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Rocking the Foundation

Welcome to the next chapter in my latest story: The Case of the Rotten Foundation.

This part was fun for me, because Noxie and Enigma come from two completely separate worlds. This makes it possible to do world-building for both planes by contrasting them with each other. And since Noxie’s setting is much like our own, we get to compare our lived reality with fantasy by proxy.

And of course, credit to LittleBadWolf. It’s always a pleasure working with them for an illustration.

---

“Holy shit, Old Ma- Enigma. Looks better on you than I thought it would.”

Noxie gave a thumbs-up and a grin as the wolf walked out of the spare room of the top floor living space, looking more like a citizen of Machresse than he had when he first arrived. In her mind, his new outfit could have used a few more studs like her own, for a truly badass look, but she knew he’d never go for it. He was a “respectable” and “approachable” man,  just like her father. Instead, she hooked him up with a short-sleeved cyberware jacket with a faint cyan glow around the neck and neon-gold trimmings along the seams.

Underneath, in almost direct contrast with her ruby undershirt, he wore sapphire blue, the same shade as the one trailing down the mid-section of his new pants, with black on the outside of each leg. Gold, protective kneepads and ebony boots completed the look. Someone passing him by in the streets could mistake the ensemble for a jumpsuit and undershirt for the way each segment of the outfit effortlessly blended into the next, and Enigma assumed that was the intended effect of the full design.

The wolf was surprised both by how practical and comfortable it was and how it made him look the part of a mercenary. With a few experimental stretches and rotations of his arms and legs, he realized the armor weaved into the garments gave him a full range of motion.  He bounced on his feet, feeling how light-weight everything was for the protection it afforded.

“Impressive”, he said to the young rat who gave him the new duds. “A fascinating combination of stylish and practical. This is clearly an outfit designed for someone who spends a lot of time out and about.”

“Mom had it made for Dad back when she was ‘Noxie’.” There are a mix of emotions flashing through her violet eyes, and in the expression on her face, too many for the wolf to make a more accurate read. “He never wore it though. They left the mercenary life and settled down here when they had me.”

While that alone raised numerous questions, he pushed them aside. This was not the right time. Instead, he slowly, carefully placed a comforting hand on the young rodent’s shoulder. “Are you sure you want to give me this, given its sentimental value? I don’t want to take something that important from you.”

Whatever stew of emotions Noxie was feeling in that moment, hesitation wasn’t one of them. She gave him a firm nod. “Yeah. Better than letting it collect dust. Dad probably can’t even fit into it anymore, anyway.”

He returned her nod. “Alright. I trust your judgement, and I thank you for the garments. I can already tell they’ll be useful for our investigation.”

“Oh, it’s ‘our investigation’ now, is it? Last I checked it was mine.” With both of her hands in the pockets of her jacket, she gave a wry smile despite herself.

“That was before you hired Enigma, the Great Detective!” He made no effort to conceal the pride in his voice. “But before we begin, young lady, might you give me an overview of the case. Perhaps starting with these ‘Rail Tails’ and the job they hired you for.” He gestured to her, as if the movement would somehow coax the information out of her snout.

“Probably best to wait ‘til we get there. C’mon, ‘detective’. We got a train to catch.”

---

“Quit gawking, Old Man! You look like a tourist and Knock-Out Noxie isn’t a tour guide!”

The rodent walked up the subway stairwell with a comfortable, confident stride. Her hands were stuffed into her jacket pocket making a point to ignore the guard rail. It was only after making it halfway up that she realized her ‘partner’ wasn’t following her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Enigma was wide eyed, mouth agape, as the train sped away towards its next destination.

At his name being called, he snapped out of his wonder, picking up his pace to catch up to the younger beastkin.

“Sorry. Trains aren’t common where I come from. And I’ve never rode on one that moved so quickly before. You live in such a fascinating world, Miss Noxie.”

“You don’t have trains whe- Y’know what? I don’t care. We have a job to do, Enigma!” She looked at him almost like he was an alien from a cheap sci-fi flick. In a very literal sense, she supposed that he was. But before she had the chance to ponder her misfortunes further, the wolf had already caught up to her.

