August stood on the steps of the Foundation Registry, staring out at Edgeharbor with the overwhelming realization that he had absolutely no idea what to do next.
He had official documentation now. A place in society. A small device on his belt that would apparently tell people if he was about to become a public menace. But he also had no money, no place to stay, and no plan beyond "find Arthur and somehow prevent his tragic death."
"Okay," he said to himself, because talking to himself had become a reliable coping mechanism. "First things first. Food, shelter, basic survival. Then figure out how to save someone who apparently doesn't want to be saved."
He started walking down the main boulevard, marveling at the sheer impossibility of everything around him. The buildings seemed to grow rather than be built—organic curves and flowing lines that suggested the architects had been more interested in art than structural engineering. Yet everything looked solid, functional, lived-in.
People moved through the streets with the purposeful energy of a city that worked. Vendors called out prices for goods that ranged from mundane (bread, tools, clothing) to bizarre (glowing crystals, mechanical insects, bottles of what looked like liquid starlight).
And the diversity was staggering. August saw people with skin that shimmered like metal, others with eyes that held too much depth, a few whose hair moved independently of any wind. Foundation users, he realized. People whose powers had marked them physically.
"Excuse me," he said to a passing woman whose fingertips glowed softly blue. "I'm new here. Is there somewhere I could find work? Or at least information about work?"
The woman paused, looked him up and down, and nodded toward a large building with ornate spires. "Labor Exchange is in the Guild District. Third tier, you can't miss it. They'll set you up if you've got useful skills."
"Thank you," August said. "What counts as useful skills?"
"Can you lift heavy things? Fight Forsaken? Fix machines? Cook food that won't kill people?" She shrugged. "Something like that."
August considered his qualifications. "I can write?"
The woman gave him a look that suggested writing was not high on the list of essential city services. "Well. Good luck with that."
She walked away, leaving August to contemplate the possibility that his English degree might not translate well to post-apocalyptic employment.
The Guild District turned out to be a maze of interconnected platforms and walkways suspended between massive support pillars. August spent twenty minutes just trying to figure out how to reach the third tier before a helpful child pointed him toward what appeared to be a cargo lift operated by a bored-looking man with mechanical arms.
"Labor Exchange?" the operator asked without looking up from his newspaper.
"Please."
"Five coppers."
August patted his pockets. "I don't have any money."
The man finally looked at him. "Then you walk. Stairs are over there." He pointed to a spiraling staircase that seemed to go up for approximately forever.
August sighed and started climbing.
By the time he reached the third tier, his legs were screaming and he was seriously questioning whether his Foundation had made him immune to exhaustion or just delayed it. The Labor Exchange was easy to find—a large, bustling building with lines of people flowing in and out like water.
Inside, the walls were covered with job postings, most of which seemed to involve either combat or technical skills August didn't possess. "Forsaken Extermination Team needs experienced fighters." "Seeking qualified engineers for power grid maintenance." "Night shift guards for warehouse district, must be able to see in darkness."
He approached a desk where a tired-looking clerk was processing applications.
"Skills?" the clerk asked without looking up.
"Writing, research, general education—"
"Foundation class?"
"B-7, Adaptive Immunity."
The clerk's pen stopped moving. He looked up. "Adaptive Immunity? That's… unusual. Combat applications?"
"I don't think so. It just makes me immune to things that hurt me."
"Hmm." The clerk made a note. "There might be something. Testing positions for new Foundation-suppression technologies. They need volunteers who can survive exposure to experimental devices."
August felt a chill. "That sounds potentially dangerous."
"Pay's good. Fifty silvers a day, plus medical coverage for any unexpected side effects."
Fifty silvers sounded like a lot, but the phrase "unexpected side effects" was doing terrible things to August's imagination.
"Is there anything… safer?"
The clerk flipped through a stack of papers. "Message runner. Fifteen coppers a day, but you get to see the city. Only requirement is reliable legs and basic literacy."
"I'll take it."
"Excellent. Report to Central Communications tomorrow morning at dawn. Ask for Supervisor Kellan." The clerk handed him a slip of paper. "This is your temporary worker's permit. Don't lose it."
