Reign of Conformity

by Baeraad

LAST CHAPTER IN PLACE! Here's the final showdown between the newly Awakened mage Simon Stromberg and the Virtual Adept who believes him to be a deadly threat.

6. The Technocracy

DISCLAIMER: The world isn't mine, the characters are, and so on and so forth, you know how it goes by now.

Okay. I suppose that none of you really saw this coming? You expected chapter seven, and instead you're getting a new chapter six. Well, if it's any consolation to you, it kind of surprised me too… =]

I did start writing chapter seven. I got a fair distance into it, and then realised that I was bored. Bored, bored, bored. Bored to tears. Bored out of my skull. I hated my plot, I hated my dialogue, I hated my character development, and what had so far been a story I had been rather proud of was suddenly just lots of words on the screen, without any real context to them.

So I thought back and tried to figure out where I had lost the thread of the story, where I had last liked what I had written… and to my despair, I realised that that had been at the end of chapter five. Everything since then was pure crap.

There is an explanation for that, actually.

See, Reign of Conformity started with me reading the Mage rulebook and trying to explain to myself how Consensual Reality, and all its consequences, worked. Before I knew it, my explaining "voice" took on a life of its own and became Diana, and the person she was explaining to became the newly Awakened Simon. And since I liked both those characters, I started writing their story. It was meant as something rather modest, maybe 15.000 words or so. As you have seen, it became a lot longer… and because of that, and because of my inability to write at any given story for any longer amount of time, it also took a lot longer.

Meaning, I had a lot of time to think about the Diana-explaining-it-all scene.

A lot of time to build upon it.

A lot of time to form it completely in my head.

A lot of time to freeze it solid.

Therefore, when I actually sat down to write the chapter in which Diana first meets Patrick Farson and then, having realised who Simon really is, explains to him about the Technocracy, I was essentially writing from memory. I had made everything up in advance, leaving nothing to the whim of the moment. Seeing as most of my readers are probably writers themselves, I don't think I need to explain just how inadvisable that is.

The result: pure crap which threw the story into a direction of more pure crap.

Therefore, I apologise for the inconvenience, but I must hereby declare all of chapter six as you have read it invalid. What follows is the real version, which will be followed by the real chapter seven. I personally think that this version is superior. I hope you will all agree.

Now then, going back to Simon and Diana in her apartment, Saturday night…

Even the best of days, however, must eventually end.

It had started going dark outside of Diana's window when she got out of bed and started getting dressed. I remained under the cover, supporting my head on my elbow, and watching her. Just watching her, every move she made, every shadow passing over her smooth, brown skin. I couldn't seem to get an amazed smile off of my face. I felt amazed. I didn't think I had ever felt so… so good. Not just content, or at peace, or satisfied, but good, like the world was a nice place to live and my life was a nice life to have. Like everything… was right.

"I really like you, you know," I said matter-of-factly.

Diana grinned at me as she pulled on a pair of black jeans. She didn't move with more grace than one would expect, I noticed with interest. I had seen her somersaulting around a room, keeping out of the way of an insane monster, every motion in perfect control. Now, she was just a woman who had kept reasonably fit, but who didn't get all that much exercise and had left her physical peak behind some years ago. Without her implants triggered, she was just… a person.

Somehow, that didn't lessen the feeling of awe. It increased it. If you met a goddess, you would expect her to be fantastic. Meeting another human being who was fantastic – that was a true miracle.

"Right back at you," she said. I couldn't quite suppress a sigh when she pulled a black sweater on. I had enjoyed the view. "Now get up, you lazy lug. We have things to do."

I groaned theatrically.

"No rest for the wicked, is that it?"

"Pretty much, except that we're not wicked," Diana said. She walked down to the foot of the bed and pulled the cover off of me. A great deal of my snugly warmth disappeared along with it. "We're the good guys. And there's far too few of us, so we have to work overtime."

"I'm used to that, at least," I sighed. Diana watched me with a sly little grin on her face as I got up. Apparently, she also liked the view. That thought made me feel very manly.

"You're stuck with yesterday's clothes, I'm afraid," she said and tossed me a bundle of cloth which, upon further inspection, proved to be my suit. "Nothing I've got would fit you."

"That's okay." I started getting dressed, but stopped and looked at my shirt. There was nothing very wrong with it, but it didn't smell very nice – a lot of the things I had been doing while wearing it had been of the kind that caused perspiration. "This shirt is dirty. That's reality."

"Can't argue with that," Diana admitted amiably.

"But reality is subjective," I mused. "So if I don't choose to see this shirt as dirty…" I closed my eyes. "It's a fresh shirt, straight from the cleaners. This is the reality I want. When I open my eyes, it will be the reality I find."

I took a deep breath, and opened my eyes.

The shirt had still obviously been worn for a great many hours since its last wash. Diana watched me, her hand in front of her mouth to hide a smirk. I wrinkled my brow.

"Why doesn't it work when I do that? According to that explanation you gave me, it should."

"Yes, Simon," Diana said. "If it was that simple, it would. It's not, though. If I made it sound like that, it was because I wanted to bring the point across. Magick, like everything else that's worth doing, is difficult and tricky."

I nodded slowly. That made sense, I supposed. If it was simple, everyone would be doing it.

"What am I doing wrong?" I said humbly.

Diana hesitated, looking thoughtful.

"For starters," she said, "you just want the shirt to be clean. You don't think about how it would get clean. In fact, you don't really know what it means for it to be clean. What is it about it that makes it dirty? What has to be removed and added for it to suit your definition of what a clean shirt is like?"

"I'm wishing instead of doing," I said.

Diana laughed in surprise and nodded eagerly.

"Yes! That's it exactly. Never wish. Always do. That's what magick is all about. What the Empowering is all about. There is always a way to do everything, but you have to first figure out what it is and then do it. Everything is possible, but nothing is simple…"

"… and some things are bloody stupid?" I finished, raising an eyebrow. I had thought that comment was cryptic at the time, but now, it was starting to make a surprising amount of sense.

