The Memory Garden

Chapter 13 by Derek Rawlings  

Space being not at a premium, the central ring of the Ministry of People was built out rather than up, and was designed with the principles of geomancy first and ergonomics a distant second. Hallways bended and undulated, often shrinking from one end of to the next if they even end up going anywhere in the first place. In the entirety of the Ministry there was believed to be only one room that was of good and proper rectangular shape, until one particularly daring young intern pressed the ominous cyan button on the wall, causing the entire room to tilt fifteen degrees from the horizon. Further button pushing of all kinds proved futile. This was unfortunate, both because employees once prided themselves on being promoted to the Rectangle Room and because it then had to be renamed. Navigation in the MoP (as it is so affectionately truncated) proved as much a task as the day to day chores of the Ministry itself, though years of inhabitation had rendered the bureaucracy thoroughly capable of managing the monolithic building. For those raised in the Ministry getting around was nearly a subconscious act, one possibly even passed down by birth. The rest had to make due with crudely drawn maps that could never hope to adequately capture the impossible angles that the building perched at. Occasionally marginal notes lined the sides of these drawings, such as the one that Lemon and Kaplin stood in front of now. Down the left hand side of the page was a sequence of scribble likely intended to be helpful, though rather than making idiomatic grammatical choices this author had opted to write in abbreviations. Few notes, as a result, were even remotely legible. One helpfully pointed to an area and claimed ‘/= hallway,’ while another stated ‘TRAPPED!’ without giving any indication of what kind of trap it may be, or where it might be located. Levels of the facility were superimposed on top of one another with colours being the only implication of height. Someone had scrawled an ‘S’ over one of the map’s lines with lipstick, while someone else had amended an entire wing of the MoP using a lavender crayon. Lemon scowled at the map, looking it up, left, down and right, trying in vain to locate himself. There was no merciful dot or ‘X’ to aid him. “It’s like they want you to get lost in here.” “Naw. I got it.” “You’ve been here, Kaplin?” “I don’t ever recall so, no.” “You’re not telling me you can read this claptrap, are you?” Kaplin waved slightly down and to the left. “Naw, not really, but it’s off this way.” “What makes you so sure? I’ve read better directions in my alphagetti.” “Well, where would you put it?” “I’d put it near the front door.” “Well, they didn’t. Common’, this way.” Kaplin threw a rucksack over his shoulder and made for a row of doors to the left. It evaporated as he approached. “Coming?” “Christ, Kaplin, you’re going to lose us.” “Maybe.” Kaplin disappeared through the door. “But I’ll getcha there.” The two went down three steps, turned left, climbed down a seven foot ladder, walked down a hallway that slanted up considerably, went through two doorframes spaced less than a foot apart, took a minute long movator trip and arrived in an hexagonal room with a vaulted ceiling, and eight pillars arrayed in a diamond shape. Kaplin licked his finger and held it up in the air. There was no wind, but he smiled. “Ok… so far, so good. Now there should be an ‘L’ thingy around here somewhere – we’ll need to find that next.” “An ‘L’ thingy?” “Yeah, starts with an ‘L’, or maybe just has an ‘L’ in it, you know. Might even be a silent ‘L.’” Kaplin gestured vaguely at the sack he was carrying. “How long is this stun spell supposed to last, anyways?” “Long enough. Don’t worry about her, she’s my responsibility.” “Fine, at least she’s not so heavy.” The room offered little in the way of clarity. Four doors interspersed the six walls, one of which bore a brass plaque reading ‘Department of Homonculae, Simulacrae and Effigies.’ Noticing the ‘L’s Lemon made for the door. As he approached it irised open. A bureaucrat in a triangular office the size of a garden shack dropped his stamp in shock, looked up and then nervously shuffled a few papers. The door then un-irised without ceremony. “Dead end. Not that way.” Lemon meandered back to where Kaplin was standing. On his way, however, he felt his foot sink slightly into the ground. He looked down, and noticing a pressure plate allowed his instincts to reign. He dropped to the ground and rolled, glancing down, left, right and up for a swinging spike, or a poisoned dart, or a descending portcullis, or a scything blade, or for the ceiling to lower, or for the room to lethally fill with water. All of these things failed to happen. Instead the foot plate lit up. It read ‘LIFT.’ “That’s it Lemon, good job man.” The single light of the transportation module flickered twice, causing Lemon and Kaplin to glance up. They had been moving rapidly left, towards the Core of the Ministry (or so the little liquid crystal map suggested), not that they were even sure what left meant and if it was even a direction at all. Lemon had been doubtful about the magnetically driven roughly cube-shaped capsule that when called had descended on hooks from the ceiling and haphazardly slid open. Kaplin, however, had been resolute. Without factoring in ‘getting ourselves unlost’ time it was a ‘fucking three hour walk’ to the sector with their briefing room. During this time the half-breed had kept himself occupied humming whatever came to mind half assedly, though he’d yet to finish a tune. Halfway through one song he would be torn away from it, transitioning inattentively into something else similar that came to mind. Occasionally the sack slung over his shoulder twitched softly. Lemon meanwhile had reached into his sleeve, whispered a few words of vaguely mystical origin and pulled out a multi-coloured scarf which was in turn tied to his digital scroll; it was time to put together a team. There had been a time when the very thought of working with another breathing soul had driven Lemon to dread. Failure hung enough like the Sword of Damocles when one trusted in one’s own capacities – dependence on another for success was downright terrifying. That, however, was a Lemon of the past. The new Lemon was forced to face certain realities: even if the incompetence of others will inevitably hinder any endeavour, such things are simply beyond possibility without them. Success now proved far more relevant than the misgivings he may have towards working with others. With the mere touched of one end the scroll came to life. Matthew pulled the two rods apart revealing the paper-thin writing surface which now read in sweeping black cursive ‘Initializing…’ It blinked once or twice before disappearing, only to be replaced by an equally neat scrawl saying ‘Please log in: _____________.’ With a practiced motion he placed the scroll on his knee, pulled out the digiquill that had emerged from one of the doweling ends with his other hand and initialed the line. ‘Good evening, Lemon’ the device now read. Several icons appeared in two columns down the page. He tapped the quill against the icon directly below ‘Grimoire’ and directly adjacent to the ‘Artificial Assistant’ buttons. This button had a ground’s eye view of a skyscraper, though it could easily be confused for a mountain. Backgrounding the building suspended with authority was a screened capital ‘P.’ ‘Accessing Pinnacle Database… please wait.’ Lemon paused a moment, waiting for the connection to catch up with him. He then scratched in his sharp cursive ‘Personnel Files – Field Agents.’ Lemon had seen his share of assassins, cyborgs, super soldiers and ninjas, it came with the territory. He’d also seen his share of cyborg assassins, ninja super soldiers and all derivations there between. Pinnacle agents as a rule rarely score points for originality, and while Lemon was flipping through unoriginal electronic dossier after obnoxious handle after stale dossier he grew increasingly sickened and bored by the trite people that he allegedly worked with. He even thought that he recognized a face or two from the office Christmas party he’d been blackmailed into attending a few years back. With such dignified names as Magnus Carver, who’s more salient points included skinning, electrification and yodeling he wondered why he was the one chosen for solitary. But he knew the answer to that question, and he couldn’t dispute that atypical particular stroke of Pinnacle logic. Sébastien DuCroix fit the bill; at the tender age of seven his world collapsed. Parents, close friends, turtle – all dead via mysterious means. He just walked out of the washroom in the middle of his birthday party and was met by a bloodbath. From that point he dedicated himself to the pursuit of the offenders. It took him twelve years, but he found them. Wouldn’t you know it: Vampires. Having vanquished them he fell to anomie. He tried doing other things, but with no training in various life skills his failure was inevitable. He worked a few contract jobs, but they didn’t satisfy so at nights he’d booze it up and put chemicals up his nose. When Pinnacle stepped in something was ready to break. DuCroix wouldn’t be a bad choice, if Lemon had wanted to annihilate the

