Chương 1: Free Mason

"The Adventurer's Guild has recorded the final words of over forty thousand deceased members. The most common entry, by a significant margin, is: 'How hard can it be?' The second and third most common are not reprinted here for reasons of good taste." - Adventurer's Guild Intake Manual, Appendix C: A Note on Mortality Statistics MASON Lawrence had taught me everything I knew about chess. He had, however, not taught me everything he knew about chess... which at this moment was proving once again to be a problem.

"You're thinking too much, Mason," he said, voice raspy from years of cheap cigarettes. He didn't look up, his gaze fixed on the pieces.

"This is bullet chess, boy. You can't think, you have to act. Don't calculate so much." It was a crisp late spring morning, the dawning sunlight yet to crest over the tops of the skyscrapers. I pulled my wool coat tighter around me as I studied the position of my knights, blowing on my hands to get the blood flowing. He'd forced me into an awkward pinch, though I couldn't say exactly how; not an unusual feeling with Lawrence.

The game clock ticked loud in my head, every second another step toward a defeat that always felt inevitable. 50 seconds, 49, 48...

"Easy for you to say," I replied finally, picking up a piece before setting it back down again.

"You're a grandmaster in disguise." He grunted, deflecting the compliment. His weathered face, dark eyes, unkempt beard, and perpetually rumpled sweater told the story of a man who'd seen too much and cared too little. Lawrence had practically raised me in-between his duties as the super at the boys' home where I'd grown up. Well, the closest anyone got to raising a feral kid - mostly by not asking too many questions about where I'd been and making sure I occasionally remembered to eat.

I tried to focus again on the game, but Central Park at six in the morning belonged to dog walkers and and industrious joggers, not tired teenagers still buzzing from the night before. A redhead in yoga pants smiled at me as she passed, my distracted look earning a grunt from my chess partner. He chuckled.

"Got other things on your mind?" I smiled ruefully, shaking my head.

"I don't know what you're talking about." The clock was still ticking. 36 seconds. Lawrence played a deceptively simple game - repeated patterns, stock openings - but he always managed to add a wrinkle I couldn't anticipate, maneuvering me into a move that felt correct but never was.

"Your problem is you don't trust your instincts, afraid to lose so you fail to win," he said, further breaking my concentration. I scoffed at the aphorism.

"I'm afraid to lose because you're 1, 224, 16 and 358 against me." The number was accurate, I'd been keeping a tally of our games for almost a decade.

"My hesitation is only natural under the circumstances. Now stop distracting me." I placed my bishop to pin his rook, attempting a flank, but as I let go of the piece I knew I'd guessed wrong. Lawrence responded with a casual pawn push on the kingside, ignoring my threat and putting me back on the clock. 32 seconds, 31, 30. He made it look so effortless, like he wasn't even bothered enough to try. His eyes moved off the board.

"So, California?"

"Uh huh." I was barely listening, calculating a line that I knew wouldn't work - they never did.

"CalTech. Robotics probably, comp-sci maybe. Who knows. I'm sure I'll figure it out." I could see him nodding in my peripheral vision.

"A long way from the Bronx." 25 seconds. 24. I cut off his pawn push, opening up the middle of the board.

"That's kinda the point." I was ready to leave New York, there was nothing keeping me here... there hadn't been for a long time.

"No friends you're going to miss at that fancy school?" I looked up, surprised by the question.

"You're worried about my social life now?" He held up his arms in a defensive posture, surprisingly white teeth sparkling.

"No offense meant, you misanthropic bastard." He moved his rook to the vacated spot in the middle of the board, uncovering his queen but giving me no way to take it.

"Check." I sucked my teeth, frustrated that I hadn't seen it.

"Misanthropic, big word for a man who claims to have never finished middle school." I hesitated, the clock ticking to 15 seconds. I sighed and moved my king to the only spot I could, leaving my rook exposed.

"More ways to learn big words than stuck in an ivory tower." He snatched the forked rook with his attacking knight, effectively ending the game.

"You shouldn't run from your problems, better to face them head-on." I refused to concede, my clock ticked under 10 seconds.

"What are you even talking about?" I pushed a pawn on the queenside, a desperate attempt to pass his backline that was going to fall two moves short of success.

"It's college, not the army." He gave me a tilted grin that was as unreadable as his chess game.

"No idea, but it sounded good, right?" He stopped my push with his knight as I knew he would, my frustration mounting.

