Mae-Ying Allen ~ 3-27-2029, 7:22 GMT
It’s almost 7:30 by the time they reach the Manor. Mae-Ying hasn’t managed to learn much about Niva on these walks. Asking questions about Niva’s interests gets her nowhere; Niva doesn’t have any interests. She doesn’t listen to music; she doesn’t watch television or movies; she doesn’t even read novels. At first, Mae-Ying takes this to be the lingering influence of her strict upbringing, but when she thinks about it, she realizes Niva has apparently been living here at the Manor for almost twenty years. Maybe Niva’s just stuck in her ways? It certainly doesn’t help that no one but Emry associates with Niva of their own free will.
Has it always been this way? Mae-Ying has heart-wrenching fantasies of a scared little Niva, five years old, unable to speak English, ignored by all the busy adults in this cold place so far away from her home. Given the way everyone treats Emry, the idea doesn’t seem that far fetched.
When they reach the Manor, Niva takes Mae-Ying around the side of the building to an empty stretch of lawn bordered by a low stone wall. She looks around and frowns. "He was supposed to meet us here."
"He? Who?"
"Fowler." Niva sighs. "I will go find him. You wait here in case he comes late."
"Okay."
Niva stomps off towards the nearest door. Mae-Ying takes a seat on the wall, where she waits, watching her breath make fog in the air. She pulls up the video of that night again, rewinds to the part where she spotted Mr. Garibaldi. She watches as he turns and grins at her.
"Oh!" says a surprised voice behind her.
She stops the video and turns to look. It’s Emry, once again lost in a too-large sweater and baggy pants.
"Um. Hi, Miss Allen!” Emry says. “Sorry, I didn't know you were here!"
Mae-Ying takes off her glasses."Hey Emry! How are you?"
Emry smiles in the way teenagers do when they're trying to look happy. "I'm, um. You know, I'm good."
"Which is to say bad?" Mae-Ying pats the wall next to her. "Come sit on this cold rock surface with me."
Emry blushes a little and trudges over to sit next to her. "Thanks."
"What's up?"
Emry kicks at a clod of dead grass. "I'm just, um. I'm just a little bit frustrated, I guess."
"About what?"
"I don't want to complain or anything..."
"Why not? Complaining is the best!"
Emry laughs a little and pushes their unevenly cut hair back. "Um. Well, I used to be allowed to go down to the village sometimes? I mean, not a lot, but...and then yesterday Mister Barnett told me the Marshal doesn't want me to leave the grounds anymore."
"What? Why?"
"I kind of got the impression they think other initiates are gonna start snooping around,” Emry says.
"Because...?"
"I dunno. Everyone's all tense, though. Mister Raskoph has security wearing guns, even. Nobody usually wears guns; modern types break in most of the building, ‘cause of the Hall."
"I wonder if it's because of me," Mae-Ying says.
"Why d'you think it might be because of you?"
Mae-Ying shrugs. "I can't tell you much because they won't tell me much. All I know is they found out about me because I inadvertently got caught up in this investigation they're doing."
Emry's mouth twists into a scowl. "It's so stupid, they're so, so… like, they act like parents even though they're just a bunch of old dudes!"
"Yeah, and I really don't need more parents,” Mae-Ying says. "I had two. They were doing fine."
Emry nods glumly.
"If it is because of me, I'm sorry. That sucks."
Emry blushes a little and shrugs. "It's nice that you care, at least."
"I gotta tell you, I don't want to make you feel worse, but I hate this place."
Emry looks over at her. "You too?"
"Yeah. Even I think these people suck, and I worked with senators."
Mae-Ying hears voices approaching from behind her and Emry. The first she can make out is Niva’s.
"--sorry that I am not able to fly, but I am not able to fly, and she is not able to run for five miles!"
"I didn't say fly, or run, I said why didn't you Throw?" Benny Fowler asks.
"Because she is in training and it is against procedure!"
"She survived all the way across the Atlantic, I think she'd be fine for a two second trip from the village up here!"
"You should not use Throwing for trivial reasons!"
"Right, because not being late for a favor I'm doing you is trivial."
"I am glad you understand," Niva says.
