"While working for me, do you do good things?" The fragment stared up at her with empty, longing eyes. "Of course not."

« Previous Tale | Maim the Sky, Slay the Sun | Next Tale »

POSITION PAPER

ON

THE INFEASIBILITY OF UNIDIRECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF SEMI-RIGID SUBCONSCIOUS
MENTAL STRUCTURES FOR THE PURPOSE OF REGULAR PERSONNEL EVALUATION

1. Developments in the field of mental continuity tracking necessitate examining the consequences of implementing such tests into existing personnel evaluation structures. Early research into mental continuity analysis suggested that broad application of the process was hindered by large, but not insurmountable, technological gaps. Several advances in the fields of data interpretation and storage have since filled the largest of these gaps. This paper will outline the argument that, despite these advances, unidirectional analysis of semi-rigid sub-conscious mental structures (UASSMS) is not a suitable tool for personnel evaluation. This analysis focuses on the practical problems of assessing the mental continuity of individuals in any context, the difficulty isolating causal factors in continuity drift, and offers some practical alternatives for identifying anomalous influence in the minds of Foundation personnel.

2. For the purpose of this paper, mental continuity evaluations can be understood as sequential snapshots of an individual's mental state that are repeatedly compared against personalized markers. Simply put, their purpose is to quantify the degree to which any tested individual has changed mentally since previous tests (see: Practical Applications: The Ship of Theseus in Psychological Studies, 2020). In theory, testing of this variety should greatly improve the Foundation's capacity for detecting personnel suffering anomalous effects, form-imitating entities, and non-temporally anchored individuals. This past-future comparison has several implications for UASSMS implementation, most notably in that the first set of results are generally meaningless until contextualized by subsequent results. Furthermore, [DATA REDACTED]

3. [DATA REDACTED]

4. [DATA REDACTED]

5. [DATA REDACTED]

6. [DATA REDACTED]

7. In short, many problems addressed by UASSMS are better solved by training critical personnel in reactionary defensive mindfulness, while the remainder of the issues are unlikely to be fully (or even significantly) addressed by implementation of UASSMS processes. Further developments in marker-determining procedures may improve the effectiveness of this technology to the point of meriting further evaluation.

Erin Ahmadi, who was addressed more often by title than name, perfectly understood her colleagues' concerns about the minds of others. After all, they lived in a world where minds were easily changed by opinion, force, and far stranger forces. That change was almost exclusively for the worse. Given that, the Overseer Council's ongoing search for some method to delve into the heads of their employees was perfectly rational. If she did not commit herself fully to that quest, it was only because she had already completed it long ago.
Ahmadi's wispy, ethereal form coalesced in a place indistinguishable from a doctor's waiting room, complete with lines of squat chairs, an abundance of magazines, and a bored attendant. The air was warm and dry, the light cold and harsh. Just as expected from her employee's mind: plainly coherent and deeply unpleasant.
The tanned, lanky woman behind the desk looked up from a blank book as Ahmadi approached. Short feathers of her mud-colored hair drifted lazily in the room's air-conditioned breeze, each quickly settling back into place. "Overseer."
"Egret."
"We're a bit busy right now. Could you please take a number?"
"There's no one else waiting."
"You're the first one today! Please take your number. It shouldn't be long."
"You know how busy I am, Egret."
The receptionist smiled, wide enough to show the barest hint of off-white canines. The humor of it reached her eyes, but it was unclear whose expense it was at. "I'm just a grade fourteen, ma'am. Not my call."
"The world could collapse while you're delaying."
"I'll be sure to pass your complaints on to my superiors. If you could please take your number?"
Ahmadi scowled, yanked a ticket out of the machine, and turned to sit in the chair closest to the desk. The cushion felt like a hundred bearing balls in a burlap sack. Faint music leaked out from somewhere in the room, a pathetic chain of six slow notes repeated again and again. She found herself tapping her fingers against her arm in time with the slow music. Minutes later was scratching at her skin with the same steadiness. Ahmadi glared at the woman sitting behind the desk and considered saying something more forceful, but no, arguing with the mental constructs was pointless. Egret's were far sturdier than most people's and uncannily numerous.
"Ma'am?" chirped the fragment. "Overseer? They'll see you now."
"About time."
"Just go straight down the hallway," she said, gesturing to a door that had not been there moments before. "Oh, and could I please have my number back?"
"The ticket?"
"It's the only one I have."
Ahmadi bit her tongue, handed the bit of paper to the receptionist, and walked through the doorway. The hallway beyond was covered in doors. They lined both walls, each bearing plaques with titles like Office of the Subcommittee for Interdepartmental Emotion Integration. They lined the floor too, and the ceiling on top of that. She stepped gingerly across them, well aware of the trauma that might arise from a tumble through strange parts of a mind, especially Egret's. Her agent's particular set of unhealthy experiences was something better kept at arm's length.
The door at the end of the hall had one more piece of signage than the others. Right below Office of the Chairwoman of the Prime Committee for Subcommittee Non-Conformity Management was a piece of paper with two lines of neat, handwritten text: 'Closed for construction. Detour through summer vacation memories.'
No, Ahmadi would not be putting up with that much. That the rest of the world could fall apart as she dawdled had not been an idle comment, and her own time was too valuable regardless. She should be able to correct any momentary harm to Egret regardless, or at least fix it well enough that no one would ever notice. She turned the knob, pushed, and the door beneath her feet opened.
Her first reflex was to simply hover there. That instinct served her poorly in a place where thaumaturgy was useless. Her second reflex was to reach out and grab a ledge, but there was none to be had. Her third was to furiously curse as she fell. Thankfully, no one could hear those words. Each would invoke unpleasant consequences in a more conventional reality.
Ahmadi landed at the edge of a vast stone pit dug into in an endless plain of dust. It crawled with distant figures, each dragging filing cabinets toward the white fire burning below. None of her previous inspections had ever led to such a place, but that was no excuse to stop and gape, not when she needed assistance to get back on track. Finding that would prove no challenge at all when she could just follow the screaming voice.
"Move, you jackasses! This was supposed to be done ages ago!" The distant crackling of a thousand burning libraries rushed to fill the space in between hoarse words. "Do you want to get out of here or not? Just two more vacations to go after this!"
After an indeterminate amount of time (and a much more determinate amount of yelling), she came across the shouting's source: a fragment of Egret in a baggy green jumpsuit making vigorous use of a megaphone. The imaginary woman saluted sloppily as Ahmadi approached, hair flying wildly in the hot winds. Except for the soot stains across her face, she was entirely identical to the other figures all around them.
"Egret."
"Overseer."
"You've sidetracked me again."
"It's not my fault, ma'am. The higher-ups wanted all this cleaned out."
"You realize that you're all the same, don't you?"
Egret's smile crept across her face like sludge, distorting an otherwise wholesome expression. "I wouldn't know, ma'am."
"I assume you can send me onward. I don't plan on loitering here."
"Sure. Of course." The fragment reached into one of her sleeves and pulled out a phone receiver. It looked old and cheap, beige plastic connected to a tangled cord. She pressed the receiver to one ear and paused, rolling her eyes at whatever was going on at the other end of the line. "Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Look– Yeah, okay. Yeah? Well, fuck you too." Egret jammed the device back into her sleeve with a snarl, which quickly morphed into the same unpleasant smile. "Someone will come for you in a minute."
"It would be best if they hurried."
"Why wouldn't they? You're our Overseer." She turned away before Ahmadi could say anything, and began screaming again at the countless versions of herself toiling below. The comparisons between the workers and a long list of stomach parasites were particularly vivid.
A bird appeared in the far distance as the list of comparisons reached encyclopedia proportions, black wings steady as it glided down toward the pit. It approached faster and faster, accelerating until flying became falling. Wings flapped deliberately, then desperately, until it hit the ground in an explosion of feathers and gristle. When the air cleared, all that was left in the bird's place was another piece of Egret, this one clad in a dark greatcoat and bearing a particularly grim expression.
"Overseer, I'm your grade three liaison."
"I'm not doing this with every single piece of you."
The fragment tilted her head slightly to one side. "I'm sorry?"
"No, it's nothing. Please, let's conduct the inspection. I'm in a hurry."
"Of course." Egret stomped one boot on the ground, and an elevator car burst out with barely a rumble or puff of dust. The door dinged open, and the same grotesque music that had been playing in the waiting room leaked out. "After you, ma'am." The two of them stepped inside, and the elevator lurched upward at an uncomfortable speed.
"Have there been any problems?" asked Ahmadi.
Egret grimaced, an expression still more pleasant than her smile. "There's been some… lingering contamination from the incident in China. It got into a section of childhood memory storage. The grade twos ordered a purge."
"Isn't that serious?"
"It won't impact our performance, ma'am."
"I meant, aren't those memories important to you?"
"It won't impact our performance, ma'am."
"I see. Is there anything else?"
"No, nothing comes to mind." The elevator dinged again, and the doors swept open to reveal a long chamber packed with row after row of desks, each hosting fragments of Egret clattering away at ornate typewriters. Snow drifted in through the tall, empty windows, only to be crunched underfoot by the higher grade fragments. Each of them wore a greatcoat identical to the one borne by the piece of Egret at her side, and each bore equally grim expressions. "By all means, Overseer, conduct your inspection."
The two of them walked straight down the middle of the great hall on a path of melted snow and discarded paper. None of the Egrets looked up at them, but Ahmadi could feel their eyes on her all the same. It was no secret why she was there.
"You," she said to one of the Egrets at random.
"Yes, Overseer?" she chirped.
"How did you start working for me?"
"You saved me from early retirement, what else? Alpha-1 didn't appreciate me enough."
"Do you think I appreciate you?"
"Of course."
Ahmadi nodded curtly and continued down the rows, one fragment still at her heels. The answer was correct, and more importantly, was nearly identical to the answer she had received the last time she asked the question. Forty-five desks down, she stopped again. "Egret."
"Yes, Overseer?"
"What was the first job you did for me?"
"I put down three of those Committee shitheads sniffing around after you." Her smile oozed out like crude oil through cupped fingers.
"How did you feel afterwards?"
"Satisfied."
Ahmadi moved on. Two-hundred and twenty-five rows down, she stopped again next to a fragment no different from any of the rest. "While working for me, do you do good things?"
The fragment stared up at her with empty, longing eyes. "Of course not." The senseless chattering of countless typewriters ceased in an instant. "What? You all know it's true. All of us know that everything's super fucked up! This whole thing is a nightmare! I'm the honest one here!" She went on yelling at the sea of silent fragments, unceasing even as the Egret next to Ahmadi calmly drew a pistol from inside her coat, leveled it at the head of her perfect twin, and fired. The shot was loud as a cannon, and the force of it scattered brain and bone in a messy arc.
"Tch." She lowered her gun, and more shots rang out across the long hall seconds later.
"Egret, what's happening?"
"There might be a bit more fallout from the thing in China." Heavy metal shutters slid over the open windows, adding a harsh sound to the echoing cacophony that had already become overwhelming. "We'll handle it."
"Egret–" Ahmadi was interrupted sirens sounding from hidden alcoves as the chandeliers began to flash bright red.
"Overseer, you should go. Everything's under control. I promise."
"Egret, I don't think–"
"Will you just listen to what I'm telling you and let me do my fucking job!?" the fragment howled. It was not nearly loud enough to carry far over the din, but she heard it plainly all the same. Wide-eyed with what might pass for fear, Egret's smile still curdled the moment it formed. "That's just the infohazard talking," she continued weakly, raising her gun to her temple. "The rest of us are loyal. You'll see." With that, she pulled the trigger.
Yes, perhaps it was indeed time to leave.

