Chapter Text
From what we can tell, Mariah’s Hellside job description is mostly ‘Whatever the Damp Mop Djinn tells her to do’. This covers a wide spectrum of tasks from the tedious to the terrifying (for Mariah).
We’ve already witnessed a number of these tasks just from the supply closet: Repair work on a variety of electronic components, a never-ending stream of data entry, inventory restocks—that is, either tracking down or replacing all those items that go missing while Mariah’s out.
Now that Mariah totes us around with her, we get to see an even wider range of her Hellside duties. For example, we learn she sometimes carries messages. We’re currently accompanying her on one such delivery errand, from the Damp Mop Djinn to the head of the Request Management.
Of course, the reward for a successful message delivery is more work.
“Digitize this data,” this supervisor says (she’s fairly still, no there’s audio context to hint at her nature, though the voice itself is feminine). “Then, use the paper shredder to dispose of the hard copies. Clean the room when you’re done.”
We can almost feel Mariah gulp. “Yes, ma’am.”
—
We’ve heard mention of the paper shredder (or Paper Shredder to acknowledge its status as a proper noun) in a number of overheard conversations. The tone accompanying its mention trends towards either casual disdain or near religious fear. Either way, most object to its existence on some level. However, no one complains to the Damp Mop Djinn, who is presumably the only one who can get rid of it. The general conclusion amongst the kind of demons who gossip in Mariah’s supply room is that the incinerator is a more reliable method of object disposal, if in a less convenient location. Of course, the incinerator also stores records of who uses it, when it’s used, and what gets destroyed, while the Paper Shredder (like us) doesn’t officially exist in this facility. This makes it the ideal apparatus for losing inconvenient paperwork or any evidence of research failures.
(Technologists never use the term ‘research failure’ to describe the catastrophic and sometimes explosive breakdowns of their inventions, not that we’ve heard. The preferred euphemism is ‘temporary setback’ or maybe ‘minor issue’. Why? Because in Hell, occasional failure is never accepted as an inevitable consequence of exploring new ideas.)
Our initial assumption after all these mentions is that the Paper Shredder in question is a particularly menacing type of machinery and-slash-or a personal project of the Damp Mop Djinn’s. One mind pictures something particularly gargantuan and robust, liable to rend an unwary operator limb from celestial limb. A typical Technological marvel if you will. Another mind imagines the opposite, something intricate and fiddly and prone to explosion when someone so much as feeds it one sheet too many at a time. Or if the paper is a hair thicker or thinner than expected. Also, a typical Technological marvel.
Those assumptions are based on a rookie error brought about by previous inexperience with Vapulans at a population level. Vapulans do not fear machinery, no matter how outright dangerous it is. The most sensible among them consider literal Warning signs to be gentle instruction at best. The rest seem to regard the content of those signs as a fun suggestion to do exactly what is being warned against. Technologists revere Technology, both as a general principle and as the Word that animates them, but the only inventions they’ll treat with any sort of reverence are their own.
Because no, the Paper Shredder is not a machine of any sort.
It’s a Calabite.
(It is very much the Damp Mop Djinn’s personal project. We’ll give ourself credit for that guess.)
The Damp Mop Djinn keeps it locked up with will shackles and drugged to the edge of incoherence, but nevertheless what sits before us in that Djinn’s private supply closet and what Mariah breathlessly refers to as the Paper Shredder is a real, live (but completely off the record) Calabite in Tartarus.
Its wings beat against the air slowly, shredded leather compared to an Impudite’s drumskin sound. Occasionally the scraps of paper that surround it rustle. We hear a low-pitched guttural utterance.
We give Mariah an inquisitive hum, and hope our question is obvious. How did this one get here?
“One of the Ofanim fell.” She leaves the answer at that, but she taps out the signal letting us know we’re safe to speak here. “Don’t worry about stealth. It can’t communicate.”
