Cat out of the Bag 2.4

Previous                                                                                                                       Next

The press of bodies, the general shuffling and movement, and the warmth of the summer’s day made for a haze in the air.  A fog, if fog smelled like body odor and rain.

But it was easier and more evocative to call it a symptom of the general mood.  If one person could be so mad that steam came out of their ears, was a crowd of very upset people capable of producing this kind of atmosphere?

“This is not what I expected,” Gordon remarked.

I nodded in silent agreement.

A woman stopped to take notice of us as we forged our way through a tangle of legs and hips.  She was in the company of her husband and her son, who was twice our age.

“What are you doing here?” the woman asked.

“Trying to get a seat with a view,” Gordon said.  “Excuse us.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, not letting him by.  Her son nudged her, pointing at a gap in the crowd, and she shooed him off.  “You’re too little.”

My eyes narrowed, my eyes dancing over her, taking in the simple braid, the worn seams of her clothes, and the particular lines in her face.  “And you’re-”

Gordon reflexively tried to clap a hand over my mouth, but with the crowd crushing in on us and our mutual proximity, he ended up smacking me in the lower half of the face with his forearm.

“Mmph,” I said, wincing.

“We’re fine,” Gordon said, smiling.  He partially turned my way, muttering, “Sorry.”

“Mff.”

“You’re going to get trampled.  Emotions are running high today,” the woman told us, her voice stringent.

“Mum,” her son said, impatient.

“One moment,” she said, a little impatiently.  She looked at us and gave us her best ‘mother’ voice.  “Go home.  It’s safer there.”

“But-” Jamie said, and I had to suppress a smile at hearing his tone.  The tone and the wide eyed look he gave her through his thick glasses was wounded, concerned, and bewildered.  “Ma’am.  We’re orphans.  We don’t have a home.”

It wasn’t quite how I would have timed or phrased it, but it wasn’t quite an option for me.  I felt like if I tried to go the pitiful orphan route, someone like this woman would look me over, see the scruffy hair, see the eyes, the thin mouth, and think, ‘yes, that’s an orphan.’

But Jamie was another thing altogether.  His long hair was tied back in a sailor’s ponytail, he wore glasses, and his clothes didn’t quite fit him.  He was just a step away from being an ordinary child, so fixable, and the effect came across well.  Perfect for when we wanted to put people on the defensive.

I’d worked with him on that one, with Helen’s help.

I did my best not to smile as I watched the woman flounder.

Mum,” her son said.  “We’re going to lose sight of dad if you don’t hurry.”

She seemed caught up in the moment, but with a push one way and a pull the other…

“You shouldn’t be here,” she reminded us, before turning away, joining her son.

I tackled Jamie, throwing my arm around his shoulder.

“Hmm,” Jamie said.

“That was good!”  I told him.

“Uh huh,” he said, again.  But he smiled.

“Beautifully timed.”

“In a few years that won’t work anymore.”

“But it worked here, now!  Just a second ago,” I said.  “That was good!”

“That’s all it takes to make Sy’s day,” Gordon remarked.

When I looked, I saw he was talking to Mary, who was safe between him and Lil.  Helen was closer to me and Jamie.

“A good execution of a technique?” Mary asked.  “It makes sense to me.”

“No,” Gordon said.  “Well, yes, maybe, but no.”

“Mixed messages, there,” I said.  I winced as a few members of the crowd backed away, jostling us.

“No,” Gordon seemed to decide.  “It’s not about the technique.”

“Oh,” Mary said.  She looked puzzled.

“He-” Jamie started to chime in, then stopped short as the crowd moved again, bumping him.

“Let’s move somewhere else,” Gordon said.  He looked at the crowd ahead of us.  People were shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.

The entire neighborhood turned up.

“Up there,” Helen suggested.

She was pointing at a nearby rooftop, an addition to a nearby building, larger than a shed, not quite large enough to be an adjunct stable.  A storehouse?

Either way, it had a gently sloping roof that was low enough we could potentially climb up to it.  We had to hop a short fence that surrounded the lawn, possibly to keep bugs away.

“Sy,” Gordon said.  He was entwining his fingers together.

I nodded, and picked up my pace.

It wasn’t quite a running start, but I had forward momentum all the same, when he caught my foot in his hands and hauled me up.

I landed on the roof, and immediately dropped to all fours, palms and shoes skidding on the shingles before I found the traction to stop.

By the time I did, Helen had made her way up.  Gordon very deliberately looked to one side as her dress brushed his face.  She didn’t drop to all fours as I had, but instead found her balance by touching the side of the adjacent building, her feet firmly planted on the sloped roof.  She turned around to face the other direction, peppermint green dress flaring around bare legs, her sockless feet in little white shoes finding balance.  I knew Helen was in the process of growing her hair longer, but for now it was in tight blonde rolls at the side and back, the rolls absorbing most of the length.

