“Just let us know when you want us back, Doc.” Tony said, opening the door.
“I just need to talk with Mrs. Pianova and Bolswaithe, Mr. Della Francesca.” The Doctor rubbed his forehead. “You will know of my decision when I reach one.”
“Okay, Doc.”
“And don't call me Doc!”
“All right, Sir.” Tony said, clacking his mouth.
“Doctor is fine.” Doctor Franco sighed.
“Got it... Boss.” Tony finally closed the door. “Jeez,” he said to Thomas, Bolswaithe, and Elise. “He’s in a mood today.”
“You really don't know when to stop, do you?” Elise asked him with a smirk.
“He knows I'm just joking.” Tony smiled and winked. “I keep him on his toes, keep him young.”
“One day he's going to really pop a vein on you.”
“Nah, the man loves me.”
“Love is really an overstatement,” Bolswaithe said.
“Good afternoon,” a voice said with a thick English accent. “Can I offer refreshment while you wait? Water, tea? Maybe even some food?” A man wearing an impeccable butler black suit was standing behind them. He was a little shorter and heavier than Bolswaithe, but had the same solemn air about him.
Bolswaithe extended both hands toward him. “Cuthbert,” he said. “It’s nice to see you about, brother.”
“And you. Bolswaithe, I’ve missed our chats.” He took his arms in a double handshake.
Tony leaned toward Thomas. “I didn't know Bolsy had a brother. Did you?”
Thomas shrugged. He knew Bolswaithe was a robot, but he thought he was the only in operation.
“I know you visited Eva recently,” Cuthbert continued. “How is she?”
“She’s…” There was a pause. Thomas knew Bolswaithe paused when uploading or downloading a stream of data heavier than usual, and this was probably the case. “…the same, no change in her condition.”
“I see,” Cuthbert said. “I’ll try and visit her soon.”
Bolswaithe released Cuthbert and turned toward them. “Please allow me to introduce you to my friends,” he said. “Elise Heriam-Conner, Thomas Byrne, and Antonio Della Francesca.”
“Nice to meet you.” Elise extended her hand, and Cuthbert bowed and placed a kiss on her forehand.
“The pleasure is all mine, my lady,” he said. “Bolswaithe told me that only your beauty equals your intelligence. I am sure that you are quite a genius.”
Elise let out a little giddy laugh. “Thank you.” she said, looking at Bolswaithe who only nodded.
“Mr. Byrne.” Cuthbert shook Thomas's hand. “A great pleasure. I am at your service; please don't hesitate to ask anything from me. Anything at all.”
“Thank you very much, Cuthbert.” Thomas smiled. “I'll keep that in mind.”
Cuthbert turned toward Tony. “Mr. Della Francesca,” he said while shaking Tony’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Thank you. Nice to meet you too.”
“Bolswaithe has told me a lot of things about you.” Cuthbert continued to shake his hand.
Tony exchanged a look with Bolswaithe. “Good things I guess?” he said with a smile.
Cuthbert continued to shake his hand with a smile as he twitched his mouth. “A…lot of good things, sir. Certainly.”
“Well, thank you very much.” Tony said, eyeing Bolswaithe.
“Not at all.” Cuthbert released his grip.
“Cuthbert has taken my place as head butler of the Mansion,” Bolswaithe informed them. “I am now free to spend all my time with you.”
“My brother has moved up the ladder,” Cuthbert said. “He's setting the example.” He paused, and then said, “The Doctor is ready for you now, Bolswaithe.”
“Don't worry, Thomas.” Bolswaithe said. “It's a good plan; we'll get a green light for it.” He entered the office and shut the door behind him.
“I can prepare a meal for you while you wait for news,” Cuthbert told them. “Anyone up for it?”
“I am.” Elise said.
Cuthbert bowed again, extending his arm for her to take. “My lady, please.” Elise let out another giddy laugh while taking his arm, and they walked away through the corridor.
Tony stopped Thomas. “Can we talk?” he asked.