Overseer-6 awoke with one clammy hand still pressed to the forehead of her most valuable servant. Egret returned to consciousness as soon as Ahmadi removed her hand, bolting upright on the examination table.
"Well, how did I do?" she asked, more chipper than anyone had the right to be in her situation.
"You'll need more rest before going out again. I insist."
"What? No, I'm… ugh." She collapsed back onto the table and clutched her head in her hands. "Yeah, maybe." She looked up at Ahmadi, who was still staring intently at her. "Really, what is it?"
"Have you ever thought that your work for me might not be particularly healthy?"
"No. Never."
All things considered, that was the only answer she could have expected.

« Previous Tale | Maim the Sky, Slay the Sun | Next Tale »


« So They Called Him Darke | Dread & Circuses Hub | Dark And Disquieting »

Tears streaming down her face, and her heart throbbing in her ears, Lexi raced down the darkened alleys, pushing her body as hard as she could. She had no goal other than escape, and her flight had taken her into a decaying and dangerous part of the city. It wasn't safe here, she knew that, but there was at least a chance she could be safe from them.
She pushed on the door to an old, abandoned office building. To her relief, no one cared enough about the eyesore to lock it up. Closing and barricading every door behind her, she climbed to the top floor and shut herself into what might have been a conference room half a century ago.
Exhausted, she plopped to the floor. Hugging her knees to her chest, she wept at the hopelessness of her situation. Her pursuers would have drones, thermal vision, all the best toys. They didn't believe in giving their prey a sporting chance. She couldn't hide here forever. Hell, she probably couldn't even hide for the rest of the night.
Come sunup, she'd be in their custody. They'd lock her up, experiment on her, torture her, kill her, maybe use her as a weapon, she wasn't sure. All she knew was that she would never see anyone she cared about again, never live the life she wanted, never again be free.
All because she was an anomaly.
“It's not fair. It's not fair,” she sobbed bitterly to herself.
“I know exactly how you feel.”
Lexi screamed at the sound of the stranger's voice. She kicked herself into a corner for defence, her eyes rapidly scanning the room for the intruder. She saw that the voice belonged to a large man, standing aloofly inside one of the bay windows.
Like Peter Pan.
“It's alright kid, I'm not going to hurt you,” he said, gently stepping down to the floor. His clothes were oddly old-fashioned, like something from the turn of the twentieth century, not something any of her pursuers were likely to wear.
Also, his face was upside-down. That was probably important too.
“Who are you?” Lexi asked between panicked breaths.
“Call me Manny,” the Man with the Upside-Down Face replied with a slight tip of his hat. His cordial demeanor calmed Lexi down just enough for her to realize that it was anatomically impossible for someone to survive with an upside-down face.
“You're…you're anomalous?” she asked.
“Now why would such a nice young girl use so joyless and clinical a term when there are a plethora of far more colourful descriptors for a Freak such as myself?” Manny asked.
“That's what we're called, isn't it? That's what I read online anyway. That's how they found me, I think. I googled the wrong words one time too many and I got flagged. I was stupid, thinking incognito mode would protect me from anything! They've been spying on me for days, at least. They were waiting until I was home alone to take me, but I climbed out my window into a tree and into the neighbour's yard then ran like hell. I don't know if I lost them or not, but even if I did they'll just find me again.”
“Not if you're somewhere that can't be found,” the Man with the Upside-Down Face said with a frown smile. Lexi looked up at him, trying to temper her hope with skepticism.
“What are you even doing here?”
“Scouting for talent, which does tend to take me to some odd places. You know about the Serpent's Hand, right?”
“Some of the people I spoke with online said they were Serpent's Hand,” she nodded.
“Well, I have some contacts in the Serpent's Hand who watch the watchers. They let me know when some poor Freak is about to be snatched away from their home and family and locked away for the rest of their lives for having sparkly eyes. If I can, I get to them first, and I offer them something better.”
“What?”
“Ever heard of Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting?
“A circus!” Lexi scoffed. “How is that any better? How is being a sideshow freak any better than being in Area 51?”
“For starters, I'm not going to force you to come, or force you to stay. You'll be free. The Circus is a sanctuary, run for Freaks by Freaks. Sure, your sleeping compartment will be smaller than one of their containment cells, but we're not going to lock you in there. When you're not performing or training you can do as you please. No testing, no termination, no fighting someone else's war. You'll be free, you'll be safe, and if you give it a shot you might even be happy.”
“How can a circus possibly be safe, especially from them? What's stopping them from finding you?”
“All our shows are one day only. No one sees us arrive, and no one sees us leave. The bedazzling lights shield us from unfriendly eyes while drawing in eager customers by the thousands! Music and spun sugar fogs their minds so that any wonders they behold seem naught more than a dream or illusion. If any of the powers that be do get a whiff of us and try to shut us down, I always know, and we vanish before they can even reach the ticket booth. I've been doing this for a long time Lexi, longer than they've been around even. No one's caught old Manny yet.”
She squinted up at him discerningly, trying to decide if there was any truth to what he was
saying.
“If I did join this Circus, I'd be a performer? I'd be an anomalous act?”
“There's that word again. You know why they call us anomalous? Because they don't want us to think we're special. They give you a number, call you ‘it', and describe your magical, miraculous endowments as if they were taking your blood pressure. And they take special care never to call our gifts ‘powers' lest we start thinking of ourselves as superheroes.
“So tell me Lexi, what's your power?”
With a hesitant sigh, Lexi reached into her coat pocket and pulled out an hourglass. Holding it upright in her left palm, she pointed at it with her right index finger. The sand shot up from the bottom half to the top and started swirling around. It coalesced into the form of a ballerina, twirling in a pirouette until she let it fall inert.
“I'm a sand bender. Not even an earth bender, a sand bender. I can't move whole rocks, just grains, I don't know why. Maybe fluidity. And it's harmless! They want to lock me up forever because I can control sand with my mind. Fricking sand! ‘Coarse, irritating, gets everywhere', sure, but the worst I could do is throw it in somebody's eyes! It's horseshit! Absolute, fucking horseshit!”
Lexi buried her face in her palms and screamed, trying her best to choke back her sobs. When she looked back up at the Man with the Upside-Down Face, she saw he was smiling at her.
“That's an X-man power if I ever saw one. The Essie P wouldn't like you one bit. How much sand can you move?”
“Once, when I was at my aunt's cottage on Lake Michigan, I sneaked out at night when no one was around to see how much sand I could bend. I made a pillar about 16 feet tall, a few feet wide, shaped it into a totem pole. If I wasn't scared to death of someone seeing me, I could probably do more.”
“Tell me if you like this for an act: We'll call you Sandstorm, the perfect name for an X-man! We'll set you up with piles of fluorescent sand, all different colours, and deck you out in fluorescent make-up and body paint. To music, under a strobing black light, you bend the sand into living sculptures, dancing and playing and sparing around the ring!”
“…I wouldn't be in just body paint, right?”
“The Big Top show's family friendly, your outfit will be PG-13 at the most.”
“You actually do make it sound kind of fantastic. If I could put on a show like that, I'd be…”
“You'd be a star! Freaks don't belong locked up in tiny little rooms in giant secret facilities, hidden away so as not to upset all the decent folk's fragile sensibilities. We belong on stage, making people laugh and scream and puke! At our Circus, people will admire your gifts, not fear them. The audience will be amazed and astounded by your performance, and you'd be surrounded by hundreds of people in the same boat as you, who know what it's like to be a Freak. The Circus is a family, and family sticks together.”
“What about my real family? My friends? I'll never see them again.”
“That's hard to say for sure. Essie won't keep spying on your folks forever; not an efficient expenditure of resources. Once they've lost interest you might be able to pop in back home every now and then. We'd even let you send them letters; old-fashioned, hand-written, untraceable letters. They'll know you're alive, and safe, and free, which is a hell of a lot better than being duped into thinking you're dead or getting pumped so full of amnestics they forget you ever existed.”
Lexi gave him a resigned nod.
“If I do join your circus, I'll be taken care of? I'm not going to be starved or passed around like a piece of meat?”
“I've never tolerated any physical or sexual abuse against my Freaks,” he assured her. “The cookhouse serves three meals a day and you're free to help yourself, plus you'll start off at a thousand Fuller Fun-bucks a month.”
“…Fuller Fun-bucks?”
“We're off the grid. Scrip's the best we can do,” he replied matter-of-factly. Both their heads shot up at the sound of a car pulling up outside. “Well Lexi, if we stay here any longer we're going to run into a Mobile Task Force. You can let them drag you off kicking and screaming and become a scip, or you can come with me, and become a star! What's it going to be?”
Lexi knew she had no reason to trust this strange man, but ironically it was the fact that he was so strange that made her want to trust him. He was an anomaly, like her, the first other anomalous person she had ever met in real life. She knew he could be lying, but she also knew she had no hope of evading her pursuers on her own. The offer of sanctuary was not one she could ignore.
“It's for Freaks, by Freaks? You promise?”
“By the scattered parts of the Broken God, I swear it,” he nodded. Sighing reluctantly, she rose to her feet.
“Deal,” she said, shaking his hand. “But they're already outside! How do we even get to your Circus?”
Manny smiled, walked over to the door she had come through. When he opened it, the hallway was gone, replaced by bright white lights and smoke, as well as the faint sound of calliope music. Lexi slowly walked over to the anomalous door, staring at it dumbly at first, but then with childlike wonder. For the first time that night she felt genuine joy, and her mouth broke into a wide grin.
“How?” she murmured.
“Magic,” was his reply. “After you.”
She nodded, and realized she was no longer afraid but excited. Out of all the horrible fates that could have befallen a Freak like her, working for a magical Circus wasn't half-bad.
Once she was through the Door, Manny pulled out a walkie-talkie from his pocket.
"The girl's on board, thanks for your help Masky," he said quietly to it.
"Thank god. I don't know what the Foundation does to Freaks it finds impersonating its agents, but I bet it ain't good," Mr. Mask radioed back.
"That's why it's best for all involved that we both forget this ever happened."
"I'm with you there. But, just so that there's no confusion, Icky doesn't know you're kidnapping kids again, does she?"
"I didn't kidnap her, I just helped her realize that she isn't safe on her own and that she's better off with us."
"Whatever you got to tell yourself, man. I just can't help but notice you never 'rescue' any Freaks who aren't likely to draw in the crowds. See ya in the Library."
"Yeah, see you then." Manny released the talk button and discretely stashed the walkie-talkie away in his pocket. With a penitent sigh, he followed his latest recruit back to the Circus.

