29.1 Complex dispersion

  The morning after The Voluntary Reserve withdraws from Mortareste is a quiet one, with the Users of the SOC unit scattered throughout the sparse buildings of Surabad, most of them lonesome, collecting themselves and trying to contact home before the mission. They’re waiting for their SOC equipment to arrive in the city. Delivery is due today, though they’re not sure of the exact time nor what that entails beyond some sort of vehicle, food, and gear.

  Maeven is sitting between a white wall of someone’s house and an acacia tree, scrolling on her pad. She’s checking what events have taken place in the UL since she was on Peacemaker. Turns out, there isn’t much different about home. The headlines are ordinary—snow in the Cities, Cabinet hearings, the NBA.

  The assignee deaths at South Sarafiyah haven’t made it to the public, curiously. One article rumours the VR’s withdrawal from Mortareste, though it seems to have gone mostly unnoticed. Whether the events here will ever end up in the main mediasphere, she’s not certain. Why does the news become the news, anyway? Not every noteworthy military event makes it to the general public, does it? She searches, ‘zombies in Mortareste,’ ‘Mortareste virus,’ ‘Nesters,’ and other keywords mentioned by Eyeshot yesterday. The results come up short. A corner-of-the-web blogger speculates a ‘health-crisis’ in the country; the UL travel advisory categorises Mortareste at a ‘Level 3: Reconsider Travel’ while keeping the details unspecific.

  Whether it be the privacy of the Secret Operatives Commission at play, or more generally the privacy of User campaigns at play, Maeven thinks it might have to do with both.

  Otherwise, there’s just a delay.

  Perhaps they’re bound to have a video of an infected Mortaresi shoved into virality one day. Maybe, it’ll all get drowned out. Everything’s about the election now, so, her only option will be to wait and see.

  And true to that nature, Eyeshot’s rejected nomination has definitely run its course across the web.

  Maeven skims the articles. Reactions from the public appear to be largely that of mainstream satisfaction. ‘Public Breathes Easy as User Nominee Shot Down,’ she reads, ‘Cape in the Cabinet? Not Today—Superhero Bid Fails,’ ‘Senate to Superhero: You’re Not Our Shield’.

  Yikes.

  Maeven exits the browser a little fatigued by the discourse.

  Next, she opens her messages and clicks on Hunter’s name. The last message she sent to her brother was to tell him her pad was about to be taken away. The last message he sent, two weeks ago, was a photo of himself in front of what she assumes to be a large marble slate. White dust covers his forearms, and he’s rubbing at a dry tear and pouting with his bottom lip.

  ‘?’ She types for her brother. Presses send. ‘Got our pads back.’

  Another message she leaves for Mum and Dad; they ought to know she’s still alive. Then, she withdraws her device with the swipe of her finger and stands up. She’ll check the responses later.

  She stretches her arms cross-body under the tree, listening to the rustle of its scant leaves. The withdrawal of the VR has made the already small town of Surabad feel damn near abandoned—it’s quiet today. If it weren’t for the occasional rummage of pots and pans or the muffled wail of a child she might’ve thought the huts were empty.

  Eyeshot’s Resonance is on the move, heading somewhere towards her direction. A thought sparks. Should Maeven be busy with something? She looks around only to be beckoned a minute later. Eyeshot walks out in her body suit and says, “Maeven.”

  The User asks to join her in standing outside the city. She says that the equipment from the Secret Ops are due to arrive within the hour, so she’s going to wait for it. Passing the city gate, they stand side-by-side facing the outstretched sand road only to mutually loiter in complete silence. Has Eyeshot read the headlines about her Cabinet rejection? Maeven doesn’t dare to mention it.

  There’s a lingering soreness down her thighs and her calves, triggered as she shifts her weight from leg-to-leg. She wonders if Rain can do anything to fix it, but it’s probably not worth the ask. It’s already healing on its own; it’s just a little annoying.

  Her following thought, staring out at the sand: When are they going to have breakfast? Following that: What is Hunter doing?

  Why did he send her a picture of him frowning in front of a marble slate?

  Where was he?

  “Optimisation and Intuition…” she hears Eyeshot comment.

  The Optimist’s thoughts seem to be relatively one-tracked. “What would you rate your Optimisation?” she goes on to ask.

  “I don’t know,” says Maeven. “Pretty good.”

  “Your specialty?”

  Maeven shakes her head. Even if she pretended to have a specialty, she’d probably pick Intuition.

