Ember put the wheel of her bike over the metal rack outside a Jeffersonian building of red brick at the center of Wikitown. The words ‘Tow Hall’ were carved into the stone under the pediment of the building. It was located at the center of a vast hexagonal plaza, spokes of paths leading to it from six directions and wide swaths of tree-lined grassy sextants. Ember, who knew the building actually was named Tow Hall, couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that a typo had been made. The pediment itself contained a number of faceless marble statues assembling a puzzle on the back wall with little letters carved into each piece, the center of which contained the uppercase Greek character for omega. A large plaza had been cleared out before it which contained a sizable array of bike racks.

A handful of the bikes were relatively new and finely built, and each of those was looped onto the rack with a u-shaped lock. The bikes which were not locked were rusted and wobbly, and not even the most desperate criminal would bother stealing them. Dual strategies. She didn’t have a lock for her own, so she couldn’t secure it. The prospect that it would be stolen didn’t trouble her, owing to the fact that she’d summoned it from nothing twenty minutes ago rather than having to pay for it. At least, not in a currency she yet understood the value of. She wasn’t sure whether the thing would disappear before long, anyway.

A sound came from her Eos which signified she received a text, and when she inspected it she saw that it was from May: a picture of her giving the v-sign while holding the 8-pointed antlers of a prone albino stag in her other hand. A black arrow with pink vanes stuck right out of the beast’s heart, forming the source of a spring of blood which cascaded down a hill of white fur. So went noble Cracker. May’s enthusiastic boast followed in a text: ‘Hey, look what I got!’

“I hate her.” Ember rasped. July leaned over her shoulder to look at the photo and sighed.

“It’s too bad but that animal’s fair game. Better reasons to hate, if that’s what ya want.”

“Fine.” Ember mumbled.

“Think they’ll show up?” July put his hands on his hips and scanned the horizon. December hadn’t even said he wanted to meet to discuss anything. He could’ve been summoning her and July here for a battle to the death. She didn’t think that was the case, but if it was, it would be pretty rude.

“They will. The question is what they’ll do when they get here.” Ember said.

“Can we take them?” he said grimly, knowing the answer himself.

“Let’s just run. I don’t think they know how to make a bike yet.”

“So they have a badass and a psychopath, and we have ten speeds.”

“Mine has 18.” she said, defensively, pointing to her newer model, “SOFI, could you do something futuristic like view all existing footage of May and December and give me some advice?”

“Of course. More on that in a moment. First of all, a principle you already know is that all Endusers are provided with proficiencies in the abilities they use. Doubtless you’re also familiar with how these proficiencies are amplified if you bring in experience from the real world. You would not have speared that leaf otherwise.” SOFI said. Ember was a bit disappointed to hear that shot wasn’t entirely her, but she sort of knew that already.

“Jesus. Why are there so many people who know how to use medieval weapons? Where I grew up we played football and baseball.” July said.

“Wait!” Ember said, thinking back to when May attacked her, “Baseball. That’s how you intercepted the arrow.”

“I figured that was just natural.” July said. Ember’s perception did seem faster, especially when things heated up, but she still doubted she could have managed that feat.

“July is also stronger than others and can take more punishment.” SOFI said.

“It all shakes out, then?” Ember said hopefully.

“Not necessarily. Outstanding inequalities exist. The differences between strong and weak and between skilled and unskilled have only been ameliorated, not eliminated. All of the Endusers have gifts of their own, and these are not reliably brought to bear by accident of fate.”

“So, December.” Ember said. She didn’t like where this was going.

“Fleeing is a fine strategy! Under-appreciated. In fact, of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, it’s considered the best.”

The entrance of Tow Hall had tiled floors of stone and high ceilings which created an echoing clap from the boots Ember was wearing. The front desk was an encirclement of stained and polished wood in the center of a domed room from which different halls radiated like spokes. As Ember and July approached, a gray cat came around the back and jumped over the gate which opened the circular desk to the outside. The domestic feline had a collar on and looked at them with the pensive curiosity common to the species.

