The City was dark. There were a few lights here and there - the candles of churches and temples, or the occasional building with its own generator. Overall, however …
Metris was in a blackout.
“Christ,” Rake swore, pausing, then adding. “Sorry.”
“It is time, yes, time. Are you ready?” The first voice is sarcastic, not hateful, but cruel and tired.
“No.” The second voice is young, and very frank.
“I understand my boy. But, you understand, don’t you?”
A sigh. “Yes, I do. I wish there was another way. I wish someone else had a solution.”
“We have what we have, let us go implement it. We have, if I am any judge, a rare gift from our friends the Powersmiths …”
Riakka Bale fell to the floor of her living room, gasping as her breath turned to molten metal.
One moment she’d been lighting candles around the apartment, and wondering what was going on. The next moment, she felt like her chest was on fire and that something was trying to crawl out of her mind through her pores.
Her apartment whirled around her, colors seeming to smear into strangely bright streaks. The young Historians mind raced through a list of potential ailments that would have made any hypochondriac proud, but nothing seemed to fit.
Trying to breathe, Riakka stumbled into the bathroom, flashlight in hand. Setting the only source of illumination on the toilet, she opened the mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink and began rummaging through the contents.
Something fell into her hand.
It was a makeup kit. She didn’t use it much - she found it impractical and rather sexist. Besides, makeup usually called attention to her paleness.
A makeup kit. Her fingers began to jerk as needle-thin shards of pain ran through each joint.
She opened the kit awkwardly, mechanically. Her left hand seized a tube of lipstick and flipped the cap off. Like a nail pulled by a magnet, she turned towards the shower stall.
“I …”
Jerking spasmodically, she began to write on the bathroom wall.
HE IS COMING, CHILD.
Riakka’s arm ached like fire and the pressure at the bottom of the sea.
THE HISTORIAN IS GOING TO THE TOWER.
“I …” Riakka gritted her teeth. “I will warn them, the clerics. I … thank you for helping …”
Her arm flew into action again. She tried not to scream.
YOU KEPT FAITH IN ME. I KEEP FAITH IN YOU.
Then, the pain was gone.
Moments later, it hit her just was going on.
“Oh, shit!”
Shard Tower. The Historian. The center of Metrisian government. Her mentor turned supernatural psychopath.
Metris comes to life. It happens in parts, in individual lives, but together, the city comes alive.
… the Gendarmes rally, every one on call, heading out to direct traffic …
… Metris General’s generators roar to life, powering the hospital, providing illumination in the darkness …
… all coming alive.
Jade looked over Metris as best she could, aided by a pair of binoculars HuanJen kept around, and hindered by the fact that there was not much illumination. She was largely operating under the theory that anything nasty happening would require or produce light.
Part of her was waiting for riots, gunshots, panic, and general mayhem. It was the cynical part of her, but it was a part that had been too right in the past for her to ignore. However, there wasn’t much to feed that cynical side as of late.
HuanJen was calm. He’d been buzzing about the apartment, chatting on the cell phone, as calm as you please. People didn’t seem that panicked, really. She’d seen a brownout about six or eight months ago, and no one had minded.
It struck her that it was her perspective. People out there knew the Guild Council and the various Guild leaders, councils, presidents, etc. were battling over control of the Communicants. But that was part of the whole big picture - and they didn’t’ know how much supernatural crap was brewing underneath.
Or if they did, they didn’t care and were just going on their way. Like her boss.
“Jade?” HuanJen called from within the apartment.
“Nothing going on. Gendarmes have got the flares out for traffic. What’s up?”
She looked behind her, and saw HuanJen looking very serious, which for him was like an average person who was mildly calm.
“Dealer Zero called. He heard from Riakka. Shard Tower. Cynthia will cover.”
“I … oh fuck,” Jade discarded any need for being articulate. “He’s … there?”
“Going, at least,” HuanJen handed Jade her satchel and her pistol and holster. “It is time, Jade. Brownmiller will get Zero.”