Memory
Garden, but as it stood he was nothing but muscle wrapped in a tight little tragic package. Those sorts of crude antiheroes always have baggage. Worse still, DuCroix has no mystical backing; what you see is what you get. The Pinnacle had use for that kind, but it was rarely the sort that Lemon bothered to dirty himself with. Pass. Vincenzo Pyros was a master Magus affiliated to the hermetic element of fire. If a spell involved fire, heat or mayhem he had bartered for it. He’d even waded through the labyrinthine quagmire named Ebay for some of them. Vincenzo was a tall fellow branded by his trade; tattoos of totemic representations of his chosen craft lined his torso to the tips of his fingers storing arcane energies. Potent and resourceful, he was currently inflicting peace upon two warring werewolf packs in the mountains of
Brazil. Pyros, another destructive choice, seemed more promising yet ultimately unsuitable. For one thing he was a one trick pony, probably possessing of a notion that fire was the cure for all that ailed a situation – any situation. His elemental alignment counted against him. Any kind of attempt to find the Garden would by necessity be surreptitious. Agents of the Other could not be permitted to first discover what they were up to (though Lemon had little doubt that they would figure it out sooner or later, regardless), but even more importantly could not be allowed to interfere. “Pyros?” “You know him?” “Not personally, Molly in Kidnappings told me he’s a giant dick though. Ego the size of… big ego, got it? “It doesn’t matter.” “Nah?” “No, he won’t be joining us anyways.” “Good. Who’s next?” “Isn’t this interesting.” * * * The klaxon of automation drove most to madness. Those that it didn’t had already driven there. That was why the term of service on the backwater mining planetoid Genghis III was so short – a paltry four months. But men and women of a peculiar bent swarmed to the Kuiper Belt for the opportunity to set up their electro-picks and work. The pay was good. That was it really. Artificial gravity was a novelty that few could afford and the Secondary Filtration Unit frequently failed. The habitable quarters imposed, an immense cement sarcophagus. Of those that went, few ever returned. The odd ones that did were rather odd indeed, specimens better left in and to such subterranean miseries. It was one of these evolutionary derelicts that Doctor Augustovson Sinclair sought. * * * Name: Augustovson Bailey Sinclair Position: Field Agent Enlisted: 29 After Pinnacle Age: 67 standard years CV: 12 AP BA:

University of
Baltimore (Cum Laude) Major: Arcane Theory Minor: Evocation, Conjuring 14 AP MA: Ecole Thaumaturgique de Verseilles 16 AP Doctorate:

Prague
University  

Employment history: 6-7 AP Dishwasher Jim’s Meatgrinder Café 13 AP Special Consultant Johnstone Textiles: Occult Affairs Division 15 AP Project Coordinator Johnstone Textiles: Astral Enforcement Group 16-18 Freelance Contractor Johnstone Textiles, Eurasia Pacifica, 7B, Fredtek, Zero Neptuna, et alia. 22-27 Freelance Tutor (combat casting): US Department of Arcane Defense 27-29 Classified: P17 * * * Walter-Lee Jacoombs, unlike most of the riffraff of the mines came to Genghis not for fortune but rather to be forgotten. The things he’d done, the agencies he’d upset, the people he’d crossed had led him to the end of the solar system; further had that been possible. However, all things lost are destined to be found, eventually. Dr. Sinclair’s divinations had led him away from Earth, through the colonies of Mars and past Saturn’s moons. It was almost entirely by accident that he’d stumbled across the freighter Albatross drifting idly through space. All psychometry suggested that this had been the vessel that Walter-Lee had used to escape. Inside the blood of the crew had coagulated, though the corpses were absent. Necromancy was difficult enough in the spiritless expanses that Sinclair now traveled, but without bodies most would consider it a lost prospect. Fortunately the doctor was not most. It took seven hours of chanting to compel the crew back, and they had been hostile. Half of his crew on Sinclair’s vessel revolted from fear under the influence of the restless dead, while the other half desperately held close to Augustovson for guidance. Only after the doctor had made examples of two of the spirits, rendered thoughtless automatons, did the other phantasms smarten up enough