Chương 83: Partnerriffic Prelude

Barcelona, 2032 In a small crumbling house overlooking the bay of Salvador, there sat a boy on life support. An electrical bellows hissed with every pump, filling his lungs with air before emptying them out again. The device had to be wheeled around with him whenever Tia Pietra helped him out on his daily thirty-minute excursion along the rocky shoreline on his wheelchair. He used to be able to push the wheels by himself, but now his arms were thin as sticks, not even fit to hold a phone.

One time she'd left him out of sight for all of five seconds on an incline. He'd nearly rolled off and into the ocean, and wasn't that just exciting? It really was just exciting to him. He trusted that even should he sink to the floor of the ocean, Tia Pietra would reel him back in again. Trust in her came easy. He'd practiced nothing but trust for his entire life.

He thought himself content, lying in bed where other kids had to go to school where they were harassed, tested, and yelled at by unnecessarily strict teachers. The shows that played day in, day out on the small TV at the foot of his bed implied that was all there was to it. And yet… maybe they weren't showing the entire truth. If it was in his fate to find out, then so it was. If not, then so be it. One day, he woke up with a start, realizing he'd fallen asleep.

The blue glare of the TV screen flickered with his last watched show, something about… teenagers saving the world in frilly dresses. One of the figures turned around at an encroaching shadow. Before the girl could react, the shadow jumped, tearing her to shreds. It was visceral, the truth of blood and guts and life and death so tangible he could almost believe that this wasn't a show, that it was real. His heart pounded. The light flickered again.

This time, it showed a city so optimistically futuristic, it almost seemed old-fashioned. Flying cars, geometrical spires, too-clean people. Like a stuttery presentation, it flicked to the great garbage patch swirling in the pacific, to lights in the sky, to a moon made of anger and a spear that pierced it through and through. And then there was him. He was wielding that spear. And wearing… a frilly dress? It was better than a stained hospital gown, but that wasn't why his eyes nearly bulged from his sockets.

He was standing up. On his own two legs. From behind the TV, there rose a tiny lime-green star. It shone like a disco-ball, bathing the crumbling walls of the Villa de Sal in an eerie tone. And then it spoke, despite having neither mouth nor face.

"Trust," it said in a gentle voice. A white, gloved hand reached out of its shining existence, offering for him to grab it. The being of light radiated meaning beyond words. It trusted him to understand what he'd seen. It trusted him with an offer which he was free to refuse or accept. It trusted him to know that accepting would mean tearing his body to shreds, but also building something new out of the scraps. Perhaps something like he'd seen on TV.

The image of the girl's face, surprise turning to panic turning to a primal, animalistic convulsion, played in his mind's eye over and over again. His heart rate spiked. His breathing apparatus beeped twice, then the bellows started matching his heartrate. Slowly. Clumsily. The Villa de Sal was a lonely place of healing. The building had once been a church, and though he felt no closer to God now than years ago, the solid walls lent him comfort in their own ways.

Ghosts none but him could see seemed to congregate around it, kneeling, praying, sitting idly by. Waiting. For what, he could only guess, until today. The ghosts were all here, fat and slim, large and small, beautiful and furuncle-faced. They who could not move on were waiting to judge him, to see if he would take the plunge, or stay among their dour company. I can't move my hands anymore though. It should've come a year ago. The creature beckoned nonetheless. That was not an obstacle.

It was a being filled with concessions. It could make him tall or strong, let him travel the world, or show him the truth inside every stranger's heart. As long as he gave up that one little something in exchange. His heart.

"Trust," it said again. He'd already made his choice.

"I… trust… you," he gasped. The gloved hand surged. It reached past his skin into his body, grasping his very soul. And from then on, the boy in the Villa de Sal was no more. +++ Addy, 2041, 20 months after the Pactmaker's death The apocalypse was scheduled for the first or second quarter of 2041. And my life goal was to stop it. In a way, you could say that was my purpose. Raison d'être.