"You never did know when to quit." My clock hit double zero and I flicked my king down in defeat, face flushing as the alarm signaled another loss. 1, 225, 16, and 358.

"Again?" His jovial tone made me glad I had an excuse.

"Can't, calculus final. Last day and all that." I stood up, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. A car backfired and someone nearby honked, a chorus of yelling followed. I could only shake my head.

"Barely six AM and already with this shit, and you wonder why I want to leave."

"Yeah, yeah, fuck off then," he said, eyes twinkling.

"Don't have to tell me twice. Same time next week?" He just grunted, returning his eyes to the board. +++"All right, guys and gals, that's the bell. Final projects due Sunday. I expect them in my inbox no later than 10 PM." Several students groaned in unison as if hearing about this for the first time.

"That means you, Sarcotti, I don't want an extension request at 9: 50 because it isn't happening. You've run out of grandparents to kill off - yes, I've been counting and no, step-grandparents don't count." I lingered in Professor Maslow's classroom for a moment to avoid the rush as students funneled into the polished marble hallways of Trinity Technical Academy.

Loud chatter and the sounds of slamming lockers echoed down the corridors as several hundred of New York City's richest teenagers excitedly made summer plans. Maslow eyed me like an owl, pushing the glasses up his large nose before turning to his whiteboard where he began erasing equations. I had no reason to think the man disliked me, but, as with most of the faculty at Trinity, he'd largely avoided me. Perhaps a puzzle he couldn't be bothered to solve. Frankly, that suited me fine.

"Have a good summer, sir," I offered congenially as I left the room, earning a head nod and snort from the elderly chemistry teacher. I shuffled over to my own locker, headphones blasting a carefully curated eclectic 90s pop rock playlist that made me feel nostalgic for a time I'd never lived through. Everybody wanted to be different, I supposed, though not too different.

"You coming to the party tonight, Parker?" The voice, coated in sugar and condescension, cut through Gwen Stefani's upbeat chorus. I closed my locker reluctantly, sliding the headphones to my neck with as little visible irritation as I could muster.

"What party would that be, Marcy?" Marcy McCreary leaned against the wall, her brown hair cascading over her shoulders. Passing students stole glances at her as if glimpsing the sun, afraid to stare too long for fear of going blind.

"There's a graduation party tonight, the Prichards' place in the Hamptons. Pool, DJ, everyone's going, I know you've heard about it. You're our class valedictorian, you should be there," she said, as if my grades had anything to do with a party she very well knew I'd never attend.

"That sounds loud." Marcy frowned.

"I know you and Scottie have had your differences, but surely we can leave high school drama behind us." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Differences, right.

"I appreciate the invitation, but I have plans." I started shoving textbooks into my backpack. The resale market was shit, but money was money.

"What's your problem with me, Mason? Scottie can be awful, I admit, but you can't hold me responsible for his bad behavior."

"I've got no problem with you, Marcy, Trinity parties just aren't my crowd. Do I think Scottie Prichard is a monumental prick? Sure, who doesn't, but I don't hold it against his mother for loving him anyway." That at least got a smirk out of her.

"This aloof, orphan street kid thing you do isn't as charming as you think it is." I clutched my chest in an exaggerated show of being deeply wounded, which earned a well-deserved eye roll.

"You can pretend you hate the rich, but you're going to be one of us soon enough. Then what? You hate yourself instead?" She probably wasn't far off the mark.

"I don't hate the rich, I simply don't relate to you. Call it an experiential misalignment." I knew she probably had good intentions - well, good enough - and it was no more her fault that she'd been born rich than that I'd been born poor, that was just life.

"Look, I appreciate the invitation, seriously, but I do actually have plans."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Can't say I didn't try."

"And I swear I never would." I slipped past her without waiting for a response, head down and headphones up to discourage any further interactions as I rushed toward the elevator. +++ The Copper Pit was an old gym in a strip-mall basement two blocks from the East 222nd Street subway stop. Mismatched equipment, flicker lighting from half-broken halogen tubes, heavy bags that were more duct tape than leather.

It smelled like sweat and cheap deodorant, undertones of disinfectant fighting a battle it had no chance to win. I'd been given a key three months ago by the owner: a southside, old New York Italian named Tony the Mooch - I was pretty sure that was his actual legal name. He'd been training boxers here for nearly thirty years, but his health had taken a dive even before the gym did.

