Eli Burgess yawned as he adjusted his belt. His boots almost fusing with the snow gathering beneath. His gloved fingers scoured every edge of the shaking bulkhead door that should have definitely opened by now, yet decided to what he could only describe as "rev up" for reasons he assumed was an intentional exercise in patience. As the door finally reached the zenith of its shaking, Burgess swiped his keycard again, just in case, before entering the Arctic Base.
The Holy Tribunal had called him into an emergency meeting along with other Chapterhouse heads, though the scene before him certainly looked anything but. Despite its significance, the Tribunal rarely gathered at Chapterhouse-1. Preferring libraries or family diners, pretentious old farts they were. Regardless of their tendencies, Burgess did not expect the base to be practically empty. He walked around the small, worm rooms, impatiently dragging his fingers across the rusted metal railings as he headed further in. Noticing a small decorative door out of the corner of his vision, Burgess went to check on it, only to be stopped by a cheerful voice.
"Eli! So glad you could make it!" a man in an excessively green cloak shouted after him. His long beard looked like it had been cleaned recently, his hair slicked back with cheap gel.
"Didn't have much of a choice, sir," Burgess said, looking down at a nametag above the man's heart reading "VALIENT" in bold letters. "I expected to do this eventually."
The man's face formed into a smirk as he approached Eli. "Is that so? Well, I suppose R&D gets the short straw during these crises."
"Hah! Don't I know it!" Burgess replied, twisting the doorknob before motioning the man to follow inside.
Within the room sat a round table with six seats, one of them occupied by a man with a silver beard and a tophat. His eyes were focused on a crumpled newspaper, taking a sip of coffee from a plastic cup now and then. Burgess admired the room itself; geometric patterns caked the soft walls. A variety of warm lights from above shining perfectly onto the silky-smooth seating.
The man already in one of the seats looked up to the others with a glint of annoyance in his eyes.
"How does one be late to a meeting they called for themselves?" The man blurted out.
"Fell asleep on my way back. It was quite the stressful trip." The man in green sighed, pulling two chairs for him and Burgess to sit in.
"Well, let's just get this over with. I have a charter with Chapterhouse-4 to work on."
Burgess perked up at the line, looking down to find a nametag reading "ENGINEER" on the tophat man. Burgess quickly connected the dots, a slight confusion spreading across his face as he raised his hand.
"Hold on, where's the third Sealbearer?" Burgess questioned.
"What third Sealbearer? The primary selection meeting is like a month away." The man in green said.
"How do we have a Tribunal meeting without a Tribunal?"
"Tribunal votes are decided 2/3, I don't see what the issue is."
"Sir, with all due respect, that makes no goddamn sense! We already have plenty of qualified individuals that should be taking up the mantle, ESPECIALLY in these circumstances!"
"This is about that Carson boy, isn't it?" The man with the tophat spoke up.
"What?"
"We might be new, but we aren't stupid, Eli. You clearly have your favorites." The man scoffed.
"Rather have a preference than a last resort." Burgess retorted.
The man in green placed his head in his hands. "You know what? if your so desperate, fine! By my power as a Horizon Initiative Sealbearer, I hereby request your temporary promotion to fellow Sealbearer!"
"Oh come on-
"Any objections?" The man interrupted.
"Not from here…" The man in the tophat said.
"Glad we can finally start."
"Am I at least allowed to cuss you out by policy?" Burgess replied.
"Just don't wear it out."
Allesandro Von Serker took a steady stroll across the town of Kirkway, Three Portlands.
He had taken his finest staff and relatively clean clothes to answer the beck & call of an old friend. The town itself had a sense of warmth and familiarity to him, as, while not his hometown, it was a place of many firsts he'd experienced over his career. He won his first official magic duel in a rundown arena, way too quiet for its own good. His first original spell he had crafted out of a crude mix of Orthohan sign language and Spanish. His first kiss to a woman long forgotten at the local riverbank.
Now, at that same riverbank, the figure that called him here drew his attention. If it had not been for the sheer height of the figure, he would have noticed the growing shadows of coming dusk.
The figure, Hassan, sat on the riverbank cross-legged and annoyed. His large dark coat continuously slamming against the grass as he checks his watch in a nigh-ritualistic fervor. Alessandro looked at the man with a hint of guilt and pity, as he could have at least let his face get some sunlight. Though he supposed that Hassan being the same after their first and only encounter was kind of a relief.
Alessandro hastily began to approach Hassan, starting to slide down the riverbank after a light hop. It wouldn't be an easy way down, however, as Hassan lifted a large flagpole in front of him that Alesaandor had failed to notice and banged it on his shins. Loose dirt flew around Alessandro as he tumbled into the river, causing a meager splash.
