SAGN: Chapter Ten-The Shadow Of Cincinnatus free porn video

Chapter Ten: The Shadow of Cincinnatus The Grove: Day Six, 1600 hours -------------------------------- *Sisters, can you hear me?* she again pleaded with the silence that was roiling her mind with its emptiness. When she finally had been able to rise after the mind link was broken, it was not just her own reaction to what she had witnessed there that had driven her to her knees. That may have been difficult for her to cope with, but it was nothing compared to the sudden silence that filled her mind in its aftermath. It was a terrifying sensation for her to experience such absolute stillness in her mind. Until now, there had been no single moment of her existence that had not been shadowed by the presence of her sisters. They had always been there in her thoughts. And even if she withdrew from them for her own privacy they were still there as a distant murmurs that comforted her and soothed her in its companionship. And now that murmur had ceased. For the first time in her life she could not hear the presence of her sisters there and in that solitude she began to comprehend how lonely their brothers, the race of men must be with only themselves inside of their thoughts. M'Tehr was still slowly making her way back from where she had parted from Singh and those who accompanied him. The impact of the vision that the Arath' Mahar had forced on them all still weighing heavily on her shoulders. Every fiber of her being trembled with the aftereffects of what she had just experienced. Two hundred years had come and gone for her. Two hundred years and she had never understood until now how it would feel to be an elderly human. How it would feel when just making the simple effort to take a step consumed your entire focus. It had been a blind spot that she could not comprehend and now in an instant she had a bare glimpse of how time's touch scarred them in its passing. She took each halting step back toward the Grove's heart and as she did she felt more insight into the things that drove her brother race gather and settle into her understanding. It was a tiring experience for her. She only thought she had known what that meant before, but now feeling a bone deep weariness fill her every fiber she understood that what she thought of as tired bore little relation to what she felt now. She took another halting step and stopped beside a young oak to lean against it for a moment. She had never had to do that before either. She had not understood what it meant to need that brief moment of support to be able to gather her strength to even be able to continue. It was yet another concept that she had difficulty with before that only recently she had begun to comprehend how it might influence her in ways subtle and direct. Grasping the totality of it since coming here had been a revelation in so many ways and she was finding that like experience it was often painfully acquired. *We are here,* the faint voices bubbled up in the silence of her mind and she shuddered against the sapling oak and if she had tears to give she would have shed them in her gratitude for the feeling of relief that hearing them gave her now. Her sisters had finally summoned enough strength to respond to her and their voices echoed in that weakened response in her mind. It was frail and fleeting and it was everything to M'Tehr. At best there were only a few voices that had joined together to speak with her. But it was enough to give her reason to rejoice. M'Tehr could hear her own weariness echoed in their voices, all who were linked to her had suffered the same force of the blow that the Arath' Mahar had dealt them. *Are you well sisters?* she asked them. She knew that they couldn't be. Not after what they all had been part of, but she needed to say the words. *We are weakened,* the few voices that spoke with her answered. *Many are still finding the strength to move, but we are here,* they said to her. Relief swelled in M'Tehr. She directed that feeling toward the ones who were able to speak with her now so that they might feel the depth of what words were insufficient to convey. Another voice joined in with the ones who had reached out to her. The Grove network; the linking of individual minds in connection and contact with each other was starting to re-form. For a single brief moment they had all existed only as the sum of themselves. They had witnessed a moment of creation together and it had been too much for them to bear when the vision released them. The shock of it had driven them apart and each had to come to grips with what it was that they saw with only their own experience to guide their understanding. For a single moment they were only individuals coping with something they could barely grasp. It was if the veil that shadowed everything that had stood dimly understood before now had been lifted to burn them in the brightness it had shaded them from. And in the glare of that light everything they thought they knew could only cower and accept what it was that was revealed in all its glory. *It is not as we thought,* she said although that was more spoken to herself than to her sisters. *It is not,* the few voices that had rejoined her agreed. *It is more.* *Can we accept what we have seen?* M'Tehr asked them. *We can do nothing else,* they answered and that in itself was of more meaning somehow. It was a decision that was made by each sister in the solitude of her own existence and somehow made more meaningful by doing so. M'Tehr felt strong enough to continue and she thanked the oak for allowing her to rest against it. She started to hobble toward where Jacen waited for her feeling more voices of sisters everywhere joining into the chorus that bubbled in her mind. *But now we must ask ourselves the vital question. Will the men see it as we do?* she asked, again more for her own ears than for theirs. *How can they not?* the ragged chorus asked in her mind. *Some will not believe. They are not as we are,* she answered *There are always some who will refuse to do so, even to the moment that disbelief should not be entertained any longer. Some will always refuse. For them it is too much to accept, the last step that they cannot take no matter how necessary it is.* *And is the one who speaks for the men of this breed?* they asked. *Is he one of those who will stand against us now?* Their voices were stronger now in her thoughts. More and more of her lesser sisters were recovering from the experience of the Arath' Mahar's vision and rejoining their voices to their sisters. *He is not one of those,* M'Tehr answered. *He has always been one who has borne the burden of knowing what is coming as long as I have known him. He will not balk now that it is here. He understands what he saw and he will do what he needs to do now that it is here.* *Will he speak for us as well before his own kind?* they asked. *Has he the strength to do this?* *I think he is one that does,* M'Tehr said to them. *But his path will not be clear, not for some time. It will be a chancy thing for him now. It will be dangerous for all of us.* *Others will oppose then?* her sisters asked. M'Tehr regretfully told them that they would. One thing that the Grove had as its great strength was that all of them everywhere shared their understanding of things and that unity purged of misunderstanding gave them a common purpose to draw from. It was not the smothering of conformity, there were dissenting opinions with their understanding, but there was also understanding of why that difference existed. Theirs was not a hive mind as some others believed that tolerated only the acceptance of one belief regardless of the truth of it; but it did have its limitations even so. What M'Tehr had to confront with her sisters now was one of those limitations. As a group, the Grove network had difficulty not accepting what something was once the evidence for it was made clear. To refuse to accept the truth of something because they did not agree with its conclusions or for their own personal reasons was an alien concept to them. That men did so frequently was a source of great confusion to them at times. That was one of the reasons that dryads such as M'Tehr walked among them and with them; that the experience that they gained from trying to understand their brother race might serve the needs of the Grove. *How could they oppose what must be done?* they asked her. *Some will,* she answered them. *For them conflict will be the first choice. This may be too much for them to accept.* *We will not allow this Grove to Wither. What was precious before because it was thought to be lost is even more precious now that it has been found. If they oppose it will fracture the Concord.* *It is precious,* she agreed with them, *and we must do everything to protect it. This Grove will stand. It is the harbinger and everything that is to come lies in its shadow. Friend Singh understands this and he understands that the Concord hangs on this one moment as well.* *Will the other men understand this?* they asked her. *Will they understand all the way to the root that we can do nothing else and still stand under the Concord? Will they accept it?* *Friend Singh understands,* she told them again. *In this he will speak for us, he kens to the root what we have seen.* *Will his words be enough?* they asked her. *Will he be able to stand against his own who will not?* *They may be enough,* she said to them. *But he has more than words with which to use on both of our behalf's. He may even not need to use all that he can, but I fear that may not be possible. His brothers may be more intractable than we would wish.* *Let him do what he will do then, sister.* they said after pausing to consider her words. *Safeguarding the Arath' Mahar and her Grove is what we will do. That is our will.* *That is our will,* she murmured in agreement. Her sisters fell silent for now. They had withdrawn to continue discussion amongst themselves and leave her in such peace as they could so that she could focus on what needed doing here. Behind her the path was swallowed up by the undergrowth as she continued to hobble back. Back to Jacen who was standing watch over the Arath' Mahar and waiting for her return. ------------------------------------ The Arath' Mahar was still unconscious when she returned. As she expected Jacen was hovering over her. She should not have really expected a different sight. It had only been a few minutes since she had left them both to escort the men out of the Grove. Still she needed to ask. "Has there been any change Jacen?" she asked the big satyr. Jacen shook his heavy head and said that there had not been and then asked after her own wellbeing. She assured him that she was recovering and would soon return to strength, but she could tell from the look in his eyes that he did not fully accept her assurances. In truth she could little blame him for doubting her. The force of the Arath' Mahar's mind sharing had been like standing unblinking in the maw of a typhoon for her. And to think that only this morning that she had doubted that her sister might be able to even do such a thing with just her alone. M'Tehr shuddered in the memory of that power and was grateful that Arath' Mahar had refused her entreaty to mentally join with her before. Her reluctance, a reluctance that M'Tehr in her blindness was starting to take for inability, was well understood by her now for what it was. The Arath' Mahar had not ventured to do such a thing because she could not, but because she could she could do so on a level that M'Tehr still had difficulty comprehending. Even after she had seen with her own eyes as sister forged her own being out of what she was and the living energy of the world itself, she still had difficulty grasping the totality of it all. The idea of opening her entire being and allowing the full force of the living world around her to flow through her unchecked; to smother her in its full sum of existence. That was something that she would never conceive of doing for any reason. She had lived her entire life seeing what it was in its naked essence all around her every time she walked in the aether. Her lone existence was little more than that of a flea riding the largest of animals compared to the life that made up the entirety of what was contained in the aether. There was too much there for her to envisage herself tapping into and allowing herself to be subsumed by. And now that she had witnessed it happening, now that she knew that such a thing could even be done; she knew she would never attempt to do so herself. If she did, she would make the error of thinking that she could control it and she would fail and be swept away with it. No dryad that was living today could do such a thing and survive. This was something that she knew down into the very seed of her being. Neither M'Tehr nor any sister in the living line of dryads could do this. They were too far removed from their own Arath' Mahar. The generations that had passed to bring her to this moment had distanced her from the pure font of her own wellspring. She was not the same as her sister and in recognizing that she realized how far she had come from where her line began. The Arath' Mahar could do this thing and M'Tehr never would. She could reach into the living essence of the world around her and handle it as easily as a child played with river clay, but only because she was formed out of it. Arath' Mahar was part of the life of the world and she took it into her palms and channeled it without needing to fear it because she was part of it. M'Tehr was only a distant descendant of one who had once done so. She knelt and laid her hand on the unconscious form of the woman cradled by the elm's roots. "She is not as we thought she was," Jacen said to her slowly his words echoing her own spoken earlier. "When we spoke before, when I could not find the body of the other man that the humans sought I was inclined to agree with you when she first told you of her memories return. I thought then that if a small part of what she was telling us was true, that it was nothing more than what remained of a man completely devoured by her while she was lost in her nature. That her memories were all that was left after one of their kind trod where they should not. That if they were true that man had been shattered for doing so. But this is much more. She is much more, so much more." "She is," M'Tehr agreed. "And all saw as well?" he asked her. "They did, dear Jacen. They saw and they understand what it was that she showed us. There is no doubt of it. There was a Grove here long ago. That Grove did Wither, as it could not fail to do in that time, and only the memory of it remained. Those memories held by the trees were here for her to find in her desperation. I think the Grove that was; the sisters, who perished with it, would be pleased that they were kept close to those who grew here afterward. That out of that memory of them their home was reborn in this fashion." "The second voice was not a revenant sister," he said. "After thinking only of that as the one true explanation for that mind, it is hard to accept that it was never so." "Jacen, that is an idea that we need to let slip away now. It was only a hope and now that we have seen otherwise we have what is real given to us to protect. "She answered him, "I thought as you did, that the mind we encountered was that of our awakened sister; but the truth is otherwise. It was only that part of her that she clove away in her desperation, that part of her that kept some small fraction of her whole while the rest of her mind shattered." She looked up into the branches of the elm spreading over them. "That small part of her that had been mixed with her Phar' ador's essence and in absence of other direction allowed its function to dictate her form. Its memories of what had been lost brought her to us. She was formed here because of what she did and she is heir to this fallen Grove as much as she would have been if she were one of its daughters that perished." "It will still cause conflict," Jacen said. "The men will look at her and see this Grove as a threat. What they do when they perceive a threat, what they do when fear of the unknown is facing them does not give hope to me that this difference can be resolved easily. Once it becomes apparent to them what the outcome of these last days finally are bending toward, once it becomes clear to them they will respond." "It is unavoidable," M'Tehr repeated to him. "Does it need to be so?" he asked. "I have no choice but to think that is so," she said to him. "I have told my sisters as much. As I have told them that we do not stand alone." "What can we do then?" Jacen asked. He was standing by her side looking down on the Arath' Mahar. "We protect her," M'Tehr answered. "As we must, as we will. We protect her and guide her as best we can. In some ways my friend, nothing has really changed. Our charge remains the same." Jacen looked at her and did not answer. He did that sometimes. It was a way of inviting her to verbalize her thoughts and in that fashion bring order to them by speaking them aloud. "We came here seeking a sister that was lost to us. We found a sister who was lost. She was just lost in a way that we had not considered." Jacen nodded in silent agreement with M'Tehr's words. No matter how different her form was from what they expected to find that was never something that he was in doubt of. When he saw the knotted and twisted cocoon of vines and roots that contained the missing man, he had recognized it at once for what it was; the result of a dryad's mating. Every nymph he had ever seeded had bound him in a similar fashion when she had successfully consummated their procreation. But even knowing that, even after looking at the remains of what the man's form had become after they had drawn him from its woody depths he had no doubt of who and what she was and had known that there had to be more to her than his sisters thought. Indeed, Jacen had marveled when the man's face had emerged from the mass of vine and earth that she hadn't killed him outright in her need. That binding would have taken him even longer to work free from than the one that she had used with him and he had rarely felt it's like before. It must have been a terrible thing to be a mortal man and the sole focus of that need; it had been terrible enough for him when she was moderated in the small way she had been by M'Tehr being nearby. Terrible and exhilarating at the same time. "We sought to protect a restored Grove. This Grove fell and now a Grove is restored and our charge is the same. We found a sister who did not know herself, who needed us to connect with what she is, and that has not changed. All that has changed is that now we know what we have found and how much more importance safeguarding it has become for us." M'Tehr laid her other hand on the elm and entreated it to take her sister inside to rest. The two of them watched as the tree drew her into its depths and then they were alone. "Come for me Jacen when she awakens, there is much that needs to be done when she does and the time we have to do it in is not as long as we wish it was," M'Tehr leaned on her staff and began to make her way through the forest to the oak that sheltered her. As she passed out of sight, Jacen remained where he was and kept himself company with his own thoughts. -------------------------------------- Grove Containment Zone: Day Six, 1600 hours Jim was starting to feel less like the world was spinning out of control around him. As long as he remained still on the hard, woven, dark green fabric of the stretcher and didn't try to move the vertigo was starting to fade. Mitch was strapped into a similar stretcher secured to locking pins in the floor of the military style ambulance next to him. Singh was at their feet, he was sitting in a metal and fabric seat that unfolded from the wall where it normally was secured. Across from him the E.M.T. rode silently in a similar folding seat. It seemed to Jim that he could feel each crack and every distortion in the pavement of the road. He could even feel the coughing, throbbing rumble of the ambulance's powerful engine. It was not as if the ambulance was rocketing over bumpy, rough terrain as it had been designed to do. In point of fact, the road was not really any different than the one that stretched in front of his own home. It was that his wounded mind was perceiving each imperfection in the road surface in a highly exaggerated fashion and even in the kaleidoscope of dizziness that he felt, Jim found a moment to be grateful that he was on a paved road; if they truly had been in a place such as this vehicle had been designed for, it may well have killed him or at least felt that way anyway. The ambulance bore them away from the Grove, it's steady pace ate up the distance and Jim wondered where it was that it was taking them. It couldn't be the command tent that they had departed from; that was only a short distance away from where they were loaded into this snorting lumbering beast. Did it even matter where they were being taken? Lying on the fabric of the stretcher, still encased save for his head in the protective suit, Jim couldn't really see how it mattered. The engine groaned and Jim felt them turn and begin climbing a slight incline. The front of the ambulance dipped downward and Jim could feel the shift of gravity as his head inclined with the new direction that the vehicle was moving toward. It was only a brief feeling, the ambulance leveled off almost immediately and Jim guessed that there had been a slight hump in the road leading into wherever they were going to. The ambulance stopped reversed slightly and then adjusted in some small slight ways before the diesel engine abruptly shuddered and ceased. It seemed they were here. Now that the rumbling diesel was no longer drowning out other lesser noises, Jim could hear the sounds of people speaking outside. Their voices carried through the thin walls. There was a grinding sound and the latches that secured the rear doors were unlocked and then bright sunlight as they were pulled open. The ladder that had been folded up when they were loaded in was swung down with a creaking of metal hinges and the E.M.T clambered down it and offered to help Singh down. "That won't be necessary, thank you very much," Singh said and slowly made his way down the heavy ladder; the springs lurched upward slightly as the weight of both men was removed and Jim felt his consciousness swirl in response to the sudden movement. "Unload detective Travers first if you will," he heard Singh say to the men, "His reaction is slightly more severe than detective Brighton's and he would benefit from more immediate attention." 