The barrier protocol diminished to fragments and half-remembered images, but Mitsuru’s headache remained blinding and her nose continued to gush. She managed to force herself up to her knees, though it took both hands and a concerted effort. She put two fingers against the wrist of the fallen boy, too tired even to summon a probe.
“Relax, Operator Aoki,” the man said crisply, his expression unreadable. “I will finish this. Do you have the strength to contact Central for retrieval? They’ve prepped an extraction for you.”
Mitsuru stared at her wounded hand, wondering. She realized that somehow she did, and managed a nod.
“Then go,” the man said curtly, raising the bar over his head, the liquid fire trailing behind him in a continuous wave; like a long whip, or more accurately, like the line of a fly-fisherman, extending out yards behind him in elaborate coils, a sinuous and lazy exaggeration of his movements.
Mitsuru reached through the Ether as the line struck the first of the Weir, snapping forward with a terrifying, unavoidable momentum. Wherever it touched, the line scorched, reducing the wolves to ash and smoking meat, sending up gouts of steam from the hissing mud. He drew the line back over his head in a high, slow arc, and then brought it whipping back in a wide sweep, parallel with the ground, and whatever it touched, burned.
Already, the park was devastated, and filled with howling, terrified Weir. It was the single most flagrant display of the Salamander Protocol that Mitsuru had ever witnessed, and even through the pain of the broken protocol, she felt a profound envy.
Then she hit the white of Central, and a moment later, both she and the boy were gone, into concerned voices, soft light and hospital sounds.
Four
“What, then? Are you suggesting that we should kill him?”
Gaul tried to be patient. Vladimir was badly arthritic, and during the colder months he was inclined to be cantankerous. He wasn’t trying to be difficult, Gaul reminded himself, he didn’t have the patience for complicated answers right now.
Gaul pushed his wire-frame glasses up with one finger, sighed, and tried again to explain the scenario to the two other conscious men in the room.
“I’m not saying we should kill him, Vlad, I’m saying that is one of the solutions that some of the cartels will come to. Others, the majority probably, will want to recruit him, but I’m certain that all would rather see him dead than see him join another.”
“I thought you said he wasn’t fully activated yet?”
Michael was incredulous, but Gaul’s nod was matter-of-fact and somber.
“It’s true, but that makes this all the more terrifying. This child,” he said, glancing meaningfully at the mess of tubes and IVs that occupied the room with them, “isn’t more than partially activated and he’s already the most powerful catalyst we’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t see what’s so remarkable,” Vladimir complained, stroking his trimmed white beard. “The Witches can accomplish the same things, with their circles, sharing power.”
“Operator Aoki has never previously used this particular barrier protocol in the field, and she didn’t have time to complete the download before she activated it. She maintained it,” Gaul explained, “for the better part of a minute, despite the Weir’s attacks, and as far as we can deduce, it was because she checked that boy to see if he was alive. Witches can transfer power, yes, but it takes a number of trained participants, and even then, the cumulative effect is modest. Brief contact with this boy appears to have temporarily increased Mitsuru Aoki’s abilities by a degree of magnitude.”
Gaul paused while the two men digested this, and then glanced at the boy, laboriously breathing in an induced coma.
“Even so…”
Vladimir’s voice was unsteadily. Gaul shook his head and cut him off.
“The boy hasn’t even had time to fully assimilate to the changes that have been made in him, Vlad,” Gaul said earnestly, “we are only seeing his potential. There is an excellent chance that this catalytic effect isn’t his primary ability — I honestly can’t see what this boy might become when he matures.”
Michael closed his eyes, and leaned over the boy’s bed, palms down. His arms crawled with black tattoo work, in a vaguely tribal style, but his skin was so dark you couldn’t even tell he had them at a distance.
“You’re right, Gaul,” he said softly a few moments later, his eyes closed. “This kid is only beginning to activate. Even so, he’s radiating raw power, and a substantial amount of it.”
Michael frowned.
“I can’t access it, though. It seems to be free-floating, but it isn’t responding to me…”
Vladimir closed his eyes, and muttered to himself briefly, then shook his head.
“It’s based on affinity.”
Michael lowered his hands and opened his eyes to look at Gaul.
“You think?”
“Yeah,” Gaul said reasonably. “Witches can’t even form a circle unless they have a very strong rapport — we aren’t talking about vampirism, here, it has to be a consensual process. The boy manufactures and multiplies power, gentlemen, but consciously or unconsciously, he’s exercising discretion about who can use it.”
Michael sat back down next to Gaul, his brow creased with worry.
“Gaul, what is Mitsuru’s current classification?”
Gaul did not need to reach for the slaved Etheric tendril that trailed invisibly behind him to access the information — he’d wondered the same thing earlier that morning.
“She was Class E, at her last evaluation, with upward potential.”
“Operating a partial protocol,” Michael said quietly, looking at his old friend with sad eyes, “would be an M-Class operation, assuming it’s even possible, correct?”
Gaul nodded his agreement.
“Are you saying,” Vladimir asked incredulously, looking over at the comatose boy, “that this child is already an M-Class Operator? Impossible!”
