by Gwynn White
Abby didn’t stand immediately. Umbra had sensitivities most mortals did not, such as precognition, mind control, empathy, and the ability to shift into the shadows of the spectrum. Like most other evolved organisms, they also had higher levels of the senses they shared with mortals: sound, sight, smell, and touch. Not all Umbra were created equal though, and the Bureau had taken to ranking them by level. Leta was a high-level hypersensitive. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t put that together before, considering the way she was caught up touching the sugar maple at the Bubble and the red mahogany they had passed. He ran his fingers across the surface of the void. He couldn’t detect what she had. Of the many mods implanted from the Bureau, there wasn’t yet one for touch.
He did the next best thing and willed his ocular implant to zoom in on the concrete’s edge, magnifying a molecular snapshot into his augment. The implants he had were nowhere near strong enough to pull that kind of detail. The corners of his mouth tightened back into a smirk.
Abby scanned the inverted sphere for prints, a task at which his mods excelled. Finding none, he joined Leta in inspecting the wall of reliefs to the left of the void. “Even though the vid screen implied a Bubble event, I’m surprised,” he said.
“Very rare,” Leta said. “Only a fool would use a quant.”
“That would sum up Acore. Not the brightest fireplug.”
She rolled her eyes and let out a slight sigh of disgust after the derogative left his lips. Leta didn’t need an age mod to look young, she was young, and with her youth were the new ideas that dispelled all prejudice, even against the Reds. He attempted to recover by silently adding with his chin chip, “A bit too much precision, had to have been an inside job.”
“Agreed,” she silently replied, then aloud added, “What are these horses? On the plates, the coins.”
“The plates are bronze lamp covers, a few thousand years old, and the detail in the relief is not about the horses.” He lifted his finger close to the figure above them. “He’s the star of the show.”
“The man riding? Why does Winslow have so many of these? There must be two hundred on this wall with all of the coins.”
Three hundred and forty-two, thought Abby. That was something else his mod could do. “The man is not riding, he is jumping. Leaping, really. You see, this one here is a splendid specimen from the Monastic Blue Plane, a scene from Homer’s Iliad.”
“What is that? The Iliad.”
“Doesn’t matter. Anyway, the man keeps four horses abreast at full gallop and leaps from one to another, amidst a crowd of admiring spectators.”
“Seems an odd theme for this room.”
“Not at all. The theory is that the desultor is on the horses as a metaphor.”
Leta straightened her neck in a jolt.
“What?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Strange word, desultor. Anyway, I thought the old pictures were all supposed to be taken literally.”
“Yeah. The image is literal. The desultors leapt across the horses as a public demonstration. Before the Bubble, it was thought to represent the warrior’s ability to switch from a tired to a fresh horse during battle. The newest theory is that they were demonstrating their ability to jump planes without a Bubble.”
“They had remote quants?”
“Jadeite devices, like the Jasper, if you believe that, or even without them, if you’ll believe anything.”
“You don’t?” she asked.
“Okay, I admit there was a Bubble event. I still haven’t seen anything to prove to me that the Jasper caused it. Yun didn’t mention how Acore slipped the Prison Plane, but I know for a fact he isn’t a desultor. There are two ways to get out of the Prison Plane, and if he didn’t walk right through a gate, the path of least resistance is to believe that Arden Mortuus used the quant to break him out of there, then he used the same device to jump from here.”
Leta nodded.
Abby spun toward the other side of the room. “Really pushed his luck popping a second time if you ask me.” His voice drifted off. “Probably phased himself and the counterfeit Jasper into the void.” He paused then said, “Huh.”
Leta searched for whatever Abby had discovered. “What did you find?”
“Have you ever seen this before?”
“That small picture above the door? No,” she said. “What is it? Is that painted up there?”
“In blood,” he chin-chipped. “I’m not sure what it is. I’ve seen this symbol before, on the way to the Bubble through the window of the Silver Line and when I met with Yun.”
“This was in Director Lin’s office?”
Abby lifted his brow toward Leta. “No,” he said dryly. “We met incognito, special agent style.”
“Once a Warlock,” she said with her chip.
He puckered his cheek, wishing hard that Winslow had kept his big mouth closed. From his pocket, he pulled his vid card then held the device up to the graffiti.
From the outer gallery, Winslow chimed, “I saw that on the vid feed. I believe the graffiti is the signature of the thief.”
“You’re probably right,” Abby said. “I’ll have the Bureau run this.” He stepped out of Winslow’s view. “Did you pick up any prints?” he asked.
“None,” she said. “He said the gallery was reportedly sealed immediately after the thief entered.”
“Still, there should’ve been some from before the heist.”
Abby leaned toward the door. “Malcolm, was the Jasper the only item taken?”
“Yes, Abby, but, oh. There were many fine things destroyed. By the event.”
Abby and Leta joined Winslow in the outer gallery. Winslow was admiring his glass display with his elbow in one hand and the other against his chin.
“Abby, do you think the Elders were proud of them for finding a way to talk to the Great Old Ones or do you believe they were angered?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Elders, when they watch, do you think they like what they see?”
Abby and Leta shared another knowing glance.
