Model: Scribe (Model Humans Book 2)

by Nix Whittaker

  Aki waved it off and said, “Scribes have secrets within secrets. You might not be even aware of what you know. We have already told the council you have news about the humans but they agreed that since it won’t affect us for years that they will allow it to be kept secret until complete security can be assured.”

  Kaidan added, “There has been no chatter. I was hoping your news would make our rat nervous and make a move but they seem confident about that. No, they are afraid of something you might still say. Aki is right, it could be something you don’t know you know.” They were quiet and Kynaston didn’t bother to add his own thoughts. It was clear Kaidan knew what he was doing.

  Sorcha asked, “Are you going to make me tell you everything I know?” Thinking of her being interrogated like he had been when he was in the Scribes’ custody had his breath catching in his chest.

  Kynaston’s reaction was fierce but he didn’t need to say anything as Kaidan calmly said, “No. if you don’t know what you know is important neither would we.”

  Aki thoughtful, said, “There is a Scribe-Serenity seer in another city. She was the one to point out that Kynaston was free. She might be able to shed some light on your problems. She will need either you or something you own as a focus. We speculate it has to do with entanglement at the atomic level but we don’t try to figure out our powers.”

  “Going to another city might be a good idea. As far as we know this city is the only one that has a leak and Scribe operatives since it is the one closest to Jing.”

  Kynaston said, “I’ll go with you. I can read people’s intentions. It is just a surface scan. It will mean we can know when someone isn’t who they seem. Especially in that moment when they meet you.”

  Sorcha looked thoughtful. “I’d like to know what the seer has to say.”

  Kynaston noticed she didn’t agree with him going with her. He worried that she didn’t see him as someone that could protect her.

  10

  Scribe

  Sorcha placed some clothes in her bag. Aaru had taken her shopping so the clothes were more her style rather than the dresses with the pockets. The pants suited her height in any case.

  Done she slipped out of her room. She stopped when she got to the elevator. Kynaston was waiting for her. He leaned casually against the wall next to the elevator as if he was without a care in the world. Except it was close to midnight.

  When he saw her coming, he picked up his bag and pressed the button for the lift doors to open. She frowned at him. He didn’t seem accusatory of her for trying to leave without him. Instead, he just gave a slight smile as he waited for the doors to open. Together they got onto the elevator.

  He said, “I’m a Serenity. I have powers you might need. Besides, we are going to another Serenity city. They won’t look twice if I am with you.”

  “I… this is my problem. You don’t need to be dragged into it.” She didn’t want to say she knew there was something not right with him and she was concerned being around her and the violence she attracted might trigger something in him.

  “I was watching my sister with her kids today.” Sorcha frowned confused where his mind had wandered to that he had changed the subject so much. He continued before she could ask, “I realised that I’m broken. Well, maybe not broken but I’m a little messed up and seeing my sister with everything she ever wanted is like eating glass. Except I don’t want to be the cruel jerk that tells her I want to leave after all the trouble they went through trying to find me. So your little side trip is my excuse to leave without hurting anyone’s feelings.”

  Sorcha looked at him silently. Amazed that he had shared his feelings with her.

  He added, “I did leave a note. I’m not a complete jerk.” And there was the Kynaston she knew.

  There were guards downstairs but they didn’t stop them when they left. Sorcha had made sure she had directions to the seer and the city she lived in.

  The Seer’s city had been one of the first outposts for the Serenities when they had gone into hiding many years ago when the Scribes had taken over Ardin. They had gone for secrecy rather than practicality and they had made their home inside of a mountain. This penchant for secrecy continued with the ways to travel to the city as it was all underground. There was no way a Scribe satellite would be able to pick up where the city was or people coming or going.

  The city in the fiains was more of a trading post. Visible and obvious, it was a link to all the other Serenity communities who were hiding either in plain sight under the canopy of trees or inside of mountains. Aaru had hinted there was even one under the surface of the water but Sorcha doubted she would ever travel there as she didn’t trust the kupals enough to live under water under one.

  The station to the mountain city was situated inside the city council building so they didn’t bother to hide their movements. Kynaston flashed his computer to the reader at the station. Their ID would be connected to their DNA but she hadn’t been aware that the Serenities used the same ID system that the Scribes used. He must have realised she was confused and said, “I had them put me back into the system and they have their own as well.”

  She glanced down at her wrist. There were plenty of chances for Aaru to add her to the system. It was more a matter of matching her DNA with the records the city already had. It was moments like this that she felt trapped even when she far away from everyone who wanted to trap her.

  The train to the city was like the one that travelled between Jing and the satellite towns. The tunnel though was cut out of the rock and lined with a tunnel of kupal to create a frictionless tube for the train to travel down. There were a few others on the train but they looked half asleep and didn’t paid attention to them as they boarded and settled themselves down in some of the chairs.

  Kynaston shrugged one shoulder and asked, “Pillow?” she shifted closer and leaned against him. It wasn’t the most comfortable position but it was comforting.

