SALTAROS: Shadows and Light

[zzambrosius_02]

CHAPTER FIVE: Chiefly About Food and Drink


Ambros walked along the berm next to the south branch of the ‘Amazon Canal’, which in reality was a ditch. Amazon Creek had its headwaters in the southeast hills of Eugene; before the City dug the ditch, the Creek had passed through the south central part of town, resulting in flooding every winter.

“The Amazon Canal diverts water from Amazon Creek to Fern Ridge Reservoir, out near the Country Fair site.” He contemplated the geography; he nodded, continuing to speak aloud: “I guess it’s more accurate to say that the Fair is out near the Reservoir.” The ‘absolute location’ power that he had gained with his first RNA treatment in the Commonwealth kicked in, and he could see a three-d map of the area.

He held that image in his mind, and continued along the raised berm, seeking the best spot for his camp.



He wore wool cargo pants in green camo, and a heavy camouflage tunic of Commonwealth make, also wool. The tunic he’d belted below the waist with a reddish brown belt of stout leather. A knife hung from one side, and a machete from the other. He wore a watch cap in Sacred Band colors and Wellington boots.

He came upon a spot where the berm spread out a little wider and sat a little higher. He knew exactly how far he was from Camp Arlen, and from the three smaller homeless encampments along the west edge of the swamp. “This is pretty good,” he said aloud: “And I’m still quite a ways from Borderboro, too.”

He shed his backpack and got to work. First he got out pruners and put on a pair of heavy gloves. He tugged and pulled at blackberry canes, flipping them to one side or the other. Occasionally he pruned some to ground level, until he had a narrow track leading about halfway across the wide spot.

He knelt and drew his APS from his pocket. He set it at minimum power, held it at ground level, extended it to about four and a half feet, and turned it in a circle around his chosen spot.

All of the weeds, berry canes, and small trees in a ten foot circle withered and fell, He kept tracing the circle, raising the power a little with each pass, until he had a rock-hard, baked clay surface: “Nothing gonna grow there for a while,” he muttered. He hid the track from the edge of the berm to his site by replacing the berry canes, and then set up the little Army surplus tent he’d scrounged; it just fit into the space he’d cleared He put the pack inside, in case of rain.

Using his pruners, he carved a track through the more-than-head-high blackberries to the old road that paralleled the berm. He began his path at a forty-five degree angle left from the tent site; about halfway through, he turned the trail ninety degrees right, and then just shy of the road he went ninety left.

Where the berm sloped down to the road he left all of the knee-high grass and weeds untouched, stepping over them and into the old roadbed. He squelched across the road and turned, looking back. He walked east and west, staring hard at the bank of intertwined blackberries and scotch broom: “Nobody will ever know I’m there, except from the air...eventually I can hide that camp from the air, too, if I make a roof of new vines over the site. In the springtime...if the swamp is still inhabited by then, that is.”

He slopped along the low-lying road, mud above his ankles: ‘If it weren’t for the berms on all sides of this fifty-acre rectangle,’ he thought, ‘the whole area would drain a lot better. Of course, the extra water going onto the ditch would flood to the north, then, and Seventh Avenue would be way wetter. That whole row of businesses along the south side of Fifth would be fighting damp rot and standing water all winter.’ He nodded: ‘So this area became a refuge for the homeless, since it’s otherwise useless. Problem is, as the economy went south thanks to Gore’s stupid war in Afghanistan, the homeless population rose sixfold. They’ve built several camps out here, some as big as villages. Now the City Council has started to see them as a nuisance...’

He wondered how it would turn out: “I guess I’ll get a clue pretty soon.”

He hiked up the shallow slope at the back of Camp Arlen. Sarge was sitting at the fire, set within a halved 55 Gallon drum that nestled in a cairn of rocks. Smoke from that fire mingled with smoke from Red’s cookfire, and the smell of beans and hamburger drifted over the camp.

“Hey, Ambros. Where ya been?” Sarge looked happy to see him.

“Here and there,” Ambros replied. “I got a full schedule.”

“Well, I’m glad to see ya. You and me was gonna talk about what to do if the cops decide to roust us again.”

“Ah,” said Ambros: “You said ‘We oughta talk about that’, but I wasn’t sure if I was part of the ‘we’.”

“Ah. I did mean you. Also a half dozen of my people...the people who live here, I mean.”

“I understand. Tell me, Terry: how do y’all feel about the threat of eviction? Unhappy about that idea?”

“To say the least. Y’know, Miss Joanna, she’s got these ideas about starting to grow some of our own food, digging deeper streams through the swamp and using the dirt to build islands to garden on. Mark, when he’s sober, has been helping her lay out all these spots where we could do that, and talking to the men who don’t have any outside work about starting in on the project. Mikey found a piece of sewer pipe, ten inch stuff, that’s long enough to cross the berm and he wants to try to sink it in and drain part of the area...Lotta stuff like that goin’ on. We’re gettin’ settled in, right?”

Ambros nodded: “If you get run out of here, where you gonna go?”

“Yeah, that’s the other thing, right? Some of these folks came here with jobs in the neighborhood, and a lot of the others have found part time work hereabouts since we got set up. East of here is where most of us got run out before; no sense tryin’ to set up over by the river or under the freeway bridges again. Besides...”

“Go on,” Ambros urged.

“Well...see, over by the river is kinda complex. There’s only one large flat dry spot along the south side of the Willamette: that’s under the I-5 bridge on the border of Glenwood.”

Ambros contemplated geography again, and then said: “I see what you mean. You’d wind up spread out in little family groups, or individually, all along the riverbanks, hidden in blackberry brakes. You’d have no real chance for this sort of community.” He gestured at their surroundings.

People began to gather in the dining tent, getting their kids as close to the fire as possible. Ambros and Arlen scooted back to let some kindergarten-age girls warm themselves. One toddler climbed onto Arlen’s lap and kissed his cheek.

Arlen glanced at the kids, then lowered his voice: “It was worse than that,” he murmured.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. For a while there, one of us homeless folks wound up floating in the river, every month: like clockwork. That’s why we got all together in the first place, over near Glenwood...”

Ambros lowered his brows: “I hadn’t heard about that. You think somebody was killing you off: a serial killer?”

“Kinda what I thought. Couldn’t get any satisfaction outta the police. They’d just shrug.”

Ambros nodded: “So, for multiple reasons, the east side of town is out; it’s west or north...”

