Slumrat Rising

The front entry way had a spot for people to take off their shoes and admire the professional pictures on the wall. Truth ignored both. He made his way to the living room, a vast space connecting the first and second floors of the duplex penthouse. There was glass covering the entire wall, giving a breathtaking view of Xandre at night. There were comfortable sofas, enormous potted trees, and here and there a toy or ball shoved under a sofa. None of which detracted from the simply vast fish tanks that dominated the room.

  Step by step, he walked through the quiet house. The fish tanks were bewilderingly enormous, breaking up the living room and lining the walls. Even in the dark, the fish shimmered and glowed. These were not any ordinary guppies- they were electric blue, buttercup yellow, the green of a peacock’s feather and the orange of a tiger’s stripes. Some looked like they were made of gold, others sparkled in the dark. Those ones, Truth noticed, got their own tanks.

  That which shined was by no means safe.  

Truth kept his eyes moving. The item to be acquired would be in a sealed container, fireproof, and roughly the size of his bucket. His first thought was a safe. A wealthy house like this, it would be strange if there wasn’t at least one safe. He had the horrible feeling that the walk-in closet attached to the master bedroom would have a safe. Fingers crossed the owners were already asleep. Maybe they took something to help them sleep. Understandable in these dark times. Cracking a safe while the owners slept barely one room over was possible, but difficult and dangerous. He was under the strictest orders to abort and run rather than harm the residents of the house.

  In the middle of the living room was a giant, two-story fish tank, utterly dominating the space. A living coral formation grew in it, and he could see an entire miniature ecosystem swirling around it. Even small water spirits darted through the sea grass and kelp.

 

Truth kept exploring. There was an office marked on the floor plans he studied. Truth tested the door to the office- unlocked. He eased the door open. It was utterly standard looking. More pictures on the wall, showing family rather than career triumphs. There was a medal with a plaque above it, and a flag folded into a triangle below.

  There was a young man in uniform in a lot of the pictures. Maybe sixteen or seventeen, a beaming older couple wrapping their arms around his shoulders. The desk was kept neat, the drawers locked. The bookshelves were stuffed with binders, reference books, books on politics, or history. Horizontal meters of reading material Truth wouldn’t touch on a bet. A surprising number of guides on things like survival medicine, or foraging. Making shelters from scraps or woodland material. He made a swift, silent check for a safe. There was one concealed under a bit of carpet under the desk, more or less where he expected it would be. Truth frowned. It looked too small to hold the item. At a guess, it was for holding confidential files.

  It wasn’t a cheap safe. He could see the alarm spells built right into it. It was buried in the floor so he couldn’t just grab the safe and run with it. Or bounce it. Shocking how many safes just popped open when you dropped them from a modest height. Truth had some safe cracking tools with him, but it took time, and there was a significant risk of setting off the alarm. He covered up the safe. He would try to open it later if he couldn’t find a more likely option.

  He went back to the living room and looked again at the biggest fish tank. It ran nearly floor to ceiling. The weight of the water must be unreal. Some good spell work, he assumed. Which would explain the coral reef and the fish inside it, with little ghostly shapes swirling amongst the fishes. Those water spirits must be keeping things clean and the environment healthy.  

Haha, could you imagine if they just dumped the sealed container in there and told the water spirits to hide it inside the coral reef? Hahahah. Oh, how silly that would be, trusting the multiple physical barriers and their bound spirits to guard the treasure. No way they would ever do that. How would they get it out again? Just order the spirits to hand it to them?  

Truth quietly and vehemently swore. He would tear this whole damn house apart before he tried to get things out of the fish tank.  

He moved upstairs. If the downstairs was the public area, this was the private, family area.  

“You know someone is going to kill us for it, right? They are going to kick in the door and kill us in our sleep.”  

Truth froze, his breath seizing. There was a door ahead, cracked open. No light coming out.  

“Nobody’s coming to kill us, Liya. I’m trying to make sure they don’t in the future, either.”  

