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Chapter 28 - Trust issues
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Shift felt the influence of Athira’s colour helping him walk, taking some of the weight off his feet and stabilising him as she led him to the far end of the large dance room. They reached a carved, mahogany staircase which Athira promptly levitated them both up the centre of.
At the top, alone except for Shift in the darkness, Athira took a deep breath. She leant against the wall, closed her eyes and lifted her chin to the ceiling, the steady rise and fall of her chest the only perceptible movement.
Shift watched her carefully, taking in every aspect of her movement. Her brow was caught up in frustrated lines, fists clenched against her sides. Silent words formed at her lips. The blue runes were blazing for the world to see on her bare shoulders and arms, but as he watched they cooled down to their usual pale glow.
“Okay,” she said, drawing in a long breath. “The urge to go on a murderous rampage is subsiding, but I don’t suggest another arena match any time soon.”
“So this probably isn’t the best time,” said Shift. “But I have to ask.”
“Usually a bad question in any scenario,” said Athira with a glance.
Shift pressed on. “I know what that bag you gave the guy was, Athira. It’s one of the ones some blue Elites carry their runes in, so where did you get it?”
“You don’t need to know.”
Shift was ready for the avoidance and activated his trap card. “I believe I still have two questions left that you promised me alllll the way back in your mindscape.”
Athira narrowed her eyes at him. “Does this look like a mindscape to you?”
“I didn’t think that was a rule,” said Shift.
Athira sighed. “I stole it, okay?”
“From someone who was still capable of moving afterwards or not?”
“Does it matter?” She opened her eyes and directed them at the ceiling. “Chief wanted the bag, so I got the bag.”
“Wait,” said Shift, wondering if he’d heard her right. “That guy was Chief? As in the Chief, the one on the Elite’s most wanted list?”
She shrugged. “Wouldn’t know, I didn’t bother looking at it.”
“How can you be so dismissive?” said Shift. His hands raised in the air on their own accord, only to have him shove them down again. He struggled to keep his voice down. “Athira, do you realise what that man’s done? How many people he’s hurt with his ‘get rich’ schemes? That list is there for a reason!”
Athira folded her arms. “That list is a pile of manure.”
“That list is--“
“A complete waste of time,” she said, cutting him off. “That list has several people on it who I know have never done anything worthy of being ‘most wanted’ while others -- murderers, thieves of bodies and whatever goods they can get their hands on -- are passed over without an honourable mention.”
Shift exhaled slowly. “So you have looked at it.”
Athira snorted. “Of course I have, it’s the first thing I did after Raph got me inducted to Indigo.”
“We need to go back for Chief,” said Shift, stopping in his tracks. “And I’m not shifting any colour for you until we do.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Athira turned her back on him, throwing her hands up as she started to walk away.
“I knew this was a mistake,” she muttered. “Bringing you here. I thought I could trust you to--“
“What,” said Shift. “Sit there like a good little Colour while you flitted around doing whatever you like without so much as an explanation? If that’s what you expected, you read me completely wrong.”
“--to trust me,” Athira finished after he was done. Her glare almost made him flinch, akin to something of an injured lioness. “I brought you here because I thought I could trust you to trust me to make the right decision. Apparently, I was wrong.”
“Excuse me if I got a little tired of being dragged around and saved,” said Shift dryly.
“Am I on that list, Shift?” said Athira. “Is the Owl on that list?”
The calmness of the question took him off guard. “Unless it’s changed, I think so?”
“Knowing me now,” she continued in the same, flat tone. “Would you place me on that list?”
Shift hesitated. “No, but I know you. You’re not a villain, you’re doing the right thing... most of the time, anyway, even if it’s a little distorted how you get there.”
“Glad to know you don’t think I’m a complete monster,” she said dryly.
“No, but you have to give me some kind of explanation rather than just expecting me to go along with it!” said Shift. “I do trust you, Thira, but sometimes you expect too much of that trust and it needs a reason or two to keep going rather than more trust!”
Athira was quiet for a moment, her eyes on the floor. When she started speaking, it was a low, quiet voice Shift had to strain to hear.
“Before I met you, ran into Raph, found out Zoe was alive,” she said. “I had my own list. Whatever people didn’t deserve to walk the streets, the Owl removed them and left them for the Elites to clean up. Not every person I left was a demon in the guise of a human, some just made the mistake of annoying me. But for the most part, I removed those that no one else could. The ones that the Colours and Elites couldn’t get to -- or so I thought.