“I was wondering when cats would make an appearance.” Ember said idly, in a whisper. The place had a classy academic atmosphere which made her want to treat it like a library.

“Why would you wonder that? Cats can’t use the Internet.” July said, quietly as well.

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” Ember said. Cats were the ice cream to the apple pie of the Internet. Though she honestly preferred dogs, and fortunately the place was overflowing with those as well.

“More of a dog person myself.”

“That makes sense. You’re a good person, and you can’t spell good person without dog person… and o.”

“You know Hitler loved dogs.”

“Not all people who love dogs are good,” Ember said, “but all good people love dogs.”

“Fallacious!” SOFI interjected.

A clipboard on the stained wood counter top listed the names of other Users who had entered the building, and a security pen nearby was attached to it by a ball chain. A sense of obligation led her to sign her ‘full’ name of September onto the sign-in sheet, and she cast about for a clock to mark the time. She spotted an industrial analog with a smoothly spinning second… centibeat hand hanging over the hall behind the desk, the kind she would stare at while she was waiting for an especially dull class to end.

Like the grounds, the room was circular and spoked out many directions. At the very center of this wheel was a mousy blonde woman in her thirties hunched behind the desk. Ember leaned over the desk encircling her, but went unrecognized for a longer time than she might have expected. The woman was looking over a tablet which seemed to be annotating itself automatically at regular intervals.

“Afternoon, Miss… missfaun.” Ember said, reading off the name plate. She felt silly saying people’s online handles aloud.

“Oh! Hello.” the woman exclaimed in surprise. as was interrupted from her concentration.

“So, what are you doing there?” Ember asked, being typically nosy.

“Keeping watch for vandalism.”

“How?”

“There is a publicly accessible record of everything written or said in Tow.” missfaun turned the tablet towards Ember. Changes to ‘articles’ started to fly past, some of which were obviously garbage. missfaun selected them for reversion, appearing not even to realize that she was still doing it even though the tablet was now upside down from her perspective.

“No privacy at all?” Ember said.

“None. That way all people can police each other based on community agreed standards. It basically works…”

“Policing. I could do that. Are you all hiring?” Ember said.

“Oh, I don’t get paid to do this. I’m a volunteer.” the woman said. Her cat leapt down from the counter top and demanded attention of her, which she freely gave. Ember had never noticed it before, but most games didn’t accurately convey the part of the job where you harangued people for work on the street. You would just run your character up to them and they’d ask you to find their sister, and the part where you implicitly admitted to being a broke tramp who begged for odd jobs was omitted. There was lump of pride in her throat which she, thinking on what it might be like to sleep outside, choked down.

“Do you need anything done that does pay?” she asked.

“If you want to be paid for your work, you came to the wrong place.”

“Crud.” Ember said, then, thinking on it, “missfaun, why don’t you ask to be paid?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve volunteered to do stuff, but even if I didn’t get paid, I still got things out of it, like companionship and status. What you’re doing here is so isolated and anonymous that I wouldn’t do it except for money. So why do you?” Ember said.

“Demand payment? I couldn’t. Anyone can do this.” the woman said, sounding confused.

“So you don’t want payment because it’s not worth anything?” Ember said, knitting her brows together.

“It’s worth something…” missfaun said, struggling to work out her own motivations. “Eventually, I’ll earn enough status in the community to become an Administrator. I’ll be able to lock articles, delete spam, settle disputes, and things like that. I’d have real power.”

“Oh.” Ember said, “So being an Administrator pays?”

“It doesn’t.” missfaun admitted.

“I don’t understand. What’s the goal here? If you impress the other community members, will they help you move a couch? When you get real power, what will you do with it?”

