“You should have read the information about our operation, particularly what I told the border patrol about the lying.”
The man nodded seriously, “I have.”
Scythe blinked, confused.
The man took a minute before saying determinedly, “Let me start again. I am Grant Wells and this is my associate, Jules. We would like you to consider assisting us with our diplomatic negotiations with the Kin. Lena and Ian have already been appointed ambassadors...”
“That’s because the Kin won’t talk to anyone else. Do you blame them?” interrupted Lena.
He continued without commenting, “...and we think it would be beneficial if you joined them.”
Scythe said incredulously, “You want me to be an ambassador for the Humans?”
Smoke asked in Kin, “What does he want?”
Scythe answered him, turning away from Grant as the man prepared to speak, “He wants me to be an ambassador for them.”
Smoke smiled, “Sounds fancy. You’d probably get a really cool suit.”
“Yeah, well, I already have a uniform that I like. It’s dark blue.”
Smoke nodded his approval.
“Again, could you please translate?” Grant asked.
“He doesn’t like you much, and neither do I. I’m not interested or even available to do that, as I’m returning to Poinsea as soon as possible.”
“I’d like you to consider the benefits...Please, hear me out before you decide.”
Grant gave him a sincere look that reminded him of Lena, so he decided to let him explain. “Okay.”
“Things are very unstable right now. We are trying to avoid an all out war between ourselves and the Kin. I’m sure that is something you wish for as well.”
“Of course I don’t want a war,” replied Scythe.
“We think that your insight into Kin society and culture could really help us avoid misunderstandings as well as assist us in communicating ourselves clearly; we’ve had some difficulty with the translation process...”
Scythe looked over at Lena and Ian, taking in their calm, assured and slightly amused attitudes before speaking up, “I’d be happy to talk to Lena and Ian at any time, from my home in Poinsea. I’ll do my best to support any peaceful resolutions you present.”
“So, you have sided with the Kin?” he asked testily.
“It’s not about taking sides. It’s about knowing where I belong, and it isn’t with you, Grant.” Before the man could answer, Scythe continued, “Do you think, after being experimented on, I could stand next to you and across from the Kin in any situation?”
Grant sighed, obviously frustrated, “I have an idea. Let’s just see if we can find at least one square of common ground.” He looked directly at Scythe, trying to communicate something more, but Scythe couldn’t figure out what it was.
“All right,” answered Scythe curiously.
“We were not involved in your experimentation,” he said truthfully.
Catching on, Scythe nodded.
“That was a group wholly unconnected with the government,” he lied.
Lena commented, “It doesn’t seem possible that it could have been done without support from people in a position to fund, provide intelligence, and cover up afterwards.”
“There is no evidence of such a conspiracy,” Grant lied.
“Well, that would be difficult to find.”
“We have been trying.” Truth. He turned back to Scythe, “It would be helpful to have someone with your skills.” Truth.
Scythe looked nervously at Ian, “It sounds dangerous to me.”
Grant concurred, and his heartbeat was as steady as a rock, “It is very dangerous.”
Smoke asked, “What is it?”
Scythe said, “He wants me to help him find the conspirators in Menelaus, the ones who organized all of this...”
“No. You will not be returning to the city, brother,” Smoke said, his voice brooking no argument. “Tell him so.”
Scythe felt some of the tension that had built up between his shoulder blades ease as he said, “I cannot go to the city at this time, Grant.” He noticed Lena’s smug approval of Smoke’s obvious protectiveness.
Grant nodded, “Then any assistance you can lend us from Poinsea will be appreciated.”
“Instead of an ambassador, he could act as a mediator for relations between us and the Kin. As a mediator, he would have protected status in the city as well as the bordertowns, isn’t that correct?” asked Lena.
“Yes, of course. We will request that you are present for negotiations, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Your presence at the negotiations might prove invaluable.” Truth.
“Okay, I don’t see a problem with that.”
Lena and Ian both seemed pleased with this arrangement. “I think that is as much as you can expect right now, Grant,” said Ian.
“Then, I will see to it. We’ll take our leave now. Thank you for your time, Scythe. Lena. Ian.” They turned to go, giving Smoke a wide berth on their way out.
When the door closed, Smoke looked expectantly at them.
Lena crossed to the bed where Scythe sat with his legs crossed. She threw herself down on it, complaining, “I hate this crap! This is why I’ve worked so hard to stay under the radar.”
Scythe smiled at her, shaking his head, “Then, why did you agree to work with them?”
Lena turned sideways, propping her head on her hand, “Because I’m an idiot, why else?”
Ian pulled a chair up for Smoke and then grabbed one for himself. “Scythe, you need honest people doing what has to be done so that these things don’t happen. If we, or someone like us, had been doing their job, this whole thing wouldn’t have made it past the first stages. Go ahead and tell Smoke what happened.”
Scythe explained to the Blade the conversation and the mediator status Grant was going to try to arrange for him.
