Schedule Update
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"Rise," Ren said. "What's your plan now?"
Bone Saw stood. The obsidian skull caught the grafting room light from every angle, the surface of it total black, the eye sockets holding two steady points of red that had settled after the transformation into something permanent. No skin growing back. No muscle filling in. The face was the skull and the skull was the face, and the red light in the sockets was what looked at you when he looked at you.
Ren noted this and updated the file.
"I will do as Father wishes," Bone Saw said.
Ren looked at him. "You don't have your own plan?"
"That was before." Bone Saw was quiet for a moment. "I thought about going after Malvick directly. Just walking into the Imperial Military and forcing the confrontation. I know how that ends now. You hit a wall that size head first, you break."
"And now?"
"I can feel something. A direction. What Father wants, what Father is building." He considered how to say the next part. "I think all of us can. It's not words. It's more like knowing which way a current is going."
Ren filed that. Every Abomination could sense his objective. In combat that removed the need for instruction entirely. They would already know where he needed them before he said it.
More effective than I expected, he thought.
"You're patient now," Ren said.
"Father has a plan. I'll wait."
Ren was quiet for a moment, looking at the skull. The red light in the sockets held steady.
"Then stay here," he said. "You'll be with me. I need someone close and you need somewhere to be."
"Yes, Father."
"I'll get you something to cover your face when you need to move around outside."
A full black skull with glowing red eyes, he thought. Very discreet.
"There's no need for a bed," Bone Saw said. "We don't sleep."
Ren stopped. He looked at Bone Saw, who had said it with the same flat quality he said everything now.
"Right," Ren said. "I'll skip the bed."
A pause.
"I made Eon a bed," Ren said.
"I know," Bone Saw said.
"He stored a statue in it."
"I know," Bone Saw said again.
Ren looked at him. "Did he tell you that?"
"I can feel what Father knows. Peripherally."
Ren stared at the skull for a moment.
"That is going to take some getting used to," he said.
"Yes, Father."
He turned toward the door and stopped again.
"System."
Yes.
"Why did I have to learn that from him? Why didn't you tell me Abominations don't sleep?"
A pause.
That information was available in the Abomination documentation under subsection fourteen, paragraph three.
"Did you ever tell me there was an Abomination documentation subsection fourteen?"
You didn't ask.
"You are completely fucking useless."
Touché, the System said.
"Fuck you," Ren said.
Noted, the System said pleasantly.
Ren walked out.
He got three steps down the corridor before he stopped.
The documentation is comprehensive. It covers sleeping patterns, dietary requirements, regeneration rates, social behaviors, and recommended housing guidelines.
"Recommended housing guidelines."
Abominations do not require beds. They do, however, benefit from a dedicated resting corner with adequate ceiling clearance if they develop vertically during transformation.
"Eon is fat. He didn't develop vertically."
Eon is an outlier. The guidelines were written for the general case.
"You wrote guidelines."
Someone had to.
"You could have mentioned the guidelines existed at any point in the last three months."
You seemed to be managing.
"I made a bed for Eon."
He used it to store the statue.
"I know he used it to store the statue. That is not the point." Ren stood in the corridor. "What else is in subsection fourteen that I don't know?"
Subsection fourteen covers basic care. Subsection fifteen covers combat integration. Subsection sixteen covers psychological adjustment. Subsection seventeen covers—
"How many subsections are there?"
Forty-two.
"Forty-two."
The documentation is thorough.
"Have you been sitting on forty-two subsections of Abomination documentation this entire time."
I wouldn't say sitting on it. It was available.
"You are completely fucking useless."
Touché, the System said.
"Fuck you," Ren said.
Noted, the System said pleasantly.
Subsection eighteen covers financial planning, if you're interested. Several Abominations in the documented cases developed independent revenue streams.
Ren started walking again.
Subsection nineteen covers—
"Goodbye."
The documentation will be here when you're ready.
Ren did not respond. The System stayed present, comprehensive and unhelpful.
He took two more steps.
"Can I read the file now?"
No.
Ren stopped walking.
"Why not."
It's confidential.
"It's my file."
Yes.
"About my own Abominations."
Yes.
"Then who is it confidential from?"
You.
Ren stood in the corridor.
"Fuck you," he said.
Noted.
. . .
The conversation in Chu Xinghe's office had been running for about forty minutes, which was normal. The quarterly operational review took as long as it took, and Lucy had learned early in this job that trying to rush it produced worse results than simply working through it at the pace it required.
"Branch expansion in the south district," she said, marking the line. "Structural completion confirmed. Interior work begins next month, projected four weeks."
"Good." Chu Xinghe made a note. "Recruitment numbers."
"Down four percent from last quarter. The southern intake will compensate if it comes in above projection, which the regional coordinator thinks is likely."
"When does that confirm?"
"End of the week."
Chu Xinghe nodded and turned the page.
The office was quiet except for the turning of paper and the faint ambient sounds of the forty-fourth floor going about its business. Outside the window, the city was doing what cities did at this time of morning. Lucy had her tea. Chu Xinghe had his water. This was a normal working morning.
Then the door opened.
"Ekk—"
"Eghk—"
Both of them flinched at the same time, Lucy's tea sloshing slightly, Chu Xinghe's hand jerking across the page he had just been writing on.
Ren stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, white mask in place, looking at them.
"Sorry," he said. "Did I come at a bad time?"
You walked in silently through a door that does not creak, Lucy thought, wearing a white mask at nine in the morning, and you're asking if you came at a bad time.
"It's fine," Chu Xinghe said, with the composure he had recovered in approximately half a second. "What brings you here?"
"I need a full-face mask," Ren said. "Strong material. It needs to cover everything."
Chu Xinghe set his pen down and thought about this for a moment. Then he stood, walked to the cabinet behind his desk, and began looking through it. The cabinet held various items that had accumulated there over years of guild work: sealed containers, rolled documents, a few pieces of equipment.
He pulled something out.
"I think this will fit," he said, and held it up.
It was a full head-covering mask built from titanium, shaped into a black skull. The eye sockets held a glowing red that pulsed faintly, the color of embers, giving the entire thing the quality of something that had opinions about the people looking at it. The jawline was articulated. The forehead had subtle engraving that suggested old burn marks.
Ren looked at it.
Lucy made a sound she immediately converted into a cough, turning to the window.
Her shoulders were shaking.
Ren looked at the mask. The glowing red eye sockets, the black titanium skull, the articulated jaw, the faint engraving across the forehead.
This is exactly what Bone Saw's face looks like. The same skull shape. The same red light in the sockets. This is not a disguise. This is a matching set.
Vice Guildmaster. What kind of person do you think I am. Why do you own this.
He looked at Chu Xinghe, who was holding it out with a completely straight face, fully earnest, having found what he considered a solution.
"Vice Guildmaster," Ren said.
"It's high quality," Chu Xinghe said. "Titanium alloy. Impact resistant. Full coverage."
"It's a skull."
"A very well-made skull."
Lucy had both hands over her mouth now. She was looking at the window with great intensity.
"Do you have anything else," he said.
Chu Xinghe looked back into the cabinet carefully.
"No," he said.
Ren took the mask.