Although it was not showing as much as it did with the Watcher, Sam and Sarah knew that the Teller was going through some of the same torment as what Nathan had been experiencing. His stance was shaky and his face was drawn.
“His circuit?” Sam objected. “He can barely walk. How do you expect him to complete his circuit?”
“It will definitely take him longer than usual, but he’ll manage. The compulsion will help him force his way through any pain or discomfort, and I reinforced it when we were talking,” Francis countered.
“Did you want me to see what I can do to help you,” Sarah offered. “It won’t be much, but it may improve things a little for you.”
“I don’t think that there will be time for that, Sarah, but I appreciate the offer,” Francis stated. The three of them watched as Nathan returned, moving with great difficulty, and made his way out of the front door. He did not look at any of them as he passed through the room, grimacing as he went.
After a few moments had passed, Sam turned to face Francis.
“So what did you tell him?” he asked.
“Well, to sum it up, I shared with him something that maybe I should have shared with you sooner, but I was afraid of the consequences. Now that this Elliot of yours is here, there’s no avoiding it anymore. I told Nathan that he was being used by the people that abandoned us here – that they wanted to keep tabs on all of us on Fervor, but for their own safety, they decided it was best to observe from afar. As long as he is a Watcher, anytime he talks to us without the proper walls, and anytime he looks at us, with the way that we are changing, or looks at Elliot, there’s the risk that one of the scholars will learn what’s going on here. For our sake, he’s going to have to keep his walls up the best that he can when he talks to us – no more open conversations with him anymore, and he will try to avoid looking at us if at all possible. He should even avoid looking at his own reflection, if he can.”
“Oh, poor Nathan,” Sarah murmured, distressed at his plight. “It will be like he is blind by choice and isolated, too. He’ll be miserable.”
“No, he won’t,” Francis insisted, allowing himself to sink to the floor as sweat beaded across his face. “He’ll be doing that to protect us, and as a Watcher, protecting us is as much a compulsion as following his circuit. He might feel a little lonely, but as long as we all make an effort to keep in touch with him behind closed doors, and make sure that he is kept abreast of everything that is going on in a way that the scholars can’t see, he’ll get by. It will only be temporary, I hope, until we sort things out with your technician friend.”
Sarah could not resist the urge to help their Teller any longer. She darted forward in a slightly clumsy manner and began looking for any relief that she might be able to bring him.
“You don’t have to be so stoic,” she chided.
Sam recognized that Francis did welcome her soothing touch, and that it was his own reaction to the contact that he was worried about. The responses from the Teller’s body were unpredictable at the moment because of the withdrawal of the stasis, and far beyond his control. If there was one thing that Sam could define as a solid trait when describing Francis, it would be the fact that he felt the need to maintain a certain level of control. He was not displaying it as outwardly as Nathan had been, but these changes were proving to be as hard on Francis, in a different way, as they were on the Watcher.
“What did you mean when you said that they chose to observe us from afar for their own safety?” Sam demanded.
“Understand, I don’t know that much more than you do, Sam,” Francis remarked. “They only told us things that they thought were relevant to us as Tellers. They did want us to watch out for some dangerous behaviour. Apparently, one of the reasons they chose to try this with children in the first place is because when they had attempted this on a smaller scale in the past, with both children and adults on separate occasions, the children responded much better, and there were fewer problems. With the adults...supposedly, they could not adapt to being introduced abruptly to the connection properly. Some of them went insane, and the situation became violent. I was instructed to watch for that in all of you. They rarely saw similar effects in the children, and only the older ones, but they had been working with very small samples. It was still a possibility.”
“And that was the reason for the stasis then. They were worried what would happen when we became adults,” Sarah interjected, glancing up from her attempts to fix Francis. She had done what she could for the moment, and it had not helped the Teller anymore than it had Nathan. Sam noticed she seemed to be persisting with Francis, however, reaching for something more, when she had been willing to concede defeat fairly quickly with Nathan.
“But Elliot was worried about what would happen when the stasis came down, and I got the impression that they wouldn’t be able to maintain it forever,” Sam added. “Like the longer that it was up, the harder it would be on us when they finally removed it. It has only been five years, and look at what Nathan was going through. They didn’t really think things through, did they, Francis? We were just lab rats to them. They wanted to see if they could make this work, but they didn’t really care what the implications would be for us afterwards. How long were they planning to keep this going? What were they intending to do with us when all of this was over?”
“I don’t know,” the Teller admitted reluctantly. “I told you, they didn’t share as much with me as you all seem to think that they did. I really have no idea why they were doing this, other than they wanted to test the connection on a larger scale. Maybe your Elliot can tell us more. He seems to have more clues about what exactly is going on.”
Francis paused and looked at Sarah, who was still fussing over him, with a frown. He pushed her away gently. “That’s enough of that. Time’s the only thing that’s going to sort the rest of this out. Save your efforts for Fiona. I’m sure that she will need your help soon enough.”
Sam was not sure why, but he could see that Sarah was not satisfied with leaving things at that. She had been prepared to admit defeat with Nathan after limited success, but there was something else bothering her as far as Francis was concerned. Of course, now that the Teller had actually directed her to stop, there was nothing that she could do about it other than obey.
