A Division of Souls - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe

by Jon Chaisson

  *

  Poe stared into his tilted coffee mug, absently watching the remaining liquid circle around the bottom, hardly paying attention to the last few things Nick had said. Procedure had called for multiple tellings of the tale, a different person listening, sensing, and asking questions each time. In an ongoing case with intense involvement, such as the one they now found themselves in, the Questioning was mandatory. Caren had listened in first, then Farraway, then the two of them with Poe as well. This fourth time was enough for anyone to suffer through without needing a soulhealer afterwards. He'd seen the beginning of the attack via the squad car cameras, and he’d seen the bloody aftermath courtesy of the Special Forces footage. He'd also heard Sheila's version twice already. He doubted there was much else that Nick or Sheila could have missed, given the situation.

  “Are we almost done?” Nick muttered from behind the hand that rubbed at his eyes. “I must have told you and the Chief my story damn near enough times. Goddess…it doesn’t even make sense to me anymore.”

  A brief grin lifted Poe's face. “Yeah, we’re about done.” He put down the coffee mug and reached his arms above his head, weary muscles welcoming the stretch. He nodded at Nick's mug. “You need a refill?”

  “I'm good,” Nick said quickly, itching to leave.

  “Okay.” Poe flipped his notebook closed and leaned back in his chair. “Do you have anything you want to add? Comments? Questions?”

  Nick delayed his answer, tapping at the table with his fingers. “I’m sure I’m not the only one with a theory here,” he said.

  “The Eighth and now the Ninth?” Poe had been expecting this from him; he was actually surprised it took so long for him to bring it up.

  Nick winced. “Yeah.”

  “Well…” Poe exhaled long and slow. How many times had he described that spiritual war? How many times would he have to describe it again to another new recruit? And how many times would the childhood memories of those days haunt him? He exhaled again and leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped tightly in front of him on the desk. In a fit of frustration, and much to Nick’s surprise, Poe reached over and shut off the Questioning recorders, monitors, data crystals and all. This was information the ARU already knew, or at least was supposed to know in more detail than anyone else…yet he never felt safe explaining that fateful month while surrounded by recording equipment. Since Nick had asked, however, he wasn’t going to hold back. He was certainly old enough to remember the previous one, but Poe had a feeling he’d never experienced it personally, not like he and Caren had.

  This was going to be tough.

  “Speaking of the One…” he started again. “First off, let me dispel any rumors that are surfacing. There’s no way we’re facing another event of the same magnitude as the last Embodiment, absolutely no way. That war lasted just over six weeks, November spilling into December, but it was a perfect shitstorm that nearly tore the city apart. A lot of identity theft by jackers. Gang violence in McCleever and Waterfront, a hell of a lot worse than it’s ever been. The economy was tanking before it all happened, and the war made it even worse. A lot of scared people…and kids…Goddess, a lot of kids. It wasn’t pretty. No one was sure whether or not they were being spied upon by one side or the other, including myself.

  “The methodology behind it is what got me into studying crime investigation. There are very few of us profilers who have actually sat down and tried to see it from both sides. I know of two. One ended up writing a book about it that no one dared to publish for a decade and a half. The other man committed suicide.”

  “What about you?” Nick asked.

  “That’s a good question,” he said. “About ten years ago…I started getting interested in the history of the Embodiments. I remembered it as a kid, I must have been eight at the time — and it changed me. The fact that we had so-called ‘psionic warriors’ on Earth made absolutely no sense at all to us humans at first. Hell, we were only the what — fourth or so generation that had the Meraladians in their lives? But when this happened…when we had people dying for no apparent reason other than spiritual persecution…it made no sense at all to me. I was pissed more than I was afraid, stupid as I was back then, but I wanted to do something about it. So about ten years ago I began studying on my off hours. Been doing it ever since.”

  He took his pause in the conversation to stand up, stretch and walk to the cooler to fill his mug. He downed two full cups of cold water and exhaled deeply, shaking off the tension. He glanced over at Nick, who looked as if he was trying to form some thoughts in his head and having difficulty with it. He’d get it sooner or later. The kid was smart enough.

  “So anyway,” he continued. “Here we are. Twenty-five years later. We get five timed attacks, played out by the nuhm’ndah and orchestrated by the Shenaihu. All this as a violent response to what may be the largest awakening ritual ever performed on this good Earth. Shades of the Eighth Embodiment? Possibly…but it’s not the same. That event was triggered by nothing other than a mad craving for power that spiraled out of control. It was a horrific war that shouldn’t have happened. This time out? Well…I’m still not sure. These attacks…the ritual…this is something altogether different.”

  “How can you tell?” Nick frowned.

  “Apples and oranges, my friend,” he smiled wearily. “These recent events are just the prelude to something bigger. The Ninth Embodiment is definitely here.”

  Nick’s eyes widened. He might not be a follower, but he certainly knew what the return of a messiah meant in the grander scheme of things. “You’re kidding.”

  “I can’t prove it otherwise.”

  He was interrupted by a quick rapping at the door, followed by Caren popping her head in. All humor had left her quite some time ago.

  “Hey,” she said. “Sorry to interrupt. Farraway wants all of us up in the counseling office.”

  Poe groaned. “Not another Questioning.”

  Caren shook her head. “Kai and Ashan arrived and they want to see us. All four of us.”

  He glanced over at Nick before saying anything. He had clasped his hands over his head and leaned back in his chair, eyes closed. It could have been frustration, but more than likely it was just plain exhaustion. “Don't look at me, Alec,” he said, half-smiling. “I got me into this, not you.”

