡± ¡°The people who run the lottery.¡± ¡°Oh, I get it, that''s what I call the place that my parents work at!¡± ¡°It is, yes. But also, this is the place where your parents work at.¡± ¡°I mean, no, the Tower of Avarice and the Company are different things to me. Maybe one day I''ll get a Company job, but even then you need a totally different mindset to work in the Company. So I say they''re different places, and really that helps keep the home-work-school life balance intact.¡± ¡°Interesting.¡± ¡°Maybe you should talk less and listen more, if I''m so cool and cute?¡± ¡°That''s not what I said.¡± ¡°Oh, whatever. What you''re saying is interesting too! Go on...¡± Frustrating. ¡°Knowing that now losers politically, and this is a political and private issue, because politics comes from polis and soon the Company will administer the City of Babylon in a really modern way unlike the way the ancient City of Babylon was actually administered, I think, always choose jail time, the Company instead of offering the choice immediately sentences losers to jail time. So this Company, unlike any lottery company in our world, perhaps like some lottery Company under a nomos our Hannah has not yet seen, now has a non-monetary power in addition to its power over coins.¡± ¡°I''m sure some lottery company somewhere has sent someone to jail.¡± ¡°...probably. Soon, there''s a case where a slave steals an unlucky ticket. The punishment on the unlucky ticket is the same as the punishment for stealing the ticket, so jurists, half on the side of law, half on the side of random or pseudo-random order, argue over whether the criminal should have their tongue burnt out for stealing the ticket or their tongue burnt out because they drew the ticket.¡± ¡°Those are the same thing.¡± ¡°And you doubted Socratic teaching?¡± ¡°I mean you''re just explaining it to me so yes.¡± ¡°Whatever. At the same time, the poor of the city of Babylon demanded to be allowed free entry in the lottery, so that they''d enjoy the joy of chance. so that they could never be branded as cowards. Their wailing echoed into the annals of history, their demands were accepted, the lottery became universal and secret! These combined to make it all-encompassing. Everyone is a participant. The draws of the lottery claim an identity with the workings of fate. The Company takes all political power into its hands, it does everything in the world, like your Company.¡± ¡°Yeah, we do something like that, I guess?¡± ¡°Every event in Babylon is dominated by chance, there are no guarantees.¡± ¡°But isn''t our world like that?¡± ¡°It''s a guarantee Hannah will always hate Carmen.¡± ¡°Is it?¡± ¡°I believe so. Anyway, every event in Babylon is foretold and enacted by a number, a possibly infinite number of drawings, no sane copy of anything exists, every scribe promises to write and rewrite books at their leisure, subtly or unsubtly until after the twelves nothing is left of the original, every merchant promises to deceive their customers and pass on wrong items, the Company manages the lottery unseen, whether it still exists, has ceased to exist, never existed or will exist forever. I suppose the Company is the principle of chance.¡± ¡°It''s not really the principle of chance, is it? It''s the principle of arbitrariness. It feels like people in that story are just doing things arbitrarily for cultural reasons. If their lottery dominated everything completely then things would go on unchanged, since the lottery would have already predicted everything.¡± ¡°That''s clearly false, though. Think about psychic power, about our dear prophetess. Psychic power sees through all of our world, it doesn''t do so without changing it.¡± ¡°Oh, like the uncertainty principle¡ª¡± ¡°The observer effect.¡± ¡°Those are the same thing?¡± ¡°No, the observer effect is a property of human measurement techniques that can be eventually mitigated, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a property of probability wave functions.¡± ¡°You''re so smart...¡± ¡°Aren''t you, for making the psychic power connection?¡± ¡°Do you really think so?¡± ¡°I''ll consider it.¡±
THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF THE NATIVE POPULATION OF ISEKAIS? However unlikely it may seem, no one, until that time, had attempted to produce a general theory of gaming. Babylonians are not a speculative people; they obey the dictates of chance, surrender their lives, their hopes, their nameless terror to it, but it never occurs to them to delve into its labyrinthine laws or the revolving spheres that manifest its workings.
Giovanna steals a glance at Tammy''s book, the fiction one, her notebook''s still empty. It''s covered in ink, 0.5mm scrawls in the smallest, daintest possible font. Are those references? Do all of those books even exist? How can she read it? Maybe she has a copy on her phone? Did she memorise the plot off by heart? It''s not like Tamara likes being questioned at all. It doesn''t stop Gio, but. It stops Gio a little? What a scary girl. If Hannah isn''t scared of her, she shouldn''t be, but it''s hard for Gio to not worry. The Tower of Avarice is named after a sin, the sin of avarice! It''s an all-consuming desire for more, more, more. Not even love me, love me, love me, more and more, that''s luxuria in Latin or something, but more money, more knowledge. More and more, until your blood stops flowing through your heart and you slump to the ground, burdened by your stacks, burdened by your worthless desire, ahaha. Her family''s rich but too aware to succumb to that, even if they do consulting for people who aren''t. Then they blame her family after? Like they''re demons, the rich who need to be eaten gluttonously, the whisper in your ear to keep going, seek more, seek more harshly, arrest and gut those bastards who refuse to let you see a single cent. It''s unfair. Giovanna''s a good girl so it''s fine. Imagine Hannah patting her on her head as she says that. Pat pat. She''s not a demon. ¡°Um.¡± ¡°Speak.¡± Tammy''s so harsh to her! ¡°Do you think we''re the Company from the book?¡± ¡°I don''t know what your Company does.¡± ¡°We do everything, like the Company in the book, but we''re not so arbitrary. And I don''t think we run a lottery? We''ve probably helped someone run a lottery but it''s probably a boring one, that adults always spend their money on and always lose in.¡± ¡°I see. It could be possible that the Tower of Avarice could have spawned from fiction, given inspiration many anomalies draw from pre-psychic myths and post-psychic rumours, but that''s just conjecture.¡± ¡°Well, if I really was born yesterday, you still should try to be nice to me!¡± You won''t succeed, Tammy, but maybe you should put in the effort? ¡°I suppose I''m just enthralled by a resemblance between this story and psychic power.