Crossworld of Xai

by Steven Savage

  A huge shaman was stalking around, interrogating people. A long-haired man was toying with what she assumed was a deck of cards for divination. A stocky man in black was talking to a strange oriental man with a white streak in his hair. They’d acted as if they owned the place.

  Sort of like Jade, whom they’d had to talk to her apparently under the impression that a bitchy Vulpine with a gun on her him and a Class II Kinetic Discharge Weapon was the perfect person to explain things to her. Well, Elaine had to give her credit - she had been about to consider the use of firearms herself until Jade had begun to explain things.

  “I’ll give you you’ve got the papers, and I can’t see any reason to throw you out.” Eileen kicked her large feet up on her desk. “You also pick a shitty time to come here.”

  “We don’t have much choice.” Jade leaned against a filing cabinet.

  “One of those nasty supernatural things that goes bump in the night … during a blackout.” Eileen raised an eyebrow under her short, brown hair. Jade seemed honest, so she restrained herself from being overly impolite.

  “Oh, because of it.” Jade shrugged. “We’ve been tracking something deadly, and we tracked it here. Look, you can call Cardinal Byrd and check, but its here, its dangerous, and … it’s looking for a showdown.”

  Eileen pieced the words together carefully “And you want to give it one?” Listen, I …”

  “Had any men down with something, like a flu, suddenly having flashbacks, maybe assumed it was something odd? But they definitely felt flashbacks?”

  “Two.” The Shard Tower Head of Security answered with bit of surprise. “They’d been on long shifts …”

  “One of them at least was probably guarding a secret or unknown entrance, the kind of thing that a lot of people don’t know about.” Jade’s voice was glacial, but her eyes held sympathy.

  “OK, fine, fine.” Eileen smiled. “You have my attention. How did you know. And I want it straight.”

  “I didn’t, but what we’re tracking plays in secrets, and we figured he had to get in here somehow. We need you to help us find him before anything nasty happens. Well, more happens. If you want the specific metaphysics, I’ll grab one of the gang. I’m apprentice to HuanJen, the guy with the hair, he’s great at that crap.”

  “Why send you and not one of them, no offense?” Eileen couldn’t help but ask. Asking was part of her job, right before threatening.

  “I really suck at taking ‘no’ for an answer. Besides, I know those guys out there. They’d end up getting themselves shot, and I date HuanJen too, so I’m attached.”

  Eileen shifted around, then stood. “OK, you’ve got my attention. So someone is poking around with secrets, and you’re here to supernaturally kick its ass.”

  “Well said,” Jade put her hands on her hips. “We’re gonna need to try some patrols or something. To be frank, we’re stretched thin. This is their area, we’re gonna have to see what they think.”

  “Probably … the first thing we need is to check the Emergency Broadcast Center.” Eileen suggested, her mind clicking into gear-turns of strategy.

  “Nah,” Jade waved her hand dismissively, “That’s over at the University, we know he’s here …”

  “No, it’s not. We reactivated the old one three days ago. Hell, I demanded it with the crap politics the University pulls.”

  Jade blinked. “We’ve got a complete emergency broadcast facility active.”

  “Yeah. It’s broadcasting right now. It’s …”

  ” … sort of a secret.” Jade finished.

  “Ah. Oh, shit.” Eilaine said. “Nothing’s happened though.”

  “Not, yet.”

  There was a room in Shard Tower few people knew about. It was one of those secret places.

  The problem, of course, with secret places, is that you never expect people to find them.

  A young man sat on a chair, humming tunelessly to himself, all alone, waiting for the end of something.

  Rotan Brownmiller was in charge.

  Sort of.

  He was in the Shard Tower Emergency Broadcast Center. He was organizing things. He was relaying information.

  He just wasn’t sure why.

  The Emergency Broadcast facility had, by Rake’s decree, been declared the most likely target for the Historian to do something in line with a psychotic supernatural entity. However, it had proven to be mainly oppressed by a lack of good tea, the staff of the facility working frenetically to broadcast radio and television updates of the blackout.

