Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.76 (307)

Although still physically present in the room, Jennings’ mind was so busy it was as if he weren’t actually there. Nero’s words were currently rattling around in his head like hooligans, destroying any semblance of order.

‘Have I spent my entire life looking at the world all wrong?’ he wondered.

The concept of science has been and always will be sacred to him. He believed in it the way zealots believed in their gods. So hearing an entirely different concept of reality from someone who seemed to see into the very truth of the ether around him, and having that someone claim that science could not accurately live up to its claims shook Jennings to his very core.

But that wasn’t all. He’d also been putting off dealing with the repercussions of what Nero had done to the ether, and now he was running out of time.

When Nero had ‘frozen’ the essence in the ether, he’d isolated the entire area. And as a result, all the connections Jennings had established had been severed. The routes he’d created to connect him to Hennings, the various scrys he’d constantly been maintaining, even his dedicated connection to his temporary lodgings in the Tower of Magic and his machines, they were all gone.

Now, he was under siege from people attempting to reestablish contact with him. He could feel Mathers forcefully reaching out to him from Hennings, the distance requiring his participation if he wanted to reinstate the connection. Yet the real trouble was his link.

His link was practically overheating with how many connections it was being forced to process. The evaluators who’d been watching Nero demanded a moment of his time while many others were sending over their requests for an explanation.

He’d held off dealing with them because he hadn’t yet decided what to tell them. He’d needed time to try and understand what Nero had done, and to see if he could recreate the phenomenon. But, even after an hour, he’d gotten nowhere.

Now, after speaking with Nero, he realized he might never be able to accomplish what the young man had done. His perspective and preconceptions simply made it an impossibility for him. That is if what Nero was claiming was true. Something he was increasingly beginning to believe was the case.

After all, Nero’s theories weren’t too unfounded. Annoyingly, they were perfectly in line with the scientific observations he’d witnessed throughout his long life. Up until now, he’d just assumed that there were answers to these discrepancies waiting for dedicated researchers like him to eventually discover.

Sighing to himself, he allowed part of his mind to reach out and solidify the connection request from Mathers in Hennings. Manipulating the essence around him, he allowed a scrying window to open up in front of him, Archmage Mathers’ face appearing inside of it.

“Jennings! Thank the gods above! What happened? You and everyone else look fine now, but for a moment there, all our scrys cut out. What happened to our connection? The communications array listed you as temporarily ‘out of plane’. Are you alright?” Mathers asked in a hurried voice, sounding uncharacteristically panicked.

Jennings ignored the fact that the room around him had gone silent. “Calm down! Everything is fine. There was just a small disruption to the local essence. There is nothing you need to worry about.”

Suddenly becoming furious, Mathers replied, “Nothing I need to worry about! Are you insane?!? The damn palace has sent over a formal request for our records! They want everything we managed to record about the event and are even sending Populators over to ensure that we don’t ‘miss’ anything!”

Surprised at the palace’s involvement, Jennings replied as if he were thinking out loud, “Oh? That’s… unexpected. Although I should have seen that coming. After all, what occurred must have caught him off guard, possibly even shaken him a bit. Even his abilities won’t be able to see what isn’t there.”

Mathers’ expression twisted into a grimace, not liking the conclusions he was coming to. “The ‘him’ you’re referring to wouldn’t happen to be the ‘him’ I’m thinking of, would it?”

Seeing Jennings offer only a shrug, Mathers’ voice boomed, “You infuriating, blasted old fool! What did you do?!?”

Jennings was about to reply when he felt Nero peeking over his shoulder. His tone amused, Nero asked, “Who’s this guy? Another one of you meddling mages sitting in their towers abusing their magic to watch people enjoying their lives from the shadows?”

Having realized that Mathers and everyone else must have assumed he’d been the one to disrupt the ether, Jennings ignored Nero and replied, “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything. The localized disruption was caused by him.” Gesturing with his head, he implicated Nero whose self-satisfied face was hovering over his shoulder.

—--

After their little dispute over the nature of science and its place in reality, Nero felt Jennings close the connection. Glancing up from his food, Nero took another look at the old man. Despite Jennings’ ironclad emotional control, Nero could tell that what they’d discussed had shaken him.

It made sense, as anyone having their beliefs questioned couldn’t help but have a reaction. And Jennings, being older than dirt, had probably been worshipping at the altar of science for most, if not all of his adult life.

Yet, Nero couldn’t help but feel somewhat ambivalent about shattering the old man’s reality. Since he’d arrived in this world, he’d been having his reality shattered daily, so it was about time someone else had to suffer through the process. Besides, eventually, he’d probably thank him for the enlightenment… probably.

Ignoring him, Nero’s attention returned to the room. The debrief was still going strong. Luckily it seemed to be nearing its conclusion, as the current topic they were discussing was the arrival of the Dwarves and the Populators. Surprisingly, none of the army’s leadership or the mages at the table looked to be focusing on what Nero had done to the portal. Instead, they were forcing both Angelton and Cathleen to continually repeat their perspectives of how they saw the dwarves fight, along with analyzing exactly what the Populators had said when they’d arrived.

