Northern Star

Thanks, everyone, for the reviews.
Skyler: How do you crank out massive chapters on such a regular basis? My beta was done with this chapter in about two minutes.
Psyence: The citric acid component is called the Krebs cycle, it's part of respiration.
Dave: I do my best, in fiction and in the real world.

Gonna start updating my profile to keep track of my fics, a la Skyler.

In the opening of this chapter, I was trying to spiritually recreate that scene in The Fifth Element when you're introduced to Bruce Willis' character. I love that scene - it's a nod to the fact that no matter how mundane or fantastic the surroundings, people are always the same.

Now, prepare yourself. This chapter begins a story arc that will blow your shit off.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a shrieking wail, Marcus Ranek's alarm clock spoke up. From beneath the quilt came a large hand that grasped the pack of cigarettes and lighter from the nightstand, and then slammed the clock as an afterthought. The hand dragged the smokes underneath the blanket and vanished. A moment later, the hand reemerged, tapping the power button on the stereo system. The sounds of big band brass, drums, and woodwind filled the small bedroom at the same time the first ray of dawn found its way through the damaged blinds. Dawn revealed a cluttered, small room, featuring a personal computer on a desk, television, stereo, and bed. These items took up most of the small room's space, with the rest devoted to dirty clothes and various books, writing implements, notebooks, and other student detritus. As the song ended and another began, a young man with swarthy skin, a strong jaw, a shadow of a beard and long, messy black hair sat up, the cigarette in his mouth already lit. With a grumble, the twenty year old slid out of the bed and shuffled to the apartment's bathroom.

Shaving took enough time to let him finish the smoke, and from there he continued with the sequence: shower, toothbrush, face wash, and deodorant. His own feet carried the oblivious Ranek back to the bedroom to clothe himself with the heavy work pants and padded shirt of the working caste, then to the apartment's third and final room to retrieve coffee from the machine that had begun brewing when it heard the shower running, then it was out the door and down the stairs which opened right onto the Grand Walkway.

Ranek's dual occupations were College Student and Imperial Palace Level One Staff, and he would be exercising the second occupation today. After a half-mile walk to the quickline station, he took his seat on the mag-rail and set off toward his workplace at nearly one thousand miles per hour. After a forty-five second trip, he had arrived at the dispersal hub inside the Imperial Palace. It was a shame, he sometimes thought, that the mag-rail had to go directly into the massive building. It was a hell of a sight from the outside, seventy stories tall and over 150 acres across the base, every bit covered with synthetic diamond that made it glimmer like fire in the sun.

He stepped out of the uncrowded vehicle right onto another one, which brought him to the area he worked in, and then immediately onto a high-speed elevator which brought him to the third floor. He grimaced slightly at the identification tag clipped to his chest. Ranek, Marcus. Staff, Level One. Caste: Toiler. Janitorial Services, Hall of Justice, East Wing, Third Floor.

Shoveler, Shit.

He wondered sometimes why the tag was necessary. Most of the workers in the building were psychics; they knew not only who he was but what he was thinking as well. The East Wing was part of the hall of Praetor Justis Gaius Culexus, the Lord of Law. Activities that resulted in court cases were rare, and so all court cases in the world were heard at the Palace. Many psychics worked there as seers, delving into people's minds to recover memories and see through lies. He passed one on the way to the janitorial briefing room, a slender old man with lank white hair wearing the dark red robes all the psychics wore.

"Good day, Marcus Ranek," he said quietly. "The future is now."

"Good morning, and I disagree," said Marcus offhandedly, "the future, by definition, hasn't happened yet."

"I mean your personal future," the old man said, fixing Marcus with an odd stare. "The break to the monotony is nigh. Your development is complete, but as the nest collapses around you, will you fly? Or will you fall? Never has a path been so unclear to me." Suddenly, the odd look on his face was replaced with a wide, bright smile, and his voice grew loud and cheery. "Have a good time of it, though! Feed your love, and fight your hate! Have a good day!" With that, the old man walked with surprising speed and purpose down the corridor and out of sight.

Marcus shook his head. The old man had been one of the more coherent ones. Many of them were so weighed upon with visions that they had trouble managing normal tasks. Sometimes, they would become confused and wander off, and all Palace staff had undergone training on how to deal with a disoriented psychic. The few that could manifest their powers in reality could be extremely dangerous unsupervised. As he collected his polish kit from the janitor's headquarters, dully greeting his coworkers, he thought back on his previous encounters.

