Spring Changes, page 9
“Yes,” I admitted without even thinking.
“You know you also can’t kill him,” Pious said. “And the reasons as to why?”
I balled my fists. I didn’t want to accept that his family was something we needed. That without them the front line was going to be worse off. “I’m not willing to accept I can’t just yet. I know what I have to do and the reasons.”
“His family—” Pious turned to face me, holding my eyes with his. “If they knew what he had done, do you think he would be allowed anywhere near you?”
“I’m not sure.” I was honest. “I don’t get why? Why did he want me dead? Like really dead?”
“That’s something you need to ask him. Only he can tell you that.”
“What if his parents want my head on some kinda platter for him?”
“They’re good people,” Pious said. “They are fighting with everything they have to bring the resources people need on the front line. They’re also proud of their son. Knowing what he did, what he’s been doing—it would crush them.”
That surprised me to hear, but it made sense. “They’d still stop supplies to the line?”
“Maybe temporarily.” He seemed to think hard for a moment, looking up into the sky. “Then they’d regret it.”
“It seems you know them pretty well.”
He coughed and looked back at me. “You’re not the only person who has issues. I’ve counselled more around these parts in the last few years than I have anywhere else. They’re always high-end jobs, because those at the top suffer the most.”
His shoulders, his hands, his whole posture. He was very sad here.
“You work for his family?” I was surprised he’d almost admitted this. “Are you working for them now, trying to get me to do something I’ll regret?” I was dubious, to his whole position.
“No, I am not,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Every person I take on has been different. Every single one is special in their needs, and I only help.”
“But you told me you worked for them?”
“No.” He accentuated this with a shake of his head. “You guessed. I haven’t confirmed or denied this fact.”
I couldn’t say anything else to this. “Then what can I do now?”
“You’re going to go in there.” He pointed to the hangar. “Set everything up with those around you that you need to. You’re going to do the jobs you set out with them. Get in those mechs, get the plan you have going.”
“You know what my plan is?”
“You’re going to merge a mega without a full thirty-six minds. Hiroto told me.”
I worried instantly he was going to betray all of us, that Edward would know.
“I will not betray your confidence or Hiroto’s.” He looked back into the sky. “Something is coming. Something evil, I can feel it.”
I followed his gaze, believing it to be towards that rift. It was evil; I felt it more than anyone else. Add the darkness to it, and I was screwed. “You believe we’re the only ones who can fight it.”
“Yes. Though I’m a huge fan of what they’re doing out there, they’re keeping that evil at bay. It needs to be annihilated.”
“It does. For those it touches, it taints more than anything.”
“You know the touch?” His face paled.
I nodded.
“Oh, Kyle,” he said. Then he looked back to where we had walked from. “Do you know who you were tainted with?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”
“I need you to find out. If this is something I need to be worried about right now.”
“I’ve pushed him off many a time,” I said. “I can do so again.”
He sighed. “Each time you push him away, you’re growing your debt. You know this, right?”
I didn’t want to agree with this question, but my hands shook again, anger and frustration and my stupidity.
“Yes,” I said. “This is going to hurt a lot.”
“Now that is the cause of your issues,” Pious said. “I need you to think about it a lot tonight. You might not want Hiroto to know these thoughts or feelings. Don’t block him out completely. Can you promise me this?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” As much as I wanted to talk to Hiroto, I wanted to hide. I didn’t want to talk to him. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I could just hide. It would be okay. Who the hell was I kidding? I looked at Pious and let out a sigh. “Okay, I’ll try. I really will.”
9
Pious had given me more than enough to think about, and I did just that. I wanted to include Hiroto in some of this, and when I had what I thought about it settled in my mind, I allowed it to settle and I brought him into my thoughts.
I didn’t know you could shut me out like that all the time, Hiroto said. I mean, I know you have in the past with Xirob. But this is different.
His pain resonated through me, and I wanted to talk to him about my exchange with Pious, I did. In the end, I just said it. If I could sit you down, before me right now, I would do so. I want to talk to you face to face. To be able to see and hear your reactions. Your facial features.
I can let you see me, just like Xe does, he said. Give me a moment.
When I looked again, there he was. I could see the version of him he wanted me to see. Not really human and certainly not full denti. I wasn’t sure I could describe what he actually did look like.
“It is good to see you,” I said.
“Thank you,” he replied. “I also want to tell you a lot of things. I just can’t seem to find the right words.”
“I know,” I said. “I don’t expect you to. It’s me that needs to say these things. Of all the things that could have gone wrong, that I should have listened to, there was one. This is the only thing that bothers me now above anything else.”
“What is it?”
“That I have darkness sitting above my head. He’s waiting to take something I don’t ever want to part with.”
“Every time this is pushed aside, his power grows.” Hiroto’s jaw set firmly. “Correct?”
“Yes. It does.”
“What do you think he wants above anything else?”
