"Oh, sure thing, man. Come on, I could use some paste too. Let's go to lunch."
Lochlan and Pin walked off towards the nearby elevator, Pin struggling at first to keep up with Lochlan's determined strides. Lochlan worried that they might have to wait long to board, but to his surprise, the elevator arrived only a moment after they pressed the call button. Elevators at The Control field offices are large, and they smell like cleaning products. There’s wood paneling on every side except the opening, that is actually made of cork. Lochlan liked to hold onto the cork on the walls when he rode the elevator—it was always cool and felt almost pliable in his hands. Lochlan glanced at the clock in the carriage as the two of them boarded, deciding to himself that he was still making good time to his meeting with Khard. Of course, then the elevator stopped at nearly every floor on the way down. In typical fashion, many of the Agents who were waiting to board or step off as the elevator doors opened were unable to agree as a singular unit on who should step on or off first. At each floor, someone had to hold the door open so that they could enter or exit the elevator.
When the elevator finally arrived at the floor with the cafeteria, Lochlan didn't bother to invest any energy into establishing a system. He practically bulldozed through a couple of Agents who stood in front of him and continued their conversation as the door opened, Lochlan taking large strides towards his meeting with Khard. At that moment, he approximated that he had about forty-six more seconds until he was officially late.
Entering the cafeteria, Lochlan grabbed his long, thin lunch tray and began making his way down the line of the buffet-style paste selection. The nutrient paste Agents eat is designed to give them the total package of nutrients required for their biological components to stay healthy. It’s also full of fast-acting and quickly-dissolving microscopic machines that perform maintenance on all of their upgrades. The tiny machines can only do so much, of course. For the most part, they’re designed to make sure that an Agent's body doesn’t eventually begin to try and expel an upgrade and it works to make sure the machinery is fully accepted by the Agent's immune system, lymphatic system, or whatever else inside the human body can decide that something you’ve put in shouldn't be there. If the tiny machines could do more, the Agents probably wouldn't need the regular tune-ups.
The nutrient pastes in the cafeteria were spread out down the line and organized by flavor. Agents were allowed to take up to four nutrient pastes per day. With as many upgrades as he had, Lochlan only required two tubes to keep his hunger abated and his body at peak condition. Lochlan preferred to grab the Original flavor of the paste, which was always slightly different depending on which contractor was supplying paste to the field office he was in. This contractor's Original flavor tasted strongly of Greek Yogurt, with a sour twang to it that Lochlan enjoyed very much. He quickly stepped toward the end of the buffet line, looking for strawberry-flavored pudding paste, but saw immediately that there wasn't any.
Lochlan's mood module fired up, his body filling with an intense anger and sudden frustration as he grabbed the attention of a nearby man who was refilling the raspberry pudding flavor. Lochlan could see that the man was completely human, and his body language quickly telling Lochlan that he wasn't comfortable talking with Agents. Lochlan wouldn't have normally held the man's standoffish demeanor against him, but he was having an increasingly hard time determining where the rest of the strawberry pudding paste was. Lochlan touched the place on his elbow to steady his speech and calmly asked the man where he could find some strawberry.
The strawberry flavor had been discontinued.
Lochlan grabbed two of the tubes filled with raspberry paste and walked briskly out of the line and towards the cafeteria floor. He only had to look around for a moment before spotting Khard, who was gently squeezing the contents of a tube of steak paste onto a spoon. Khard filled the spoon with what seemed to him like the perfect amount, then set the tube on the table before picking up the spoon to eat the paste off of it like ice cream, the sides of it eventually shaped into peaks and valleys. Khard went as far as to slurp on the paste as gravity tried to pull it away from his mouth. Lochlan could see that there was no pudding paste for dessert on the man’s tray as he walked over, and he quietly hoped to himself that the raspberry would be an adequate substitute for the discontinued strawberry flavor.
As Lochlan sat, Pin lightly brushed his shoulder, sitting directly next to him.
“Hello Lochlan. Hello, Pin,” Khard said.
