Mraxinar Awakens

In his centuries of existence, Mraxinar had never been unconscious before. The physiology of a bone construct such as himself was not, really, anything like that of a human. His skull served as a focal point for conversation with others, a perspective from which he could see and hear, and, he supposed like humans, he had come to think of it as the seat of his consciousness.
And yet, there was no brain inside that skull – there had not been for a very long time, and he had never thought of that brain as belonging to himself. Certainly, some humans assumed that because the brain was the organ that processed information and output commands to the rest of the body that manifested in behavior that it must also be the seat of consciousness. This of course carried with it some dire implications regarding what happened when a brain was destroyed, or even when it was damaged. Where did the self go, exactly, when that seat of consciousness no longer existed?
Mraxinar had always been aware that his body was not indestructible. It did not age the same way that human bodies did, but it was physical matter that could wear over time and that could be threatened by any severe violent trauma.
And yet, in the Wastes, in the grand city of Spire, the notion that life could come to an end was far from anyone’s mind.
Even when the ship was destroyed shortly after they arrived in Port O’James, he had not quite processed what had happened. One guard had been killed – or destroyed, as the living humans had thought of it – but Mraxinar had not known that individual very well. It was an anomaly, and the event had been abstracted in his mind.
Mraxinar did not even sleep. He did not even have eyelids to blink.
And so, had he been conscious enough to evaluate his situation, he would have thought that the only reasonable explanation for his loss of sight and conscious thought was that he had died, been destroyed, and ceased to exist.
He had, in fact, been knocked unconscious, which was not something he had even been aware was possible.
When he came to, he was in a hospital bed, which was a very ironic thing because none of the equipment or instruments there were remotely suited to provide him with any help. The first sign that something was terribly wrong was that he seemed to fit on the bed.
There was a uniformed enforcement officer outside the door. When Mraxinar called out, his voice was weak.
What was this? He had no throat to be hoarse. His speech was a magical projection from his mouth, not the vibrations of vocal cords shaped by tongue, lips, or teeth.
He tried again, conjuring up the strength to say something, and he felt not just confused or frustrated by the effort it required but also terrified.
“I’m awake!” he cried out, the panic perhaps coloring the sound of his words.
This time the officer heard, and Mraxinar could hear as he called in a nurse and then began to radio in to his headquarters.
A doctor came in – Mraxinar was not certain, as much of his knowledge on human notions of gender were centuries old, but they appeared to be a nonbinary person in their early 30s – and seemed to approach with some trepidation.
“You are a caregiver, I understand?” he said.
“Yes. My name is Bailey,” they said. “Doctor Bailey Evans.”
“Why was I brought here? I don’t believe that any of the kind of medicine practiced in this facility is likely to do me any good.”
Bailey nodded. “You’re probably right about that, but it seemed the best option.” They began to jot down notes on a clipboard. “How are you feeling right now?”
Mraxinar considered it. “Mostly confused. I do not remember coming here. I experienced a period of unconsciousness.”
“Yes, you came in like that. Do you remember what happened before that?”
Mraxinar thought back. He remembered that he had been in the room with the other constructs, speaking about something. “Partially, perhaps. May I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” said Bailey.
“Is that darkness truly what sleep feels like?”
“Do you not sleep?”
“No, I’ve never slept before.”
Bailey put their clipboard away. “Sleep is… it depends. Sometimes you dream. You know about dreams?”
“I’m familiar with the concept on an intellectual level.”
“Well, usually if you dream it feels very real until you wake up from it. But sometimes, sleep is just sleep.”
“Nothingness?”
“Well, some might say that. Though I always feel as if there’s a sensation to it. It’s hard to put into words, but it’s a kind of low hum. It’s a good feeling, usually.”
Mraxinar considered that. There was not a sense of lost time – he did not feel as if he had been transported instantly to this bed – and yet he could not conjure up any memory of sensation while he was unconscious.
As if they had sensed his thoughts, Bailey said “You suffered a severe physical trauma. You were not just asleep.”
“I see.”
