Nick had gotten up early to touch base with a few committee members in order to lobby support for his Nero-project. The amount of priceless data which could be gained from studying such an oddity was immeasurable. Who knows what interesting things will happen to the kid as he progresses along his path. Just being able to use the data from the 3-star test was enough to convince everyone he had spoken with. Not a single member of the committee refused to sign off on his proposal.

Sipping his coffee, Nick went through his paperwork for the day. He was dealing with pings concerning the various functions of the Research Center, while also collating data from an experiment on essence crystal decay. As he worked, essence illusions were opening and closing in rapid succession while dancing across the workspace of his desk. Conclusions were being formed, and pings alerting him to issues were being addressed.

Nick was in his happy place. His mind was at peace, and his productivity was soaring.

His door opened without being pinged, breaking his concentration. He looked up to see Vera walking in. She was still angry with him. Nick sighed and saved his work. As his link turned off, he smiled and said, “Hello dear, to what do I owe this surprise, I thought I wouldn’t be seeing you until dinner.”

She sniffed harshly. “I put in the paperwork for Mr. Walker’s work-associate status, it was pre-approved already. I also received a ping from one of your lab assistants asking whether or not I should be receiving copies of the syllabus for ‘project-nero’. Then he inquired if I knew who Nero’s Center studies advisor was. Do you know anything about that?” She asked with a smirk and her arms crossed.

Nick just stared at her, trying to think of how to word his reply, “Um… Well….”

“Project Nero. Really Nick? Isn’t that a bit much. The young man doesn’t have an advisor yet, he is 14. He hasn’t even joined the Center officially yet. What are you planning?” Vera asked with amusement. ‘This is just like Nick. Planning years in advance for something that is only an idea. He already has a full lesson plan for our children, if we ever decide to get around to it,’ Vera thought to herself.

Just then, Nick’s link lit up. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked slightly to his left. His eyebrows shot to his forehead and his face paled.

“I’m sorry Vera, but we’ll have to discuss this later. Don’t worry about ‘Project-Nero’, none of it is bad. I’m just fulfilling the requests the young man made. I may not have been clear enough with my wording. It’ll be fine,” he said.

Nick stood up and started shutting down his station. He walked to around the desk and paused. He flicked his hand, and formed a body sized mirror from essence. Fixing his appearance, he straightened his back and assumed a serious posture.

Vera’s hands dropped to her sides. Confused and a little worried she asked, “Nick, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “I just got a request to appear in front of Gate 7 army command at my earliest convenience. The ping said to make sure that all the data I have concerning Mr. Walker is available for the meeting. Apparently, this concerns Nero. I have to go.”

He walked up to her and gave her a soft kiss and rubbed her shoulders. “It will be fine. I don’t know what this is about, but I’ll handle it,” he said in a voice filled with reassurance.

His efforts were in vain, as Vera was still worried. It was very rare for Center-Research to have any contact with any of the Gate’s army divisions. Occasionally they had a conjoined interest at City command level, but very rarely at the Gates.

“Do we need a lawyer? Should I call Jessica?” Vera asked.

“I don’t think so. I can’t think of anything that has to do with Nero that would require army involvement. I’ll let you know as soon as I can… I really have to go,” He kissed her one more time, and walked out of his office.

Vera stood there feeling helpless. Immediately shaking that feeling off, she squared her shoulders, and mentally reviewed her contact list. Most of the people in the Gate 7 area have passed through her intake hall, and someone must know something. She had contacts all over the city. Making a list in her head as to who she should ping first, she thought if nothing else works out, she could ping Nero.

As Vera was contemplating whether Nero would be of any help, Nick was walking quickly to the on-site teleportation room. Even with his haste, it was still a few minutes and an elevator ride before he walked in. The attendant at the station looked up as he entered. With narrowed eyes she said, “Yes?”

“My presence was requested by Gate 7 army command ‘at my earliest convenience’. That would require me teleporting there, and this was the closest terminal. I could do it myself, but it would violate several statutes to teleport outside of a hub without authorization,” Nick said as he folded his hands behind his back and took up a professional demeanor.

“Name?” The attendant asked.

“Nicholas Salvatore, Director of Gate 7 Center Research.” Nick said. Inside, he was rolling his eyes. She had full access to identify anyone that walks into this room, she was just being lazy.

“There is nothing posted on the schedule so you can’t use the pad, but the teleportation attendant on duty at the army compound said he doesn’t mind if you teleport yourself to their room on your own,” She said as her link deactivated, and then returned to her book.

