Chương 18: Operation Dawn

Maliard had settled himself into the armchair directly across from the small fireplace, its grate glowing a rich, splendid red. Flames danced between thick logs hauled from the forests below the Monolith. He smiled, reaching to the windowsill for a paper envelope that carried a faint scent of lavender mixed with something sweetly spiced. He cast it into the fire and waited for the room to fill with that calming fragrance.

"Finally, a moment's peace…" He murmured. The trembling of his fingers and the steady, rhythmic tapping of his foot against the firewood suggested otherwise.

"IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOU!" He spun, jabbing a finger at the boy behind him, who was systematically working his way through a frankly alarming quantity of blueberry-glazed pancakes.

"Morning, Maliard… you're up early too?" Noel greeted him, mouth still full.

"Noel… It's nearly half past eleven. You call that early?" The sarcasm softened as Maliard slid lower in his chair.

"I only wanted a little peace…" He muttered, carving a small cube from one of the golden, glistening bread slices on his plate.

"Nothing beats fried bread and honey by a fire." Noel agreed, with considerable dignity, wiping crumbs from his mouth.

"Maliard, have you seen Sai anywhere?" He then asked, now occupied with stirring a massive carafe of something brown that resembled chocolate.

"Why would I know that?"

"His room was empty when I got up." Noel set his shake on the table without spilling a drop.

"What are you, his babysitter?" Maliard had resorted to his preferred defensive strategy: sarcasm. Noel, constitutionally incapable of registering most of Maliard's jabs, considered this briefly, then shook his head.

"You're hopeless." Maliard muttered and bit into another piece of bread. The door flew open. A stripe of corridor light flashed between the wall-planks for an instant, then vanished as the figure stepped inside. A girl in a long bluish robe, its fabric patterned with something resembling splattered paint, stood turning her gaze across the room.

"Oh, hi Jeanne!" Noel called, not bothering to stand.

"Hello… Noel," she replied, smiling through the thin, translucent collar of her robe.

"Have you… Seen Lance?"

"Lost your favourite patient, little nurse?" Maliard asked without looking up.

"I'm not… A nurse." She murmured, pulling the fabric around herself. Her expression was crowded with things she hadn't sorted out yet.

"Sorry, but I haven't seen either of them." Noel said, lifting his carafe, then stopping. Jeanne's eyes had fixed on it with open curiosity.

"Want some? It's my specialty... The NOELSHAKE!" He proceeded to list the contents: three bananas, half a chocolate bar, biscuits liberated from the canteen, some powder from NOIR's labs, a measure of sugar, and both almond and peanut butter combined.

"Noel… That thing contains a week's worth of calories." Maliard said, horrified, stopping mid-bite.

"Only I can drink it without—" Jeanne reached across and took the carafe by the handle while Noel was still talking. She drank the entire thing in one pull.

"Thank you… Noel." She set the jug back on the table, now empty.

"It was…Really good." She drifted toward the door and out into the corridor, apparently unaware of the devastated expression spreading across Noel's face. A wave of noise rolled through the corridor. Shouts and laughter and the rhythmic hammering of effort. It was enough to rouse the trio from their moment of quiet. Noel was unfortunately still supine on the sofa, mumbling a funeral dirge for his shake.

"This racket at this hour?" Maliard complained, grabbing Noel's collar and hauling him off the sofa. Jeanne followed at a slight distance, smiling to herself.

"GO HOKU!!!"

"The recruit is really good!" As the three drew closer to the training hall, the noise intensified. The facility was the most popular space in all of NOIR, somewhere to burn off tension, to build toward a crisis, to compete. Given the sheer density of its equipment and configurations, calling it a gymnasium was an understatement. They reached the main entrance: a large circular door banded in red stripes and the NOIR crest, with a glowing display reading TRAINING HALL in large block characters."

The door was smaller the first time I came here." Jeanne thought aloud, remembering the narrow side-entrance near Maverick's workshop.

"That's technically the dormitory exit." Maliard replied, releasing Noel's collar and letting him drop. He crossed to the terminal on the wall and pressed a sequence of keys. A black card slot extended from the panel. He swiped his dark card across it. The terminal lit green, and the thick circular door split into two identical halves, swinging open. The noise rushed out to meet them. The central floor had been arranged as an arena, with most of the staff filling the stands.

Inside the yellow dust cloud swirling over the sand, two shapes moved: quick, shadow-fast, their reflections catching light in brief, striking flashes. The sound of impact filled the room in waves, drowned by the crowd. A violent crash launched one figure out of the arena. It skidded along the corridor floor, stopping near the trio at the entrance. It was a pale-skinned young man wearing only a white headband and a pair of trousers, his skin scratched and sand-stuccoed with sweat.

