Chương 140: Part 121: Pendulum

"Any pain?" Nestra waved the medic away. The poor young man was a bit lost. It should have been Mazingwe conducting tests, but he was obviously still down, and anyway Karamahel would probably skin anyone entering their den right now.

"No, this form is fine."

"Then… how about the human one?" Nestra sighed. The pocket was… it was there but it wasn't responsive. She couldn't see her human skin per se, only feel it like a dull ache on her mind, a painful itch she couldn't quite reach.

"It's dead. You can't help it. I just need time and food to rebuild."

"It's alright, sugar," her mom said as she patted the poor man on his shoulder.

"You go right on and we'll handle it from now on, alright?" Nestra hated the way she could feel her mom's pain radiating from her even though the older woman was trying so damn hard to mask it. But mom's accent always resurfaced when she was under a lot of pressure. The merciless cold light of the Beacon's infirmary didn't help. It wasn't a hospital, more a room for employees either to get help or to await evacuation to a proper hospital. The smell of antiseptics hung heavy in the air. There were no windows either.

It wasn't a welcoming place. The nurse left the room, a little despondent but right on time to avoid Claire. Nestra's aunt barged in like a hurricane, her voice louder than a jet to Nestra's ears tonight.

"What the fuck happened?"

"A… an explosion," her mom said.

"She lost a member of her cohort," dad said softly.

"Who?"

"The Nephrite wild card."

"Shit," Claire said. She paused.

"I liked him too."

"Let's get out of here," Nestra said.

"I don't need medical help."

"Yes, of course hun." The group of older gleams surrounded her on their way out, a visual that would be funny in any under circumstances considering Nestra was around two meter and a half tall in true form, and her mom only cleared 1. 75 with heels. Now she felt surrounded by short-fused veterans with unusually erratic mana. It would have been less dangerous to wear a dress made out of claymore mines strapped with shaped charge ribbons.

"We will be heading home for now," her father patiently informed a suited woman, probably a spook.

"I'll get you a hover car. Please head to parking 8."

"Alright." Nestra felt her mother shake, then heard the soft click of her father's gauntlet closing over her armored hand. With the grief dulled to a low pain late in the night, Nestra realized that this was the future of their generation: after surviving most of their friends, it would be their fate to watch their children die before them. Nestra shouldn't have admitted her human body was dead, then mom wouldn't be so triggered. Stupid, stupid. Fuck. A thought rushed to the surface of Nestra's psyche.

Valerian couldn't be dead because he was alive earlier and they hadn't caught up yet, and his family was just on the verge of restoring him to his glorious rank, and also he had so much research to complete, and he had to build up a research team too. But she recognized it as what it was: just a coping mechanism for one more dead left in her wake. It shouldn't have happened. There was no reason to kill healers indiscriminately. It was short-sighted, irrational, absurd, self-destructive.

It didn't make any sense and why the fuck would they? Those vile, cretinous fuckers." HSSSSS. Sorry." Claire took her into a half hug. The hover car was there, waiting for them. They moved in without a word.

"I'm sorry Nes."

"I will be fine," Nestra replied.

"Just… not fine now. Digesting. I … I just need some time. I don't need to talk about it. Don't want. I don't want to talk about it. Not now."

"Ok." The trip was spent in silence on a background of cruel normalcy. Threshold moved fast yet the skyline felt alien and immutable in the neon light, changing skin but not essence. The Palladians had barely arrived when Nestra's secure phone rang. She replied while Helena rushed her, embracing her much more tightly than one would expect from the relatively short frame, but that was strength gleams for you.

"This is Kim," a male voice said.

"Ah?"

"Mayor Kim," Threshold's political leader said.

"I'm contacting you personally to first offer my condolences. Seven Threshold citizens are among today's victims and we mourn their cruel loss. Today is a dark day, and it is not over yet. The other reason why I'm calling you is that four American citizens died as well. Our new 'partners' are, shall we say, reconsidering their alignment. Ambassador Butler would like a word with you. She was recently nominated after the, well, settlement we reached, and she asks for some of your time.

