Two men walked through an alley. The taller one’s dark skin blended with the shadows; from time to time his bald head caught stray rays of light that had percolated down from glaring fixtures set high above and almost seemed to sparkle, as if his skin contained millions of tiny scales. The shorter man’s skin was more on the pale side, though those same filtering beams revealed a green tint on his similarly hairless dome.

“This is a bad idea,” said Anda.

“Relax,” Mo replied, “They’re not so bad. Besides, it’s not like your connections panned out. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

Anda was too busy stepping over what he hoped was garbage to give him a skeptical look.

“You seem very casual for a guy with no system. What about your bounties?”

Mo waved him off. “Old news. I’m sure they’ve lapsed by now. You’re one to talk anyway; last I checked your clan was still offering top dollar.”

“Former clan,” Anda replied reflexively. “That’s for alive, intact and delivered. To Africa.”

“Yeah, I remember. It was kind of a bummer when I saw that.”

“Oh really?”

“You can’t blame a guy for checking all the angles. Just about everyone at the Crapper had some kind of price on them. Yours was way too inconvenient.”

Anda stopped, and after a moment Mo did too.

“So what’s your angle now, Mo? Still looking for that big payday?”

Mo palmed the back of his head. “Jesus, Anda. We’ve been over this. I’m not pretending that I’m some kind of saint, but… look. I was out of control, alright? My system screwed my head big time.”

“Your system,” Anda repeated, his tone dry.

“I made bad choices, and they piled up. Jesus, you know what I was saying. Being a Reprobate screws everyone.”

“So naturally, we’re about to visit a whole nest of them...” Anda paused, considering. “This is a bad idea.”

“You just said that.”

“Well it is.”

“Look, it’s all transactional with these bastards. They’ll want what you’ve got more than some hypothetical payout.”

“But will they have what we need?”

“Guess we’ll know soon.”

They continued in silence for several minutes, driving deeper into the heart of the shadows from the great archology and the few harsh lights mounted high above. Decrepit five and six-story buildings loomed on either side, before they hit the cleared zone that marked the former shore of the Guayas River and began to follow the crumbling boardwalk there.

“Normally, I’d say let me do the talking,” said Mo. “But my… hallucinatory friends are kind of bugging me out right now. Plus, I’m not always so good with secrets.”

Anda raised an eyebrow. “You don’t say?”

There were people around them now, furtive figures hurrying with heads down, small groups lingering in front of one building or another.

“You should see this place at night,” Mo added.

“There’s a difference?” Anda asked finding it hard to imagine the mix of dark and light might be affected by the hypothetically remote sun.

“Depends a bit on the cycle, but yeah. That’s when they bring in the batteries they charged all day, turn on the local lights. The clannies come out to get their jollies and everyone wears masks. It can get pretty crazy.”

“And your former associates live here all the time?”

“It’s got great reception, and you know, after a day of torching villages and slaughtering whoever the Corp wants slaughtered, a guys got to have a place to put his feet up. Most of the Reprobates find their way here eventually. Best to be around those who understand.” Mo shook his head, and Anda could see a complicated mix of regret and nostalgia cross his face.

Anda shook his head at the thought. The Corp, and individual clans too, used the one-two punch of the Revered and the Reprobates to maintain their iron-fisted control of the Garden. Where the Revered spent years, decades even, maximizing their reputation with various Insider groups, the Reprobates did the opposite. They were the sacrificial lambs and the worst evil-doers at once.

The Corp kept the Reprobates at a distance, Inside and Outside, as reputation was contagious, and there were… side effects to committing atrocities as one’s day job. There was no doubt that one needed a somewhat loose grasp on human decency to end up as a Reprobate in the first place, but those who lasted in the position were warped by the experience; either that or only the true psychopaths remained over time.

The threat of the Reprobates coming to Academy town had been enough to send Mr. Sennit running for the hills, metaphorically speaking, enough to shut down cold the little group of promising crafters and merchants Anda had been training. There wasn’t much point in putting down roots and setting up shop among the Insiders if all the non-tempered were killed and their shops and dwellings burned to the ground. Anda still wasn’t sure if the Corp would have dared to follow through on its threat to send the Reprobates to Academy Town, but no one had wanted to find out.

They passed among a cluster of long dead trees, little more than stumps, and then across the gravelled remains of an asphalt street to a broad stone building. A few bronze letters hung above a boarded entrance, a reminder of a distant era when the building had a function beyond serving as a lair to the Corp’s least loved citizens. Least loved, but highly valued nonetheless.

Mo hesitated at the entrance. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

Anda glared at him. “Seriously? Now is when you decide to have second thoughts?”

“I don’t know, man. It’s a lot, okay. Camazotz is getting in my face in a serious way here.”