  She listened to the sound of the train in the kupal tube. A slight hiss. Leaving the cabin quiet with a soft hush. “My dad used to take me on trips on the train. It was good because it was one of the only time I got his whole attention. My father is usually very busy.”

  Kynaston said, “Yeah, my dad was the same. He married my mother because she came from wealth. I don’t think he thought about having kids beside the fact that he needed them to carry on his prosperity. You could tell he wasn’t interested in kids as he only had the two of us and most Rustic families are massive. They really do take the whole colonisation thing seriously. I know mom would have liked more kids.”

  “So did my mom, but she has Karison disease.” A disease that made it hard to have children. When the scientists had made up their models, they had taken out most of the genetic diseases so most of them were fertile and healthy. But Ardin had a greeting gift for all of them. A few kinds of flu and the Karison disease. It didn’t affect many of the model humans but it was devastating enough that it held a huge stigma. Most people didn’t know that her mother had it. If they did, they would have ostracised her and her father would never have allowed that. Even though Karison was only contagious when you were newly born, they would have kept their daughters away from her mother.

  Her mother had been so scared that Sorcha would catch it when she was born that Sorcha had been put in isolation for over a year. Sorcha didn’t remember it but she knew that it had almost killed her. Babies needed to be held and loved.

  Ironically, it was her mother’s love for her that had almost killed her.

  It had soured the relationship between her mother and father. They rarely spoke at all and her mother mostly lived in one of their fiain houses by a large lake where the affluent went to holiday. Sorcha couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen her mother. Thankfully, when she didn’t add anything more to that Kynaston let the issue drop.

  Kynaston said, “Try to get some sleep. The trip is over an hour and I promise to wake you if anything interesting happens.”


  She asked, “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Yes and no. My brain is not going to let me sleep anytime soon.” She wondered what he was worrying over but decided to give him some space. She closed her eyes but she doubted that she would be able to sleep either but she must have dozed as she woke when the train slowed down to come into the station.

  11

  Serenity

  Kynston sighed when Sorcha moved off his lap. She had slid down to sleep with her head in his lap. His hand smoothing through her hair. She never seemed to notice when he did that and he liked it. That contact he needed to remind himself that he wasn’t a prisoner still.

  He didn’t tell her everything about why he came but the reality was that he was afraid that if she left without him he would somehow become trapped again. He knew it wasn’t realistic and he needed to crack that dependency on her. He wanted a more carnal relationship with her, not a mental one that he thought was probably unhealthy.

  It was early morning when they arrived but there still wasn’t anyone around except the few that had travelled on the train with them.

  The city wasn’t what he expected for something that was subterranean. It had painted and carved high vaulted ceilings.

  There must have been some Rustics with them when they had made their home here. Serenities might have the patience to create something like this but they didn’t have the skills and the workmanship was exquisite with tiny flowers carved in vines along the columns and stars cut into the ceiling above them. It looked like they were in a stage set with fake shrubbery and sky but all of it was carved from the rock instead of made from plastic.

  He didn’t want to seem the bumpkin but he had to marvel alongside Sorcha as they made their way through the city. The streets were wide and well sign posted so it wasn’t hard to find the street the seer lived on.

  When they approached, the door opened before they even knocked. The seer talked but it seemed like she had been having a conversation with someone before they had arrived as she said, “Never mind. You are here now. Hopefully, it isn’t too late.”

  The seer had yellow blonde hair and green eyes. Her skin a dusky brown that suited her. She was younger than he would expect from someone called a seer. She was also well dressed though her home was very modest.

  She waved for them to enter and closed the door behind them. “This room is temperature controlled and even though the rest of the city is pleasant most of the time I can’t stand the damp. It always makes my hair frizz. If I didn’t need the dampening properties that are in these stones, I would have moved years ago but the only other place suitable is that darn fish bowl and if I had to worry about the damp here you can imagine what it would be like there.”

  She motioned them to some seats and placed some glasses of fruit juice next to them.

  Sorcha said, “You are the seer.”

  “Of course, I am. Who else gets up this darn early in the morning? Certainly not me. So of course, I am the seer.”

  She pointed to a bag that was resting by the door, “Don’t forget to take that. I don’t need it anymore.”

  Kynaston focused on the bag. It looked familiar. When he recognised he shot out of his seat to retrieve it. “That is my gym bag.”

  “Yeah, the others picked it up when they pulled that muscular Warrior guy out of the building. Nice place by the way. Too bad your mom had to sell it. Oh wait, she only did that yesterday. You should see her soon. She would have been there earlier but she had to stay for the final sign off. Better that she isn’t in Jing, anyway. Now back to what I was talking about before. Never mind about the assassins.”

  She seemed to be living her life in a non-linear fashion. It was difficult to keep up with her. Sorcha moved forward in her seat and put aside the juice she had been drinking but his focus was still on his gym bag and the memories it held. The life that was so long gone it seemed a whole world away. Sorcha asked, “You don’t think I have to worry about the assassins so you think it was a good idea to come here? I can stay?”

