CHAPTER NINETEEN
September is a busy month for Lachlan, who goes about reinstalling security elements that Penhalyx had removed, but also improving them.
He and Blaire are brainstorming upgrades together during lunch when Jules looks over to suggest something truly ingenious in an offhand tone of voice, and Lachlan blinks, astonished.
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Yeah. Of course. That’s.
How did you think of that?’ Jules shrugs and Mimi giggles.
‘That’s really smart,’ Lachlan tells him in earnest while Vasily reads at the table.
He reads all the time. The kid loves nothing more than burying his nose in a book.
‘Hey, come here and help us,’ he bids Jules who makes a face but does so, sliding his chair across.
Lachlan points down to his plans.
‘We’re thinking of changing the way we monitor the interior.’ Jules nods. ‘Something that can’t be cut off or interrupted, what do you think?’
‘Well,’ Jules says, taking the pen and starting to draw.
A big rectangle to begin with, then he makes it a 3D box.
‘This is the room, and typically, the cameras are here,’ he says, drawing dots in the corners and giving them little legs.
‘Like ugly spiders. The problem is that they only work as basic monitoring devices. You need to zoom for anything better, and that’s flawed in motion, right? ’
‘Yeah, exactly.’
‘So what about,’ he says, now drawing meticulously spaced dots on each of the walls, and connecting them with swirls that resemble ivy, ‘fibre optics that combine to create flow capture?’
Lachlan stares. ‘Flow capture,’ he echoes.
‘Yeah.’
‘Did you just invent that?’
Jules blushes. ‘Very funny.’
‘I’m serious. I’ve never heard of that before.’ Lachlan looks down, touches Jules’ drawing with the tip of his index. ‘Will you tell me more?’
‘I mean, I don’t know how it’d work—’
‘Don’t worry about that. I have a friend who can innovate. Tell me more about this flow capture.’
‘So, with enough fibre optics, you could compile the images to create a sort of handheld camera effect, like it’s on the intruders, capturing all angles and combining for 3D. You could also combine night-vision and thermal.’
‘And have it everywhere in the East Wing.’
‘My father wouldn’t want it to be visible, though.’
‘What about semi-opaque photonic laminate?’ Blaire suggests. ‘We could print it to match the walls exactly in sheets to hide the wires, plus it would be hard to the touch, protecting the fibre optics underneath.’
‘That could work,’ Lachlan says.
Jules goes further. ‘Maybe we could run sections from micro nodes instead of one big main supply. Segmented, you know?’
‘Yeah,’ Lachlan says, still a little astonished. ‘I do. What else?’
?
Lachlan begins working with Jules to craft new innovations.
Between the two of them, they compile a thorough list of upgrades that improve security so much Lachlan is tempted to run war-game drills just to see who can still get inside once everything is implemented.
One of his favourite things Jules creates is the Starmap.
A tactile, architectural navigation system carved into the lower walls of the hallways and rooms, designed to be read only by Jules and Mimi.
It helps them find their way in the dark to one of several new panic rooms, which Lachlan calls Pocket Rooms so there’s no negative associations.
Invisible to the naked eye, you’d have to know where to feel for it and how to read the markings.
Teaching Mimi is fun because Lachlan makes it fun, has Vasily and Jules wear blindfolds too, following the marks, stopping when told to, checking both ways. A simplified version of Braille, Mimi takes to it like she takes to everything Lachlan teaches her. Beautifully.
She starts drawing stars, becomes obsessed with crafting a little language of her own and sometimes she’ll leave drawings for Lachlan, or Blaire, rarely Jules because they’re still not close like they were before. It’ll take time.
Lachlan tests it one night in October.
He shuts the lights off, watches from a distance as Mimi crawls in the dark, carefully following the stars until she makes it to the nearest Pocket Room, even stopping to collect a radio from a hidden panel.
Lachlan couldn’t be prouder.
Jolene is curious whose ideas they were, doesn’t seem to believe Lachlan when he tells her they’re his, but she crafts all that he requests like always and the Estate’s safety recovers and grows.
The Ivy Wall, as they call it, is a sublime innovation that Lachlan suspects is the first of its kind.
Jules’ strange affinity with electronics and technology piques Lachlan’s curiosity over the weeks leading up to Jules’ birthday and in the very little time he has for himself, he starts researching about Paranaturals.
