Blackglass

The departure from Engrassia went exactly as planned.

Near-East Field Intelligence Detachment 7 assembled before sunrise, Leon Aster appeared when he said he would, and the wagon rolled through the eastern gate with no broken axle, missing crate, late soldier, or argument with a quartermaster. Pell held the reins. Sergeant Tern sat beside him, already looking as though he had spent the first hour of the morning finding minor things to disapprove of and correcting them before anyone else noticed.

Fen and Ellis rode beneath the wagon's canvas.

Sandore, Kameutsu, Leon, and Miuki walked.

Their wagon took the rear position in a three-wagon Engrassian supply column headed east, where its pace settled into the slow, stubborn rhythm of loaded wheels and draft animals. By the time the city walls had begun shrinking behind them, the sky was only beginning to lighten.

Miuki preferred this hour.

The world had not yet become noisy enough to demand opinions.

Mist hung low over the road. The hedges were black shapes beside it. Dew silvered the grass, and the eastern horizon had begun to turn from iron gray toward a thin wash of gold.

Kameutsu walked near the rear wagon, alert without appearing tense. His eyes moved constantly—roadside, ditch, tree line, the spaces between the other wagons.

Miuki watched the opposite side.

Sandore walked near the wagon's left rear wheel, one hand occasionally rising to steady the brim of his officer's cap.

Leon strolled on the other side as if military columns were merely unusually organized tavern crowds.

It should have been impossible for anyone to approach them unnoticed.

“Hello, handsome. Ready for our second date?”

Sandore flinched.

Miuki turned.

Pixal was walking beside him.

Not approaching.

Not stepping out from the woods.

Walking beside him.

Close enough that the sleeve of her coat almost brushed his arm.

For perhaps half a second, nobody said anything.

The pink-haired Aetheris smiled brightly into the silence.

Kameutsu stopped walking.

He looked behind them.

Then at the ditch.

Then at Pixal.

Then behind them again.

“How?”

Pixal's smile widened.

Kameutsu stared at her as though she had personally offended a law of nature.

Miuki understood the feeling.

She had been watching the road too.

She had heard no footstep out of rhythm with the column, seen no movement in the brush, no shadow coming up behind them.

Pixal had simply become part of the formation.

Sandore recovered first.

“You enjoy doing that.”

“Very much.”

Kameutsu resumed walking, though his attention remained fixed on Pixal.

“I was watching the rear.”

“I know.”

That answer clearly did not help.

Leon laughed.

Kame looked at him.

Leon lifted both hands. “Don't look at me. She put a knife on me yesterday before I knew she was there.”

Miuki's gaze snapped to him.

Leon realized what he had said.

“Uh... metaphorically.”

Pixal looked delighted.

“No, I didn't.”

Leon sighed.

Sandore glanced between them, then toward Kameutsu and Miuki.

“For what it is worth, Corporal, Lieutenant, she has now done essentially the same thing to me twice.”

Pixal leaned closer to him.

“You make it sound romantic.”

“I did not.”

“Second date.”

“It is not a date.”

“That's exactly what you said on the first one.”

Miuki watched Sandore's expression tighten.

Not anger.

Something more complicated.

He had handled Pixal alone yesterday with the strained composure of a man negotiating with a dangerous civilian he could neither command nor afford to alienate.

This morning, with his soldiers listening, he looked considerably less comfortable.

Pixal noticed.

Obviously.

Her eyes flicked toward Ellis through the open rear of the wagon, then back to Sandore.

That seemed to make things worse.

Miuki found herself curious despite herself.

Pixal was unlike anyone she normally spent time around.

Military people contained themselves. Even the loud ones did so within familiar limits. Rank, etiquette, training, expectation—every interaction came with rails beneath it.

Pixal appeared to regard rails as invitations to jump off bridges.

Sandore cleared his throat.

“You came.”

Pixal clasped her hands behind her back and rocked once on her heels as she walked.

“You have something I want to see.”

Sandore nodded once.

That, at least, was something about Pixal that he understood.

