How Lee Is Different

I was expecting the light door to cause some hallucinatory nonsense like my own teleportation Glyph, but I simply stumbled backwards through the lavender sheet as though there was nothing there. A very slight tingling traced my skin as I passed through, not even a tickle.

I windmilled my arms, catching my balance, and bumped heavily into someone who responded with an oof". Spinning to face this new threat, I found myself face to face with... a guy.

I don't know what I was expecting. I guess I figured my first Moon Man would be just as jarring and worldview-shattering as my first glimpse of the lunar surface. I was sorely disappointed. The guy I'd backed into was about five foot nine, average weight, in blue jeans and a long black duster. He had bright green eyes and black, rumpled hair, and was carrying a duffel bag. All in all, he just looked like he was looking forward to going to bed.

"Sorry," I mumbled, looking past him. He just rolled his eyes and swerved around me, probably about to punch some buttons and zap himself up to his apartment. I was too busy putting my eyes back into my head to pay much attention to one bedraggeled Harry Potter wannabe. The Nexus was much more interesting.

The size of the place was staggering. There must have been thousands of people walking around, nearly all of whom looked like they had somewhere to be. I saw people of every race and color, wearing clothes of every sort, from jeans and tees to outlandish, colored robes, and everything in between. One tall man strode past me in a set of silk robes exactly like one of the Kung Fu masters from the old movies. 

You get that sort of thing at a midnight movie opening, though. The people were fascinating. The Nexus itself was nothing short of astounding.

At least five floors of shops and businesses ringed a massive, round central area, hundreds of feet across. Mundane glass elevators ferried groups of people up and down the various levels. The overall impression was that of some impossible shopping mall, peopled by runaways from a Dungeons and Dragons convention. The smells of every kind of food, the sound of various musics, and the roar of a thousand people's conversation threatened to overwhelm, and I found myself wandering blankly towards the middle of the common area, staring around open-mouthed. 

I bumped another person, a small Asian man in black pajamas. He muttered "Tsat tau," and wheeled around me, carrying what seemed to be an armload of walking sticks. 

"Sorry," I called again, speaking to the back of his shaven head. Oh well. I looked past him, and saw what appeared to be a casino floor, with various tables and consoles, most of which were occupied by yet more various people. Upon closer inspection, I realized the high walls of the area were lined with countless books, and the tables were manned by people performing research or working on projects. It would have seemed entirely mundane, were it not for the various clearly supernatural applications taking place at some of the tables.

I observed as a black woman gestured at her assembled papers, and a small metal instrument of some kind on her table. Lines of searing orange light began to trace up from the silver device, twisting and rearranging in the air above the table, forming symbols and lines not unlike Text Glyphs. She twisted her left hand, and the entire mass rotated. I watched, fascinated, as she nodded at some aspect of the light show, snapped her fingers, and the whole thing winked out. She stooped to write something down.

A bang from overhead caused me to jump, and I spun around and looked towards the ceiling. Rather than any sort of roof, the mall area of the Nexus was a massive skylight, a domed glass structure. The swirling panorama of space filled most of the sky- and the sweeping, reflective wall of the Nexus' living spaces blocked off the rest. There were not many more than twenty floors, but considering I hadn't even known this place existed an hour ago, that was twenty more floors than I was prepared to accept.

I never did find out what had made the bang. There were so many people and things zinging around that it was all I could do to not run around yelling "F**K" at the top of my lungs. I wanted to. 

How could nobody have mentioned this place to me? 

I looked up at the stars, at the hundred shops and restaurants of the mall. I saw the Sbarro pizza shop that the napkin must have come from, nestled between a bookstore and some place called "Fence's Thaumaturgery". There was, in fact, a Subway sandwich store on the first floor, near a court of tables and chairs and trash cans. I guessed that was where I was supposed to wait for Lee to return. On the other hand, the idea of sitting still in a place such as this was ridiculous to me. 

I looked around for a clock, wondering how long I'd actually been stumbling around. Above a long desk, manned by several people of different races, a bank of twenty-four clocks hung in line. I found my own time zone and determined that Lee had shoved me through the door roughly ten minutes ago. It occurred to me that I had no idea how long she was supposed to be taking.

Oh well. Nothing for it but to explore a little. I was curious as to who was in charge, and walked over to the most American-looking guy I could find, a twentysomething white man in a suit and tie, talking on a cell phone. I wondered what kind of cell reception they had, seeing as Earth was a few hundred thousand miles away.

I waited for him to finish his call, and walked up as he was pocketing the device. "Excuse me," I said, "I'm looking for headquarters. Can you help me out?"