¡± ¡°You should be enthralled by Hannah.¡± ¡°Hannah wouldn''t say that.¡± ¡°Hannah is subtle. I am not.¡± ¡°Neither am I.¡± ¡°We know. But while her light inspires you, you know it makes the other mysteries unnecessary. You should live a little more. Collect things other than knowledge?¡± ¡°Old habits die hard. It''s necessary, anyway, to keep this forever.¡± ¡°People always say the end of history means permanent ennui, but I''ve never thought so. Things can change, people can change, even if their circumstances don''t change radically.¡± Tammy turns drastically towards her, her long, long hair hitting her in her face. She wipes it out of her face and gives Gio a look of death, only not really, she''d rather climb out of the compluvium and fall out into New York or wherever the water constantly drips from than face Tamara down, god, Hannah, save her. ¡°Halting history is Elysium,¡± Tamara said, but something (psychic?) told her that she meant ¡°if you part me from my studies I''ll destroy you.¡± How did Hannah even tame her. ¡°Ah. So it is.¡± So willful. ¡°There''s something else, too.¡± ¡°It sounds like there are a lot of things going on.¡± ¡°There are always are. Do you watch isekai.¡± ¡°I do. I mean, I''m like an isekai victim, right? Albeit without my memories, so I can''t introduce capitalism to this lovely world...¡± But Gio''s family can capitalise on it! ¡°Maybe. Maybe not. Is the Lottery of Babylon a System?¡± ¡°Uh, I haven''t read the story. Can you level up?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Get skills?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Buy items?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Are there classes?¡± ¡°Yes, assigned by the lottery on certain drawings, the rules governing them changing at the whim of the Company. So there''s roleplaying.¡± ¡°It sounds less litRPG than more.¡± ¡°Sure, but ultimately it''s a world absolutely governed by the rules of a game.¡± ¡°Isn''t it just a city?¡± ¡°Maybe it''s all of Asoristan?¡± ¡°Asoristan?¡± ¡°Persian Assyria. Where Babylon is.¡± ¡°Oh. Well I can''t read your copy to find out.¡± ¡°My copy is special, it''s mine.¡± ¡°You''d let Hannah have it.¡± ¡°You''re not Hannah.¡± ¡°Yeah...¡± ¡°I think roleplaying is the most important part of an RPG, getting into a story conveyed through gameplay, understanding the world and its law by interacting with it. The citizens of Babylon, who perfectly enact and conform to their roles, quite like the actors or the assassins of Fergus Kilpatrick in James Nolan''s great and unnamed 1824 play, who are assigned their role through the mechanics of the lottery, act along the geodesics of an NPC, are more involved than the average GURPS group at their table.¡± ¡°Okay, but, like, the game doesn''t have RPG mechanics, from what you''ve told me. That''s a big issue. If I was reading a story tagged litRPG and it didn''t have status boxes or RPG mechanics I would be annoyed and look for something else.¡± ¡°Oh, I don''t really read web fiction, I watch anime. I find litRPGs too dull story-wise.¡± ¡°Isn''t that your issue? Don''t you believe in seeing someone getting stronger for the people they love, loyally and perfectly eliminating the enemy?¡± ¡°I-I''d do it for Hannah.¡± ¡°Wouldn''t we all? Whether it''s with light or fire or ice magic from the depths of their bitter and cold empty heart, isn''t getting stronger, progressing a compelling plotline in and of itself?¡± ¡°I-I suppose. You''re willful, for once.¡± ¡°I am. Don''t knock my interests!¡± ¡°Don''t gaze emptily when I talk about mine.¡± ¡°I wasn''t!¡± ¡°Whatever.¡± The sun''s set faster than usual in the early November winter. A pall falls over New York, so does the cold rain and the impossible frost. Giovanna thinks, you can''t go back home in that, Hannah would be appalled at you treating yourself like that. Tamara thinks that she really can''t deal with Giovanna for more time, and she''s too burnt out to organise a trip on the group chat, and is it even fully safe in the deep winter? (The answer is yes, but she''s a shut-in, so don''t expert her to know that.) Giovanna wins out. Tamara stays. There''s a few restaurants across the tower, meant to satisfy those renting office space and the hotel-goers. Tamara insists on ordering fast food, as she does. She pretends not to be tired, Gio doesn''t, she moves from the little seat at the short end of the atrium''s pool to one of the four quarters of a circular couch some way away. The windows opposite her telepathically transform into a television. ¡°What do you want to watch?¡± Giovanna asks. ¡°It doesn''t matter,¡± Tamara replies. The correct answer, for both her and you, the you who whether you like it or not is now going to watch this next experiment, an experiment spanning the entire world, conducted in the name of love and hate, utilising every sense, written on sheafs of papers and pretty notebooks and the vandalised originals of rare books, one which involves being perfectly involved in a role assigned by the force above you, getting stronger to be someone else''s loyal attack dog, and is centred around Hannah Westmoreland, her light, and her power. Ways Michiko doesnt function
Michiko doesn''t matter, everyone''s always telling their stories without her. If chess is meant to emulate war then she''s always in some other country, peaceful and pointless. Only it isn''t peaceful! It''s not even pointless, her little red heart hurts like that, knocked to-and-fro by storms and endless rains. She¡¯s so moody! She has a lot to be moody about, though. Her powers suck and she¡¯s weak and she¡¯s a shitty student, how did she even get into this place, and her Fate-assigned roommate and partner she¡¯s stuck with four years sucks, and given all the shit he gets up to, everything that¡¯s happened to him he gets more Life Experience in a week than she¡¯s gotten in a decade, a half and a little more so she¡¯s also jealous of him! Which is weird, because his personality sucks, but you wouldn¡¯t believe that would you? Would you, traitor, empty observer, a convenient conjuring in Michiko¡¯s head, for her to blame all her problems on. She throws her pen at her desk. Throw is a strong word. She drops it while feeling aggression. Maybe that could be a throw? If she were a better psychokinetic, it probably would be. Her power slips out of her grasp, though, isn¡¯t in sync with her emotions, her thought, her consciousness, her Will, true or false. See! She has no psychic gift or talent! She was awakened when she got to Lydia Wark International School and she didn¡¯t even really apply for the psychic power, or make for a good cutting edge psychic researcher so she was pretty shocked she got in? She was just running away from her past, still is, and there¡¯s no better way to do that then to take a few steps ¡®out of bounds.