### October, 2013



_"Washington DC was rocked with another protest by Emergent Rights protesters outnumbered by counter-protesters sponsored by the American Anti-Witchcraft League. Capitol Police were forced to intervene with tear gas. Both sides are blaming the other for starting the violence..."_

Brian clicked off the TV behind the bar to something else. ESPN was still safe enough even in these time, and John had a thing for European soccer that Brian would never understand that meant that the Water of Life had things like the Premier League and all that other crap in addition to the more conventional sports stuff that tended to be the traditional fare of Haye; it was Central PA, and the town was full of Pittsburgh Steelers fans with a smattering of Eagles guys. College ball mattered. Hell, all football mattered. Even in a bar like the Water of Life, where some of the clientele was a little more upscale than typical for Haye, more liberal, everyone managed to find common cause in fanatical sports support. It was, until recently, the most popular local religion. 

And it was easy to understand why some people stuck their heads in the sand and stuck to it. 

The bar was nicely done, with some local art pieces on display by locals that did sculpture and painting inspired by the life out here; mountains, steelworking, coal mining and the general cultural heritage of working class Pennsylvania. But as a departure from an ode to mass production, the place had polished hardwood for floors and the bar, which even had a recycled antique brass footrail and fittings, and used wood for most other things -- one simply did not find aluminum in the Water of Life, except in the form of beer cans. The furniture was made locally by artisans trying to recapture the craftsmanship of an earlier day of hand-carving and design and did not match on purpose. None of entirely matched but all of it gleamed with polish, and yet it all fit. Lots of dark hardwood and soft lighting made it a place of welcoming comfort, the impression of warmth. A small lounge area with plush armchairs and small tables, where people could either work or read while enjoying their drinks, gave the impression that it wanted people to stay for a spell, rather than simply buy and move on. 

The Water of Life was might have wound up being a hipster bar if it weren't in a place like Haye. Brian didn't go with the beard and the fedora and the v-neck sweaters; he preferred a warm Henley that kept his arms covered up. Somehow, though, that girl saw right through the attempt to cover up the tattoos, ever-changing since sometime around this month last year, and the way he'd shaved his head to keep the white streak in his hair out of vision. There were Covenant of Light types running around the town at all times; his sister was one of them. 

John was on bad terms with Jenny as a result, but Brian played the traditional middle brother role -- he was the quiet one. He still got calls on his cell phone once in a while where his own sister, unwittingly, would fill his ear full of the rhetoric of the Oh-So-Holy Gary Miller, the loudest sheeple-herder in town, but he tried to keep them as short as possible -- always an excuse. She wasn't stupid by a long shot, but she was vain, and it would have pissed her off to realize that her brother didn't want to take a keen interest in her shit. That was going against the grain of her life.

Brian sort of naturally fell in with John and Sheriff Mark Luntz and the other liberal elements of the town; John was there because he secretly loved the idea of magic, spirits and dragons, which was a dangerous view to openly express, and the Sheriff was there because he felt it was best to approach every problem with a cool head and a calm demeanor, which didn't gratify the people screaming for action -NOW-. John ran into trouble, his business did, a couple of times, but after Brian cooled the situation – he was good at cooling people and at least one of those three guys was smart enough to know that Johnny Parr's ex-US Marshall brother was not to be fucked with, and decided to back off. Still, wanting to avoid an encore, he made a call to Jenny and told her what was going on. It was a calm solution that kept the peace between the Sheriff and the Haye Church of the Covenant of Life. Jenny was close to Pastor Gary Miller, and the harassment stopped with a sermon.

Brian hated the fucking deception though. The acidic fear that chewed up his stomach everytime he stopped moving and sat down to think. It was why his apartment was so thoroughly renovated and he still had a long list of projects to do, keeping himself so busy that he wouldn't sort this thing out.

That's what he was doing here on a slow Monday morning in Haye, at the Water of Life, managing the place's one or two customers while cleaning, while Diane the waitress fucked around on her smartphone in the back with the short order breakfast cook.

That Emelina Ward girl approached him, the one that worked at the bookstore two doors down, and somehow saw through the covering of his tattoos and the shaving of his head. How he'd gotten roped into the whole thing, he wasn't sure, but now it was like a secret club meeting in the place. John would have been pissed if he knew, if only because he wasn't invited. It was ironic that Brian was the one that was an Emergent, when John was the one that always dreamed of fairies, dragons and orcs, read Tolkien and loved to play D&D. Hell, Brian covered at the Water of Life on Tuesday evenings so John could make his game with other like minded nerds.

Even worse, was the club feel. But if the people that hated them were organizing, it made sense that Emergents needed to stick together, and in secret. It was necessary thanks to the Dunn Act that stripped all Emergents of their Constitutional rights, the rationale being that they weren't human beings and therefore not entitled, as soon as they were identified. The first one came in the door, and he greeted them, rag in hand as he polished the furniture out of sheer boredom, with a contrived and corny line. His stomach was still a fucking ball of acid, even though he'd consumed three tums this morning already, but he came across as calm enough for the public. These days, it was life and death to seem serene.

In any case, one of the arrivals was here, so he tried to put on his best bartender demeanor and act natural, **"Good morning, can I get you anything?"**