The Light of Dawn
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2015 11:02 pm
May 2031
Nereus Marinos had been spending the last two months waking up next to the woman he'd always loved. It had felt like a haze, a dream out of which he expected to wake up. So much of the last few years' events had a hazy quality to them, as if he couldn't believe they'd happened. Joining the resistance even as Chambers kept on assuming he was docile. Coordinating with Meris through encrypted emails, riding piggyback on Elysium's old algorithms. Being kidnapped by his benefactors, ending offworld both figuratively and literally. Holden Hall's rat of a hacker killing Xenophon Thanos, excising him from the legal spectrum with a few keystrokes - about a dozen or so laws being broken so catastrophe could be averted and a couple, reunited. Hope's protectors going rogue for the greater good, joining Gammell and the Promethean Order in their killing of deceptively innocent folk.
It took Chambers being killed by Meris - and rising from the grave as Amaxi's second - for the world to finally see his kind, to realize they posed a threat. He, in the meantime, had felt the cold clutches of Her hate close around his heart, even as the mantle of the Architect's old and faded grace fell on him. The aged god had no miracles to spend, so he'd given of Himself. Hate crumbled away from the Black Speech's words, somewhere in Nereus' mind, and he saw them infused with the light of purity and purpose.
The seas had changed. Rendell had been wrong, total war wouldn't ever touch shorelines, but it forced Man to build islands where there were none. Oil platforms turned into armed nations, the Finmen rising their own monsters from the depths, with Greece fundamentally changing as an archipelago turned into a small continent almost overnight. Formerly coastal settlements were now clinging to mountain ranges, eternal snows beginning to grace what had once been the first of many maritime arrival points for Syrian refugees, in the 2010s. The Greeks had descended into the new valley, finding that those who couldn't reach Nereus or flee Dalarath effectively had made port there. They'd did as they'd once done, shaping New Dalarath with words they were still surprised to see lack their usual content of insanity.
Plenty of people called for the new refugees' deaths. Muslims had at least been human, in the decades past - the Squids were anything but, and they carried abilities few mundanes understood. Marinos had expected to be able to spend the rest of his life in marital bliss' warm embrace, but voices called out for help. He'd stepped up to sign the Vienna Accords, at least confirming that the rebels wished to be law-abiding and respectful. It didn't stop the loyalists, unfortunately.
The terrorists had once been human or anthropomorph in origin. They'd once been Fae. Now, the news' Great Evil bore tentacles and tattered robes. All surface-world religions had to burn, if you believed Chambers' supporters. All cultures had to bow to the Others. The terrorists of old turned into freedom fighters, old hatreds between East and West being pocketed away in favor of opposing a common threat. Now it was Nereus' and Lulroth's old friends and allies that were the subject of bigotry, even as unscrupulous biotech firms started paying top dollar for Abomination blood and tissue. Gammell's protégés were offered vacation packages in Thailand or Japan, they tasted of ordinary pleasures for a few days - and then you found them, eviscerated, somewhere south of places like Phi Phi or Harajuku.
Delmar had a body now, and he had the difficult task of being the representative of the Architect's faith. For every person who appreciated the idea of a god whose gospel was Science, others doubled down on their own faith. Delmar had to appease everyone, explain that the Architect didn't sell a truth so much as he did an understanding - but the social networks had already made their mind. It was one religion too many in a world where some freaks were now busy trying to openly sell the masses on the world's destruction. Those that didn't use doomsday rhetoric stuck to the old standbys, modified by Squid intellect: kinetic-force charges detonated in public places, public autodafés of everything between the Bible to Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
None of this seemed to touch Hope, for now. Life went on, people read or watched the dire news and talked about it - but that was it. Dying in the Centennial Park had been enough for Chambers, who'd understood that his facing Shield directly wasn't going to accomplish anything. Making the world antagonize them was easier. After their black op on the local Renewal center, it hadn't been difficult. They'd, after all, seemingly killed a high-profile civilian.
