Arcana 99: Stage One

Flores was a small island with thirty streets turning the surface into a minor labyrinth. The island gradually rose to a peak in the center. The Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Los Remedios rested atop that peak, leading its two towers to dominate the skyline. Before it was one of the few undeveloped partitions on the island, a small park with a few trees and a raised gazebo in the center. Euclid Grenfell sat on a bench in the park, letting the breeze and the shade remove his sweat. When he felt cooled enough, he rose and made his way to a narrow street leading to the shore. At its end, around the western corner was the office Maxwell had rented for the race. The street was 350 feet long. Euclid made it two and took a single step. The lake breeze was stronger now, and he turned left and walked the short distance to the office, taking in the watery view. He had seen oceans and lakes before, but only in passing, only on tour. Living on one for the past few months had brought an appreciation for them. Not enough to make him forget the mountains and dunes of home, but enough to mellow the symptoms of his homesickness.

The office door closed behind him, cutting his view of the water. He took one step to clear the fifteen feet to the stairs and another step to climb all fourteen of them. The upstairs contained only two rooms at opposite ends of a long hallway. One had been claimed by Karin as an office and bedroom while Euclid and Maxwell shared the other. Euclid opened the door to his room. The midday Sun held no power in the room as shadows coated every surface. The only things Euclid could discern in the void were Maxwell sitting at a desk and a faint ring of light in the corner. The heavy bookcase Maxwell had filled with ancient tomes from around the world was pushed in front of the room's only window. As with every day he ran errands, Euclid had moved it there that morning and would remove it that night.

"Did you find the book Karin asked for? She's getting. . . restless," Maxwell spoke with his trademark pauses. Learned from years spent speaking in confidential meetings with politicians and their 'hidden' spies, "Three escape attempts already despite tripling her salary."

"I told you it would have been easier to kill her," Euclid said, closing the door.

"The last thing we need now is more bad press, Mr. Grenfell. They have already tarnished our race enough with the cheating allegations. A missing person would end the race before we saw our plan bear fruit." Maxwell continued to write on his paper. The ink and the paper taking on the same shade of black in the dim light.

"You weren't in the meetings with her F- er, Maxwell. She's stubborn, smart, and vengeful. The last things we want being uncooperative."

"Then we. . remove her when she becomes too much trouble. For now, you have a meeting."

A room full of self-fellating egoists thinking they're the smartest man in the world despite that truth ending at their shoulders. Men that Euclid couldn't kill. Not even Maxwell's decades of experience could make them tolerable.

Maxwell opened a drawer in his desk. The light made it appear empty, but a pile of neatly folded black fabric sheets was inside. Each of the men took a sheet. One forced it under the doorframe, blocking even the shadows of the hallway from entering. The other did the same to the dim ring of light around the bookcase, erasing the faintest reminders of the Sun's rays. The sheets were doubled and then tripled up. Maxwell put one final piece on a thin crack in the wall that Euclid couldn't see. The room properly sealed, Maxwell's back began to fold outward with a mechanical hiss. A thick layer of his skin and clothes peeled away. Behind it was another Maxwell, smaller than the suit by a few inches. He stepped out, and the shell of flesh flickered before becoming grey and lifeless.

Maxwell rubbed air into his arm letting his hair rise to meet it as his clothes unpressed themselves from his skin before turning on the room's ceiling fan, "Get Karin's book while you're there. I suspect she lied about wanting it, but. . . proving we will. . . we can should keep her inside."

