Outworld/Emergent Assemblage

Move on

In one of the many recreation halls of the Emergent Assembly, Cam stood, cradling a mug of coffee and listening to the amicable hubbub all around. The room was filled with his comrades - a raucous card game was going on in one corner, while around a table in the centre people drifted in and out of an animated philosophical conversation. The table was littered with pamphlets - printed copies of the principles of the Revolution, which had been circulating everywhere by the time Cam returned from the Nexus, a committee of enthusiastic typesetters having decided to fire up the printing presses. Next to the table, and occasionally interjecting into the conversation though she seemed to be paying little enough attention, a woman was repairing one of the benches (the leg had collapsed when someone leaped over it trying to catch a ball earlier).

She looked over at him. “Cam, do you have a cable tie?”

Cam rummaged through his pockets, producing a handful of cable ties, with two pieces of paper caught among them.

He handed her the cable ties and glanced down at the papers. The first was a wordsearch about garlic, creased roughly where he'd shoved it in his pocket. Cam laughed.

Then he unfolded the other piece of paper, and smiled again, though this time the laughter caught in his throat. The woman looked up from her work again, concerned. “Is everything alright?”

Cam looked down at the second piece of paper again, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Opening his eyes, he folded it and placed it carefully back in his pocket. “Everything is how it needs to be, Comrade. Yes.”

He held out the first sheet of paper to her. “Would you like a puzzle?”