“No, you’re right Vlad, he isn’t an Operator at all — he’s just a boy who seems to be capable, without activation, of M-Class operations,” Gaul said gravely.
Vladimir leaned back in his chair and whistled.
“I would not think such a thing possible. That is bad…”
“I’m afraid it gets worse,” Gaul said, again pushing up his glasses, a tick that Michael knew grew more pronounced when he was stressed. “I’m afraid that this boy is anything but your average, ordinary child.”
“How so?”
“Alexander Warner,” Gaul said, nodding to indicate the boy. “His father was an abusive drunk — a number of domestic disturbance and family complaints on record, multiple DUIs, all resolved without jail time. Some bruises were noticed at school, when Alex was twelve, and there was a visit or two from Children’s Protective Services over the years. All to no avail. Alexander’s father met his end in a fire six years ago, a fire that also took the life of Alexander’s mother and sister.”
“So? That is bad, yes, but…”
“Alexander set the fire,” Gaul said softly, “or at least he believes he did — I lifted the impressions from him earlier, when I did a fairly deep scan. He spent a number of years in institutions, before being released into his grandmother’s care two years ago. She died, of natural causes, last August.”
Michael looked at the boy sympathetically, while Vladimir shook his head and muttered darkly.
“He has been on his own, when he wasn’t institutionalized. The community he returned to blamed and ostracized him, and he was small enough to be the target of violence and abuse in the juvenile facility. Alexander withdrew, almost completely — no real incidents, no run-ins with the law, nothing like that. But, when I probed him earlier, I didn’t find a single connection, not one person he has any serious emotional commitment to. He’s never had a friend, never so much as touched a girl’s hand. I’m not sure he’s even capable of forming bonds. or caring about other people, at this point. He’s damaged goods, gentlemen, and
we’ve been down this road before.”
“Did he actually kill his family?”
Michael seemed curious, but not particularly troubled.
“You made it sound a bit doubtful.”
Gaul shrugged.
“I can’t be certain — the impressions are too vague. He thinks he did, and he thinks he’s glad he did. He remembers closing the front door behind him and walking away from a burning house. I’d say it’s fairly likely.” Gaul frowned and waved one hand dismissively. “Whatever the case, the reality of the trauma remains.”
“You believe that he is dangerous?” Vladimir demanded, pointing one blunt finger at Gaul accusatorily. “Many of us have come from unhappy places, Gaul, and we do not all become monsters.”
Gaul shrugged again, tiredly.
“I don’t know anything for certain,” Gaul admitted. “But, I do know that Alexander Warner has no idea how to care for, or to be cared for, by other people. At best he’s been ignored, at worst, he’s been brutalized. And, incidentally, he has enough power locked inside of him to decimate a third of our student body, even only partially activated. If we choose full activation, there’s no telling what will happen. It’s impossible to predict.”
Vladimir and Michael exchanged worried glances.
“I don’t think he’s dangerous, Vladimir.” Gaul leaned forward, his eyes cold and bloodshot pink. “I know it, even without a roomful of analysts. He’s a bomb waiting to go off, and that’s without considering the political ramifications.”
Michael spoke from behind his steepled hands; his voice was reflective, pensive.
“Any cartel that finds out about him, they’ll want — no, they’ll need to either recruit him or eliminate him, simply to keep anyone else from getting him. They won’t have a choice. His potential value is too great to overlook.” Michael shook his head sadly. “Gaul, how many students do we have right now with the potential to reach M-Class?”
There was a pause, and both Michael and Vladimir knew that Gaul, always exact, was consulting the Etheric network. He did not need to close his eyes; there was no obvious change in his body or demeanor. His gaze simply grew distant for a moment while he communed with the Etheric graft in his forebrain.
“Four,” Gaul said, his voice mechanical, his eyes unfocused. “Though there are perhaps another two or three who could reach that level, under optimum conditions.”
“So he’s the biggest unclaimed piece on the board,” Michael continued. “He could shift the balance…”
Gaul shook his head, looking grim.
“It’s worse than that,” he said flatly, looking at the boy. “The conflict won’t be limited to the Hegemony and the Black Sun — every individual cartel will want him for their own — and they’ll all make their own play for him. Think of the advantage, the prestige they could gain…”
“Chaos, then,” Michael agreed. “With everyone making a play for our Alexander, here.”
“And the easiest play,” Vladimir said frankly, “is to simply eliminate the boy.”
Both other men looked at him, surprised.
“What? It’s true,” Vladimir said dismissively, “you said it yourself, Gaul. The danger of him joining another faction is greater than the advantage to be gained by having him join their own, if you are playing safe.”
“It’s true,” Gaul said, in the definitive way that both men knew meant he had just checked the probability threads. “The chances of him being killed are quite high.”
“Some of the less conservative types will try and make a play for him,” Michael mused, “using whatever they can. Bribes, intimidation…”
Vladimir snorted.
“They will use girls, fool,” he scoffed. “He is a teenage boy, after all. Young love will work far more effectively than indoctrination.”