“The evidence.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Fen's head appeared immediately at the back of the wagon.

“Are we doing that now?”

Pixal looked past Sandore.

“Who are you?”

“Specialist Lysa Fen.”

Fen's eyes had already dropped to Pixal's hands, clothes, wings, belt, pockets, and probably any object that might plausibly contain a notebook.

“Medical, signals, technical analysis.”

Pixal considered her.

“That's a lot.”

“Yes.”

“I like you.”

Fen seemed unsure whether she had been complimented.

Ellis appeared beside her.

She gave Pixal a nervous smile.

Pixal smiled back much more enthusiastically.

“And who's this?”

“Private Sara Ellis,” Sandore said.

Ellis straightened automatically.

“Sir.”

Pixal looked from Ellis to Sandore.

Then back.

“Oh, this is going to be fun.”

Sandore closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.

Miuki nearly smiled.

Nearly.

Sandore looked to Fen.

“Bring out the ampoule.”

Fen vanished back into the wagon.

Pixal immediately moved toward the rear.

Sandore stopped her with a raised hand.

“Carefully.”

She gasped in feigned pain.

“Captain. I'm hurt.”

“I've known you less than a day.”

“And already you're worried about little old me?” she said sweetly.

“I am worried about the evidence.”

“Cruel.”

Sandore ignored her and climbed into the wagon.

Miuki followed.

Pixal came last.

Inside, Fen had already cleared a space among packs, crates, rolled blankets, and secured cases. Ellis shifted deeper toward the front, making room.

The wagon rocked beneath them as Pell guided it along the road.

Fen knelt beside a small padded container and began undoing its straps.

Miuki positioned herself where she could see Pixal's hands.

Pixal noticed that too.

Her eyes met Miuki's.

For one moment the smile became smaller.

Not offended.

Assessing.

Miuki gave her nothing.

Pixal's smile returned.

“Butterfly Girl.”

“Lieutenant Miuki.”

“That's less fun.”

Fen lifted the wrapped ampoule from its container.

The playfulness left Pixal almost before the cloth came away.

Not entirely.

But enough.

Fen unfolded layer after layer until the black glass lay across her palm.

Pixal stopped moving.

Miuki saw the change.

It lasted perhaps one heartbeat.

Cold anger.

Something old.

Sharp.

Then Pixal smiled.

It was not her sweet smile.

There was something wicked in it now.

Something pleased by the existence of an enemy.

Miuki had seen that look before on soldiers who finally laid eyes on someone they had been hunting for months.

Pixal held out her hand, the wicked smile already a thing of the past.

“May I?”

Fen looked at Sandore.

He nodded.

Fen passed over the ampoule.

Pixal handled it carefully.

That, more than anything else, caught Miuki's attention.

Nothing else about the girl suggested patience.

She turned the black glass toward the growing morning light filtering through the rear flap. A thin wine-colored edge appeared along one chipped surface.

Her thumb traced the markings around the neck.

Tiny scratches.

Dots.

A narrow double line.

Then a symbol below them.

Her expression went still again.

Fen leaned closer.

“You recognize that?”

Pixal did not answer immediately.

She rotated the ampoule.

Then laughed once.

Very softly.

“Well.”

Sandore watched her.

“What?”

Pixal looked up.

Her smile was bright again.

“I told you it might be important.”

“What is it?”

“A product of Imperial research from Blackglass.”

The inside of the wagon changed.

To Miuki, the temperature dropped by ten degrees.

Fen's curiosity sharpened.

Sandore's expression hardened with recognition.

Miuki felt the cold settle beneath her ribs.

“Blackglass?” Ellis asked.

Pixal glanced toward her.

The sweetness returned.

“You don't know?”

Ellis flushed. “I’ve heard the name.”

Miuki spoke before Pixal could decide how to explain it.

“The Blackglass Institute for Applied Thaumaturgy and Hereditary Studies.”

The words came more quietly than she intended.

Everyone looked at her.

Miuki kept her eyes on the ampoule.

“It was an imperial research camp.”

Research camp.

The phrase was clean.

