Astraea looks down at the kitchen table, shaking her head.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," she says.
"Maybe the sword chose you, or whoever the owner of that body is, to be the new Bearer," I say. "Maybe she's your new partner."
"That's stupid. It doesn't make any sense. I'm stuck in this body."
She stands up off her stool, walks to me, and jabs a finger into my chest.
"You did this," she says.
"Me?"
"Yeah. You and Kyle. You were supposed to die. Both of you broke the Treaties! You used Azrael to kill the living, and then Kyle stopped you from dying. Now we have this mess. There's no precedent for any of this.
"So here's what you're going to do, you selfish ass. You are going to help me find that bomb you hijacked off of those three not-ogres you killed, and find out who is behind all this ogre-making, building-exploding nonsense. Then we're going to find Kyle because the two of you morons are going to help me try to get things back to the way they were. I get to be my beautiful angel self. Whoever this lady is whose body I took, will go on living her previous life. Maybe we can get Kyle out of trouble with the Elven Nations. And you, my 'friend,' will get your sword back. Everything is going to go back to the way it was. Now nut up, and let's go."
"Nut up?"
"Yes," she says. "Go get your car and take me to where the bomb was last."
"Wait, so now I'm your sidekick?"
"Damn right, you are."
I scoff a chuckle.
"Well this keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" I say.
"Get the damned car!"
"Okay, okay, okay. Let me get dressed."
Eleven
We're in my T240 Tracker and cruising through District Ten's skyways, marked by various holographic traffic signs. I love my car. I mean, it's no Excelsior Sport Twin Jet like Kyle's, but it gets me around, and it's quite spacious. My apartment is like a sardine can. In this vehicle, however, I've got some elbow room.
It's almost midnight. Sky traffic hasn't lightened up one bit since the sun went down. The lights from skyscrapers are bright as ever. Billboards and flying screens show news reports and advertisements all over the district. The propylglass covered bridges and walkways, connecting every district building, are teeming with the foot traffic of business suits and buskers. Shops and kiosks are open, providing services for the nocturnal half of daily life.
I remember watching a documentary about three hundred years ago talking about the effects of working overnight causing major health problems. Back then, the number of nighttime workers were far fewer than it is now. Now it's about a fifty-fifty split between day and night. So what did Halcyon do? They developed tech to combat this health concern. They used old light therapy ideas from SAD visors and created an app which could be accessed by today's Halcyon applicators. The app is called "Daylight," and it tricks the mind and body into thinking it's day time. It uses latent solar radiation, and transmits it, via the Halcyon visor, so night lights would appear as bright as daylight. And it supplies a healthy dose of UVB rays to the body, via the thermal suit, to stimulate vitamin D production. It's used by billions of overnight workers and others who prefer to get things done while the sun slumbered.
Of course, all this musing about Halcyon is only due to the fact there is a thick silence between Astraea and me inside the car.
"You want to listen to music?" I ask her.
"No," she says, looking out the window.
"Can I listen to some—"
"No," she says.
"Hmmm."
I tap my fingertips against the controls and make clicking noises with my tongue.
"Stop that."
"Sorry," I say. "I was thinking."
She sighs deeply and continues to look out the window, wearing a thoughtful frown. I can't imagine what this whole situation is like for her. She's stuck in there. She used to be able to be anywhere she wanted to be at the speed of thought. Not just Earth, either. Anywhere, and everywhere in the universe that has a Field source. She used to be a "Free Spirit." We humans say those words but can't fathom the full extent of them. Astraea has seen the edge of the universe and was able to do so on command. Now she's stuck here with me.
I cough to break the silence.
"You know I'm sorry for what I said back at my place."
She looks away from the window and looks at me with a frozen silence.
"I didn't mean what I said. You know, about quitting on you and stuff."
"Yeah you did," she says. "I know you meant it."
"Okay, maybe at that moment I did. I got so caught up with finally having a normal life that I forgot that you were there for me and saved my life at least a thousand times."
"A thousand times? Try over a million."
"You kept count?" I ask.
She smiles at me. "Never."
"Well, either way, I owe you my life more than I owe Kyle's or anyone else for that matter. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm here for you. I'll help you out with whatever you need, and get things back to the way they were."
"I'm glad," she says.
We are both paying attention to the news coverage as we drive out of town. The explosion at Halcyon happened ten days ago, on June 9, which means I went through The Rending three days before on June 6th. So that means Astraea's been human for at least thirteen days.
"I woke up inside this person," she says. "I was inside a car, in the middle of a wheat field. I must have crashed, but it wasn't too bad. I wasn't hurt or anything. The car was in pretty good shape. The only problem was I couldn't access any of her stuff — ID, image modulator, nothing — because I didn't know her passwords. So I hiked back to the city and made my way to your place. I borrowed one of your thermals, and helped myself to your applicator."
"Great. I guess one of the perks of being in my head is you know all my passwords."
She smiles at me. "Don't worry; I didn't do anything bad. I may have used your credits to buy some avatars."