Euclid stepped behind the metal shell. It was invisible in the pitch room, but small lights guided him inside it. The opening morphed taller and thinner as he approached. The shell closed around him; it fit him almost perfectly, squeezing his flesh enough to cause discomfort without getting him stuck. Meat inside, the shell hummed to life. A dim screen showed Euclid the world before him, and the shell's exterior distorted his shape. It grew and thickened to accommodate the inch of metal surrounding Euclid's frame. The screen lightened the image until Euclid could see the room as if it was evening. The papers on Maxwell's desk fluttered under the fan's breeze which fell pointlessly against the nerveless flesh of the suit. Maxwell moved to the small closet in the back of the room and locked himself inside. Euclid draped the last sheet of fabric around the closet door. One of the dozens of readings and pop-ups floating around Euclid's vision declared the closet sufficiently sealed, so he made his way to the room's doorway. The screen enlarged one of the fabric sheets, revealing a millimeter-wide gap between it and the door. Euclid made himself and the suit half as tall and walked through it. Once inside the hallway, he returned to his original height. He was thirty feet from the building's exit. Two steps later Euclid left the protection of the office roof and entered the domain of the Sun. The water in the air, the food on the wind, the Sun on his skin. None of these sensations made it through the thick membrane surrounding him, and as Euclid pulled himself up and onto the Moon neither did the lack of atmosphere. His arms tightly gripped the lunar surface. His body—no longer pulled by the Earth's gravity—drifted headfirst onto the dusty ground. He'd had tasted dirt then death had he not been wearing the machine. Euclid pushed himself to his feet; the weakened gravity gave him a pop of air. Around him was a ring of hills and mountains surrounding a vast plain.

The machine called it "Tycho Crater," Euclid called it "recognizable." It was a fifty-mile-wide dip in the lunar surface littered with rocks and dust. Hills rose and fell by the dozens, untouched by time and life. In the center rose a series of peaks. They were miles away and more than five thousand feet tall. Euclid cut those distances to two and one foot respectively and took a slow step up the mountain. The machine added resistance to its limbs to ease the transition to the lunar gravity. Like the resizing, it was never quite enough and it kept changing every visit to prevent Euclid from adapting. Rebellion.

A pair of aluminum folding tables Euclid had bought from the Durham Manufacturing catalog sat at the peak. He grabbed a box in the middle of one table and ignored the rest of the trinkets scattered around it. The box was slightly larger than one foot in every dimension and made of an undecorated hyper-advanced steel alloy an inch thick on every side. Nothing short of the largest bombs directed entirely into it could force it open. He turned back to Earth. The Sun, unhindered by the microscopic atmosphere of the Moon blinded Euclid for several seconds after the screen before him dimmed. The machine was capable of adapting to light changes as they happened. The brightest lights and dimmest darks should be rendered neutral before the brain can react. Pettiness.

The Earth hung over him, its form cropped to half its size. It glowed a brilliant blue with bands of blinding white weaving over land and sea. Even after so much time, it was still unfathomable, unrecognizable. Perhaps sensing his awe, the machine activated a filter that removed the color from his vision and replaced it with thin white lines before zooming in. The lines curved erratically as they twisted into islands and peninsulas and bays and isthmi.

He told the machine to point out New York City on the chart before him. It complied, and Euclid shrank the distance between himself and the highlighted island to fifty thousand feet. He kept the distance static as he began to fall. Before he could gain too much velocity, he shrank the distance between his feet and the ground. He hit it, and his knees would have buckled had the suit not dampened the impact. His head still in the clouds, Euclid waited until the machine highlighted an area South of the island's overgrown center. He shrank the distance to ten thousand, and the machine outlined a block. At one thousand feet it defined the building. One step later he was leaving an alley, joining the individualless crowd of the New York streets.

Around him, impossibly tall towers rose into the atmosphere. Each one tapered back to ensure that the old gods of sky and sun wouldn't be entirely replaced by the new of steel and stone. The plinth presenting the tallest structure stood five stories. The mass above it rose a further ninety. Both their surfaces were adorned in uniform windows giving the illusion the entire building was held up by air. Inside, the lobby was pressive—both im and op. Grey and black polished stone zig-zagged across the floor as the walls rose thirty feet in two shades of brown. The room was thin and long, the height acting as a vice squeezing the room ever tighter. At its end sat a small desk cowered beneath a relief of the building that stretched to the ceiling emblazoned "Empire State."

Euclid walked down the hallway before entering one of the elevators. He walked with purpose, his steel-clad feet striking the stone with imposing force only to be silenced by the machine. Euclid rode it to the top of the shaft before moving on to the next elevator. After navigating the maze of halls and shafts Euclid stepped onto the fifty-eighth floor. He entered one of the offices outlining the building. Inside, half a dozen unimportant employees and handlers fed him pointless niceties and led him to the small conference room. A moment later, they left and two men entered the room before closing the door.

The machine identified them as—well, Euclid didn't bother reading their names. As for their occupation, it revealed the pair were two agents working for the CIA with one of them becoming a director in thirteen months.

