by P. S. Power
"This was a bit hard, wasn't it? Pitting a boy against five adults like that? Not that he didn't do a good job, but..." Then the Westmorland woman went quiet, laid a hand on Gwen's left cheek, very gently and caused her to heal. It didn't hurt, but it did feel funny. There was a strong flow of magical energy, and a sense of everything being right again.
She'd felt that before, once. Healers like this were rare. It took a lot of discipline, as well as a very top level talent.
Of course there were benefits to learning how to do it too. It took even the Westmorlands about ten years to really learn to do it well, and regular people longer, but Gwen had noticed that all of them seemed young, regardless of how they learned. They often lived for several hundred years too, so it was probably worth ten or twenty years out of a life, if a person had the right set of talents.
Nearly everyone that could do magic had the basic ability to heal too, if Gwen had it right.
The lady working on her sighed gently, still clearly thinking about Peter, who'd gone directly over to Manly, for his reward. They had him sit first, so that he wouldn't end up just standing there for an hour, unmoving.
The healer looked ridiculously happy about it however.
"That is so much better than the pain techniques. Powerful, and effective too. I could teach anyone to be a healer, using that kind of reward." She blushed. It was a strange thing, but Gwen was too close not to notice it. "Well, I mean, I could get people to volunteer for the training. It's really hard to convince those with the needed base skills to sign up for all the work that's needed. Only the most selfless even try. Unless they're Westmorlands."
Because then they just didn't get a choice.
Beth watched from across the room, and finally nodded.
"Thank you, Rhonda, Gwen looks much better now. We have a meeting with the King and the Marduk in a few days."
"Oh! I heard about that. I'd love to see that. All those important people in one place. We haven't been told who's supposed to be going yet. I imagine it will mainly be Special Service?" There was no sense of wheedling from the woman at all, and that meant Gwen could like her without feeling too bad about it.
It was always nice, knowing that people were pretty much what they seemed.
"I can get you an invitation. It would be good, to have a healer show up, I think. We're supposed to have a lot of rifters too. Some detectives. Maybe some people from data management? Darren and Kelvin?" She let her eyes gleam a little. Darren was what her brother, Billy, was called in this world, and if she didn't make a point of inviting him, no one else would at all. He was a bit odd.
That was the group agreement, even with the Westmorlands, and they all found her perfectly charming. She thought. Except for Adam, their leader.
Gwen was hardened to the idea that most people didn't like her, and had been for several decades. It didn't really hurt her feelings that the one man didn't like her all that much. There were probably a lot of people that cursed her name each night before they slept. Or, maybe not. She hadn't been hit with anything like that as far as she'd known. No one was universally loved though, were they?
Rhonda didn't gasp, or stop working on Gwen, she just nodded a little, clearly using deep focus, but not in a truly conditioned work state. She was working hard, but still able to speak, if slowly.
"That would be good. I don't want to bump anyone else however. Treats are few and far enough between, especially for the rifters. People don't want them to be in public that often."
She didn't go into how they managed to hide some of them, getting them out of Central for a while now and then anyway. That was normally for training. Military duty or things like that. They were spread out a bit that way, which just meant they were always close enough to different points in order to do their duty. Or at least someone would be. Not that blowing themselves up was really needed most of the time. It was probably why they had so much cross training.
Gwen tilted her head.
"Manly, can you work up a program to teach Peter basic healing skills? If that won't stress him magically too much? I know he's supposed to be resting for a while. He'll need to be training almost every day, doing something or another, for the time being."
That got the man to grab the healer before she could leave, pulling her into the next room over to chat. Normally that would be improper, since they were a man and a woman, but that was, Gwen finally got, why they all had the same last name. So that they could do whatever work with each other they needed to, without others trying to hold them back from it, because of social convention.
Not that they didn't go at it like bunnies, when no one was looking. It was a little bit disturbing to think about, so she just sat for a bit, resting and watching Peter, enviously. Lucky him. He got a whole hour of that.
She finally made herself stand and thought about what was needed next. It was, she knew, time for her to make a call to Christophe, and, if possible, check in with Cordell. Bethany had been in touch with him daily, but that didn't mean the two had been discussing the making of running shoes.
Which reminded her of something.
"Right. We should go and visit with Doctor Professor Grainger and his students. Unless someone else already has?" She didn't know. It could have happened, but it had only been a week, which could be considered moving too fast, here. Especially if you didn't have any proof and were just trying to get information. "For that matter, I don't suppose that Carter Palmer and Sally Kiers have provided any information that would help us find out who they've been working with?"
Her pretty blonde friend looked away, and Clara, who had until recently been selling her behind to all comers, shook her head, already in the know.
"Both dead. Sally found a sharp bit and slashed her wrists, and Palmer just died. I was told he willed himself to death. All the others picked up have killed themselves too."
At least Bethany tensed and made a bit of a face about it all.
