His was hardly the answer she was hoping for, but the alternatives were worse. A week and she had his assurance of safety. Afterward, they had to trust that each of those seven men sincerely wanted to be here. Signing away life and loyalty was the sort of thing she'd done the day she turned eighteen but it wasn't for everybody. Minutes ago even she, a lifelong soldier, was prepared to walk away and never look back.
To let the issue go was to accept Michael at his word. He'd shown nothing but honor in that regard in the past. He came through for her in Jeddah, although she had no illusions of personal attachment between them. She would be wary, but continue to take him for his word.
A nod was her only response. There was nothing else to say anyway. So she left to check on Julian. Sawing another skull was not how she wanted to spend her afternoon.
Dr. Weston's only response was a nod. Considering the situation, it was a good outcome. If it had not been such a public spectacle, he could have wished for more, but he had not expected the issue to have been raised in the first place, so he counted it a victory.
Of course, nobody would consider it to have been anything but a slightly jarring encounter you would expect to see with the uncertain formation of new sections still discovering their roles. The best fight was one the enemy did not know they were engaged in, but it was truly impressive to have an ally fight for you unaware.
It had not been his intention, but a strategist was not made great for his control, but his ability to adapt to the situation with speed and precision.
It was not the only thing Michael had to consider at the moment. There was the matter of his trainees. Perhaps they had expected him to be distracted by the confrontation, but his eye was the eye of God when it came to these men, and the eye had seen much.
Michael turned his gaze on the Indian man. In his early thirties, his face held the confidence that came with security and self-belief. His words were addressed to all, but the man couldn't fail to notice. "Before we continue, I will introduce you to a man you may aspire to become,"
his hand waved to Marcus who stood watching from the side. "Perhaps you know him by reputation. Sigma Marcus DuBois. Like you, he is an Ascendant."
How practised he was, Michael could not say, but Nikolai had not given him for training, so he would assume he was no amateur. "He holds a privileged position aiding the Ascendancy. Today, he is here to observe and learn. As an Ascendant, the greatest advice I can give you is to do the same. Observe and learn."
With that said, Michael began the first step of teaching the men how to hold the ascendant power safely. With varying degrees of focus, the recruits did just that. Observe and learn.
Dr. Weston left and Michael focused fully on the men in front of them. He seemed to note the few looks he'd gotten and introduced him to the group. The words could have been a complement or could have been patronizing. Either way, though, affected his response little.
He nodded to Michael. "I am pleased to have been invited, Commander."
He nodded to the men in greeting before looking back at him with a friendly smile. "I look forward to learning from you."
He turned his attention back to the men, some of whom looked at him curiously. Perhaps they wondered why he wasn't with them. Or why he wasn't doing anything but watch. It mattered little to Marcus. He was curious to see whether the way Michael had taught was different then how he'd trained Andre, or how he was working with Pyotr and his strange hangups regarding the Force.
Actually, that led to another question. Would Pyotr be taken down here and be given training? Perhaps not right away. Hopefully. He had weaves he wanted to practice on him still. Things he didn't want others to be able to use.
Michael began to walk them through the basics of the Force. Marcus stood still as he watched, noting who was slow and who was quick. He began to rank them in his mind.
Time was static in the depths of the Facility. Outside the light would be beginning to fade in the winter dusk when Michael dismissed the men. Even the most reluctant of the seven dripped with sweat and drained of all energy.
They had all managed to grasp the power at least once but not even al'Shadis who learned the quickest could keep it for more than a few minutes, and that took all of his concentration leaving no room for actual use.
Turning his attention to Marcus, he doubted he could fulfil Nikolai's expectations in that respect. When he was at the Academy his teachers had made him tutor his fellow students. The most intelligent of his charges left more confused than before. How could he explain something so personal to another? A strategists battle plan was a reflection of his soul.
"You are free to do what you wish,"
he said. "I am afraid my time is consumed by the recruits. Until they are stable, I will not be able to instruct you in military matters."
Several doctors filed into the room and Michael hailed one, who approached with some trepidation. "Send a message to Dr. Weston. I will be staying in the Facility until further notice."
