SALTAROS: Shadows and Light
Dec. 4th, 2016 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zzambrosius_02CHAPTER SIX: Cleaning up; A Date with Skavo; Obligations and Challenges
He dropped in to the cubbyhole on the outside of the Exhibition Hall, where he pulled the knockout patches off the naked cops. He set the bin containing the tattered remains of their clothes and their other effects on the ground beside them. He opened the box briefly, to check Police Woman’s name tag: “Angela D’Angelo,” he muttered: “That name can’t be a coincidence. Well...It could, I suppose.”
He walked around towards the front of the building, contemplating: “Thompson is such a professional idiot that I’d be a fool not to keep tabs on him. I better see what I can find out about Police Woman; she must be his partner, and she may not yet know what a jerk he is. Of course...she participated in a ‘no probable cause’ stop. She may be a jerk, too. If she’s related to Hannah D’Angelo...”
He accessed his Desktop via his MPS; he composed a message to a reporter he knew, who worked for the local Wobbly paper, tipping her on “naked cops asleep at the Fairgrounds.” He snickered a little as he sent it.
He passed a blank wall between the window of Holiday Hall and the west side of the building with its multiple entryways. He heard a sound: footsteps coming up behind him, quickly.
He spun suddenly and saw the hulking form of Truck Man bearing down on him. He reacted automatically, and with near lethal results: he evaded the rush, tripped his assailant, then jumped on the man’s back and slammed his forehead on the ground. He started to repeat the last part, and paused. He looked around: it had gotten dark, beyond the gloaming and into full dark. ‘Security lights on this side of the building are few and dim. I don’t think anyone is observing me right now, but still...the guy is out, I don’t have to hit him again.’ He called up his MPS, and determined that no one had been in eyeshot of the fight.
He grinned, somewhat cockily: “So, an ambush? What’s with people today?” He patted Truck Man down and found the brute’s wallet. He looked over the ID: ‘Guy looks familiar...his name is...no one I know...’
He sighed and tried to remember the names on Posse Comitatus’ membership list: ‘He’s not on the “made man” list...I don’t remember whether he’s on the “prospects” list.’ He pondered the ethical dilemma, then decided: ‘He’s not a member of Posse C, so he lives, and stays here in this Line as well.’
He extracted three hundred dollars cash from the bill compartment, leaving forty bucks for gas, in case the fellow was low.
“Spoils of war,” he said, then rose and walked on, cursing.
“What’s with the world today?” he muttered: “Is it National Assault An Anarchist Day? Or perhaps it’s merely a local festival?
“Did I miss the media hype? I just wanted to do some window-shopping. What’s next, an actual gunfight? Plasma swords? Butter knives at dawn?”
He stopped at the corner and used his MPS to find and neutralize the security camera on the wall high above the supine form of Truck Man. He also burned the security light. The area fell into deeper darkness; Truck Man was nearly invisible.
With the aid of the Shifter, he traced the camera’s wiring back to a monitor and desktop mainframe that held recordings from all of the cameras at the Fairgrounds. He mentally accessed his laptop for extra processing power, then commanded the tech: “Fry that hard drive. Seek any backups and fry them as well.”
“Dhulyéna,” came his computer’s voice, buzzed directly into his ear.
‘That solves multiple problems,’ he thought. ‘Now I need to get that damned pistol and dispose of it.’
It took nearly an hour to get it all done. He’d had to stand by the vending machine for almost twenty minutes, just to find a moment when no one would see him fish Police Woman’s .45 out from under the thing. He activated the safety and put it in his left thigh pocket, with the Shifter: ‘I’ll have to decide what to do with it later,’
By then he was exhausted, stressed, and hungry. He hit the food court as soon as he could get there, and got a rice and beans bowl from one of the oriental booths. He sat and scarfed it down, barely registering the flavor until he finished.
“Pretty good,” he said, belatedly.
Kim and Marie appeared and sat down. Marie said: “There you are! We looked everywhere for you! Where’s Arrenji?”
“Back in Athino. I’ll explain later, when we get home.”
Kim began to remonstrate, but Ambros said, in a whisper: “I can’t talk about fighting off an assault by cops, or a second one by a random asshole, while we are surrounded by Hippies, Hipsters and Yuppies. Also, I’m still hungry.”
He headed for the burrito place, digging in his pocket for some of his newly-won cash.
Ambros got up early the next morning because they were seeing the overnight guests off with an early breakfast. He followed Kim up the stairs, both of them yawning. The four household members sat down with Al and Kate for a sumptuous breakfast.
They ate scrambled eggs and bacon and drank a half dozen different morning cups. Al and Kate thanked everyone again; Ambros carried their bags out to their car and they all waved good-bye from the porch as the auto hummed away east on Rosefield Avenue.
Marie sighed as she settled down to a second cup of coffee.
Luisa said: “What’s everyone up to today? I’m going to be writing...”
“I’m sewing,” said Marie: “I have several half-finished projects and a bunch of mending to do. I’ll settle down with some stupid movies and just plow through until I can’t see straight.”
“My dad is going out to that homeless camp where your friends live,” Kim said, looking at Ambros: “He asked me to help him with some kind of mediation.”
He raised his chin, with an air of caution. He reached into his pocket: “Here’s a panic button,” he said, handing it over: “This will ping my MPS if you get in trouble out there.”
“You think there could be trouble?”
He shrugged: “I have some new friends out in that camp. But I’m not a fool, and I don’t trust everyone out there. Their situation is difficult, and people under stress can be volatile.”
“Okay,” she said, pocketing the item.
“How ‘bout you?” Luisa asked.
Ambros said: “Since it’s not raining, I thought I’d spend some time in the yard. Once Kim is safely out of the swamp, I’ll visit Athino to do some chores and talk to my mentors...I have an Obligation to fulfill, sometime in the next couple days...And it’s Saturday, so Samuel B’s will be full of people I want to keep in touch with.”
The women showed no interest in a trip to the pub with him, so he planned to go alone. Kim’s dad picked her up at nine, and Ambros put on his work clothes and hit the yard hard.
‘I need to make a couple dump runs,’ he thought: ‘With Luisa writing the day away and the truck free, it’s a good day to do that.’
Load, tarp, haul, dump, repeat. With the truck nearly full for a third load, he decided to do some saw pruning.
Driving over to the recycle yard for the third time that day, he noticed a green and yellow two-ton pickup tailing him. ‘That thing has no load, but he’s following me to the yard debris area.’
“Maybe I’m paranoid, but that thing is a big ugly rig...and it looks like Bradley Dillon’s. Front end is dinged up, too, like it hit a post or something...’ The windows were tinted so he couldn’t see who the driver was: “...So I won’t take any chances.”
Once he had the load on the ground, he used his tech to map out the entire complex, and found an odd little road that would take him out the back of the property and onto a side road that would get him back to the main drag home. He BS’d his way past a couple workers and escaped via that route.
He got home in time to yield to Kim’s jeep before he backed the truck up to the garage door. They met on the porch: “How’d it go?”
She shrugged: “Dad and Arlen managed to convince the Borderers to co-operate with that bunch back by the willows. It had nothing to do with Camp Arlen or the residents there.”
“Oh, good. Nah, keep the panic button. I’ll pick up some for the others today. It makes sense, with so many different groups at odds with me. Some of them would have no scruples about hitting me by hitting you.”
“I guess...”
“Yeah. I shoulda got to this a long time ago.”
“Well, you are doing so much...”
“No excuse.” He keyed the door open and then thought: ‘Palm locks for the doors here, too. I should get to all of that.’
After a shower, he walked through the thickening drizzle to one of his Jump points. He looked around more carefully than usual before he Saltated: “It’s not paranoia if there really is someone out to get you...’
He exited the War Room and headed for the Tech Guild Liaison’s labs in the first basement of the Command Complex. He nodded to Averos but let the tech be: he had his hands full with some project or another, and looked utterly encumbered by equipment.
‘I oughtn’t to need any help with this task,’ he thought: ‘The instructions on the Kyklo looked pretty simple.’
He found the correct machine and set to work: “I want Eurozone identification cards, USIT Seventeen. Greek government issue, real numbers, backfill the records in Athens and The Hague.” He handsigned specifics about the Line.
The machine produced blanks, and he began filling in the names: “Voukli...her surname could be a common Greek one, say Papandreou. Arrenji let’s say Athenini, it’s her real sobriquet, and believable in Seventeen. Skavo...let’s call ser Skavo Kamiafilo, that’s amusing. Averos. Hmmm. Averos Tekna...Averos Agapateknos.”
He fabricated their birthdates based on their apparent ages in his Line: “That oughta do it, for now.” The machine hummed almost inaudibly, then produced standard Seventeen-style IDs, warm from the laminator. He found that amusing: ‘Commonwealth laminator tech still uses hot plastic. That’s rich.’
He laid Averos’ card down beside him on the bench, then checked the scheduling programs for the other three.
“Arrenji and Voukli are both in meetings, and unavailable for the day,” he muttered. He put their cards into the Postal Guild’s pickup box outside the door of the lab, then pinged Skavo.
Se was free, and agreed to see him. He rode the elevator down and around and up to the ground floor and exited via the Main Hall. He shivered a little. He pulled his hood up and walked quickly. He saw ser outside a cafe, where se had said to meet ser.
Se smiled and waved, and embraced him gently when he arrived. ‘Se’s always so gentle,’ he thought: ‘Of course, se is fragile. Brittle bones and not strong, due to ser hormonal balancing act, or so I hear.’
They went inside and got some tea. Se smiled when he proffered her the ID: “What is this? A gift?”
He smiled: “I have no idea whether you will ever want to visit my barbarian Home Line. If you do...you need that. As Arrenji’s and my recent run-in with the police proves.”
To his surprise, se replied in American: “Thank you, sir! I had considered whether I ought to visit, in order to understand you better.”
He raised an eyebrow: “Hit the RNA banks, huh?”
“I did. It is harder on me than it is on most people, but I thought it worth the suffering. You may have been warned about me: my taste in lovers, that is. Hairy ex-barbarians are a weakness of mine.”
“You are very direct. If, as it seems, you are propositioning me.”
“Not exactly. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps soon.” Se gazed at him in a calculating way, measuring him: “I want to know you better. If you consent to that, I will allow my curiosity to run its course, and who knows?”
“I would like to get to know you better as well,” he said with a slow, crooked smile.
The sun slipped behind the Akropolis. Se stared at him, amused: “What are you doing this evening?”
He laughed: “I planned to attend a gathering at a pub in my Home Line. There are usually people there of a Saturday evening who are among the people I’m supposed to watch. It’s an unobtrusive—and efficient—way to keep my fingers on a number of pulses in the Eugene-o-verse.”
Se laughed in ser turn: “Would it be safe for me to go with you? I should like to see such a place.” Se lifted the ID off the tabletop: “I have this, after all, and some command of the language.”
“It’s a relatively safe neighborhood. The chief danger for anyone who drives too fancy of a car is vandalism. The locals are trying to discourage the gentrification of their area, and tend to look askance on yuppies slumming at their pubs.”
“We could drop in nearby and walk, though. I could take some steps to fit in better.”
“What steps?” he asked, curious.
“I will make myself up to look like a woman, of course. I will then be far less obviously an alien in the environment, and people will be able to categorize me quickly. I will attract less attention that way.”
He pursed his lips: “Good. It’s nearly four o’clock now, in my Line, and the group gathers at around five.”
“Then let us repair to my room, and I will don my disguise.”
Se lived in a single room, on the ground floor of an apartment complex near the Plataeo they’d been visiting. Se had no lock, indeed no door. A curtain shielded the room from passersby in the hallway; se seemed to own almost nothing.
He raised his eyebrows and looked around: three chairs, a mattress and blankets on a heavy oak bed frame, some trunks, some bookshelves with a few volumes on them. A desk: a bit cluttered with papers, a Commonwealth laptop, and a single stylus. ‘That’s about it,’ he thought.
Se rooted around in a trunk and drew forth a very small makeup kit. Se sat in front of a mirror and drew lines upon ser face, emphasizing ser lips and sparse eyebrows, and adding a bit of blush to ser pale cheeks.
