If someone were looking in on my world from the outside, they’d likely think I’m done with my old life. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong. I’m no longer wandering. I remain in my newly forged home. I avoid using the skills Jean-Paul taught us. Not that I used those skills much in my life wandering. No, I’ve come to a simple realization. My life as it was before we unexisted a city was not really a life at all. And now, I hope, I can forge a life anew.
After I saved the world from the egomaniac who thought himself above the rest of humanity, I thought my life would come easy. I slowly walked my way to the east, to the city of Pensacola. I thought it would help. I thought it was the next step. After all, that’s what I had seen out of place when I was wandering towards the Knight-Regent. And Jim and J-P always taught us that coincidences are never mere coincidence. Of course, in this one instance, it didn’t help. I found my way to the ruins of that bank. The server was destroyed, so tracking the money would be much more difficult. The boxes were fine, but the Knights’ box had only a series of books within. I took them, of course, as much to keep them from surviving Knights as to learn the secrets within myself. And I returned to my jeep. With no plan. No next step. Nothing.
I found my way to an enclave. To a bar. I don’t know how many days I was there. I had skills people find useful, and materials to keep myself drowning in the shitty moonshine the enclave I stopped in provided. It was here I met Linus and Petra. Linus was a man with a plan. He was originally from New Orleans, and he knew there were many who would want to see the hole in reality for themselves. He needed three things: Protection for his groups, a place to stay when there, and connections. Petra wasn’t a trustworthy sort. One day, while Linus was telling me his plan for a tour group, she overheard. She had friends of the unsavory variety. She was willing to help. To this day, I’m not certain why. And so, we decided to try it out. After all, what was the risk of spending a day making a safehouse near the Pontchartrain.
When we began, it wasn’t a bar. It was more of a walled hotel. A comfortable and safe place to stay overnight for many guests. I even made sure it had a balcony to look out at the incomprehensible hole, for those who wanted to see it before the tour. And for myself, I made the basement my own hideaway. To the rest of my group the basement has a single purpose: the Jeep is parked there to power the whole hotel. But as time passed, I made it my own.
Linus’s tour, of course, was only partly correct. None of our secret societies were mentioned, and it was all blamed on the cults, but beyond that it was a beautiful retelling of the rise and fall of the gods. Eventually, our group of three was joined by Katie, who turned our hotel into a full fledged inn, serving food and drink to the guests. And to myself, of course. It wouldn’t be a sustainable model, we have no food production ourselves, except for Petra’s friends. They provided more than just protection, especially after I began to make our friendship more profitable for the raiders. And I drink.
Last evening, Linus brought in a new group. Now, as afternoon approached, the tour group leaves to see the hole. I smile at Katie. “Alright, you think you can handle closing everything out without me?” I ask, already knowing the answer. She will be fine. And I’ll still double check her work later. She’s always fine. And I always check.
“Yeah, go ahead and be mysterious,” she jokes.
I crack a smile. Grabbing a pint glass from behind the bar, I pour myself a glass of whiskey for the next several hours of work. I don’t want to come back here until the evening is well underway. Taking a sip before leaving, I give Katie a nod and another smile. “Do well.”
“I’ll try,” she replies, shaking her head. She’s well aware I always recheck her work. I hope she knows it’s nothing to do with her, but either way, she mostly just is a tad judgy. A good reaction.
Leaving the main room, the bar and dining area, behind me, I head through the building to the back door. Sliding a section of the wall away, I unlock the door to the basement and push it open. Turning on the stairwell’s light, I enter and slide the wall back into place. Then, taking another sip, I walk down the stairs to my basement.
I look over my filing cabinets. It took me several months of trips to Mobile, and longer than it probably should have. After all, I could only make the trips when there were no guests in our hotel, otherwise people would notice the power not working. But it’s all here. See, from the outside looking in, it might seem I’m no longer a Wanderer. But my wandering will never end. And while my purpose might be less clear, I still work to find it.
My work is simple. The books I took from the safety deposit box in Pensacola weren’t particularly interesting, but were journals that could help someone reform the Knights. Descriptions of rituals and positions that could, in the wrong hands, do real damage to the future of the world. And that was one simple place that stood out from two small boxes on one shelf. There are hundreds of them, each and every box of fiche could hold something as vital to keep out of the hands of the enemy. And so I found a new way to operate. As a wanderer, I never was alone. I may no longer have my wandering family, but I can still do what Jim taught us with his deeds during the quiet war: As long as they remain ignorant of your purposes, anyone can be an ally. And with my new unwitting allies in prevention of a new Quiet War, I have been gathering up the dangers of the world.