August pocketed the permit. "Is there somewhere I can stay? Cheaply?"
"Boarding houses in the Lower Market. Just follow the smell of cabbage and desperation."
August thanked him and headed back toward the stairs, feeling slightly more optimistic. He had a job, sort of. He had legal status. All he needed now was food and shelter, and he could start figuring out how to approach the Arthur situation.
The Lower Market was exactly as advertised—cramped, loud, and redolent with the aroma of questionable cooking. August found a boarding house called The Bent Gear that looked marginally less likely to collapse than its neighbors.
The proprietor was a large woman with graying hair and the kind of stern expression that suggested she'd dealt with every possible variety of difficult tenant.
"Room's two silvers a night, three meals included," she said. "Payment in advance. No drinking, no fighting, no bringing dangerous Foundation manifestations into my establishment."
"I don't have any money yet," August admitted. "But I have a job starting tomorrow—"
"Then come back tomorrow," the woman said, turning away.
"Wait," August said desperately. "I just need one night. I can work for it. Clean, cook, whatever you need."
The woman studied him for a moment. "You look half-dead already. When's the last time you ate?"
August tried to remember. "Yesterday? Maybe?"
She sighed. "Kitchen. Now. You can wash dishes for dinner and a place to sleep. But if you steal anything or cause trouble, you'll be back on the street with a few new bruises."
"Thank you," August said. "Really. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Wait until you see the state of my kitchen."
The kitchen was, indeed, a disaster. Piles of dirty dishes, grease-stained surfaces, and a stove that looked like it might achieve sentience through sheer accumulated grime. But August had worked his way through college in restaurant kitchens, and there was something comforting about familiar, mindless labor.
He spent the next four hours scrubbing, organizing, and trying not to think about the existential horror of his situation. Here he was, washing dishes in a fantasy world that had grown far beyond his imagination, while somewhere out there the character he'd doomed to death was presumably doing mysterious and terrible things with reality-warping powers.
"Not bad," the proprietor—Marta, she'd introduced herself—said when he finally finished. "You've done this before."
"Different life," August said.
"Aren't they all." Marta ladled a bowl of stew from a pot that had been simmering on the stove. "Eat. You look like you're about to fall over."
The stew was simple but good—thick with vegetables and some kind of meat August didn't recognize but decided not to ask about. He ate in grateful silence while Marta finished her evening routine.
"Room's upstairs, third door on the right," she said finally. "Breakfast at dawn, then off to your job. And boy?"
"Yes?"
"Whatever you're running from, you can't outrun it forever. Might be better to face it head-on."
August looked up at her. "What makes you think I'm running from something?"
"Son, I've been in this business for thirty years. I can spot a runner from across the room. Question is whether you're running toward something better or away from something worse."
August thought about Arthur, somewhere out in the Disputed Zones, carrying power that defied classification and apparently growing more unstable by the day.
"Both," he said quietly.
Marta nodded. "That's the hardest kind of running. Try to get some sleep."
The room was small but clean—a narrow bed, a washstand, and a window that looked out over the lower city. August sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out his Foundation monitor. The small screen showed a steady, slow pulse of blue light, indicating normal activity levels.
For now.
He thought about what Carver had said about Foundations changing people. About Arthur, alone with power too great for any individual to possess. About the entity on the bridge and its warning that this wasn't his story.
"Maybe not," August said to the empty room. "But I'm in it now."
He lay down on the unfamiliar bed, in an impossible city, in a world that had grown beyond his control, and tried to sleep.
Outside, Edgeharbor hummed with the complex rhythms of two hundred thousand people trying to build something stable from the wreckage of their old world. And somewhere beyond the city limits, in the wasteland of the Disputed Zones, Arthur Solvain continued his solitary war against forces that August was only beginning to understand.
Tomorrow, August would start learning how to navigate this new reality. Tonight, he just tried not to dream about bridges made of glass and entities that wore familiar faces while speaking truths he wasn't ready to hear.