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Chapter 3 - Close at Hand

  The Blue Scene Manual - On Trespassers

  The Manual is heartily against the categorization of magicians as “trespasser-mages”. Still, at the time of writing, it is a political reality that access to Anomalies and structures in general is a private affair.

  The Manual does not technically condone trespassing. But it is an undeniable fact that the methods within may encourage one to trespass, or, perhaps, to ‘hang around’ with other trespassers.

  One should always be cautious of those who are trespassers before magicians. Honor among thieves is a distant fantasy. In rare cases, a mage with a suitable Sympathy might even serve as nutritional supplement; replacing another magician’s first or second Anomaly.

  Out of respect for laws on provoking manslaughter—and common decency—I will not be including methods for absorbing other magicians within the Manual.

  Luckily, Milo could not have mirrored his door horizontally. He hadn’t wasted the upgrade.

  Unluckily, he couldn’t even summon it backwards. Revolving relied on a parallel “wall” to manifest. Therefore, Milo found as he experimented in his yard at home, he could not manifest it backwards, or even upside-down. It seemed a wall was more than a vertical face; by the definitions of Sympathy, a wall also included a floor orientation and a ceiling orientation.

  It definitely works outdoors, and there’s no ceiling here. But I think if I were floating in outer space with only a wall in front of me, I couldn’t manifest Revolving. There would be no perspective of down and up, after all. With a wall and a floor… I guess I could put it anywhere flush with the wall or away from it?

  Trying to think about why his first arena was considered all walls gave him a headache so pounding he needed to lie in the dirt for awhile.

  Maybe I’m a wall, he thought. I have an up, a down, and a face.

  When he shook off his fugue, it was because Sandra was calling him. Her shift must have ended at 6.

  He picked up the phone.

  “Hi,” said Sandra. “Is this… I didn’t get your name, oops. Bellhop?”

  “No, this is Milo,” said Milo. “Is it Bellhop because I’m a door-person?”

  “Bingo,” she said. “I just got off work. Would you like some apology burgers? I know how to season them.”

  I stink, Milo thought. I walked all the way home in the burning 98 degrees Fahrenheit sun.

  “Sure, if you’re good to pick me up. I can be ready in forty, I’ve gotta dust the house and, uh. Do some dishes.”

  “Okay! What’s the address?”

  Milo told her. They shared an awkward goodbye and then he was running for the shower. When he stepped into the bathroom, something felt wrong.

  It’s just a hunch. Just a hunch like when I discovered the break room was too large inside.

  There’s someone in my house.

  Milo crept into view of the shower curtain, shoes squeaking on tile. There was a vague brown blur behind the translucent curtains which he thought might have been his shampoo and conditioner. But I’m not sure.

  Feigning relaxation, Milo lifted the toilet-cover and dropped into a squat against the seat. He fiddled with his belt as noisily as possible.

  Nothing stirred.

  “Come on,” Milo whispered to the shower. “You don’t want me to mime out this whole thing. Show yourself.”

  The curtain…

  Yanked aside.

  I’ll get there ten minutes early, thought Sandra. That’ll show him I’m competent after my embarrassing coffee fumble. Maybe he’ll even loan me a Manual right off the bat.

  Her car rolled into the empty driveway. Milo’s hometown was halfway out of the South Bay proper. As with all liminal spaces in California, it had been papered-over by suburbia. The house itself was identical to three others in the neighborhood… pristine driveway notwithstanding. When Sandra parked and stepped out, weeds crunched beneath her feet.

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  Little quiet. Didn’t he say he was washing dishes? Where’s the clatter?

  She walked up to the front and rang the doorbell.

  The man behind the curtain must’ve been from the Burglars’ Society. He was disheveled in burlap, held a hiking pack stuffed with shampoo, and wore a wide, manic grin.

  Before Milo could do much, the man lunged, swinging his backpack by its strap like a flail.

  Revolving materialized parallel to the wall behind the shower, floating between the two of them. The backpack bounced off and Milo suppressed the mild buzz of pain that always occurred when his Sympathy was damaged. The door opened inward, catching the stranger by his cheek and sending him stumbling back into the shower.

  Milo lunged from his crouch and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. Steam and spray poured into the enclosed space. The other trespasser yelled in shock and jerked his hand back; he had gone for a grab already.

  “Get out of my house!” Milo shrieked.

  “Never! It is the right of magicians to loot their own domain!”

  “Are you crazy?! I’m a magi- it’s my domain!”

  “Oh,” said the man, going very still. “You’ve absorbed an Anomaly. then?”

