Chapter Text
“Shall I give you a tour?” Mariah asks, as pleasantly as we’ve ever heard her.
We’re still reeling from what just happened. Understandably so, we think. Mariah’s artificial calmness will last at least a few more hours, after which time we’ll either start to panic again or we’ll be able to patch together some semblance of functionality on our own.
To say the least, our feelings on a tour are mixed. On one hand, it’s refreshing to be outside our little box set in the corner of one little room. On the other hand, we are now trapped inside the chest cavity of one very off-model Habbalite who has just mutilated herself to make that possible. On the other, other hand, we should jump at Mariah’s offer to give us more information—it is our stated benefit from this arrangement. On the other, other, other hand, there’s only so much we can try not to think about at a time, and we doubt we’ll enjoy contemplating any of the discoveries we’ll make on this tour.
We could keep going. We have more than enough hands to go around.
But in the end, the question isn’t about what we want. Not for Mariah, who offers us interpretation in return for an additional bit of evidence that she’s the one in control of our relationship. Not for us, who approaches this as an assignment of sorts. We’ve found a host to help, and now we need to walk a distance in her shoes. Or be walked, considering our current mode of transportation.
(Or let’s not consider it, yet. Let’s avoid the freak out.)
We give Mariah an affirmative hum. Yes, let’s see what lies beyond this room.
—
“Tizzy’s office.” Mariah turns in what is presumably the direction of said office. “She has her own supply closet there and then there’s a secured area beyond that. I’ll take you to see that later.”
Hear, more like, but we don’t bother with the correction.
Mariah turns in the opposite direction. “For now, we’re going downstairs for some break-time.” She pushes all her force into pushing open a heavy door, into what must be a stairwell. Her footsteps descend about twenty stairs or so and then stop. We hear the beeps of a code being entered, the same kind of lock on the room we’re stored in. We wonder if the actual codes themselves are the same.
“We’re heading out into the main office area. Remember, stay quiet.”
We don’t need the reminder.
Mariah steps into the office and we’re slightly shocked at the noise level. Not that we didn’t expect it, exactly. We’ve been here before, even, when we first arrived and still part of a yet-to-be differentiated set. It’s just we’re more used to a room so quiet the sound of airflow in the ventilation system can tell us whether any demonlings are lurking. So while it’s not amazingly loud down here, we have to strain to hear the cues we’ve come to rely on—breath and footsteps, taps and rustles—over the sounds of office equipment and now-parseable conversations.
At least we can feel and hear Mariah’s steps change when she pushes forward through this space. Her usual Djinnish shuffle has turned into a brittle but Habbie-appropriate stride. The difference between public and almost-private? An act of confidence she’s putting on for those around her? An act of confidence she’s putting on for us?
“Bless it, Shoggoth! We’ve got more than enough Americans to fill the Q4 requests. Where are the Soviets I asked for?”
“The Game—”
“I don’t fucking care. Get your slimy ass back over to the Soul Yards and don’t come back until you’ve gotten what I’ve asked for.”
Mariah provides the context for the conversation: “Request management and procurement.” She pauses, then adds, “Technically, I’m part of that department.”
We make an affirmative sound, while a bit of us considers the implication of the word ‘procurement’ in this context.
A couple of turns later:
“…expense forms A20139 box 10b and V3902 box 18a have conflicting information. We’ll need that corrected before we can reimburse you for the equipment. No you can’t talk to my—”
“…the insurance only covers premature specimen loss up to the entrance of your facility, we need the other half of your payment by Sept—”
“Accounting. Payable and Receivable.”
We give an affirmative hum. We are theoretically familiar with the concept of invoices. Offices aren’t our native environment, but some of our hosts need to go there from time to time.
“…there was a database upgrade last month, and everyone needs a fresh client install. Facility policy. No, I don’t care if there were spiders coming out of Todd’s harddrive—”
“Help Desk.”
We make an inquisitive noise.
“They mostly handle computer stuff. Turning machines off and on again. Yelling at people to upgrade their software. Sometimes they even get the printer to work, without explosions. The server room is right next door.”
