Slumrat Rising

Truth got up a little before dawn and made his way back towards the village. The information he got from Merkovah had listed Doctor Borges’ address and included pictures of the house. Truth thought he would start his hunt there. Not because he expected to catch Borges at home. He was never going to be that lucky. His hope was more pedestrian- that Borges would fail to practice impeccable security hygiene, and he would take some of his work home. Something that would give him a lead on where on the research campus he was actually located.

Besides, he had come up with a backup plan during the night. If he could make it work. If it was even possible in the first place.

Less of a plan and more of a strategy.

A pretty sophisticated idea.

It was an idea.

A borderline insane idea, lacking the qualifications even to be a stupid idea.

It was also the best idea he had, so…

He picked his way through the surveillance net around the village. His preparation the day before had sped things up considerably, but that was only in comparison to yesterday. It was slow, painful going. The PMC was depressingly competent. They had changed the patrol routes of humans, golems, witchcraft creations, animal puppets, spell birds, eye-spies, and floating curses. The only mercy is that the overwhelming majority of them were Level One and Two.

It was a cost-effectiveness thing, Truth knew. No concealment system was perfect. Everything showed a hole at some point. It might be tiny and only there for a minute. Perhaps it was allowing a trace of smell to escape or a shimmer as you moved across a bush. The soft sound of grass brushing against legs. All you needed was something to catch a hint of a trace. It was much, much cheaper to flood an area with small, low-level things than a few high-level things. They could be kept moving around in the field at negligible cost.

Sooner or later, they would catch something. Then, the net closed in. More specialized, powerful hunters began their sweeps. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they would find it. Even if it were just a tiny field mouse, they would find it.

Truth had always told himself he was nothing special. Just another slumrat trying to make good. Well, for today at least, he was a one-in-a-billion slumrat. A big fat chance like one percent was too juicy to pass up.

It took time to pierce the surveillance cordon, but it was manageable. Soon he was on the edge of a backyard on the village fringe, and he had to make a choice. He could try to go in full unnoticibility mode, but the village was coated in recording talismans and those unnatural “birds.” He reckoned it was manageable- the population density was low and most of the spells were passive, low-level, and not targeted at him. The draw on Incisive and the Blessing would not be too excessive. However, they would burn through his energy significantly faster than he could replenish it.

Going around with an assumed identity would be much, much easier on his energy, so long as it was a plausible one. His concern was that the surveillance system would be based on a whitelist. Not like there were any strangers that came to the village. It wouldn’t be too crazy to command your spells to report anyone without a Starbrite sigil directly to security. And there wasn’t really any good way to test his theory.

He hesitated a long minute and decided he would have to split the difference. Go in as unnoticable as he could manage, try to stay out of sight to reduce draw, and if he saw someone whose identity he could assume, he would do so. He was about to hop over the fence when he spotted the recording talisman aimed at the backyard. Cheap little thing, mass-produced on an assembly line. It would barely put out the energy of a Level One spell. A Starbrite product, naturally, through a subsidiary that owned 35% of another company and had 100% functional control of it.

Truth slid his eyes over to the next yard. Same exact talisman, same exact placement. Must be a standard part of the security system for each house. Well. At least the fence and yard weren’t warded?

He vaulted the fence and started making his way towards Borges’ place. He would stick to the backyards. Fooling one level one talisman at a time was better than trying to evade everything facing the street. He had a depressing amount of practice doing this since he returned to Jeon.

There were occasional people in the backyards, watering flowers, mowing micrometers off grass already mowed to unnatural evenness. Everyone was smiling, or at least looking content. “Lovers” going through their programmed routines while their leaseholders were at work. Not owners, of course. Starbrite wasn’t in the slave trade. This was nothing more than the exchange of labor for money. And what could be wrong with that?

It occurred to Truth, watching a blandly pretty woman tanning in her backyard, that these days, there would probably be a queue down the street to replace her. She was fed, protected, sheltered, far away from terrorism or anarchy. She was compelled to be happy and content with her lot. Probably.

He had never gotten the chance to find out first hand. He had spent all his pay on elixirs and those blasted, thrice cursed “Friends and Family Points.” And didn’t he just PRAY he got his hands on the bastard that thought them up.

Not that he didn’t love Etenesh. He absolutely did. But looking over the engineered “perfection” of the lady on the lounge chair, he couldn't help feeling like he missed out. At the very least, he missed out on the opportunity to experiment. To test without risking hurting someone he cared about.

>

Yeah. Not the time, but yeah.

He kept moving. The same bland houses with bland decoration. He did occasionally break in, just to learn the security system. Nothing special on its own- a high degree of security compared to most homes, but nothing that wasn’t available off the shelf. Well. Available off the shelf a few years ago. Now? Maybe not so much.