Now, I know that it's not a good —""I'll hear her out."

"... I didn't expect you to agree so readily."

"And I expect our goals are firmly aligned at the moment, or she would not contact me so suddenly. Where and when?"

"Beacon, as soon as possible. Unless you need an hour?"

"No, I'll go."

"Good luck Palladian. Remember, you speak for Threshold. Be proud but kindly don't attack her." Nestra hung up. Helena was already rushing in.

"I'll get you jerky! And cookies!" Really a loving individual. The rest of her family gathered around, offering quiet support. It was her father who spoke first.

"We are sorry, Nestra. We know what you are going through, and yet there are no words I can say that will make it any less horrible. We'll be here for you when you return. Just remember to take some time afterward. Don't… distract yourself too successfully." Nestra nodded, then she went back into the hover limo. A quick check of a brand new visor confirmed that it had been less than three hours since the explosion. In Threshold, even grief moved at gleam speed.

Nestra didn't expect a familiar face to greet her as she emerged from the limo like a devil out of her box — this thing was too damn small for her true form. She underestimated Threshold's capability to deploy the right person at the right time. Her contact would be Agent Winslow, the same who had acted as liaison with the government when her family had gone to retrieve Aunt Claire.

Naturally, the steam gleam was absolutely full of shit pretending to be a mere employee and to this day, Nestra wasn't exactly sure what agency he belonged to. That probably meant that the agency didn't legally exist. She was still glad to spot his nondescript mug in the parking lot because she could use any friendly face she could right about now.

"We haven't met since Claire was freed," Nestra remarked after a brief handshake. The spook smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes.

"The American continent isn't exactly my domain, but the powers that be thought you could use a familiar face. I am here to brief you before the Butler meeting."

"What is there to brief?" Nestra asked.

"The world has already reacted to Rebirth's stunt. You should know where things stand before you talk to the ambassador. Come on." The spy led Nestra through a lift and various corridors before unexpectedly stopping at a fancy meeting room, empty but for a basket of fruits and a steaming cup of cappuccino.

"We will meet her here?" Nestra asked.

"The ambassador is waiting for you. She can wait a little longer." Nestra raised a brow.

"A bit of a ballsy power move, don't you think?"

"Just an understated mark of our displeasure, Palladian. Don't worry, the ambassador has full connection so she will keep herself busy working on her own stuff. Now, before the begin, how are you? Really. We can postpone." Nestra stopped mid banana peel.

"I am stable and I will not strangle someone who had nothing to do with this," she replied with confidence before pushing the banana in her own face. She could barely taste it. Even chewing was an unpleasant task, a means to an end. She had to rebuild her human body, that was it.

"Good, because you're going to need some patience to endure what I'm going to say. Only a few minutes after the explosion happened, Rebirth's remaining aligned media launched a staunch attack against Threshold, and more specifically you. Unfortunately for them, the measures we took helped destroy their credibility, except, of course, among their followers. The 'coven' was live from the Pacific Ocean. Lukwata was among the first to tell everyone it was an acid mana construct designed to look like void.

The word of a Kenyan A-class carries a lot of weight because they're mostly unaligned. But the biggest impact came from this." Winslow grabbed a tablet from a nearby drawer. A few clicks were enough to show a security footage of human Nestra being dropped by Mazingwe and then rushing forward at a dead sprint, face a cold mask of fear. Then a noiseless explosion shown frame by frame, the human body pushed and switching as her internal organs were pulped by the shockwave. Mazingwe shielding her from the wave of acid.

Nestra felt her stomach drop when the grainy footage of her face came in full view, the naked shock so painfully raw it reopened the seeping wound in her heart. Pure panic followed, then tears when she woke Mazingwe via an injection to the chest only for him to spasm so violently a baseline would have died of shock. Her tearful focus while the human form of Blinky guided her in the 'surgery'.

