Chapter 6 - Way Out
It is with a saddened heart that I’m reaching out to let you know about an important update to our family. Today, in the inner-city Manifestation Zone, a bright, valuable young Murasaki employee passed tragically in an accident during a standard Manifestation Ceremony with Murasaki employees. It is with a heavy heart I write to you all so you would hear about this directly from me.
It is times like this I am reminded most of the importance of Murasaki values. Endurance. Resolve. Unity. Only together, we persist. Together, we can adapt against the adversity beyond our walls.>
I scowl, closing the email on my tablet and stare into the black screen. I can’t stomach reading any more. Might as well be the CEO’s own son, the way the message goes on, except they had no idea who that handler was until someone passed them the message of his death.
Why are they acting like the handler’s death was an accident?
“Conrad, you 'right?”
I glance up at Jason, a concerned half-smile on his broad face. He’s still wearing that brand new suit from earlier. “Nothing, just thinking about what happened today,” I reply, tucking my tablet under the table but keeping it within my palms.
Meiko sits at his side, pushing another shot in my direction. “Try and take your mind off it.”
I highly doubt there was anything that could clear my thoughts. Every pause in conversation I can’t help but look back at my tablet again, re-reading the message I’d been dreading now for several weeks. Manifestation has been scheduled less than a week from now, sooner than I expected. The email sits just below the message from the CEO in my inbox from when I last plugged into the intranet.
Jason drags both hands down his face, accentuating the bags under his eyes. “I’ll be glad to sleep again, now it’s over. They already sent me an email with new contract details, pay scale, everything. They move so quickly.”
“Do you know what section of the generators you’ll be working in?” asks Meiko.
I pick up the shot, downing it in one resolute motion. The sugary sweetness of whatever artificial flavor they added hides the burn of alcohol. The table beside us is playing a card game; the next one over has arms-locked and drinks-in-the-air as they sing a company ballad. As I let the noise of the crowd grow indistinct, the wash of voices and laughter and conversation fades into white noise. I can still hear the growl of the Panthera somewhere in my thoughts, the screams of the Saguinus. I can see blood and violet-white, hear the electrical crack and… black. There is the scrap of claws against metal, the Ursus dragging each step against cold iron as it walks.
And scrolling names, one after another. With one finger, I spin the shot glass on its edge in front of me.
“... Conrad…”
I start and look up, the mention of my name surfacing me from my thoughts.
Meiko tugs Harris’ uniform as he joins us, dragging him down to her to explain something I don’t care to try to overhear. I can guess it. He frowns, neatens his collar and worms in next to me at the booth, trapping me in. I don’t lean into him as he wraps an arm around my waist.
“Rough day?” he asks sympathetically, leaning close to my ear to be heard over the noise of the bar.
“You could say that,” I spit back testily.
He grunts and withdraws his hand. “Like that, huh? I thought we were celebrating Jason?”
“We are.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
I don’t have the energy to bite back my retort. “Are you kidding me?”
Harris shifts, glancing at Meiko and Jason, then lowers his voice. “What has been up with you recently?”
Meiko raises her voice, cutting between us. “Harris, don’t. She’s nervous about her own manifestation. Today didn’t help.”
Harris leans backward, placing his elbow on the back of the booth. “I get it. I really do. It happened at my older brother’s manifestation as well. All we could see was half the sensors on the platform explode into sparks, whatever was manifested they subdued, and the bids… it was insane, those recruiters really wanted him. But it happens, probably more often than they tell us…”
“Isn’t that wrong?” I spit out.
“It happens sometimes. A bad roll of the dice.”
“Conrad,” begs Meiko, her eyes gentle as she looks at me, “I know you’re worried-”
I continue over her. “Isn’t it all kind of just… fucked up? That some number of us will go up there and manifest some sort of walking weapon? That the moment we step on that stage our value is fixed?”
Meiko seems almost on the verge of tears, her hands nervously twisting.
“Meiko’s trying to be helpful. Don’t start at her as well,” snipes Jason defensively.
“You’re over-reacting. We all go through it. Just settle down,” adds Harris, giving me a cold jostle. I stiffen and exhale my breath sharply through my nose. Harris turns his attention to Jason. “Did they send you a new contract already? Pretty crisp, right?”
Jason eagerly takes the chance to change topic, his hand resting on Meiko’s thigh and giving her a reassuring squeeze. “I know, I’m surprised it happened so quick. Do you think they prepare it all before hand?”