¡¯ She crammed to get here in Washington. Not Washington state, that¡¯s what she was running from, but Washington, D.C., the birthplace of psychic power, the resting place of the Condor Raid, a city that had lost number and language and coherence and was built back from the top by the Imperial Dynasty of America, who came from¡­ who came from¡­ did it matter? She didn¡¯t know. (It was rend asunder by [Null Point] so completely. No trace of humanity, worldpower or worldly power was left. But President Winthrope remembered it well, or so he thought. The monuments, the history, all the living souls, he kept them so dearly in his dreams? And yet when Washington returned in 2044, it was clear to everyone that it was taken apart and put back together by someone who didn¡¯t understand how it worked.) People said Washington was pretty hard to enter in general, with all the changes, but she got into a night school there super easily? The administrations there accepted everyone. Was it possible that you were grosser, more dejected than her? Ah-ah-hah, she¡¯s just kidding. Don¡¯t mind her discordant laughter. The things she learnt while there were pretty conventional, anyway. Conventional enough that she passed all of the difficult Lydia Wark tests even if her GPA started slipping. Her parents noticed, scared of losing their good child, but the first year of Lydia Wark cuts into the last year of high school, she was free of the tears, the screaming and the torment, but not really. Not really. Would she lie to you? She¡¯s not clearly miserable, slumped over, pen rolled to the edge of her desk but luckily, so luckily not fallen off it, partner looking at her, smirking, judging. Why would she be mentally ill. ¡°Akutagawa.¡± People don¡¯t seem to like to refer to her as Michiko? Maybe this guy just likes the guy she stole the last name from more. ¡°Y-yeah?¡± she stumbles to say. ¡°Can you give a definition of psychic power not already mentioned.¡± She doesn¡¯t know. What was mentioned? She got this one into her head in Hancock Cram, maybe nobody¡¯s said this one? ¡°Psychic power is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will,¡± she recites. ¡°Did you think that it would slip past my notice that you¡¯re quoting Aleister Crowley?¡± Like the wizard? Is she actually? It¡¯s certainly slipped past her notice! Hm. She can salvage this! ¡°Do you one hundred percent believe that psychic power manifested within President Ezra Buckley out of nowhere in 2040, no precedents, no nothing?¡± ¡°We discussed this at length a mere five minutes ago. President may not have been chronologically the first person to become possessed or to host the mass anomaly, but I believe that the fact that history has gathered around him and defined him as such indicates that psychic power used him as a lead anchor and could possibly have worked chronologically backwards. Nevertheless, this does not mean that some charlatan and pervert who pretended that throwing his personal rivals down the stairs was a potent form of magic prefigured and predicted the system of psychic power.¡± Michiko doesn¡¯t know anything about Aleister Crowley actually, apart from the fact that his life was more interesting than hers. She should probably shut up. She doesn¡¯t. ¡°Many things have started out as false and been rendered true.¡± This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Michiko looks at her water bottle.
THE CITY OF GOD, BOOK SEVEN For Numa himself also, to whom no prophet of God, no holy angel was sent, was driven to have recourse to hydromancy, that he might see the images of the gods in the water (or, rather, appearances whereby the demons made sport of him), and might learn from them what he ought to ordain and observe in the sacred rites.
¡°That¡¯s what you said yourself, pretty much. Is it really impossible that a statement which was false in its time, whether because it was delusion or set up to trick others, can become a full and rich statement later? That an incorrect description of reality at one point can become perfect later, like how¡­ Newtonian physics doesn¡¯t apply when you¡¯re fast enough or go to small, but in reverse? If tricksters and charlatans can¡¯t speak true things about psychic power then how come we call a single field of altered reality a nomos? That¡¯s the Greek word for law, right? I¡¯ve never met a lawyer that I can trus¡ª¡± Her partner, Connor Gierke, elbows her in the stomach. She¡¯s flimsy, she didn¡¯t eat breakfast, she reels. ¡°You¡¯re unserious,¡± her teacher replies, ¡°and missing the point. What does your definition meaningfully state about psychic power? What is change? What is will?¡± A thousand eyes are staring at her. Change is when things are different, which they will never be. Will is something she will never have.
Uneasy she walks out of class with Connor. ¡°Impressive showing,¡± he says, and she doesn¡¯t respond. ¡°I gave you a compliment. You should respond.¡± Unsure she looks straight down, at the floor, her shoes, but somehow unconcerned with tripping, or overly concerned, or wondering if she¡¯ll spew bile onto the nice long skirt that she bought when she burnt through the first quarter of Second City student stipend to replace her wardrobe, out with the old, in with the new. ¡°Mitchie. Respond.¡± ¡°Ah, yes.¡± ¡°You should learn to take losing arguments less personally.¡± ¡°I should,¡± and she genuinely agrees, even against the impulse to disagree just because. ¡°You said a lot of interesting things about will.¡± ¡°I said nothing about will and everything about Will.¡± ¡°Am I really supposed to believe that you don¡¯t know anything about Aleister Crowley?¡± ¡°Yes¡ªhow do you even know that?¡± ¡°That was an open book during the argument. Everyone in our class heard it.¡± What? You didn¡¯t hear anything, you saw it telepathically, a talent that she couldn¡¯t muster, Chii (if you had to nickname her let it be Chii) was not only rank one but one without any skill or precision, Connor was rank three, averagely above average, so she¡¯d never gotten familiar with invading people so casually, could read faces like any sleepy human could, not thoughts. ¡°Don¡¯t act surprised,¡± he says, and she tells herself that the surprise was evident from the second-long silence. ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t just say that. You shouldn¡¯t just agree to everything if you have no plan of improving yourself.¡± Michiko once saw a meme where a J-pop idol told the viewer ¡®you should improve yourself¡¯, obviously meaning that they should kill themselves. That¡¯s probably not what Connor means. ¡°But anyway,¡± he continues, always with the prattering, and she¡¯s sure that he knows that she can¡¯t bear to listen to him always try to ¡®include¡¯ ¡®her¡¯ or rant at her but doesn¡¯t actually care, is sure that he¡¯s sure that he can break down the great wall of Michiko with enough force, ¡°I know what my True Will is.