Chapter 19

All across Quizbar, the skies lit up with red, white and blue fireworks in celebration, though none of the Quizbarlings were quite sure what it was for. All through the streets, quaint little farmers’ markets were set up with quaint little hard alcoholic drinks that the Pirikki birds, eager for the mating season, were delivering to the hands of the revelers draped in a quaint drunken stupor across the streets. The various statues and varied depictions of The Radiant One watched over the celebration, smiling benevolently. Despite all the cheer and the fireworks and the fact that everyone was good-naturedly drunk, a group of priests, as they stepped through the shadows of those statues, felt just the slightest bit nervous.

Their god, after all, had given up the rule of Quizbar.

It was…unthinkable.

Except, really, upon reflection, it had been pretty thinkable. It wasn’t like The Radiant One had actually done all that much ruling, really. It had been the priesthood that made much of the day-to-day decisions. For the common folk, in fact, so long as The Radiant One showed up every now and then for a ceremony or two, nothing at all had changed, except the fact that now they could look forward to more of these interesting American folk from beyond the stars. Strange folk, but generally likable, the Americans. Why wouldn’t they be celebrating?

No, it was for the priests that things had changed most of all. Not only was their god giving up his rule, but the priests themselves weren’t even the ones given charge. No, now anyone might be…voted into office. The official news had caused no small consternation among the priestly ranks, and still everyone was on edge. Why, in the Grand Temple itself, things had nearly come to shouting. It had taken a dream-vision from The Radiant One himself to let cooler heads prevail and assure his priests that everything would work out fine. But then again, he was leaving, wasn’t he?

The priests stopped in the middle of the street, beneath a newly-erected American flag, its blue field drunk with stars; stripes of red and white flames tangling with each other in abstract shapes that lit up the night.

“Flashy thing, isn’t it?” mused Brother Wide Thumb, looking up at it.

Silence answered him. Sure it was flashy, but then almost everything the Americans did was flashy. A very flashy folk with some very funny ideas. Who made some funny things. Like a funny talking hat.

That their god had left them for.

“Wonder if that’s, hmmm, how you say, proper,” Wide Thumb went on.

His companions, Brother Inkstained Robes and Sister Cheerful Service, glanced at him in surprise. That was getting close to implying something impolite about their guests.

“Just seems a little ostentatious, wouldn’t you say? We’re a simple folk, I think. Not flashy.”

“Flashy’s fine,” said Cheerful Service. “Fun, even. Breaks up the monotony of all the farming, I should think.”

Wide Thumb coughed obliquely. “Monotony, is it,” he said.

“If nothing else, it’s something new. A little change, is all,” said Cheerful Service. “That’s fine. The Radiant One never said change was bad, did he?”

“Ah.” Wide Thumb gave a tight smile. “The Radiant One never said a lot of things. Did he.”

Inkstained Robes, who had already had quite a few visits from the Pirikki birds and was really just looking for another, started to feel a little nervous. There was a sort of tension between Wide Thumb and Cheerful Service that made him wonder for an awkward moment whether they might be in love.

Then suddenly he realized that this was the sort of silence that had fallen just before people had begun shouting at each other this morning. Oh, now that had been awful. People had been getting so angry about the most troublesome things.

It had started harmlessly enough, with someone bringing up some very interesting technology that the Americans might give them that could make their farms so much more efficient, and the next thing he knew someone was shouting about how their way of life was going to die out, really dreadful language, and in seconds it had all devolved into screaming. Now that he thought of it, Wide Thumb had been one of those shouting about how farmers should stick to ‘traditional methods’.

None of it made much sense to Brother Inkstained Robes. In fact, he really didn’t see all the fuss at all. What did it matter how people farmed, or the form of their government, to the life of the spirit? That people’s souls were well-tended to, that was what a priest should care about.

“Brother, Sister,” he protested. “I do not think there will be all that much change.” He gestured around them, at the various happy farmers snoring drunkenly in the streets. “These common folk have the right of it, don’t they? What does it matter whether The Radiant One is in space, or dwells here? The physical distance has no bearing on the spiritual. He is in our hearts just as much, either way. Isn’t he?”