Screams sound out as Mariah takes us past the next department. When it stops we’re far enough away that we barely hear the follow up question: “Now tell us, which was better? 1? Or 2?”
“Research and Development.” Mariah manages to sound both wistful and disdainful as she names this department. Would she try for a position here, if she thought she had a chance?
(Most likely.)
The screams start up again, fainter this time, and follow us around yet another corner.
“Conference rooms.” Too many voices overlap to pick out any individual lines. That said, everyone is clearly arguing. A harmonious workplace, this is not.
“…disappointed with your impact on company synergy—”
“Inspector’s office. He runs the place. Tizzy’s a Knight under him who heads up the Procurement department.”
We make another inquisitive noise, and Mariah explains: “He’s not an Inspector of anything. Just Inspector. It’s a better title than ‘Captain’ or—what is it that Heaven uses? ‘Friend’.”
(Most of Heaven. Our Archangel has never been one for official distinctions. Not that Creation doesn’t have our own ways of determining one’s personal status in relation to others, they just tend to be more internally flexible and externally opaque. For example, we get a bit of respect for still being directly under Creation, and also for our mother’s reputation, but we lose a bit of the same for our focus on the practical and our mother’s choice to enter service to Judgment. It balances out. Anyway, we don’t miss them. Titles bring political considerations, which encourage approval-chasing behavior, which discourages the really weird acts of creation that are vital to our Word.)
All our mental rambling translates to a dismissive noise we don’t think Mariah can fully parse. She moves on without response.
“Our latest customer survey indicates that our service reliability has increased by 8.4% compared to last quarter…however our technician friendliness rating had decreased by 12.9% costing us market share to Spec-Express.”
“Sales and Marketing.” Now it’s Mariah’s turn to be dismissive. “The Impudite who heads up the division isn’t even a Technology servitor.” She walks a few more steps. “Media, if you’re wondering.”
We try to convey ‘Who else would it be?’ via hum. It sounds mostly like agreement.
We turn a corner and hear the sound of hot liquid brewing. (It’s a bit weird that hot and cold liquids sound different enough that we can tell what’s what by the noise alone, but they really do.) Random beeps sound out at different pitches. One might be a microwave. The others seem to come out of a speaker. They sound depressed.
“No—no I swear I fired in time! Ahh—”
“Move over.” We hear the clinking of jewelry. Wind-chime Habbie in his natural environment, maybe? “I’ll show who’s really the boss at Celestial Invaders.”
We want to hear more, but Mariah’s pace speeds up. “Break room.”
(In what sense of the word? She clearly doesn’t find it relaxing.)
We don’t make an inquisitive hum, however, and Mariah turns another corner and opens a door. The timbre of noises change. Less office equipment overall. More phones ringing. More people sounds.
“…This is Brenda, how may I direct your call?…”
“All visitors must be accompanied by an employee at all times.”
“This is reception, and the elevators are just outside.”
Mariah pushes through another door, and the background din temporarily lowers.
The ride down in the elevator is odd. Not that the motion of the elevator is significantly different compared to mortal elevator rides, but it’s odd in the conceptual sense. Whatever the precise metaphysics are, Hell gets thematically associated with a ‘downward’ direction. Angels fall into demons. The Lower Hells contrast with the Higher Heavens. The lower we go then, the deeper into Hell we should be going. Yet that’s not the sensation we have.
Our Hell is that one box in the corner of that one room. This almost feels—not quite like freedom but like we’ve taken one baby step closer to it.
Anyway, the elevator door opens into a whole ocean of undifferentiated noise. Forget about no longer hearing subtle noises. We have to focus on Mariah when speaks directly to us.
“Public area.” Mariah says at conversation volume as she’s jostled into the flow of the crowd. “There’s a gift shop over there. Media run. Mostly sells T-shirts and other useless crap.” Nothing in Mariah’s motion gives us any useful information to go off of. Is Mariah even able to turn in this crowd? Maybe not. So, all we know is there’s gift shop. That’s cool, we guess.
(We bet there’s lots of fun things we could do with that gift shop given sufficient freedom of action. Or better yet, what if we brought someone who has the Malakite of Creation attunement down here. They’d certainly have fun, for a little bit at least.)