Administrative.

The empire had loved clean words.

Corrective contribution.

Labor reassignment.

Population resettlement.

Miuki had been a child the first time men with seals and ledgers taught her how much suffering could fit inside polite language.

Veyra Hollow had officially been an “Institutional Labor Facility” built around a quarry and ore-processing complex. Those who were made to work there called it The Pit.

Miuki remembered waking before dawn because the barracks guard was shouting and a beating was imminent if she did not.

She remembered learning to swallow thin porridge slowly enough that her stomach might believe there had been more of it.

She remembered work crews returning after dark with stone dust ground into their skin and blood dried through their sleeves.

She remembered guards making everyone watch punishments because terror was more effective when it had an audience.

She remembered the strange etiquette of disappearance.

Someone failed to come back from a work detail.

Someone's bunk was empty.

Nobody asked.

Not because nobody cared.

Because even children learned quickly what questions cost.

Her father had asked a question.

Why was a guard beating an old Stonekin who had collapsed?

He had stepped between them.

Miuki didn’t see the blow that killed him. Her mother had prevented that.

She remembered the pain and horror in her mother's eyes afterward.

That image had never left.

Miuki blinked once.

The wagon returned around her.

Canvas.

Crates.

Fen's notebook.

Ellis's young face.

“Blackglass was probably the deadliest facility of its kind,” Miuki said, collecting herself.

She heard how flat her own voice had become.

Good.

Flat did not tremble.

Ellis's expression still changed.

Fen still stopped writing in her notebook.

Miuki continued.

“It operated for over a decade. Exact numbers are impossible. The empire destroyed records. The Remnant destroyed more when the facility fell.”

She swallowed.

“However it is widely believed that tens of thousands of demi-humans died there,” she said. “Possibly more.”

The number felt unreal even as she spoke it.

That was the part that frightened her.

Veyra Hollow had held thousands. She knew hundreds of people who died there, including her parents. Yet, over three thousand prisoners had still been there to be freed when Legate Marr diverted his troops and broke open the camp.

Blackglass had consumed numbers beyond Miuki's ability to picture.

Tens of thousands, perhaps more.

And those were not quarry deaths.

Not exhaustion.

Not fever.

Not even guards killing a prisoner because cruelty had become routine.

Blackglass had existed to consume people.

Deliberately.

Methodically.

To cause them suffering and death, just for a chance to learn something from it.

There had been many nights at Veyra Hollow when she had believed no place in the world could be worse.

She now knew that she had been wrong.

Blackglass was worse.

Not metaphorically.

Not worse in the language of grief.

Objectively worse.

Miuki had survived a place that killed her father, killed her mother, worked prisoners until they collapsed, starved children, and then used those same children as shields when Engrassian soldiers finally came through the fences.

And somewhere else, during those same years, there were those at Blackglass who would have rightly prayed to be sent somewhere like Veyra Hollow instead.

Her hands had gone cold.

She tucked them together in her lap before anyone could notice.

“When Engrassian forces finally captured the facility, only a few hundred prisoners were recovered alive.”

Her voice nearly caught, but she forced it level.

“Many of them died soon afterward. Too sick or too badly injured to be saved.”

An empty silence filled the wagon.

Legate Arven Marr had understood the horrors of the camps and the trials of survivors better than anyone Miuki knew who had not been similarly imprisoned. Because of that understanding, he had diverted his soldiers to Veyra Hollow against orders, saving Miuki and thousands of others. Then, later, when he recommended her for the War College, he had done Miuki another favor.

To this day, her personnel file did not say “Camp survivor.”

It merely said “Refugee. Displaced by the Empire.”

That was all.

Marr had understood what pity could do.

He had known instructors might soften their voices and lower their standards.

Commanders might wonder whether an order involving confinement, prisoners, or the Remnant would be too much for her.

Every minor success would be seen as an inspirational victory.

Every minor failure would be assumed to be shattering to someone who must be fragile.

Miuki had wanted none of it.

She just wanted to be judged as a cadet.

Then later as an officer.