“Mraxinar, you were very close to the detonation of an explosive device. You have suffered from severe concussive trauma. Unfortunately, as you’ve noted, we are not experienced in treating a being of your nature here, and because of that, I am very sorry, Mraxinar, but we could not save your legs.”
Mraxinar had not considered that. He propped himself up on his hands, leaning forward as Dr. Evans assisted him. Indeed, there was only a trail of vertebrae that ended about a foot and a half beyond the ribs.
Mraxinar was suddenly aware of how small he was. He was accustomed to towering over others. Now, there was just this human skeleton that ended at the pelvis (with perhaps a few extra vertebrae, but not enough to look all that impressive.)
Immediately, a comforting thought came to him, which was that he could be repaired when he returned to the Wastes. They could outfit him with a new set of legs easily enough. Sure, the old ones had been with him since the moment of his creation. For centuries. The thought made him deeply sad.
“It is understandable.”
“Are you in pain?”
“No…” he said. Not physical pain at least.
“Mraxinar, Detective Inspector Harrick and Detective Sweeney are here to speak with you. Are you ready to speak with them?”
Mraxinar’s mood cheered for a moment at the mention of Sweeney’s name. “Oh, yes, certainly.”
“Right. I’ll be back when they’re gone so we can discuss long term goals here.”
That sounded ominous to Mraxinar, but he tried to dismiss it.
Dr. Evans exited the room, and the old man and the young undead woman walked in. “Mraxinar, how are you feeling?” asked Sweeney.
“Surreal, I think, would be the right word. How long was I unconscious?”
“Seven days,” said Harrick. He walked over to a chair in the room and sat down, resting his cane in a corner that a counter made with the wall. “What do you remember?”
Mraxinar thought back again. “There was… I was talking with my colleagues. We were… I had seen a man on the street that was wearing a very thin jacket despite the fact that it was well below freezing in the early morning. We were having a sort of intellectual conversation, I think? It’s remarkable how fuzzy the memory is.”
“Mraxinar,” said Sweeney. “We have to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
Harrick sighed. Sweeney looked to him, but he shrugged and gestured for her to continue. She stepped forward and placed a hand on Mraxinar’s wrist. “You were the only survivor. Gersic, Xirrik, Zyx, and Torithar… There were only fragments left.”
How self-centered he had been. Mraxinar stared forward at the blank ceiling. He had known Gersic for over three hundred years. They had had their differences in personality, to be sure, but he had been a friend.
“I am very sorry, Mraxinar, for your loss.”
“Thank you, Ana. Detective. I must confess that grief is not something I have a great deal of experience with. In these earliest moments of it, I find it very unpleasant.”
Harrick leaned forward in his chair. “The bomber killed your people as well as four humans, staying in rooms near yours. It took hours for firefighters to find you in the wreckage. I’m sorry about your legs.”
Mraxinar nodded. “Thank you for your condolences.”
“Mraxinar,” Harrick continued. “Do you remember what you were saying when the firefighters found you?”
“I was not aware I was saying anything.”
Harrick pulled out a notepad. “’We are one in the machine.’ What does that phrase mean to you?”
The conversation that he had had with his associates began to coalesce within his memory. “Gods, I…” He began to remember what they had discovered before the bomber arrived. “I think it was the subject of a conversation that was the very reason we would be targeted by the bomber.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sweeney.
“We were sent here to assist with your problems with the undead, because we are particularly well equipped to do so. And we had just discovered something over which was worth killing us.”
“And what was that?” asked Harrick.
“The Ice Lord is no longer in control of the draugar within the Forest of Dusk.”

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2019)

Next Steps

When Freya came back, she was accompanied by a woman with auburn hair – possibly Arizi, though Tessa couldn’t tell. They came out of the desert to the east.
Freya had been missing for a day, and a couple of search parties had gone out in trucks in every direction once they had determined she wasn’t just elsewhere in the village. The sietches were deceptively large, and the search would have been harder had it not been for the fact that Freya, as a blonde-haired and fair-skinned human, stood out rather prominently in a village full of blue-skinned djinn.