  Eyeshot crosses her arms. “What do you think about this idea? If you still have Optimisation, then for now you’re just going to have to be an Optimist.”

  Sounds awfully simple for something she hadn’t considered yet.

  “Let me show you something,” says Eyeshot. “Something that will help with your Will dispersion.”

  That term. She’s talking about how a User distributes their Will for the purpose of aiding movement or function.

  Without Will dispersion in mind, Users risk expending their energy without forethought. They’d hamper their striking power, disadvantage their defence and support, and not to mention make them look like an amateur. It’s why for example, Maeven draws Will to her legs when she needs to run, and on her lungs when she needs to breathe.

  So loitering wasn’t the purpose of coming here after all.

  “This is about the apportionment of Will, right? The right places must be Optimised for the right purposes. In the Academy they would have told you some general rule—”

  “Seventy-thirty,” Maeven answers.

  “Exactly!” The feedback seems to set something alight behind the User’s eyes. “They taught you a ratio. Wherein seventy percent of your Will-in-use should be applied to the targeted movement. Thirty percent should be the support. So”–Eyeshot raises her arms—“if I throw a jab.” She jabs with her left. “My fist is seventy. My body is thirty. What if my fist is one hundred? Then my body is zero. No, this is wrong. A body of zero Will is unstable and weak. I’m going to crush my wrist, yes? This is the purpose of the ratio.”

  Maeven hums.

  “So at the Academy you would have practised this seventy-thirty ratio thousands of times until it burned into your muscle memory.”

  She hums again.

  “Throw me a straight.”

  After the command, Eyeshot places her left foot forward and raises her hand. Maeven glances at the open palm. She checks the city with a strange impulse to make sure nobody’s watching.

  Ensuring one’s Will is dispersed safely and correctly is apparently a simple rule. The 70:30 ratio, stripped to its barest necessity and within the context of physical combat, is a reminder never to concentrate too much Will to a single point in the body when initiating an Optimised attack.

  Injuries related to an under-supported Will dispersion can be horrific. That’s why, as Eyeshot explained, punching someone with only Will in your fist and nowhere else would break you as close as the wrist. At the end of the day, every allocation of Will needs a backbone of support, just like how a sword needs a hilt.

  She steps into orthodox and raises her arms. Maeven disperses a rough seventy-percent of her Will to her right fist, knowing that she wants to punch. The rest is spread throughout her body.

  An opportunity like this is unlikely to come again. Even though there’s still tension between them, she throws the straight with a twist of her hips.

  “One-two,” demands Eyeshot.

  Boxing lingo for a jab followed by a straight. She disperses Will for the left jab, then adjusts the ratio for the straight right.

  “Again.”

  One-two. This time with a little more heart. Eyeshot does something unexpected—she grips Maeven’s straight firmly halting its trajectory.

  “This is the tip of a complex chain reaction,” the User tells her.

  Like hard metal prongs Eyeshot drags two fingers around the outside of Maeven’s bicep. “Here,” she says. Tapping her underarm and her shoulder she repeats, “Here.” She walks around to slide a hand up her scapula, drags them across the span of her back, cups the sides of her obliques, hips and core; and pokes at her back foot, all while detailing, “Here, here, here…”

  “Starting today, you will forget the ratio,” says Eyeshot. With a swift pull the User takes her handgun from its holster and cocks it, circling back in front of Maeven. “Optimising a weapon is not a superficial blanketing of Will. It is a specialist appreciation for all of its components and how they work together. Optimise a bullet too strong and you rupture the barrel. Optimise the firing coil too hot and your gun will explode. The moment you get it perfect; you can put a name to every part, inside and out, you can take it apart, put it back together in the correct order with full appreciation of why the parts go where and how exactly they all work in tandem…”

  She points the barrel at the desert.

  “…You can Will a Beretta 9mm to shoot it through anything.”

  Eyeshot holsters the gun.

  “Your muscles are not different to the parts of a weapon,” she explains. “You take your Will dispersion, you nuance it, you integrate it. Something interesting will happen.”

  The Optimist raises her fists and faces the road. She throws a one-two, the form practised and masterful. Eyeshot looks at Maeven and gives her a nod. She throws it again and this time, the straight is so forceful that it blows strands of silver hair off her shoulders and a tunnel of sand bursts out past her fist.

  “Understand?” says Eyeshot. “We call this complex Will dispersion.”

  Maeven eyes the settling dust.