to be talked to. The crew never made it to Krieger VI. Lee had stowed away in the freighter. He killed his way to the engine room and cut off life support, killing the remaining crew. The trail of corpses that he ejected from the airlock could be measured in miles. Genghis III was not their intended destination, but that far out from Earth the number of possibilities diminished greatly. The stateroom that they had been escorted into was surely a luxury suite by this backwater monstrosity’s reckoning. It was cramped, with nothing more than as steel table for four and a corner entertainment suite in the room. Augustovson noted that many of the wall cabinets pulled out stovetops, dishwashers, cutting boards and the like. A glance upward revealed a four poster bed, headboard and nightstand that could be lowered for an evening configuration. Most importantly, when the door slid shut (nearly crushing his young assistant) the ubiquitous calamity of the mine ceased, replaced by an artificial silence. Sitting at the far end of the table on a metal chair sat a man of blasted features. His skin was creased and cracked by recycled air, and while his beard would looked sporty on someone half his age, on him it simply blended into the rest of grey pallor. He extended a hand, shaking and shrivelled, towards the Pinnacle Agent. It seemed what little strength the man still had manifest only in his voice. “Agent Sinclair. My name is Ari Mulholland. Director of Mining Affairs here on G3. Allow me to be honest. Pinnacle has never taken an interest in what we do out here. Your visit is. Well. Unprecedented. Also somewhat inconvenient.” “Mr. Mulholland. I intend to take as little of your convenience as is necessary.” The two shook hands, gingerly. “I’m looking for a miner that likely works on this rock, last known alias Walter-Lee Jacoombs.” “I’m afraid that that name is not familiar to me. Might you have a description of what he looks like?” “Yes. Anton?” Mulholland blinked, noticing the young man at Anton’s side. Augustovson’s assistant, Anton Faulk, was startled to attention. His hands, once nestled in a grey, ill-fitting suit, emerged. It dangled off of his teenaged frame. From one pocket came a thumbnail thin disk of plastic which the lad placed on top of the steel table. He gave a quick, nervous adjustment to his chimney sweep hat before plunging his hands anew into his pockets. With an urchin’s accent he spoke to the disk, “Prey: Jacoombs, Walter-Lee.” The holograph emitter began to emit, flashing briefly the Pinnacle logo before projecting a human form. Walter-Lee fit in with the degenerates of the mine well, his face was pocked and blistered, his nose irreparably broken. What hair he had in the unflattering mug shot was thin and patched. He showed all the signs of Kren abuse, including the most obvious of features; his irises were drained of colour like a shirt put too many times through the wash – not that Walter-Lee could ever be accused of bathing. The Pinnacle Agent glared at Mulholland, expectantly, as the director glanced at the scrolling marquis adjacent to the suspect: height, weight, ethnicity, known aliases, last seen all leisurely tumbled from the holographic ceiling. “I cannot say that I recognize the face. But I assume that you feel confidently that he is here?” “Yes” “You know that many of our mining entrepreneurs meet grisly ends on the floor. I so seldom bother to try to put a name to a face these days.” “Very well, I see no recourse then but to question the workers directly. When is the quickest that you can have them all gathered?” “First mess begins in half an hour. Can I inter…” Augustovson interrupted him, “I will be there.” *** Pinnacle Rank: 7^th degree Sorcery: Creations – 6^th degree Destructions – 8^th degree Intrusions – 6^th degree Summonings – 9^th degree Tracking – 7^th degree Wardings – 5^th degree Willforce – 8^th degree Physical: Athletics – 3^rd degree Guns – 6^th degree Melee – 7^th degree Pugilism – 4^th degree Known Specialties: - The Dead - Spirits of technology - Fine telekinetic manipulations - Obedience *** The mess hall’s gravity generator was a rusted machine that never ran for more than an hour at a time. This, however, suited Augustovson Sinclair just fine. He’d watched as dust encrusted miner after miner poured themselves out of their ventilators and took their spots at tables in their cliques, though what may have normally been an interesting sociological examination into the hierarchy of civilization in the dredges meant nothing now to the Field Agent. Each of them was too coated in miseries