Gwen just looked at her, wondering what was up. If it had been that important, then they wouldn't have told Clara at all. If it wasn't, then why not tell her? She nearly asked when Clara, helpfully, went on.
"They said not to tell you, because their... Protcles?" She glanced at Beth, who provided the correct word automatically.
"Protocols."
"Right, them. Well, they say that if a person is in heavy training, they aren't supposed to be told bad news, if it can be helped, so that they won't worry about it. No distractions."
Gwen thought about it for a moment and then took a deep breath and relaxed.
"I can get that. I wouldn't want that hanging over me when I was facing torturous pain either. Okay, so we need to find what other leads we can. We'll start at the University, since that's all I've got. Do you have anything Beth? Any bit of information that I haven't thought of?"
"Some. Did you notice how muscular those men were, on the train? I've been looking into that..."
Gwen let her head slowly slide to the right, thinking.
"I did, I figured that it was compensation, for people with low magical ability. They all moved well too, like fighters. Or really huge dancers, but I didn't think that last one was very likely."
Bethany smiled and then shook her head a little.
"It took me three days to track that one down. I should have just asked you. Here I was thinking how clever I was being to notice how over developed they were. Wrestlers. There's only one group that also develops their bodies like that in the Western Kingdom. The Greek-Roman style fighters." She gave Gwen a knowing look, but didn't add anything.
Greco Roman wrestling was a thing that Gwen had never studied back home, outside of books, in case she ever had to fight against a person using those kinds of techniques. It was an incomplete style, but they did good work with submission holds, joint locks and chokes. No kicking, and they generally had weak skills in punching too. That didn't mean it wasn't effective, it just had some areas that could be exploited.
She'd seen some o
f those techniques used here too. Oddly enough, from her fiancé. She didn't say that out loud, since a lot of people might well have that kind of skill there. It wouldn't help to draw attention to Chris, not in a negative light. He had enough of that to be worried over, after all.
She waited, and Beth finally went on.
"So, I found the center that they work out of, which is in Banksburough, near the Eastern edge of the North train line."
Gwen wrinkled her nose, not having much of a clue where that was. Why would she? As near as she could figure that would be somewhere in Minnesota? She got up without speaking and went to Robert's study, with the other two traipsing along, leaving a very content Peter alone in the room they'd all been sitting in. He wasn't going to miss them after all.
It took a bit, but after invading the otherwise private space, she managed to find a decent map and get Bethany to point out where she meant. It was a lot further to the North and East than she would have figured it to be at all. In Canada, or where that was in her world. When it was pointed out, she realized that it was nearly in Aubry too.
"Fuck." Beth blinked, and Clara actually hunched in on herself, defensively.
She explained, trying not to seem upset by it all.
"Christophe's place borders on this area. He also practices the right kind of wrestling, which means he might know-" She was cut off instantly by her friend who went wide eyed.
"Oh? He might know the people involved? We have to report this at once, since he might be in danger!" She ran out of the room so fast that Gwen was left staring at the brown wall, behind where she'd been, for a few seconds before very carefully putting the rolled up map back in its tube and walking after her.
The other woman followed her, looking far more scared than she really needed to, and they found Beth hurriedly talking to Adam Westmorland, who sounded pretty anxious about it all, himself.
"At once. I'll set a new Special Service watch, if he'll have them. I need to get word of this to the King directly. Good work. Even if it's a bit light on facts, we can't take chances with the nobility." The way he said it sounded pretty brainwashed.
It was going to be a problem.
Of course, it was very circumstantial, wasn't it? The Western Kingdom didn't have a lot of fighting arts at all. There was a bit in the military, and some basic boxing. It was about that, plus one or two wrestling styles. If you wanted to learn to fight without a weapon, those were your options, so it didn't mean all that much. She hoped. Really, Chris probably had studied them all at one point or another, given his interest in the area. As a nobleman he could be a target, so it made sense for him to practice things like that.
She went over that in her head enough that it seemed correct, by the time Beth was nearly off the Telestator. Gwen called out, so that Adam could hear her.
"Beth and I will head over to the club in the afternoon, unless you have someone else that you want to send in for that? We were going to follow some leads at Western University, in the morning. Other than those, I don't have anything to add to the investigation at all."
There was a moment's silence and when the man spoke, he sounded hard and bitter.
"Why don't you take the University, and Bethany can do the club. I'd rather not wait on the situation."
That actually made sense, and she didn't need anyone to hold her hand in public really. Still, she probably knew more about that kind of thing, wrestling, then Bethany did, and Beth was the one that had telepathic training.
Of course she had Peter too.
"How about Beth and Clara Take the University, and Peter and I go to the club? He can read minds, and we aren't going in to interrogate anyone. If things are too hot, we'll pull out immediately. It's probably nothing anyway." But if it was, Bethany and the other Westmorlands would be a bit handicapped in figuring out that Chris had anything to do with it. She hoped it wasn't the case herself, true. If it was, well, she'd be able to look at it for what it was.