  So, the team had decided to leave he and Dealer Zero there while they patrolled the building. The logic was, apparently, that Dealer Zero was best left to divination, and that Brownmiller was an intelligent and competent strategist.

  Actually, Brownmiller figured the reason was he looked capable of disassembling people with his bare hands, and so was best to both answer any questions people might have, and be at the facility in case something did happen. Admittedly, he did want to be at ground zero if the Historian arrived, but not playing dispatcher - he wanted to be accessing Korsufar Bex or Arodano, and dealing mayhem.

  “You have everything?” HuanJen asked carefully, as Brownmiller watched the rest of the team preparing - or at least everyone else was preparing, Zero at at a confiscated desk, staring at his cards.

  “Yes. Remember, the emergency elevator is the only one with power, so you get to the top and work your way down. Ahn will work his way up.” Brownmiller instructed.

  “I am aware,” Huan-jen looked over a hastily-snatched map of the tower. “You think Ahn will work well?”

  “I don’t know. You just keep an eye on Rake and make sure he doesn’t do anything that will require us to scrub off the walls.”

  “You’re worried,” HuanJen noted.

  “Damn right. Look, just be careful, I’ll keep in touch on those ‘talkies the security folks gave us.”

  “I shall be. Brownmiller, take care.”

  “I …” the huge man paused. “I will. You too, HuanJen.”

  Brownmiller watched HuanJen walk away, pairing up with Jade and Rake on the way out of the busy Broadcast Center. Brownmiller really wished he’d had something impressive to say, something inspiring, something that didn’t sound like a “hope you don’t get killed.”

  He liked people, people liked him, but down deep, he sometimes felt like he didn’t reach people enough. It was a sad thought, made even sadder by the fact that, of all the things going on, he didn’t know how to say goodbye.

  “Brownmiller?”

  Ahn tapped the burly shaman on his shoulder. Brownmiller looked down at the young Runner.

  “Ready?” the older man asked.

  Ahn nodded his shaven head slowly. Despite the acknowledgment, his brown eyes said otherwise.

  “It’s not a problem working Tekaklak, is it?” Brownmiller asked with a shadow of exhaustion in his voice. Ahn had his little oddities, and they came at the worst moments.

  “Not exactly, merely uncomfortable overall.” Ahn looked down for a moment. “Let us go ahead.”

  Brownmiller took a chain-hung talisman off of his neck, which despite what was doubtlessly a mystical orign, looked to Ahn like it had once been a steel bolt. Without ceremony, the shaman placed the chain around Ahn’s neck in a very serious manner.

  “Tekaklak is a minor spirit of metal, especially sensitive to flaws or the unusual. He should be able to remain with you for an hour or two, so patrol fast. If the chain moves, follow it, it means he’s sensed something you should investigate.”

  “I understand,” Ahn answered.

  “And don’t go swinging that Purba around or anything, if he gets exorcised it’ll be a pain to get him back.” Brownmiller warned in a didactic manner. One mans exorcism was another man’s poison.

  “Will you be well,” Ahn asked suddenly. His thin body seemed to tense suddenly.

  A moment of thought before Brownmiller nodded. “I will. I won’t take on any aspects unless needed,
and if then, It’ll probably be Korsufar Bex. Zero will do readings every ten minutes, and we have security on the lookout. Mrs. Urale really was quite helpful after Jade dropped the bomb on her.”

  Ahn drew his dagger from his belt. “And Huan, Jade, and Rake. I am not sure about Rake.”

  The shaman put a huge hand on Ahn’s thin shoulder. “He doesn’t like things out of order like this, but he’s with company. Ready?”

  “I …”

  Ahn wanted to say a lot, but words didn’t come easy to him. He wanted to tell Brownmiller to be careful and not do anything supernaturally unwise. He wanted to say he worried about Rake. He wanted to say he was glad he’d had a chance to do something useful, when so often people barely knew he existed.

  But, he was never good at words.

  “I am ready.”

  Ahn turned around, and concentrated. The world spun in mandala-circles, became a line, he became speed, and he moved like a shadow with color, vanishing into the depths of Shard Tower.