« So They Called Him Darke | Dread & Circuses Hub | Dark And Disquieting »


He felt something pressing against his skin. Ever since they had him read the goddamn booklet, he felt something squeezing him, trying to find its way in. It was as if the air pressure had risen to an incredible degree and all the air in his lungs was forced out, replaced with whatever it was that surrounded him.
It should be painful, agonizing. Instead, it seemed almost pleasant and alluring. He felt like taking a deep breath to suck all that in, down to the very last bit. But he had learnt enough about this goddamn place to know it was not pleasant, and it never would be. He had heard stories about people who happily wrote with their own blood and bled out and died.
This seemed to him very much like that, and he wanted to resist the urge for his own sake. He tried to, and succeeded so far. Only he knew that this would not last. Every moment, the air pressed harder against his person, pushing his organs together and he felt like throwing up. And on the other hand, he also felt as if something breath-taking would happen if only he would just heed the flow of the air and let it in.
Only he knew it would not be marvelous. Only he knew he would give in.

“Anart is effectively reality bending,” Dale Fang announced as soon as he closed the chamber.
“What?” Yang blinked. “I'm not a reality bender, you know?”
“Oh, sorry, I mean, Flow is reality bending,” Fang said as he proceeded to turn on the equipment. “Anyways, at least that's how my hypothesis goes: It is formed by, or at least draws from, the surplus of humanity's collective reality-bending power.”
Yang nodded, but didn't seem convinced. She looked around the tall bronze machines that filled the room, before settling her attention on a particular one. “Hold on, is that a reality anchor?”
“Yeah, the stabilizer,” Fang said, holding up a hand-held counter. “And this is a Hume reader.”
“I'm not gonna ask where you got those.”
Fang turned to look at the anartist as he waited for the machines to fully activate. “Hey, relax. They are definitely produced in the family. It would be useful to get other groups' more… professional version of the devices; ours are rather out of date. But they should be enough for me to determine reality bending's role here.”
“Don't reality anchors affect like, magic as well?” Yang went up to take a closer look. “They're used to banish gods, right? Can't remember quite well.”
“Oh yeah, there are those weaponized designs. But in terms of just how it can affect reality benders and magic users, there are subtle differences. Usually not really effective towards thaumaturgy unless you're targeting its links to the reality…” Dale pulled out of a tool box and began to set up a studio space. “But yeah, I'm straying from the topic. I'll just set this up, and see how it can affect your creative process… and then I'll be the one to analyze the data and worry about what it is.”
“Sure, sounds fine with me.”
As Yang helped set up the small art space, Fang went back to adjust the devices.
“I mean, I could potentially also monitor your brain activity when you're… anarting,” he said, moving the measurement device closer to the art board. “But that's not exactly my area of expertise.”

“Of course we tracked their brain activities.” Dr. Samuels rolled his eyes. “How do you suppose we do tests? Just sit on our asses and record how they die?”
“Actually, yeah, something like that,” Agent Green said as he looked around the storage room. Two rolls of anomalous artworks sat neatly on the two sides, separated by walls of enhanced glass. Their anomalous nature was glaringly visible under the strong illumination of the room, as many of them moved around erratically, defied Euclidian space, and emitted waves of colors. For a moment he felt like he was back in one of those anart exhibitions; in fact, the amount of anomalous artwork here was enough to fill an entire display. More than one, if being generous.
“How many D-Classes did you even use?”
“Not as many as you may think. Most were able to produce plenty of works before they… start to use themselves,” Samuels answered, pointing at one of the artworks.
Looking over, Green saw a floating cube composed of what was no doubt human flesh. A severed human head on the top (which was still moving, and breathed hungrily) and traces of orange jumpsuit gave that away. The air contorted around it, pressing on all six sides. The cube itself seemed to be constantly shrinking under the pressure, but it was a mere visual hallucination.
Green looked back at Samuels.
“Well… some reacted quite violently.”
“You sure this is a good idea? Those pamphlets caused some major incident, after all.” Green frowned in response. “Besides, Cobalt's been handing in reports. And hell, is the containment here even safe?”
“I assure you that the tests were all conducted in a very controlled environment with proper procedures; the containment here is only temporary, mostly for better observation,” Samuels said, adjusting his glasses. “And as for Agent Cobalt, I've had my assistant Mendez looking into the information she provided. It is indeed helpful, but the anartists themselves are relying more on vague feelings. I only want concrete science. For now, exposing test subjects to the pamphlet and having them access the ‘Flow' forcefully is my best option.”
Green began to pace around the chamber, and examined the pieces one by one. An array of clay cubes that fused together, then spilt up again, with animated figures on each of them; a series of two dimensional shapes layered onto one another, making the whole object alter with every tiny change of perspective; a structure with impossible colors that he was sure was an actual hypercube.
He couldn't exactly claim himself an expert on evaluating artistic merit, but it was obvious that most of these were good pieces, and would fit right at home in an anomalous exhibition. Not the most refined in skills, considering that the D-Classes were most likely not professional artists, but impressive enough nonetheless.
“Green,” Samuels called out behind him. “The analysis of these is over already, and if you don't take them, they are scheduled to be neutralized the next month.”
“Yes, lucky me that there just happens to be this amount of anart when I'm in dire need of works that can't be traced,” Green sighed. “I'll take them.”
“Good, I'll send their files your way.”
“Although, what's with those?” he said, pointing to the left side. The works placed there were almost uniformly cubical, or contained some sort of square shapes.
“Oh, we exposed them to cubical-themed visual stimuli for two weeks. To see which part of the brain is responsible for outside influence in artwork.”
“You made quite some progress, then.”
“We certainly did,” Samuels grinned, showing visible enthusiasm. “The brain patterns still need a lot of analysis work, but once that's done we'll be able to move on to the next stage.”
“Next stage?”
“Oh yes, if we can find out exactly what parts of the brain participated in utilizing the ‘Flow', figuring out the specific links… Eventually, we will be able to break this thing down.”

“I'm not exactly trying to crack the Flow here, you know. I just need to know where it fits in the grand scheme of things,” Fang said, activating the anchor. “Now I've recorded the data from your normal progress, let's see if the stabilizer does anything.”
Yang felt as if the air in the room grew heavier. “I'm getting paid, so not complaining,” she shrugged. “But can I even do that with it on?”
“Well, that's for us to find out!” Dale said as he put the newly finished work into a storage unit. The figure on the canvas stared at him in silent protest, as the painting morphed from one style to another.
“I suppose I should get to work, then?” Yang went and picked up one of the brushes.
“If you think you're ready.”
Yang nodded and shifted her attention to the blank canvas. For a few moments, ideas bounced in her head, as she thought about the afternoon where she tossed old paintings to her painted cat, about the nostalgic trip to the abandoned buildings filled with faded graffiti, and finally, Fang's wild theories of the workings of the universe he so enthusiastically talked about. As her thoughts wandered, she casually picked through colors, letting loose lines and pieces move around and rearrange in her head.
And suddenly, there was a spark. The image she wanted presented itself, emerging out of what seemed like nowhere, and then everything started linking together and flowing forward.
Colors were prepared and adjusted, and she set the brush against the canvas. She envisioned, projecting the all details that popped up and swirled in her head onto the blank space in front of her, blank space to be filled. But as she began to paint, setting lines and fitting colors, Yang frowned.
Ideas came together quickly as usual, and she commanded the tools with ease. Yet when the color reached the white background, when she put up the dark sky and the metallic ground, it felt somewhat plain and dull. It was as if there was something between her and the artwork, as if everything was where it should be, but she was outside of it, and couldn't quite get through. A thin but invisible wall between the artist and the artwork.
It all felt very… sluggish.

