Interlude: Micah and Hilarie

It’s though she’s forgotten our true purpose. By her own admission, we have aligned goals with her old friend for approximately a decade. Why Hilarie focuses her valuable time on that backwater across the ocean, rather than the key political atmosphere around here, I don’t fully grasp. Figuring out what’s happening isn’t what she’s good at. Perhaps the blame lies beyond my view, somewhere in their past. Whatever the reason, I do hope she can get over it. “So, Hil,” I begin, trying to disrupt her less than productive train of thought

“It’s just, how could some tiny fucking town in the middle of nowhere America have her so confident in her people. It’s not like she’s lost a step, or at least it doesn’t seem like it. And she’s definitely got plans-”

“Hil, we ought to talk ab-” I try to get us back on track.

She powers right through my attempt to talk. “But she turns me down. Me. Ugh. Then I, you know, just to test the waters, recommended a friend go there, right? See if there’s something in the water or whatever. But no, just like any other tiny, unimportant villa.”

I take a deep breath. That’s right, she threw Michel in there to spy for her. Did she really expect that guy to get anything out of a bunch of Americans? He’s smart, sure, but he’s too, well, let’s just say talking to him for a minute you know he went to one of those fancy Private Schools. Which only compounds with the American stereotypes of the French. “Hilarie,” I say in full this time. It doesn’t help.

“I asked about who it might be, but my friend inside just noticed she’s friends with two smart kids, one is very teacher-y. And she spends a lot of time with her boyfriend, who, before you say anything, isn’t anything worth anything. Not the sort of thing we’re looking for, you know?” Finally, she takes a break, looking for a response.

“Hil,” I reply, “Alina is not a worry yet. You’re a Magister now, and headed to a new Villa.”

She cocks her head. “Yes, and? The yet there is holding a lot of weight.”

I take another breath. I look at her. She’s upset, clearly she thought figuring out Alina’s help and her future methods would be easy for her friend. The machete trying to get into the world of scalpels that is my field. “You still need to go over your dossiers for me. We don’t have the benefit of vast, unVilla’d territory that your old rival, or friend, or whatever you two are, does. Every position we seek, we will necessarily subsume from another. And, as we’re on a timecrunch, we need to figure out who’s vulnerable as swiftly as possible.”

“That’s your job,” Hilarie shoots back, only about half jokingly.

I smile pleasantly. “What do you think the dossiers are? I’ve narrowed it down to twenty Great Maestros who will either be advancing or easily removed. We need to narrow that down to the three that would be most politically expedient. Which is your purview more than mine.”

“Isolde’s too, but fair enough,” she says.

I shrug. “Why do you think your folder only has twelve items? I figure you can handle the west while she takes the east. And, unlike you, oh boss, she’s already gotten started.”

“Shut up. I’m just concerned. My dear old friend is planning something massive, and doing so without outside help. Which means something weird is going on in the land across the seas.”

I sigh once more. “I will tell you what,” I offer, “If it will get your focus back where it belongs, on the future you got me so invested in three years ago, I’ll look into Alina’s situation. I have some free time this summer.”

She looks at me, a mix of confusion, relief, and concern washing across her face. “What makes you think you’ll do any better than my friend on the inside?” she asks, even though I’m sure she already knows the answer.

I smile. “Because finding out things that people don’t want me to know is my purview.”

Now it was Hilarie’s turn to sigh. “Okay,” she says. Then, after a brief pause, she repeats, “Okay. Right. I can start looking at these people.” She opens up her folder, before pausing once more. This time, she looks me in my eyes. “Micah, honestly, thank you.”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing,” I remind her, “I’m just doing my part to help out. It’s your vision, remember.”

She nods. “I do remember.” She starts to glance through the dossiers that I collected for her. Great Maestros of Villae around Western Europe. I even included the Italian Villae in her folder, just like I included the Scandinavian Villae in Isolde’s packet. Even though they may fall under other, less important Regions within the Rite. Because they’re nice places to vacation whilst one politics. As she is reading, she remarks, “Did Izzy really already start?”

I chuckle. “In a sense. Her family’s taking a vacation up north right now, and she’s staying in Sweden afterwards for a time, then popping over to Finland, so she can chat with people about a couple of her possible targets. That said, I needed something to shock you into action.”

Hilarie nods, understanding where I’m coming from. She can be quite stubborn when she gets something in her head. Which, to be clear, is great a lot of the time, when those things are related to her goals, her dreams, her future. But not so much when they’re distractions. She returns to looking through her dossiers as she starts to plan. “You know, I believe I could do the same, couldn’t I? I could use a nice vacation to Italy. And what kind of vacation would it be without a goodly amount of scheming, backstabbing, and backroom dealing?”

