Estranged (38 page)

Kalei rubbed her head. “Yeah...
Anyway, anything new on Xamic?”

She heard Marley’s chair squeak as he
shifted positions. “Not really. We haven’t had any new
Xamic-related attacks since last Friday. I’ve been giving myself a
headache trying to figure out what the hell he’s been up to, but
now that you’ve mentioned this barracks thing, maybe he’s had his
hands full with that?”

“
Let’s hope
so.”

There was a brief silence. Kalei found
herself thinking about the Untouched who had been hauled off to the
new Tusic barracks. “Well, I wouldn’t say you have had no ‘Xamic’
attacks. Apparently, he‘s been kidnapping Untouched and bringing
them back to the barracks for his men... make sure you watch
yourself, Marley.”

Marley was silent for a moment. He
quietly replied, “I always do.” Kalei heard him take a deep breath
before he continued, “So, any ideas on how to take him down when he
exposes his hide again?”

“
Other than tying his
ankle to a rocket and launching his ass into space? Not a
clue.”

Marley laughed. “Okay, well, if you
come up with anything better than that, be sure to give me a
call.”

“
Of course. I’ll talk to
you later, Marley.”

“
Later.”

Kalei returned to the computer room
and sat down at her usual terminal in the corner. Walker now sat on
the opposite side of Erit, working on his security re-writes for
Terin.

While Kalei waited for the computer to
cue up the latest surveillance feeds, the image of Xamic getting
shot at E-night buzzed through her head, gnawing at her like an
unfinished puzzle. Turning to Erit, she said, “You know what? Maybe
you can tell me, Erit: how does Xamic do that thing where he takes
a bullet to the head and laughs it off?”

Erit chuckled. “I’ve never heard it
put that way before. It’s nothing too incredible, really. Quite
simply, he has a lot of darkness.”

“
That’s not much of an
explanation. C’mon, Mister Professor, give me the full
write-up.”

Erit made one more click on whatever
he was working on and turned to face Kalei. “Truly? You’re giving
me full leave to lecture? Well, I suppose I’d better start talking
before you reconsider. To begin, you know that the darkness is the
energy behind healing your wounds, correct?”

“
Yeah.” Kalei was mildly
offended he had to ask.

“
Well, the greater the
amount of darkness you have within you, the faster those wounds
heal. Of course, if you don’t have a lot of darkness, you can still
take advantage of this concept by concentrating your darkness
around the wound. It’s quite handy, really.”

Kalei was mildly surprised. “Why the
hell was Estranged First Aid 101 not included in basic
training?”

Erit returned to his computer and
typed a few commands as he replied, “Yes, well, we still consider
it to be ‘advanced’ training, as there are some other applications
for the technique that could be quite disastrous in the wrong
hands.”

Kalei raised an eyebrow. “Such
as?”

Erit fell silent for a moment as he
finished his typing, then he turned back to Kalei again. Using his
hands to animate, he said, “One particularly useful application is
to use the darkness to enhance performance. By concentrating the
darkness around certain muscle groups, strength and agility will
see drastic improvement. Run faster, jump higher; anything you can
think of. I saw the reports from your run with Xamic through the
train yard, and I can assure you, Xamic’s ability to vault a
railcar does not come naturally.”

Kalei mulled over the idea. It sounded
like something out of a superhero movie, but she had to admit, she
was intrigued.

Erit returned to his work as he said,
“I can see you are considering trying it out for yourself. Feel
free. It really is an invigorating experience, and one I am sure
you will find quite useful.”

Kalei was eager to take Erit up on the
offer, but she knew Terin wouldn’t be pleased to find out she was
shirking her duties to go play. Hell, she wouldn’t be pleased.
People needed her right now. So, she turned back to her computer
and moved the mouse to banish the screen saver. She would have time
to try it out the next time she went to the roof to
meditate.

But when her computer woke up, she
found several of the windows blank. She gave her monitor a smack to
the frame. “Some of my cams aren’t coming up.”