"Can you even see in that?" Alessandro began to laugh as he slowly lifted himself out of the river, staring right into Hassan's black mask engraved with a single eye.
"No, you're late," Hassan replied with an edge of annoyance.
"Hey, don't blame me for taking in the air! Been a while since I've been here."
Hassan slightly shuffled on the grass, placing the now closed flagpole between his legs.
"So..whats up? You've never been this frantic." Alessandro said with an eyebrow raised.
"Clearly, I wasn't frantic enough." Hassan scoffed.
"Look, you're the first human I've talked to in half a decade, the least you could do is be more lenient."
"Can you find someone with a single strand of hair? Or a scab of flesh?" Hassan interrupted.
"What? You know I'm long past that shit." Alessandro blankly stared at the water.
"It's not an assassination, Vanny. The Initiative needs someone protected."
"Oh, riiiight, you're with them now.. Is that the price of cheap aesthetics?" Alessandro shot a look at the flagpole, the warm sunlight of dusk perfectly shining on its sharp and golden tip.
"Just tell me if you can do it." Hassan sighed.
"I'm not a favor you can cash in on. It'll come with a price."
"Which is?"
"Excitement."
Dmitri woke up to the sound of a sharp sneeze. He shifted slowly on the cold bench he had lain in for weeks, the tattered clothes he clung to every night the only thing keeping him warm in the coming winter. The season had come early, though, as the plants near the park were already caked with a fine white frost.
Knowing that he would not be able to fall back asleep, Dmitri rose up from the bench. gazing around the almost empty streets of backdoor SoHo as if he expected someone to appear. He already assumed to die soon enough here. His saintly boons were an open secret to the few residents around the park who walked near him. Not that they engaged with him or helped. Mothers watched from a safe distance, as they would rather smush their kids onto the sidewalk than get close to him. Regardless, the possibility of the people who first put Dmitri in that prison finding him again wasn't zero. And he was never one to take chances with safety, even if safety never truly came.
As if on cue, a paper airplane flew softly onto Dmitri's lap. He picked it up to find the paper itself a vibrant, unnatural shade of emerald. He took a swift look around to find the note's sender before turning the paper around, finding a single sentence hand-written in a perfect cursive that Dmitri almost couldn't read.
We finally meet.
-Saturn Deer
"Alright, so whats on the agenda?" Burgess said, spreading stacks of reports and staffing information he'd been asked to bring. "I wasn't briefed when coming here."
The man in green cleared his throat. "To begin, the swords. On my trip to.. uhh,
"France?"
"France! Yes, I keep forgetting." The man snapped his fingers. "On my trip to France, I discovered that the nine swords of our beloved prophets had lost their grip on the earth's shape. One of them also went missing."
"Eli, pull up the Jackal's report from January." The man in the tophat said.
Burgess shuffled around the papers, quickly sifting through the budget reports before finding a short list with "Special Division Report" in italics stamped above.
"Alright, should I list out the descriptions of the swords?"
"No need." The man in green said, "I'm well aware that the missing blade is Al-Battar."
"The one Jesus would use when he returns? According to the list, it can… replicate miracles."
"Precisely, that is what makes this especially outrageous. Though you shouldn't put much heed to the list, most of it was fabrication."
"Wait, what?"
"Under normal circumstances, it was bait laid by our security still stationed in France to weed out bad actors. But clearly this is much more pressing than a security mishap."
"How was I not told of this?"
The man in the tophat folded his newspaper and spoke. "Despite your status as a Chapterhouse Head, we've had to keep our knowledge closer ever since the organizational restructuring. Keeps things in order and stops any vulteres from feasting upon the chaos."
Burgess sighed like he was about to barf his guts out. "Fine. Have we made any plans to retrieve the sword? Or is that also too classified for me?"
"Don't be like that, Eli, you're one of us for now. Though we haven't had a chance to do anything at the moment."
The man in the tophat raised his eyebrows. "You mentioned that a saint had passed through the land. Do we have any evidence of that?"
"That felt like the only explanation at the time since the rest of the swords remain inert to this day, but our initial saint decetion protocols, nor the Siesmoloy department, haven't found anything concrete." The man in green replied.
Burgess started to tap his feet under the table. "Perhaps we should meet with the ORIA to discern the way forward, as they've been trying their hand at the swords for a while, even before France fell."
"Maybe if Baskerville wasn't so desperate to get buddy-buddy with the Insurgency, but as it stands, we'd only end up worse off from where we started." The man in green said before shooting a sharp look towards the man in the tophat. "I mean, I'm quite hesitant to act impatiently, especially while he stands among us with some informational debts long overdue."