The Vulpine slipped the pistol and its holster onto her belt and shouldered the satchel next to the Lakkom on her back. She looked at HuanJen …
… she wanted to say a lot. Say all sorts of things, put things into words that didn’t fit into time or space or even one emotion.
She really wanted to tell him to be careful and that she loved him a lot, and that he really meant a lot, and that she was scared. She wanted to say she really wanted to help things, and that, if it came to it, with all her heart, she watned to kick The Historian in the balls first.
“Let’s go,” Jade managed. “er, I love you, HuanJen.”
“I know. Now, let us depart.”
“Er,” Jade paused, “The others …”
HuanJen was calm as always. “Brownmiller has his truck and will get Ahn. Rake has his motorcycle. We’ll make due.”
“Er, yeah, I … motorcycle?”
Jade’s life had gotten just a bit stranger, but not in the current hideous-crisis way.
Rake was preparing.
His normal robes were discarded in favor of a pair of dark jeans, a black shirt, and steel-toed leather boots. His gold crucifix was fastened carefully around his neck.
A cabinet in a storage room revealed a gunbelt with two holsters. A box yielded two carefully-kept pistols with silver cruxifixes in their ivory handles.
Next, Rake strode into the basement of his church, next to an old loading bay that had been many things in many times. Under a tarpulin was a motorcycle - one of the electric motorcycles seen around Metris, but with a few variations and alterations and extra parts that suggested it had been modified for power and speed.
Then, putting on a jacket that read “Born Again To Be Wild”, Rake took the motorcycle outside and roared into the night.
Just one of the various members of Guild Esoteric doing his job.
Brian Talbot was not having a normal day.
He’d moved to Xai three months ago. The company he’d worked for on his Earth had contact with the Mercantile Alliance, and a chance to come to the Crossworld seemed a dream come true. Freedom, opportunity, unique experiences …
… admittedly now his current experience was sitting in traffic, waiting for an overworked Gendarme to wave him through. Still it was a blackout on a really interesting world.
“Guild Esoteric Emergency, we need your car!”
Brian Talbot found himself looking at an ID card. It was held in a hand covered in white fur, attached to a woman covered mainly in black fur. Green eyes burned like furnace flames, glaring at him.
She didn’t look that Clerical. Oh, sure she looked like some weird religious statue, but she definitely didn’t look that mystical. He was still adjusting to the existence of Vulpines and other variants of humanity, so he did admit his own ignorance.
Then again, he’d been here all of three months. It had seemed like such a nice place, and now someone was trying to confiscate his car. They seemed to have come out of the apartment building he’d been in front of …
Jade looked at the nondescript, dark-haired man in the car, then nodded at the back seat. “Get in back. Huan, get in front.”
“Why?” The mystic asked.
“So you can drive!�
� Jade answered, herding Brian into the back seat.
“I see,” HuanJen nodded. “Jade, I can’t drive.”
“What?”
Brian blinked. He looked around at the darkened city, the confusing traffic, and the couple arguing in front of him. He figured he might as well stick around, it could be interesting. Besides, the thin oriental guy seemed to have some idea of what was going on.
“I can’t drive, I never learned how,” HuanJen protested.
Jade gaped, then rubbed her forehead. “Crap, I’m not sure I can drive one of these, shit, and Crawford isn’t around …”
“Um, excuse me?” Biran asked carefully.
“Yes?” Cleric and apprentice asked in unison.
“I … can drive it. What’s going on?” Brian ventured.
“Oh, fuck,” Jade cursed.
“HuanJen” the mystic shook Brian’s hand. “We need to go to Shard Tower immediately. It’s an emergency.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you,” HuanJen said in a friendly manner, hefting a strange box in his hands, “But we do have an Esoteric emergency light that fits conveniently onto your car, so we can pass the Gendarmes.”
“Of course its in the hands of someone who can’t drive …” Jade muttered and half-laughed.
