Objects in motion a prog.., p.23
Objects in Motion: A Progression Fantasy Adventure, page 23
“Well, you’re not moping now, are you?” Mom pulled her into a hug, which Sarah fought only half-heartedly. “Anyway, wanted to give you some time to clean up. Aunt Gloria and Uncle Mark are coming to dinner, so everyone will be here.”
“Alright,” Sarah said. Gloria and Mark weren’t actually family—they weren’t even married to each other—but they were long-time family friends. It wasn’t often they came by, but she had memories of them attending Sunrise Festivals and Spring Jubilees in the park from the time she was young.
“And if you’re worrying about what to do now, why don’t you work on your writing?” Mom said, leaning forward to look over Sarah’s head and peer around at the still mostly bare room. “I’m sure you have the talent to make it into a real career. Journalist or novelist or anything you want to put your mind to.”
“I’ll think about it, Mom,” Sarah mumbled into her mother’s embrace, and Mom released her.
“I’ll let you get ready,” she said and headed off back into the suite. Sarah grabbed the box with her toiletries before heading to the bathroom down the hall. It had a massive walk-in shower, huge mirrors, a triple sink, and exorbitant amounts of marble. The kind of opulence that felt more intimidating than indulgent, but maybe she’d just spent too much time in a little converted office building in the slums.
She looked through what she had, then glanced at herself in the mirror and decided to just get rid of most of it. Tins and bottles went into the trash with a crush and a smash as she flung the old makeup in the garbage. Since she wasn’t Smokeshow, there was no point in the goth aesthetic, even if she did like it. It wasn’t Sarah, and that’s who she was now. She only kept the most ordinary, normal, boring items. Like any other non-meta person. Like herself.
Her parents were, mercifully, off doing something else when Sarah emerged, and rather than join the guests in the drawing room, she found herself following the scent of food into the kitchen. The on-staff cook was an aged, waist-high lizard-man from the Deep Kingdoms that had been old when Sarah was young but hadn’t changed the slightest since the last time she’d seen him.
“Hello Sarah, again! You can chop onions, yes?” Mister Gratin flipped onions onto a cutting board with a twist of his talons, wielding a santoku half his size as he arranged some kind of string-cut vegetable side-dish. Sarah wasn’t sure that any part of dinner was going to use onions, as the beef bourguignon was already simmering, but she still grabbed a knife and started to chop since otherwise Mister Gratin would chase her from the kitchen.
“How’s Mom been?” she asked, for lack of any better topic. “I haven’t been around for, well. A while.”
“Same as always! Busy busy busy! So many things happening!” Mister Gratin waved the knife in a frankly alarming manner. “People coming from my homeland even again!” Sarah nodded, trying to imagine the difficulties of getting housing ready for lizard-people who could range from Gratin’s size to—in the case of the Great Scaled Kings—skyscraper-scaled.
“But that is not why you are here, no. Something on your mind, yes?”
“Maybe.” Sarah wondered how often she’d actually talked to Gratin. It hadn’t been that much, especially once she’d moved out to live with her Dad in high school, when her powers first manifested. “Just… wondering what I do now. I don’t really know anyone here anymore.” In fact, she didn’t know much of anyone outside the gangs—and until recently hadn’t seen a point in it—but she wasn’t going to say that aloud. Mister Gratin probably knew, but there was a difference between an unspoken secret and a spoken one.
“You have family here yes. Knowing starts with them!” Gratin chattered happily as he checked cookpots, ovens, and started to shred lettuce for a salad. Sarah still didn’t know why she was chopping onions, and she blinked away the fumes that stung at her eyes.
“I guess I could say hi to James before dinner,” she muttered, and Gratin whisked the cutting board and knife from her grasp.
“Yes, you do that,” he said, turning her rough-chopped onion into diced with a flourish and dumping it into a sizzling pan. Sarah coughed, rubbed at her eyes again and ducked out of the kitchen with a mostly ignored thanks. She wandered through the halls, finding her older brother setting the table.
