Inside the Hub, a brunette woman greeted them from behind the oval desk. Her name was etched into an interchangeable slot in the desk that read Selit. Selit wore a pert, yellow suit and had her hair in a bun. Marlic exchanged words with her.

Lenith lagged behind. Tall displays on the walls were active during this time of day, playing videos of Chimayri in acts of heroism and altruism. She stepped up to one in the throes of its action. A young man sitting in a waiting chair scoffed beside her and she took a step back, out of the way of his view.

In the video, an officer of Enieyu named Timifer tossed a homely looking woman out of harm’s way within a burning building. The remnants of a machine collapsed through the weakened roof, onto him, body folding under the pressure. The video cut to the rescued, exasperated woman safely outside (being handed a blanket by an Ilius officer). When her mouth moved, a line of text dragged along the bottom of the silent display.

‘The Graymen set this house afire. I would be dead if not for the Chimayri. Timifer sacrificed himself for my life. I will never forget him.'

Another display had two Noctam officers helping a man locate his lost identification card on a busy street.

A third display revealed a war-torn street. Gunfire streaked across the night sky like rising stars. Fire tore through windows. Buildings were collapsing. Dust thickened the air. Bodies were strewn out like worthless straw dolls. This video had permanent text atop and below the video:

‘THE DANGER’

‘LURKING OUTSIDE’

Like apprehensive bookends.

“Oh, he’s ready to see her now if she’s fine with that. His first denizen fell through.” Selit was saying. Then she leaned closer to Marlic, lowered her voice, but Lenith heard. “Suicide, I believe.” 

Selit pressed out the rumples of her knee-length skirt as she escorted Lenith past elevator bays, through a series of safety gates, and finally to a place labeled 14.

The room within was stifling, awash in the nostalgia of several decades and the aroma of old paper. Trinkets, instructional books, codes and standards, and two plush creatures were stuffed into shelves. The latter were fat, adorable versions of a dovil and an amolu. Big eyes, big smiles. One had a rough, gray fabric to simulate a hide and the other had soft, flowing fur that covered its entire, rotund body, respectively.

A refinished desk split the room down its center. On Lenith’s side, dusty books framed an empty seat, stacked high and imposing.

On the other, the old Advocate lurched in an elaborate, winged chair behind heaps of slates and papers.

The Advocate latched onto a bolted platform on the desk for support as he stood. He ambled around with an extended hand, laborious and weak.

Lenith flinched as his desiccating palm cupped her shoulder and brought her down into the seat. A mount attached to the edge of the desk held a display facing away from where Lenith sat. The name Seid had been inscribed in white on the back. Unlike the greeter’s removable name plaque, this one was permanent.

“It is good to meet you, Lenith Thaymen,” he said dryly. “You may call me Seid.”

He was a brittle man, Seid the Advocate. Nothing more than jagged bones under flaccid, pasty skin splotched brown with age. Sunken, black eyes drifted away from Lenith and to the green platform on the desk. He returned to his chair and splayed his hands over the platform’s felt top, as if gaining the strength to speak.

“Lenith Thaymen, daughter of Herielt and Retna,” Seid said. “Many Graymen have sat where you are, wanting things to be different, to change Korvilene as they see it. Do you consider yourself a Graymen?”

“Not at all.”

“Not at all? Apologies are in order then. Thaymen harkens back to a relatively ancient time, before the war was truly settled—a time when ‘Thaymen’ and ‘the Graymen’ were muttered by every other man or woman who were brought to me in singsong rhyme. I expected the same of his daughter. Strange.

“Any matter, you are here to ask questions and be guided along on your first anxious steps away from your familial history. Don’t trouble yourself with infinitesimal queries. Trouble me, your lowly Advocate, instead.”

Seid swiveled in his rickety throne, giving Lenith no time to respond. He took an indulgent swig from a glass mug, decorated with flowers. His varicose hand quaked less as the cup emptied.

“I don’t have any questions.”

Seid floundered his hand with a dissatisfied scoff. His uncut, yellow nails were splintered at the ends. Lenith wanted to chop right through them and set them on fire upon his desk. The whole room was kindling. It would burn well.