Azjar had been in a panic for most of the day. Jack, oddly, had been distracted, seeming to stare off in space. So Tessa had done her best to make herself useful as best as she could.
Tall Man was dead, and she hesitated to reach out to Mr. Flow while he was in the hospital. She did not understand djinn physiology very well – she had previously just assumed that things worked more or less the same on the inside – but even with his wounds cauterized, Mr. Flow, or “Soka” as they called him here, had not been released from the doctors’ care.
There was a strange… mood to the desert. They had been there only a few days, and yet it felt as if they had been there much longer. Tessa’s academic work felt far removed from the recent events, with blood and destruction, and now hiding out in this very friendly but very alien village.
Mr. Flow had pulled a ripcord of some sort, perhaps. He had gone home. It hadn’t ever really occurred to Tessa that she could go home. After all, what was home if not the House?
She had once been a little girl out in the Redlands, and the House had saved her from her abusive stepfather. She had processed that. She had recognized that her mother had failed to protect her, but Tessa had forgiven her for that. People take risks when inaction is unsustainable. Her mother had found a man that could provide for them, unaware that there was a monster within him. It was not a unique story. And if it had not been for the House, the story would have, again, not been terribly unique. But her own story would have ended a lot earlier. Tessa never doubted that – that her stepfather would have ultimately killed her too, maybe “accidentally” as he had her mother, or maybe not.
But the House had made sure that he was dead, and they had given her Ellie, had given her Tom, and had even given her the name she now used.
She did not think herself naïve. The House was not just some network of friendly people. But she had never hurt anyone working for them, and she had worked for them since she was a child.
And so it was terrifying to see one’s family falling apart.
The woman with the auburn hair did not speak a great deal, but she also didn’t drive away immediately. Jenda Marada, the village elder, had come out to speak with her, and had apparently invited her into the sietch.
Freya had sunburns, but all in all she did not seem to be too badly hurt. Once the fuss had died down about getting her back, and when the four humans were back down in their rooms, Freya downed a massive bottle of water before speaking to Jack.
“I met someone out there in the desert, Jack.”
“That woman?”
“No. I mean, obviously yes. That’s Sar. She works for him. There’s a bunch of them out there.”
“Who are they?” asked Jack.
“The guy in charge, they just call him ‘Boss Man.’ And he said something really strange. He said you were Jack Milton, not Jack Cart. Is that true?”
Jack looked to Tessa, and she silently groaned at his lack of subtlety. “Yes, it is.”
“So… uh, why?”
To his credit, Jack did not make eye contact with Tessa again. “That is a long story, but… I guess, given everything that’s going on…”
Azjar took a step back. “Tessa, is he really your boyfriend?”
She had not expected to be called upon like that, and she hesitated to respond, so Jack spoke. “No, I’m not. I’m actually a cop.” Tessa wondered for an instant if the others would take this non-sequitur and not follow up on the whole “boyfriend” question, but already she could feel a jolt of panic beginning to build up within her like the static electricity that leads to a lightning bolt.
“A cop?” asked Freya. “Wait, what?”
“Narcian National Enforcement. But… ok, let’s see if I can break it down.” And then he proceeded to tell a story that even Tessa had not heard – of a strange woman in a deep cell, of someone he called the “Shabby Man,” of the Diplomat and the faceless man. Of the land of day and the land of night, and then… of meeting Tessa, at which point the story became less detailed.
By the time he had finished, Azjar had taken a seat to process what he had heard. Freya had been sitting in bed, but got up to take another bottle of water. “Well,” she said before gulping down nearly half the bottle. “I guess this would explain why he wants to talk to you.”
Tessa spoke: “What does this ‘Boss Man’” look like?
Freya shrugged. “He’s white, mostly, I think. Sandy blond hair, scruffy beard. Wears a tan duster. Kind of hot, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
Tessa wracked her brain to see if that sounded familiar. But she had been a traditionalist. Aside from Ellie and Tom, she had only ever really interacted with a few other House Agents.