The man’s voice was tired. There was a warmth and depth to the baritone. And a terrible weariness. The man wasn’t physically tired, or wasn’t just, he was emotionally exhausted too.  

“It’s a national treasure, Negasi. Worse, it’s a treasure of the Temple. You know they will do anything and call it God’s will,” Liya paused. “Hypocrites.”  

“There should have been five of them in the treasury. There were three. It’s happening all over. Treasures, elixirs, land, businesses, permits, you name it. It’s all going to the highest bidder. And it’s a buyer’s market. If anything, I’m late to the game.” Negasi laughed bitterly.

  Truth looked at the pictures on the wall, his night vision showing the faces perfectly. Negasi was strong faced, not handsome, but charismatic. You would believe him if he told you he would fight for you in parliament. He was smiling, or confidently serious, in all the pictures. Now, his voice sounded like a man about to break. Like a man who kept doing his best, and it kept not mattering.

  “So, what’s the plan? You sell it to some billionaire or aristocrat or something and then what? Book tickets off world?”

  “You know I can’t, Liya. I swear on my soul I would if I could.”  

“They just say that, you know, to keep people on the planet. Obviously, they make exceptions for families, or how would anyone emigrate?”  

“They don’t make exceptions. Every emigration costs a terrifying amount, and the Shattervoid bitch for centuries about it. Millennia, even.”  

The room went silent again. Truth gently stretched out his right foot, slowly touching his heel to the floor and letting his weight roll forward up the sole to the ball of the foot. Ready to take the next step, when-  

“She’s six.”  

“I know.”  

“Six.”  

“I know.”  

“And she’s brilliant. Whip smart. She’s so funny. Better looking than I was at six.”  

“I know.”  

“She loves all kinds of birds. She laughed and laughed when she saw the special ducks in the park. She begged me to paint ducks on her walls.”  

“I know.” Negasi sounded muffled, choked.  

“Why. Why can’t they take her? She’s smart and funny, and beautiful and… perfect. I can stay if they take her. I would stay.”  

“Me too.”  

“So why? Why can’t they take my baby?” He could hear the tears in Liya’s voice. The pain and the frustration and the bone deep despair under it all.  

“I don’t know. I don’t know. But I won’t leave this planet without her, or you. So, we have to be ready. For… whatever.”  

Truth couldn’t stand it anymore, and slowly moved down the hall. Silently padding through the dark home.  

Closets filled with long dresses and robes, a little library. A doorway cracked open, with thin, warm light trickling out. Truth carefully eased up to the door and peeked in. It was a small room, a single bed against one wall, two dressers, a window with a million birr view. The floor was a war zone of toys, stuffed animals, clothes scattered where they fell. Books too, stacked up by the bedside table, under the bed, scattered like steppingstones across the floor. The light came from a nightlight that was projecting the night sky on the ceiling, each major star accompanied by a sigil noting what eminence it was. Two ducks flew across the wall from the bed. Cheerful, energetic, and magnetic. Whoever painted them was a good artist.  

On the bed, blankets pulled up to her chin, was a little girl. She had a serious look on her face, as she slept. Her hair was wild and free. It reminded Truth of Etenesh’s hair when she humored him and let it fly as it willed. She was a beautiful child. In a comfortable room. Safe. Warm. Fed. Loved. He didn’t hate her for having all those things. He didn’t even envy her. He just felt sad. Truth kept moving. The container wouldn’t be in her room.

  There was a little family chapel. Truth kind of stubbed his eyes on it because he had never seen or heard of the like before. About the size of a walk-in closet. There was a tiny almandel, an icon of a chest on the wall, a few prayer books, a small bowl. Truth carefully checked every inch of it, but it seemed that sacrilege was not one of the family’s sins. It was just an entire, if very small, room who’s only function was to be a place of prayer, worship, and contemplation. In this penthouse worth ten million birr. Siphios, land of scholars and saints. But what do the scholars and saints do when God is gone, and the books fuel the cook fires? What do they do when there is no Siphios?