"Whats that supposed to mean?" The man in the tophat stroked his beard.
"All I'm saying is that you're taking your sweet time with the AIE pipes. Not to mention your constant deflections regarding the Insurgencies' formative education program."
"Khalid, what the fuck are you talking about?"
"Don't, 'Khalid' me Archibald! I might not show it, but I'm having a bad day here!"
"Wait, do you actually think I was recruited from the Insurgency?"
"Your title is the Engineer for fucks sake!" Khalid stood up from his seat.
"Because I have an engineering degree, dumbass!"
Burgess, who had been thoughtfully considering his career for the last few minutes. Placed his hands on his head before jumping in. "Since when did SealBearers use their actual names!"
"Literally always." Khalid retorted. "You just never asked for ours!"
"Oh."
Dmitri blankly stared at the writing, unsure what to make of this "Saturn Deer". The initiative had taught him enough English to be relatively fluent, but he couldn't grasp any meaning behind the note. Come to think of it, his inner voice felt a little more familiar than it should.
As Dmitri continued to stare at the paper with a still dreary stare, he almost failed to notice the second paper airplane landing on his lap from nowhere.
Dmitri shot his gaze behind the bench in a fit of frustration, faintly grunting with what remained of his vocal cords. Finding no one, he scrambled to open the second note just to get what he thought was a prank over with.
Look, I'm not a fan of this either, blame your blessing, not me!
-Saturn Deer
Dmitri found the note rather trite and confusing. Although he decided to see where this went just in case, he supposed that his freezing legs and withering muscles wouldn't make for much pursuit anyway. Right as he finished that thought, another message appeared on the bench. This paper was different, however, as it hadn't been folded into a paper airplane. It also had a black pencil lying atop it.
Say, how's life? Getting enough sleep? The nighttime over in these parts aint for the weak of heart.
-Saturn Deer
Rage. Rage was the only word close enough to describe the sheer state of Dmitri's mind. How dare he? How dare he even ask? How dare he question?
Dmitri wasn't getting nearly enough sleep, and he knew perfectly what debouchery was occurring where the already thin light of day failed to reach. But that wasn't why such anger rose beneath Dmitri. Because, in truth, this was nothing special. Every day he spent here was but heaven compared to a back then his mind had long since pretended to forget. The cold did not torture him, the passerbys didn't shout, the air didn't feel dead.
But it felt worse. It felt worse because Dmitri, if only briefly, was taken out of the fire. He knew that the fire didn't need to exist. That he didn't have to feel pain with every breath. That he didn't have to endure things he didn't have names for, being shoved inside his organs. That someone knew his name.
But he didn't have that anymore, and he knew it; it was he who threw it away after all. He, who could have fulfilled his destiny. He, who ran away when he could've stayed.
But he didn't want to stay, so he didn't. And he didn't want to entertain whoever this was, so he didn't.
//Leave me alone. //
He wrote his note on the back of the third page and placed it back where it was. Turning his head away for a moment before unexpectedly finding it gone.
Before he could register what happened, another note appeared on his lap.
Do you believe in god, Dmitri?
-Saturn Deer
Dmitri raised his eyebrows at the question. He had long since abandoned finding Saturn Deers wherabouts. Yet at least he hoped the questions would lead to something. He took a deep breath and picked up the pencil again.
I think so.
It wasn't a lie necessarily, but he couldn't quite put his complete feelings into words either. He believed in something bigger than himself because he felt it was normal, like a secondhand sense he didn't know when he started to have or why he had it. Though he knew that his meager faith would eventually crumble. The daily suffering he had endured all his life didn't make for much motivation for prayer. He didn't know if that would relieve him of his title as "Saint", and at some level, he hoped it would.
That answer proves you actually don't. Such is the fate of many a questioning spiritual, unable to make up their minds about the only thing that matters. For what it's worth, do you think a life of pleasure and ease would have changed your mind? I mean, plenty of people have better lives than you, some believe. Some still don't.
-Saturn Deer
Dmitri began to run his hand through his brittle hair in annoyance, scratching his scalp until he noticed a piece of flesh under his metal fingernails. The last thing he wanted to do was to argue with whatever this Saturn Deer was. So he took hold of the paper, attempting to tear it apart unsuccessfully.
Do you want me to believe? Would that belief make you leave?
Dmitri begrudgingly wrote on the paper, this time not even bothering to watch it disappear and reappear on his lap.
How antisocial, you should be thankful for my company!
-Saturn Deer
I'm tired, get to the point.
Dmitri almost felt the pencil lead snap under the pressure of his hand.