Michael felt obscurely grateful that Gaul was not moved to confirm the probability here, at least out loud. He was extremely fond of the Director, but at times his detachment and his frankness made him uncomfortable to be around. Sometimes it was sort of like trying to be friends with a computer.
“Then the Hegemony will probably use Emily Muir, she’s perfect for this,” Michael said thoughtfully, then grinned. “Maybe it’s not so bad to be Alexander, after all…”
Vladimir laughed. Gaul smiled mirthlessly and then shook his head.
“Why do we not then make him one of your Auditors, Gaul? Surely, whatever his other attributes, he has the potential. You are allowed six, yes? And last I heard, you have only four…”
“I thought the same thing,” Gaul replied sourly. “I’ve been running numbers all morning looking for a way to just that. He certainly has the potential for it, assuming we can salvage him. And it would exempt him from the machinations of the cartels. But, it wouldn’t work.”
“Why not?” Vladimir demanded.
“The Hegemony and the Black Sun — they’d both regard it as poaching,” Gaul said hopelessly. “They’d claim we were recruiting at an unfair advantage, taking the best of the potential Operators before they’d been admitted to the Academy, before they’d had a chance to be introduced to any of their ideologies. They’d see it as a violation of the Agreement, and they’d be right. There’s no precedent for it.”
“They’d use it to attack the Academy? Or us?”
“Us, probably.” Gaul said, shrugging. “Both sides would probably prefer to see a more sympathetic administration at the Academy. It’s particularly bad timing, too. This would be far less complicated if Anastasia Martynova wasn’t currently at the Academy. That the future head of the Black Sun would be in the same class as Alexander, should we choose to admit him, is a particularly bad break for us.”
The room was quiet then, for a moment, with only the labored breathing from the hospital bed to break the silence.
“Then, if I understand correctly,” Vladimir began, looking cunning, “the problem is that we cannot make this boy an Auditor, unless he first attends the Academy?”
Gaul nodded slowly, looking at the grey-haired man’s smile and trying to understand.
“Once he is a student, he is free to choose for himself, yes?”
“After he completes two full years, same as any other student,” Gaul allowed.
“The solution is simple, then. We make sure that he decides to become an Auditor, and there is no problem,” Vladimir shouted, delighted.
“I’m not sure that it would be that easy…” Michael began, with a touch of exasperation in his voice.
“It’s a possibility,” Gaul said distantly.
“We protect him, from the cartels, from everybody,” Vladimir insisted, leaning toward Michael to look at him directly, his pale blue eyes sparkling from within wrinkled folds of tired skin. “We make sure that they can’t get close to him, that they can’t brainwash him to see things their way.”
“How do we know that he will choose what we want him to?”
“You are his teachers, yes? Teach him. It should help,” Vladimir pointed out, “that we are in the right.”
Michael smiled.
“There is another possibility,” Gaul said reluctantly, his eyes on the floor.
“Who rescued Mitsuru and this boy?”
“Henry North. Of the North Cartel, affiliated with the Hegemony,” Gaul added, his voice again distant and mechanical.
Michael shook his head. His friend’s habit of constantly accessing his network uplink to answer routine questions bothered him. He wondered if Gaul had any faith at all in his own mind, unassisted.
“There is no other possibility,” Vladimir said, folding his arms, “if one faction is already aware of him, then the others are too, or will be shortly.”
“They are not aware of his potential,” Gaul said quietly, still looking down.
“You are certain?”
Gaul paused, and then shook his head slowly.
“Then there is no other possibility,” Vladimir said defiantly.
“There is, though,” Gaul i
nsisted, “and it has to be decided by vote, by the Board. And right now. We have no idea how long we can keep this kind of information under wraps.”
“Assuming it even is under wraps,” Vladimir muttered. “You know how far little Anastasia has worked her claws into the Hegemony. If they know about Alex, then she does, too.”
Michael gave the two empty chairs in the room a significant look.
“What about Rebecca and Alistair? What do they think about all this?”
“Rebecca is handling some negotiations in the Philippines. Alistair is manning the comms right now, and he’ll get in contact with her as soon as we are ready to vote. I’ll relay their decisions,” Gaul said, finally looking up, cold and impassive.
“Very well,” Vladimir said. “Let me remind you both that you are teachers, not butchers. If all we see in these children is risk, then we, and the Academy, have wholly failed.”
“How do you vote, Vladimir?”
Gaul’s voice was hollow when he asked the question, obviously relaying the decision to the Etheric archive.
“Admit him.”
“Michael?”
Michael hesitated for a moment and then shook his head.
“It could undermine everything we’ve done here. But it’s not in my nature to write the kid off, no matter what his story is. Vladimir’s right, we admit him.”
There was a brief pause, and then Gaul spoke again, robotically.
“Rebecca also votes to admit. Alistair abstains. Majority vote for admission. For the record,” Gaul continued, “I vote for termination.”
Michael didn’t bother to disguise the shock he felt when he looked at Gaul. Vladimir clucked and had a sour expression. Gaul looked down for a moment then, and when he spoke again, it was in his normal voice.
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