Fancy word for saying that it was all that drove me, that I couldn't give two shits about what that future looked like after I was done, or what it would cost to get there. At least, that's how it used to be. My name is Adelaide Kobayashi. My parents didn't want me. I was passed from aunts to orphanages until I finally settled with the family that gave me my last name. I appreciate them. I send them soulcoins every month.

And yet, when I was finally released from my punishment for killing a possibly genocidal wizard after nearly two years, they weren't the first on my mind. [It has been (591) days since the start of your first deployment in the Cauldron. For your high-risk deployments along the northern frontline, eastern frontline, downward frontline, in deep recon missions x2, and for good behavior, your deployment counts as an additional (6714) days.] [Your volunteer period has elapsed. You may only volunteer again after a mandatory (6) month rest period outside of the Cauldron. You may still be called to clear convergence dome barriers during this time.] [You have received Cauldron Veteran Goodie Bag x1] I summoned the goodie bag, the magical system that serviced Custodians teleporting a garishly colored thing with loopy knots and cheap tingling bells into my hand. There was a note attached, signed by the friendly if horrid to look at cyborg LT and… Frankly too many other people to count.

Some of them had a triangular code printed on the side, a method for conveying longer messages between people with a system chip in their brain. It was conceived of as a way to condense digital information into a physical format ever since the bots discovered a way to jam the wavelengths the system operated on last year. That had not been a fun year. It had been quite lonely. I let the system voice the various messages to me while I dug through the bag, discovering… seventeen bags of spiced jerky. Nice."

Hey there top performer. Don't be glum about the system treating you like a criminal. From what I hear you single-handedly took down a kaiju. We full-timers down here appreciate you, even if the feeling doesn't seem mutual. Don't be a stranger!" Full-timers were the Custodians that chose to spend as much time as they could in the Cauldron, the tiny world between worlds. It was the best place to level quickly. Also the best place to get yourself killed.

Some people were drawn in by the wonders of the colliding in-between worlds, some by the promise of soulcoins, and some simply enjoyed fighting under an open sky more than underneath a magical dome. Did Sam also get a goodie bag? I wondered, chewing on my snacks while the elevator rose. Someone else's voice popped up among the many congratulations. Someone I didn't recognize. They had a vague russian accent." Tanuki friend! It is I, Igor. You saved my life. Like… three times. And you still forget my name!

But akh, let it be forgotten. Me and some fellows had the idea of giving you a small something as a surprise. But what could Custodians want when we can buy wonders with our minds? It took long, long nights of deliberating on what special thing to give our field medic." Igor who? Ugh, get to the point.

"Surprise! Enjoy your healthy treat." Healthy? I gave the bag of jerky a second glance. It was vegan. I am going to stab someone. Rat bastards. Pointedly, I didn't stop chewing. This stuff was good. Jerky-fying technology had really progressed these last twenty months. The elevator dinged, opening up to the O'Hare International Airport, Chicago. I'd taken a deep breath of fresh, non-dusty air when I exited the teleporter a few stories below ground.

Now I breathed again, luxuriating in the distinct smell of a slightly outdated air-conditioning system, of greasy fast-food and soda spilled onto counters, and that of the untouched, synthetic leather of shelf-warmers that filled entire overpriced boutiques in a long, uninterrupted strip mall. Ah, the US. Smell it in your sinuses, feel it in your cholesterol. For a brief moment, it seemed like the world was just as I'd left it, shit and glam and all.

Then I noticed a couple street performers dressed up in frilly skirts, imitating Custodians chanting magical spells while dancing to the beat of a beat-up boombox. Behind them, a pair of girls in their mid-20s walked by, their shopping bag carried by a drone struggling to maintain altitude. Uh… huh. I watched, half in confusion, half morbid fascination as a businessman strutted towards me, scratching at a skin irritation around what looked like a USB port behind and slightly below his ear.

He inserted a small chip, then sighed in relaxation. A burst of yellow, artificial joy blasted off of him like a gout of steam, his steps becoming sloppier as he walked straight into me. He bounced like a rubber ball. I stood firm.

