Chapter Ten
Mao
Mao wasn’t sure what was worse, knowing how many records there were Ekon had promised to scan, or not knowing how many there were and just getting on with the job. No matter how he looked at it, the job was mind-numbingly boring, and it was going to take a really long time.
One day down, and they’d barely made a dent in the number of files that, if Ekon’s word was to be kept, still needed scanning.
Mao wasn’t going to object to spending time in close contact with his mate, except he could think of a million things he’d rather they were doing.
Standing in a stuffy bunker, laying out pieces of paper for Ekon to run some freaking scanner over them didn’t even rank in the top five hundred.
Being so close to his mate as they worked, there were other things that Mao had noticed—concerning things—that made him wonder about whether what they were doing was a good idea or not.
For a start, Ekon seemed to avoid physically touching the papers and files himself.
The few times contact had happened, apparently by accident, when Ekon’s hand had missed a swipe across the files or whatever else, Ekon seemed to wince.
Then almost fold in on himself for the briefest of moments before he continued on.
Mao wasn’t sure what that was about, and it didn’t seem an opportune time to ask, but it bothered him.
Being the nosy cat he was, Mao had also tried skim-reading the files as they were being scanned. It wasn’t easy, Ekon was working quickly, but some sentences just stood out… quite a few repeated ones especially.
…subject was four…
…exhibited unusually high levels of pain response…
…poor reaction to serum DX954…
…screaming, frothing at the mouth, bleeding from all orifices…
And if that wasn’t bad enough, a statement kept coming up repeatedly. Experiment failed. Body disposed of… followed by a date and time.
Mao wondered if that was why Ekon didn’t want to touch the files.
Is there something in his magic that allows him to absorb those details through touch alone?
Or is it forcing him to absorb those details.
Mao didn’t know, but he couldn’t avoid the sinking realization that his mate had been one of those subjects—with a file of his own—just the same as Ben’s mates Teilo and Nico, and Kylo’s mate Conrad.
File after file. Yes, there were an infinite number, and Mao had no doubt they’d get through them all eventually, but just handling the evidence of crimes against innocent children had Mao rethinking his idea about blowing up the files, the way he’d been paid to do.
Surely there’s a case here, he thought, as he kept laying out the pages. Ekon apparently had the stamina of ten men and didn’t seem inclined to stop, and so Mao kept going too. Only that niggling disquiet, the knowledge that he couldn’t forget how Ekon was taken and changed…
Clearly, he didn’t know the details, and neither did Ekon—his file hadn’t come up yet. Ekon had started from the back of the large bunker where the older files were kept, and they worked their way toward the door.
Fortunately, the mysterious keeper did have a thing for tables—they were placed at the end of every second row. It wasn’t difficult to grab a pile of files, lay them out, scan them, and put each one to the side as it was done before scanning the next one.
Unfortunately, that sort of mindless work gave Mao far too much time to think, and his thoughts were running a whole gamut of emotions.
He was angry at the fact the crimes had been committed at all.
As far as he was concerned, anyone with a conscience would feel the same way, just as he had said to Ben.
What had been done to harmless children, innocent children, stolen from their homes or from their family at least…
it defied belief, and yet the details of those crimes were in Mao’s hands.
Having one victim of such a crime where a child was stolen and then experimented on, mostly to the point of death, was awful.
If they survived, they were taught to kill—that was an atrocity.
It wasn’t a random experiment. It wasn’t even a month-long experiment—some sick idea of a thirty-day challenge.
Some dates on the papers stretched back decades.
In some cases, the papers in the files were so thin and brittle they crumbled at the edges when Mao turned the page so Ekon could scan the next one.
Decades, possibly centuries they had done this…
the mere thought made Mao sick to his stomach.
Two names kept cropping up repeatedly—the names and signatures of the people overseeing these experiments.
One name Mao recognized as the council member who turned out to be a changeling.
The other name that cropped up repeatedly was Andromeda.
It was those two names—those two reasons—why Mao knew his thoughts of getting justice for all the shifters who were the actual faces behind the file details, was a waste of time.
Both the changeling and Andromeda were dead.
The krakens had taken care of that. And while Mao didn’t know the full story, he’d heard enough to know that these experiments wouldn’t be replicated again.
The ship which was apparently a testing point for a lot of Andromeda’s experiments was at the bottom of the sea, never to be returned.
Yet, it really weighed heavily on Mao, and he had no idea how Ekon was feeling.
In that respect, the man was like a machine.
He was given a job to do. He gave his word, and he was going to do it.
Ekon didn’t offer any conversation or commentary on what they were doing beyond, “can you move the light to the left, please?”
Mao’s mind drifted to what would happen when the scanning job was finished.
Was he going to have to argue with Ekon for the right to blow up the records?