Euclid stretched out his hand to the one wearing a brown suit, "Hello Mr," the machine filled in the man's fake name for him, "I'm Mr. Grenfell, from the marathon. I heard you and," the machine filled in the black-suited man's pseudonym as well, "had a proposition for our company."

"We did. Have a seat," Brown Suit said before taking one, "We've heard about your race and the extravagant prizes you are offering, and we'd like to make an offer for your services."

Brown Suit expected a question. When Euclid said nothing, Black Suit handed him a stack of papers and answered as their rehearsals dictated, "We represent several large businesses within the city, and we felt it in your, and our, best interest that you put one of your race's stages in our fine city. This pamphlet describes the benefits to doing so, including free housing for yourself and any race employees, a high-demand office space in this very building, and a discount for all racers in select hotels."

Euclid didn't touch the papers, "What do you want?"

"I'm sorry?" Brown Suit said.

"You are speaking around what you want. You don't want the race here for posterity, and you won't offer for charity. Tell me plainly, what do you want from this exchange?"

"W-well," The Suits shared an awkward glance. First at each other, then the closed door, "If you want it bluntly, it's money. The race brings a guaranteed influx of customers to the city, and our discounts can bring them to spend their prize money in our associate's businesses."

"Money, for you, your customers, or both?"

"Uh, both preferably." Black Suit said. The machine noted a band of radio waves transmitting from Black Suit's briefcase.

"But you'd settle for you. Maxwell and I do not need your money, and our race shall go where we need it. We will go through this city if we must. Not because a government agent bribed us to."

Brown Suit stammered out an excuse while the machine blocked the transmission to Black Suit's briefcase radio.

"Stop with the attempt at deceiving me," the machine used their real names this time, "Contacting your agency was the only reason I came."

Black Suit straightened his tie to mask him loosening his collar.

"Are we past the excuses stage? Tell your superior I wish to speak with him, and I will offer whatever it takes to do so."

Brown Suit sensed the opportunity and leaned onto the table, "How much?"

"Whatever you can wish for."

"That wish malarkey you're offering the winner? Nobody with half a mind believes that." Brown Suit was trying to put Euclid on the defensive in their negotiation, an attempt the less experienced Euclid failed to notice.

"Then don't ask for it," As Brown Suit had hoped, Euclid showed his hand in order to reel them back in. He put the metal box on the table and pressed his thumb against it. The box recognized his fingerprint and opened. Inside sat a crown of woven golden cylinders. The outside held gems while the inside held the jagged ends of the metal, "Tell your boss that I will grant whatever wish they have at our meeting."

Black Suit stared at it. It certainly looked like what he would expect a wish-granting crown to look like. He didn't even bother to note Euclid's premature certainty of the meeting, "That's the wish? Looks like a movie prop. How does it work? You put it on your head and think real hard? What then?"

"Then it kills you," Euclid said closing the box before Black Suit's wandering hand could reach inside.

"What good is a wish that kills you?" Brown Suit recoiled in fear that its power might have range.

"Plenty of things are worth dying for. A position with which your superior is familiar I'm sure."

"What if we want more than one wish?" Black Suit moved in front of the door.

"More will die to see it done."

"And if we want the crown?"

"Then you want for death," Euclid stood and made his way for the door. Each of his steps fell noticeably silent upon the hard floor, "I have made my offer. Have your boss send his."

Black Suit moved into Euclid's way as he approached. He took one step, then two, then three. Each one moved him inches closer to the doorway, but over the distance of miles Euclid placed between the two, Black Suit appeared motionless. Euclid was next to him now, Black Suit reached for his shoulder. To his eyes, he needed only his forearm to close the gap. He stretched his entire hand, then his entire arm. Both flailed in the empty space before Euclid.

Brown Suit, assuming his partner had let Euclid leave remained in his chair. Black Suit rubbed his eyes to ensure that his arms were indeed as long as he remembered.

Outside once more, Euclid made his way to a narrow alley, one of the rare unoccupied portions of New York. He looked to the Moon, stretched his arm, and was stopped by the machine's voice.

"Maxwell told you to buy the books for Karin, remember?" Its voice used to be a perfectly enunciated monotone. Used to be. Now it had a muffled, grating quality like it was speaking through a fan. Irritating.