"Exactly. You're starting to get it."

For lack of magickal solutions, I put on the shirt. It really didn't feel that bad. I'm usually a bit of a fanatic when it comes to wearing clean clothes, but putting on something you wore yesterday has a certain merit to it. It's very comfortable. The cloth and your skin have had time to get to understand each other.

"Could you clean a shirt by magick?" I said, out of curiosity. Diana shook her head.

"I wouldn't know where to start. Though if you wearing something clean was a matter of life and death, I guess I do have a gadget or two that would be able to pluck a clean shirt from your own wardrobe." She grinned. "Don't even bother to ask, though. It would be very difficult and risky for me to do that. Spacetime doesn't go easy on people making mistakes while meddling with it."

"Don't worry," I said. "I promise to not start regarding you as a viable alternative to the subway."

She laughed.

"Thank you kindly. Are you up for some breakfast?"

"Dinner," I corrected. "We've missed breakfast. And lunch."

"That's true." She grinned wryly. "I guess that means I'm entitled to three meals in a row now."

"You'll burst," I said flatly.

"No, I won't." She smiled smugly. "My digestion process works very quickly when I want it to, for some reason."

"Oh, that is worth using magick for?" I grumbled as Diana strode off to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, I was enjoying a cup of coffee and sandwich, while Diana had gotten through the breakfast part of her meal-trilogy and was currently heating something plastic-wrapped in the microwave.

"So," I said. "I take it you have some plans for the night?"

"Oh, yes." She grinned, somewhat unpleasantly. "I'm going to track 'him' down and break his worthless neck. I'm afraid you'll have to tag along, because I can't risk 'him' going for you while I'm gone."

"Oh, I don't mind." I smiled faintly. "It might surprise you to hear this, but I don't really find your company overly burdensome."

She chuckled. It was hard to tell with her dark skin, but I think that she was blushing. Which was a rather un-Diana-like thing to do, come to think of it.

"I'm glad you think so," she said loftily.

"Out of curiosity," I said, "where do we start?"

"Well…" She looked thoughtful. "Dougal has a lot of mages living in it, for a city of its size, but it's still not that many. And the ability to meddle with dimensions on the scale 'he' can is rare. We can eliminate the number of suspects that way."

"And…?"

"Well, there's Kevin, to start with." She smiled distantly. "I would like to think that he wouldn't betray me. We share a bit too much history for that."

I realised that somehow, someway, Kevin Harsh simply had to go. There had to be some means of getting rid of him. The man summoned demons and shot werewolves, for God's sakes. He had to have done something I could turn him over to the police for…

"There was a woman named Jennifer Deerheart who was fond of summonings and bindings," Diana went on. "She's dead now, though. Or at least I hope so." She scowled. "That woman was nothing else than bad news in a designer dress…"

"So if she is alive, she might just be 'him'?" I said.

"Yes, though she was never too fond of computers." Diana wrinkled her brow. "I can't really picture her using yours as a medium to send a creature through. She always made fun of how dependent she thought I was on technology. 'How hard you try to escape the understanding of your own flesh', I think she said."

I rolled my eyes. Charming girl. I was starting to see why Diana hadn't liked her much.

"So who knows how to do it, and would do it in that specific way?" I said.

The microwave gave off a short ping. Diana took out her meal, placed it in front of her seat at the table and dug in at it with knife and fork.

"To the best of my knowledge," she admitted, "only one person." She sighed. "Though I hate to think it's him. I've never really liked him, or vice versa, but I thought we had decided to keep things civil."

"Well, let's go have a talk with him, then," I suggested.

"That will be a little difficult in itself…" Diana said, and then broke off as the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," I said and got up from my chair. "Are you expecting someone?"

"Nope," Diana said as she cheerfully impaled something that was presumably meat on her fork. "Probably just some neighbour who wants to complain about the ruckus this morning. They do that a lot."

"Ever considered not making so much ruckus at strange hours?" I said as I went for the door.

"What? And give up my godgiven right to listen to King Crimson at four in the morning? Really, Simon."

"Silly me," I mumbled and opened the door.

My jaw dropped as I saw who stood outside of it, a dark look on his face.

"And just where have you been?" Patrick growled.

I didn't mean to, but as Patrick stepped over the threshold, I backed away to let him in. I can't even blame his strange control over me, because that only manifested in spoken commands; this was sheer cowardice. In my defence, I daresay most people would have done the same. Patrick seemed to push me back through pure force of personality.

It wasn't just the fact that he looked like he expected everything his gaze fell upon to catch fire. It certainly wasn't his imposing physical built – I have the exact same built, after all. If anything, I think it was his unflinching certainty that I would get out of his way. The human mind is a fragile thing that way. It's so uncertain about most things that it easily assumes that someone who is certain must be right.

"I asked you a question," he snarled.

"Here," I said. "I've been here." From somewhere, I summoned a bit of backbone. "What business is it of yours, anyway?"

"Don't. Talk. Back. To me."

I had thought I had seen Patrick angry. In fact, I hadn't thought I had ever seen him in any state but anger. All of creation angered Patrick by its pure imperfection. And last time I had seen him, I had demanded answers from him that he had not been ready to give. I had thought that he could not possible be more furious than he had been then.

I had been wrong. This was far, far worse than that time. He was positively glowing with directed outrage. It was a glorious thing to behold, in a way – much like, I imagine, it would be a glorious thing to see fire rain from the sky. However, I was in no position to admire it. To continue the comparison, my position was rather like actually living in Gomorrah.

"You weren't here last night," he said, every word hammered into my ears by the full force of Patrick's righteous fury. "I checked. You weren't here when I checked again early this morning. You got here somewhere during the day. Tell me when."