The Flow slowed down, and then completely dried up.
Agent Alex Cobalt sighed as her hours of effort broke down in front of her. The pencil lines were still there, in exactly the same place she left them, but were now still and dull. For a few moments here and there, during the past three hours, she had felt that they were somehow moving, pushing each other. They were part of something big that was about to come to life. But now, the lines were just broken carbon pieces clinging onto a paper, perfectly normal and nothing alive about them.
She knew that it was not just in her head, as she had done it before. She had seen the lines dance on their own in that anart studio, and as clumsy as it was, she had made the rabbit jump out of paper in front of Green and Samuels. She had seen things come together, and even though they may not have been anything grand or even beautiful, they were good. They were things she felt proud of. Yet that same touch was now both so close to and so far away from her, hours of work producing failed works only.
Cobalt resisted the urge to crumple the failed piece into a ball. Instead she opted to just toss it aside, stacking it with five other perfectly ordinary art pieces she had produced. Foundation loves to keep records and archives, after all.
She turned to the researcher in the room. “Sorry, I just… I guess I just don't feel it today.”
“It's alright, Alex,” Researcher Jennifer Mendez smiled at her. Looking at her tablet, and then back at Cobalt, she added: “You know what, how about let's just call it for the day?”
Cobalt nodded wearily and pulled the sensors off her head. She turned to Mendez, as the researcher began to get the equipment back in place.
“It's just… it's bad because I really managed it before. And I guess I'm hindering your progress like this.”
“Oh no, nothing like that. Dr. Samuels has actually gathered a lot of info lately,” Mendez pulled up a gentle smile. “Besides, I can see it's hard and you can't rush this sort of things. Just don't worry about it, okay?”
“Alright.”
“You have undercover work tomorrow, right?” Mendez had begun to pack the failed pieces, filing them one by one into plastic folders. “Guess we'll meet again on Sunday?”
“Yeah. See you, Jenny.”
“See you too, Alex.”
As she left the room, Cobalt sighed once more, and thought about the anart class to come. Trying to keep tabs on everyone while listening to lectures wasn't really the ideal way to learn. Yang had pulled her aside and told her to take things easy, and Cobalt was glad she thought it was just stress. Unlike the testing, she really couldn't afford to mess up during an undercover job. As she thought about her plans, Legler's smug face popped up in her head, and she cursed a bit under her breath.

“Shit,” Yang turned to look at the machine that just made a loud noise, and seemed to have shut off abruptly. “I didn't break anything right?”
“Oh, no no, don't even worry about that.” Dale reached his hand into the canvas, obviously amazed. “This is, in fact, incredible!”
Yang started at him, unsure what to make of that comment.
“First off, tell me how you felt.”
“Well,” Yang frowned, recalling the sluggishness she sensed, “I felt like there was something between me and the paint when I first started, and as I went on I kind of forgot about it. And in the end when I finished, aside from the normal click when finishing an anart piece, I also felt the heaviness was suddenly lifted from the air—shit I really broke it, right?”
“Well, yes and no. It's more like… you pulled Flow in to do the job. And no worries, cost is all on me.” Dale started poking at the silver buildings inside the painting, and then reached another hand in and pressed it against the cold surface.
“Okay? But why would it be ‘incredible', then?”
“Ah. The anchor may be out of date, but it's supposed to be able to suppress one or two high-class reality benders without any problem.” Dale was now squatting in front of the picture, trying to get a better look at the painted night sky.
Seeing this, Yang started to chuckle. “Actually, you can go in if you want.”
“Wait what, the painting?”
“Yep, let me hold it for you.” Walking to the other side, she held the shelf and canvas. “Should be able to fit through.”
Hearing that, Dale immediately raised a foot and started to climb up. As he went deeper, the painted world in front of him shrunk, until he was standing on a solid metal sphere. The cityscape, once expanding all the way to the horizon, was like grass under his feet. He reached up, and found that he could really touch the stars in the sky. As he caught one, the others moved around gently, like leaves floating in a pond.
“I now see why so many people are into this,” he said as he held the star up towards to Yang, who had now moved back to the front of the picture. The star glowed a pleasant cold light.
“There's more you can do,” Yang prompted. “Think about something, maybe like, the moon.”
“Sure.” And as Dale's thoughts went to picture a moon in the night sky, surely enough, a sliver of moon appeared in the picture.
Dale stared at the crescent-shaped object. “Wow, but that's not what the real moon looks like.”
In the next instant, the crescent turned into a sphere, with mountains and valleys, just as Dale remembered from the satellite photos.
“It's kind of like a little world with your own rules. Just figured it's what you may want,” Yang explained. “Standing on the ground and reaching for the stars and all that. Actually, now that I've started to talk about this, I have no idea where I was going.”
“Haha, but it's great, I love it!” Dale said, climbing back out, with the cold star still in hand. As he went from the little world back to his testing chamber, the star slowly dissipated into the air.
“Aw, I wish I could keep that.” He looked at the disappearing light and then turned to Yang. “But back to the topic, I trust that you still want to know what just happened?”
“Very interested.”
“So,” Dale went back to the now broken stabilizer, and proceeded to check it. “You know why reality anchors don't work on magic users well? I mean, in theory, they're supposed to enforce baseline reality no matter what.”
Yang nodded.
“The thing is, the anchors only work within a certain range. With reality benders, their abilities all come from themselves, so once in the range, they're done. But thaumaturgy is different. Magic users use their own EVE, yes, but they are also part of this larger system that they tap into and draw from. So enforcing reality in a certain area is not enough; you'd have to sever the links. It also works a bit differently for higher class thaumaturgic entities, as they are providers and sometimes destroyers of those systems…”
“…I'm really not familiar with the magic systems,” Yang cut in before Dale went on rambling more about thaumaturgy.
“Haha, yes, right.” Dale laughed awkwardly. “What I mean is, what you just did, is breaking the enforced reality by directly pulling a large influx of humes, or reality bending powers, out of… somewhere outside the range, I can only guess. There was this slow build up, but by the time you finish, the readings just peaked all of a sudden. And there goes the stabilizer.”
“Are you saying that Flow is… magic?”
“Oh no, I mean, there's no fixed ritual or gestures and symbols as far as I can see. And if it's magic… okay I really wish I have one of those EVE sensors, those will make the explanation so much easier. But if it's magic, your readings would have showed up differently. There's no… consuming of your energy… I'd say you tapped into something, or resonated with it, bypassing the stabilizer…”
“Well, that part does sound like Flow to me. Good to know,” Yang said, silently noting to herself that other anartists probably weren't going to like this “categorization” very much.
“This just gave me so much to work on. Rawer than magic, and not quite reality-bending.” With all the data gathered and sorted, Fang sat down and started poking at the painting again. The city inside blinked and was abruptly replaced with an ocean. “I need to look up some historical documents, but yeah, this could mean a lot of things. And I can't wait to explore further.”

Proposal: Project Fountain
Proposed by: Dr. Samuel Samuels, Anart Specialist
Project Goal: Study the alleged source of anartists' anomalous capabilities, also known as “the Flow”, in a more controlled environment.
Overview: Previous testing with D-Class personnel has established a basic connection between certain brain areas and the creation process of anomalous anart. The next step is to further decode the process, and produce more quantifiable and precise results. To do this, isolating certain aspects is needed, and the current method has been proved limited.
This project aims to study the anart creation more efficiently by eliminating irrelevant factors. A special procedure may be performed on D-Class personnel to tune their minds for testing. The procedure includes the removal of their personality and ego; the deactivation of brain areas unrelated to anart creation process.
Through this, a deeper understanding may be gained regarding the parts of human brain involved in anart process. Ultimately, this may be a gateway to controlling or limiting Persons of Interest's access to “the Flow”.

Update: This proposal has been approved by Site Board and the Ethics Committee. A D-Class quota of ten (10) has been granted.
Note: Dr. Samuels, while there is enough ground and solid evidence for your proposal to be passed, I must advise you to use your quota sparingly. The Committee will pay close attention. — Dr. Jeremiah Cimmerian

« Seven New Characters Are Introduced | HUB | Skyboy »


You never liked grease.
Grease, sweat, body oil, that weird family "secret sauce" that your aunt swore by, all of it. It had this sticky, all-consuming quality to it. It was moist, but it wasn't a refreshing kind of wet. It clung to your skin and refused to let go. Its presence was suffocating.
You avoided it at all costs. You showered three times a day. You washed your hands and face after every meal. You stayed inside, away from the beating sun and omnipresent moisture. You wormed away from every occasion that involved a greasy meal. You couldn't stand it.
One day, you woke up in a bed that was… oozing. You were relieved when you realized you didn't soil yourself. You were horrified when you realized you were soaking in a bed of your own sweat. You scrambled for the shower. You ignored the split splat noises your feet made as you rushed over. You turned the faucet, and let the refreshing water wash over you.
It wasn't enough. The grease was still in every pore and every fold of your body. You grab the soap and start scrubbing. And scrubbing. And scrubbing. It's surprisingly easy. Skin gives way to fat, which gives way to bone. All the lard and cholesterol melts, slips between your fingers, and disappears down the drain in a soapy slurry.
But it isn't enough. You don't stop, even as the shower floor gains a fresh coat of gunk.
It's on you. It's on you and it's staining you and it's in you and it is you and it won't come off. You start scraping, scraping, trying to get it off. You reach deep inside. First, it's like trying to peel bark off of a tree. Then, it feels like grating a block of wax. Finally, it starts melting under the torrent of shower water. Curdles of osseous matter drift down into the floor and into the flood. Every last bit of you disappears into the drain.
Finally, you're clean.


