Katalepsis III: "Conditions of Absolute Reality" (part three)
Heather tries to bait the skinheaded sniper lady out again for Twil to jump on. And it works, at first! But then they stupidly chase her into an alley that turns out to be near one of the cult's dimensional ratholes, where they get separated and Heather gets nabbed. Granted, even after sending Twil off in the wrong direction via whatever space-warping fuckery they use, bringing Heather in is a hell of a lot harder than it would have been a month ago.
The first cultist who corners Heather is a nervous boy, her own age or even younger, who doesn't seem to have ever done violent operations before and tries his hardest to convince her to come peacefully before nervously going for the grab. Seemingly having moral reservations as well as lack of confidence in his physical ability. Heather's small enough that he can outfight her, especially after she kicks him in the crotch just hard enough to remove his moral reservations without quite disabling him, and it seems like he's got her. But then Tenny does some kind of barely-tactile distraction thing, and...this happens:
“She reared up behind him like an angry squid, tentacles bunched and arced back for a strike. Relief filled me, before despair as I remembered she couldn’t touch him, couldn’t touch any flesh, she was literally bodiless. She jabbed all her tentacles together at once, spikes and stingers and suckers passing right through the back of his skull like the touch of a ghost.
He jerked up and sneezed, shook his head. “What was that?” he blurted out.
Tenny’s distraction gave me the split-second I needed to muster a reaction beyond the pure animal – and to yank my arm free. I mashed my hand into his ugly, stupid face.
His eyes went wide.
”Oh shi-“
Hyperdimensional math slotted into place, a spinning puzzle box in my mind, ratcheting spikes of pain behind my eyes. My stomach clenched, my body rebelled, but with my brain I gripped the black levers of reality and twisted them toward my own ends, along the angles of extra-dimensional physics.
The man vanished.
Instantly I rolled over and vomited, spewed my guts across the concrete and felt a nosebleed run down my face, coughing and spluttering. My chest was on fire and my head pounded like an expanding ring of red-hot steel lay beneath the surface of my skull.
No time to whine, no time for pain.”
Well. +10 style points for doing the face grab before casting it. Maybe we're moving away from lesbian Edward Elric and toward lesbian Scar just a tad.
Anyway, that boy seemed like he might be redeemable with an early enough intervention, and hopefully he'll receive that in the Fleaman Republic. He just needs to have better manners than Evelyn did, and they'll set him up with a quality de-programming counsellor as soon as he's a naturalized citizen.
Also, Tenny can distract meatspace people by waving enough appendages through their brains. I wonder if that's just her, or if all pneuma-somatic organisms can do that? Maybe that's supposed to be the explanation for the random chills and little spasms people sometimes get; a big creature just happened to intersect with their central nervous system at that moment.
Now, when Heather recovers, I expect to see some interesting moral thoughts about what she did here. See how much Raine really has rubbed off on her.
Unfortunately, Heather is left all seizure'd out by that volunteer work for the Fleaman Department of Immigration, and the much more experienced skinhead lady - named eventually as Amy Stack - finds her sprawled out over a pool of her own vomit, easily captured. Heather has to actually touch something to send it on an interdimensional adventure, and unlike the last poor schmuck Amy knows to keep her from doing that. Also, she has countermeasures for Tenny at the ready; as soon as she sees Heather staring at an ostensibly empty patch of alleyway, she pulls out a little metal runic thingy and releases a tougher version of those seaweed-drones from arc 1. Yeah, these are the guys who sent that spybot to follow Raine way back in 1.1, that's one mystery solved.
Tenny turns out to be capable of a bit more than mildly distracting opponents when they are on the pneuma-somatic plane with her, but unfortunately this combat specced seaweed-drone is put together much more sturdily than the spycam model, and its an even-ish match. Also, apart from being ethereal Tenny appears to be literally a shoggoth.
“No orders needed, it folded itself in the middle like a length of intestine and jerked toward Tenny.
”No!” I shouted, fumbling with my left sleeve to expose the Fractal, to make the Scribble-thing go away.
I needn’t have bothered; Tenny burst open.
