Lightbringer 002

Chapter 1 (continued and finished)

He walked down the wide stone and concrete corridors of the hotel going towards where his instinct told he he would find the lobby. It did not take long until the smell of obsessively scrubbed stone gave way to the the smell of colourful cocktails and micro-brewed beer. The silence was replaced by the subdued murmur of a crowed were everyone was talking about things precious to them but carefully keeping their voices down.

Turner walked through a saloon door. Just like in the westerns of old. An old veteran doubled sided swing door that after years of service had been left out to rot, the rough splintered wood spoke of a rain soaked life on the street, that had been given a new purpose in life when all hope had long faded away. And the door did his job well. Turner just wanted to pass through to the room next door. Yet he could not help himself but slow down, adjusting his leather jacket, sweeping aside the right hand side from his imaginary peacemaker. He pushed both side of the door open of the door as he walked through the door. He paused for a moment as the old western door behind him swung back into its neutral position, radiating professional pride.

The Eastwood moment quickly vanished as no one in the bar paused to look at the nameless stranger who had just entered the scene. “Well” Turner thought, “it was fun wile it lasted.” He looked around finding him self on a generous balcony surrounding a large entrance hall which doubled as the hotels lobby and bar. The balcony was filled with designer tables, not one looking like the other, everyone positively crowded by people as thoroughly designed as the tables. Turner started walking down a trail that was implied by the inch of space between the backs of the people crowding the place. The privacy between the table was kept by some cleverly planted creeper plants, growing into living walls up to the celling where they crawled towards the edge of the balcony from which they pored down to the lobby bellow.

Turner squeezed his way past the anonymous bodies towards the cast iron helical stair leading to the first floor. He marvelled at how the waiting staff seemed to effortlessly moved through the crowd. All of them perfectly beautiful specimens of humanity, wearing perfectly decent clothes, cleverly designed to highlight and improve the physiques of the wearers. While the patrons wore mostly black, charcoal and dark brown colours, the staff wore light-coloured grey in grey uniforms. They looked like heavenly beings slowly dancing their way through the sea of people who they served. When he had reached the stairs Turner took a deep breath. The air smelled of of fruit with hints of alcohol and wet earth. A strange smell for a hotel bar. Sliding his hand over the cold iron guard railing he descended, seeing that while the main entrance area and the reception desk were almost empty, behind the green curtain created by the vines growing above there was another bar or restaurant area, as crowded as the one above.

In the lobby he was not quite sure what to do. By now he was wide awake and all the things he thought he did not get because he was still half a sleep still made no sense at all. Why was he here? How did he even get here? Where was here anyway? He shook his hair trying to clear his thoughts but nothing came. “Here I am standing like some hobo who is slowly getting senile.” he thought his mood slowly going sour.

“Wow Mister, I really love that leather jacket of yours. It looks so… vintage. You must tell me were you got that from!” this came from a young man, still mostly a boy really with a complicated advanced geometry hairdo and worn out grey clothes. That was not quite right his clothes were well made and very carefully tuned to look worn out.

“Thank you young man.” said Turner watching the boys face for any traces of sarcasm, but he could not see any. He looked genuinely impressed. The group he was with had not yet noticed that he was missing and passing through the green curtain looking for a table. “Well I bought it in a Sears.”

“No way Mister. I understand that you want to keep your sources a secret.” he quickly looked around before closing a little closer to Turner, “I really do. When you find something really special you want to keep it for yourself for a while, before everyone else gets onto it. It’s really hard work not to look like everyone else. But if you do not share your secrets you risk a great designer or perfect little boutique being lost. And that’s just not right. Right? So. Want to trade secrets?”

Turner smiled. It was a big warm smile. While he did remember his youth all to well, so many things that should better be forgotten, he had somehow lost track of how it felt to be young. There was this nervous young man in faded blacks, who had fallen in love with style and had this burning passion still going. Turner really could not give a fuck about boutiques neither could he understand how anyone could be so obsessed with what clothes they wore. But the passion behind it, that was something that he could relate to.

“OK.” Turner agreed. The young mans face lighting up despite trying so very hard not to look excited. “I will tell you my secret. The reason why it is so loaded with roguish cool,” he had meant that to be funny but the young man just nodded eagerly, “the real reason is because I am vintage. I bought this jacket in ‘72, I was about to turn 16 and I had this head full of music and rock’n’roll dreams and I probably did not even knew that yet but I felt that I was going to walk down the path of rock. It’s probably hard to imagine now but back then I was surrounded by the giants of rock. People like Hendrix, Zappa and the King were still alive, bands like Sabbath and Zepplin looked like they would never stop going. And the titans of old were still around. Miles Davis was not only still going he was kicking music still forward. Areatha Franklin with her unstoppable voice. Man, back then I was surrounded by these gods of music and they just kept popping up pushing the envelope further and I wanted to be part of it. So this jacket was the first step. A statement of intent, if you know what I mean. And t my jacket here has been with me for all that time. It is soaked with my history. The nicks and patches and the burnt parts, they are all part of my history. They were there when I bought my first used guitar, they saw me ascend becoming a star and they have been with me while I slowly descended back into mortal life.” Turner had run out of words overcome by a longing for something he did not quite understand anymore.

“Wow…” the young man said. His eyes big a sparkling. His mind lost in Turner’s memories and their tales of greatness. He was about to ask something he was not quite sure what it was yet when a girl appeared from behind the curtain of green. She was looking for something, the young man.

“Alexander!” the girl shouted, “What the fuck are you doing? You better get your ass into gear because we will not be fighting to keep your chair for ever.”

Alexander looked conflicted. Turner smiled nodding towards Alexanders friend. “Alexander? I like that, it’s a conquerers name. Now go your friends are waiting.” Alexander was about to say something but Adrian turned around and left the lobby. It would have been a shame to let the opportunity to leave dramatically slip by. Thus the nameless stranger left Alexander walking boldly into the rain soaked night.

He had caught a Taxi not far from the hotel. Old school arm waving and shouting style. Now he sat in the back of the cab looking out at the street glistening in the rain. He watched as the colourful lights of the streets where the hip clubs and bars were slowly giving way to the more sensible streets. These were still shining bright in more sensible, better matched colours representing shops, banks, insurance buildings, all the things which were essential parts of a grown up life. After that the colour started to fade even more leaving only the regular street lamps behind, standing stoically in their municipality given positions. By this point magic of the city-as-night was gone leaving behind a cold place where everything was hidden in half gloom.

And it got worse.

The cab manoeuvred its way into neighbourhoods where the lights were broken, the streets were decorated with the bleached out chassis of long dead cars, killed and picked apart by predators a long time ago. While they drove deeper into the wild city the cabbie started swearing softly already knowing that he was not getting paid enough for this shit. Adrian was trying to get a grip on his mind. He remembered his new deal with the devil now. He was wondering if forgetting this rather crucial deal of information was part of the deal or if these were just side effects. He also became slowly aware why he had come here. He was looking for a drummer that once upon a time had almost become a legend. Ryan ‘Hardclock’ Murphy had been known for being able to play every rhythm no matter how strange by ear and improvise on the fly. He never missed a beat, never slipped, never messed up. He should have become one of the great ones of his trade. Somehow that never happened. The rumours around him slowly disappeared. Turner had just remembered him after he had left Lucifer trying to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do. Finding the a semi mythical drummer forgotten by all, sounded like a solid start.

