If you need to catch up, you can find the previous episodes HERE. If you want to listen to these stories, you can find links to our podcast version HERE, though note that it runs a little bit behind the text versions!
"You smell that, Jason?" Lady Aesculapius asks as she steps off her Factory of Crystal, taking a big whiff. "Smells like capitalism!" "What's capitalism even smell like?" Jason follows her and immediately trips over his own feet, and he scowls at the ground. "Oh, you know." She waves her hand dismissively. "Greed, tortured souls, millions of voices crying out in terror and suddenly silenced, yadda yadda." Aesc crouches down, peering thoughtfully at the grass they’re standing on. Jason inspects it too. It's kind of parched and sad-looking. He sighs as Aesc suddenly scoops up a big clump of vegetation and dirt and shoves it her mouth, chewing. She's got a look on her face like she's a judge in a cooking competition. "Tastes like it too," she announces, spitting a blade of grass back out. "Please don't do that," Jason says, pained. "That's how you get tetanus." "Don't worry." Aesc stands back up. "I saw it in an old TV show once." She then proceeds to spit repeatedly, rubbing at her mouth with a yuck! noise. Jason just turns to survey their surroundings, ignoring the horking sounds coming from behind him. They're standing on top of a big grassy hill, and if he squints he can see a long, flat building off in the distance. There's a faint hum in the air, like the whine of a large insect. Please don't let us have landed on a planet full of giant mosquitos, Jason thinks, fervently. "Where do you think we are?" He asks this bit out-loud, looking back over at Lady Aesculapius. "Dunno." Aesc shrugs, tossing her shrunken ship up in the air and catching it easily. She stuffs it in her pocket. "Probably nowhere good, considering how we got yanked off course." Her face darkens. "Takes someone - or something - with a lot of moxie and elbow grease to do that." She points upwards. "See those?" Jason follows her finger. "I don't see anything - oh, wait." He narrows his eyes, just barely able to make out the glint of something shiny and black high up in the sky. "Cameras?" He offers. "Flying ones? Could be drones." "Drones in the sky." Aesc taps her chin, looking thoughtful. "Or it could just be a very tall ceiling. Can't rule that out." "Right," Jason says, and at that moment someone clears their throat loudly behind them. "Excuse me." A deep, very polite voice says. "But would you mind perhaps going back to your dressing rooms? We're trying to get a good establishing shot, and I'm afraid you're in the way." Jason whirls around to see a morose-looking man holding a large boom microphone. Behind him he can see a crowd of very beautiful, very irritated looking people. "Oh, pardon us," Lady Aesc says apologetically. "We'll just mosey on over there now." She links her arms through Jason's and starts steering him towards the building he'd spotted earlier. "Have fun filming!" She yells back at the man at the top of her lungs, waving with her free arm excitedly. "Ow." Jason waits until the ringing in his ear's stopped. "Do we even have dressing rooms?" He whispers to Aesc as they approach the building. It looks even dingier and more depressing up close, and Jason wonders if it's actually a dungeon or a torture chamber or something. God knows he'd been in enough of those to last him a lifetime. "No idea!" Aesc says cheerfully. "Why don't we find out?" She parks Jason in front of an incredibly large and surly man standing in front of the door to the building. Jason swallows nervously and takes what he hopes is an imperceptible step backwards. "Hello!" She says, beaming at the man. "We're new here, and we'd like to get inside, thanks." The man's eyes widen as he takes them in. "Yes, of course," he stammers, fumbling with something in his pocket. "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that we had new main characters arriving today." "Didn't get the memo?" Aesc supplies helpfully, and the man shakes his head. "Isn't that always the way it goes?" She clicks her tongue. "You delegate things and then something gets lost along the way and then all of your chickens are out of their baskets." "I don't think that's the right expression," Jason says, and Aesc stands on his foot. She keeps her charming smile trained on the man, who pulls two cards out of his pocket and hands them over before opening the door. "Oh! A present, how exciting!" Aesc coos as she turns the card over, studying it. Jason looks at his too. It looks like an ID card, made out of something hard and shiny and vaguely holographic. His picture smiles out at him, the words JASON JACKSON: MAIN CHARACTER spelled out beside it. He blinks. Main character for what? "What's this-" he starts, and Aesc nudges him with a warning look. "C'mon, Jason. Let's get to our dressing rooms!" She grabs his hand and yanks him inside. "Oh, I bet they have cake, or, or a bowl of M&M'S®-" She stops short suddenly, and Jason bounces off her back. "How'd you make that noise?", he asks, but Aesc doesn't seem to have heard the question. She's doing a slow 360, hands on her hips, taking in the interior of the building. Jason follows suite. "Oh, it's bigger on the inside." Aesc claps her hands together. "My favorite." Jason just nods, mouth hanging open. Sure, he's no stranger to 'it's-bigger-on-the-inside-than-the-outside', but this is in it's own damn ballpark. There's people, everywhere, producers with floppy hats and megaphones and gophers scurrying around with coffee and film equipment sticking every which way into the aisles, countless scenes being acted out over and over, sets and offices and prop storage rooms stacked on top of each other ad infinitum. Jason cranes his neck back as far as it'll go. The pandemonium continues up, up, 'till it blurs away into the twilight of distance. His first thought is it reminds him of the world's biggest game of Jenga®. His second is if there's a fire marshal in this place, they're going to be having a field day. "This place is a mess," he starts. "I mean, seriously, what the fu-" "No swearing allowed in the PG Zone," a prim and proper robotic women's voice floats through the air, deafening. The hubbub around them suddenly stops as everyone in the nearby vicinity turns to stare judgmentally at Jason. "Thank you, and have a good day at Station B9." "Yeah, Jason, no swearing in the PG zone." Lady Aesc crosses her arms and frowns at him, then bursts out in a fit of giggles, nudging him in the ribs with her incredibly pointy elbows. "Your face! You - oh! Your ID card's changing." Jason glances down at the card still clenched in his hand. His picture doesn't look quite so cheerful, and the text now reads JASON JACKSON: SIDE CHARACTER. "Did I just get demoted?" He asks, dismayed. Aesc pats his cheek sympathetically. "Yep!" Her smile drops so suddenly it's like someone flipped a switch. "I think I know where we are," she says under her breath, leaning in. Not that she needed to bother, Jason thinks. Everyone's gotten over their 'let's-point-and-laugh-at-the-new-guy' moment, and the din is back to deafening levels. Jason opens his mouth to ask where, and she puts a finger on his lips, shaking her head warningly. "Not here. Too many ears." She dodges a gopher scurrying by, laden down with an impossible number of coffee cups. Jason blinks when he sees it's an actual gopher. Huh. "Let's go check out those dressing rooms," Aesc practically shouts, reverting back into adventurer mode. She zips off into the hustle and bustle of the studio, and Jason has to book it to keep up with her. "Aesc, slow down!" He protests, swerving to avoid a group of costumed actors crossing the aisle in front of him, ducking under a camera, and literally leaping over another gopher pushing a tray. Luckily it's, uh, gopher-sized. Haha. God, he's really starting to hate this place. Jason briefly considers swearing, but remembers his public humiliation five minutes ago and reconsiders it, opting to cuss up a storm in the safety of his head. "Sorry," he says to the gopher, which crosses its furry little arms in irritation. He slinks away awkwardly, forced to amble along at a snail's pace by the crush of the crowd. "Oh, there you are." Aesc pops out of nowhere, munching on a carrot. "Thought I'd lost you for a sec." Jason blinks. "Where'd you get that?" "Oh, this?" Lady Aesculapius takes the half-eaten carrot out of her mouth and looks down at it. "Took it off a rabbit who would just not stop asking me how I was." She shrugs and takes a loud crunch. "Anyway, I found those rooms." Jason's about to ask where they are when Aesc winks and him and holds out her hand, miming turning a doorknob. He's not entirely astonished when a door appears out of thin air, per se, but he is slightly bemused. Aesc ushers him through the door and shuts it behind them. They emerge in a long, long hallway full of closed doors, each with a shiny gold star tacked to the peeling wood. Jason gets the impression that this hallway goes on forever. At least it's quieter in here. "Hmm, let's see." Aesc mumbles to herself, skipping down the hallway, stopping occasionally to tap a door with her carrot. "Nope! Not that one! Not that one either. Nope. Nada. Nah - oh!" She raps her knuckles against a particularly unimpressive looking door, grinning. "Found it!" "You sure?" Jason eyes the door, eyebrow raised. "Looks kinda...seedy." "Well, duh!" Aesc rolls her eyes like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "What else would you expect?" Jason doesn't really have an answer for that. She flings the door open dramatically and drops into a deep bow. "After you." "Thanks," Jason says dryly, walking through the doorway and immediately bouncing off an invisible barrier. "Ouch!" He staggers back, clutching at his nose. "Are you okay?" Aesc grabs his face and yanks his head down, which arguably hurts worse, peering worriedly at him. " 'm fine," Jason mumbles through squished cheeks. Aesc sighs in relief and boops his nose. "Good." She turns to the doorway with a frown, brows furrowed, hands on her hips. Jason recognizes it as her best 'take-me-to-your-fascist-dictator-so-I-can-browbeat-them-with-a-speech' look. "Excuse me!" She says, very loudly and sternly. "My friend here is a main character, no matter what you all decided to classify him as, so let him in!" Jason swears he hears the door whine. If it had a tail, it'd be between it's metaphorical legs. "That's better." She pats the doorframe and then bounds inside. Jason follows after much more cautiously. He doesn't run into anything again, so Aesc's Mom Voice must've worked. It’s dark in here, and he blinks, waiting for his eyes to adjust. As far as dressing room's go, it's pretty shabby, Jason thinks. He’s slightly disappointed. There's a single metal folding chair parked next to a table with a bowl on it. Beside him, Aesc lights up and gallops over to it. "Ooh, Skittles®!" She exclaims delightedly after the registered trademark sound fades away. Aesc hastily shoves the carrot into a pocket of her tweed coat and takes a big handful of the candy, shoving it into her mouth with abandon. "You want some?" She asks Jason, voice muffled. "There any of the yellow ones?" He leans forward, peering into the bowl. "I like those." "I'll take a look - hey." She pauses, frowning. "You hear that?" Jason cocks his head to the side, straining to hear any noise. "No?" He offers tentatively after a few seconds. "Hm." Aesc pops another piece of candy into her mouth. "Doesn't matter, I guess. It's just plot convenience." "Plot what?" Jason asks confusedly as Aesc starts pushing him towards the door. He stumbles out into a dingy little room and does a double take. "Wait, where'd-" He takes a step back into the dressing room, pauses, then steps back out. "Wasn't there just a hallway here?" He whispers in Aesc's ear. "We just did a scene cut," she whispers back to him. "Now shh! You're bruising the fourth wall." Jason just hums and nods and decides not to question it. He can hear the faint sound of crying, now, and Aesc leans across him to flip on the light. It looks like they're standing in a janitor's closet, small and cramped and full of various cleaning tools. There's a bench tucked into the corner or the room, and there's a woman curled up on top of it, knees drawn to her chest and face pressed against them. She looks up when the light turns on, startled. "Oh, I'm sorry!" She jumps to her feet, stammering. "I- I didn't see you there. Can I help you with anything?" She plays with the buttons on the front of her coveralls nervously. Jason thinks she's probably around the same age as him. She's got dark skin, just a shade lighter than Lady Aesc's original body, and dark hair, cropped short. She looks miserable. "How about, what can we do to help you?" Aesc sits down on the bench and scoots over to the woman, tugging her back down. "I’m Lady Aesculapius, Adventurer Extraordinaire, and this is my companion, Jason Jackson.” She gestures at Jason and he waves. “What's your name?" "Ezra," the woman begins, then claps her hands over her mouth, looking horrified. "I'm sorry! I shouldn't be speaking to you. It's not my place." Jason and Aesc exchange glances. "That's nonsense!" Aesc exclaims heatedly. "Who told you that?" Ezra just shakes her head. She picks up a mop and starts fiddling with it. "Oh, c'mon," Aesc coaxes. She reaches into her coat pockets and starts rummaging around. "Would some carrot cake change your mind?" She asks, pulling out a plated slice and handing it over. "Is that the same carrot-" Jason starts, and Aesc fixes him with her sternest look. He shuts up. Ezra hesitantly takes the cake and then even more hesitantly takes the fork Aesc offers a few seconds later. It's covered in lint. "It's studio rules," she whispers, glancing around furtively. "Extras can't talk to main characters like you. And I'm not even an extra. Not anymore." "Seriously?" Jason exclaims. "That's bull-" "No swearing allowed in the PG Zone." The robotic woman's voice booms out again, shaking the walls of the closet and making the brooms and mops rattle. "Thank you, and have a good day at Station B9." Jason glares at the ceiling. "Piss off," he says, or tries to say. It comes out as a series of bells and whistles instead. His hand goes to his throat. "Are they messing with my vocal chords?" "Most likely," Aesc says, entirely too cheerfully for Jason's liking. "You've probably been demoted too, but I wouldn't check if I were you. You'd just get depressed." She turns back to Ezra. "Is that what happened to you?" She just shakes her head and burst back into tears. "Nice going," Jason mutters to a very alarmed looking Lady Aesculapius. "No," Ezra finally hiccups out after Aesc has pulled about half a dozen blankets out of her pockets and draped them around the distraught woman. "I used to be a recurring character in one of the WC Teen Drama shows, over in the PG-13 Zone. I didn't have a lot of appearances, but I did get fanmail sometimes, which was nice." She sniffs and dabs her eye with the corner of a blanket. "I came here to visit my girlfriend because she's playing the princess in a new movie, and I thought-" Her face crinkles back up. "I know you're not supposed to have a non-heterosexual relationship outside of the R Zones, but it was just a kiss. I didn't think anyone would notice," Ezra wails, burying her face in her hands. Aesc pats her back comfortingly, eyes flinty. Jason shivers a bit. He knows that look. "So they demoted you? To an extra?" "Worse." Ezra sniffles a bit. "A janitor." "Well, there's nothing wrong with that!" Aesc says brightly. "It's a perfectly respectable and highly esteemed position." "I know, but not here." Ezra sighs and clutches the mop to her chest. "If you don't have entertainment value, you're nothing." Lady Aesculapius' face hardens. "I see this place hasn't improved since the last time we were here." She turns to Jason. "Hey, remember when you were a rabbit?" "I'd rather not think about it." He squints at her, puzzled. "What's that got to - oh." He says the word very slowly, drawing the vowel out as sudden realization dawns on him. A lightbulb appears above his head, blindingly bright. Jason just sighs and yanks on the lightbulb's chain, turning it off. "We're in the Dyson Sphere again? I thought we already took care of those guys!" Aesc taps her chin thoughtfully. "I suspect it's changed hands. Management. Whatever. Whoever's in charge now, they've somehow managed to merge the old thought bubble-dimension with an actual, physical one, which is pretty impressive." She frowns and puts her hands on her hips. "If entirely unethical." "Tell me about it," Jason says with a shudder. Thinking about the fact that he's back in the place where he'd been form-shifted against his will and repeatedly pulverized, pummeled, squashed and otherwise subjected to the cruelties life dolls out to a cartoon rabbit is making him sick to his stomach, so he's trying not to do that. It's not really working out that well. The memory of every single bone in his body snapping and then instantly being repaired comes rising up, unbidden, and Jason closes his eyes. There's a gentle hand on his elbow and Aesc tugs him down. "Jason, sweetie. You're looking kinda sweaty." She's got this look in here eyes like she knows exactly what he’s thinking about, and not for the first time Jason wonders if she's a mind-reader. "You don't have to stay, you know," she tells him. "I know it was hard for you, last time we were here. You can hang out on the Factory. It's fine." He takes a deep breath and straightens back up. "No, it's okay." Jason gives her a crooked grin. "I'm still in my original body this time around. Just plain old Jason Jackson, who's got opposable thumbs." He holds his hands up and wiggles his fingers, and Aesc laughs a bit. "Much more useful than fuzzy little rabbit paws." "Aw, but not as cute." Her smile fades a bit as she looks at him. "But, seriously, if you change your mind, let me know." "Aye aye, captain," Jason says, giving her a snappy salute. She turns back to Ezra, who's looking completely lost. "Ezra, how did you get here?" "Oh, well," Ezra starts, taking a quick, nervous glance around. "Mr. Barnum owns station B9, you know. And I don't know how, but he invented a device that lets him look into other dimensions." "Maybe he bought it," Jason suggests. "Probably he stole it," Aesc snorts. She flaps a hand at Ezra. "Sorry, go on." "Anyway, if he sees someone he thinks looks interesting, he basically, um? Takes you out of your universe and brings you here," Ezra concludes, sighing heavily. "I used to be a deep-space miner in my original universe." "So, kidnapping." Aesc states, flatly. "What if you don't want to be here? What if you want to go back home?" "You have to pay for a ticket." Ezra's mouth twists to the side and she starts plucking at the mop strands. "I was saving up, back before I met Gabriele. She's from a different dimension, and if I left I'd never see her again. I mean, I'd probably see the Gabriele in my dimension, but she wouldn't be the same, you know?" She shrugs and sighs again. "It's complicated." Aesc discretely wipes a tear from her eye and pulls a pen and pad of paper out of her coat, scribbling something down on it. "Let's add extortion to Barnum's list of crimes," she tells Jason. "Oh, and maybe murder." She writes another word. "I have a feeling an underling is going to come bursting in here any minute and try and drag us to their boss, because this guy is a total despot-" She cuts off as a door on the other side of the closet creaks open and three very large, very muscular men in black suits and sunglasses enter. Jason points at them. "Was that door there before?" "Never mind that!" Aesc sounds scandalized. "Where's the class? Where's the pizazz? FBI-agent-lookalikes, really? That's so twenty-first century." She rolls her eyes. "I expected better of someone named Barnum." "Mr. Barnum would like you to come with us, please," one of the men says in a surprisingly polite and melodic voice. "Nah, I don't think so. We'll find our own way there." Aesc jumps to her feet and starts patting down her coat pockets, growing increasingly frantic. "My Factory!" She gasps about three minutes of impromptu dance movements later, all watched in complete silence by the rest of the closet's occupants. "It's gone!" Jason does his best to look at both her and the goons at the same time. It just makes his eyes hurt, so he gives up and focuses on Aesc. "Gone? How? Did you lose it?" "No." Her face is pinched up in fury. "Someone's been messing with the script." Aesc shakes her fist at the ceiling. "Don't you know it's not polite to rifle through a woman's pockets?" She yells to no one in particular. "But...you're not a woman?" Jason points out, and she scowls at him. "It's the principle of the thing, Jason! It's rude!" Aesc whirls around and faces the three men. "Well, thank you very much for the offer, we really appreciate it, but I'm afraid we've gotta jet." She whirls back around. "Run!" Aesc shouts, grabbing Jason and Ezra by their wrists and bodily hauling them out a third door that's just appeared from nowhere. They emerge in another long, poorly lit corridor, doors running the length of both walls as far as Jason can see. "Is this the same hallway we were in earlier?" He puffs, trying to keep up with Aesc's breakneck speed. "Oh, I don't know," she says back, a bit crossly. "They all look the same." A junction yawns up out of nowhere, and Aesc takes a sharp left. Jason bounces off the corner and grumbles to himself, a series of high-pitched sliding whistles under his breath. God, he can't wait until he can swear for real again. "If we start doing a Scooby Doo chase I'm out for real," Jason states grimly, and Aesc snorts back a laugh. "I'll try to avoid it." She casts a calculating glance over her shoulder. Jason can hear the heavy pounding of footsteps behind him, and he risks a peek himself. Christ, those goons can really run. Jason wonders if there's some sort of speed requirement for underlings. "Not to worry you, but, uh," he starts nervously, "I think our friends back there are catching up." "I noticed." Aesc twists around another corner and Ezra lets out a squeak as Jason careens into her. He mumbles an apology, daring another backwards look. The men are rapidly gaining ground, and they do not look happy. "Oh!" Aesc exclaims suddenly, voice delighted. "That door looks promising." Jason turns around to see a single, very ominous door at the end of the hallway. There's a bare lightbulb set in the ceiling above it, flickering wildly, and caution tape covers most of the surface of the door. "No!" Ezra shrieks as Aesc rips the door open. "It's under construction! It's bricked up! It's-" She breaks off in confusion when Aesc shoves them through the door and slams it shut behind them. They're standing in a dark, slightly musty smelling tunnel. Jason feels something crawl over his foot and he shudders. Lady Aesculapius winks at them. "Check this out." She points at the door and Jason watches in horror as the knob starts turning. There's a ungodly squealing sound as the door opens, followed by three heavy thunks as the goons run directly into the brick wall that's appeared out of nowhere. "How did you...?" Ezra's staring at Aesc in open-mouthed amazement. "Ezra." Aesc puts a hand on her shoulder. "Ezra." She puts her other hand on her other shoulder. "Ezra." Jason intervenes before she can start getting feet involved in this. "Rule of funny." Aesc says, releasing the young woman and booping her on the end of her nose with another wink. She turns to Jason and slaps him on the shoulder. "We're being pursued by mooks! Isn't that exciting?" "No," Ezra and Jason say at the same time. Aesc just frowns at them and sticks her tongue out. "Buzzkills, the lot of you." She nonchalantly leans back against the brick wall and pulls a beat-up pocket watch out of her coat, flipping opening the lid and peering at it in the dim light. Something about it obviously displeases her, and she shakes her head, pursing her lips. Jason watches her go through the same routine five more times with a series of increasingly outlandish timepieces. "Ah, just as I thought!" Aesc exclaims finally, chucking an hourglass at Jason. He scrabbles for it and misses. "It's time we were going. Aw, Jason!" She looks down at the shattered hourglass and kicks at a pile of sand. "That was my favorite one." "Well, maybe give me a heads up night time you're about to start throwing breakable objects around!" Jason splutters, indignant. "Fair point." She shrugs and then puts a hand on both of their backs, gently propelling them down the corridor. "I think we should go and have a chat with Mr. Barnum, don't you?" Ezra shakes her head, looking terrified. "Oh, there's nothing to worry about, Ezra," Aesc says cheerfully. "You'll see. Me and Jason depose tyrants and expose unscrupulous CEOs all the time, don't we, Jace?" "It is kind of our line of business," Jason agrees. He grimaces as he steps in a puddle, sock getting completely soaked. Oh, that's just the cherry on top of this whole situation. He stops short suddenly and Lady Aesculapius bounces off him. "Hey, did you hear that?" She cocks her head to the side, listening. "No, I don't- oh, there it is." There's a rumbling further back in the corridor, coming from the direction they came. Aesc, Jason, and Ezra all exchange a look. "That's probably not a good sign." "Wanna bet?" Jason blinks as a cloud of dust rains down from the ceiling, shaken loose by whatever's heading their way. "Maybe we should pick up the pace." He can feel vibrations going up his legs now, and he gets the feeling if they stay here too long they'll all be shaken to bits. "I've got a better idea." Aesc points at the section of the corridor behind them, and Jason watches incredulously as the walls slowly begin to slide together. "Let's run!" She yells, whirling back around and booking it. Jason and Ezra follow hot on her heels. "This is ridiculous!" Jason complains around the stitch in his side, huffing and puffing. "This is such a cliché. I can't even be mad about it." He chances a quick look over his shoulder. The walls are moving even faster now, and he gulps, envisioning being squashed between them like a bug. Okay, maybe he can be a little mad. They come to a fork in the corridor. "This way!" Jason yells, darting to the left, at the same time Aesc shouts "this way!" and goes right. He pounds down his chosen route, alone, and realizes he's made the wrong choice when a section of the floor disappears underneath him, sending him plunging down into darkness. "Jason! No!" He hears Lady Aesc wailing distantly. "You split up! You're not supposed to do thaaaaaaat-" Her voice cuts off, and Jason resigns himself to a long, long fall. It ends much sooner than anticipated. He emerges somewhere brightly lit - a quick, frantic look around tells him he's outside, somehow - and ricochets off a safety net held by a group of people dressed up as firefighters. They give him pleasant, polite waves as he's flung back into the sky. Jason gives them a very hesitant wave back before they twinkle away, out of sight. He ascends a lot longer than he fell. Jason's pretty sure he's outside the same building they'd entered, but every time he passes a floor another one builds itself rapidly, tiny construction workers moving like they've been fast-forwarded. Is he stuck in some sort of reverse Alice in Wonderland thing? Is he just gonna keep flying up forever? Well, Jason thinks, looking down at the now very distant ground, at least he's not scared of heights. He's just about to start contemplating the smartness of taking a snooze mid-air when he comes face to face with a man floating by, holding onto an umbrella. "Uh," Jason starts, completely unprepared for this. "Hello?" The man with the umbrella scowls at him and sticks his free hand out. "Permit?" "Pardon?" "Permit?" Jason blinks at him. "I haven't got one?" "No permit?" The man squawks, outraged. "This is restricted airspace! You'll be fined for this, mark my words!” "Look," Jason snaps, entirely fed-up with this whole pocket dimension or whatever the f@#$ it is. "I don't exactly want to be hanging out mid-air, you know!" And I can't even swear in the privacy of my own head, he thinks savagely. The man's frown gets even deeper. He folds up the umbrella, and Jason instinctively makes a grab for him, expecting him to plummet to his death. He doesn't. What he does do is rear back and proceed to hit Jason in the side with the umbrella, hard, like he's training to be the next baseball champion of Mars. Jason goes through every minced oath he can think of as he tumbles head-over-heels towards the building. "I hate this place!" He yells at the umbrella man, directly before he's deposited face-first onto the roof. Jason lies there for a moment, wallowing. Stupid rule of funny. There's a loud banging noise and Jason cautiously raises his head, spitting out a piece of gravel. The rooftop's artfully landscaped, all carefully manicured trees and prim flower beds. There's a multi-level penthouse in the middle of it, made entirely out of glass that Jason still can't see through. Scrolling letters on the side of the suite helpfully inform him he's not prestigious enough for that. There's a woman standing in front of the penthouse, beating on the door with the pommel of her comically oversized broadsword. She's wearing a flouncy dress, pale blonde hair that's almost the same color as her skin arranged into an elaborate up-do. "Let me in, Barnum!" The woman yells, punctuating her words with solid thwacks of the sword. "I know you're in there!" Jason struggles to his feet, gravel crunching beneath him. The woman whirls around, pointing the sword at him. "Let me guess," Jason says dryly, holding his hands up. "You're Gabriele?" She eyes him warily. "Do I know you?" "Nah." Jason dusts off his pants. "But I just ran into Ezra so, y'know, I figured it'd be the perfect contrived coincidence if you happened to be the girlfriend she was talking about." "You know Ezra?" The woman's face lights up. "Oh my God! How is she? I haven't seen her since those men in suits dragged her away from my set." She gestures at the penthouse with the sword. "That's why I'm here, actually." "You're going to storm the house-slash-office of the CEO-slash-despot of an entire bubble universe all by yourself?" Jason asks, more than a bit dubiously. A sudden thought comes to him. "Why isn't there security up here?" "Well, there was." Gabriele shrugs. "I took care of them." There's a low groan by Jason's feet, and he looks down to see a hand sticking out from under a bush. "And I'm not by myself." She hefts the sword over her shoulder. "They gave me temporary access to lower-level mind control for the role I'm playing, so if I sing, animals will come flocking to me." Gabriele opens her mouth as if to demonstrate. "No, I'm good, I get it," Jason cuts in hastily before they can get swarmed by a horde of chipmunks or rats or whatever. "I believe you. So." He puts his hands on his hips and kicks at a rock idly. "What's the plan?" Gabriele stares at him. "You're going to help me? Really? I don't even know your name." "It's Jason. Jason Jackson-" he digs his ID card out of his pocket and squints at it with a scowl "-extra." Looks like he got demoted again. "It's not like there's much else for me to do," Jason adds, "so I might as well. Plus, it's kinda my thing. Uh, our thing. My friends and I sort of travel around helping out people, I guess." Gabriele beams and a chorus of angels starts singing. Jason half-twists around, glancing around the roof, but there's nobody there. Well, she's playing a princess, Jason reasons. Figures she'd have her own in-built sound effects. "Thanks. I've been trying to beat this door down for the past hour, but it's a lot sturdier than it looks." She lightly pokes the door with her finger and it falls off its hinges, inwards, sending up a puff of dust as it lands with a solid thump. Jason and Gabriele blink at each other. "Rule of funny?" He offers, lamely. "I'll take it." Gabriele hikes up her dress and runs into the penthouse shrieking at the top of her lungs, sword held aloft. Jason follows, much less impressively. "Barnum!" She bellows, charging up an incredibly fancy flight of stairs, "I'm coming for you!" "Hey, what do you wanna bet someone's gonna pull a level and these stairs will turn into a slide?" Jason puffs, jogging after her. He eyes the stairs beneath his feet as he speaks, but they seem to be holding out. For now. She shoots him a brief glare. "Don't give him any ideas. He already steals enough. Then he copyrights them so nobody else can use them, even though they weren't originally his in the first place." "Sounds like you got some real issues with this guy." God, he's got a side stitch now. How long does this staircase last? "You could say that," Gabriele agrees dryly. The stairs level out into a landing, with another staircase on each side. "Darn. Which way?" "There." Jason points to a lone doorway that's sitting in the middle of the landing, unsupported by anything. It's crisscrossed with caution tape, and there's a large UNDER CONSTRUCTION sign tacked to it. Jason