  The User raises her palm again, says, “One-two. Disperse the Will into those muscles I showed you when you throw the two. For now, overdo the support, understand? You’re going to risk snapping your tendons.”

  Maeven’s still hung up on that straight, the warning of tearing muscle a distant internalisation. The sheer force of Willed intent as Eyeshot threw it, it was enough on her Intuitive tastebuds that she’s holding on to the flavour and asking herself: what the hell was that?

  It was a display of power that would only otherwise be mustered had Eyeshot met her match. If there were actually a User of her calibre standing there in the desert, face-to-face and an arm’s length away.

  “So…” Maeven trails.

  “Back foot, obliques, core, lats, teres major, teres minor, delts, bicep, tricep, and simplify the forearm onwards as a singular because the muscles there are too complicated,” Eyeshot explains. “From your fist to your foot you should be thinking about it like a chain.”

  “Am I supposed to think about my bones?” says Maeven, feeling somewhat ridiculous asking the question.

  “No,” Eyeshot says. “Actually yes, implicitly. When you advance yes you can be conscious of the bones and add them to your repertoire. Right now, don’t worry about them. Focus on the muscles.”

  Okay. In essence, I’m supposed to integrate my Will dispersion at an anatomical level.

  Maeven shadows the one-two at the air to feel it out. Impostor’s Syndrome is strong on this one.

  It’s like mastering your body the way a Weaponist would master a gun. How does she know she’s Optimising the right places? Maeven might have an idea where her own bicep is, but her teres minor? Her first idea is to reduce some Will from the places she definitely doesn’t need Optimised, like her head, then compact it along the muscle chain.

  The SOC equipment could arrive at any moment. She steps up to Eyeshot and throws the one-two at her palm, trying to activate complex Will dispersion on the two, the straight thrown with her back hand.

  Eyeshot pauses to assess the impact but it’s obviously a poor attempt. “Again,” she says.

  Maeven winds her shoulders.

  One-two. This time Maeven tries to focus more on the ‘chain’ itself. Even with a User’s cognition, it’s a daunting sequence of muscular processes to understand in a moment’s notice.

  “Circle with me. You’re too stiff.” says Eyeshot. “OK—just do jabs, forget complex Will dispersion for one second.”

  Maeven senses it too. She doesn’t feel her punches landing as hard as they should, and she can’t tell if it’s because she’s over-supporting the wrong places or if she’s just out of practice.

  Eyeshot starts to circle left. Maeven angles herself to follow the movement. When she sees the palm raise, she jabs, breathing out as she does it. One. They do this for a while. Re-position, jab, re-position.

  “Take your time,” says Eyeshot. “Double jab.”

  She jabs twice.

  “Good. Again.”

  Another double jab.

  “Good.” says Eyeshot. “OK—jab, rear hook. You know Muay Thai?”

  Maeven nods.

  “You know this elbow?” Eyeshot throws her own elbow to demonstrate, thrusting with her forearm parallel to the ground. A horizontal elbow. It’s a brutal strike often used in Muay Thai during clinches or after breaking guard. Maeven mimics it.

  Jab, rear hook, elbow. They drill for a minute, Maeven keeping her dispersion simple for the moment, according to the ratio she was taught in the Academy.

  She settles in with each repetition. It’s starting to feel right. Slowly but surely Maeven’s back in the Larosa combat gym, working the corner boxing bag on a late night. She imagines it’s after class, many of the Larosa girls back in their dorms, Maeven being unable to turn the switch off, needing to scratch the itch.

  However, out of nowhere, Eyeshot drops her palm just to stand there and stare.

  She broke the rhythm! Why is she staring at her like that? Eyeshot’s face…it’s just shy of a steno pad and a pencil in her ear. Maeven feels like she’s been put in a glass case.

  “Riel, show me a calf kick,” the Optimist gently requests.

  Eager to move on from the intermission, Maeven backs up to make space then shadows it in the air. A calf kick is a low, shin-first sweep often aimed at an opponent’s peroneal nerve, which can cause a temporary nerve shutdown if struck.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  “Give me a teep,” says Eyeshot. She does a teep. “High kick. Karate style.” She does that, too. “Now do it like you would kickboxing.” Sure. “Question mark kick. Rotation kick.”

  What kind? Tornado kick, doesn’t matter.

  “You grapple also?” asks Eyeshot, still with that steno pad stare. “You can do chokeholds? Rear-naked? Guillotine?”

  “You want me to show you that too?” Maeven replies.