“Perhaps you could at least tell me where we’re going and what we’ll look into when we arriv- Huh.” The shops and townhouses back near the sushi restaurant were no more than three stories at their largest, smaller than most of the apartment complexes back home in his beloved Magistrum City. So when the wolf caught sight of towers of such lofty heights that they could completely block out the afternoon sun, it caught him off guard. “And I thought the spires back home were tall. Even I wouldn’t be able to safely climb these buildings.”

Noxie shrugged, growing resigned to her new duty: keeping Enigma grounded to reality. “You get a nut job or two every year trying to do that, and it usually doesn’t end well, but who cares!” The young rat pointed towards the more ‘modestly’ sized building across the street from the subway station exit. Though the surrounding buildings dwarfed it, it was still tall enough to compete with the headmaster’s tower, one of the tallest back home. “We’re headed to that one over there: Foundation.”

“Foundation? That’s a strange name for a building.” Enigma’s hand massaged the underside of his snout gently with his knuckles as he eyes gazed upon their destination.

“It’s where the ‘mayor’ runs the city.” she stuffed her hand back in her pocket, clearly where it was most comfortable. Noxie took a gander in both directions and began to cross over to Foundation alongside other pedestrians, with Enigma right behind her.

“So this is the seat of your local government?” The detective mused, his eyes making note of small, potentially useful details, like the fire escape on the side of the building and the lone uniformed avian officer at the main entrance. 

Curiously, he also noticed a couple of small devices mounted to the corners of the building, swiveling in fixed angles. It brought to mind many of the old automated weapons from the ancient Planeswalker wars on his home plane of Crossroads. Constructs that were still roaming the land hundreds of years after their purpose had been fulfilled, well before his birth. They had similar ocular sensors, used to track people through sight, and the mind mage made a note to ask if the people of this plane had adapted this technology for domestic use.

“Close enough to one, I guess.” Though Noxie could tell this was different than the way Enigma was gawking at the train, she couldn’t quite place what was going on in his mind as they finally finished their crossing.

“Then I find this building even more puzzling.” Enigma walked towards and passed a large fountain just outside the entrance, water flowing steadily through it. Ignoring the entrance, he placed his hand on the exterior of Foundation itself, feeling the stone’s chill through his soft fur.

Noxie, now curious, betrayed her right pocket to touch the same edifice. “What’s so weird about it?”

“I would expect the seat of power to stand out more from the rest of the city. Usually, such facilities invite a sense of grandeur and history; monuments to statecraft.” He brushed his knuckles over the stone as it transitioned into some form of tempered glass he wasn’t familiar with. “If anything, this ‘Foundation’ stands out for how unremarkable it is compared to everything around it. Furthermore, this material seems new. I’d expect a ‘Foundation’ to be weathered and maintained for a long time.”

“They had to renovate the place to make room for all the new offices about a year ago. A lot of people made a fuss, but that didn’t stop city planning from demolishing the place and starting over from scratch. Politics, for you.” She remembered reading about the protests in her news feed, and how they were quickly ‘pacified’ by Darktide and Kata Corporation goons, along with a few others. Big corpos had to have their offices right underneath the mayor’s, and they weren’t going to let ‘historical value’ get in the way of that.

Taking his hands off the face of Foundation, Enigma’s eyes focused on Noxie’s. “I see. And yet, despite how new it is, they still call it ‘Foundation’. What does it have to do with our investigation?” 

“I want to know why a Rail Tail was caught trying to bomb the place while I was out having coffee with you! Dumbass apparently got himself caught and now the whole gang is in the slammer!” Enigma could picture the steam coming out of her ears as she stomped the ground and gave the side of Foundation a solid kick with her heel. 

She was still sore about the timing of those arrests. The mission to steal a fancy new prototype from Kata Corp, and (more importantly) the payday associated with it, had to be called off because of all this crap. The only consolation was that she’d have likely been arrested too, if she hadn’t somehow planeswalked to the bizarre old-timey world Enigma came from. Going without pay sucked, but it still beat jail.

