I didn’t look over.
My jaw hardened to granite, though.
I managed to keep my thoughts stripped of emotion when I answered.
You’ll follow orders, brother.
We’re going to talk about this, he sent, his light sparking with heat. Today, sister.
No. We’re not.
The hell we aren’t…
I blanked my mind, shutting him out deliberately.
That time, when I glanced back at the table, I saw Balidor looking at me quizzically. His light gray eyes darted briefly to Dalejem, just enough that I could feel he’d caught some flavor of the undercurrents of our exchange.
I ignored that, too.
Folding my arms, I sank down in my chair, sipping my crappy coffee as I waited for movie hour to end, my feet planted firmly on the floor.
Once the recordings finished, I knew the real questions would start.
They didn’t though. Instead, when the last segment finished and the lights rose slightly around the table, an even heavier silence fell over the room.
I glanced around at faces, a little worried that time.
I caught Jon staring at me, saw elements of my own worry reflected in his hazel eyes. He looked worried about me, though. I didn’t let myself think about why that might be.
I knew smiling at him wouldn’t go over, so I made a slight gesture of reassurance with one hand along the table, along with a promise we’d talk later.
I meant it, too…for the most part.
There was a lot I couldn’t tell him right now. Too much, really…but I knew I needed to connect with him, too. He’d been in part of the planning meetings over the previous two weeks, as had Kali, Yumi, Tarsi and even Maygar, but I hadn’t gotten a lot of one-on-one time with anyone I was close to, not recently. None at all, really, since we’d left Colorado.
Not in the past few months, if I was being totally honest with myself.
I knew some of the bare facts of their lives.
I knew Jon had started training the humans in sight skills, including my old friends in San Francisco. I knew that so far, excluding Dante, Jon’s prize pupil was Angeline, one of my old art school and tattooing friends. I knew that Sasquatch had displayed an unusual gift in remote viewing…and that Jaden was learning to talk to organic machines.
I knew Maygar was one of Jon’s main instructors. I knew that my biological parents, Kali and Uye, were instructors too. I knew Yumi had started to train Jon in that work she did helping seers process traumas and negative emotions…and that Dante was teaching her mother how to hack.
I knew that Balidor had started to work with Cass in the tank, too, similar to what I’d done with Revik back in China. Balidor confessed to me that Yarli had been adamantly opposed to him doing that work before, mostly out of jealousy. Now that he and Yarli were no longer together, he said it just made sense for him to be the one to do it.
I hadn’t argued. I knew he was the best we had.
And yeah, as much as I hated to admit it, a part of me wanted to believe he might be able to reach her.
I even knew Maygar and Angeline were dating a little, although I hadn’t asked for details on that, either…or even how serious it was. The whole idea blew my mind a little when I first heard about it; it also made me wonder if Revik had known about that before he left.
Feeling my emotions slide into rockier territory again, I cleared my throat, tightening the more military aspects of my light around my person.
“It’s not on the recordings,” I said, glancing around at all of them. “But Dragon was also in the chamber with Novak…the seer known as Xarethe. According to time signatures, he got there about thirty-eight minutes before we did. He left me a recording, one that got auto-wiped shortly after I saw it, of him walking in there and confronting her. There was no sound, so I don’t know what they talked about…but it’s probable that he killed her, or compelled her to kill herself.”
Hesitating, I glanced at Balidor.
His gray eyes held mine as he gave me a slight nod.
We’d discussed this part too, in detail, including with Wreg and Tarsi. I was pretty sure we’d come to the right decision when we agreed to share this information with the group. Even so, I exhaled in a clicking sigh before I added,
“…He also left me this.”
Pulling it out of my pocket, I placed the organic data key on the table in front of me.
“Well,” I amended. “Either Dragon left it, or Xarethe herself did. But given how she died, I find it unlikely she could have done anything after being shot. So either she was holding it and Dragon left it there…or Dragon placed it there himself.”
Giving Balidor another glance, and Jon, who hadn’t known about this prior to the meeting, I exhaled again. I shrugged, gesturing with an open hand.
“We have to assume he wanted us to have this information, in any case,” I said.
I watched Wreg and Jon frown, exchanging looks.
Wreg hadn’t known about this either. Only Balidor and Tarsi knew, until now.
And Jem of course. And me.
“…The fact that he left the other recording for me,” I continued. “Meaning the surveillance footage of himself entering that room and confronting Xarethe…definitely suggests he knew we were in the building. Or that we would be shortly.”
Glancing at Balidor again, I flicked my fingers sideways, even as I activated the data chip, using my headset.
“Anyway, intro over. Here’s what’s on it…”
I gave a thought-command and immediately a diagram blew up, expanding into a three-dimensional image over the table. Using my headset to highlight different aspects of the image, I found myself remembering a conversation I’d had with Vash where he’d done something similar for me via the Barrier, explaining to me how the Pyramid worked. That first talk with Vash in Seertown felt about a million years ago now. Back then, I thought the scariest thing in the world was Galaith and his army of network seers, the Rooks.
Now that struck me as sort of quaint.