He turned his attention back to Marcus. What to do? He almost believed Nikolai burdened him out of spite. "You do not have to stay, but if you do, refrain from using the Ascendant power around the recruits outside of this room."
The lesson had gone on for a while. All of them held the Force at some point. And while not the quickest or strongest, he was impressed by the Indian man's ferocity and willingness to keep trying until sweat poured off him.
Sanjay Ramanujan. He couldn't help but smile at the name and what it seemed to portend. Once again, it seemed the universe was bending to him. The legendary savant mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, discovered by the brilliant G.H. Hardy. A man who, despite little formal mathematical training and no rigor, on his own discovered thousands of theorems and truths and opened up entire new realms. The notebooks he left behind were still being studied and new discoveries were being made all the time. He had an almost mystical connection to numbers, every bit as much as he did to the goddess Mahalakshmihe to whom had been dedicated to at birth. The story of Hardy's taxicab came to mind. He'd been visiting the sick and bedridden Ramanujan and the from his bed the man curiously asked what his cab number had been. 1729 came the answer. "A boring number," said the eminent mentor. "No," came Ramanujan's reply. "Not boring. For it is the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
There was something about this man, this Sanjay Ramanujan. At Michael's order, though, he just looked at him passively, irritation surging to the surface. No one told him when and where he would use his power. That one time with Ascendancy had been his own choice, a means to an end, a demonstration.
He calmed himself. He understood that it was Michael's job to train them. He wouldn't assent. But would keep that in mind. The men were going back to their rooms. He'd have opportunity to talk to Ramanujan at some point. He could be far more useful than Pyotr.
"I think will speak with the doctors."
He went to the door Dr. Weston had gone through and entered. An army of men and women in lab coats were looking at monitors and equipment. He stood there, observing for a bit, trying to understand what they were monitoring. It seemed each of the men had biometric readers implanted on them, giving back valuable physical data. Their rooms were set up with various sensors for across the EM spectrum. There were other view-screens that showed what appeared to be DNA sequences.
He stepped closer. His knowledge of microbiology was really only what he had learned in high school. But this intrigued him. Was there some genetic component to their power, the connection to the Force? The discovery of the sword came to him again. Matter and the Force. A connection. He looked around the room. He needed to find Dr. Weston. He stopped a passing man. "Is Dr. Weston about?"
Torri locked herself away in a side room where she could sit in peace, out of view of the chaos and threats. A geneticist by training, she was cross-referencing comparison patterns between several of the subjects and the two known magicians whose data she had already. Michael's wasn't identified by name, of course, and she'd taken precautions to ensure the second individual's wasn't identified by anything other than a code. She'd copied the file, stolen it essentially, when she had the brief clearance to do so in DV. It gave her valuable information, but now she was using the beads-on-a-string view to distract herself. Maybe a cup of tea would help return her to normalcy. Yes, a cup of tea would feel very normal indeed.
Hours later, the remnants of two empty teacups were left behind and Torri had not obtained much of anything useful in her analysis. The others were handling the sorting, filing, and storage of massive amounts of biodata collected all day. Their long-range sensors built into the ceilings practically turned every room into an experimental box and the humans walking about inside into their very own lab rats. She'd see an initial report by the end of the night and spend a few hours after lights-off to study it, but until then, she was in a different frame of mind.
She turned when someone knocked on the door. It was Lisel, leaning in around the doorframe, "Torri, you alright? What was that down there?"
Torri rubbed her eyes, "I wanted answers from him. Reassurances. Commander Vellas gave me the best he had."
Lisel didn't buy it, but neither did she press for a better explanation. "He asked me to give you a message. He's staying here until further notice,"
she didn't sound pleased. Torri understood why. Where in the world would he sleep? The doctor's suite was full, every bunkbed occupied.
"He wants to stay with his recruits? Then he can stay with them. Give him the room emptied yesterday when Subject 7DPP1-4 died."
She turned to reassign the status of the room for Michael Vellas. He wanted to stay here, then he was going to stay on her terms. That meant subjecting himself to all the other sensors just like one of the regular ascendants.
Lisel chuckled, "alright, but you're telling him yourself."
Torri didn't mind.