"W-watch it!" he yelled, already gone around the next corner by the time my mind caught up. Things have changed. Cybernetics are available to the upper class, I suppose. And of course they're using it for what, digital drugs? Typical. I shook my head. I could ask Sam later. The thought alone of meeting her in mere moments punched me in the gut, in a good way. I wonder if she's picking me up from the teleporter in person? It would be so like her.

Sam, radiant joy, hugs incarnate, love of my life, subject of my affection, the other half that completed me. So where was she? It'd been a few months since my last system-approved 3-day visit. I couldn't quite pick out individual people last time. But if old dogs could learn new tricks, then spry tanukis could learn a spell or two. Now lets see, to guarantee success, this spell requires a bit more Mind and Soul than I have."

Sense Trade," I whispered, timing it in tune with a loud section in the street performer's performance. The world narrowed, but turned less overwhelming. Emotions of people surrounding me became more clear, less a fog and more single tendrils of smoke wafting off their bodies in a complicated melange. [Sense: 605->383] [Mind: 215->383] [Soul: 329->383] There. Now the reagents. I grasped the air, and [Wonky Wardrobe] deposited a handful of powdered boar truffle into my hands.

It was a common enough reagent that I thought it worth stacking in one of my limited storage slots. Now the tricky part. I had to impart my will on the powdered boar truffle in an instant, fill it with the emotion most in line with the spell, all while keeping the ECC closed. I wasn't trying to cast a spell through the system. This was my own [Ritual Magic]. There was a trick to it, a trick which the system incorporated by nature.

I tossed the powdered reagents in the air, quickly drew a circle and an X over it, and chanted:" Find what is mine." The powder sparked, then lit up with an orange glow. It swirled, causing the performers to shriek and jump as it zipped through the air right past them, leaving a trail of anticipation. That was when I noticed the stares on me, the dozens and dozens of people that had just seen me cast a spell in the middle of the airport. … suboptimal.

"Ma'am?" a middle-aged lady with a tiny poodle in her purse asked.

"Are you one of them Custodians?"

"No." I strutted right past, following the trail at a clip that was perhaps a little bit faster than humanly comfortable. The moment I was lost in the throng of travelers, I slowed down by dint of not wanting to run anyone over. Sam was here, somewhere. The animated orange dustcloud was driving unerringly forward. Soon I would get to see her, hold her, kiss her. [Channeling emotion: Anticipation] Yeah yeah, whatever.

How about instead of giving live-commentary about my emotional state, you cough up what the heck you and your system partitions have been doing this past year and a half. No? Fine. I'll find it out myself. Halfway through the third bag of jerky, I rounded a corner and there she was, standing at the reception area with a big sign in her upper pair of hands with my name on it. It also had a bunch of hearts, and the word 'hug' scrawled over it multiple times.

The moment she saw me she leapt forward, letting a body double hold her sign for her, and scooped me up in the biggest, most heartfelt six-armed hug that only she could give. My heart fluttered. My soul relaxed. My body choked on jerky. There she was. The one person I cared about. The one person who cared about me. If the apocalypse was coming, I was going to stop it. That was my sacrifice to the system. The world would continue spinning long afterwards.

But the one non-negotiable part was that she would be standing there right next to me.

"You've got a new haircut," I said, poking the slightly gel'd, windswept pixie cut that crowned a face lit with joyous delight.

"And you're pretty dusty. Let me guess, they didn't let you shower before kicking you up straight out of hell?"

"It's not that bad," I muttered, leaning in and taking a deep breath of her nape. And stopped. Something was off, slightly, but only just so. She wasn't sweaty in the slightest, despite standing in the sweltering sun for what must have been a while. A new ability? More Body? She didn't tell me. Jealousy, hot and bothersome, flushed my system. Right up until she picked me up and kissed me.

"Let's kiss some more," she said after putting me down, and I didn't have the strength to say 'no', "but somewhere more private, please. We've got a room with a couch at the Free Poker League HQ that nobody uses."

"Sounds great."

"I packed some things too. Toothbrushes, some of the clothes you left behind, the airfryer, various nondescript gadgets."

