"Gather everyone into the main room."

It had taken Vivace, a woman who prided herself in the quick absorption and analyzation of information, a full second to comprehend the weight of those words. She must have stared back in Finale's face with disbelief before uttering, "...Everyone?"

And Finale answered with a look of irritation in her eyes, "Yes. Everyone."

The fact of the matter was that Vivace was ordered to gather everyone within their self-proclaimed organization of the Twelfth Circle into a single room. Everyone, meaning not just a few select specialist tailored for the mission that Finale would no doubt present in the main room, but everyone, every member of the Twelfth Circle. And though in the hazy, unstable days of the first formation of the Circle, there were only twelve members, there were now over twenty members, a number of them trainees who couldn't possibly contribute to one mission of such importance that it required all the members of the Circle to partake. Not to mention that there were still a few members, mainly trainees who had already been sent out on minor tasks and jobs. Leaving, if Vivace were correct, some thirteen or fourteen members left in the building, but still! Fourteen members when all the missions before had only needed a max of 6 members at any one time. Fourteen members to track down and fetch in the vicinity of the previously known theatre of the slums named Theatre Heights.

Never mind the fact that Finale wanted all the members to report to the main room, it had been at least two years, maybe two and a half since the entire Circle were summoned. It was a mission of monumental importance, one that was delicate enough to hinge on the entire team of specialists, one that perhaps would change the way things worked in the city. The thought itself was enough to excite Vivace. And though she would have spent the minute immediately following Finale's order probing the woman of details, the stress that shined in Finale's eyes sent Vivace out on her way with just the connotations of those words to play with in her mind.

Vivace, age 25, was usually set up on the task of fetching the members of the Circle for any such mission, not only because her position as an information analyst saved her a spot, if just a preliminary one, in every mission, but because she had the ability to find anybody in any place, given enough time and information. Though, one would not have thought someone of Vivace's disposition was capable of sitting still for even one second to take so many things into consideration. The task of fetching members was perhaps her most menial one, though Vivace did it with as much enthusiasm as a puppy playing with a stick. Truly, she saw finding her comrades in the dusty maze of the aged theatre halls and the twisting alleyways connecting to concrete courtyards outside a task that was kin to hunting for easter eggs.

Grave was the easiest to find. He was perhaps the oldest member of the Circle, next to Overture and Finale that is, and Vivace's sensitive nose could pick up the scent of cigarettes off of him even if they were on opposite sides of a massive dining hall hosting a gathering of heavily perfumed ladies and gentlemen. He stood at the back entrance, striking a match underneath another cigarette. When Vivace told him of the meeting he merely looked back at her with one of the coldest expressions she had ever received from him (and she had gotten quite a number), before saying,

"I know."

Well, it wasn't surprising that Grave already knew the mission. He was only the right hand man to Overture after all! Vivace mustered up her best expression of cuteness to pry details off of him. Grave returned her expression with one that almost matched Finale's, promising much pain if Vivace had spoken again. He opened his mouth, as if to say 'Get lost', except the words had somehow become jumbled as they left his lips, coming out instead as,

"Don't you have a job to do?"

Grave was perhaps her least favorite member of the Twelfth Circle, and as she left him at the portal between the dusty hallway and the concrete courtyard beyond, she remembered just why that was the case. Still, he was just as smart as he was coarse and his skill with the rifle was remarkable. She didn't quite know of anyone who could garner so much grim respect and spite at the same time.

She found four members within the confines of the Theatre's library, once home to an impressive collection of scripts, now an archive of various texts, half belonging to one Canon of the Twelfth Circle. The four within the library, perhaps taking advantage of the extremely inclusive nature of the Circle's Headquarters resulting in the complete absence of any rules of etiquette pertaining to the silence within a building of knowledge, were bickering loud enough to be heard halfway across the building. Surprisingly, Canon was not present, otherwise the short-tempered black-haired man would have banished them from the library.

In truth, the four that were arguing were just two figures. Elegy, a woman who was the antithesis of her code name, stood with one leg up on a wooden chair, leaning aggressively against the table with one fist in the air. Her ebony eyes glittered not with the heat of anger and conflict but the heat of a good debate, the joy of argument for the sake of argument. Her opposition was perhaps the largest figure in the room, nay the entire Circle. He was known as Forte, a homage to everything that made the man as he was. He was large, not because he was overweight, but because of the combination of his height and the width of his shoulders and all the muscle of a soldier who had served in war bulking the rest of him out. Because of his service in the war, and his previous occupation of famous chef, known for his great booming voice and his incredible cuisine, he had a vast supply of money, enough to hire his own personal tailor to create his own custom set of clothing so that he would never need to visit a clothing store, whose only clothes were ever far too small for him, ever again. The glitter in his eyes were from pure annoyance.

