Inquisitor H-64

The cloying scent of honeysuckle was deeply infused with the thick July humidity. That first waft of sweetness was pleasant, but once tessera’s sense memory kicked in, it made her sick. A burning sensation flashed across her knuckles as her eyes grazed over the soft, delicate flowers, defiantly jutting from their overgrown shrubs. They trumpeted out of her hair with the same undeniable prominence that day, deftly woven into a fragrant circlet atop her head. That predictable string of words echoed through every corner of her mind, as they did every time that floral aroma assaulted her senses “leave the flowers to the plants and trees, exinda-tessera, they are here to look pretty. Humans are built to achieve and advance, not to be ornaments.” Her knuckles seared as she recalled each word. It was as if each joint had its own memory, faithfully recreating each sting of the elder’s switch. One lash for each blossom that adorned her. She was only a child, but, as the elders say, that’s when it starts. She thought that she was creating something, wasn't that what humans were supposed to do? They achieve, advance, transform something that exists into something that didn’t before. It was a clever little crown but it served no purpose. Beauty, as she learned, is not a purpose, it is a way to gain favor with little effort or contribution. It’s a sickness in humans that will take decades, even centuries, to cure.

Eradicating this pathogen is no easy feat. The previous generations did a decent job scrubbing and purging, from the grandiose monuments down to small useless trinkets. This last round of disinfecting was the job of the inquisitors. Most of them went door to door, inspecting homes for contraband and reeducating those stowing it away. It seemed extreme at the time, but tessera now understood the purpose in a fair and productive society. The remaining inquisitors combed previously cleared ruins, searching for anything that may have been overlooked on larger, initial sweeps. This suited tessera, as she never wanted to be remembered with an accompanying sting across anyone else’s knuckles. The middle of the country had little use for h-level inquisitors like her, but the coasts were still littered with the corpses of buildings and underground transportation hubs, all with an almost unmanageable amount of hidden entrances and corridors.

Today’s excursion, however, was much further from home. This was an area just on the outskirts. It was a bit more built up than the ghost towns further west, but not as dense or imposing as the skeleton of a city her outpost lie nestled in. She was told it was one of the biggest major cities on the continent, but that was really the extent of her knowledge on the matter. The elders always say, “the past does nothing but obfuscate the future,” and they’re probably right. If we truly learned from our past mistakes, our ancestors wouldn’t have kept repeating them, locked in a futile, sentimental death spiral. Despite this, there was still a kernel of doubt deeply lodged somewhere between tessera’s solid work ethic and tenacious curiosity. Her partner, eta ikosi-exi, always kept her grounded, but he had fallen ill and returned to the main encampment for treatment. She knew it was safer to go with a designated partner, but their last few hauls were lacking. She’d need to bring back something of interest in the next few weeks for the region’s h-level branch to continue existing. She brought this up to exi once, and he almost seemed angry with her, believing that there was no reason to wish for an h-level branch to exist when one was not warranted. A job completed is a reason to celebrate and move on. tessera would not be able to celebrate though, knowing that the next stop would be door-to-door a-level inquisitorship.

Her first stop was a long building. It was cordoned off into compartments, all accessible from their own individual entrances. Each segment likely served its own unique purpose, none of which seemed residential. Most had been stripped of anything that would point to its use decades ago, but a few functional items that were left behind told the hint of the story. It wasn’t tessera’s to know, but her subconscious disagreed as she constantly fought the urge to piece it together. This compartment still had chairs, chairs with unique mechanisms that lifted them up and lowered them back down. The mechanism was on the back of the chair, however, meaning it was not the person sitting in it who could access these movements for comfort. It was likely for a service being provided from another who adjusted it as they needed. Perhaps it was medical? Aesthetic? Leisure? Sexual? tessera’s knuckles tingled, her fingers twitched a bit. She felt like exi could sense her mind wandering, as he always did, even from the encampment miles away with a stomach full of sickness.

In a small room, one that was likely a washroom given the remnants of plumbing, she saw a small grate at the center of the floor. The inquisitors that did the initial sweeps usually overlooked details like this. They were so wrapped up in everything right on the surface that they neglected so many of these innocuous nooks. She looked though her bag of antique tools, looking for the perfect fit to twist out these dull, rusty screws. An old fashioned screwdriver with a small, tapered, spatula-like head rose to the occasion. Luckily, the decades of drought had rid the small cavity below of any residual moisture and the filth that it often breeds. There were small wads of decomposing hair and what looked like the skeletal remains of an unlucky rodent that found a way in, but no way out. The hair confirmed one of her hypotheses, that the person behind the chair was providing an aesthetic service. She chuckled at the absurdity of it all. Hair was nothing but a nuisance, and it was easy enough to simply remove at home. To regularly have one’s hair trimmed and pruned in a fashionable way only to have it quickly grow back again seemed decadent and wasteful, almost Sisyphean.

