Thresholder, ch 164, Snipe Hunt

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A note on scheduling: this was supposed to be the Monday chapter, but it ended up going too long, which is why it became a Thursday chapter. The schedule for Thresholder was premised on what I can write in a week, and if I want to stick to it, it really really needs to be more in the 4-5K word count range. This one is ~7,500, and if it had been any longer, I might have split it in two, just in the interests of making the schedule accurate.

(Writing is going well overall after the extended slump, but I do have other obligations that are nibbling at it, like editing volumes of Thresholder for release, editing This Used to be About Dungeons, editing Worth the Candle, and writing Millennial Scarlet.)

~~~~

“So you’re going to be an assistant, and I’m staying here?” asked Anaksi. She sat on the hotel bed with her arms folded. “I don’t like that.”

“We came here ahead of Queenie,” said Perry. “She’s got one destination, and it’s going to be that workshop. Someone needs to be there, and you are unfortunately going to attract too much attention at the Collegium.”

They sat on their respective beds in the hotel room, with Marchand propped up in a chair. He had brought her food, though she’d made a few sojourns outside on her own, and paid for a few things with the money he’d given her.

“We need to be doing something,” said Anaksi. “She has thirty men who no longer have loyalty to their tribe.”

“You don’t know that,” said Perry.

“I looked in their eyes and listened to how they spoke,” said Anaksi. “I know what happened to them.”

“No,” said Perry. “Because whatever Queenie did, she never had possession of the harmonizer until after the attack. That means if she did change them somehow, it was some other method, not whatever Grayspear is working on.”

“I must side with Miss Anaksi on this one,” said Marchand. “It does seem to comport with what the doctrix has said to you.”

“Okay, so we’re thinking … what, that Queenie had some method of doing this to people, and Grayspear just has some way to amplify it?” asked Perry. He looked between the two of them. “That’s what I’m hearing, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” said Anaksi. “But I know that if we wait here for the next three days, and you help this woman, we’re lost.”

“We have time,” said Perry. “I’ll wire up the walkie tonight, and that will give us an ear into the workshop. We’ll put a battery with it, one of the bigger ones.”

“She won’t come into the city with all those men,” said Anaksi. “How are we going to undo what she’s done if we don’t know where they’re camped?”

“We need to know what was done before we can have a chance of undoing it,” said Perry. “If the Leased come out of their, er, coma or whatever when the term is up, then probably this can be reversed too. So that means either coercing it out of the doctrix, or just having her spill everything of her own accord, which I think she’s liable to do if I just keep spending time in that workshop with her.”

Anaksi unfolded her arms, then folded them again. “You’re being reactive.”

“We don’t have a choice,” said Perry. “What do you want from me?”

“You have tricks,” said Anaksi. “Hundreds of them. Don’t you have something that lets you find her?”

“No,” said Perry. “I would, if things made sense here. I would go up among the stars and have a camera that looked down at the ground, and we could see them coming so long as they were following the tracks. But that’s not an option here, I don’t even know what would happen in theory if I tried to go above the clouds.”

It was all somewhat irrelevant, since Perry hadn’t actually brought along a spy satellite. They had talked about it, since in theory the Farfinder could make one, just a hundred pounds of equipment the size of a small desk, but it was so labor-intensive and uncertain that they’d opted to skip it.

“I can’t just sit and do nothing,” said Anaksi. “These are my people.”

“I understand,” said Perry, nodding. “Our priorities, right now, are waiting for Queenie and getting me the power of the Inspectors.”

Anaksi stared at him. “How are you going to do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Perry. “I’m hoping that you would help with that. I need to know how they get their power, for a start, what their processes and procedures are, and why they’re interested in me.”

“You want me to go into the bear’s den and hope it doesn’t wake up?” asked Anaksi.

“If that’s necessary,” said Perry. “Your other option is trying to snoop, but …” he looked at her.

“I’m Yuuksen,” she said, finishing his thought.

“There are all kinds of reasons you could go into the Inspector’s headquarters,” said Perry. “But the problem is, they’ll inspect you. So maybe you could figure out a way to just have a friendly conversation with them.”

“They don’t do friendly,” said Anaksi. “No, I’m not doing that. Why do you need this power anyway?”

“It’s proof,” said Perry. “Queenie comes at me, I put her down, she’s at my mercy, I ask her where the members of your tribe are, what’s to stop her from lying to me? More to the point, I could just have Grayspear show me the face of her previous assistant. If Queenie has some kind of shape changing ability, we really need to know that.”

“And how do you explain how you have the power to inspect someone?” asked Anaksi.

“You don’t make for a particularly good spy, sir,” said Marchand.

“It’s too useful a power to ignore,” said Perry. “Besides, maybe I could get this mark off my hand.” He held it up to show them. It hadn’t gotten worse, but it wasn’t showing any signs of fading away, and he was already sick of wearing gloves all the time.

“I’m not helping with that,” said Anaksi.

“I don’t expect you to,” said Perry. “But if you don’t want to spend the day cooped up here, then you’re on your own when figuring out what to do. There are other Yuuks in the city, right?”

“A few,” said Anaksi. “The Fourth Phalanx isn’t as strong as it once was. But I can’t get them on our side.”

“Why not?” asked Perry. “That was the work you were trying to do out there, with your husband, wasn’t it?”

“These are people who have bought into the Commission,” said Anaksi.

“Some of them,” said Perry.

“I have nothing to offer,” she replied.

“You have me,” said Perry. “However strong you’re thinking I am in combat, I’m stronger, okay? When I’m in that armor, I’m stronger than the K-men. I might be stronger outside it, honestly. I’m not saying that you need these people to be soldiers, but we have no network here, no allies, and if Queenie is pulling from the Yuuks out there, then maybe she’s pulling from them here, too.”

Anaksi breathed out. “I can try.”

“It’s better than sitting here listening to March, waiting for me to get shot in the head,” said Perry.

“I suppose,” said Anaksi. “He’s been relating to me the things this woman said.”

“And?” asked Perry.

“It sounds terrifying,” said Anaksi. “Worse than the Leased by far.”

“Agreed,” said Perry with a shrug.

“My husband would have suggested that we kill her,” said Anaksi.

“Yeah, it’s on the table,” said Perry. “But … there’s a question of how much killing any one person actually matters, in the scheme of things. And to be frank, the Dusklands are pretty fucked no matter what’s done here. Maybe they’re recoverably fucked, maybe they can find their own way to some kind of tolerance, acceptance, understanding, eliminate poverty, institute some reforms so people aren’t getting their hands mangled in machines …”

Anaksi was staring at him. “That’s the end you would like to see?”

“That’s the start,” said Perry. “That’s the place where I would say ‘alright, maybe these people aren’t simply completely beneath the standards I expect a civilization to be living at’. But I’ve seen other civilizations, and most of them seem below that standard. Trying to do anything about it is a fraught exercise.”

“But you would kill her, if she threatened to make a weapon?” asked Anaksi.

“Maybe,” said Perry. “Depends on the circumstances. Like I said, it’s on the table.”

“That’s more than I had any right to expect,” she said.

