David's head hurt. He'd had a headache all day. He blamed it on the lump that was on his forehead, acquired during last night's attempt at a skrying. The papers in front of him didn't help at all. He stared at them, shifted them around on the table. One piece of hemp-paper was a solid column of names and numbers. It was pretty clearly a page from a ledger, with debits and credits showing in different-colored ink. Only one page, though, and the names on the page did not have anything in common with the names on the other pages he had in front of him. Another was a single page from someone's diary, describing a purely mundane day in the life of a purely mundane person.
When he started working in the room, he tried to make eye contact with Inessa, but had quickly given up on that. There was something about her intent stare, the way she didn't blink enough, that made him look at her chin whenever he spoke to her. David turned and looked at Inessa's chin. "If you'd tell me more about what you're looking for, I'd be better able to help you."
"It's not that I'm holding something back, David. I do not know any more than you do about your task. The information you refine must be untainted by expectation, unshaded by perception. The people to whom I report know little more than I do, and I don't ask. Information can only flow one way here, and doing that is very challenging. Trust me, we've learned our lessons the hard way when it comes to ensuring a single direction."
Next
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Metapost: Delays
Sorry about the delays, folks. I had a combination of writer's block, laziness, and lack of time. Back on track again, and should be back in the 2-per-week schedule that I'd like to be in.
Pretty: Latent
After his shift was over, David returned to his quarters. They were sparse, but comfortable enough. Even now, he was not really certain about his status. He wasn't precisely a prisoner, but neither was he free to leave. "Guest" was how Inessa put it. She was his guide and keeper; the only person in the whole compound who would actually speak with him. Others might speak at David, "go here", "sit", "eat this", but only Inessa made any responses to him. He would have broken down long ago if it weren't for her.
Since arriving here, David had started speaking to himself, the walls, his bed. "I thought I'd be important here", he said. "They told me I was special, that I had a gift that could be trained. But all they do is make me stare at nonsense words on a page all day. Where are my prizes? Where is the reward and prestige that should be my due?" He sighed.
David went to his sink and stopped it up with a plug. He let the water run until it was half-full. This was something new he was just starting to learn how to harness. He stared at the water, bringing his head down until it was even with the lip of the sink. He could see reflections in the water, tiny ripples. He held his breath.
Every word spoken in Londinium vibrated the city just slightly. Every footstep, every door opening and closing. Those vibrations went everywhere, from the tops of the towers down to the geothermal power plants and farms below the city. They even went out and contributed to the ocean's waves, ever so slightly. Anybody could look at a pool of water and watch it tremble. It took an Infomancer to extract meaning from the pool. David was not an Infomancer. Not yet, at least.
David focused his awareness through a series of mental exercises Inessa taught him. She didn't have the gift, but she knew enough about it to help him learn to use his gift. His perception shifted. He no longer saw the vibration in the water as just water, but as a cacophony of sound and a kaleidoscope of colors. His head felt like it would split open, from the pain and overload of the sensation.
He found himself lying on the floor of his quarters, with a bump forming on his forehead. He must have blacked out. The thump would, no doubt, contribute to the trembling of all the other pools in all of the city. David stood again, stared at his sink. This time, nothing happened. Still, he was encouraged that he was able to pull something out of the water the first time. Sooner or later, he'd get it.
Next
Since arriving here, David had started speaking to himself, the walls, his bed. "I thought I'd be important here", he said. "They told me I was special, that I had a gift that could be trained. But all they do is make me stare at nonsense words on a page all day. Where are my prizes? Where is the reward and prestige that should be my due?" He sighed.
David went to his sink and stopped it up with a plug. He let the water run until it was half-full. This was something new he was just starting to learn how to harness. He stared at the water, bringing his head down until it was even with the lip of the sink. He could see reflections in the water, tiny ripples. He held his breath.
Every word spoken in Londinium vibrated the city just slightly. Every footstep, every door opening and closing. Those vibrations went everywhere, from the tops of the towers down to the geothermal power plants and farms below the city. They even went out and contributed to the ocean's waves, ever so slightly. Anybody could look at a pool of water and watch it tremble. It took an Infomancer to extract meaning from the pool. David was not an Infomancer. Not yet, at least.
David focused his awareness through a series of mental exercises Inessa taught him. She didn't have the gift, but she knew enough about it to help him learn to use his gift. His perception shifted. He no longer saw the vibration in the water as just water, but as a cacophony of sound and a kaleidoscope of colors. His head felt like it would split open, from the pain and overload of the sensation.