It's a long way till midnight, dear Dmitri, I'd suggest going with the flow until then. After all, you still have someone you've been living for, don't you?
-Saturn Deer
Dmitri's mind snapped away from its rage and jumped back to a familiar mental visage. The woman who helped him back in his prison. Who fueled his desire for escape and told him of his nature. Though as the days passed and the depths of his mind stayed silent, he began to doubt if she was there in the first place.
Where is she?
Wherever they'll take her. Regardless, it's Friday, your body should know what to do.
-Saturn Deer
The sound of plastic echoed against wood as the chattering of exectionally inconvienced people died down around Chapterhouse-2. Raymond Basketville finished organizing the folder in front of him before checking his clock.
"Attention please, we will now begin an executive meeting ordered by the Holy Tribunal to discuss initial procedures regarding Saint Dmitri. When your name is spoken, raise your hand."
"Lieutenant Hammersmith." A man with more scars than hair raised his hand like a knife.
"Dr. Jenny H. Bibble." A blonde woman with tattered clothes raised her hand, her hair tied into a messy ponytail.
"Daniel Carson." An unassuming man, focused on his phone, adjusted his shirt before raising his hand.
"Saturn Deer." A man with a deer head raised his ring finger.
"Good, we're all here," Raymond said, clasping his hands together. "First, we will discuss all the information we have on the saint and his whereabouts. Any volunteers?"
Carson cleared his throat. "Umm, sir. Before anything, have we sent any shepherds to at least try to find the saint? Surely he couldnt have gone that far."
"We've had the Jackals start doing preliminary searches around suspected locations as well as using our newfound access to the Chaos Insurgencies database to trace his past. However, there's only so much they could do with such disjointed info, so that's where we come in."
"Unfortunately, I can't help much in that department as I barely talked to him once. Though I remember the lieutenant chatting him up at the park near a checkpoint site recently." Daniel says, scratching his chin.
Hammersmith's expression sterned. "Indeed, took him there on request. I was the first one to tell him about the Initiative."
"Any comments about him that might be helpful?" Raymond questioned.
"He was…disjointed, with my time with him. Sometimes he was way too mentally sound and others way too out of it. Once caught the guy chewing his metal fingernails, I don't even remember if we got them removed before his disappearance."
Jenny raised her hand, speaking with a composed tone. "I can vouch in that regard, the removal schedule got bundled up in site bureaucracy and the emergency transfer."
Raymond furrowed his brows. "Yet you were able to insert the BABEL system into him, correct?"
Jenny began to stare at the table. "That was before his nails healed, and was a high-priority procedure after his suicide attempt. We needed someone to test it on and figured he would prefer it. We were wrong."
"Sheesh, that's the one time you'd think not to violate his consent." Saturn deer brushed his antlers.
"And who the hell are you again?" "I thought the general would have addressed…you by now!" Daniel interjected, shooting a look towards Raymond.
"Ah, yes, my apologies. This is Saturn Deer, and he's-
"The Indivisible One! Otherwise known as the Apostate Fawn, Remphan, Irascible Fuckwit, the Undying Magister, and prophet of many! My displeasure to be of service!"
"He's an old friend of late General DeMontfort."
"Oh, don't even start with him!"
Hammersmith begins to cough for an uncomfortable amount of time, only stopping after Raymond puts his palm up.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. Now, anything else you'd like to share, Dr. Bibble?"
"Yes, I have a quite pressing matter to share," Jenny said with a practiced cadence, reaching into a duffel bag beside her to pull out a large folder. She laid out the folder on the table and stretched her back for a moment.
"This is the conclusive whole of every psychological evaluation and biometric information Checkpoint-ΩZ7 has on Dmitri gathered over the past few weeks." Jenny started to open the folder, various pictures of eye tests, Rorschach images, and alphabets scatered on the table.
"At first glance, Dmitri exhibits standard symptoms for individuals going through similar experiences. Such as trust issues, anxiety, insomnia, dissociative episodes, etc…"
"Go on."
"A severe case of selective amnesia is also present. We didn't think much of it at first, considering it's not unusual for long-term torture victims. There's also the fact that he became a relatively fluent English speaker in approximately three days."
"That's pretty absurd for an Iraqi, no?" Daniel said in confusion.
"That's the thing, even if we assume he knew how to speak English before the Amnesia, all evidence points to the contrary."
"How so? He's a saint, he should be a little special."
"The English isn't the problem."
"Than what is?"
"He shouldn't exist."
"I'm sorry?"
"Dmitri shouldn't exist. He wrote his name in a non-existent language before he learned English; his DNA traces back to literally nothing. No ancestry, no history with any known culture, no understanding of basic social norms, nothing. He's like a genetic dead-end.