“I don’t know. Is there any other way into this gallery apart from that stairwell out there?”
“No, the entire complex is surrounded by concrete, a layer of lead, then another layer of some planar alloy.” He wobbled his head. “Impervious to a nuclear blast, and each section segmented, including this one.” Winslow peered at Abby. “You see why the Jasper is not a fake. If the thief had been wrong, he would still be in there.” Winslow rolled his eyes. “Dead by now.”
“Yeah,” Abby said, letting free a sigh. “Are there any other display feeds for that room?”
Winslow nodded. “One. The one toward the door that I mentioned.”
“Can we have that along with the feeds leading in and out of here for, let’s say, five…” Abby glanced at Leta. She mouthed ten. “Make that ten days prior to the event?”
“Certainly, Abby. Whatever you need. I will have the feeds waiting on your craft by the time you reach the surface. I’m telling you, the job was surgical.”
“Yeah, well, the Bureau will look into it. I think that’s everything.” Another glance at Leta. “You’ve been very hospitable.”
“Certainly, Abby,” Winslow said. “I used to be so uptight, but you know, my illness brought me insight, and with the mood adjustment and humility conditioning of Doctor Bedrosian’s pain therapy, I have evolved as a man. I’ve undergone a whole personality change. You should really try the pain therapy. Both of you.”
“Next time.”
“Goliath,” Winslow called, “can you please escort our friends to the surface?” From around the side of the entrance to the hall, one of the large armored syns appeared. “And please take them by the canteen. I don’t want them going away hungry.”
20
The alien glow of the Arcadian morning persisted with the afternoon sun. The orb could’ve been a giant tangerine plucked from Winslow’s Mahayana orchard and stuck into a sky that appe
ared, if possible, even more inky blue than when Abby and Leta had entered the elite plane. The color and shape reminded Abby so much of the citrus fruit that he was inclined to partake in another one of the Delta Wing’s on-flight beverages.
As he sipped his vodka and juice, he cycled through the events of their visit. The surrealistic gardens and orchards of Mahayana were an extreme contrast to the Low. The big sky alone had given his heart a jump. Too many years had passed by too swiftly with only a wall for a vista. The food they ate in their quick stop to the canteen was real food, not synthetic, and the only other two mortals on the entire estate ate out of a separate kitchen.
“You know, there should be a law against that,” he said aloud.
“Against what?” Leta asked flatly as she rapidly tapped into her wristband.
“Feeding all of that real food to the syns.”
“Not sure there is,” she said, and then lifted her head to add, “and if there was, I am sure the Arcadians would have an immunity.”
Abby pursed his lip. “Hmm, yeah.”
Leta went back to tapping and Abby went back to gazing out into the distance. He saw a flock of starlings, or whatever the Arcadian equivalent to the small bird was. Their feathers reflected the sunlight with sherbet-hued iridescence as they swerved and swayed through the air in effortless uniformity. He watched them fly into shapes, first a giant circle that expanded to a sphere. They split into three concentric circles, then intertwined into an atomic symbol, then finally the symbol he’d seen three times prior in the day: the circle with the x and the line. He didn’t say anything to Leta. The flock may or may not have been shadowing the Delta Wing, but the murmurings were from an echo. These things happened, and he went with them.
The view of the symbol sent him thinking back to Mahayana. He’d been marveling at how surreal the estate had been. Then there was the bondage, what Winslow called Doctor Bedrosian’s pain therapy. There was Darya Bedrosian, surreal unto herself; a beautiful, educated woman that had led them naked through the estate.
“What did you think of Doctor Bedrosian?” he asked Leta.
She was still tapping. “As a suspect or other?”
“All of the above.”
Leta raised her head and blew out a gust of air. “Where do I start?”
“Skim the obvious, then go right to the implication.”
“Well, she is a sadistic, manipulative power player who appears to be more interested in playing than achieving. Quite possible she would steal the Jasper to illicit a response from Winslow. I doubt that, though.”
“Why?”
“Arden Mortuus. Why would she get herself involved with a dangerous group of Maro?”
“There is that. What about Winslow?”
“What’s the angle?”
“Exactly. Were you able to probe him?”
“Yes,” she said. “You know, he was nowhere near as mean as how you described him. In fact, he was as innocent as he looked.”
“He did throw me. I mean, the man was fifty the last time I laid eyes on him, not nineteen. I don’t know if I’d call him innocent, though. Maybe he wasn’t lying about the pain therapy and all of that special alone time with Doctor Darya doing the trick.”
“That’s not what I mean. His mind really was as innocent as a nineteen-year-old boy should be. I didn’t think anything of it at the moment.”
“Hmm, maybe he has some other mods to mask what’s going on up there. He is Arcadian. Anyway, I don’t see his angle.”
“That leaves the professor,” said Leta. “Director Lin said he was your student.”
“Conrad Labrecque. Yeah, he’s a good guy.”
“According to the archives, he has made multiple trips to the Maro Plane. He could’ve made contact with the Arden Mortuus there.”
“I saw him not too long ago.” The corners of Abby’s mouth reeled up into his cheeks in deliberation. “You know,” he said, “he didn’t seem any different than when we dug together a century ago. A solid guy.”