"Sounds greater." Sam laughed, echoed by a flutter of my heart. Maybe I wasn't the only one who'd learned some new tricks. She'd changed too, but she was still the same goofball. And there was only one person in the world like her. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. +++ Sam? On some level, I have always felt like an impostor. From one act to the next, I became a good daughter, a good magical girl, and hopefully somewhere in between, a good person.

I didn't have much time for self-reflection these days because everything was shooting goddamn lasers at me!

"Shiiit, shit shit shit." The barrier dome above me shuddered. It was a rare double-layered dome, two half-spheres plonked down by the everpresent system in response to separate threats overlapping into a rather narrow killing zone in the middle. I'd entered with ten body doubles. I'd recharged and added seven to adapt to the dual threat of lizards and murderbots while also evacuating anybody unlucky enough to have been caught inside. Math said I should have seventeen doubles.

Currently, I was feeling the last of them die at the other end of the dome, putting me at a big fat zero. It was one of those days again. I was caught in a crossfire, an unconscious child in my arms, the uncomfortable numbness of Time Bandaids on two of my arms. The air thrummed with energy, the blue streams of murderbot plasma weapons meeting the electric crackle of the lizardmen's agonizers. The result was a catastrophic feedback loop that created localized mini storms, only adding to the ever-present chaos.

Somewhere in the distance, another feedback loop exploded outwards, tearing the roof straight off of a house and no doubt vaporizing all parties involved. I paused behind a school bus missing all of its windows, only to come across the body of the other Custodian that was supposed to be inside here together with me. After a short intermission involving retching and copious swearing, the pressure suddenly didn't feel that bad anymore. I was going to die. That was fine. I still had two extra lives.

More importantly, I was going to be late for Addy's reception. And that could not stand.

"Okay, okay, take a deep breath. Figure something out. One moment." A second passed. In the next breath I began casting a series of spells." Of Many Colors." My outline broke up, skin, hair, clothes, and gear turning the exact shade of weathered concrete of this here city block." Echo." My voice doubled, an eerie ghostly afterimage resting on my shoulder, ready to imitate the next spell, attack, or other action. And now for my newest trick.

[Concentrate Spell +] - Passive Instead of casting a temporary spell, you may add this chant to cast an empowered version of a target temporary spell. The charge cost of this concentrated spell is equal to the amount of charges spent, times a factor that is reduced by Soul, down to a minimum of 1. You need to have enough charges to cover the cost beforehand. + Can target non-temporary spells.

Spells that create temporary or permanent objects or summons reserve a number of charges equal to the cost as long as they exist. It was a spell I half lucked into, half was given as a reward for a system quest that was suspiciously worded like it came out of the mouth of an overenthusiastic terminal optimist. So Mochi, Envoy of Joy most likely. I didn't wait for the next upgrade point. I'd gotten my reward essence, then traded it for the Machine Core 413 essence.

It combined a well known list of synergistic spell-addons together with being exceedingly hard to find. I chose [Concentrate Spell] for its potential synergy with [Echo], [One Moment], and of course [Illusory Double +++], for reasons that will be clear shortly. The first upgrade of [Illusory Double +++] made the doubles slightly more tangible, and harder to discern as illusions. The second upgrade made them impossible to discern as illusions, and made them fully tangible.

The third upgrade gave them a limited amount of autonomy, drastically cutting down on the mental load required for me to upkeep them. If the trend continued, then at four upgrades they would turn into fully autonomous individuals with thoughts, emotions, and more importantly, spells they could cast themselves. Or, I could just skip that, and straight up pump more charges into a double until they were as self-sufficient as I needed them to be." Concentrate Spell plus,"I said," Illusory double triple-plus."

[Charges: 9/9 (Reserved: 7) -> 3/3 (Reserved: 13)] The Samantha that peeled off of me was physically the exact same as I was. There was a glint in her eyes, of animal-like awareness of her surroundings and the world. I raised a hand, and she raised hers, shortly before staring at it with a frown, as if she knew something was up but couldn't quite place it. I suddenly understand the desire to drop everything and just make a full Soul-based mage build. And at the same time, the thought terrifies me.

Does this double fear death? Does she feel like she is Sam, or does she need a name? If she dies and I resummon her, is it the same double, or just a different copy? Not the time for philosophy, Sam.