"Surely that could most likely be explained through the torture!"
"That's what I thought as well, but there are just too many minor coincidences to ignore. He doesn't exist in any government database, he doesn't have any recorded history anywhere, let alone Iraq!"
"Got anything to add, general?" Daniel said, sheepishly motioning to the others.
"This is certainly important news. Though I'm not too convinced of this assessment."
"Unfortunately, I don't think we can confirm something like this fully, but it's undeniable that there's something off." Jenny sighed in exhaustion.
"Well, considering you've spent the most time with him, I will keep this hypothesis in mind." Raymond stood up.
"Now that we have all gathered our knowledge, I will henceforth be in charge of your future duties until this issue has been resolved. You will be assigned the following positions as follows."
"Mr. Carson, you will be sent to Backdoor SoHo to talk with anyone who might have seen the saint. Your first stop will be Victor's Restaurant."
Daniel put his thumb up.
"Lieutenant, you and I will continue our collective search efforts with the Insurgency."
Hammerasmith nodded.
"Dr. Bibble, you'll be tasked with meeting other saints protected by the Initiative and cross-referencing your research. Additionally, I expect a log of Dmitri's old writings and odd behaviors by tomorrow."
"Yes, sir!"
"Alright, who's left?" Raymond scanned the room, sitting back down with a sigh. "Deer! You're a wizard, yes? I'll assign you to the rescue squad with Alessandro."
"Hah, forget it! I'm not touching that fucker with a ten-foot pole!"
Jenny rolled her eyes with a very unsurprised look.
"Excuse me?" Hammersmith questioned.
"You heard me! Do you think I would risk my prophetic preminitons just to maybe find some suicidal saint? What if I accidentally bump into him on the street? poof! I'd be lowered to your level, come on people, I have a reputation and a blog to uphold!"
"So why agree to help us at all?!" Raymond scoffed, slamming his hand on the table.
"Because Bernard's ghost will probably haunt me if I don't. And one of your new SealBearers learned my true name."
"Wait, how?"
"Beats me, motherfucker guessed it like a wifi password. Now I'm stuck with you."
"You've been silent this whole time. Do you at least have some information we'd need?"
"Not about the saint, but perhaps for a certain group of jailers…"
"What does this have to do with the Foundation?"
"Alot more than you'd think, 'general'. You guys ain't the only ones so worked up about little Dmitri, especially when they put the saints they have in quite compromising locations. I mean, just imagine what would happen if the Foundation's largest site experienced the effects of two saints simultaneously…"
"So they'll try to delay us to keep themselves in the clear?"
"They'll do alot more than delay if you try to wait things out. You said yourself that the Initiative doesn't exactly have the cover of irrelevancy anymore, and the grubby hands that be won't sit idly by."
Raymond began spinning a pencil, lost in thought.
"You're suggesting a preemptive strike, Deer. Bumbling fools they are, we can't do much without Tribunal approval for now."
"I'm not the one pushing big red buttons, Ray. Just make sure to schedule well, I'm going on a hunting trip in November. A buddy knows some nice ranges, I'll take you along." Saturn deer relaxed into his seat, looking up at the ceiling.
"Forget the damn trip! Our priority is finding-
RING RING RING BZZT….
.
.
.
RING RING RING BZZT….
Raymond's phone started buzzing, the name "Hassan" in capital letters spelled out on the screen.
"You gonna take that?" Hammersith said.
"Make it quick, I'm in a meeting," Raymond put the call on speaker and grunted at the interruption.
"I've made contact with the saint." The voice on the other side blurted out.
"What?"
Raymond clutched his rosary as he shot out of his chair in pure shock. His eyes began darting back and forth around the now silent meeting room. It's as if his mind short-circuited, every doubt and insecurity he had about his projects relating to the saint washing away in a flood of utter confusion. As the weight of this revelation dawned on the general, he could only utter a single word.
"H-how?" The general spoke, almost whispering.
"Uh, I found him praying on a park bench in SoHo. He claims an individual named Saturn Deer recently convinced him to cooperate." Hassan replied in a blank tone.
Raymond could barely comprehend it.
The saint had come back to them. By some miracle, the saint had returned to his senses and came back to fulfill his destiny. He had spent his three days in the fish's gullet, and Raymond had long been strangled to his senses. For a moment, the general realized his prayers had been answered. His conviction rewarded with the greatest of divine favor before he even knew it.
But despite this, Hassan's words only drew the general's mind to a single, certain contradiction.
.
.
.
.
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.
.
"The hell are you on about? Saturn Deer never left the meeting room."
