Dawnbreaker

by Posey, Jay

  “It might take me a couple of minutes to find it again,” Cass said.

  “Sure,” Finn said. “Take your time. No pressure.”

  Right. Just a friend’s life hanging in the balance. No pressure.

  “Ready?” Finn asked. Cass nodded. For a moment she just stood there, looking down at Swoop still asleep at her feet. She didn’t know why, but she felt strangely embarrassed having anyone watch her while she made the attempt. But this was for Swoop. Not for her. A deep breath. She knelt beside Swoop and placed her hand on his forehead, like she’d done the night before.

  Relax, she told herself. Breathe.

  Cass directed her thoughts to the experience she’d had the night before. Remembered the sensation, the impressions of personality. Hoped she hadn’t just imagined them. The minutes ticked by. And she was painfully aware of the minutes now, far more so than she’d been the first time around. One of the men shifted his stance. Restless, or getting impatient. Losing faith.

  After ten minutes, Cass was no closer to finding Swoop again than she’d been when she started. And with each minute that passed, her confidence drained further and further away. Whatever she’d experienced the night before was gone. She’d lost him.

  Cass opened her eyes and looked at Swoop. He was gone. And the wave of emotion that rolled over her was the same as if he’d died for the first time. No tears, no cries of anguish. Just a cold numbness. Her mind’s initial refusal to accept the reality.

  Mouse crouched down on the other side of Swoop, placed his hand on his fallen friend’s shoulder.

  “It’s OK, Cass,” he said. He kept his eyes on Swoop. “We all knew it was a long shot.”

  Memories broke open, spilled over with no coherence: the first time Cass had met Swoop, when she’d been intimidated by his rough look; the startled expression on his face when he’d accidentally walked in on her changing, and how he’d tripped over himself in his hurry to get back out; his grim determination at the gate of Morningside, with poison in his blood.

  She slid her hand down to the side of his face. So serious. Even asleep, his brow was slightly furrowed, his jaw clenched, as if he was watching something intently or mildly annoyed. He’d never been much of one for smiling. Even less for laughing. It made the few times she’d seen either all the more precious. An image came back to her of the last time she’d heard him laugh. Something Wick had said at Mouse’s expense. She couldn’t even remember what it was now, or why it was so funny at the time. But Swoop had laughed, and the unrestrained fullness of it had surprised her. She smiled in spite of herself, in spite of the moment, remembering that uninhibited burst of laughter from so serious a man.

  And in that instant, she found him again. The connection rushed upon her almost too forcefully for her to control, and there in the midst of the churning datastream, some part of Swoop’s personality swirled. Reflexively, she reached out to him through the ether. And just as before, as she strove to reach Swoop, the connection began to recede.

  “Finn,” she said, “Finn, I need you.”

  Finn came alive, dropped to a knee.

  “Yeah, send it,” Finn said.

  He’d told her to feed him the signal, but in that moment of intensity, Cass wasn’t sure exactly what to send. And the connection was thinning rapidly.

  “I’m losing it!” she said.

  “Gimme something,” Finn said. “Anything!”

  Cass issued a basic connection request to Finn. The datastream wasn’t any less turbulent, but it seemed to be growing smaller in her mind, more distant. Taking Swoop as it went.

  And then it came speeding back towards her, solidified.

  “Got it,” Finn said. “I got it, Cass. I’ll keep it stable.”

  Without the pressure of trying to maintain her connection, Cass felt a release; a sense of calm descended. Patience. A chance to observe. And what she saw in her mind’s eye enthralled her. It was as if she’d made an incision in the skin of the world, peeled back a layer of reality, to see its hidden workings; an electromagnetic bloodflow. To her surprise, it wasn’t as alien as it should have been. Though she experienced it only in her mind, the essence was familiar. Of a kind with something she’d perceived with the eyes the Weir had given her. Not seen, exactly. Cass still didn’t have a way to describe the sensation. But whenever a human accessed the digital, she detected it in a way that felt like seeing. And whatever it was that she could “see” with her modified eyes was a mere shadow of what she now beheld, with Finn’s help. Raw, pure connection. This was the secret world that Wren knew so well.