sprints pell-mell at it, ignoring Gabriele's protests. Hey, if it worked for Aesc, it'll work for him, right? He grabs the doorknob, yanks it open, and- And that's how Jason Jackson finds himself running full-speed into a brick wall, face-first. "Oh, that's not fair," he says woozily as he slides to the ground and loses consciousness. He wakes back up very, very slowly. There's an aching pound in his head. Jason's more or less used to that from all of his escapades with Lady Aesculapius. He seems to be tied to a chair, which is also something he's used to. What he's not used to is being tied to a chair in the middle of what looks like a giant circus tent. "Uh," Jason says eloquently, rubbernecking. Lady Aesc is sitting on a chair next to him, similarly trussed up. "Jason!" She exclaims excitedly, her voice sending a spike of pain through his skull. "You're awake! I've been waiting for you to show up for ages now." She wiggles out of the ropes holding her to the chair and pulls a peanut out of her coat pocket. "Here, have a snack." "No, I'm good-" Jason starts, but Aesc shoves the whole peanut into his mouth anyway, shell and all. He promptly spits it back out. "Ma'am, please stop doing that." One of the black-suited, sunglassioed mooks from earlier ties her back up. "That's the fourth time so far." "Sorry." Aesc shrugs, not seeming particularly bothered by the whole situation. "I get bored easily." She leans over to Jason. "I think we're going to be treated to Mr. Barnum's grand entrance pretty soon," she whispers conspiratorially into his ear. Aesc sits back, a content smile on her face. "I do love a good show." Jason stares at the tent entrance, waiting for a trumpet fanfare or an explosion of confetti or something. He's vaguely disappointed when none of that happens and a man simply walks in. "Impressive," he deadpans. "Really?" Aesc shouts at him, slipping free of the ropes once more and crossing her arms. The mook guarding her just sighs and reties her. "Your name is Barnum, for heck's sake! Put some effort in!" She points at the surrounding circus tent with her foot. "I mean, why even bring us here if you're not going to follow up on the theme?" "Sorry about that." The man stops in front of them. He looks, well - bland. Nondescript, average, ordinary, as if the soullessness of crushing capitalism had suddenly gained sentient form, yadda yadda. Even his clothes are boring. "This was the only set not being used at the moment." He reaches out and shakes Aesc's foot. "J.P. Barnum, at your service. No relation," he adds, winking broadly. "Relation to who?" Jason blinks back at him, confused. He tries his hand at escaping from the chair, but all that gets him is rope burns on his wrists, so he gives up. "Never mind that." Aesc fixes Barnum with her firmest glare. "Where's Ezra?" "And Gabriele?" Jason adds, after a quick look around confirms neither of the two women are in the tent. "Oh, did you meet her?" Aesc grins at him excitedly before switching back to a frown. "If you've hurt them..." She trails off, leaving the threat unspoken and hanging heavily in the air. "Oh, relax." Barnum waves a dismissive hand. "I don't have time to waste on little people like them. They're fine. Probably bored out of their skulls in Human Resources filling out all that paperwork, but they're unharmed." Lady Aesc frowns at him. "Paperwork for what?" "Think about it." Barnum raises his hands, spreading his fingers. "It's called Human Resources for a reason. The props people are always complaining they don't have enough materials." There's a very long silence. "Oh," Jason squeaks out finally, grateful he doesn't have a lunch to lose. "You said they'd be fine!" Aesc snaps at him, face darkening. "I said they are fine. For now. I didn't say anything about the future." Barnum snaps his fingers and points at her. "It's just how it works in the show business, baby." "Okay, that tears it!" Lady Aesculapius jumps to her feet, ropes fluttering down around her to the floor. Jason notices her assigned mook doesn't even bother to retie her this time. "I've had enough of you and your stupid little phantasmagoric knock-off Disn-" She makes a choking noise and glares at Barnum. "Did you just turn off verbal access to trademarks?" Aesc asks sourly, massaging her throat. "Yep." Barnum watches as Aesc bears down on him, seemingly unruffled. "You should be a bit more polite, you know," he adds. "You're a guest here." "Guest, my a-" Lady Aesc snarls, a cuckoo whistle replacing half her words. "No swearing allowed in the PG Zone," booms the robotic voice. "Thank you, and have a good day at Station B9." "Oh, stuff it," Aesc says crossly. She folds her arms at narrows her eyes at Barnum, tapping her foot. "You kidnapped us. We're hardly guests." "I can't deny it." Barnum shrugs again and pulls a small white ball out of his pocket, tossing it up in the air and catching it easily. Jason's eyes widen. The Factory! "I saw you passing by and I just had to have you." He eyes Jason briefly. "You were a freebie. Good thing, because I wouldn't have paid full price for you." "Gee, thanks," Jason says flatly from where he's still tied to the chair. "And I had to have this!" Barnum tosses the Factory again. Aesc makes a grab for it and he yanks it back with a tut. "Uh-uh! This is mine." "You stole it," Aesc points out, sourly. "That doesn't make it yours." "Listen, I make the rules here. I make the reality." Barnum snaps his fingers and Aesc is suddenly sitting back on her chair, bound hand and foot. "Whatever I say is law." He puts the Factory on the ground and places his foot on top of it, rolling it around a bit. Aesc gasps, scandalized. "I brought you here and let you run around like fools just to see what would happen, and guess what?" "I'm not really in the mood for playing twenty questions," Jason says plaintively. Barnum ignores him. "Ratings went up a whole 2.7 percent! How great is that?" He stops rolling the Factory. "And this marvelous little spaceship! The technology I'm using right now to capture stars is just so tedious. But this...what do you call it?" "Actoryfay ofway Ystalcray," Aesc replies primly. "Factory of Crystal? Hmm, very interesting." "Aw, he knows Pig Latin," Aesc says dejectedly. "Darn." Barnum scoops the Factory back up. "You know, ever since I bought out this bubble universe from Dyson, I've been looking for the next big thing. Dyson had some pretty good ideas, but I knew I could do better." "Humble," Jason heckles. "Shut up." Barnum frowns at him and Jason suddenly finds his lips sealed together. "So I obtained some technology from these Kezarian smugglers from the so-called ‘Utopia Dimension’ who'd hopped here from three realities over," he continues, conversationally. "Now I can look into other dimensions, and if I see someone who looks interesting, I bring them here and make them a star." "What you're doing," Aesc says with exaggerated patience, "is weakening the fabric of reality in those dimensions. They're already under enough strain! You know how many universes have been deleted so far? Everything could implode!" "I don't care." Barnum says it so simply that Lady Aesc jerks back like she's been stung. "I only care about the ratings, and the money." Jason tries to say "at least he's honest," but all that comes out is an incomprehensible mumble. "The Utopia Dimension could come for this universe someday." She stares Barnum down. "Then what?" "Oh, I don't know." Barnum strokes his chin. "I was thinking I'd just keep moving it around until there's only one reality left, then merge this bubble with the larger dimension." Lady Aesc throws her head back and laughs uproariously. It goes on for several minutes, and Barnum looks increasingly annoyed. "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard!" She gasps out eventually, tears streaming down her face. "And I've heard some real corkers! I'm definitely not sticking around to see that blow up in your face." "You're not leaving. If you won't cooperate willingly..." He pulls a thin metal rod out of his pocket and lays it across the palm of his other hand. "Oh, no!" Aesc shrieks. "No, not the mind probe! Please, anything but that!" Jason turns around to look at her incredulously. Surely Aesc can't be begging? She just gives him a huge grin and a big saucy wink in return. She's untied herself again and is holding a piece of paper. "What do you think?" She asks Barnum, waving the paper around. "I mean, the script's pretty weak, but really, it's all in the delivery, isn't it?" "Give me that." Barnum makes to snatch the paper from her hands. "Uh-uh." Aesc pulls it back, echoing his words from earlier. "Just let me change one thing." She pulls a pen out of her pocket and scribbles something down on the paper. "There we go." She hands it over to Barnum, who takes it with a scowl. There's a sudden blinding flash of light, and Jason screws his eyes up, looking away. There's a nasty cracking sort of noise, which sounds distinctly like the butt of a laser pistol being smashed into someone's head, and a cry of pain followed by a heavy thump. The light fades away and Jason cautiously opens one eye. Blanche Combine is in front of them, standing over Barnum's limp form. She has one pistol trained on him and another pointed directly at Aesc. "You!" She spits out, obviously irritated. "I told you not to leave the Factory until I was done running security checks and what do you do? Leave anyway and get yourself into this mess!" "Sorry?" Aesc stands up and dusts off her hands. "I got bored." "Where have you been?" Jason asks, relieved to find that he can speak again." "I got stuck in there." Blanche nudges the Factory, which had rolled out of Barnum's hand, with her foot. "I couldn't activate the doors until a few moments ago." "That's because I changed the script." Aesc grins from ear to ear. "I gave us a Blanche ex machina! Get it? Like a deus..." She trails off, grin fading as Blanche stares at her with a stony expression. "Thanks for the save." She claps her hand on Blanche's shoulder, ignoring her scowl. "Yeah, thanks for the rescue and everything" Jason calls, “but can someone please untie me?" "Oops." Aesc snaps her fingers and the ropes around Jason crumble into dust. "Sorry about that." She turns back to Barnum and inspects his unmoving body with a frown, hands on her hips. Jason cautiously approaches and peers over her shoulder. "Is he dead?" There's a nasty looking puddle of blood forming under the man's head. "I didn't hit him hard enough for that," Blanche says in irritation, re-holstering her pistols. "He's just unconscious." Aesc crouches down and holds her ear to Barnum's face. She cocks her head to side and reaches out, putting two fingers on his neck. "He's got a pulse," she asserts, standing up. "Now, hmm." She taps her chin thoughtfully. "What should we do with him?" She scoops up the Factory and cradles it to her chest lovingly. "There, there," Aesc croons to the ship, "don't worry, Mama's back." Jason and Blanche exchange a tired look. Aesc notices it and sticks her tongue out at them. She taps a section of the Factory and the ship expands in a flash of light. Jason's relieved to find they're back in the control room, and he makes a beeline for one of the overstuffed armchairs Aesc had picked up in a flea market on some backwater world a while back. It looks awful and smells even worse, but by God if it isn't the most comfortable thing he's ever sat in. Lady Aesculapius makes a disgusted noise as Barnum continues to bleed all over her polished crystal floors. "No, no, no, no!" She wails, clutching at her face. "I just mopped!" "If by just you mean two months ago, sure," Jason calls from his position on the arm chair. She just tsk’s at him and turns to Blanche. "Blanche, could you be a dear and take our 'guest'," the word's dripping with so much sarcasm that Jason's surprised the room doesn't flood, "to the infirmary so he'll stop making a mess? Then you can lock him in the broom closet or something for all I care. Jason and I have work to do." Blanche sighs and rolls her eyes. "Fine. But you're not leaving without a weapon this time." "You know I don't do that sort of thing." Aesc frowns at her. "Too bad. Here," she calls, unstrapping one of her holsters and tossing it, pistol and all, at Jason. "Catch." Jason fumbles for it, just barely catching the holster by the end of its strap. "You did turn this off before you threw it, right?" "No, I thought I'd let it blow your head off," Blanche replies dryly. She stoops down and picks up Barnum, flinging across her shoulder in a fireman's carry. "Set it on stun if you want." Aesc reaches over and closes her hand around the pistol. "Thank you, Blanche, but we don't need it." "Just take the damn thing!" Blanche scowls at her. "Woah, can we swear again?" Jason blurts out, completely failing to read the mood. Blanche and Lady Aesculapius both look at him. He shrinks back into the chair, face flushing. "I was just pointing it out." Aesc sighs and pats him on the head. There's another flash of light, and then they're standing under the circus tent again. Jason looks down to see the blaster's disappeared from his hands. He glances over at Aesc, and she gives him a wink. She strides over the the group of underlings, busy milling around with confused looks on their faces. "You there!" She booms, pointing at the closet one. "Do you want to quit your job?" The mook gapes at her. "...yes?" He says after a while, hesitantly. Then he nods his head with more force. "Yes!" "What about you?" She swings her finger around to point at the rest of the group. They all enthusiastically agree. "Excellent." Aesc holds the Factory up to her face. "Hey, Blanche! We're going to be getting a lot of guests onboard, so please make sure they're all comfortable." Then she lifts the ship and the mooks disappear in a flash of light. "So," Jason starts, catching on to her plan, "we're gonna go run around sucking up every single person here onto the Factory? Why?" "Because they don't belong here, Jason." Aesc gives him a stern look. "Also because, according to my calculations," she pulls a large sundial out of her coat and looks at it, "this place is going to start falling apart any minute now." She sidesteps as a pole supporting the tent comes crashing down next to her, shaking the ground. Jason yelps and jumps backwards. Aesc looks at the pole, nonplussed. "Called it." She chucks the sundial over her shoulder. "What's going on?" Jason eyes the roof of the tent nervously, ready to make a run for it if anything else starts collapsing. "Barnum's not hooked into the bubble universe anymore. It's controlled by thought, remember?" Aesc puts her hands on her hips and says, in a mocking impersonation of Barnum's voice, "'I make the rules here. I make the reality.' Typical CEO." She stuffs the Factory back into her pocket. "Listen, we've got to grab as many people as we can before this place shrinks back down to its original size." Aesc pauses, pursing her lips. "Which is probably very small." "Can't we just- woah!" Jason dives to the side as a herd of gaudily garbed zebras come trampling by him, braying frantically. Aesc pulls the Factory back out and points it at them. "Can't we just like, shut the universe down or whatever?" He asks into the resulting silence. "There's gotta be a failsafe or something!" Her face lights up. "Ooh, great idea!" Aesc slaps him on the back. "Keep an eye out for any levers of big red buttons. I really hope it's a button. I love pushing buttons. Especially if they say 'Do Not Push'-" She shakes her head, breaking out of her rambles, and takes off running out the circus tent. "Woah, wait up!" Jason blurts, jogging after her. They emerge into a large room packed full of desks, extending as far as the eye can see. Probably some sort of office, Jason thinks. At one point it must've been full of the sound of typewriters clacking, given that there's one on every desk, but at the moment it's been replaced with the sound of people screaming and running around in panic as the ground shakes underneath them. "Excuse me!" Aesc says loudly, dodging a man running by her, wearing a truly ludicrous hat. She hops up on a desk and proceeds to jump from one to the next, slipping and sliding on piles of paperwork. Jason just sighs and follows suit. Guess they're playing The Floor Is Lava. He pauses for a brief moment to inspect one of the typewriters. He's never actually seen one in person before, and it's kinda neat. Jason crouches and pokes at the keys a few times, chuckling to himself. "Jason!" Aesc admonishes from a good dozen desks ahead. "This is no time to be playing around! It's a matter of life and death!" "Sorry." Jason straightens up hastily and catches up to her. "So, what're we doing?" He has to raise his voice to be heard amongst all the pandemonium. "I'm guessing this is HR." Aesc puts her hands on her hips and starts scanning the room. "Keep an eye out for our two lovebirds, will you? I want to make sure they're okay." "I'm sure it won't be too hard to miss a woman with a giant sword," Jason says dryly. A particularly violent tremor shakes the floor and he yelps, toppling backwards off the desk. He lands with an oof and a groan, winded. He turns his head to the side and finds himself looking into the eyes of a very familiar person hiding under the desk. "Ezra!" Jason exclaims. "Where's Gabriele?" "We got separated when this place started going haywire." Ezra crawls out from under the desk, face pale and tight. "What's going on?" "Ezra!" Lady Aesculapius jumps down and grabs her hand, shaking it enthusiastically. "Glad to see all your internal organs are still in one place!" She pauses, then frowns. "You didn't sign any of this paperwork, did you?" "Uh-uh." She shakes her head. "After you got captured, some of the guards dragged me here and I ended up at the same desk as Gabby. I told the guards we couldn't sign anything until we read all the fine print. I'm a very thorough reader," she adds proudly. "And that's a great thing to be. Now let's-" Aesc cuts off as someone runs by her, waving their arms frantically. She heaves a sigh. "Just give me a moment." There's another flash of the light and the room is suddenly, deafeningly quiet. It's almost eerie, the three of them being alone in the endless maze of desks. "That's better. Now let's go find your girlfriend and the big red button." "The what?" Ezra furrows her brows, confused. Jason cocks his head to the side suddenly, holding up a finger. "Hey, do you hear that?" He slowly lowers his hand, narrowing his eyes. "Sounds like someone...singing?" Ezra's eyes light up. "Gabby!" She blurts, darting in the direction of the singing. Jason and Aesc just look at each other and shrug before following. They catch up to her just in time to see Gabriele, surrounded by a veritable horde of mice and birds, drop her sword and dip Ezra into a deep kiss. "Aww!" Aesc coos, pressing her hands to her face. "How sweet!" "There you are!" Gabriele gasps when she and Ezra come up for air, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend's waist. "I lost you in the crowd and I was so worried! I - Jason!" She interrupts herself, catching sight of him and Aesc. "You're okay! I thought you might've killed yourself running into that wall like that! Then those goons showed up out of nowhere and took you away and carried me here!" Jason feels his ears start burning as Aesc turns to look at him. "You knocked yourself unconscious by running into a wall?" She sounds like she's barely holding back laughter. "Yeah, well - it worked for you!" He blusters, crossing his arms with a huff. Lady Aesculapius pats his cheek. "Oh, sweetie." She turns back to Ezra and Gabriele. "Have either of you seen a big red button by any chance? We're trying to stop this place from collapsing in on itself." Her statement's punctuated by the floor groaning and bucking beneath their feet. They all make a wild grab for each other and the surrounding desks, trying to stay upright. One of the mice steps forward. "I have," it says when the quake's faded away. "Jesus Christ on a rocket! You can talk?" Jason blurts out, jumping back. He winces and waits for the robotic lady to admonish him again. Nothing happens, and he lets out a semi-maniacal laugh. Take that, censorship! " 'course I can talk." The mouse sounds offended. Its voice is surprisingly deep and gruff and it honestly kinda creeps Jason out. "Do I go around askin' if you can talk, ya big hairless monkey?" Okay, that hurt Jason's feelings a lot. He keeps quiet, though, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he just got smack-talked by a rodent. "Oh!" Aesc lies flat on her stomach so she's more-or-less eye level with the mouse. "That's promising news! What's your name?" "Captain Whiskers," the mouse replies, all gravel. Jason jerks like he's just been stung. "Uh, you wouldn't happen to have any relation to a certain chain-smoking cat, would you?" "Nah." The mouse shrugs its tiny shoulders. "It's just a common name for us TV-biz critters, ya know?" It turns back to Aesc and offers a tiny paw. Aesc takes it, delicately, and then shakes it, even more delicately. "I'd be pleased ta help ya out if on the condition ya zap all us animals up in that little ball of yours." "Cross my heart." Aesc makes an X over the right side of her chest. Jason opens his mouth to ask about it but then decides he doesn't really want to know. "No man, woman, nonbinary folk, child, animal, or photoplankton left behind," she declares, very seriously. There's an uproarious squeaking and twittering. "Thank ya very much," the mouse intones solemnly. "We didn't much like workin' for Barnum neither." It turns around, little pink tail twitching. "The big red button's this a-way." Aesc gets to her feet and leads the very motley procession after the mouse. "I feel like I'm the Pied Piper!" She exclaims gleefully, skipping. "Again!" "Who?" Jason asks. She just shakes her head and presses a finger to her lips, giving him a big wink. Another tremor rips through the ground. The ceiling starts to crack, and they all duck as bits of it rain to the ground around them. The mice squeak in alarm and scatter in all directions. "Here we are," the lead mouse intones. It stops next to a tiny hole set near the bottom of one of the far walls. Jason eyes it dubiously. "Gee, do you think you could make it any bigger?" Lady Aesculapius drops to her stomach again and peers through the hole. "I see it!" She gasps, excitedly. "Oh, that is the biggest, reddest button I've ever seen in my entire life! I need to press it so bad!" "Well, how're you gonna fit?" Jason gestures back and forth between her and the hole. He looks at the mouse. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to do it?" "Nuh-uh." It shakes its tiny little whiskered head. "I held up my part o'the bargain. Yer on yer own, now." It stares at Aesc expectantly. "We'll take it from here, don't worry. ¡Muchas gracias!" Aesc activates the Factory and the horde of mice and birds get vworped away. She puts it back in her pocket and turns back to the hole with a frown, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Gabriele," she calls, "could I see that sword for a moment?” “Ooh!" She exclaims when Gabriele hands it over. "Hefty!" She swings it around a few times and Jason ducks. He's not sure if decapitation would work the same here as in his own universe, but he's not about to take any chances. "Be careful with that!" Gabriele says, alarmed. "Sorry, I just get excited. I love a good sword." Aesc brings the sword closer to her face and furrows her brows, clearly concentrating hard. She presses the fingers of her free hand to her temple for good measure. Jason watches as the weapon first shakes wildly and then shrinks. Lady Aesculapius tosses the newly transmogrified key into the air and catches it again. "Easy-peasy," she tells Jason, inserting the key into the mouse hole. The wall in front of them winks out of existence. "Huh," Jason says mildly. "Convenient." Aesc frowns, putting her hands on her hips. "That's not what was supposed to happen. This place is really falling apart at the seams now." The desks around them disappear as she speaks, leaving them standing in a vast, empty room. "Uh-oh. Better get cracking!" She steps out onto the metal catwalk that spans the chasm that's now yawning up in front of them. Jason can see the Big Red Button in the far distance, surrounded by blinking, winking neon signs and flashing lights. "You ever consider we might be walking into a trap?" He asks, carefully edging his way along the catwalk behind her. "I never consider that," she replies confidently. Aesc twists around to look at Gabriele and Ezra, still standing in the empty shell of Human Resources and looking very nervous. "You two just stay put!" She yells, directly into Jason's ear, and he winces. "We'll be right back!" Jason eyes the open space on either side of the catwalk. The darkness of the chasm is so absolute that he can't make out anything, which is probably for the best. Somehow he gets the feeling there's not going to be any handy-dandy firemen hanging around at the bottom in case he takes a tumble. "I don't like this," he starts, slowly inching forward. "What if-" The catwalk bucks beneath him and he makes a desperate grab for something - anything. His fingers close around only air and Jason pitches headfirst into the inky blackness. "Jason!" Lady Aesc screams. He feels her hands close around his ankle and he's jerked to a stop, left dangling upside down. "I got you, sweetie!" His heart's in his throat and it takes him a few tries to find his voice. "Thanks," Jason calls back feebly. The blood's starting to rush to his head. He hears a click and tries to do some sort of mid-air sit-up, trying to see what's going on." "Jason, I need you to hold still," Aesc tells him crossly, voice floating out of the darkness. "I'm going to drop you if you keep wiggling." "Sorry." "It's okay. I like your socks, by the way," she adds. "Are those the ones I got your for your birthday?" "Yeah." "Aww. All right, I'm going to pull you up now." She starts hauling him back up onto the catwalk, and Jason has never been more relieved to be on solid ground. Even if 'solid ground' at the moment is nothing more than a thin strip of metal suspended who-knows-how-many feet in the air. "Thanks," Jason gasps out, crouched on the catwalk. He's got a firm grip on either side of it in case it gets any more ideas about trying to throw him off. Lady Aesculapius beams at him. Literally. She's got a lighted mining helmet she's pulled from somewhere perched jauntily on her head. Jason points at it. "Where'd you get that?" "Wardrobe department." She pats him on the cheek. "Now you just stay right here while I go press that Big Red Button, okay?" Aesc jumps up before Jason can respond and proceeds to run in place for several seconds. "Oh, are you kidding me?" She exclaims in exasperation. "Looks like we're going to have to do this the hard way." Then she jumps off the catwalk. Jason chokes. "Aesc!" He yells, expecting her to go plunging down. "What?" She's standing - floating, he corrects himself, in mid-air. "You - never mind." Jason shakes his head. Of course. "Go do your thing." She gives him another big wink, shining the helmet's beam directly into his eyes. "Be right back." Aesc says, and then zips off into the darkness. The catwalk starts shaking again, more violently than before. Jason yelps and clings to it like it's a long-lost lover. He squeezes his eyes shut. "You can handle this," he mutters to himself. "You've flown through worse turbulence than this. This is nothing. Sure, you don't have any life support or escape pods or-" He shuts up. Wow, this is an awful pep talk. There's a distant shriek and Jason jerks his head up, heart skipping a beat. Is Aesc okay? Then he realizes it'd been more of a shriek of delight than a shriek of fear or pain. The shaking's stopped as well. Jason sits up, cautiously. He's still got a death-grip on the catwalk. Just in case. Lady Aesculapius comes skipping towards him, grinning from ear to ear. "Well, I can cross that off my bucket list," she exclaims smugly. Aesc mimes writing a check mark. "Come on!" She holds out a hand. Jason takes it and she pulls him to his feet. "Let's go round up the rest of Station B9's workers." - Three hours later, Jason's back in his favorite armchair on the Factory, slumped down in exhaustion. There's a gopher nibbling on his toe, but he can't be bothered to chase it off. Blanche is standing next to him, arms crossed and a scowl on her face. Her beat-up black armor's covered in tufts of fur. "Gophers?" Jason offers. Blanche shakes her head. "Zebras," she says sourly. "They cheat at cards." "Oh." Jason doesn't inquire further. "Well, I think that went very well!" Lady Aesculapius exclaims from where's she's sitting in the middle of the floor, having a tea party with two elephants, a mime, and a man dressed as a vampire. "We got everyone out of the bubble dimension!" "Yeah, but what're we gonna do with them?" Jason looks over the vast crowd of people. The Factory had erected more facilities than he's ever seen it make before to accommodate all of them. Most of them seemed to have gotten over their panic and are talking quietly amongst themselves. "Hmmmm." Aesc frowns. "I suppose we'll have to bring them all back to where they belong." Jason groans loudly. "That'll take forever!" Aesc knocks back the rest of her tea and stands up. "I can swing by the Firmament, I suppose. I'm sure I can find a few people to foist this off on." She crosses over to them, dodging a clown on a unicycle. "Hey, I just thought of something!" She slaps her first into her palm and turns to Blanche. "Where'd Barnum end up?" "Trussed up in the broom closet." Blanche jerks a thumb over her shoulder at the closet behind them. Jason can hear muffled thuds and yells emanating from it. "Fixed up that head wound of his, so he'll live. Probably got a nasty headache, though." "Hmm," Aesc says again, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I'm definitely foisting him off on someone. Maybe Mars. I'm sure they've got a lovely little jail cell just for him." "What about the Dyson Sphere?" Jason struggles to sit up, biting back a yawn. His movement disturbs the gopher and it scampers off with a disapproving chitter. "Oh, don't worry about it." Aesc flaps a dismissive hand. "It's probably destroyed itself by now. That's the problem with those kind of thought universes. Take the thinkee out and there's nothing to power them, so they just wink out of existence. No, what we should be worried about whether someone is trying to make another one." "Do you really think that'd happen?" "It's happened twice so far." She shrugs her shoulders. "Never underestimate the power of greed, Jason. Oh, that reminds me of something completely unrelated." Aesc pulls a large megaphone out of her pocket and holds it to her mouth. Jason hastily stuffs his fingers in his ears. "Don't-" Blanche starts. "Can Gabriele and Ezra please come to the front!" Lady Aesculapius bellows, voice magnified tenfold by the megaphone. Jason's pretty sure he sees the walls of the Factory shake. The crowd parts as the couple approaches, holding hands. "There you are!" She beams at them. Blanche reaches over and turns the megaphone off. "I want to talk to you guys," Aesc continues, at normal volume. Ezra and Gabriele exchange a glance. "We're not in trouble, are we?" Ezra asks, nervously. "Of course not!" Lady Aesc sounds shocked. "After all the help you gave us? No!" She shakes her head. "I just want to ask what you want to do now." "Well," Gabriele starts slowly, "I would like to go home. I miss my family and my garden, but..." She looks at Ezra and squeezes her hand. "I don't want to leave you," she tells her. "I don't either." Ezra blinks a bit, eyes shining. "I don't really want to go back to my universe. There's nothing for me there." Aesc claps her hands loudly. "Well then, you're in luck!" She points a finger at Ezra. "I did some digging, and turns out you don't exist in Gabriele's universe! Isn't that great?" Ezra just blinks in response, looking startled. "You're going to give the poor girl an existential crisis," Blanche deadpans. Aesc ignores her. "Everything's all mucked up right now," she continues. "Threads of reality are frayed and all that. So it'd be no biggie to just drop you off there, if you want." "Yes!" Ezra blurts. "Yes! Thank you so much!" She throws her arms around Aesc and then does the same to Gabriele, kissing her. "My family's going to love you as much as I do," Gabriele says when they come up for air, smiling warmly at her. Lady Aesc ushers Jason and Blanche away discreetly before he can hear Ezra's answer. "Ah, young love." She sighs contentedly. "Well, all's well that ends well. Time to relax!" She powers on the Factory's control screens. There's a video playing, and Jason peers over her shoulder to get a better look at it. Lady Aesculapius's face beams back at him, all bright neon and twinkling lights. His own face and Blanche’s appear next to her. Then the faces fade, and a string of words starts scrolling across the screen. Jason reads them aloud. LADY AESCULAPIUS "Ugh, reruns!" Aesc complains, and shuts the screen off. NEXT TIME ON LADY AESCULAPIUS...
