84. Elhyor
84
Elhyor
W ord from the training grounds reaches me at the same time as I get the first reports from the teams Angélique sent in search of the castles. They are all coming back with nothing to account for. The castles were all empty so far and nothing was amiss in the cities.
Only two teams still need to report back. The ones that have been sent to Amboise and Blois. They’re supposed to report by tonight, so I’m not too worried. Maybe even the opposite. If they need more time to explore, it means that there are reasons to.
Maybe our luck is finally turning and there is a chance that we could find the team and free them.
I’m also fucking glad that Angélique finally managed to shift completely.
I was worried about her.
Not necessarily about the fact she couldn’t shift, but more about what it would do to her spirit.
I know she survived so much and that she is strong—more than anyone I know—but I’ve seen it; she needs to feel useful in this war, and it won’t be as easy if she can’t fly at will.
Now, at least, we know that she can completely shift, which means in this form her animal instincts should take over and maybe flying lessons won’t be as hard now, and I won’t have to stress about the fact I’m the one dropping her from heights she wouldn’t recover without wings.
At least, I won’t stress about her, because I’m having a lot of stress already about the team we left behind and even if I don’t want to show it because of Cassiopé, I know it must be dire for them.
There is no way to know what state we’re going to find them in or if they’re even going to still be alive by the time we finally find them.
I fear for what could be done to their body, but I fear for what could be done to their minds even more.
The brain chip Micha?l implanted in Léandre is proof enough of how deranged that man is.
I wouldn’t put it past him to find some other way to torture us through the men he captured.
There is a faint knock on my door and then Luc walks in.
I ought to tell him that the point of knocking on a door is to actually wait for the one inside to tell you to come in, but he’s not even looking at me when he enters. He’s frowning at his holo.
“Anything new?” I ask him, and he almost jumps at the sound of my voice.
This kid needs better awareness of his environment.
“I found something on Angélique’s media key,” he answers without missing a beat.
There is a pause, and I think he’s going to say more, but when the silence stretches, I realize I might be wrong.
“And?” I ask.
“It was well hidden inside, and I’m not even sure why it’s here, but there is a file that shows experiments similar to what has been done to the bird-shifter,” Luc answers.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re schematics of where to send impulses in one’s brain to get different effects. The clearer documents are very old and they’re about how to suppress one’s addiction with that technique. The newer documents are damaged, as if the media key was retrieved before the holo-puter it was plugged into had finished copying the documents on it. There’s the beginning of a document explaining how to implant a brain-chip like the one that was installed in Léandre, but it’s too damaged to see if the end was explaining how to remove it. What is scarier is the list of things that could be changed in one’s personality if they start using the technique,” Luc explains in a matter-of-fact tone.
But I can see it, too. I can see it all too well, and it fills me with dread for my friends in the clutches of that madman.
“Anything that you can retrieve?” I ask him.
“Not that I know of. I’m out of my depth here. You’ll need to ask someone else.”
I guessed that seeing Luc’s face. This kid likes to solve things, but he has no schooling about what he works on, so it was safe to say that his knowledge was bound to have limits.
“I know who to contact,” I tell Luc, and my tone should tell him this is the end of this conversation, but he still doesn’t move.
“Is there more?” I finally ask when Luc still hasn’t moved after almost a minute.
“I don’t know if it’s important, but I lost the signal on one of the holos half an hour ago,” he answers.
“No more battery?” I ask.
“I thought so, too, but it had just entered a building I can’t get a read on.”
“What city’s team is it?”
“It’s Marcus from Blois’s team,” Luc answers after double checking on its own holo.
That’s one of the teams who didn’t report back yet, so I’m not going to start worrying. Maybe it’s even a good thing, because that means they might have found something.
“Thank you, Luc. Don’t hesitate to come back if anything new comes up. I’ll send you someone to decrypt the media key very soon.”
He turns on himself and leaves without even closing the door behind him.