(Note: We do not actually want to see a Malakite of Creation down here. Angels do not belong in Hell.)
“And there’s the conference hall. Marketing mostly uses it to hold Technology symposiums and attract more clients, but there’s shows sometimes too. There’s this Lightsaber tournament coming up, that’ll be held there. If I’m not dealing with a quota then, I can take you along. Even if you can’t see what’s going on, the commentary is usually pretty good. And when it’s not…well, the resulting riot tends make an entertaining show of its own.”
We try to imagine. The tournament could be entertaining. But we also know, there are worse things in Hell than boredom. Maybe this is one of them.
Anyway, we keep our hum noncommittal.
—
Mariah’s tour pauses at the Cafeteria. The absolute noise level here is just as loud as the outside only with more concentrated crowds. We can barely make out her “Cafeteria” amongst the rest of the chatter. We mostly lose the following explanation of this being a central gathering place of some kind. Thus, we’re left on our own figure out why exactly, Mariah stops here.
We can tell there are lunch ladies. For a certain gender-neutral definition of ‘lunch lady’. Judging from the screams ahead of us, anyone who actually calls them that ends up as part of the lunch.
The food, based on the scraps of chatter we can pick out and Mariah’s own reactions, is barely edible at best, an experimental Haagentian-Vapulan collaboration at worst, and mostly a prop for large-scale socialization and idea exchange, of both the consensual and non-consensual variety.
(For a word that proclaims to be all about Mad Science and experimentation, there’s certainly a lot of plagiarism going on. It’s the renewable fuel that runs Technology.)
Mariah makes it through the line. She mutters “Just a little bit,” as her refrain. The plops that follow sound as though ‘a little bit’ is not a concept the lunch ladies are happy to indulge. Maybe they have a quota. For the second time in what we’re arbitrarily calling ‘today’, we’re grateful for the near total sensory deprivation inflicted upon us. The sounds of food hitting the tray are deeply unappetizing in and of itself, no sight, smell, or—God forbid—taste required. And we’re not sure we want to know what exactly makes that crackling sound.
Mariah’s footsteps are not at all audible in all at this volume, but we still feel when her forward motion hesitates, as she looks for an empty spot in all this din. Some of those indistinguishable voices turn in her direction. Her stillness must have attracted attention. Somebody speaks. We can’t pick out the words but the tone is harsh and cutting. Mariah’s body suddenly hunches over, then straightens, then curls in again through hysterics, and finally freezes. Her series of reactions are reminiscent of moves she tried with us early on when she had the reliquary at her disposal and wanted to prove that her resonance was in good working order.
“Choirmates,” she explains, voice shaky. “They do that sometimes.”
(That probably explains where Mariah got the idea from. Plagiarism sucks.)
Through it all, Mariah manages to keep the tray steady. That’s what makes us realize all this really is normal and expected for her. All those times she left us alone for a short while and came back emotionally unsettled, those were her Bandmates playing with her psyche.
Mariah makes her way over to a table that seems a little quieter than most.
“You can talk for now. No one else is going to hear you over all this.”
Below us, there’s a stirring noise that does nothing to make the food sound any more appetizing, and we’re not entirely sure how much will actually get eaten. Some minimal amount, we imagine. It’s not like celestials derive any nutrition from food, and it’s unlikely Mariah’s getting any pleasure out of it either.
“Why put up with this?” We ask. “You could just use the break room upstairs. Is the food even that good? Remotely palatable, even?”
Mariah mumbles out. “No, the food is terrible. However, the Choirmates I encounter down here only push me around because they can see my Discord. They don’t know me at all. Most of them, I’ll never see again. Or, I won’t remember them if I do. The ones upstairs know me, and they know how to make it personal.”
We understand that. “So why not just stay in your workshop until you have to go upstairs? It’s not like the Damp Mop Djinn doesn’t give you enough to do.”
“People watch, Kira. They notice when I don’t leave the supply closet. It’s considered ‘bad for company morale’. Someone always comes to find me, and when they do, I get in trouble with Tizzy for causing a ruckus. There’s not a situation where this doesn’t happen.”
We don’t say anything to express our sympathy, but then we don’t need to. Mariah can check her mood ring.
