SAGN: Chapter Twelve-Dropkick free porn video

SAGN Chapter 12: Dropkick FRT Area Command and Control, Stafford: Day Seven, 1350 hours How long does it take you before you cannot bend anymore with the wind? Singh asked himself. Is it when you reach a bridge you cannot bring yourself to cross? Or is it when you have pushed yourself so far that when you reach into your mental reserves one more time you find the well has dried without your noticing that you have nothing left. Or is it the last little thing that under other circumstances wouldn't matter at all, but now looms higher than the north face and just as impassible. That was a question that Singh was posing to himself more and more and he hoped that none of those circumstances were facing him. But with everything else that had occurred the last few days he was hoping that when the time came for him to be truly tested that he would be equal to the task. Already he had been forced into several situations that his training had barely prepared him for and he had needed to improvise on the fly and even then he wasn't so sure that he had made the right call, even though he had projected an air of absolute confidence when any others were around. First rule of leadership he reminded himself mentally; the boss always knows what to do especially when he doesn't. If he had even one of the companions that he had begun this endeavor with perhaps he wouldn't crucify himself with his own doubts as severely as he did, but that was always going to be a what if question as far as he was concerned. Pantra was still sealed away in her healing cocoon and the only thing that the doctors caring for her could tell him was more of the same. She was stable and she was healing. Stable was double edged blade for him. Most of the time it meant no change, but no change was not what he needed to hear. What he wanted was to know that she was improving not being held in limbo as if that was something comforting or helpful for him to hear. And stable? Stable meant only that she had not died. Stable meant that she was still in a holding pattern and as long as she was so was he. Stable was not exactly what he was needing to hear from them, but there was nothing that he could do that would change the situation so it was left to him to carry on. Until she was no longer stable he was alone and that was what he had to deal with. Detective's Brighton and Travers were also stable for now. Or at least that was the last report that he had on their condition. Chances were that they had exacerbated the effects of the broadcast vision by forcing themselves to come to him the way that they had done. At first they had seemed to be no more or no less put out by the demands that their bodies placed on them, when they had insisted on speaking with him; but that was an illusion and it hadn't been able to be maintained for long. Shortly after Singh had spoken with Detectives Brighton and Travers he was not surprised to see Mitch stiffen and then slump in the chair he was sitting in. He would have slid onto the floor if it were not for the fact that Jim was able to keep him from doing so. But even with his hands keeping detective Travers from keeling over and out of the chair onto the floor below them, when Singh looked at Detective Brighton he saw a man that was only a razor's edge away from doing the same thing as his partner. The only real surprise in Singh's estimation was that it had taken this long for it to occur. Relapse in the early stages of recovery from the mental assault they had suffered was a certainty rather than likelihood. Sing himself was still fighting off lesser waves of nausea from the experience and were it not for his greater familiarity with mental communication and training he had undergone he expected that he would be as susceptible to the aftereffects of the Arath' Mahar's broadcast vision as the two men that were suffering those effects even now. The fact that Mitch and Jim were able to keep from slipping back under the whirling darkness before now could only be put down in his estimation to the force of will that both men had exerted to keep themselves in control until this warning had reached him about what the council was trying to do. But to do that they had been burning deep reserves of energy and now that the moment had passed that bill was coming due for both of them. "Agent Fitzhugh?" he called through the open doorway into the bustling command room. "Would you arrange for medical transportation for Detective's Travers and Brighton as soon as practical?" Fitzhugh's face dipped into the room briefly when he called for her. She took in the sight of Traver's body slumping half in and half out of the chair. And standing alongside of him the rickety condition of Brighton as he struggled to contain the man while keeping his own balance told her the tale more completely than any words that Singh could offer. She nodded and a moment later he could hear her calling for medical personnel to come immediately to Singh's office. As he and Brighton managed to slip Mitch out of the chair and lay him onto the floor without injury they still hadn't arrived yet but they were on their way. "I suggest that you lie on the floor as well, Detective Brighton," he said gently. The medical team will be here for you both momentarily." Jim merely nodded with little objection and slowly eased his way onto the floor as well. He closed his eyes against the gathering feeling that was battering him. Apparently just feeling like this wasn't enough for his condition, he mused. He had only had moments to keep Mitch from pitching face first onto the hard concrete floor before he felt the nausea begin to claw at his consciousness as well. He supposed it was like yawning in that regard and wouldn't that just be a peach of a pie for him to not only have to worry about when his own condition took a whack at him but also having it triggered by proximity to another as well. "Andrea," he whispered to Singh as the big man bent over him helping him straighten his body out before the medico's arrived. "Mitch's wife. She's still outside. In the car. They wouldn't let her past the door. Tell her Singh, she needs to know what's going on." "Relax, Detective Brighton," Singh said to him. "I will personally see to it that Mrs. Travers is apprised of the situation. And in the meanwhile I think it best that the both of you not return until you both are fully recovered." Singh could tell that Brighton was only moments away from losing consciousness like Travers already had. There was a sound of approaching footsteps and the small room suddenly became much more crowded as he stepped back and allowed the medical team to move first one and then both of the men onto collapsible stretchers and extract them to the room they had been taken to earlier. He pulled one of the men aside and quickly told him to go outside and escort Mrs. Travers in to his office. After a few moments the borrowed office was clear of everyone save himself and not long after that Mrs. Travers was ushered into the room. Singh did his best to reassure her that this was part of the normal reaction after her husband's experience and that he would recover with no ill effects given time to do so. Regardless of the tone of this voice or the words that he used he could see that she was not taking this well. He didn't need to read her directly to see that she was even more distressed than he might have expected. She was holding her actions under an almost iron control, but it did not take much to see that control was slipping away from her piece by piece. From what he could glean from what Detective Travers already mentioned his wife was already borderline when it came to him being injured in the line of duty and speaking with her now he could see that she was very close to crossing that border as a result of what had already occurred. After their talk was concluded, the man he had asked to escort her into the office led her to the room where both Jim and Mitch were taken and he pulled Fitzhugh in again to ask her to keep an ambulance available to transport the three of them as well as having a driver for the woman's car available to ferry them to their home when they were recovered sufficiently that they could be moved. Fitzhugh noted his instructions and assured him that it would be taken care of before turning and plunging back into the bustling room next door. Singh settled into his chair and began to sift through the growing stack of paperwork that was waiting for him while he was tending to this latest complication. It was clear that neither Brighton nor Travers would be recovering anytime soon and were effectively no longer part of his operation here. It was likely that the two of them would not be fit for even light duty for several weeks and that meant that he was deprived of the extra hands that they had afforded him in dealing with this situation. It couldn't be helped he told himself and turned his attention to sifting through the mountain of papers what seemed to have increased of its own accord while he was right there. There was a complaint that Karmek had filed over being used as a demonstration with the council. That was to be expected, what was unexpected was that the mountain troll had stopped to fill out the complaint before he had even entered the room to impress on the council the reality of the situation. Picturing the troll petulantly stopping to do this before lumbering off to vent his spleen on the council was almost worth the annoyance of the paperwork. The thing was he would have been more surprised if Karmek hadn't filed a complaint rather than seeing one in his in-box as quickly as it had arrived. That was easily dealt with at least. He didn't even have to look up the FRT regulations that authorized him to assign that particular duty to any Fae available and sent it back out with his endorsement. He was turning to the next item when there was a knock at the door. When he told whoever it was to enter he was only marginally surprised to see that Lieutenant Clayton was the one who was responsible for the interruption rather than Fitzhugh come bearing another fire for him to put out. Her being here now at this particular moment could only mean that the council must have either adjourned or taken a brief intermission. Singh quickly rose and walked to the door to greet her. She was standing in the doorframe at the edge of the cavernous room that housed the ACC coordination group. The converted community meeting hall behind her that had been commandeered to serve that purpose was just as filled with activity now as it had been during the early morning hours when he was roused to deal with the council's attempted 'solution' to the Grove issue. Wherever you looked there was F.R.T. personnel sitting on grey folding metal chairs busy monitoring the equipment that was crowding along the length of the long tables. Moving in between the closely packed rows of equipment were others who busied themselves amidst them, always in constant motion like so many blue and grey camouflaged worker bees crowding their way through the narrow passages; each carrying the messages that kept the hive burbling with the activity necessary to animate the whole from moment to moment. Lt. Clayton gave no indication to him as to just how long she had been waiting for him to acknowledge that she was here or even if she had been waiting at all for that matter. It was impossible to determine which one it was, but Singh suspected that she had only just arrived. Otherwise Agent Fitzhugh would have allowed to her to enter the cramped room where he had remained after his colleagues were taken care of. As it was he suspected that the emergency meeting that had ended only a few hours before was preparing to resume. Or he could be wrong and she had been waiting here for him for some time already, but again if that were the case, that would beg the question why Fitzhugh had not informed him of her arrival. It could have been any reason from Fitzhugh looking out for his need for regain his equilibrium after the events of the night before or it could be her way of impressing upon Clayton that, while under normal circumstances she may be his superior, right now that relationship was held in suspension until the current situation no longer demanded his full attention. Perhaps it was both or maybe even something else that he was not aware of yet, either way Singh was still surprised to see Clayton's face when she opened the door and stepped in from the murmuring, bustling room around them. When she did so, his hand had unconsciously drifted down and slipped into his suit pocket again and while he waited to hear what he had to say, his fingertips were already rested buried in the handful of earth and crushed rock that he had placed in there after all of the others had left. He had taken to constantly carrying a small amount of the element with which he held his strongest affinity around now. Doing so was a means that he was relying on to keep up his strength by drawing it from there when he felt the need to do so. It had, to some degree, become a necessary crutch for him ever since Detectives Brighton and Travers had encountered the dryad that had injured them all lurking in the woods behind Magnolia Circle. It was always there for him whenever he felt his energies flagging. Relief from that near constant fatigue his position inflicted on him kept him partaking in what had initially been an emergency measure, but had now become more like a reserve battery that he drew on whenever events pushed him beyond whatever natural body reserves he had on hand. As long as he could continue muddling through it might be necessary for him to do this, but there was always a price when you did so. The problem was that until this situation was resolved there was little he could do about it right now. Clayton closed the door behind her with the briefest of sounds. There was the faintest hint of a squealing of ungreased metal rubbing flush against itself that came from the door's hinges, but he doubted that anyone other than himself had even heard it in the low din that echoed throughout the open converted community meeting room. Singh squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and stifled a yawn and then he began moving out from behind the desk and toward Clayton. Whatever she was here for now was not going to be a trivial matter, especially after last night. As the door shut he saw a few of the personnel near the door glance in his direction. When they saw that they had caught his eye they dipped their heads toward him in acknowledgement before turning back to what they had been doing. That was something new, most of them had barely acknowledged him when they first arrived, even though he was, in practice, their highest level of supervisor for this mission. Now after they had been working together several days and they had confirmed with their own silent observation that he clearly knew what it was that he was here to do, they had gradually been extending to him this small recognition as a sign of their confidence in his abilities. Singh, in turn, was glad to see that small mark of favor extended from them, it would be difficult enough for him to carry out his mission as it was without having to ride herd on a balky staff in addition to fulfilling his mandate here. Regardless of that though, it had already been a long night, much longer for him than for others who had been with him only hours before. Detectives Brighton and Travers would be leaving soon. They would be evacuated back to their homes soon after they were recovered enough to be transported. Now that the need for them to be here had passed along with the threat that they had brought warning of, neither of them could offer to Mitch's wife any reasonable excuse for remaining here and she had insisted that they both comply with her demand that they leave for now. Singh would be glad to see them go. It wasn't that he wasn't grateful to the both of them for forcing themselves back into the fray when they could barely stand, he truly was. It was just that he didn't have to wait for a doctor's examination to tell him that both of them were still suffering a debilitating mental hangover from the broadcast vision they had all experienced and the both of them would continue to do so for some time to come. They would recover given enough time to do so and when they did he was already certain that he would need the two of them. Heavens only knew just how bad the blowback from the Advisory Council's abortive effort to eliminate the Grove could truly have been. If they had not managed to alert him of the ongoing evacuations and the knowledge that it had been deliberately hidden from those charged with smoothing the transition it may even have been worse than he said it would be. It had given him extra impetus to use that information as a means of stoking his fury once he was aware of their intentions though. Without the vehemence he had shown some of the council members might have been tempted to return to their previous path and dismiss what he had told them concerning the Grove's reaction. He hated having to brandish his authority in the way that he had done last night, but in the end it was unavoidable. Due to their own natural inclinations he realized it was only a matter of time before something like this would have been attempted. Based on the fact that what had happened had occurred earlier rather than later it might even have been a good thing that it had come to a head so soon. Now that the boil was lanced it may well be that there would be less of a chance for something similar to take place later on. He did know one thing for certain though. After this was over there would need to be a procedural adjustment in how the F.R.T. responded when another similar situation developed and the first recommendation that he intended to make was that all of those who were entrusted with a Popsicle should be alerted at the beginning rather than later. Looking at Clayton's face though as he approached her his assertion of authority last night, while the right thing to do, might have set other problems into motion as well. He hoped that his words might have sunk in and for the moment it seemed that he was correct in that regard, but that could easily change and he would be back putting out fires again rather than doing what he was here for. He hoped that was the case anyway. The sad thing was they had no real idea of what they were getting into regardless of their clearance levels. He had not even exaggerated the level of danger from taking that action very much if at all. And yet when he had related to them the probable outcome of what they would likely face in response, there was, buried in their most unconscious levels, still a nagging belief that he was the one magnifying the threat as a means to enhance his own position. Singh didn't understand someone who would do something like that and moreover the idea that they thought that he would himself be capable of an action like that made him have faint doubts about retaining this council makeup after all. It was bad enough that once the full story of what had almost happened was known that there was going to be a backlash from the Fae community as a whole. He had not been exaggerating when he had told the five member council how integrated the Fae community as a whole was in modern times and as much as admitting what had almost happened was going to cost them; it would be more costly should they attempt to conceal it. That action, if they were foolish enough to undertake it, would permanently undermine their relationship with the Fae and worse yet it would remain as a corrosive weakness eating away at the heart of the Concord itself. Singh didn't let his annoyance show on his face over having this happen on his watch though. He had more than enough self-control for him to do that without revealing more than he already had and he would continue to do so, but inside it ate at him how close they had come to something far worse than integrating a new Grove into the boundaries of Safford. At least there were some things he had a measure of control over. Sending Brighton and Travers out of the way was one of them. Neither of the two men had the slightest business being on the road in their condition. And both of them knew it. They hadn't even made a token resistance to his suggestion that they remain at home for now and let him take it from here. That alone told him how much the two of them were running on sheer willpower. The frightening thing about it was that if the Arath' Mahar had not swept the two of them up in her broadcast vision the way that she had, then it was likely that neither of them would have been where they were to make the connections that they had made. They would have been here with him and their first hint of what was approaching would have been the last minute warning that Kinsey and his group had in mind to give them. A warning that would have given them just enough time to barely get clear of the target area and not enough to stop it from happening. He owed them both for that alone and if he could start paying down that debt by easing their recovery then that was a modest enough start that he could make as a down payment of the debt that was owed to the two men. Clayton was still waiting for him though, she hadn't spoken yet and he was waiting to hear from her what her purpose in coming to see him was. This wasn't the first time that she had come to speak with him in the last few hours. She had come to speak with him shortly after he had been regrettably forced to intervene in the council's plans. He could tell that his actions had shaken her when she was speaking with him only a few hours ago. Because of how his talents were employed with the Stafford police department it was easy for her to overlook just what his purpose for being there really was. Most of the time, at least up until now, he was seconded to any special case that the department ran into and he could forgive Clayton for falling into the mental habit of thinking that was all that he was there for. Having his true purpose displayed for all of them to see was a shock to say the very least and from the way that she was coping with that reality butting up against her preconceptions, it was clear that she was in the midst of a serious mental reevaluation of the quiet man that she had heretofore used to dispose of the weird cases that crossed the department blotter before now. But he couldn't help thinking that there was a little more to it than that. She had barely begun to speak with him when there was a knock on his closed office door and when they opened it they found that there was an F.R.T. runner waiting behind the frosted glass. There hadn't been any more time for her to pass on to him what was on her mind then. The runner was here for Clayton, she was being called back into the makeshift council chambers to resume what they had laid aside for the moment and now it was time to return. Clayton made her apologies and told him then that she would need to speak with him later before she departed. Watching her disappear around the corner heading in the direction of the Advisory Council's meeting room on the other side of the building he knew that she hadn't even started to tell him what it was that she had come to discuss with him and whatever it was it had something to do with what had happened before their actions had been brought to his attention. By this time he had been in near constant motion for almost thirty hours, barring the brief time that he had managed to pare off for himself and from the looks of things there was no telling just how long she was actually going to be sequestered in the meeting now that it had resumed. Fitzhugh was keeping her hand firmly on the tiller for the moment and as much as he needed to remain aware of what was going on in the ACC he also knew that this was one of those times when he was going to have to force himself to disengage before he burned through what remained of what was keeping him on his feet. You can't do it by yourself he told himself again and you shouldn't try. Saying that was easy to do, but hard to comply with when his own sense of inner duty had the bit in its teeth and was driving him to do the opposite of what it was that he needed to do right now. He waved Fitzhugh over and quietly told her that he would be resting in his office for a short time and to wake him if there were any changes to the situation. Fitzhugh nodded and promised that she would do exactly that and turned back to her own duties leaving him to withdraw. It was a good thing there were no windows looking out of the office. There was the hint of gradually increasing light creeping through the broad window panes that lined the wall facing the main road and by the time Singh retreated into his office to claim whatever respite he could it wouldn't be long before dawn would be here to compete with the other things that were waiting their turn to claim his attention with whatever urgency they could muster. He closed the door and the buzz of conversation in the room behind him dropped away to a shadow of what it was. There was no room in the cramped cluttered office for one or he would already have arranged for a cot to be installed for his use. He supposed that he could have availed himself of one of the ones already set up in one of the adjoining rooms. Doing that would have served his immediate need in many ways, but if he were to do that then he would not be satisfying his other need. The one that demanded that he be immediately available. Fortunately, while the room was cramped, the chair the former director of the community center had left behind was comfortable enough for his needs and he was able to easily lean back into its padded frame and gain some respite from the exhaustion that was stalking him and was already only inches away from catching him. He still wasn't able to immediately drop off though as he intended. Agent Fitzhugh had entered periodically after he had flicked off the light. The first time she came in was barely half an hour after he had settled down into the chair. The squeaking of the hinges as the door was quietly opened and the increased volume marking the increase in noise level told him she was here to relay something to him that couldn't wait. He flicked on the light with one hand and immediately told her not to apologize before she could get the words past her tongue. What she was here for didn't take long for her to convey though. It was a routine confirmation that needed to be passed on to him confirming that all of popsicles nationwide had been verified consumed and there would be no further threat from that quarter for the time being. It was annoying and destructive to his attempt to rest, but protocol dictated that it be done and as soon as she turned to leave his hand was already flicking off the desk lamp plunging the room back into welcome darkness. The second time she what she had to say was even briefer and just as routine. It was the message that the Advisory council had finally adjourned and was now leaving the ACC. This time he as less inclined to show the same equanimity that he had shown earlier but that was his exhaustion speaking and even with that working against him he managed to remain disarmingly civil before flicking off the light again and trying to get back to his twice disturbed rest. Four hours after he had settled into the chair he flicked on the desk lamp and opened the door. It was his way of alerting Fitzhugh that he was available again. As he stood up he drained a little more from the earth in his pocket to make up the difference for now and stepped out of the office and into the bustle of the room. Concord agents at his level periodically underwent training operations that were intended to simulate exactly this type of situation. The last one that Singh had attended had been just over three years ago and for the most part what he was feeling now was familiar to him to a degree. Part of the preparation that he had undergone for this type of role was purely academic; mostly consisting of a study of others who were in leadership positions and how they functioned under the constant stress of responding to a fluidly shifting situation. One thing was consistent between the training scenarios and the actual operation that he was shepherding and that was the constant need for him to be available around the clock. That at least they had managed to simulate quite accurately. When Fitzhugh had last entered the room, around five A.M. he had asked her to keep him informed and turned off the lights. The darkness the room was plunged into was a relief and he sat there waiting for the next thing that would demand his attention to come calling, but there had been nothing after that last update that was important enough to disturb him. Whether it was because nothing had actually happened or if it was just not important enough to warrant his intervention was immaterial to him