It’s a hot and humid Labor Day. I did some research on my own at the local library, and I uncovered something which will knock Ashley’s socks off. But first, I have familial obligations to attend to; specifically, my meeting with my Aunt Kierstyn.

Before I head over, I call her cell to let her know beforehand, as she has told me to do. Then, I knock on the door, and she answers after a few seconds.

If you were to take a look at my aunt on the street, you’d probably never guess that she works for the government. She has short hair that’s dyed black, and wears a black leather coat, with matching black leather boots and a belt that is studded with spikes. Definitely a very goth appearance. Or would it be emo…? I don’t know, I can never keep those straight in my brain. (Then again, I can’t ever keep anything straight in my brain. Ha! That’s a good one, I need to remember that.)

“Come on in, Anja,” she says, closing the door behind her and then walking back towards the living room. She has a pretty stoic, detached manner; not too unlike Ashley, now that I think about it.

I consider my own house to be a bit on the messy side, but her house turns it up to another level. On my left I can see a room that is mostly just a bunch of boxes laying on the floor, one of them containing a really old Windows computer. There is also a desk crammed in the corner which has papers strewn across it. Passing by the living room, I see the red couch which I’m pretty sure she usually sleeps on, and the television. The whole house is filthy, and reeks of cigarette smoke; there is dust hanging over everything, and the floor looks like it hasn’t been swept in years.

The dining room table is also strewn with papers. Most of them are just a bunch of legal jargon and news clippings, but there is one that catches my eye: the outline of a map of Texas. There are a bunch of red x’s all over the map with names written next to them. (I see an x slightly north of here that has the name “Roberto Antunez” on it; I wonder if they’re related to Ruth?)

“Oh, you don’t want to look at this stuff,” she says, sighing and shoving a bunch of the paper out of the way so there’s a small part of the table clear. “It is a sad thing. I’ve been asked to keep track of recent teen suicides… for prevention purposes, of course. Depressing shit.”

She takes a seat across from me and starts to light a cigarette. Seeing the pile of papers on the table reminds of something… While she’s distracted, I dig through the papers a bit and find it: the paper with the red eye icon on it! I knew I had seen it from somewhere!

“I said you don’t want to look at it,” she tells me again, sounding annoyed.

“Oh… sorry. It’s just… this has the same symbol that was on my friend’s phone. Remember when I told you about that?”

She rolls her head back, seeming more frustrated. “You know, Anja, we have a saying here in America. It goes, ‘curiosity killed the cat.’ Ever heard that one?”

“Only about a billion times!” I reply.

“Well, you don’t seem to have heeded the message. It killed the cat. The cat is dead. Buried. Gone forever.”

So she’s still reluctant to talk about this… Well, even though I now actually know what the app is, it still intrigues me greatly that my Aunt seems to have some involvement with that stuff. I bet if I bother her enough, I can get her to break.

“Yeah, I know. But we’re here, together, in person,” I argue. “No NSA or any of that shit to listen in on us. What’s the worst that could happen?”

For a while, she just sits there, puffing and staring at the wall, seemingly in deep thought. It’s very tempting to interrupt her, but I stay quiet with the hopes that she’s about to spill the beans. Finally, after what must be several minutes, she starts talking.

“That eye is the symbol of a group that called themselves ‘The Thieves In The Night,’ who operated in the early 1990s. This group used supernatural means to change the hearts of those whom they found corrupt or impure.”

“Supernatural means?” I ask, pretending to look surprised at this information. “What does that mean?”

“The Thieves knew how to access a sort of parallel world, known as the Metaverse, which can be used to alter the consciousness of others.”

Whoah. She knows about the whole thing! “How do you know all of this?”

She pauses again, and then says, “I used to know someone who was involved with them.”

She sighs heavily and starts twirling the cigarette in her hand. “Of course, this group has been inactive for a long time. They made a lot of enemies with their actions, and so most of them have been hunted down and killed since then. So, if anyone ever asks, you didn’t hear this from me, okay? It’s extremely dangerous to go around talking about The Thieves.”

“What did they do to get people after them?” I ask, spellbound despite myself.