“The archives also state that there were Maro on the dig.”
“Yeah, well, he was in the Maro Plane. They could’ve been onto the Jasper. They’re believers. At least, they believe in the value. I’ll tell you what, why don’t we head over to the university when we get back to the Homeland and check out his office?”
“Director Lin sent people over there right after Winslow contacted him.”
“I’m sure he did. Maybe there’s something there I can see that they couldn’t. We can find out where Conrad was planning his next dig.”
“What will that tell us?” she asked. “I’m sure the Bureau would simply look for him there.”
“True,” Abby said. “But a man that is planning a dig doesn’t disappear, he’s disappeared.”
21
Back in the hidden gallery, he’d decided, or at least assumed, that Leta was a hypersensitive. During the roundup, he’d heard rumors of Umbra with the power of touch, but more often than not, the rumors were planted to assist the Warlocks in the search for hypersensitive Umbra so that they could be studied, tested, or turned. He’d come across some level fives and sixes, precogs that would shadow gaming tables, and he’d heard of level eight precogs that continued to aid the tacticians up top. There were rumors of sniffs that worked for the Korean mining concerns. He’d never seen one of them, but Jazz had worked a case with a level eight sniff. He told Abby that the Umbra arrived in a luxury ride, wore a long black coat, hair down to his waist, and wrap-around sunglasses. The Umbra shifted up-spectrum then waltzed through a crowd of forty thousand to grab an agitator that had disconnected from the grid. The agitator had tattooed his face to scramble the facial recognition sensors. Jazz said the Shadow sniffed him out by the smell of the ink.
If Leta really could touch to the detail of a molecule, she would be something special, something more than a babysitter.
“What level are you?” he asked.
“Is that you asking or the Warlock?”
“Ouch.” They had made their way up from the gallery, through a pleasant dinner of real food in the canteen, and onto the Delta Wing without her bringing up what Winslow had said. For a brief moment, he thought she might let him pass. No such luck. The inevitable had occurred.
“So you’re a Warlock,” she said. “Whatever.”
Though Abby had the face of a young man, he had the experience to know that ‘whatever’ ranked almost as high up as ‘fine’ when spoken by a member of the opposite sex, no matter what race.
“Was,” he said.
“Once a Warlock, always a Warlock. Isn’t that what they say?”
“They do say that.”
“Hmm.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “Get it out.”
“When you met me in the Bubble, I thought you were giving me the lookover because, well, the same reason all men do. But you weren’t. You just saw a Haunt.”
There was truth to what she said. “Hey.” His voice lowered. “It’s not like that.”
“That’s why you looked at me so oddly when you first met me. Because I’m…”
“I’m not going to lie. I was thrown for a minute. Yun didn’t tell me you’d be—”
“A Haunt?” she persisted.
“Now, c’mon,” he said. “There is no reason not to be civil. I was just surprised your boss didn’t give me a heads-up.”
“So you could tell him no?”
“I told him no anyway. I work alone, lady. What am I saying? I’m supposed to be retired.”
“Really, whatever,” she said. “It’s fine.”
Abby rolled his eyes. “Hey, c’mon. I have no issues. That was a long time ago. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. You’ve read the books.”
“Yeah.” The corner of her mouth slid back in a smirk. “You sure you weren’t another diehard for the Homeland?”
“I was an academic. The University was under the auspices of the Bureau even then. A lot of us were conscripted.” His brow droppe
d and his voice rose. “Donna, please strike the last two minutes of the internal cabin audio and video record, and stop recording on both channels until I manually engage, code tacit on my command, please acknowledge.”
The cabin sounded with Donna’s smooth response. “Record stricken, Commander Abby, code tacit implied until manually engaged.”
He pushed his shoulders back into his seat then tilted his head toward Leta. “You should watch yourself. It’s never been too healthy not to be diehard for the Homeland. Question that and somebody might think you’re a terrorist.”
Leta sighed. “So you were conscripted. How does an academic end up a Warlock?”
“Well, I was brought on because of my knowledge of history, particularly cross-cultural artifacts.”
“Cross-cultural artifacts?”
“Yeah, old items that showed up throughout history in different parts of the globe that were created by seemingly different cultures. Pottery, architecture, metallurgy from thousands of years ago, then machines, radios, that type of thing, hundreds of years ago, and weapons throughout the millennia.”
“We know now that those things are all related,” she said.
“Well, we didn’t. Anyway, that’s what got me conscripted, and from what Winslow said today, maybe he had something to do with that. I never guessed.”
“And they made you a Warlock for that?”
“That got me in the door. Genealogy did the rest.”
“How so?”
“You see, it’s like this. Unlike Umbra, mortals are locked in place in the spectrum. So being human, they started to experiment. Sure, there was some limited success with the first resonators and DMT experiments that gave our species a glimpse across spectrums, but then we discovered the Bubbles and that changed everything. When they sent the first mortals through the first Bubble, the scientists used the only thing they had in their tool belt, DMT, and mortals were able to skip planes without the mods, though few could traverse without ramifications.”