after the demands of the last few hours. With nothing demanding his attentions, he had used the silence of the dark room around him to slip into a resting trace that was somewhere between deep sleep and wakefulness. He'd been relying on that particular method entirely too much to keep his mind sharp while remaining at arm's length of those around him in case he were needed. It kept him reasonably functional, but like all things there would be a price to be paid later on. Walking around after he slipped out of the trance state he felt his bones creaking in protest at remaining upright in the chair motionless for hours at a time. At his age his bones didn't hesitate to remind him in a variety of ways how little they appreciated the punishing regimen that he had adopted since they had fled from the Arath' Mahar's grasp. When he was a cadet and they were discussing what to expect if they should be called on to respond to any bravo code, there had been a lot of debate over what would be the most difficult aspect of managing the situation. Most had held the opinion that it would be dealing with the human half of the equation rather than the Fae and in that respect those long ago hypothetical discussions were relevant in some small way, but the one thing that none of those discussions had even considered was the absolute bone weariness that he found was dominating every aspect of his tenure here. It had been days since he had been able to lie in a bed and get a whole night's sleep and it wasn't likely that he would even see his bed for some time to come. That was a big part of what it was that none of the eager cadets that he had shared his training with had been able to grasp. It wasn't as if they hadn't been told about this part of what an event such as this would entail, it was that they had no basis for comparison., The agents who had responded to the Methuen water demon in 1963 were often invited to address each cadet class that followed the resolution of that event and Singh's class had been no exception. Both of the men in question had been elderly by the time a young Cadet Armin Singh sat in front of them trying to imagine what it must have been like from the words that the two men chose to relate that experience to the new generation of special detective candidates gathered before them, hanging on every well rehearsed word. Special Detective Hartwell had passed away only a few years before and until now new cadets had been forced to rely on the compilation of interviews that took place in their last years before their deaths to learn how the two of them had handled this type of situation when that mission passed into their hands. Thinking of those two grizzled men sitting up on the stage relating their experience to the up and coming, Singh was struck with the realization that when this was finally over that when the next class of cadets met to discuss this topic, he would be the one who found himself opposite a sea of young faces trying to get them to comprehend just what it was that they were offering themselves up for, but that was a concern for another time thankfully. The closest thing that he could have understood that would bear a relation to what he was doing now would be serving in active combat. He hadn't done so himself, but he had older relatives that had and as he moved through the room checking on what had happened while he was snatching what rest he could he reflected again over his failure of imagination when he was a cadet. It was one thing to be told that you would be tired and an entirely different thing to experience. And even if they had been able to grasp what it entailed none of them would have been able to process it. What he was feeling now bore no resemblance to anything he would have understood when he was a young cadet. A young man of nineteen just didn't have the background to grasp the experience of a man in late middle age or what it would mean for them physically. The earth helped though, and the stone. He may be relying on the restorative properties of the resting trance to keep himself mentally and physically together for now, but it was his connection with the earth that was sustaining him when his need for rest was greater than the time that he could spare for it. The energy locked in the minerals flowed through his fingertips and he felt his heart rate steady and some of the exhaustion fall away for now. It was also the last time that he could use what was in his pocket for this purpose. It was exhausted now and would have to be placed back in the earth to slowly absorb what he had taken from it to supplement his flagging reserves. He stepped outside the building quickly to attend to it. When he returned from scattering what was in his pockets and replacing it he was surprised to see that Clayton had returned. The reason for the council summoning her before must not have been a pressing one is all that he could assume "I didn't know you had already returned yet Lt. Clayton," he said to her after offering her his greeting. "What can I do for you?" Lt. Clayton seemed inordinately chipper in his opinion, as if in some way she had managed to sleep enough to keep her going without showing any indication that less than ten hours before he had left her sequestered with the rest of the advisory council to start reversing their reckless actions now that he had pulled fangs of the dragon they had let fly to scorch and burn. "A couple of things actually," she said to him. "The first is that effective immediately I'm approving your suspension of both Brighton and Travers on medical grounds until further notice," she said. "That is certainly good to hear Lieutenant. I was positive that you would agree with my decision, but it is gratifying to have confirmation," Singh said "Medical suspension is absolutely the correct course of action Singh," she answered. "From what I saw of the both of them earlier, neither of them have any business being anywhere near this case for the time being and after I spoke with the doctor that is handling the two of them I think it should be a good bit of time before we see either of them in the field again." "Of course I have to agree with you in that regard lieutenant. As the third member of the Stafford PD who experienced what they did, I'm personally surprised they were even on their feet for as long as they were," Singh replied. "My recommendation is that neither of them should return to duty for some time. The pressure that the broadcast vision imposed on them will hobble them both. Indeed I doubt that we would have seen them last night if it were not for the necessity of doing so." "Good," Clayton answered. "I'm glad you agree. The three of you may be out of the department's control for the time being, but I'm still the one who is responsible for all you and if you weren't in the position you are in, I'd put you on a medical leave as well." "It's good to hear that you have our well being in mind," Singh said. "And the other item?" he asked. "Mayor Watson would like to speak with you as soon as possible regarding what happened last night." "I'm certain he is not the only one to do so," Singh answered. "Lieutenant, if I may? I must ask what happened in there. How did things degenerate so quickly that it was necessary for me to intervene in such a manner?" "Are you asking as Armin Singh, the special detective assigned to my section or as Armin Singh he who must be obeyed?" she said with a sardonic smile on her face. "Both, what happened last night cannot be allowed to take place again," Singh said. "The vote was three to two to proceed with the plan," Clayton said. "Mayor Watson and myself against Ramirez, Kinsey and Meyers. I'd watch Meyers if I were you. He's the weak link in that group. Kinsey bore down on him from the start and didn't let up until he went along with what Kinsey wanted." "That's interesting," Singh said. "I would have thought that mayor Watson would have been the one that Kinsey would have done that to rather than Meyers. But the real surprise to me is that Ramirez was willing to back such a harebrained scheme in the first place. I would have thought that the Governor's assistant would have been able to hold his own against someone like Kinsey, but having someone from civil defense who was willing to be part of authorizing such an extreme response does not bode well." "Singh," Clayton said in a disgusted tone of voice. "She brought it up like she came into the meeting intending to steer it toward that outcome from the beginning. Kinsey is about a subtle as a brick across your face, but she played him from start to finish. I'd like to say that this whole thing was Kinsey's doing, but as much of an ass as he is, that would be a lie. This was Ramirez. I told them the truth about how it would affect the department if we accepted it and if we did what she had proposed, but it didn't do one bit of good. Once she brought up using that bomb there wasn't any serious discussion of any other options from either of them after that." "You should have seen Kinsey's beady little eyes light up when she was going over what we could expect if we went ahead and dropped it. I swear the grasping little prick had an erection the whole time it was under discussion." "I would have thought that someone in her position would have been more reluctant to advocate something as extreme as that," Singh said. "She more than all of you should know what the probable reaction of the Fae to such an action would be." "When Kinsey started talking about removing the Grove, she went right for that option," Clayton said. "She talked like it was hypothetical, but if you were paying attention you could tell that was the outcome she held out for from the beginning. She's a sneaky little bitch and you need to keep a close eye on her." "And now?" Singh asked. "What do you think may happen now that she is aware that extreme measures will be met with whatever action is needed to fulfill our mandate here?" "I'd still watch her. She's likely to do something else to sabotage this now that the direct approach has been shot down. More than likely she may try to provoke the fae in some fashion," Clayton said. "And how do you think that mayor Watson falls in this spectrum?" Singh asked. "Watson was against it from the start. I would have thought Meyer's would have been the one to take that route, but Andre surprised us all. He's so easygoing that you wouldn't think he had that kind of steel in him. If it hadn't been for Ramirez's manipulating Kinsey and Kinsey going after Meyer's this whole thing wouldn't have happened in my opinion." "And you're certain she was the instigator?" Singh asked. "Positive," Clayton said. "I'm a manipulative bitch myself when I need to be and it's easy to recognize your own kind when you see them at work. You need to watch out for her. She's trouble with a capital T." The news that there were council members who were actively working to undermine the efforts here was the last thing that Singh needed to hear. It was already serious the moment that airstrike was ordered and if Clayton was accurate in her assessment then shepherding this group as long as needed to reach the goal just became harder on a level of magnitude. The F.R.T. driver that was assigned to Singh for the duration knocked on the door to get his attention. Apparently Clayton had passed along the information that the Mayor wished to confer with him and someone had been sent to fetch him. Singh thanked Clayton for her efforts and told her that they should speak when he returned. He followed the man out to his sedan and then he slipped into the back seat of the car. The driver shut the door and walked around to the front, got in and started the engine. Singh leaned back and closed his eyes. If Clayton was right, then his life had just gotten a bit more complicated. One council member who was a wrecking ball was bad enough, but having a wrecking ball and someone who knew how to swing it was infinitely more trouble. --------------------------------- Stafford City Hall: Day Seven, 1455 hours The sedan pulled into the underground parking garage beneath city hall about thirty minutes after they had gotten clear of the containment zone. The entrance to the neo-classical building was on a side road that doglegged off of the street just before you reached the intersection that flanked the western boundary of the open park that spread out around the building itself. From where they parked it was only a few minutes walking time to reach the elevator that lead to the upper floors and from there Singh was stepping into the reception room of the Mayor's office just before three P.M. Singh had directed Agent Fitzhugh to contact the mayor's office as he was leaving and he was not surprised to find that the man was already waiting for him. He didn't hesitate to usher Singh was into the room the moment he saw him and as soon as the door closed and they were alone the mayor didn't waste any more time getting to the point. "Tell me Detective Singh, when you were a kid did you ever blow up anthills with firecrackers?" he asked after Singh had seated himself opposite the man. "No, Mr. Mayor," Singh replied, "I had acquaintances that did things of that nature, but I can't say that I ever did." "I think you may have missed your calling after that bomb you tossed into the council chamber last night went off," Mayor Watson said ruefully. He leaned forward slightly so that Singh would understand that they were speaking just the two of them and this was not for the record. "Thanks for doing that by the way," he said. "Kinsey and the others have no idea the level of hell that would have touched off. I'm personally glad that you could scotch that lunacy. I thought it was game over for all of us right up until the moment you had your man gag Kinsey. I can't tell you what a pure joy it was to see that by the way." "I'm sorry that it was even necessary to begin with Mr. Mayor," Singh answered, "But things had spiraled too far out of bounds at that point. I would have preferred to remain only peripherally involved in this matter but that is not possible now." "That may have been your preference and I actually believe you when you say that," Watson said. "Not many who know Kinsey would, but I do. The thing I wanted to ask you is if you know just what it is that you did when you opened up that industrial grade can of whoop ass on Kinsey." "Yes sir, I believe I do," Singh answered him. "I hope so for your sake that is true," Watson said. "You nearly made him crap his pants and it's for certain that he's not going to try to push you again anytime soon, but at the same time he's as dumb as a bag of hammers when it comes to learning his limits and the last couple of years he's been pushing those limits. Until you slapped him down, he was certain he could get away with anything he wanted to as long as he threw a fit at just the right moment." "Is that so?" Singh said noncommittally. He had heard of various stunts that Kinsey had pulled in his insatiable quest to be the center of attention of course, that was the point of those stunts. But not one of them ever elevated the man in Singh's eyes. "That was true up until you had him spanked. He's afraid of you now, but that won't last long once this thing is resolved. Once this whole thing is settled he's going to want to get back at you for stripping his pants down in front of everyone and paddling his ass. He is going to come after you eventually. He has to. It's just his nature." "He is certainly welcome to try, Mr. Mayor," Singh replied, "But if you have any influence with him, I would suggest that you use it to convince him not to do so. Indulging his penchant for retribution would be a very bad idea if he were to do so." Mayor Watson cocked his head to one side and studied the squat man sitting opposite him. This is a man to take at his word he told himself and if he was not mistaken he was also someone who was not going to lose any sleep over whatever schemes that Matthew Kinsey might start mulling over once his fear began to fade. "You know I believe you son," Watson said finally. "But I still want you to understand how far that he is willing to go. You know I have a son don't you?" "I wasn't actually, Mr. Mayor," Singh said. "The reason that you don't hear more about him is that he's finishing up a five year sentence for vehicular manslaughter. He got drunk with his idiot frat buddies and jumped the curb. He smeared a homeless man who was sleeping on a bus bench on his way to smashing up a tree." "I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Mayor, I'm also a little surprised to hear that as well," Singh said. "I know why you're surprised Detective Singh. Most men in my position would have covered it up and made it go away and I will admit that inclination did tempt me. Do you know what stopped it from happening?" "I can't say that I do," Singh said. "It was what happened afterwards. Kinsey started burying the whole thing before they even finished bagging up the homeless guy. By the time he was making the police report take the long way through the system he had called me and let me know what he had done." "He thought that by doing that it would give him something that he could hold over my head for sometime later and I let him think that. But what really did it for me was when I talked with my son. After he sobered up, I confronted him over it and the one thing I didn't see in him was any sense of what it was that he had done. That didn't bode well to me and it made me question just what I had done bringing him up." "He clearly expected me to make it go away and looking at him sitting there all I could think of was that doing that would be the absolute worst thing I could do for him. Doing that would make him into the kind of person that I despise so I told him to get into the car and I drove him to the coroner's office. I made him sit in that room and look at the body of the man that he had killed and I kept him there until I was sure that he understood what it meant." "The thing that made me decide to do that was something that he said to me when I told him that I wasn't going make this go away. He told me why should he have to suffer for some bum that nobody cared if they lived or died in the first place? So I made him look the man he had killed in the eyes and then asked him to tell me why he shouldn't have to answer for what he had done." "I got through to him, thank god. I made him understand that the life of the man he killed still had some value, even if he couldn't see it right away. About a week later I delivered my son to another jurisdiction to face trial for what he'd done. I suggested that the DA file a change of venue on the basis that there local influence in this situation that was unacceptable in a case of this type and the DA agreed." "My son got five years and when he gets out he'll have another five years of probation to go through. And it was worth it to do that. I think my son will be a better man for this and against that spiking Kinsey's cannon was just the icing on the cake," Watson said. "I'm telling you this so that you can understand how far you might need to go with him. The thing about Kinsey is that he's a clown. Most of the time he's an incompetent clown, but he does have a low cunning when it comes to finding something that he thinks will work to his advantage. I know that a lot of people think of me as weak when it comes to Kinsey and that's just what I want them to think. People think that if I'm weak enough to be led around like a dog by a clown like Kinsey that means they can do the same." "It's always a surprise to them when it doesn't work that way, detective," he said. "I let Kinsey get away with his stunts because in the end they don't have any real effect other than to satisfy his need for attention. His district is the poorest one in the city and he does nothing to improve that. His whole push to redevelop the Alagosta Mills village is all about saving his own financial bacon and to do that he's kicking out the people who live there out. It's one of the sickest things I've ever seen in all my years of public service detective. He absolutely hates the people who live there because they are poor and for now they love him for what they think he does for them." "I've always thought one of these days, that rope he's playing out is going to snap him up short and on that day Kinsey is going to find himself in something that his bullying and bluster won't get him out of. The D.A. is sitting on enough right now to deal with him on a wide front, but I keep telling him to make sure it's a kill shot before he pulls the trigger on that slippery son of a bitch. After what he pulled last night I'm of a mind to have him add this to what he has already and then tell him to let it rip. What he did was so far beyond the pale that even I have trouble believing in it." Mayor Watson leaned over and lit a cigar. His hands were trembling with suppressed fury and even shaking out the match didn't eliminate the tremor entirely. "So the reason that I've asked you here is to let you know that I intend to hold him responsible for his actions last night. What I need to hear from you is that you can approve my taking that action." "May I speak frankly Mr. Mayor?" Singh asked his gaze locked with Watson's. "I'd be surprised if you could speak in any other fashion, Detective Singh," Watson answered, "But by all means do so." "Kinsey is less of a threat than you or others might think he is at the moment. Punishing him for his actions is an extremely satisfying prospect and it will come in time, but it is not where our efforts should be focused." "And why do you say that, Detective Singh?" "Because he is desperate and when he looks at the Grove all he sees is his own ruin. That makes him ripe for manipulation by others even as you say he believes that he is the one doing the manipulating. No, the greater threat is allowing the status of the fae in the city, in this Grove in particular to be threatened. That is the most important task that we must focus on and to secure that, Kinsey may be useful." "And just how is that the case?" Watson asked. "Because everything that he has is tied up in the development of the Olympia redevelopment project," Singh said "That's not really an earthshaking revelation, Detective Singh," Watson replied. "The whole city knows that he is neck deep in that project." "The whole city is not aware that he is on the verge of bankruptcy though," Singh replied. "He is under capitalized on every operation that he is exercising control over. He may control the bulk of housing in that area, but that is not enough income to sustain him for much longer. That is why he has championed this redevelopment project so strongly. Without it, his finances collapse and those he has had backing him in this are likely to do much more than merely sue him for fraud." "Is that so?" Watson said watching Singh carefully. "So that wasn't just a rabbit you pulled out of your hat last night then was it." "No, it was not, Mr. Mayor," Singh said. "Before I spoke, I read every detail in his own memories. Everything that was related to his response to this situation was there for me to see. Without this project he faces far worse than just humiliation and that makes him dangerous in his own way, but not to me." "And you're certain of that?" Watson said. "Because it looks to me like you made yourself his number one focus once his balls drop again." "Yes," Singh said, "I am absolutely certain. There are measures in place to protect one such as myself from retribution for lawful actions taken under the Concord in a situation such as this. Once this situation is resolved, it is true that I yield my authority, but others in my organization are tasked with discouraging those like Alderman Kinsey from thinking that means that I am vulnerable." "He's not going to like that," Watson said. "The only thing he loves more than himself is being a bully when he thinks he can get away with it. He lives for revenge if he can get it." "In the event that occurs then I will arrange for some of my associates to impress upon him some of the consequences of doing so," Singh said. "I assure you Mayor Watson, that I have little fear of what Alderman Kinsey may scheme at some point down the road. My concerns are more immediate." "Kinsey is still a thug, don't underestimate him," Watson said bluntly. "He wants it bad enough he'll arrange some punk to go after you. He's gotten away with it before now because he knows how to keep just enough distance between him and actual charges, but he will try something eventually. Are you ready for that Detective Singh?" Singh took some of the small gravel pieces out of his pocket and concentrated slightly. As Watson watched the stones rose in his palm and began to slowly rotate in an increasingly complex pattern. The mayor was startled when the stones rose in the air at first, but what disturbed him was the faint glow that illuminated the eyes of the man sitting across from him. As he watched the stones began to collapse inward and crumble into a fine dust that continued to spiral and grow in size until the last of the pebbles had been reduced to sparkling particles. Watson watched as the mandala that formed from the stone dust interwove through itself and gracefully piled itself in a heap in the squat man's palm. The light in Singh's eyes faded and his hand closed as he returned the dust to his pocket. "The question, Mr. Mayor is not if I am ready for such an outcome, but rather if he is," Singh said with finality. "But none of that should be necessary though." Watson shuddered inside of his skin and hoped that it wasn't visible to the dangerous man seated opposite him. Kinsey was a blowhard and first rate pain in the ass, but he hoped he was smart enough to back off from this one once this whole thing was over. "And why do you think that is the case?" he asked. "Because you're going to throw him a lifeline, Mr. Mayor," Singh said, "You're going to throw him a lifeline and you're going to make certain that he knows that the information comes from me." "And just why would you wish to do such a thing?" he asked. "Because at the moment Kinsey is an obstacle to me completing my assignment and as long as he is desperate he continues to be one. I do not need him to be an obstacle." "And just how do we do that?" Watson asked. "You're going to tell him how going along with supporting the Grove is going to make him filthy rich," Singh said, "It won't last him long, he'll find some way to fritter it away and end up in the same position that he is now, but by that time the Grove issue will be settled and Stafford will be well on the way to a more stable footing." ------------------------------------------ Brighton house, Stafford: Day 14, 0945 hours The floor rose up to meet him like a oncoming freight train. Inexorable and unstoppable; hitting him with pile driver force and showing him all of the pity of a boy stepping on a cockroach just to hear it crunch. If he had any control over his limbs he might have tried to slant the angle of his body in some way so that the impact would not hurt so much when it came, but there was no controlling this. Much as he wished otherwise, he knew better by now. The worst part about it was that he could see it happening moment by moment and there was absolutely nothing he could do to keep it from happening. It always felt like it took forever to fall and the impact was stretched like taffy as well, but it did end and when it did Jim could do nothing except lay where he fell and wait for the spell to finally pass. This time was no different and it was anyone's guess how long it would take for him to rise now that it was over. He lay there groaning and as he did so the familiar feeling of his body recovering started bringing him back to himself. The first sense that came back this time was smell. Last time it was hearing, but this time it was smell. After an episode, when his mind was slowly switching back from the artificially induced memories that he experienced in Barnes's vision there was always one sense that announced that his own control was resuming. And each time without exception the sense in question was hyper aware on a scale he hadn't thought possible. Taste wasn't so bad, he could control that to a degree. The problem with taste was that it encompassed everything. The first time that he had experienced sensory return with taste as his point man he had almost retched on the spot. Every single thing that he had put into his mouth during the day had come rushing back all at once, from the gradually souring taste of his mouth during the course of the day to the tiny speck of last night's dinner lodged between his molars that hadn't gotten washed out well enough because he had skipped brushing his teeth last night and just gargled some mouthwash instead. He could taste the decay of it permeating his mouth and more importantly it wasn't confined to a single location, it was washing through his entire mouth with an intensity that he would not have