Lamia: Prelude

I was reading through my old blog posts and thought to myself that "Oh balls, this writing is terrible". So, I've decided to redo my "Hacker" story (as if it was something that even got started), if only to prove to myself that I can write better than… whatever those two chapters were.

Anyway, it's called "Lamia" because it covers for the insecurity and awkwardness of "Hacker" with more insecurity and awkwardness.
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It was dark. The last sliver of moon had waned away, and now there was not a thing to break the pitch black cloak of night. This was not a night to be traveling, which was just the way Hestia Haverance, Moderator in Good Standing, had been journeying for the past few days. On this day, of all days, there should be children scurrying all around, but on this day, of the last thirteen years, no sane person would shatter the tranquil of this night. Soon, it would be the moment Hestia had been preparing for since her childhood, when she first heard the proclamation. But soon, all her preparations would be rendered obsolete with her next report, an discovery that had taken generations to unearth.

A black obsidian pedestal sitting atop a hill. Hestia approached it and closed her eyes, tracing a pattern she had not traced since winter. Feelings of familiarity and warmth immediately embraced her, all while feelings of adrenaline and cold ran through her.

When she opened her eyes again, Haverance was in a marble hall, square with all sides lined by elevators. She entered an elevator to her right and pressed her cold white finger to the operation panel. In an instant, the doors opened and she was in a long study room, steeling herself for what she knew came next. The study room had bookcases and glass displays along the sides, leading up to a man sitting behind a desk, immersed in his current task. Behind him was a table, tonight a thin, silver-black knife rested on its surface. The man's hand slowly moved a pen across a sheet of white paper. Without looking up, the man spoke.

"Moderator Haverance, I presume you have the best of reasons to have interrupted me this late at night, in the middle of my paperwork?" A chill ran through Hestia's body as her fight-or-flight reactions spiked and her muscles tensed. The man's hand moved slowly across the paper.

"The very best of news, sir." Hestia deliberately lowered her voice to keep it from wavering out of her control. The man's hand flowed smoothly across the paper. Screams pierced the room, coming from a steel door to desk's left. The man's hand stopped.

"Who…" Hestia choked out, fighting every urge to run as the man looked up, eyes dark as midnight.

“Another moderator, one ranked ahead of you,” he said, voice almost at a whisper. “He failed to deliver… satisfactory news.” The man paused, searching for the right word. A halt in speech lasting half a moment that felt like a thousand years. “I trust that you’ll do better than he did. Or should I hope…?”

“Sir, I promise you… I guarantee you-” Moderator Haverance cut off her sentence as she saw a shadow cross the man behind the desk’s face.

“Then spit it out!” The man snapped, Hestia caught herself as her knees threatened to give way. Fear raced through every fiber of her being.

“S-sir, my team has found it. They’ve unearthed the Autoban.” It was impossible to keep her voice under control now, but the man didn’t seem to care. A dark smile split open his face, a sharklike grin that terrified Hestia far beyond his earlier outburst.

“You are dismissed, then. Expect a promotion soon. Let it never be said that Nemesis Hermokrates does not reward the messenger.” His voice dropped back to the typical whisper as he lowered his head, resuming his previous task.

Relief filled her body as Hestia stumbled away, bowing, exiting the room as quickly as respect allowed. She attempted to articulate a sentence of gratitude, but all that came out was a half-murmur, half-squeak. This time, she left the building using the main entrance, walking into the pitch-black tranquil of this Halloween night.

The man’s white hand traced slowly across the paper.
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At the first breaking of the sun’s bright rays, his eyes shot open. He was lying at the back of a cave on a flat bed of rock. Leaving a faint afterimage behind, the man was at the mouth of the cave, from one end to the other in the time it had taken for the dawn’s breeze to lift a single drop of dew from a nearby tree’s leaf. He breathed in a single lungful of cold morning air.

Today was the first of November, the twentieth anniversary of the Red Castle Uprising. Today was the day the public had rose up and branded Hacker as a monster, as an abomination, as Lamia. Today was the day that the Nexus Union had shifted its primary mission from peacekeeping to Hacker hunting, and the day Nexus had consolidated its control over all the world’s governments, turning the Hackers in scapegoats. Today was the day that he, Brent Afetson, had announced the return of the Hackers in thirteen years to take their revenge on all the men and women who had allowed themselves to be assimilated into a single machine, a machine so odious, a machine that used the deaths of his people as a catalyst.

But most importantly, most simply put, today was the first day of the end.