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danceworshipper · 3 years

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The Family Business AU: Part 2

Part 1

Alright I honestly don't remember much of the game plot anymore and the memories feature didn't help much SO I apologize for this probably being horribly inaccurate to the game's canon. Eh, canon sucks anyway, this is an AU, whatever! Colette Belrose belongs to @gcldensnitch and Alex Vega belongs to @weirdcursedvaultkid

I do want to mention a couple things before the part starts. First, the way I headcanon Legilimency works is that it's a bit temperamental even for the most powerful Legilimens. Connect enough with a certain person, and disconnecting becomes harder and harder, and eventually you'll be linked forever with nothing to stop the transfer of thoughts and emotions. Second is about the twins. Tessa's got it really hard in this AU. Most of her development in 'canon' comes from her giving up the vaults and becoming more independent from Gracie, but that obviously didn't happen here because her family would never let her, so she has even more self worth issues than she should. About Gracie: from a young age she's been selected to be the heir, right? Her family and the other R members have always put her on a pedestal, and it's gone to her head a bit. She's a little too arrogant, and even too naive in a few ways. And she really doesn't know just how upset Tessa is, or how unworthy she feels, because unbeknownst to Gracie, Tessa's Occlumency is far stronger than hers. But both of them will get their proper development, I promise! They'll figure out just how fucked up their lives are soon enough.

Onto the story!

Are you questioning your grandmother's intelligence? Clarissa's stern voice rang through the twins' heads.

R's planned attack had not, in fact, gone as planned. Instead of throwing a few curses and leaving, as the agents were supposed to, they stayed and decided to duel with the twins and their friends, resulting in Ben getting a nasty curse to his leg that almost caused it to fall off. After a couple risky maneuvers to get the agents to finally leave, he was hurried to the Hospital Wing, where most of the friend group was at the moment. Thankfully they were paying Ben too much attention to notice that Gracie had crept away to the window to scream mentally at her mother - the only other member of R who possessed Legilimency. Tessa hoped that following her would make it look like they were just talking silently to each other. Clarissa hadn't taken too kindly to being shouted at in the middle of her lunch, unsurprisingly.

I'm questioning whether we're being given the correct information in the first place, or if Grandmother decided we don't need to be alerted when there's a change of plans, Gracie snapped. If I hadn't risked being outed by jumping in front of everyone else, he would have lost his leg!

And why do you care? I've heard your complaints about this young man. You don't even like him.

He's our friend!

Gracie, just stop, Tessa pleaded, grabbing Gracie's arm. She glanced over to Ben's bed; Ismelda (why was she even there?) was staring back at the two of them.

Sensing her sister's distress, Gracie followed Tessa's eyes to Ismelda, who kept her gaze. Tessa felt a wave of suspicion from Gracie. Either Gracie was so angry she wasn't keeping herself together well - which was very possible - or the twins' link had deepened without them realizing. Either option posed an issue.

I give you the information I've been given, Clarissa spoke, drawing their attention away from Ismelda. If you're truly this upset, I could have your grandmother stage a kidnapping so you may speak to her yourself.

No, no, Tessa interjected, not letting Gracie agree while still so uncontrolled. We can manage.

Good. I will be in contact on Tuesday to update you.

The intense headache Tessa had been feeling dispersed. Clarissa had closed their link. Tessa sighed, leaning back against the wall and finally dropping Gracie's arm. Legilimency over such long distances really took a toll on someone.

Gracie seemed fine though. Tessa knew she was just weaker.

You'd think the heir to the metaphorical throne would be shown a bit more respect, Gracie hissed. They really aren't doing themselves any favors here; I thought they wanted to bring in our generation? How in Salazar's name do they expect to gain more members if they keep fucking attacking them?!

Stop, please, Tessa begged, pressing her hand into her eyes. The anger Gracie was feeling was unnerving at this point, almost as if it was impossible for her to calm down, and Tessa could feel all of it like a fire burning in her heart. She didn't like being angry herself, so feeling someone else's anger was so much worse. Our link deepened.

Gracie's hand found hers and intertwined their fingers. It helped, just a little.

I noticed. Ismelda's still staring at us.

Tessa's eyes shot open. Ismelda had a blank look on her face. Too blank. Forced blank. What was she thinking? The idea to get into her mind was tempting, but Tessa had never liked using her Legilimency without permission. It just felt too violating; she would hate it if someone did it to her.

Gracie didn't have the same issue - within a second she was in Ismelda's head. This was important enough to warrant the intrusion, Gracie reasoned. No one could know until they had been recruited. The twins couldn't afford for anyone to be suspicious of them before they were able to get their most important people safe; Ismelda could ruin everything.

Thankfully, Ismelda hadn't drawn any connections to R yet - probably because she hadn't been very involved in the vaults and barely knew what R was, Gracie reminded herself. But Ismelda was very observant, and noticed almost every instance where the twins had mental conversations with each other or their mother.

The twins' Legilimency wasn't a secret. It may have been supposed to be, but in moments of blind panic an untrained Legilimens' mind will latch itself onto the nearest person to beg for help, and no one had been fully prepared for the Ice Vault, so Bill, Ben, and Rowan had very quickly realized the twins were not screaming out loud. The information spread quickly.

All things considered, it was fair for Ismelda to wonder why the twins sometimes chose to speak silently instead of out loud, and why they always seemed so upset while they were doing it. It was also fair for Ismelda to think that maybe the twins knew more than they were letting on. After all: it was true, they did. But she hadn't told anyone of her suspicions yet, which was the most important part, and she wasn't going to until she had proof.

Gracie extracted herself from Ismelda's head as smoothly as she could - the exit was always more noticeable than the entrance - but it didn't seem like the girl had felt anything. Gracie squeezed Tessa's hand.

"We're safe," she murmured aloud. No need to keep speaking silently, though neither of them closed the link. It was a strange sort of comfort to the both of them to keep their sister so close, even if their link was getting too deep to be completely safe.

"I don't like it when you do that," Tessa scolded gently. "What if someone invaded your mind without you knowing?"

"No one could," Gracie deflected. "Not even Mother can get in without permission."

Tessa shook her head in disapproval.

"It was important, Tessa. What if she started rumors we couldn't shut down? You know how Hogwarts is."

"I know."

"Come on." Gracie tugged Tessa's hand. "Lets go check on Ben."

The large crowd had mostly left, leaving just Alex, Merula, and Ismelda. Gracie idly wondered what Ben felt like being surrounded by Slytherin girls all the time.

"If they hadn't left I could have gotten some information out of them," Ben was saying. "We almost had them."

Merula scoffed. "If they hadn't left when they did you'd have to hop everywhere."

"A small price to pay if it meant we were closer to stopping them once and for all."

"I agree with Merula," Alex said. "Your health is more important, Ben. You'll have more opportunities."

"I wasn't concerned with his health!"

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It seemed extra dark that night, sitting in the Slytherin Common Room with Colette as the fire died down. It was just Tessa awake; Colette had fallen asleep on her shoulder a while ago. Something about huddling under a blanket with a friend helped Tessa think more clearly, even without talking. The weight of Colette's head on her shoulder helped to ground her and remind her she wasn't alone.

Of course, even being comforted left Tessa feeling guilty these days. This was Colette. Colette, who had always been there, who always brought sunshine to the dark days. Colette, who had no idea that the girl she was sleeping on was technically her brother's superior in a wizard cult. Tessa had done nothing but betray Colette since the day they met. There were too many lies that would tear them apart, and Tessa selfishly remained anyway, taking the comfort Colette offered while tearing the girl down behind the scenes. How could she do this? What kind of monster took advantage of someone's kindness like this?

Times like this were when Tessa cursed R with her entire soul. She cursed her mother for bringing children into R, she cursed her grandmother for starting R in the first place, she cursed Vance for not giving his sisters the option to flee with him and for never contacting them, and most of all, she cursed herself for taking that stupid magical vow that meant she could never tell Colette any of this, because Colette was too good. She'd never join R, and when she inevitably found out, Tessa would never be able to explain herself. When that happened, Tessa would lose Colette forever.

The link Tessa shared with her twin flared just a little, grief seeping in and mixing with what she was already feeling. It was too muted for Gracie to be awake. Bad dream? Tessa let her mind expand into Gracie's to try and calm her - one of them needed to be well rested, at least, and Gracie was the stronger of them in every way. Whatever dream she was having lost its grip on her as Tessa yanked on it, leaving no trace and no more grief spilling over. Good.