believed possible even after experiencing his other senses magnified. That didn't happen as much now. After the first time his sense of taste was jacked up to that level he made certain that he did everything that he could to minimize it as much as possible. The first thing he did was haul his old water pic out of storage and check that it was still working. The second thing he did was become obsessive about making certain that if he had another episode that magnified taste again he wouldn't have to deal with a repeat of the first time. When it did happen again it was actually much worse. That time when taste was his precursor to normal the mint products that he favored were just as magnified to a level that was as nauseating in its own way as the rot had been. That was definitely a learning curve. Anymore he was good on his oral hygiene. Something he had let slip since his return to being single after his divorce. It just didn't seem that important when he had no intention of allowing another into the realm of his personal space again. And until his recent bout with heightened senses it had made perfect sense to keep it that way. Now his regimen included not only thorough cleaning, but also neutralizing the strength of the things he used to clean his mouth with. That and making certain that he had small baggies available among the things scattered around the house in small bowls for him to reach for and pop in his mouth as a sort of preventive gustation. As much as he would have liked to use lemon tarts as a choice for that, he couldn't bear the thought of how intense the taste of his favorite candy would be after one of these. It took some doing but he finally managed to settle on a blend of trail mix that was balanced enough that he could stand it when it was necessary to head off gustatory overload. Sight was easier to deal with in a way. Some dark glasses or sleep masks scattered in strategic places and he was golden if that was his precursor. Hearing as well was almost as easy. He had more sets of earplugs now than he had ever had in his entire life. When this was over it would be a long time before he ran out of those yellow disposable foam cylinders. In its own way hearing was as bad as the others. The ear plug might block out external noise, but that only meant that the moment that they slipped into place he had no choice but to focus of the sounds that his own body was making until the spell passed. That was what made an auditory precursor a special kind of hell in and of itself. Unless you are made aware of it most people have no idea just how much noise their own bodies produce over the course of even an hour. If you asked them most people would immediately point to the obvious like their stomach rumbling or most likely flatulence. The first time it happened to Jim he was forced to experience sounds that came from him that he had no idea even existed in nature. In the time it took for his first auditory precursor to fade he became intimately aware of the sounds his own body made on a moment by moment basis to a degree that he wished he could forget. The sound of his bloodstream was expected, but the sound of his lunch digesting wasn't and don't even get him started on his colon. If it were not a fact that enduring every other sound around him magnified was even more painful he might have opted to pass on the earplugs altogether. The absolute worst one was touch, especially after a fall. Ordinary bruises left him almost shrieking as if the bones beneath the skin were broken rather than bruised and the cuts and abrasions when they happened were magnified to the point that they felt as though he had been scourged. He'd been shot twice in the line of duty, once quite badly, and that wasn't as nearly as awful as the pure distilled pain that washed over him from a set of minor cuts and bruises while his sense of touch was heightened. That was just the beginning, after the pain there was the feel of the weight of his body wherever it touched the floor. Not that it would ever happen, but if he were to go through astronaut training he figured after experiencing this that no level of gee-forces would ever scare him. It felt like his bones were made of molten lead and if a feather were to somehow land on him afterward he would have moaned in agony. Clothing was an absolute horror to be endured until it began to pass. This time it was smell though and smells he could deal with a little better. Through the wave of sensation that was his senses starting to return to him he was dimly aware of the overpowering stench of old carpet and the dusty dirt smell that had been ground into the weave over the years. Dirt that was ground in so deep that even a regular kiss from the old Hoover he kept for that job couldn't completely remove it. There, right behind the reek of the dirt was the heavy faint odor of the carpet deodorizer that gathered and lingered in his nose now that he was close enough to smell it. Normally it wasn't that strong; just a ghost that lingered and was almost faded away entirely. But after an episode it was like being hit in the face with a bag full of the stuff. Just in his line of sight he saw the tilted coffee cup that he had been carrying into the living room lying on its side. The carpet had given just enough padding that it hadn't broken, but the coffee that it had held only a few moments before was already spreading out in a pale brown pool, staining the carpet. From it came the overpowering smell of the coffee itself, the milk he had lightened it with and the sugar he had mixed in to sweeten the bitter brew. Even mixed in with the smell of the coffee itself, his sense of smell right now as acute enough to note that the milk was beginning to turn. Under ordinary circumstances it would be at least two or three days before he would be able to detect the faint beginning of something like that; on days like this it stood out like someone waving a sign. His feet were still twitching and they would continue to do so if what he had already experienced was any guide now. With each movement he could smell the odor they produced just over the course of a morning's confinement in socks and slippers. The smell of the soap he had washed with overlay that as well as the ghosts of past times he had worn the slippers as well. Jim gripped the thinning fibers of the carpet and felt them slip between his fingers without even the hint of gaining any purchase. On the other side of the room was his battered office chair. He'd almost made it. Another moment or two and at least he would have salvaged the coffee and would only have needed to deal with the physical after-effect of this sudden onset. Or he might have made it all the way there and managed to sit down and then instead of lying here breathing in the stagnant ghost of housecleaning's past he would have felt his fingers digging into the hard plastic barely cushioned by a thin layer of foam covered in peeling vinyl and have to endure the collection of odors that the chair had accumulated over the years instead. His feet gave a few more twitches and then slowly grew still. He tried to shift his leg, but all he accomplished when he did that was to make a movement little different than the spasms that had just ceased. His muscles were still coming back online, but they hadn't really gotten to the point that he was actually in some degree of control yet. Like always, when he tumbled into an episode, he'd lost control of his bladder and had voided every drop that was there as well. The acrid stench of the urine soaking into his clothing and laying crushed against his skin was just another part of this experience that he was going to have to endure until he gained enough control to rise and see to cleaning himself up. Get control of this he told himself through the still swirling sensation that made him want to close his eyes just on the off chance that doing that might actually help this time. It wouldn't actually and again, if experience was any guide, doing so would be less helpful that he might have hoped. He would have to ride it out just as he had before, but that didn't mean he had to keep lying here like this. At least he could try to shift his body into a more comfortable position. He was pretty sure that he could manage that much. Or maybe he was overestimating his capabilities again he thought as his muscles spasmed the moment that he tried to force them to move. The sweat immediately sprang from his forehead in profuse droplets and his breathing immediately came in a rapid fire gasping that threatened to sputter into a spasm of shallow breaths that only sipped at the air he needed rather than drinking it in. He gave up after another moment and just lay there. His fingers scrabbled at the cover of the pouch he had taken to wearing in case he couldn't reach one of the bowls of supplies that were everywhere. The pouch itself was part of his hunting rig. It was nothing special, just something to hold odds and ends with and in this one he kept nose and ear plugs, a sleep mask and a small bag of trail mix for when he couldn't move. The nose plugs would help, but he had to get them in first. He fished around in the pouch and eventually found them. It took another couple of minutes of fumbling but he managed to break the seal and insert them. The chemical smell of the materials that made the plugs was only marginally better than what was around him; but margins mattered when he was like this. He wanted so much to close his eyes but he resisted the urge and instead forced his thoughts to consider anything else other than the whirling sensation that he was feeling right this moment. That was at least something he could do. His body might have been laid low by this; the Russian roulette of sensory magnification may be battering him, but his mind was rapidly clearing even if that wasn't necessarily what he wanted just now. And since it was clearing there was something he could do. A mental exercise the doctor treating him and Mitch had showed them both. Jim had dabbled in meditation techniques before when he was younger and again when the stress of the job had made it obvious that he had to do something that would effectively aid him in coping with the pressures that he was under. It didn't hurt and the city paid for it as part of the contract that the union had negotiated during the last round of negotiations. What the F.R.T doctor had showed him wasn't even that unfamiliar when he was guiding Jim and Mitch through this method and that in its own way was a degree of comfort as well. What he needed was to let his mind regain equilibrium while his body recovered. Jim exhaled as deeply as he could, concentrating on forcing the deep reserves of air that lingered in the deepest recesses of his lungs out. That would clear his lungs and help him regain control over the insipient spasms that were still threatening his control over his lung function. Even better since he was forced to breathe out of his mouth for this he wouldn't have to smell the odor of the air that was expelled from his innermost reaches. Sometimes for this sort of exercise you might consider something soothing like a pool of still water with a single droplet impacting it's surface but that was much too close to what he was feeling right now for that technique to be effective for Jim so that was out of the question. When he had tried to counter a sudden attack of this sort with anything of that sort of focus to his regret it actually made the attack worse. Considering water might be a tried and true method of calming a mind for others, but it seemed that it would not serve him in the same fashion in this situation. For Jim, it was daylight that he forced his mind to focus on when one of these attacks rushed at him from out of the underbrush of his consciousness and tried to overrun him. Daylight slowly creeping across a brick wall. That slow march of ordered time that began with dawn and ended with dusk. The order that it imposed on his mind allowed him to back away from the swirling vortex that threatened to drown him and drag him into itself once again. He felt his rate of breathing slow and steady. His eyes behind the tightly clenched eyelids focused inward contemplating the lack of movement of light at noon; by now he could visualize the wall he used for this exercise at any stage of the day and maintain that focus as long as he needed to for the attack to subside. His heart rate began to slow and he concentrated on forcing himself to take deep slow breaths rather than the ragged sipping ones that his body wanted to indulge in. "I am the master of my body, my body does not master me," he said in a barely audible voice. he said the phase over and over again while he focused inward until he began to feel the intensity of the attack fade and recede. As the last of it began to drain away, he allowed his fingers to unclench and his eyes to open a micrometer at a time. When he had regained enough control he released his final breath and reached for the armrests of the chair that he had almost made it as far as and levered himself into the seat. Jim reached for the small towel that he had started to keep nearby ever since he had begun experiencing these attacks. He kept a bag of them in the house just for whatever he might need them for. After his first couple of episodes he had taken to planting them around the house as well. He kept them right next to the plastic box of baby wipes right where he could reach for them. He reached for the baby wipes first and then for the towel. The cool terrycloth wicked away what remained of the strong smelling sweat from this brow and he stopped to take the sensation of it into his mind. This was his memory being forged as it happened and he examined it in every particular as it was born and drew it into himself in as full a detail as he could. He focused on everything as it happened and allowed the memory to be locked into his consciousness. The sour taste that lingered over his tongue right now, the pounding in his temples as the blood thundered through the veins in gradually diminishing throbbing. The dampness all over his body from the sweat that had soaked him from head to toe was he had been thrust into his own mind to confront what Barnes had placed there. He was going to have to shower and change clothes again once he got control of himself, but that was all part of the process and he had more than enough spares in his dresser to deal with this. The clammy feeling of his skin and the way the light made his pupils contract as he forced his eyes slowly open, no detail was overlooked as he impressed the feeling on his mind and used his own experiences to bring order from the vortex of sensation he emerged from. The doctor that the F.R.T. had sent Jim and Mitch to had said as much when he was telling them both what to expect in the coming days and he hadn't been exaggerating when he laid out what was in store for either of them. If anything, he was nothing but brutally honest with them both. "You have to think of your own senses as a kind of weapon," he said to them, "Right now that is the most effective weapon you have against this and you have to use it every time to get past something like this. The problem is that both of you are normal people. And normal people are not mentally equipped to deal with what the two of you are experiencing now and will be experiencing over the next several days." Jim had been foolish enough to think that the man might be exaggerating when he said that at first, the sad thing was that he may have undersold it to them. "When you were drawn into what she shared with you the two of you had a complete set of experiences imposed on you that your minds were not prepared to process. The thing is no one really processes fully what they experience past a given moment. The way humans are built we only fully live in the now in rare moments and once the now is past the mind immediately drops most of what our sensory input provides us. We may experience things with all five senses, but for any given memory we only record it using very little to give the data meaning." "Even the most vivid memories we have only will highlight a little of what it was that makes us recall whatever it was so strongly. A smell might remind you of something or a sound or a particular image and then you react. But outside of the most extreme or traumatic memories most people don't recall things exactly in every detail, we're just not wired to do that with any accuracy. That's one of things that make eyewitness testimony so unreliable." That was something that they could both relate to. Any investigator who had been on the job more than a little while could tell you countless horror stories about having a group of people look at the same thing and tell you something that contradicted what the previous witness told you. The trick was to sift through it all and find out what they saw as opposed to what they thought they saw. "And then there is the filter that we see things through. Even when we are seeing things in the moment we are not fully seeing them. We are seeing what we expect to see. The brain likes to make things easy so unless we concentrate on something deliberately all we see is what our mind tells us is there, rather than what is there." "It's like you are just filling in the blanks with what you believe should be there, because to do otherwise is to court information overload. For example, you're walking down the street and you see a woman walking toward you. The moment your eyes fall on her a lot of processes go through your mind and your memory of what you see depends on how your mind decides to filter it. If she is not someone you would be attracted to then the only thing you really pay attention to is information of the most general sort." "You might note age or weight or hair style or focus on some one part of her in passing, but once she is gone you do an information dump and only retain the idea that you passed this woman while walking and even then it doesn't stay for very long in your memory before it is purged entirely." "But if she is someone you would be attracted to you pay closer attention to her and then a whole different set of factors come into play. The first being; are you free to pursue your interest? If you are then most people are going to pay closer attention as long as she is in eyesight and then the mind doesn't do a memory dump as soon as she passes. The same thing is true if you are free but she is obviously not, either way the memory lingers in greater detail." "If both of you are free then you get the highest focus and that produces the clearest memories and your mind starts noting other things to include in the memory; things like smells or sounds and the memory will be especially vivid afterward. Or you notice something that you would have overlooked in passing, like perhaps the woman you are now so focused on is actually a jailbait girl so well dressed up that she fooled you into thinking she is older than she actually is." "Most people see what they expect to see and unless they have more than a passing contact with someone else all they perceive and remember is what their mind tells them that they saw. Did you ever read 'Huckleberry Finn'?" he asked. Jim and Mitch both allowed that they had, but in Jim's case it had been so long ago that he wasn't sure just when it was that he had read it. "There's a part in that book where Huck disguises himself in girl's clothing to go into town to get information and supplies while Jim the runaway slave is hiding outside of town. Most people who saw him only saw a young girl he appeared to be and the biggest thing they probably noticed about him was that this 'girl' was a stranger, but that wasn't any concern of theirs and they didn't see anything more than what they expected to see; especially since Huck was not drawing attention to himself. He was only speaking is a low soft voice and he was keeping his head down." "If you remember he only got caught because the woman that took him home was able to pay attention to him specifically and that was enough to get her to become suspicious enough to toss a ball of yarn into his lap to see how he would catch it. The moment Huck tried to close his knees to keep it from falling through he confirmed for her that this was a boy dressed up as a girl and then Huck had to spin her a story that she would believe which he did." "The thing is that is what happens every day. We don't experience more than a snapshot at any given moment and even then we just fill in the blanks with what we expect to see and that is what makes your condition so dangerous for you. That is exactly what did not happen with the two of you. Rightly speaking it's even worse for the two of you because you are not ordinary people at all. You're both detectives and that means that you habitually note things that other people would dismiss as unimportant. When you see something you're going to dwell in on it a little longer than most people. You're going to note details that most would dismiss out of hand. You can't help it and that is what is going to make this worse for you." "What you experienced was a slice of someone's life, during a particularly traumatic encounter. You had someone's complete existence implanted into your minds and it wasn't just the knowledge of what happened that you have to deal with, it's the experience of it." "The biggest problem is that you are being exposed to a full sensory barrage each time you flash into any part of this memory. There is no filter for you here. You are remembering not only what happened, but how it felt, how it smelled, how it sounded and that is just the physical component; add in the mental context and the mind short circuits. It isn't able to handle or process that without specific training that neither of you have had. It can't deal with it and it shuts down. It shuts down and it takes the body with it." "In a way it operates like epilepsy when it short circuits that way, but it's not completely like that; not entirely. When you have an epileptic seizure you have little or no memory of what happened during the attack. You wake up to damage that your body sustained and you have to face the outcome through a mental fog that lasts for hours and you end up relying on what others told you about what happened. And that is just what you face even before you have to deal with whatever happened to you physically. That is not what is happening to either of you." "When you have an attack and you are going to have many of them, you are completely aware of what is taking place. You just are overwhelmed and you can't cope with what it is you are experiencing. You may lose control of your body momentarily, but you still are aware of what is happening. And you remain aware until you lose consciousness. It a fashion, this is like an extreme case of PTSD. The only thing is that it is someone else's trauma and not yours." "What can we do about it?" Mitch asked. "Nothing," the doctor said. "There is no real treatment that is as effective as waiting for your mind to process it into a form that you can look at mentally without shutting you down. And that is something that you're going to have to wait out." "What do you mean 'wait out'?" Jim asked. "I mean exactly that," the doctor told them. "Right now you have to pass through the most critical phase with everything that means hanging over you. Virtually anything can trigger part of what you saw and send you into a tailspin and when that happens its best that you be doing nothing that might put you or others in danger." "It may not feel like it, but your mind is trying to cope with it already. It's trying to do to this slice of memory what it does to any other memory input that it receives and the whole thing is just too big to process all at once. It's going to bottleneck and when that happens you are going to flash and that is going to lay you out on the floor helpless." "How long will that take?" Jim asked. "Impossible to say, but it is happening. Eventually your mind will sift through what you experienced and filter it down into a form that you will be able to access without it paralyzing you, but it's still going to remain one of the most vivid experiences you will ever have. All you can do is minimize the impact until that happens. When you are able to access any part of this memory without loss of control then you will be starting to come out of the woods as far as this is concerned, but until then you need to be in a structured environment." Jim had hoped that the doctor was just exaggerating, but the first attack he had when he got home had dashed that hope. One experience of pulling himself up off of the floor with his muscles quivering and barely able to move with the taste of sour vomit staining his lips had been enough to accept that this was not something that would be over within a couple of days. ----------------------- The first thing he did when he had control enough of himself was head to the shower to clean himself. The urine soaked clothes went into the hamper and he didn't dare linger in the steaming water longer than necessary. If he should have another episode then he shuddered to think of the outcome when he was standing in a pool of water surrounded by slippery tile. The same went for when he got out of the shower. He'd made it a habit to grab a towel and go immediately into the bedroom and dry of there. It was better to deal with the little bit of water that soaked into the carpet than risk being in the lavatory if there were aftershocks. Jim first toweled off his lower body and then sat on the bed to finish drying himself now. It was the reverse of what he had done all of his life, but under the circumstances it made perfect sense. Once he was dry again he tossed the towel into the hamper and took a fresh set of lounge pants out of the drawer and a fresh tee shirt. With that taken care of he slowly rose to his feet and made his way back to the living room to get started on cleaning up the mess. As he blotted up the coffee from the carpet he was pretty certain that he was going to have to get a steam cleaner in here when he could arrange for it. He would do it right now, but the chance of him being able to trust his body to not betray him while he was out was somewhere between slim and none. Water, cleaning fluid and a set of towels would have to do for the moment to get the worst of the coffee out of the floor. As he finished blotting the last of it up and dropped the wet towels in the bucket he couldn't help taking yet another look at the house around him. For the most part his house was clean enough for someone who lived alone and before this he hadn't needed to clean very much to stay on top of it. Until he came face to face with it the way he was having to now he wouldn't have given it any thought. The truth was the main reason that his house stayed as clean as it did was that it was hard for a home to get very dirty when no one was there. Jim looked around his home and when you got down to it all it was in the end was a hotel room without maid service that he owned. That was actually being charitable after he had been forced to be confined here the first few days. The deeper truth was that this wasn't just a hotel room where he kept his things. It was the embalmed corpse of his life stuffed and mounted and kept on display. Any life that was ever in these walls had ended when his wife moved out and filed for divorce and everything that remained was not even a memorial to that. He hadn't thrown out the pictures, but he had locked them away, banishing them to the attic where they wouldn't be seen. What she had not taken had joined them in there until the lower living area had been swept clean of any evidence that any other person other than Jim Brighton had ever lived within these walls. The thing was that she had been gone so long now that Jim literally had no feelings for the woman one way or the other. There was no anger, there was no sorrow, and there was no curiosity over what was happening with her. There was only a vast nothing the stretched forward and spilled backward eliminating everything that ever was there. And it had crept up on him without him even noticing. When he had first been gripped in the raw swirl of emotion when his wife left he had coped with it by spending even more time at work. Work became his solace and his sanctuary. It gave him absolution for his sins and purpose to fill his hours and most importantly it gave him a reason to only return to his home when he needed to and to stay no longer than necessary. The pattern he was weaving hardened without him thinking about it and had set like slow curing concrete with each passing day and when he no longer was aware of it, a new Jim Brighton was born. This Jim Brighton never stayed home and he was utterly, ruthlessly focused on his work. The few times that he did spend any time within these walls it was little more than what time was needed to settle whatever immediate need it was that had brought him home to begin with. If