Slumrat Rising

Truth was strolling out of the office building when Incisive started blaring an alarm. His own eyes were very nearly as fast- police cruisers were swarming up the street, smashing aside any carriage or wagon too slow to clear out. Flying platforms decked out in black and gold were incoming faster still, and he could hear the shriek of some great bird overhead.

It seems that the ritual had been detected. He could only hope it wasn’t intercepted. In the meantime, he would run like Hell. He turned away from the cops and put his legs in motion. Downtown Gwaju in the middle of the day- it was crowded. He had to dodge. Moving onto the street would give him more room to run, but he would be easier to spot. He grit his teeth and kept moving. He had the reflexes for it. He could doge. Besides, compared to him, these people were mannequins.

Truth just blindly ran- no destination except “away.” Away was always good, towards was dangerous. You didn’t know what might be there when you arrived. But you always knew what was coming up behind you. The ghostly pedestrians seemed frozen with startled looks on their faces, staring blankly at the column of police vehicles headed their way. Truth couldn’t see the watcher creatures, but he knew they were there. Either in the wagons or in the air. Actually, he would bet on “in the air.” Nothing for it but to be faster. Don’t stand on the X.

The bird screeched overhead. The ghosts might be immobile, but the bird spirit was level six. It was moving just fine. Truth could feel the weight of the attention from high-level magus sweeping up the street. Incisive and The Blessing of the Silent Forest both drew hard on his cosmic energy reserves. He could hang on, maybe, for a few seconds, but they would spot a fast-moving blur easily. He needed to find cover.

Truth tried to expand his vision, fighting the fatal urge to tunnel. Doorways? Not good enough, and no guarantee that he wouldn’t bounce off a ward or lock. Under a moving carriage? Better, but nothing with enough clearance. Try to blend with the crowd. That would buy him a few more seconds at best. He opted for a city bus, diving in through a closing door and grabbing a strap. Just another talisman maintenance tech. Just a tech. Just a tech. Just a tech.

The bus pulled over to let the cops roar past. Truth breathed out a small sigh of relief. The cops, airborne and ground, swarmed the office building he had contacted Merkovah from. They had definitely traced the ritual. Truth silently cursed. Merkovah had sworn blind that they were untraceable. Guess the technology had improved. The bus pulled over a few blocks from the office. Truth didn’t move- too close. He would ride it out a bit further.

The doors didn’t open. The driver didn’t say anything either.

“Hey, what’s the problem?” Someone yelled.

“Orders from the City. Have to stand by for an inspection.”

Shit. Truth started desperately looking around for an escape route. Someone beat him to it. A hungry-looking lady pulled a meat cleaver out of her tote bag and smashed the butt of it through a window. The safety glass cracked, and she launched herself at it. Some plainclothed dick on the bus grabbed her, wrestling for the cleaver. She smashed his nose with her forehead and launched backward, trying to escape through the window. He hung on, swearing and trying to get off a spell. The smashed the window open, but he managed to keep her in the bus.

Truth wasn’t one to look a gift revolutionary in the mouth. He jumped. And he was not alone. Nobody thought talking to the cops was a good idea. Truth was off and running again, this time making sure he ran at ninety degrees from the route the other bus escapees were taking. He ducked in an alley and fought the urge to hide in the first dumpster he saw.

That was stupid-rat thinking. Even the slowest cop would check there. He would have to be smarter than that. And further away. The pressure on his cosmic energy had eased up some with fewer eyes on him. He put his head down and ran.

At his speed, without having to dodge crowds, he cleared a kilometer in a bare minute. He could have done it faster on an open road, but things like “people” and “trash cans” or “illegally parked carriages” were stumbling blocks. A kilometer was a long way. A search radius around the office building of a kilometer plus? It would take every cop in the city.

He felt an icicle trickle of danger slide down his spine. With an explosive dive, he buried himself under a dumpster. A few seconds later, he could feel the pressure of unearthly perception flowing along the alley. Truth felt his cosmic energy burning fast, faster than fighting demons, faster than he could have imagined. Incisive and the Blessing fought to hold up under the pressure. The gaze lingered a long moment on the dumpster. Truth gasped desperately, trying to fuel the spell for even one second longer. The gaze focused-

And moved on. Truth collapsed. Shivering. His body drained almost empty. The cosmic rays were pouring in now, flooding him. Almost burning him, but his repeated brushes with burnout had toughened him up some. He could deal. He just lay on the reeking ground and shook. Spasming. They were a second from spotting him. Just one second, not even a single breath, from spotting him.

He spent the rest of the day under the dumpster, cultivating to regain his energy. They swept the alley two more times, but he was ready for them, with more energy in reserve. By the third time through, it was more like a cursory glance than a careful check. He kept right where he was. When dawn rose the next morning, Truth emerged from the dumpster. Sore, thirsty, starving, absolutely desperate for a change of trousers and a shower. But alive.

Truth had solved the most urgent and smelly problems by breaking into the first apartment building he saw and going for the first apartment. He wasn’t squeamish by any definition, but unpleasant things are unpleasant. The trousers and underwear got a quick wash and were left to soak in a basin with an ungodly amount of detergent.