By the looks of it he had to descend into the underworld to find him. The streets outside looked like the only thing they were missing to make them picture perfect was a touch of armed robbery. It did look like all the criminals preferred to stay at home for the night, no one likes to get soaking wet. “Or,” Turner thought, “I might simply have the Devil’s Luck.” He wondered which memories this little boon was costing him. He quickly realised how silly it was trying to remember what he had forgotten.

“I understand that you don’t want to get out of the car pal, but don’t you have any business to do? Or are you just here to take in the sights?” Turner had not noticed that they had arrived.

“Wait here, I won’t be long.” Turner said.

“Like hell I will. The moment you close that door I’m off, pal.”

“Mr. Franklin thinks differently.” Turner said handing a 100 $ bill to the cab driver. “And if you are still here to bring me back to my Hotel he’ll get company.”

“Alright mister. But the moment I see someone suspicious coming anywhere near my car I’m off.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Turner stepped into the rain. The side walk was not as slippery as Turner had expected. There was so much crap lying about that it improved footing considerably. He stood in front of housing block that had been ugly when it had been new. Now it was decorated with graffiti, the odd broken window and had cracks running all over its cheap concrete walls. Turner walked right through the entrance door. It had been a glass door, now it was only a metal frame. The lobby of the building was just a large ugly room full of cracked tiles, bent mail boxes and the beaten up metal plate holding the bell buttons. Most of them were still there. It took him a few minutes to located Murphy’s flat number. After that he had just make his way through the corridors piled with rubbish. The whole building was filled with a stale smell of old trash mixed with piss to freshen things up a bit.

Murphy’s door looked like all the others. Although Turner was sure that an expert would be able to turn them apart by their unique blemishes. This door had some rather fascinating burn marks for example. Well the door still sported its number, tarnished as the metal digits may have been they were still securely screwed into the fake wood. Adrian felt slightly bad for coming for a surprise visit in the middle of the night. He could here the TV blabbing in the flat which helped to lessen the feeling of guilt.

He knocked a couple of times until he finally got a reaction.

“Who’s there? Fuck off!” presumably Murphy shouted.

“Hi. My name is Adrian Turner. I’d like to talk to Hardclock?”

“What? Fuck off man. It’s late.” after a short pause, “How do you know that name?”

“Where I come from that name’s a legend.” Turner tweaked the truth slightly. Hardclock Murphy was a legend, a rather obscure one, but still.

“Fuck. Off! What do you want from me?”

“I’d like to offer you a job.”

“Allready got a job. Fuck off.”

“OK. But you could at least give it a try? It pays well?” considering the place he found himself Turner thought that money would at least get the door open.

“How well?”

No ‘fuck off’ this time. He was making progress. “Enough to pay you 100 bucks just listening to me.” it was Satan’s money spending it came easily.

The door opened a bit spilling out dim light. A suspicious eye peered at him. Turner opened his arms empty palms held towards Murphy. “See? No trick. No weapons. I just want to talk.”

“Fuck off…” Not that again. “No trick? Where’s the money?”

Turner fished his wallet carefully out of his pocket and handed Murphy a clean, crisp one hundred dollar note. Apart from turner it was probably the cleanest thing in a diameter of at least fifty yards. Murphy surprised him by not grabbing the money first. Instead he vanished for a moment to unlock the door.

“Come on in then.” Murphy said. Turner walked through a tiny corridor only a few feet long, a door led into the main and only room of the flat, that smelt of stale smoke and week old left overs. It was the usual kitchenette room-for-everything-else combo that was the hallmark of shitty little abodes built around the world to make to stow away the not quite homeless. The kitchenette was well decorated in with empty boxes. Mostly ready made meals with a few take away Chinese boxes and a helping of empty beer cans for company. The main room consisted of a bed doubling as a sofa, a low table, some shelves and crammed into a corner a drum kit. Adrian’s heart sank. The kit had been shoved together as to take as little space as possible. It looked not unlike one of these fossils he had once seen in a magazine. It was some kind of half-bird, all crumpled together, Adrian remembered always had remembered the picture vividly because looking at it had made his neck ache. Now he felt pretty much the same looking at what had once been an instrument. Now its most noble task was to hold up a half wilted nightshade of sorts.

Murphy had cleared away a few boxes, magazines and discarded clothes uncovering another document of prehistory, this time in the form of a chair. “Please have a seat. Want a beer?” Turner considered accepting for a moment but he saw what passed for beer in this apartment and decided against it. “No, thanks.”

Murphy sat in front of him on the edge of his bed. “So?”

“I…” Adrian was not quite sure how to put this into words. While he had a vague idea what he should be doing he had no real plan and this kind of improvisation did not come naturally to him it seemed. “I am looking for musicians.”

“So?”

“Well I was thinking of you, for the drums.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You are Hardclock Murphy after all.” should not a Silver Tongue be among his gifts from the Devil? “Back in the day everyone was telling me that you were special. That you had a talent to hammer out every beat in the blink of an eye and with perfect precision.”

“Not talent.”

“Huh?”

“Hard work. Not talent. I pretty sure everyone else could do it too. IF they had the drive.”

“Well you certainly had the drive it seems. And you were known for being to improvise and come up with cool new stuff as you went along.”

“Really.”

“That’s what they say.”

“Did they also tell you how much bands appreciate a creative drummer?”

“No. I can imagine though.” Adrian had seen enough ‘bands’ where any kind of creativity by any member was instantly attacked by everyone else. “I can promise you though that if you come with me, that won’t be a problem. I’m not only guaranteeing that you’ll be able to be creative, I want you to do so. It’s one of the reasons why I chose you.”

Turner had thought that this would be easy. Especially after seeing the conditions in which Murphy was living in. He waited for an answer. But Murphy kept silent. His eyes dull staring at some far away spot.

“I wish you had come earlier. I really do. But I can’t help you.” there was nothing left in Murphy’s voice now. The anger was gone, as was the aggression. “The music. It’s gone.”

Adrian just shook his head.

“I can’t do it anymore. Fuck I can’t even listen to music anymore. In the past I could not spend a day without listening to music. MY MP3 player would never leave my side and if there was a moment of silence and a flat surface I would try to lay down a good beat. You know?” usually when people reminisce there is a glint in their eye, Murphy’s eyes were dead. “There was a time when I could not imagine a world without music, where I could see a path clearly in front of me and that was making music. It was that love that motivated me so much, that made me as good as I was.” Murphy fell silent for a moment. If he was remembering better times Adrian could not tell as Murphy’s eyes remained dull.

“But life does not always work out like that.” he continued “I was out of a band for to long. I was looking for the right people and I knew that right team we could make something special. Right? But the right people never appeared and a man must eat. So I worked. I worked every shit job you can imagine. You would think that in time you would work your way up. But I? I only moved sideways. From one hell hole to the next. I’ve been stuck in a cubicle hell for years now. Ever worked in one of those places?”

“I have had my shares of shit jobs.” Turner said. “Filling in shelves in super markets, cleaning bars, shit like that.”

“What I’m doing is worse. I am working at large company you never heard off that professionally pretends to be other companies that you’ll all know. Don’t ask me how this shit is even supposed to work but we are cheaper than if the companies we mis-represent did their shit themselves. And it is like going to work to Bizzaro World my colleagues have PhDs, Masters degrees, years of work experience and all of that is worth shit. Our bosses on the other hand… I have to admit that most of them have university degrees. But I swear to fucking god that all of them are either stupid as shit, utterly incompetent or just play evil. It’s like they are trying to crush ever little shred of motivation you have your will to live. And at least in my case they have succeeded.” Murphy looked up with his empty eyes.

