Jordan looked down into the open box and was unimpressed. Thoroughly unimpressed. He was expecting something grand or otherworldly. He really wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but what he got was a series of papers, neatly bound at one end, that contained nothing but numbers and formulae.

The space that the papers didn’t fill was taken up by padding in the form of silken cloth. He couldn’t believe that this much opulence had been spared for a simple document box. He then remembered that Ruin and Center Piece were two different worlds. Apparently in Center Piece people could be murdered over a few sheets of paper.

He rifled through the sheets, trying to read them as he turned from one to another. It was exceptionally dry stuff. There was no indication of what they were for, although the later pages contained technical schematics that only confused Jordan. He wasn’t a dullard, but the abstract way the schematics were presented didn’t help him at all.

When he finished leafing through the papers he stood and tried to set up another synchronicity field. A test to see if he’d broken the wards on the box by opening it. To his relief and disgust he found that the field failed him again, collapsing as the random thoughts of the living box filled his mind.

“Hell,” he whispered to himself while he placed the papers back into the box and closed it, “What am I supposed to do with you?”

The thing didn’t answer as it inched along the ground. He scooped it back up and put it back into his sack, tightening and fastening the backpack as well as he could. There was obviously no way he could go to Center Piece now and he still couldn’t go back home lest he bring the agent or agents back to Weesog and the others. He needed help and he knew where he could find it, he just didn’t like the idea of seeing her again.

With no other choices, Jordan jogged back towards the tram station. He kept to himself and made sure that he went unnoticed as just another guy on his way home. He forced himself not to look around for guards pursuing him. He also kept himself from checking his bag every few seconds to make sure the box hadn’t wiggled free. His gambit seemed to have paid off when he was able to board another outbound tram without any fuss.

This time he wasn’t headed for Section 4. Instead he boarded the tram for Subsection 15, better known as Beat Town. It was out of the way, but the Committee usually stayed away from the popular subsection. He needed to see the Madame’ and have his fortune read.

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Strangers, waitin’, up and down the boulevard, their shadows searchin’ in the night…
Streetlights, people, livin’ just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the night!!!

-Don’t Stop Believing by Journey


My scroll