Harris leans forward. “Just wait till they assign you an apartment. You have no idea how sick I was of living with my younger brothers. I don’t think I could ever go back.”
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I stand, staring at the table between us. “I need to go to the toilet. Let me out.”
Harris gives me an annoyed glance, biting back the words I know he truly wants to say. “No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do. Let me out.”
He moves, drawing me into him as I brush past him. “Don’t do this,” he hisses. “I get it, but don’t take it out on Jason. We can fight later if that’s what you want to do.”
I give him one glance before brushing past. I mouth Meiko an apology as I leave, and she gives me a weak smile. I don’t go to the toilet, and I don’t come back.
Somehow, I end up making my way back to the lab. I think I just want to smell something familiar, lose myself in the meditative process of drawing, and my outlet is unfortunately Dorrien lab equipment rather than my own belongings.
The strange emptiness of the lobby is the first sign that something isn’t quite right. It takes me a moment to consciously place what my instincts notice immediately.
I pause and duck back into the darkness of the street, keeping back from the lighting around the glass entry doors and pulling the collar of my jacket around the sides of my face. The security desk is conspicuously empty, and there is a man hovering over the turnstiles in the depths of the lobby. He stretches a hand and a huge theraphosid symbiont, I have no clue what genus, steps from his wrist and hunkers down on one of the sensors. Vibrant blue markings on its eight jointed-legs flare to life, then the turnstile swings freely and the man scoops his tarantula up again and passes beyond the lobby into the building.
I barely hesitate, then sneak after, passing by the desk and bending over the workstation to look at the security feed. The cameras are dead. I inspect the same turnstile the stranger used, the teeth still swinging free. Impish curiosity drowns out every dark cloud in my mind in a rush, or maybe those shots are finally doing their job.
I pass through the compromised turnstile without swiping my own ID, tucking into a corner as I find the stranger at the elevators. His hand is stretched again to let his symbiont contact the buttons there as well. Blue energy flashes through its limbs, and the lights above count down the elevator returning to the lobby. I take a deep breath and step into the hallway.
“Hey, hold the elevator!” I call out.
He turns calmly, not at all like I’ve caught him in the act of something improper. His hand withdraws from the elevator call buttons, his theraphosid gripping his wrist with its long, jointed legs. “You’re working late,” he replies with casual disinterest.
His skin is swarthy, like he sees actual sunlight. The sides of his head are shaved, but the hair on top is longer than mine, braided into a single coffee-brown plait that just reaches between his shoulder blades. He’s wearing scrubs like every other lab worker, but they just barely fit over his broad shoulders and chest, the sleeves rolled up to reveal lean forearms. He’s a touch shorter than me, maybe a little older, all compact muscles unlike any lab worker I’ve ever seen before. I jog up to him, trying to imitate the slight breathless rush of grad-students who are in and out at the late hours trying to make progress on their research. As I get closer, I notice a second symbiont gripping the outer helix of his right ear, a Vespa hornet, maybe? He’s not working alone? And which one is his? Surely the theraphosid, given his obvious familiarity.
I pause at his side, waiting for the elevator. When it opens, he gestures for me to go. I nervously tuck some of my gray-streaked hair behind one ear. “I’ve never seen you before?” I test.
He doesn’t even look at me, his voice perfectly mild. “It’s a big building.”
I hold my breath, feeling my heart race. At the side of his head, the Vespa’s wings tremble in a high pitched buzz, crawling down his ear to spin its sharply pointed thorax around his ear lobe.
This is what that HR meeting had been about. He’s the one they were looking for, I’m sure of it!
Being here with him can only end badly, but I’m already fucked. Next week, at my own manifestation ceremony, there are only two outcomes for me - either I end up like the boy and his Panthera today, snapped up by the highest bidder while paper-pushers work out loopholes for offloading a serf. I’ve never heard it happen, but I’m convinced the legal teams know ways of doing it. Or, I’m another cog at the bottom rungs of society, doomed to follow Harris and Jason into servitude. Eventually, my mischief will catch up to me in my insipid attempts to feel anything authentic, and I’ll find out what happens to serfs when they can’t get fired but have outworn their employment. So what’s left, but to take the biggest gamble I’ve ever taken in my life?
The surge of adrenaline from the taste of freedom is unlike any rush I’ve ever had before, I don’t even know what he’s after, if he’ll let me tag along? This is insane… and yet, I’m struggling to keep a giddy grin off my face.