'That's a matter of opinion,' Jim thought. As much as he was concerned over his partner's well being, right now he found it hard to concentrate on the suffering of someone else at the moment; his own suffering was more than enough to occupy his attention thank you. There was a metallic clicking as the locking pins were released and then the upward motion of the springs as the stretcher was slid backward toward the open doors and removed from the vehicle. Damn you Singh! Jim thought feeling his vertigo wash over him erasing whatever relief he had begun to feel. Singh heard him too, he was sure of that, but right now he didn't care that he did. All he wanted was for the world to stop spinning. There was another sound of pins snapping free and then a lurch as his own stretcher was jolted into motion. I take it back Singh, this is worse, he thought as the nausea returned with the vertigo and he could feel the vomit coiling inside of him only moments away from being expelled. Singh loomed into his field of vision. "It will pass detective Brighton," he said to him in reassurance as they walked away from the ambulance. "Don't try to do anything other than let the sensations fade." There was nothing more that Jim wanted at that moment then for exactly that to happen. There was the upper traverse of a door jamb passing in his sight as he was carried into the building. "See to it that both of them are undisturbed as much as possible. What they just experienced must be allowed to fade. Time and rest is all that will do that," Singh said. Jim heard the men carrying him acknowledge their instructions and heard the hollow thudding of their boots against the tile floor as the tiles of a suspended ceiling passed overhead. From the echoes that he could hear around him the door had led into a large open room. There were a lot of other noises as well from the office machinery around them and from the people who were crowded into the space as well. The sounds faded as the two men carried him down a hallway and then put him down in a small room that looked to Jim as if it had been converted into a temporary sleeping quarters. Hands gently but firmly stripped the protective suit off of him and then moved him until he was laying on his side and he cursed them for doing it even though he knew that they had been as careful as they could with him. Mitch's stretcher had been placed a few feet away and it looked as though they had done the same thing to him as they had done to Jim. They don't want us to pass out and choke on our own vomit he thought. He appreciated the concern, but he still didn't forgive them for moving him. The door closed as the men left and Jim was left to navigate the shoals of his vertigo in what silence that there was. ----------------------------------------- "What happened sir?" Agent Fitzhugh asked Singh. Singh didn't answer right away and asked her instead if there was an office prepared that they might use. Fitzhugh acknowledged that there was and started leading him through the knots of men and women clustered around tables into the crowded community center. They had only just finished converting it into the Area Command and Control and it showed in its raw adaptation to its new role. They passed through the clustered knots of men and women until they came to the glass door that separated the room it led into from the rest of the building. It was still somewhat cluttered, the director of the Alagosta Gardens community center may have been evicted from his lair, but all the F.R.T. had done was shift his things out of the way. Singh settled gratefully into the director's executive chair and sighed. "Oh that is so much better," he said. He looked across the desk at Fitzhugh who was still waiting to hear his answer. "See that detectives Brighton and Travers are left undisturbed as much as possible. Have someone check them every twenty minutes, but do not disturb either of them unless necessary." "I'll see that it's done sir," Fitzhugh replied crisply. "Tell whoever checks on them that both men were swallowed up in a broadcast telepathic vision. One that included not only the full range of visual and auditory stimuli, but its full empathic range as well. One whose power I shudder now to even recall. It may be best to have someone with the medical staff alerted regarding both men's condition and tasked to do so. Someone familiar with the effects of having such an event forced upon an unprepared mind. Unless that staff doctor recommends other treatment, then allow them to rest and regain their strength," Singh said. Fitzhugh made a note on a small notepad that she took out of her inner pocket. "Has the advisory committee been assembled yet?" he asked. "Yes sir," she answered. "A committee of five has been assembled and is on its way here for you to brief. The committee members were notified that there would be a delay in meeting until you had returned." "And who are the persons that are included in this committee?" he asked. Fitzhugh flipped through some more pages in her notebook until she found the relevant data. "From the Stafford police department, Lt. Belinda Clayton. From the Governor's office there is a Jacob Meyers, some sort of staffer, an assistant to the Governor I believe. Stafford Mayor Andre Watson and a Marla Ramirez from the Civil Defense office. And lastly, an Alderman Matthew Kinsey. As I understand it he was included in the panel because the quarantine zone is in the center of his district." "Thank you Agent Fitzhugh, have the relevant briefing materials been prepared for them?" "Yes sir," she answered. "The materials as well as the updated and projected data. Everything we have now is waiting in the conference room." "Very well then, thank you for your efforts Agent Fitzhugh, the professionalism and attention to detail that you and your team have shown thus far during this crisis is of considerable assistance. I commend you all for it." "Thank you sir," she responded. "I'll make certain to let the entire team know that." "Agent Fitzhugh, there is another matter as well if I may bring it to your attention." "Yes sir? What would that be?" she said. "Detective Brighton made a shrewd observation before we entered the Grove earlier. Inform the drone operators to immediately begin targeting random drones that are carrying conventional cameras. Not all of them, but enough so that the fact that we are targeting those with a night vision capacity is obscured." "I'll see to it first thing," she said. "Now unless there is something that requires my personal attention I would prefer to rest if I can the vision that has incapacitated detectives Brighton and Travers has also had its effect on me as well. Please inform me when the advisory council arrives," Singh finished. "I'll see that you're informed immediately upon their arrival sir," she said and turned to leave the office. As she closed the door behind her Singh leaned back into the padded chair and closed his eyes. He'd neglected to ask her how many members of the advisory council were aware of the full scope of what it was that they were dealing with. That information was something that he could query her about when they arrived though. It would be certain that some members of the board would just be hearing about the existence of the Fae during this meeting and he had little time to waste on dispelling their disbelief. Singh wished that Pantra were by his side right now, but that was not possible. She was now completely swallowed by the silk of her healing cocoon and would be unreachable until she emerged from it; if she emerged from it as the same person at all. Singh missed her presence greatly, as he had since she was struck down. Not only would her company be of comfort and support to him, he missed her personally. Aside from those considerations which were of more importance to him personally, she could have also provided instant confirmation that what he had to tell the council was in fact truth and not fantasy, but he would have to soldier on without her for the nonce. It was a good thing that Lt. Clayton was on the council, he thought. She would be an ally; especially since she had already had frequent contact with what the council faced in one way or another and it made sense for the commissioner to assign her to it when he was requested to send a representative to join its ranks. The mayor himself participating was also not a surprising choice. As the chief administrator for the city, what was decided here would fall most heavily on his shoulders to implement, although being an elected official he may not have been fully informed of as much about the Fae as he could be. He would have to ask Fitzhugh to check for him. The representative from the Governor also was expected. His responsibility was to the state that surrounded Stafford and what happened here was as much his concern as it was Singh's. As for the man that had been sent that person was an unknown. The man may or may not know just what it was that he was here to take part in fully, but Singh didn't think that the governor would send someone to represent him that was unaware of what he should expect. As part of the Civil Defense office, this Marla Ramirez would also be privy to knowledge about the full nature of the Fae, so he would not have to waste any time trying to convince her of their existence at least. The Civil Defense office would have to be staffed by fools indeed if they sent a representative that was ignorant of the Fae and if that was the case then the city would have even greater problems dealing with this crisis if that were so. Ms. Ramirez could also prove to be an ally, but he would have to wait to see if that would indeed be the case. Alderman Matthew Kinsey was not who Singh would have expected to be appointed to the advisory council, but there was logic in the choice. Olympia was mostly his political fiefdom and whatever was decided by these events and at this council would have far ranging implications for him and his constituents. Still Singh wished that another had been chosen. He knew of Kinsey already by reputation and that reputation was not flattering. Singh leaned back further in the chair closed his eyes and waited. ------------------------------------------- There was a soft knock on the door and Singh jolted at the sound and realized that he had been dozing. "Come in," he said. The door opened and Agent Fitzhugh entered and quickly closed it behind her. "Sir, the advisory council has arrived. They are being shown to the briefing room that we have prepared." "Thank you Agent Fitzhugh," Singh replied. "And detectives Brighton and Travers?" "They are continuing to rest, the person I spoke with from the medical detachment informed me that he would arrive shortly, but that for the time being for us to continue to do as you instructed until he could examine them," she said. "Are the latest estimates of the projected situation with the expansion of the Grove prepared?" He asked. "Yes sir, they are linked in real time to the database, if there is any change that is noted it will be reflected there," she responded. "Excellent and how many of the council members are numbered among those with special knowledge of what it is that we face?" he asked. Fitzhugh consulted her notes again and responded almost immediately. "Lt. Clayton and Ms. Ramirez have a level three awareness, Mayor Watson possesses level two awareness and Mr. Meyer holds a level four clearance. Only Alderman Kinsey has neither an awareness level nor a clearance level. Should we request that another be appointed in his place sir?" "No, Agent Fitzhugh," Singh said rising to his feet and beginning to strip off the protective suit. "That would only cause needless distraction and delay at this point as well as fan the flame of resentment. None of which we can have while we must remain focused on the task at hand. Alderman Kinsey is going to have to learn that he lives in a much wider world is all and perhaps he may become the better for it. Although from what I know of the man, I have doubts that will be the case. Is there anything else I should be aware of before I meet with the council?" he asked finishing removing the suit. "Only that the glamour concealing the situation in the Grove ceased to function for nearly half an hour after you and the detectives were evacuated from the area. We immediately increased our aerial presence and we may have been able to conceal its absence, but that is not a promise sir," she said. "That should have been expected I suppose. That glamour is being maintained and directed by both M'Tehr and Jacen and they, like the rest of the Grove network that were present through her, were rocked by what was revealed to us all. Little surprise then that their contribution to our efforts here was allowed to slip for a time. Is the glamour back in operation now?" he asked. "Yes sir, it resumed function twenty-eight point four minutes after it failed and has been in constant operation ever since," she said crisply. "Good, continue with the increased level of drone patrols, let any observers think that we are merely increasing our security rather than fostering concealment." "How long should we continue with the increased patrol levels sir?" she asked. "Several more hours I think, Agent Fitzhugh, then reduce them and schedule random times of increased patrol activity. Let those who are looking in think that what we are doing is simply a security measure that we already intended to implement." "I'll see that it is taken care of sir," Fitzhugh said. Singh followed her out of the office and through the crowded room. The pair of them wove their way through the busy team and turned down the hallway that ran past where Jim and Mitch had been taken. At the end of the hallway was a pair of industrial style double doors that led into the basketball court that made up the majority of the community center. Right now the basketball court had been converted into a barracks, medical section and mess area for the members of the F.R.T that were billeted here. Those sections that were off duty occupied their time with sleeping on the cots sandwiched knee to elbow as close to each other as could be managed, eating the food that was prepared by sinking T-rations into immersion heaters and then opened and served on long folding tables. Between meeting those needs of sleep, food and duty; the members of the detachment occupied themselves with finding what amusements as they could during their down time. Through the large open windows at the far end of the cavernous space Singh could see where other large tents had been erected on the soccer field just outside to house those that had not found a berth inside the cavernous building. Along the far wall of the basketball court were several enclosed rooms, the largest of them had been set aside for the use of the advisory council. There were two agents on duty flanking each side of the door leading into the room. As they approached the maroon painted door, the two agents became even more alert and a third one rose from a small desk nearby reached for the binder in front of him and moved to intercept them. The agent met them while they were about three meters from the entrance and asked them for their identification. Singh and Fitzhugh both produced theirs quickly and handed it to the man. He peered intently at both of their faces and then looked at the identification. Singh was pleased to see him doing this before allowing them entry. Not many agents had the ability to see through glamour and it was good that one had been secured for this assignment. Once both of their identities had been confirmed the agent handed them back their identification cards and stepped away. The pair flanking the door relaxed slightly. As they approached one of the agents moved to open the door for them and then resumed his position. When the door opened into the small conference room the slight buzz of conversation ceased as the two of them entered. There were an additional two agents posted along the back of the wall facing the entrance. A long table had been set in the center of the room itself and each of the council members were seated behind hastily prepared nameplates. The nameplates sat silently in front of them and were flanked with pads of paper, pens and small bottles of water. Briefing materials were in folders in front of each person and most of the folders lay open where they had been perused by the council before Singh arrived. The curtains had been drawn in front of the wire embedded window that looked out on the basketball court and there was the slight odor of the storage room that this place had been until recently lingering in the air. A large flat screen television on a wheeled table had been set up opposite of the table connected to a computer and a secure wireless connection to the F.R.T. database. Singh crossed the room and picked up the remote control that was lying in front of the computer and opened the briefing materials he would need. There was a slight whine as the computer responded to the higher demand running the programs made. Singh turned to face the table. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. If you are sufficiently prepared I can begin this briefing." "By all means, we've been kept waiting for far too long as it is sir." That was Alderman Kinsey that spoke; Singh recognized his voice although he had not had the occasion to actually meet the man before now. "The delay was unavoidable I fear. Once you hear what I have to impart to you all, you will have a better idea of the scope of the current situation," Singh said to him in response, although he knew even as he spoke that it was only a response to an exaggerated claim on the Alderman's part. They had in fact been kept waiting little more than the few minutes that it had taken for him to be summoned here and pass through the security protocols to enter this room. Alderman Kinsey was apparently, for his own reasons, seeking to put Singh on the defensive right away. "I should certainly hope so," Kinsey responded. "This entire operation has been a black hole as far as proper oversight is concerned, and that sir, is an unacceptable situation. One of the many things this council intends to rectify today. Of that you can be certain. Now, you have been summoned to this council today to..." "A point of order, if I may Alderman Kinsey," Singh interrupted, "but I have not been summoned anywhere. This council has been formed to address the situation that has consumed our efforts at containment and resolution. I am here to provide information and advice that the council needs to know so that it may make the proper recommendations as to how the higher civil authorities should facilitate those efforts," Singh said to him before he could continue. "Be that as it may, sir," he said trying to lean forward over the table in an imposing manner, "but this council is formed now and that is a determination that we will make. Now if you will identify yourself we can get started now." Singh could see that this was already going to be a trial. Kinsey had tried to put him on the defensive immediately and now it was clear that he was trying to brandish the authority of the council to overawe him. Clearly he had made an error in judgment is just what this body was here for, but for now correcting him in that regard would have to wait. "Ladies and gentlemen of the F.R.T. Advisory council, I am Special Detective Armin Singh. I hold this position with the Stafford Police Department and I am currently the department laison on special assignment with the Federal Response Team," he began making it clear by his tone that he did so because that was what he was here for and not because Kinsey had demanded it. "What I have to tell you this afternoon, some of you will be hearing for the first time, while others will have differing levels of knowledge concerning what I am to impart to you," Singh began. Kinsey was the only one that had no recorded exposure to the Fae, but if Singh were to point that out the man would likely resent that he was the most ignorant one here and become even more combative than he had already demonstrated that he was willing to be. ----------------------------- Matthew Kinsey already didn't like the short squat little man who had introduced himself as Special Detective Singh. First he breezed in here after keeping them all waiting for hours and then he had the gall to act like the few minutes of quiet in the pathetic excuse for a council meeting room actually counted as not delaying them since he was in to meet them only moments after they had been shoved into this shoebox that was hidden in the middle of a damned armed camp. And just who were these interlopers from the so-called F.R.T. anyway? As much as they resembled a military operation they were no part of the military that he was aware of and even if they were, what right did they have to even be here anyway? This whole thing was nothing more than some kind of power grab by those people. He was certain of it and if he had anything to do with it, then it was going to be shut down in jig time. There were a lot more important things that needed to be done then humoring this collection of fools while they went off chasing windmills. And that fellow Singh was going to have to learn that fact most of all he thought as he started in with his blather about secret knowledge. The only thing secret that he could see about this whole thing was that they were hiding what they really were doing here and that was their bad luck that they tried to include him in those that they had roped into this fool's circus. Singh, he wondered as he let most of what the man with the iron grey mustache was saying roll over him, just what kind of man was he with that kind of name anyway? Probably some kind of foreigner who had no good right to be here. And that whole Special Detective title that he threw around was probably nothing more than a sop thrown to keep other's who had no right to even be here in the first place happy. More than likely this fellow was some token idiot that was wasting time and money that could have better been used addressing the real problem the city had instead of indulging his imagination. Until now he had never heard of it even existing and now that he had he intended to see what he could do about clearing away some deadwood from the city infrastructure and he was already pretty sure he knew which branch it was that he should start with. ----------------------------- Singh looked at the assembled council noting how it was arranged as he spoke to them. Alderman Kinsey had seated himself in the center of the row of chairs. He was clearly trying to assume preeminence by doing so. That matched what he had