Laurence scowled at him, wagging the phone, and walked around the two of them, looking at the sniper.
"And you?" Laurence said to the sniper.
"Distracted by a pizza delivery. They had my name on the ticket. I thought it was for a meeting, sir." He looked decidedly embarrassed. He held out the ticket and Laurence snatched it from him angrily.
Laurence looked at it then rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing. "We've been compromised. Pack up and return to base immediately." He looked out the window of the apartment, wondering who could have orchestrated this. Laurence gave the phone back to Glen. "Give your phones to the lab when you get to base," Laurence said as they were quickly leaving the apartment, relieved to not be in more serious trouble.
Laurence sat on the chair the sniper had used and looked out the window down at the mailbox outlet. Who would have known about their presence here, even to the name of one of the agents? Who would have known Glen's number and the recall code? Laurence felt violated, wondering if it was even possible someone on the inside was betraying them. Their organization wasn't something you worked at as a job, but was a lifelong commitment that all of them were born into. To betray that would be serious indeed. He got up and straightened his shirt. He decided he would have to to pay the pizza place a visit later, just on the remote chance he could get something useful from them.
Steven reclined in the greenhouse watching his computer grind away. He had several windows up, each displaying the results of work of the many databases and files he was hacking into. For some, he was using the brute force of a vast distributed network to crack their password hash. For others, he was just scanning through massive databases using a number of search algorithms he had assembled to hopefully dig up something useful about his parents. He had scanned many of the files multiple times using different search parameters, and he was running out of ideas.
The particular databases he was working on had gaps in their files that pointed to media that wasn't connected to the servers and he couldn't access. Steven guessed they were physical tapes that had been archived. Some places had automatic retrieval systems for tapes like that but he wasn't having any luck accessing these. He wondered how hard it would be to access them physically. They were located at the company his parents used to work for with Sally and Jonah, which was just across town. He had hoped to get on as an intern there which would give him access, using Bret's summer internship as a stepping stone to get there, but sadly that ship crashed and burned. Steven frowned as he thought about it.
He pulled up architectural schematics for the building where the archives were stored and started giving thought about accessing that building surreptitiously. It was well secured. When he tried to get a job there, he was all but laughed out of the building because of his age and lack of experience. Breaking in would give him a measure of satisfaction for their rudeness. He was sure there was more on those tapes. The packet information on the files he had already retrieved hinted that they were stored on those tapes at one time or another, so there must be more. He needed to see exactly who else was involved in the research his parents were conducting and anyone who may have been directly or indirectly responsible for his parent's abduction.
He ran another search trying to recover the stream of his parents in the room sitting by the table. But with no frame of reference, he was finding that to be an extremely challenging job.
Sighing, he fingered the box that came in the mail absentmindedly and decided to set up his smart phone. After he unpacked it, he plugged it into his laptop and ran a jailbreak program on it to eliminate any limitations put on it by the manufacturer. Then he wiped the memory card in the phone and installed his own software and networking tools. He had already cracked into the phone system's networks and given himself a number, so he programmed that in and sat back and grinned. His laptop now fit in his pocket, for all intents and purposes. He left it to charge as he sat back, basking in his ingenuity.
The evening breeze wafted through the vents of the greenhouse and a palm branch tickled his cheek, waking him from his thoughts. Steven batted it away and sat up, stretching. It was late and he had worked hard that day helping Richard replace some plumbing. He looked around the greenhouse that was, by now, getting rather overgrown. Which was perfect for him. It was rather steamy in there, but the life was rich and palpable. It wasn't the deep forest, but it was a pleasant break from the sterile lifelessness of the big city. He thought he saw someone moving in the fig trees but on closer look he saw a dwarf banana waving in the slight breeze behind them. He wondered if he was starting to get paranoid now that he's been off his medicinal tea.
