The Lesser One Arc 2: Chapter 12: Chips

Chips

Along with potato chips, there is tea and crumpets and scones, two of which I’ve never had before. It’s all delicious, and we spend a little bit of time munching and exchanging pleasantries. The heavy air has been cleared and I don’t feel like bringing it back.

Mandrake teaches us how to play croquet. I’m terrible at it, but Esla appears to be a natural. Sebastian also knocks it out of the park, both literally and figuratively. For his first shot, he uses so much strength that the ball flies over the garden’s hedge.

I suppose he’s not used to limiting his strength. But, he gets the hang of it after a couple more hazardous shots.

After the game, I sit down on a nice wooden bench and watch the birds in the trees. It’s nice to finally relax some. Since today was a dungeon clearing day, I called off the Rearden Metal production class. I’ll be going back tomorrow.

There’s nothing much else to do except ponder the situation I’m in. Time flows past with an alarming speed, and soon it is sunset, time to return to the things I’ve been trying to forget.

Sebastian, Esla, and I get into the limo and drive away. Once we reach the city, it’s only a short amount of time before we’re back at the Esmex building.

My apartment is in the building, but Esla’s is not. Sebastian drives off with her in the seat, in order to take her home.

I enter the building and return to my apartment. As always, it is pristinely clean. The view of London from the two windowed walls is spectacular. I stand in the middle of the spacious living room for a little while before sitting behind the computer to do some research.

First, I look up “gravity vacuum.”

A gravity vacuum is, like it sounds, a space without gravity. This technology is in its nascent stage and was only made possibly due to people with gravity-based spirits.

I don’t know if I can do that. My spirit is very powerful and well developed, but I don’t even know how to start approaching the manipulation of gravity.

Maybe one of my devils has that ability. I take out my phone and dial Rezolan—Sebastian gave me his phone number and told me it was easier to communicate through conventional means in this case.

Rezolan picks up after the first ring. “Mr. Red,” he says. “What do you need?”

“Do any of you guys have the ability to affect gravity?”

Rezolan is silent for a moment. “I think so, yes.”

“Bring them to my apartment so that I can try something out.”

“Sure thing,” says Rezolan. “Would you like me to come as well?”

“Of course,” I say. “You’re the one who’s most knowledgeable about this subject.”

“We’ll be on our way shortly,” says Rezolan.

I hang up. Now it’s time to research exactly what antimatter is.

Apparently, only one case of stable antimatter has ever been proven, and that was the explosion in Detroit. With complicated radio detection technology, scientists discovered that the explosion was caused by rapid disintegration of stable antimatter. So, whoever was responsible had, for a couple of fractions of a second, produced what I need to produce.

I click off. There’s nothing else but depression waiting behind that screen. I lean back in the comfortable executive chair and watch the chandelier tinkle in the light.

I take out my phone and dial my parents. “Hey,” I say, when they pick up.

“It’s been a while,” says my dad. “How is your internship going? I heard that you were involved in a little bit of a kerfuffle.”

“I just did my job as part of my temporary guild,” I say. “It was dangerous at the time, but this is what I signed up for.”

“I’m proud of you,” says my dad. I can hear baby Sandy crying in the background. “Anyways, when are you coming back?”

“At the end of summer,” I say. “I’m not sure exactly when. It depends on how quickly I reach my goal.”

“Okay,” says my dad. “Take care.”

“Oh, and, um,” I say. “They’re paying me a lot for this internship. Do you have anything you want or need right now?”

“I’m not desperate enough to take money from my son,” says dad. “But if you want to make my day, bring me some scones or something and maybe a souvenir or two.”

“Okay,” I say. “Anything else?”

“Not really,” says dad. “Things are going as they always have been around here. The rebuilding from the balrog attack is almost done. I’ve been doing some reconstruction consulting. It’s probably boring, but—oh, okay—yeah, I have to go. Sandy just barfed. Later!”

“Well, I’ll talk to you later,” I say. Then I hang up.

The elevator dings, and opens to reveal Rezolan and a devil I haven’t seen before.

Rezolan enters the living room, but the other devil hesitates.

“Sit,” I say, motioning towards the plush couch.

Both of them sit on the couch.

“This is Elnor,” says Rezolan, motioning to the other devil.

Elnor is a dark-skinned devil with a little bit of an elfish vibe to her.

“Elnor can control certain subatomic particles,” says Rezolan. “Well, it would be better if she explained.”

“Right,” says Elnor. “I can manipulate the particles that govern the affection of force.”

“Okay,” I say. “I think I get it. Can you control gravitons?”

“Yes,” says Elnor.

“Can you show me?” I ask.

Elnor shakes her head. “Unless you want to destabilize this entire building, no. Gravity does not like being artificially stretched.”

“And do you know what a gravity vacuum is and how to make one?” I ask.

Elnor nods. “Rezolan filled me in. I think I can do it, but it would most definitely involve a couple of very dangerous steps.”

