by Jared Ravens
It was after his impressive fight with Bautomet that Curson attracted the eye of a female soldier. While we were contemplating the fate of the Beast that night, he snuck away and impregnated her, and the child was a boy of war named Atrios. Curson justified his action by saying we needed someone to manage the armies to control (of course) the Beast as well as the unknowns that lay just over the horizon. Genesee, and soon Atrios, set about forming legions with the image of Bautomet plastered on their shields. A temple was built in the city and a small group of disturbed people actually worshiped Bautomet, speaking to it and following its ranting speech via candle visions.
But every deluded themselves on some level, thinking that it really couldn’t get out of its iron cage, that the underground was too complex for it to navigate, that it was too dumb to do any more harm. Even I was lulled into the idea that we were safe. We thought, absurdly, he was really on our side. That we could control him. That he was the mascot and devil of our forces.
And then it escaped.
The Table of Eternity
At the first glimmer of day light Genesee arrived at the Table of Eternity. He was not surprised to find himself alone. He climbed up the huge chair with the assistance of a few of his butlers then stood in its seat so he could see over the grey top of the table. He took this time to convene with his head butler, Ellis, and run over the endless stacks of papers. He adjusted a memo to Ogden which changed the quotas for wheat while below him servants clanged dishes together and rushed to get food to the empty table as quickly as possible. Though no manager besides Genesee was ever at a meeting on time they still moved as if their lives depended on the meal being set promptly. It was particularly absurd considering none of the titans necessarily even needed food. They simply enjoyed the act of eating. It connected them to the mortals around them and gave them a positive reason to sit through another endless meetings.
As the room gradually filled with of gold and silver dishes and the smells of cooked game, so the chairs filled with the bodies and calamitous sounds of those large and small. Curson and Spaulding entered in noisy discussion, mostly of the words from Spaulding’s lips. Martel was lifted to the top of a large chair by Harper’s hand. Ogden came in alone, his long hair covered with dead grass and his thick fingers encrusted in dirt. Genesee handed him a copy of the memo.
“A letter?” Ogden said, scanning the words closely.
“I thought it would help,” Genesee replied. He meant it might help himself. Genesee always believed it was better to have a paper trail. From the moment he assumed command of the administrative side of The Hill Genesee had worked to organized things into a more bureaucratic fashion. This meant rules, written goals, and follow up. It also meant meetings. Many, many meetings. It meant accountability, something not one of the titans desired for themselves but many appreciated being placed on other members of their family.
Ogden’s reading was poor and it took him a long time to come up with a response to the increased numbers. By then Atrios was noisily throwing his metal gauntlets down and cursing into the air. Smaller than his father, he shared the same rough face but a more aggressive personality. He pulled himself up to the table and demanded that they start.
“We’ll start when everyone is here,” Genesee told him calmly, waiting on Ogden. “Eat something in the meantime.”
“I’m not hungry,” Atrios said.
“Of course you’re not, but eat something anyways.”
“I don’t understand, if they aren’t here, why do we wait for them?” Atrios said. “This shit just keeps getting worse and worse.”
“Now you know how I feel,” Genesee replied. “Now eat something.”
Atrios bit angrily into a vegetable and promptly spit it out in Spaulding’s direction. This was mostly intentional, to provoke a reaction; it worked, and soon they were at each other’s faces. Genesee knew what he was trying to do.
“Atrios, we’ll hear from you one way or another. Or if you prefer, I’ll replace you with someone that wants to be at this table.”
Spaulding and Atrios were eye to eye; Atrios’ glance broke first, and he glared at Genesee as he backed off. He had been spectacularly unsuccessful in the task he had been given lately.
“You wouldn’t find anyone better,” Atrios spit. His naked forearms displayed deep cuts that had scabbed over, trophies from his latest defeat. His lip had a large cut in it so large that a tooth could be seen even when his mouth was closed.
“I can try,” Genesee said to the much larger being. “Sit down and we’ll figure this out together.”
Genesee took his place at a very tall chair, his diminutive body at the head of the gigantic table. Surrounding him were mostly giants. Before Atrios and Spaulding could start up again Genesee asked Harper where Robertson was.
“Let’s just get started,” interrupted Martel. “We don’t need him.”
“I’d like the minister of Justice to be here,” Genesee responded.
“If they aren’t here then it’s because they don’t want to be,” said Atrios. “Nothing’s changed in a day.”
“I think a lot has changed,” Genesee said honestly.
“Where’s Celia?” Harper asked.
“Who cares,” Martel muttered, walking across the top of the table to pull meat from plate containing dozens of cooked carcasses piled on top of each other. They were replaced just as quickly by servers running up ladders.
“She’s on her own time,” Genesee replied. “We’ll wait for her before we begin.”
“Oh fuck it,” Curson yelled. “We all know what this is about. Let’s all just go east and cut the little fucker’s head off.”
