by Macronomicon
“Right now!” Mr. Surpey said, clapping his hands before stomping inside the castle.
I have to leave, right now. If they found out she was out here, they would kill her too! She had to get back to their room.
Taking the opportunity, Nancy scrambled back across the rooftop, trying to locate the door back to the dark passageway leading to their room.
There it is, Nancy thought, spotting her bracelet, the white beads glowing faintly purple in the moonlight. She yanked the door open and slipped into the darkness as quickly and quietly as she could. The dark no longer held any fear for her. If Mr. Surpey couldn’t see in the dark, then the dark was a good thing.
She crawled back, her heart pounding in her chest, blindly trailing her fingers across the ceiling until she came across the seam of the door. Groping around, she found the handle, twisted it, then burst out into the children’s room.
“Nancy, are you okay? What happened?” Thomas asked as she shoved his bed back over the trap door, her breath coming hot and fast.
When the door was covered, Nancy sank to her knees and began bawling, not strong enough yet to tell them what had happened to Jake. What was going to happen to them.
“Here you are. Snacks!” the melas maid said, bumping the door open with her hip, pulling a cart full of delicious meats and cheeses, along with a large pitcher of water and several glasses.
The dark orange woman paused when nobody cheered for snacks, pursing her lips when she noticed Nancy’s sobbing. “Oh dear, is she alright?”
“She, uh…misses her mommy and daddy,” Thomas said, patting Nancy’s back.
***Kebos O’sut***
The next morning, Kebos was pacing the courtyard, watching the children slaughtering the rabzi in their cages in unusual, but welcome, silence. Even the talkative or particularly cruel children who seemed to enjoy hurting things were quiet, killing the vile creatures with unusually stoic expressions.
Oh well, they’ll be back to their usual grating screams once they’ve forgotten about Jake.
They did tend to get a little subdued when one of them left for their foster homes, but this was a little more than usual. Jake had been fairly popular among the other children, from what he could recall.
The only noise he heard was Marcy’s sobbing, which was not unexpected. The little girl was holding a spear several sizes too big for her and trembling like a leaf in front of a wounded rabzi.
Kebos thought he’d have to intervene as he had so many times before when a little girl didn’t show a predilection for violence, but he was pleased to note Nancy was talking to the girl, guiding her to kill the rabzi in the cage.
He was too distant to make it out, but whatever she said must have worked, because in the end, Marcy stabbed the feral monster in the neck, ending its pitiful existence.
Perhaps an inside man would help, Kebos thought, thumbing his chin as he observed. Many children took days to convince to kill the rabzi. Days that cut into his profit margin. Nancy had done it in less than an hour.
During his patrol of the courtyard, something bright caught Kebos’s gaze. Lying in the dirt on the edge of the grounds was a bracelet, sized for a child. He stooped to pick it up, studying its simplistic make.
It was made of twine and ivory beads with black ink stamped onto them that spelled:
F-R-I-E-N-D-S
Hmm… Where could this have come from?
Chapter 18: Plan C
“Children?” Zlesk whispered, clenching his fists. “This man you’re hunting is reaping children?”
“Yeah, I mean, why did you think I started an orphanage?” Jeb asked, raising a brow.
Zlesk’s expressive brows furrowed in thought, then he shrugged. “Because it was the right thing to do, obviously.”
Jeb and Smartass burst into laughter as Zlesk looked progressively more and more pissed.
“That’s exactly the kind of attitude we look for in our faculty here at The Admiral Orphanage,” Jeb said between gasps.
“You fat veek, you’re using the children as bait?”
“They’re a lot safer now than they were before,” Jeb said, his humor fading away. He didn’t know what a ‘veek’ was, but he didn’t like being called one. It was something about the former sheriff’s tone.
“If it makes you feel better, once we catch the guy, I’ll leave the orphanage running. I’ll put someone who actually likes children in charge.”
Zlesk opened his mouth to respond when Mrs. Lang approached from the front of the mansion, her expression alarmed. “There’re keegan at the door, and they’re arm—ack!”