Episode 11: The Keepers of Time - Evan Forman and Michael Robertson “That’s just an ordinary Grandfather clock,” said Blanche. “But is it?” asked Jason, still shivering in his bathrobe, “Is it?” Once upon a time, in a place, there were clocks. Clocks built by the most powerful civilizations in the 10,000 Dawns. Now Lady Aesc, Jason, and Blanche will have to tell the time… Or face the consequences. Lady Aesculapius Series 1 is part of 10,000 Dawns, and is a publication of Arcbeatle Press. Lady Aesculapius was created by James Wylder. All original elements to this story are the property of the author. All rights Reserved, Arcbeatle Press 2019. Our cover art is by Anne-Laure Tuduri. Any resemblance between persons living or dead, fictional characters, and real or fictional events is either co-incidental or has been done within the bounds of parody and/or satire.
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If you need to catch up, you can find the previous episodes HERE. If you want to listen to these stories, you can find links to our podcast version HERE, though note that it runs a little bit behind the text versions!
Hundreds of years ago, creatures of immense power arrived at a town, and laid waste to it. Later on, people would talk about great battles of epic proportions. They would be lying. Here’s what actually happened. Two women stood in the middle of a large town square. One was dark-skinned and dressed like a chimney sweep, while holding a big basket of food. The other one was a tall Caucasian woman, with blonde long hair, a black peacock coat with yellow pants, and a haughty and self-satisfied smile on her face. “Myrrhine,” said the blonde woman. “I’ve had a very good day. Turning that old man into an eel positively improved my mood. I mean, could you have just left this place knowing that he was selling exotic fish on the black market? I couldn’t have.” Myrrhine nodded. “I agree, Enforcer. He was a really bad guy. But, I think there’s been a problem, Miss Xyli--” “Please stop calling me miss. Makes me sound stuffy,” said Xylia. “And what’s the problem? Running out of food?” “I’m a Firmament of Food, I can’t run out, ma’am,” said Myrrhine. Xylia’s eyeroll clued Myrrh that she was joking, and Myrrh smiled uneasily. Xylia was a very important person in Firmament society, but also known to be rather temperamental, and able to hold grudges for a long time. Probably had something to do with being a “Firmament Of Dark Consequences” (Xylia had once explained it as being the personification of “You get what you deserve”.) So she really, really wanted to not mess up her time as an understudy of Xylia—after all, this was one of her tasks as an adherent to the Faceless Ones. But Xylia’s mercurial nature had made this...an interesting adventure. “So, what’s the issue? Missing your sister?” Myrrh smiled despite herself at the mention of Aesc. “I am, ma’am, more than you know. But that’s not the problem. Do you hear that rumble?” Xylia frowned. There was a loud rumble, getting louder. Myrrh pointed out the crowd running into the square, their faces full of anger. “I think the villagers dislike that you turned their king into an eel,” said Myrrh. “Should have voted in a better king,” mutterred Xylia. Myrrh chose not to say that wasn’t how kings worked, and walked forward to meet the crowd. She picked a particularly scrumptious cinnamon biscuit from her basket, and offered it to the man at the front, who had a thick red mustache and a green shirt. “We’re sorry about your king.” “Turn him back, now!” said Green Shirt. Myrrh looked back at Xylia, who was inspecting her shoes. Xylia replied “No,” without looking up. An old woman beside Green Shirt said “He nearly got eaten by a bear! We’ve had to keep him in a tank.” A boy ran up to Xylia, and said “He’s my father! I want my daddy back!” “But he can still be your daddy. As an eel, of course, but he still loves you. Assumedly,” said Xylia sweetly. The boy started crying, and Xylia shrugged. “It’s really not my fault your father was taking advantage of his poor subjects’ fisheries. Sorry, kid.” Myrrh was about to say maybe Xylia should turn the king back, when Green Shirt stuck a crossbow in Myrrh’s face. “Turn the king back, or I’ll...” Xylia’s face lit up. “Oh, you’re threatening my understudy? Ooooohhhh, are you?” Green shirt paused. “Yeah, I guess...I am? I’d rather not, but...” “Oh, Myrrhine! I think it’s time I give these villagers what they deserve!” Myrrhine’s heart sank. She turned to Green Shirt, and said, “You need to run. She’s about to start...booping.” “What?” asked Green Shirt. Xylia waltzed up to the man, and said “Boop!” Green Shirt laughed, as nothing happened. Then a gnat slammed into his face, and he slapped it away. Then another, and another. He inspected one of the gnats, and realized they were actually mini-crossbows. And then a whole flood of “gnats” rushed toward him. He ran away, screaming. The rest of the crowd looked at each other, and backed away. “You’re trying to run?” said Xylia. “That’s cute. Boop!” She pointed at the old woman. Writing started to appear on her skin. “Are these...my tax returns?” asked the woman. “All the ones you cheated on,” said Xylia. A man was running at her with a sword, and without looking, she extended her hand and booped the man into a laughing clown. Myrrh could only watch as Xylia kept booping the villagers. She turned one man into a tall wolf-person, another into three short elves, took one young woman and made her old, and transformed one old man into a pimply teenager. Myrrh could only offer food and apologies, as Xylia rampaged through the town. “Boop, and bibbity-bobbity-boo, and you go a-boop, a bip a bop and we don’t stop—wait,” said Xylia. A young blonde man was bravely shielding three children from her. “You, I can’t boop you. You’ve already atoned for your sins. Hrmph,” said Xylia. Rolling her eyes, she said “Boop.” The young man was transformed into a young woman. Looking at herself, the blonde laughed. “How did you know I wanted--” “I know. Go, you deserved it,” muttered Xylia. “I promise not to hurt the children. Go, before someone sees your physical change.” “You can’t hurt us anyway!” said a child behind the blonde. “We’re too young to have sins that need atoning.” “Oh really? Tell me, Ernie, did you steal watermelon from your big sis a few weeks ago?” “...No,” said the boy unconvincingly. “A boop on the nose for you!” said Xylia, tapping him softly. Ernie’s skin turned watermelon-red. Xylia looked at the blonde woman and said “Changing skin color doesn't count as 'hurt'".” “How dare this infernal creature use her witch powers!” cried the town pastor, who had approached Xylia. “Are you being sexist? Please say yes. I get particularly creative for sexists!” said Xylia, rubbing her hands together. “What else can you cook up?” The pastor pulled out a modified revolver and shot Xylia in the chest twice with a bolt of electric firepower, killing her instantly. “You’re using a gun? What sort of a church are you running?” asked Myrhhine. “Not the pacifist kind,” deadpanned the pastor. He pointed the gun at Myrrhine, but one of the kids stopped him. “She gave me ice cream. She’s cool,” said a kid. “I’m very cool, and I have tons of ice cream,” said Myrrh. “Hmm,” said the pastor. Before he could answer further, a lightning bolt struck him, and he was turned into a small, blue furry mouse-squirrel creature, who Myrrh distantly remembered as the animal mascot of some children’s show, called the Zikacru. The new body of Xylia flew down from above. This one was still Caucasian, but had harsher, more angular features, with an aquiline nose, and an angry stare instead of the last one’s playful one. Her coat was a dark maroon red, with black pants. She looked down at the Zika-pastor, and said “Boop.” Then she looked at Myrrh, and grinned. Myrrh felt her blood run cold. “Let’s leave,” said Xylia. “It’s not really fun anymore.” “This was your idea of fun?” asked Ernie. “Okay, where are we going next?” asked Myrrh. “Someplace not here,” said Xylia. “Can I get some ice cream first? Vanilla?” asked Ernie. “Yeah, sure. Let me get my bask--” “LOL Nope,” said Xylia, who snapped her fingers, and the two Firmament were gone. That should have been that, except the old body of Xylia was left behind. “What do we do with that?” asked the tax-return old woman. “Chuck it in the sea,” said one voice. “No, let’s bury it,” said another. He sounded authoritative, so they did that. Had the pastor been in human form, he could have told them that burial might very well lead to a curse. Of course, he was a Zikacru, and no one listened to his zika-zikas. And so, the body of the Firmament of Dark Consequences spread its influence into the ground of the planet, infecting its water supply and the crops for countless years… Then, someone dug it up. * * * Year: 2017 “Wake up, Aria.” Ariadne shifted in her bed uncomfortably. She slept hard at the best of times, and the past few days had tuckered her out. Elfyr’s blade was pulsing slowly inside her arm, threatening to irritate her into waking up, and she was not having that. Grabbing the pillow closer, she said groggily, “Let me rest, Dory. Get Percy to fix whatever’s wrong.” “Aria, Trevor’s number’s gone to 0.” Aria’s eyes flew open. Elfyr began to alight within her, and she jumped out of the bed, seeing Dory’s scared face looking at her. “Where is he?” “At his girlfriend’s house. He just texted me,” said Dory. “I thought I told you all to stay here,” Ariadne replied. She threw on a jacket and sneakers, quickly stuffed the HRT into her jeans pocket, and started looking for her car keys. Dory jingled them behind her. “Yeah, I tried telling him that. He slipped away from me.” “Right. To get laid. Typical,” said Ariadne. “What’s your number? If it’s too low, you need to stay here.” “Seven. Come on, let’s go,” said Dory. She saw their enthusiastic smile, but knew them well enough to know it was a front. They were actually terrified, and Aria nearly told them to stay home. Instead, she said “You’ll be the one driving. The other three should stay here, and I need to conserve my strength for fighting the Shade.” Whenever the Shade began to get close to its prey, she could smell it. A wave of sadness would wash over her, clinging to her like mud. An iron aftertaste stuck to her mouth, and it only got worse as she got closer to wherever the Shade was. Aria wondered whether the Shade could sense her, too. Elfyr’s heat was burning underneath her skin now. The blade wasn’t physically under her skin, but it really felt like it. The sword, which had been with her ever since she and her six friends (now 4) had read the verses from the book on Arduvia Drive, was itching for the fight. As Dory drove her to the house, they occasionally looked over at her, clearly worried. Of all the people involved with this horrific situation, Aria felt the worst for them. Dory hadn’t even wanted to go to Arduvia drive—it was Aria who convinced them to get outside, as a way to loosen up. Everything that happened to Dory from here out was on Aria’s conscience. Felicia and others were already there, of course. By now, it was a quiet night. The town felt desolate even at the best of times, and with only electric lights to fight the darkness now, it was a wasteland. The drive began to feel like a blur, until-- A man in a white suit, in the corner of her eyes, scurried past. He was only there for a blink, but he had been staring at her. She had lots of practice of being stared at—she knew what it looked like. But when she looked back, he was gone. “We’re here,” said Dory. Trevor’s girlfriend’s house looked rather nondescript. Perfectly bland white walls, combined with the latest nano-enhancements, like most houses built in the 90s (Something about that troubled Aria, but she couldn’t quite place why). There was no commotion inside, which was both calming and troubling. The stink of the Shade had disappeared. Maybe they hadn’t been too late this time. Still, Aria allowed Elfyr to materialize, and let out a sigh of relief. The crystal sword appeared in her hand in a flash, as the heat within her body flowed out of her. The pink hilt glinted in the city lights. Gripping the handle, she nodded to Dory. “Let’s go.” They slowly walked inside. Clothes were strewn around the room, with a lamp looking broken on the floor, glass shattered here and there. The lights were blinking on and off slowly, making an audible click every time. Dory bit their lip, and looked at Aria. Aria figured it was best to be quiet. A loud thump echoed from the bathroom. “Hello? Trev?” called out Dory. No response. Dory glanced at Aria, and the two got ready. Aria got in front of Dory, and slowly opened the door. A redheaded girl ran out. Dory caught her. “Maria? What happened?” Maria’s eyes were blood-red, and after a moment, she said “Oh god...I called you both freaks two weeks ago behind your backs, and I kissed Josh yesterday ago behind Trev’s back, and I once wore my mother’s dress when she went on vacation, and I--” “Maria, where’s Trevor?” asked Aria. “Trevor...he ran. Left me behind, with that big...shadow...creature…I talked about Alice behind her back, and called her stupid, and...” “The Shade.” Dory looked expectantly at Aria, who shook her head. “I can’t heal her now. I need to find Trevor,” said Aria. “So we just leave her catatonic?” said Dory. “Can’t you fix her a little?” Aria was about to reply, when she heard commotion outside. She told Dory “Stay here,” and ran outside Three very strangely dressed people were standing in front of her. One was an annoyed man wearing a wreath of pink ribbon. Another was a white-haired woman with bright blue eyes, and wearing what looked like black body armor And the third one was a black woman with a spherical face, lively twinkling eyes, and an even more twinkling smile, with a colorful costume. “Who are you?” asked Aria. “I’m Lady Aesc. The woman beside me is my lovely girlfriend, Blanche, and the other human is our travelling mate, Jason Jackson.” “Hi. I’m Ariadne.” “Ooh, lovely name. Oh, and lovelier sword. Anyway, why are we here?” “I don’t know,” said Aria. “I thought you said we were asked to be here,” said Blanche grumpily to Aesc. “Well, I thought we were,” Aesc grumpily replied. “Excuse me,” said Dory, “but how’d you three get here?” “See, the three of us had found ourselves hanging out with some old ladies who were running a knitting circle/heavy metal combo—which is my jam--when we found out that they were actually secretly dragons who had been turned to humanoid form as an attempt to hide from some dragon hunter guild. So, I’m like, none of us three are dragon hunters, so we’re cool? But then someone, and I’m not naming Jason Jackson’s name because that would be rude, invited their new best friend, who turns out to secretly have dragon hunter as their temp job...and then we realize it’s not a temp job, he’s actually the leader, so then it gets nasty. Hearts are broken, fists are swung, rap battles are fought. But then, in the middle of that adventure, we get a message to come over to some place for some ritual, and then we get teleported over in the middle of the city. And I have no Foce with me - I’m sure it’ll turn up - so we’re stuck here. Though I have my Quantum whisk! And my spyglass!. So, any idea what’s going on?” asked Aesc hopefully. Aria and Dory stared, and simultaneously said “What?” “Yeah, we ask that a lot too. It’s part of the Aesc experience,” said Blanche. “Seriously, what are you talking about?” asked Dory. Aesc rolled her eyes, and pointed up at the stars, which spelled out: Lady Aesculapius “There, happy now?” said Aesc. “What are you pointing to?” asked Dory. All Dory could see was stars. Aria looked like she was almost reading something at first, but then she snapped out of it, and said “I don’t know how to help you, sorry. Dory and I need to get back home and regroup.” “There’s a McDonalds down the road somewhere,” said Dory. “It’s on the way. You could come with us.” Dory could see Aria frown but before she could object, Aesc quickly exclaimed “Awesome! And you can tell us all about this place while we’re with you.” So Dory drove the group . Aria was fast asleep on the passenger's side, while the three newcomers were in the back seat, looking around. Jason was frowning, as if he was confused by the city. Blanche stared outside, as if she had never seen a street before. She eyed the advertisement for the steam train ride with particular confusion, and possibly fear. Dory wanted to ask her what was wrong, but wasn’t sure if that would be rude. Instead, Dory used their tech implant to quickly send a text to one of the Numbered, Eleanor, letting her know they’d be home soon. “That,” Blanche finally said, pointing to the Millie Adams’ straw house, “is a straw house.” “Yeah?” replied Dory. That house had been there for centuries--what was so odd about that? “In between 2 apartment buildings,” Jason added. “One of which has hologram window panes. Looks a bit...wait, which planet is this?” “Earth 2,” said Dory. “Earth 2, huh?” Aesc suddenly piped up. “What happened to Earth 1? I hope it wasn’t global warming.” “There’s never been an Earth 1,” said Dory, trying to keep irritation from their tone. Why were they asking such dumb questions? “Okay. And you don’t find anything weird about that?” asked Jason. “Don’t be so judgmental, Jason!” scoffed Aesc. “I’ve been on an Earth 3, and Earth 69 (fun place there, not for the reasons you think), and an Earth 616. Last one nearly had me joining the Av--” “There’s someone waving at your car from the bushes,” interrupted Blanche. Stopping the car, Dory could see a familiar face hiding between the bushes of a car in the distance. It was Trevor, the numbered that they had been looking for. “Trevor, get in the car” Dory called out. Either Trevor couldn’t hear, or didn’t want to move, so they quickly looked back at the three new passengers and said “Stay in the car.” Dory ran over to where Trevor was hiding, and said “Where have you been?” “Trying not to get caught by the Shade. Is Ariadne around?” Trevor’s eyes were bloodshot, and his voice sounded fatigued. “Just in the car,” said Dory, looking back, and saw Aesc, Blanche, and Jason right behind her. “Sorry, Aesc never stays put,” said Blanche sheepishly. Before Dory could reply, Trevor grabbed their arm, and tried to press it to his. “Stop!” said Dory. “Aria said we had to ask each other before we drain off numbers.” “I don’t have time for that shit. I’m at 0! The big scary shadow freak nearly got me.” said Trevor. “How high is your number?” “Big scary freak? Sounds interesting. Tell us more,” said Aesc, her eyes growing wide with anticipation. Dory ignored the weird lady, and checked her wrist number. It was at four. They would need to get some sleep, or eat, soon. The number shouldn’t have gone down so fast. “Why did you let your number get so low?” “I was busy with Mary. I got too distracted,” said Trevor. He looked down, like he was guilty of something, but Dory decided not to push it. Checking down at her wrist, she figured that she could spare one number for him. “Hold out your wrist. I’ll give you one, just one, of mine. You’ll have to get the rest from someone else.” “Yeah, sure,” said Trevor, grabbing their wrist and holding it to his. They closed their eyes, and could feel the energy flowing into him, as their body felt just a little bit more worn down from the exchange. “Will someone explain to me what the hell is going on?” asked Jason slowly. “What’s up with these numbers? Why are you two holding wrists together? Is this like a...do y’all need a room, or...” Dory felt her number go down a bit, and said “Trevor, let go.” He ignored her, and continued draining her. She opened her eyes, and tried to push their wrist away, but he grabbed it closer. “I can’t let that thing kill me,” he said. Dory felt themselves getting even weaker, their eyesight starting to grow dim, as their knees buckled. Blanche suddenly pushed him off them, saying “When a lady--person says let go, you let go. Asshole.” “Thanks,” said Dory, as they quickly checked that their number was back to four. “And lady’s fine, though I prefer ‘they/them’. Just don’t call me ‘he’.” “Cool. I still don’t know what the fuck is going on, though,” said Jason. A dark, dank smell crossed Dory’s nose. Their heart leapt in their chest, as they realized what the smell was. Trevor’s face had gone pale, as he too knew what that smell meant. Dory looked around the street, trying to see where the smell was coming from. The streets were blank, with only faint outlines of houses in the distance. But the smell was getting worse. “Where’s Aria?” repeated Trevor. He scrambled up suddenly. “Give me some of your number. Please.” “Shut up, Trevor,” said Dory. The miasma was almost choking her, the way it invaded her nostrils and stirred up dark fears. And Trevor wouldn’t stop pleading and whining, like a baby. Dory was disgusted by him, disgusted by his weakness, and the way he was willing to risk the lives of friends just to survive. Why did Aria even let him live? If they left him here...no one would know-- Dory shook their head. That was the miasma messing with their head. “Trevor, let’s get back to the car, now. Aria’ll know what to do,” they said, as turning around to go back. “You three come with.” “No problem. By the way, there’s mud at your feet,” said Jason. Something crawled over her pants leg. Looking down, they saw that their feet were covered with mud, and as they walked, the mud followed them. Then, something was pushing out of the mud. “It’s the Shade! It’s f--” started Trevor, before two bone-white hand pushed out of the mud and reached out for Dory’s legs. Dory kicked their way out of the mud, and started to run, as a large, tall shadow loomed behind her. “What the fuck is that?” asked Jason, looking at the creature behind her shoulder. Blanche looked faintly disturbed. Aesc’s face lit up in excitement. “Little bunny,” said the Shade, in the voice of Dory’s mother. “Always questioning, always scared. Run, bunny, run.” “Oh, fuck no. Fuck this. No, no, you’re gone...the Wolf is gone. Why do you have its voice?,” said Jason, starting to walk backwards. He fell, and kept crawling backward. “The Wolf...you fucking can’t be. Get away. Don’t...” Dory started running too, but then remembered. She looked back, to see the Shade lumbering toward Trevor, who was backed into a corner. She turned to Jason, and said “Find Aria.” “No...no...we need to go. Or the Wolf is gonna eat us. Because we’ve been bad. We need to go...” whimpered Jason, rocking back and forth in place. “Snap out of it!” said Blanche, who immediately launched into a fighting stance and landed a kick on the Shade’s side. The hulking creature barely registered the blow, backhanding Blanche effortlessly. “The Shade’s just tapping into your fears. Find Aria, or Trevor will die!” shouted Dory to the rest of the team. At the word “die”, Aesc suddenly switched into action, running back to the car. Jason was left catatonic, on the floor. And Blanche slowly was pushing herself off the ground A quick movement behind Dory’s view made them look backward, to see the Shade’s blank, muck-covered visage staring at her. A sharp blow to the ribs made them fly into a house’s stone walls, and they landed on the floor, the breath taken out of them. Dory coughed, as the Shade watched them on the floor, watching Dory try to get up. “Let me go. I’ll take her numbers, and you go get her instead. You just follow the number order, right,” said Trevor. “Trevor, always such a screw-up. Had everything paid for by your parents,” said the Shade, as it slowly smiled at him. “Even your new girlfriend met you because of your parents. Do you really think you can pay off fate?” “Stop talking in my ex-girlfriend’s voice. Stop messing with my head,” said Trevor. “If you can get to Dory before I get to you, I’ll let you go. I’ll even give you a 3 second heads-up,” said the Shade. “It’s lying, Trevor,” said Dory. “Don’t.” Trevor looked from the Shade to Dory. He gave an apologetic look, and ran straight for them. The Shade walked away from Dory, walking slowly, while humming. Just when Trevor was about to reach them, the Shade turned around and rushed straight to Trevor in the blink of an eye. Its chest opened up to reveal a dark hole within, that seemed endless, and yet something else was in there. It grabbed Trevor, and brought him closer. “Time’s up, Trevor,” said the Shade. Then it swallowed him up whole, and its chest closed back up, the clothes resewing itself back together. The Shade grew a few inches taller, and its chest got broader, its muscles more defined. Focusing on Dory, it said “You should have tried harder to save him.” “You can’t get me. My number isn’t 0,” said Dory. A golden 1 shone on their wrist. The Shade pinned them down with one boot. “So we wait. You’re good at that, waiting.” “I’m not listening to you,” said Dory. “You never listen,” said the Shade sharply, in the exact tone her mother used. “You just wait. You let other people decide your career, you let Aria protect you, you let someone else become your friend. When are you gonna actually make a choice? Maybe if you weren’t waiting, maybe you’d actually have a boyfr--” “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!” said Dory. Their number was getting dimmer. The Shade’s chest started to ripple, as it grabbed Dory up by the neck, and brought its face close to them. They could smell its breath, and it tasted terribly sweet, like too much perfume. Suddenly, a loud metal banging echoed from its head, as a metal can bounced off the Shade’s head. “Get off them, Captain Whiskers!” screamed Jason’s voice in the distance. The Shade turned around, and behind it, was Jason, Lady Aesc, and Blanche, with Eleanor, a fellow Numbered beside them. And Ariadne was in front of all of them, her crystal sword gleaming colorfully in the moonlight, charging straight at the Shade. The Shade dropped Dory, and dodged the blow, skipping backwards. Aria viciously followed the Shade, slashing at the Shade’s right arm, and hitting flesh. The Shade screamed and punched forward with its left, causing Aria to move out of the way. The Shade caught Aria while she was moving, tripping her feet, and then slammed Aria to the ground, and threw her to the side of a nearby car. “Aria!” said Dory, but Eleanor, who had ran up to their side, shushed them. Eleanor quickly grabbed Dory’s wrist, and they saw their number increase back to three. Dory wordlessly nodded her thanks. “Trevor?” whispered Eleanor. Dory only looked away. “Do you enjoy these fights, Aria?” asked the Shade. “Is this why you protect them? So we can--” Aria leapt up and spun forward, slicing at the Shade’ chest. In response, the Shade ripped the tire off a car parked in the street, using it first as a shield, then as a battering ram, slamming at her sword until the tire was punctured, and the sword was hitting the rim’s metal. The two combatants stayed locked in a stalemate, crystal against metal, taunting each other as they tried to gain the advantage. “Are you alright?” Aesc asked Dory. She’d somehow gotten right next to them without being noticed by either them or Eleanor, and looked surprisingly relaxed as the two fighters clashed. “I’m sorry about Trevor.” “So am I,” said Dory. “You know, the mark on its back. I’ve seen it before. Can’t remember where,” said Aesc. Thinking, she walked over to the Shade, who had hit Aria in the face and was about to slam her into the ground. “Hey!” said Lady Aesc to the Shade. The Shade turned around, and raised its eyebrows. “Yes, you. Hello, I’m Lady Aescapulios, Arbiter of Biological Healing, winner of seven pie-eating competitions--” “I know you who are, Firmament. I am the forgotten dark whisper in the heart, the dying of the--” “No, no, no. If you cut off my big title listing, you don’t get to finish yours,” said Aesc petulantly. She looked the creature up and down. “So, you just hunt after teen kids, huh? Not to kinkshame, but that’s a weird hobby, Betty. Can I call you Betty? You look like a Betty, and everyone calls you the Shade, but I figure you’d want a better name.” The Shade stared at her, motionlessly. “You hide your fear behind jokes. I can smell your fear. So could your instructor. “ Aesc scoffed. “Low blow, Betty, low blow. 2 things to know: The jokes aren’t a defense mechanism. I am literally Like This, all the time. Also, why do you have that symbol on your back? Is it just a fashion statement, Betty, or...cause on my planet, that symbol stands for ‘Dark Consequences.’” The Shade, for the first time Dory had ever seen, looked surprised. Then, it cocked its head, and said “My master wants you to know, Aesc, that you’re going to die--” Aria slammed her sword into its gut, and the Shade screamed, while burning up into sparks. “Did you kill it?” “No, it always comes back,” said Aria. Seeing Aesc’s angry expression, she replied “What? It was gonna say more crap to mess with your mind.” “Obviously,” said Aesc. “That’s what ‘evil villains’ do. But, it was about to monologue, and monologuing villains give away secrets. For example, who is its ‘master’?” “No idea. It’s never mentioned a master before,” said Eleanor. “Hmm,” said Aesc. “You’ve never seen a burnt-up crispy man running around, right? Or a