“THE SUDDEN LIGHT! SUDDEN LIGHT!“ - repeated phrase found in the remnant leavings of the Lightbringers.

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There were two options available to Martin; he’d gone with the quicker one. It’d grow back, it always did. He would have to get used to the fact that the person looking back in the mirror was another person.

Snip. Snip.

The dreads fell away. Just finding a barber, an actual professional focused on cutting hair——well, it had taken time. Most people had a sub-routine or even an AC that did the deed.

It made a certain amount of sense. A sub-routine didn’t get the length or the width of the thickness of your hair wrong. They measured your need to the circumference of calculations. Scientific haircutting, bah.

Ironically, there was a big movement to go back, back to a more analogue time. A different era, where you spoke to the one doing your hair. Back in Sala Martin had gone to Old Man Wirgren, a former Army barber who shaved his head to a neat fuzz and never spoke.

“So, what do you do for a living?”

His current cutter, unfortunately, didn’t share Wigren’s taciturn nature. Bondine liked noise, whether it was her emerald nails tapping against synth-leather or that of her own voice didn’t matter. Nature abhorred a vacuum: Madame Bondine abhorred silence.

He thought about saying nothing. Or, maybe he’d utter some nonsense that was a cousin to the truth. That he was part of Bureau of Administration - which all Proxies were - a technical truth.

But it had been some time since he spoke to someone who wasn’t part of the Tutelage, an AC or related to the business, someone who was just…ordinary.

“I’m doing a Tutelage.”

Her hands slowed down, if soon resuming their rhythm.

Snip. Snip.

“That so?”

A brown arm ventured past his line of sight, unhooking a circular mirror. She could have used a pad, or another form of handheld, but Bondine hewed to tradition. Refracted in the mirror was a terrain of black hair, cut short, following the nape of his neck.

He nodded. “The length’s fine.”

“I’ll be shaving the rest then?”

“Shave away.”

The grind of metal on metal began to echo in the parlour and soon his hair fell away. As his hair cascaded down, he felt a pang in his chest. His mother had done this for him. Maybe that was why he insisted on using barter or credits to have an actual human being do the actual cutting. What would she think of him?

He’d like to think that she would be proud. Proxies were mankind’s defenders. Even having experienced the pettiness that Martin had, with Chevalier and Somaronov, he still wanted to believe that. He was, and would be, part of that tradition. One day a Proxy in white would hover over a provincial camp and protect a family. There’d be no orphans on his watch——not if he could help it.

“…I used to live in Luleå Arcology. Sometimes, during the winter, they’d freeze the lake inside the arcology and you’d be able to walk across an entire Level on ice.”

Martin made a sound. Bondine had lived in Luleå?

“You used to be able to do that, you know. Back before the Accommodation- well, at least my mom said you could - and there were this part of Level 6 that hosted a camp for the Sami people.”

The hands stopped, again. Now they shivered. No, now they trembled.

“They wouldn’t leave their herds. Loved those stupid animals, wouldn’t hear about having them exchanged for drones.”

“They will reclaim the arcology,” Martin interrupted, his voice firm, his tone confident. He had experienced the power of the Golden Knight, their instructor. The burning light that knew no bounds.

Seen the forerunners; seen what their Implants could do. He knew Chiyo Moyomoto, remembering the way she had recanted the power of those seniors.

Martin Soleri had seen the power of an Administrator, and so he did not worry.

Then, to a normal person it might seem not seem so clear, that obvious. The Proxy he was becoming——it wasn’t so long since had been just a kid in a provincial camp. He still remembered what it was like.

She continued cutting.

“What if there is a Sovereign among the ruins of the Luleå arcology? Or, you know, as with Paris?”

“A lone Sovereign can be driven away. As for Paris…Sovereigns rarely fight together.”

“They did at Paris.”

And, unsaid it went, Paris had fallen. The same battlefield that had seen Serena Smiler rise had also seen several Sovereigns fight together. Without sufficient seniors in place, the doctrine was to lead a Sovereign away from settled areas. The rules had not accounted for multiple Sovereigns——a first in the war against the Host. It was reasonable.

Even in the multiple fracas of the Second American Civil War, Sovereigns had diverted rather than encounter one another. Yet all the same they had broken that rule and the City of Lights had been extinguished.

“A good thing that Luleå has already fallen then, eh?”

She chuckled then, did Bondine, a sound without any real emotion.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t trouble you like this. I bet you have all kinds of things to worry about.”

She grabbed her pad and started a newscast on a screen placed high in the corner.

The symbol of the Federated World - its initials - flashed by as a serious man gazed at an audience. Martin recognised the face; this was an up-coming accredited blogger who focused on news.

“…first to report a discovery unlike anything since Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. Here it is, an alien world…"

The screen was filled with pictures of a foreign planet, smoothly transition to a city of crystal, soaring spires made out of something from a game developer’s frenzied imagination.

Certain phrases, certain words stood out in the bloggers recital and they jumped out at Martin.