I tried to resist it. God help me, I tried. But it was like trying to flex a muscle in an amputated limb. There was just nothing in me that I could place in his way.

"Sometime before dawn…" I said uncertainly. "Five, maybe…"

"Huh. I almost caught you, then." He grimaced. "Doesn't matter. I want to know where you were until then."

"None of your business," I said hoarsely. "Where the hell do you get off to, coming here and…"

He hit me. His fist seemed to come out of nowhere and striking me between the eyes. I staggered backwards, explosions of light and colour appearing in my field of vision. I didn't feel any pain yet, just the realisation that in a few seconds, my nerves would catch up, and there would be pain. I struggled to remain standing, but it was in vain; all I managed was to land in sitting instead of lying position.

Then the pain struck me, and I thought I was going to pass out. My head felt like it was going to explode. I looked up, hurt and disoriented, and saw Patrick's eyes look down at me. I looked into them, and…

Yes. There it was, sure enough. I-want. I-can. You-can't-stop-me. The gleam of the Empowering. The fire of magick.

Patrick was a mage.

I thought I could see something else in his eyes and his face, too, along with the anger. Though that had to be my muddled state deceiving me. For surely, Patrick couldn't be afraid…?

"Shut up with your nonsense," he snarled. "Answer my questions, but otherwise shut up."

"Why don't you make me?" I gasped. I pressed my hands against my forehead, like I was trying to keep my head together that way. "Why don't you make your voice go spooky and just make me?"

He smiled thinly.

"It's not quite as simple as that." He bent down and grabbed my chin between two fingers. His grip was like a vice. "Not that it matters. You will do as I say because I say it, not because you're forced to. Do you understand me? You will do as I say, or I will break you."

"Doctor Farson, I presume?"

Patrick straightened up, letting go of my chin. I looked around and saw Diana standing in the kitchen door. I hadn't heard her move.

She looked strangely small next to Patrick. I had seen her fight a ten-foot monstrosity that healed wounds five seconds after it received them, but I had never seen her look this much like an insect that someone was about to step on. From the look on her face, though, she meant to fight to the death regardless of the odds.

"And who are you?" Patrick said with disgust. Then he did something strange; he pulled a pair of shades out of his jacket pocket and held them in front of his eyes for a second. Then he grimaced as he put them back in his pocket. "Deviant."

He made it sound like the most distasteful word imaginable. Diana, however, grinned smugly.

"I do my best."

"You're the one who's tampered with this specimen."

This specimen? some lingering trace of self-respect said with a raised eyebrow. Excuse me? This specimen? Patrick, you bastard, if I get half a chance you'll get to know what it feels like to be strangled by a specimen…

"I guess you can say that," Diana said. "I didn't do anything he didn't approve of, though."

"Anything he didn't approve of?" Patrick took a few long steps past me, placing himself right in front of Diana, looking down at her from his six foot eight altitude. "He is not the one who has to approve, Deviant. I am. And you will regret meddling in my affairs."

"I've heard that one before." The switchblade appeared in her hand, and the blade flicked out with a menacing click. "So, what are you going to do? Fight me? Here, on my own ground?"

"I just might," Patrick growled.

As quietly as I could, I got to my feet. My head was still spinning, and the spot where I had been hit was still aching like crazy, but I wasn't too badly hurt. Patrick had his back turned, and he wouldn't be able to give me any orders if I clamped a hand over his mouth. So he was a mage, was he? Well, I might not be too good at cleaning shirts with a snap of my fingers, but I was damn well a mage too despite of that, and I was about to show some mage-like initiative.

"What did you do to him?" Patrick said, almost sounding like he was talking to himself. "The override subroutine is clearly intact. You've done something to the suppressor functions, though. How did you manage that?"

"I'm very resourceful," Diana said lightly. She and Patrick were watching each other with an intensity that was almost overwhelming to see. The moment one of them struck, I realised, Diana's apartment was going to turn into a battlefield. I had seen Diana fight. Patrick was an unknown quantity, even though I could vouch for him having a good right… but I had no doubt that he would have some way to face the worst Diana could throw at him.

I was within range now. I lashed out with both hands at Patrick's neck, without making a sound.

Patrick's hands came up with frightening speed, grabbing my wrists in a vice-like grip. I gave off a muffled shout of pain. Even Diana seemed surprised by the sheer effortlessness of Patrick's reaction; he hadn't even taken his eyes off of her.

"Simon has all the stealth of a limping rhinoceros," he said with disgust. "But point taken. You have managed to get a certain amount of control over him. If I fought you, I would endanger both him and myself. That's an unacceptable risk."

"Then get out," Diana said flatly.

I didn't say anything. It was all I could do not to scream. I felt like Patrick was crushing my bones with his bare hands. And even that was not as bad as the damage on my ego. I felt very unEmpowered and very much like I should have stood aside and let my betters determine my fate. I had done so all my life, after all, and old habits die hard.

"Very well," Patrick said. "But just to make sure you don't do anything hasty, like try to shoot me in the back as I walk away… Simon, keep her occupied until I have gotten away."

Suddenly, he wasn't holding my wrists anymore. I hardly noticed. Without knowing why, I was throwing myself forward, past him and at Diana. She retreated back into the kitchen, quickly and gracefully. I followed.

It wasn't even as if I was being forced. If I had been forced, I would have been able to fight it, no matter how feebly. It was like there was just no other alternative. I couldn't choose not bleed if someone cut me, I couldn't choose not to fall if someone pushed me off a cliff, and I couldn't choose not to obey when Patrick gave me an order.

There was just enough left of me in my head to scream in impotent protest as I looked around to see where Diana had gotten to. I had just enough time to register that she had slipped to the side of the door before her foot hit me in the side and threw me against the wall. My legs folded under me, and I dropped to the floor. There was pain, but it was distant.

"Sorry," Diana said with a grimace. "Just stay down there until…"

Excellent advice. Too bad I couldn't follow it. I got up, heavily and gracelessly, and threw myself at her again, arms reached out to grab or hit.