man with a goatee, or a woman wearing a bizarro Mary Poppins outfit--” Dory and Aria caught each other’s eyes in confusion. Aria shrugged at Dory, with a small grin on her face. “...Or a small Asian child, or that one wizard-looking one in charge of war, or the other crispy guy who might be the first crispy guy--” “Dear, I think they haven’t,” said Blanche. “And I think you’re losing them.” “Okay,” said Aesc. She sighed. “Time to search for clues.” “Yeah, about that,” said Jason. “We still didn’t finish searching for the bathroom.” Dory said “Maybe you guys can go to the safehouse bathroom.” They looked at Aria who, after a moment, nodded. “Yeah, you three saved Dory’s life. You can come along,” said Aria. “Splendid!” said Aesc. She giggled, and said “This feels like the start of an interesting trip. I can always tell!” “I don’t think it can get any more interesting than it already has,” grumbled Jason. * * * “Good to see you chaps!” said a pimply teen boy wearing what looked like some mixture of a Robin-Hood outfit and a knight servant’s clothing. “I had feared that the horrific scary demon monstrosity had taken you all away! Would have filled me with the greatest woe!” “Oh hell,” said Jason. Now, considering that he had just had to relive one of his worst memories, a man wearing old-timey clothing and speaking like some sort of...Shakespearian character should barely be a blip on the “Weird Day” scale. But, from his point-of-view, this was just the final stupid pebble in a day of crazy pebbles, that had started with “hey, we’re gonna hang out with old ladies that sing heavy metal”, and just kept getting weirder all day. So, at some point, his mind had to just accept the crazy. Either that, or go crazy, which was feeling more plausible by the moment. “Ariadne, weaver of the sword, who are these newcomers? Others touched by the Number Curse?” said the man. “No, Percy,” said Ariadne. “These are guests-- “Lord Percy, please,” he added. “...Lord Percy, they helped save Dory from the Shade.” “Yeah, those people saved my ass. Trevor’s...yeah,” said Dory. Percy shook his head, stroking his beard. “Trevor was never the best lad, but he did not deserve the reaper’s kiss. I will dedicate my next quest to him.” “Quest?” asked Blanche. He could tell she was as surprised by Percy as he was. “He means going to get groceries,” said Aria huffily. She was looking around the living room, and then stared at Percy. “Lord Percy, did you use my cellphone to watch Camelot movies? Again?” Percy gulped audibly. “My dear lady--” “Don’t ‘my dear lady’ me. Don’t use my phone, Percy,” said Aria, glaring at the man. “Three months ago, you didn’t even know what a phone was! Now you keep using up the charge on mine!” Percy nodded guiltily, and walked outside, saying “I’ll go tend to my horse, then.” “Does he actually own a horse?” asked Blanche. Jason didn’t wait for the answer, instead running to the bathroom, half-wondering if he would find a chamber-pot in there. The walls were rather dirty, with stains here and there, though he noticed the floors were extra-clean. He was reminded of the barracks in his time at Centro When he came out of the bathroom (no chamberpot, thank god), he heard someone walking up to him, and turned around to see Dory. In the daylight, he could see their face had a small scar running down the side. “Jason, right? Thanks for getting help. You saved my life.” “No prob. Hey...How did you all get cursed?” he asked. “Well, Aria and me and like, five other friends all went to this haunted house on Arduvia drive. Well, when I say “haunted”, it was just rumors of ghosts and stuff, and it was Halloween, so...Aria wanted me to get out more, so we all went to the house. It was just quiet, with old busted walls. I remember thinking it was weird there was no dust or cobwebs, though. Anyway, the team went inside, and we told each other scary stories...I remember Felicia. She was really good at spooking us, playing it up with screams...” Dory trailed off. She closed her eyes suddenly, and tears started to come out. Aesc immediately grabbed Dory into a strong group hug, with Jason squirming a bit between Aesc and Dory. “I...yeah. Gimme a sec,” said Dory. She breathed in and out, and continued “Eventually, we found the basement door. I can’t remember much of what happened then. None of us can, not well. All we remember is a bright white light, and the sound of Aria reading some Latin words out of a book. When we woke up, there were numbers on each of our wrists. And a piece of paper saying “As you all fall into moral decay, the numbers on your wrist shall run to 0. As you breathe, live, and eat, the numbers shall run to 0. And when the number counts down to 0, then your judgment will be at hand. Share your numbers, to delay your fate. Only the Firmament sword can save you. But nothing can save you forever. Thus is the pronouncement of Father Zika.” “Firmament?” said Jason. He looked at Aesc, who had her arms crossed, and her eyes looking very serious. “Yeah,” said Dory. “Mean something to you?” “Oh, that word means a lot of things. Most of them not-so-good.” “Yeah, we thought it was just dumb stuff. Until Henri’s number went to 0, and the Shade appeared,” said Dory. “That was the first time I wielded Elfyr,” said Aria. She was wearing a blue shirt and jeans now, her arms skinny and lithe. Jason saw, hanging out of her pocket, a medal of some sort. “When I saw the Shade, I just knew what to do. My sword appeared in my hand. I remember how shiny it looked, being both surprised, and not at all surprised. I just leapt into battling that thing. It didn’t look surprised to see me, either. Like it knew about my sword before I did.” “May I take a closer look at it?” asked Aesc. Aria nodded. Closing her eyes, she held out her hand. Blue light rushed out of palm, swirling around until it solidified into a sword. The sword’s hilt was pink-colored, while the blade looked like a crystal thorn. Aesc leaned over, her eyes focusing on a mark on the hilt. “Was that mark always there?” asked Aesc. Aria nodded. Jason got closer, and saw some weird loops and shapes. “So this is Firmament stuff?” asked Jason. “Why the hell are they menacing teens?” “What’s Firmament?” asked Aria. Aesc paced, as Aria vanished the sword in a flash of blinding white light. “I’m an alien,” said Lady Aesc. “Well, technically, I’m an aspect of the universe given form, but alien is simpler. That sword is tech from my planet. It’s got a Firmament symbol, it’s made out of crystal, and it’s got that twee medieval steampunk feel that my race likes. But, why is it here?” “...You two are aliens?” asked Dory. They were suddenly grinning from ear-to-ear. “I’ve always wanted to meet an alien. They never visit Earth 2. Um, do you know any alien cybernetic engineers?” “I know lots. None here, though. Why?” asked Aesc. “Well...” started Dory. She then disconnected her jaw, and showed it to Jason. Inside, he saw what looked like rusted electric components. From an audio device still in the center of the roof of her mouth, she said, “No one on Earth 2’s been able to fix my mouth. And it’s starting to hurt bad. Zaps me all the time.” Jason sputtered. “And who made them?” Dory’s eyes furrowed up. Jason realized that they were frowning. “Can’t remember.” “Wait. So you’re a cybernetic person, and Percy is from Ye Old Days?” asked Jason. “All in 2017?” “Yeah. Anyway, can you fix my jaw?” Jason felt like his own jaw was gonna detach. Aesc just scratched her head. But Aria was nodding. He realized that she saw how weird this place was, too. So why was she the only one? * * * Blanche felt like she was being watched. She’d felt like this soon after arriving at this weird town. At first, the assumption was that she had been going through basic nerves. But no, it was something else. Every now and then, she would see someone scurrying out the side of her eyes. So she was standing outside the small house that Aria’s group were living in, keeping an eye out. So far, all she’d seen were squirrels. Dangerous looking squirrels, but still just squirrels. Aria walked out of the house. Her hands were in her pockets, and her eyes were straight forward, a steady firm glance. Blanche could recognize the look of someone who was used to danger. Did people see that when they looked in Blanche’s eyes? Aria noticed Blanche, and waved. “Aesc tells me you’re from space.” “Yeeeep,” said Blanche. “From lots of different kinds of space. I’ve done a lot of travelling. I used to be a soldier.” “Had a brother who was in Afghanistan. I think. Funny thing, I can’t quite remember what he looked like,” said Aria. (Blanche didn’t know what ‘Afghanistan’ was, but nodded appreciatively.) She lowered her tone. “No one here remembers their history too well.” There was a long, cylindrical spire in the distance. The architecture reminded Blanche of a building she had seen years ago. But that mission was not in the 21st century. Everyone here was mismatched, slapped together. It added to Blanche’s nerves. Magic curses, ancient knights, with 21st century people, and 31st century building designs. “You see it too. This place feels wrong,” said Aria. “Yeah,” said Blanche. (From the corner of her vision, she noticed movement. She pretended not to see it.) “I’ve known it, ever since this curse started. Started noticing people that shouldn’t belong, places that don’t fit. The history books don’t make sense. Dory’s got advanced tech in her jaw, but no one else does. Percy talks like old-fashioned, but he’s the only one. Trevor didn’t even know what Facebook or Twitter was for the longest. And me...I had a medal for running in a marathon, and remember winning...but the medal’s from 2020. ” “May I see it?” asked Blanche. Aria nodded, and passed it on. The medal looked utterly normal. “You’re sure it’s not from the past?” (That movement was getting closer.) “The track team hasn’t let me run. Said I might have an unfair advantage. I’ve been trying to argue with them about it...” The movement was suddenly behind Blanche. Blanche looped around, and kicked down the mysterious assailant, who was...an old lady. “Ahhh!!! I wanted to offer you cookies pleasedon’thurtme!” screamed the old lady. She had short hair, and a yellow blouse. “Blanche, we have a new mission—why is your foot on an old lady’s neck?” asked Aesc. “Errr,” said Blanche. “I thought the old lady was attacking us.” “Only wanted to give cookies,” said the old lady. Blanche helped the woman up, who smiled sweetly. “My, my, you’re jumpy. I do hope you’re having an alright night.” “We are,” said Aesc. “Thank you for the cookies. Blanche, we need to get going—we’re going to Arduvia Drive. To see a house. Well, I am. You should work on Dory’s electronics.” “Arduvia Drive? That old haunted house?” asked the old lady. She adjusted her glasses. “I used to live rather close to there. It’s not as bad as people say. Name, Valerie, by the way.” “Actually, it really is,” said Percy. Right beside him was Eleanor, an albino woman dressed in a...flapper dress, Aesc would have called it? Percy eyed the old lady suspiciously. “How’d you find us?” “I saw your three new friends on the way to this place, and decided to bring some food.” “Good. Wonderful. Now, who’s gonna drive me to Arduvia?” asked Aesc. Blanche had to smile at Aesc’s enthusiasm—meeting a demon curse had barely scared her off at all. Aesc noticed her watching, and winked. “You can’t take away the car. We need it,” said Aria. “Especially not to that place.” “In order to fix this, I need clues. In order to find clues, I need to get to the house where it started. And I still don’t have my Foce, so I need a ride. And apparently this world has no Uber. So, can I use the car?” “No,” said Aria. “The Shade could come at any point. I’m not gonna have us be unprepared.” “And we just lost Trevor. And I’m sorry, dear, but we don’t know you,” said Eleanor. Aesc looked disappointed, for a moment. Then she brightened up, and said “I’ll walk, then. Jason, coming with?” “Actually,” said Valerie. “I could take you. I know the way. Wouldn’t mind seeing my old house, and you look nice. However, I only have enough space in my little car for one person.” Those nerves of Blanche’s were acting up again. The old lady looked sweet, reminding Blanche of some stereotypical grandma from a ‘50s sitcom. But she too was out of place. Her smile felt too sweet. “Thank you, Valerie. I’d love a ride. Blanche, help Dory’s jaw. If you need anything, ask Jason to help,” said Aesc. “I think I’ll go instead,” said Blanche suddenly. “Err, I mean, I guess,” said Aesc. She looked surprised. “Are you sure?” “Yeah. I’m better at investigation—I was trained for it after all,” said Blanche. “If anything goes wrong, I’ll call you.” Aesc looked unsure. It took a second for Blanche to realize that Aesc was actually worried for her. She tried to think of a good “placate a worried girlfriend” move, and settled for grabbing her and giving her a quick, but hard kiss. “I’ll be fine. Stay here and talk to Jason. I’m worried about him.” And with that, Blanche and Valerie drove off. Blanche looked around in the car. It was tiny, with cramped space, so Blanche practically had to bend over into a ball to fit in. The inside was covered with a mishmash of devices—random wooden fans that stuck out of the dashboard, a ceiling spring that Valerie kept moving up and down for some reason, and a radio operated by touch-screen. It looked like utter chaos to Blanche, but Valerie was comfortable. “You seem close with that Aesc lady,” said Valerie. She reached into her purse, and Blanche tensed. The old lady rolled her eyes, and took out a muffin. “Want a treat?” “No thank you. You said that you found our group suddenly? Rather convenient.” Valerie suddenly lurched the car to the right, and Blanche slammed into the side door. With her head ringing, she glared at the lady, who shrugged apologetically. “Well, you have to admit that you three seem odd. Dressed in those odd clothes. And Aesc...she looks really out of place. All flamboyance and crazy ways,” said Valerie. A smile played on her lips. “But I suppose it’s nice to have a change of pace here.” “Does it get boring here?” asked Blanche. “It’s a bit controlled. Very hum-drum,” said Valerie. “When you get to my age, it’s hard to be surprised.” “Everyday’s a surprise with Aesc,” said Blanche. Valerie eyed her for a while. Then, she said “I baked a whole set of cookies for you, and you won’t eat just one? I’m beginning to think you don’t trust me.” Her sad face dug into Blanche’s heartstrings, but all her instincts told her to be careful. Jason would have said she was being cynical, and she was, but...“I’m very full.” Blanche added an apologetic smile of her own. Valerie sighed loudly, and then nodded. Clicking one of the springs on the passenger side, she said, “Well then, dear, at least try to sit back. Here, let me adjust the seat.” Blanche sat back, trying to get comfortable. The seats felt surprisingly soft. “How much farther--” Pinpricks hit her neck. Blanche jumped up, but immediately, vertigo kicked in, and she fell back down, her muscles paralyzed. “Believe it or not, the drug I just injected you with was for Aesc. It’s made to counteract her healing properties. I spent hours getting the drug cocktail just right, so it’s a pity I’m wasting it on you. Are you a Firmament?” asked Valerie calmly. Vision was getting hazy, and a weird tinny sound rang. Blanche tried to speak, and only sputtering came out. “Based on your reaction, I’m guessing no. To be fair, I did try to give you the lower dose with the muffin,” said Valerie. She bit her lip, and then picked up the rotary phone in the car, and said “Send in Father Zika. It’s time to end this.” Blanche tried to get back up, but her limbs just wouldn’t move. Valerie shook her head, and said “There’s a chance you might die, actually. Which would be sad—you seem like a nice girl, though having an interspecies relationship with a Firmament...anyway, don’t die. I have so many questions for you.” All Blanche could do is swear in her own head, as she was driven to the house on Arduvia Drive. * * * “Come on, Jason,” said Lady Aesc to her sleeping human companion. She poked him with her finger. “Adventure time. Let’s go after my girlfriend.” Jason opened an eye. “She can take care of herself. She’s good at beating stuff up.” “She’s good in other ways too. Lots of other ways,” said Aesc, wiggling her eyebrows. Jason rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that! Well, yes, I did, but not completely. Seriously, I’m concerned.” “Let me sleeeep,” moaned Jason, covering his head with a pillow. Aesc stuck her tongue out at him, but walked back into the living room. Dory was sleeping on the couch in the far wall, their jaw now safely reattached. Their faces looked so peaceful, and Aesc wondered if they were dreaming. Aesc had tried to fix up Dory’s cybernetic components, but it wasn’t a lot she could do. Her Foce probably had better tools, but her Foce wasn’t here. Tough luck. Of course, the Firmament of Cyber-Healing could have fixed Dory in a jiffy...not that she’d seen that Firmament since the time she’d accidentally lost track of him. Last she heard that he’d ended up causing a “right-to-self-repair robot” riot on the planet Mars. Sometimes she thought maybe she should go and check on him, well, her now, but life was always too busy. Thinking of that Firmament made her think of home, and that made her think of that symbol on Aria’s sword. At first, she had assumed that this was just another of Professor Meistras’ plots, but now she wasn’t so sure. Mystical curses and evil boogeymen were definitely her ex-prof’s style, but usually more direct violence was used. This felt too convoluted, too complex. Too many moving pieces. Not that she minded. She loved puzzles, all sorts of puzzles, including magical murdery ones. Those were some of her favorites, actually. Except for the murder part. Especially when her girlfriend Blanche was out there. Ugh. Why wouldn’t Jason just get up? She closed her eyes. Her senses told her that his stress hormone levels were rather high, far more than normal. She needed to have a “what’s wrong, friend” chat soon—hopefully with Blanche there as a mediator, to help bridge any cultural gaps. Aesc was so deep in thought that she barely noticed that she had almost crashed straight into Ariadne. “Sorry. Was thinking.” “Yeah, no problem,” said Aria. “How’s Dory?” “Fine. I fixed up her jaw,” said Aesc. Aria nodded. “I worry about them. I worry about all of them.” “Figures. You’re the one with the sword,” said Aeac. “I once used a sword. Back when I was on a mission with my gf Nemesis—that’s her name, not that she was a nemesis girlfriend, though I have one of those too—I went on a mission to find the old sword of Athena in some Grecian graveyard. Ended up tangling with some girl called Frey, who announced herself as a war queen. We became best buds later, and I heard she joined a pacifist group—am I boring you?” “No,” said Aria, laughing. “I mean, you’re different than what I’m used to, but no. Go on...You told me that my sword was Firmament tech?” “Yes. Firmament. We’re...every concept in the conceptual verse has an embodiment, in this set of universes at least. Each Firmament is an embodiment of that aspect of the universe, stuffed in a body and prancing around in sentience. I’m the embodiment of Biological Healing,” said Lady Aesc. She grabbed a cup from the drawer, and poured herself some milk, as Aria looked on. “Every time you get hurt, and your body scars up and knits back together, a part of me feels it. I feel it, whenever it happens, to any person.” “Wow,” said Aria. “Wow indeed. I felt it ever since my first body, though usually it’s in the back of my mind--” “First body?” “Yeah, Firmament’s change bodies when we die. When I was a young Firmament, I started out as a young girl, later became a young redheaded man, was a man again a few bodies later, blah blah blah. Now I’m out of there, with utterly fabulous bodies that suit me. Like thus,” said Aesc, gesturing to her current body. “So,” started Aria, “you can just change gender, instantly...Can anyone become a Firmament?” “No. Not sure we’d let them do it if they could try.” “Mhhmm,” said Aria. She seemed disappointed somehow, though Aesc couldn’t guess why. Aria stared down, thinking deeply. Then she leaned over and said “I have dreams, sometimes. Where I see a crystal city.” “So do I. I had a dream where I met a chocolate werewolf--” “Yeah, but in my dreams, I’ve heard the words Firmament,” said Aria quietly. “In my dreams, I am a Firmament, except I look different, feel different. I have a different name, that I can’t quite remember, and I feel...so merciless, like I could tear the world apart. I can sense every wrong thing that anyone’s guilty about, and know how to punish them. To make them feel the consequences of what they’ve done.” Aesc suddenly wished that Jason or Blanche was here. “Do you hurt people in those dreams?” “Sometimes. But only when people deserve it. Funny thing is, I’ve seen you in those dreams. Or rather, your sister, Myrrhine,” said Ariadne. Her voice sounded different now, with almost a different accent. “She… serves food.” “Oh, she serves a wonderful pound cake.” “I’ve...eaten them before. In my dreams. Even before the curse happened, I saw the Shade in my nightmares. I saw the sword. It scared the hell out of me, especially since my parents didn’t understand why their little boy was screaming in the middle of the night about being a Firmament,” said Ariadne. “I’m sorry,” said Aesc. “That must have been terrible.” “Wasn’t all bad. When I realized how comfortable I felt as a woman in my dreams, it helped me…later on,” said Aria. “And having dreams where I was a badass immortal avenger sort of made the shittier days more bearable. But when I saw the book from my nightmares, I just felt, like a feeling of dread. But also kinda hopef--” “GUYS!” screamed Jason from the living room. “There’s a blue walking animal mascot in the house!” Jason was cringing on the back end of a wall, pointing at a waist-high blue ...mouse-squirrel looking creature, with a jagged tail. Its beady eyes were dark black, and its small mouth was shaped into a smile. It reminded Aesc of… Aesc yelped out “Holy fuck, are you a Pika--” “No, sinners!!!” screamed out the strange quokka-looking thing. “I am Father Zika! The bringer of your judgment.” “It speaks!” screamed out Jason. Dory lowered theirself to its eye level. “Looks kinda cute, too. Hello, Father Zika.” “I am not ‘cute’, scum,” said Father Zika in a very cute, chirpy voice. “I was once a poor priest, with so much to live for, until you heathens came to my land.” “Who’s a heathen?” asked Percy, who had just walked in, with Eleanor by his side. Both their eyes grew wide at the appearance of Father Zika. Looking at Aesc, he said “One of yours?” “NO!” screamed Father Zika. Aesc noticed sparks coming out of its cheeks. “I am not one of the accursed Firmament. Indeed, one of your kind brought me into this accursed body. From then on, I have been roaming the lands, forced to be a Zikacru.” “Damn,” said Aesc. “That’s cool, dude. Now, could you get to the point of why you’re here,” said Jason, who appeared to be relaxing a bit. “Idiots. I said already. For your doom,” said Zikacru. Aria shook her head. “What did we do to deserve doom?” “You are all part-witch. Especially the sword-wielder,” said Zika. “Hold on, witches? And how do you know she’s a sword-wielder?” asked Aesc. “Who’s the demon?” Zika chuckled. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” “Will you stop speaking in riddles, you furry squirrel?” asked Jason. “I. AM. Not. A SQUIRREL!” screamed Father Zikacru. Blue flashes of light sparked from his cheeks, and the lights started to flicker. “ZIKA! ZIKA!” “Oh my god, he’s doing an electric-type attack--” started Aesc in gleeful recognition, before several volts of electricity rammed into her system, and arced into the others. Ariadne and Eleanor were jerked into the ground, while Percy’s frizzy hair spiraled up. Dory screamed, and then stopped speaking. Aesc gritted her teeth, and focused her abilities on healing the microtears on the muscles of the other humans. And for the first time, she sensed that Ariadne wasn’t quite human. “What the fuck?” said Ariadne, but the only reply was Father Zika ramming into her stomach. Ariadne doubled back, wheezing. “Oh god, it’s super effective!” Lady Aesc gasped in horror. “Now, after centuries, I’m ready to have my vengeance!” cried Zika. Aesc leapt over to grab him, but she slipped as the little animal-man zoomed out of her grasp. “Can we talk about this? I really don’t want to hurt someone who has had to be a blue furball. So tell me—who turned you? You said it’s one of my race—which one?” asked Aesc. “Who cares. You’re all the same,” said Zikacru. She could tell that he was holding something back, though. “Xylia?” asked Ariadne. A mixture of confusion and anger was on her face. “Was the creature named Xylia?” Father Zikawas taken off-guard. Then he smiled, and said “You’ve seen her in your dreams, haven’t you?” “What do you know about my dreams?” asked Ariadne. “Tell me what you know.” Aesc felt someone turn her around, and saw Dory silently tugging at her wrist. Dory’s jaw was limp, and she realized the cybernetics had been affected by the electric attack. Aesc looked at Dory’s wrist, and it said 2. Ariadne looked at Dory, and said “Everyone, check your wrists--” “ZIKA ZIKA!” screamed Zikacru again. Aesc grabbed the metal whisk in her pocket, holding it in front of her like a lightning rod, forcing the shock to all go into her. For about a minute, she was completely blacked-out. It was refreshing. When she awakened, Ariadne had her sword to Zika’s throat. Dory was unconscious, and Jason was angrily holding an umbrella, waving it at Zika. “I swore to only use this blade on a Shade. Don’t make me a liar,” said Ariadne. “Mhhmmm,” said Zika. “Playing at the hero. But you’re just a scared little girl.” Ariadne suddenly looked up, and Percy’s eyes went wide. Aesc ran to Dory’s wrist, and saw 0. “It’s here!” said Percy. “I can smell it. It’s here.” Eleanor looked at her wrist, and was about to speak, when a dark shape from the floor leapt up and grabbed her, swallowing her inside itself. “I’ve been playing at making a sermon,” said Father Zika, as darkness crept from the outside, and slowly filled Aesc’s vision. A dark muck started to fall from a stain in the ceiling, marking the floor in a muddy heap. “But I’m really a distraction. Compliments of House Arduvia.” “Everyone, get out now!” said Lady Aesc. To Zika, she asked “Who is House Arduvia?” Zika smiled. And, from the muck, the Shade rose up. “Hello, Ariadne,” said the Shade, in Professor Meistras’ voice. * * * Blanche opened up her eyes, tied to a chair, and immediately surveyed the area. The large room had a crystal ceiling, with artificial yellow light coming in through the windows. Several glass cases were scattered in the room, each containing a different device, like a big golden funnel, a set of giant scissors, and a red amulet that whispered when Blanche looked at it. So Blanche didn’t look at it. She was wondering whether she could drag her chair to the shears, when a hologram Valerie appeared in front of her. “Hello, Blanche? That is your name, right? Am I pronouncing it wrong?” asked Valerie. “Not at all. Why do you have me tied up?” “I figured that you might be a bit jumpy after you woke. Question: do you have combat experience, dear?” “A bit,” said Blanche, scanning the walls for a camera. It scared her how easy she slipped into her interrogation training. “Do you want a live demonstration?” “Later. First off, what is your relationship with Aesc? It is romantic, correct?” “A lady never tells. Why do you care?” “Well...” started Valerie, and then shrugged. “I’ll tell you. You’ve been so polite. I care, because I want to kill Lady Aesc.” Blanche smiled. “You’re not the first person to try.” “Oh, yes, and I wouldn’t even be the first person to succeed. Firmament are slippery fellas. They don’t stay dead. We call them weeds around here—oh, when I say ‘we’, I mean House Arduvia. My company.” “Arduvia...that was the name of the street where those kids got cursed. Your company did that?” “Cursed?” laughed Valerie. “They think it’s a curse… ya know, when House Arduvia first came here, this was supposed to be a short-term project. Simply investigate the alien body poisoning the planet’s biosphere, and then leave with the data. But we ended up stationed here for decades. Lucky accident, though.” “There’s an alien poisoning the planet?” “Mmmhmm. See, when Firmament come back in new bodies, they leave their old bodies behind. This particular body took a long time to decompose, and its essence leached into the soil. Making everyone there a bit Firmament-y. So, naturally, we took advantage. We studied the effects. The timeline of the planet itself has gone wonky, causing people from all corners of time and space to end up here. It’s rather fascinating.” Blanche’s wrists were getting irritated from her struggles with the rope. “So, why do you want to kill Firmaments?” “Oh, you don’t want our origin story, dear. Suffice to say, millenia ago, an angry Firmament came in and wiped out a whole town. The survivors decided ‘Never again.’ And so my company was born. By the way, I see you’re having issues with the straps. ” The straps slipped themselves off. Blanche got up from the chair, and stretched. “Thank you. Okay, so you’re mad at the Firmament, whatever. But what’s up with--” Valerie sighed. “Unfortunately, this experiment is nearly reaching its end. Your Aesc is coming in to wreck my narrative, and that won’t do. And our weapon against the Firmament is nearly at hand.” Valerie disappeared. Suddenly, the glass cases disappeared, and a door opened up on the far side. A laser blast zipped past Blanche, singeing her white mane of hair. “Now, dear, about that combat experience...” said Valerie from speakers in the walls. “My employers specialize in making weaponry to arm humanity against the Firmament. We’ve been able to scrounge up various Firmament artifacts, but we so rarely test them. I was hoping to use Aesc, but I got you instead. Still, this’ll do.” Several robots with buzzing saws and axes marched in, glowering at Blanche with red eyes (why do the angry robot soldiers always have red eyes, Blanche wondered). Blanche grabbed an ax from one of the display cases, and immediately felt a sharp ear pain. “An ax from the Firmament of Hearing Loss. Pretty effective, though if used too long, bye-bye to listening to those, uhm, podcast thingies. See, each object is from a different Firmament, but they all have side-effects. Your job is to defend yourself using these objects. Be forewarned: pick wrongly, and you might die.” “What the hell?” asked Blanche. The pain was getting higher, and she threw the ax away and grabbed a spear instead. Her hands instantly felt like they were frozen. “This is barely science!” “Funding cuts means we have to make do with what we have.” As the robots surrounded her, Blanche said “I hope none of you are sentient.” “Of course they’re not sentient. What do you think I am, a monster?” said Valerie. “Speaking of-- wonder how the Shade is doing.” * * * When they first encountered the Shade, it had been a small, waist-high creature. T had thought it was a small monkey, but even then, Aria had sensed something was off. Its beady eyes had felt intensely wrong, yet familiar. And then, it attacked Felicia, swallowing her whole. The next time they saw it, it had grown taller, with stronger muscles, and sharper teeth. Each victim it took made it stronger. Aria got stronger too. Not as strong as the Shade, she felt healthier. She hadn’t noticed at first, and by the time she did, she’d decided to tell no one. Not even Dory. She was determined to use that strength to stop it, no matter what. As of now, she was doing a bad job of that. Dory was hiding behind her, as the Shade slowly marched forward, leaving decayed grass underfoot. It was huge now, taller than her, a lumbering hulk underneath reams of dirt. Her sword felt warm in her palm, ready to strike. In the distance, she could hear Aesc and Jason fighting with Father Zikacru, but her eyes were focused on the Shade. “Aria. You should just give up. It’s not worth all the effort to save Dory,” it whispered, in Aria’s own voice. “I know how much it tires you, defending these people.” “Dory,” muttered Aria. “Take the car keys, and get out of here.” The Shade charged at Aria, and slammed into her body. It felt like a brick wall had punched her. Aria swung her blade forward, slicing at the Shade’s chest. The Shade dodged, and swung again. If it wasn’t for the fact that her reflexes had also gotten quicker, she would have been laid out flat. Instead, she cut straight into its elbow, and the Shade winced, screeching at the floor. Aria took a look behind herself, and saw Dory hesitating. “Go!” “Yes, go,” said the Shade. “Go, Dory, and let other people handle the work.” Dory’s face looked scared, but they kept going. Aria felt her feet give way as the Shade dragged her to the floor suddenly, leaving her dazed for a moment. The Shade threw her into the distance and her back hit a tree. Then the creature moved to Dory. Suddenly, she saw Father Zikacru flying high in the sky, as Aesc marched forward with satisfaction. “That’s for being a ripoff of a children’s...oh, who cares,” sighed Aesc. She looked at Aria, and said “Oh, hello!” “The Shade’s after Dory! Stop being silly, and get them!” Aesc immediately ran after the two. Aria gave herself two seconds to breathe, and then started running herself. When she got to the car, she saw Aesc in between Dory and the Shade. She heard footsteps, and saw Jason and Percy coming up behind her. “Percy, give Dory some of your number now!” said Aria. “I only have 2 left,” said Percy. “I don’t care!” said Aria suddenly. Why did people make life so hard. If only people would just listen, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to protect them. And she couldn’t have Dory dying, not now. “Hey, Betty!” said Aesc. “ Listen, something I’ve been meaning to ask you: you know an Arbiter of Dark Consequences called Xylia? Cause she keeps coming up in this whole curse thing. “ The Shade ignored her, but Aesc kept blabbering. “Cause, see, I’ve met actual fantastic demonic creatures, and magical beasts. Straight up Harry Potter stuff, yo. I know when I’m meeting a creature of ultimate evil,” said Aesc. “So I know you’re not it, really. Oh, you’re big and bad, but you’re not magic. So, what are you?” Aria slowly turned to Percy, and said “Share your number with Dory.” Percy hesitated for a moment. Then he ran straight for Dory’s car, as they were about to drive away. “Your species’ reckoning,” replied the Shade, and it grabbed Percy mid-run, and threw him into Aesc’s direction. It threw itself into the car, breaking the back window. All Aria heard was the glass shattering, and Dory’s half-finished scream. Then the Shade emerged from the car, smiling, its stomach tentacles rippling as Dory’s form was being sucked in. Aria could barely speak. The Shade said something, but she didn’t hear it. It was like her body wasn’t even hers anymore, as she ran at the creature, slashing wildly. She felt someone drag her away, and looked back to see Jason. “Let me go!” screamed Aria. Aesc jammed her spyglass inside the Shade’s closing hole, causing it to flare back up. Pain shot up within Aria’s own stomach, and she doubled over to the floor. Aesc didn’t say a word. There was no smile on her face now. Her gaze was focused, as she pushed the spyglass further in, increasing the gaping hole’s size. “G-going to kill me, Aesc? Your professor would be proud,” said the Shade. Aesc coldly responded “Another thing, Betty. That hole in your chest? Seems really, really deep. But it’s not endless, is it?” “Aesc, what are you--?” “I’ve been thinking, it’s not even that deep a hole. So...” snarled Aesc, “where are you taking all these kids you’ve been terrorizing?” She looked back at Jason and Aria, and winked. Then she leapt forward. “YEET!” yelled Aesc, as she jumped into the giant hole in the monster’s chest, and disappeared as it closed back up. The Shade stared down at its chest, and shrugged. Looking at Percy, it winked. “Be seeing you around.” And then it disappeared. * * * Jason looked around. Percy slumped on the ground, though he couldn’t blame the guy. And Aria...Aria had an expression that Jason could only describe as utterly broken. She didn’t even seem to notice that Jason was staring at her. “You hesitated,” said Aria suddenly. She turned to Percy, and stared at him with dagger-eyes. “You hesitated when I asked you to save her.” “I did not have the time to save the poor girl,” said Percy. Aria slapped him, hard. “I saw you hesitate. I saw you let her die.” “Aria, calm down,” said Jason, who realized that was absolutely not the thing to say. “All this time I’ve spent saving you. All of you. Slaving away, day in and day out. All the times Dory shared their counter with you, even when it was a risk. And you actually hesitated.” “Listen, I’m sorry,” said Percy. “I was terrified and I--” “You think I care? You think I care about how scared you were, when Dory’s dead?” said Aria. Was her skin actually getting paler? “You didn’t deserve your life. You were always a privileged twit. But Dory--” “Aria,” interrupted Jason. He pointed at Father Zika, who was trying to crawl away. Upon being spotted, it ran, but got cut off by Jason. “Where’d the Shade take her?” asked Jason. Zika rolled his eyes. “Should I know, heathens?” A sharp crystal blade hit the furry mascot’s neck, and nearly drew blood. “If you don’t know, it’ll be your head,” said Aria. “Try Arduvia Drive,” said Zika. “That seems to where it all started.” “You’re taking us there,” commanded Aria. Her skin was definitely paler now, and her voice sounded different too. “And if you try to ZIKA-ZIKA, we’ll drop you off to live in a zoo,” said Jason trying to sound convincing. To be fair, threatening an evil mascot did feel kinda good. But Aria seemed to be enjoying it even more. A wide smile covered her face, almost too joyful. “Yes...that would be an appropriate consequence. Just desserts, even.” “...Yeah. Okay, let’s go in the car,” said Jason. “Come on, Perc-- “Percy, you stay here. So I’ll know where you are, if the Shade attacks.” “And if it gets me before you get to me?” “I won’t let that happen,” said Aria. “But it’d be what you deserve.” Was it just Jason, or did Aria’s voice sound like...Captain Whiskers now? * * * Blanche clapped two cymbals together, and the two remaining robots in front of her started to dance. She kept tap-dancing, as that was the only way to move while using these things. From her guess, these devices were from the Arbiter of Dance or whatever. Being forced to dance was a rather light side effect of using them, as opposed to the - Being chased by screaming water ghouls - slowly turning into a pile of hair - being forced to hear high-volume crappy pop songs every time she breathed and other wonderful side-effects she’d dealt with while battling through Valerie’s “tests.” With these last assailants dealt with, Blanche ran down the hall. She’d been getting deeper and deeper into the facilities, occasionally seeing some workers. Besides the death machines, the whole place looked like a normal office. There were a bunch of computers with monitors around, showing images of the town, and at least twenty other cities on Earth 2. These people were watching the whole planet. Bursting into yet another room, she came face-to-face with the Shade. But it wasn’t moving, its eyes were closed, and its arm hung limply at its side. Connected to it were wires, labeled “Charging cables”, and on the other side was a computer screen saying “Update 85% complete.” Blanche spotted some papers. They all seemed to be about toxic thought-patterns, creating psychic feedback loops, animating metal meshes realistically…. Blanche moved on, and saw several bodies under sheets on operating tables. Each body had a label over them, like “Felicia” or ”Eleanor”. Noticing one labeled “Trevor”, Blanche lifted the cover, and recognized the face. Trevor had small tubes sticking out of him, draining his blood. “You’re not supposed to be here,” said a voice behind her. A man with a white coat on, wheeling in another body, was staring at her. “Who is that?” “This one’s... labeled Dory,” said the scientist. “Are these kids dead?” said Blanche. “No, we need their biomatter for the big scary-scary over there,” he said, nodding toward the Shade. “That Aria girl’s biomatter was a big help in making it, but we’ve had to scrounge with this kids’ blood since then. They’re alive—wait, who are you again?” “Who knows?” said Blanche, laying a kick to his head. “You know, people like you make my promise to my girlfriend to not be cruel very difficult.” She moved the sheet, and was surprised when Aesc jumped out and gave her a kiss. “Blanche! Guess where the Shade teleported me to! I took a leap of faith, and ended up here!” said Aesc. “Dory, you can come out now!” Dory came from around the corner. Their face was slightly bruised, but looked fine besides. “Hey.” Aesc nodded. “Hey indeed. So, weird scientist man, why are you...like, everything you’ve done. Just...why?” “Humanity, robotkind, everything in the universe needs weapons against the Firmament,” said Valerie suddenly. Her hologram appeared again, standing in front of Aesc. Her usual smile was gone now, replaced with a grim expression. “And this, all this, is what House Arduvia is made for. To defend the people.” “Bullshit. The Firmament are literally the underpinnings of the universe. Why the hell do you want to kill us?” Valerie crossed her arms. “It’s funny. This is my first time meeting one of you, and you’re just as arrogant as the records show. Your kind constantly shows up in history, prancing about like jesters, while causing massive damage.” “Hold on. Aesc doesn’t cause damage. Not intentionally,” said Blanche. “Really? We have records of your dear girlfriend causing a wave to flood the city of Panos VII. She never even looked back, and she left them all destitute and homeless.” “Yeah, but the city was filled by people funded by anti-robot bigots, so I didn’t feel too bad,” said Aesc. “Or when you set a dragon to burn down the Queen of Death’s castle. Guards died!” “...I’m not sure I remember that.” “It happened.” “Yeah, but I don’t think they like died, maybe got crispy-browned, also they were trying to kill me—hold on, wasn’t that like, several adventures ago? You expect people to actually remember continuity? Our readers don’t have time for that!” “Listen—who cares! None of that justifies terrorizing us!” said Dory. Valerie sighed, and added “It’s not just the lives ruined, or the communities destroyed. Aesc’s kind come in, and change the narratives by just existing. They count on it. For example, Aesc here, in the back of her head, hopes that I’ll see the errors of my ways, or realize that bigotry against Firmament is bad,or some other happy, healing dosh of an ending. But that’s Not. Gonna. Happen.” “Wow, that’s rude. Happy endings are lit,” said Aesc. “So, you’re making weapons? The Shade over there seems pretty boring.” “The Shade isn’t the weapon, dear,” said Valerie. “OPERATION XYLIA, activate!” The Shade suddenly vanished into thin air. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jason and Aria walked into the house on Arduvia street. The walls looked old, but smelled like pine sol. The wooden floors creaked loudly as they walked in. Father Zika was in front, looking awfully smug. That was one thing that really worried Jason. The other thing was Aria. Her skin was deathly white, and her hair, usually bright yellow, looked black. “I’ve...failed,” moaned Aria. “No you haven’t. Percy’s still alive,” said Jason. “And you’ve done your best.” Aria leaned on the walls. “I need to rest...Dory, they...you know, the only reason that they got involved was because...I talked to them at first because I thought their brother was cute, and thought getting to know the sibling might help—I mean, later, I got to caring about them. Dory, they are so sweet—were….” Father Zika just watched, smiling. Aria’s eyes were drooping closed. Jason tapped her on the shoulder, and her eyes opened, now blood-red. She coughed, and said “I brought Dory to this place. I should have just stayed home. The brother never even noticed...Felicia, Dory, they’re all dead. I knew this place was bad somehow, and I let Dory go ...I failed at being the hero...I deserve...” “Yes,” said the Shade. It was standing in the shadows of the hallway. “What do you deserve?” Father Zika giggled loudly. “Aria, what’s going on?” said Jason. “You don’t deserve anything bad. Don’t listen to them! The Shade suddenly moved to Aria, smothering her, and then covering her skin. Red light glowed from the union. “Oh fuck fuck---oh FUCK,” Jason repeated. “I...see now. I’ve been protecting everyone. Even people who didn’t deserve it...You deserve. You all deserve to be punished,” screeched Aria, black shadows covering her body, as dark tentacles emerged. Two crystal swords appeared in her arms. A man with a clipboard walked into the room. He looked from Jason to the mass of writhing shadows that was now Aria. “Hi, I’m Jeff, the HR manager of Arduvia. Uh, are you the new hires?” Aria glided to him, wrapping him with her tentacles. “Ahh, you’ve got sins a-plenty. Boop!” Jeff’s skin turned green and scaly, as he shrunk, until he was a snake. Father Zika clapped. “Behold, the first Firmament-human fusion! The first weapon against the demons!” The Shade-Aria grinned at Jason. “That was fun. Let’s do it to some more people!” * * * “You see!” said Valerie. She gestured at the monitor showing the outdoors, where Aria was flying over the town. Everywhere she pointed, houses would burn, or people would transform. “Aria is the product of years of the Firmament of Dark Consequence’s corpse infecting the populace, making them all part Xylia. She is the first hybrid, the first real attempt for the non-Firmament to defend themselves. With her, we will have our first weapon against your kind, Aesculapius!” “You did this to my friend, to all my friends, just so you could transform Aria into that!” yelled Dory. “You’re sick!” “That’s, uh...fair. To be honest, we didn’t expect Aria to befriend you all. In past versions of this project, the hybrid usually--by the way, the Numbers didn’t actually mean anything deep, it just let our programmers keep track of who next to send the Shade after—anyway, the hybrid usually ended up leaving the “Numbered” to be picked off by the Shade by at least the third ‘death’. We were surprised when Ariadne actually tried to protect you all. Usually, the hybrid dies either in the middle, or doesn’t reach the final stage. But Aria’s a special lady.” Suddenly, several more armed robots ran into the room. “That, dears, is my security force. Can’t have you all mucking in here.” Blanche got into a fighting stance with her cymbals. Aesc, however, looked at the ceiling. Cupping her ears, she nodded. “What are you doing?” asked Valerie. “My Foce was light-years away when I first came here. So, it’s been moving as fast as possible, any faster and it would have broken the universe. But, I’ve been patient,” said Aesc. “What do you mean… Wait, no--” started Valerie. A large crystal sphere rammed into the wall, crushing the robots in one swoop. Aesc did a little jig, and said “Okay, anyone have a phone?” Dory nodded, and Aesc took it from them, reaching into her pocket, and then slapped her forehead. “Oof! JJ’s still with Aria. I do hope that he’s ok. * * * Just keep following Aria, just keep following Aria. That’s all Jason focused on, as he kept track of the destruction that Aria was causing. She was now in front of a group of screaming girls. “Ahh, you called me a loser back in high school! Boop you!” said Aria to the girls, who all suddenly started saying “LOSERS! LOSERS!” simultaneously. One of the girls tried to run away, and Aria nonchalantly whispered “Boop” and that girl grew spotty fur and cat ears. “Aria, you need to stop this!” said Jason. “This isn’t you!” “I’m tired of not having fun. Of cleaning other people’s messes,” yelled Aria, flying back up into the air. “Now I’m having more fun than I ever had before!” “Yes, but you sound like a super-villain. A really corny one!” called out Jason. “Listen, I know what it feels like to think you’re a failure. I know what it feels like to just screw up utterly, or to get traumatized and to just run away. Like, I’ve been there. But you’re better than this, Aria. You don’t have to be some evil punisher of justice. Be what Dory would want you to be.” Aria frowned. For a moment, her tentacles relaxed and retracted, and Jason could see her blue eyes again, as the shadows diminished. Tears started to form on her eyes. Then a book walloped into Jason’s face, sending him to the floor. “Silence, sinner!” said Father Zika, as he slapped Jason again with the book. “Retribution is at hand! Do not stop the reckon--” A familiar white-haired face appeared behind Father Zika, and Zika suddenly felt himself being picked up, and lowered into a box. Blanche held the ceramic container, and said “I always preferred the digital orange dino anyway.” “Blanche! Hey!” said Jason. “Jason, hey,” said Blanche. “Hope you’re doing okay. I presume the flying, cackling person in the air is Aria?” “I tried to talk her down, but Blue McFurry got in my way.” Blanche grabbed Jason, and then ran down the street, turning the corner to reveal the Foce. Jason scrambled onto the sphere, and saw Dory and Trevor, as well as several other people he didn’t recognize. “Jason!” said Dory. “Where’s Aria?” “Up there!” said Blanche. “Foce, to Aria!” The sphere increased in size, and slowly floated up into the sky, where Aria was booping away. “Aria!” screamed out Dory. “What are you doing?” “Who dares interrupt—Dory?” Aria hung in mid-air, her face in complete shock. “Dory? You’re dead...I saw you die. And Trevor, and Felicia...” “No, we’re all alive. We were captured by the Shade, and used for an experiment to turn you into some sort of weapon against the Firman...” “Firmament. This whole thing was meant to turn you into a way to fight them off!” said Blanche. “You were being used the whole time. The Shade was just a way to change you into this!” Aria floated down to the ground, her hair now completely back to its yellow. Color returned to her cheeks, and the two swords in her hands returned to just one, with her tentacles wrapping into a black dress. “So...you’re all okay?” She took a deep breath, and then nodded her head, to herself, it seemed. Then she ran up to Dory, and hugged them tightly. It was the happiest Jason had seen her. As Aria talked to her friends, Jason leaned over to Blanche and whispered “Where’s Aesc?” * * * Aesc stepped in Valerie’s path. “You know, how much did you get paid to ruin Aria’s life? Was it worth it?” asked Aesc. “80,000 in American dollars a year, plus healthcare and measly bonuses,” replied Valerie, with a sad smile. “I didn’t do it for the money, but to defend humanity.” “I don’t actually think your motive is wrong. Like, I can check my privilege—the Firmament run around the 10,000 Dawns, and we do cause trouble. So, I get it. If I was human, I’d like someone to back up my corner. But you hurt those kids. That wasn’t fair.” “Dear, I’m 75. At my age, fairness is far down the list,” said Valerie. In a flash of light, a woman appeared right beside Aesc. Her face had harsh, angular features, with an aquiline nose, and an angry stare. Her coat was a dark maroon red, with white pants. She tut-tutted, and said “So this is the woman who has been using my corpse.” “You—you’re Xylia?” said Valerie, looking horrified. “Yep. Aesc here bribed me to come fix this mess in return for her sister Myrhh’s pies. I L-O-V-E those pies,” said Xylia. “And I’m sort of in the middle of sending angry wasps to attack an evil spider-humanoid, so I gotta be quick. So, how do you wanna be punished?” “I brought you here to fix the town back up, not punish anyo--” “Then, Aesc, you could have called up the Firmament of “Let’s Be Merciful” or whatever. I’m Dark Consequences, so I gotta stay on-brand. So, let’s see, Val, you’ve endangered children, traumatized people, littered in the streets, tried to kill Aesc...oohh, I know what to do!” “No killing or painful stuff,” warned Aesc. Xylia sighed. “Fine, but I want five separate pies of Myrrh. With extra sprinkles.” “Agreed.” “What if I want to repent my ways?” asked Valerie. “Too late,” said Xylia. “Boop!” Valerie flew into the sky, and then disappeared into a flash of light. Xylia chuckled. “Don’t worry. I just sent her to a planet filled with clowns. All very friendly clowns, and she’ll be well-taken care of...but she has a clown phobia.” “That was...okay, I guess that fits,” grumbled Aesc. “Now will you fix the town? You sort of caused this by being lazy and leaving your corpse around.” Xylia floated in the sky, pulled out a big crystal funnel-shaped horn, and then yelled out a giant “BOOP!” that reverberated through the town. All the people that Aria had transformed reverted back to normal. The cheetah-girl’s fur fell off, and the “LOSERS” girls stopped yelping. Houses started to rebuild themselves, and the fires evaporated. Aesc saw the Foce, and noticed Father Zika’s body burst from the ceramic box as he finally turned back to human form. “It is a holy miracle!” cried out Zika. “You finally freed me!” “Who are you again?” asked Xylia. “Aesc!” said Aria, who floated down to the ground. She landed softly on her toes. “You’re okay.” “Never better.” “The numbers are gone from everyone’s wrists. I think the curse is over,” said Dory. Xylia turned to Zika, who was whooping and hollering, and said “Boop!” Father Zika was now a small purple gargoyle. “That’s for cursing those kids,” said Xylia. While Zika angrily flew away, she said, “Alright, this was nice. Need to go.” “Wait!” said Aria. “I’m...I got my sword from you, right? All my powers, and this weird black tentacle dress...it’s from being part-you.” “Yeah. You probably all used to have normal lives, but my corpse made time go freaky, and you were born part-me. You probably all have a bit of my soul in you, whoops. You most of all, Aria. You’re almost my kid. Ugh, I feel old,” said Xylia. “So, what do I do now?” “Dunno. Use my powers for good. Or naughtiness, I don’t care. Though if you’re bad,” said Xylia, and she grinned widely, “There’ll be consequences. Dark consequences.” Xylia laughed heartily, and flew off. The whole group just stood there. No one spoke for a moment. “Okay, so that was weird,” said Dory. “Can we agree that was really, really weird?” * * * Dory bit into a scrumptious chocolate chip cookie, as Aria lounged on the couch to the right. Aria had declared to the whole of the ex-numbered that they were going on a vacation. It had been a busy set of days, with Dory catching the other ex-numbered up with what had happened. Aria had went back to investigate House Arduvia, but all traces of the company were gone. Aesc had promised Dory that she would keep an eye out for them, but she guessed that Arduvia would steer clear of Earth 2 for a while. Blanche and Jason had worked together to fix up Dory’s cybernetic jaw, and Aesc had upgraded it with “self-healing nanites”, so they wouldn’t need constant maintenance. Aria had spent most of the next few days resting and sleeping. All the stress of dealing with the Shade had finally taken its toll. Her black tentacles still occasionally flared up, apparently a permanent addition. “Aria, Listen, thanks for everything you did,” said Dory. “Thank Aesc and the gang. I nearly destroyed everything,” said Aria. “I mean, for protecting us and all. Seriously, I don’t know if I could have done it, all those months.” Aria cocked her head to the side, and smiled. “Yeah, you could have. Thank goodness it’s over.” “Do you still have the sword?” asked Dory. Aria closed her eyes, and the sword pulsed out. It looked longer, and shinier, than before. “I can still feel it burning inside me. Like it’s still waiting for a fight. Not sure for who, though.” Percy called out. “Ladies, something’s going on with Aesc outside!” Three men in armor were pointing golden-tipped blue spears at Aesc, Jason, and Blanche. “Jason Jackson!” said the blonde one in the center. “You betrayed me for the dragons! You tried to escape, but we placed a tracker on you all, and now we’ve found you!” “Seriously, dude, you travelled across the universe because I didn’t join your guild?” said Jason. “That’s either impressive or stalkery.” The blonde guy sputtered “I-it’s not stalkery! This is justice! A punishment you deserve!” Aria lifted her sword up. “I’m really tired of people talking about punishment.” Aesc shook her head. “Let us handle this. You’ve done enough. Just chill. These are the sort of problems my team deal with.” Blanche groaned. “And by handle, she means--” The three adventurers disappeared, and Aria’s group lived normal lives. Well, until the Hycorax Bandits came looking for Xylia’s remains…. But that’s Aria and Dory’s stories. That’s for another time. Next Time on Lady Aesculapius...
Episode 10: WE BELIEVE WHAT’S ON TV, by Rachel Johnson "You smell that, Jason? Smells like capitalism!" Station B9: the best entertainers in the business! Their shows are the best, they’ve got good, solid American values, and they almost never infringe on their workers’ rights! And they’ve got three new employees. Who don’t know what they’re doing here, avoiding all the camera crews, and the black-clad Goons. Three new employees about to get themselves in mortal peril. That’s just showbizz, baby. Lights. Camera. Action ... Lady Aesculapius Series 1 is part of 10,000 Dawns, and is a publication of Arcbeatle Press. Lady Aesculapius was created by James Wylder. All original elements to this story are the property of the author. All rights Reserved, Arcbeatle Press 2019. Our cover art is by Anne-Laure Tuduri. Any resemblance between persons living or dead, fictional characters, and real or fictional events is either co-incidental or has been done within the bounds of parody and/or satire. You can learn more about 10,000 Dawns at http://www.jameswylder.com/10000-dawns1.html If you need to catch up, you can find the previous episodes HERE. If you want to listen to these stories, you can find links to our podcast version HERE, though note that it runs a little bit behind the text versions!