“He wants the debt paid, that much is true.” I stared past him, trying my best to form the right words. The ones I hoped would bring him to my side. “He also wants something I don’t want to give, because it means someone will suffer. Someone I care for, at the worst time ever. When I need them the most.”
His eyes lingered on mine, studying, contemplating. “So you’re saying what?”
“I have to take him on.” I studied Hiroto’s face. “As in, I have to call him out. I have to kill him.”
Hiroto swallowed, and set his hands before him on his lap. “You’re wanting to take on one of the darkest forces in the universe?”
“Hiroto, I not only have to do this, I will.”
“When?” His face paled as he waited for me to answer.
I really didn’t know. “Is there ever going to be the right time?”
He looked away. “I don’t know if that’s something I can answer either.”
“Because neither of us can.”
“Are you going to do it before Edward?”
I thought about what Pious had said. To the things I faced as a mega, as the leader everyone around me wanted. I said with clear words he couldn’t take for anything else. “Yes, so when everyone else settles down for the night and is safe, I am going to call him out.”
“You’re not alone,” he said, looking back at me. His eyes met mine. “Wherever you go, whatever you do. Even if I wasn’t inside your mind. I’d be there.”
“There is something else I need you to know.” I held a hand up towards him, palm out, and I sparked the kenosi within me so he could feel it. He placed his palm to mine and I was surprised to feel he was capable of giving back to me. “You have never failed me. Never. There are people on my team I would do anything for. But there’s only one person I want in my head.”
“You wouldn’t have done the same for any of the others?” He cocked his head to one side, his eyebrow now crooked as he stared at me.
“I would want to,” I answered. “I wouldn’t be capable of it, because I know you. I’ve been a part of you. That, to me, is something no one else can do. That even if I wanted to, it wouldn’t take, it wouldn’t have worked, and I’d have lost them.”
“That’s not a slight on you.” He tried to smile, but it was more a frown. “It just means we’ve had something special. That we are unique.”
“We’re more than unique, and you know that too. You have never failed me. Understand that.”
“But—” he said.
He was going to pull away from me, but I actually touched his hand with mine. Felt him, and I liked it. I squeezed.
“There are no buts,” I said. “As much as you think I don’t want you, I also didn’t have to do what I did.” I held his eyes with mine, hoping he would see my intentions. But he looked away and I had to pull him back. “I fought with every living part of me and beyond to take you back inside my mind. I am not Xirob. I have no idea how he even managed to take us in the first place. Because there was not just the one mind to integrate into his, there were two. I did one. I would not want to do it again.”
He looked at me now. His eyes penetrating, needing to know. “But you would?”
“For. You,” I stated. “Understand. For. Only. You.”
“I don’t know what to say.” His eyes darted to and from mine, unable to focus on me now.
He was about to pull his hand away from mine, but I clasped my fingers around his gently. “I don’t want you to say anything else. Just understand fully the things I have going through my mind right now. Read them, understand them. There’s no one else on the same level as you. Even Shion isn’t.”
“I feel that. It’s more than friendship.” He then held my eyes, the soft brown swirls of his iris and kenosi strong. “But it’s not what I feel for Dylan, or what you feel for Shion.”
“No, it’s something on its own. That I don’t think anyone else other than Xirob can ever understand. At least not yet. There will be many other merges that have total symbiotic relationships like this. Where one relies on the other so much, they’re also something they can’t live without.”
“You can’t”—He seemed to stutter—“can’t live without me?”
“No,” I admitted, and I really meant it. “I can’t. And that one thought of losing you broke me.”
“More than Xirob and Yun?”
“Yes.” I almost let out a sob. “You’re that important to me.”
Now his fingers clasped around mine, and he squeezed.
“Thank you.” I felt him relax now, and I then felt something else. Deep anger. “I have some words for the darkness that comes for us. He will not know what the fuck is going to hit him. When you take him on, you will have me by your side, everything I am is inside of you. You have all my abilities, my stats, everything. I didn’t want to let you see it, because even I was shocked.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have the ability to combine us properly.” With his other hand he seemed to tap empty space. The numbers, thousands of them, drifted past me on a screen. “You can merge our stats, all of it.”
“What?” I swallowed. “Show me.”
“I don’t know if it’s going to be permanent, or if it will affect me when I come to hopefully get another body of my own.”
“You think you won’t have stats if I take them off you?”
“Read the text,” he said and motioned towards it.
MERGE YOUR INNER COMPANION
YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO TAKE YOUR FRIEND’S STATS
THIS MIGHT REMOVE EVERYTHING HE HAS FOREVER
THIS MIGHT DEDUCT HIS STATS FROM YOURS AND NOT MERGE THEM
THIS MIGHT REMOVE EVERYTHING HE IS FROM THIS SYSTEM PERMANENTLY
ARE YOU WILLING TO TAKE THIS RISK?
Y/N
I read it over and over again. I could lose him, like he’d be gone forever?
