Chapter 3: No More Hiding

Research Log, Year 17, Month 1, Day 4 (Day 5,823) Continued.

“As much as it pains me, I can no longer pretend that he can remain secret forever. He deserves a normal life. He deserves to be known. I cannot protect him, no matter how much I wish I could. I’m not ready to reveal him yet, but I can no longer deny that I must do so.

“And that terrifies me more than anything in this world.”

Today

Agent Iakedrom was a tall na, his skin on the dark side even for a Drolite. Today it had more of the rust orange swirling in it as he’d been called in early today and hadn’t had time. He had a square jaw with slightly curved corners that softened his face a little, but his eyes were hard. Sharp lines and a dark expression, which was appropriate today of all day. He wore an investigator’s uniform, tan with crisp shoulders, and designed to be left unbuttoned in the summer months without looking sloppy. The symbol of his station was emblazoned on both breasts of the coat in red, the hand with thumbs on both sides, or the Mark of Dytie, on a shield.

And he had a prosthetic right arm. One that itched almost constantly. He never knew if it was the prosthetic or if they were phantom itches generated by his mind for his missing limb, but he scratched it anyway. The thing was quite remarkable, though he didn’t understand how it worked. It was enough to know that he could use it almost like it were his own limb.

He made his way up the stairs of the ten-story apartment building. The stairwell was a large rectangular shaft in the corner of the building with a bamboo wall running up the center to support the stairs. Branches grew into the stairwell at specific intervals from the center column and the outer walls and were woven together into stairs. On each floor branches from the hallway reached inward to be woven into the branches growing from the center column to make a landing.

The Craftsman’s apartment was on the 8th floor. That number was bad luck. One short of nine.

Damn prosthetic, Agent Iakedrom thought as he continued to scratch the fleshy thing with his left hand. Why did he have to lose his good arm? He glared at the itchy animal hairs covering the replacement limb. He was lucky that this time the itching wasn’t phantom, so scratching helped a little. His surgeon said the tickling was a good sign since it meant that more sensation was being transmitted by the false limb into Iakedrom’s nervous system. Motion and sensation would improve, but it had only been a few months for Iakedrom, so the arm was sluggish and the sensation was… mostly itchy.

He stepped out of the stairwell onto the eighth floor, passing a couple officers guarding the hallway so no curious residents saw the apartment, their eyes deep yellow with disgust.

When he reached the apartment his eyes yellowed as well, his stomach churning as he took in the gruesome scene. It was a small apartment, but it was packed with the Craftsman’s creations. He’d been tracking this killer for a while now, and had seen things like this before, but never on this scale. A table and chairs made from diordna skin and bones. Knives and pokers and other unfamiliar tools scattered across the table which still had oil smeared across it. And the body of the Craftsman’s most recent victim. The naked nawo had precise cuts crisscrossing her body, her skin partially removed from one shoulder and down a quarter of her back. Normally a wound like that would be flowing with oil, but the Craftsman had drained the body’s fluids into a clay basin below the table. The smell alone was nauseating. Iakedrom didn’t know what was worse, the corpse in the process of being dismantled or the corpses that had been converted into household items. They’d have to collect everything eventually, but for now, Iakedrom would just make his report.

He reached up with his still irritated prosthetic to press the foot of the green and red parrot on his left shoulder.

"The Craftsman Investigation, Log 63," He began, and he could feel the bird stiffen as it memorized his words.

"The Craftsman was... working on the mangled remains of another victim when we arrived in the apartment. The victim was a female, Drolite by the iron coloration of the skin, and aside from that, we have no idea who she was or how long she’s been dead. And whatever the Craftsman was making from the corpse we can’t tell. We found her skin partially removed when we arrived, her body drained of all life oil and other fluids.

“Hanging on one wall there are two other skins, pounded flat and scrubbed to remove the oxidized cells, and there are several objects and tools around the room that will be cataloged later. Most of these… items are of Drolite iron, but there’s a Redaeli copper and a strange pale skin I’ve never seen. I suspect it’s one of the other two but has been treated or died somehow to lighten the color.