He got back to his feet, directly in front of a bewildered Maliard.

"Good morning, everyone." Hoku bowed, brushing the sand from his shoulders. He was holding a wooden sword slightly longer than his forearm, its metal guard scratched and worn but holding firm.

"Would someone like to explain this morning's chaos?" Maliard asked, peering past Sai's shoulder toward the audience, which was exchanging stunned looks and embracing each other. The figure in the arena was becoming visible through the clearing dust: Tall and wearing only a pair of loose grey trousers. His hair was damp, rivulets of sweat running from his brow. His skin was mapped with bruises and sand. He threw the wooden sword to the floor and dropped from the arena rim, thoroughly embarrassed.

"SORRY! I got way too fired up!" The boy, sprinting inattentively, slipped and struck the wall directly beside Jeanne.

"Don't worry, Lance! You still pulled off a respectable win." Sai murmured, helping him up.

"Well, the score is tied for now." Lance smiled, clutching his hand. Now that the dust had gone entirely, the condition of the arena was visible. Craters and pits covered the surface; chunks of cement had crumbled from the perimeter.

"An answer to my question, Hoku Sai?" Maliard repeated, not looking at either of them.

"Well… Lance and I both snuck out around dawn. We ran into each other, and I had the brilliant idea of challenging him." He retrieved a water bottle and their glasses from the ground, passing them to Lance.

"Things escalated, and we decided to spar. Forty-eight times."

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE IN BED!" Jeanne lurched forward, pointing at the cuts on his face and arms.

"Oh, hi Jeanne..." He processed her.

"... JEANNE!!" The recognition hit him at the same moment he became aware he was standing shirtless in front of a girl. Some reflex, entirely non-standard, sent him sprinting behind the nearest column. He emerged shortly afterward wearing a black T-shirt roughly the size of a blanket. Sai and Maliard stared. Jeanne had ducked behind the door.

"Lance… Did something happen?" Hoku asked, regarding his companion, now engulfed in the shirt.

"Nothing… Absolutely nothing." He muttered, easing toward the exit.

"Bolting from the room and wrapping yourself in a bedsheet doesn't sound like nothing." Maliard noted. Lance's answer was to go red and increase his distance.

"Maliard." Sai gave him a flat look, straightening his glasses.

"I haven't forgiven him, regardless of his results. The boy is strange." Maliard ignored the look and headed for the opposite exit.

"Listen to the hypocrite. Weren't results and 'tangible data' everything to you?" Hoku smiled, covering his mouth. Maliard turned and aimed a look at him capable of freezing a small lake, then disappeared down the corridor.

"Jeanne… You can come out now." He said quietly, watching a strand of hair poke out from behind the column. Her hiding spot was objectively terrible, but she appeared not to have noticed. Lance walked quietly down the corridor, avoiding eye contact with passing staff. His particular brand of social anxiety turned every set of eyes at his back into a physical weight. The staff watched him with something closer to admiration, but kept their distance out of respect; the sensation reached him anyway, unfiltered.

He reached his door and patted his pockets. Then patted them again. His expression drained of colour with each search. The room card was gone, lost somewhere on the training floor.

"AAAA!" Something cold brushed the back of his neck. He hit the wall. He had sharpened his senses over years of living alone, surviving against theft and sudden noise, but exhaustion and embarrassment had stripped them down to almost nothing.

"AAAA!" The figure that had touched him screamed in turn, dropped to the floor, and covered her head with her robe. Lance, pressing his back against the wall and drawing deliberate breaths, looked down.

"Jeanne… Can I help you?" He managed, pressing one hand to his chest to confirm his heartbeat was still present. Jeanne raised her face, eyes bright, and stood up slowly, trembling.

"I s-saw you standing still… I thought you needed something…" She murmured and extended her hand. The magnetic room card lay in her palm.

"You dropped it." He reached out and took it.

"I'm sorry… I startled you." He said, opening the door. The room was exactly as he had left it, except for the tangle of blankets dragged in from Jeanne's side.

"What happened?" He pointed at the shapeless mass of linen on the floor. Jeanne was already looking elsewhere.

"I knocked, but you weren't answering… I panicked and tripped and..." The explanation became increasingly imprecise. Lance noticed that she was wearing odd socks, two completely different pairs, and decided not to mention it.