to be clearly identified. Occasionally they glanced up at him, dressed too well to live on Genghis III. The miners likely figured him to be one of their off planet bosses. They were soon to discover how wrong their presumptions had been. He waited for most of the room to fill before he spoke. “Miner’s of Genghis,” he paused, waiting for the idle din to silence before flashing his Pinnacle insignia, “I will have your cooperation before you are permitted to eat. You will line up against the mess wall and await interrogation.” The mumbling resumed as the crowd considered his request. Few obeyed instantly, while hushed words of outrage were whispered amongst the others. “The Director of Mining Affairs has been instructed not to feed any of you until I have completed my investigation.” Despite initial protests, when their stomachs were attacked, they rapidly succumbed. A crude line was soon assembled. Augustovson chose the leftmost member of the line and spoke loudly, yet directly at him, “might I inform each of you that as a third tier Field Agent I am permitted a finite quantity of unquestioned kills and that I am far from my quota this annum. To that extent I have prepared this to assist you all in getting back to your meal more quickly.” Anton reached into a briefcase and produced a small calibre pistol etched finely with a series of interconnected arcane circles. The magic imbued within the pistol hummed softly. “This weapon will only discharge after a lie is told. It is thus naturally in your best interest to reveal to us the entire truth when questioned. You will be first.” The Agent then handed the weapon over to the leftmost miner who quizzically put his hand on it. With a jerk his arm moved in defiance of his will, positioning the pistol over his own left temple. “One question,” said Sinclair, “what is your birth name?” Sweat trickled down the miner’s nose as he looked locked in a mental battle. “What is your name?” It deflected off the top of his mouth and continued down to his chin. “Ahh…” “Your birth name?” “Ahh…. Brandon Oaks, my name is Brandon Oaks.” The mutinous arm removed the pistol from its lethal trajectory, and returned it to the kid. “Good. Now each of you is going to do the same. You.” He gestured to the next man in line, who clutched his hand, unwilling to take the pistol that Anton had extended. When the metal touched steel, however, his resolve crumbled. Each in turn was made to touch the gun, and each was made to reveal their name, until one decided to test the enchantment. The sound that emerged from that miner’s mouth sounded like nothing human, and rang with an impossible rightness. All that heard knew that he had meant to say one thing, but had instead spoken the truth. The miner looked surprised, horrified by a voice that had come from him but was not his own. Then his trigger finger began to slowly depress while he gaped, powerless to oppose his own body. The hammer struck the pin and the next miner in line was made all the more untidy by the bone and cranial juices of the liar. At the far end of the line, one of the miners broke rank and made a run for it. The miner’s unwashed features blurred into motion. He grappled the nearest miner to him, and tilting his victim back by the neck placed him between him and the Magus. With his barricade in tow, the miner made for the door. Augustovson did not hesitate, moments later the mortal shield erupted in a pillar of blood from arcane wounds. “It’s Jacoombs,” exclaimed Anton. An arc of electricity in the shape of a birdlike talon struck the doorframe as their prey ducked through the opening. Augustovson quickly followed, only to find the hallway empty. “Anton?” Anton pointed up. “Through the ventilation shaft.” The doctor curled his hand, grasping the air and pulling towards himself, and the cheap thermoplast ceiling began to creak, flake and collapse. Electrical wires dangled from the shattered surface sparking as a buckled square pipe fell to the ground. But Jacoombs was not among the wreckage. “Follow me, he’s gone this way” * * * Commendations: Half-General Ginger Arcanthan: “…exemplary interrogation techniques. I intend to employ Agent Augustovson, if available, in all future Concept suppression missions… when attacked by rogue entities the doctor handled himself in a professional manner, slaying all interlopers through sufficient and discreet arcane measures.”  

Minister Montcom Wolphe: “He laid waste to the settlement without regard for conscience and with an admirable thoroughness. I have no difficulty recommending him for future missions.”  

