The Root

by Na'amen Tilahun

  “Yes.” Razel made sure the question stayed out of her tone.

  “How difficult would it be to take her out of the equation?” Riana watched her with those beady eyes that saw everything.

  Razel thought and then shook her head, trying to hide her relief at realizing it was not a feasible plan.

  “She keeps her power close to the surface now. She said something to us and for the rest of the conversation I could feel her power all around us on the verge of coming loose. Plus, after our discussion this morning, I assume that Chayyliel will have her under watch and any attack on her would be investigated.”

  “True.” Riana smiled.

  Another test. Her life was a series of constant tests but she had passed every single one or she would not still be standing where she was.

  “So what are our options?”

  “To watch and wait for an advantage,” Razel answered.

  “And Haydn?”

  Razel kept the disgust off of her face by force of will alone.

  “Good, I almost believed you that time. Get to the point where even Haydn cannot tell that you think him lower than a worm.”

  “He already thinks that now. He is not hard to fool.”

  “Fine, until Krezida believes it.”

  “That day will never come. She knows what a loathsome toad she’s chosen as an Holder-Apprentice.”

  “A loathsome toad unusually skilled in true names and alchemy.”

  “Yes.” It burned her insides to admit the creep was good at anything at all, but she had seen the way he could figure out a thing’s true name with enough study and contact. She spent all day trying to emulate it in the Ossuary.

  Krezida and Haydn could sometimes tell the purpose of a thing. Blueprints were simple enough to guess at but the fully made mechaniques they found were nothing but guesswork. They could just as easily be a weapon as a harvesting machine or something they would not figure out even given decades. And they could not simply try turning each one on; the potential for disaster was too high.

  “He is the weak link here, not Liliana. She has become more of a power than we thought. We risk her emerging from this crisis with too much credit and power.”

  Razel nodded, though she wasn’t sure Riana was right in this case. The Holder tended to think everyone acted as she did, that everyone worked with the same motivation Riana oozed with. Razel had more friends, or had them at one point before coming to Hypatia. ’Dants were complex and contradictory. She believed that Liliana believed there was a chance the dark would take them all, that she was scared for the future.

  Still, it changed nothing.

  “What of your personal project?” Riana interrupted her train of thought, which Razel was grateful for.

  “It goes well.” The thought of her project made Razel smile for the first time that day.

  “How many do you have?”

  “Three completed so far.” Razel was trying to reverse engineer blueprints based on some of the mechaniques in the Ossuary. Riana had taken the easier job of recreating the blueprints they found. Riana planned to rebuild some of them in Hypatia, where they could be studied in safe conditions.

  “Excellent. Create as many as possible; most will likely do nothing, so the more we have the more potential advantages we have when this is over.”

  Razel nodded and kept her smile firmly in place.

  “I will go and work on them more now, if it pleases you.”

  “Yes, do that. I will find Krezida and Mayer. Sleep if you can. We will be working downstairs after dinner.”

  Razel shivered but nodded, happy to leave Riana’s presence. For all that she had been Holder-Apprentice for over three years now, they did not spend that much time together. Razel was under no illusion that Riana had chosen her for anything other than her near-perfect memory. The fact that she was intelligent and, in her own opinion, a better mech than the Holder was not something that Riana acknowledged.

  Razel knew it though and, more importantly, those that had contact with Hypatia knew it.

  Riana’s mechaniques were crude things. They worked well but relied on power and force. Razel did not deny such things had their place, but there had to be a balance of finesse and beauty. Mechaniques were not simply things to use but beautiful works of art.

  She spread out her latest blueprint on the floor of the small room she’d commandeered as her studio on the first night. All the furniture was now gone. The pulse of the living walls of the Hive was comforting. She was used to the cold metal of Hypatia now, but she had lived in a building like this before Riana took her. The dark black paper took up three quarters of the floor; the only thing decorating it now was a diagonal streak of red. She stared at the red and the rest of the ancient mechanique began to flow into her vision. Grabbing her chalks, she began to mark down the things she remembered. Here was the moving arm in white and here the crank that powered it in yellow and the hinges and other joinings in cerulean.

  She had tried to explain her process to Riana only once, and the look of blankness on the Holder’s face plus the hint of jealousy in the curl of her lips stopped her. There was no way to explain it anyway. She had tried before but the combination of memory, visualization, and art made no sense to anyone but herself.

  She drew what she remembered, the connections she imagined, the hope of it working. All of it went into her blueprints. The colors allowed her to know what to switch out first if it did not work.

  When her arm was exhausted, she saw that the outline of the mechanique from the Ossuary was complete. As of now it was not a blueprint so much as an art project, but she would continue to study the whole creation little by little each day until she had more information on the inner workings.

  Exhausted, she dragged herself up and next door to her bedroom. A nap would do her good; she would be refreshed for dinner and everything that came after.