“It doesn’t matter. Unlike you, I’m not some pathetic Heaven-angel who can’t handle a bit of emotion thrown at her. I can bear it.”
(We don’t bother with feeling insulted. Mariah’s just a Habbie doing what Habbies do best when they’re vulnerable. Projecting.)
Whatever she tells us [herself and me both], we can feel her unsteady gestures. We can hear the occasional sob she can’t quite stifle while she does…something with her food. Her reactions right now are resonance-caused, but as we’re well aware, often time true associations come along with false feelings. When she inflicts Anger on us, we think of all the topics we keep buried in our inner minds for civility’s sake. Same for when we’re sad.
Most of us would bet these resonance bursts bring up similar emotional associations for her as well. Is it an understanding that everything here is deeply fucked up? Or the knowledge that she’s never going to be the Bandmate inflicting the resonance, only the one swallowing it down? Or the realization that this tour she gives us to demonstrate her power and control over us, reveals her venerabilities as well?
A tray slides across the table, and Mariah stands up.
“Anyway, let’s get back to the tour. We’ll take the stairs up this time. Remember, no talking.”
—
Mariah isn’t nearly so chipper after the cafeteria visit. The visit to the next floor is more like a walk through some corridors than a guided tour.
The Research and Development department aside, this facility as a whole functions less as a research lab and more as a prison that specializes in holding future test subjects. The floor we’re on now seems dedicated to housing damned souls. Mariah refers to them as residents. If we could safely speak, we might quibble with that term, which implies some sort of voluntary living (after-living?) arrangement. ‘Prisoner’ seems more appropriate.
The noise level here matches the office area in volume, but it takes on much more casual tone. Based on sounds we hear, we could almost mistake it for a regular college dormitory back on the corporeal, except that the souls aren’t allowed to leave the floor for any reason. Our inquisitive hum gets the simple explanation that all human souls in this place are facility property. Her response to our follow-up hum tells us that Mariah doesn’t understand what else we could be confused by.
(Blessed souls in heaven don’t ‘belong’ to anyone. Some might settle into careers or enter service to an Archangel, but that’s always a choice they make. Similarly, while some places in Heaven might be restricted to authorized personnel only, there’s no general restriction on movement. A blessed human soul can go just about anywhere the average angel can and at least one place we can’t. So, while damned souls being considered property in Hell shouldn’t have surprised us once we factor in our own experience, the concept itself is new to us. We don’t like it.)
“It’s not too bad. Most of them sign up for this.” Mariah says as she turns a corner and the noise dampens a bit. “Most souls in Tartarus spend their time in one of the factories here until they’re too damaged to work. These ones get to relax and socialize. The Impudites on this floor make sure nobody injures anybody else too badly. The point is to keep the residents well-maintained during their stay here.”
Mariah quiets as the outside noises turn up again.
Media garbage blares from various sources: a game show here, a soap opera there. A bit of passing conversation mentions an upcoming Game Night. (No details given if anyone from the actual Word will be involved, or if it’s only lower-case games.) Apparently, representatives from the cafeteria will be hosting a Taco Tuesday event soon. A new arrival is being told by one group of more experienced souls that it is NOT something to look forward to. Another group insists it’ll be fine. It’s practically a rite of passage.
(Our instinct is to agree with the first group on principle.)
Overall, Mariah’s explanation combined with what we hear does make it seem like a good life for the Damned. Until it’s not.
What Mariah leaves unstated: These damned souls are as much specimens as the Kyriotates she captures. We wonder how many of the souls here are actually volunteers. Of those who are, how many were given a full disclosure of what would eventually happen to them before it was too late to back out? How many now are even aware of what happens to the souls who leave? Do they even know what awaits them at the end? Would it make a difference?
As Mariah passes by various rooms, we listen for signs of audible behavior changes. A wave of silence that follows Mariah around, perhaps. Or something else that would indicate a level of knowing fear when a less-familiar demon shows up. There’s not much. Sure, some voices do lower a bit as we pass by, and some conversations even cut off abruptly—demons are never safe—but it’s nothing compared to their reaction when someone else approaches. (Balseraph, slithers with a slight rattle at the rear. We’ve heard that one before.)