The other two in the room stood alongside the arguers, one respectively supporting each of the two merely by being present and looking at their opposition. Beside Elegy was Dolce, a youth who appeared far younger than his actual age. He was named as such because of his incredibly sweet nature. He would have baked you an assortment of pastries if he had so much as bumped into you on accident and caused you to stumble. Though, he had a tendency to bear deep, spiteful and malicious grudges against those who mocked him for his name. He and Elegy were close friends, so close that Vivace could have mistaken the two to be siblings, even fraternal twins. He would have followed Elegy to the end of the world.

Beside Forte was, ironically, Crescendo, the woman who was essentially the doctor of the Circle. Despite her name, however, she was, if anything, soft-spoken. Especially when seated beside her on the second-class steam-powered train, Vivace would believe that the woman only pantomimed speaking over the rumble of the engines. Actually, she believed that Crescendo would create sound by simply flapping her lips and that was how she would speak. God knows the reason behind Overture's selection of her name. She was very pretty though, not in the youthful, vibrancy of Vivace, but in a gentle, serene sort of way.

Crescendo and Dolce noticed Vivace as she stepped into the library, a wry smile on her face, though Elegy and Forte looked on the verge of breaking into a brawl. She quickly broke up the fight, then sent them on their way to the meeting room.

If she had her mental notes correct, there were three more members who had just recently returned from a mission only an hour or so ago. They were probably in the mess hall, gorging their faces, if she knew anything about them. Oh, and there was also Canon. He was as infamous of his territorial nature concerning his books as he was prone to being extremely difficult to locate. Which, perhaps, was good because he was, after all, her lead spy, reporting under her. If he could be located as easily as Grave could be smelled, he wouldn't have been working under her. And if he weren't working under her, God knows that would have happened to the bookworm hidden in his makeshift library that was his single bedroom apartment in a nest of buildings that seemed to want to cave in on each other.

Knowing him, he'd probably find out that there was a meeting and had already gone ahead. She made her way down the residential quarters of the building, wondering if she could catch any of the remaining members there. Though, as she stepped down the dark and dusty corridors, she wasn't sure why she thought that. There were four rooms total, maybe five if you wanted to count the tiny study attached to one room, and all of them small. Most of the members went home during their off hours, leaving the residential quarters empty for most of the time. Though this time, Minuet stepped out of one of the rooms.

The girl was the quietest of the entire group. Well, next to Crescendo that is. Except, it seemed like Minuet practiced being mute as if it were a hobby. She only spoke a few sentences at any one time, each word bold and affirmative as if she had spent the last several hours of silence developing it. Though, she considered things like "Yes ma'am" and "I'll head there right away" to be extraneous words, wouldn't bother saying them even if it was to her superior. Which Vivace was. Minuet merely nodded and stepped past Vivace as if she had all the time in the world. Vivace would have thought Minuet to be arrogant, if she hadn't known her for most of her life.

Vivace made her way through the building toward the cafeteria. Which, thanks to Forte's efforts, was more like a restaurant than anything. Where it was once simply a white washed room with a few rickety tables and chairs, was now an impressive (and all inclusive) wood paneled and wall papered room, complete with modest wooden furnishings and an enormous brass and copper clock with the ticking gears exposed hanging slightly out of place on a wall. There was even a window at one end of the room where the cook would take orders and hand them out.

Seated at the center of the room were Signature and Sharp. Knowing Sharp's love of a good meal and wine following a hard day's work, the once newspaper writer and gentleman could always be found within the cafeteria after a mission. Vivace didn't know much about Signature, him being the newest recruit and all. Though, from the way he was vacuuming up his plate of food and the way he spoke so enthusiastically to Sharp despite the exasperated look on Sharp's face, she guessed he was the easily excitable type. No doubt the boy had just followed Sharp to the cafeteria when they returned from the mission.

As Vivace stepped into the room, Sharp turned his bespectacled eyes toward her in a silent but desperate plea for help, which came as a slight surprise to her. She waved her hand, "C'mon you two. Overture's called for us to meet in the main room."

Signature sat up straight in his seat, a piece of chicken partially chewed flashing behind his teeth as he spoke. "What? But we just came back."

Sharp was quick to stand up, a smile masking his relief. "Well, we certainly can't have our boss wait, can we?"

Signature said something else but was lost as he simultaneously attempted to shovel the rest of his plate into his mouth. Sharp, on the other hand, tossed his plate in the bin by the door to the kitchen and sped across the space to the door where Vivace stood.

"Thank you."

Vivace turned, a grin on her face. "What is this? Aren't you usually capable of stopping anyone's conversation with some witty and out of place comment?"

Sharp threw a wary glance at Signature as the boy stood up. "Yes! But the man didn't even give me a chance! His vocal cords fires as many words as a gun does bullets! It's ridiculous!" Another glance told him that Signature had finished with his meal and was heading toward them. Sharp continued his thought with quicker and hushed words. "Tell Overture to never put me on the same team as him again, please! I don't care if he's a good scout, give me Canon or--"

"I told you to wait for me. Well, I guess you did, huh." Signature stepped up beside the two, smiling as wide as Vivace was, though clearly it wasn't because of the cynical amusement that filled Vivace. "Where are we going?"