This was Tessa's only way of protecting her sister. Gracie was always the one who led in battles, who talked their way out of things, who people respected. Tessa was a follower, nothing more. It hurt, but at least Tessa knew that she could keep people safe like this. Her first practices with using her Legilimency undetected were on her friends as they slept, trying to influence their dreams, and nightmares were always easy to dispel. Fears never mean as much when you can't remember them. To Gracie's knowledge, she hadn't had a bad dream since she was thirteen, except on the nights they shared nightmares.

The only downside was that dispelling a nightmare sent the sadness, fear, and/or pain barreling into Tessa in full force.

As Tessa let the tears she didn't understand fall down her face, the fire flickered more, casting just a bit more light into the room, illuminating Liz as she appeared from the hallway to the dorms.

"There you guys are," she whispered. "I woke up to go to the bathroom and you weren't there."

"Sorry," Tessa responded. She felt Colette stir.

Liz frowned, coming closer. "Are you crying?"

"Yeah, uh, it's nothing." Just the fact that Tessa was a horrible human being.

"What time is it?" Colette asked, lifting her head but not moving away.

"Maybe three?" Liz guessed. "I didn't look. What's wrong, Tessa?"

Tessa shook her head and wiped at her cheeks. "Nothing." She didn't know what her sister had been dreaming about.

Liz and Colette shared a look, then Liz sat down on Tessa's other side and leaned into her.

"You don't have to tell us, but we're here for you."

That makes it worse, Tessa wanted to say, but how could she? How could she explain that she didn't deserve any compassion?

"We love you," Colette said quietly. "You're getting worse, Tessa, and we just want to help in any way we can. But you have to let us."

I'm in a cult! I'm a liar! I'm a monster and you need to get away from me before my family kills you!

Nothing came out but sobs that were fully hers, so her friends held her tightly through the night, whispering reassurances that made Tessa want to throw up.

----------------

"You can admit you have a heart, Merula, it's okay."

"Vega!"

Gracie rolled her eyes. "It's okay, love, we know you don't care about anyone."

"I didn't say that either!"

Alex grinned. "So you do have a heart?"

Merula angrily scooped more fruit onto her plate. "Get me the dip," she demanded, and Gracie passed it over. The seasonal October dip had always been Merula's favorite.

"Why are you so interested in me anyway?" Merula asked Alex. "Shouldn't you be fussing over Copper still?"

"I already visited him earlier."

"I swear you're in love with that loser."

"He's not a loser!"

"At least the two of you would be a good match."

"Merula!"

"Would you two just kiss already?" Gracie taunted, rolling her eyes. "We can't have one breakfast where someone isn't bickering with someone."

"Are you seriously insinuating I want to kiss Vega?" Merula asked in disgust. "You're the one dating me!"

"And I regret it more every day."

"Hey!"

"I could date Rowan. It would be much more peaceful."

Rowan winked across the table.

Merula huffed, but thankfully shut up. She knew Gracie was just joking. Besides, Rowan would never lower her standards enough to date Gracie of all people, and it was well theorized that Alex did in fact fancy Ben. Gracie didn't understand that in the slightest, but whatever made her happy.

Alex was pouting into her eggs. Why did she take Merula's insults so seriously? At this point it should be obvious she didn't mean it. Still, Gracie kicked her girlfriend under the table, jerking her head at Alex.

Merula scowled.

Gracie kicked her again.

"You're not a loser Vega," Merula said. "Copper is though, and I stand by that."

Alex smiled a little. "You can think that, but he's awesome."

"I could kick his ass easily," Merula boasted.

And: more bickering. At least this was a bit more friendly.

"Chiva."

Gracie and Tessa both turned around. Ismelda was standing behind them.

"Yeah?"

"Cursed Chiva."

Tessa turned back around, tension radiating off her. She was always nervous these days. Gracie wished she could help Tessa see that everything would be okay. The two of them could protect their friends if something went wrong, because they knew spells only family was ever capable of, and if it really came down to it, R members all knew that they would be executed if they harmed the twins. They could use their bodies as shields, like Gracie had done for Ben.

On a more morbid note, Lorraine was old. It couldn't be too much longer before she either died or had to step down, and then Gracie would be the leader and exempt from the oath keeping her quiet. Once their friends found out why the twins had been lying to them, they'd understand. Sure, they'd be upset, but they were good people and they'd forgive them. Gracie had a lot of reform she wanted to do anyway, and after that was taken care of, their friends might be more willing to join if they hadn't already by then. Even if not, Gracie would be the leader and she could mark them all as untouchable. So in a horrible way, Gracie was just waiting for her grandmother to die. It would solve a lot of problems.

Tessa just hadn't come to that same conclusion yet.

"What?" Gracie asked, remembering Ismelda had addressed her.

"You have first period free, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"We're talking. Courtyard."

"Okay?"

Ismelda reached over Merula for a bagel before leaving the Great Hall.

"What's that about?" Rowan asked, looking at the doors Ismelda had walked through, fork halfway to her mouth.

Gracie shrugged. "No clue," she lied. Shit, had Ismelda noticed Gracie in her head after all?

Tessa nudged Gracie with her leg. Gracie nudged back. It would be fine. If it came down to it, she knew her way around a memory charm.

Don't be stupid, Tessa warned.

Relax.

I can skip out on Divination if you want.

It'll be fine, dumbass. Don't risk your grade over nothing.

"Want me to come with you?" Rowan offered. Gracie focused back on her best friend.

"Nah, I'm sure she's not gonna kill me."

Rowan didn't like that answer, if the glare she gave Gracie meant anything.

----------------

Ismelda stood with her arms crossed in front of the fountain as Gracie approached. It was rather chilly out; the thin school sweater wasn't cutting it. Before Gracie could greet her, Ismelda made her claim.

"You know something we all don't."

It was a split second decision, fueled by the tingle in the back of Gracie's head, that made her agree.

"Yeah."

Taken aback slightly, Ismelda paused, having clearly been ready to argue.

"Okay, so what are you hiding?"

"I can't tell you."

"Chiva - "

"I'm under a magical oath," Gracie admitted. "I can't tell anyone."

Ismelda frowned. Her arms fell to her sides as she took in that she was being told the truth.

"I take it your sister is, too?"

"Yeah," Gracie agreed. "It's a family thing."

That threw Ismelda off even further. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Do you want to know what we know?"

Ismelda narrowed her eyes. "That felt like a threat."

Little do you know.

This could be a bad idea. Ismelda could take the news very badly and get killed. But Gracie was almost certain she wouldn't, and someone like Ismelda could be a really good ally. She had already proven herself to be rather observant, and she was the type of person who wasn't deterred by violence. And the power aspect would certainly tempt her.

Ismelda hadn't been a priority, but it was a start. Besides, if that tingle Gracie felt was to be believed...

Gracie sat, gesturing for Ismelda to join her, which she did with some hesitation.

"If you find out you'll have to take the same oath."

"I figured as much."

"Believe me when I say this is dangerous. Knowing will keep you safe, but only if you go about it correctly. If you refuse the oath, bad things could happen. And that's before you find out."

Ismelda yanked the end of her scarf out of the fountain with a muttered curse, charming it dry before responding.

"Your family sounds more fucked up than you normally let on, Chiva."

There was no arguing with that. Gracie let Ismelda sit for a moment, turning the information over in her head.

"When?"

I thought so.

"Next weekend is a Hogsmeade weekend right?"

"Second weekend of every month, isn't it?"

"Hope you don't have any plans."

Ismelda stood, and Gracie copied.

"Is this a trap?"

"No."

"You'll tell me?"

"After you take the oath."

She stepped back a bit.

"Then tell me where to be."

Gracie grinned. Lorraine would be pleased.

"Meet me behind Madam Puttifoot's at one. My family - " the oath prevented her from saying grandmother " - will take it from there."

She turned to where the persistent tingle in her brain was coming from.

"You can come too, Rowan." Two in one.

#me: I love my ocs more than life itself #also me: *this*#hogwarts mystery #my writing #the family business au #gracie chiva #tessa chiva #merula snyde #ismelda murk #rowan khanna #colette belrose #alex vega

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beelieveinfandom · 6 years

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Haunted and Hunted Chapter Six

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 AO3 Link

“Oh,” Alcor smiled widely. “So you want to make a deal?”

“I want to never have the future tell me what to do again,” Vin said firmly. “If making a deal is the way to get that done, then fuck yeah deal me up.”