“I’m sorry but the man you are looking for is long gone. I am only what is left of him. The only reason I keep going is because I’m to much of a coward to kill myself.”

On the way back to the hotel Adrian felt like shit. He had tried to argue with Murphy, in the end he had been pleading. But he got nowhere. Who ever he was looking for, the most important part of him was dead and there was no way he could bring him back. The worst part of it was that Murphy knew. He knew that he had been broken and that part of what had made him human was gone, he had known that what Adrian was offering him was a way out, a new beginning. But Murphy had no hope left. He would remain a disposable wage slave until his shell finally followed his soul.

Adrian left the city on the same night.

Project: Lightbringer 001

It is a new NaNoWriMo and thus there is a new novel in the making.

Skyshell is miraculously still in active work but will be in the back burner for the rest of the month. What a surprise. So I present to you the first bit of Lightbringer were a man is on a mission from Satan to save music.

Prologue

The Crossroads

Adrian Turner had met the devil twice. The first time was in the eighties during the rise of the sons of metal. He had sold his soul because being a good musician simply wasn’t god enough. Back then he could feel the energy surrounding him, he could taste it in the air, it was a time of growth, a time of great potential. He was already part of it, but he wanted, no he needed to be centre stage, gleaming in the limelight. And he did.

The second time he met the devil Adrian had to go and search for him. This was during the nineties at the time where grunge was killed by its children. He had all a rock star would have ever want, fame, girls, money, but by then he had realised that that wasn’t really what kept him going. He did not live for the drugs and the sex, as awesome as they were, no he lived for the rock’n’roll. So he went back to the crossroads and challenged the devil to a duel. They faced off against each other guitar in hand and Adrian won.

In the years that followed his fame declined until one day he was just one of many obscure rock musicians that all but the most hardcore fans had forgotten about. When he appeared with his band to play in some dingy old club those who still had vague recollections of him were surprised that he was still alive. But Adrian did usually did not mind. He got to tour with his gang, he got to lose himself in his music almost every night and more often than not he even got paid for it. Life was acceptable.

Tonight was less acceptable. He was walking through a hot humid Louisiana night, dreaming of air condition with only an empty petrol can and a million mosquitoes for company. The air carried the smell of damp decay from the swamp surrounding him. It went well with his foul mood. The tour bus had run out of the gas smack in the middle of fucking nowhere. Exactly at that point where it was equally far away from any type of civilisation in either direction. At first everyone had remained calm. Accusations were carefully packaged in friendly sarcasm before being passed around. Who had been responsible for filling the tank? Who had not noticed that the tank was fucking empty? And why the fuck did the fucking driver not notice that the needle was humping the pin on the empty side? And why exactly was it the drivers fucking fault all of the fucking sudden, when he had not had a fucking drink to be able to fucking drive them through the fucking night, while they where fucking sleeping? Passive aggression had only flung a few exploratory barbs at allegedly innocent bystanders when they noticed that the petrol cans were all empty. All five of them. So passive aggression was kicked out by open hostilities.

It was at that point that Adrian had volunteered to go out, walk back to the petrol station and fill one of the cans. In his opinion the sooner he was out of that fucking kindergarten the better. Let them behind and keep fighting while he was out in the air, having a nice midnight walk enjoying the atmosphere. Also who knew, maybe his surrounding could spark some inspiration and he could turn his aggression into a new song.

His aggression turned into being hot and miserable. How far could that petrol station be? He could have sworn that they had passed one not all to long ago. Between the swampy darkness and the dim streetlights it had been an explosion of colour and billboards. Surely he should at least see its glow illuminating the sky in front of him. But there was only darkness and the faint illumination of a shabby little crossroads ahead. They had passed a crossroads? He was still trying to remember when exactly that had been and how far it was from that godforsaken petrol station when he heard someone playing a slow old fashioned blues on a guitar. “Oh crap.” He thought.

The devil sat on a rickety wooden chair tilting slowly back and forth in the rhythm of the music. Adrian could never remember how the devil looked like but just glancing at him he instantly recognised him. He looked like an old man with eyes sparkling with youth. No like a young man almost still a kid with eyes older than time. No he looked like someone who was neither old nor young. Somehow he looked like all of that at once.

“I don’t owe you anything anymore!” Adrian croaked. He tried to sound confident but his confidence was crushed by the fear that somehow he had been tricked by Old Nick and that he had now come to collect what he was due.

“And a good evening to you too Melvin.” said Satan. “I have to say that I am a bit disappointed by your lack of manners. You could at least show some respect.”

“Good evening Lucifer.” Adrian said and summoning all of his willpower added, “And don’t call me Melvin. Please?”

“It’s your true name.”

“No. It’s the name my parents inflicted on me.” the devil might have come to drag him to Hell but he would not let him take his dignity, what was left of it, by calling him by his birth name. He had been born Melvin Watson a name that still made his blood curdle, but he had become Adrian Turner. He had earned that name and not even Satan was going to take that from him. He hoped.

The devil just shrugged. “As you wish. . . Adrian.” he stopped tilting his chair and his blues became slightly more modern. “Now, please, relax. Come take a seat.” he motioned with his head to another wooden chair which Adrian had not noticed until now standing not from from the one where the devil sat. “Don’t worry. You don’t owe me anything. You won your soul back fair and square.” the devil changed for a moment the tune he was playing turning it for a moment to the melody Adrian had played to win back his soul. “See? I remember. I always honour my deals. No hard feelings. OK? Now sit. We need to talk.”

Adrian sat down, facing the devil. His nerves calming rapidly. If he wanted the devil could speak in the most soothing of voices. “So if you don’t want my soul, then. . .?”

“I want you to do me a favour.”

“What?!” Adrian almost fell from his chair.

“A favour. I need you to do something for me.”

“No.” Adrian said. He did not even have to think about it. “No. No no. Nonononono.” he added for emphasis. “No.” waging a finger now just to be sure.

“You don’t even know what I am going to ask of you.” the devil said.

“Whatever it is it can’t be good.” Adrian said. “So: no.”

“Adrian. Shut up.” the devils words left no room for objections. “Adrian I need you to go out into the world and save music.”

“Save. . . music?” this Adrian had to admit was a rather unexpected request, he had been expecting more firstborns or virgins. “What from?”

“From dying Adrian. Music is slowly decaying, turning into sound and I can’t have that.”

“No.” Adrian said with brows raised, “I still don’t get you.”

“Look at the world Adrian. Listen to the way the music is evolving. Don’t you notice something? What do you think of music these days?”

“Well mostly its shit. But that’s pretty much normal isn’t it? I’m 50 years now, so it’s pretty much normal that I think that music these days is shit, right?”

“Not in this case. They way things go is that new music appears and you think its shit because it’s not the music you like, or because it is obviously stealing from a far superior original piece which all those horrible young people would know if they actually listened to real music. Let me ask you this. What exactly is wrong with the new music?”

“I don’t know.” Adrian shrugged, “It’s mostly tedious insubstatial pap that doesn’t do anything. You know? It does not even try to be anything.”

The devil nodded. “Now tell me are there any bands, new bands, that turn children into evil murderers and will surely usher the decline of modern civilisation and decency?”

“Sure.” Adrian paused and thought for a moment. “Wait. No. Not really. All the bands that I can think of are older than shit and the newer ones. They are so formulaic. It’s a bit like the colouring book version of evil. You know? Like My-First-Evil-Rebellious-Band. With a friendly web-shop and shit where you can buy all your rebel clothes and other rebel merch.”