It wasn't as if they were in love or anything, but how many times was anyone that cute going to even notice her? He was young, had clear skin and was only a little funny looking around the edges. Thin, and with good muscle, but his ears and nose were just a bit too big. So, pretty much perfect. In her life exactly four men had actually mentioned that she might be suitable for something other than dying a gruesome death, probably alone. Or, well that wasn't fair, but not a lot of people had ever said nice things about her.
One of those was Darrick Westmorland, who thought that she'd make a decent member of the Special Service, at least after she'd won him over. Then there was Kelvin, who she was nearly certain actually wanted to sleep with her. It was tempting really. He couldn't get her pregnant and would be more skilled than she was by far. Then there was an airship crewman, named Givens that had flirted with her, and Christophe. Only one of them had ever mentioned marriage at all however.
That meant she was, for the time being predisposed to like Duke Aubry a lot more than almost anyone else in the whole world. So if he was involved in slaughtering innocent young women, then she was going to have to...
That part was harder.
He was a Duke, which meant that only the King or a group of other nobles could really outrank him. If he wanted to kill people, that was probably just going to be pushed under the rug. His men wouldn't even be blamed for it, for the most part, since they were just following orders.
That left very little for anyone to do about the situation, except hope that if it was really taking place, it could be stopped. When she'd found that a Count had been raping and killing little girls, she'd killed the man, but had to fake a suicide, claiming that, once caught, he insisted on it. Along with the two sworn servants that he'd been forcing to help him do it.
It had been a bit messy, but in the end it had been pretty close to what had happened. The man didn't fight her, and his servants actually asked to be put to death, rather than face trial. It was only later that Gwen had understood how honorable they were really being. After all, they might have been put in prison for it, but the Count wouldn't. Since that was the most likely case, and no one would believe that they weren't acting on official orders, the two men probably would have walked again too.
Except that, when caught, they asked for death, to release them from their vows. Even probably knowing they could have gotten free of it all.
Which had sealed the Count's fate too. Not that she'd planned to leave them alive anyway, but they hadn't known that.
Really though, she didn't think she could kill Chris. Not even if he were a murderer. If that turned out to be the case, then she was simply stuck. All she could think of was that whoever had come up with that plan, even if it required the death of young women, had probably meant to help people, in the end.
To save them all from a horrific death, at the hands of terrorists and monsters. That was honorable too, except that in order to take away magic, they had to kill people and countless more would die, when all transportation stopped and everyone that used any kind of machinery just couldn't anymore. She'd seen how helpless the people here were without their normal tools. Most would live, but it would be a disaster of epic proportions while they worked out exactly how to do that.
Then, she realized something at least. She wasn't using magic herself at the moment. This wasn't some kind of prescient blast of information, just her own nerves running away with a few facts. Because... she really expected Chris to leave her, or be taken away.
Shaking herself she realized that she'd just been standing there, and thinking, for long enough that Adam had started to speak, actually sounding reasonable for once.
"Fine, come in the morning and I'll have the proper Teletransport spheres ready for you and Peter. Say, nine, our time?"
She nodded, knowing that it wouldn't be heard.
"On it, then. See you at nine."
Then she left the room, only to be followed by Clara, who was still her maid, after all.
At least she thought that was
the case.
It was so hard to keep track of things like that lately.
Smiling just a bit, and feeling better for having worked out that her own low self-esteem was probably the real issue, she moved off to find something to do. She really needed to take up a hobby. Then she remembered that she had that book to write, and went to see about that. It wasn't too bad, so far. She didn't think.
Chapter twenty-one
Bethany Westmorland looked at the collection of killers on the train. There was no movement, and her eyes were locked on the large man in front of her. The menace poured off of him and his goons, all of whom held enough muscle to easily lay waste to her, and her small friend, Gwen.
"If you do this thing, if you take away magic from the people, you'll kill millions. I can't allow that to happen. It ends now." The words were brave and her chin was held high, as she went for the PC in her shirt pocket. That might not be enough she knew, the magic in the area having been washed out, running only about half the time, as waves of radiative instructions stopped it all from taking place.
It didn't matter. Outmatched or not, she and Gwen would have to stand. There was no one else, and protecting people was, in the end, the job of a Westmorland. Even if it meant dying.
Gwen set her pen down, and smiled.
It was a better ending to that scene than the real one had been. In the bit before it, she'd gotten a chance to show Beth having a long conversation with the bad guys, who were, in the end, a lot worse in the story than they had been in real life. Carter Palmer was a puppy dog of a man after all. Or had been. Sally...
Well, conveniently enough, Gwen had left out the part about her paying the woman to blow Carter. She was dead after all, and in this place no one would look at that and think more of her for being that dedicated to her job. Gwen kind of admired her for it, to tell the truth. She would have freaked out and said no, giving away the fact that she wasn't who she claimed to be. Sally had sold the whole thing well enough that everyone, even Carter, had really thought she was a professional that way.