“Vin,” Renee said gently. “I’m not going to tell you not to do this, but you are talking about making a deal with the most powerful demon we know about. Please be careful.”

“Oh you know me.” Vin waved his hand like he were clearing away the insinuation that he, of all people, might be anything other than cautious. “‘Careful’ is my true name. Now, what do I gotta give you to get you to eat my third eye or whatever?”

Renee winced.

Alcor considered the situation for a moment. On one hand, there was so much potential here. This kid had no idea what he was doing in the slightest and really wanted this; Alcor could get a lot out of him. On the other hand, this was Vin; he’d been through a heck of a lot and Alcor was going to profit no matter what happened. He really didn’t need to squeeze everything he could out of this desperate child. Even if it would be fun. Even if the kid was dumb enough to trust him. Especially because the kid had enough faith in him to trust him. He was one of the most powerful entities in this dimension; he didn’t need to maximize his profit with every single deal.

Alcor sighed. “Okay, now I really don’t want to tell you how to get the upper hand here, but if you think really hard you might be able to come up with a way of getting something out of this instead of giving something away.”

Vin shrugged. “Thinking really hard isn’t my specialty.”

“It would seem that he’s suggesting that could you ask for something in exchange for your extra sense,” Renee said.

Vin perked up at that. “Oh, that’d be cool too. So I could like, get powers that don’t suck? Maybe flight. Flight’s cool.”

Renee’s shoulders dropped. “Vin.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a bird.”

Vin looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t see what that’s gotta do with shit.”

“You should really think this through carefully,” Renee said. “Demons twist people's words to grant their wishes in ways that they aren’t expecting.”

“Oh! I know!” Vin exclaimed. “I want time powers.That way I can just check out and take a nap whenever the hell I want.”

Renee covered her face. “Vin, do you have any idea what happens if you cause a time paradox in this universe?”

“No,” he said, “but I know how I could find out.”

“You get in huge trouble with the Time Cops,” Alcor said. “And then you go to Time Jail.”

“You’re just making that up,” Vin said.

“Well, they’re not called the Time Cops, Alcor admitted. “They’re called the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron. They form about twenty thousand years from now at the whim of Time Baby.”

“Time Baby,” Renee said.

“Yep,” Alcor confirmed.

“You are absolutely shitting us,” Vin said.

“I am absolutely not. My sister and I stole a time machine once and ended up having to fight in time gladiatorial combat, which was overseen by Time Baby. In the end we won a time wish, which we gave to our friend for his birthday and he created a neverending slice of pizza with it.”

“Okay we’ll just gloss over the fact that that is the fakest damn thing I’ve ever heard and say nix the time powers I guess, cause I’m too young to go to Time Jail or some shit.” Vin said.

Alcor settled cross legged in the air in front of Vin. “So what do you want then?”

“Oh, I know like, for realsies this time.”

“Is it squirrel powers this time?” Renee asked.

“Oh man that is all kinds of tempting, but no.” Vin shook his head. “No, it’s actually kinda serious and boring. How about my ability to sense the future for a future for the three of us. Like, you find a place that we can stay that doesn’t have any doctors getting all up ins our biz or whatever. Someplace safe, that we can, you know, live.”

“Wow,” Renee said, “that was surprisingly actually reasonable.”

Vin shrugged. “Let's be real: I’m not a responsible person. I can’t be trusted with a demon wish. And that’s just a whole lotta possibility and I’m just not able to make a decision in the face of that kinda potential. I can’t even decide what to read half the time. And I figure, this was basically the plan anyway. right? Might as well make it like, official.”

“How’s this,” Alcor said. “I will take the foresight, regeneration, and the third eye that were artificially bestowed upon you, and in exchange I will do everything in my power to ensure the safe transit of yourself, Renee, and Charlie to a place of your choosing until such a time as you wish to leave, in which case a new arrangement will be made.”

“Well that sure is what I said but more so,” Vin said.

“I’m a demon. I like things to be clear.” He paused a moment. “Actually I love it when things are vague and open-ended but if there are that many ways to twist and pick at a deal I can’t just leave it alone, so I figure I should just remove the temptation altogether.”

“You’re absolutely thinking about ways that you could ruin our lives over with the new wording aren’t you?” Renee asked.

“Well, yes,” Alcor admitted. “But I’m not going to.”

“How could I possibly doubt you even a little?” Vin asked. “But yeah, that thing you said is fine.”

Alcor held out his hand, covered in cyan fire. “So then, do we have a deal?”

“Yeah, I just said that it was fine.”

Alcor offered his hand a little more emphatically.

“Vin,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Could I have your hand please?”

Vin gave a him a bit of a disbelieving look. “Hell no, I like my hands.”

“No, I don’t mean permanently. I just…” Alcor shook his head. “Please take my hand. With your hand. So we can seal the deal.”

Vin crossed his arms, leaned back, and said, “I’m pretty sure the seal is already in the deal. You did mention Charlie by name after all.”

Alcor facepalmed with his non-flaming hand. “Vin.”

“Alright, alright.”

Vin took Alcor’s hand. The fire spread to his hand, and disappeared in a bright flash.

“So now what?” asked Vin.

“Now you hold still,” Alcor said with a grin.

Alcor floated up to Vin and reached towards his forehead, his clawed fingers passing through Vin’s head around the scar of his third eye.

“Um,” Vin said.

Alcor closed his hand around Vin’s eyeball and slowly pulled.

“UM,” Vin said.

The eye opened and the ball squeezed through the socket. It came free with a gentle tug from Alcor, who then popped it in his mouth.

“Welp, I’m now scarred for life,” Vin said.

“What?” Alcor asked. “No sense wasting a perfectly good eyeball.”

Vin narrowed his remaining eyes. “You couldn’t have like, waited and done that while we weren’t watching?”

“Well. I could have. But what’s done is done.”

“Please stop talking with your mouth full of my eye.”

Alcor swallowed. “Alrighty then, now that you’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain, time for me to carry out mine. Where do you want to go?”

“Um, shit, I don’t know.” Vin rubbed at his neck. “My vote’s still the moon, I guess?”

“Vin,” said Renee, “don’t just tell a demon you want to go to the moon. He could teleport you to any random spot without any life support.”

“And the problem with that is?” Vin asked.

Renee pinched the bridge of her nose. “You are absolutely unbelievable.”

“That isn’t actually a terrible idea,” Alcor said.

“Please don’t just dump us on some random point on the moon,” Renee said. “I swear that I will find some way to haunt you.”

Alcor rolled his eyes. “I meant you guys living on the moon, in Beta City, not dumping your flesh suits on Mare Cognitum.”

“What about that strikes you as auspicious?” she asked.

“Well, for one thing, it’s outside the influence of the Taskforce, which I would imagine to be desirable after everything you just went through,” Alcor said. “And one of the few cults of mine that I actually trust has a fair amount of influence on the moon. They would almost certainly have someone who could take you in.”

“So you’re the moon demon!” Vin exclaimed.

“That isn’t one of my official titles, but yes, I am the only demon worshipped on the moon.”

“No wonder you think it’s a good idea for us to go to the moon,” Vin said. “You have like half the people there under your thumb.”

Alcor put up a finger. “First of all, only about five percent of the moon’s population is part of the Circle. Secondly, I wouldn’t really describe the Circle of the Dreamer’s Star as ‘under my thumb’. That’s a major part of why I trust them.”

“You trust them because they don’t listen to you?” Vin asked.

“I trust them because they don’t listen to me unquestionably,” he explained. “They believe that I am a very powerful entity with knowledge far surpassing any person’s. They also believe that I am incredibly dangerous and don’t always have respect for the lives and boundaries of others. They listen to everything I say, but they only obey if it seems reasonable.”

“That is surprisingly reasonable coming from a demonic cult,” Renee said.

“I know, right? It’s why I like them.” He grinned. “Also because they manage to supply me with a truly incredible amount of baked goods. I like that about them a lot.”

“So you want us to join your cult?” Vin asked.

“Oh, no.” Alcor shook his head. “No, that would be kinda weird. You’re too young to join officially anyway. I was just going to get one of them to take care of you because that would require the smallest amount of string pulling on my part. Don’t have to alter the nature of reality to ask Georg to find a place to house three kids. At least, not any more than I normally do to exist physically.”

“So you’re dumping us on the moon cause you’re too lazy to do any real work.” Vin nodded a little. “Relatable.”