Thomas knew exactly what Tony wanted to talk about, so he spoke first. “There's no need, Tony.”
“Of course there's need. I'm sorry.”
“No, Tony.” Thomas turned toward him, anger swelling. “I’m the one who’s sorry. You're right. No matter how much I don’t want it, Grandpa and I will become enemies. We are already on different sides; it's just a matter of time before we have to fight each other, and I’m really scared of what will happen then.”
“If it comes to that…and let’s hope it doesn’t.” Tony said. “You know you can count on us.”
“I know,” Thomas said. “Thanks.” He had finally accepted that it wasn’t a question of if but when.
***
A couple of hours later, Bolswaithe found everyone in Thomas's room watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Cuthbert had supplied them with popcorn and a huge tray of nachos. Elise was sitting by herself on a sofa grasping a blanket just below her eyes, while Thomas and Tony shared the other sofa. It was really funny how Elise could face off against the Wraith and still be scared by a slasher film, although The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was as scary as they came.
Bolswaithe waited until Elise screamed and Leatherface pulled the door shut to his chamber of horrors before pausing the movie. Then he walked in front of the TV.
“So?” Tony asked when Bolswaithe kept quiet.
“We are on,” he announced with a smile, “in about two weeks.”
The League of Nations
Usually a week seemed to fly by for Thomas in Pervagus Mansion, but this one crawled, between the extended hours of weapons training with Killjoy and the new courses Mrs. Pianova had assigned before visiting Mneme, his days became long, boring, and usually ended with bruises, a headache, or both.
And he still had one more week to go.
“So, what have you learned about Fauns?” Elise asked from across the desk they had taken in the Reading Room. Mrs. Pianova and Bolswaithe both agreed to have Elise mentor him in selected magical courses. She grudgingly accepted at first, but she had quickly adapted to the idea of giving Thomas homework and drilling him like a Sergeant whenever she had a chance.
Thomas contained a snore as best he could. The Reading Room was almost as large as his library station. Desks and computers ran through the center of the room while sofas ringed the walls. The colors were neutral, its picture frames unattractive and tedious, and the floor a polished dark wood. It begged you to be silent. It made the book or screen in front of you the most interesting thing in the world.
It was perfect environment for reading and learning, but it was also the most boring place Thomas had ever been.
“So?” Elise asked again. She had that tendency to purse just the rise of her lips when she was anxious, and Thomas couldn't figure out if it made her look cute or annoying.
Today, he decided, it made her look boring too.
“Fauns are the animal magical counterparts,” he droned, closing his eyes and resting his chin on his hand and his arm on the desk. “They are animal-like, but kind of human-like too. They can talk. Most of them, except, like, the snakes and dolphins, have hands and can walk upright. Some are magical, I mean extra magical, and can use Magic like, you know, you. So, they do Magic, and they don't need to eat, but they can eat if they want to. They are connected to their animals; they even call them their ‘anchors.’ Like there's three or four species of gorillas, but there's only one type of gorilla faun and the anchors are important, because if all their anchors die, the Fauns die too. And some of them don't like humans and some of them do, and we have some organizations and treaties with them, and we created National parks for them and…” He opened his eyes. Elise's face had turned from b
oring to bewildered, so he closed them again and began to slide toward the desk until his arms cradled his head. “So, like, Chief Husseha is a faun, and he likes us and...I like him too. He's cool, and he gave me a golden chain that I keep in my room and…” he braved, opening just one eye.
Bewilderment was becoming anger.
He shut the eye again and decided to give her something more educated. “They have this council, and some have had fights among each other, like wars, that we've stopped. And some of them helped us during World War II against the Warmaster, while others helped him, and…” he opened his eye just a tiny bit.
Definitely anger.
He straightened up and shook his head. “I did read the things you gave me, I swear,” he told her. “I'm just really tired.”