Diana twisted out of my way and gave me a hard push in the back. I hit another wall, head-first this time.

"Stay down!" Diana snapped. There was something in her voice that was not almost, but not quite, hysteria.

I tried to obey her. Why should I obey Patrick and not her? She was just as Empowered, and hell of a lot nicer. But apparently it didn't work that way. The ringing in my ears and the flashes before my eyes, neither of which had quite had time to disappear, had doubled, but still I forced myself up.

I felt strangely light. There was something… pleasant… about this strange slavery I was in. I didn't have to think. I didn't have to plan. I didn't have to worry about anything, not even about my own life, because my life wasn't important. I just had to do what I was told, and keep doing it until I was done. It was all very simple.

That fact made me feel more disgusted with myself than the fact that I was trying to hurt someone I cared about.

"Damn it, Simoooooooon…" Diana growled between her teeth as she backed away from my stumbling advance. She pulled back the sleeve on her left arm, exposing what looked like a very futuristic bracelet; all shiny metal and plastic buttons. She fiddled with it as I got closer. I didn't pay it any attention. Keep her occupied. That was all I had to do. Keep her occupied.

There was a flash of light, not unlike a camera taking a shot. And suddenly I was in pain.

I mean serious pain. I hadn't been feeling too well since Patrick had hit me, but that had just sat on the surface of my simple-minded attempts to 'keep her occupied', as Patrick had ordered. This pain didn't. This was pain with an attitude. Pain not to be messed with. It drilled itself into my stomach and erupted in an explosion of agony that sent me too my knees.

"Come on, Simon, fight it!" Diana urged. She still held her right hand on the bracelet. It was giving off a constant, electric hum. "Don't make me hurt you more!"

Somewhere, I found the strength to reach out for her. Keep her occupied, keep her occupied.

Diana gave off a noise that sounded strangely like a sob. She turned a wheel on the bracelet. The humming intensified.

So did the pain.

I don't know how long I spent on my back, writhing in agony. I had never felt anything even vaguely like it. It centred on my stomach, but sent its tendrils up my back and down into my hips, putting my nerves on fire as it went. I screamed myself hoarse, and still it wouldn't stop.

Then, finally, it did. I lay still, eyes closed, not moving a muscle, as if I was afraid that any motion would bring the torture crashing down on me again.

"Simon?" Diana said. "Are you yourself again?"

"… yes…" I croaked. And I was, too. My head felt like it usually did; there were no strange compulsions to keep anyone occupied. I guessed that the time limit had expired; Patrick was safely away, and as such, my mission was at an end.

God damn him, I thought with sick disgust. God damn him, he can't do this to me, he has no right to do this to me…

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I heard her kneel next to me, putting one hand on my chest and stroking my cold-sweaty brow with the other. "I had to. You know that, right? It was that, kill you, or get killed. I didn't want to hurt you, but I had to."

I wasn't so sure – I didn't think that I would have hurt her if I had gotten to her, only held her in place – but I could see her point. If some big guy who I knew to be under the influence of my enemy had come at me I wouldn't have trusted too much in the letter of his orders, either.

"I know," I mumbled. Slowly, I opened my eyes. Diana looked down at me with concern. I tried to smile. "What was that?"

"This?" She glanced at the bracelet. "It's a weapon… Or, well, that's one application of it, anyway. It makes people live through simulations of biological events. It was the first gadget I could get my hands on." She looked back at me. "Are you all right?"

That was some question. In the last twenty-four hours, I had been electrocuted, strangled, beaten, clawed and thrown into walls. I wasn't really feeling my best. By now, I had a collection of bruises that would do a boxer credit. But I supposed that I could have been worse. I was still alive and didn't seem to have broken anything. That was a miracle in itself.

"I guess so," I said. I tried to sit up. That worked surprisingly well, actually. Apparently it had only been a simulation – there was no lasting pain from that weird machine Diana had used. "What was it a simulation of?" I said.

"Oh, nothing special," Diana said quickly. A little too quickly. "Look, we have to get out of here. Farsons knows a lot of people who could mess me up bad."

"Fine by me," I said. I held out a hand for her to help me, and she dragged me to my feet. "But I still want to know what it was a simulation of."

"Er…" Diana smiled nervously. "You know, you really don't want to know."

"Diana," I said flatly. "There is nothing that I don't want to know."

She sighed.

"Okay, fine. It was labour pains. Now, give me a minute while I…"

"Labour pains?" I howled.

"Well, I…" Diana said, backing away while lifting her hands in a calming motion.

"You made me GIVE BIRTH?"

"No, no, it was just a simulation…" Diana said unhappily.

"Do you have any idea how demasculating that feels?"

"Of course I do," Diana said flatly. "I meant to use it on Farson, remember?"

"Oh." My hysterical outburst grinded to a halt. The idea of Patrick being forced to experience firsthand the miracle of birth was kind of funny… "But even so…"

Diana smiled crookedly.

"Hey, I have a limited amount of experiences programmed into this thing," she said. "And only a few of them can be used as weapons. I had to choose between 'giving birth' and 'being extremely drunk'. It would have been kind of fun to see him stagger and vomit, of course, but it didn't really feel sadistic enough. Besides, I have a feeling he'd be able to counteract something as relatively mild as that."

"Okay, okay." I sighed. "I understand. Sorry I got upset."

"Well, you just had an upsetting experience." She took me by the hand and led me to a chair, which she gently pushed me down on. She sat down on the opposite side of the table. "Now. Do you have any idea what it was he did?"

I slowly shook my head.

"No," I said. "It's just something he can do. When he talks in a certain way, it's like I don't have a will of my own anymore." I grimaced. "I guess he's always been able to do that. I've just never thought about before. In a way, I suppose I've sort of…" I made a pause, unwilling to say what I had to say next. "Enjoyed it," I finally groaned. "Having someone give irrefutable orders made me feel like all was right with the world."