  Brownmiller watched the young Runner go, then seemed to deflate. He turned to watch Dealer Zero run his divinations …

  … and to wait.

  The Historian stood on one of the balconies of shard tower, looking down on the darkened city despite his covered eyes. His robes shifted gently in the spring breeze.

  “So damn simple.”

  He climbed onto the balcony, balancing precariously, and spread his arms …

  “No. No, too … impulsive. No.”

  The strange specter settled for unzipping his pants and urinating into the dusk below.

  Shard Tower has always been haunted.

  Ghosts and spirits, of course were to be expected - the tower was at least a century old, constantly rebuild. People had died in and for it, or on the lad it had grown to occupy.

  There were of course, the other things that haunted it: regret, hope, ambition, failure. The Guild Council met on the top floors, other Guilds and businesses conducted their endeavors. Human need and want and feelings were woven into it like silk among bars of iron.

  Three new haunts made their way down through the Tower.

  “Something went by here.” Rake, hands clenched, poised above his pistols.

  “Many things have.” HuanJen, ever-calm, like a sheet of silver.

  “Look, one of the guards said he felt weird here, like at the alternate entrance, and it’s all we’ve got.” Jade grumbled. She held the Lakkom protectively, the green sphere that toped it’s ‘firing’ end pulsed unsteadily.

  “We don’t have enough,” Rake muttered.

  No one said anything.

  The three living haunts moved on.

  The Historian looked down over the city of Metris.

  No one knew where he was, because he’d chosen a balcony without security cameras - not that most people expected break ins over twenty floors up.

  He listened carefully to a small, portable radio set on a table. The balcony had apparently been part of a small caf��, though as he had never cared for Shard Tower, he wasn’t sure.

  ” … and this is your emergency broadcast for …”

  “Almost time,” the gaunt figure said, checking his watch, “almost time.”

  “And nothing, thanks HuanJen.” Brownmiller tucked the portable phone into his belt.

  Nothing. Nothing but rumors and hints and mistakes.

  “Zero?” Brownmiller looked over at the diviner, who sat hunched over a desk in the office they’d commandeered. He didn’t look very well and he’d never looked particularly good to begin with.

  “Zero?” Brownmiller inquired again.

  “I heard you.” Zero’s voice was pained, distant, and angry. “Nothing, except maybe hints of something coming. Gods of Xai I suck.”

  Brownmiller rubbed a spot between his eyes that threatened to become a headache. Even if he was a shaman, a cleric, he much preferred his areas of city history, building-divination and geomancy, and the occasional exorcism. He never felt he was the counseling type, and now Zero was having a self-esteem crisis.

  This was really more Rake or HuanJen’s area. Or Jade’s; she could tell him he was being an idiot.

  “Zero, stop it, I’m amazed you’ve kept this up …”

  “Fuck it,” Zero spat, “It’s easy, guy’s a major supernatural beacon, if you know what to look for. I just know to know to look for him … gods I’m tired.”

  “So am I. Tense as hell, worried about the gang.” Brownmiller shook his head.

  “Me too,” Zero admitted as if it was a revelation, “you know, Jade and Huan gave me a real break after the shit I pulled. You guys too, I …”

  Brownmiller gestured with his beefy hands “No crap, about letting us down, OK? Look, I’m going to lay it straight, I’m not that good when people get pissy and whiny at times like this, OK?”

  “Fine, fine. Crap. I need more lead. We need to think like him. That’s the thing, he’s inside out, always where you aren’t looking.”

  “I know, I know, we came here because the Emergency facility was a secret, and …”

  “What else don’t we know?” Zero asked flatly. “What’s like this or something else.”

  “If we don’t know it, we don’t know it,” Brownmiller pointed out.

  Dealer Zero tapped the deck of cards in front of him. Each time his finger struck, it seemed to make an echo that bounced off of unknown walls.

  “Grab that Ellen woman or whatever,” Zero said forcefully, “and ask her what we don’t know and what she wouldn’t tell us.”

  “Huan?”

  “Yes Jade?”