Ember wasn’t sure what she wanted out of the exchange except some half-decent answers about why someone would do such a thankless task for nothing. missfaun looked down at the tablet she’d been using as she considered, then she quietly placed it on the desk, picked up her cat, and walked out of the building without another word. Ember put her hands on her hips and looked after her as she walked out the front door. July held his forehead in his palm and looked at her, his jaw hanging open dumbly.

“What in the world are you sayin’.” he said.

“Maybe she thought I was being rude.” Ember said.

“Cause you were. Donating her time and expertise to keep it all running. Can’t believe you said that.” July said. He sounded disappointed, which cut her, since it was clear he thought her line of questioning stemmed from thoughtlessness. Her reasons would go unsaid, as she knew from experience that even if she explained herself perfectly, it would only make things worse.

July and those like him would always defend people who were, institutions which were, traditions which were, valuable to everyone. There were always monsters at the door in need of slaying, always fires in need of putting out, and there existed also heretics interfering with this vital work. That was most likely what it meant to be Throne-aligned.

“missfaun took your bike, by the way.” SOFI said to Ember, who sighed and drummed her fingers on the counter top. Summoning the bike must have cost her something in terms of battery. She had 67% as it stood, which was a thinning ration if most of the day was still in front of her and the Coinage necessary to plug in was nowhere in sight.

Except for the entrance, each of the short hallways radiating from the foyer had a door at the end of it, and mounted on the wall next to this door were a pair of devices. One was an NFC pad, and the other was an IR receiver—she assumed. It was difficult to tell for sure since they had been gussied up with brass and white wood to match the colonial architecture. She rattled the handle and it rotated freely, but the door itself remained locked. A darkened black-and-red scrolling LED display was mounted inside the wall over the door, like the sort found above elevator. It was much too long, however, to be meant to display only floor numbers.

“SOFI, pull up the article on ‘Gold coin.’” she said, and moved her Cell to the brass NFC pad. There followed the soft click of a metallic lock moving out of place, and the LED display over the door now spelled out ‘Gold coin.’

“Now here’s a subject to spill blood and ink. Do you guys know about the Golden Rule?” SOFI said.

“Course. Do unto others, ‘n all.” July said.

“There are many variations. My favorite among them: ‘Whoever has the gold makes the rules.’”

Ember turned the knob on the now cooperative door and opened it. The room beyond was harshly-lit with exposed steel rafters for a ceiling and lined on all four sides with bare white walls. The concrete floors were smooth and polished to a mirror shine, which made a blurry double of the room reflect off the floor. There were pictures hung on the wall and several plastic display cases on white plinths, and the only thing that separated it from looking exactly like an art gallery were the phalanxes of whiteboards. About half were mounted on the walls, and all rest of them were on wheels and distributed around the room.

There were two doors besides the one she’d just come through: one on the opposite wall which had the LED sign above it but not the inputs, and another off to the side which had neither of these things. Ember judged the door with the LED sign would light up if one tapped one of the blue linking words on the whiteboards. Judging by the number of boards and the volume of text upon them, the article content was much more comprehensive than she would have suspected. She had anticipated a small article, or perhaps even a stub. One of the display cases contained a Coin, of course, a ring of track lighting shining on it and the freestanding whiteboard next to it.

“I knew it! Ember’s still in the game.” Ember said, and rubbed her hands together acquisitively. Behind them the door swung closed of its own volition, though it wasn’t one of those doors with a self-closing apparatus attached to it. It was quite spooky. She went to the case and put both of her palms on opposite sides of the clear polystyrene cube. July strode forward and held up a warning hand.

“Hold your horses there. Is this going to set some kinda alarm off? How do we know someone isn’t going to come looking for it?” he said. Ember paused to make it look like she was considering his words. She’d already considered those things, though, before she walked over.

“missfaun was the one checking for vandals, and she fell to a well-timed existential crisis.” Ember said, inviting a suppressed laugh from July.

“Don’t go tellin’ me you planned this.”

“Wouldn’t that be something. I wish I was that smart.” Ember muttered.

“Such as thing as being too smart. Still don’t think you should do it.”