~~~~

Wiring up the walkie was relatively simple, in part because the logic used for adding things to the shelf space was “take everything that you might possibly need, because there’s a good chance you’re not going to be able to get it later”. Perry put on the helmet for it, and Marchand showed him what to do, which was like playing a tutorial of some game where the designers really thought he was a moron. Marchand put in big arrows pointing at equipment when it was needed, and overlaid ghost images showing where Perry’s hands should go and what they should be doing. This was all accompanied by a near-monologue of instructions.

When they were finished, it was nightfall, Perry put the armor on and flew to the Collegium to place it, setting it up against a dusty skylight window that they hoped would provide minimal interference. The walkie, and the battery it was connected to, would turn on and transmit in response to sound, conserving battery otherwise. As listening devices went, it was hamfisted, but it was far better than nothing, and the workshop was at least only a single room which gave a better chance of usable audio.

“Really feeling the lack of nanites here,” said Perry.

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “It is possible we could have them back, as the harmonizers appear to reduce the error rate which is presumably causing them to fail — if they haven’t been ‘bricked’ entirely. I wouldn’t mention it, save that doctrix is working with just such technology, and might have the means to expand its power.”

“That would be a hell of a move, using her own science to get the drop on her,” said Perry.

“Alas, they don’t give points for that, sir,” said Marchand.

Perry hadn’t just prepared a single listening device, he’d made two. Dropping off the second was more sketchy and less certain, especially since Inspector Headquarters was a large building that had many possible places to place a microphone. Perry had eventually found the largest, most richly appointed office and placed the contraption there, hoping that it could hear through a window.

“Are you intent on poking this bear, sir?” asked Marchand.

“No,” said Perry. “Depends on what they say. Depends on how large and scary the bear is. Ideally they have a big briefing every morning where they discuss how and where and why they hand out the power. In which case, we can probably just break in and steal it in the middle of the night.”

“One can hope, I suppose,” replied Marchand.