he wasn't at work or working a case he spent his time away from here. He had no need to be involved with anyone and until being partnered with Mitch he made no effort to draw anyone new into his social circle. Mitch only made the grade because he was a cop and he was Jim's partner. Andrea, Mitch's wife grew close enough to him in her own way, but there was always an underlying disquiet in their relationship that he had only begun to recognize now that he was confined to his home and forced to confront it. Andrea was just like his wife; not in personality or in physical appearance or in temperament, but in what she was becoming. Jim listened to what his partner had to say when Mitch felt the need to share that part of his life, and he watched when he was there and he listened to the tone of what was behind the words she spoke and he heard a cop's ex-wife growing behind her eyes. And the thing was it was inevitable. She was one of these spouses that couldn't handle the uncertainty. Each day a flea carried a speck of dirt to the top of a hill that made up that uncertainty and left it there. Day after day the hill of dirt grew and now the weight of it was starting to be more than Andrea was going to be able to handle. Jim liked Andrea, but that didn't change the fact that she was going to end up the ex-wife of a cop or the wife of an ex-cop. Mitch had managed to put her off forcing that decision ever since he had left vice and transferred to missing persons. That was part of the deal they made the last time this came to a head. Mitch stayed a cop and she got a little piece of mind. And then Mitch was shot during the Simmons case and the truce between them that Mitch had hoped would hold long enough for him to finish out his twenty was starting to fail. The Barnes and Phillips cases were going to be the nail in the coffin. He could feel it already. Knowing what was building between his partner and his wife forced him to re-live having it happen to him all over again only this time he was experiencing it without any intimate connection and in some ways that was worse. Jim needed to get out of the house. Staying in these walls was only making how he felt worse. He walked out through the kitchen to the lawn chair that was set up under the car port. As he settled down and started watching the world passing by in front of his home Raja came over, jumped up on his lap and started purring for some attention. Jim's hand absently dropped down and started stroking the black fur. It helped, but not enough. The only thing that would help was for him to get back to work and until he was past this the only thing he had to look forward to was staying in a home that he now realized he didn't care about anymore. There was Raja, but he was near the top of a short list of things and people that he did care about. As he sat and watched the street and petted Raja the thought occurred that maybe he shouldn't have been so hasty with his refusal when family and friends tried to set him up with someone else. But as always, when that thought bubbled up he popped it and let the suds disappear into the water of his thoughts and vanish again. Three days, that's all he needed. Three days without an episode and the doc would clear him for light duty. It seemed a simple thing and yet it was almost impossible to achieve. Jim tried to clear his mind again. Dwelling on this resentment was a quick way to trigger another episode. He started out thinking about how much he wanted to get back to work and inevitably it led to the Barnes case and that triggered something else and there he was sprawled on the floor again. He cleared his mind and watched the day pass around him. His hand was a steady stroke on Raja's head that the cat enjoyed and responded to by increasing the volume of his purr. Just give me three days, Jim thought. -------------------------- Fourth Precinct: Day 15, 1100 hours It barely registered to Singh when the car that Agent Fitzhugh had assigned to transport him eased to a stop in front of the fourth precinct a little before eleven. The fact was that he was having more trouble noticing inconsequential details such as that anymore. Anymore what he did notice was that his head felt thick as if his brain was swaddled in cotton batting. The constant need, the requirement that he be always available on a daily basis had taken its toll on him in its own way. In this case he could recognize that mentally he was slowing down and it was only by an effort of sheer will that he was able to continue to drive himself as ruthlessly as he had succeeded doing up to this point. Sheer will was most of it, but that was not all of it. The car had delivered him to the side entrance rather than the main one in keeping with the F.R.T.'s default habit of remaining as unobtrusive as possible. The car itself was unmarked and was of a make and model commonly chosen by those who procured vehicles for the government fleet. Except for a small decal on the license plate that identified it as anything other than what it was it could pass unnoticed most of the time and that was the point. The special detective force and the F.R.T. it was a part of were supposed to stand watch, but more important was that those they stood watch for never know that they had guardians of this sort or what they needed those guardians for. As he walked heavily up the broad steps that led into the grey brick building his hand dipped into his jacket pocket in a motion that was becoming more automatic each time he did so. It slipped into the depths of it and rested on the stones that he kept in there now. When he did so, when his fingertips came into contact with the bumpy rough surface he felt the trace of energy that was contained in them begin to travel into his thick fingers and as he felt what little restoration that they could give him begin to flow into his depleted strength. Only for a moment though. And for that moment he felt his head clear just for a breath or two and it was enough. For that brief time he didn't feel the soul deep exhaustion that was starting to overtake him and he had a taste of what it was to feel normal again. But it couldn't last; he held his fingers there only for a few moments and then he took them away. He turned around and paused. The car and its driver were still idling at the roadside. The passenger window was lowered while the agent inside watched him ascend to the precinct itself. "Take the car to the parking garage," he told the driver, "I expect that I will be here for some time. I'll call for you when it's time to depart." The driver merely nodded and continued to idle the car in place. Singh turned and resumed walking up the rest of the steps. Only when the door began to close behind him did he hear the car pull away. Singh supposed that he should consider it a token of his position at the moment that he rated a driver that was also apparently functioning as a bodyguard, but it was an honor that he wished wasn't necessary at all when you got down to it. He suppressed an urge to dip his fingers into his pocket again. That was something else that was still new for him as well and like the former the latter was something he told himself that he needed to endure for now. He wasn't blind to the consequences of this action and he wasn't ignorant of the result if he failed to restrain those impulses when they started baying for his attention; but he wasn't able to completely stop either even though he knew it was dangerous for someone like him to keep doing what he was doing constantly. A price would have to be paid eventually for what he was doing and the longer it went on the steeper that price would be. Even if their size could only contain small amounts of the earth energy he was depending on, even if there was just enough there to give him the slight boost that it did the price would still come due. Doing what he was doing was an easy thing to do when you were someone who had an elemental connection the way Singh did and on the surface there was seemingly no downside. Even the earth and stone that he was depending on didn't appear in his demeanor as something that was ill affected by this. When there was nothing left there for him to draw upon he would have to place them in the earth to start the slow process of restoring what he was borrowing from them. It would take time for that to happen but it would eventually be set right. The price though was still getting larger and it wouldn't go away until the time came to make good on the debt. Even just keeping to the minimum as he was doing now ate up a tremendous amount of the small chunks of granite that he was depending on in this way. He held them next to him, he leaned on their strength when he needed too and eventually he exhausted them. When those stones no longer would serve then other stones would take their place until they in turn were drained and then returned to the earth as well. But the cost, the cost was going to make him regret doing this repeatedly when the time came to lay this aside and if it weren't for the need to draw upon what the stones could do to sustain him through the constant rough patches that dealing with the situation in Olympia required he wouldn't dream of doing this as often as he was already guilty of. Just a couple more days he promised himself. Just enough to get over the hump and he could leave off depending on what little extra that they gave him. But that was the problem, every time that he thought that he could start to shift away from his stone crutch something else came up and there he was back to depending on it just to get him through whatever the latest difficulty it was suddenly looming in front of him. And each time it was always a problem that seemed as impassable, immobile and solid as a mountain with no passage apparent until it was overcome. The days felt like they were getting longer too. Today was no exception to that. Singh's morning begun early as it had every day since the Grove had been uncovered. Anymore he had to make do with only four or five hours of sleep each night and every day he was tempted to short that meager amount of rest to put out some fire that was cropping up. Fortunately when that inclination reared its head Fitzhugh was there to rein him in and force him to question whether or not this latest something was an incident that was really worthy of allowing it to steal from what rest he was able to snatch away from the sense of purpose that he allowed to drive him so unmercifully. Most of the time, she was correct and she was able to shake him out of his inclination to handle things himself when he didn't need to do so. There was a steep learning curve in this situation and he was still adjusting to the demands that it was making on him. But even then there was never enough time and there was always something else that needed to be done. That was why he started dipping into the reserve of energy the stones held for him to begin with. There were times that he felt that the only reason that he had even been able to handle the demands of his position at his age was that he made such liberal use of earth and stone to supplement what he was no longer getting naturally. In his situation such an action was easy to rationalize and at least that was something that he had not made the error of doing yet. The price was going to have to be paid and it was going to be high when the time came, but at least he hadn't fallen so far that he could lie to himself about what he was doing. Each elemental sensitive could draw strength from that which they had an affinity for and it would sustain them for a time, but like a narcotic a dependency would gradually build up in the one that was dipping into that sort of reserve. Breaking free of it later on would be more difficult the longer that it was allowed free reign. This wasn't the first time he had needed to do this, but it was the first time he'd needed to do it for so long. The last time had been an agony and Pantra had been there to buck him up through it. She couldn't be here for him this time when he finally turned and faced what he was doing to himself and he wished that she could be. Just a couple more days he promised himself and as before when he said that he meant it. He reached the top of the stairs and reached for the handle of the metal and glass door that led into the main receiving area for the station and pulled it open. For a moment he thought of better times and just for that moment he almost forgot that Pantra wasn't with him now. Usually he would hesitate when he closed the door to allow her the time to skip inside under the cover of her shimmer, but that wasn't necessary today. A blast of the cold air from the station's air conditioning washed over him and he felt an immediate chill overtake him that caused him to shiver involuntarily. The humidity of summer was already on the rise outside those doors and it wouldn't be long before being outside would be almost intolerable until fall brought respite. As he listened to the insulation rubbing against the door frame that accompanied them swinging shut behind him his fingers again drifted unconsciously back to hover over his pocket and this time he allowed them to rest on the cloth covering the stones contained there. Now that the advisory council was at last meeting with their Fae counterparts things seeming to be moving forward despite what had happened. There were still fits and starts in the process and the knowledge of the abortive attempt to remove the Grove while a painful admission was at least out there in the open and not festering the way it would if it had been concealed. The action cast a pall over the negotiations, but it had not derailed them. There was a strong chance this was going to work he told himself once again. After all this was the first real test of the edifice that had been assembled to deal with the approaching change and while none of them had expected to have to deal with exactly what had been placed on their plate so far at the same time they had also been equal to the task and that was something that was infinitely valuable to know. There was no longer any doubt that they were prepared for what was coming and with that first baptism of fire behind them now there was only the need to bring this to a successful conclusion. The Grove representatives were as outraged by the admission as he expected them to be and it did his heart good to see the look on Kinsey's face as it dawned on him that Karmek was not just some deformed human trotted out to convince the gullible of a sham. He had been the one who had to make the formal apology and even though Singh could see the gears in his mind balking when forced to accept that what he believed was not true at all, he could also see that he burned with anger at being forced to admit to them that he was the one that was in the wrong. Watson may have gotten through to him about how it was to his advantage make this work smoothly, but it didn't make him like facing the part of himself that knew deep down what a fraud he was. The Grove representatives accepted the formal apology with little demurral and one thing it demonstrated to Singh was how very important it was to them that this Grove be recognized and protected. So important that they were willing to overlook what had almost happened. Even in his own relief over their reaction though Singh couldn't help having the dawning awareness that there was something else motivating that willingness to forgive on their part but he didn't know what that could be. Whatever it was he was grateful for the mitigating effect it had. With that smoothing the way he now had a chance to reevaluate what needed to happen next without the urgency of now dictating his responses. That was a welcome feeling and Singh needed to seriously do just that. As he walked up to the floor where his office was located he reviewed the obvious steps that should be made right away. The first thing he decided was that agent Fitzhugh should be shifted into a more dominant role now that the council was meeting; that much was clear. She already handled the day to day administration of the FRT as it was and now that the focus of the mission was about to shift, he would be able to hand off even more of the routine demands that had rested in his hands over to her. The whole point of the exercise was to minimize and clean up the mess after it was contained and as much as possible keep those who were unaware it was even there from noticing. In a way he was like one of those servants that were depicted in Victorian times. The ones who were supposedly almost supernatural in their ability to cater to the needs of their house and yet remain unnoticed by them while doing so. That's me, he thought to himself as he walked down the hallways of the precinct to his office, the supernatural janitor for the Stafford P.D. That's what he was for in the grand scheme of things if you wanted to be honest about it. He was here to clean up the mess. And when he cleaned up enough of the messes that were caused by the original mess then he could disappear into the background again. That was the ideal scenario for an agent of the Concord; to stabilize the situation, set a clear path to recovery and once that path was firmly committed to, hand over control from a single pair of hands and begin to draw down from the need to be there at all. The FRT was supposed to be a pressure bandage to staunch the wound, not a limb permanently grafted where it no longer had a need to be. And now that he had experienced what it meant to be in this position it was even more important for him to recede into the background as well. The fact that he hated every moment of what he had been called on to do made little difference to those who drafted the response. They were all long dead anyway and the sad thing about it was that they probably would have chosen someone like him to handle this burden had they known who it was that would have to exercise the authority granted to them. There was some logic to that idea of handing power to someone who hated the idea of it. In this case the concept had managed to work and thinking of how it was working as intended brought his thoughts back to the bullet that was following him around wherever he went to. Most times he managed to forget it was there, or at least not think about it anyway; but from the moment this had started he hadn't been able to not think about it. It was like when someone told you not to think of something, there was no quicker way to draw your attention to precisely what it was that you were supposed to not think of. It would end though and when it did he could diminish. He supposed that he might miss the excitement of what he was doing here later on when the burden itself was gone. In fact he was sure of it. Still, the first thing that he planned on doing once this whole situation was finally resolved was to retreat to his own home and luxuriate in the knowledge that this weight no longer was balanced on his shoulders. That didn't mean that he would take any ill advised short cuts that would undo what it was that he was called on to do. But that didn't mean that he wanted to stay this way longer than he had to. As far as he was concerned, the sooner that he could be taken out of the main loop, the better the chance for things in Stafford to begin moving into the new normal would be there for all of them to adjust to. What that was going to be still remained to be seen though. At least he knew this was the right call. If there was anyone who could handle taking over a greater role in the FRT as it was operating here, it was Fitzhugh. She could handle it and then some. She was tough like that. And it had to be done sooner rather than later. Now that the council had moved beyond its shaky start, his role there would gradually take more of the time that he had available. There was so much that needed to be done first though. When he was going over mock negotiations as a training exercise before he got his shield there was always that compression that comes with an exercise that is absent in the real thing. And there was no telling how long it would be until the agreement between all parties was finalized and consummated. And even when this part was midwived into existence and stable, then there was the need for him to fulfill his role as liaison with the emergent Grove itself. That role that devolved to him with its discovery was only going to grow as well and eat up even more of the limited time that he had each day. Unlike his temporary command of the FRT, that was something that was not going to fade away. With that in mind, the sooner that he could divest himself of what could be shifted elsewhere the better all around. God that woman was a marvel, he thought for the umpteenth time. Fitzhugh seemed to be made of iron and where Singh had resorted to earth and stone to keep pace with the demands on his time that resolving this crisis required; she seemed to shrug it off like stray drops of water and continue forward as if she had no greater demand on her time than choosing something frivolous to occupy it. The last few days Singh had found himself getting a better grasp on everything than he had though. Like anything else once you have done it more than a few times a routine will start to emerge and so it was even with the demands of his burden of dealing with what Olympia was going to become in the coming days and weeks. But even with his day beginning between four and five in the morning and him was spending his nights at the Area Command and Control point sleeping there when he finally forced himself to step back and get some rest that didn't mean other things stood still. His mornings were usually spent checking on the progress the council was making in their negotiations as well as sending the council members suggestions that may be useful in their negotiations when they met again later in the afternoon. After that he would meet with Agent Fitzhugh and she would update him on the current situation. One of the more tricky things they had to do immediately was to dismantle the cold iron in the retaining wall without removing the wall itself. It was not a great loss to their purpose here; erecting it when they did was only a temporary measure anyway. A stopgap put into place until the direction of the situation became clear and a final decision could be reached. Now that there was a direction and a destination that step was being undone. What made it tricky though was that it was still needed to maintain the cover story and to continue to conceal what was actually happening in the immediate area of the Grove itself from the general public. That was more of a balancing act in its own way. They carried it off by expanding the area immediately around the Grove and erecting a new barrier that did not contain the iron impediments that were part of the first wall. Again there was no choice; it needed to be done as a good faith gesture now that they had a better handle of the Grove's rate of growth. They would not have to worry about any immediate expansion anyway now. There would not be any more obvious expansion of the Grove itself for a while to come either. As the Arath' Mahar gained greater control of herself and her abilities the outward march of the Grove had slowed and then stopped except for a brief flurry when it seemed that she might be losing control if that were even possible. It all came down to her overcoming the wild parts of herself. Without her untrammeled unconsciousness directing it, the Grove would fall into a slower more natural pattern of expansion now as it moved outward and that was something they could work with. A steady almost imperceptible growth would blend in and be forgotten. No one would pause everything just to watch the grass grow. Out of habit he watched the work being done as he left the area on his way to the station. It was progressing well enough in his opinion and he was starting to think that they might be able to wind this up soon and he would be another step closer to sliding into the background again. When he was learning about Cincinnatus and how his legacy would now be part of his guiding principles as a special detective he had often wondered what would be his biggest problem if he should be called on to live up to that example. Now that it was here it was a surprise to him to find out just how much he wanted this entire episode to be over with. To hang up his responsibilities and go back to what he had been before. He supposed that the centuries dead man whose example he followed might even be proud of him for that if he knew of it. Before all this he had often wondered how someone could give up such a position so quickly and voluntarily allow himself to be lessened and more importantly if he had it in him to do that; now that he had experienced it, he thought he was beginning to understand just how much old Cincinnatus must have loathed what he needed to do and how glad he must have been to lay his burden down once it was accomplished. After meeting with Agent Fitzhugh the next part of his nascent routine was to retreat to his office in the fourth precinct for a short time. It was a sort of meditation for him in its own way. An hour or so there and he could regain enough balance to turn back to his responsibilities with renewed vigor. He quickly found out when he was a much younger man that, by shifting his attentions onto a smaller problem while he was away from the center of things for a little while was more beneficial than he could have expected it to be. The lesson held just as true now as it had before. He found himself using that time to focus on small demands, but sometimes that was not always a solution. The problem with that was that the smaller demands also held the potential to morph into larger ones. He kept this in his routine though, if for no other reason than he needed to take his mind off of what was consuming all of his other focus for part of the day. Usually he was taking this time to call detectives Brighton and Travers. They might be forced onto medical relief to recover from the broadcast vision but that didn't excuse him from keeping them current with what was going one. That was also a part of the protocol that they had fallen into even though there was little for the two of them to do. As he reached his door and turned the key in the lock he mused over whether there was some way to shift that situation so that the two of them could take some greater role than what they currently held when they returned to duty. He would have to give it more thought later when he had time he told himself. He had other things to occupy his mind today. Usually it was something that had to do with some tangent in the overall picture. Something small enough that it could be worked through in a short time, but important enough to warrant this level of focus. In this case he was going to begin looking over some of the materials that detective Travers had passed on to him from that assistant medical examiner at Mercy General. Travers hadn't given him the entire file yet, just enough for him to review and make the call on whether this was something connected to the situation with the Grove or something else entirely. The depressing thing he realized as he started to go over the excerpts from the report was that in all likelihood the incongruous data that the man had collected already probably pointed to a bigger mess than what was filling his plate at the moment. Singh's brow furrowed in concentration as he looked the documents over. There was definitely enough there to warrant further investigation he decided and while he welcomed the opportunity to divert his attention for an hour or so. Today wasn't going to be as restful as he hoped it would be. The desk phone rang before he could fully settle into evaluating the material and he looked up with an annoyed expression before squelching it. If he was being called here, then it wasn't likely to be trivial. Fitzhugh was aware of where he was and if she felt the need to a call him on this line then something had well and truly struck the fan. The hollow electric trilling that made him look up from the scattered notes didn't have to mean it was her on the other end he told himself as he reached for the receiver; it was standard procedure for all of his phone connections to follow him around in the current situation. And then it may be something else entirely, after all it was not an untoward thing to have happen that someone else would need to call him on this line. It may be unusual for him to get any calls this way, but that just meant that it wasn't going to be trivial, especially since it was well known that most of the time his department mobile number was how you got in touch with him lately. Singh set the papers aside and reached for the handset. Being on the inside and the outside of the force simultaneously had created a strange juxtaposition in his professional life. The nature of what it was that he did for the department necessitated that he was more circumspect