“It’s just a wiki.” she said. On the whiteboard next to here there were a dozen different handwriting styles in evidence. It looked like one of those mythical scrapbook notes that hostage-takers send to the police. Elegant feminine script abutted with tightly controlled masculine block lettering, and the legible and nigh-illegible intermingled.

She lifted the unsecured clear plastic cover up and set it down lightly on the floor. It bugged her how happy she was to see one of these dumb little Coins, but now she could afford dinner and a hotel room. Her experience so far was that a Token was basically worth a dollar, so a Coin was under a hundred bucks. She didn’t think she was being greedy—she didn’t need a swimming pool full of them. She just needed the one, for today, so she plucked the one in front of her out of the tiny clear plastic stand it was resting on. She held it nervously for a moment, listening for the klaxons to flare up, but nothing came of it. The whiteboard nearby mentioned that the bite test you occasionally see in films originated as a way of telling gold coins apart from lead or alloy counterfeits. Ember masticated the thing for a second, but, having no experience or basis for comparison, it wound up being inconclusive. It wasn’t made of chocolate, though. She held the Cell level for SOFI to come take the coin.

“SOFI, do you believe that? About the person with the gold making the rules.” Ember said, passing off the Coin to SOFI.

“Oh no, certainly not.” SOFI rested the edge of the coin on the surface of the screen and twirled it around its axis, “Gold is more of a byproduct of power than its source. Naturally, a bit of a positive feedback loop, there: power, gold, more power, more gold, yet more power…”

“Now that’s a loop I want to be inside.”

“Careful. It’s not an infinite process. It has a well known terminus.”

“Happiness?” Ember ventured, and knitted her brows together. SOFI gave her a toothy smile and disappeared into Eos with the golden coin.

#

FIDO’s threatening bark curled out from July’s PDA, setting them both on edge. Ember’s hand went to her side and completed the motion for the Cellblade, almost without realizing it, and the hilt appeared at her hip ready for the drawing. She didn’t yet pull it out. July prepared himself similarly, ready for the potential but not yet the actuality of a fight. December or May must have been looking at the tablet when Ember vandalized the Gold coin room.

“July, I think we messed up a bit, here, in that we have nowhere to run.” she said. Even if they activated the blue links and followed them out of the door opposite, such a chase would end very quickly with no open space to get into.

“Aw, hell. How ‘bout we—” he started to say. Ember had already considered the alternatives and found them wanting.

He cut himself short when the knob on the door turned and December entered, followed after by his diminutive young companion. The sight of May caused Ember’s heart to beat faster. May stepped in front of December with a disgusted look towards Ember and July. December was the tallest of the quartet, the oldest, and, as of that moment, the most physically dangerous. His face was long and lined and the edges of his lips curled out and up in a thin smile when his dark gray eyes met hers. Where HAZE’s eyes pierced and looked through her, December’s were dark and impenetrable. Ember was unsettled, since she couldn’t get any sort of read on him. December extended his hand to her, and she thought about how he might be able to disable her quickly if she gave him her hand. Perhaps it was a little test, another leap of faith—there would be no point in allying if Ember was too afraid to do even that.

After the handshake concluded and a little of the tension defused, December unpacked a cigarette and put it between his lips, then produced a disposable lighter of the sort which were sold near the registers of convenience stores. He and May must have visited one for the End Station.

“Not going to offer me one?” Ember said with the hint of a smile, hoping to break the ice even more. Without even reacting, He nudged one out of the package and offered it to her. She had been kidding. “You’re going to offer me one?”

“Smoking is calming, you get an excuse to take breaks, and it’s an instant in with anyone else who smokes. I needn’t tell you about the downsides.” he said. Ember raised her eyebrows, since she’d expected him to withdraw his offer at the first sign of resistance. Since he didn’t, she gingerly plucked the cigarette from its cardboard sleeve, and before she even had a chance to object the lighter was on it. She felt transgressive, even holding such a thing. She’d been raised to believe that cigarettes were the slower acting cousins of the cyanide capsules given to spies and pilots. The few smokers she had met were pathetic, dependent, and eternally ashamed. She’d never heard a defense of the practice, not once in her life.