“I'm tired too,” she said, and he immediately recognized the incoming sign of one of the lectures she was so fond of giving out, especially to Tony, and he braced himself. “But we are going to one of their most sacred sites and meeting with Faun elders, and you must know all about them by heart before then.”
“Well, test me then,” he challenged. “Give me a quiz, and if I ace it we'll move on.”
She crossed her arms. At least he had turned anger into consternation, maybe even amusement.
“Go ahead,” he crossed his arms in turn, daring her to ask him questions about Fauns.
“You're setting conditions?” she reclined back. “You're becoming just like Tony.”
“I am just tired,” he scoffed, then reclined back in his chair, mimicking her. “I think I'm ready.”
She glared at him, and he mocked her with the same glare and pursed lip.
“You’re not taking this seriously.” She began to text on her wristpadd.
“I’ve met Chief Husseha,” he said. The Chief had been the first faun he had officially met as a Cypher. The white-tailed deer faun was the leader of the Hassa Clan and had worked closely with Guardians Inc. for many years. The Chief had helped design and build Central Park and under it created Hussahassalin, the dwelling place of his people. Thomas counted Chief Husseha as a personal friend, since Thomas saved his sons by decoding the Oracle sign that had kept them in trance for many days. The golden chain the Chief had given him as a gift held a special place in his room; it symbolized the first time he had used his Cypher powers. He paused for a second, then added almost as an afterthought, “And I've also met Babcor down in Maintenance.”
Babcor was a capybara faun who was in charge of maintaining the back gardens of the Mansion and also had a thing for cars. The first time Thomas had met him, the rodent faun was sitting in front of his car with a magazine, imagining just how the car looked under the soft tarp Grandpa always covered it with. Thankfully, Thomas had already grown used to seeing and expecting strange things as a member of Guardians Inc. or he would have laughed at the sight of the huge rodent, maybe four-and-a-half-feet tall, dressed in gardener overalls and with a red bandanna tied around his forehead. He had vivacious eyes and two huge frontal teeth that showed even when he wasn’t speaking. His voice was somewhat grave, but he was also very easygoing and joked a lot. After a brief introduction by Bolswaithe, Thomas had uncovered the car for Babcor and showed him the engine and interiors. The capybara had begged him turn the engine on “just to hear it purr,” and Thomas had even allowed him to sit in the driver’s seat and pump the gas a couple of times, but they couldn’t drive out, so Babcor had made Thomas promise that he would take him out for a ride when he had a chance.
Elise’s wristpadd lit up with an incoming message. She stood up from her chair. “Let’s go.”
He groaned. “Where?”
“Come on,” she huffed. Bolswaithe opened the door to the Reading Room. He usually stood outside whatever room Thomas was in unless they were working together.
“We have about an hour before session begins,” Bolswaithe told them.
“What session?” Thomas was half-pulled by Bolswaithe and half-pushed by Elise through the Mansion's corridor.
“Where are we going?” Tony asked from the other end of the corridor. He was dressed in a blue jumpsuit and wearing safety goggles. A faint smell of powder reached them as he approached.
“To the League of Nations,” Bolswaithe told him.
“What for?” Thomas walked reluctantly ahead of Elise.
“We are meeting a friend of my family, a faun. There is a League session in about an hour, and he's agreed to meet with us before.”
“A faun?” Tony walked backward in front of them. “Are we leaving the League of Nations building?”
“You’ve been there?” Elise asked Tony.
“Yeeeeah,” Tony bragged. “Right after getting Orange level. So, are we going out from the building?”
“No,” Elise said.
“Is it really necessary for me to go?” Tony asked. “I met these two guys in engineering that do the funniest and weirdest things. We were about to blow up about a thousand marbles to—”
“You don't need to go,” Elise cut him off.
“You sure?”
“Positive. Go play with your friends.”
Tony smiled. “Sorry, Thomas. I'll let you know how it turned out.”
“Your experiment will be a bust,” Bolswaithe told him.
“How can you possibly know that?” Tony asked. “You don't even know what we are doing!”