Wide Thumb and Cheerful Service both gave him a look that he recognized. It was that thoughtful, condescending sort of look. The one Inkstained Robes had always gotten from his companions, since his earliest days as a novice. The sort of look that usually meant he’d somehow find himself doing everyone else’s chores. Not that he had ever been bullied into doing them, no, not exactly. People just asked him to do them a favor, and Inkstained Robes, well, he was an agreeable sort of guy.

The sort that really couldn’t say no.

“Minor Fuss is giving up his role as Head Priest as well,” said Wide Thumb. “Following The Radiant One into space. Though I do wonder if what he follows, instead, is Radiant Shell. His new name is, er, Star Lover now.”

Awkward coughing, as they absorbed this.

Wide Thumb flashed that small, tight smile again. “You know, Brother Inkstained Robes, you always struck me as particularly well-equipped in spiritual matters. Perhaps you might make a good High Priest.”

“Me?” Inkstained Robes coughed up the sip of alcohol he had just taken.

“Yes,” Cheerful Service leaped in, perhaps a bit too quickly. “And certainly, while anyone might be elected as our leader now, the church hierarchy will remain a guiding hand. A very firm guiding hand.” She stepped closer to him, catching the loose hem of one of his sleeves.

“Naturally,” said Wide Thumb, catching the other.

Inkstained Robes looked between the two of them with dismay. This walk wasn’t going at all like he had planned. He just wanted a drink. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think about, er, how do you call it…that sort of, ah, political thing, you know. I always just wanted to write books.”

“Well, we’d all better start thinking about it,” said Cheerful Service. “It’s just the way things are.”

“Yes,” said Wide Thumb, nodding in agreement. “After all, we’re Americans now.”

Brother Inkstained Robes looked up at the flag, at the chaos of stars and stripes folding in upon itself, ever-shifting, bright and glorious and loud.

“Oh dear,” he murmured. “I think you’re right.”

***

The Americans had spent some time among the streets, celebrating with the Quizbarlings. Reessa and his team had been with them, at first, but they had to leave early, take a portal back to Moody Blue to answer some very terse questions that the President had for them. Jack, Brugga, Moyom, Korak, Libby, and Olyrean eventually retreated to the Grand Temple, leaving behind the drunken Quizbarlings.

They gathered in their common room to watch a preview of the documentary that had been made of their liberation efforts on Quizbar, lounging on slightly damp pillows, all of them feeling that good kind of tipsy that fills you with good cheer rather than anticipation for the horrors of the next morning.

The room lit up with the dim glow of holo-film as the documentary began.

An image of Libby appeared, dressed in long and very low-cut robes in a field of tall grass, holding a katana.

“You have betrayed your people for the last time, O Radiant Tyrant!” she cried.

The Radiant One appeared then, opposite her, also holding a katana. He also looked much more sensual than he actually did in person. Lots more muscles.

“Have I betrayed my people, O Liberty of the Stars?” he whispered. “Is that why you hate me now? Or is it rather because I betrayed…your heart?”

Libby gasped and charged forward. They clashed beneath a full glowing moon, sparks shooting into the night where their blades met. Wolves howled in the distance.

“I don’t remember this,” said Olyrean, after a moment of silence. In the film, most of the fight seemed to consist of the battling pair conveniently cutting each other’s clothes off.

Libby–the real Libby, not the one in the film, or at least as real as she could get–giggled nervously from her pillow. “Uh. Yeah, the Executive AIs decided to go with, uh, a different angle for this season. A little creative editing. Make it hotter, you know.”

“You fiend! You’ve cut all my clothes away! Now I am completely naked! Take that!” shouted holo-film Libby.

“And now you have done the same to me, my once-beloved. Perhaps there is…another type of battle we might engage in.”

Libby turned the documentary off.

Olyrean squished and squelched on her pillow. Though she was as pleasantly tipsy as anyone, she could not help but sulk.

Brugga was the man of the hour. All because of his stupid hat.

It was hardly fair, was it? His pathetic civics classes hadn’t done anything. Moyom had been the one who had set up the debate. Hell, Jack had actually provided security. And Olyrean herself had raced back in time so that there was still even a debate to be had.

All Brugga had done was sit there like a bump on a log.

Still, she did her best to smile all throughout their little team party. She even managed to be civil and give Brugga a quiet little congratulations when Jack raised a glass to him and prompted a cheer. No matter how much that stung.

