Thereafter Chapter 19: Pursuit
The Exalted zero in on a suspect, but find only further questions.
Back in the Exalted Room, Michael scratched his chin. He was trying to make up his mind about the encounter with Leowin, a process of interpretation only somewhat interrupted by the realization that his five o’ clock shadow was growing dark indeed. Somewhere outside his head, Alicia was delivering a comprehensive but ultimately undramatic recap of her quizzing of Eltern. Felipe was lounging about, doing his darnedest to occupy as much of the comfiest couch in the most extra way possible, as was his method and apparent preference.
“Right, so the sword is definitely gone, and if Eltern has any idea of where it is, he’s hiding it well,” Alicia said with a shrug.
“Same with Leowin, I think,” Michael said at last. “He’s… weird, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of ambitious one would need to be to steal the thing.”
“So nothing hugely helpful there either?”
“Not as such, no.”
“I don’t like Lia for this, either.” Felipe said, adjusting his pose to bring some neon-drenched mix between Dionysus and saint Sebastian to mind, at least Michael hoped that was the purpose. It certainly was the effect. “She’s a bit of a bitch, but last time I checked that wasn’t a crime.”
“Good news for you, I’m sure.” Alicia said.
“Wow Alicia, that’s not very nice.”
“Glass Houses, Espino, glass houses.”
Felipe was, no doubt, working on some devastating retort when Lex burst into the room with the level of subtlety Michael had come to expect from them.
“Giddiyup, Jingle Horses, we have a suspect.” Lex said, marching straight to the board to add a pair of devil horns to the picture of the quartermaster.
“What did he say?” Michael found himself asking.
“I am sure I do not know,” Lex said over the incensed squeaking of the felt tip pen on the surface of the photo. “But that heinous bitch is AWOL and have been since last evening. That just as well might be a confession as far as I’m concerned.”
“So if you haven’t been talking to him?”
“I have, of course, been searching, both with my quite functional eyes and my more esoteric senses and abilities.”
“But?”
“No dice. If that cop bitch is anywhere in Thereafter, he’s hidden by someone considerably better at this kind of thing than I am.”
“It’s not like he could’ve fled town,” Alicia said.
“I mean he could,” Michael said. “If the scavengers can leave town I’m sure he could make that work somehow.”
“Possible,” Alicia said, “but even the scavengers can’t stay in the void for too long. No air, for one.”
“With enough resources one could stay out in the black for a good long while,” Lex said, their expression vacant and fingers gently waving as they did some sort of obscure math in their head. “It probably wouldn’t be pleasant though.”
“That might be preferable to the kind of ass kicking he’s going to get from us,” Felipe said, still lounging around like he had people to do stuff for him.
“Gotta find him first,” Alicia said.
“I suppose that’s a good start,” Michael said. “Does anyone know where he lives?”
Lex’ smile briefly turned sharp as a knife. “I’ve been waiting for this. Time to suit up.”
Michael had always imagined suiting up to be a quick procedure. Snap snap, and you’re ready to wreak any amount of havoc. In reality, it was a bit more of a process. Sure, his clothing was relatively unobtrusive, but the strangely light chest plate was, no matter how sleek it looked, a right pain to attach properly. He wore an undershirt to prevent chafing, and then there was the fastening and tightening and whatnot. Once that whole situation was in place, the loose but well-fitting pants was a breeze. The hooded cowl was similarly simple to put on himself but one challenging task and one difficult question still remained.
First, was the coat, a long black affair of some dense material. It felt a bit ostentatious to Michael, but he figured it was less conspicuous than walking around in a muscle shirt of black metal public. Besides, he thought as he shrugged the thing on, it did hang off his broad shoulders in what might charitably be described as a fetching way. The only question that remained now was the question of shoes. In the land of the Molefolk he had gone barefoot for the most part. For one, molefolk had no concept of shoes to start with, and secondly, the tremorsense that they used to navigate was unduly dulled by a thick sole. It was a kind of magic, Michael figured, but not of the flashy kind. Going into a dangerous situation with shoes on could potentially be as bad as wearing a blindfold, especially if he was going to sneak around in the dark. On the other hand, there were distinct advantages to wearing shoes. The streets of Thereafter weren’t cold like the streets in his hometown was for half of the year, and there probably was less broken glass and whatnot too. Still, less broken glass did not mean no broken glass.
Eventually, Michael settled on the thinnest soled shoes he could find, really more of a pair of slightly reinforced black socks than anything else. It’d be fine for now, he told himself, after all he wasn’t expecting trouble.
