by Power, P. S.
"Not to be pushy, Monroe, but micro-plasma, what do you know about it? Did you make it for them?" It was a hunch, based on nothing, but occasionally it paid to just throw things like that out. There was a soft sob then. Not crying, but a gasp that sounded a bit funny.
"The others made me do it. I didn't want to, but they ordered me to do it. I didn't have a choice. It..."
Julie growled, which was so out of character that Tiera stood up and moved toward the shield, her soft energy signature flaring with sudden rage. She didn't let it show though.
Luckily the White woman explained what was happening, before his sister got to the prisoner.
"There was a time when using micro-plasma weapons nearly crippled half the world. It was a war that we don't remember now. It's been blotted out of the records, everywhere. On purpose. To make an innocent man like Monroe make something like that... It's not a good thing. It's worse than a mere crime against him, it's one against the world. How new is this?"
The black man was quiet for a bit, when he spoke he sounded scared. Shaky.
"It was... I woke up three months ago. In the facility you took me from. I think they brought me back just to do that. They said something about the plague not working as well as hoped, since something went wrong with the plan. Not many died from it, so they started on another one. Nuclear weapons and micro-plasma. You don't seem hurt now though, so you can beat it, right?" The unspoken part, where he was asking them to let him know that they hadn't destroyed the world, seemed to be the real question.
Tiera moved further back in the vehicle and ended up standing in front of the nude man.
"Healing magic. Not everyone has it however. These weapons are designed to cripple and not kill? Why?"
Timon got that one without needing to be told. It was obvious after all.
"Economic warfare. If you can incapacitate half the people, the others will have to spend most of their time and resources caring for them. That or kill them. That would destroy any cohesion the other side had however. I don't know if it would work though, it seemed to be like a gas, or nano cloud. Would it be that effective? I-"
"Yes. That isn't really wrong, in a way. It's actually a form of complex free form energy. Hence it being called a plasma, like a flame is?" Monroe spoke without seeming to bother censoring himself. "It communicates within itself however, and can attack specific targets. The stuff at the base was just set to go after anyone human that wasn't in its memory. We made enough to cover most of the planet. Not all at once, but over a few years, with it moving around, it could do it. The design is similar to making a nano cloud. Very good. Do you do design work?"
Tim was about to say no, when Sir Kolbrin answered for him.
"Timon does magical designs. This ship is one of his. I'd like you to work with him on coming up with a counter for the micro-plasma." There was a rustling, and the large man patted his shoulder, or at least the shield over it. That made it clear they were both wearing theirs and had them on still. "Not that I can order Tim around, or you, Monroe. We just don't have anyone else that can do the magical side of this."
Because Tor, The Builder, had been compromised, and couldn't be trusted. Green could probably do the work, but Kolb didn't mention that part at all. Either he was doing something even more important or... The only thing that Tim could come up with was that having two slaves work on the project might not be optimal.
Timon went with that one.
"Right. We'll be working in space on that then. I got kicked out of school earlier, for being a nuisance. It nearly made poor Countess Printer cry, and everything. On my first day too. Not great for the long term record, is it?" He smiled though and let it be heard in his voice. It wasn't that important, over all, was it?
Not with world ending weapons being made and Remy Seventeen wanting him dead.
Tiera sucked in air and nearly ran to him, her concentration breaking almost totally.
"Oh! I'm so sorry. It was the attack on Printer? Or on you, I mean?"
"Naturally. The trick now will be getting Orange to lend us a ship. We need supplies and all that too. It will probably help keep Remy off my back for a few weeks at least. Not forever, I'm willing to bet. I might as well make things interesting for it though."
"What! There's a Remy left? And it's trying to kill you? How can you be so calm? That's horrible! Yes, we need to hide you. We... Right now. I..." Monroe was standing, and trying to push past the shield, which got Kolb to wave at him, not smiling.
"The Remy couldn't beat the shield yet either. Almost, but the healing devices saved Timon once. For the first time since the Concord someone in the world can actually bring a fair fight to one of them. The last time they met, all the Remy could manage was to stand there, and had to flee in the end. From a twelve year old boy. I wouldn't panic on Tim's behalf just yet. In fact, if you'd like to make a wager, I'll put twenty gold coins on Timon removing it as a threat inside the next year."
"How? Before the Catastrophe they had to discontinue the line, because they couldn't control them. Blow it up with a nuke? A high test bomb at least? Fire works, but only if you can hold them in it. Trap it somehow? I don't know how long a potential energy shield like this one will last. If you took out the air, and made it solid, that might work to hold it for a while. Other than that... It makes it all sound too easy. Those things are hard to catch, and it normally takes a lot of lives to finally get it to happen. Armies have died trying and failed at it."
Timon kept looking out the front and let his eyes scan the world in front of him. The ocean was a pretty color that day, in the twilight gloom. A flat blue-black already. The sky in front of him was a pretty pink color too.
"We can do large explosions. Would the smaller kind of weapon do or that huge one-"
Kolb stopped him.
"The smaller will do. I have an extra on me. You'll want layers of backups however, in case one thing doesn't work. Plan for everything you can."
