by Jon Chaisson
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Alien Relations Unit, Branden Hill HQ
“Too busy this morning,” Poe mumbled, more to himself than to Caren. He attempted to leave the curb and pull into traffic in what felt like slow motion, stopping and starting and getting nowhere. She watched him look over his shoulder and out the open window, watching for an opening in the steady stream of cars. She could sense the tension welling up between his shoulders and in his hands as he gripped the wheel. She tried to sense his emotions for something deeper, but found nothing. As usual, they were well buried and kept far away from everyone.
“Didn’t get much sleep last night?” she asked.
“Huh?” He glanced at her, distracted by the cars speeding by. “Oh — uh, yeah. I’m only a few blocks from St. Patrick’s as it is. Just couldn’t relax.”
“I’m surprised they let you stay there, considering the proximity.” With a sharp pull at the wheel and a jab at the accelerator, Poe’s car lurched quickly and awkwardly into the stream of traffic. Caren grabbed at the door handle and swayed in her seat. She was tempted to complain but let it go.
“I was just outside the zone,” he said with a hint of annoyance. “The next cross street is the farthest we can go. Which means a slight detour to work this morning. Oh, that reminds me: we’re meeting Kai and Ashan over at Yoshi’s Diner after we punch in.”
“Oh?” She felt a quick pang of excitement. “Have they found something?”
“You know…” Poe trailed off, and dug into his inside jacket pocket. He pulled out his cigarette pack and pulled one out with his teeth. “I, um...you know, I’m not sure. I actually called this meeting myself. We’re not getting anywhere looking for Nehalé by using the normal routes.” He lit the cigarette and forced a plume of smoke out the open window. “I believe we’re looking at this from the wrong angle.”
Caren frowned at him, confused at his remark. She unreeled a thin strand towards him to read what he might be thinking…and suddenly stopped, realizing what she was doing. A Mendaihu trait, she thought, with a sudden burst of misplaced pride. Mendaihu…Denni and I are Mendaihu. Turning to him again, she reached out again…and felt determination. He’d gotten a bead on an intriguing idea and he wasn’t about to let anything distract him from it.
“Wrong angle?” she said. “The guy nearly brainwashed the entire Main Street Sector, Poe. How wrong can it be?”
He grinned at the off-color joke. “Yeah, he did do that, didn’t he? But the reason for it was not an offensive strike against the Shenaihu…”
“I think we’ve figured that out already,” she interjected.
“…but it wasn’t necessarily a defensive move either. It was literally a wake-up call.” He paused, taking another drag. “And have you noticed that Kai and Ashan haven’t said anything about finding Nehalé yet?”
She waved a flat hand at him. “Wait a minute. Don’t change the subject, Alec. What do you mean, a wake-up call? You mean the awakening ritual?”
“Yes, Caren, I do mean the Awakening Ritual, capital letters. The Awakening of the One of All Sacred. I’m convinced the Ninth is here now.” Anger emanated from Poe’s aura, though not directed at her. “A sequence, really. Part of a bigger, grander plan involving the One. I aim to have Kai and her brother tell me what that plan might be.”
Goddess…was he thinking the worst possible outcome? “A sequence? Poe, you can’t –”
He interrupted her, his anger barely held back. “For all intents and purposes, Caren, I am seeing it as such, despite what Farraway and everyone else has said. We can’t rule it out.”
She shivered; his aura had radiated such negativity it pushed against her own defenses…she’d never seen him this furious. “I know that, Alec,” she pushed back, perhaps a bit harsher than necessary. “No need to force it down my throat. You think I haven’t thought that myself?” She turned away and stared out the passenger window to cool off. Damn him…why was he letting his anger get the best of him so much lately? And the most frustrating thing was that he was right. She’d been leaning towards another Embodiment as well, but she dared not put it on the table just yet. It would just make everything more confusing. And more to the point, with all those people out there, newly awakened, including herself and her sister…she didn’t want to think about it right now.
He broke the silence a minute later with a loud sigh of resignation. “I’m just saying…” he said, his voice much quieter. “It’s like I said, this is bordering on a Crimson-Null Foundation case, Caren. The bigger this gets, the more there’s a chance Jack Priestley or some other CNF member is going to take this case from under us.”
“I know,” she said.
“Who knows what would happen once they got a hold of it. Added to the fact that both you and I have some kind of tie to this. Take it away, and it would kill us emotionally and spiritually.”
She hid a shiver. “That’s exactly what I was thinking, Poe.”
“Yeah, well…”
They stayed quiet for a long while after that, each annoyed for their own reasons. Poe snuffed out the cigarette and turned the car onto a side street going east, and then caught Krieger Avenue going south, taking the more circuitous route to ARU Headquarters. During the early part of the day the thoroughfares of Bridgetown somehow looked cleaner and safer, even on an overcast day like today, as if each citizen looked out for those around them. Caren felt the guarded peace that hung above the city like a vast dome. It felt like a city preparing for a war that would be hard won, but won nonetheless.
“Sorry,” she said quietly, after they had passed the McCleever Street intersection, their halfway point. “Didn’t mean to blow up on you back there.”
“That’s okay,” Poe said, giving her a smirk. “I started it.”
She laughed and punched him on the arm. “Jerk! I’m serious. Listen, Denni…umm…” She trailed off.
Poe glanced at her for a long moment, then back at the road. “What about her? Something wrong?”