He found himself lying on the floor of his quarters, with a bump forming on his forehead. He must have blacked out. The thump would, no doubt, contribute to the trembling of all the other pools in all of the city. David stood again, stared at his sink. This time, nothing happened. Still, he was encouraged that he was able to pull something out of the water the first time. Sooner or later, he'd get it.
Next
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Pretty: Prophet
(The beginning of Chapter Two: David's Song)
The old man was mumbling again. Every time that happened, a much younger man would signal the room by raising his hand in the air. The noise in the room fell off to near silence, only the slight hiss of the gaslights that lit the windowless space. David waited for the young man to lower his hand. He had learned when to keep quiet. As he waited, he glanced around the room.
The room was spacious, housing about twenty people, all seated at round tables in pairs and trios. David was seated in front of a stack of papers, each of which was covered with a morass of numbers and letters, some neat, some scribbled, some written in what seemed to be direct confrontation with the natural order of linear ordering of words on the page. It was his job to make some sense of the pages, although he was not to write anything down. Everything he learned was simply spoken aloud. His watchdog, a young woman named Inessa, would listen to what he said and later do something with it. It wasn't David's job to know or ask what Inessa did with the information he extracted, he had learned not to ask.
The old man stopped his mumbling. David turned back to the paper when Inessa put her hand on his arm. Startled at this touch, he looked at her.
"Good news, David. The detective Lucy hired did the smart thing. He or she broke contact when he found out we were involved. We'll keep an eye on Lucy, of course, but it looks like she's resigned to waiting for your safe return." Inessa's cold blue eyes, nearly emotionless, were a stark contrast to the warmth of her voice. Did she really care about Lucy and David? David wasn't sure, but needed to hope that this all still might end well.
Next
The old man was mumbling again. Every time that happened, a much younger man would signal the room by raising his hand in the air. The noise in the room fell off to near silence, only the slight hiss of the gaslights that lit the windowless space. David waited for the young man to lower his hand. He had learned when to keep quiet. As he waited, he glanced around the room.
The room was spacious, housing about twenty people, all seated at round tables in pairs and trios. David was seated in front of a stack of papers, each of which was covered with a morass of numbers and letters, some neat, some scribbled, some written in what seemed to be direct confrontation with the natural order of linear ordering of words on the page. It was his job to make some sense of the pages, although he was not to write anything down. Everything he learned was simply spoken aloud. His watchdog, a young woman named Inessa, would listen to what he said and later do something with it. It wasn't David's job to know or ask what Inessa did with the information he extracted, he had learned not to ask.
The old man stopped his mumbling. David turned back to the paper when Inessa put her hand on his arm. Startled at this touch, he looked at her.
"Good news, David. The detective Lucy hired did the smart thing. He or she broke contact when he found out we were involved. We'll keep an eye on Lucy, of course, but it looks like she's resigned to waiting for your safe return." Inessa's cold blue eyes, nearly emotionless, were a stark contrast to the warmth of her voice. Did she really care about Lucy and David? David wasn't sure, but needed to hope that this all still might end well.
Next
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Metapost: Londinium
First of all, new post is here, don't miss it just because this metapost sat on top of it. But second of all....
Okay, so I feel a little weak naming the city where the action occurs "Londinium". I had some issues with the name, as I have issues with all names. The fundamental image I was trying to convey is: It's a Major City, It's different from Cities we know, It's largely western european but with other influences (Konichiwa, Mitsunori-san). Any other suggestions? I've got a chapter-thingy that I'm planning on centering in Shanghai (or the like), also.
Okay, so I feel a little weak naming the city where the action occurs "Londinium". I had some issues with the name, as I have issues with all names. The fundamental image I was trying to convey is: It's a Major City, It's different from Cities we know, It's largely western european but with other influences (Konichiwa, Mitsunori-san). Any other suggestions? I've got a chapter-thingy that I'm planning on centering in Shanghai (or the like), also.
Pretty: Interlude
Interlude: Watching the Watchers
The tower was truly out of place in a modern world; it looked as if it had been constructed by peasants in some long-gone era. The stonework was rough, but solid, and there were slits in the walls starting at twenty feet above the ground, spiralling up the tower until it reached its apex at two hundred feet in height. The very top of the tower sported defensive crenelations, but they were probably for show, what kind of military action against an invading army would require cover at that height?