  The datastream ran wild, a roiling torrent of information, and there, out there in it, like a drowning man fighting to keep his head above water in the raging current, was Swoop. She started to make another grab for him, but an instinct checked her. Once Swoop was out, she didn’t know when she’d get another chance to experience so strong and secure a connection. Cass gave herself a moment to investigate whatever else she could find. And under her careful observation, other details started to emerge. Flickers of emotion. Fear. Anger. Lust. Hunger. Others, like Swoop, trapped and enslaved in the datastream. The Weir. All connected. And Swoop among them.

  Underneath it all, was some sense of Finn. She couldn’t explain it even to herself, but somehow in all of it, and yet separate, floated some essence of the other man. As she bent her mind towards him, a solution unfolded itself to her, an understanding of the digital that had escaped her before. She perceived in her mind how he worked to stabilize the signal, how he supported the connection she had created. At the same time, she saw how faint his... Finn-ness was in that realm of existence; shimmering, refracted, indistinct. As if she were submerged in a swiftly moving river, and he stood on its bank.

  That was enough for her, almost more than she could handle. Cass turned her focus back to Swoop, concentrated on that impression of him. Stretched herself out to him. Thought his name.

  Though there was no representation of their physical bodies, Cass experienced the moment exactly as if Swoop had reached out and grabbed her hand. Sudden contact, a wrenching sensation that threatened to pull her off balance, to drag her forward to him, instead of him out to her. She strained against the force. And then, a release. Swoop came free.

  And with him, something else. A wave of force that dissipated on impact and scattered frost across her nerves; like getting hit in the face with a snowball thrown with murderous intent.

  The sensation was so tangible she actually fell backwards, physically, and sat down hard on the concrete. And behind that initial force, something immense rose up. The current of the datastream swirled around itself, bubbled up, began to take shape; a digital leviathan rising from the deep. Pale tendrils stretched as it rushed towards her. And then–

  –the incision in reality sealed itself, the connection vanished. Finn and Mouse both snapped their attention to her.

  “Cass!” Mouse called. “Are you OK?”

  Cass blinked at the stars of pain and ice-stung synapses. She knew Mouse had said something to her, but she couldn’t make any sense of the words. He came up out of his crouch and started towards her.

  “Cass?” he said. She held up a hand, signaled she was fine.

  “I’m all right,” she mumbled, though the words came out wrong. She looked at Swoop, expecting to see him, with his eyes open and straining against his bindings. Instead, he was laying there perfectly still, just like he’d been when she’d started the process. That didn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t he be back?

  “Did you... did you do that?” Finn asked.

  Cass nodded. The initial daze seemed to be wearing off. Words made sense again. “Swoop. I got him.”

  Mouse and Finn looked at Swoop, then at each other.

  “Didn’t you see it, Finn?” she asked. “Or feel it?”

  “Something happened, yeah,” he answered. “But, uh... I don’t think it was Swoop.”

  “What are you talking about?” Cass asked.

  “I m
ean, maybe you got Swoop too, I don’t know,” Finn said. “But there was something else. Something came up the connection.” He shook his head. “Bad package. And something after. I had to kill the signal before it hit.”

  Cass’s brain still tingled, and when she turned her head she found she was mildly dizzy. Why did her neck hurt?

  “I think maybe it hit anyway,” she said. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Could be,” Finn said. “There were two things. A quick pulse, came out of nowhere. And then after that something big. Something real big. It was moving pretty fast.”

  “What was the big thing?” Mouse asked.

  “No idea,” Finn said. “Nothing good. Didn’t want to wait around to see.”

  “Cass?” Mouse looked to her.

  “It came up with Swoop,” Cass said. She massaged her temples; the external pressure soothed some of the internal freeze. “When I brought him out. Like it was, I don’t know, tied to him or something. Or like...”

  Her subconscious made the connection and spat it out fully formed.

  “A trap.”

  “A trap?” Mouse echoed. “What kind of trap?” He looked first to Cass, then to Finn, then back to Cass again.

