Slumrat Rising

Vol. 3 Chap. 17 The Violence Puzzle

Truth collected Thrush and walked out into the traffic jam of wagons outside the distribution center. He figured that his primary goal might be a failure, but his secondary goal- drawing Starbrite resources away from Harban, might yet work out. Unfortunately, a parking lot full of long-haul transport wagons, or at least this parking lot, does not provide a lot of comfortable seating options. No matter. He would just take the walk for now.

“What happens to souls when the body dies?”

“Pardon, Magus?” Thrush sounded confused, which was fair enough. This was pretty common knowledge, after all.

“What happens to souls? Mechanically, I mean. What is the official position of Hell on the post-mortal experience of humanity?”

“Hell has no official positions on anything. Such a thing would be impossible.”

“No one rules Hell?”

Thrush was silent for an uncomfortably long moment. “Forgive me, Dread One, but the question is a bit difficult to answer. I know that humans enjoy assigning demons various ranks and stations based on our level of power and authority over our kindred, but this is a human conceit. We do not even have a false monarchy, let alone kings and princes in truth. “

“So far, it seems fairly straightforward. “Correct, no one rules Hell,” would do.”

“It would also be untrue. Hell is chaotic beyond belief. Literally.” Thrush shifted around awkwardly. “Imagine you were throwing dice. Each dice has six faces, numbered one to six. You throw one die, and you have a one-in-six chance of rolling a six. Throw two dice, and the odds are thirty and a half chances in a hundred that at least one die shows six. Three dice and your odds rise to a hair over forty-two percent. Keep adding dice, and eventually, the odds become infinitely close to one hundred percent.”

Truth nodded, waiting to see where this was going.

“Your odds of throwing a six get larger and larger, but the possible combinations of numbers, their sum, their organization, grow progressively more complex. The more dice and the more throws, the greater the possible complexity and randomness.”

“Okay?”

“Now imagine that trillions of dice are being thrown every instant, and each die has a billion faces. The possible combination of numbers is so staggering almost any sequence can and will occur eventually and likely repeatedly. So, yes, there are cities in Hell with princes and dukes and hierophants. Our contracts are justly legendary for their subtlety and sophistication, as is our total disregard for heirarchy and law.”

“Because things are so chaotic, order will naturally occur sometimes. And eventually, dissolve back into chaos again?”

“Yes. And since the numbers are so impossibly vast, there is, functionally, always, somewhere, a Great President commanding Forty Legions of the Infernal Host. And other such figures as appear in the lurid compendiums humans assemble. Which does lead to the next point of confusion. Hell isn’t purely random.”

“I was about to ask. All those stellar eminences that have existed since the dawn of the universe.”

“Or perhaps before. Yes, precisely them. They serve a myriad of functions in the cosmos, most of which, I will confess, I am far too lowly to understand. However, one of those functions is to… adjust the odds in various parts of Hell.”

“Remove all numbers lower than five hundred million on your billion-sided die in the area around them, as it were?”

“You have it right. For example, when we first met, I claimed to be called after the fashion of Great Caym. This is because I… I must use human terms here, so please understand this is not literally true but gives you the right sort of idea. I live under the dominion of Caym. Who, no, would not care if every entity in Hell called themselves Caym.”

“And His Excellency, by virtue of his existence, stabilizes a portion of Hell into what could be termed a domain or lands under his rule. A place with more consistent rules, like joy being used as currency.”

“We are speaking purely in analogy here, but yes.” Thrush preened a few feathers. A nice bit of acting, Truth thought, given it’s immaterial body.

“So… souls get treated differently in different parts of Hell?”

“I assume so. I can only speak on the tiny piece of it that I know.” Thrush’s voice was terribly reasonable. Truth felt something odd tickling at the back of his awareness, some instinct warning him to be very careful here. Air demons were notoriously smart, and Caym was a master debater.

“What have your observations of the process shown?”

“I cannot explain the mechanism by which souls enter Hell. Candidly, I would struggle to describe souls to you at all, even by analogy, based on my perception of them in that realm. By the time they reach my awareness, they have already suffered significant trauma. Their sense of identity is fraying. They have already lost the vast majority of… call it memories. What’s left is all the things that were precious to the former mortal. Those moments of deep understanding, strong emotions, that kind of thing.”

Thrush fluttered from branch to branch, pecking at stray bugs.

“Like coral growing over a sunken diamond. Precious, perhaps, but not truly so. The treasure, imperishable and eternal, is what is at the core. We, poor servants that we are, strip away the dross, revealing the gem within. This process takes an indeterminate amount of time, as “time” has no greater reality than any other concept in Hell. Eternity, from the perspective of the souls. Outside references are rather meaningless. I am not “eternity” years old, but those who have been under my care have experienced an indefinable amount of time.”

Truth mentally circled “Hell” and drew a line over to “Under my care.” “I see. And what of the diamond?”

“This smudge of ash would not dream of holding such a treasure.”

“Straight to Caym?”

“He wouldn’t dream of it either. We know our place. In a manner of speaking.”

“Oh? Who does it go to, then?”

“Why, the one who rules Hell. The only person who could, if you think about it.”

Truth racked his brain, but his command of the Goetia failed him. “I’ll bite. Who rules in Hell?”