Naturally. It was almost as if the man was thinking of him as a kid or something. He didn't let his thoughts show.
"I can do that. I probably can't help it, really. This is sort of a big deal in my life. Most of the time people love me, you know?"
That got a snort from Tiera, who still wasn't all the way back to normal. Finding out that he'd nearly been killed, blown up by Kim the mechanical ship girl, that didn't faze her, but being kicked out of school as a hazard...
"We'll need a reason for me to be off working in space however. I guess we could claim that Monroe is my new special tutor. Have the others in for a weekend or two, if it's ever safe enough. It would be a good enough place to test Ma."
Monroe spoke with a lot of energy then.
"To see if she's actually Gray? That seems pretty likely, given all the others. I'm surprised no one checked for that yet. I can work up a brain scan, if I have the right materials. It will take a few weeks, since we should work on the micro-plasma problem first. Unless it's an emergency?"
This time Tiera spoke, her voice making it clear she wasn't giving up on her attempt to live in a trance, even if Tor wasn't around. It was the only way for her to get good enough in time for it to be useful. No one needed to explain that to him. Really, he should probably do something similar himself, if he could muster the will to try. There weren't a lot of other options, if he was going to be the go to person for building now. Especially if he had to outcompete his brother.
It was a good enough reason, and he tried to hold his mind still, sensing all the patterns on the ship. All the fields of mind and magic. It took work.
"We can check for that directly. Using magic. It's... Well, no one really wants it to be true, so we've all been putting it off. What if she is? What do we do? Kill her? She's our mother. Lock her away? We'd have to do something, and that would just be cruel, since she's immortal. No one knows how to remove a Rhetistic set at all yet and never has. Unless you do?" There was a bit of hope in the words, but Monroe dashed them instantly.
&n
bsp; "Not at all. As far as I know it's never been done. Still, each new technology lends hope to it being doable. Maybe this magic is the key? Or something else. I agree however, that she shouldn't be harmed. Make her a home on the moon or something? Do we have an active moon base? No one mentioned it."
"Just the old lunar base. I was there a few months ago, with the Blues. It's not that nice. There's a lot of space up there though. Since we can make gravity and everything, we should consider it. Put a few million people up there so that it will be harder to kill us all, if we fail."
That made sense. Enough that Timon let the idea spin in his mind for a while. It would take a lot to get it done, but they had the resources, or could, as long as no one killed most of the planet off. The hard part would be water, since they couldn't take it all from Earth. They'd need to learn how to make it. If that was possible.
The idea would be a hard one to crack. Not impossible he didn't think, just really tough. He'd seen some of the Lairdgren Group's latest work and they were making things like soap and toothpaste that could be used on and in the body, and did its job. Water wouldn't be that hard, to mimic, he didn't think. The trick would be in making it last. When you turned off the soap amulet, the soap vanished. If the magical water were a part of a person and it got turned off... That would not end well. The idea was an interesting one however.
Not that he had an idea as to how it could be made to work yet. Ideally he'd run it past his brother, but that wasn't going to happen. Instead, well, he'd have to figure it out for himself. That, and do some other things that would be less than fun, most likely.
"I'll work on that. Can you get us a ship from Orange? A crew too, if possible?"
That started a conversation, with both Tiera and Timon in a trance, listening more than speaking the whole time. He tried to make himself seem more normal externally, so that he wasn't flat affected the whole time. It would be too creepy otherwise.
Tiera actually thought she could work that all out inside a day, even going off to Vagus first. Everyone tried to sit and converse for a while, but finally gave in to boredom and went to rest. Monroe wasn't given clothing yet, but his invisible cell area was made larger and a bed put in it, so he could rest too. The only ones left upright were himself and his sister, who, he realized was taller than him again.
She moved to sit next to him, staring out at the black sky in front of them, not speaking at all. It wasn't that hard to put up with, since he was holding his own mind still the whole time, trying not to think, except about flying as well as possible.
"Everything is going to change. Again." She sounded a bit sad about it. Subdued and soft. "Tor, Mother, who knows who else is going to die, or turn out to be working against us in all this?"
"I know. It could be anyone. Especially the Ancients. All we can do is read everyone constantly and watch for irregularities. Be careful and trust no one. That's less than perfect, since we can't let them know we don't trust them, just in case they really aren't on our side. On the good side, no one noble will really notice it, since they live that way all the time." Tim smiled gently, trying to make it seem real, like he meant it.
"That's true." She leaned forward a bit and pointed at a red glow in the night, one with small white lights around it, like a city. A real one. "Is that Lyn's?"
Timon nodded.
"A bit more official looking now, but yes, that seems to be the mage school location. Someone has been making lights using magic, it seems. Here let me signal them. Could you connect with Red? She has a device." Mark, Trice's older brother, had brought her one, weeks before.
Tiera didn't ask why and pulled her own communications device out to do it instantly, working efficiently. It took a minute for the thing to pick up, but the woman herself was on it, meaning she hadn't handed it off to a minor official or someone else to take her messages yet.
"Lyn Red, how may I serve you today?"
Tiera looked at the device blankly.