“When I arrived at Sirah, I made my list, as I did for every other area. Word spread quickly through the Underground that the Owl had arrived, and after I caught my first prey the others went into hiding. I found another two in my spare time while looking for Reader, which was when I ran into Raph and somehow ended up on Indigo.
“I thought, great! Maybe I could get some leads into where the rest of my list was hiding.”She shook her head. “So, can you imagine my surprise when I get my first glimpse of the Elite’s most wanted list, only to find it full of all the wrong people?”
She looked to Shift, obviously waiting for a reply.
“So, you and the Elites had different priorities?” said Shift, not believing it himself. Athira might not do things to the letter of the law, but when she explained herself, it was rarely a lie. Grim perhaps, but truthful nonetheless.
She blinked, not buying it for a second. “Shift, the people on their list were people who’d annoyed or taken something from them personally, complete with lies about what crime they’d actually committed. A few colourless who I suspect are on there for a different reason, but it’s a list for their own designs, not for the people they’re supposed to be protecting.”
Shift chewed his lip, thinking it over. “Is it possible these... Underground people are lying to you about their activities?”
“Why would they bother?” said Athira. “It’s a point of pride among them. The Underground isn’t legal, and getting one up on the Elites is considered heroic.”
They passed under another archway, which led into yet another hallway containing nothing but four doors and a dead end to greet them. At this point, Shift was lost, but Athira seemed to know where she was going.
“So why did you make a list?” asked Shift. “Was it some kind of redemption for Winslo’s Point?” Athira stiffened at the name, so he added, “I’m not saying I’m not grateful for it, but surely it’d make your life harder being the Owl if you’re dragging certain villains away half the time.”
“Which is exactly the reason I’m doing favours and stealing bags for certain people here now, rather than forcing them to do it,” said Athira, avoiding his initial question. “To keep them happy. The Owl didn’t have anything to lose back then, but now the person underneath it does and I’ll be damned if I let anyone get to you because of me.”
Athira’s voice sounded seconds from cracking. Shift opened his arms towards her, half expecting her to keep walking, but she placed herself inside the hug completely willingly and rested her head against his chest.
Shift squeezed her, cloak and all. “Y’no, we’re tougher than you give us credit for,” he said after a moment. “Especially Zoe. That girl can handle herself.”
“Having something to consider family was something I never expected after I left the monks and started this whole Owl thing,” said Athira. “You lot made things much more complicated.”
“Is that where you learned to fight unarmed like that?” asked Shift. “The monks? It’s a pretty rare style, I doubt even Raph knows much about it.”
“Yea,” said Athira, pulling away from him. “My mentor in particular was big on having a way to defend myself other than just my colour. He taught me a lot about discipline, which is probably the only reason I haven’t exploded half the planet by now.”
“Always a plus,” said Shift as they stopped outside the door closest to the dead end. “Not having the planet exploded, that’s good. Did we get anything tonight that would help that cause along?”
“We’ll see,” said Athira. Her shoulders set like she’d made a decision. “But I got the main thing I needed. The person we’re after should be just up here. You shift some of her colour, by force if necessary, and then we use it to find and destroy this Elite project before they can get their dirty hands on Zoe and get back before Indigo finds out we’re gone.”
“Thira, you’re probably going to scare the girl in this mood, if you let me--“
“No.” Athira stopped outside a door, fingers tense on the panel. “My colour can’t take any more strain tonight. Unless you want the planet to explode, you get the colour however you can, as soon as you can, and we leave.”
She didn’t leave room for argument as she pushed the door open and strode through. Shift followed her quickly, not liking the attitude. The girl might have all the power in the world, but it didn’t mean she could go around terrifying whoever she liked if he had anything to say about it.
The room was larger than he’d expected for the hallway hiding it. It was an open room, sectioned off into several areas by curtains hanging from hidden hooks in the ceiling. They appeared to be sleeping quarters for the most part, but the middle section was clearly shared ground.
A few kids that couldn’t have been older than fifteen lay sprawled across the couch, entranced with some kind of cartoon on a screen. Behind them, Shift counted four adults talking with another three that looked as if they were being humoured with their inclusion in the conversation.
At Athira’s arrival they fell silent, folding their arms and other defensive positions but Athira didn’t seem to care.
“Where’s Tracker?” demanded Athira.
One of the adults, a female dressed in a light yellow shirt and black pants made her way towards them while the other adults corralled the kids into an area beyond Shift’s sight, much to their displeasure.
That was, all except one, who was beckoned over by the yellow shirted female.
“Owl,” said yellow shirt, inclining her head. “Reader told us that you’d be coming by sooner or later. I have to say though, I didn’t expect it to be for Tracker.”