With a disdainful sniff at her, Nick waved both his hands around and he started to glow with a weak gold light. His eyes went glassy, and then he vanished with a pop. She gave a sniff of her own, and then forgot about him.

Arriving with another pop. Nick looked around and realized he was facing the wall. ‘Hmm…. I need to practice my trans-dimensional spatial awareness… that was pathetic,’ he admonished himself.

He then started walking toward the attendant who had a very large smile on his face.

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“Director Salvatore, I’m a big fan.” He bowed, and continued, “Your paper on essence flow-rate similarities among elemental spell forms was inspiring.”

“Oh… yes, thank you. It’s always nice to meet someone who took something away from my work. I’m glad it helped you on your path. If you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting.” Nick gave a shallow bow and walked out. The young man was very nice, but Nick had to focus.

He’d been trying to think of what this could be about, and the only conclusion he could come to was that the file he turned into intake sent up a flag. What he couldn’t deduce, was the nature of the flag.

Making his way up to the Command floor, he checked in at the desk, and was ushered to where there was a meeting already underway. His escort asked him to wait, then went through the large ornately carved wood doors. A minute later, his escort returned and said, “The General and the commanders will see you now.”

Nick’s eyebrows raised. ‘What the hell is a general doing in this meeting? What the hell did that little shit do?’ he wondered.

Nick didn’t allow any of his apprehension to show in his psychic field, let alone on his face. He walked in and stood at the end of a long desk. In the middle of one side there was the general, easily identified by the gold border of his tabard. It was General Branson, Nick recognized him. He was the leader of Dorchester’s army.

The room also had 12 other commanders, and what looked like 2 Captains. It was a relatively full table. Nick also noticed that there were essence illusions of various information plates all along the walls. As he looked around he realized that very few people at the table were looking at him with any interest.

“Mr. Salvatore, thank you for joining us. We didn’t expect you so soon, please come in and take a seat,” One of the commanders said, while gesturing to one of the open chairs.

“Well, your ping was worded in a way that inspired haste gentlemen. Now what can Center-Research do for you?” Nick asked, as he sat down and folded his hands.

A few of the commanders looked at each other confused. Some were listening but didn’t seem to care. There were even some who were completely ignoring what was going on, as they were focusing on their links.

The same commander, who was seated next to the general said, “I don’t know what your ping said, but this isn’t in regards to a cooperation with Center-Research. This is concerning an intake form that you filed as the technician who performed his intake testing.”

Nick said nothing and just continued to hold his calm expression. ‘Sometimes the best thing to do is say nothing,’ he thought, as the room soaked in the silence for a few seconds.

“Well?” The commander asked.

“I apologize. I didn’t hear a question. What is it you would like to discuss. As you know, the details of a person’s path are personal and can not be disclosed by an evaluator in any circumstance. I also didn’t get your name Commander.” Nick said while looking every inch the Director of Center Research for Gate 7 Dorchester.

The commander looked around the room with a confused look on his face. The other attendants of the meeting were now all paying attention to the conversation and exchanging looks filled with confusion and interest. The commander who was leading the meeting returned his gaze to Nick, “We were unaware that the young man’s path was of interest. I am Commander Graves and what we were hoping to discuss with you was this rather long section of your report.” His link lit up and in the center of the table a copy of the report was projected. It flipped through several pages, then landed on a section titled ‘Further Notes’.

“In this section you describe the interesting way the young man sees the world. Your words were, ‘Mr. Walker’s soul most likely comes from a distant region of space. As his soul was not wiped clean of personality when he was traveling through the upper planes, he seems to have a great many preconceptions embedded in his mind. These preconceptions and modes of thinking are without any basis, and can only be explained by a residual latent mind from his previous incarnation. This makes him extremely interesting to talk to, because he views the world through a lens that is impossible to form in our society,’” Commander Graves finished reading the highlighted section of the report which hovered over the desk.

“That?” Nick asked.

Inwardly, he was relieved. It seems this had nothing to do with his arguably questionable choice of using an Essence Forge to perform Nero’s intake testing. He coughed into his hand to clear his throat.

“Well, yes. The young man’s way of looking at the world is interesting, but it isn’t a danger to society. Every day he lives his life, those preconceptions are being rewritten. In a mere 10 years, those impressions of his previous life will all be gone. I’m not sure I understand what it is you are asking?” Nick said with a hint of confusion.

