Halfblood Journey

by Rheaume, Laura

  “Are you okay?” Ian asked, beginning to feel unsteady himself.

  Scythe nodded once sharply.

  Before Ian had a chance to ask his second question, Mercy interrupted, “I think your gift is...just...well, like a miracle.” Scythe opened his eyes and frowned at her in disbelief. She considered his ability for a minute, then asked, “So, could you see any memory as sharp as that? Could I, like, find where I left something? Or, relive my happiest moment?” She stepped forward, “Could you show my dad at the same time?”

  “I don’t know,” Scythe said, and Ian could see that he was getting overwhelmed. “I haven’t used it for that.”

  “Well, we’ll have to try it out, sometime,” she said, smiling. “I’m so happy, right now.” She looked like she was going to hug him, but, seeing his eyes widen when he realized it too, she took pity on him and turned to hug Ian instead. Then she sat down on the desk and Ian put his arm around her. “You want to see that Phillip guy, too, right?” she asked.

  Scythe nodded. “I do, since he’s the one we are going after first, but let’s do it in the morning, okay?”

  “I’m fine now,” she said, jumping up.

  Ian pulled her back to sit on the desk, “The morning is soon enough. Besides, it has been a long day and a long night. I’m tired.” He could see that Scythe needed a break from his suddenly overexcited daughter. “Let’s go back to our room, hopefully free of Adan, and get some sleep.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Mercy, looking at Ian and then Scythe. She had finally picked up on some of what was going on.

  Ian stood and herded her out of the room with a quick, “See you in the morning, Scythe.” In the hall, he put his arm around Mercy’s shoulder and gave her a little hug.

  Dad.

  Yes, sweetheart?

  I know that I’ve made so many mistakes, coming out here, and involving Grant, he felt an echo of the pain and guilt he knew that she would harbor for a long time, but I’m not sorry...I mean, I am so...just so sad about what happened to everyone at the warehouse, and especially Grant…but, in a way, I’m not sorry because I missed him so much. Didn’t you?

  He nodded. You know that I did. She began to tell him again what it was like to relive her vision but Ian could only give her half of his attention. The other half was thinking about how strangely Scythe was acting and wondering what event had caused the sudden change in him.

  -----------

  Scythe put the back of his head against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. The difference between her memory and the vision itself was enormous. Besides reading the signs, he could see buildings in the distance, read names on uniforms and hear what the voices were yelling in the distance. He already thought he knew where the attack was going to happen, and he was as amazed as the woman soldier whose death he had witnessed three times now.

  However, after seeing Mercy’s vision with his own eyes, he was consumed with something far more important than the location of the attack. He had to steady himself with several breaths, and count the cracks in the ceiling three times before he could make himself go over it again.

  The woman went ahead of them down the alley, her weapon ready. Her boots patted softly on the pavement, and she swung her automatic in a regular pattern. Through the com at the neck of the man holding Mercy, Scythe could hear the details of the attack on the city. When she reached the end, she raised her hand and signaled. They followed her, stepping over some old newspapers and walking around a large trash bin. When they were halfway down, the hand lifted off Mercy’s shoulder. The sound of footsteps behind them was light, but clear enough for even her to hear, if she were paying attention. Out of the corner of her eye, he watched the tip of the Kin’s weapon swing forward toward his partner at the end of the street. The woman who had been scanning the road at the end of the alley turned and looked back at them. She yelled, “Down!” and lifted her weapon, pointing it at them. Mercy was shoved to the ground to the sounds of several guns firing. As she fell forward, trying to catch herself with her bound hands, the woman also fell, her firearm discharging wildly. Somewhere above Mercy, a voice cursed, and then the man dropped to his knees next to her.

  Most of her view was blocked by her own arm, marked with a pair of jagged red lines, which lay in front of her face. She tilted her head and saw him, hunched over, staring down at his stomach. She blinked, because he was getting fuzzier.

  The vision didn’t fade, Mercy did. Voices from behind her haunted the deepening fog.

  “That was sloppy. You should have shot her earlier.”

  “Grab her and let’s go.”

  The deep voice cursed again, “I’ve been hit.”

  “Oh, crap.”

  “Get up, girl. Time to get moving.”

  Scythe knew why she wasn’t moving. He had seen the end of the rifle, pointing straight at them as the woman had fallen. Three flashes. Three ear piercing cracks that split the air. Three shots flew at them before the gun hit the ground and fell silent. Three shots.

  -----------

  Scythe stood with his arms crossed, his eyes flicking back and forth over the puzzle in front of him. In the conference room, he had laid out fifty-three sheets of paper, each one representing an incident that might have involved the Human rebels over the last two years. They spread out before him like several patches of snow and, when his mind went to work, they blurred together like one big drift. Every few minutes, he would grab one, make a note on it or move it to another spot, and then stand back again. His eyes were beginning to sting after working through the night, and he lifted one hand to rub them; he pulled in a long, deep breath and then expelled it with a huff. Then he blinked the last bits away and continued working. He didn’t turn when Captain Reave entered and examined the table.

  “You doing your thing?” the man asked.

  Scythe nodded shortly.