So, the tables had been turned. Nereus, Chauncey, George, Delmar, Lucian and Meris had a public life, and Holden Hall was now deserted. With Nami Urakawa on sub-orbital transport, the group could live off of a set of rigs in the Seychelles and fly back in as needed. Wyvern money kept the rig off the radar and off the maps, which explained why its codename was Avalon. As far as Nereus knew, Archibald greatly lamented the way the events had forced him to end his relationship with Crystal Lowell. An outlaw couldn't be seen romancing a cop, after all.
As he shook off the last embers of sleep and looked to his beloved, the former Augur reflected on how insane this was. First Elysium, and now Avalon - a well-meaning and righteous group of friends the world had dubbed terrorists. Terror against terror, then, with him and his old consort, his love, being pulled out of the shadows to catch the flak. Crazier still, they'd been forced to break out Gregory Rendell in order to have full access to his funds and resources. The megalomaniac had sensed his empire sifting away between his fingers, so building something new with people he'd at least respected from afar had appealed to him. As self-centered as he'd always been, tossing the remnants of Elysium for the authorities to pick apart hadn't taken much more than a few phone calls.
The new state of affairs felt wrong, but a part of him wanted to bask in it. He had Meris now, and they were both free. Free to love one another, finally. The house he'd built didn't exactly mirror what the Darkhallow had suggested, but dreams rarely did fully conform to reality. The shore was further away, the Tree was smaller and less distant, but his and Meris' noses never stopped picking up hits of the sea's iodine, so close to Mertown as they were.
He'd lost weight while undercover in his own cult, had lost more once out of the planet's gravity well - and now that new troubles seemed to rise on the horizon, contentment had seen his waistline balloon again. With the Architect shouldering him and no fears hounding him, food and drink had become joyful experiences. His son felt like a gleefully deleterious influence: he'd earned the right to enjoy life on his own terms, Chauncey said. Not only that, but after over a thousand years spent plump, couldn't it be slightly possible that he wasn't physically meant to be as svelte as Meris?
He turned to his side, one hand propping his head up as the other lightly stroked Meris' shoulder.
"Wake up, little seal," he lovingly murmured. "We have another peril and wonder-fraught day to face."
Nereus Marinos had been spending the last two months waking up next to the woman he'd always loved. It had felt like a haze, a dream out of which he expected to wake up. So much of the last few years' events had a hazy quality to them, as if he couldn't believe they'd happened. Joining the resistance even as Chambers kept on assuming he was docile. Coordinating with Meris through encrypted emails, riding piggyback on Elysium's old algorithms. Being kidnapped by his benefactors, ending offworld both figuratively and literally. Holden Hall's rat of a hacker killing Xenophon Thanos, excising him from the legal spectrum with a few keystrokes - about a dozen or so laws being broken so catastrophe could be averted and a couple, reunited. Hope's protectors going rogue for the greater good, joining Gammell and the Promethean Order in their killing of deceptively innocent folk.
It took Chambers being killed by Meris - and rising from the grave as Amaxi's second - for the world to finally see his kind, to realize they posed a threat. He, in the meantime, had felt the cold clutches of Her hate close around his heart, even as the mantle of the Architect's old and faded grace fell on him. The aged god had no miracles to spend, so he'd given of Himself. Hate crumbled away from the Black Speech's words, somewhere in Nereus' mind, and he saw them infused with the light of purity and purpose.
The seas had changed. Rendell had been wrong, total war wouldn't ever touch shorelines, but it forced Man to build islands where there were none. Oil platforms turned into armed nations, the Finmen rising their own monsters from the depths, with Greece fundamentally changing as an archipelago turned into a small continent almost overnight. Formerly coastal settlements were now clinging to mountain ranges, eternal snows beginning to grace what had once been the first of many maritime arrival points for Syrian refugees, in the 2010s. The Greeks had descended into the new valley, finding that those who couldn't reach Nereus or flee Dalarath effectively had made port there. They'd did as they'd once done, shaping New Dalarath with words they were still surprised to see lack their usual content of insanity.
