Stray (21 page)

"Another increase in population," Mara said, after the scan had cleared us of stickies.  "I'm starting to reconsider the proposals to double-team."

"Dealing with swoops on top of that?"  Lohn pulled a face.  "I'll pass."

"The trade-off is too great," Maze agreed, sounding terribly tired.  He gave me a worn smile.  "You made a big difference to that space's difficulty.  If it wasn't for the population increase, we would have easily set a record completion pace."

"And you claim to disapprove of the pace records," Lohn said, heading to the showers.

"Lunch with me?"  Zee said as we followed him, and I knew I was in for a talk well before we were sitting in a quiet corner of the canteen.

"Are kittens evil?" I asked, as soon as I'd swallowed enough of some yellowy mashed stuff (which tasted a lot better than it looked) to no longer feel painfully hungry.

"I've not read any reports featuring them," she said.  "But there are Ionoth which can disguise their shape, and Ionoth with appearances entirely innocuous and intentions which are not.  The problem with that one was that we did not detect it.  There's very few things that can get anywhere near as close as that to someone with Combat Sight without notice, threat or not."  She reached over and rapped the back of my knuckles with her spoon.  "And petting the thing was entirely idiotic."  But she smiled at me, and shook her head to take the sting out of the words.  "He was angry at himself, not you.  Just be sure to be more sensible in future."

I nodded, still cringing internally.  There was no way I was going to upset everyone like that again if I could help it.  I watched her eat, not missing the shadows under her eyes, and finally managed to ask: "What happen third senior Setari squad?"

"A kadara."  She said the word so softly I could barely hear her.  "One which broke into real-space three years ago.  We lost nine, most from the senior squads.  They renumbered us all afterwards.  The original First Squad captain, Helese, was Maze's wife.  He's been very hard on himself ever since."

"Very sad guy," I said, and could only promise myself to not be entirely idiotic in future.

Wednesday, February 20

Third Squad

Third was a difficult squad to test with.  Not because of any attitude, but because they had such a range of talents, which required three test environments to get through.  I'd been a little nervous about working with their squad captain, Taarel – the spectacular one with the unlikely hair – just because I'd taken the impression she was really intense about Maze.  But she was totally professional, so either it was my imagination or she's not a petty sort.

But before Taarel there was Eeli.  After breakfast I'd gone up to the roof because I'd figured it was around time for dawn, and on Tare dawn lasts a really long time and is well worth watching.  I was sitting through a lesson on Taren geography, keeping an eye on the horizon, when a girl a year or maybe even two years younger than me arrived.  Eeli Bata, according to the interface, looking like a string bean in her Setari uniform.

"Sorry to interrupt you," she started out, her voice high and enthusiastic.  "I thought I'd introduce myself since we're working with you today.  I'm Eeli.  I'm the path finder in Third Squad.  I've really been looking forward to this.  We all want to see how far you can take us."

This was definitely a different sort of Setari.  "Hello."

"I can show you the way to the test room, when you're ready," she continued.  "Why are you up here on the roof?  Are you not used to being inside buildings?  Is this much like your world?"

Eeli is what Nenna would be if Nenna had uber psychic powers.  She'd sometimes stop asking questions in the hopes I would remember them all to answer them, but then new questions would bubble up and she'd be off again.  I wanted to see if she would act like that once the training session started, and was pleased that, though she shut right up and did exactly what she should, she kept looking really excited the entire time.

We started in Test Room One to go through the combat talents.  In terms of sheer fire power Third Squad is nothing compared to Eighth, but they're not shabby either.  We moved on to testing sights next.  There's six sorts of sights: Combat, Path, Gate, Symbol, Place and 'Sight Sight', which is two different words, but both mean sight.  Third Squad has all but 'Sight Sight', which is really rare and is apparently something to do with divining the 'nature of things'.  According to Eeli, the bluesuit who came down in person to look at me, Selkie, has Sight Sight and so does Ruuel.  Eeli is a great source of information.  I don't even have to ask her questions.