  Eyeshot waves her hand in placation. Message received. “OK—never mind. Come back and throw me the jab again.”

  So they continue to drill, back to simple combinations of jabs, straights and hooks.

  She tries not to show the pain in her face. This kind of hurts. Eyeshot’s Willed palms feel rock hard, and there’s a burning sensation that lingers in her hands after every impact that signals to her brain: maybe you shouldn’t be bare handing an Optimist like Eyeshot?

  “Now,” says Eyeshot, “When I do this”— She layers her palms, one in front of the other— “you throw the straight. The strong one.”

  Screw the brain signal. Maeven goes for it.

  After two jabs, a rear hook, and another jab, Eyeshot layers her hands and Maeven responds promptly with another attempt at complex Will dispersion.

  WHAM!

  Eyeshot is pushed against her heel.

  “THAT’S IT!” Eyeshot shouts.

  “That was it?” says Maeven, fists still clinched.

  “YES,” she exclaims. “But you need to make it better.”

  “But I did it?”

  “You did it. I’m sure.”

  “I thought that would be harder?”

  “It is hard but my thinking Riel it’s also intuitive,” Eyeshot says. She raises her palms. “You learn quick. Don’t stop. You’re not good at it yet.”

  It must be pretty intuitive because Maeven didn’t feel it was that exceptional, other than a fuzzy sense of bodily ‘rightness,’ and the shocking image of Eyeshot actually being pushed to her back foot. Did she enhance her muscles the way it was pointed out to her? She’s not fully sure. She must be doing something, though.

  As she continues to spar with Eyeshot, she attempts to carve out the feeling. She realises that a successful strike of complex Will dispersion really does feel like a chain or like cracking a whip. A contraction from her back foot to her fist where every link adds to the end. If only she could turn it from a coincidence to a premeditation. If only she could actually control it.

  The duo don’t cease even when they see their SOC delivery driving in from far down the road; half an hour into drilling the same right hand straight. They start to see a pattern arise. A good hit every two to five repetitions. Maeven leans in, streamlines the dispersion a bit more. Her most evident success manifests itself when a punch forces Eyeshot to backstep just once to maintain balance.

  She notices the User acknowledge it with a nod; It’s the same unspoken complement a sparring partner gives you when you catch them with a good shot to the head. She’s reminded of the time she snapped Captain June’s Willed clipboard in half. Little as they may be, these are signs that she needs to hold on to, because they point to a potential far from gone no matter what kind of block stands in her way. Signs that Maeven, despite everything, still is who she is.

  29.2 The briefing

  Unfortunately, delivery’s early. Maeven tries her best squeezing out two more minutes drilling the straight, until Eyeshot gives them the conclusive, “OK,” and they’re forced to break apart.

  She was hoping she’d have enough time to learn something else, like a kick. A flick—perhaps? Maybe not. As far as Maeven is aware the components of the hand are incredibly intricate.

  Parked in front of Surabad’s gate, the SOC vehicles are an impressive digression. If Gunner were still here, he would whistle. Black, matte-finished, electric, with narrow headlights that slant inwards and large off-road tyres that suspend its body high off the ground. The plating doesn’t curve, it cuts into a myriad of geometric angles forming a hood and wheel arches.

  “These are cool,” comments Maeven. She’s walked up to one, staring at her reflection trying to see through the window tint.

  “They’re called Echelons,” says Eyeshot.

  There are three vehicles in total. The third vehicle at the end of the fleet is larger than the rest. Van-sized with a roll-up door at the back. Eyeshot’s there pulling it open.

  “That big one too?”

  “This is the Cargo variant.”

  Eyeshot rolls the door up.

  These vehicles have a Resonance. Some Will Signature Maeven doesn’t recognise. It’s not Leichman’s. The Echelons must be enhanced by some Weaponist from the Secret Operatives Commission.

  “Yooo.”

  Jackson Farrington spots the vehicles from inside the city, hand clutching the edge of the border gate. He runs off probably to call the others. Then Maeven hears a thump. From the back of the Cargo Echelon, Eyeshot drops a plastic box to the sand.

  The User points. “Open that.”

  Maeven approaches and unlatches the top. Inside, new uniforms are stacked in two neat piles inside the box.

  “Those are your tacticals,” says Eyeshot. “Find your size and put them on.”

  She changes by the acacia tree. That’s where she left her backpack, and it’s secluded and walled off enough to offer her privacy. She packs away her dusty VR pants and undershirt, aware that they’re only keepsakes now. She could toss or Disintegrate them to avoid the extra baggage, but she kind of wants to hang it somewhere when she gets back to the UL.