Truth crammed himself into the tiny shower and gave himself a similar treatment. No such thing as too much soap, he felt. Though he did feel a little bad- these people only had one thin bar of soap in the whole house. He desperately wanted to shampoo, but he wasn’t about to steal from someone poor enough to buy their shampoo by the sachet.

It just wasn’t that urgent. He got the worst off. For the rest… he could deal for now.

Twenty-four hours later than he had intended, Truth made his way to a convenience store. He had managed to hold on to his duffle with his meager possessions. To those few changes of clothes, he added laundry soap, 2-1 shampoo and conditioner (on the theory that it was really 3-1 because you could use it as body wash), toothpaste, toothbrush, two big bottles of water, and all the most energy dense snacks he could lay hands on. He hesitated a moment and then added some microfiber shammies. They were meant for wiping down a carriage, but he figured they would probably be decent little towels. Just in case.

The cashier could not have been less interested. There was a fight on the scry next to him, but Truth didn’t recognize the fighters. Long time since he watched the fights.

“What’s the nearest bus?” He asked.

“Number 58, but it’s canceled.”

“Damn. Are any of them running?”

“Nah. Orders still in place.”

“Shit. I had hoped they lifted it.”

“Nope.” The fight had the clerk’s full attention. Truth didn’t blame him either.

“You got any maps?”

“Nope.”

There was no elaboration. Truth gave up and started walking. The sun was up. Harban was north-northwest of Gwaju. He’d figure things out once he was out of the city.

____________________________________________

Truth made his way north through the city. He prioritized safety over speed and quickly began learning with his body what he already knew with his mind- it’s all about energy cost. Everything costs energy. Existing cost energy. Moving costs more energy- the faster you move, the more energy it costs. Concealment in all its varying forms costs varying amounts of energy. You had to balance that against speed, of course. An indirect route may lengthen the journey traveled, but the reduced visibility may actually increase speed and safety. Of course, going slowly or indirectly increases your period of vulnerability.

Because they were still looking for him. Hard. Truth’s paranoia had been raised to a painful degree, but it was necessary. He watched from a block away as flying platforms slammed down on either end of a cross street, raising a barrier. Unmarked police wagons pulled out of traffic and rushed in, cops bursting out like furious ants and sweeping the street. Sigils were checked, identities verified, and you had better have a damn good reason for being out on the street, or you would be finding out what the “tea” in the precinct tasted like.

Truth mentally waved goodbye to his “rampage” plan to bring the Ghul onboard. It would have to wait.

He understood why they were spending so much money on this. The traced international comms ritual. The first real evidence of a foreign agent, maybe even a mastermind. Internal Security had to know it was chasing its own tail. Rounding up dozens and dozens of “second in commands” without ever quite nailing the actual leaders. But what else could they do? Not pursue the leads? The chance to take down a real player was simply too valuable. They had to get results.

The pressure from above must be enormous. Not that he had the least sympathy. He kept moving silently, invisibly. Across back yards and alleys, over rooftops, in the front of a restaurant and out the back. All the usual rules about city traversal were studiously ignored. He made a point of traveling where there were no roads. It took him all day to cross a small city, despite how fast he could move. But he made it safely, and with most of his energy reserves intact.

There were only so many roads out of Gwaju, highways, really, and they were heavily observed by the cops. Checkpoints on all of them, entire packs of spell hounds, spell birds circling like swallows, and all those were only to distract from the dozen nigh-invisible watcher things that perched like gargoyles on the street lights.

Truth sighed and found a nearby Nice-Nice Convenience store. He restocked on water, snacks and thoughtfully added a roll of toilet paper to his supplies. He couldn’t believe he forgot that earlier. Rookie mistake.

“Would you like to try our exciting new gustation sensation, the Triple Max Maxxor Supreme Flavor Explosion Fiesta?” The clerk managed to say the entire sentence entirely in a monotone. Truth was tempted to check for a pulse. He had seen livelier golems. Then he spotted the sigil on the clerk's wrist. Denizen. Had they announced the change over yet? If they hadn’t, it would be any day now. Poor bastard knew he wasn’t getting paid.

“What’s a fiesta?”

“Dunno.”

“Well… what is it that I would be trying?”

The clerk pointed at a shockingly orange hexagon under a heat lamp, apparently stuffed with… stuff. Was this, too, part of the path of the foodie? A destined trial to overcome?

“I’ll take one. Got any maps?”

“Yeah. To your left.” Truth snagged a road atlas. “Not that it’s any use. Roadblocks up everywhere, now.”

“Still looking for the terrorist? I haven’t been watching scry.”

“Yeah, a whole cell of them, apparently. Scary stuff.” The clerk sounded biologically incapable of giving a shit.

“Well, stay safe out there.”

The clerk took Truth’s money, made change, and handed him his poison hexagon. “Have yourself a Nicey Nicey Day.” The clerk had already forgotten his existence. No spell required. Truth sighed and walked back out onto the sidewalk, mentally prepping for the cross-country jaunt ahead. Back on the road again.

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