Mae-Ying closes her eyes and puts her palm against her face. Emry sighs. After a moment, Mae-Ying composes herself and turns around to greet Niva and Benny. The former is jutting her nose in the air. The latter is indignantly fuming.
Benny pulls himself together. “Hey, Mae-Ying.”
"Hi Benny!” Mae-Ying chirps. “How's it going?"
"Oh, I'm just freaking amazing," he says.
Mae-Ying grins sardonically. "Me too!"
"Good, we all feel good,” Niva says. “Now Mr. Fowler is going to teach you about Cloaking."
Mae-Ying gets up off the wall. She turns back to Emry. "We should eat lunch or dinner together if you can!"
Emry nods shyly. "Do you mind if I watch? I almost never get to see the interesting stuff."
"Go ahead,” Mae-Ying says. “I probably won't do anything that exciting..."
Emry gives Mae-Ying an optimistic thumbs up. Mae-Ying walks towards Benny and Niva takes her place on the wall next to Emry.
"Aight, kiddo,” Benny says. “Niva tells me you can hold Logos at this point. That about accurate?"
Mae-Ying nods.
"Great. So here's the deal. Learning techniques is basically the worst bitch you've ever had to deal with, ‘specially when you’re starting out. It’ll be a while before you can really see how the Logos works and figure out someone’s tricks just by watching, but you gotta start somewhere, right? So I'm gonna describe things to you the way they were described to me, and you try to do what I'm saying, and hopefully neither of us will feel too stupid in the process."
Mae-Ying gives him a thumbs up. “Sounds like a plan.”
"Great,” Benny says. “Okay, so, Cloaking's the trick of taking on the persona and appearance of someone you've met. You get their affect, their voice, the works. Every Lawyer can cloak, but Investigators are the best at it."
"This is like what Niva did when she was pretending to be the reporter?" Mae-Ying asks.
"That's right,” Benny says. “So whenever Niva steals that girl’s face, so to speak, that girl knows something's up, deep in her core. She'll feel really off, like she's operating a half second out of sync with everything around her. Some people just keel over and faint."
Mae-Ying laughs uncomfortably. "Holy shit."
"Right, so safety tip one: don't take the cloak of someone who might rat on you,” Benny says. “And definitely don't cloak as someone who'll know what the feeling means."
Mae-Ying nods.
"Safety tip two: it isn't real safe to cloak as another Initiate, not until you're absolutely sure what type they are and what they can do,” Benny says. “You pick the wrong person, say a Judge, or a Sorcerer, and there's a chance they'll be able to shove their willpower through the connection the Cloak creates and take the wheel."
"Take the wheel?” Mae-Ying says. “You mean they could control me?"
Benny nods. "See, like I said, you're getting a slice of this person's ego. Really, you're temporarily replacing a part of yourself with a part of them. It's not a huge leap to get the rest of them involved."
Mae-Ying frowns and wrinkles her nose. "This is weird."
"Get used to it." Benny takes a deep breath. "Okay, so go ahead and channel a little bit of Logos into your mind."
Mae-Ying closes her eyes and thinks of the letters. They don’t look like English characters anymore; now they appear in the strange angular script she saw in the Chamber of Kings. Immediately she feels the mental tingle that tells her she’s channelling Logos.
"Great,” Benny says. “Now, I want you to think of someone. Not me--someone else you've seen. Doesn't have to be anyone you know real well, or even have had a conversation with. When you've got this person in your mind, try to really boil things down to their essential characteristics. Could be adjectives or feelings or anything like that."
After a moment, Mae-Ying decides to focus on one of her professors at Yale, an uptight woman with a graying Spock haircut. She was in her late fifties or early sixties and spoke in the smug way members of yacht clubs probably do. Mae-Ying’s mind fills with a deep knowledge of this woman’s affect. She recalls little tics she never noticed before, the precise cadence of her speech, a tendency to squint her left eye when asking a question, the typical chips in her nail polish...
All at once, the knowledge of this woman crystallizes into something more and overwhelms her, threatening her focus. She opens her eyes, frowning. Benny is staring at her, his mouth hanging open a little. She has a vague feeling of things being strange, as though she's walked into a familiar room to find a piece of furniture moved.