  “I fucking hate stairs. Oh, I also hate corridors.”

  “Thank you dear.”

  Ahn sprinted up a stairway, walkie-talkie in hand. He wasn’t going at his full speed as it required concentrate for the disciplines that let him move so quickly, and he didn’t want to intimately meet a wall.

  “An emergency-emergency broadcast room?” Ahn asked. He re-focused his mind, slowing to a halt.

  “Yes,” Brownmiller grumbled, “she didn’t tell us, of course. I’ve disabled things … effectively. My guess is if there is someone there, they’re waiting for the broadcast to break. Get in there.”

  Ahn said nothing, and tucked the talkie into the simple belt around his robe. To think, ten years ago he’d never seen a regular phone …

  Ahn leapt out of a stairway door and looked around. Seventh floor. It held a lot of odd things, including some storage rooms according to his map. Also, it should have held …

  … the talisman around his neck squirm like a snake. The Runner seized the object, and lifted his ornate dagger, which only increased the strange sensation.

  “Hush, I am not attacking you. Yes, here …”

  Ahn looked over a door that seemed just a bit out of place. It was locked. Very locked. He knelt and tried to figure out what he could do. The lock was electronic, a simple panel with number keys that said, in essence “you’ll never guess, give up.”

  Ahn whispered a complex curse in a language not used for cursing, and groped for his the talkie. The talisman kept throbbing.

  “Brownmiller … well, yes. How … oh. Well, yes. Is there … I’ll wait.”

  Ahn paused. Over the walkie-talkie he heard a very, very pointed discussion occurring. Moments later, he heard a disturbingly calm Brownmiller’s voice came over the speaker

  Ahn punched the buttons at the shaman’s urging. The door slid open, and the young cleric advanced into what appeared to be a broadcast room, at least judging by some of the cables that were draped about.

  Advancing with not so much sound, but the absence of noises that would give him away, Ahn looked around the room. An emergency-emergency broadcast center, something for true crises. Small, with equipment here and there, and a small booth for transmissions.

  “Hello.”

  Sitting in the booth, at something resembling a one-person news set, was a young man in Historian’s robes. He looked innocent, almost child
ish in a strange page-boy haircut - until you looked at his eyes. Then he was ancient.

  Ahn nodded, “Hello.” There wasn’t much to say.

  “I hoped someone would stop me, you know. I really don’t want to do it.”

  “I see.” Ahn gripped his dagger, and began his meditations of speed. “Do what.”

  “You can stop me, it’s OK,” the boy said, “I am Derek. The Scribe. I am sorry.”

  Ahn slid closer. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea, you know. He’s not a bad man, really, if you look at things in context. It just seems silly.”

  “Right, yes.” Ahn’s experience with young people was virtually nonexistent, even when he was a young person. When said young person was part of some strange occult conspiracy, he was quite lost.

  “Please step out of the broadcast booth, OK?” Ahn asked, trying to be friendly.

  “Of course.” The young man complied, shambling over to the Runner.

  “Who are you?” Ahn tried to be menacing.

  “Oh, that’s simple, allow me to explain …” the Scribe caught the curious look in Ahn’s eyes. “It’s OK. He’d let me. It’s … really simple … Oh, I did call him, to let him know. Sorry.”

  “I beg your …”

  “I know everything. I mean, everything.”

  “So, up, then?” Jade asked, climbing up one of the stairwells of Shard Tower. She had seen a lot of them as of late. Someday, when things were normal and the power was back on, she wanted to ride the elevators for a few hours to compensate.

  “Yes,” HuanJen answered, “Zero thinks he’s on one of the balconies. There are plenty a few floors up.”

  “He won’t hold out,” Rake said, vaulting up steps as best he could, “I know.”

  “Any ideas?” Jade asked.

  “One.”

  “Rake?” HuanJen stopped. “This area would be most likely …”

  Rake nodded, and looked up the stairwell. “Yes.”

  Jade felt like she was being left out. “Guys …”

  “Stand back.” Rake said calmly.

  “I’d do as he says,” HuanJen advised his companion.