Marr had made that possible.

Sandore had probably read her file five times by now.

He knew she had been a refugee.

Nothing more.

Miuki was grateful for that.

Especially now.

She could feel his attention on her.

Not intrusive.

Concerned.

He had noticed the change in her voice.

Sandore noticed more than people gave him credit for. It had only taken a day for her to realize that.

But he interpreted his observation through the information available to him.

Miuki saw the conclusion form in his expression: a demi-human officer mourning what had been done to other demi-humans, maybe even some who had been especially close to her.

He sensed her sadness, anger, and grief, but his guess was close enough to the truth that he did not look deeper for another explanation.

Miuki let him believe it.

Finally, Sandore broke the silence.

“And this is definitely theirs?”

Pixal looked back down at the ampoule, her prior attitude and teasing smile returning immediately.

“Oh, yes.”

Fen leaned forward immediately.

“How can you be sure?”

Pixal's attention flicked to her.

“The glass composition. The facility mark on the neck. Department and program notation.”

Fen was already digging for a notebook.

“What does the notation indicate?”

Pixal smiled.

Fen stopped.

“That answer costs money, doesn't it?”

“See? I definitely like you.”

Sandore folded his arms.

“You said yesterday that you could tell us more if you saw the evidence.”

“I can.”

“What is your price?”

Pixal brightened.

“Triple what you paid Leon,” she said excessively loudly, ensuring that she could be heard.

Outside the wagon, Leon nearly choked.

“What?”

Pixal raised her voice.

“Triple!”

Leon moved alongside the rear opening.

“You told her what I got paid?”

“No,” Sandore said.

Pixal leaned toward the opening.

“You're not worth keeping secrets about, Leon.”

Sandore pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Pixal.”

She turned back to him immediately.

“Yes, Captain Handsome?”

Ellis made a small sound that might have been a cough.

Miuki, shaken out of her melancholy by the ridiculous exchange that Pixal was now leading, looked at her.

Ellis looked at the floor.

Pixal noticed, smiling even wider.

Sandore noticed too. That appeared to be the precise moment his discomfort deepened.

“Triple is excessive,” he said.

Pixal placed one hand against her chest.

“I am an expert.”

“You have not yet established that.”

“I identified the facility in less time than your specialists, who spent all night not identifying it.”

Fen looked up.

“I identified the notation as imperial research code.”

Pixal patted her head.

“And you did a very good job.”

Fen seemed oddly mollified.

Sandore did not.

“Twice Leon's rate.”

“Two and three quarters.”

“Double.”

“Two and a half.”

“Double.”

Pixal narrowed her eyes.

Sandore waited.

Miuki recognized his approach.

He was negotiating exactly as he issued orders when he had decided the matter was no longer open for debate.

Pixal, by contrast, seemed to enjoy the existence of debate more than its outcome.

“Two and a quarter.”

“Double.”

Pixal sighed dramatically.

“You have no poetry in you.”

“Double.”

She considered him.

Then smiled.

“Fine.”

Sandore reached for the operational purse.

Outside, Leon called in.

“I heard all of that.”

Pixal raised her voice again.

“You were supposed to.”

Leon swore.

Ellis looked scandalized.

Pixal looked delighted.

Sandore counted out the agreed amount and passed it over.

Pixal tucked the money away with astonishing speed.

Then she looked at him.

“You know, you could have gotten a better deal.”

Sandore's eyes narrowed.

“How?”

“A nice dinner.”

He stared at her.

“Somewhere expensive.”

“No.”

“Wine.”

“No.”

“Candles.”

“No.”

She smiled sweetly.

“Too late now.”

Ellis coughed again.

This time Miuki was certain it was not a cough.

Sandore looked toward her.

Ellis immediately became fascinated by a crate buckle.

Miuki kept her expression neutral, but it required effort.

Pixal turned the ampoule between her fingers.

“Now.”

Fen's pencil hovered over a page.

Pixal tapped one marking.

“This identifies the facility. Blackglass.”

Another.

“This is program notation. I’ll get to that in a minute.”

