“I’ve found metal you didn’t think I’d find, and I also located a cousin you didn’t think I’d find. I’ll pay what I need or get whatever you ask if you can produce the glasses.” Shay shrugged. “You know I have the skills.”
The gnome and the tomb raider stared at each other for a few moments.
Tubal-Cain broke the tension with a smile. “Very well, Miz Carson. I’ll see what I can do.” He gestured around the bar. “You seemed a little nervous when you walked in.”
“What can I say? There’s a little more concentrated Oriceran weirdness in here than I’m used to.”
The gnome chuckled. “You know what I find interesting? That you find this strange. Earth is strange to me, a planet dominated almost entirely by a single intelligent species. Yes, you have magical beings hiding here and there, but it’s mostly just humans, humans, and more humans. It’s so…boring. It’s amazing that you didn’t blow yourself up out of ennui.”
Shay laughed. “Well, we’ve got a lot of different types of humans, at least. That has to count for something.”
Tubal-Cain downed more of his drink. “The magic is back, which you’d think would be a huge change, but for the most part, things are continuing as they always have. You’re overly reliant on technology, and your governments are obsessed with controlling magic rather than embracing it and improving your stagnant societies.”
“Can’t just ignore thousands of years of how things have flowed.” Shay gulped some of her Lambic and savored the cherry notes. “Don’t know if any of it makes a difference though, really.”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
“Like you said, Earth is overrun with humans, and I don’t know how much human nature has changed just because of new tools. Magic’s just another tool, like technology.”
Tubal-Cain set his glass down. “You don’t think the return of magic matters?”
“I just know that ancient societies on Earth didn’t have computers, cars, or guns, but they weren’t all that different from us today. Rich people, poor people. Assholes who get away with shit, and the average person just trying to survive day-to-day.” Shay swigged her drink. “The more I look into history, the less I think it repeats itself. It’s more that shit just never changes because we’ve convinced ourselves it has. The trick is for humans to accept that, and then, and only then, can we do something about it.”
The gnome nodded. “I can’t say that I disagree. It’s inevitable, I suppose. Your kind is too short-lived. Humans are always running around in a desperate rush with death hanging over you. It’s beautiful in its own way, but it also means that you lack any sort of long-term perspective, and may always lack it.”
Shay smirked. “Yeah, don’t get too smug there, Tubal-Cain.”
“Oh? You were the one complaining about things being the same for humans.”
She nodded toward some elves on the dance floor. “Not convinced Oriceran is all that different than Earth. Sure, you’ve got an untold number of races and shit, but at the end of the day…” The tomb raider laughed and pointed at the ceiling, which she now realized was shrouded in a semi-translucent mist. “This place is called the Great Treaty. You needed that treaty to save your world. Good old-fashioned near-apocalypse. Almost human.”
Tubal-Cain snorted. “And it lasted thousands of years. Your treaties are worth nothing.”
“Just saying that there are a lot of nasty Oricerans out there, and not just Atlanteans. I think your treaty only lasted as long as it did for the same reason our planet’s been able to avoid World War III—mutually assured destruction. The difference is, it took our human asses way too long to develop city- and planet-killing tech, but you magic slingers had it a long time ago.”
The gnome smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “And now Earth and Oriceran are connected again. If things are as you say, it doesn’t matter because even with your people in the know, they are still just humans in the end with all the same foibles.”
“Yeah. We are.” Shay laughed.
“What’s so amusing?”
Shay shrugged. “Don’t you think it’s better that way?”
“What?”
“That humans are the same. It means we have some chance of getting through the next few decades of the return of magic without having to throw away everything we thought we knew.”
Tubal-Cain nodded slightly and picked up his glass. “I will say this… You’re anything but boring, Miz Carson.”
Shay picked up her glass. “Well, how about a late toast to not being boring?”
The gnome clicked his glass to hers. “To not being boring.”
Chapter Fourteen
Peyton slapped on a safari hat and stared into a full-length mirror he’d set up in the Warehouse Three Annex. Some people might claim that the hat clashed with the black silk dress shirt he had on, but he liked the contrast in color and texture.
A true sartorial master challenged existing fashion dogma, something his myopic critics would never understand. Besides, it was fun as hell to wear what he wanted without worrying about whether it matched or if it was currently “in.”
Lily reclined on the hood of a nearby dark-blue Toyota sedan with her hands behind her head. The vehicle projected more of a soccer-mom vibe than hipness, and Peyton wondered which of Shay’s fake identities was associated with it.
Maybe I’ll check the documents in the trunk later.
The hacker removed the safari hat and picked up a colorful knit hat covered with repeating patterns. It reminded him of something a person might see in rural Bolivia.
“Hmm, this one doesn’t go with this shirt, but maybe the jacket. Plus, I would pay serious money to see Shay wear this hat.”
Lily yawned. “You’re fooling yourself, you know.”
Peyton placed the hat in the rolling rack in front of him and frowned. “I’m well aware of what you and Shay think about my sense of fashion. The problem is neither of you gets that I don’t