Smoke asked, “So they want you to have this status so you can be at their conferences and maybe clue them into who might be part of the conspiracy?”
“I think so.” He asked Lena, “Why is the status thing so important to you guys?”
“Well, along with your being able to spot the baddies at any diplomatic meetings, we’ll get to see you every time we meet. What is more important, you are going to lose your citizenship by going back to Poinsea now. We want you to be able to freely come and go; we don’t want you cut off from, well, us. Also, if you come to Menelaus, you can bring Kin with you, like the Blades, and they will be protected too.”
“Ah,” Scythe nodded and then translated for Smoke.
“That may prove handy sometime,” said the Blade, “but for now, I’m looking forward to returning to Poinsea. Your friends are going to be looking into the conspiracy back at the city, then?”
“I guess so,” Scythe said, for the first time feeling uneasy about that. “You guys will be careful, right? I mean, you aren’t going to do anything, you know, dangerous, are you?”
“Don’t worry, Scythe, we’ll be watching each others’ backs,” said Ian. “Don’t forget. We’ve got the help of the same people who supported us when we were looking for you.”
Ian and Lena were able to use their personal contacts to find several high ranking people in the government and border patrol who were trustworthy and vehemently opposed to provoking the Kin. These people had been taken into confidence and had lent their support, including assigning military units under Lena and Ian as well as aiding in the search for the culpable parties in government. So far, they had only been able to uncover a very small number of people who knew about the project, mostly at the lowest levels of the operation.
“I wish I could help you guys, but I’m kind of nervous about going back there...”
“Don’t sweat it, zooboy. We know what we’re doing. Besides, you’re just a kid. What help could you be, anyway?” She knocked his hand away when he swatted at her playfully. “Hey, watch it, I’m a trained soldier, you know. I might j
ust react reflexively and before you know it, you’re the one-eyed zooboy.”
“Yeah, right,” he laughed, and was joined by Ian.
Smoke smiled, “You gonna let me in on the joke?”
Scythe translated, enjoying the laugh he got out of Smoke.
“You should watch yourself; she was impressive, as was Ian, on hunt for you,” Smoke commented, adding, “They earned a reputation for themselves among the Blades.”
“Yeah?” asked Scythe, surprised. “What happened?”
Scythe had been told that, when Lena and Ian arrived at the camp where he was shot, he had already been moved out; but, upon radioing the hospital that served the region’s bordertowns and military units, they found that he had not yet arrived. They met with the Blades outside the camp and made plans for a joint search. At that time, Rend communicated their suspicions about Scythe’s doctor. Durn returned to Poinsea to report, and Ian returned briefly to the city to share the information with his wife, Faith, and recruit some help for her in locating Scythe’s doctor.
A small group, which included the remaining four Kin disguised with helmets when necessary, followed the route to the hospital but did not find any evidence of the missing truck, the medics, driver, or Scythe. They determined possible locations for a base of operations based on the distance that would have to be covered in the amount of time that had passed from the moment the transmission was made to inform Lena of Scythe’s arrival in camp to the estimated time of arrival at the hospital. Unfortunately, that resulted in an extremely large area radiating outward from the road; in addition, it only identified possible places for an intercept group to originate in, not the place where he might then have been taken.
As it turned out, the intercept group did originate in Shelfield’s experimentation facility, a bordertown well within the original search area; however, the search of the town didn’t uncover the hidden hospital. Lena’s group wasn’t looking for a hospital, still thinking that the Kin were held in the city, but rather an independent mercenary group. Further, it didn’t occur to them to suspect the military that guarded the town. Later, it was found that the unit assigned to that town inexplicably never followed procedure by rotating to other towns every six months. No person could found to be responsible for the oversight as the name on the orders proved to be fictitious.
After a week, desperation led them to split into three teams and extend their search to the surrounding region. They failed to find any evidence of a group well connected enough to have access to the military’s internal communications and organized enough to pull off the quick grab. They did, however, find several illegal operations, some of which they shut down, and others, like one which supplied the bordertowns with both staple and luxury items they couldn’t get due to rationing, which they ignored.
The longer they searched without success, the more they feared they wouldn’t be able to locate Scythe at all. After a few more days, they had to accept the fact that he could then have been held anywhere in or out of the city.
Eventually, they would find the missing truck and the bodies of everyone except Scythe abandoned in a remote area at the edge of the initial search zone. This resulted in a wild goose chase that burned up a week as they searched the area around the truck for a military camp. However, it also fueled their determination, providing hope that he was still alive.
The initial search for Dr. Mendus proved futile, as she was at that time in Shelfield. However, Ian and Lena were able to get a low priority security tag put on her which was activated weeks later when she entered the city for a short visit. She was then tailed for several days. She met with only personal contacts and spent her time recreationally. It wasn't until she left the city that she showed any clear connection with the Kin abductions or Scythe's disappearance. Still unaware that she was being followed, she led Faith 's team right to Shelfield, where they met up with Lena and Ian’s team for the rescue operation.
