To Your New Era

"Now Johnny, listeners at home have called in expressing their opinions on the uh…Neflem and Treyatas ceasefire that broke down the other day, very divisive I must say. Now, one interesting thing I heard them asking is why the Geverdian government has been so concerned with this issue. I mean, what does this have to do with us? Aren't wee still quite an isolationist country?"

"They don't call us a hermit kingdom for nothing, Max, I'll tell you that much, and if this were happening twenty years ago, you'd be right! The thing is though, this conflict has been raging on for years now since the breakup of Rhodesia, and every attempt to mediate so far has broken down and, in fact, the conflict has escalated. Recently, Neflem brought the war into Treyatas proper, targeting its capital in what Treyatas claimed was an attack aimed at civilians. Spirit on Spirit conflicts rarely escalate so far, and when they do, they're hard to stop."

"So where do we fit into this, Johnny? I mean, there's got to be a reason we would stick our necks out so far."

"Well Rhodesia being our former neighbour, many Treyatasian refugees have set up shop in Geverde trying to escape the conflict, couple that with Geverde's growing presence as a regional power—just look at our alliance with Sidos and the growing H.O.A. industry—Geverde clearly has something to gain here. Put an end to a years' long conflict thought impossible to resolve, and what message does that send to all our neighbours? That we can be trusted, and that we are a reliable mediator for peace. Now—"

Rayak killed the radio before all-star commentators Johnny and Max could get another word in, her overuse of force toppling the radio face down onto a coffee table barely the breadth of a flatbread. It was a cheap hotel: the room was small, appliances limited, and little consideration given to any Spirit non-bipedal, or without an upright posture regardless of legs.

The Spirit at the reception—a Beak, although she still thought the word sounded derogatory—had looked at her in awe bordering on horror when she nudged open the front door, voice box slung around her neck by a harness. She regretted paying for the room at all, knowing she could've snuck in had she wanted to.

She curled up on her bed again, comically small in relation to her: a hazy mess of four limbs underneath a long, beast-like torso. The stained red covers showed through her transparent body, and although hazy, reminded her exactly of the filth she lay on.

Even the small room Bankson Private Security leased out to her as part of their "hiring package" was more bearable, although the fact she could say that about her hellhole of a home made her lose more of what precious hope for the world she had left.

She stared at the telephone on the wall; a black box and an oblong cylinder that almost resembled a fruit. The telephone she used sat on a table, and although answering it only took some fiddling, dialling was an entirely different beast. Without fingers, she had learned to improvise.

So she could only be grateful her next employer only ever made one-way calls.

The phone rang, and Rayak leapt from her bed, her every rushed movement rearranging the furniture with a clatter. Its incessant chime continued as she wondered which angle of attack she would take, eventually knocking it off its brace entirely and letting it dangle from its cord.

Starting a Pattern Recorder pre-placed by the phone, she leaned in, pressing her body against the small spark of Aether buzzing from the plastic mould.

Ten second delay. That was usual. After which would be a soft click, then a whir, then a human woman's voice would speak crudely stitched-together sentences.

"Sina six, Menpho nine, Gara three, Nidux seven, Harrou ten…"

The Pattern recorder's red eye glowed in pulsing intervals, listening to the string of words and numbers as closely as she was. Three minutes in silence, three minutes she spent piecing together a semblance of the message itself.

Eventually, it ended. Ten second delay. That was usual, after which the silence would end, and the Aether would fade. Rayak stopped the Pattern Reader and manoeuvred the receiver into her mouth, then back onto the brace.

Clink.

She was alone again, and being alone went against her nature. The feeling weighed on her, compounding as the days went by. Her days at Bankson Security were days with others of her kind, no matter how despondent or homesick they were.

She returned to her bedding, retracing her frantic steps with a measured head. From the pile of food scraps that was her table, she excavated a textbook two hundred pages thick. Mathematical theory in a language she knew nothing of. Page 137. Any visit to any other page was out of morbid curiosity at best.

Outlined on that table was a key, although the man who mailed her the textbooks had once called it a matrix. That page, coupled with the telephone calls, had become her life's obsession, and their every word, her goal.

Rayak would spend her day, from noon to night, pouring over the code one letter at a time. Miserably sluggish progress was the norm, and from her hours of effort would come only a handful of words. But once she had it, she had purpose again, if only for the next week before another message came. For now, she stoked the fireplace, burnt the textbook, and contemplated the message.

She would soon meet her brothers and sisters again at the International Convention of Middling Nations, only not on the same side as one another.

Iris watched her eyes flutter open.

The same eyes she saw in the mirror, only smaller, dimmer.

Extinguished of flame. Long before they would reignite once again.

The upper reaches of the Northern Chain still sapped the warmth from the surrounding rock, but the snow had long-since melted.

