Chapter 18 Gedeon #2
Disregarding the passing greetings, certain that Ezra would catch me up later, I drifted away. It had taken yesterday to reach Conall’s compound, and it would take tomorrow to travel back, meaning two days, one full of planning, and one of travel, awaited me until I could see Kali and Zion again.
Too long.
Invited back to reality by Ezra’s imperceptible nudge, I focused back on the discussion.
“It’s safe to assume that Ardaton and Coriattus will follow through with the security update.
For the last few years, they seem to have been collaborating.
” Greyn downed his cup of coffee in one go and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the action as messy as the heap of blond hair on his head, each strand pointing in a different direction than the one next to it.
“They haven’t rolled out anything at the same time before, so this might be a first.”
Greyn. Damia’s second-in-command for the last two years. He had the smarts but lacked the cunning nature the previous one had excelled at. He would have been useful for the future war. This one, I held doubts about.
Second-in-commands died frequently. And Greyn was guaranteed to go in the next year. There was something off in the way he moved, his motions jerky. How he talked, rushing out his words, like his tongue was about to give out on him. How his eyes nervously bounced around the room.
Innocent. That was how he appeared. Not ready to face the consequences of our jobs. You had to bloody your hands to last in our world. Forget your morals. Accept death as your companion. Otherwise, you were a walking target. Easy picking.
Somehow, Zion had managed to become the only surviving second-in-command since the attack twelve years ago. At this point, I was not sure he could die even if he wanted to. And definitely not if you wanted him to. He would purposefully live longer so he could evoke more headaches to torture you.
Dain, one of the three Conall’s partners he was set on marrying, mused out loud, “The question is, how soon? It will immediately end our and Damia’s smuggling operations, like it did with Gedeon’s.
We need to figure out how to work around the microchips.
If we don’t solve it quickly, our resources will begin to dwindle.
Winter is a few months away, and we can’t produce or manufacture everything ourselves, especially the meds.
” Dain twisted the three flat and round steel earrings piercing the shell of his left ear, his right adorned with seven silver rings, the smallest at the top and the largest in his earlobe, the collection exposed by his wild brown hair secured in a swaying bun atop his head. “Has Ilasall taken any other actions?”
Ryder had also mentioned Dain had decided not to wait for summer and had added that trio of studs to this collection the day after the four of them had agreed to tie the knot, stating all he needed was their agreement and not a celebration.
I preferred the opposite. Everyone should know who belonged to you.
Although I had not met Dain before, he carried an aura of alertness, and the ease with which Aanya sat on his left told me everything.
She had come from Ilasall about five years ago and held her distance from everyone at my compound before moving to Conall’s.
Now, contentedness seeped from her as she listened to Dain speak, both of them flanked by Conall and Nissa, who had their hands on their partners’ thighs.
Safety enveloped this room in its blanket, no weapons allowed, the people inside selected based on our trust in them, but I understood their protectiveness. You took care of what was yours.
“Stop smirking and answer the question, you dick.” Conall gave me a dirty look. “Or I’ll come visit to see what exactly you’re protecting back home.”
“If you do, I’ll help Damia with your wedding present.
There are a few stories even she does not know about.
” I was proud of Conall. He deserved the happiness he had found with his partners.
But there was no way I would let him or anyone here anywhere near Kali yet.
She would punch them on sight for not helping her escape.
“But no, Ilasall has not changed anything else. They decreased the number of guards at the gates the day of the final security update, but that’s it.
” The plastic chair groaned along the seams as I reclined in my seat.
“Damia, your tech team should already have the first samples of microchips. Let me know when they crack them.”
“Greyn will inform you,” Damia delegated to Greyn, and he nodded in acknowledgment to take on the task. “Did you manage to figure out where the auctions occur before this mess?” She propped her chin on her fist.
That was her move. She was about to begin putting the puzzle pieces together.
“No,” I admitted.
“We didn’t get the chance,” Ezra added. “A couple of us went to scope out the school a few days before the auction. The guards shot them before they could cross the wall and left their bodies outside the wall for us to see.” He rested his elbows on the table, spinning his sky-blue coffee cup around its axis.
“Later, we, for the lack of a better word, received information that it was due to the tests of the new security system. The gates wouldn’t function properly while they installed the system and ran the trials. ”
Sana, Conall’s second-in-command, remarked, “As if they knew,” and put her tight dark brown curls up in a high ponytail. She had once mentioned it helped her to think. No obstructions in your vision, no obstructive thoughts. “What other information did Zion receive from the unlucky bastard?”
I valued Sana. Cool and astute, exactly who we needed. As a bonus, she had the ability to get under Zion’s skin whenever they were thrown into the same room. A skill I highly appreciated.
“That the tests run for about a week. You can expect Ardaton and Coriattus to take a similar window of time, so be prepared. Set a rotation of your people near their borders, if you can spare any,” I proposed.
