The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (24 page)

“All right,” he said, once they were in the
car. “What the hell was that all about?”

Despite his anger, Sheila was smiling. “What
are you so mad about? You called him on it. He's an Elder, Nick.
He's also a high level sehndayen-ne. Did you know that?”

“Uh, no...” he started. “But that's not the
point. We wasted time kicking around his office with a conversation
that went absolutely nowhere. Even if you sensed the same person
Kindeiya did, we did absolutely nothing about it.”

“So?”

He shook his head in frustration. “So why the
hell are we even here?”

“So he could test us,” she answered. There
was even a little bit of pride in her voice.

“Might I remind you we're part a government
organization? We don't have the time for this.”

She merely laughed at him, which aggravated
him all the more. “You haven't listened, have you? We confirmed
there is an unwanted person at DuaLife, but he's not doing
anything. He's not threatening any of the workers. He's not
destroying property. He's just making his presence known. We can't
do a thing to him until he makes a move.”

“So we wait for this big D’haff Sshalé to
kick the living shit out of another Mendaihu, and then we get Caren
to kick
his
ass again?”

“Not quite,” she said. “That's not his
motive.”

“And you know this, how?”

“He's threatening by not doing anything at
all. He's serving as a reminder from the Shenaihu that they'll
return.”

“And this amuses you?”

“Well, no...” she said soberly. “But at least
we know where we stand now.”

“There’s that,” he said bitterly.

“The playing field is being arranged.”

“Whatever that means,” he muttered. “As long
as I get to know what the hell is going on.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Perspective

Poe headed to the New Boston ARU Headquarters
early to avoid the usual midmorning shift change. The building
itself was a gorgeous brick building near Harvard University in
Cambridge Sector, five stories high and a half-block long. Inside
the front foyer, a few agents just getting off the night shift
stood idly by Reception, chatting quietly with the man behind the
desk. They stopped briefly when they saw him, a plainclothes man
with an ARU badge hung around his neck on a silver chain. Agents
visiting from other provinces was not the norm, and when it did
happen, it usually meant an extremely large case was about to blow
open wide. He walked up to the dispatch desk and offered his best
morning smile and a flash of his badge.

“Good morning,” he said. “Agent Alec Poe, ARU
Bridgetown, Branden Hill District.”

The man behind the desk perked up and
whistled. “Branden Hill, eh? You guys are doing excellent work down
there lately. What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if I could talk to one of
your officers about a case I'm working on. Any recent incidents
involving any civilian unrest related to the Shenaihu or the
Mendaihu in the New Boston area.”

The man froze instantly. He glanced at the
agents he'd been talking with, then back at Poe, forcing a grin.
“You'd want to speak to Detective Simon Murphy. He should be in
within the hour, if you'd like to wait.”

“Sure, that would be fine,” Poe said, and
began to turn away, only to stop again. “If you could give me his
office number as well? I was planning using your research
facilities, if that's at all possible.”

The man nodded. “Fine with us, you're ARU.
Top floor, southeast wing.”

“Thanks,” he said, and turned towards the
elevators.

He met Detective Murphy a few hours later,
after he’d done some preliminary research on his own. The man had
entered the research wing rather noisily with a cough and a shuffle
of his feet in an all too obvious effort to make his presence
known. “I hear you're looking for me,” he said, approaching Poe’s
table and standing a little too close to his shoulder.

Agent Murphy was very young in terms of being
a Special Agent, and at twenty-one he still looked like a rookie,
with long jet black hair tied back in a tail. He wore the ARU
uniform as an alternative fashion statement rather than the bulky
annoyance that it was, enjoying the feel of a modified duster
hanging over his thin shoulders. Everything about him hinted that
he was this chapter’s black sheep, and held that title proudly.

“Ah, Murphy, glad to meet you,” Poe said,
offering his hand and introducing himself. “I’ve been informed
you’re the go-to for any Mendaihu issues around here.”

“That would be me,” he said with a resigned
nod. “Always get the ass end of everything. Please, call me
Murph.”