“Evidentially, they didn’t succeed.” Enigma took a moment to scan the area one more time, taking in what his senses were detecting. The guard at the front entrance stood firm, with no hint of nerves. Though there were small imperfections across the building’s edifice, like dents or bumps exacerbated by natural wear and tear, he didn’t notice anything unusual. “I see no evidence of fire or smoke damage. And I must say that the guard over there is remarkably calm given the circumstances. I can’t even detect any loose thoughts pouring out of him.”

“Loose… thoughts? What the hell are you talking about!?” Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she expectantly met his gaze, briefly wondering if he was called ‘Enigma’ because he always left people asking more and more questions.

Thankfully for her, the wolf was all too eager to answer her inquiry. The way he puffed out his chest and held his head high gave Noxie got the impression he was a bit too excited. “A crude, but excellent question, Miss Noxie! While my powers allow me to read other people’s minds if I focus, opening up my sixth sense, in my daily life I’m not that precise. Normally I can only sense the presence of a mind, but not exactly what they’re thinking.”

“You didn’t have any trouble reading my ‘loud thoughts’ this morning!” As she retorted, Noxie realized the guard was starting to look their way. Though he remained at his post, refusing to come any closer, she could see him glancing with the corner of his eye, tilting his head towards them.

Unfortunately for her, Enigma took that as an invitation to raise his voice just a little more. “Again, an excellent observation. I imagine that attention to detail serves you well in your profession!” He could see her bemused eyeroll, but chose to pay it no mind. “I have found over the course of my career that when people are highly stressed, overstimulated, or otherwise overwhelmed, their thoughts become easier to read. Even if I have no interest in them, these ‘loud thoughts’ come to my mind unabated. These require conscious effort to avoid reading.”

“I bet that’s annoying.” Was the first thought that crossed Noxie’s mind as the mind mage lectured away.

She cursed under her breath when Enigma responded, having realized she was ‘loud thinking’ once more.

“It can be. I’ll not deny that. But it is a talent that has its uses. For example, I can always tell who, in my class, needs a bit of one-on-one time because exams are coming up and they’ve failed to study for them. Their minds leak like faucets, exposing every possible insecurity. I have a stack of referral cards for the Mental Health Services Center ready for those occasions.”

“Alright, so you’re a real psychic. Now do you mind telling me why you’re hamming it up like this, Old Man!” She tried as hard as could not to smile and laugh as she admonished him, but a chuckle still came out of her lips.

“I don’t need my powers to know that you’d feel safer if the guard didn’t notice us. And I understand why. I’m certain even he understands why. But I had to draw his attention, you see?” Enigma began shifting towards the uniformed bird standing just outside the revolving door entrance as he spoke to the young rat.

“Why? That kind of attention will just get in our way.” Though she knew she wouldn’t need it, a part of her was cognizant of the pistol on the magnetic clip at her hip.

“Steady yourself, Miss Noxie. If this man was so inclined or otherwise capable, he would have already had us escorted out. It was more important to get across the message that there is simply no reason, nor point, to lie to us. Do you understand, good sir?” When the last word of his sentence escaped his snout, Enigma’s attention had already transitioned from his fascinating new partner to the guard he was now standing in front of. He could already see a bead of sweat forming on the avian’s forehead, standing somewhere between his and Noxie’s height. It was difficult to determine his species at first, from a distance. Now that he was close enough to take in the details, the detective was confident the guard was a pigeon.

“Wha- what makes you think I got a reason to lie, dog breath!?” He choked out through his beak.

“I’m not sure yet, but I would expect Foundation’s security detail to be more on edge given that someone tried to bomb this building last night, especially given its importance. Yet you seem remarkably calm.” Allowing for a pregnant pause, the wolf looked directly into the pigeon’s eyes. “It’s not enough to prove anything, but it’s odd all the same.”

“Wait, hold up. The Old Man has a point. Why aren’t you in lockdown?” Noxie had closed the gap, standing right next to her new, temporary partner.