It was one of the most violent and disgusting things I’d ever seen a spirit do. Also incomprehensible. For a moment I thought she’d died, that the Scribble-monster had reached out with some invisible power and ruptured her like overripe fruit. But the process didn’t end, it grew and grew – and so did Tenny. Her tar-flesh boiled and bubbled over, iridescent globes growing on each other, popping and roiling, limbs and tentacles and eyes and mouths growing and dissolving at blinding speed in the protoplasmic mass. Thick chemical stench and a wave of biological heat washed over my face, made me squint and gag.
The transformation ended, quick-drying putty pulled to a new shape.
No longer a flat, lithe approximation of a human female, Tenny reared up as a chimera the size of a car, a dozen different animals melded together in tarry black imitation flesh, from snake-tail to lion-head, eagle-wings and goat-horns, a mantle of tentacles lashing above her.”
All the way down to the congeries of iridescent black spheres as a transitional form. If she were just material, it would be a 1:1.
Also, the specific combination of animal traits her battle form is described as having - goat, eagle, lion, and snake - make me think that this chimaera looks a lot like THE chimaera, from Greek mythology. Or, at a few more steps of removal, a Cherub from Biblical angelology. Cherubs are supposed to be the guardian-type angels, so that would make sense given Tenny's role. Though that would imply Lozzie is God, which...eh, you know what? Legit. I can see it.
Also also, despite her description being clear in the text, I can no now longer help but picture Amy as the pokemon trainer guy from Mob Psycho 100. Whatever his name is, the guy who tries to stuff Dimple into his little metal jar. Yeah, that's what she looks like now.
Seaweed Monster MK2 and Tenny keep fighting on the ethereal plane offscreen as Amy marches the limping, still-nauseous Heather to meet the boss. Careful to keep herself out of Heather's arm's reach and her hand near her pocket. Heather is promised that this will be a friendly meeting (lmao if that was true they'd have just sent her a letter or gotten her phone number or something), and that it will occur in a public place. The "public place," by the way, turns out to be a closed cafe that the boss and a couple of his other minions have broken into for this purpose.
And, oh man, the boss, Lozzie's brother. The youngish librarian-looking guy from the nightgaunt chop-shop scene. Alexander Lilburne.
This guy.
This fucking guy.
I'm going to have to do this scene in my old commentary style, because there is no doing justice to it otherwise.
““Please. You will sit,” said the Librarian.
I lowered myself into the chair, smoothed my coat over my knees, and tried to control my breathing, control the terror. I risked a side glance at the Tall Woman in the trench coat, her huge, powerful body at rest like a predatory big cat. She’d tried to kill Raine too, but right now I felt no pressing need to confront her. Stack took up station by the security shutter, hands behind her back.
”Amy,” the Librarian said. “Where has Jake gotten himself to?”
”He got handsy with her. Was gone by the time I got there.”
”Ahhh.” The Librarian turned to me. “I shall assume he is beyond punishment?”
I nodded once, tried to make myself seem cold and uncaring. I had zero time right now to think about how I’d probably killed that man.
”I hold you no ill-will for that,” he said. “Jake was merely a first stage initiate, of little importance. My subordinates should know better than to have manhandled you.” He turned back to Amy with an indulgent smile. “You took longer than expected.””
1. "My minions should know better than to do X."
2. "My minions do not know better than to do X."
3. *nervous stammering*
““Ran into the werewolf. Sent her off chasing her own tail. Had to pop the Geist as well.” Amy nodded toward me. “She was protected, up-close.”
”Really now? How fascinating,” the librarian said as he looked at me. “In time I absolutely must hear all about it, all the little details, but first – coffee? I have taken the liberty of selecting a brew for you. I believe I know your tastes.”
I eyed the steaming cup on the edge of the table and folded my arms across my chest. Sitting straight was very difficult, my chest hurt so badly, but I forced myself to stay upright. “No, thank you.”
”Oh, you think we’ve drugged it. Very smart. Very sensible.”
I just stared at him.
”You do not know my name,” he said. His expression burst into a smile of genuine delight and pleasure.”