She carefully put on a pair of worn, leather gloves and ferreted through the surface debris for anything else. Beneath the dust and clumps of mummified hair, there was a small plastic bag. It held a large amount of currency, which would need to be destroyed immediately; a smaller plastic bag with something organic, maybe a seasoning or medicinal herb; and a golden ornament suspended from a chain that was also made of gold. It was probably hung around the wrist or neck, another abysmally wasteful act. Being such a precious commodity, for useful and often necessary technology, it truly baffled tessera that people of the past would simply… wear gold on their person as decoration.

This was exactly the sort of find she had hoped for, one that may have been missed with her partner’s rushed tactics. She suspected, in the same way she dragged her duties on to remain at h-level, that exi turned a blind eye at times to get a ‘job well-done’ and get promoted up to a-level. Once her haul was brought to the elders, they would more than likely destroy the currency, sequence the organic matter, and repurpose the ornament into useful material after relaying some moral lesson regarding it. She inspected it again, proud of her work. The shape was unusual. A narrow chevron but the two top points were rounded into comically soft hemispheres while the bottom point remained sharp and pronounced. In the center, a small chip of clear mineral. It could be diamond, which would be a lot more useful crushed up to coat a small, fine drill than hanging on someone’s body. The ornament seemed to be composed of two equally sized pieces fused together. On closer inspection, the halves were held together with a hinge. tessera picked up the old screwdriver and began to pry at the trinket like a small, tedious oyster. This sort of thing is typically discouraged, as it is the elders who inspect and document items, inquisitors are only responsible for finding and delivering these relics. Today, however, the pull of tessera’s curiosity was especially resilient and exi was in the infirmary.

With a dulled click, the ornament folded open. Inside, the faded image of a man, the ghost of a life that, if lucky, existed before The Tribulation, but likely, perished during it. His hair was swept to one side, long and messy on top, sheared with precision along the sides. His facial hair was grown in, but only a small amount. Like his hair, it had been meticulously sculpted. His clothing did not appear comfortable or functional. He was blanketed in layers of awkwardly shaped cloth with one long, decorative piece tied around his neck. It had the most distracting of patterns, lines of different sizes and directions in clashing colors. Upon closer inspection, she noticed a cluster of flowers that poked out from an upper pocket. tessera’s hands trembled, trying to stave off the impending wave of pain. She distracted herself by trying to concoct the morality tale she thought the elders might derive from it. She looked at the man with disdain and wondered why this object even existed. Did he wear an image of himself as a testament to his ego? Was it to capture his youth and fawn upon it in old age? As embarrassingly foolish as this thought was, could it have possibly been carried around by a lover? A way to flaunt the fleeting appearances of their favorite sexual partner? It soon became as fascinating as it was confusing. She was tempted to keep it and study it a little longer, but the penalties for an inquisitor stowing contraband were far greater than that of a civilian.

The rest of that trip’s findings were disappointingly unremarkable. Maybe it really was a ‘job well done’ on their part. She picked up some equipment that may have been used for sport, but could have also been used for labor, smaller denominations of currency, a few keys, and a collection of decorative knobs and fixtures. She kept recalling the man in the picture. As she made her way back to the city, he went from an arrogant monster, to a pitiful casualty, to a daring individual and oscillated between each mode of existence until he somehow occupied all three. This ornament now felt more like a coffin than a trinket and surrendering it to the elders felt like she was defiling something sacred. Then again, these feelings for the dead are vestigial. The divine, the undying soul, heaven and hell, all clever tricks our fledgling brains concoct to evade the fear of our own inevitable ends. Even this desire lesser men and women have to leave something behind, to be immortal, to build your own mausoleum atop all of the living people struggling to maintain the current world. She thought those ridiculous feelings had been evicted from her mind a long time ago. Maybe a little reeducation would do her some good, she thought. As she edged closer to home base, the air began to smell of honeysuckle again. She pulled the ornament out one more time, honing in on the small bouquet adorning the man’s ludicrous outfit. She smiled a little as her gaze shifted to flower covered bushes. She felt the breeze brush against the tops of her hands as she clicked it shut and returned it to her carrier.