  Cass shook her head. It made the ground tilt under her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Something for Wren, I think,” Finn said. Cass looked over at him, saw his eyes had the soft, unfocused look of someone running internal accesses.

  “What do you mean ‘for Wren’?” Cass asked. Even in her fog, she could feel her mind working in the background. “What does it do?”

  “Hard to say exactly,” he continued, “just got a couple of fragments I grabbed. But it’s a custom payload for sure. I don’t think you got hit with the whole thing. Even if you did, though, I’m not sure it would’ve done whatever it was supposed to.”

  Cass’s brain worked on its own, started putting all the pieces together for her. She remembered the apprehension she’d felt the night before, the instinctive warnings she’d ignored. That Asher had selected Swoop for a purpose.

  “Back at Morningside,” Finn said. “That night, when I was helping Wren keep a connection so he could work with that machine. This thing had the same kinda feel to it. Same signature.”

  “Same author,” Cass said.

  “You’re all right now?” Mouse asked.

  Cass nodded. “Yeah.” Her mind seemed to be thawing, even though her equilibrium was off.

  If it had indeed been a trap for Wren, maybe that wasn’t an entirely bad sign. If nothing else, it meant Asher didn’t know where her son was. Her other son. And his trap must have been a shot in the dark. A fallback scenario, just in case. There was no way Asher could have known that they’d come back for Swoop. Unless he’d thought that Wren was capable of Awakening Weir without being near them. As far as Cass knew, she was the only one Wren had ever woken without direct, physical contact, and even then they’d been only a few feet from each other.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe Asher had converted Swoop as bait, thinking Wren would try to Awaken him from some distant location. And here Cass had taken the hit instead, absorbing whatever damage her older son had intended for her youngest. The important question now was what effect did the payload have on her?

  At least part of the answer was obvious. The... thing... that had risen up after the initial impact. Asher himself, or rather, his consciousness. The trap had almost certainly alerted Asher to the fact that she was alive, and maybe had even given up her location. Alive and still close to Morningside. There may have been more to it than that, but it was highly unlikely there was less. She’d still been thinking she’d go off on her own anyway; now she was resolute.

  “All right... well,” Mouse said. “You’ve done what you can for Swoop?”

  “What?” Cass said, distracted. She looked at Mouse, then down at Swoop, who still looked for all the world like he was sleeping peacefully. She’d been so certain. Surely she hadn’t just imagined it all. And yet there he lay, with no apparent change whatsoever.

  Wait. That wasn’t quite true. She’d missed it before, but she saw it now. He was sleeping peacefully, and it was the peacefully that made the difference. The intensity was gone from his face, the brow and jawline relaxed.

  “Yeah, Mouse, he’s good,” Cass said.

  Mouse nodded.

  “Just so we all agree,” Mouse said. “You gave it your try. If I wake him up, and he’s not himself, I’m gonna put him down for good.”

  “He’s back,” Cass said. “I know he is. If you wake him up right now, it’ll be Swoop looking back at you.”

  “I hope so,” Mouse said. “But if it’s not, don’t get in my way.”

  Cass nodded. She was still feeling woozy from whatever had ambushed her. Even if she’d wanted to get in Mouse’s way, she didn’t think it would have been particularly effective.

  Mouse went to his med pack and spent a couple of minutes gathering up the supplies he needed. He returned to Swoop’s side with his med injector in one hand and his sidearm in the other. He knelt down at Swoop’s side, and said something to him, too quietly for Cass to make out. And then, he placed the injector against the side of Swoop’s neck. The device hissed softly. Everyone went still.

  At first, there was no effect. Then after a moment Swoop’s head turned slowly one direction, then back the other just as slowly. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He relaxed, like he’d fallen back asleep.

  And then, without warning, his hands shot up from his waist, and the litter hopped from the force. Swoop’s eyes popped open, wild and electric blue, and he raged violently against his bindings. Mouse slid back like he was on rails, brought his sidearm up as Swoop’s head snapped around from side to side. Swoop was cuffed at the wrists, and the cuffs were secured through the straps on the litter, so there wasn’t much he could do. But that didn’t stop him from trying.

