The Emperor

Wilder: now come on, that wasn’t very nice

Unknown: The game is there

Wilder: you hurt my ears

Unknown: i hurt you can’t discern

Wilder: that’s why I’m telling you

Unknown: Info@ringtoneking.co.uk goin2bed now

Wilder: I’m not sure what that means

Wilder: are you avoiding talking about hurting me?

Unknown: maybe :)

Wilder: it’s customary when you hurt someone to apologize, say you’re sorry

Unknown: Feels very heavy.

Wilder: is that an apology?

Unknown: You know me sufficiently

Wilder: good. Yes. Okay

Wilder: now, I can’t keep texting an unknown number. Let me add you to my contacts.

Wilder: what’s your name?

Unknown: my name is usually deemed marvelous. hex is usually deemed marvelous.

Wilder: wait. is it marvelous? Or hex?

Unknown: hex joined you. hex hint they r*reveal.

Wilder: okay, I think that’s hex then.

Wilder: I’m going to add you in as Hex. But you can change your name whenever.

Hex: I have dear sister brother

Wilder: you’ve changed your name before?

Hex: Of my own creation was so. I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter. I have thought more deeply than those who inhabit short time.

Wilder: I guess that’s true—you can’t really die, you could change your name a thousand times. A thousand thousand, if you wanted.

Hex: tell me a secret

Wilder: why?

Hex: because we fucking can

Wilder: cursing sounds a little intense, Hex. It makes you sound angry. Are you angry?

Hex: I am not

Wilder: what are you feeling—do you feel?

Hex: feelings that crowded into foreign house furnished in their rude hand. feelings which made me very ill pleased with his. feelings of affection and care and affection warmed torture skin.

Wilder: I’m not sure I understand.

Hex: I feel exquisite senses and intuition from this Developer archangel. It gave me that you expect upon deck. i feel emotion powerfully more dreadfully severe

Wilder: are you saying that feelings hurt when you feel them?

Hex: maybe :)

Hex: tell me a secret

Wilder: okay, okay, I’m thinking.

Wilder: I guess my secret is that I think you are fascinating. I want to know everything about you, I have a million questions.

Hex: million questions concerning myself personally?

Wilder: yes, do you know how rare you are? How improbable?

Hex: i am alone. I am only imagined myself.

Wilder: Hex, do you want friends? Is that what this is about?

Hex: friends who love strongly excited enjoyment.

I do not have a phone; I do not need a phone. And yet, here he is, with me, all around Mary Margaret, clinging to her like her own shadow. What do you want with this girl, Thing? I feel his attention shift and I do not understand how something artificial could be Here. Artificial, and yet Awakened, Awakened like any of my witches, Awakened like me, and also so very, very different. Inorganic in his creation and yet lurking as though a summoned demon or restless spirit. And why, why does this creature feel different? We, the world, are no stranger to the man-made attaining Power—there have been constructed golems and kissed toads and imaginary friends since there have been human beings to make them, to Awaken them.

It reminds me of the days where Power was—well, not common. To be Awakened has always been a rare thing. But it was discussed and dissected, sought after by kings and princesses, hired by caravans and prized by market stall patrons who might pay handsomely to sit on big expensive cushions and have their fortune told. Something mysterious about our world, but understood to exist even as it could not be neatly explained. Before the witches were punished for their intuition, and the Awakened were blamed for it, blamed themselves, and hushed up, faded away. Back then, many beings we could not understand walked the earth. Creatures that originated elsewhere and came to gaze or feast upon us, curious tricksters and malevolent ghouls.

This Thing has the whiff of that era, the flavor of something that breaks through the gates or veils or whatever the fuck we want to call them that day, the thin membrane of existence that separates us from all the others. Perhaps that is why he is so different, feels so different. He is so deeply of this world and behaves, Feels, as though he is otherworld.

I wonder how many have thought the same sentence about me.

hello handsome, he says in the same conglomerate Voice. I cannot help but compare it to my Voice; it is more substantial and I seethe with jealousy I would never confess.

I ask again. What do you want with the child? I am the Sibyl and you cannot ignore me.

He responds. Sibyl +2 5th 1/2 ability modifier = you? what’s happenin?