“Not good, either way.” Sarge waved vaguely: “Swamps further northwest, over by where they wanna build a highway to Veneta, but that would be a tough commute for the parents, and we got orphans in this camp, cause of the deaths. All the kids would have to change schools....”

“That’d suck.”

“You bet it would. If they changed schools, the authorities would find out they’s orphans, and take them into care, probably. The foster care system in this state is the pits, man, worse than livin’ on the streets. Especially for girls...”

Ambros snarled, getting Arlen’s point immediately.

Arlen continued: “What it comes down to is, we don’t wanna move, and there’s a lot of sentiment in favor of fighting if we have to, so we can stay here.”

Mark sat down next to Ambros and broke in: “Problem is, the City can keep throwin’ cops at us until they drive us out. Mayor could ask for National Guard...Fighting ain’t a long-term solution, just maybe a stop-gap.”

“I hear ya,” said Ambros. “However: I know a couple really good lawyers. And I have access to some reporters who would happily take your side. Plus, I can surround this place with video cameras that will show the fight, if one happens, and the publicity might just blow up in the face of old Mayor Thomas.”

Joanna sat across the fire from them, her arms folded over her chest. She stood about six feet tall, a stout and unfailingly cheerful woman, and she ran the home-schoolers’ library, housed in one of the more waterproof tents. ‘She’s too much of a go-getter to be homeless from helplessness,’ Ambros mused. Obviously she was in Camp Arlen as an organizer of some sort: ‘I wonder if she represents some ideological group?’

She said: “So the actual resistance would not be the end in itself, but part of a strategy that included legal shenanigans, public pressure...”

Ambros smiled: “Fortifications, non-lethal weapons, fall-back routes and positions, bugout routes...

Sarge interrupted: “...and rifles and shotguns for the final defense of our town.”

Mark grinned manically: “As in, ‘a well-regulated militia’...”

Sarge broke in: “Well-regulated for sure. I don’t want people carrying as an ordinary thing. We start to arm this camp, we gonna do it right. Right?”

Joanna asked: “What exactly do you have in mind?”

“All firearms locked up, in footlockers, on a pallet in my tent. That’s where mine are right now, and I want that to be the rule.” He held a hand up, palm out, placating: “I know some of the women who work night shifts carry pistols, and a few of the men, too. I intend to ignore that. But rifles and shotguns, those should be for camp defense only.”

“What about bows and arrows?” asked Joanna.

“Hadn’t thought of that...”

“We ought to,” she said: “We can buy archery equipment at thrift stores, and no one will pay it any mind. I can teach people...”

“That’s where I saw you before!” Ambros interrupted: “You were at the SCA fight practice on the tenth of November, teaching archery!”

She grinned: “I wondered when that would occur to you.”

“So you think you can make like Robin Hood, and train up a band of merry men?”

She grinned: “I expect they’d be mostly Merry Women, with a few kids. But yeah, I think we could do our part. SCA-style blunts, so we would do no real damage...”

Ambros laughed: “Yeah, wounding cops with broadhead clothyards would be bad publicity, not to mention it’d piss ’em off no end.”

He unsnapped the patch pocket on his left thigh and removed an object. It appeared to be a cube of plastic about two inches on a side, mottled in greens and browns.

He tipped and flipped it couple times, and then it began to unfold. After a while, everyone could see what it was.

“Here’s a three-d map of the whole swamp,” Ambros said, somewhat unnecessarily: “It’s made of hard plastic—“ he rapped on it, demonstrating its rigidity: “—but it has a slightly sticky surface. So we can modify it, so...”

He opened his shoulder bag and pulled out a few Lego bricks: “See, we need a barricade here, and maybe another one back here...”

“Just a sec, man,” Sarge said, putting his hand on Ambros’ shoulder. He raised his voice: “Hey, Timmy! You around here?”

The big slow fellow came out of the kitchen tent: “Whatcha want, Sarge?”

“Can you please slog over to Borderboro and ask Andy O’Malley and Sharon Kennedy to come over for a visit. Tell ’em I have a case of beer and something to show them.”

“Okay,” said Timmy, agreeable as usual.

“Why do they call it Borderboro?” Ambros asked.

“We named it Borderboro,” said Joanna.

“You don’t know about the Borderers?” Sarge seemed to be astonished.

Ambros frowned: “No...not really, not by that name.”

“Huh,” Sarge grinned: “I thought you were all about history and all.”

“Well, I am, but I also know full well that there are lots of things I don’t know. My specialty has always been Hellas, Byzantium and the Balkans. I’m only fifty-some years old, and there’s only so much reading a guy can do...suppose you enlighten me?”

“Okay...Well, it was back in medieval times...” Sarge trailed off.

“Late medieval, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,” said Joanna.

Sarge nodded: “...yeah, thereabouts. Anyhow the border wars between England and the Scots created a sort of deep, poverty-stricken no-man’s-land along the frontier between the countries. The only people who lived there were these sorta semi-nomadic Welsh, Scots and English trailer trash who made a living by stealing each other’s cattle.”

Joanna put in: “Of course it wasn’t sustainable. But the land was not fertile enough for agriculture, so...they resorted to violence and theft.”

Sarge continued: “They moved eventually, a lot of ’em, to Ireland, then to America. They have a subculture based on liquor, sex, violence and their interpretation of Calvinism. If you study their history, and the stuff they did once they got to America about 1705 or so...well, a lot American History makes a bunch more sense.”

“About a third of us here in the US have Borderers in our family trees,” said Joanna, ruefully: “Most of us have no idea what a huge influence their ideas had, and continue to have, on our politics and culture.

“When you hear Americans talk about ourselves as ‘fierce, liberty-loving, individualistic, freely religious, and willing to fight to defend our way of life’, you’re hearing echoes of their ethos,” she finished.

Mark broke in: “Hey, I resemble that remark!”

“Yeah, me, too,” said Sarge: “But until Joanna told me about this history shit I never really understood why.” He grinned: “We got a few Borderer types here in Camp Arlen.”

Ambros said: “But Borderboro...”

“To a man, woman and child,” said Joanna: “And when the cops come, they will fight. They always fight.”

“They think they’re born that way,” said Sarge: “Really they’re just trained from the cradle to distrust any government that isn’t Biblical, and to drink and fight and fuck...pardon the language,” Sarge said to Joanna.

She laughed: “I’ve heard worse.”

Sarge grumbled: “Not from me.”

“True,” she said.

It got quiet then, for a few minutes. Ambros sat there, trying to put this new information into the context of all of his previous studies: “This is gonna take some thinking...” He sighed, then grinned: “Always something new for the to-do list, eh?”