We’re not sure she’s right about that. From below us comes a rambling slurred blend of Angelic and Helltongue. The two languages blend together into one in-between pidgin of mostly incomprehensible melodies. The background notes sometimes drown out any meaning in the reverb of Helltongue while at other times they swell with an almost discernible Angelic Truth.
We feel an odd camaraderie with this Calabite. Look at us, speaking in a constant shift between two opposite languages. Different methods, different levels of coherency and care (we presume) in how we use our words, but we [I] feel that strand of connection nonetheless.
“How did it fall?”
Mariah makes an ‘I don’t know’ sound. It’s a weird bit of English not-quite-loanword sprinkled in with her Helltongue. No, the Ofanim aren’t her responsibility. It wouldn’t matter to her how this one fell, not the way a newly-fallen Shedim she might capture would be.
“Why is it here?” we ask. “I thought Technology wouldn’t risk keeping even a single Calabite around.”
Mariah lets out a sigh. “Tizzy insists on it. She transferred from another Word when our Archangel first gained his power and she says…well, that Calabim are useful provided they’re kept out of the way and managed properly. She’s attuned now, so nothing short of a direct order from the Inspector or our Archangel is getting rid of it. Until she gets bored of it.” We hear the click of something fastening down and to the right of us. “Shh. I’m about to use the Control bracelet.”
Mariah picks up and shoves something forward that we presume goes into the hands of the mostly inert Calabite at her feet. “Destroy this,” Mariah says in an authoritative voice we haven’t heard from her since early in our captivity.
The Paper Shredder's muttering ceases. For a split second, the room goes completely still. A small burst of Disturbance sounds out. Pieces of paper scatter downward, landing on what came before it with dull flutters.
“It’s not even all that useful,” Mariah says, after she repeats the process three more times. “Someone still has to clean up the scraps before it gets completely buried in the debris. Usually me, since Tizzy won’t. Supposedly, there are security advantages to using it over the incinerator or simply tossing things in a dumpster but really, it’s here so long as Tizzy wants to keep it, so we might as well make use of it.”
“How long has it been here?”
Mariah kicks through some scraps of paper. A small metal object clinks against the floor three times before it wobbles to a stop. There must be quite a lot of junk of a piled up around the Paper Shredder. “It was a bit after I started working for Tizzy. So, maybe seven or eight years. The Inspector probably knows about it by now, and no one else wants to be the messenger to tell our Archangel. So everyone just hopes Tizzy will get bored of it soon.”
“What’ll happen to it when she gets bored?”
“It’ll get disposed of,” Mariah says, “like anything else that becomes obsole—ahh! I hate when it does that.” She switches to the command voice. “Let go of me. Don’t touch me.”
A drowsy chuckle comes from the Paper Shredder, but Mariah takes another step forward unhindered. Drugged, it might be. Unconscious, it’s not.
We wonder…
If we take a mind off of a background issue we’re contemplating and use it to hone in on the Paper Shredder…
Mmphmh…mmmph…Marconi surprise…mmphugfh…
Communication barriers in Hell take many forms. The language, for example, obscures by its very nature. The structure of Helltongue makes lies easy and honest exchanges nearly impossible. Add to that most demons have an endless motivation to lie, and those without motivation will often still do so for either fun or practice. This means the high probability of falsehood sabotages every statement made in Hell.
(Except those from actual angels and maybe certain Balseraphs of Fate? Do any of those ever choose the Seraph resonance? Or have it imposed on them?)
(Not important right now.)
Application deadline…phphdumph…midnight…particle colli….smphsh…
Then, there’s the lack of privacy. Quiet places invite eavesdroppers. Spaces public enough to provide anonymity come with prohibitive noise levels. We want to introduce certain topics to Mariah, but we’ve found it impossible to so while she walks around with us. Even when we think she might be receptive, we’re only too aware that one wrong person overhearing the wrong string of words will get us both caught.