Plenty of people called for the new refugees' deaths. Muslims had at least been human, in the decades past - the Squids were anything but, and they carried abilities few mundanes understood. Marinos had expected to be able to spend the rest of his life in marital bliss' warm embrace, but voices called out for help. He'd stepped up to sign the Vienna Accords, at least confirming that the rebels wished to be law-abiding and respectful. It didn't stop the loyalists, unfortunately.
The terrorists had once been human or anthropomorph in origin. They'd once been Fae. Now, the news' Great Evil bore tentacles and tattered robes. All surface-world religions had to burn, if you believed Chambers' supporters. All cultures had to bow to the Others. The terrorists of old turned into freedom fighters, old hatreds between East and West being pocketed away in favor of opposing a common threat. Now it was Nereus' and Lulroth's old friends and allies that were the subject of bigotry, even as unscrupulous biotech firms started paying top dollar for Abomination blood and tissue. Gammell's protégés were offered vacation packages in Thailand or Japan, they tasted of ordinary pleasures for a few days - and then you found them, eviscerated, somewhere south of places like Phi Phi or Harajuku.
Delmar had a body now, and he had the difficult task of being the representative of the Architect's faith. For every person who appreciated the idea of a god whose gospel was Science, others doubled down on their own faith. Delmar had to appease everyone, explain that the Architect didn't sell a truth so much as he did an understanding - but the social networks had already made their mind. It was one religion too many in a world where some freaks were now busy trying to openly sell the masses on the world's destruction. Those that didn't use doomsday rhetoric stuck to the old standbys, modified by Squid intellect: kinetic-force charges detonated in public places, public autodafés of everything between the Bible to Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
None of this seemed to touch Hope, for now. Life went on, people read or watched the dire news and talked about it - but that was it. Dying in the Centennial Park had been enough for Chambers, who'd understood that his facing Shield directly wasn't going to accomplish anything. Making the world antagonize them was easier. After their black op on the local Renewal center, it hadn't been difficult. They'd, after all, seemingly killed a high-profile civilian.
So, the tables had been turned. Nereus, Chauncey, George, Delmar, Lucian and Meris had a public life, and Holden Hall was now deserted. With Nami Urakawa on sub-orbital transport, the group could live off of a set of rigs in the Seychelles and fly back in as needed. Wyvern money kept the rig off the radar and off the maps, which explained why its codename was Avalon. As far as Nereus knew, Archibald greatly lamented the way the events had forced him to end his relationship with Crystal Lowell. An outlaw couldn't be seen romancing a cop, after all.
As he shook off the last embers of sleep and looked to his beloved, the former Augur reflected on how insane this was. First Elysium, and now Avalon - a well-meaning and righteous group of friends the world had dubbed terrorists. Terror against terror, then, with him and his old consort, his love, being pulled out of the shadows to catch the flak. Crazier still, they'd been forced to break out Gregory Rendell in order to have full access to his funds and resources. The megalomaniac had sensed his empire sifting away between his fingers, so building something new with people he'd at least respected from afar had appealed to him. As self-centered as he'd always been, tossing the remnants of Elysium for the authorities to pick apart hadn't taken much more than a few phone calls.
The new state of affairs felt wrong, but a part of him wanted to bask in it. He had Meris now, and they were both free. Free to love one another, finally. The house he'd built didn't exactly mirror what the Darkhallow had suggested, but dreams rarely did fully conform to reality. The shore was further away, the Tree was smaller and less distant, but his and Meris' noses never stopped picking up hits of the sea's iodine, so close to Mertown as they were.
He'd lost weight while undercover in his own cult, had lost more once out of the planet's gravity well - and now that new troubles seemed to rise on the horizon, contentment had seen his waistline balloon again. With the Architect shouldering him and no fears hounding him, food and drink had become joyful experiences. His son felt like a gleefully deleterious influence: he'd earned the right to enjoy life on his own terms, Chauncey said. Not only that, but after over a thousand years spent plump, couldn't it be slightly possible that he wasn't physically meant to be as svelte as Meris?
He turned to his side, one hand propping his head up as the other lightly stroked Meris' shoulder.
"Wake up, little seal," he lovingly murmured. "We have another peril and wonder-fraught day to face."