and isolated from his fellow officers and at the same time it meant that when something that fell into his bailiwick demanded attention, he was the first to know and get involved. "Special Detective Singh," he said evenly into the receiver. "Special Detective Armin Singh?" a voice queried. "Yes, this is Special Detective Armin Singh," He answered suddenly more attentive. "Detective Singh I need you to initiate a level three protocol," the voice on the other end said crisply. This was serious then, Singh thought. A level three protocol involved more than just routine security measures. "Wait one moment," he said and rose to go to the office safe near Pantra's alcove. The special safe that he needed to access for this was behind a large potted plant just behind where Pantra usually lounged when she felt the urge to do so. He reached past the miniature futon that she used and shifted it and the plant to one side. Out of habit he turned his head ready to apologize to the pixie for disturbing her and was struck again by her absence when he remembered that she was not there right now. The door to the safe was camouflaged to look like a small fuse box and it was painted the same nondescript shade of industrial grey that the department had slathered on the office walls of the entire floor. When you opened the door the first thing you would see is the row on row of fuses that in actuality carried no current at all. With the plant in place it was almost impossible to see there was a safe there at all; the small rectangular door was easily concealed by the mass of leaves and if you didn't know it was there you just wouldn't see it. Singh dialed the combination by pressing a coded sequence of fuses and then laid his hand on the cool steel and concentrated. It only took a moment for the elemental bonds that he had forged between the door and the walls of the safe to release and then he flipped the main breaker and opened it. What he was looking for was in a small notebook with a scuffed brown leather cover. He recycled that cover each time he got a new one of these and unless you knew what it contained then you would probably think it was just a journal or some such thing. He fished it out and closed the safe behind him. He didn't bother replacing the plant. He would need to put this notebook back when he was finished with it and there was no need for him to do that right this moment. The very fact that he had even opened the safe door had caused the door to his office to automatically lock so that none would be able to enter until he had concluded his business. He turned back to the desk and sat down and then opened the book. The phone was resting on a flat black base plate. The base plate itself was attached to the wood of the desk itself. There were six small dials on the base of the metallic sheet. The dials resembled decorative scrollwork but they were easy enough to access. He opened the book to the correct section and consulted the table there before adjusting the settings and powering the device up. A small red dot of light glowed against the darkness of the base. He reached for the receiver and held it to his ear. The background noise that crackled under each ordinary phone call was absent and the call was now much clearer to him. "Level one imitated," he said waiting for the caller to respond. "Detective Singh, authenticate Oscar-Two-Seven-Whiskey-eight." Singh opened the notebook and dropped his finger down the row of alpha- numeric codes listed in the index for the day and then turned to the indicated page and found what he was looking for. "I authenticate Sierra-Niner-Niner-Lima-Tango," he answered. "Authenticate Uniform-Kilo-Two." Singh switched to another table and found his response. "I authenticate Zulu-Charlie-Seven-Fife-Hotel-Yankee." The light on the flat metal plate shifted from red to green as his caller verified on his end that the line was secure. He heard a muted recording murmur that level two protocol was now active. A flat section of the plate slid slowly out containing a small keypad. When it ceased to move, he quickly typed in his password. You only had seventeen seconds to do it and it had to be done right the first time. If you mistyped or took too long the system would assume you were either unauthorized or were under duress and lock you out for a set time. Singh's fingers flashed over the keys. He doubted that anyone seeing this layout for the first time would be able to cope with it. It didn't use the standard QWERTY format that was almost universal and if you didn't know it was there you would be taken by surprise and be too slow to use it effectively even if you had the correct password. A small wand rose from the tray after he hit enter and unfolded to deploy a small optical sensor. Singh leaned in and there was a muted flash of light as the retina scan was taken and processed. "Level three security protocol is active," A metallic voice droned as the wand slowly eased back into its housing. The second light on the platform shifted again from green to blue indicating that his end of the secure connection was active now. "Line is secure," he said into the handset. "Acknowledged," the man on the other end of the call said. "Detective Singh, this is Dr. Ethan Mercer with the CDC Initial Assessment Team," he heard the man say. Now that the official requirements were completed the tone of the man's voice had relaxed slightly. I'm the Fae Medical liaison with the I.A.T. I'm sorry to say that there has been change in the current condition of patient zero. I need for you to come to the quarantine area at Mercy General immediately. You need to come alone and you need avoid contact with anyone until we speak in person." That was indeed something worthy of a level three secure line Singh thought to himself feeling beads of sweat start to coalesce on his brow. "So his condition is confirmed contagious then?" he said, not really asking. "How many others are presenting symptoms so far and have you determined what the pathogen's developmental path is?" "That's not what I'm calling about Detective Singh," Dr. Mercer said. "There is no change in the status of how much of a threat this syndrome is for now, but we have determined that it is not communicable so far. What I need to speak with you about is pertaining to the patient's current condition and that needs to be in person." Singh heaved a deep sigh of relief and then felt a flash of annoyance at the man that had just caused him to feel the degree of trepidation he had caused in him. "You realize Doctor Mercer that you just gave me an extreme case of pucker fever when you phrased that request in the fashion that you did just now," he said to the doctor. "Pucker fever?" the CDC man said confused by the reference. "A severe condition brought on by the onset of news both grim and terrifying. Usually of a nature that ends in terminal solutions. It is most commonly manifested by every orifice in the human body puckering in fear when the full weight of a given situation is comprehended. As is the case for myself when you just indicated that I was likely infected by contact with our very own patient zero just now." "I'm sorry, Detective Singh," he stammered, "I wasn't thinking when I said that in that way. I didn't mean to imply that was the case. I should have led with that information. I can tell you for certain that you are not infected as far as we can tell. If you were, I would have told you to lock yourself away and we would send a team to take you into isolation immediately." "Then just why have you instituted a level three security protocol doctor?" he asked allowing a faint hint of testiness creeping into his voice. "What I need to speak with you about is patient zero's condition and I need to confer with you about any information that you can give me concerning his condition before he was delivered to Mercy General," Dr. Mercer said insistently. "You see, patient zero is entering a period of rapid morphic change physically and at a cellular level and there is nothing we can do to even determine what is going on, let alone deter it or do more than a basic assessment of the risk to others right now." "When you say he is changing, in what manner do you mean?" Singh demanded sitting up straighter in his chair. "It's better that you see for yourself," the doctor said. "Doctor Mercer while what you are telling me is deeply concerning to me, what I still fail to see thus far is why you instituted a level three security line to tell me this. It seems to me that you could have had me come in unobtrusively with a regular phone call and there would be none who would even notice such an ordinary action as a member of the CDC team conferring with a member of the FRT." "The reason for the security protocol isn't to tell you something routine. I wish that is was routine. That I could deal with," The man answered. "The reason for the level three is that we may have a sleeping cuckoo situation and that does warrant this degree of security." Singh's day had just gotten a lot more complicated. "I'm on my way," Singh said hanging up the phone and immediately shuffling the papers from the assistant M.E. back into their file. His car was waiting in the precinct's underground parking area. It was likely that the driver was still waiting behind the wheel, he had told the man on the way over here that he could expect to remain for several hours but from what he had just heard that was about to change. Unnoticed by him, his fingers drifted into his pocket to caress the stones there as he rose and reached for his keys where they sat on the desk. ------------------------------ Mercy General Hospital; Day 15, 1155 hours The fourth floor of the hospital was off limits to nearly everyone at this point. Without advertising that they were doing so, the entire wing had been sealed off as completely, if not as publicly, as Magnolia Circle in Olympia had been. To even enter the floor now you needed to be escorted in and that was what Dr. Mercer was waiting to do when Singh walked into the hospital lobby just before noon. Once Dr. Mercer saw him enter, he immediately made a beeline for Singh and, without speaking more than he needed to so he could verify who he was, he led him to the bank of elevators along the far side of the room. The bank of elevators themselves were crowded with people, since the lifts themselves seemed to have only two speeds; those speeds being either snail on Quaaludes or broken. Dr. Mercer avoided the main bank and led him to a large lift around the corner. One of the kind that was capable of accommodating not only a hospital bed but several attendants at the same time. Due to its position just around the corner it was one of the few ones that were not swarmed with people waiting for a lift to finally arrive. Mercer flipped open a small clear panel and inserted a key before he summoned the elevator. At the sound of the chime announcing that its doors were opening several others waiting for a lift just around the corner approached when it sounded and tried to board it with them. Understandably they were extremely upset when he told them that they would have to leave the elevator when they attempted to board with them. At first Dr. Mercer tried to shoo them away by telling them that this was a hospital use elevator only, but not surprisingly there were still a few that ignored him and tried to wheedle their way onto the lift regardless. Their excuses were always the same and Dr. Mercer didn't even try to bother to dissuade them when they brought up their various justifications for why the rules should be overlooked to favor them in this one instance. He simply told them calmly and firmly that it just wasn't possible and when they tried to push it he motioned them closer and quietly informed then that this particular elevator had only one destination and that destination was the infectious disease ward. Not surprisingly, the verbal protests stopped in some cases in mid-sentence, and after the now no longer interested passengers had removed themselves they were able to have the cubicle to themselves without further objections. Mercer waited for the doors to fully close before he moved to do anything. And then, rather than immediately push the button for the newly designated infectious disease ward, he pressed the stop button and opened a cover over a keyhole in the panel. The covered keyhole was next to the fireman's keyhole, but with the cover closed it looked like nothing more than a blank space. Simmons slipped another of his keys into the slot and Singh watched as the lights indicating the floors all lit up simultaneously. Mercer began immediately punching a series of floor numbers until over half of the floors were selected. He then turned the key back and the lights went dark. He punched in the fourth floor and the stop lift button disengaged and they felt the elevator begin to lurch into motion. Sing wasn't as familiar with the security protocols that were in force here, but he recognized them and approved of what he was seeing. It was good to know that they were taking this as seriously as he was. "What is Hank Phillip's current status, Dr. Mercer?" Singh asked quietly. He'd restrained himself from asking any questions while they were in public and now that they were alone he no longer felt restrained against doing so. "As I told you over the phone he is entering a period of rapid change," The doctor began. "It's really quite remarkable how much so in such a short time." Before he could go into any further details, the lift came to a smooth stop and the doors opened. Mercer led him into the screened off entry room and Singh was examined by the security personnel who looked him over with intent probing almost hostile glares and then they grudgingly allowed him to pass. Dr. Mercer stepped through the plastic umbilical that separated the lift entrance from the room proper and beckoned to Singh to follow him now that he could do so. They walked into the main entryway and then down the hallway to the left of the nurses' station. As they passed darkened rooms it struck Singh at first as wasteful that an entire floor was now devoted to the welfare of a single patient. The thing was though that he knew that was just the surface impression and that things were serious enough here to warrant devoting the resources of the entire hospital if need be instead of a single floor as was being done. Mercer led him to the sole room where light was streaming into the hallway from. The isolation room where Hank Phillips was contained. It was little changed from the last time Singh had seen it. The real difference it seemed was that the equipment had now been calibrated so as to accurately register Phillip's changing vitals. Singh looked at the displays through the thick glass and while he recognized some of what he saw there were things that he didn't recognize at all. Not surprisingly, from what he already knew, the monitor for Phillips's heart rate was absolutely silent. Heartbeats per minute were a steady zero on the digital display and the monitor indicated the lack of heartbeat marched steadily in an unbroken placid horizontal line that stretched silently across the screen. Pulmonary functions also read out as zero as well as well as blood pressure; although he could tell that by simply looking at the still form on the bed. His chest was not moving in the slightest. There was stillness, an absence of movement made it stand out as much as an opposite performance would have attracted the same degree of attention. That stillness, more suggestive of a deep set rock than of the torso of a still living being, struck him with the wrongness of it. The wrongness of seeing something you expected to see conforming to the rhythms of normal breathing not moving at all and yet still living was unnerving to say the very least. As wrong as seeing lack of movement was, it was familiar to Singh as well. He couldn't place where it was familiar from, but there was something nagging at him from somewhere in the back of his mind telling him that there was a connection to be made here between what he knew already and what he was seeing right now. "Is he smaller?" Singh asked after a moment. "You've got good eyes, Detective Singh," Dr. Fitzhugh said. "According to our measurements he is at least three centimeters shorter and five kilos lighter since he was admitted. We can't be certain of it yet, but the assumption is that the discrepancy is the result of his metabolism operating at levels we didn't even think possible before." Singh nodded in acknowledgement. "Bring me up to date then Dr. Mercer," he said, "I'm already familiar with what was the recent progress of this case as it developed prior to your arrival, so we can skip the unnecessary portion of what you have to tell me in that regard. Unless it has some further relevance that is." Dr. Mercer said that he didn't think there was much there that he could add and started into what it was that they had focused on after arriving and assuming responsibility for Phillips. "The first thing we did, as you might expect, once we determined that patient zero was stable, was to re-examine the patient's current condition and the condition of all of the others that were suspected of having contact in some fashion with Mr. Phillips." "And what was the outcome of that re-examination?" Singh asked. Dr. Mercer began to tick off the results on his hand as he went through them. "First, we were able to confirm, as best as we could do so, that there was no indication of any of the typical infectious agents. There was no evidence of a fungal, viral or biological source for what is happening here. But that was just the beginning as you are no doubt aware of. After that we began screening for chemical or radiological sources." Sing nodded to him. That was, of course, the first order of business. Identifying what the origin of the infection was and eliminating dead ends was a crucial step in putting them on the right track as soon as possible. "Were you informed of my suggestion to examine this patient for mystical causes rather than biological ones?" he asked. Dr. Mercer answered that they were told that upon arrival and that was one of the first things they did after they had eliminated other conventional sources when they assumed responsibility for the situation. "The second thing we were able to determine detective Singh, was that it seems to be confined solely to Hank Phillips and even with the others in close contact in his immediate tracing pattern, there does not seem to be any indication that what is happening to him goes beyond him at the moment." "Are you certain of that statement doctor?" Singh asked. Dr. Mercer assured him that he was. "Presumably those who were immediately identified and isolated would not be able to avoid being contaminated by him inadvertently. The staff made the right call in that regard. They recognized what they needed to do even if they were unable to identify what it was that necessitated that action. When we arrived and took over we conducted a complete evaluation under isolation protocols immediately. When we determined that this was a condition confined to Mr. Phillips alone we moved them to a separate observation wing and we are keeping them under continued observation for an additional five days. If none of the suspected contacts showed any indication that they have been infected we will began to release them from full isolation and keep them under observation for now." "At present none have shown that they are either infectious or contagious in any fashion. We shifted them to a lower level priority and we refocused on Mr. Phillips's condition exclusively. He has hourly examinations to monitor his progress and development as well as constant observation. At this point we have a large amount of data to draw some tentative conclusions on." "And what did you discover?" Singh asked. "Once we eliminated all possible physical causes we focused, as you suggested, on mystical ones. What we discovered was fascinating. Initially he had a heavy presentation of aethereal energy that was centered on his core being. According to your report he had been confined in the aether before being brought here. I understand that was not by choice?" "That is correct doctor. Mr. Phillips had the misfortune to encounter a dryad on his path home the evening before he vanished," Singh said. For the first time Mercer seemed put off by something that Singh told him. He looked at him owlishly as if his expected answer had suddenly looked up at him and laughed at his efforts to understand it. "That can't be correct, detective Singh," he answered. "Dryads don't have this kind of effect on a human." "The dryad in question was without mind at the time doctor. She captured him and focused all of her attention on him while she attempted to spawn a sister." Mercer paled and his mouth dropped slightly. "I had no idea that it was that serious. We were informed of the medical evaluation and that there had been contact with a Fae but not anything that specific." "That is inexcusable doctor," Singh said. "If there is anyone who has priority as far as full disclosure of the specifics of this case it should be your team." "It still doesn't explain what we are seeing here detective," Mercer said recovering quickly from what he was just told. "Dryad exhaustion does not account for any of the conditions that have manifested in him medically and it doesn't account for what happened earlier just before I called you." "And just what is it that did happen, Dr. Mercer?" Singh asked. "He attacked a doctor who was monitoring his status during his hourly check," Fitzhugh said. "He attacked a doctor you say? In what way?" Singh demanded. "He attempted to drain animus from him," Mercer said his gaze falling on the silent man lying in the room on the other side of the glass. ---------------------------------------- "I think you should start from the beginning doctor," Singh said. "I need to know precisely what you did and what you discovered from the time you arrived until the time you called me in." Singh and Mercer were sitting in an adjacent consultation room that had been repurposed to serve as an office. Except for the stainless steel cabinets containing medical supplies there was nothing remaining from before they had moved computers, desk and chairs into it. "As I said we did an initial aethereal scan of him per your recommendation when we arrived. What it showed was fascinating. He was literally soaked in aethereal energy. From the level and intensity we could tell that it was mainly the result of constant exposure to a pure aethereal environment, but the levels didn't match what we were told was his probably contact duration. And even then that level was fading fairly rapidly." "So his aethereal resonance had decreased since then?" Singh asked. "No, if anything, it's increased. The signature of it is what has changed though. When we arrived and first examined him it was primarily externally induced; now it is being internally produced. From what we can determine he seems to be becoming some breed of Fae, but we can't tell what breed that might be. There is nothing that matches what we see here to what we have on file." "Hence the sleeping cuckoo designation when you asked me to consult with you today," Singh said. "Correct detective," Mercer said. Singh leaned forward on the metal desk steepling his fingers in front of his face and asked the doctor for a moment. His brow furrowed in concentration as he considered what Mercer had told him thus far. Sleeping cuckoos were another aspect of the awakening protocols that were developed as those who designed the response to the return of magic attempted to brainstorm their way through any possible outcome to the approaching change. Along with the strengthening of the existing populations of Fae and the hazards of gradually increasing the general population's awareness of what was happening around them while minimizing the disruption; there was the possibility of extinct breeds of Fae being reborn from the shell of those who may carry that DNA as part of their genetic heritage now that the conditions for their existence were becoming more favorable. The problem with that, was there was one thing that all of those who were tasked with attempting to prepare for such an eventuality agreed upon. And that was that there would need to be a first cause that would start the process into motion. The potential for this to occur was there; they would have to be blind not to see it as a possibility. But at the same time such things had to have something that would set them in motion in the first place. The problem was that none of them could guess what form that initial motion might be. Singh though did not have the luxury of ignorance and he was fairly certain that he knew what the first cause in this circumstance might be. "You specifically said that Mr. Phillips is becoming some form of fae, doctor. If you were to speculate on the possible outcomes, Dr. Mercer," Singh said finally, "How highly would you rate the possibility that your patient could possibly be becoming a dryad?" "That's impossible," Mercer replied immediately, "Dryad's don't reproduce like this and the behavior we have observed doesn't match any known breed of dryad." "What about unknown breeds? You are aware of the situation in this city are you not doctor?" Singh asked, "You are aware that a Grove has recently been established in the last few days?" "Yes," he said, "we were told that a revenant may have awakened and from what you have told me it's clear that she may be involved with this case. But I don't see how that could possibly result in something like what we are seeing here." "She is not a revenant, doctor. She is an Arath' Mahar. She is a completely new breed of Fae and under those circumstances she may very well reproduce in this manner as well as in conventional dryad fashion. So I ask you again. Is this a possibility?" "I...I can't say," Mercer said finally. "My god. How long have you known this?" "Only a matter of days. There were other factors that loomed larger in our need to address them. Still the fact is that your team should have been informed as soon as it became known. I shall have to see to it that this oversight is corrected. Now based on this new information what can you tell me about the patient's condition? Does what I have told you now assist in explaining the current condition of patient zero?" Mercer opened a data file and spun the computer screen over so that both of them could see the information being displayed there. "What you have told me just now does explain a great deal of what we have discovered already," he said. "Things that didn't add up when we put them together." "Such as?" Singh asked. "Once we determined that this was not an infectious disease and was indeed a metamorphosis confined to this individual we were able to begin a battery of conventional diagnostic tests. The first one we did was an MRI. This is what we found," he said displaying the test results. "What am I looking at?" Singh asked after a moment. "The patient no longer possesses multiple biological systems. No heart, no pulmonary, no excretory and no gastrointestinal system. These systems have just ceased to exist and the space that they did occupy has become a solid mass of tissue. The endocrine system is still functioning in a fashion and the circulatory system is still present in an adjusted form, but there is no longer any blood contained there. We had to send the samples that we drew to Atlanta for further analysis; we couldn't identify them here." "The skeletal system is beginning to dissolve now, it's still visible here and on x-ray, but it is steadily decreasing in mass and in volume and the rate is accelerating." "The form is disposing of human organ systems that are no longer needed then," Singh said quietly. "What other systems have atrophied or changed?" he asked. "His reproductive system is, from what we can tell, being radically restructured internally. Externally he still presents as male, but internally all parts of that body system are just gone. They have just dissolved. The only systems that seem to not be atrophying are those connected with circulation, neurological and those involved with cleansing toxins from the body. For example, his renal system is still functioning, but his urinary system has just dissolved. His integumentary system, endocrine system and his immune and lymphatic systems are still present, but they are clearly not functioning in the same way as they did before." "That explains a great deal of what the attending physicians observed initially. The first system to fail was the respiratory system was it not?" "Yes, that is undisputed," Dr. Mercer said. "From what they recorded he ceased to breathe first shortly after being admitted. But that may not have been the first indication." "And why do you say that doctor?" Singh asked. "The blood work that they were examining at the time," he said. "From what I can see there was a massive amount