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Too Much Green

Some days, it doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

Well, all right, so if I hadn’t gotten out of bed, things could be worse. It’s the exasperation that counts, though.

When I got to the diner that morning, Cortez and Hunter were bent over a copy of the daily paper. I usually just skim the front and back while Cortez reads and pick up my own copy if there’s anything interesting, but the guys handed me the front as soon as I asked what was up.

Turns out the Westside factory had gone crazy - riots, hostages, sabotage, smoke, fire, all that shit. Ordinarily, I probably would have just gone on with my morning the usual way: some pancakes, some orange juice, a chat with friends, then out to the ice to play or practice. Then Hunter pointed out that one of the brothers worked at Westside.

Damn. That made it my problem.

Cortez was a little concerned that I planned to go storm the place to get them out, but I assured him that I’d try to behave. Hunter, on the other hand, decided to come with me and didn’t care to be talked out of it. Okay, I figured that was his fault if something went wrong, and I wasn’t going to turn down an extra pair of eyes if I had to go in. He, on the other hand, apparently was following orders to ‘protect and serve.’

Like I kept telling Father - I’ll get to that.

We left Cortez at the diner and headed over to the brothers’ place. You’d think four grown brothers would have their own apartments or something, but they’re all in one house. They all four insist it’s temporary - but they’ve insisted that for a while now.

Kendrick was the only one home, and successfully played the bearer of bad news: it wasn’t just one of the boys in there, it was two. Boris had just managed to get Darius a job at Westside, and they were both working when the place went crazy. Neither had come home, and they weren’t among the dead or rescued yet. So I assured Kendrick that I would try not to storm the place, noted that Hunter seemed intent on following me, and headed over there.

The place looked bad. The police had surrounded the perimeter fence, which I kind of expected. But the nasty black cloud over the building and the plume of black smoke rising from a base of green were not expected, and just a bit ominous.

Wyatt had staked out a place in the crowd; he filled me in on the most recent activity: some explosions, and an expansion of the looming cloud. Oh, and the special team the cops sent in? Only one of them came out, and he was babbling incoherently.

Greaaaaaat.

We left Wyatt there and started looking for a way in - no way in hell I was leaving my guys in there, not if I could do something about it. The back entrance was the closest to the building, but it was as loaded with cops as the front entrance. Well, fine. In theory, a little tweaking of Shadow, and I’d be able to get through.

In theory. Riiiiight.

I tried it. I had a pretty simple aim - I wanted one of those Special Forces guys to come out of the building. That would have been more than enough distraction for Hunter and I to slip past and inside. But as soon as I started playing with the probability, my head started to hurt. Okay, that’s not supposed to happen. I’m stubborn; I kept it up, even though it felt like the place itself was resisting me. My head hurt more. Then someone ran out of the building, and the wall exploded.

Shit. Not what I was aiming for.

Hunter and I hit the deck and came out pretty unscathed; the cops weren’t as lucky - most of them were unconscious. The entire wall in front of us rubble, piled up from the ground to the hole in the second floor. And then the cloud moved, with a jerk in the Shadow that I could feel.

That is not supposed to happen. Shitshitshit.

We got weapons in hand - I drew my sword, and Hunter picked up a police baton that wasn’t being used by its owner - and headed up the rubble and inside. The outer corridor we entered was, like the rest of the building (or as much as I saw of it), steel - floor, walls, ceilings, the whole area. The light fixtures in the first area weren’t working, which was fine since it now had natural light; the nearest corridor still had lights, but it also had this sharp-smelling silver-green mist hanging in the air. The light down that hall was an unpleasant shade of green. It all felt bad, wrong somehow I couldn’t quite place. Well, aside from the ‘this is not supposed to be here’ feeling I already had.

None of the bodies we first spotted belonged to the guys, so we moved on down the hall and into the complex. The mist kept getting thicker, and it stayed silver-green; the steel slowly deteriorated into corrosion and tarnish, like the mist was bad for steel or something - made me wonder if I should be breathing the stuff. We could hear machinery, and screams - I never did figure out what those screams were from... but I’ve got a guess or two...

Anyway.

We came out on a catwalk over a central machine area. The green light had increased as we approached, reflecting off the mist and making visibility even worse, but the larger area thinned the mist out some. Looked like all the machines were still going full-tilt; that was about all I could see, except for some strange movement that might or might not have been people on the catwalks. And the damned light was pulsing, which just made the whole experience creepier.