“Hey, Khard!” Pin replied.
“Yes. Hello,” Lochlan quickly spat. He looked at Pin, who wore an open smile to match Khard’s, and wondered why he was sitting with them. As he could think of no particular reason, he figured Pin had thought they were going to eat together, and wanted to be done with the man as soon as possible. “Sorry, Pin, but—”
Khard cut Lochlan off immediately. “Ah, Pin. I see you brought the strawberry pudding paste I asked you for.” Khard glanced at Lochlan’s tray, a look of disgust flashing as he noted the raspberry paste sitting on top.
Keen to Khard’s displeasure, Lochlan tried to alleviate the situation as best he could. “They were out of the strawberry flavor,” he said. “It’s been discontinued.”
“That’s probably why he asked for some,” Pin said, sliding over the rest of the pudding paste to Khard, who had gone back to licking his spoon filled with meat paste.
As he swallowed, Khard spoke up again. “So, Lochlan,” he began, leaning in, “are you wondering why Pin is sitting with us?” Lochlan kept his face as neutral as he could, thinking the question to be a trap. Khard had been adamant he wasn’t playing The Game, but his question to Lochlan was precisely the kind that was asked when someone worth points was laying a trap. Lochlan wondered if Khard was working with Pin, and was completely unsure how to answer the older Agent.
“Ha!” Pin said. “See, I told you he wouldn’t say anything. He can’t, man. If it isn’t the mood module, it’s The Game. This is what I was talking about, Khard. This is exactly it.”
“What… what’s happening?” Lochlan asked.
Pin and Khard continued to smile broadly for a moment, the two of them obviously sharing something as they glanced at each other. It was Khard who spoke up again. “Pin is like me, Lochlan. He’s… outside of The Game. It’s all family, you understand.”
“So, you’re… what… playing me?” Lochlan was ready to leave the table. There were other people in the field office worth just as many points. Lochlan had identified Khard because of his background as a Cape. The Agent tried to silently convince himself he just wanted some variety. Surely, he didn’t need the man.
“Just relax,” Khard said. Khard has a way of telling people to calm down that I have never seen not work. It’s incredible to witness in person. Sure enough, Lochlan did just that, and didn’t move an inch. “It’s not what you think. Pin and I need your help.”
“Yea, man, we want you with us, you know?” Pin interjected.
“What do you mean by ‘with you’?” Lochlan asked, turning to stare Pin in the face.
“We mean,” Khard began again, pulling Lochlan’s gaze back towards him, “you are the person we need, and we think we can help each other. We weren’t sure I was going to be the one you came to next, but when you did, well, I knew I had to get us all together.”
“Together for what?”
“For our ascension.” Khard said, plainly. “None of us want to stay where we are. Even Pin, in spite of present appearances. He’s got that same fire as you and me, even if he’s too busy screwing around for anyone to notice. But that’s where you come in, for him and for me.”
“How is it that you think I can help either of you?”
“It’s like this: In about forty-seven seconds, some men from upstairs are going to come and collect Pin. He’s being promoted one level, to a GH10. After this promotion, that’s it for him. He can’t ride his familial ties any higher, just like I can’t use my own to get me much further than
where I am now.”
“Familial ties?” Lochlan asked, turning to Pin. “Who are you related to?”
Pin had opened one of his tubes of paste. Through a thick wad of the stuff, he managed to say, “Leflin, from Seattle.” Except it came out more like Leghlihn, frrm Theattul.
“You’re related to… wow.” At first Lochlan found the information, and the scenario he was in, hard to believe. But as he looked back on the things he’d noticed about Pin after working their way up together, it made sense that he was related to someone important. Lochlan had always been sure Pin didn’t do well on his assessments, and it turned out he was probably right. The only thing he didn’t know was that the assessments didn’t matter.
“Yes. Surprising, I know.” Khard said. “And we need you because you’ve put effort into the areas we haven’t needed to. Now–oh, hold on a moment. Here they come. Pin, call me later, yes?”
