Splintered Vigil (The New Protectorate Fracture #1)
Chapter 1
CHAPTER
ONE
CONFIDENTIAL
An assessment on the psychological state and recommendations for the members of Fracture from Dr. M. Starsbury, M.D. submitted by request to the Sovereign’s Office:
On 2 June 2040, I was given the assignment to assess the mental and emotional wellbeing of the members of the special Patrol unit known as Fracture by General Valen Yadav.
These members were Vesta Kincaid, Sloane Fortuner, Arjun Donovan, Lucien Prince, Johanna Titus, Arlo Downing, and Cesare Runeare.
My assessment took place over the course of six months, during which time I conducted interviews, inspected their living quarters, examined their backgrounds, and shadowed them when their assignments allowed.
This brief should be considered an overview of my findings. A report on each member, as well as much more thorough recommendations, can be found in the attached report.
The objectives of the assignment were split into two parts.
The first was to determine whether the members of Fracture (hereafter referred to as “subjects”) could be adequately rehabilitated and reintroduced to independent life amongst the civilian population.
The second objective depended on the findings of the first. Should the subject(s) be found unfit to return to the general populace, I was asked to recommend the best and most humane course of action for their future.
OVERVIEW:
Under proper supervision and with intensive support, the subjects are not a danger to themselves or others. Without supervision or support, the subjects represent a viable threat to the health and safety of the population of the Elvish Protectorate.
OBJECTIVE ONE:
After six months of intensive study and deliberation, it is my professional opinion that none of the subjects can or should be allowed to live unsupervised amongst the civilian population. This is not only for their own mental and emotional stability, but for the safety of the populace.
All of the subjects have endured horrors and conditioning the likes of which most people would not survive.
As elves taken from their families, some as young as three, and raised by a rotating squad of Thaddeus II’s most brutal and war-damaged hitmen, they lack the fundamentals of basic communication skills, emotional intelligence, and compassion.
It is my belief that many of these things can be taught, but given their many years of conditioning and service, they will never achieve what most would consider “normal” behaviors.
When asked what they would do should they be released from their service, none of the subjects had an answer. Even the suggestion of living an independent life seemed to unsettle them, and in a few it even sparked outright aggression.
Socially, they appear to have developed a unique pack-like structure with two “alphas” at the top: Vesta Kincaid and Sloane Fortuner, who seem to split authority evenly and defer ultimately to their Captain, Kazimier Rione.
These bonds are not built on what most people would view as warm, familial relationships, but a mutual understanding and codependence.
In my time with them, I observed many instances of what I can only label as silent communication between the subjects.
Their understanding of each other is so complete that it is rare that they truly need to speak, and when they do, they tend to express themselves through clipped speech and strategic bursts of violence.
OBJECTIVE TWO:
After determining that the subjects cannot at this time or in the foreseeable future be released from supervision, I turned my focus to finding the healthiest path forward for the team.
While my list of recommendations is long and involved, the most important point can be boiled down to one vital conclusion: If the government wishes to see the subjects live semi-independent lives, the members of Fracture CANNOT and SHOULD NOT be split up for any reason.
Although nearly all of the subjects (notable exceptions being Downing and Prince, see p.
57, subtitle CODEPENDENCE) are extremely independent and exhibit striking anti-social behaviors, they heavily rely on the pack structure of the team to regulate their emotions and validate their experiences.
Although they may often seek solitude, they would never under normal circumstances wish to completely cut themselves off from the pack.
It is my belief that should a subject do so, it would represent a dire mental and emotional state in need of immediate intervention.
At the time of my assessment, I saw no indication that any members of the team wished to live on their own.
They appear to be aware that their stability depends on their coexistence.
However, I have grave concerns over how that dynamic will change when any of the subjects find their mates.
Not only will it cause immense emotional and psychological upheaval — as it does in all elves — it may threaten the fragile support system that keeps every member of the team regulated.
Broadly speaking, the subjects have no capacity to handle the emotional turmoil, arousal, possessiveness, jealousy, or territorial urges that come with the critical period of bonding.
It is my expert opinion that the members of Fracture should be shielded from any possibility of finding their consorts until such a time that they are deemed capable of handling the changes both on an individual level and as a group.
All necessary precautions should be taken and a plan put in place for the dangerous possibility that those precautions might prove inadequate.
It is well known that all elves go through a period of dangerous instability when they find their consorts. For the members of Fracture, it would be more than dangerous. It would be catastrophic.
OCTOBER 2047 — San Francisco, The Elvish Protectorate
Killing wasn’t the point, but it was always a pleasure.
Sloane enjoyed hunting. Whether it was for an assignment or for his extracurriculars, he never tired of it.
He had no memories of what it was like to play as a child, and only a bare bones understanding of what civilians found pleasure in, but a lifetime of training had wired the idea of a successful hunt to satisfaction.
The pounce and the kill — they were as close as he came to knowing happiness.
He got a lot less of that these days.
After she beheaded her father and took over the territory, Delilah’s changes took a long time to reach them.
The rest of the territory needed immediate stabilization, and they’d served her faithfully in the shadows.
But when the dust cleared and it became obvious that a bloody civil war had been avoided, it was their turn.
They’d been called Thaddeus’s attack dogs. The terror in the dark. The shadow squad who could find anyone, anywhere, and leave a bloody message for all the world to see.
Now they were a liability.
What did one do with attack dogs when they were no longer needed? Put them down.
So it came as something of a surprise when instead of taking them out, a wave of psychiatrists, mind healers, and specialists were brought in to “make reforms.” New luxuries were brought into the Fracture barracks. New doctors were assigned to each member. New rules were strictly enforced.
They weren’t expected to maim, torture, or kill anymore. Not unless their lives or those of civilians were directly threatened. For the first time since Thaddeus snatched them from their families, they were given the gift of mercy.
They had no fucking idea what to do with it.
The team wasn’t fit for domestication. They couldn’t be assimilated or softened. They certainly couldn’t be expected to know what to do with kindness.
Each of them had adapted to the unsettling change in circumstances in their own ways. They found hobbies, extracurriculars, that scratched the itch their assignments no longer did. For Sloane, the team’s premier assassin, it was hunting.
He left the barracks without a word. Consistent good behavior had gotten him the privilege of freedom when off duty. It was another new luxury he and the rest of Fracture exploited to the fullest extent.
Sloane rarely had a plan for his hunts. He didn’t need one.
The Elvish Protectorate was one of the most strictly controlled territories on the continent, but even it had its seedy underbelly, injustices, and violence behind closed doors.
He rarely had to search long to find someone the world was better off without.
On this particular foggy October night, however, he wasn’t having a lot of luck.
Tension bunched the powerful muscles between his shoulder blades as he vaulted over the top of a chain link fence blocking off an alleyway.
Elves valued cleanliness above just about anything, since their heightened senses made them particularly affected by powerful smells.
That meant that their streets were cleaned nightly by automated bots.
The same couldn’t be said for alleyways, where elves rarely ventured.
Luckily for Sloane, his full-face helmet filtered out scent.
Cutting off one of an elf’s most powerful senses seemed counterintuitive for a group raised to be hunters, but the loss was worth it.
Their sense of smell was a powerful tool, yes, but it was also their greatest weakness.
One whiff of the right person at the wrong time…
Of course, not smelling the rot of trash, piss, and discarded food behind a bar was nice, too.
Sloane had to rely on all his other senses to find his prey.
His breath whispered out through the helmet’s filter as he landed in a crouch on the other side of the fence.
His boots, steel-toed and laced high up the shin, flexed comfortably as he stabilized on the balls of his feet. He scanned the alleyway.