Chapter 13 Losham
LOSHAM
The excavation report was waiting on Losham's desk when he arrived at his office in the morning. Rami had been at the site since sunrise to get it, which Losham appreciated.
Sitting in the high-backed chair behind the desk that had belonged to his father, he read it carefully. It was important not to get carried away by empty assurances of progress, and to evaluate the numbers realistically.
It looked promising, which was both good and bad news. Good, because he was getting closer to Navuh's buried treasures, and bad because it seemed that the only things of value hidden there were five coffins made to look like large chests, containing the bodies of five immortals in stasis.
The team had broken through the second layer of reinforced concrete, which was days ahead of schedule, and the ground-penetrating radar was showing a void approximately four meters below their current position, which was about two meters below the floor of the basement.
It matched what he'd been told on the phone by the clan's compeller about the chamber Navuh had supposedly built beneath the enclosure.
According to the compeller, that chamber held coffin-like chests containing five clan members in stasis.
Losham placed the report on the desk and steepled his fingers.
Four meters. At the current rate of careful progress that the compeller had demanded be powered only by the hands of humans, they would reach it within the week.
The question that had been nagging at him since the first phone call resurfaced was why his father had gone to such extraordinary lengths to hide a handful of enemy bodies?
A glass enclosure in his basement, filled with sand, climate-controlled, sealed, and rigged with booby traps destructive enough to collapse an entire section of the mansion.
Obviously, he had been protecting something he considered extremely valuable.
The question was, who were the immortals whose bodies were in stasis in those chests, and what made them so valuable.
The clan's spokesperson, the one whose identity Losham still did not know, had said that Navuh planned to use the bodies as leverage, which implied that those bodies were not of random clan members.
They had to be important to the goddess.
Losham needed more information.
The compeller and the leader on those calls were careful, revealing only what served their purposes and nothing more.
They wanted the chests. They wanted them intact.
They wanted Losham to do the digging and the heavy lifting while they sat comfortably wherever their base was and issued commands through Lokan's phone.
Losham had no choice but to comply because of the compulsion, and because they had dangled his supposed mother in front of him like a lure, and he had bitten.
Rolenna. His mother.
The thought still triggered a slew of complicated emotions that vacillated between longing and fury. They were using the one vulnerability he hadn't known he possessed until Lokan had sent that photograph.
And the worst part was that it was working.
He was over two thousand years old, and he hadn't missed his mother or even thought of her more than once in a long while. It was his natural curiosity that was his main motivation for connecting with her. He wasn't looking for a mother's love. He didn't need it. He was just curious.
Losham pushed the thought aside. Whether sentiment or curiosity, both were a distraction, and he had more pressing concerns than the female who had birthed him.
He needed to go over some of the security feeds like he did each morning, choosing most of them at random. It wasn't the best method of keeping tabs on what was happening on the island, but it was better than nothing.
The one he checked each time, though, was the external surveillance of the laboratory.
Four cameras were covering the building's front door, the path leading to it, and the courtyard where the guards rotated their shifts.
The internal cameras had been turned off to keep his brothers from learning about the human enhancement research he had ordered.
It hadn't been an easy decision to give up on keeping tabs on the lab, but it had been necessary.
He pulled up the time-stamped logs from the past seventy-two hours and began reviewing the footage at high speed.
The first anomaly was from two nights ago.
The external camera covering the lab's main entrance showed Dimitri leaving the lab shortly after dark, which wasn't surprising on its own, but then all eight of Dave converged on the scientist, and the nine of them started a leisurely walk, with Number One keeping pace with Dimitri and the other seven following close behind.
They returned from their stroll more than an hour later and parted ways at the lab door, with Dimitri going in and the Eight heading in the direction of the mansion.
The next day, Dave came in for his enhancement injections, which should have taken no more than fifteen minutes based on previous visits, but this time the visit lasted much longer.
What were they talking about?
And more importantly, why?
Losham was not paranoid like his father, and he didn't jump to conclusions, but he didn't ignore patterns either, and the pattern here was unmistakable.
Dave was developing a relationship with the scientists that went beyond the clinical.
The question was whether this relationship was benign or dangerous.
The eight who were Dave were the most powerful entity on the island. The compulsion ability of the hive mind was not in Navuh's league, but it was formidable enough to control any person or group of people Dave targeted.
It was true that the enhancement drugs that Dimitri administered were the only thing keeping Dave's merged consciousness stable, which meant that Dave had a vested interest in keeping the scientists alive and functional, but vested interest and friendship were different things.
He wished he had better intel on what was going on between Dave and Dimitri.