“
Don’t do that!” Walker
scowled at her. “Some cams will be going off and on while I rewrite
the systems.”

Kalei dropped her hand away from the
screen and replied, “But I thought the security systems weren’t on
the network. How can it interfere with the cameras?”

Walker growled at his computer. “It’s
a mess. Don’t ask.”

The routine continued, and the air
began to cool as fall approached. The roof was especially cold, but
Kalei didn’t mind throwing on a jacket to go up there. It was
peaceful on the roof, perhaps the most peaceful place in all of
Downtown. Occasionally, she heard a shout or a siren below, but the
distance muted the sounds down to a whisper, and the wind usually
kicked up to carry the lower notes away. It was nice.

Until she sat down to meditate. The
meditations were really just redundant, boring, and exhausting at
this point. All they really did was feed her frustration, making
her feel like a hamster spinning in its wheel while the world
outside slowly moved along the road to destruction, a journey she
was helpless to avert so long as she was stuck in her wheel. But
the harder she worked, the faster the wheel spun, and the faster
she went nowhere. All the while, thoughts of Xamic and his
kidnapped Untouched plagued her, taunting her powerlessness. She
wanted to scream.

When she became especially restless,
she began experimenting with what Erit had told her about using the
darkness to enhance muscle performance. It was one of the few areas
where she could make progress. She started with wall sits. Without
trying anything, she could last about a minute and a half before
tiring. Then, when she started shifting the darkness to her quads,
she could last... well, she never really found out. She got bored
after twenty minutes and went back to meditating.

After that, Kalei started testing out
her speed. She found a stopwatch in the rec room and timed how long
it took her to run from one end of the roof to the other. Just over
eighteen seconds. It wasn’t a bad time. Then she pooled the
darkness throughout her legs. She ran again.

She had barely made it off the line
when she had to stop because her stomach and back weren’t strong
enough to hold her up against the new speed, nearly sending her
over backwards.

With a bit more concentration and some
proper adjustments, she made the sprint in eight seconds flat. She
couldn’t keep the grin off her face. She sprinted across the roof
for another hour before pulling herself away to get back to work.
It wasn’t an easy choice.

She had just sat down at her terminal
when Jenna said, “Kalei.”

Kalei ignored her.

“
Your friend Lecia was
found outside the gate. We’ve got a couple of Wardens bringing her
into the district now.”

Kalei turned around. “Why are they
bringing her into the district?”

“
Looks like she’s
Estranged.”

“
What?”

Jenna apathetically replied, “You
heard me.”

“
Shit.” Kalei jumped out
of her seat and headed over to the elevator. “Tell them to bring
her to headquarters.” She hit the button.

“
Roger that,” Jenna
replied as she went back to work.

Downstairs, Kalei pulled out her phone
and dialed Marley.

He answered, “Hey, perfect timing! I
just found Xamic’s Grunt House.”

Kalei almost dropped the phone.
“Really?”

“
Yeah, it’s a great
location too. He used the Luxury Grove Condos in the heart of Tech
Town. That puts him right in the middle of everything. The Celan
Bank, the State Supreme Court, the Trade Building. He can have guys
at any one of those places in under five minutes if someone gives
him trouble. It’s ingenious, really.”

“
Not sure I’d call it
that.” Kalei was only mildly pleased to discover that her guess
about the barracks being in T-Town was correct.

“
Eh, call it what you
will. I’ll let SWORDE take over from here.” Kalei heard Marley’s
chair rolling and squeaking as he stood up. “So, anyways, what were
you calling about?”

Kalei stepped out onto the sidewalk,
watching the end of the street where she knew the truck would be
coming from. “It’s about Lecia. We found her.”

“
Seriously? Alive, I
hope.”

“
Depends on your
definition.”

“
Then define it for
me.”

Kalei sighed and ran a hand through
her hair. “She’s a fucking Estranged.”

