Call to Quarters (A Gaeldorcraeft Forces Novel Book 1)

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Call to Quarters (A Gaeldorcraeft Forces Novel Book 1) Page 4

by Honor Raconteur


  “Oh, we do? Then, I think this one’s ours.”

  “I agree. Forget the coffee, meet us there.”

  “Yes, sir.” Cameron ended the call with a troubled furrow to his brow. As he spoke, he spun half-around and punched in a new destination into the autopilot. “I hope he doesn’t stick around to make sure we get there. Let me call him again.”

  Noriko waved him on, only paying half-attention as Cameron called his friend back. She took a second look at the video instead, overlapping it with a map. She could not begin to state that she knew where every ley line in this area was and what they connected to. Ley lines were rather like rivers. They connected to brooks, oceans, ponds, streams, and so forth. Sometimes they fed into something very large—their own basins of energy—sometimes they stretched so thin that there was barely a thread of power there. That was why the GF had to monitor everything they could so carefully—if a ley line had a problem, there was no telling where the backlash would go, and what area it would affect.

  How had a ley line suddenly acted up without anyone noticing? That was the question plaguing her right now.

  The car left the city streets entirely and went into the north section of town, toward the base of the mountains. In short order, they left most of the subdivisions as well, winding through a narrow pass and into the mountains proper, onto an old highway that seemed rather neglected, with many a crack in the pavement and weeds growing up on the shoulders. On all sides, there were the giant windmills that Tehachapi was famous for, only about half moving, collecting energy enough to light up a good section of California’s seaboard. This close, the windmills made Noriko feel about the size of an ant. Strange. From the town they didn’t look nearly this big.

  “Not many people out here,” Cameron noted in the silence of the car. “I think I see how this ley line got so bad without us noticing.”

  “It’s probably not on regular patrol routes,” Noriko agreed. “How often do you think our team comes out this way to check on things?”

  “Don’t know. Good question to ask, though.”

  Noriko made a mental note to do so. She never, ever wanted to be one of those people: the type to stick to their comfortable routines while everything outside of their bubble slowly fell apart. She wanted to take more pride in her work than that.

  Because they had a head start, they were almost to their destination when the team’s red van came barreling up behind them. It slowed to avoid hitting Cameron’s car—on this narrow highway, there was no way to pass them—and stayed right on their tail the last mile to their destination.

  There was barely a place to pull off, it was that narrow of a shoulder. The area was beyond rocky, with struggling vegetation and no sign of anything more than tumbleweeds and scrub brush within sight. As she stepped out of the car, shielding her eyes from the sun, the air hit her with almost visible force. Power permeated the air so thickly that it could have been sliced and served up on bread.

  Very fortunately for Cameron’s friend, he had listened and not stayed in the area. With the ley lines gushing out power like this, it would have been beyond dangerous to stay more than a few minutes. Eventually he would have felt like he was being electrocuted from every angle. The land was already reacting to the live charge, and the air sang along the top of the crevice, the hotter sections near the ley line itself either crackling or half-melting in reaction to the intense charge.

  Automatically, she whirled and put her hand directly on Cameron’s shoulder, channeling the magic in the air around them and feeding it directly to him. In turn, he created a shield around them both to keep them from becoming overwhelmed.

  “Craaaap!” Cameron exclaimed with a tremor in his voice. “No wonder he sounded worried. It’s worse in person.”

  Banderas unloaded first from the van, took one look at the area, and did some very creative swearing. “People, move, move, move! Lars, Lizzie, take this side, Noriko, Cameron, take the far end toward the edge of the road. There’s another ley line on that end. Let’s bleed power off and put it in there, balance these two out.”

  Noriko spun on a heel and instantly headed that direction. Now that she was past her initial shock, she saw what her captain was saying. There was another ley line almost parallel to this one that seemed drained in comparison. In fact, the way they were so off balance with each other was very strange. This close, even if they weren’t directly connected, shouldn’t they be more or less the same? Unless something had happened far from here that was affecting just this one line.