The disadvantage of having removed the internal surveillance was that he had no idea what was going on in that lab. The advantage was that neither did his brothers, and given that the human enhancement research was his most closely guarded secret, the trade-off was worth it.
Kolhood was already circling.
The confrontation over the harbor killings was just the beginning.
If his brothers learned that Losham was developing a formula to enhance humans, the fallout would be catastrophic.
The Brotherhood's entire identity was built on immortal supremacy.
The idea that humans could be elevated to match them would be seen as heresy, not innovation.
The cameras had to stay off. Whatever Dave and the scientists were discussing in that lab, Losham would have to find out the old-fashioned way.
He summoned Dave.
Number One arrived alone, which was itself noteworthy. Dave typically moved as a unit. Sending a single body was either a gesture of casualness or a calculated signal that this was an informal meeting.
Losham suspected it was calculated.
Everything about Dave was calculated.
"Please, take a seat," he said, gesturing to the chair opposite his desk.
Number One did as he was instructed, his expression impassive as always, almost statue-like, or rather robotic.
"I have been reviewing the external surveillance footage," Losham said. He saw no reason for beating around the bush. Dave was his subordinate. Not the other way around.
"We are aware," Number One said.
"You visited the laboratory two nights ago and went for a walk with the younger scientist."
"Yes, we did."
Losham waited for an explanation.
None came.
Number One sat with his hands resting on his knees, his expression as blank as an unpainted wall.
"Tell me about your developing relationship with the scientist," Losham said.
Number One's head tilted a fraction. "What specifically would you like to know?"
"I would like to know why you are spending time with Dimitri outside the context of your medical treatment. The injections require fifteen minutes. You are staying for an hour, and you are going on walks with your care provider."
"One walk."
Another silence. Losham was beginning to understand that Dave's silences were a strategy in themselves, forcing him to fill the gap and reveal more of his thinking.
It was a technique Losham recognized because he used it himself, but Dave could have just thralled the information out of him. He didn't need to employ such tricks.
"I just wish to understand the relationship," he said. "I find it odd."
"We are looking after our interests." Number One looked him straight in the eyes.
"The scientists are crucial to our survival.
Without the enhancement drugs, our merged consciousness destabilizes.
Without Dimitri and Petrov, there is no one on this island capable of producing those drugs.
Our existence depends on their continued work and their continued willingness to perform it. "
"Their willingness is not optional. They work because they have been told to work."
"That is a limited understanding of human motivation.
" Number One's expression didn't change, but there was something in the cadence of his words that suggested he was choosing them with care.
"Dimitri and Petrov work because they have no choice.
But the quality of their work, the creativity, the problem-solving, the insights that turn adequate research into exceptional results, those things cannot be forced or compelled.
Those come from investment. From engagement.
From caring about what they are doing and who they are doing it for. "
Losham leaned back in his chair. "Go on."
"We treat them with respect. We talk with them. We try to be friendly. Not because we have a hidden agenda, but because we came to understand a fundamental truth about human nature. People will do far more for those they care about than for those they fear."
The words impacted him more than he'd expected.
He turned them over in his mind, examining them for deception, for the subtle misdirection that a being of Dave's intelligence was capable of. But the statement was not deceptive. It was factual, and Losham was old enough and experienced enough to accept it as such.
His father had ruled through fear. For thousands of years, Navuh had maintained control over the Brotherhood through the sheer force of his compulsion ability and the threat of cruel punishment for disobedience.
It had worked. Things got done under Navuh's leadership.
Orders were followed. Campaigns were executed.
The machinery of the Brotherhood had functioned with brutal efficiency for millennia, oiled by terror and maintained by the absolute certainty that failure would be met with severe consequences.
There was something to be said for that approach. There was a lot to be said for it, in fact. Fear was reliable. Fear was immediate. Fear did not require relationship-building or emotional investment or nighttime walks along perimeter paths. And the results spoke for themselves.
Navuh had held the Brotherhood together for five thousand years.
But fear had limitations that Losham was discovering firsthand.
He was not Navuh. He did not possess his father's overwhelming compulsion ability, his millennia of accumulated authority, or the near-mythical reputation that had made disobedience feel not just dangerous but unthinkable.
Losham had to develop his own way. A leadership style that was authentically his, not an imitation of his father's.
Losham knew his strengths. He was patient, observant, and he was a strategic thinker.
He had the ability to see six moves ahead while his brothers were still arguing about the first. Those were not Navuh's strengths.
Navuh had been a hammer. Losham needed to be a scalpel.
But even a scalpel needed force behind it.
"An interesting perspective," Losham said. "Thank you for sharing it with me. You may go now."