Anda rolled his eyes. “It takes hallucinatory Mayan bat-demons to make you question the wisdom of this little jaunt?”

“It’s, like, my unconscious or some shit, alright? I’m getting a bad feeling. Why do we need an airship so much anyway?”

Anda sighed. “You don’t need to know that. Can he get one or not?”

“Kurtz can get one. He can get anything that’s not explicitly forbidden by the Corp.”

“Then here we go,” Anda said. He pounded loudly on the boards.

***

The wooden sword flew end over end through the air and clattered against the floor.

“Pick it up.” Attaboy said, pointing with his own bokken.

Young Master Smith, known to Attaboy as Pineapple, was holding his right hand in his left.

“You broke my finger,” he whined through his mask.

“Would the young sir prefer to forfeit?” asked the judge.

Pineapple shook his head, but Attaboy could tell his confidence was shattered, as well it should be. It turned out that the boy was even worse on the Outside, unaided by magi skill and Flash, and the bout had been a lesson in humility for the young clan member.

It had been a lesson of a different kind for Attaboy. There was no competition here, barely a fight at all. His own work on the Inside had consolidated the inheritance from his previous life, martial arts skills to be sure, but also the knowledge of how to use the tools his system offered. His opponent was at least five years of training behind, and the differences in height and reach were nothing compared to that.

What am I doing here, beating on this… kid? It was a very Atticus-flavored thought, and Attaboy felt a now familiar wave of disorientation, of dislocation, sweep across his mind. There were times when he just wanted to go back to his apartment in the company housing, the first place he could call his own, and grab a bite to eat, maybe leftover pizza, before seeing if…

The bokken connecting with the side of his helmet broke him from his reverie.

said Djian.

“Point!” called the judge.

Attaboy stumbled back, ears ringing. For a moment the scene in front of him blurred. Is this even real? he wondered. Still he managed to intercept the next blow and the next.

“Not so tough now, are you maggot?” Pineapple jeered.

Something in Attaboy snapped. He could feel his system working around the edges of his mind, trying to sooth the edges of his rage as his thoughts left the safe parameters. Two standard deviations from sanity, thought some random fragment of a narrative process in Atticus’ voice.

He struck, and it was for years of abuse at the Piles. He struck, and it was for the dawning realization that he had grown up next to the mobile corpses of his parents. He struck and it was for an entire world, an entire future lost, dissolved into a world where he was small, powerless, where nothing made sense to either of his memories.

Then he was being pulled away, wooden sword ripped from his hands.

“Enough!” the judge roared, anger and panic warring in his voice. Already the door of the chamber was opening and people were running, and he caught a glimpse of Pineapple laid out on the floor before he was carried, unresisting, out of the chamber. In the relative darkness of the hall, he could still hear the gasping noises, still see the kicking legs.

What have I done?

***

Lilijoy watched Lowly cough up another chunk of web, still doubting the reality before her eyes. If I had known that would actually work, I might have been a bit more gentle, she mused. Stuffing the desiccated body with the web had taken a fair amount of strength on her part, and several minutes too. While she had been doing that unpleasant task, the grinding and pounding sounds from the chamber had abated, though she still maintained the low wall she had built to block off the space. She had only gotten about half the webbing down Lowly’s throat before she had noticed his heart begin to beat.

What does this mean? she wondered as she watched his skin continue to fill out and traced his rebirth with her Healing mana. Is he unique due to this strange set of events, Starcoil’s and my interference, or are they all like this? Do they know what they are?

“Hello Lowly,” she said when he opened his eyes at last and stared up at her. “How are you feeling?”

“Strange,” he replied.

“I bet you are. That must have been-”

“No,” he interrupted, pointing at her. “Strange.” He then pointed at himself. “I?”

She blinked, processing the interaction. “I’m strange, and you are.. whatever you want to call yourself.”

“Spider?”

“If you want. I kind of got attached to Lowly, in my mind,” she replied, hoping they were in remotely the same conversation. He grunted in return, a sound that did nothing to tell her.

Several seconds of silence passed before he spoke again.

“Where is Spider?”

“Far from here. She can’t hurt you.”

“Yes.”

She wasn’t sure what he was agreeing with, but decided it would do for now. “I’m sorry I took you from your home without asking. Do you want to go back? Someday?”

He shrugged. “There are no Rules here. I… can move.”

There are rules everywhere, Lilijoy thought. We carry them with us. But that’s not what he means.

“What are the Rules you used to follow?” she asked.

“Keep, Stay, Obey.”

“Could you explain that a bit more?” she tried.

“Keep the Old Ones. Obey Horrible. Stay… still. Separate.”

“What are the Old Ones? Your ancestors?”