"How did you even get this?" she asked, wondering. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"No need for suspicion, this is the footage of a Togolese security drone deployed to help monitor theft on the base, hence the rather low quality of the footage. The Lome fortress council eagerly shared it with us. Most of the fatalities are their own people, the wounded. They are enraged."

"What a coincidence," Nestra whispered. Blinky looked so confident in her human form. This was definitely not the only humanoid body she'd ever used.

"When did the sisters get their human form?"

"I can tell you in confidentiality that we granted Moon Dancer and Karamahel human bodies from death row prisoners in the Red House before the negotiations, a fact we will ask you to keep to yourself. The prisoners were granted a chance to die in honorable combat and they both took it. As for Blinky, I am not sure. We have not been in contact after you reported that she'd left on a kaiju hunt."

"Oh…"

"Moving on, your pain has served our narrative better than any proof, and we do have proof. The man who killed himself has been positively identified as a Croatian missionary from one of Rebirth's chapters. We used DNA evidence because he'd undergone plastic surgery."

"So that plan was a long time coming."

"I suspect they had plans and contingencies in place to exploit opportunities. This is the one Rebirth, or at least part of it, eventually decided on."

"Part of it?" Nestra asked, a bit confused.

"Rebirth is unusual for such a movement in the sense it has a Council of Elders rather than a true spiritual leader, as is more common for cult-like organizations. I will let Anahita Butler explain in more detail. What I want you to understand is that Rebirth is finished. The entire operation should have been cancelled, but your discovery of their agent pushed them to the brink, and whoever was in charge decided to pull the trigger anyway.

Even mainstream news media report on how suspiciously quick they were to develop their stories. They are done. One way or another. Use it."

"Ok." Winslow paused again.

"Still good?"

"Yeah, better. I would have been mad if all my efforts for peace had been undone."

"It might feel strange for me to say but the overwhelming majority of humans are not assholes. There are lines in the sand people shouldn't cross, and Rebirth crossed them all. Go get 'em."

"On my way," Nestra replied, grabbing the cappuccino for the road.

Anahita Butler waved at Nestra as soon as she entered. Her wizened hand reached for her visor.

"I'll call you back." The door closed, and now it was just the two of them.

"Will you take a seat?" the older woman asked. It was both a question and an invitation, one Nestra took with the full knowledge that the ambassador must have studied her file, which read 'has a problem with authority' every two pages. Which was patently unfair as Nestra only had trouble with assholes, and unfortunately there were quite a few in positions of authority. The ambassador wasn't quite what Nestra had expected.

She was an old black woman with the same stern aura as Ragnarok herself, but while the old she-wolf had a sports coach and military countenance that matched the rigidity of metal, Butler was all pristine boardroom professionalism. Her posture was perfect. Her beige suit was without a crinkle despite the late hour. It seemed that no gale could disturb her long and carefully arranged hair, as gray as could be. All of it matched the ice of her gleam affinity, for Butler was an ice B-class and no pushover.

Nestra could only assume the Americans really understood what Threshold valued. Perhaps because she shared that affinity, Nestra was more sensitive to variations in the taste of the ice. Her mother's mana was crystal clear, precision in the service of conductivity, to drag her enemies in her trap and let others finish them, a queen in her palace. Nestra's ice was dark and spiked, the merciless winter of the predator where fangs would finish the battle in a splash of vivid red. Butler was white.

Not shaped, not tangible, white. The color of a frozen cloud that smothered everything, as insidious as it was deadly behind the lack of visible threat. Her blue eyes followed Nestra with unreadable attention.

"Thank you," she finally said after Nestra was seated, "for coming." Butler gave Nestra the narrowest smile, more stalking cat than person and yet Nestra wasn't offended. The Aszhii part of her was in full control for now, and that part respected strength. And honesty.

"I will begin by offering my condolences. The death count is still ongoing, but we estimate there are over three hundred victims for now and there would have been more without you. This is unacceptable, unforgivable, and also why I am here."

"And why are you here?" Nestra asked, leaning forward in her seat.

"I don't expect you only came here to express your sympathy."

"Of course not. Contrary to some of my colleagues, I can recognize a successful diplomat from her achievements." Flattery.