“No need. The bomb squad from InvestiGate gave the all clear already, and that pale-furred rat and his troublemaking punk friends are already behind bars. Inspectors said there’s no chance they’d try again after that. Case closed, sewer mouse.” A contemptuous glare from the pigeon underscored his thinly-veiled animosity. Rising to the challenge, Noxie started to march up to him, cracking her knuckles.

At least, until Enigma held his arm out to block her way, taking the opportunity to redirect the conversation. “As entertaining as this is, don’t you think it’s odd that the team investigating the crime wrapped up the case on the same day the incident took place?”

“Honestly, I’m not paid enough to give a shit, fangface. Rats always think they’re getting a raw deal, but there’s a reason no one trusts’em. They’re shady, and that one was dumb enough to get caught. Done deal. End of story.”

Enigma didn’t move his arm from in front of Noxie. He could already tell that nothing good would come from letting her loose upon this arrogant bird.

Not that Noxie was making it easy, pounding a fist into her open palm. “Say that to my face, featherweight!”

“I just did, pink ears!”

Listening to the two of them was almost more than the mentalist could bear. With his best effort, he was able to tune them out just long enough to come up with a new plan of attack.

“Alright”, he placed his whole body between them, forcing them further apart. “Listen, if you’re so confident that this is a closed case, then there shouldn’t be any problem if we take another look into the matter. My client is asking us to make sure the initial investigation didn’t miss anything, and my partner here takes her job as my bodyguard seriously. Please forgive me. We meant no offense.”

The pigeon guard gave a skeptical side eye to the wolf, inquiring further. “Client?”

“I’m a detective. Private detective. My client wished to audit the investigation, and reached out to a professional.” While Enigma spoke, Noxie lowered her fists, impressed as lie after lie tumbled out of his mouth as if it was nothing. It was enough to make her wonder just how much the fish-out-of-water routine was just an act.

Still, it was clearly working on its intended victim. The pigeon, though still visibly skeptical, was starting to relax after the tense introduction. “And what about her? You actually trust a trash trawler?”

Enigma was about to raise his arm again, but stopped. Noxie was glaring at the guard in front of her, but she kept her fists at her side. Seeing this, he responded, “As I said, she is my bodyguard. I rely on her to keep me out of danger, and I promise she will not hinder the investigation or cause a scene.”

The pigeon stood, mulling over the scenario in front of him, before he finally relented. “Fine. I’ll let security know you’re coming. Don’t do anything stupid. You’re on camera.”

While the guard didn’t notice, Noxie saw Enigma’s eyes flicker around as he gave a polite reply, “Thank you, good sir. Have a pleasant day.”

“Sure, pal. You too, I guess.” By the time he was finished speaking, the pigeon guard had already started thumbing through his phone. Enigma and Noxie took that as their cue to leave him, heading into the building proper.

---

The ground floor of the complex, while spacious, lacked the kind of grandiose symbology and gaudy displays of prestige and power that the mind mage normally would have associated with government facilities, like town or city halls, or even castles.

Despite the potted plants positioned around the entrance hall working as hard as they could to bring life and color to the reception area, he could only describe it as sterile. He noticed a lizard at a large desk, which he assumed was a greeter, but aside from that all activity appeared to be cordoned off into what looked like four oddly labeled wings of the facility, two on each side, all roughly of equal size.

“Kata Corp. Pharmasoft. Sunshock. Vintacare. Those are odd names for government agencies.” Enigma read the signs denoting each wing aloud, a raised brow making plain his befuddlement.

His ‘bodyguard’ didn’t waste any time, already realizing that he needed an explanation. “They aren’t, Old Man. The mayor and his staff are one level up. The Big Four each have their own offices underneath him here.”

“The Big Four are what exactly? I’m afraid that description isn’t very helpful to me, Miss Noxie.” His eyes wandered the lobby as he spoke, still trying to take in just how little there was to see.

“The four most powerful companies in the whole city. Kata Corp is big weapons. Pharmasoft is big tech. Sunshock is big power. And Vintacare is big healthcare. Most of what happens in Machresse relies on them, so they get their own offices here.” Noxie could see the wheels spinning in his head, but stopped him as he began to open his mouth to follow up with another question. Logically, she knew it was probably nothing. And yet, there was a lingering doubt, born from knowing a few too many Old Men adept at lying to save their own skin. The intrusive thought wouldn’t leave her. She had no choice but to blurt it out against her better judgement.