of white cells present in the bloodstream; specifically natural killer cells. Far above and beyond any concentration of them that I have ever seen before. And that might be important by itself as a means of identifying someone else that may experience this type of change in the future." "In what way?" Singh asked. Even if it didn't have direct bearing on his immediate responsibilities he would have been curious about what the doctor was relating to him. "That's just it. There were two things that make this response stand out. The first thing you know of; there was a massive amount of all types of white blood cells present. B cells, T cells and NKC's and it didn't do a bit of good. The second thing is that the body was producing antibodies for every single disease that it had ever been in contact with. When we examined the early blood work samples we found antibodies present for everything from early childhood diseases and vaccinations all the way up to things like smallpox and legionnaire's disease." "It's as if the body was going crazy. It couldn't identify what it was that was going wrong so it began producing everything that it knew how to produce and then it funneled those antibodies in massive quantities into the bloodstream in a blind effort to find something that it knew how to fight. That was the bodies main response from the time the first sample was taken until respiratory system collapse. That metabolic effort didn't decrease until then." "And then the patient ceased to breathe," Singh said. "Exactly," Mercer said, "The moment that happened, body systems began to fail one after another and when failure began to cascade everything went haywire. The respiratory system ceased to function and the red blood cells rapidly began to deoxygenate. The heart responded by increasing its beats per second and then increasing them again. I looked at that record of cardiac activity just before it failed. His heartbeat could have kept a hummingbird aloft. All in an effort to supply oxygen to cells that no longer could have it delivered to them because the lungs were no longer functioning." "As the level of oxygenated blood dropped to zero the heart rate began climbing. It took only seconds for it to rise to unsustainable levels. It kept rising until the heart tore itself apart and finally ruptured. The response team saw it as a heart attack in progress and responded accordingly, but there was no chance for them to even stop it from happening let alone restart it once it had. What they were responding to just wasn't there anymore. The damage was already done by the time the crash cart arrived and the staff started trying to pull him out of it." "And in their focus on dealing with the immediate crisis the response team didn't notice that brain activity was beginning to rise," Singh said. Mercer nodded and continued. "Exactly, Philips's brain activity skyrocketed. In the immediate circumstances it went unnoticed until the attending physician called time of death and then they noticed that rather than ceasing it was increasing." "Have you any measure of what happened in those early stages? I know the attending physician told me that it quickly exceeded their monitor's ability to accurately track what was happening." "Not exactly," Doctor Mercer said. "True, the EKG monitoring him was not calibrated to measure an increase of that magnitude. But it was still tracking the increase after a fashion. As it rose above its parameters it rolled over each time and resumed from the low end of the scale and tracked it in that manner. From what we can tell his brain activity doubled and redoubled steadily until it finally began to level off about two days ago." "It stayed that way until yesterday. There was only a slight increase in brain activity just before his attack on Dr. Aldrich and none since then. It's as if he has reached some sort of mental plateau for the time being and until now I haven't been able to describe what it is that we were seeing here. That is until you told me what you just told me. Now I think I am finally beginning to make some sense of this at last." Singh nodded. "I see. You are thinking that if this new breed of Fae is capable of reproducing in this manner as well as in traditional fashion that he is becoming connected to the Grove network mentally. The increased brain activity you are detecting is not just that of the patient alone but the rate of connection to all of this patient's consciousness as it integrates into a vaster mental awareness. If that is indeed the case you will need to pay extremely close attention as this develops." "Now that I have an idea of what I am looking at, you can believe that is exactly what I will be doing," Mercer said. "But as interesting as that that is, it still doesn't explain the reason why I called you and initiated a sleeping cuckoo." Singh looked at the man waiting for him to explain. Mercer minimized the displayed reports and then spooled up a section of security footage and started playing it. Singh watch the image as it unfolded. "This is why," he said starting the playback. From the timestamp on the footage it was only a few hours before. Singh noted the time and focused on what the recording was showing him. A doctor was in the room taking samples from Phillips. As before he lay there unresponsive, his eyes heavy lidded and half closed. There was only undirected movement that seemed random and had no purpose. He watched as the observation team drew samples of the ichor that traveled in his veins now and began measuring range of motion on the nearly unresponsive limbs. Singh winced as he watches them bend his elbow ninety degrees in the wrong direction and still the face of the man on the hospital bed was unresponsive. As he watched the limb slowly rearranged itself back into its proper configuration and for all the world it looked to Singh as no different than watching a branch slowly return to its original position after being bent out of the way. The doctor bent over him and began to take saliva samples from inside of Phillip's mouth using cotton swabs. It was so quick that Singh asked that Mercer stop the film and play it again at a slower speed; what he had just seen occurred almost too fast to visually comprehend. The doctor complied and spun the film back to just before the incident began. As he watched the cotton swab slowly approached the half open mouth and as the doctor drew close they watched as Phillips's eyes opened completely and shifted to focus on the face of the man only centimeters away. Unrestrained by anything his arms flashed up and encircled the man, locking him in and began drawing him closer to Phillips's face. As Singh watched his mouth tore the thin mask away and then covered the doctor's as he inhaled. Mercer allowed the film to play out without commenting. The others in the room struggled against Phillips's grip and strove to drag the two men apart and in the confusion they managed to just barely separate the two of them. Phillips made no attempt to pursue them after they forcing the release of the doctor and only a brief attempt to respond to any of the men and woman struggling against him. When they pulled the two apart and spirited him from the room, Phillip's simply relaxed back against the hospital bed and resumed his previous posture and behavior. Mercer rewound the tape and paused it with the image frozen on the two men's faces pressed together. He highlighted one area of the digital playback and enlarged it. As he replayed it at the slowest speed possible Singh saw flashes of indigo flickering around the edge of Phillip's mouth during the assault. Flashes that ceased once the two of them had been separated. Mercer turned back to Singh. "The best we can tell is that the patient attempted to drain animus from Doctor Aldrich when he assaulted him and he did succeed in taking a very small amount from him." "Have any others been similarly assaulted?" Singh asked urgently. "No," Mercer said. "The patient is more responsive now but only when males enter the room. When females enter he is as unresponsive as he was prior to this incident. So as a precaution I have had an all female staff assigned to him for the moment." "And the doctor he assaulted?" "He was placed under isolation immediately as well as the entire team. None of them have shown any symptoms, but we are monitoring them closely. Dr. Aldrich, the man who was attacked is being monitored constantly and so far has shown no indication that he may have become infected. He will remain in isolation until we are certain that there was no transmission though." "And what is your initial assessment of Dr. Aldrich?" Singh asked. "Physically he is unchanged, but there was a minute drop in his level of animus afterwards." "A measurable drop? Over such a short contact?" Singh asked. "Yes, but the amount taken was so small that it barely registered. And the thing is that I can't tell you why it even happened at all." "And the patient's animus level?" "Unchanged. The levels of animus that were present are declining even more rapidly than before and have already fallen below the replacement threshold before the attack. Right now the patient's aethereal aura is composed of almost ninety seven percent anima and only a three percent animus and, as I said, it is increasing its rate of decline. At this scale of loss, he will have no animus remaining inside of him sometime tomorrow evening." Singh's eyebrows twitched upward in concern. "He was trying to replace what he is rapidly losing," he said finally. "But why is he doing that?" Mercer asked. "What could make him fall to such a low level in the first place?" "It has to be part of what happened to him when he was attacked himself," Singh said, "That's why he reacted to the men around him and ignored the women. He was lashing out seeking the strongest source of animus proximate to him to replenish what he is losing. I don't think he's even doing it consciously either, but it would be a good idea I think to continue to assign staff to him that has the lowest levels of animus as a matter of course." "I suspected that might be the case," Mercer said, "I'll see to it that we adjust his monitoring staff as you suggest immediately." "Now that you are aware of these unknowns you would probably find it most beneficial to focus your efforts on comparing the remaining physical systems to those of existing dryad scans. There will be differences of course, but those should give you and your team a better chance of success in understanding and dealing with what is in front of you." "I agree," Dr. Mercer said, "Hell, this whole case is going to take me decades to work out just what it is that I'm seeing here and as for working out the how and why I wouldn't be surprised if there are researchers picking over this data a century from now." "I expect that there will be," Singh said. And in his own way he felt a small degree of relief. The thought that there might be a need to deal with a mystical outbreak of some sort in addition to the Grove itself had been a constant undercurrent of worry in his thoughts the last few days. Hearing what it was that Doctor Mercer was relating to him eased that worry for now, but like the hydra; when one concern was eased it raised others to take their place when struck down. "And the last thing that I have to bring to your attention is this," Mercer said opening another file and began setting up another video recording. "This happened just a few hours ago. It started without warning and it was over before anyone could arrive to attempt to restrain him," he started the video playback and as the two men watched the image of Phillips again filled the screen. He was lying motionless on the bed when he began to violently shake. His arms strained against the restraints and for a pair of moments they managed to hold against the force that he was leveling against them. But strong as they were, they still parted with a tearing sound that was audible in a way that Singh hadn't thought possible. The restraints had torn like wet paper against his wrists and when they broke free Phillips gave no sign that he was even capable of noticing the raw and ruptured skin. He began clawed at his abdomen and tearing at the hospital gown he was wearing until the fabric was sundered and his hands then could scrabble unimpeded against his flesh. Watching the recording play out, Singh would have expected that blood would flow from the damage that he was inflicting on himself, but there was none there to flow. Even knowing that, he couldn't help wincing as he watched Phillips's fingers jabbing and digging and clawing until they were finished with their task and then fell still. The hands remained in place over the self inflicted wound and Dr. Mercer forwarded the security footage until the hands fell away leaving the now inscribed flesh behind apparently inviolate in its smoothness. Mercer stopped the tape and turned toward Singh. "We didn't interfere when we were alerted that this was occurring," he said. "After he assaulted Dr. Aldrich as you can see we had attempted to restrain him." "And as we both saw that effort was not successful," Singh said. "He broke all restraints we tried to fit him with. When we finally resorted to steel he broke those ones quickest of all. That is when we began to suspect that there was more to it than what we were seeing here. It was Dr. Aldrich that suggested that he was a sleeping cuckoo. He's the one that said that Phillips's growing Fae nature could not abide such restraint and even when it marked his wrists afterward he didn't hesitate to tear them from him. After that we abandoned attempting to restrain him." "And what was the result?" Singh asked already half suspecting what it would be before Dr. Mercer could give it voice. "Nothing. Once the restraints were removed and only low animus attendants allowed near him he returned to the near comatose state that he has been in. Since he made no other attempts at repeating what he did with Dr. Aldrich and has returned to his previous behavior the only thing we could do is to monitor him remotely." "And will you maintain only this level of observation?" he asked. "For the time being that is our only option. We did request a special set of Fae restraints after the incident, but they have yet to arrive," Dr. Mercer said. "I'll see what I can do to speed that up," Singh said turning his attention to the live feed displayed on the screen. "And when did this increased level of activity begin?" Dr. Mercer looked at his watch and checked the time before answering. "A few hours ago," he said, "The first action, the assault on Dr. Aldrich took place sometime around three a.m. today and the self mutilation occurred about six hours after that." "And has there been any change since then?" Singh asked. "There has been one," the doctor said. "This mark appeared on the place he was gouging into himself about an hour later and the microphones in the room picked up what appears to be him speaking faintly." "He spoke?" "Yes, it was almost inaudible at first but toward the end what he was saying was distinct enough to hear without difficulty." "And what did he say?" Singh asked. "Two words, over and over. So be it," Mercer said. "Was that all?" Singh asked. "No, there was one other phrase. The last he said before falling silent was 'It is done.'" Mercer looked at Singh as if he could explain and Singh wished that he could but there was nothing that he could think of that would fit the evidence that he had seen so far. "And the last thing was that in the place that he attacked in his abdomen there appears to have manifests some sort of marking, but we can't identify it," Mercer added. Singh stared at the enlarged image of the marking that the doctor pulled up on the computer screen and grunted softly to himself. "Do you recognize it?" the doctor asked. "In point of fact I do or at least I recognize something that is similar to it," Singh said. "Doctor I think that you should prepare the patient to be moved on short notice. If I am not mistaken then there is nothing that can be done here to help and it may instead cause harm. In the meantime I will need to verify something before we take the next step, but based on what I am seeing here I have strong suspicion that what is happening with Mr. Phillips is directly connected to the situation in Olympia and if I am correct then there is nothing that you and your team can accomplish other than placing yourselves in a position of greater harm." ----------------------------- "Move him? You cannot be serious about doing that Detective Singh," Dr. Mercer said aghast at the suggestion. "Moving him not only breaks quarantine and risks greater exposure; it places others around him in danger of assault." "I am completely serious doctor," Singh said to him. "If this is what I suspect that it is then sooner rather than later would be better for all involved. The Fae restraints you will require will be delivered as soon as I can arrange for it to be done. In the meantime I will need to speak with another to confirm my suspicions." "I still have to strongly object to taking this course of action detective," Dr. Mercer said. "He shouldn't be moved on the basis of his attack on Dr. Aldrich alone. Who knows what will happen if you move him from here? Even with Fae restraints, he is likely to move to attack the first strong source of Animus that he comes near." "Dr. Mercer, your concerns are quite valid and I commend you for your persistence, but there is a larger issue here that I think you have not considered." "And what would that be detective?" he asked. "What could possibly justify moving a man in this condition in the manner you are suggesting?" Singh drew Mercer's attention to the live feed to Phillip's room. There were faint twitching motions in his extremities and from time to time his head was jerking. "How long has that activity been taking place?" he asked. Dr. Mercer looked down at the screen and thought about it for a minute before answering. "Roughly ever since he first attacked Dr. Aldrich," he said finally. "And has it increased or decreased?" Singh asked. "It's increased," Mercer said. "You don't think..." "That is precisely what I do think doctor," Singh said looking at the tiny screen. "He is preparing to leave here. His mind might be reasoned with and convinced not to go, but his mind is not here for us to speak to in any meaningful way. And in the absence of the mind's direction he has only his developing instinct to guide him." "If he is indeed becoming a dryad similar to the one now in Stafford then his need to bond with a tree is only increasing with every moment and when it becomes too strong to ignore..." "He'll break free and begin looking for one," Dr. Mercer finished. "And with his additional need to absorb Animus he will attack every source of it that he encounters as he makes his way from here. Without means to stop him from doing so he is likely to spread his changes in that fashion to others as well and then we will indeed have an outbreak. One not spread by germ or virus or other means but by assault and violation." Singh rose from his seat. "I will arrange for transport immediately. They will bring fae restraints of the type that will be most effective with them. When they arrive immediately restrain Mr. Phillips and wait for my call. The transport crew will know where to take him. You will need to clear the halls from here to the helipad while you move him." Dr. Mercer stood up and looked down at the screen focused on Phillips. "Do you think we will have enough time before..." His sentence trailed off. "Doctor, I have no idea if we have any time at all. The one thing I do know is that whatever time we do have we should endeavor not to waste more than we already have." Singh drew out his phone and called Fitzhugh. When she answered he quickly instructed her to send a helicopter with an all female crew and a set of restraints suitable for a dryad. Fitzhugh answered that it would arrive within twenty minutes and ended the connection. "And now doctor while you make the preparations needed here I will make the preparations that I need to make. The helicopter will arrive shortly. When it does, restrain Mr. Phillips and have him moved away from here as swiftly as possible. The transportation crew will know what they need to do and if we have any luck, this will proceed without incident." "And if it doesn't?" Dr. Mercer asked. "In that case doctor, Mr. Phillips will have to be destroyed before his actions destroy others who he encounters." Singh left the room and started making his way to the elevator. Fitzhugh had said twenty minutes until the helicopter would arrive and five of those minutes were already gone. The only thing he could do was hope that he was making the right decision now. As he got into his car again in the underground parking lot, he dialed Fitzhugh again. When she answered he told her that as soon as Phillips was secured the crew was to lift off immediately and take up station above the Grove. She acknowledged and gave him the radio frequency and call sign for the Blackhawk's crew. Singh pause to give her final instructions and ended the call. He needed to hurry now. As the driver guided the car out of the underground garage, Singh hoped that Phillips would remain quiescent until his arrangements were complete, but if he didn't the restraints should keep him from escaping until the Blackhawk reached its holding station. If they couldn't land and deliver him then the next best option was to have the crew drop as close to the heart of the Grove as possible and push him out of the door. Once in the Grove he hoped that Phillips would be overcome by his instincts and drawn to a tree rather than drawn to seek a source of Animus first. It was a slim hope but right now it was the only one he had. The traffic was thankfully light when he exited the darkness of the underground parking area, not that it really mattered; the driver activated both lights and siren the moment they entered the road. There was the sound of a helicopter arriving overhead and a quick upward glance out the window showed Singh that it was only a regular medevac chopper. Singh turned on the radio in his car and shifted to the frequency that Fitzhugh had given him. The sound of the F.R.T communications net wafted up around him in tinny voices as the car turned toward the Grove itself. As they made their way through the late morning traffic that quickly shifted to clear a path for them, he thought about what the doctor had told him of the assault on his colleague and how it meshed with bits and pieces of the vision that the Arath' Mahar had shared with him. It was a pity that she had no real memories of her time spent under her feral nature. Even if she could grasp those scraps and shards of disconnected imagery there might be meaning that could be gleaned from them that would link to and explain what was happening to Phillips now, fragments that would explain precisely how it had come about. As it was he had only his suspicions and suppositions to go on for the moment. He turned toward the river and continued to turn over possibilities while his thoughts fermented. He had realized he needed to speak with M'Tehr as soon as the pieces began to fall in place during his discussion with Dr. Mercer. He was certain that she had known what was happening with Phillips already and for her own reasons she had not passed that on. Knowing that she had deliberately lied to him by omission didn't help in the slightest. He had intended to speak with Brighton and Travers after he finished with Dr. Mercer, but there was no time to do so now. Juggling the phone and the radio was out of the question now anyway. Brighton and Travers would have to wait. There was another meeting that he needed to have first. The driver took the next left and turned the car toward Olympia. Singh wanted answers and even if he was angry with her over this M'Tehr was the one who held them. -------------------------------- Phar' Naqua: Day 15, 1315 hours Just after Singh's sedan crossed the long bridge that spanned the river dividing Stafford from Olympia proper he felt the driver begin to slow. That was expected; the first of the outer checkpoints that ringed the Grove containment zone started there and in an effort to minimize the impact on they had pulled the actual checkpoint back from the main road. Currently it was sprawling through Davidson Park and was bisected by the road the passed through the middle of it. A road that led directly into the heart of Olympia and accordingly to the core of Phar' Naqua as well. As his driver turned onto the side street he silenced the car's siren, but left the blue and red flashers active. Seeing the approaching car and without pausing to do more than a cursory check; the car was waved through when it veered into the emergency lane. Under other circumstances such a breach of admission protocol would have drawn his immediate attention and garnered for the officer responsible for such an action the full measure of his disapproval; that was not the case at this moment. As Singh passed through the series of checkpoints with minimal delay he already knew the reason that made such passage possible. Fitzhugh had already alerted them that he was heading toward them and once they had verified his identity he was waved through with as great a dispatch as they could muster. It helped as well that his driver had been in constant communication with each oncoming checkpoint as he approached them. The park itself that formed the outer belt of this portion of the quarantine zone was actually fairly recent and was named in honour of the previous mayor whose idea it had been. Some thirty years before this had been little more than a wooded bluff that separated the line of houses built just above the high water mark from the river's edge to avoid the flooding that very rarely managed to climb to such levels that it would threaten what was built there. It had been mayor Davidson's vision that had created the river walk here as one of the earliest successful efforts to begin redevelopment of this part of the city in the hopes of reversing the economic damage caused by the collapse of the mills that formed so much of the industrial backbone of this part of the nation. Because of the wild success of his effort this area of Olympia began slowly climbing up rather than sliding down the poverty index as businesses began reversing their abandonment of the area. From its beginning in the heart of the park itself, the river walk stretched along the banks of the river as close to the edge as possible for well over ten miles. The river walk itself exited in another park at the far end and it was common to see patrons of this particular city project from either end passing each other as they made their way to the end of the trail relative to their particular starting point. In normal times the public bus line stopped at both parks so that those who had done so did not need walk back if they did not desire to do so. That was no longer possible for the time being though and although the city buses and private cars that tended to be found on this side road were absent for the moment that did not mean that the roads were empty. The roads that snaked through the containment zone still had light traffic on them; only now it was mostly FRT and the few construction vehicles who were engage in replacing the barrier. Those vehicles also yielded to him and allowed him to pass even though at this point only the flashing red and blue dome that had cleared the path through Stafford's street for him was active; once the driver arrived at the first checkpoint there was no further need to keep the vehicle's siren one as they travelled. As they approached Magnolia Circle the driver killed those as well and silently slid into the place where Singh along with Pantra, Brighton and Travers had parked when they first arrived to examine Barnes's home to begin with. The driver made as though to accompany Singh as he stepped from the now silent car, but Singh waved him off. There was no need to involve him any further in what he was here to do. He told the man to remain by the car until he returned and then began to make his way toward the access point that allowed entrance to the Grove. He doglegged across the lawn in front of Barnes's house although since she was changed so thoroughly perhaps that was not quite as accurate description of it anymore. Legal ownership of the house may actually be in limbo at the moment for all he knew. There were procedures in place address this situation. There had to be since the entire existence of the Concord was predicated on easing this transition when it came. Undoubtedly there was some mechanism in place to assist Barnes as well, but that was not what drew his attention. That was occupied by what his eyes saw when they were drawn to the dome of the protective ward rising above the house. As he took in the sight of the mystical barrier he noted that its character had changed in some fashion, but