Diana smiled sadly and squeezed my hand.

"Most people feel like that," she said. "They say they want freedom and equality, but what they really want is food on the table, a roof over their heads and not too much effort… including the effort it takes to think for themselves. But here's the good news: if you had really been one of those people to the core, you would never have been Empowered in the first place. Something rebelled. Instead of being ashamed about not being perfect, be proud of being better than most."

I smiled weakly.

"Thanks. But I have to admit that I don't have a clue what it is he does when he… takes control. It's magick, though, isn't it? It's a… a spell or something."

"Well… the distinction is hard to make, sometimes." She flashed me a smile. "Remember, wishes and beliefs shape the world. That means that even the most mundane person on Earth performs magick on a daily basis, without even being aware of it. Take what I do. Is that magick?"

"You've said so," I said warily. "But I guess you're going to tell me that that was also an oversimplification."

"Oh, yes." She nodded. "Almost anything that has been simplified down far enough to be expressed in words has been simplified down far enough to no longer be true. According to one reference frame, I use various kinds of technology mostly as a way to focus my mind as I make the world change by pure force of will. According to another, opposite reference frame, I'm simply operating machinery and software that by its very nature is too complex, and dependent on natural laws that are too chaotic, for anyone without my deep and intuitive understanding of various sciences to use accurately."

"And both are true?" I said.

"Of course. And so is everything in between those two extremes. When you stop seeing a contradiction there, you'll be a very powerful mage indeed."

I decided to take her word for it. It seemed like the only way to avoid having my brain overheat.

"How does that relate to Patrick?" I said.

"I'm just trying to explain why 'it's magick' is an incomplete explanation," Diana said. "In one way, yes, that was magick. In another, it was the application of some very advanced scientifical principles."

"Wait a moment," I said. "How can there be scientifical principles that needs magick to be invoked? Aren't scientifical principles part of the Consensus? In fact, isn't the Consensus what makes scientifical principles?"

"Look at it this way," Diana said. "Most people don't understand quantum physics, right?"

"Right," I admitted.

"Therefore, the workings of quantum physics are not part of the Consensus, right? Any application of those natural laws would by necessity be magick."

"Right."

"Even so, certain people, ones with lots and lots of education, do understand quantum physics, right? And people in general do believe that even though they don't understand, those educated people do, and can achieve things that ordinary people can't due to that understanding?"

"Right," I said for the third time.

"Clearly, then, the Consensus actually contains the rule that some people can do things that falls outside of it. To put it in a slightly less confusing way, there are actions that the Consensus will oppose, there are actions that the Consensus will support, and then there are actions that the Consensus will just ignore."

"I guess that makes sense," I said. Then I wrinkled my brow. "Wait. If it makes sense, it's an oversimplification, isn't it?"

"Yes, but that's all we've got time for right now." Diana got up from her chair. "I need to pack a bag. We need to be out of here before Farson manages to send someone at us. Or something."

"Wait." I blinked. "Are you saying we have to flee the country or something?"

Diana stopped in the doorway and turned her head.

"You probably don't have to flee anywhere," she said. "As far as he's concerned, you've just gotten under bad influence. And I am very good at disappearing from view without moving very far." She grinned nastily. "But before I start with that, I'm going to hit 'him' where it hurts, and I was thinking that you might want to have a front row seat while I do that."

I had to admit that she was perfectly right about that.

Ten minutes later, we were out the door and heading towards the nearest subway station. My car, it seemed, had not moved here along with its Secondary equivalent. That made me wonder if the car in Secondary was still outside of Diana's futuristic fortress there. If that dimension was only a sort of twisted mirror image of this one, did that mean that given enough time, the car would simply switch back to echoing its realer version's location?

Mostly, though, I was wondering if my back would break from all the luggage I was carrying. That sort of questions tend to manage to dominate one's thought process.

Diana, being a woman, was apparently unable to grasp the concept of travelling light. However, being a rather unusual woman, she had her own ideas about what needed packing. Judging from the sharp edges that cut into my back, the backpack I was wearing was full of gadgets. I had no doubt that the same applied for the shoulder-bag and both the briefcases. And they certainly weighed enough to be full of metallic objects.

"Remind me again why I am the one who's acting the mule?" I said to Diana, who didn't carry anything that didn't fit into her black overcoat. She grinned shamelessly at me.

"Because you're the big, strong man," she said. "It shouldn't be that hard for you to handle some weight, not with all those muscles of yours."

"You do realise that if I hadn't been desperate to reaffirm my masculinity right now," I grumbled, "there's no way I would fall for that sort of transparent manipulation?"

"Yep," Diana said. "I'm just not going to waste skilful manipulation on you when the transparent kind works perfectly well at the moment." She turned serious. "Actually, there is a good reason why you should do the carrying. I'm the better fighter, and we might run into trouble. I should be unburdened if that happens."

"The alternative," I said, spotting the hole in the reasoning, "is that you could have left some of this stuff behind."

"Yes, but I left way too much behind for comfort as it was," Diana said. "It's hard to be a technomancer without your gadgets. If we have to change faces in a hurry, you'll be grateful I was thoughtful enough to bring my DNA resequencer." She patted one of the briefcases I carried. "Actually, I've put one of my little toys to work already. It should stop Farson from finding you again."

"Oh." I looked at the bag like it had contained a living viper. Much as all those weird gizmos fascinated me, they also freaked me out ever so little. One got used to the idea of ordinary technology, if only from hearing about it every now and then. Diana's machines operated on a set of rules that I had no idea what they were, and that meant that I had no way of foreseeing the consequences of their use.

I didn't like that. It felt like being blind.

One day I'll understand it all, though, I promised myself. One day I'll be the bigshot mage who keeps befuddling some newly Empowered sucker that I'm tutoring. There's something to look forward to.