"It's extremely late, and I haven't eaten since dawn. I could use something to eat." He headed to the bathroom, Jeanne following. The moment she heard the word cooking, one of her hairs stood straight up from her head like an antenna. He watched her settle at the table, rocking on the chair, a smile already on her face. Without thinking, his own lips moved to copy it"Double the work waiting for me…" The warm water pulled the grit and the humid dust from his skin.

He paused in front of the mirror, watching his scars slowly regain colour. They were almost absent during the training, as if they were hiding.

"My eyes look normal, but something's off…" He pressed his shoulder with a finger, probing it. He checked his back, posing for several full minutes with a deeply thoughtful expression.

"My muscles and joints are more… Elastic?" He rolled his shoulders and trunk like a contortionist and was genuinely surprised to feel no pain at all.

"Maybe my body is adapting to sustained Frequency use." He shut off the water, pulled on a very large, very long hoodie, and turned once more to the mirror.

"Have my hair actually grown?" He complained, raking a hand across the back of his head, then heading for the door. Outside, the storm had settled into a soft, clean fall of white snow. Every window was wrapped in it, made luminous by the sun. He took two eggs and a packet of bread slices from the refrigerator and lit the burner. A cube of butter was placed on the hot metal and melted gently.

"This smell always takes me back!" A small, genuine pleasure. He whisked the eggs with sugar and cinnamon. When he had lived in the alleys, an old man would bring him the leftovers from his grandchildren's table, teaching him a few things as he did. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Did you skip breakfast?" He turned toward Jeanne, who was still rocking at the table, cutlery in hand, ears tilted toward every hiss and pop of the pan.

"No… But I like… What are you cooking?" She murmured, going still and looking down. Lance felt embarrassed and let it run off him with a smile. A few minutes later, he set a pile of golden bread dripping with dark syrup on the table. He passed most of it onto Jeanne's plate, took a single slice for himself, and returned to the stove.

"Do you like it?" He asked without turning, switching off the flame. Jeanne nodded emphatically, taking another piece from her already-declining stack. He turned and offered her a steaming mug. His own coffee was black, while hers was considerably lighter.

"I couldn't remember if it was three or four sugars…" He smiled, carrying his mug to the windowsill seat. He raised it and sipped, counting snow-patches on the glass.

"He remembered." She blew across the surface of her cup. In the pale reflection of the liquid, she could see her own face smiling back. Tump. Tump. Tump. A series of metallic knocks broke their quiet. Lance fished the key fob from his pocket, pointed it at the sliding door, and clicked it. The frame lit green.

"Sorry to intrude." Hoku mumbled, wiping saliva from his chin as he bowed. Two other figures were half-hidden behind him.

"Hoku, Noel, and Mr. Ross. What brings you here?" Lance jumped up so fast that he sloshed coffee on his hoodie.

"Monica asked us to come find you… But there was a good smell, and we got curious..." Noel explained, carefully avoiding Jeanne's gaze.

"Have you all skipped breakfast as well?" Lance waved them inside. Edvard entered first and settled directly beside Lance, who promptly handed him a coffee.

"Hoku and Ross did skip... Mine was stolen." Noel wept, edging away from Jeanne, who was attempting to offer him a piece of bread from her plate.

"I'm not sure that I want to know what happened." He answered, biting his own portion.

"I'll be honest, Lance, you're intriguing me more each passing day." Edvard said warmly, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder as Lance crouched to gather the napkins Hoku had managed to drop.

"If you say so." He replied, straightening with a fistful of greasy paper. Sai bowed in apology without interrupting his chewing.

"How long have you been cooking here? Look how happy they all are!" Edvard smiled, adjusting the cuffs of his deep red shirt, slicing a piece of toast.

"Since the incident with Maliard." He said, clicking his fingers together.

"His cooking... Is really good." Jeanne added. Her generous portion had already disappeared. Not a crumb had reached the floor. Lance found that more remarkable than anything else.

"I think I could get used to stopping by now and then." Edvard cast a glance toward the window. A figure appeared at the still-open door. Lance's eyes lit up the moment he caught the blond streak and the glittering wrist-cuffs extending from the corridor.

"Good morning, Monica." Edvard waved, lifting his mug while pulling himself even closer to the young cook beside him.

"What… Are you all doing here?" She arrived sleepy-eyed, dragging her knuckles across her eyelid. She drifted into the room and folded herself into Jeanne's lap, leaving her startled.

"We found out Lance likes to cook." Hoku said, pushing a piece toward her. Monica took it curiously and slid the fork into her mouth. Her face woke up. She clutched Jeanne with both arms.