“Well, when you mess with the social order, it tends to mess back,” she explains. “Of course, even to this day they’re pretty popular among the occult population… your friend’s app was likely created by a fan.”

“Who did you know who was a member?” I ask. This information is opening a pandora’s box of possibilities… I wonder if that Lucy woman knows about this group?

“Someone who’s dead now, Anja,” she says bluntly, with a deeply pained expression. “I’d really rather not talk about it.”

“Oh, uh, right. Sorry…” I say, feeling bad that I made her relive that.

I drop the subject, and for the rest of my visit our conversation topics are ordinary, just about school and random stuff. But the story my aunt told me about this Thieves group gets me even more excited. I have so much to report to Ashley now!

I may be out of school for Labor Day, but my piano lesson still happened at the regular time. We didn’t go out of town or anything for the weekend, so I told my teacher that we should just do it as normal instead of rescheduling for later in the week. Since I’m meeting up with Anja and Nova afterwards anyway to discuss the Pavia situation, I thought it’d be most efficient to just have Anja pick me up. But she’s late, leaving me to boil in the Texas humidity. What the hell is she doing?

At long last, Anja comes rolling up, Nova in the passenger seat. I climb into the back.

Anja messes with her phone for a little bit before putting the car back in motion.

“I didn’t realize you were old enough to drive.”

For some reason, Anja gives Nova a quick, sharp look. “Well, I am.”

“Well, that’s for the better. We don’t want to generate suspicion.”

“In a quarter mile, turn left onto Mango Street.”

“You really think you need Google Maps for this?” I question. “Nova could’ve given you directions. This town isn’t that complicated to navigate.”

“I don’t see how it matters.”

“Well, do you really want to tell Google where you are at every second of the day?”

“What are they going to do with that information?”

“I don’t know. Whatever they want. I thought that, being a liberal, you would be more wary of the motives of large corporations.”

“Okay. That’s enough commentary from the peanut gallery.”

I let her focus on driving for now. We decided to meet at the county’s courthouse so that we can check whether or not there is a palace there. If he does indeed have one, it would add more credence to the theory that there is something fundamentally wrong with his judgement. In addition, if it were to exist, the most likely location seems to be the courthouse where he works, based on what Lucy told us on Saturday.

We arrive at our destination shortly after that. I’ve never been to the courthouse before now. It’s a white, rectangular building lined with windows, that has a taller and wider center. It’s almost a little like a mini version of the White House.

“Alright… here’s what I’ve uncovered,” Anja begins after putting the car in park. “Actually, there are two things… but I’ll start with the one that’s more directly relevant to what we’re doing.”

“Fire away,” I say.

She turns around in her seat to face me eagerly. “First of all, I went to the city’s public library, where court records for the past several years are kept. Not the full records; you have to pay money to access those. But I was able to see which judge presided over each trial, and which side he ruled in favor of. And guess what; every single case I checked, he ruled in favor of who was more wealthy!”

“Really. How were you able to tell?”

“I looked up the names of both parties being represented in the case. You can tell who’s bringing in the bigger paycheck by things like what their occupation is, and what kind of family they come from. So? How’s that for proof of the bribery theory?”

“As proof? It’s still rather inconclusive.”

Anja frowns at me. “What? Are you serious? What proof do you want?”

“Think about it, Anja. Your hypothesis is that wealthier people win these trials because they bribe the judge to favor them. But you can’t seriously believe that every single rich or even upper middle-class person has low enough integrity to bribe their way out of a civil trial!”

“Sure I do. Why not? Isn’t that just what being rich is like? Just stepping on all the plebeians beneath you to hoard more and more wealth?”

“No! Well, sometimes. But not everyone who has money got it through shady means! Have you been reading communist propaganda or something?”

“Whoah there, Ashley. I’m just saying that there’s a lot more dark money floating around than most of us realize.”

I sigh at her, as I frequently do during our talks. “The other thing is, if he was taking bribes in literally every single trial, more people would’ve noticed. I don’t think corruption that blatant would fly even in Chicago. And if he was making that much money, you’d think he’d move on to an office higher than a municipal judge by now.”

“Well… okay, that’s actually a pretty good point.” She sighs. “Yeah, he should be using that money to get into the US Congress. Get on the payrolls of the NRA and Big Oil and whatnot.”

