Eden's Jester Read Online Free

senses back and breathed deeply. The clear night air of the pseudo-desert felt good in my fake lungs. “I mean, we’re practically neighbors,” I said aloud. The night echoed my words back at me. It sounded hurt.  
    The attempt at communication hadn’t been a complete failure. I learned they can detect me when I’m close.  
    There’s very little information about elementals out in the open. Engineers act like they don’t even exist. It stood to reason that their ability to terraform the planet would make elementals excellent allies. Why would the orthodox Engineers be so tight-lipped concerning elementals? Most likely the fact that the Doctrines—supposedly ordained by the Preceptors—made no mention of them had something to do with it. And it was exactly that kind of omission that made me believe the party line was just that—a line. I was suspicious by nature and paranoid by choice. So when an entire race acts like another entire race doesn’t exist, I look for the conspiracy. And if everything we knew was nothing more than a line, where was the truth? If your only source of authoritative information had an agenda, who could you trust? No one.
    Man, did I hate Engineers. And Preceptors.  
    I leaned back and watched the stars revolve slowly around the North Star. The sky spun as it had for eons. It was all too big. The orthodox Engineers had a neat set of Doctrines that tied a nice bow on the whole world. They had an answer for everything. It all fit together very well, in their systematic way of thinking. But that just made it more suspect.
    I laughed at the stars. Orthodox Engineers. The only unorthodox Engineer I knew was me. I was the only one asking the hard questions. They couldn’t even see them through their haze of doctrinal interpretation. Was it possible that I alone had insight? I laughed again.  
    I was confused and isolated, ignorant and alone. But I knew it. Those fools didn’t even guess that their traditional orthodoxy, whether it be of Law or Chaos, might be a house of cards built on a Frito floating in the midst of an uncaring ocean.  
    Well, that was their problem. I had at least four friends, and truth was out there somewhere. That wasn’t nothing.
    I stood up and brushed the sand from my jeans. The sky to the south, above the small town next door, was turning crimson with the dawn. “Red in the morning . . . “ I mumbled. “Fantastic.”
    I didn’t look back at the black rock as I walked through the Egyptian-like desert, toward town.

CHAPTER THREE

    Oxford is about fifty miles north of Detroit, placed right in the middle of several large gravel pits. It’s my kind of town.
    I sat in a coffee shop at the corner of Dennison and Washington, considering, over a Grande Double Espresso, how I would spend the next few weeks.  
    Many Engineers forgo the manifestation of human flesh and bone as a normal way of living. I love my flesh and bone, especially when it is infused with a Grande Double Espresso.  
    My great powers of discernment, which fail less than half the time, told me that whatever Aeson was up to, it would be harmful to North America. And while I don’t run the place, it’s home. I didn’t like Aeson, his methods, or his buddies. I really didn’t like them messing with my town. Screwing with Aeson and his plans was an ancient hobby of mine. This time, it would be personal.  
    Unfortunately, my network of friends is small and not up to the challenge of getting ahead of Aeson. So I’d have to figure out how to delay him. Social movements could be hard to stop, once started. I’d have to see Melanthios and try to stir up more opposition there. That shouldn’t be too hard. I guessed from his absence at the Gathering that he was already inclined to resist Aeson’s ideas. I’d also have to find Aeson’s primary operatives among the people of this great nation and arrange a messy end. That wouldn’t be too hard. Hunting down and killing human operatives is relatively