Self Discovery

I knocked on the door to Lee's apartment, having been through a gauntlet of directories, help desks, and kind strangers in order to get a light door to her floor. A couple of hours had passed since the scene in the Nexus mall, and I thought it might be time to check on her and see if she was all right.

The plain door yielded no response. "Lee," I called at it, "If you're in there, let me in. It's Trick."

Nothing. 

I sighed and sat down with my back to the door, looking up and down the gently curving hallway. Apparently, as a member of the Conclave, I could claim any empty room for myself, and there were a surprising number of those right in this hallway. A heavily accented Scottish girl at the help desk had explained the system in detail, and as a result my head hurt. Something about unlimited spacial extension as a by-product of Weaver Gate-based architecture. Did you understand that? Me neither.

In short, there was essentially limitless room here, despite the Nexus building itself having definite dimensions. I spent a nice half hour or so trying to wrap my mind around that, and failing utterly. I think I may have started to nod off, sitting there against Lee's door, because she managed to sneak up on me.

"Hey," a voice from above said, accompanied by a boot nudging my leg. "You're napping on my welcome mat."

I looked up. A tired-looking but apparently undamaged Lee, in jeans and a sweater. Her weapons and esoteric gadgetry were nowhere to be seen.

"You don't have a welcome mat," I grumbled, rising painfully. "I think my a*s is asleep."

"I was trying to wake all of you up."

I stretched, looking her over. "You look... better."

"That's what every girl loves to hear," she murmured, gently pushing me aside and waving her branded hand at the door. It clicked and opened, revealing the room exactly as it had been before we left. Lee shuffled inside and dropped onto her bed with a sigh. "I got the girl to Child Protective Services. I think she'll be all right."

"Not that I'm upset," I said cautiously, after a minute, "but a couple hours ago, you had a gash in your leg and a busted eye. And that was just what I saw. Where have you been?"

"Medic. I'm friends with a very talented Mender, and she happened to be home. And she happens to wear my size," Lee explained, plucking at the colorful sweater. "Sorry I kept you waiting. Mending is slow and itchy."

"Itchy? Wait, Mending?" 

"There's a group of people with the ability to accelerate healing by magic. Menders. I guess you're not exactly born with it, but only certain people can do it, I don't know. The point is, it works."

I sat on the edge of her bed, eyebrows raised. "That's really cool. Can we do anything like that?"

"What, Readers?"

"We. Yeah."

"Not as far as I know. There may be a way, but it's not in the Text."

That got my attention. "There are spells that aren't in the Text?"

"Of course," she said, sitting up and yawning. "The Glyphs aren't actually words from some mystical language, we don't 'know' them all. They're constructs. If someone knew the spellwork well enough, there's no reason they couldn't make a new Glyph."

"I don't understand."

She waved her hand at her cabinet, scowled, and picked up her Text. A brief pair of syllables later, she gestured at the jumble of items, and a dry-erase board with attached marker leaped into her grasp. She snapped open the marker and began drawing scribbly shapes.

"The Glyphs we use aren't words, in the sense of actually meaning anything. The symbols themselves are constructed spells, and the phonic sounds we use simply release them. When I say bibbledeburp or whatever, I'm not saying 'fireball', I'm just activating the spell. Like how a key trips a lock. They key isn't 'telling' the door to open, it's a mechanical process."

I nodded. It might have made it look like I was keeping up. Lee went on, drawing what was beginning to look like a Glyph. Even as I watched, she slashed a final line across the white board, and the entire image seemed to light up in my mind.

-Sivrah Tel Nomeschi-

"-wait a minute," I said, tearing my eyes from the seductive Glyph, "how did you do that?"

"With a marker."

"No, I mean, how did you remember a Glyph?"

"I didn't. I just know how to construct some of them, because I know how the spellwork functions. It's like chemistry, almost. You'll pick it up."

I thought back to the throwdown in the Nexus mall and shook my head. "Seems like there's an awful lot to pick up. Like what was that shield thing on your arm? Do I get one?"