“The several pieces of furniture made from the dismembered and mutilated bodies of skinned victims are barely recognizable as having once been diordna. The only recognizable element is the bone used as chair frames, though even those are bent and stretched for functionality. The floor branches are discolored from the spilled life-oil and other bodily chemicals of the victims.”

"Hey Iakedrom," His partner Fosia’s voice said through the calling bird on his other shoulder, interrupting his log. He released the foot of the parrot and it relaxed, ruffling its feathers.

This calling bird was nearly entirely black, with white on the tips of its tail and wings, and it was one of the last things Ekivia had invented. Made Iakedrom almost wish she could continue working. What other incredible things could she have made if she hadn’t done something to lose her license? Though what she’d done he didn’t know.

He placed a finger on the calling bird’s foot and responded. “What is it? You get the Craftsman back without problems?”

"Yeah, no problems,” The bird continued in Fosia’s voice, “That priest called again. Says the Drol wants you to take another look around Ekivia’s house and bring her in for some questions."

“I was just there a couple weeks ago,” Iakedrom said. They had a standing appointment every few months when he would go and check her home in case she was working on any engineering projects without a license. In the twenty years, he’d had the assignment he’d never found anything. “Did they say why they want me to go back so soon? Is there something specific I need to be looking for?”

Fosia sighed through the bird, and it made a strange wheezing sound in its attempt to imitate her. “They didn’t. All they said was that she recently contacted an old associate. Said it sounded suspicious.”

“Suspicious how?” Iakedrom asked. It was a little out of the ordinary since Ekivia could be reclusive, but people talked to old friends all the time.

“She said she had something she needed to show him,” Fosia said.

“That could mean anything,” Iakedrom said, irritation plain in his voice and the slight red tint to his eyes. “Are they sure it wasn’t sexy talk?”

Fosia laughed. “Could be, but the Drol wants it looked into.”

“This could get awkward fast.” Iakedrom grinned, frustration draining from his eyes. “Can it wait?”

“Are you really asking that about a request from Dytie’s chosen?”

Iakedrom sighed. “No. Let me know what you learn from the Craftsman.”

“I will. But shouldn’t we change the name? Craftsman doesn’t quite fit anymore.”

“I know,” Iakedrom said, “but all our reports use the term. It would be hell to change it now.”

Honestly, he thought they probably should change it to avoid any confusion, but that wasn’t something he wanted to deal with right now.

“I just had a thought,” Fosia said, thoughtful. “You sure you want to go all the way out to Ekivia’s place? We could trade jobs if you want.”

“On a day like today, I’d trade if the Drol would allow it. I mean, Ekivia is good company and all, but the Craftsman… All this time finding nothing makes the trips almost feel like a waste of time, especially when I could be there with you finishing this investigation. Makes me want something interesting would finally happen.”

It was only half true though. A part of him almost looked forward to the visit. After years of stopping by so regularly, he’d grown to enjoy their time together, and he didn’t much like the idea of her getting into any real trouble. But maybe something minor, just to change things up a bit.

“Criminal interesting or sexy interesting?”

Iakedrom laughed. “Either way would be a breath of fresh air.”

"I expect to hear all the juicy details when you get back." Iakedrom could hear the grin on her face even through the bird.

“I’d say the same about the Craftsman if I didn’t already know all the ‘juicy’ details,” Iakedrom said, cringing. “When I get back let’s wrap this slag up quick so we can finally get some sleep.”

“I’ll be done before you return.”

“Done sleeping or done questioning the Craftsman?”

“Hopefully both. See you when the nightmares wake me up.”

**********

Nevets handed a writ of transfer to the cabbie. The piece of parchment would allow for the transfer of funds from Nevets’s account to the friendly nawo’s. Money hadn’t been used for generations at this point, but Nevets had read about a time when diordna traded shells and other objects. Now, a bank kept track of someone’s finances for them, and instead of using objects they simply shuffled numbers around in a ledger to indicate who held what. The nawo looked over the note, then she nodded and Nevets swung his leg over the saddle on the large black and yellow cat cab to dismount, thanking the driver as he did so. It wasn’t often that a cabbie had to take a trip so far out of the city, and not all of them agreed to do it. That said, the amount he’d paid for the trip was quite large.