Brian looked at the strange mystic, at his companion, and at the darkened city. Any rational person would refuse or ask for some reassurance.
However, he’d been in the city only a few months, politics had been annoying him, and the city was in a blackout. It wasn’t a rational time.
“Sure.” Brian said, though he was quite sure most of his brain wasn’t engaged.
Though this would probably be very, very interesting.
Things hold …
… there are few true traditions in Xai and in Metris, but those that are are held to. Ties and allegiances and principles. You know your neighbors. You respect privacy, but after butting in if people seem to have a problem. Help the visitors to the world since they don’t understand it.
… neighbors keep watch …
… in a place where the Gendarmes are unexpectedly spare, people take to directing neighborhood traffic …
… things hold …
Emergencies in Metris were a curious affair that all boiled down to “what kind of flashing lights are there?” It was a simple, economical, and obvious way for the various Guilds to tell people who was addressing what crisis.
The Gendarmes vehicles used red and blue. For the Firefighters it was red. For Guild Medical, red and white. For Guild Esoteric in those rare moments that someone in the Guild has to rush to an emergency, the display was blue and yellow.
There were, except for a few Guild-owned vehicles, no official emergency vehicles of Guild Esoteric. Thus, in those rare times there was a social, spiritual, or supernatural crisis, one might see the rare yellow-and-blue emergency lights of Guild Esoteric flashing away on any vehicle owned, borrowed, or contravened.
… a black motorcycle tears down alleys, across sidewalks, and in one case through a park of rather startled people, bathing onlookers in azire and ochre lights.
… blue and yellow lights flash atop a truck as it barrels down a street, past a few very frustrated Gendarmes directing traffic. One gets used to Esotericists doing things in quiet and keeping order, not making the difficult job of coping with no traffic lights more difficult.
… and in a simple, personal car driven by a man having the least boring day of his life in months …
Brian Talbot tried to focus on the road, avoid hitting anything, and figure out his two passengers in back. Still, despite all the confusion, he was part of something, something big apparently, something involving Shard Tower.
It was exciting when you weren’t trying to avoid running people down. This is the kind of thing you read about in the Metris Times, the real cool stuff down deep in the city-of-all-worlds.
“… and you’re learning to drive after this,” Jade fumed.
“I have no objection,” HuanJen replied, flipping through a notebook, “you have your papers and clearance?”
“Yes, you?”
“Of course,” the answer was calm, “Considering the traffic, we should get there in …”
“Um, excuse me?” Brian asked, not sure how to address two arguing Esotericsits who were obviously dating, “but will the Guild cover any damage to the car?”
“Oh, yes, standard procedure,” HuanJen answered.
“Good, I can get us there faster!”
Brian wrenched the wheel around, turning into an alley a friend had shown him a few days ago. As several unfortunate trash cans banged off of his car, he smiled.
This was living.
Though, he could have swore he heard the one named Jade mutter something about him not living when this was over.
Rake’s motorcycle skidded to a stop outside of Shard Tower, center of Metrisian and Xaian government, ancient beyond counting, and currently center of highly organized chaos. The Gendarmes and Shard Tower Security Guards gathered at the main entrance regarded him curiously, but did nothing.
The minister looked up the Tower, the warp-and-change frozen in sky-climbing design. There were some lights on from the emergency generators, though the fancy fountains in front of the glass-fronted entrance weren’t running. Enough to do work, not enough to keep up images.
Not that they’d be necessary now. And somewhere up there …
He could tell, he could feel it. When you watched the shadows around the building move or felt a pair of red eyes on you, you could tell.
The Historian.
In a flash of blue and yellow, a pickup truck barely missed a trolley stop and pulled onto the sidewalk. Brownmiller and Dealer Zero jumped out of the vehicle, or more accurately Zero jumped; Brownmiller sort of rolled - he wasn’t a man built for jumping.
“Where’s the disorienting duo?” Brownmiller asked, striding over to Rake. The hammer he used for rituals glinted in the few lights, seeming to seethe with a silvery glow.