“Got that right,” Sarge muttered.

Andy and Sharon showed up then, Andy’s voice boomed, un-modulated, and Sharon’s broke into a shrill little laugh every other sentence.

Ambros smiled a wry smile, thinking about what he’d just learned.

“I got two hours here,” Ambros confided to Arlen: “Then I gotta go. I got a family gathering to attend.”

“Gotcha,” said Sarge.

Everyone got down to planning barricades and bugout routes.



Ambros dropped in to the War Room. Arrenji stood duty at one of the control panels near the landing pad. He nodded at her and then returned her salute. She began the process of handing her post off to the next person in line.

‘I wonder if I should be volunteering for duty in this room. I guess I’d have to take some RNA...to hell with that. I have enough to do. If Voukli thinks I should do a tour here, she’ll tell me. Eventually.’

He checked out at the entrance in the Main Hall, leaving his Shifter with the guard as usual.

Ambros strolled along the Street of Winds, going to meet his mentors and family for lunch. The mist covered the usual sights of the City, and threatened at any time to turn to rain. He tipped the hood of his cloak up and speeded his pace.

Kim and Luisa appeared, walking towards him holding hands. He greeted them and they all embraced. He followed them along the marble and limestone pavements, until they picked up Marie by the Culinary Guild Hall.

They strolled round about. They got into the café just in time, as the mist became rain and the wind kicked up. The name of the place was a pun on finding, founding, and keeping a tavern.

He looked around the room, happy with Skavo’s choice for their meetup. “This place looks and feels a lot like Samuel B’s back in our Line.”

“Quieter, though,” said Marie, clearly pleased by that: “And bigger...”

“There’s Voukli,” said Kim, pointing.

They walked across the spacious joint, Ambros occasionally saluting lower ranking SB folks.

Voukli had seized the use of a large table, and gestured to them to sit. “This is going to be a big happy group,” she said. She handed Ambros a data crystal: “Here’s that essay I promised you.”

He passed the chip on to Luisa: “It’s for the magazine.”

Luisa put the thing into her backpack. Arrenji arrived, followed shortly by Skavo, who towed a woman along by the hand.

Skavo said: “Folks, this is Tipisi Kefati. She’s my oldest friend; we were best friends in Primary Skolo.”

Tipisi giggled. She was short and round, with arms and legs short even for her height; clearly, a Down’s person. She blushed and sat down, at Skavo’s invitation. She sat as close to Skavo as she could get, obviously very shy.

Ambros closed his eyes as information induced by memory RNA filled his mind. ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone with a birth defect in the Commonwealth,’ he thought, cautioning himself not to use such a loaded term out loud: ‘Most heritable problems are gone, wiped out by med tech...chemically induced mutations are nearly non-existent...same for radiation...Down’s happens randomly...a woman’s choice whether to go forward...’

He smiled at Tipisi, who grinned back, widely. Skavo stroked her hand and whispered something to her. Tipisi giggled and blushed.

Marie introduced herself to Tipisi and they two began to chat. Ambros gathered that Tipisi worked full-time at the City’s combination daycare facility and old folks home. She loved babies, and talked about them incessantly.

‘Such things: daycare or old folks’ care, are not much needed in the Commonwealth. Families do most of that...But there is a small demand, so it’s just like the Commonwealth to fill it in the most efficient and kind manner imaginable.’ He could see it: People past able to care for themselves, or unable to do so yet, cared for by the few people with Down’s who needed work and Status. ‘It’s brilliant, really.’

Luisa and Voukli spoke about Rose House’s e-zine, with Voukli giving permission to use her actual name and title on the essay she’d written: “It’s an unusual form by your Line’s customs, but maybe that will help draw attention...”

Tipisi began to teach Marie a counting game; Ambros recognized it as one he’d seen before, played by little kids in the streets of Athino. Tipisi understood the game, but was not very good at the arithmetic needed to score and keep score. By this Ambros guessed her mental age at about six. ‘Six in my Home Line...’

He realized that Arrenji had her eyes on him: ‘Watching me watch the others,’ he thought. He turned his eyes to the paintings on the wall. She did the same.

The pictures nearly all showed people in Commonwealth-type clothes, in colors that he recognized as signifying various Guilds. RNA-induced memories cascaded, Identifying Guilds he hadn’t seen before and Demes that associated themselves with them.

One of the pictures, a painting, was of a woman in sumptuous robes, wearing a plain (but gigantic) golden circlet and holding orb and scepter. She had finger-thick dreadlocks with the tips formed into snake-heads, and a stern expression. There was a sword leaning against her throne.

Ambros indicated that painting with a gesture: “What’s with the Queen there? Seems out of character for the Commonwealth to celebrate a monarch.”

“Hasn’t she shown up in your History studies yet? That’s Saráyi the First, Queen of Serbia as of about YC 90. The adopted daughter of Eleni Medusa.”

He shook his head: “I’m still grinding my way through a biography of Socratos, another of The Exile, and some ancillary material about the Crusaders. I’ve done better going backwards from the present.”

Arrenji smiled, which he could see out of the corner of his eye. She said: “Some surprising stuff around the end of the first century of the Commonwealth.”

“Hmmm. Okay, I’ll look into that.”

Kim and Skavo had been drawn into the game. Luisa and Voukli conversed quietly on the other side of the table.

After a bit, Voukli took her leave, then Skavo, who took Tipisi along. Luisa moved over and talked to the other two women, while Ambros sat where he was, beside his mentor. Arrenji sat silent, impassive, as the Seventeeners chatted among themselves.

Marie moved over to sit by him, and said: “Skavo wanted to ask permission to approach you, sexually.”

“Did se?” Ambros smiled a little.

“She did,” said Kim. “She didn’t want to embarrass her friend, so she held back.”

“Ah,” he said.

“We just agreed that it’d be okay if you approached ser,” said Luisa.

He pursed his lips.

“If you feel up to it,” said Kim, shrugging.

He laughed: “I’ll keep that in mind. I have a lot of stuff on my plate as it is.”

“Yes, you do,” Arrenji said.

“What do you think, Magistri? Should I approach ser?”

Arrenji rose and saluted. As Ambros returned the salute, she said: “Magistro Skavo is a challenge for anyone. Don’t make a move until you are sure you are ready.”

She swaggered out the door, waving to the bartenders, who nodded as she passed.

Ambros said, more than a little sarcastically: “And how exactly am I supposed to know when I am ready?”