Nevets was a short na, at only 167 centimeters, and he was all soft edges. Round-faced and a little plump around the middle, he wasn’t heavy exactly, he just wasn’t the type who exercised often or watched what he ate closely. He simply had a little more oil weight than others of his height. And he liked trying new kinds of meat and ferrum pod mixtures, so the little bit of extra weight was worth it. He’d start exercising and eating more carefully in a few years so he would be stronger when he was drafted, but until then he would enjoy his life.

He approached Ekivia’s home. It had been several months since he last saw her, though he’d never been here to her home before. They worked together on many projects back before she lost her license, and they would often go to lunch when she came into the city to shop or manage her accounts with the bank. He enjoyed their lunches, and occasionally he’d bring work problems with him to get her opinion on some new project or other and she always had great insights into his work. That was tiptoeing a little close to the legal line, as she didn’t have a license of her own, but she was one of the most brilliant animal engineers he’d ever had the pleasure of working with, and she wasn’t really working on the projects. He was just sharing a part of his life with an old friend that he only got to see occasionally. That’s all.

A part of him did worry that the thing she had to show him was related to animal engineering. It would be seen differently if she worked on her own project, and she could get in a lot of trouble if she did more than just theorize. She’d always been fairly conservative, so Nevets wasn’t worried that she’d done something that would get her in any real trouble.

A slight breeze blew in the early evening, rustling the leaves of the forest around her home and the ones that grew all over the surface of the structure. Nevets wasn’t a plant engineer, but he’d studied it enough to appreciate the brilliance of what they were calling “middle modern” architecture. To get the structures to grow properly they manipulated the genes controlling apical dominance, which dictated whether or not a plant grew straight and tall like most evergreens, or branched and grew wide like the trees in this region. Nevets didn’t understand it all, but apparently, by manipulating that specific set of genes they could dictate the intervals at which the tree branched so that they could have floors at precise heights. Once the main structure was grown, it died, so the leaves around the outside were not those of the main structural trees but were instead from the vines that climbed on and around the entire structure except at the door. Those vines had two functions and they had to be alive to provide them: produce bioluminescent light when the sun went down, and at the doorways, they could be stimulated to tighten or loosen to act as hinges and allow the door to either swing freely or remain closed.

When he knocked on the door he heard the wings of a doorbird squawk inside and then the fluttering of wings as it went in search of Ekivia. Nevets only had to fidget awkwardly for a moment before Ekivia opened the door.

“Come on in,” she said with a smile.

Are her eyes a little pale today? Nevets thought as he stepped through the door. Maybe she had been working on something secretly. He straightened up and returned her smile. “Thanks. It’s good to see you, as always.”

“You too,” She said.

“This is a nice place,” Nevets said, looking around. If he remembered correctly Ekivia designed this place herself. He quite liked the large entrance with the stairs going to the walkway above and the library office just off to the left as you came in. He’d always wanted a library of his own but never had the space for it in the city. Maybe he’d take a page from Ekivia’s book and move out here somewhere.

“Thank you,” Ekivia said, then gestured into the library. “Shall we?”

“Sure,” Nevets said. He followed her gesture to a large, well-padded, chair. The cloth was red, with a swirling vine pattern that seemed to belong in the house. It made him wonder if she’d designed this as well.

Ekivia retrieved a parrot from one of the shelves nearby and then sat in a second identical chair. “I’ve been working on something,” She began slowly, and Nevets saw the fear in her eyes intensify.

That look told him everything. She hadn’t just been studying and thinking and theorizing. She’d been doing it without a license. If anyone found out she could be drafted immediately and sent to war. But Ekivia was one of their best, and if she risked everything for a project then it must have been a doozy.

He smiled, though it felt awkward on his face, and replied with a feeble joke. “I’ve been working on something too. Several somethings, in fact.”