Deciding that he had more pressing matters to deal with, Sam instead decided to take advantage of the fact that Francis was being forthcoming, and ask him more questions.
“What about the problems that we had with our senses, the ones that are gone now thanks to the Languorite? Can you explain those?”
Francis was in the process of shrugging, and claiming ignorance in this, too, when there was a terrible shriek that rang through both the house and their heads, filled with fear and pain. Fiona had always been the worst of them all when it came to controlling her thoughts and restricting her responses. She was the most likely of the five to push without focus or concern as to who would be hearing what she was saying or how loud and disruptive she was being within the connection. That had worked in their favour as far as attracting Elliot’s attention was concerned, but it was seriously threatening to expose them all at the moment. Francis leapt on this immediately.
“Quiet!” he commanded her harshly. “Get a hold of yourself! Do you want to give us away?” Fiona’s frantic cries instantly changed to subdued whimpers.
“Francis...please,” Sarah pleaded. “Go a little easier on her. She’s going through something similar to what you and Nathan are, and we’ve all seen how she has a lower pain threshold than you two.” She stood and was headed for Fiona’s door when there was a second disturbance as a now familiar figure appeared in Sarah’s doorway.
“Loud...it’s so loud... make it stop...make it stop.”
Elliot stood swaying at the entrance to Sarah’s room, clutching at his head. His discomfort was even greater than Fiona’s, if that were possible. Sam realized what was happening. Until Elliot had made the trip to Fervor, he had on
ly been exposed to the connection from a great distance where he could hear those who were strongest, such as Sarah, or the occasional outburst from those who gave exaggerated pushes without any control, like Fiona. Even though the connection was much quieter than it was when Sam had first been introduced to it, it was still proving to be very troublesome for the man. Francis had already explained the kind of risks such exposure could pose to mature adults, even a weak latent such as Elliot.
Sam knew that he had to act fast. He remembered how he had put up blocks for Fiona, the time that her extreme reaction had led Elliot to them. He wondered if he could do that again, but for Elliot instead of Fiona this time. It was worth a try if it would allow their technician friend to preserve his sanity. They still needed him in more ways than one, if they ever hoped to escape from Fervor and from the scrutiny of the scholars.
Sam threw up his walls around Elliot, giving the man a sense of reprieve. It was only a temporary measure, but Sam was depending on Francis to be able to give Elliot enough instruction for him to erect walls of his own in the interim, even if they would be a little flimsy. How strong they were would not matter that much as long as no one tried to push through them, and even if someone did, if they used sufficient restraint then they would not overpower the technician in the process.
Elliot gazed at Sam with his eyes filled with gratitude. The man had been exposed to a much smaller, much weaker version of the connection before, but he had never been taught to block others out, and had been completely unprepared for the overwhelming rush and chaos when he had first come into range of Fervor’s connection. That was what had caused him to crash his hover, and not the storm. Sam could pick this up from all of Elliot’s surface thoughts while he was sheltered within Sam’s walls.
The Finder’s rescue efforts had come just in time. Elliot’s thoughts were horribly tangled, like he had been trapped in some terrifying nightmare that he could not escape. There was an inflexibility to the technician’s mind that hadn’t allowed Elliot to adapt when confronted with something that seemed far beyond his comprehension. Children’s minds were more like uncongealed gelatin, willing to shift and flow as necessary. It was already assumed that there were things that they might not understand and that they might have to accept at face value. Elliot’s mature mind, on the other hand, was searching for something concrete, something well-defined within the connection, and he had not been able to find it. That was the primary cause of his psychological distress.
While Sam and Francis struggled with Elliot, trying to bring his walls up to minimal standards, Sarah stood in front of Fiona’s locked door, begging the young woman to let her in. Sam could follow their conversation on a basic level, although most of his attention was required to keep his walls up around Elliot.
“Maybe I can help. I helped Nathan and Francis a little. It’s not as bad as it seems, Fiona. The stasis is down, and your body is just trying to catch up to where it should be,” the Fixer said, trying to reassure her. “Let me in, please. We’re all going through our own issues at the moment.”
“You have no idea,” Fiona moaned quietly. “I’m not coming out of here ever. It’s awful. I’m a complete mess. I don’t want Nathan seeing me like this.”
“Fiona, be reasonable. You know that we can’t make anything work around here without you,” Sarah sighed, not sure why the Keeper was so reluctant to let her in. She didn’t want to resort to having Francis order Fiona to unlock her door. That would just aggravate an already unhealthy situation. “Besides, Nathan more than likely won’t be seeing anything. He’s under strict orders from Francis to try to avoid looking at any of us, and he’s not supposed to make contact with us without keeping solid walls up.”
“What?” Fiona protested. She wanted to voice her annoyance loudly, but she was still subject to Francis’s earlier command. “Now he’s messing with Nathan’s head? Why that weasely, good-for-nothing, pain in the...”
“Don’t be like that, Fiona,” the Fixer chastised. “It was necessary, for Elliot’s sake – and therefore for our sake, too. Just open the door. Let me come in. Sam and Francis won’t see anything, I promise. They are too busy with Elliot.”