An old woman fought loneliness with her garden, passing the time between naps by singing to the things that grew there. She loved every one of her crops, from the tiny sprouting needles to the hard stalks that swayed and flexed above the ground. They shined white in the day, and at night the small patch gleamed against the side of her house like teeth in a massive jaw.
The old woman had lived by herself for many years. Her house would be small if she had a family, but because she was alone, it was the perfect size. She filled the house with things—figurines, National Geographic back issues, litter boxes for the dozen cats that came and went—until she was snug inside.
She had lost her husband years ago. There was nothing left of him except for many thousands of dollars, tucked away in an old coffee can. The old woman clipped coupons and shopped at discount stores. She folded her leftover newspaper and shopping bags and stacked them until they reached the ceiling.
The old woman never grew anything except bones in her garden. She had never tried to plant anything else. She didn't know if regular things would grow from her soil, and never thought about it aside from brief moments of curiosity. She never tried to plant bones anywhere else, so she never found out if her house was special or if she just had a talent.
It had started by accident with Osiris, one of her cats. He died one night—an ancient, scrappy beast who moved on peacefully. She buried him before his body was cold. Almost two weeks went by before she noticed it: a sliver, eggshell white and sharp as a pin.
She didn't know what to do, so she laid down plant food and watered it every day. Over weeks, the sliver grew and grew. Eventually, a pink cap formed over its end. The old woman expected the cap to become a flower, but little by little it took shape and became a joint. Another bone grew out of the joint, and after a few more weeks there was a kitty's arm, skeletal but easy to recognize, claws gripping the earth. She cared for it, like all her beloved pets. Rough cords grew little by little from the base of its arm to the ends of its fingers. She knelt beside it night and day, singing songs and petting it gently, so it would know it wasn't alone.
During the months that it took for the arm to grow, the old woman tried planting bones of other kinds. Chicken bones. Bones picked from mice the other cats left at her doorstep. Bones from birds she found rotting on the sidewalk. Even the bones of a small deer she found at the side of the road. Some of them grew, but none as well as Osiris.
She tried putting down blood flakes and hair and eventually ground beef straight from the grocery store. She poured chicken broth and carrot juice and raw eggs into the soil. Still, most of the crops turned dull yellow, like rotten teeth. They became brittle and collapsed without taking root.
Osiris got healthier and healthier. One day she saw the arm moving, straining for a chunk of tuna she had left there. She rushed to dig him up. Osiris shook himself off. Clumps of dirt stuck to his mossy coat. He opened blank, white eyes as dull as quartz. He yawned and she saw a set of perfect granite teeth.
It wasn't quite Osiris, she knew that. But it was close enough for her to take it in. The thing would lay beside her at night. It wasn't warm, like Osiris used to be. It was damp and smelled musty and it didn't purr, but the old woman knew that it was hers. It brought her presents—rats and raccoons and, occasionally, dogs that it somehow dragged from the neighborhoods around her house. She never planted any of these because she was afraid that if they grew up, they would remember what had happened.
As time went by, it became harder and harder for the old woman to take care of herself. She began to forget which of the crops in her garden had been there the longest, which ones she could expect to blossom into life, which to uproot and hide in her shed. Eventually she couldn't remember how many there were, and became confused at all the holes appearing in the dirt.
It was after she actually saw one emerge on its own—a bat that she didn't remember planting—that she knew she needed help. An old woman shouldn't have to finish life alone. She thought about it for a long time. It wouldn't be easy to get what she needed, but the old woman was alone and had little left but time. She considered sneaking into a hospital or a university, but she had never been one to break the law and didn't know how to begin going about it. So the old woman started her old rattling car and drove around, always late at night. It took a long time, countless miles along lonely roads, but she found what she was looking for eventually. It was very late at night when she saw the pickup truck, flipped over, lying crumpled at the bottom of a small ravine.
The old woman stopped her car and made her way carefully down to the wreck. Hope started to flood from deep inside her, filling her up, making her warm. She'd found exactly what she needed. The young man hung upside-down, trickling blood, face cast in a delicate sleep. He was beautiful. It was hard work, on her hands and knees, hacking away at the seat belt with her rusted garden shears. It took a while, but she got him down eventually, careful not to let him fall on top of her. Dragging him up the hill was even harder and she was afraid that someone would stop, would see her and take her to jail; but the old woman did not give up and eventually she got him into her passenger seat. The rest was easy.
She planted him in the patch of ground behind her house and waited. She mixed the soil with steak, and tomato juice and bacon and sometimes beer—everything she could think of to make a man grow. She bought a portable radio and played music for him, always singing along. At night she held his bony hand and knew that the loneliness was almost over.
The old woman gradually cleaned her house. She hired a truck to take away the magazines and shopping bags. She bought a machine to shampoo the cat smell from her carpets. On the night her new husband stirred she was there, waiting. She helped him up and gently brushed the dirt from his cool skin. She looked into his dry white eyes and pressed his rough cheek to hers. She took him by the hand and led him inside.
She showed him around the empty house—nice, but now a little cramped. As she led him down the hall to the bedroom she told him about how they'd have to renovate. They needed space for children, if they were going to make it a home.


The young man watched as the bronze machine hammered down onto the golden metal. The loud clash boomed throughout the chamber, fading into the melting heat. Patina had taken over the machine's surface, coating it with a shade of dark green. But the piece itself was too grand for the flaw to be noticeable.
It was unlike any clockwork device he had seen, its mechanism a mystery to him. He could make out a few gears here and there, but nothing else was within his knowledge. In fact, he could no longer claim to understand any kind of machine, not after he was picked up at the Mehkanite temple that was burnt down, and was led through mountains and seas, traversing the vast desert into this foreign land. The machines that were such a part of his life, a part of himself even, now seemed so alien to him. He could not even state with confidence that he understood his god, not towards the man that had brought him here.
That man was now slithering through the dark chamber, pushing keys that subsequently lit up. His scales rustled against the heated floor. His clawed hands went through the intricate patterns that were engraved on the machine's surface, their purpose unknown. They too were blurred by time, no longer sharp shapes and lines, but dazzling nonetheless. On the far end, between the wavering lights of the flames, automatons could be seen adding fuel into the machine, building the flames higher.
The young man was not sure if they were machines built into human shape, or men reduced to the simplest kind of machine, and he dared not ask. After all, the man with scales and claws and slit eyes seemed so inhuman and sinister, so much like the flesh beasts that attacked their temple, the beasts that howled and laughed and slaughtered. The very evil he was supposed to fight against.
But the serpent man found him, dragged him out of the burning ruins of what he once called home, and healed him with some sort of miracle. "Medicine." The man had answered him, but no medicine could heal what was inflicted upon him, not even as parts of his body were already replaced with metal. The human body was weak, nothing compared to what their god could offer. He still remembered when bone spears pierced through his organs, the ones he was yet to, and maybe couldn't, replace with clockwork. He only remembered the laughter ringing through his ears, mocking the futility of their resistance, before it all faded into blackness.
But now, he sat in this dark chamber, in front of a large piece of golden metal that was hammered down by the heavy machinery again and again. His metal arm was replaced anew; polished and lighter than ever before, so flexible that even his tortured body could command it with ease. The serpent man certainly knew the machines better than he did, maybe even better than the elders of his temple. And as they talked through the long journey, when they traversed the cold mountains, the lonely seas, and the lifeless desert, he learnt of a different tale about his god that existed in the Far East. Child of flesh and metal, the man that resembled snake more than man claimed to be. Children of flesh and metal, the man claimed that they all were.
As the rhythmic booming sound rang through the chamber, as the fire grew higher, as the automatons worked tirelessly, the serpent man slithered near. He wore a strange robe, long sleeves covering his hands. Some sort of metal bracelet could be seen underneath, with the same shade of dark green as the machine.
The scaled man stopped in front of him, and the young Mekhanite spoke: "You promised me vengeance."
"Yes." The answer came with a cold hissing sound, one that the young man had grown accustomed to. "All is set, but you need to be ready first."
Before he could answer that yes, yes he was ready, the serpent gestured towards the machine and the strange metal placed onto it. "Long ago," He said, "Our empire was strong and prosperous, the land was lined with machines of miracle, we reached the stars and looked into the brass prison of the Dragon," His hand stroked the surface of the device. "These are but remains of the glorious days."
For a moment, it was hard for him to imagine. A dark chamber lined with heavy machines, with fires maintained by robots, was but shadows of the past. What other things the man implied he dared not think about. They weren't things he could comprehend, or believe in.
The serpent man continued. "But even before that, our ancestors fought against other tribes who too worshipped the Serpent and the Dragon, and united them to be a common kingdom. Such were the great deeds of the Yellow Emperor, the first king of Xia."
Abruptly, the hammering stopped. The underground chamber was suddenly quiet. The automatons moved and clicked at the far end, but only the sound of the serpent man's speech boomed throughout the heated room.
“But Chiyou rebelled against the great emperor. Like us, they were worshippers of Father Fuxi. He and his tribe sacrificed their body of flesh and blood to the Great Brass Dragon, and gained bodies of brass and iron.” The serpent man paused, and explained. “It was not ‘augmentation', as you would put it. They turned themselves not into machines, but living metal. Machines can be broken down, disassembled, but metal itself—”
“An invincible body.” The young Mekhanite kept his voice calm, but a fire quietly burned in his eyes.
“Not invincible, far from it.” Even on a reptilian face, the frown was visible. “Weapons were indeed useless against them. They knew no pain, knew no rest, an army unparalleled at the time. The metal was gifted by our Father, and thus does not rust.”
He turned to look at the strange metal — it was no longer golden, heated to show a glowing red. “But the Yellow Emperor defeated them. He melted them down into liquid, and then forged them into metal cubes. As such, they were longer a threat.”
The serpent man was not fluent in the young man's language, but the words hammered down into him clearly. The young Mekhanite fell into silence as he now understood what he was looking at.
The metal had completely melted now. The serpent man reached out, and pulled a lever. The machine shifted, and the liquid was poured down into a pool beneath. A feeling of unease rose from the young man's stomach. As he watched, for a moment, it was as if the molten metal twisted unnaturally, before falling down into the pit.
The serpent man turned back, the slit eyes met his gaze. “Some say their souls are still trapped there. Shattered minds fused into a vengeful, insane spirit, longing for freedom.” He said.
The young man looked at the pool of metallic liquid that seemed to be withering and silently screaming. He couldn't tell if it really was there, or it was merely in his mind. The chamber seemed much darker now, even as the automatons worked harder and harder to put fuel into the giant machine. The intricate patterns, under the wavering light, now seemed menacing and shadowy. And the ones that glowed emitted an eerie light. The hammer hanged high above, its presence pressed against his being, like a dark cloud hovering. He looked at all these with silence, slowly taking everything in. The fire in his eyes grew.
“I am ready.” He finally said.
“Hundreds had joined Chiyou, yet only eighty-one withstood the ritual.” The serpent man said.
“I will make it.” He said.
The man only nodded as a response.