"For the love of god..."

Vivace paused long enough in her laughter to realize that the team of three that had returned from the mission was one short. "Where's Rest? I thought he'd be here with you two?"

"Oh. Rest went back to the generator room or something. I thought he'd come have lunch with us, but I guess he's got some pretty important things to take care of, huh?" Signature grinned, slinging one arm around Sharp's shoulder as if the two had already become the best of friends. "So what's the mission about? Hopefully not as dull as some negotiations for iron as the last one I was sent on."

"Go to the meeting room and you'll find out there. I need to fetch Rest before coming, so just let Overture know if I'm late." Vivace waved them off before setting off outside.

There were three buildings other than the main Hall on the premises of the Theatre Heights: two were bath houses that were more or less claimed by Forte. He seemed to be a high maintenance man, at least compared to someone like Vivace who refused to get out of bed before sunrise for the sake of her beauty rest. The last was dubbed the 'Generator Room' or as the older members would say, 'Rest's Building'. (Some had named it Rest's Room, but Rest had vehemently refused to call it such.) Rest was found in that building whenever he wasn't busy on a mission or asleep in his own chambers. Vivace sometimes thought he slept in the generator room, though how one could sleep amongst all the churning gears clacking and chunking and all the spitting steam and the impossible humidity was beyond her. In a way, it was a good thing that Rest was so fond of mechanic. This single building was what powered the entire Theatre Heights, and because of parts that were more or less dated, was in constant need of tending.Which is what Vivace supposed Rest was in that building at that moment.

She kicked open the metal door, answered by a breath of some sort of fire-breathing beast washing all around her thick with the scent of coal and the humidity of a swampy summer. The inside of the building was actually large, though all the machinery made it less spacious that it could've been. It was easy to lose track of someone in there. She made one scan of the area, before making her way toward the back where the tip of a brown cap was bobbing up and down.

Standing amidst the clanking of the gears and hissing steam, Vivace would have never imagined seeing another figure crouching at the base of a machine, a set of enormous pistons slamming away only a couple feet above his head. The figure there could have been a young teenage boy, a slender figure with a white shirt and breeches smeared with grease the only protection against the moving, human crunching parts. His hands were reaching into the machine where a metal panel had been removed, the reflection of some light touching his young face hinting to Vivace that he was holding a flashlight into the death machine. Very brave.

"Oy!" Vivace wasn't surprised if he couldn't hear her. She could hardly hear herself. "OY! Rest!"

The boy pulled his head out of the machine, turning hazel green eyes toward her. Indeed, he didn't seem much older than 21. Though he was her senior by two years, even more years when comparing their experience within the Circle. He was one of the founding members of the Circle and one of Grave's best friends. And those three words were usually an impossible combination. Vivace was surprised that Grave had any friends, let alone someone like Rest! Compared to Grave, Rest was social, polite, diplomatic... Vivace rather liked Rest, but couldn't even stand being in Grave's company for too long. Perhaps it was more like Rest enjoyed everyone's company and likewise, everyone (including the unsocial Grave) enjoyed his. It was a truly perplexing situation.

"Ho there, Vivace. What're you doing here?"

Also perplexing how he seemed to be able to shout over the cacophany within the building and yet sound as if he were merely speaking in a quiet room. Vivace put her hands on her hips. "Can't stay out of this room for one minute can you? Why don't you just leave the generators be? They supply plenty of power without your constant tinkering."

Rest let out a scoff, wiping a bead of sweat off of his brow. "Are you joking? Even with my constant tinkering they're running at fifty percent efficiency at most. It'd be simpler if Overture just gave in and bought a new set of stabilizer rods and god knows this thing could use fresh electrical circuits."

"Wouldn't it be better if you turned off the machine or something?"

"Of course it would!" He threw an irritated look at the hole in the side of the machine. "But this generator's been making more noise than usual. I can't figure out the source without turning it on!"

"I see," Vivace quickly cut in, afraid of falling into one of Rest's infamous rambles of mechanics, "Well you'd best leave it be for now. Overture wants all of us present at the main room."

"What? All of us?" Rest straightened himself, slapping one grease stained hand against his pants. "That's unusual."

"What?"

"I said that was unusual."

"Oh." Vivace would have followed up that statement with a comment of her own, she had enough to start up several different conversations regarding the matter, but it started to feel like the narrow spaces within the building were closing in with each clash of metal. All she did instead was stare with a mild look of uneasiness plastered plain on her face to convey her deep desire to leave.

Rest didn't say anything for a second, letting the banging noises fill up the awkward silence, before he kicked up the metal plate, fitting it loosely back into place. "Well! What say we get going now?"

"Excellent idea!" Vivace spun on her heels as Rest hopped off the metal grated platform, then made her way as fast as she could back toward the entrance of the building.