“Elliot?” the Keeper sniffled. “Did you finish fixing him? Is he okay? Can we talk to him?”
Sarah welcomed the distraction as far as negating Fiona’s outcry against the Teller, but it still had not assisted her any at getting through the locked door.
“I finished doing what I can for him, but he’s not okay – not yet, anyway. Sam and Francis are helping him to set up walls. There’s a problem with introducing adults to the connection. Elliot found that out the hard way. Francis said that that was why the stasis was in place to begin with. He says...” But Fiona didn’t allow her to finish the thought.
“Oh, so now he’s finally talking, now that we are buried up to our necks in steaming manure. First Royce, and now this. This knowledge would have been much more useful to us ahead of time. He thinks he’s going to win my favour by offering us information that we were in the process of learning anyway? How does that prove anything?”
“That’s not fair,” Sarah contested. “I told you we needed to let him in on what was going on sooner, but you wouldn’t listen. You claimed he wasn’t trustworthy.”
“He isn’t,” Fiona stated bluntly.
The argument between the Fixer and the Keeper was proving to be a greater distraction than Sam had anticipated, and he felt his walls slipping. He glanced over at Francis with concern. The Teller was also having trouble concentrating with the two girls bickering in the background.
“Enough!” Francis barked, and everything went silent. It stayed that way until Francis had made sufficient progress that he felt comfortable testing Elliot’s ability with what he had just been taught. Sam lowered his walls, and everything seemed to be functioning well enough that Elliot appeared to be no longer at risk.
“Let me talk to Fiona,” he thought softly at Sam and Francis, who had maintained their link with him in case they had needed to jump in for him again. “This would be a lot simpler if I was a woman. While I know what she is faced with in theory, I haven’t experienced it myself. Still, I think I can offer her some solace if she’s willing to hear me out.”
Sam was amazed at how faint Elliot still was in the connection, even though he had been properly fixed by Sarah and he was sitting there in front of them in person. It was almost as though he were a ghost instead of a real being. Sam felt like reaching out and touching the man just to make sure that he was actually there and not some sort of illusion sent by the scholars to trick them.
Francis hunched his shoulders and shot a quick look at her door.
“You are free to do as you please if you can get her to listen. I think they gave us the most stubborn Keeper on all of Fervor.”
“She’s frightened. That much I can understand. What they did to you is so wrong. And what they did to your parents...” Elliot hesitated, and Sam could tell that this statement was directed at Francis and not himself. “We have an awful lot to discuss, and I’ll tell you everything that I know, I promise you that, but this will be a lot for all of you to digest, probably best handled in smaller doses. And then there’s the issue of my hover, not to mention the fact that if they picked up on anything unusual from your Watcher, this could be over before it has barely had a chance to begin.”
“What about my parents?” Sam asked.
Elliot gave him a look that the boy knew could only mean that he was treading in places where the technician was not prepared to go just yet.
“That will have to wait,” Elliot sighed, looking very uncomfortable. “I will have an awful lot to explain before we get to that. It could get – awkward.” Sam wasn’t sure that he wanted to know what Elliot meant by that.
“It’s worst than that,” Francis confessed. “We had problems with our Control. I had to report him. I would have refrained if I had had any idea what these three were up to, but they left me in the dark. I do
n’t know what the scholars will be doing to respond to that. It wasn’t a problem that they had been anticipating.”
“But you told Royce that they might be sending someone to get him. You didn’t know?” Sam said, surprised.
“It was a possibility. It still is, and if they send someone to replace him, or come in to investigate our house-family as a result...well, let’s just say that if Elliot here has any specific plans, we can’t allow for any delays. The longer we let things go, the more likely we could be facing another kind of trouble,” the Teller replied.
Sam had a feeling that when Francis was saying “we”, the emphasis was more on himself. He was the one who was supposed to uphold the Directives in intent as well as in what was written. If they were caught, Francis would be the one taking the fall and bearing the brunt of any punishment, along with Elliot.
“Well, I can’t accomplish what I need to if Fiona won’t come out of her room,” the technician assured them. “Let me see what I can do.”
He approached her door, standing next to Sarah and spoke to her quietly, not making use of the connection. That in itself seemed to encourage the young woman, and moments later Fiona allowed entry to Elliot and Sarah, locking the door once more after them.
Sam watched Francis stare at the door for a few moments before he wandered away again, hissing in pain. He wished the Teller were not such an enigma, and he would have traded his greatest find to know what Francis was thinking at that moment.
Challenges
Fiona did spend a fair amount of time speaking with Elliot and Sarah in her room, but she continued to refuse to come out and put her walls up to everyone else. She agreed that she would come out eventually, when she was feeling more at ease with everything that had happened, but at the moment she was still in shock and in pain, and would rather suffer alone than face her insecurities.
Sam did feel bad for the Keeper. She had never handled any changes well, and this one added insult to injury. Nevertheless, he could not imagine that things were as bad as Fiona was making them out to be. Not that he would know for sure. Sarah would not talk about it to Sam, respecting Fiona’s wishes.
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