No. No, she does not know his name. Why would she know his name?
More importantly though: why is he proud of her not knowing his name?
“His face was shiny, young, chin perfectly shaved, his head of tousled blond hair thick and recently cut. Dressed in a suit with patched elbows, waistcoat and tie; a long coat lay over the back of a nearby booth. He fussed with one of his shirt cuffs as he smiled at me. He made me feel sick. I wondered if this was what Raine would call a ‘punchable face’.”
Oh you have no idea how right Heather is yet, just keep going for a bit.
“I had the distinct impression I recognised him, but I couldn’t work out why.
”Heather Lavinia Morell. Nineteen years old, almost twenty,” he said. “Born on the seventeenth of January. Parents’ names are Samantha and Gregory. Your father is a minor engineer for Network Rail. Your mother is a bank clerk. You have no siblings and no other close family to speak of, though you briefly knew your maternal grandfather before he died of a heart attack when you were six. You spent three years in and out of Cygnet Children’s Hospital in London between the ages of ten and thirteen, but you did attend school, and went on to complete your A-levels – one A and two Bs – and are now a student of English Literature, at our fine university here in Sharrowford.”
He smiled as he went, satisfied and sickly-warm. A cold hand of violation crept up my back.
”How do you know all that?” I murmured.
”Knowledge is open to any who know how to ask. Was I correct? I was, wasn’t I? I do so love to be correct, I-“”
Heather is still a little brain-frazzled from operating the Dogworld Express a few minutes ago, so I don't hold this against her. If she wasn't slightly brain-frazzled, she'd realize that he's said absolutely nothing that you couldn't learn with a name, a photo, and thirty minutes in front of a search engine.
“He cut off and blinked once.
He was wrong about one thing; I was not only child. I clutched Maisie to my chest, to my secret heart, and loved her all the more.
”How can I be wrong?” he demanded. His good humour crumbled into confusion. “How can I wrong about even a shred of that? Which fact was incorrect? You will tell me.””
The Google algorithm isn't what it used to be, I know. :v
“I shook my head. “No.”
”You will tell me.”
A tug in the forefront of my brain. My mouth opened. “I have a-“ I bit down and winced, blinking at him in shock.
”Ah, you resist. You would be good at that, yes. Skilled, perhaps. I have misplayed my hand.””
WHAT "HAND" HAVE YOU EVEN MISPLAYED?
It's soooo obvious that he imagined doing this in a private room at a fancy steakhouse where he could be holding a goblet of red wine and listening to classical music for Heather's arrival, spent a frantic hour calling every fancy steakhouse in town trying to get a reservation, suddenly got the call from Amy, panicked, and broke into a random coffee shop thirty seconds ahead of them.
Also, he apparently has a minor mind control ability, but it's not super reliable. Good to know.
“He sat back, jovial and warm once more. “Very well, you have scored a point, and it is to my shame. My name is Alexander Lilburne, and my business is the total liberation of the human mind.””
"We believe that a liberated brain is like a stone within a mighty river. Worn completely smooth."
“He paused, as if expecting a response. I gave him none.
”Now, if you would be so kind,” Alexander continued. “Please inform me as to which aspect of your life I have catalogued incorrectly? I am so maddened by inconsistency, you see. We cannot get down to business before such matters are cleared up and I have you placed firmly in your correct context.”
”Stuff your context,” I managed.
He smiled and laughed, a soft, blubbery sound. “Now now, there is no need for that. I am not going to do anything nefarious with your secrets. I have no need for blackmail, and you have nothing worth taking. I-“
”You don’t know anything about me,” I hissed. “I’m not an only child. I have a twin. And you can’t have her name.”
Alexander frowned, deeply puzzled. “You do not. A lie. Why lie to me?”
”It’s not a lie!” I almost shouted. I wanted to hit him. I’d never wanted to hit anybody before.
” … no, no, I can see that, it is merely a truth you believe. But the records do not attest to a sister, let alone a twin.” He sighed and spread his hands. “I do so detest dealing with the mentally ill.””