  The SOC tacticals—she notices a theme here—are almost a singular shade of black. There are thin accent lines to draw the eye. For the top, one horizontal under the collarbone, then two down the sides. She puts it on. The sleeves are a little long but otherwise it’s a perfect fit.

  Her pants are baggy past the buckle, fitted with pockets and loops for things like holsters and carabiners, but nothing jingles and it’s light. She can burst out into a sprint, raise her arms without pullback. There’s no armouring nor padding, meaning she can Optimise herself with her clothes without thinking about all the tactile intricacies she might need to take into account.

  As a final check Maeven snaps a photo with her pad, standing in front of the acacia tree to make sure everything looks right. Her face is a dull shade of neutral, but other than that, she looks fine. Her hair touches her shoulders now and she’s shed the post-graduation weight gain emblematic of a chronic Drake Quest player. There’s a hardness to her eyes like she sees the end of the tunnel.

  Different, she thinks. Something’s changed in her face over the year. Next month, she’s going to be eighteen years old, and she wonders if it’s only just another portion of youth fading away.

  After the Users finish admiring the Echelons and fitting into their new uniforms, they gather outside of Surabad, semi-circled by the three parked SOC vehicles for a pre-mission briefing.

  The top-half of everyone’s tacticals reveal structures previously concealed under the airy, factory-sized VR jackets that used to be their standard uniform. Henri is shaped like an upside-down triangle, for example, with thick arms that look hard to fold. Doom’s tacticals fit his unusually large and segmented form with custom precision. Ina looks like a runway model. Forrest and Win, they look relatively normal, just past the point where skinny becomes lean.

  “First question,” says Eyeshot, standing in front of the centre Echelon, facing them. Even the former guild User has abandoned her bodysuit to wear a set of tacticals of her own; her silver hair against the black a striking contrast. “You want to keep the company formation or no? We can keep Ocean, Sky and Sand, or we can dissolve everything into one.”

  “I think it helps with oversight if we keep it,” chimes Victor.

  He’s just past the point where lean becomes buff.

  “We keep it?”

  No one objects.

  “OK—Maeven, Stendahl, Kotel, you are in charge of your team groupings as prearranged,” says Eyeshot.

  The VR is no longer. The Users have really been contracted by the UL Secret Operatives Commission and the fact of it only now begins to dawn.

  Eyeshot continues, “Primary objectives. Number one, eliminate all current Nesters undead in Mortareste; Two, preclude the spread of the Nester infection permanently. To achieve number one we will be clearing infected cluster sites one-by-one, advancing north. For number two, I need to explain how the virus works which was something I did not have the time to do yesterday.” Eyeshot takes something from her pocket, a small sheet of paper about half the size of a standard envelope. For now, she merely holds on to it.

  “The origin of this virus was very mysterious. It started near the Oman border where there were reports that residents, particularly men between twenty to fifty, began having psychotic breakdowns and abandoning their homes. They were leaving in order to group—one of the first post-infection tendencies is congregation—they group together until they’re populated enough to overwhelm some area with human activity. They’d plunder it in tandem and shoo the residents away. This was the start of the Nester infection.

  “So, OK—UL military finds out. Mortareste is a bridge ally so their safety isn’t completely out of our domain of concern. They arrive in Mortareste for a risk assessment. What do they find? They confirm the infection is User-inflicted. They discover how the infection is spread.”

  She pinches the bottom edge of the paper she’s holding and lifts it up to face them. “Manifestos. Thousands of them distributed and covered in Subjection Will.”

  So this was likely the work of a Subjectionist. That adds up with the idea of infecting people with violence and village-plundering, because it requires a cognitive overhaul.

  “These manifestos began appearing at the border regions and slowly spread along the north. Where exactly? Taped to a store wall, in between magazines, on the road, places you might notice and be curious to read. If someone picks it up, if they read it down to the last line, they would satisfy the conditions of the Willed virus causing infection,” the User explains.

  It’s too small for Maeven to see it clearly, but on the message’s face, she sees a few paragraphs of text.

  “The manifestos only affect Mortaresis. None of us are at risk of becoming infected. You want to be safe? OK. Read it only if it is watermarked,” says Eyeshot.

  The Optimist lowers the paper and turns around to swipe something from the roof of the Echelon behind her. More manifestos. A whole stack of them. She tosses it to Jackson to unwind it from an elastic band and pass it around.