She was still smiling, giving me an amused look with a very intentionally placed gleam in her eyes.

I almost missed deadpan Helen.  I understood deadpan Helen.

“Sy,” Gordon said.  “Heads up!”

I looked just in time to see Mary fly at me.

I caught the apex of the roof with one hand and Mary’s hand with the other.  Her shoes weren’t as good for climbing as mine were, too flat on the bottom, and she skidded.

I watched her adjust her weight, the foot that was set lower on the roof sweeping in a sharp, focused half-circle, scraping the shingles for maximum traction.  Not quite enough to stop her downward movement, but it made for less of a violent tug when I had to catch her full weight, my arms stretched in two opposite directions.

“You’re smiling,” she said.

I hauled her up, and she found her way to the peak of the roof, standing across it.  We had the best view of the crowd, but she was staring at me, looking puzzled.

“Your…” I said, not finding the words.  I made an inarticulate waving gesture toward her legs.

Mary looked down, sticking out one leg.  She wore a white blouse and forest green skirt, and she was looking down at her bare calf.

“The way you kept from falling,” Helen clarified.  “Kicking out.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Oh,” Mary said.  She still looked a little perplexed.

“Sy, Mary,” Gordon said.

I reached out and caught Jamie’s hand.  Mary caught his elbow, where he was holding his book with one hand.

“You were taught that?”

“It was one of a few things,” she said.  “I’m more of a tomboy than you’d think.  I learned a bit on my own.”

“No kidding,” I said.  To please the puppeteer?  To please us, now?  “It’s impressive.”

She looked away as she smiled in response to that.

We caught Lillian, helping her up, and then Gordon hauled himself up on his own.

Six of us on one roof.

“Grimy,” Gordon said.  I looked down at my brown-black palms to verify, then to Lillian.  Her dress was smudged at the knees, where she hadn’t been quite so graceful as Helen or Mary.

Straddling the roof, I pulled off my raincloak.  I laid it across the top of the roof.

At my silent invitation, Mary sat down on one side of it.  I plunked myself down beside her, and not because of any scheme or anything.  Lillian might have been a girl, but it was my damn cloak.

Lil shot me an offended look, then arranged and sat on her satchel with all the equipment and notes.

Gordon and Helen were standing, toward the side of the building, while Jamie elected to sit on his book, balancing it on the roof’s peak.

Together, finally settled with a view, we were free to look out over the crowd.  A small handful of faces looked up at us on our perch, but nobody spoke out.  The focus was elsewhere.

Fear, anger, agitation.

“Something’s stirring,” I murmured.

Jamie, watching, nodded.

The church was across the street from us, not one of the largest in existence, but Radham wasn’t an overly pious town.  The structure was pale, the shingles were brown, and the stained glass stood out all the more for the drab exterior.  A lot of reds in the glass used for the window.

Damage sustained some time ago had led to the patching up of one of the side walls, but the branches had been heavily pruned.  Where some buildings let the branches grow out, reaching and growing leaves, the church had cut back everything until the plant growth was almost indistinguishable from mortar.

A cart had stopped by the side door of the church, and much of the crowd had gathered around it.  Two men were standing on or by the cart, I saw.  They were talking, and a lot of people were listening.

“That’s not the reverend, is it?” Gordon asked.

“No,” Jamie said.  He pointed.  “Left side.  Bill Warner.  He owns the production line down by Tenent street.  You knew his son at Mothmont, Gordon.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“To the right, we have Dicky Gill, who really shouldn’t be here,” Jamie observed.  “Or at least, not in this capacity.”

“Why?” Mary asked.

“Because he’s in a position of power that the Academy gave him,” Gordon said.  “He’s on the shortlist to be the next mayor?”

“Oh boy,” Mary said, finally understanding.

“It’s a very short list,” Jamie said.  “A list many people want to find themselves on.  An academy town of the Crown States of America.”

“Short road to power, if he’s willing to walk it,” I remarked.  “Why is he here, and not walking that road?”

“Same general feeling as Walter’s dad?” Gordon asked.  “It’s not true power, it’s just being stuck in the middle while the Academy runs things.”

I frowned.

“No?” Gordon asked.

“Power is a lot more tantalizing when it’s almost in reach than when you have it hand,” I said.  “For him, it’s almost in reach.  What’s going on that’s making this more appealing than that?”

“You have to ask?” Gordon asked.

“Hm?”

He gave me an odd look.

“What?”

“Look.  This crowd.  I know you can tell just how upset they are.”

“Uh huh,” I said, resisting an ‘of course’.

“That simmering rage?  It’s his, or close to.  This many people, restless, and he owns them.  He and Warner, anyway, maybe Reverend Mauer too.”