As he walked to the door he noticed the tropical dandelion still growing in the pile of dirt by the door. He stood there for a moment, looking at it. It actually looked really sad. The leaves were stunted and yellowing and the flowers drooped a little. He started to walk by and pretend he never saw it when he stopped looked at it again. He felt sorry for the pathetic little thing, and remembered all the sorry looking plants this greenhouse originally had when he first moved in. Unable to resist, Steven sighed, looked around to find an empty pot and then filled it with fresh soil. He knelt down by the plant and carefully dug it up. Its long taproot was well entrenched in the bricks that made up the flooring of the greenhouse but he was able to get most of it out and return loosened bricks back down onto the tarred surface of the roof. For an imaginary plant it sure seemed real enough. Perhaps this was the plant that inspired that imagination. He stuffed it into the pot with some extra soil and watered it well, then took it over to the potting bench by his computer. "Okay, then. We'll see if you're still there in the morning."
Sarah was at his little rooftop apartment when he walked in. She had brought up fresh bedding and some leftovers from dinner. Steven grinned. He hadn't officially moved out but was spending more time up in the rooftop apartment as he worked late and Sarah seemed pleased to be able to mother him. He hugged her, happy to let her mother him. "Thanks. It smells delicious."
"It most certainly is. Charley cooked it." She grinned. Charley was the chef of the family. She could cook, but he took it to an art form. Steven sat down at the bar and dug in while she went back and tossed the clean sheets on his bed.
"This place cleans up pretty well." She looked around. She looked at the little kitchen and the few dishes Steven had accumulated. He had actually cleaned them and put them up. Sarah smiled, thinking of how long it took her to get Charley to help her with the dishes. He liked to cook, but loathed washing dishes.
"Yeah, the dust was pretty bad." Steven looked up. It was a cozy little apartment. With the work he's done to make it livable, when he leaves they may even be able to rent that out now.
She noticed Steven's updated resume sitting on the bar. "Are you still looking?"
"Well, there's one company I've been trying to get on at, but I'm beginning to think it's a hopeless case. They've not been very nice to me. I may save up and try to get my masters and see if that helps any," Steven said between mouthfuls.
"How are the vegetable sales?" She changed the subject, knowing that Steven was still frustrated by the roadblocks he had been facing while trying to break into the technology field. He certainly knew his way around plants, however, and they thrived almost miraculously under his care. Sarah was certain he could grow a garden in concrete and have it produce better than most farms.
"They're doing great! I'm making a decent haul even after giving Margaret her share." He grinned. It was technically her garden, but she was kind enough to let him work and profit from it. "Haven't harvested any honey yet. Should be another month or so." He was still surprised to actually have bees on top of a high rise apartment in the big city.
He rinsed off the container and handed it to Sarah who smiled. "I'm so happy things are finally working out for you."
"I couldn't have done this without you, Sarah." Steven got serious. "I owe you more than you can imagine."
She smiled and gave
him a quick hug. "I've already been repaid. You just keep doing what you're doing."
Steven closed the door behind her and washed off. It had been a long time since he had to peel pine sap from his hands and feet and he was excited to have to do it. It had been a phenomenal day, and tomorrow promised to be just as good.
As he lay back on the bed, Steven was thinking how much he appreciated the smell of clean sheets when he started to fall asleep almost right away. He could almost see a shadow standing in the doorway but was too drowsy to wake up and see it more clearly. His door was closed anyway. Part of him wondered if Sally was there watching him fall asleep like she had so many times before. He smiled at the memory as he drifted off.
The meadow was darker than usual this evening. Steven walked through it, feeling the grass under his bare feet. It was moist from a recent rain. Looking up, he could vaguely make out that it was overcast, hiding the moon. Well, this was the rainy state. He breathed in deeply. Steven really loved the just rained smell and how the aroma of the moist earth seemed to permeate everything. He walked over to the snag, put his hand on it and felt its deadwood texture. He missed that, but couldn't remember why. Looking around he spied his tree house up high. There was a light coming from the window. He didn't remember leaving the light on.