"How did he find me?" I added. "I'm half expecting to find out that he's got a chip in my head that lets him track me."

"That's a possibility," Diana admitted. "But he might just use some special equipment and scan for your biosignature. You can't really hide from someone like Farson. Not without some serious countermeasures, at least."

"Which you have now taken," I said.

"Oh, yes." She grinned smugly. "I've put up such a strong jamming field around us that I wouldn't surprise me if I've knocked out every satellite dish in the neighbourhood. He'll have to find us by mundane means. That doesn't mean he can't, but it does mean that it'll take longer. With a bit of luck, we'll be safely hidden away before he gets his act together."

We reached the subway and went down the stairs. After that, every time I tried to ask something, Diana hushed me. I supposed that there were too many people around for comfort. Me being such a large man, and Diana being such a beautiful woman, we probably got more attention than a pair of fugitives should be comfortable with as it was. The last thing we needed was for someone to also hear us talk about stuff that sounded like it was straight out of some psychedelic novel.

Even so, it was all I could do to contain myself. I was nervous and I wanted a handle on the situation, and that meant that I wanted information. If I knew enough about what was going on, perhaps I would be able to calm down a little.

Actually, my common sense pointed out, I would probably be even more nervous if I knew just what we were up against. I had no doubt that Patrick represented something that was far worse than anything I could think of, and the less I knew about it the better I would feel. But that didn't sway me. I still wanted to know everything.

You can't fight your inner nature, I suppose.

The next hour and a half, we spent going from one train to another. We would one a few stations along the way, and then switch to another, ride that to the next station along its route, wait there for twenty minutes while two trains stopped and continued, and then get on another one that was heading in the complete opposite direction to where we had been going to start with.

I had an idea that I understood what Diana was doing. She was confusing the issue for any pursuers. If every move we made was seemingly random, then they would have no way of guessing where we would end up. When Patrick started checking, he would find sightings of us spread all over the Dougal subway system. He could probably puzzle it out eventually, but it would take a good while.

It sounded good in theory.

Eventually, we found ourselves in an empty coach. I was going to start up the barrage of questions again, but Diana beat me to it.

"I'm guessing you want to know about Farson," she said, grinning at me from her window seat.

"Well," I had to admit, "yes. I mean, the guy more or less runs my life. It'd be nice to at least know why he's doing it. Besides," I smiled wryly, "it's hard to not get curious, with you talking about him like he's the Devil himself."

"The Devil himself?" Diana grimaced. "The Devil has barricaded himself in Hell and is hoping that people like Farson won't come for him. There's no room for demons in Farson's world. Not angels either, for that matter."

I hoped with a certain amount of passion that Diana's talking about the Devil like he was an actual, physical person who really existed out there somewhere was just a figure of speech. It was just that it didn't really sound like a figure of speech. It sounded like she was talking about a co-worker, one she didn't much like and would love to get rid of, but who she had to put up with anyway.

But it was Patrick that I was curious about, and sooner or later someone would enter the coach and the imparting of information would be over.

"Who is he?" I said. "Who are 'people like him'?"

"Well." Diana looked at her knees and chewed absently on a thumbnail. "I've told you that mages have the ability to change the world, right? Actually rewrite the laws of nature to suit them. We can turn the world into whatever we feel like, at least potentionally."

"Yeah, I've understood that much," I said. "And don't worry, I still remember the oversimplification thing."

She smiled at that.

"Good. Well, if you have the ability to change the world, it stands to reason that you also have the ability to keep it just the way it is."

"I guess." I wrinkled my brow. "Sounds kind of boring, though."

"Boring is good sometimes," Diana said. "Can you honestly say that there wasn't a time in the last few days that you wanted everything to be nice and boring and predictable again, just for a little while?"

I remembered lying on the floor of Diana's apartment and not wanting to get up, because I knew that once I did, the world would hit me with more incomprehensible experiences. I nodded slowly.

"Exactly. Change is dangerous, because it invalidates experience. It means you have to discard your old models about how the world works, and start building new ones. Besides, change swings both ways; things might get better, or they might get worse. You know what you have, though, and it's usually not that bad, once you've adapted to it."

"Yes," I admitted, "but…"

Diana nodded.

"But," she agreed. "But that's a coward's way of thinking, and settling for what you have, not because you're satisfied with it, but because you're afraid to reach for more – that just leads to a bleak, depressing existence that will leave you unfulfilled. Mind you, never settling for anything and always wanting more leads to its own brand of misery, but people in general are a bit too fond of what they call 'realistic goals', if you ask me."

"I don't know," I said. I thought about some of the people I knew. How many of them seemed to be happy? How many had made sure that they achieved every objective that was important for their happiness, and how many had just decided that this was as good as it was going to get so they might as well learn to live with it? There were some of either group, I knew, but I had to agree with Diana; the second was much larger. "Yeah. I suppose. But if that's what the world looks like at the moment, doesn't that mean…?"

"It means that the Farsons of the world are winning right now," Diana said. "Yes." She smiled with tired humour. "It's a war that's been going on since the beginning of time, Simon. Waged between mages, with the minds and souls of mankind as its battlefield. On one side, there's those who wants the Consensus to be flexible, adjustable and subject to constant change. On the other, there are those who wants to it to be frozen into place, so that everything will be predictable and reliable. It's nothing less than the eternal conflict between order and chaos – or freedom and control, depending on which side you ask."

"So Patrick is a champion of order?" I thought that over. "That doesn't surprise me. He always wants everything to be organised. And you're a champion of freedom, I take it."

Diana grinned and saluted me.

"Proud of it," she said. "There's far too much control in the world these days, and far too little freedom. In another world, in another time, I might have joined up with Farson, because there is such a thing as too much freedom. As it is, I'm a proud member of the Nine Traditions."

"The Nine Traditions?" I said. "Wait, Kevin said something about those. The Virtual Adepts and the Order of Hermes, wasn't it?"