I could tell Taarel's squad really adores their captain, the way First Squad respects Maze, but with an extra level of worship.  She's definitely one of those people like HM, a tiny sun, though she leaves HM in the shade.  She has the strongest Ena manipulation talent, and when we went into the Ena to test my enhancement on her talents, she was able to partially close one of the gates.  She has a calm reserve, but I can really picture her giving a Battle of Agincourt type of speech, inspiring everyone around her to follow and admire and commit great acts of nobility.

Reading back that last paragraph, it sounds like I have the hots for Taarel.  Funny.  I guess she impressed me.  This whole entry is really confused and out of order and I think that's because of Eeli's gossip and because Taarel really reminds me of Ruuel.  I haven't had any reason to write about him, but I've developed a tendency to look closely at any squad I happen to see, hoping it might be Fourth.  I think about him a lot more than I've written about.

And it occurred to me, while I was watching Taarel and being impressed and seeing Ruuel in the shape of her eyes, that I might be on second level monitoring for the rest of my life.  No wonder none of the Setari want to have informal conversations with me.

Thursday, February 21

Let's try that again – Third Squad

Yesterday's entry reads as amazingly garbled.  The shorter and less confused version is that Eeli collected me and we went to Test Room One.  We tested combat skills and Combat Sight and then went to a smaller room where we tested Symbol and Place Sight.  Then we went into the Ena and tested Path Sight, Gate Sight, and Ena manipulation.  The fact that, enhanced, Taarel was able to partially close a small gate was a fairly major thing apparently.  There's a few gates in very inconvenient spots and, though it sounds like it would take a lot of sessions to do it, I had a strong impression that I'll be assigned to Third Squad at some point in the future to go and close one or two that they really don't want open.

Path Sight is a tracking ability: not seeing footprints, but knowing the direction of something.  Gate Sight allows you to tell how long a gate will remain open.  Place Sight is a very vague and all-encompassing sight that lets you see invisible things including things like auras, "the remnants of touch", whatever that means, or the way things used to look.  Sometimes Place Sight will even show stickies.  It's considered a difficult Sight to cope with: painful, with bonus nightmares.  Symbol Sight is a "specific interpretative" ability that reminds me of my injected language: see a word, and have an impression of meaning, while 'Sight Sight' is a vaguer but more profound comprehension.  They're all called 'Sight', but it's really more 'awareness'.  Combat Sight, for instance, means you're aware of creatures around you, even if they're behind walls, and gives you a strong advantage when trying to anticipate movement and attack.  Both Third and Fourth Squad are Sight based exploration squads with duties focused around establishing new paths through the spaces to 'hot spots' where Ionoth are infesting Tare's near-space and real-space.  But also trying to find and investigate the Ddura and the Pillars, and even to do investigative work for real-space crimes (psychic detectives!).

I suppose I must have some form of Path Sight, to have found my way to Earth's near-space, although Eeli made it very clear that what I did was way outside their idea of the talent.  Back when I first returned, and was in medical again, their attempts to test me for Path Sight were a complete failure, and I think they're a little wary of pushing me too hard to do it in case I have another 'excursion'.

There's been no suggestion whatsoever that I try and train or focus my ability to jaunt off to Earth, no matter what Maze said about finding Pillars.

Castle Rotation

Today was my last scheduled rotation with First Squad, though I think that may be because they haven't decided yet how to allocate me next week.  Tomorrow I have nothing scheduled and to my delight Ketzaren said she was going into the city and asked if I want to tag along.  Then I have a training day and a few more squads to be tested with (Fifth, Seventh, Tenth), but no more Ena rotations listed, just blank days every second day where they're probably going to put missions once they've decided what they will be.

I feel strange about being a resource which is shared between dozens of people.  There's some teams I'm not looking forward to working with, but now that I'm not being kept in a box it sometimes feels like a positive way to live.  I'm making their job a little easier, even if all I actively do is follow them about.  I managed not to make an idiot out of myself this rotation, too, and First Squad were looking quite cheerful at the end of the day.