Athira’s eyes fell on the kid. Even in her current mood, her voice softened. “This is Tracker?”
“Yep,” said the female, placing her hand on the kid’s back. “And I’m Nobody.”
“Well you’re obviously someone,” said Shift. “Unless I just discovered that my colour can speak to imaginary people.”
Athira shot him a look that said something like really, Shift? but he ignored it.
Nobody raised an amused eyebrow. “Reader called me Nobody because I can bend light, turn anyone or anything invisible.” She gave him a wicked smile. “It’s like nobody’s there.”
“Ah, a yellow colour, eh?”
“Very good,” she said, impressed. “Most people guess purple first, thinking that I’m messing with their minds.”
Shift laughed. “Not fooling me. I have a friend who can direct the light into high-powered lasers, and she...” He trailed off, realising that he’d been about to mention Zoe. “Well, she’s pretty awesome.”
Nobody flipped her hair. “We yellow colours usually are.”
“This isn’t what I was expecting,” said Athira slowly. “No demands for favours, nothing?”
“Nope,” said Nobody, shaking her head. “Reader told us that if you ever came along, we were to help you or give you whatever you asked for, no questions asked. Before Indigo so kindly handed him over to the Elites, anyway.”
Shift went with the appropriate reply. “Those bastards!”
Nobody didn’t look too fussed. “Eh, from what I hear it was part of his plan anyway. Needed to get inside the Elite base for some project or another they’re working on.” She jerked her head at the now-free couch, indicating to follow. “The lengths he’ll go to astound me sometimes, if it means he’ll get another scrap of information about his precious runes.”
“Is that his thing?” asked Athira with a frown as Shift collapsed on the couch. “Runes?”
“Yep,” said Nobody. “Runes. He loves them, and no one really knows what sparked his obsession. I mean, there’s the obvious part where he studied under the Monks for a while, but other than that it’s all rumours. They vary from a childhood accident, to a longing to be a blue colour, to something about a child the monks once protected.” She shrugged. “Some people just think he’s nuts. Who knows?”
“Monks?” Athira looked paler than usual. “As in the Azarin Monks?”
“The very same.” Nobody ruffled Tracker’s hair. “It’s interesting listening to his theories though, however crazy they sound. Isn’t that right, Tracker?”
The kid nodded. “Yup.”
Athira hovered at the side of the couch, having never taken a seat. “Nobody? May I speak with you for a moment?”
“Sure,” said Nobody. Tracker looked up at her expectantly, but Nobody trained a finger on her. “You stay here. Don’t move.”
As Athira and Nobody moved off to the side, Shift was left alone to play babysitter.
He watched Tracker play with a spark of purple colour for a minute before deciding to try and pull some of Reader’s theories out of her. “Which story of Reader’s is your favourite?”
Tracker thought for a second. “I like the story about the Titans the best. That one’s cool.”
“Titans?” asked Shift, wondering if he’d just hit the jackpot. He leant forward. “That sounds really cool, what happens in that one?”
Tracker seemed thrilled that she’d been asked. “Okay, so like, there’s Titans, yea?” Shift nodded along enthusiastically. “So, apparently, aaaaages ago, the Titans put a bunch of bad things in prison and to make sure to make sure they didn’t escape, they created humans to watch over them!” She thought for a moment. “I think it was because if they bad things talked to us, we couldn’t just blow up a world like they could, but it also could have been just because they were lazy. I don’t remember which one Reader said.”
“World destructive power, lazy, what’s the difference?” asked Shift with a nonchalant shrug. “What happens next?”
“Well, apparently they gave us our colour to help us fight the bad things,” said Tracker, growing serious. “But they also gave us runes, which is basically their language! It’s like, how they talk to us, tell us what’s really important in Thols and what we should be paying attention to! That’s why Reader says they’re important, because some of the runes are different, and they’re the ones we have to find!”
“Woah,” said Shift. “So, all the blue colours, they’re really just like super long distance phones?”
“Hm, not really,” said Tracker. “Reader says most of the blue colours aren’t staying true to the Titan’s language, because they’re not powerful enough to see them anymore. Unless they’re in a really, really big group, or an animal helps them!”
“An... animal?” asked Shift. “What, like a bird can fly in through the window and sit on their runes for them until they hatch?”
Tracker giggled. “No, silly! There’s like, special animals of each colour! And they’re supposed to be able to help us understand our colour better, or something.” She looked disappointed. “Reader said he’d take me to see the purple one when I’m older, but Nobody doesn’t think it’s true.”
“Reader wouldn’t lie, surely?”
