booksabaking | Introductions Without Names

There’s a boy sitting in a deep cave, singing. He comes here to sing when the work in the mines, the rough shoulder thumps of his coworkers, and the judging eyes of his father weigh too heavily on him. He sings folksongs and ditties from the radio. He sings with eyes closed and ears open, careful to not be caught unawares by anyone.

He hasn’t examined the cave walls.

As he sings, something listens. This consciousness, though that isn’t quite the word for it, has been listening to many things in that cave over the centuries. Ever since the first miners settled down on this rock of a world, it has listened, and it has been sought out.

Usually, visitors offer blood with their chats. This singing is new, but somewhat familiar. It is a form of worship, if aimless such. As much as an entity like this can enjoy itself, the something that dwells inside and yet outside the cave appreciates these songs more than the chanting and death that has come before.

It wants to preserve them, as much as an existence like it can experience ‘want’ or ‘linear time’.

The singing continues, for years. The boy grows older, his voice finishes breaking and gains in skill, as his frame grows wider though not much taller. He is called the runt of the litter more than once. Never in the cave though. He’s always alone there. The thing that perceives through its walls assures his continued solitude.

Until it doesn’t.

The man wakes up in pools of blood, his own and not. He wakes up to grasp at his no longer cut throat, surrounded by too cold bodies and a cave bathed in an eerie green glow he’s not seen before.

He screams his throat so raw he can’t sing for weeks afterward.

There’s a woman who does her best to keep out of trouble and generally fails. It’s not her fault. She’s a kind and gentle soul, who’s learned to speak softly and hunch her shoulders to keep her large, muscular frame from frightening others. But a good heart brings trouble all on its own, no matter what the body around it looks like.

The woman works in customs. Not as security or as administration, but as a greeter, the first line of welcome. She gets in trouble with the higher-ups for letting too many people from off-station through to the second trial interview.

She works in the harbor. Not with loading cargo and not with checking manifests but with cleaning the ships before and after they leave port. She gets in trouble for allowing undocumented travelers to get on and off the ships during her work hours.

She works in a bar. Not as a bouncer and not as a dancer but as a bartender. She gets in trouble with her boss for far too easily letting customers compliment her into giving them discounts. But, it being a bar, this leads to people getting drunker than they might have planned, and drunk people spend more credits than the sober ones. This job she doesn’t lose.

It’s also at this job she meets the man. He’s not a station resident, which makes looking for work tricky. Bars and other establishments for entertainment are your only choices then. The man can sing and he can flirt, so he has a place on the bar's stage within an hour of the slap-dash interview the woman convinces her boss to give him.

They make good coworkers. The man is funny and easy-going and he shares his tips with the rest of the crew, which might be an act of self-preservation but the woman chooses to believe in generosity. They go drinking a few times, they see a musical, they attend a low-grav wrestling match. She mentions him to her sisters a few times, who get the wrong idea but she doesn’t quite mind.

She remembers him years later, after he’s moved on off-station and she’s gotten established at the library position he convinced her to try out for. It’s the sort of memory you have of any good friend who’s moved away and who you haven’t kept in touch with; soft, nostalgic, selective.

But those memories take on a different shape after the passing of her sisters.

It’s slow and subtle. The woman is the youngest of five siblings. Most of her agemates have moved on to greener pastures and those who’ve stayed on-station have lived rough. She’s called lucky for keeping her youthful looks and for never suffering serious injuries, only ones that look bad at first but turn out to be mere scrapes.

Her sisters all pass, one by one, and the woman doesn’t feel lucky at all. She'd hope she’d be the last one standing of them; anything else would have been cruel. But her nieces and nephews start to catch up to her in ways they shouldn’t.

She never thought she’d leave the station. She’s a spacer born and bred, a star rat, a floor-foot. But when her first sister-child has gone gray and bent-backed while she still walks with easy steps, she can’t stay any longer. She can’t watch them pass her by.

She meets the man in another bar, years later. His first words to her are apologies.

Hers are forgiveness.

There’s a person who people tend to put in the box of ‘woman’ and she’s mostly fine with that. Nothing else fits any better and some descriptions fit worse, so she rolls with it.

She rolls with a lot of things. She gets things rolling as well.

This person has a reputation. Said reputation is far too complex and layered to cover in a short introduction, but we shall summarize it as ‘intense’. She is not someone you should cross if you want to keep having a good life.

It’s a good thing she doesn’t pick her targets at random.