Lowly looked at her, his eyes wide with shock. Then he reached out and took her hand.

“Old Ones,” he said squeezing it with his fingertips, pinching her fingers individually. “They stay. They last. Old.”

Bones? Bodies? She thought she had the gist of what he meant. It wasn’t easy, putting herself in his shoes. What’s it like to be sentient blood? she wondered. What kind of world view does that create? I guess we all see our bodies as vehicles for our consciousness, in a way, but he takes it a few levels farther.

“You weren’t allowed to leave the Old Ones. Shiver, Horrible, made you stay in their bodies,” she asserted, trying for some clarification.

She didn’t get it.

“No. Horrible Ruled. Measured.” He shook his head. “The spider tried to Rule. Spiders Rule badly.”

Every time he said ‘Rule’ he spoke it with a strange emphasis, as if the word contained great meaning. Rules are vessels for our behavior, she thought, trying to adopt a more fluid mindset. Perhaps a liquid being has a different sense of what it means to conform. We’re all shaped by our environment, but they are literally ‘shaped’ by theirs. Her thoughts kept moving back to the vast pool of frozen blood they had found behind Horrible’s throne. What happens when they aren’t Ruled? she wondered. Or is it even ‘they’?

Her curiosity was going into overdrive, and not just from the abstract fun of attempting the puzzle that was Lowly. She couldn’t help but feel there were important ideas here for understanding her own mind, which could divide and flow as she needed, could separate and merge, could inhabit and diffuse through her swarm of insects.

Maybe we’re all more liquid than we think, mistaking the container for the essence. The difference is, most people never get a chance to differentiate the two. What would happen to Lowly’s consciousness if he was divided, or united with another Labyrinthian, or added to the pool? Especially now that he’s tempered, if he is?

“Lowly, are you tempered?” she asked.

“Tempered,” he repeated. “Yes. I flow back on myself with many mind words now. Does Strange understand Nameless and Scan, and Charm and Affinity and Flash and--”

Lilijoy broke in before he could finish listing all the various traits and attributes. “Yes, I do. Except the Nameless thing. I bet that’s a Title. Would you like me to explain them to you?”

He nodded.

This is going to be a very long conversation, she realized.

“Let’s start with names,” she said. “You can call me Lilijoy.”

***

Attaboy ran. No one was chasing him, not yet. He ran nonetheless, up stairs and across walkways, past flashing signs and vendors barking out their pitch, through groups of robed women and men. He ignored the stares and the murmurs of outrage left in his wake and ran until his lungs burned and he began to regret not spending just a little more time on his blood bugs.

He wasn’t sure why he was still running, and he certainly didn’t know where he was going. It was something to do, escaping for its own sake, suppressing his thoughts with the need to dodge and weave around people half again his size.

Eventually he stopped, leaning against a wall to catch his breath.

I need to let the others know.

He didn’t know what would happen next. He didn’t really know what had happened at all, if he had killed Pineapple, or just crushed his throat, after his first strike had cracked against the side of his knee, his second had dislodged a poorly secured helm and visor and his third had…

Shit, he thought, replaying the memory. They are going to be pissed. For all definitions of ‘they’. What would Atticus do? Probably call Dad.

He imagined somehow contacting Mooster and a mirthless chuckle escaped him. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Accidents happen, right? Hopefully Pineapple just learned a very hard lesson, and his clan will hush it all up. Can’t have it getting around that one of their favored sons was thrashed by a gob, he reassured himself. He probably has med bugs and blood bugs. We’ll be long gone by the time they come after us.

It took him a few tries, but finally, he composed and sent the messages he needed to send. They were text only; he had no intention of engaging in a real-time conversation with Lilijoy or Nykka.

Let them cool down for a bit first. Though I should probably let them know where I am, he realized.

Of course, for that to happen, he needed to know too. The halls were a bit quieter where he had ended up, and he noted that most of the foot traffic was headed one way. Everyone passing by looked just a little nicer, smelled just a little better. He smelled himself and winced.

No way I’m going to blend in with this crowd, he thought. Even if I wasn’t a tiny mutant. Too bad we didn’t get to the clothes shopping. I could really use a hooded robe about now. That and a shower.

Knowing it was a lost cause to begin with, he started walking in the same direction as everyone else, trying his best not to stand out. No one yelled or pointed, so he took that as a win. As he did, he pulled up the local augsight overlay and found his location on the map.

Looks like I’m heading to the auction house.

***

“What!? That little...”

Nykka’s exclamation echoed Lilijoy’s thoughts about the message she had just received from Attaboy. Guess that explains all the people running around the hallway for the past few minutes. All I want is to get an airship. Why did I let them drag me here for clothes, of all things?