  “Well?”

  “Too much is not adding up.”

  “Yeah, like what?” Reave leaned forward and pushed one of the sheets that was hanging over the edge further onto the table. He examined it more closely. “This one...are you sure this is right?” The words Sehgern Robbery stood at the top of a list of the event’s date and location, people injured and killed, losses and a few notes, including possible results and speculations about motivation.

  “No.” Scythe said without glancing at it, “I’m not sure. That’s why it’s there.”

  “It doesn’t seem related.”

  Scythe shook his head, “I had to pull in everything that seemed suspicious, even what hasn’t been considered relevant before, like that robbery, because there was too much...or not enough, probably not enough…Hold on.” He paused, went to a stack of blank paper, quickly took up one piece, wrote on it, and placed it on top of two other sheets near the edge. “...not enough to work with.”

  “Right, because of our information problem,” the captain said.

  “No. Well, yes, that is a problem...our biggest problem...but,” Scythe deliberately slowed himself down, “the reason it’s a problem is because the things we do know are not adding up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Scythe shrugged, “I am pretty sure that the pattern we are seeing is a false trail, and,” he continued before Reave could speak, “so I’m looking for the real pattern, the one that will show me their objectives.”

  “Their objectives are clear. They hate the Kin, they want Human independence, they want to induce the rest of the Humans to join them and they want to garner support from the apathetic Kin population.”

  “I’m telling you, Reave: that is a false trail. There is just enough here,” Scythe waved in front of him, “that doesn’t support those motives. Hell, the recent attack on the warehouse is a prime example. Temper was right, it is a mismatch. So I’m reexamining the warehouse fire, too. I think the rebels are banking on the fact that we will draw the conclusions that we want or expect about that fire, based on what has already happened, all of which was by design. They know
that, once we start piecing things together, we are likely to make the connections fit in the growing pattern, rather than looking outside of it for something else. People will see the patterns they want to see, they expect to see, once a few things fall together, and ignore or fail to recognize other patterns.”

  “When things match, there is usually a reason.”

  “I know, and for the most part everything collected on this assignment does add up to what you stated earlier. It is even possible that those are partial objectives, relevant to some portion of the group, maybe a happy byproduct that helps them recruit members. But, because of the other things like the warehouse fire and that robbery and a few incidental deaths, I’m not convinced that that is the sum of their goals. It is just beyond my abilities right now to figure out the underlying pattern. I either have too much unrelated information, or I’m short, still, of something crucial.” He took another deep breath. He needed to sleep. He had tried to sleep the night before, but had finally given up on it and made himself useful instead. He would have to fit at least a short nap in later or he would have difficulty functioning.

  “Well, we’ve got some good leads and more manpower than earlier units, so eventually something will turn up that we can latch on to.” Reave’s eyes widened when they fell upon a small scrap in the middle of the heap with only two words hastily scribbled down. “What about that one? There’s nothing on it.”

  “That’s a question I have that I haven’t worded yet.” Scythe said, frowning and obviously distracted by another thought.

  “There haven’t been any disturbances there…”

  Scythe turned abruptly, instantly attentive, “That’s my question!” He stepped forward, grabbed the paper and wrote on it. Then he replaced it and stared at it; he was almost immediately disappointed, as if he expected more from the paper, like it would jump up and do a little trick or something.

  Captain Reave gave it another minute, unsure if that was the extent of the paper’s importance or if Scythe was about to have some sort of revelation. When nothing else happened, he cleared his throat and said, “Well, I want to get your team finalized so that I can reassign the rest. I take it you are not moving out immediately, then?”

  “No, we are,” Scythe said, resigned to his failure for the day; he started to pick up the papers, piling them in a specific order. “I can do this anywhere. Besides, I believe that things are going to start moving quickly now.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Well, like you said, you’re going to be putting a lot of pressure on them, and I will be, too.” Scythe had a feeling as well that the attack that Mercy had foreseen was imminent, he guessed within a couple of weeks at the latest. So, as much as he hated to proceed with incomplete information, he knew that they had to get started with his flushing strategy.

  Wisely not offering to help with the papers, the captain sat at the head chair and activated his display. “You’ll be taking Ian, you said, and his daughter…”

  “Yes, and I’m sure Temper will want to accompany us,” Scythe said, finishing up and neatly placing the stack in a folder.

  “Ah, I was wondering about that. I knew she wasn’t just here to oversee the operation. So, she’s on our mysterious girl, then?”

  Scythe didn’t respond to his question, but continued with his team’s requirements, “We will also need a medic. I’d like Gerenth, but I doubt you’ll release him to me.”

  The captain barked a short laugh, “You’re right about that. I’m not losing him in the middle of this operation. You can request one.” He waved his hand dismissively.

  “There isn’t time. Well, we can make do with a few with medical field experience.”

  “I have these, and there are the Humans, of course. You might ask for their medic.”

  Scythe glanced at the screen, “I’ll take Summer, Orin, and...I don’t suppose Anvil?” The captain didn’t bother with a response. “Well then, that’s it. I’ll ask Ian about the Humans.”

