Chapter Text
(n.) teleology - The study of purposive or end-directed relationships, philosophically related to Aristotle’s concept of a “final cause”.
The universe is said to be commanded by one Law, and one Law alone - a single, unifying equation that binds together the sum of human knowledge. From the nascent particles of the Big Bang, through the origins of life and purpose, all the way down to the day-to-day interactions of colonists in a backwater port of a backwater planet, all these things and more are predictable through the knowledge of sheer particle interaction. Theoretically.
Theories are well and good. The trickier part is putting them into practice. So far, humankind has struggled to nail down the specifics of the dynamical fabric of the living world, though not for lack of trying. It’s through the efforts of the OSI that our current theories about matter and mind are developed and catalogued. It’s through their efforts that humanity can mold materials into fantastical shapes and forms, giving birth to civilization and the colonial industry and a delicious variety of Rizzo’s-brand treats.
And it’s through the efforts of one Maximillian DeSoto that the secrets of the universe will finally be laid bare, the Plan realized, and the struggle to find one’s purpose ended once and for all. In theory. It’s a bit of a work in progress.
There’s something to be said about the night time in Edgewater. The heat of the day concentrates itself in the cannery’s shiny metal walls, where it ferments saltuna’s already-distasteful smell into a fetid stink like that the vicar imagines from ancient pools of garum, and he has the distinct pleasure of spending his waking hours immediately downwind. It comes as a relief, then, when the air cools and the winds shift and Edgewater smells a little less provincial.
Not much else changes, though. The second shift gets replaced with the third shift, which has gone from a full-bodied outfit of a few dozen or so to a handful of pallid men with names like “Crom” and “Bunt”. And sweaty, too, just the same going in as coming out. Locals rotate out of the watering hole and into their bunks. Come the crack of dawn, they’ll rotate back around, and Max will return to his own post to listen to the same troubled minds that cross his door every morning. It’s all very… quaint. Routine. Predictability has its benefits. A shiv to the ribs is not as easy to predict, although not impossible, as he proves by closing the door to the rectory with all of his blood and organs still inside him.
So it goes. Morning comes and goes again. Another body takes a one-way trip through Edgewater’s gates. As usual, Max is there to supply final rites, say a few nice words, that sort of thing. By now the rest of the town doesn’t bother lingering much when he does, so he keeps it short. The Plan works in mysterious ways, and sometimes, he supposes aloud, that plan is full of plague and suffering. That’s life, dear.
The one woman in attendance stops crying into her dirty handkerchief and stares at him long enough that he doesn’t believe he nailed that one. There’s always next time, he supposes.
It’s a living, and it’s a small sacrifice to make, in his estimation. Max has grown to tolerate his circumstances. Suffering was considered noble in many defunct religions, and what great agony was a little boredom and lack of enrichment in the grand scheme of things? He can be patient. He’s come this far, and he is so, so close to a breakthrough. He just needs to get his hands on that book. Leaving Edgewater isn’t as easy as it sounds, however, and even if Max were desperate enough to go looking for it himself, there’s been a vicar shortage of sorts in this part of the colony. It’s best if he keeps himself in one piece.
There is hope yet. The Plan is ineffable, mostly, but everything ends up where it ought in the end. Something just has to align in the structure of the universe. He must be here for a purpose, and that purpose will realize itself if he has faith. It has to.
And then, on the 52nd day of repeating this to himself, a distant unrealized end coalesces and brings the Stranger to his door, with Ms. Holcomb attempting to hide behind him.
Not her best choice. The Stranger draws the gazes of nearby parishioners like a magnet, which only makes her shrink in further upon herself. It’s easy to see why - he commands attention, tall and leggy and housed in a grey bodysuit the likes of which Max has never seen before. What would those hoses be used for in the first place? But it’s the eyes that stand out the most, a cutting purple that couldn’t be anything but man-made. Max imagines he can hear them clicking and whirring like automechanicals as they take a once-over of the temple. They alight on him.
“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” Max says as they approach his desk. “Ms. Holcomb. And a new friend.”