This man thinks himself a veteran of the world of secrets and hidden things. One who walks in the shadows in which people disappear, and other people exist who were never known in the first place. A liberated mind.
And...he can't believe that the girl who he KNOWS has reality-warping powers might have a secret sibling.
““I’m not ill. Go to hell.”
”I probably shall, but not for many years yet.”
He's been waiting for someone to tell him to go to hell for months.
“Let us agree that you believe you have a sister, and leave it at that.”
I glowered at him, my fear almost overrun with hate, almost able to forget how much danger I was in. He’d dredged up the one thing I’d protect above all others.”
Tsk tsk, Heather. He didn't "dredge" that out of you. You did that on your own.
Fortunately, it didn't stick.
““Now, let us move to far more intriguing personal matters. Lavinia. Lavinia.” He rolled his tongue over my middle name, savoured the sound. My skin crawled. “Do you ever go by your middle name, Lavinia? You should consider doing so. It is a saint’s name, among what passes for the world of secret truths. The name of a saint and martyr, though ancient history now, and completely unrelated to you or us. I wonder if your parents knew. Doubtful, of course.”
I had to keep stalling, but every word he spoke deepened my detest. He liked the sound of his own voice. I swallowed and forced myself not to grit my teeth.
”What do you want?” My voice came out tighter and harder than I’d intended.
Alexander laughed again, that deep, rubbery sound. “Oh, but that is not the question, that is not the question at all, Lavinia. The question is, what do you want?””
oh my god he actually has no fucking idea what he's doing at all does he
“He opened a hand toward me and waited, invited an answer.
A rhetorical trap.
I could take an educated guess at his thought process, and it made me angry. He sat there assured that he knew everything, in a secluded private place with a naive and terrified nineteen year old girl he was about to browbeat and talk over. My next line was obvious: ‘I want you to leave me alone, I want to go home’, so and and so on. I refused to snatch the bait.
”A million pounds,” I hissed.”
HAH.
Now, you'd expect him to see that she's just trying to throw him off here and drop the pretense of friendliness (not that there was ever much of a shot with that, since, you know, if he ACTUALLY wanted to deal with her fairly he'd have just approached her like a normal person). But no. No, he takes her at face value, and oh my god...
“Alexander blinked, then smiled that sickening smile an inch wider. “Is that your price, Lavinia? Do not undervalue yourself. On the other hand, if that is a serious answer, I believe we can come to an agreement of cash payment.”
” … what do you mean?” I frowned at him, off-balance.
”You see, you are a unique thing.” He spread his hands. “Or at least very close to unique. I personally know of only one other person in the entire world capable of doing as you do, of operating reality with your mind, but she is unfortunately far beyond the event horizon of her own sanity. Quite apart from your potential value to my organisation, I wish to understand, in every part and every way, how you do what do you. We are willing to pay any price, fulfil any desire, to have you join us. Name it, please. Name your price, Lavinia.””
She did. And apparently it was a really good deal for you. If it's such a bargain, why aren't you taking it, Alex?
Tell her without telling her that you don't really have a million pounds lmao.
““Another … another person capable of … “ Another person who could do what I do? Another brain-math savant? Another victim of the Eye? I opened my mouth, but I would not speak Maisie’s name to this man.
”Please, Lavinia, don’t concern yourself with that. My younger sister is much like you, but not with your clarity of mind and-“
He went on talking. Not Maisie. Nothing to do with Maisie.”
A pity Heather still can't remember the dreams all that well. Speaking of which, I wonder if the reason Alex looks strangely familiar to Heather is because of a family resemblance, or if there's some other connection.
Anyway, it's pretty clear if you read between his lines here that the breakthrough that upped the cult's threat level was on Lozzie's end, not Alex's.
Going out on a little bit more of a conjecture, I suspect that however he ended up getting control of her was completely by accident.
““- and I am serious when I say name your price. Let us open negotiations, see what we can do for you.”
He disgusted me.
”You people tried to kill Raine.” I glanced at Stack.
Alexander raised his eyebrows in polite interest. “Who?”
”My … “
”Saye’s minion,” Stack supplied quietly.
