Mercer #2
Rue looks at the screen, at the official seal of the ESA blinking as the order is transmitted. He doesn't say anything else. He knows that once the machine starts moving, there's no stopping it. There is only the hope that you aren't the one standing in the gears.
“Prepare the containment wing,” I tell him.
“I want a full energetic baseline on Renwick the moment he arrives. I want scent swabs, blood panels, and resonance testing. And Elian? Don't let Jorak know he’s here until I say so. I want to see how the Enigma handles the distance before I give him the reward.” A small smile spreads across my lips.
“And make sure Jorak is prepped to handle the node.”
I watch Rue leave, his shoulders hunched. I’m alone in the office again, the silence returning. On the monitor, the red flare in Sector Seven is growing, a hungry bloom of corrupted energy. It’s a disaster. It’s a tragedy.
It’s the perfect opportunity.
I sit back down and pick up my cold tea. Everything in Redbrook belongs to the system eventually. Even love. Especially love. It’s just another form of energetic tethering, another way to ensure the asset stays exactly where I want him.
I close my eyes for a brief moment, listening to the hum of the facility’s power. It’s steady. For now. I’ll keep it that way, no matter how many lives I have to index into the pattern. That is the burden of authority. That is the price of a city that refuses to stop screaming.
The tablet pings. Extraction team in position. Target sighted. I take a sip of my tea and wait for the name Asa Renwick to change from a person into a property of the state.
It doesn't take long. Nothing does, when you know exactly how to pull the strings.
I watch the live feed from the extraction team's body cams. The footage is shaky, a jittering perspective of polished university hallways and the panicked faces of students who’ve spent their lives being told the ESA is their shield.
I track the movement of Unit Alpha as they reach the door to Renwick's office.
There is no negotiation. They use an override key, the door hissing open to reveal a room overflowing with paper and the scent of old books and the man himself.
Asa Renwick looks up from a stack of grading, his glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose.
He looks remarkably ordinary. That’s probably the most dangerous thing about him.
He doesn't look like a savior; he looks like a man who's worried about a mid-term exam.
I see the moment his pupils dilate, the secondary instinct of an Omega recognizing a threat.
He stands slowly, his hands visible, his expression shifting from confusion to a cold, hard clarity that I find... intriguing. He's not as soft as his file suggests.
"Dr. Renwick," the lead officer's voice is modulated, metallic. "Under the Public Safety Authority Act, Section Four, you're being requisitioned for emergency diagnostic evaluation. Please come with us."
"Requisitioned," Renwick repeats. His voice is steady, though I can see the slight tremor in his fingers as he grips the edge of his desk. "I’m a civilian employee of this university. I have a Class-F exemption. You have no jurisdiction here unless there's a containment breach."
"There is a breach in Sector Seven," the officer responds, stepping into the room. Two others follow, their presence making the cramped office feel like a cage. "Your presence is required at the Central Facility. Immediately."
Renwick's gaze flickers to the window, likely looking for a way out, or perhaps looking for the man he thinks will protect him. "If there's a flare in Sector Seven, I should be heading to the shelters, not a government laboratory. I know my rights, Officer."
"You have the right to remain stable," the officer says, a cruel bit of facility humor.
He reaches for Renwick's arm. The Omega flinches back, a low growl vibrating in his chest, one he shouldn't even be capable of making with his classification. It’s a shadow of Jorak's influence. The bond is deeper than Rue predicted. It’s already rewriting the professor's biology.
I lean closer to the screen as the officers roughly secure him. Every second wasted is a second where Jorak might sense the distress of his guide and abandon his post at the flare site. If Jorak leaves the node to find Renwick, the university district won't just have a flare; it’ll have a crater.
"Status," I bark into the comms.
"Target secured, Director," the lead officer reports.
Renwick is being led out, his face pale, his eyes wide and unfocused as the suppression cuffs snap shut around his wrists.
The cuffs are overkill for an F-Class, but I'm not taking chances with whatever strange resonance he's carrying. "ETA to Central is twelve minutes."
"Take the subterranean route," I order. "I don't want him seen. And make sure medical has the resonance chamber primed. We don't have time for a slow intake."
I cut the feed and turn back to the window as Rue enters the room again, his face ashen.
He doesn't even wait for me to acknowledge him.
"The second Guide team is down, Mercer. They tried to reinforce the perimeter around the node, but the feedback was too high.
They're being transported to intensive care with neural scarring.
Jorak is the only thing holding the line now, and his biometrics are reaching the breaking point. "
"Then it's fortunate our solution is almost here," I say, my voice devoid of the adrenaline I feel humming in my veins.
If Renwick is what I think he is, we have a new era of stability.
If I'm wrong, I've just triggered the end of the city. I dial a number on my phone and put it to my ear. “Bring Jorak back and send in the A-Class. Yes, I’m sure. Just do it!” I hang up and face Rue completely. “The first step is to contain Jorak and the next is to show him what happens when he doesn’t play by the rules.”
"If Jorak senses what we've done before we can stabilize the link, he'll turn on us," Rue warns, his voice trembling. "He won't care about the city. He'll come for you."
"Let him," I say, turning my back on the dying sky to face the empty office. "By the time he realizes who’s going to be on the other side of his glass walls, he'll realize he doesn't have the strength to kill me. He'll be too busy realizing that he can't breathe without the man I'm holding."
I check my watch. Ten minutes. In ten minutes, the mathematician becomes a miracle, or a ghost. Either way, the pattern will finally be complete.