The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (32 page)

“I need your take on what happened
yesterday,” Murph said. “My boss was surprisingly lenient — he's
only making me write this report. The tough part is trying to
convince him.”

“He can contact my boss,” Poe offered. “I'm
sure Dylan Farraway can vouch for us.”

“For you, at any rate,” he said. “It's my own
ass I'm trying to cover here.”

“I'm serious,” Poe continued. “We've already
had a personal run-in with Saisshalé in Bridgetown, and he's
admitted to being behind the others both there and here, and who
knows where else. He was waiting for me to arrive, that’s why he
stayed still for so long. I thought you, of all agents, would have
realized mere handcuffs couldn't have held him.”

Murph finally stopped typing and looked up at
him. He looked terrible; his eyes were puffy and wandered from
exhaustion. His stubborn will was the only thing keeping him going
right now. That, and the five cups of coffee sitting in different
spots on his cluttered desk. He sensed a mixture of fear tied in
with that exhaustion...a fear not of job loss but of the
potentiality that Saisshalé could return.

“Tell that to ARU Holding,” Murph said, his
voice forcefully even. “They're the ones who thought he'd
behave.”

“I'm sorry,” Poe said. “I shouldn't have
brought that up.”

Murph waved a hand at him. “Don't worry about
it. Won't be the first time I had my ass chewed out. Won't be the
last, either. This is just three hours' sleep on a lumpy lounge
couch talking.” He turned back to the screen, squinted at it, typed
a few more words, and then stopped again.

“Tell me, Agent Poe,” he continued. “Who is
this Saisshalé, anyway? There’s absolutely no record of him in any
ARU databases.”

“We’re at a loss as well,” he said. “All we
know is that he's been summoned by the Dahné Shenaihu nuhm'ndah to
do his dirty work.”

Murph whistled. “Dahné, eh? So the heavy shit
really is going down.”

“Yeah, well...” Poe said. “From what I've
sensed, Saisshalé is not someone we can contain by any conventional
means. I want to say he's Shenaihu nuhm'ndah, or at least something
close to it, but I can't really tell. It just seems more than that,
in a way. I hesitate to ask, but do you...?”

“Have sensing abilities?” Murph smirked at
him. “Of course I do. Wouldn't be here if I didn't. And I have to
agree with you, Poe. I get the feeling he's nuhm'ndah as well, but
not quite. He's the first target I've sensed where I have trouble
trying to
focus
, if that makes any sense. It’s like looking
into a hole in the universe. There’s nothing there. It's like his
spirit signature is deliberately shifting its place to keep from
being sensed.”

“Yeah,” Poe said. “I get you.”

“Or that he's able to make sensing energies
refract
around him.”

“Okay.”

“And you know who that reminds me of?”

“Who?”

“The One of All Sacred.”

Poe grimaced at him. “Why do you say
that?”

Murph turned slightly in his swivel chair
until he faced him straight on, and leaned forward onto his desk
heavily. “Have you ever tried to sense the One of All Sacred?”

“Thousands have by now,” Poe said. “It's kind
of hard
not
to be able to sense her. What are you getting
at?”

Murph hesitated before answering.
“Well...I've sensed the One, even up here in New Boston. She's
everywhere, Poe, but I'm sure you understand that. She's the
embodiment of that dehndarra Né wahoozits mantra — she's a part of
everything, everything's a part of her.

“So when we first apprehended Saisshalé —
which seemed way too easy, considering his power — I did a quick
sensing scan of him. He felt it immediately and took offense to it,
but I wasn't going to apologize. He'd hurt dozens of people up here
over the last few days. So what I sensed was something I'd never
felt before — a void. Like I said, it's like he's there, but you
can't reach him because he has no anchor in his body for that
spirit or something. It's just floating around in a void somewhere.
The exact opposite of the One of All Sacred.”

Poe nodded. “That's what I felt when I first
accosted him. My partner felt the same thing.”

Murph leaned back in his chair again and
turned away to stare at the monitor before him. He reached out once
to tap at the keyboard, stopped himself, moved again, and then
decided against it, frowning deeply. Poe could only wonder what he
was trying to puzzle together right now, but he would completely
understand if Murph wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing. He
turned back to Poe, arms now crossed and a single finger tapping
against his forearm.