"AND YOU ONLY TELL ME NOW!" She levelled the fork at him. Her face was unreadable. Several things were happening at once with way too much enthusiasm.

"Jeannette... How long have you known he cooks like this?!" She seized Jeanne's cheeks, squeezing and shaking with increasing vigour.

"Since… I… Arrived." Jeanne managed, surrendering to the oscillation.

"And you didn't tell me?! We're like sisters!" Monica lamented with theatrical devastation, very nearly weeping.

"And you, Lance… You could have offered me something too!" Sadness and disappointment turned on him with full effect.

"You don't actually hate me, do you…" She concluded, wide-eyed at his silence, which had not been granted the time to become a coherent sentence.

"Unless—" Her expression shifted, redirecting itself toward Jeanne with clear mischief.

"Could you all shut up for a second!" A voice complained from the corridor. A long brown coat and a single black glove caught the light at the entrance.

"Would someone care to explain..." Maliard's voice dissolved into a protracted, wordless murmur at the scene. Edvard was restraining Monica, trying to detach her from Jeanne. Hoku and Noel were holding Lance back from headbutting the wall.

"Good morning to you, too, Maliard." Once again, Edvard waved, tossing Monica onto the sofa as though she weighed nothing.

"Maverick asked me to tell you that there is an emergency meeting. Follow me..." He said, gesturing for all of them. The meeting room door opened with a rush of air. The table had been repaired. This time, the window shutters were raised, giving a view out over the Dielmon forest. Maverick was at his usual place, marking coordinates on his tablet. His white fur coat swirled the moment he saw Lance.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO FIX THAT TABLE!!!" He erupted, stabbing the pen directly at his chest. Lance awkwardly smiled.

"Glad you're well, though." Maverick muttered, sitting back down." He seems fine after that outburst three days ago..." On the far side of the table, another figure was leisurely sipping from a can of blueberry juice.

"Good morning, everyone. You're late." Lautre said, setting his drink on the table. Somehow, he was still wearing the same black vest, now with a row of square patterns along the back. Everyone sat, distributing themselves into the same positions as last time, all except Lance, who chose to lean on the back of his chair rather than sit in it.

"I called this meeting to..." Maverick started.

"I FORGOT YOUR WAGES!" Monica threw herself across the table with commendable energy. She rummaged through her tracksuit pockets and produced two white envelopes with their names on. She pushed them across with both hands, then sat back.

"This is what delivering used to feel like." He thought, briefly glad, then remembered the last delivery and shook the memory off.

"Is this a joke?" He was disoriented by the sheer volume of money in the envelope. A thin stack of golden-hued banknotes shimmered between his fingers. Even Jeanne had gone entirely silent.

"It's your pay for both Bayork missions." Maverick said, tearing off a bite of his croissant.

"It's more than I've ever seen in my life..." Lance murmured, counting again. The arithmetic was right, and the sum was more than enough to make someone significant in the capital.

"Approximately two hundred million Alir. You earned it for what you went through." Monica confirmed, smiling at them to soften the shock.

"Obviously, don't go spending it all at once. We're a classified government agency, but that doesn't mean we can destroy the economy." Maliard added, with his sharpest look. Lance and Jeanne acknowledged the point without complaint and tucked the envelopes away.

"Now that one problem is solved, we can go to the core of the matter." A heavy atmosphere suddenly entered the room. Maverick displayed a series of holograms from his tablet. A tall man with long grey-streaked hair appeared above the table. He wore a long white lab coat decorated with an R with orbiting spheres, like an atom. His face was young, but the shadows beneath his wide, violet eyes gave him a spectral cast.

"The Ruther Institute?" Lautre asked, stopping on the emblem.

"Correct. Lucas and I believe this may be a potential Awakening." Maverick explained, scrolling through camera images taken inside the facility.

"Grayson Dirac, the youngest department head in a decade. A prodigy of physics." Maverick tapped the cap of his pen against the hologram, highlighting a photograph of Dirac holding a large gold medallion.

"What happened that made him a suspect for an Awakening?" Maliard asked, trying to reconcile a face that young and that smiley with the development of an ability. Meta abilities could emerge from many triggers, but trauma and burning ambition were by far the most effective, and nothing of the sort seemed visible in that face.

"Lucas identified suspicious movements inside the institute and discrepancies in the camera feedback. On top of that, several colleagues have started to avoid him." Maverick raised his gaze from the device to Maliard, pressing for his attention.

"If Changeant tried to take him… That could be a serious problem." Monica said, scanning the photographs in the air and passing a look to Maverick and Clerc.