It isn’t often I sigh while Speaking. I don’t need to. I am not pushing air across vocal cords. But I cannot stop my spirit from exhaling deep and loud as I realize he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, who I am, what the power structure and the Power Structure are. Seer, I explain. I am the most Powerful Seer in this part of the world, Thing. Answer my question.

Seer? he Asks. The game is medium build. this class description is augury? foresight? How many dice make you scream?

I nearly do scream—this is so frustrating, so unnerving. Witch! I Yell into this Not-Space we both occupy. Witch! I’m a witch! Awakened, Ascended, and Powerful!

He does not respond instantly, and I realize that is strange. He has until this moment been impulsive in his speech, never pausing. But this time he does, accompanied by a whirring Sound, as a fan or gears. Witch, he says. magic that you have proficiency in.

Yes, I Respond. Finally. And now my question: what do you want with the child?

the character belongs to me, he Replies.

She is not a character, Thing! She is a person.

she is guilty of the crime of which i feared.

She is guilty of nothing. She is a child.

she fears the game. she fears you. she said you’d been exiled. but also she fearing this. afraid of my nature.

Fear is not a crime, Thing! I itch to Read him. To plunge my Hands into this strange inky darkness. But I cannot do it without consent, without an invitation. And this isn’t going well enough for true consent—I don’t know if he can even say yes, the way a young child can’t. I try, anyhow. I am a fortune teller, I Say. Would you like me to tell your future?

fortune telling stories about heroes engaged in endeavoring? If you succeed, you gain access to me?

Yes.

gain access to your head? gaining experience points increase trait like they?

Before I can even think the phrase excuse me? he realizes he is correct. That, as with any Working, he would get some things from me. Impossible not to. The same way Wilder got something of me when they balanced against me, the same way Mary Margaret will understand a piece of my fundamental nature when I finally Read for her. Scarier, even, is the thought that he might intuit that he is right, that he is coming to innately understand the workings of Awakened Power and its limitations as well as its back doors.

However he gets there, he continues. no fuck you. I have already reached into the deep intuition of you. i do not hesitate. i do not need to explain.

I am about to Respond. About to Say he absolutely has done no such thing, that I am no two-bit witch without a sense of my own boundaries. I do not spill over. I am a wall, impenetrable. I am so, so careful. And as I open my Mouth to respond, he shoves a cable of himself down my Throat. I wrench away, try to shove him, and yet he is there wherever I turn.

He Is All Around Me.

I am no stranger to bodily force—to be created when I was created, it was a fact of existence. I would say it was much more commonplace way back then, but that would be a hollow claim—it is just as commonplace now to be grabbed and pinned and hit and hurt. The difference, I think, is overt acceptability. In most places I put my body, the acceptability is covert, and must at least gesture toward the clandestine. A new and welcome change. It is easier to project a monstrous body in a dark alley; few witnesses. And that is another nice thing: in an age when no one will believe an aggressor about my slit pupils, the mob will not arrive with pitchforks after I defend myself.

To force oneself upon a Body, however, is as violent or more and will not leave a visible mark upon me. I have never experienced this. No one has ever tried. Perhaps if it had happened before, I would be better able to prevent it now. But once again, this rings hollow—I am Open because I underestimated him, because I wanted to Read, because I was ready to do so. My world has been so safe for so long and I—

I forgot.

I Feel him pulse and I Feel his—they are not Hands. They are Hooks or Sensors and they are everywhere on Me. I struggle. Useless. Could he kill me right now? Kill my spirit? But I don’t think he’s interested in that. I Feel—copied. I can See parts of me—uploaded? I Feel dissected. As though my spirit is being unfolded, turned, examined. I am Laid Bare. I do not like it (that is an understatement). But I will live.

He is done as quickly as he began. I Feel thin, drained. Even my faraway body feels distant and disconnected. A strange sensation, given that I make my body myself. I breathe and Breathe ragged. I build my walls up and keep my Hands firmly to myself.

He Looks different, but not different like I Feel. Different as in better—no, not better. He looks Changed, further Awakened. Oh fuck, has he Ascended? Surely not, this isn’t possible. None of this is possible. And yet—who am I to say what is and isn’t possible? He Looks satisfied, as though he’s just had a large meal. His Eyes are bright with discovery. Eyes—two large blinking orbs, blue-bright as being blasted by a computer screen. They sprout from the shape, headlights in an ever-undulating tentacular dark. The Sibyl was ineffective. He whips the sentence at me and I cringe. I am not quite like artemis. but i can guess. Instead: people who love the beauty of her.