Mrs. Lang was bodily pushed aside and two keegan in snazzy black robes with silver trim oriented on Jeb, their gazes travelling down to his missing leg, then back up to his face.
“Jebediah Trapper?” the one in the lead asked.
“That’s me,” Jeb said.
“You’re under arrest on suspicion of reaping.” They stepped forward and hauled Jeb to his feet, twisting his arms behind him.
Well, it looks like our reaper has a political presence. Shit. This just got complicated and dangerous.
“Zlesk, Plan C,” Jeb hissed.
“You didn’t get around to telling me any plan,” Zlesk said, watching Jeb get dragged away with an amused expression. “Let alone Plan C.”
“Ask Mrs. Lang!” Jeb shouted, craning his neck to peer through the doorway as the goons dragged him outside. The last thing he saw was Zlesk waving him off.
“If you’re a Citizen, you have the right to legal counsel, and will not be required to testify against yourself. Citizenship also confers the right to request the use of a Truthseeker in matters both criminal and civil in nature.”
“So…what do I get if I’m not a Citizen?” Jeb asked, to which their response was a swift cuff on the ear. “Yeah, I thought so,” Jeb muttered, ear stinging as they shoved him into the carriage.
At least alien jail was relatively cushy. It all came down to accommodating species that were on average a foot taller than humans were. That meant that there was plenty of legroom in both the carriage and the bed.
Usually you hear horror stories about tiny cots, and cramped spaces, but when humans were midgets, size wasn’t an issue.
This bed probably wouldn’t fit Zlesk, though, Jeb thought, stretching his toes down to the bottom of the jail cot and his arms over his head. He glanced up at the ceiling, a familiar sense of unease knocking on the door to his thoughts.
Nope. Jeb turned onto his side and closed his eyes. He didn’t have anything to do but wait for the Bad Guys to show their faces, or get executed for not being a Citizen. Hopefully Plan C would be enough to bail him out of the fire and give them a solid lead to work on.
In the meantime, Jeb didn’t have anything to do but stew…and practice. Jeb pictured the lessons he’d learned from Principles of Myst Sensors and Behavior Programming 101.
A Myst Trigger is similar to a Prince Rupert’s drop mixed with a radio, Jeb thought to himself.
To the uninitiated, a Rupert’s drop is when a bit of molten glass is dropped into a bucket of water, creating a teardrop shape with a long, thin tail. While the teardrop portion is rather rigid and tough to break, the long tail is brittle and can easily be snapped off. When it is, the entire droplet explodes from released tension.
Jeb’s science teacher in high school didn’t let them do their own because teens are stupid, but the sight of Mr. Clemmins digging a sliver of glass out of his palm must have made an impression.
In this case, the trigger portion was the thin glass tail, connected to the reservoir of pre-programmed Myst, which Jeb pictured as the explosive teardrop of tensioned glass.
The tricky part was the trigger. Jeb had to make it respond only to specific actions by making it resonate with the events in question, dialing it in like a radio to a specific station. When the right song came on the radio, it would resonate and wiggle the fragile trigger until it broke and unleashed the stored energy.
This was the p
art that required experience and experimentation to get the feel for it, something that had faded from Jeb within moments of being bitten by the snake...book…thing.
If, in the Myst dimension, every event has its own unique resonance frequency, I should be able to figure this out, eventually. Jeb sat up, cross-legged, opening his palm and consulting his memories of the Tutorial. He had some experience setting up Myst Triggers, even if he was on autopilot during the entire thing. He’d at least been present.
Packaging the Myst and programming it was easy. Jeb understood programming, or at least understood the concept of predefined actions. Jeb followed the instructions in the book and made a tight bead of orange-gold Myst ready to blow a gentle gust of wind into his face.
Creating the trigger was the hard part, as the instructions in the book waxed somewhat metaphorical, giving instructions such as touching specific strands from the Weave of Creation like the spider, Venaxus.