The whole floor goes stone silent fast. The only conversations we can hear now take place between the Balseraph and who we believe is one of the Impudites who supervise this floor. They’re talking about surplus souls.
In theory, not a lot of research officially happens here. In practice, every Vapulan in our vicinity seems to have some research project on the side. It makes sense at least some of them would need test subjects as well. All but the newest souls have to be aware that something sinister goes on here. (As though this weren’t a given in Hell) People get taken away and don’t come back. Stories have to be told at least.
“Oh. Look who’s skimming off the top.” Mariah observes to us under her breath.
We make a hum.
“He won’t get in trouble. So long as he sticks to human souls and stays away from the high-demand demographics Request Management gets so fussy about. Acceptable losses and all that. The humans might even live through it.”
Luckily, the humans here are largely uninteresting to Mariah, and she chooses not to linger on. So the conversation fades away just after the Balseraph starts to talk in detail about making a withdrawal. It’s for the best. We have enough to avoid thinking about.
—
The floor below has a few damned souls serving as junior staff members. On the next one Mariah takes us to, the guards are all demons.
“Hell-side celestials,” Mariah explains softly. “Demons and Habbalah both.”
That would explain it. This floor is the quietest yet of the ones Mariah has shown us, not quite as silent as the room we’re usually kept in, but quiet enough that we can pick out the sounds of individual footsteps on carpet. Mariah’s shuffle and soon enough the idle pacing of two guards. One Djinn, one more human like, no wings. Mariah doesn’t tense up, so we guess the second is a Lilim rather than Habbalite.
“You going to this weekend’s Virus Wars? It’s Elks vs. Creepers.”
“Hmmph.”
“Like I’ve haven’t seen your Creepers themed scrapbook…I might be able to get you some tickets if—”
Their chitchat fades away as Mariah walks past the guard post. Some canned music pipes in through the loudspeakers (It’s a generic easy listening melody. The complete opposite of catchy. We remember nothing about it a few seconds after hearing it).
The demons held here come from multiple places: captured Renegades, low-ranked servitors kidnapped from other Words, traumatized Orphans from Princes long dead and forgotten who were acquired on the cheap, and of course, the demons who tried to infiltrate the facility and got caught.
If the humans are kept all together in a relatively unsecured and dorm-like arrangement, the demons here are kept in what’s more akin to solitary confinement. Every demon gets their own hermetically sealed cell, and everyone on this floor wears a will-shackle attuned to a specific guard. The music was specifically chosen for its calming psychological effects, and, according to Mariah (whose word we have to take here), the wall color and furnishings were also chosen for the same reason.
Mariah stops at one cell. “We even have a Pachadite, which is pretty cool. Not a lot of places have them.”
We hum.
“Nightmares specific choir. It’s rare that someone orders them as a specimen, but when they do, it’s better to already have at least on hand, as opposed to making an emergency trip to the Marches.”
Mariah starts walking again. “We hold most Bands here, Calabim excepted. Our facility isn’t officially licensed.” She pauses. “The demand isn’t high enough to risk it.”
We wonder what weight ‘officially’ carries in Mariah’s statement. Not everything here operates by the book. Look at how unofficial we are.
But then, we suppose, we don’t come with a passive, always-on entropy field that interferes with delicate technological devices.
As we [Mariah, actively and I, passively] continue walking, we hear what sounds like a shoe hitting against a plastic wall. The calming music and decor must not be calming enough.
No, of course not, unlike the humans souls downstairs who have mostly volunteered and are mostly kept comfortable and complacent by demons who actually enjoy being around them (like a child enjoys ice cream), all of these demons are captured against their will. Most of them have probably figured out their eventual fate.
Do we feel sorry for them? Should we feel sorry for them? We don’t know. Maybe if we talked to them, we would have empathy for some of them. Angel or demon, this isn’t a nice life for any celestial to have, and the ending will be even worse. Maybe we should have empathy for them that on principle alone.
