A Division of Souls - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe

by Jon Chaisson

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Provincial Governor’s Council, Lehandiri Room, Mirades Tower

  Considering all the recent events, not one of the eleven main members of the Provincial Governor’s Council dared to chastise him for his unorthodox changing of the speech. Even Jack Priestley held his tongue. He sat two chairs away from him at the curved council table, equally disappointed in Anton’s actions and frustrated at his own unexpected impotence. Anton at least acknowledged his presence here, for all the good it did.

  He had deliberately waited until everything had settled down before he began this meeting. He had refused to do anything or make any further statements until he knew for sure that the attacks on his city had ceased. An unsanctioned spiritual flare-up had been made with the Mirades Tower as its apparent main target for the second time in three days. Five attacks this time. He wasn’t about to hold an in-house PGC meeting until he knew it was safe to do so.

  Now he held it out of necessity. He would have rather talked in a closed-door meeting with his administrators in a vidmat conference, and it probably would have been the safer and smarter move, yet Jack had pushed him into it. Anton had no qualms with members of the Crimson-Null Foundation…just with him. The bugger of it all was that he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He shook his head in frustration, and pushed himself out of his chair. The council lowered their voices to a few hushed whispers, and all eyes landed on him.

  “Good evening,” Anton said. “I thank you for coming out tonight, and again I apologize for taking up your personal time away from loved ones to be here.” He winced, finding that introduction a bit stiff. He let out a nervous cough, and continued. “In light of recent events, this will be an informal meeting, though we will be recording for archiving. We’re not here to make any concrete decisions, but to gather and parse all information available. We need to know what went on in my province these last few days, and why.”

  Before Anton could continue, the lone uniformed man sitting halfway down the table raised his hand slightly, requesting attention. Lean, clean-cut and a little too handsome, General Stephen Phillips found admirers everywhere in the Bridgetown Province as the leader of the Sentinel Force Guard. During these closed-door meetings, however, Anton found him irritatingly petulant and pedantic. He was reasonably nice person on the surface, but his confrontational attitude irritated the hell out of everyone. Anton nodded to him with a forced half-smile, accepting his offering and expecting a long, detailed report that had been prepared beforehand. With a twitch of his left eye, the General called up the file from the nearest SFG database which would display somewhere in his field of vision, giving his eyes a slightly glazed expression.

  “Before we start,” Anton interrupted. “I would like to once again remind you that this is an informal meeting. There are no time limits. There are no formal guidelines to be followed other than civility.” Seeing that no one objected and he had nothing more to say, he conceded. “And...I believe General Phillips has the floor.”

  The General nodded with a determined straight face and out of habit started to stand, only to quickly sit back down, all in one fluid movement. “Thank you, Governor,” he began. “I would like to start by reading a quick synopsis of today's events according to SFG findings...”

  Anton quickly distracted himself by standing up in the middle of his introduction, much to the General’s surprise and annoyance, and moved to the bank of windows behind him. He could hear the man's awkward pause in speech and quick rebound. He'd already heard the General's lengthy and graphic report on the day's attacks twice today. Not worth hearing this again, he thought. Once is too much.

  The meeting room's windows faced northwest, towards the glow of the landing grids of the Bridgetown TransUniversal Nullport and the gentle hills of the inner sectors. He wished he could see Branden Hill Park, straight west and just out of his line of sight. Nehalé Usarai had been living there as late as yesterday, right under the noses of the Alien Relations Unit headquarters down the street. He briefly watched the BMPD helicopters hovering over the Data Research Library Archives up in Glover Court, and Saint Patrick's Cathedral in McCleever District, searchlights cutting the air. Three more swarms of helicopters would be hovering with their own searchlights on the other side of the Tower, in Fraserville, South City, and to his right at Sculler’s Crossing. Violence in five different areas of the city…and he was once again powerless to do anything about it. His failure made the dull pain in his head return with a vengeance.

  Shirai’s report had not left his thoughts, and he refused to put them aside. Something important was going on here in the city, something much larger than the politics and economics that came with running a province. This was on a societal level, a psychological and spiritual level. Most of the people here in this meeting room had no idea what was going on, and probably wouldn’t be able to fathom the extent of damage it would cause even if they did. They didn’t care about spiritual balance — it wasn’t a concrete idea. General Phillips had not mentioned the Shenaihu once during his presentation. He had just spoken words that were on the minds of every single person in this room, yet none dared say them.

  He swore under his breath. If anything, there was only one person in this room who might understand. And she wasn’t saying anything at all.

  “Sir?” the General called out.

  He turned and faced the soldier with a bored lift of an eyebrow. “Yes, General?”

  The soldier cleared his throat and stood up as if to address the room. “Sir, you seem to be taking this morning's attacks with a troubling amount of calm.”

  Anton smirked. “Would you rather I lose my sanity, Stephen?”

  The General blinked, first in confusion, then in bemusement at Anton’s deliberate avoidance of his title. “Sir. I hardly think this an appropriate time for humor.”

  “Get to the point, please.”

  The man glared at him. “Without haste, sir. The ARU Sentinel Teams have deployed security troops around various parts of the city. They have now secured the perimeters of the five attack points, with additional forces at other major public places, such as data libraries, corporate buildings, and other research facilities. The BMPD have covered the public market areas such as the lower end of Sculler's Crossing and the various shopping centers.”

  “And?”

  “Sir, I am at a loss. There is no immediate crisis in any public area that any of us have seen. None more so than usual, at any rate. Given that the five-point attack took place at five public and seemingly predestined locations, we should be expecting a threat against the Tower itself. Yet for the last ten hours we have seen and reported nothing at all.”