Regardless of the seeming anachronism, or perhaps in deference to it, the tower top also housed the makings for a giant bonfire. There was a wooden roof that was designed to both protect the fire logs from the weather and go up in flames as well, should the watchers decide that the lighting of the fire was necessary. There was a guard with a torch lit at all times, he could throw the torch onto the pile and have it blaze up in a matter of moments. What would come next was a mystery, because in the fifty years of the tower's existence, the bonfire had never been lit. There had never even been a readiness drill.
Of all the watchers, Jake Chen was the only one who really enjoyed Torch Duty. Of all the watchers, Jake Chen was probably the only one who took his job seriously. Every day, he would bundle up against the vicious cold that blanketed the land and walk out to the top of the tower. From his vantage point, he could see the warm, pulsing metropolis of Londinium to the south, the blocklike, windowless aboveground structures built after the Cold, and the old-fashioned buildings (some of which even had glass windows!) dating from before. East and west of Londinium were the suburban towers that housed nearly all the human population left in this region of the world. They huddled together just like sheep in a storm, using each others' waste heat to keep themselves alive. To the north, Jake saw only ocean, frozen and otherwise.
Jake could spend hours staring out at the world, sometimes his mind would soar over the ocean waves to the north, as if he had taken the body of a falcon instead of his own flesh, which was leaden with cold. Over the waves his mind would fly, as the torch in his hand slowly burned down, marking the time of his shift on top of the tower. As the torch began to gutter out, he would walk back to the trap door which allowed access back down into the tower. Another watcher would be waiting there, but he would not actually do much watching. He'd stay up near the top of the tower, but inside. He might glance out the functionally useless arrowslits that lined the staircase, but he'd never, ever go to the very top. The wind and the cold saw to that.
Perhaps if there had been more like Jake, the watch would have been kept. But then again, not even Jake knew why the watch was kept, not any more. For the watchers, it was just a job. Stand near the top of the tower, torch in hand. Every week, lug up a new batch of wood to construct a potential pyre. Never actually light the pyre. None really remembered the reason why the tower had been build, a mere four and fifty years ago. None of the watchers even recalled their full name, the Watchers against Nightfall. None remembered the great failure that led to the Cold. Memory in these days, history, was dusty and forgotten. These young men (always young men, never married) watched, but through a profound failure to remember, they forgot why they were watching, and for what.
Next
The tower was truly out of place in a modern world; it looked as if it had been constructed by peasants in some long-gone era. The stonework was rough, but solid, and there were slits in the walls starting at twenty feet above the ground, spiralling up the tower until it reached its apex at two hundred feet in height. The very top of the tower sported defensive crenelations, but they were probably for show, what kind of military action against an invading army would require cover at that height?
Regardless of the seeming anachronism, or perhaps in deference to it, the tower top also housed the makings for a giant bonfire. There was a wooden roof that was designed to both protect the fire logs from the weather and go up in flames as well, should the watchers decide that the lighting of the fire was necessary. There was a guard with a torch lit at all times, he could throw the torch onto the pile and have it blaze up in a matter of moments. What would come next was a mystery, because in the fifty years of the tower's existence, the bonfire had never been lit. There had never even been a readiness drill.
Of all the watchers, Jake Chen was the only one who really enjoyed Torch Duty. Of all the watchers, Jake Chen was probably the only one who took his job seriously. Every day, he would bundle up against the vicious cold that blanketed the land and walk out to the top of the tower. From his vantage point, he could see the warm, pulsing metropolis of Londinium to the south, the blocklike, windowless aboveground structures built after the Cold, and the old-fashioned buildings (some of which even had glass windows!) dating from before. East and west of Londinium were the suburban towers that housed nearly all the human population left in this region of the world. They huddled together just like sheep in a storm, using each others' waste heat to keep themselves alive. To the north, Jake saw only ocean, frozen and otherwise.
Jake could spend hours staring out at the world, sometimes his mind would soar over the ocean waves to the north, as if he had taken the body of a falcon instead of his own flesh, which was leaden with cold. Over the waves his mind would fly, as the torch in his hand slowly burned down, marking the time of his shift on top of the tower. As the torch began to gutter out, he would walk back to the trap door which allowed access back down into the tower. Another watcher would be waiting there, but he would not actually do much watching. He'd stay up near the top of the tower, but inside. He might glance out the functionally useless arrowslits that lined the staircase, but he'd never, ever go to the very top. The wind and the cold saw to that.