  SAN FRANCISCO

  MATTHIAS

  When Erik burst out of his front door in a hurry Matthias tensed for an Angelic attack, but as he got closer Matthias noticed the way his shoulders were hunched up to his ears. Then he noticed the two people with cameras, one across the street and one in a neighbor’s yard.

  Matthias had assumed because the street was no longer choked with cars that the scrutiny of the photographers had ended for some reason. He should have known better. They were simply better hidden and fewer. Erik flung the car door open and threw himself into the passenger seat. Matthias asked no questions as he put the car in reverse and left the neighborhood as quickly as possible.

  “So what’s up?”

  “Did you listen to my voice mail?”

  “No. I knew you were on your way so I just figured you would fill me in.”

  Matthias sighed. “Luka contacted me. Byron has requested the meeting this morning.”

  “Okay, where?” Erik blinked as the soothing feel of the forces of the car came over him again. At least they knew why now. For some reason he had not expected everything to happen so soon.

  “Their base downtown.”

  Erik paused. “That seems stupid.”

  Matthias just grunted in agreement. “We have an assurance of safety. Not that I think the Organization would do too much if they broke it.”

  “All right. I need to swing by my former school so I can pick up my shit. Do we have time?”

  “Yeah, it’s why I came by so early.”

  The silence was only broken by directions and affirmative grunts. They drove from the Richmond toward the south end of the city. They moved through the more suburban neighborhoods until they came to Ocean Drive. There in the hills, protected from sight by a line of private homes, sat his school. They pulled into the parking lot.

  “Erik, is everything okay?” Matthias wanted to comfort his aspirant but also knew the distance he had kept during Erik’s convalescence had done exactly as he wanted it to. Send the message that they could be friends, and nothing more.

  “I’m fine.” Before he
turned to exit, Erik took a deep breath and the sadness and guilt left his face. The lines of his face got hard, the lips became firm, and he looked ready for anything. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Do I need to come with you?”

  That surprised a laugh out of Erik though Matthias did not know why.

  “No, there’s nothing in this building that I can’t handle.”

  He left the car but before he shut the door, he leaned down. “Hey Matthias.” He met Matthias’s eyes and for just a split second the hurt and vulnerability Erik had hidden shone in his face. “Thanks for asking.” The hurt was gone again as he smiled, then turned to walk away.

  Matthias knew a lot of things about himself. After everything that had gone down he’d spent a lot of time alone, with only himself for company. The longer you spent by yourself the less able you were to lie to yourself. He was pretty much incapable of self-delusion at this point, which was probably one of the reasons he came off as bitter. Looking into Erik’s smile made him realize, without a doubt, that he was fucked no matter what he did.

  ERIK

  He barely paused as he moved through his school of a semester and a half. Classes had just started, so the halls were empty and the students that were there, on errands or skipping, didn’t speak to him. They simply watched as he walked through campus. The school was a number of small courtyards and open-air hollow squares that held lockers and rooms around the edges. In the middle, works of art and fountains took up the space.

  The courtyard with his locker was abandoned. As he entered his combination, however, he felt the force of someone’s eyes on his back. More than one someone. He knew exactly who he would see when he turned, so he calmly pulled out his books, magazines, and one sweater he thought he had lost from the depths of his locker and shoved them into the empty bag at his feet.

  Only when he was done did he turn to face Harry and Melissa. He was reminded by their bruises that it had only been a couple weeks since he’d beat the shit out of them. Melissa was favoring one leg, and he vaguely remembered kicking the other out from underneath her as she’d gone for his ribs. She had a cast on her right arm and her lower lip was discolored as if it had been busted and only recently healed up.

  Harry looked worse off; a chunk of hair was missing from his scalp, both eyes were healing bruises, and the whistle when he exhaled meant more that one or two teeth were at least chipped if not missing from his mouth. He also had a cast on one arm and he shifted from leg to leg as if uncomfortable standing long.

  Erik remembered a knee to the groin at one point and could not help smiling.

  “Harry. Melissa.”

  Both of their scowls darkened and he could feel his own smile widen.

  “Those aren’t our names. It took a lot of nerve for you to come back here.” Melissa was the one who spoke and took a step forward.

  “Did it?” They hadn’t been able to take him at full strength; they had to know they had no chance now and that he had nothing to lose. Then the smile froze on his face.

  They weren’t alone. His head turned to the right, to a corner of the courtyard. He had to force his eyes to look. There was a constant thrum running through his head telling him he should turn away. “Who are you?” He forced the words out.

  Slowly the man was revealed. He appeared as if he had always been there and Erik had just refused to acknowledge his presence. Even cross-legged on the ground Erik could tell the man was at least six foot six. He had a very light bright brown complexion, with darker freckles sprinkled across every bit of his face. The rest of him was covered in a black-on-black suit, with gloves that were at the very least expensive pleather if not straight up leather. His hair was a frohawk, well groomed with huge dark curls with a red tint.

  “Well, maybe Matthias has found himself a worthy aspirant this time?”