  “Yes!” Milo barked.

  A slow, predatory grin spread over the man’s face.

  “Finally. I’ve been looking for one ever since my practice reached the Earthly Milestone. I was just here to top-up my shampoo for the road, but… In a Sympathy clash, corpses don’t leave the arena, I’m told.”

  A chill shot down Milo’s spine. The man sized him up like a pheasant on a dinner-plate. Milo noticed then that the intruder had a whole head over him and twice the breadth.

  “My name is Rye,” said the man.

  “I’m Milo. And I’ll remember that to the police later.”

  “Not necessary. You won’t remember it later at all.”

  Rye smiled. Hot water poured onto both of them. Milo’s door materialized as the distance between them… ate itself.

  Despite the life-or-death struggle that was about to ensue, Milo’s first thought was: Come on! This guy’s Sympathy can perform spatial manipulation from the outset?! How am I so unlucky?

  Rye’s Sympathy took an abstract form, and the Arena itself befit that. Much like the warehouse before, it was full of ‘walls’... but there were no shelves here, and each surface leered inward until the room became a cramped cubicle. The only exception was the ceiling, which extended far above and away into a cavernous blackness, like the two of them were stuffed at the bottom of an oubliette.

  Milo understood this in the time of two glances. Then Rye was upon him, flinging a claw hammer he pulled from the backpack.

  Revolving materialized, opening out into the hammer to deflect it. The door shuddered and flung back the other way, setting Milo’s teeth on edge as he dematerialized it.

  Though Milo couldn’t know it, both of them thought at once: What is going on with that guy’s Sympathy?

  Rye had only seen the door from behind; a wooden panel with a hinge that opened into whatever he attacked Milo with. Meanwhile, Milo still wasn’t sure if Rye’s Sympathy even had a physical form.

  The difference was that Rye was already ducking toward Milo, catching the hammer out of the air and tossing it up, while Milo stood in an unprepared daze.

  Rye kept himself low to the ground, darting forward as if to tackle, backpack clutched in one sweeping hand beside him. Revolving appeared in his way again, bashing him in the nose.

  Even as blood trickled from his sinuses, Rye managed a grin.

  The hammer he’d lobbed over the door was about to land behind Milo. In this tiny space, four entities were lined up in an efficient row. In order: Mr. Hammer, Milo, Milo’s mysterious Sympathy, and Rye’s own Sympathy, Close at Hand.

  The empty space between Close at Hand and the hammer collapsed. Milo slammed head-first into his own door, and the hammer smashed into Milo’s back as if it had curved in midair.

  It fucking hurts! Milo wailed inside his mind as the claw hammer dug into his torso from an odd angle. Revolving cushioned his front; the shock to the wood dispersed evenly across Milo’s skull.

  Milo swung through the door and sent Rye tumbling again.

  There’s no point in creating space. Rye’ll just take it away. He eyed Rye’s broad build. And I don’t fancy my chances in a grapple, either.

  No range advantage, I’ll lose in brute force… The only thing I can do is trick him. Knock him out all at once, before he can resist!

  And he’s taller than me.

  Rye reached deep into his pack, pulled a knife free from Close at Hand.

  Milo’s Sympathy reformed, barring his way. Rye tossed the knife overhead and held the bag in front of his chest. It’ll work! I’ll complete my spatial Sympathy with a suitable anchoring Anomaly! Go, Close at Hand!

  Milo banished Revolving. The knife dropped past his head. The instant of peace shattered.

  Revolving reappeared parallel to the ground, hovering off the ground between Milo’s forehead and Rye’s neck. Rye tried to fling his pack aside to a less dangerous position.

  Close at Hand went off, gnawing at the space between everything.

  A knife slammed into Milo’s shoulder and stuck fast. Blood sprayed over the cramped concrete pit. He shrieked.

  Rye clotheslined himself on Revolving, which was brought up to his neck by the vanishing distance. His windpipe wheezed and his lungs began to panic. Rye backed up like a startled rodent. A brass knob caught the small of his back and jolted him into Milo’s wild right-hook. Crunch.

  Milo kept swinging hook after hook into Rye. That’s it! If you rattle your enemy’s head enough, they can’t block predictable strikes!

  Heavy breaths filled the chamber. Sweat and steam gathered around Milo and set his bloodstained skin tingling. I’m bleeding, he thought distantly. He stumbled up to the shower-handle and turned it off. The air was too thick. Humid.

  He collapsed onto a slippery knee. The doorbell rang.

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