The sun shined. Iris bloomed.

She locked eyes with her past the moment theirs opened; the small, living embryo incapable of much more than writhing on the floor. Hair blanketed her body, scarred and bruised as it was, and from underneath rose a hand of bleeding fingernails.

It asked for Iris.

Fished for the same gesture.

An offering of peace.

Iris, sitting in the same spot she always did, obliged against her better judgement.

The events she was witnessing had long since played out. If she wanted an unadulterated memory, the truth of what happened…

But those dull eyes found her through both space and time. It was too late for a perfect view into the past.

So, Iris offered a hand. Wider. Slimmer. Cleaner.

They brushed fingers, and Iris felt a flash of Aether.

Silver hair disintegrated.

Her past searched for her heart with a wire-thin spindle. Iris erected a barrier between them, forming her armour in its cover.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

But her hair wasn't only her own.

Her wall twisted.

Her armour contorted.

The latter crushed her like a nutcracker and pinned her where she stood as she struggled inside.

Stuck in her own skin.

The former warped into a spiralling lance, its tip venturing closer to her as it formed.

Slowly, relishing each inch between its tip and her flesh.

She felt it pierce her shoulder, drill through her skin and tear muscle from muscle, draw blood down the grooves of its spiral and lap it up gleefully.

By the time it reached bone, the lance paused.

Her past watched her.

Curious eyes stared at her like a cat with its plaything.

The small, spindly collection of bone and sinew was infinitely closer to her true power than she was. The last remnants of what had tormented her until three years ago.

But all it did was question her. Test her.

Try to work out what she was.

How she had gotten there.

What had gone wrong.

As though it was all Tetrica had ever done to her.

One in the morning. Iris hadn't reared her nose from the pages since dinner the day before, and the amount of willpower it would take to tear her away was growing with each page turned. Elliot's gift in the end did double as a curse, only not in the way she originally expected.

The story didn't engross her; its simple, utilitarian writing was repetitive, mirroring Tetrica's journey itself.

Banging her head against the wall. She wondered if she got that trait from a past life rather than Evalyn.

Each page turn stretched between months and hundreds of years, spotty pieces of history intersecting with royalty lost to time, generals buried under bedrock, people whose very bones would have turned to dust, Spirits with nary an imprint on whatever hill they died on. All held Tetrica in common. All saw within her their ticket to power. All were right, and Tetrica was wrong, every single time.

It maintained its naivety, one of the few constants from page to page, until it convinced Iris a Spirit of such power wasn't capable of such a trait at all. What she thought was naivety was pure principle, principle that morphed as fast as riverbeds turned into canyons. Truly unshakeable, almost admirable, but reality won out in the end.

If utopia were possible, then Tetrica would have found it already. To think the scholars of this book's teachings still considered it a possibility baffled her.

She turned another page, but this time to a break in the morbid monotony.

Note from contributing author. Illustration here. Only example. Depicts collection of spires. Resembles a city. Crystal? Rises from a flat plane of grass. Above it is a circle. A moon? Will mail photograph when possible.

Her mentor's words finally broke her trance like a chapter heading, and she closed the accursed thing before the next few lines could claw her back in.

Iris picked it up and placed it underneath a pile of books, hoping that the weight would keep its tempting whispers inside. Heavy still, but lighter than before.

Not quite ready to see her dreams on paper, she killed the lights, collapsed into bed, and counted cracks in the wooden ceiling until she started losing herself in the bedding.

"That's everything," Evalyn said, slapping the mangled notebook onto Marie's desk. "Every code Durren Milette recorded to date."

"Whose asset is he again?"

Silence filled the office. Iris counted wires in the ceiling, waiting for it to pass.

"Iris?"

Fourteen…fifteen…

"Iris."

"Hm?"

Two pairs of eyes watched her, concern forming little peaks from their brows.

She replayed the conversation back to herself.

"GFP. He was a federal asset."

"Which makes me think the Feds know more than they're letting on. They'd already dismissed this case weeks before we brought it to them, and yet they acted like business as usual."

Marie pondered behind interlaced fingers, eyes scanning the notebook in front of her, contemplating its implications rather than the words inside.

"The federal police and I don't see eye to eye, on a professional level or in the council. It wouldn't surprise me if they were keeping assets close to their chest; that level of pettiness is to be expected."

Don't read too much into it; that was the long and the short of Marie's words. Evalyn didn't seem fully satisfied, but it made sense enough to Iris, or at least it was the possibility she prayed was true.

She already had a history of fighting on the wrong side. If there was anything she didn't want to inherit.

Marie flipped through the notebook's pages, gathering the gist of things quickly. She humphed.

"Some kind of phonetic alphabet. Numbers too. I'll get the cryptographs on it then, ask around."

"How long will that take?"

"Not sure. Depends if we have the code on record or not."

