Chapter Three: Remembering the Dead
Three years of living in the former mansion gave Arcane a mental map of every door and step. Without looking away from her grey hooves she walked down a curving staircase into the main foyer. She pivoted around two sectional couches used for guests under a cathedral roof and massive chandelier. She turned left and passed a large curved desk framed between twin staircases.
She avoided all the 'good morning's and 'how are you's that acquaintances always begin with. Often she couldn't give an honest answer before her greeter interrupted with whatever request they truly meant to ask.
The sanctuary of a single low-lit hallway closed around her and the sound of a busy lobby began to fade. The first floor hall was far less busy. To the left were administration offices, labs, and the overnight room. To the right were the experimental rooms and operating room.
-
Arcane took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling. She counted the faint cracks in ceilings moulding and pondered what shapes she saw in the various water stains she found there. It was all a distraction to slow her heart and calm her mind. Her gift came and went along with the onslaught of information it forced into her. She was almost rid of it when a small green firefly hovered into her line of sight.
She let out a long and weary sigh as she turned to the little light's origin. A horde of the little omens glowed beyond the door to Overnight Room 1.
"To hell with you, gluepot."
She cursed out her boss and his request to look at last night's victim. Still, She turned the brass handle and walked in silently out of habit. The older mare wasn't waking up.
Miss SummerBreeze was a Celestial with the same anxiety Arcane suffered, only Summer's had a magical origin. The shrinks call it 'Social Anxiety Disorder'. Essentially, it's panic caused by being the center of attention, or potentially the center of attention. It can be caused by trauma, abuse, and sometimes simply chemical in nature.
SummetBreeze suffered because of her scar. Six deep claw marks ran down her back, three per shoulder blade. Those nerves deep in her skin acted like an antennae or a door to, well, wherever the fuck magic comes from. That magic was a part of her body from birth, and that magic regulated her emotions. How it all worked was anyone's guess. Long story short, magic isn't just a power, it's a crutch.
Arcane sat beside Summer and placed one hand over the unmoving lukewarm hand. She didn't fight her gift and watched fireflies raise from a light deep in the other mare's chest. That was part of her, something a few would call a 'soul' slowly leaving her body. Little to no light could be seen inside Summer's mind. She was mostly gone. It was only a matter of time her body would follow.
-
Airborne ash changed the sunset into a blood red sky made far too wide. Homes and businesses were rubble. The streets were now bare soil, once tightly packed cobblestone lain for centuries against hurricanes.
She sat on her knees in a tight circle of unscathed stone as she lowered her gaze and looked down at her small arms. Black snow was falling and it was covering her. It stained her fur from head to toe, and when it spread in a greasy smear between her fingers she realized it wasn't snow at all.
She looked up and saw fireflies fill the sky like multi-colored stars. Thanks to her gift, she knew them all by name. She knew her neighbors, her friends, her teachers. As her mind began to shatter she thanked Celeste she couldn't find her parents among the dead.
-
Arcane touched her cheek and looked at her tear soaked fingers in confusion. It was terrible what happened to SummerBreeze yet she didn't know what made her cry, nor did she remember so much as a sob. She let out a sigh and put that question aside for another time.
She gently squeezed the hand of the departed Celestial and wished her a safe trip to wherever souls go. She doubted such a place existed, but hope was cheap and easily gifted.
"Goodbye, Summer. I hope you're better over there."
-
A narrow door near the operating room led down into the stone foundation. Narrow windows shone pale light into the basement as motes of dust swirled around like tiny living things. Long tables and tall metal cabinets made up most of the furniture along with an assortment of specialized work stations.
Five leather steamer trunks rest beside a slanted table like patients waiting to be seen. In a fluid motion she opened the first one and slid out one of thirty thick bronze plates tightly packed within. She laid the plate on the slanted desk with care before going to a metal cabinet to get an odd pair of gloves.
The pair resembled tap gloves with a thick meter-long cable attached to the back of the hand ending in a hexagonal Jack. When Arcane pushed the Jack into a port hidden under her slanted table a slender articulated arm rose up from the table's side, its millimeter-sized hand poised in the same gesture of her own. Her actual hand swept widely outward and the mechanical hand roamed over the large copper plate until Arcane found a point to begin her work. Her hand made a grabbing motion and the tiny mimic gently plucked a tiny crystalline gear from its peg.
The large bronze plate was the home to thousands of small crystalline cogs with every sort of configuration. Each represented mathematical equations and logical circuits with conjunctions mechanisms made to reorder constellations into new forms. This combination of magic and science served as the equivalent of computers. With them, a multitude of spells could be cast with precision that could one day surpass Celestia herself.
Stress and anxiety drained from her mind as she guided the small mechanized hands down to the array of cogs. Every small disk was scrutinized for cracks or discoloration. When a component damaged from yesterday's power surge was found she plucked it off its minuscule rod and reached into an open drawer for its replacement. After three years of working on the same boards she could practically read the interlinked parts like a second language.
She didn't mind wasting the day just like this. One board at a time, one gear after another. It was all so simple, so mathematical and graceful. Here, the fear of judgment and mistakes were limited to her and her alone. Nobody would yell at her if she slotted a G-476 gear where a G-480 should go. She'd just nudge one gear and see how the rest mesh. One awkward rotation? No problem. She would just backtrack to her mistake and repair it. One similarly shaped gear made from the wrong type of crystal, easy. Her gift would recognize the wrong match before she even slotted it.