“There,” se said: “How’s that?”
“Passable,” he nodded: “In my Line it is extremely unusual for men to make themselves up at all, so the slightest touch of it makes you fall into the box ‘female’.
“That’s what I thought. Is this outfit suitable?”
He let his eyes sweep over her, down then up: “It’ll do,” he nodded: “A bit unisex, but that fits in, in the neighborhood.”
“Excellent!”
They walked northwest along Benham Avenue, ser hand on his arm: “Here we are,” he said.
“It does look like a welcoming ambiance,” se replied.
“It’s an honest to Gambrinus joint: a saloon of the best sort. That is, one without people who brawl or bust up the place or each other.”
“Oh. There are...saloons where such things happen?”
“Well, we are barbarians, after all. So: yes. I would not take you to such a place, though.”
“That’s comforting. I am not very robust.”
They entered the pub. Ambros glanced around: he saw the bar directly before them, and the scattering of unmatched tables and chairs to the right in the direction of the stage.
He saw the usual Saturday crowd of schoolteachers and carpenters and contractors and plumbers, around a line of three tables in the center of the room. The Oregon Country Fair was the organizing influence in that group: almost (but not quite) all of them were members of the loosely defined “Fair Family”.
Some of the local SCAdians sat at a large round table directly to his right, and there appeared to be a few hipsters and poets in the seats nearest the stage. At least, one group wore baseball jerseys with the word “POETS” blazoned where a team name would normally be.
“Not too crowded tonight,” he said.
Baron Darien caught his eye and beckoned for him join their group.
Ambros seated Skavo and introduced ser. He got drinks for himself and ser. He felt hungry enough that he ordered some food: chips and salsa, and a double order of dolmas. Skavo denied any hunger.
He sat down between Darien and Skavo. He explained the organization of the SCA in a few words, and its mission statement as well.
Se said: “I have heard of ‘larps’ and ‘larping’. Is this SCA like unto that?”
“Not exactly,” said Darien, looking irritated.
Ambros explained: “The SCA has resemblances to a Live Action Role Play; but it predates organized larping by at least fifteen years. People who seriously play SCA tend to get a little bit upset if you call what they are doing a larp.”
Johanna intervened: “I prefer to think of it as performance art.”
Ambros clapped his hands: “That’s good! I hadn’t thought of that.”
She continued: “Yes, a decades long, multi-continental, largely improvised performance slash theatrical project.”
Ambros nodded: “With a very serious martial art near the core of nearly all of its performances.”
Skavo said: “I’ll think about that. It sounds like fun.”
“It is that, most of the time,” said Ambros.
A nervous silence ensued. Then Darien said: “We saw you coming along the street,” he gestured out the window: “and we hoped you might be willing to advise us.”
Ambros laughed: “What advice could I give you?”
Ketterly shrugged: “I have recently become their Excellencies’ Seneschal. We are having a lot of trouble getting things done in our meetings and gatherings, which goes back in part to the previous seneschal’s bumbling. I guess I am hoping you can offer a way to shake things up, make things run more smoothly.”
“I’m utterly unfamiliar with this Kingdom, or your process, or your traditional events. And I am most definitely ‘not from around these parts’, you know?”
Ketterly said: “Of course. But that’s one reason we want to hear your opinion. You aren’t a member of any faction.”
“No dog in the fight,” he said nodding. He sighed: “As a Knight and Viscount, even one not in fealty to you, I must offer you whatever assistance I can. Noblesse oblige, and all that. Talk to me.”
Ketterly proceeded to describe the usual course of the local business meeting. The description made him shudder.
His food arrived, and he tasted all the bits: “Pretty good,” he said: “That salsa is hot!”
Baron Darien and Baroness Colleen then gave him a rundown on the factions and cliques, who (of course) often worked at cross-purposes with one another. They did not neglect to explain their own position, as relative newcomers to the area, and chosen by the Crown for the Baronial office because of that.
Before they were quite through with the account, Ambros interrupted: “Parliamentary procedure.” He took a bite of dolmas.
“What?”
He swallowed: “You need to institute parliamentary procedure. In your meetings.” He held up a hand: “Not Robert’s Rules, that is ridiculously complicated, and contradictory. As bad as the Bible. What you need is a streamlined version of the way the old English Parliament made decisions about what to recommend to the Crown as policy or law. They did it that way because it worked, after all.” He grinned: “When I was in the IWW we used a specific version of PP to keep things moving and avoid misunderstandings. The last is absolutely critical if you’re herding cats.” Skavo snickered.
“You were a Wobbly?” Ketterly asked.
He shrugged: “Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”
She cocked her head: “What haven’t you done?”
“Very little. But I’ve never been convicted.”
The group laughed at the witticism. Colleen drew the subject back to center: “Tell me more. How does it work?”
He nodded: “First, how does it NOT work. See, Robert’s Rules is an interesting book, but if you adopt that as your procedure, people can sabotage your whole operation. Get two people into the room who will second each others motions on things like amendments and taking things off the table and ‘committee of the whole’ and other arcane tactics, and you can spend hours debating amendments to a motion that is almost sure to eventually fail. I knew a hazy old Trotskyist who would attend meetings of the Republican and Democratic Parties, or the CPUSA, or anybody else who irked him. Twist the proceedings into knots, he would, and drove the chairmen nuts.
“Now we had, I believe, eight rules. The whole system fit on a half-sheet of ordinary paper. Let’s see...quorum, motion, second, friendly amendments only, call the question, table the motion, challenge the chair...motion to adjourn. I think that’s it. If you have those, and you keep a hard hand against repetition, your meetings should go very quickly. That’s what you want, right?”
‘Well, sure, obviously,” said Ketterly. “The sooner we get done with a business meeting, the sooner we can be having fun.”
“Exactly. But you want the decisions to be supported by most of the people in the room.”
“Well, of course. The SCA is all volunteers, nobody’s going to do what they really don’t want to do.”
Ambros said: “Right. So here’s how it works...and why. Quorum: so you don’t make decisions that a lot of people didn’t have a hand in. Motion: so everyone knows what you’re talking about and the proposed solution. Second: so you are not talking about one single person’s misguided idea. Friendly amendments only: so no one can hijack the original idea. Call the question: so two people can’t waste time talking about something nobody else is in favor of, and to keep people from repeating themselves. Table the motion: to postpone a non-urgent debate. Challenge the chair: to quickly replace a non-functioning facilitator. Motion to adjourn: to end the meeting, or to get out of a non-functioning situation.”
“Wow.” Colleen wrote as quickly as she could, stopping only to double check her handwriting.
He shrugged.
“Okay, I wrote all of that down. But it doesn’t seem like a full description.”
“It’s not. Let me describe a sample meeting here, okay? I’m hearing general agreement? Okay.”
He sat for a minute, marshalling his thoughts.
He began: “We determine that we have a quorum. A quorum is whatever percentage of the population you want it to be. It can also include a requirement that certain specialists be there...like, no meeting without the Knight Marshal, or the Exchequer, or someone like that.
“Ketterly is the seneschal, so she chairs the meeting. She asks for announcements, people make any that they have. She asks for reports from the officers. Let’s say there are no actions needed from any of those reports. Then she goes to Old Business. We’ll pretend there is none. Now here’s how the thing really works:
“Ketterly calls for New Business, and Joanna says: ‘I move that we all go outside and bang our heads against the sidewalk until our foreheads bleed.’
People laughed, which was what he wanted: ‘Gotta entertain them if I’m gonna edumicate ’em.’
He continued: “Two things can happen there: no one seconds the motion, so Ketterly moves on; or someone, let’s say Darien, does second it.
“Ketterly says: ‘It has been moved and seconded blah blah.’ She repeats the motion as she understands it. Then someone says: ‘I move to amend the motion. I think we should break some bottles on the sidewalk first, so we can speed up the bleeding.’ Some wise guy seconds that...
“In Robert’s Rules, you have to debate and vote on this amendment before you can vote on the original motion. In our system, the mover and the second on the original motion must both agree to the amendment before it can even be discussed. Think about that and you’ll see why we did it that way...
“So Joanna and Darien refuse the amendment. But before we can get into a long discussion about a stupid idea, Tancred pipes up with: ‘I call the question!’ Here’s the tricky bit: a motion to call the question is always in order. It needs a second, but it cannot be debated. Let’s say I second the call. So Ketterly says: ‘The question has been called. All in favor of the motion to blah blah say aye...all opposed, say nay. The nays have it.’
“End of that topic. No one can bring it up again. For the rest of that meeting, I mean.”
They all looked at one another in amazed surmise.
He grinned: “Yeah. Cool, huh? Now in Robert’s system, anyone who voted on the winning side can bring it up again. We booted that to the curb.”
“Challenge the chair,” Colleen prompted.
“Right,” said Ambros: “Any decision the chair makes, anyone can challenge. You just say: ‘I challenge the decision of the chair.’ No second needed. No debate allowed. Ketterly simply calls a vote on whether the assembly supports her decision. If she loses, she’s out. Choose a new chair.
“Then on to a motion to adjourn: no second, no debate, immediate vote. Always in order.”
“Tabling the motion?” Colleen asked.
“Oh, right. Suppose Tancred doesn’t want to hurt Joanna’s feelings, so instead of calling the question he says: ‘I move to table this motion until next month,’ or: ‘I move to table this motion indefinitely’. Needs a second, but no debate, immediate vote. See how that works? I figured you would. You need a motion and second to “take the motion off the table” at a later meeting, too.”
Skavo asked: “What if someone repeatedly challenges the chair, or moves to adjourn over and over?”
Ambros looked at ser sideways and said: “I’d move to throw the obstructionist asshole out of the meeting, and as soon as I got a second, I’d call the question. That work for you?”
Se laughed: “It does. And without the kind of technology that the Commonwealth has, it seems like a fair and efficient system.”
He grinned ruefully: “It’s not always fair, but it is efficient.”
Colleen had been taking copious notes. She huddled with Ketterly and they began planning to produce a document explaining the system.
Tancred frowned and said: “Commonwealth?”
“A different organization altogether,” said Ambros. That seemed to satisfy Tancred.
He glanced at the clock: “I’ve used up forty minutes on this topic. Done my duty by the SCA, Kingdom, Principality and the Barony. I want to talk to my students over there.” He got up and went to sit with Gustav and Allie and their parents. Skavo followed.
Se sat mostly quietly, listening to him talk History and Swordplay with the kids. Gustav brought up a subject they had been investigating: The Battle of Agincourt.
“So, King Henry actually did this stuff? Like Shakespeare says: he offered to make any English survivor a squire?”
Ambros nodded: “At least a squire...‘Be he ne’er so vile...This day shall gentle his condition.’ Shakespeare says that: he puts those words in Henry’s mouth. Why don’t you investigate that? See if you can find records online that show commoners promoted to the gentry after that battle. Henry had six thousand footsoldiers at that fight. If anywhere near that many were granted a squire’s fief each, it oughta show up in the records.”
“Okay. But...in the play, and in the movie you showed us, it looks like Henry actually fought in the battle! Wasn’t he King?”
“In those days,” said Ambros, and paused: “In those days the King was expected to be at the front of the battle. The entire class of men who benefited most from war, the knights, barons, dukes and all, right up to the top, every one of them had to show a willingness to risk their lives in battle, and even occasionally actually die.
“Now recall our lessons: in full kit, with riveted mail and a good helm, a guy was nearly proof against any cut or thrust. So they rode to the fight confident of their own survival, even in a huge scrum with a hundred people trying to kill them. And still...”
Allie jogged his elbow: “Still?”
Ambros looked the girl in the eyes: “They still sometimes died. Edward, the Duke of York, died at Agincourt. Henry’s youngest brother, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, got a wound to the groin, and would have died if Henry hadn’t rescued him, at great hazard to his own life.” Ambros smiled: “Would President Gore dare to lead a squad of soldiers in Afghanistan?”
“No.” Gustav sat there frowning.