“You don't want to admit this any more than I
do, Poe,” he said. “About Saisshalé. I think we both know
what
he is, even if we both don't want to admit it.”

“That depends,” Poe said. “Are we talking
spiritual or physical, here?”

Murph cocked a tired eyebrow at him.
“Spiritual, Poe.”

Poe let out a long sigh as he pursed his
lips. “Yeah,” he grumbled. “I think you're right.”

“Well...we'd better up the ante then,” Murph
said. “Especially you, since it sounds as though he's making a
return to your city soon. The ARUnet is tracking him in cities all
the way down the eastern coast, waiting for his next move. I doubt
he's going to B-Town straight off...he's probably going to stop a
few other places first.”

Poe shook his head angrily. “Not that we can
do anything to keep that from happening. Besides, he seems to have
it in for me.
Me
, and I don't know why.”

Murph stared at him in surprise. “Why you?
Why not me? Why not anyone else?”

He opened his mouth to answer, found no
satisfactory answer, shook his head and sighed. “I wish I knew. But
he waited in New Boston until
I
arrived to question him.
Then he made his escape. He could have taken off at any time, but
he chose until after facing me.”

Murph shrugged but watched him warily. “Your
involvement with his earlier attack, perhaps? Maybe he's trying to
get at your partner through you?”

“I doubt it. It had to have been me he was
after.”

“But why?”

“Like I said, Murph...hell if
I
know.”

He left Detective Murphy’s office soon after,
promising to keep in touch. Packed and ready to go but delaying the
inevitable, he sat on the front porch of the house with a bottle of
beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, half convinced this
trip up to New Boston had been more of a hassle than a help. Though
the visit with his family had been more cathartic than he'd
expected, the tension still remained. Despite what David had said,
his parents had only put on a face of pride and hope in order to
keep him from worrying. They didn't know he could sense the trouble
brewing underneath, the fear and uncertainty of his survival in the
coming months.

David was sitting on the concrete railing and
leaning up against one of the support columns, arm resting on a
propped-up knee, beer bottle in hand. This little farewell toast
had been Alec's idea, pathetic though it was. He was looking out
over the front lawn, watching a neighbor's dog hopping back and
forth, chasing after something. Alec watched the dog for a while,
and listened to the stillness of the neighborhood.

It was that stillness that brought him back
to the reality of his surroundings, out of his sullen thoughts and
stewing anger. He listened to the cool autumn breeze cutting
through the bare tree branches; a gentle hissing and clicking that
reminded him of the autumns in his youth, playing in the park at
the foot of the Crest. Back when his family took day trips up
there. It reminded him of playing hide and seek with David at the
Crest's tree line, listening to the whispers of the wind. It
reminded him of the end of summer, when the next school year
started, when the excitement of the season wore off.

And that reminded him of witnessing Nehalé
Usarai's Awakening ritual. It was the exact same feeling...the end
of one cycle in his life and the uncertain beginning of
another.

“Stop thinking so damn much,” David said to
him. He punctuated his irritation with a loud belch and a wide
smile. “You're giving
me
a headache.”

“You're not driving me to the station,” he
laughed. “I hope you know that. Not after all the beers you've had
already.”

“No,” he said. “Dad's going to drive. We're
all coming along. Even Gina and the kids this time.”

“Gina!” he said in complete surprise. “No
kidding. I thought I was going to miss her this time out.”

“Oh, she's got an earful for you, kiddo,”
David said, pointing the neck of his beer bottle at him. “Lot more
than the rest of us could put together.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “That Gina's always got a
way with words.”

“Some more colorful than others, but that’s
why I love her. So hey...what about you?”

“What about me?”

David shook his head. “You know. You got
someone you care about?”

He smiled at him and nodded. “Yeah. Beautiful
woman named Kai.”

“Yeah?” he said. “ARU Officer?”

Alec masked a blush behind a long swig of
beer. David caught it and laughed, and prodded him further for an
answer. He chuckled and bowed his head. “Mendaihu Gharra,” he
mumbled.

David's eyes widened. “Pashyo, Alec, you
don’t do anything half-assed, do you?”