While at first Nero had thought the debrief had been arranged in this way due to them wanting just to cause him trouble, he was beginning to believe he’d only been half right. Considering how calm and reasonable Angelton and Cathleen were acting, Nero figured it was entirely possible that debriefs like this were more common than he’d expected them to be.

Seeing as no one was objecting, or making a fuss, he wouldn’t be surprised if this were the somewhat standard way they handled things here. With the availability of memory engrams and delving, he could see how it might be beneficial for soldiers to review what they’d done in detail so that they and others could learn from their mistakes. Looking closer, he could even see that the harsh and abrasive questioning happening seemed to lack the hostility he’d expected.

If this technology had been available back home, politicians and back seat quarterbacks would have abused the hell out of it. For example, just think about the invention of the body camera and its widespread distribution across America.

While body cams had saved countless innocents from police brutality, they’d also been the cause of many abuses of power over hardworking police officers who’d struggled daily under the mountain of prejudice and hatred that had become both acceptable and expected. Cops were forced to swallow their anger when someone flipped them off or spouted filth and hate as if they were begging for an ass-whooping. People in charge loved telling their subordinates that they needed to be ‘better’ than the common citizenry as if they weren’t just people trying to do their jobs like everyone else.

Hell, Nero himself had once participated in cop baiting when he’d been a bit drunk. He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d done it. With the protection of a friend recording him, he’d felt a bit invincible at the time.

Once again, he wondered if his cultural bias had affected him. Aside from the mages having tried to trick him, no one else seemed to be looking to accuse Cathleen or Angelton of anything in particular.

‘Perhaps I was just projecting?’ he thought to himself.

Straining his senses, he tried to process what their essence fields were telling him. It was a bit difficult because he was quickly realizing the difference between what people were ‘feeling’ and how they were acting. Some of the more professional army people were hiding their dislike of House Walker while simply going through the motions. Others, some of those who seemed to actually appreciate what House Walker had done, were actually the ones being the most brutal and unyielding with their questions.

Nero couldn’t help but wonder whether or not there was any point in sensing how people were feeling since it didn’t seem to have any relevance in predicting their actions. Which, when he thought about it, made sense. People were by their very nature… complicated. How people acted wasn’t always based on emotion, especially in such a rigid profession like the army. On top of that, what he was sensing was the emotional projection from a person’s body and soul. Their mind was what actually made the decisions, and he had no way of interpreting that through a person’s essence field. Or at least he didn’t think it worked that way.

“This is too complicated…” he muttered to himself while trying to recall everything he’d read about how essence fields actually worked.

From out of nowhere, a golden window swirled into being in front of Jennings, the entire room suddenly going silent. Even the memory engram hovering over the table paused. Every head in the room turned to see what was happening.

“Jennings! Thank the gods above! What happened?...” shouted some guy from the small window.

While Jennings sat there and took the verbal abuse, many people in the room dropped their jaws in shock. Considering the angle of the little window, very few people were able to see who was talking.

Nero, on the other hand, was able to lean back in his chair and catch the side profile of the man in the window. He looked older than Jennings and much more rigid in his posture. His long white beard was impeccably styled, giving him an air of nobility and grandeur. And If it weren’t for his robes, Nero would have assumed he was some sort of administrator. But, based on what the man was saying, and the very magical room behind him, Nero guessed that he was another high-level mage, or even another archmage like Jennings.

Deducing that the window was probably a communications platform created through some form of scrying, Nero decided that it would be a laugh to include himself in the conversation.

Slipping out of his chair, he popped up behind Jennings, leaning over his shoulder. “Who’s this guy? Another one of you meddling mages sitting in their towers abusing their magic to watch people enjoying their lives from the shadows?” Nero asked with as smarmy a smile as he could muster.

Seeing the surprise on the other man’s face, Nero heard Jennings add, “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything. The localized disruption was caused by him.”

Nero’s smile widened even further while he offered the man in the window a wave, throwing his other hand around Jennings’ shoulder like he was posing for a selfie. “The not-so-great and middlingly powerful Nero Middle-name-redacted Walker at your service. And who might you be? Or should I just address you as the little bearded man in the window?”

Utterly shocked, Mathers’ mouth opened a few times before he mustered up the mental energy to formulate an actual reply. “Why I’m Archmage Cornelius Mathers, currently serving as the head of the Hennings’ mage council. You assume correctly that I know who you are. But, if you’d excuse us, I need to speak with Archmage Jennings for a moment.”

Waving his hand dismissively, Nero used his other to pull on Jennings’ shoulder, ensuring that both their heads were in the frame for Mathers to see. “Nonsense, we’re all friends here. Hell, you’ve probably watched me in the shower, you old so and so! We’re practically family at this point. Now what’s this I hear about some mysterious guy wanting to know what happened. Is this about the portal thing, because as I’ve made it perfectly clear, more than once, my ability to manipulate portals is the result of my unique abilities and not something that can be studied or copied.”