Marley sighed. “Damn. Well, we knew
this would happen one day. She couldn’t play with fire
forever.”

“
Yeah.” Kalei heard an
engine approaching. “Listen, she’s here. I’ll call you later,
alright?”

“
Alright.”

Kalei hung up as the van pulled around
the corner. She took a step back from the curb in case Jarmel was
driving.

Luckily, it wasn’t Jarmel, because the
van stopped neatly alongside the curb. The driver, still in full
Warden black, got out, and Kalei asked, “How’s she
doing?”

“
A bit shaken, to say the
least. She— well, come see for yourself.” Kalei recognized Usha’s
voice and followed her to the back of the van.

As they arrived, a second Warden
opened the door. There was Lecia, hunched over on one of the bench
seats. Her usual plethora of layers were absent in lieu of a simple
yellow T-shirt over a pair of jeans. She looked a bit dirty, a bit
dazed, but otherwise unharmed. Lecia blinked against the light as
Kalei carefully took her arm and led her out of the van. As she
stepped onto the street, the woman slowly raised her head, staring
at the crumbling skyscrapers, turning her head as she tried to take
them all in.

Kalei asked, “Lecia? How you
feeling?”

Lecia pulled away from the sky and
looked at Kalei. “Kalei?” Her voice sounded dreamy. Her eyebrows
came together, and then relaxed when she recognized Kalei’s face.
“It’s you.”

Seeing Lecia so disconnected bothered
Kalei. She wasn’t sure if Lecia was just high, or if she was
seriously hurt like Josh had been. Kalei calmly persisted, “How are
you feeling?”

Lecia’s eyebrows puckered again,
perplexed. “Feeling?”

The knot of concern in Kalei’s gut
tightened. She took Lecia’s hand into her own gloved one and said,
“Come on. Let’s go find Erit and get you all sorted out.” She waved
off the other two Wardens and they peeled away to return to their
other duties.

“
Okay.” Lecia followed,
her gait measured and softly rolling as though she were walking on
a cloud.

Inside, Kalei asked the Warden at the
front desk where Erit was. She replied, “Just saw him go into the
elevator not two minutes ago.”

Kalei thanked her and led Lecia up to
the decrepit, golden doors, pressing the “up” button a couple
times. As they waited, Kalei realized that this was Lecia’s first
time in SWORDE HQ. The woman should be ecstatic, jumping with joy
at this opportunity. She had wanted to see the inside of HQ for
ages. But Lecia just stood quietly beside her, her mouth slightly
open as her eyes lazily traced the trajectory of some invisible
sprite. Kalei jabbed the button a few more times.

At last, the elevator dinged and the
doors dragged open. A few uneasy moments later, the pair stepped
out into the computer room.

“
Hey, Erit, can you check
Lecia out for me?”

Erit turned around. “Sure. What seems
to be the problem?”

Kalei looked at Lecia, whose eyes
still lazily danced around the room, heedless to its occupants. “I
don’t know. She just seems... out of it.”

Erit stood up and walked over to them.
“It’s possible she is simply adjusting to her new... state. But,
nonetheless, I will take a look.” He looked into one eye, then the
other. He gently picked up one hand and looked at her solid black
nails. Lecia was oblivious to the inspection. Her eyes had finally
focused on something behind Erit, and a crooked grin crept along
her face, as though she had discovered a hidden
paradise.

Erit asked, “Lecia? My name is Erit.
Nice to make your acquaintance.”

Lecia’s head slowly cocked to one
side, her eyes still gazing in the distance. “Funny.”

Erit raised an eyebrow. “I beg your
pardon?”

“
Your words are
funny.”

Erit laughed. “Well, it seems you have
noticed my accent.”

Lecia ignored him.

Erit released her hand and faced
Kalei. “I am sure she is fine. I recommend we take her to a
recovery room, allow her a few hours to adjust, and then check in
to see if we can help her become acquainted with her new
life.”