  Anton let out a long, patient breath. Couldn’t they see the obvious? Or were they just avoiding it? “For that, I have no answer, General. Perhaps they're waiting for a Mendaihu response.”

  “Governor!” Nandahya Mirades gasped. That off the cuff statement had clearly hit a nerve with the Meraladian councilor, which was precisely what he’d meant to do. Nandahya, the representative for Affairs of Meraladian Society, had been waiting with strained patience for an opening so she could join in the conversation, and he had just given it to her. She glared at him with dark eyes and a ferocious scowl. Her spot at the council table was to his immediate left — a purely symbolic position to show equality between Meraladian and human — but she so rarely took an active part in these meetings. And she was that one person here who truly understood what was going on out there.

  “I do apologize, emha Mirades,” he said, bowing slightly in her direction. “That was not meant as a slight, but as a possibility.”

  Nandahya pursed her lips and frowned at him, holding back coarser words. She closed her eyes, let out a breath, and continued. “Sir,” she said. “I realize that may have been a rhetorical remark, and a poor one at that. But the chances of a response by the Mendaihu may be higher than you think. Even more so if edha Usarai ma
kes that response. Right now, scores of Devotees are gathering in the Waterfront sector, at or near the abandoned Moulding Warehouse. The reports on the NewsComms are saying they're only performing meditations and prayers...” she trailed off. Even she knew how pathetic she sounded.

  Anton walked to the window again, touching the cold panes with his fingertips. Knowing full well that any decision made during this meeting would rest on his shoulders, for good or ill, he set about trying to put an end to this directionless talk. Given the situation, he wanted to give these Devotees the benefit of the doubt. After all, a circle cast of that magnitude was not something to be taken lightly. But he also did not want to endanger the citizens of Bridgetown in any way. Selfish reasons be damned — the last thing he would want to see would be a full-scale war between spiritual factions. He did not want that to happen again.

  He turned around and faced the council again. “General Phillips, I would like to have a Spec Force Unit parked at various points inside the Waterfront District. Make it unobtrusive. Let the devotees know your teams are there for everyone’s safety, just to keep the peace should anything arise. There is to be absolutely no interference without my say-so. The ARU are still trying to track down edha Usarai, so he could be anywhere — even down at the warehouse.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nandahya frowned at him. “While I do honor your decision for the Special Forces to be in the district purely for security and safety, Governor, I realize I must throw my own rhetorical question into discussion. Now, given that this display of ritual and prayer is a peaceful gesture, I'm sure that we can all rest easy in the notion that they will have been well protected, if overly so. However, given the theories for the motives behind the attacks that have already surfaced on the street and in the media, what are the resources open to us if the same thing happens again, perhaps on a much larger scale? Mere Spec Force units will be far from adequate to protect the crowds.”

  Anton stopped himself from reacting foolishly. “In answer to your rhetorical question — and correct me if I'm wrong — I feel that the Spec Force Unit is more than adequate for protection, especially if they are joined by the ARU Sentinel teams. The two were designed to complement each other in just this type of situation, emha Mirades. Past events will prove that.”

  Nandahya nodded in agreement. “I understand that, Governor, but that was twenty-five years ago. Are the two still in sync?”

  Anton glanced at General Phillips, who gave him a proud and emphatic nod. He next turned to the gray-haired man sitting a few seats away. Allen Tatreaux, the Commissioner for the Alien Relations Unit of the BMPD, had been sitting silently and impatiently with arms crossed and a deep scowl crossing his face throughout the whole meeting. Anton regretted having to ask. “Commissioner Tatreaux, do you wish to add to that?”

  The man nodded and finally unraveled his arms. There were sweat stains against his shirt, he was so wound up. “The connection between the SFG and the Alien Relations Unit is as strong as it’s ever been, sir,” he grumbled, a touch of cynicism in his voice. “I’m surprised that we’re even being questioned about it.”

  “Yes,” emha Mirades said. “But being linked and being in sync are two separate things, especially if we're dealing with the Shenaihu and the Mendaihu.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Forgive me for being blunt,” she said. “But are you absolutely sure the two can still work together with precision? I’ve personally heard evidence to the contrary…but I was hoping you could prove me wrong.”

  Anton winced…that was indeed a low blow. Commissioner Tatreaux seemed to wilt a little under that statement, but refused to back down. This was not the first time the ARU had been laughed at. He leaned across the table towards the woman and pointed an accusatory finger at her. “Your personal opinions about the ARU and the Special Forces Guard should not enter into this, emha Mirades.”

  The corner of her mouth curled up into a smirk. “I should say the same to you, Commissioner.”

  A bunch of idiots, Anton thought, disgusted. A bunch of blessed idiots here. It’s a damned comedy. The only person not joining in this argument was the one who should have been keeping this from happening: Mancka Udéma, the sole representative for the Mendaihu collective. She chose not to bicker or break it up, instead watching all parties intently, as a well-trained Mendaihu would before going for the strike. Eventually she glanced at him, shook her head, and pushed herself ever so slightly away from the table.

  She was losing patience, and so was he.

  “Please! A little civility here, people,” he warned. “As it stands, Spec Force units will be stationed in the Waterfront District, away from the action but close enough for immediate response. An ARU Sentinel Team will be on call until further notice. I am considering this a Level Two spiritual event involving both Mendaihu and Shenaihu, but not on the scale of the Eighth Embodiment and its aftermath. And as Governor of Bridgetown Province, I am refusing to let it get that far.”

  Nandahya Mirades gave him a flash of a Meraladian smile. “…and if it does,” she said, “leave that to the Mendaihu, Governor.”