Jebidiah's Change Bk. 01 Ch. 03

Every desk was filled, possibly a hundred Calculators in this one room alone. The noise from all the beads clacking away was nearly deafening. Our guide, the Master Calculator, loudly explained that the Crown, Houses, and Guilds would bring them problems to be solved. He pointed to one of the side room doors and explained how the Head Calculators within would divide up the problems into smaller chunks and then divide them again. These smaller tasks would be ranked by complexity and priority, marked with a tracking number, then sent out to the floor for computation. Any advanced calculations were shunted off to one of several groups of side rooms that had Heavy Calculators specializing in different forms of math. Once done, all the results would be collated and sent to an assembly team that would provide a final answer.

Even at his young age, he grasped what the Calculators could accomplish. Any single Artificer could eventually work their way through any given problem provided enough time and references, but with this system, the calculations would be spread out and all happen at the same time. The more complex the problem, the more efficient the system became. It fascinated him. Later that night, when he had time to ponder it more, he had several revelations. The Calculators were the closest analogy he had encountered for how his own thinking worked. His brain dissected problems, sent them off into what he called thoughts that, when those thoughts completed, came back waiting to be assembled into a whole. He could never tell what each individual thought was for, only the results when enough had returned. That trip had provided him the framework he used for tackling any problem in life.

Another revelation was that he could never be a Calculator unless he could manage to be a Head or Master. He thought about the Calculators sitting at their small desks that pretended to be isolated with everyone bustling around them. Directionless drones doing nothing all day but meaningless computations on the abacus in front of them without having any idea what the overall problems were they were solving. The idea made his soul shiver.

He started his list with the major items he wanted further information on, such as the Night of Ascension, Darido, Comlain, the rest of the Known and Axteus, the Children of Thelsomar, history of House Valor and Tonstar. He paused in further thought for a minute and added a general note for information on the rest of the Great Houses.

A few hours later, he had a concise accounting of the tenday of his Change and Tally minus his indiscretions with his pod mates. Choosing to omit those memories made him focus on them, and he felt himself hardening, which was distracting. As he encountered more and more memories he needed to omit, he realized just how numerous they were. For not being allowed to have sex, there was a lot of fooling around happening. He wondered if that was unusual in itself and if maybe it warranted adding the memories.

He did not like hiding through omission. While not exactly lying, it sure lacked honesty which he prized. He wasn't telling the whole truth, which is what was demanded of him. If it was just his actions, he would freely admit to the dalliances and accept whatever punishment there would be. The impact on the others is what stopped him, not enough known information to make an informed decision. The moral priority was to solve what was going on with his life, but this would affect the others' lives as well. It would be an interesting moral question he would have fun debating with the girls if it wasn't so important.

He glanced at a nearby water clock and was surprised at how much time had passed. It was already toward the end of the midday meal. He came to a stopping point then headed out for the mess. When he entered, he saw none of his podmates. Not knowing their schedule, he decided against waiting around in case someone popped in. He grabbed something quick to eat from the commissary, wolfed it down, then left intending to get back to his work in the cubicle. A few paces after leaving the mess hall, a page flagged him down.

"Are you Jebidiah Overton?" the boy asked, and Jeb simply nodded his head in reply.

The page smiled and said, "I'm glad I found you so easily. Her Highness, Princess Stephanie, requests your presence. If you follow me, I will lead you to her." Jeb nodded again and gestured to lead the way. "Are any others with the Princess?" Jeb asked as they began walking.

Instead of answering, the page just kept walking, leading Jebidiah further into the warren of hallways. They descended several flights of stairs on the way, and after some time, Jebidiah gauged he was deeper in the Lower Keep than he had ever been before.

Jebidiah tried several times to engage the page in conversation, but no attempts would elicit a response. His unease of the situation began on the second level down when he was sure they had passed the same set of rooms twice. At first, he ignored it, maybe the page got a little lost and had to backtrack to get his bearings again. The further down they went, the less they encountered other personnel until often they walked the halls alone. Jebidiah had begun to track the path they were traveling just in case.

He looked over the page more closely to evaluate how much trouble he would be to overpower if it came to violence. He couldn't spot a weapon or wand on the page but did notice there was a gray hue about the boy when he concentrated his focus, much like the muted hues he had noticed on the floors and lights. Finally, Jebidiah had enough and stopped walking, asking the page to stop as well.

The boy continued to walk and turned into the next corridor on the right. Exasperated, Jeb hurried to catch up, rounded the corner, and stood in confusion. The boy was gone.

The unease that had been building turned into alarm, and Jebidiah swore under his breath. He turned to begin retracing his steps when there was a muted flash of green that momentarily covered everything around him. When the green haze vanished, so did all the light globes in his vicinity. Blinded by the sudden darkness, he froze to allow his vision to adjust. Some distance away, light globes were still lit. He could make out the edge of their glow but because of the turns of the corridor could not see them directly.

Somewhere to his right, he heard the unmistakable sound of a sword being drawn. He looked in that direction and in the darkness could see a green-hued sword blade being carried by a dark gray silhouette with glowing teal orbs for eyes. Jebidiah did not stop to make sense of what he was seeing; he ran.