  Cameron planted both feet shoulder-length apart and nodded to her. “Hit me.”

  Taking that as her cue, she drew all the power out of the air first and funneled it to him. Cameron had to drop the shield in order to accept it. He siphoned it off her, their partnership just as easy and smooth as the first time, then redirected it all toward the emptier ley line. Being in the area was beyond alarming. She felt as if she were standing in between lines of live electricity and a wrong step in any direction would get her fried.

  Fighting through her unease, Noriko focused on giving Cameron the power he needed to work and drained anything in the open air before it could cause irrevocable damage. They worked like this without speaking for a solid half hour before the area calmed down.

  Feeling like she could finally draw a proper breath, she redirected her attention to the heavily charged line and gingerly tapped into it. Just a light mental touch made power leap out at her, which was unnerving. Noriko actually jumped, shocked to have power hit her so hard. It kind of felt like she’d been sucker punched.

  Catching her around the shoulders, Cameron leaned into her, acting like a brace. “I know it’s intense, so easy, easy does it.”

  Gasping, a fine shiver danced along her skin, and it took serious concentration to be able to give it to Cameron. This time, it wasn’t as smooth, but he didn’t say a word to her about it. He just acted as a physical anchor for her and took what she could give him before directing it into the nearby ley line.

  With three different pairings working on it, the ley line gradually became less unstable and lost its manic edge. Noriko took a breath, found that she no longer felt dizzy or nauseous, and carefully tried to find her own balance again. Cameron stayed put until he was sure that she was steady, and only then let go of her completely.

  “Thanks,” she managed, a little embarrassed that she had been overwhelmed when he hadn’t.

  Perhaps some of that showed on her face, as he assured her, “You took the brunt of it. Least I could do. Hey, Cap! How much more you figure needs to be transferred?”

  “For you, another 5 KMs!”

  That wouldn’t take another minute or two, and then they would be done. Noriko was extremely grateful to hear that. She didn’t want to relax her guard and have anything get messed up, so she stayed alert until the last of it was transferred and Cameron had completely disengaged from both lines. Only then did she let go entirely.

  Banderas called for everyone to stop, which they all did with sighs of relief, then marched directly for Cameron. “This friend of yours, who is he?”

  “Kirk Griffin, sir. He’s a Highway Patrolman based in Mojave.”

  “So he’s not a Dwol or Mægen? But he was able to spot this?”

  “Childhood friend,” Cameron explained, one shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I taught him to read the signs, just in case.”

  “That just in case paid off.” Banderas relaxed enough to give Cameron an approving nod. “I’ll send a formal letter of thanks to his superiors when we get back to station. He just saved our hides. I don’t know what set this ley line off so badly, but if it had gone, it would have done serious damage to this and the surrounding areas. This line feeds directly into a Mojave and Rosamond ley line. It would not have been pretty.”

  Oh heavens, did it really? Noriko got another chill as her mind played out possible scenarios if they hadn’t been able to get this line under control again. She didn’t imagine that either of tho
se towns would have come through it intact. As a student, Noriko had seen videos of ley lines that had gone berserk like this, and it was akin to a bomb going off, mixed in with an earthquake. It re-arranged whole landscapes when a ley line went south.

  Banderas turned and stared hard at the ley line. “I don’t understand what happened here. Charlie and I were here, what, Saturday?”

  “Friday,” Charlotte corrected him. “And it looked fine then. Did something happen upstream of us that set this one off?”

  “If it had, we should have had some warning. That’s SOP in situations like this. When we get back, let’s make some phone calls. I want to know what happened.” Pointing a finger at Jack, he demanded, “Generators?”

  Jack held up a finger to indicate he was still tied up on the phone, then answered someone over the Bluetooth, “Yes, that’s correct. Can you confirm?”

  Noriko watched this interplay, but it didn’t make any sense to her. “What generators?”

