Free Immortal Lycanthropes by Hal Johnson, Teagan White Page B

branch?”
    “Like the Illuminati?”
    “Yeah, like the Illuminati.”
    They walked down one flight of stairs and up another flight of stairs, over a catwalk (below, men in white coats could be seen carving with lasers enormous gems), and through a room shaped like a natural cavern, along which flowed sluggishly a stream of what appeared to be honey.
    “You’re a dead branch,” Sukumarika said at last, as they reached a dead end to the corridor, “because your original purpose no longer applies. The Illuminati were formed to stop World War One. This was long before most people could have thought World War One was coming, or even possible, this was the eighteenth century, but the Illuminati had acquired through their parent organization, the Freemasons, certain documents, and they were able to extrapolate that a great war would come and end civilization as we knew it. So, for more than a hundred years, they tried meddling in world affairs, on every level. They started revolutions, and they suppressed revolutions. They signed treaties, and they broke treaties. And then, after all that labor and skullduggery, World War One happened anyway, and ended civilization as we knew it, and then what were the Illuminati to do? They still exist, and they’re major property holders in some cities, such as Munich, but there’s no reason for them to be around. They’re a dead branch, withered and sere, but still attached to the trunk. They’re jokes, frankly. Look at the hats they wear! The Nine Unknown Men, and the members of their subsidiaries and affiliates, would never wear such hats!”
    “Okay, but why am I a dead branch?”
    “I don’t mean to be cruel. There was a time when primitive men worshiped totem animals, and then it was needful for some to be halfway between man and animal, with a foot in both worlds.”
    “Most have four feet, not two,” Myron objected, but even he knew he was picking at nits.
    “One by one, peoples dragged themselves up from this animism, embracing newer religions. Under the tutelage of the many forms of Hinduism, the Abrahamic religions, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, or what have you, people abandoned the old ways. With the exception of a few tribes, the animal gods have been forgotten, and these tribes will not last long as they are. And yet you live on. The world has outgrown you, as it has outgrown the Illuminati. The civilization they were formed to preserve, one of progress and innovation, noblesse oblige and grand narratives, no longer exists. And the world you existed for has been dead much longer than that.” She fiddled with her earring, and a door hissed open in the dead-end wall. She pushed Myron inside, not ungently. “I guess you could go look for an animist, or maybe even a stoned neopagan. But, really, you have no purpose. Sorry.” She handed Myron the garbage bag he’d been carrying; it was more full than before; the door slid shut and all was black.
    “You cheated,” a voice said, there in the darkness.
    Myron’s ears were popping, so he had trouble hearing things. “What?” he said.
    “You cheated, and I’m going to remember this. I’d watch your back if I were you.”
    The door opened into the familiar lobby, and Myron could see, in the dim fluorescent light that spilled in, that there in the elevator with him was the young man he had fought.
    Myron stepped backwards out of the elevator. “I apologize,” he said as the door closed. The young man was saying something, too, but Myron missed it, his voice was so low and ominous.
    And then once again the wall was blank.
    “Careful of the plant,” said the man behind the desk. He still had the accent.
    Myron looked around. The floor-waxing machine stood unattended against a wall. The floor shone slickly, and it was cold against Myron’s bare feet.
    “Did I tell any more lies?” Myron asked.
    “I don’t think so you did.”
    “But they told a lie to me. They said I would fall on the spikes, and you know what?