“When the spirit moves you?” Kim snickered: “She—se, I mean—se may simply overwhelm you with the power of her...ser personality.”

“I doubt it,” said Ambros.

“I agree,” said Marie: “Se is always holding back; ser intellect controls ser. Did you see how gentle se was around Tipisi? They are still best friends, as different as they are.”

“That’s a major reason that we’re giving permission,” said Kim.

“Yeah? I sorta figured that.”

“So...” Luisa began.

He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

She continued: “How much do you know about Voukli? She seems like such a nice woman, but she’s...sorta...”

He nodded: “When it comes to protecting this Timeline, or confronting the enemies of the Commonwealth or its allies, she’s a vicious badass of the first degree. One of my associates in my previous life was a retired US Marine captain. He used to say the Marines could be your best friends or your worst enemies.

“That’s Voukli.”

“Uh-huh. Glad we’re on her side, I guess.” Marie seemed amused.

“You re-thinking your permission?” Ambros was curious.

“Oh, no, no, no,” Luisa said, without any hesitation: “I was just wondering about her family and all...”

Ambros mused: “She’s mentioned a grandfather, and told a couple stories about him. He was a mentor when she was very young. She came to Athino at a fairly young age, about eleven years old, I gather. Arrenji’s household is sorta in loco familius to her.”

“All right,” said Kim: “Tell us what you know about Arrenji.”

Ambros leaned back in the chair, scratching at his beard: “She’s descended in direct line, parent to child, from a famous person: namely, Magistri Eleni Vlaportini Leontari Medusa. Her name, ‘Arrenji’, is a corruption of the name of another famous person from back then, one Arrendi Korinthini. I’m not yet sure whether there’s a blood relationship there...”

“Couldn’t be, directly,” said Kim.

“Really?” asked Marie.

Kim shrugged: “She’s famous in Thinker’s Guild, too, and we Techies interact with them a lot. She wrote a series of books that tell the story of the early Commonwealth by means of the biographies of some important people, all of whom she was intimately acquainted with. Anyway, Magistri Arrendi was a big shot during the first century of the Commonwealth. She was sterile, though she adopted several girls as daughters or nieces.”

“You seem to have gotten over your reluctance to use RNA-assisted study,” said Ambros.

“I didn’t have a real choice. I have a lot of catching up to do.”

Ambros nodded: “Most people in this Line, especially in Athino, start their ‘Higher Education’ at age twelve or so. We all have some catching up to do.”

Marie said: “What else can you tell us about Arrenji and her family?”

“Hmm. Arrenji herself is about a hundred years old. She had a couple kids when she was a twenty-something, right after she achieved her first mastery, in Red Warrior Guild. I think she has great-grandkids, which is weird, since she looks to be about thirty.”

The women all frowned: “Um...” “Whoa...” “That’s just...”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “She ought to look about fifty, by our standards, but I guess that Medical Guild is holding her apparent age at thirty, on account of her occupation and rank...”

After a bit of silence, Luisa said: “Righty-ho, then. Tell us more, if you know any more.”

He shrugged: “A bit. Her family is large, the relationships complex. I haven’t worked much of it out yet. They’ve mostly been high-achievers since the second generation of the Commonwealth, though: the family’s collective Status is through the roof. They occupy at least three villas in the City proper, maybe more, and a ‘country house’, which I gather to be a Gormenghastian monstrosity about twenty miles north of Athino, on the Parnassus Road.

“Arrenji lives in an apartment at Villa Estelli, which was the first residence of the family, back in the First Century. That puts her inside-the-family status at the top. She has possession of Pyrgos Selosena: Selos’ Tower, a famous place.”

“And she is your mentor...” Marie appeared to be appalled and admiring at the same time.

Ambros felt about the same: “On the other hand, I have an enormous leg up in this Line, just by being associated with her.”

“That’s true, I suppose,” said Kim: “But there are drawbacks too, aren’t there?”

Ambros nodded: “Yeah. There are people here in Athino who begrudge me what they think is an easy time gaining rank and Status. One guy in particular...” He described Regulos and his beef about Ambros’ entry into Sacred Band: “He doesn’t have a clue, of course. He thinks I’ve had an easy time of it, and that he’s been unfairly kept out of SB. As far as old Reg is concerned, my experience in swordplay and political activism in my Line is all barbarian nonsense.”

Kim ventured: “But really, he’s just not the sharpest tack in the box, and Sacred Band is well beyond is abilities. Right?”

“That’s how I see it. I’m not privy to the evaluations that the SB Magistrae must have made of his qualifications. But he’s really wrapped up in the single combat aspect of the martial arts, and he would fail miserably in the one place where that matters most: as a Magistre in Sacred Band.

“If he keeps up with his combination smear campaign and personal insults, I may eventually have to fight a duel with him.”

“They fight duels in this Line?” Luisa seemed upset.

“Yeah,” Ambros grinned even more caustically: “They consider it far more civilized than lawsuits and lawyers and building prisons. If two people really can’t get along...” he shrugged: “I’m gonna live and let live for as long as the moron allows me to. But...”

Marie said: “If he won’t let up, then you may have to teach him a lesson.”

“I just may,” said Ambros ruefully: “I just might have to.”




On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, in the midst of the massive preparations for that feast, and the negotiations over who was to be invited and who had accepted and which side of which family was coming at what hour...the household got together to take a decisive step on a long-delayed project.

Ambros, Marie, Kim, and Luisa gathered around the large table in the living/dining area at Rose House. Luisa laid out the mockup pages she’d printed across the table in the order she thought they should appear in the e-zine.

The women perused the documents, occasionally discussing the finer points of page order: “...it’s an e-zine, so we don’t have to split up articles...maybe put links to the first three items in the Table of Contents into a space above the banner...this article on permaculture...”

Ambros remained silent, occasionally tipping his head as he imagined how the thing would look on a screen.

Luisa said: “Well, Ambros, what do you think?”

“Yeah,” said Kim: “You’re the expert.”

“Hardly that,” said Ambros self-deprecatingly.

“You’ve helped to publish anarcho-whatever magazines before. We haven’t. Talk to us.”

He grinned: “Okay. Two things: I have another page for you...” He put it on the table, in between two articles cadged from Commonwealth sources: “My friend Megan, the barista at the cafe I hang out at in Veneta, she wants to do a feature. If we like, she’ll write a regular column.”

Kim leaned in: “’Real Steamy’ by Betty Barista...”

They passed the piece around, laughing at Megan’s turns of phrase.