Mathers’ expression of surprise slowly morphed into a furrowed brow to demonstrate how unhappy he was with Nero’s shenanigans.

Jennings was surprised to find himself enjoying seeing Mathers bearing the brunt of Nero’s antics. Finally having proof that it wasn’t just him that found Nero’s demeanor difficult to deal with, he could feel the pressure he’d been feeling on his center lightening. There was stability to be found in shared suffering, and seeing a colleague like Mathers being led around like a dog on a leash was satisfying.

“It’s not ‘some guy’, young man. It’s the king! And this has nothing to do with your portal manipulations. While impressive, and interesting, they pale in comparison to what recently happened in your area. The ether was isolated in a way that prevented all detection and delving! Your entire area momentarily disappeared from the plane!” Turning his eyes to address Jennings, he demanded, “I need you to tell me what you did?!?”

Jennings rueful smirk caused Mathers’ bloodpressure to rise. The man’s face began to turn a disturbingly bright shade of red.

Nero, suddenly making the mental connection between what he’d done and what Mathers was accusing Jennings of, smiled. “Oh, that wasn’t him. That was me!”

Feeling Jennings turn his head to stare at him from barely an inch away from his cheek, Nero’s face paled a bit before muttering, “I probably shouldn’t have said that. But whatever, you already pinned it on me, and I’m willing to own up to it… like a boss.”

Jennings scoffed in amusement before turning back to Mathers and saying, “It’s nothing groundbreaking. I already told you it was him. You’re just assuming he did something more interesting than what he did. To be clear, he merely figured out a way to temporarily isolate a small section of the ether. It’s similar to a dissemblance technique.”

Mathers’ face became thoughtful for a moment before he replied, “But then why is the palace interested? The king's ability to parse essence echoes shouldn’t have been affected.”

With how physically close he was to Jennings, Nero could ‘feel’ the man’s concern radiating off him like waves of heat. Yet, his voice was light as a feather, as if what he was saying was common sense. “It’s likely due to the recent trauma the area is suffering due to the density shift. Essence in the area is undergoing a significant change, and it’s only reasonable to assume there would be side effects. I doubt that it’s anything to be concerned about. We were able to reestablish a connection quickly without any issues.”

Trying to keep his face blank, Nero’s mind raced to understand the subtle undertones of the conversation going on between the two powerhouses.

Whatever he’d done must have cut off the king’s ability to see him, which apparently worked differently than scrying. And from the subtext, he could assume that the king was able to typically keep an eye on everything, and being cut off had rattled him.

Realizing that he now had yet another reason to avoid going to Hennings, Nero forced his smile to remain wide and confident while he released his hold on Jennings’ shoulder. “I have no idea what you two are talking about, and to be honest it’s a little boring to listen to you two old men nattering at each other. How about you two take this conversation outside so the rest of us can get on with our day?”

Seeing the shock on Mathers’ face at being dismissed like an intruding grandfather at a wedding party, Jennings quickly stood up, forcing Nero due to his height to remove his head from over his shoulder. “The young man is right, this isn’t the place to discuss this. Give me a moment to find somewhere to talk, Mathers.”

Peaking around the side of Jennings’ shoulder, Nero waved at the man in the window. “Bye now, I’ll remember you when I’m taking a crap. Enjoy your peeping you old perv.”

As Nero returned to his seat, he could hear Mathers’ voice demanding, “What the hell is that young man talking about? What have you been telling him? Why does he think we’re watching him in the bathroom? Honestly, Jennings, you’re supposed to be representing the Tower of Magic! Why do you always have to mess with people? You’re nearly a thousand years old, when are you going to grow up?!?”

Nero chuckled to himself while watching Jennings walk away with the scry window following along as if tethered to his chest. Taking a moment to revel in the chaos he just caused for the old man, Nero began to mentally examine what he got from the part of his mind assigned to understanding how the magical little window worked.

Turning his attention back to the table, he saw everyone now staring at him like he had a second head. “What?” he replied unashamedly before waving his hand and demanding, “You can all return to what you were doing. I believe the gentleman in the blue robe was asking about whether or not our dear battle leader considered asking the dwarves why they’d chosen to interfere in Dorchester’s business.”

Leaning over the table so he could lock eyes with Cathleen, he asked, “Aren’t you going to reply to the idiot’s question? He’s waiting for an answer…”

*Chapter 307 - Managing Expectations.

*Spoiler - How things are presented is important.  People are under the false perception that statistics don't lie.  If you're interested, you can find many great books which show you how to manipulate the truth with actual facts.  It's really cool to see how you can create graphs and charts that prove outrageous things like the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide and the correlation between eating cheetos and defecating.  Like I said, presenting evidence is not as straightforward as people think it is.