  He walked over the wide boards of the hardwood floor, letting the soft rubber of the boot heel absorb the noise as he searched through the home. Silent spectral fingers tracing through the minutia of daily life, peering behind pictures for hidden safes. Seeing, without being seen.

  At the end of the hallway, there was a picture of an angel treading on the neck of a vicious serpent demon. It was rather tall, at a bit over two meters, and painted in that old style that made everything feel rather flat. The angel was one of the scrubs, the humanoid ones with just one pair of wings. It must have done something to piss of the higher-up angels too, because its spear looked more like a thin dowel with a metal point bolted on. Not that the demon looked much better. In his increasingly expert opinion, it hardly looked like a snake at all.

  For all that truth didn’t think much of the subject matter, the painting had a quiet charm to it. You could see, quickly, that every portion of it was made with a fixed intention. The spear had a meaning, the bare feet, the way the serpent coiled around a very distinct looking flower. As though the serpent was unwilling to crush the flower, no matter how vile it was. This was something the artist really cared about. Something this family really cared about. And it was mounted flush with the wall. No signs of a picture hook.

  Could they be that dumb? Could he really be that lucky? He had already concluded he would be taking a swim, but just maybe… Truth carefully ran his fingers around the edge of the painting. It was firmly attached to the wall. Unmoving. He ran his fingers around the frame, feeling for a switch. Nothing. Which was normal. Who would install a switch for a secret safe?

  Truth reached into his bucket of “plumbing equipment” and produced a ninety-degree pipe joint. He cast Tool, and the thing started floating, letting its invisible rays trace over the picture. A simple glyph slowly emerged in shuddering orange light on the right-hand side of the frame. Nothing too unusual there, basically intended to be triggered by some kind of amulet or ring or other token, then open the door. A latch for a door, not the lock of a safe. Truth pulled a prepared lead tablet out, made the necessary alterations for the trigger, and unlocked the latch.

  The painting swung open, revealing the safe inside. This was almost man sized. The container would definitely fit in there. It was also absolutely crawling with spell wards, alarms, and other, nastier, defenses. It was crackable, anything was, eventually, but it would take a long, long time. Or you could bypass the whole damn thing. Truth grinned. He had a whole bucket of sophisticated safecracking widgets, and he wasn’t going to bother with any of them. Because while he might not know much about safes, he knew quite a bit about talismans, and particularly Starbrite talismans. And the control pad for this safe was a Weppler Rin Co. Lcc, (Part of the Starbrite Family of Companies) Authentication and Control System Model SM-1-33-980(c). A device widely appreciated for its low price, versatility, ease of use, ease of installation, and best of all, ease of repair. As a qualified Talisman Maintenance Technician with the ability to sense danger, it would be embarrassing if he couldn’t bypass it. He pulled out a new tablet and got to work. This one was a bit more complicated, but he hadn’t forgotten. Almost all Weppler components used the same structure. Hadn’t changed in thirty years…

  The door of the safe popped open. No alarms sounded; no traps went off. Seems they hadn’t updated while he was in the well.

  The container took up a big chunk of the safe. Round, stamped with the chest symbol he associated with the Temple. Truth pressed the amulet Merkovah had provided him to the symbol. The amulet vibrated and glowed violet. Contents confirmed.

  He was going to steal this… whatever it was. This thing that an apparently good, successful man was relying on to provide some measure of safety for his family. Not to get off world himself. Not to harm another in some mad quest for vengeance. Just doing absolutely everything he could to be the best dad he could, for his wonderful daughter. And he was going to steal it. He wasn’t going to touch anything else in the safe, not the stacks of birr or other currencies, not the bundles of files, not the glowing weapons. Just the one thing a good man was truly counting on. Because it was the job.

  No. He couldn’t hide in that excuse anymore. It wasn’t just “the job.” He was doing it because this was his best shot at protecting his family. And maybe, incidentally, possibly, the family that lived here. But probably not.

  Truth gave the cannister thorough check for any unwanted spells, disabled what he found, and stowed it in his bucket. He could manage the weight.

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