Evalyn nodded. "Code isn't my area of expertise, so."

"I know. Sit this one out for the moment. Thank you, Iris. You and Crestana did well."

Marie's smile was gentle, unburdened by the knowledge that Iris had a gun turned on her. The tremor still lay dormant in her muscles, and she did her best to keep it under wraps. For now, that involved returning the smile and moving on.

"Can I ask Alis about the code?"

The question echoed twice around the room before the adults seemed to understand.

"Why does Alis need to know?" Evalyn spoke first with crossed arms, the peak in her brow quickly turning into a valley.

"Because he might know. He doesn't need the details."

Evalyn didn't look so convinced, but she was never Iris's target. Elvera seemed to consider it, but caution took over. It always did with her.

"What makes you think it's Vesmosian?"

Iris shrugged. "It's a thought. You said they're trying to buy their way into the country. The convention is coming and—"

"God, if I hear that convention mentioned one more time."

"…sorry—"

"Not you, darling," Marie said, holding a migraine at the mere mention of the c-word. "If we didn't have the code on our database, I probably would have passed the matter on to our foreign contacts, regardless. Alis wasn't my first pick, but Vesmos isn't a bad guess. Considering his background, he might know something."

"Making sure you'd say the same thing without granny glasses?"

"I leave the granny glasses at the door. You know this, Evalyn."

"Just checking," Evalyn said, exiting, and Iris slinked into her shadow as she reached for the door handle. It escaped her grasp, however, as the door swung open.

'Imposing stature' might've been the polite way to articulate the foremost figure before her, but the human half of Iris's brain jumped at the word 'predator' instead. Oddly anthropomorphic; distant enough to hunt humans, close enough to still classify it as cannibalism. That was the instinctual reaction their lengthy, emaciated arms evoked.

"Didn't realise we'd have company," the Beak said, directing their scratchy voice at Marie.

"We aren't. These two were on their way."

"I see." The Beak turned its attention back towards them. "You don't look military. How many wrong turns did it take you to get here?"

"If you'd be so kind, Tackson."

Marie's voice was about the only thing the Beak seemed to respect, or at the very least respond to. They stepped aside, and their two escorts followed suit.

"Sir," Evalyn muttered before taking her leave.

"It's a lovely tattoo you have."

Evalyn paid the compliment no heed and pressed forward, leaving Iris several paces behind as the door shut behind them with a deep thud.

"Who was that?"

"GFP liaison between Marie and the director. Heard he's a real piece of work."

Iris counted half a minute of speed-walking before Evalyn showed any sign of slowing down. By then, they were out of the administration wing and back into the base proper, the steel beast welcoming them back with a whale song of drill-bits, welding and metal-on-metal cacophony. Evalyn seemed to find peace in it, if not any quiet.

"You're going back to school next week."

"Sure. Tell me when you find something."

"Iris."

It was the 'listen to me' tone again; a sigh with a hint of latent determination. Iris knew she could be stubborn, but it felt like recently they were going around in circles. She felt the disinterest crawl across her expression before she could hide it from Evalyn.

"Sorry," her mother said, turning away to lean against the railing. Iris took the hint and stayed a while, too. They were at a checkpoint in the investigation, a perfect time to change focus or deal with administration if the business was still alive.

A string of small lanterns hung in the air close by, outlining a precarious mid-air route. Along it at a sluggish pace came a cargo-vehicle, nary a cabin and a steel bed stitched together. Today's load looked like miscellaneous engine parts to her, blind to the order in the chaos.

"Can I ask you a weird question?"

Evalyn's attention still seemed devoted to the scene ahead of them.

"Yes," Iris said.

"How much…would you give to be free? No…jobs, no restrictions, just live like a normal person."

Iris hadn't clocked it as a weird question the last hundred times she had considered it. Futile was the conclusion those hundreds of times came to, and any more would have bordered on the realm of insanity.

"I don't think I'd give anything," Iris said, slumping across the railings and dangling her arms over the fifty-metre drop below. "I don't see the point."

"Why not?"

"Because it's worse anywhere else. It's not just you or the Queen who says that. I see it in my dreams…mind palace. The only way to live like a normal person is to become one. Maybe I tried sixteen years ago, but it didn't work."

Used, and used again. The very moment she acted upon an opinion, she would once again fall into the trap of playing God, just as her past self had.

"But sometimes…sometimes I ask why it needs to be like this. Not the rules, or the laws. The world. What decided it had to be like this?"

"You're sounding religious."

"No. No, it's something…deeper? I don't know. But if it doesn't change, I'll never be normal, so it's impossible."

Evalyn sighed, looking more confused than when she had started.

"All right," she muttered. "Then maybe that's my target."

"Hm?"

Evalyn trailed off, pushed herself from the railing and restarted the journey to the parking bay.