Book Nine, Chapter 24: Interlude

Mortimer the 304th gazed out at the sanctuary for the last time in a long while, he predicted. He would be moving back to his original post soon. Most of the upper-level management and researchers would be. The neighborhood had yielded useful data, if slightly less grand in scope than he had hoped. Its relative safety was only practicable due to near constant danger. At any moment, an alarm could sound, and the NPCs would be in a fight for their life against threats from all over the Many Worlds.

“Take heart, young Aldric,” he said, considering whether to grasp the man’s shoulder. “You have before you a wonderful opportunity if you choose to see it.”

The man known professionally as Dr. Aldric Rose forced a smile. “I see the opportunity. I can study the Manyfold Hunger to my heart’s content from here. Carousel has trapped it for us in a forest, a monster, like so many of its specimens. I’ll spend a lifetime trying to understand its nature and even then, I may not have a better grasp of it than you do on Carousel’s.”

He eyed Mortimer with a sly smile, which the older immortal matched.

“Don’t fret, dear friend,” he said. “Look at how much we’ve learned in such little time. It wasn’t a month or more ago that we believed this creature to be a viral pathogen or some manner of contagious hive mind. Look how far we’ve come.”

Aldric did look. He saw the town in the distance. “I see that we are no closer than we were on the day we discovered it. I see no solution for those we’re here to protect, Mortimer. Millions of lives displaced, hunted through the Many Worlds. How high will the numbers grow while I spend lifetimes studying their inevitable killer?”

How could any man respond to that? Mortimer decided that he should reach out for the younger man’s shoulder in a comforting gesture, and so he did. It had been an eon ago that Mortimer himself had felt the crushing weight of responsibility for the lives of countless mortals. In his world, before its end, they had looked to him as a savior when destruction came, but he was left helpless without even a hope of saving his people.

It wasn’t going to be that way again. Mortal men could not fight time and death, but Mortimer could and had. He would again.

“We have learned plenty, Aldric,” he said. “Saltspar. Look to Saltspar Island. Once thought of as a dead-end strategy, juxtaposing a safe haven to a place of sure destruction. Now, it is clear that even Carousel used a similar technique. With some adjustments, we may perfect the spell and create many such sanctuaries.”

Aldric nodded. He was a good boy. Not even a thousand years old, but still knew the power of time and persistence; Mortimer could see it in his eyes.

“Saltspar is safe, well, mostly safe, because Carousel forces those poor souls to repeat their deaths night after night, the horror of which is enough to balance the safety of a few tourists… until it isn’t,” Dr. Rose said.

“Our next build will be more stable. Our recent findings will see to that,” Mortimer said.

Aldric nodded, but Mortimer could tell there were questions he was not asking, that were not his place to ask. Strategy was a matter for those with seniority and authority. Lower-level agents of the company, even a promising narrator like Aldric, were to execute their orders with proficiency and without question.

But Mortimer had taken a liking to the young doctor.

“We are working on a model that might bear promise,” he said. “A temporary solution, of course. A stopgap until we have tamed Carousel’s wiles.”

“And what is that?”

Mortimer cleared his throat. “Incorporating the players themselves.”

Aldric looked over at his mentor with a scandalous grin.

“Nothing is certain,” the elder man said. “We haven’t been able to test our theories, having no players of our own in the time since the need arose.”

“And those theories are?”

“First, we will attempt to develop a Writ of Habitation that not only protects the players, but gives them… a community. Not a collection of NPCs, but a true population of refugees who live ordinary lives. It is a work in progress, seems fickle. It isn’t clear how long we could make it last. The second theory, however, is one that excites this handmade heart of mine quite fiercely.”

Aldric laughed. “Come out with it now, don’t drown me with anticipation.”

Mortimer leaned close. “We are going to make the refugees a part of the audience. In theory, such a feat would bring to bear the weight of Carousel’s power to their protection. My profound and successful studies into this beautiful construct have led me to the conclusion that Carousel would never endanger a proper audience member.”

Aldric smiled widely. “That’s part of the logic for our own protection, isn’t it?”

Mortimer shrugged. “Theoretically, yes. When we came here, we used every precaution we could muster. The flaw in such an abundance of risk avoidance is that we don’t actually know which of those spells is doing the work. Obviously, incorporating our society at large as part of the audience has been a key component of our protection. In fact, our role as facilitators may be one reason Carousel has been so tolerant of our operation. We’ll have to see how far we can take that.”

The men spoke on the subject for some time afterward. Mortimer believed he had truly brought comfort to his friend. Such news had to help with the pressure bearing down on the doctor’s shoulders. If such a relief helped Aldric in his duties, a few exaggerations were worth the blemish on Mortimer’s otherwise impeccable honor.

The truth, like most truths, was marred in shades of gray. They were no closer to keeping the refugees safe on Carousel than they were to taming Carousel itself. So much effort was expended seamlessly transporting the population of refugees from outpost to outpost across the Many Worlds as the Hunger chased them that the Consortium could focus on little else.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Still, there was hope. As long as the Manifest Consortium drew breath, his fellows would work toward a solution.

Mortimer left the balcony of the observation tower and crossed the threshold into the command center, moving a distance of over a mile in an instant.

Operations were winding down now. Their task was to sit and wait. Carousel had the next move, Mortimer knew. All he and his team could do was wait and watch unless Silas Dyrkon suddenly remembered the secrets of this dark, intelligent universe, which felt unlikely.

One of the display screens showed a middle-aged woman tapping on it. It was the NPC Carousel had put in charge of the sanctuary when she wasn't acting as a player companion. She had found one of their cameras, which wasn’t quite as invisible as they had hoped.

Her name was Jules. No other information could be gleaned about her through the normal channels. Carousel had intentionally hidden this knowledge from them. It was the same for all identified NPCs in the sanctuary.

