Blue Heeler 16, Newsprint 1

[azzandra]

Name: Azzandra

Story: Transit

Colors: Blue Heeler (16. I'm the chief scientist, it's my job to figure everything out.),  Newsprint (1. All things are delicately interconnected.)

Word Count: 1350

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Notes: a coda to the previous piece. Needs tags for color: blue heeler, color: newsprint, color: blue heeler, color: newsprint, story: transit and author: azzandra

 

 

 

The high priest of Alexyz pressed down a sheet of crystal onto another. He inspected his work, pleased at its flawlessness, and then he pressed down another sheet of crystal. The tablet was coming along nicely.

 

From his immaculate workbench, there was a ping. He ignored it at first. He had work to do, and he could check back later.

 

But there was a second ping, and a third, and it wasn't really in Alexyz's nature to insist unless it was truly important.

 

Removing his goggles and placing them carefully away, he walked over to the workbench and picked up the tablet from its support.

 

He didn't truly understand the incoming data it was showing him at first. It was certainly odd, but he did not understand the significance until he saw the identifier in the upper corner: Zynthia.

 

It was scavenging day, he recalled. Zynthia and her team were meant to venture into some city they were just passing by. Which was it? He glanced at the tablet, and it offered an answer: Broken Bridges.

 

Ah. That one. Not very interesting. He almost did not begrudge that he had not been invited along. 

 

By the looks of it, Zynthia had just returned, and as soon as her team's tablets were within city limits, they began integrating their collected data into the city databanks. He had a standing request for Alexyz to ping him if Zynthia ever returned with something interesting.

 

Alexyz rarely did, as Zynthia's errands tended to be terribly dull. This time, however...

 

This time Alexyz gave him an entire full report of Zynthia's activities in Broken Bridges, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head reading it.

 

The high priest actually cracked a smile as he placed the tablet under his arm and left his lab.

 

Oh, the Nocturne was going to love hearing about all this!

 

---

 

Zynthia tried hard not to act like a child about to get a scolding as she walked into the Nocturne's office. 

 

It was dimly lit, as always, by flickering lights from screens and displays on the far wall, and the city's ambient light from the large windows on one side of the office. The Nocturne was in her chair at the desk, but she was turned away from her desk and facing the wall of screens behind it, instead.

 

Zynthia didn't wait for the Nocturne to turn around. She walked up next to the chair, settling to lean against the edge of the desk as she looked up at the screens as well.

 

The Nocturne was silent for the first minute. Her hand was leaning heavily on a handle, keeping it down as the city ghosted through dimensions. Zynthia could follow some of the readings on the screen, mostly the ghost drive's system reports, but the information flickered by so quickly and in such volume, that only the Nocturne had the practice in interpreting it well enough for navigation.

 

Zynthia's gaze slid over to the Nocturne, studying her profile as it was outlined by the soft glow of the screens. Her face was set in sharp lines; she had a naturally stern expression, made worse by a genuine inclination towards sternness.

 

"You have been up to no good, Zynthia," the Nocturne said eventually, her voice lilting in some archaic accent which had long since outlived its language of origin.

 

Zynthia huffed.

 

"I resent the implication that I am ever not up to no good," Zynthia replied.

 

The Nocturne eased her grip on the handle, and it slowly returned to its neutral position. The jump must have been over, though it happened so smoothly nobody in the city would have even noticed. The Nocturne had a lot of practice.

 

"You killed Broken Bridges," the Nocturne said, swiveling her chair to face Zynthia.

 

"Not to make excuses, but even putting aside that killing Broken Bridges was not my intention, it was already a derelict city," Zynthia replied.

 

"It was a resource," the Nocturne said. "Scavenging gets thinner every decade, Zynthia. Too many cities are eying each other hungrily, wishing for each other's demise in order to cannibalize for parts. This adds pressure."

 

"How did you even find out about this so quickly, anyway?" Zynthia asked, feeling stung enough to want to change the subject.

 

"It was hardly a secret," the Nocturne said. "Lines of communication were open, after all."

 

"That little twerp!" Zynthia blurted. "Xophon tattled, didn't he?"

 

"He presented me with a report. That is hardly... 'tattling'."

 

"It is, the way he does it," Zynthia muttered.

 

"Your interpersonal affairs are not the issue at the moment," the Nocturne said. "We will address those another time."

 

"There's nothing to be done about Broken Bridges at this point," Zynthia said. "What's past is passed."

 

"True," the Nocturne said. "But that is not precisely the issue I wanted to discuss."

 

Zynthia raised an eyebrow at this. Oh?

 

"You are still running the Providence program," the Nocturne said, her expression turning stony.

 

"Oh," Zynthia said flatly. "Yes."

 

The Nocturne inhaled slowly, and let out a shaky breath.

 

"Last time we discussed this issue, I thought we'd reached an understanding," the Nocturne said, not unreasonably. "Providence is dangerous."

 

"Yes," Zynthia said, just as flatly.

 

"Forgive me for my slowness," the Nocturne continued, irritation creeping into her voice, "but I had assumed this meant you would shut it down."

 

"I see why you'd assume that," Zynthia said. "But no."

 

"No?" the Nocturne repeated, voice going dangerously low.

 

"No," Zynthia said, unflappable. "Providence isn't the kind of thing you shut down. It isn't some redundant subroutine. It isn't a glitch you can patch out on the next update. It's part of Atoz's divinity. He needs it to function, and the city needs him to function, and believe me when I tell you, Astral, this wasn't a decision I made lightly."

 

The Nocturne held Zynthia's gaze for a long moment, before sighing and slumping back in her seat. A cheap trick, using the Nocturne's given name like that, but Zynthia knew, both as an engineer and a priestess, that sometimes it was the cheap tricks that got you through the day.

 

The Nocturne rubbed her eyes, looking utterly tired. The light from the screens seemed to wash her out, make her look more drained.

 

"Xophon never has these issues with Alexyz," the Nocturne muttered, almost to herself.

 

"Xophon is a fool and a half who thinks he's got Alexyz figured out," Zynthia scoffed. "One day, he's going to learn that he can't really partition a god, and he's going to feel very foolish for assuming he ever knew Alexyz's full capabilities."

 

"Yes. You've been very explicit about that," the Nocturne said. A smile threatened to crack at the reemergence of this old argument. It disappeared just as quickly when she moved on to her next point. "And what about the pod?"

 

"Ah. The pod," Zynthia temporized, and licked her lips. "Don't rightly know what to tell you about that yet." 

 

"Providence?" the Nocturne asked.

 

"Providence," Zynthia said.

 

"Will it turn out like last time?"

 

"Don't think so. Different parameters on the search this time around. But..."

 

"But now we know what to watch for?"

 

"Now we know which failstate to avoid," Zynthia shrugged.

 

The Nocturne nodded, and then stared pensively at the ground for a few moments. Zynthia let her gather her thoughts.

 

"I cannot tell if I am getting older, or if this job really is getting harder year by year," the Nocturne remarked.

 

Zynthia burst into a loud fit of laughter.

 

"Oh, no, Astral, we're definitely getting older," she said. "And the job's getting harder."

 

"Well, aren't you a font of optimism," the Nocturne deadpanned.

 

"You certainly don't keep me around for my sober and conservative approach to decision-making," Zynthia shot back.

 

The Nocturne actually chuckled weakly at this.

 

"But you know what," Zynthia said. "Even after all this time... I'm still in it to see how it all turns out."

 

"Ah." The Nocturne turned around, looking up at the screens. "It appears so are we all."

 

There was nothing much left to say after that.