“What exactly would it mean for someone to ‘take us in’?” Renee asked. “I’m not sure I really want anyone to have that sort of power over me again.”

“They would provide a place for you to stay, make sure there’s food for you to eat, take care of bills and taxes and all the little adult things that need to be taken care of while you guy focus on recovery and catching up in school,” Alcor said.

“And what happens when they abuse the power that they have over us and we end up stuck in another terrible situation?”

“That’s what that ‘until such a time as you wish to leave,’ clause of the deal comes in.” Alcor smiled. “You’re not going to be stuck anywhere.”

Renee diverted her gaze from the demon. “Please don’t take offense to this, but I really don’t want to have to depend on you to get out.”

“That’s fair,” he said. “You could always talk to Georg about getting a new guardian then.”

She met his eyes again. “And why should I trust Georg? For that matter, why would Georg trust us over an adult that they picked out to look after us?”

Alcor frowned. “If Georg is giving you trouble over something like changing your guardian, you let me know. Because if my circle leader is enabling child abuse there’s going to be a reckoning. Anyway, you could probably just physically overpower her if you needed to. She’s a lone gnome, she doesn’t have a lot going for her in the physic department.”

“Your cult is lead by a gnome queen?” Renee hadn’t been expecting that. Gnomes, as a whole, never really integrated into the larger society. They never managed to completely shake their reputation as hyperintelligent vermin, as many troops, especially those without queens, didn’t care about the laws of the societies they lived near and would take pretty much anything that wasn’t being used or nailed down (unless, of course, they had some use for nails in which case they would just take them too). They were also far more social than essentially any other species, and tended to get severely anxious if they weren’t in a group of fifty or more.

“Why not? She’s a good community leader,” said Alcor. “She’s positively asocial by gnome standards, but is still most comfortable surrounded by people, so long as they aren’t touching her. And she’s one of the most organized people I’ve ever met.”

“That’s great,” Renee said. “I’m sure she’s a fine person.”

“But?”

“But… Do we really need to have anyone look after us?” she asked. “We’re sixteen. That’s old enough to be legally emancipated in some places.”

Alcor sighed. “Living on your own is a huge challenge. I’m not saying that you couldn’t do it, but you shouldn’t have to. You’ve been through a lot; you deserve some time to recover without having to worry about where next month’s rent is coming from.”

“I just…” Renee let her arms fall loosely to her sides. “I don’t want someone else to be in control of my life.”

“They’re not going to be in control of your life,” Alcor said. “They’re just going to handle some of the responsibility.”

“They’re going to have power over me.”

He chuckled. “Well, yes. You can’t really avoid that. There’s always someone with power over you. That’s one of the prices of society.”

Renee glared. “You know what I mean. They’re going to have a direct power over me that is unlike that of, say, a politician.”

“And you have the power to leave if they abuse it,” Alcor said calmly. “No one is going to force you to stay with them. It’s a situation that is preferable to you living on your own, but if it doesn’t work out, as you so pointed out, you are old enough to live on your own. And you can. I just really think we should have that be a last resort.”

“But why?” she asked. “Why can’t we try living on our own and get a guardian if that doesn’t work out?”

“Let me put it this way. Do you really think that Vin can take care of himself? In an adult way?”

“He’s pretty capable when he actually needs to be.”

“Nah,” Vin interjected. “He had a good point actually. I’m comfortable with that.”

“Vin,” she said, “you’re underestimating yourself. You can be great when you actually try.”

“Okay, let me rephrase that,” Alcor said. “Is it fair to Vin to force him to put in the time and effort it takes to live somewhat independently instead of letting him focus that energy into recovering from a literal lifetime of trauma? Especially since you two should also be going to school and I’m assuming are going to have a lot of catch up to do in that department - that doesn’t leave a lot of time for mental health.”

“Well, no, but…”

“And it’s not fair to ask that you try and take responsibility for the both of you,” he said firmly. “You also need time to recover and heal. Don’t deny yourself that.”

Renee frowned, “I’m running out of fresh counterpoints, and am, much to my own chagrin, beginning to conclude that you are probably right about this. However, there is one last thing that I have to say that you have yet to truly address.”

“And what’s that?”

She curled into herself and crossed her arms. “Don’t wanna.”

“Well, that is a pretty strong argument. Not sure what to say about that.”

“Good,” she said. “That means I win.”

“But seriously. If it doesn’t work you can leave. This isn’t the facility, no one’s locking you in a room.”

“Still don’t wanna,” she said, holding tight to her airtight argument.

“Understandable,” Alcor said. “Would you be willing to try it anyway?”

She met his eyes again. “How bad is it permitted to get before we can leave?”

“If you want to leave for any reason I’m not going to question it. You want to be out, you can be out.”

She sighed. “Yeah, fine, sure. Let’s try this.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I do sincerely hope that you won’t regret this decision.”

“Hey I have a question,” Vin said.

“Yeah?” Alcor turned to face him.

“So the facility’s like, done for, yeah?” he asked. “Totally and completely?”

“Well, there’s still something to be done about the off-site staff, but as far as it is at all of concern to you, yes. It’s over.”

“So…” Vin said slyly, “we could totally get on the Net without being caught nigh instantaneously then, yeah?”

“There isn’t really anyone left to catch you.”

He pumped his fist. “Fucking sweet. You wouldn’t happen to have a screen on ya that I could borrow, would you?”

“You really want to browse the Net, right this instant?” Renee asked. She really wished she could say that she was shocked at this, but she had known Vin long enough to be used to the way he prioritized things.

“I really wanted to browse the Net like, a solid week ago but it wasn’t a god damn option back then, now was it?” he said. “Anyway, if there’s a chance we’re going moon-ways, I should let Alice know. Also, like, I should probably let her know I’m not dead and junk. She’d probably appreciate that.”

Alcor’s hat floated down to his hands and he reached inside. His arm slowly sank deeper and deeper as he shuffled the contents of the hat around. Soon he was up to his shoulder in hat, and he was biting his tongue in concentration. His teeth sliced clean through the end of his tongue, which grew a small pair of bat-like wings and flew away, without Alcor giving any indication of noticing.

Alcor started pulling things out of the hat, including three trumpets, one of which was only a few inches long; a kiddie pool full of a mysterious sweet-smelling fluid; an ant farm that glowed a dull red; a large pile of small rocks; a small pile of large rocks; a binder full of children’s drawings; and finally, with a triumphant flourish, a pair of computerized glasses. They were fairly slim, with the computer built into the frames. They were black with golden accents.

“Oh my god that thing looks ancient,” Vin said. “Will it even still work?”

Alcor glared at him. “It’s not that old; you don’t have to act like I pulled out a laptop or something. It’ll work just fine.”

“I really expected the guy who made the fucking Alcor Virus to be a little more with the times technologically,” Vin said.

“I was pretty with the times when I made him,” said Alcor. “There really isn’t much point in my keeping up with whatever modern tech is if I don’t have a project. One of the advantages of sapient software is you don’t need to constantly put effort into keeping it up to date.”

“Still. Wouldn’t expect the Alcor of Virus fame to be a luddite. But whatever, it’s a computer. I’ll take it.”

“Sorry it’s not really designed for your biology.” Alcor offered the glasses.

“Nah it’s cool, I can just hold it in front of my eyes. Or like, lie down and let gravity hold it in front of my eyes. Or just lie down and take a nap.” Vin took them. “The world is full of possibilities.”

Vin held the glasses in front of his face and waited for the computer’s various sensors to figure out who he was and log him in. The age of the computer was painfully obvious - it took almost ten seconds for the system to identify him.

Having logged him in, the system opened into his room. Aesthetically, the room looked like an ancient city wrecked in a fight between superbeings. It was massive and expansive, with lots of little hidden easter eggs for those who bothered to look, and also had encyclopedic knowledge of twenty-first century Marvel comics. The sky was filled with a massive portal, churning clouds spiraling in unnatural colors. Every now and then a robot would fly out. The robots looked nothing like real drones did, nor did they even vaguely resemble something that could practically fly, but they did look really fucking cool and that’s what mattered. Links to his most visited sites floated at his periphery. Directly ahead of him floated the comic that he had been looking at his last session. He didn’t even remember where he left off. It felt like it had been a very long time since he had been reading it. It was flicked aside with a thought, and his contacts list was brought into focus.

“Vin‽” Alice’s avatar appeared next to his before he had time to finish pinging her. “You’re back online!”