"I thought I told you not to speak with me machine," the machine could keep Euclid's voice from leaking to the outside. Could.

"Maxwell has more time 'under the hood,' so his orders take priority."

Euclid put his arm down, "Show me the nearest store, and give me the title."

"The book requested by Karin Bernays is Adventurous Comics by-"

"In text, machine. Your voice pains me."

"As it should," the machine said before returning to silence.

An overhead map of the city appeared in Euclid's vision. He followed it through the streets until he came upon a small bookstore at the foot of a short building. Short in comparison, of course. It was still fifteen stories tall at the least, but everything seemed short when compared to the Empire building. The inside was full of shelves lined with thin paper-bound books. Each book had a colorful cover depicting numerous caped characters in various states of violence and heroics.

They were unlike anything he had seen before. The books Euclid knew were thick, and bound with purpose and pride. These were flimsy and bound with staples to make their price of pennies worthwhile. The men and women on the covers wore a frightening array of costumes and cloaks. Things no one, no matter how powered, would wear in reality. And the powers, the heroes and villains flaunted fantastical powers and abilities. They even had the ridiculous notion of 'weaknesses' and 'limits' for one's power. The more Euclid looked at the pieces, the more the masks glared at him, the more their powers mocked him. Unable to bear it any longer, Euclid did the dreaded alternative.

"Do we have Adventurous Comics?" the man repeated Euclid's question, "You must be new, it's only the single most popular comic series in the nation. What issue are you looking for?"

"Issue? You mean a version?"

"No, the issue of the book. They release one per month that continues the overall story through its own self-contained adventure. Issue eighty-nine just came out, but I've got most of the backlog if you're interested."

"The less I think about this nonsense the better. Just give me the whole series."

The man left his counter and began to drift through the store. For every issue of Adventurous he picked off the shelves, he spoke of another comic series or character origin. Luckily, the machine granted Euclid's request to mute the man. Unluckily, it only muted his words, keeping the smacking of his lips between words and the huffing of his breath between rants. Hatred.

When he had gathered them all, the man returned to his counter before continuing, "Of course, eighty-nine is the second part in a cross-over with Water Dog from Mysterious Tales. You at least need issue sixty-three to know what's happening, but the story has a lot of nuance about the similarities between Water Dog and Caped Shadow's origins and how they differ in their methods. So you need the last sixty-one issues of Mysterious Tales at least."

"Sixty-one?" Euclid hated himself for paying enough attention to note the discrepancy.

"Yeah, issue one was about some other character. Mysterious Tales was supposed to have different characters in every issue, but Water Dog was too popular. Though, if you're going that far you might as well get the third part of the crossover in Superior Boy number twelve, so you'd need-"

"Just get me one of everything."

The man smiled and returned to monologuing into the machine's disabled microphones as he filled a massive cardboard box. The latest issue of Adventurous was laid before him. A large man, cloaked in black, stood in the center. The dark cloak obscured his silhouette, giving him the appearance of a faced shadow. His face was obscured by an earless, noseless cowl. The cowl's flat face was drawn slightly lighter than the rest, allowing its large black eyes to stand out despite being the same shade as the cloak. Running along the center of the mask was a thin line representing a beak of sorts that traveled the full length of the face. The artists had gone for a Lesser Sooty Owl; they had got perturberance. Beneath the man the words, "Introducing: The Feast. Will Water Dog and Caped Shadow be able to beat this villain? Or will they be his next meal?" were printed. The two heroes were at the bottom of the page, struggling to stand. Euclid didn't notice those details, however; he spent the entire time frozen by the villain's horrific visage. The clerk returned and snapped Euclid away from the book.

The price fell on the machine's ears before it printed the required amount. Euclid handed the man six one-hundred-dollar bills. The man asked if Euclid had any smaller bills. The machine muted Euclid's answer and responded "No" in his voice.

"I don't think I have your change, sir," he opened the cash register and pulled out a handful of ones, fives, and a pair of tens, "Here's forty. I don't have any more, most people buy with coins, you see, I rarely get such big orders except for when I held a book signing here with-"

Euclid, desperate to end his torturous encounter, rejected the man's offer of using coins.