”Ah, yes, the Saye family. You’ve been spending your time with the daughter, associating with her in public, visiting that sad old house. Learning from her too, no doubt. Evelyn is her name, I believe, but that is a fact not worth knowing. Now, her mother, I knew her mother very briefly. Brilliant woman. Her death was a terrible loss to our world.””
And now I'm just reading him in Donald Trump's voice.
"Lovely woman, very nice to me. The Sayes were the best family - one of the bests, I think mine is a little better - they were one of the best families, now they're the worst."
““Raine is not Evelyn’s minion,” I said. “She’s her friend. And my girlfriend.”
I glanced again at Amy Stack, let her see what was written beneath my face. If being scared was useless, I may as well hate. She frowned ever so slightly, as if she’d begun to work out what I meant.
”You should hardly be wasting your incredible potential on the Saye girl,” Alexander continued. “However pitiful and sympathetic her condition has rendered her, she can do nothing for you. She is at best a dabbler, running a – what did my uncle call it, Amy? He used such a colourful phrase.”
”A Mickey Mouse operation, sir.”
”Yes!” Alexander slapped his knee in delight, as if this was a hilarious joke. “A Mickey Mouse operation, indeed. The old man has it in him yet, not quite all spent. Unlike Miss Evelyn Saye.””
Says the guy breaking into closed coffee shops to hold court in and who has like five people working for him.
““Stop-“ I bit back, as much from the throbbing pain in my chest as from fear. Alexander waited for me to continue. I had to take a deep breath. “Stop insulting my friends.”
”Insulting?” He frowned gently, pursed his lips as if talking to a naughty child, and shook his head. “You misunderstand. I am merely offering objective critique of her situation – and by extension, yours. Saye can offer you what exactly? A bed under her dubious roof. Some musty old books. I, on the other hand, am here to offer you and your unique talent a place in an organisation with a future, with human liberation at its core. I, my uncle, and a few other like minded sages, have embarked on the greatest project in human history. I need brilliant minds and shining talents, and I am asking you to name your price, Lavinia.””
YOU CAN'T EVEN COUGH UP A MILLION POUNDS, DIPSHIT!
““Stop calling me that,” I snapped. He smiled and opened a hand toward me, so very reasonable.
”Everybody has a price, secret desires even I cannot divine. You must tell me. See what we can do for you. Money? We have money, more than you can imagine what to do with, I’d think. Enough to solve any lifelong problem. We can give you power, of various sorts. Knowledge of magic, magic itself. Sex? I take it you are some kind of … sexual deviant.” He smiled a horrible rubbery smile. “A willing, pliant partner, multiples of such, if-“”
HEATHER: "Do you know how many hookers I could get with a million pounds?"
That said, the fact that he knows about her sexual deviancy does suggest that he might have supernatural information sources after all. I doubt that google turned up anything about Heather's desire to fuck architecture.
““The only thing I want is my sister back.”
Alexander sighed. His smile collapsed into dull unimpressed boredom. “An impossibility. You never had a sister-“
”I do.”
”Be reasonable now. Try to understand the magnitude of the offer I am making. We can do almost anything to satisfy your desires, and this is not an offer we extend to many.””
ALEX: "Name your price"
HEATHER: "A million pounds."
ALEX: "No, but really. Name your price."
HEATHER: "I want my sister back."
ALEX: "No, but really. Name your price."
““Ask Amy there. Amy, do tell Lavinia why you are with us, what we offered you?”
Stack – the ice-cold Skinhead – hesitated. “Sir, do you really-“
”You will tell her.”
She sighed. “Purpose. That’s all they gave me.”
”All we gave you,” Alexander echoed. Behind his amused smile lay power offended. “Indeed. So you see, Lavinia, we offer you so much more.””
LMAO
Please be civilized and just put a bullet through Heather’s head now, Alex. It's a kinder death than what the second-hand embarrassment must be doing.
“A strong suspicion entered my mind: I was not getting out of here, he would not take no for an answer. I’d never before encountered a person so comfortable in the position and appearance of power, but I knew exactly what he was, because I’d encountered plenty of things like him that weren’t people.