  Maeven inspects the paper as it’s handed to her. She observes that the text is monospaced, computer-printed; and a large, diagonal watermark spans the surface spelling: COPY. There’s no Resonance emanating from it, naturally, as they’re facsimiles from the Commission. But something about the message is immediately strange, and a chain of hums and odd looks materialise across the unit as they notice it.

  “It’s in English,” says Win, his eyebrows knitted with his manifesto turned against his chest.

  Eyeshot just replies, “Yes, it is in English.”

  “Are the real ones in English?” asks Hara.

  “Yes.”

  How?

  Is the manifesto User from the UL?

  “How does it infect Mortaresis if the manifesto is in a language they can’t even read?” asks Win.

  “We think the Will grants them temporary comprehension over the language barrier,” says Eyeshot, casual. For the former VR Captain, it’s old news.

  The manifesto reads like an unsigned letter. Maeven skims the words, sensing anger, betrayal, desperation. Why would someone do this? Formulate a Will virus that breeds rapid and imminent decay, then use it to strike a small, remote corner in the world?

  “When did the SOC get involved?” Victor asks Eyeshot, looking up from his paper.

  “From the beginning,” says Eyeshot. “SOC identified the epidemic. They were the first to notify the military and since then they have been passing us intel.”

  Maeven expected a different question to come up, that is, how did they find out the virus only affected the Mortaresis? Her curiosity goes on lonesome as Eyeshot moves on.

  “One, eliminate all current Nesters undead in Mortareste; Two, preclude the spread of the Nester infection permanently,” Eyeshot says, repeating their primary goal objectives and thereby rebounding to the start of their discussion. “Now, we have answered how to achieve Objective Number Two: we are required to collect every manifesto in all areas of interest over the course of our mission.”

  “Is it that simple?” speaks Victor. “Do we know where the manifestos come from? I mean—sure, we collect them. What if more show up?”

  “No—it’s static. What’s there is there.” Eyeshot answers. “Now, listen—”

  Is that how she’s going to address the issue? There’s nothing axiomatic about it. What’s there is there. She’s saying the number of manifestos won’t go up anymore—OK, how do they know that?

  “This is important. On every Nester you will encounter they will have the manifesto they found kept with them. This will always be the case. And you see? This means, for every dead Nester there is a manifesto to collect. So, if we have a Nester site. If the site has this many Nesters, then, we must have collected that number of manifestos, at minimum, plus any unpossessed manifestos we find in between,” says Eyeshot.

  The logic makes sense though Maeven is haunted by what seems to be an unavoidable margin of error. There’s bound to be manifestos missed, blown away to uncovered ground. It’s impossible to assure they end this campaign having collected every Subjected article from the hands of unsuspecting Mortaresis—it just boils down to too many logistics.

  “Look, there’s no way to know we’re doing it perfect. We just have to be as thorough as possible,” says Henri, probably sharing a similar thought.

  “Yes,” says Eyeshot.

  Then it’s on to specifics.

  “Time and damage control will be pertinent. The Mortaresi government have addressed to us priority zones, this is, Jisr Al-Khaleej Dam in Nester site number three, Qal’at Al-Nadir this is a fort—Site Five, Shamal Petrochemicals between sites six and seven, and Site Eleven is a historical embassy district with Oman. In general, be careful around mosques and water networks. The Mortaresis wish to restore what they can post-eradication,” says Eyeshot. “In the beginning of the virus the Nesters seemed very aware because they were intelligible enough to act with coordination. At some of the sites you will notice, they have unwilled firearms. But now, there has been a decline. They’re moving slower, dying quicker.”

  There’s a pause, a lingering uncertainty that doesn’t seem to wane.

  “The Enterprise Intuitive will be also doing a final sweep of Mortareste,” Eyeshot finally adds. “Users. There will never be another Nester infection after we depart from this country.”

  Her words are punctuated with an index pointed to the sand. The Users know to hold themselves to that statement.

  They don’t have an option, really.

  “So we have four weeks…” says Doom.

  “Correct,” says Eyeshot.

  Henri asks, “How many Nester sites in total?”

  “Remaining after the VR withdrawal? Eleven.”

  “That’s not too bad,” comments Jackson.

  “How many Nesters per site?” asks Maeven.

  “Average two thousand,” answers Eyeshot.

  A collective breath. Jackson Farrington recants himself with a curse word. For Eyeshot? Her reaction is a telltale sign of an experienced militant accustomed to such laborious promises; non-existent.

