20. COLDIS
20
COLDIS
Protector Motono led them to the elevator past wall paintings labeled “Year One” and “Year Two.” Col spotted vookas lizards and too many bugs, clearly the Year Twos had studied them in preparation for the art. The Year Ones seemed to have taken their inspiration from the wilderness display Hyran had led Col through on their way here.
Hyran leaned over to Col. “This is tradition. Year One is on the left, and Year Two on the right. All cohorts work together to do these and take scans home, then it’s painted over and redone the next year.”
“What did you paint?”
“Hmm. In Year One, we decided to do food. I think I spent most of the time on fire berries. And for Year Two, we had bots. That was when my arm was broken, so I worked on the background.” He mimed the awkward movement for Col, arm held stiff and at an uncomfortable angle.
“The poor background,” Col said, catching Hyran’s smile and returning it.
“Protector Mana is on the third floor,” Motono said and motioned for them to get on the elevator ahead of her.
The third floor wasn’t a practical choice, but knowing visitors would have to take elevators or the stairs certainly gave Protector Mana some extra time and added import to her position. It was a way of doing things Col could respect.
As they got into the elevator and left the painted walls of the first floor behind them, Col tried imagining Hyran as a child. With his own team, it was natural because they had all grown up together, even if Vin had joined them later. But they had known each other for a long time.
I know nothing about what Hyran was like. Even less than I know about Orrey.
“You must have many memories of this place,” Col said while the elevator went up. The building AI had chosen to show them a multiple-choice question on the wall. What was the name of Wilan’s first Conduit? Col hit the second answer, Avan, just to see the dancing mascot character, a red triangle and a blue circle, show off a little victory dance.
“Outside of the broken arm, school was fun. That’s why I did extra schooling. Was it the same for you?”
Col glanced at the first rank, but she was studiously ignoring them. On top of that, at a second look, she had dark rings under her eyes, speaking to just how much these protectors had been doing.
“I…because of my background, I was always curious. I wanted to know about things. And working with data sets—deepening my math skills—I really wanted that. Besides, Vin was younger, and I didn’t want us to have to split up. You can work your way up beyond fourth rank without the extra schooling, but it’s a lot easier if you take it. Any talent for analytical thinking and applying that thinking is something an Op-AI will foster and promote.”
“Huh. I was always good at that.” Hyran looked up at the ceiling.
“Well, I meant for a Conduit. An A-rank Guardian with your skill is an obvious asset to any infrastructure team.”
Hyran smiled at him. “Who’s the charmer now?”
The elevator arrived on the third floor, and the first rank led them around a few corners until they arrived at a large room.
“Here we are, Guardian and Conduit,” the young protector said.
Protector Mana, practical-minded to have picked a lecture hall , Col thought. The room’s floor rose slowly, and Col saw what she had done, the desks that all faced inward allowing her to look up at each protector working there without having to move around too much.
“Do we have the latest victim report?” the small redheaded woman asked from the podium in the front just when they walked past a group of Conduits and lower classed Guardians.
“Protector Mana,” Col said.
She turned, and the hard lines of her lips almost betrayed surprise. Her eyes lit up when she recognized Col.
“Everyone, I’m taking a break. Disturb me at your own risk, and have that victim report ready when I get back.” To Col, she said, “Follow me, Conduit. There is a very nice Conduit break room on this floor. Would you like something to eat? Protector Motono, something to eat and drink for my new son.” Mana scrunched up her nose. “And maybe for my hopeless son, only because I feel in a forgiving mood.”
The first rank protector hurried off with a crisp nod, and Hyran groaned.
“Why am I hopeless? What did I do this time?”
Mana ignored her son and smiled at Col as the door to a designated Conduit break room, no Guardians allowed, slid open under her palm. The break room had large windows, and the servi-floor was soft, much like all the moldables in calming colors, blues and light green, some warm reds as well.
“You look so very tired, Conduit. My son has always been a handful, so I quite sympathize, but he should not have dragged you here.”
“But Mom, Col needs to talk to you. And unless something has changed, he is the senior G&C operative who isn’t in the clinic or dead, and he is the liaison to the Argentean Op-AI.”