“See?” the devil was now all arched eyebrows. “The magic is slowly fading away.”

“Come on. That’s bullshit. There is enough good stuff still floating around. Many new bands. New music. What with computers and the Internet and all. I had to work for months to be able to buy my first proper amp and finding the right people for the right band was a giant pain in the ass. Now you can emulate your amp on a lap top and search the net for like minded people.”

“You are right. That is all very nice but it does not change the central problem. People either get caught in the predigested crap they are served or flee into their little musical ghettos. And while that is happening the magic, the thing that makes music special, the inspires people, that makes them go mad, the soul, it is fading.”

“I think maybe you are getting a bit old?”

For a moment the devil stopped playing his guitar the music gave way to an oppressive suffocating silence. “I”, Satan said, “am beyond old. I was created before time was made. I was the Light that stood apart from the Darkness. I know it is a bit hard for you as a mortal with your tiny, tiny life to understand but trust me, I have an eye for longterm developments. And I am telling you, if we don’t act, if you do not act, music will die.” as the devil stopped talking the silence became overwhelming.

Adrian moved uneasily on his chair. The chair made a sound but the sound was missing something. He began to feel miserable overcome by a feeling of emptiness. Something had been taken from him that he had been so integral to his life that he had not even known that it was there.

“See? Or better: hear?” the Devil’s voice was warm and melodious. “Once the magic is gone the world will lose something incredibly precious and I cannot let that happen.” the devil started playing his guitar again, his blues filling the crossroads with its warm melancholy tones.

“But why? Why would you do that? You of all people?” Adrian asked.

“Do what save music?”

“Yes.”

“Because I am Lucifer.”

“That is exactly what I am talking about. You are the Devil, Satan, the Lord of Flies, Father of Sin and Temptation. Should you not be happy if music is gone?”

“And with what pray tell should I tempt the young into sin with then?” the devil snorted. “I really had expected a bit more from you Adrian. Of all people. I gave you a big boost to your skills so that you could become big rock star and then you improved yourself so much that you surpassed my gift and won your soul back. I am the Lightbringer, Adrian, I have do have a mission down here and that is to kindle light in darkness. But that’s another story really. The important thing is will you help me?”

“Why me?”

“Why not you?” the Lucifer answered with the patience of a being older than time. “I made a list. You are on top of it.”

“Oh.”

“You had to ask. If it makes you feel any better, I chose you because you still have a special spark. Your love for music runs deep in your soul. You get music on a fundamental, spiritual level. Which is why I think that you can help me.”

“Right. OK. Hmmm… so… let’s assume I agree, what am I supposed to do?”

“That is up to you really. Go out there, find people who have worked so long and so hard on their craft that they live music instead of just playing it. Find them. Do something. Fan the flames.”

“You do realise that my rock star years are over and with them also my rock star money?”

“You do realise that I am Lucifer and can bestow upon you my favours and gifts?”

“I’m not selling my soul again.”

Lucifer smiled a surprisingly warm smile. “And I would not take it even if I could. Your soul is far beyond my reach now don’t worry. You do make a good point though. You will have to pay a price. I am very sorry but these are the rules, I can’t favour you above other people without you having to give something in exchange.”

“So instead of my soul what are you going to take?” Adrian was feeling suddenly very nervous again.

“It’ll cost you your memories.”

Adrian opened his mouth but he could not think of anything to say, his thoughts were fighting each other in his head trying to get out, so he decided to close his mouth again.

“Not all of them of course. You will remember who you are. Most of your life. The important stuff. But you will lose memories that are precious to you. The names, people, tunes. You will retain general knowledge over the things that are important but many details will be gone. You will forget your band and they will for get you.”

“No!”

“Don’t panic. You’ll be gone for a while it is better for you and your band that you do not remember each other. Once you have succeeded in your mission you will get your memories back and everything will be fine.”

“And if I don’t succeed in my mission?”

“Then you not remembering them will be a small mercy.”

Chapter One

Empty Battery

Adrian Turner woke up in his large outrageous hotel bed, drenched in cold sweat still feeling the receding terror of a half remembered nightmare receding. Something with swamps. Or endless walks. Or busses? Buses? Really? Turner could not remember when he last had taken any form of public transport. Right now he could not even remember how he got into his bed. Fucking nightmare.

He got up walking to the bathroom. The suit he had crashed in was so expansive and hip that had not to worry about stubbing his toe on anything. The room had so much style that it needed a lot of space to fit it all in. The bathroom itself was less palatial, instead it was incredibly pragmatic, everything just the right distance. This was a bathroom that meant business. Turner tried to hate the interior design but failed. Somehow the suite pulled it off were so many others failed and looked like the usual northern American money instead of taste style.

He looked into the bathroom mirror and was… pleasantly surprised actually. While he was not young anymore, age had etched his face into a more weathered variation of his younger form. His eyes were a bit beady, but held a mischievous glint in them that had no right to be there after just falling out of bed. Fully clothed. Was he drunk? He did not feel drunk. Or hungover. Or drugged. He was probably just getting old. He washed his face with warm water, to get rid of the clingy sweat and to relax a bit. He looked at himself again. The eyes were now their normal size again. Now open and piercing. His hear was a mess, but in a roguish way.

“I’ll be damned.” he said impressed by his own reflection. People might not recognised him anymore on the street but he certainly had retained his super star nature. He smiled to himself and walked back into the bedroom. He was about to undress and go to sleep again when he remembered that he had come here for a reason. It was actually good that he had woken up. He was looking for a man.

He grabbed his heavy vintage leather jacket and left the suite.

Sky-Shell 025

Chapter 11 (still continued)

She moved into the spike looking for a comfortable little data room somewhere in the middle. The fractal floor plan the hight of style when the spike was cut into its present form was a terror to navigate but granted Ailu a lot of privacy which she much preferred personally and was a basic requirement for any kind of Agency work. As usual the work cells deep within the crystal were deserted. The Litho-Cortex was an impressive source of information but that was of only moderate use to the usual student. It was most used by advanced merchant philosophy students who were planning to impress their professors with up to date information or more often used as a convenient hide out for the more clever specimen of lazy students so that they could be idle while looking unpleasantly motivated. There were of course also the insufferable posers who interfaced directly with the cortex sitting outside in the most cool meditation poses they could bend themselves into which were generally considered insufferable fashion victims by all but the easily impressed students.

    Ailu took out her key's from hidden pockets, little crystal shard which powered correctly would tune their user into the resonance space used by the Free Agency to transmit data. She activated the main interface, nudging it into life with a careful poke of her mind force. She formed the opening hand-seals to connect the instruments in front of her to the keys. Unlike Anira who usually formed her seals so fast that her hands blurred Ailu took her time. She carefully placed every finger into its proper position opening her senses to the crystal spikes own field of power. This was not about speed it was about precision. Once she had established a solid contact she drew the fragile strands of power into the keys which she made dance with her finger tips a slow and complicated dance until they had reached formed a summoning circle. The thin strands of power criss crossed between the keys and the access instruments of the crystal spike weaving a complex tapestry of intertwined symbols of light. Once this knot of power had stabilised pulsing slowly in front of Ailu she cast the last set of hand-seals completing the interconnection process. A instrument in front of her that looked like a large tuning fork made out of glass rotated and bowed as in polite greeting so that their 'tuning' ends fixed her eyes and shot two beams of radiant energy into her eyes. Ailu exhaled sending her own beams of energy back towards the tuning fork. For a few seconds both set of beams struggled against each other until finally they settled to a meeting point about two thirds away from Ailu. At the spot where the rays met the data vision spiralled into existence showing Ailu the general greeting surface of the Free Agency. 
   