  Maeven thinks about the brutality of such a number, of wasted individuals. The look of despair on the face of Majid’s wife suddenly all makes sense.

  Suddenly, Victor Stendahl drops the diplomacy. His voice comes out blunt, tactless, with his beaming Resonance curling inward.

  “Eyeshot,” he says.

  Heads turn.

  “You said—the UL military performed initial assessment on Mortareste which established the grounds for the VR takeover,” he says, notably withheld as if trying to control a fury. “If we already knew about a User who was dropping manifestos and spreading a virus then what was the basis in letting The Reserve come here? Why did we wait for assignees to die and a city to disappear to decide the risk was breached? Why did we wait for the second assessment?”

  Eyeshot holds her face still, listening.

  “It just wasn’t a sound decision. I don’t want to hear another word about how we’re going to fix it. I want you to tell us what the fuck went wrong because all of this could have been avoided,” he says.

  It had gone overlooked for far too long. Stendahl just thread it back into the discussion. Assignees have perished. At some point up the chain, someone let it happen, and this lingering, unplaced guilt is palpable.

  Only thing they can do is turn to the captain and wait for an explanation, as Eyeshot initially reacts by opening the Echelon door behind her wide. She sits down on the passenger’s seat with her feet on the bottom edge of the door. She rubs her face once, rests her forearms on her knees.

  Victor is absolutely right to point out the fallacy. The scale of the infection, the deadliness of its effect, and the samples of Will Resonance left in its wake, these were all observable signs that pointed to a dangerous Will User from the very first risk assessment.

  Why did they proceed to allow the VR to take the campaign, then? Negligence is a given. Maeven tries to think of what else could have contributed.

  They knew a dangerous User was involved. They let the VR in anyway. That means, at some point during the initial assessment, the risk of the VR actually running into the manifesto User must have been nullified. Meaning, within the perimeter of Mortareste, they identified a spell but isolated it from its sorcerer, then used this as an argument promising the VR were only here to help the locals, hand out care packages, and pick up the Subjectionist’s dirty left-behinds.

  The incident at South Sarafiyah must have been another story, not in the realm of expectation.

  Finally, Eyeshot confirms Maeven’s suspicions.

  “We believed that there was no risk of the VR encountering the manifesto User and so proceeded with the campaign,” she says.

  Victor is quick to return. “Yeah? How did that turn out?”

  “Obviously—”

  “So the manifesto User did this remotely,” voices Eliza, confident in the guesswork.

  “No. That’s not it.” says Eyeshot.

  “Is the User already dead?” says Hara.

  “No,” says Eyeshot.

  “Is the User dying?” says Maeven.

  Eyeshot stops. She glances down with only a hint of astonishment. They’ve definitely broken her rhythm thanks to Victor voicing his contention. “Yes. The User is dying,” she concedes.

  For the academy kids at least, the statement alone fills some gaps.

  “When the initial risk assessment was done they found the manifesto User in the UAE nearing death in a five-story apartment,” says Eyeshot. “Since then and until now, Users have been monitoring his passing.”

  Thus, the decision of the initial risk assessment is made somewhat clear. The point Eyeshot made about manifesto numbers being ‘static,’ and the Nesters growing weaker, is also made clear. The manifesto User, male as she pointed out, is already dying, and the VR presumed all they were in charge of was removing his decaying army.

  She looks to Forrest and Win. The fact that a dying User has to be monitored wouldn’t make sense to them. Sure enough, she senses confusion.

  “They want to make sure nothing bad happens as he dies, right?” says Maeven.

  Eyeshot hums. “The death of a powerful User is a precarious situation. Ah—Forrest, Win. You wouldn’t know. OK, I will explain.” She laces her hands. “When a User dies one of two things can happen. They can die, or, if they’re strong, they can try something then die,” she says. “A User’s death can cause an inundation of raw instinct so in their final moments they are often most dangerous. Best thing to do is to let them die as naturally as possible.”

  “What if you didn’t?” asks Win.

  “Then the culmination of instinct might materialise in a destructive last hurrah in protest of the User’s inevitability.”

  The look on Win’s face is readable. He’s asking, And what is that supposed to mean? So Henri jumps in. “Anything can happen,” says the Sky member. “If you get close to killing the wrong User they can turn almost invincible. Sometimes they transform into something absolutely insane. Sometimes, they come out the other end alive. That’s why they don’t want to kill him. They don’t even wanna touch the body by the sounds of it if he’s still in that apartment.”