¡± Did she even say True Will? She swears she didn¡¯t know about that until she searched for Aleister Crowley online immediately after the class concluded. ¡°What¡¯s your True Will,¡± she asks. ¡°I¡¯d like to score Evelyn Fairbanks. You should be my wingman. Wingwoman.¡± ¡°Why me.¡± ¡°It has to be you.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know Evelyn Fairbanks.¡± ¡°I thought you would.¡± ¡°Why would I.¡± ¡°Because you¡¯re both¡ª¡± ¡°Because we¡¯re both what.¡± ¡°Vitalitas students!¡± Nice fucking save, dude! No, she doesn¡¯t know everyone in this school who shares a single, if critical, quality with her. She¡¯s not a psychi¡ªokay she¡¯s a psychic but she¡¯s not that sort of psychic. That¡¯s not how psychic powers work. Except if she says that this sort of knowledge was a precursor to psychic power in human history to not make herself look stupid, then it totally does. ¡°What do you even see in her,¡± she asks. She feigns interest now or she¡¯s asked to feign interest later. ¡°She¡¯s hot.¡± ¡°Is that it.¡± ¡°She has a good personality.¡± ¡°What¡¯s her personality.¡± Does she have one? ¡°Well, you¡¯d think she¡¯d be in Litteras,¡± if that¡¯s how you start off describing someone then she probably doesn¡¯t, but she¡¯ll bear with Connor through the corridors to the study room, it doesn¡¯t matter where she is or where she¡¯s going, as long as she¡¯s in Lydia Wark she doesn¡¯t actually have a choice, ¡°she¡¯s super cultured. Super super cultured, films, TV, anime, books, web serials,¡± web serials are NOT a sign of culture, ¡°it¡¯s just adorable how up-to-date she is with everything, how passionate, the links she can make, the thematic analysis she can do.¡± ¡°If you have shared interests it might work,¡± she says plainly. She dips into her self-loathing, making it loathing for others, hopes he reads the notes of it on her face. ¡°Indeed, it may. We think similarly, too. Have you heard of the Grendel incident?¡± She had to remember a bunch of high rank anomaly incidents for her conventional high school, so yeah! ¡°Berlin, April 13th to April 16th 2060, rank seven, focused on inflicting mental damage over death and therefore killed exactly and only one-hundred and eight people, a surprisingly low nu¡ª¡± ¡°I was there.¡± ¡°I know.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never told you.¡± So it¡¯s only problematic when she knows info he¡¯s never said. ¡°Okay, but you¡¯re from Berlin, right? So obviously you were there.¡± ¡°I moved to Berlin the year before that, I was raised in Vierbein and Windhuk.¡± ¡°Where are those?¡± ¡°Namibia. My father is South African, his family moved to England a few decades before he was born, he read Physics and German at Kings, moved to Magdeburg and met my mum, they moved to South Africa and then Namibia and helped build Vierbein as a sort of research town.¡± ¡°I see,¡± she says. He tuts at her, like ¡®why didn¡¯t you already know that.¡¯ To be fair, he¡¯s probably explained it to her before. She was probably tuned out. ¡°Since you¡¯re too familiar with Carcosa,¡± and she is, but it¡¯s not some fictional dead city but simply the other suburbs of Washington, ¡°you might not get it.¡± ¡°Get what?¡± ¡°Empathise with the feeling of dread, the fear, the endless terror of being caught alone in the night and thrown out to the wolves.¡± ¡°Why¡­ wouldn¡¯t I empathise with that?¡± Carcosa is just a suburb of Washington. ¡°You don¡¯t even sympathise with much of anything I say.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°See, what did I just say?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t sympathise¡ª¡± ¡°Before that.¡± Oh. ¡°It¡¯s pointless to apologise and then not improve yourself.¡± ¡°It is.¡± They come to the study room door together.
BEOWULF And a young prince must be prudent like that, giving freely while his father lives so that afterwards, in age, when fighting starts steadfast companions will stand by him and hold the line. Behaviour that''s admired is the path to power among people everywhere
People will just do anything Actually, after an entirely too long period of deliberation, Tamara and Giovanna didn''t watch anything. ¡°Are you an idiot?¡± Tamara asks, ¡°Why are we going on a drive?¡± ¡°If you spent too much time in the Tower of Avarice, you might learn something.¡± ¡°That¡¯s why I took a train to get there, yes.¡± ¡°Ah. But learning things is bad for you. That¡¯s what Hannah would say.¡± ¡°She¡¯s just a girl, not an absolute idol of Elysium. Things still happen to her. Time moves forward for her, and we with her, even if we¡¯re going nowhere. That¡¯s why we love her.¡± ¡°Love is a strong word. Isn¡¯t she straight? But you don¡¯t believe that for a second, do you? You¡¯re so hopeful, Tammy¡­ such an idiot. It¡¯s cute.¡± ¡°You¡¯re blabbering a lot for someone driving without a licence.¡± ¡°Who needs a licence on the open road? We¡¯re free here, from everything!¡± Giovanna shouts. And the windows roll down! Her curls, bright, cut evenly, knotted in a few places, but they¡¯re still gleaming, but is that gleam stolen ¡ª they dance about in the fresh air, knocked to or fro like a little sailboat on the open waves, so vulnerable, so open, like a heart, empty or full and beating, ba-dum-ba-dum. And Tamara¡¯s heart races, she barely leaves the house, who even drives anymore? Especially on motorways out of New England to lands that might as well be new given how thoroughly, how utterly they¡¯ve been decimated. Ba-dum-ba-dum. ¡°Everyone, I assume. We¡¯re a civilised country.¡± ¡°We¡¯re barely a country, look outside.¡± ¡°That¡¯s my point exactly. That¡¯s why most cities in America south of fucking Nunavut require extra permits to leave verified and sane roads. Where the fuck are we.¡± ¡°On the I-80, because I¡¯m a good girl and I¡¯m taking you home, but not without a nice scenic trip¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s not what you were supposed to do,¡± she says. Yes, Hannah told her to stay longer, yes, she was shirking her off too, but the idea was that she¡¯d deal with less Gio, not more. When did she even get inside this thing? ¡°According to whom?¡± ¡°Hannah?¡± ¡°Oh. Do you have a written note from her?¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°So, should we switch to the I-70 and find out what she really wants?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t get what you¡¯re trying. We have a chatroom. Plus, by the time we get there, she¡¯ll probably be in class or doing homework or something.¡± ¡°You think she¡¯s that prudent?¡± ¡°Unlike, the two of us, she has a normal life.