These days, the place was mostly empty, but he'd taken a liking to me and I was more than happy to have a quiet place to punch out my teenage angst. I made my way to the rat-infested bathroom, past the boxes of toilet paper rolls and diet soda packs that Tony guzzled like a crack addiction, finding my bag inside the locker where I'd left it. Taping up had become a meditation, the tacky firmness a strange comfort. It felt like control or... well I didn't really know what...

detachment maybe, a reprieve, a simple equation with a simple answer. Punch the bag, the bag doesn't punch back. I started with a warm-up combination Tony had drilled into me the first month - jab, jab, cross, slip, left hook. It was simple and repetitive, got the blood flowing, settled me into the heavy bag work. The rhythm was automatic now, my knuckles thudding into the bag over and over with a percussive boom that stilled my always-racing thoughts.

I had no real goal - no fight to train for, no tournament, not even a sparring match - but the pain and the sweat made me feel better. Better than sitting at home alone in a dark apartment, better than trying and failing to sleep through long nights with no end, better than thinking about packing for a new life I couldn't bring myself to start. Jab-jab-cross-slip-hook. An itch in my brain that needed to be scratched.

I conjured the lab at CalTech as my fists slammed into hard leather, I'd looked at the photos so many times that the images came easily. High windows, long workbenches, smiling students of every race and creed - the fantasies of brochures that never felt as good as you hoped they would. I could put myself there, standing amongst them, a servomotor in one hand, calipers in the other.

Across the room a $20, 000 super computer would be running code I'd written myself; dreams my child orphan self wouldn't have thought possible. It should have excited me, but I felt nothing. No anticipation, no longing, not even the relief of escape from this city that had latched onto my life like a virus. The bag shook on the chains, slamming against the wall. I moved on to the four-step combination. It was still an awkward sequence for me - left hook to the body, right cross, pivot, left uppercut.

The pivot caused some sort of brain disconnect, causing me to lose the chain. I tried again, the bag swinging at a slightly lopsided angle with the final blow. The tattoo on the back of my neck itched, something I'd almost stop noticing given how often it was happening lately. I rolled my neck against the collar of my t-shirt, the tattoo's itch receding. I resumed the four-step, trying not to think this time, letting my body find its rhythm.

It took several minutes of sustained effort, but I managed to shut off my brain, letting the exertion take over, my arms and legs moving in a coordinated sequence that barely registered as a conscious thought. All four strikes connected cleanly, the bag snapping back hard enough that rafters creaked against the chain. I stopped, breathing hard. The itch on my neck had become more of a burn. What the fu...

I rubbed the spot with a heavily taped hand and the burn faded, my fingers tingling like I'd dipped them in numbing cream. I checked myself in the mirror, pulling my hair back to see the strange marking on the base of my neck, but it looked the same as it always had - three mysterious black lines surrounded by a sea of intricate markings. I'd given up figuring out what the markings meant years ago, just another mystery I knew I'd never answer. There was nobody to ask in any case.

No mother, no father, no family who might help me understand why nothing ever felt quite right, why things I knew I should want lit up nothing inside me. Was I dead inside? Defective? I stepped back and caught myself in the reflection of the long mirror, blue eyes looking haggard under the harsh flickering light. I was bigger than I remembered, muscular and tall, the work in the gym paying off in ways I had not exactly intended though I couldn't say I hated. That was something at least.

I returned to the bag and resumed the work, the combination feeling closer with each repetition. I stayed until the lights timed out at nine. +++ The streets were quiet for a Friday night, the crisp night air a cold slap after the heated confines of the gym. The air stunk of underground steam and car exhaust, a smell I'd be happy to leave far behind me in California. It was almost eerily quiet, not even a domestic disturbance to break up the unusual calm.

Maybe everybody had better places to be tonight than hanging out on East 222nd, couldn't say I blamed 'em. I pulled my headphones from my bag, reaching for my phone to drown out the thinking. The sound of laughter echoed from a nearby alley about a block ahead, but it was clipped, menacing. I felt a fight or flight surge of adrenaline, my highly-refined radar for violence pinging loudly. I kept walking, shaking off the sensation.

The city at night was always playing tricks, an environment our ape brains were not evolved to find comfortable. In any case, it was none of my business, New York had a way of sorting out its own problem. The smartest move would be to just let it. I heard it again, that manic laugh. The hair on my arms stood up, a very good sign that I should increase my pace and get as far away from this place as possible. I clocked the feeling but ignored it, stepping into the alley.