“Hey,” he said, laughing but keeping his own
defenses in check. He didn't want to argue again. “She's cool.
You'd like her. Strong, doesn't take any bullshit. She'd watch your
back.”

David rolled his eyes. “A Mendaihu...heh!
Only you, kid. But you know? I wish you well. Honestly.” He lifted
up his nearly empty bottle in a toast towards him. “May you and Kai
survive this crap with nary a scratch.
In the darkness, we are
all guided by our Light towards the True and the Loved.
”

“Aww, that's beautiful,” he teased. “You
write that?”

David shook his head. “Kelley James, the CNF
Councillor.”

Alec humphed at him. “Damn guy's been
following me for the past few weeks with his graffiti.”

“That 'here lies fate' thing? Heh — yeah,
I've been seeing that a lot lately. The campus is damn near covered
with it.”

He cocked an eyebrow at him. “Really?”

“No one knows why,” David said. “And tell you
the truth, no one's really making a big deal out of it. It's
smartpaint, so it'll wash itself off eventually, if a drone doesn't
get to it first.”

Alec hid another grin from his brother.
“Fascinating,” he said. “Thanks for the toast there, Dave. Even if
we did get off the subject.”

“It's what I do, kid,” David laughed. “I
pontificate to the point of incoherence. I'm a lit professor,
remember?”

“Yeah, you're lit all right,” he said, and
stood up, grabbing his brother by the shirt sleeve. “Come on —
let's go find Mom and Dad before we can’t pick ourselves up off the
porch.”

Everyone eventually met up in the Poe family
den. Alec cringed, expecting the worst. It wasn't a large room, but
it fit two couches and a smaller loveseat, all set in a wide arc
around the fireplace. He and his brother sat in the far left couch,
David slouching slightly. His wife Gina sat beside him, eyeing
David with a bit of contempt but saying nothing. Their two kids,
Aileen and Will, sat in the loveseat in the middle, kicking their
legs back and forth in the air in complete boredom, but otherwise
behaving. Angela and Daniel sat on the far couch, both rigid in
their posture but doing their best not to show concern or anguish.
His dad adjusted his glasses and fidgeted with a pen in his hand,
the writer’s twitch he’d never shaken.

His mother on the other hand kept her hands
busy with a knitting project. She grinned wickedly at David.
“Getting out of chauffeuring, I see,” she said quietly. David
snorted a laugh in return, earning him another icy stare from
Gina.

“Really, it's not a problem,” Alec offered,
hoping to lighten the mood. “I can take the subway to the station.
You don't have to —”

“We
want
to,” Daniel said, perhaps
more forcefully than he'd intended. “Alec, this could be the last
time we see you.” He paused, quickly glancing at David's kids.
“...for a while,” he amended.

Nice save, Dad
. “I just don't want to
be a burden,” he said, for lack of anything better to fill the
uncomfortable silence. “I know you're all worried about me. But
I'll be okay. I’ve got —” He thought of Denni, and frowned. “I’ve
got a lot of backup on this,” he continued unevenly. “I’m sorry I
can't explain better than that, but I'll be okay. I promise.”

His father’s eyes bored into him from over
his spectacles. “You're not a burden, Alec,” he said softly. “You
never were. You're family, regardless of your lineage. We adopted
you, took care of you, and accepted you as a Poe.”

Alec sighed, looking away. “That's something
I've wanted to ask,” he said slowly and deliberately, making sure
he spoke the words he wanted,
needed
to say at this moment.
He was afraid. He did not want to put his family through this. But
the moment had arrived, and he could not avoid it any longer. “I
know my birth name is Alix Eiyashné,” he said. “I know my birth
parents died two years ago. I know they didn't have any major
hereditary medical issues. But that's all I know.”

“You're certainly able to contact the
adoption service on your own,” Angela said. “They specifically told
us that they'd have every available document you'd need.”

He shifted in his seat again and faced them.
“I know that,” he started. “But I don't think they'd have the
answers I need.”

“What answers?” she asked.

He glanced at his brother. David knew exactly
where this conversation was leading, and chose to edge a little
closer to his wife, taking her hand and holding it tight. Gina gave
him a quick look, saw his expression, and though she chose not to
say anything, she put her other hand over his, patting it gently.
Alec smiled briefly, warmed by their love and tenderness.