Lena, however, hadn't said anything about making a name for herself with the Blades. Scythe leaned forward, anticipating.
“We were all blown away by their Human tricks,” Smoke said, grinning at Lena and then Ian.
“What?” asked Lena.
“You guys used your powers looking for me?”
“Oh, that,” she dismissed it with a wave of her hand, leaning back and grabbing a pillow to lay against Scythe’s leg. She punched her head against it a few times until it was just how she wanted it, “Basic training stuff, mostly.”
“This is a Human thing,” Smoke commented, having noticed even without speaking Human how she disregarded her own actions.
“No, it’s a Lena thing,” Scythe corrected. “She only hypes up stuff about others. Important stuff about herself she plays down. She won’t tell me, so you’ll have to.”
“We stumbled on a small encampment that was producing hallucinogenic chemical compounds which they applied to thin sheets of gelatin. Apparently they are illegal in the city?”
Scythe nodded, “They’re called phantoms. Yeah, you just lay them on your tongue and it’s an instant space-out. They are a big health problem for some people, very addictive.”
“Well, it took a lot of, um, persuasion, to get the information out of the contact we found, and it was in a very remote, unmapped location, so we thought we might have found you or the ones who had taken you. When we got there, they had scouts, surveillance tech and a ton of firepower, so we took our time and got as much intel as we could before going in. We even brought out more Blades.”
“You guys talking about the phantom plant? That was insane. We were so lucky to get out of there alive,” said Ian.
Scythe asked Smoke, “It was that dangerous?”
“Yeah, we came close to death three different times. The first difficulty was in getting close enough. The rotating watches, the typical temperature and movement detecting tech, and the video feeds we got by without too much trouble; you know how noisy they are. But there were no tip offs for the perimeter’s final defense: a mesh of pressure sensitive tubing, dug down one foot for a distance of twenty feet past the fence all the way around the compound. One step sets off a projectile that fires straight up and then, on its way down, sends out tiny darts in every direction with very effective explosive tips.
“When we tripped one, Ian threw up some kind of barrier which blocked the darts, or many would have bought it right then. They actually stuck into his energy wall and blew up right in front of us. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. One second, a dozen tiny bullets are flying at us. In the next, they stopped in the air right in front of our faces and exploded there. We felt nothing, not even a puff of air. After that, we fell back and reevaluated.”
“Wow, I guess.”
“He’s talking about the jump mine, isn’t he? It’s strange, but I can almost figure out what he’s saying from his gestures alone,” said Lena, her gaze lingering on Smoke’s now still hands.
“Did you see it?”
“No, that was just a scouting probe to check out their defenses. I missed the fun on that one.”
“Fun?” Ian choked, “It was a nightmare. I still haven’t told Faith, since I want to live at least another few years.”
“Faith is his wife, right?” asked Smoke.
“Yeah, he’s not telling her about that, ‘cause she will freak out, especially right now. She’s sensitive about his safety with the baby due this month.”
Smoke nodded, “It would be better for her and their daughter if he were closer at this time.”
“I know,” Scythe said, looking over at Ian. “He says you should be with Faith and Mercy right now, that it is better for them if you are close.”
“Yeah, well, life is full of hard decisions, and this has been one of the hardest. But Faith understands that I couldn’t just leave the search for you; she didn’t want me to, either. Now that you are safe, I will be heading back to be there when the baby comes.”
“Ian…he’s such a giver,” Lena
said, her obvious pride undermining the sarcasm in her voice.
“Thanks, Ian. That’s really...” Scythe couldn’t think of what he could say that would show how touched he was by the man’s personal sacrifice.
“Finally, the respect I deserve around here,” Ian gloated, leaning back on his chair and putting his feet up by Lena’s face.
“Ewww! No one is that appreciative!” Lena screeched, knocking his feet off.
“So then what happened?” Scythe asked Smoke.
“Well, we opted for a frontal, taking a supply truck that made daily deliveries. We hoped to bluff our way in, but they were already alerted to something going on because of the mine we tripped. So, we didn’t fool anyone and ended up fighting. Once we were inside the camp, the resistance was not as bad as we thought it would be. Apparently, they hadn’t had to defend the place in a while; it’s no wonder, since they were very secluded and their external defenses were so good. The Blades and the Human grunts were holding their own until they pulled out some extra heavy firepower, a mother of a rapid fire gun with armor piercing rounds. That baby had us hunkered down with no exit route in sight.
“So that’s when Lena pulled out her trick; she and their sharp shooter zeroed in on the guys runnin’ the gun. She went all calm and then laid her hand on his rifle. When he shot, she did something to the bullet and when it hit, the target started convulsing. The amazing thing was that it spread to the men around him when he touched them. Within a couple of seconds, a whole bunch of dead guys were lying next to an unattended gun, which we quickly made use of.”
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