Another.

“And this…”

Her fingertip rested beside the letters.

“H.R.”

Sandore leaned closer.

“Meaning?”

“Halvern Rusk. Doctor Halvern Rusk.”

The name meant nothing to Miuki.

Judging by Sandore's expression, it meant nothing to him either.

Fen wrote it down immediately.

“He ran Blackglass’s research department for behavioral triggers and compliance conditioning. Blackglass always used the lead doctor’s initials to identify the department.”

Fen's pencil moved faster.

“What kind of conditioning?”

Pixal looked at the ampoule.

“The ambitious kind.”

Sandore waited.

Pixal sighed.

“The program referenced here,” she said tapping the program notation mark, “was intended to produce sleeper agents.”

Ellis frowned.

“Agents?”

“Brainwashed people,” Pixal said cheerfully.

Miuki's stomach tightened again.

Pixal continued as if describing a particularly interesting recipe.

“Demi-humans conditioned to behave normally until activated. Live somewhere. Work somewhere. Be trusted. Then receive the right trigger and suddenly become very useful to the Empire.”

Fen had stopped writing.

Miuki could feel her own control narrowing.

People as tools.

People altered until obedience could be hidden inside them.

A cleaner version of shackles.

More sophisticated.

No less obscene.

She made herself breathe.

Sandore's face remained controlled.

“What kind of trigger?”

Pixal shrugged.

“I don't know.”

“Verbal?”

“Maybe.”

“Alchemical?”

“Possibly.”

“Magical?”

“Could be.”

“You said you knew the program.”

“I said I knew about the program.”

Fen leaned forward.

“Was the compound used during conditioning or activation?”

Pixal turned toward her.

Now she looked genuinely pleased.

“That is a much better question.”

Fen's eyes lit up.

“And?”

“I don't know.”

Fen's expression fell.

Pixal laughed.

“I know what they were trying to do. I don't know the scientific process or whether they ever succeeded in deploying an agent.”

Sandore pointed toward the ampoule.

“But this vial belongs to that program.”

“Yes.”

“And H.R. is Rusk.”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

Pixal looked at him.

The sweetness came back immediately.

“I read.”

Sandore did not blink.

“Where?”

“Files.”

“What files?”

“Interesting ones.”

“Pixal.”

“Sandore.”

He stared at her.

She smiled.

Miuki watched the exchange carefully.

Yesterday, alone in the tavern, Sandore had apparently been able to negotiate with Pixal without losing his footing.

Here, in front of Fen, Ellis, and Miuki, the girl's refusal to treat anything with solemnity clearly bothered him more.

Perhaps because she was undermining him.

Perhaps because she was performing for his subordinates.

Perhaps because Ellis was doing a poor job of hiding how entertaining she found the entire thing.

Sandore tried again.

“You have unusually specific knowledge of a classified imperial research program.”

Pixal nodded.

“Yes.”

“I would like to know the source.”

“I imagine you would.”

“Will you tell me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Pixal leaned back against a crate.

“Because you already paid me.”

Sandore's mouth flattened.

“If I knew more,” she continued, “which I'm not saying I do, that would be a separate product.”

Fen looked offended on behalf of scholarship.

“You cannot charge separately for contextual information.”

Pixal turned to her.

“Oh, I absolutely can.”

“That is terrible methodology.”

“That is excellent business.”

Fen considered this.

Then, reluctantly:

“Fair.”

Sandore looked betrayed.

Miuki looked away before he could see the amusement in her eyes.

Pixal placed the ampoule carefully back into Fen's waiting hands.

Fen immediately wrapped it again.

Sandore watched until the evidence disappeared beneath cloth.

Then he looked at Pixal.

“Fine. You have fulfilled the agreement.”

“I have.”

“You may leave whenever you wish.”

“I may.”

A pause.

Pixal smiled.

Sandore frowned.

“You're staying.”

“For now.”

“Why?”

“What can I say, Captain?”

She leaned forward.

“You've got me interested.”

Then her eyes flicked toward his cap.