  “But,” Eyeshot punctuates. “It happened anyway.”

  Eyeshot’s Resonance begins to burn as her knuckles whiten.

  “The reason why the initial risk assessment and the VR completely and irredeemably failed was because the User’s death still caused an anomaly event except it did not happen in the UAE where the User himself is dying, it happened nations away where his Resonance was jettisoned. In Mortareste,” says Eyeshot, her words cutting and underlined with rage.

  Thus, the consequence of the VR’s deadly oversight rears.

  South Sarafiyah.

  “The User’s death manifested something in the land of Mortareste,” says Eyeshot. Her voice is softening with defeat. “It killed our assignees and removed South Sarafiyah from the map. So, this is the story of the second risk assessment. This is what the Enterprise Intuitive figured out.” Her eyes mark a sense of reflective disbelief, as she shifts in her seat and touches her forehead, unable to still.

  “Was it at least a once-off?” asks Ina.

  “Probably not. The manifesto User isn’t dead yet. It’s most likely that whatever he created will appear again. The Intuitive, she told me it’s a Will Beast. We’ll see,” says Eyeshot.

  “Yesterday you made it sound like it was a User that got rid of South Sarafiyah,” says Maeven. “But really it was a manifestation of their dying Will.”

  “I thought it would be easier to explain.”

  “It was false advertising,” says Ina.

  “Sorry,” says Eyeshot. “Look—door’s open. You don’t want to deal with this? You can leave.” She stands, giving them a moment to respond. “If not,” she says. “I will be looking out for this Beast, because I have a third objective for this campaign, and that is to kill it. When this happens, no option for you, your requirement is to evacuate and leave me to do this job. Understand?”

  No one dares to argue who from this unit is better suited to slay a Will Beast.

  “Good,” says Eyeshot, punching her palm. And by the quality of her Resonance, the feeling of emotion on a taught leash, to Maeven, the Optimist seems to have taken this personal.

  General notes:

  Character notes:

  Specialty: Creation-Subjection

  Concept: Minionist

  Visuals: Round eyes, a little baby-faced, black hair slightly dishevelled, tall. If he and Maeven stood-by-side, you could tell they’re siblings.

  Specialty: Optimist-Weaponist.

  Concept: Super hearing, super sight (including x-ray vision), and indomitable firearm enhancement.

  Visuals: Long silver hair clipped behind her ears. Red eyes. Red-and-white bodysuit with quad gun holsters. Currently wearing SOC tacticals (black).

  Sky Company:

  Victor Stendahl - Leader

  Specialty: Optimist

  Concept: Uses Synergy to enhance the power of others.

  Visuals: Muscular. Red hair. Side-swept fringe.

  Other: Friendly and charismatic.

  Specialty: (?)

  Concept: Combines Will with boxing straps.

  Visuals: Short black hair that stands straight up. Broad-chested. Kind of looks like Ryu from Street Fighter.

  Specialty: Intuitive

  Concept: Radar

  Visuals: Yellow hair in a loose bun. Clear, wraparound glasses.

  Specialty: (?)

  Concept: (?)

  Visuals: Long face. Lean. Medium-brown long hair.

  Other: Maeven filled in for him during the thief syndicate campaign (12.1)

  Specialty: Transformist

  Concept: Enhanced and re-textured physicality.

  Visuals: Broad, compound, somewhat robotic figure with a brick-like exterior.

  Sand Company:

  Ina Kotov - Leader

  Specialty: Subjectionist-Creationist.

  Concept: Summons snakes that subject different effects/ailments/enhancements on herself or her opponent, depending on the snake's species.

  Visuals: Long blond hair tied up in a high ponytail.

  Specialty: Optimist

  Concept: The more she dodges, the stronger she gets

  Visuals: Short orange hair and uneven bangs.

  Specialty: Weaponist

  Concept: Heals wounds with her breath.

  Visuals: Blue shoulder-length hair. Busty. Usually smiling at least a bit.

  Ocean Company:

  Maeven Riel - Leader

  Concept: (??)

  Visuals: She's the cover of Arc 1

  Specialty: Creation-Subjection

  Concept: Minionist

  Visuals: Black hair. Sometimes wears a cap. Lookalike is Fushiguro Megumi from JJK.

  Other: Aloof. Draws a lot.

  Visuals: Slightly curly orange hair. Dog ears, round eyes. Short.

  Other: Empathetic & friendly. A knower of animals and languages.