Ekivia smiled and rolled her eyes, some of the white fear in them retreating to make room for blue pleasure sight. “You always are. I need you to listen to this. It’s the best place to start I think, and then you can ask me questions.”

“Alright,” Nevets said, nodding.

The fear returned to Ekivia’s eyes, but she pressed the foot of the parrot. “Recall research log day 7,021.”

Nevets tried to hide his surprise at the high number as he did the math. That was nearly twenty years. If he had to guess she’d been keeping these logs since… well since she lost her license.

The parrot started speaking, and Nevets leaned forward, listening intently. The log didn’t tell him much about the project as a whole, just where it had landed, obviously in the last few days or so. But there was enough information in there to know she’d made an Animal Intelligence, a feat no one else had yet to replicate. He assumed this was what she had been working on at the very end of her career, and it sounded like she’d truly succeeded. He trusted her assessment, she wasn’t one to fudge her results, but he also knew the importance of getting a second opinion. Giving those second opinions made up the bulk of his work. But he’d never dealt with something like this. An Animal Intelligence.

“Based on my experience with Mada I believe that Dytie has given him a soul.”

As the bird finished speaking Nevets sat back into the soft chair, his shirt wrinkling against the padding as he did so. “You’ve made an AI,” he whispered. “I never thought you’d… keep working after that day. I guess I should have known better. Diordna like you don’t just stop being brilliant, don’t just stop creating because someone tells them not to. I guess I’m more amazed that you kept it a secret all this time. That can’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t as hard as you might think,” Ekivia said. “If anyone found out, I’d lose him. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

Nevets noted that Ekivia called the AI “him.” Diordna rarely used masculine or feminine pronouns for animals. They knew they were male and female, but generally, they were referred to as “it” not he or she.

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Under the circumstances, Nevets decided to adopt the same attitude toward the creature. “You named him Mada. For the First?”

“Yeah,” Ekivia said. “I sometimes think it’s too on the nose, but I couldn’t change it once the name stuck to him, you know?”

“I do know,” Nevets said with a laugh in his voice. “That’s what marketing teams are for. And half the time they’re just as bad as the rest of us.”

Ekivia smiled. The fear in her eyes had all but vanished as they’d conversed, leaving them completely clear. “Would you like to meet him?”

“Of course!” Nevets said, genuinely excited at the invitation. They’d figure out what to do about the broken laws later. It made him a little uncomfortable, but he thought if they presented it the right way then she would just get a fine or something. His paper on the AI would be an important part of creating the right narrative, so he’d have to write carefully. Maybe if they claimed it was a personal project that they’d worked on together, one started before she lost her license, and to keep it secret he asked her to hold onto it? He could afford to pay some fines, after all. Especially to help an old friend.

He followed her back to the entry of the home and they began to climb the stairs, but she stopped halfway up.

Ekivia turned around to face him, and he had to crane his neck a little to look up at her. Not only was she on a higher step, but she was much taller than he was. She stepped down to his step and opened her mouth to speak.

Before she could, however, Nevets grinned and stepped up one step so he was at her eye level. “That’s better,” He said, and she rolled her eyes again.

“Nev, I need you to understand something,” Ekivia began, solemn. “This AI…he’s not just a project to me. He…” She took a deep breath, and Nevets saw in her expression what she was about to say.

“He’s family to you,” Nevets said, meeting her eyes.

She nodded, and her eyes turned grey, a mix of fear and sorrow. “I think of him as my son. I don’t want to lose him, and I need to create a safer world for him to live in. Nev, I can’t do that alone.“

“I promise you Kiv,” Nevets said. “You won’t have to. I consider you one of my closest friends, though we don’t spend a lot of time together. As your friend and as a professional, I promise you I will do everything I can to help you make a place for Mada in this world.”

Ekivia’s eyes were now completely grey, and several drops of the liquid rolled down her cheeks. She reached up and wiped them with her sleeves, smearing the grey concern sight and the swirling orange patterns of her face. “Thank you.”

“You are always welcome,” Nevets said, and he gestured up the stairs like a servant holding the door for a distinguished guest. “Now, I would love to meet this son of yours.”