already known of the blustering politician before today. Mayor Watson was seated to his left and the governor's representative, Mr. Meyer was placed to his right. Lt. Clayton was at the far left of the table and Ms. Ramirez, the Civil Defense office representative was on the far right. Both of the women were about the same age, somewhere in their mid- thirties. Ms. Ramirez was the older of the two he thought but not by very much. Mr. Meyer was a man of short stature who wore old fashioned metal rimmed glasses and had regarded Singh with an intent interest since he had begun speaking. Considering his own level of clearance and his relationship to the governor he had more reason to claim leadership of the council than Alderman Kinsey seemed to have done; but he had declined to do so. That spoke well of him to Singh. It suggested that he was more interested in what he was going to hear than in posturing over who was more important in this room. Mayor Watson was an older man in his early fifties. Before becoming mayor he had been involved in several moderately successful businesses, usually as an investor. His family was the local equivalent of old money and other members of his family had taken turns gracing the mayor's office from time to time before it was his turn to do so. Singh didn't really think of the man most of the time. He seemed for the most part a competent enough person and there had not been anything he had been involved in that cast suspicions on him as long as he had been in the public spotlight, but upon meeting him now in person Singh could tell one thing about him that he didn't think was generally known. He was a man that tried to work with the general consensus and that under these circumstances may make him weak in ways. The man who Singh judged that he was weakest in relation to was sitting next to him at the centre of the table. Alderman Kinsey was a tall man with a big frame. He was only a couple of years younger than Mayor Watson. He had graying sandy hair and a hawk nose. He had the frame of someone who had played high school football and had not let his physical condition deteriorate as much as others his age did. He was also from a family with old money in its pedigree, he had held his current position for nearly twenty years and he was also spent almost as much of that time as a real estate developer who owned the majority of the rental units in the area. His family having bought many of them outright from the Alagosta Mills when it shuttered its doors. He had been making a name for himself as a developer and was one of the driving forces behind the current revitalization of the part of Olympia that he represented. "For some of you what I am about to tell you will come as a surprise, perhaps even a shock...?" "It could hardly be more shocking than the behavior we have witnessed by this F.R.T over the last few days Detective Singh," Kinsey said deliberately interrupting him. Singh looked at the big man who was attempting to overawe and intimidate him and gazed directly into his eyes as he did so. He was no longer going to play this game with Kinsey. Kinsey locked eyes back with him and tried to stare him down. "If I may be allowed to continue without interruption Alderman Kinsey, this briefing would proceed much more quickly. There will be sufficient time for questions presently, but I will have to ask you to cease these interruptions, sir," he said firmly. Mayor Watson leaned over and whispered to Kinsey making him break his eye connection with Singh. Singh saw a scowl start to darken Kinsey's face, but he controlled it and made it vanish quickly. Clearly he was the type that would regard having to give ground for any reason as a sign of weakness and being a natural born bully, he didn't like it when anything like that happened. Singh resisted the urge to dip into his mind briefly to see just what it was that was animating the man's obvious hostility, but he made a rule not to do that in most cases and for the most part he was able to hew to that rule. "Now, if we may continue," he said eyeing the Alderman specifically. "The first detail that every one of you should be aware of is that this situation is very different from what you might believe that it is. That difference is that the reason for the response that the Alderman has noted. The difference being that there is a great deal of involvement in this matter with creatures that are believed by the general population to be nothing more than relics from mythology." "Upon hearing what I have to tell you, some of you may dismiss the existence of these creatures, but I assure you this is not the case at all. Approximately four days ago whilst conducting a missing persons investigation, my partner, I and two other detectives with the Stafford police department whom we were assisting with certain troubling aspects of that and a related case stumbled on a hitherto unsuspected Grove in the vicinity of Magnolia Circle." His thumb clicked against the remote and an aerial display of the location of the Grove and Magnolia Circle was displayed behind him. "In making the discovery of that Grove we found ourselves unexpectedly under attack by its inhabitant and were forced to withdraw to a safe distance as well as being forced leave my partner Special Detective Pantra behind after she had been injured in the melee. I immediately instituted a code Bravo-Three-Seven-Four as well as issuing the code phrase 'firefly down' indicating that a Special Detective, specifically a Fae officer had been killed or injured." "I and the other two detectives with me, Detective Jim Brighton and Detective Mitchell Travers, began to conduct an evacuation first of Magnolia Circle and then as additional officers of the Stafford police department arrived, we widened and expanded that evacuation area to include the surrounding four streets to the east, west, north and south as are indicated on the map here," he said highlighting the image on the screen." "According to the Bravo-Three-Seven-Four protocol the dispatching agent continued to direct all available officers to our position, alerted our superiors and contacted the Grove representative in the capitol and requested that an emissary immediately be dispatched to this location to assist us." While we waited for this emissary to arrived, the three of us oversaw the initial quarantine of the affected area. The responsibility for its supervision at this time was mine and mine alone. When the F.R.T. advance team arrived early the next morning I turned over the control of the quarantined zone to Agent Fitzhugh who is responsible for maintaining it currently." "During the early evening the Grove representative and an additional associate arrived and were briefed by me regarding the current situation. The Grove emissary confirmed that we had indeed encountered a previously unknown dryad..." "Excuse me detective, did you just say a dry add? Just what is it that you are asking this council to believe?" Kinsey said interrupting him again. "Alderman Kinsey, if you will be patient I will address that once I have made certain that the entire council is familiar with both what has necessitated this action as well as its current status. Now if I may continue," he said. Mayor Watson leaned over and whispered to Kinsey again. Kinsey frowned but he didn't venture to speak again. ----------------------------------- He had to be going mad. That was the only explanation for what he was hearing. This clearly incompetent idiot was engage in blowing a volcano's worth of smoke up their collective asses and the others on this council were just sitting there in silence and actually listening to it like it was something to be taken seriously and not the ravings of a disordered mind that had overdosed on too many moonbeams and utter bullshit pumped out by equally obsessed idiots. Who did this moron think he was if he thought that Alderman Matthew Kinsey was going to swallow this load of crap that he was serving up to them? And that stuff about the so-called Fae? Utter nonsense. Everyone with a functioning brain knew that the so-called Fae were nothing but excuses dreamed up by ignorant fools back when people didn't know enough about how the world worked to even wipe their asses properly without supervision. When he had been forced in school to listen to the tripe that ignorant peasants had dreamed up to explain their own failures as men he had immediately recognized it for what it was. Nothing more than a collection of fairy tales that those losers told their betters in a failed attempt to explain their own incompetence. In his opinion the best thing those people who really mattered back then could have done was make an example of that sort. One that would have gotten through to the rest of the liars and loafers that you kept a whip hovering over them just to get a decent days work out of them. If it had been him back then that is just what he would have done the moment someone dared to wave that pathetic excuse for their own worthlessness in his face. If only someone had the guts to do that back then he was certain that this harebrained lunacy would have been long forgotten by now. But it hadn't been and because it hadn't there was a fresh crop of idiots believed in it, just like the one standing in front of him now. New age fools who only existed to get in the way of what really mattered in this country and who always were making a fresh nuisance of themselves every time one of them got their panties in a twist over something that was none of their business in the first place. And then there was Andre. He couldn't have believed before today that Andre was weak minded enough to be taken in by this utter foolishness but there he was going along with it and even worse siding with that moron who was wasting their time when they should be busy shutting this all down as quickly as possible. He had to be going mad that was the only explanation for what he was seeing and hearing right now. ------------------------------ "This dryad was suspected at the time of being a revenant, a member of the Grove that was in deep hibernation and had for some reason been revived, we have since learned that is not entirely the case as I will inform you shortly." "The Grove emissary, Hamadryad M'Tehr of the Morleth Phar' entered the Grove and attempted to calm this suspected revenant along with the assistance of her associate Jacen, in this they were eventually successful." "Once they had managed to reduce the danger to the general public caused by the situation, they endeavored to locate not only my fallen partner Special Detective Pantra, but also to ascertain the whereabouts of one of the missing men that we had entered the Grove in search of." "In this they were successful. Special Detective Pantra was located quickly and transported to the intensive care unit of Mercy General Hospital. According to the doctors who are presently overseeing her case they are quite hopeful that she will recover although she has not regained consciousness." "The missing man we were searching for, one Hank Phillips was also located and returned to us by M'Tehr a few hours later. He was transported also to Mercy General, where he remains in critical condition under the strictest of quarantine measures stemming from unexpected complications in his current condition. I will not go deeper into those complications at this time. If it becomes necessary to do so, one of the doctors from the CDC will be able to give you a more complete picture then I presently have for you." At the mention of the CDC, Singh could see several of them shift in their seats and there was a murmur in response to his news. "At this time I have been informed that there is not enough information regarding Mr. Phillips status for immediate alarm and he is being watched closely at this time. If this situation changes that information will be provided to this council immediately. After establishing the perimeter of the quarantine zone and successfully evacuating Mr. Phillips; this zone was maintained while the Grove emissary attempted to gain more information on our behalf. Earlier today I, Detectives Brighton and Travers entered the area to conduct an interview with the Prime dryad of this Grove to determine not only how this Grove had come to be, but also to continue our other investigation into another missing individual." "During our encounter the situation was complicated by an invocation of a Statement of Being conducted under the aegis of the Concord. We also learned that the other missing man in question, one mister Cecil Barnes is in fact responsible for the appearance of this Grove due to actions that he took in self defense. The current situation is as thus:" he said changing the image of the Grove that was being projected to the real time image linked to the F.R.T. cameras orbiting over it. "With an official Statement of Being lodged under the terms of the Concord, we are looking at this Grove now as a permanent feature of the city of Stafford. Unfortunately there is no way to avoid it. However the compensation provisions of the Concord will also come into immediate effect and those conditions will still have to discuss with the representatives of the Grove network as soon as possible. Their envoy is already traveling here to meet with us now and I expect that they will be quite generous in their offers. The current area controlled by the Grove is small at the moment, but it will in all likelihood mean that, once established a larger section of the woodland in this part of the city will eventually come under the sway of the Grove itself. This is going to have a particular impact on homes that are currently empty. The Grove, by its nature, does not recognize uninhabited buildings in the same manner that it does inhabited ones. They view them as abandoned and act accordingly." ------------------------------ There was no way that he had heard what he thought that he just heard that idiot say. It just couldn't be possible. There was no way that anything that he has just told them had even actually taken place. Oh there had been an earthquake. He knew that was true and in his opinion the center of the old lint-head district was the ideal place for something like that to happen to begin with. That way it didn't damage anyplace that actually mattered and if they were lucky it would force the indigents who infested that part of town to go somewhere else and stop plaguing decent folks the way they did with their corrosive habits. Inwardly he couldn't help but look down on the malingerer standing in front of them and trying to get them to buy this pig in his poke. Clearly reading too much fantasy trash at a younger age had addled his brain and now he couldn't tell reality from fantasy anymore. His own boy had started to be sucked in by that trash a few years ago and it had taken an almost herculean effort on his part to break the boy of that character flaw. He'd like to say that he hated doing it, but the truth was he didn't. It was for his own good and now at least his boy knew what was what. He knew the difference between treasure and trash and he was pretty sure that one day his son would thank him for making sure that his head was firmly screwed on straight. He might have to cope with living in a world of imbeciles but at least he wouldn't be one himself. And what was this tripe about these so-called Fae making some kind of claim as if they were some breed of thieves who think that because they said so, something was theirs? That would have never flown if they were trying the same stupidity back when this country was being set up in the first place. At least those men knew what to do with squatters and outright invaders. Pity that their descendants had become so weak minded that they were no longer made of the same stern stuff. The only reason they even lived they way they did was because of people like him and if they didn't have him, then Matthew Kinsey almost shuddered to think of the chaos that would exist if he and his like minded allies were not here to make sure the world ran properly. Most of what this Singh was saying wasn't worth Kinsey's attention. He'd tuned out most of it except for just enough to keep his thumb on the gist of it. He did the same thing in every pointless meeting that he was obliged to attend. There would be time later for him to take things in hand and get them pointed in the right direction and thinking that he almost missed what the fool was talking about until he started talking about their interest in the housing that was in the area. That got his full attention. Kinsey stopped woolgathering and started paying very close attention to what that rascal Singh was talking about now. ------------------------------- "More importantly, today in our earlier interview with the Prime Dryad we determined that she was not a revenant as we suspected but what the dryad's of the Grove refer to as an Arath' Mahar, an individual of infinitely much more value to them. Because of the presence of this Arath' Mahar the Grove network will refuse to give up this Grove and we can likely expect that it will begin to expand in the following fashion based on the information that we have at present." Singh shifted the image on the screen from the static one and activated the shading program to predict the likely spread for them. "As you can see here, once the current barrier containing it has been removed it will likely expand to follow the natural line of the forest here, here, here and here." The areas that Singh indicated were those that formed the spokes of the woodland areas that radiated between the houses in the neighborhood. "It will eventually spread to reach the river walk itself here and from there will likely expand along the riverbank itself until it reaches this section of undeveloped land here. From there, it will continue to spread more slowly. This of course is only a projection. The expansion of the Grove itself will be based on the eventual population and what their future needs are as it develops." "Are you trying to tell me a pack of goddamned hippies have taken over land in my district and all you're saying to me that you're going to do is say we have to hand even more of my land over to those goddamned thieves?" Kinsey shouted, his face now flushing red with anger. "That is not gonna happen son!" he spat. "Alderman Kinsey you will please be seated immediately and control yourself," Singh said to him stressing in his emphasis that it was not a request. Mayor Watson leaned over and spoke urgently with Kinsey in hushed tones. Kinsey grumbled and was clearly not satisfied but he did sit down. Singh resumed his briefing. ------------------------------- He was livid. Not just with that dangerous fool who presumed to speak to him like that, but with the whole idea that this was not even anything more than what he knew it was. Some damned environut group was behind this he was certain of that now. It was just too damned convenient to be anything else and he was going have nothing to do with allowing it to pass. And Andre was going to pay for what he did to him just now. He'd always been able to keep that spineless jackanapes in line before now and here he had already contradicted him twice in the same meeting. He cut his eyes over to the man sitting to his left side and decided that Andre had just outlived his usefulness to him. And he knew just how to start reining him in. It was a shame really to watch someone forget their place; that just meant that, when the lesson they had coming to remind them of it actually happened, it needed to be worse than it otherwise had to be. Just to make certain that others of the same stripe didn't get similar ideas about being uppity either. That was for later on though and one thing was sure, when he served up to Andre what he had earned today it was going to indeed be cold just the way revenge should be. His daddy taught him that when he was little and he had never forgotten the lesson. Andre should not have forgotten it either. This was going to be tricky though. From what he could see in the faces of the rest of his fellow 'council' members they didn't see what needed to be done the way he did. And they would probably not have the stomach for it even if they did. From what he was hearing it was all too likely that he was going to have to do what great-granddaddy had done when there were carpetbaggers and scalawags that needed to be run out before things could be set right again. And like great-granddaddy he was in all likelihood going to be going at all by himself when the time came to do what needed to be done. ------------------------------- "Once the final outline of the Grove has been determined in the short term, Fae negotiators will immediately begin making offers for compensation. That negotiating team, as I said before, will be arriving before long and it is in the best interests of this State and the city of Stafford to arrive at a quick resolution." "Now, as to managing public awareness of the situation. Currently the quarantine of the area has been explained as being caused by a gas leak created during the recent earthquake, and indeed that earthquake did cause damage of that type to the city infrastructure that will need to be attended to. In addition a cover story has been fabricated and disseminated that in responding to the damage incurred by the earthquake a previously unknown toxic dump has been uncovered, necessitating the current quarantine. I will now endeavor to answer your questions council members." "You're goddamned right you will son," Kinsey spat at him, "starting with why you are dick dancing around with this pack of thieves and not tossing them into jail where they belong! And then we'll get to why you felt the need to lie to everyone in this whole damned city and waste God knows how much taxpayer money on this damned dog and pony show!" "Matthew, for God's sake will you just shut the hell up," the mayor said to Kinsey. "This is not an Alderman's meeting and you are not in charge." "What in the hell do you think you're doing Andre? You don't talk to me like that!" Kinsey retorted. "I do today Matthew, because unlike you I know something about what is going on today and if you would shut your damned mouth you might learn something and be useful on this council," Mayor Watson said. "You need to think some things over now Andre. Don't no one need to be getting too big for their britches now." "Matthew, I'm going to do something I should have done years ago. I really don't know why I didn't do it before now, but I'm going to. Shut your big stupid mouth and open your ears and listen, this is a lot more serious that what you think it is. I'm only going to tell you this once." From the glare that Mayor Watson gave him and