With matters of the sartorial thusly handled, Michael grabbed the short sword he had picked in one hand and his cane in the other. As professional cane-makers apparently weren’t first in line to the life boats when the Cataclysm came knocking, his new cane wasn’t the most impressive piece of wood he had seen. Granted, it did its job, even though the grip of the handle wasn’t quite as comfortable as the temporary conjured one. It was, however, solid, and cut to order, so the height fit him perfectly. He didn’t want to rely on beating people with it, but if the situation should call for it, he could.
Much to Michael’s chagrin, he was the last to arrive at the gates of The Castle.
“There you are,” Lex said, dressed in the same purple robes as they had been during the announcement.
“Sorry I’m late,” Michael found himself saying, a compulsion more than a habit.
“Don’t worry about it,” Alicia said, yet again dressed like she planned to hunt bears some time in the bronze age.
“Psh, fashionably late is the way to go,” Felipe said, he had ditched the ostentatious peacock feather cape, but Michael could tell that it pained him somewhat.
“You got here before me if I recall,” Alicia said dryly.
“I’ve got nothing to prove,” Felipe said. It was the most casually delivered lie Michael had ever proved. “The party starts with me. The party is me”
“Whatever you say Party Boy.”
“Right,” Michael said. “Lex, you know where this guy lives?”
“Sure do.”
“Well, lead the way, I suppose.”
To his surprise, Michael found that his minor act of direction had been all that was needed to get the gang going, as Lex took point out into the semi-busy streets of Thereafter. The artificial sunlight was low and reddish, it would cease soon to the faint moonlight simulacra and the infinite vast blackness of the void. Michael had long since stopped to think of it as weird, but he did not like it any better than he had initially. This whole city was built on impossibilities. Every tired soul in it by all rights should be floating lifeless in the void. And yet, here they all were. Surviving on account of a number of factors, one of which surely was pure luck. It was a fragile peace that swathed the town, and if the wrong someone started disturbing that peace, things were going to get a whole load more complicated, and potentially dangerous, in a hurry. It would be their job, their responsibility really, to meet that rising tide. The council had good intentions, but their ability to get anything done seemed distinctly lacking to Michael. Then again, they had literally built the very streets they now navigated, slipping between quilt-walls and across jigsaw streets, as unobtrusively as possible. It was, admittedly easier for Michael than the rest of them. The long shadow of the fake sunset felt more real to him, and the edge of awareness that usually just stressed him out in crowded rooms or streets served him well in keeping a loose tally of who could see them and who could not at any given time.
Lex nodded towards a tall building made out of bigger pieces than the surrounding buildings.
“In here. Third floor.” They whispered
“Is that the UK or US style of third floor?” Felipe asked
“It is the kind where you go up two sets of stairs, now scram!”
“So US style. Right, who goes first,”
“I’ll go,” Michael said, “I’ll vanguard it, then Alicia and Lex, Felipe you’ll bring up the rear, and keep an eye out for… interlopers.”
“Interlopers?”
“People we’d rather not interrupt us.”
“So anyone ideally,”
“Yeah, but let us, like, extra know if they have weapons or look like they’re fixing to kick some ass.”
“Only room for one set of ass kickers here, huh, Saint?”
“Mhm. I have to assume the Council has tried this place already, but if he should be in there, what do we do?”
“Ask him to tell us what the fuck is going on,” Alicia said, there was a tone to her voice that told him that Alicia planned to ask pretty hard. “What do we do if he’s not there?”
“That time, that sorrow… ok that doesn’t work in English. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
The entrance to the building, which Michael came to understand as a tenement building of sorts, was unlocked. Michael knew he could’ve cracked just about any lock anyone would’ve cared to put on such a building, but it would’ve cost them time, as well as possibly attract attention. As there was no law, there technically was no crime in Thereafter, but that did not mean people wouldn’t take what looked like robbery as an invitation to preform some vigilante justice. After all, wasn’t that what they were? Council-backed vigilantes, but still. They didn’t base their decisions on any legal code or manual of conduct. All they had was their own sense of right and wrong. In a way it was liberating, Michael thought as he climbed the stairs to the third floor. In a different way, it was the scariest thing he could think of. By the time Michael reached the third floor, he was reaching for the set of thieves’ tools he had picked up in the armory. While the main entrance wasn’t locked, Michael couldn’t imagine a world where the door to private quarters couldn’t, and wouldn’t be locked.
He needed, as it turned out, not bother. Before checking a single name plate, he knew which of the three doors in the hallway was Keegan’s. It was the one that was open. Not all the way, not even open enough that you could peek inside, but some pitiful 1/4ths open, telling the tale of someone leaving with considerably more haste than normal. Michael took a deep breath.
“I’m going in, Alicia come with, you two, lookout.”
“So much for the vanguard huh?” Felipe quipped.
“It’s both faster and safer to clear a domicile with two people, unless you want to be one of them, shut up please,” Michael said with a smile. It was petty, but he did enjoy how Felipe’s cocky expression faltered as he considered that possibility.