The dining room looked out over the park, of course, and it was nice enough outside that the balcony doors were open. It was large, lavishly furnished with sculptures and paintings, and often held a long, polished wooden table for formal affairs. For something smaller like tonight, though, the tinker-made table had been shrunk to something more conventional, just by the balcony.
“Hey there, you doing okay?” James was built like a linebacker, big and broad with muscles straining the seams of the tailored suit. Despite that, he was actually part of the Deep Kingdom diplomatic corps, using his brain rather than brawn.
“Mom asked the same thing,” Sarah said, taking the stack of silverware that James held out to her. “I dunno. Maybe.” She wanted to mention Chains, but it wasn’t like James would know more than Mom about tracking the guy down. Part of her still hoped she’d see him, but her brain was completely unable to summon any way she could. But her conversations with him had stuck with her, and she knew that he would want her to do something besides mope.
“Well, if you need a friendly ear, I’m topside for another couple weeks before going back down,” he told her.
“Thanks,” she said, wondering what it’d be like to go down to the Deep Kingdoms. She’d read about how strange it was, all those thousands of miles beneath the surface with sprawling greenery and massive crystals lining Earth’s hollow interior. Ever since the passage through Hyperborea had been discovered, there’d been some form of trade and communication, but it was still a wild and violent place.
“Maybe I’ll go with you,” she said, the thought coming to her all of a sudden, and James threw her a startled look. It wasn’t that she had any particular love of the Deep Kingdoms, but she really wanted to get away from everything that reminded her of what she’d lost—and there really weren’t many people who got the opportunity to go to the Deep Kingdoms. She couldn’t shake her mom’s suggestion that she try writing something, and writing about faraway places sounded like something she actually could do.
“We can discuss that later,” he told her, his expression turning thoughtful. Sarah nodded, glad that he hadn’t just brushed her off.
The doorbell rang, and Mom’s voice came from the front room, assuring them that she’d get it. A few minutes later, Mom and Dad arrived in the dining room with Gloria and Mark in tow. As usual, Gloria was dressed plainly, the small blonde woman trying to seem unobtrusive, and even in such a relaxed house as Sally’s, she was stiff and precise. Mark, by contrast, was an easygoing, smiling man with black hair that Sarah had never seen in anything but a three-piece suit.
Rather like Gratin, the two of them hadn’t changed much from how Sarah remembered. Gloria seemed to give off a youthful glow, and Mark seemed almost frozen in time, even his haircut identical. While Gloria was generally subdued, when she did smile, it lit up the room; by contrast, Mark’s pleasant demeanor never really reached his eyes. There was a brief bit of bustle as everyone got seated, after which Gratin appeared with the salads, whisking them into place despite his diminutive size.
“So what brings you to Star City this time?” Sally asked Mark as Dad carefully watched Gratin pour a beer.
“Had to deal with some employees,” Mark said, shaking his head. All Sarah knew about Mark’s job was that he was some sort of corporate executive, moving between the cities of the Alliance. Gloria, on the other hand, worked for Star Central. Some sort of specialist that sent her traveling almost as much as Mark. “And of course Gloria is stuck for a while.”
“I am required to stay in the city until a certain HR matter has been cleared up,” Gloria said, straightening her glasses. While the words were neutral enough, she sure sounded annoyed.
“It’s been a rough week for everyone,” Sally said sympathetically, with a glance in Sarah’s direction. She almost sneered at that but managed to muffle it by crunching down on some croutons. Mom meant well, but Sarah felt almost insulted by the comparison between having her life upended and just some ordinary business nonsense. But it was hard to summon the proper attitude when she wasn’t Smokeshow anymore.
“However, this too shall pass,” Sally continued, waving at the kitchen to ask Gratin for the next course. “Just need to keep your head up and move forward.”
Sarah bit back a reply, nodding stiffly rather than saying something rude to her mom. It was easy enough for her to say something, but Sarah didn’t even know how to start. The little bit of a life she’d started to have had been taken from her. But she didn’t want to give up hope entirely, and she knew that if she ever got the chance to find Chains again, she’d have to take it.