“A girl without questions is a corpse. You have questions, Thaymen. You feel as though they shouldn’t be spoken with someone so deathly,” Seid said. “I will wait.”

The longer she remained silent, the more grating her new guide became. He clicked his tongue at random moments. His dead man’s eyes stared at her as though she did something unspeakable to him. After the silence reached five minutes, he smiled with stained, yellow teeth. 

A whistle escaped through the void where two of those teeth had once been. He wet his lips by drinking more and more. The mug’s inscription was always turned away from Lenith.

“No one has questions the first visit. They are all too embarrassed to ask. Let these words settle in your bones then, Thaymen, that the worst invention created was embarrassment.”

“I thought it might’ve been scatter-bombs,” Lenith mumbled. “All right, fine. Where’s Charity? What do I need to do to survive?”

“You’ll be able to apply for work at the end of your monitoring phase, which is seven days shy of a regular cycle. Every store has the ability to hire you after that thirty-four day period. You can come here for assistance or the Placement Assistance Ward on Marking Street, too.

“The Charity assigned to you is on Behn Volier. You’ll be given a stipend to help with minor meals and such you might require outside of Charity. The allotment can fluctuate depending on the behavior of those on Charity, though this is rare. Your personal communicator will assist in finding the way to Behn Volier once it is delivered.  For now, ask a Noctam. Wasn’t that simple? Questions are not so bad.”

A support bar dug into Lenith’s back. The discomfort proved better than the sudden burning odor that drifted from somewhere in the congested room. 

“A quarter of the newcomers that are filed into Advocate offices are groomed here, in this room—by me,” Seid said, “Every last one of them leaves with a sense of enlightenment.”

“And what if I don’t?” Lenith asked.

“You will. Maybe not today, though. It’ll be whenever you discuss your personal life. The next time after that, you’ll talk for an hour about life, trials, and how helpful it is to have an Advocate to speak with.”

“What makes you think I’d tell you about personal things when you’ll run down the hall and tell all your Chimayri friends what unpleasant memories I’m latched onto?” Lenith asked.

“Friends? Yes, that’s something a Graychild might call them. Because I work for them, I must be poison. Let me clue you to something. Everyone in Sudbina does what they must to survive. Everyone in all of Korvilene does what they must. The denizens do what they must. The Chimayri do what they must. Nothing more. The man that brought you here, for instance. Marlic. A normal boy with ostentatious dreams of becoming an actor. His aspirations changed with the whims of wars and governments. He did what he chose to do in order to survive. It is adaptation. Do you understand?”

“Is that why Fopaz killed my dad?” Lenith asked, “In order to survive? Because, last time I checked, Beliander’s Disease had him two steps away from being adrift at sea.”

Seid plucked a pen from the mess and turned his back to Lenith. He hunched over a smaller desk hidden by his chair. The nib scritched along paper.

She had given in; shown her distain too soon. Her nails dug against her legs.

Papers littered the dark, small tabletop as odd decor. Some were blank while others looked as though they held no room for another word.

When Seid’s scratching ended, the Advocate spun around and held a new paper out for Lenith to see. It was not paper at all, yet a thin paper-like screen. It showed a form with her name at the top. Handwritten lines read ‘Father, important, Beliander’s. Bitter (Fopaz?).’

Lenith’s lips thinned.

Ξ

The freshly annoyed Lenith Thaymen knew Marlic was smiling behind the helmet. He emerged from the waiting alcove, cloak billowing behind him, with a posture that made his demeanor all too readable.

Seid tagged along in a short pace that looked more like a shuffle. He set his hand upon Marlic’s arm with tenderness that Lenith thought was impossible.

“It’s been too long,” Seid said.

Marlic laughed. His arms were trapped at their sides. “I’m not so sure about that. I’ll never miss you dissecting my mind.”

“It would be unwise of you to blame a dying man.”

“It’d be worse to fall for that old shit,” Marlic said and his faceplate turned to Lenith. “This deceitful man’s told me he’s dying since the first time I met him. A man that takes thirteen years to die isn’t dying at all. It worked the first time and never again.”

Seid drummed his brittle fingers on the Dehkie Poralaget’s faceplate and squinted. “It’s a lie that becomes truer every day.”