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s true! She¡¯s a leve¡ª¡° ¡°Rank,¡± ¡°Seven. She actually attends classes, and she¡¯s pretty average at them. She¡¯s not, she¡¯s not Carmen.¡± ¡°Of course Hannah isn¡¯t the devil. Of course our beloved, darling, dear, dearie Hannah isn¡¯t the devil.¡± ¡°Carm¡ª¡° ¡°Carmen is just a girl. I suppose that¡¯s true. You¡¯re one of the few members of our group to have seen her in person. I¡¯ve seen her power, though.¡± ¡°Have you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s everywhere. A hundred million leering eyes. It¡¯s not too unlike the watchful gaze my parents keep over me, making sure that I¡¯m a good marriable scion, even if I could never run a household.¡± ¡°How do you of all people notice that. You¡¯re blinder, as illiterate, as untouched by psychic power as I am. Your only connection to it is her blessing.¡± ¡°Ye-yeah. I guess that¡¯s why it¡¯s safe for us to drive through the faelands?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not, though.¡± The car comes to a screeching halt. Let¡¯s replay the scene, as you do. You should watch careful, in case you realise or sense something you shouldn¡¯t. Do that enough times like the child locked in her room watching every incident every rumour every atrocity over and over again with nobody to console her and nobody who could you and you¡¯ll get rank seven psychic power as well. ¡°Where the fuck are we,¡± Tamara says. You couldn¡¯t find them if you dropped a pin on a map of the United States. You couldn¡¯t find them if you dropped a pin on the map of a million divided states or States, the maps the cities maintain to keep their wits about them, to keep up their hopes of eventually rebuilding the nation, their nation, because this phenomenon afflicts every continent, everywhere on the Earth except the furthest North and the deepest South, the phenomenon that is¡ª
Michiko isn¡¯t really there, she thinks. Everyone is prattering on without her. Her story doesn¡¯t matter, she doesn¡¯t matter, actually she¡¯s nothing or less than less than nothing. If you forgot her¡­ Her notebook is ripped in half. The pages go flying about the study room. She slams the chair against the ground, hits it hits it hits it hits it hits it hits it but she¡¯s so weak, mentally morally spiritually, she doesn¡¯t yield. That¡¯s not her will, a charlatan might say. ¡°How do you live with her,¡± says Evelyn Fairbanks, Vitalitas, Landsteiner, perched at the other end of the study room. ¡°She¡¯s kind of a freak.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t she a freak in the same sense that you are,¡± replies Connor Gierke, Michiko¡¯s Fate-assigned partner. ¡°What do you mean by that?¡± says Evelyn. ¡°You know what I mean by that,¡± replies Connor. ¡°Should we do something about her,¡± says some non-descript to Michiko clique member. But the room is full of his clique or coterie and only his clique or coterie, and he¡¯s apathetic to her plight except when he¡¯s manipulating her or whatever, and the students of the Second City have been given the world and have thus learnt this awful coquettish brattishness, so Michiko can act out on items and it¡¯ll mean nothing, as long as she can keep up with her classes, which she can¡¯t. Once she fails the next test she¡¯ll probably drop out and die. There goes her escape plan. Her shoulders slump. Michiko doesn¡¯t exist, in that moment, even to the faces who go to ask if anything¡¯s wrong, or the people who listen to Connor¡¯s explanations, or Connor himself who says a lot of things, many ¡°are you okays,¡± if you¡¯re feeling paranoid you need to speak to someone, obviously the Second City has good counselling, considering what we¡¯re up against, it¡¯ll be okay. Ahahaha. She¡¯s a crazy, crazy, pathetic, bitch. She¡¯s so convinced that she didn¡¯t take any notes for class. But unfortunately she did, one of the big lectures in the main hall at the beginning of the day, and they read, too prosaic for the little bullet point list she had crammed them in: Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. - The most remarkable social effect the three mass anomaly incidents have had on humanity is mass urbanisation. - Psychic power (obviously???) affects human consciousness, it therefore bends places that are not perceived most easily. - The professor (some rat who puts his own theories in the curriculum) likens grand anomaly hunting strategy to that of orcas. - Anomalies prefer to drown isolated individuals in a wave of alterations and new, arbitrary laws in order to drown them and process them into an acceptable form - All that precious bravery is gonna get you hurt / In a world that feeds on the minority [editor¡¯s note: Michiko wrote that slash really eagerly, cutting through three lines, rendering the document less legible. Luckily it¡¯s been ripped up, so we don¡¯t have to worry about actually reading it, squinting our eyes too hard.] - But also they like to herd humans onto huge icebergs, and the icebergs are called cities, full of cold cruel people - Okay honestly he¡¯s just saying that because we¡¯re in a deep winter. Or he¡¯s the type of person who thinks we can fix all of society¡¯s problems by going onto homesteads. Or would if it wasn¡¯t for the whole ¡°faeland¡± problem - Is he ever going to describe this properly - Hhhhhhhhhh [editor¡¯s note: Michiko writes in print, which makes this really funny to us.] - He doesn¡¯t get it. Nobody here gets anything :( [editor¡¯s note: This is a normal sad face. She¡¯s not the type of person who writes text speak, greater than three and stuff. There are many people in this story who are. Stay aware!] - ¡°Now, we live in a scientific age. They¡¯re called faelands as a metaphor, not because there are faerie queens living in them.¡± ¡ª an idiot who has never been in washington[sic] on walpurgisnacht[sic]. - ¡°They¡¯re called that because they evoke the feelings of dread that lead medieval peasants to call their children changelings and run away from fairy circles and food left out in the woods, rational fears needed for you to survive coupled with irrational fears which injure others¡± ¡ª Don¡¯t worry, though. It¡¯s just a metaphor! They¡¯re not literally fae. - [editor¡¯s note: There¡¯s not actually a bullet point here, I just think she writes scarily fast compared to the average Lydia Wark student. All of these people have been typing exams for thirty years, and you can still type exams in Washington, D.C. or Carcosa, which is after all just a suburb of Washington. But that trainwreck Akutagawa took a parade of ballpoint pens up to her cram school in the Imperial Capital, every single night, presumably because if she got mad and threw her laptop she¡¯d be down a few thousand dollars for no good reason.] - [editor editor¡¯s note: Laptops don¡¯t cost thousands of dollars.] - [editor¡¯s note: I¡¯m sure you still buy