Lohn says that Castle is his favourite rotation.  It was definitely different from the ones we've already done, and for the most part made me feel more than ever that I've strayed into some kind of computer game.  It had NPCs!  Maze explained beforehand that there would be two types of Ionoth in the Castle space, and that one we would be attacking while the other we would avoid.  This would require me to move quickly whenever Ketzaren told me to, and there would probably be occasional levitating to different spots so I needed to be ready for that.

They didn't warn me about the stairs though.

Castle Rotation is literally that – a castle.  On a cliff-like rock.  And we started at the bottom and worked our way to the top, chasing a mass of invading shadow people and cutting them down wherever possible.  There were defending shadow people fighting against the invading shadow people and I see why Lohn likes it because it's like you're helping them.  They even react sometimes as if they're surprised to see the Setari and one looked like it was thanking Zee.

But, gods, we went up a lot of steps.

I think Ketzaren did a lot of extra unnecessary levitating, for which I will be eternally grateful.  I really don't know if I can get as fit as everyone else, and talked to Mara about it afterwards, especially about the way I keep falling asleep after the testing sessions instead of doing the jogging I was supposed to.  She pointed out that I'd been hospitalised twice the previous month, and that walking up all these stairs probably counted for more than the jogging anyway.  The interface lets them monitor my heartbeat all the time, and they're really more interested in keeping me alive than trying to make me into a watered-down version of a Setari.

Not that this let me out of dodging practice the day after tomorrow.  Mara says she's planning to make sure I at least have a chance to survive if a bunch of children try and beat me up.  I gather she thinks I'm pretty hopeless so far. 

Saturday, February 22

Can I keep it? 

I'd made a list of things to look for during my trip to the city, like throw rugs for the lounges, and some snacks to keep in my apartment.  Although I'd realised I could purchase most things through my interface and have them delivered, it was more the idea of going out and looking around which had me excited.  Besides, I wanted a haircut, and Ketzaren hadn't seemed at all bothered about the time involved in taking me to a hairdressers, even though it meant she would have to sit around waiting for me.  She has long, shiny black hair which is super-straight and neat and makes my current collection of split ends look even worse by comparison.

It was also nice to have a reason to wear something other than my uniform, and to see Ketzaren in a pretty dress.  I often wonder if First Squad does much socialising outside of KOTIS.  Do people not in the military seem annoying or refreshing?  How do they get the chance to meet them?  Are there rules about whether you can date someone in your own squad?  I guess it must be okay to get married, since Maze was.

I was toying with the idea of seeing how many of these mysteries I could unravel while spending a day just with Ketzaren, but when we met up she was with Jeh from Second Squad, so I shelved the idea for the moment.  Jeh is so comfortable and relaxed that I didn't mind her coming too, though having to be escorted about does mean that shopping is always going to feel like wasting someone else's time to me.  We were just at the big doors which mark one of the exits out of KOTIS, and are one of the few places which are actively guarded by greensuits, when an alarm (bip-bip-bip) sounded.  Actual noise, not just in the interface, which is really rare here.  The emergency space of the interface abruptly filled with 'Lockdown' and 'Incursion 1' messages.  And the doors to 'outside' began to close.

I'd really love to know what would have happened if I'd been up on the roof when the lockdown started, but I'm hoping no-one else thinks of that because then they'd probably tell me not to go out there all the time.  As it was, Ketzaren and Jeh both froze and looked really surprised for a second, then went very alert.

"In here," Ketzaren said, pointing to a waiting room area just to one side of the entrance.  She and Jeh had flanked me, looking all dangerous and prepared despite the nice dresses.  Jeh touched me on the shoulder as we moved, and said: "Nothing in my range," when we stopped in the centre of the room.  They stayed on either side of me, scanning for movement.