“Adhipan Balidor and I spent some days looking at this,” I said, my voice even. “Along with sister Tarsi and two of her acolytes in the Pamir. It appears to be a living diagram of the current state of the Barrier network of the Dreng…”
I glanced at Jon again, who stared up at the highlighted strands, his hazel eyes narrow. I motioned with one hand, highlighting the parts currently moving, changing shape.
“The way it’s set up, it reconfigures constantly,” I explained. “Much more frequently and elaborately than the Pyramid we encountered under Galaith. Those changes also involve the entire structure versus that movement being directed primarily from upper level tiers. There are no upper level tiers on this network that we can find. Its structure appears entirely mutable, random even, well beyond something as rudimentary as a succession order.” Pausing, I glanced around the table, watching individual faces stare up at the rotating lights. “This one has a number of other features neither Balidor nor Tarsi has ever encountered before…things they caught from their vast number of years studying construct arts in the Pamir.”
I glanced at Balidor, motioning with one hand.
“Could you expand on this for me, brother?” I said politely.
He nodded, once, his face expressionless.
Even so, I felt the gentle pulse of warmth he sent in my direction.
It caught me off-guard. When it strengthened, holding a more overt affection, it nearly brought tears to my eyes. Glancing from him to Jon and Wreg and Yumi, it occurred to me yet again that my friends really were worried about me. I wondered if it was because of everything they knew was happening and had happened to me, or if they could see something in my light…something I wasn’t letting myself look at yet.
The fact that Balidor cared so much touched me, though.
It touched me a little too much right then, truthfully…but I couldn’t help feeling a rush of warmth for the Adhipan leader. More than warmth. I felt lo
ve for him, for his damned unshakable loyalty if nothing else. Forcing the pain that tried to rise out of my light, I struggled briefly to get back into my military cloak.
When I sat back in the chair, I felt Dalejem staring at me again.
That time, I didn’t stop myself in time…maybe because my defenses really were lowered from what ‘Dori had done, or maybe for some other reason. I glanced over at where Dalejem sat, expecting to meet his angry gaze from the other side of the table.
When I turned, he wasn’t looking at me, though.
His green eyes focused on Balidor instead, a faint frown etching the corners of his dark lips.
That pissed me off, too.
Jesus, had he appointed himself the guardian of Revik’s marriage, or what? If so, he might want to have a little chat with his guy pal about his end of things. Revik had been fucking someone else that morning. I basically woke up to it.
He’d opened his light with that one, too.
Forcing the image out of my mind even as the memory gritted my teeth, I closed my light, doing it in reflex…and hopefully fast enough that no one in the room noticed. I didn’t move my eyes in time though, and caught the edge of Dalejem’s stare when he aimed that frown even harder at me.
Rage twisted through my light. I fought the urge to flip him off.
Still clenching my jaw, I returned my attention to Balidor’s words, realizing only then that he’d already begun to speak.
“…and as the Bridge has already implied, this is more of a matrix-type design,” Balidor was saying. “Less the straight hierarchy of Galaith’s version. As a result, it operates more like an organism, rebuilding connections wherever they are diminished or broken, changing those connections and orderings as the organism’s priorities change. It appears to hold every individual pillar we’ve ID’d on the Earth side at several different points, in addition to the Barrier anchors I mentioned working from the other side…”
Jon spoke up, his voice strangely loud in the otherwise quiet of the room.
“So they’re all Terians,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I mean…each of these pillars has multiple bodies. Like Feigran did?”
Balidor gave him a grim look. “Yes. If this diagram is correct, that is likely.”
“How many bodies?” Neela asked from the other side of the table.
Exhaling in a purring sigh, Balidor flipped his hand sideways.
“There is no real way to know that, sister,” he said. “But it appears they have quite a few ‘on store,’ for want of a better way to put it. If we are correct on this point, there is some chance that the reconnection process is automatic. Meaning, if one body is killed, it activates another. And so on. This is something the being, Feigran…Terian…did not have, at least not that we are aware.”
“Where are they?” Wreg said, his voice empty. “This storage you mention?”
“Unknown, brother,” Balidor said, his eyes shifting to Wreg’s. “The diagram doesn’t tell us that…although there is some chance we can use it to infer possibilities.”
“So Xarethe is likely still alive,” Yumi said, from across from me.
Balidor glanced at me, his mouth a grim line. “It is possible, yes.”
“Likely?” Maygar said. “Or just possible?”
Balidor shrugged. “We cannot say that yet, either, brother. We are still using our knowledge of Feigran’s structures to map that aspect of things, and there are some fairly large differences, as I said. Presumably, Feigran was an experiment of sorts. I assume he was used as a guinea pig to determine the limits a single living aleimi could be stretched, in order to keep it viable across multiple personas…”
Clicking again, softer that time, Balidor gave me a heavier look before adding,
“There is something else,” he said, his voice reluctant. “There is another mapping contained within this data key. One overlaying the original…likely added after the fact.”
“A mapping?” Jorag frowned, glancing at me also, maybe from following Balidor’s eyes. “What does this mean?”
Again, Balidor sighed. “In this case, it means we were given a map of the network’s weaknesses. A map that appears to be showing us how to dismantle it…including a direct indication of the order in which the pillars would need to be eradicated to successfully take down that network as a whole.”
