Prologue: Visions and Aspirations
The darkened shrine was quiet, not literally quiet, but spiritually so. The chaos and activity of the Nest was seemingly all consuming. It hummed and buzzed with the constant bustle of its inhabitants. They fought, argued and loved at tones and volumes that in a human habitation would be punishing. Here in the central Nest of the Red Hill Boston tribe this was business as usual, save for one.
The room was sparse, a little corner infrequently visited by any but a few Shadow Seers. The single large round entryway gave access to the dingy space. Only two meters wide and six meters long it housed only a small low table that was scrounged from a Salvation Army thrift store. On this reject from an office fire sat the scraggly approximation of a bonsai tree. The little plant was alternately over-watered or bone dry, but it had remained in this little sanctum for years.
The only light was a construction light hanging from a hook in the low ceiling. A yellow extension cord ran out into the hall, running off to an outlet that could be anywhere in the Nest.
Peter Super had grown used to his home, it had been the only place he could call safe for the fast and dirty twenty years of his life, but he had very infrequently visited this little sanctuary. He sat naked with his legs crossed trying to concentrate on his own mind. In the past he had been clear, but now he avoided thinking of the past, it had brought doubt to him. This doubt almost cost him his life, and now it threatened his calling. The Knife Skulkers did not respect crisis in their ranks, they were the one's who end crisis's.
He sat and thought and tried not to remember what happened. In this he failed, but did manage to forget the noise permeating the Nest. He twitched at the memory of blood and screams. Death and pain had never troubled him before. He has been the cause of bleeding and screaming and dying many, many times. He was good at it. He enjoyed it.
Suddenly he could stand no more, he had been mired in doubt and inactivity for too long. He needed to move, to run and, maybe, to escape. He had heard people say the only way to pass through such troubles was to confront them. He was a rat, he reasoned, so he didn't have to confront anything until his back was against a wall.
He grabbed up his clothes from by the door, he dressed and began to seek a way out. Red Hill was a warren of tunnels and chambers, literally a rat's nest. They met and ran and ended at seemingly random points. Many were too small for humans to navigate so he shifted into the form of a rat and headed for the exit. He has known this place from the day he woke from his Birthing Fevers, he was never lost here.
He made his way past his family. Extended, adopted and close. His parents were long gone, but everyone here was a child of Rat, and so they were related, whether they liked it or not. Sometimes they stopped and watched him, peering at his deformity. As though they might detect some further sign of weakness if they peered hard enough. He had proven them all wrong. Even the Elders, who looked down their snouts at anyone who didn't measure up to their imagined standards of Ratly perfection, had had to admit he was great at his job. Until recently, that was.
He was nearly to the exit when someone called his name. He recognized the voice of the Warrior who was on sentry duty. Peter felt no need to stop and talk with the hulking man, so he squeaked a quick: "I'm going out," and emerged in the night.
For a second he was disoriented, he had lost all track of time and had vaguely assumed it would be mid-afternoon. He stopped and looked around. No one was in sight so he shifted the shape of a human, making sure to pull the hood of his dark sweatshirt forward. He always made sure those things were covered. The curving horns that swept down towards his jaw from above and behind his ears were the mark of his parent's crime. He pondered this as he began to walk through the dark streets.
The chilly winter avenues were far from abandoned. Here in the heart of the city you were never truly alone. Only recently had he desired anything in the way of privacy, another mark left by his trauma. He avoided anyone he saw and continued to ponder the turn his life had taken.
It all began at birth. He had been the child of what amounted to incest. Two full-blooded children of Rat had been his parents. They had been exiled from the moment he breathed, never to meet their son, he didn't even know their names. He had been raised by the colony, put to work raising others. It had been a good life, some stared at him but only the Elders saw fit to say something.
And say they did. The courtiers of Red Hill had had plenty to say about the deficiencies of Metis such as himself. He had quickly learned to appease them, but they never stopped, until Old Snow. Old Snow had taken the young rat under his wing, as it were. Within a few years, the boy that had been Peter Super became a Knife Skulker of no little reputation.
He was still inexperienced, but some had whispered he had a knack unrivaled since the time of Old Snow himself. He had been on the way to glory and power, perhaps a place as an Elder.