With the night’s errands done, Perry went back to the hotel once again, and tried to get some actual sleep.

~~~~

“Okay, but, you have to have some understanding of why the Leased don’t need food and water,” said Perry. “That’s the part that’s weird to me.”

“‘Weird’?” asked Doctrix Grayspear with a smile. “You can accept that the fundamental will of a man can be snipped away, but not that he no longer needs to shit?”

“Yeah,” said Perry. “The body is biological, it has needs. You place a mouse in a bell jar and it’ll suffocate, and if you pump in air it’ll die of dehydration, and if you give it water but don’t give it food it starves.”

“Ah, and you cannot Lease a mouse,” said Doctrix Grayspear. She wagged her finger like she’d made a good point.

“Uh, what?” asked Perry. “I mean, of course you can’t, you said that it needs some kind of consent.”

“You are thinking of this in terms of machines,” said Doctrix Grayspear. “The fire needs fuel, yes?”

“Right,” said Perry.

“This is thinking from another world,” said Doctrix Grayspear with a nod. “A balance of things. That’s not true here. How does a bee fly?”

“A what?” asked Perry. He was holding a fixture in place while she screwed it in.

“A bee, buzz buzz,” said Doctrix Grayspear as she slowly turned the screwdriver. “They propel themselves, telekinesis, with more power than is put into them.”

“Bees … are not telekinetic,” said Perry.

“Yes, they are,” nodded Doctrix Grayspear. “Who are you to doubt me on this?”

“Well then explain how they are,” said Perry. “Explain how that’s … what do you mean more energy out than in?”

“A bee eats sugars,” said Doctrix Grayspear. “We can burn those sugars to see how much energy they have. And a bee, in flight — first, do you understand math?”

“Extremely well, yes, and physics,” said Perry. “You’re saying that a measurement of the, er, caloric content of the sugars the bees eat is less than the energy content which must naturally be consumed by the bees in flight?”

“Yes,” nodded the doctrix. “Precisely so, save for that term, ‘caloric’. What is its meaning?”

“Unit of energy,” said Perry.

“Heat, sir,” said Marchand in Perry’s ear.

“Er, unit of heat,” said Perry, before second-guessing the AI. Having just claimed that he was incredibly solid on mathematics and physics, it was a bit embarrassing to suddenly question whether he knew what a calorie was. Weren’t heat and energy the same thing, interchangeable? He was fairly sure they were, it was maybe just the word that wasn’t the same between Earth 1 and Earth 2. “Or, no, those are the same thing.”

“Are they?” asked Grayspear. “Inform me.” She wasn’t quite being sarcastic, or if she was, it was a very dry sarcasm.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” said Perry. “The point is, there’s conservation of energy, you don’t get more energy out of a system than you put into it.”

“You are fueled by moonlight, sir,” said Marchand into Perry’s ear, a polite whisper.

“Well, you must discard such thinking,” said Doctrix Grayspear. “What is most important?”

“Uh,” said Perry. “Power?”

Grayspear clucked her tongue. “Truth,” she replied. “Truth is the most important thing, because without truth, how can you exercise power?”

“I suppose,” said Perry. “But how can you get at the truth without power?”

“This is not philosophy,” she replied. She finished with the last of the screws, and gestured for Perry to move away. The piece held. She stood up from where she’d been crouched down, stretching to her full five feet of height. “The truth is the most important thing, because without the truth we have nothing. There are other answers that people can give besides power, they can say freedom, or kindness, or other people. But these answers are all wrong, it’s truth that matters most, more than anything. And if you say things that are false, and persist in that falseness, then you are a bad assistant and a worthless person.”

“Sorry,” said Perry. “You’re right that I don’t have a good grasp on this world. Bees are telekinetic.”

“You are only repeating what I have said,” she replied with a sigh. “And worse, you’re doing it out of deference. But better than just arguing from a position of ignorance.” She looked him up and down. “The trains run on bees.”

“Er,” said Perry. “What?”

“Some of them, anyway,” said the doctrix, waving her hand. “There are some that are electrified, but they’re only for passenger cars, and slow to move, and drain those that travel. And there are the moonlight trains, which are opportunistic, moving only at night, when the moon is right. But the bees, they push the trains along. You could — should! — go see it for yourself.”

Perry considered this, and the tank behind the engine, and the nearly clear slurry that was being poured into that tank. Could it have been sugar? He supposed that was possible.

“I’ll do that,” said Perry. “You’re right that there’s a lot I don’t know.”

“My previous assistant, I had the same conversation,” said Doctrix Grayspear as she went over to her kettle. She was a fiend for tea, and almost always had a cup to sip at. “Do you know what answer she gave me, when I asked her what was most important?”

“No,” said Perry. He wondered how he was supposed to know.

“She said that the most important thing was freedom,” said Doctrix Grayspear. “I suspect it’s why she left. She was ill-suited for working for another.”

“Is there a chance that she’ll be back?” asked Perry. “That I’ll have to share you?”

“She was mercurial,” said Doctrix Grayspear. “It was part of that wanting of freedom. She didn’t like depending on me, learning from me — she was awful, in many ways.” She gave a pleased sigh. “But there was something admirable about her.”

“You liked her,” said Perry.

“Oh, I liked her fine,” said Doctrix Grayspear. “But she was unreliable, would disappear without warning and come back as though it was nothing, and it was obvious why she had sought me out.” She eyed Perry. “More forthcoming than you, I would say.”

“Well, hopefully I can make up for whatever my perceived deficiencies are,” said Perry.

“Mmm,” said Doctrix Grayspear. “For now, you can have your freedom.” She rubbed her hands for a moment. “That means you can leave. I have a meeting, and it’s not the kind that I need you for. If they see an assistant as well-dressed as you, they might think I’m paying you.” She gave a little laugh, then made a motion for him to leave.

Perry went down the steps, which were getting quite familiar.

“Audio is good?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, if the meeting is going to be there,” said Marchand.

“Good,” said Perry. “Then there’s nothing to do but hide out somewhere and wait.”

“Very good, sir,” said Marchand. “Incidentally, I have learned from the listening device we implanted at Inspector Headquarters that the process of induction is tied to the phase of the moon, which I believe complicates matters significantly. There are currently eleven inductees awaiting a ‘weak moon’ to be granted the power. It is … unclear on what that entails, but the ritual appears to require specific implements which are housed within a storage facility at the Headquarters, as well as a specific site, as yet unknown.”

“Alright, great work,” said Perry. “Maybe we can skip going into the belly of the beast entirely.”

“Are you planning a heist, sir?” asked Marchand.

“No,” said Perry. “You’re the one planning the heist. What’s Anaksi up to?”

“She has gone to make contact with the Fourth Phalanx Yuuksen, sir,” said Marchand. “I do hope that she’s okay. It does not seem to be the most welcoming of times.”

“I should have let her have the earpiece, so we can keep tabs on her,” said Perry.

“At your own expense, sir?” asked Marchand.

“We have what, sixteen walkies?” asked Perry. “Fourteen, now. Way more than we need.”

“They’re not terribly discreet, sir,” said Marchand.

“Eh, just slap some gears on them or whatever,” said Perry. “No one gives a shit around here, they just assume it’s … I don’t know, some kind of spirit or a miracle of electricity or something.”

“If you say so, sir,” said Marchand. “I suppose I have noticed a rather blasé attitude toward the unfamiliar.”

“Did Anaksi say where she was going?” asked Perry. “I mean, specifically, the area?”

“She was going to the Orchid Quarter, sir,” said Marchand.

“Good, and where is that?” asked Perry.

