Sunday, September 11, 2022

Charlie’s apartment, TriBeCa, Manhattan, New York, United States

Jade sat on the couch with the television on, fidgeting and nervous. Ella had said to have her television on around now to “any channel”. What the hell did that mean?

Ella had smiled and laughed a bit while saying it, she almost seemed fey lately. It was better than the months she had spent in bed, but Jade could see the signs of strain, could hear her waking up screaming at night. Forward momentum could only take a mjinga so far.

Charlie came in and handed her a drink. Jade took a sip absentmindedly, and the alcohol wafted up and burned her nose. Isaac was sitting in a loveseat to the side, flipping channels on the remote restlessly. Jade’s mind went down old paths with an internal laugh, Isaac was classic male, had to control the remote. But she recognized that was unfair, and it was really her anxiety talking.

Ella’s stories over the past weeks of her time in the orclands had been giving her nightmares as well. A mix of expediency and a certain pragmatic callousness had taken Ella to a very dark place. It had always been there, masked in her near-obsessive tendencies, but the stress she was under had really brought it to the fore. She had started speaking in a royal "We" form a lot more too; something about the crown was changing her. And the physical changes? Her eyes had been bad enough, but now she had lost her left arm.

Even worse, some of her fingernails were now crystalline. Ella had tried to hide it, but but Jade had caught a glimpse when Ella had been painting her nails to cover it up. She had never bothered with nail polish before except when going out.

But that all paled in front of that mask. It had been creepy enough looking as a standard piece of tactical gear. It had changed now – when Ella had pulled it out of the box, the entire room suddenly felt like it was closing in and becoming dark. Charlie had started crying, and Jade couldn’t help herself: she had curled up in a fetal position on the bed, only with effort being able to sit back up. When Ella said the mask was a crystallization of Ella’s feelings in battle, that had shaken Jade to the core. This was her friend.

When the screen went black, Isaac flipped the channels only to reveal the same black screen. Had the signal gone out? Charlie wordlessly showed her phone screen to both of them, she had been watching viral videos on TikTok and YouTube to pass the time and both of them were black too. Except Charlie had a slight, smug smile on her face.

In the new era of magic, seeing strange creatures had become the norm on media. Reports of battles, strange killings, and incomprehensible magical lights had flooded the news with novelty. In turns terrifying and fascinating, humanity had already begun to make instinctive assessments of threat: a dragon - evacuation; the strange dragon-like humanoids - leave alone in their territories; cute fuzzy spirits - feed milk and sugar. Of course, the religious, the doomsayers, and the predatory all had their say as well.

But profits had already begun to flow and that seemed to keep people the most calm - greed was always a significant driver of behavior, and it had been nudged along by Charlie’s work quite a bit to grease the wheels. Wealth on scales unheard of had been applied to remove resistance, to buy politicians outright. All to smooth the path. This media buy was just the surface of it. Jade felt even more uncomfortable with that –the numbers Charlie would casually toss off were in the billions of dollars and sometimes, occasionally, even higher.

“I have no idea what they wanted this time for,” Charlie whispered and took another large gulp of her drink. "When Ella said to buy everything… well we did it. Even the stupidest, most minor streaming site."

Isaac murmured something to his shoulder, presumably to his invisible bird. And how had Jade become used to that?

The screen cut suddenly to Ella sitting on her throne. The throne was up several white-veined, black marble steps and was made of solid crystal which glowed with an inner, prismatic light.

Ella was sitting, in her full regalia, something Jade had never seen before. She was wearing an ornate gold dress that looked almost Elizabethan with a golden fan like thing behind her head, but it had some odd motifs that Jade recognized as Indian sewn into it. She held a long-bladed spear in her prosthetic arm with a crystalline blade. Her crown was seven-tined now. The mask, that horrible mask, was on, and her crystal eyes were all that could be seen on her face.

Moving down the steps from the throne, on each step, there were two sinister figures fanning out from the throne. Each possessed the upper body of a man or woman and the lower body of a scorpion. They wore full tactical gear, including facemasks similar to Ella, and they had assault rifles held casually at ease. Their gear was painted gray and gold like her prosthetic arm. It was grim and terrifying. These guards did not look ceremonial in the slightest.