the angry silence in response from Kinsey it elicited, this had been something that was already brewing rather than having been brought on by these circumstances. Kinsey settled back in his chair and glowered at everyone except the two female council members; them he ignored. "Please continue if you would detective," Watson said. "Thank you mayor," Singh said. "Now to get to the meat of this. This is something that is going to happen, we quite simply have no choice, and regardless of what some of you might think presently," he said looking at Kinsey again before the man could make another outburst. "Most of you already have some degree of understanding of what is happening and what is at stake in this matter." Singh directed the latter comment towards Meyer, the only member of the council with a level four clearance. "So I will take this time to give to you as much background information as I can now. Once you have this information and can see the relevance I'm certain that you will understand the constraints that we function under now." "The Grove and the dryads who make up the Grove are not 'hippies' as Alderman Kinsey mislabeled them just a moment ago nor are they thieves as he accused them of being. They are but one of a group of mystical races that we collectively call the Fae. The Fae have been with us for millennia ladies and gentlemen. They have existed in small enclaves hidden away from man for the most part and for many of them they are quite happy to continue to do so today." "However that situation is changing and I will tell you why. The mystical energy that sustains and is part of every Fae race is increasing daily. This is a situation that we have known has been developing for a very long time and to deal with it very long ago a covenant between mankind and the Fae was negotiated. This covenant is referred to as the Concord and it is what is the governing principle that we must adapt to in this situation." "That is why this council has been created, so that a peaceful and swift resolution to this matter under the terms of the Concord can be arrived at so the disruption that Stafford has needed to endure can be minimized. Now are there any questions that I may answer at this time?" "I have a question for you detective," Kinsey said. "Yes, Alderman?" Singh replied already knowing what was going to spill from the man's mouth. "Just what is it that you think to gain, by dreaming up this cock and bull story? Nobody in their right mind is going to believe that bucket of hogwash you just served up to us. So what in God's green earth are you really trying to pull here?" "Alderman, I am going to speak frankly to you," Singh said. "Well that would certainly be a nice change from this fairy tale you've been spinning us since you opened up your mouth." "Alderman, the truth is I have no idea of just why it is that you are even a member of this council at all. The only reason that I can see that makes any degree of sense is that you are the most immediate representative of the area affected by this change. In my opinion that is a poor reason to choose someone for this particular task. Worse yet, you are the only member of this council who has absolutely no knowledge of what it is that we are dealing with." "The Fae, sir are quite real, as is your glaring ignorance of them. I have hesitated to make this known, but your comments thus far have made your deficiency in that knowledge quite clear already so I will just say it bluntly. You are the only person in the room who is unaware of the existence of these other races and if you had not been so belligerent thus far you might have figured that fact out already. So please take my advice and the advice of Mayor Watson, Alderman and follow the lead of your fellow council members. Now are there any actual relevant questions?" Singh asked. Jacob Meyer, the governor's assistant posed a question and Singh with a great deal of relief settled in to actually doing what he was there for. ----------------------------------------- F.R.T. Advisory Council Room, Day Six: 1730 hours Matthew Kinsey was already irritated by everything that he had seen the last few days before Andre had told him that a special committee was being formed to deal with the situation in Alagosta Gardens. The so called state of emergency smelled wrong to him from the moment that it was reported on the news. He had already been summoned into an Alderman's meeting when the quarantine first went into effect, but right from the start he knew that he was being played. There was something going on in his project and he wanted to know what it was. He had invested too much time, effort and especially money in turning around the lint-head part of town to walk away now and he wanted some answers. With each day that passed and little seeming to be accomplished other than blocking access to the area, he resented the presence of the government thugs that had descended on Stafford more and more. He expected Andre to be part of this committee of course and a representative from the Governor's office too, but he had no idea why they bothered sending the two skirts from the police department and from civil defense. He wondered what was wrong with them for doing something like that. Didn't they have to have enough men who were more than qualified to handle this? And even if they needed to send a skirt just for the optics they only needed one of them to make coffee and fetch for them, not two. More P.C. horse manure he decided. Everywhere he looked anymore were people that had no business being where they were just because too many sheep in the population had bought into that foolishness. The bad part of the whole deal in his opinion aside from having to put up with the presence of two women who shouldn't even be here, was being shoehorned into this joke of a conference room in the middle of the armed camp that they had shoved down his district's throat and then worse having to cool his heels waiting on that arrogant little know it all. No, that wasn't really the worst part in his opinion; the worst part was how seriously they were taking what that imbecile was saying. Kinsey knew it was going to be bad when that joke flipped on the projection and started talking about how the whole area, the entire area in Alagosta Gardens was going to have to be turned over to some nature loving freaks without so much as a whimper. He had not the slightest intention of doing any such thing. He'd already spent the better part of a year clearing all the working class trash out of one part of his neighborhood and was set to begin demolition of those worthless wooden firetraps early next month. The money he stood to make from the upscale housing that would go up in its place especially with that nice view of the river walk would easily net him twenty times what he got from the worthless renters that he was stuck with now. By the time phase two was ready to launch early next year he'd have the next section just as clear as phase one was now. In five years the only remnants of Alagosta mill village would be the homeowners that he hadn't been able to buy out and they would probably leave once they couldn't afford the higher tax cost of living in a better neighborhood. He planned on picking up their places cheap too once they figured out that he was going to be the only buyer that they would get. The way he looked at it having that renter trash gone was a win-win. The city got an eyesore revitalized and he would make a fortune doing it. And he had plans for that fortune, he was still a young man and then this happened. It was that tree clearing donnybrook along the river walk all over again. Listening to this idiot blather on he wished he could make this problem go away as easily as he made that one disappear. Early in his development of that area he'd sited some of his luxury homes on property he owned that was part of the original wood lot bordering the river walk. The sale of those houses was going to be impressive enough as it was, but not as impressive as it could be. The problem was the thick belt of trees blocking the view of the riverside units; you couldn't see the river at all and then only barely from the second floor in bits and pieces. The city wasn't going to issue a permit to let him thin them out without a lot of trouble over it; so he did it anyway. Over a long holiday weekend in the fall he sent in a day crew he'd hired to cut everything down all the way to the edge of that ridiculous public walkway they had set up bordering the river. He had his pet environmental engineer certify that the trees were diseased after the fact and there might even have been one that was. That didn't matter. What did matter was that one hard weekends work by some day laborers with a bulldozer and he had a river view that shot his profit margin much higher than it would have been otherwise; even with the fine they slapped on him because he had burned all of the wood and no one could verify his EE's assessment. Of course there was a stink when none of the laborers could be found to verify his side of the story either, it just was too bad that most of them got swept up and deported a few days later. The worthless tree hugging protesters screaming about how his actions had turned the shady cool beauty of the River Walk into nothing more than another sidewalk went away eventually as well. It was a nice clean operation as far as he was concerned and it cleared away a problem very efficiently. Too bad he couldn't do the same thing to this woodlot. Fifty bucks and a crackhead firebug would be marvelous for getting rid of this problem in his opinion and if he was lucky the fire might clear out some of the renters that he hadn't evicted yet as well and on top of that he could add the insurance payout for the burned units to his profit margin. He held his tongue until that short little idiot said that whatever this was would likely extend to cover the area that he had in mind for redevelopment. When he said that whatever this was would likely include a great deal of his property that was too much for him to stand. Who did this soft in the head pissant think he was coming in and telling them he would have to give up his property to some nature loving freaks? And then Andre openly sided with that pudding head to boot. That was almost too much to take. Well he'd settle with Andre later. He didn't know who loaned that imbecile a spine, but he didn't like it one bit. And then to have that low class excuse for a cop call him on the carpet because he didn't believe in the garbage he was spouting, well that was just a straw too much in his opinion. He'd have to look into dealing with him later as well. That uppity little nimrod didn't know just how much trouble he'd bought by crossing him, but he was going to find out. He sat though the rest of that short imbecile's so called briefing stewing over what had happened and turning over ways to deal with the two of them later on, while the rest of them asked ridiculous questions as if they were taking his load of hog manure seriously. He was going to have to seriously re-evaluate Andre's level of intelligence after this he decided. But that could wait until after he'd gotten even with him so that he learned his lesson to never cross him again. The only good thing about the whole last part of that meeting in his opinion was that it was the shortest part. The two skirts mostly kept their mouths shut and let the men talk, even if the men weren't saying anything that was important. He looked around as it was winding down. He had his work cut out for him getting this horse back in the right cart trace, no question about it. And both of those women needed to go. He wondered who he could get put into their place instead. He had more than enough pull in both of their departments and it should be easy enough have a qualified man sent to replace them and to have the two of them sent back making coffee and running errands the way they should be doing anyway. God he hated this crap. What was the world coming to when you had to bite your tongue to keep from 'offending' your inferiors? That short little shit finally finished shooting off his mouth and cleared out leaving him to finally start unfucking this cluster. He sat back for now. He needed to get a handle on that man the Governor had sent and Andre; he needed to snap Andre back into line soon, before he started thinking that he actually called some of the shots around here. Before he could do that he needed to do a little damage control first. He stood up and placed his hands on the table and let his head hang slightly in a repentant manner. "I'd like to apologize to the members of this council for my earlier behavior. It was unacceptable on my part especially in light of the information that has been revealed to this body. As hard as that information was to believe at first I do stand corrected in the matter and I offer my humblest of apologies if I did offend any of you by my outburst earlier." That should do it for now he thought as he sat down, Andre looked over at him but he kept his opinion to himself for now. That was all to the good. If he was stupid enough to believe that Kinsey meant a single word of what he said then he deserved everything that Kinsey had planned for him later on. Unbelievably to Kinsey, he actually asked that wetback what she thought first, as if the unqualified little ditz had anything relevant to say on the matter. "Ms. Ramirez, now that you've heard from the detective, what bearing does this situation have as far as civil defense is concerned? Is this something that the city will have to accept or is there still some way around it?" Mayor Watson asked. "Honestly Mayor, I'd have to have time to study the relevant passages of the documents that the F.R.T. has provided us and see how they pertain to our situation before I could give a full recommendation about a response; but from looking at what he has shown us so far we may not have to accept it." "Could you explain your reasoning Ms. Ramirez?" Mr. Meyer asked. "The governor is very interested in resolving this issue in favor of the status quo if possible." Kinsey kept quiet for now. Maybe that splittail from civil defense might not be so useless after all. "Well I'd have to check against the documents of course, but it may be that a good case could be made that having something like this would be considered a danger to the existing population. I'm not an expert on the Fae, but the presence of this one has already been more than disruptive and as I understand it one man is missing and another is hospitalized? Isn't that right Lt. Clayton?" "According to the reports my department has received so far that is indeed the case, also two of my detectives mentioned to me when I debriefed them initially that there may be a connection to other outstanding missing persons cases as well. I'm currently having my department investigating that possibility." "That certainly doesn't sound like something that we want to put our stamp of approval on if that is the case Lieutenant," Mayor Watson said. "Is there any evidence that these, what did the detective call them dryads? "Yes, Mr. Mayor. He did say dryads," Clayton said. "Is there any indication that these dryads are the threat that they seem to be given this information?" "Not according to the background data we've been given," Ramirez said, "But from how the detective just briefed us there may be some bias in that assessment that we shouldn't ignore. Our responsibility is the protection of the citizens of Stafford and this situation is looking a little too much like an illegal land grab on the surface of it if you want my opinion. It seems that they are trying to invoke a version of eminent domain as a justification for doing so, but they are not trying to prove that such a step is necessary beyond referencing this Concord as the basis of the decision. You could say that it looks very much like this group of Fae is taking advantage of the situation to invade us in a manner of speaking." If there was anyone at this table that would know about invading a place where they weren't wanted, Kinsey thought to himself, it was that little wetback slit. Her whole lot was nothing but a pack of invaders in the opinions of decent folks, but he could ignore that for the time being. She may not be entirely useless so far, but he would still have preferred having a qualified man sitting in her chair. "Would that be a violation of this Concord?" the mayor asked. "Yes it could be," Lt. Clayton answered. "But maybe not as much as we think it would be. From what I know from my earlier briefings, under the Concord this single Fae should have been removed at the earliest opportunity, not invited to establish an enclave." "So they are breaking this agreement by insisting that she stay then?" "It appears so, Mr. Mayor," Ramirez said looking up from scanning the text on her reading pad. "There is an entire section dealing with illegal and unsanctioned expansion here and if it is as Lt. Clayton says, a single Fae of this type certainly falls under that category." "Now ladies," Mr. Meyer said, "wait just a minute if you would. The governor does want this situation resolved in a favorable manner that preserves the status quo, but I think that the sections that you are looking at don't apply entirely to this situation as it stands. There are other passages in the Concord that would have more bearing on it I think and I can't, in all honesty, recommend to the governor a plan of action without taking all of that information into consideration." "Are you suggesting that both of these ladies, these dedicated public servants are incapable of making the correct assessment sir?" Kinsey said to him. "Because if that is the case then I think that you should apologize to both of these ladies before you say anything more sir. It sounded to me like both of them are very well versed in their points and they made them quite well." "I didn't mean to imply anything of the sort Alderman, I just ..." "Just what? Didn't like what you were hearing because it's a woman saying it? I don't think that's an attitude that a man in your position should be suggesting Mr. Meyer." "That's not what at all what I'm trying to say Alderman and if I implied anything like that, it was unintentional I assure you. It's just the governor..." "The governor is going to accept your recommendation Mr. Meyer is that not true? You wouldn't be here if he wouldn't. So maybe it would be best if you just be a man about it and accept that you were a little out of line a moment ago and let these ladies finish what they were saying sir." Kinsey was smiling inside as Meyer was completely thrown off of his track. He might have no other use for P.C. tripe, but it made a marvelous club to beat the knuckleheads who did subscribe to it with. And that was just the kind of club that he liked to use in cases like these. Kinsey flashed his charming smile at the splittail with the spic name. "Ms. Ramirez if you would be so good as to continue what you were saying a moment ago?" pouring as much insincere charm as he could muster into his words. "Well as I said I need to examine all of the documents in their entirety, but it may be that this claim that has been made rests on weaker foundations than we are led to believe and if that is the case there are civil defense plans in place that are intended to be activated to deal with this sort of situation." "What civil defense plans do you refer to Ms. Ramirez?" Mayor Watson asked. "Well I am a little hesitant to bring them up; some of them could be viewed in the aftermath as extreme." "How extreme?" Watson asked. "Mr. Mayor, I'll be blunt," she said, "None of the plans that would be effective in an instance like this would be able to be concealed. Almost all of the ones that I know of have a high probability of excessive destruction in the area that they are implemented in." "Ms. Ramirez, it sounds very much like you are referencing some sort of war plan almost," Kinsey said to her. "Are you certain in your professional capability that such a plan is appropriate under the circumstances?" "Based on the initial information that I have here, that may be the only response that we could make outside of ceding the land in question and that opens our entire population up to living with in close proximity to a possibly dangerous Fae presence on a permanent basis," she said. "Lt. Clayton what is your take on this situation? What can the police department do in the likelihood we have to adjust to a permanent Fae presence as Ms. Ramirez suggests?" Mayor Watkins asked. "Mr. Mayor, I honestly don't see how we could do it. Not and maintain concealment of the existence of the Fae. Officers would have to have additional training and there would be the additional cost of special weapons that are needed to handle them in lethal and non lethal situations. All of which are currently in drastically short supply. It would be almost prohibitive to our current budget projections to stockpile the amounts that we would need to effectively deal with a Fae presence on the scale that special detective Singh is suggesting. As well as the fact that having them here in that way increases the awareness level of them with every casual contact. I'd have to speak with the commissioner and the chief, but I fairly certain that they would agree with me that it would be an untenable situation for Stafford P.D. in that event." "So both of you are agreed then that this situation needs to be cleared up as soon as possible and that this Grove needs to be removed from Stafford?" he asked. "Yes sir, I'm afraid that as the Stafford P.D. representative I'm going to have to recommend just that. There may come a time soon when we have to face this particular circumstance, but considering the small contained nature of what we are dealing with now it may be that the best thing to do is to just go ahead with removal," Clayton said. "And you agree with that assessment Ms. Ramirez?" "I'm afraid that I do, the threat of exposure would make it an unacceptable risk to the population right now Mr. Mayor and that is without taking into consideration the possibly dangerous nature of these Fae," she said. Kinsey felt like chortling, here he thought he was going to have to actually have to work to make this turn out the way he wanted it to and then God smiled down on him and moved these two clueless wenches to open their dim mouths and do it for him. Well the good book did say that the Lord did once move an ass to speak, so of course it would be a simple matter for Him to make another pair of dumb beasts do something similar. "Andre, I think that we should thank both of these intelligent ladies for their professional recommendations. I'm sure that counseling