Hunter and I started along the catwalk circling the room, checking behind doors as we went. Right up until the things ambushed us.

They used to be people, I know that. The ones that jumped us were still wearing uniforms; one of them had been a cop, the rest factory workers. Their skin was green, their eyes orange; their knees bent the wrong way, and they had cables entering and exiting their bodies. They had silver claws instead of fingernails, and their blood was oily and green. And they were stronger and heavier than I expected. But they were once human.

Two of them had Hunter, and the other three wanted me. Okay, fine. Spitted one with my blade, tossed one over the rail, and damned near lost my throat to the third one before Hunter killed it for me. Turned out he’d taken care of his two in much the same way I did, except one of his had lost it’s head to a plate-glass window. I removed the heads from the other two, since they seemed to want to get back up and fight again, and informed Hunter that I really didn’t like the place.

“Me either,” he said. “You wouldn't happen to have your Trumps, would you? I really think it might be a good idea to call your father.”

Well, shit.

I have to wonder, now that I think about it, if he really knows who my father is. I mean, for all he knows, I have a full set instead of just a few, and there are multiple possibilities for my father. It’s not like I look exactly like him. Of course, I also have to wonder if Hunter just wanted my Trumps so he could call his boss, whoever that is.

My first thought at the time was more along the lines of, “Shit. Father’s not going to like this...” My second, more coherent, thought was, “He better not be Family.” So my question was, “Okay, are you Family or hired?”

“Hired. Doesn't mean I don't like you, though.” Heh. As if I was worried about that. At least he wasn’t Family...

“Fair enough. No, I don't have them with me... So do we go back for them, or keep going? I'm in favor of the second. I'm also getting pissed off.” Okay, slight understatement; I was already pretty damned pissed off at this place, and finding out that one of my boys wasn’t actually mine didn’t help my temper much.

“Up to you... I'm just along to serve and protect...” Greaaaat. At that point, I realized that he could be Father’s, sent to keep an eye on me. And he had just proved himself useful as backup - and if he was along to ‘serve and protect’ whoever was running this place, he sure as hell wasn’t doing a good job of it, since I was still breathing. I decided that I’d keep letting him tag along.

“'Serve and protect,' huh? We're definitely having a long talk after this...” I could hear footsteps - the acoustics were all screwed up in the place, so I wasn’t sure if they were in front of us or behind - but it looked like a catwalk up ahead headed off perpendicular - and coincidentally towards where the green light was coming from. We headed that direction.

The further we moved on that catwalk, the denser the mist got. I mean, yeah, things on the outer walkway couldn’t see us - but there was no way we were going to see things coming until it was too late. The green light was coming off from the right now; all the machinery seemed to be running by themselves - robotics, probably. I hadn’t been inside Westside before; I wonder if they were always robotic, or if this was something new? Too late to find out, I guess, unless I want to drag up some uncomfortable memories...

Eventually, we came to a three-way split: up, straight ahead, or off closer to the light. I wasn’t sure which way to go - we didn’t know for certain if the guys were still alive, much less where they were. The light had me a bit curious, though.

Hunter expressed a wish for ranged weaponry of some sort - “guns or crossbows or something.” Okay, that pretty much answered the question of whether he’d been hired locally, since we don’t really have guns around here. Well, there are airguns, but I don’t think that’s what he was referring to.

I agreed, though. And at that point, things got a little weirder. A vibration started, and then one of the damned machines came up to our level and started trying to wrap cables around our legs. I jumped out of the way, grabbed Hunter when I realized he wasn’t going to move quickly enough, and we headed off towards the damned green pulsing light. The machines around us kept waking up and trying to snag us; I kept the speed on and hustled Hunter’s ass.

Then a pair of ceiling-mounted machines dropped down and lit us up like we were onstage. Greaaaaaat. We were able to nail the lights as we passed, and the things flew away randomly, like we’d knocked their eyes out - which is just weird. Makes me think that it was more than just a program or an operator at a desk running those things...

We hit the end of the machine bank and came out on a platform; end of the line, pretty much. Down below was something that must have once been a furnace - at least it looked like one - but with a green ball of flame inside instead of normal fire. Yeah, I had intimate contact with that fucking furnace; that’s where they turned people into those green-skinned things.

Speaking of things - there were some of those down there, as well as these winged bastards with pitch-black skin, wings, and barbed tails. Never did figure out whether they were once human like the green ones, or if they were from another Shadow. And there was one other - a person dressed in a red robe. Up above us were the actual humans, hanging in metal coils and apparently unconscious.