“Uh huh.”

Our collected eyes moved over the crowd.  People talking in heated tones, the forceful gestures, the restlessness.  Expressions tight, with lines of anger across foreheads and between eyebrows, grooves deep around the mouth, suggesting disgust, and eyes too wide open, revealing too much white.  Fear.

Perhaps something more than fear, too.  A wilder sort of feeling.  Something ready to cut loose and act on things long suppressed.

“They only need direction,” I said.

“You’re saying you don’t see the appeal in that?”  Gordon asked.  “For a guy who’s never had power, to now have the ability to direct this?”

“I see the appeal, I guess,” I said.  “I prefer to interact with people, not crowds.”

“It’s a big crowd, and it wouldn’t take much to turn this state of things into a riot,” Gordon commented.

“This didn’t come out of nowhere,” Mary said, “Did it?”

“No,” I agreed.  “There was work going into this.  There’s a reason people gathered here at the first sign of trouble.”

The church door opened.  Conversations stopped.  People paid attention.

Mauer.

He wasn’t what I was expecting.

A part of me was expecting Hayle, someone aged, stately, perhaps a bit grim, dressed in black, with the priest’s collar.

Reverend Mauer was young, or he’d been worked on by the Academy at some point.  His hair was vibrant, a bronze that verged on a surprising red where the sun peered through clouds to touch it, and his skin was smooth and unlined.

When he walked, it was a touch off balance, back bent to one side, almost a limp.  He did wear black shirt and slacks, one arm bare , and he wore a chaplain’s collar, not the tab at the shirt, but a proper band of white that encircled his neck.  To go with the limping gait and odd balance was a heavy sleeve that covered one arm, extending past the fingers.

The uncharitable part of me wanted to call him a chicken, or a cock.  The shock of red at the top, sharp chin and a roman nose, the long, thin neck, the youth, and the way he walked.

But the more charitable part of me saw that he was quiet, very at ease with how he slowly took in the crowd with his eyes.  When he moved for a purpose other than walking, his actions seemed fluid, relaxed.

His very state of being seemed to pass to them.  The fires that had been stirring when the crowd was left on its own seemed to flicker and fade.

We’d pegged him for the provocateur of the situation with Walter and Whiskers.  Looking at him, going by gut feeling, I suspected he was far from being a stupid man.

“I suddenly feel like we should have gotten closer,” Gordon remarked.

“For what?” Jamie asked.

“To be able to act.”

“There’s no way to act with this many people around,” Mary said.

“You’re saying that?  After your scene in the Mothmont cafeteria?” I asked.

“I’m… saying there’s no way to do it without advance preparation.”

“Point,” I said.  Then, after a second’s pause, I couldn’t hold back.  “Ugh.  Talk, Mauer.  I want to hear what you have to say.”

“So do they,” Lillian said.

The crowd was paying close attention.

Mauer climbed up onto the side of the wagon, standing on the short ledge beneath the door.  It put him a few feet above the crowd, sticking up by the waist.

Without a word, he gestured at Gill.  Our Academy backed politician.

I only partially managed to hold back a groan.

“Everyone!” Gill called out, climbing up to stand beside the Reverend Mauer, proving to be a bit shorter and somewhat plumper than the reverend.  Still, good projection skills.  “You’ve heard the rumors, and I have to thank you for passing the word on to others so they know what’s going on and can make sure they’re safe.  For those who haven’t heard, yes, there is a creature loose from the Academy.  It is dangerous to you all, but you can minimize the danger by staying in groups.”

It is dangerous to you all.  Emphasis on ‘is’, to strike any doubt from their minds.

Any public speaker worth his salt could have reworded that or even changed the emphasis to soften the blow to the Academy.  He’d done it intentionally.

“Bad politician,” I murmured.  “Bad!”

Jamie was nodding.  Mary leaned forward, arms around her knees, paying rapt attention.

“What is it!?” someone called out.

Yes, I thought.  What is it?

“Sources with the Academy have told me it’s a project meant to advance research in the five senses,” Gill said.  “That it’s not meant to be dangerous, but we should take care all the same.”

My eyes narrowed.  I was aware of the murmurs and conversation.

“We heard people had died!” another voice.

“Yes.  Nine individuals have been gravely hurt in and around the Academy, but so far, the damage-” Gill paused as Mauer reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, then finished his statement, “-is contained to the institution.  They’re putting all resources forward, to stop…”

He halted toward the end there, then let the sentence die unfinished.  Mauer was using his grip on the man’s shoulder to let him know that he wanted to speak.

“It’s not true, I’m afraid,” Mauer said.  His voice carried, but it wasn’t loud like Gill’s was.  Strong contrast.  He paused, another contrast to Gill’s attempt to drop as much information as he could in a short span of time.