The night wore on quickly. Moyom got very drunk and kept falling over Korak, insisting that she must nibble on his frill. That may or may not have been appropriate conduct between colleagues–Olyrean wasn’t sure about the biology–but it did seem to signal to everyone that perhaps it was time for bed.

Libby pulled her aside as the others began to stagger off. “Olly,” said the AI, “You don’t seem very happy.”

“I’m fine,” said Olyrean. She was troubled by the feeling that something was a little amiss here.

“Really? You seemed off in your own little world during the party. You still do.”

“No.” Though it was entirely true. “What makes you think that?”

Libby just looked at her with a small smile. “You haven’t even noticed,” she said.

Olyrean eventually realized: Libby had pulled her aside. Pulled her, physically. She wasn’t a hologram. “You’ve got a body?” she asked.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Well, it’s not really so unusual,” said the AI. “I have some robotic bodies lying around, here and there, for when I want to use them.”

“I see,” said Olyrean. “What did you want one for this time?”

“For this,” Libby said, and with a small cry she rushed forward and embraced Olyrean tightly. “I wanted to give you a real hug,” the AI murmured into her ear. “Or well, you know. A hug with some physicality to it. I know this mission was hard for you. I just wanted you to know…I’m glad I met you. I’m so glad you came to America–I’m happy you’re my friend–”

“Alright, alright!” Olyrean was a little out of breath. She was being squeezed rather tight. Libby’s red, white and blue synthetic hair was all in her face, and it smelt like fireworks. “I’m happy I met you too! You’re drunk.”

Libby laughed, pulling back but still holding onto her. “It’s not really drunk. I can’t get alcohol in my circuits, you know. I just scramble them a bit to simulate the sensation. But it feels just as good!”

“You should simulate a hangover too, or you’re not getting the proper experience,” Olyrean told her.

Libby smiled, and then for a long quiet moment simply stared, her eyes glowing red and blue and swimming with stars. Then she leaned forward and whispered, “Do you think we should kiss?”

“What?”

“Hahaha!” Libby released her. “Hahaha, just a joke! A stupid joke. Stupid, I’m so stupid. Goodnight, Olly! Stupid, stupid–”

Olyrean watched as the AI stumbled off.

She was alone in the room, now. Everyone else had left. Everyone, except for one last figure, lingering in the shadows of the moonlit hallway. On purpose? Or just a coincidence? She didn’t care.

It didn’t matter. She knew who it was. She grabbed another drink and downed it. Then, upon consideration, she downed a couple more. They settled in her stomach like a slow-burning fire and sent courage roaring through her blood.

“You’re a liar,” she called.

The figure in the hallway stopped and turned. Stepped back, a little, into a bar of silver light cast through a nearby window, revealing Brugga, looking back at her.

“I don’t believe you,” Olyrean went on, walking forward. Brugga loomed over her as she drew close. The orc was bigger, so much bigger than she was. He probably could have held her in the palm of one hand. Crushed her in it, too. She didn’t care.

She was drunk.

The orc chuckled. “I thought you might be a little angry about the hat thing,” he said. “Oh, I think it’s bullshit too–”

“Not that,” Olyrean snapped. “I don’t give a damn about that!”

Brugga opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “What, then?” he asked with a weary sigh.

That only enraged Olyrean more. As though he knew what she was going to say.

“I don’t believe you’ve changed,” she spat, “not one bit. You’ve…you’ve put on this act, this show…but you don’t really give a damn about…about freedom, democracy, or any of it, not really. You don’t give a damn about America!” She stopped short, having to crane her neck upwards to see Brugga’s face.

He was unreadably ugly. Just as he was a year ago, when he had tried to enslave her. But there was something new in his face, now. Something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. A certain…she didn’t know what, but it was strange to see on an orc’s face.

“You’re wrong about that,” Brugga said.

“Oh, am I,” Olyrean hiccuped.

“Yes.” The orc was silent for a moment, considering her. “I did change. There really was not much choice in the matter.”

“Oh did you,” Olyrean said stupidly, swaying.

“Yes,” Brugga said again, simply. “Would you believe that my life before seems like a dream? I barely seem like the same person, now. I look back at my memories and wonder: how could that have been me?”

“I don’t care what your life seems like!” Olyrean spat. It sounded too familiar, too much what it was like when she remembered her life before America, now.