“In the Middle Ages, if he were King and wouldn’t fight, the knights would think he was a coward, and they would then tend not to fight for him. It was a different world, then.”
Ambros let that sit, so that it might sink in on the kids.
For a while some of the grownups discussed a scandal of some kind involving the board of directors at the Fair. He listened carefully, calculating: ‘How many of the Fair Family see the increasing authoritarianism creeping into the operation of the Fair? How many would risk destroying the Fair in order to save it? Not enough of them, I guess.’
Skavo caught his eye and raised an eyebrow. He nodded, seeing that se could see that which he saw, even with no knowledge of the situation beyond the conversation at hand.
He leaned over and murmured to her: “Power centers, top-down organization, the illusion of democracy, edicts from on high...”
Se shrugged, rueful: “It seems to happen without fail, in most places and times.”
“Yes. Yes it does. How seldom we humans take steps to stop such things...”
He walked Skavo back to the place where they’d dropped in. He contacted the War Room, and found Aristogatos on duty: “Hey Gatos, can you Saltate Magistro Skavo back home? Standing two ells to my right.”
“Got ser, Spathos. Give me a mark...”
“Right.”
Se leaned over and embraced him, then kissed him on the mouth: “Thank you for the experience. It was very illuminating.”
“You’re welcome...” He stepped back: “Mark.”
Se vanished with the usual pop.
The next day in the early afternoon, Ambros stood outside a door. The Door as the Hellenes called it: the one in the wall that symbolically marked the edge of the Red Warrior Skolo. He contemplated all of the advice he’d gotten about the step he was considering: ‘I think I need to go through that gate, just on general principle. I’m not sure whether I have any significant time to spend on reedsword drills or armored steel play. It’s more like a rite of passage, one that I missed because of circumstances. Well, no time like the present...’
He approached the Door. It sat at the rear of a niche, an arched ceiling above it. A girl of sixteen or so sat on a stool near the door.
‘No, a Kopeli. “Paedhi” which is “girl”, is for much younger kids. A teenaged female is ‘kopeli’, unless she is pregnant.’ Then she’d be ‘gynaiki’, a woman.
She looked him over as he approached. His rank, Spathos third class in the Sacred Band, was obvious by his belt and the tokens of missions pinned onto his long grey vest.
At any rate, she rose gracefully from her stool and awaited him. He stepped up to the door, and she said: “I am required by Guild Rule and long-established custom to ask you this question. You are in no way required to answer:
“Why do you want to study at the Red Warrior Skolo?”
“I have been looking at this as a rite of passage,” he said, recapping his earlier thoughts. “And I guess I’m curious to see what I might learn in a group lesson at this school.”
She hummed to herself very quietly, for just a moment, then began tapping the Hellenic letters and numbers across the left side of his vest: “Six combat missions, two recon patrols in ATL Prime, one of which became a combat mission, Relief Mission to USIT Six...”
As she touched each ‘decoration’, they sprouted holographic links to the locations of the Operational Reports on the Kyklo. The guard didn’t download them or do anything else to check his bona fides; she evidently trusted that he had earned the tokens. She shook her head. She switched to the right side: “RNA at plus four, Spathos in the Sacred Band...”
“All true,” he said: “What of it?”
She looked at him a little sidelong: “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m overstepping here, I know.”
He said: “I exchanged notes with one Magistri Anni Shumareni on the Red Warrior Kyklo...”
She opened the Door and ushered him through: “My advice? Skip the formalities, you are not now nor will you ever be an Archaros in this Skolo. Go straight to Magistri Anni’s group lesson and introduce yourself to her.”
He nodded, thoughtful: “Which way...?”
“West Mean Path, second right, first left onto Leontaros Way. Only training area on that path.”
“Thanks.” He found a sign for the first part of the route just inside the Door, and strolled along, looking around.
He made the turn onto Leontaros Way. Magistros Leontaros Leontarios was a famous person in the first century of the Commonwealth: ‘The son of Eleni Vlaportini Leontari Medusa.’
He approached the training ground, which had some kind of force field over it, to keep out the rain. He shook his head: ‘I shouldn’t be surprised at the tech around here, I really shouldn’t. Not anymore...’
About three-dozen teenagers were working out around the field, divided unevenly into three groups. ‘Obviously those are advanced students,’ he thought, watching as six armored and red-belted Spathae smacked each other with steel swords. They appeared to be unsupervised, and were critiquing one another’s play.
‘A middling bunch there,’ he mused, studying another lot, who had tan belts and fought with reedswords. ‘Twenty in that group, and I bet that’s Magistri Anni leading those drills.’ He decided not to interrupt, and glanced over at the beginners.
‘About ten kids,’ he thought: ‘Well, twelve to fourteen year olds, who are adults here in the Commonwealth. I should work harder at calling them Kopelae, not teenagers or kids...Even in my mind.’
“Rest Break!” called the Magistri. To his dismay, the Spathos leading the beginners group turned out to be Regulos. That worthy frowned at Ambros, but didn’t approach.
Magistri Anni did approach him, saying: “Are you Spathos Ambros? Pleased to meet you, I’m Anni.
She saluted, and he responded in kind: “I am indeed Ambros.”
“So, what do you have in mind here? I can’t imagine that you’ll learn much of anything in this class,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t know. Never can tell, at least that’s been my experience.”
“Okay,” she said. “Pick a group to join, and have fun.”
He grinned: “I will.”
When the class started up again he joined the beginner’s group. Regulos ran the class through some very basic drills, and Ambros eased through them without any issues. Reg then set up a partner drill, and Ambros paired with a Kopeli of thirteen or so, who was evidently having a lot of trouble with the concepts involved. He began to coach her, and soon she started to get it.
Regulos grimaced at him, and Ambros switched partners. He worked with the fellow he switched to, then changed up again.
Regulos followed with a more advanced partner drill. As soon as Reg began to explain it, Ambros groaned silently: ‘He doesn’t understand his students’ skill level, or the purpose of the drill. Rats.’
After his partner failed to execute the move correctly three times, Ambros said, loud enough for the other students to hear: “Try it like this...” He executed the movement, slowly and correctly, and the students followed him.
Bells rang across the City, chiming the hour.
“Class, it’s full time!” Anni called out: “Rack your weapons and equipment. See you all next time!”
He racked the reedsword that he’d borrowed. Since he was wearing no armor, he escaped the class area before either Anni or Regulos could buttonhole him. ‘Not in the mood...’ he thought as he strode back the way he’d come. ‘Other stuff to do...’
He crossed Odo Aeolena and entered the Command Complex, thinking hard: ‘How would I teach that group of newcomers if Regulos weren’t in the way? Which way would I lead them, from where they are now?’ He shook his head, hard, and turned his attention to his next task: ‘Armor up, Spathos. You got a job to do.’
He and Voukli stood at the battlement of a tower on the Outer Wall of the City. It was on the northernmost point of the Wall, and looked out at farms and homes and some small areas of wild land.
He wore his Commando armor; she had dressed in red with black trim; she carried a steel sword on her black belt, and dagger on the white one.
“You sure you want to do this?” She seemed doubtful.
He shook his head, slowly: “No. I think I don’t want to do it at all. But I’m feeling what you folks call an Obligation.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Okay.” He leaned forward, gazed down at the base of the tower, far below. Vertigo kicked in for a moment, then the mental changes that came with his Commonwealth Med treatments took over, and he oriented himself in the Timeline.
He sighed: “I have this panic button on my MPS. A while back, Averos told me he’s working on a version of the same for the women...”
“I heard about that.”
“Yeah? Well, I know there’s no such thing as a quid pro quo in Commonwealth Lines. There is, however, Obligation. If we, my family, are gonna rely on the emergency rescue service of the Combined War Guilds, then one of us ought to sit that duty, at least occasionally. And of the four of us...I am the only one qualified for the job.”
“You really feel that way, huh?” She was looking at him in a funny way.
“I do,” he said, firmly.
“Good,” she said: “Actually, amazing. Most recruits from barabarian Lines take a lot longer to figure this kind of thing out.”
“I bet,” he said: “I’d wager some of them never do, and have to be guided to the understanding.”
She nodded: “You’d win that throw. Anyway, you are signed up, Arrenji took care of that this morning. The walkway starts right below this tower. Bear left, right, left at the forks and then straight ahead at the three roads. Fortress Pylena will be right in front of you.”
“Thanks.”
“You want some company?”
“No thanks.” He embraced her and they kissed. Then he began tramping down the twenty flights of stairs to the bottom.
He took a deep breath, and quelled the urge to check all of his weapons again: ‘It’s all as it should be. Check again before your shift starts.’
He strolled along, admiring the view. A farmer, a Master Farmer by the outfit, led a team of oxen towards some machinery. ‘A harrow,’ he decided. The woman waved at him and he greeted her.
‘I know that ’wealthers of all vocations use a crazy mix of technologies to get their daily work done. I never thought of how that would apply to farming.’
He topped the first rise and stopped to rest and look around. He looked back; Voukli still gazed over the scene. She waved; he waved back.
He saw farmland all about, and he could see people working in the nearest fields: ‘People,’ he thought, ‘and animals. And machines...’
Some fields had folks in rough clothing crawling or walking around, hoeing weeds, or pulling them by hand. In other places, small machines did that work, creeping along on tracks and grinding up the unwanted plants like mechanical earthworms.
A mist began to fall over the countryside. He hiked on.
Shortly after the three-way intersection, he came upon the castle. Built soon after the discovery of the Gate it enclosed, it looked squat and powerful. ‘Thirty Warriors, with a few cannon, could hold that place against any army that marched up here.’ He walked up to the gate of the castle, took off his helm and let the security apparatus confirm his ID.
“Sacred Band Spathos Grade Three Ambros Rothakis Dhekefthaninos. Authorized.” The door opened and he stepped inside.
The person sitting at the desk in the foyer put a pistol back into the drawer: “Welcome to Fortress Pylena,” she said.
‘He said?’ Ambros wondered. ‘“Se” is always a safe option for persons of indeterminate gender,’ he reminded himself.
“Thank you,” he said aloud: “How ‘bout some directions?”
Se glanced at all the telltales on ser desk and rose. Se escorted him to a locker room, where he met a group of five men and four women who were about to go on the same shift as he was.
They were terse with their introductions, so he adopted their attitude.
A Med handed him a triangular patch: “On your neck, below the helmet...” Ambros complied.
After perhaps ten minutes, a light began to flash. Everyone checked the safeties on their weapons; Ambros did the same, glancing also at the power readouts.
They entered a long narrow room. There was a set of ten seats to their right, and Ambros sat with his group there. Every few meters down the hall was another set of ten seats. A group of ten, in a mix of Commando gear and Black Warrior armor, marched up the hallway and exited to the locker room.
The guy sitting next to Ambros lifted his face shield: “Hey, rookie. T’kante?”
It took Ambros a couple of seconds to parse that. Then he said: “Kala. You from Hindustano? Originally, I mean?”
“Yeh. Et ya are...”
“USIT Seventeen. Recruited by Arrenji.”
The fellow grinned: “Famous! How you like ’er?”
“She’s a bit beyond that.”
The man laughed: “Yeh, I s’pose so. Famous!”
They sat in silence for a while. After perhaps a quarter hour his time, another group of ten entered the ready room, and one like it stalked out.
Everyone got up and moved one set of seats down, and the newbies took the seats Ambros and his cohort had occupied. He took advantage of the move to stretch and limber himself, and the others did too. They sat again.
The woman behind him tapped his shoulder: he looked back at her and she signaled for him to activate his ‘radio’.
“Ah, there you are,” she said: “Always have the speakers on when you’re on this duty. I’m Theri.”
“Ambros.”
“You get a briefing?”
“Looked it up on the Kyklo.”
“Hmm.” She paused. He heard a little interference in his ear, then: “Okay, this is the drill: usually at least one call per shift. Team at the far end goes first. It makes the odds of deploying a little better than one in five.”
“Ah. Good to know.”
“The patch on your neck is a stimulant, physical and mental. It’ll double your strength and reflex speed. It’s set to inject when we Shift, and it lasts about ten leptae.”