Col’s brows rose with surprise. “I have seniority?”
Hyran’s unusual green eyes caught the light. “I thought you knew that. I thought that’s why you were so insistent on working. Rasev is a sixth rank operative too, but he’s only been one for a few weeks. The Archi-Team has a few fifth ranks I think, but they’re not operatives. A lot of our operatives were invited guests at Starlit Stage.”
“They’re infrastructure agents and have been most helpful,” Mana said. “We’re still getting damage reports. I don’t know what that tectonist’s goal was, but he left some buildings unstable and in dire need of repairs. I can prioritize on my end, but the Architectural Team knows how long repairs will take, and they are better at knowing whether we need to evacuate or not. Some of the building AIs didn’t survive the attack either, and we’re having to evacuate buildings we can’t keep running with modified office AIs.”
“Fuck. This is the first I’m hearing of this.” Col dropped onto a moldable, a single seating one. He realized that was rude, but Hyran didn’t seem to mind, moving a moldable next to Col’s with his blurring speed.
“What would you have done if someone had told you before now?” Mana sat as well, working a few buttons on her uniform open and relaxing. “This is such a nice place, don’t you think, Conduit Coldis? One of my wives mentioned she hopes our son will encourage you to furnish a room this way once you get back to Argentea.”
“When we—yes. I suppose. Protector Mana—”
“Niyada, please. And I should like to call you Coldis if you’ll allow that?”
“Of course. Niyada, I do need the status. And I need to know what your protectors are working on. There is coordination with my Op-AI that needs to happen.”
Niyada nodded. “It’s been saying you’re its liaison. I think it likes you and that the team you’ve built is so very successful is something it seems proud of. Either way, we are still doing our best to identify those who perished at Starlit Stage.”
“Who were murdered. Let’s not remove the gravity of the action,” Col said.
Niyada regarded Col and then nodded, an approving smile on her lips. “I think I like you, Coldis. Yes, the insurrectionists murdered their own, and they murdered regulars. We have a list of those who are still missing. It’s most likely an issue of identifying all of them now, if there’s enough left to identify. One of the insurrectionist pyromancers was…thorough.”
Col nodded. That pyromancer. The one who hurt Karmine? “Also, I think you should make sure there are no extra bodies. We don’t know who they brought into the city with them. There is a possibility some of those who worked with them initially changed their mind later. They might have tried to hide people’s identities to obscure where their co-insurrectionists originally came from.”
“You’re thinking of Loquin,” Hyran said, instinctively reaching out to take Col’s hand.
Col let him. “Yes. And I think what you said about their recruiting, what I have heard of it, some of those Guardians and even Conduits will have come to regret their decision. If there are more dead than there should be, we have to have them identified. This cannot have been something aimed at just Argentea and Ferrea, and even if the Op-AIs feel confident that the worst is over, we saw where that led us.”
Niyada had listened with concentration, her back very straight now. “You know a lot more about this situation than I do. But Guardian Loquin, he asked to be taken to the Judiciary. We also moved a Conduit there, but I’m not sure that was the right thing to do. Except we were at a loss at how else to help her.”
“Linar.” Hyran and Col spoke at the same time, exchanged a look of matching sadness and despair.
“She is a friend,” Col said. “And I thought Loquin was as well. Niyada, I can see that you’re extremely busy, but there is one thing—a very important thing—that I need you to do.”
She nodded. “I would like that to be moving my son to Argentea, but I can tell from your face it’s not.”
Col nodded. “No. I suspect he can move himself. So far, he has been competent around me. But humor aside, there are deaths I would like you to investigate, in the way you would outside the Grounds. Two deaths and one attack.”
Hyran cocked his head. “The psionomancers, you mean.”
“We did hear that the Judiciary AIs were waiting for psionomancers, but I wasn’t aware that was because they were deceased. And you suspect murder?”
“Three psionomancers, one in a healing coma and two no longer breathing, all of that shortly before this attack? Anything but murder would be statistically unlikely.”
She nodded. “Yes, I have to agree with that. And you suspect it was the insurrectionists. That they had access well before the attack.”