"As well as their seven comrades-in-arms. Yes." She nodded. "We're trying to bring the world back to a way of thinking that will make the Consensus loosen up a little. Our magick will be stronger then, but that's really beside the point… okay, for some of us that's beside the point. The point is that it will be a nicer world to live in if reality has a bit of slack in it. In a world like that, if there's a will there really is a way."

"And Patrick?" I said.

"He thinks that it's better if there either is a way or there isn't, regardless of any will applied. That way, no one ever have to make an effort. They live and die as the almighty rules decree." She scowled. "You won't ever see him or anyone like him on the news, Simon. But make no mistake, very little happens in the world that they haven't authorised. They're quite possibly the most efficient conspiracy in history. They nudge events here and plant a suggestion there, and the world keeps turning their way. They're not infallible, but they're very very good at their job, and this age is their age.

"They call themselves the Technocracy."

I actually felt a shiver when she said those last words. The Technocracy. The name made me think of a machine, large as a world and powerful as God almighty, with thousands, millions of kegs and winders and wheels, all turning in perfect synchronising, protecting everyone who followed its rules and grinding down everyone who worked against it. Remorseless. All-powerful. Terrifying beyond reckoning.

Diana placed a hand on my wrist. Her expression was one of sympathy.

"You saw it, didn't you?" she said.

"I… what?" I said intelligently.

"You just had a flash of insight," she said. "Didn't you? It happens to us sometimes. Hell, not just to us, either. To artists, philosophers and prophets, too. You saw a vision of the world as it really is, rather than the view that the Consensus gives us."

"I… guess I did," I said, somewhat startled. "Is it really that bad, then? Is Patrick and the rest of this… this Technocracy unbeatable?"

"Patrick definitely isn't," Diana said. "Whatever else he is, he's still a man, not a god. The Technocracy is a somewhat harder nut to crack, though. The Traditions have been trying for about six hundred years now, and all that's happened is that it's grown stronger despite our best efforts." She smiled. "Have faith, though. I can't predict the future, but I do know that nothing lasts forever. The Technocracy will fall, in time. Like I said, it's the war between order and chaos, and neither side can ever win. Perfect order will always eventually break down into chaos, and perfect chaos will always eventually give birth to a new order. The Technocracy runs the show now. Before the Renaissance, it was the Traditions… or at least the loose organisations of individualistically inclined mages who would become the Traditions. Before that, during the time of the Roman Empire, I daresay that there was some kind of Technocracy behind the scenes, keeping everything stable. Before that, it was us again… You see what I mean, don't you? It keeps going back and forth, and neither one of us can do more than stay on top for a little while at the time."

"None of which," I said dryly, "changes the fact that we, as you said, live in the age of the Technocracy, and have to put up with people like Patrick."

She laughed.

"Yeah. Sorry. The philosopher in me got loose for a moment."

"One thing I don't quite understand," I said, "is what, exactly, it is that the Technocracy is doing. If I remember my history books correctly, people actually have rather more freedom today than they did, say, three hundred years ago. I mean, I'm not naïve enough to think that democracy equals freedom and brotherhood and all that stuff, but it beats the hell out of totalitarian monarchy."

"Mmm." Diana hesitated. "There are several possible responses to that one, all of which have a bit of truth in them. Do you want me to go through them one after another?"

"Please do," I said.

"Okay. One." She started counting off points on her fingers. "The oversimplification thing again. The Technocracy is made up by people, most of which are actually rather more sympathetic than Farson. They're not, as I made them out to be, the perfect vessel of order and control. They don't set out to enslave humanity; in fact, they set out to free humanity, from the kind of atrocities that arrogant individualist-mages committed during our last reign in the Middle Ages. That means that while they in general work to bring more order and control to the world, not every effort they make will be towards that end.

"Two. While your 'totalitarian monarchy' is indeed a nice and orderly system, it also stands for just about everything that the Technocracy despises. It gives one guy all the power. Remember, the Consensus itself is the ultimate democratic device, giving everyone a vote in how the world is supposed to look. Democracy gives every citizen, no matter if they're educated or ignorant, brave or chicken, intelligent or stupid, the same basic amount of power. That's the absolute antithesis of what Traditionalists believe in, and as such, the Technocracy is all for it.

"Three. Democracy, when done right, is a more orderly system than tyranny. Tyrants face rebellions, since that's the only alternative for common people who want to make a change. Under a democratic system, people who are displeased with one leader will just vote him away and put a new leader in his place. The Technocracy finds one President as easy to manipulate as another, so for a very minimal extra effort they get a populace that happily allows itself to be ruled since they're convinced that they're ruling themselves."

"Wouldn't people notice that one President is very much like another, regardless of what they claim their politics are, and get suspicious?" I said. Diana threw me a meaningful glance. I blinked for a moment, but then got it. "Okay, true, they haven't so far…"

"Four," Diana said, giving me a proud smile. "Recorded history is unreliable. The Technocracy is good at showing the world the version of the truth that suits it the best. Maybe having kings and lords and so on wasn't as bad as they want us to think. Maybe the medieval social system allowed for even better chances at advancing through personal capability than our current system does. We have no way of knowing. Any historian who writes anything that hints that the world the Technocracy has created might not be the best world there ever was will get censored before anyone has a chance to listen, and the records he has based his research on will be destroyed.

"Five. The Technocracy couldn't care less about who takes care of the day-to-day concerns of a country, because the way they rule the world is much more insidious and grants far grater power in the long run."

I blinked.

"Which brings us back to my original question," I said. "How do they rule the world?"

"By creating an environment which encourages the kind of behaviour that they approve of," Diana said. "Okay, so maybe that's a bit too theoretic to count as a good answer… In practice, most of the Technocracy's agenda is carried out by controlling the media. They're good at that. They make sure that newspapers print only things that proves them right over and over again. They make sure that no author who argues too heatedly or skilfully against their philosophy ever gets published. It all builds up. People who never hear any deviant opinions eventually start to think that there are no deviant opinions."