Were the contrasts intentional?  How much were they collaborating?  Was even this interruption of Gill’s reassurance calculated?

“I just received word that two individuals in the upper west part of Radham were attacked.  They were school-age.  One of them is gravely injured, to the point that he may be crippled for life.”

His expression changed, and his face was very expressive, in a way that might have rivaled Helen’s own control of how she presented herself.  The weariness in his eyes suggested he was much older than he looked.  He looked down, taking a second to purse his lips, as if trying to get them working right.

“The other child is dead,” he stated, overly stiff, having waited just long enough to let people think he might have completed his last statement.

Now, again, the crowd stirred, pain, fear, anger, redoubled for the peace that Mauer had just given and taken away.

“Please!” Mauer called out.  His words were nearly drowned out by the noise of the crowd.  “Please!”

Gordon shifted, crouching, and spoke to us, “He can definitely speak louder than that.”

He’s in full control of this crowd.  He’s stoking the fires and bottling up the heat.  Things are going to explode, and they’re going to explode damn soon.

“Who is this guy?” I asked, a little awed and impressed.  “Is he an experiment?”

“Pretty sure he isn’t,” Jamie said.  “I overheard about his history.  He was a soldier in the wars down south.”

“The limp?” I asked.

“Not a limp.  He’s off balance.  They gave him a new arm, after he lost his.  It’s not very functional, and it’s not very pretty,” Jamie said.

“A weapon?”

“A regular, oversized arm.  Nothing fancy.  It seems to cause him constant pain.  He refused offers of further work and replacement.  Went straight to seminary.”

Reverend Mauer’s shouting was picking up in volume.  He was getting attention.

“Please!” Mauer said, more forcefully, almost a little angry.  Another act.  “This is not about the monster, and it is not about the Academy or the mistakes they made!”

“He’s doing that on purpose,” Mary said.

I’m not the only one who thinks so.

“Yeah,” Helen said, one of the few things she’d said since we’d climbed up onto the roof.  The smile was gone from her face.  She was deadpan again.

“They don’t see it?” Mary asked.

“Emotions are clouding their eyes and ears,” Gordon said, simply.

“This is about the children!  Please!  A moment of silence and a prayer!”

In the palm of his hand, I thought.

I could see everything that was about to unfold.

Stoke the fires, contain, store the heat.  Stoke the fires, contain, store the heat.

Let it all build up.

Right now, he was containing.

“Their names are Martin and Oscar Meadows,” he said, and he barely had to raise his voice to be heard, now that the crowd had been silenced.  “Let us give them a moment and a prayer.”

Nobody with a heart, no matter how angry they were, could dare to speak up in the midst of such a meaningful silence.

“Is he going to start a riot?  Directed at the Academy?”  Lillian asked, whispering.  We were far enough we wouldn’t be overheard.  With the nearest members of the crowd a good thirty feet away, aiming to be closer, to see as well as hear, the shuffling of feet and the periodic coughs were enough to mask the whispering.

“Maybe,” Gordon whispered.

“No,” I whispered, without missing a beat.  “No.  Why the hell would he do that?”

“To hurt Radham Academy.”

“What good comes of that?  They shut the doors and the gates and wait out the chaos,” I whispered.

“Then why?  What?  He has some goal,” Gordon said.

The silence lingered as I watched, looking over the crowd to the red haired man who was standing on the side of one coach.  He was examining the crowd, but he hadn’t noticed us.

“Look at him,” I said.  “We can’t even touch him right now.  He’s surrounded by this many supporters, and even if he wasn’t, if we could get to him somehow, we’d only stimulate the crowd, like an electric shock to a latent stitched.  Wake them up, drive them to action.”

“Making him a martyr,” Mary whispered.

“He has full and complete control.  He knows what he’s doing, and he knows how dangerous it is to stand against the Academy.  He knows they’re going to pay attention to him, and he can only hold his position by maintaining a very delicate sort of balance.  Starting a riot gives up that control,” I whispered.

Reverend Mauer was peering through the crowd, finding people who weren’t at ease.  A man who was more agitated than some, shifting weight from one foot to another, was met with a look of deep sadness from Mauer.

The agitation quieted.

“Are you sure this guy’s human?” I whispered.

“After his botched arm graft and new skin, I don’t think he’s willing to let anyone touch him,” Jamie said.

“You’ve paid a lot of attention to this guy,” Gordon remarked.

“He’s a popular topic for gossip,” Jamie whispered.  “The Academies don’t have the best working relationship with the churches.  A lot of people wondered what sort of man would turn up to man a station in an Academy town, of all places.”

“I guess we know, now,” Gordon remarked.

The silence was lingering to the point that it was almost painful.  More than a minute, easily.