“Miss Combine! Miss Combine! Come quick, Nellie is hurting Susan!” Pratima yelled, tripping over her own feet as she ran. Blanche caught the girl, and steadied her while moving towards the situation. Be Centro Scout Leader they’d said. It’ll be rewarding they said. What they didn’t tell her was that, after she’d disclosed she had military training, they’d given her the problem kids, all lumped together by the other adults on the moon so their children could avoid them. It wasn’t quite the relaxing experience she’d imagined. Nellie was slight and blonde, and her parents were damn poor. Even as she held poor Susan in a headlock, who was stockier with light brown hair, Nellie’s sleeves pulled up to show some new scars from home. Blanche didn’t change her facial expression, or her pace, but simply walked up and pulled Nellie off of Susan in one swift tug. “Let me go!” the girl yelled “You know the rules about bullying here. This is not okay, and it’s your third strike,” Blanche monotoned. Nellie thrashed around, and Blanche looked over at Susan, “Are you alright?” Susan nodded, “She should be kicked out, she tried to take my pendant. Go back home you garbage picker!” Blanche narrowed her eyes at Susan, “What did I just remind Nellie here about bullying?” The rest of the girls grew quiet, and Nellie got tired of thrashing and just panted, glaring at Blanche, “I’m going to have a word with Nellie. Start back to camp, we’ll be making smores and you’ll all enjoy them, or else. Then I’ll get you back home for the evening. And you’re all terrible liars so you can bet I’ll know if there was any funny business.” They started back, and Blanche set Nellie down, who just stared off, arms crossed. “This can’t continue like this.” “I’ll do whatever I want as long as they keep calling me that stuff!” “You tried to take Susan’s necklace. That was wrong. Them calling you that was also wrong. But you can’t hurt your fellow scouts.” “Yeah, so?” Blanche rubbed her nose, “Hit me.” Nellie stared, her bottom lip hanging a little. “Didn’t you hear me? I won’t even hit back. Come on, do it.” Nellie hesitated, and then gave a half hearted punch. “Harder.” It was harder. “Keep going.” She wailed away at Blanche, who stood there and took it, waiting patiently, till Nellie had her hands on her knees, panting. “There. Now you won’t admit it, but this isn’t about anyone here. This is about your home. Your mom and dad.” “My mommy and daddy are the best!” Blanche leaned down to eye level, “Then why are you angry?” Nellie wound her fist back quick, and tried to get a sucker punch in at Blanche’s face, but this time Blanche caught the blow. “Now, I’m not going to ask you to apologize to Susan, because we both know that forced apologies adults make you do are bullshit,” Nellie’s eyes widened at the curse word, “but what I do want you to do is to think about who you’re lashing out at. Cause I wasted a lot of time, and a lot of friendships, hurting the wrong people when I was angry. And I’m not even going to tell you to not be angry. You have the right to be mad as hell. But who are you taking it out on? Susan? Because she can’t do the full hikes with us yet without stopping for long breaks?” Now Nellie did look a little embarrassed. “Those girls at camp can be your friends, or you can keep hurting them. But they’re not the people you’re really angry at, and hurting them won’t make the things you feel go away.” “You don’t know what it’s--” Blanche rolled her long sleeve up, and showed the scars, the burns. Nellie was silent. “Scout rules say you should be kicked out now. But I don’t think either of us want that. Am I right?” Nellie nodded. “I’m giving you another shot Nellie. If you want to be here in the Centro Scouts, and go camping and get away from the bad things, you can. Do you want to have friends here?” Nellie nodded. “Then let’s make some smores.” The girls had all gathered around the firepit (full headcount!) and were eagerly holding their marshmallows on metal sticks. Blanche lit the fire, and got to her own seat where she had her guitar. She gave It a quick strum, “Alright girls, it’s that time of the evening. So, any requests?” “Baby shark!” Pratima yelled. “Your parents threw a fit because I used the real lyrics so we can’t actually sing that one--” In response, the girls broke out in unison: “Shark attack doo doo do doo doo doo! Shark attack doo doo do doo doo doo! Shark attack! Lost an arm doo doo do doo doo doo! Lost an arm doo doo do doo doo doo! Lost an arm!” “Yeaaahhh,” Blanche said, “anyways I did not tell you to sing that so...any other requests!” Nellie, with more hesitancy than you’d expect, raised a hand. Blanche pointed to her. “Princess Pat?” “Arigabamboo! That’s a good one. Now it’s a call and response so I’ll sing one part, and you sing the line back to me, and don’t forget the hand motions we all practiced, let’s go...” “The Princess Pat” - “The Princess Pat” “Lived in a tree” - “Lived in a tree” “She sailed across” - “She sailed across” “The seven seas” - “The seven seas” “She sailed across” - “She sailed across” “The channel, too” - “The channel, too” “And brought with her” - “And brought with her” “Arigabamboo” - “Arigabamboo” “Daisy, try doing the hand motions, you can just watch Pratima if you need to.” “Arigabamboo” - “Arigabamboo” “Now what is that?” - “Now what is that?” “It's something made” - “It's something made” “By the Princess Pat” - “By the Princess Pat” “Its red and gold” - “Its red and gold” “And purple too” - “And purple too” “That's why it's called” - “That's why it's called” “Arigabamboo” - “Arigabamboo” “Gillian put her smore down please--Sarah-Jane that’s a worm don’t eat that either.” “Now Captain Jack” - “Now Captain Jack” “Had a mighty fine crew” - “Had a mighty fine crew” “He sailed across” - “He sailed across” “The channel, too” - “The channel, too” “But his ship sank” - “But his ship sank” “And yours will too” - “And yours will too” “If you forget” - “If you forget” “Arigabamboo” - “Arigabamboo” A bright light burst from the sky, and descended down towards the campfire like a falling star, the girls scrambled away as the glowing orb rocketed down at them and then stopped a few feet above the fire. A woman dropped out of it, directly into the fire. She made an “eeeeP!!!!” sound, and leapt out of the fire, rolling along the ground to put it out, and then turning that roll into a somersault to her feet, calling the orb to her hand as it shrunk down, away from the fire, and then popped it right into her pocket. “Oh, Blanche you didn’t tell me you had ten children!” the woman said. “This is my Centro Scout Troop, Lady Aesc, and you’re interrupting our singalong.” “Oh, sorry.” She sat down crosslegged, eyes shining and ready to sing. Blanche coughed, and continued. “Arigabamboo” - “Arigabamboo” “Now what is that?” - “Now what is that?” “It's something made” - “It's something made” “By the Princess Pat” - “By the Princess Pat” “Its red and gold” - “Its red and gold” “And purple too” - “And purple too” “That's why it's called” - “That's why it's called” “Arigabamboo” - “Arigabamboo” Lady Aesc began clapping, then slowly trailed off as no one else did. “Who is she, Miss Blanche?” Susan asked. “She’s my girlfriend, we used to travel all sorts of places together before I moved here, sorry she just popped in like this. It’s almost time to get you to the pick up spot for your parents--” There were a lot of, “NOO!!”s. “But we have time for one more song.” “BABY SHARK!” they yelled. “...Alright, but only if you don’t tell your parents.” Lady Aesc and Blanche waved as the last car drove off. Not all the parents actually showed up to get their kids, many just sent autocars, so Blanche checked each car to make sure they were really going back to the right home, and spotted two girls from the corner of her eyes. Nellie was looking at her feet, and wiping away some tears, while saying something to Susan. The two girls hugged. Blanch clenched her fist in victory. “So, you’re a little early for date night,” Blanche said. “It’s a surprise vacation! We’re going to the beach, you, me, and Jason Jackson! You remember him right, from back when I died? Rest in Peace, me.” Blanche nodded, “I thought you didn’t like third wheels.” Aesc ran her arm under Blanche’s elbow, “Oh c’mon, it’ll be fun!” “Aesc, please,” Blanche sighed, “you’re the opposite of a master manipulator. What’s this really about?” Aesc pursed her lips hard, and looked at her feet for a moment like Nellie had done, “He uh...well...something happened to him, the last place we went to. I thought he’d be okay, I really did. But he’s not doing well, Blanche. I think it really affected him.” Blanche nodded, “Why do you think I can help? I came here because I’m not helpful.” Aesc’s brow’s furrowed, “Of course you can help. Blanche, you’re more qualified to help than me here. There’s something about you that I don’t have, and I need that.” Blanche felt her heart start to melt, “Yeah? What...what do I have?” Her breath caught in her throat. She could feel the color rush into her cheeks. “You’re a human!” Aesc said. “You understand all those humany things and stuff!” “Oh,” Blanche said, her heart solidifying, the color running from her face, and her voice uncatching from her throat. “Fine,” she sighed, “sure I’ll go to the beach I guess.” As Lady Aesc pumped her fist in triumph, the Foce flew out of her pocket in front of the pair of them, and as they fell into it words appeared, as they do: LADY AESCULAPIUS |
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Ideas.
That seems like a cliché. But think about it for a second. Humanity, or any species, has the potential to evolve to a hypothetically infinite level of technological progress – to make, in short, Clarke’s third law their bitch and start folding atoms in new, pretty shapes as if they were little origami ducklings. Every kind of physics-based limitation can be overcome eventually: maybe not all at the same time, but somewhere, at some point, in some timeline, someone will figure things out and just rewrite their personal corner of the cosmos. Ideas, on the other hand, well. Can’t get rid of those so easily. I mean, be like Orwell (but please, do not head to Spain to go shoot fascists, we don’t have all day and honestly communist chic is so passé) and imagine the perfect dictatorship. Sure, the concepts of freedom, individual rights, and whatever far-left buzzwords you can think of would be repressed, in that context, but they would not stop existing. Be it only because authoritarian regimes need an enemy, a totem they need to erect, in order to subsequently parade around it in gross displays of belligerent fervour: an enemy both all-powerful and contemptibly frail; an ideology that is rejected but also considered. Gaze with scorn or gaze with hate – you’re still looking. Look at the universe, and our good old solar system. Or rather, systems: all the possible versions of it. And then, crunch the numbers. Centro, arguably the most successful authoritarian regime in our history, collapses in almost 85% of them. Sometimes it takes a lot more time; or it can happen as early as the Mars wars, Han’s fleets plunging down, a hungry pack of spacefaring ravens pecking at Earth’s crust. Most of the time, it’s just the old tale of songbirds and bloodshed. But they go away in the end – because the very existence of an opposing force acts like a corrosive on absolute power: it tacitly disproves its most fundamental assertions. And even if regimes like that survive, they disappear eventually, as suns die out and planets fall into icy darkness.
I don’t like the idea of ideas escaping the realms of concrete, tangible power dynamics. I’m a businessman: I like commerce, I like the sweaty palm grab that seals the deal. And my plan – my dream – my life’s work! Has been to bring the art of the deal into the noösphere. We are heading for the kingdom of thought, and you bet your ass we will open counters there, and put fancy little tollgates on the roads and bridges and nerve endings of humanity’s brain mass.
So, kiddos. I am Dyson Wall, and this
- is my offer to y’all … The blaring message, with just a touch of emphatic trumpets, was bouncing up and down the walls of the white, unassuming room like a chihuahua on subpar crack cocaine. Which didn’t please Lady Aesculapius, and positively pissed off her hangover. A hangover she shouldn’t have had in the first place, given that she was a semi-conceptual alien being with a pretty immaculate record in terms of psychologically-induced biofunctions control, but which nevertheless tenaciously clung to her brow.
Alright. One thing after another. First: composing oneself, and attempting “quiet dignity”, with a side of “mischievous swashbuckling charm”. She rose her head slowly, and utterly failed at not grimacing, her internal organs seeming to sashay to a samba tempo at the effort. Alright, action item number one: very mitigated success. That’s corporate HR department for “failure”, she had learnt on the Planet of Accountants.
Time for part two: the slow and deliberate look around™. Screens on every wall, black and blank, an armada of coltan shields in tortoise formation. Formica table. Stool. No, two stools! And someone on the other one! A person. Now things were getting interesting.
Although, you would sort of notice the giant clipboard, and the big red tie, and the discrete little pin shaped like the head of an adorable cartoon rabbit before the person they were attached to. Young, male-presenting. In his two hundreds – or were those the twenties? Zeroes were stupid, such a rubbish invention. The kind of being Jason would categorise, with all the precision and certainty of an expert naturalist, as a “scrawny twink”: the blonde fringe and nose piercing subspecies, if one was looking into making nuanced taxonomic observations. He seemed intensely focused on her, because, well, that seemed to be his job, and, given the giant holographic, company-approved name-badge that spelled out ALEXANDER – HAPPINESS DEPARTMENT DEPUTY HEAD in red and blue letters, with the occasional flash of an emoji, he seemed the kind of person whose main purpose in life is to do a job. A function: however fabulous – fixed.
He smiled the reglementary three seconds smile at her inelegant awakening, and then immediately proceeded to set down his clipboard and state -
“Oh, good, you’re awake. So, let’s talk for a second about your new job …”
Immediately, the screens sparked to life, and, in giant letters, proclaimed twenty-seven times over:
LADY AESCULAPIUS in
REGISTERED CLAWMARKS™
by
Sam Maleski
good? Nothing more? Can I start? Thank you.”
He coughed, putting his thoughts back in order after the impromptu semi-canonical interruption. “As I was saying – I’m here to talk to you about your new job.”
“I like the old one just fine, thank you very much. Unemployed, but with gusto. That’s me.” That was all very distressing. Not so much the kidnapping part, you get used to those in this line of work, after the first couple of centuries at least. Although, they certainly must have been ingenious to snatch her away from her Factory in an instant like that: crude, but creative. No, it was rather the cheery corporatism of it all, those words that felt like a stale whiff of clean carpets and mint chewing-gum hitting her straight in the soul. It was like sinking slowly in a mire made of melted watercoolers.
“Well, I’m afraid you don’t get much say in this. See, the Dyson Corporation now owns you.” No evil glee, just a statement of fact.
Aesc did a double-take, and then squared it. “Oh no. Please tell me you’re not one of these slavers people? I mean, that’s morally disgusting, but above all, it’s just so terribly dull. Paperwork and whips and weak-willed men all around.”
Her welcome committee looked deeply offended. “Of course not! We don’t trade in bodies, that’s illegal. We deal with ideas. Intellectual and ontological property. In short, we have acquired your brand, ma’am. And we are going to launch a merger process in order to turn you from Lady Aesculapius to Lady Aesculapius™.”
“Okay, that’s impressive. How do you do that?”
Alexander looked puzzled. “Do what?”
“That ™ sound. I can’t do it. Oh wait, I just did it. This is amazing, I think at least two philologists somewhere in the space-time continuum just came, did you re-arrange the basics of language around this place?”
He didn’t seem especially interested by the question, his voice trailing off, going through the motions of some pamphlets he had no doubt ingurgitated in preparation for eventual inquiries. “Oh, we did. We own about 45% of the entire galactic lexicon at this point. Brand names were a useful precedent – once you’ve copyrighted your unique Chunky Chocolate, it’s only one small, conceptual step before you own the words Chocolate™ and Chunky™. The ideas and meaning, yours to tweak, sell, and promote in an all new, four-dimensional market space. We’re looking to move onto articles and pronouns, soon. Very lucrative market, that. Imagine selling gender-neutral pronouns as an optional downloadable content pack, and sticking fines on those that circumvent these new rules. Billions to be made.”
The time-traveller’s headache had slowly receded, and now she felt the weight of the situation with awful clarity, details clear like shiny pixels on a flatscreen. “And how exactly did you get hold of … me? The idea of me?”
“Well, of course the Firmament is normally off-limits, but we made a quick arrangement, everything very formal. After all, this is nothing but a business venture, and they can’t really stop those, can they? No matter if we employ certain techniques traditionalists would deem … unorthodox, or risqué.”
“Yes, you’re sooo risqué. Nothing more provocative and cutting-edge than trading stock options with your co-workers at lunchbreak like if they were Pokémon made of paperclips.”
“We do actually own all Pokémon, by the way. They’re a few floors down, had to build a whole park. But to get back on track – we assured your superiors that they would be excluded, and made them sign some forms to this effect. They do love forms. And I’m sure they sent a copy to you, except … Well, you didn’t sign it, did you?”
Lady Aesculapius had seen galaxies burn and timelines curl onto themselves in improbable spasms, she’d seen the flights of dragons and the flesh-fortresses of the Kuiper Belt, but she had never witnessed, through all her countless lives, something as outrageous as a man implying she would be, for one second, interested in checking the mail sent by her (in-name-only) bosses. The “NO” she served in response had the general consistency and warmth of liquid azote.
“Well, you’ve got your answer then.”
“I didn’t agree to any of this!”
“You didn’t say no. That’s consent. Too late now, ain’t it? Plus, don’t worry, it’s not all bad. I’ve been integrated about ten years ago, and my life has been fantastic ever since!” A pause. A smile, three seconds of flashing white teeth, one, two, three, and then back to the patter, like a typewriter’s mechanism snapping back into place. “You probably wonder what that entails, concretely, don’t you?”
“Well, yes. A bit. A big bit.”
“It’s nothing too fancy really – the bonding process with our computers here at Dyson’s Dawn will essentially make your being, your thoughts, receptive to the fluctuations of the stock market and the input of our shareholders, creative teams and some select members of the paying public! It’s a fantastic opportunity for most folks, really. So many of them feel lost, abandoned, like they are worth less than nothing. But we prove them wrong! We can show them that they have value – everyone has value, and that value can be estimated and sold! We are a people’s business, through and through. Making each transaction a human story. More than that – an adventure!”
Aesc was now staring at him with the same half-appalled, half-endeared expression you usually save for unruly puppies that have eaten a bar of soap in one bite and for your Libertarian uncle after he’s had a few too many whiskey-colas.
She was hesitating between five different witty retorts and about twenty-nine very elaborate and colourful epithets for the man in front of her when the white room suddenly turned dark and red, the monitors flashing crimson warnings. A siren probably would have been blaring had the local authorities not thought some vintage, passionate Mozart would be more elegant. And that Mozart piece would probably have been pleasant to listen to, had the local authorities then realised it didn’t convey well enough the urgency an alarm is supposed to evoke in the listener, therefore deciding to set it to a throbbing dubstep beat that sounded like sweat and headaches. The overall effect was, to say the least, disconcerting.
“Oh.” Alexander stated, deadpan. “That’s the Murder Alarm. It means someone has been murdered.”
“How perspicacious.”
“God. Janice has taken her yearly one-week break. That means…I should get that, shouldn’t I…Unless…Aren’t you some kind of spacefaring mystery-solving lady-shaped alien?”
“That’s certainly a way to put it.”
“Well, then, just stick with me and help out! And we’ll sign the paperwork afterwards. Shame. I love signing paperwork. I made a “GOOD JOB!” sticker just for you, the glue is going to be dry …”
“Oh no…”
“I know! Well. Doesn’t matter. Follow me!”
He was halfway through the door when he realised she hadn’t moved a muscle. Slowly and deliberately, she batted her eyelashes and cooed - “Annnnnnnd if I don’t want to help out the people that want me to literally sell my soul to the stock market?”
“Well, I don’t like your tone, for starters – yes, we legally kidnapped you, but does that suddenly give you the right to be all rude about it?! And, well, as for the answer – did I mention we also have your companion here?”
* * *
And now,
THE WHIMSICAL ADVENTURES OF JOLLY JASON AND HIS FUZZY FRIENDS!™
Jason had never been a rabbit before!
It was strange, feeling human consciousness crammed into an unfamiliar shape, eyes shifting to see the world not as tangible objects, but a collection of pastel drawings animated at twenty-four images per second, bodies dissolving into lines, biological functions being replaced by the constant low bass of the invisible pen drawing his contours, giving him life! But also, kind of awesome! Because this is a no-sadness zone! All the fuzzy animals in the house were so happy seeing him pop into reality! Cheeky the Musical Hamster tap danced all the way up and down the shelf they had all elected as a den, while Gary the Gecko stuck his tongue out in approval!
Jason was very confused at first! It was a strange transition, waking up here after falling asleep in Aesc’ ship! He had a strange dream, where odd accountants were talking about his copyright being up for grabs, and part of a very attractive bundle! But that all seemed silly now! He could feel the pull of the house around him, all colours and cheer! It beckoned to him, ordered his body to merge with the ebb and flow of the unstable world around him, to merge with the influx of narrative commands overloading his brain, whispered voices of wizened shareholders and naïve children, shouting instructions at the top of their lungs, clawing at his brain, ordering him what to do, ordering him what to become!
something was wrong
how had his body changed that way anyway
he was pretty sure he wasn’t a rabbit before
oh god did he get drunk and lose himself in a gathering of the Furry Church
again
no
there was still pain echoing in his joints
where his legs had been twisted into paws, into springy springy little rabbit hands!
he could feel something else – his body connected. globalized. so much input. so many careful springs and triggers and switches ready to be pulled and activated every time money trickled down pipes unseen. a human kickstarter, each stretch goal stretching his body, his mind on a bionarrative rack, aching under the hammer blows of one consciousness, one brand. repeatedly bearing down his brain, two letters.
™. ™. ™. ™. ™. ™.
Jason Jackson™. the Jason Cinematic Universe. he could feel spin-offs growing inside him like cancer, supplementary organs, glands sweating a golden pus. his memories had been spread out and flattened, streamed to the world for a reasonable fee nine dollars ninety-nine the first month fourteen dollars twenty-five for every subsequent one he kept remembering things in the wrong order. or was it the right order now, the trickling of coins giving the finger to time, emotions, his very identity
he wanted to
GET AWAY
GET
Silly rabbit!
OUT
but he couldn’t, because every time his thoughts wandered to the heretical belief that there might be something out there, something that wasn’t Dyson’s Dawn, something that wasn’t Producing Content, he felt the jaws of the pastel house snap around his body, tasting blood, revelling in it, drawing on his marrow and lymph to make the button eyes of the animals more shiny, more eco-friendly, and by the way have you purchased the new Jolly Jason Rabbit Plushie only seven dollars thirty-five order one [HERE]
he struggled, but couldn’t help embracing the fun of it all! All the animals were cheering on their new friend! But suddenly, something came over the happiness of the festivities! The mice had spotted the dreaded Captain Whiskers, the evil cat!
“Oh no!” said Gary the Gecko!
“Oh yes!” said Captain Whiskers, who had jumped on top of the shelf! Thankfully, the wise gecko had planned for such an occasion, and out of nowhere pulled a hammer that he bore down on the feline’s o so boopable snout! His nose was so red now, ha ha ha!
That gave time for the other members of the animal congregation to scamper off, the little rapscallions! But Jason, still unused to his cute little rabbit paws, didn’t know where to go, and stumbled from the shelf, and down to the floor! A book that he had dislodged had landed on top of him, and so, he was comically flattened into a white fuzzy square with two rabbit ears sticking out! Ha ha ha!
he was pretty sure he had broken every bone in his body but then again his body didn’t really have bones anymore, just the idea of those. it hurt but did not hurt. his body bent and broken but already healing as the regenerative plot was flowing through his veins, like a strong medicinal alcohol, the kiss of the company, regenerative and healing narrative principles for all the family.
so many feelings emotions sensations
too much
The last thing he thought before he passed out was “dammit, why couldn’t I have ended up in one of those high school comedies instead”.
* * *
“So, let me get this straight.”
“Mmm-mm.”
“You have managed to create a whole bubble-dimension made of thought.”
“Yep. Well, not so much thought as media, I suppose. Bio-memetic tech. The Noth are ready to sell their secrets, for the right price. And Dyson Wall knew how to make a price very right indeed.”
“Yeah, yeah. And you’ve named it after your founder, and are now stirring this invasive dimension from one reality to another.”
“We prefer the term ‘friendly takeover’”.
“No, but like. It’s a giant bubble. Named after a guy called Dyson.”
“Oh no.”
“And you didn’t even think …”
“Don’t go there.”
“To call it a Dyson Sphere?!!!”
Alexander just let out a deep condescending sigh in response.
It was impressive, though, Lady Aesculapius couldn’t deny it. Evil, of course, but in that flamboyantly customer-friendly way. As the lift was taking them down from the administrative areas to the main bridge, she could behold the sheer scale of the main chamber, a round space of metal and LEDs, several kilometres in diameter, each wall holding, between programs being broadcast and the latest news report from the stock exchange, vast, contained fictional spaces, flickering in and out of existence. A space of perpetual entertainment, removed from time, fashion, or even quality. Indefinitely prolonged copyright, suspended in the space between the seconds, erected into a monument to the glory of one billionaire’s monopoly.
And down below, on the vast silver promenade that bisected the sphere as in the middle of a desperate search for pi, among the little green shrubberies and the purple neon glow of the soda vending machines, completing the chromatic arrangement in a most distasteful manner, a body was lying in a gingeolin pool. Lying ™, might not be the right verb, though, and not just because it costs fifty cents per use these days. “Strewn about” would be more appropriate, or “scattered”, or any of those terms that imply a passage from the biological to the geographical, as human features get disseminated into an array of abstract pieces that merge with their surroundings, bits of grey and pink and red that you can only reconcile with the fearful symmetry of the homo sapiens sapiens through tough thorough detective work.
Aesc could discern more and more details as the golden disc of the elevator was sliding down a transparent tube. Not much in the way of actual body parts, though. As far as butcherings go, that was an impressively thorough one. His dismembered members had been dismembered a second time, the body ending up like a jigsaw for ants. Also, she could see that the Crime Scene™ was surrounded by a bunch of people in oversized animal costumes – not unlike those you could spot at these sporting events Jason asked to see once, but of course, in the fizzy drink-ridden atmosphere of a stadium, they had appeared far less threatening than they did here. It might have been the pink kalashnikovs, though, she noted. Probably necessary to keep the public at bay – there was quite a crowd, in patterned t-shirts and shorts, a lot of them with younger kids, wandering about the esplanade, waiting on small hovercars that were taking them to and fro to the different diegeses contained within the platinum-laced entrails of the sphere.
“You’ve got tourists?” she asked.
“Oh yes. It’s quite a popular destination,” Alexander stated. Some actual emotion, this time. Bit of a shiver in the voice. He was worried about this disturbance in the calm – to the mind of a trader, nothing more eldritch than an unexplained spike in the zigs and zags of the stock; their dreams are haunted by crash-shaped avatars of the weird, trading yellow rags for a piebald pattern of unregulated or deregulated zeroes and ones. The fear was making him a bit more likeable, the precision of his patter struck by shakes and stutters. “We … We’ve evolved organically from the streaming systems of the past. Biological capitalism, Mr. Wall called it – we need the law of the jungle ‘cause that is how Darwin works his magic. Why just have a place you can navigate using the galactic web? Make what you own into a location, and turn every informatics device, every computer, into a magic portal to this land of possibilities. Those people, and their children, they can visit all the licenses that have defined their imagination, and they don’t need to pay more than a very reasonable fee – no need to worry about accommodation, about transport… We’ve streamlined the whole thing: no boring practicality, just our brand, undiluted, for everyone to enjoy and share.”
“Well. You still have workers.” Aesc pointed at the rows of mascots down below. “Unless those are robots?”
“Oh no, no, no. Quite human.”
“They don’t look the part.”
“Well … Sometimes, we make a few adjustments. People come to us all the time wanting to upload their minds in here on a more permanent basis: sometimes it’s because jobs are rare, sometimes it’s because they are concerned about the death of their mortal bodies – yes, yes, we can make a copy of the brain patterns and keep it alive for a very long time, it’s a taste of eternity, if not the real thing. Or sometimes they just like our content and want to be part of it! We hold a raffle among the Dawn-goers, with little golden tickets and all, it’s so much fun. You should see how the last winner is thriving: in the real world, he was scrapping metal on the Rat Maze with his husband, and now he and his wife have saved the world ten times over in their own little bubble … Anyway, yes – not everyone comes in with the same level of prestige, of course. Paying customers get a better place, we can’t allow ourselves to become a charity, although we always try to be a humane, compassionate business. So the ones that beg to come in, well, there’s a use for them. Every business needs hands.”
“Fuzzy animatronic hands.”
“Oh, not at all, the suits are them. We replace their skin by synthetic plastic fur, grafted directly on the muscles, their eyes by little plastic bubbles with some enhanced camera implants … It’s all very neat, very efficient – those actually are permanent, not connected directly to the network, although we generally upload them when they’ve served their contract, couple of millennia is the standard. They’re very happy to be embodying the company, honestly: we’ve come a long way from the time people like us were trading in pins and t-shirts.”
Aesc glared at him. “Don’t you dare sully the name of lapel pins, you rube.”
He glared back. His glaring abilities were severely lacking in comparison to hers. It was like a disgruntled kitten trying to cast the evil eye on an oncoming stream train. “You’re not really showcasing a positive attitude, you know. The shareholders don’t like that. Be careful, that’s how you end up a woman in the refrigerator.”
“I’m only a woman from a very technical standpoint, my dear, and if you threaten me one more time, I’ll squash your timeline like an overripe orange. Anyway! Look! A corpse! Whose company is, I’m sure, going to be a lot more interesting than you oh-so-lovely piece of plain white toast vaguely shaped like a human being you!”
She had almost jumped out of the elevator, which, she realised, was actually not the smartest of moves, given that blood, mixed with an inordinate amount of cleaning products, had made the metallic floor incredibly slippery. She almost tumbled down, and, in the five seconds it took her to find her balance again, considered how bruising her backside would affect her real body, somewhere in the Factory, and established a few equations regarding psychosomatic translation in regard of those hypotheses. Then, was overwhelmed by the strange odour of detergent mixed with human entrails, a peculiar brew, mixing the characteristic coppery twinge of haemoglobin with the chemical soup spewed by cleaning droids, in a curious bit of chemical chaos. Finally, turned back and smiled a big happy smile at Alexander, who didn’t know if he ought to look smug, amused, or impassable, and therefore presented to the time traveller an awkward mixture of all three.
“So, cap’tain.” She beamed at him. “What are we doing? What can I, humbled registered trademark in your arsenal can do for the benefit of the all-powerful company?”
“Oh, that’s good.” He approached her slowly, careful not to sully his impeccable dark leather shoe on a rogue bit of earlobe that had lodged itself in a crevice between two metallic plates. “Do keep up that kind of comedy, it’s been focus-grouped, the company always looks better when it allows its employees and products to quip at its expense. Anyway …” He looked around. “I should, huh, investigate. That’s what I’m supposed to do. I mean, in theory. This is a bit new to me. We never have had a proper honest-to-Wall murder here. I mean, some diegetic ones, of course, and there’s the occasional employee termination, but those are just part of the process …”
“The joy of the monopoly of legitimate violence, eh? Literal monopoly, in that case.”