"I came here because we have undeniable proof of Rebirth's involvement in this terrorist attack. Two days from now, we will be moving on the organization with mass arrests. Unfortunately, we will be too late to reach their headquarters in Appalachia. By the time we arrive, their entire council will have murdered one another in a dogmatic battle for dominance, destroying most of the compound in the process. Tragic." The ambassador leaned back in her seat. Nestra amended her assessment.

Butler wasn't a satisfied cat, she was a satiated snow leopard. Or about to be satiated, anyway. Nestra still struggled to see the diplomat's exact point.

"I need to make sure I understand. Are you asking me to step aside or are you asking me to step in?"

"We thought you and Threshold could use a gift and a symbol of our appreciation. Between friends, of course." Nestra gulped down the end of her cappuccino. It was getting quite late. Caffeine couldn't affect her anymore yet just the memory of the buzz acted as a well needed placebo.

"I don't buy it, not for a single moment. You guys have always cleaned house yourselves. You would never surrender your sovereignty like that. Especially not after I clowned your agencies for a full week."

"You are correct, Palladian, we would not relinquish our sovereignty, however the situation calls for… contractors. If you allow me to elaborate…" Butler sat forward, fingers laced together. Her mana was so disciplined that she had to be a mage.

"First, Rebirth still has sympathizers in the government. Any sanctioned operation could be leaked back to the council, and there is much harm they can still do if they believe they are doomed."

"How can they still have support…" Nestra grumbled, more to herself than because she expected any sort of answer.

"By now it should be clear that there is a category of people who only see what hurts their group as evil, and what benefits it as good. The bomb killed foreigners and heathens. It hurt you. For them, that makes it good if unsubtle. Those people cannot be relied upon nor negotiated with. They neither demand nor offer sympathy, and if you are not one of them, you will not be afforded the most basic of human dignities," Butler continued with more intensity than Nestra believed possible.

Nestra found it difficult to assess Butler's anger, and when the ambassador next spoke, she wasn't sure if she hadn't hallucinated the whole outburst, such as it was.

"Second, this joint operation will take part within the frame of our newly minted cooperation agreement." Nestra was sure it was satisfaction on her stoic gaze this time.

"And last but not least, Rebirth has supported, and in turn received support from a wide variety of public figures over the years. Now that the organization has turned radioactive, it would be optimal if their leadership were to disappear without taking half of the opposition party with them."

"You!" Nestra paused before she could resort to expletives.

"Why would you protect your opponents?"

"Protect?" Butler chuckled as if Nestra had made a good joke.

"We are not 'protecting' them, we are extracting as many concessions from them as possible so we can safely dismantle Rebirth's empire without too much resistance. The public's trust in our political apparatus suffered much over the years. As fragile as it is, we would prefer a smooth transition over ruining a few… less consequential individuals. Your services would guarantee this outcome, should you agree."

"Oh. Now I believe you. But what, hypothetically, would happen if I were to gather the files and release them anyway?" Butler's expression didn't change.

"Then you will sabotage our truce and the trust we have started to develop and remove all the power we have over our foes without a guarantee that their constituents would make them pay for it. It is, of course, up to you…" Her tone made it abundantly clear it wasn't up to her.

"But I firmly believe that you will work with us, and I staked my career on it." Nestra glared. She glared, but she knew Butler had her. She didn't even have to think about alternatives. Rebirth's leadership would die by her hands. There were no questions about if, the questions were where, when, and how, and Butler had plenty of answers.

"Ok, you get your free disposal team. What do I get? What kind of support can you offer?" The raider bled through the diplomat.

"I am so glad you asked."

It was almost 3AM by the time Butler was finished running through everything she had to share. Nestra had to memorize or hand draw everything in the briefing because she was forbidden from taking any of the originals. The ambassador must have been very confident about the lack of spying equipment in the room. Actually, she'd probably checked. Nestra wasn't sure what to think. The opportunity made sense, she guessed. Everything was so sudden. She still needed to slow down a bit, take her time. Prepare.