They all had advice. And they were always right. Marcus had once been preparing to leave for home when a panicked little boy in red robes accosted him at the mag-rail station, begging him to stop everyone from getting on the train. Marcus relayed the message slightly before the Custodes arrived, having been sent by the Emperor personally to prevent the train from leaving. As it happened, there was a faulty capacitor in a nearby segment of track which could have easily dropped the train right off its tracks and killed everyone inside. These foresights were applied all across the Imperium, and saved countless lives.

Each run-in with a psychic turned up some new bit of wisdom: "Pop quiz on derivatives tomorrow," "She's cheating on you," "Don't order takeout tonight," "Carry a handkerchief the day after tomorrow."

It really makes this shit worthwhile, thought Marcus, as he knelt down to clean and shine the six-inch space between a statue of the thirty-first Praetor Justis and the wall.

Of course, there was the fact that working hard was all the Emperor asked of his people. The amount of currency one had available was a factor of how much work you did, the criticality of your work, your societal rank, and how many hours you did it for. The economy was an incomprehensibly vast system, with a Praetor dedicated to its management. Any citizen that wished could become privy to its workings, with years of dedication and study. The average person simply reacted to it just as they did to all other things: they trusted that if they did their part, the Emperor would do his, and all would be well. And so it was, and so it had been, since the dawn of time.

While the average man enjoyed a brief span of about 160 years, the Emperor was immortal, eternal, and immutable. Verbal traditions insisted that he had been around forever, and Marcus had no reason to doubt them, having seen the Emperor twice with his own eyes. Some said he was a god, others that he was the chosen of the gods, others that he was merely a great man. No one was certain what the extent of his powers were beyond immortality and the mysterious ability to just make the Gaian Imperium work.

Strangely enough, the Imperium had very few laws, and few behaviors were illegal. No man could kill another except in a sanctioned duel. Formal education was mandatory and lasted from ages three to twenty-five. Each person was limited to two children, though the two children could be begotten or borne by different partners. Marriage was not mandatory, or even necessarily encouraged. The Custodes, the Emperor's police, required permission from both the Praetor Justis or one of his deputies and a council of psychics before they could enter a home without permission. The rights of each citizen were spelled out in the Writ of Rights of the Codex Imperialis, the book of all codified law. The text of the Writ was stamped into a gold plate and affixed to the outside of every government building. Most citizens could recite the entire text. The orders of the Writ were to be infringed upon by no man, not even the Emperor himself.

Sometimes it felt strange that the system worked at all. They were all told that though human rights made a government free and good, it was ultimately the will of the Almighty Emperor that held it all together. Was he really free in a world that demanded absolute, unswerving obedience to someone he didn't even know? He paused in his musings to look at the floor beneath him. He must have been polishing the same spot for several minutes now, because he could clearly see his reflection, and that of someone else looking over his shoulder.

He jumped up, startled, and whipped around to find a psychic standing behind him. Emperor's teeth, they moved like cats. He put her at five feet seven, with very fair skin, smooth black hair, and icy blue eyes. Age was usually hard to measure with psychics because they all dressed alike, but a barely noticeable pimple at the very edge of her hairline betrayed her youth, while the noticeable curves in her garment made it clear she was nearly a grown woman. She had a closed but friendly smile. In another situation, he would find her friendliness endearing, but Marcus saw a white armband and began fighting panic. White armbands were worn by the Primaris - the most powerful psychics - and she was almost certainly too young to fully control her powers. He glanced around quickly, and his stomach began filling with dread when he saw that the corridor was empty. She was lost, and he would have to take her back to the main hall, several hallways over.

They picked up on fear and hostility far more acutely than a normal human, and they were easily frightened. He recalled Step One of the training course. He took a deep breath and immediately recalled the happiest memory he could - his first time riding in a flying machine. Slightly calmed, he spoke.

"Are you lost, young miss?" he said gently - Step Two of the training course. She shook her head. Swallowing, he smiled as calmly and naturally as he could. "You mean you are where you want to be?" She nodded, and reached out to hold his face in both hands. He was at a total loss, so he decided to just try to relax and roll with it. Marcus found his heart pounding as she drew herself up to him and snaked her arms around his neck. Her expression softened and her eyes closed halfway.