“Hold on, Enigma. I saw the way you worked that rent-a-cop. How do I know you aren’t playing me the way you played him?”

The mage tilted his head, giving her a dumbfounded look. “I admit that calling you my bodyguard is stretching credulity, but with that sole exception I don’t recall lying at any point during our interaction with the avian outside. I may not have told him the whole story, but I told him what I believed he’d be most receptive to.” He began to approach her slowly, testing for a reaction that never came before he advanced. “You are my client, and you do want to audit this investigation. Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” She nodded firmly. “Yeah, I do. I know the Rail Tails. This sloppy terrorist shit is beneath them. Something’s funky about all this, Enigma.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder. “And we’ll figure out what that is. Once we do, you’ll have the free time to answer the many questions I have about Machresse. Believe me, I’m keeping a running tally.” They both let out a chuckle, which allowed the sense of unease to creep back out of Noxie.

Once a moment had passed, he continued. “Though I reserve the right to ask questions now that might be relevant to our investigation. For example…” He pointed to a lens, just above the sign for Kata Corp. “Is that one of the ‘cameras’ that the guard spoke of?”

Noxie nodded. “Yeah. Most places got at least a few, keeping tabs on things.”

“And I assume they’re mechanical devices?” A note of concern crept into the pitch of his voice.

“Obviously. Most things are. What’s it to you?”

The wolf sighed deeply. “It means I need to be more careful. The spell I use to turn myself invisible doesn’t work on machines. Even if I made it so that you couldn’t see me, that camera could.”

“Right. Magic. I’m still not used to that.” With her hands in her pockets, Noxie gazed up blankly  at the roof of the entrance hall, almost as if she was looking through it to some unknown fixture. 

It was a strange reaction in the mind of the mentalist, which prompted him to inquire further. “Are mages that rare in this land-.” Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, he pivoted back to their original goal. “Nevermind. I will ask you later. It appears they are ready to receive us.”

Enigma gestured towards a rabbit approaching, directing his partner’s attention.  He wore a sharply tailored black suit and tie. His square-rimmed glasses played host to numerous readouts, though Enigma noticed that Noxie’s face was displayed in the corner of the rabbit’s line of sight. The spectacle on his spectacles seemed to move in accordance with the gestures he was making with his left hand, covered in a glove laced with glowing circuitry.

Though taller than most specimens of their kind, he was still not tall enough to reach either of their heights. Both of them needed to look downwards to make eye contact. At least, they would have made eye contact if it felt like he was actually looking at them and not at the displays on his glasses.

“Walter Paddington, Foundation’s Chief of Security. I’m told that one of you is a detective looking into the ‘incident’ last night?” With his free hand, he typed away at the device, doing the bare minimum to acknowledge the two visitors in front of him.

Only briefly did his gaze seem to wander towards them, barely long enough to perceive any detail. Yet it was enough to spot the hand Enigma held to him for a handshake, which he obliged.

“Detective Rabrandt Cyanis, at your service. And this is Noxie, my bodyguard.”

Paddington’s ears perked up,  “Did you say-”. At last, his eyes focused on the world around him. Craning his neck up, he took in the sight of both of his guests, but the rat in particular, comparing her to the image displayed on his glasses. “Well I’ll be damned. That’s Knock-Out Noxie, all right. Your reputation precedes you, for good and ill. Should I be concerned?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Hardly. I got enough problems handling this dope without pissing off the mayor’s personal guard.”

Clearing his throat with an audible cough, Enigma redirected the conversation. “As my partner is so rudely trying to say, I hail from a place far away from your city, and I am unaccustomed to your ways. She is as much my guide as she is my bodyguard.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not sure what you’re hoping to achieve here. We’ve already apprehended the culprit and his associates. There isn’t much left to look into.” A few gestures waved away all the displays on his glasses, leaving only his cold, disinterested visage focused on Enigma and Noxie, standing in their way.