‘Just about nine minutes,” he thought. Aloud he said: “Okay. I got the thing about our faceplates, how we’ll see the rescue target as lit up green.”
“Yes, and armed enemies as red. Shoot the shit outta them, okay? Don’t think too much.”
“I got that.”
They moved down the hall again, and again, and yet again. Once, the alarm sounded; seconds later the team at the end of the row vanished with a bang.
Then Ambros’ group was sitting in the hot seats.
He checked the safety on his rifle, thoughtfully, and disengaged it. ‘Ready to fire...’ He sat with the slugthrower upright between his knees, pondering, nervous.
The alarm went off.
He stood up, slapping his face shield into place. He felt the usual wave of dizziness as the Controller Shifted them into another Line. As soon as his feet felt the earth firmly under him, he dropped to the ground and started firing at red-tinted figures.
He looked around and saw a wrecked automobile. He rolled under it and continued shooting. Bullets smacked the ground around him, and an energy bolt hit the car above his head. The car lifted up, then fell back down, pinning his leg. He cursed.
“Spathos Ambros, fall back to green,” came the order in his ear.
“I hear you.”
He deployed his plasma sword and cut his way out of the wreckage. He threw pieces of metal to one side and the other, then shoved the front seat of the car away. It flipped end for end and crashed to the ground. He rolled to his feet, took a dozen bullets to his armor, then put the tip of the sword through a target at thirty ells. He sprinted, limping a little, back to a ruined storefront on the other side of the street.
The rest of the group was already there by the time he dived in. An armored person, green-tinged on his screen, lay among them, apparently unconscious.
“All in,” said the voice in his ear: “Pull us out.”
Dizzy again, then he sat up: “Gaaahh!” He groaned and fell on his side, shaking uncontrollably.
“It’s all good, Spathos, you are just coming down from the stimulant.” The Med pulled his helm off and helped him with the gorget: “Let me peel this off.” The feeling of impossible strength and speed of thought faded, and he was left with the aftereffects.
He was still shaking. He looked at his hands, willed them to calm. It was utterly futile. “Okay, I see why this stuff isn’t used very often. I feel like I took a year off of my life.”
“More like a season,” said the Med. “But this will salve that loss.” The Med slapped a patch on his hand and his shaking began to diminish.
He dragged himself away from the landing pad and over to the seating are near the door. He laid his rifle on the floor, after engaging the safety, and pulled himself into an overstuffed easy chair. The others from his watch gradually joined him. They all sat or reclined there, breathing slowly, getting themselves back together.
Voukli appeared, looking sarcastic: “Synchronicity works, Spathos.”
“Yeah?” he replied: “How so?”
“You just helped rescue Ambassador Vree.”
“Oh bleep. She’s not supposed to do solo missions.”
Voukli frowned: “She wasn’t solo. Somebody hacked her Passport.”
“Uh-oh.” The implications expanded in his mind. “Was it ATLs?”
“Megálos isn’t sure. But the people shooting at her were from her own Line’s military,” she said.
“Wait a minute, wait just a...” He shook himself, feeling dizzy again: “What Line were we in? Just now, I mean?”
“You were in Line ‘Z War’ Prime.”
“The zombie Line? Okay, start at the beginning. What was Vree up to?”
She grimaced: “Megálos sent a group of twenty operatives to L’Iriquois Prime, in the area of the breeding camp we destroyed last season.”
“So these were guerillas from her Spartacist gang? And Vree was Commanding the mission?” he asked.
“Indeed, but she never got there.”
He nodded: “Hijacked into Z Prime, but they predictably failed to secure her once she was in their hands. So she ran and fought, triggered the panic button on her Passport, it worked, and we Jumped to the rescue.”
Voukli said: “If they’d disabled the panic button while they had the Passport hacked, they might have her right now, dead or alive.”
He nodded: “More likely dead. She’s a Spartacist after all.”
“I’ll take your word for that,” said Voukli.
“So,” he said, pondering: “At the very least, the leaders of the Underground need some improved Passports, even more improved than what we’re already giving them. Like the ‘invisibility’ thing on BWG Shifters, for sure.”
“We’ll discuss that a Council. Meanwhile, Vree would like to see you, when you feel up to it.” She shrugged.
“Bleah. I better eat first, I feel weak as a toddler.”
“How about a burger? Café Socratosenos?”
“I’m there,” he said, standing up slowly. He wobbled a little as he walked, and Voukli took his arm to steady him.
He and Voukli sat in the cafe in the Plataeo Socratosena: the Plaza of Socratos, named after an important figure from the founding of the Commonwealth. Ambros had beans and rice; Voukli dug into a big dish of greens with cheese sauce.
They conversed sporadically while they ate, Ambros could feel the sexual tension between them.
Regulos came sauntering into the Plataeo and got a beer. Only after he’d swallowed a huge draft of his brew did he see Ambros. Regulos sat down facing Ambros, and sipped his beer, watching Voukli hawkishly.
She didn’t look that way, but she said to Ambros: “Someone is staring at me. Can you figure out who it is?”
“I can see him. It’s Regulos.”
She frowned: “Regulos? Oh, that guy. Why is he setting off my alarms?”
“I can’t say for certain, but I believe he’s hoping you’ll leave, so he can come over here and harass me.”
“Oh. If you want to get that over with, I could leave.”
He grinned: “I thought you had other plans for the afternoon.”
“Well, I did. I could postpone those...”
“I don’t see why my friends and I should alter our activities even a little bit for the sake of Regulos. He’s looking for a fight. I don’t have any desire to duel him, but I won’t back down or apologize for being the man I am.”
“Excellent!” Voukli said. “Let’s wait him out, then, and see what he does. Do you suppose...”
“He may just leave. He may get up his courage and approach. I actually couldn’t care less which way it goes...”
She nodded.
They finished eating. Ambros put the last of his rice onto the burger plate and swirled it around with his spork. When he’d sopped up the last of the grease and mustard, he ate that last bite with obvious pleasure.
They stayed alert for any movement by Regulos, but did not look directly at him. They avoided the subject of sex, staying with lightweight small talk: sports events in his Line and theirs and other inconsequential topics.
At one point their exchange led him to ask: “You told me, on the night of my recruitment, that neither side in the war uses time travel to alter the past of any of the Timelines.”
“I told you it was against our guidelines, and that it was futile. I don’t guess that really explains things. You see...”
Ambros made a handsign: ‘Alert.’ Regulos had finally risen and approached them: he sat down without an invitation.
‘That’s a breach of etiquette,’ Ambros thought: ‘And it would be under any circumstances, anywhere in the Commonwealth. It’s doubly so considering our higher ranks, and our Status as Sacred Band.’
He said nothing about it, though. He gazed at Regulos sarcastically.
Voukli snarled: “Have a seat, Red Warrior Guild Spathos One Regulos.”
“Thanks,” said Reg, apparently untroubled by his lack of social skill: “I got a beef with this barb...new citizen, here.” He indicated Ambros.
Ambros looked the fellow up and down, gauged the distance between them and the sturdiness of the table. He leaned back in his chair. He put his left ankle up onto his right knee and raised his arms and laced his fingers together behind his head.
‘It’s a wide-open, vulnerable position,’ he thought. ‘I doubt I could disrespect him more with any words I might utter.’
Reg sat there, looking sour. Voukli snorted with laughter. Ambros waited, still exuding sarcasm.
Finally Regulos said: “We almost mixed it up once already...”
“Spathisi Teresi saved your ass that time.” Ambros kept his tone neutral and his voice quiet.
“So you say. Anyway, I want you to stay away from Magistri Anni’s class. That beginner’s group is mine, she set me to teaching them.”
Voukli spoke before Ambros could react: “The students aren’t yours, Regulos. Each of them belongs to serself, and they are studying with Anni. You are assisting her, at best.”
Reg waved that away dismissively.
“No, really,” said Voukli: “What with your constant misunderstanding of the social contract here in this City, and your apparent inability to recognize Ambros’ superior Status—not to mention his higher skill level in everything the two of you both do—I’m not sure you shouldn’t just chuck the whole Martial Arts career and go join Laborer’s Guild.”
Regulos blushed, then turned pale with fury. He began to speak, then sputtered.
“What, you don’t want to challenge me?” Voukli asked.
“Nah, I think he wants to challenge me,” Ambros said.
Voukli shook her head: “That’d be silly. On what grounds?”
Ambros grinned: “He disagreed with my actions in the concentration camp fight. Now he’s irritated because I stepped in and explained a drill he was teaching...trying to teach...in Magistri Anni’s group lesson at Red Warrior Skolo.
“Just so you know,” he continued, speaking to Reg: “Anni and I been talking on the Kyklo for a while now. She invited me to join her group. You want me gone from there, you convince her to send me off...katalavénete?” Ambros used the old Koine word for ‘do you understand?’ so Regulos would realize that he was serious.
Regulos reached into his belt and pulled out a glove, making as if to throw it at Ambros.
Ambros lowered his arms and set both of his feet on the floor. He stared directly into Regulos’ eyes.
Voukli put her hand out and stayed Reg’s motion: “Not on my watch,” she said. “You have no cause for a duel. If necessary, I’ll go right over Anni’s head to the Minister of your Guild.”
Regulos glared at her: jaw working, teeth grinding, his brains obviously hard at work. After a while, he put the glove back in his belt and stormed off, cursing.
Ambros relaxed, with a sigh. He noticed that Voukli was grinning at him; when their eyes met, she licked her lips: “That was exciting,” she said, with a purr in her voice.
“Oh, really?” He tried not to react too much to her desire, but he fooled neither of them. He spoke, to put off his decision: “We were gonna go see Vree.”
“Yeah,” she said, grinning still wider: “Let’s get that over with, huh?”
Voukli led him north through the City, not towards the Command Complex: “You ever been to the Temple?”
He said: “Presuming you mean the Temple of Asklepios, no, I’ve never been. All of my medical care has been through the War Guilds.”
“Well, Vree got pretty banged up by her captors. Normally we’d use Combat Medical for such injuries, but she is not getting into the Command Complex under any circumstances.”
“You still see her as a security risk?”
“No question at all. None.”
Ambros nodded, thinking about it. At length he said: “I agree. Considering her close association with Virgil, whom I definitely don’t trust...”
They got to the Temple and passed through the sanctuary to the Hospital behind. Ambros reflected on the layout: ‘Passing through the quiet of the Temple tends to quiet the minds of visitors, and their voices as well. Makes a kind of sense.’
They climbed stairs and walked down hallways, Voukli consulting her MPS at frequent intervals.
“This room...” she said.
Unlike most doors in the City, and even most doors in the hospital, that one had a solid panel closing it. A Red Warrior Skolaros stood outside, steel sword in hand.
“You can’t go in,” he said. He shrugged: “Sorry.”
“No problem. We just wanted to check on her. I’m Voukli, I checked her in.”
“I’m Ambros. She asked to see me.”
“I can let you look through this panel,” the guard said: “She’s comatose, though.” He opened a sliding door with a gesture, and with another he cleared the window behind it.
Ambros gazed in and saw Vree on the bed: eyes wide but empty. Machinery ticked and hummed, floating around her, occasionally touching her with wiry appendages, or massaging her with odd looking palps. Her wounds looked serious, perhaps life-threatening. Her belly looked swollen, and blood flowed through a tube from her gut into a machine and then back into her arm.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to wait to see her.”
“We had a message saying she wanted to see Ambros,” said Voukli.
“Must have been before they put her under,” said the guard.
“Yeah. Okay. You ready to go, Spathos?”
“Sure.”
He dropped in to the cubbyhole on the outside of the Exhibition Hall, where he pulled the knockout patches off the naked cops. He set the bin containing the tattered remains of their clothes and their other effects on the ground beside them. He opened the box briefly, to check Police Woman’s name tag: “Angela D’Angelo,” he muttered: “That name can’t be a coincidence. Well...It could, I suppose.”