us on this matter couldn't have been an easy decision for them to make considering the subject matter at hand, but they have shared with us all the honest assessment that their expertise leads them to share with us and I think we would be foolish if we disregarded that professional assessment," Kinsey said "Can the population be removed quietly from the area in the event that we do agree to go ahead with one of these options?" Mayor Watson asked. Kinsey could tell that the little weasel was sweating this one. Pathetic bastard actually thought that it mattered what the scum of the city thought about clearing out this problem just because it might break a few eggs when they did it. "Yes sir that can be done using only Stafford emergency service personnel, there are contingencies in the plans in that event. But I would suggest that we do take more time to review the matter before taking such steps," Ms. Ramirez said. "It's not just a matter of evacuation and the damage that whichever civil defense plan that's chosen will cause. There is also dealing with what happens afterward." "I don't think that is quite as much of a problem as you might think Ms. Ramirez," Kinsey said. "Didn't the detective already say that the story of a toxic dump site being discovered was being used to explain this whole thing already? Couldn't that effort be expanded on to explain this as well?" "I suppose, if it was handled the right way Alderman Kinsey that it could be. But at the same time I don't think that you have a full grasp of just what some of these plans involve. There's going to be a lot of destruction if we go this route. These are, as you said earlier, war plans after all." What Kinsey really wanted to do was backhand the silly cunt for even suggesting that he didn't understand something. Maybe he could arrange some trouble for her later on to remind her not to speak back to a man in that fashion in the future, but for now he had to play nice since this greaser was doing his heavy lifting for him. "Ms. Ramirez, I'm sure that we can trust your recommendations in that area. After all you are the councilmember most familiar with what that all entails now aren't you?" Kinsey asked. "Matthew," Watson interrupted, "I really think that we need a lot more discussion of this matter. Taking a step like this is something that we can't walk away from and we need to look at all of the options and not just choose between let them stay or blowing them off the map. We don't need a rush to judgment." "Of course Andre, of course we don't. We need to look at this in a sober and careful manner. But whatever we decide is going to take time to set up and in the meantime it wouldn't hurt to go ahead with evacuating those in that area. Just as a precaution of course. And if we do decide that this route is the best one to take then there is less of a panic. And we certainly don't want a panic now do we Andre?" Kinsey said. "I suppose there isn't any harm in taking that step just now," Watson said. Kinsey smiled inside again. Andre just needed a little reminder of what he owed him. He knew that shit for brains son of Watson's would be good for something eventually when he cleaned up that little drunken asshole's mess, not that he ever expected to have to cash in that particular chip. Still it was good to have it handy he supposed. "Ms. Ramirez, it would be in all of our interests if we could keep this entire matter as contained as possible. What would be the most likely of these options to have limited impact on the area and still eliminate the problem the way it seems to need to be eliminated?" "I'd have to check to be sure sir but Gamma fourteen may be the only one that may meet those requirements," Ramirez said. "I'm sorry sir but I do have to object to considering this kind of action at this time," Lt. Clayton said. "Detective Singh has been a valuable member of my department for a long time and no matter how reasonable our concerns are he and the F.R.T. would all raise very strong objections to taking steps like this." "Your objection is noted Lt. Clayton," Kinsey said, "But the fact of the matter is that regardless of their objections they are still under civil control and we are the duly constituted civil authorities in this area. They may not like our decisions, but they are bound to carry them out regardless. Whether they like it or not." "It will still be a contentious decision at best Alderman Kinsey," she said. "I understand that Lieutenant. And I understand the difficult position that such a decision places you in. That's why I would be happy to be the one to take the burden of passing on whatever the decision this council makes to the good detective and the members of the F.R.T." Kinsey leaned back in his chair slightly, getting what he wanted just felt right when it happened and when he didn't have to exert himself that much to get it that was just the icing on the cake as far as he was concerned. This particular horse was headed in the right direction, but he still had to make certain that it was a done deal. "Ms. Ramirez, would you be so good as to tell us just what plan Gamma fourteen entails? Just so we know exactly what it is that we are considering. After all we wouldn't want to make a rash or hasty decision now would we?" "No Alderman we would not," she said and started to brief them on the details of the plan from her data pad. ------------------------------------ Brighton Home, Day Six: 2100 hours The pounding on the door of his home was just one more unwelcome factor in Jim's attempt to rest. After four hours of everything in the world spinning mercilessly around him in the little room they put him and Mitch in at the Area Command and Control center he finally regained enough of his equilibrium to rise to his feet. The doctor who had been monitoring him and Mitch certified that both of them could be release from constant observation but had cautioned them against trying to focus on the imagery of the vision for a couple of more days if they could avoid it. As he told them that amount of sensory information being imposed on them had in effect short circuited their own senses and caused then to spin down into the vertigo like sensation that had enveloped them. He recommended to them that both of them return home and spend the next couple of days resting until their senses had returned to something close to their normal function. He had warned them about trying to push themselves too much too soon and made it very clear that if they did that they were very much in danger of ending up on the floor again. Since Jim was absolutely certain that he intended to do nothing of the sort, agreeing to follow the doctor's recommendations was easy for him to comply with. Mitch said pretty much the same thing and only added that once he was on his feet that Andrea was going to really go to town on him about doing something else for a living again. The both of them were allowed to leave the ACC shortly after the doctor cleared them. Fitzhugh scared up a dark sedan from somewhere to hustle them home and once it dropped him off other than giving Raja a quick head rub on the way in Jim went right to bed without even bothering to do more than strip off of his shoes. He thought he had even managed to start to get some rest before the thumping on his front door made that idea futile. Jim cautiously got out of the bed and reached out for the wall to steady his balance. The thumping at the front door was still continuing and he heard the faint voice on the other side identifying itself as Stafford P.D. Jim made his way to the door and got a quick glance through the peep sight to confirm that whoever on the other side was who he claimed to be. He was in uniform and there was a black and white parked along the street so Jim reached for his badge and opened the door. "Detective Brighton officer," he said showing the uni his shield. "What's going on here? Did Lt. Clayton send you to get me from the station?" "No detective, it's nothing like that," the officer said. "Then why are you rousting me just after nine in the evening if I'm not being called back to the station Officer...?" "Cavendish sir, we've been ordered to begin evacuating this neighborhood," the uni said. "Orders just came down to clear out everything from the river's edge all the way west to Sixteenth Street." "Are you certain of that Cavendish?" he asked. "I'm part of the F.R.T laison and if there was an update about requiring additional evacuation then I would be one of the first to be informed about it." "I don't know anything about that sir," he said. "All I know is we are to clear all residents out of this area immediately." "For how long?" Jim asked. "I wasn't informed how long detective, I just was told to tell evacuees to take all vital documents with them and any medications that they would need for several days." "This doesn't sound right Cavendish, but you go on and follow your orders for now. I'm going to call in and try to get to the bottom of this." "Yes sir," he said and started walking down the walking path in front of Jim's home on his way to the next house. "Oh and sir?" he called back pausing in mid walkway. "Yes Cavendish?" Jim answered. "If you have any pets you should probably take them with you, we aren't supposed to let anyone back into this area again once it's been cleared." "Okay, thanks for the heads up Cavendish," Jim said and watched as the uni resumed walking away on his way to the next house. Jim turned back inside his door and closed it behind him. He'd have to talk to Singh and see just what was what with this whole thing, but right now he needed to get clear. Mitch could probably put him up for the next few days. His house was not in the expanded quarantine zone so Jim shouldn't have to pop for a hotel that way. He reached in his closet and pulled out his small suitcase. He didn't need much in the way of clothes or toiletries so those fit in quickly enough. His safe didn't have much in the way of must haves in it either but he slipped the contents into one of the inner pockets of the bag as well as his backup revolver and the ammunition that he kept in there. There was some cash as well so that and the envelope that held it also went into the bag. He did a quick sweep around the house and grabbed his phone charger and laptop and squeezed them into the bag as well. He did a walkthrough in the kitchen and swept some canned goods into a couple of shopping bags as well. No point in leaving them behind and it wasn't like they needed anything else to keep them edible while they were sealed. He took the lot out and put it in his car. It was a good thing that Singh had arranged for someone to drop it off before he got home, otherwise he would have needed to call Mitch to have Andrea come and pick him up. He made another two trips and added some things like his old sleeping bag and some other odds and ends that would be useful if he needed to be away for more than a few days. He tossed the contents in the fridge that would go off if he was gone longer than the uni had told him that he would be and made a quick meal of what he didn't toss. That done he did one last walk through and stopped by the fuse box to shut off everything except what needed to remain on while he was gone. He tossed the last bit into the back of his car along with a couple gallons of water he kept for emergencies. Doing things like this always had driven his wife crazy but he was of the school that emphasized covering as many of your bases as you could beforehand. He took one last look around and closed the door after he flicked off the light and locked it. Raja was sitting on the carport table and mrrowed at him in a questioning fashion. Jim reached up on the shelf for the plastic box of kitty treats that he kept there and scooped the cat up. "Looks like you're coming with me Pal," he said ruffling the cats head. Raja didn't object when Jim put him in the car and shook out three or four kitty treats on the floorboards. He just jumped down there quickly ate them and then jumped up on the seat beside him and curled up in a furry black ball and started purring while Jim started the engine and quickly backed out onto the street. More of his neighbors were still packing up than were leaving just yet and it looked like he might have clear streets for a little while all the way to Mitch and Andrea's place. He just hoped that he didn't have to pull over on the way there because of having a relapse of earlier today. -------------------------------------- The Grove: Day Seven-1100 hours M'Tehr heard Jacen approaching before he arrived. She had sunk deep into her borrowed oak and allowed the feeling of becoming one with it sooth her. If the tree had not accepted her or the Grove had not accepted the tree when it spread around it she didn't know how she would have been able to long endure remaining here on the far end of her range, separated from her Phar' ador when she needed it's touch the most. This entire mission had been more stressful than even she had thought that it might be. But that was to be expected she supposed. No hamadryad had ever embarked on such a journey as this and should a similar journey be needed in the future that sister would at least have the comfort of knowing what she did now to carry with her. Still M'Tehr would almost have rather been the second one. She could use comfort of that sort more than she thought she would need it before leaving Morleth' Phar. She exited from the oak and faced Jacen as he came closer to her oak and then slowed and came to a stop beside her. "She has awakened?" she asked. "She has," Jacen said, "she is in the aether beside her Phar' ador. She waits for you to join her." "And is she well?" she asked. "She seems to be," Jacen said. "Then I will go to her," she said and slipped into the aether. The world faded away around her and bloomed into a nightmare vision all around her. All around her walls of fire were sweeping in waves as far as the eye could see. The heat the radiated from the roaring flames made the air dance and shimmer .There was a sharp crack overhead as a flaming branch exploded and she felt the ghost of those flaming splinters lance through her body. The air was thick with smoke and if she needed to breathe she wasn't sure there would be air enough for her to do so. The vortex of flame around her howled and sucked every trace of oxygen into its furnace to fuel the blaze. M'Tehr wailed at the sight and dropped away from it to cower beneath the flaming trunk of her oak. All around her was darkness and light. Darkness from the smoke that blackened the sky and light from the fire that consumed everything around her. She shut her eyes and then as the sound faded she opened them again. The flames had passed and her body shook from her visceral reaction to what it was that she had just witnessed. She rose to her feet and looked around her in absolute disbelief at what the fire had left in its wake. The bare smoking earth below her feet was scoured clean of life as far as the eye could see. The burnt and broken stumps still smoldered as residual fires slowly ate out their hearts, burning them to the junction of their roots deep in the earth below. The houses that men had raised were nothing more that shattered toys that were splintered and undone. Smoking ruins and all around her, where once the life of the Grove had reached was only barren earth separated by the scorched and blackened man stone that remained to delineate the roads from what was around them. She could see the Arath' Mahar standing silently beside the smoking ruin of her elm looking around the aethereal world in confusion and loathing. M'Tehr bit down on her horror at seeing this dream; this nightmare the land was showing them and made her way to her side. It was only a dream she reminded herself. A terrible one but still only a dream. She forced herself to regain her composure and focused on Arath' Mahar. "It has burned for hours," she said sadly as she heard M'Tehr's footsteps approach behind her. "It burns, the flames consume all, the ashes blow in the wind and then it burns again," she turned and faced M'Tehr and as she did so M'Tehr saw that there were tears streaking the ashes coating her face. "Is this something that will happen?" she asked M'Tehr as she approached and stopped beside her with the smoking ruin of Arath' Mahar's elm between them. "It is a dream of the land Arath' Mahar," M'Tehr said to her. Sometimes the land dreams of what has touched it before, sometimes it sees what may touch it; it does not always mean that what we see will be." "I watched it happen," she said. "I looked up and saw the fire overhead and felt it sweep through everything. I was watching a sunrise and then I saw a second sun overhead. I screamed when it fell. I could almost feel it, but there was nothing to feel." "Arath' Mahar I cannot say that this will not happen, but that does not mean that it will. If this is a dream of the earth about something that in motion we may yet halt it, others who stand with us may yet bar its path." "Arath' Mahar," she said. "Before this you called me sister." "You are more than that Arath' Mahar," she said reverently, "Speaking to you as less would be wrong to me. I cannot bring myself to do that. It would be disrespectful." "I think of you as sister even though," she said. "So what shall we do now sister?" she asked. "A choosing of names would strength your claim under the Concord Arath' Maher," she answered. "Perhaps enough to avert this dream that land dreams." "Can such a small thing really do so much?" she asked. "A name is no small thing Arath' Mahar," she said. "A name is the recognition of what is singular and what is singular is precious in its rarity." "Would me delaying this step help or hinder I wonder?" she said. "A step like that could provoke what we see here." "Or it may avert it Arath' Mahar," M'Tehr said. "It is not for me to say. To speak the name of your Phar is solely in your hands. As it was for each Arath' Mahar before you when they summoned the land to bear witness to what the Phar they had brought to birth was to be. This is your joy and your burden. I cannot lighten it. It is not my place." "Why are you so certain of this sister?" she asked. "Arath' Mahar, a name is not a name. It cannot ever be such a small thing. There is power in names. To name something is to control its destiny. To shape every day forward for good or ill. It is not a label or merely a word that is kept so that something may be kept track of. It is part of the being of what it is given to. Every Grove that survived the Withering cherishes the name bestowed by the Arath' Mahar that gave it. Every daughter that stems from those Groves bears the name of the mother that brought it into being. It is a root that stretches across the ages and binds what was to what is and reaches forward to what will be." The Arath' Mahar didn't respond. She looked steadily at the ruined landscape around them and M'Tehr waited for her to speak, but no words came. "There was once a Grove here, Arath' Mahar," she said softly, reverently. Your own vision gave us that comfort of knowing. To know that those lost sisters were still remembered in some small fashion." "What was its name?" she asked. "Does anyone know?" "No, Arath' Mahar," M'Tehr said quietly, "That was lost when it was lost. And if not for you it would be lost still. Its loss is our sorrow. Sorrow no less sharp for happening long ago. We grieved all of our lost sisters and we grieve these lost sisters now. Knowing they were here brings our loss close to us again and that is the price we pay for loving them." "I understand. My father was killed long before we knew he was dead. Finding out made it as fresh as if we had seen it happen. And seeing him finally being brought back to us made it just as raw as when I heard it had happened. Once was bad enough, twice was worse. I wish one had at least survived in the way that you thought me to be," she said. "It would be easier if one of those you mourn were here now." "Yes, that would be a joy for us, but even as we mourn anew we still have our joy as well," M'Tehr said. "How can you?" she answered looking at her. "How can you not be bitter over it?" "Our sisters are gone, their Grove gone with them. And we mourn them," she said slowly. "But we can mourn those that were here, the ones that raised this Grove and tended it. Their names are gone but we have surety that this was not ever forgotten. And we have you Arath' Mahar. Without the memory of the lost we would not have you now. You are what tempers the loss. You and the Grove you raise with you." "I cannot be who I was again," she said. "Who I was is as lost as this Grove was." "Who you are now will still carry that with you Arath' Mahar," M'Tehr said. "But who will you be?" "That is what I have been wondering," she said. "I cannot be Cecil Barnes any more. The shadowy man took that part of my existence from me." "Then who you are is in your hands alone now, not those that robbed you. Arath' Mahar," M'Tehr said. "I cannot let him do that though," she said. "If I let that part of me be forgotten then what remains of me loses something that I don't want to lose. I lose that, then that is, in a small way like this Grove losing who it was because no one remembered it was here. And if no one remembers then it is as if it never was. I can't bring myself to erase what is left of me that way." "What will you do Arath' Mahar?" "The only thing I can do," she said. "Keep some small part of me with me always. That way I have something to carry forward with me." "And what will you carry Arath' Mahar?" M'Tehr asked. "What would you carry all your days that would be precious and not a burden?" "A small part of who I was. I can't be Cecil Barnes anymore, but I can carry a small part of my name to honor the small part of who I have left. I can be Selicia," she said. "As you have said it so shall it be, Arath' Mahar TsL' H'sia," M'Tehr said trying to wrap her mouth around the syllables. Selicia looked down at her distended form. "And what should I call you I wonder?" she said. Selicia looked up from herself to M'Tehr. "This is not real is it?" she asked. "No, Arath' Mahar TsL' H'sia, it is not. It is a representation of what is there. You carry your sister, but not in the way your mind has chosen to show it," she said. "What will happen?" she asked. "Soon you must choose a Phar' ador for your sister. And when the time comes you must take her into it and join her with its heart," she said. "And what happens then?" Selicia asked. "There in her Phar' ador she will wait and take form and when she is ready she will leave it so that we will know that she is when she is complete." "And who will she be?" she asked. "She will be another part of