Perhaps if there had been more like Jake, the watch would have been kept. But then again, not even Jake knew why the watch was kept, not any more. For the watchers, it was just a job. Stand near the top of the tower, torch in hand. Every week, lug up a new batch of wood to construct a potential pyre. Never actually light the pyre. None really remembered the reason why the tower had been build, a mere four and fifty years ago. None of the watchers even recalled their full name, the Watchers against Nightfall. None remembered the great failure that led to the Cold. Memory in these days, history, was dusty and forgotten. These young men (always young men, never married) watched, but through a profound failure to remember, they forgot why they were watching, and for what.
Next
Friday, October 20, 2006
Pretty: Link
How many drinks had he had so far? Jack looked at the bottle: it was half-empty. Did he remember opening a fresh one when he came back from visiting Mitsunori? He wasn't sure, but that very level of uncertainty meant that he was certainly doing the right thing with his drinking. He poured another.
Jack looked around the room that served as his office, and frequently his flop. Not very spacious, but big enough to house his desk, a few wooden chairs, and a sofa off to the side of the room where he spent the night more often than not. He got back to his real apartment once in a while, when he really needed a shower, for example. He wasn't a bum, no sir. He might have a thing for the bottle, and perhaps rambling on now and again, but he kept himself clean. Mostly.
Sitting on the sofa was the package he had received this morning, or whatever time it was when he woke up. Still empty, still mysterious, still information-free. Jack poured himself another drink and got the old neurons good and lubricated. Given his line of work, and considering his past, a mysterious empty box shouldn't be just ignored. He cogitated. Then he thought. Then he drank a little, followed by some rumination. He had gone through the mulling phase and was in a full-on contemplate when his skittering thoughts hit on something Mitsunori had said earlier. He was being pulled in to a big, information-dense case. Someone had made contact, but he couldn't tell who or how. The box must have been the contact. He had a drink to celebrate that little breakthrough.
If someone were going to contact Jack in such a way, it would be to bypass Infomancer snooping. The package itself was very information-neutral. It had little inherent meaning or content, especially to a third party. There would be no hidden compartment or invisible ink, that kind of dodge wouldn't fool the little birds. No, this would be a straight up empty box, whose only purpose in life was to get Jack thinking and drinking enough to cast his memory back to the whole reason why he had started drinking in the first place. The reason he was in this dump, living a half-baked, half-boiled, and wholly empty life.
His scotch bottle was empty, but that was okay with him. He didn't feel like drinking anymore. He laid down on the sofa, uttered a single word and drifted off into an oblivion he was thankful for.
"Leah"
(the end of chapter one: introductions and excitement)
Next
Jack looked around the room that served as his office, and frequently his flop. Not very spacious, but big enough to house his desk, a few wooden chairs, and a sofa off to the side of the room where he spent the night more often than not. He got back to his real apartment once in a while, when he really needed a shower, for example. He wasn't a bum, no sir. He might have a thing for the bottle, and perhaps rambling on now and again, but he kept himself clean. Mostly.
Sitting on the sofa was the package he had received this morning, or whatever time it was when he woke up. Still empty, still mysterious, still information-free. Jack poured himself another drink and got the old neurons good and lubricated. Given his line of work, and considering his past, a mysterious empty box shouldn't be just ignored. He cogitated. Then he thought. Then he drank a little, followed by some rumination. He had gone through the mulling phase and was in a full-on contemplate when his skittering thoughts hit on something Mitsunori had said earlier. He was being pulled in to a big, information-dense case. Someone had made contact, but he couldn't tell who or how. The box must have been the contact. He had a drink to celebrate that little breakthrough.
If someone were going to contact Jack in such a way, it would be to bypass Infomancer snooping. The package itself was very information-neutral. It had little inherent meaning or content, especially to a third party. There would be no hidden compartment or invisible ink, that kind of dodge wouldn't fool the little birds. No, this would be a straight up empty box, whose only purpose in life was to get Jack thinking and drinking enough to cast his memory back to the whole reason why he had started drinking in the first place. The reason he was in this dump, living a half-baked, half-boiled, and wholly empty life.
His scotch bottle was empty, but that was okay with him. He didn't feel like drinking anymore. He laid down on the sofa, uttered a single word and drifted off into an oblivion he was thankful for.
"Leah"
(the end of chapter one: introductions and excitement)
Next
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Pretty: Cogitating
Back in his office, Jack poured himself a glass of scotch. Today was a good day; he wasn't drinking it straight from the bottle. He swirled it around and stared at it, deep in thought.
