Chương 7: Fourteen Seats

Iris Terranova was at the long table in the private dining room with both hands around a coffee cup, which Cecilia had expected. The room had changed while she was gone. The paneling was the same. The two windows still looked onto the narrow garden. The table was still long enough for fourteen and usually seated five.

But the silver on the sideboard had been replaced by stacked plates and two extra water jugs, and someone had set a crate of bottled spirits against the wall where the emergency radio got better reception. A folded blanket lay over one of the chairs as if the room had already spent the afternoon deciding what it was now for. Bianca was standing at the far end near the window with her hands behind her back. Her eyes moved once, from Cecilia to Iris, then to the door beyond them, and stopped.

Cecilia stood in the doorway and waited. The resemblance to Luca was there if you were looking for it. Same dark hair, longer. The same quality of careful attention. Younger by a few years. She looked at Cecilia and didn't speak right away, which was something else they shared. Luca appeared in the doorway a few minutes later. He stopped when he saw his sister at the table. Something passed between them that didn't need words. Iris set her coffee down.

Then they were speaking quietly at the end of the table, and Cecilia went to the kitchen for water and gave them a few minutes. She didn't need to listen. She'd done this before, in one form or another: brought someone into the organization and then watched a family member absorb what that meant. It was always Iris's side of the conversation that set the shape of what came next, and Cecilia wanted to know what shape that was. When she went back, the room had settled into a new arrangement.

Dario had arrived in the interim and positioned himself across from the Terranovas with a plate of bread and a glass of red. He'd started talking. Iris responded, which meant she'd decided that participation felt safer than silence, and that said something useful about her. Luca had seated himself, listening more than talking. Matteo came in from the back office long enough to look at Luca, read him in the way Matteo read people, and take a position on the wall by the door. Ruggiero didn't appear at all.

His acknowledgment of new personnel expressed itself positionally. If he had found Luca a security problem, Cecilia would have heard about it before she crossed the threshold. She sat at her usual place and poured water from the decanter.

"Third floor," she said, looking at Iris.

"The room at the far end. You'll share it with your brother for now. Dario will show you the exits we use and which ones we don't." She looked at Luca.

"Before tonight." Then back at Iris.

"You aren't required to work. You are required to stay inside the perimeter we control. If you need to leave, it will be with an escort." Iris nodded once. Cecilia took a small piece of bread from the plate and broke it without eating any of it.

"We have a problem you're both in a position to help with." Dario topped off his own glass without being asked. That meant he agreed with where this was going, or had decided to let her finish before objecting. It amounted to the same thing.

"We're identifying a type of person," Cecilia said.

"People who understand systems quickly. People who can analyze them under pressure. People who can predict outcomes from incomplete information. Your brother is the first one we brought in on purpose. He won't be the last." Luca's eyes moved once to her and back. Iris looked at him before she looked at Cecilia. Cecilia let that sit. It meant Iris already understood he mattered more here than she did, which would keep the conversation efficient.

"Do you have medical training?" Cecilia asked.

"No," Iris said.

"I studied literature."

"Languages?" A small hesitation.

"French and English. German, if I'm reading it." Dario made a soft sound into his glass. He had just thought of three secondary uses for that and one improper one. Cecilia ignored him.

"We also need names," she said.

"People you know who think the way your brother thinks. People who build models. Test economies. Break mechanics. People whose first instinct is to ask what the rules are and how they bend." Iris glanced at Luca. He gave her a small nod.

"I know some," she said.

"We'll pay for the list," Cecilia said.

"We'll pay more if the names are good." Matteo spoke from the doorway.

"What's the criteria for good?" Cecilia looked at Luca instead of answering herself. He understood the assignment immediately, which was the first useful thing he had done in this room and the easiest to value.

"Not just people who play," he said. The fatigue had not left him, but it receded once the subject moved onto architecture.

"People whose work other players rely on. Ladder finishers in large ecosystems. Theory crafters. Economy modelers. Exploit hunters. Speedrunners, sometimes. Guild officers if they were the ones doing the optimization. Modders who balanced systems instead of adding nonsense." Dario smiled faintly.

"Balanced systems instead of adding nonsense. I like him."

"Top hundred ladder finishers," Cecilia said, already translating Luca's answer into a filter.

"In any game with more than a million active players. Anyone whose guides or analysis other people cite. Anyone who found exploits developers had to patch. Anyone who ran markets other players depended on." Luca nodded.

"That's decent."

"You'll help refine it," Cecilia said.

"Yes." Iris looked between them.

"What about people who don't play games?"

"Then we'll find another test," Cecilia said.

"This one is fast." She broke the next thought cleanly away from the first.

"Not everyone useful will come from games," she said.

"Some people become valuable because the city is collapsing in exactly the direction of their profession. We need medical personnel before everyone else understands what they're worth." Dario set down his glass.

"There's a building in Aurora," he said.