  The whole team looked at her as if she had just asked a stupid question.

  It was Charlotte who snapped her fingers. “Of course. She’s not a California native, she wouldn’t know.”

  “Ah?” Know what?

  “Tehachapi supplies sixty percent of the power that goes to the coastline,” Charlotte explained patiently. “All of those windmills that line the mountains? It doesn’t supply just us with power, but the greater section of Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange County, and the rest. It also supplies some of the power that we need in order to keep L.A. and Santa Barbara afloat.”

  “Oh,” she said a little weakly. Tehachapi generated that much power?! All by itself? She’d thought it strange that a small town up in the mountains boasted three stations, but now it made perfect sense. This was literally an energy hub. Of course they would have multiple teams stationed here. “Ah, then, how many generators do we have up here?”

  “Four in the main complex, but there’s two other complexes, one in Sand Canyon, one in Mountain Park.”

  Of course. Where the other two stations were. That made perfect sense. Noriko turned to study the ley line that was still a little wobbly with entirely new eyes. If this ley line had been closer to the generators, or worse, one of the main lines that fed into the generator, what would have happened to those seaboard cities? Would they have lost the power necessary to keep them afloat? “I’m almost afraid to ask, but, in a worst case scenario…”

  “We have backup generators,” Lars answered with a grimace. “Unfortunately they’re not enough to really keep everything afloat, especially if Tehachapi goes down completely. It’s really rare, but in the history of the city, it has been completely calm up here a few times, where there’s no wind at all. On those days, it gets a little dicey with L.A. especially. As long as the ley lines are cooperating, though, we manage. Somehow.”

  That was a very unnerving answer. Noriko felt absolutely certain she was going to lose sleep over that mental image. She was never complaining about hair flying into her mouth ever again.

  Jack ended the call and reassured them as a group, “Generators are fine. It didn’t affect them at all.”

  Banderas crossed himself in a quick prayer before he circled a finger in the air, indicating they needed to wrap things up. “At least we don’t have that disaster to deal with. Let’s get back to station, people. Cameron, Noriko, go get our coffees. This has just turned into a long night.”

  4th Merlin

  On the captain’s orders they went out to do some patrolling of Williamson Road, and while they were out in the more deserted area of town, ‘get some practice’ in. Noriko wasn’t quite sure what he was imagining they could do, out where the tumbleweeds roamed, but they obediently went.

  When the whole team didn’t have to move as one unit, they had smaller commuter cars available to them from the general police station pool. Taking one of those, they headed south and then east of town on Williamson Road. This late in the afternoon, the sun wasn’t nearly as hot, and the coolness of the sunset was just touching the sky. It was actually easier to see ley lines at this time of day than at high noon. They glowed more brilliantly in the sand under a weaker light. Of course, her favorite time of day to look at them was in the late evening, when the sun had set. Then it was like watching rivers of fireflies moving.

  Cameron took the car off autopilot and drove them a little off the road and onto an emergency access area. “Here’s good, I think.”

  For what? No one had yet answered that question for her. Shrugging, she put her hair up in a high pony tail in preparation. If they were going to be out in the sun for any length of time greater than fifteen minutes, she was putting on sunscreen. Noriko slid a small tube out of her windbreaker’s pocket and started slathering it on any visible patch of skin.

  Cameron held out a hand in a silent ‘give me’ motion and she obligingly squirted some into his palm. Then, without a beat, he dabbed it onto her nose.

  Jerking back, she stared at him in confusion.

  “You can’t see your own face,” he pointed out, expression teasing but gentle. “So hold still.”

  He did have a point. It still felt strange for someone she barely knew to touch her, but she held patiently still and let him smear the cream over her face, back of her neck, and the tips of her ears. His touch was very light and careful. “Don’t you need to put some on?”

  “Nope,” he denied cheerfully. “I don’t burn. I have enough Italian heritage in me that I just go golden.”