Lee laughed. "I'm just glad it worked. I make a lot of my own gear, using the stuff you can buy in the Nexus. Or at a Wal-Mart, in the case of my gun. The shield, that's just a plain old padded steel bracer with a Force crystal set into it. If you hold it still, it arrests the momentum of anything moving really fast. If you whack someone with it, it's like running them over with a truck. There's probably other stuff it can do, but that was the first time I used it."

"You seemed so... confident. You didn't even flinch when they shot at you, even though you were only what, hoping the shield would work?"

She scoffed. "Curling into a ball and crying wasn't going to block bullets. Or protect that child. If I hadn't had the shield, I might have tried a Glyph. If I only had the gun, I would have been shooting back the whole time." She met my eyes. "And if I didn't have any of that, I'd have strangled those goons with my bare hands."

"Um."

"You do what you have to. I know it's a lot to take in, but this is what I am. And what you have the opportunity to be. What you said at the store was true; Conclave is supposed to be getting involved. Helping people who can't help themselves. And the cost isn't supposed to matter."

"Speaking of Conclave," I said, "I saw the office. Met that secretary, Daphne? I could barely believe how useless she was."

"They're all like that, really. From Daphne on up to the Grand Master. They think because they're beautiful and throw a little bit of money at the world, they're somehow making things better. Philanthropists. It's sickening."

"And I was just about to set up a donation to Doctors Without Borders."

"I'm not saying charity is bad," Lee explained emphatically, "but it isn't enough. Especially when there's so much we can do. You and I laugh at Daphne, but she has full command of her Text and lots of connections. If she wanted, she could decorate the walls with you. She won't, because she's lazy and stupid, but the power our people have..." She sighed. "We could change the world. Instead we're screwing around in the Caribbean and crashing fundraisers."

"That isn't what I want," I said quietly, only realizing it as I said it. I had been sickened and shocked by the battle in the Nexus. For a while, I'd considered letting the whole thing go. Putting the Text somewhere on a dusty shelf and trying to move on with my life. Or worse, going along with Conclave as usual, a docile, elitist life of pointless pleasure and willful ignorance.

But I'd also seen a girl my own age carrying a child to safety, standing fearless against a storm of gunfire, strong and confident and determined. I'd begin to grudgingly respect Lee. Now, even as revolted as I was by the violence, I had to admit I admired her. "I don't want to be like the rest of Conclave. I don't want to be useless."

Lee studied my face for a long time, an expression on her face that I couldn't read at all. Finally, she favored me with a small smile.

"What do you want to be?"

*

I stepped through a light door a few minutes later, emerging from the brick wall in the alley near the bookstore. Night had fallen in earnest, and the chill of the air compared to the Nexus' perfect room temperature was jarring. I hurried inside, followed by Lee.

Buck looked up from his chair, where he was reading an old paperback. "Well, look who it is."

"Listen, I'm sorry about taking off, I didn't know Lee's spell would drag me there too-"

"Where's there?" Buck inquired, grinning. He didn't seem upset that I'd left him here alone for like the fifth night in a row. 

"The moon."

He rolled his eyes. "Should have brought your coat. I hear it's cold there."

I pulled out my phone, sliding it open and composing a text to Beck.

To: Beck

Sent At: 09:48 PM

Can I come over? I need to talk to you.

I leaned towards Buck and spoke quietly. "Hey man, I talked to Lee and I promise this isn't gonna be a regular thing. But can you let me leave early just one more time?"

"Sure, man, it's no problem at all. What's tonight?"

"I need to tell Beck it's over."

Reviews

[UponATyme]

I liked the explanation of Glyphs. I enjoy the fact that it's not just thoughtless magic or innate luck. My only criticism is on the last part. His decision to finally end it with Beck comes a little out of the blue. Because of the whole conversation with Lee earlier in the chapter, I can assume that's what brought this on, but I think the connection needs to be made a little more concrete. A sort of, "Talking with Lee really made me see that..." kind of thing. You don't have to be that direct, of course, but you get it I hope.