  “Ask me what?” Ian said, walking in with a plate of food.

  Mercy followed behind, bringing her plate to the table and sitting down to eat. She smiled sleepily, gave a “Good morning,” and started on her breakfast.

  Ian looked at the empty table and around the room, and then narrowed his eyes at Scythe. He handed his plate to Scythe, who, after only a small hesitation, accepted it with a nod. “Ask me what?”

  “We need a medic for our team, and maybe one or two from the border patrol. What do you think?” Scythe used the flat, thin bread to scoop up some egg, sausage and rice mash. The first bite was delicious and he dug in immediately for another. The taste of it in his mouth and the feeling of it hitting his empty stomach made him realize how hungry he was. He dipped his head again at Ian, who was grinning in satisfaction.

  “Probably no on the medic. Let me go ask Rogers.” He turned and left, after a quick wink at his daughter.

  “Okay, you’ve got Summer, Orin, these two, Temper, you, hopefully a medic. How many more?”

  “At least two solid Humans and then we’re good.”

  “Not that small of a team,” he noticed.

  “I think we’ll be fine with that. Our destination is Yawning Valley.”

  The captain blinked, “That’s pretty far. What takes you there?”

  “I’m following a lead on a core member.”

  “Anyone we know?”

  “I don’t have a name,” Scythe said, sitting at the table and giving the remaining food in front of him his full attention. “It might be a waste of time, but I want to check it out anyway. It’s the only thing I’ve got on him.”

  “It must be something or you wouldn’t go to all this trouble, but why all the secrecy, if you’ve got nothing?”

  “Like I said, I think that they have access to all our information, so don’t record it anywhere. I don’t want them expecting me there. Because it is so far, I don’t think they will. Oh, that reminds me,” he wrote a name on a small piece of paper and handed it to the captain. “Can you put someone on this guy?”

  “Jon Wash? I already know this name...He was the snitch for the warehouse, right?”

  “Yeah, but unlike the others, he hasn’t turned up dead yet. There is no record of him leaving town, which doesn’t mean anything, but who knows?”

  “He’s already on the watch list. I’ll dedicate a couple of guys to him.”

  “Good.”

  He hit several commands on his display, commenting, “We’re hoping to start and quickly finish the interrogations for that list today, finish up tomorrow at the latest, but it is a significant group you’ve compiled here. Should make quite a stink in Juniper.”

  “We’ll wait until that is done before we go,” said Scythe, sorry to be taking the last bite of his meal. He pushed his plate forward on the table. Across from him, Mercy continued to eat slowly, looking down at her plate; every few minutes or so, she would pause to yawn widely and blink.

  “Maybe we’ll have a few for your special skills,” he said, looking up from the screen and sitting back. “Might move things along nicely.”

  Scythe shrugged noncommittally, “I don’t know. Everything has been so neat up to now; it is hard to believe there would be someone sitting around to be picked up. On the other hand, they have to be somewhere.”

  Reave nodded and looked over at Mercy. “So, dream girl,” he smiled at how quickly her face flushed, “I heard that you were involved in a little incident last night.”

  Mercy blinked but didn’t answer right away. She looked across the table at Scythe and adopted his calm face. That didn’t prevent the captain from hearing her rapid heartbeat. “Like I told you, Scythe wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

  He laughed at her feisty response, but had to agree, “Well, you were right. I saw that Human’s neck this morning, and I’m actually surprised he made it.” He directed his mocking smile at Scythe, “But, you do have a soft spot for Humans. If he had been Kin, who knows, right?”
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  Scythe didn’t respond, so Mercy spoke up, “If he had been Kin, I wouldn’t have needed his help.”

  “Oh, ho!” Reave barked, genuinely surprised. “And why is that? You going to dream him to death?”

  Scythe recovered quickly from his own disbelief that she would make such a stupid boast, and gave her a firm stare.

  “No,” Mercy said, realizing she had spoken rashly and trying, with her usual lack of success, to recover. “It just means I probably wouldn’t have been alone with him.” She had lie written all over her.

  Scythe didn’t look at the captain when the man raised his eyebrows at him; he was mesmerized by Mercy’s talent for grave digging. The more she wanted to get out, the faster and deeper she shoveled, as if, instead of just climbing out of the hole, she had decided to dig through to the other side of the earth to get out.

  “I see. So you don’t like to be alone with the Kin? You ate dinner with two Kin, I heard.”

  Mercy’s wide eyes made him chuckle. He continued, anticipating her curiosity, “As a matter of fact, there were two complaints.”

  “I wasn’t really alone; there were people everywhere. Besides, it isn’t the Kin I distrust, it’s just certain people.” She shrugged, “Gerenth and Heron are good people, and my Uncle Smoke is a very good person.”

  “How many Kin uncles do you have?”

  “She comes from an unusual family, as I’m sure you have been informed,” Scythe interrupted, hoping to derail their conversation. “You should know, Captain, that in Human, the term 'dreamgirl’ usually refers to the woman a man is passionately attracted to.” Scythe couldn’t resist a very small smile, enjoying Reave’s instant look of horror. “So, she might assume you are making a proposition…”