”…a people called Lightbringers…Field-users…communicated using light, hence the name…”

Bondine whistled.

“Now that’d be something. Aliens. Aliens that aren’t the Host, that is.”

Martin was more intent on the blogger’s words, unheeding and uncaring as to what the hairdresser said. So focused was he that he didn’t hear her speak, tuned as he was.

“…the Lightbringers left a final messenge for whoever came after them, the importance of which must not be underestimated; they, just like us, had a flourishing civilisation using Field technology. They fought against the Host, and they lost. Now, the nature of their messages are contextual, but the reports I have taken part of all say the same: change. Change, or suffer the consequences.”

Bondine cut the last of Martin’s hair as his eyes were glued to the screen.

“There. You satisfied?”

Martin nodded, transferring the credits with an impatient hand. His mouth was partially open and he was still trying to decipher the news.

He went out of the salong and brought out his handheld. He searched and was not disappointed. The nets were going haywire. Already calls were being made that the Bureau of Administration or a Premier of an arcology refute the news.

The longer they - and by they, Martin thought of Administrators, of anyone in power - let the news item circulate, the harder it would be to deny.

He moved through Level 4, its ceiling buzzing with the face of that blogger, pixelated and enlarged on a scale too wide to be understood. He had to push through the crowd, all the people who stood staring up at the fake sky.

He entered an elevator, listening to the conversations all of which were centered on the same topic: these Lightbringers.

“…found out, just now? Please, they found that civilisation back in the 40’s, but I do wonder, why are they only revealing the installation now?”

“…it’s obvious what this is: moral is low with several metropolises being lost in the last two decades, so High Command kept the find to themselves, revealing it only when it was the most opportune…”

“…has to be fake. The Made are gaining ground in the arcologies so they want to divert the attention…”

The elevator rose one Level, and Martin exited, moving along the smooth concourses of Level 5. Through neat neighbourhoods with two-story houses, a sky patterned like eggshell - he noted that this Level certainly had no commercials in the sky or notices about that blogger - as he reached a stadium.

Here, he had once stood with Calix as she made her opinions about their friendship clear. It was only fitting that he did once more, with his new cadre.

Westerfield was the first person to see him, which probably said something about the cadre, the Scottish Proxy being one-eyed and all. He stood so that his left side veered towards the entrance, the better to see whoever was coming.

Out of his werewolf-Chassis, Dijkstra was a man of average height with tanned skin and thick blond curls. His freckles probably made would-be partners think him cute, and the brown eyes, one which had a green starburst in it only enhanced the impression.

Calix had the greatest fashion sense — her black bodysuit gave her the appearance of an old car driver - and lo and behold, he wasn’t the only to have cut his hair. No longer a long page, but rather a bob now.

“You cut your hair!”

She tossed it.”What do you think? The parameters for the sub-routine, I think I got them right, yes?”

“Oh.” She had a sub-routine do her hair?

Always ready to sus out implications, Calix caught his tone.

“Let me guess; you’re one of those people who actually have their hair cut by people? Gods, Martin, you can be such a provincial sometimes.”

Martin let the words he had for Calix go. This was not the time. Not the place. Besides, he had worse. Not that it made it right, it just made him used to it.

“Ehrm, are you ready?”

Berenice’s long braid swung with her head as she bobbed up and down.

Five lanes; five Proxies in their cadre.

Martin took a knee in the lane as far as the one from Calix as possible. Two could play a game. The action did not go unnoticed. She gave him quite the glare, and Martin Soleri had the unnerving suspicion that by the next time they went shopping, she’d make him eat crow.

“GO!”

The five of them shot away around the oval, running, competing, heaving their bodies. In a sense their running was a microcosmos of who they were. Westerfield moved like a tram, economic with his energy, saving it for need. There was a serious pace to Calix’s stride, a determination that could be heard in the way she pounded the lane with each step. Dijkstra took great strides, always seeming to be right behind you, a breath heard, the sense that he would always be there. Berenice might finish last, but you could make out the improvement of her running style even in a short 500 meter race.

“What do you think about this Lightbringer business?”

Calix was raring to go another run, but the others were more interested in talking.

“The lack of denial says it all,” Berenice contributed.

“They might just never comment it, you know? Let the newscycle have its natural turn and let it die out by itself,” Dijkstra rebutted.

“Oh please,” Calix began, warming to the subject,”an alien civilisation? Are you for real?”

“The Host are aliens,” Westerfield said, his first comment in the discussion. Calix stared at him. He continued.

“What? Most people tend to forget it, but the Host are aliens. They came from space. Ruined, among others, the Luna Arcology. The Wellsprings on Saturn. The same trajectory that probably saw these Lightbringers dead.”

“You’re making a point here, yes?”

Calix didn’t get it, not that Martin understood Westerfield’s point any better.

“We’ve seen hard proof of aliens in our time. Who’s to say that there weren’t others?”