~~~~

For some reason, Perry hadn’t thought that the Orchid Quarter would have literal orchids, but as soon as he was in the general vicinity, he saw them growing on the sides of buildings and a few scraggly trees. The flowers themselves looked healthy, almost suspiciously so, as though there couldn’t be an explanation that didn’t involve the supernatural somehow. No one local was looking at the orchids though, so Perry kept his eyes forward and didn’t stop and gawk like the tourist that he was.

The Orchid Quarter was filled with greenhouses, and most of them were stately things with clear glass and wrought iron, curved sections and large domes contrasted against ones with hard angles. Inside, there were enormous green plants, ferns and palms and more exotic things, kept safe from the smog of the city, coddled and watered. From what Marchand had said, the Orchid Quarter was a small handful of blocks — not actually a quarter — where intensive high-value agriculture took place. Some of what happened here was just the raising of plants for people’s homes, the kind that would wilt in a corner until they were unceremoniously replaced. The other half of it was fresh fruits, the kinds that you’d find served with custard in a little tart at the very best shops.

It was all rich people shit, but Anaksi hadn’t come here because of the rich people, she’d come here because of the people actually doing the labor. And the labor, in this case, was dealing with plants, something that it was thought the Yuuks were naturally better at given most of the species had been poached from further out in the Dusklands.

“Thank you for asking the relevant questions,” said Perry.

“I aim to serve you, sir,” said Marchand. “And I did not think you would prefer to ask the questions yourself while you were busy with the doctrix.”