“That sounds like you are ready to begin in a sense as well,” I don’t answer her question.

She shakes her head. “Right, why would I ask you about vacations,” she mutters with a smile.

I look around exaggeratedly. “Because I’m one of like six or seven people you’re friends with that you can mention any of this to without getting us all murdered in our sleep?”

She laughs and gives me a light shove. “Shut up. I’m sure there are tens of friends of mine who wouldn’t get us killed. Like Alina, there are plenty who’ll be too focused elsewhere, or who’ll benefit from me being awesome.”

I shake my head. “I wouldn’t risk it unless you’re sure.”

“Fair,” she says, then furrows her brow, now once again focused on the wrong thing. “Three. No, four. There are four of my old friends to whom talking about this wouldn’t get us killed.”

“Great,” I say, “Now, are you just planning on looking at the names and Villae locales, or are you actually going to read the dossiers?”

“Just call them files like a normal person. Somehow, when you say ‘dossier’ you sound even more pretentious than me.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” I joke, “So are you going to read the people-pages I wrote out?”

She chuckles again. “Fine, but only because you asked so many times.”

I smile. “I always knew begging would work,” I muse aloud.

“What can I say,” she replies, “I enjoy people on their knees.”

I shake my head at her as she heads off to read the dossiers. And I’m left alone. Not that I mind too much. Unlike Hilarie or Isolde, I do a lot of my best work alone. I get on my bike and head back across town to the large apartment building that I’m in. I still have the lease on my place for another month and change. Heading up the thin flight of stairs to the third floor, I enter the fourth apartment on the right. It’s actually smaller than most on-campus housing in almost every Villa I’ve visited. But, this apartment has an advantage on-campus housing lacks. This apartment has no wards. So my electronics all work as they should, and my messages are all my own.

Getting on my desktop, I open up my discord. All the different channels I’m in, each a different group of people. From different parts of the world. Most generally near a Villa. All eager to share their secrets in secret for clout. Ever since the scandal, most people have avoided leaving any evidentiary trails, but that doesn’t affect my work. I live in the world of rumor and whispers. And people are still more than happy to share rumors and whispers about secrets they know. Most people always are happy to share secrets, so others can know their importance in the world.

I check the channel for a community built world that, in theory, we play a partially play-by-post tabletop game in. And sometimes we even do, but that is generally for a few weeks with ages between active sections. More importantly, one of the kids in the channel, a regular, happens to be from Muddy Ford, where that Alina woman apprenticed. Looking I scroll back, searching the LifeStuff channel for anything he mentioned. Something will inevitably stand out, something from before I knew what I was looking for.

Then, there it is. A little more than a year ago. ‘I saw that college kid dealing in the mall again. Only, she didn’t take anything from the janitor. They just chatted, then she handed something over. The fuck is wrong with some people, you know?’ That’s not a drug deal, that’s paying for information. Again, that implies there was mention earlier. Scrolling further up, I see another message. ‘Caught my most straightlaced gay friend picking up drugs from some girl the other day. Said she was some college kid called Theresa or Therese or something like that. How do I try to help him outta trouble without being too nosey?’ Theresa or Therese. The same grade as Alina, as Alina had mentioned that her hand was doing a Magisterial internship over the summer. I move over to my filing cabinets. To our class in the Muddy Ford Villa. No Theresas. There is a Therese Scott. Child of a criminal from California. Stumbled into the mystic through unreported and unknown circumstances. Middling student. Anonymous internships, high marks and recommendations in them. It wouldn’t concern anyone else too much. Heck, if I were looking for just about any other reason, it’d probably not even concern me too much. Except it’s an information broker, which means I’m looking for a left hand. And the Magisterium’s information packet on myself looks largely the same. This Ms. Scott, whoever she might be, is Alina’s spymaster. No doubt in my mind.

I write out a new note for the North American file on my typewriter and place the paper in its proper cabinet. Paper trails are much easier to destroy than digital footprints. Then, as I pull out my phone, I pause. Hilarie is finally focused on what she should be focused on. On achieving the ideal world we set out to achieve. If I give her this information, it will set a small part of her mind at ease, certainly. But it will also serve to unfocus her. She’ll restart her machinations involving Michel and the North American Region once more. I put down the phone. I’ll keep an eye on the situation, and if it should ever become relevant, I can bring it up. Otherwise, it will be useful in a decade, when we are no longer working in tandem. To safeguard the dream. Because, Hilarie is the future. She’s the boss for a reason. She has vision, she has goals, she has a potential for greatness. Me, all I have are my notes, my files, my knowledge. I’m not important, not really. But I’ll do anything to see that greatness, that vision, come to fruition. Even if it means keeping secrets from Hil. Because, everyone, especially the great ones, often need the most protection not from others, but from themselves.