“But I know who you're talking about,” Bolswaithe said. “I know what they do, their modus operandi, and I know the ‘myth’ they are trying to bust. And it will be busted. Unless, of course, the laws of physics have been warped too much by Magic.”
Tony stopped in his tracks and let them continue through the corridor. “You're such a fun sponge, you know?” he yelled at Bolswaithe.
“You've told me that already,” Bolswaithe answered without turning around. “I'm sorry.”
They walked across the main hall of the Mansion and the statue of Prometheus and into the right hallway, where each of the doors was connected to a satellite building of the company. Some doors opened to rooms that had several doors. Techs and employees of Guardians Inc. traveled through the doors, sometimes crossing entire continents just by going a couple of feet through the hallway.
“Come on, Elise!” Thomas groaned as they approached a door on the left. “I'll read whatever you want. I promise.”
“Of course you will,” she said, “but you are still meeting him.”
Bolswaithe grabbed the doorknob. “It is a great honor,” he told Thomas.
Thomas sighed. Ever since becoming the Cypher everything was either really important, a grand responsibility, or a great honor. To say the truth, he was getting sick and tired of the role fate had given him.
“Okay,” Thomas said emphatically, knowing that he couldn't shake off this meeting.
Elise grabbed his arm. “This is a friend of my family,” she told him. “You won't need to use all the diplomatic protocols with him today, because you're coming with me, but I want you to behave, and don't you dare embarrass me.”
“Okay!” he said again.
Elise nodded and Bolswaithe opened the door. They went through a small room and entered the Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. As usual, their wristpadds adjusted to reflect the local time in that part of the world. It was just short of 8:00 a.m., the eight hours or so that Thomas had been looking forward to sleep had been lost just by crossing a door.
The Palace of Nations had been built in 1920 as the headquarters of the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations that failed to stop the Second World War. Dissolved in 1946, it left many of the organizations and buildings it created to the United Nations. Today the building housed the office of the United Nations in Geneva. At least, to the world at large.
It was a nice building, Thomas thought, full of bureaucrats, but it was also incredibly boring.
A couple of guards approached them as they moved through the building, but they stopped when they saw the Guardians Inc. pin logo o
n Bolswaithe's clothing. To them, he was a man way above their pay grade, escorting two teenagers, and they knew better than to ask questions to anyone who wore that pin.
They moved quickly through the building, going down the stairs into the lower levels until they reached a long corridor illuminated by bright lights. On the far end two guards stood on each side of a metal door. As they approached, the guards lowered their hands toward their holsters.
“Stop,” one of the guards told them, but the door automatically opened as they approached, and the guards moved to either side of the corridor.
“Thank you gentlemen,” Bolswaithe said as they went through. “Carry on.” The door immediately closed behind them.
The room lights were dimmer and yellowish, and they reached a large wooden door, ancient and heavy and carved with human and Faun figures.
Thomas read the words inscribed above the door.
Through me you pass into a city of peace.
Through me you pass into eternal unity.
Through me you'll search a place among the people.
All selfish thoughts abandon ye who enter here.
“Is that what it says?” Elise asked. “It's very fitting.”
“It sounds familiar somehow,” Thomas said.
“It should,” Bolswaithe commented. “It was written by Dante Alighieri. It’s very similar to the Divine Comedy, although the one inscribed above the gates of Hell read: ‘Abandon all hope ye who enter here,’” Bolswaithe recited.
“That's really encouraging,” Thomas told him.
“Will you stop being a wuss?” Elise said, knocking on the doors. “You're really becoming just like Tony.”
There was a loud creaking sound as the doors opened. Two guards clad in steel armor were pulling on the doors. The guard on the right was human, and the one on the left was a mountain ram faun. His massive horns were curved and his muscular legs ended in hooves. Both guards were at least a foot taller than Thomas, and they each carried a short sword in addition to their side arms.
Guardians Inc.:Thundersword (Guardians Incorporated #2) Page 5