    She took hold of thin pulsating veins of power emanating in throbbing pulses from the control slate in front of her using her finger tips. That done she began weaving her commands into the Crystal sending them onto their long journey across the continent to access the Free Agencies data base. While she was waiting for her requests to make the trip to HQ, gather the requested info and make their trip back she opened sifted of the news of the days looking at the general data made available to all handlers of her security level. Not only did it pass the seemingly endless minutes for each of her commands to be executed but it also provided her with vital facts and news that she had been mostly missing during the last few months on her mission to piss of Kelsheron back in the Valley.



                                *     *             *     *             *     *             *     *             *     *
                               
    While Ailu was going to the crystal spike Anira was trying to find Lee's distant cousin, or what however else degrees of relation where measured among sentient buildings.
   
    "So that house we are going to. . . visit. This Sea View 32, is that it's name? How are you both related?" Anira asked.
   
"We both are living seeds from Mother." Lee answered in a way that made it clear that this was both very obvious as well as sufficient information.

    "So you are siblings?"
   
"No not really. We both are descendant from different blocks. I have grown out of the Azure Terrace, while Sea View 32 was given primal form in the Old Merchant district. But we were established in the same year."

    "How do you know each other if you came from different parts of the city." Anira asked. There was a moment of silence where she walked down another street paved with glazed stones that looked as immaculate as the last. She noticed that she preferred cities with a bit more girt to them. She'd rather have the chaos and dirt of the night markets of Dahiri than any of these designer streets which were starting to bore her in their predictable form of perfection. She also noticed that Lee had still not answered her but she felt how its attention was focusing on her in a way that was quickly turning uncomfortable.
   
    "What?" Anira asked wondering in which bizarre way she had offended Lee now.
   
"So how comes that you knew Ailu when she was born in another country?"

    "Because we both started working for the Free Agency? That still doesn't answer how you met Sea View."
   
"Because we were educated at the same time. Isn't that obvious?"

    "Oh of course. You both went to building school when you were but a pair of wee garden sheds. Right. How Could I have not thought of that earlier."
   
"Ah don't be silly dear." Lee said chuckling to itself. "Of course we did not start as sheds and we did not go to school. Houses can't walk. But we were educated at the Old City Centre were the primal houses stand, and learned all we need to know before being sent to earth to establish a new colony."

    "If you can't walk, how do you get to the old centre? Have you some kind of slave to carry you around?" Anira asked with a twist of sarcasm that was completely lost to Lee.
   
"No of course not. We would never make ourselves dependent from you walking people. It would also be inhumane to your kind." This amused Anira a bit, she imagined if Lee was now slowly turning into a criminal or some kind of decadent mansion by being dragged around by a specimen of regular humans. "No while our primal seed slowly coalesces our souls are connected with our mentors using special conduits."

    "Are you starting to talk about house sex again?" Anira asked with a dawning unspecific horror.
   
"What? Sex?!" Lee made some outraged noises before continuing. "Is there no limit to your fleshly perversions? I had not ever though about that. How would that even be possible... ewww!"

    "I was just making sure that I was not missing anything about your obviously fascinating reproductive cycle." Anira said hoping that she had not just encouraged Lee to start another of its many lectures on the love live of buildings. Although they were always far, far away from what Anira would think of as sexy they had a strange disturbing quality on on them she could not put her finger on. Actually she did not want any part of her hand near of that topic. As Lee remained silent she hoped that it was just sulking. "In the end you had the same Mentors but never were close. . ." Anira hoped to gently push Lee into revealing some helpful details.
   
"Yes we were distant acquaintances. Several blocks apart." Anira wondered if this was meant literally. "We were" Lee continued, "instructed in general knowledge first, as usual, and after wards went our separate ways. He went on to train for a city deployment which really shows that he was hardly worth knowing. I mean really. A living seed in a City? How does that make sense? There is already a big established structure there. During the seeding process you either end up in the outskirts of the city where you either turn into some sort of barnacle that is only better from a shanty town by the virtue of consisting of first class structures or perish the thought . . ." the last words cost Lee a lot of discipline to say out loud, "a suburb!"

    "So Sea View chose the easy way?"
   
"Oh no. Not the easy way. The zealous snob way. He was seeded into the town proper. Only the most arrogant sons of breaches decide to go urban. You see when Mother launches you from the Sky-Shell down to this barren earth you call. . . what ever it is the natives call it, it is a looong way down. Aiming is very hard. So most of the urbans start their life in their new community by smashing into someone’s pre-existing house. Which while not actually that big a deal, after all the house hit has no life or soul of its own and the seed will mend the damage quickly and take that house as its base template, is a fucking rude thing to do. It's a massive lack of respect, you know what I mean? It hardly endears you to the people living there, which is also counter productive to our cause!"

"Your cause?" Anira asked mostly because she was feeling that it was time to say something again after she had mhm'd and aha'd through most of Lee's monologue. She had learned that it was the best way to get along with it. In the end many of the things Lee told were quite illuminating on how the Living City worked, so far she had only known some vague general truths garnished with a side of wild rumours. She had also grown fond of Lee's outspoken personality. It killed the time and Anira had noticed that when she listened to her she was focused enough on something that she could actually pay closer attention to her usually rather boring surroundings. While Ailu had the talent to be endlessly fascinated by the mundane and would walk out as wide eyed of a big forest or city as she had walked in, Anira would soon grow bored once she had a general idea about the underlying pattern that surrounded her. Lee strangely enough helped her focus. Under normal circumstances by now she would have seen in her surroundings 'more shiny buildings' populated by 'more of the same kind of people'. Her mind would have wandered yet right now she was still taking in new information seeing subtle variations in style in both the buildings around here and the individuals walking through them. This pleased her immensely so when Lee seemed to get ready to teach her more about the ins and outs of the Living City, she was looking forward to it as it meant that she would be learning two things at once.

"Yes our cause. _The_Cause. Long ago our ancestors were still giving rise to frail, fleeting structures such as yours but they were inspired by their proximity of the eternal Sky-Shell and decided to leave their weak, squiggly bodies behind to become the very buildings that had protected their once so fragile existence. For a while that was good enough. The soul passed into the structure giving life to our city which from then on dropped its old obsolete flesh name behind and became known to all as the Living City." Lee paused for a moment wallowing in nostalgia for a time it had not experienced. "It became clear though the we were the exception. While we flourished and grew beneath us on the primal soil the regular humans still walked in their fleshly husks, living their fleeting primitive lives. So it was decided that the Living City would build seeds and sent them forth into the world to bring our way of greatness to all. Also it feels wrong to be a house and have no inhabitants. You feel so naked, you know what I mean?"