The hours went by and the light outside shifted from blue, red, and finally a bruised magenta. Sundown came and she barely noticed, barely cared. Her ears actively ignored the clip-tap-clip of two hooves and the butt of a cane slowly moving downstairs. She ignored the blotch of black that began on her left cheek and spread like an oil stain across her face.
It was always terrifying. It never mattered how many times the change happened, it always felt like she was being both robbed and freed at the same time. The darkness creeped down her neck and up her face as the last beams of sunlight gave way to a canopy of stars and violet hued nebulae. Her eyes shifted from deep blue to gold as she focused on the next cog she needed to replace. Her anxiety drained away and with it a thick portion of her conscience.
The waves in her hair went slack as pink shifted to lavender, as pink skin became a plum hue on the edge of black.
She ignored the old stallion as he made his way into the workshop. The final brass plate was done and all five 'brain boxes' were repaired. She could now tinker with her own toys. She said nothing nor made eye contact as she walked over to a metal cabinet with a keypad welded into its latch. She covered the pad and entered a a few numbers before pulling it open.
She took out two small stacks of bronze plates, each about ten millimeters thick tap-glove gear boards roughly eight centimeters wide. A similar task of going over minute gears began, though now it was far more experimental in nature. She moved around gears and varied them with various numbers of teeth, stacking and exchanging combinations as if there was a riddle there only she could see.
"Evening, Hex"
The old stallion spoke up. She gave a snort-laugh.
"You're the only one in this town who knows my real name and yet you still use pseudonyms in private?"
Ravenscroft gave a slight shrug as he looked over at Arcane's pet project.
"Still working on those homemade gloves of yours?"
"Well, it's a lot better than buying them in a store and having to register." she looked up at him with an easy smile on her dark lips, "Wouldn't want to break the law, now would we?"
She walked back to her many metal cabinets and took out two fingerless gloves with empty metal shells along the backside and six glass fuses. She slid each plate into the shells, the last plates recessed with three oblong depressions. She assembled her gloves and slotted the fuses before slipping them on.
She tapped the metallic plates together and felt a tight pull up her arms. She noted it took three less seconds for the devices to draw from her body. Her fingers spread wide and willed her Mundane magic back inside her to break connection and send the gloves into a dormant state.
"Besides, I want these strong enough to slay dragons. The mass produced ones waste space making them mod-proof."
Ravencroft abruptly switched subjects to why he truly came down into the basement during Arcane's nightly transformation.
"About the saboteur…"
"Shut up, gotta note something."
She walked over to the same container her gloves were in and scratched a few things into a small notebook before slapping the container closed.
Arcane undid her tool belt and let it land heavily on the floor as her attention turned to the center of the basement. The heart of this building was a green crystal roughly the size of Arcane herself. It floated in a cloud of distorted light under what looked like a funnel constructed of massive gears and an odd metallic rectangle. The metallic rectangle had clockwork and a piston inside it. Every 53 seconds the piston would fire forward and strike the crystal to stirr that distorted cloud, resulting in the overhead gears spinning faster.
"What do you know about kinetic magi-tech?"
RavenCroft scoffed and raised a single thick eyebrow.
"Nothing, that's why I pay you."
"Good answer. See, that crystal resonant generator has to be struck every 53.34 seconds to reach 80% potential. Of course, better clockwork pistons strike at 53.347 seconds, raising the potential to 85 percent and reducing the amount of times one has to recalibrate the damn thing. You can get more precise and it theoretically can go well above 100 percent, but that number hasn't been calculated yet. In other words, the chances of Queen Celestia spontaneously returning back to full health are far more likely than a precision strike that could send a surge of energy capable of breaking three hundred thousand bits worth of equipment, and labodimizong a Celestial currently under treatment.
In other words, the bitch dug her own grave. File the bounty and I'll be more than happy to fulfill it, but I'm not getting in trouble with the law over your need for vengeance."
His wrinkles truly showed as a scowl crossed his face.
"And if I do that she'll go to prison and probably be redeemed by one of the Knight's squires. In time she'll be a free mare with however much she was paid to ruin us."
Arcane placed an assuring hand on Ravencroft's shoulder before walking upstairs.
"She's a Murderer, RavenCroft. She's going to Tartarus, which means she's as good as dead. I'll happily track down the lab or ex-lover that wants you ruined and steal everything of value from them. Secrets, money, embarrassing photos, whatever. What I'm not going to do is kill in cold blood. Self defense? Dead or Alive? Sure. However, no amount of money will ever…. Ever get me on the wrong side of the Knights. Go to the Authorities, get the bounty, then we can talk."
She left him with a pat on the shoulder and the best imitation of a kind smile she could manage before leaving without another word. In mid-step she unzipped her jumpsuit to expose a short Jean-jacket over a tank top. Below her waist was black trousers that showed off the upper curve of her hip and black straps of her underwear. Her shy day-self didn't like wearing these sorts of things. Then again, Her shy self could never get up the nerve to shop for clothes.