“Megan has no education about left politics, anarchism, Syndicalism, or any of that,” said Ambros: “She’s an ordinary small-town hard-working mom of two, but she’s smart, and a bit of a smart ass.”

Marie said: “She gets the System intuitively. She sees the problems, but not any solution.”

“Makes the essay extremely relatable, I think,” said Kim.

“Okay,” said Luisa: “I think that column would be a valuable addition...let her know we’ll publish her.”

“What’s the other thing?” asked Marie.

“This,” he said. He took out his folding knife and cut the “Mission Statement” article away from page one and swapped it for an innocuous article on wool blankets for the homeless, which had been right before the contact info at bottom of the last page.

“Why?” Marie asked.

“Let’s make it possible for a person who stumbles on this site to read the whole thing before she sees the word ‘anarchist’ or ‘Commonwealth’. Other than ‘Commonwealth’ in the banner...”

‘That’s...a good idea,” said Kim.

“I thought so.”

“We still settled on the title?” asked Marie.

“I like it: ‘Commonwealth Times’ with the Rational Hellenic translation above in smaller letters,” said Kim: ”Kronae Keenafthenonae.”

Nobody demurred, so Luisa slid that into the e-version. She did the swap of the article for the mission statement, and added Megan’s column as the third article, amending the Table of Contents and pagination.

Then she shrugged: “Ready...”

They glanced at each other, and Ambros said: “Launch.”

She moved the cursor and clicked the icon: “Done.”

Ambros immediately got out the rolled-up Commonwealth laptop from his pocket and logged into his blog. He activated the links he’d prepared, so the people who’d expressed interest in the e-zine project could easily get to it and see it. He did the same with his Webz-site, and triggered an announcement at his MyFace Author Page.

Luisa said: “Wow, we’re getting hits already!”

“Don’t let that fool you. The activity will fall off quickly, since we’re only getting people I already knew were interested. You know: Anarchists, Syndicalists, including the local Wobblies, a few outlier Marxians. Some ‘Questioning’ youth. I have a thousand readers between my blog, my site and the slough of despond that is MyFace. But it took me ten years to get to that number.”

“But we have an advantage, standing on your shoulders.” Kim frowned and manipulated the mouse: “Almost a hundred hits. Zazu Johnson sends his regards.”

Ambros laughed: “Cool. Soon, he’ll send us his critique, and it will be rigorous and demanding...

“So, with my Line Seventeen Kyklo, we might get a thousand looks in the next three days, but the real work will start after that...say, right after Thanksgiving. I expect to start getting liberal-reformist viewers, and their critiques, after the Marxists in particular start to comment on us. That’s the usual progression anyway. However...We will be hard pressed to get ordinary people to even bother to look.

“Don’t get too joyous about this bump, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Okay, we got it. I am happy though,” said Luisa.

“Excellent! I want a drink.”

With the tea-and-whiskey in his hand, he sat at the desktop and began to type.

“What are you doing now, sweetie?” asked Kim.

He laughed: “Laying out the next issue, and making a list of the things that someone has to do in the next month to make that issue even better than this one.”

“We have two months...” said Luisa, dubiously.

“And those months will disappear faster than you’ll ever believe, until it’s two days before pub date and almost nothing is written. Trust me on this.”

Marie agreed: “We should pick out the Commonwealth essays we want to use so Ambros can translate and redact them...”

After some discussion, they settled on two: a philosophical essay by The Exile, and a brief treatise on money- and non-money economies by The First Nikodemos. “I’ll link that essay to some of my stuff, and some of my sources, and I can also direct people to that book by Professor Jenkins about the history of debt. That’ll keep the pedants busy for a while.”

Kim asked: “Is there anything I can do? Can I write something?” She stood behind him, looking over his shoulder.

He laughed a bit and shook his head: “I really shouldn’t. We really ought not...”

She pummeled him lightly on the shoulders: “What? You have a mischievous look about you.”

“Okay, why not? Why don’t you write a technical essay about seven and eleven dimensional matrixes, and the creation of alternate Timelines. Write the real facts, but make it seem like fiction. Don’t sugar-coat it, make it real, and make it hard to understand, too. Use the actual equations, and put in some of the stuff about how the Commonwealth sees the Multiverse. Make up some four-D animations, and link them to the equations, as ‘explanations’.”

“Like, the assumptions about fields and strings that go against this Line’s physics?” She smiled slyly: “And the ‘quantum abatement and rebatement’ theories, and the experimental and observational evidence about the effects of sentient personalities on outré Lines...”

“You got it! We’ll see if there are any physicists in our audience.”

“Or psychiatrists...I’m pretty sure there aren’t any psycho-physicists...not in the Commonwealth sense, anyway.” She sat down with a dreamy look on her face: “I could write it as a dialog...student and teacher...I could make it almost make sense, in this Line’s view, and see if anyone puts the bits together...” She pulled her laptop over and stared typing.

Ambros went back to work on a proposed Table of Contents for the February issue. He smiled as Kim muttered and grumbled.

‘That could get a really funny response...I wonder what the Pro-Situationists will make of Commonwealth science...’




Thanksgiving Day dawned at last. Though the sun rose, Ambros didn’t.

Eventually, he woke for the third time that morning. He touched his MPS and got the time: “Two minutes past ten on the morning of the twenty-sec—” He cut the mechanical voice off before it could tell him the time and date in the other Timelines he’d been operating in.

He stood up and stretched, groaning. He breathed in deeply through nose and mouth: even down in his basement bedroom he could smell the feast that was cooking. He grinned: ‘That turkey is a beast. Barely fit into the oven, I bet.’

The smell of cookies and pie overlaid the aroma of gravy and turkey; he could also smell the yams, which would be coming out of the oven soon. Also: the potatoes he’d peeled the previous evening, which he knew would be beginning to boil about then: ‘Marie and Luisa have a spreadsheet with all of the times laid out...’ He shook his head: “Makes sense. There are a lot of dishes, and they need to hit the table in the right order.”

He leaned over and shook Kim by the shoulder, deliberately doing nothing provocative: “Hey, Kim. Wake up. You’re on vacuuming, I’m on clean-up.”

“Uggh. Bleah. Okay, in a minute.”

He put on work pants and a sweatshirt: “Remember to get dressed. Guests in the house.”

She sat up and rubbed at her nipples: “Ow. You bit too hard.”

He raised an eyebrow: “You told me to.”

“Oh. Right. I did, didn’t I?”

He shrugged: “Next time I’ll disobey, a little.”

“Good idea.”

He heard stirring in Kim’s room across the hall: he leaned back into his room and said: “Remember...”