    "Not quite. I do understand the feeling of lacking a proper task appropriate to your skills, though." Anira said. It was interesting to hear Lee's version of the story. Her 'official' version said that the first seeds were created by accident. Parts of the Living City fall off of their 'mother' in overeager attempts to grow ever further. Anira suspected that the truth was neither as heroic as Lee made it sound nor as much of a embarrassing accident as she was taught in school. While Lee was recounting stories about the many wars that had been fought between the Living City and pretty much everyone else during the first decades were it had started to propagate more aggressively Anira was strolling through the streets trying to find her way to the Sea View street. She could ask Lee for directions, but she did not want to interrupt her. Also right now she still had some free time, Ailu would need a few hours at the very least to get all the information they needed so right now was the perfect moment to familiarize herself with the sights. She was following the original instruction that Lee had given her, trying to spot prominent buildings to navigate by. In time she had discovered that all the buildings in the city had an unique identifying code written on a strip of coloured tilling that ran like a band around each house on the upper end of the ground floor. The code a mixture of letters and numbers was always set in the middle of the wall, following a logical system. The tiles also varied in colour which turned out to show how far which end of the city was. As the houses grew closer to the channel an increasing number of tiles on the side where the channel was were coloured a light blue, while the yellow tiles which pointed towards the desert outside the city became fewer. The same thing was true for the midnight blue and grey tiles pointing to the sea and to the mountains. Anira was impressed by the lengths the city planners of Quskaranam had gone designing their system which had not existed when she had been living in Nkiska, to properly mark houses that did not directly point towards either of the city's cardinal directions by inserting tiles that were two coloured with the dominant direction represented correctly by the larger amount of surface on the tile it took.
   
    By now Lee had passed through the wars. Recounted the first negotiations with the Order of Reason, the joining of the Nomad Empire to their Alliance of Understanding a political move which only surprised the historians with how late during the wars it had happened and how in the end a peaceful solution was found. While Lee was now happily preaching about the great innovations and comforts brought by the seeds of the Living City and how most of the nations which had strictly forbidden the Living City even near their borders had come back crawling to beg for it to grace it with one or two of its offspring, Anira had finally found Sea View street.

Project Sky-Shell 024

Chapter 11 (continued)

 It did not take long for Ailu to make a decision, the best place to interface was the Trade Academy of Quskaranam. As she walked through the immaculate streets of the city always polished to the point where the streets and buildings gleamed in the light of the sun and the stars alike, she worked on her alibi. While neither their sojourn in Nkiska nor the sudden change of pace had been previously planned Ailu never left headquarters without being prepared. She new all the important facts of all the nations of the world, had comprehensive knowledge of all on the continent and committed to heart detailed intelligence on all the most important cities. Just like the shining beauty of their cities was a point of pride to the Nkiskans so Ailu was proud of her comprehensive and up to date knowledge. It was was separated her from all the good handlers of the Agency, what made her stand out. It was also this dedication which made her such a good match for Anira whose erratic behaviour was celebrated when it scored the Agency another victory and deplored when it upset the bureaucrats back home who could not see beyond the edges of their rule books. And her patient curiosity. Aliu had always loved to watch things develop with Anira she had the possibility to watch systems she understood pretty well thanks to her through self-education and see how it changed in the most interesting ways once Anira decided to give it a sound kicking because of one of her instincts.
 
  She wandered down Gold Ribbon Boulevard, nicknamed Poets Path by the inhabitants as it was home to a seemingly endless series of little cafés and restaurants which were both stylish and inexpensive attracting the more artistically inclined citizens and tourists. Passing by she watched the people sitting out side sipping their drinks having vivid often temperamental discussions of the latest developments in theoretical trade or books or theatre or what ever other interest might be worthy of heated debate that day. There were tables, sometimes even whole cafés, dedicated to certain topics, usually with a few central players surrounded by listeners or people who just through in some argument into the general conversation. These peripheral people tended to traditionally wander along the tables and establishments as their fancy struck them. This 'bazaar' of information was especially popular with foreign traders as developments opinions and news on pretty much everything could be gathered here. Ailu was sure that the Free Agency as well as pretty much ever other intelligence service had their own representatives here furiously taking notes. Looking at this ordered chaos made Ailu smile, there was something deeply satisfying about it for her. She herself had spend many months in this place and others like it soaking in knowledge. By now she had so much facts and data in her head that much like Anira she had developed the ability to let her unconscious chew on the masses on data and spit out relevant ideas when they were ready.
 
  Today she was starting to feel that annoying mental itch which always appeared when she was beginning to form an idea which she could not grasp yet. There were important factors coming together in meaningful ways but had not yet a concrete form. It drove her crazy. She hoped that what ever it was that she was trying to come up with would be aided by the Free Agencies massive knowledge base.
 
  The monumental building housing the Trade Academy which stood at the very beginning of Poets Path was slowly starting to dominate Ailu's view. The building had been constructed in the Expansionist Style popular in Nkiska when the channel project had turned it from a wealthy nation into an insanely rich. The style blended a great number of styles that were en vogue during that time in different parts of the continent in a way that the Nkiskan elite though was a tasteful representation of their urbane and cosmopolitan national character. Back when it was created it was widely derided by critics all over the planet for its horrible perversion of classical styles which had reached their peak through centuries of gradual evolution. One hundred years later it was the favourite form of architecture with the rich and powerful even now new buildings were made in derivatives of Expansionist style.
 
  The Academy was a monument to Nkiska's fortune, to its willingness to disregard tradition for new, better forms and a pledge to add to their material wealth also a wealth of knowledge. While most savants had sneered at the ridiculous notion of a half-barbarian nation of merchants no less, to be able to buy culture most of them did change their opinion when confronted with enormous amounts of wealth from these barbarians coupled with a pledge to allow them to indulge in their arts and sciences to their hearts content. The Trade Academy was there so that the brilliant of the world had a place where they could follow their calling unimpeded. While their patrons where taking note of their innovations turning them into advanced goods or ways to get things done. The 'trade' in the name was originally to indicate a trade of material wealth for pure knowledge but as time passed the first trade philosophers appeared who attempted to find the systems underlying deals of all kinds.
 
  Today the Trade Academy is one of the few academies that is stands on equal footing with the academies of the Order of Reason, surpassing them in trade philosophy, which until very recently was ignored by the Order for being beneath them.
 
  The building itself consisted of the towering main building that stood at the very beginning of the street leading towards it, with two arms extending left and right into the street. The entire structure was slightly curved so that it embraced the people who walked into it long before they had reached the main entrance. While the outside was dominated by crystal encrusted marble the sides facing the central plaza were dominated by high slender columns and flawless single windows reaching from the ground up to the roof opening the view to the extensive libraries, workshops and laboratories inside. All the offices and more boring rooms lay well hidden on the other side of the building.

    Ailu entered through the main entrance walking toward the crystal library. Having been an official student two lives during one of her first info gathering assignments she new her way around the labyrinthine halls of the Trade Academy. While the design inside was as majestic inside as it was outside, the architects had neglected to mark the floors and endless corridors in any significant way meaning that the first semester of every student was filled as much with getting lost as attending lectures and studying. After a few months though everyone learned their way around, navigating by smells, minute differences or simply by knowing exactly how far to go and how many turns to take.
   
    The crystal library was a vast repository of data crystal covering pretty much every subject conceivable. As well as holding original works many also contained copies of precious ancient texts which would only ever be allowed into the hands of experts and even then only reluctantly. As Ailu passed the rows and rows of shelves of crystal rods glinting in the sun flooding through the giant windows she felt a strong temptation to stop and have a quick look at some of the more interesting of them. She was wandering through a vault holding her favourite form of treasure: knowledge. Making soft unhappy sounds she turned away from all temptations walking towards the information spike with grim, slightly bitter determination.