  Something in the man’s voice made his shoulders tense and rise around his ears. The smugness perhaps? The voice felt slick like oil against Erik’s brain. The man rose to his feet and Erik saw his estimation had actually been off—the man was closer to six foot eight. He turned to Harry and Melissa and nodded at them.

  “Thank you for your help, children.”

  Erik saw how they bristled at being called children and warmed to the man—just a little bit.

  “You may go.” The man turned his gaze from them and met Erik’s eyes and Erik knew with a chilling certainty who this man was.

  “What the fuck? What about what you promised us?” Melissa’s voice was shrill and Erik suspected the only reason Harry was not yelling as well was that he would have sounded like a parrot, whistling each word.

  Byron looked back at the two, but this time something in his face went dark. Harry and Melissa both jerked as if something had shocked them and their faces went blank.

  “You will only remember trying to confront Erik again and that he scared you off anytime you come close to remembering me or anything you have heard this morning you will be struck down with a migraine so severe you must spend the next two days in bed if you continue you will slowly lose parts of yourself first your ability to speak then bowel control then hearing then sight and finally your life now leave.” He said it all quickly, with no punctuation or pause for breath and without any emotion or tone, though Erik thought he could see a vicious pleasure in the curl of his mouth.

  Neither Harry nor Melissa reacted to the threat in the words, simply staying still and listening to his instructions . . . orders? When he finished, they turned and marched away. As they crossed the line of the courtyard, they shook themselves and Erik held out some hope, but they simply looked back at him with terrified faces and moved as fast as their casts would let them.

  “I apologize for the test and also for not introducing myself. I am—”

  “Byron.”

  He smiled, pleased at having been recognized.

  “Yes. Tell me, does Matthias still talk about me?”

  “No. You just seem like the kind of person that would inspire that level of revulsion in people.”

  The smile dropped from Byron’s face. Then it returned brighter than ever.

  “So he does talk about me.”

  Erik rolled his eyes but kept Byron in his sight. He would not be surprised by a physical attack, but what worried him the most was the voice. How did one fight someone who could change your mind at will?

  “Don’t worry, it isn’t as easy on the Blooded for some reason. Most can shake off my commands in a day if not sooner. It didn’t even take you that long to see me.”

  “You mean you in the corner? Is that one of your tricks?”

  Now the smile dropped from Byron’s face and he took a step forward. Erik did not know why he was antagonizing the man, but it felt good to have a target he had no fear of hurting.

  “What did you want to say?”

  “How do you know I have anything to say?” The smug smile was back in place and Erik longed to bash it in with his fist. He could see himself doing it, the fist flying, the blood spray, and perhaps a tooth flying into the air. It calmed him.

  “Well, why else would you be here? To attack me? That would be stupid—much easier to arrange an accident at the meeting place. And if you wanted to have a simple conversation, you could have waited until the meeting as well. No, you had something to say that you didn’t want anyone from either side to hear, so what is it?”

  “Well I can see you’re going to be a fun one.”

  Erik gave him the thinnest smile in response and waited, letting the silence stretch on and on.

  “They’re not who you think they are.”

  Erik smiled in response and gestured for Byron to go on.

  “They aren’t the valiant resistance fighting a corrupt government or whatever. They’re violent isolationists who don’t want us to make any contact with another culture.”

  “Well, number one, I’m not part of the Organization, and number two, I’m pretty sure you already have contact. Also, wasn’t tha
t your group that was cleaning up after the Angelic tried to take that little girl?”

  “We were helping her. Her parents were not happy with the knowledge that their child was . . . special, so we decided to take her in the night before her parents had the chance to hurt her.”

  “Really? You guys thought the best way to save a child from an abusive situation was to scare the living daylights out of her with a monster?” This leaving aside the fact that Erik was fairly sure Melinda’s parents were nothing of the kind. Had heard from her own mouth how much she missed her mothers and how she loved family dinners. Though none of that exactly ruled out abuse. He resolved to ask her the next time he saw her.

  Byron gave a wry smile. “I never said we were the smartest, I said we had good intentions.”

  “Yeah, well, you know what they say about good intentions.”

  Byron’s shoulders slumped and he got a wry look on his face. If Erik didn’t know better he would say the man looked pained.

  “Look, it’s obvious you don’t trust me. Or us. Whatever. But I just wanted to ask you to keep an open mind for the time we’re working together. They haven’t shown you even a small fraction of what they truly are.”

  He kept saying that, they. Was he talking about the Organization? Or the Blooded?

  “Okay.” Erik had no intention of agreeing to anything this man said when the conversation started, but it was a simple enough request.

  Byron turned to leave. The morning sun caught the red highlights in his hair, so that the glow reminded Erik of blood.

  “Oh, one last thing.”

  Erik rolled his eyes. There was always “one last thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Have they told you why they’re so angry with me? Why they hate me so much more than any other Suit?”

  “Yeah, you killed an Agent.” Erik didn’t know this for sure but it was a fair guess.

  Byron smiled and it was like the devil was getting a handjob. “But they never mentioned who or what came before?”