Gerome Wells opened the door to his office with a sigh. The tired expression on his face came not from the lecture he had just observed—that had been a rather interesting experience, in fact—instead it was the man who lounging in a chair before his desk that made Gerome wonder if it was time to retire already.
“Comfortable, Alistor?” He said, shutting the door behind as he marched into the room and took a seat in his own chair. He tried to look menacing, but Gerome’s efforts were bounced off by the reflective glass on Alistor’s sunglasses.
“Your chairs are horrible,” Alistor said, shifting his position and putting a leg up over one of the armrests of the chair.
Closing his eyes and focusing on his breathing, Gerome quietly said, “Why are you here?”
“You know why. What do you think?”
Putting his hands together on the table, Gerome studied the old veteran in front of him. He knew their roles should have been reversed, but the old bastard insisted on keeping his position as instructor, rather than take his proper place. In a way, it was reassuring to have such a capable individual under his command. On the other hand, it was a pain in the ass to deal with someone who only showed token respect for the difference in their rank.
Sighing, he leaned back and said, “I think you are right. The Abe clan is clearly sending us a message. Just… what it is—I have absolutely no idea.”
“You’d think sending us their clan leader’s daughter would be clear enough,” Alistor said with a bark of a laugh, “But those sly bastards are always playing more than one game at once.”
“If it’s espionage, it’s not that subtle,” Gerome said, shaking his head, “And speculating just makes things worse. We accepted her and her bodyguard, so we should take responsibility for that, and avoid making unnecessary enemies.”
“Unless, we already are,” Alistor said with a vicious grin, “Enemies, I mean. They’ve always been closer to the Sinistra Guild, even after they abandoned Lowtown.”
“You just want me to speculate and go mad,” Gerome said with a growl, “We keep an eye on Naomi, but we don’t need to do anything more—not as long as she’s still a trainee.”
“Understood, Boss,” Alistor said, still grinning, “And the others?”
“Rex is promising. From her file, she seems like leadership material, and my brief observations affirmed that, I believe,” Gerome said, scratching his chin, “Mark Jenson is a bit troublesome, with his family history, but I believe he may prove useful if he can keep his head on straight.” Gerome paused, observing the old veteran.
Alistor licked his lip, clearly wanting to say something. Narrowing his eyes, Gerome leaned forward, speaking very quietly. “You want to know about the newcomers.”
“Sure, sure,” Alistor dismissed with an unconvincing wave of the hand, “So?”
“I heard what happened yesterday.” Gerome was not about to let the old coot have his way, without some pushback.
“It was just a little accident. I lost my temper for a bit, that’s all.”
“I don’t believe that for a second, Alistor,” Gerome pronounced with arms crossed, “No matter how much of a grudge you bear against mindweavers, you would not lose control just because a kid walked up to you and said he was one. No, you did that for a reason, and I want to know why.”
Alistor screwed up his face, and for the first time during their conversation, Gerome felt that the old veteran was serious, almost wary. He leaned forward, wanting to know what had triggered the harsh response against a kid from the slums.
“It’s… I’m not sure, Gerome. There’s something wrong about the kid, something potentially dangerous, but I only have a vague idea about it.”
“And you’re not going to tell me about this idea of yours?”
Alistor shook his head vigorously, “Not as long as I’m not sure. It wouldn’t be fair to the kid. I’m testing him now, so I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Alright,” Gerome sighed and leaned back again.
“In the meantime, can you look into him for me?”
Furrowing his brow, Gerome said, “What kind of information are you looking for?”
“Anything strange,” Alistor said, interlacing his fingers, “Just dig a little into his background, and see what turns up, yeah?”
With a mental command, Gerome called the guild file they had on the trainee named ‘Ark’ up, and found the cursory background that their information team had on him. When Gerome saw the last affiliation on the file, he scowled with annoyance. “Damn it, it had to be Respite. I’m not messing with the Iron Ogre, unless I absolutely have to, Alistor.”
“You don’t have to go to her directly,” Alistor said, dismissing Gerome’s unease, “We have contacts with former residents of the orphanage. Stop being a wuss, Gerome, she’s not that scary.”