And so, I pull up the next box. Builders, East Texas. As I go through the box, I drink. It makes things easier. In the world of the Builders, things were less obvious than dealing with the Knights. The knights, in all their cleverness of tinkering and war, never were bureaucratically gifted. Their big actions stood out like a sore thumb, if you knew where to look. But the builders, even when many of their predictive models started to fail, still were entrenched in bureaucracy. Almost as much as we were. And with the fourteen, they could work the system with even more nuance. Any small disturbance was important. Like, for instance, this apartment building. The owner of the building on record is a small company that is loosely connected to a Builder. Not noteworthy in and of itself, us secret society types are often times wealthy and own property. However, it was owned prior to the company’s purchase by a different Builder. That is curious. More curious is the renter of apartment 103. By all accounts, a random person. Herman Jones. Other than the odd name, everything checks out. Prior to Herman, it was rented by Natalie Wilson. Before that, Paul Timms. Before that, Alexandra Mitchell. Four people, various ages and backgrounds, forty years. And yet, all of them have remarkably similar signatures and habits. Same intervals between paying rent, same deposit times in their bank accounts, same timings of paying taxes. The letters, while different, have many of the same idiosyncrasies. If it was a box of the Knights, I probably wouldn’t think anything of it. But something in my gut is telling me this is something more. Perhaps even one of the Fourteen. And if that’s the case, it cannot get into anyone else’s hands. Even broken, a lot can be salvaged from a hyperintelligent AI-powered supercomputer. It seems I’m sending our less-than-savory friends to Houston this time. I write down the address. That’s the one for me. And, given I need one for them as well, I dig through the other files about Houston. They’ll want gas, batteries, guns, and booze. I find a warehouse that is likely to have the first three stored within. I write down its address as well. Knowing the security around most Builder warehouses, I put a note of warning down. I also pull out our Builder security file. I have a few for each of the three secret organizations, a generalized description of what sort of things to expect when breaking into a location. They are the only files down here that are on paper, as opposed to old, reliable microfiche. No mention of the secret societies at all in it, of course. They aren’t for me. I prefer the fiche. We wanderers make these files for our accomplices. So they don’t get caught unawares. Putting the pair of addresses with the file, I finish off my glass. If the grandfather clock by the wall is correct, evening is here. Petra should be back from her last excursion by now. Taking a deep breath and putting the file under my arm, I make my way out from the basement.
Sliding the wall over once more, I turn off the lights in the basement. Returning to the hall, I lock the basement door and slide the wall back into place. It’s as much about aesthetics as it is about keeping my basement my own. An extra door would just make people curious about where it goes, after all. I make my way back to the main room. Sure enough, Petra’s relaxing with a meal and a drink at a table. Heading behind the bar, I pour myself a quick drink. Katie continues to look judgmentally at me, but not so much about the drinking as about interfering with her space. I give her a shrug before heading over to Petra’s table.
“Petra,” I say as I sit down, “How was today’s run?”
Petra smiles and shrugs. “Fine enough. Nothing special, though. You?”
I shrug right back. “You know, the usual. Wasting our liquor and looking at the big picture.”
“Anything worth knowing?” she asks.
I smile and take a drink. “Always. You planning on talking to our friends any time soon?”
“Probably.” That’s a yes. She just doesn’t like committing to anything. Probably paranoia related.
I toss the file across the table. “For our friends. It’s got two addresses. One’s a warehouse that they would likely find quite useful for them. The other’s an apartment for my collection.”
She looks at the files and the addresses, then nods. “Houston. I think we have friends who will head that way. Are we going to have any trouble with them wanting to keep your apartment stuff?”
I shake my head. “We shouldn’t, I don’t think. It’ll just be some tech, and probably broken tech at that. Maybe some books, but I suspect most of those were files on the computer.”
“Alright. How much space are we talking about?”
“Assume they’ll need to bring their pickup. Or a van. If they’re doing both in one trip, they’ll probably want both and some.”
“Really?”
I smirk. “Assuming it hasn’t been looted already, that warehouse is more than a vanful of toys that I suspect they’ll want all of. And the apartment is its own vanful of things that I want all of. So, either multiple trips or multiple transport vehicles.” I take a breath and a drink. “That doable?” I ask.
She thinks for a moment. Then she looks me in the eyes. She wants to make sure I’m serious about the warehouse. I am. “Yes,” she tells me. And with that, another danger to the world will be safely in my basement.
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