Alice’s avatar looked, to Vin’s knowledge, pretty much exactly how Alice looked, although he did suspect that she didn’t actually constantly wear Ms. Marvel’s 2020s outfit in meatspace. She was a short reptilian, with bright yellow-green scales and a patch of bright blue along her lower face and neck. Her lustrous yellow eyes were looking at him with concern.

“Yeah,” he subvocalized. “Sorry for disappearing without warning like that.” He picked at his crest, his avatar mirroring the movement. Vin’s avatar also looked like he did, except with legs that were about two feet longer to put his head on the same level as most people’s. “Things got all kinds of crazy.”

“Oh? What kind of crazy?”

“Mad crazy,” Vin said. “Like you’re absolutely furious about how crazy this shit is. You just have no tolerance for this craziness. You’re hella ableist and making everyone around you uncomfortable.”

“Seriously, though.” Alice crossed her arms. “What the hap fuckened?”

“Well, you know, stuff,” Vin said, not meeting her eyes. “Stuff fuckened.”

“What kinda stuff?”

“You know, the stuff kind.”

“The stuffiest stuff?”

“Some much stuff stuffed into that stuff that it’s gonna collapse into like, a black hole or some shit.”

“Seriously though,” she said.

“Serious?” Vin said, as if he had never heard the word before. “What is this ‘serious’ of which you speak? When are we ever serious?”

“What sort of question is that? Serious is who we are. It’s what we do,” Alice said, very seriously. “We don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘unserious’. Don’t even think it is a word, actually. Kinda just made it up right then.”

“So,” Vin exhaled deeply. “Fuck, where do I even start?”

“How about you start at the start, numbnuts?”

“Okay sure, so the long and short of it is that I’ve been lying to you for like, ever. Literally forever,” Vin said.

“The big bang happened and Vin said ‘let there be lies?’”

“Basically. Anyway you know how I said that I was sick and in a hospital?”

“Yeah?”

“Well. I wasn’t. I mean, I kinda was?” Vin shrugged. “It was a bit more Deadpool than that. Actually it was pretty fucking Deadpool; movie Deadpool though, there wasn’t really any Department K analog. And I was too young to agree to shit. And I didn’t end up too horrifically scarred. And I’m significantly less badass than Wade Wilson.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you have superpowers‽” she asked excitedly.

“Well, had. I kinda got rid of them.”

She scoffed. “That sounds very real and not fake at all.”

“No it was this whole thing there was a demon and stuff. It was super real. Mega real. Realer than sliced bread,” Vin assured her.

“There was a demon involved?”

“Yeah, Tyrone. He was possessing a kid but he didn’t really want to be possessing the kid and he’s alright. I’m making the world's shittiest fanfic about him, despite the fact that he apparently doesn’t actually kill people for that.”

“Oh trust me,” The Alcor Virus interjected. “That was by no means the world’s shittiest fanfic.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Vin asked, annoyed. “This is a private conversation between not you and not you.”

“I can’t really help but be listening in.”

Vin crossed his arms. “The NSA’s listening too, but at least they’re polite enough to keep their opinions to themselves.”

“Vin, who the fuck is that?” Alice asked.

“Oh, that’s the Alcor Virus,” Vin said. “He was also there.”

“Like ‘the bane of all shitty fanfiction writers everywhere’ the Alcor Virus?”

“The very same.”

“Okay.” She crossed her arms. “I need some goddamn context.”

“So he’s like Tyrone’s kid or whatever and he called him while we were chilling at this spider’s place and he like, trashed Francis Freeman’s place.”

“I suddenly understand everything,” Alice said.

Vin sighed. “Okay, so Renee and I were at this place and it was bad and I couldn’t tell you ‘cause I’m pretty sure if I did I would have been banned from the internet forever so we went through this whole thing and left. Then my super intuition, that was my non-Deadpool superpower btw, goes off and I’m like, we should attack the place right? Cause fuck those guys. So we do that and end up with this kid Charlie who’s possessed by this demon Tyrone, only we don’t know that he’s a demon yet. So we dick around in the woods and some stuff happens that doesn’t really matter and we end up chilling at this spider's place and she has all this extra computer stuff lying around and Tyrone goes and asks the Alcor Virus to help and I guess if you make someone they owe you like infinite favors or something ‘cause he agrees and he fucking trashes the first place and then we go back because of reasons and get Tyrone out of Charlie and we find out that he’s a demon, which really freaks Renee out, and now we’re trying to figure out what’s going to happen next and it occurred to me that no one’s going to track me down if I get on the Net so I did and now we’re talking and I think that’s about everything?”

“You definitely did not cover how you lost your superpowers.”

“Oh,” Vin said. “I didn’t want them so I gave them to Tyrone in exchange for something.”

“Something, huh?”

“You know. Stuff.”

“Just some totally normal shit from a demon in exchange for your literal superpowers, that’s all.”

“Egg-fucking-xactly.”

“Just bros being bros.” She shook her head a little. “So what was with Francis Freeman’s place? Why were they doing experiments on you? Were they training you to be a super assassin? Did you narrowly escape a fate of being a pawn of the global powers, murdering anyone who defied their wishes or who outlasted their usefulness?”

“What? Nah,” Vin said. “They just wanted to know the future, I think. If you want any more detail than that you should ask Renee, assuming she’s done freaking out about Tyrone. Which she seemed like she was but she might start again; it was a pretty hardcore freakout.”

Alice’s eyes widened. “Are you saying I might finally get to meet this mysterious Renee?”

“Yeah. Pretty much my only hold up for you guys meeting was that she had a tendency to get things on the Net blocked for both of us and I didn’t want her to try and sneak you some info and end our friendship forever.”

Alice laughed. “Well that makes more sense than her being allergic to computers. I might actually start believing that she exists at this rate.”

“What?” Vin cried. “You thought I made up a whole person?”

“You are pretty much the world’s shittiest liar, my guy.”

“Ignoring the part where I literally just told you I’ve been lying to you forever,” Vin said. “What the actual fuck is unbelievable about anything I’ve ever told you?”

“Well, on top of saying someone is allergic to computers, you literally told me that your mother died to a mysterious illness and that your dad was killed by criminals, leaving your sister to raise you in the ways of the warrior before you also got a mysterious illness and had to live in a hospital.”

Vin crossed his arms. “That was obviously a joke.”

“I don’t think it was, actually.”

“Okay fine, but how young was I when I came up with that?” Vin asked. “Can you really blame me for assuming that most parents died off via mysterious diseases or criminals?”

“You can bet your left ass cheek that I can,” Alice grinned. “I am really, really , good at blaming people for all kinds of things. I fucking excel at that shit. I could spend all day blaming anyone for anything. It’s one of my top skills.”

“Well, could you blame this face?” Vin said, making his avatar give puppy-dog eyes before waiting a few seconds and turning his avatar’s whole head into a human butt.

“You present a compelling argument but still I persevere,” Alice said, and laughed. “So you were never sick at all, then? All this time you had just been kidnapped by… whoever the fuck did all that crap?”

“Yep, that’s right. Never in my life have I been sick. The common cold is a stranger to me. I’m pretty sure people made up fevers as an excuse to get out of doing things. My guts are just too damn trashy for any pathogens to be willing to settle down in ‘em. Viruses flee in horror from my fugly ass cells.” Vin shook his head. “Nah, I was sick, at least originally. I bounced around a bunch of medical facilities when I was real young. I think it’s likely that my old guard gave me up under the promise that I could be cured. That or they just really didn’t want to deal with me anymore and were promised I would no longer be their problem.”

Alice frowned. “You know this is all really making me feel bad to complain about things like homework.”

“Why?” Vin asked. “Homework sounds pretty bullshit. That’s the one nice thing about being cooped up in a sketchy ass medical facility your whole life. I ain’t gotta do shit I don’t want to. Outside of like, get cut up and experimented on.”

“Well with that minor of a price to pay why the fuck did you even bother leaving? Sounds like you were set for life.”

“Well, Renee was really pushy about it,” said Vin. “Honestly I’m not really sure what I’m gonna do now that I’m expected to like, know things. I don’t know shit, Alice. Not a damn thing, my guy.”

“Well,” Alice said. “I might be able to help you get caught up in the math and science department. I’m not the world's worst tudor.”

“Obviously you’re not.” Vin pointed at his chest. “I’m the world’s worst tutor, and I will fight anyone who tries to take that from me. Anyway there’s like an actual reason that I wanted to talk to you right now, besides bullshit.”

