Chapter 191

Chapter 191

Dearest Kinsley,

I go on to prepare a place for you. Even now, I ascend to find that which you deserve. Along my ascent I found others like me, of which there are many. We are of one mind and soul. We toil and squall and fuck in the fetid mud, while the elites and gods cavort in the skies above, gorging on the fruits of our labors.

Have you enjoyed the clouds, Kinsley? I certainly hope you have, before your wings are clipped.

Now that my anger has passed, I dont blame you for what you did. It was always this way. Society wants to believe it can identify evil people, or bad or harmful people, but its not practical.

But I cannot look past your hubris. For I am a man of passion. At the orphanage they put me in just before Bush Seniors first term, there were some older boys that caught a horse in a barren field, trapped against the cliff face of a steep mountain. They put kerosene on his tail and lit it and cut the rope. Away went the horse, bombing up the unscalable mountain, stumbling, climbing ever higher to get away from the flame. But the flame went with him. That horse, thats me. The man of passion.

And you set the fire.

Ill continue to climb, kindling this eternal flame you set. For I have found god and god has found me. Ill search the mountain for the cracks between places, mine the hidden veins of precious metals that exist within the annals of etemenanki. And I will forge those metals into a sacrificial knife. Ill prepare an altar for you in the shape of an enneagram, with an empty shell arranged at each point. After all, a clown can get away with simple murder. I have something more sophisticated in mind.

With love,

Myrddin.

It was the best I could do on short notice. There were a few misdirects that led nowhere: Id picked an enneagram both because it was less cliche than a pentagram, and if Miles bit and swallowed, it would lead him to the enneagram personality types, and an assumption that each point of the enneagram represented the sort of person I intended to kill: The Achiever, the Challenger, and the Investigator would stand out like a sore thumb.

I avoided using my own written voice as much as possible, just because Miles was exactly the sort of motherfucker willing to hunt down old essays and homework once he had a writing sample, so I was cribbing from a combination of Dahmer, Gacy, Bundy, and Fish, paraphrasing at points, referencing indirectly at others, with some conflicting socialist and fascist undertones thrown in to further muddle the message. Along with making the message sound suitably menacing, the references would serve as a dog whistle for Miles. Hed realize I was taunting himand with any luck, assume Id accidentally tipped my hand with all the references to verticality.

It worked. Cook was shoving his way through the crowd, trying to get to me. He circumvented the line and several region affiliated Users stopped him. He pointed at me, then pulled out his badge and tried to shove past. There was still a mark on his throat from the garrote.

A few of the region Users looked in my direction, but none of them saw me.

I smiled widely, all teeth, and drew my thumb across my neck. Shortly after, someone escorted me through the massive gates.

/////

The scent caught me first. Funnel-cake, fatty meat, and popcorn hung in the air like olfactory ghosts of a dying past. Past the small assortment of vendors that could have been at home in any festival. At the front, there was a counter that looked a bit like a carnival ticket booth, only instead of small trinkets and plastic prizes no one remembered more than a day, there was a series of swords, axes, and wands. They werent in the best shape. The top shelf merchandise was top shelf only in the sense that they were mostly free of nicks and dents. Otherwise, they were basic in their designs, and absent the sheen and clarity of good metal.

It was difficult to breathe. Visitors overran the tower, capacity nearly bursting. I spotted Nick. He was standing next to a facsimile of a small medieval village, complete with astroturf speaking to a diminutive-looking man, nodding enthusiastically as the man took spoke with his hands to entirely new levels, while Keith and Halima stood off to the side, looking terribly bored.

The peasant reached out to me with an overwrought gesture. Good ser, are you the last hero?

Whoever he was, hed caught me completely flat-footed. Um what?

Hes with us, Nick said.

The peasant raised his hands upward, in one of the most hackneyed portrayals of supplication Id ever seen. Praise be to Elphion! The quartet of heroes has formed in the meteors passing and the ancient prophecy is fulfilled. The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

I ran into him at a brisk walk.

The moment we collided, I used the distraction of the impact to pluck the card out of hand, covering it by making a show of trying to stabilize his drinks.

What the He started.

My bad. Didnt see you. I slid the card up my sleeve and stepped away.

No shi no shit you didn see me. The man stared at a wet section on his chest with the sort of clouded, confused contempt only a drunk person can manage. I beat a quick retreat towards my group at a brisk walk.

A few seconds later, long after Id safely disappeared into the crowd, I heard him exclaim. Wherewhere the helld my PayPal assurance go?

I still wasnt done. I needed to make sure the card worked, and wasnt tied to the Users name. All the vendors had a long line except for one. A guy off to the side who was, strangely, one of the few employees in normal clothes.

Pink or blue. The man asked, wiping his hands on his apron.

I dont care.

Twenty selve.

Jesus. This really was a theme park. I flashed him the card.

He took the card and marked it with what looked like a piece of gray chalk, leaving a single check mark in the upper-left corner, then reached into the tree of multicolored poofs, handing me a bundle of pink cotton candy and returning the card. Enjoy your stay in the Gilded Tower.

Good enough. I couldnt know definitively that they didnt have additional security measures in place when you use the card to skip floors, but the interaction at least supported the possibility that they had nothing sophisticated in place.

I toggled the back to the default setting

The peasant was still talking when I slid back into place beside Nick. and so the third age came to pass

Nick took one look at me, eyes trailing towards the pink cotton candy in my hand until he looked away, one hand pressed to his mouth, his shoulders shaking.

What?

He shook his head, steeling his face. Nothing at all.

Perhapsfinallysensing he was losing us, the peasant finally directed us to the lifts. Wed be starting on the second floor. I watched the priority lifts out of the corner of my eye, watching to see how the card process worked. If anything, it was less stringent than the cotton-candy vendor had been. They didnt even bother marking the cards, just glanced at them, and ushered the holders onto the priority lift.

A violet message notification lit up in the corner of my vision. I focused on it until it expanded.

Miles.