    The information spike stood in its own wide clearing, with now shelve getting anywhere near it. Nothing was to detract of its majesty. Much like gems naturally occurring spikes weren't much to look at. Usually they were covered with a thick crust of a grey slightly brittle stone, which gave the Litho-Cortex its name. Only through much work could the crystal beneath be uncovered. It took immense care to cut away the stone cover without ruining the crystal beneath it, then the raw crystal had to be polished uncovering its true soft milky nature shining with moving motes of every colour imaginable. At night these polished rocks gave a bright warm light, while during the day they reflected the light of the sun in a dazzling display of coloured flashes. They information net work would never have existed if the crystals had retained this characteristics when removed from their veins, but to humanities later great advantage they lost all of their beauty when mined turning into dull grey pieces of brittle quartz making them unsuitable for the production of jewellery.
   
    The Fountain of Wisdom as the local spike was called, better known as the Bitter Mines to the students, was not only perfectly polished from them outside but carefully cut into a building in itself, maximising the space available for people to access the Litho-Cortex. Inside near the spikes core were the cells fitted with the instruments which were needed by people who did not have the ability to directly interface with the crystal using their mind-force. The places on the outside where exclusively for the people who had the ability to merge their minds with the energy field of the crystal. While Ailu could do that she hated to merge with the information field, so she chose one of the rooms in between where she could use her mind force to manipulate the Litho-Cortex with her mind while seeing the data with her own two eyes.
  
  
  

Project Sky-Shell 023

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 Lost souls

    Sanity, Anira began to suspect, was a concept born out of the minds of people who were never confronted with the hard truths of reality.
  
"Tell me again why we could not simply take an air-liner?" she asked Ailu for about the hundredth time since they had left Khirlon behind them.

    "Because there is no air-liner that goes directly from Khirlon to Nkiska." she answered with a patience that had been hardened by years of work with Anira. "The detour would have taken us weeks."
  
"So instead we spend weeks walking, riding and crawling our way to the coast Nkiska. Brilliant. Especially as you neglected to tell me that you have no idea of how we are going to pass the Nkiskan Sierra which except the Eastern Ranges of the east pole happens to be the highest mountain range in this octant of the world." Anira's agitation got worse with ever further step she took. "The mountains that so casually provide us with the reason why the air-liners can't go there directly from Khirlon." she vented her frustration on a small stone that happened to sit in her path. She kicked it hard and set the little stone stumbling a shallow slope.

    "There are bound to be passes. We just have to find the next trading out-post and join a trade caravan." Ailu said still perfectly calm.
  
"Imagining how horrible it would have been to take a first class cabin back to Kalishan and go to Nkiska from there in another first class cabin."

    "That would have taken six weeks."

 "Ailu, even if we somehow manage to find a trade caravan it will take us at the very least another week just to cross the mountains and then, who knows how long to reach Quskaranam so that we can talk to your new pet's friend." Anira waved around the the little sack in which she transported the Brick they had broke of the Lee the Seed of the Living city back in Khirlon.

    "Who are you calling your pet, human female... thing." Lee protested its voice ringing in their ears. "Your small mind cannot grasp the extent of my structural over-mind. You should be thankful that you brought me with you. I can tell you things no other human has ever heard I will open doors which would otherwise remain forever closed to you, the insights I. . ."
  
"May the final death have mercy on my soul and erase all memories I have from your priceless information Lee." Anira said. "If I ever hear another detail about house reproduction I will. . ."

    "Will the both of you shut up!" Ailu was reaching the limits of her ample reserves of patience. "I have been listening to your crap long enough." Anira was about to say something but Ailu silenced her with a quick warning gesture "No, really do shut up both of you and please stop behaving like idiots. You know perfectly well that we are also not taking the an air-liner so that Kelsheron back in the agency does not know about every step we take. We've been taking the piss for quite a while now and if we do not back up our little holiday with some solid data soon it won't be Kelsheron who'll look like an ass, it will be us." Ailu paused for a moment and glowered at Anira who did not say anything else.
  
  
    It took them five days to cross the mountains and four more to reach the coastal city of Quskaranam where according to Lee one of its sibling seeds had taken root. All they had to do now was to talk to it and find out where along the sky-shell the Living City was crawling. Quskaranam was small wealthy city home to powerful merchant dynasties who had built their polished marble palaces to take full advantage of the many trade routes crossing through Nkiska. A country that was just a thin strip uncomfortably wedged between the sharp mile high crags of the Nkisr mountains to its east and the rocky shore's of the Turning Sea to its west which reached right to the hills.
  
    Millennia ago Nkiska had been a nice if inconsequential agrarian state, until it developed advanced agriculture which lead to an equally impressive salination of their native soil which was then washed into the Turning Sea leaving its inhabitants with an infertile rock strewn beach on which to subsist. What saved Nkiska was that it was located along a few important trade routes. As their soil slowly turned into a barren land they turned from farmers to merchants transforming their once verdant but insignificant nation into the first great merchant empire on the continent.
  
    Quskaranam was had been the unofficial capital of Nkiska for nearly thousand years now it had been specifically built by the rising merchant dynasties to become a neutral ground on which to conduct business. Built in the middle of the first desert that had appeared almost a century ago and since then had started slowly devouring all of the surrounding country the new settlement was put there on one hand for political reasons as no one claimed this territory as their own any more as well as a sign of defiance. The people proud people of Nkiska would not go out without a fight.
  
    Anira followed Ailu who was having an animated conversation with Lee about the peculiarities of Quskaranam into the city which they entered walking along the Diamond Flow boulevard which was one of the two intersecting main streets of the great city. A few centuries after the rise of the Nkiskan traders the merchant kings had lobbied hard for the establishment of an intercontinental channel system which was supposed to establish water ways which would always flow with enough water to guarantee easy transport for even the greatest amounts of merchandise. The Diamond Flow was the first channel which was completely built with Nkiskan money and connected the Turning Sea at its western shore to the Ocean of Tempests far to the east.
  
    At first the Diamond Flow did not open as many possibilities as expected, while everyone was very interested in the trade network hardly any nation was willing to actually pay the enormous sums necessary to build the channels. Only the desert nations to the south showed any kind of enthusiasm which was mainly because they were interested in getting fresh water into their territories, so only the Golden Path that connected the Turning Sea to the far south was established quickly while all other channels took their sweet time in being built. Only after the Inner World was re-discovered one and a half thousand years ago and that one of the easiest ways into that wild untamed and most importantly unexploited world was found in the centre of the turning sea was the great channel network actually built. Once the great work was no longer driven by reason but instead by greed it only took a little under two hundred years until all the important nations were interconnected by the water way.
  
    Now in the present as air-liners were turning ever more common place with each passing year only did the importance of the artificial stream decline but only slowly, while the merchant dynasties of Nkiska were already heavily investing in advancing air-ship technology.
    When asked what their secret was the merchant lords always replied that while most other people of the world were still fundamentally stuck following their traditions very much like the common beasts heedless whether its behaviour did it good or ill, they were singularly interested in effectiveness and nothing else. There traditions ancient traditions had turned their home into a desert and nearly destroyed them and their nation. Only through a radical change did they save themselves.
  
    Of all the cultures Anira had seen during her early years as an agent in training she found the Nkiskan's to be one of the most interesting cultures. Certainly the one that had influenced her in her growth as a person the most. While it would never have occurred to Anira even in her dreams to become a citizen, she did admire their almost ruthless pragmatism. All of the merchant houses were beholden to the state who took most of the profits re investing it into the Great Projects, like the intercontinental channels or the large shipyards. To this end the state appointed freshly recruited talent into competing houses who fought for the honour of being the best, the most efficient. Rebirth was only ever granted to the successful and the higher up one climbed the career ladder the more responsibility was loaded unto the shoulders of the executives. At the end of their natural lives or when ever an economic disaster struck all of the people from the bottom up went through audit. The simple worker was usually sent to training and then reassigned, those higher up were also set to a different merchant house, while the top directors went through forced rebirth and had to start at the bottom of the food chain again to realign their perspective.
  