“Unbelievable.” July muttered, and laced his hands over his head. Ember poised the cigarette between her lips and tried to work up the courage to give it a pull.

“Why didn’t you offer me one?” May said, annoyed.

“May, dear. It doesn’t matter if she smokes.” December drolled in aside to May. He kept his eyes on Ember, who had finally taken a draw on the cigarette, “She’ll be dead soon.”

Ember spat the cigarette out and went into a fit of smoky coughing, and July immediately went back into a defensive posture. May’s hand went to the hilt of her own sword, but December held his hands up towards Ember in a calming pose. In the tenseness of the standoff it gradually became apparent that December’s statement was not a prelude to violence. Ember looked at December through watery eyes.

“What makes you say that?” she gasped pathetically between coughs, and put a hand over her throat.

“You’re naturally trusting, and someone’s bound to take advantage of it sooner or later.” December said. He stepped forward and ground the sole of his dress shoe down on the cigarette smoldering on the marble floor.

“Were you trying to give me an object lesson in trust with the cigarette, or something?” Ember wondered.

“Of course not,” December said with a laugh, “You can smoke if you want. You’re an adult—a young woman. I suppose I can’t say for sure that you’ll be undone by trust any more than a smoker will be felled by cancer. Those are the odds, though.”

“So why don’t you quit?”

“I told you. I enjoy it, and it’s keeping me alive.”

“What?” Ember said, blinking as she tried to follow the logic.

“‘Anything that can go wrong, will.’” December said, “Do you believe that?”

“Murphy’s Law? I guess,.” Ember said, still confused. May grinned over to December, probably getting something Ember was missing.

“So if I smoke…” December said, and waved his hand to her for the next act. Ember pounded her fist into her hand when she saw it.

“You’d have to survive the game to die of cancer!” she said excitedly. She’d always loved that kind of nonsense, which her own father had a knack for providing. She held out her hand to December. “In that case, can I bum another—”

“Get a job.” he said, lidding his dark eyes.

“So, um…” Ember said.

“We’re here to join you.” he said.

“Were you followed here?” July said. December gave a shrug and turned to July, giving him a second’s worth of appraisal.

“No.”

“How can you be so sure?” July shot back. It was becoming apparent to her that her was not fond of December. Oil and water.

“Because I have experience with things like that.”

“Then why bother joining us?”

“There’s no need to be tense. I haven’t done anything to you. In fact I believe I’ve delivered our wayward member.” December said, and, placing a hand on May’s upper back, pushed her forward a step. The girl folded her arms with a sour look at this description of her, but said nothing, and continued to say nothing until she took another step back. If the plan was for her to fill this space with an apology, it fell short. At least he tried.

“You warned us against being overly trusting. I think I speak for both of us—” July started to say.

“I’m fine with it.” Ember said, interrupting him. She understood what December might have been driving at, now. He smoked, and she had chosen to trust them, and it might end badly for one or both of them, but—it was what they’d chosen.

December turned to May and they shared a look between them, one which Ember couldn’t understand the meaning of. It could have been anything—relief at their acceptance, or disbelief that Ember could be so gullible.

“What about you?” December said, and extended his hand to July, who, with some reluctance, eventually took it.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you both.” July warned him, even as they shook hands.

“Fine by me. I have nothing to hide, and this one loves attention.” December said, with a quick tilt of his head towards May. The girl shoved him over this jape, and he tipped over and bounced on one foot, baring his teeth with a shark-like smile.

Ember mainly trusted that the moment December would elect to turn on her wouldn’t arrive until other insurmountable obstacles had been disposed of. With such a thin paste an alliance was glued together.

“So that’s all sorted. Let’s get out of here.” Ember said.