you. She will be of you and she will carry you with her always. And the Grove will grow anew. As it should." "I'm afraid," she said. "Arath Mahar you only speak what one in your position could say knowing what it is that you know. You say that you are afraid but that fear is not an admission of weakness as some might think it would be." "How can it be otherwise?" she asked her. "How can it be weakness if it gives you strength? M'Tehr asked her in turn. When you were as you were, before you showed us in your vision, you were captive of the fear that birthed you. And I myself was witness to how you turned that fear to your advantage and became stronger for it. This is only a degree of difference and when the time comes I believe that you will make the right choice then as you did before." "That wasn't the same thing," Selicia said to her. "When that happened I had no choice. I had to act and I had to do so without thinking of the consequences. What you are talking about me doing now is just as frightening now but the difference is that I have time to see what might be in front of me and seeing it I don't know if that is what I truly need to do. I think that having more time like I do to make this decision is acting more as a hobble than a help." "Then take off the hobble Arath Mahar. Look into yourself and recognize what it is that you need to do. I know only too well what you will do when you face the moment of decision and you did what was needed to be done to meet what fear rose up to strike at you with then. Look inside yourself and listen to what you hear from the aether around us." Selicia looked at the smoking ruin around them and even though her tie to the land was only recently forged seeing it brought low in this fashion tore at her as nothing that she had felt before had ever done so. "Do you remember when you searched on my body to find something?" she asked M'Tehr. "You insisted that it was important and it might be the most important thing that you could do for me in finding it?" "Yes Arath Mahar," she answered her. "Not being able to find your Grove mark should have made me realize what it was that you truly were when I could not find it. It should have made me understand that there was no mark for me to find since you had not chosen one yet." She looked down on her left arm where the twisting stem of the rose wound around her wrist and ended in her inner elbow. She reached over with her right hand and laid her fingertips on the dark design that marked her flesh. "I thought that this was what you were talking about," she said softly looking at the ruin of her tree. "I thought that because it became so visible after I escaped the first time that it was something that had been done to protect me. To show that I was part of something much bigger than I imagined it was." "I was wrong to discount what you told me about that before you opened your mind and shared what was kept there to us all. I rushed to dismiss what you told me and looked for what I thought I should see instead. Doing that made me careless Arath Mahar. I missed seeing what was in favour of trying to find what I thought should be." "And has something like this happened before sister?" she asked M'Tehr looking up from the mark on her arm to the mark on M'Tehr's chest. M'Tehr hesitated before answering her. It had to have happened sometime before; else there would never have even been a first Grove for M'Tehr to spring from. No Grove for her to emerge into the first time she left her Phar' ador for the light of the world. Her head swum with the power of the vision and remembering it was like seeing the face of a deity. She had witnessed an act of creation that was unlike anything this world had seen in ages and in light of that it was of little wonder that she had missed its import because she could not envision that such a thing was even possible in her limited understanding. "Arath Mahar TsL' H'sia I can only say that it must have happened before. But it was not possible for it to happen until now. The blooming is approaching and you are its harbinger. You are showing us the way and in my focus on the past I nearly missed the future beginning to unfold around us all. I was wrong to do that. I failed you when I did that and I can only ask your forgiveness for failing you." "Sister there is no forgiveness needed for you. How can I forgive you when I have not been wronged?" "But I have wronged you Arath Mahar," she insisted. "My blindness wronged you and my insistence on shaping you into what I thought you were and not seeing what was plainly before me wronged you." M'Tehr kneeled on the scorched earth next to Selicia and asked her for her forgiveness again. Selicia lay her hand on the kneeling dryad and bid her to rise. M'Tehr hesitated and then did so. In the aether her sister had shed her glamour as she did when there were no others around that made such a thing necessary. She looked into the blank features of the smooth shaped wood that she appeared as and in the light of the aether she was able to perceive M'Tehr's true face looking back at her. In the physical world without her glamour all a person who saw her would see was the faceless blank that seemed unfinished but that was not what Selicia was seeing when she looked into her eyes now. M'Tehr's eyes were enormous and arched upward with impossible seeming size. Her mouth was not the thin slit that it appeared as but was lush with the life that she reflected around her. If it was true that her ancestress was once someone like Selicia, then there were still traces of M'Tehr's distant Arath' Mahar in the cast of her own features even now and looking at what she was now and what M'Tehr was as well she felt the burden that was hanging over her even more keenly than she did before. There would one day be another like M'Tehr standing in this place she realized. That one that stemmed from her would look just as M'Tehr looked now. Time and generations would work it's will over those to come and one that sprang from the seed she was planting now. One that the law governing form and function would hold sway over. She was not here yet but the echo of what Selicia was doing now was already echoing in her existence and for her to hear what the echo was telling her she needed to name what it was to be. She needed to name the guiding principle that would be part of all who sprang from this place. "You are forgiven sister," she said to her. She could tell that even if she didn't think it was necessary for her to do such a thing that M'Tehr did think it so. She rose to her feet beside her and she inclined her head toward Selicia in a gesture of deep respect. It was not possible for her to dissuade her of doing this anymore Selicia realized. She just didn't have any other way to respond to what Selicia represented to her and she resolved to not try and force her in this manner to reject what was clearly a deep part of her being any more. "If this is not the mark you were looking for then it needs to come from somewhere," she said to her. "So how did your mark come to be?" "You must craft the mark Arath' Mahar," she said reverently. "As all Arath' Mahar's did in their time. "But how?" she asked. "Does anyone even remember it being done?" M'Tehr felt the stir of her sister's voices in her mind and in the tumult there was no answer to be found that she could give. "The mark of a Grove is part of the name that it bears," she said finally. "Beyond that there is little known of how it was done each time it was. The Arath' Mahar is the only one who ever did such a thing and it was only done once." "But there has to be some way of knowing what they did then," Selicia said. "If only so that it could be remembered as being done." The babble of voices in M'Tehr's mind increased as many agreed with what Arath' Mahar TsL' H'sia was saying. There were calls even as they discussed this matter for the archives to be opened and searched for anything that might be of use to her and M'Tehr was one of those that added her own voice in support of such an effort. "We will look in our oldest records Arath" Mahar TsL' H'sia," she said to her. If it can be found then it will be known to you." Selicia nodded her head in gratitude and started walking through the charred field. M'Tehr fell in and walked half a step behind her as she did so. She walked beyond where the growth had been scorched away to where there had only been grass growing in her vision. She walked and then stopped and knelt on one spot. She laid her hand on the blistered earth and looked up at M'Tehr. "This is where it began," she said simply. "This is where I was born." M'Tehr didn't answer her. It was hard for her to see the connection between what the land was dreaming of now and what had been here when the shadowy man had used this spot to set the Arath' Mahar's feet on the path that led to them being here now. "This is where the name needs to come from," she said to her. "I don't understand why it needs to come from here only that it does." Selicia looked up and her and rose to her feet as she brushed the dust from her hands and let it fall to the earth below them. "What would you have called this place if you were standing where I am now? She asked M'Tehr. "When I thought that you were less than you are I had such presumptions Arath' Mahar. In my ignorance I would have suggested to you that this place might be called Khopthalmi Phar." "And what does that mean?" Selicia asked her. "Resurgent heart," she answered. "I thought when I was mistaken that if you did not remember the name by which our sisters once called this place that you would consider that meaning of some worth." "And do you still think so?" "No," she said. "This Grove is a new place." She knelt down and picked up a handful of the ashes that humped on the aethereal soil and let them drift through her fingers. "It is new," she repeated, "but it can only be built on the ashes of what is no longer here. And what is lost will not be lost so long as this place remembers it." She let the rest of the ashes fall and together the two of them watched them drift down and settle back into the ashes from which they had been taken from. "It should have a new name as well," she said with finality. "And why not the one you suggested?" Selicia asked. M'Tehr looked at the spot of earth where the Arath' Mahar had hatched from. "Arath' Mahar if it were the right name you would already know that it is so. This spot would tell you if it rings true and I don't think that it does for you." Selicia looked at the place where she had been twisted into what she was now and inclined her head in agreement with her sister. "You are right sister," she said finally. "That name does not echo here and it would not ring true if I accepted it. The name of this place must come from within; from what forged its beginning." She looked around them and then looked back at M'Tehr. "The shadowy man was the midwife of this Grove," she said. "Without what he did here there would be no Grove now. She looked back at her elm. The smoking stump of her Phar' Ador that stood forlorn in the desolation around them. "And he is connected with what we are seeing here in some way as well. The land dreams of what he desires," she said, her eyes narrowing in building fury. "It does not matter that this small good came from him. What is evil might do something good to serve its own ends, but that does not erase the evil." She looked across the river to the city that stood now clearly seen from the heart of the murdered Grove the aether was dreaming of. "And that must be part of the purpose of this place," she declared to M'Tehr and in her words she felt the solidity of that truth fall into place. "I cannot allow whatever he is move around freely to work his will on others the way he planned to do with me. In that my resolution is firm sister." M'Tehr couldn't disagree with Arath' Mahar TsL' H'sia. What she had already spoken was something that she could feel as a connection actively being forged from the words that they were speaking now. And that connection was echoing strongly in this place. Too strongly for her to dismiss it. "I must find him and put an end to what he has wrought," Selicia said with firm conviction. "Vengeance is all he has left owed to him now. Vengeance for what he did here, what he has done and what he will do before he is brought down. That is the only justice that he could be held accountable to. I am certain that aspect should be part of what this place should become. A token of the commitment to see that fight carried out and finished. So that all those who come from here remember what this place was born from; pain and fear and they should be bound to stand against that. To guard against it for all time." M'Tehr looked at Arath' Mahar in horror. "No," she said trembling at her need to contradict her. It must not be that, she thought desperately to herself, never that. She needed to make the Arath' Mahar understand that while a name was needed now it should not include that as its primary keystone. The Arath' Mahar was on the verge of speaking the name that was already brewing in her heart and she was right in what she said for the reason that she said, but that was nothing compared to the suggestion that she was making now. "Not Dormath' Phar," she insisted. "That very name reeks of evil. Arath' Mahar." "Is that what it would be?" she asked turning her attention back to her sister. "Dormath' Phar," she said allowing the syllables to roll over her tongue. "It sounds almost right. What does it mean?" "It means Vengeful Heart," she said saying its meaning again to Selicia in English. "Whatever else you do please do not do this, Arath' Mahar. Do not embrace this name," she begged. "Not Dormath' Phar. That name would taint this place irrevocably and twist it in turn. The dark pattern that you would weave with bestowing this name would echo through the ages and it would be true; but it would also pollute this place. And that pollution would be carried at their core by every daughter that is spawned from here. Every daughter Grove that stems from this place would carry that taint as well and you would come to regret what you do today if you give in to this impulse now. Please, Arath' Mahar. I beg you choose another name." "And why do you say this sister?" she asked her. "How could you know that what you are saying would be what you say it is?" "Because once there was a Dormath' Phar," she said shuddering as she needed to speak its name again. "Or rather there was Phar' Dormath; the Heart of Vengeance." "And what happened to this Phar' Dormath?" she asked her. "Their focus on vengeance to the exclusion of all else destroyed them," M'Tehr said her voice low with the horror of it. "Their Groves became dark twisted places and that was long before they ever struck their final blow against the ones they stood against. And when those ones were gone they no longer had purpose and they turned on all who came near because the purpose they had was now gone. And when none came near they turned on themselves until none remained." "Do you know where they were then?" Selicia asked her, her voice clearly reflecting the recognition for what M'Tehr was telling her." "Not precisely," M'Tehr said. "But the earth that they once stood over is still poisoned by what they became today. Find a wasteland and at the heart of it was where one of their strongholds once stood. They were fanatics and that poison they harboured within their breasts still seeps up from the earth and taints those who spring from there today. I beg you, do not resurrect Dormath' Phar." "I will not give this name then. I must not let what fights the shadowy man become worse than him," she said finally. "But what grows here still must stand a vigil against him and those like him as well. There can be no other way." M'Tehr heaved a sigh of relief inwardly as she felt the words that Arath' Mahar speak were already echoing with that meaning around them. "Let it be as you say then Arath' Maher. Let it be Phar' Naqua as you have said. That is a name that does not speak from darkness but from light." Selicia turned the words over in her mind and tasted them as they caressed her tongue. She knelt and laid her hand on the spot of her birth. "Phar' Naqua," she said softly and in saying them she felt the rightness of them echoed in the Grove around them. -------------------------------------------- Traver's Home: Day Six, 2215 hours The lights in Mitch's place were all on as Jim slowed down and pulled his car up to the curb and killed the engine. He could see Mitch and Andrea moving around inside behind curtains that were only half open in some windows. The problem was that Mitch and Andrea weren't the only ones doing that. Almost every house on the street was lit up either the same amount or nearly as much and from what Jim could see they were almost as busy. Jim looked down at Raja who was still purring and doing his best to impersonate a furry black ball on the seat. "Something doesn't smell right Raja old boy," he said. "You stay here buddy." Raja barely lifted his head when Jim opened the door and got out. Jim was half worried that he might bolt since Raja wasn't really his cat to begin with, but Raja seemed happy with where he was. His only reaction was to stretch out his forelegs until his claws popped out while making a wide mouthed cat yawn before settling back into the seat to resume his nap. Jim stepped up to Mitch's front door and popped the door three times in rapid fire secession. "Hey Mitch, Andrea its Jim," he said through the wood loud enough that they could hear him. There was as sound of movement on the other side and Andrea instead of Mitch opened the door. "Hey Jim," she said stepping back so he could come in. "Hey Andrea. Where's Mitch?" he said stepping in. "He's still getting some stuff together. Did he call you?" she asked. "No, he didn't call me," Jim said and before he could tell her why he was here she turned half around and called back to Mitch. "Mitch? Jim's here. Did you call him already?" she asked. "No," Mitch's muffled voice came from the back. "Send him back this way would ya' hon?" Andrea turned back to Jim. "He's back in the laundry room getting some things together. You go on back Jim; I gotta get back in the bedroom and get some of this stuff together," Andrea headed down the hall and disappeared around the corner. Jim passed through the open archway from the living room into the kitchen and headed to the back of the house where the laundry room was. Mitch used part of the big room for storage and when Jim peeked his head through the open door Mitch was pulling down a plastic storage bin down from an overhead rack. "Well I guess that answers that question," Jim said looking him over. "Which one was that?" Mitch said. "How you're feeling." "A lot better than I was feeling earlier," Mitch said and reached for another storage bin. "Yeah, me too," Jim said. "So what's this?" he asked. "Yeah, I was about to call you. A fireman stopped by here about thirty minutes ago. he said that they were evacuating everything on this side of Eighteenth Street all the way east to the interstate. I was about to call you and see if you minded putting up with Andrea and me for a couple of days." "Mitch I can't do that. I just came over to ask you the same thing. A uni stopped by my place a little over an hour ago and told me they were evacuating all the way west to Sixteenth Street from the river's edge. I was going to ask you to put me up." Mitch set down the plastic storage bin. Someone, probably Andrea had put a strip of masking tape on it and written blankets with a marker. "That's just about the entire area around the quarantine zone cleared out Jim. That's a hell of a lot of people being moved right now and a hell of a lot of space being cleared out. That's too much for what we have going on there." "Have you called Singh?" Jim asked. "I was going to do that after I called you. How about you?" he asked. "I was going to do the same when I got here," Jim said. "You call Singh and I'll have Andrea call her sister and see if we can stay with her tonight since your place isn't an option anymore," he said putting down the bin and heading back to where Andrea was in the back bedroom. Jim reached fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed Singh. --------------------------------------------- Area Command and Control: Day Six, 2240 hours Singh ended the call and slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket. "Agent Fitzhugh, would you be good enough to come in here please?" he called through the door to the room outside. Fitzhugh stepped in a moment later. "Yes sir?" she asked. Singh could only marvel at the woman's constitution. It seemed like she never slept. He was certain that she must, but she was always right at his arm whenever he needed her still. "Agent Fitzhugh, I just finished a call with Detective Brighton. From what he tells me the entire area from the river to the interstate that is currently just outside of the containment zone is being evacuated. Is this an F.R.T. evacuation and if so what is the reasoning for it?" he asked. "I'm not aware of any expansion of the evacuation area sir," she answered. "But I'll find out as much as I can about it right now." "Please do that. Find out what is the reasoning behind it, who is conducting it and more importantly why and then find out how it is that we were not informed of it at all apparently," Singh said turning back to the pad that he had been writing on before Jim called him. Singh continued to write on the pad. It was a habit he had developed to deal with the effects of experiencing a broadcast vision like they had been part of earlier. For him it was a tool to help organize what he had seen while he was still able to recall all of the elements in fresh detail. He know that before long the ultra real experience would begin to fade and he wouldn't be able to extract nearly as much useful information from what he knew as he could shortly after it happened. He didn't want that to happen with this latest experience. There was too much there that was valuable not only to resolving this Grove crisis but even more that was highly relevant to the Barnes investigation itself. Perhaps even more than that, but to find that out he had to get it down first and the first part of that was to get his own mind out of the way and act as a stenographer for what he saw. That was the trick of this. You had to take yourself out of the picture and write it down as if you were observing it firsthand rather than as a shared experience the way a broadcast vision did. If you did it right when you finished you had a complete statement that was exacting in as many details as possible without being swamped in