They were at least safe somewhere. Mao assumed they’d be buried somewhere deep in the kraken’s computer systems, but at least there would be a record.
Except what use was that record to anybody if justice couldn’t be served for the countless—Mao had already counted over three hundred and they hadn’t finished day one—dead shifters. All marked as a failed experiment.
The tally was going to be into the thousands, and that was just the records in the bunker. Is this all of them, or were there other bunkers hidden somewhere else? Mao had absolutely no idea and forced himself not to dwell on that and focus on what he could do, helping Ekon.
It was him who insisted that they both break for lunch, and then again for an early dinner. He heated food, made sure Ekon stayed hydrated, quietly glad to spend time out of the freaking bunker. That place gave Mao the creeps, and it wasn’t just because it was musty.
Ekon was keen to go back inside the bunker and do more scanning that night, but Mao pointed out that the lighting in the bunker really wasn’t that good, and that if the scans weren’t clear, then they weren’t going to be any use to whoever was storing them.
When Mao noticed Ekon went quiet, he felt bad, and against his better judgment he suggested, “How about we look for your records? If we can find them, then perhaps some of your questions will be answered.”
Ekon didn’t reply verbally, but his mood seemed lighter, and he jumped up from the log he’d been sitting on. Mao grabbed a couple of flashlights, although their animal sides made them unnecessary, but Mao didn’t like being in that bunker, so he wanted the whole thing lit up as much as possible.
It seemed Ekon felt the best place to start was where their scanned pile for the day finished. Mao could still see the numbers lit up on the file tabs, and that cut out a lot of searching as so many of them were death dates.
“If we knew roughly what date you were taken, that could be a good starting point,” he suggested quietly as Ekon stopped by a batch of files.
Ekon shook his head. “These files aren’t in order. Some of them appear deliberately moved. Not many of them, but enough for me to know I could easily miss mine if I don’t check them all.”
Mentally groaning, Mao nodded. Personally, he wondered if Ekon did have a magical attachment to the files, then surely finding his own records should be easy.
Couldn’t Ekon just lay his hands on the shelves and command the record to appear?
But if that was possible, Ekon didn’t mention it, and Mao wasn’t going to, because what he knew about fae magic would fit on a napkin.
They didn’t find Ekon’s record on the first pass.
Ekon seemed keen to go back and try again from the beginning, but Mao guided him back outside to their little campsite, sitting him by the edge of the fire and handing him a cup of coffee.
For a long moment they sat in silence, and while that was Mao’s natural state, it didn’t feel comfortable.
“I’m thinking we’re missing something,” he said, watching Ekon staring into his cup as if it held the secrets he was looking for.
“The keeper of these records, the person who left you his magic”—which was one way of putting it—“he had to have lived somewhere. Did you get any indication that he was living here at the bunker?”
Mao was thinking that maybe there was a room they hadn’t found somewhere hidden in the hill somewhere.
Ekon shook his head and finally took a swig of the coffee. “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I’m clueless about fae.”
That makes two of us.
“I do know they live on a different realm. Most of them don’t live on Earth.
” Ekon looked up, and Mao could see the confusion and doubt in his eyes.
“The keeper wouldn’t have to live here to look after the records, would he?
He might’ve just zapped in from a totally different realm any time he liked. ”
His mate was right, and that didn’t make Mao feel any better.
It just worried him they knew so little about a man who had such an impact on what had happened to Ekon.
Setting the whole idea of the records aside, the magic fae, keeper of all had somehow given his powers to his mate, and Mao wanted to know why.
What was the connection? Where was it? Where the fuck did this guy even come from?
And how did this whole record keeping business start?
Did this predate Andromeda? In which case, who the hell was responsible for setting it up?
Because if any of that was true, then the so-called facts the Thalassas’ and the council were holding up as truth were utter bullshit.
“You’ll give yourself a headache.” Ekon’s soft voice broke Mao from his thoughts. “I can feel the mental cogs working from here. We should probably rest. If we’re up at first light, we might make it through the second shelf by dinner tomorrow.”
When Mao groaned, Ekon added, “You do understand why this is important, don’t you?” He sounded as if he was worried that Mao was just going to start setting explosives and say to hell with anything else.
“If there’s one more person like you out there, who’s looking for their records, and who wants to know where they came from, why they were taken, and more specifically, what was done to them, they have a fucking right to know.
So yes, I understand.” Mao was just pissed off they couldn’t find Ekon’s file.
Then, in fairness, it wasn’t as though they looked that hard. Tomorrow was another day.
As if sensing his thoughts, and maybe he could, Ekon abandoned his coffee cup and came over, plonking himself on Mao’s knee, his slim arms winding around Mao’s neck as he bent down to kiss him.
Yep, those files can wait until tomorrow. Mao groaned for a totally different reason as Ekon rubbed against him.