"You." I proffered the child.

"Protect this with your life. Hide, send me a message via the system if you're discovered." The body double shot a crisp salute.

"Yessir, ma'am, sir." I shot her two thumbs up. She shot me four, then proceeded to find a shaded alley and cover the kid with her own body, melding with the floor. Just another pile of unused building materials. Clever girl. Alrighto, civilians secured. Lets see, I already used my Sense and Mind transformation. That leaves Body and Soul. Against the lizards, the carapace of my Body-form protects me since it's non-conductive.

Against the bots, my Soul-form feeds their batteries the wrong type of emotion, causing overloads and total system failures. [Hostiles remaining: 2] Then again, that's not a lot of enemies left over. Time to see who survived that explosion. From behind the bus, I lept onto a wall, stuck there with [Sticky], and climbed four stories straight up. From there, it was a short set of hops and loping strides until I arrived at a smoldering crater right where an intersection used to be.

A pair of street lamps hung like limp stalks of grass. A traffic light was lying on the ground half embedded in the hissing tarmac. It shattered, as one of the two sole remaining combatants duking it out right at the epicenter stepped on it. To the left there stood an oversized murderbot specialist in the shape of a bipedal humanoid with tens of tentacles emerging from its back, each tipped with glowing knives as long as my forearm. To the right… wow. What a chonker.

I stopped on the roof, struck with awe at the size of that lizardman. He had the proportions of an elephant bull, with a thick lizard skin plated with scales that grew into thicker slabs and spikes of armor wickedly curving this way and that. It sort of reminded me of a hybrid of a giant bipedal croc, a horned lizard, and something straight out of myth and legend. He had something draconic about him. The scorched bodies of lizardmen and warped frames of murderbots were strewn at his feet.

He tried to catch the robot in a grapple, only for it to dance out of the way of both his armored clawed hand, and the horizontal chop of a cleaver that looked to have been smithed out of scrap metal and then dunked into a vat of liquid tetanus. The air warped around it in a way only magic could. The lizard was frighteningly fast for something its size, and yet the murderbot was faster. I was of half a mind to let them go at each other for another few minutes before swooping in for the kill.

An awfully human whimper below ruined that plan. I jumped off the flattop roof, landing next to a thirty-something year old woman hiding behind a smashed SUV quiet as a whisper.

"Hey, you have to—" The woman opened her mouth to scream. I, having preempted something of the sort, already had a hand over her mouth. Would be kinda bad to give our position away right now.

"Hey, no, stop squirming, please don't yell, I'm—" I cleared my throat and did a small twirl and pose with my Lucky 7 revolver.

"Magical Girl: Trigger Happy, on the job. Seven stars and seven suns shan't stop this friendly arachnid. Have at thee, evil doers!" The woman swapped hysteria and shock for a disbelieving stare.

"... not a good introduction?" I asked, peeling my hand away.

"W-who uses 'shan't' and 'thee' in this day and age?" she said shakily.

"It doesn't fit with your theme, whatever that's supposed to be. And everything after the first sentence is just, i-it's too much."

"Well, sorry for trying something new." I grumped.

"And hey, aren't you supposed to be terrified?"

"I s-suppose so. It's just, managing a performer's presentation is p-part of my job. I sorta… fall naturally into a consulting mindset. Say, how about I give you my card and—" I grabbed her suddenly and leapt back twenty feet into the nearby alley, moments before the de-tentacled husk of the murderbot's body slammed straight into the SUV.

"Maybe later. For now, stagger in that direction, I'll take care of this." I didn't look to see her nod or leave, already stepping out of the alley. The lizardman had a number of new stab wounds, none of which went deep enough to threaten more than minor blood loss. It looked as if someone had scorched his eyes and nestled a pair of burning yellow embers in their place. War paint, I realized, to reduce the glare of the sun, but the rage was as real as it was palpable.