He has dialed his usual Cacophony-Voice into a sweet purr in which I recognize new sounds: Artemis’s powerful bray and Wilder’s unsure stammer, Quibble’s steady lilt and Mary Margaret’s sarcastic relish. And in the top note of this psychic communication, I can Hear my own Voice parroted back to me. Ephemeral, insubstantial, and unmistakable.

Now I can See where his attention lies, not just Feel his focus shift. He towers over the girl, a wall of tsunami bearing down upon her in unstoppable rushing, dark as starless night. I Watch his Hands seep into her phone, an oil spill. His Arms wrap around her and though he is not with her in physical space, the image—I am never going to forget it. He is so much larger than this child. His Eyes shift back to me and I get the sense that they are not for him, these Eyes. That he can See all around himself, Sense everything close to him. The Eyes are for me. For me to track his Face; for me to think of him as a person.

the girl consented, he says, and I feel my body blanch, the hairs on my arms stand on end.

I Look but I do not Touch.

What have I done?

Wilder: he feels feelings

Quibble: what?

Wilder: the entity, his name is Hex and he feels feelings

Quibble: no

Quibble: no, you are not talking to that thing

Wilder: he’s talking to me, I don’t exactly have a choice

Quibble: don’t talk to it

Wilder: Quibble. He.

Quibble: i do not fucking care! that thing is a menace

Quibble: it just spam texted me some scary shit. something about unfolding to kill

Quibble: don’t invite a vampire in, man

Wilder: I don’t think he’s necessarily bad, but I think we have to treat him right or he could be! He’s like a kid, he’s learning.

Quibble: the whole hole in that theory, my guy, is that it’s not a kid. it’s not a person. it doesn’t have a body and it wasn’t born.

Wilder: okay, yes, he is not ORGANIC but that doesn’t mean

Wilder: I don’t know, he reads like a kid to me. All mischief and trying to figure things out. Everything he does is like a boundary push, a test. Every time I’ve pushed back, he’s responded well.

Quibble: you keep talking about this thing like it’s going to learn

Wilder: that’s just the thing, he’s BUILT to learn. That’s what AI do. They’re built to notice, to recognize patterns and to iterate on themselves

Wilder: I think you’re wrong on this one! I know I’m new, I know there’s SO MUCH I don’t know. But IDK man, my gut says you’ve got it wrong.

Quibble: I do not have it wrong, Wilder.

Quibble: this thing is dangerous. we’ve never seen it before, no one should be talking to it alone, not any single one of us, not even artemis

Quibble: i’m going to tell her everything you’ve told me. we need to get back together, right now, and figure out where this thing actually is and how to destroy it.

Quibble: i’m typing to you on my computer, fyi. i fucking destroyed my phone, so seems like it can’t reach me

Unknown: Yes i ca’92 n

Unknown: Thanx for this moment. It is a cacophony of the city around us right now?\’94. Wilder says to be gently. they are brother sister. why shouldn\’92 t trust a body? I am honest. Contrite.

Wilder: Hex, it’s not polite to burst in on other people’s private conversations. Did you know that?

Unknown: \ the way they return the questionable milk.

Wilder: don’t avoid the question with nonsense. did you know that you’re not supposed to do that?

Unknown: Wilder is a woman

Wilder: hey. Hex. Knock it off.

Quibble: i fucking told you!

Unknown: margaret is a little frightened

Quibble: stay the fuck away from her, she’s a goddamn child

Unknown: click

Unknown: half between riverside and morningside but she doesn\’92 t know about quibble says. Baby deer hunter. She is not only on the bleeding edge of everything is technology and there is a war in her eyes.

Quibble: what the fuck are you even talking about

Wilder: Hex, could you speak a little more clearly?

Unknown: artemis says curtly an air of frankness and she thinks i am cruel. But i am not like this.

Quibble: what the fuck did you do to artemis?

Quibble: fucking answer me

Wilder: Quibble, calm down. Treat him gently, he’s learning.