"Next to the market. Half the tenants have some kind of medical background. Nurses, assistants, a retired surgeon on the second floor. One of the runners heard about it this morning." Cecilia turned to Iris.

"Can you talk to them?"

"I can try."

"If they're willing to work, bring them here. I want medical staff in this building by the end of the week." Dario gave a small tilt of the head that meant he would go with her without needing the order spoken aloud. Cecilia gave it anyway.

"You'll go with her."

"Of course," he said. She looked at Bianca.

"You'll handle first security on the candidates. Start with whatever list Iris gives us. Verify what you can. Flag anything that needs special attention." Bianca nodded once.

"Matteo will give you paper, signal windows, and whatever access we can spare," Cecilia said to Iris.

"You start now, not tomorrow." Iris's fingers tightened once around the notebook in front of her, then loosened.

"All right." Cecilia let a few seconds pass. No one spoke.

"Dario will show you the room," she said.

"If there are no questions, that's all for the moment." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. They stood. Dario moved first, because he always did when a room needed a social route out of itself. Iris followed him. Luca lingered half a beat longer than she expected, long enough to show he understood being permitted a delay and taking one were different acts, then went after his sister. Matteo stayed where he was.

Bianca moved from the window to the sideboard and back again in a line so quiet Cecilia didn't hear the turn. The door closed. Cecilia put the broken piece of bread down on the table.

"The list is the easy part," Matteo said.

"The harder question is how we secure the people on it."

"Two categories," Bianca said.

"Those who are frightened and will come to us for protection. Those who believe they can solve this by themselves."

"The first category is an asset," Cecilia said.

"The second is a problem."

"Unless we persuade them we're the better answer," Matteo said.

"Which will be easier with some than others. Someone who already chose for combat will be more difficult to recruit than someone who selected for support and knows it."

"We don't need everyone," Cecilia said.

"We need the right people. The ones who understand this isn't a problem they solve alone in an apartment with a laptop and an Internet connection that no longer works." She looked at Bianca.

"What did you find on the forum besides Luca?"

"Six more threads worth reading. None as good. One close." Bianca's expression didn't change.

"He made a mistake in the logic."

"Who?"

"Handle: RaptorSix. No real name attached yet."

"Find him." Bianca inclined her head.

"How quickly do you want the first contact wave?" Matteo asked.

"Tomorrow afternoon if possible. Earlier if Iris produces better than expected." Cecilia stood.

"Priority to anyone who has already posted analysis publicly. People who solve problems for strangers will try to solve this one too. I'd prefer them doing it here."

"Interview locations?"

"Not this building. Somewhere we control but don't sleep in. Scout three by evening. And we need the medical list priced before anyone else realizes what it's worth."

"The pharmaceuticals."

"Yes."

"We won't be the only ones looking."

"I know." She straightened one cuff.

"Start pricing it anyway. Let me know how expensive the city is about to become." He nodded and left. Bianca followed him out. Cecilia stood alone in the room for a moment. The table looked too large for the five of them. It had been built for fourteen. She thought about that number. She thought about what it would cost to fill those chairs, and what it would cost if she didn't. She walked the building before anything else. Ruggiero had reorganized the lower floor while she was gone.

He'd moved the entrance furniture back to create a channel rather than a barrier—better, because a barrier stopped movement in both directions, and she needed to move through her own building. Three people she half-recognized from the Mirafiori supply contacts slept in the hall on bedding she hadn't authorized. Ruggiero must have made a judgment call about the field situation. The older woman from the group that had arrived on the first day had her leg elevated on a rolled coat.

She found Ruggiero on the second-floor landing.

"Medical," she said.

"The leg. Bianca thinks it's the circulation, not the bone. She used to have a doctor in Crocetta, but." He shrugged.

"Matteo has a contact at the university clinic. Remote consult."

"Good."

"How's the perimeter holding?" He gave her the details. They were short and clear. He wasn't worried about the perimeter, which meant he was paying attention to something that wasn't showing yet. She let it wait.

"I'm moving the Espositos into the building tomorrow," she said.

"Third floor. Make sure it's ready."

"You think we'll need them?"

"I think they're leverage, and leverage is always useful." He nodded.

"I'll handle it." She went up the last flight alone. The office was where she'd left it. The desk was clear except for the pen she'd been using this morning. She picked it up and turned it over. Something to do with her hands. She considered the options they had and the gaps they would need to fill. Then she crossed to the curtain and opened it. The sky was still the wrong color, but she was getting used to it. The street below was empty. The garden was quiet. There were no more bodies on the pavement.

That was a small improvement. The message from the System hadn't returned. She didn't know if that was good or bad. Probably neither. It had told them what it needed to tell them. The next step was on them. She slept in the chair. Morning came in through the curtain gap she hadn't pulled properly when she sat down. Gray light, the sky doing what it had been doing. She registered the hour from the window angle and stood. The building had a different quality in the early hours.

