The Coup

“Did you make sure you weren’t followed?” Em, a man with unkempt beard and shoulder length hair whispered. Angie panted after climbing what felt like an endless fleet of stairs. She wiped the thin sheet of sweat that had covered her forehead and glared at Em.

“Can you not ofter me water first?” Angie asked angrily as she found a place in the empty, dimly lit room, “Where are others?”

“They’ll be here.” Em found sat across her and calmly asked, “Did you make sure you weren’t followed?”

Angie sighed, “No!” Em nodded and went behind the door leaving Angie alone in the dark room. That girl… Em thought as he filled a pot with water and carried it back into the dark room where he was greeted with three more colleagues. He carefully placed the pot on a small table and calmly asked the same question he asked Angie, “Did you make sure you weren’t followed?”

“Yes.” the three said in unison. Em observed them carefully and found the twins, for once, had dressed in different attire. Raul and Saul Em thought in the back of his mind, You are going to play special role today. Em’s eyes locked with Mina’s and his heart skipped a beat. Tomorrow, when I set this world free from Geometers’ curse, I’ll kiss her.

“Em.” Angie said with a lit cigar between her lips. No wonder you couldn’t climb 100 fleet of stairs.

“Put that cigar down,” Em said firmly but Angie just let out a thick smoke and shrugged.

“Can we start?”

Em sighed and lit a few more candles. He took the center stage and cleared his throat as he gathered his thoughts. “A few thousand years back a few arrogant pricks found a way to manipulate the geometry around us. They concentrated the knowledge and used it to forward their agenda. They grabbed power and our freedom in a chokehold. The Order of Hyperbola have found way to claw at the Geometers’ hold on our lives.

“We’ve found ways to stump their space manipulating capabilities but we haven’t found ways to defeat them once and for all. We’ve suffered death…”

“Em.” Angie interjected, “Can you just get to the point. We are the highest ranking officials of the Order, we know all this.”

“Yes,” Em said, “But did you know our predecessors discovered a way to end the rein of Geometers.”

“What?” Everyone in the room said in shock.

“Yes.” Em’s eyes lit up and he smiled as he went behind the door and returned with a huge, dusty, leather bound tome and placed it carefully on the table that Raul and Saul had cleared, “This.” Em said opening the tome and blowing some dust of it, “Holds the power to destory Geometers once and for all.”

The small coterie leaned towards the tome, “What script is that?” Angie squinted as she tried to read the curving strokes.

“It is an ancient script our predecessor invented to keep it hidden from prying eyes,” Em ran his fingers on page and smiled.

“So what does it tell?” Raul and Saul asked in unison.

“Deep beneath the world,” Em read from the tome, “lies an endless labyrinth of non-euclidian geometry. Monsters and objects with powers that defy the laws of geometry. Only one thing stands between the two worlds, the most ancient and powerful entity of all… the Topographer.” Em looked up from the book and smiled at the confused faces, “That is the key to defeat the Geometers. Monsters that defy their laws.”

“Doesn’t sound right.” Mina said in a soft, husky voice, “We shouldn’t be meddling with things we don’t know.”

“The Objects, the monsters are only way we can get our freedom back, Mina.” Em said excitedly.

“Read it again, Em.” Angie pulled another drag from the cigar, “The most powerful entity of all. We cannot simply walk into the labyrinth and retrieve an object or a monster. Besides we don’t even know what to bring back to our world.”

“We bring them all.” Em said almost grinning now.

“Are you mad?” Angie and Mina said at the same time. “You want monsters to overrun our world?” Angie looked at Mina and Em in turn.

“Yes!” Em said, “I it means we can free the world from the evil of Geometers. Think about it, Monsters maybe evil, but that is their nature. They aren’t biased, they don’t kill based on our status, based on the color of your skin.”

“Em,” Raul and Saul said together, “You don’t know anything about the Monsters.”

“How do you plan to unleash them?”

Em closed the tome and produced a small lighter from his pocket and placed on the table, “We burn the Topographer to death.”

Everyone in the room held their breath and exchanged a look of awe and confusion, “You are fucking crazy.” Angie said with a smile, “Let’s hope that this works.”

“It’ll.” Em tapped on the tome, “I’ve read enough to figure this out.”