“That’s what I said!” said Tracker. She leant back into the seat, looking dejected. “But Nobody won’t let me, anyway. She says he’s probably nuts.”
Shift’s memory was trailing back to the day he met Athira, inside the crumbling ruins of Starpoint tower and the distinct, blue glow that’d resonated inside the room they found Reader in. Is that what the purple villain had been doing there? “Or he’s right and there’s actually some kind of super blue runes out there.”
Tracker sighed. “Man, I wish I was a blue colour now. I’m stuck with this boring purple colour.”
“Psht,” said Shift, waving his hand as he added investigating Starpoint Tower to his to-do list. “Purple isn’t boring. What can you do with it?”
Tracker squeezed her lips together, like she didn’t really want to admit it. “I can see colour left behind after people are gone,” she said finally. “So like, if someone was here, then they left, I could follow their colour trail to find them, unless it’d been too long and then it’s disappeared.”
“Cool,” said Shift. Getting a few tips out of the kid now would make later a whole lot easier. “What can you see at the moment?”
Tracker closed her eyes. When she opened them, the iris part of her eye was gone, replaced by an iridescent violet hue that consumed the majority of her socket.
Well, that’s creepy.
“Mainly just black,” she said. “That’s the Owl, though. Her trail lasts for ages and it’s so thick. Hides every other colour that’s passed through.” Tracker turned her eyes on Shift. “Even you. I can’t see anything on you, except a little bit of green but... that can’t be right, because you’re black, like the Owl.”
Tracker shook her head and her eyes returned to normal as Shift decided how to handle the latest development in the ‘pretend you’re a black colour when you’re actually not’ charade.
He leaned down, close to Trackers ear. “Wanna hear a secret?”
She nodded excitedly, cupping her hand to her ears. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise! I’m good at keeping secrets, Reader said so!”
“Okay, but you have to promise,” said Shift. Tracker swore up and down that she’d never tell another soul, ‘except Reader maybe because he can see it anyway’, and Shift had to resist the urge to shake his head. “My black colour isn’t like the Owl’s. I can pretend to be whatever colour I like for a short while, which is why you can see some green, but usually it’s black.”
“Wow,” said Tracker. “That’s even cooler than Readers!”
Shift couldn’t help the smug smile worming its way on to his face. “I know, right?”
“I hope you’re not filling the Owl’s apprentice with stories, Tracker,” said Nobody as she and Athira walked back over. “He seems pretty gullible.”
“I’ll have you know I only believed in the Rainbow Fairy until I was seven years old,” said Shift, lifting his chin.
Tracker giggled. “Seven? I figured that one out when I was five.”
“Gullible, no.” Athira tapped Shift’s head. “Idiot? Yes. But you can’t expect a turtle to know what to do with human things, can you?”
Shift was going to reply with a clever remark that he hadn’t thought up quite yet when Nobody turned to Tracker and knelt down in front of her.
“Don’t make plans for tomorrow night, Tracky,” she said, putting her hands on the kid’s knees. “We’ve got to help the Owl then, mkay? Just don’t be telling anyone outside our little group.”
Tracker’s eyes went wide. “The Owl needs me?” She looked up at Athira, who’d pulled down her cowl for the silver mask. “You’re my second favourite story, I swear.”
“One I’d love to hear,” said Shift hopefully.
Nobody picked up an excited Tracker and threw her over her shoulder. “Not tonight, I’m afraid. It’s bedtime, and this little one should have been asleep half an hour ago.”
As Nobody walked off, Tracker made frantic signals with her hands, something along the lines of help me! Launch a rescue mission! Shift was holding back his laughter when Athira held out her hand and jerked her head at the back wall.
“Come on, we’re leaving,” she said. “They have a back way out.”
Shift took her hand, feeling the way they didn’t grip quite as tight as they had leading into the Underground. “Done for tonight?”
Athira nodded. “I’m meeting Nobody and Tracker tomorrow, who with any luck will be able to lead me straight to the Elite project. Means we can go back to base now rather than later.”
“What do you mean you’re meeting them tomorrow?” said Shift as her colour spread up his arm in preparation to push them through. “I’m not letting you go into this alone.”
She gave him a final glimpse before starting to meld into the ceiling. Shift thought he caught regret, but if it was there it was pale before her resolute gaze.
“It means that you’re not coming with me.”
*+*+*+*
Kione’s eyes were glued to the screen, fingers typing furiously away at the keyboard as he attempted to keep up with the code runner threatening to infiltrate his system.
“Bastard, get out of it!” The runner advanced another four lines into his system. “Come on, come on!”