But now it was all receding in the distance, a future that would never be, all because of a few poor, derelict humans. He had acted rightly, and with permission. Threats to the Nest had to be removed. He had done worse and bloodier in the past. Yet, he could not help thinking that if they had possessed homes and loved ones they might never have wandered into a place that was not meant for them.
He saw it as the fault of Old Spider. The Weaver created and perpetuated a system that spared none. In extinguishing those few, he had been doing its work. He felt unclean, tainted like years of whispering and gossip had never made him feel. Those cruel tongues had belonged to his family. The Weaver was his hated enemy. Now he was plagued by weakness and fear, the blade trembled in his hand. He had been rendered useless.
He looked around at unfamiliar streets. He had walked in a daze. He was downtown, where modest skyscrapers towered over him. In the past inaction and weakness would have driven him crazy, now they distracted him
Not far away he saw an old homeless man shuddering in a doorway. The ancient bum shivered under a thin collection of newspaper leaves. Peter walked towards him, for a second he considered making this old man pay for the fate that had befallen him. The thought did not go far, no, he told himself. It would only further his complicity.
Looking up to see the shrouded figure standing over him, the man hoarsely pushed out a mechanical: "Gotaquartermister?" Peter rifled through the pockets of his once black threadbare jeans. He didn't have much but he did have that. He handed a crumpled and dirty dollar bill to the old man. He started to murmur thanks that were just as mechanical, but Peter was in no mood to listen. Instead he crouched down beside the old man and breathed heavily on his hands. He reflected that soon he would need a pair of gloves, or he would have to wear his fur.
He looked out at the street, by day it would be hectic with the busy folk of Boston. Now there was just himself and the old man. Two people whom, as far as most people cared, did not exist. Peter Super gazed up at the towering pillars of glass and concrete. He saw singly lit offices up in the heavens of the downtown core. Here on the main street lawyers and accountants were busily working into the night. They were securing the futures of the rich, of the system, of the Weaver.
It was then that the vision hit him.
When Mother Rat spoke there was no denying it. His mind exploded into voices and images and sounds. He felt as though he might burst from all the information coming at him at once. He could hardly make sense of it, deciphering the meaning was impossible. He lost all perception and now he was merely along for the ride. He saw figures, himself among them, sweep into a marble cavern. They were armed and intent on violence. No sooner than he registered this image it was gone.
He thought he heard names, and places, but they were whisked away before he could remember them. He no longer knew where he was.
At first he had simply gone rigid, then he had fallen limply to the sidewalk. His head had thumped with an evil crack that sounded of bone. The old homeless man jumped to his side arthritically. Turning Peter over he discovered the awful 'thunk' had been caused by the horn coming out of the left side of his head hitting the pavement, not his skull. Despite this encouraging discovery the old man did not stop to further minister to Peter, in fact he didn't even stop to gather his meager possessions or riffle through the unconscious man's pockets, something he had done before. He ran from the scene, fearful that the man, whom he assumed was on drugs and probably a demon of some kind, might attract the authorities. The thing he desired least was becoming embroiled in the machinations of police, ambulance technicians and satanic men. He was out of sight in less than thirty seconds after seeing Peter's horns.
Peter remained completely oblivious to these events. His mind was awash with the revelations of the Rat Mother, She Who Brings The Birthing Plague. He was receiving none of it, but he understood the tone. Without his knowledge or consent he rose. Everything around him shifted and swerved. If he was aware enough he might have realized he was moving, but he was far too busy hearing.
It was like when a parent yells at a child, no words are being understood, but the message is communicated loud and clear. The Rat Mother was not yelling at him, but when you are that powerful, even your whispers can cave skulls.
Suddenly he began to grasp that his one-sided conversation was coming to an end. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, his vision ended. He was alone in his mind again and the solitude made him long for the Nest. The first thing he did was throw up, he hadn't eaten much or recently, but he was intent on trying.
Then he lifted his poor, swimming, ringing, and bashed head. It all became clear. He suddenly knew what it was he had to do. He saw an end to his crisis.
Before him rose the towering premises of the FleetBoston Financial Corp., One Hundred Federal Street. He smiled; it was time to get back to work.