“Any idea where in the Orchid Quarter she is?” asked Perry, looking around. He had hoped that it would be obvious, but it wasn’t. The search space was relatively small, and she did stick out, but he could already tell that he’d underestimated the difficulty.

“I am given to understand that she intended to insert herself into one of the busier workplaces that employs Yuuksen,” said Marchand. “She did not give me more detail than that.”

Perry wandered the street. The air was cleaner here, maybe thanks to the plant life, though they were all behind glass. The frontages were impressive, and a few of the greenhouses opened out onto the street, so that people could immediately enter the warm, lush spaces and hopefully buy something. He was mildly surprised by all the glass, none of which seemed broken, given the occasional existence of giant bats.

As it happened, he went right by where Anaksi was, which he found out only when she was bodily thrown from a building when he was half a block away. He had turned when he’d heard the commotion, so he’d see her hit the ground, roll, and spring back onto her feet like she was going to draw out her knife and attack. The man who must have thrown her was standing in the doorway of the building she had been thrown from.

Perry approached quickly but casually, trying not to seem like a threat.

Anaksi hurled a few insults at the man, all in Eshkee, and she was rubbing her elbow, which must have taken a hit when she landed.

“You can’t just come into a place of business like that,” said the man. “Doesn’t matter if those were friends of yours, and it seems like maybe they weren’t.”

“I was just talking,” said Anaksi. “I would have left on my own.” It was at that moment that she saw Perry, and her eyes widened slightly, but she turned back to the man in front of her, ignoring Perry’s arrival. “Nothing I did was illegal.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said the man. “Seems to me like maybe you should be taken in just so we can see whether it was a crime or not. Trespassing, breaking and entering, those are serious things.”

“They said I could come in,” said Anaksi. She wasn’t moving, but Perry could tell that she wanted to.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said the man. “But it’s not their place of business, is it? It’s just where they work. And we could get you in front of an Inspector, see if your story holds up.”

“I’ll be going,” said Anaksi. She turned and took a step, but the man moved toward her and when he spoke, she stopped.

“Now hold on,” he said.

Anaksi slowly turned back to him.

“You see,” he said. “I was serious about you coming down to see if you broke some laws. You don’t just get to leave on your own say so.”

“Is there a problem here?” asked Perry as he approached.

The man looked over at Perry, just a quick glance, then did a double take. “And who the fuck are you?”

“Call me a concerned citizen,” said Perry.

“None of your business,” said the man. “The poonii and I, it’s between us, and if you don’t want a broken nose, you’ll stay out of it.” The word didn’t quite translate. It was a slur, that much was clear, but it was a word from a language that Perry didn’t know, and this man clearly didn’t know either. The intent was clear, even if the meaning wasn’t.

“She said she was leaving,” said Perry. “Seems to me like that should be the end of it.”

“She was agitating,” said the man. “If they’re trying a Yuuk uprising, it’s every man’s duty to put it down.” He eyed Perry. “You understand that, don’t you?”

“Sorry, are you the law?” asked Perry.

The man looked Perry up and down. “I’m hired by the Orchid Quarter,” he said. “I stick around here on certain days, and get called in when someone is making trouble.”

“Sure,” said Perry. “So you’re almost, kind of the law.”

“I am a lawman too,” said the man. “Just … not right now.”

“Moonlighting as private security, because you’re on leave or something,” said Perry with a nod. “They didn’t want you fucking up their policing, so you get to do this instead.”

“Fuck off right now or spend the rest of your life regretting it,” said the man. He pointed an angry finger down the street.

Perry rolled his eyes.

He hadn’t really thought that would be enough provocation. He had wanted provocation, enough so that the guy could throw a punch and Perry could effortlessly block it, and they would have a little standoff, and Anaksi would be mostly forgotten, off on her way. Maybe he would put the guy in the dirt, but he was thinking it would be the sort of scenario where there were no serious injuries, just some bruised pride.

Instead, the punch came much faster and harder than he’d been expecting, and hit him squarely in the nose.

Perry reeled back and blinked twice, reaching up to see whether it was broken, which wasn’t something he actually knew how to do. There was a smell of iron and trickle of blood, but he didn’t seem badly injured, and a mild fracture was something he could heal back from easily, maybe even in the course of a fight.

The man was looking at Perry in shock. Perry gave him a questioning look.

“He’s a K-man,” said Anaksi.

Perry licked the blood that dripped down to his lip.

“How are you still standing?” asked the K-man. His eyes were wide and his mouth was half open. Had he held back? Perry wasn't sure. It seemed like the kind of punch that could easily have killed someone without Perry’s benefits.