I sigh a chuckle. "Okay great. And what else did you do?"
"Nothing much. I stayed at your place," she says. "I sat around watching TV. I went out a couple of times. Don't worry; I didn't go partying and bringing guys back to your place for a romp or anything like that. But I definitely, how to put this, explored myself."
"Ugh, Astraea, why do you have to —"
"So yeah, there I was watching TV when Halcyon went boom. After a while, I saw one of the news channels flash your pic and named you as one of the survivors. They said you were taken to St. Edward's emergency."
"And you found no trace of Kyle?" I ask her.
She shakes her head. "Nope. I didn't know he was with you, so I wasn't actively looking for him."
"Fair enough," I say. "Okay, down to business. What did you find out about these ogres? You went to the spirit world, right?"
"Yeah. Right after the last time I saw you."
"And? Did they make any noise coming through?"
She shakes her head.
"You're kidding me," I say.
"Not a peep," she says.
"Well that's not right, is it?"
"Of course, it's not right!” she says. “But it's in line with the story you're telling. They weren't conjurations. Otherwise, there would have been no Rending."
I nod in silent agreement. Ogres are demons from the spirit world, and there are two ways to bring over the demonic spirit to the material plane. At first, Astraea and I thought they were conjurations.
A conjuration occurs when someone from our plane wants some help from the world beyond, and they do a ritual summoning to bring a spirit over from the other side. The more you want a spirit to do, the more arcane energy you need to use so you can harness the emotion that will give that spirit an existence. An ogre, for example, is a spirit borne of violent rage. To summon that spirit, someone would have had to harness that specific emotion enough to give it a life force and bring it over from the spiritual p
lane. But when it crosses over, it's still a spirit. It's got no physical form. Now the summoner has to spend more magical energy to make it manifest. An emotion like rage usually manifests into huge hulking man-beasts with gnarled teeth and tusks, and red, rage-filled eyes. And voila you have your ogre.
Usually, to give a spirit physical form requires something big. I'm talking 'life-for-a-life' human sacrifice big. It was more common back in the day, but not now. And if it does happen, someone who knows what to look for is going to know about it. There are going to be shifts in the Field, and footprints left behind in the spirit world.
Now, since a conjuration is NOT a living, breathing creature, the Bearer can use The Destroying Angel to banish them and send them back to the spirit world with no repercussions. All that would be left of the conjured demon is the magical physical husk that the spirit once occupied, which would dissolve into a yellowy brown ooze, and then evaporate into nothing. However, this was not the case with those three 'ogres' I killed.
"Okay, so they weren't summoned," I say. "Maybe they were really strong possessions."
The second way a spirit can come over from the spiritual plane is through possession, which means the demonic spirit takes over a corporeal host. It's a weaker version of a summoning, where the host feels an emotion intensely enough a spirit takes over them. This happens all the time, in varying degrees, of course. All it takes is a strong feeling, or a bunch of people feeding off the same emotion, and making it stronger. Ever seen a riot? Get a whole bunch of people feeling one way and what follows is an energy shift inside your own body. You become part of the collective. That feeling changes you. It's not all bad. Creative types go through the same thing when they're in 'the zone,' and the spirit of inspiration takes over them. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the possession, but it's never been strong enough to change a person's makeup completely. At least not on the level those ogres were. Personality, yes. Psychology, yes. Physiology is limited.
Astraea shakes her head with a scoffing chuckle. "No way," she says. "No possession can be that strong."
"It's not possible?"
"Hell no," she says. "Look at me."
"Yeah, I’m looking."
"No, I mean, look at me," she says. “This is it. I, the spirit, have complete control of this person's body. I mean maybe Thaddeus and his followers are more powerful possessions, but they still look human for the most part."
"Yeah, you're right. But something's gotta give," I say. "Because you saw those ogres. They looked like full on conjurations. When I killed them, I suffered the consequences as if I killed possessed living beings."
Since a possessed person is still alive, the Bearer can't go killing them willy-nilly. Before the Treaties, my mom was whacking possessed people left and right. Nowadays, the Bearer has to exorcise the possessed spirit from the living body. And once that's done, without the physical host, the spirit isn't strong enough to stay on this plane and is sucked back into the spirit world.
"Well, I am telling you, it's impossible," she says. "Do you know how much power that would take? It was more feasible when we thought they were three conjurations. "
"What kind of power are we talking?"
She shakes her head, slowly whistling through pursed lips. "To get possessed by an emotion strong enough that it completely turns you into a demon? I can't even imagine it," she says. "Let's put it this way, the core emotion has to be strong. I mean magically strong. And drawing that kind of emotion from The Field is—I don't even know."
"So basically, a god could do it," I say.
"Yeah."
"Could any one of The Big Seven have done it?" I ask.
"From the other side? Hell no. And if they did, we'd know about it. As I said, there wasn't a peep over in the spiritual plane when I went."
"So it's all coming from over here?"
"Yup, the good ole material plane," she says. "Which is..."
"Impossible."
I take a moment to think about it.