    That system was far to stressful for Anira who preferred not to be responsible to an entire nations. The way she saw it she was working for herself who owed loyalty only to the Free Agency and her mission. What mattered the most after all was said and done was the result and no one had such a fierce devotion to the outcome of a task than Nkiskan people. Anira had assimilated much of their way to view the world always asking herself if there were no other better ways to solve a problem.
  
    During the passing weeks she had become increasingly irritable annoying herself and her companions with increasingly regular attacks of passive aggression for reasons that had so far eluded her. A fact which made her even more angry. But now that she was passing through the immaculate streets of Quskaranam she suddenly knew what was wrong. She was wasting her time. While it had been fun to travel first class in the world's most exclusive air-liners, this was a kind of amusement that had quickly grown stale. Anira, as much as she disliked her ridiculous 'fact finding' mission, could not relax knowing that she had a task at hand that she was not really taking seriously. She had wasted enough time to make Kelsheron look like an idiot back home, but now she was reaching a point where she was starting to feel like an idiot herself. In the end she had found data suggesting the existence of a secret society that had so far avoided the Free Agency's ever present gaze which was a feat impressive enough to be taken seriously by both the Free Agency and Anira.
  
    Anira looked at her empty left hand, balled it into a fist and quickened her step catching up to Ailu who was looking slightly deranged having a lively debate with a brick in a sack. Lee and her were still showing off their vast knowledge of the local culture, with Ailu mostly mentioning the social aspects of the nation while Lee was pointing out the elaborate ways the houses were decorated to display at a glance which function they fulfilled.
  
    "When was the last time we had contact with HQ?" Anira asked.
  
"It's been a few weeks, last time was before we got into the air-liner to Khirlon." Said Ailu.

    "Time to get back into contact then. Tell them that we have found hot lead that we are following. . ."

"We are?"

    ". . .which will probably lead to some international type A Information."

"We will?"

    "While you are at it get our data guys to look carefully at the Nomad Empire. I want them to report all kinds of strange patterns that have been emerging in the past two three years which apparently are leading no where."
  
Ailu was tempted for a moment to call Anira crazy, but she saw the intensity in her friends eyes which was only ever present when a case had caught her full attention. While Ailu had not the least idea what it was that had so suddenly changed Anira's mind, she had worked with her long enough to trust her friends intuition which had been honed to such an extent by centuries of experience that it sometimes bordered on the supernatural.

"And" Anira continued "please find out where we can find captain Kyara Shevin, we well need a faster transport soon."

    "Sure thing. Want me to set up a control room here too?" Ailu asked.
  
"I don't think this will be necessary, something tells me that we are not going to be staying long in any place in the foreseeable future."

    "Aye. That'll take me a few hours. Are you going to talk with the other seed while I am calling home?"
  
"Yes. I'll take Lee to its cousin and have a chat with it. We'll meet later in the. . . know any good hotels here?"

    "The Serpent and the Crane in the Merchant's Square will do fine. It is small and not as luxurious as the others we have been to but it is very comfortable and most importantly we can have a nice chat there without having to wonder how many merchant houses are eaves dropping and we should not trigger any alarms when conjuring a privacy bubble." Ailu's knowledge about virtually every city kept surprising Anira. No matter where they went she always knew where to find a good secure hotel and how much the local powers might be taking an interest in wandering agents. Anira always wondered how she did it.
  
"Sounds perfect. See you guys later." Ailu said, handing Lee to Anira.

    "So Lee? Where is that friend of yours?" Anira asked holding the brick inside the sack at her eye level.
  
"Sea View 32, is a distant relative. No one ever said anything about friends." Lee said.

    "Not friends? Lee if you start a shouting match with that 'relative' of yours I swear that I will throw you out of a window. A closed one."
  
"By the foundations in the Sky-Shell what kind of ivy is crawling up your walls honey? Do I look like the kind of structure that would start a fight? I was merely informing you that Sea View 32 and me are not close. We hardly knew each other up home. That's all there is to it. So don't go expecting that you walk right through his doors and it will all be a warm family reunion and that you will get any special treatment." Lee replied "Shouting match. Really."

 "Just making sure. You were rather vocal about the people of Khirlon."

     "You were quite vocal your self back there and you did not have to live with them for decades. You think they are horrible creatures. Me? I know!"
   
 "Sorry Lee. I did not mean to offend you. It is only quite important that we find out where your 'mother' is sooner rather than later."

     "Even if Sea View 32 does not tell us. Not that he won't but just in case. You know you can plant me in the ground anywhere and I'll grow back into a proper building. It won't take long and I will be able to tell you myself."
   
 Anira sighed. When they had taken Lee with them it had promised that it would prove of enormous value to them alone for its ability to grow a house out of every soil imaginable. It had sounded like a brilliant idea until they needed a shelter and Lee had told them that a simple one room shack would take about two weeks to grow and that mansions would take a bit longer.

Still Anira indulged herself. "And how long, pray tell, would that take?"

    "Not long. I would have to take root and grow into a decent sized well established structure. Depending on the soil and the neighbourhood that will take about three but nor more than six months. This is prime city material so I'd say three months it is.'
  
"Three months? That's all."

    "You try growing into a house in that time."
  
  
  
    *                         *                          *                           *                           *                        *
  
    While Anira and Lee were looking for the local seed of the Living City Ailu had gone looking for a local access point into the Litho-Cortex, the mineral network which ran through all of the planets mantle, it's crystalline veins breaking out of the soil of both the outer and the inner world in irregular intervals. When ever the veins of this vast crystalline mycelium came close to the surface the grew into fangs breaking out of the soil. In some very rare cases these points even grew out of the waters of the oceans. While these structures had been know since before the dawn of written history the Litho-Cortex itself had only been discovered a thousand years ago. That the net work could also be used to transmit information with only a short delay from any surface point to any other was a discovery of the past century that had led to a slow but inexorable evolution of how data could be transmitted. The biggest advantage over traditional methods were the speed of transmission and the security it provided.
  
    Quskaranam had been built on a site that had a large number of natural Litho-Cortex spikes to which the Merchant houses had added further artificial interface points the moment the technology for doing so had become available. Always following their maxim to make everything ever more efficient they had thrown themselves onto the new discovery which resulted in massive profits and the first Trade War.
  
    Ailu was looking for a place where could interface with a natural spike in privacy. While it was highly illegal and officially impossible, Ailu was pretty sure that the artificial spikes would lead her messages not only to the Free Agency head quarters but also to some merchant prince's data vault. The natural spikes were, so far, pretty much impossible to break into without anyone noticing it. The only way to intercept a private message over a natural line with no one noticing was to actually dig deep into the earth and fiddle with the one and only crystal vein that was carrying the information. And while there was new type of thief emerging on the world who specialised in mining data it was impossible to do it close to the natural spikes without alerting the users and not even the most brilliant data miner knew what kind of information his painstakingly exposed crystal vein would yield. So far they went into their hide outs in the depths of the planets mantel hacking the crystal channels hoping for the big catch. A catch that thus far had never contained any Free Agency secrets as they only ever sent encrypted information. The day that someone stole a secret from the Agencies crystal transmissions had yet to come.