Inside the pool, the liquid metal was boiling now. Steam rose, but was somehow confined within the pool. This machine was really something beyond his understanding, but for now, he stopped thinking about that. The heat was scorching, which his bare foot felt the most.
The serpent man said something to him, but it slipped through. His mind wandered back into the night when the Sarkicites destroyed his temple and slaughtered his kind. Even the strongest of them, the elders that had fully converted, were no match for the unholy beast of the flesh. They were torn, pieces of gears scattered, their weapons broken. And the beasts laughed, their laugher so piercing, much like the bone spears through his body. But a wave of heat hit him, and dragged him back into reality.
“I have tried this so many times before. None successful.” He caught the serpent man saying. “So maybe you, someone who truly believes in the Father Serpent—” He paused and corrected himself, “Truly believes in Mekhane, can do it.”
“There are better candidates than me.” He said.
The serpent man shook his head. “None of us believe in them deeply anymore, neither in the Dragon, nor the Serpent. We were never good followers to begin with; we call them Father and Mother, yet we fear them the most.” He forced himself into a smile, a rather eerie one with serpentine features. “I can only wish for your success.” He hesitated, but went on, “But tell me — what do you wish to become?”
“A beast.” The word came out without thinking. He was unsure why he said that, but as the man looked at him curiously, he added: “The pain the Sarkicites have inflicted upon us and our holy land; I shall return the favor.”
The serpent man nodded, and stood back. The young Mekhanite took in a deep breath, and slowly descended into the pool. The sound of the machine and the automatons seemed so far away now, as the liquid boiled and bubbled in front of him.
There was no pain, he realized some seconds later, as his skin and flesh were instantly burned. In the next few seconds, his bones melted. He could no longer see, and no longer feel anything at all. Darkness had encompassed him. But it was not the cold, silent darkness of death people often speak of. An immense heat surrounded him; the same dark, ancient presence that loomed in the underground chamber was now closer than ever. The heat scorched him, but there was no pain. Bodily sensations no longer mattered.
He remained in the darkness for a few more moments, before hearing a loud sound. At first, he thought it was the hammering sound he heard over and over again, but as the sound grew even louder, he recognized that it was something else. He was still in the darkness, but somehow, in his mind, he could make out fires furiously burning, and among them, a shadow stood there.
It was a beast, he recognized, as the sound reached his presence. He could feel himself resonating with it. The sound was not of a hammer, but the beast roaring. Somehow, among the heat and the darkness, he felt drawn to it, as if the beast was calling, and that the roar was a language.
He reached towards the beast within the fires.
For a split second, he saw its fiery eyes, its body of a golden metal that shined brightly. It stood there, its mouth open, as the fire scorched and burnt. And then, he opened his eyes. The pool of metallic liquid was gone. He was standing there, at the bottom of the pool. The machine around him came to a halt, and the serpent man looked at him in disbelief.
He looked down to see his hands, but what he saw could no longer be called hands. Golden, metallic claws were in front of him. The metal that surrounded him minutes ago now made up his whole body. He moved his fingers, and then elbows, arms, torso, and legs, and they responded immediately to his thoughts. There was no longer muscle straining, but nor were there sounds of ticking and grinding. Everything just fit together perfectly; the movements felt to him even more natural than the body he was born with.
He had expected to see lost, vengeful souls, or to see his broken lord reaching out to him. But the image of the beast was now scorched into his being, and somehow he found comfort.
He was still in the vague shape of a man, but nobody would mistake him for one. Even aside from his now beastly headpiece and claw-like hands, he was filled with a fiery presence, the same presence that turned and twisted in molten metal.
He was successful. He thought, as he walked up from the now empty pool.

“I have a favor to ask,” He recalled the serpent man's words, before he led him deeper into an underground cavern. “Take it as your first battle, the first beast to slay.”
He had agreed, as he was eager to try out his new strength. The cavern, unlike the chamber, was cold and damp. As he walked down with the scaled man, he could hear an underground river flowing nearby, and occasionally, water dropping from the cavern ceiling.
It had been four days since his coversion, and he neither slept nor ate. He could still sense the heat in the chamber, and smell the thick metallic scent, but no longer experienced pain or exhaustion. The serpent man, meanwhile, had been busy taking notes and testing with visible excitement.
But today, it was different. As he led the young Mekhanite down into the underground tunnels, deeper and deeper, as the automatons carrying lanterns and torches drove away the darkness, he was almost silent. But finally, as they stopped in front of a dark cave entrance, the serpent man spoke: “This is it.”
“The first beast to slay?” He asked. His sound now carried a strange echo.
But the man didn't answer. He only looked up the cave, and called out a strange name. The Mekhanite recognized that the name was in that foreign language he couldn't quite understand. Then he heard a rustling sound, that of large scales slipping through wet floor, of something smooth and wet slithering towards them.
The first thing he saw was an eye, or rather, a vertical slit in the head. Then, the head of something resembling a snake, with mouth filled with unnaturally sharp teeth and bone horns protruding randomly from all sides. Its color was a pale white, its scales almost translucent. There were a row of half-formed appendages alongside its body that occasionally twitched. The first two of them looked alarmingly like human hands. As if responding to the name, the creature quickly slid towards them.
Immediately, the young Mehkhanite recognized that stench, the same stench of the flesh beasts that plagued his lands. But even then, none of the flesh beast he had enountered was this… enormous. Its head alone was thrice of his height, and its body seemed to stretch infinitely into the cave's darkness.
“What?” He asked, shocked. “What is this?”
“My father,” The serpent man said, there was a coldness in his tone. “Please release him from this.”
Before he could ask or even comprehend the words, the Mekhanite was thrown to the side of the cave, his body hitting the stone wall with a loud clank. The giant snake turned to him, and hissed so loud that it was almost a roar.
He expected pain, but as his metal body clashed against the stone war, he realized he no longer needed to worry about that. He got up, but his mind was still in shock. “What do you mean?”
“Release him from his pain, please,” The serpent man said. His servant automatons had retreated to a safer distance, but he remained where he was. “Slay your first beast.”
The Mekhanite looked at the man, and then the giant snake coming towards him. And as he sought a weapon, a blade came out of his arm. He struck quickly, slashing the serpent, and with a painful howl, a translucent liquid poured out.
And as he fought on, he realized that dodging the snake was easy enough, as the cavern was too narrow for it to move freely, and somehow, it seemed unwilling to damage the surroundings. But to his frustration, even though his blade could cut through the white snake's skin easy enough, seconds after the cut, the wound would heal.
“Such are the worshippers of Mother Dragon, no organs they can't regrow.” The serpent man said, “You may want to take out the brains first — and then burn their bodies.”
Hearing this, the Mekhanite climbed onto the serpent's back. Grabbing the bone horns, he easily made it to the head. As he clawed his way up, to his disgust, he realized the scales of the large snake resembled fingernails more than actual reptilian scales. But he holds tight against the writhing serpent, and plunged his blade into its skull.
The bone cracked as if it was nothing against the sharp metal. The snake screeched, and he hit again. And once more. He hit it over and over until its body slumped to the ground, still twitching, but no longer moved.
“You slew your first beast.” The man said, slithering close.
He looked at the man with scales and tail and claws so much like the snake he had just slain. But he only responded: “Much easier than I expected.”
“Your enemies back home will have intelligence, but he had none.” The serpent said, his voice distant and cold. And before the Mekhanite could ask any question, he continued: “Like me, he wished to rebuild our past glory. But as you can see, he failed. His methods failed; the power of the Dragon of Flesh is too uncontrollable.”
“I am successful, then.” He said, standing up.
The serpent gestured, and one of the automatons handed the Mekhanite a package. “The map back to your land, some robes, and a few other things you might need.” He said. “I can only wish you good luck.”
He nodded, and started walking back up. His thoughts once again flew to his home, so far away from this foreign soil.
The serpent looked at the remains of the giant snake, its one eye staring back at him. He bent down to close its eyelids. The torches the automatons held ignited the body.
Among the smoke and fires, the serpent man watched silently, as the beast, blessed with the golden armor of the Great Brass Dragon, faded into the shadows of the cavern.


It happened after the fourth or fifth lesson with Legler. Laufer climbed on a stool just before anyone managed to leave and announced that there will be a meeting at the Coastal nightclub at nine and if anyone wanted to come and chat a bit, they are free to do so.
Which was, in Taman's opinion, a good initiative, but Laufer could've done it a bit less overtly as well. Legler raised an eyebrow but said nothing, and Yang politely covered her face behind papers to hide a smile.
Some students didn't even raise their heads to pretend they paid attention to Laufer, but some looked pensive. That was enough to reassure Taman that going on a meeting late in the evening to meet a girl who was a bit of a knife-nut wasn't a terrible idea.
Before she managed to pack up her pastels (an artist-class set she got for her birthday and preferred to supplies offered by Legler), she got approached by Delacroix, a short guy that always smelled like distillery.
"You're new too, right?" he asked. Taman tried not to wince at the stench. Something about this guy made her automatically not trust him, though his tone was friendly.
"It's my fourth lesson," she said. "And you've been here since the third one. Is that what you mean?"
"No. What I mean is that you are new to magic around you," he grinned apologetically. "I sure as hell am."
She paused and stared at him. Yang led her patiently few night ago through the warehouse but in the end she felt as lost as always. As much as Legler guided her with patience veiled behind insults and annoyed encouragements, she still felt new, a river fish suddenly finding there is an ocean out there. She suspected before that Delacroix was new but she didn't want to ask. Being the only one here that was the first to touch that unknown world around her would be too good, and she risked a guess there were more.
"I'm Delacroix." he grinned at her and extended a hand towards her. "Maybe we can help each other out."
"Taman." She nodded, but didn't shake his hand. "That makes the two of us new in this business of…" she made a gesture in the air and he shook his head.
"No, there are few other guys, but they are not planning on going to Coastal, so I left them alone." A shrug. "That Laufer girl sure as hell behaves like a witch and I think some guys more wexed in that new world could help us out, maybe." he paused and grinned. "That is, if you're going."
"Maybe, yeah." She finished packing and shut her bag. His eagerness made her uneasy. "See you there then?"
"At nine, or… maybe we could meet earlier?"
"At nine."