“Alright, you pansies,” she said to the camera, “You have to stop doing things like this. This is a watch-and-see kind of deal. No probing. You weren’t meant to die here; stop trying.”

Moments later, the camera she was speaking into disconnected. They weren’t quite sure how she was even interacting with them.

Carousel wanted them to see something, but not intervene. She was a domineering entity, wasn’t she? What was it she was trying to say? Untangling this web of spells would have been an incredible bore had she not wanted to be untangled.

He stared through the readouts out of nothing but habit. The players had just successfully run a rescue for their talented Eye Candy. That was good news, though there was not much else to celebrate. The Red Chalk Circus still spread over Carousel proper without any sign of ending. When they designed the Apocalypse Engine to clear away unused manifestations from careless threadpulling and abandoned throughlines, they had not predicted what Carousel might do with it if she took control.

Again, the Consortium was left to wait and see. Once, they were scientists and architects, masters of the magic between worlds. Now, they were relegated as simple observers.

Mortimer was patient. He hadn’t lived untold eons just to lose his head at the prospect of delayed gratification. In fact, in his intellectual pursuits, delays could themselves be gratifying. He could work a problem backward and forward, ruminating on it until the eventual answer clicked all the pieces in his mind into place with immense satisfaction. This would be the same.

They were the Manifest Consortium. They would not be deterred so easily.

“Sir,” one of the techs watching the monitors said. She was excited; her hand raced to her chest as if she were grasping her heart. Mortimer wondered if her heart was one of his models. How many of the Consortium owed their immortality to him? “Sir!”

She pointed to the screen, eyes wide, mouth agape.

“What is it? Show a bit more dignity in your speech,” Mortimer said.

“It’s… It’s him. It’s the Barker!” she screamed.

No… No, it couldn’t be. There hadn’t been a confirmed sighting of the Barker in Carousel since the beginning. Would the Barker really come to the sanctuary of all places?

Mortimer felt his low-friction knees move as if on their own as he hurried toward the display panel. The screen flickered as one of their cameras, one Jules had not found, caught footage of the unmistakable visage of that magical dealer who had sent them each on their immortal paths so many years ago.

He had a booth and table made from old wooden crates, with a cloth over them, and a banner… Mortimer couldn’t read it. The Barker and his booth were facing away from the camera.

Many of the immortals in the room had huddled around the terminal, jamming themselves in to catch a glimpse of the man in those red and white vertical stripes…

“Get back to work,” Mortimer said. “We needn’t act like savages.”

His words were largely ignored. He had to squeeze out of the crowd of analysts and pages.

“He’s on Main Street,” one analyst said. That’s right next to the community center.

“Surely we can’t go down there,” another said. “I mean, you saw what the Hunger did before. Well, I suppose if we were quick, the lines don’t take too long.”

“Don’t be a fool,” a third analyst said, “We should all go down one at a time so no one has to wait in line down there.”

Mortimer stood back as he watched his fellow immortals salivate at their next hit of magic, at the possibilities that their next book of tickets might contain the thing they so hungered for, whatever that could be.

He moved his gloved hand through his hair and contemplated the safest way to enter the sanctuary. They had spells for protection, distraction, deflection… Maybe one of each to be safe.

“I’m going,” one of the techs said. “I haven’t been this close to the Barker in ages. Last time, he left while I was still waiting in line!”

Mortimer couldn’t allow his underling to leave their posts, could he? No. They needed to monitor the sanctuary, waiting for Carousel to show them something.

He looked over at the dozens of workers, each buzzing excitedly, grabbing their purses and coats, debating over whether they could brave the dangers of the sanctuary… What dangers, though, he wondered. They had successfully sent emissaries down there, even if they were brought right back. What had happened to the volunteer refugee had been a fluke. Was there any danger? Had the Barker ever led them astray like that?

Her heard a click of metal on metal, of one of their phones being taken off its hanger, and froze.

“Stop!” he yelled. “Don’t move!”

While they had not heeded his commands before, they did now. He was using his powerful lungs to amplify his voice.

“Put down any communication devices you have and move away from your terminals!” he said.

He looked around the room, person to person, watching every hand as its owner backed away and stopped moving.

“Has anyone reported this to the hotline? Has anyone spoken the location?” he asked.

He looked from face to face, searching for guilt.

“I didn’t yet, but I was going to,” one woman said, fear palpable.

“Don’t!” Mortimer screamed. “Don’t you realize how disastrous it would be if hundreds of our kind started teleporting into the sanctuary all at once? Don’t move a muscle. Don’t spread the word!”

He knew that the first thing these gossips were prone to do was send out the call, to let their friends and colleagues in on the location of the Barker’s sighting.

Wait… The Barker… he had seen the man’s back, but not his face.

He took in several deep breaths. “Move the camera! Get me a shot of his face!”

No one moved. They had been told to clear away from the terminals.

Mortimer himself ran to the screen with the feed of the Barker and typed in the simple commands to get a view from the other side.

The camera began encircling the booth as fast as it could, rounding about and…

Mortimer let out a sigh with such vigor his voice box chirped.

“It’s not him!” he declared. The man on the screen was a dead ringer from behind, but his face was different. The Barker had the most recognizable face in the Many Worlds. None could mistake this imposter for the genuine entity, not from the front, at least. “You people are an embarrassment. Run a check with the equipment.” He stood up and straightened his suit, dabbing a few beads of sweat from his brow. “It would seem our friend Carousel has tricked you.”

A few moments of gathering readings and doing proper scouting later, they determined the fake Barker was simply an NPC.

A good one, old girl, Mortimer thought. Not good enough. Just wanted to be certain we were watching, didn’t you?

The room of bashful immortals quickly moved back to their seats and continued their work.