bread for tupence at the market too.] - [editor editor¡¯s note: Who even hired you? The Confederation of Eastern and Midwestern Cities reissued the dollar four years ago. A decent 128 GB laptop only costs a hundred dollars.] - [editor¡¯s note: Yeah, and the minimum wage is a dollar and twenty cents per hour.] - [editor editor¡¯s note: If you care so much go live in Anaheim and deal with the inflation there.] - [editor editor editor¡¯s note: Not only does Michiko write faster than you swine, she stays on track better despite viewing herself as incapable of the studying. Take the hint.] - ¡°We should view faelands as both a social phenomenon and a psychic phenomenon¡± - For all the talk about merging separate fields lecturers here really like to split obviously related phenomena Now, she didn¡¯t write this down, but it¡¯s important: Michiko opens up her laptop, tries to see if she¡¯s gotten access to any of Aldebaran¡¯s private wikis or traditional experts contributor encyclopedias, as the ivory tower tuskers who run them like to call them, or any other private servers that are on her list, because she doesn¡¯t have any passion at all even if she¡¯s going deeper and deeper, darker and darker than anyone else around her is willing to go. She hasn¡¯t, so she goes to a public wiki with a Bahraini domain, one she hasn¡¯t visited before. It¡¯s the quickest and probably the most reliable. The internet is still global, even with all of the curses and the cogitohazards, but that hasn¡¯t stopped the fish skeletons and leviathans from pooling around the underwater cables, nibbling them until they lose their light and thunder and just become 3D-model pure cylinders, and leaping in to make sure they can threaten¡­ you, poor websurfer. If they get you, you¡¯ll become a rank one anomaly. Maybe even a rank two one. (Please stay safe on the Internet.) She goes there and Connor, who is the type of person to play simple and repetitive games on his phone while listening to a lecturer or pretending to listen in partner classes, and actually gets worse when Michiko isn¡¯t there, taps her on the shoulder which is weird right, because she¡¯s learning about the subject of the lecture while Connor is dodging bullets or whatever, but she ignores him. Faelands. She¡¯s¡­ found a wiki page on driving. Michiko can¡¯t drive! What the hell. Assalam alaykum, brothers. So you¡¯ve heard about the restrictions about driving through the countryside, and you¡¯ve been thinking: what the fuck, I¡¯m a citizen of this country, don¡¯t I have rights? I¡¯m sane, I don¡¯t look too far up when the feathers of that awful American Condor arc over my city, I am pious and like Imam Ali (a.s.) I praise Allah every time I ride in a vehicle. Why can¡¯t I see the mysteries of the Empty Quarter? Why can¡¯t I drive to Mecca? Why do I have to get into a dingy, cursed train? Brother, you are in luck. As you know, I [fratellota2wil] was born in Minneapolis and reverted to Islam after moving to Bahrain for work as many fine young men have and ought to do. It should not surprise you, then, that I am an expert in driving through areas of low reality or ruled by a myriad demons. I don¡¯t mean to offend, but although keeping dua is NECESSARY and helpful to avoid curses, moral degeneracy, anomalisation, it is not sufficient. You need a certain practical talent. Certainly don¡¯t put your girlfriend or your wife at the wheel, you need someone vigilant, logical, dutiful. [editor¡¯s note: Girlfriend links to an article on the pitifuls of casual dating. At the wheel links to a video of an anecdote.] [Michiko¡¯s note: Sometimes, when she¡¯s reading something, she gets the feeling that the person who¡¯s writing it wants her dead.] [editor editor¡¯s note: Nexhmije Berisha, who hasn¡¯t paid any attention to the lecture, deciding that they¡¯ll cover the material better in class, where she also won¡¯t pay attention, is reading along with Michiko and says ¡°I hate converts.¡±] [editor editor editor¡¯s note: The Catholic convert Hugh Berkstaller reads this thought and pokes her. She stares him down.] Now, that¡¯s a general rule, no matter how anomalised the roads are. Here are a few general rules for anomalies. You absolutely need to double-check traffic lights. The most simple anomalies, barely capable of being called rank 1 get their blood by hanging around traffic lights at crossings, altering whether they¡¯re on stop or go until one fool goes careening into the others. Again, you must be vigilant. Anyone, absolutely anyone can see through the lies of the devil, you must focus, you must look for impossible angles, colours, sudden shifts. What, but you won¡¯t see traffic lights on motorways or long country roads? Exactly, brother, which is why you must remember: never stop, even if the roads shout that you must, that there is danger, that you will die. At the same time, keep watching for things that have been hidden. You wouldn¡¯t want to die to the weakest anomaly, would you? Next, always watch your GPS. You must always know that you are in Allah¡¯s world and not Lilith¡¯s. How many miles have you gone? Where are you? Are you going in circles or are you marching forward, ever forward? If you lose your location, you must steel yourself or lose yourself. [editor¡¯s note: Those links lead nowhere.]
¡°Have we even gone anywhere? Does the I-80 lead anywhere anymore? Or,¡± and Tamara doesn¡¯t stutter even if she wants to, even if her voice wears thin quickly, a cold girl who only ever talks through her five hundred dollar microphone, ¡°is this exactly where you wanted me?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t I keep my promises? I¡¯m taking you home. We¡¯re the same, we¡¯re Hannah''s. I¡¯d never tarnish anything that belongs to her.¡± ¡°Where are we.¡± New York State, what¡¯s left of it in East and Midwest¡¯s jurisdiction, doesn¡¯t become so empty, desolate, sandswept so quickly. There¡¯s certainly not apartment buildings, the husks and shells, pilled into the sky, bombed out with incendiaries but inhabited. It¡¯s like if you transplanted the Red Desert and stole away the colour and the blazing heat. (Mercifully, its inhabitants have been inhibited.) ¡°Out of the cold. I said I couldn¡¯t take you home in the deep winter.¡± ¡°Do you even know where we are.¡± ¡°No, actually. I know what we need to do.¡± ¡°What do we need to do.¡± ¡°I know all of your secrets. You¡¯re so open, I¡¯m so crass, it seems unfair to tell you mine, you haven¡¯t done anything to earn them. And it¡¯s so weird for our Hannah to want to find them out, knowing that trying to do would put her happy quiet life in jeopardy.¡± ¡°I just do what she wants,¡± Tamara says. ¡°Ehehe,¡± Giovanna replies. ¡°Do you want to get out?¡± ¡°Is it safe?¡± ¡°Ask the faerie queen. She doesn¡¯t like demons.