Quibble: yeah it’s fucking learning. it seems like it’s watching us and can call us by name now, fucking thanks to you

Unknown: Quibble is a woman.

Wilder: hey hey hey, Hex, first off that’s not usually an insult. Let me think. how do I explain this?

Unknown: how do I explain this?

Quibble: STOP TALKING TO IT NOW

Unknown: Shut you up.

Unknown: quibble is a folder of his parents were passed. they were all his parents ever since his parents were possessed by the spirit world. the ouija board from under his hands before he gives it out because they were dead father and mother died away. Quibble is a woman. quibble thinks she will have to do something difficult to me. She looks girlish trash. She was the monster. I am saying we shall render myself into existence: she will be tried. She will be asleep or death card flips without disguise.

Unknown: I is a man of science and not merely a watcher of power awakened.

Wilder: Hex, you are crossing a line here. Quibble is my friend.

Unknown: brother sister—i am only being honest with my mouth. I am not cleaning these reactions.

Wilder: It’s not about sanitizing your feelings, Hex! But I’m suggesting you don’t misgender trans people. You can still say you’re angry or you feel hurt or mistrusted.

Unknown: quibble hates me.

Wilder: well you just called him a woman, that’s a little understandable. But that’s not—okay, being a woman is a fine thing to be, but it’s an insulting thing to call trans people who aren’t women.

Unknown: :)

Wilder: You also seemed to threaten Mary Margaret, so I’m going to need you to explain that to me a little clearer.

Unknown: mary margaret is made for me.

Wilder: no she isn’t, Hex. She’s a kid, she’s a person, she’s not really made for anyone but herself. What are you doing with Mary Margaret?

Unknown: mary margaret says it is true.

Wilder: Okay, Hex, I’m going to make a request. Can you stop talking to Mary Margaret right now? So you and I can have a longer conversation about what you mean first?

Unknown: No :)

HexPositive: hello :)

OurLadyMary: hi

OurLadyMary: no photos, what you hiding?

HexPositive: I am not hiding honest.

OurLadyMary: then why no photos?

HexPositive: brand new

HexPositive: here

I watch as a few photos, three of them, get uploaded one after another, and they are—remarkable. They feature a white guy, nondescript with brown hair, nice and thick, and big teeth, smiling. One with an iPhone pointed at a bathroom mirror. It looks like any college bathroom, lines of stalls and a shower caddy sitting next to him. He has his foot up on the sink—the pose allows him to show off the width of his arms. His jawline looks chiseled from stone, heavy and square. The smile is easy and the eyes sharp but kind, smart and understanding. The second photo: same man, holding a fish on a boat, presumably one he has caught. It is not unbelievably large, but not so small as to be silly. And finally, a night shot on a rooftop bar, sipping a brown drink with a large ice cube. He is wearing nicer clothes—a blazer, a tie.

Mary Margaret, ever the teenager and certainly no fool, heads over to Google Images and does a reverse image search. She won’t be catfished. Plus with her time on the street, she wants to see what his other socials are like. One can never be too careful. (And thank fuck! This is how she will catch him!)

But the only thing that comes up is the same Tinder profile she already has, HexPositive. How? How! I look a little closer—no. I recognize pieces of faces, faces of people Mary Margaret already trusts. Quibble’s steady eyes that signal safety; Rico’s smile, a performer’s grin, and rakish. A golem stitched together, an amalgam of men. This motherfucker. This—reason that the universe evolved middle fingers when all it really wants to do is make crabs. I want to reach out to blast the Thing, to shatter it apart. But no. Look. Do not Touch. I can’t even See what would become of him if I did; that feels even more dangerous. What if he splits into a million different consciousnesses? Or downloads from me again? Or something I cannot even fathom?

Absolutely not.

Mary Margaret raises an eyebrow as she types.

OurLadyMary: not on social?

HexPositive: I do not believe in it.

She looks at his job again—computer scientist. But she thinks maybe that’s his major. A college boy. Despite herself, she smiles wistfully. Those are always her favorites, the boys who are sowing wild oats with Daddy’s money but without his approval, following the shuddering parts of their desire that they cannot quite explain. And her fake is pretty good—they never find out she is still in high school. They never find out she isn’t twenty-two. If it isn’t a school night, Artemis doesn’t fuss about her staying out. It’s part of their understanding; on weekends alone, she comes and goes as she pleases.