“This whole process is going to be dangerous,” I say. “I’m planning on pulling a Manhattan Project and picking somewhere like White Sands or maybe Siberia to make this product.”

“That would be good,” says Rezolan. “I have something to say about that topic.” He looks at Elnor. “You said you wanted to ask Mr. Red something.”

Elnor nods. “Yes. Do you understand what contract binds us to you?”

“I, actually I don’t know,” I say. “I never got a piece of paper or anything.”

“We have lived in the aether sea for our entire lives. I myself am over two hundred years old. I have served many masters over the years, and you are but one more in a long chain.” She places her hands on her knees. “We chose to follow you, Markus,” she says. “Because we believe that you will do something amazing.”

“Jirgrar, one of our highest leaders, chose to supplicate himself to you in order to achieve our longest goal,” says Rezolan. “We followed Kiraz, the balrog you defeated, for many decades. But he grew old and complacent. He simply wanted to sit on his mound of treasure and watch the world from a small mirror. You, on the other hand, have both power and ambition. We like that.”

“What do you mean by ambition?” I ask.

“You want to be great,” says Rezolan. “A trait that most humans possess. However, what you have that other humans don’t is the ability to see clearly what the next step is.”

“You overestimate me,” I say.

“Perhaps. But you are but a youth in your culture, much more in ours. You will learn, and if we direct you in the right way, you will become much more powerful as a leader than Kiraz ever could have been.” Rezolan folds his hands. “And we, being devils from lawhell, always stick to our contracts.”

“I still don’t get it,” I say, “But I’ll stop worrying. What is your goal, by the way?”

“To find someone,” says Rezolan. “The creator of lawhell and one of the original daemons who existed before the schism.”

“Our original master,” says Elnor. She pauses. “But that is a long term goal. Making sure that you rise the ranks is our short term goal.”

“I suppose I understand now,” I say. “You’ve done so much for me already that I’m not certain what I can do in return.”

“You have many latent abilities that have yet to manifest,” says Rezolan. “We will ask for our return on our investment when you acquire them.”

“What about your restaurant?” I ask.

Rezolan scratches the back of his head. “That’s totally unrelated,” he says. “Just a pet project of mine.”

Elnor elbows Rezolan. “None of us understand his obsession with the cuisine of hell. It’s pretty bland and uninteresting, to me at least.”

“What, you don’t like cockatrice eggs?” says Rezolan.

Elnor sighs. “Yes. But what’s so special about them?”

“Everything!” says Rezolan. He scratches his temple. “Anyways, back to the subject at hand. Creating antimatter. I’ve done my research and I think I have a process that has a reasonable chance of creating what we want and a less than significant chance of blowing up in our face.”

“What does less than significant mean?” I ask.

“Well, if this were a study and it were a p value, we would be able to reject our null hypothesis.”

“Um, what?” I say.

“Ah, you’re still in high school. It’s less than five percent.”

“A five percent chance of being dissolved into my component parts?” I say. I shrug. “Well, it’s better than a lot of surgeries.”

“I knew you would accept the risk,” says Rezolan. “I’ve also selected an area where we can do the actual work. I’ve taken the liberty of renting a scientific research vessel that has deep sea voyaging capabilities. We’ll take it to the middle of the Pacific and do it there.”

“Like Castle Bravo?” I say.

“We hope not,” says Rezolan.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s start gearing up to do that. Before we head out to sea to blow up some reality, I need to finish my contract with Esmex.”

“Devils are all about contracts,” says Rezolan, “So we understand.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” I say.

Rezolan shakes his head. “No. We’ll be doing our own projects until we’re needed. I assume you’ll be working on that kind of thing as well.”

“Understood,” I say. “If you want, you can stay for some tea.”

Rezolan is about to shake his head, but stops. “What kind of tea do you have?”

I walk into the kitchen and take out a teapot and some very expensive-looking tea. “I don’t know. It’s called “Bastion Gold.””

Rezolan looks a bit amused. “That’s special portal-grown tea.”

“Is it?” I say. “It looks and smells expensive.”

“Um, is it okay if I have coffee?” says Elnor.

“Sure,” I say. Sometimes I set up coffee for my parents when I wake up early, so I know how to work the machine. Again, the coffee I find in the cupboard looks like it’s the super expensive type.

I make a pot of coffee as well as two cups of tea.

I hand the tea to Rezolan and the coffee to Elnor.

When I sit down, I take a sip of my tea and then place it on the coffee table. “So,” I say. “How, exactly, do you guys make the money that’s in my accounts?”

“Mostly high frequency and futures trading,” says Rezolan. “As well as INTERPOL bounties.”

“I don’t understand any of that,” I say. I pause. “Well, it’s better than extortion, I suppose.” I take another sip of my tea. “Anyways, I hope we can continue getting along together.”

“I hope so too,” says Rezolan.