“Totally. See you later, you guys,” Pin said.
Pin stood up as the men from upstairs, if you could call the almost-fully-mechanic-humanoids men anymore, came to collect him. One of them leaned in closely to whisper something into Pin’s ear, and Pin simply nodded as he began to follow them. He quickly grabbed the tube of paste he’d been eating from, then squeezed its contents into his mouth. Within a moment, he and the men from upstairs were gone.
“The speech he’s about to get is going to be so long, and so, so boring,” Khard said as he and Lochlan watched Pin step onto the elevators outside of the cafeteria. “At least, mine was when I got to GH10.”
“So how is it you think the things I’ve done can help either of you?” Lochlan asked, grabbing one of the raspberry pudding pastes and twisting open the cap. He wouldn’t have normally indulged in the aspartame-riddled tube, but it was turning out to be one of the weirdest days of his life. He figured he might as well keep it going.
“Well, it’ll be a few weeks before Pin can get settled in, but they’re taking him to Seattle to be close to family. When he’s there, he’s going to start having lunch with his uncle and some of his uncle’s friends. Pin is going to tell them that he really enjoyed working closely with the both of us. That’s how you ask men like his uncle to do you a favor and promote your friends.”
“It doesn’t sound like you need me for that.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t need you for that part of it. But even with his uncle backing me, I’ll only go up two or three more levels. I haven’t done nearly enough favors to make it to senior management, and I’ll never get a spot at Control Headquarters. There’s a reason that people like you, without the right family, take years to get anywhere. People are afraid of another Richter. That’s what The Game is designed to do–to keep people without the right political ties constantly searching for ways to build new ones. And even now, you’ve done so many favors that if you were suddenly in a senior position, there’d be nothing anyone could do to stop you from going right to the top—except Richter himself, of course. But aside from him? You’ve done too much for men who were supposed to be retired by the time you could call in any of the favors. Some people figure this out, Lochlan.” Khard waved his arms out at the other people in the cafeteria. “Others, like you, cling to the dream. And if Pin and I want to achieve our own dreams, we’re going to need your help.”
Lochlan looked around once more, trying to identify a camera, or microphone, anything that might prove to him what was happening wasn’t real. He was so terribly certain he was being set up; he couldn’t even enjoy the moment for what it was.
Lochlan is like that. He misses many things.
Hey, don’t bag on the guy for being clueless. It’s not his fault, you know?
Of course. We find the trait endearing.
Lochlan sat silently, contemplating the information.
“Lochlan, this isn’t a joke,” Khard said. “We need each other, the three of us. Will you work with us or not?”
Lochlan spent one last moment thinking. Then, in spite of himself, he agreed.
And as Khard continued to smile, Lochlan asked one thing.
“Where do we start?”
Khard called Lochlan near the end of the official workday, as Lochlan and a few others were grabbing tubes of paste from their desks to fuel up for the extra hours they were about to put in. Lochlan will talk about this spreadsheet he was working on at the time when he tells this part of the story, but I can never remember what it was for.
For promotion.
I know it was for promotion, I just mean I can’t remember what the spreadsheet actually did.
Spreadsheets are for keeping track of numbers.
Yes, but–ugh, never mind.
Khard sounded official when he talked to Lochlan that afternoon, and not just to ensure anyone listening wouldn’t be wise to their machinations, but because he didn’t want the specific people he knew were listening to be wise to them either. He told Lochlan exactly what he had been ordered to.
A Cape had defected.
Defection is the cardinal sin for Capes. It’s a loosely defined term in this instance, but the idea is that, when someone becomes a Cape, they have to follow the rules. As long as they do that, there aren’t a lot of scenarios where they can get into any real legal trouble. Supreme Authority laws established something like fifty years ago still protect Capes in almost every instance, making sure they can’t be sued or charged with a crime for picking a man or a woman to save in the heat of the moment over a child or for the property damage they have a hand in causing on a regular basis. Monetary issues are rerouted to the World Government and everything else falls to the wayside. Your house was collateral damage and nobody could save your kids in time? Terrible tragedy–here’s credits to purchase a new home.