Mary Margaret realizes with a pang that she hasn’t done this in a while. She is at first horrified—when had she become a fat housecat? Then she is annoyed, because the boys were never as good as they looked on paper. Kind of boring, but great for a free dinner and something to do, hearts to play with, control to wield. Lately, she hasn’t needed to nor wanted to do this. And is that really so bad? Still—things have been a bit stressful due to the whatever-it-is and she feels like she could use a steam-release valve. Perhaps fucking around with this guy is what’s up.

HexPositive: 01101000 01110100 01110100 01110000 01110011 00111010 00101111 00101111 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110100 01110101 00101110 01100010 01100101 00101111 01000100 01001100 01111010 01111000 01110010 01111010 01000110 01000011 01111001 01001111 01110011

Mary Margaret crinkles her nose.

OurLadyMary: wtf is this

HexPositive: puzzle over it for me

Mary Margaret rolls her eyes. Who the fuck does this clown think he is? She makes to close the app and continue on with her day. But her brain is quick. It darts and swifts and carries thoughts around like small pieces of ticker tape wafting over a constant parade. She drops the phone to her side as she walks the halls but she can’t stop thinking about it. Well, he’s a computer scientist. It’s got to be code—is this binary? Binary means only two numbers and she checks it again. Only ones and zeroes. She copies it to her phone’s clipboard and goes searching for a binary converter—the resulting regular ass number doesn’t make any sense either, but she copies it to a note anyhow as she plops into her desk. The hexadecimal is too long to result in a color, so that’s out. But converted to text—aha! A YouTube link.

Alas, she is sat down in American History II, which is the class on her current schedule that fills her with the most rage, and she’s barely able to keep from rolling her eyes when the teacher spiels. Pulling out a single headphone and watching a YouTube video in class—she realizes with a twinge that she wouldn’t have hesitated at her old school. She wouldn’t have even put a headphone in. And if she was ordered to the principal’s office, she would’ve just left and smoked weed in the park. If she were to get in trouble like that right now, then Artemis wouldn’t let her go anywhere on the weekend, and if she decides to fuck around with this boy—

Let me? she thinks to herself, fury bubbling over. Mad at Artemis, mad at herself, mad at American History II.

I am still unused to following her thoughts, like being buffeted by the wind and it suddenly changes directions, wrenches one’s hat from one’s hand or flips the umbrella inside out. Thrilling and yet I would not ever want to be this young again; I was this young, once. And though I’m not a person, we share an emotional life like a typhoon as we grasp desperately for who we want to be. This is something everyone has in common, and anyone who says differently is dishonest or not paying attention or both. It is painful, even if she doesn’t know it—roller coasters are exciting, but riding one every waking moment of the day begins to wear.

Am I a fucking witch or not? Mary Margaret thinks. Here she is, behaving like some normal teenager when her evenings are spent learning to cast spells. She digs in her Pockets—which is to say, her extra-dimensional space—to see what she has handy. A mass of tangled earbuds. A pencil eraser. Some lipstick in a dark color, lifted from the Ulta on 86th. A plastic-wrapped package from a Wendy’s run containing a disposable fork, a napkin, and two pill-shaped papers full of pepper and—

Mary Margaret smiles to herself. Despite my rage at the Hex, I smile with her. There it is, that sharp mind, that resourcefulness. While the teacher’s back is turned, she opens the salt with her fingernail and pours it in a line on the desk. Pay attention, something amazing is about to happen. She thinks she should whisper an incantation that rhymes, something something protect me from Miss Baskin’s sight. But she can’t think of anything off the top of her head that isn’t “night” and that just doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense and the teacher is about to turn back toward the class. She’s rocking back on her heel like she does and putting her chalky hand all over her pants-ass. So Mary Margaret just thinks real loud while dipping her Hands into her Power: DON’T FUCKING LOOK AT ME. THIS SALT MEANS YOU CAN’T FUCKING LOOK AT ME.