  In that moment, Noriko hated him just a little. She went tomato red at the drop of a hat.

  “There, done,” he pronounced, smoothing the rest of the cream over the back of his hands.

  “Thank you.”

  “No prob.”

  She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes as she put the cap back on and slid the tube into her pocket. So he knew how to be thoughtful of others? Her initial impression was crumbling with every encounter they had. She still didn’t quite get his sense of humor, but she was coming slowly to the conclusion that she might have judged him a bit too rashly on their first meeting.

  They climbed out of the car and Noriko panned the area in slow motion. There was literally nothing out here except a few cacti, weeds, and a great deal of sand. “What are we supposed to be doing here?”

  Cameron’s voice dropped into the captain’s register and repeated, “Just get to know the area, and use enough power to get used to each other. I don’t care what you do as long as it’s not destructive.”

  Well that left the door wide open. Granted, they’d basically been told the same thing when they’d done their initial tour of the Research Lab near the Base.

  Cameron didn’t seem at all confused by this indecisive order and just shrugged. “Let me study the ley lines first.”

  Secretly relieved at his choice, Noriko immediately bent to studying them herself. She had not wanted to randomly pull out power before knowing how the ley lines flowed and how much energy there was in them. Jerking power out rashly could have serious consequences after all.

  Holoshades on, she peered toward the ground and glanced back and forth between the report she’d pulled up of the area and the ley line. “It doesn’t look to have changed much.”

  “Or at all,” Cameron agreed. He squatted down onto his haunches to get a closer look. “There’s maybe a few places where it’s a mite wider, by maybe an inch, but it’s not enough to make much of a difference. Let’s see, report says it’s running at 72 KMs.” Twisting, he squinted up at her. “What do you say?”

  Noriko also knelt down, putting a hand directly on the ground. The sand was hot to the touch, nearly to the point of baking her bare skin, but she ignored the discomfort. “Just over 72 would be my estimate.”

  “That seems a little high to me,” Cameron observed. “This ley line isn’t a main stream, but a side branch, and they’re normally regulated at about 45, right?”

  “Right. Maybe we should report this?” Noriko stared down a
t the ley line in worry. “I don’t like the idea of another one going berserk.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Noriko gave a verbal report on the matter and shot it to her captain in an email.

  Cameron folded his holoshades and tilted them to rest on the top of his head before dusting off his hands. “Well then, partner, let’s play in the sand.”

  Noriko didn’t even know what he wanted to do with the power. Giving up, she tapped in and siphoned off some power before reshaping it into something that Cameron could use and funneling it his direction.

  Cameron reached out as well, accepting her offering of power like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. His hands lifted as if he was an orchestra conductor. Sand rose up at his bidding, flowing toward him before piling up in distinct patterns.

  Noriko kept feeding him power, staring hard at what he was doing, as it didn’t make any sense to her at first. Then she realized that putting a practical spin on his work wouldn’t make sense, as it was something purely whimsical. “You’re building a sand castle.”

  “Sure. I have all of this sand around me, what else can I do with it?” Chuckling at his own joke, he danced around to the side so that he could see what he was doing from another angle.

  “And what made you think of doing a sandcastle?”

  “It’s one of those days where I want to be a mermaid,” he explained without even a glance in her direction. His hands twirled as he built a rather elaborate tower on the corner.

  Mermaids. Sandcastles. The connection failed to come together in her head. Was that explanation supposed to make sense?

  Well, it didn’t matter what they did, really. The point of this exercise was to get them used to giving and taking power from each other. He’d told her before that he could talk and work, so she decided to try for a conversation. “I’ve been checking, but it doesn’t look like they know why that ley line went out of control.”

  “Nope, no one has any leads. Which is really strange.” Cameron paused, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as he concentrated on his battlements. “I realize we’re new at this, but no one has ever reported a ley line just randomly going out of control. It’s not like ley lines can spontaneously combust.”

 

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