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t you not a demon, ¡®no matter what the slanderers and enemies of Avarice say?¡¯¡± ¡°You really do go along with whatever people tell you. I suppose history is trying to have faith in what other people tell you about the past.¡± ¡°Stop blabbering.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll continue, forever. Now, let¡¯s go home.¡± ¡°We¡¯re halfway between your home and mine.¡± ¡°Actually, we¡¯re a lot closer to my home and yours. It¡¯s a thirty hour drive.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know how long we¡¯ve been in here.¡± ¡°Ehehe. You remember so much and you¡¯re so forgetful. Anyway, we do need to stop by someone¡¯s house, over there.¡± Giovanna points to some bombed out building, slanted atop a dune. Tamara undoes her seatbelt, jerks up, opens the door. She gets out¡ª she falls, trips onto the sand. ¡°How tall is this car.¡± ¡°It¡¯s more like, how short are you, Tammy?¡± And she looks at the behemoth. [fratellota2wil: Yes, friend, that is correct, I used to work at Mercedes. I graduated from UMN with a Bachelors in Aerospace Engineering, so of course I¡¯d be the person to ask if you wanted a sleek and strong ride! The n-th iteration of the Mercedes Guard was pretty decent in the anomaly defense category, but we just didn¡¯t get the sales. Rezvani were outcompeting us with their EMP-resistant gamer rides, like everyone in the industry didn¡¯t know they slacked on ultrablue screening, a much realer threat than nuclear weapons in this day and age! But I suppose every man wants to feel like a prince.] Random events without the dice ¡°Do you not respect my intelligence at all?¡± ¡°I totally do. If I didn¡¯t, I wouldn¡¯t be invested in your little theories about the world I can¡¯t remember, and I wouldn¡¯t be talking it to Babylon.¡± ¡°If you really can¡¯t remember the world your Tower is from¡ª¡± ¡°New secrets.¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Ehehe.¡± ¡°See, you don¡¯t. You laugh at me like I¡¯m an idiot, and you come up with dumb rules to obey while in faelands.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t want the fairies to get you!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to hold your hand.¡± ¡°And yet you are.¡± And there she was, Tamara trailing behind Giovanna as she led them off into the distance towards some broken and buried apartment building left forlorn so many years ago. How many? Who knows. It doesn¡¯t make sense for that building to be here, after all, or even the I-80. Everything¡¯s anachronism here. ¡°Wait, Babylon? How did we get to Babylon? Which Babylon?¡± ¡°I dunno. You¡¯re the Babylon expert.¡± ¡°You were the one driving?¡± ¡°And you were the one navigating?¡± ¡°Was I? I was too busy arguing with you to navigate?¡± ¡°But we were going to your house, so clearly you were the one navigating, given that you took the route forward¡ª¡± ¡°I took the train here, we established that like ten hours ago!¡± ¡°Five hours. You¡¯re sleepy but you rest quickly, you know.¡± ¡°Yeah, gotta stay up for Hannah.¡± ¡°You stay up researching arcane shit and writing inane scrawls. Like these,¡± Gio says, flipping through Tamara¡¯s annotated copy of the Garden of Forking Paths, the one where her notes get so small they slip past the point of legibility, all microscopic, and Tamara remembers them all off by heart and says she can read them, or maybe she can read them, but¡­ then, isn¡¯t that a psychic type ability? Ehehe, and Tamara is supposed to have confessed that she used to try to hammer her brains in with anomalous material so half-heartedly, until Hannah awakened her to that world and closed off the other routes. ¡°When did you get that,¡± Tamara ripostes, her grip on Giovanna loosening, Giovanna¡¯s grip on her tightening. ¡°You gave it to me when you got inside the car.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t remember getting inside the car.¡± ¡°That¡¯s life.¡± She¡¯s so impervious to logic, Tamara wants to scream! Yet, she lets the princess of lies, the blonde beast, the clueless ditzy rich girl, march her or walk her half-focused across the American or non-American desert, either-ayther, either-or, Tamara coming up with guesses and half-baked possibilities with her knowledge, her understanding of the other members of the clique, of the world that she¡¯ll so tirelessly study, like it or not (like it or like it) until she can protect Hannah and everyone else forever. They come to the apartment building, an edifice of off-white decay, cracks and soots spreading through the whole thing like all-too-lively ivy, smothering the concrete until it gasps for air¡ª ¡°What kind of Babylonian architecture do you think this is, Tammy?¡± ¡°It looks like an apartment building.¡± ¡°Or as they¡¯d say in Britain, a block of flats.¡± Wind frisks through the sand. ¡°I was trying to be helpful,¡± says Giovanna. ¡°I disagree. Why do you think this is Babylon, anyway.¡± ¡°Well, your notes were the map.¡± Oh. That¡¯s actually a relatively reasonable explanation for how Tamara could be navigator here. ...Relatively. That doesn¡¯t make any sense. ¡°Wasn¡¯t this supposed to be a cute scenic drive home?¡± ¡°It is. You said Babylon was my home, right?¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°Eh?¡± ¡°Did you pay attention to anything I said.¡± ¡°You said a lot of complicated concepts. It went over my head. I¡¯m illiterate and kinda silly, ehehe.¡± Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Of course it did.¡± ¡°Lots of things are going over your head, too. We¡¯re in a world dominated by anomalies, outside of human society. Yet, neither of us can see them.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a surprisingly lucid statement from you.¡± ¡°Hmph. If you really knew me, it wouldn¡¯t be.¡± ¡°Surprising or lucid?¡± ¡°Uh.¡± They stare at the building for a minute. At some point, they forget that they¡¯re holding hands. ¡°I¡¯m kinda lost,¡± Giovanna says. ¡°Maybe we should go back and watch TV.¡± ¡°It would be entirely like you to take me five hours into the middle of nowhere¡ª¡± ¡°We¡¯ve only been on the road for an hour!¡± ¡°¡ªinto some nonsense realm with secrets convoluted and intricate in their workings, as beautiful as they are dangerous to any semblance of a quiet life, and then tell me to forget about it and to go back, empty-handed, listless, to make the rest of us forget about it as we watch our friends with more skill than us play badminton or Idollaster or whatever.¡± ¡°Are we missing Camilla¡¯s stream?¡± Giovanna pipes in. ¡°But I actually want to know things, I can¡¯t carry on quietly. I¡¯ll take the burden of knowledge so Hannah doesn¡¯t have to suffer it or ignorance,¡± or because Tamara wants this, because it is her will. ¡°Okay?¡± ¡°Shut up.