He walked around towards the front of the building, contemplating: “Thompson is such a professional idiot that I’d be a fool not to keep tabs on him. I better see what I can find out about Police Woman; she must be his partner, and she may not yet know what a jerk he is. Of course...she participated in a ‘no probable cause’ stop. She may be a jerk, too. If she’s related to Hannah D’Angelo...”
He accessed his Desktop via his MPS; he composed a message to a reporter he knew, who worked for the local Wobbly paper, tipping her on “naked cops asleep at the Fairgrounds.” He snickered a little as he sent it.
He passed a blank wall between the window of Holiday Hall and the west side of the building with its multiple entryways. He heard a sound: footsteps coming up behind him, quickly.
He spun suddenly and saw the hulking form of Truck Man bearing down on him. He reacted automatically, and with near lethal results: he evaded the rush, tripped his assailant, then jumped on the man’s back and slammed his forehead on the ground. He started to repeat the last part, and paused. He looked around: it had gotten dark, beyond the gloaming and into full dark. ‘Security lights on this side of the building are few and dim. I don’t think anyone is observing me right now, but still...the guy is out, I don’t have to hit him again.’ He called up his MPS, and determined that no one had been in eyeshot of the fight.
He grinned, somewhat cockily: “So, an ambush? What’s with people today?” He patted Truck Man down and found the brute’s wallet. He looked over the ID: ‘Guy looks familiar...his name is...no one I know...’
He sighed and tried to remember the names on Posse Comitatus’ membership list: ‘He’s not on the “made man” list...I don’t remember whether he’s on the “prospects” list.’ He pondered the ethical dilemma, then decided: ‘He’s not a member of Posse C, so he lives, and stays here in this Line as well.’
He extracted three hundred dollars cash from the bill compartment, leaving forty bucks for gas, in case the fellow was low.
“Spoils of war,” he said, then rose and walked on, cursing.
“What’s with the world today?” he muttered: “Is it National Assault An Anarchist Day? Or perhaps it’s merely a local festival?
“Did I miss the media hype? I just wanted to do some window-shopping. What’s next, an actual gunfight? Plasma swords? Butter knives at dawn?”
He stopped at the corner and used his MPS to find and neutralize the security camera on the wall high above the supine form of Truck Man. He also burned the security light. The area fell into deeper darkness; Truck Man was nearly invisible.
With the aid of the Shifter, he traced the camera’s wiring back to a monitor and desktop mainframe that held recordings from all of the cameras at the Fairgrounds. He mentally accessed his laptop for extra processing power, then commanded the tech: “Fry that hard drive. Seek any backups and fry them as well.”
“Dhulyéna,” came his computer’s voice, buzzed directly into his ear.
‘That solves multiple problems,’ he thought. ‘Now I need to get that damned pistol and dispose of it.’
It took nearly an hour to get it all done. He’d had to stand by the vending machine for almost twenty minutes, just to find a moment when no one would see him fish Police Woman’s .45 out from under the thing. He activated the safety and put it in his left thigh pocket, with the Shifter: ‘I’ll have to decide what to do with it later,’
By then he was exhausted, stressed, and hungry. He hit the food court as soon as he could get there, and got a rice and beans bowl from one of the oriental booths. He sat and scarfed it down, barely registering the flavor until he finished.
“Pretty good,” he said, belatedly.
Kim and Marie appeared and sat down. Marie said: “There you are! We looked everywhere for you! Where’s Arrenji?”
“Back in Athino. I’ll explain later, when we get home.”
Kim began to remonstrate, but Ambros said, in a whisper: “I can’t talk about fighting off an assault by cops, or a second one by a random asshole, while we are surrounded by Hippies, Hipsters and Yuppies. Also, I’m still hungry.”
He headed for the burrito place, digging in his pocket for some of his newly-won cash.
Ambros got up early the next morning because they were seeing the overnight guests off with an early breakfast. He followed Kim up the stairs, both of them yawning. The four household members sat down with Al and Kate for a sumptuous breakfast.
They ate scrambled eggs and bacon and drank a half dozen different morning cups. Al and Kate thanked everyone again; Ambros carried their bags out to their car and they all waved good-bye from the porch as the auto hummed away east on Rosefield Avenue.
Marie sighed as she settled down to a second cup of coffee.
Luisa said: “What’s everyone up to today? I’m going to be writing...”
“I’m sewing,” said Marie: “I have several half-finished projects and a bunch of mending to do. I’ll settle down with some stupid movies and just plow through until I can’t see straight.”
“My dad is going out to that homeless camp where your friends live,” Kim said, looking at Ambros: “He asked me to help him with some kind of mediation.”
He raised his chin, with an air of caution. He reached into his pocket: “Here’s a panic button,” he said, handing it over: “This will ping my MPS if you get in trouble out there.”
“You think there could be trouble?”
He shrugged: “I have some new friends out in that camp. But I’m not a fool, and I don’t trust everyone out there. Their situation is difficult, and people under stress can be volatile.”
“Okay,” she said, pocketing the item.
“How ‘bout you?” Luisa asked.
Ambros said: “Since it’s not raining, I thought I’d spend some time in the yard. Once Kim is safely out of the swamp, I’ll visit Athino to do some chores and talk to my mentors...I have an Obligation to fulfill, sometime in the next couple days...And it’s Saturday, so Samuel B’s will be full of people I want to keep in touch with.”
The women showed no interest in a trip to the pub with him, so he planned to go alone. Kim’s dad picked her up at nine, and Ambros put on his work clothes and hit the yard hard.
‘I need to make a couple dump runs,’ he thought: ‘With Luisa writing the day away and the truck free, it’s a good day to do that.’
Load, tarp, haul, dump, repeat. With the truck nearly full for a third load, he decided to do some saw pruning.
Driving over to the recycle yard for the third time that day, he noticed a green and yellow two-ton pickup tailing him. ‘That thing has no load, but he’s following me to the yard debris area.’
“Maybe I’m paranoid, but that thing is a big ugly rig...and it looks like Bradley Dillon’s. Front end is dinged up, too, like it hit a post or something...’ The windows were tinted so he couldn’t see who the driver was: “...So I won’t take any chances.”
Once he had the load on the ground, he used his tech to map out the entire complex, and found an odd little road that would take him out the back of the property and onto a side road that would get him back to the main drag home. He BS’d his way past a couple workers and escaped via that route.
He got home in time to yield to Kim’s jeep before he backed the truck up to the garage door. They met on the porch: “How’d it go?”
She shrugged: “Dad and Arlen managed to convince the Borderers to co-operate with that bunch back by the willows. It had nothing to do with Camp Arlen or the residents there.”
“Oh, good. Nah, keep the panic button. I’ll pick up some for the others today. It makes sense, with so many different groups at odds with me. Some of them would have no scruples about hitting me by hitting you.”
“I guess...”
“Yeah. I shoulda got to this a long time ago.”
“Well, you are doing so much...”
“No excuse.” He keyed the door open and then thought: ‘Palm locks for the doors here, too. I should get to all of that.’
After a shower, he walked through the thickening drizzle to one of his Jump points. He looked around more carefully than usual before he Saltated: “It’s not paranoia if there really is someone out to get you...’
He exited the War Room and headed for the Tech Guild Liaison’s labs in the first basement of the Command Complex. He nodded to Averos but let the tech be: he had his hands full with some project or another, and looked utterly encumbered by equipment.
‘I oughtn’t to need any help with this task,’ he thought: ‘The instructions on the Kyklo looked pretty simple.’
He found the correct machine and set to work: “I want Eurozone identification cards, USIT Seventeen. Greek government issue, real numbers, backfill the records in Athens and The Hague.” He handsigned specifics about the Line.
The machine produced blanks, and he began filling in the names: “Voukli...her surname could be a common Greek one, say Papandreou. Arrenji let’s say Athenini, it’s her real sobriquet, and believable in Seventeen. Skavo...let’s call ser Skavo Kamiafilo, that’s amusing. Averos. Hmmm. Averos Tekna...Averos Agapateknos.”
He fabricated their birthdates based on their apparent ages in his Line: “That oughta do it, for now.” The machine hummed almost inaudibly, then produced standard Seventeen-style IDs, warm from the laminator. He found that amusing: ‘Commonwealth laminator tech still uses hot plastic. That’s rich.’
He laid Averos’ card down beside him on the bench, then checked the scheduling programs for the other three.
“Arrenji and Voukli are both in meetings, and unavailable for the day,” he muttered. He put their cards into the Postal Guild’s pickup box outside the door of the lab, then pinged Skavo.
Se was free, and agreed to see him. He rode the elevator down and around and up to the ground floor and exited via the Main Hall. He shivered a little. He pulled his hood up and walked quickly. He saw ser outside a cafe, where se had said to meet ser.
Se smiled and waved, and embraced him gently when he arrived. ‘Se’s always so gentle,’ he thought: ‘Of course, se is fragile. Brittle bones and not strong, due to ser hormonal balancing act, or so I hear.’
They went inside and got some tea. Se smiled when he proffered her the ID: “What is this? A gift?”
He smiled: “I have no idea whether you will ever want to visit my barbarian Home Line. If you do...you need that. As Arrenji’s and my recent run-in with the police proves.”
To his surprise, se replied in American: “Thank you, sir! I had considered whether I ought to visit, in order to understand you better.”
He raised an eyebrow: “Hit the RNA banks, huh?”
“I did. It is harder on me than it is on most people, but I thought it worth the suffering. You may have been warned about me: my taste in lovers, that is. Hairy ex-barbarians are a weakness of mine.”
“You are very direct. If, as it seems, you are propositioning me.”
“Not exactly. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps soon.” Se gazed at him in a calculating way, measuring him: “I want to know you better. If you consent to that, I will allow my curiosity to run its course, and who knows?”
“I would like to get to know you better as well,” he said with a slow, crooked smile.
The sun slipped behind the Akropolis. Se stared at him, amused: “What are you doing this evening?”
He laughed: “I planned to attend a gathering at a pub in my Home Line. There are usually people there of a Saturday evening who are among the people I’m supposed to watch. It’s an unobtrusive—and efficient—way to keep my fingers on a number of pulses in the Eugene-o-verse.”
Se laughed in ser turn: “Would it be safe for me to go with you? I should like to see such a place.” Se lifted the ID off the tabletop: “I have this, after all, and some command of the language.”
“It’s a relatively safe neighborhood. The chief danger for anyone who drives too fancy of a car is vandalism. The locals are trying to discourage the gentrification of their area, and tend to look askance on yuppies slumming at their pubs.”
“We could drop in nearby and walk, though. I could take some steps to fit in better.”
“What steps?” he asked, curious.
“I will make myself up to look like a woman, of course. I will then be far less obviously an alien in the environment, and people will be able to categorize me quickly. I will attract less attention that way.”
He pursed his lips: “Good. It’s nearly four o’clock now, in my Line, and the group gathers at around five.”
“Then let us repair to my room, and I will don my disguise.”
Se lived in a single room, on the ground floor of an apartment complex near the Plataeo they’d been visiting. Se had no lock, indeed no door. A curtain shielded the room from passersby in the hallway; se seemed to own almost nothing.
He raised his eyebrows and looked around: three chairs, a mattress and blankets on a heavy oak bed frame, some trunks, some bookshelves with a few volumes on them. A desk: a bit cluttered with papers, a Commonwealth laptop, and a single stylus. ‘That’s about it,’ he thought.
Se rooted around in a trunk and drew forth a very small makeup kit. Se sat in front of a mirror and drew lines upon ser face, emphasizing ser lips and sparse eyebrows, and adding a bit of blush to ser pale cheeks.
“There,” se said: “How’s that?”
“Passable,” he nodded: “In my Line it is extremely unusual for men to make themselves up at all, so the slightest touch of it makes you fall into the box ‘female’.
“That’s what I thought. Is this outfit suitable?”
He let his eyes sweep over her, down then up: “It’ll do,” he nodded: “A bit unisex, but that fits in, in the neighborhood.”
“Excellent!”
They walked northwest along Benham Avenue, ser hand on his arm: “Here we are,” he said.
“It does look like a welcoming ambiance,” se replied.