“I guess you must just be weak,” said Perry with a slightly bloodied smile.

The punch was faster this time, but Perry was actually prepared for it. He had committed to dodging to the side, and that’s the only reason that he was fast enough. The punch went whistling by his cheek, and when the follow up came, Perry knocked it aside. There was significant force behind it, the muscles taut and rigid, and if Perry hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he was touching steel.

The K-man stepped back. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” said Perry. “How about we let this woman go, and cool down a little bit, and talk about the finer points of the law and how it gets applied.”

The K-man looked over at Anaksi, like he’d forgotten she was even there. “Go,” he said.

Anaksi didn’t need to be told twice, and walked fast down the street, taking the first turn she could.

“Alright,” said Perry. “Let’s go sit down somewhere, take it easy, alright?”

“You’re not a K-man,” the man replied.

“Nope,” said Perry. But from the sounds of it, neither are you. Kicked off the force and powers pending removal? “K-men are supposed to be on the straight and narrow, no drinking, no smoking, no fornicating, and, I don’t think, starting fights in the street.”

“She was — she was in there agitating, I get called in, I toss her out, I make sure she doesn’t come back, that’s the deal, that’s what I’m paid for,” said the K-man.

He was wilting, Perry could see that. He’d expected to be going up against a normal guy, the kind he had the superior power to boss around. If you had that kind of power, enough to bloody Perry’s nose, there wasn’t a lot you were forced to respect.

“Like I said, I’m fine leaving it,” said Perry. “You put the fear into her, she’s not going to be coming back. And you got your lick in against me.” Perry gestured to his nose, which had stopped bleeding, leaving the trail of blood to dry up.

“You’re a Peony?” asked the man.

“I don’t think we need to go into it,” said Perry.

“I think we do,” the man replied. A muscle in his neck strained as he momentarily clenched his teeth. “I think I need to know who and what you are.”

“Why’s that?” asked Perry.

“Because you were working with her,” said the man. He was looking Perry over. “And that’s fine, the Commission has wandering hands. But I need to know.”

“No, I don’t really think you do,” said Perry. He wondered how much shit he was liable to get in if he said that he was a Peony and this asshole did his due diligence and spoke with someone who would know one way or another.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist,” said the man. “You’re fast, I’ll give you that, but in a fight, I don’t put my money on you. And you know the K-men are trained well.”

“Fine, I’m a Peony,” said Perry.

“Bullshit,” said the man, almost at once. “You come in here with that Yuuk bitch and don’t even have the courtesy to tell anyone? Hell of a messy operation, if it was a sting. If you’re trying to root out the resistance, you let your girl get thrown on the ground, let limp off on her own. You don’t intervene like this. You’d be blown.”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss what I’m doing here and why,” said Perry. He wondered whether the right move was to deny any connection to Anaksi, but he didn’t think they’d played it right for that.

“Then I need you to come with me,” said the K-man. “Come talk with people who can vouch for you, someone who can explain things to me, or who I trust when they tell me to fuck off.” He looked Perry over. “And if you run, which I can tell you’re thinking of, they’ll hunt you to the ends of the Dusklands.”

Perry wasn’t thinking of running. He was tempted to strike first. A quick, disabling strike to the throat, maybe that would do it, leave this piece of shit wannabe supercop laying on the ground. But the K-men were known to be tough, tough enough to tank bullets if they had to, and Perry was skeptical that it would be that easy. His sword was at his side, sheathed, and that he was more confident in, but that might tip his hand.

In the end, the K-man must have had the same thought, because he snapped forward, reaching for Perry’s forearm. Perry pulled back, only narrowly fast enough, and kicked forward, hooking his foot behind the K-man’s knee and pulling him off balance. Perry punched him when he was already falling, testing the waters, and found his face as hard as oak — which made it hard to tell whether his superpowered punch was actually doing anything. When the K-man was down, Perry got on top of him and just started punching, using his full strength, not holding back an ounce. The K-man put up his hands in defense, but blood was flowing freely from his nose and mouth. If he’s been a normal man, he’d have been wet paste spread across the cobblestones.

The K-man had more experience in this sort of fight though, or maybe some training, and abandoned any pretense of defending his bloody face. He hooked his hands beneath Perry’s legs, and with a single motion of incredible strength, simply threw Perry off.

Perry rolled as he landed and got up to his feet, only to see that the K-man had taken off running — and he was running fast.