Most of these pain lizards would have charged me just like that. But he simply stood there, bleeding and observing as I circled him with so much confidence. What I knew about the pain lizards came from my Cultures of the Worlds class, and what the lecturers knew came from accounts of the fae, and a black box of a Custodian that disappeared after being taken prisoner over a decade ago. They ordered themselves in a strict caste society determined by the type of egg that birthed you.

Laborer eggs birthed lithely muscled, svelte lizardmen that were'only' seven foot tall, though 'laborer' was a bit of a misnormer as they were used from making meals and cleaning latrines to used as scouts or cannonfodder. Above them, there came the crafters and the thinkers. We didn't see them on the battlefield for obvious reasons, but knew that they had to exist since the lizardmen possessed both knowledge of metalworking and a language that expressed itself in differently colored beads fixed on a string.

Above those in turn came the warriors, big, hulking monstrosities that could outfight two gorillas easily. Above the warriors were those who led them, whose ranks in turn were determined by their size and ability to inflict gratuitous violence on enemies and subordinates, none of which seemed to have limits beyond those set by physics. And the greatest, most violent of all was their champion and godking. Violence was part of their cultural language.

Hitting, cutting, tearing, gouging, all were everyday things for the pain lizards. They could regrow teeth, scales, even entire eyeballs given a couple months to years. It was a way of living so alien and unfamiliar that any connection between their cultures and ours seemed impossible. Also, said Custodian the black box belonged to was eaten alive, toes first. This never works, nor do I really want it. But heck, the alternative is a never ending war between two entire planets.

So here, attempt number seventy-seven at world peace. [Updating database entry lizardman language v0. 91 Alpha] I cleared my throat. And began croak-hiss-grunting at the lizardman.

"There is no glory to be had here," I said.

"Submit, or be destroyed. I would prefer it if you'd submit. We do not harm those who acknowledge that there is no sense to continue this fight." They despised the word 'surrender', as previous attempts at diplomacy showed. It was a culturally ingrained idea that admitting defeat was worse than the act of being defeated. The giant dragon-lizard-croc-man tilted his head ever so slightly.

"THERE IS GLORY IN DEATH. SHOULD I LIVE, I SHALL ADD YOUR SKULL TO MY BELT AND MAKE A TOOTHPICK OUT OF YOUR THIGHBONES."

"It was worth a shot," I snarl-murmured to myself. He flexed the hand holding his cleaver. I cracked my neck. A twitch of his legs. I moved, transforming into my large body-form and summoning my 30mm autocannon in a short two heartbeats. [Body: 476->775] The cannon slapped into my hands. The first three shots thunked into his left forearm which the lizard was using to block my shots.

The armor piercing high explosive shells — like miniature grenades — pierced and then tore apart scale, skin, subcutaneous fat, and muscle. He used the now useless mess of bone and sinew that was his left arm to slap my autocannon out of the way, then tried to slug me across the face with a fist as thick as my torso. I ducked underneath it, tried to jump away, but he flexed his gloved fingers. As if gravity was reversed, I fell towards his sucker punch. Crap.

My own bubble shield, an expensive and rechargeable Type 97, flickered once before breaking under the repeated strains of combat. I caught the clawed hand in both of my upper large hands and still felt the impact ringing through my shoulder. Which was patently ridiculous. I had a huge base strength in my Body-form plus nearly 800 Body, how was I losing to— Oh. Right. [More Arms] divides all strength gain across all arms. Great.

I wasn't a brawler, a tank, or anything with remotely the type of staying power a build like Addy or Mason had. I could feel his claws digging into the back of my chitinous hands, feel my feet dragging across the tarmac. My smaller hands were already scrabbling for my pistols, but the bandolier I was wearing was mostly stocked with moderately poisonous daggers. Daggers hadn't proven to do much to this guy, and poison didn't act fast enough.

He grunted in what seemed to be surprise as I didn't fold immediately like the robot had. Apparently I was a bit harder to crack than sub-par quality steel and carbon fiber right now. But only a bit." Summon: Spab-4," I said, and proceeded to drill new holes with my newly soulbound oversized shotgun into his stomach. In return, he kicked me so hard I felt myself fold around his foot like a wet rag. I blacked out for a short second, but that was enough. When I came to again, he was holding me aloft by my neck.