|-|@ks0r |\/|@x1mus “S7ryf”: “Augustovson’s spirits made a mockery of the database that I needed shut down. He came through in a pivotal segment of a multi-stage raid, and thus comes with my highest recommendation. And when he dropped that Buick on the bad guy it totally rocked!”  

VP of Finances, Johnstone Textiles, Claude Van Oort: “…his speculations were spot on, and even when his divinations were lacking he was more than willing to do the legwork to ensure his initial prediction, despite what would have otherwise occured. In light of that I have no problem recommending Dr. Sinclair to anyone…” * * * The chase had lasted the better part of an hour, with rarely a moment of visual contact with Jacoombs when the pair came to an airlock. “We’re close. Jus’ the other side of this.” Augustovson pulled the release button and scowled. “Tell me now, Anton, what should one do when faced with an encrypted door?” Anton stammered “I… I… what would you do?” “Simple, Anton. There are creatures of the astral plane adept at any mundane practice. It is simply a matter of knowing how to bridge the astral rift and draw a suitable thing through it. What spirit should I use?” “A being of Doors?” “Possibly, but convincing something mechanical to perform its function is rather a chore. Perhaps this?” Augustovson reached into a burlap sack about his belt and withdrew a simple rotary lock. He briefly displayed it to Anton, and then began to rotate the dial, going left, then right, then left again in an algorithmic pattern that all things made of magic know. Soon the lock began to glow with a kenning brilliance that shook the room and doused it in crackling lights. Then the lock became a door, and an impish little thing emerged, clinging to the lock’s circular edge, pulled against its wishes into a foreign plane. Its bulging eyes reflected numbers and sigils spinning and interlocking at a bewildering intensity, its limbs were bolts of lightning and appendages both, and it stood to its full 5 inch height at the foot of the airlock with a gaze of hate and subordination. “Little Cypher, open this door and you may return to your bed of code to once more haunt the dreams of programmers.” For but a moment, all of the markings of its pupils became aligned, and the Cypher grinned an inscrutable grin. It leapt into the control panel of the airlock, and within a breath the inner door began to groan open. Then the buttons of the panel lit up red, and gazed in the form of eyes with malice at the one that had brought it here. “I release you, little one, and know that I will speak well of you to the Great Enigma when next I speak to it.” The outer door creaked open. Augustovson and Anton idled out into the depths of space, the former robust and majestic, the latter mimsy and ill fitting in their spacesuits. Augustovson’s radio crackled, “Remember, Anton. You don’t have to know how to do everything. That’s actually quite impossible (or at least improbable). Instead, draw from the infinite sources of the universe. Somewhere, some thing wants to do the very thing you need done, or can be coerced into doing it. The first option is, naturally, better, but never forgo the second because of fear of some petty enmity. Simply don’t abuse help that can one day hope to challenge you.” “Yessir.” Anton replied as he gingerly thrust himself away from the airlock. The door faced into the primary shaft of Genghis III, a long tunnel not less than 20 meters in diameter that reached three quarters of the way to the core of the asteroid. Mining an object such as this was not a delicate process. The iron walls of the passage were blackened by an onslaught of explosions that had created the hole in the first place. As pieces were broken off from the bottom of the mine they were pushed up the hollow and intercepted by a series of large, extendable mechanical hands which, through a sequence of mounted lasertorches, electro-picks, and mineral filters would distil the useful metals from the wasted carbon and hydrogen. Miners would attach themselves to these motorized limbs, and manually operate the equipment in antiquated suits which they brought and maintained (or in most cases didn’t maintain) themselves. A day rarely went by when an employee didn’t take a wrong step and become processed just like any other chunk of rock, or even worse, an arm would malfunction and an entire crew would be lost. Anton looked behind him just soon enough to see one such articulated arm swing for the back of his head. He shouted an exclamation as he performed a full retro-thrust in a negative ‘Z’ direction (relative to his orientation). The blow of the stalk glanced off his helmet, torquing him on a clockwise relative ‘Y’ spin. A laser torch bathed him in plasma radiation, but its focal point missed the boy by a scant few inches, as he reeled head first into the opposite wall. The arm followed through towards the doctor, who effortlessly deflected it with a telekinetic impulse. Three arms circled Augustovson, their digits curled up like dukes, their torches flaring with menace. The entire column was bathed in spotlights, blinding the pair floating in space. The dread appendages were motivated with fell practice, descending all at once upon them. A burst of wreathing flames erupted from the archmage’s outstretched palm, severing one before it could even get close. It careened off of the shaft wall, sending jagged shrapnel in all directions. The doctor empowered his forearm and parried the second arm, though it towered over him; a lesser being’s bone would have been crushed. The third arm drew across his chest, ripping his suit and spreading his organs into the vacuum of space.