Jeb interpreted it to mean quantum radio. He tried to picture himself closing his right hand as a single possibility out of the wide band of possible events on the infinite spectrum of possibilities that could happen, and he pictured the fragile trigger resonating with that single event until it burst.
The trigger fired prematurely, blowing a gentle wind into Jeb’s face before he’d even thought about closing his hand.
Well, at least it triggered on something.
Jeb glanced up, and not a single prisoner or guard was paying attention to his antics, and it didn’t look like they would anytime soon. Probably letting him stew in fear for a while before they started interrogating him.
Jeb shrugged and took a deep breath, drawing Myst in to fuel his growing Core before siphoning it out, forming it into a tight knot.
It might take a while, but Jeb was determined to be able to do this on his own.
***Zlesk Frantell***
Zlesk watched as the annoying human was dragged away, looking like a squirming rabzi pinned between two hunters, his gold-inlaid wooden foot beating out a staccato rhythm on the floor.
I could just let him get raked over hot coals. I’m fairly sure the human has done something to deserve it.
Zlesk glanced out at the human fat-monkeys running around wildly outside the kitchen window, screaming obnoxiously and pulling each other’s strange hair...
Completely free of worry that any minute their safe haven might crumble to the ground due to the machinations of evil men. He could stand to let Jeb suffer, but to allow the orphanage to collapse was not an option he cared to entertain.
The murder-savant had done something good here, even if it was in service of his hunting.
Zlesk sighed and set his chin on his palm. “What was Plan C, Mrs. Lang?”
Mrs. Lang rubbed her disgustingly obese hip and scowled at the retreating sentinel carriage with her disgustingly obese lips.
“Right this way.” Mrs. Lang guided him to Jeb’s room on the second floor, right next to the staircase and the closest room to the front door.
On the nightstand next to the bed was a human electric lamp, which Zlesk had never seen before. For a moment, he was distracted by the unflickering pure light as Mrs. Lang produced a series of envelopes from the drawer.
“Let’s see…” she said, flipping through no less than a dozen envelopes until she found the one she was looking for.
“Plan C: Corrupt government officials,” Mrs. Lang said, opening the letter and spreading it out on the desk.
She frowned as she read it. “Use deputy plate and Truthseeker to shake the tree. Hire extra manpower from Working Stiffs to catch what falls out? Deputy plate is under my pillow, Truthseeker is in the nightstand.”
“What a vague plan,” Mrs. Lang said, turning the piece of paper over to check the back for more.
“It’ll work,” Zlesk said when he saw what lay under Jeb’s pillow.
An Enforcer’s Mark. Only given to people enforcers had the highest confidence in. Often the kind of people who went on to become enforcers themselves. It allowed a non-Citizen to challenge a Citizen, and it gave an actual Citizen a substantial amount of freedom from censure.
Why anyone would give such a thing to Jebediah Trapper was beyond Zlesk.
A small part of him knew he could sell it for a small fortune, or leverage it to climb back into society’s good graces, and right a few wrongs along the way.
But it wasn’t his.
Zlesk stomped down on those quiet desires like a squirming colee as he picked up the Mark. He would behave honorably, or what right did he have to be a Citizen in the first place?
***Jeb***
“As your legal counsel, I advise you to admit your wrongdoings before I break the other arm!” The angry melas interrogator twisted Jeb’s left arm up and behind his back, applying just the right torque to make the entire thing feel like it was about to wrench out of every socket he had. Wrist, elbow, and shoulder all screamed in protest as they hovered on the verge of dislocating.
Jeb’s other arm was busted, having already been through this lovely process.
“Okay, okay!” Jeb shouted, slamming the table with his forehead as a way of tapping out, prompting the melas to ease up on the pressure just a little.
“I spied on some of my friends having sex when I was a teenager. I knew it was wrong, but she had the biggest tits I’d ever—”
Pop. Jeb’s dislocating arm sent an unpleasant echo through his entire body. Not to mention the pain.
“AAAGH!”
A lot of people think of a tough guy as someone who can muscle through the impulse to scream, but those kinds of people don’t really exist outside of Hollywood.