As he walked into the forest he saw dancing shadows out of the corner of his eyes. But when he looked directly, he didn't see anything but trees. Bemused, he shook his head and continued. He needed to turn off that light before going home. He was running really late and would no doubt be in trouble. Why was he out here so late? He couldn't put his finger on it.
There was a rustle in the leaves that didn't belong. It wasn't from any of the animals that resided there. Looking around he saw a black shadow grow large, and the glint of eyes and teeth. Without thinking, Steven took to the trees and started jumping from tree to tree, hoping he'd be safe up in the canopy. He looked back and was dismayed. The wolfman was also up in the trees chasing after him. Steven looked out toward the meadow and spied the snag. If he could get to the top of it, it would be too small to support such a massive monster. He jumped out of the tree into the meadow, landed hard, and immediately took off in a sprint.
The vampire seemed to materialize directly in his path, his hand reaching out for him. Steven dug his feet into the wet soil and stopped, falling to his butt as he tried to reverse course. Scrambling, he avoided the vampire's reach and started back for the safety of the forest. But the wolfman had just jumped out of the forest.
Taken by total surprise, Steven remembered something he had been taught years ago. Rather than doing what was expected, do what was not expected. Confront his fears. He couldn't recall who taught him that, but it was someone he trusted - that he remembered for certain. Steven grabbed his staff and started running faster toward the wolfman. The vampire scared him worse so he figured he'd face the lesser fear first. Part of him wondered where the staff came from as he ran. He didn't have it before. But he had it now and that's what counted. He ducked below the creature's massive arms and jabbed the staff into its torso as hard as he could. With a loud yelp, the creature disappeared in a puff of mist. Steven looked around, surprised, then spied the vampire approaching him.
Emboldened, he spun the staff around and started circling around the vampire. It was huge and vastly scarier than the wolfman, but Steven had a taste of success and wasn't about to lose this time. The days of running away were over. With a loud yell, he charged the vampire who sidestepped him and knocked him to the ground. Rolling, he got up without breaking his pace and spun the staff around. It smashed against the vampire, splintering. He took what was left of it, a large sharp splinter and plunged it into the chest of the vampire, screaming angrily. The vampire looked down at the splinter as it stepped back a few paces, then back at Steven. Steven felt furious all of a sudden and screamed at the vampire again. The vampire suddenly caught fire as it reached out for him, then abruptly melted into a vapor that wafted away in the breeze. Steven's heart was racing but he was amazed. He conquered them both and now they were gone.
"Whew." He wiped the sweat off his forehead and put his hands on his knees, breathing hard. He did it. He really did it. Steven was elated at having defeated his foes and survived to tell about it. They were no longer a threat to him. Standing up, he breathed in deeply. Something bothered him, however. He felt a presence. It seemed familiar, like he felt it before. He turned around and was suddenly faced with two very large eyes just inches from his own. The Elf woman grabbed his face in both of her hands and screamed at him in palpable rage. "What have you done with Asherah!?"
Steven woke up with a start. Laying in his bed, he looked around. An empty glass that had been on the nightstand had fallen off onto the floor. He reached down and picked it up and put it back on the nightstand. The full moon illuminated the room quite brightly through the bedroom window and he looked around. No mysterious shadows, just him and his dreams. He lay back down and drifted back off to sleep, not seeing the shadow that silently emerged from hiding and sat down on the end of his bed, humming the ballad softly as Steven returned to his dreams.
Chapter 13
"He was there! I saw him!" Penipe exclaimed loudly as Lohet walked into her bedroom and sat next to her on the bed. She was trembling badly and he put his arm around her. "Lohet, he was in my dreams. But it wasn't a dream." She tried to make sense of it. "I was in his dreams." She shook her head trying to clear the fog of sleep as she fully woke up and the startling reality started to dawn on her. "Lohet, somehow we're bonded. I dreamscaped with him!" Penipe thought for a second, then remembered Steven's bond with Asherah and frowned at not having seen it before. "I have a familial bond with a deviant?" She looked at Lohet, disgusted.