“What is it?” asked Maria.

Nykka ignored her. “This is bad,” she said to Lilijoy. “There’s no way they’ll let us leave. The little jerk didn’t even let us know in time to make a break for it.”

If the situation weren’t so serious, Lilijoy would have enjoyed the sight of Nykka’s fury. She had never thought a human could turn that particular shade of purple. She then noticed Maria’s fearful expression and took pity on her.

“Attaboy screwed up. He hurt, or maybe even killed the boy from Walden clan. Then he ran away. He’s fine, for now, but...” she looked over at Nykka, “I guess we’re not.”

“They won’t barge in here, at least not for the moment,” Nykka replied to her unasked question. “But I guarantee there’s already a whole squad waiting for us at every exit. They’ll want to capture us, and sort things out with Sinaloa later. Which would be fine if...”

“If we actually had Sinaloa’s backing. Oops.”

“We just better hope the boy isn’t dead. They would kill you and Maria without a thought, Sinaloa or not. My status would protect me, but you can be sure there would be a hefty compensation required for my return. Even if I could call for reinforcements, Sinaloa doesn’t have a tenth of the presence or pull that Walden does, not here anyway.”

The gravity of the situation was still setting in, aided somewhat by Maria’s muffled sobs.

“Ugh!” Nykka exclaimed. “I wish my system worked on the other clans the way it does back home. I could make them see whatever I wanted, and we could just walk right out of here.”

“How long do you think we’ll have before they force their way in?” Lilijoy asked, an idea dawning.

“Depends. If he lived, maybe an hour. If he died, maybe a few more minute before they decide to take a hit to the clan’s reputation by violating the sanctity of a second-tier Duel Tender. Basically enough time for someone up the food chain to make the call.”

“Okay then,” Lilijoy said. “Keep your fingers crossed. I might have a way out of this. A little present I’ve had for ages and never used. Hopefully there’s enough time to get it working.”

***

“If I could get hold of an airship,” the man was saying, “Why wouldn’t I use it to ship your ass to Africa, Anda Kukata? Some good money just hanging there.”

Kurtz was not what, or who, Anda had expected, and he was more than a little angry with Moe for the lack of warning. He was small, like Lilijoy small, with a misshapen head and heterochromic eyes. Anda wasn’t looking down on him at the moment however, due to Kurtz’s prosthetics, four long segmented legs that attached to, or really cradled, his shrunken lower body. Currently they were lifting him just above Anda’s eye level, and he could hear them softly whining and whirring as they maintained balance.

Anda considered Kurtz’s question. “A man like yourself doesn’t need money, not anymore,” he said. “You need the things that money can’t buy. Or should I say, that your money won’t buy. The Corp has you under their thumb. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an… alternate association?”

Kurtz stared at him before braying a high-pitched laugh.

“Is this your pitch for Renaissance? Is that little club of bookworms finally growing a pair?” He shook his head. “Oh man, you really are clueless. Things are locked in, locked down hard. Nothing’s changing in this world ever again except the details.” His face hardened. “But you aren’t even pitching for Renaissance, are you? I bet they could get you an airship, if they really needed to.”

“No,” said Anda. “I’ve got something better now. I’ve found the holy grail.”

Kurtz brayed again. “And you’re talking to me? Come on, man, be serious.”

“I’m talking to you because you’ve got nothing to gain from betraying me. I need an airship to get more.”

“And what does this holy grail do, exactly?”

“It can copy bugs. Give me a pill, I can double it. More, possibly. Get me a small sample and I’ll give you a dose.”

“Really.” He drew out the word, pawing his chin with stubby fingers. “Not quite holy. More like the pretty nice grail. The above average grail?”

“It all depends, doesn’t it?”

“That it does, friend, that it does. Sounds like a scam to me, though. A good way to get a quick hit of something nice from a sucker. Given the track record of the green idiot standing next to you, that’s how I guess this plays out.”

“Hey!” Mo protested. “It’s the real deal.”

“Mo, stop talking,” Anda requested. “I can sweeten the deal, for now. Give me half a dose of something unusual... I don’t want you thinking I just got more off the street somewhere. I’ll throw in these bullets.” He pulled out a box of cartridges. “Loaded with bugs that’ll break through just about any synthetic material. Not cheap, not easy to find. Very useful in a pinch.”

He placed the box on a nearby table. “I’m going into business, and you get to be in on the ground floor. Consider those a gift for your time. We’ll hang around for a bit, see the sights, so you can test those, and get a sufficiently challenging sample to put me to the test. Then, if you want, we’ll talk next steps.”

Kurtz steepled his fingers. “You may have earned yourself the right to a serious conversation, Kukata. I’ll be in touch.”