“We have managers assigned to do that,” Genesee said.
“Then why aren’t they doing it?” Spaulding said.
At this Atrios jerked his head to Spaulding. Genesee quickly laid some diplomatic words down and turned the conversation to other matters on the agenda, beginning with the expected numbers for the harvest. This was intentional. He needed head to be come cooler so he could before he could bring up the subject of Fairfax. The unmitigated public relations disaster unfolding before them needed more nuance than Atrios or Spaulding or Curson could provide. He knew five or six of them would love nothing more than to go hunting for him, but Genesee had little confidence that any of them could actually find him in any reasonable amount of time. In the meantime their official duties would fall to shit. Crops would fail and metal stockpiles would dry up. And that was if any of them could stand to be next to each other for more than a day without stabbing the others.
But most of all Genesee feared they might be effective. They might actually find the fiesta warrior and finish him off.
“...And so the ore levels seems to be tapering off, which is not optimal.”
Their faces had receded to blank slates of sheer bordeom. But they were no longer fighting. Genesee knew this was the time.
“I’d like to spend this time informing you of some pubic relations news I know you’ll be excited about,” he said, without irony. “I’m going to write a book. An account of that clarifies and enforces the true narrative of our history and brings to light the details of Fairfax’s creation.”
The trance was broken. Every face peered up at him at the sound of that name. Spaulding set an enormous piece of meat down and opened his mouth but another voice spoke before he could say a word.
"Who would read a book written by you?”
The sound was projected across several rooms and echoed down a long hallway, making its owner known before she was even within sight of the dining room. She turned the corner and every head looked away from Genesee and towards her. She wore a white and red dress with gold trim that glittered in the late morning light. Her face, dark brown with circled with blonde curls, bounced with each step as she took strides into a dining room. Her green eyes moved to each face in the room, daring each to challenge her. Young women raced to catch the trail of her dress. They pushed it above their tiny
heads as she floated towards her chair at the head of the table, opposite Genesee. She folded her hands and a grim smirk appeared on her face.
"It would be a compact and quite informative tome,” Genesee continued. “I think there is a hunger for this information among the populace.”
“‘Compact’,” she scoffed, taking her seat. "It should be a pamphlet. And speaking of hunger, why are are eating without me?”
She stared at Spaulding who had a meat juice on his beard. He fumbled several words before Martel defended him, saying they were tired of waiting. Celia glanced at her smaller sister before forgetting her complaint.
“We need a plan to fight Fairfax and all you give them is paragraphs,” She said, picking over the mounds of food on the table. "How many printed words do you think it would take to bury that little man?"
"The point is that we’ve had an issue with someone printing words in your name,” Genesee said. "Which reminds me, you had a visitor yesterday and you declined to see him.”
"I’m sure I missed a real opportunity.”
"He was very distressed. He’s been commanded to print something in your name and he isn’t sure if you wrote it.”
"If it was divinely written then he should have no trouble identifying it as my speech,” she said, settling on a plate of roasted vegetables. She leaned back in her chair, letting it creek loudly. Around the base of her chair several women took pains repairing and cleaning the hem of her costume.
“I’m sorry my dear, but he isn’t that perceptive, and neither are we. Could you tell me if you’ve been writing an alternative history of our land and, if not, who is?”
Genesee stood on his huge chair, his small body leaning against the edge of the table. He rested his chin in his hand, waiting for his wife to think through her response. She bit into something red and crunched it several times before speaking.
"I write a lot of things. I just heard about this scandal and I haven’t had time to follow up on it.”
"Can you just tell us if you write these lies?” demanded Atrios, his fist banging on the table. Celia looked over towards him and then at the faces nodding towards her.
“How do you know what is a lie and what isn’t, young one?”
To the rest of them she added:
“You know I did not write the official history, and I don’t agree with it. Since I’m the only one that was here I don’t know why everyone else gets a say in what happened if they don't actually know what happened.”
"For convenience and stability,” Genesee interjected calmly. “We write our history based on what Goetz can confirm happened.”
“So we write our history as it is for convenience, not truth. I’m glad that’s the standard now. I haven’t read what everyone is so anxious about but if someone says its mine, then that isn’t true. I’ve ordered no one to print anything of the sort.”
"Do you think it’s something that you could have written?" Ogden asked.
"What’s that mean?”
"Something you might have written in your... spare time,” Harper asked. "And then it leaked out.”
"To what purpose? For me or for anyone else? I’m really confused as to why this attention is focused on me and not on the one that’s burning half the land.”
"Well this book is causing quite a stir, and with the population already on edge this is adding to to that unrest.”
Celia looked at Genesee as he said this and she leaned into the table.
"If you did your job, dear, then this nonsense wouldn’t have been published in the first place.”