"Okay. So what if it was possible?" I ask.
"It's not."
"No, don't dismiss it,” I say. “Work with me. Let's start with who on this plane of existence could do it?"
"So you're asking me if it's possible for one person to become possessed enough to be able to transform his or her physical makeup so they become the manifestation of that emotion? It's not possible. One person would have to feel and harness the rage of maybe half the world's population. That's to make one ogre."
"And that's without magical help?" I ask.
"Correct."
"What about with magical help?"
"Then we are talking about an archmage,” she says. “But I mean a really powerful one. Godlike, even. There is no one like that because if there was..."
"You'd know about it."
"Not only me,” she says. “You'd feel it too. Or at least you would have felt it when you were the Bearer."
"What about a lot of them?"
"A lot of what?" she asks.
"A lot of powerful archmages,” I clarify. “What if they got together and—”
"No."
"I'm only asking if it's possible,” I say.
"And I am telling you, no. You ever hear that expression too many cooks spoil the pot? It would take hundreds of really powerful wizards, all doing the same thing, all feeling the same thing, all concentrating in perfect synchronization while they access The Field. If even one of them breaks, then it's over. And that's to make one ogre through a possession."
"So we got nothing. No leads," I say.
"Not yet," she says. "But maybe if we find that bomb, it'll lead us to the ogre-maker."
"The only thing is, if we find him or her or them; he, she, or they would be so powerful that we can't take them down," I say.
"This is making my brain hurt," she says. She rubs and presses on her forehead with her thumb and forefinger.
"Comes with the territory," I say.
I breathe a heavy sigh. We're talking, and thinking in circles.
"You know what else is weird?" I say.
"What?"
"The Halcyon Building is in District Seven,"
"Yeah..."
"I intercepted that truck with the bomb and those ogres in District Ten."
"What do you think that means?" she asks.
"I don't know. It's weird, I guess."
"Maybe they had another target, and you prevented another bombing."
I sway my head from side to side. "Maybe," I say. "But somehow I think I was supposed to find those ogres and that bomb. I think it was meant for me.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I say. “All I know is I can't shake the feeling that someone or something is toying with me."
"Yeah me too."
Twelve
We arrive at the maintenance barn at close to one in the morning. I land exactly where I did two weeks ago. The giant double barn doors are closed. Astraea and I get out of the car. The air is cool, and I take in a deep breath of fresh, country, night air. It almost makes me forget about my injuries. My thermal suit hides the robotic flex-wrappings around my torso and legs, so my outfit (blue jeans, white shirt, leather jacket, and brown boots) is projected on top of the wrappings. It doesn’t look like I'm wearing bandages at all. My face, however, looks like I've been through hell and back. I've got one big bruise down the left side of my face after my car accident, and I have several healed cuts from flying pieces of windshield.
"The truck isn't here," Astraea says.
"Yeah, that's probably a good thing. A delivery truck with three dead bodies and a bomb would look pretty suspect."
"You think Kyle got rid of it?"
"It's a safe bet that he did. He's a smart guy. He knows the score."
"Well then why the hell did we come here?" she asks.
"You told me to," I answer.
"This is no time to get cute. If you knew the truck wasn't going to be here, why didn't you—"<
br />
"Relax. Look," I say, pointing up to corners of the barn roof.
"Why? What am I looking at?"
"Cameras," I say. "There's bound to be some footage of stuff that went on that night. Maybe someone here will let us look at them."
I go to the back of my car and pop the trunk where there is a leather double shoulder holster, and put it on. My applicator intuitively projects my leather jacket on top, so the holster doesn't show. Then I lift an area of the trunk's lining to reveal a secret compartment with my stash of swords, daggers, grenades, guns, and ammo. I pick up two Glock-17s, load them up, pull back on their charging handles, and holster them.
"You think you're going to need those?" Astraea asks.
"Lesson One, young Padawan: prepare for the worst," I say.
"Ugh. You're my sidekick, remember. Not my mentor."
A voice yells out, "Roxx!"
The voice came from the barn, and I close the trunk to hide my cache of weapons. Astraea and I both turn around.
A man with a youthfully round face comes out of the barn, sliding the door open enough for him to get through. He's wearing a contraption with different-sized, multi-focal lenses over one eye. He slides this over his head, so the lenses are facing up to the sky. He's got a shadow of a russet beard, and his shock of orange curly hair is going every which way. His skin has a pale yellowish tinge to it, common to basement dwellers, and his dress is colorful. He's wearing a loose-fitting, long, over-sized, bright, yellow button-up over an exposed orange undershirt, and tight red pants. I can't believe this is the avatar outfit this guy chose to project.
"Roxx, is that you?"
There is a note of excitement and relief in his voice. He gets closer.
Astraea puts a hand to her chest as if to ask 'Who? Me?'
"Oh my god, that is you!" he says.
He arrives at Astraea, and hugs her at the waist, lifting her. When he puts her down, Astraea backs away, wiping her clothing straight.
"Where you been, man?" he asks her.
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