documenting each movement. That was also another issue with that; it was easy to drown in what you saw and identify with the one who shared it rather than remain objective as an observer. And when it was shared without warning as had been done today that made the whole process even more difficult as well. When Barnes recovered M'Tehr was going to have to instruct her in a little etiquette regarding that particular talent of hers Singh thought. "Sir?" Agent Fitzhugh said leaning into the door leading into the office. "Yes?" Singh said putting the pad and pen down. "We have verification on that evacuation order. It covers from the west bank of the river all the way to the interstate. It's been in effect for almost four hours now," she said. "And why didn't this notification include us?" Singh asked. "It's being carried out by Stafford Police and fire department sir; it hasn't been shared beyond those organizations. Apparently they started at the interstate line and have been working their way to the river border since it was issued. That's why none of our personnel have reported anything back to us yet. We're on the leading edge of the evacuation zone right now." "And what is the stated purpose of this evacuation?" Singh asked. "From what we've been able to determine it is being explained as a precautionary move," she said. Singh leaned back into the chair. "Agent Fitzhugh I find it very difficult to believe that a precautionary move that encompasses such a scope of operation and covers so much territory is anything but. I also find it highly interesting that such an operation was conducted in a fashion intended to keep those of us involved in this operation blind of its actions. There is a purpose behind this and someone had decided that it is not for our eyes to see or for our minds to know until it has nearly been completed and that bothers me greatly." "I agree sir," she said. "There is something that is very irregular about this." "Is the Advisory council still present?" he asked. "No sir, they left over two hours ago," Fitzhugh answered. "Have them brought back, wake them up at home if need be, but get them back here. All of them. I suspect the actions that we are seeing here are a direct result of some decision that the Advisory council has reached and had not deemed necessary to share with us for their own reasons. Whatever that action is it is imperative that we are aware of its intentions as soon as can be determined." "Yes sir," Fitzhugh answered and stepped back into the command room and started issuing orders to the staff there. Singh was sitting in the council chamber when the members began to drift in and take their seats. It was already after one in the morning before Clayton and Meyers arrived. They were the first to do so. Meyers because he was closest and Clayton because she was already at the station when Fitzhugh called. The mayor was the next to follow them followed shortly in turn by Ramirez. Both of them had been home but from what Fitzhugh had informed him they had apparently not been sleeping when either of them was contacted. Kinsey was the last one to arrive and he kept them all waiting for him for nearly an hour after the others were assembled, even though he probably lived closer to the Area Command and Control building than any of them. "And just what is the reason that you feel the need to call us back here at this time of night detective?" Kinsey complained. "I fail to see how any of this is justified in any way. Would you care to explain yourself sir?" "Alderman Kinsey that was the very thought that I had when I asked for this council to be called into session here tonight. There is a complete evacuation that is underway that spans from the river's edge to the interstate bypass and seems intended to remove every person who resides in this part of the city from this area. For what purpose is this action being conducted? And why are the members of the F.R.T. not only being kept unaware that this action is underway, but it seems that action also is also being actively concealed from them that it was even taking place?" "This evacuation is a precautionary measure that the council had determined is in the best interests of Stafford, Detective," Kinsey said to him. "You and your organization here would have been informed when it was completed. There was no reason for you to be involved in it at this time. This is a local matter and it does not concern any others, especially your F.R.T." "And for what purpose is such an undertaking in service of Alderman Kinsey?" Singh asked. "Why the best interests of Stafford detective, that's all it's ever been about," he answered with particular relish. And just what are those interests then Alderman Kinsey?" Singh asked him. "Why the entire reason for this council being formed as you yourself said earlier detective. The swift resolution of this current crisis." "And just how are you defining that objective?" Singh asked. "Well detective, it's been suggested to some on this council that perhaps the best way this whole situation could be resolved is, if this Grove you called it? "Yes, Alderman Kinsey. That is indeed what we are presently facing." "If this Grove then, were to just go away entirely," he said with evident satisfaction over being able to tell Singh that. "That is no longer possible Alderman, once a Statement of Being is made the relevant articles of the Concord supersedes other concerns. The Grove network already were resistant to the idea of removal even before they were aware that it contained an Arath' Mahar, and now they will utterly refuse to countenance it." "Well accidents do happen unfortunately. And there are only three of them there," Kinsey said taking his seat and leaning back in the chair. If there was a poster depicting arrogance he stood a good contender as the model just then. "And what is it that am I to understand that you intend by making such a statement Alderman Kinsey?" he demanded. "Absolutely nothing detective, but if a fire were to say sweep the area as happens from time to time, it would certainly be a great tragedy for all concerned of course, but the status quo would likely return to what it was before," Kinsey's eyes were twinkling with pleasure as he made his suggestion. "And what do you base such a preposterous notion on Alderman?" he demanded. "Nothing detective, just a possibility that must be considered is all," Kinsey answered. "What have you done Alderman?" Singh demanded, his eyes narrowing. Nothing yet, detective, but as we were discussing earlier Civil Defense plan Gamma Fourteen seems like it would be the best solution to the entire matter," Kinsey was like a child with a new toy that he couldn't wait to use when he said that. Singh didn't like that one bit. "And what does this civil defense plan Gamma Fourteen have to do with any of this Alderman; those plans have no relevance in the current situation?" Singh demanded. "It was just presented as one of the options the council had at its disposal and once the specifics of it were explained that particular response seems like it might be tailor made to eliminate this problem for us." Singh looked back the man. He was almost emanating an air of smug satisfaction over this. Considering what he had just said and his earlier behavior he thought that he was justified in seeing just what it was that this man was hiding in his thoughts right now. He concentrated and accessed just what it was that he was hiding there. "You want to drop a fuel air bomb on the Grove in the center of that part of the city? Are you insane?!" Singh exploded at him. "A modified fuel air bomb Detective, with an aerial dispersion of iron filings afterward. According to the information here a thorough evacuation of the area can be made very quickly before it's done and if it is performed just before dawn it can be explained as the result of some of the toxic drums rupturing and causing an explosion. It seemed the best option from hypothetical scenarios that we were presented. The numbers look good for its success. A 97.4% probability of success in fact." "This is no hypothetical scenario. You've already ordered it haven't you?" he spat. "I can't really say that for certain but it is a viable option is it not?" he answered in a jovial way. He was enjoying watching this little pissant twist around helplessly while a real leader acted. "Haven't you!!!" Singh demanded. "The evacuation is already underway Detective. You are already aware of that. Now why don't you just go back into your little office and let this council handle this nuisance. That's all you have to do and before much longer this problem will just fade away. And once it does we can pick up the pieces and forget this ever happened," Kinsey said a slow satisfied smile spreading over his face. "Believe me detective, we wrestled with the necessity with for this action, but in the end the majority of us decided that this was the best chance to restore the status quo and the governor agreed with us," Meyer said. "My God, what do you lunatics think you are doing? This is not why you are here!" Singh said rising and leaning over the table to stare down at them. Kinsey smiled inwardly. It was so satisfying when they hung themselves like Singh had just done. He had been looking forward to this ever since the last time they spoke. "Detective, you will apologize for those remarks. And you will do it now. I don't think outbursts like that have any place in this discussion. You do not run this council and when you are in front of it you are here to provide answers not half baked opinions or flights of fancy to excuse your actions over the last few days like you did earlier. And when you are in front of this council you will confine your responses to answering the needs of this council and not questioning its decisions sir. And I will move to hold you in contempt and have you arrested if you persist in doing so." "And what will you do when the Satyr armies march in response to what you have done? What then?" Singh demanded ignoring the threat. "I was made aware of your so-called Esper abilities detective, I'm not sure that I really believe in them, but it seems you neglected to mention that you can see the future as well. Perhaps, you should enlighten us?" Kinsey said in his satisfied mocking tone. "It does not take any form of precognition to see what the outcome of this misbegotten idea will be Alderman Kinsey, merely a reasonably functioning brain. Something whomever it was that suggested this asinine response clearly lacks," he spat. "Shall I tell you what will happen if you should do anything of this sort you blithering idiot? Someone should because if you think that this is a rational response, then perhaps it is best that you not appear in public in the future without a competent keeper close beside you," he said glaring directly at Kinsey. "You are out of line detective! If you say one more word that is not in service to meeting the demands of this council there will be consequences sir! Do you see what I am saying to you sir!" Kinsey shouted back at him. "Oh I see very clearly Alderman Kinsey exactly what it is that you intend. This entire farce has nothing to do with addressing the situation in Olympia and everything to do with preventing loss. Particularly your own." Kinsey felt a cold chill sink into him. There was no way that this man could know just how he had maneuvered this situation the way he had to preserve his personal plans. That claptrap about reading minds was just new age foolishness wasn't' it? Best to shut this down as quickly as possible he decided. "That will be quite enough out of you detective. You are completely out of order and if you do not shut up and do as you are instructed to by this council you will be removed and barred from it regardless of what your so-called position with the Stafford FRT task force is." "But then you do have a great deal to lose don't you," Singh continued speaking, ignoring his threats. "A Grove in your district would have a tremendous impact on your personal circumstances as you see it wouldn't it Alderman Kinsey? This has less to do with resolving this crisis and more to do I think, with preserving your personal circumstances doesn't it? You own a great deal of property in the vicinity of that Grove don't you Alderman Kinsey? Property that would see a sharp decrease in its value in your estimation if it were to remain there, especially since by doing so it would end your own very profitable plans for that area." Kinsey gawped at him. There was no way that this man could know anything about what he had planned. He wasn't even planning on announcing Phase one for almost another three weeks. "Don't deny it; I see it clearly in your own thoughts. Much of your personal holdings are in the rental properties there, but the land those properties sit on; that land is much more valuable should those properties be cleared away isn't it? And the insurance for those properties will net for you a tidy sum if they were to burn, won't it? But not as tidy as what you are already planning to erect in place of what is there at present now is it? Oh I see your intentions quite clearly Alderman. For you destruction on that scale is both profitable and preferable to avoiding it." Kinsey's face was already starting to turn purple with rage. He glared at Singh and pounded his hands on the table as he shouted back at him. "Now see here Detective, I will not be slandered or have my motivations impugned by some nothing little pissant. I will see personally that you pay for your allegations. You can count on it. And I keep my promises 'detective'. Officers remove this man immediately! He is not to ever return before this council. Take him away and lock him up for contempt!" "Gentlemen, please restrain and gag the Alderman if necessary. His intemperate outburst has cost us far too much time as it is, as has this fool's errand that has been launched because of it. "You can't do that!" I'll..." Kinsey sputtered. He didn't sputter long though. One of the agents stepped swiftly behind the man and brought him under control with a knee in his back even more rapidly. Why the man was carrying materials with which to gag the man Singh didn't really care. All that mattered was that this farce was put to an immediate halt while the others sat in stunned silence. "I assure you Alderman I can and as you already are experiencing I have. You seem to be operating under the misconception that my position with the Stafford police department is the sum totality of my authority here. Allow me dispel those misconceptions...for all of you. The moment that I invoked the situation code that alerted us all to the existence of this Grove, plenipotentiary powers authorized under the Concord itself were granted to me, as its sole agent, to resolve this matter. Those powers exist for the duration of this emergency. This council is not a deliberative nor is it a ruling body as some of you seem to think that it is, its sole purpose is to function in an advisory capacity to facilitate a rapid and peaceful resolution in accordance to what is laid out in pages of the Concord. Singh placed his hands on the table heavily and leaned toward the row of men and women seated on the other side of it. "Alderman clearly, as you have demonstrated, you have your own priorities in this matter, misguided as they are, but I cannot help but pity you for your willful refusal to acknowledge the assistance offered you by those who have gained full knowledge of the true situation we live under as a race and are hence unable to truly grasp the magnitude of our situation here. We have but one positive factor in our favor presently. And that is that this entire crisis revolves around the sudden existence of a dryad where none has been in residence for ages uncounted. That, ladies and gentlemen, is our single stroke of good fortune." "Dryads and the satyrs that are symbiotically joined with them are amongst the more peaceful of Fae races, were that not so our efforts to deal what is taking place now would be infinitely more difficult." "So I will give you a little history lesson Alderman Kinsey. Perhaps it will be to all of your benefit that I do so." "The Concord that is in operation and has suzerainty in this matter was negotiated and finally agreed to a little over one hundred and fifty years ago. At that time, the race of man enjoyed multiple distinct advantages over every single other race that we share this planet with." "We were, even with our division into competing nations, religions and ethnic groups, without question the dominant race. Our numbers far exceeded those of our neighbors, we enjoyed technological advantages that even then were rapidly increasing and in the event of armed conflict the amount of weaponry that harnessed the destructive nature of cold iron was by itself enough to guarantee victory over whichever opponent it was that rose against us. And most importantly we did not suffer the deleterious effects that a racial dependence on magical energy to even exist engendered in our neighbors." "The Fae, in contrast had almost nothing comparable. Instances, where conflict became inevitable were quickly resolved with terrible casualties among those who chose the sword in a manner of speaking. They were scattered across the globe. Even members of the same racial groups were unable to act in solidarity even if they wished to. And those who were able to link with their own kind so that all were aware and could coordinate their actions were still few in number and handicapped in other myriad ways. Too many of them at that time were on the brink of extinction as it was and would not dare risk certain oblivion in conflict with mankind. So the majority of them chose to withdraw from contact with mankind more and more often. A choice that more and more of them had been making in the interest of their species self preservation for generations already." "But the men who came together, the ones that proposed the Concord were very much aware that the time of their domination was an illusion and even then rapidly passing away. Magical energy that was slowly seeping back into the world in glacially increasing amounts was not an aberration, but a harbinger. Year by year those who were aware that a change was underway urged those who would listen to pay attention to the ramifications of such a change. And they were fortunate that there were men in positions of influence who listened." "It took those men decades to get the disparate Fae races not only to speak with them, but to trust them and to agree to meet in good faith. To meet and to begin to craft a binding agreement between all of the sentient species of this world. To moderate what it was that would one day be. It took them even more decades to alleviate hostilities earned over centuries on all sides and to craft a set of compromises that each of them could accept and abide by." "For these men this was not the work of the few short years they claimed. They dreamed mightily those men, and they had the courage to forge that dream into a reality. Birthing this agreement was, for them, a task that consumed entire lifetimes. And those extraordinary men used those lifetimes to build well indeed. What they built with their vision gave us peace with the Fae for over a century and a half. They gave us what we needed most but were unaware that we needed at all. They gave us the tools to meet what is upon us today and to master it. To pass through the crucible and emerge better for it on the other side. What they built was an accomplishment for the ages. And that accomplishment is not for small men to tear down in service to even smaller desires." "Agent Fitzhugh," Singh said. "Find out who is responsible for executing plan Gamma Fourteen. Find out and have them unwrap and eat their popsicle and then order them under my authority to abort the mission if it has been ordered. Contact those responsible for overseeing the evacuation and have them cease doing so immediately. Inform every person responsible for executing such a feckless plan that unless in the future such orders come directly from me that they are to disregard them in their entirety as the ravings of a lunatic." "Right away Detective Singh," Fitzhugh responded and scooped up the briefing documents and hustled out of the room. "Now, ladies and gentlemen of the council, that this reckless stupidity is on its way to being arrested we are going to end part of our history lesson and see how it is of relevance to our lives today. I trust that once you have those facts presented to you that you will finally understand the dire consequences of just what it is that you attempted to do in your mass delusion today." "The first matter of importance that none of you who supported this madness understand, what you have failed to grasp entirely is that it is already doomed to fail utterly. I witnessed the creation of this dryad, a vital piece of information that none of you possess and even if you shared what it is that I saw I doubt any of you would have the background to fully grasp just what it entails. Indeed I know what the import of such a vision means and even I quail in the deepest recess of my being when considering its full implications." "This dryad that you intended to destroy in your arrogance is something this world has not seen in ages, something that has not walked this world since the very beginning of the Fae race. She is what they refer to reverently as Arath' Mahar; a sacred forebear." "This word and its meaning in our language have no relevance for you, this I understand. So I will strive to make certain that you do. A dryad, indeed any others of the various surviving Fae races can certainly be killed; they can feel pain and be destroyed if enough effort is devoted to doing so." "But not this one, this is where you and your small plans to remove her are doomed. She took into herself vast quantities of the resting energy of the entire world at the moment of her creation and she is still connected to those energies even now. So great a force did she sup upon that she may well be what no Fae has been for centuries; she may be immortal. The raw forces of creation itself are what animates her and in the face of such force your febrile attempt to do away with her is little more than that of a toddler threatening to injure a mountain range with intemperate words. And she is merely the first of her breed," he roared. "Should your plan have been so rashly consummated I can promise you that this would have been the result. She would pass through it unscathed and all you would have done is create an implacable enemy where before there was none. There would be no forgiving this action and her wroth would be a terrible thing to behold." "Even if she