"We’ve taken steps to take back the books,” Genesee replied. "But the damage is done. Anyone can make copies. And that’s why we need a corrective force and an explanation for Fairfax. And definitive one.”
Celia nodded and pushed herself back from the table, a substantial mountain of food still remaining on her plate.
"Well, you start throwing paper at him and we will start making swords. Well done husband!”
"Are you leaving already?” Genesee asked as she stood up.
"Don’t worry, I can hear you wasting time from my room. I won’t miss a word.”
She walked slowly from the table, a small army of humans scurrying at her feet as she made her way down the endless hallway to her room. Those seated at the table watched her, waiting til she was just out of earshot.
“She wrote,” muttered Harper, sticking bread into his mouth. "Who is she trying to fool?”
"I don’t know who,” Genesee replied, as she disappeared around the corner. "Maybe herself.”
Felix
Felix
Adapted from the forward of the book:
An Extended and Annotated Official History, Explaining the Current Situation in the East
by Genesee
It is my deep privilege to write to you, citizens of Holm. Since the beginning of modern times I have been entrusted with the management of the human experience by offering effective management, clear regulation, and prosperous bureaucracy. But it has been neglectful fo me to not speak to you directly more often. I hope to correct this in this now.
In light of recent events I hope to take more time to set the record straight, particularly concerning recently published materials that contradicts the truth of our shared history, and to inform you of the strides we are taking in protecting you from the insurrection in the east taking place by one Fairfax.
With regards to the former, I have a few points. Connected to this volume is a revised and clarified official history. It will show:
• There was little to no animosity between Goetz and Celia. While there is always a justifiable and healthy amount of tension, they have always been cooperative and cordial to each other.
• There was no war between men and woman. This conflates tensions that arose early on due to a lack of meaningful regulation and laws concerning gender politics. Although she is a proponent of women, Celia has never tried to enflame the passions of woman against men.
• Celia was not harmed on the Table of Eternity by Curson nor any other being, including Goetz. She was not cut or stabbed. This is a misrepresentation of what happened. There was a grand discussion at the Table of Eternity, not unlike what happens to this day. The violence depicted can be seen as symbolic, and a grand bargain was struck that day with power sharing between Goetz and Celia. This has been an unmitigated success, particularly with my arrival as administrator of the physical world with a duty to enforce this agreement. This balance of powers has driven the growth of the physical world by leaps and bounds.
• The ways that our various managers have been created were all exaggerated or blatantly untrue. I cannot list all the incorrect facts in this space. It is important that you consult the official history to refresh yourself to the truth in this matter.
• Finally, most importantly, Celia does not and never has had the ability to destroy all life by pulling apart the psychic fabric of our world. This is a complete falsehood. Such a power does not exist. I have been in direct contact with Goetz and it tells me that this is untrue.
The second part of this annotated history involves that of Fairfax. There is too much misinformation. I must start at the beginning in order to clarify what actually happened.
When Bautomet was created, it was a moment of great reflection for all of us. Bautomet was, indeed, a successful creation. Its power was unimaginable. tI marked a new point in our own evolution. He is indeed a weapon of immense possibilities. Should anything threaten us on the horizon, we know that enemy’s demise cannot be far behind thanks to this power beast. In this light, his birth is nothing but an unqualified success. But nothing that is effective is without drawbacks.
This became evident when Bautomet figured out a way to escape its cage some time ago. It sniffed its way out from the underground and caused some damage over a matter of time to the countryside. Our plan to contain him was effective. By surrounding him with soldiers and gradually shrinking the area he could operate in we we
re able to minimize the damage and apprehend The Beast in a timely manner.
However one of the main drawbacks of having such a weapon was made clear to us. There was no one that could control it in the event of a battle. Waring was far too busy and lacked some of the necessary skills. Furthermore this dovetailed my most cherished value: balance. Everything must be balanced with an equal counterweight.
I had long wanted to create a figure to balance out Bautomet but had lacked the political capital to do so. The incidents incited by Bautomet caused this calculation to change, and Waring and Celia were finally convinced that we needed a revised plan.
I want to discuss the reasoning behind our decisions in this matter. In order to do that I must start by explaining where our preferred candidate came from and how he came into the orbit around Mount Sigma. I believe this story will further show why a, disciplined centralized approach to governance is needed.
I will being with Felix…
The noise struck. Felix woke up in a daze, his head spinning. Gradually, images floated into his head, then turned into memories. He remembered who he was.
He looked to each side, his eyes barely open, light streaming through an orange curtain on one side, a closet with no doors on the other. He had to think about where he was.
The noise struck again. He jumped out of bed. He threw back the window curtain and looked down into the alley below. The Choholi were at it again, like clockwork. Each day, same time, he woke to the same parade.
Choholi tended not to stay in Holm long. They tended to work a few years and then head back to their families on their homeland on a boat. One of the few schools that catered to them was a shack the back of an alley between two large apartment buildings.