Chapter 6
Going Underground
Two hours later, Dastou was in his office on the top floor of the Caravan. It was a large room with the wall behind him taken up by a ten-meter-tall window made of ridiculously strong gem-based glass with an electric dimming effect that was turned all the way to black for now. The side walls were full of shelves, which themselves were full of books. Six deep shelves on six book cases, hundreds of tomes, all written by Saints. They were in chronological order and only a fraction of the full set, the rest relegated to the Ajiulzi Depository, hidden under the Academy complex in their home city of Davranis Central. Dastou’s eight contributions thus far were to the right, in the middle of the closest shelf to him, with his name in bright silver leaf against lightly marbled vermilion-colored leather bindings. The bottom three shelves on that bookcase were empty, and he wondered when he would have time to once again fully dedicate himself to research and writing. Not that he was ever fully dedicated to that, but this bombing had him thinking that expanding his horizons with some travel and a long vacation may not be so bad. He didn’t want his life to be top-to-bottom full of responsibilities to his school and nothing else the next time a bomb or bullet or well-thrown knife came his way. He’d been a good boy long enough to deserve a break.
Dastou was gently pulled back from daydreaming by some movement near his wide-open door. Captain Hays was at the threshold, walked in without saying a word, and sat at a guest chair across the hand-carved wooden desk.
The Captain nodded tersely before starting. “I’ve got the report on Trenna Geil finished up for you.” He leaned forward and put a small folder on Dastou’s desk before sitting upright.
“Thanks,” Dastou said. “What’s the short version?”
“I expected you’d want that one. To start, she’s not lying. Not a bit. She’s hiding some information about her past, but that wasn’t important to the current situation so I didn’t dig too far.”
“So Trenna really didn’t have anything to do with the attack?”
“Not a chance,” Hays said after a shake of his head. “Her accounts are consistent with both forensics and Staff Sergeant Saan-Hu’s examination. She was knocked out sometime last night, and her blood work contained the remnants of hillsleep, as we expected.”
Dastou sighed in disappointment at his fellow man.
“No kidding,” the captain agreed. “The order of events was that several people in strange clothing rushed up to the embassy, the Stroffs paid attention to the ones in front, faster because they were unencumbered by a body. Those folks dropped off bombs on the further west portion of the north wall at the same time others dropped Trenna near the sidewalk, then their own satchels with bombs and left. In the few seconds before the bombs went off, several people noticed the girl lying there. A couple went to harass the ones that left her behind for answers, and three people were checking on Trenna.”
“Ah shit...” Dastou muttered, knowing exactly what that meant.
“Right. The girl was saved because those three took the brunt of the explosion to their backs while trying to help. They died and their corpses were removed by the Social Cypher cleanup because they weren’t naturals, revealing Trenna for us. Her people did leave her for dead.”
Dastou put a hand on his forehead in frustration. He had still been hoping she could be a useful witness to the attack itself, and instead got an account that moved the investigation exactly zero steps forward. The amount of time he had to find something useful suddenly felt a lot more constrained. Yes, he could collect information from an environment to study later through meditation and visits to the Null Bank, but if he wasn’t able to finish the task today and also couldn’t return, there was a chance that if he didn’t find these enemies in the next few hours, he never would. Trenna could point them in the right direction, and hopefully that was enough.
“Alright,” muttered Dastou in annoyance. “Nothing useful for the attack itself then. Why would they try and kill her in the bombing itself?”
“Not just her.”
Dastou raised an eyebrow and gestured for Hays to go on.
“This is the most important piece of information in the report, I think. Trenna says that their camp consisted of thirty-one people. They don’t have a real leader, but a man named Milser tends to take charge. Milser said he found a new, better location for them to live at and took eight others with him to check it out. Five didn’t come back.”
“Five?”
“Yeah,” Hays said, purposely letting a touch of anger extend the length of the word. “About twelve hours ago, Milser and two from that group came back. They said the Igneous Counterbalance split them up, and they ran back for safety.”
Hays’ voice revealed how unlikely he believed that was, and Dastou couldn’t agree more. The IC isn’t stupid, and they don’t deal with gangs in such a soft manner as to let them escape. Splitting up the group that was with this Milser person would have resulted in the IC also splitting up, and tracking the others down to their hideaway. Dastou took a short breath and exhaled it in frustration at how he, as the target of the attack, was the source of all this death and pain, including within the group of attackers, before he ever arrived in the city.
“Milser recognized who would resist the plot against me,” Dastou said, “and had them all killed. Why was Trenna not with that group?”
“That one’s easy to figure out,” Hays answered. “She worships Saints, as you’ve noticed.”
“Uh huh...”
“Your visit was announced in town a full month ago, two weeks before Saan received your invitation in the first place.”
“Are you serious?” Dastou said, perturbed by Blackbrick’s presumptuousness. “They painted a target on my back and then invited me to a shooting range.”