Silence settled over the table.
“What?” Jon said. He looked from Balidor to me, his expression incredulous. “What does that mean?”
“It means someone wants us to go after network seers,” I said, giving him a direct look. “Someone appears to be helping us do that very thing, in fact.”
Jon looked at me, his expression holding more scrutiny that time. His frown deepened after a few seconds, and I got a fleeting impression from his light it was partly because he couldn’t read much off me. He glanced at Wreg before aiming his question back at me.
“You mean this…Dragon? He’s helping us? You think he left this there for you to find, to tell us how to take down the network? Why would he do that?”
Balidor answered for me. “It is possible he did this, yes. It is certainly possible evidence that the data key was left by someone less sympathetic to the network as a whole, versus one of the pillars we believe to be more loyal to Menlim.”
“It’s also quite possibly a ruse to yank us around by the crotch…” a voice muttered, drawing my eyes.
Seeing the source, I gave Dalejem a disbelieving look.
He stared back unapologetically, shrugging with the flat of one hand. “…Someone needs to fucking say it. No one else was.”
Balidor quirked an eyebrow in his direction, then looked back at me.
“We are examining that, too, brother,” he conceded, making a much more polite wave of his hand than what Dalejem had done. “And we will continue to do so. But for now, this intelligence is too valuable for us to ignore it entirely. Moreover, the evidence in the Barrier so far indicates that whoever left this information behind, they do not appear to be operating under Menlim’s orders––”
“Like we’d fucking know if they were,” Dalejem muttered.
Again, I gave him an annoyed look. “Would you like to actually contribute to the discussion, brother Dalejem?” I asked him coldly.
He smiled at me, eyes flat. “I apologize, beloved sister. I thought I was.”
Muttering under my breath, I only stopped when I caught Balidor looking between us again, more of that puzzlement in his light.
“But why?” Jax said, repeating Jon’s question as he looked around the table. “Why would he do that? Isn’t Dragon one of the pillars himself?”
Balidor flipped his hand again, his voice calm. “The network key does not tell us that for certain, brother…but yes, it could certainly be surmised. On the other hand, perhaps he was made an unwilling pillar.” Balidor cleared his throat. “Such as the Sword.”
“…Or maybe he just didn’t like being locked underground for however-many years and experimented on like a fucking rhesus monkey,” Dalejem muttered under his breath. “…As I recall, the ‘Sword’ wasn’t too happy about that, either.”
Another silence settled over the room.
I saw a few people giving Dalejem puzzled looks that time.
“Is the Sword himself on this diagram?” Neela said, staring up at the image.
“No,” Balidor said, exhaling as he again looked at me. “But again, this information is organic…and the data chip appears to be tied in some way into the living network organism itself, for want of a better term…” He shrugged, still holding my gaze. “From what we can tell, as the network changes, the diagram in the data chip changes, too. We have no idea what the Sword’s current status is within Menlim’s network…”
I watched understanding reach their eyes as they all went back to staring up at the seething lines of red and silver light that morphed and twisted over the table.
“So who’s next?” Chandre asked, blunt.
I looked at her. She leaned deeper into her chair, her muscular arms on the table in front of her, her red eyes shining in the overhead light of the moving network. When no one spoke, she made a sharper gesture with one hand.
“You say this Dragon…or someone…is leading you through who to eliminate on this network,” she added, her accented voice clear. “So who is next? According to this map of his? Can you share that with us?”
I glanced at Balidor. Meeting my gaze, he made a sweeping gesture with one hand, basically telling me it was up to me whether to tell them or not.
Clearing my throat, I met Chandre’s gaze.
“Eddard,” I said. “He wants us to go after Eddard next.”
I felt a reaction in Jon’s light. Glancing at him, I remembered that Jon knew Eddard better than I did. Staying with Revik all those weeks in London, he would have interacted with him daily. I saw a grim look form on Jon’s face in the seconds after I spoke, right before he glanced at Wreg, communicating something to his mate via hand gestures. I didn’t follow his fingers to see what he’d said; I figured if he wanted me to know, he would have said it out loud.
Silence again fell over the table.
That time it was Wreg who broke it.
“So according to this,” the ex-rebel said, his black eyes still on the diagram. “…That fucker, Menlim…he is not a pillar, either.”
Balidor exhaled, affirming his words with a slash and cut upwards of his hand.
“Yes, brother,” he said. “That is correct. Again, we are only in the preliminary stages of examining this network. We require many more eyes on it than simply mine and sister Tarsi’s.”
He gave Wreg a meaningful look, as well as Jon, Yumi and Dalejem, I noticed, before giving me the most pointed look of all.
“…Many more, my brothers and sisters,” he added. “But right now, from our preliminary examination of this model, it appears that only beings who are actually alive can take that role. Menlim is not technically in that category…although there is some chance that the being whose body he hijacked is still alive in some form and might have a role. We strongly suspect that pillars are rotated in and out of the network entirely via links that are made inactive or invisible when not in use, thus effectively disguising their numbers.”
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 40