he didn't have time to examine it in other than a cursory fashion. The thrumming sound of helicopter blades beating the air above him that came from the Blackhawk hovering in tight circles directly above them told him that the transport team had beaten him here and was standing by on station. Good, he thought to himself, now that they're here all that remains are to arrange the transfer as swiftly as possible. The transportation part of what needed to be done may have taken place without incident so far, but that was no guarantee it would remain so. Removed from the stable environment of the isolation ward and now hovering almost directly above the heart of the Grove there was no telling how its close proximity would cause him to react. Singh had asked the driver of the car for the handheld encrypted radio and the aircraft call sign when he exited the car to enter the Grove on foot. Now as he approached the access point he thumbed the mike and contacted them. "Evac Alpha four this is FRT Actual, respond over." "Actual, this is Alpha four, over," the pilot's voice came back immediately, her machine amplified words cutting through the loud sound of the overhead blades "Alpha four, what is the current condition of the package? Over," Singh asked. "Actual, the package has shown no change, I repeat, no change, over," Singh heaved a sigh of relief. One of the things that had concerned him was that by removing Phillips from the isolation ward and bringing him here it might cause an accelerated response. "Understood Alpha four. Are your instructions clear over?" he asked. "Roger, Actual, we are to maintain position on station until directed by you to land at which time we are to unload the package. In the event the package in any way threatens the security of the aircraft we are to hover in the small clearing and deposit the package before extracting the aircraft and returning to base. Over" The woman's voice was steady, professional. Singh hoped that professionalism would not be put to the test while he did what was needed inside the Grove. Singh paused for a moment before keying his mike. There was no way to guess how long it was going to take to arrange this and time was a critical factor, especially since he had no idea just how much time he may even have available and if he misjudged or took too long then the consequences for the women operating the Blackhawk circling overhead would undoubtedly be fatal. His decision was never going to be any different, but he still had to speak the words; it was his call. "Alpha four, under no circumstances are you allow the package to threaten the safety of your aircraft or its crew. You are authorized to sacrifice the package if necessary. If you suspect even for a moment that the package poses a threat you are to execute your orders immediately. Watch the package carefully. The situation can change in a matter of seconds. Do not hesitate. Over," Singh didn't know how being thrown out of a low hovering helicopter would affect someone like Phillips or even how such an action would be interpreted by the Grove, but the decision was still his to make and now the die was cast. "Understood Actual," the pilot responded, "we will execute your instructions in that event immediately, over." "Alpha four remain on station. I will contact you shortly. FRT Actual out." "Roger Actual, Alpha four is standing by on station. Out." There was a slight change in the sound of the helicopter blades overhead as the pilot moved the Blackhawk into a tight holding pattern. Singh slung the radio over his shoulder as his hands hovered over his pocket and started making his way toward the FRT station that would give him access to the entrance to the Grove itself. ------------------------------------- The moment he passed through the gate the thick undergrowth began clearing out of his way. As always he watched it happen with a calculating eye. This was different than how it behaved when he had last visited the Grove. Then when the path was created for them, there was a faint hesitation in the motion. An uncertainty that manifested itself in how the vegetation moved that was not present now. This time there was confidence in the action. An absolute surety that was apparent as the bushes made way for him to pass. Whatever had changed what he saw now as he walked toward the centre of the Grove one thing was certain; it was being directed by a mind that was in absolute control of itself and moved as one with every particle of the wilderness around him. The winding path that was created for him the last time he arrived was absent, this one led directly to the king elm. Where before it had taken several minutes to navigate the loops of the serpentine path before they reached the centre this time it only took a minute or so of brisk walking. The clearing around the king elm opened up before him and as before Barnes was seated on the chair of earth and wood flanked by M'Tehr and Jacen. M'Tehr's staff struck sharply downward at his approach and the crash of it echoed around them as Jacen stepped forward the moment Singh entered the clearing. His voice booming out the ritual challenge in the silence of the emerald cathedral around them. "Who approaches Arath' Mahar Selicia? Who begs entrance to Phar' Naqua?" he stated as he invoked the formal challenge. "I am Armin Singh. I have long been a friend of the Grove," he answered, "I would befriend and be befriended by Phar' Naqua as well. Will Arath' Mahar Selicia receive me as her honoured guest?" "I will receive him. Come closer Armin Singh. You are an honoured guest of Phar' Naqua, Earth Weaver. May it always remain so now and in the days to come," Selicia said softly and even as her words were uttered in a gentle tone there was steel behind them that hadn't been there when they spoke before. Even as it grated on him that this was necessary, he bowed to the inevitable. There were times that the Fae insistence on maintaining protocol was extremely inconvenient and this was definitely one of those times. But even as he disciplined his mind he noted that there were several things that were extremely important to note. Unlike the last time that he was here, the barely defined nature of the Grove was no more. Not only had a name been chosen and accepted by the life that made up the Grove itself; such a choice had made an immediate impact on the Arath' Mahar's relationship with it; that much was clear. The fact also that she had chosen a new name to identify her person to the world around her was also of note and under other circumstances he would be willing to take as long as necessary to absorb its full meaning, but there was little time now to do so. M'Tehr's staff boomed again and Jacen spoke once more. "Come forward then, Armin Singh. Friend of Phar' Naqua and honoured guest of the Arath' Mahar Selicia. What do you bring before the Mother of this Grove?" When he had arrived and hustled through the gateway the FRT had erected without bothering to take part in the sham that they were maintaining in case some public eye accidentally fell upon it he had hoped that M'Tehr would come to meet him as he entered the Grove. But the words he had intended to have with her were going to have to wait for now despite the insistence of his need. If only he could have spoken with her about why it was that he needed to come today then things might be expedited, but she had not come for him and clearly what they were doing by welcoming him here was completing the Statement of Being that they had initiated during their previous contact. He should have expected this and been prepared for it. Regardless of the need that was circling overhead like a slow burning fuse, there were still the forms that needed to be acknowledged and the most efficient way that he could get to the point of why he had come was to hurry it along as much as he was able without offering insult to them while doing so. Intellectually he knew the reason for why they were so prickly about this right now but that did little to assuage his sense of urgency. If it weren't that he was familiar already with this form protocol he might have started to despair that he would not have enough time to do what he came here for. Fortunately the protocol in this matter was little more than acknowledging that he was entering their realm. And that was in some ways a blessing. There had to be a formal declaration made at some point that included what they didn't have on hand before. The requirements demanded it in fact. The differences between the two times he had been here were apparent and he heaved a mental sigh of relief. Of all the ways that they could have chosen to do this, what they had settled on was among the least time eating of the formal entrances that the leader of a Grove might employ to a visitor. Either Selicia was not intending to hold him to the full extent of what she could demand under the Concord right away or she was aware on some level of how much his reason for coming here depended on completing it as quickly as possible and having him presented to her this way was her choice in how she was going to balance what she could. Singh looked up at Arath' Mahar Selicia of Phar' Naqua and fixed his eyes on the last three details of note. The first and most obvious was that she no longer appeared pregnant and second was that where before she had appeared without clothing now she was, like M'Tehr appearing fully clothed. To receive him she had adopted a white dress that flowed down into a broad belt that met in a downward point just riding above her hips. The dress as well as the belt appeared to be intricately worked and decorated with embroidery weaving a repeating pattern throughout its length and breadth. The same symbol was prominently etched into the living wood of the elm overshadowing her. And as he took this in and absorbed it in a single quick glance, there was a fourth detail of note and it was probably the most important of all. It was that there was a marked difference between how she sat on her throne now and how she had sat on it before. She was coming into her power he realized and for a moment he mourned the passing of the more innocent version of her that he had met before. She was clearly more aware of what she was now and with that awareness would come a distance from what and who she was. Would that be something that would help or hinder him he wondered. It was not that Singh wished for her to remain as she was when he first met her. It was that as she continued becoming what she was, there would be distance that would start to yawn between them and looking at her now he saw the first few inches of that separation beginning to move them apart. It can't be helped he thought to himself. You could as soon stop the tide as you could stop this. Even so the difference was plain. So much had changed in the short time that had elapsed since the last time they had met. While she was speaking in the manner of the Grove's highest placed members, she was still exerting her own influence on what was happening. Selicia, the name she had chosen for herself was appropriate in its own way. He could hear echoes of Cecil in her name just as he could see echoes of him in her physical form and recognize mannerisms that had survived that must have stemmed from him. She was clearly making an effort to maintain a link with her humanity he thought and that seemed to him to be a promising development. Unlike other dryads she would likely have a greater consideration for men and their concerns when making her decisions. She would be unable to overlook the same things that her sisters didn't even recognize as potential stumbling blocks as well. She could ease relations with the Fae in other areas as well or at least he hoped she would. She was a bridge of sorts and even though he had already realized that when he first realized who and what she was, he was very glad that the actions of others had not burned this bridge. Almost as important was that the Grove network was not challenging her in any way that he could see. If they were calling the shots here, considering how much this meant to them, more than likely they would have gone in for the most precise form of greeting and interview as a means of impressing the gravity of what they were doing on everyone. The fact that they were referring to her as Mother of the Grove was something else entirely. That was a title rarely heard by outsiders and to see it conferred on her in this way was an indication of how seriously they were taking whatever it was that they were hearing from her. "Mother of the Grove," he begin, "Arath' Mahar Selicia, I regret that I come in supplication. I must ask a boon of Phar' Naqua." "What boon does the Earth Weaver Singh seek?" M'Tehr said speaking directly to him for the first time. That was to be expected. In the case of an audience of this type it was more common for the one who held the power to speak only when pronouncing a decision in most instances. M'Tehr was taking the role of her voice then. That by itself was not surprising. He had expected something along those lines to happen the last time he was here and the only reason that it didn't happen in his opinion was that she had her hands full as witness to the Statement of Being. "Not long ago," he began, "a male of my kind was held here through no one's fault. A man named Hank Phillips." "This is so," M'Tehr answered. "The man was lost in the Grove. He was found and returned to his people as you asked us to do." "We must ask that you take him back now," Singh said, "His life may depend on you doing so. It is feared that if he is not returned to this Grove that which is forcing this decision on us may lose what remains of him. We believe that only in the Grove where he was injured can he be healed." "What is the nature of his injury?" M'Tehr asked. "Of that we are unsure, only that it is beyond our methods and we can only hope that it is within the grasp of the Mother of the Grove to do what we cannot."he said watching them carefully. "This is a thing that can be done," Selicia said. "When can he be returned to Phar' Naqua?" That was interesting, Singh thought. She didn't allow M'Tehr to even try to drag this out. And M'Tehr as well doesn't look surprised at this turn of events either. Armin old boy, you may have just gotten more of an answer to at least one question than you expected. Now what is it that you are going to do with that information now that you have it? "Immediately, Arath' Mahar," he said. "A helicopter is already circling overhead awaiting your permission to deliver him into your care." "Then let it be as you ask Earth Weaver," Selicia answered. "Return him at once and I will do what is within my grasp to do. M'Tehr, see that it is done." M'Tehr inclined her head toward Selicia and said that it would be done. "When you have safely transferred him into M'Tehr's hands Earth Weaver, return to me. I would have words with you privately," Selicia said as she rose in her chair and towered over them all even more so than she already did. "You have my leave to depart, Earth Weaver Singh," she said in her sweet high tones, "Return to me when it has been done though. We have much to discuss as two friends together should." M'Tehr's staff struck downward to punctuate Selicia's pronouncement and Singh inclined his head in a shallow bow. "I look forward to it Arath' Mahar." Jacen stepped forward again. "The audience is concluded. Go in peace, Earth Weaver Singh, friend of Phar' Naqua." There was a creaking of earth against wood as the high seat began to retract into the earth of the clearing as it lowered Selicia to where she could step off onto level ground. Jacen took a step back and departed into the wilderness around them without saying more. M'Tehr gestured for Singh to follow her and he did so without staying to see Selicia finish debarking from her seat. M'Tehr led him so quickly through the underbrush that some of the plants had not fully withdrawn from their path yet and Singh could feel the trailing edges of the vegetation brushing against his trousers as he moved through them. "I will need to contact them so they may meet us in the clearing," he told her. M'Tehr merely nodded and he reached for the radio. "Evac Alpha four this is FRT Actual, over," he said. "FRT Actual, this is Evac Alpha four, send traffic over," The pilot's voice betrayed no hint of any stress so either she was hiding it very well or there had not been any change that threatened her bird or its crew. "Alpha four, the open field in the centre of the target area is your LZ. Dropkick, I say again, dropkick, confirm, over." "Actual, this is Alpha four. Dropkick is confirmed. Delivering the package E.T.A. two minutes, over," the pilot said briskly in her dry professional manner. "Roger Alpha four, E.T.A. two minutes, I will meet you on the ground, Actual out," Singh replaced the handset and slowed his pace. The two minutes the Blackhawk would require to adjust its course and change its approach so that it could land in the clearing was more than enough time for them to be there to greet them without trying to hurry; especially with the smooth path that the Grove was making for them. "When did the Arath' Mahar seat her sister?" he asked M'Tehr, his voice carefully neutral. For a moment he thought she wasn't going to answer until they were actually in the clearing, but it was only a moment. "Three days ago," she said. "She entered the aether and would not let us near. When she returned seating her sister was only one of the changes wrought in her absence." "So she did not have you with her when she did so?" Singh said, "Curious, I would have thought under the circumstances that she would have wanted you there for that, that the Grove would have wanted you by her side for such a momentous event." "She chose otherwise, friend Singh," M'Tehr answered. "And it was wisdom that she did not allow any to stand too close while she did so. Seating her sister was the least of what she wrought while she was apart from us." "Why do you say it was wisdom then?" Singh asked mentally calculating the time backward and matching what he already knew. "It was wisdom for the reason that if we were standing with her afterward, then we might well have been destroyed when she consummated her position once her sister was seated safely." "Was it truly so powerful then?" Singh asked matching the time with what he was certain that she was referring to. "It was," she said, "even at a distance I could barely endure it. Neither me or Jacen could have expected such an outcome or survived it were we by her side at that moment." Singh was aware of what she spoke of, if not so much the particulars of it. The aetherial wave that had cascaded outward from the centre of the Grove had been felt by all of those who were already sensitive to it to a greater or lesser extent. In the nerve centre of the FRT's area command centre it was felt almost immediately and while it was of great concern to them that it did happen, it was also known to be clearly connected to the Grove itself and thus something that they could only wait on and monitor its development. It was clearly felt to not be threatening in its nature, else the tone of their observations would have been much more frantic; but at the same time it was recognized that it was of great importance and their ignorance of what it meant for all was of consequence for all. How those who were currently under his direction would take this new information that he had acquired during this latest visit was difficult to say. Personally Singh felt relief; what Arath' Mahar had done in his view was bring to a conclusion the unfinished portion of the events that had been set in motion by her creation and with that completion of the circle there would be less uncertainty about what they were facing. From this point, rather than waiting for the next shoe to drop and wondering just what it would mean, they would be dealing with the familiar. Negotiations between a Grove and how to manage contact with the vast population that surrounded it in ignorance and that was something that they could cope with more easily. But even with the familiar looming close on the horizon there was still the unfamiliar that crowded his coattails now yanking on them and demanding his attention like a misbehaving toddler and that was a demand that he could not shirk, especially now. "How long before her sister emerges do you think?" he asked her and while he had his own reasons for steering the conversation in this direction he was at the same time genuinely interested in knowing." "That is difficult to know, friend Singh" she told him. "As with all sisters the time that marks their merging and the time to emerge will vary according to the sister. Some cannot wait to leave, they taste the world around them and want to embrace it as soon as they can; others are inclined to show more caution. They take their time and come to us only when they are ready, however long that might be." "And which do you think this one would be?" he asked. "If you had to say." "I would think that this daughter of the Grove will not tarry in her Phar' longer than she needs to. But that is just my feeling," she said as they continued to walk. "Why?" he asked. "Because even though she is undeveloped she is still part of the Grove. She is aware of what is happening now and I would think that she would want to be a part of it sooner rather than later." Singh stopped and looked up at a spreading oak. It was not an old tree but it was already beginning to have an impressive girth. It was no longer the sapling that had rooted here but it was not yet a king in its own right either. Best to just say it, he thought to himself. There was no point in delaying this. "And how quickly do you think her other sister will emerge?" he asked letting the verbal bomb roll from his lips and watching her reaction as it exploded the conversation. The absolute silence that emanated from M'Tehr as the words brought her to a sudden stop gave Singh all the confirmation that he sought; that she already knew what was happening with Hank Phillips and she had actively concealed it from him. He fixed his eyes on her and saw her half turning her gaze away from him. He'd never seen her do anything like that before and that only confirmed to him that what he suspected was indeed the case. The roar of the approaching Blackhawk landing in the clearing just past the oak was growing in intensity as the pilot made last moment course corrections and began to settle in place. "You lied to me M'Tehr," he said in a firm controlled voice. "You already either suspected or you knew what was happening to Phillips when you returned his body to us and you chose not to share that information with me." The wind generated by the rotors lashed downward around them. The tall grass shuddered and bent downward in the prop wash in an outward circle. The blur of the rapidly rotating blades thundered around them as the angular aircraft settled in position. In the daylight the circle of the rotating blades could be seen and avoided easily enough not like at night where they would have to mind the electrostatic discharge that marked the trailing edge of where the blades were hovering in the darkness. "How long have you been aware that she would have to return," she asked softly. They were far enough away that the sound of the aircraft engine didn't force her to need to raise her voice and it wasn't often that he heard an emotion in M'Tehr's words but this time he was certain that he heard one and he was also certain that he heard guilt there. "I was not certain until I entered the Grove and saw it's mark looming overhead," he answered. "The same mark that Hank Phillips tore into his abdomen earlier today. A mark that healed almost as soon as he made it. But that doesn't answer the question of why didn't you tell us that he was already changing when you returned him?" "Friend Singh, you have no need to ask that question. You already know the answer to it," she said her voice rising slightly as the sound of the engine increased and the wheels touched lightly on the grass before settling into it.. "You were protecting the Grove," he said also needing to raise the volume he spoke with slightly "That much is obvious, but it still does not excuse your actions. I am your friend M'Tehr. I am a friend to the Grove and I always have been but I find it hard to accept that you would do something like this knowing how it would affect our relationship once you went ahead and did it. You had to know that it would be obvious before long. That we would see what had been done even if we did not recognize it at first and you had to know that there would be consequences for your silence." "We did not know that there would be changes in this manner," M'Tehr said to him looking up at him now. "When we found him, when I found him we saw from the first that he was desperately injured by what Arath' Mahar had done to him. But I tell you now that we only saw the absence of what had been taken from him. It made no sense to us then and it still confuses us now. The Grove decided that unless there was a compelling reason it was best to just return him to you as you had asked us to do." "And did you not think that knowing even this much was important enough to tell us?" Singh asked. "We did tell you some of what we found," M'Tehr said. She was defensive about it, but from the tone in her response even she recognized that had been a mistake. "It would have been better all around if you had told me everything," Singh said to her. "There may have been nothing that could have been done to forestall this, but knowing exactly what happened would have been better than this omission. We wasted precious time attempting to treat a man for something he was not suffering from and were completely blind to the possibility of what his affliction truly was. That cannot happen again, M'Tehr." "It will not, friend Singh," she said slowly deliberately. "We were wrong and our actions compounded the error. I am sorry for this." "But that does not change that you have continued to hide it," Singh said to her. "After you heard the dryad inside of him reaching out to you. After you felt her mind connect to the Grove network, you still hid it rather than come to me with even that much warning." The door to the Blackhawk was sliding open and the crew were tumbling out. Inside the compartment one was releasing the clamps holding the stretcher with Phillips lashed securely to it. "I thought...we thought, her condition would not develop as quickly as it has. That his changes would be gradual and we would have more time to settle things here first. We needed time and if silence bought that time it was considered an acceptable risk. We hoped that when it was quieter we would have a better opportunity to speak with you and could bring her to us later once Phar' Naqua was stronger." "You can already hear her speaking to you can't you?" Singh asked. "It's not just the awareness of her mind you all sense, it is her nature itself manifesting. You have felt her becoming stronger as the dryad inside of him grows more dominant." "We hear her," She admitted. "We hear her and she frightens us. She is dark inside like no other dryad we have ever known. There is a hunger in her as well. We hear her and we shy away from her. Her mind, her nature is alien to us in ways we have never seen. The speed of her change is of more concern to us than you may think Friend Singh. To change so quickly and so thoroughly is not our way. It is something we have never experienced and you know only too well how resistant we are to rapid change of this nature." The Blackhawk crew was carrying Phillips away from the aircraft now. They ran bent over as they carried their burden just out of the radius of the whirring blades. Singh could see that when M'Tehr spoke of the fear of what it meant that Phillips had been created in this fashion she spoke absolute truth and he allowed that knowledge to sooth some of his own anger towards her. "That's not an excuse M'Tehr. It's later than you think; your time in this matter has run out," Singh said. "And it still doesn't excuse your actions. There cannot be deception between us. Not if we are to come through what is approaching. You know this as well as I do. Our success here is too important and too many other factors are against us already. We cannot be divided especially now." M'Tehr did not answer him but he saw as she was standing that there was no disagreement with his words condemning her and the fact that she could not disagree with him about this was something that wounded her as well. "Does Arath' Mahar Selicia know what she has done?" he asked her bluntly. "What she has spawned?" "No," M'Tehr said raising her voice against the howling of the man-made wind. "I do not think that Arath' Mahar is even aware of what has happened with the man she took before she emerged from her nature. I am sure that she hears her as well, but I think she may have a blind spot for this sister she has created in