Poe began gathering up the paperwork and
tossed it in his book bag. “Believe me,” he said. “You have no idea
how lucky you have it up here. Is there a place we can talk
private?”

Murph arched an eyebrow at him. “My office.”
He led him downstairs to a corner office overlooking the busy car
and foot traffic of Massachusetts Avenue. The room itself was
neatly laid out; there were two small desks with barely a hint of
paperwork on them, a few visitor's chairs, a long couch wedged into
a corner, and a few tables lining the walls. This kid had his own
office and his associates had willingly let him have it. The
intense energies he felt here were screaming out:
This is me.
This is how I see the world. Don't agree? Tough.

Poe noticed a tall and wide bookshelf lined
half of one wall, filled with books of all sizes, including
work-related books, notebooks, and a few hardback vidmats. A fair
amount of thick trade paperbacks lined the upper shelves, all
fiction titles. A few shelves down, he was taken by a wide array of
books about spirituality and spiritual history. Those were well
worn and heavily dog-eared, many of them held together by
bands.

Murph dropped into his desk chair and faced
him. “So. What
really
brings you here?”

Poe tore himself away from the bookcase and
faced him. “You know I’m from Bridgetown, so you know what’s going
on down there. We’ve had random and unrelated assaults over the
past few weeks. We know the suspects are Shenaihu nuhm'ndah, mostly
on one or two each time, as they’ve willingly announced themselves.
The victims’ injuries are spiritual in nature. They rarely cause
any physical damage, but the soul is nearly torn away from the
body, held by just enough to keep the person alive. In nearly all
the incidents, there's been an odd bit of graffiti sprayed on with
smartpaint, saying the words 'here lies fate.' We've got leads on
all of this stuff, but nothing concrete. I know it’s been happening
in other provinces, and I’d like to know your take on it.”

Murph leaned back in his chair and grimaced,
hands clasped behind his head. “The graffiti is new, but other than
that, it’s exactly the same up this way. Not as many incidents of
course. It's been happening since mid-September, when the One of
All Sacred allegedly returned.”

Poe suppressed a smile. “That’s more than an
allegation,” he said. “And I can confirm that these attacks have
been happening since her return.”

“You think
she
is part of this?” Murph
said, picking up on the gender-specific pronoun. “I mean, the
reason behind it?”

“I believe they’re trying to get her
attention,” Poe said. “Out of curiosity, have any of the suspects
been apprehended, or any of the victims questioned?”

Murph gave him a smirk. “We’ve got a few.
Some of them are damn chatty to tell the truth, so much so you
start thinking they’re full of shit. There’s one, though…he refuses
to talk, and we don't have any soulsensers strong enough to drill
him.”

Poe cocked his head at him, surprised. “In
New Boston? I thought you'd be swimming in sensitives.”

“Academia has lot of people with latent
abilities, but no one that can really
do
anything with them.
It’s like we have a city full of students with doctorates who’d
rather work the warehouses. It's like they chose not to do anything
about it. Personally, I think that's why this city is so damn
uptight about this sort of thing.”

“About Mendaihu or about sensitives in
particular?”

“Both,” Murph said. “But New England
Territory has always been like that. You don't want to go around
flaunting your special abilities unless you've got a damn good
reason to.”

“Really.” Poe shook his head in disbelief. He
never thought that any province, not just New Boston, would have
been so closed-minded towards sensitives. “That's...”

“Pretty old-fashioned if you ask me, but
there we are,” he said. “Think about it, though. We're right next
door to Newyork Metroprovince, which is pretty much its own
microcountry. We've got outpost towns littered all over New England
Territory, all of them so spread out and self-sufficient they're
too far apart to be considered part of New Boston or any other
province. The regional mentality has pretty much remained a guarded
optimism for decades. We’re a close community and we look after our
own. Come in and visit, but don’t expect us to embrace your way of
life without question. And ever since Landing Day, we've been okay
with cultural and ideological differences. But for anyone coming in
with some spiritual score to settle, well, we just send them back
to where they came from, one way or another.”