“Easy for you to say when you’ve got a near-perfect counter to her power.” Gerome did not like it, not one bit. Biting his lip, he knew he could not reject the request, not when Alistor was this serious. “I’ll see what I can do, but if she comes storming in here, you get to deal with her, understood?”
“Understood, Boss,” Alistor said, the grin returning to his face.
Fucking battle maniacs, Gerome thought, head in his hands.
----------------------------------------
Ark and Mino got out of Basic with a font of references they would have to look up and read until the next day, as make-up work for being latecomers. Ark felt it was a little unfair, but on the other hand, a lot of the material was already known to them. They’d spent years in the Maze being prepared to enter rifts.
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They exited the lecture room and walked down the hallway behind the other trainees, when Mino subtly pushed him with an elbow. Ark looked up and saw his friend’s questioning eyebrow. They had just been in the room with an assistant guild leader, after all, shouldn’t they have tried to impress him?
“He wasn’t there for us,” Ark said, slowing down so that their conversation would not get picked up by the others. They were all on their way to the same destination, after all.
“How do you know?”
Ark shrugged. “I don’t, but I can guess. We’re street rats, Mino, and we’ve shown nothing that would pique that level of interest. The others, though,” he said, nodding to the four figures walking ahead, “They are clearly educated and have training from somewhere—that makes them valuable.”
“We have training too,” Mino objected.
“Yeah, but we always sucked at it,” Ark said, patting Mino on the arm.
“Maybe the training was wrong,” Mino said, voice serious, “Ever thought about that?”
“Almost every day.” Ark sighed. They walked on in silence for a while, headed for the armory.
Here they met the quartermaster again, Harkon, who happily greeted Ark and Mino, much to the surprise of the other trainees. “Ahh… my favorite trainees,” he laughed and slapped Ark so hard on the back he stumbled forward.
Ark looked up awkwardly at the others who all had taken on that very familiar, calculating stare. Especially Rex, whose eyes were near-slits with suspicion.
“You all, shoo,” Harkon said, waving the other trainees forward, into a practice room where a weapons trainer was supposed to oversee their technical training in weaponry. Harkon made it very clear, however, that he was not letting Ark and Mino getting into the training room before showing them his toys.
“We don’t have all the fancy things as the branches upstairs,” he said, pointing upward, “But we got something they don’t.” He flashed his teeth in another grin that countermanded the heavy lines that years of frowning had left in his face. Opening a small closet, he waved theatrically at the sight. “We’ve got all the junk that no one else wants.”
At first look, the items inside the closet definitely were junk. Most showed signs of heavy wear and tear, often with wiring on the outside, held together with strips and duct tape. When Ark looked closer, though, he noted the care that had been taken in keeping these items functional, which was a feat, since they were all old-realm tech.
“This is—“ He reached out, stopped, and looked to the quartermaster, “Can I touch?”
“As much as you want, Lad,” Harkon said with a laugh, “As long as you let me look at that gear again.”
“Sure,” Ark agreed immediately, as he reached inside and withdrew an old pistol, checked if it was loaded by pulling on the slide, before turning it from side to side in wonderment.
“A good choice!” Harkon said, nodding approvingly as Ark held the pistol, “That’s a glock, last model produced before Operation Moonfall. It’s a solid sidearm, although it was mostly issued to support staff, at the time. It doesn’t have enough firepower to serve as a front line weapon.” He reached inside and withdrew a gun that clearly had more tech involved in its production, evident from the wires that had been carefully repaired after something had taken a bite out of the handle.
“This here is was the wolverine, standard issue for mindweavers. I heard that you say you are one, so go on, try it.” Harkon reversed the gun and handed it to Ark, handle first.
After checking whether it was loaded, Ark admired the instrument. The wolverine was not much bigger than the glock, but it featured a laser sight and had two barrels, rather than one—one large enough for a bullet, the other a smaller outcrop below, without any obvious purpose.
“It’s capable of firing smart bullets, as well as ordinary ones, but the real advantage is here,” Harkon pointed at the smaller barrel, “This is an AR-Link—it syncs up with your netlink, and can be used to fire custom-made spikes at the enemy, without needing user direction.”