  Poe smirked at his brashness and turned to Caren. “We'll be up in fifteen.” She nodded and closed the door again. “Right,” he said, slapping his palms against the table, the Questioning process finally complete. “I'm up for another nicotine break. Care to join me?”

  Nick nodded. “Anywhere's better than here.”

  Nick tapped the security code and slid open the glass doors to the seventh floor patio, and was welcomed by a rush of cool early autumn wind. He exhaled loudly. “Yeah...that's much better.” He stepped to the railing and exhaled again, tension pouring out of him. “I don't know how you can do it, Poe. Those interrogation rooms are just plain fucking hell.”

  Poe cupped his hand and lit a cigarette. “Just like anything else, Nick. You do it long enough it becomes just another part of the job.” Reacting to Nick's frown, he appended his words as he handed him the pack. “Trust me, kid. Things are too chufyo around here to ever get dull. Not a day goes by I don't find myself baffled by Meraladian logic.”

  “They're not very easy to pin down, are they?” Nick said, lighting his own cigarette.

  Poe joined him at the railing. “It's not so much about 'pinning them down' as it is in understanding their flow. You gotta think like them in order to know what they're going on about. How this world manages to understand them at all is a bleeding miracle.”

  “I see,” Nick said, and began waving his hands as he spoke. “That's where the Spirit comes in. They converse more in Spirit than they do in this reality.”

  Poe smirked. This kid's as green as the Wilderlands.

&n
bsp; “Err...close, but not quite. It's not so much conversing as sensing. Take the weather, for instance. By just picking up what you see and feel, what would you say it's going to do, best guess?”

  Nick frowned for a second before answering. “Well, it's cloudy but not dark...kind of windy, coming from the south, a little stronger than usual, even for us up on the seventh floor. Best guess — and no, I didn't catch the forecast today — I'd say that it might rain later on tonight. Why do you ask?”

  Poe flicked ash over the railing. “That's about normal for human sensing. We pretty much just file it under evolutionary instinct and sensitivity, with a bit of short-term past experience. Now, Meraladians? About ten times as strong. They would have answered my question by stating that the rain will probably go inland and miss the city entirely, and if the city gets it, it’ll probably be a light drizzle lasting about a half hour, if anything. Their sensing includes basic emotional reactions in others through energy waves. A man can have a stone face and an aloof attitude, but a Meraladian can tell how he's feeling without hearing a word. Despite our relations, their own evolution is quite a few millennia older than ours.”

  “Okay,” he said. “And the Mendaihu?”

  Poe thought back to his meeting up at the Crest and felt the remnants of his experience beyond the lifted Veil. It swirled in the back of his mind, just out of the sharp focus of his consciousness, leaving only the blurred shape of the Sprawl. The emotional image, the intensity of what he'd seen, however, had imprinted itself clearly across his spirit, something he would never forget.

  “The Mendaihu...” he trailed off, looking east. The Mirades Tower rose majestically in the distance. He shivered, a sudden unease washing over him. “I really couldn't tell you, Nick, but my best approximation would be at least fifty times as strong as ours. At least. Probably more. And that's for all Mendaihu, both human and Meraladian.”

  Nick whistled. “Damn.”

  Poe knew the inevitable question lay unspoken in Nick's mind: what about the Shenaihu? It was assumed their sensing abilities must be in the same range as the Mendaihu. How else could everything that happened today make sense otherwise? His mind replayed the image of the floor of the church, covered in blood and glass, and dozens of Mendaihu lying either dead or severely injured in between the overturned pews. Special Forces had gone in after it was all over and captured it all on digital. Poe had watched as much footage as he could take, but he could not yet will himself to see that carnage from the Shenaihu point of view. It was just too visceral.

  “Nick —” Poe began.

  “Agent Poe,” the young officer interrupted. He pushed himself off the railing and stood straight at attention towards him. “Listen, I know I'm the brat here. You, Agents Johnson and Kennedy are all older than me, with a lot more experience not only on the ARU, but also around the Sprawl in general. I'm proud to be working with the three of you.”

  Poe winced. “Nick, I —”

  “Let me finish, please. I need to say this. I'm sure it's been on your mind as well. Now, in spite of me being new here, regardless of the fact that I've worked with you all for close to two years now, I'm aware that I may not know nearly as much about the Mendaihu…and I know I don’t have any of the special abilities the three of you have. But that doesn't stop me. I covered most of South City for four years before I came here. Being everything from a glorified bodyguard for some CEO to a security mediator between five different Foundation worlds for a major business deal, there's one thing I understand more than anything else. And that's fear.”

  He flicked ash from his cigarette and looked away. “I know how it feels, Poe. Do you know what it's like to understand that the peace agreements outlined in the CNF Mahaye-Sirius Treaty treads a very thin line? Any stupid moves and transuniversal commerce goes to shit? Or that the death, however accidental, of a major player in South City can mean irreparable damages both in his or her company and the economy in general? Trust me, Poe. I know fear well.

  “I figured either Caren or yourself would pussyfoot around these attacks when I’m around, but I'll tell you right now that I do not plan to step down. So don’t hold back, because it wouldn’t be fair to any of us.”

  Poe stared at him in blank surprise. “I...uh...okay,” he stammered, unsure how to react to that. “Really,” he started again. “I'm glad you’re on board.”

  Nick nodded, stubbing the cigarette out in an ashtray on a nearby table. He glanced at his watch and then smiled at Poe, an oddly serene expression on his face. “About that time,” he said.

  Poe got the door and let them back in. On the way down to the Counseling office, he had to question himself: who had the better grasp on the situation here?