Mpphph….four down…manual override…mppmhrrph…explosive tortelli…
But there’s also the nature of the social hierarchy in Hell as we’ve observed it. Attention flows upwards. Mariah mostly gets away with her murmured statements to us because she’s a small, discordant demon in a dead-end job. Few demons care about what she says as long as she does what they say. Similarly, no one heeds the demonlings’ wilder tales. It’s probably why we’ve survived our careless echolocation attempts. No one pays attention to those beneath them in the hierarchy unless it involves them.
(This tendency isn’t necessarily exclusive to Hell. It’s just more explicitly the way of this plane than others.)
Blshdmph…crash land...mphphppmsh…behind schedule…prove the Drake equilibrium….
So when Mariah says that the demon sprawled out on the floor beneath her, the one she steps gingerly around while she drags the vacuum cleaner in from the farthest corner of the room, can’t communicate, she implies a multitude of possible barriers. The drugs can’t be doing its coherency any favors. Certainly, the constant switch between Helltongue and Angelic sets up a language barrier. Maybe it’s been prohibited to speak—about certain topics at least.
…send home (tone: impossible hypothetical) …phpuph…dinosaur capsu….
But there are social dynamics in play here, too. Even if the constant supply of drugs were discontinued tomorrow and it started to talk intelligibly at length, few demons here would bother to listen. The taboo against Calabim in Tartarus is that strong. No one wants see the Paper Shredder as a person, so they won’t. Mariah only addresses it to give commands, and we bet that attitude is universal here.
No one speaks to the Paper Shredder except to use it.
(We’re not even sure if the Paper Shredder gets referred to as an ‘it’ because the Calabite is technically classified as ‘equipment’ or because it doesn’t identify with a specific gendered pronoun. Probably the first. No one here sees it as a person enough to care about its hypothetical gender.)
…boxes from fine…pffph…robot blender cage…mmphph…tower…
We think of our own situation in that little supply closet and all the people who talk freely around us because they don’t know about our existence. The Paper Shredder must be in a similar position. While we question its ability to comprehend much through its drugged haze, it can hear any conversation that happens in this room and, if it cared to, it can read any of the words printed on the scraps of paper surrounding it.
(We assume. We don’t actually know how Helltongue literacy works in the Fallen. We would prefer not to find out.)
If we can reach out to it without Mariah figuring out what we’re doing—
…twenty-nine across…mphpmph…
We can! Right now even! All we need to do is wait for the vacuum cleaner to start up.
“Can you hear me?”
The question is simple, but we’ve made our choice of language and the unspecified second-person pronoun deliberately. If the Paper Shredder still speaks in Angelic…maybe it will recognize what (and who) we’re really asking while Mariah only picks up on the surface-level question.
Mariah snaps off the machine. “Yes, I can hear you,” There’s an annoyed edge to her voice. “But maybe let’s not try to talk right now. And keep it to Helltongue.”
She turns the vacuum back on. All the scraps sucked in create a roar that blocks out any outside noise. We bet it will drown out Mariah’s ability to catch the other response, should it come. Would she even care? If so, it would be only because of her possessiveness over us.
(Do you hear us, Paper Shredder? Will you respond? Will we be able to parse it?)
(Is communication with the Paper Shredder possible for us?)
…mmphph…hear...bmdphuph……mmphphh…little voice…phpmmph…
We strain our metaphorical ears further. We remind ourself, we’ve been trapped in Hell for at least two years now. We’ve had little else to do but listen the world around us and interpret the sounds. We might even be good at it by now. We create images of our environment out of little else but noise and context. We (desperately) want to talk with someone who isn’t Mariah and who won’t get us immediately caught.
We must be able to parse this. We need to be able to parse this.
(We hope Mariah doesn’t notice that Essence expenditure coming from us.)
The Paper Shredder’s slurred mumbles finally shape themselves into a meaningful statement, tinged with faint traces of Angelic harmonies.
“I hear you, little Voice. I hear you.”