“Of course,” Ekivia said. She took a deep breath, calming her emotions, then stepped past Nevets and continued up the stairs.

He followed her down the left hallway at the top of the stairs about halfway, where she stopped. Nevets turned to the door on one side of the hall, but Ekivia didn’t open it. Instead, she tapped his shoulder and pointed to the blank space on the opposite wall. He cocked his head a little and she gave him a crooked smile.

“I disguised a door here using light vines,” Ekivia said. “It took some time to get the look just right, but after twenty years even I forget it’s here sometimes. Look here.”

Nevets bent down, looking closely at several places where she pointed. If he got this close he could see the trigger branch hidden in the twisting vines and the hinge vine a door’s width to the left, spiraling its way up the wall, hidden beneath cleverly overlapping light vine and wall branch.

“Impressive,” Nevets said, straightening. “I guess this is a big part of how you kept Mada a secret all these years.”

Ekivia looked about to reply when the door bird came flapping down the hallway and landed on her shoulder with a soft squawk and a nip at her shirt.

Nevets looked at her, questioningly. “Were you expecting someone else?

“Not exactly,” Ekivia said, suddenly nervous. “There was someone I contacted, but I never heard if they were coming.” She pulled some nuts from her pants pocket, tossing them to the ground for the bird. It jumped down, fluttering its wings, and began cracking the nuts loudly. “We’ll introduce you to Mada once we know who’s here.”

**********

The door opened and revealed Ekivia on the other side, with Nevets Sirrah standing near the table at the center of the entry hall.

“Ekivia.” Iakedrom smiled genuinely as he greeted her. “Good to see you again.”

“Iakedrom,” Ekivia said, stepping aside to let him and his officers in. They wore coats similar to his, though of the near-black grey color with the handless shield of the regular law officers, not investigators. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

She spoke casually enough, though Iakedrom didn’t miss the slight paleness to her eyes or the way she glanced at Nevets.

“I didn’t expect to be back so soon,” Iakedrom said, stepping around the table in the center of the entry and holding out his prosthetic right hand toward Nevets. “Iakedrom Yerag. Mr. Sirrah, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I read your book on prosthetics, for obvious reasons, and was impressed at how well you made genetic engineering accessible and understandable, even to a layman like myself.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well, investigator Yerag,” Nevets said, taking Iakedrom’s hand and shaking it while glancing nervously past him at the other officers. Yes, there was definitely something suspicious going on here, though Iakedrom couldn’t yet know if it would be benign or not.

“How can we help you?” Ekivia asked, drawing his attention back from Nevets. “You were just here, what, two weeks ago? I don’t think I could have broken the law in that short amount of time.” She glanced at Nevets significantly, and Iakedrom followed the gaze. It seemed Ekivia was trying to tell the short na something with that statement. Perhaps he hadn’t known why Iakedrom normally visited?

Despite the uncommon tension in the room, Iakedrom was impressed with how casually Ekivia spoke. He supposed after nearly twenty years that was to be expected. “I just received orders to come look around and maybe ask a few questions. I’m sorry for the intrusion.”

“No problem at all,” Ekivia said, and Iakedrom gestured for the other officers to start looking around the house. “Nevets was just telling me about his work. He’s writing a new book. I may not get to participate in genetic engineering, but it still interests me quite a bit.”

“Why don’t you tell me a little about it while I look around?” Iakedrom said, going to the stairs and waving them to follow, which they did though Nevets hesitated, looking to Ekivia to make the first move. “I’d appreciate the company.”

They climbed the stairs together.

“I…” Nevets began as they neared the top, and Iakedrom looked at him, noticing a nervous glance down the left hall. “I’m not sure it’s something I’m ready to share with someone quite yet.”

“Aside from Ekivia of course,” Iakedrom said, turning left at the top of the stairs. “I understand. It’s in early stages and…”

His shoe crushed on nutshells left on the floor, interrupting his train of thought. This must have been where they were when the door bird fetched them. He crouched and scooped the shells up, noticing something odd as he did so.