“Who's the 'we'?” Poe asked, wanting to push
this as far as he could.

“The ARU, the Metro Police, and whoever else
we can grab, really.”

“No Special Forces?”

Murph frowned at him, as if he'd been
insulted. “Pashyo! We're not stupid. The Provincial Governor's
Council would
never
let that happen.”

Poe shook his head again. “Consider yourself
lucky. Our PGC has been quiet, but they’ve got a lot of members
itching to get involved. So about this suspect you mentioned. Would
I be able to have a go at him?”

He grinned madly. “I was hoping you’d ask.
We'll visit him after lunch, if you like. He's being held at
Downtown Central. I doubt you'll get anything from him, but it’s
worth trying.”

“We’ll see,” he said. “About the incidents:
what can you tell me about them? Anything unique, something I
haven't mentioned already? Something you've only seen happen in
this province?”

Murph looked away and thought it over for a
few moments, absently tapping a finger on his desk. “Most of the
attacks took place in the smaller sectors. Only one took place in
Downtown. Two took place in Brookline Sector, three in Cambridge, a
handful in Everett. I could go on, but you can find it in my
reports. And they all took place in generally quiet neighborhoods
of those sectors.”

“Anything from Newton Sector?” he asked.

Murph understood quickly. “You're Dave Poe's
brother, aren't you? I've got a friend who had him for a literature
class or two at New Boston College. Met him once, really good man.
But no, to my knowledge, Newton's a little too quiet for our
suspects to worry about. They're sticking closer to the center of
town.”

“Any reason?”

He shook his head. “They want an audience?
Who knows.”

“Have you looked at it from a spiritual
perspective, then?”

Murph gave him another well-timed pause
before answering, working his jaw and letting out a long breath. “I
have,” he said quietly and evenly. “And I'm probably one of maybe
five or so agents in New Boston who are still working that angle. A
few others from different ARU sector HQs around the province, we’ve
been sharing notes. We haven't come up with much, but what we have
found is that the suspects are being guided by someone higher up.
The man we have in custody continues to claim that, despite lack of
any proof.” He shook his head and smirked. “He claims to be the
leader of the Shenaihu nuhm'ndah. Like he’s the analogue of the One
of All Sacred. Says he's a deity.”

“What’s his name?”

“He
claims
that his name is
Saisshalé.”

Poe gaped at him. “You're kidding me.”

“That was my reaction. Why would anyone want
to name themselves after a Meraladhza deity from the spacefaring
days? It doesn’t make sense. Let me who you the file.” He grabbed
his hardback vidmat and brought up the man’s headshot. He turned it
over and placed it in front of Poe.

It was the same man they’d confronted on West
Guyton.

“This doesn't make sense,” Poe managed,
staring at the face on the screen. “How long have you had him
held?”

“Three days,” he said. “He’d been bothering
people in various western neighborhoods for a week or two. The only
reason we were able to apprehend him was that he looks nothing like
the usual suspects we’ve had. Seven foot, well-built, long dark
hair, creepy eyes. And get this: once we caught him, he was the
nicest guy you’d ever meet. All smiles and good cheer. He refuses
to tell us anything we need to know, but other than that he’s
chatty. He's charged with assault and battery with intent to
murder, but I'm hoping we can get him on more.”

Those words had been said without any
remorse. “Personal?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Murph said, and left it at that. “So
why doesn't this make sense?”

Poe frowned and leaned back in his chair.
“For starters, there's little evidence that he ever left
Bridgetown.”

“Why would he stay? If he’s who he says he
is, he’d be all over the place, not just in your corner of the
world.”

“He's attacking random Mendaihu,” he said.
“And when he isn’t, he’s making them nervous.”

Murph studied the criminal record for a
moment. “He's diverting us from the real event. Which may or may
not have happened yet.”

“I think you're right, Murph,” Poe said.
“Let's go see him.”

Ah, the great Simon Murphy. And you've
brought a friend.