"By not being too shocked that we're coming to visit? We'll be there in about ten minutes, if we slow down enough. We have some guests. Julie White, Kolb and... Monroe."
The device made a strange noise, but the leader of the largest land on the planet didn't sound out of sorts after that.
"I understand. If you could orient on the Mage school and land on the river side, facing the building, to the left of the water feature?"
Timon could see it already, since it was a glowing red stream of water that ran both to and from the glowing dome. It was really the water for the structure, but there was no reason for it not to be pretty too. He had a silver glowing river that surrounded his own place at the Capital, for the same reason.
Tiera waved to the right spot, but without saying anything.
"We'll be there directly. Thanks for having us."
"Well, thank you for coming. We don't get a lot of visitors here. Dorgal will be pleased, I think."
Then, with a bit of polite and flowery speech that would be more in line with visiting dignitaries than pushy relatives bringing problems to her door, the Ancient broke the connection. That gave her just enough time to get outside, along with her husband and an honor guard of twenty red-robed mage students, who all clearly had force lances hidden in their sleeves. Timon felt them the instant he stepped off the craft, scanning the crowd. Red didn't hold back, nearly rushing them.
"Tim! I didn't know you were here too. So is this actually a more relaxed visit than I was led to believe? If you've taken prisoners..."
He shrugged.
"Well, we haven't. Julie, as you know, was taken herself and locked in a small dark room for weeks. Alone." That meant something, since Red hissed at the idea. She wasn't big, and looked about twenty right now, with Asian features that matched the rest of the crowd around them. When they'd first met he'd thought her a little funny looking, but now she seemed pretty, in a way. Not like Julie, but then no one was really. Compared to the mage women around them, she was cute. The men were harder for him to judge, not really being a thing he considered at all.
They all stared at Julie when she came out, and most of the surrounding mages suddenly flared with shields that went up. That was a new thing, but made sense. Mages. They made things like that after all, or at least copied them.
Timon spoke in his still slightly broken Cantonese.
"You should all be shielded. There is not great physical threat, but I cannot promise that none exists at all."
That got the rest of them to go, including Dorgal, who moved in carefully, and bowed. First to Kolb and Julie, but then Tiera and himself.
"Baron Kolbrin is a friend I recognize from school, but I don't believe I've met this lady before?" He meant Julie, who bowed back, getting protocol and things like that, due to long practice.
Timon moved forward, since they needed to be introduced.
"This is Julie White of Soam. She leads there. You know my sister Tiera, but may not have heard of her recent acquisition of County Morris? Now County Baker." That part wasn't a big deal, except that Dorgal was a merchant, by blood. "Also your cousin, I believe? It came as a bit of a shock to us too, but it turns out da is a Sorvee relation. In the old family business."
That got a reaction from the man in front of them, who looked the same as always, except that he was wearing a rust colored robe, instead of his Noram style clothing.
"Um... Welcome? I... Did not know that. I would have... Honestly, if that situation is what I think it is, then I would have said nothing, even if I knew. It probably means I have some groveling to do with Tor." He smiled about it, as if trying to let them know he didn't mean it in a bad way. "Welcome, Countess Baker. It's so nice to have some people from home around. I need to get over there soon and visit, or everyone will forget about me. We need to work out some kind of trade between our two lands. Perhaps some of the others as well? I've spoken to Mark Morgan about the idea, but he doesn't seem to have the needed power to set that sort of thing up on his own."
"But I d
o." Timon smiled. "We need to set up space transport anyway, which is a lot faster than anything else. Tiera will contact Alice Orange to see about that. You can have a port here, if you want? I don't think anyone else has one yet, not even Austra. It would pay to be the first." Timon wanted to sound like a merchant, but it didn't really work. His voice was too bland for it. It lacked the excitement they always had when it came to making coin.
That reminded him to focus at least, which was helpful.
Dorgal looked considering and then gave a sidelong look at his wife. It was clear that they'd already had an issue on the topic.
"I don't know. We can't really afford that kind of thing yet. Perhaps in a few years?"
Timon moved with the flow of the words, and then smiled at Red, who was nearly as blank as Tiera was at the moment, nothing coming off of her field at all. She actually tried to read him while he was sneaking a peak at her inner self.
Brilliantly creative of her, really.
Watching him like that.
"Fine. Lyn, can I lease some land from you? Just outside the city here? We can trade goods for it. Or services. Gold too, if you want to collect some for dealings with Noram."
The woman looked at him as if he were food, and then smiled at him, her head nodding a bit.
"A quarter mile square of poor farming land? It can't be used for grazing, but is nice and flat and only about half a mile from the river. Just keep the flow steady or bring in more from the ocean. Does that sound good?"
"That... Does. How much? If it looks like it will work I mean?"
"Hmmm... She looked at Julie, and her eyes twinkled a bit, as if she were going to play games with him. "Let's call it... Fifty gold? That's the annual land rent of course. A real bargain, considering we don't have the concept of land ownership here and you could just put up structures and no one would mind." She grinned then, her joke plain at least.
He smiled at her and wrinkled his nose.
"Twenty-five gold, annual payment, but I'll make certain there are at least twenty-five gold or trade equivalent in goods worth of jobs for people in the area."