Chapter 30 Dave #2
The collective struggled to come up with something they could say back.
"I want a report." Dimitri saved them from having to do so. "Not of what you did today, but of what you did last night." He swabbed Number One's arm. "Have you checked the security at Losham's?"
Number One extended his arm. "We conducted a thorough reconnaissance of the residence and the surrounding security infrastructure. The house is heavily guarded. Two guards at the front entrance, two at the rear, and a rotating patrol of three that circles the perimeter on fifteen-minute intervals."
"That's a lot of security for one person," Petrov said.
"There are two people living in the house.
Losham and his assistant Rami. The cleaning staff comes and goes.
As for the increased security, Losham needs it.
The brothers are circling him like vultures, and at some point they might move from just poking at him and undermining his authority to attempts on his life. "
Dave was quite proud of humanizing their delivery. He hadn't sounded like a computer this time.
"What else did you discover?" Dimitri asked.
"The guards were easy to thrall, and we made them ignore our presence.
We entered through the front door after thralling the guards at the entrance.
The house is luxurious, but it is not built on the grand scale of the mansion.
The ground floor has a nice living room, a formal dining room that can seat at least twenty guests, a kitchen, and a study that Losham uses for reading. He has quite a collection of books."
"I told you so," Mattie murmured.
Dave wasn't sure what she was referring to, so he continued, "There are also staff quarters on the lower level, but it seems like only Losham's assistant is staying there.
The master bedroom is on the upper floor, and it's impressive even in comparison to Navuh's mansion.
Losham has a bed that is big enough to sleep four.
According to rumors, he enjoys more than one woman at a time, so he needs the space.
There are three other bedroom suites aside from the master, and they are well maintained as if Losham is expecting guests to arrive at any moment.
Each of the bedrooms has a balcony with glass doors, which makes entering from the second floor a nonissue. "
Dimitri finished with Number One and moved to Number Two. "Did you locate the cameras?"
"There are no cameras in the bedroom. There is one positioned above the balcony doors on the exterior, covering the balcony approach, and one in the corridor facing the bedroom entry door.
They are not controlled locally, and identifying the feeds in the surveillance control room was easy since they are labeled by location. "
"I'm glad you don't have to climb through the window," Mattie said. "But I'm also a little disappointed. In my imagination, I saw the eight of you climbing through a window one after the other, and it was quite an amusing image."
Dave didn't see the humor in that, but they chose not to comment on it.
"We can use the glass doors from the balcony, but the doors and windows in the house are fitted with a security alarm. Opening any of them without disabling the system triggers an alert at the main security station."
"Can you disable it?" Dimitri asked.
"Yes, but not selectively. It's a unified system. Disabling the alarm on the balcony doors requires disabling the alarm for the entire house, and that leaves traces. We will have to thrall the security station operators first and have them log the system as undergoing scheduled maintenance."
"How long will you need?"
"From the moment we begin at the security station to the moment we have the phone in hand, about twenty-five minutes, most of it walking from one location to the other. If we could use the Humvee, it could be much faster, but we don't want to draw attention to ourselves, and walking is stealthier."
Mattie chuckled. "Not when there are eight of you, and you walk in formation."
"We won't be walking in formation, or in a cluster," Number One said. "We know how to approach stealthily."
Dimitri nodded, his hands continuing the injection routine on autopilot. "Do you know where Losham keeps his phone at night? Maybe it's not even in the bedroom with him. Some people don't want their phones near them when they sleep."
"He has a charging station beside his bed.
Besides, we entered his mind and checked his nightly routine to be sure about our timing.
He arrives home between ten and eleven, reads for approximately an hour, and waits for the phone call from the clan.
They call him at midnight. They used to call him also in the morning, but they stopped because he had nothing to report right as he woke up.
His phone is always the last thing he touches before turning off the light. "
Mattie shook her head. "You are scary. Please don't check my nightly routine."
They already had, but they weren't going to admit it.
"Soon, we will be privy to everything you do while Dimitri is present, so you should get used to the idea."
Petrov swiveled around on his stool. "Now that he's working from the hotel instead of the mansion, does that change anything?"
"It simplifies things. Losham always slept at his house, never at the mansion.
We, on the other hand, have been using the bedrooms in the mansion since our emancipation.
Now that the mansion is evacuated, we also stay at the hotel.
It's more convenient because the hotel is closer to Losham's house. "
"I guess there is a silver lining to the collapse," Mattie murmured.
Dimitri finished Number Five's injection and moved to Number Six.
"So that's the plan. Losham comes home, waits until the clan calls him at midnight, and falls asleep.
You disable the alarm, enter through the balcony, thrall him to sleep deeply, take the phone, and bring it here.
The other option is that you thrall him to go to sleep earlier than usual, bring the phone here, and we wait for the clan to call Losham, and answer when they do. "
Dave hadn't thought about the second option. Was it preferable to the first?
It reduced the risk of the clan not answering their call.
The other risk was that Losham deleted the history of his calls after each clan call, so they wouldn't be able to contact them at all.
On the other hand, it was risky to try to change Losham's habits and get him in bed when he was anticipating the call.