“It’s an honest to Gambrinus joint: a saloon of the best sort. That is, one without people who brawl or bust up the place or each other.”
“Oh. There are...saloons where such things happen?”
“Well, we are barbarians, after all. So: yes. I would not take you to such a place, though.”
“That’s comforting. I am not very robust.”
They entered the pub. Ambros glanced around: he saw the bar directly before them, and the scattering of unmatched tables and chairs to the right in the direction of the stage.
He saw the usual Saturday crowd of schoolteachers and carpenters and contractors and plumbers, around a line of three tables in the center of the room. The Oregon Country Fair was the organizing influence in that group: almost (but not quite) all of them were members of the loosely defined “Fair Family”.
Some of the local SCAdians sat at a large round table directly to his right, and there appeared to be a few hipsters and poets in the seats nearest the stage. At least, one group wore baseball jerseys with the word “POETS” blazoned where a team name would normally be.
“Not too crowded tonight,” he said.
Baron Darien caught his eye and beckoned for him join their group.
Ambros seated Skavo and introduced ser. He got drinks for himself and ser. He felt hungry enough that he ordered some food: chips and salsa, and a double order of dolmas. Skavo denied any hunger.
He sat down between Darien and Skavo. He explained the organization of the SCA in a few words, and its mission statement as well.
Se said: “I have heard of ‘larps’ and ‘larping’. Is this SCA like unto that?”
“Not exactly,” said Darien, looking irritated.
Ambros explained: “The SCA has resemblances to a Live Action Role Play; but it predates organized larping by at least fifteen years. People who seriously play SCA tend to get a little bit upset if you call what they are doing a larp.”
Johanna intervened: “I prefer to think of it as performance art.”
Ambros clapped his hands: “That’s good! I hadn’t thought of that.”
She continued: “Yes, a decades long, multi-continental, largely improvised performance slash theatrical project.”
Ambros nodded: “With a very serious martial art near the core of nearly all of its performances.”
Skavo said: “I’ll think about that. It sounds like fun.”
“It is that, most of the time,” said Ambros.
A nervous silence ensued. Then Darien said: “We saw you coming along the street,” he gestured out the window: “and we hoped you might be willing to advise us.”
Ambros laughed: “What advice could I give you?”
Ketterly shrugged: “I have recently become their Excellencies’ Seneschal. We are having a lot of trouble getting things done in our meetings and gatherings, which goes back in part to the previous seneschal’s bumbling. I guess I am hoping you can offer a way to shake things up, make things run more smoothly.”
“I’m utterly unfamiliar with this Kingdom, or your process, or your traditional events. And I am most definitely ‘not from around these parts’, you know?”
Ketterly said: “Of course. But that’s one reason we want to hear your opinion. You aren’t a member of any faction.”
“No dog in the fight,” he said nodding. He sighed: “As a Knight and Viscount, even one not in fealty to you, I must offer you whatever assistance I can. Noblesse oblige, and all that. Talk to me.”
Ketterly proceeded to describe the usual course of the local business meeting. The description made him shudder.
His food arrived, and he tasted all the bits: “Pretty good,” he said: “That salsa is hot!”
Baron Darien and Baroness Colleen then gave him a rundown on the factions and cliques, who (of course) often worked at cross-purposes with one another. They did not neglect to explain their own position, as relative newcomers to the area, and chosen by the Crown for the Baronial office because of that.
Before they were quite through with the account, Ambros interrupted: “Parliamentary procedure.” He took a bite of dolmas.
“What?”
He swallowed: “You need to institute parliamentary procedure. In your meetings.” He held up a hand: “Not Robert’s Rules, that is ridiculously complicated, and contradictory. As bad as the Bible. What you need is a streamlined version of the way the old English Parliament made decisions about what to recommend to the Crown as policy or law. They did it that way because it worked, after all.” He grinned: “When I was in the IWW we used a specific version of PP to keep things moving and avoid misunderstandings. The last is absolutely critical if you’re herding cats.” Skavo snickered.
“You were a Wobbly?” Ketterly asked.
He shrugged: “Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”
She cocked her head: “What haven’t you done?”
“Very little. But I’ve never been convicted.”
The group laughed at the witticism. Colleen drew the subject back to center: “Tell me more. How does it work?”
He nodded: “First, how does it NOT work. See, Robert’s Rules is an interesting book, but if you adopt that as your procedure, people can sabotage your whole operation. Get two people into the room who will second each others motions on things like amendments and taking things off the table and ‘committee of the whole’ and other arcane tactics, and you can spend hours debating amendments to a motion that is almost sure to eventually fail. I knew a hazy old Trotskyist who would attend meetings of the Republican and Democratic Parties, or the CPUSA, or anybody else who irked him. Twist the proceedings into knots, he would, and drove the chairmen nuts.
“Now we had, I believe, eight rules. The whole system fit on a half-sheet of ordinary paper. Let’s see...quorum, motion, second, friendly amendments only, call the question, table the motion, challenge the chair...motion to adjourn. I think that’s it. If you have those, and you keep a hard hand against repetition, your meetings should go very quickly. That’s what you want, right?”
‘Well, sure, obviously,” said Ketterly. “The sooner we get done with a business meeting, the sooner we can be having fun.”
“Exactly. But you want the decisions to be supported by most of the people in the room.”
“Well, of course. The SCA is all volunteers, nobody’s going to do what they really don’t want to do.”
Ambros said: “Right. So here’s how it works...and why. Quorum: so you don’t make decisions that a lot of people didn’t have a hand in. Motion: so everyone knows what you’re talking about and the proposed solution. Second: so you are not talking about one single person’s misguided idea. Friendly amendments only: so no one can hijack the original idea. Call the question: so two people can’t waste time talking about something nobody else is in favor of, and to keep people from repeating themselves. Table the motion: to postpone a non-urgent debate. Challenge the chair: to quickly replace a non-functioning facilitator. Motion to adjourn: to end the meeting, or to get out of a non-functioning situation.”
“Wow.” Colleen wrote as quickly as she could, stopping only to double check her handwriting.
He shrugged.
“Okay, I wrote all of that down. But it doesn’t seem like a full description.”
“It’s not. Let me describe a sample meeting here, okay? I’m hearing general agreement? Okay.”
He sat for a minute, marshalling his thoughts.
He began: “We determine that we have a quorum. A quorum is whatever percentage of the population you want it to be. It can also include a requirement that certain specialists be there...like, no meeting without the Knight Marshal, or the Exchequer, or someone like that.
“Ketterly is the seneschal, so she chairs the meeting. She asks for announcements, people make any that they have. She asks for reports from the officers. Let’s say there are no actions needed from any of those reports. Then she goes to Old Business. We’ll pretend there is none. Now here’s how the thing really works:
“Ketterly calls for New Business, and Joanna says: ‘I move that we all go outside and bang our heads against the sidewalk until our foreheads bleed.’
People laughed, which was what he wanted: ‘Gotta entertain them if I’m gonna edumicate ’em.’
He continued: “Two things can happen there: no one seconds the motion, so Ketterly moves on; or someone, let’s say Darien, does second it.
“Ketterly says: ‘It has been moved and seconded blah blah.’ She repeats the motion as she understands it. Then someone says: ‘I move to amend the motion. I think we should break some bottles on the sidewalk first, so we can speed up the bleeding.’ Some wise guy seconds that...
“In Robert’s Rules, you have to debate and vote on this amendment before you can vote on the original motion. In our system, the mover and the second on the original motion must both agree to the amendment before it can even be discussed. Think about that and you’ll see why we did it that way...
“So Joanna and Darien refuse the amendment. But before we can get into a long discussion about a stupid idea, Tancred pipes up with: ‘I call the question!’ Here’s the tricky bit: a motion to call the question is always in order. It needs a second, but it cannot be debated. Let’s say I second the call. So Ketterly says: ‘The question has been called. All in favor of the motion to blah blah say aye...all opposed, say nay. The nays have it.’
“End of that topic. No one can bring it up again. For the rest of that meeting, I mean.”
They all looked at one another in amazed surmise.
He grinned: “Yeah. Cool, huh? Now in Robert’s system, anyone who voted on the winning side can bring it up again. We booted that to the curb.”
“Challenge the chair,” Colleen prompted.
“Right,” said Ambros: “Any decision the chair makes, anyone can challenge. You just say: ‘I challenge the decision of the chair.’ No second needed. No debate allowed. Ketterly simply calls a vote on whether the assembly supports her decision. If she loses, she’s out. Choose a new chair.
“Then on to a motion to adjourn: no second, no debate, immediate vote. Always in order.”
“Tabling the motion?” Colleen asked.
“Oh, right. Suppose Tancred doesn’t want to hurt Joanna’s feelings, so instead of calling the question he says: ‘I move to table this motion until next month,’ or: ‘I move to table this motion indefinitely’. Needs a second, but no debate, immediate vote. See how that works? I figured you would. You need a motion and second to “take the motion off the table” at a later meeting, too.”
Skavo asked: “What if someone repeatedly challenges the chair, or moves to adjourn over and over?”
Ambros looked at ser sideways and said: “I’d move to throw the obstructionist asshole out of the meeting, and as soon as I got a second, I’d call the question. That work for you?”
Se laughed: “It does. And without the kind of technology that the Commonwealth has, it seems like a fair and efficient system.”
He grinned ruefully: “It’s not always fair, but it is efficient.”
Colleen had been taking copious notes. She huddled with Ketterly and they began planning to produce a document explaining the system.
Tancred frowned and said: “Commonwealth?”
“A different organization altogether,” said Ambros. That seemed to satisfy Tancred.
He glanced at the clock: “I’ve used up forty minutes on this topic. Done my duty by the SCA, Kingdom, Principality and the Barony. I want to talk to my students over there.” He got up and went to sit with Gustav and Allie and their parents. Skavo followed.
Se sat mostly quietly, listening to him talk History and Swordplay with the kids. Gustav brought up a subject they had been investigating: The Battle of Agincourt.
“So, King Henry actually did this stuff? Like Shakespeare says: he offered to make any English survivor a squire?”
Ambros nodded: “At least a squire...‘Be he ne’er so vile...This day shall gentle his condition.’ Shakespeare says that: he puts those words in Henry’s mouth. Why don’t you investigate that? See if you can find records online that show commoners promoted to the gentry after that battle. Henry had six thousand footsoldiers at that fight. If anywhere near that many were granted a squire’s fief each, it oughta show up in the records.”
“Okay. But...in the play, and in the movie you showed us, it looks like Henry actually fought in the battle! Wasn’t he King?”
“In those days,” said Ambros, and paused: “In those days the King was expected to be at the front of the battle. The entire class of men who benefited most from war, the knights, barons, dukes and all, right up to the top, every one of them had to show a willingness to risk their lives in battle, and even occasionally actually die.
“Now recall our lessons: in full kit, with riveted mail and a good helm, a guy was nearly proof against any cut or thrust. So they rode to the fight confident of their own survival, even in a huge scrum with a hundred people trying to kill them. And still...”
Allie jogged his elbow: “Still?”
Ambros looked the girl in the eyes: “They still sometimes died. Edward, the Duke of York, died at Agincourt. Henry’s youngest brother, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, got a wound to the groin, and would have died if Henry hadn’t rescued him, at great hazard to his own life.” Ambros smiled: “Would President Gore dare to lead a squad of soldiers in Afghanistan?”
“No.” Gustav sat there frowning.
“In the Middle Ages, if he were King and wouldn’t fight, the knights would think he was a coward, and they would then tend not to fight for him. It was a different world, then.”
Ambros let that sit, so that it might sink in on the kids.
For a while some of the grownups discussed a scandal of some kind involving the board of directors at the Fair. He listened carefully, calculating: ‘How many of the Fair Family see the increasing authoritarianism creeping into the operation of the Fair? How many would risk destroying the Fair in order to save it? Not enough of them, I guess.’
Skavo caught his eye and raised an eyebrow. He nodded, seeing that se could see that which he saw, even with no knowledge of the situation beyond the conversation at hand.