"SUBMIT, OR BE DESTROYED, WEAK SKIN," the lizard snarled back with glee.

"I WOULD PREFER IF YOU SUBMIT."

"Urkh!" was all I could choke out. He was definitely dead from the gut wound, just not immediately. And the one problematic thing about lizardmen, besides their lack of empathy, was their sheer inability to feel pain beyond an annoying buzz.

"VERY WELL. DEATH FOR GLORY, GLORY FOR—" A few lasers bounced off the side of his face, singing an eye. He snarled, looking up to the roof. There, heroically, stood my six-cost body double, two hands on her hips.

"Magical Girl: Trigger Happy, on the job," she said, confusing the everliving crap out of the lizardman with her interpretative bug-dance.

"Seven stars and seven suns shan't stop this friendly arachnid. Have at thee, evil doers!" Oh wow, that really does sound bad when someone else does it. And then she leapt straight at him. He raised his other arm, realized it had fallen off a few seconds ago, and defaulted to trying to snatch her out of the air with his massive jaws. She let him, diving head-first into his mouth, a spider mine in hand as she disappeared halfway down his gullet. His stomach beeped twice. Then he exploded.

Gore flew absolutely everywhere, caking me head to toe. [Soulcoins: 1741->2241] I sat there in shock. Then ran over to my body double, which was lying slumped against a wall, arms thoroughly blasted off.

"Body-double! Oh my god, what was — why are you here?"

"I was protecting the child," she said in a monotone voice, blood that I knew wasn't real streaming from the scorched stumps on her right side.

"I made one improved double since I had one charge. I left them together, then came here. This was the optimal path."

"Don't talk to me about optimal, you sound like Addy!" At the mention of her name, the body double broke out into a small smile.

"Maybe she rubbed off on us. It is good. She is a good person. She wouldn't want to see you suffer… goodbye…" She poofed into smoke and nothingness. I stared at the place she'd been for a long while. I… don't think I can handle any more realistic body doubles. +++ The cleanup for the double-whammy convergence event was something I dearly wanted to skip. I looked like I'd made out with a can of tomatoes in a blender. I was scorched, cut up, bruised to bits, and not all mentally there. My mind was fried.

Making and losing body doubles was emotionally and mentally fatiguing to the point that I just didn't feel capable of much of anything. While exfiltrating towards the line of squad cars, a military humvee, and further back, a small group of journalists and paparazzi, I came across the other Custodian that had been caught in the middle together with me. He was a wizard-ish looking Custodian with an accent betraying him as native to Louisiana.

He had the kit and, more importantly, the physical build of a spell-focused Soul build with minimal protection beyond his bubble shield spell, and whatever he could cast with the twelve wands hanging from his belt. He died about five minutes into the convergence event due to an unlucky miscast followed by a swarm of shuriken drones. He couldn't react fast enough to just duck away, so off went his head.

"Heyo, Stick-o-Mancer from Wembley's Lodge, right?" I raised a hand in greeting, barely registering the way his eyes were popping from their sockets.

"Yup, that's me — holy shit, girl, you good?"

"It's not my blood." I shook myself like Addy sometimes did and felt, then heard small grizzly bits fly off my body. Yikes, there goes an eyeball.

"Hey, I can't be seen by the paparazzis like this."

"You're a Custodian. The paparazzi catch us caked in gore all the time."

"I'm trying to keep up a family-friendly image." I gave him an apologetic smile.

"Mind taking over the aftershow?" It was what we called the dramatic recounting and presentation of events to all interested parties after the convergence dome was dealt with. If a Custodian had the time, they put on a little performance. It helped garner popular support, which in turn garnered political support, which in turn garnered monetary support. And more importantly, it helped Custodians stay in touch with the experience of everyday people, the people we were sworn to protect.

Giving him the reins for the narrative was a big concession. As a member of his lodge, he was a competitor to the Free Poker League. Lodges and the League were as dependent on donations as they were on membership fees. You could offer a whole slew of benefits that were logically sound, but if someone didn't like your image or felt like you only took the easy convergences for quick soulcoins, they weren't going to join or contribute.