“They took my children from me, you know,” Brugga said softly. “And they…injected me. Drugged me to the gills. Drugged my whole family, in fact.”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“Aggression inhibitors, they told me. And it certainly worked. I don’t think I am normally an angry man, but I could feel…nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was empty, drained. I couldn’t even care that my children were gone. I couldn’t care when I saw what happened to the orcs who fought back. It was very frightening, except I couldn’t even feel fear.”

“Shut up.”

“Though I wonder if the shot included something more. Some sort of neurostimulant, perhaps. Because when they began putting me into classes, teaching me about America, I found that the ideas just sort of seeped right into my skull. It filled me up.” Brugga shrugged. “Though, who knows. Perhaps I was just open to the ideas to begin with. By the time they let me see my children again, I felt like the old version of me had just been…washed away. It sickened me, the thought that I had ever held a whip, or held my fellow man in bondage.” He looked at her. “It sickens me, what I did to you.”

“Shut up!” Olyrean definitely did not want to hear that. How dare he, how dare he remind her?

“I’m sorry–”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” she shrieked.

Brugga was silent, his face half in shadow.

“You say the words, but they don’t mean anything to you,” Olyrean said, her voice a low whisper, somewhere halfway between a growl and a hiss. She wished she had a knife to twist into this orc’s guts, but words would have to do. “Of course you felt empty. You’re a hollow puppet. You’re a vessel. You just get filled up with whatever power tells you to believe. You’d still be a slaver and never give it a second thought, if America hadn’t come along. You’d have made me your pet and never thought it wrong, because you’re…you’re…you’re nothing, you vile, hateful, wretched creature. Killer. Slaver. You’re unworthy, and you always will be.”

The orc regarded her silently for a moment. He took a deep breath, his gut straining against the buttons of his suit. He leaned down until his face was on her level. His yellow, bulging eyes held her own.

“Suppose you’re right,” he said.

Olyrean stared at him.

“Let’s say that there really is some part of me that never changed,” Brugga went on. “Hell, I’d believe it. I know myself better than you, after all. And it makes sense. If I had the capacity for proper morality–the smarts, the empathy, whatever it takes–if I had that on my own, I might have perceived, even while I was a slaver, how wrong it was to…well, to be doing what I was doing. I might have at least had doubts. But I never did, not really. Oh, I think I had a certain good-naturedness, compared to my fellows–I never liked hurting people, after all–but I killed, I enslaved, and yes, I would have kept you in a cage and never considered whether it was right or wrong.”

“Yes you would have,” Olyrean snapped, cold and hard. Then her brain ticked over and she realized that Brugga was actually agreeing with her. “Uh, I mean…go on.”

“The thing is, I don’t think that really makes me unusual, does it?” said Brugga. “I think most people are like me. They go on doing what they’re doing, hurting who they hurt, killing who they kill, without stopping to question it. Oh, maybe there’s some variation, from species to species. Maybe more elves question themselves than orcs do. And maybe some species end up hurting fewer people than others.”

“I think most species hurt others less than orcs would,” Olyrean said, but with some unease. His calm replies, his thoughtfulness dismayed her. She might as well be trying to get a reaction out of thin air. This wasn’t going the way she had thought it would.

Couldn’t she just hurt him? She wanted so badly to hurt him. Wasn’t that just fair, damn it? Was it so much to ask?

But Brugga only shrugged at her. “Maybe so. But then, why are you so mad?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re a stain! You’re unworthy of–of what you’ve been given! Of America! Of the UWA! Of…of everything! You don’t belong here!”

Her shout rang out down the corridor. She wondered if the others could hear her yelling, in their rooms. She hoped not. She hoped so. She hoped they came dashing out into the corridor. All at once she wanted so badly to be with other Americans, and not alone with this monster. That was who she was. She was an American, and Brugga was not. He could never be.

Except that he was.

Brugga breathed in, deeply. For a moment he seemed to wait, too, cocking his head to listen for footsteps in the hall, before he turned back to her. “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said. “But the way I see it is, America is just for people like me.”

Olyrean made a noise that was halfway between a skeptical laugh and a shriek of outrage.