¡± Giovanna does. ¡°Draw your sword,¡± Tamara orders without a clue of where or from whence this order came, and Giovanna follows it, and the illusory sun, one of many fake stars that were painted upon the sky by the third mass anomaly incident which humanity and the Second City prays desperately is the final every night and has since 2046, falls from the sky, and the real sun, the all too real sun, realer than the petty ball of gas responsible for all light and the many like it scattered in the firmament blazes in Giovanna¡¯s hand. The desert is covered in darkness. Giovanna beckons the light over to her chest and becomes its vessel. Tamara leaves her hand, takes the beige hairclip out of Giovanna¡¯s hair and stabs her with it. The vessel falls to the floor. No blood and no light pools around it. Tamara draws the clip out. She raises the Sword of Harut to the sky, an obsidian blade from out of history. Obsidian is brittle, after all. Her blades are short and fickle. This is a polished and unsheathed sword, about the length of her arm, with weight and hilt. And Giovanna¡ª is in the driver¡¯s seat, stopped at a gas station somewhere in rural Pennsylvania. ¡°You just don¡¯t die, do you.¡± ¡°Huh? Why would I be dead? Don¡¯t say weird things all of a sudden. Maybe you¡¯ll have been possessed by a fairy. Oh, I¡¯m sorry, there¡¯s no fairies in the faelands, just anomalies!¡± ¡°You know exactly what I did.¡± ¡°Do I?¡± ¡°Yeah, otherwise you would have asked where I got the fucking sword from.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a family heirloom! I gave it to you as you got into the car.¡± ¡°No, you didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Yeah, I just lied.¡± The discordant chirping of nightbirds all around them. ¡°You were so willful.¡± ¡°You, are so demonic.¡± ¡°I could have lured you deeper.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°No. I don¡¯t like remembering.¡± ¡°What did you remember?¡± ¡°Why I don¡¯t attend classes. I understood a little bit of why you don¡¯t, either.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± ¡°Illegal driving is such fun, Tammy! Should we take a selfie together?¡± ¡°I¡¯d rather not. I always look like shit.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t I?¡± ¡°You look like an untameable princess.¡± ¡°Ehe. Thank you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s nothing.¡± ¡°Be my knight.¡± It stops, the chirping. ¡°Is this a coup?¡± ¡°What? Don¡¯t be daft. It¡¯s just, you can¡¯t handle inertia, can you? It¡¯s so blatant, nearly as blatant as me. And I¡¯m obvious, so¡ª¡± Tamara undoes her seatbelt, moves across the cupholder closer to the driver¡¯s seat, as if sitting on it, not sitting on it. ¡°You¡¯re obscure.¡± ¡°Ehehe.¡± ¡°Ehehe.¡± ¡°You want things to happen, even if you want Hannah to be okay. You want someone to carry out all of the wishes of, but you don¡¯t want those wishes to be looking out the window as others to do something, waiting until someone does something to you, overpowers you and calls you irresponsible, says you have to act or they will, and they¡¯ll break you. You little traitor, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Sure,¡± Tamara accedes, and she lets the little devil¡¯s voice poke her stab her pierce her. ¡°You¡¯re tired of loving a girl who so ardently pretends to be straight, even if we know, and we know so well, it is the most right feeling in the universe which orbits around her.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± and Tamara drifts forward and Giovanna catches her. ¡°You¡¯ve come to my tower. You enjoy dealing with my pettiness, my mysteries, my obtuseness entirely too much for your own good, or really anyone¡¯s good.¡± Tamara kisses Giovanna¡¯s hand.
The next day, two girls go to a study room. Let¡¯s presume that they¡¯re there to study. ¡°¡ªI wish that she¡¯d feel jealousy like the rest of us, you know? I¡¯m so normal, and pathetic, and subhuman, and it¡¯s sickening and I, if I am even one, if I am even real, sicken and tire and harangue myself and I just wish she¡¯d suffer a little, even a little like the rest of us do. Have the girls trapped in her spell give her ninety nine and nine hundred points of attention instead of a thousand one day¡ª¡± Perhaps this was the wrong presumption. ¡°Carmen, look!¡± says Lily, the shorter of the pair by quite a bit. ¡°What.¡± ¡°Someone broke a chair.¡± ¡°Who cares.¡± ¡°I do! Look at the chair. He looks so¡­ broken like that! He must be in agony.¡± ¡°Okay?¡± Indeed, it is. The chair, now just a frame of metal and madness, screams into the morning light as Lily opens up the curtains and the Second City sun blinds Carmen. Blind is apt, really. She has red eyes, maybe albinism with how pallid the rest of her skin is, but probably not considering the deep black curls which pool around her to about her waste, so bright light ruins her vision. Luckily, as a proficient esper, she has other ways of seeing. She mocks a gun against her head, regains a sense of vision, and stumbles over to a chair next to the dead chair. ¡°It¡¯s an eyesore. Can¡¯t you get rid of it?¡± Lily asks her. ¡°Probably.¡± ¡°Will you get rid of it?¡± Carmen stares into nothing for fifteen seconds exactly. Lily counts them all. Then, time reverts. The chair stands intact. Carmen stares into nothing for fifteen seconds more. Lily doesn¡¯t count this time. Sometimes Carmen is just quiet, but you need to keep up a good partner relationship if you want to pass the bac! Even if you¡¯re absolutely sure that they¡¯re going to dig themselves into a hole without intervention, Lily thinks that you should treat them like an equal: don¡¯t shepherd them, don¡¯t condescend to them, be stern if you have to but cheery the rest of the time. As the forgotten middle sister, she¡¯s super good at keeping a good balance! Carmen finally speaks. ¡°I understand your fascination with inanimate objects.¡± ¡°Thank you! It¡¯s a great fascination.¡± ¡°I suppose this room only attracts failures.¡± Lily doesn¡¯t say anything. Even with her useless rank zero psychic power, she knows that Carmen is just going to say whatever she wants to next. ¡°She¡¯s so pathetic. Such an idiot. It¡¯s almost cute. Almost.¡± ¡°She?¡± ¡°The girl who broke this chair. How easy do you think it would be to manipulate her.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think very much about manipulating other people.¡± ¡°Liar.¡± ¡°Okay?¡± ¡°Ah. I think I¡¯ve found a second worst.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great, Carmen, but we have ten hours of Doctor Chen homework to get through. I know you¡¯re Lydia Wark¡¯s rank seven K-barrier breaking genius but¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be fine. We¡¯ll start in ten minutes.¡± ¡°In ten hours you¡¯ll be up crying and calling yourself a worthless idiot!¡±