“What floor?” he murmurs, waiting for me.
I take a breath. “It depends.”
That catches his interest, and he turns slowly to me. His theraphosid climbs his arm a little higher, drawing my eyes back to those forearms and wrapping its eight legs around the rolled edge of his sleeve. His eyes are the most brilliant blue color I’ve ever seen, almost chemical cobalt blue. His jaw has the ghost of a five o’clock shadow, a muscle in his cheek flexing as if he’s clenching his teeth.
“I’m sorry?” His manner is so calm and flawless. I’m in awe of how easily he gives off this aura of perfect normality despite having just broken in.
“You’re not from here.”
Those cobalt eyes suddenly flash and look straight at me for the first time, his hand repositioning to his pocket. His shoulders are still relaxed, but I’m suddenly aware of the danger that comes with having his attention, how exposed this gambit leaves me, and how much power he has over the next few moments. I need to make myself valuable and fast.
I take a breath. “Whatever you did with security, there’s a second shift around midnight. The late guard has a Canis who’ll be able to track your scent if you are still in the building. They won’t even bother trying to get the cameras back on, invertebrate symbionts are rare at Murasaki,” I garble out, less confident than I was hoping.
A single brow arches, that muscle in his cheek shifts with controlled tension. He rolls his jaw slowly as if he’s considering the situation.
“Tell me what you are after and I’ll help,” I gamble, putting all my cards on the table. My heart flutters in my chest, equal parts excitement and fear. I’ve never felt so alive, I almost need to remind myself to breathe.
The Vespa in his ear buzzes, and his eyes slowly disengage from mine. He opens his palm, leaning against the elevator with his hand positioned by the buttons, as if it’s just a casual gesture, but his theraphosid purposefully strolls down his arm again and sets to work on the panel. He’s so lean I can see the branching veins from the back of his hand spidering up his forearm. His knuckles are splashed with pale scars.
The moments before he decides to reply stretch. Finally, “why would I be after anything?” There is the rumble of a growl in his voice now, an edge of impatience and everything except the innocence the words proclaim.
“Because you’ve turned the cameras off, and you walked through the turnstiles without swiping in. You wear scrubs like a hospital, but not a lab. We don’t care about hygiene here; it’s for chemical protection, sleeves down.” I hesitate, cautious about what I give away, and finally nod at his hand. “And you touch every piece of technology you interact with. You’ve got a symbiont riding with you hacking our systems?”
The elevator clicks and begins to rise without him touching a single button. His symbiont returns to his arm, job complete.
The edge of something dark flashes through his eyes again. “And what if I decide to kill you for what you’ve seen?” I glance at his second hand, perched over his hip pocket still. His fingers are deceptively relaxed, every inch of him the poised tension between casual disregard and coiled readiness.
I raise my eyebrow. “Seems a bit sloppy.”
The corner of his mouth twists into a sardonic curl that he barely suppresses a moment later. “Is that so?” The disinterest in his voice has a hint of amusement now.
“Where we going?” I ask.
He takes a single breath, withdrawing his hand and rolling his sleeves down. I’ve won. “Lu lab. Level 32.”
Vespa out of the way. It means wasp. It's a wasp (specifically a hornet if you care).
and fits into a named Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family and Genus. Each level groups animals that are more and more similar to each other, and has fewer and fewer animals than the last, like a pyramid (but upside down, it gets more specific as you go down the list). There are more complicated like 'sub levels' as well - but don't think about it. Anyway, this is called a Hierarchical Classification scheme and all living things fit into it (not just animals).
Homo... then Homo sapiens. See where the italics started... But they all generally have some Latin-y sounding rules to how the names at different levels work.
Family name. This sort of word relationship (I dunno the right term here, like rules for how words turn into other words - like making words plural. Edit - 'INFLECTION' is the general term for this, thank you comments!) is not in super common use, and I'd probably only expect someone who did a certain amount of biology to really recognize it intuitively. You might know it from words like Canids (dogs, Family = Canidae), Equids (horses, Family = Equidae) and maybe Mustelids (badgers, weasels etc, Family = Mustelidae). You also might recognize the pattern from canine -> canid -> canidae. I dunno Latin or like, English-word rules, don't come at me too hard to explain how this works (although if you do I may copy paste it here). Anyway, theraphosids are tarantulas.