But, it’s also Hell. Who is to say that any of them wouldn’t be doing something even worse given the freedom and opportunity to do so? Would not having them here provide any net good to the Symphony as we know it. What about the ones who are only here because they tried to infiltrate the facility for their own ends? Maybe those ones deserve it. Or maybe those are the ones who got caught trying to rescue a friend.
“Lots of Shedim, though,” Mariah says after we don’t respond to whatever she last said. She lets that statement breathe and leaves us pick up the implications.
Shedim. Fallen Kyriotates. The ones that Mariah (or her predecessors) captured from the corporeal who then Fell sometime in the gap between when they were initially captured and when they were due to be used. (Also, perhaps, the by-catches too.) If we were considering Falling as an escape option (We weren’t), this is Mariah showing us the consequences.
That note of Dissonance itches at us for the first time in what feels like months.
It’s a new frame to the composition. Our situation [Mariah’s and mine] is at least tentatively based on the fact that our disposal would be as inconvenient for her as it would be for us, and that our falling would prove hazardous to her. Now, she shows us the situation isn’t like that at all. If we Fell, she’d take us here to be one more resident on this floor, one more acceptable loss in the cast of thousands that make up this facility.
(How many have there been?)
We give an affirmative hum. We understand.
—
We’re back on our usual floor and outside our usual room, but Mariah has one last stop on her tour. The bounce to her footsteps has returned. She’s saved the best for last.
“Anyone who wants to go into the secured area has to go through Tizzy’s office.” Mariah says, as she pushes the door open gingerly. “That’s why she gets away with doing so little work. She’s basically the Door Djinn. You know to stay quiet.”
We hum.
Mariah enters the Damp Mop Djinn’s office. If she gives Mariah any acknowledgment or attention, we don’t hear it.
The whole space takes Mariah about twice as much time to cross as it does the little supply room but not nearly so long as any of the other floors. When Mariah stops, we hear a series of monotone beeps being entered. A door clicks open.
“Security measure,” Mariah murmurs when the door automatically shuts behind her, “Someone enters without entering the correct code and boom. Headshot. From about five different weapons.”
We hum again.
“Anyone dumb enough to mis-enter the codes or forget them is considered expendable. Employee safety is less important than keeping this area off-limits to outsiders.”
This must be the area the Game is plotting to gain access to. It’s off limit for audits, officially at least, acknowledged by both the Mad Genius Vapula and the Dread Lord Asmodeus themselves. Not that it stops them from trying to infiltrate, but as of our last overheard conversation, it hasn’t happened yet. At least, not that we’ve noticed. We realize why this access to this place is so tightly protected when the first strands of conversation reach us.
The first conversations we overhear are in our native language.
No, the Game probably doesn’t approve of keeping unfallen angels in Hell. Not long-term at least.
“When my Archangel hears about this, you’re going to pay for it!”
“Fuck you, and fuck your entire Word! May your Technology rust and melt away into a thousand motes of dust!”
“Please, please just let me go, I’ll tell you anything.”
“Maybe you should just stop being such a coward, Tulio.”
“Like you wouldn’t, if you were given the opportunity.”
“I would not.” (Angelic tone marker: uncertain but hopeful that what’s said is true.)
Overall, it’s a cacophony of a hundred voices belonging to perhaps a dozen distinct individuals. They’re the first Choirmates we’ve heard in what feels like years. Unlike us, stealth does them no good. They’re free to chat and heckle and curse and plead all they want.
Until they die.
(Or until they Fall and get taken to the lower floor. Just another accidental Shedite added to the pile.)
“No one’s going to let you go.” Mariah says. She addresses everyone: the silent us resting in her chest cavity and and the chatty doomed ones in front of her. “You couldn’t even manage to escape before you got to Hell. None of you are from Lightning. What makes you think you have anything worth enough to be let out?”
We didn’t know anyone could feel queasy inside a Force Catcher. We can. That’s something else we’ve learned today.
If Mariah plans to continue her lecture, she’s cut off by another voice.
“If you’re wondering, the inventory level is low but sufficient for current demand. Tizzy is going to keep you on call down here until Q1 next year.” The rumbly, grumpy voice comes from a Djinn who has a prominent crustacean signature to its shuffle. “And stop taunting the specimens. It takes us days to get them to shut up again.”