Who are you, Reverend Mauer?  I wondered.  Are you drawing this out for your own pleasure?  To test how firm your grip on these people is in practice?  Are you focused on the same taste of power that stole Gill away from the Academy, or are you laboring under a goal?

People with their heads and eyes down were perhaps unaware, but the crowd began to shift, a little restless, as if their bodies were voicing the questions their mouths didn’t dare to.

“Now,” Reverend Mauer said, as if gently rousing everyone present from a dream.  “I know you’re upset.  It is hard not to be, given the lives that have been lost, and your fear for yourselves, your neighbors, and your loved ones.”

He had everyone’s ear, and mine was no exception.  I was hanging on every word, picking apart how he was playing with emotions, saying one thing while gently stoking the fires, validating fear and outrage.

“Aimless anger won’t help anyone, and would be an affront to those we’ve already lost.  Nothing would be sadder than if we went out looking for answers or justice, only to sully the memories of Martin and Oscar, or worse, to join those killed by the escaped creature, because you were acting with emotion, not caution.”

Control.

Mary was giving me a sidelong glance.

I was right.

What we don’t know is what your next move is.

“The Academy, from what we’ve been told, is deploying more creatures, weapons of war and armed men, with the intent of finding and stopping the escaped creature.  Dog and Catcher are the least of the assets being brought to bear.”

“Academy didn’t tell you that,” Gordon murmured.

“Hard for them to turn around and say they didn’t, that they wanted to keep people in the dark,” I commented.  Gordon nodded in agreement.

There isn’t a single person here that likes that.  Phrased so well, too.

He went on.  “I don’t like this, but at the present time, the only thing we can do is stay safe.  Stay with family and friends, give each other comfort.  If you still find yourself lacking, you’ll find Dicky, Bill, and myself here in the church, with several others, ready to offer prayer and counsel, should you need it.  If you have any news, please, come to us.”

“Soldiers,” Mary said.

I nodded slowly.

How many people are going to turn up at that church, talking about banding together and doing something, as if it were their idea and not Mauer’s?

“A prayer!” Mauer declared, spreading his arms slightly.

“Let’s go,” I said, climbing over the roof, intent on sliding down the far side, away from Mauer.  I peered over to make sure the landing would be clear.  “The Academy is going to want to be on top of this.  It’s a bigger problem than Whiskers.”

“Bigger?” Lillian asked.

“He’s putting himself opposite the Academy, gathering soldiers, he’s telling people about the secret projects, if only in broad strokes, and he’s making himself effectively untouchable,” I said.  “This is going to concern the Academy more than any murderous experiment, believe me.  We need advice on how to move forward, and we might need help.”

Previous                                                                                                                       Next

80 thoughts on “Cat out of the Bag 2.4

      • I’ve just read the number one webserial based on topwebfictions ratings, Citadel. That author, while writing a very interesting story, has a bit of a voting scheme going on. If you vote – you get early access to the latest material. That’s not how voting should work in my opinion.

        • Voting is meant to be a representation of your support for a story, right? If you support a story enough that you’re willing to vote to read the latest page as soon as that page is published, then surely the vote was well cast. I don’t see the problem.

          • In my opinion voting should reflect the quality of a story.

            Voting to be rewarded with the latest content does not imply it being a good story. It implies being [i]just[i/]interesting enough for people to click a mere [i]two times[i/] extra to get to the latest content.

            Do you know what also supply that level of quality content? Clickbait websites. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were a publishing author, I’d rather be dead than be equaled to those websites.

  1. Very nice. I liked Sy’s characterization here – he’s a right bastard, in tones of voice indicating incredulous admiration.

  2. 1. I think transitions between chapters need more continuity. It’s a little strange to go from an interrogation straight into an impromptu rally with only Jamie saying oh I know the Reverend’s church location…

    2. “Crown States of America”. So much potential backstory to those four words! Glad wildbow gave us a more definitive location though.

    3. I am very impressed with Gordon in this chapter. That he can see the allure of power in a crowd better than Sy is actually incredibly fascinating. Sounds like the potential of being a charismatic leader of masses – he already has the “golden boy” stature…

    4. I am tentatively excited that this chapter is opening up the story for the larger picture. Before, it was all disparate tasks. “Bad seeds”, “Snake Charmer” and what we though we just be “Whiskers”. But now there’s an entire revolution on the edge. Hopefully Whiskers doesn’t get shoved into the wayside though.

    5. It’s good to see the figurehead of the enemy now too. I don’t believe he’s the mastermind quite yet. But he does make for a good first boss 🙂

    I LOVE the group dynamics! “Lillian might have been a girl, but it was my damn cloak… Lil shot me an offended look…” ha!