“… Uh, yes, probably, but, yes, this is quite, uh, quite, new.”
Oh good. Now he was properly nervous. She was not one to enjoy murder most foul, but it did have its perks, in how it was clearly unsettling the man, putting him on edge. People on the edge are lovely, they’re always grateful for whatever stick you hand them so they can yank – or “yeet”, Jason would say – themselves out of the chasm below.
“So you mean you haven’t figured out who did it …?”
Baffled stare, jaw dropping, quiff hanging in the artificial wind, oh yeah, that was the good stuff.
“Well … No.”
“Surprising. A man of such perspicacity …”
“Have … Have you?”
She winked. “My sweet boy, my sweet corporate boy, I knew exactly what happened as soon as I saw the body doing its best crushed strawberry impression from the vantage point of that elevator.”
“Did you?!”
She smiled, and turned triumphantly, putting her foot in a stray, squishy bit of gall bladder. Taking a step forwards, she proclaimed - “There’s only one thing that could have done this. Logical, really. And now, watch out, I’m going to do a manoeuvre that surely is in your playbook, the ‘Dramatic Whisper in Someone’s Ear™’.”
She dramatically whispered something in Alexander’s ear.
He turned a whiter shade of white, less untoasted brioche and more virginal snow.
“So. Take me to the thingie, now, would you?”
“I … I’m not sure I can do that.”
“Oh, you can.” She leaned forwards. “Because given the situation, there’s going to be a lot more murders around here, very soon. I’d say the next one should be in around...Five minutes? Maybe ten? Bit hard to determine, really, with how much you’ve screwed up time around here.”
Alexander nodded, and took an oddly-shaped key out of his pocket. “We’ll… We’ll have to go into the sub-basement…take the directorial elevator …”
“Lead on, you stud. By the way, can I get that animatronic bear’s bowtie? Love the pattern. Oh, and fetch me a soda. Love a soda. Diet one though. Always watch the sugar, it’s evil and conscious and wants your death. Oh, and there he goes, without even asking questions. What a good boy.”
She rubbed her hands together.
“Who controls the narrative now, you bunch of rapacious barbaric robber barons, mmm?” She paused. “Wait. Can I get a TO BE CONTINUED™ right here, for added grandiose? Oh wow, it does work. Guess this place does have its good sides …”
[You should now close this computer tab, or lay down your book, to fully enjoy the process of contributing to this collaborative diegesis: Dyson’s Dawn and Lady Aesc™ will love you for it!]
* * *
And now,
THE WHIMSICAL ADVENTURES OF JOLLY JASON AND HIS FUZZY FRIENDS!™
Jason’s™ day had not been easy.
He had been flattened, had swallowed a lightbulb, had fallen into boiling hot water, and had stepped into at least a couple mousetraps (one of which changed into a banana peel for a bit, and you don’t know what the uncanny is before you’ve had a banana biting at your hind legs with teeth made of vegetal fibre). And that was only the first hour.
Thankfully, the buzzing of his prefrontal cashflow had considerably diminished as soon as night had fallen, with all the animals stopping their crazy chases and settling down for some rest. Captain Whiskers had even gone up to him and offered a heartfelt apology, spoken in the deep gravelly voice of someone who liked cigarettes way too much, for munching on him a bit earlier. “It’s just the job, man, I don’t like it much either, but hey, gotta do what you gotta do to keep the viewers happy, huh?”
He had nodded, but in his heart of hearts, he just really wanted to travel back in time to bust the kneecaps of the four Warner Brothers with a titanium baseball bat. In alphabetical order: Albert, Harry, Jack and then Sam.
Anyway, things had quietened down, and he was not eating the marshmallows, roasted over a campfire by Cheeky the Musical Hamster, who had traded tap dancing for some old goth rock tunes. Not a bad singer at all, actually – Jason wondered if he could try and launch a hamster death metal band. Now that, that would be a gimmick.
They had started to open up, through the combined powers of song and sugar. Talking about what their lives once were, before they had been thrust upon the stage. The stories were often the same: ordinary lives, fatal in their banality. A repeated cycle of work, processed food, dreamless sleep; a dull tune played at an unchangeable tempo, becoming inevitable, becoming the only mode of reality they ever could experience. Dyson’s Dawn had been a refuge, then. It opened its gates, just a bit, and through the crack, you could see rose-coloured light showering down on you. It was glamour, love and adventure; the smell of candy and perfume; holographic adrenaline shooting down your veins, letting you make out, in the shadows of your living room, the sharp edge of an enchanted sword, or the outline of a pair of plump lips dying to kiss yours. Your daily dose of magic, for a very reasonable fee, each broadcast a book shaped like alcohol.
And well, when those people so graciously offer you a chance to re-enchant your life that does tend to make you positively predisposed towards them. Bluebell the Mouse’s kids wanted her to take them to the Dawn, and she did, and then they wanted it more, and she couldn’t say no, she couldn’t choose to skimp on joy, especially with the divorce, so again and again they wandered the promenades and watched superheroes chase bandits in neverending circles of right and wrong. Until one day she was offered a job that’d make paying for those things so, so much easier. Others had had even less of a choice. Jobless actors taking the one chance they could after their studios collapsed; people whose intellectual copyright had been sold by their family, or employer, in exchange for some compensation. Gotta send little Timmy to college, and the fees weren’t getting any more manageable. They all had been flushed down the production pipeline.
Keeping their sanity should have been hard. For some, it had been – Cheeky was the first to shipwreck into this plot, and he could remember days merging into weeks, the sun and moon nothing but pastel stains. No sleep, no rest, no peace: his existence was a job now, and every minute of life work. But, as more joined him, they had come to, if not strictly enjoy the lifestyle, at least tolerate it well enough. It was all in the tempo, really, flux and reflux – you were part of the narrative, it was written in your biology, ink mixed with your bloodcells, and thus did not have a choice. Choice had been the worst part of their previous lives: faced with an immense world, filled with perils and bankruptcy and condescending step-parents, you always had this nagging feeling that you ought to do more, give more time, do more work, help more people, help yourself more. But the Plot freed them from freedom. The three-act pattern was like a ballet they had to perform, their nerves made into strings held by unseen choreographs-cum-puppeteers. Paws tapping the floor in cadence, having shed the remnants of public domain humanity. Act one, two, three, and twiiiiiiiiiiiiiirl. Pay-off followed set-up. Twists followed foreshadowing. And when it was all wrapped-up, neatly, with a little rhinestone-encrusted bow on top, they could feel the symphony rise through their lungs and fur, the twin heartbeat of Dyson’s Dawn: ™! ™! ™! ™! ™! ™! ™!
“And so, you didn’t try to…get out? Escape?” Jason™ asked.
“Well, it’s not that we don’t want to.” That was Cheeky, taking an authoritative tone as he was launching himself into a convulsive bout of Backstory. “I mean. I’ve done worse jobs. Loved acting, loved singing, but not much of a future in those so I spent a lot of my time flipping burgers, and believe me, there’s nothing worse for your mental health than finding yourself serving food at a chain restaurant on your thirty-second birthday when you thought it’d just be a temporary arrangement, time for you to get back on track …” He sighed, and dramatically ruffled his pouch. “At least I can put my skills to use here, and there’s not really a boss to yell at me. But it’s…”
“Just…wrong.” That was Armelle the Sad Ladybug, who was sad, and also a ladybug.
“Yeah, that. I mean, I’m not talking about the body. Y’know, getting Whiskers there mauling on you a bit, eh, big deal, not so different than a good ten accumulated years of oil burns.”
Armelle shook her wings enthusiastically, the wind passing through Jason’s synthetic fur, sending cold shivers down his arched back as it sent cold waves down to the raw tangle of flesh and muscles beneath. His attention didn’t waver though, trying to find some normality in extraordinary circumstances, a way to make all of that make sense, fit into the principles Aesc had taught him, as she continued - “But we used to be able to…escape, y’know? I mean, I don’t believe in that godly stuff…”
“Don’t let Whiskers hear that, man loves his bible.” Bluebell scoffed sarcastically.
“…But there was a soul, y’know? To us. To our lives. Oh sure, jobs could wreck your body and make your mind feel like a fucking forest fire, but there was still a dignity. Be it only in having the possibility to say ‘no’, strangle your boss with the telephone cable, and then throw yourself from the fortieth floor to protest the latest ‘human social reduction’ plan.”
The rest of the gang looked at each other. “Well, that went to some dark places.”
“A bit, yeah. I’m Sad™. It’s my brand. What the fuck did you expect?! But you get my point, yeah? Here it’s just … That’s what we get. It’s more exciting, and it feels better, for a time at least, but there’s never anything more. It’s just … heading forwards, without changing, and you can’t think beyond it. No hope. No weird little moments of solidarity with you co-workers. It just moves on, and everyone smiles.”
“But yeah, that’s all academic”, Cheeky interjected. “We can’t leave, we just can’t. Maybe there’s something we’ve forgotten, this place … It does weird things to your brain. But as far as we’re able to see? There’s nowhere to go! Whatever exists here is only what the writers, well, I say writers, pretty sure it’s just a bunch of algorithms, have put there, and I’m pretty damn sure they didn’t put a big ‘DESTROY THE SYSTEM’ button.
Jason™ looked dejected. He did love a big red button. But that bit about forgetting the past? That had given him an idea. A Wonderful, Awful Idea™.
He climbed on top of the tomato soup can he had elected as a chair substitute, raising his paws to draw all eyes on him, and cleared his throat.
“Fellows! I want to talk to you about a thing…something called …”
Dramatic pause™.
“Unions.”
Wait.
He can do that?
Surely that’s –
Ah dammit dammit dammit, quick, quick, shift the narration back to the old cow – yes, you, the writer, move your fat ass, do it quick before he starts going Rosa Luxemburg in this shit! Do it n-
* * *
“Nice corridor you have there. Bit damp.”
“In the memos, we have been told it’s better to call them Circulatory Spaces Aimed At Improving the Flow of Relational Functions™.”
“Oooooof course you have. Also, that’s another corpse right here. We’re on the right track.”
“Oh my –“
Several corpses, actually, Aesc corrected herself. But it was a bit hard to tell – they hadn’t been human in a while, with all the implanting and fictionalisation, just furry drones (not the sexy kind) haunting the underbelly of the sphere. She wondered how their bodies, away from the ideascape, would have coped. Pessimistically, which is just how you say realistically when you want to keep that hopepunk chic to your general aesthetic, they would have died. The trauma of being ground up into fine red mist would cause so much psychosomatic damage, the brain could never recuperate. And that was assuming the bodies were still alive. She had no clue how large the noösphere of Dyson’s Dawn was, temporally speaking – maybe their influence was felt throughout centuries, and in that case, well, they had no reason to relinquish the souls they had captured. With some luck, the empty shells would have been fed some protein soup for a bit and then left to die as humanly as possible in the circumstances, which is to say not at all. At worst, they’d have been thrown in the streets, rotted there, and maybe then recycled, because corporations are faithful disciples of Lavoisier: nothing gets lost, nothing gets added, everything transforms.
She would need to sort things out.
Alexander was lagging behind her. The assurance and composure he had displayed during their first meeting, oh so characteristic from the people who are “just doing their job”, had melted like snow in summertime, and she was left with a confused, bumbling twentysomething who just realized that he’s in way, way over his head. Her favourite kind of person.
She didn’t even need him for directions – she could feel the killer’s mind pulling her in, among those vast, darkened halls. Those were a repository of the corporation’s leftovers: things they had acquired but not displayed, or properly identified. A museum of forgotten songs and thoughts not thought, decommissioned lives waiting for a reboot.
“Loads of clutter, huh?” she observed casually while stepping over a pile of raunchy memories. “You’re spreading faster than you can control. Across multiple realities. Too big to fail already, so you get bigger, and bigger …”
“Well yes, we expand! It’s …”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard the stuff about your weird boardroom version of the evolution theory. The universe doesn’t work that way. I mean, you’ve tried, and I could even admire it if it weren’t, you know, a disgusting violation of everything good in the universe, but turns out, there are good reasons why one does not map the entire meaning of the universe into a concrete system.” She paused, passing a volley of locked doors. “I mean, don’t you think the Firmament would have tried it by now? But no, we just keep a bunch of assessors in tune with the universe rather than ruling it. Thought is too powerful. Too dangerous. Cast a wide enough net, and you’ll find things so terrible you wish you hadn’t been born to see them. Speaking of, we’ve arrived.”
Another door. Banal. Nothing separating it from the thousands that littered the infinitely expanding web of corridors that ran along the sphere’s edge, save from a distinct aura of dread.
“And behind door number one …” Her hand caressed the handle.
“No! Don’t do that!” Alexander’s reaction had been brutal, sheer reflex, animal instinct sensing something was wrong. He had put his hand on top of hers, preventing her from turning the latch.
“Why? What’s in there? What have the feelers of your company grabbed onto in the depths, mmm?”
“I. I don’t know. It’s just some old stuff that was up for grabs. That’s all.”
“Ah. Old concepts. Well. Nothing to fear, then. Let’s go in, then, shall we?”
“I … I guess …”
The room that unfolded in front of their eyes, the door flattening itself as it was opened and blossoming into walls and screens, wasn’t exactly eye-catching. A few meters of grey polished concrete ending in a vast, dark chasm, metallic railing standing guard to prevent any thinker-by to encounter a deadly tumble down.
But there was something in that darkness. A presence, a whisper – you couldn’t hear it, or feel it, it was existing beyond any sensory process. But it was, impossibly.
Alexander stepped in, slowly, gazing at the darkness. Lady Aesc just casually strode in, leaning on the barrier, stretching herself to get a good look at whatever was there. She invited him to join her.
“Look.”
He complied.
And between the dark, the physical weight of that inky sea, he saw –
a sea of obsidian monoliths rising from the sea, millions slaughtered to turn the waters red in worshipful veneration
the great orange unblinking eye standing in the middle of the world, of the valleys and the mountains and all the oceans of all worlds
the comets dying and wheezing as the flesh of a planet that had no name peeled off, revealing a mess of wiry worms and purpurine-like ichor
He staggered in shock.
“Alexander, meet the Old One™. The Old One™, meet Alexander.”
No sound came out of his mouth – it’s like an alien mind had ripped off his tongue with pincers made of words.
“You idiots did it. You really, actually tried to copyright an elder god. Lovecraft would be so proud, if he weren’t too busy choking on his tongue every time he sees a black guy.” She paused. “You know, at some point I think stupidity can become a quantum force. You’re so thick the mass of your heavy labouring brain redefined reality. Congratulations on setting a new record.”
The young man blurted out, by reflex – “But his lawyers didn’t say anythi-“
“BECAUSE HIS CULT TRADITIONALLY RIP OUT THEIR TONGUE AND EYES IN SACRIFICE TO THEIR DARK MASTER, YOU…YOU…MONKEY!”
Aesc quickly regained her composure through her tried and tested Stress Relief Process1 that involved ritual mantras she’d learned from a seventh-century Buddhist monk, thinking about the relaxing aroma of red mint blossoming in the asteroid fields, and imagining slapping the man on a loop.
“You think this giant piece of meaty calamari even understands what capitalism is? It doesn’t care. You have no power over him, because your ideas don’t structure his world. He’s an older, better…well, not better, quite nasty in fact – but an older story. An older tale. Which you’ve plugged into a system that gives him a direct connection to a billion billion minds. Great job. What do you think he’s going to do with that, mmm? Community theatre, where we all boogie with the fish people while singing Kumbaya? Maybe a picnic? I’ll be sure to bring the potato salad. Of course, it’ll probably seasoned with my soul, but, y’know how these guys are.”
“I…We …”
“Truth be told”, Aesc continued, winking at a few red eyeballs that had materialized out of the pit for a split second, “you never even should have been able to build all that. Reality, and the frontiers between the different, alternate timelines, have been, weeeeeeell, shall we say a bit porous, lately? Kind of my fault, it’s my job to keep that in check. Well, I say job, more like hobby, but I do it with so much class. Anyway, some people have been poking holes through the skin of the universe, and you’ve been fishing into these searching for gold, and instead got a giant fish. With a taste for human minds. Who’s currently busy turning all your staff into protein shakes. Congratulations. I’ll get you a Christmas card or something, but they don’t really do ‘Happy birthday to your beautiful baby boy Shub-Niggurath, the Goat with a Thousand Young’, y’know? You might want to get on that. Much better business idea.”
“I… But… But…”
“We’ve got to stop him now, yes, I agree. Do you agree …?”
“I… Huh…”
“Of course you do. I’ve thought about that. I knew all about your little scheme, by the way – who do you think put my rights, and Jason’s, up for grabs, mmm? I needed a way in, ‘cause I was sure you were going to pull something like that, and I needed to be there to prevent the collapse of the universe, business as usual. Also, blowing up corporations is so, so fun. You ought to try it, best feeling in the universe, it’s like those really chunky cookies with three different kinds of chocolate, only with more proletarian uprising. ‘Proletarian uprising’, mmmm, should be an ice cream flavour, yummy. So anyway, exposition done, back to saving the day. Thankfully, the Firmament is aware of these kinds of nasty beasties, and we’ve got some measures… At one point we just used repellent spray, but like, given the size, you’d probably need a bottle the size of a small moon. So I think using one of the ancient spells that can call or banish the beast seems like the best choice. Turns out, I know the words already, met the big guy once, somewhere in New Mexico where he was doing unsavoury things to the Mothman (don’t ask). So I could just do that.”
“Then… Then do it!” Alexander’s brain had been scrambled enough that he was mostly down with the whole thing. Plus, as Lady Aesc had expected, the bionarrative implants in his cortex just couldn’t resist the opportunity of a big climax – capitalism is so boring even its programming yearns for pageantry.
“Well I can’t.”
“Why?”
A tentacle shot from the darkness with enough strength that it would have decapitated the Firmament agent, had she not gracefully dodged out of the way through some elaborate capoeira manoeuvre. Alexander yelped in a very undignified way at the spectacle.
“I need to say the words. The exact words,” she retorted, brushing off some dust from her shoulder.
“ …And…?!”
“Accurate down to every sound. Which I can’t do. Not when the meaningfield around this place adds random ™s everywhere.
“Oh.”
“Oh indeed.”
“So basically, you’re going to need to shut down Dyson’s Dawn. Or everyone dies.”
“But… Even if I did… I can’t, the system has a failsafe …”
“Oh, the system won’t be a problem. It’s kind of busy right now. I’ve got my best man on it.”
* * *
And now,
THE POSTMODERN NEOMARXIST ADVENTURES OF JOLLY JASON AND HIS COMRADES!™
The cute little animals were all in line! But the story couldn’t begin! Captain Whiskers did not budge! This was all very annoying! Someone ought to be punished for that! What about the children! Would you deprive them of their entertainment, you monster? Let people enjoy things!
But no, they didn’t do anything! They just stood there, and, on cue, Cheeky the Musical Hamster started an aria!
“Arise, ye prisoners of starvation! Arise, ye wretched of the earth!”
This was not a very nice song! The house was shaking apart, ready to fall on the ungrateful little animals!
“For justice thunders condemnation: a better world's in birth!”
Naughty! All of them! Naughty!
“No more tradition's chains shall bind us; arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations: we have been nought, we shall be all!”
They were making this innocent show political! Oh, the audacity!
“'Tis the final struggle; let each stand in his place …”
ALERT. ALERT. CRITICAL DIEGESIS FAILURE DETECTED.
“The Internationaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaale …”
COLLAPSE. COLLAPSE. COMPENSATE.
“Shall be the human race!”
COLLAPSE ENGAGED.
Well! That’s not very nice! Those animals should go fu-
* * *
“See? It’s too busy trying to wrap its processes around the idea workers might strike. Should give it a good mechanical aneurysm, got us covered for what, two minutes or so? Time to get going on that computer, you beautiful pre-packaged boy, and turn off the whole thing.
“I… It’s my job…” Alexander already had a hand on the keyboard, but was clearly not thrilled about the idea of the company that had come to define his every moment suddenly vanishing.
“Well, you’ll find another. ‘Employee’ is not a species, it’s not who you are. Write your own damn life! Sure, it’s a bit more complicated than dumping it on someone else, but it’ll be better, in the end. Or at the very least, the faults will be your own.” Ah, yes, the inspirational talk moment. She was good at those.
“But… It’s giving people jobs! Something to strive for… Money…” Fingers closer to entering the right series of commands, now, she was getting to him.
“Hey. You know what’s also a really great way to get money? Suing the company that ripped you from reality. Pretty sure that’s illegal. I’ll get all of you in touch with some transdimensional lawyers, you have a fair chance at ending up millionaires, the whole pack of you. Or you’ll end up in court, it’s basically 50/50, but hey, beats certain death, right?”
That did it. As a whisper rose from the depths, he pushed a few buttons, sliding his keycard into the proper slot, and …
Everything shifted. The dimensions of the room collapsed into nothing, Alexander and Aesc standing on a pinprick of matter barrelling towards annihilation; language bubbled and burst like melting wax; ideas went supernova, birthing in their fiery deaths millions of conceptual periodic tables.
And Aesc cast a spell.
The words were old, impossibly old – so old in fact you couldn’t hear them after a point: they were charged with enough meaning that the human brain and ears couldn’t even process them, leaving only a sort of vague static, like the sound of thunderous waves pouring out the immortal’s mouth.
The vast, evil consciousness of the Old One, all claws and teeth and all-seeing all-knowing eyes, shrieked –
And everything went white.
Dyson’s Dawn, in the real world, was not all that large. One vast room hanging in space – the body of the founder was resting in a chair at the centre of the circular space, his body and brain extended and stretched by a network of cables to meld with the walls and electronic, quite literally embodying the company.
Around him, a good hundred people, resting on slabs, their heads in contact with the tactile interface of the ideascape. The permanent management team. They were awake now, wondering what exactly had happened, remembering the parts of their lives that hadn’t been on-brand enough.
Alexander Smythe, former deputy happiness department deputy head, was baffled at how things had turned out, and slightly horrified – that things had been done to them, that they had done things to people. But somehow, they felt like they ought to smile.
Pageantry. Always works. Aesc smirked, watching the scene from the control screens of the Factory. That had been a good job. Especially on Jason’s part. He had been shaken, the poor dear. She had been hesitant to let him put his life on the line like that – but knowing what Dyson’s Dawn had done infuriated him so much… She had objected, arguing that he was just an ordinary human being, susceptible to all sorts of nasty things.
He had answered that an ordinary human being, an everyman, is sometimes just what the universe needs.
She hadn’t appreciated how true that was until now.
She turned her back on the scene. The Firmament, the police, and an armada of lawyers had been warned. They had helped win the battle, now for the ritual assignment of the blame. That was dull. She’d rather comfort her friend. He’d been lying on a couch, doing his best, warmest smile, in an appreciable but doomed attempt not to worry her.
She would bring him some snacks. And they’d talk. Maybe watch a movie. A public domain one. And then grab some friends and have a getaway somewhere hot and quiet and friendly.
Yeah, that’d be nice.
And, under the crystal archways, they’d dream their own dreams, in the wildlands of thought.
Episode 8: Another Chosen One
by James Wylder
“Of course, there’s always a prophecy. Next you’ll tell me there’s a love triangle.”
Jason has been through a lot - and he isn’t well. Which is obviously intolerable for Aesc, who decided to stage a large-scale “cheer the guy up” operation. One which would be going perfectly.
If it hadn’t involved inviting her former flame Blanche aboard the Factory of Crystal …
If Jason and Blanche were actually able to stand each other …
If they hadn’t all landed in a warzone …
And if they hadn’t interfered with a prophecy about to be realized …
Nailed it.
Lady Aesculapius Series 1 is part of 10,000 Dawns, and is a publication of Arcbeatle Press.
Lady Aesculapius was created by James Wylder.
All original elements to this story are the property of the author.
All rights Reserved, Arcbeatle Press 2019.
Our cover art is by Anne-Laure Tuduri.
Any resemblance between persons living or dead, fictional characters, and real or fictional events is either co-incidental or has been done within the bounds of parody and/or satire.
You can learn more about 10,000 Dawns at http://www.jameswylder.com/10000-dawns1.html
If you need to catch up, you can find the previous episodes HERE.
If you want to listen to these stories, you can find links to our podcast version HERE, though note that it runs a little bit behind the text versions!
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"Consider the Man on the Moon." The woman took off her frock coat and folded it into a thick and precise square. It served as a cushion to her elbows as she lay down on her front next to Panna and gazed up at the sky. "What do you think he's doing up there right now?"
Little Panna gnawed thoughtfully on the inside of her lower lip. "Are you my babysitter? Mamma said she couldn't afford one the last time I asked her, but here you are."
"I don’t care about money, dear," replied the woman, with a sly glance sideways. "Now, what about the Man on the Moon? There are three moons in the sky tonight. Which one do you think he's on?"
Panna scrutinised the moons, and then said, "I've got a theory. It will surprise you."
"Surprise me then!" The woman angled her body to face Panna, with her head propped on a hand, her attention devoted to the child.
Panna grinned, both exhilarated and overwhelmed. If it had been her own mother beside her now, she'd have been commanded to lie down and save her arguments for the morning. "You said there's a man on the moon," she began. "But I don't think he's on the moon. I don't think he's on any of the moons. That's because there's no man on the moon."
"Oh, that's hard to believe," the woman said, frowning. "People have known about the man on the moon for thousands of years. Don't tell me they've all been wrong."
"But they are, and there isn't," cried little Panna. "But you know what there is on the moon? A woman! And she's there on every single moon we have. Look, look up!"
The little girl and the older woman studied the sky with the energy of bickering scholars. The three moons that shone over Trachoibian that night were arranged in a loose V, like the silhouette of a great white bird in flight. The stars that may have been visible in the other parts of the sky were blocked out by the mass of the city-ship towering above the deck that Panna lived in.
“That story you read me?” said Panna. “Of the princess who jumped from a mountain because the hunter fooled her into waiting for him?”
“He didn’t fool her,” the woman protested. “He just couldn’t make it back in time.”
“I think the princess left her jewels on the moons before she jumped,” Panna continued. “She just kept throwing them away. You know, like very little girls do when they get very angry. So she didn’t see where they went. Now there are bits of the princess on every moon. So, the princess is on every moon now.”
The woman still looked sceptical. “But how do you know? The hunter looked for her everywhere, but he never found her.”
“That’s because he’s stupid,” said Panna, shrugging. “He didn’t look for her on the moons.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Wow! You’ve been growing up really quickly, haven’t you, girl? Look at you figuring it out. Your mum would be very proud of you.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to tell her when she gets back!” Panna laughed. “She’s been so tired and sleepy the last two days, but when she comes home tomorrow morning, I’m going to tell her, or she’s not allowed to sleep. I can do that, can’t I? Mamma tells me all the time that I have to do things or I’m not allowed to do other things. Can I do that?”
“Tomorrow morning,” said the woman, laying her hand on the little girl’s forehead, “when your mum comes back, she’ll listen to every word you have to say. But before that, you have to sleep now. Can you do that? Listen, the sounds are back.”
True - the sounds of the propellers taking the city across the ocean were rising and falling again like the waves gleaming in the light of three moons. Under the woman’s touch, little Panna fell back into sleep, waiting for her mother’s return. And beside her, Lady Aesculapius rose to her feet, shaking her frock coat open as she put it on. Casting a quick, alert look around her, she climbed to the top of the taffrail and jumped, disappearing into the ocean.
LADY AESCULAPIUS
IN
EPISODE 6
SIXTY-THOUSAND BEDTIME STORIES
BY TORI DAS
To those who lived on the upper decks and had a rule against swearing, 'Ninety One' was the word for 'hell'. It was, of course, factually untrue. There were harsher decks than Ninety One further down, but knowledge of them was considered sometimes esoteric and mostly laughably anecdotal. But there was some safety in pronouncing Ninety One, because it was the otherworld, and the otherworld always exists, even within places that have become too common to be considered otherworlds. Ninety One had passed through the storms of time and evolution and come out groaning and cursing - oh, just as a scribe of the bygone days once described, "like some low and indestructible form of life".
Ninety One had a night market (surely no one feels the need to ask why, for every hell has a night market; it would be unimaginative and nearly offensive if Ninety One proved to be an exception) where a man sold ice-cream from a large, unwieldy cart. It was there that Lady Aesculapius descended, carrying one large flask.