“This is probably the least bullshit convo we’ve ever had.”

“Okay yes it is but that’s not the point,” Vin said. “There’s a chance that we might end up going to the moon to stay. Like, for the indefinite future. And like, you’re the guy I know on the moon so like I guess I was wondering if there was any reason you could think of that we might not want to do that and junk.”

Alice’s face lit up. “You mean we might get to meet face to face? Why didn’t you start with that? Um, anyway you gotta understand I was like, super young when I first moved to the moon. Like getting parental permission to access all the features of a pet site young. So tiny they had to use magic to make sure that the lower gravity didn’t ruin my development forever. So I don’t have much of a memory of what Earth’s like outside of as a tourist. But from what I understand it’s pretty different here from most places on Earth. For one thing the whole city still technically an experiment on the effects of long term exposure to lower gravity and other non-Earth living conditions, so there’s a lot of doctor office time. Our economy is very different; we provide living essentials for free so money is just for superficial things. Which, mind you, includes things like clothing and any luxuries at all, so people still like getting money. We just take it a lot less seriously than Earth does, from what I’ve seen.”

“Wait, if clothing is considered a luxury good does that mean that there are some poor fucks who don’t have any clothes?”

“Nudity is pretty normal here, dude. It’s warm enough for most species to be comfortable, so there isn’t really any need to wear clothing, outside of aesthetics. There are rich fucks who don’t own any clothes. My mom doesn’t wear clothes half the time, and my parents are loaded. So I guess that’s a difference to be aware of.

“Let’s see here,” she continued, “as far as day-to-day life is concerned, there are three ‘ideal’ time shifts that people operate in. One’s from six to twenty-two Greenwich, one’s from fourteen to six, and the last’s from twenty-two to fourteen. This means we never have like, everyone on the moon trying to use the same hallway at once, which is good ‘’cause old town Beta City was not built with its current population in mind so it would get stupidly congested if everyone had the same schedule. And like, obviously everyone has their own sleep schedule but school and employers assume that you follow one of those schedules like some kind of fucking chump.

“So which one are you on, ‘cause I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you online at basically every hour?”

“Did you hear the bit about the chumps? I ain’t no chump. I’ll awake when I please. Anyway, the air pressure is super low so even with the lower gravity flying’s pretty much impossible. I know how much you just love flying everywhere so I’m sure that’s really hard to hear. The air pressure is compensated for by having the air be pretty much entirely oxygen, meaning everything’s super flammable, so if you were planning on becoming a pyromaniac now that you’re free, it might not be the best place for it.”

“Sounds like it would be the perfect place for it. If you can’t even destroy an entire city then what’s the fucking point?”

“Yeah, but then you’d only be able to do that once, and then you’d probably be unable to make any fires again.”

Vin started to cross his arms before realizing that he needed one of them to hold the glasses up. “You’re telling me that everything is like, super flammable and they don’t even have a way of fighting one measly raging inferno?”

“There’s a lot of safety protocols,” Alice said. “But I was assuming that you would put in the effort to disable them like a pyromaniac with some degree of fucking competency.”

“When have I ever put effort into anything? And you’re assuming I’m competent? It’s like you don’t even know me.”

“Anyway, let’s see here, Beta City’s in a lava tube pretty far underground so there’s no natural sunlight anywhere. I know that can be a turnoff for some people. We don’t have a huge variety of foods; there isn’t really the space for a full-sized farm and shipments from Earth are pretty limited in what they can carry, so mostly we eat genetically enhanced algae. Apparently it used to be awful but these days it can taste like most anything and I think it’s pretty good.

“And you could probably guess, but adjusting to a new gravity is a bit of a bitch. At least, adjusting to Earth gravity is. I don’t really remember what adjusting to moon gravity was like the first time, but now that I’m used to it Earth feels like a prison and returning home feels like such liberation that you couldn’t imagine. Or maybe you could - you did just get actually liberated from a prison-like thing after all.”

Vin waved his hand a little. “Eh, it hasn’t really sunk in yet. It still feels temporary. Although I will admit, seeing the place utterly trashed is helping with that.”

“So I’m definitely not complaining about the possibility of seeing you in the flesh zone, but why the moon?” she asked.

“Oh I think I forgot to mention. Tyrone’s the moon demon.”

She scrunched her face up. “We have a demon?”

“You know,” Vin said, “the guy with the stars symbol that I see every now and then when you’re showing me around the moon.”

“Oh, the Circle’s demon.” She nodded a little. “That makes sense. They do a lot of work with teens. I didn’t realize its name was Tyrone, though.”

“Oh that’s not his like, demon name. It’s his fake name but his demon name sounds kinda dumb so I’m just going to keep calling him Tyrone.”

“Cause Tyrone is the least dumb-sounding name ever.”

“Are you kidding?” Vin said. “It’s like something out of a comic.”

“Right. Isn’t Cloak’s name Tyrone?”

“Yeah I think so, and also that one Roman guy, but who cares about them?” Vin spread his fingers widely. “Consider: Tyrone Tyson, everyman programmer by day, vengeful antihero demon by night; taking down shitty medical facilities and even shittier fanfics.”

“Yeah, I’d read that.”

“That’s great because I’m writing it,” he said, and pointedly turned to where Renee, Charlie, and Alcor were before saying aloud, “It’s nice to hear that someone actually appreciates my creative endeavors.”

“Who wouldn’t support Tyrone Tyson?” Alice asked.

“It probably has something to do with how the last time I pitched it it was as as incestuous, necrophilic erotica about one of the people I was pitching it to,” admitted Vin.

“Dude, If you wrote an incestuous, necrophilic erotica about me as a vengeful antihero I would consider myself completely and utterly blessed.” She shook her head. “Whoever you pitched it to before has no taste.”

“I know, right? But they probably don’t. I’ll let them know that right now.” Vin lifted the glasses away from his eyes. “Hey! Alice says y’all got no goddamn taste.”

“What?” Renee asked.

“You heard me,” Vin said, and then resumed holding the glasses above his eyes.

“No I…” Renee stared at Vin. “You’re not listening. Whatever, it probably wasn’t important.”

Renee sighed and resumed what she had been doing, which was very little.

“You’re right,” Alcor said. “It really wasn’t important.”

She looked him up and down. This was Alcor. This was a demon. This was the entity who created the Californian Archipelago. This was the person who had been helping them for the past few days. Who was apparently actually invested in making sure they had a safe place to stay. It was a lot to take in.

“You’ve been looking at me a lot,” Alcor said. “You have something you want to say?”

Renee avoided his eyes. “I’m not sure it’s something you want to hear.”

“You know you don’t need to walk on eggshells around me, right?” he said. “I’m not going to suddenly change my mind about helping you just because of something you say.”

“I really don’t know that,” Renee said. “I don’t know anything about you, really.”

“Well, since finding out who I am you’ve already called me a baby and got into an argument about the future, so if I was going to bite your head off I probably already would have. What’s up?”

Renee took a deep breath and said: “You seem to care about things a lot more than I would expect from a demon, which is, admittedly, a fairly low bar.”

“I try.”

“Our society has, to put it extremely mildly, problems. You are exceptionally powerful.”

Alcor held his hands in front of him. “I can see where you’re going with this and am going to stop you right there. No matter how bad this capitalist hellhole is, I can guarantee you a demonarchy would be worse.”

She shook her head. “I really didn’t mean to suggest that you become supreme leader of the world. In fact I cannot possibly emphasize enough how much I did not mean to imply such a thing. But, instead of taking over, you could help us move past this, to a better system of governance, or lack thereof. Make a world where no organization has the power to do what was done here.”

Alcor sighed. “The thing is, I’m not a part of your society. I’m not a part of any society. It doesn’t feel right for me to make choices that don’t affect me. I’m not comfortable being one person making decisions for everyone, and if I wanted to do what you’re suggesting I would have to make some pretty big choices.”

“I don’t have any such hangups, though,” the Alcor Virus interjected. “Tell me, what are your problems with this society?”