Conall and Damia rubbed the tattoos on their forearms simultaneously. They held no resemblances at first sight, but if you studied the details, a similarity took shape—a silhouette of a bird, either perching or mid-flight.
Sana caught my exploration and twisted her forearm, displaying a single thin line encircling her brown wrist with a silhouette of a crow thrusting upward.
I gave a congratulatory nod in return. From what Conall had shared with me, she deserved it, having proven herself indispensable and trustworthy many times over the last four years.
“Do you think they’re preparing for an ambush?
It’d been a long time since we had an actual battle, not since the war between Ilasall and Gedeon’s compound,” Conall pondered, placing his still full cup of coffee in front of Dain and smiling at his partner perking up at the second serving of the slightly bitter liquid, now cooled down enough to not char your taste buds.
“Our numbers have increased exponentially, yet neither Ardaton nor Coriattus have taken offense. Yes, we worked furtively, but they could’ve reduced us to ashes many times.
” Resting his arm over Dain’s chair’s backrest, he began fiddling with a strand of Aanya’s sleek and shiny wall of hazelnut hair.
“What about a complex attack to wipe out the compounds one by one? Do the cities have any combined forces? They could be working on that,” Nara piped up from the corner Damia had hidden her daughter in.
Everyone’s attention fell on the young woman, but she held her head high, poised as a leader facing a challenge.
Damia should be proud of her daughter. She was growing up to be as perceptive and farsighted as Damia herself.
Sana walked toward the windows, focused on the horizon, like she could see miles ahead, where Coriattus occupied the land.
“Nara is right; it’s a possibility. However, we haven’t seen any movement between the cities.
Likely, they haven’t joined their physical forces, but we should consider the possibility of remote cooperation.
It puts a limit to their capabilities, same as with us, but if we can make it work, so can they. ”
“What resources are you most in need of? Maybe we can support you, at least partially, while Damia’s team researches the microchips,” Dain offered to me, and hid his sleepy expression in the blue cup of coffee Conall had given him.
“So far, we have sufficient reserves. But without the restoration of our supply chains, meds will be the first to go, and with the unexpected heat levels this summer, the drought has affected our harvests, as you have experienced yourselves. With winter upcoming in a few months, we will likely need to begin to rati—”
I shut my mouth as the door handle hit the wall with a loud bang. Dust motes floated in the air where the white paint had flaked off.
A short, muscular, and deeply tanned woman—a fighter, likely a teacher, based on her swift and balanced gait and how she surveyed the room—hurried to Nissa, Conall’s partner I enjoyed being around.
A person of few words, she always went straight to the point, never dragging things out for longer than necessary.
They exchanged quick words, and Nissa slowly rose, bracing her palms on the table, the unruly strands of her short blonde hair tickling her temples.
The tense clench of her pointed jaw resembled the wood’s roughness.
“Coriattus has begun upgrading their security system,” she stated, calm and collected.
“What do you mean?” Aanya placed her hand over Nissa’s.
The four of them had truly made it work. Not that it had been easy for them. The last year had almost destroyed Aanya and Dain.
Nissa softly kissed Aanya’s forehead. When she turned to me, her expression was one of steel.
“Our team had gone to the city for a routine smuggling operation, and I’ve just been informed five of them were shot on the spot, like you told us.
The rest returned minutes ago. They said multiple guards marched along the top of the wall and outside the gates. ”
Shadows slunk along the walls as the sun hid behind the fluffy clouds, and a heavy silence enshrouded the table.
The cities were on the move. And we still had at minimum a year of successful operations to complete before we had sufficient resource numbers to storm them in a takeover. This was delaying matters indefinitely.
“They’re separating us,” Ezra disrupted the silence. “Ilasall and Coriattus are far away from each other, with Ardaton in between them. They are rolling out the updates in a way that would affect us the most. Damia’s compound can’t support both others.”
Sana spoke from where she lingered near a window, observing the action in their compound, “A fight for resources. They want us to turn against each other. Destroy ourselves.”
Damia’s nails clicked on the oak table. “One week, and Ardaton will roll out the update. Coriattus began two days after Ilasall had finished, presumably successfully, so nine, but to be safe, let’s say seven days from today is all we have before we’re cut off.”
“Nissa, I believe you will want to make the necessary arrangements.” Rising, I caught Nissa’s jaw tic.
She bore the responsibility of training the people in their compound, and likely knew each of the five dead personally.
“Damia, send a messenger back to your compound to warn everyone. Let me know when both of you are done, and we will continue.”
I left the room, Ezra and my team following in my footsteps and Damia flanking my right.
“I’ll let my team know our priority is the microchips,” she said as the others dispersed outside, her fingers drumming on her bottom lip. Another move of hers. Knowing her, she was not stopping until the answers lay in her palm.
Interesting times awaited her tech team.
Same as Zion, who I had tasked with the job of keeping Kali away from the city.
And alive.