Col started scratching his head, then stopped when he brushed too roughly across the cut there. The stabbing pain was even more sobering than the conversation. I suppose I’ll have to take more meds for that soon.
“I don’t know. In fact, do you know how badly hurt Durgo is?”
Niyada cocked her head.
“The Guardian that was attacked, Mom. By his Conduit. Linar?”
“That one.” Niyada folded her hands on her lap. “I noticed she lives in your building.”
Hyran nodded. “She does. Or did. She was imprinted upon in case you weren’t aware.”
“Oh, I am. She very nearly beat her Guardian to death. Believe me, that is not something I would have thought possible, ever. I’m not sharing that information, and those who tore her off the Guardian have been ordered to maintain silence. For her protection as much as his, I told them, but…”
She let the words peter away.
“I get the feeling everyone is going to learn things about Guardians and Conduits they wouldn’t have thought possible,” Col said.
“I see. Well, the last I heard about this Durgo, he was in a healing coma as well. I don’t have any more details than that right now.”
Col nodded. “I think—there was a…someone was killed in Hyran’s building. Durgo’s imprinted had a long-term lover. He knew and hated the thought, or so Hyran tells me.”
The Guardian nodded. “The two of them—the three of them—all were unhappy in this, and then Undora was murdered. I thought about everything you taught me about those who are willing to take another’s life.”
Niyada cocked her head. “Are you telling me I need to have Guardian Durgo moved to the Judiciary as well once and if he recovers?”
Col shook his head. “There is no investigation. The Op-AI decided there was no more threat there and concluded the death. I was thinking that Durgo made a bargain for someone else to kill his imprinted’s lover. And that person we’d want at the Judiciary.”
Niyada nodded. “Because that is someone who might have also killed our psionomancers.”
“That’s at least a possibility worth considering.”
She sighed. “One more thing for me to do, it seems.”
Before Col could apologize, a knock on the door was followed by the industrious first rank entering. She had a bag in her arms, NomNom Noodles going by the logo printed on it.
“I had these delivered from the regular side, Conduit. I hope you don’t mind. This was faster.” She held the bag out to Col, but Hyran took it from her hands.
“Thank you, Motono.” Niyada dismissed her with a wave. “Go ahead. Eat. Both of you. I will give you an update on what we have been doing here, Coldis, if that’s fine.”
Col nodded and took the food container Hyran offered him, along with utensils. “Very. And you wanted to make me have a large breakfast when there are noodles here,” he said to Hyran, who gave Col a hard look, or as hard as the Guardian could make it, which wasn’t very.
“Hyran, what have I always told you?” Niyada asked.
Hyran handed her a container and utensils as well. “That it is important to eat, especially when you’re working a lot or burning tons of energy running from one place to another. He didn’t want to. The butler bot tried too, but all he would take was coffee and half a plain pancake.”
Col stirred his noodles. They came in a creamy sauce, and his mouth was watering at the sight and smell. “I’m not a breakfast person most of the time.”
“Our son is a Guardian A-classer. We all did our best to be well informed in case he ever imprinted or in the hopes he would find some nice Conduits to be with. What I understand about imprinting is that it can take a lot out of the Conduit, especially during the early days. So you need to fuel yourself, Coldis.”
Niyada reminded Col of Maro, Senlas’s aunt, who would have strapped him down and fed him like a sick horn cat if she were here. The thought made him smile.
“I probably should, Niyada. But please, while I feed myself, tell me what is going on in the Grounds.”
Niyada let out a long groan as she opened her own food. “Where to start. The attack timeline and processing the attack site—Starlit Stage—is one of the easier tasks. And as I said, the Archi-Team is easy to work with and incredibly useful in ways we hadn’t even anticipated.
“We get a lot of calls for assistance from citizens though—Guardians and Conduits, I mean. Parents ask about how their children’s schooling will proceed, but we have gotten the teachers to field most of that. Others are just plain worried. Some Grounds security bots are patrolling rather than being in standby mode as they should be, without the Op-AI to confer with, so we have been tracking those down. Unless they managed to track us down first.”
The noodles were a rich, creamy delight, and Col swallowed hastily. “What have they been doing?”