"Did you see where he was"? Lohet looked at each of her eyes to make sure she was completely lucid. She blinked, her eyes pulsing from blue to yellow and back. He smoothed her hair out of her face as he tried to calm her.
"The meadow. But it wasn't the meadow. He was having a nightmare." Penipe looked past Lohet as she tried to recall the dream. "Lohet, how can this be?"
Lohet had hoped she could have seen or ascertained where he was currently, but that would have been too easy. He looked at Sirel, who crawled out of the bed and pulled up the seismograph records out in the living room. "Only background tremors." She looked at Lohet. "No incident."
Penipe took a sharp breath, remembering. "He's found a way to overcome his nightmares." Penipe looked sharply at Lohet. Their plan to incite an incident by proximity was in peril. She continued trying to remember the dream, to not let it slip away. "He took control, Lohet." Perplexed, she looked at him, "He wasn't dreaming me. I was there, but I wasn't part of his dream. There's no other explanation." She shivered, holding herself as the ramifications of it hit her. She had only dreamscaped with her parents and her bond-mate. She would comfort her young daughter with dreamscaping too. That she shared such a fiercely intimate experience with a deviant revolted her, and Penipe suddenly felt nauseous.
"You bonded with him back at the meadow because of Asherah?" Lohet looked at her. His kind didn't form those kinds of bonds, so he had no personal frame of reference to comprehend the intricate complexities of Elvin interactions.
Penipe didn't hear him. "A familial bond with a deviant? Is that even possible?" Penipe was dumbfounded. It didn't seem possible, but their emotions were running very high at the time and his bond with Asherah was extremely strong. She was shocked by the intensity of their bond. She couldn't remember her own being that powerful. Could the deviant somehow be responsible for that? Maybe he's keeping her against her will? In that instant in the tree when their eyes met, she flashed on Asherah and he must have locked on.
"Relax and concentrate. Can you feel him now?" Lohet put his hand on her face and concentrated and suddenly her anxiety melted away. Lohet's ability to nullify extreme distress had come in critically useful on more than one occasion, including when the Sadari closed the gate on Peni
pe's bond with her life-mate. Penipe couldn't imagine what she would have done without him as she relaxed and leaned against him while she looked within.
"No... he's not there. No wait. I... can." She gasped sharply, "That's him! Lohet, he's there." Penipe put her hand on her chest as she focused, trembling. "But... I can't tell where he is. It's like someone is hiding him." Penipe looked at Sirel who had come back to the bed and sat next to her, opposite of Lohet, and played with Penipe's hair. The deviant had been there all along and Penipe didn't even know it. Looking at Lohet, she was at a total loss. Not at who was protecting him, but why. "Asherah? But why?"
Lohet nodded. "She must know he's in danger." He had wondered who was behind the fiasco back at the meadow and suspected her. Now he had his answer. He couldn't guess as to why she would. Deviants were intensely powerful, however. It was possible Asherah didn't have a choice.
"But surely she knows what he is!" Penipe looked at Lohet, horrified as she tried to make sense of it.
Sirel embraced Penipe and looked in her face. "Your daughter is just a child, Penny. She can't possibly comprehend."
Penipe's heart was breaking over Asherah's continuing devotion to the deviant. "He's going to hurt her, Sirel. Surely she knows this. How can she not?"
"Can she hide the bond from Tor’eng?" Lohet stood up from the bed and examined the seismological readings more closely. Even if Steven had dominated the dream, it was possible a slight incident occurred. It grated on him to have such a clear cut plan usurped so easily. Steven was developing by leaps and bounds and the urgency of the situation was getting critical.
"Yes. Fathers don't bond in the same way that mothers do. They share a mother's bond with their children and ours broke..." Penipe rocked back and forth as fear welled up in her for her daughter, crying quietly as she remembered her daughter's presence in Steven. Sirel played with her hair and leaned against her, trying to comfort her.
Crow - The Awakening Page 30