“Right. Which means these people had a full month to steal anything they needed to build the fertilizer bombs and find and kill dissidents. Trenna says she refused the scouting trip for a chance to see you.”
“And because she was the only dissident still at their home base, they drugged her at the last minute to protect the plan. Killing her and leaving the body somewhere during the night might have attracted Renker’s people, so they waited and left her outside when they set the bombs. These people seem like they need to be... hmmm...”
“Hunted down like the monsters they are?” Hays suggested. The captain knew about monsters in the shape of men, and knew what needed to happen to them more often than not. “We’re on the same page” he added. “Nes, too, despite his city-boy softness. He scrubbed through a lot of video footage, watched the carnage again and again to find anything useful and is prepping his righteous anger for later use.”
“Good,” Dastou said. “I expect nothing less of him.”
Dastou realized he kind of liked this purpose he had for the time being, despite his want of a vacation and his guilt about his existence being the cause of all this. Find and take care of, whatever that would mean in the moment, a bunch of conniving shits and let very, very little get in the way? There was a sense of directness to the task that he hadn’t experienced in several years, and he found himself smirking at a chance do some good. Maybe a touch of not so good, too.
“Speaking of expecting nothing less, that smile of yours right now is several oceans of worth of creepy, sir.”
“Saints are supposed to be crazy, right?”
“That’s not the same as creepy.”
“I’ll take your word for it. What’s everyone up to now?”
“Heh, you’ll love this,” Hays said with humor in his voice. He always did have that ability to go from dark to light faster than most people who weren’t creepy Saints, and only when he wanted it to happen. It was something Dastou was admittedly jealous of, his own emotions and silliness having the unfortunate tendencies to take over far too easily and for too long.”
Dastou went along with the dark-to-light slide and raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “Oh, if you say I will, won’t bet against it
.”
“More Counterbalance arrived and insisted on taking care of the injured and displaced in the embassy, so most of the privates are now cataloging the information Nes copied from local cameras. Saan, though, had nothing specific to do and felt bad about the grilling I had to give our guest. The staff sergeant ordered the Stroff twins to sneak out west to a shipping district and buy some clothing for Trenna. They came back with six loaded bags and somehow a pair of as close as possible to the girl’s prescription. Trenna is in the barracks locker room downstairs trying on clothes with Saan as the judge.”
Dastou chuckled. Saan was hard as volcano-formed gemstone when she needed to be, but had a girly side that she would let out whenever her responsibilities were taken care of.
“And Nes is with them,” Dastou guessed, “commenting and complimenting.”
Hays laughed. “How’d you know?”
“The guy’s got five younger sisters he helped take care of. No surprise he’d want to be the same way with Trenna.”
“Trenna’s looks probably help,” said Hays. “She cleaned up before Saan’s round of tests – using half of Nes’ shampoo, by the way – and she’s beautiful despite how incredibly skinny she is.”
“Then I hope they don’t fight over her,” Dastou said with a smile.
Hays laughed again. “I doubt that. The girl’s been through a lot and, to be honest, it’s because someone was after us. Well, you, but it’s the same thing to me. Saan and Nes are showing admirable guilt and empathy in helping her. In any case, it’s been some time and they should be done in a few minutes.”
“Good. I did a bit of writing and drafted changes to policies related to any situation like the one we’re in now. I want you and Saan to look at the draft when you can while I take Nes and Trenna to find the rest of the attackers.”
“And, let me guess, help the staff sergeant handle things if there’s another attack on the Diplomatic Center?”
“I expect to see many competently broken bones if that worst case scenario comes to pass.”
“You got it, sir. I’ll head down and help the privates finish up first,” Hays said as he stood up and headed for the door.
“Hold on a second,” Dastou said, and the captain stopped and turned to look at the Saint. “I was reading something a few days ago about military... stuff.”
“Anything mind-blowing?” wondered Hays.
“Dry as sandpaper, but I read something about a commander having to ‘dismiss’ subordinates when they leave.”
“Which you most certainly don’t do, ever. Willing to practice?”
“That’s the idea. One second...” Dastou stood up, cleared his throat, and went for it. “You’re dismissed, captain.”
Hays didn’t move at all as a wide smile formed on his face. “You should probably not sound as if you’re asking for my permission to give me permission to go.”
The Saint was doing just that. “Yeah, that uh... was weird. I’ll just stick to letting people leave when they have to from now on.”
“There you go, sir. Learning to be more disciplined and dedicated is so silly, especially for the leader of an army.”
That thickness of sarcasm was usually Nes’ territory, and caught Dastou off guard for a second.
“You’ve been hanging around Nes too often,” Dastou said.
“My little girl said the same thing the other day. She’s a very perceptive ten-year-old.”
With that, Hays gave a casual salute, turned around with a smile still on his lips, and walked out. Dastou took his jacket off the back of his seat, glanced around this room full of his people’s research and accomplishments in book form, and headed for the door with ideas in his head of places to go see after this mess was over.