“Oh. I-I’m not his friend— I mean, he’s not my friend. Yet. Wow, uh, that’s not what I mean,” Parvati stammers. One of her hands tugs at her handkerchief. Idly, he worries that if she gets any paler she’ll pass out in front of the Law and everyone.
The Stranger clears his throat. Up close, Max can make out the faint edges of a scar bisecting his right eye. Curious, how well it blends in when one’s too busy taking in, well, everything else. “You must be the vicar. I’m in kind of a situation right now, and Parvati thinks we could use your advice.”
“A situation. You’d be surprised how many of those I’m asked to deal with,” he says. “Well, lay it on me. I specialize in confessionals, but I can also do moral quandaries, ontological questions, and tossball predictions.”
This is how Max comes to learn several things. For one, the Stranger does have a name: Alex Hawthorne. For another, he doesn’t even know what tossball is. That’s practically refreshing, compared to the usual type of blasphemy Max runs into. Lastly, he learns that though the gears of fate turn in mysterious ways, they do turn eventually, and they’ve dropped the solution to his current conundrum into his lap. As he had faith they would.
The crux of the conundrum is this: Some thing, some event unleashed the universe and all the matter therein. Some speak of a watchmaker, or Architect, that, upon completion of its task, wiped its hands clean and left the results to tick interminably thereafter. (The OSI remains officially agnostic on the matter, but it does make good arguing material for its clergy.) In a way, creation was the ultimate experiment. Shake together the ingredients and see what happens. The one Law provides the constraints that shape the way particles interact, and, to a more enlightened people, enable prediction of their future paths.
It’s nothing but physical science all the way down. In the past, many specializations of science emerged, each with their own unique rules and theories, but their descriptions of the physical world can be compared to a group attempting to describe an elephant based on local feel alone. They lack synthesis into a cohesive whole. That’s the classic orthodox question in search of an answer. But the more heterodox question lies among the contraband Max has just made a risky play to get.
It is commonly accepted that there is no magic in the universe. There are no gods, no demons, and no homunculi lingering unseen in the brains of man. That said, if all things in the world can be reduced to specific arrangements of atoms, and nothing else, how does one explain the material impact of the written word? Stripped of meaning, a word is just ink on paper, thixotropic gel in a matrix of pulp. All physical stuff. It means nothing without context. But “context” and “meaning” and other such things are concepts without physical presence, which, by definition, shouldn’t be present in the universe. “Value” can’t be directly measured with any type of meter, although that doesn’t stop Spacer’s Choice from trying.
According to OSI scripture, these abstract concepts are nothing more than epiphenomenal glosses. Like an anthropocentric filter on processes inherently devoid of teleology. Max has to admit he finds this unsatisfying. The Plan may have systematically excised any worry about telos - ends and purpose - from human life, but it has left many other non-physical loose ends like function and meaning uncut. After all, if meaning was irrelevant to one’s acts in the Plan, there wouldn’t be a need to ban books like Bakonu’s journal in the first place. A word would not be quite so dangerous.
What’s missing is, inexplicably, something missing. About-ness. The state of being functionally incomplete without reference to something else. Without these absential properties, life reduces to mere mechanism, and if that’s the case, then why bother acting? Doing? Striving toward ends, fighting the Plan at every turn? Why is he trying so hard?
He doesn’t have a neat answer to that one yet, despite many long nights of research and philosophical agonizing. But, if everything goes according to plan, he should get a little closer to one, and the rest of the institute won’t need to know about his… dalliances.
Unfortunately, everything does not go according to plan.
The first indication comes some days later when the power abruptly winks out across Edgewater. In the darkness, Max looks up from his work at nothing, until the emergency lights flicker on and fill the temple with muted red light. An eerie quiet rolls in like a fog. He realizes that it’s the cannery’s characteristic belching and chugging that’s missing, for the first time since he arrived. And in that moment, he also realizes that this is the sound of a town that has just died and doesn’t know it yet.
That son of a bitch actually went and did it, then. In the back of his mind, Max had imagined that the Stranger would have a particular way of words, and that he would be able to do what Tobson couldn’t - to reunite the two struggling factions of the Emerald Vale. Optimistic, sure, but not out of the realm of possibility. Until now. Distantly, Max knows he should feel angry, at least on behalf of the townsfolk, but he doesn’t. Instead there’s a weird calmness settling over him. It propels him to pack up his literature and research before dawn breaks. Something tells him it would be wise.