“No, nothing wrong. Just…” She felt stupid for bringing it up, and even more like an idiot for wanting to drop it. “She’s exhibiting signs of Mendaihu sensitivity.”
She was completely surprised by Poe’s lack of response. He glanced at her again, and then back at the road. He had no reaction to that. No surprise, no elation, no concern. Nothing at all. “What?” she frowned. “What’s that look about?”
“How long has it been since it started?” he asked.
“Umm…it may have started last night,” she said. “As far as I know, it started last night…she was sensing voices. I heard them myself later on, after the both of us went to sleep. Don’t know who they were, but they sounded damn familiar.”
Poe paused before answering. “You heard them too?”
“Yeah. Why —” She quickly stopped, covering her mouth with her hand. She cursed inwardly, realizing what she had just done; she had never told him she also had these abilities. She’d never shared any of that with him…she never meant to, having denied herself the truth for so long. He had suspected for a long while that she had inherited these traits from her parents, but had never shown them. Now he knew for certain.
“Poe…” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean —”
“What’s there to be sorry about?” he growled. “So you and Denni have successfully inherited your parents’ traits. Why should you be sorry about that? And it’s certainly nothing to hide, least of all from me.”
Where the hell was that anger coming from? “I’m not sorry about that, Poe,” she said, glaring at him. “To be honest, I’m relieved that it’s finally out in the open, between me and Denni, and between you and me. Knowing that I’ve inherited something so important from my parents is one thing. I’m finally accepting it myself, okay? That’s why I never told you. But now that both Denni and I…Poe, you’ve no idea how good it is to know that.”
P
oe nodded slowly as he turned the car west onto Baird Avenue, at last the home stretch to the ARU Headquarters. She watched him for a second, though not daring to sense anything else from him, lest he know she was doing so. Instead she reached out her hand and laid it on his forearm.
“Look, I’m sorry if this bothers you, Poe,” she said softly. “I never meant to keep it from you like that.”
The corner of his mouth curled up into an uneven smile. He let out a short laugh, and touched her hand. “No,” he said, grinning. “I should apologize for being the bratty kid here. I admit it, Caren. You’re right. Maybe I’m jealous, I don’t know…” He reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes, thought better of it, and placed his hand back on the steering wheel. “Seriously, nyhnd’aladh. I do apologize for that little outburst. I don’t know why I do it…I’ve been way too defensive lately, it’s even bothering me.”
Relieved, she squeezed his arm before letting go. “So…?”
“So I’m thinking…” He glanced in the rearview mirror then at her, before returning to the traffic ahead. ARU lay a half-mile away; she saw its cream-colored polycrete peeking above the other buildings of Branden Hill. “So I’m wondering, that is, about the scope of your abilities. I know it’s all new to you and Denni and everything, but I’m just curious if you’re able to, well. See the city like Ashan and Kai can.”
She let out a quick laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding, Poe. I’m not that good.”
“Actually, I’m not,” he said. “When they stepped into that other reality, however you want to call it…it just felt so damned easy to them, like second nature. I know, they’ve got years of practice and their genes are closer to Meraladhza than ours, but still…how hard can it really be?”
She thought about that question, and why he had asked it. Was he planning something? Or was he merely curious? “I really don’t know. I haven’t tried,” she offered. “I wouldn’t know how. One needs to be tested and trained for it, it’s not something you can pick up overnight. I know that my parents were tested. Their results came up negative — neither of them could step, not without assistance. Except…” Except Dad did jump, she added to herself. Mum couldn’t. Or wouldn’t…? “Except they could do nearly everything else,” she finished. “Soulhealing, reading, hearing, but they couldn’t Lightwalk.”
He nodded, letting that sink in. “Would you be interested in being tested?”
She blinked, surprised that it had never crossed her mind. “I’d have to think about it.”
He hastily amended his question. “I understand if you don’t want to, or if you think Denni…?”
“If I were tested, no question I’d have Denni tested as well,” she said. “It would be a mutual decision. I can’t see a reason why I wouldn’t want to include her.”
Poe nodded quietly, and drove the last few blocks towards the ARU building. Crossing the last intersection, Ormand Street, he stole a glance past Caren, northward towards his own neighborhood. Nearly four miles away, nestled in between the offices of southern McCleever District and Branden Hill’s marketplaces, was St. Patrick’s Church. Caren could see the hurt and the confusion on his face. It went beyond their sometimes barbed words this morning, she knew that much. Something last night bothered him, something beyond the awakening ritual and the church attack. It was something inside him, something so intensely personal it invaded his everyday life, keeping its presence known somewhere in the background and reasserting itself at the most inopportune times. She knew well enough not to try sensing anything from him for the time being; it felt like an invasion of his privacy. All she could do was be patient with him and hope he was in a lighter mood once they met at Yoshi’s up the street.
In the back of her mind, though, she had already made the decision, the one she had made last night as she spoke within to Denni as she slept. She would be tested. She would bring Denni to be tested.
It was too important not to.
“…and here we are,” he said with no emotion as he pulled the car into the front driveway and into the side parking lot. “The wondrous world of the Ay Are Zoo.”
“Yeehaw,” Caren said with an equal lack of excitement. “Punch me in, will you? I’ll be up in a moment. I have something I have to do first.”
“Sure thing,” he said, knowing well enough not to ask.