The only thing that gave him pause was the whitelist. The concept was alarmingly simple- if you were in the house and not on the whitelist, an alert sounded. If the alert wasn’t muted, an alarm went off. Only someone on the whitelist could mute the alert and provide temporary access to the house. Truth wasn’t particularly concerned; the spells were still roughly Level One in power output, but it suggested a mindset. Truth was certain Borges had more security at his place.

He took a quick look around the home he broke into. Truth was back out the door before it had finished closing from his entry. There was just nothing there. A whole suburban home full of nothing anyone could care about. Expensive nothing. A big scryball set up. Big sofas, big bed, big glass windows looking out over the yard. Nothing that you couldn’t buy in bulk from a catalog. Not even a diploma on a wall. Just a couple of pictures of a man and a woman pressing their heads together and smiling happily for the camera. It looked like the stock pictures in frames you could buy at the store, but worse.

It would be easy to assume this identity. He would just smile and pretend he wasn’t there at all. No one would ever spot the difference. Assuming that it was the man who was the Starbrite employee, of course. He really couldn’t tell.

Press on, press on. He made his way steadily to Borges’ place. When he had to cross a wide sidewalk, he did so in the air. It was an easy jump up to the roof, then a quick sprint to the ridge line, Abner’s Amble, push hard, and across he went. Harder to blend but less time visible. He figured he came out roughly ahead on the trade.

Borges’ place was depressingly identical to everyone else's. The largest layout of the four approved house models, sitting at the very back of a dead-end street. Looked normal. Truth was certain that the neighboring homes were packed with PMC hitters and every sort of unpleasantness. The quality of talismans got much higher, too- those backyard recording talismans were now pumping out Level Three energy. Very expensive. Not something mass market at all. The lonely Lovers on the street all had a certain similarity to them. A glassiness of eye that suggested heavy glamours and intensive mental conditioning. A special street, then, for special people. When they could be bothered to come home.

Truth got to work on the back door. He could hear someone moving around inside the house. A peek through the window confirmed that it was Borges’ Lover. Truth had never bothered to learn her name. She was level two and utterly, utterly incapable of harming Borges in any intentional way. It would be slightly more draining moving around her, but nothing terrible. Less than the surveillance system demanded of him.

It was intensely awkward, therefore, when she came out onto the back porch with two glasses of lemonade.

She stood there, looking around like she was expecting to find someone. Truth froze, wondering how he had been spotted, only relaxing when she marched up to the fence and said “Hi Tom!”

“Tom,” the next door neighbor, had been crouched behind a flowering bush, doing some kind of gardening work. Partially hidden, though there was nowhere to really hide in these yards.

“Oh, Hi Maysi.” His voice was full of forced jocularity, but Truth could see the eyes of a man wanting to run.

“I saw you working out here, and thought I would bring you some of my famous lemonade. Here, drink up.”

“Oh, now you didn’t have to do that. Really.” Tom said, backing away a little, waving away the glass.

“I know. It just seemed like the least I could do. Or something I could do. It really is good lemonade, you know.” Her voice went quiet.

“Please…”

“I have always loved you Tom. I want to have sex with you. Right now. Let’s cheat on your wife together. I know you want to cheat on your wife with me, Tom.”

“No.” He barely breathed the word out before he collapsed. His body started going into seizures. He was crying, soundlessly, as he tore at the immaculate grass. The tendons rose under his skin, as convulsions of pain ripped through him. Maysi started crying too.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can only remember them when I hurt someone. There is another way, but I can’t remember what it is. Only that trying to think about it makes me want to kill myself. So I have to hurt you. I’m sorry. But I can’t forget Sarah. Or our son.” Maysi’s tears dripped over a smile now. “She is so beautiful, Tom. You can’t imagine how beautiful she looked holding our newborn son. Our beautiful boy. Or how she looked at sunset, or walking between the stalls in the market. She is so sweet. So, so sweet. And he only lets me remember her when I hurt someone.”

Tom was trying to say something, mouth something. Begging.

“Just… a little longer. I’m sorry. But just a little longer. I’m starting to forget things. I couldn’t remember Al’s fifth birthday last time. I don’t want to forget anything else. So please, just a little longer. I promise, it will be the best sex you ever had.”

She sobbed a little as Tom’s convulsions got worse. “Just a little longer, then you will get better and forget this happened. Mostly forget. You are remembering the pain, just like me. I’m sorry. I just can’t forget anything more. I’m sorry. I promise I will hurt Sonya tomorrow or Paul. You can rest then, OK? You can rest then. We'll both forget for a while. I promise. I promise.”

She kept him in agony for an hour, deliberately tripping his enchantments, turning them against him over and over and over, until her own enchantments kicked in. Truth could see the light drain out of her eyes as she picked up the two untouched glasses of lemonade and turned back toward the house.

“Whoops! I had so much fun chatting I lost track of time. I have yoga with the girls, then it’s straight into my spin class. You have a great afternoon now, Tom.” Truth followed her into the house. He’d had plenty of time to get on the list.

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