Isaac sat on his bed in the tiny room that he’d been given at Justice for Hire, looking at what he’d been able to rescue from the self-store the day before. It had been a risk, but if anyone had been keeping an eye on it, they were drawn away by Blacktime’s activities because he’d been able to retrieve his clamshell, his tinkered costuming station, and his credsticks, along with a few changes of clothes and some personal items. Most of it had to stay—years of work and accumulation of materials—but the self-store was paid for through the next six months. If nobody found it, it’d be safe for a while.
The stuff he’d gotten out still needed a bit of protection. Somewhere to hide the things that didn’t fit with Ravdia’s image, but still under his control close at hand, rather than a rented locker somewhere. He knew some people with super senses would be able to realize much of Ravdia was a costume, but that was different from having something that prompted actual curiosity. After getting accosted while having breakfast, he wasn’t ready to trust anyone or anything he didn’t need to.
Looking around the small room, there weren’t really any places he could hide things, but as he went and poked at the corners, he realized that two of the walls were paperboard rather than anything substantial. Probably the result of subdividing the back of the former gym, as most new construction employed a meta for the rough shape at the very least.
Hiding things in walls was something the kids had done back in foster care to keep their most important treasures from getting stolen. It might have been prison-like, but it worked, and it sprang to mind for his current situation. He just needed to make a few preparations first.
Cracking open his costuming station, he sorted swatches until the tinkered color-checker found one that matched the pale blue of the walls, then packed everything away again and shoved it under the bed. Then, as the final touch, he disarrayed the bed so the linens draped off it, hiding that there was anything there. It went against the grain, as he had always been neat and tidy, but Ravdia probably wasn’t.
The one thing he reserved was a magnetic tape with the next set of information to send off to Rebecca. Shrugging on a small backpack and stowing the tape inside, he slipped out of the merc house and skated off into the early morning. In a concession to his supposed job, he did keep the radio armband, but he shucked the costume and packed it away at the earliest opportunity. As David Jeffries, he sauntered through the upscale area until he found a wrapping store, passing by a few shoppers to present his swatch to the paper printer.
Actually buying a bit was wince-inducing for mere colored paper, as this was an upscale shop and he was used to rummaging for cheap stuff, but he needed it. The roll of paper went into his backpack, and he exited the shop, prevaricating for a moment on where to go. Back to the merc house to finish his preparations, or stop by a café with cybernet access to see if he’d gotten any communications the past few days. Eventually he chose the latter, stopping by a post office en route to send the tape to Rebecca and keep up the pressure on Blacktime.
The fact that the man himself had shown up, in addition to the way Plasmaster had broken into the conference, was proof that Isaac’s simple information campaign was having a real effect. There was no telling how fragile Blacktime’s empire really was and how much harm just exposing his holdings could do. Not enough to take down the man himself, of course, but infighting and chaos could crush his influence down to practically nothing.
Despite everything that had happened, that was a cheerful thought, and from a glance at the headlines as he strolled past a newsstand, the papers were still after Glorybeam. He wasn’t sure what good it’d do in the end, save for keeping her on a tighter leash. No matter how bad the press got, Star City couldn’t afford to ditch its sovereign-class hero, something he’d had to accept some time back.
Finally finding a breakfast place with a cybernet link, he ordered a savory waffle with bacon and eggs before cracking open his clamshell. The heavy minicomp whirred and beeped to itself as it booted, and with a couple commands, he connected and started checking his usual. He started clicking by habit before he froze and stared at his screen, where there was a new message—from Cayleb.
Hey bro! Sorry I couldn’t get to talk to you earlier—all kinds of hush-hush sort of stuff here in Star Central. But now I can! Except, they said that you left the apartment? And your job? You okay, man? Nothing bad’s going on, is it? I can call in some favors now if you’re in trouble! Let me know!