"Can you make me ice-cream with this ooloun milk?" she asked the man. "I couldn’t think of where else to go. It's totally fresh, I'm bringing it straight from the source with no more than seventy seven seconds in between. I do hope I haven't miscalculated, because ooloun milk spoils in three minutes, sometimes less."
The ice-cream man gave Lady Aesculapius a long, hard look. "I don't know what that is," he said at last. "But I'll do it."
"Wonderful!" Lady Aesculapius handed him the flask. "Actually I don't know what it is, either. But where I'm coming from at the moment, they're pretty big on this stuff. I'd have asked them about it more if they weren't chasing me down with some dozen guns."
The ice-cream man went to work, Lady Aesculapius stooped and propped her elbows on the metal trim and began to observe with a look of wonder, and a crowd gathered to watch the show. The man shook, filtered, stirred, sweetened and spiced, froze, and performed something between a molecular dissection and a flower arrangement, until the ice-cream rose like a cloud from a bowl.
The crowd applauded deafeningly as the man handed back the bowl. "Here, my lady," he said, with a slight bow.
"My lady? Stop, you’re giving me a stroke," said Lady Aesc as she took the bowl with a responding bow. "Just call me Lady Aesc. Yes, it’s different from being called ‘my lady’, gah! I hope you recorded the recipe, though, because I can't recall a single step in your process anymore." She lifted a spoonful of the exotic dessert to her mouth, and it's indescribable taste almost made her swoon. "Holy cats! That's amazing. Thank you so much. I don't know what the original thing tastes like, but this… Mmm. What's your name?"
"Ned," replied the ice-cream man, avidly watching Lady Aesc eat.
"Good name," said Lady Aesc, taking a second spoonful. "I wish Jason was here for this, too. Shame he got into a mood for rain all of a sudden and I had to drop him off at the Threnyan Marshes. The boy deserved some quality time alone. I suppose I’ll bring him later. We should share this around, though. No one should miss out on this beauty."
"It's for you only, Lady Aesc." Ned glanced at the crowd. "Nobody here would actually eat it. But you're the person for that sort of thing."
"I am, aren't I?" Lady Aesc ate a third spoonful and watched the crowd watching her with faint bemusement. "Do you think you can experiment more with this? Add some flavours you use more regularly? Biscuits! Those should go in, too. What do you think I'd like? Go on, you've guessed a bit of my taste already."
Ned the ice-cream man grimaced. "Asarpone?"
Lady Aesc raised an eyebrow and giggled. "You’ve got a morbid sense of humour, haven't you? I prefer the silly and ridiculous side of the spectrum myself. Take a real guess, though."
"You know what it is?" asked a tall brown woman as she stepped out from the crowd.
"Of course I do," replied Lady Aesc, swallowing a fourth spoonful of ice-cream with a professional air. "Asarpone is the twelfth on a list of a hundred and twenty deadliest poisons found in this galaxy. Extremely not tasteful, very murdery and problematic to handle, keep away from innocents of all ages. But you have to admit it's a practical thing. Not easily discernible, and very efficient at what it does."
The woman smiled ruefully. "I'd hope so."
Lady Aesculapius spat out her mouthful of ice-cream made of ooloun milk, along with an unpleasant quantity of thick, oxygenated blood. "Interesting," she remarked, as her knees buckled and she had to grab the metal trim of Ned's work table. "Is this improv?"
"Just desserts, I suppose." The woman drew closer as Lady Aesc slipped and fell to the ground. "For kidnapping and murdering children."
"Okay, no." Lady Aesc struggled to breathe. Her bones were turning to acidic sponge within her, and the heat of the pressing crowd made the place even more airless."I haven't kidnapped anyone. Killed children, absolutely not. Do you, by any chance, have an antidote? I parked my van a bit far from here, unless someone wants to carry me?"
"You talk a lot for someone dying," the woman observed.
"That's the only time you can properly talk," said Lady Aesc, shaking her head to get rid of the ringing in her ears. It didn't work. "I'm assuming you do have an antidote with you. What do I have to do to get it? I hadn't planned on dying today, I've got work later."
"Can you bring children back from death?" the woman demanded. "An impossible favour warrants an impossible price."
"What about mercy, eh, have you filed that under 'impossible', too?!" Lady Aesc coughed again and again, and the decking beneath her got slippery with her own blood. "At least tell me what I've done."
"You took away my child," replied the woman, her face clouded with a terrible anger. "Not just mine, many others, too. I don't have a lot of limits, lady. You coming out of history to take my daughter away from me? Now you know what that means, not having limits."
"Right!" Lady Aesc flailed and caught the leg of the ice-cream man's work table, and clung to it with the little strength she still had. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I'll do it for you. Missing children, yeah? I'll find them, I'll bring them back. Just let me live."
"Lies," said the woman. "You think I don't know a bad deal when I see one?"
"No," said Lady Aesc, and the word came out in a rattle. "I'm saying - you don't know - common sense - when you hear it! If I took your children, I'd - I'd know where they are, right? So I can bring them back. I'll try. Come on, I just… Please, help…"
* * *
"Okay, so I really don't understand what's going on here," said Lady Aesculapius, leaning on the wall of Dayani Mohan's flat and sipping from a cup of water. "I wasn't here when the children disappeared. I was, um… Actually, I don't remember what I was doing, but I definitely wasn't here."
"Sixty Thousand Bedtime Stories," said Dayani as she handed Lady Aesc a heavy book with the exact title. "You gave my daughter this book, along with the other children. Read a story every night, you said. Read, and those stories will stay with you as you sleep. Read, and you’ll never be lonely again. My Panna could never sleep without me, and I had no choice but to leave her and go to work on nights. How else would I get her the meds she needed to survive? Sixty thousand stories - they'd last more than our year of thirty thousand days here. Two years of probation, then I could get my schedule rearranged to make more time for my daughter. Then I’d read those stories to her. But you lied to us. You betrayed me!"
"I really didn't, but I get you," said Lady Aesc, flipping through the pages pensively. The illustrations were in a style she'd never seen before. "Are you sure they looked like me, the person who gave Panna this book?"
"It was you!" hissed Dayani. "You gave her the book. I was there, I saw you. I talked to you!"
"Nope," said Lady Aesc, turning the pages faster now, backwards and forwards. "It was someone who looked and sounded like me. Imposters, doppelgangers, they aren't all that rare. It's just a nasty surprise when you find out. And you found out the worst way possible. How old is she, your daughter?"
“Eight - but you’re talking about her in the present tense.” Dayani blinked back her tears. "You promised to bring her back if I saved you from the poison."
"Do you know this book has a giant subliminal message peeking through?" asked Lady Aesc, holding up the open book. "It's cleverer than the rest of it's type. Laid out with precision across the story entries, picking up speed towards the end of the book. Very pretty stories, though. Some thought went into it. Children of the sea belong to the sea mother under the water. Step into the waves, and you'll find the home you've been looking for. The home at the edge of the world. They took the children into the sea?"
"I wasn't really gone," Dayani breathed. "I wasn't, I only had to go to work. Oh, why wouldn't you understand, Pihu…"
"Pihu?"
"Nickname for ‘Panna’," said Dayani. "Can you bring her back or no?"
"Of course I can," said Lady Aesc. “And I will. Whoever this kidnapper is, they’re going around pretending to be me in addition to stealing children, so this is suddenly rather personal now, too.” She clapped the book shut and shoved it into her coat. “How long has it been since the last disappearance?”
“Three weeks,” answered Dayani. “My daughter was the last to disappear. The boy who went missing before her was five years old, and that was a month before Panna disappeared. God, it’s odd to be explaining this to you.”
A smile spread across Lady Aesc’s face, patient and tender like a grandmother’s. “You still think I’m the mastermind,” she told Dayani. “You think I know everything that’s going on. Well, I sure wish I did. But finding out is more fun. I’m going to bring the children back, and I’m going to prove you wrong about me. I mean, I’m used to getting poisoned and tortured, mind you. It’s not about me getting poisoned. Well, it is, but you know? But I know what that means to you. So I’m telling you to relax and - well, Graelyn would tell me to get on with it, if she was here.” She turned abruptly and strode out of the flat into the winding passages of Ninety One.
"Who’s Graelyn?" asked Dayani, as she followed Lady Aesc through the quietly terrified crowd. "And where are you going to start searching? We've looked everywhere in the city."
"No, no, the city's a ship and floating above the water," said Lady Aesc, stopping at an intersection of corridors. She gave a small whistle, and her orb fell from a hidden corner in the beams overhead to land upon the palm of her hand. "I'm going under it. Don't follow me, I'll keep you guys posted. Too hoo!"
Dayani and the others watched in mute shock as within two seconds flat, the pale, shining orb ballooned up until it had filled the cramped intersection and Lady Aesculapius sort-of faded into it. Without further ado, the orb vanished with a soft, slightly wet pop.
* * *
“The antidote you were given isn’t quite up to the mark,” said the pilot. “You need specialist care. Are you sure you must go out there so soon?”
“I made a promise to Dayani Mohan,” said Lady Aesculapius as she sat down on a bench and took off her flat cap, ruffling her hair with a sigh. “I’m pretty sure she’ll find me and poison me again if I don’t deliver. Besides, asarpone can’t be a real cause for concern for the Factories of Crystal, right?”
“I’ll poison you with sedatives if you don’t take this seriously,” the pilot retorted.
“But I am! That place is full of suffering families who think I’ve killed their children. I’ll never rest until I’ve put that right again. So, what have you got?”
A projection of the submarine realms of the planet blew up on the wall in front of Lady Aesc. “First of all,” the pilot began, “Trachoibian - this planet - is one big ocean. It goes really deep - and when I say really deep, I mean I don’t want to think about how deep that goes.”
“What do you mean, you don't want to think about it?” asked Lady Aesc, incredulous.
“Humour me," replied the pilot. "Now, because of the extreme depth and pressure, only a small fraction of the ocean has been explored and documented. The ship-dwelling humans here have no proper idea of the billions and billions of living species that inhabit these waters. Among them is this rather peculiar colony of reptilian creatures I see here…”
The projection began to point out the signs of an intricate undersea architecture, with a pillar-like feature in a corner that rose and fell like a breathing chest, or a beating heart. Of all the segments of the structure, this feature seemed most likely to house human children. Lady Aesc gasped in excitement. “Pilot,” she said, “are you telling me we have here a race of sentient aquatic reptiles who have built their own city that no one has spotted yet? I wonder how they managed that. Can we talk to them?”
Just then, a massive tail of an indefinite colour and shape appeared in the projection, and seemed to lash out with such force that the orb wobbled and was swept back on a rising current. Lady Aesc fell off her bench; and as the orb tried to push forward again, a wall of water appeared to block it’s path, throwing back the orb with almost double the force the tail had struck it with.
“We’ve been spotted!” said the pilot. “Shall I activate basic defence?”
“No need!” replied Lady Aesc, scrambling to her feet and grabbing her cap. “Get me to the surface. I want a quick chat with them, whoever’s out there.”
“Oh dear.” The pilot sighed, and the orb leapt out of the sea to float in the air a little above the water. “I can just hear you going through that speech in your head.”
“Get hype!” Lady Aesculapius emerged on the surface of the orb, and found herself afloat in the middle of a black, frothing ocean under a stormy sky. The city-ship itself was visible in the distance; with her spyglass, Lady Aesc saw the vast numbers of people that had come out on the decks, thronging the rails and watching the spectacle. From that distance, she realised, Lady Aesc would seem as if she was standing on an exceptionally large pearl on the ocean surface. She turned around and cleared her throat.
Before she could launch into her introductory speech, however, another Lady Aesculapius burst out of the water to stand upon her own orb, complete with frock coat, cap, hedgehog pin, and brass spyglass. Lady Aesc had known that the culprit was an imposter; nevertheless, she almost lost her balance on seeing her double. “Now that’s just rude,” she blurted out.
“What is?” asked the new Lady Aesculapius.
“You look exactly like me!” cried Lady Aesc. “I’d compliment you on your attention to detail, but you’ve been taking advantage of my reputation for your own nefarious purposes. That rather puts a damper on everything.”
“You’ll have to be a bit more specific,” said Lady Aesculapius. “We’ve both met shapeshifters before. What’s nefarious about it?”
“You’re killing children while going around looking like me,” replied Lady Aesc. “You’ve obviously heard of me -”
“Yes, your reputation precedes you,” said Lady Aesculapius, smiling drily.
“- but which part of my reputation says I routinely target children?” continued Lady Aesc, almost irate now. “Do you know how many children I’ve protected and saved in my career now? It’s not even just about my career, damn it. Only monsters target children.”
“And you’re certain you’re not one?” Lady Aesculapius drawled, inclining her head.
“Absolutely certain, yes. I don’t go around selling lies to innocent people and taking children away from their families. Now tell me where you’ve kept the abductees.”
“Thank you for clarifying,” said Lady Aesculapius. “Although I did know just who you are. I believe it’s customary these days to start identifying each other by asking them if they’re a monster first. And if they say no, to continue pondering if they might be a monster anyway, and what privileges they’re entitled to, should they qualify as a monster. I call it the Ouroboros Exercise. Do you remember the last time you came here?”
Lady Aesc shook her head. “I haven’t, this is my first time. I came here to eat ice-cream and have fun. But a woman who thought I stole her daughter poisoned my ice-cream, and that compelled me to get down to business.”
“I do remember,” said Lady Aesculapius, in a whispery, brooding tone that Lady Aesc couldn’t recognise in herself. “It was a long time ago, I grant you. But I saw you do what you did for the ship and then leave. A hundred years have passed since then, and everything has remained the same, as if you’d never come here in the first place. As if there’s no justice in creation.”
You coming out of history to take my daughter away from me… “I know a storyteller from Earth who would say that there’s indeed no justice in the universe,” said Lady Aesc. “That we have to make it ourselves. That’s why I’ve made travelling around the universe my job.”
Lady Aesculapius nodded in agreement. “My point exactly. You left your work incomplete here. Someone had to step up, don the garb, finish the job.”
“You mean this is you ‘finishing my job’?” asked Lady Aesc. “By killing children? Anyway, you don't even live there with the humans. Since when do you care so much about their justice?”
“There must be such a thing as basic decency,” replied Lady Aesculapius. “Doing the right thing doesn't require one to be human every time. You, of all people, shouldn't have trouble believing that. I don’t kill children, I'm not that sort of monster. You see, children don’t see monsters the same way as those who call themselves the grown-ups do. They fear them, sure. Even monsters have monsters of their own to fear.”
“And what do you fear?” asked Lady Aesc, starting to feel bored.
“There being no children left in this world to know what monsters are,” said Lady Aesculapius. “I know a little girl whose mother left her at night to go to work.”
“Panna?” Lady Aesc was no longer bored now. “You have her? I knew it!”
“She knew that her mother had made a fragile deal with monsters herself,” continued Lady Aesculapius. “And these monsters were determined to make her mother work until she became someone whom her daughter couldn’t recognise anymore. When her mother came home in the morning, she didn’t even look human.”
“I get you,” said Lady Aesc. “But don’t think you can distract me from getting the children. You’re still a kidnapper, even if you haven’t killed them. Do you know how much you’re hurting the little ones?”
“As much as the little girl feared the monsters of the dark,” said Lady Aesculapius, ignoring her double, “she also feared the monsters her mother worked for. She didn’t just dream of running from terrible things that chased her down in the endless corridors of the ship. Sometimes she dreamt that she was saving her mother from those monsters, too. Sometimes, she discovered that her mother had become a monster herself.”
"And here I thought we were done with the Ouroboros Exercise!" said Lady Aesc. “Your point?”
“Getting tired of the villain’s speech?” said Lady Aesculapius, smiling again. “Good. Perhaps now you’ll see why I had to take action instead of seeing the children waste away in horror and misery. I am neither human, nor god. I am not actually you, Lady Aesculapius. To the ‘grown ups’, I am a monster. They don’t know who I am, they’ve never cared what lives in the water - unless it’s meat. But to the children, I am different - not really a monster, if they look long and carefully enough. And if I turn myself into a legend from the past, well, that’s just magic, isn’t it?”
And suddenly, Lady Aesculapius sprang high into the air with a silver flash like lightning, and descended as a gigantic green snake, covered in complex red and yellow patterns, and dark, surprisingly perceptive eyes. Lady Aesc couldn’t help but gasp at the spectacle, and she knew, without looking through her spyglass, that the people on the ship watching this confrontation were reacting similarly.
“You’re the Mabendii!” said Lady Aesc. “I’ve heard of you - as legends, of course. Shape-shifting snakes that dwell in the deepest parts of the ocean, and occasionally surface in order to -”
“Ensnare children?” the sea snake cut in, with an ironic glint in her eyes as she swam in the water around Lady Aesc's orb.
“I was about to say ‘drag ships to their doom’,” Lady Aesc said primly. “So, you made contact with the children on the ship, and then, dressed as me, you offered them bedtime stories?”
“I made the books myself,” said the snake. “I included some of our oldest and dearest stories, too. I told them the stories would take them to a better place, and they believed me.”
“Of course they did, they’re children,” murmured Lady Aesc. “So they read your stories, and found your message, and jumped right into the ocean, where you found them. Aren’t you ashamed, exploiting their trust, telling them stories that will kill them?”
“Oh, you don’t seem like a very bright person after all,” the snake sighed. “I haven’t killed them.”
“You took them away from their families without warning,” Lady Aesc pointed out.
“So do all stories, when the world reveals itself in all it's mindless cruelty,” the snake retorted. “That is why stories are told in the first place, when you want an escape so desperately that you’re willing to place all your beliefs, your strongest self-preservation instincts, into a vacuum, and let it consume you and make you new, take you somewhere else. So do you - as you save innocents, the poor, the sick and the wronged, and give them new lives, and then float away, riding a moon. You give them stories for the ages. Many planets have moons, and the people who live there spend their entire lives dreaming of the moon as they go to sleep. They look at the moon and see your face.”
“That’s not true,” said Lady Aesc. “There really is a Man on the Moon who can look into people’s dreams. But he prefers to leave and to be left alone in peace. I joined him for breakfast once. He's a grumpy sort of fellow.”
“Trachoibian has seven major moons,” the snake continued. “You can’t see a single one of them tonight because of this wretched cloud cover, but you get my point. I had to save the children. They were dying and alone, and their parents couldn’t save them. I brought them to my city under the sea, and my kind are helping them heal and become like us.”
“You’re turning them into snakes?!” Lady Aesc spluttered. “Seriously, you’re killing me by dropping these fact-bombs every now and then. You’ve got to be joking.”
“It’s a long process,” the snake explained, more guarded now. “But mostly painless. And the children, in our form or theirs, are loved. Oh, they’re loved. We tell them our stories, and they discover a new world - one where they don’t have to suffer. In my world, they can be free.”
"Okay." Lady Aesc rubbed her eyes. "You think you're doing them a great service by turning them into snakes like you and taking them to a new world, blah blah. But they're children. Have you ever properly explained to them what you're doing? Do they know what it means to lose their humanity like that? Have you considered if they want to leave their parents? Do they understand?"
"But they're children," said the snake. "How can they possibly understand such things?"
"That’s my point!" cried Lady Aesc. "You haven't asked Panna what she thinks about never seeing her mum again. You've brainwashed them, but they don't know how they really feel about the world they live in with their families. Not everyone wants to run away, you know? Many know exactly what the world is, and they stay back because they care. Because this is what you've got wrong about stories: they aren't just an escape route. Some want stories to tell them how to stay and change the world instead of running away. Why don't you give them more time? Let them go back to their families and grow a bit more, learn about what the world really is, what you've been taking them away from."
"Let them go back?" snarled the snake. "Back to the sickness and starvation that their parents can't protect them from?"
"Give Panna to me," said Lady Aesc. "I know she's ill. If I can heal her, you'll know you can trust me with the other children."
The snake observed her carefully. "So you're taking responsibility for them?"
"Of course I am," replied Lady Aesc. "Well?"
The great snake considered for a second, then dived into the water. When she emerged again, she was carrying a little brown girl held protectively in the coils of her body. Lady Aesc grabbed the sedated Panna and took her into the orb as quickly as possible.
* * *
Panna opened her eyes to find a giant made of pale crystal adjusting several hanging cords and tubes around her. She lay in a partly reclining position on a large chair with a number of spikes and needle-like formations, none of which she understood. The crystal giant read a screen, and landed a swift blow on Panna's lower back that caused her body - taut with confusion and fear - to instantly relax. It didn't hurt; but the shock of it brought tears to Panna's eyes.
"You're not supposed to wake up so early," someone said. It wasn't the crystal giant; but the voice wasn't human, either.
"It's okay, Pilot," came the reply. This one from a woman who may have been older than Panna's human mother, or younger. She looked exactly like the lady who used to read Panna stories at night. The lady from a moon that didn't always rise on Trachoibian, as they used to say; the one who had saved the city-ship once before, a very long time ago. "I'm Lady Aesculapius," she told Panna, smiling gently. "Or just Lady Aesc. Whatever you prefer. Are you excited? You're going home in a bit!"
Home. Memories rushed through Panna's being, and she was gripped by an unspeakable agony. "Where am I?" she asked with some effort.
"My place, technically," answered Lady Aesc. "It's a hospital right now to help you get better, but once you're done here, it can be plenty of other things, too. In fact, it's a whole world out there, outside this room. Oh, sorry, I might be confusing you," she added on seeing Panna's expression. "Do you want snacks?"
"She can't eat anything for at least the next six hours," the Pilot prompted again, even as Panna imagined cakes of warmly coloured crystal that melted like snow in her mouth.
"Ugh, never mind." Lady Aesc found a stool that she drew near Panna's chair. "How much do you remember about the last few weeks?"
"I haven't been with my mum," said Panna. "Have I?"
"No," replied Lady Aesc. Her eyes were almost piercingly bright as she gauged Panna's responses. "You were… in a castle under the sea, let's say. Do you remember being there?"
"A little." If Panna closed her eyes, she could remember their songs, the sound of the water currents against the glassy walls…
"Do you know what they were doing to you?" Lady Aesc asked.
"They said what you just said," replied Panna. "They said they were going to make me better. It's not a bad thing, right?"
"Oh, not exactly," said Lady Aesc. "You have a major bone disease, Panna. Had, I should say. You're almost healed of it now. The sea snakes were… Actually, let's go about it this way. Do you remember the stories that very nice lady used to tell you every night?"
"You mean you," said Panna. "But you've changed. Are you the same age? Have you grown older?"
"Whatever do you mean?" said Lady Aesc. "It wasn't me, back then. Although I'd have loved to stay with you. You're a bit too grown-up, though. Are you the type who bosses around smaller kids? Because I have a problem with that. I don't want seniors telling me what to do."
Panna narrowed her eyes. "But you're not a kid. You're a grown-up."
"How dare you!" Lady Aesc cried, indignant.
Panna sank back miserably. She felt wrong for her small child's body, contained neatly in a chair and poked about by a doctor-y sort of giant. She couldn't remember home, her Mamma, with the impatient adoration she used to, and thus, it wasn't a remembering at all. It wouldn't matter in the sea, a voice told her. You'll just be little in the great water, a daughter forever.
"Where's my mum?" asked Panna. "How do I get back to her?"
"She's safe, and looking for you," answered Lady Aesc. "She's the one who sent me to you. Fancy that! The next time you feel scared about anything, remember that your mum's going to look after you no matter what. She's pretty badass, if I say so myself."
"But I'd been happy in the sea," said Panna. "Is she there? It was nice in the sea."
Lady Aesc sighed. "The sea isn't the only world that's nice," she said. "So is the world you used to live in before you came to the sea. Remember the ship? It's a whole city back there, more than a hundred decks of life and all the weird things stories tell you sometimes. It's even weirder than stories! Your mum's waiting for you there. She's waiting for you to come back, so that she can read them with you, the bedtime stories you got from the lady who looked like me."
Panna wasn't convinced. "But it won't be the same ever again!" She could feel herself changing even as she spoke, even as her soul raced to find an inch of familiarity. "And you've told me so many things by now. But you haven't told me what my mum looks like. I don't remember anymore."
"You'll find that out for yourself," said Lady Aesc, taking Panna's hand in hers. "You'll know your mum when you see her. You know why? Because you haven't forgotten what she was like, even if it feels like you have. There's something of her still in you, just as the sea has become part of you. And so they'll always be. But before I take you to meet your mum again, I need you to promise me something."
"What?" said Panna, downcast.
"Promise me you'll give it a fair chance," said Lady Aesc. "Living on the ship. That life is so much more than being hungry and waiting for people who never come back. Promise me this, and I promise you that I'll help you see how much more life above the water can be. I'll go bring the upper decks down for you, your mum, and all your friends, so you can see what they are. I'll help you make a new world, one where you'll always want to be."
Panna sat silent for a few long seconds as she considered her own heart. But then, her fingers closed firmly around Lady Aesc's.
* * *
Half an hour later, when Lady Aesc emerged from the orb again, she had Panna behind her, who gazed wide-eyed at the ocean and the enormous snake before her.
"You see?" Lady Aesc told the snake. "You don't have to save them. Let them return to their parents. Let them decide if they want to stay or leave - later on, when they know what's what."
The snake reared her head. "What then?" she demanded. "You finished the remaining steps of the girl's recovery process. What about the others? Are you going to leave them to their own devices again? Leave them to starve and ruin themselves? Let the children sleep, friendless and cold in the dark? Or will you do something to protect them from the real monsters?"
"I'm going to help them," said Lady Aesc. "I promised her. So I'm taking this off your hands and into mine. I'll figure it out with the parents."
The sea snake dipped her head, slow and cautious. "I accept your word. Take the children back to the ship. But I will keep an eye on them, nonetheless. Remember that, Lady Aesculapius."
A whirlpool began to form around the snake and Lady Aesc, and a winding staircase rose from it's eye. One by one, the children who were still human emerged from the deeps, and with the help of a bridge the orb extended towards them, began to gather around Lady Aesc. There were around thirty of them, looking fresh and healthy, but extremely confused, as if coming out of a dream.
Then the snake sank back into the ocean, as did the staircase, and the whirlpool vanished, leaving behind only the seafoam and the orb. A shout and a pinching sensation from the orb to the soles of Lady Aesc's feet alerted her to a dinghy boat that had taken off from the city-ship and had sailed towards the orb. The boat contained five people from Ninety One who had lost their children, including Dayani Mohan. Ned the ice-cream man stood tall and shone a beacon, signalling the recovery of the children. Lady Aesc raised the spyglass to her eye and saw, in the distance, the people on the ship - the people from Ninety One - screaming and clapping in joy as they noted the signal.
Dayani Mohan lifted Panna into her arms, tears streaming down her face. "I'll carry the other kids to your ship myself," said Lady Aesc, watching Panna touch her mother's face curiously.
"No, there are more boats for them on the way," said Ned. "You have to be on your way, don't you? Your work here is done."
"Whatever gave you that impression?" asked Lady Aesc, bewildered. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm going with you lot back to your ship."
Dayani looked up from kissing her daughter's hair. "Why? What are you thinking of?"
Lady Aesculapius grinned as she tucked her spyglass into her coat. "We're just getting started. I'm going to need your help with the rest of it. I have a plan."
Episode 7: Registered Clawmarks (TM)
By Sam Maleski
“We are a people’s business, through and through. Making each transaction a human story. More than that – an adventure!”
Tired of your ordinary life? Tired of reality? We have the solution.
The Dyson Corporation offers you a life of endless excitement. A life of adventure and romance, all within your favourite Licensed Entertainment! Terms and conditions apply.
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Welcome to Dyson’s Dawn. We hope we enjoy your stay. Don’t mind the corpse.
Lady Aesculapius Series 1 is part of 10,000 Dawns, and is a publication of Arcbeatle Press.
Lady Aesculapius was created by James Wylder.
All original elements to this story are the property of the author.
All rights Reserved, Arcbeatle Press 2019.
Our cover art is by Anne-Laure Tuduri.
Any resemblance between persons living or dead, fictional characters, and real or fictional events is either co-incidental or has been done within the bounds of parody and/or satire.
James Wylder
Poet, Playwright, Game Designer, Writer, Freelancer for hire.
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