There’s been a kidnapping ring operating in a neighborhood she considers hers. She has many such neighborhoods; usually the ones with no reliable electricity and a lack of running water. She’s been away on another job and she’s thus late to this one, which starts her anger burning. Her anger is slow to ignite though, so she keeps a level head as she begins tracking down the latest scum that need her attention.

To her pleasant surprise someone else is already busy doing what she’d meant to do. As she approaches the rundown warehouse where she knows people have been taken, she sees a woman so tall as to be called majestic helping hungry people in dirty clothes escape the basement through a broken window. She gives the woman and the fleeing people a hand and praise both, though she does also wonder what they should do if discovered by the kidnappers.

The tall woman says not to worry about that. There is a distraction planned.

The distraction turns out to be a short man with a wide grin who strolls across the deserted square on the warehouse’s other side, bold as you please. Without hesitation he shouts accusations at the building, yelling about proof and police and all manner of other words that surely are lies, but pretty ones.

He’s gunned down as soon as the guards get the go-ahead from their higher-ups. At that point, the person, the tall woman, and the last freed captive are leaving the premises unseen. The person loses some respect for her tall ally as said ally coldly leaves her companion to die in the square, but doesn’t comment. Drastic measures can be the only option at times. After all, they didn’t know they had her as backup.

She’s pleased and curious as, three hours later, the short and not-dead man joins her and the tall woman at a pub. She doesn’t ask him to reveal his trick. A good magician never tells. Instead, she enjoys the honest joy with which the tall woman embraces him and buys the first round of drinks.

They do several more jobs together. The man keeps doing his trick - not every time, but often enough to reveal a pattern - and the person starts to wonder a thing or two about him, but they’re not close enough for questions like that. Not yet.

Then there’s that one job. That insanely complicated one that’s just ripe for a betrayal because it has a plethora of moving parts. There is only so much good fortune you can hamster over a life time. The person knows hers will run out soon.

At least the tall woman is out of harm’s way when the other shoe drops. She’s off burning falsified claims to homes, a happy bonfire that will result in hundreds of unhoused people getting a roof back over their heads. The person comforts herself with this knowledge as she sees the grenade come through the window.

She and the short man are both killed instantly.

They both wake up in bits and pieces, figuratively and literally. The short man is caught between relief and despair at seeing her sit up and curse. He keeps apologizing as their limbs reform and put themselves together. As soon as the person has a tongue again, she starts yelling at him. He doesn’t yell back.

The person is still yelling when the tall woman finds them. The person demands to know how many times the short man has actually died during distractions.

There is stunned silence followed by howling when it’s confirmed as ‘all of the times’.

Self-care is discussed. At length.

There’s a person who’s learning about humanity. This person finds the subject so fascinating it’s become a dissertation in progress. Years of research, possibly decades, will be needed before a presentation or finished oration can be possible. Maybe more, just to be safe. You don’t want to rush science.

The person has done her best to fit in with human ideas about humanity. A daunting task as humanity by this point in time is spread out over a good number of planets and space stations, adding yet another level of challenge to the already numerous cultural differences that exist on their original homeworld. Though this is hardly unique to humans. It’s in fact the main challenge with understanding any sentient species and more than a few of those who are not.

The person has done her best with those xenocultural differences that lack an overlap with her own experiences, like gender and rules about eye contact (not really applicable for a species that never evolved eyes). She’s earned herself some ridicule for this, of course, because if there’s one thing universal about academic pursuits, it seems to be snide comments from rival researches (and she’d likely get a patronizing needling for the lack of truth in that generalization too, but she can’t find the energy to care).

While her fellow researchers seem content to observe from afar or through brief exchange programs, she submerges herself fully. Her species has long been known far and wide for their radical nanobot-based biotech and she takes advantage of the microscopic helpers swimming through her bloodstream to their uttermost limits.

Eyes is a must. Adjusting to sight takes time, but is more than worth it. A good portion of human art is visual and their cities and settlements rely heavily on sight based cues. She quickly comes to appreciate how central this sense appears to their species, like hearing to her own or scent to the ruleen.

Many species have sight as a major sensory input. She’s not writing research history here, but as a personal revelation this knowledge still thrills. To know she’s on the right track with her approach steels her against all heavy sighs and subtle messages of disapproval from peers and mentors alike.

Her transformation is gradual yet far quicker than most physicians would recommend. She’s been good at adjusting to new limbs, hormones and organs since childhood. She more than endures, she thrives. The disorientation, temporary phantom limbs and aches are worth it in the end.