Coastal was less of a nightclub and more of a bar with a bit of space for dancing. Taman arrived at 20:50 and was happy to see that Laufer, now staring intently at line of shots in front of her, wasn't the only one in the booth.
On the right to her was the tall guy that spent his last two lessons on inking something tirelessly on A3. Taman wasn't entirely sure if a glass in front of him contained water. On the left was Richter, a guy that helped her a bit when she tried her hand at sculpting, and his beer. He noticed her before she made a move and waved at her, grinning.
"You're late, Taman." He said, greeting her. The guy next to him chuckled.
"Actually, we still have ten minutes, James, it is your brain that is late."
Richter made a shocked face and Laufer elbowed him before moving her attention to Taman.
"You're the pastels girl? I'm Laufer. This is Richter and this is Pull," She nodded at each man. "That's a pseudonym, not his name. You?"
"I'm Taman and yeah, I do mostly pastels," She sat next to Richter. "I don't quite know anyone here, really, you're all Legler's students?"
"Richter and Laufer are, I am not," Pull said. "I have been invited to his lessons by Laufer, she knows how eager I am to dwell on the topic of this type of art."
"Old dick did encourage getting friends, after all. On that note, anyone else we should be waiting for?"
Richter pointed at Delacroix and some girl that arrived at Coastal at that precise moment. He waved at them and the girl waved back.
"I'm Chryse." She introduced herself with a grin when she sat in the booth. Taman noted it wasn't a very natural smile. "How is everyone?"
"I'm Liam. Liam Delacroix," he smiled at Taman, she nodded at him, "I see a lot of us arrived, huh?"
"Wait wait wait, I have a question," Richter raised his hand and then pointed it at Delacroix. "You one of those sick fucks that steal names of dead artists to look more cool?"
Delacroix stared blankly at him and raised an eyebrow. "No." He said slowly. "My grandfather was French."
"Ah, fair enough then. My bad."
"What, there are guys that do it?" Taman asked and Laufer let out a short cackle before downing the first shot.
"Some. There are guys who go a bit extreme with being artsy. You know, the types that get all," here Chryse slicked her hair back and made a duck face. "I am an artist so I am so amazing and misunderstood and I can only suck dicks of old masters."
"Ah, this type." Pull stared into his glass pensively. "Only heard about those, but maybe it is for the best I never met any."
"They're the worst." Said Laufer. "By the way, anyone tried to contact Aloe?"
"I called them a few times, but no sign of life." Richter sighed deeply. "Again."
"No surprise here. Well, let's go order shit."

Agent Alex Cobalt carefully watched her colleagues while sipping a black lilac cocktail, watching and listening and waiting. One could always be fashionably late.

"You are this new?" Delacroix and Taman nodded and Pull smiled politely. "No wonder then that Legler berates you two so often. I do suspect everybody that you met today has at least some basic knowledge about anomalous world."
"Basic, it means there is more to that than 'anart'?"
They were left alone in the booth, Laufer left to get more alcohol and Richter and Chryse set off to the dancefloor to flirt with the rest of the bar. Before this moment, the topic of anart or Legler was naturally avoided, though Delacroix noticed that Pull was quiet - that is, until he casually asked them what anomalous pieces they have finished so far.
"It is not something to talk about in the public." Pull said after covertly looking around. "I do not want to hide all of this from you but I also wish for your safety. If there will be a chance, I will reveal more to you in a more safe environment."
"…that sounds like a line from a movie or something." Delacroix commented. Taman couldn't help but agree. Pull only sighed.
"I do realize that. But, truly, after what Legler showed you, do you still think normal rules apply to this world? What you witnessed was nothing but a small glimpse. But there are much more people invested in this sort of thing than just artists, and those people won't hesitate to harm you."
"Like, what, some sort of secret institution? A government thing? Some cult?" To Taman's surprise, Pull laughed.
"All of them, Taman, and so much more." Pull grinned. "As much as I wish to answer your questions now, let us do it this way: next week, after Legler's lesson, I will give you all an address of the safe spot we can meet at. In fact…" He glanced at a bar, where Laufer was busy pouring more deadly mixes into her throat, and winced. "Laufer has plans for us to meet in safer environment. For now she wanted just to get in touch, but we shall meet anyway, even if she deems you not worthy of her trust."
"She's more drunk than I get on a bad day, how is she supposed to check how… trustworthy we are?" Delacroix pointedly downed another shot and Pull shrugged.
"She will for sure try to get more people into our circle and I trust her judgement." Pull finished his glass of what turned out to be water.

Cobalt calmly sat next to Laufer at the bar and grinned to her as a greeting.
"Fancy seeing you here- Olcha, am I right?"
It took Laufer few seconds to recognize Cobalt's face, before she nodded.
"More or less," she said. "You pronounce it with a hard h."
"Ah, sorry. Olcha." Cobalt repeated, this time correctly and Laufer nodded, pleased. "I was supposed to meet a guy here and didn't see him so far. Since you're here, I thought maybe you would be better company."
Laufer regarded her empty glass thoughtfully. Cobalt for a second thought she wasn't listening to her at all.
"I think there is someone left in the booth," she turned to check and pointed at it. Cobalt glanced in this direction. "Yeah, Pull's here with the kids. Go bother them. Now fuck off."
Cobalt raised an eyebrow but in the end she opted on getting another cocktail and retreating to meet the rest. She decided for not to not worry whether Laufer was suspicious or if she was simply this unpleasant.
"What's up?" she greeted them and all three almost jumped at the sound of her voice. Beforehand all three were deep in a discussion but Cobalt wasn't worried about that. She recorded everything anyway, any piece of missed conversation will be waiting for her on her laptop.
"Uh, hi?" The girl waved, as if unsure.
"If you are here for our meeting, you are around an hour and a half late." Said the tall guy. "But I suppose it would be too nice if someone was not late."
The blonde guy only grinned.
"I was supposed to have a date but the guy never came. So I thought instead of moping I would meet you guys." She sat in the booth next to the blonde guy and put her cocktail down on the table. "I wanted to chat with Olcha but she told me to fuck off, she's always like this?"
"She tends to have her moments." The tall guy shrugged. "I found that it is better to respect her wishes."
Cobalt introduced herself and the rest of the evening went relatively smoothly. She couldn't move the conversation onto the subject of anomalies in any way that would be natural, as most of the time references she threw were met with blank stares. Pull kind of retreated from the conversation anyway and either watched the dancefloor, where apparently two others went, or stared at Laufer's back.
Though Cobalt was fairly sure that at least Taman and Delacroix started to like her, and that's a start.

In the end Delacroix and Laufer got completely wasted and Pull offered to take care of them as he tried to break through the password on Delacroix's phone to find his address. Richter disappeared somewhere, according to Chryse he most likely ended up with a couple he danced with earlier. Taman did get a bit intoxicated, she wasn't used to drinking, and Cobalt suggested to drive her and Chryse back to the campus.
Chryse did try to talk with her, bless her heart, but Taman was still a bit too fuzzy around the edges to pay attention to her ramblings about the spot she found with old newspapers and half-rotten books.
She arrived in her apartment around three in the morning, stumbled around a bit trying to undress as quietly as possible so as not to wake her roommate, and in the end just fell onto the bed, not bothering with pajamas. A few clay butterflies sat on her shoulders and she allowed herself to smile before falling into deep sleep.

Next lesson was more or less similar to previous one, with minor exceptions. For starters, Legler and Yang were slightly busy at first, trying to find space for pipes. Chryse was trying her best to not giggle at absurdity of their situation, as Yang looked equally as puzzled as Taman felt, and Legler kept on failing at trying to find space for them.
Another thing, slightly less minor, was the fact that it was late afternoon. The light filling the room shifted accordingly to the hour, now sharply orange. Legler explained change of the usual hour with something about change of perspective, but Taman found her job that much more difficult, the contrast between colours dramatically dropping, blues shifting into violets and greens turning muddy. She tried to just sketch but later Legler sent her a derisive grimace, commenting that she was going the easy way.
Laufer was much more quiet. She spent entirety of the lesson cutting with knives into a chunk of black wood she brought with herself, the light making all the edges much sharper. Usually she stuck with Pull, but he was absent, for once. Without him around, Laufer seemed to almost block out everyone else.
Taman noticed that almost everyone that came to Coastal were glancing at Laufer, more and more often as hours passed by. Just before they left, though, Laufer's eyes crossed with Chryse. She winked, and then, slowly, almost theatrically, put her hand into her skirt pocket. Winked again. Taman looked around, and buried her hand into pocket of her jeans, and found something indeed. She looked around, ensured that no one was watching, and put the object on her sketch.
The origami turtle was small and simple, made of a sheet of gorgeous origami paper. The patterns were geometrical and yet intricate in their simplicty, colour was difficult to determine thanks to the sunset, but the most surprising part was that it was still moving. Taman resorted to ignore this part, and started to unfold it. On reverse side of paper she found an address - she didn't knew where exactly it was, but the name rang a bell - and annotation to come there in exactly twenty-four hours.
She glanced again at Chryse, but she was too busy with applying glass glitter to wooden panel to pay attention. When Taman looked up, she saw that Yang, now sitting behind Legler's desk, was staring straight at her.