It was narrow, not even ten feet across, a laundromat sign lit up the far end, illuminating the scene from behind and casting shadows that made it hard for my eyes to adjust. A rat the size of a cat ran past me, no doubt fleeing the commotion itself. Two teenagers were standing in front of a dark green dumpster pressing in around a kid half their size. He was maybe twelve, scrawny and unremarkable. One of the teens held his backpack while the other rifled through his pockets.

I could have called the cops, but they'd do nothing, I knew that better than most. Failing that, I should have walked away, what did any of this have to do with me? It wasn't as if I hadn't been mugged myself more than a few times... I'd survived. A few bruises, a couple scars, the kid would be fine.

"Hey." I kept my voice even, hands out in front to avoid escalating the situation.

"You guys need something, or we good here?" The kid's eyes flashed to me, he looked terrified. The one going through his pockets stopped, turning to face me. He was wearing a dark green windbreaker, maybe seventeen. Nothing special, just a guy doing what some guys did. High School was tough everywhere, apparently, though the shape of it certainly changed by tax bracket. The other one stood to his left, a bit younger, his faded Patrick Ewing jersey tight against a heavy frame - he looked ready to bolt.

"We good here?" I asked again, hoping they'd just walk away. The two glanced at each other, then at me, muttering something under their breath. They actually did walk away - New York was still full of surprises - throwing the backpack on the ground without so much as a "fuck you" in departure.

The kid's hands were shaking as he gathered his stuff: notebooks, drawing pencils scattered in the gutter, an iPad that had a crack down the center of the screen, a science textbook that I recognized as part of the curriculum for the local middle school. I approached him, bending down to help him pick up his stuff.

"You all right?" I asked, feeling a spark of kinship.

"I'm fine," he said, his voice thin and unsteady.

"You live near here?" He nodded, glancing away.

"A few blocks."

"Let me walk you home," I said, giving him a reassuring smile that I hoped didn't come off menacing.

"They guys didn't seem too bright, they may try again." He didn't look thrilled by the prospect but didn't object.

"It's not far." He pointed toward the darker stretch of 221st, past the laundromat where construction cranes had been chewing up the street for months. He walked slowly and I fell into step beside him, matching his shorter strides. He wore a jacket at least two sizes too big and with at least five years of wear on it - a hand-me-down most likely... I knew the look well. He was skinny and small for his age, light brown hair bouncing in tight curls on his head.

He reminded me of every kid I'd grown up with, dropped into a world they were too young to navigate, but doing their best to try.

"Those guys bother you often?" I asked, glancing around to make sure they weren't following us. He clutched his backpack straps with a tight fist, pulling them close to his chest.

"Sometimes," he admitted.

"It's fine, I'm used to it." It's fine. Said in that tone you use when you want people to stop asking question that you know they really didn't want the answers to. I'd used that tone most of my life. We stepped into a deep shadow cast by the nearby construction site, scaffolding and netting obscuring the view of the street.

"We should probably move to the other side of the street, don't want to get cornered her-""I'm sorry about this," the boy said, cutting me off. I turned to look at him, confused, the words taking a moment to register - it's really no problem I almost said. His face had changed, it was now shadowed and sunken, black orbs burning inside of red fire where his eyes had been. He had grown taller too, a foot and a half at least, almost to my head.

A searing heat erupted at the base of my neck, the tattoo filling with a sudden rush of pain that spread outward into my head. The burning intensified, then was followed by a wave of dizziness. The sounds of the city faded into muffled static and my vision smeared. I tried to regain my balance but stumbled, falling against a concrete pillar. I fell and my head hit the pavement hard enough to spark stars in my vision, a sudden urge to vomit surging in my gut.

The edges of my vision faded to black and fear rose up heavy in my chest. I tried to cry out, to move my arms and lift myself off the ground, but my body refused to answer. The figure leaned over me, shadow crossing my face.

"I didn't have a choice," it said, voice a low vibration that resonated inside my skull. He grabbed me, his grip like a vice, lifting me with a strength that was inhuman.

"For what it's worth, the old man was right about you. When you see him, tell him this makes us square." My 230-pound body was lifted off the concrete with so little effort I was convinced I was dreaming. The pain stopped abruptly, then everything went black.