Chapter 29: A New Colleague

Perspective: The Ender


The last twenty-four hours at the Tower had been eventful, in fact, the word "eventful" vastly understated the amount of things that had happened. It had all started when the Ender was called into the sanctum of the Tower's laboratory, the very core of the science division. She hadn't been there often before, usually she met with Dr. Mercury in other parts of the laboratory or her private quarters. This time had been different, the call had come from the Entity itself.

When she teleported there, the Ender had found to her great annoyance that a fire had triggered the sprinklers, her exposed scales had immediately started burning and itching when they came in contact with the fine water droplets. Freak had been there too, and Dr. Mercury and the Entity obviously. What had completely taken her aback was that Fire had been there as well. To top it all off Fire had called her by her real name, completely breaking any composure she had left after teleporting into a soaking wet room.

However, things had not stopped there, quite far from it. The Entity had picked Fire up and started absorbing him, something it did only rarely. Usually it only possessed people, which left them completely bound to its will but still able to separate later, with varying degrees of physical and mental scarring. Absorption was a different story, someone who was absorbed would permanently become part of the Entity, transferring all of their memories over. Absorption was usually only used as a threat since it left the Entity in turmoil while it sorted its new acquisitions.

Some minutes into the process the Entity had suddenly stopped, then said something about that dimensional scar she and Dr. Mercury had seen in the village. Fire was connected to it, which made sense since that scar had been created by that strange mage Shadow, who somehow was Fire's sister.

The Entity hadn't quite explained what it had done after that, but it had done something. Fire's eyes had gone from red to black and he himself had changed too. Apparently, Fire had some kind of second personality that the Entity had brought into control, that personality called himself Claw and apparently did not share Fire's memories.

Claw was… peculiar. Referred to himself as a hunter commonly and had almost no recollection of his past, almost as if he'd spontaneously come into existence. However, he apparently had access to an encyclopedic repository of knowledge, all of which seemed to be entirely new to him. He seemingly understood some of the near-incomprehensible concepts that Dr. Mercury had excitedly talked about, then the next minute asked a series of completely mundane questions.

The important part was that he was now part of the Entity's inner circle, on the same level as the Ender herself. Somehow this irked her less than it should have. The Entity had its reasons.

A large part of the following day had been spent showing Claw around the various parts of the Tower. The Ender would have liked to say that he was a quick learner, but it seemed that rather than properly learning some of the things she told him, he instead acted as if he had known them but was just now remembering them again. It wasn't some act like Glibby would put on when faced with things new to him, It was how he functioned, for better or for worse.

He'd say things like "Yeah, biometric door locks." and "An interactive display, got it."

He was apparently taking these bits of information from Fire's memory, like they weren't there at his disposal but needed drawing out first. At least it simplified a lot of the explaining, especially when they got to Dimensions, Research and Command and Control.

Outside of his tendencies to suddenly remember complex concepts that took many at least a few days to begin to grasp, Claw was surprisingly unrefined. He seemed to understand professionalism but at the same time it was difficult to tell how seriously he was taking everything. The Ender supposed it was only expected for someone who had only properly existed for a day.

When they were finally done with their tour they stopped at the Ender's office.

As soon as he saw the room, Claw stated: "Nice place, a bit barren though."

The Ender replied: "It's my office, not my living quarters. No place for distractions here."

She walked over to one of her shelves and started searching for a specific folder, which she found within the first few seconds. She sat down at her table and opened the folder.

Claw asked: "So what exactly are we doing here?"

The Ender said: "This is the floor plan of this sector of the Tower, the Entity said you'll be in charge of leading military matters. That is currently my job, so I imagine we'll be working together. For that we'll need to find you an empty room where we can set up an office for you."

Claw nodded and pulled up his own chair directly next to the Ender. With all of the things he somehow knew, personal space seemed to be an unknown concept to him. The Ender was composed enough not to feel too uncomfortable, it helped that… "Okay, I need to have a serious talk with myself about this before I start here."

"Yes," she reluctantly thought to herself. "I may have taken a very slight liking to Fire. Probably more than very slight. Who could blame me? You don't run into someone like that any day. Intelligent, composed, skilled, quite attractive on top of it and not to mention older than my recorded history." Yes, it was true. The Ender quite liked Fire, however the man next to her was decidedly not Fire, physically he was but definitely not mentally. Claw was nothing like Fire when it came to his personality, all that experience and knowledge she had felt when they discussed the topic of portals to outer worlds, not there, at least not exactly. It was like Claw was using Fire's memories like a book, like second-hand thoughts. No, her relationship with Claw would be strictly professional in nature. "That's something I might not be able to say if it was actually Fire." She recomposed herself fully. There would be no further thoughts going down that line.

Claw seemed oblivious to the slight grimaces that had flashed over the Ender's face as she thought, which was honestly for the best.

She pointed at one of the rooms near her office. "That one is close, quite spacious and usually quiet."

Claw took a quick look, then said: "Sure, sure. I'm not picky, any room will do. What about sleeping?"

The Ender said: "You can either choose to sleep in the barracks or get your own private room, we have a couple unoccupied ones."

Claw replied: "Private room it is, no sense in picking worse conditions if better ones are there."

That was surprisingly quick.

Claw asked: "So, is that private room ready? I'm getting the distinct feeling that the other one was awake for a while before this, starting to get seriously tired."

The other one was what Claw called Fire, he knew his name but still preferred the phrase, as if he wanted to distance himself. The Ender wondered if somehow the two of them had directly interacted before.

It made sense for Claw to be tired, apparently Fire had quite a few potions coursing through his bloodstream, which had worn off by now. Dr. Mercury had taken a blood sample from Claw and had passed it along to one of her assistant researchers, who had told the Ender about the potions.

"Yes, the room should be ready. Just ask Administration for your key and the room's location, you know how to get there?"

Claw got up from his chair, turned to leave and said: "Sure, can't be that hard to find. Anyways, see you around. I need to get some sleep in and…" He tapped his head. "Get my things in order."

And with that Claw was gone. The Ender wondered just what would happen over the course of the next few days. Claw had no real experience but if he got better at using what Fire left him, they'd have a great asset on their hands. Those revolutionaries were in for one hell of a time now that there were not one but two heads working against them. Technically four heads but Freak and Glibby didn't count for different reasons. If nothing else, the Tower and her work had gotten a whole lot more interesting.