“Not much. But they commanded my people to stop and leave the Grounds. My protectors would contact the Municipal AI, and then it would talk with the Argentean Op-AI, and even then, we had to use pulse grenades with three of the security bots. They seemed willing to remove my protectors using force.”
Col coughed, and Hyran gently stroked his back. “You—you threw pulse grenades here in the Grounds? To take down security bots?”
Niyada slurped her own noodles. “We had to. They wouldn’t let our protectors do their jobs.”
“Fucking—do you know how many are unaccounted for?”
“No. They are housed in very resistant structures, and those structures have all shut down when the Op-AI died. Maybe you can ask if your Op-AI can access those? Or at least give me a count of how many bots my people should look out for.”
“I will try. Haven’t you?”
“Hm. Your Op-AI felt strongly that the presence of Grounds security bots can only be beneficial. Most larger buildings have their own, but those don’t interfere with our work since the building AIs regulate them. I told your Op-AI. I think it didn’t like the notion that I, a regular, wanted the Grounds security bots to shut down.”
“How bad are those bots?” Hyran sounded halfway to annoyed on behalf of his mother.
“Nothing I can’t handle. I’m also not sure the Argentean Op-AI knows to do everything I would want it to do. No, that’s wrong. I don’t know that it can do everything the Ferrean Op-AI used to do. Maybe they each work a little differently and can’t adapt to how things are in cities not their own.”
Col and Hyran exchanged a look.
Niyada leaned forward in her moldable. “What? Is there something I need to know?”
I want to tell her, but I can’t, not yet. It might get out and then… “Nothing you are cleared to know, Niyada. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Well, anything I don’t need to know is something I won’t worry about. Does Rasev need to know?”
“I don’t think so, at least not right now. We should move on. What else?”
“We are handling everything that doesn’t work as it should. Some building AIs require their inhabitants to be escorted, or else they won’t let them out. And while the auto-drives are running smoother now, they will still stop randomly. Deliveries are late or don’t happen at all, and most of the agriculture doesn’t run properly. The worst thing in all of this is that almost everyone here in the Grounds is scared and afraid to go about their business as normal.”
Col’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with the agriculture?”
“Best as I understand it, all the harvesting and tending bots for the urban production inside the Grounds interfaced directly with the Op-AI which advised them when to harvest and plant and so forth. Now, they don’t know what to do. And the Municipal AI is too used to seeing everything to be of much help with most of this.”
Hyran shifted on his moldable. “If there are any shortages in the food people are used to, that’ll only make the situation worse. Have you talked to the Agri-Team?”
“Yes. But they told me that their specialty is crops grown outside the walls, not cohabitable or urban agriculture. They know how to plant and harvest, but not how to organize that on this scale, in this setting.”
More than anything, the Grounds cultivate stability. It’s crumbling. Everything the Grounds are and need to be is slipping away here unless we can stop it.
“I see,” Col said, handing his food to Hyran, then pulling out his screen.
Col rapidly noted down what Niyada had told him, made notes of who he needed to talk to, the Argentean Op-AI very much heading that list.
Niyada clicked her tongue, mildly chiding. “This is not how we should have celebrated our second meeting, Coldis, but I am happy you don’t have to leave the Grounds to see me or my spouses, whatever comfort there still remains here.”
Col looked up from his screen. “I’m Argentean. We leave the Grounds all the time. But I am glad to know you are heading the effort of stabilizing things here in Ferrea.”
Hyran leaned over his shoulder. “Don’t charm her too much. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“That’s because you, my sweet baby boy, suck so very much at charming.”
“Uh.”
Col watched Hyran pouting at his mother, and all of a sudden, he saw the familial resemblance there, much like he always had in Maro and Sen. Something I never had with anyone.
With effort, Col smiled along with the two of them, forcing himself to forget Thistletown and his mother’s promise to meet there. It’s a fantasy. It wasn’t real, not even when I talked to her. I did get to talk to her, and she knows that I’m fine. That’s all that matters, all we’ll get.
As if he sensed something troubling his Conduit, Hyran started rubbing Col’s back, drawing warm circles around his spine. There was comfort there, new and strange still, but comfort all the same, and Col leaned back against that hand, letting Hyran take some of his weight.