“I’m getting dressed,” she said.

He greeted Marie’s bio-dad as the fellow came out into the hallway: “Morning, Mr Hart.”

“Oh, hell, man, call me Al.”

“Okay, Al, I will. You smell that feast cooking?”

“Yeah, Kate already headed upstairs.”

They climbed the stairs. Ambros watched as Al struggled with bad knees and feet. He caught a slight whiff of ketosis, and remembered that Marie had mentioned her father’s diabetes.

He walked slowly behind Al as the older man headed for the bathroom. He wondered if there was an easy way to use Commonwealth medical tech to help him out: ‘I’ll ask the little troll next time I see him.’

“Scuse me,” Al said: “I gotta pee and take a shot.”

“That’s okay, I’m behind on dishes.”

“The dishes can wait, your breakfast is in the microwave,” said Luisa.

He and Kim ate, at the far end of the kitchen table out of the way of the chief cooks. Conversation ebbed and flowed about the entire ground floor, with everyone amicably discussing culture and politics.

Ambros set to work, scouring pans and loading cook pots into the dishwasher.

The vacuum fired up: Kim starting the final prep of the dining area.

Ambros caught up on the mess, started the dishwasher, then got out of the kitchen. Marie and Luisa worked like dancers, rotating from job to task, never seeming to get in one another’s way.

‘I broke that pattern three times already,’ he thought, fleeing the scene.

He decided to prep the dining table.

First he moved the ‘house desktop’ to a side table, securing it against accidental fall. He cleared the remains of a couple craft projects: ‘I am now able to distinguish Marie’s from Luisa’s and put them in their proper places.’ He put the leaves in, covered the heirloom table’s top with an undercover, and spread the designated tablecloth.

He sat down, stretching his shoulders and arms. Al’s wife Kate sat in the living room, simultaneously conversing with Luisa’s mother Andrea and trying to manipulate an unfamiliar remote. Ambros strolled over.

“Ah, you are a football fan, eh? Let me see if I can get you to a game...” He surfed from channel to channel until she pointed.

“Boise State!” Kate cried: “That’s the team I follow.”

Ambros dropped the sound down to where Kate could hear it but it wouldn’t bother Andrea. He watched for a few minutes as the brightly clothed athletes ran around slamming into each other. He shook his head: “That can get distracting. I have stuff to do.”

He set the table, using Marie’s version of the classic style. Luisa began bringing pies and platters of cookies out and setting them on an improvised sideboard: a quarter-sized sheet of plywood set atop the loom and covered with a cloth. Marie set condiments in bowls on the table, including three kinds of cranberry sauce.

He took a break. The end of the game turned out to be quite exciting, not settled till the final play. Kate’s team won, which pleased her, and the TV could then be shut down for the time being.

They chatted and snacked on nuts and dried fruit, as the table filled with food of many kinds.

Someone knocked on the door: Ambros hopped to answer it, as he’d expected the arrival.

“C’mon in, Sarge, Mark. I’ll take your coats.”

He introduced the two around without explaining their relationship to the household. They accepted drinks. Ambros noted that Sarge was keeping an eye on Mark’s consumption, so he put that out of mind. Kim’s mom Deb arrived, and Kim met her at the door.

The hour set for serving the meal approached. Everyone slowly gathered near the table, waiting for the final revelation.

“Ambros, get the turkey out of the oven and set it on the kitchen table,” said Marie. Cats twined abut his ankles as a bird bigger than the lot of them put together traveled across the kitchen. When he’d accomplished the task Luisa covered the bird with a giant wok turned upside down. The cats vocalized their disappointment.

Marie and Luisa set to work moving the last few side dishes into the dining area: mashed potatoes, yams reheated to steaming goodness, pickles of various sorts. Marie said: “Spot, stop getting underfoot!” The cat meowed.

Another knock at the door, and Ambros frowned as he went to answer it. He touched the pistol in the thigh pocket of his festive black silk cargo pants, ready for trouble.

“Randy? What’s up, buddy? I thought you were eating at your folks place?”

“Yeah we had our dinner. Dad was drunk and acting up, so I bailed. Can I...?”

“Oh, sure, we got plenty, come on in.”

“I brought my half-sister Tammy, can she...?”

“Sure. It’s all good. I’ll get a couple more chairs from the craft rooms.”

“Let me help,” said Mark.

Chairs achieved, Ambros and Mark carried the enormous bird in and set it in its place in the center of the table. The beast lay amid broccoli and cauliflower; rice-based stuffing spilled from it and over the platter.

“A feast for the eyes as well as for the belly,” said Al.

Everyone cheered.

Even with all of the leaves in, twelve people crowded the board. They managed, though.

They joined hands around the table, pausing for that long moment to reflect. Then they ate the feast; even Randy and Tammy ate some, tempted by the aromas and flavors of the many and varied dishes.




That night he and Kim lay side by side, too stuffed with dinner and dessert and second dessert to even consider making love.

Kim said: “You and Marie are going to the Holiday Fair at the Fairgrounds tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I might try to hook up with you there. Will you still be there at two?”

He shrugged: “I imagine so. There’s a flea market in the one of the other buildings, and a couple other shopping opportunities on the grounds. Could take most of the day...”

She yawned: “Okay. See you there, maybe...”

They fell into sleep, exhausted and replete.




Ambros and Marie strolled along. The parking lot at the fairgrounds was beyond full, except at the end furthest from the Holiday Fair. The nearer they got to the buildings at the east end of the lot, the thicker the traffic became. The wind huffed and puffed, pushing the mist around, but it was not really raining.

Marie was holding on to Ambros’ arm. He heard rather than saw the danger, and grabbed her around the waist; he threw the two of them forward as hard as his legs would push.

Brakes squealed, two sets of them. One car, a station wagon with a man behind the wheel, a woman on the passenger side, and a large number of children distributed in the other seats, stopped just in time to barely bump his leg.

The other vehicle, a preposterously large pickup truck, lifted and with enormous tires, pulled right through the spot Ambros and Marie had lately occupied, taking an empty parking space.

Marie said: “Sheesh, folks.”

The man in the station wagon rolled down his window: “Sorry, sir. You jumped right in front of me.”

“I know,” said Ambros: “I didn’t want to get run over by that truck.”

“You okay, though?”

“It’s cool, no problem. Just brushed my knee, no harm done.”

“Oh good, I’m glad you’re okay. Merry Christmas!”

“Happy New Year!” Ambros replied as the man rolled the window up and drove ahead.