There was still much for her to lose. Rushing while she wasn't at the top of her form would only lead to disaster. She couldn't ask the coven for help. It wasn't even a question of their activities being monitored or not. They would simply refuse. Covens were keen on letting the young ones fight their own battle to prove themselves, to sharpen their skills on the whetstone of their own decisions, so the survivors joined the Elders who led their species to war.

And Nestra didn't want someone to solve her problems for her anyway. This was the result of her decisions. The path she'd taken had led to the death of Valerian, half-measures designed not to upset the public. Had she been wise to allow Rebirth to dig their own graves? Or had she been a fool not to destroy them at the source? Maybe time would tell. What she knew right now was that Valerian had paid for that decision. And now, they would pay, too, for killing healers and civilians.

"Palladian? Clytemnestra Palladian?" Nestra looked up from her musings, realizing she'd been making her way back to the parking lot without paying attention. A woman was waiting here, unsure and red-eyed. Nestra remembered her, actually. This was Sylvie, Valerian's cousin if the similar appearance wasn't a dead giveaway. Same green glimmer of life in her iris, ash blonde hair, and photogenic appearance. Sylvie stepped up to speak then paused, overwhelmed by emotion. Nestra decided that she would help on the spot.

Just doing something, anything really.

"So… he's really…"

"Yea. Sorry."

"No, I mean, sorry I knew that. I don't know why I asked. His research…" Sylvie sighed, pressed the bridge of her nose with clean fingers. Her nails were short.

"I was supposed to help… I'll take over. If the family lets me. He never let the fear of censure stop him. But you already know all of this. You knew from the start, and you helped him while I thought he'd just grow out of it… Say, we're holding a service in two days. In house, but you are of course invited to attend alongside the other members of the Little People League."

"In two days?" Nestra replied, expression falling.

"I, uh, may have something too important…"

"I knew it. You're going after them," Sylvie said, eyes hardening.

"I want in." Nestra didn't reply so Sylvie approached. What a devious trap.

"I can get you gear. Exclusive Baihe combat prototypes built with Gidung's technical assistance for internal defense. Top of the top shelf. The Elders will allow it. Just take me with you, and I'll be there to patch up anyone who needs it." She was close. As close as could be without Sylvie going tiptoed.

"Ill get you in with the gas division." Nestra would be a major hypocrite if she refused.

"Welcome aboard."

A plan began to form in Nestra's mind, even as she absent-mindedly ate Baihe rations. From Butler she had received a treasure trove of information and a nice little surprise. From Baihe she'd get all the war gear she could hope for and one pissed off life mage. One large unknown remained: if her dear departed cousin had been B-class, it was possible Rebirth had more high gleams in their roster. She needed people to help, but for obvious reasons they needed to be low profile.

Even her absence might be noted, unless she managed some deception. Actually… Nestra called Rag, unsure if she was still awake but of course it was a major emergency and A-class gleams barely slept anyway.

"Yes?" The voice was rugged as usual, but not unkind.

"I need access to the bridge world."

"... what for?"

"To retrieve an asset I'll be using very soon." This time, there was no need for consideration.

"I'll make sure you have the highest clearance. Don't start a war without me."

Just as she was leaving, Nestra opened her visor to find an emergency news alert, one that wasn't related to the terrorist attack.

'Baihe headquarters damaged in a mysterious event.' The article went on to detail how the top of the arcology had suffered from a sudden attack, presumably even on the corporate boardroom during an official meeting. Baihe assured that despite the violence of the collision, no casualties had occurred, that they were taking the incident very seriously and cooperating with the police.

The fact they didn't raise more of a stink shocked Nestra as the corporate speech lacked the bite that usually came with Baihe white vans circling certain people's houses, but then she saw the pictures: several corpo cars and hover cars literally compacted into an improvised pillar then shoved through a glass roof like the staff of a vengeful god. It only took her a few seconds to add two and two together. Sereth was back in town. He had been informed that someone had bothered his fiancee.

Honestly, this was incredibly restrained.