His colour kicked in as he finished the final line of code, and the trap activated. As it hit the next line of code, orange colour engulfed and consumed the runner and sent it back to wherever it’d triggered from.
Kione breathed a sigh of relief and leant back in the chair.
That was way too close.
Whoever the hidden Elite files belonged to had updated their security patterns since last time, placing more than one hidden code runners into the mix. If not hit with a shot of colour before reached, the annoying things would run back down the line they’d been reached from to invade the would-be hacker’s system and give away their location.
Unfortunately for them, Kione had learned a thing or two from Jordan in the last few weeks.
“Just too damned good,” he muttered as the four remaining files he was yet to crack open drifted into view on his screen.
He set the program he and Jordan had spent the last three days creating to work hacking into the first folder on the screen. With nothing to do but wait alone in the darkness, Kione turned to his personal computer and booted up the research he’d been working on. The clock in the bottom right corner caught his attention as the 4:59am turned to an even 5:00.
“Had to just lose the bet with Jordan, didn’t I.” Kione reclined the chair further, pulling the virtual keyboard space on to his lap. He sighed. “Just another two hours before he wakes up and it’s his turn for shift duty babysitting the program.”
In the last week, something had caught his attention about Athira. While she was out on patrol, responding to a distress call or whatever she happened to be doing at the time, he’d noted the same, repeated phrase slipping through her communicator. It wasn’t often, and it was just within hearing range. After he started paying attention to it, it didn’t take long for him to link it to when her runes were flared up -- just after she’d used a significant amount of colour.
Or to realise that he’d seen those words before.
Kione hit play on the sound file, and Athira’s voice filled the room.
Azarin, he, who comes through night. Zark’n, he, who guides the light. Laris, she, who holds the gem. Rathril zi la ish varen.
That phrase, always muttered under her breath. It didn’t sound like much at first, reminiscent of some lost poetry scrap from the Burnt Lands, and Kione probably would have dismissed it as such until he found the very same names from Athira’s phrase in a collection of pieces by various pink colours in the Elite’s folder.
Kione scrolled through the various pieces saved to his laptop, hidden behind his personal colour-wall until he found the one he was looking for and flicked it open.
The first few paragraphs were nothing in particular. Whoever the pink poet was, Kione suspected the Elites didn’t keep them around for their poetry skills. By the eleventh stanza, he found exactly what he was looking for.
Azarin came upon Night’s fall,
The last to join their broken war.
With spirits lashed and bonds ablaze,
Laris held the gem to raise.
“Azarin... Laris... Zark’n...” Kione highlighted each common word to Athira’s phrase. “Varen, Rathril... they’re all here. Where the hell did she get this chant to have it pop up on a hidden Elite database?”
Kione was searching through the other documents, trying to figure out exactly what the names were supposed to mean when movement caught his eye on one of the various security cameras located around and inside of Indigo base. Any attention on the mystery of Athira’s chant was immediately dropped as he recognised the source of said movement.
For whatever reason, at nearly 5.15 in the morning, Shift was walking through the doors of Indigo base, and Kione was fairly certain that he’d never seen him leave.
Kione pressed his finger to the intercom button purely for the lobby. “You sleepwalking again, Shift?”
Shift glanced around, looking for the camera. “Hilarious, Kione. Really.”
“Sounds like you’re a bundle of joy at the moment,” said Kione. “The hell have you been?”
Shift waved his hand at the camera and headed for the stairs. “Minor emergency. I don’t want to talk about it. Have you seen Athira, by any chance?”
“As far as I know she’s still in her room, hasn’t come out since she went in earlier tonight. Why?”
“No reason,” said Shift, appearing on the common room camera as he headed for his room. “Night, Kione.”
“Night, Shift.”
Kione released the intercom button and leant back in his chair, frowning. At curiosity’s nagging, he placed his hand over the colour-control panel for the security system and spread a little heat-detecting orange colour upgrade throughout the system, directed at the sleeping quarters.
Zoe and Talia’s rooms contained a people-temperature dots. Raph’s was empty, as was to be expected since he was out on patrol, and as Kione watched, Shift’s room gained an occupant that promptly made their way to the bed. However, unless Athira had developed the ability to turn off her heat signature, she wasn’t in her room, and a quick search revealed she wasn’t anywhere inside Indigo base either.
Kione removed his hand, sending a message to Raph’s wristlet on the update.
Which poses the question, thought Kione as he hit ‘send’. Where the hell have they been, and why didn’t Athira come back?
*+*+*+*
A/N - Bleh.