?
A delicate balance has settled over the Estate.
Security is tighter and more adaptable to danger than ever before.
Without the old man lurking around commanding every moment of Jules’ life, the boy begins to relax, although Lachlan knows that summer changed something in him forever.
Vasily settles in beautifully. It feels like he’s always been there.
Slowly, as the months turn colder, he comes to life a little more.
Less reading, more talking, less bedroom time, more walks outside.
Mikhail Sorrenko checks in with Lachlan once every fortnight.
The messages are brief. He’s simply asking if his son is doing well and Lachlan always says that he is. It’s especially nice to see Jules hanging out with him, to see them talk.
One day in October, Mimi has a bad nightmare but instead of calling for Lachlan, Jules or Blaire, she sneaks out and makes it to Lachlan’s quarters where he was catching his standard two hours before sunrise in the low threat period.
He didn’t even hear her come in, but she slips under his covers and burrows against his chest.
He just smiles, pulls her close and falls back asleep.
‘How did she get in?’ Blaire asks him when he explains the next day. Lachlan is shower-fresh while Blaire organises their schedules over breakfast. ‘Your quarters are code-locked.’
Lachlan shrugs, doesn’t especially care, but he thinks maybe her big brother had something to do with it. ‘I’ll just give them both the code.’
‘You should have some distance between you.’
Lachlan doesn’t want distance. He wants to take that vacant room in the Cove so he’s always nearby, but it makes more sense for Blaire to have it.
The last childminder’s contract wasn’t renewed in September.
His research into Paranaturals, or Brightlings as they apparently prefer to be called, doesn’t yield anything definitive at first. There is no universally agreed-upon answer about whether or not this whole thing is, at its core, a spiritual movement or something more solid.
An evolutionary expansion that needs time to settle, just as electricity seemed like witchcraft hundreds of years ago and is now widely accepted as science.
He uncovers tracks that lead to well-hidden military experiments. A few senators tend to group Paranaturals in with other minority groups when whipping up fear-based prejudice to drive polls.
But beyond that, there’s not much in terms of concrete data from a shallow search. He dives deeper, goes into forums. Less factual but more enlightening.
Some of what he reads is pure trash.
Wildly outlandish claims of “magical powers” ranging from controlling the weather, dreams foretelling the future and small-scale telekinesis all the way to people who claim they can see the future, erase memories, alter reality and even claim advanced healing abilities.
One user in a forum catches his eye.
A mother asking about her son, clearly worried.
She says that it seems like he’s able to control electronics in a way she can’t explain.
Small things he can do like change channels without touching anything, turn devices on and off remotely, locate a device without it making any noise and always knows when someone’s phone is about to ring.
In the comment section, people ask more and she answers.
Some of what she says resonates with Lachlan’s curiosity.
She says his touchscreen device turns on before he’s touched it, that for some reason the Wi-Fi in their house is always clearer when close to him, even in the self-proclaimed “dead zone”. Lights flicker when he’s stressed and sometimes phone signals drop out entirely when he’s angry.
These are the parts Lachlan rereads twice, not because they match Jules precisely, but because he feels like there’s something scientific beneath the fear of it being modern witchcraft. Other posts lead to similar examples, some of which match up with uncanny accuracy.
But ultimately, it’s not enough to go on, and Lachlan knows when to drop a lead once the evidence thins. His curiosity is relegated to the back of his mind for now. He’s satisfied Fenwick was talking shit.
PTSD and the weight of this place. It’s nothing more than that.
There’s enough real-world requirements to focus on, besides.
Jules’ nineteenth birthday, for example.
?
Lachlan’s not surprised Jules doesn’t want a big party.
But he’s equally unsurprised that Alistair ignores his wishes completely. Two months plus change seems to have been more than enough for him to “reset the energy”, so it’s back to once-a-week meetings via technology and asking if Lachlan has selected a head of household yet.
Each week Lachlan says, ‘Not yet, sir,’ because he knows it should be Blaire, but Fenwick and Clara are ashes in the basement, and he can’t bear to risk her. He’s equally torn about bringing someone in from the outside, knowing it’s a likely death sentence down the road.
Three days before Jules’ party, the decision is made for him.