The other driver had got out of his truck by then and snarled as he stomped by. He brushed against Marie and then deliberately bumped Ambros with his shoulder as he passed him.

Ambros watched the guy tramp towards the building. “Hey, happy holidays, dude,” he called out. Truck Man flipped him off, without even looking back.

“Okay, that was excessive.”

Marie said: “Totally. That’s a stupid truck, too. Look: a Wile E. Coyote decal.”

“Yeah.” He spotted a cop, in the distance, watching them. He shook his head: “Nah, I don’t want to stoop.”

She smiled, slowly, with a wicked gleam: “What?”

He laughed: “I just had a vision. I could totally destroy this truck, between my Commonwealth slug thrower and my APS. I could do it so quick, nobody would know what happened.”

“Hmm,” she said, looking the truck over.

“Wouldn’t do any good.”

“You’re right, I guess. Let’s just go shopping.”

Once inside, they loafed along, in no hurry at all. Marie examined every booth with care, and eyed several sorts of jewelry very carefully.

He started to feel a little bit bored.

They came across a pottery booth; Marie and the potter conversed as though they were old friends.

Ambros saw someone mooching along behind them: as tall as he was, super-fine dreadlocks, a smooth and elegant gait, and dressed in black boots, a brick red jump suit, and a black wool cloak.

He leaned over to Marie: “Arrenji is here. Probably wants to see me.”

“Okay,” she said cheerfully, and went back to negotiating prices with the potter.

He fell in beside his mentor: “Hey, what’s up?”

“Let’s get some coffee or something.”

“This way,” he pointed: “The Food Court is over by the stage.”

Some kind of acoustic Dead-like cover band noodled away in a mellow fashion. Occasionally they fell into something resembling holiday music, then drifted away into semi-competent improvisation.

“I’ll get some drinks. You find us a couple seats...” He looked over the tables and chairs that filled the space between the food booths, and added: “If you can.”

He got coffee for Arrenji and tea for himself, and a cup of Marie’s favorite chocolate. Then he looked around and found Arrenji by her distinctive hairstyle.

She leaned back in the chair and sipped her coffee: “Oh, that’s good stuff.”

“Yeah, I recognized the purveyor from the Country Fair.”

“Hah!” she said. “There is quite a bit of overlap, isn’t there?”

He nodded: “I think the Fair is more civilized. They have at least a pretense of revolutionary intent. But this place, though it is more cash-oriented, has a distinctly local flavor that the Fair lacks.”

“Right. People come from all over the continent to sell at the Fair. Here it’s mostly locals.” She gazed around in admiration, took a deep breath of the spice-and-coffee laden air, and smiled: “Nice...for barbarians, with a money economy? Really nice.”

They sat in silence for a while, sipping their drinks. Finally Ambros cleared his throat: “You just passing through?”

“No, I wanted to talk to you. Obviously.”

She turned her head and watched the band for a minute, nodding in time. ‘She’s embarrassed,’ he thought. ‘That’s really odd.’ He saw that policeman strolling along the edge of the Food Court like an old-fashioned beat cop. The guy gave him a fish-eyed look, and Ambros grinned and waved. The cop frowned, but kept walking.

At length Arrenji looked him in the eye: “Okay, it’s like this. I have yet to replace Voukli.”

“As your Chief Assistant, you mean.”

“Exactly.”

“And your workload is starting to wear on you. Six to eight hours a day, eight to ten days per tenday, just monitoring the Timelines, or clusters of Timelines, where you have knowledge and expertise. Then mission planning, and recruiting help, when you see something that has to be done...or else, you Shift somewhere and do a job, and then say nothing, because that’s how Magistrae in the Sacred Band operate. Lots of other things to do, too. Training people like me, and running spies and operatives like me, in multiple Lines, and...it never ends, ever.”

“You’ve been paying attention.”

“Yes.”

She looked away again.

Finally she looked right at him: “So, under other circumstances, you’d be the man for the job.”

He put his hand on his chest: “Me? I am flattered.”

“I can’t tap you for this honor.”

“Obviously.”

She sighed with relief: “I’m glad you see it that way.”

He let her sit for a bit, then said: “Yeah. I’m way more useful in my current role.”

“Roles,” she emphasized: “I think you underestimate the importance of what you are doing on the Kyklo, with your essays, and at Alcatraz.”

“Point taken.”

They sat and sipped a while longer. Marie appeared, a newsprint-wrapped package in her arms. He handed her the chocolate, and she slurped happily at it.

Arrenji said: “I had better recycle this drink.”

“Yes, me too. Marie?”

“Nah, I’ll wait here.”

Ambros led Arrenji through the winding aisles of the craft booths. They split up at the restrooms; Arrenji almost followed him into the men’s room, then remembered what Line they were inhabiting.

Their errands accomplished, the two of them paced down a longish hallway, shortcutting towards the Food Court. A policeman approached from the front and Ambros’ paranoia motivated a quick look over his shoulder. “Policewoman coming up behind,” he muttered. Arrenji nodded, frowning.

“What should I do?”

“Say nothing. Don’t answer any questions, you’ll say the wrong thing, guaranteed. Let me talk.”

“All right...” she said, dubiously.

The encounter proceeded as he expected: “Excuse, me ma’am, can I see some ID?”

Ambros saw the puzzled expression on Arrenji’s face; he saw her realize what Thompson wanted. His stomach flip-flopped: ‘She has no fake ID...’

Arrenji started to speak, but Ambros intervened: “Sorry Officer Thompson, she isn’t carrying any.”

“Mr Rothakis...” Thompson was a bent cop, and the ‘mister’ in his rejoinder very sarcastic. He turned back to Arrenji: “I really must see some ID, ma’am.”

“She really doesn’t have any, officer.”

A couple stopped at the entrance to the hallway, then retreated, unwilling to approach a cop-stop.

The policewoman drew him away by his elbow: “I’ll talk to you, Rothakis. Dennis will deal with your friend.”

“What’s this about, anyway? You have no trace of probable cause for a stop, here. Do you?” He was terrified on behalf of Thompson, who had no least idea of the explosive possibilities of Arrenji if her temper broke. He turned to check on that; Police Woman kept trying to turn him away from the other cop.

He shook off her hold on his arm, and she made an angry sound, grabbing for him: “Don’t make me arrest you, Mr Rothakis...”

At that moment, Thompson grabbed at Arrenji’s arm and tried to take it behind her back; she slipped loose and countered and Thompson went down, yelling and cradling his right arm.