Crystals of blood decorated the mine shaft walls. * * * Jarl Azure Decker, Duke of the Twelfth Tier: “Make no mistake, Doctor Augustovson Sinclair spares no quarter, and expects none to be spared. He is relentless in his pursuits, a master magus, and a paragon of all drinks mixed. Without the least hesitation I grant this agent the highest of my praises. His continued service at Pinnacle raises the standard of the whole organization.” Status: Deceased * * * “But Sinclair’s dead.” “Of course he’s dead.” “Well, you’re not going to recruit him from the dead are you?” “Ghastly, Kaplin. I wouldn’t imagine it.” “So…” Kaplin tore his eyes from the scroll. “You’re not looking closely enough.” “Wha?” “Try looking again.” Lemon’s gaze met his. “Pinnacle faked his death so that the doctor could continue his work?” “No, Kaplin. I’m beginning to become a trifle disappointed with you” “Fuck then, what?!” “Anton, Kaplin. Where is he now?” “How the fuck should I… wait… why the kid?” * * * Anton leapt from the mine wall, expending what remained of his propulsion canisters ducking beneath the storm of metallic appendages. Impossibly his vision was not overcome by the blinding lumens of the spotlights and arc-welders. The cavern erupted in a furious radiance, yet the boy propelled himself towards the base of one of the arms. Jacoombs was waiting for him, with his control glove worn on one hand and a pistol in the other; it discharged, missing the boy. Anton flipped around to the underside of the mechanism and engaged his magnets as another shot ricocheted off of the arm. Within moments he closed the distance and lunged for the felon. The two hurtled off the arm towards the jagged caveside, with Jacoombs pummelling the kid the whole way with his pistol butt. This persisted only for a moment, as Walter-Lee connected with the wall. His suit was split and then violently depressurized, but before the Kren-addled eyes of the hunted man could close, Anton plunged a needle through the visor, through the skull and into the brain of his prey. The brain’s memories poured in liquid form into the back of a syringe. * * * Lemon rolled his eyes, “Because Kaplin. Augustovson was one of Pinnacle’s best. He turned down desk job and desk job to stay in the field. He made 7^th degree, he was rated in one sphere as 9^th degree; do you have any idea how rare that is? He was in the game far longer than he should have been, but succeeded regardless because he knew what was what.” “And somewhere in there this kid fits in?” “I knew Augustovson personally, and he, much like me, never made a decision without sound reasoning. He chose Anton to be his personal aid for a very clear reason, had the pick of the litter, really. When Augustovson died, who completed the mission?” “That kid.” “Correct. He incarcerated a dangerous felon in his own territory that clearly had made preparations to make a run for it. He had no external assistance against someone who quite likely far more treacherous than he was, yet came out on top. I would really like to see what made this child such a worthwhile choice to old Sinclair.” “Ok, now you’re not the only one.” The transportation module slid open, revealing an octagon doorway. “This is our stop, by the way.” Before them lay the solid aquamarine double doors to the briefing room. They descended with a shudder into the floor, revealing a conference table, a wide screen television, a popcorn maker and a tall backed chair facing away from the door. “And besides,” noted Lemon, glancing down once more at the digital scroll, “he’s already on the case.” * * * The mission was a success. Mr. White would need to be debriefed.