"Headquarters?" he replied, sounding amused. "What headquarters?"

That was an odd thing to ask, I thought. "Conclave HQ," I explained, feeling foolish. "I want to, uh, check it out."

"What would you want to go there for?"

"What do you mean?"

He rolled his eyes, looking me up and down. "They're total douchebags. Look, man, you're better off just sticking to whatever you're already doing. What are you, someone's apprentice?"

"Um... I'm Conclave," I said, showing him my brand. "New recruit. Really new."

The suited guy laughed. "Wow, really? I don't usually recognize you guys without a f****n' tennis sweater tied around your shoulders." He turned to walk away.

I was starting to get mad. I strode alongside him, shoving my right hand in my pocket. "Hey, what are you talking about? Tennis?"

"Conclave are a bunch of self-righteous rich kids. You don't really look the part, I guess, but I've seen stranger things than a prep out of uniform."

"If you're not Conclave, then what are you?"

"Journeyman Necromancer."

"What?"

"I see dead people," he joked, pulling a card from his breast pocket. "Come on. Necromancer. We talk to dead things. We're historians, mostly. You'd be amazed how wrong your schoolteachers were."

"I see." I looked at the card. 

Nicholas L. Tripp

University of Necromancy

Nexus Campus

Apprentice to Dr. Vasily Spitzer III

"Conclave HQ is over there," the necromancer said, pointing. I followed his finger to a wide hallway off the mall, lined with doors. "Next to the housing office, I think. It's been a pleasure... what was your name?"

"Tyler."

"Tyler," he repeated, shaking my left hand. "I'm Nick. You seem all right. If you don't get along with the rich kids, swing by my teacher's office. I'm graduating soon and I'll be looking for an apprentice."

"Thanks," I stammered, a little ill at the prospect of speaking with dead 'things', as he'd put it. "I, uh, I'll look you up."

"Cool. Talk to you later," he said, striding off in another direction. The unsettling nature of his last comment hit me a few steps later, and I shivered. So there was more weirdness on the Moon than Conclave weirdness. Good to know.

I turned and walked up the hallway, looking at each of the frosted glass doors in turn. Most of them were labeled with names, similar to lawyers' offices, although I did pass the "Banishment Office" and something called "Debunking".

And suddenly, there it was. A door with the single word "Conclave" painted onto the glass in eye-level black letters. I took a breath and turned the brass knob.

A wall of violet light waited on the other side of the door, and I hesitated for a moment, but I'd already made up my mind. I stepped through the light into a spacious lobby that smelled like the ocean.

The floor was marble, with lighter and darker veins, and polished to a near-reflective sheen. Gorgeous leather couches and chairs sat artfully around a breezy, spacious welcoming area, and one of the most obnoxiously beautiful girls I've ever seen sat behind an enormous desk, rattling away on a keyboard. Her computer was one of those pearly white Mac desktops, with a pointlessly large high-definition flat screen.

Behind the desk, a balcony opened onto a Caribbean seaside vista. For a moment, I thought it was some kind of painting or poster, but my eyes adjusted and I realized I was actually looking out at a beautiful beach, a few hours before sunset.

"What part of the moon is this," I asked the girl, walking slowly towards the desk, looking past her. A sailboat was crossing a crescent-shaped harbor.

"This isn't the moon, silly," the girl remarked, tossing golden hair over a perfect, bare shoulder. "It's St. Lucia. Maria Island."

"We're on Earth again?"

"Again? I've been here all day." She turned to her computer and giggled at something on the screen, then returned to typing a brief response. Then giggled again.

I realized this girl was an idiot and adjusted my vocabulary to suit the situation. "Um."

She shot me an irritated look. "What can I help you with?"

"Well, is this the Conclave headquarters?"

'Uh, yeah," she drawled, eyes flicking between my raggedy clothes and her screen.

"I'm Tyler McAllister."

"Daphne."

"Cool. So, um, can I talk to someone who's... in charge?"

She rolled her eyes. "The Grand Master goes home at noon. She was all pissy today too, she had to stay late to argue with this bitchy chick from Connecticut."

A little flash of anger made me lean forward. If she had been paying me any attention, she might have been intimidated. "Yeah, that's sort of why I'm here."

"Oh, you're that Tyler."

"I assume so."

"Well, come back tomorrow before noon."

I was speechless. For a second. "Are you telling me there's nobody here I can talk to?"

"You can talk to me, but I'm sort of doing something right now."