"What is the matter?" An upper-crust New England accent emerges from Mae-Ying’s throat. Startled, she looks down at her hands; they’re pale and knobby, with protruding veins and loose skin. "Oh God! How do I make it end?"
"Uh, yeah, uh, think about yourself real hard,” Benny stammers.
Mae-Ying closes her eyes and tries to remember what she herself is like, but all that comes to mind are details of this professor from Yale. Trying not to panic, she focuses on the letters again. It takes much longer to bring them to mind than it did just a moment ago, but as she does, she feels her sense of self return. She opens her eyes, looks down, and lets out a breath as she sees her own body. Over on the wall, Emry starts clapping, grinning delightedly. Niva has a small smile on her face.
"Was that it?" Mae-Ying asks.
"There were other steps, but looks like you got it already?" Benny runs a hand over his head. “Normally it takes a few hundred tries…”
"Well, um..." Mae-Ying shrugs and turns her palms up.
Benny looks over at Niva. "I mean, she's got it, so… I'm gonna go."
Niva glares at him and folds her arms.
"Hey! I got stuff to do,” he says.
“Thanks, Benny,” Mae-Ying says.
"Any time, kiddo,” Benny says. “Oh, hey, one more thing. About that thing you asked me about?"
Mae-Ying nods. The message for her parents. “Yeah?”
"You got a particular message you want sent?"
Mae-Ying blows out a breath. "I don't want to draw any attention to them, you know?"
"Maybe just something like you're alive, but you've gotta stay incognito for your own safety, and they shouldn't come looking for you?" Benny says.
Mae-Ying nods. "Yeah. Tell them I'm okay but I need to lay low."
"I'll make sure they get the message." Benny walks over to Emry. "Hey, Dawkins, you got a coupla hours? I could use some help with some filing."
Emry sighs, shoves off the wall, and trudges after Benny towards the Manor. Mae-Ying swallows hard and holds her own elbows, looking off into the distance. After a moment she hears a rustle and realizes Niva has stepped up beside her, just behind her left shoulder.
"Sorry,” Mae-Ying says. “I just..." She covers her mouth and starts to cry.
Niva hesitantly puts an arm around Mae-Ying’s shoulders. "This thing Fowler was talking about… it was a message for your parents?"
"Yeah. I just don't want my mom to lose it.” Mae-Ying wipes her eyes with her wrist. “She’s always made me promise I won’t die before her…”
"I think they must be lucky, to have such an attentive daughter," Niva says.
Mae-Ying scoffs. "I'm not. I pretty much ignore them. My mom even tried to warn me about getting involved with Walsh and I totally blew her off.”
"You are harder on yourself than even I was inclined to be, at first, and I thought you were an idiot."
"I deserve it. Trust me,” Mae-Ying says. “I've been a little shit to them, and they’ve been nothing but good to me. And now I don't know if I'm ever gonna see them again."
Niva looks off into the horizon. Her eyes glaze over as she stares in silence for several seconds.
"Niva?"
"You will.” Niva’s voice has a distant, slightly dreamy quality. “Within the year, and again just after the Child will be born."
“How do you know?”
Niva blinks, then squeezes her eyes shut. "Ow. Headache..." She sits down, rubbing her temples.
Mae-Ying stoops down next to her. "Are you alright?"
"It is sometimes… overwhelming, when the angels give me sight."
"That was a prophecy?"
Niva nods.
Mae-Ying fights not to start crying again. "Thank you."
Niva looks back, a little surprised. "It is what I should do, is it not? To help a companion who is in need?"
Mae-Ying smiles lopsidedly and puts a hand on Niva's shoulder. "You're not so bad, you know."
Niva smiles at Mae-Ying, showing her teeth. It’s the first time Mae-Ying has really seen her smile, and it lights up her face in a way that startles Mae-Ying.
“Maybe we could take a break from training, just for today,” Niva says.
“Really?”
Niva nods, still smiling. “Would you like to… go somewhere?”
“Sure,” Mae-Ying says. “Where would you like to go?”
“Do you like ice cream?”
Mae-Ying almost says something like isn’t it too cold out to get ice cream? but the earnest look on Niva’s face makes her hold her tongue.
“Yeah,” Mae-Ying says. “I like ice cream.”
“Come,” Niva says. “Let us go to the motor pool.”
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