Everything had a vividness to it, and even the television itself started to take on that hyper-real quality and the wall behind it too. Magic was spilling out of the television itself.

“We are the Empress of the Thousand Kingdoms. Magic has returned to the world, and it is Our’s.” Ella’s voice, behind the mask, should have sounded hollow but instead rung with authority. It went straight into Jade’s heart in a vibrant way that matched what she saw when she saw the magical realm, that realer-than-real feeling. But it was like the first time she had ever heard sound.

“Atrocities have been committed by Our subjects. They shall be punished. Atrocities have been committed against Our subjects. They shall be punished. There will be peace, either willingly or under the threat of annihilation. These lands are Ours from a time before your paltry nations ever existed. They shall be accorded that recognition.”

Jade heard Charlie suck in her breath. This was a direct challenge to the attempted land grab that had been underway for the past months.

“There are those that are suffering. We also remember charity. There are millions starving around the world, and for those nations who will allow it and guarantee the safety of Our subjects and sovereignty of Our lands, We have food ready for distribution. For those requiring it, magical intervention shall be made available. We are proud to announce that the New Chinese Republic is the first of many to receive Our aid and has recognized Our sovereign rights.”

Mass starvation and riots were a constant threat in these times. Governments, including the former Chinese government, had fallen for the hungry mobs, and that knife was now in her hands.

The scene cut away to one that was very familiar, a field with a castle in the distance, gunfire and weaponry, flashes of magical light.

Ella’s voice, but this time it wasn’t through the television, instead, everyone could hear it as if it was someone whispering in their ear. Charlie and Isaac both jumped, and Jade resisted the urge to look behind her.

“We would suggest a tactical retrograde for all U.S. assets; two clicks would be sufficient. Those who stay will perish.”

Even in the dawn light, various soldiers could be seen pausing as communiqués went back and forth. Then a sudden flurry of movement by the various armed forces was visible. It wasn't a tactical retreat: it was a full-on running away. Tanks and mobile armored units sped off the battlefield. Soldiers left equipment where it was. Even the airspace began to clear.

It took a lot longer than Jade would have thought, but she couldn’t look away. The longer it took, the more nervous and scared she became.

After some time, the sun had just peeked up over the horizon, the long shadows it cast making the Arizona desert aglow in stark contrast.

The ground began to shake, the sound came through the television, and cracks began to appear in the ground. Suddenly something emerged out of the ground. Purple-black tentacles shot down to try and pull themselves back underground, but what emerged was a seething mass of impossible purple, black lines, the patterns folding and unfolding in nauseating ways that made no sense. Jade could not hold it back, and noisily felt her bile rise as she vomited. She could hear Charlie and Isaac throwing up as well.

“You poor child,” Ella’s crooning voice came over the television this time. “We might understand it since your mother is gone. But tantrums cannot be tolerated.”

The creature began to writhe more and more. Jade could feel her gorge rising again as she looked on this horrible and alien thing that refused to fit within her perceptions, but she forced herself to focus. A loud keening sound could be heard as it cried. It was piercing and excruciating, and the human world collectively found itself driven to its knees in pain.

Suddenly the creature exploded in a bath of purple fluids, the screen going dark before switching back to the throne room. Ella had her free hand out in an upturned claw shape as if squeezing a ball. The gesture was not lost on any of the watchers.

“Those that transgress will be punished. We shall be speaking to your United Nations soon to treat on matters of state.”

The screen went dark.

Ella pulled off her mask and took a cloth from one of the Aqrabuamelu to wipe the sweat off her face. The crown and gown, as she called them in her head, began to fade as she let go of the magic.

“Who wrote that pompous shit on the teleprompter?” she asked wryly, eyeing Arcsa who had the grace to look abashed. "And the mother comment? Where did that come from?"

The dagger next to her chose that moment to speak, it had been quiescent. A stick, a carrot, another stick, and most importantly, an offer to fit yourself within the existing power structure. Done without the slightest bit of subtlety or grace, but done.

The Emperor’s voice still grated on her. And as much as she wanted to retort to it, she refused to engage except on her terms.