There were faint scratches on the floor here, so small that he wouldn’t have noticed them if he were standing or walking by. They made a curving pattern across the floor, like those a door might leave when it was too loose on its hinge vine. He glanced across the hall at the door there, but it wasn’t large enough to make these marks, and besides, the curve they followed would be made by a door swinging from the blank wall.

He stood and glanced at Ekivia who seemed truly nervous for the first time as he handed her the nutshells. So he leaned forward, inspecting the wall closely. And there, hidden in the twists of the wall branches and the light vine he caught sight of a small, downward-pointing nub.

A trigger branch.

Reaching a finger between the woven branches, he flicked the trigger. Hingevines relaxed and seal vines retracted, allowing the hidden door to swing open smoothly. From the feel of it the door was well tuned, the hinge vine only slightly loose, likely from years of use. After all, it must have been here a long time, since the beginning even, for him to not have ever noticed there was a room here.

He tapped the foot of his calling bird twice and it chirped quietly. The birds of the other officers in the house would chirp as well, and they would come to find him. Then he opened the door to the secret room. He took it in quickly, and it looked to be a bedroom, but for whom he couldn’t guess. Aside from the furnishings and some clothing for a na, not a nawo, left lying around the room was empty. So Ekivia wasn’t the one who used the room. The only reason to have such a space was to hide something or someone. In Ekivia’s case, he thought it could be both. To hide an accomplice who could help her break the law and continue to engineer without a license.

“I’m going to need you both to come with me to Rebmevon,” Iakedorm said as the other officers arrived. It looked like something interesting was finally happening with Ekivia, and a part of him was sad about that. As much as he complained to Fosia, he didn’t want this nawo to get in trouble. Though, he supposed it was too late for that now. “I have some questions I need answers to.”

**********

Mada fidgeted nervously as he returned to Ekivia’s home, wearing his protective clothing that kept the sun off and would make it harder for anyone to realize what he was should they see him. His heart thudded in his chest. And even though his eyes remained pink like the blending of fear and anger, it would be obvious to anyone who saw his face that he was terrified. He’d always been anxious, so he thought it was appropriate that his hair and skin were fear-white. He was working on it though, which didn’t mean the fear went away just that he was trying to confront it instead of run from it. Suggesting they bring in a third party to test him was one of these steps into fear. Actually meeting this new diordna? That seemed almost impossible. Mada didn’t think he’d be able to even speak.

But fear-white and trembling, he would try anyway.

After so long fearing the outside world, believing that no diordna in the world would treat him with respect, he found himself unable to dismiss his fears. Ekivia had tried soothing him last night, but it wasn’t so simple. He knew from things Ekivia had said that he was more fearful than the average diordna, but why shouldn’t he be? He was also more likely to be abused by them because they wouldn’t see him as anything but a tool. Now he was about to be thrust into a world where animals were as important as trees. Well, more important, but respected only as much.

He’d been so nervous waiting in the house that he had to leave, to get rid of some of the nervous energy. So he went to a small shack in the forest and practiced some of the hand-to-hand he’d been taught. It was part of any diorama’s education to prepare them for the draft, so Ekivia had been sure to teach him the basics, and he came out here occasionally to practice. Ekivia herself had built the shack for him to hide in when Iakedrom came on his regular inspections, just to be extra cautious. It was hard to be so deathly still that he wouldn’t make any noise at all, especially when he was nervous. And Iakedrom’s visits did make him nervous.

Apparently, Nevets’s visits would do the same.

He cracked his knuckles and shook his hands out, trying to banish the irritation he felt in them when he was nervous. After so long using it to escape the inspections, the shack felt like a safe place to him. It was his sanctuary, and while he’d been there his nerves had settled. Now that he was heading back they’d returned, however. So he supposed it hadn’t been much help.

He walked slowly, trying both to convince himself that everything was alright and that Ekivia would protect him, and to run away at the same time. He felt sick to his stomach as the back corner of the house came into view through the trees. Then he heard voices from around the front. Ekivia and Nevets must be out looking for him. He took a deep breath and tried to stand up straighter, then changed his path and made for the front yard.