Ark immediately understood the advantage. Using the netlink directly as an attack-vector demanded concentration and willpower, which meant Ark had to stand still in order to focus. This, on the other hand, solved the issue of directing the program toward the right destination with an analogue solution.
“That’s amazing,” Ark breathed, looking the gun over with renewed enthusiasm. He tried linking with it, but got nothing but an error message. “Is it broken?”
Making a face, Harkon took the gun back and sighed, “It is one of the few surviving pieces. It was roughed up heavily in the fighting, and I never really had a reason to properly back together. After Moonfall there simply weren’t enough mindweavers left to make it a priority.”
Furrowing his brow, Ark looked back into the closet and saw more pieces like the Wolverine, half-patched together and left for later restoration. “Why? What happened to the mindweavers?”
Harkon looked surprised, blinking a few times before he answered. “You mean, you don’t know?”
“No, I don’t,” Ark said, feeling uncertainty rising in his chest.
“Hmm… well…” Harkon scratched his chin, eying Ark from head to toe. “I figured anyone calling themselves a mindweaver would know, but I don’t suppose you had a proper teacher, huh?”
“No, I was taught by—“ Ark stopped himself, both because he did not want to reveal how he was taught, and because he thought back on his lessons. The way he had been taught was through manuals, and then a lot of practical lessons that boiled down to ‘try stopping this’. Thinking back on the way Instructor Artis had talked about mindweavers, Ark realized he has always said ‘they’, as if he was never one of them.
“It’s not really a secret, I don’t think,” Harkon muttered, then shrugged, “After Moonfall, Central Command took in all surviving mindweavers. When the guilds were formed, they were only allowed to borrow mindweavers, but not employ them. Considering our new situation, they weren’t as necessary as before, and psychics were more useful, so they became the norm. I don’t think we ever trained a mindweaver, as far as I recall.”
“Not even one?” Ark felt a shiver run down his spine. He could feel that there was some information missing within Harkon’s account. Alistor’s warning from the night before echoed in the back of his mind—the word ‘time bomb’, repeating itself over and over.
“It wasn’t a priority.” Harkon shrugged again. “Now, if you let me have some time with your gear, I’ll fix one of these babies up for you, for your riftrun. You won’t be able to find a weapon as useful as this, outside the guild, I promise you.”
Ark was staring into the distance, trying to fit pieces together in his mind, but nothing felt right. Belatedly, he understood what Harkon was saying, and instinctively put a hand to his belt, where his dagger was sheathed. “What? Oh… I—I don’t want to be away from it for long.”
“What about whenever you’re here for weapons training, anyway?” Harkon said, smoothly, his face the picture of innocent greed, “It’ll just be for an hour-or-so, and you’ll get it right back, I promise.”
Ark looked at the items in the closet. There was more than just guns in there, and a lot of it, he figured he could use, or at least test out. Tech was one of the solutions to his weakness, but it was also an expensive one. One hour away from his gear, every day, might be a small price to pay for the opportunity.
Biting his lip, Ark nodded. “Alright, deal.”
“Excellent,” Harkon smiled and clapped his hands, then turned and shouted over his shoulder, “Doug! Stop listening in and get me a training gun!”
A rustle from nearby alerted Ark to the familiar figure of Doug, who darted out of sight. From the hasty staccato of his footsteps, Ark could tell he was running to do what Harkon wanted.
“He’s nosy, but a good lad,” Harkon said, still smiling, “He’ll get you fitted with a training gun that you can even use in the practical training with Alistor. In the meantime…” He suggestively put out his hand.
Ark looked at it, still holding on to the dagger at this belt. Very carefully, he once again placed the gear in the quartermaster’s hand, stomach churning with discomfort. Releasing it, he took a deep breath and stepped back.
Harkon eyed him curiously, but soon was too engrossed in the gear to worry about Ark. Mumbling, he walked back into the armory, toward a nearby workbench, as Doug came back out with a gun in his hand.
The curly-haired boy looked from his boss and back to Ark, before reversing his grip on the gun and handing it to him. “You know how to use one, right?”