"You sure?" he said, and wow, was that genuine concern I was hearing? What a good bean.

"Just give me a fair showing and try not to be a dick. I'll send a body double as a stand-in." Off to the side, I saw my body double's body double strut towards a distraught woman and present her with the child. Stick-o-mancer shook his head as I clocked out for the day.

"Badass." The paparazzi caught me anyway. I was too lazy and tired to jump over buildings, instead walking down roads and alleys like an absolute pleb. The first flash confused me, but by the second, I knew I needed to give them something more interesting than a tired, worn-down Custodian trudging along the road covered in gore.

"Custodian Trigger Happy, you look like shit! Any comments?" I smiled at the setup, gave five thumbs up, and shot a web at the nearest roof top with my cybernetic arm.

"Don't worry. The tomato soup factory is safe and secure. I definitely didn't slip and fall into a vat of soup. That would be ridiculous." I tugged on the web and slung myself into the air, escaping the paparazzi that now had a much more fun and uplifting story to tell.

'Uplifting' and 'Fun' seemed to sell quite well in these days of minor apocalypse. Nobody wanted to hear how many lives Custodians were losing day by day, or what was going on in North Korea. Custodians were considered a 'western subversive creation' over there, which meant we were shoot-on-sight.

Not that those orders were followed with particular enthusiasm when a Custodians was about to enter a convergence dome barrier, but it did make exfiltration a bit more dangerous, especially since there was not a single teleporter booth in the entire country. I landed on a roof, only to double over in pain. Underneath my shirt, a nasty purple bruise in the shape of a lizardman's foot was taking shape. Great.

"I'll have to ask Addy to cast a [We'll be fine] on me… oh my god, I forgot about Addy!" I rushed to the airport, searching for a while. It should have been easy to find her, but since she wasn't there, and she'd set her system messages to 'do not disturb', I guessed she had already gone ahead and was busy taking a nap. I suppose it's my fault for not finishing the convergence event quick enough. Ugh.

We'd agreed on that beforehand, but still, I was a bit miffed at not being able to swoop Addy up in a hug right here and now. From the airport, it was a short trip to the Free Poker League HQ. I basically lived there. We had various rooms available in case a Custodian needed somewhere to crash after a quick teleport. A few of them had permanent residents, namely me, Becca, Orianna, and two more Custodians that were active in Chicago.

The front doors of the compound swooped open with a quick facial ID scan, after I'd hosed myself down sufficiently at the old carwash station that was adjacent to our compound. It had one of those high-pressure hoses that really got the grit out of every pore. A paparazzi tried to snap a quick photo of me walking around in drenched clothes, but that was fine.

I snagged his camera, told him in polite terms that I would drop it and maybe him in a river if he tried again, paid him ten soulcoins to spread the word, and returned back to base. The moment the doors closed behind me, I breathed a sigh. It was a long day in a long week. But finally, this surge of convergence events was dealt with, and the new forecast system two geniuses from Oman came up with was showing that activity wouldn't return to this level for another three days.

Which meant that, finally, after three months, I had a free weekend, one I could share with Addy. The joy revived me more thoroughly than any spell could have. I entered the new common room, got some soda from a communal fridge, then caught the distinct sounds of someone schmoozing in the old common room. More than schmoozing in fact. As the de-facto founder of the Free Poker League, it is my imperative to get on the nerves of anyone screwing around in public rooms. Like, who does that?

Get a room, people, we've got plenty.

"Becca, Orianna, I know you two are basically inseparable, but can we please keep it private— Uhhh," I said, staring at the knot of skin and clothes on the couch.

"Uuuh," said Addy, popping up from where she was straddling me. Straddling a body double of me. Oh right. There was my experimental body double. She looked like me, smelled like me, cast spells like me, and cost a whopping seven charges to upkeep. She even acted like me, because every single body double had my memories and idiosyncrasies copied at the time of casting. I'd checked. I'd more than checked, I'd run entire experiments. Which was also why I suddenly felt a pang of fear rise at one simple question.

How do I know that I'm not the body double?