She’s invited to gala after gala on this planet she’s chosen for her research. It’s not the original human planet (she doesn’t have the influence to gain research access there yet) but the major population consists of their species and theirs alone. Other people like her exist here too, foreigners not only by virtue of distance but also biology, yet they’re few enough in number to not jeopardize her purpose.

She learns to blend in. It requires hard work and constant small adjustments to her appearance and manners, but eventually she’s just another face in the crowd. The gala invitations stop. She finds work in a PR firm and makes sure to be physically present at any and all major events her workplace sees to.

This is how she ends up present for the first train robbery in the planet’s history.

To be precise, it’s the first train robbery that ends with the train itself being stolen.

The train is a work of cutting edge science. While ordinary trains run on tracks and stick to planets’ surfaces, this one runs outside of time and space itself, and if there’s no station where it’s going, it’ll make one. At least, that’s what its inventors claim.

Halfway through their presentation, which doubles as a fund raiser for their next project, the three person band stops playing. Up until that moment, everyone (including our dear researcher whose literal job entailed arranging the event) had forgotten there even was a band present.

There’s a scuffle. Weapons are fired, but not particularly well. No one from the band more than stumbles as the projectiles rush toward them. They overtake the project leaders within seconds, activating the failsafe around the train while they’re at it. This seals them, the project leaders and stage staff (including our dear researcher) in with the train until authorities can arrive on the scene.

When questioned as to the reason for their attack, the band’s singer starts up on a long list of workers’ rights violations the train building project has racked up over the years. The accusations start with unpaid overtime and go steeply down hill from there.

The project leaders shift between begging for their lives (unnecessary as the band members seem utterly uninterested in the two of them getting away from their crimes that easily) and claiming that whatever evidence the band has against them never will hold up in court (sadly that’s likely very true).

The band’s singer merely shrugs. He tips his hat to the tallest of his companions, who smiles and climbs aboard the train, saying she doesn’t want to keep the passengers waiting.

This gets the project leaders’ silence for a moment, followed by an exchange of alarmed glances, and finally the question of exactly what passengers the band intends to bring along with them.

The workers, is the answers.

Our dear researcher watches in stunned fascination as the project leaders panic. They yell. They scream. They cling to the singer as he turns to walk away from them. The third band member has to threaten them with their own weapons before they let go.

You’d think they’d be relieved. Even if the train is stolen, they’ll be able to build another, and they have excellent insurance.

Unless the actual engineers and architects are aboard the train.

The researcher says as much, out loud for all to hear. She helps the two band members still on the stage fully disengage from the project leaders. She might be just a tad furious. Tampering with due credit on scientific breakthroughs is in her world on level with kicking puppies and stealing food from the starving.

The authorities crash through the outer doors. The band’s singer jumps up on the ladder to the train’s engine, takes a theatrical bow and thanks the crowd for being a great audience. The project leaders shriek and claw at each other, doing their best to shift blame on the other.

The band’s final member, the one who’d been playing drums and wielding weapons, catches our dear researcher’s eye and nods toward the train in a silent question.

Giving herself sight was clearly her best decision yet.

There’s a young man in a library. He prefers the city’s libraries to any other of its colorful locations because here he can do his research in relative peace.

He doesn’t know his work is in vain. Well, will be in vain for him, personally. Despite nursing a burning passion for this field since a young age, he’s had little luck in gaining access to higher learning until he met his current mentor. He is very grateful for her sponsorship. He feels he owes his entire life’s work to her, though all she’s supplied to the project is her name and connections at the capital’s university.

He doesn’t know he’s not even a registered academic. He’s never bothered to check, too caught up in at last being allowed to work.

As he sits in the library, deep in a tome no one else has read in close to a decade, his mentor is busy bending ears and editing paperwork. She’s built a steady foundation of betrayal since the day she met her current golden goose. She’s wined and dined the entire university staff - not always directly, but someone she owns in their turn owns everyone from the serving staff to the dean - securing her hold on the impending results of her investment.

He spends day after day in the libraries. She spends night after night out in high society.

Finally, after six years of dedicated research, he finds the answers he needs. The formula is complex. It is not wholly new, but it’s now been perfected, pushed to its optimal form. The tests have been done in utmost secrecy, to keep the reveal a pleasant surprise for all. Our dear not!academic had first wished to share his ideas with his peers, reasoning that this would hasten the progress for all of them, but his mentor advised him against this. What a triumph it will be for him, she’d assured him, to show them all what he could achieve on his own. They’d barred him from their halls, why should they share in his glory?

Later, he will curse himself for what he perceives as his greed.