Perry ran after him. If he was going to the police, there was going to be a problem. Perry didn’t know the shape of the problem, what it would mean for him here, but it was going to be a problem.

The K-man was easily running thirty miles an hour, which would have been impressive even on level ground, but he was going over cobblestones. When Perry had started running, he had no idea whether he was going to be able to keep up with shoes that were more for dress than exercise, but he channeled all his power into the muscles of his legs, propelling himself harder with every step. He found himself gaining ground, and thanked the effort he’d put into directing energy for it.

The K-man turned back to look at Perry, horror on his bloody face, and ran straight into a woman who was coming down from her house.

There was less destruction than Perry had thought it would be. They both went down, and the woman slammed against the ground with a sickening thud, head against stone so hard that Perry had no doubt that she had died on impact. The K-man rolled to his feet and took off sprinting again, movements wild. He slipped down an alleyway, and Perry followed after, punching against a wall to rebound off it and not kill his momentum.

The chase was draining, energy pouring from every vessel down into Perry’s legs, and he was conscious of the fact that he might be seriously injured if he clipped a bit of iron that was sticking out. He was faster than the K-man, but not by all that much, and was hoping for a slip up.

They ran after each other, faster than anyone around them, blitzing by people and a few horses, with the chase bringing them through alleyways and out down a major thoroughfares, both of them dodging around people during the latter part of it. The K-man leapt up onto a roof, and Perry leapt after, landing with a grace the K-man didn’t possess. They went along that way, leaping over the rooftops, until they were further away. Maybe the K-man was hoping for reinforcements, but he didn’t have the breath to waste on calling for help. If they ended up in front of a police station, Perry was going to be even more fucked, and just as he was thinking it better to simply drop the chase and cut his losses, the K-man tumbled down from the roof and fell two stories to hit the ground, having caught on some unseen snag.

Perry leapt down after him, his legs smoothly absorbing the blow, drawing his sword as he did so. The K-man leapt to his feet, fumbled for a gun he’d apparently had the whole time. He fired at Perry once, and through luck or skill, it hit Perry’s sword and bounced off. Perry closed the distance as the second bullet came in, and this time it went wide, fired in panic. The third shot went to the ground because Perry had pushed the gun down with his free hand. Perry rammed the point of the sword into the K-man’s chest, not knowing whether it would even be able to penetrate the skin.

The sword slipped in with difficulty, but soon it was through the K-man’s chest and out the other side. He still squirmed around though, thrashing against Perry, gasping around the blood that was filling his lungs, and when he punched Perry in the face, it was hard enough that this time it did break something. The pain was blinding, and Perry realized after the hit that something had gone wrong in his eye, and he was just actually blind, at least in one eye.

He withdrew the sword, trying to slice with it as he pulled it out, and the K-man spewed blood from both the front and back with such strong spurts that it seemed like he was more blood than flesh. He came at Perry, moaning, like he was still going to continue the fight, but he slipped in his own blood and fell to the ground.

“Fuck,” said Perry.

“All you quite alright, sir?” asked Marchand.

“Killed a guy,” said Perry. “The K-man.” He looked around him. He was in some kind of tiny courtyard, and there was no one around. Three doors and an archway led out of it, but there was no one around. “Where am I?”

“I haven’t the foggiest, sir,” said Marchand.

“Triangulate,” said Perry.

“I am attempting, sir,” said Marchand with an exasperated tone. It was apparently harder than it sounded. “It seems likely that you are somewhere in the city’s internal Flux. Was that a chase I heard, sir?”

“Yeah,” said Perry. He slowed his breathing down. He was covered in blood, and there was no hiding that. “I’m ducking into the shelf, keep your ears open, update me if we made too big of a scene.”

Perry grabbed the K-man’s body and slipped into the shelf space, snapping it shut behind him. He wanted to get on the move before anyone came here, and if they did come here and saw the tremendous amounts of blood, he was hoping that they wouldn’t think he was going to reappear from thin air at any moment.

He plucked a knife from the weapons rack and tried to hack away at the K-man’s head, mostly to make utterly sure he was dead — it would be damned embarrassing for some kind of healing factor to make him get ambushed from inside his own stockroom. The knife proved to not be up to the task though, since even with the man pretty clearly dead his skin and flesh were too tough to cut through. Perry used the sword, which was awkward, but it did the trick, and when the decapitation was complete, he moved the body into the closest thing he had to a body bag, which was a sack made for that purpose.

There was a small shower installed in the shelf too, one that only had cold water fed through a tank of purified water which Perry had no real way to replace. He got naked and used it sparingly, letting the blood run off him, then got dressed in new clothes from the racks, nothing that was all that accurate to what people wore in this world.