Oh, shit. "Look, we need to-" His words were cut off by her soft, red lips. Kiss me, a whisper in the back of his mind said. Stop thinking about it and kiss me.

He gave up and obliged - he didn't seem to have much choice - and responded to the kiss in earnest. She eased her tongue into his mouth, and he responded by taking her in his arms, grasping her full hips and pulling her into him. She massaged his tongue with her own, and ran her hand through his hair while resting the other on his shoulder. The kiss was far and away the best Marcus had ever experienced - this girl seemed practiced.

I've only practiced on other girls, he heard the whisper in his mind again, and an erection began coming on strongly. She ran a hand along his crotch teasingly, and suddenly broke away from him. As Marcus looked on in confusion, the young woman pranced to the door at the end of the hall and opened the door. She beckoned him with one slim finger, and closed the door as she moved though. It never occurred to Marcus not to follow.

He ran through the doorway to catch the merest glimpse of the girl winking at him from a side hall before vanishing again. Through another door he went, to catch her blowing a kiss before vanishing again. On and on he chased her, losing track of time and progressing out of his territory. He glanced at a hanging clock; he had been chasing her for an hour and he had not seen a single soul. Some part of him knew he was being toyed with, but he was now intensely curious - was the psychic herself playing a game, or was there something else going on here?

At last! He burst through a set of doors into a cavernous, empty courtroom and found his rogue psychic had only just entered. He ran her down near the jurors' seats, grabbed her around the waist and picked her up bodily, eliciting a shriek of delight and a peal of laughter.

"What's the big idea, huh? I've been chasing you around for an hour, I've got shit to polish!" He feigned anger, but he was smiling widely.

So was she. She wrapped her arms around him again and held him close, but this time it was a friendly, trusting hug. She rested her head against his chest. "It gets frustrating sometimes. I have to sit in here all day and close my eyes and try to see when people are going to die, or when people are lying, or the like. Sometimes, I have to shake it up, you know?"

"You scared the shit out of me. Twice. I thought you were one of the unstable ones."

"Yeah, well, it was funny. And you're a great kisser, by the way." They looked into each other's eyes for some time, just enjoying the company.

She rested her head on his chest again, facing toward the juror's area, and began shaking slightly.

"You okay?" Marcus said.

The psychic slid out of his arms and knelt with one hand on the floor, face down, pointed toward the juror's stand.

You've got to be fucking with me, Marcus thought, and suddenly he was far more intimidated than he had been when he had thought his new friend was insane.

He turned slowly, and standing so regally that he seemed to emit his own light was the Emperor of Mankind, the seven foot tall, statuesque Lord of Lords himself. He fixed Marcus with a direct stare, and Marcus felt as though he might heat up and explode on the spot.

"Asenath, rise." came his words, which seemed to echo in the air with their own weight. "I shall forgive you, Marcus. It is not every day that a man is caught off guard by me. I must say, someone other than the Praetors meeting my eye is refreshing." As Marcus gradually recovered, he noticed Praetor Culexus standing next to the Emperor. Marcus had heard tell that Culexus was not the most cheery man, but the furious stare he had fixed on Marcus was nothing short of terrifying.

"Ranek" came his commanding bark, the voice that through its sheer power had forced men to confess. "I see that while neglecting your work, you took the time to become acquainted with my daughter."

"It was my fault, Papa..." Asenath started, but Culexus raised a hand to silence her.

"I know. I know what happened. I know the extent of your necking. I see it all, in my mind. I wish I did not. As it is, Ranek, I suppose I cannot find grounds to punish you, as you were following protocol the entire time - except for the kissing," he grated. "Of course, I seem to remember once being caught in the throes of youth myself." He turned to the Emperor. "I must ask again, my Lord, are you certain? I was hoping for someone wiser."

"Wisdom can be instilled, but daring and intrepidity are inborn. He is the right one." At the confused look on Marcus' face, the Emperor turned and spoke to him. "Forgive us, young son. As you can imagine, we were not here by accident, nor were we here to bear audience to your canoodling. There is a desperately important job to be done, and I am quite certain you are the only one who can do it. Your services will also be necessary, Asenath. Come hither, young ones. Perhaps the good Praetor would prefer you to sit slightly apart."




****************************************************************************************************************