Chương 64: Chapter 63: The Castle

Bands move freely between the twelve areas - there is no restriction on where a community chooses to settle for its rotation. In practice, certain settlements have developed reputations, and reputations have developed queues, and queues have developed prices. Healthcare arrives by drone wherever you are, at no cost. Food and water, in most settlements, come largely from the land itself. Credits are for what you want, not what you need.

But wanting the right settlement, in the right area, with the right company - that, it turns out, is something people will pay considerably for. - From the farewell address of Oman Dredd, 4th Chief of People for Progress The long-distance vehicle out of Area 10 was the same design as the one he had taken in - twenty seats, all window, the kind of recline engineered for sleeping.

He took a window seat on the left side, settled Waggy across his lap, and watched the terminal drop away below as they lifted into the high-altitude lane. The thigh wound pulled slightly as he adjusted his position. Normal movement was fine. He had tested the forms that morning before packing and found no real restriction. It was mostly behind him as long as he was sensible, which he intended to be, and which meant he was quietly hoping the next four weeks did not require him to be otherwise.

Waggy turned twice in his lap and settled with his chin on Kara's knee, watching the window. An hour out, a message came through the group thread - Vixen, with a link and three words: watch this sequence. The link was a Gridfall match from the Area 8 regional circuit.

Kara opened it and understood immediately why she had sent it - the Veil play in the third phase was doing something with misdirection he had not seen before, drawing the opposing Solver into disabling a Lock that was never going to be the problem while the actual threat assembled quietly on the other side of the contested zone. Clean. That Veil, he wrote back. Where did they train? Vixen responded with three links and a paragraph about the Area 8 training tradition that he read twice.

Glasses replied to the original link with: The Solver should have seen it at the two minute mark. He wasn't looking at the anchor. Nobody looks at the Anchor closely throughout, Vixen wrote. That's the point, Glasses wrote back. Kara watched the sequence again. Then he put two more matches on from the Area 1 regional circuit and watched those closely. Waggy slept through all of it, his breathing slow and even against Kara's leg. He put a direct message through to Vixen between matches. Settled in? How's Vitaly?

Ate something she shouldn't have on day two. Long conversation with a drone medic about feline digestion. She's fine. Indignant about it, but fine. How was the mountain? He wrote back a summary that took longer than expected. There was more to it than he had realised until he started putting it into words. He tried Glasses next. They were technically in the same Area, though the distance was not close enough to allow them to meet up.

He pretty much copy pasted the response to Vixen to update him on what he'd been upto. The response came back after a small gap. Nice, a weapon and a tier up! I wouldn't say mine has been quite so productive, but t's been interesting. Trying out a lot of things I only understood in theory from the courses. A pause, then he continued. The writing here goes in a different direction entirely. Took me two days to stop trying to read it the wrong way.

Passed one of the old man made wonders on the way in - a wall, running along the ridge for as far as you can see in either direction. The locals say it has been there for millennia, long before the Change, long before most of what we consider history. It can be seen from orbit. They call it the Great Wall. Where are you heading now? Area 5, Kara wrote. Don't ask me where in Area 5 or why, I have no clue... A longer pause. Then, the response came back. That's unexpected. Let me know what you find.

Which was, for Glasses, approximately the equivalent of animated concern. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. He slept somewhere over the ocean, Waggy a warm weight across his legs, the window dark beside him.

He woke to the vehicle beginning its long descent, the sky outside shifting from dark blue to greyer, and below that the coastline of Area 5 - the old land and the new waterlines running alongside each other like a disagreement that had reached a permanent stalemate. The terrain changed as they moved inland. Flatter at first, then rising, the land folding into long ridges with broad-leafed forest on the upper slopes.

The vehicle followed the ridge lines east, and the light outside had gone gold and low by the time the terminal came into view, built into an elevated shelf of rock above a wide valley. A PfP member was waiting at the terminal exit - a tall man, mid-thirties, holding himself upright with a very professional bearing.

"Welcome to the Vesperang Hold," he greeted, with a short nod.

"I'm Aldric. I'll take you to the settlement." His eyes moved to Waggy briefly, then back.