He leaned over and murmured to her: “Power centers, top-down organization, the illusion of democracy, edicts from on high...”
Se shrugged, rueful: “It seems to happen without fail, in most places and times.”
“Yes. Yes it does. How seldom we humans take steps to stop such things...”
He walked Skavo back to the place where they’d dropped in. He contacted the War Room, and found Aristogatos on duty: “Hey Gatos, can you Saltate Magistro Skavo back home? Standing two ells to my right.”
“Got ser, Spathos. Give me a mark...”
“Right.”
Se leaned over and embraced him, then kissed him on the mouth: “Thank you for the experience. It was very illuminating.”
“You’re welcome...” He stepped back: “Mark.”
Se vanished with the usual pop.
The next day in the early afternoon, Ambros stood outside a door. The Door as the Hellenes called it: the one in the wall that symbolically marked the edge of the Red Warrior Skolo. He contemplated all of the advice he’d gotten about the step he was considering: ‘I think I need to go through that gate, just on general principle. I’m not sure whether I have any significant time to spend on reedsword drills or armored steel play. It’s more like a rite of passage, one that I missed because of circumstances. Well, no time like the present...’
He approached the Door. It sat at the rear of a niche, an arched ceiling above it. A girl of sixteen or so sat on a stool near the door.
‘No, a Kopeli. “Paedhi” which is “girl”, is for much younger kids. A teenaged female is ‘kopeli’, unless she is pregnant.’ Then she’d be ‘gynaiki’, a woman.
She looked him over as he approached. His rank, Spathos third class in the Sacred Band, was obvious by his belt and the tokens of missions pinned onto his long grey vest.
At any rate, she rose gracefully from her stool and awaited him. He stepped up to the door, and she said: “I am required by Guild Rule and long-established custom to ask you this question. You are in no way required to answer:
“Why do you want to study at the Red Warrior Skolo?”
“I have been looking at this as a rite of passage,” he said, recapping his earlier thoughts. “And I guess I’m curious to see what I might learn in a group lesson at this school.”
She hummed to herself very quietly, for just a moment, then began tapping the Hellenic letters and numbers across the left side of his vest: “Six combat missions, two recon patrols in ATL Prime, one of which became a combat mission, Relief Mission to USIT Six...”
As she touched each ‘decoration’, they sprouted holographic links to the locations of the Operational Reports on the Kyklo. The guard didn’t download them or do anything else to check his bona fides; she evidently trusted that he had earned the tokens. She shook her head. She switched to the right side: “RNA at plus four, Spathos in the Sacred Band...”
“All true,” he said: “What of it?”
She looked at him a little sidelong: “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m overstepping here, I know.”
He said: “I exchanged notes with one Magistri Anni Shumareni on the Red Warrior Kyklo...”
She opened the Door and ushered him through: “My advice? Skip the formalities, you are not now nor will you ever be an Archaros in this Skolo. Go straight to Magistri Anni’s group lesson and introduce yourself to her.”
He nodded, thoughtful: “Which way...?”
“West Mean Path, second right, first left onto Leontaros Way. Only training area on that path.”
“Thanks.” He found a sign for the first part of the route just inside the Door, and strolled along, looking around.
He made the turn onto Leontaros Way. Magistros Leontaros Leontarios was a famous person in the first century of the Commonwealth: ‘The son of Eleni Vlaportini Leontari Medusa.’
He approached the training ground, which had some kind of force field over it, to keep out the rain. He shook his head: ‘I shouldn’t be surprised at the tech around here, I really shouldn’t. Not anymore...’
About three-dozen teenagers were working out around the field, divided unevenly into three groups. ‘Obviously those are advanced students,’ he thought, watching as six armored and red-belted Spathae smacked each other with steel swords. They appeared to be unsupervised, and were critiquing one another’s play.
‘A middling bunch there,’ he mused, studying another lot, who had tan belts and fought with reedswords. ‘Twenty in that group, and I bet that’s Magistri Anni leading those drills.’ He decided not to interrupt, and glanced over at the beginners.
‘About ten kids,’ he thought: ‘Well, twelve to fourteen year olds, who are adults here in the Commonwealth. I should work harder at calling them Kopelae, not teenagers or kids...Even in my mind.’
“Rest Break!” called the Magistri. To his dismay, the Spathos leading the beginners group turned out to be Regulos. That worthy frowned at Ambros, but didn’t approach.
Magistri Anni did approach him, saying: “Are you Spathos Ambros? Pleased to meet you, I’m Anni.
She saluted, and he responded in kind: “I am indeed Ambros.”
“So, what do you have in mind here? I can’t imagine that you’ll learn much of anything in this class,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t know. Never can tell, at least that’s been my experience.”
“Okay,” she said. “Pick a group to join, and have fun.”
He grinned: “I will.”
When the class started up again he joined the beginner’s group. Regulos ran the class through some very basic drills, and Ambros eased through them without any issues. Reg then set up a partner drill, and Ambros paired with a Kopeli of thirteen or so, who was evidently having a lot of trouble with the concepts involved. He began to coach her, and soon she started to get it.
Regulos grimaced at him, and Ambros switched partners. He worked with the fellow he switched to, then changed up again.
Regulos followed with a more advanced partner drill. As soon as Reg began to explain it, Ambros groaned silently: ‘He doesn’t understand his students’ skill level, or the purpose of the drill. Rats.’
After his partner failed to execute the move correctly three times, Ambros said, loud enough for the other students to hear: “Try it like this...” He executed the movement, slowly and correctly, and the students followed him.
Bells rang across the City, chiming the hour.
“Class, it’s full time!” Anni called out: “Rack your weapons and equipment. See you all next time!”
He racked the reedsword that he’d borrowed. Since he was wearing no armor, he escaped the class area before either Anni or Regulos could buttonhole him. ‘Not in the mood...’ he thought as he strode back the way he’d come. ‘Other stuff to do...’
He crossed Odo Aeolena and entered the Command Complex, thinking hard: ‘How would I teach that group of newcomers if Regulos weren’t in the way? Which way would I lead them, from where they are now?’ He shook his head, hard, and turned his attention to his next task: ‘Armor up, Spathos. You got a job to do.’
He and Voukli stood at the battlement of a tower on the Outer Wall of the City. It was on the northernmost point of the Wall, and looked out at farms and homes and some small areas of wild land.
He wore his Commando armor; she had dressed in red with black trim; she carried a steel sword on her black belt, and dagger on the white one.
“You sure you want to do this?” She seemed doubtful.
He shook his head, slowly: “No. I think I don’t want to do it at all. But I’m feeling what you folks call an Obligation.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Okay.” He leaned forward, gazed down at the base of the tower, far below. Vertigo kicked in for a moment, then the mental changes that came with his Commonwealth Med treatments took over, and he oriented himself in the Timeline.
He sighed: “I have this panic button on my MPS. A while back, Averos told me he’s working on a version of the same for the women...”
“I heard about that.”
“Yeah? Well, I know there’s no such thing as a quid pro quo in Commonwealth Lines. There is, however, Obligation. If we, my family, are gonna rely on the emergency rescue service of the Combined War Guilds, then one of us ought to sit that duty, at least occasionally. And of the four of us...I am the only one qualified for the job.”
“You really feel that way, huh?” She was looking at him in a funny way.
“I do,” he said, firmly.
“Good,” she said: “Actually, amazing. Most recruits from barabarian Lines take a lot longer to figure this kind of thing out.”
“I bet,” he said: “I’d wager some of them never do, and have to be guided to the understanding.”
She nodded: “You’d win that throw. Anyway, you are signed up, Arrenji took care of that this morning. The walkway starts right below this tower. Bear left, right, left at the forks and then straight ahead at the three roads. Fortress Pylena will be right in front of you.”
“Thanks.”
“You want some company?”
“No thanks.” He embraced her and they kissed. Then he began tramping down the twenty flights of stairs to the bottom.
He took a deep breath, and quelled the urge to check all of his weapons again: ‘It’s all as it should be. Check again before your shift starts.’
He strolled along, admiring the view. A farmer, a Master Farmer by the outfit, led a team of oxen towards some machinery. ‘A harrow,’ he decided. The woman waved at him and he greeted her.
‘I know that ’wealthers of all vocations use a crazy mix of technologies to get their daily work done. I never thought of how that would apply to farming.’
He topped the first rise and stopped to rest and look around. He looked back; Voukli still gazed over the scene. She waved; he waved back.
He saw farmland all about, and he could see people working in the nearest fields: ‘People,’ he thought, ‘and animals. And machines...’
Some fields had folks in rough clothing crawling or walking around, hoeing weeds, or pulling them by hand. In other places, small machines did that work, creeping along on tracks and grinding up the unwanted plants like mechanical earthworms.
A mist began to fall over the countryside. He hiked on.
Shortly after the three-way intersection, he came upon the castle. Built soon after the discovery of the Gate it enclosed, it looked squat and powerful. ‘Thirty Warriors, with a few cannon, could hold that place against any army that marched up here.’ He walked up to the gate of the castle, took off his helm and let the security apparatus confirm his ID.
“Sacred Band Spathos Grade Three Ambros Rothakis Dhekefthaninos. Authorized.” The door opened and he stepped inside.
The person sitting at the desk in the foyer put a pistol back into the drawer: “Welcome to Fortress Pylena,” she said.
‘He said?’ Ambros wondered. ‘“Se” is always a safe option for persons of indeterminate gender,’ he reminded himself.
“Thank you,” he said aloud: “How ‘bout some directions?”
Se glanced at all the telltales on ser desk and rose. Se escorted him to a locker room, where he met a group of five men and four women who were about to go on the same shift as he was.
They were terse with their introductions, so he adopted their attitude.
A Med handed him a triangular patch: “On your neck, below the helmet...” Ambros complied.
After perhaps ten minutes, a light began to flash. Everyone checked the safeties on their weapons; Ambros did the same, glancing also at the power readouts.
They entered a long narrow room. There was a set of ten seats to their right, and Ambros sat with his group there. Every few meters down the hall was another set of ten seats. A group of ten, in a mix of Commando gear and Black Warrior armor, marched up the hallway and exited to the locker room.
The guy sitting next to Ambros lifted his face shield: “Hey, rookie. T’kante?”
It took Ambros a couple of seconds to parse that. Then he said: “Kala. You from Hindustano? Originally, I mean?”
“Yeh. Et ya are...”
“USIT Seventeen. Recruited by Arrenji.”
The fellow grinned: “Famous! How you like ’er?”
“She’s a bit beyond that.”
The man laughed: “Yeh, I s’pose so. Famous!”
They sat in silence for a while. After perhaps a quarter hour his time, another group of ten entered the ready room, and one like it stalked out.
Everyone got up and moved one set of seats down, and the newbies took the seats Ambros and his cohort had occupied. He took advantage of the move to stretch and limber himself, and the others did too. They sat again.
The woman behind him tapped his shoulder: he looked back at her and she signaled for him to activate his ‘radio’.
“Ah, there you are,” she said: “Always have the speakers on when you’re on this duty. I’m Theri.”
“Ambros.”
“You get a briefing?”
“Looked it up on the Kyklo.”
“Hmm.” She paused. He heard a little interference in his ear, then: “Okay, this is the drill: usually at least one call per shift. Team at the far end goes first. It makes the odds of deploying a little better than one in five.”
“Ah. Good to know.”
“The patch on your neck is a stimulant, physical and mental. It’ll double your strength and reflex speed. It’s set to inject when we Shift, and it lasts about ten leptae.”
‘Just about nine minutes,” he thought. Aloud he said: “Okay. I got the thing about our faceplates, how we’ll see the rescue target as lit up green.”
“Yes, and armed enemies as red. Shoot the shit outta them, okay? Don’t think too much.”
“I got that.”
They moved down the hall again, and again, and yet again. Once, the alarm sounded; seconds later the team at the end of the row vanished with a bang.
Then Ambros’ group was sitting in the hot seats.
He checked the safety on his rifle, thoughtfully, and disengaged it. ‘Ready to fire...’ He sat with the slugthrower upright between his knees, pondering, nervous.