I left Hunter there while I went climbing. I wanted him there as backup; he didn’t think he could make the climb anyway and intended to find a place to hole up. Thinking back on it now, knowing he got the guys and the other two I freed out of there before coming back for me - it seems unlikely that he really did hole up. I suspect he followed my climbing via the catwalks - there’s no other way I can see that he could have gotten all four of them out. Of course, I have no idea how long I was unconscious the first time - another question to ask him if I get my hands on him before Father does.

I got a girl down first, mostly as a test run before I got the guys; the people were being held up by metal coils around their arms and backs, and they had tubes of green stuff down their throats. Never was sure what the stuff was, but it plays hell with your grip when you’re hanging from metal.

I’ll get to that.

I pulled her tube there in midair, and a glob of the stuff fell past me to the floor; I’m wondering if that’s not what gave me away later. No way to be certain - but it’d be a good bet. I mean, if I were doing whatever they were doing and discovered a green splotch on the ground instead of inside a human, I’d start looking for who’d escaped. But I didn’t know. Girl started coughing and stuff as soon as I pulled the tube out; I unwrapped the metal from her body and swung her down onto a handy catwalk.

Fortunately, the catwalk was up out of reach of the damned machinery; on the other hand, we were up a level and off from where I’d left Hunter, who would have been useful at this point. Mainly because the girl was more than a little freaked out. I had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep her from starting a bout of hysteria loud enough to wake the dead - or at least get the attention of the walking undead this place was infested with. Then she didn’t want to let me leave; once I realized how bad off she was, I decided to grab someone else to keep her company, before I headed off for the guys. I had to talk her down, or at least down enough that she released the death-grip on my arm and scuttled off to a fetal position by the wall when I took my hand off of her mouth; I am so not good at that kind of thing.

The next one down, true to my intention, was some random guy. He was, I think, equally freaked out, but he handled it a little better. Okay, so he tried to strangle me, but at least he didn’t want to start screaming. I talked him down a little, then convinced him to grab the girl - who he apparently knew, since he called her ‘Mardie’ - and head out of there. I can only assume that Hunter met up with them and got them out shortly thereafter. I headed back up.

The boys were over on the other side, above a winged-bastard-guarded conveyor belt feeding into the damned furnace. I grabbed Boris first; I figured that since he’s the eldest, he’s had enough practice screwing Darius’ head back on straight to be much more efficient at it than me. He was all right - a little panicked until he recognized me, but I was expecting that at this point. I made sure he was all right, assured him that I’d tell him my way out as soon as I had his brother down, and headed back up for Darius.

Heh. Oops. Well, I guess I couldn’t know that I was going to fall... Damned good thing Hunter found them, though.

Red-robe and the winged bastards noticed me about the time I reached Darius; I ended up pulling the tube and the coils and slinging him down and hoping, since the winged bastards could fly.

Something shot a beam of some sort at me, missed, and hit the tube as I pulled it out of Darius; that’s what shot my grip to hell. The black creature reached me right after I shoved Darius towards his brother. It had a weapon pointed at me, and I wasn’t going much of anywhere anyway - I tried pushing off the creature to swing back down to firmer ground, but it fired just as I did so, hitting my arm. The arm holding on to the cable still, despite the green crap.

Yeah, there went my grip. And there I went, for a nice long fall. Three and a half fucking stories. I have no idea what I landed on - didn’t really stay awake long enough to do more than think, “Ow.”

Greenness woke me up - a green star in the midst of a field of them that turned into something circling my thoughts and dragging them back out of oblivion. The ‘gentleman’ (and I’m using that in the most profane spin of the word) that did all that was the red-robed person I’d seen earlier; the closer view I was getting at this point revealed that he had tiger-striped hair and a goatee. Oh, and he had some sort of purple glow around one hand and greenish-silver vapor wrapped around the other.

I was hanging in midair. Nothing in particular seemed to be holding me up - since Father remarked that it sounded like red-robe was using sorcery, I have to assume that that’s what was holding me up. Like I told Father, the asshole wanted to ask questions, and I did too. Only I wasn’t answering his questions, and he was using sorcery to punch me instead of answering mine. Uncooperative bastard.

Then he decided to get cute and have the silver-green vapor come at me. Apparently that particular brand of the stuff was supposed to make me tell the truth. Yeah, I was having none of that; I braced myself and hauled up the Pattern as a shield. And it worked - the mist recoiled and left me the hell alone.