    Thanks for the update 🙂

    • Whiskers could turn up as the most awkward act of Murphy… for both sides. :/ I’m not convinced they have full means to control that little fuzzy terror. Sure, it’s not supposed to like crowds… But, how does it react to being boxed in with no escape from one? *shudders*

    • I disagree on the continuity matter- given the source material the structure of this story is based on, I think the mystery-of-the-week format could work quite well, at least for this early period.

      • I agree. I like the episodic format the story seems to be taking. There’s definitely a larger thread being woven in the background, but I’m in no great rush to see it become foreground.

    • I disagree on 1. I don’t think there’s any difficulty following the logic of the story — the interrogation led them to Rev. Mauer. Looking for him they find this rally. Not to be snide, but what do you think we’re missing? The lambs asking for directions? (Okay, sorry, maybe a little snide)

    • I agree that the transition was a little rough. I had to go back to the last chapter to figure out why they were suddenly in the street with a massive crowd, and then was able to figure out “Oh, this must be were the reverend is”.

    • I’d have to agree with point 1 here, the transition was sufficiently jarring that I thought I’d missed a chapter, it could really use a “It was just a short walk from the academy to the church” or similar style opening line to let us know we haven’t missed anything.

  3. Really enjoying watching the environment unfold around the Lambs. Now the villan has a face, and he’s a perfect foil for Sy, who, of the four (/five?), has the most difficult skillset to showcase. The transitions between chapters is jarring on first view, and I always feel like I missed something when the curtains were closed. However, I went back to the beginning of the arc, and it’s much smoother read all at once. The “covered in teeth” thing had fallen to the back of my mind because Whiskers is such a damn cute name, but the juxtaposition is interesting! Thanks for another great chapter wildbow!

      • Years of video games and other stuff make it so I can’t read about a villian having a crippled limb they keep hidden and not think “uh oh, scary monster limb for boss fight”

  4. The Reverend is neat. I doubt he’s particularly connected to Percy’s group-they might leak him info, but probably nothing more than that. Populist uprising doesn’t seem their style. But he’s probably planning to have one of his catspaws leak the would-be rebels info on an Academy weakness so they can take action.

  5. I find myself intrigued by that Sy ‘almost missed’ the deadpan Helen who he understood, rather than missed her!

    • Ambivalence. Would you rather have something interesting but puzzling, or something dull you understand perfectly ? From the point of view of a mindmaster, that is.

      My guess on why he almost misses unexpressive!Helen.

  6. Can’t wait for the next Enemy interlude. It should be very interesting to find out about the Reverend’s perspective.

  7. Now I get it Twig is a Government Procedural from the eyes of the Secret Police. Its Parks and Recreation with police brutality & body horror! 🙂

    • Your remark brought it home to me – the Lambsbridge gang aren’t just secret police – they are deniable secret police (because their official Academy status is ‘experiment’ rather than ’employee’). This is almost a complete reversal of previous Wildbow story starts – instead of the protagonist being the outsider against the corrupt current powers, the protagonists are agents of the the corrupt current powers who go around taking down the plucky outsiders.

      • But the Lambsbridge orphans aren’t *loyal* agents of the corrupt powers. If someone could credibly offer them a future beyond their scheduled expiration dates, I could easily see them abandon their former masters. (Though one would expect Professor Hayle to have ensured safety measures similar to the clones’ pass phrases.)

    • Are you sure? I kinda seems like it might be Wildbow at long last embracing youth romance. I mean we got Sy/Mary, Jamie/Fran, and now Gordon/Helen. We just need someone to pair Lillian with.

  8. “The Crown States of America”….”wars down south”

    The geopolitics of the world thicken. I don’t expect there to be much backstory on the first statement, since there wasn’t one in Worm regarding the Chinese Union-Imperial, but if I had to guess, the CrSA is at least composed of Canada, and perhaps a large chunk of what once was the US. Maybe the Biotech British intervened during ITTLs version of the American Civil War?

    From this and the mention of an “Indian Empire”, is the British Empire federated?

    • The “Crown States” implies some deeply confusing things about what has happened to the US. But it does seem like something has happened to the British empire, at least…

    • At my silent invitation, Mary sat down on one side of it. I plunked myself down beside her, not because of any scheme or anything, but because Lillian might have been a girl, but it was my damn cloak.

      • Damage sustained some time ago had been used to patch up one of the side walls, but the branches had been heavily pruned.
        -You can’t use damage to patch up a wall.

        At my silent invitation, Mary sat down on one side of it. I plunked myself down beside her, not because of any scheme or anything, but because Lillian might have been a girl, but it was my damn cloak.
        -but because although Lillian might have been a girl, ___ it was my damn cloak.

    • “Two men were standing on or by the cart, I saw. They were talking, and a lot of people were talking.”