This was exactly like being Outside, like a Slip. I had to stall and hide, wait with my breath held in perfect stillness, behind a outcropping of rock, for the gaze of some vast intelligence to grow bored and turn away from me.
I hid.
I drew myself up in my seat and raised my chin, put on all the airs and mannerisms of Evelyn at her most offended and self-righteous. The effort was staggering, to ignore the creaking aches and pains in my wracked body, the swimming vision, the throbbing head. I unfolded my arms, opened up that last line of physical defence. I tapped my knee with one hand as I let the other wander to my chin, an ostentatious display of thought.
How I pulled it off, I don’t know. Fear, adrenaline, the needs of the moment. Or perhaps my friends had rubbed off on me enough that I felt the tiniest sliver of what I pretended.
”Who is we?” I asked.
Alexander raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth, but I had to really sell this, put on a show.
”I’m being offered a job, basically?” I spoke before he could, and kept most of the quiver out of my voice, screaming inside. “I’d like to know who I’d be working for. You’re cultists, right? The Sharrowford Cult.”
”Cult? What a quaint word. I’m afraid Miss Evelyn Saye has been reading too much of Mister Lovecraft. The real world does not offer us such simple and neat definitions. Are we a cult, Amy?”
”Most certainly, sir.”
”Well, there you have it, we are a cult. From the horse’s mouth. I much prefer to think of us as a sort of practical research group, plumbing unseen depths.””
"Amy, I will give you 500,000 of my million pounds if you kill your prick boss right now."
“Stack cleared her throat gently. “Brotherhood of the New Sun.”
Alexander’s amusement vanished in a dash of cold water. He almost rolled his eyes, but appeared to catch himself at the last moment. “On second thought, perhaps we should refrain from using the old man’s terminology too much, yes? Lavinia, please, think of us as a brotherhood of like-minded explorers in secret matters.”
I committed his every word to memory, because I was going to help Evelyn kill this man.”
Ah. A real evil wizard's overambitious failnephew. That explains everything so, so perfectly.
...
Remember what I said about Superbia Dragon, in my "A Little Vice Review?" Magnify all of that by at least 3 or 4, and you've got Alexander Lilburne. I love him. I would read entire books about him. A+. He's like a sitcom villain, only he's managed to stumble into juuuust enough real power that the characters are forced to take him seriously. Even though he will never, ever deserve it.
Alexander could have been a character in “The Big Lebowsky” without sticking out whatsoever.
...
Fremdschamen aside, I like how we have some dark mirror (or at least, pathetic and annoying mirror) going on with this bunch and the protagonist team. Alexander idolizes his living wizard family member even as he chafes under his authority. He has a competent action-girl underling, but she can barely contain her contempt for him even during important diplomatic meetings. He has a reality-warping anomaly girl fuelling his new research, but rather than trying to rescue her sibling she is the sibling who needs to be rescued from him. And uh, I guess the big zombie lady who's been looming menacingly over his shoulder for this whole conversation is their Praem or something.
It's effective. I just hope that the gang gets a more intimidating dark mirror than the Brotherhood of the New Sun within a few arcs, because oh my god.
Anyway! Heather's remaining brain cells are spared a horrifying fate when a sudden rescue consisting of Twil, Tenny, and one of the Praem avatars breaks into the already-broken-into coffee shop. Don't think they arrived as a group; more likely they were all just trying to track down Heather independently after dealing with their respective obstacles and happened to reach her at the same time.
The rescue is as confused as you'd expect, given the lack of coordination between participants. Heather manages to get some good tactical moments herself, including a bit of feinting that I didn't think she had in her. The New Suns know she has a plane-shifting touch, but they don't know exactly how long she needs to wait to give her brain a rest after each use. She also knows that Alexander would rather take her alive if he can. Using this knowledge, she's able to do some nice crowd control and manoeuvre the enemies into the rescuers' line of fire just by moving herself around the room.
