Episode XXXIX – A.C.

The Hive has nothing much to say about Pike. It provides his birth records, his private employment records (he’s an analyst of some kind at Haight Western) and his “Profile” — his ratings by various people he’s interacted with electronically and physically in the Mark. He’s an ordinary guy, absurdly rich by Undercity standards, upper middle class otherwise. According to his Profile and employment reviews, he’s average at his job and not in any danger either of  losing it or being promoted. He has no criminal record, though he likes to gamble. People see him as a perennial striver — always on the make but not really good enough to make it. As such his trust ratings are fine for commercial transactions, but not stellar. In short, he’s an average, if slightly shady, banker.

The Hive also has nothing much (useful) to say about August. It provides his various arrest records and the private law-enforcement files on him. He’s a thug. It also provides the same rumors A.C. has already heard. It doesn’t have anything more on him. It’s not a clearance level issue, there just aren’t any good sources. The Hive notes that it could attempt to secure information from certain restricted sources that it has not yet prioritized, but that to do so it would require something in return. A.C.’s sense is that The Hive is talking about hacking the Inns, and that doing so would be costly.

LB: The thing about the Thing, is that it’s not something you guys made. Well, it is. I mean, someone made it — carved it into that shape. But that’s not what matters. It’s the stuff. LB pauses. A.C.’s connection to him flickers for a moment, as if he were away for just a second. Then he’s back.

Here’s the thing. We were here first. We were here long before you. A really, really long time before you. When you came here, you didn’t settle down next to us, you wiped the world clean first. You can’t understand what it means. No one can. Close as we are, Doc, it’s not even real for me and it can’t be real for you. It was a million times worse than the worst thing ever. I don’t even understand it. I don’t understand what was left behind when nothing was left behind — but that’s that. Anyway some of what you did was just make these big, hot fires. And some of what came out of those fires was, like, melted dirt or sand or rock or something. And some of that rock cooled down into this black glass with . . . stuff in it. And the head is a chunk of that. And what it has in it has power. Old, old power. It’s some of the last stuff left from before you wiped us off the face of our own planet. It doesn’t do anything in your world — or maybe it does. It’s hard to tell because it’s so active in mine. People with a close connection to my world are going to be drawn to it because of what’s inside it. Whether they know it or not. What they do with that power depends on who they are and how they work.

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