The commander had a thoughtful look on his face. He looked over to his left and said, “Captain Angelton, perhaps you can recount to Mr. Salvatore what you told us when you requested this emergency meeting.” All eyes in the room turned to the Captain in question.

Nick thought, ‘An emergency command council meeting? What the hell is going on?’

Captain Angelton stood up, looking every inch the stoic warrior he was. He stood at parade rest and spoke clearly and loudly, “When I first met the boy, he was the lone survivor from a merchant caravan that had been raided. When I discovered that he had no memories of the actual attack, I dismissed him as an information resource, due to the fact that he did not have an eye-witness account of the attack. However, upon returning to the city, as I took him through the streets to drop him of at the Center for evaluation and registration, I noticed that he had a very odd way of seeing the city. He asked odd questions, and his head was on a swivel, taking in information from everything around him. Within just hours of awakening, he leveled right in front of me. He wasn’t meditating, or having a moment of reflection. He seemed just as surprised as I was. When I asked him how he leveled, his response was very interesting. He said that ‘He saw a lot of things that he could learn from’, and then quoted the price of some maginopes that he noticed. Furthermore, he said ‘You’re not paying attention, there is NEVER nothing to experience.’ That statement stuck with me.

“While I was reviewing what we found when we tracked down the Gurs who performed the raid on the merchant train, I realized we had too many questions. I didn’t have any leads, but I had a feeling we were missing something. That’s when the boy came to mind. I thought that maybe I just didn’t ask him the right questions when we found him. Just because he didn’t have any memories of the actual raid, he might have noticed something that I missed. He didn’t know what information could be relevant, so it was my responsibility to find out what he knew. That line of thought led me to meet with the boy earlier today in order to hear a more detailed account of his first memories.

“Most of what he thought important or noteworthy was, as I thought, only interesting to him because he hadn’t seen it before. However, he did make particular note of how the bodies were treated. From that he made some very astute deductions as to who the raiders were. Just by looking at the bodies, he came to the conclusion that the raiders were soldiers of some kind, and they were there for a purpose. Specifically they were looking for something. He then noted that among all the things taken, he was missing his link. From this he jumped to some ridiculous conclusions about the Islangurs using the stolen links to ‘brainwash’ people. I think he meant mind-wiping, but I didn’t press it. The important thing was, it got me thinking about WHY they wanted the links. I told him my theory on how the links possibly registered a psychic contact that would be flagged when they joined the city hub. From that small piece of information, he made some very astute, and very worrying conclusions.”

“He speculated that the only people who would be worried about a contact being recorded somewhere they shouldn’t be, would belong to a noble house. From there he made a rather convincing argument about how, in all likelihood, Dorchester has a traitor noble who is trying to take control of the city, and is currently amassing a hidden army of Gurs. Worried about the implications, I immediately requested an emergency meeting with command. Now, here we are,” Captain Angelton finished. During his entire speech his pitch never wavered, and his countenance didn’t shift a hair.

Nick was speechless. A traitor was ridiculous, and a hidden Islangur army on Oglivarch soil even more so. Where the hell did Nero get that idea? Nick rubbed his temples, trying to alleviate the oncoming headache. That boy, for all his interesting points, is a verifiable nightmare on the psyche.

“So you see why we called you. We need to know the likelihood that his conclusions have some basis in reality? We needed to bring in someone who studied how the boy’s mind works to see if there is any worth to what he said,” The commandeer looked at Nick, apparently waiting for some sort of verdict.

As Nick thought about how to word his response, he received a ping from the boy in question. The ping would have sat patiently in the Thought-hub, waiting for him to look at his messages, but the boy considered it important so the thought-hub listed it as ‘urgent’. As all of the commanders were currently looking at him, he sheepishly said, “One moment please, I just received an urgent ping.”

Reading the ping:

‘Hey Nick,

I leveled again last night. Lol. So I have another star available. I know you want to record me using them in your forge. Remember our deal. I get free room and board, a job where I don’t have to do anything, and all the classes I want. You get to put me in the lights. Oh, by the way, you still owe me the magic stuff you promised me. It was your fault for telling your wife about the stars. I specifically didn’t say anything about it:) I was very careful:p I’ll be waiting to hear from you.

- Nero’

Nick tried not to show his confusion. Another level? Is the boy now level 5? How does he keep leveling, that was years of growth in two days! Looking at Nero’s note again, he saw in plain language the deal the boy somehow got him and his wife to agree to.

‘How the hell did that happen?’ he wondered while reading the deal over and over again.