That got red-robe’s attention. “A Patterner! This is what I felt earlier, isn't it? This is what caused the fluctuation in the perimeter. How VERY interesting... What brings you here, Amber Scum? How did you detect this incursion?”

Uh... what? Incursion? The perimeter fluctuation had to be the manipulation of probability I’d tried on the way in, the one that resulted in the wall explosion. And like I told Father - I object to being called ‘Amber Scum.’ Especially when I’ve only been to Amber itself twice, neither of which lasted very long. But damnit - what incursion?

I was pretty pissed off, so I gave him another smartass response that got me nowhere. “Are you always this irritating, or is this something special just for me?”

“I am sorry you find my manner less than ingratiating here on ‘your side of the line.’ No, I take that back... I do not. However, do not let it be said that Lord Wilhek of Jesby was found niggardly in his treatment of one of the ‘Royal’ house of Amber. You shall indeed have something special.”

Okay, more questions - what the hell does ‘your side of the line’ mean? And what (or who) is Jesby? I didn’t bother asking, since he wasn’t answering my other questions, but I want to know the answers. Especially on the first one - Father didn’t say anything about it, so either he doesn’t know, didn’t think it was important, or knew and didn’t want to share. I know he said he didn’t know what Jesby was.

Anyway, Jesby-boy did something - another instance of sorcery, I assume - and the world went away again. And when I woke up, I was strapped down to that damned conveyor belt I’d seen earlier - and it was moving.

Well, shit.

There was no way I was breaking the bonds, either - they were tight and multicolored and luminescent, and when I fought them, they tightened and drained my strength. Father said something about a “specialized Immobilization Spell,” but I could give a fuck what it’s called - it was irritating, and I’d really rather not experience it again.

Jesby-boy talked at me a little while I figured out that I wasn’t going to get loose. Yeah, okay, great, most of the ones you’d processed through your pet furnace here weren’t awake; good for you. I want to know what, exactly, “I am sure an Amberite will make an excellent lieutenant for the Digizygotia” means. Specifically, what is a Digizygotia? Sounds like some horrible nasal disease or something. Why would they need lieutenants? Why would I make an excellent lieutenant - well, okay, I know why I’d make a good one ordinarily, but I’m not sure that death would do anything for my combat skills...

It entertains me, on the other hand, that Jesby-boy was so insistent on knowing my name - it’s not like very many people know who I am. And as for the gloating over my probably-soon-to-be-dead body - well, Father and I have different ideas on the usefulness of gloating, and apparently Jesby-boy agrees with Father. I guess I’m just used to taking quick revenge and getting it over with; there’s not usually time to gloat, so I don’t see much use for it.

Anyway.

Not much I could do against the bonds, so I ended up heading into that furnace.

No. I did not like the experience. I do not intend to repeat it. I am not happy about it. It did not set well with me. It fucking freaked me out. Coming violently face-to-face with your own mortality will do that to you.

I spared a quick thought for Hunter as I entered the furnace - hoping he’d had the good sense to get the hell out of there, find a set of Trumps, and get a hold of Father. I wasn’t too hopeful, but I did think of it. and then there wasn’t much more chance for me to worry about that, because I was inside and entering the green flame.

It felt like the truth-inducing mist from before, so I pulled up the Pattern again. My head hurt like hell by now, and it was getting worse the longer I held, but better blinding headache than some kind of undead monster. I held - I don’t know how long it was, but eventually something gave. It wasn’t me. I suppose it was whatever power had created the green flame and twisted the factory - I know the guys said there was an explosion, but I don’t remember that part. I remember that something gave - and then the world went away again.

I cannot begin to say how tired I am of passing out.

I woke up briefly - I wish I had stayed awake longer. I remember being carried, and being next to something green - not the disgusting green from the factory, but a cleaner one - and Hunter talking, saying something about, “...sorry, your Highness... I wish I could have called you earlier, but she...”

But I what? But I didn’t have my Trumps? But I didn’t want to go back for them? And who is ‘your Highness’? Male or female? Father has a few guesses, but he didn’t want to share the list. Green-clad aunts or uncles... I guess I can make that list myself, but it would have been nice if Father thought anyone in particular couldn’t be responsible.

Of course, at the time, I was thinking it was Father.

The next time I woke up, I was in my own bed. Someone had raided my kitchen and left me hot food. I wish whoever had carried me home had been there, or Hunter - but I wouldn’t have been much of a conversationalist. As it was, I was all alone with the food. I ate it all and went back to bed.