(Inventory. Specimens. Each and every prisoner here. Except maybe us.)
“Yes, sir.”
Mariah walks off. Even with the reprimand, her gait here is still bouncier than we’ve felt on any other floors. Of all the places in the facility, the is area she likes the best. A side effect of her angel delusion? Or something else?
(Why do we still believe Mariah is redeemable?)
(Because we don’t have a chance to escape our most likely fate if we don’t.)
The next place Mariah shows off is the Ofanite pen. Her brief explanation tells us it contains about a half-dozen individuals at any given time, all attuned to by Djinn and laden down with Will Shackles. Their primary function is to test-drive vehicles Hell-side.
“Oh. Look whose back again to watch the Wheels.” This voice is female, mostly resigned, but also touch amused. She’s seen Mariah around before and seems to know our Habbie’s quirks. She approaches with human-sounding footsteps and the drumskin flap of leather wings. Impudite.
“Anyone new?” Mariah asks.
“Not since last year. We did have a near escape about a year back.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, we caught up with it in the supply closet actually.”
“Tizzy’s?”
“No, thank Lucifer. What a disaster that could have been. The one you work in.”
“Really? I’m surprised it made it that far. Usually the door is enough to keep them contained.”
“I suppose one just saw an opportunity to escape. You know how restless the Ofanim can be, even after months in captivity. New reliquary?”
“Huh?”
Oh fuck. We’re full on Essence, thanks to those messages from our mother. Impudites can see Essence with their glasses. They’ll see that Mariah has more Essence than she should theoretically be able to carry. We’re going to get caught. We are so going to get caught.
“Oh, I mean, you just look like you have a lot spare of Essence today.” There’s a tap of a short fingernail on hard plastic. Then a what feels and sounds like Mariah being jostled while an arm wraps around her shoulders.
We give a quiet, urgent hum and hope it conveys to Mariah what we need it to.
It does. “Oh…um yeah, new reliquary.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind lending me some Essence, would you?”
“No, not at all.” Mariah sounds like she’s been charmed out of her mind. The tone is similar to how she speaks to us on those occasions we bounce her infatuation back to her.
“Good girl. Now move along. You know only authorized personnel are allowed to interact with the Wheels.”
Mariah walks along, steps less bouncy now. Her temporary best friend has rejected her. Impudites must be similar to Mercurians that way, easy to underestimate because of stereotypes but difficult to outmaneuver in social situations.
If Mariah has any particular feelings about what happened, she doesn’t show it. The tour continues on.
“And these are the cells we keep other Heaven-angels in when the need arises. They’re all empty right now. They usually are. There’s not enough demand for celestial-side experiments. Not enough restraints to keep them anyone around just in case.”
We hum in understanding. It makes sense. If this facility keeps angels in Hell, then they have an incentive to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to escape. Force Catchers make Kyriotates relatively easy to keep. Ofanim, apparently, are valuable enough to merit the extra resources.
Other choirs though…
(We don’t like thinking about people as specimens. Inventory. Things. It’s a terrible mindset. How do the demons here manage it? Is it natural for them?)
(And we can’t help but think of our friend Cole when we think of the Ofanim trapped down here. We’re pretty sure it’s not down here with us, but how could we be totally sure? Maybe we could give Mariah a description. Blue flames. Lots of spokes. Do any of them look like that? Would we want to know, if one did? Wouldn’t everyone want to know if someone they loved were being held down here? Or would knowing and not being able to do anything about it be an even worse situation?)
Mariah speaks again and distracts most of our minds from that thought. “There was a Malakite here for a couple months back…oh about three or four years before you came to me. Three of the handlers here lost Forces trying to restrain her before we finally sent her off to our Archangel for experimentation.”
Good. The demons who work here deserve that kind of trouble.
When Mariah brings us back to the supply closet and to the box we sometimes call home, we feel like we have a decent overview of this building. Why it exists, and how the demons who work here feed into that. We know the usual kinds of prisoners and even a bit about the more unusual ones.
But we still haven’t actually met the most unusual prisoner yet.
No, Mariah doesn’t show us that one until someone else gives her another chore to do.