As he came around the corner he saw a large cat mount, though it wasn’t a common transportation animal. No, this was a Pursuer. Large enough for three diordna to ride, the sleek black cats, originally based on panthers, were commonly used by law officers in their work. Nevets was a lucky na to have such an animal.

Then the full scene came into view and Mada froze.

The cat was not alone, and it did not belong to Nevets. There were two others, and officers to ride them. Ekivia and Nevets were being escorted from the front door by a na in the tan uniform of an investigator. Mada’s breath became ragged and fearful, his eyes darting from the officers to Ekivia and Nevets. What in Dytie’s name was happening? Iakedrom wasn’t supposed to be here for another couple of months or so.

His mind buzzed with questions and fear, and way behind it all, a tiny, unheard voice warned him to run. But even if he could hear it over the buzzing in his skull, his feet were firmly rooted by fear.

Then Ekivia looked up and met his eyes, her own eyes widening in shock and filling with fear.

**********

"Oh, Dytie."

The muttered curse from Ekivia drew Iakedrom’s attention, and she glanced hurriedly away from something that had caught her eye in the trees somewhere. Her eyes turned completely white as she met his and realized he’d heard her.

He searched the tree line around the yard only briefly before seeing the figure standing among them. It was hard to see details in the shadows cast by the low sun through the trees, but that was definitely a diordna.

"Is that one of our officers?" Iakedrom asked, looking around to count. No, They were all here in the yard with him.

“No, sir."

Iakedrom turned to Ekivia and Nevets. ”Who is that?”

“I don’t know,” Ekivia responded, too quickly.

Iakedrom waved to an officer. "Go see who came to visit."

Almost before the words finished leaving his mouth, Ekivia leaped at the officer, latching onto his torso with both arms and looping one of her legs around his legs to trip him. Ekivia and the officer fell, thudding to the ground a mere meter from Iakedrom, and Ekivia shoved her forearm against the back of the officer’s neck to try and pin him.

In all his years checking up on Ekivia, all the time they spent chatting over the occasional lunch he’d happened upon, Iakedrom had never seen anything like this from the nawo. She’d always struck him as gentle and reserved. Now she grappled with one of his officers, growling fiercely, holding the na down, if not expertly then effectively.

And the trigger for this transformation stood silhouetted in the trees.

“MADA!!” She shouted, still pinning the wriggling officer. Her shout awoke Iakedrom from the shock of what he was seeing and he leaped forward to help the na, grabbing Ekivia’s arm and trying to pull her off the officer. “RUN!!”

Iakedrom glanced up at the figure, who seemed to hesitate slightly before taking a step toward the house. He tried to signal to the other officers with one hand while still grappling with Ekivia. They got the message and started toward the figure, removing batons from their belts as they did.

“NO!” Ekivia shouted so closely to Iakedrom that it made his ear ring. “PLEASE!”

The plea seemed to be directed toward the figure in the trees judging by the volume of her shout, but Iakedrom couldn’t help but feel it was partially directed at him as well. The desperation in her voice was thicker this time, like a mother pleading with an invading army to spare her child.

The figure turned and bolted, vanishing almost instantly behind trees. One of the officers who’d moved to pursue thought better of going on foot and doubled back, climbing onto the back of one of their mounts to give chase.

Unable to loosen her grip on the officer and growing frustrated, Iakedrom drew his cnido and leveled it at the side of Ekivia’s head, his finger resting near the fang-like trigger sprouting from the handle, the world taking on a red tint as a little anger sight filled his eyes.

Cnidos were fairly new technology, a weapon made of flesh and bone. Before acquiring one Iakedrom had wanted to understand them, so he’d read up on the topic. Much of what he read flew over his head, but he got the gist of it. Like his prosthetic, it had a set of small lungs and a small heart to keep it alive and functioning, and he had to inject it periodically with nutrients as well. It reminded him a little of holding a snake around the neck with his thumb on its head, though the short “neck” of the cnido had bone running through it and the head was elongated. Earlier models hadn’t had much of a nose, but the newer ones, like this one, did. Supposedly it helped with accuracy.