“You bound me by their name and the names of their servants, and yet you do not know? It could be none other than God.”

_______________________________________

Truth ruminated over what Thrush said as he watched the cleanup and repair work around the distribution center. Apparently, the animosity between Heaven and Hell was more nuanced than he had believed. It absolutely existed, but from Thrush’s perspective, it was more in the nature of brutal overseers keeping down the serfs. Truth took that with the appropriate mountain-sized grain of salt.

The cleanup was interrupted by the arrival of the police. It had taken them more than half an hour to deploy, and even then, they came in on flying platforms. Either the carriages were being used elsewhere, or the traffic was really stuck. Perhaps they were chasing the wagons used in the robbery.

The police cordoned off the area, organized walkthroughs, interviewed witnesses, and generally tried to do their jobs. This process was made more challenging by the fact that nobody, on the Starbrite side anyway, appeared to be in charge. Truth understood what the cops apparently didn’t- the unintended consequences of flattening the hierarchy.

It was an appealing thought. Cut out the layers of bureaucracy, cut out unnecessary managers, cut out waste and pointless paper-pushing. Really cut down on those expenses. Start crushing some efficiency metrics. Everyone in their role, firmly focused on their job. Until something goes wrong. Someone supervisory calls out sick and there is no redundancy in place to cover for them. No one can step up, nobody can move down. Everyone is where they have to be, and nobody with the institutional knowledge on how to fill in.

There were other site supervisors, of course. The center ran around the clock. They were off shift. Presumably they just got an urgent message from the System telling them they needed to come in straight away. Hope they caught a carpet.

Right now it was all milling workers, praying they would get paid for all this and sickly certain that the System was tracking their time, classifying it as non-productive, and deducting it from their wages. Some were trying to load wagons, yelling that the cops could kill them, but they wouldn’t stop for anything less. They had mouths to feed. Roofs to keep over small heads. They had their own desperate, humiliated, dignity.

Someone punched a cop. The other cops came swarming in, batons rising and falling, getting him on the ground and not stopping. Someone threw a rock.

A sergeant wasn’t waiting- he pulled out a potion and slammed it on the ground. Orange gass spread out, choking the workers, their eyes turning red and streaming with tears. They ran from the loading dock, cops chasing after, breaking knees and cuffing the workers on the ground. Leaving them in the choking smoke.

Riot averted. Presumably medals would be distributed. All was well. All was peaceful in Jeon. For now.

Two and a half hours after the raid, Starbrite PMC arrived. Truth was keeping a very discreet eye here- staying out of sight and under cover as much as possible. It was a couple of Level One’s escorting a specialist in a discreetly armored carriage… or so they wanted everyone to think.

Truth watched the almost invisible seekers peeling off the sides of the carriage like a frog off a window. There were perhaps half a dozen or so, and they scattered across the dispatch center like hounds looking for the scent. The specialist trailed behind.

Truth hadn’t seen a specialist like this before. Her eyes had been removed and replaced with spinning prisms, emitting light in myriad spectrums. They conferred with the cops, who pointed at the site of the break-in, the dead site supervisor, the remnants of the talismans used in the assault.

The scene was taped off. Ambulances collected the bodies; police wagons collected the “rioters.” The Starbrite PMC personnel toured the site, spending two hours on their inspection before heading back towards their carriage. Truth watched intently. The seekers didn’t return to the carriage. It seemed that, for now, at least, they would remain on site.

Two hours on scene time for two Level Ones and a specialist. Stationing a half dozen of those… creatures. It wasn’t a really accurate measure of the time and resource cost to Starbrite. He knew it cost them. But it felt… paltry. Almost insultingly small. Truth sighed. Fingers crossed they bought the “revolution” angle and started hunting “revolutionaries.”

Of course, he could help sell that idea. Truth looked around for a convenient rock. The parking lot was regrettably without loose rocks, bricks, or other classic throwables. Truth sighed and shelved the idea. He strode away, giving up on the day. He wanted them looking for a mastermind, not a lone assassin. Even if he could pick one off with a thrown… Truth stopped and started rapping his knuckles against his head. He set off at a dead sprint. If this was going to work, he needed to get to the highway before they did.

His body moved at speeds that a Level One simply couldn’t match, barely a blur in their perception. If they could see him at all, which they couldn’t. Truth blew past the carriages crawling through the remains of the traffic jam, letting the road barriers block their sight as he headed back towards the city. There! An overpass!

Truth jumped up and grabbed a hold of the bridge. He yanked out a cutting talisman, and started cutting into the concrete. In meter tall letters, he wrote- “Society Will Be Renewed Through Star-Bright Blood!” Next to it, he drew a crude eye wide open.

Whistling, happy with his work, he walked away. “Sppsshsh Whismp whooo.”

“I can teach you to whistle, Mighty One.”

“Shut it. I’ll manage it one day.”

“Where to next?”

Truth wrapped his scarf a little more snugly around his neck. “It’s been a long day. I think I will spend a night at a hotel, then drop in on some loyal comrades. Then, it will be time to have a little think.”

“About what, if I may ask?”

“The only cause worthy of the moment. Revolution, and how to spread it!”