“What does he want? Why hasn’t he just come here?”
“I don’t know,” said Freya. “It’s sketchy as fuck.”
Jack nodded.
“What are we going to do?” asked Azjar.
They looked to him.
“I mean, a couple days ago, a bunch of people tried to murder us, and then the telescope fell down. So… do we just go home? Are we safe?”
Jack shrugged. “I wish I could tell you that we were. Or that you were, at least. I don’t really know what my part in all of this is. I’d tell you that if you went home we couldn’t guarantee your safety, but…” Jack sat down. “You know, before all of this, I was a pretty respected law enforcement officer. And yeah, I dealt with arcanists and sometimes even magical creatures. But this… these faceless men… I have no idea what to expect from them. I don’t understand how they work. And before that night when the telescope fell, I didn’t think we could do anything about them.”
Tessa frowned, and now spoke: “What do you mean?”
“There was one of them there. I think… I think it was leading the people who attacked us. Or, if not leading, it was… guiding them? Controlling them?”
“I didn’t see anything like that,” she said.
“You can’t. It’s… the first time I saw them, I needed to drink that weird ‘coffee’ the Diplomat gave me. But later, after I’d puked it all up, it was like I didn’t need it anymore. It felt like I’d been looking at it all along, but only now was my brain registering that it was there.”
“And it was there?”
“Yes. And then I… tore it in half. And it was gone.”
Azjar nodded. “And that’s why this guy wants to talk to you.”
Jack cocked his head to the side, as if he had not thought of that. “I guess that would make sense.”
“But we don’t know what he wants to do with you,” said Freya.
“No. But then, he’s not the first person to want me because of this,” he said.
Azjar now looked to Tessa, and the question she had been dreading formed on his lips. “Tessa, how do you know Jack?”
She ran through several scenarios in her head. She had practiced for nearly a month before she met Jack Milton all the contingency plans, but now, she realized, it had all fallen away. She had gotten comfortable with the charade that they were simply a couple and for some reason had never felt like Jack would contradict the story. It was foolish, but now she hesitated.
“She had orders to recruit me,” said Jack.
Tessa felt her stomach lurch. She looked at the confusion on her friends’ faces – friends she had known for over a year, with whom she had built a rapport and had lived with, side-by-side. She looked to Jack, his face betraying no sense of guilt, no remorse for exposing her. Instead, there was what looked to her to be a calculated curiosity.
She had believed the story, just enough for her to trust that Jack was already on board, already concealing the secret. And in the worst possible way, she realized in this moment that she had grown to like the fiction that they were a couple. Never before had she dissociated so much internally between her cover story and the truth of her life as an Agent of the House. For an instant, she felt hot with rage at Jack. But that would not accomplish anything. It was not clear what would. And so, at a loss, she turned around and walked out the door.
She did not know where to go, and so she marched across the sietch to a public bathroom. She went into a stall, sat down, and buried her head in her hands. Tears streamed down her face as she contemplated all the errors she had made in these past months.
“Hey,” said a female voice. The accent was Narcian, perhaps. She could see the woman’s feet outside the stall. “You ok, there?”
It must have been the woman who had brought Freya back. “It’s just…” but she couldn’t come up with another word, so she repeated “just.”
“My name is Sar – short for Sarah. My boss sent me here to bring your friend back. Is she doing ok?”
“Oh yeah, she’s doing great,” said Tessa, too loudly.
“That’s good to hear.” The woman’s feet shuffled a bit to the side. “So, listen,” she said. “I’ve got to take Jack to see him. And I know that might not be what you had planned, but I assure you he’s going to be perfectly safe with us. And we aren’t going to keep him for long.”
“Um…” said Tessa. Unless Mr. Flow made an appearance, she was cut off from her Chain, and so she had no idea what she was supposed to do. “Why are you asking me?”
The woman said. “Unfortunately, I’m not asking. And also, there’s another thing: he’s going to want to talk to you too, Agent Dust.”

(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2019)