The trigger bone protruding from the handle was small and curved like a fang, but backward, so the tip pointed forward instead of back and was easier to loop a finger around. From his reading, Iakedrom knew that inside the cnido were cells, related to the stingers of jellyfish of all things, that were about the size of a small egg. The cells were under extreme internal pressure, one side of them pulled inward by suction. Inside the dimple was a short bone, like a sharpened cylinder. When the trigger on the handle was pulled something inside stimulated the cell, causing air to rush in and fill the vacuum with such force that it made a painfully loud cracking sound and could fling the bone from the nose of the weapon and through the skull of a diordna at close range if you hit them in the right place, killing them. It was less effective at longer ranges, but it would still do damage to anyone hit. Bows were generally more effective, especially at long range, but the cnido took much less skill and was far easier to carry and use as a law officer.

“Kiv!” Navets shouted, and she turned, looking at the nose of the cnido as if she were meeting the eyes of a predator.

Her grip loosened on the struggling officer and the two of them stood.

“Please,” Ekivia said as she looked around at them all, anger and fear in her eyes, desperation in her voice. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to him.”

She seemed to be speaking to everyone present, not just Iakedrom.

“Please,” She repeated, and Iakedrom softened his expression.

“Look, Kiv,” Iakedrom said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. Why don’t you start by telling me who that was.”

“It was no one,” Ekivia said, eyes slightly pink. That was a color he associated with defiance.

“Now I find that hard to believe,” Iakedrom said. “After all, you used his name, and you assaulted an officer of the law to protect him.”

Ekivia met his eyes, more red bleeding into her sight in defiance. Iakedrom felt himself growing angrier with her.

“I want to help you if I can,” He said, trying not to clench his teeth. “But I can’t if you tell me nothing. I need you to help me help you.”

She glared at him. “I won’t.”

Again he was struck by the contrast between this intense nawo standing before him and the one he’d known for almost twenty years. He was surprised to realize that the contrast hurt. He felt lied to like it had all been an act. He thought they were developing a friendship after all this time, and he truly respected her not just as what she once was, but as the retired geneticist she was now. Had all these years just been an act? Had she been lying and manipulating him all this time, pretending to be someone she wasn’t? That thought made him both sorrowful and angry at once, darkening his eyes. That was another question he would get answers to eventually.

He felt betrayed, and the more he thought about it the angrier he became, to the point that he could feel his oil pressure rise.

In his anger Iakedrom made a snap decision, quickly turning the cnido aside and pulling the trigger, sending a bonelette burrowing into the dirt beside Ekivia’s feet with a loud, painful, crack. The handle was red from being squeezed, and the cnidoblast, or empty bonelette launching cell, slid out the bottom of the handle, fell, and splattered in the dirt.

“You will,” Iakedrom said, noting with some satisfaction the uncertainty he now saw in Ekivia. If she would change in an instant to become a dangerous opponent, he would mirror that change. “You’ve always been kind and cooperative before today, but what I just saw was anything but. It leaves me wondering how well I really knew you. I want you to remember that not only my job to investigate, but to interrogate. And I’m good at it. I will have answers eventually.”

“Tell me, Iakedrom,” Ekivia said. “Have you ever interrogated a mother?”

“I…” Iakedrom began to respond, but motion caught the corner of his eyes.

They’d all been so focused on Ekivia that they’d failed to notice Nevets, who had moved around to one of the Pursuers. The short na heaved himself into the saddle and kicked the beast into motion. Iakedrom raised his cnido, aiming it at Nevets. He hesitated a moment to increase the range, not wanting to kill the na, just stop him. It would hurt his accuracy, but he couldn’t afford to kill the little scientist.

Ekivia leaped at him as he was pulling the trigger, sending his aim wild as they fell to the ground together. Iakedrom’s back thudded to the dirt, the force of the blow knocking the wind from him. Ekivia held his cnido arm by the wrist, pinning it in the dirt as she shouted over her shoulder.

“GO!” An officer grabbed her and yanked her off Iakedrom. “FINISH WHAT I STARTED!”