"We've been briefed."

"Thank you." A bicorn pegasus was waiting outside - two-horned, heavier-built than the ones he had seen in Area 11. The interface connected transactionally as he mounted, a brief exchange of coordinates and nothing more. The interface pinged as they descended toward the valley. He recognised the notification before he had fully processed it - the exotic animals community tag, the same registration he shared with Vixen and Ren. Multiple members nearby. The ping gave proximity, not location.

He looked at the settlement below, still mostly obscured by the ridge. The settlement resolved out of the valley as they descended. It occupied what had once been a castle town, built on a rise above the valley floor, the old stone structures intact and absorbed into what the settlement had become. Towers at the corners. Tall walls, made of weathered, reinforced stone.

The buildings inside were a combination of original stone and dark timber, but the scale was entirely different from Area 10 - larger, more numerous, lit warmly from within. The paths between buildings were wide and well-maintained. There were well manicured gardens spread around. Waggy was sitting upright in front of Kara on the bicorn's neck, ears forward, taking it in. Aldric showed him to his room in the main keep. Stone walls, high ceiling, a window looking out over the valley.

The furniture was well appointed. A small, smokeless fire had been laid and lit. Two more PfP members were waiting inside - a woman about Aldric's age named Seren, and a younger man introduced as Brenn. Twelve PfP staff for this settlement. Three times the Area 10 complement. Seren gave him the orientation efficiently. Meal arrangements. Water access. The community currently in residence - just under a hundred people, longer average stays than most settlements.

The majority, she noted, were aligned with the Progenitor's faction. People with resources and the inclination to spend them on the right address.

"Your duties start tomorrow morning," Aldric said.

"I'll walk you through the full scope then - attending to residents, managing requests, facilitation. The standard here is higher than most PfP settlements. The residents expect attentiveness." A brief pause.

"We've been told you're capable of meeting that." The we've been told was placed as precisely as everything else Aldric said, and carried more than it let on.

"Tonight is yours," Seren added.

"Make yourself comfortable and get some rest. We start early tomorrow." They were moving toward the door when Kara asked, "Anyone in the current community I should know about before tomorrow?" Aldric and Seren exchanged a look. Aldric spoke first.

"Mr. Tomas is in residence." The shift in his voice was immediate - not quite reverence, but close enough that the difference was academic.

"He arrived two weeks ago. One of the most significant figures in the Progenitor faction - his contributions to the movement over the last decade have been -" He caught himself before continuing.

"Ahem. You might encounter him in the course of your duties, though the chances of a direct encounter are slim. It will be important to understand what that means in terms of the standard expected." A beat.

"His daughter is with him," Seren added, with the same careful register.

"Lucianne." The name hit him like a bucket of ice. Fluid state's passive component came in clutch. Everything Kara's face was doing stayed exactly the same. His hands were still. But inside the space of two heartbeats his pulse had climbed to the point where he was afraid the others would be able to hear it, and the room had gone slightly out of focus. Lucianne. The accusation. The dungeon. Moghli's careful account on the rooftop.

And now here, in this settlement, in these walls, for the next four weeks - her, and the man whose name Aldric had just said with something close to devotion in his voice. Aldric was still speaking. Something about Tomas' vision, his standing in the faction, a privilege to serve, the words arriving from a slight distance while Kara's awareness was split between tracking them and tracking the steadiness of his own expression. He activated Safe Haven and took a quick breath.

"Thank you," he said, when the pause came, his voice almost sounding disembodied to him.

"I'll be ready in the morning." They left. The door closed. The fire settled into a quieter rhythm. Waggy jumped onto the windowsill and looked out at the dark valley. Kara stood beside him, one hand resting on the cold stone of the sill, and did not move for a long moment. Below, the settlement's lights held steady against the dark. Somewhere in those walls, in one of those lit windows, was the man who had tormented his family, and his daughter, the cause of the torment.

Most of the community here right now was aligned to the Progenitors, meaning most of them would be like Aldric in the way Tomas was viewed and treated. Shanks had done his bit. Now it was up to him to do his.