Isaac started typing a reply before his brain caught up with him, and he stopped in midsentence, staring at nothing. Even after they’d made Cayleb vanish, he probably wouldn’t have been so distrustful of Star Central that he would suspect the message. But being attacked by a pair of supers in broad daylight, having a car thrown at him, had cranked up his paranoia.
He deleted the reply he’d started and sat back in the seat, chewing over how he was going to respond. The lady at the counter had to call his assumed name twice before he realized it was him, so he took a break to pick up his waffle and make the chewing more literal, as he thought. The problem was, he had no idea how to set up a meeting with Cayleb that would be safe. If anything, the fact that Cayleb would be there meant it was more likely there’d be some other super around, even if they didn’t suspect Isaac directly.
Glad to hear from you, man! Yeah I’m doing okay, minor trouble but nothing serious. Just had to skedaddle for a bit. Good thing too given all the ganger stuff going on. Just kind of knocking about now, getting myself some job experience. Maybe we can meet up sometime? If that hush-hush stuff is all done with.
It seemed a good enough message. He wasn’t going to flat out lie to Cayleb, but considering that someone else might be reading the message, he wanted to keep things vague. Before actually sending it, Isaac finished his breakfast, just in case someone decided to trace the message. Yes, Cayleb had tinkered it for privacy, but what one tinker could do another one could undo. Or Cayleb himself could, whether because Star Central asked him to or just out of a genuine concern for Isaac’s well-being.
Once he pressed the button, he packed up in a hurry and slipped out the door, changing back to Ravdia in a handy gas station bathroom and skating back to the merc house. There were more people around than just Lia when he arrived, a clearly motley lot hanging out in the common area. A cybernetically augmented man-sized, raptor-like dinosaur; a vaguely man-shaped pile of rock; an amorphous shadow covered in a dozen crisscrossed bandoliers equipped with what seemed to be playing darts. He hadn’t seen any of them at the convention, but taking Lia into account, all of them were either nonhuman or had a mutation so severe that might as well be the case.
“Ravdia!” Lia said, rising from the table and flagging him down before he could slip into his room. “Captain Multiples would like to see you when he gets back, give you the run-down on duties in Justice for Hire. For the moment, if you’re issued a group mission, you’re with—”
“The brute squad,” the dinosaur cut in, voice obviously synthetic, and Lia sighed.
“You know Captain Multiples doesn’t like that name.”
“Don’t care. I’m a brute, I’m on the brute squad,” the dinosaur rebutted. It wasn’t humaniform at all, and at a wild guess it was some collision of a tinker experiment and Deep Kingdom wildlife—though for all he knew, the species was sapient to begin with. Dark green scales, taloned forelimbs, and aggressively black cybernetic armor covering the dino’s face and spine gave it a particularly savage cast.
“Don’t let him fool you,” the shadow-man said in a voice like bubbling tar. “He writes poetry when he’s on break. Love poetry.”
The dinosaur turned and hissed, black cybernetics whirring as a shining blade unfolded from one forearm. The shadow-man ignored it and waved at Isaac with a single-fingered hand. Whether it was index or middle was not at all clear.
“I’m Bubs, that’s Savage, and Rocky here goes by Stratum. It doesn’t talk much.” The stone being made a grinding sound, but that was all.
“Ravdia greets you,” Isaac said, studying them from behind the veil. “Though she suspects you are not the usual group for newcomers. She guesses that you are generally given more select jobs, those not in the public eye?”
“Hah!” Savage whirled and jabbed a talon in her direction, the blade fortunately vanishing again with the motion. “Yes, good! But we’ve never had a magical girl in the squad before.”
“Ravdia will endeavor not to disappoint,” Isaac said, though he dreaded the entire thought of having to get to know people and—apparently—meet with a boss. He’d never even met the actual hospital administrators; Mister Graham, his immediate superior, had been as high as he’d ever gotten. It was probably something from when he was a lost kid that he’d never gotten over, but he had never been comfortable getting noticed by anyone higher up. Or really, new people in general. Even with Chains, the only person he’d exchanged more than a few words with was Smokeshow.
