Two more days passed.
The hairy spiders were not moving around, while the more gecko-like creatures were. It was frustrating, because the younger him almost never looked up. Tom would have to suffer with his Danger Sense going off repeatedly as he walked past the same threat over and over again, until finally he would get a look at what type it was. It seemed that only two species were a part of the raid, or at least in the areas that his body went. Not that it mattered what species these rank-seventy-plus trained assassins were. They still meant certain death if they chose to go after him. Tom learned to dread the sessions when the trio would happily play alone in a large room while a killer lurked directly above them.
It also felt like they were everywhere. His unofficial count had twelve alive, with five being spiders and the rest being the gecko variety.
Another day dawned, and he went to breakfast with the entire dorm.
He entered the gymnasium, and the banners were green.
Inside the metal walls of his system room, he froze.
“No, no. This is wrong.” He yelled, as he panicked in the safety of his system room.
His Danger Sense was broadcasting the standard warning that it did when he was in a room with an assassin. Above him, one of the hairy creatures lurked, probably in the same spot as before. His mind flickered back and reviewed the trip here this morning. The one in the dorm had still been there, and right here in the gymnasium, an assassin was lurking above him as usual. But, as he mentally retraced his trip, he realised that there had been no signs of the other type, the Cotalda.
A dread filled him.
They had made a mistake. Green banners were being displayed while some of the assassins were still here. The scouts must have arrived during the night and gone through and cleaned out one species, but had lacked the skill to identify the other. A horrible kernel of certainty settled deep within him. Tom realised that the addition of the hairy assassin type was new, a more powerful version that had been sent here just for this raid, and because of that Dimitri and the others didn’t know the risks.
It was a disaster, and Tom didn’t know what to do.
There was still an armed presence in the room, but less of them. More for show than for a fight.
Dimitri was smiling.
Boreas yelled out in relief. “Finally, you got them.”
Arnali next to him shoved him. “Cut the attitude, people died,” he hissed.
Tom felt like screaming at them, but instead he held his position in the pseudo-system room. He didn’t trust himself not to look up at where the spider still lurked if he took control of his body.
“What should I do?” he asked himself unhelpfully.
“We got them. We killed eight more Cotalda last night.” Dimitri said proudly. The speech was on one monitor, while the other showed real time activities.
“What should I do!” Tom yelled in distress. “What do I do?” He wanted to tear his hair out. His hands were on his head, and the nervous energy had him trembling. To openly act would be his own death warrant, but his inaction would doom others. Had Arnali already exposed himself in that earlier interaction? How about the others? Even with the deaths, there should be over twenty reincarnators in the facility. Given the birth rate, it was a high percentage.
If he did nothing, how many of them would survive? Should he expose himself to save them? Or was he more important? Should he allow all of them to die to save himself? He hated to think that way, but evidence suggested that might be the case. His precognition affinity by itself was notable, but that didn’t take into account his ability to see through illusions. It was possible he was worth ten others… or was that arrogance?
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He didn’t know.
He was paralysed by indecision.
Dimitri was doing his job as the kindly caretaker and was making an effort to visit everyone - hugging them, comforting the younger kids, giving the older ones high-fives. Tom was lifted up, spun around and then given a hug, as though he was another child.
His vacillation between response options came to a head. It was now or never. If he did nothing, then the watchers would gather data for hours, and then who knew how many other reincarnators would be revealed? Kang, Corrine, and everyone else were in real danger
Tom could risk everything or do nothing and live with the resulting deaths on his conscience. He had to choose one of those approaches and do it now. He couldn’t do it, he realised. Even as he felt a course of action growing firm within him, Tom recognised that the decision was the wrong one, that he was allowing emotion to dictate what should have been a purely logic-based decision, but he couldn’t help himself. He did not want to live regretting the lives lost.
For a moment, he left the system room and took over his body.
There was an immediate ding.
Tom ignored it, as he was sure it was just a confirmation of Danger Sense.
The less time he spent exposed like this, the better. Both his hands were currently on Dimitri’s large nose and in a subtle movement he let one drift around to tug on the ear as well. Less than two seconds had passed, and, before his heart rate could spike or adrenaline flood his system, he retreated back to the pseudo-system room.
In the monitor Dimitri laughed at his cheekiness and put him down.
Tom was trembling and kicking himself at the risk he had taken. He understood the danger he had just put himself in, but he wouldn’t regret it. The gamble had been the right choice.
Dimitri moved on and ignored the indication of an emergency. Given the timing, the caretaker had to have known it was related to the assassins and was urgent, but, despite that Dimitri had no outward reaction. In his pseudo-system room Tom stared with disbelief. How could he ignore that after Tom had dared to take over his body to deliver the signal?
Please, he prayed. Please don’t let me be discovered. Please let Dimitri be playing a longer game.
Another fear wormed into his guts. The body, he remembered, had a delayed reaction to a fear or shock. He was not necessarily safe yet. With wide eyes he watched the vitals monitor, paranoid that he had been too slow, that his adult mind had been in control of the body for too long, that adrenaline and other stress hormones would be released and reveal that there was more to Ta than met the eye. The key lines on the screen didn’t change. There were no revealing spikes of activity. His physiology had not given him away.
But there was a larger problem. Dimitri was not doing anything. He was happily continuing with his routine, celebrating with the other kids. He had moved on to another table, and Tom wished that he had tugged two times instead of once.
He should have made sure that the signal was completely clear. Maybe not twice, maybe he should have just tugged harder. It was galling to take that risk and be ignored. Perhaps, it was even worse, and Dimitri was playing this off as business as usual and planning on leaving a day before bringing Tom into the office.
Then it would be too late.
That idea horrified him, but he didn’t know how the other man would respond. He was hoping for something instant, but apparently slowly was the winning answer.
Had Kang already seized back control of his body for a moment? If he had, was that visible to the assassin? Tom very much understood the temptation, and he guessed they would all be back in control. The question was, how long would it be until they did something dumb enough to out themselves? It was almost a certainty once they got into an isolation room, but it would be easy to make a mistake before that. Every second counted.
Dimitri was crouched down with the pre-five-year-olds, the new children to the orphanage.
“Why them?” he screamed in his system room. Why them? Why waste time on them? They were unawakened. Tom knew his thoughts were uncharitable. Those four-year-olds required more attention than the older kids. They had just been brought here, with some of them being ripped from their nuclear families. They almost certainly required the most comfort out of everyone here, but Dimitri was wasting critical time.
His body’s focus moved away, ignorant of his thoughts and desires. The body started to eat the cereal it had served itself, as though an assassin wasn’t hovering over his head. He wanted to check on Dimitri, but couldn’t.
How much time had passed? Three minutes? Four?
Tom’s body’s head turned suddenly to look behind it. Milk sloshed out of the bowl as an elbow knocked it away.
Tom was instantly experiencing everything through the avatar’s full senses. Dimitri had leapt up onto the table. “Code red!” he bellowed. He was searching for hidden enemies wildly, and unlike what his younger self would have done, the experienced adventurer was mostly looking up. “Everyone into the pseudo-system room. Weapons out. My danger sense just went off. Code red. Switch the banners”
All around Tom there was a bubble of activity. Swords were drawn, spears materialised out of storage spaces, and the adults spread out to meet any threat that might suddenly emerge. It was the same as how everyone had been acting on the first day.
“What the hell are you about, Dimitri? We just swept the place.”
“Shut up, Susan. My danger sense went off. I’m waiting for Eden. She’s the only one I trust.” Dimitri shouted. “We missed something in the sweep. My danger sense is not wrong about this.”