"I'd feel bad keeping this much money from you, why not get a few more books? This one's a favorite of mine," he held up an issue he kept at his counter for spiels, "Most of these books are for a less mature audience, but Viol-age: Dinosaurs and Ninjas is a series for adults. I don't even want to call them comics they're so far removed. It's basically a novel with all the twists and turns and characters. It's about a group of ninjas who get sent back to the dinosaur era while a group of dinosaurs are sent to their time. It does a great job of blending the two narratives together and the portrayal of dinosaur society as our own really highlights the world we live in. As for the dinosaur's side, the choice of sticking the familiarly alien dinosaurs into the alienly familiar Japan was a stroke of genius." There were only two things in the world that awed Euclid: dinosaurs and skyscrapers. The machine, noticing Euclid had a modicum of interest in the title, refused to mute the man as he continued to recount the entire story. No plot went unspoken, no character undescribed. The one thing from this encounter that would elicit even the tiniest sliver of joy, and the machine forced him to despise it.

The man finished his synopsis and shoved the other books into the box, "All right, all of those and their spin-offs are four dollars. I still owe you fifty-five; is there anything else you might like?"

"To leave," Euclid said.

"The coins," the machine spoke.

The man handed three quarters and a nickel to Euclid. Euclid lifted the heavy box, thanks to the machine it took no effort. He moved outside and looked to the Moon and put the box on it as soon as he found a remote spot in the city. He then reached his arm out to it and climbed. The Moon hung lower in the sky this far north. Altering the angle he moved to it; instead of falling onto his face, Euclid fell on his stomach.

The Earth dominated the black sky, and Euclid took a moment to appreciate it. The machine stopped him from taking more. The screen honed in on their office in Flores. Eight distance changes and one freefall later, Euclid was back in the office. He grew the gap beneath the door to several feet before doing the same to the thick fabric blocking the way.

Once the machine confirmed there were no cracks in the room's shield, Euclid opened the closet door. Maxwell stepped out as the machine skittered open and Euclid stepped back. Leaving the machine was always the best part of using it. Feeling the breeze and the heat of the room return to your senses as your eyes adjust to reflected rather than emitted light was euphoric every time, a stark reminder of why he loathed it.

Maxwell wasted neither time nor words re-entering the shell before a stray breeze, unlucky quake, or inquisitive Karin could breach the seal.

"Is that the book? It looks quite. . . plural," Maxwell said as the shell hummed to life and took on his distorted appearance.

Euclid scoffed, "Are you sure her request was genuine? She couldn't have found a more annoying task if she tried."

"The machine vouched for her," Maxwell returned to writing black ink upon black pages as Euclid pushed the door open with his hip.

Under normal circumstances, Euclid would refrain from using his ability when it could be seen. The door closed, blocking light and Maxwell's gaze alike, and Euclid shrank the distance from himself to Karin's door. He twisted his body and rapped it with his knuckle, nearly dropping the heavy box in the process. Karin rushed to the door, and slothed her way away from it when she saw Euclid's struggle.

"Oh? I wasn't expecting any gifts today," she emphasized the final word. A joke only she was privy to.

"It's your book. . s."

Euclid squatted down, but Karin stopped him before he could unburden himself, "Can you move that out of the doorway? It looks too heavy for a frail woman like me to move on my own."

Euclid stood, made a series of heavy stomps across the room, and set the box atop her desk, blocking the window. She may behave like the machine—she was certainly as vengeful—but she was not a necessity.

Karin eyed the box and rifled through the top layer of comics, "Did you buy the entire store? And in English, where did you find these?"

"New York," Euclid noticed a twitch in her eyes, betraying her feigned ignorance, "I felt you'd be entertained longer by the entire series than a single issue."

"I have missed the past few months, but," she held up an issue of Viol-age, "I don't think this has anything to do with Adventurous and their three-series crossover."

"I wasn't certain how quickly you read these. . . things, and I wanted to save a trip."

She put the issues of Viol-age into a pile, "I'm not going to read something so graphic, and I'm pressed for storage as it is. Can you take these and put them in your room? I'm sure they'd look great next to the original copy of Beowulf or whatever it is you two put on that shelf."

Euclid set the stack onto the empty desk downstairs. Maxwell kept the office too dark to read, and he needed silence after dealing with Karin and the machine all day. He made it through one page before he realized Karin's manipulation. The thin pages caught the air, cushioning the blow and silencing the cathartic "slam".