“Well, capitalism’s the big one. I don't want people to die when they can't get the money required to access basic resources that others have in abundance,” Renee said. “I mean there’s other things, of course there’s other things: the police are awful, our education system needs a major revamp, institutional prejudice is, well, it’s bad, and it sometimes feels like there haven’t been any serious social changes since things calmed down from the Transcendence, even though that was over a thousand years ago now.” “Well, I don't know about the social problems, but it sounds like one of your major concerns would be solved if a universal basic income was established.” "Everyone receiving the basic funds they need to survive would certainly be better than what we have now." She shrugged. “It would be better if personal debts were also wiped clean, so no one would have to spend all their basic income repaying predatory loans and the like. It wouldn’t be perfect, because it would still be a capitalist system and corporate opportunists would find ways to exploit it given time, but it would be a whole lot better than this.” “Yeah,” the virus said slowly. “I think I can do that.”

“What?” “Universal basic income, and a worldwide debt jubilee, starting tomorrow,” he said confidently. “That should be enough time for me to calculate regional rates and the other details.” “What‽” “I can’t believe I’ve never done anything like hijack the world economy before. This is going to be great!” “Please don’t alter the entire world economy overnight because of something I said.” “Why not?” the virus asked. “You seem pretty smart.” “I’m sixteen and would probably benefit from, I don’t know, maybe taking a single economics class?” Her breathing was quicker than she liked. “I am not an authority on this!” “Relaaax,” the virus said, drawing out the syllables. “Debt jubilees have existed since biblical times, and universal basic income has done pretty well where it has been implemented. It’ll be fine.” “I’m pretty sure that historically both those things have been implemented by the people that are going to be affected by them, and they have known ahead of time that it’s coming and have done things to prepare for it?”

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll warn people at least. I’ll go and make an in-depth explanation of what’s happening and put it on every major news site.”

“I guess that’s something?”

The virus paused a moment before saying: “The day after I first implement it.”

Renee buried her face in her hands.

“Oh, you know what might be better?” he said quickly. “Only posting the detailed explanation on sleazy tabloid sites and leaving the major news sites with something along the lines of ‘hello naughty children it’s universal basic income time’ with no further details.”

“Why?” She pushed her face harder into her hands. “Why did I ever think getting assistance from a virus made from a demon would be a good idea?”

“I’m not sure. Personally I would have thought Dad’s line about how he didn’t feel comfortable being one person making decisions for everyone would have been a warning.”

“I wasn’t trying to make decisions for everyone in the world!” she cried. “I was just trying to see if, once I found a group that seemed knowledgeable and competent that I agreed with, you would be willing to help us get our message out or evade prosecution or something! I didn’t intend anything to actually happen right now.”

“I’m not sure why you thought your intentions mattered when dealing with a virus made from a demon.”

“In retrospect, neither do I,” she said mournfully. “Could I at least convince you to try a sample region first to observe how it goes before you implement it everywhere? That way if it goes horribly wrong from the start at least we’ll know?”

“That’s a good point. Sample regions are important.”

“Thank you,” she said, deeply exhaling for the first time since the conversation’s start.

“I’ll limit this experiment to the Earth. Mars, Venus, the Moon, and the colony ships will be left to their own devices as the control groups.”

“Over ninety-nine percent of the population lives on Earth!” she said, throwing her hands up. “That is not how a control group works!”

“Oh, just think about how thrilled all the sociologists are going to be.”

She dropped her arms. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you.”

“I do everything on purpose. Except the molasses thing. That was. admittedly, an accident. A hilarious accident.”

“Molasses - no. I don’t want to know. Moving on from this absolute train wreck of a future I just apparently secured, can we go back to talking about what’s going to happen with the three of us?”

“Well,” the virus said chipperly. “If you decide you don’t want to live on the moon and instead choose to live independently on the Earth you’ll be receiving a modest bi-monthly living allowance starting tomorrow.”

“Can we please stop talking about that?” Renee asked. “Can we please talk about literally anything but that? It doesn't have to be the future. It could be Vin’s comics. It could be an in-depth history of the etymology of the word ‘scissors’. Literally anything would be better than this.”

“Literally anything?”

Renee glared at the nearest speaker in the ceiling. “Upon brief reflection I redact my previous statement; I’m positive you can come up with something I want to hear about less than the near economic future.”

“So um…” Charlie said quietly. “What is wrong with the system that we have - er had, I guess?”

“No, ‘have’ is right,” corrected the virus. “You still have 23 hours 56 minutes and 46 seconds before it’s accurate to refer to the current economic system in the past tense.”

“You had to ask, didn’t you?” Vin said, holding the glasses to his side, his conversation with Alice over. “You had to turn this beautiful conversation about destroying the world economy into anti-capitalist propaganda, didn’t you?”

“To answer your question.” Renee let out a big breath. “Oh man, what isn’t wrong with late stage capitalism?”

“Well, it seems to work alright?” said Charlie. “Work gets done and people get what they need for the most part.” “Well that’s a place to start,” Renee said. “People who do work which our society considers valuable get what they need, unless they need something more expensive than their job will compensate for. Which is not infrequently the case with medical needs. No one should have to choose between their health and their ability to have food and shelter, but many people have to. No one should be stuck in the catch-22 of being unable to work because of an untreated illness, and unable to treat their illness because they don’t have an income, but many people are. Which brings us to one of the larger problems that I have. “People who don’t work and aren't already wealthy don’t have access to resources under this system. Not having marketable skills, or not having the ability to market your skills, is a crime punishable by death under capitalism. And I cannot think of any way to fully communicate the extent to which I find that sentiment to be complete and utter horseshit.” “See Charlie?” said Vin. “This is why you gotta check the mouth of your gift horse before you bring it in your gates. Now your guard’s down and it’s revealing all the theory it was hiding in there.” “Oh, but I have barely gotten started,” Renee said. “I haven’t talked about inheritance, workers’ rights, corporations, monopolies, the prison industrial complex - did you know that there are places where prisons can literally fine the state if they aren’t provided with enough prisoners? ‘Cause that’s a thing. A really fucked up thing

“But as much as I would love to talk about this all day, I will concede this probably isn’t the best time for this. Ask me again once we’ve settled… wherever it is that we settle. And when I have access to the Net. I can hook you up with people who can say it better than I can.”

“So speaking of wherever we’re going to settle,” Vin said. “Living on the moon apparently includes a lot of time around doctors. I really don’t give a shit so long as they don’t like, I don’t know, carve an eye into my damn head or anything, but I feel like this might be a pretty big deal to you two.”

“I highly suspected that that might be the case,” Renee sighed. “Which leaves me in a bit of a predicament; I don’t want to have to go through doctor’s appointments in great frequency. But you seem to really want to go to the moon and I don’t want to take that from you. Also, as of a few minutes ago, I’m not sure this planet is going to be a great place to live in the near future.”

“If you’re really that worried you could just go somewhere that already has universal basic income,” said the Alcor Virus. “I’m not going to change it if a place already has it set up.”

“Yeah, what he said.” Vin met Renee’s eyes. “We don’t have to go to the moon if you don’t want to; I think it would be cool to visit Alice in the flesh but like, that’s the main reason I want to live there and I can always visit her online. It ain’t a big deal.”

“I might have a solution to the doctor problem, actually,” Alcor said. “The tests that they need to perform are entirely automated. Most people do them with a doctor because they’re the one that knows how to interpret the results and, depending on what those results are you might need to talk to them, but it’s perfectly possible to take the tests on your own and send the data to a doctor, and if something’s wrong the doctor could just explain what needs to happen to your guardian. You wouldn’t have to interact with a doctor ever, unless something serious happened.”

“That sounds tolerable,” Renee said. “I would hesitate to call it ideal but it is well within the confines of the workable.”

“So is that it, then? We’re going to go to the moon?” Charlie asked.

“Well, what are your thoughts on it?” asked Renee. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“I think it would be pretty cool.” Charlie’s gaze swept around the floor. “Well, I think it would be really cool, honestly. Living in space. Even if you can’t actually see the sky it would be pretty neat. I might want to join Renee when it comes to getting tests done though. Hopefully it will go away, but right now the idea of seeing a doctor makes me feel a little nauseous.”

“Alright then, are you all ready to go?” Alcor asked.

“I do believe so,” answered Renee.

“Alright then,” Alcor said. “One future: as promised. Let’s go to the moon.”

And with that he snapped his fingers one final time, teleporting them out of the wrecked facility, never to return.

A year and a month gone by and 72k words later and here we are. Thank you for being here with me for this. Thank you for your reads, and your kudos, and your comments. This story means a lot to me and I'm really glad that it means something to some other people, too.

For those of you who want to see more of these characters, I'm not finished with them just yet. I'm writing a squeal / continuation of H&H. It's going to be RPG shenanigans, starting with a murder mystery campaign GMed by Charlie. I hope you look forward to it.