The day of his greatest achievement, he wakes up in his own apartment, which leaves him disorientated. He’s used to being woken up by disgruntled librarians and amused custodians, resting his head on a book rather than a pillow. He panics as he sees he’s late to his presentation.

We shall not dwell on the humiliation that followed this panic. There is only so much mistreatment a human can suffer through in one day, and our dear not!academic reached that limited well before noon on this particular date.

He doesn’t drink. He never has. It clouds the mind, his mother always said. His mother died in obscurity. He will do the same he’s sure. He hadn’t even dreamt of fame, but now that it’s been lost to him, stolen, he regrets not having it. Fame would mean allies. Fame would mean influence. Fame would mean the possibility of justice.

She has all his notes. He has nothing. All his originals are gone.

There’s a band playing in the bar he’s chosen to drink away his sorrows. He’s not very good at the drinking. None of the liquids on offer taste remotely pleasant and his throat hurts after only two mouthfuls of the stronger stuff. He’s lightheaded and nauseous when he gives up on that plan. The music, on the other hand, grabs him. Before long, he’s belting out half-heard lyrics along with the rest of the bar’s spares afternoon clientele. The band keeps their music upbeat and thrilling. The afternoon fades to night, the crowd grows and shrinks, and our dear not!academic ends up on stage with the four humans - or possibly three humans and one humanoid person who on closer inspection seems to have two sets of eyelids per eye. He’s never been much of a singer, but he does know his way around a number of string instruments thanks to an eclectic childhood. He holds his own as the band members challenge each other to trickier and tongue-twisting songs. It warms him to impress someone, somehow.

He doesn’t think much about going home with them all. The glow of pride dies in a splash of ice as he realizes what they’ve assumed he’s looking for. He’s stupidly grateful when his stammered apologies are met with happy laughter and the offer of an empty bed. He’s too tired for their noises to keep him up long, though they enjoy themselves loudly and without shame in a nearby room.

This time, he wakes up on a train. He has vague memories of entering the first car past midnight, of the singer almost kissing him then backing off when his eyes widened and his heart skipped a beat for all the wrong reasons. The memory should have been mortifying, but with the available equally fresh competition it barely registers as anything more than comical.

He joins the band for breakfast. It’s thankfully a meal free of awkwardness. Then they introduce him to their train.

It’s not his chosen field, but that is more help than hindrance. He falls in love with the machine and its impossible engine almost as deeply and as hard as he fell for his first passion.

They don’t ask him to stay. Not outright. They’re happy for his company, but they make clear he has no obligations to them. He’s pathetically grateful for this reassurance, especially when their conversations turn to crime.

It’s exactly the kind of crime his mother warned him away from as a child, back when he had a name that didn’t fit him and lived in a small house instead of an even smaller apartment. The kind of lawbreaking that gets you attention from those in power, those who hold the leashes of all the city’s investigators, judges and jailers.

He volunteers his help immediately.

Doing crime comes oh so naturally when said crime combines justice and revenge. Not on his mentor specifically, but on the city’s selfish, cruel elite. He uses his admittedly limited knowledge of national law and extensive knowledge of data banks to aid in the toppling of a ring of corrupt bank managers. He does his own separate investigation to assure himself that he’s not being used again. The relief when all the accusations ring true is almost as intense as the shame at his own distrust.

His mentor has much to answer for. But he won’t be the one to expose her rotten core. The risk of failure looms, along with the indignity of confessing to having the wool pulled over his eyes for years. So he says nothing.

They leave his world behind the following day. He swears to never ask them to go back.

There’s a spy about to commit the ultimate act of revolution. They’ve been trained for this from birth. They have the hopes and dreams of their whole order resting on their shoulders.

They are not worried because they know their skills will measure up. They also know dealing with this target will cost them their life, must cost their life, and they have no regrets. This, their final act of defiance against oppression, will lead to glory and freedom for everyone who deserves it.

They didn’t count on a band of musicians as would-be rivals for their target’s attention. But they’ll work around that. This is too important to fail. True, this means they risk collateral damage, but that was always in the cards. ‘Council member caught alone’ is an oxymoron. They aim to minimize the deaths of innocent bystanders but know it’s not possible to bring that number down to zero. That would be a naive goal.

The target goes to the same bar over and over. The spy doesn’t catch her attention; she only has eyes for the band’s singer. They find a way around that, because they’re good at their job. The best. It’s unfortunate the singer must die with the target, but at least they can spare the rest of the band and the audience. The target’s death is too important for sentiment to hinder it.

Weeks later, as they hold a knife to the throat of a completely different target, the former spy will be too enraged to reflect on the irony of it all.

Story overview