Item: People have not had any real privacy for at least fifty years. There aren't all that many Infomancers, but there are enough and the Infomancers can use their their ripple pools and their little rainclouds to figure out who is doing what to whom anywhere in Londinium or on the planet for that matter, if they put their minds to it.
Jack took another drink from his glass.
Item: For the most part, the Infomancers don't care who is doing what to whom. They could care less about assignations and assassinations, unless either (a) it interfered with their business, or (b) there was some money or personal gain in it for them somehow.
Corollary: If you have enough juice, either money or political power, or preferably both, you can make sure that if you're the "whom" in that above situation, you can make sure an Infomancer will keep track of who is doing what to you.
Item: Jack's clients sometimes ran afoul of people of the above type. In either the white market or the black, capitalists were capitalists, and were ruthless whether they dealt in natural gas or drugs. Both had money and power to burn, and if they had had scruples in the first place, they wouldn't have gotten either money or power.
Slurp.
Issue: It was likely that David Eddington was involved with people who were of that type. He was a fairly high-level cog in a very important financial institution, and was last seen in the company of a high-level cog in a very important criminal institution. Both stripes of suit were going to be watching after not just David Eddington, but looking for people asking questions about David Eddington.
Solution: By forcefully completely severing his ties with Lucy Eddington, returning her payment, and leaving her dissolved in tears, Jack had likely removed himself from David Eddington's informational halo. Jack was no longer a who doing any sort of what to anyone associated with David's whom. Mitsunori had confirmed that he was outside of David's halo.
Item: Jack was now somewhat free to make discreet inquiries into the whereabouts of David Eddington without the little ripples of information he generated in his wake entering into to the pools of any Infomancers keeping an eye on David. Unless Jack actually contacted David or Lucy, and unless the snoops were actually focusing their attention on Jack and his bottle of Scotch (gulp), Jack probably wouldn't show up in David's halo for some time.
Question: Should Jack try and find out what had happened to David, or play it safe and stay away?
Jack poured himself another drink.
Next
Item: People have not had any real privacy for at least fifty years. There aren't all that many Infomancers, but there are enough and the Infomancers can use their their ripple pools and their little rainclouds to figure out who is doing what to whom anywhere in Londinium or on the planet for that matter, if they put their minds to it.
Jack took another drink from his glass.
Item: For the most part, the Infomancers don't care who is doing what to whom. They could care less about assignations and assassinations, unless either (a) it interfered with their business, or (b) there was some money or personal gain in it for them somehow.
Corollary: If you have enough juice, either money or political power, or preferably both, you can make sure that if you're the "whom" in that above situation, you can make sure an Infomancer will keep track of who is doing what to you.
Item: Jack's clients sometimes ran afoul of people of the above type. In either the white market or the black, capitalists were capitalists, and were ruthless whether they dealt in natural gas or drugs. Both had money and power to burn, and if they had had scruples in the first place, they wouldn't have gotten either money or power.
Slurp.
Issue: It was likely that David Eddington was involved with people who were of that type. He was a fairly high-level cog in a very important financial institution, and was last seen in the company of a high-level cog in a very important criminal institution. Both stripes of suit were going to be watching after not just David Eddington, but looking for people asking questions about David Eddington.
Solution: By forcefully completely severing his ties with Lucy Eddington, returning her payment, and leaving her dissolved in tears, Jack had likely removed himself from David Eddington's informational halo. Jack was no longer a who doing any sort of what to anyone associated with David's whom. Mitsunori had confirmed that he was outside of David's halo.
Item: Jack was now somewhat free to make discreet inquiries into the whereabouts of David Eddington without the little ripples of information he generated in his wake entering into to the pools of any Infomancers keeping an eye on David. Unless Jack actually contacted David or Lucy, and unless the snoops were actually focusing their attention on Jack and his bottle of Scotch (gulp), Jack probably wouldn't show up in David's halo for some time.
Question: Should Jack try and find out what had happened to David, or play it safe and stay away?
Jack poured himself another drink.
Next
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Pretty: Expected
"I said, whaddya want? What're you doin' there, walkin' around lookin' like that? You're askin' for trouble, aren't ya?" The tattooed man grabbed her upper arm. Leah could make out his scent, cigarettes mainly, but with the sour, sweaty undercurrent that comes from too many hours in the same clothes with no bathing. The other man spoke as he moved behind her, she was surrounded.
"You look cold, girl. Why don't you come in with us? We can warm you up. We can warm you up good."