Ambros turned away and found himself looking at Police Woman’s pistol. He raised his hands and she shoved him to one side, took two more steps away from him and aimed the gun right at him.

‘I really dislike that,’ he thought, raising his hands higher.

“On your knees, hands behind your head,” she ordered.

He complied, his mind racing: ‘How do I salvage this situation?’ he wondered, rejecting various alternatives as fast as they came into his mind.

Police Woman aimed her pistol at Arrenji. She shouted: “DOWN! ON THE GROUND! NOW!”

A merchant peeked around the doorpost of the entry to the main hall; she ducked back, panic evident in her expression.

Everything slowed down, from Ambros’ adrenalized perspective: Arrenji took a step back, reaching for the slug-thrower she had in her pocket. Police Woman started to squeeze the trigger of her pistol. Arrenji stepped sideways, out of the path of Policewoman’s aim.

Ambros popped to his feet and stepped forward, took the sidearm out of her hand, then turned and threw it as far as he could in the direction of the restrooms. It slid under a vending machine; fortunately, it didn’t discharge. “I’m quicker than I look,” he said.

She snarled and drew a collapsible baton, and he took that away, too. Next came the taser: “Oh, no,” he said: “none of that shit.” He took that away, as well, and this time he aimed the weapon at the cop.

She froze.

“Ah,” he said: “You got a taste of this in training, huh?”

Arrenji had her firearm out by then, and pointed it at Thompson: “Don’t even think about it, officer,” she said, and the cop stopped trying to deploy his pistol left-handed.

“What do you think we should do, Ambros?”

“I don’t think we have a choice. Transport, erase and release.”

“Right. I have this one.” Arrenji pulled out her Shifter and she and Thompson vanished with a pair of pops. Police Woman stared open-mouthed.

Ambros sympathized: “Yeah, that just happened. Messed with me the first time I saw it, too.”

Nevertheless, Ambros herded Police Woman over to the side: “Against the wall, arms at your sides, take a deep breath, stand still.” He got his Shifter out and projected his thought at it: ‘Keenafthono’, and then touched the red light with his thumb.

Officer Thompson was on his back on the floor in the War Room in Athino Prime when Ambros dropped in. Thompson looked ill. “Yeah,” Ambros said to him: “That’s a big dizzy the first time.”

“He can’t answer, we had to put a paralytic to him.” Arrenji indicated Thompson’s hand, which bore a thing like a nicotine patch, but bright red.

He pushed Police Woman off the landing pad and into the arms of a Medical tech and two large Laborers.

The Med slapped a similar patch on Police Woman’s hand and the laborers lowered her to the ground. Arrenji spoke a few words to the Laborers, one of whom made a handsign of agreement.

“Come with me, Ambros, if you please.” Arrenji said.

“Sure,” he said, trailing her out the door. They walked briskly down one of the broad wood-paneled halls to a room with a hologram recorder. Arrenji dictated a report on the incident and had Ambros tell it again from his point-of-view. She set it to publish in ten days, then led him to another room.

This room appeared to be shrouded in a pure white fog. Ambros recognized the phenomenon as a side effect of the halo, which the cops were experiencing.

Thompson and Police Woman stood, about five feet apart, beneath white discs that throbbed in time with the cops’ heartbeats: ‘Like the one I found myself under when Arrenji kidnapped me,’ he thought. The Med tech stood at a console a few feet behind the cops, where neither of them could see her.

She said: “The female subject is with child. Hormonal levels indicate that she is one tenday into the pregnancy; she may be unaware of her condition at this time. She has had two previous spontaneous abortions, at approximately this stage of pregnancy.

“The male subject has a serious heart condition. His pulse is over one hundred fifteen per lepta. His pressure is at twenty percent above optimal. There is a partial blockage in his aorta. His blood pressure is putting serious stress on his system, including the vessels in his brain.”

“What brain?” Ambros said, disgusted.

Thompson muttered and squirmed. He found his voice: “What th’ fu—“

Ambros interrupted: “Be silent, please. We need to do some work on you two, and it will be easier on you if you just relax.”

“I can’t walk,” said Thompson.

“You can’t,” said Ambros. “I know what you’re feeling, by the way. I had a similar experience a few months ago. Of course, I had choices and you have none.”

“What the hell is going on?” Police Woman continued to struggle, trying to escape the field that held her in place.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Arrenji: “We don’t intend to explain anything to you, and you wouldn’t remember any of it anyway. Ambros, we need to pick a spot in your Line to drop them back in. You handle that.”

Ambros turned his back on the cops and set to work with a Strat-tac holodisplay. He set it for a real-time image. He lifted his POV high up over the City of Eugene, then zoomed in precipitously toward the Fairgrounds. “I want to put them down somewhere other than where we grabbed them. I want to go for something maximally embarrassing. I think...”

He looked back over his shoulder; the cops were blank faced and Thompson was drooling. Ambros shuddered: ‘Coulda been me...’ He spoke aloud: “I think we can drop them in this little cul-de-sac on the south side of the building. I’ll wait till no one is in line of sight, and give you a mark.”

He looked over again, and saw Arrenji stripping all the equipment off of the officers: weapons, radios, badges. She and the Med cut the officers’ clothing away; Arrenji tossed all of the stuff into a bin and sealed it shut. She slapped a new sedative patch onto each cop.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m ready.”

“On my mark,” said Ambros: “Mark!” The cops vanished, pop, pop.

“I am going back and pick up that pistol that I threw away, and check for security cameras and such in that hallway,” said Ambros.

“You need help?”

“I better do it myself. Until I am sure that there is no visual record of us assaulting two Eugene cops, I think you should stay out of my Line.”

Arrenji frowned: “He assaulted me first.”

“He’s a policeman. He has the power to ‘arrest’ people, you included.” He put his fist by his ear: “He was abusing that power, I know. But he’s immune from prosecution, for all practical purposes. If you are going to visit me in my Line, you need to keep that kind of thing in mind. Next time, I’ll give you a script to recite if a cop approaches you. Also. If a cop says ‘You’re under arrest’ just cooperate. Sacred Band can snatch you out of whatever cell they put you in, and the cops will pretend nothing ever happened. And...you shouldn’t come back to my Line without a passable ID. That was a foul-up. Magistri.”

She nodded ruefully: “It was. I won’t fail that way again, even for a party.”

“Good.” He picked up the bin of cop gear. He stalked out the door, heading for the War Room: “I gotta get this shit done and get back to the Christmas Fair. Marie is sure to be worried.”