“Think about it,” said Brugga. “Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, the…the, what would you call them…the philosophers, the thinkers, the truly good ones–no matter what they were born into, perhaps they’d reason their way out of any real nastiness. Maybe truly good people don’t need to be taught to be good. Whatever they came up with, whatever society they come from…it wouldn’t look exactly like America, but it’d be good enough.”

He slapped a giant hand against his chest. “But it’s people like me who America’s really helping. People like me, who are too simple, who can be molded into whatever others would like them to be. People like me, who just believe what they’re told. And just do what they’re told. Because I think there’s more of us than anyone else. We’re not evil, but we’re what makes evil actually happen on any sort of scale. For most species, there’s just not enough wickedness to go around to get everyone to do it enthusiastically. You need the ones like me, who can just be taught to do it. Who’ll just do what the wicked ones tell them.”

“That is evil! To just obey and believe, unthinking–” Olyrean began.

“Is it, though?” the orc interrupted her. “I think it just means we’re tools, who get to be used one way or another. So isn’t it the best thing in the world that America’s around to use me? Isn’t it exactly people like me who they do the most good with?”

“So you’re a hammer, or a gun,” Olyrean said bitterly. “How grand. You could be used by a soldier or a murderer. Just a tool. You’d turn on us if someone stronger came along.”

“Well, I don’t think so.” Brugga looked off into the far distance, through the windows of the hall. Fireworks were still being set off in the distance, and the sky was stained red, white and blue. “I might not be able to reason my way to the right choice. But I think most people can compare and contrast the outcomes they end up with. I can look around me, and see what the rules America set up have led to. I don’t think I’d go back to Um’Thamarr’s way of life after this, even if he told me I’d be a slavemaster. I think I’d fight to keep things this way. I think I’d die to do it, if necessary.” He smiled. “I suppose most people aren’t merely tools. They can appreciate when they’ve been turned to a better purpose.”

Silence fell between them then, interrupted only by the distant pop and crackle of fireworks.

“I hate you.” Olyrean was trembling with the sheer strength of her hatred. She felt like her brain might simply boil away into red fog. And yet there was nothing she could do with it. Because for all that it had done for her, America had also seen fit to make Brugga a citizen, and unless she was willing to spend the rest of her life in jail, she could not touch him.

It might almost be worth it.

“I hate you,” Olyrean said again. Her hands clenched and unclenched, and she took an unsteady step towards the orc. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you so, so much.”

Brugga remained quiet for a time. “I’m not going to die,” he said finally. “I know you hate me, and I don’t blame you for it. If I was in your shoes, I’d hate me. I’d want me dead too. But I’m sorry, it’s just not going to happen. I have a family.”

“It’s not fair,” sobbed Olyrean, and was appalled to find that she was crying. She hated it. She hated herself for crying in front of him. It shouldn’t be like this. Brugga should be the one suffering. Couldn’t he at least shed a tear, from her words? Why did he have to rob her of even the possibility of that small, tiny revenge? “It’s not fair, after all you did. You get to go and live your life, while I’ll always have all this hate, knowing you’re out there. Remembering what you did.”

“Will you?” asked Brugga, and finally she realized what that strange look on his face was, the one that looked so odd with an orc’s features.

It was pity. A deep and abiding pity.

“Yes,” she said miserably.

“Well,” he said. “If that’s really what you want, I can’t stop you.”

Brugga straightened then, and silently turned, without another word for her. Off into the moonlit hall he went, past the silver light and into shadow.

Olyrean watched him go, her fists clenched, shaking with rage. What did he mean, if that was what she wanted? She couldn’t help it, could she? She couldn’t be blamed for her hate, it wasn’t her fault. It was only natural. Nothing could be done about it.

Except that wasn’t really true, and she knew it.

With a sigh, Olyrean reached into her pocket and retrieved the bottle that Libby had given her, back during Brugga’s first civics class. The mood-altering medicine. She had meant to throw it away, but never had.

Perhaps some part of her had always been tempted.

Olyrean popped the cap off and shook out a tablet. It was pink and small and round and had a little smiley face embossed in it.

She contemplated it for a long moment. Holding the bottle up to the moonlight, she turned it until she found the words she was looking for.

“Chewable,” she murmured to herself.

She paused, then popped the tablet in her mouth. She held it there for a moment, and then with a resigned shrug, bit down.

It tasted like Omega-Cola. Lemon-lime.