Come morning, the harbinger of their fate strolls through the temple entrance, unperturbed and covered in a frightening amount of blood. Max immediately stops what he’s doing and stares.
“It’s not mine,” Hawthorne says by way of greeting.
“That’s- that’s not what I was worried about.”
Parvati follows him in, walking straighter than the last time they met, and she’s in a similar state of cleanliness. Max eyes the dark, squelching footprints they leave on the floorboards with distaste. They’re hardwood, for goodness’ sake. “Uh, sorry about the mess, Mr. Vicar,” she offers.
He opens his mouth. Then he shuts it and takes a deep breath to center himself. With effort, he says, “Don’t worry about it. Just tell me, did you get the book?”
“You mean this?” Hawthorne wipes a hand on a less-dirty segment of his bodysuit and pulls a thin blue journal out of his pack, which he tosses toward Max rather than handing over like a civilized human being. Before he can think about it, his hand snaps out to intercept it. “Ooh, nice reflexes. This wasn’t too easy to get a hold of, you know. I almost blew my leg off.”
That should sound questionable, or even concerning, but the words go in one ear and out the other because finally he has the book. A little tremor overcomes him as he opens the journal, flips through it… and…
“What the fuck is this? Is this… French? I can’t fucking read French! What a Law-forsaken joke! I spent years in this miserable, swampy hole in the ground, and for what? This?” He throws it onto his desk, where it lands with a disconcertingly loud slap. “Figures. I was so high and mighty, preaching about law and order and following the Plan while fighting it at every turn. This is only what I deserve.”
Hawthorne folds his arms and frowns. “This seems like an overreaction. It’s just one book, Vicar.”
“Just one book? You don’t understand. Seeking out this ‘one book’ was a major part of my life’s work! I was this close to unraveling the mysteries of the universe with the help of rare texts like this, but the Architect clearly has different plans for me,” Max snaps, voice dripping with bitterness.
“And you’re telling me there isn’t a single person in this colony who can read French?”
“How the hell should I know!”
“Hey, c’mon now,” Parvati interjects, stepping in between the two of them. “Let’s not be gettin’ all at each other’s throats, here. Maybe we could help you get it translated. My dad taught me some French, you know, stuff about ‘fromages’ and ‘omelettes’? I could give it a whack.”
Max rests his head in his hands, groans into his palms, and then pushes them up his face and through his hair. “No, Ms. Holcomb, you’ve done quite enough for me already, thanks,” he forces out with as much kindness as he can muster.
“She has a point. You need a translator, I’ve got a ship. And I think I’ll be needing a bigger crew sooner rather than later. We could work something out,” Hawthorne says.
And, somehow, it really is as easy as that. One day, he’s an underworked vicar with a shitty contract and Parvati’s an overworked scion of the Spacer’s Choice family, and the next, those bonds evaporate into thin air. Just because Hawthorne says so. This has to be the Architect at work, he realizes, strings pulled behind the scenes at some long-distant point in the past to bring the Stranger here, now, to bring him closer to the truth. The Plan has opened a door in front of him and he would be a fool to ignore it. And if he never has to set foot in Edgewater again, so much the better.
When Max takes his leave, he makes it quick and to the point. The Unreliable’s bulky frame looms overhead, a black, formless silhouette with a single light on the entry door. Somewhat less inviting than he expected. The interior makes him question his decision for a different reason: the dust. How does Hawthorne live like this? “Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose,” he mutters.
“You must be the new crewmember,” booms an oddly artificial voice from a nearby speaker.
“Laws above!”
“I’m ADA, the ship’s artificial intelligence,” it continues. “The Captain has told me all about you. Your room is located on the second floor, third from the right.”
Max lets out a breath he’d been holding. “Thanks, I think. Do I want to know what he said about me?” he asks. He can’t help being curious.
“I’m afraid that’s classified information, Max.”