Enigma opened his mouth. However, Noxie beat him to the punch, taking a step forward.

“You know all about me, and something tells me you know all of the outfits in Machresse, big and small. That right?” She leaned towards him, as if to challenge him.

If the rabbit was frightened, he did not show it, rising to her challenge, “I am responsible for the mayor’s safety. It is my job to know.”

She stood her ground. “Then you’d know the Rail Tails wouldn’t take a job like this. Too high profile. Too messy.” Observing the scene from the side, Enigma decided to let her handle this. He could feel the lingering doubts rising to the surface of Paddington’s mind, and had no desire to undermine an approach that looked to be producing results.

“I admit I was surprised, but the report from InvestiGate’s bomb squad was clear.” He tried to keep his composure, and largely succeeded. However, he took a step back, giving ground to the mercenary. Before he could reclaim control, she pressed her advantage, taking another step forward.

“And how much did you pay them to take the case? Everyone knows InvestiGate only assigns their best to their Deluxe clients. The rest of us get chumps.”

“We… We didn’t hire them. Kata Corp did. Their office was the one the bombs were found in. I was even more surprised to see them than I was to hear about you two.” The display on Paddington’s glasses populated with a document, responding to more gestures from his gloved hand. 

“Why?” Noxie noticed Enigma out of the corner of her eye, attempting to read Paddington’s displays while she continued her interrogation.

“Because we have our own in-house team on retainer. But when I offered our services, Kata Corp refused.” An indignant sneer flashed the rabbit’s face as he finished the thought. This subject touched a nerve.

“A corpo had access to free labor and didn’t use it?” Noxie pressed him further, feeling the tenor of the room shift.

“I know. I know. I assume they have something in there they wish to keep private. I have my suspicions. The problem is that I don’t have enough to act on them. My hands are tied.” The rabbit began to look down to the ground.

To Noxie, the answer was unacceptable. He knew something was odd, but he didn’t want to stick his neck out for the truth.

“Are you ser-” She was interrupted by a hand touching her right shoulder. She looked over it, curling her hands into fists, expecting to see some guard or authority figure ready to kick her out of the building. Instead, it was Enigma, giving her a nod before turning his attention to the rabbit. Mild shock and mismatched expectations left her temporarily stunned.

Stepping forward, the detective spoke calmly, but firmly, “Thank you, Chief Paddington. You have been most helpful. We appreciate the difficulty of your position, and we hope the truth shall ease your burden.”

With Enigma’s intervention, Paddington regained his previous self-assured posture. “So that’s your game, is it? Very well. I don’t like it, but I don’t have a better option.” After a polite bow, he turned his back to the two of them, and headed towards the stairs leading upwards.

The mind mage turned his senses towards the Kata Corp offices on the East Wing of the building, a subtle, yet confident smile on his features. He was so focused on the next stage of the investigation that he was caught off guard when Noxie gave him an agitated shove. It nearly knocked him over, but he recovered before he had the chance to tumble to the ground.

She released her anger on him once he turned around. “What the fuck, Enigma!? I nearly had him! Why’d you step in!?”

Dusting himself off, he retorted, “Nothing nearly about it, Miss Noxie. You were flawless, truly. My own protege would have trouble matching that energy.”

“What are you talking about?” The glare Noxie was giving Enigma in that moment would have been enough to make anyone else panic in fear.

“Simply put, thanks to your instinct, he told us everything he knew. And I’d rather have him as a potential ally than an enemy. He won’t be able to help us, but he won’t get in our way either.” The confident smile never wavered as he spoke. “For people in our position, having the chief of security look the other way is quite powerful.”

The most annoying part of Enigma’s explanation, for Noxie, is that it made sense. She hated the way that it made her less angry. In that moment, she wanted to be angry. Unfortunately for her, the feeling was starting to pass and rational thoughts were taking over again.

“Fine. I get it. So what? We look into Kata Corp next?”

“Correct, Miss Noxie.”

“Doubt they’ll let us just go in there.”

“Also correct, but that’s nothing we can’t figure out.”