  And then Swoop went still, his eyes on Cass. He blinked and squinted against the early morning light. Looked over at the others.

  “Mouse?” he said. And Cass’s breath escaped in a rush of relief and joy. Mouse slowly lowered his weapon.

  “Swoop?” Mouse said.

  “Somethin’s wrong with my eyes,” he said. Then he looked down at his own body, at the straps around his arms, waist, legs, at his hands bound. Then back up at his companions. “Must’ve been a bad night.”

  Everyone stood stunned for a few seconds, and then launched into a flurry of activity, getting Swoop free of his restraints, hugging him, laughing, crying. After Finn got Swoop’s feet unbound, he popped up and ran over to the wayhouse hatch.

  “She did it!” he called. “She got Swoop! He’s back!”

  Mouse helped Swoop up to a sitting position, despite Swoop’s protests.

  “All right, all right now,” he said, pushing the others off him goodnaturedly. “I ain’t your dog, quit your fussin’.”

  He looked over at Cass, still sitting by him, and their eyes met. For a moment, she wondered if he understood what had happened to him. How he’d been changed. But in that look, she saw it. He understood. Or at least, he knew he was different. It’d probably be a long while before he really understood.

  “Lady Cass,” he said, dipping his head.

  “Swoop.”

  “I knew you’d be back to get me. After the first time,” he said. He looked down at his hands, then back up at her. “Reckon I’m gonna need a few pointers.”

  Cass crawled up to her knees and wrapped her arms around him. He patted her back with one hand, clearly uncomfortable with the show of affection. Definitely back to himself.

  “I don’t know what you did,” he said quietly, “or how. But thank you.”

  “Couldn’t have done it without your help,” she said as she leaned back from him. And when she did, the whole world swam away from her. Swoop’s hands closed tightly on her arms, kept her from falling backwards again.

  “Whoa now,” Swoop said.
<
br />   A moment later, Mouse was there.

  “Easy, Cass,” he said. “Easy now.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, held her steady. Swoop released her and even though Mouse was still holding her, she felt like she was sliding backwards along the shifting ground. She was aware of some commotion going on around her, though it felt muted and distant. At one point, Kit and Wick both appeared, came over to see the miracle of Swoop’s return. Mouse was saying something to Cass again, and again she couldn’t understand the words. A strange flutter rippled across her mind, like a burst of a multitude of voices speaking gibberish, then suddenly silenced.

  “I’m all right, Mouse,” she said, and even she didn’t believe it.

  Mouse had her in his arms now, was laying her back on the concrete with his hand cushioning her head. It seemed harder to breathe than it should have been.

  “What’s going on, Cass?” Mouse said. “Can you tell me?”

  “I just feel...” Cass said. “I feel really tired. Dizzy.”

  “OK,” Mouse said. “Well I need you to stay awake right now, OK? I need you to keep your eyes open.”

  “OK.” And Cass did. She stared up at the sky as it brightened above her. It seemed fitting; day break. A new start. She lay there for a few minutes, while Mouse ran some checks on her, tracked her pulse, shined a light in her eyes. During his evaluation, whatever shadow had come over her seemed to pass again and her head cleared.

  “I’m all right now,” she said. “Really, this time.”

  Mouse looked down at her, obviously not taking her at her word.

  “No, really,” she said. And to prove her point, she sat up under her own power. To her satisfaction, her head didn’t swim when she was upright. The others had moved some distance away, across the courtyard, and were gathered in a knot around Swoop. She hadn’t noticed when they’d done that.

  Mouse ran her through a couple of other tests, and even though she apparently passed them all, he didn’t seem as pleased about it as he should have been. Unsatisfied that he hadn’t diagnosed the problem. He poked and prodded at her a little longer, asked her a few more questions. She told him about the strange headache she’d gotten after her first attempt at freeing Swoop, guessed maybe it was related. Something about the strain of the connection. Wren had never mentioned it hurting him to wake the Weir, but now Cass wondered. Was this how he felt each time?