"If it isn't a full Awakening, it's already remarkable that he can interfere with nearby tech." Lautre observed, flicking through the distorted, blurred photographs.

"If he goes out of control, we could be dealing with a Schritt, and I don't care to imagine what comes after that." Edvard said, tapping his pen on the table with slow regularity, under Maverick's murderous look.

"Agreed. We are initiating the operation codename: DAWN." Monica rose from her chair, moving her gaze across everyone at the table.

"Our objective is to locate Dirac and bring him to safety at NOIR, ideally without crossing paths with that Cartel."

"So I guess we have to infiltrate the Institute?" Monica nodded, and Lautre smiled, leaning back into the chair.

"Operational members will be Maliard Turner, Lautre Clerc, and Jeanne Goghette. Objections?" Monica sat after the announcement, and the room was quiet.

"Excuse me... Could I be included in the operation?" Every head in the room turned to Lance, who had, quite unexpectedly, interrupted the silence.

"Absolutely not." Monica said flatly, looking at him through half-closed eyes. The dark of her pupils was fixed on his face.

"If I may ask… Why?"

"After what happened, we can't risk running another operation with you as a participant." The answer arrived almost immediately, with no trace of uncertainty behind it.

"But—""No objection is acceptable, Lance Klint. Four months in a coma is far too grave a record for a recruit." Once more, the same flat, unsparing tone.

"Damn it… I can't miss the chance to face him again." The thought of Malcolm settled into his memory like a weight, pressing against his brain and his body in equal measure.

"Then why don't you fight it? Stand your ground, or are you going to make the same mistake twice?" The room vanished. Lance found himself in a black void. In front of him, there was only the table, partially submerged in water that had already reached his knees. Fingers covered his eyes, pulling him backward. Something soft pressed against his back. His nostrils filled with a nauseating, acrid smell of smoke and blood." Where does your determination end and your delusions begin?"

The voice spoke in a reassuring tone and yet held him tighter.

"I'm curious to see how much you've changed since that day…" Lance was being slowly drawn inside the figure, sliding into a thick black void.

"I… Want to help her..." Was all he managed to murmur as he fell into the oily, freezing dark.

"Lance... Are you all right?" Jeanne's cold hand covered his hand the moment he came back. The room was exactly as it had been. Probably less than a minute had passed.

"Have I addressed your doubt, Lance Klint?" Monica asked, fixing him once more with her serious eyes.

"Yes, but... I can't accept that." He raised his gaze, his expression set and immovable.

"LANCE!" Edvard almost left his chair. His knuckles were tight, but Lautre held him still, without shifting his own gaze from Lance.

"Don't you think you are moving too fast? You almost died, Lance. Death is permanent for us, too." Lucas stated, without even looking at him. His voice was always muffled behind the mask.

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA THE WORRY AND THE PROBLEMS YOU—" Monica started in a burst, rising from her place and looking at him with a severity heavy enough to press on the shoulders. The aura she radiated was dense. Something interrupted her.

"That's enough, Commander." Lautre rose slowly from his chair, squeezing the can in his hands until it buckled into a crumpled mass of aluminum.

"Most people here don't even wanna hear a mention of singularities or foreign Metas, so why are you so keen on going?"

"It might be selfish, but... If I go to more missions, maybe I can finally find my sister." His hands were trembling, but his face remained locked in the same expression.

"You've got nerve, kid." He turned to him with that mature smile.

"Do you really think you have the guts to beat Changeant and the freak? Without succumbing to that shiny bracelet you got there?" A vein erupted on Monica's forehead, while her nails were slowly digging into the armrest. Lance gulped, nodding.

"If you are so sure, I have the right deal for you! If you beat me, I'll give you my place in the operation." The proposal landed across the whole room and echoed.

"Lautre, don't do something reckless! You don't know—" Edvard tried, but Lautre's gaze fell on him like something solid, cutting off his voice.

"Beat me in a sparring match, and the spot is yours. What do you say?" The conditions were entirely unreasonable, and everyone knew it. Lautre was NOIR's instructor and probably the most experienced combatant in the entire Agency.

"Even he should understand that it's a game not worth playing." Lautre thought, keeping his gaze on Lance's face: dark, chin angled toward the floor.

"I accept your terms." Lance said, quietly, under the incredulous stare of everyone present. Clerc's expression cracked for just a moment, then reassembled into a smile.

"Good, Lance Klint! Follow me." He smiled, stepping up and moving face-to-face with him. Then he walked past, through the door behind them. He followed with clenched fists.