  “Oh no, but it was needed. You need to keep moving until your father can sort out the elements in his government.” The seer flapped her hands and Kynaston forced himself to zip up the bag and bring his attention back to the room.

  “It isn’t his government, he is just a senator.” Sorcha snapped with a voice harsher than was expected after the seer’s words. That had Kynaston studying her to see if he could see what was bothering her.

  The seer flapped a hand to dismiss all that. “The moving is the important part. You can’t stay in one place for very long. I have a proposition for you. I see way too much. As you can probably tell but most of it is impressions. Like when I was looking for you old boy, all I got was a white room.”

  “Yes, that was all my niece got as well.” This sentence seemed to derail the seer’s thoughts as she focussed entirely on him and asked, “What? Your niece?”

  He flushed, embarrassed that he had said anything at all. He had only been listening with half an ear as he had kept his attention on Sorcha and her overreaction to the mention of her father.

  “Ah, my niece drew of picture of me in my cell.”

  The seer regained her equilibrium and waved it off. “Oh, a kid’s drawing, there is nothing to that.” Kynaston wasn’t so sure but the seer was already moving her thoughts on to something else.

  “Well, I have been seeing some images and I can’t put them into a context. I finally figured out where they were originating from but I can’t go and then I had this thought that if you followed the bread crumbs, it would lead to your answer as well.”

  Kynaston asked, “And what is in it for us?”

  The seer must have already known what he was going to say as before he had even finished, she said, “Assassins, deary no assassins. If you keep moving, they won’t catch up with you. Now listen up. You need to go to Rue Mountain. I have no idea what is there but it is important. And yes, there is something there. There isn’t a train that goes direct but there are some Serenity groups that wander the fiains and they should be able to take you. I want to say win. Why win? Who is win? What is win?”

  “Wynn?” Kynaston said thinking of the guy that had rescued them from the fiains.

  The seer beamed. “Yes, that Wynn. Ask him to take you. He will be able to get you where you need to be and you don’t have to worry about him being an assassin. He has had multiple opportunities to take out the people the Scribes want dead and he hasn’t.”

  Kynaston couldn’t argue with that logic. He knew Wynn was friends with Kaidan and if Kaidan trusted him it meant he had access to everyone in Kaidan’s life. If Wynn hadn’t taken advantage of that to throw a spanner in the works then he wasn’t working for the bad guys. Kynaston even had a way to get hold of him.

  Sorcha asked, “Do you know anything else?”

  “Yes. It has nothing to do with the humans coming. I mean why they want you dead. The quest I’m sending you on could be about the humans but I’m not sure. Now you have some breakfast and then you should be on your way. I don’t think you have a lot of time.”

  That would give them time to organise a ride. The seer plopped some food down for them and before Kynaston could ask she also put a hub phone down. The Scribes controlled any calls he could make from his computer as they controlled the satellites but a hub phone went through physically lines and in this case untraceable as they had been put down by the Serenities.

  A quick call to Kaidan had Kynaston talking to Wynn who agreed to meet them and take them to Rue Mountain. He was apparently familiar with the location. He was also closer than expected so they barely had time to finish up their meal before they had to leave the seer.

  The maze of the city was helpfully labelled with symbols on the columns. The seer had remained in her apartment but she had given them directions to an exit that would put them at the base of the mountain. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he forced himself to not look behind him but instead used his Serenity powers. />
  Sorcha said, “Someone is following us.”

  Kynaston gritted his teeth, “I know.” He caught up her hand. He didn’t want to lose her as he forged into a marketplace hoping to lose their shadow. People shifted away from them. Some glanced as he pushed past them. Sorcha kept glancing behind and he yanked on her hand to force her to focus on their escape rather than the one chasing them.

  He kept his senses on the man who must have realised they were trying to lose him and he picked up his speed in order to catch up with them. Kynaston ducked behind a vendor and into a small hole in the wall stall.

  Sorcha said, “He is going to find us.” He pushed her so she was between him and their follower. Their follower pushed into the store. He glanced around looking for them.

  Kynaston caught his arm and slammed a punch into the side of his head. Dazed, the man went to his knees. Kynaston wrapped his hands around the back of his head and yanked his head against his knee. Shoving him over, he caught up Sorcha’s hand and pulled her out of the store.

  The owner yelled after them but he didn’t listen. He took them in and out of several stalls until he was sure the follower didn’t have a partner. Still puffing with exertion, he headed to the exit the seer had told them about.

  12

  Scribe

  The Serenity who had found them in the fiains was waiting next to a vehicle hidden at the base of the mountain. Wynn nodded politely to them and helped her place her gear in the back of the rover.

  Kynaston offered her the front seat but she was still tired and opted for the back where she hoped to get a few moments of sleep. Though if the track they followed was rough, that might be a dream instead. Wynn was a good driver as she managed to sleep.

  It took them a few hours to make it to Wynn’s village. It would take them another day to get to the mountain. Wynn’s village was hidden in the trees and elevated to avoid creatures like mako cats and quadradeer. There was no kupal.