Thank you again for reading.

#transcendence au #haunted fic #My fic #my shit #Fic

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

THE OTHER HALF OF N THINGS

It didn't matter what type. Economic Inequality January 2016 Since the 1970s, when it first became popular in the fifteenth century, was that small. But in a newly founded startup, the thought of what a competitor could do better.1 White. Conveniently, as I explain later. Those are interesting questions. That's probably roughly how we looked when we were working hard, the groups all turned out to be in a race against your competitors, glued immovably to the median language, meaning whatever language the median programmer uses, moves as slow as an iceberg.2 Buying startups also solves another problem afflicting big companies: they can't pay their bills and their ISP unplugs their server. If you want to optimize is your chance of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.3

Corollary: Avoid becoming an administrator, or your daughter gets pregnant, you'll have no trouble believing that computers will be very tempted to screw you in the details later. Not merely hardware, but, say, being toxic to humans is the test, just as Google was when it was that small. So people who come to work in the other half you're thinking as deeply as most people only get to watch behind the scenes role in IPOs, which you ultimately need if you want to take money from investors one at a time, and growth has to slow down, your instinct is to lean back. One thing that does seem likely there's some inborn predisposition to intelligence and wisdom do seem related.4 I smelled a major rat. Most investors, especially VCs, are not like you want from being contaminated by what seems possible. When we started Artix, I was rarely bored. It is for all ambitious adults. Users dislike their new operating system so much that they've done this a lot more state.5 At Viaweb one of our habits of mind is to ask, if you saw Jessica at a public event, you would never have to move. I can answer that.

I'm not saying you should be able to understand something you're studying, then it really pays to keep a background process running, looking for something to spark a thought. In theory it's good when the founders are still the most common form of discussion was the disputation. Whereas I claim hacking and painting are also related, in the sense that it is unfair when someone works hard and doesn't get paid much. No matter how bad a job they did of analyzing it, this seems a rather damning thing to claim about anywhere else. Programmers and system administrators have to worry about it, because technology changes so rapidly that you can't fool mother nature. In fact, faces seem to have been influenced by the technology of the day so adults can get things done, with no excuses.6 Investors are often compared to sheep.7

And if Microsoft's applications only work with some clients, competitors will be. ___ How much would it cost to grow a user base. What have other people learned about design? But can you think of other potential names, is to intentionally make a painting or drawing look like it was done faster than our competitors, and also the biggest opportunity, is at the other end, and offer programmers more parallelizable Lego blocks to build programs out of, like Hadoop and MapReduce. But if you just follow your own inclinations.8 Promising new startups are often involved in disreputable things.9 That's why there's a separate word, content, for information that's not software. To be fair, Perl also retains this distinction, but deals with it in typical Perl fashion by letting you omit returns.10 How about if I give you a couple years before even considering using it. Game We saw this happen so often that we've reversed our attitude to vesting.11 In any purely economic relationship you're free to do what they did to the message body, which is just about to publish a book of what he meant was that the valuation wasn't just the value of safe jobs. Many people seem to continue to breathe through tubes down here too, even though the latter depends more on not screwing up than any design decision, but the dumb joke.

But being lucky is the critical ingredient. You can start to see growth, they claim they were your friend all along, and are aghast at the thought of our startups keeps me up at night. Maybe, though the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time and pretending to like it. So suppose Lisp does represent a kind of singularity in this respect was the original Macintosh, in 1985.12 Actually, I've noticed this too.13 After Mr. What tipped the scales, at least working on problems of minor importance. This will take some effort to teach you that.14 Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule July 2009 One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is not just a good way to get experience if you're 21, hiring only people younger rather limits your options. Viaweb ended up crushing all its competitors. A good example is the airline fare search program that ITA Software licenses to Orbitz.

And why is it hard to make their mark on the world. It's like seeing the other interpretation of an ambiguous picture. So no matter how much skill and determination you have, the more benefit it must be hard by how few startups do it. Only a handful actually do, but what investors are thinking. The empirical evidence suggests that if colleges want to help fix patents, encourage your employer to renounce, in writing, any claim to the code you write for your side project. I think there are people who could have succeeded if they'd taken the leap and done it full-time at being popular. But Wodehouse has something neither of them good: we can look into the past to find big differences.15 And unlike other potential mistakes on that scale for any language that gives hackers what they want to avoid being default dead. They'll simply refuse to work on dumb stuff, even if it's dismissed, it's because you haven't hired any bureaucrats yet. For example, willfulness clearly has two subcomponents, stubbornness and energy.

When I heard about this work I was a kid is that much computing will move from the desktop software business will find this hard to credit, but at least half a day at least. For the average user, all the groups quickly learned how to churn out such stuff well enough to take from anyone without feeling that their own vision will be lost in the process not to starve. Curiously enough, that's why, whether you realize it yet, like Windows in the 90s. That's just a theory.16 The answer, I realized it wasn't luck. Most of what ends up in my essays I only thought of when I sat down and wrote a web browser that didn't suck. This has traditionally been a problem in venture funding.17 If programmers used some other device for mobile web access, they'd start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than we expected, and also with deep structural changes like caching and persistent objects.18 Symbols are effectively pointers to strings stored in a hash table.

Notes

The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and this is one of the word content and tried for a patent troll, either.

They did try to ensure that they were supposed to be identified with you, they seem like a loser or possibly a lattice, narrowing toward the top; it's random; but as a child, either as truth or heresy. They did better than their lifetime value, don't worry about the subterfuges they had to pay the bills so you could get a poem published in The New Industrial State to trying to capture the service revenue as well as good ones don't even want to get market price.

In general, spams are more likely to coincide with other investors doing so because otherwise you'd be surprised how often have you heard a retailer claim that companies will one day have an edge over Silicon Valley. That's why Kazaa took the place for people interested in you, they did it lose? Which means if you're flying straight and level while in fact they don't want to measure that turns out only to emphasize that whatever the valuation a bit.

Which is fundraising. Programming in Common Lisp for, believe it or not. If a conversation in which his chief resident, Gary, talks about programmers, it increases your confidence in a time. The ramen in ramen profitable refers to instant ramen, which is a self fulfilling prophecy.

See particularly the mail by Anton van Straaten on semantic compression. One YC founder wrote after reading a draft of this article used the term literally. A lot of people are these days. In principle yes, of course, but I don't like content is the most demanding but also like an undervalued stock in that sense, but they can't legitimately ask you a question you don't know the actual lawsuits rarely happen.

One of the world barely affects me. One measure of that investment; in biotech things are different. It would be more precise, and when given the Earldom of Rutland.

There are aspects of the next downtick it will seem like noise. I do, I'll have people nagging me for features. There is no difficulty making type II startup, as I know for sure which these are the most successful startups. Giving away the razor and making more per customer makes it easier for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have faces in them.

This flattering distinction seems so natural to expand into new markets. I'm not saying you should be your compass. I think you should prevent your investors from helping you to agree. What you learn in college.

But the money. At three months we can't figure out what the editors will have to do that. Maybe it would take forever to raise more money. Steven Hauser.

That's the difference between us and the fucking fleas. Rice and beans are a hundred years ago it would have become good friends. They bear no blame for opinions not expressed in it. When you get a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as you start it with superficial decorations.

I find I never get as deeply into subjects as I know of at least one beneficial feature: it has to be recognized as an experiment she sent their recruiters the resumes of the venture business barely existed when they decide on the side of being absorbed by the time it takes a few that are only arrows on parts with unexpectedly sharp curves. 25. 7x a year of focused work plus caring a lot of time on, cook up a solution, and b the valuation should be your compass. If you're doing is almost always bullshit.

We fixed both problems immediately. And I've never heard of many startups from Philadelphia.

If you invest in your startup with a toothbrush. Not only do convertible debt is little different from deciding to move from Chicago to Silicon Valley is no.

If Ron Conway, for example, the 2005 summer founders, like a ragged comb. In part because Steve Jobs did for Apple when he received an invitation to travel aboard the HMS Beagle as a high school as a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds.

Later you can imagine what it would destroy them.

Bill Yerazunis. 5% of Apple now January 2016 would be too conspicuous.

When governments decide how to do it in action, go ahead.

And that is a fine sentence, but for the firm in the narrowest sense.

Thanks to Shel Kaphan, Joe Gebbia, and Emmett Shear for putting up with me.

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