This wasn’t something I could think about right now either. This was huge. But the risks, to myself, to him.
“You’d be willing to let me merge us in the hopes I could fight the darkness off once and for all?” I asked.
“Yes. If it frees us for good. Or if I lose my life. I care for the future and what we need to do for everyone. He cannot have this hold on us anymore.”
“I know.” I squeezed his hand once more. “I know. Two nights from now, then?” I asked him.
Hiroto held my gaze with his. “Two nights from now, I would give everything to have us free of this monster, free to do the things we wish.”
“I agree with that. Then let us get some sleep,” I said, sudden exhaustion washing through me.
“You know I don’t sleep.” He laughed.
“Well, what will you do?”
“I’m going to go to speak with Dylan, help him drift off to sleep. Then I will do what I do best. I will crunch numbers; I will get the base up to spec some more with Xe. I will do everything I can to make this job for us, for you, easier.”
“You’re amazing,” I said.
“And you,” he said sternly. “Are going to sleep.”
Without another word, he pulled the plug on me. I slipped into a dreamlike state as easy as my head settling back, though of course it already was.
There was nothing worse than waking up when you’d been knocked out. By the time I was awake the next morning, everyone else was gone. Showered, changed, and out of the bunks with probably not much to eat. Though I thought all their nites and, of course, Naylar would have screamed at them, even if it were basic MREs, and nothing else. I did smell coffee, though it was still pretty cold. That I didn’t like. That I wanted to steer clear of, but any coffee was better than no coffee, right?
I sucked in a huge gulp, and Hiroto almost spat it out for me. That is vile.
I walked outside, and it was wonderful to smell just like last night. The sun on my skin, the breeze and the flowers. They were gorgeous and something I was happy seeing.
It seems this state of euphoria is for everyone, Hiroto said. Shuttles are incoming now with more supplies, but the mechs are dropping soon as well.
The team’s bringing them in now? I asked.
It was supposed to be yesterday, but with the state of the place, it wasn’t a good idea till we’d more of it cleared. Now, yes. The mech’s need to be in place. Figure out what needs to be fixed and upgraded.
It took me a second, but I spotted them in the skies. My team dropped in onto the training field with precision.
I grinned, seeing the mechs stomp on over. The ground shook slightly underfoot. It was good to see them. Good to know through everything we’d been through, these were what had allowed us to survive.
They moved into the hangar. I followed, albeit slower, and by the time I was there, they were locked in and assessing the units.
I moved to the centre station where Tyto sat looking over the results. Lacy and Spike were ordering the others in my team around, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Tyto turned. “Good to see you up.”
“You should have knocked me out of bed,” I replied.
“Pious said we should let you sleep. But today you would be feeling a little better?”
“I am,” I said. “The sleep was needed after . . .” I paused, noting the old mech still standing at the end of the hangar. “Well, after all the emotional talk, the thinking.”
“Well, you look refreshed. That’s good.”
I smacked my lips together. “Could do with some coffee.”
“Flask at the end of the tables. Naylar also wouldn’t do without hot coffee.”
I moved to the other side and soon sipped at the nectar of the gods while the mechs were hooked up pretty quick. My team, really efficient.
Green lights flickered before us. One, three, seven, nine. Then red lights. Tyto sighed. “Was hoping we’d get some more, but it’s a start.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get them up and running, don’t worry.”
“Oh yeah, I’m not worried. Just eager.”
“You want to try a mega-merge already?”
“Don’t you?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
I sucked in more coffee and almost burnt my mouth. “I want to test it, sure.” My eyes were drawn back to the older mech. “I’m more interested in seeing how that mech might change our odds.”
“You think you can integrate that one? If so, what advantage do you think we’ll get with it?”
I was about to say the connection. That was part of the difference. But I had to experience it properly before I could sanction it for the team.
“Come on,” I said. “I’m going back in. Will get it settled into a bay and then we’ll move the other one from out there.”
“You want me to have one, don’t you?”
I cast him a glance, raised an eyebrow. “Whatever made you think that?”
He laughed and then followed me. “I’ll watch your back while the others do the rest of their work.”
“Sounds good.”
We reached the mech with a few glances from the others. I shouted “Morning” to as many as could hear me. It was clear Spike and Lacy were in deep. Everything here needed special attention. The others will be coming in this afternoon as well. G’hale and her guys, though they were settled in the dungeon, they’re wanting nice beds for a change.
Makes sense. It was nice to sleep and sleep well.
I agree.
I placed my hands to the mech as we reached it. I wanted to get that cockpit open now and to drop inside. That was my goal with this attempt. Not to remote it, I wanted to see it on the inside.
Molecular Insight sparked and I dug in without telling Tyto. The cockpit shimmered and vanished.
“That was unexpected,” Tyto said.
We could just about see inside from here, so hooking my hands up, and using everything I could, I hauled myself up and level with it. I shouted down to Ty, “Looks okay from here, metal standing not rusted, lights on.”