The thrall would have to be more forceful, and Losham would realize that something was off.
"Tonight, we wait until after the call is complete and Losham is asleep," Number One said. "If they do not answer or if we cannot find the contact information in Losham's phone, we will try the second method another day."
"Sounds good," Dimitri said, then looked at Petrov for confirmation. "What do you think?"
"I agree with Dave."
"Mattie?" Dimitri asked.
"Dave's plan sounds reasonable."
"I concur." Dimitri withdrew the needle from Number Six.
"Dave is always reasonable. They are like a sponge for knowledge.
" He moved to Number Seven but didn't immediately begin the swab.
"I'm still thinking about your comment yesterday about your mind being hungry for knowledge. What kind of knowledge?"
"Our education was terminated at thirteen," Number Seven spoke for the collective. "We know how to fight, but we have only basic literacy. We know almost nothing about science and history beyond what the Brotherhood deemed that we need to know. When we are free, we intend to learn."
"In what way?"
Dimitri sounded suspicious, and Dave wondered what he was concerned about. They could peek into Mattie's mind, which was the easiest and fastest to access, but after her earlier comment, they were reluctant to do so.
"Through study. We could go to university and just attend classes without enrolling. We've seen what it looks like in movies, and it seems nice. We could also learn through books and through experience."
Dimitri arched a brow. "The merge will allow you access to all the knowledge stored in my head, and there is a lot in there. It could be one hell of a shortcut." He looked into Number Seven's eyes. "Is that the real reason you want to mind-merge with me?"
Dimitri seemed to have the wrong idea about the merge, how it worked, and what it enabled.
Things didn't happen in the blink of an eye.
The Eight hadn't become one in a day. They had spent months melding their collective knowledge and sharing their memories.
Only feelings could be absorbed immediately. Everything else took time.
"The merge is not about knowledge," Number One said. "It's about understanding love. It's about feelings."
Dimitri looked doubtful. "Perhaps, but you will still have access to everything I know. You can absorb it while our minds are connected."
Why was he so worried about that?
They processed it across all eight minds, searching for the subtext, and when they found it, the realization was accompanied by something that they were surprised to identify as hurt.
Dimitri didn't trust them.
"You think we want to absorb your scientific knowledge about the drugs?" Number One said.
Dimitri's jaw tightened. "The thought occurred to me."
"Do you think we want to learn how to produce the drugs ourselves so we won't need you anymore and abandon you?"
The silence that followed was loaded with suspicion and hurt feelings. Mattie was watching them with wide eyes, Petrov had stopped pretending to work and turned to face them directly, and Dimitri was staring at them defiantly.
"The logic makes sense from your perspective, but it's flawed," Number One said, and the collective made an effort to keep the hurt out of the voice, though it seeped through anyway.
"We promise you that it didn't occur to us even once.
And the fact that it occurred to you tells us something about the world you've lived in. "
Dimitri chuckled. "None of us has lived in utopia, and people are selfish. They look out for themselves."
Number One spread his arms. "We dealt with you with honesty and trust, but you still suspect us.
You just don't understand how the merge works.
Our collective consciousness is smarter than the sum of its parts, but even though we sometimes sound like a computer or a robot, we are not.
We can't download information the way a computer copies files.
The merge creates a shared experiential space, a joining of awareness, both of which will be temporary for you.
There won't be enough time to learn everything you know.
It would probably take just as long as it took you to learn all those things.
Feelings, on the other hand, are much easier to communicate.
We would feel what you feel, perceive what you perceive, understand what you understand at an emotional and intuitive level. "
The collective watched Dimitri, saw the emotions passing through his eyes, and knew that they were reaching him.
Dimitri finished swabbing Number Seven's arm and administered the injection. His hands were steady, but the tension in his shoulders had eased, and the collective took that as a positive indicator.
"I believe you," he said. "You can't blame me for being suspicious, though."
"We don't. It was reasonable. We think of you as a friend, and we thought you think of us the same way, so we were somewhat dismayed by the accusation."
Dimitri sighed. "I do think of you as friends, but I have been betrayed by people I've cared about before. I'd rather be safe than sorry."
"We understand," Number One said. "The merge is not happening tonight, though. Tonight is about the phone."
"Speaking of which," Petrov said. "Dimitri and I still haven't finalized what we're going to say to whoever answers the phone. We need to work on that, and I would appreciate it if all of you saved your emotional breakthroughs for another time."
Mattie chuckled. "You could just let me do all the talking. The shock of hearing a woman on the other side would make them at least curious to listen."
Petrov stared at her. "You might be onto something there, girl." He turned to Dimitri. "Right?"
"She has a point."
"I was just joking, guys. I don't want to be the one doing the talking."
Petrov glared at her. "In Russia, we don't joke about life-or-death negotiations."
"What do you joke about in Russia?"
"Nothing. Life is too hard for jokes."
The collective processed the exchange and filed it under the category that they had labeled humor. It was a category that had expanded significantly since they had begun spending time with these three humans. Or rather two humans and a former one, in Dimitri's case.
"We will return at one in the morning with the phone," Number One said.