“So wait… did we learn anything from this, then?” Nova asks.

“It’s not nothing,” I concede. “If the results were really that consistent in favor of the wealthier party, it marks a notable trend. My guess would be that it’s something more subtle. Perhaps he has a certain circle of litigators he prefers, and the wealthier citizens simply have an easier time accessing them?”

“Ehh… I don’t know,” Anja argues. “Something like that could explain some of the outcomes, but Nova’s parents aren’t using any sort of lawyers for their dispute. And his mom lives in a different county, so I can’t imagine they’d have any close ties.”

“Maybe he just thinks rich people are better because he’s screwed up in the head,” Nova suggests.

“Well, we may be able to see what’s going on in his head in a minute here,” I remind him. “But before that… Anja, wasn’t there something else you wanted to tell us?”

“Huh? Oh yeah. While I was at my aunt’s place today, she told me something really interesting…” She went on to tell a story about a different group of people from Texas who supposedly used the Metaverse in the 90s before being murdered by people they had pissed off.

“Wow, so we’re not the first ones to do this?” Nova marvels. “I wonder what other groups have been using this place…”

“The name is so badass, too,” Anja remarks. “’Thieves In The Night…’ That’s a name that inspires fear!”

“I’m sure they got the idea from the Bible,” I add. “The phrase ‘thief in the night’ comes from Thessalonians chapter 5. Paul uses it in reference to an earlier passage from Matthew, in which Jesus uses it as a metaphor for His return to Earth. He says something like, ‘Be prepared, because nobody knows when the Lord is coming. If the master of the house knew when the thief was going to break in, he wouldn’t have gone to bed.’ That’s a rough paraphrase. Undoubtedly, the appropriation of the phrase was meant to warn their targets that their personal judgement days were coming soon.”

“You seriously had that all memorized?” Nova asks. “What a fucking nerd.”

“That means a lot of, coming from you,” I retort. “I seem to recall you recently describing in detail the attributes which led to Mega-Lucario being banned from competitive Pokémon during lunch. You really have no room to judge me for my devotion to my interests.”

“Huh. So you do listen to our nerd conversations,” Anja comments, looking amused.

“Anyways, that story is very interesting, Anja. It doesn’t exactly relate to our current situation, but I will try and remember to ask Lucy about this whenever I get a good chance to. For now… let us check the courthouse for a palace.”

“Yeah. We should probably do that before it gets too late,” Anja agrees. At long last, the three of us climb out of Anja’s car and onto the sidewalk by the courthouse.

In the distance, I can see a man exiting the courthouse from the front. I point this out to the others.

“Awh shit! That’s him!” Nova whispers, rolling his eyes. “This guy seriously has to go to work on a holiday?”

“Don’t freak out,” I tell him, “What’s he going to do, call the cops on us? Besides, it’s probably better that Anja and I know what he looks like anyway.”

“What if he does call the cops on us?” Anja presses me. “We don’t know what this guy’s damage is.”

“What are you kids doing here?” Pavia asks, still a few yards away.

I turn towards him. He’s an older man, heavily balding. He carries himself in a very pompous way.

“Oh, just walking around,” I say.

“Why here of all places?” he questions, furrowing his brow.

“I just find it’s a good place for jogging since there’s usually nobody else around,” I invent quickly.

“Hmm… perhaps so. It’s good to see kids trying to stay in shape,” he ponders.

I can’t believe that actually worked. I guess it’s a good thing I have several years of experience in lying. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

However, the awkward moment isn’t over yet, as he just noticed Nova, who is glaring at him.

“Hmm… you’re the Mosely boy,” he observes. “Are these your friends?”

“Something like that,” he replies disdainfully.

“Don’t call him ‘Mosely boy!’” Anja snaps at him. “That’s really rude.”

Pavia blinks, taken off guard by the jab. “And who are you supposed to be? His girlfriend?”

“Just a concerned citizen,” Anja replies dramatically.

“Don’t mind her,” I say to him, trying to defuse the situation. “We won’t be here for long.”

He frowns at me, looking suddenly suspicious. “Are you sure that you’re not here to intimidate me?”