“Any moment, ah, I estimate, ” Rake stated. “And Ahn …”
“Here.”
The young Buddhist mystic appeared out of a streak of nothingness next to the minister, an ornate dagger clutched in his left hand.
“I hate it when you do that,” Brownmiller complained, “It really sends out the bad vibrations.”
“Sorry. What’s the situation?” Ahn asked after an apologetic nod.
“HuanJen and Jade got, ah, the call from Riakka …” Rake began.
Dealer Zero interrupted nervously, “I did a reading after she called me. Guess what came up every time?”
The motley clot of mystics looked up at Shard Tower.
“The Tower,” Brownmiller and Rake said quietly. Tarot cards weren’t things they usually used, but most Xaian clerics picked up enough knowledge of mystic traditions for the sake of conversation.
Zero shrugged. “Yeah. Sorta obvious. Any ideas?”
“Not a damn one.” Browmiller cracked the knuckles of his right hand. “Except we go in and investigate and beat the shit out of him if he’s there.”
“He’s here. Now. I can, ah, tell,” Rake intoned.
Brownmiller nodded, hefting his hammer. “I know. I know. He’s going to do something, run himself through the heart of the world like Galcir said. The place is obvious.”
An electric car purred up behind the gathered mystics. HuanJen and Jade climed out, with a short, dark-haired man in a business suit in tow.
“New guy?” Brownmiller asked. HuanJen seemed to just accumulate people.
“Our ride.” Jade cocked a thumb at the newcomer, who appeared to be rather happy despite the situation. “Brian, this is Rake, Brownmiller, Ahn, and Dealer Zero.”
“Cool.” Brian smiled. “What do we do next?”
“You wait here,” HuanJen said pleasantly, yet in a way that would brook no debate. “Gentlemen and Jade?”
“Shall we go really shake
up Shard Tower security?” Brownmiller twirled his hammer.
“It’s going to happen anyway,” HuanJen acknowledged, “let’s go.”
The six mystics strode purposefully towards the public entrance to Shard Tower. It would do no good to try a more secretive entrance, since it was likely to only cause more trouble than it was worth.
People would expect secretive entrances.
“You know,” Dealer Zero commented, “if this was a film, this’d be where the camera goes slow-motion and we all look very cool.”
Jade nodded reluctantly, “I was thinking the same thing …”
“Now, you know what to do?” A voice alive with more than one life.
“Yes, sir. When the broadcast ends. You?”
“Someone, my dear Scribe, will not be coming back from this. I fully intend it to be me …”
Try and imagine working Shard Tower security.
The tower is open constantly. The Guild Council meets there. The City Council meets there. There are restaurants and offices, and a few Guild headquarters. There is a bombing site from a mishandled act of supposedly clever guerrilla politics.
Add a power outage, and you have to ask “what more can go wrong.”
Throw in a group from Guild Esoteric, and you’ll wonder what god heard you ask the question.
Eileen Urale, head of Shard Tower Security was a religious woman in the fact that she usually asked “oh, gods, what else will go wrong.” Right now, she felt there weren’t enough deities in the Xaian pantheon for her to complain to.
First, Shard Tower security had been a nightmare for months with the Council politics, and it had never been easy. Then there was the bizarre bombing that some paranoids had figured would expose a conspiracy that never existed. Then, you had the blackout on her one night off.
Then, you had the attack of the Annoying Clerics.
A group of Esotericists had stormed into the tower (in a polite way admittedly), brandishing ID cards and demanding to be taken to the Security Center. It was hard for her guards, trained as they were, to say “no” to a group of people who represented the moral and spiritual authorities on Xai, and suddenly the Security Center was overrun.
Eileen looked out of her office window, the one she’d demanded when she’d taken the job - it was a one-way mirror that let her observe the monitor-laded room in which her people kept track of conditions in the Tower. It was chaotic in there, and it wasn’t the usual, familiar chaos.
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