"Wait a minute," I said. "That I know can't be right. If everyone was of the same opinion, why would there be so much arguing? We've got two political parties that love to yell at each other, for instance. Which one expresses the Technocracy's opinions?"

"Both," Diana said.

"That's impossible."

"Not when you think about it for a while." Diana smiled wryly. "The conservatists basically want an economy controlled by whoever has the most money and a focus on wholesome, old-fashioned family values. The Technocracy loves that, because it has the most money, so it will run the economy, and it likes it when people only think about small, simple things and leave the big thinking to them. The liberals, on the other hand, basically wants an economy controlled in large parts by the state and equal treatment of all. The Technocracy loves that too, because it can influence the state enough that it will still run the economy, and like I said, equal treatment for all, rather than the treatment each person deserves, is one of the things it stands for."

I looked doubtful.

"I'm not so sure about this reasoning…"

"Well, it's true. Mostly, anyway. Like I said, oversimplifications." She grinned self-ironically. "Besides, acceptable politics run a very short gamut from one side to another. The Technocracy can adapt to suit any place within that frame. And it's managed to make sure that anyone who voices an opinion outside of that framework is considered a freak. Now, that's power. Wait another hundred years, and you'll see the edges start creeping in towards the middle, until you can barely tell one extreme side from the other; and still people will answer like you did when someone tells them that there's only one opinion being voiced." She tilted her head, glancing at me with a certain amount of amusement at my obvious discomfort. "Still not convinced?"

"Maybe not quite," I admitted. "Of course, if you're right, then I've been indoctrinated into this way of thinking all my life. It'll take me a little while to assess it objectively."

"Well, take a look at the world around you," Diana said. "Are people proudly flaunting their uniqueness? Do they openly disagree with the way the world is presented to them, if it doesn't strike them as accurate? Or do we have a fashion industry that tells everyone to dress the same way, an education system that tells everyone to believe in the same things, fiction that encourage a sort of two-penny morality that doesn't even come close to taking into account real feelings as experienced by real people, politicians who stick to the smallest common denominator when it comes to opinions because anyone who's the least bit unorthodox doesn't stand a chance of getting elected… and don't get me started on talk shows."

"What about talk shows?" I said, tempting fate.

"They invite a bunch of people who live their lives differently," Diana said flatly, "and make sure that those people are the dumbest, most unscrupulous individuals they can dig out of the trash of humanity. The message? 'Different people are bad people, stick to being normal and you'll be fine.' I have a feeling that the Technocrats are still slapping themselves on the back over that idea."

"I wondered who came up with those things," I mumbled. "Stands to reason it was some sort of evil genius…"

"The fact of the matter is," Diana said, "that we live in a world that hates everything that's different and loves everything that's just the same as everything else. The Technocracy doesn't have to get out there and deal with unauthorised thinking, because people do that to each other on their own accord. Any new idea will be shot down, because if it worked, someone would already have done it, right? Anyone who stands out will be ostracized by his peers. Anyone who doesn't live his life according to conventional wisdom will be considered to be stupid and pathetic. The great machine keeps ticking along, and the Technocrats can just lean back and watch as everything gets more and more orderly."

"Are you sure that the whole issue of conformity is the Technocracy's doing?" I said. "I've always thought that it was just in human nature. Going against the group is scary."

"But it's also in human nature to want to live in the way that you're most comfortable with," Diana said. "That's order and chaos again, fighting inside each and every one of us. What the Technocracy has done is stack the cards in favour of order. They can't make sure that the outcome is the one they want in each case, but they can create a general tendency. In the same way, it's theoretically possible for the Traditions to stack the cards in favour of chaos – of self-expression and individuality. A world that encourages independent thinking is possible – though how it would have to be arranged is a question that just about every Traditionalist has her own answer to."

"Everything is possible, but nothing is simple," I said. "And some things are bloody stupid."

Diana rolled her eyes.

"Is it just me," she said, "or do a lot of my lessons in what is supposed to be wisdom stick in your memory like nothing else than weird-sounding one-liners?"

"At least I'm remembering something this way," I said, smiling wryly. "I'm not sure I can remember all you say about how magick works and how human society is being controlled from behind the curtains, but I can remember 'everything is possible, but nothing is simple'. A lot of the rest follows naturally from that. The rest you may just have to tell me again."

Diana gave me a weary look.

"And again," she said glumly, "and again, and again, and again?"

"Well, I'll try to learn before it comes to that," I promised, "but it's not all that easy for me to even believe in all this stuff. I'm thirty-three years old, you know. I've got a lot of practice in not believing in things like this. You may just have to repeat yourself a lot."

Diana facepalmed.

"It's been twelve years since I last took an apprentice," she said with theatrical suffering. "Now I remember why that is."

"So I will be your apprentice, then?" I said. "I was going to ask you to teach me, but then there was that whole mess with Patrick, and then you said that you were going to go underground for a while, so I assume…"

"You generally shouldn't do that," Diana said. She looked up, grinning crookedly. "Yes, yes, of course I'll apprentice you. It's not really that big a deal, not in my Tradition. We're not very formal. With Kevin it'd be all sorts of initiation rites and vows and getting your ceremonial name and God knows what else. Of course, it'd also be a lot of help and guidance and a structured education. You'll have a tougher time with me."

Oh dear.

"I'll try to measure up," I said. "But how can you teach me in any way if you won't be here?"

Diana glanced at me, looking somewhat smug.

"That sort of thing just so happens to be a Virtual Adept speciality," she said. "But this is our station. I think three more switches will be enough for it to be safe for us to go where I'm planning."

And that was all she would say on that particular subject. Of course, what she meant became clear soon enough, when I found out just how subjective reality was – and what worlds lay open for a mage who was willing to claim them.