Lisel was on her way back to the screening rooms when she passed the Sigma flagging one of their own. Torri was in high demand, it seemed. So she pointed out the way by which Marcus could find her. "Take a right at the end of the room, second door on the left."
Marcus did not seem pleased at his order, but Michael did not care for the whims of a troublesome Sigma here. Life and death were so closely intertwined in this underground hell and he would not allow foolishness to tip the scales and endanger dozens, perhaps hundreds.
However, he did not press the issue any further and watched the man's back as he walked away. Perhaps it was simple arrogance and a reluctance to accept orders. It was expected of the most talented soldiers, and he guessed it applied to Ascendants one hundred-fold. The Sigma had been perfectly polite throughout the day, perhaps it was the lingering impression of the stunt pulled when they first met tainting his perception. Whatever the case, Michael had no time to allow himself to be distracted any further.
Alone, Michael rested his eyes to clear his mind. The cavernous Facility was oppressive. The buzz and beeps of equipment was oppressive. It was well constructed, but the place was still a cage.
Interrupted, the doctor he had spoken to had returned with news. Dr. Weston would see to his accommodation herself, but the Sigma wanted to speak to her. Michael waved the uncomfortable woman away, no doubt she was glad to be gone by the look in her eye.
Edited by
Michael Vellas, Jan 10 2015, 11:06 AM.
Marcus thanked the woman and went to the door indicated. It was open and there he found Dr. Weston hard at work. The room was filled with screens and other things that he didn't recognize. One of them showed some sort of structure. It didn't look like the DNA he remembered from school. He didn't see any double helix.
He knocked on the side of the door and put on a friendly smile. In a soft deep voice he said "Hello. I'm sorry for disturbing you. My name is Marcus DuBois."
He offered his hand.
She looked tired but strong for all that. He remembered how she had stood up to Michael, the concern she showed for the men. He decided on an approach."I was wondering if you could tell me how the injured man is."
Another knock. For goodness sake, did Lisel run straight to Michael and tell him she wanted to talk? Or how about that she liked him and wanted to know if he'd be her date for the dance? "For shit's sake, Lisel,"
Torri rubbed her eyes and smoothed the fly-aways around the edge of her hair.
It wasn't Michael that entered, however. It was the Sigma.
Torri stood to shake hands. "Sir, it's an honour. What can I do for you?"
She showed him to a chair. This wasn't an office by any means. It was more of a room where nobody was working at the time.
"Oh,"
she wasn't expecting that question. She gathered her thoughts as she sat. Her posture was strict as she laced her fingers across her lap. "I'm sorry, sir, but as his doctor, I'm not at liberty to talk about his case."
There was an issue of superiority here, and frankly she didn't know how to handle the Sigma.
"Unless you're asking-asking. Sir?"
She couldn't very well refuse a direct order from the Sigma.
He smiled in a friendly way at her quick turn in demeanor. The physical pressure of this place was nothing to the reality of what was going on down here. But she was quick to show him to a chair after shaking hands. He sat down, crossing on leg over he other
He tilted his head at her response and then laughed softly. "Ahh. For some reason, I did not consider this place in the context of a hospital with patient confidentiality. No, no,"
he said reassuringly. He wasn't really sure what his status was down here, after all. And it was only a passing curiosity. "It was an idle question. The...power demands control at all times. The men will have to learn it quickly or they will be danger. Mostly to themselves."
He didn't want to scare her.
He sat back and relaxed, letting her know that this was just a casual conversation. "I've been studying the power in a systematic way for the last three years. And yet it is only very recently that it was revealed to me that physical matter can have an influence on it. Or at least can resonate to it."
He waved his hand to the screens in the room. "You are studying things from the other end of the problem. Monitoring men- and women- who can use the power. Are you able to actually get readings of the power, like some sort of radiation? Or is it merely the effect, a metal heating up quickly for example."
He paused before deciding to go on. The confidentiality might rear its head again. "More importantly, you are doctors. I am curious as to whether there is a biological component to ones ability to touch the power."
He smiled at her and folded his hands. "Of course, I would not want to ask you to reveal more than you are comfortable. I am willing to offer myself as a test, if you would feel better."