Pull's apartment - as this is what the address led her to - was humongous in comparison to her own little spot. Delacroix later murmured something about how the small amount of furniture contributed to that feeling, and indeed, Pull's place looked almost empty. They had not a lot of space to sit down, so Laufer pulled out pillows from his bed and threw them next to his lone sofa.
The only thing that seemed completely out of place was something that looked like a… bronze altar, of sorts.
"So, it's, like, a game thing?" Seeing Pull's mildly surprised face, she pushed on. "Like, the entire clockwork aesthetics you have going, is it, uh… a fanboy thing? Seems a bit too consistent for generic steampunk…"
The room fell nearly perfectly quiet and Taman felt anxiety creep in. Pull seemed as if he was trying to stitch up a response but was completely at loss where to start.
"Same question here, but I like the stylistics, to be clear." Delacroix said between one sip and the other from his hip-flask.
"They're new, remember." Chryse murmured.
"No one is this new." Laufer eyed Delacroix in disbelief but seeing Delacroix shaking his head, she only sighed.
"Ok so you know how no one knows what anart is unless you are into it?" Richter started and Taman nodded. "Well, it ain't the only thing hidden from eyes of, you know, 'normal' people," he drew quotation marks in the air. "There are also organisations and religions that are invested in anomalous stuff, also hidden and secret. Technically we are all sort of pushing each other into secrecy."
"I told you two about this." Pull smiled. "I happen to belong to one of those religions. You see-"
"And to not get into preachy mode, he believes in clockwork god." Laufer ignored Pull's almost offended stare. "If you feel like listening up about some of that, you can always meet up later because I genuinely don't feel like hearing about all that stuff." She glanced pointedly at Pull. "Again. Not that it's not interesting, Pull, but I came here to talk about shit I want to talk about. Without any mics and cameras."
Cobalt allowed herself to let out a chuckle.
"Not too paranoid?"
"In this day and age you can never be too paranoid." Laufer pulled out her phone, turned it off and put it on a table. "Even social apps pick up on every word I say, just to keep capitalistic machine turning." She patted her palm against a table. "Now, if I can ask you to put your stuff here and turn it off."
Something about her tone of voice suggested it would be better to do as she said. All pulled out their phones (Delacroix put his tablet on the table too) and turned them off. Pull gently put his old Nokia at the top of the pile. Laufer nodded her head, pleased.
"Fantastic. Now first question. Anyone had contact with Aloe?" She looked around but everybody were quiet. Taman, Delacroix, Cobalt and Pull didn't know the person, but noted the shift in atmosphere.
"I tried to call them, but nothing." Richter finally said. "I don't even know if the phone number is the same. Never had their address though, but I'm fairly sure they live somewhere on the campus." He looked around, rubbing his hands nervously. "Anyone knows where they could be living?"
"Once they mentioned they have a roommate, that's all I know."
In following silence, Chryse was the first one that noticed not everybody were showing the obvious worry over the missing person.
"Aloe is another anomalous artist." She started explaining. "A sculptor, extremely skilled, they could do wonders with their pieces, really. Stuff Legler tries to teach us? Aloe got it naturally. Creating was like breathing for them, damn, I never saw them being stuck on anything they did, and they were just so good at what they did… But around a month or two ago, something just happened and they disappeared. Just like that. All contacts cut, didn't attend classes, nothing. As if they vanished from existence. We've been trying to reach them ever since, but nothing."
"We suspected activity from one of the organisations that kept track on anomalies, but even if it was them, we don't know shit. We don't even know Aloe's name, so we can't even check records on uni, anything." Laufer sighed. "Our hands are tied and all we can do is hope someone has contact with them."
"How could you know them and not know their name?" Delacroix looked mildly amused. "I mean, did you even know them?"
"Let's rephrase that." Laufer moved her (carefully manicured and very long) nails closer to his tablet. "We don't know their deadname. It could be staring straight into our face, but we don't know it, and it's not something you ask someone anyway."
"Ah." Delacroix's voice was an octave higher. "Fair enough."
"Mind you, none of you know my name." Pull noted. "And somehow I do not see how that makes any friendships in any way difficult. And-" Pull stared straight at Delacroix. "I am not willing to share."
"What was their name then?" Cobalt sat up. "Maybe I could ask around in my circles too."
"Sam Adams."
"Shit!" Delacroix slammed his hands against the table. Pull's Nokia fell on the floor but nobody made the move to pick it up. "I know the guy- the gal- uh, them!" His hands trembled, so he hid them under the table. "Ginger, neat clothes but always filthy? Never said a word to them but wow…"
"I asked Legler once, though," Richter threw in, after Delacroix finished rambling. "He, well, he seemed for once to give rat's shit about something and asked me to tell him if I knew something."
"The old bastard caring about anything?" Laufer let out a chuckle. Cobalt shivered. "Sooner Hell freezes over and melts again."
"Dunno, he seems pretty chummy with that Yang girl, if anybody asked me." Richter noted. "But jokes aside, I think he was worried about Aloe."
"He liked them a lot." Delacroix finally found Pull's Nokia and put it back on table again. "Generally, liked their stuff, even praised them a few times."
"That's a lot, coming from old prick." Laufer glanced at Pull. "You have anything to drink?"
Pull left and brought some mugs and cups and put a bottle of water on the table, all next to the pile of phones. Delacroix sighed and resorted to hip-flask, Laufer snatched one of mugs.
"I am not used to having guests." Pull murmured. "And when it comes to Yang… Something about her irks me. I find myself unable to trust her."
"How is that? She's rather cool, I think."
As if on cue, everybody stared at her and Taman regretted opening her mouth.
"Be careful with that word." Chryse finally broke the silence. "Cool. Without getting into details, some people are sensitive about it."
"I think she is nice and has no bad intentions?" Taman tried again and Chryse nodded.
"She treats us rather impersonally, really." Richter noted. "Hard to say what she thinks."
"Well, she took me on a bit of a trip to the abandoned warehouses, with all the graffiti and art. She… created art out of someone's art, helped me realize some things about my own art too. I couldn't do anything today, but I managed to actually do something magical at home, so I think I can trust her. She helped me, all in all, I like her."
"Wow." Delacroix let out a cackle. "Pretty girls always get best stuff first, what can I do."
"Well, if you say she helped you I can guess she's ok." Chryse nodded.
"I still think she and the old prick are fucking." Laufer sipped a bit of her water to the sound of scandalized gasps from Taman, Chryse and Cobalt. "What, that sort of stuff happens, and if James says they are chummy," here she drew quotation marks in the air "Then I guess we can consider that."
"Even if, then what?" Delacroix shrugged. "None of my business. I just want to do nice clothes."
"Clothes?" Laufer laughed, but then she noticed that Delacroix was serious. "What sort of art is that?"
"I design. Maybe if you would look up once in a while from your knives, maybe you'd notice what I'm doing."
"That's not art." Her fingers were back to Delacroix's tablet, but his hip-flask was too empty for him to care.
"It is, because you ain't the one to decide what's art and what's not. I'm not the knife-nut here."
"Ladies, ladies." Richter raised his hands. "Let's not argue, alright? We all do stuff that we enjoy, right?"
Laufer was digging her nails into tablet's alluminium cover, Delacroix's knuckles were almost white on his hip-flask. Richter tried his best to look relaxed but he was nervously looking between the two. Cobalt, next to Taman, looked ready to get between the two if something were to happen.
Taman had no idea what this something could be, and she prefered to not know.
"I'm still surprised you didn't go for painting, Delacroix."
"I do whatever the hell I want to, and if I were to decide one day I want to write bloody non-fiction about dick sucking or copy old paintings stroke to stroke - I would still be an artist."
"And whom you'd influence like this?"
Delacroix straightened up, bewildered.
"This is what art is, noob," Laufer pressed on. "I'm a living person and I'm here to shove my thoughts into your brain. Dead cunts are dead, they no longer matter, they don't think anymore. And me? I will cut into your nervous system until you see what I see."
Silence fell. As Delacroix struggled with his response, Cobalt raised her hand in the air.
"Then what, are you saying everything that dead artists ever did is no longer worth it? What, does death mean what we left behind doesn't matter anymore?"
"Exactly. If you die, you are dead, you stay dead. What does it matter to you?"
"It matters for others."
"And that's how old art doesn't matter to me."
Cobalt clicked her tounge, but in the end fell quiet, visibly pissed off.
"Is this why you gathered us here?" Richter asked. "To piss us off or to enforce yourself on us?"
"Not really. I just wanted to know if it was possible to find as many skilled and varied people as possible." She grinned. "You all have your own points of view, but you struggle to defend them. You can't define art, which is quite cute. I like you all."
"To the point, if you could?"
"Becoming cool is a bit difficult on your own."

"Where did Yang take you?"
Taman turned to see Cobalt, going in same direction after leaving Pull's house.
"Warehouses, they're on the east of the city." Taman waited for Cobalt to zip her coat and more or less get her things together. "I think a lot of local urban explorers like this spot, really. A lot of graffiti. Though Yang said it was all about changing environment, not the place itself."
"Interesting." Cobalt grinned. "Explains a lot why she took you, not Delacroix. He never managed to do a thing when he's just…" Cobalt here squinted her eyes and made a movement with a hand, parodying Delacroix working on his brocade. "I'm guessing it's kinda hard to change environment for a piece if all you are doing is working on one piece all the time."
"That's true. I still try to vary between mediums, I like pastels but sculpting is also fun and I just…" Taman sighed, trailing off.
"Same here. I was always more of an art history person, really, but turns out that according to some, this way of thinking is somehow wrong."
"Swap surnames with Delacroix, then? One step close to that."
Cobalt laughed.
"Never. I like blue too much."

« Extracurricular Practice | HUB | Testing the Flow »