The alarm went off.
He stood up, slapping his face shield into place. He felt the usual wave of dizziness as the Controller Shifted them into another Line. As soon as his feet felt the earth firmly under him, he dropped to the ground and started firing at red-tinted figures.
He looked around and saw a wrecked automobile. He rolled under it and continued shooting. Bullets smacked the ground around him, and an energy bolt hit the car above his head. The car lifted up, then fell back down, pinning his leg. He cursed.
“Spathos Ambros, fall back to green,” came the order in his ear.
“I hear you.”
He deployed his plasma sword and cut his way out of the wreckage. He threw pieces of metal to one side and the other, then shoved the front seat of the car away. It flipped end for end and crashed to the ground. He rolled to his feet, took a dozen bullets to his armor, then put the tip of the sword through a target at thirty ells. He sprinted, limping a little, back to a ruined storefront on the other side of the street.
The rest of the group was already there by the time he dived in. An armored person, green-tinged on his screen, lay among them, apparently unconscious.
“All in,” said the voice in his ear: “Pull us out.”
Dizzy again, then he sat up: “Gaaahh!” He groaned and fell on his side, shaking uncontrollably.
“It’s all good, Spathos, you are just coming down from the stimulant.” The Med pulled his helm off and helped him with the gorget: “Let me peel this off.” The feeling of impossible strength and speed of thought faded, and he was left with the aftereffects.
He was still shaking. He looked at his hands, willed them to calm. It was utterly futile. “Okay, I see why this stuff isn’t used very often. I feel like I took a year off of my life.”
“More like a season,” said the Med. “But this will salve that loss.” The Med slapped a patch on his hand and his shaking began to diminish.
He dragged himself away from the landing pad and over to the seating are near the door. He laid his rifle on the floor, after engaging the safety, and pulled himself into an overstuffed easy chair. The others from his watch gradually joined him. They all sat or reclined there, breathing slowly, getting themselves back together.
Voukli appeared, looking sarcastic: “Synchronicity works, Spathos.”
“Yeah?” he replied: “How so?”
“You just helped rescue Ambassador Vree.”
“Oh bleep. She’s not supposed to do solo missions.”
Voukli frowned: “She wasn’t solo. Somebody hacked her Passport.”
“Uh-oh.” The implications expanded in his mind. “Was it ATLs?”
“Megálos isn’t sure. But the people shooting at her were from her own Line’s military,” she said.
“Wait a minute, wait just a...” He shook himself, feeling dizzy again: “What Line were we in? Just now, I mean?”
“You were in Line ‘Z War’ Prime.”
“The zombie Line? Okay, start at the beginning. What was Vree up to?”
She grimaced: “Megálos sent a group of twenty operatives to L’Iriquois Prime, in the area of the breeding camp we destroyed last season.”
“So these were guerillas from her Spartacist gang? And Vree was Commanding the mission?” he asked.
“Indeed, but she never got there.”
He nodded: “Hijacked into Z Prime, but they predictably failed to secure her once she was in their hands. So she ran and fought, triggered the panic button on her Passport, it worked, and we Jumped to the rescue.”
Voukli said: “If they’d disabled the panic button while they had the Passport hacked, they might have her right now, dead or alive.”
He nodded: “More likely dead. She’s a Spartacist after all.”
“I’ll take your word for that,” said Voukli.
“So,” he said, pondering: “At the very least, the leaders of the Underground need some improved Passports, even more improved than what we’re already giving them. Like the ‘invisibility’ thing on BWG Shifters, for sure.”
“We’ll discuss that a Council. Meanwhile, Vree would like to see you, when you feel up to it.” She shrugged.
“Bleah. I better eat first, I feel weak as a toddler.”
“How about a burger? Café Socratosenos?”
“I’m there,” he said, standing up slowly. He wobbled a little as he walked, and Voukli took his arm to steady him.
He and Voukli sat in the cafe in the Plataeo Socratosena: the Plaza of Socratos, named after an important figure from the founding of the Commonwealth. Ambros had beans and rice; Voukli dug into a big dish of greens with cheese sauce.
They conversed sporadically while they ate, Ambros could feel the sexual tension between them.
Regulos came sauntering into the Plataeo and got a beer. Only after he’d swallowed a huge draft of his brew did he see Ambros. Regulos sat down facing Ambros, and sipped his beer, watching Voukli hawkishly.
She didn’t look that way, but she said to Ambros: “Someone is staring at me. Can you figure out who it is?”
“I can see him. It’s Regulos.”
She frowned: “Regulos? Oh, that guy. Why is he setting off my alarms?”
“I can’t say for certain, but I believe he’s hoping you’ll leave, so he can come over here and harass me.”
“Oh. If you want to get that over with, I could leave.”
He grinned: “I thought you had other plans for the afternoon.”
“Well, I did. I could postpone those...”
“I don’t see why my friends and I should alter our activities even a little bit for the sake of Regulos. He’s looking for a fight. I don’t have any desire to duel him, but I won’t back down or apologize for being the man I am.”
“Excellent!” Voukli said. “Let’s wait him out, then, and see what he does. Do you suppose...”
“He may just leave. He may get up his courage and approach. I actually couldn’t care less which way it goes...”
She nodded.
They finished eating. Ambros put the last of his rice onto the burger plate and swirled it around with his spork. When he’d sopped up the last of the grease and mustard, he ate that last bite with obvious pleasure.
They stayed alert for any movement by Regulos, but did not look directly at him. They avoided the subject of sex, staying with lightweight small talk: sports events in his Line and theirs and other inconsequential topics.
At one point their exchange led him to ask: “You told me, on the night of my recruitment, that neither side in the war uses time travel to alter the past of any of the Timelines.”
“I told you it was against our guidelines, and that it was futile. I don’t guess that really explains things. You see...”
Ambros made a handsign: ‘Alert.’ Regulos had finally risen and approached them: he sat down without an invitation.
‘That’s a breach of etiquette,’ Ambros thought: ‘And it would be under any circumstances, anywhere in the Commonwealth. It’s doubly so considering our higher ranks, and our Status as Sacred Band.’
He said nothing about it, though. He gazed at Regulos sarcastically.
Voukli snarled: “Have a seat, Red Warrior Guild Spathos One Regulos.”
“Thanks,” said Reg, apparently untroubled by his lack of social skill: “I got a beef with this barb...new citizen, here.” He indicated Ambros.
Ambros looked the fellow up and down, gauged the distance between them and the sturdiness of the table. He leaned back in his chair. He put his left ankle up onto his right knee and raised his arms and laced his fingers together behind his head.
‘It’s a wide-open, vulnerable position,’ he thought. ‘I doubt I could disrespect him more with any words I might utter.’
Reg sat there, looking sour. Voukli snorted with laughter. Ambros waited, still exuding sarcasm.
Finally Regulos said: “We almost mixed it up once already...”
“Spathisi Teresi saved your ass that time.” Ambros kept his tone neutral and his voice quiet.
“So you say. Anyway, I want you to stay away from Magistri Anni’s class. That beginner’s group is mine, she set me to teaching them.”
Voukli spoke before Ambros could react: “The students aren’t yours, Regulos. Each of them belongs to serself, and they are studying with Anni. You are assisting her, at best.”
Reg waved that away dismissively.
“No, really,” said Voukli: “What with your constant misunderstanding of the social contract here in this City, and your apparent inability to recognize Ambros’ superior Status—not to mention his higher skill level in everything the two of you both do—I’m not sure you shouldn’t just chuck the whole Martial Arts career and go join Laborer’s Guild.”
Regulos blushed, then turned pale with fury. He began to speak, then sputtered.
“What, you don’t want to challenge me?” Voukli asked.
“Nah, I think he wants to challenge me,” Ambros said.
Voukli shook her head: “That’d be silly. On what grounds?”
Ambros grinned: “He disagreed with my actions in the concentration camp fight. Now he’s irritated because I stepped in and explained a drill he was teaching...trying to teach...in Magistri Anni’s group lesson at Red Warrior Skolo.
“Just so you know,” he continued, speaking to Reg: “Anni and I been talking on the Kyklo for a while now. She invited me to join her group. You want me gone from there, you convince her to send me off...katalavénete?” Ambros used the old Koine word for ‘do you understand?’ so Regulos would realize that he was serious.
Regulos reached into his belt and pulled out a glove, making as if to throw it at Ambros.
Ambros lowered his arms and set both of his feet on the floor. He stared directly into Regulos’ eyes.
Voukli put her hand out and stayed Reg’s motion: “Not on my watch,” she said. “You have no cause for a duel. If necessary, I’ll go right over Anni’s head to the Minister of your Guild.”
Regulos glared at her: jaw working, teeth grinding, his brains obviously hard at work. After a while, he put the glove back in his belt and stormed off, cursing.
Ambros relaxed, with a sigh. He noticed that Voukli was grinning at him; when their eyes met, she licked her lips: “That was exciting,” she said, with a purr in her voice.
“Oh, really?” He tried not to react too much to her desire, but he fooled neither of them. He spoke, to put off his decision: “We were gonna go see Vree.”
“Yeah,” she said, grinning still wider: “Let’s get that over with, huh?”
Voukli led him north through the City, not towards the Command Complex: “You ever been to the Temple?”
He said: “Presuming you mean the Temple of Asklepios, no, I’ve never been. All of my medical care has been through the War Guilds.”
“Well, Vree got pretty banged up by her captors. Normally we’d use Combat Medical for such injuries, but she is not getting into the Command Complex under any circumstances.”
“You still see her as a security risk?”
“No question at all. None.”
Ambros nodded, thinking about it. At length he said: “I agree. Considering her close association with Virgil, whom I definitely don’t trust...”
They got to the Temple and passed through the sanctuary to the Hospital behind. Ambros reflected on the layout: ‘Passing through the quiet of the Temple tends to quiet the minds of visitors, and their voices as well. Makes a kind of sense.’
They climbed stairs and walked down hallways, Voukli consulting her MPS at frequent intervals.
“This room...” she said.
Unlike most doors in the City, and even most doors in the hospital, that one had a solid panel closing it. A Red Warrior Skolaros stood outside, steel sword in hand.
“You can’t go in,” he said. He shrugged: “Sorry.”
“No problem. We just wanted to check on her. I’m Voukli, I checked her in.”
“I’m Ambros. She asked to see me.”
“I can let you look through this panel,” the guard said: “She’s comatose, though.” He opened a sliding door with a gesture, and with another he cleared the window behind it.
Ambros gazed in and saw Vree on the bed: eyes wide but empty. Machinery ticked and hummed, floating around her, occasionally touching her with wiry appendages, or massaging her with odd looking palps. Her wounds looked serious, perhaps life-threatening. Her belly looked swollen, and blood flowed through a tube from her gut into a machine and then back into her arm.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to wait to see her.”
“We had a message saying she wanted to see Ambros,” said Voukli.
“Must have been before they put her under,” said the guard.
“Yeah. Okay. You ready to go, Spathos?”
“Sure.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
musings
Date: 2016-12-14 01:19 am (UTC)funny: hippies, hipsters, and yuppies. Very funny: butter knives at dawn.
Can you explain 'kamiafilo'?
I admit I skipped the parliamentary procedure section; I assume you want it as a teaching tool, but that stuff can get pretty dry.
Do they tend to have rice and beans at Oriental booths? Also you might want to make that Asian.
Hmm, I wonder if their laminating and other plastics are still petroleum based, or plant-based or something else? What is their relationship with petroleum, if any?
Re: musings
Date: 2016-12-14 02:04 am (UTC)When A constructed the name "Kamiafilo" I had the dictionary in hand. I don't remember how it's constructed, but filo means 'friend' or 'lover of'.
*I* thought I'd made the PP section rather amusing.
"Asian." good one...I will fix that but I'm not sure how.
Petroleum, like coal, they mine only for special purposes in the Commonwealth Line. This may be one of those purposes, since the fake IDs have t pass muster in Barbarians Lines. Although they also run power plants in Quiet Timelines, maybe they import the necessary petrol from one of those.