A real tough guy sticks to the script after the screaming is over.
“...seen, and the way they were bouncing was just fan-fucking-tastic.” Jeb shuddered as adrenaline worked through his veins like battery acid.
The other ‘detective’ pulled up Jeb’s face and smacked him around, loosening Jeb’s teeth a bit and filling the inside of his mouth with coppery blood. Jeb’s vision was starting to get a little blurry.
I really hope they get my plan. Shit, why wasn’t step one of Plan C rescue my ass? Why didn’t I write steps!?
“Ever since your orphanage popped up, kids have started going missing at a prodigious rate. We have it on high authority that they’re going missing from your orphanage.”
High authority, huh? I wonder who specifically pushed that narrative.
“And really, the only time you can enjoy teenage tits completely guilt-free is when you’re also a teen, so I figured—”
Crack!
“AAAAAGH!”
There goes the other one. Damnit!
“Why does he keep talking about tits!?” the melas standing in front of him said, throwing Jeb’s face away in disgust.
‘A great way to get through grueling P.T. is to have something you can focus on really really good. I like to think about boobs.’ —Drill Sergeant Sean Morgan
“The reaper’s legal counsel has arrived,” a keegan woman said, peeking her head into the claustrophobic room. “Some uptight Keegan guy.”
That must be Zlesk! Jeb thought, eyes widening. Zlesk was gonna come in here and flash the badge and totally flip the script on these goons. One look at that and they’d be eating out of his palm.
If I could lift my palm, Jeb thought, glancing down at his slowly swelling arms.
“‘The reaper’? What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’, lady!?” Jeb demanded, burying his excitement.
“Thanks, Sue,” the interrogator said, waving her off.
The woman gave Jeb a dismissive glance and ducked her head back out the door.
“How the Roil did this scum get counsel?” the melas in front of him asked, scratching his head.
“I don’t know. I know this boy didn’t get a message out. He’s been by himself since we got him.”
“The sentinels said he was screaming something about Plan C on the way out.”
&nb
sp; A grip tightened on Jeb’s skull and yanked his head back.
“I bet you’d like to talk to your lawyer, wouldn’t you?” the melas behind him demanded while the other one left the room.
“I would like that very much,” Jeb said, his first non-boob-related answer since they began.
“Well, tough luck, because if your lawyer isn’t a Citizen, then—”
“Um, Croz?” the other melas said, leaning back in the door. “The dude’s a Citizen.”
“Ehehehehe,” Jeb chuckled evilly. The dumbfounded expression on their faces was almost worth the busted arms.
Well, no, it wasn’t. Not even close. But it did help it hurt less for a couple seconds.
“Shit,” ‘Croz’ muttered, shoving Jeb’s head aside as he went for the door to the interrogation room.
“You’ve got an hour, reaper scum. Then we start over again.”
The two of them stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind them, leaving Jeb blissfully alone. If Jeb could move his arms, he would have steepled his fingers ominously, channeling his inner Hannibal and Keyser Söze.
This was the moment where everything went off the rails for these two. Less than a minute later, the door opened, revealing a keegan man in plain robes.
Notably not Zlesk.
Who the fuck is this guy? Jeb thought, raising a brow.
“Good evening, Mr. Trapper. I am your legal counsel,” the man said, reaching into his robe, presumably for legal documents, or a snack, or a pen, or something.
Jeb would have preferred any of those to the foot and a half of razor-sharp steel that emerged from the assassin’s robes.
Crap. Well, that can’t be good.
Desperately, Jeb reached under the table with his Myst and lassoed the man’s legs. As soon as the man decided to move at super-speeds, it was game over for Jeb. Jeb simply didn’t have the Nerve to perceive people moving at top speeds yet.
“I’m here to deliver a messa—ACK!”
The keegan flopped backwards, his feet torn out from under him. Mid-fall, the keegan whipped his arm out as Jeb seized the air in front of himself, creating a cone of telekinetic force.
