Editing City Series:Volume2 Prologue (section)

===Part 1===

Let us say there was darkness in that place.

It was a damp darkness.

Plenty of water flowed silently below it. A wide river steadily continued on to the sea while supporting the darkness.

That flowing river was the Thames.

A steam whistle sounded somewhere in the distance. The sound came from a ship travelling down the Thames, raced through the fog covering the river, and reached the city.

The city that heard the whistle was London.

The very first to hear it were the people in the port.

Precisely two figures sat in front of the warehouses lining a small wharf in the Port of London. They leaned against a large wooden box and passed a bottle of alcohol back and forth.

“I knew there’d be some left unsold. And I hear the Prohibition in the States is about to come to an end.”

Those words were spoken by a well-built elderly man. The right arm holding the bottle was a giant steam-powered false arm made of metal. The emblems engraved in the false arm suggested he belonged to the Hard Wolf race.

He passed the bottle to the man sitting next to him.

The middle-aged man in a suit took it and fidgeted as if the white wings between his back and the wooden box were in the way.

“Amon’s probation period is ending soon too, isn’t it? What are you going to do then, Jonathan?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can that unsociable guy really keep working at a brewery?”

“Gloss, you’ve always disliked Amon, haven’t you?”

The angel named Gloss shook his wings a little and took a swig of alcohol.

…''How am I supposed to like him when he hates me?

Jonathan smiled a little and nodded.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Hearing that, Gloss returned the bottle and clicked his tongue.

He must have been a little drunk because he had apparently let his feelings out as Open Words.

Nothing was more disturbing than having someone else read your emotions, so he applied Verbal Self Control to his thoughts. After calming down and keeping his feelings as unreadable Closed Words, he took a breath and spoke.

“Amon never relaxes around heavenly races like me.”

“Do you hate him?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I trust your judgment in looking after him.”

Jonathan bent and narrowed his eyes at that.

“So you understand, do you? I will admit he looks like a failure of a demon at first glance, though.”

“Yeah, I understand. But the blame for his lack of wings falls on those of us from the heavenly races, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t worry about it. That’s due to the God-Demon War, not you.”

“That was a terrible war. It took no time at all to destroy hell.”

“And the aftermath even caused a world war in reality.”

Jonathan held out his false right arm which expelled white steam from the shoulder like a sigh.

“But a single arm was a small price to pay for protecting this Aerial City.”

The fictional world of England had of course been attacked during that world war. They existed in the medium of writing, so there was only one way to attack them from reality: ignore them.

So to start with, many of them had left that safe city of fiction and fought. They had reminded those in reality that monsters existed and they had filled them with fear.

“Not that you all had it much better with most of heaven destroyed.”

Gloss shook his head and replied.

“It was a stupid war. It was a complete waste.” He sighed. “England was in trouble, but we angels did nothing but fight the demons. And yet we’re both residents of Aerial City.”

“And all that escaped destruction was a small portion of heaven and the nine chapter title pages in between.”

“That’s because it was all settled in the brief moment when those chapter title pages were flipped open. And even that led to an unexpected failure. We never thought heaven’s information would spread to the humans as Open Words.”

Heaven was the spring of knowledge that had gathered all of the world’s wisdom. Even if the nine chapter title pages were opened for just an instant, knowledge would overflow from that spring and spill into the real world.

That was what had happened during the war just over a dozen years before.

As a result, tanks, fighter craft, poison gas, and other new weapons had been introduced in the world war and had produced far more deaths than in previous wars.

“It was one of those new tank guns that blew off my right arm. How are you gonna pay me back for that?”

“Isn’t that Hard Wolf false arm better than a flesh and blood one?”

Gloss parried Jonathan’s words and tapped on the wooden box behind him.

“Well, let’s stop being so gloomy and get back. I’ll put these unsold leftovers in the warehouse.”

Jonathan looked down at the bottle in his hand and found it was almost empty.

He had no interest in an empty bottle, so he chucked it behind him.

After a beat, the two of them heard a metallic sound much like shattering ice and they stood up.

Gloss’s white wings swayed in the darkness.

Instead of a steam whistle, they heard a bell and music in the distance.

The music came from a pipe organ.

It had to be a powerful sound to reach this far, but the song sounded lonely out here at the port.

This was the bell and music for twelve o’clock coming from Westminster Cathedral.

And as that ringing and music slowly filled the air, a change occurred on the Thames.