“Plus, I want to watch you give orders in your cute hat.”

Ellis failed completely this time.

A laugh escaped her.

Small.

Brief.

Horrified at its own existence.

The wagon went silent.

Ellis looked as though she had just accidentally discharged a crossbow indoors.

“Sorry, sir.”

Pixal turned toward her with delight.

“Oh, no. Don't apologize. That was adorable.”

Ellis's face went red.

Sandore's expression suggested that Pixal had just discovered a new strategic vulnerability.

Miuki understood the problem immediately.

Pixal alone was dangerous.

Pixal around Sandore was challenging.

Pixal around Sandore's young soldiers was something else entirely.

Pixal clapped her hands once.

“Well.”

She stood and looked around the wagon.

“I think the captain should leave.”

Sandore blinked.

“This is my wagon.”

“Girls' club,” Pixal said, one hand on her hip and the other pointing down to the floor of the wagon.

Fen looked up from her notes.

“What?”

“Girls' club.”

Pixal pointed around the wagon.

“Me. Butterfly Girl. Notebook Girl. Shy Girl.”

Ellis looked around as though checking whether there might be another shy girl behind her.

Pixal continued.

“We have important business.”

Sandore folded his arms.

“What business?”

“Gossip.”

“No.”

“Makeup.”

“No.”

“Truth or dare.”

“Absolutely not.”

Pixal looked wounded.

“You hate morale.”

Fen raised one finger.

“Can the gossip be about imperial research programs?”

Pixal considered.

“Yes.”

“Then I support girls' club.”

Sandore stared at her.

Fen looked at the captain, pleadingly.

“She knows things, Captain. It’s for the good of the mission.”

Pixal beamed.

“I really like her.”

Ellis looked between all of them, clearly unsure whether participation in the girls' club was now an order, a civilian request, or some sort of test.

Sandore sighed, deeply, then turned to Pixal.

“Understand that remaining with this column does not place you under my command, but if your actions endanger the detachment or other traveling with us, I will intervene.”

Pixal smiled.

“There he is, the commanding soldier.”

Sandore ignored that.

“You may remain for now.”

“For now?”

“For now.”

Sandore climbed toward the rear opening.

Miuki remained silent.

Her eyes stayed on Sandore.

He was the captain.

But, Pixal was dangerous.

Not immediately hostile, in Miuki's judgment.

But dangerous nonetheless.

At the edge of the wagon, Sandore stopped.

He looked back at Miuki.

His eyes moved briefly to Pixal.

Then back.

Miuki understood.

Watch her.

Miuki gave the smallest nod.

Understood.

He stepped down onto the road.

Pixal immediately slid into the space he had vacated.

Then she looked at Ellis.

“So.”

Ellis stiffened.

Pixal smiled brightly.

“Truth or dare?”

Outside, the captain’s voice came through the canvas.

“No.”

Pixal laughed.

Miuki allowed herself one slow breath.

The road east stretched ahead beneath the rising sun.

Somewhere beyond it waited Dunmere, the attacks, and perhaps the surviving work of a place whose mere name had managed to stir old grief beneath Miuki's ribs.

Inside the wagon, Pixal was already asking Ellis whether she had ever kissed anyone in uniform.

Miuki leaned back against one of the crates and took a moment to study her new Aetheris companion.

Pretty pink hair.

Angelic wings.

Maybe 17-18 years old.

Far too young to be an expert on Imperial research camps.

After graduation, Miuki had used her personal time to help other refugees and camp survivors find their way to whatever freedom had meant to them, and she had seen many of the strange mannerisms and habits that the camps could cause people to acquire.

In that time, she had met precious few survivors of the research camps, and no one, not a single refugee, who professed to have been among the few freed from Blackglass.

An uneasy thought began to form in her mind, but as quick as it came, she shut it down.

Miuki knew better than most how intrusive it was when someone started poking at parts of your past that you’d chosen not to share. She would make no assumptions about the history and motivations of her new companion. Instead, she would give Pixal the same gift that Marr had given her, the gift of being evaluated only by her future deeds and actions.