Seems that ADA’s got eyes just about everywhere, as he finds when he takes a cursory investigation of the ship. There doesn’t appear to be one of those funny little cameras in his room, but for some reason, that doesn’t entirely put him at ease. Max puts that thought aside for the time being. He’s got things to unpack, and he’s bone-tired besides. Not that it ends up taking long. A vicar’s life is decidedly ascetic, and material keepsakes come few and far between. No, the bulk of his personal belongings is made up of texts that would both bore the pants off the average reader and possibly get him excommunicated. The collection’s his pride and joy. His tossball card collection is a close second, however.
One had to wonder just how long Hawthorne and Parvati had been running around together before they ran into him, on account of the density of leafy things taking up space in Parvati’s room already. (Not that Max was so uncouth as to snoop.) The two of them return the next day, when the vicar is debating whether or not it would be ethical to eat the lone can of saltuna in the fridge without asking. He decides it wouldn’t be.
“Hey, Mr. Vicar. How’s the ship treatin’ you? We’re just about to get her up and runnin’ again,” Parvati says with an aborted wave, arms otherwise full with a very large, very scientific-looking cylinder. Presumably the power core.
“It’s… interesting,” hedges Max. “I’m not sure it’s what I expected. Then again, it has been a long time since the last time I was inside something like this.”
She nearly drops it from surprise. “You been in a spaceship before?”
Before he can answer, Hawthorne gingerly steadies her, then takes the core himself. “Parvati, why don’t I take this and go install it? Go get a shower or something. The Vicar’s been giving us weird looks since yesterday, so, ah, we might offend.”
Parvati says, “I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” at the same time Max bursts out, “I’ve been doing no such thing,” a total falsehood. She heads off at that, but Hawthorne doesn’t.
He sits at the table, taking a seat orthogonal to Max, and sets the core on the ground. Then he rests his elbows on the table and folds his hands in front of his face, obscuring his mouth. The look he gives Max is filled with a strange cold intent. It’s like he’s searching for something, eyes flickering minutely from left to right.
“Can I help you, Captain?” says Max at last.
“How good are you at keeping a secret, Max?”
“That would depend on the secret, I think. Does this have anything to do with all the, ah,” he trails off, gesturing at all the mess.
That startles a laugh out of the Captain. “What? No. That was just- there was a, well, an incident. With some marauders. What I’m talking about is a little bigger than that.” His hands drop, fingers laced together. They’re deceptively small. Graceful, even. “Do you know who I am, exactly?” Hawthorne asks him.
“Not exactly. To be frank, I don’t know much about you at all.”
“And you’re coming with me anyway?”
He nods, and Hawthorne suddenly breaks out in a toothy smile. “Wow. You must be out of your mind. Or maybe just desperate? You’re in luck, then, because I like a guy who’s desperate,” he beams. Max’s ears burn at that. Embarrassment? That’s something he hasn’t felt in a dog’s age.
“I’d prefer ‘enthusiastically devoted’,” Max attempts, but it doesn’t wipe the shit-eating grin off Hawthorne’s face.
“Whatever you want to call it. Anyway, the point is, I need somebody with a little discretion, and I imagine you fit the bill,” he says, then leans in to add, “so, here’s the deal: I’m not supposed to be here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m supposed to be dead. Frozen out in space, or liquefied, or something. I’m not one-hundred percent sure about the specifics. But somebody found me and brought me back - back from being in cryosleep, I mean. I was asleep for decades,” he breathes.
Max frowns, gears turning in his head. “Decades… You don’t mean you were on some kind of colony ship? Like the Hope?”
“That’s the one.”
“You must be joking.”
The warmth vanishes from his face like a set of steel shutters being slammed closed. “Do I look like I tell jokes, Vicar?” No, judging from the flat line of his mouth, perhaps he doesn’t. Max doesn’t have the chance to say as much before he continues. “Let me know if this sounds funny to you, then: there’s hundreds of thousands of people left frozen on the Hope. I’m just the first to wake up. And I’m going to bring them all back.”
The most frightening thing, Max reflects later in the privacy of his bunk, is that Hawthorne believes he can actually do it. Really, genuinely believes it. And that he himself was willing to abandon his entire life at the drop of a hat to help make Hawthorne’s will be done. Law help him.