But when a Cape defects and they stop showing up for duty, don’t report in after a mission, or openly disobey the orders they’re given, all of that protection goes right out the proverbial window. The most famous and eye-opening instance of how harshly defection is treated, in my opinion, belongs to Capes number two thousand forty-one and two thousand forty-two–Mark and Gabriel Hutchins.
Mark and Gabriel were twins who grew up to be two of the most famous Capes of their day, taking home Cape of The Year awards two years in a row, the only two instances where the award was given to more than one person. Their Cape monikers were taken away when they defected, along with the rest of the property given to them by the World Government and the GHS when they became Capes. Their story was interesting to me because Mark and Gabriel could do anything. They were some of the most powerful people on the planet not too long ago, their abilities combining in a way that let them manipulate baser substances and elements. Mark could command the earth beneath him and make the winds blow, and Gabriel could talk to the water and manifest fire to do his bidding. Alone, they were Chosen of little import with relatively weak Ch05En genes. When they held hands and worked together, they became two of the only Changers to ever exist; their abilities became alchemical, combining in ways that allowed them to shoot lightning or lava. Outside of battle, they often helped with rebuilding efforts, creating entire towns of steel or adobe buildings in less than an hour. And when their little brother, born almost twelve years after them with a gene that activated two years after they gained worldwide renown, decided he’d rather be a Freelancer than a Cape, it was Mark and Gabriel who got the call. Should have been an easy thing for them to do to convince the third Hutchins to see the light and join them, but in the end, blood turned out to be the one thing Mark and Gabriel couldn’t control.
Great line, Little One.
Thanks, I stole it.
When their little brother said no, they did nothing. Mark and Gabriel didn’t even follow procedure and call headquarters, so the GHS didn’t have a chance to send another team and The Control never sent an Agent. The third Hutchins killed upwards of five hundred people twenty minutes after talking with his brothers, most of them on accident, when the stress of a hostage situation proving too mu
ch for him. It took a local team forty seconds to neutralize the situation, but they were already about four hundred lifetimes too late. The real damage had been done and, in the eyes of the World Government, it was a clear case of defection. The next day, the collars came out and Mark and Gabriel wound up in separate prison cells over three thousand miles away from each other, a couple hundred pounds of concrete and the entire Atlantic between them. Mark and Gabriel had saved a hundred times the amount of people their brother killed, yet one poor decision cost them their freedom and future.
That local team killed the other Hutchins, which says more about how some Capes feel about Freelancers than it does about how the World Government feels about defectors.
When Khard called Lochlan to tell him someone had defected, it was a really big deal.
Precisely.
Lochlan knew there was no legitimate reason he should have to go out in the field. Even a well-renowned Cape would have a proper field Agent, someone at a lower level than he, assigned to bring them in if too many of the nearby teams of Capes had failed. That’s how the so-called Defector Cycle works—the life of a defected Cape begins with an Agent to recruit them, and if the Cape is too powerful to be brought back by the GHS, The Control steps in with an Agent at the end. Many a powerful defected Cape has met their end at the upgraded hands of a field Agent. But no one above GH7 should be getting such a call. Lochlan’s job was to process reports from agents as they finished their recruitment. He had a desk job now.
He’d earned his time behind a desk, but when Khard told him that no one else was available and that the people upstairs wanted things taken care of efficiently, he knew his collaboration with Khard had officially begun.
Lochlan was pleased to hear the Cape he was meant to go after was not someone he had previously recruited. While the situation wouldn’t have won or lost him any points in The Game, recruiting Capes remained a point of pride for Lochlan. Field work at The Control, in his opinion, was one of the last honorable professions someone could be engaged in. Field Agents showed up to assist people who, more times than not, had just survived a traumatic and life-changing experience. Eight out of every ten people he recruited had, sometimes only moments before he’d arrived, encountered any number of things that so often seem to kill people. When he showed up, it was to let them know their life had changed for the better.
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