her ignorance. I think that when she hears her, she is thinking that this one is far away and therefore of another and not one her own." "Would she reject her if she came here?" Singh asked watching the aircrew set Phillips's stretcher down and begin unbuckling him. "No," M'Tehr said immediately. "She bears the devouring rose of Phar' Naqua as you have said. That alone will convince Arath' Mahar that she belongs here. But she will be a source of concern even so." The devouring rose, so that was what they called it Singh thought. An apt name for now that he heard it the details of what he had seen in the image became clearer in hindsight. "There is more to be concerned about than you might think," he said to her. "Before the devouring rose identified her as belonging to Phar' Naqua appeared, she attacked one of the doctors who was charged with her care. The attack was weak and they were able to free him before too much was done to him, but not before she attempted to drain him of his animus." "Are you certain that is what she did?" M'Tehr demanded suddenly more agitated by the information than Singh had seen thus far. "I witnessed it on the recording that was made during the assault. They slowed down the playback and were able to enlarge that portion of the film. She was clearly starting to drain his animus before she was interrupted. Can you tell me why she would do such a thing? How it would even be possible?" The last strap holding Phillips down was released and they watched as the crew slid the stretcher out from under him and left him lying on the crushed grass underfoot. "No, friend Singh," she said, "All I can do is speculate that it must have something to do with how Arath' Mahar was formed. You witnessed it as I did and that is the only connection that I can see right now to explain why this daughter of the Grove might do such a thing." Two of the aircrew carried the stretcher back and began loading it back into the open cargo area. The last member of the crew was bent over Phillips's unmoving form apparently removing the fae level restraints that bound him. "And this darkness you say the Grove senses in her, what do you think it means?" asked Singh. "We have no idea, friend Singh," M'Tehr told him. "But from what Arath' Mahar showed us it must have some connection with the one that struck at her. The taste of the darkness in this sister is reminiscent of his and it also has the taste of Arath' Mahar as well. What it means none of us can ken though." The crewman finished removing the last of the restraints and backed away before abruptly turning and running bent over back toward the Blackhawk. She reached it and clambered into the open doorway. As soon as she entered another crew member began sliding it shut. The Blackhawk's engine began throttling up, the sound of the increase in power drowned out conversation between them for a moment as it lifted off. As the Blackhawk rose to tree-top level the wind lashed them again as the sound above them began to diminish. The radio that Singh carried crackled to life. "FRT Actual, this is Evac Alpha four, package is delivered, dropkick complete. Alpha four returning to base over." Singh raised the handset to his face and answered. "Evac Alpha four this is FRT Actual, understood. Report for full debriefing upon landing, good job ladies, Actual out." Singh returned the handset to the carrier and turned his attention back to M'Tehr. She was looking at the body of Hank Phillips laying in the bent down grass silent and still. "So what is to be done then M'Tehr?" he asked not pressing her further on her past omissions of what she knew. "She cannot remain as she is and if this is indeed part of what forms her basic nature then we cannot allow her to continue developing as she is doing without guidance. What does the Grove say to do with this unexpected sister of yours?" M'Tehr's glamour had been dropped when the helicopter departed and Singh was facing her as she was in her full natural condition. It was a gesture by her he realized. A statement that there would be no more secrets between them and he wasn't sure that she had ever done such a thing before for anyone. Her bald head inclined toward the earth and she didn't answer yet. She was speaking with the Grove itself while she did so and although he could not hear the conversation Singh knew that he would hear the decision. Singh waited for her to speak and as he did he understood that it may be a while he realized. There was no telling how many of her sisters would have to speak before a consensus was reached among them. He waited patiently and as he did he spent his time looking at the Grove around him and his eye flicked to the sleek form of the Blackhawk slowly moving away. Regardless of the Grove's origins, he had to say that he approved of it being here now that it was in place. The members of the advisory council may not recognize the benefits that had just landed in their laps, but that didn't mean that they weren't there, and this new development could throw a king sized monkey wrench into the works if they didn't get ahead of it. So this was now a fire that he had to concentrate on putting out before it was even spoken of outside of those who already knew of it. He didn't see this as concealment in a malevolent sense but as something that was necessary for the moment so that greater healing could take place and return all to health. It was his job to smooth the path he reminded himself. A rocky task at best and he may still wish that it hadn't fallen to him, but that wish was irrelevant, it always had been. He had a job to do. "She will be brought to Arath' Mahar," M'Tehr said finally, her voice breaking the silence. Singh heaved an inward sigh of relief. What they were going to do if the Grove refused to take Phillips was an ugly thing to contemplate, but it would have been done if necessary. "The Grove agrees that it is best that she is mated with her Phar' ador as soon as possible. We have considered what you have told us and we think this is so. She was not made as our sisters are made and there is already too much in her development that may be wrong, but without this we think that she will not survive." "I am pleased that the Grove is being so cooperative," Singh said finding it hard not to speak the last word heavily loaded with sarcasm. M'Tehr might not have recognized it but it still was not worth the small pleasure it would bring him to voice his disapproval in this way. "It still does not excuse your actions in hiding this from me. Do not lie to me again M'Tehr. There is no place for that between us. Your actions nearly caused what you were trying to avoid by not coming to me at once with what you knew. If she had succumbed to her nature before we figured out what her nature was, the damage that she would have done to everything including the Grove might have been insurmountable." "She has changed so quickly then?" M'Tehr asked alarmed at the implication. "She is almost at the point of manifesting," Singh said making certain that he weighted his words as heavily as he could to get the point across to her. "We are as much in the dark about how she will develop as you are, but that much is certain. When I suspected that this is what may be happening I ordered that she be brought here while I meet with you." The sound of the helicopter that had delivered Phillips finally faded away into the distance and there was only the sound of the Grove around them now. Singh and M'Tehr began to slowly walk through the long bend downward grass to where Phillips had been deposited. When they reached him they paused a moment as they looked at the silent body lying before them. "I must take her to Arath' Mahar now, Friend Singh. Speed is an ally to us and an enemy to her. Arath' Mahar must attempt to seat her in a Phar' Ador without delay. Only that might stem the darkness growing inside of her and even then this path may yet fail," M'Tehr said to him as she began to bid the grass and the roots to thicken beneath him so that they might bear him away from the clearing. "But will such an action be enough?" Singh asked her watching as the limp body shifted and rose. "Who can tell what may happen in one that changes so swiftly?" M'Tehr said. "This daughter needs to slow her path for now before a wrong destination is chosen; of that the Grove is in agreement." Singh wanted to ask her what she meant by choosing a wrong destination, but M'Tehr didn't say any more on the topic. She bid him to make his way back to the king elm while she bore Phillips away. There was no time for further discussion right now and Singh recognized that there would be no benefit in stopping M'Tehr while she was occupied to demand an explanation yet. It was only once they had separated and M'Tehr and Phillips had vanished into the depths of the Grove leaving him to walk back alone to the king elm that Singh thought about the other question that had been bothering him since he had spoken to Dr. Mercer. Watching M'Tehr calling roots into motion to carry Phillips away from the landing site he again wondered why it was that a dryad, even one formed in this manner would have an instinctive need to draw animus at all. Dryad's channelled energy directly from the aether into the physical world as a part of their being without any hardship, but they drew directly from the ambient magic that formed from the aether as well for their life force. They did not draw it directly from others as Phillips had attempted to do. He would have asked M'Tehr, but she was already too far away from him attending to Phillips and it could wait until later when this fire was extinguished he decided. It was more important that Phillips was here now and if there was no time to ask her until after that need had been addressed so be it. Singh trudged his way to the king elm in silence. He still had yet to meet with the Arath' Mahar as she had demanded before he could depart Phar' Naqua. The clearing around the king elm was empty save for Jacen. The big satyr was obviously waiting for him. As Singh approached his gaze took in the area around them. The throne that Arath' Mahar Selicia used was gone; sunk back into the earth she had summoned it from. Behind him he could hear the whisper of leaves on leaves as the bushes knit back together erasing the path that he and M'Tehr had followed to reach the clearing where the Evac chopper had landed. The path that he had taken from the FRT passage point was also gone as well. As the greenery closed in behind him there was only the circle of the clearing around the elm, Jacen and himself. "The Arath' Mahar has left to join Lady M'Tehr," Jacen said to him as he approached. "It may be some time before she returns." "If it is as complicated as I suspect it to be, it may be sometime longer than that Jacen," he replied. He looked around the clearing. There was nothing that could serve him to sit on for the moment and if he were to use his own influence over the earth here it may not turn out to be the wisest of choices. "Jacen?" he asked. "Yes, friend Singh," the satyr answered. "It seems to me that it will take more time than can be predicted for Arath' Mahar Selicia to conclude what she needs to do for now. It seems to me that it would be best if we postpone our discussion for now. Whatever it is that demands the Mother of the Grove's attention is something that requires her full attention and she can summon me when it is more convenient so we may have the discussion that she wishes." "This may be so," Jacen said without any tone in his voice to indicate that he felt one way or the other about the subject. "Then I ask you as a friend of the Grove if you might make a path for me to depart them. I have no intention of blundering through the underbrush as if I were someone who is trying to escape when that is not the case," he said "Of course friend Singh," he said gesturing at the path that began to open in the green. "You have only to ask." Singh thanked him and began to make his way down the path to the passage point. As he did the thoughts that had plagued him since he had parted ways with M'Tehr bubbled up in his thoughts again and as they did he couldn't help pick at them over and over. Why was Phillips trying to drain animus? And more disturbing what was it that M'Tehr was telling him when she said that there was a darkness that frightened the Grove inside of him? He didn't think that he was going to like hearing the answer, but he thought he would like hearing the result even less if it was as bad as it seemed to indicate. ------------------------------------ Phar' Naqua; Day 17, 1100 hours "When we last spoke you asked me for a boon friend Singh," Arath' Mahar Selicia said to him. "It seems you were mistaken." "In what way might that be Arath' Mahar?" Singh asked picking his way through the meadow she had led them to. "Only that it was not a boon that you asked for but one that you offered," she said to him. "This daughter of mine that I created in my madness you returned to me. You did not come with wrath and accusation but in humility; you placed her health and well being above a need for answers and for that we are grateful." "It is hardly something as grand as that, Arath' Mahar," he said. "It was needful and when I brought her to you it was as a boon to be asked of you." "Nevertheless, a boon is owed you now. And Phar' Naqua will honour it," she insisted. This was not what Singh was expecting to hear when he returned to meet with Arath' Mahar Selicia. The time it had taken for her to dispose of what was needful to deal with Hank Phillips had stretched out far longer than he expected it to. And he was well aware of just what it was that she was doing right now. When she suggested that they meet alone outside of the limitations of official protocols he knew that she was aware of what that meant as well. Her own connection with the mind of the Grove would have told her that a meeting of this nature would be considered a high honour to an outsider such as himself; regardless of how highly honoured they were. She would not have done so without good reason Singh thought. The Grove network might revere her and grant her indulgence over the nature of her origin, but it would still mentally hold her to the highest standards as well. He wondered if she was aware of just how high those standards could be. "Might I ask you a question Friend Singh?" she asked. "Of course, Arath' Mahar," he said. "Might we, when we are alone not speak so formally?" she asked. Singh thought hard before he answered. Just by asking the question, possibly without knowing it, she was asking him to walk through a diplomatic minefield while doing a tap dancing routine. Or she was aware of it and she felt that she had enough credibility in her position itself that she could override any objections from the Grove should they arise. Either way he ran the risk of either creating a diplomatic faux pas by refusing her or by insulting the dignity of the Arath' Mahar in the eyes of the Grove by indulging her. Not for the first time he inwardly wished that of all the fae that the Grove network was not so tetchy about protocol. "You are the Arath' Mahar," he said carefully. "Such matters are your decision. I can only comply under such circumstances regardless of my own personal feelings on the matter." "And what are your feelings?" she asked him. Best be open from the beginning he told himself; even as you are be as diplomatic as you possibly can be while doing so. With that thought guiding him he laid out his misgivings to her and to her credit she listened carefully to what he had to say before continuing. "Everything you say is true," she said finally, "But there is a time for what my sisters expect and a time for plain speech and while it is the two of us in this manner I would prefer the luxury of plain speech." "As the Arath' Mahar wishes," Singh said carefully. "Good I'm glad we understand each other," she said. "And I can't tell you how good it feels to speak like a normal person again. I swear I feel like I dropped into a bloody Renfaire ever since this whole thing started," she said. "In what way, Arath' Mahar?" Singh said. "You're still speaking formally to me, detective Singh," she said accusingly. "I am," he admitted, "And I think I should continue to do so my Lady. While you may be able to shrug off the expectations the Grove places on you without repercussion, I do not think they will be so generous with me." "Please, call me Selicia," she said to him. "With respect, Arath' Mahar. I cannot do so," he answered. "But please continue to speak freely as you wish. Just understand that I am still bound in ways that you are not. A compromise if you will." "All right then, detective Singh," she said to him. "I suppose that I can understand the constraints you feel you have to operate under." "So why does the Arath' Mahar, the Mother of the Grove desire to speak with me?" he asked. "Because you need to know that I have no intention of disappearing into the woodwork," she said. "This Grove is not going to hide itself more than necessary and neither am I." Singh almost stopped walking when she said that. He managed to halt his stumble though and continued beside her as she continued. "How much do you know about the Blooming?" she asked him. "I mean really know about it?" "I suppose that I know as much about it as anyone in my position would," he said. "What if I was to tell you that you have much less time than you suspect?" she said to him. "How much less time?" he asked shocked out of the need to maintain protocol by the statement. "Well it won't be tomorrow," she said with a faint snort, "but it is going to be here much sooner than any of you expect." "And how would you know this?" he asked hoping that she was just inexperienced and had made a newcomer's mistake. "I know this because after I forged the Devouring Rose, I spoke with what I first thought was the elm I bound myself to. But it wasn't the elm; it was something in the aether. Some One and that One was more powerful than I have ever experienced." "And what did this One say?" Singh asked her. "I cannot go into specifics," she said carefully. "I was told that what was being told was for me alone to know, but I think I can tell you this much." Selicia paused as they came to the centre of the clearing, always she was being drawn back to this point it seemed, especially when she had something important arise in this new life of hers. "I was told three things that I think it is safe to tell you," she said. "The first was that I and my line would be attuned more closely to what was coming than those who were here before. That we were the guardians of this spring and spring was ending." "The second thing was that the summer that followed the spring would be a long one, much longer that the winter and it was closer than we could know." "And the last thing was that I had made an oath and the oath would bind me and all who followed me. That I needed to fulfil that oath and to do so I needed you specifically." "It said that?" Singh said quietly taking in what she was telling him and letting the information marinate in what understanding he could muster. "When the voice of that One spoke to me, it mentioned you specifically. Not by name, but there was no doubt that you were who was meant. And it told me that to find the shadowy man I would need you." "So you are going to look for him then," Singh said waiting to hear her response. "I'm going to look for him, I'm going to find him and I'm going to kill him," she said bluntly. "Not for what he did to me, but for what he is doing now. He is an abomination and I will not allow him or any like him to remain. I will destroy him whatever the cost." Singh felt a cold chill run down his spine. If what she said was true there was even less time than they had suspected. The slow leisurely pace that those who operated under the Concord was using to bring the world along in their effort to prepare for what was coming would have to be accelerated if this were true. And the frightening thing was that he believed her. The other thing that caused the chill that he was feeling was the cold resolve her heard in her voice to go after the dark man all the way to destruction. Selicia had greater power than any nymph he had ever met and if she did do this then the fallout could very well be astronomical; especially since there was a high probability that this dark man she sought would conceal himself in a densely populated area of Stafford to remain undetected. Were she to bring him to bay under those circumstances it would be impossible for them to maintain concealment of the true situation, even under an accelerated schedule of revelation. she said that whoever it was that she spoke to directed her to him specifically. If that was indeed the case than he hoped it was intended for him to act as damage control because that was the only reason that he could think of under the circumstances where he would be important enough to come to the attention of what she was alluding to. The only thing he had as an advantage was that she was paying that warning a high degree of attention and that would possibly be the only way that he could get her to restrain herself. If he couldn't then she would likely tear Stafford apart looking for the dark man and he didn't think that there was anything that even the FRT could do that would stop her. "What did the One who spoke to you say specifically? He asked, "About me? There had to have been something that made it clear or you would not be speaking with me about this my Lady." "It told me to seek the Earth Weaver," she said. "That you would be the one that would bring the one I seek to me. So will you?" she asked. "Will you help me to find this shadowy man?" Singh was staggered in his own way hearing that. It was one thing to be placed in the position that he was in, but it was wholly another to be called for something like this by what he suspected was the manifest will of both the physical and the aetherial. But he recognized that it did offer him a chance. Whatever it was that was speaking with her must be aware that she would tear through Stafford as a cyclone and that incalculable damage would be done in that event. It was offering her a way to minimize the damage and it was using him as a leavening agent. He could hardly refuse to do so. The alternative was just too unthinkable if he were to do so. "I will help you my Lady," he said steadily, "but it must be on my terms." "And what are those terms, detective Singh?" she asked. "Leave the finding of the shadowy man to me," he said. "I will seek him, I will find him and when the time is right and all prepared, I will bring him to you and you can face him in a time and place that is better suited for this than just falling on him wherever you find him." "I will not cease looking for him," she said flatly. "I have a debt to repay." "And I do not ask you to do that, my Lady," he said. "I ask you to let me play my part. To let me bring him to you. I will turn the resources of my office to that end and should you find him before I will I only ask that you allow me to do as the One who spoke to you said. To let me bring him to you." Selicia lapsed into silence while she considered his words. He could see that there was some struggle between her desire to leap into the fray wholeheartedly and her desire to conform to the warning given to her by the One she spoke with. For a moment he did not know which it was that she was going to choose, but when she spoke he heaved a mental sigh of relief. "We'll do it your way then," she said. "If I should find him before you I will allow you to choose the time and manner that best suits what we need to do. I will restrain myself and you will lead him to me in the end." Selicia laid her hand on the earth and looked up at him. "I swear this on the heart of Phar' Naqua that it will be so." Only then did Singh begin to relax inside. An oath sworn here would be just as binding as her oath to seek and find him by any means necessary. If nothing else his agreement had spared Stafford from a level of destruction unimaginable, but only so long as he could keep his bargain with her. Singh laid his hands on the earth. "I swear that as much as it is in my power that I will seek him for you and bring him before you." The oath sworn on his elemental affiliation was just as binding on him as hers was on Selicia. She would recognize that and that recognition would buy him the time he needed now. He hoped that he was doing the right thing. Selicia began to stroll with him back across the meadow. Now that the seriousness of this part of their conversation was passed he could almost feel her relaxing and that in turn encouraged him to do the same for the moment. "I wonder if I should tell them," she said as they walked. "What should you tell who, my Lady?" Singh asked. "Nothing," she said after a moment, " I was just thinking that if I were to tell the Grove what it was that whatever it was that spoke to me called me that I would probably end up with a new title instead of understanding what it could mean is all." "What did it call you, if I may ask my Lady?" Singh said, "Something like that does not used words haphazardly. It could be important in its own way." "I suppose that's true, but it makes little sense to me. For all I know it's just me assigning greater importance to something I barely understand in the same way the Grove does with me," she said. "And it may not," Singh said, "if you don't mind sharing it with me, perhaps the two of us could figure out what it means then?" "When it spoke with me it called me daughter of elm and ashes and to be honest it makes as much sense to me now as it did when I heard it first," she said. "I still don't understand it." "I think I might," Singh said. Selicia paused in her passage and looked at him. "Well go on," she said, "Speak up. You don't just say you might know what a mystical voice said to me and then not explain yourself." "The daughter of elm part is pretty self-explanatory," Singh said slowly. "Yes, I figured that much out myself," Selicia said in a faintly annoyed tone. "The ashes I think though refer to you," he said. "Now that I don't understand," she said. "It doesn't make any sense to me." "I think it means that you are a phoenix," Singh said. "I am not a bird," Selicia said to him. "I think I would have noticed if I were." "No, of course you are not a phoenix in that sense," Singh said. "At least not literally." "Explain yourself," she said to him. "You come from the ashes of who you were," Singh said, "You created who you have become out of who you once were. You've done it to reach this point and you likely will again some other time. It may be that everyone who has ever been like you is the same in this regard my Lady," he said. Selicia remained silent while she considered his words and they continued to walk back toward the Grove. "It may be that you're right," she said finally without adding anything more to it. When Singh and the Arath' Mahar reached the edge of the Grove proper she gestured and he watched as a broad path opened through the wood leading back to the passage point. "We'll speak again, detective Singh," she said to him as they parted. "But remember your promise and I will remember mine." She turned and walked toward the greenery and was swallowed up in its depths in moments. Singh began walking down the path she had formed for him considering what it was that he had learned. One thing was very certain that Singh could see when the audience ended and that was that this dryad did not intend to remain quietly hidden as others did. She made it very clear that she intended to hunt down the one that did this to her. For a moment when she said that Singh worried that her last moments before shattering had left her fixated on this one aspect and that she would focus on that to the exclusion of all else and there would be no end to the problems that she would create in her crusade. But as he continued to speak to her he realized that was not the case, at least it was not that way at the moment. Who could tell what it may become as she committed herself to this goal, but he was thinking that it might not be like that. She had agreed to let him take the lead on this and that gave him options that would be invaluable in managing this situation and he was fairly certain that he knew what his first step should be. He only hoped that she would have the patience necessary to let him play his part. It seemed that might be the case and if her words were anything to go by she would move carefully rather than charging in heedless of the damage. After all, the name she had chosen for her home seemed more a statement of protection rather than of retribution and that was encouraging to him. But he couldn't rely solely on that restraining her. He would have to deliver or the mandate she had assumed would demand she do so regardless of cost. Singh saw the passage point come into view and he walked toward it. There was work to be done. -------------------------------