“In a hurry?” December said, and moved his eyes over the display case Ember had dismantled and stripped of its valuables. She nodded and went over to the exit door, and when she opened it she found herself looking at a brick wall, stained and chipped with at least two hundred years of filth and wind. She closed the door and opened it again, in case it would be different next time. It wasn’t. She quickly whipped out her sword and swung at the brick face, a full-forced swing, and was left cradling her wrist when the blade bounced off with a high ting and a shower of brick chips. She lost her grip on it from the shock and the Cellblade clattered to the ground and heard May giggle from somewhere behind her.

“Lame.” May chirped.

“I recall someone trying out a similar theory against a manhole cover.” December said, earning a wince of sympathy from May.

“What are you doing?” SOFI’s voice came up. She emerged and walked along the blade of Ember’s broadsword, and poured over it to inspect for damage. There was nothing of note, though, not even a nick.

“I thought it might have, like… some kind of ultra-sharp cutting edge.” Ember complained, still holding onto her wrists. She’d already had, in hindsight, a few memories that suggested that wasn’t the case.

“The glow is so it plays on camera. The blade is a transparent ceramic in a nanoscale lattice structure for increased fracture-toughness. Beneath that is a shock-resistant OLED panel. Watch.” SOFI said, and gradated the panel in the sword through all of the colors of the rainbow, and then made it so that it displayed a thin fragment of a basketball game.

Ember bent over and collected the sword from the cool shining-smooth concrete of the floor, which it was throwing diffuse bands of color on. The video remained in place as she moved the sword around, so she could, for example, find the person who had the ball by moving the blade to them. Then SOFI turned it back to yellow and orange, and Ember sighed. It was a very sharp sword on the bleeding edge of materials science, but its actual capabilities were similar to its humble steel cousins.

July ambled over to the brick wall and ran his hands along it.

“Nothin’ special about it. Could knock it down with a decent sledge.” he said. It never would have occurred to her to try to get through it at all, absent science-fantasy weaponry. Once her stupid gambit had fallen through she considered it to be one of those impenetrable game obstacles, like waist-high shrubs or fallen logs.

“Do you have one handy?” Ember said.

“We’ll find one with a scavenger hunt!” May exclaimed. “And since it’s a game, it’s a competition.”

“Girls versus boys.” Ember said, inviting May to look at her suspiciously.

“Settled. You two have fun.” December said. Ember could hardly blame him, given he’d spent a while with May by this point. He and July shared a look which spoke of no impending friendship between them, but they were both too levelheaded to resort to violence. That was her problem. July looked to her, about to make an objection, but it didn’t emerge.

“Okay…” May said, still unsure.

“We’ll each find the most appropriate way of getting through the brick wall and meet back here in an hour. No editing articles, follow existing links only.” Ember said, ”Let’s flip to see who takes the first link, and the second team can take any one but that. Got it?”

Ember had SOFI retrieve her Chit, which was at least enough to describe the results of a coin toss. After she and May lost it (tails, they’d settled on), she put it in her pocket instead of back in the phone. SOFI seemed sort of put off at having to shuttle it around. December and July talked quietly for a moment, and then December walked over to a whiteboard and tapped on a blue dry-erase word: Bronze Age. The door out of the room lit up with a sign that said same and there was another soft click of an unlock.

July and December were already moving for the door, aiming to get there faster.

“I’d like to see y’all come up with something better than a good old 14 pound sledge.” July said over his shoulder, before they both disappeared through the door.

“We’ll show them. We’ll get a tank in here!” May said with a scowl, and kicked the transparent plastic cube from the coin display case hard enough for it to ricochet off of two walls before tumbling to rest. Ember smiled nervously, which earned a: “What’s with that dumb look?”

Ember cleared her throat, keenly aware of the fork she was at. She could placate, or escalate. She would have to fight the girl eventually. If they were going to fight, all things being equal, it had to be before May inevitably got stronger than her. It had to be now.