Damn it, Anja. It looked like we were going to get out of this situation, and she has to go and run her mouth.

“Why would we do that?” I ask quickly, shooting a warning glance at Anja when Pavia isn’t looking.

He grunts with mild amusement. “You must be aware that I’m currently overseeing a civil trial involving that boy’s parents. On that subject, you would do well to not blindly believe in every tall tale you hear.”

“Well, we are hoping that you will ultimately rule in the best interests of Nova and his sister, instead of… any ulterior reasons,” I state plainly, put off by this comment.

He scoffs at me. “Of course I will. I just ask that you bear in mind that I’ve been through many things in life which you have yet to, and my perspective on these issues is much more informed.”

Anja visibly rolls her eyes at him. Thankfully, she’s able to bite her tongue.

Pavia sees the eyeroll and sighs. He turns back towards me. “You seem like a responsible young lady,” he says to me. “Make sure that these two stay out of trouble.” And on that note, he walks away, clearly having more important things to do than talk to us.

“What a fucking asshole,” Anja mutters as soon as he’s out of earshot.

“He’s certainly very… set in his ways,” I observe.

“Yeah, no kidding!” Nova agrees. “Dude thinks that he’s the final authority in damn near everything.”

“I’ll bet you $20 he has a palace!” Anja insists.

“I’m not going to take you up on that bet,” I respond. “Are we ready to enter the other world, then?”

Anja and Nova both nod decisively. I press the app, and into the purple haze we go.

...Or not. It’s clear the moment the world comes into focus that this place is a bit different.

My eyes are stabbed by the flash of a bright light. I turn and see that it’s from a huge building that is where the courthouse just was.

“Wow, looks like Mr. Clean went a little overboard,” Anja comments. Nova laughs loudly at her.

The building is in the same shape as the courthouse, but it is made entirely of a sort of limestone-esque stone that emits a very noticeable glow. The building also looks a bit fancier, with some extra frills and rafters. The landscape around it is also affected for several yards in every direction. The dark colors of the rest of the Metaverse subtly transition into the bright white texture, and the veins get smaller as they approach before seeming to turn down into the ground beneath it.

Well, I guess it’s nice that the first “Palace” we willingly encounter actually looks like a palace, as that will make it easier to remember from here on out.

“Hey, wait a sec!” Anja says, looking around us. “We’re further away from the place than before!”

Come to think of it, she’s right. We had our little chat with the big man on the sidewalk in front, but now it looks like we’ve been moved back to where the other side of the street would be.

“Well, it makes sense that it would teleport us to wherever the very front is,” Nova offers. “If we just popped up right in the middle, that’d be too easy, now would it?”

“That doesn’t add up though,” Anja says, frowning. “Back at the school, we ended up in the middle of the tentacle rape jungle the moment we entered.”

“That is strange,” I admit. “I guess different Palaces have different rules.”

“I guess,” Anja says, shrugging. “Well, this is a palace alright, if Lucy is to be believed. It’s gotta belong to Pavia.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” I concede. “I can’t think of any other major, problematic figures it could be.”

“So… are we gonna go in?” Nova questions.

“Not today,” I respond. “I’d like to have Ted with us when we do enter. And if I’m not home soon, my parents are going to be worried.”

“Remember guys, we can’t fuck around with this too much,” Nova urges. “He’s supposed to make his decision on Thursday!”

“Fine then. Let us plan to meet here tomorrow after marching band.”

“Man, we’re gonna be so tired already after practice!” Anja complains. “Oh well, I guess we don’t really have another choice at this point.”

With that settled, we return to the normal world. With today’s events confirming the existence of a palace, we prepare to infiltrate it tomorrow. After hearing Nova’s account of the man, as well as Anja’s assessment of his record, and of course meeting the man in the flesh, I can certainly believe that there is some fault in his judicial decision making. It’s not entirely clear what it is yet, but perhaps it will become clear once we traverse his palace.

Given the examples Lucy gave of distorted desires, I expected our first job to be a little more dramatic. But I suppose even a minor elected official such as Pavia has the potential to cause a lot of harm in many people’s lives. They say that anyone can be a hero, no matter how unremarkable they seem; but I suppose the same is true for villains as well.