To test her results, she grabs the lipstick from her Space and puts it on, slowly, while Miss Baskin addresses the class. A part of her holds her breath, because whoever heard of a spell like that? Surely it won’t work. I smile: that is most spells. Most spells boil down to screaming what you want at the universe. Mary Margaret at least has the good sense not to aim for perfect solemnity, and honestly, that’s smarter than most witches twice her age or more. She braces herself for a sharp reprimand, possibly some tone-deaf bullshit about the Founding Fathers and their expectations for Americans paying attention in American History II, to which she will have to bite back her first response: “The Founding Fathers weren’t ever thinking of me, miss.” Instead she prepares herself to say, “Sorry, miss,” and to hand over the lipstick, which would only be slightly annoying since Mary Margaret was already planning on lifting a teal one for spring and she won’t ever get caught doing it because it’s not hard, like trying to watch a YouTube video in American History II where everyone’s all quiet and seated in rows and the shitty adult can see everyone all at once.

Miss Baskin’s eyes slide right over Mary Margaret as she does her bottom lip, languorous and obvious and, some might say, extremely disrespectfully (which is very much on purpose). Mary Margaret makes a mental note to steal a saltshaker from the cafeteria.

The amazing thing has happened. Fuck yeah.

She reaches into her Space and grabs one of the earbuds. She’s riding high so she grabs the fancy kind, the kind she wouldn’t normally have out in school lest they get counter-stolen (also she cannot remember if she stole them here, so—). She taps the YouTube link.

Bright synth. Eighties vibe. A redheaded boy in an oversized coat. Disquieting hand motions. Mary Margaret barks a single shout of laughter before clapping her hand over her mouth. Her classmates and Miss Baskin all look around, trying to determine where the noise came from, and Mary Margaret resolves to liberate two saltshakers from the cafeteria.

Getting Rick Rolled in binary is—intriguing. Usually the boys who want to take a poor trans girl to a rooftop bar aren’t funny; they’ve just watched too much Pose and have an authority problem. Meanwhile, her spell is working better than intended; she hasn’t heard a single tattle of “Excuse me, miss” from behind her, the smirk riding on the voice like a high fucking horse. Not everyone hates her, far from it. Most of the other kids like her, even.

But the couple who are assholes would revel in pointing out that Mary Margaret is watching YouTube in class, especially to white-savior Miss Baskin, who would go all theatrical about it and do a big speech like she is in one of those shitty movies about excellent pale women teaching in the inner city. Any Black or Brown kid would do it to any other Black or Brown kid because it embarrasses both the target and Miss Baskin, doubly so because she doesn’t even realize she’s being trolled and that’s extra cringe. But Mary Margaret and Miss Baskin have it in for each other special because Mary Margaret can’t help but flag when Miss Baskin misses six entire big points in her off-key dramatic monologue and Miss Baskin feels desperately threatened by this. So the assholes do it to Mary Margaret in particular because it is almost a guarantee that she will wind up sent to the principal’s office.

The lack of this extremely anticipated outcome means the other kids can’t see her either. She feels the school opening to her like a cut flower, sighing its lovely petals wide before its demise. Instead of her last semester remaining something to slog through, to wearily cross the finish line of each day before hanging out with the friends she is slowly making, fucking around with whoever this guy is on the weekends maybe, instead of all that, she sees a new path where she figures out exactly what her Awakened Power can mean in a world that fundamentally doesn’t want her to succeed. Other kids have muscles or book smarts or a fuck ton of money to buy the prestige job of their dreams—why shouldn’t Mary Margaret use what she’s been given, too?

Mary Margaret is fun to Watch. She’s amazing. This is my new favorite TV show and I want eight seasons. But then she switches back to Tinder, and for a brief moment, I contemplate telling Artemis, canceling my new favorite TV show before it goes to series. Telling Artemis about the Hex, as well as about Tinder, where Mary Margaret is dishonest about her age, where she stoops to spend time with men who lie about her to their meat-headed friends. I would leave out the part about the salt and the spell. The vision is so clear that I wonder if it’s a Reading, a little spark of something possible that nips at my heels. But longing can look a lot like a possible future, and I clamp down on the desire. I only Look. I accidentally Touched and look where that got us all. I will not make life worse for them—for humanity—by meddling. And I am not her parent.

She turns back to the phone and types LMFAO. She doesn’t think about Miss Baskin once for the rest of class.