were little more than another of her kind there was little chance of such a plan succeeding. She, like the other Fae who are with her would seek refuge from the fire in the aether itself. It would pass over them burning the physical part of where they are and leaving them burning for vengeance in the ashes. All you would have accomplished would have been the destruction of what it is that they love and from that injury they would be compelled to lash out at you in return until they have extracted the full measure of retribution and that would just be the beginning." "In response to such an action Satyr armies would march. They would have no other choice but to do so immediately. Contrary to your ignorant supposition that you could dispose of these inconvenient Fae with none of their kindred becoming aware that you had done so, let me enlighten you. Nothing is further from the truth. Dryads, like very few other Fae races are interconnected. They are always aware of their relationship with their own kind at a level and scale few others can comprehend, let alone even match. And because of what has occurred here in Stafford all of their eyes are fixated upon what happens here." "Begging your pardon Detective Singh", Alderman Kinsey said slipping his gag for a moment and in a mocking tone that dripped with contempt, " but at best a few thousand of these satyrs are hardly even a few days worth of grief in my opinion. Maybe a couple of hundred years ago something like that might have been a threat, but the state of modern warfare is nothing like they have ever faced and if any mistake is made it would not be ours, it would be theirs." Singh shook his head at the Alderman's words in slow deliberate movements trying to convey his deep disappointment in his willful refusal to see what he was trying to make them understand. "Just when I begin to think that there is a slim hope for my own race. For the idea that we have begun to even slightly mature as a species, no sooner do I have that thought then out of the most idiotic shallow end of our collective gene pool scampers an absolute idiot who demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am gravely mistaken in that assessment." The Alderman bristled at Singh's words, but before he could speak in rebuttal, Singh ordered him gagged again and continued. "And now I shall tell you sir why it is that I speak to you is this fashion although I am loathe to waste my time with the effort. The simple reason that your misinformed outburst has no relevance is that you fail to grasp the full scope of what the changes at hand since the Concord was signed truly are. "The Satyr's would march in response to such an act of unmitigated aggression and the entire Fae world would know that they do so at the behest and with the blessing of the entire Grove network at their backs. The other Fae would demand to know just why it is that some of the most peaceful of their number would break the agreement that they have been one of the staunchest supporters of since before it was even negotiated." "They would ask why and the Grove would answer them. The other Fae would be sickened and outraged over such callous disregard of the foundation of our dealings with each other since the Concord's acceptance and that, council members, is just the reaction they would feel over one who was only newly awakened from that past slumber as we thought this dryad was until recently. The very idea that you, that we would attempt to destroy an Arath' Mahar would enrage them beyond reason. That is an attack on their very future and they would not let such an action pass without returning it in kind." "The Naiads would rise with them in solidarity and no stretch of water would be safe for us no matter how insignificant. The Sasquatch would abandon their games of playing with those who hope to glimpse them and emerge from their forests to stand with their ancient allies the Grove network. The Mer will strike from the seas and we would be helpless to stop them because the Sirens who are their allies would no longer muffle their song and none who heard them could stand unmoved by what they hear and not leap to their deaths without heed. And compared to others, these breeds of Fae are some of the more harmless ones when left alone." "The more violent ones would rush join them as well. The giants would leave their mountains, The Trolls, the goblins and all of the nightmares that were last to agree to the peace would be the first to rush to join the rest and against their combined strength there would be no defense that could be mounted. When you spoke so blithely of defeating the Fae as you suggested a moment ago you did not know it, but the ability of mankind to do any such thing passed into oblivion decades ago." "This would not be a rising as it was of old. This would not be the scattered members of one clan who could be dispatched before their brethren could arrive to aid them as it was long ago. This action would forge the entire population of the Fae into a weapon. A weapon aimed at our very hearts. These are not the Fae of past days council members. These are not creatures that could be dealt with using fire and steel and bullets and blades. Oh no, that time has long passed." "And where before they were divided, separated by distance and distrust, now they would be united; against us. Where technology was once our wellspring and font of power, now they match us and even exceed our capabilities and cold iron, council members, is no longer our strong shield. Our numbers are meaningless if you chanced to think that once we were committed to the path that that would turn the tide in our favor. Few of our people are aware of the Fae's existence now and are ill prepared to stand against them under these circumstances. And of those who do know of them, truly know of them; many of them would be repelled by what we attempted to do and side with the Fae. You would have us meet such retribution unprepared and divided and that would be folly of the worst kind." "And the most important thing that you have failed to consider, because you deemed it of little importance. Magic is no longer the pale pallid thing it was when the Concord was signed, and the Fae are no longer the starving dying races who signed it. They stand on the cusp of an expansion of the very energy that sustains them the like of which we have no concept of with which to understand the scale of the changes that would be wrought. Only those who lived though when it failed centuries ago would understand its ramifications and they are long turned to dust." "Let me illustrate the point to you in a way you might understand. My partner Pantra is a pixie. Pixies are agreeable sorts and are some of the most delightful creatures that make up the Fae. They are what, even you in your ignorance, would consider harmless. And in the distant past such a judgment would be valid; today that is far from the situation that we face. Sixty years ago, long before I was born, my Pixie partner Pantra could barely call into being an illumination little brighter than a small LED light. Barely a week ago she poured such a torrent of raw flame from her person that she was able to stagger and hold back the mindless rage of a powerful dryad before being struck down. And this, council members, was done even before the ever growing wave of magic rising against us has even finished swelling let alone cresting and striking us." "The Fae who face us under such circumstances will not be weak, they will not be starving and they will not remain few in number for very long; that, council members, is precisely why the Concord exists at all. This was not something done out of our benevolence. We did not look down on them from our pinnacle of power, the very height of our supremacy and opt to show mercy to the few remaining survivors that clung to existence. The men who wrought the Concord looked forward across the years to this day and trembled. They seized the moment they had. The waning days of our dominance and from that last position of strength won for us the only chance we have to survive." "The Concord exists not to protect only the Fae. It exists to protect the entire race of mankind against the Fae; it always has. It is the true reason it exists at all. It is its only purpose and for a century and a half we have carefully built up the goodwill that would sustain us from what is coming. A reordering of the very world around us; a reordering we cannot stop. That is what your petty, short sighted, ill- considered action has threatened." Singh rocked back away from the council table. "Now you have no excuse for your actions from this point forward. Ignorance will no longer serve you as shield for what you do nor will it cloak you either. I will leave you to consider what it truly is that you face here with no illusions standing between you and what you are called upon to do. I pray you can find it within you summon such wisdom as you may and choose wisely. To be worthy heirs of those who won you this one chance and use your moment to aspire to rise to their level. Good day council members." Singh turned on his heel and strode from the room without another word and as the door closed behind him he prayed that his words would be sufficient to the moment. God help them all if they hadn't been. ---------------------------------------- Area Command and Control: Day Seven, 0325 hours Mitch and Jim had come directly to the ACC after Jim had spoken with Singh about the evacuation orders for their areas. When they arrived the meeting was already underway and for the time being Fitzhugh's assistant had directed them to wait in the office that Singh was using for now. It had already been another long day for them and when the door opened they were both surprised by the sound of it. The quiet and the hour had conspired to make the two of them doze while they waited. Singh was more furious than Mitch had ever seen him before. He didn't think it was possible for him to even show anything like what it was that they were seeing from him now. Considering how self possessed the man routinely was seeing him in this way was almost like he was teetering on the edge of losing control even though it might not seem that way to others. Mitch hadn't known him for long but he did know enough to realize that whatever had happened in the council chambers was not just a matter of someone trying to poach his authority. When he lay out what had happened in the council chambers it was even more than Mitch or Jim thought might have happened. Once they understood what it was that had almost happened they couldn't believe that such a reckless plan had come so close to being executed either and once they heard from Singh what would happen once it had they could only be glad that he had averted it. When they time came for him to tell them how it was that he rated such authority and could even do such a thing there was only one response that Mitch could voice. "Jesus! I had no idea that you had anything like that kind of power Singh," Mitch said his jaw gaping in astonishment once where he was sitting opposite the desk he had slumped behind. "Detective Travers, for the duration of this emergency I do," he said sadly in response. "Would that my burden was nothing more than that of a special detective who's greatest concern was enduring the sniggers and ridicule of those in my department who think my position is as best a joke and at worst an outright waste of an office." "So just what can you do with all that power Singh?" Jim asked him. "Just what can you do? And what the hell stops you if you don't feel like giving it up now that you have it?" "In the short term Detective Brighton the simple answer is that I have complete authority to use and full range of access to every resource in this nation that is available without question or hindrance until this crisis is brought to a conclusion. In the long term I can call upon every resource the entire race of man has at its disposal if I should so require them." "Christ you're the king of the fucking world!" Mitch blurted out in uneasy astonishment. "Hardly Detective Travers," Singh answered. "Even I have my limitations and those limitations bind me with far stronger lashings then are generally known, even among those who are aware that such dire necessities even exist." "But what keeps anyone with that kind of authority in line? Jim asked again. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes," answered Singh with slow precision. "I've heard that before," Mitch said. "Where have I heard that before?" "Perhaps you would know it better as 'Who will watch the watchmen' detective Travers," Singh answered. "Now that I have heard," Mitch said. Agent Fitzhugh stepped into the far side of the long bustling control room; she caught sight of Singh and the two detectives speaking with him through the open office door and bustled in their direction clasping a sheaf of papers against her blouse. "Detective Singh," she said to him in a quiet urgent manner. "Yes, Agent Fitzhugh?" "The bird had flown as of 0230 hours when we contacted Earhart ANG base, it was entering a holding pattern in the target area in preparation to commencing its attack run when we issued the abort code." "And the status of the bird itself?" "Approaching the nest. The eggs in question will be removed and neutralized upon landing." Singh exhaled in a slow controlled fashion, his relief visible to those around him. "Good, and the commander of Earhart is clear as to their responsibilities in this matter henceforth Agent Fitzhugh?" "I personally verified that the base commander has unwrapped and eaten the popsicle Detective Singh. There will be no further misunderstanding from that direction." "In light of what nearly occurred just now Agent Fitzhugh, I believe that it would be a prudent move to counteract the possibility of any similar instances being set into motion by those who might still have reasons of their own to oppose this situation's peaceful resolution. We will need to immediately take steps to ensure that all actions that are in any way, shape or form capable of causing an outcome similar to that of Gamma fourteen are to be proscribed without my explicit authorization immediately. Inform all those who may be capable of authorizing a similar action independently to open and eat their popsicles as well." "I'll see to it immediately sir," she said and moved to leave. "Agent Fitzhugh?" "Yes sir?" "Despite my words to them before I think it best that Karmek visit the council's room immediately to impress upon them the gravity of those words." "I'll see to it sir," she said. "One more thing Agent Fitzhugh," Singh asked her. "Yes sir?" she responded. "Would you be so kind as to inform the detectives with me of your standing orders in regard to myself should I attempt to abuse my authority, to seek to profit from it or attempt to make it permanent in any manner? Speak freely if you would, the detectives are authorized to hear what you have to say." "In the event of such an occurrence all members of the FRT are to take whatever measures are necessary implement the Cincinnatus Protocol. Once the Cincinnatus protocol is successfully completed, the regional command authority is to step in and complete the mission sir. Will that be all?" she asked. "Thank you Agent Fitzhugh that will be all. Inform me as soon as it is verified that all the popsicles in question have been consumed." "Of course sir," she said and hustled away from them. "Who's Karmek?" Jim asked. "Karmek is an eleven foot high mountain troll. He is of a singularly bad disposition and resents that he has been seconded to us by his tribe for the purposes of impressing on strangers the full awareness that he exists. In his words he resents being our trained monkey. Contrary to his rough appearance though, he does have a wonderful singing voice." "And just what is this Cincinnatus protocol? Mitch asked. "Detective Travers, that is an entirely different matter. Its creation had everything to do with the problem of how to prevent even an honourable and decent person from being corrupted by the lure of absolute power. A problem that is as old as the human race unfortunately. It was a problem the ancient Romans who gave us the expression 'who watches the watchmen' wrestled with and failed. And in crafting the methods and doctrines of how we would implement the requirements of the Concord, it is one that better men that any of us present also wrestled with as well. Their solution was the Cincinnatus Protocol," Singh said. "Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a Roman patrician who in his old age lived quietly on his farm after retiring from public life. In the great crisis of 458 B.C. the Aequi broke their treaty with Rome and attempted to recapture the city of Tusculum. In response to this two armies were sent to fight them under the leadership of the Consuls Augurinus and Rutilus. When they took the field to meet them they met disaster. In the Alban hills, under the shadow of Mount Algidus, the army of Consul Augurinus was attacked in their camp and besieged. Only five men escaped the noose that the Aequi and their Sabine allies had so successfully cast. The army of the second Consul Rutilus was helpless, unable to offer any assistance to his beleaguered colleague and facing such a dire situation the Senators in Rome panicked." "A senate delegation was sent to Cincinnatus where according to Livy, they found him ploughing his fields. After insisting that he don his senatorial toga, the delegation informed him that he had been called back into service by the senate in order to meet the crisis that was underway. To do so they granted him total and absolute control over the state; they made him the absolute dictator of Rome." Cincinnatus left his plough behind and returned to Rome. When he arrived he mobilized every single man of military age in the Campus Martinus, the Field of Mars and moved swiftly to bring his army to bear against the Aequi. At the battle of Mount Algidus they surrounded the besiegers and forced their surrender. Cincinnatus did not chose to slaughter the Aequi after the battle though, only the principle three leaders who had brought this crisis. After demonstrating their submission the Aequi were granted amnesty and Cincinnatus marched his army home, disbanded it, yielded his authority back to the Senate and returned to his plough a mere fifteen days after accepting his role as absolute ruler and master of Rome. For his behaviour his actions have been passed down through the ages ever since as a shining example of public virtue for others to learn from and hopefully emulate." "The Cincinnatus protocol is a failsafe measure to ensure that should a special detective or other agent of the Concord ever be thrust in a similar situation that such power does not ever result in creating a terrible mistake. Put simply gentlemen should I fail to uphold the principles embodied by the example of Cincinnatus I am to be retired with extreme prejudice at the earliest opportunity." "You mean that they're supposed to kill you? How the hell would they even get close to you? You caused an earthquake right in front of us. You could tear down everything around you and if that weren't enough you could hear their intentions the moment they come near you? How are any of them supposed to even think of drawing their weapons around you, let alone do it?" Mitch asked. "Detective Travers, Detective Brighton there is no need for any of them to do anything so mundane as draw their weapon and use it against me. All that is required for them to complete the Cincinnatus protocol is to release the bullet that is already aimed at the base of my skull." "You have a bullet aimed at your skull? What bullet, why?" Jim demanded shocked as Singh's casual elaboration of this detail regarding his own elimination. "Every special detective, every agent of the Concord from the moment they take up their cross to the day they lay it aside lives every moment of every day of their life with their own death as their closest companion. They live under the shadow of Cincinnatus. It is the only certain way that was accepted as reasonable by those who drafted the Concord gentlemen. No person, no matter how well intentioned or morally fortified it was thought could long stand against the temptation of such power indefinitely. It would corrupt absolutely and those it would corrupt would rationalize it in myriads of ways." "To prevent such an occurrence from ever transpiring those who were tasked to create a defence against it developed the Cincinnatus protocol. We have had one hundred and fifty years to prepare for an event like this and that preparation involved more than just creating the logistics and the command structure and developing the technology necessary to meet it. It was also girded against the weakness of those who would have to carry that torch when it passed to them." "Before I assumed my duty as a special detective I was executed, the bullet that is intended to kill me is even now just breaking the skin behind my left ear. It rests in the aether where it will remain until it is released by the need for my death. Like calls to like gentlemen, once loosed it cannot be stopped. Always it is held in abeyance until such time as it is required. That bullet, gentlemen is always there waiting for me, my constant companion and my judgement should I fail in my duty. That is why the agents of the FRT have no need to fear whatever it may be that I might do to prevent them from carrying out their mission. I am not the master of the world; I am merely a tool to be disposed of if I am unfit for the task entrusted to me." "What happens if someone triggers it to get rid of you? What happens if someone who wants that power uses it to get you out of the way?" Jim asked. "There is no need to fear such a scenario Detective Brighton. In the event that such a coup attempt was to take place anyone who did so would quickly follow me to my grave when their own bullet is released in response. And the only those who are subject to the Cincinnatus protocol are able to trigger it." "But who pulls the trigger?" Mitch asked. "There are two circumstances that active the Cincinnatus Protocol. One is as I just told you, performed by a random member of the F.R.T.; the other is triggered by my own thoughts. When I accepted the necessity of it and acceded to the firing that of bullet into my own skull, it was linked with the condition that if I would be corrupted and desire to keep what had been entrusted to me the bonds holding it would be dissolved instantly. So long as I keep faith with the principles that guide the Concord I am never in any danger of that bullet being loosed to conclude its path."