The best moment is on Praem, though. At least I hope it was Praem. We later learn that Evelyn can remotely perceive and command Praem's avatars and was doing so for some bits of this operation. But, when Alexander starts making a lot of noise trying to spur Zheng the Zombie into action and Amy tells him that he should probably try to avoid making so much noise when they're in a shopping mall during business hours, I like to think that it was Praem's own idea to pull the fire alarm.
The outcome, after all is said and done, is Alexander foiled but uninjured, Amy with a broken arm, Tenny all ripped up from fighting other pneuma-somatic constructs but still seemingly okay, and Twil bridal-carrying Heather to safety out of the stampeding crowd-filled mall. Not sure what happened to the Praem instance. Frankly, I'm not sure how she even got there without attracting attention in the first place, being blue and all. Maybe she can teleport or something.
Speaking of "teleport or something," Zheng the zombie is appearing and disappearing in various shady alleyways after them, trying to cut them off. Zheng is the one New Sun unit onsite that nobody was able to deal any visible damage to; at best, they just kept her distracted and confused while dealing with the others. So, she's still a problem.
...hmm. It was mentioned a few chapters ago that Gelus praeministra are most often given corpses to use as avatars. With Evelyn's mother having done exactly this on a regular basis. And it's now been implied (unless Alexander was just completely making that bit up) that the Lilburnes and Sayes have had some friendly interactions in the past. If Zheng has a weird transportation power, and Praem also has a weird transportation power, then yeah, overwhelmingly likely that Zheng is another G. praeministra.
...oh my god.
...
What if Praem's trolling runs deeper than anyone could have expected, and she and Zheng are actually *the same* G. praeministra? It's got its central brain floating around in the ethereal plane somewhere nearby and is making both groups feed it strawberries while its sock puppets "fight" each other?
I hope this is it. That would be perfect.
...
Long story short, they manage to repel Zhang long enough to meet up with Raine (Heather got her phone turned on again) and then make their way to the relative safety of Evelyn's house. Twil is reluctant to enter. Evelyn is reluctant to let Twil enter. But, at this point, they've got too many friends in common and too many enemies in common to not bite the bullet. The bullet called friendship.
Well, more like "passive-aggressive tolerance" than "friendship." Twil does talk shit about the interior decorating, and Evelyn does threaten to sic the robospiders on her, but nothing comes of it at least yet.
Interesting detail is that when the robospiders are slow to follow Evelyn's commands, she has to raise her voice at them. And then, after that, they act sort of...timid? browbeaten? Anyway, they were described as "pneuma-somatic robots" earlier, but they seem to have a lot more awareness and feeling to them than mindless automatons. Wonder what all went into their creation? And...if they perhaps used to be something different? Unpleasant thought, given what we know about Saye's ancestors and the kind of shit they got up to.
This segment is bookended by another Lozzie dream. She apologizes to Heather for not finding a way to make her warnings stick in the waking world, and for not finding a way to stop her brother from being cringe at her. And then, with this imminent threat dealt with, we get our attentions called riiiiiight back to a previous one that the story'd been hinting at. Remember how I said that Heather's personality is going through some changes that don't feel quite natural given the circumstances? Wellllll...
“The bookcases stretched up forever, until they vanished into the dark far above. Crisscrossed with wooden stairways and ledges, balconies and rails, looped around each other, to offer access to any of the billions of volumes. A vast canyon, which Lozzie and I sat at the very bottom of, on a polished wooden floor at least a mile across, littered with thousands of stay texts.
Vertigo touched my head. I looked back to Lozzie.
”Where is this place?”
She sniffed and looked pitiful. “The library at Carcosa. I thought it might cheer you up. You love books and stuff, right?””
So. For those of you not familiar, Carcosa - domain of the King in Yellow - is an invention of Robert Chambers that was co-opted by Lovecraft and then expanded on by the later Cthulhu Mythos contributors. An alien realm accessible by imagination and sensory stimuli, inhabited by contagious, reality-warping infomorphs. Pretty much a genre byword for "cognitohazard." If Lozzie has at least one foot in the door of Carcosa, and Heather is sharing dreamtime with Lozzie without a top-shelf antivirus, then yeah. There's malware getting through.
I guess that'll be the next problem that needs dealing with after Alex and before the Eye.