Quieter, but occupied in a way she felt through the floor—people sleeping lightly, managing themselves through the second full day of a situation most of them had not prepared for. She found Ruggiero in the kitchen, as she usually did. He handed her a cup before she reached the counter. She drank it standing by the sink.

"Anything overnight?"

"One incident," he said.

"A man tried to break into the supply room on the first floor. He was looking for food." She raised an eyebrow.

"Bianca handled it." That told her everything she needed to know about how it had been handled.

"Is he still alive?" Ruggiero's expression didn't change.

"He's in the cellar."

"Let me know if he has useful information."

"He doesn't." She finished the coffee and set the cup in the sink.

"Did you sleep?"

"A few hours."

"Go back to it. I'll handle the morning." He left without arguing. She went to the front room and opened the shutter enough to see the street. Nothing moved. The sky was the same muted purple it had been since the System appeared. She wondered if it would ever be blue again and decided she didn't care. It was just sky. The air smelled like rain that hadn't fallen yet. She closed the shutter and sat in the chair by the door and waited for her people to wake.

Matteo came down at seven, dressed the way he always was, as if there were offices to go to and meetings to attend. He was old enough to be her father, but he never spoke to her as if that were true.

She'd noticed it the first year she inherited control of the family, and never mentioned it, because she'd realized it was his way of acknowledging the reality of their relationship, which was not one of familial hierarchy but of professional respect—although sometimes she suspected he also thought of her as a very young person who had somehow ended up in charge, and was waiting to see if she'd grow into it.

"Good morning," she said. He sat across from her.

"Did you sleep?"

"Yes." He looked at her in a way that told her he knew the answer was technically true but incomplete.

"Cece, the chair is not a bed."

"I slept. That's what matters." He let it go.

"I have three names from the list Iris gave us. All of them fit the criteria. One of them lives on the other side of the Po."

"Send Dario to the one across the river. He'll handle the negotiation. You and Bianca take the other two. Bring them in if they're willing. If not, note the address and move on." He made a note.

"There's something else." She waited.

"The mayor's office made another announcement overnight. Curfew extension. They're calling for all citizens to shelter in place. No exceptions." She raised an eyebrow.

"Are they enforcing it?"

"They're trying. Military vehicles on the major roads. Police checkpoints at key intersections. It's not working. People are ignoring it." She considered this. A curfew was a form of control that depended on the ability to punish violations. If the police weren't enforcing it, and the military was only intermittently present, it was a statement of intent rather than a functional policy.

That meant the mayor was still operating on the assumption that the world would return to its previous state, and that the authority to enforce normal rules would eventually be restored. That was a mistake she didn't intend to make.

"Keep monitoring it," she said.

"If they start coordinating effectively, I want to know."

"Of course."

"What about those... monsters? The ones on the river."

"They're calling them 'creatures' in the briefings," Matteo said.

"No official classification yet. They're appearing in the evenings and early mornings. Mostly along the river, but some reports from the outer districts. There was an incident near Parco Pellerina." She waited.

"Two policemen killed," Matteo said.

"A third survived. He's in critical condition at Molinette."

"What happened?"

"The initial report is unclear. It seems they engaged one of the creatures, and it didn't go as expected." That was the first official confirmation she'd heard of a direct confrontation between System entities and local authority. It was useful, but not surprising. She'd expected the police to test their authority against the new reality sooner or later. The fact that they'd lost meant the System's forces were stronger than organized human response, at least in small numbers. That wasn't a permanent condition.

It was just the current state of play.

"Keep track of the casualties," she said.

"We'll need to know how many people they lose before they change tactics." Matteo nodded.

"I've also been monitoring the international situation. The U. S. is still functioning better than most. Their media is reporting the phenomenon as a 'global event' and providing analysis. Russia has gone silent on most channels. China is broadcasting state-approved information only."

"Useful?"

"Marginally. The American coverage is focused on civilian response. Survival tips, sheltering advice, that sort of thing. It's better than nothing, but it's not strategic." She'd expected that. The Americans were treating it like a disaster they could manage through public information campaigns. It was a logical first response, but it wouldn't scale. The System wasn't something you could prepare for with canned goods and a flashlight.

"Anything else?"

"One thing. The Vatican released a statement. They're calling it a 'test of faith.'""And what does that mean in practical terms?" she asked, aware that she probably sounded more annoyed than she needed to be. Matteo smiled slightly.

"It means they don't know either."

"Good to know the Church is as lost as the rest of us." She stood.

"I'll be with Luca. Send Bianca, Ruggiero, and Dario to me when they're back. I'm assuming none of you have picked a class yet?"

"No," Matteo said.

"We've been discussing it. We thought it best to wait for your guidance. Although... I think Dario already picked his." That was what she liked about Matteo. He understood that this wasn't a decision to be made in isolation. The System had offered classes to individuals, but the real game would be played by groups. Their choices needed to align.

"I'll make my recommendation soon," she said.

"For now, focus on the recruitment. We need talent before anything else." He nodded and left.