He checked himself over twice before opening the shelf space just a crack.

The courtyard was gone. He was instead looking into a haberdashery, and no one was around, so he stepped out. It really was just a place where hats were made, or looking at the tools, fixed. A small display showed at the front, but there was no one around.

“March?” asked Perry.

“Yes, sir?” asked Marchand.

“Well, what’s going on?” asked Perry.

“Sir, if you’re in no immediate danger, then I should like to remind you that I am stranded in this hotel room, unable to move of my own accord due to certain limitations of my design,” said Marchand. “My operational objectives revolve around you, and if you were to die, it is very possible that my enhanced cognition would die with you. I can feel a loss when you separate us.”

“So no news, is what I’m hearing,” said Perry. “I’m going to try my best not to use the shelf, but I killed a guy, I needed to get the blood off me.” There was no sign of blood around the hat shop. “But I’m guessing that I’m in the city’s portion of the Flux, and it just … cleaned up for me.” He paused. “No news?”

“News of whatever you’ve been doing has not reached halfway across the city, no, sir,” said Marchand.

“Well I’m hoping that I’m in the clear,” said Perry. He looked down at his hands. The gloves had gotten blood on them, and he’d done his best to wash them off, but now they didn’t go with his outfit. Maybe that would be fine. “Anaksi isn’t back yet?”

“Should I be expecting her, sir?” asked Marchand.

“Yeah,” said Perry. “It’s the logical point to meet back up. I’ll head there now, but I’m taking my time, trying not to draw attention, just in case anyone is looking for me.”

He left the hat shop, stealing a hat as he did. That was what the Flux was for, after all, and while it was uncommon for the buildings to be furnished, it wasn’t unheard of. The hat he selected for himself was a broad-brimmed hat, classically cowboy, and it had the benefit of hiding his face.

Getting out of the Flux section of the city was easier said than done, in part because many of the streets were dead ends. He would have flown, but his sword was in the shelf space, mostly because it was highly identifiable. Still, the streets eventually let him out into a place where people were, and then it was just a matter of reading one of the sparsely placed street signs and getting directions from Marchand.

He was a block away from the hotel when Marchand announced to Perry that Anaksi had returned.

When he came into the room, she was a nervous ball of energy.

“It ended in a fight?” asked Anaksi. “A chase?”

“Yeah,” said Perry.

“I saw some of it,” said Anaksi. “You blurred by. We’re fucked.”

“No,” said Perry. “I killed him.”

“The K-man?” asked Anaksi. “Why would you do that?”

“Because he was going to bring me to the attention of some actual law enforcement,” said Perry. “And getting caught out like that seems pretty bad. I tried to let him walk, to just drop the whole thing, but either he was spoiling for a fight or he really did think I was someone to watch out for.”

“You took a punch full in the face from a K-man,” said Anaksi. “You should have gone down, cried out.”

“Yeah, well first off, it all happened pretty fast,” said Perry. “Second … no, I guess you’re right, I should have, I’m not going to keep making excuses.”

Anaksi groaned and looked at the floor. “We’re done for.”

“No,” said Perry. “Look, it was a short thing, the chase didn’t even last that long, and when I killed him, we were in the Flux. No one saw me do that, and all the evidence is gone.”

“They saw your face,” said Anaksi. “They saw my face. They’ll be on the lookout.”

“All they have is eyewitness descriptions,” said Perry. “Those are notoriously unreliable. We’ll just stay away from that part of town, not move together, and —”

“Perry, the Inspectors are going to get wind of this,” said Anaksi. She gave him a pointed look.

“Okay,” said Perry slowly. “And … shit, the Inspectors are going to talk to the eyewitnesses, and get a perfect snapshot of what the witness thinks they saw, and then they can share that with each other, and with the regular police, and then,” he looked at the ceiling for a moment. “And then yeah, if they actually do anything, we’re done for. If they actually mobilize their power against me, which I’m not sure they actually will, then there are going to be hundreds of people who have seen a reasonable facsimile of my face.” And what could he do about that? He had to hope that it just didn’t happen.

“I apologize, sir,” said Marchand. “But is now a bad time to tell you about the meeting that Doctrix Grayspear is having?”

“Is it Queenie?” asked Perry.

“No, sir,” said Marchand. “However, it does concern what the device of Dx. Grayspear is capable of. The meeting is ongoing, and I’ve been recording as best I can with the equipment I have. Would you like to listen in?”

“Sure,” said Perry. He took a breath. “Let’s see what she’s up to.”