Tattoo reached up to touch her face, brush her hair back from her cheek. "Yeah, we can take care of you, pretty girl."
The touch of the tattooed arm on her face shocked Leah into clarity. These men were real, this was not a dream, and she was in grave danger. She looked at the tattoo. Munin. This man had a tattoo of Munin on his arm. Had she seen that before, somewhere?
What followed afterward was entirely unexpected for Ryan. He would remember the pain for the rest of his life, both minutes of it. They found One-Pill later, still sitting dumbly in the slowly freezing pool of Ryan's blood. The blood on One-Pill's hands and the drugs in his pockets were enough for the police to convince themselves that he had maybe taken some really potent bad mojo and gone apeshit enough to tear Ryan apart the way he did. One-Pill was never able to coherently talk about what had happened, or what he had done to the rest of Ryan's body, the parts they didn't find, but then again, he was a mojo addict.
Next
"You look cold, girl. Why don't you come in with us? We can warm you up. We can warm you up good."
Tattoo reached up to touch her face, brush her hair back from her cheek. "Yeah, we can take care of you, pretty girl."
The touch of the tattooed arm on her face shocked Leah into clarity. These men were real, this was not a dream, and she was in grave danger. She looked at the tattoo. Munin. This man had a tattoo of Munin on his arm. Had she seen that before, somewhere?
What followed afterward was entirely unexpected for Ryan. He would remember the pain for the rest of his life, both minutes of it. They found One-Pill later, still sitting dumbly in the slowly freezing pool of Ryan's blood. The blood on One-Pill's hands and the drugs in his pockets were enough for the police to convince themselves that he had maybe taken some really potent bad mojo and gone apeshit enough to tear Ryan apart the way he did. One-Pill was never able to coherently talk about what had happened, or what he had done to the rest of Ryan's body, the parts they didn't find, but then again, he was a mojo addict.
Next
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Pretty: Changes
All of that changed one morning in his nineteenth year, when Ryan woke up with a tattoo on his arm. This wasn't some late-night drunken tattoo that he had hazy memories of getting, no way. No tattoo artist with an ounce of self-preservation would even think about inking someone with the tattoo Ryan had. Back in the day, before people knew what the Followers were about, people might have done it. But some serious shit went down, and now nobody would think of faking one of those tattoos. Wouldn't matter no-how if they did, anyway, since the higher-ups could always spot a fake, and then you'd be in pretty bad trouble. Couple of old guys with no arms still floating around the blocks to remind people about that.
Ryan had been marked with the sign of Munin, and that meant that he was, for some reason, about to begin his rise within the Followers of Memory, or as they called themselves secretly, Muninites. He gained some responsibility, and was still learning the ropes of being a lieutenant in the organization instead of a grunt when his life was changed again by a chance encounter with a pretty girl. He had been hassling a dealer, One-Pill, that the higher-ups thought might be running a side scam with the clients. This kind of thing needed real finesse, you couldn't just go and break One-Pill's face, you had to find out what he was doing and with who. Trace it back, and it'd sure be the Chasers. But whatever, One-Pill might be Ryan's track to his first real trophy, a Chaser with his guard down.
A chick like that shows up, smokin' hot, in her pajamas and barefoot, smelling clean and clearly in an altered mental state, that just blew a hole in the way Ryan had learned to think. Suddenly he was fourteen again, a project reject, never gonna get a girl the right way, the soft way, only the strong wrong way. He made a grab for Leah.
Next
Ryan had been marked with the sign of Munin, and that meant that he was, for some reason, about to begin his rise within the Followers of Memory, or as they called themselves secretly, Muninites. He gained some responsibility, and was still learning the ropes of being a lieutenant in the organization instead of a grunt when his life was changed again by a chance encounter with a pretty girl. He had been hassling a dealer, One-Pill, that the higher-ups thought might be running a side scam with the clients. This kind of thing needed real finesse, you couldn't just go and break One-Pill's face, you had to find out what he was doing and with who. Trace it back, and it'd sure be the Chasers. But whatever, One-Pill might be Ryan's track to his first real trophy, a Chaser with his guard down.
A chick like that shows up, smokin' hot, in her pajamas and barefoot, smelling clean and clearly in an altered mental state, that just blew a hole in the way Ryan had learned to think. Suddenly he was fourteen again, a project reject, never gonna get a girl the right way, the soft way, only the strong wrong way. He made a grab for Leah.
Next
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