The Gunpowder Society

12. "Always Silver"

"Dr. Od...  Red Shield... Project Solidus."

Cicero ended his retelling and sat back in his chair with his wine.  He stared at Fr. Maven as he waited for the words to settle in.

Fr. Maven stared blankly at the dinner table for a moment trying to process the information.  After a moment he looked up at Cicero and asked, "What does it mean?"

"I have no idea," Cicero says solemnly.

They all remained silent for a while.  The priests sat in thought, and the students sat there waiting in anticipation of a conclusion.  Fr. Maven broke the silence first, "Well, it's clear that neither of us, at this time, can decipher the meaning of these esoteric terms.   In lieu of understanding, I see only one option."

"Gather the gifted," Cicero completed Maven's thought.

"Precisely," Father Maven affirmed, "You, Fr. Fang, Fr. Maji, sor Corneja and I can devise a plan for collecting everyone we can on each of our lists and housing them at our schools."

"Two things:," Cicero interjected, "First, there are many people on the list and God-willing we will find many more than each of our schools can house."

"Yes, very good point," Maven said as he began to rethink his plan a bit.

"Aaaannnnnd second, I already started collecting them," Cicero informed, "and I've been sending them all to New York."

"New York!  Why?" Maven asked.

"John the only place we haven't seen this trend of murders is in the US," Cicero explained.

"Yet," HP injected.

"Yes," Cicero responded admittedly, "and as I said we don't have a lot of time so I won't be able to go into all of the details right now."

"I'm interested in why we don't have a lot of time Father," came the Irish voice of the young man at the bar.  His new participation in the conversation quieted the room.  The men turned and looked at him.

"Because Francois," Cicero answered looking out the window as if trying to locate someone before turning back to Francois, "Fr. Maven and his party must leave quickly and you're going with them," this was an interesting twist, but not the answer to Francois' question.

"What do you mean?  Why?" Francois asked shifting in his seat, clearly trying to hold back some level of anxiety.

"Like the others on the list currently under my domain," Cicero continued, "you will travel to the United States, and make your home in New York until the source of this evil plot has been identified and completely put down."

"I do not even have room for the students I was planning on collecting this trip," Fr. Maven argued  "I'm sure I could make room to board Francois, but I most certainly can't send out an open invitation to the whole list.  I don't have the space and it's unsafe in so many ways."

"They don't need to be at your school.  Just in New York," Cicero explained.

"Why not spread them throughout the United States?" Logan asked.

"No... within New York... City," Cicero adamantly clarified.

The tone and words of Cicero's answer was too emphatic to argue so Maven changed his angle, "Logan said 'yet'... the murders haven't happened in the US yet.  And you agreed with him.  Please explain." Maven requested also trying to keep calm.  He wanted to give Cicero, and elder to him, the respect that he had earned and hear his plan out.

"I agree that it is only a matter of time before this violence spreads to the States.  I just hope we have enough time to move enough gifted to New York," Cicero explained.