I leaned forward and looked at her screen. Facebook. She had at least six chat windows open. "You realize Lee is probably in a lot of danger right now, right? Like, bad guys, crime, guns-"

"Yeah, she's totally gonna get herself killed. It's so stupid."

"You seem a little too okay with that."

Daphne glared directly at me, giving me a record five seconds of undivided attention. "Nobody told her she had to go rescuing puppies and orphans, that's all her idea. If she wants to dodge bullets while the rest of us are on a booze cruise, that's her trip. I'm not gonna stop her."

"At least she's doing something!"

"All right, you need to get out of my face." She stood up, revealing most of her long, shapely legs. I'd never met a secretary who wore booty shorts to work. "We're all doing something. I donate four percent of my salary to March of Dimes, so f**k you, mr. Messy Hair, you can just sit down and stop judging."

"I can't believe this."

"Whatever." She made some kind of gesture at me with her branded hand.

"Where's your Text, even?"

"Over there," she said, pointing. Her book lay on one of the couches near the desk. She had bedazzled the cover.

"Right."

"Can I help you with anything else?" Daphne snarled, sitting back down and peering at her computer. "Or are you just gonna come back tomorrow like I said?"

"I'm sure you can't help me," I muttered. "See you tomorrow." I turned and walked to the front door, yanked it open, and stepped through the light wall into the Nexus' office block. 

This was disorienting and odd.

*

I walked slowly back to the mall area, feeling frazzled. Apparently Nick the Necromancer was right- with the apparent exception of Lee, my new club was not much more than an entitled bunch of socialites. 

I won't pretend the idea of a booze cruise didn't appeal to me- but then what was the point of the Texts? Of being branded, of supposedly pledging to defend the weak and right wrongs and all that noble Robin Hood stuff? Why bother?

I realized I'd reached the wall of 'elevators', and shook my head. I turned around to go sit by Subway, when there was a sudden ruckus a few yards away.

Screams.

I spun, running towards the source of all the noise, shouldering past fleeing people of every description, trying to see what the problem was. I broke through a wall of bodies, looking around frantically, wondering what could cause such a disturbance.

I should have guessed. 

Some guy who looked like a janitor was screaming on the floor, clutching at his left arm, blood welling through his fingers. Between him and the elevators, a small battle was raging, and of course it was Lee herself at the center of it.

Two large, thuggish men in tailored suits aimed handguns at a battered-looking Lee, who held her left arm up defensively, and cradled a small, dirty child in her right arm. I was about to shout when the guns roared.

The gemstone on Lee's arm flared with light, and a series explosions erupted inches from the back of her hand. Ruined bullets clattered to the floor. 

The gunmen emptied their weapons, and one of them charged her while the other moved to reload. I had almost decided to intervene somehow when Lee demonstrated that I didn't have to.

Dropping the kid to the floor, she leaped forward and met the first thug toe-to-toe, backhanding him with her armored left hand. A flare of light and a sound like shattering glass, and he crashed to the floor several feet away. 

The other thug finished slapping a magazine into his pistol, and Lee caught the first shot on her shield, then drew her own pistol faster than blinking and put a round through the guy's throat. He fell to his knees, gurgling loudly. People have a lot of blood in them.

I looked away, sick to my stomach.

Lee kept her weapon trained on the two suited goons, but neither moved, and she finally holstered it, an expression of revulsion on her face. One of her eyes was blackened. She turned and picked up the little girl, who was sobbing uncontrollably. Tiny arms clung to Lee's neck, gripping fistfuls of her shirt until the kid's knuckles were white.

She limped towards the office hallway, carrying the girl and trailing spots of blood. It looked like her leg had been cut somehow. She slowed as she passed me, noting the horrified expression on my face.

"You, too?"

"What?" I stuttered, flinching at her gaze.

"Gonna stop talking to me, now that you've seen what Conclave is supposed to be about?" She sounded incredibly bitter. 

"No, I'm just... I mean, s**t, Lee, that was..."

"I guess you never found out, being a slacker and all. Doing the right thing sucks even more than doing nothing."

She walked unsteadily away from me, carrying the tiny girl somewhere safe.

I looked at the massive bodies on the floor of the elevator area, a growing pool of blood emerging from one. The other had his limbs at unusual angles.

And then I started looking for somewhere to throw up.

*

Reviews

[Ness]

So, that fight was pretty intense haha. I like the new character Nick, I'm wondering if Daphne will be a regular as well. She's like an annoying teenager, which im sure you were trying to get across haha. Good chapter, i like that instead of just descriptions we're experiencing the Nexus through Trick's eyes, since he's new to it like we (the readers) are.