“OK, how do we do this?” Alicia asked.
“As quietly as possible,” Michael said. “If I hold up a fist that means stop, if I point you check that direction. Be careful around corners and doors. If you come across someone do not hesitate. Strike to restrain or wound, but leave them alive if at all possible.”
“We do have questions,” Alicia conceded.
“That we do. Ready?”
Alicia nodded.
Michael pushed the door all the way open, silently cursing the creaky hinges of the thing. The hallway past it was empty and dim in the way Michael imagined pre-electricity homes to be. He took the first steps into the corridor, his tremorsense sharpened to a knife’s edge. If anything bigger than a dust mite moved in the apartment he wanted to sense it before he saw it. Alicia followed a step and a half behind him, her steps notably tenser than they had been earlier. Michael took solace in the fact that he wasn’t the only one who was scared. It didn’t change the fact that he was scared as hell, but it did make him feel a touch braver at least.
The hallway opened up to what would be called a studio apartment back on earth, a rather nice one at that, although the windows were strangely small to Michael’s post-industrial sensibilities. Not that the windows would’ve provided much light even if they were as wide as he was used to though, the low light of a swiftly setting sun gave very little more than definition to the furniture and objects in the living room. Michael pointed Alicia in the direction of the window, while he stepped deeper into the darkness of the apartment, trusting his tremorsense to tell him of any hidden dangers.
After he had walked through enough of the twilight dimness to conclude that if there were dangers or other people in it, they were too infinitesimal to be of any concern, Michael turned back towards Alicia. She met his gaze. He pointed towards the only other door in the room. Alicia nodded.
They worked wordlessly, approaching the door at an angle. Michael stepped behind the door, while Alicia positioned herself by the door frame, her axe ready to strike. Michael extended his tremorsense as far as he could, but the wall to what he assumed was a bedroom was thick enough to severely dilute the read he could get without producing some sizable vibration. Striking the floor with his cane would do the trick, as he could read the “echoes” of the vibration, but it’d also create more noise, and that wasn’t something he was too keen on. So, instead, he reached out a hand to open the door. If anyone was in the bathroom, he was about to expose Alicia to danger, but there was no way of doing this without some risk. He held up three fingers on his other hand, Alicia nodded. The countdown started. Three fingers. Two fingers. One. Michael opened the door and Alicia sprang into action.
“Well, that was an anticlimax,” Alicia said. After the minutes of pointed silence, her voice sounded loud, like an opera singer.
“Clear?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, nobody’s in here except some bedlinen that should probably be washed.”
Michael could feel his shoulders relax, he hadn’t even noticed hunching them.
“All right, we’re clear you two, come in.”
What followed was a most leisurely search of the empty apartment. Lex had conjured floating balls of light to make seeing easier, and while Felipe complained a good game about the pointlessness of this investigation cul-de-sac, Michael didn’t mind. The fact that Keegan wasn’t here was inconvenient, it would be tidy if they could just collect him and the Sword of Lakes like it was hardly an inconvenience, but of course he hadn’t really expected things to be that easy. The apartment, however, showed no sign of either the man or the exceedingly important sword.
“Right, this was a bust,” Felipe said, tossing around a small ball that Keegan for some reason had kept. “No sword, no quartermaster, no real clue.”
“Well, we know he’s not here,” Lex said with a shrug. “We kind of already knew that, but details…”
“We also know his apartment’s kind of shit,” Alicia said as she put down the couch she had lifted to check the floor underneath. “Don’t know how relevant it is,”
“It’s a motive perhaps,” Michael said. “It’s hardly the level of comfort available in The Castle, so the fact that he lives here either means he prefers it here,”
“Unlikely,” Felipe said, bouncing the little ball off a wall.
“Or there’s some reason he’s not allowed to live in The Castle,” Lex finished Michael’s argument.
“Yeah,” Michael said before a motion caught his attention. It wasn’t the attention of his sight, but his still sharpened tremorsense. The conversation went on. Felipe complained about something, Alicia chastised him. Michael wasn’t paying attention, as his entire being was focused on interpreting the series of percussions, no, steps, in the stairwell.
“Get ready,” He found himself saying, drawing his sword as to underline his point. “We have visitors.”
Author’s Note: One of the things I notice while writing serial style, as opposed to the Novel style of writing I’m used to, is that it feels more natural to end chapters on a cliffhanger. Call it my way of baiting for subscribes I guess. We’re getting pretty close to the end of book one now, but considering how much stuff is going down in the climax it still feels a world away. This is all to say: Hold on to your hats. Next time, we’ll see a resolution to this cliffhanger, another piece of the puzzle will come a-knocking, and the Exalted will face a difficult choice.
Catch you later!
V.S.D