      A lot of people were listening I would guess

    • “We had to hop a short fence that surrounded the lawn, possibly to keep bugs away.”
      Either bugs in the Twigverse are too large to pass through chain link/wood planks, or that fence is better described as a wall.

  9. So if Mr. Reverend had access to democracy the goal would probably be to install Gill as mayor and then have the police investigate the Academy. Although I guess that depends on how much official power the Academy has.

    • From the sounds of things the Academy has waaaay more power than the police. It looks more like he’s trying to get the public to turn against the academy. Just assainating the good reverend won’t cut it this time. They’ll have to publicly discredit him first.

  10. Interesting. Either there are some VERY strange experiments running around or the Twig-Verse has cartoons. Since Sy makes that remark of people shooting steam out of their ears and stuff.^^

    • Just vote for the one you are reading, or ones that you feel strongly about. Other writers are working hard to reach the top voted tiers, don’t just arbitrarily vote them down.

  11. Crown States of America makes me think that either:
    1. The British Empire recaptured the US at some point.
    2. Twigverse George Washington didn’t reject the offer of being made King and the US was a monarchy from the get go.
    3. The American Civil war went further in stripping individual states of their autonomy and giving the central government more power than the Framers of the Constitution ever intended.

    Hopefully, we get more of an explaination for the CSA then we got for the CUI, what with politics being more central to Twig(Worm occasionally got into the politics surrounding capes, but it was always secondary to the main conflicts whereas the conflicts in Twig are shaping up to be primarily between the Academy and it’s political opponents) than they were in worm and the CSA being the larger setting rather than a foreign entity like the CUI was(Seriously, if not for the Yanban, the CUI would have almost no baring on Worm’s plot).

  12. Suddenly expressive Helen – something Hayle did?

    I am glad the releasing of Whiskers was more thought out than the previous chapter would suggest.
    I am also wondering what this reverend’s end game is. It would make a lot of sense if it was just about getting people to reject the academy and their creations (maybe a rebellion maybe?), but that seems a bit simplistic

    • “something Hayle did”

      Do you mean Doctor Ibott? Hayle may be supervising but Ibott is Helen’s primary creator.

    • Hit Post too early…

      I think what is happening is Helen is starting controlled experiments on how behavior affects those around her. Most people her apparent age don’t have the presence of mind or the detachment necessary to make what are essentially controlled psychological experiments on people around them, but she might.

  13. Intriguing, though for a moment I thought I missed a chapter.

    Kinda surprised the Reverend didnt do a bit of elaboration on what else was being used to hunt Whiskers and freak the people out a bit more, and provide forshadowing for our awesome author.

    The reverend is going to be a problem if he isn’t nipped in the bud soon, almost anything happening would be blamed on the Accademy. Really I can only think of two ways to remove him from play now that wouldn’t cause a stir. Accademy applies pressure on organizations to have him transfered elsewhere, or the Lambs arrange for Whiskers to get him.

    The more I think about Whiskers the more useful it seems for attrition combat. Pop a couple behind enemy lines near places of important and let them go to town. Their senses will prevent them from being captured or killed easily and their appetites will sic them on enemy soldiers (assuming humans are the prey of choice of course) and the whole inefficent eating method bit will make them attack often. The stress of the constant killings combined with the futile attempts to eliminate them and safety measures to avoid being eaten, would severely wear down the enemy and elimante their morale.

    • “Kinda surprised the Reverend didnt do a bit of elaboration on what else was being used to hunt Whiskers and freak the people out a bit more, and provide forshadowing for our awesome author.”

      Tactical silence, there. No details means people primed for fear will fill in the empty space with whatever will freak them out the most.

      • True, but I felt that there was too much silence on the subject. A few vague mentions of stuff that regular folks couldn’t normally concieve would lead to more potent and/or targeted fears and of course foreshadowing and worldbuilding. Too little info and they could relegate it towards something more mundane like an escaped animal, instead of some biological terror.

  14. More and more the chapter title “cat out of the bag” is seeming relevant.
    I think that with these little tidbits strewn in with Sy taking delight in one of his friend’s displaying good talent as well as even the mild horsing around really helps to bring to the front that these still are children after all. Forces to be reckoned with, but young and spirited none the less. Even Helen, by departing from her deapan and acting happy seems to be enjoying herself just a little, changing things up.
    The other note worth commenting on was the fact that in earlier chapters it seemed like Sy was mastermininding things and taking point a bit much, but here and in the previous chapter it was more Gordon in the lead. While he readily deferred to Sy and the others when it came to their area of expertise, I got more of the sense that he is team leader, guiding them and the direction of conversation along.
    More to the point there is a good sense of all of the Lambs, surrogates included, having an equal balance of power. I realize that it is a central theme and referenced multiple times in story of them covering each others week spots. However, the reason I am so impressed is that I actually get the sense of that, even if it was never brought up. The group dynamic of how one speaks up and another does the same but with their own lens is effortless. Granted Sy loves to bring up that Lillian isn’t one of them, but recently she has been less afraid to speak up and add her own two cents to the flow of conversation (character development!). There is almost a sense that she thinks of herself as less of an outsider now as well, and I think that that is one of many benefits of having Mary with them.
    All this to say, I am impressed as ever and look forward to what comes next.