I woke again some time later. I hurt still, and someone had done a very professional job of patching up my arm, but I felt human otherwise. Oh, and there was nothing left in the way of food at my place. I grabbed my blade and my Trumps - which someone had conveniently left on the table for me - and headed down to the diner to eat. It was evening, I discovered, so it was supper I was headed for.

The place was pretty quiet when I got there - for about three seconds, before the guys noticed me, realized I wasn’t dead, and mobbed me. Yeah, okay, so they saw the explosion, knew I was inside, and thought I was dead, especially after I didn’t show up immediately afterwards. Uh... yeah, sorry about that, guys, I was kind of passed out in bed. They told me that Hunter was missing, too.

Well, damn. That made me decide it’d be a good idea to call Father. I mean, I had figured I’d have to own up to my little adventure eventually, but it kind of irritated me that he’d hauled Hunter off before I had a chance to talk to him. I gave the boys some bullshit story about a mutual friend from out of town showing up at my place at the same time Hunter and I drug ourselves out of the factory and back home. Well, it wasn’t complete bullshit, but still...

Boris and Darius talked to me briefly while I was there. Turned out the papers were claiming the whole thing as a hallucination due to a natural gas leak. Like hell. I probably shouldn’t have, but I told them that it’d been real, and assured them it wouldn’t be back - because I had no intention of letting it come back. And I asked them to keep it quiet - not what had happened, but that I thought it was real.

After dinner and a lively chat with my boys - which was just what I needed - I headed back home to talk to Father. I apparently interrupted a party he was attending, but he didn’t seem to mind much. I told him the whole story - when I got to the part about Hunter, he made it clear that Hunter was not his.

Greaaaaat.

Not only was Hunter not his, but Hunter wasn’t Gerard’s, either - and Gerard swore he hadn’t told anyone about me.

Father was even less happy about that little interlude with the person in green and Hunter and me being carried. I mean, I’d been okay with it until I found out that it wasn’t Father; now that I knew it wasn’t him, I can’t say I was too happy. But - yeah, Father had a look on his face that does not bode well for someone...

We discussed who Hunter was working for a bit - Father wanted to know if I thought it possible that Hunter was working for Jesby-boy. I don’t really think so - but it depends, like I told Father, on whether that interlude I’m pretty sure I remember where I was carried really happened or not. I’m mostly sure it did - but mostly isn’t one hundred percent sure.

After that, Father basically renewed the order to keep my head down and be wary, and told me he’d send any emissaries with one of his daggers. I teased him a little about not lecturing me for rushing into things at the end, but his response was… I guess inscrutable is good term for it. Ah well. It’s not like we don’t have time to get used to each other - but if I find out he actually doesn’t think he’s a good father, I’m going to have to set him straight.

I headed over to Hunter’s place after I got off the Trump with Father; I didn’t really expect to find him there, but it never hurts to check. The whole place was clean, though - couldn’t tell anyone had even lived there. No clothing, no personal belongings, nothing.

I called over to Cortez’s when I got home and told him a more elaborate bullshit story, about the mutual friend showing up with information that Hunter had to act on immediately after dropping me off; I added that the friend had picked up Hunter’s stuff and shipped it to him after Hunter was on the road and the friend was sure I was okay. Then I headed for bed again.

Except someone had left me a note, addressed to one of my mercenary aliases in another Shadow.

“Rising Sun, I was surprised to see you so far from the lands we used to work. Let me say I am impressed. You never gave any clue you were from Amber. As a professional courtesy to a former ally, let me give you this warning. They know who you are now, and can reach you at any time or place. Be wary. The next time we meet it may not be as allies. This is not personal. As you should understand, it is Business. Your Brother in Arms... Blade of Chaos.”

I remember a Blade - master of disguise, specialist in infiltration - worked with him a few times. But the ‘of Chaos’ part was completely unfamiliar.

I should have called Father back and given him the note. But I didn’t; professional courtesy, I suppose. I mean, I might as well make a stab at investigating Blade on my own before I hand it off to my more sneaky and efficient Father. Besides - leaving a note like that sometimes means that you’d like to meet up with the recipient, and I can’t really send Father to do that.

But I’m going to wait. I should let the boys settle down a little, and make sure Boris and Darius are okay. And I kind of want to keep an eye on what’s left of the factory and make sure it’s not going to go bad again...

Maybe in a month or two.