    • “covering each other’s week spots”

      Wuh?Even if you count Lilian,there are only six of them,they need one more to cover all days of the week.Anyway,on which week spots each covers,I think:

      Gordon is Sunday:the leader,the charismatic,the face.
      Sylvester is Monday:everybody hates it,but its necessary.
      Helen is Thursday:totally unasuming,not even on the center of the week
      Jamie is Thirsday:when people start picking up steam in the week,when they start learning,memorizing
      Lilian is Saturday:the day where people rest,heal in a sense
      Mary is Wednesday:the day in the middle,where everything but leadership and healing collide,it can do everything monday though friday can,but less effectively.

      Question is,who is Friday,and when will he/she join?Friday is the end of hard work and the promise of a better tommorow,so it should be their morality,thats the week spot they miss.

  15. Am I the only one who doesn’t know what it was about Jamie’s performance that made Sy’s day? If it wasn’t the execution of the technique what was it?

    • It was making other people uncomfortable, to have their well meaning actions turned out to be insulting &/or hurtful.

    • I think it was a technique well-executed. I don’t know why this makes him happy, but it was the same with Mary’s foot technique, and Mauer’s speech. Maybe Sy likes artistry?

  16. Sly and whole gang are wonderfully characterized, the world building is awesome, and the story intriguing… but I think Wildbow is crafting a completely different experience than what we are trained to expect in most works of fiction.

    I say this because I’ve been having a hard time getting to relate to, or root for Sy – specially now that it is obvious that he is an enforcer for a powerful and ultimately malign organization. I am a sucker for anti-heros, but these characters so far really seem totally amoral, and I find myself wondering if the people from the first interlude are actually the heros.

    • To be fair to the Lambs, its been made fairly clear that they don’t exactly like working for the Academy. There are several elements (appointments, the Bad Seeds shut down phrases) that suggest that they’re being kept on a very tight leash, one that they would like to do without. I can’t really blame them for working with the Academy if the alternative is being forced to work for the Academy.

      That said, a major element of the setting we haven’t gotten around to yet is why the Academy even exists. The background info suggests that the Crown States might be in a Cold War with the Indian Empire, but if that’s the case, that begs the question of what takes the place of nukes, here (straight up biological weapons are out, because so far they’ve all been geared towards either espionage or trench warfare, which isn’t the sort of mutually assured destruction you need to turn a war cold.). It also casts doubt on the rebels. If they’re working for the Indian Empire, its hard to claim that they’re any better then the people working for the Crown.

      This is especially true in light of the fact that they lied to the Bad Seeds’ creator about Mary. It always struck me as a move made by people more intrested in him as a tool and operative then as a person.

  17. Great Chapter. I pretty much always enjoy “manipulative” bosses. No strength except in the power of the pawns they can bring to bear (Masters, in Wormverse terminology). We have yet to see if the is a mini-boss or something like the End Boss. Only time will tell!

  18. I like how none of them consider that what Mauer is doing is for noble or misguided reasons and believe that he’s just doing it selfishly.

  19. I think it’s “red-haired,” not “red haired.” Wish I could remember the rule why. It might even just be a style thing, though the Oxford English Dictionary backs me up: http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.fau.edu/view/Entry/160306?redirectedFrom=red-haired#eid

    (Got that via my school’s account. You might need an account to view it? idk?)

    Don’t know why I’m being so picky about the grammar, though. Still really, really enjoying this. Probably the best work you’ve written. As of right now, the Reverend looks like a really great Villain of the Week. Won’t say for sure, since he might end up being something more.

  20. Daunted. Daunted, by damn! I’ve been reading Twig bit by bit, a chapter or two a week, since I saw a random recommendation at IForgetWhere.com, a few months back. (Might have been one of the writing sub-reddits.)

    Only today did I notice the TOC popup over there. And popped it up to find out that in reaching 2.05 I had read _at best_ 1/8th of Twig. Holy crap, there are 15 “arcs” to go! I’m sorry, truly, but I am daunted. I seriously don’t care to keep at it that long. How many pages would it be, printed? Right up there with War and Peace I think. Anthony Adverse territory. (There’s a dated reference.)

    Anyway, I acknowledge (and am in awe of) the effort you’ve put in. Best.

Leave a Reply. No spoilers for other Wildbow works!